Brendan Sorsby’s Lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler, Joins. Plus, Collective Bargaining in CFB

Welcome back to ring your tailgate, the Wednesday edition of the show. I'm your host, Tate Frazier. We got a fun show today. We're going to have one big guest, Jeffrey Kessler, a big time lawyer who is representing Britain and source. He's going to join us and he's going to break down what kind of has happened throughout this saga. We missed it. Story of the week. Sores being Texas tech are mutually parting ways. We'll get to all that and more of it. First and foremost, let's say we're up to our guys Van Lathen in studio. What's up, man? I'm going to fucking Tiger, bro. Roll it. Hey, bro. Hey, brother. Raise the roof. Yeah. Loved to hear. We also got Joel Anderson. What's up, Joel? I'm good to see y'all, man. What's popping? Not too much. We've got World Cup going on. College World Series happening in real time. NBA finals, finally wraps, Stanley Cup wrapped as well. I sent a video to you, Joel. I wanted to get your thoughts on this. We had a German fan in Houston dancing to Boosie, wipe me down. I mean, it just felt like one of those like, you know, connective tissue moments just for humanity there. Do you enjoy that? Houston doing well. I feel like Germany, Germans were really like Houston for, you know, Houston. They're having a great time. Yes, man. Those are places that kind of align and Houston is the place for people like to go have fun. You know, like the last episode, I talked about how people kind of want to go there to end dogs. They're in a nigger. But it really is a fun thing that's what the Germans are going there for. I mean, she was at a club and the Germans need to watch out. I don't know, like, you know, look, it's been a long time since they got, since they started getting crazy, but they ain't been that long. Like they, like, you know, they need to watch out. Okay. Wait, wait, wait. You know, because German, man, look in Texas, man, especially you go into the hill country part with my great grandma that used to live. Like Germans run all up and through there and in Texas, isn't there a town? New Brunsfeld. That's like a old German town. New Bronfels, Friedrichsburg. Yeah. Uh, all those. That's that's that's a little west of Houston, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's west because I know people that live there. They also know what they else they got. In Texas. Hmm. Slitter bond. Oh, yeah. Also German. Slitter bond is the shit. You ever go to Slitter bond before Joe? Oh, yeah. I've been to both of them. I went to the one in Bronfels for eighth grade, uh, for eighth grade trip. And then we, there's a, there was one in Galveston. I don't know if it's still there, but they used to have like another Schlitter bond. So yeah, it was a lot of fun, man. So let me tell you something, hmm. For some reason, when I was a kid in Baton Rouge, Slitter bond commercial came on and it made it. Slitter bond looked like the greatest fucking place in the world to go to a water park. Like you want to go to Schlitter bond, and had it in my mind, it's like van, what do you want to do? I want to go to Schlitter bond and do for your birthday. Birthday. We take this summer. I was like, want to go to Schlitter bond. When I go to Schlitter bond. Slitter bond. Slitter bond. Slitter bond. And eventually got to go. And it was amazing. That's the last water park I've been to because water parks are fucking disgusting. Yeah. They're like 85% pee. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But when you're of that age, you know, I guess I'm trying to think of the eight, like eight to 16, eight to 15, a water park is the shit, bro. Because you see the girls for the first time in the day that suits. It's kind of like, it's kind of like a club because it's kind of like you just caught all around hanging out in the pool with a hot tub and you don't get dropped off your parents leaving there. Yeah. Yeah. You're kind of like contained. You go to blue by you, see, we had blue by you in Ben Rouge. Y'all have a little Wayne rap about that. Like the wave pool at blue by you. I know. And I love blue as I blue by you. That blue by you. Oh. Yeah. He's talking about blue by you water park. I didn't know that. Blue by you. Yeah. It's right. It's Ben Rouge. Blue by you is in Ben Rouge. They might say, Oh, it's all Ben Rouge. It's bad. That's Ben Rouge. That's Ben Rouge. Okay. Yeah. And you go there. And that one's cool. The thing with blue by you is when everybody goes to blue by you, that's when you would see your classmates and stuff in their bathing suits. Yeah. Everybody going crazy. That's right. And like everybody. Like everybody going crazy. Everybody going to blue by you. Like, Oh, shit, man. This ain't the fucking this ain't the eighth grade no more. Oh, yeah, man. I mean, you might go see other like we went in eighth grade so we the end of the year is like a class celebration. And so then we were seeing girls from other schools. They were blue on the same thing, you know, and be like, Yo, what's up? We all go to, you know, I don't know, most city middle or whatever, you know, it was kind of, it was kind of live, man. McAuliffe shot out. McAuliffe middle school. I bet Beyonce was there once upon a time, Joel. No, best she did. Beyonce. I will say this. If you guys Google Slitterbond, mm hmm, you're going to have been all roses that's the little bond. All of some bad things happening. What's going on? It's been some other things that have happened. It's some shooting bonds across the country. Oh, no. I don't want to, I don't want to raise the roof for that. Like, no, I was raising it for Billy, FYI, Billy. Oh, okay. I want to. So there's been some stuff that's had covered in what I was at TMZ. Oh, man. That wave machine. Oh, shit. That is a giant slide too, those like the tallest and fastest in the world. And then like people that were, that's the park right where the people were not supposed to go on it because they weren't old enough or tall enough or something. And like, they didn't survive this massive insane slide that they had. Oh, yeah. Some happen. Some really bad happen. That's your little bond. I want to talk about Slitterbond. They have a whole bunch of people go, oh, they don't know what happened to Slitterbond. I covered what happened to Slitterbond. And it was fucked up. It's all I'm going to say. So I've been to. Yes. I've never been to the Slitterbond in Kansas City or whatever. Let's not bring the pie down. Galveston. Galveston. Galveston. That's where it is. Galveston. Galveston is the other one. I feel like that's like a part of the podcast lower at this point. Galveston, Texas. We have to go there. Galveston is so fun, man. I used to go down there when I lived in Houston, man, I took my wife down there. We would date. And she, you know, she's from the Bay. And, you know, so she's used to like beautiful beaches that people wear coats to walk on. They don't really use it as a beach. And so she said, like, I mean, you know, she saw people, you know, drinking in the middle of the median and shit. I mean, you know, Galveston's kind of, you know, it's not a beautiful place. It's a fun place. And so she's like, Galveston's kind of wild, isn't it? And I was like, yeah. You know what? You know what I think of when I think of Galveston, Texas, I think of Robert Durst from the jinx. Oh, bro. Man. Man. Man. Yeah, man. Oh, that nigga was crazy. Yeah. It was crazy. Very crazy. Yeah. But that dude goes, that dude is way up there for craziest niggas ever. Yeah. I'm serious. I'm serious, bro. And think about it. If you do that, that guy is fucking nuts, bro. He's way up there. It's crazy. His mother fuckers around, Doc. Robert Durst is dead, right? Okay. Yeah. He just died a few years ago. Yeah. Remember when he went in the bathroom, Mike Dup and looked in the mirror and was like burped and said he did it, you know, that was crazy. Yeah. Even that's crazy. He was, he was just killing people, bro. Yeah, man. Anyway. Anyway. Yeah. So that's my gal with some Texas story. I want to shout out Myrtle waves, Myrtle Beach. That was my water park. That was your water. Great times. Yeah. Fine people from all over the state. Was it in North Carolina? South Carolina. South Carolina. Myrtle Beach. Okay. These are terrible stories. Slitterbots. Like, how is this still a functioning place? We're talking about the girls though. We just didn't. We just told you about like, we goes down, you know, if you go to Slitterbott. Yeah. Joel said it was the first club they ever went to. I didn't say it was. Well, it probably was though. Yeah. He's great. I can imagine you're going to other clubs. No, but Houston had a team club as I mentioned here. We had drumsticks. It was something on the north side. Drumsticks. Oh, my God. Drumsticks. The clubs are crazy. No. I don't think that it. I don't think that should exist. Yeah. In retrospect. Hey, Tate, I just sent you a video of the cap of Beach Party. Click that. Oh, man. Oh, my God. Come on, man. Oh. T&A. Flicks. I can't look at this on my work computer, can't. Don't do it, Joel. Stay safe out there. Yeah. I was at the Beach Party. I lived to see the tail. Look, Joel. Look at this video. This is all somebody. You're trying to act like y'all mama's wasn't shaking ass, man. I could, man. I'm going to do it. I wanted to go to Freaknik. It's so bad. I was like the, my first year in college was like the last, like my first couple years of college. Like the last two of Freaknik. Yeah. We just missed it. We just missed it. We just missed it. Yeah. When did it wrap up? 96, 97. Like that. Right. The internet was about to take off. 98. Probably smart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they had like some really bad incidents. Like, they, you know, women get grabbed and motherfuckers. We're showing up there. What really in college. No. But I shit. I'm sure events saw the documentary on Freaknik. Right. They ran. Was it on. I did see it. Yeah. It was good. It was interesting. It made me miss that time. And, and, you know, with, I thought Freaknik was going to be when I got down there. Cafe Beach party. Pretty good. But again, they ran them motherfuckers off. They're like, we don't want you down here with that book. That nigga of nonsense again. You know. So. And I'll, and I'll start it at the water parks though. You know. I feel like that's the first step. Takes right there. My first look. - Let's get to the first look. - Yeah, that's good. takes of the nightlife. Yeah, there you go. Shout out to all the people that are enjoying the world cups. It's fun to see all these different, you know, countries represented in all these different cities. Cool to see like Curacao, score a goal. I know they got blown out by Germany, but just the reaction. The coach is crying first goal in the world cup. Just watched the Congo tie it up with Portugal. Oh, down to Houston. That's right. Yeah. That was down in Houston as well. So a lot of stuff happening in the world cup. I hope everybody's enjoying it. Let's get to college football, big story, story of the week. As I said at the top of the show, Brendan Soresby, Texas Tech, mutually parting ways. Soresby will not play college football in 2026. We've talked about this ad nauseam, but now it is official. Also, Texas Tech will not seek a return of any money already paid to Brendan Soresby. Van, when you saw this story, what was your reaction? I was interested to see what the response would be. There are certain things that happen sometimes where people want the outrage or they want their disdain, but they also kind of want the things to happen. And I was kind of curious at who actually wanted Brendan Soresby to play for this to be an ongoing story throughout the college football season and who would spike the football over him not being able to play. I think insofar as I think a lot of people would say that college football kind of set a cultural standard about what it is that they would accept. And whether or not you like that or hate it, it seems that the college football world right now does not want a player that was gambling and gambling on his own team to be able to suit up. And they went about trying to get the Soresby situation handled in any ways that they could. I'm not so sure if they would have used the nuclear option. In the case of this, if they were willing to go that far, but they certainly made a feel like they were. Absolutely. Joel, obviously, we were kind of on opposite sides talking about this last week with Jay Billis, a lot of speculation about what was going to happen, but there were so many moving parts here, the big 12 coming out, filing their own lawsuit in this situation, it's a lot of shots fired all over the place, but your reaction, Joel, and you saw this news. I mean, I think above all, I think about the people that say that Brynn and Soresby got away without getting any punishment or that he was basically going to get away with it had he played. I don't think they really are thinking about what has happened to his name here over the last month or two about how long it's going to take for him to outlive with this isn't the first paragraph of his orbit someday. You know, I mean, he's going to take him a long time and he's going to have to perform in such a way that people look back on this and they're like, oh, it's like when he'll be like, remember when Randy Marx got kicked out of Florida State and then in Notre Dame, you know, be that kind of story like that. He would have to be not maybe that good, but good enough that this is going to fade into the background. No body remembers that about Randy Marx. Oh, yeah, nobody does. That was that was destroyed by the time Randy Marx finished his Marshall career. Yeah, might be could have been yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, but the thing is his his name still carry a hint of controversy or whatever. Even now and I were sitting in the bowling alley. Yeah, he's the same thing. It took, I mean, and really, I mean, it's not like, you know, Randy was interested in, you know, building his reputation in some sort of other way. He was he was himself. He was comfortable being himself, which is great. But a lot of people took that to mean that he was some sort of a mount content or a bad guy or whatever. And it took him retiring and people finally get in a chance to hear him and see him talk before sort of the stench of that that those earlier troubles went away. And I think that that's what's going to happen with Brendan. So I forget for people that suggested he got off away with this. I think that you you're not really thinking about how this is impacted his life. Again, I'm sort of agnostic on what the punishment should have been. I think people know that like I could you could have made a case for me for two games. You could have made for me a case for me for 12 games. But the the the thing about this is that I just hope Brendan is okay and that he can just move on and get beyond this. And I hope that college fans now that there will be no more scandal, no more questions about the integrity of the game. You know, you can live comfortable comfortable in your