Deshaun Vs. Cleveland, and a Mega-Mailbag With Joe House. Plus, UCLA’s Bob Chesney.

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where we have a new rewatch of us coming for you on Monday. We did a Apollo 13, a movie that somehow we had not done yet, even though we had done almost 450 movies, so that is coming for you on Monday. It's an action-packed week for me on the Ringer. I'm on Sean Fantasy's big picture podcast, doing a movie draft. I am on, wait a second with Jason, it's up to you on this week. On Tuesday, the fantasy football guys, Craig Danny and Danny are going to be on this podcast. We're going to do our annual My Guy Fantasy Draft, and Thursday, we have me and Sal doing NFC Overrunners. Part one will be Thursday Live on Netflix, and then Friday Live on Netflix, we are doing the second annual Ringer Fantasy football draft. Football is here. This will be my last non-NFL podcast for a while. Joe House coming on first through a mailbag. Bob Chesney, new coach of UCLA for football coming on. We actually went to UCLA. We filmed like a 45 minute interview with them. My goal was to get you to like UCLA, and at least like, even if you don't care, like I kind of secretly hope they went because he has a tall task ahead of him, but I have a lot of belief he's going to pull it off. So that's the part. We're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then Joe House mailbag time. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank, and today's sports everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, and yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory in banking is no different. While everyone tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves, and the financial wins, they just keep coming. PNC Bank brilliantly boring since 1865 brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC financial services group incorporated PNC Bank National Association member FDIC. I recorded this part of the podcast, it is mid afternoon Pacific time. I just watched the Red Sox sweep, the Giants, Fenway Park was a live house. Boston was a live, really, the Scots and the Jalen Brown trade turned around the Red Sox season and Boston Fenway's packed, everybody's happy, the game last night. My dad went, he stayed the whole game with Michael Chuck. It came back the one in the ninth, and it's just when you have a good baseball team, it really energizes the city, it's unbelievable. Yeah. I'd like to invite the Red Sox to eat a fat dick because I bet consecutive games against the athletics. What was that two weeks ago? A week ago. Yeah. There's the worst team in baseball who was openly, we were doing a couple of bad games. The athletics are trying to lose, but I will say the 12-1 to win the World Series and whatever we have them at to win the pennant for the Red Sox. I'm a rational economic actor even though it's just tasteful. I can't figure out the season anymore. Data guy that won the game last night, who came from Poteca with a 5-ERA, I'd never heard of him. I thought of the Red Sox diligently, and I'm in an AL keeper league and I was like I don't know this guy as old and he won the game. We have Sogard. We have Mickey Gasper, who's now his nickname is Mickey Gas, came in, just started hitting bombs for like eight days, he might be going down this week, Roman Anthony comes back. It's so funny when you have these baseball seasons when random no-name guys got hot. You just don't understand what's happening as it's happening and then all of a sudden you have a chance in the playoffs. Anyway. Enough about the Red Sox. It's part of the charm. Yeah. Yeah. It next year. I know. I'm really favorite now. It's like two seasons. We're going to do a mail bag. You see like coach Bob Chesney is coming up later so this is ostensibly a holy cross. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Why not? And then you're coming out here. You're going to be in the Craig Brewatchables producer chair for me and House. I bet for me and South, doing an AFC and see overunders and honor NFC is going to be live on Netflix on Thursday and then we're going to be running the AFC one on Sunday. Okay. Before we get into the mail bag questions, I got a great one from Brett from DC because was talking with somebody about, yeah, DC guy was talking to somebody about what are they going to call if the NFL does any tanking for archmaning and the other QBs. What would that be called? And Brett from DC says it should be called arch badness. That's very good. Really good. Because usually we have like the, yeah, there's some sort of, that one's like a little level beyond the level. I don't know. I liked arch badness. I, I, I listened to you in Palisaro. I was, you know, my own, you know, Rev up for this NFL season and I, I was like, parched for arch. I was doing it. I was working on it. I was spitballing. But arch, arch badness is phenomenal. Arch badness is the leader right now. Okay. As always, people sent these to BS podcast 33. I sent you a couple of these because there was a couple like mild prep ones didn't send to this one came from a lifelong grounds fan named Ryan and Cleveland. He said, I need to know as a fan base ever hated one of its own players as much as Cleveland hates to Sean Watson. He listed some facts, which I bullet pointed. He's made roughly 12 million for every game he's played as a brown, which is 19. He's made 12 million per touchdown pass, also 19. He followed Baker Mayfield, shoved him out of the way who is the most beloved browns could be of my lifetime. He says, I'm 37 made the worst trade and recent history to get him gave him the worst contract in NFL history, helped waste the back end of Nick Chubb's prime, burned through most of Miles Garrett's prime before we ended up trading him. Meanwhile, Watson is several more than 20 civil lawsuits while showing essentially zero public morse of accountability on top of all this. He sucks at football. He tore his Achilles last year or retore it because apparently even as Achilles had had enough of him playing football and now he gets booted at home preseason games and yesterday I said it was disrespectful and personal and he says, no shit, Sherlock. Have you ever been in a situation with a hometown athlete where the entire city turned on them like this because I honestly, Boston's had a few where there's been, like we really turned on Tony Eason. We really turned on Jack Clark who wasn't there that long, like there's been blips like this, but I can't remember anything like this where it's like completely ruined his ability to play football. Yeah, it would have to be somebody from the Redskins and it would have to be Redskins/commanders. It would have to be during the Daniel Snyder era for it to rival anything at this level that the Sean has achieved. I mean, really incredible. Well, like everyone turns on the reins, but he was a defensive tackle, like he's that going back to pass and just throwing the ball in the ground to wide open for savers. Yeah, and you can't really boo him individually. And really what you're all of the dissatisfaction around him is he just got that check and it was like, thank you. I'm good. And that was really the hallmark of the Snyder era. A lot of checks given out to guys pass their prime. Yeah, because there's been a few of these over the years, like Anthony Rendon when he went to the Angels and basically just cash checks for them, decided he'd like playing baseball anymore and had some injuries. You lost him and Strasburg from that Nats team, right? Yes. And he was paid like a combined half a billion dollars for those two guys that had everything again. I don't know anybody gives those giant baseball contracts at this point with how bad some of them are. That's the Boris Scott Boris waving his, you know, his magic juice all over the place. Right. But that was the Angels. This is the Brown. So I have a one in 64 who have always needed a quarterback saved for that one Baker thing. It falls apart a little when they're like, we got rid of Baker to get him because then Baker bounced around the league for like two years. So I'm a, and Baker was really bad that last Browns year. The more interesting piece to me about this is what do you do? Like Todd Bonkins said, he was going to announce the starter for week one tomorrow. We're taping this on a Sunday, so on Monday. I can't, Shardor was, was really good yesterday again, again, somebody's backups and Watson was really awful and got booed the whole time and his body language was awful. I can't imagine Shardor is not going to be the starter, right? So then what do you do with Watson? Do you just make it in the third cubic because there's all these cap ramifications? I can't wave them. It's actually worse for them. So what do you do? It's like a staring contest trying to get him to like retire or quit, right? Well, in this is the position they were in, you know, the trial run here for the preseason was, is there any possibility of salvaging anything on a football field? That's it. Yeah. He's doing the, he's in this preseason practices, he's playing in these preseason games. Is there any shred of salvageable. productive football left because they already are prepared to just eat the shit They have been eating the shit for the entirety of the contract and it's like if you can give us anything Then it that then it's worth it by the way the answer to a Place turning that we must include in this is Ben Simmons Ben Simmons is a sixers. Yeah, Ben Simmons on the six years Absolutely needs to be included in this conversation And that was there something to be a guy's that was a little like the Watson thing where it felt like there was Some psychological stuff happening as well like a severe confidence loss that yes people could Could sense. Yeah, I I don't know what they do because I actually think the Browns have some talent and You know, they're not I don't think they're a 10 or 11 win team But they could be frescier than they were last year. They went five games last year You know the hard thing to assess with them and this was the challenge of their Win total when we were sitting and going through it is if they aren't very good as the third part of the the latter You know final Yes, because we're like oh should or you know, he might be a just a career back-up guy Now it's time to just turn it off and and you know Well, I'm ready for the college quarterback. I would urge the Browns to go Browns fans to go half-guessful here You haven't won a title since 64 but you can now claim making the worst NFL trade of all time People think I should walk or no people think the cults trading the rights to John L. Way for Mark Hinton and Chris Herman and a number of picked now Like you have it. This was the worst one ever so you want it was such a bad contract by that ownership group That the NFL the remaining owners openly colluded like there there was discovery There was an arbitration about this, you know a couple of years ago Where the union and the league ended up settling the arbitration but like the record says we are never gonna do a god damn The Sean Watson contract again. How are we gonna avoid this think the players are talking to each other, right? You know openly You know working together to never do that that that again. I mean that's the achievement. Yeah, they changed the league I think they've they've said a good example for what not to do people will point to this I think I think from a Jimmy Haslam standpoint It can't get worse like this was it. This is rock bottom He's all time legacy and then the really fun part is if Shadr is even I mean we were talking about with Pellis air I was talking about how just see plus strad please. We did a nickname you see plus strad just be see plus Shadr could be a C- and it would feel like the biggest win of all time right? Absolutely for for a fifth rounder and you know the thing that remains with Shadr is he is so good in front of a microphone He knows yesterday. Yeah Your boy your boy Warren Sharp who is Not afraid to have some hyperbole and Twitter was basically making it seem like this was the greatest sideline It didn't really it's gonna be a kind so I watched a few minutes. It was fine But he's nice. He's very good with the with the press should do it. So if you can be any good who are there who's their first three games against they have I think they have a And I gotta go through got for bit. I was more prepared for the mailbag Well, it's just a different document Okay, I'm going past Pittsburgh. There's there's is that yeah, there's Cleveland at Jaguar's at books home panther's home Steelers at Jets Is the first five. So if I'm should do or like None of those defenses are scary save for if the Steelers do the thing where their defense looks pretty good in the first month of the season But you know, maybe you know, they then they go Ravens at Titans at Steelers at Saints They don't really play a scary defense to the Texans at home in week 10 So a lot of time for our old Shadr to get his legs. I thought he looked terrible last year just for the record Didn't think you really showed anything but the historical bad situation They have a lot of weapons house They that they look like they nailed both Rookie receivers in the second round Fanon's coming back. I really like Junkins last year like it's not solid. They're offensive line isn't as good as it was the last couple years But maybe it'll be okay, but who knows they they won that trade the Miles Garrett trade I mean when you consider all the permutations of it I think that they it's not that the Rams lost it But the you know, they they did very good in terms of the asset gathering there So some silver linings for the Browns like this is almost over The team building is very good. Yeah, I thought Travis Hunter trade was great Both you and I both really like Miles Garrett trade. So things are looking up. Maybe that's a Sean Watson trade is rock bottom Yeah, my guess is Sanders gets named in the starter tomorrow Watson will be designated third QB And maybe there's a couple guys like how much what how how have a draft pick would you give up for Tyson Beijing? Oh Wow Would you give up the third form? Is he the third quarterback now? I know he's second for the Bears. Yeah, yeah, okay Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I can't a third round. I don't think anybody's giving up anything You know every every team we we see this every single year you have to have a super confident backup If you're hoping to contend so the bear's got to be somebody Yeah, it's a Bennett is available because Tyson could be the man's maybe maybe that's a better action. Yeah, that kind of thing All right next male bad question from Justin from