knowledge that gambling isn't affecting any outcome of any football. You're going to be seen. You see me winking my eye. This is a YouTube. That's a YouTube thing. You know what I'm saying? I winked by people to let people know that that's bullshit. Okay. But you know, and then the final thing that I just thought was funny is that like so much has happened in the world. So many horrible things happened to people even in sports. Like there's just things that you can stand up and say, Hey, you know, we don't support this or we do support this or whatever. And I just had never seen people come together like this. The college football just be united and feel so comfortable. I'd like University of Michigan is like, we're not going to play Texas Tech to show them that we don't agree with their lack of ethics or whatever integrity in any sports. I mean, they're not going to play in volleyball. Yeah. I'm just like bro, when was the last time colleges did this? Like when they were trying to enforce the color line in football? Like in the 90s? Like when was the last time the colleges were like combining together? We're not going to play that team because of this. And I just again, I would suggest that that's stupid. But I'm glad that, you know, you know, he's moving on and hopefully he'll be able to rebuild his career, rebuild his name and everybody can feel great about the lack of effect gambling has on the games they watch every Saturday. One other news nugget here that came out after the fact, Brendan Soresby's agent Ron Slavin came out and said that he claimed Cincinnati knew about the gambling addiction and took no action. He said, quote, if anybody should be questioned or catching heat, it should be Cincinnati because they knew for two years, never said anything and didn't do anything about it. That's the part of the story that gets lost in quote. Van, what do you think about that revisionist history? Instead of Texas tech taking the heat, they're saying, how is Asian saying Cincinnati? She's going to want to play. I mean, look, Brendan Soresby is a young man. He's a young man and I believe in second chances, third chances. I believe in too many chances, right? At a certain point though, Brendan Soresby is responsible for his healing, of course, and he's also responsible for his gambling. Brendan, it wasn't the University of Cincinnati. It wasn't the Texas tech. It wasn't Indiana. It wasn't any of those things that made Brendan Soresby gamble. Brendan Soresby got into gambling and he's also been very brave in courageous from everything that we've heard and getting himself out of the gambling. But to me, the way I look at it is, once again, we talk about the difference in college sports. We talk about the differences in what it is and what it means to be a student athlete. You can see those differences in the way that this story is being talked about because we're talking about how young this guy is. We're talking about what programs owed him in terms of steering him in the right direction, in terms of providing a safe spot for him. Some people are saying that he was old. We talked to Kessler. He was old football as part of his rehabilitation. This is something that you don't have conversation. You don't have about 25 or 26 year old person. This is not. So we're still on the line in terms of what we believe college sports can be, how much we actually owe these athletes and then how much these athletes actually owe themselves and their universities and the programs that they are playing for. Until we get more finite answers on that, we're going to have cases like this that kind of live in the ether of everything. Yeah, and blur the line for everybody involved, which is a tough spot to be in. Joel, your thoughts on that? Yeah, no. I think Van is right about that. Also to see the problem with portraying Source B as he's a victim in this. He is a grown man, and he's a professional. He's got money to pay, play football to move down to this. That's kind of the contradiction. It's like these are kids that we have to worry about, but then also they're grown-ups who are professionals. That's where we're having trouble trying to dissect. I think the thing is, is that I speak of it as a 48-year-old man. So when I hear of a 23-year-old, I do see a man, but I also know that a 23-year-old is still not fully. You see a man. Yeah, I see a man. You look at it and it's like, oh, that person physically looks like a man, but that doesn't mean that in terms of what? You mean when you try to be homophobic? No, I don't know. I think he was asking for clarity. That's tough, man. I want to talk to you about this tough thing because I've noticed this. It is like I mean, man, I'm sure somebody's wanted to fight you over tough before because the one you you know the band is like dismissing you or think something is really fucked up when he says that's tough, you know, it's just like, oh, he said, bro, he said something so stupid. It's just it's it's it's the most disrespectful. Rejoinder, huh, Joe, we were on the bus and there was a guy named Aaron. I can't believe you just brought this up. We was on the bus and there's this guy named Aaron and look, I didn't think there was anything wrong with the shirt. Yeah, the hillfinger show and a bitch had cherries all over it right. And I think there was anything wrong with the shirt. To me, it's a hill figure, but it had cherries all over the shirt. I wonder if I can find it. That was an interesting choice, man, especially at that age, but yeah, it was, bro, I would say that's tough. It had cherries all over. And people people were like, people was like, yo, man, like, fuck the shirt, fuck the shirt, fuck the shirt, what you think of a nigga that went cherries. And I was like, I was like, tough, man, you know, because as soon as I said it's tough, the whole bus started laughing. I had to find Aaron. I didn't even say nothing. I had to find it. I was like, I was like, that's tough. It's tough because as soon as I said, the whole bus started like, yeah, like and he didn't care until Tatiana started laughing. With Tatiana started laughing, he couldn't handle that. He was like, I is tough. All right, cool. Wait till we get off the bus. I was like, well, I was like, well, I'm a motherfucking Tiger. Okay, motherfucking Tiger. Did you know what happened? We fought like a little rough housing. Did you win? Yeah, we fought. We fought, yeah, I whipped this motherfucker. I'm not even going to bullshit you. I mean, I would think you have a good chance of his cherries on a shirt, you know what I mean? He was small. He was a smaller dude. Well, I feel like once we got off the bus, he didn't really want to even do it like talking about. He kind of lost the smoke in his voice. A little bit like we got off the bus because we got off the bus and then like a bunch of people that wasn't a bus stop. Yeah, but they got off the bus. I don't even know how they got home. A bunch of people that wasn't a bus, but they got off the bus anyway to see it. And then once I think he thought, because me and him at the same bus stop, I think he thought that me and him was going to get busy. And like nobody was going to be there. Yeah, like a lot of time. Yeah, but by time when it was time to get off the bus, everybody was like, I'll give you off the bus too. I'll give you off the bus too. Can you walk? Oh, welcome. Can you imagine though missing your cousin special? This is the 1990s, right? Yeah, this is 95. Yeah, so you miss your bus stop. There's no telling how the van had a very good question, how the fuck did those people get home? That's how bad. I got home. See that fight, you know, because a lot of them to be honest with you, and we got to get back on topic, but a lot of them. They, because we ain't guard here. So we that's like nowhere near McKinley. Yeah. Oh man, like nowhere near like nowhere near McKinley McKinley in the song. Guardia is south of McKinley. McKinley is back by LSU. I guess it is kind of near McKinley. No, you could walk it like I've taken longer walk just because I walk a lot. Yeah, but now you're not walking from let me look at it right now. Like you, but if you just watch the fight, you have a group that has to make the walk together, maybe, maybe compression walk, but bro, I mean again, like I remember one time the reason I got a cell phone is because my car broke down on the freeway. It at the intersection of six, 10 and 50 down in Houston one night. I was coming back from a football game with my homeboy, Jabari. And I had a little 87 hundred. It's 15 miles. 15 miles. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, it's not 15 miles. It's 15 minutes to from from McKinley to guard here is eight miles. No, no, you can't walk that's not that's no, that's a lot. And by the way, you're going to have to walk up burb. It's not like you walking places where it's like sidewalks to get to. You don't have to walk. Yeah, because I knew I've seen McKinley before, at least McKinley high. And yeah, I just. It doesn't seem like it's near much and again, you're walking that part of that route to anywhere. Does that seem like a walk that you would just want to make it's not a leisurely enjoyable walk. So yeah, man, they really wanted to see that fight, man. I'll talk about that. That's tough. What were we talking about before that? Brendan source is saying about the tough thing, but Brendan source, but yeah, oh, that's tough. But yeah, well, yeah, I just, you know, so the interesting thing that already. I just, well, hold on. What there was one thing I was going to say. Oh, yeah, here it is. And Jeffrey Kessler's going to talk about this later. I mean, again, man, we're going to see more Brendan source bees. Like the thing is people can think that he was being really cynical by saying that he was a gambling addict or whatever. But I've written about this before in any of you that just know people of college age or whatever know that gambling is just becoming a thing. Like you've got gambling on your phone, like two addictive things together. They've combined them and you can gamble on whatever the hell you want to now. Because again, a lot of people think they're smarter than they are. A lot of people want to enjoy sports in a way. And the people that are most vulnerable are in that demographic with Brendan source bees. So, you know, I hope that college football is prepared for that. I hope that college football fans are prepared for that. Because that is just going to be an ongoing thing and, you know, hopefully you won't feel you won't be scared about the integrity of the games anymore because big bad Brendan source bees gone. And again, the games are all going to be on the level. Nobody's ever going to take any money to do anything gamble on themselves because Brendan source bees gone now. Well, the funny thing is that last year around this time in the summer, remember the geometry or story that came out and the nickname money line. I mean, we had that last summer and it kind of just got swept out of the rug and it was all fine and everybody was moving on to be an increasing part of our lives as sports fans and as casual fans. It's going to be something cash on booty. Yeah, something like this. Yeah, where he uses his actual name. No, that was tough. Let me ask you all a question then. So, do you think Texas Tech and the big 12 can get along together again after this? I don't think if I were the pack 12, I would have called Texas Tech and their administrators like immediately. Hey, you guys are welcome here. We'll take care of you. We'll never do any of this stuff. I mean, I wouldn't be shocked if they start looking elsewhere. I mean, that's a really, how will they ever trust each other again? How will they work? Again, there's a lot of money involved and I understand that it's often bigger than that. But also, and the thing we love about college football is that old grudges die hard in college football and sometimes the money don't matter. Sometimes it's about pride or you know, whatever else. And I could see Texas Tech and you know, the big 12 being like, man, fuck y'all. I mean, the big 12 is the lead made up of teams that don't even want to be there anyway. But that's not right. But none of those teams wanted, maybe UCF is excited and Cincinnati excited that they got UCF maybe you started to get into the big 12. Yeah, yeah. That was a life round for them, but all these other ones, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, they don't want to be there. They don't want to be in the league together. They just happen to be in a league together. So I felt like that's one of those things where the bonds they hold them together could really be tested because that's a they had. I mean, they were about to, you know, potentially banned them from playing and postseason competition and stuff like that. That's that's tough. That is tough. That's tough. Well, so what's next for Brendan Soresby, the supplemental draft. Yeah, yeah. And I saw Steve Minsh on the McShay show so that he thought that it would be worth taking a first round pick for Brendan Soresby if you're a team like the Minnesota Vikings. So I mean, this is fascinating kind of business history because if he was a first round pick, I feel like he would have been in the NFL draft this past season. And I thought the whole idea was for him to go to Texas Tech to then play his way into being a first round pick, but it is fascinating that that's a conversation now. I mean, it's funny because I feel like I I used to have this thing. I say if like your six foot four and blonde with a strong arm like you're born in the first round and you got to play your way out, you know, I mean. And so like I maybe that's the thing with Brendan Soresby, like they get a good look at him, you know, these workouts and everything else. And you could imagine a scenario that if you come out in this draft, the team be like, well, man, he's actually pretty good, you know, pretty athletic. He was productive. He didn't have a lot of talent. Surround again. And shit, and Vance saw it to do Quincy Avery who works with, you know, so many college and professional quarterbacks said, you know, yeah, quarterback an expert. He thinks that he's going to be coveted by somebody. In fact, he said, Quincy, he said a slower Kyler. That's basically what he's saying. He's like, he's kind of like a slow up which kind of goes in the Minnesota thing, you know, you got, you got Kyler on a minimum deal there. But obviously a situation where, you know, doesn't look like they're franchise decisions. going to work out with JJ McCarthy. So that can be a team that takes a swing. I would be shocked if it's the first round pick, but I mean, Terrell prior was a third round pick on the supplemental draft. I feel like that to me would be more of the place that he's in, but the race is second. That was the greatest. I mean, all they did for a number of years was make bad decisions with their draft picks. So yeah. So we'll see what happens with Swarsby, but the supplemental draft, we talked about it. What three weeks ago about him going to the supplemental draft and everything sort of change with the injection. And then obviously we're