Westport, Connecticut He's been listening and reading for 20 years. Thank you Justin. First time writing Really was an important one for you Question why couldn't an East contender trade for Browning for the sole purpose of guarding LeBron during key moments in a playoff series No way he's looking to embarrass the sun, right? This is really good very good. It's really good. I would have a lot of trouble Embarrassing my son in front of a crowd of 20,000 people on a nationally televised game, and I know you would too You know what team it would be awesome is Cleveland, right? And I have to tell you I Think they're they're Peyton Watson acquisition That that's changed my entire estimation of how the Cleveland Cavaliers coming into the season He's in the who they've been missing for for a couple of years now now. Maybe I'm a little high on the supply with with Peyton Watson, but I Just to give myself a tiny pat on the back Oh try to make a compelling case on our worst contract draft with was yeah in in March of 2026 That they paid the wrong dude that oh they overpaid It wasn't sustainable. Yeah, they needed the money for Peyton Watson and they fucked that up I think Peyton Watson is going to come to the East and really be effective in Cleveland I know the hardening and we're going to talk about James Harden today. He's coming out You know basically extension is They made a huge mistake with the Deandre Hunter contract the year and a half ago. Yeah, they were able to sort of get out of that with the Shruder trade Which then they dumped him on Charlotte and got forget the wing that got back. Who's the wing that got back? Trayman no Washington got Trayman I don't know maybe maybe they didn't get anything anyway. They're able to dump Shruder and then they were able to dump Shruse on the Clippers By the way Max Trues come on the ringer podcast network. We can do a pod for the season Okay, yeah, I enjoyed his pot appearances They somehow turned Shruder I guess hunter into Shruder and then Shruse who's an expiring into Peyton Watson Which it's pretty good. I like the problem is they then gave James Harden three years nine seven million dollars That's gonna be fun when we sit down and do trade um James Harden Those those contracts are gonna be fun to discuss. He's made over five hundred million dollars now He screwed up. There was some contract extension. He turned down. I think it was a Brooklyn Or Philly where he could add this giant max and he's kind of been chasing the money ever since but I think he caught up to the money past it Who am I to judge made over five hundred million dollars playing basketball. You can't you can't possibly help to make the finals if he's on your team But people keep giving them money. It's amazing. All right, so just LeBron thing. So if you're Cleveland You would go you trade like a minimum for Bronnie bring him back Bronnie's on the team and now he's just kind of lurking as as almost like a kryptonite situation for LeBron Put him on there and LeBron just has to naturally that's it's your parent. You naturally have to ease up You're you're your instinct is always to protect your kids at all times. I think it's a great idea Well, let me ask you though. Let's let's just ponder that for another 10 seconds Yeah, there are times when I'm playing with my 16 year old where I just want to bust his ass Okay, there's about 20,000 people watching though. I have fair enough. Okay, that's right and his his career like I mean whatever It's I guess it's a joke to talk about his career because he could do whatever he wants after he stops playing professional basketball He'll do he'll be good at golf and he'll be in whatever entertainment where realm he wants to be in They should tell him let your dad score once and then seem really set like you're gonna break down and then your dad won't be because straight out of the game. This is great. Use the following something against him. Make it in the bright set with it. Okay, next one. From Paul from Chicago, he says in parentheses, former home of the bears. Oh, that's a tough one. That's a tough one. That's not really gonna happen, right? I don't think so, man. How can that happen? How can we live in a country where the Indiana bears is a thing that happens? Though the chiefs are really leaving Arrowhead, right? They're really leaving the chiefs. I know, but here the difference of them is nobody can tell the nobody knows can city, Missouri, Kansas, nobody can keep all the states apart. I don't know what state they're in now. Okay, Paul says if Fernando Mendoza has an underwhelming NFL career, will there be a Mendoza line named after him for pro football? Like if he hovers around six yards per attempt, we'd be calling six yards per attempt the Mendoza line. I think he'll probably be better than this, but let's play it out. So I had to go back and deepen in my archives. 2009 Mailbag, DNF in Maryland, in Maryland asked, you know how baseball has the Mendoza line? What if we had a front NFL? I'm partially using Bubby Brewster's career QB rating of 72.3 as the NFL mark had a whole thing. So I had a counter. Nobody went, this is just for QB rating. Nobody was lower than 53.9 in this decade. So that was the 2000s. The ideal mega suck rating seems to be right around 63. And I listed guys who did it for a single season, who dipped below 63. Kellen Clements, Andrew Walter, Kyle Wharton, AJ Philly, Kyle Bollard, Cordell Stewart, David Carr and Joey Harrington. Not great. That's a list. So I offer Jack Trudeau as the person. He played for nine years, lost his first love and starts 42 TDs, 69 picks, 103 sacks. Never played in a playoff game, 63.3 of time. And I said it was the Trudeau line. I have a vague memory of him getting upset about this because he was on a radio show and taking shots of me, whatever. So I like the Trudeau line. I'd like to keep it. Could we do something with QBR for the Mendoza line? I looked at QBR. What if 50 was the Mendoza line? Like if Mendoza is a better than a 50 QBR, Jalen Hertz was 50.3 last year. Okay. Tyler Shutt, Bryce Young, Cousins, Rodgers were all in the 40s. I have a confession to a JJ Geno camera under 40. Could that be the Mendoza line? What's your confession? It's still August. And I have no fucking idea what QBR is measuring as we sit here right now. August to that 26. I don't either. I think it's going to be more reliable. I'll sit down and go. We'll be ready. Football is right around the corner. We are going to be ready for all of it, but like a 50. I don't know what the fuck that means. I don't know either. I just got into the research. Here, I had the answer though for the Mendoza line. I think Mendoza himself is the Mendoza line. And each year we just compare other quarterbacks to him, whether they're up and down. So even if Mendoza is like the sixth quarterback in the league, we'd be like, oh, Josh Allen's above the Mendoza line. And he's just a floating line for the entirety of his career. That would have been gimmick. Yes. It's like, oh, is he better? Is he over the Mendoza line? Because that Mendoza is bad. That will give us a sense of like, oh, he's at least doing better than Mendoza. And Mendoza is really good. Same thing. Oh, this is great. This is this will help solve a bunch of the challenges. This is a top 10 quarterback. Is he a top five quarterback? Is he a top 15 quarterback? Well, now we have Mendoza. Where is he? Where is he in relation to Mendoza? He, uh, his interviews are really incredible. And I have such high hopes. Like, when they get better and they're on more nationally TV, then nationally tell us games. It's going to be tremendous. Love him. So you like the floating Mendoza line, depending on what happened. Okay. And I hope he's awesome. I hope he's a top 10 quarterback and we're doing it. Because we need more quarterbacks. I don't want to watch any quarterbacks. You really need more quarterbacks. Like watching a good quarterbacks. Ryan McQueenie writes a long time ago when X was Twitter and fantasy basketball leagues were still prevalent among friend groups. I would send you my team names into your applies never response, never response, not even for Chris came in my pants. What's the guy got it for a pity laugh right? Chris came in my pants. We were still playing fantasy basketball that that would have been a team name for you. First, I mean, of course, of course, not for football. Well, it's too late. It is too late for football because I have that one that I, I don't feel like I should share. Yeah, don't share inspired by the WNBA. Take that. Take away. Take that in whatever direction you want. Dan and Raleigh said since the NCAA is always talking about expanding, expanding March badness, which is true. They're expanding it again. I think they're adding more teams. Great. Awesome. I have a half fake college basketball idea. What if we expand the tournament to one thousand and twenty four teams? This would be a 10 round tournament and we'll include every D1, D2 and D3 team in America. We would still reach the point. When it narrows down to 64, where everyone could have a normal March badness bracket to fill out. But you can see some D3 school playing in a first round matchup against Duke. I mean, at this point, why not? What's the difference? Why not? They literally turned the perfect thing, the perfect vehicle into arch badness just out of sheer fucking greed. No reason to tinker with it. No reason to fuck with it. No reason to make up some bullshit games on a Tuesday and bullshit games on a Wednesday and date no hire, wherever the fuck they do. The plan to the plan. It's a play plan. Yep. Speaking of eat a fat dick. You're out up today. You have an eating dinner. I can tell. You're hungry Joe House. Adam R from Indiana. I'm so glad somebody sent this email. Am I wrong to think it's ridiculous that not only is how Burton's first game back, not on national television. He goes, "Princy's fine, whatever." But it's not even at home. It's hard to imagine any other star who let us see the Game 7, the NBA Finals for tearing their fucking Achilles would have their first game back after missing an entire year. And then that game would be a New Orleans of all places. Just hoping to shine a spotlight on the continued Pacers disrespect. I wholeheartedly agree. I don't understand why they played it this way. And this is a league that over and over again loves to prioritize. It's 35 and over stars who are all not going to be in the league for much longer. Over something like Tyree Salabarton's first home game in Indiana, which is on a Tuesday or Wednesday night. Like what the fuck house? Yeah. And we will be accused because I can tell already from the way that we in the Ringer basketball community are talking the Pacers are going to be beloved by many of us. We're all sort of on the idea of the Pacers re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re, what's the word? Even Spaclow is in on them. Yes. Yeah. Well, sure. Croatia watching people jump off cliffs and he's still like, "I like the Pacers." I like the Pacers. I think you're about Zubat's picking rolls since his watching Clip Diverse. Getting themselves back to where they were. And, you know, I'm still pondering the question that came up on the pod that we did where we were talking through Jalen Brunson. And we together made a case and came into agreement on the idea of him as a top 50 all-time player. Yep. And Hal Burton, if they had won that series, we would have to make that same case for him. And he'd be in there. Yeah, I don't know if he would have played that. He definitely would have been top 75. But his resume already is stronger than Brunson's resume. Tyrese has, you know, I think in terms of all star appearances and all NBA teams. But there was a very quick aside. I think you did it with Coppelman. You were going through the last eight NBA. Oh, I definitely did. Yeah. Eight legacy titles. Right. And there was a place for Brunson to be recognized. And I'm not recalling it, but Brunson. Yeah, yeah. The reason I went with Curry was because I thought it vaulted him into a Kobe, Jerry West area, where if they hadn't won that title, that's a non-starter. Yeah. No, I think that's a difference. That's fair. All right, we're going to take. Have some good ones left, but we're going to take a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Chat GPT. Imagine you're running a professional sports team. Nice. That would be a dream, man. Imagine the player contract report is due today. Not so nice. You've got performance notes from the coaching staff. You've got a salary spreadsheet from your analyst. Three rounds of back and forth emails with the agent. And all of it is scattered. Absolutely everywhere. Well, that's where Chat GPT work comes in. It's a new way to use Chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. Give Chat GPT work access to your apps and files and can create real work documents. For instance, spreadsheets, slides, structured reports. You can bring all those to your next meeting when you don't need. answers. You need help just getting the work across the finish line. Guess what? chat GPT work can move your projects forward while you stay in control. Put chat GPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started. Just go to chat GPT dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plants. All right mail back coming back. So Mike Gordon has someone conspiracy bill. By the way, I wanted to give a promotion conspiracy bill was on wait a second with Jason Cepcione and Tyler Parker this week doing his top 12 conspiracy deep dives that he's done in 2026 so far. I wasn't on conspiracy bill was on. Very good. Anyway, Mike Gordon asks with all the coverage of what's happening to the Lakers being sold what mayor may not be happening behind the scenes of Mark Walter. Does conspiracy bill find it odd? That LeBron got out of there just before the shit hit the fan in Los Angeles is a possible intel that this organization was on the verge of becoming a complete cluster of fuck. First of all, thanks for sending that to conspiracy bill. We enjoy all conspiracies at all times. This is just a flat note for me. I don't think they wanted LeBron anymore and I don't really think they wanted him since last winter and I think they moved the team away from him. They did not want him to come back. It was spun a certain way because LeBron has a lot of media people. He's got an agent who has a podcast on the ringer like there was a way to spin it to make it deserve the respect. And it's the second best part of all time and deserve to other respect. I don't think they wanted him to come back and you can see it with Luca this week where he had a team building thing in Slovenia. The entire Lakers team, they were posting photos. It was dinner in Slovenia. I just feel like it couldn't be Luca's team if LeBron was there. He's too famous. He's too powerful. I think they felt the tug and pull of that all year last year. And I think their intention this entire time was we have to start fresh as great as LeBron is. Thanks for everything. And I think LeBron knew it. Nobody wanted, especially him. He doesn't want to be somewhere where he's not wanted. I think both sides wanted him to leave. I agree with all of that. And they had a little bit of a taste of what that combination of Reeves and Luca and the efficiency that those two playing together. But I think I take tiny bit of a different view. I don't think the Lakers are going to be a clusterfuck. The ownership situation and everything. I think that's what it meant. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I think the team, you know, it's a lot of white guys. So you could, you know, you could maybe point to that. But it's a lot of white guys. They'll be competitive. They fit right in in Slovenia. This is from, oh, another conspiracy building. This is from Andrew and Kitchener. He wanted to point out the recent NBA trade deadline. The honest days of Milwaukee and then makes his big surprise announcement that he became a shareholder and another gambling company. And that's not Fandoah. I'm not going to promote them. A strange partnership. And then after months, he was traded to the Miami Heat. But before and after that happened, the Miami Heat accidentally posted, then deleted his scheduled YouTube livestream. LeBron James in director press conference. It caused a big spike. And how she the prediction thing. And LeBron ended up going to Philly, which was I think 9% of the bets. And he says, I'm not saying, but I'm just saying that's an awful lot of money moving a platform. Janis is a shareholder. And thanks to a team, Janis plays for it's enough to at least do a year and a half long investigation and have a lot of guys are training camp having no comment. I can't quite get there with this, but I did enjoy it. It's good. It's pretty good. I like it. Connecting of the dots. But for it to matter, there has to be some evidence of the money. The YouTube thing was extremely suspicious. He was like, oh, I set it up. I didn't realize it was scheduled. It moved the market when that happened. And if you're doing that, thinking that maybe he wasn't going to go there and then bet the other ones. Anyway, I listen. I didn't agree with that one either, but conspiracy bill enjoys all conspiracy billion meals. This one speaking of prediction gambling platforms. John from Maine wants to know if they had been around in 1895, what would the odds have been of OJ being guilty in which way would you have bet it? I did send this one to you because I wanted to really talk about this. Yes. I think OJ was probably, I would say minus 2000 after the Bronco chase. Maybe a minute off the board. What person would have bet the other side on it? So this is what's fascinating about this conversation is that there's no trial that's rivaled it since. All of America was watching this on a daily basis. And all of America, the ups and downs of opinion around the outcome of the trial, even though I think the point of view of him being responsible for those crimes, that that element didn't really change. I think whatever is more you're gonna get off because there's not no evidence. Yeah, or look at how bad this prosecution team is doing. Yeah, Chris started to move the glove, that's screwed up. Incredible stuff out of the defense team. So if we had texting and gambling in 1895, the day Chris started screwed up the glove, would we have been out there banging like doing salvage bets for our OJ bets? Yeah, because I mean by the time the verdict was it was time for them to go do that thing. I think it was less than 50% of America, if you go back and look at the polling, thought that he was going to be found guilty, less than 50%. So yeah, the the Darden, that would have been the time to jump in for sure. We really got good numbers. Yeah, so that's what it flipped. What do you think it was like after the closing statements? Who do you think was favored? Was it OJ? And OJ gets off or OJ goes to jail? I would have said OJ gets off was like minus 180. Oh, I think it was close to even. Yeah, I do think it was game off after. But part of that also was like right down racial weight. Yeah, like, you know, so of course. Yeah, it was a way to invest in that summer. And there wasn't a lot of back and forth dialogue in the trial. I'll say that. The people are just like, yeah, he did it. So you think it's like minus 140? The only thing that really compares in this was a faster runway, but the 2016 presidential election. Oh, yeah. Which I think Trump was, I don't even know what it was like 25 to one, 21. That dip they were even then it went back up. And Sal and I had that our famous parlay that we've talked about many times. So the Patsy with the AFC East, were you in on that too? Yeah, I was of course. The Patsy with the AFC East, with Hillary with the presidency. And we had all these times the hedge and decided not to, but the weekend before the election, Trump was plus 500. So I wonder like if the OJ tried raising one like that, right? Yeah, right. We got a side we couldn't hedge it. Anyway, Scott B says after seeing James Hart had just resigning with the calves for three years, 97 million, I'm curious. Do GM's actually watch the games at all? This guy will have earned 500 million as perhaps the greatest resume of all time crappy performances. And then parentheses, game six rockets first, 2017, the cherry on top of the poop pie. We use that one before. No, but the cherry on top of the poop pie. Pretty good. That's going to be great for us. Who else would you put on the rush more of guys like that? I sent that to you. Do you have any other ones? Because Hart didn't really stand alone? Well, I don't think he does. And part of this is how you kind of frame it. So the first for me is like, okay, who's made the most money in the NBA, right? So that's your first kind of review. And some interesting names around James Harden. Now nobody, James Harden is now all the way inside the top five, well inside of there. Yeah. And LeBron's number one, but you know, KD, those guys aren't eligible. But if you sit down and look at how much money Chris Paul made over his entire community worth of $400 million. And if you look at Chris Paul's playoff resume, you know, he didn't shake that off of the 2021 finals. Well, he, he, it was a good performance. He took them to the finals though. They, they, they came down to Devon Booker getting stripped. And then the Drew Howard, a Yana Salute, then Yana scores 50 in game six. I don't know. Harden never had it. Now, how do you run like that? Well, I mean, he, he, he, Harden doesn't get credit for being on teams. He's played in in five different conference final true situations. Harden has, I mean, Chris Paul has two of those. And the teams that Harden was on have a superior postseason record to Chris Paul. He's, he's played in more. I just think that if you're comparing those two only, the teammates Harden had. But it's just a completely different class. - I don't know, Chris Paul's best teammates were in David West, Blake, Chris Paul. - They were teammates. - Right, yeah, James Hardin. And James Hardin was probably Chris Paul's best teammate. (laughing) - The task though was to try and come up with the Mount Rushmore, so. - Yeah, that's it, Chris Paul. - That's fine. - That's it, that's it. - Hardin, that was the way. - This is not surprising. Paul George has made a fuck ton of money in this NBA. Over $405 million and counting. I mean, he's got to be North of 500 million. When we're all pretty good. - So Conference Finals and 13 and 14, dragged the aspiration clippers through the Conference Finals in 21. And that was the best run that he had. - Yeah. - It's about it. - It's where the train gets on. - Nine and 12 in terms of series one. - Wow, he did some real research for this house. - You said, it was hard. You have to come up with names. - These are good names. - I like them. - Yeah, yeah, this is a good, and then I hate to do it. But Russell Westbrook is in this conversation. Just because. - He was where my mind went first. - Yeah. - Right. - Yeah. - He's his playoff game record was 64 and 71, 135 games. Two Conference Finals, both of them with Oklahoma City. And a finals appearance with Oklahoma City. - And a couple good flame outs. And then after they trade KD, he basically never gets even sniffing close ever again. I don't think he makes round three after that. - Did he make it? Was he on Denver? - No. - He was on Denver the year after. - After. - Yeah. So you would have Paul George, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, and then Captain of the Mount Rushmore James Harden. He's like George Washington. - I like that. - You wouldn't have Carl Malone on there? I know the money was in different back then. - That's the problem. My gain in criteria, my first one was, who's made a button of money over two decades. - So this is a full poop pie. - That's how that is a full, yes. It's a full poop pie. - That's pretty good. I really feel bad for Bradley Bill. I think he was on pins and needles wondering when you're gonna mention him. - Well, he was in the top 15 of all of the money made. He wasn't inside the top 10 of all the money made. But I don't think he understands what else he had to do to get mentioned. - There's still time, Bradley Bill. - See, a couple of years left, Ryan Dempsey. He writes, "He heard about the Caleb Wilson "Jizz Room All Stars." I think people really enjoyed that. He said, "I have not heard there were jizz "since the days of the lunchroom "at my Catholic all boys high school in the late '90s. "Now in the last couple of weeks, "loop jizzed on Nate Sheets became an all-time great "below deck boat." I don't know if you watch below deck, but that was the biggest below deck moment of the year. - After decking and- - Literally below deck. - Deckhand Luke did, in fact, jizz on both on Nate Sheets. That's the thing that happened. - Why did he do it? - My wife explained it to me. I was half-pegged, that should. Then you start throwing jizz in relation to Caleb Wilson and the bulls off season moves. Australians start sending you any emails about it. And jizz is becoming a regular thing. It's back in the lexicon like they're not. Hey, we're happy to help. - Welcome back, jizz. - Can we bring that boner? - No, boner never left. - I think boner left. I don't think people would say boners the same way that they did one once. - It's in all my text threads with the frequency. - But what about boner as a mistake? Like, what's a respirator coming in the boner? - Boner. - Yeah, boner was right there for years. Fred Merkel's boner. That we always heard about that growing up. Fred Merkel had that boner in the world's hair. - Well, excuse me, we have the whole NFL season. - I've been trying to bring boner back. - It's gonna be a lot of mistakes. - All of the Sean Watson's boners. - Jay Taylor sent in, he really enjoyed the Russell Westbrook thing I did with Kirk. But I thought I missed the number one, what if anything's that impacted two NBA championships? February 2009, forgot about this. The thunder, traded for Tyson Chandler and then rescinded the trade because they were worried about his toe. They sent out Joe Smith, Chris Wilcox and the rights to the Von Harden for Tyson Chandler, 'cause I forget Norland's hornets at that point. We're tanking. Thunder's team doctor, failed the physical, was the same guy who performed the surgery two years earlier. Two years later, Tyson Chandler wins the title with the Dallas Mavericks. - Wow. - And then they had to trade Jeff Green for Kendrick Perkins. They just could have had Tyson Chandler and Jeff Green. It's a pretty good one if. I do think that might have swung a title, right? 2011 or 12, one of those, maybe they win. - Going back, was he really hurt? Was Chandler for the following season, after they said no to the trade? - I mean, he played, played, he was on the maps, he was on the next, so I would say no. - Yeah, he had a couple good years. - Yeah, that's a good one if. - Westbrook had a lot of whiffs, what ifs. David from Iowa, I had that Westbrook stat about usage rate plus a cis percentage in Westbrook had a 99 one year, which is by far the highest. And I was saying how you can't win that high if you have a Westbrook that high. He wanted to know what was the highest Westbrook while also winning the title. - Oh, okay. - Winning the title. - And the answer is it's that there wasn't really a high one for winning the title. With all the usual suspects, he would have anyway like LeBron, Jordan. But for guys who played 12 plus playoff games, only four people had a Westbrook over 80. 2021 Trey Young, 80.2. 2018 LeBron, fucking awesome LeBron season, 81.4. - Great. - That was when it was just him and just by himself. 