back at square one at this point. But to break down how we all got here, we have his lawyer, one of the biggest lawyers in all of sports. He is basically the reason that NFL free agency exists to kind of give like a big caper of how important he's been in the sports space. But we're going to have Jeffrey Kessler, one big guest joining us right after this. And he is going to break down how this Swarsby thing played out and sort of his vantage point on what happened with Brandon Swarsby. That's coming up right now. All right. As promised at the top of the show, joining us now, one big guest, he's going to help us break down the Swarsby saga of Swords. He's closely connected to this. And of course, one of the premier sports lawyers in the country. We had Jeffrey Kessler joining us, Jeffrey. Thanks so much for taking the time to come in on tailgate and great to see you, man. But to see you, we got a lot of questions. And Joel has written out a bunch of questions. So Joel, I'll throw the alley hoop up to you. What's the first thing you have on your mind here for Jeffrey? Well, Jeffrey, thanks for joining us. And first and foremost, you know, Brandon is a young man who obviously has a gambling addiction. And so how has he dealt with all of the noise around this case? How is he feeling now that his college football career is officially over? So this has not been an easy experience for him. As you probably know, he has suffered from a mental gambling addiction. And he put himself into a residential treatment facility for about a month. And he is focused on his recovery on being the best person he could be and then finding the right path to pursue his passion for being the quarterback. Jeffrey, I'm going to be completely transparent with you. I am one of the members of the college football media, one of the people in college football, who absolutely believes that sores be should never play college football again, that gambling, particularly on your own team is a red line. And that that means you don't get to play any more football. What about this case? Am I and other members of the media and other people around the country missing everything? So people think that we got a court order that invalidated the NFL's drug policy. We did the opposite. What the court found is that we showed that the NCA, I may have said NFL, that the NCA policy or gambling required it to consider two factors in this case, its own policy required it. Those factors were number one that the player never engaged in any corrupt conduct. It was undisputed. He didn't bet on his team in any game in which he actually was on the act of roster for the game. He had no inside information he shared. He didn't work with gamblers. He didn't make money from this. There was no corrupt activity. Number two, that he had a mental disease that is prevalent among young athletes today. In fact, non athletes, especially males in the schools for which the NCA policy promised they would give priority consideration. So what the court found is not that the policy was wrong, they found the NCA breached their own policy by not considering these factors. And that's what's been totally misportrate here. There are very few athletes of any who would have these two unique facts that required he be treated with support rather than punishment. So it is one follow-up. You guys were able to successfully argue that that support includes playing football? Correct. The policy said, so you know what the policy says. No one's read the policy. The policy does not say if you ever bet on your own team you offer ever bought from the NCA. That is not what the policy says. What the policy says is that you are initially declared an eligible by your school. And then you could apply for reinstatement. And in that reinstatement, we the NCA will look at the facts, the total totality of the circumstances and will adjust the punishment if any to take into account whether you were the victim of a mental disease or defect that caused you to do this and whether it involved any corrupt activity or threats that competitive integrity. That's what the NCA promised contractually that they did not do for this poor kid. And what this kid wanted to do was to devote himself to educating others who have these problems with gambling addiction because the NCA is paying right now zero attention to them. While they go out and make their multimillion dollar deals to exploit the gambling process to generate revenues to name some of their stadiums. They have the casinos. They are doing zero to help the athletes who get in trap this way. And that is wrong. It's source be planning to do that because that's a very noble endeavor to, you know, educate young men on gambling and stuff like that. You're saying that he wanted to do that. Are you saying that he's not going to do that now that he's not. He'll still do it because he's dedicated but contingent on him playing football. But what I'm saying what was presented to the NCA was what you should do here is yes, he shouldn't escape any punishment at all. You know, so a two game suspension would be appropriate. But beyond that, you should be supporting him in trying to get this message out and his treatment advisor, his addiction, a treatment advisor, who worked and this put in a report uncontested that what he really needed was the structure of football, frankly, and being on a team would help him in his recovery. In any event, what happened as everybody now knows is we won the case. But then the big 12 filed his lawsuit saying that oh, we're going to seek an ability to punish a school and boycott their teams and not go through with this. And it was going to entail, you know, months more of litigation. And what happened is that Texas Tech concluded that it just couldn't continue with this uncertainty as much as they supported the player. So they concluded that they were not going to go forward with him on that team, you know, which is obviously something they could decide. And so then the player decided, OK, in light of that, you know, he will now go to the NFL supplemental draft because he wants to continue being a football player at the highest level. He'll continue to devote himself to spreading the word about this gambling addiction issues and devoting himself to his treatment. And we're going to be withdrawing the lawsuit and all the appeals and everything else like that out. You know, Jeffrey, you spoke about what the NCAA and its obligation to its athletes were, but for people like Van, people who are outraged at the idea that a guy like your client would have been allowed to play football this season. Did you understand the national response, which led to, you know, the big 12 saying, we might sanction you. The University of Michigan saying, we're not going to play you. And a lot of people argue, oh, this might set a dangerous precedent whether the NCAA can't punish his players. What did you make of that noise around that? This was the result of an NCAA campaign to misport tray what this decision was and start off all this controversy in part, but they're looking for legislation in Congress in part because they wanted to portray this as something that was not until very specifically you talk to the average. AD or you talk to the average fan or frankly you talk to the average media member and they will think that this decision sets a precedent that you can't suspend players who better their own team. It sets no such precedent. They would think that this decision says it's a blessing that everybody can out bet on their own team in a corrupt way. It says no such thing. Okay you would think that people would think that frankly they think that the player here bet on his own team with inside information or when he could affect the outcome in some way in the game. He did no such thing. So this was all frankly overblown, blown reaction to a fantasy that the NTA created for its own purposes and the AD's reacted accordingly. When you say he didn't have any inside information, what constitutes inside information? In other words what could be corrupt would be if like he was on the team like you know dressed to play and like knew like you know like whether somebody was hurt or something like that and was like betting based on that information or sharing it in some ways. They understand this was completely investigated by the NCAAs enforcement team and they entered into what's called the stipulation of facts and the stipulation of facts uncontested was the player did nothing to be corrupt, nothing to influence the outcome of a game, nothing to take advantage of inside information. What he was doing is that he wasn't activated for the roster at the beginning of the season. He was basically sitting in his dorm room frankly addicted to his gambling app and he put in some very small bets on his team to win the game because he thought it was like supportive to do that. That's it and we're talking like five dollar bets, ten dollar bets like you know that is that is what should win and the second he was activated and actually came in and had a possibility of playing he never had a single bet on his team. And that's the reason the reason I'm disputed. Well one follow up I understand that there was an investigation. The only reason why I ask is because of course he has inside information right he's all on the team like if I was going to bet on something that was happening at the ringer if I was going to bet I work he of course he knows things that nobody else knows what they look what they look into okay it's like oh did he bet that like this player was not going to play this game or this player was going to have a good performance because he knew that this player did something or was got a bet there was zero evidence of anything like that and it's not just me saying it it was stipulated they went through this whole investigation to check this and they agreed with all of this before I throw it back do you understand people's Joe used the word outrage so let's just go with the word outrage do you understand people's outrage over what they consider to be a red line uh in sports which is betting on teams when you're on the team uh where that could go we talk about the fact that there needs to be something that is done to uh stem the tide against gambling and gambling culture taken over to ncaa couldn't you make an argument that sufficiently punishing Brendan Soresby is part of stemming the tide from gambling culture completely infecting the ncaa can you make that argue what you want you want to you want to stem gambling culture how about if the ncaa passes a rule barring all that teams from having any association with gambling entities are out with that too what naming rights or stadiums are anything else how about if the ncaa gets rid of its contracts with any gambling related organizations how about if the whole culture of gambling is changed that would make a difference the other thing is if you believe the ncaa should have a policy that says we will never consider reinstatement if someone bets on this team and we have this right-wing policy for deterrents like the way that the NFL has a steroid policy that says we don't care how it gets into a body if you get it like you're responsible then maybe they should write that policy and pass it with the membership that is not what their policy says that's the problem that's not the promise that they made to their athletes that's not the consideration of what it says as i said people are outraged over their own fantasy in their own mind or what they think the policy was what they think the facts were what they speak happens here and none of them read the decision none of them read the stipulated facts none of them has even looked at what actually happens here right that's the problem that's the problem we have with most of the media but most of the media has reacted off of the ncaa's press release instead of actually doing their job and seeing what has actually happened here in terms of the facts you know Jeffrey so after Judge Curry's temporary injunction the trial date was set for after the season you understood that there were going to be challenges right that like maybe the consequences of appeal right that's it that's what you do when you lose a court case you appeal the nca filed an appeal you know what you don't do when you lose a court case but that's going on far too much in this country right now you don't say oh i don't have to follow the court case i'm going to find some way around it okay that's called the rule of law so what you had here is the big 12 got together and said you know what we don't like this court decision we're not going to follow it we're going to try to find the way to you know to carry out our own punishment even though the court issued this ruling that is a great lesson for their students in all of those big 12 institutions you just go out there and you don't like a court decision you figure out some way to evade it okay think about that as a message that came out of this now what happened is we then sent them letters i sent them one for the athlete saying you were bound by this court order which they were and Texas Tech said one and with the attorney general Texas saying if you go avoid this court order you're going to violate the anti-trust laws so then instead of just violating the order they went the court for a lawsuit say we want permission in effect to violate the court order in terms of all this so that they they created this whole firestorm which in the end made it impossible for the player to play this season of Texas Tech so I guess they got what they wanted well does it do you take issue them because a lot of people will respond and say and and they have said this over and over again in cases from Diego Pavi to Tristan Smith the University of Tennessee whatever well with with the the players are doing it with their attorneys is there finding favorable courts and trying to you know get around NCAA rules that they've agreed to what do you make with that criticism so again each case is different so I can't talk about every other case in this case we argue they didn't follow their rules not that not that we want a different rules and the judge we got by the way was a judge from Dallas who was 200 miles from Lubbock and Texas Tech he was not a Texas Tech graduate we actually the judge we first had accused himself and then say why maybe because he had a Texas Tech a connection but the court that went out and found the judge who did not have any bias and though it objected to him and found this so there's wasn't a question of going out and finding like you know some you know Texas Tech booster right you know to rule for you that's not what happened here just just kind of spinning it forward for a second you know Mike Floreo at Pro Football Talk report it yesterday that you're working to ensure the NFL doesn't attempt to prevent him from entering the supplemental draft because he's not necessarily been deemed eligible for that so yeah he's eligible let me be very clear about that I've been in contact with the NFL they have raised no objection to his eligibility period that's another god damn media fantasy okay he's not been raised