2015 LeBron, when everybody got hurt and they made the finals anyway, 82.8. And then the winner at 86.7, 2016 Russell Westbrook. (laughing) He holds the regular season and playoff Westbrook records. - That's amazing. - So yeah. - I'm surprised that Alan Iverson didn't crack it. That 2001 - Yeah, the assist percentage. She never got an assist like that. When he was scoring like that, he wasn't getting like 15 assists. - He would not pass the rock. One more Westbrook email from CH, who said I coach basketball a long time. A player's glaring weakness cannot be the most important quality for his position. As a point guard leader of a team decision making, is a very important quality that your leader, your point guard and your best player must have. Russell Westbrook is a walking brain fart with incredible explosiveness and competitive fire. I can't have him at the point guard position if I wanna win a title. That's harsh, but I also don't disagree. - I don't disagree either. - I think that was the Westbrook conundrum, right? We loved all this, this was the 90-10. We loved all the stuff he did. But there was that other piece where he just couldn't figure out how to slow himself down in the right time. So there we go. All right, I'm excited for this one. I didn't send this to you. This is from John from Boise, Idaho. He said it's hard to stay excited about all the cool things sports wasn't it? With all the news about wildly increasing team values, shitty owners, money scandals, athlete, gambling, et cetera. Please give me in the sports world some reasons for optimism and this current sports climate. I would appreciate a pep talk. - Oh, okay. - I'm happy to do this. - Let's do it. - I'll start here. The schedule for sports is the best it's ever been. I feel like week after week, weekend after weekend, there's stuff going on. Even last night, there was a good boxing fight last night. The baseball was good. I think the WMBA is the best it's ever been. Even in middle of August, they're shit to watch. Primarily started this weekend. Tottenham got absolutely smoked. Had to get a transfer guy from Manchester City United today, one of those. Anyway, I just feel like there's more going on than we've ever had, right? When we were kids and we were teenagers, I don't remember the schedule being stacked like this. It was dead. I mean, there was nothing right now. - And no way to watch all this stuff either. Like, we can only paint about the streamers. - Yeah, but it was like today, the base of the Red Sox game. I go to ESPN, it's not on. Like, what the fuck? Look around, is it on Pika, oh, it's the NBC game. And you take that 70 seconds to kind of, you're clicking on stuff and then, oh, there it is. Better than it was in 1982. I'll tell you that much. - That's right. I couldn't find anything. Like, remember when USA started showing NBA in the early 80s? And it was like, oh, my God. Like, Washington's playing Atlanta. This is on television, what's happening? - Yeah, national cable games. - Yeah. - National games, like games, right? - I remember when USA started, USA started showing WWE. ESPN had the Sunday night game they added in the 1980s. Like, these were like seminal moments for us. - Yes. - And now this stuff is available. Like, you're watching golf today. You could go online and watch any version of it. You can watch Nate's brother in whatever tournament he was in. Like, you can do whatever you want. So that's good. - That's true fact. Yeah, that you're right. Good start. - Good start. I think the players for the most. Most part are more committed to their craft and being good at it and staying in shape and being aware of the discourse around them and not kind of fucking up their own careers than what we grew up with. Would be my say. Amazing. You unwittingly touched on something that will come up in this conversation today. One of the future mail-back questions we're going to do. I have a candidate that is, you know, the epitome of what we grew up with, a person that wasn't able to maintain. How many of those that we have, like dating to when we were like young kids, like David Thompson met era, and then, you know, I think I wrote about this in my book, but all the guys in the 90s that we loved in college, you know, see with Kenny Anderson, Derek Coleman, these guys that we thought were going to be in our lives in the NBA for 20 years, and, you know, their careers, Christian Layton or all these dudes that were like, oh, here's the next group. And like 20% of them made it. Larry Johnson got hurt, but I think in general, the guys are in better shape and take care of themselves and just have more wherewithal about what's happening. I would say that's the key. They have more wherewithal because the teams are smarter, the teams understand. I was fortunate enough in the last handful of years, no, maybe going pretty far back now. And to visit Memphis with Verno, and they gave me a tour of their facility and walked through yet all of the rehab stuff that they have, all of the recovery stuff that they have. That's another example. Yeah. All top of the line, and the guys are coming off the court from games and immediately going into your cryotherapy, your whatever, you know, all of the kinds of, of, you know, let's get inflammation, let's address it right away, super impressive. And that technology continues to just advance, advance, advance. And so for sure, guys are, are able, because what we want more than anything else is to see the stars play the games we want to be the best players to play. Yes. Another one I'd go, the internet, like fantasy, the connection you have with people you want to high school, college with, and, you know, like we, we've been in the ZFL, my buddy Gus's pick pool that he's had forever. He used to just mail it out and come in the mail and be like, "Well, who won last week?" And now we have a website that we can make picks on. Whatever fantasy league we want to be in, we can do, we can find out what happened to guys on our teams. Well, the, the, the corollary to that is the text threads that accompany the leagues. Yeah. Because, you know, the ability to have the, the in real time shit talking where the entire group can see it right away and, and participate in it, that, that really ups the overall enjoyment of, of all of it from my perspective. Text threads would be another one I would add. There we go. Text threads. I think you're on my most text threads. You're, we're on text threads for all different kinds of things without different kind of groups people. That's true. That is true. But, but yeah, we have, we have a bunch of fun ones. And then, here's another one that doesn't get talked about enough, you know, I was bitching about the stadiums with Derek Thompson, and how the billionaires should build their own fucking stadiums, which I shouldn't. You know, it's really nice to have stadiums and arenas, remember what we grew up with? Man. Fucking terrible arenas. The Patriots football stadium was the worst place on the earth, but literally we had nothing good ever happened there the entire time, the first 30 years of my life until the, the tuck roll snow game, the Tom Brady game. That was like the first happy moment in the history of that stadium. But, you know, when you think about obstructed views and just 25% of the seats just being the shittiest seats possible, like that's gotten better. It's more expensive. And, immensely better, the food that are important for you. The, the capital centers, what I grew up with for the, for the bullets and, and the caps. And, you know, in the 70s, you could smoke. This thing was subterranean. You would come in and there would be a giant cloud of smoke in the sky. In the sky. In the sky. You can't believe it. A cloud of smoke. You could even still be smoky for the entire third quarter. It's like shooting off fireworks inside the fucking, you know, in close dome. The other thing is like, speaking of, you know, recognizing the impact of those stadiums on, on the players, we went to three rivers to see a pirate game for our buddy, Chip's wedding. Yeah. I couldn't believe how fucking terrible that place was for baseball. Oh, yeah. And I couldn't believe they played football in there either. I've been to some awful baseball stadiums and all of them, like when we went to Camden. Yes. Where, where we saw the inside the park home run where the guy got knocked out by the throw is the swim home for the inside the park home run. Oh, I can't remember where it's last night. Yeah. And Jack O said that's the most unbelievable thing I've seen all weekend. And then somebody we were with was like, there was a whole story that I won't tell because it was obscene. But it was a famous story for us, but yeah, but we were at Camden and we were like, and you were used to it because you lived there there. But Jack O and I couldn't believe how nice Camden was. And now there's probably 15 stadiums better than Camden. Better. Yeah. All the baseball stadiums that are coming along. That's way nicer now. I mean, some of them are sterile. Like, I think Old Yankee Stadium versus the new one. I don't think it's a contest. Sure. The old one was just better. But. Yeah. And there's some good ones too. Those are some good things. Those were all good things. I'm from podcasts, too. I think podcasts have been really fun for learning more and not having to be so trapped to kind of the generic network or local sports radio. Just you can kind of pick what you want, whatever you care about, you know. I'm not coming in fully prepared. So I don't have the full litany of this. I feel like we've been really treated to a slew of very good playoff slash, you know, championship outcomes across like exciting stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's a lot of unexpected shit happening. Nobody had Indiana playing Miami for the national championship in college football last year. And that happened. And that was fucking awesome, and, you know, what we got with the spurs, the nicks, nobody at the beginning of last basketball season had the spurs and the nicks as the combatants. And then we, that was incredible outcome wise. And we're having this, this flip over in football where immediately, you know, there are no dynasties in football, the chiefs go six and, you know, 11 and it's the patriots and the Seahawks in the God damn Super Bowl. Right. And next year that can change. It's going to change. Yeah. I mean, we're sitting here. It's definitely going to be two different teams in my opinion. Yeah. Sports is great. And by the way, with these owners, I know I've done a lot of podcast content about it. It's not great that you have teams, you have guys, you have guys or companies or investors buying teams solely as assets, right? Like I look at, like we hung out with Ryan Smith a year ago at the Masters. Yeah. Somebody who bought the jazz, and then really wanted to like build in Utah and understood the fan base and then bought that to blow smoke up Ryan Smith. I know. But the hockey team really wanted to be part of the community. Yeah. I wanted to grow Utah's. The responsibility. Yeah. Through the teams. And we either had terrible owners, and we've certainly both have had terrible owners. You have had bad ones. I've had bad ones. Snyder's a good example. Peter Angelo said I had. Yeah. I just quit the Orioles. Yeah. You had some horrible ones I did too. Snyder, at least, was a Redskins fan. When he did that, he was just terrible at owning the team and was an unlikable guy. Right. My point is, that's the part that worries me as if people are buying these teams, but don't give a shit about them. And it's basically, how can I flip this later? That part's scary, but we've had bad owners our whole lives. It's true. We go back to the 70s and 80s fan. Owners have always been bad. It's like, you remember the good ones, you know? So anyway. Mike and Ridgewood Queens wants to say about Denzel Boston, who I've been raving about in the Cleveland camp. He said, you know how the equalizer franchise star is Denzel Washington and is set in Boston? Well, his name is basically the movie. Why is it Denzel Boston's nickname, the equalizer? Okay. So there's been three equalizers. They've all been set in Boston, starring Denzel. Done. I accept this. This guy should be named the equalizer. How do we get this going? My most successful nickname push ever was PG-13. I single handly started that. Okay. Maybe we can start the equalizer. It's good. I want him to be good. Yeah. The thing that's going to hold it back is if they're bouncing dirt balls at five yards in front of them. And the doors are over throwing it by even worse if it's over his head and he's jumping up again. Now, Jim and South Pasadena. I never knew this, it was one of the craziest emails I've gotten. Do you think it's a big enough deal that the giants and Dodgers right now are tied all time in their rivalry? They each have 1,294 wins with 17 ties. They are dead even, they've been playing since 1890 and they play with 17 games a year and they're exactly dead even, how is anything more insane than this? There's nothing more insane. How is that possible? They played almost 2,600 games and they're dead even. That reminds me, it's akin to the fact that LeBron never had a 2777, right, isn't that one? That's another one. Yes, some nerds came out. Some nerds came out, I was like, well, that's actually totally conceivable that that would happen, but I still think it was pretty great. Dodgers and giants tied. Terry P. had a two-part question. Did Seattle beat in the Patriots this year, less than the joy and enthusiasm Patriots had from the Malcolm Butler Super Bowl victory? The answer is, fuck no, and that's in all caps. Yes, then he asks, are the Seahawks the first NFL team since the '01 Patriots to have no haters? It's the worst thing one. Good one, right? Who doesn't like the Seahawks? Right. I guess like it's nice. You'd have to have a team that played them, or you were arrivals with them. You'd have to come up with something, even like if the Mike McDonald hasn't arrived and been a dick, there isn't a noteworthy rivalry between McDonald and Shanhan and McVeigh. Man, it's a pretty good one. Yeah. Jason, Legion of Boom had an identity and everybody wanted them to shut the fuck up. And Sherman talked a lot of shit. He talked to Braini at that time. People are like, who's this guy? Yeah. Yeah, this one, Seahawks don't, they just kind of keep them out of their business. Everybody loves the city of Seattle. Darnold is a, you know, a very likable reclamation project out of left field story. By the way, I think we're doing a Seattle Portland swing. There are live shows. Oh, do tell. Yeah, it's happening. Great food. I didn't know if you wanted to. I know. Yeah. You might have to come along. My hands up. Great food in those cities. Yeah. Great food cities. I think we're going to do rewatchables in Seattle. Just that one and a sports one. Yeah. We have the dates. Elizabeth Fairman. Oh. She's on it. Yeah. She's on it. She's on it. Yeah. Probably the single most beloved ringer employee. Yeah. Deserved it. Anyway, I think we're doing a Pacific Northwest swing. Yes. From Andrew in New York, I know you already have a dis taste for Tom Dundin. But were you aware he's also responsible for the growth of your least favorite sport? Pickleball? He's the majority owner of the major league pickleball. That's the whole thing about it. This is true. Elchipo is number one pickleball investor mixed perfect sense. See, I'm I'm torn here because I'm boys with a guy. Oh, no. It's been a champion now of just the expanding popularity of it. And I, I've never, I've touched a paddle up for it one time ever. I won't do it because I'm not like popping at a kill. He's not playing golf for six months because I played fucking pickleball. Bunging back and forth. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing it. But I'm just saying I recognize it's, it's broad popularity. The demographic that that it, you know, it's seeking. And I like the idea of the tiny, intimate little stadiums that they're doing and everything. I get it. I get it. That's all I'll leave it at that. That was not for me. That was just. I get us. Aaron Reich wrote in with his son, Ezekiel, he said he's been listening to the podcast with my kids. They're 10 and 7. Sorry. You're right. Sorry for all the F bombs in this pod. Oh, sorry. I asked my ten year old if he could ask a question. What would it be? Not for a little bit. Nasty. Do you think a healthy Jason Tatum would have led the Celtics to the same regular season record if you switched him with Jaylen Brown last season? Phenomenal. Phenomenal question. It's a thing that nobody's ever asked me this one and I've never really thought about it before. I think they would have been around the same. I think that's one of the great things about what Jaylen did last year was he was able to basically match the production of somebody who just made Forrestrate, First Timon B.A.'s. But yes, I think they would have had the same record, maybe even a whiff better because of the rebounding. Well, I'm agreeing because the true architects, the person that deserves credit for this is Missoula. They played a certain way, a certain approach and they took no nights off. They were going hard from jump, you know, first tip back in October 2025. I haven't told you this, but you knew what was going to happen. I've kind of talked myself into the Paul George straight. Oh, this is so good. The third took over 50 days. I'm going to have so much fun this basketball season. Yeah, it happened. The problem is when guys are missing games, we're going to be able to say, well, this is what happens. Guys miss games. This is who these guys are. These guys miss games. Yeah. I've talked myself into it. I knew I would. You knew I would. Actually, 50 days was a long time, but now I've talked myself into it. I had to. What else am I going to do? I mean, you're going to root for the Celtics this upcoming season and they have a chip on their shoulder. And, you know, they, okay, who's the last thing stuck now? It's Paul, Joe, look at Paul, George, this defensive stopper out on the wings and all the rest of it. Paul George. I knew it was coming. Ron Harper, Baylor Sharman, we can replace Jalen with bulk. Yeah. All kinds of looks. Paul George, much better fit with Jason Tatum. Good catch. Three point shooter. Not going to care about an alpha dog situation and you're turning my turn because he's, he's in his mid 30s. He's ready to be a supporting guy. The basic question is the chemistry of this team is Jason Tatum plus mid Robbins and plus Paul George with the, with the guys that got a year older, right. Can they play though the way that that was a little wants them to play? That's that question. I thought Brad Stevens had this, they had this show that only Celtic fans watch. It's like a YouTube show. And he had some quote narrower who's basically like we had, basically said, I felt like we had taken this group as far as you could go and what he meant was these two guys. I think we had taken as far as it could go. And it was time to figure out a new version of this. And that's why they did it. And you get one year at a Paul George. And then he's an expiring next year and you have all these picks and maybe you can flip them into something legitimate. That particular proposition, I remain immensely skeptical of. I mean, too. I call this is why I took 50 days to 50 full days. How about this? Why don't you just see, let them play together with with Mitch Robinson. And let's see what the team is capable of. Let's see that because those two fucking guys won an NBA championship together. And you knew that you were going to have Mitch Robinson, Mitch Robinson's been in your plans. I was saying 100% great about this, but I had to, all right, got to talk to yourself into things. You're on a long car ride and then there's two hours to go and you kind of give it into the car ride. And I'm like, there's two hours to go. Let's just, it's going to, that's the same thing. I had it. It was a long car ride. You're powering through it. Yeah. You're powering through the stuff. And guess what? When I figured out how to justify the trade of my head, it was like when we would drive to Vegas and you would see the Arby's. Oh. Yeah. I mean, we weren't probably weren't going to title this year. We needed to reset the team, get under, expiring next year, build the team around Tatum. Yeah. Let's just, let's try. Let's try. This is wasting Tatum years. Let's try. Chad from, Chad from Fresno said, I sent you this one. We've all seen the guy that isn't good at a sport, but he's tripped head to toe in the best apparel and shoes for that given sport. What about sports apparel items that you can only buy if you meet a certain skill level, like special ping hats for people that are scratch golfers, different tennis shirts or headbands for tennis players, above and four or five, et cetera, et cetera. You see somebody in a certain hat or shoes, you immediately know they're good. So there's a slight parallel with this with the masters. I know. I knew you were going to go to different stores and then Berkman's has like some special swag. But then if you get into the clubhouse store that only the members in, there's really special hats and stuff there, right? So there's like tears. What do you think of this idea? I love it. I have no notes. The problem is it creates, I mean, what's going to stop me from buying one of these things? Like it. Oh, your buddy has a ping hat. Right. Yeah, yeah. The person earned it, but I'm going to fucking buy it from him because it's the coolest one. And I want to be, you know, the guy walking around with his pants apart in promotor of excellence. Yes. The same way that we use. I'm not going to say out loud the way the techniques that are out there. I'm sure people can figure them out. But you can get some great stuff out of-- - I got scared. I'm just talking about like massage techniques. - Not yet. - Not yet. - You got to approach out. There's ways to sort of get-- - Our buddy Chris Chen has some great strategies. You see, he's used over the years. - He gets a putter every year. - So there would have to be some sort of honor system. Almost like when you get your own master's jacket. Like Jeff Yang, we know a couple of people on master's jackets. Jeff Yang has-- - Heidi Uberoth. - Yeah, you probably have that. - Heidi, you have that on. - The master's jacket, you wouldn't let like, oh house, take borrow my master's jacket. So maybe these hats are like, maybe they're like $1,200 hats. - Good, I like this. I wouldn't want to give that hat to anybody 'cause it's $1,000. - No, you will not let it. - Okay. - All right, okay. - Yes. - There's something there. - Something there. - I think it should be awarded from the PGA tour or the country, you win the country. - So it's quite blissful. - Yeah, okay. - Chad from Fresno, good job. - Cody Larson basically wants to know if Miles Garrett is a U-ank there candidate. He checks every box. - Okay, let me hear it. - Superstar, then everyone anything with them. Everybody's written off the team of Adam. That's basically the U-ank there in a nutshell. - Okay. - The problem is it's the Browns and their quarterbacks to Sean Watson or should our Sanders. And they've had a lot of suckitude. There were a lot of years of real suck. - You can keep my eye on the U-ank theory for that. - Okay. - All right. - Luke from North Carolina said the hornets have acquired around 20 second-round picks over the next few years. I think that's pretty close to accurate. My question is if you offered all 20 picks, who is the best player you could acquire for 20 second-round picks? Did I send you this one or no? - You did and I'll have to confess, I didn't get around in the research. This remains one of the most confounding elements of the way that the business of basketball has conducted between teams now. - Team valuing the second-round picks where you and I could give a shit. - Right. - We would just trade off, we would have, we would never have second-round picks. - But here, take 'em. I have a one in 10 chance after 32. - It clearly, it is a lubricant in the machine. - It is, it greases all of these deals. All of these deals slide right in very nicely. They can make things work to some kind of satisfaction because we constantly see these second-round picks added in as sweeteners and elements. There's something about the way the collective bargaining agreement works or something about the way the cap works that these second-round picks, there's something there. - So, I couldn't get Jalen Durin for 20 second-round picks. - No, I don't think so. - Could I get Herb Jones? - See, now we're talking. - I think it's like Herb Jones. - Right, that's a great, we gotta do, I'm gonna do some research as the NBA season. - I think it's the Herb Jones level. - It's like great, that's a great call. - Could I get Nas Reed for 20 second-round picks? - Basically, the morning sort of 40 second-round picks at that point. - I feel like Nas Reed is too good. - I feel like Nas Reed's too good. - I think I've given him the end of the jumbo tron interest. - Yes. - He was the last guy in the race. - Yes. - All that stuff. - Yes. - Crazy business. - Yes. - Just insane business. Speaking of crazy business, insane business. And I do have sympathy for this guy. John Hotplate Williams by the end of his five years here. He was impressed in the way that he was handling that stress was eating it. And I understand that. - He was an early case. Well, I'm sure. - You just like to eat without the stress. - Yeah. - Both. I'll eat the stress. But they put him. That guy had paycheck skipped by both Washington and the Clippers where he went. Because he could not get the weight thing by the end of his five years here. - He meant the senior team. - Yeah. - Yeah. - This was Peter Vessi, who was a really influential MBA writer for the post for years. And we loved reading his hoop de jour. But his two best nicknames ever. He called Joe Barrett Carroll. Joe Barrett Lee Cares. And there was a John Hot Rod Williams who was on Tulane and the Cavaliers. - Yes. - And Peter Vessi called the other John Williams, John Hotplate Williams to separate them. And it was just like Chef's Kiss 10 out of 10. - Yeah. - 10 out of 10. - Anyway. - All right. - So Hotplate's on there. - Yeah. And then some guys from this era in the sort of 2000s, Andre Blotch. - Yeah. - If you didn't say Andre Blotch, I was going to not even know if I knew you anymore. He was, again, if you wanted to be slightly sympathetic, he was. He did get shot. - Right. - I think Washington got shot in a car jacking effort. But then he got arrested a couple times. There was some solicitation kind of stuff going on. - You ended up being this thing. - And he was. There's some famous clips of him going for triple doubles in all the wrong ways. - Yeah. - So by the time, you know, he was-- - That's Jason. - Yeah. That's right. These two guys I put together because they were both traded together. - Yeah. - And their most famous moment in Washington was attempting the, I mean, I'm not going to use that word. - The Colossally Stupid Cinnamon Challenge. - Oh. - Nick Young and Jabel McGee. Nick Young and Jesus. - I didn't know that. - Jaylen. - How to-- - From 2008 to 2000. 2012 these two big dummies here in Washington with just incredibly outside like they're their connection to reality So that those guys together. I was I was happy and now this one I got to proceed carefully because I don't want there to be any repercussions that that might be visited upon me, but I'm gonna whisper it Javar is crazy Hmm Yeah, you got to be careful because you know, he has he had connections. So his Brad Bale not on the airport list And it seems pretty good for you guys at that point. Yeah And he'll be you know, he's still at the at the top of all of the record. I thought for sure So it's gonna make your list. No, he didn't do anything wrong. He just showed up and his foot didn't you over pain? Yeah, but that's that's what Washington does. That's what they did. I didn't I don't I don't bear him any ill ill will He didn't you know, have a gun in the locker room and and you know with the When threat of gunplay in a locker room. I thought for sure you were also who was the The shooter you had in the mid 2010s that you overpaid No, it's like a six foot eight. There was three point shooter one. God damn was it uh Ursana Ali sobo's like one of those type of guys You you paid one of those guys? I mean it sounds right I could easily go back and pull up now I'm gonna have to what was it. Yeah, I'm gonna need it and make it for you Nah, cuz again, you like me. Okay All right, I'm gonna give you my I did buy the decade. I did one per decade 1970s Sydney Wicks hmm. It was really him and Curtis wrote together, but the red our back is dumbest move ever Let Paul Silas leave wouldn't pay Paul Silas who's the heart and soul of two title teams whole Celtic run Won't pay him and then tries to replace them with Sydney Wicks and Curtis row With Curtis Row had the famous quote who was something like there aren't any W's and L's and paycheck Something like that. He was not not a popular Celtic Sydney Wicks was worst that one and Was just a losing player his whole career with good stats But kind of peaked when Calvin Murphy punched him out in a rocket Celtic game Calvin Murphy was five nine and Sydney Wicks was Sixth time and ended up getting of I think a broken or bloody nose. Yeah, everyone hated him. So that's one Rick Roby in the 80s He was nice Greg great guy back up center One of the most frustrating Celtic he would just come in. He'd bowl somebody over He'd he'd be moving on a charge He'd go over the back on somebody and then he would like to have a nice lefty hook and but he was just incredibly frustrating Yeah, and uh was so delighted when we traded him for Dennis Johnson I wanted to drive him to the airport just to make sure he got on Todd Day in the 90s. Oh wow the most selfish player I've ever watched It was the mid 90s when I when my dad would always give me the tickets He had the Fleet Center record for a while because he was just I mean he was at the ball As if he had the ball over half quarter was going up. He was one of those guys And you could just watch and suck the life out of everybody else. He was a good college part, too He was really good. I love that Arkansas team Mark Blunt in the 2000s. Sure We got it when we paid him a big contract I wrote an entire piece using a felmo Louise analogy of Harvey Kato at the ending running toward the cliff as they drove off it Because I hated the country. I couldn't he suckered them in he did the Jerome James He had like six good weeks suckered him in and and then eventually we dumped him on Minnesota somehow So he's for the 2000s and then Kyrie in the In the 2010s. So we're only halfway through the 2020s Seems like a nice guy, but Nicole the boost the bitch in the lead right now for the airport. I didn't I did hope it I hope he got in the