that's the application that the application has been submitted and we had no indication that they have any objections you know why because he's never filed in an NFL ruinous history, right? The NFL has rules, you violate them, you have issues. There is no issue about him violating an NFL rule. Period. So thank you. Give me an opportunity to say, media, do your job. Stop making up this crap. Including my for you, who I know. Oh, wow. OK. That's OK. So look, the passion is almost contagious. It's easy to see why you're-- the passion puts you attention to detail while you're so successful at what it is that you do. I will say this, though, to what you said earlier, you're saying that there was no bright line. Well, I have two questions. I think the response that you're seeing is people demanding that there be a bright line. And looking for this case is an opportunity to force the NCAA or whatever bodies are out there to set one, because I do not think that the average sportsman wants to see gambling-- players gambling on their own teams, just beyond with you. But I have a more specific question. The more specific question is, do you feel like, as part of the judges' ruling in this case, and the SARS-B case, that the NCAA's relationship with gambling was a factor, was part of, in your mind, was part of the fact that the NCAA and sports culture in general has been so amenable to gambling. And so welcoming to gambling as a revenue stream, do you think that that factored into this case and allowed you guys to get a favorable ruling from the judge? I can't comment on that. The judge's decision does not mention that. So I'm not going to read anything into the decision that it doesn't say. Could it have been a factor? It could have been. Says, but I only can go with what the judge wrote. And the judge did not write anything about that. Right. Because a lot of people point to the hypocrisy of the NCAA or sports culture in general in welcoming gambling. And as if to say that because gambling has been welcomed as a revenue stream, that in some way the players should be allowed to gamble while all the sports that they play. Well, let me take it to another thing. So the NCAA this year itself, it's staff. Looked at their policy and said, you know, it's not fair to punish the athletes when they bet on other sports that are not college sports, for example, right? We should help them. We should support them, right? And they tried actually to pass that change, right? And for whatever reason, the powers that be came in and blocked that change too. So like, so what is that further? Right? Well, there's no possibility of, in the integrity of college, sports being affected. If somebody is voting on Australian rules, football. And you've got this gambling addiction problem among your athletes. Why the hell would you want to punish them for doing that? The whole way the NCAA approaches this, like frankly, the way it approaches most things that it does is just like half-assed and backwards. What's the line there in terms of, for me, I can look at a lot of things. I look at the American criminal justice system period, right? And see a lot of places where people have actually committed crimes and see those crimes of being crimes of poverty, crimes of access. And I would say, hey, don't need 55 years for that, 20 years for that, what you need is a diversion program, what you need is mental health resources, what you need is that. And a lot of times, those arguments fall on deaf ears, I'll throw them in jail. I get like-- Yeah, I get you, by the way. And look, I agree with you, criminal justice policy in this country has been wrong headed in a lot of different ways. There have been some improvements in some states, and very state-by-state, and there have been times of progress and times of setback. But there are a lot of things that are wrong headed about how people are treated and what we support, and don't support, and what we punish, and don't punish. And it's the same in the NCA's gambling policy, frankly. People get motivated by different things that don't always make sense when you look at the particular people who are actually being punished. Tate, do you have one? Because I want to follow up on the NCAA thing, Justin. Keep following up on the NCAA. OK, cool, get in there and get in there, man. Yeah. We got Jeff-- we got Jeff-- we got him going. Yeah. Now, just take it and-- No, take, take, take, take, dish it off, man. I'm going to go ahead and take that up. So, you know, Jeffrey, you were the co-leaf plan for turning in the House V-- in the House settlement, which for people that don't know the specifics of permitted schools to pay athletes through for the name, image, and likeness. And obviously, they've rescinds responded by trying to go to Congress, right? They said, we need to protect College Sports Act, all that other stuff. People like Nick Sabin have said that the college sports is in crisis and all this other stuff. What do you make of that stuff? Hey, so here's what I make about this. Nick Sabin made $14 million a year when he was the coach. And what he was complaining about, N-I-L, is that other teams who never won before, like Indiana, can now actually compete and kick Alabama's ass. And he's just not like that system. He liked the old system when the money schools had all the advantages. The athletes got nothing and the coaches did fine. You know what the two strength and conditioning coaches made at Alabama under this system? A million bucks a year. You know what the president of Alabama made at that university? $950,000. The strength and conditioning coaches made more than the god their president of the university. And the reason for that is because they couldn't share any of it with the athletes. And then Sabin comes in on his high horse and says, "Gee, I like the old system. Yeah, what's your love for him?" [LAUGHTER] I love it. Seems like-- OK, so in meeting you and talking to you, it seems like you're disgusted with the NCAA on a lot of different levels. You think that the organization either is inconsistent in the way it's meeting out punishments, inconsistent in the way it writes the rules, or just from top to bottom, kind of useless. Am I wrong? I think the NCAA has huge organizational and governance challenges, which is that for a very, very long time. You know, they don't have common economic interests. You know, if you're just looking at it, they purport to regulate division 1, division 2, and division 3. Well, division 3 athletics has nothing to do with Alabama football. There's no common interest there in terms of that. And even the P2 don't have common economic interest with the next two. Let alone the other conferences, right? They can't even agree. You know, even the P2 don't agree with each other. They can't agree on the college football playoff system, right? And it's very unclear who actually controls things politically or how decisions are made. OK, this, by the way, is not a criticism of Charlie Baker, who I think has been doing the best he can since he came in. But his hands are really tied by this political system and what he's facing. And so, yeah, I think a lot of the NCAA's home and complaints is completely self-inflicted. I don't think it does nearly enough of what its original mission was, which was his original mission. It was formed at the request of Teddy Roosevelt to work on the safety of sports. They do almost nothing today, recording the safety of sports. They should be working on safety and academic standards and supporting athletes who actually want to go to classes and graduate when they're not given any time to do so. And a whole bunch of other things they could do instead of focusing on how could we regulate the economics of this sport to benefit different parties in terms of this, which is most of what they've done for the last 50 years. So, Jeffrey, what does the future look like for the NCAA with all this? I mean, how many cases have they had to fight in court and continue to lose? And like you said, this time, they, you know, with the conference of the big 12, almost set like a separate dangerous precedent. So, like, what does the future look like in the next 10 years? So, it's hard to predict. But, you know, there are different paths here, you know? One path is, you know, you don't lose court cases. You comply with the law. Most businesses find a way to do that. Instead of trying to stretch, to see what you can get away with. Maybe you should think about compliance with the law in terms of that. That could be a great way of getting rid of a lot of this uncertainty. The second thing is you know they may get some legislation through someday and they may not. It's very uncertain. That might you know create new problems, different problems. We'll have to see how that goes you know as the weather or not. The legislation is going to change things. You know they may eventually decide that they actually should be doing collective bargaining and recognizing athletes you know at least in the revenue sports in you know football and basketball as being you know entitled to collective bargaining which they could do if they wanted to says and then enter into agreements that brought them some certainty that way. You know most of the major sports in this country the professional sports have all concluded that they actually like the idea of having you and even though they have to deal with them and they can be strikes a lockout so you grievances they'd rather do that and have this certainty than just try to impose their own will and get sued everywhere. You know so maybe the NCA and the conferences can learn a little bit you know from that you know less than as well so that might happen in the future. For Brindasore to himself how will the NFL view how does the NFL view this addiction? What are the NFL rules if he has a relapse? So then look look he will have to comply with and he will comply with the NFL's policy on game one night you know which the NFL prohibit you obviously from betting on NFL games and other things and that's a rule of the comply with like every other rule I have every confidence that where he is now he's not gambling at all that he'll be able to deal with that entirely. He is not broken in the NFL policy or rule but it'll be subject to the same rules and policy as every other athlete who comes in. Will they be support for him and managing his addiction? I he will be continuing his treatment and support I am sure that any team that drafts him will be very supportive of him and continuing to put him in the right environment and making sure that he has all the support that he needs. Certainly that's what I would do if I was a team you know who won and you know to be with me in terms of that it's what it's what Texas Tech was going to do and I'm sure it's whatever NFL team would do right you know there's there are plenty of NFL players who come in with exactly the same addiction issues you know coming out of school in terms of yeah of course teams you know have to do a job and you know worry about the mental health of their athletes and support them and do that he's going to be no different than anybody else that way. Final question does he still get his $6 million from Texas Tech? Texas Tech announced they're not seeking the return of any money that they've already paid them I do not know what that amount how much that's money how much they've already gave him they are not seeking back and I just but that's what they announced that's as much as I know. Okay all right there you have it Jeffrey this has been an enlightening conversation we appreciate you taking the time obviously we know you're very busy so this was a very you know a very important conversation to have we'd love to hear like the inside baseball what's going on here and we appreciate you taking the time thanks so much and we definitely would love to have you come back and maybe make light and you know break down some of these situations in the future thanks so much for taking the time. All right there you have a Jeffrey Kessler he was shot out of a cannon right there not afraid to get his thoughts yeah Van you were doing that intentionally right like were you trying to yeah like I think on these interviews that we've been doing I want to make sure that we don't become like another dick right and show I think on these interviews because you know a lot of people get on the interviews and they're like hey man I know it's been so tough big fan big fan like I was going to make sure that people know that they can come on here you know what the real like a real interview but I tell you what though he was ready to mix it up yeah like that he was ready to mix it up bro he was ready to fucking go yeah he was taking it moving awesome yeah he's yeah I mean now you can understand why he's been successful as he is you know and yeah I mean if you're going to have an attorney to help you and a matter against the NCAA that is the man that you'd want to have on your side and you know again just keep it in mind again some of this is it just happens that we're interviewing people that you know we all mostly agree with but I would say it just keeps up my streak from the guests of the week of that week proven what I said right you know I'm saying I'm at least siding with me and so I'll just you know jay jay bill is because you billbell me uh billbell me what did what did what did what did what did you mean about Jermaine to pre remember he was a yo that was crazy nobody oh nobody thought that man at the time cuz you know what I think so I think I think I think I think I think I just want to say about that uh huh it's what I say about that I mean I I can see why Janet Jackson would like Jermaine to pre I can see that I can see also why Bill Bellamy wouldn't think that Jan Jackson would like Jermaine to pre because Bill Bellamy was kind of in the run in for Janet Jackson you know yeah he thought he didn't think he had a chance and he saw Dupri and he was like could have been me but you but you but you but you but that was the original point I made that was the original point but it's not it's not a good point I don't give it wasn't a good point say that was you show what hey why didn't you tell me that when he was on that did you oh I did say it I did say it go back to watching go back to watching go back to watch I did say but but at the same time I'll say this though you did cry at the guest and so that's another reason why you can get them to to to to agree you did cry at him you know I mean Jay billis's last line was keep kissing ass okay Joel hey the last thing he said by the way can I tell you something huh I don't know why you even accepted that you should have been like hey hey that's tough I was just saying no no I didn't know why he was joking and but and look Beaumani Beaumani's argumentative ass it's like man Jay billis wore my ass out one time in an argument and he's like I didn't even come back to him I don't well first of all I think Jay billis is as good as what I said I wasn't like trying to kiss his ass I was saying I was just kissing ass again right there complimenting people complimenting people is is right and did it was like you