plane. Well, he I mean how long was he in Boston? He wasn't there long enough to you know was him in Evan 40 air that are the two leaders for the 2020s right now Evan 40 and came in he was the big 21 he was like our big trade trade deadline score off the bench and he went like three for a hundred in the playoffs okay last question From Parker from Utah Finding out Joe has played water polo was not on my 2026 bingo card I wasn't as shocked as when I found out Luke was traded to the Mavericks But I was definitely more shocked than when I found out Tyler Dirton was really the narrator of Fight Club the whole time I don't have a question spoiler Yeah, I don't know can we spoil that movie or no? No, it's fine Um, I think it's okay. I think we have to show the photo Okay, I'm still working. I haven't been to my parents to get up into the attic yet Well, you sent me the photo. I did I went that this is the team Who did you send it to What do you mean now? I can't find the photo. I send it to You just you only you it was just me only to you me to you Uh, I didn't send it around to any of our threads. Oh, I found it. Okay. It's just a group of young men All right, here we go in bathing suits to Joe has water polo photo There it is Joe has is in the back Oh my guys some idea of you guys. Shout out nice full head of hair and skinny body and there we go Yeah, there you go the Joe has water polo Photo exists. So you're gonna try to find some more for us. I feel like there's some action shots that are out there Like his you know what the water splash in you know you're up. You cut the ball You know, they're gonna be so high school and then you hit this from us when we're in college together. You or you're ahead of me I didn't hide it. I played on the college of the Holy Cross team You never talked about it. None of us had any idea it was all that played about five times a week And I somehow never knew you're in the water polo team till you're a junior We were in the nest cack league and we played like baits and Colby and Trinity. I can't remember all everybody you played all four years at Holy Cross. I did I missed So all my my number one activity at Holy Cross was a radio station by far my favorite thing um, and every year there was a great um college The college music journal Cmj hosted a a weekend down in New York and the radio station would send people down Oh, I was invited and I couldn't go any of those years I chose to go to the water polo tournament because that's when the championships were every year up at baits Where's fucking freezing cold? That's the word ride It's like four hours. They let us take a van. The college of the Holy Cross let us, you know, why is it with a van? They were we had a van. I'm a Holy Cross van. Guess how many cases of beer were oh my god I mean it worked out. It was fun. I enjoyed it, but holy cow. Yeah, there you go. Joe has this water polo career amazing stuff Um, I'm gonna see you this week. You're coming in Um, thanks for doing the mail back with me. Thank you everybody send in the questions Yeah, a couple dinners Thanks everybody set the questions. We're gonna take a break and come back with the guy who briefly Resurrected our Holy Cross football program and now it's trying to do the same. You saw a Bob Chesney is next right after this All right, I have not cared about college football since I was in college at Holy Cross Holy Cross You coach two Bob Chesney, um, but yeah, we were really good once upon a time really good and uh, I grew up in Massachusetts in New England. Yeah, didn't really have with Doug Flutey for a couple years Yeah, but we just wasn't like going and being in Michigan or you know where you just Texas where you fall in love So I never related team And now in my mid fifties. I have a team. He's really football because you got here. Welcome. Welcome to the team Thank you. Welcome to the team. I'm your unofficial booster. I love it So walk me through everything like so you're at James Madison last year. Yeah You're in the playoffs and now eight months later you're here. You're in L.A. Yeah And you're in the N.I. L era. Yeah, what's the single hardest thing about doing this? Well, I think that you hit the nail and the head The timing of it was just that was the hardest part about it because you know, you don't want to be You want to be solely focused? You don't want any distractions in your team as you feel like you got a good team And you're doing something pretty special, which we felt like we had a JMU and You know, you go week after week and then your name starts popping up and something and and somewhere else And you're you know, you're taking a zoom or a couple zooms during a by-week and you're trying to fit it in and you know You definitely have interest in places But at the same point in time you know that you can't mess up the product that you're you know And that journey that you're currently sharing with that team. So it was one and they know too, right? They know exactly like they know indirectly and they see stuff out there some true some not you know So ultimately to them I said come ask me anything. I'll tell you the truth I don't want you to ever feel like you know, I'm not being honest with you And there's sort of a business side to this but whatever we're talking about is talking about next year Yeah, not the journey we're on. So you know, it ultimately went in through you know There's a couple home visits and things of that nature that that occurred and I really started to just see what you know UCLA was all about and You start talking to the some of the guys that were on the search committee and you start you know talking to Martin You start feeling like man, they want this thing back on track and you felt the energy from them and I felt like it was a You know a young crew, but there's you know Adam Peters who's the GM of the commanders, right? Yeah, there's Bob Myers who did you know work magic obviously with You know gold in state. And then there's Casey and then Doc Roberts is calling me on the side. And like every piece of it, I was like, man, these are some like high level, you know, people that have won at the highest level with money in the sports, right? In the sports world. Not just a they are CEO or some of us that doesn't know what the team dynamics are. And I was just so intrigued by that that it really made me think, you know, more and more about it. And then eventually we make the decision, you know, it goes public and after it goes public, we're still in the championship weekend, right? So we're still trying to play this championship game. And I did not want to be a distraction. And I remember when it popped, I told the team on the field first, I said, look, something's going to come out later today because guys text me that they got this story. And they're going to go with it. I said, so I just want you to know what they're talking about again is next year. Now I've said that. And I was like, how do I like what's the exercise that I could do to prove to them that I am still solely focused on this? And it's funny enough, once that all came out, you know, probably 400 text messages in the first couple hours. So I end up, you know, holding up my phone the next morning team meeting. And I have, you know, 400 or whatever it is text messages. And I said, this 400 text message on. I took a screenshot of it, actually. And I said, I'm not answering a single one of these. I said, these are all about next year. I said, I said, so you guys need to do the same. And it was cool because by the end of the week I showed him was like 1200. And I never, I just kept growing. And I was holding true to my word. Then I'm not interested in talking about this stuff for next year. I'm interested in finishing this with the conference championship, hosting it at home. And then maybe making the playoffs. And then fortunately enough, we made the playoffs had a little bit of time off. Got to come out here, do a press conference, meet the team and figure some things out about the late of land here. And then, you know, that was really it. Start to develop a staff and put together, you know, our GM role, ultimately, because recruiting was going to be the first thing we had to do. Dinner talked to a single kid at JMU about, hey, you're coming with me. I wanted that to stay pure and be about, you know, that team that year. And I didn't want to talk to them about any of those things until the season was over. So that only happens in sports movies. I'm taking you. I'm taking you. Man, it happens because then it was funny because then we waited because I also was, you know, just trying to be respectful of the relationship with JMU and I didn't want to technically tamper with any of these guys. So we weren't calling until the portal opened. And when the portal opened, we start calling them, they're like, where were you? Like, I've been talking to coaches this entire time. Right. And I didn't think you guys were interested. We're like, no, we were trying to play by the rules here and do it the right way. And, you know, and then obviously a chunk of them came with us a couple of dinner. But, you know, I think that what's here with us we're really proud of. And I think helps set the culture of this, this program and it's been really good. But the thing that saved me, it's a long ass answer to, by the way, right? I'm along for the right. Yeah. The thing that saved me was probably the fact that this is three hours back. Right? So I look at, like, Stein who went over to Kentucky from here on the West Coast. So you get done with your day at 10 o'clock. You know, it's one in the morning on the East Coast. So he's got to find time during the day and take away from what he's doing. You know, at Oregon, I take anything away from Jamie. I got to complete the day 10, 11 o'clock at night, get on the phone with, you know, GM candidates and start figuring those things out. And you sell three hours at the end of the day, you know, that you want to normally have. I'm sure your wife was delighted. Yeah. She, I was in the basement. She even though I was. So she's gonna see you in June. That's very pretty much. So that's how it all kind of went down. But it was good because I got to stay true to the mission we were on and not take anything away or dilute that in any way. And at the same point time, do a little extra work. It was harder on me, but really just me, not on anybody else. I mean, that's always for decades been one of the worst things about college sports. Yeah. When a guy that's there is going to leave and it could go one of two ways. Like you can go in a limbo and can tear the team apart. Yep. You know, you keep everyone focused. That's where you put a lot of thought into that a lot of thought into it. And I think the way we did it, I was trying to hold off from anything going public till after the championship game. It just didn't work out that way once media gets it. They get it and it's kind of the end of it. I had it for like a month. I just sat on that. That's right. And you should have. And I appreciate that you did. But those are the things that, you know, were and then it came down to if we're in a playoffs. Yeah. You know, I am coaching in this game. And that had to be part of this conversation with any school I was talking to is, you know, if we're in a bowl game, I'm probably coaching in that game. Like I'm not going to not going to like leave this team. I just it wasn't going to be an option for me to go forward with any other team if they didn't respect that. So, and I knew what put us at a little bit of a disadvantage in the recruiting class. I knew our portal class had to, you know, then carry a lot of the weight, but is what it is. Like for me, I think, you know, the loyalty to that place that supported me so much and, you know, and had our back. I felt like I had to, you know, really do the same. So yeah. And you know, you're, you say, like, it's a great school in the West Coast. You're still going to get some, yes, some kids, correct. So the, the JMU thing, ultimately, like it played out pretty well. Yeah. Me at the playoffs. No, it was expected in that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you lose. They don't come here. Yes. Um, you take over when the last time I talked to you when it was with a bunch of people and you were explaining, I think it was in this spring. I can't remember. It was like March, April, somewhere in there. Um, you're explaining how different it is now to try to get people. Yeah. And dealing with not only you paying players, which has never really happened. Yes. Above the table before. Correct. But, um, but you're also dealing with like weird representatives, people that don't have the credentials to really negotiate. Correct. People that don't understand you give your word to somebody and then you just, oh, you're giving me that. I'm going to go here then. Right. So what, what is this world like? Because from afar, it seems like a nightmare. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's close to a nightmare. Um, I think that, you know, you look at the NFL and the cool thing about the NFL is that you've contracts. There's tampering rules. There's all the things that come with it. They're season completes. Then it opens up to hiring cycle. And everybody, you know, free agency happens, coaches make moves, all those things go down. If they have permission to talk to a coach, uh, that's not the case here. You know, obviously it won't be the case here for some time. I think till 2031, I think the national championship game is already scheduled at the time of the year that it is, which is starting this, you know, this next school year. Right. So you're still playing through the Christmas break. You're playing, you know, into the next semester. And now guys are going to transfer out or transfer in or figure it out. So I think those teams that are, you know, in the, in the playoff hunt, that's a heart. That's probably a really hard juggle because you got to have official visits during the middle of, you know, preparing for the first round or second or third round of the playoffs. You're making job interviews. But it's like one year job interviews. Exactly right. So that's the stuff that's different. And then, you know, you, you find a kid. We love you. You know, you love us. It's great. Everything's going good. But shoot, can you just, I love it. I'm going to definitely come visit. But just, can you talk to my agent real quick, you know, and then the agent gets involved. And when the agent gets involved, you know, he goes a whole different direction. Sometimes in the visit never happens where it does. And you got to promise money up front. Sometimes with a kid you never even met or at least promise a ballpark. So you're just walking around the cash. You just have hundreds on you. Just, you know, you have to grace that. Yeah, that's right. So that's what it feels like. So it's really one of those things that, and then you got to know the market and the market seemed to escalate, you know, significantly this past year. How do you keep track of the market when there's like over 100 teams looking for a left tackle. And really, the truth is the market might be the market. It might be set for you. But then there's one other school that's extremely desperate and has money and just raises, you know, your value all the size of an eBay auction out of nowhere. Yeah. Just a big spike in it. And now you got to figure out is that worth it or not for us. And we, you just have to do a really good job of understanding your own budget, understanding your position, allotment and allocation of what you're trying to do. And then you just got to try to stand by. You've never wanted to do this stuff. No, no. You just want to like coach coach 11 guys on each side and go. So that's the interesting part. Is that no, but I name one coach that got into it to be a GM and to understand this and you know, have the portal open to run a budget year, you know, not too long ago, run a budget, raise money. Do I mean, I was always a little bit part of it. But then now you're doing all that. And I realized that JMU when I was the one talking all the agents, you know, and we get on a phone call, you know, and it would start and then there'd be a, you know, a rebottle that would come back, you know, minutes later, then we'd have to go back to it. It was like four, five, six phone calls with every guy until you could even get near a number and like, why are you doing that? I was at the point of this thing. This is really hard work. So, you know, obviously having a GM and an assistant GM and a recruiting department, you know, is necessity at this stage of the game. But then the thing that that I really don't like about it is that as soon as you put an agent in contact with a GM, it's all business. And it's not about what's the best fit. Where should he be? What's his playing time? Like, does he gel well with the coaches? Is the culture going to fit him? You know, is he going to be happy there? Does he like, they are all those, those things go out the window. And that agent, all he cares about is the highest number he could get for the kid. He could throw him in the shittiest situation. And he's still happy because he got paid. And that's the thing that this happens in sports media too, by the way. Does it? Yeah. There's some good agents that don't do that. And they will be like, this is not worth the extra money for you to go to this place. And the guys that I think were the NFL guys that are truly credentialed and absolutely know the value of going to a good program or a program that fits their player. There's a long game to be played. And I think a lot of them, it's really hard to to, you know, give up a lot of money on the front end. But man, there's a chance if you do it right to make a whole lot for a whole lot longer. And here, not only with football, but the connections in the education, you know, this is, I would say to our guys all the time, like this is your life, this is your football playing life. Yeah. Right. What's happening from here to here? And are you preparing yourself in that small window of football life for the rest of it? And here's a place where you could do it both, you know, do both. And I think that's, you know, that's what I'm most proud of. We're not just football. You know, we're helping, you know, mold these young men into becoming great employees and employers and husbands and fathers and all those things. And that's what you get at a to play. you know, with this type of, you know, education and people around you. Yeah, like in the, this would be like in the NBA of Kauai. I was a free agent and his uncle was asking for under the table stuff from multiple teams. Yes. Oh, wait, that happened. Yeah. And here's the number I gave you. Yeah, I know. Oh, wait, did I say that? Hey, how about can you give me more of that? You talk about bringing people in a program. Yeah. This is 2026. And everybody seems like they're here for a year and then all this side after. Whereas like, probably when you got in a football coach and you're like, Sunday, I'll coach in college. Yeah. I'll build a program. I'll get somebody from high school. Yes. He'll be with me for four years unless something horrible happens and transfers. But now it's like, you're just, it's transactional and it's one year a piece. So how do you have a culture when everything's one year? Yeah. So it's interesting that you say that because let's go back to a Holy Cross, right? I was there for six years. Yeah. We had, I think, two transfers. And both of these kids got in on their own and we're like, okay, we just, we're transferring. We got in on, because you're going to get it transferred in Holy Cross. It was nearly impossible. Academically, it was really hard to get into. Oh, thanks for pumping up Holy Cross. This is great. Thank you. Holy Spark people. Really appreciate that. So that is really, you know, then you go to JMU. Right. So I go from six years and two transfers and six years, no NIL, no work, but you're working partial scholarships. So it's kind of like NIL. You've got to value people and break up these scholarships and do what you got to do. They earn more. You give them more all the things that come with it, but they were there. Those kids stayed because that degree mattered to them. They really wanted to stay. They wanted to graduate. And they wanted those connections and the mentorship that came from that place, which is second to none. Then you go over to JMU, 67, new transfers. We brought in that year, 67. I went from two in six years to all of a sudden, 67. Like, imagine what that's like. I don't know about the portal. I don't know about NIL. I don't know about any of these things in our whole budget. It's like $250,000 when I get there. Right. And that's what we're trying to. So we couldn't take anybody based on money. They had to come because they loved the place. They saw the value. And they liked everything that it worked. And then at the end, the final piece of it, the all these majority of those 67 kids we took came and said, I'm in. They never asked about the money. And then later, you'd have a conversation, okay, here's what we're thinking. They're great. I'm good. I said, I'm coming there. That's why I want to be. It would be some of those other guys that showed up with a number. You know, agents weren't as prevalent back then. You know, the kids mostly represent themselves, but they show up with a number that they wanted. You'd sit there with them and you'd be like, this is not going to work. This is only about the money for you. And it wasn't possible for us to buy kids at that time. Because really, if we acquired them with money, we were going to have to motivate them with more money. And we're going to have to retain them with even more money. Well, and then you have the starting sitting thing that too. Like you got this guy. We paid this much expected. That's all part. Yeah, that's all. And then he checks out if he's not starting. That's right. That's right. And then you sell the spring portal too. So still that spring portal window that that happened in there. So 67 new guys. Next year went down a little bit. Our budget went up to I think four or four 50 or something like that. You know, so that's what we walked in that Oregon game with a roster of about 400,000. So you made the playoffs with a 450 K and IO budget. Yes. And you're competing against, yeah, like 30, 40 million. That's some of these schools are spending. Probably more. Pretty impressive. Probably more. Yeah. Probably more. So again, it was the right kids. The right kids that had a chip on their shoulder and wanted to go do things that, you know, nobody thought they could do. And we're maybe passed over whatever it might be. Those are the guys that work in our program. Is this system better? It was the old system better. Meaning what? Which is like is the system we have now? Is this the right system? Or it's a better system than what we had? What is it? Oh, I think that players need to be paid. I think I can't imagine. I could not imagine back in the day looking up into stands and seeing everybody wearing your jersey. And you got zero dollars for that. That's especially football of all the sports where you potentially get an injured or that's right. That's right. So I think it was so extreme. You couldn't have a work study job. You couldn't have any job if you were on scholarship. Like that was so limiting and extreme. And everybody was making money on these kids. Yeah. Right. So then it's the way the world works. Right. You overcorrect. So then you overcorrect it said, no, you can have all the money you want. And you could have NIL not pay for play. But then it becomes pay for play based in the guys of NIL. And all those things happen. I think there's a there's there's somewhere in the middle. When you look at the NFL model, you know, we're slowly working, you know, towards a, you know, triple A team for the NFL. Right. And we are. We are the feeder program for the NFL. I think that, you know, agents that are actually certified can only take a certain percent. Some guys are taking 15, 20, 25 percent from these guys. Right. You shouldn't be able to do that. You know, if you don't. Well, they're not governing any of it though. None of it. If you're if you're tampering, you should be automatically barred from being able to represent anybody again. Just all the things that come with it, you know, like the NFL has is what we really, you know, need to institute a little more multi-year contracts. You know, that kids can say, could you make it? You can't transfer for two years. And that goes for coaches too. Yeah. And I think you just get into the santa trust things. And are they employees and all the stuff that comes with it? There's so many. Every move has a, you know, equal opposite reaction, right? And then it's just, what road do we really want to go down, you know, when it comes down to it? And I think every, every, that's hard because every school, every, every conference feels differently about things. And you're trying to get, you know, a unanimous decisions, and they're just impossible to find. Yeah. And then everybody's jumping conferences. That also makes it hard to find. All right. So going backwards, you start at assumption. That's right. You're there forever. And it's probably Regina University in division three, road road island. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then assumption. And then which put you in Worcester, which is put us in Worcester. Yep. And assumption. So Worcester has Holy Cross, Clark, WPI, Worcester, the polytac, Worcester state, yeah, Nichols, Becker, Bunches schools. There's like eight of them in there. Yeah. And you're just, at some point, you start killing it as assumption. Yeah. And then Holy Cross hires you. And at that point, we've all given up on Holy Cross football. Yeah. It's just this never going to happen again. I was there when they got rid of scholarships. Yeah. And we've talked about this. But when I was there, it was right as it was transitioning. It was big sports school could have potentially was the first one asked into the big east and a lot of the people that were there were like jocks and high school athletes. And yes. And that was such a big part of the school. And we watched it kind of get nudged out as we were there. Yeah. And then we just kind of all gave up on it. Yeah. And then you brought it back and you're winning and you have this great season. And then you stayed for an extra season. Yeah. Which I think we were all like, oh, he's out here. He's gone. Yeah. So why'd you stay? There to be honest with you, like, I didn't, if I was still there, I'd be happy. That place was very special. My daughter just turned 16 on Monday. Right. So she, that's all she knew. She had three years in Newport, Rhode Island. Yeah. But my middle daughter and then my son was born in Worcester and we were there for 11 years in that time. And when you're I remember being an assumption and I went over to a game, a Holy Cross game. And remember sitting up top, we parked in the baseball field and tailgated. Then we went and set up top because we played a Friday night game at assumption. And they ended up beating New Hampshire, who was like number 15 in the country or 10 in the country at that time. And I was like, oh, man, this is a cool place. Like look at the stadium. Look at these people, like how cool is this? Natural grass field, the history and that field, the names up above on the, you know, the in the ring of honor in the stadium. And you're like, damn, someday this would be really cool, you know, and it just happened that that was the final that was the next year. So I don't think they wanted me. I think they wanted a lot of other people. And I think eventually it felt, you know, to me. And I remember it's like everywhere I go. When I first became a D3 head coach, it was like, ah, you don't know how to, you've never been a head coach. You can't do this. And we, we won. And then I went to D2, they're like, well, now this is scholarship football. I'll never forget a referee. And I know his name. And I won't say it publicly, but we were at Bentley. And I remember there's an awful call. He knew it was an awful call. And I was on him pretty good. He's like the same D3 football anymore, son, it's not like that. He said to me. And I was like, okay, yeah. And that's how I was perceived when I got there, which is fine. And then very quickly, we were able to, you know, just become a top five team in the country. Then went to Holy Cross. Same thing. You don't know. This is now full scholarship, right? Not only is it full scholarship, you tell me about this academic index thing that's like the Ivy League. You're going to have to recruit nationally. You never done any of those things. There's no way you could win here. And we were able to win there. And then I went to JMU. And it's the same thing. But wait, go back. So you, you want in a huge, huge way. And everybody's like, I'll see he's getting poached. Yeah. Yeah. So then I, so why'd you say? Yeah, yeah. That was the question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you said you didn't apologize. But the reason why? No, I was saying it because of just the history I had in that town. I love that town. There was just some, you know, blue collar tough people that loved football