ran it's like shit you ran do pretty what fuck you talking about man we can we both we have the same lower I could we can have the same shit okay here's a deal here's a deal here's a deal defending someone is never riding dick you know the rules you don't make the rules I actually might I don't know if you checked really a lot of people I actually might defending someone is just saying because really that's defending him from Hayton you a Hayton on that man I wasn't I wasn't I was Joe let me ask your question Joe let me ask your question Joe let me ask your question this might be dick right one about to do now fuck it though let me ask your question who do you think has gotten more women over the course of their life you are a Germaine Dupree what what do you think has got better looking women what do you think who you think has got better looking women over the course of their life you are Germaine Dupree Joe got Beyonce what's about to tell me I think my wife is a beautiful woman you're all saying I'm insane he's gorgeous and look at all right but who you think over the course of your lot of their life has gotten better okay just hold on before you before you before so let me just say this okay I wasn't saying that it was me I knew that Germaine Dupree would have a better shot in Janet Jackson than I would I get I understand he is very famous now Germaine Dupree and I were at the same high school or same college or the same party when we were 27 years old when he was a motherfucker that could hair for a living or he you know worked at enterprise car rental if you guys write drumsticks together yeah we were drumsticks together ain't no way ain't no way I would have whatever he wanted I could have you know I can't tell you something no what can't tell you something no yeah that's like saying in that's like saying dick right this is dick right by the way we're going to get Germaine Dupree that's almost what you just did is just like saying that's almost if like saying if Chris Johnson didn't run a four or two yeah I'm as good of a running back as him the reality is that Germaine Dupree had a talent yeah and a way about him yeah that made him get way more and way better looking women are you talking about this man are you talking about this man and you getting on him and this and the question is this I don't know I don't know if you qualify I can have some Germaine Dupree conversations that you have other women that Germaine Dupree has dated publicly because you give me my carry he dated my carry I don't think you dated my - I thought he did. You just saying shit now, right? It is, hold on, hold on, let's see who this woman is. Remain to pre, okay, let me tell you guys what this one is. - Left die. - Don't look up, Pam sweat. - I mean, okay, forget it, you know, I'm just saying. Yeah, 'cause you have to go too far, though. - I'm happy with my wife, I'm happy with my wife. - Oh, Maya, Maya's a great one. - Who do you think? - Maya's a great one. - You know what? - I mean, Matt, she bathed in shit. - I'm in a bad place with Maya and I felt like anyway. - Joe, you know what? - What? - We out of here, bro. - No, by the way, hold on. - I was like this. Maya might have been giving you accurate. I can't say that that's not the truth. - I didn't say that she gave me accurate, but I said she gave me rhythm. Like, it was just kind of like, oh, okay. Like, you know, I'm funny, you know. Whatever else, handsome. I probably had my sweat, my sweater vest with my linen shorts and my assemblies probably popping at night. I had a chain, big chunky chain. But I'm not gonna say that you couldn't. - I'm not gonna say that Pam sweat beautiful, nigga. - Yeah, I mean, she's beautiful, but I'm just like, again. - I'm not seeing Jermaine doing pre-do or anything that I'm not doing. - What? - I don't know, bro. - What's that mean? - I'm like, I feel like I'm looking at Pam. - I've been with the chain, we've been doing it. - I'm looking at Pam sweat. - What do you want to do right now? - Press box, Brian Curtis. (laughing) - Now, I'll tell you right now, now, okay. Let me ask you a question. Would you be comfortable with us doing a side by side? - No, I know why. - Pam sweat, okay. - Oh, wait, hold on, let's see, hold on. - Okay, would you be comfortable with us doing a side by side? - No, hold on, let's see. - And Pam sweat and letting people judge who they think is better. - Okay, hold on, let me, I'm trying to see, well, first of all, ain't nobody beat my wife, but I'm not gonna allow that to happen. - I'm asking you a question if you want to get busy. - No, I mean, that's, I don't want to put my wife in there. - I think that's tough. - Because people also, it's tough, that's tough. - No, 'cause I don't want people, people would either hate or mean whatever, or they might start saying things about my wife, they would also make me uncomfortable. - And you're already trying not to fight with each other. - What in here's the duty. - I can't even Google this one. - I just found her, hold on, I'm gonna put it in the chat. - If you're not ready to throw the gauntlet down, then stop bringing the shit up, that's Pam sweat right there. - Okay, hold on, would you, would you check on text? - Oh, like, I just put it on, I just put it on, I get, I get it again, an attractive woman, but I'm happy with my choice, you know what I'm saying? - I'm not saying you're not, so let's throw the gauntlet, throw the gauntlet down. - No, we not doing that, that's how we got it. 'Cause that's that, I'm not, I wouldn't do that, I don't, you saw, you saw Mark Zuckerberg, you know what I'm saying, in 2002. - What? - In that, in that how that went, in that how Facebook got started? - Yeah, I think it was a, - But it was a whole system to rate chicks. - That seems like a stretch. - It was like, hot or not, it was like, basement. - I'm saying, what are you even doing here? Who called you, what was the point, why were you here? - He was coming in to be an arbiter. - I was gonna talk to you about Jay Billis, but we's quickly kind of gotten off that topic. - Okay, let's go ahead and talk about it, Billy, what you got to say? - Well, no, at the time I was wondering who would win in a Tussle, Joel or Jay Billis, and then I was wondering who'd do better at drumsticks, Joel or Jay Billis, but we moved on. - Jay Billis talking over Jay Billis. - I heard Jay Billis talking over Jay Billis. - I was talking over Joel and drumsticks is not even close, it's stupid. It's a stupid conversation. - No, I mean, actually in high school, we high school on a high school, I don't think, I, look, first of all, I don't think Jay Billis and I would be shopping at the same store, you know what I'm saying? Just to be real about it, you know what I'm saying? - You both were sprinter vests. - He's gonna be at another party. He's gonna be at one party, I'm gonna be at drumsticks, man. So we're not even, we're not even like that, but maybe now we get to do, it's our freshman year. He wants somebody and I want somebody. I'm not proceeding that to Jay Billis at all. - Yeah. - Time. - So, why are we here? - He's sick, he's sick saved, by the way. Like a tussle wouldn't be close. - Oh, you told my tussle wouldn't be close. - Yeah, tussle wouldn't even be close. - That would be tough. - Yeah, the sick saved, that's what I mean. - So now you're saying, bro, you're really getting it. Now you're saying, now you're saying this man could whip you, bro. - I didn't say it was me, I said he could tussle. He could out, people out, tussle me, sit. They have weight classes for a reason. - You think he's a, yeah, he's above your weight clubs. - No, I bet Joe always more than, dude. - No, I don't. - No, I don't. - I bet, I bet Joe I'm sorry, I bet Joe always. - I bet it's 25 right now, you know what I'm saying? - Yeah, how's the workout going for a, yeah. - I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm getting, I'm trying to get, what I really need to do is I'm starting to build up, I'm starting to start, yeah, thanks man, appreciate it. I mean, what I need to do is I need to start, you know what I'm saying, getting to my, ah, ah, ah. - Getting the burst going, yeah. - Yeah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. - Getting that shit going. - Billy, Billy, are you concerned? As you see, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. - What? - Yeah, Billy. - A little bit, yeah. I haven't gotten to that point of my workouts yet, you know. (laughs) - I mean, the interest, so there's two things I would like to say about this. One, it's interesting to me because I'm more excited about doing one-on-one's, which are, you know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, I know that the racing was supposed to be the big draw, but now I'm like, alright, I'm ready to line it back up, put on some cleats, you know, literally whoever want to come out there, get into it. But the other part of it is that we're never going to do it. It's not going to happen. The Ringer Phil Day is not going to happen, folks. - Don't believe the hype. - Joe, can I tell you something? - Yeah. - It's absolutely happening. - Yeah, it's happening. - I need to, I need to have, we need to schedule a meeting about some of the, I need to schedule a meeting. - One, yeah. - That is everything. - Yeah, there's never, no, no, no, no, no. - Well, listen to me, it's absolutely happening. It's absolutely happening, it's happening for real. As a matter of fact, we've got, I've got some people that saw some things that we did recently that now want to work a little bit more with us because of what they saw, that now are offering to host the Ringer, the Ringer Phil Day. - Oh, for real though. - What's happening? - Fat burger, you're not getting, you're not getting, - Bring your, bring your target, feel that. - Look, you, you, you, you, I told you, I will, I will race whoever down the street in front of the Sikamore studio. That's fine, we don't need to have a track for that. I don't care about that. But I want the route game, I want one on one. So I want us to get line up, do all that shit, a few times. - So it turns out, it turns out the route running. - There's somebody, there's a couple of people in media that I want to invite to out there. - Like who? - Since they got some of your, you know, just what a name names. - Name names, no, no, no. - Jay Billus, name names. - I mean, I, I, I, I, I, - You are letting me down so much, bro. - I wonder if I would like down Jay Billus. He's tall, man, that's a really, you know what I'm saying? - That's a joke, that's a joke. - That's a joke on a situation. - Yes, a joke on a situation. - Just a joke on a situation. - So you, you're not willing to name the people. - Yeah. - Who you are, that, who, who you want to, you're not really, so on one hand, I have a friend, Bermani Jones, who texts me and emails, he's like, bro, why are you fighting with people? Like what are you doing? This looks crazy. - That's fair. - Yeah. - Meanwhile on this show, I have a group of three people who've never gone to dinner with me, who are always trying to get me into fights with people. Like from Paul Fondle. - Oh, it's a great deal. - You wanted to stop me from fighting. - You wanted to bring on Thompson girl to be met with her kid. No, no, no, no, we wanted to break bod as a guest and you decided to start insulting him for no. But yeah, but then you all started to make it. I'll start trying. I can't be honest with you. Can't be honest with you. This is shit that gets on my nerves. That's what you always know. I know. Joe is now playing the victim when it's Joe who distorts. Right. Well, I didn't know who he was. That's that wasn't it. Somebody told me who was I talking to they said that he lives in Austin. They were like, yo, I see. He does. He lives in Austin. Oh, yeah. Dave Wilson shot him out. He works at ESPN. My boy. Yeah. He said his wife ran into Thompson girl because I called it actually on the front of the thing in the text. I called letters to Bill Bellamy. So that's the silver line. Yeah. That's the important thing. But yeah, y'all just always trying to throw me out there. And so anyway, the whole point is for a field day, uh, whoever can, can get it. You said there were some specific people that you want to raise. How can we get in there to raise you? That's a good point. Yeah. It's the most important thing for me to be Billy. The other other shit don't matter. Uh, but the one on one is what I'm talking about, Doug. Like I'm really excited about. But again, not going to happen. You said Van has said the exact same thing. I bet if we stitch together, if free stitch together, highlight tape, and when I say field days not happening, your van is like, actually, it is going to happen. And I've got some people willing to watch some money on it and make it. I put it on my dad. It's happening. Well, I'm telling you, it's, it's, it's, it's happening. What's going to happen is you're gonna cook out. I probably look bro. I promise. That was always happening. What's happening is you don't cook out. No, no, no, I'm a. I think you should get Joel's dad barbecue. Wow. We stream live. Again, another thing that's never going to happen. So I'm going to do that for you know what? What is, what is, what is, what is, what is, what is a little last? I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get that short. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna have that delivered, I'm gonna have that delivered on Juneteenth as a Juneteenth, uh, present to my OG. Your dad is a OG and he deserves it on Juneteenth. Of, of you know, some of the stuff over to the. All state, an all state, you know, football play, you know, saying Arkansas college ball. But man, so he went to a school called Uron College in South Dakota. He went up there for one semester and then he said he didn't have a coat. He didn't have a coat, either. So when he was up there, he could hold some of dad comes back home to Texas. And then that's not long after that, he got drafted, had to go to Vietnam, came back, you know, whatever. I mean, work three jobs, he worked for Southern Pacific, now Union Pacific for, you know, 30, 40 years. Some shit like that, you know, man, it was man to work with his hands. I always said if my dad had had the benefit of my life, if he had come to you generally, he would have been a writer. And somebody that did things, he's a reader and a singer. My daddy played college, just, just, just let everybody know, my daddy played in college. Okay. What year? What year? What year did you play in college? In what college? In what college? In what college? It was a different time, man. My dad graduated in like 64. So just think about very few schools, very few schools had integrated by then. And across the South. And so there was a pipeline from his school, Langston and Hot Springs, Arkansas. And apparently a guy had gone up there a year before to play for the year on college and I looked this up. They would call it the savages. You're on college savages. All right. Last, let's get into headlines of the week. There's some headlines in college football. Let's get into it. Let's start here. Sarkisian, he came out, Steve Sarkisian came out and said he is not ruling out the possibility of archmaning, returning to Texas in 2027. Here's the quote, a lot of quotes from Sark this office. He said, quote, you know, we haven't had the discussion, but I will tell you I would not be surprised. I think Arch really loves college football, I really do. I think he loves the University of Texas. He does pretty good through NIL. He's got some pretty good endorsements going right now, which is a credit to him. In quote, Vand, do you believe Sark or is this even more of a reason to maybe not believe an archmaning? I don't know what to believe. Yeah. I'm not. I'm not really sure what the purpose of saying this is, like it seems like you will want to leave everything on the field as it regards as, you know, as it's regarding to arch. If you're saying this, doesn't it seem like you're saying that he's still working progress? Am I allowed to think that? That's a read between the lines, yeah. My thought was that he's saying he doesn't need the money, both of the got both of the quarterbacks that preceded him. And I guess Archie, too, stayed all four years in college, you know, so the mannings are just sort of guys that really appreciate the college experience. And they also probably are aware of the fact that the only real correlation between college success and professional success is it relates to quarterbacks as like snaps, you know, saying like how many, how many reps you actually get in college, right? And it's not even that determined to do, but like it wouldn't hurt him to stay in college for all of, you know, two more years, which would be three years of playing. And you know, he did, again, money's not a concern. He, they are Austin is a, I mean, I've talked a lot of shit about the University of Texas, but it's a, it's a fun place to be a student. It's probably especially if you're Archie or Archmaning. So yeah, I could, I, it, it, I'm surprised he would say it like, Vance, because it's like, what's, there's never even no need to even get into that. But I think what he's saying makes sense. Like, if you think about who the mannings are, yeah, it does fit the manning mold a little bit. But just weird to say that before the season, remember last year Archie, his grandpa came out and said he would not be going to the NFL draft the following season. That was also an interesting comment. I might just go back to the manning mold and what they're trying to, you know, put out there for their son next up, Davos, sweetie, weighed in on the chaos around in college football. He said, quote, the only thing worse than having no, than having no rules is having rules you can't enforce or don't enforce. He basically went on to say, I don't think any of us thought we'd be in a world where there's no order. It's a much bigger conversation now, even in the NFL, there are rules. You can't sign with the Browns and go practice for two weeks and the dolphins call you up and say, Hey, man. What are they paying you? We'll pay you a million more, come on down to the dolphins. And then you go in there and say, Hey, boys, I'm out. So referencing what happened with their linebacker, who ended up going to open his foot down. Is there who? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So Davos, sweetie, do you buy this? Is this jaded? Is this salty van? Your thoughts on Davos comments? Davos comments seem a little hollow and nobody gives a fuck with Davos has to say anymore. Wow. But Davos has kind of lost his, I can speak for college football credentials. Davos ain't on that level anymore. What Davos should be speaking about is the climate of his defensive line. He should be speaking about the climate of his receivers and the climate of his offensive line. I expect Clemson to be better this year, but in order to kind of pull the whole, I'm a spokesman for what's wrong in college football, or what's right in college football. You have to have an organizational success and a consistency that Clemson just does not have right now. So as far as for what he's saying, yeah, it's the wild, wild, western college football. The answer to the question is, what will be better if the West gets less wild? Does anything get better? And who does it get better for? So, you know, yeah, they're rules, I mean, places have rules, me and Joel are going to talk about the salary cap. Joel doesn't seem to understand the NBA salary cap. Should we talk, no, should we talk about that right now, but I want to, because I want to hear what Joel has to say about Davos, but like when I, when I saw this, I was kind of like, I don't know why Davos talking, man, it seems like Davos should have other things to do regarding his football team, rather than, you know, kind of give these state of college football conversations. I know he was asked about it. Actually, I mean, that is what Davos is probably more known for now, like complaining about the state of college football and that kind of stuff. Like, I mean, you know, and I wouldn't say that he doesn't have standing to talk anymore. I mean, to do still has two national championships. He was in to play off a year ago, you know, so he's not totally lost it, but it's Clemson. The reason that we would say that is because Clemson is not to the level that only he had taken it quite anymore. So I feel like he still has the authority to talk about this, but again, Davos is right. Like, if you, you know, you can't just leave the dolphins and go to the Browns or whatever. And you know why? Because all those athletes have collectively bargained in contract. Right. Yeah, right. So if you start a contract in the NFL, then you can hold on to your player, right? And so like that's, I'm, Davos, the answer has been in front of your face the whole time, welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the revolution. Let me ask you this. What do you think is more advantageous to you, to you, Joe, to you take what's, what's a better situation? Just for college football, a college football landscape where things are more rigorous, but the players have collectively bargained that stuff, or do you think the players actually stand to have more agency and make more money and be able to move freely more with things the way they are right now? Oh, I absolutely believe they should, they don't, like the thing is, it's going to change, like something is going to change and they're going to get some sort of structure to it. And I'd rather them be at the table or not. But unquestionably, this is a much better time for athletes. Like they're going to, for athletes for sure. Yeah, they're going to have to give up, they'll have to give up something when they bargain. What will they give up to you? What do you think? Or mobility? Right. They're going to be like in two year locked in deals, something like that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so the transfer portal will be significantly impacted by this in your opinion. Will they give up eligibility as well in order for, and then what will they get? Because if they, if we're talking about what they're giving up in a collectively bargained city, you're, you're collectively bargaining for the college football players, Joe. What are you asking for? Yeah. I mean, I want them to have guaranteed contracts. I want them to have, you know, to be honest, I don't have a problem with the transfer portal. I think it's fine. Like, again, if we're going to pretend that this is college football, then any student on your campus can transfer without penalty for any reason or whatsoever. Absolutely. And so when the transfer, do you give the money back? Well, that's a good quote. I mean, that was something you'd have bargained. Like, you know, since you have a buyout in your contract, if you did it this way, there would be some sort of rules for it and everybody, it would be more transparent. So if they really do care about the kids who are doing taking advantage of by agents are getting bad advice, a union allows you to strengthen the standards around that stuff and to make, you know, to set a bar somewhere so where you can make sure, oh, these agents have to go through this sort of certification process. If they want to do that, because it would probably, you're right, man. It's better right now in changing to the CBA probably would be, you know, the athletes would be giving up something. But like, if I'm a college football administrator, like, then that sound better than just whining about this shit and losing players every year and, you know, it seems better to have something on paper that everybody is okay with so that the game can start to enter into an era of some sort of normalcy. Exactly. Yeah. The players just need to be at the table though. - That's really what it comes down to. 'Cause then it at least feels some semblance of fair. I'm not gonna say. that both sides. I mean, honestly, if both sides feel like that they don't like the deal, that probably means it's the closest thing to fair. And I think that's where you hope they get to at some point. But it's funny because like the message from dabbo I get, but it's just the messenger has, you know, he's he's saying it for different reasons and probably what most people with that message are saying it for. He's saying it because he's like, he wants to go back to the old lady, which is, you know, the cats out of the bag. Yeah. And it's understandable why he liked it the way that it was. It was very lucrative advantageous for him. Yeah. Climpson was a better program when the rules were different. Right. You didn't have he didn't have to deal with the transfer portal, which is something that he really does not interested in doing right now. And you kind of got to do that to be a top level team. So yeah, it was much better for him in the old way. So I believe he's sincere and his beliefs that it was better. But I think what he's conflating is the idea that it was really good for me. I don't know about the athletes. Yeah. Which kind of says a lot about, you know, the stance that he has there. But again, I think the message is correct. There needs to be some sort of semblance of rules. But it is a bit of a mess right now. We'll figure it out though as we move forward. Next up, SMU's Kevin Jennings quarterback for SMU said that he's aiming for more than just a CFP appearance heading into his final season. He said, quote, I'm not just trying to get back to the playoff. We're trying to go all the way. That's our main goal. We're not trying to just go there. We're trying to compete finish and win at a high level. That's the number one goal just to put SMU on the map even more. Joel, this is your rival, your thoughts on SMU saying that they want to get to the top. That's cute, man. I'm not excited for all these. I hope they can get on our level again, dog. No, I mean, look, you know, the only way you can get there is to believe you can get there. And so we've got the two stories I'll tell is when I first started playing football at TCU. And I was like a late commit, you know, nobody, it was cheap for TCU that I was going to have to go division three schools or like some FCS. Yeah. Yeah. So TCU was your only D1 offer. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have a lot of, yeah. So it was for me as TCU or I was going to go to more house. I know more house like I wanted to go. Shut up, take, take. I know he's just in me. I mean, take man. You know, I'm not, I'm trying to think about what you said. You were going, it felt like you were going to defend me today. And I was doing a call back, you know, and that never works out. But anyway, I was it, I was it, she said anyway, I'm, I'm meeting, you know, really the first time I'm meeting the guys when I get on campus. And I remember one day was sitting around in the lounge area of our dorm. There's a bunch of us and I feel like there's some girls there too. I don't know why they anyway, but we were just sitting there talking about like, would it would take like for TCU to go a national championship game? Like seriously? Like we, we had just come off a six and five season, which was like, Hill just wanted the great recent seasons and TCU football history. And now that we're in the 16 team whack and they're sitting around like, yeah, man, you know, we just went a few games. We could be in a national championship. And I'm not dumbass comes and being like, we couldn't like, we'd have to go like undefeated for like three years and like, no, we're not going to undefeated. And I do was like, well, you would say that, you know what I'm saying? Like, you're not going to play. And I was like, damn, I'm gonna fucking have a point. Damn, that nigga puts you in a motherfucking box. Yeah, he put me in the blender, man. You know, but the thing is, yeah, I was arguing like, if I had heard that, I'd have been like, that's tough. I know. But you know what? But I deserved it in retrospect because I was like, oh, I was talking like a journalist or a top pundit and not a football player. And like, that's probably why my career did not last very long because I just didn't have that sort of belief. And I think to be great, especially in sports, you've got to have like this ingrained belief irrational confidence. Yeah, just the rest of the confidence that we can do something. And the thing about Kevin Jennings, man, like his own personal story is crazy. Like, he was the starting quarterback for the first Dallas ISD football team to win a state championship in like 60 years. Like Dallas ISD have not failed at the state. So then he's, so then he's, it's a part of his DNA to believe that he's done it on standing streets. Yeah, he's done it. He like, he elevated that school now. It's a state power again. So if you did that, I could understand why you'd be like, what shit? And we got the money. We're in a good city. We can get, it's easy to get that we've got athletes all around us and we can get people to want to come here. I mean, also, you know, shout out to my dogs, you know, saying Kenneth Emo, you know, my AJ, my cousin Jamil Anthony, you know, Ramon Flanagan. I used to hang out on S&U's campus when I was a TCU and I, you know, I was, hey, you know what I'm saying? They got some things to recruit to there. So, you know, Billy? Like, what do you, what do you feel like Joel is? Oh, I know it. Oh, I know they got white women. No, actually, they look at up. No, no, no, no, no, no, look at up. It was given a he got game. It's a game. You had three of the five most attractive black women I saw in college. Like, because they were white women. No, they were black. Okay. They were black women. They, I'm telling you, they don't. I said, I remember their names, too. I don't say the name. It wouldn't be population. There's not very many of them, but the ones that I saw in this particularly on campus were bad. Like, look, I'll just be like, if that part of my life, I didn't. That wasn't something like, like, I kind of thought, you would sell out if you did that shit. I was like, it's seven percent. It's seven percent black at SMU. No, seven percent black. It was it's an extremely high percentage. I understand, but I'm just saying that's how I went and the other two from the University of Texas, which again, not very many, but others that are there, they got some hitters. So they pack up on 19 LSU, 19 percent black, like motherfucker. I mean, I've seen something going there, too. Yeah, back in the day, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it was your track team when I was when I was coming up nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were stars of the show when they showed. TCU is TCU just. So I know it's four percent black. It's four percent. Is it, man, that's better than it was when I was there. Yeah, that's better again. Yeah, that's tough. Well, there you go. Kevin Jennings, sitting on a statement to the people. Next up, James Franklin also sitting on a statement. He said that basically he is selling. He doesn't have to sell the Virginia Tech vision. He said, quote, we're not a first time head coach trying to share a story. There's that there's no evidence for we've got a ton of evidence. We've done it in the SEC. We've done it in the big 10 and we're coming to do it in the ACC. Van, do you believe James Franklin? Yes. I believe that in my opinion, Virginia Tech is a powerful bulb tradition with a legendary coach with legendary players. The Virginia Tech that I've always known is a school that would always be a great program and flirted with at times being an elite program. We talk about a program that played a national championship game. Yeah, Michael. Absolutely. And so like as far as him, there's nothing to really restore as much as there is Virginia Tech has to remember who and what it is. Yeah, I think it's got to just remind people. Yeah. Yeah, if you can do that, that he can go on a long run there just like Bamer and really have the program flirting with prominence, especially in this particular college football basketball right now. Yeah, and also that stadium. If you've never been in lane stadium, it's an incredible atmosphere. And you've never been intimidated by people doing the hoki pokie in your life until you go to lane stadiums. Yeah, man. They get down and that is a very insane atmosphere. So I think it's all there for the taking. Yeah, man. I mean, look at the ACC. I mean, who did they look at and they say they should be better than us every year. Maybe Miami. They may look at Miami and say, well, that's, you know, we got a recruit against them. They've got that advantage. You know, they got the infrastructure and the NIO rolling and everything. But then I mean, you know, after that, we talk of SMU, Duke, I mean, which was the ACC champion last year, by the way, North Carolina. Virginia. Yeah, I mean, yet Virginia Tech doesn't look at any of those schools and think, oh, you know, we could never, we could never beat them like they should be or they could be that second or, you know, one of the two or three top elite teams there. And I mean, shit Frank. I know James Franklin got fired, but he's a good football coach, man. Like he was, yeah, Penn State was really good. He ran it to a really bad, he ran to a real bad stretch of luck there last year and lost his job. It a place where people were just kind of getting impatient with him. But when you step back and look at his record, James Franklin is a damn good football coach. So yeah, he's going to have them in it and winning the ACC in it and winning the ACC very soon. Okay. They're going to be right there. Okay. They'll be right there in ACC for sure. Now Miami's a son of a bitch because I think Miami's just going to get stronger. Yeah. Over the next couple of seasons. You know, we'll see what they do next year. But I think that Miami is probably here to stay with the way Christopher ball or Cristobal builds teams down there. I think that Miami's going to be around. But James Franklin is going to have Virginia Tech give Virginia Tech going. It's not going to take as long as people think they will be. Oh, yeah. I'm right there with you. I think it's a great hire. I think it's great that he's kind of sending that message out to the people and for Gene. take as a cool football team. So when they are good, I think it's good for the college, you know, football business. So I'm excited to see what they do up in Blacksburg. There's not much else going on in Blacksburg. I was going to say they're going like, I've never, that's the place I've not been. It's, I mean, Virginia Tech, that's what it is. I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere. So I've been do three games in Blacksburg in my life. What would you stay? I think I stand like a fair field in or something, you know what I'm talking about. This picture right here does not give me a lot of confidence on you how popping it is. This looks like, this looks like Pullman Washington to be honest. Yeah, it's nothing going on other than Virginia Tech. So if it's going as well. Sometimes those are the best college town. College town. That's right. Yeah, for sure. They run into those are the best ones. If there's too much going on, Baton Rouge is a pretty good college town, but Baton Rouge might be slightly too big to be a great college town. But the best college towns are where the school takes up most of the oxygen. Yeah. Yep, 100%. I heard it guys. Blacksburg, a little like the type of place. Blacksburg. Oh, you, I was up, right? Well, you like, you like, you think the white women there kind of more your life. They're a little bit like a country up there. You know what I mean? They're a little bit, right? Blacksburg, Blacksburg, Blacksburg, Blacksburg. I look like the type of place where it was tough for us back in the day, bro. Oh, man. Well, hold on. Let's go look it up. Let's go look it up. Like any town where any town where it looked like the sheriff will come off and go come out and talk to you and go, we got nice people in this town. White people. People that keep themselves. Let's see. They're actually, it's beautiful though. Hold on. This is a beautiful place, doc. But like, America is beautiful, bro. Yeah, that's what everyone's saying in the world cup. Like all these fans. I mean, they're coming out there and being like, man, we have never seen any of these pictures of America. It's actually beautiful. So what is this? This looks like, what is this? This looks like the outdoors. You have the, the new river in Blacksburg. Yeah, it's like an outside. This looks fucking gorgeous, doc. Yeah, man. Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah. He look at them. And you know what? I actually know, especially living in DC now, the DMV, there's a lot of people around here that went to tech and Black folks. And they seem to like that place. Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Everyone's very, everyone's very nice. Yeah. That's a, that's a takeaway. Okay. And then like, you know, a roe noke is close by. I mean, roe noke is a nice town. Yeah. I've never been never shot a roe noke. Paul Baringer, who served as text president from 1907 to 1913, wrote a 1900 speech called the American Negro, his past and future, in which he argued that, quote, savage Black Americans have been improved by slavery. He advocated for political disenfranchisement and the prohibition of Black people for becoming teachers or pursuing higher education. the young Negro of the South, except where descended from parents of exceptional character and worth is reverting through hereditary forces to savagery. There's more. But and this is a black spirit. Yeah, that's rough. Yeah, really. Yeah, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's. I don't think they're going to want to read that. I'm going to tell you how something. Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, we get a bad right and rightfully so. But over there, bro, between the essence. We, we, we, we in North Carolina right there in Virginia, bro, y'all get y'all, y'all get enough. That's why I remember the Titans came out. That was Virginia, right? Yeah, Virginia. Oh, and then and then guess where guess where Herman Boone came from though North Carolina. Wait, you know, I see what I'm saying. Herman Boone had to come out there to Virginia and teach him what was up. Oh, man. I'm looking at Blacksburg here music arts and culture, um, music and nightlife is nice. Blacksburg is nice, man. That's that's that's tough for children's red. Yeah. Congressional candidate voices support for Virginia Tech professor who was the subject of an alleged racist attack. Oh, man. All right. Well, I, I mean, you know, again, Lane Stadium, the atmosphere is good. This other stuff, not so good. Oh, wait, they said a group of white team. Okay, this is a New York post story. So they're a little, uh, a group of white teams were cleared of hate crime allegations after a black Virginia Tech professor wind to cops. He was a victim of a racist attack when they blasted rap music and dumped snow near his home. Disgusting. A wind is wind is a crazy verb to use that. Yeah, I mean, it's a New York post, you know, so yeah. That's like, uh, that's that's uh, read between the lines. You see what kind of the side that they're on there. Um, tough tough stuff. Virginia Tech, we're not thinking on you. We could do that with any college. You know, no offense, you know, I would say nice though, my college is a motherfucking tigers. Yes, the only college we haven't done really is TCU, but we're going to do it. 4% the four percenters. Yeah, man. I'm super. I mean, support percent. That's better, man. I, I was one of the people that helped build it up. Did I ever tell y'all I was on the, uh, the application? Are you the mixed saving of TCU? I was on the application for a mission in, uh, the year 2000. They had me put me on there with like five other people. I did need to have it right under my desk here. I don't know what that shit is, but anyway, they put you on, they put Joel on the application and they were like, as you can see, we've tamed our Negroes. I was a campus leader, man. I was the, I, I'd won the leadership. I won two leadership awards. And I was the editor of the call of this new newspaper. Yeah. Go ahead. That was a big deal. You were the Obama at TCU. I wouldn't say that. But, uh, you know, the editor of the heart. Yeah, I ended up making a name for myself doing shit, not on the football. I went pro and something other than sports. Mm. I'm writing that down on my notes. Joel is the Obama TCU. No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go with that. All right. I wasn't that, I mean, I was not a popular person. I'm just saying, but I was known to the administration. There you go. Shout out to you. Last one in our top five army has signed a Jersey patch on field logo sponsorship deal with USA. So I mean, army football is now getting into the game of sponsorship. So that's, uh, that's college sports right there. You know, if you're ever wondering about if it's pro sports or what, I mean, I think army football signing a local, uh, sponsorship deal and having an own field logo says it right there. I'm a USA client. It has been for how many years they, they do my car and house insurance. Well, we told, we told you to get triple A, but you turned your nose up the triple USA. The man, the, uh, the, uh, this, the, this, the emergency service is, is really good. It's like, I never, I've never had to wait very long. It's really easy. You can just get on your phone, hit the app, bam. USA, man, it's good. It's a good, it's a good bank. I know. USA. USA. Listen, listen to, uh, the shell. Maybe sponsor. Yeah, man, come on. That was a little, throw us a little cake, man, so they can do this field day. We never gone to, we're going to do the field day. Uh, one last thing before we get out of here, one big debate. This is, uh, Joel van and the, uh, yeah, just quickly, uh, Jalen Brunson taking less money to win a championship. Obviously is a big sticking point, talking point, whatever you want to say. Throughout the week, Joel van on opposite sides of the line here talking about Jalen Brunson, van, I'll turn it over to you. What are your thoughts when you hear this Jalen Brunson talk? It's not even that we own opposite sides of the line. Is that the NBA has a salary cap. Yeah, right. And it has a salary cap that has, uh, uh, uh, uh, second apron. Will you explain the second apron to people take? You're talking to the wrong guy. I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a front office guy. Basically, once you get in past the first apron, why did you get the second apron? You're in trouble. That's all I know. All I know is you have to trade away. You have to, you have to, yes, hard cap. Yeah. The second apron, the second apron is basically a hard cap, right? So, Joel is right. For years and years and years, you could pay into the luxury, you can pay into, the second apron is basically now a hard cap. So any relief that you can give your, uh, your team salary is relief that they can use to sign other guys if you, if you want to win. They were talking about the fact that Jalen Brunson did this, right? Jalen Brunson took less money so that the NYX could sign OGN and nobody so that the NYX could sign all these different players that ended up helping them win the championship. Something that the NYX won in the championship. And Jalen Brunson, being the finals MVP has led to Jalen Brunson ascending into NBA super stardom. It has led to Jalen Brunson being put as one of the top 50 NBA players of all time on the Bill Simmons big basketball board of basketball players in a certain test, the pyramid is something that's led to Jalen Brunson. Now becoming one of the most known and potentially marketable players in all of the, oh yeah, man, I'm this man. You know, they're not very famous until it is the, it is the, it is the birthing right now nationwide of a brand new basketball star. And Joel thinks it was a stupid thing to do. That's, that is, inaccurate. I mean, in the end, the maximum. Okay. So first of all, this is why, I mean, this is why I remember I was like, with Van got on my nerves, dark. He threw my tweet back at me. Okay. The one. Yeah, because you were arguing about this online. Yeah, I argued about it online. I remember what you said last week, though, you weren't going to argue anymore. Just like to get me started. I took about 24 hours. Yeah. I mean, I really do. I told you, they they annoyed me so much on Blue Sky. I think I might be down with Blue Sky. Oh, wow. I'm sick of them off. It's dark. No, you can't say shit, man. We're out. You don't have to go. Do you know what the argument was? It was about, it was so, I'm just, I was, I just said something about Twitter. And somebody was like, well, I'm surprised you're over there. There's run by a Nazi. And I was just like, well, you know, look, I understand for people who could, that's what they want to do. I said, I'm sort of other mind. And I know that I'm not being literal. I'm being figurative. I was like, I believe the people on Twitter. I think it was basically about close to a public utility, as you could get for a social media app. And I just don't know a lot of people on there that I like. I let it go onto you, motherfuckers brought me back onto Twitter. And so, anyway, the whole point was our fault. The whole point was at the accountability. The whole point was at Twitter, was at Twitter. We're Cincinnati. The thing about Twitter. The thing about Twitter is like, all right, look, I'll do it. I think about leaving it all the time. And on Blue Sky, it was like, oh, you sound like a right-wing churd and so what it's so for us. And all of a sudden, you're calling me a churd. I don't know, they don't like that on Blue Sky. I'm like, bro, I'm not of your culture. I don't even know what the fuck a churd is. Okay. And I'm just like, is all these white people? Obama TCU also might be a right-wing churd. Coming at me over some bullshit. Like, it's not even, I don't think it's that deep. And again, as I was trying to say, as a black man in this country, I'm always, I'm making a series of, did you just hear who the president of Virginia Tech was? A few minutes ago, once upon a time? Like, what black people are constantly making decisions about institutions and people that hate us? And products run by people who hate us. And I'm trying to be, like, I don't have the time as a consumer to divvy up. Well, man, they were racist here. One time, I boycotted Chick-fil-A. I didn't say shit about it, but I just didn't go to Chick-fil-A for a long time. And one day, I was at work with my dude at the AJC. And I didn't know he was gay at the time, you know what I'm saying? But as I was like, he was like, you want to go to lunch? And I was like, I'm trying not to go there, man, or whatever. And he's like, well, shit, I'm gay and I don't, you Chick-fil-A, you know what I'm saying? And I was like, you know what? Let's go to Chick-fil-A. So I started you in Chick-fil-A. I told you my little brother told me. What was that? I never told you how my little brother said. Little brother came out here, driving around and I was like, "Hey, man, stop it, Chick-fil-A." I was like, "I'm not really fucking with Chick-fil-A, bro." He was like, "Why?" He was like, "Why?" He was like, "Why ain't it fucking?" I even think I had Chick-fil-A in LA. I was like, "Chick-fil-A is anti-LGB slavery." I was like, "Chick-fil-A is anti-LGBT." He said, "Chick-fil-A is anti-LGBT." And he said, "They could be pro-slavery." He said, "They could be pro-slavery." I'm fucking with the chicken. That chicken is too good. Yeah, I just had to laugh. He was having to laugh. It was good. I remember when it was a big deal to get Chick-fil-A. They brought it, having it at the mall. That was the only place you could get Chick-fil-A when I was a kid. Yeah, I said, "Did you drive all the way to Raleigh to get Chick-fil-A when I was a kid?" Yeah. It was crazy. And now, when they started making their own little Chick-fil-A, I'm like, "Nigger, we up, nigga." The crazy shit. But then I didn't know what they had going on. So you say, "All I have to say, "What about the salary can?" It was about, yeah, we were talking about Twitter anyway. Yeah, so the whole point of this is that, so people were getting on my nerves about it. But then so Van throws that tweet into our group chat. And he didn't say anything. Like he just throws the tweet in there. And so a little bit later, I say surprised at how controversial the sentiment was. Van responds, "Because you don't understand teamwork or the salary cap. It's tough." And that tough really sent me off. It all goes that way. And I was like, "That's tough." You were the kid in the cherry cherry all of a sudden. It was so disrespectful. Yeah, it was cherry cherry. When he said, "It's tough." I was like, "This motherfucker died." So now I have to die to argue with Van. And so I was going back and forth with him and all these other people. And I'm like, "Look, bro, I understand the reality of the salary cap. I'm not a dummy." I get that Jalen Brunson had did it this way and it paid off. Good for him. My larger point is that, "A, I don't think the salary cap should exist and be in a world in which the salary cap exists. I just don't think. And if I were a union member and work for the NBA players union, I'd be like, let's not praise us taking less money to the benefit of the owner." You know what I mean? Like baseball doesn't have a salary cap, for instance. Right. What about the C? Yeah. Yeah. And so I just, I mean, look, man, do you want it? Like, you asking the players do you want to win? I'm talking to the players, do you want to win a night? Why can't you put your money up, though? Like, why I got to give money, but you're the billionaire. I only have, at best, I've got 15 years to make this money. This is family money you've got and you've expanded it or whatever. I don't think I should have to take a haircut for you. And I literally just saw this video a Duane way talking about looking back on forefitting like $20 million to bring in Brian and Chris Bosch and Donas Haslam. And he said, I mean, I remember the money don't come back people. You can make more, but you ain't getting that money back. You can't recruit money. And really, Wade is a co-owner of the jazz now. And he was like, you know, I don't think I don't think I would have done that now. Like if someone on the other side of it, I didn't have to give that money up. So again, I congratulations for Jaylin Bronson. But the money he gave up ended up going to LeBron, which is why he's probably. Yeah, I mean, Brons just left the ass. He's went back to Cleveland. So, I mean, so, so, so yeah, I think that's an excellent example. This is what I would say. Number one, I'm for capping everybody's money. The only thing that to me is what is different is that the, yeah, I am. Like if I was president, yeah, if I was president, I would, I would tax you at 90% everything you made over $3 million, right? Yeah. And then I would build roles in schools and give people health care. That's not, that's not, that's not the thing. But so I do think it's, it's, it's an unfair situation that, in the, in the aggregate, that the players are capped and the owners aren't. In an open market, LeBron James is probably making $300 million a year, right? See other leagues, soccer leagues, where the players do make that, the question that would be, Christian Ronaldo, okay, last week, Ronaldo, right? The question would be, is if he made $300 to $400 million a year, a year, I'm saying, is would there be an NBA? The, like, you know, the, the, the Saudis have, when you look at that league, they have a sovereign wealth fund that, like, it's in trillions of dollars. So, like, it's not the money isn't it? And they're just for its washing their money. Yeah. Yeah. It's for washing their money. It's tied to the price of oil. So, so, but all that's a separate argument. It's an economic argument about how viable any of this stuff would be if there weren't some, some kind of controls on it. That's it, but I'm not even getting into that argument. What I'm saying is, even in the case of Dwayne Wade, I could see what Dwayne Wade was talking about because when LeBron James came, Dwayne Wade was already a champion. Dwayne Wade, those two championships in Miami didn't really do anything for Dwayne Wade. They didn't. He won championships as the second guy on the team. Yeah. Um, and it was really the first guy on the first day. Like the, the year they lost a Dallas, he was kind of the first guy still. I know. So, I'm, so I'm saying this. Yeah. Yeah. From a lot of points, it be coming out sometimes. Yeah. I just tell the truth. I mean, I watch the North Carolina Jordan thing. I don't know if it's that. Yeah. Whatever the fuck it is. I watch. Okay. But, but what I'm saying is that like in that situation, if you're looking at him and the championships, I mean, being a three-time champion is a lot different than being a one-time champion. But even still, you have two championships where you were the second guy. If those, it was all about LeBron James. If those championships didn't really do anything for your legacy, then the money is more valuable to you. But if you're Jaylen Brunson, and you go from, I am not a champion as the lead dog on an NBA franchise to be involved in and to conversations with a rarefied air of guys to being in the situation where you score 45 in an elimination game. The last guy to do some shit like that that was a guard was Michael Motherfucking Jordan. So when people are talking about you alongside Dirk, alongside other guys who were able to lead their team of championships as lead, as lead players. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. That's worth it. That's worth it for him for Dwayne Wade. It might not be worth it because Dwayne Wade might look back on it and go, yo, I played two, like two different years with this guy. He got all the glory and I basically paid him. But for somebody like Jaylen Brunson, he has now been elevated. it to the Wayne Wade status because of what just happened. So like, well, the question is, ask, ask, ask right now, as Dame Louis right now, if he would pay $30 million for MVP. I don't know, but see the thing is, so as Tom Brady, Tom Brady could Bob Kraft for break on deals for years, like he, he played with some, not the talent that a quarterback of his talent and success probably demanded, but he gave the Patriots a break on stuff on, on his contract so that they could build out the team. And he was pissed, he ended up being pissed, even though he won championships, but it still frustrated him. And then at the end of the day, when he wanted to run some contract, they're like, nah, nah, and that's how he ended up in the company. So I get, yeah, I get that, but there is no, and I get how he feels. There is no way to objectively argue that that didn't work out for Tom Brady. He has seven fucking super balls. Yeah. That is so O.D. That is worse. He may have think he could have gotten out of 10, he may think he could have gotten out of 10, but not a 10 if they pay him more and they have less for the team. Yeah, I mean, he's not, we're gonna be like, so like, like you said, you were going to take this money to make the team better. And you didn't. And that's the thing about the Jalen Brunson thing. It worked out for Jalen. It does not always work out like that for every athlete that's willing to. Also, his godfather is the one who's running the team. So like, he does have a little bit of trust there. Yeah, it's not, it's not the same for everybody else. And you can't, you can make that sacrifice. And it probably may not work out. And Tom Brady and Duane Wade show you that even if you do make that sacrifice, it's like, you know, man, but I was 20 million dollars though. Like they still sit around. I understand that I completely get it. Both Tom Brady and Duane Wade are fabulously wealthy for money that they've made and also make a shit ton of money off the court and off the field because of the celebrity that has come to them from the fact that they were premier players in the lead that they played in. Now, I'm not saying that people should take less money. I'm not saying that at all. I'm not saying anyone should take less money. I'm not saying take less money for nothing. Like well, I remember one time they asked Ricky Henderson, there was like, yo, Ricky, you know, there's some talk that they might, you know, restructure your contract after this, after this season. Are you okay with that? Ricky Henderson said, well, it depends on what you mean by re-astructure recipes. That's one of my favorite players of all time. So I get it. I completely understand what you're talking about. I get it. What I'm saying though is that when you are playing sports, if you are playing sports, legacy is a part of that. Especially if you are a Jalen person. Legacy is a part of that. Like ask right now. He just secured his legacy for sure. Right. Ask Russell Westbrook what he would pay. Like what an NBA championship would be worth. Ask, ask the, you were talking about worth, right? It doesn't work like that for everybody else. It doesn't. It's like, but I know it doesn't work like that for everybody else. It's in the east. Like he got let me ask you, let me ask you a question. He wasn't a third, but I mean, Russell Westbrook and different players. Like Russell Westbrook was in the finals. My even had he had, even had he won that finals. Ask Charles Barclay what an NBA championship would be worth right now. Wait, Charles Barclay always says that he's glad he took, wait, I think this is Charles Barclay was pretty being clear about I would rather have the money than the championship. I mean, I would not sacrifice the champion. I would not sacrifice the money for a championship, but I would like to have that championship. He's also making tons of money. He doesn't, he doesn't look at Robert Aure, anybody else and be like, he's like Charles Barclay is different. Robert Aure is not in this conversation. We're talking about one A guys. Okay. We're talking about one A guys that never quite get there. And what is it worth to them? Yeah. Because you can live, you can live and you can be rich and all of that stuff like that. And that means that means a lot. But there's also a time that this you can make money for the rest of your life on all different types of things. Duane way could write a Duane way you can invest into a liquor brand. I mean, because he is Duane way hold on, hold on, listen, because he is Duane way and end up making more money than he did his entire junior Bridgeman, all of these people, they made so much money. But what you can't ever do, once it's over is do the things on the court and the field that are only there while you're playing. And Duane way or saying, and Duane way is saying, I had all that and I really wish I had that 20 million back. And again, Jalen Brunson can do it. And I'm glad it worked out for him. I was excited to see the next one. And if you watch tailgate last week, he said that I thought they were going to win. You thought I said they were going to win the series, right? We mean, I thought I thought it was a great, a great series. And I think for Jalen Brunson, I mean, you're talking about like American stars. I think he worked out for one of them. But he was fortunate. It's some injuries broke right. He bet on himself. And he bet on some any worked out. It's amazing. Everybody's not going to break. When it was time to be a tiger, he was a mother fucking tiger, bro. That's the fuck I'm talking about. I don't know what Joel talking about. I'm excited for Jalen Brunson. Not to a crunch time legend. Not to everybody. I'll take that example and think that you going to be Jalen Brunson. Take the money. Yeah. You're saying it's more of a anomaly than the real. That's an anomaly. Take the money if you get the option. Well, that's the last. I think that's a nice last thought there for everybody. A fun debate, a fun show. Thanks again to Jeffrey Kessler for coming on the show. I thought he was great breaking down his point of view on what happened. Brunson source me. And this might be the last time we talk about Brunson source me. So if you don't know who he is, you spend about three weeks trying to figure out the situation. We did our best on here on Ringertelgate. We appreciate everybody tuning in. Shout out to all the Gators out there for hanging out with us during the off season. And we will see you all next week. 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