that I got a chance to, you know, everybody knew who you were. It was just one of these new unfinished business business is what you felt. I felt like just out the code of thing was probably the thing that really drove you more than anything is that we got to get these guys, right? And we went out and played them in the COVID year and they got us pretty good. And then we came back and we had that next year where, you know, I look at it all and there's a fourth quarter call that, you know, I just got the worst luck that season. Yeah. And if I just make this one call, I feel like we got, we're, we're winning that football game, you know, and we end up, you know, flying back on a plane and it didn't work out. We knew guys were graduating, but we knew we'd still have a good, a good class coming back. And there were some really young guys in there that I knew we're gonna have to play with some freshmen, but I felt like we had them and the ones coming in, we're going to be good ones. Just happened then we lost the corner, then we lost the other corner, then we lost the backup to the corners. And then just it kind of put you into spot where you were playing with really young guys, you know. And then at the end of that year, really, you know, I stayed because I still believed in it. I felt like we could do it. I felt like we're, I'm not walking away from this yet. Like I wanted to win a national championship. Yeah. But then I'll remember after that next year, all the kids, I'll never forget, like sit in my office looking out in the lobby. One kid came in and I remember, he said to me, coach, I'm on a quarter of a scholarship. Like I need at least a half or three quarters or full, like my, you know, we can't do this anymore as a family. And I was like, how many catches did you have this year? And the kid started crying, he's like, one, I was like, you can't come ask me for more scholarship money. I said, if you need financial aid, we should go talk to the financial aid house. I said, but we can't do more. And then I looked out in the hallway and I saw like eight kids out there. As I, so I stood up. I said, are you all here for the same reason? And like, yeah, I said, we'll have a team meeting. So we went to a team meeting. And I realized very quickly that that had turned because of the portal and because of the ability for them to watch all the other guys going places and getting paid and getting scholarships and promises and all these things. And I was like, this is gonna be hard to sustain if we don't find a grad program or if we don't open the door more to transfers and that wasn't, we weren't built that way. So you're not getting transferred, but then you also can't keep gems. Correct. So that's what it felt like, you know, to me. And then obviously, you know, J.M.U. came about and it wasn't, it initially, like it took a while. You know, and I remember, you know, there's, you know, my memory, wife watching like the, you know, these people like track flights of where the A.D.'s driving and flying to and they're flying to and, you know, I did my interview. They came to my house and everything. I'm like, boy, that was great. I think we killed it. And then it was like maybe three, four, or five days later and I was out at the Campbell Trophy or Campbell Award ceremony. Is that what's called in the Bellagio? And I remember coming back on the plane before I was in the airport, I just, I called my agent, like let's not do this. I'm just gonna stay at Holy Cross. I said this doesn't, these guys don't call me back. They don't see it the way I see it, this ain't gonna work. And he, as soon as I hung up with him, this search firm called me, right? So what I didn't even talk to, he didn't even talk to him. He said, hey, they want to talk to you. You know, can you get on the phone with the president and everybody else? And long and short of it, I was flying back. It was midnight. I put on a shirt and died sat in my kitchen and accepted the job to JMU. I mean, the big mistake was Syracuse. Yeah. What they were thinking. I thought that's where you're going to go. I like where I'm going to go. Yeah, this all worked out perfectly. One of the things you talked about the last time I saw you when you were explaining to some of the people behind the program about how you come in and how you have to change the culture and you were talking about people just competing every day on anything. And I thought I was so fastening. I just want you to explain it. Like just explain it the way you explain. Like just how you're a mindset of day after day after day, I want everybody pitted against each other in some way. Yeah, so I think you always wonder where you stand on a team. You always wonder. And you just never get this feedback. I was talking-- actually, it was in the book The Cubs Way, if you've seen the book The Cubs Way. And it was talking about Madden and what he and Theo did with this team. And he was talking about, you know, in the minor leagues, they'd cut a guy and never really tell him why. And then he'd see him years later. And he'd be like, man, it was just you weren't doing this or that. And he had sort of a profile moment where the guy was like, why didn't you tell me that when I was there? I would have worked on that. I felt like that was-- I was like, you know what? That's what this thing has to be. And this started way before, but that just sort of solidified the idea of it. Just constant feedback. Constant feedback. Am I winning? Am I losing? Am I getting better? And I don't need to compare myself to other people. I need to compare myself to myself a day ago. That's ultimately what we're trying to do here on a day-to-day basis. But if you don't put them in situations to succeed and fail, then I think they're guessing. And to me, what I say at all the time, the leading cause of success is well-managed failure. Well-managed failure. Any successful thing you did in your life, you probably failed at it first, or a couple of times at it first. And you're going to learn that lesson. It's got to cut a little bit. And then you get into the part of the leading cause of failure is mismanaged success. So they both-- you're successful. But do I forget about the-- why I got there. And now, am I feeling like I've arrived? I'm entitled to this now. And what does that do? And you're going to watch yourself fail pretty quickly. So to me, the other side of this was, I'll never forget playing Southern Columbia was the name of the team. They were all black uniforms at home. Their field was down. And you had to walk down this like no black top road from the locker room. And you were wearing white because you were the away team. And you heard them come down this-- the thing. And you could just-- their cleats hit the ground different than your cleats hit the ground. And when they walked on that field, they looked different. They played different. They felt different. And to them, they didn't think anything of it. To us, it felt like this energy. And it was like a hurricane. But they were just in the eye of the hurricane. It was good. They were good. But for us, you're like, how do I want to break through that thing? And it's not that easy to do. I think that's no different to me in your personal journey on success and confidence. I don't think that you could have any success if you don't have confidence. And confidence is just a belief initially, right? But then you have this confidence. You could then start to have success. And then with a little bit of success, might create a little more confidence, which might create a little more success, which might create a little more confidence. And now you start spinning in this little vortex, like I said, and you're in the eye of a hurricane. Everybody's looking at you like, holy shit, this guy's got it figured out, man, he is unstoppable. That, to me, is what you're trying to create. But you can't build confidence if you don't give them moments to succeed and have these micro successes over and over and over again every single day. And these failures, these failures so that they could get better and learn and become something that maybe they weren't a day ago. So that's ultimately what this whole thing's built on. We're not just competing for the hell of it and to keep score and embarrass people. We're doing it to have these micro successes, which will bring-- - But you're doing stuff like everybody's split. - No weight lifting groups. - Everything. - Five different groups. - Explain some of that stuff. - Yeah, yeah, so we come in in the winter and we'll go through a couple workouts and then we'll have the team. And especially when you came here, it was different 'cause they didn't know yet to give them a couple weeks with each other. And then we'll pull the fastest, you know, the number one fastest, one through five. And then number one strongest, one through five. All right, so the fastest guy will go with the fifth strongest guy. The second fastest will go with the fourth strongest guy. And it'll work its way that way. And then they become the team. So we were B-R-U-I-N, right? So we're the Bruins, right? So as we went through that, they draft the whole team, which is now kind of cool because we publicize them. - Now it's competitive. - The draft results, of course, picked last. Who was picked first? All the things that come with that. And then their team is set to compete every single day. So we go out on that field and their station set up. Five different stations might be sled pushes, ropes, tug of war, whatever it is. But before you go to bed that night, you get a, the email comes out or the text comes out and it's like Bill against Bob the entire day. So you're like, oh shit, right? So now. - So now I'm measuring myself against you for the next day. - That's right. And really what you're doing too is like, it's teaching you how to prepare. Like if I know it's gonna be a hard day, probably gonna go to bed a little bit earlier. Probably gonna hydrate a little different. I'm gonna be the better, I'm gonna figure out what I gotta do to be at peak performance because I know I'm going against you. But then there's other moments where, I think this will be an easy one. I don't need to really worry about it. But all of that score gets kept, gets publicized, and the team wins based on it. So how many days before people were like, yeah, I get what's going on. - Yeah, I think pretty, it happens pretty quick. Yeah, I think it happens really quick. That with for the most fierce competitors. And we break our, like in my mind, our competitors, right, you have guys that just survive and they're just getting through it. And then you got these other guys that are competitors that will be pushed and push up, like not push other people up, but be pushed. But you gotta kind of outside motivate them. Then you got these dominant competitors. These guys don't need any pushing. They will win all the time. But then you got the other one, the ultimate competitor. And this is a guy that is the dominant competitor, but brings other people with him. And there's a big difference in there. I love Tom Brady going to Tampa Bay, right? The one, the example I love too, is Doug Flutey playing for the, what to stampede for all those years, right? And winning great cup after great cup. And he gets traded to the Allowats, the worst team in all of Canadian and wins there. The one guy goes in there and does that. So that's a dominant competitor, right or the ultimate competitor. And then you have the dominant competitor. He can do it, but he's not bringing other people. Then you have the competitor that's gotta be outside motivated and then you have the survivor that's just watching a clock and trying to get through the day. And they start to fall into these buckets and they start to understand who they are. We define that for them so they could self identify and then eventually correct whatever they got to correct. So that stuff starts happening right away and you see who kind of rises to the top. - I mean basketball is probably the best. One of the things I love about basketball is you're measuring these guys by stats and all these different things. But the guys who actually won had that extra quality. Like when you talk about the ultimate competitor that bring everybody up. And that's like Bill Russell and Duncan and Bird of Magic. - 100% where you either caught up to them or they got ready. - Yeah, you're not taking a day off at Michael Jordan. - And they're not going to happen, you know. And he ain't taking a day off. - Yeah, right. - So he'll send you back. - That's right. - So that's what you're looking for. And that's hard to find. You know, you don't have a ton of those on any team. - Well, so when you show up or you're like, who's by? - Yeah. - Who are my, yeah, you don't have a couple of these guys. - Yeah, you're looking and you hear people talking and you see people that have clout. Why do they have the clout? Are they popular? - Right. - Or are they the competitor? That's the question. And that's what you're trying to kind of sift through and figure out. And every day we film it all. We watch it all, we grade it all. Like that's all part of the process. - Yeah, that's, I don't know why more people don't think this way. But even like my daughter's first club soccer coach, you said these Friday games and it would be like these three and three games, it would be, you know, keep going. And then the winner would win and some of the parents were like, oh, this is bad. Like my kid, my kid ended up on a bad team. They lost. It's like, that's not why he's doing that. So he's trying to figure out week after week, who are the two kids that always end up in the finals that it doesn't matter who's on their team. And he's trying to teach them certain habits, but that's, that's right. You know, it's interesting and that's why I think it's just honest with us. They got to be vulnerable. The score pops up and they suck that day and you got to eat it in front of the team. And they got to live with it in front of the team. And that's all just part of it. So is there a moment when you feel, obviously, it's like, you're rowing and everybody's rowing in different directions where you kind of, there's this one day or one moment where you're like, oh, we're on the same boat now. I can feel it and those moments, I have screen shots at them. Like I'll never, you know, I'll never forget an assumption the first time. Like the, the, the centers in his stance pointing at like this linebacker. That's fake blitzing. Who's pointing back at him and then over there's some kid talking shit to the quarterback from the third level then the other kids come out and you just see this thing. You're like, oh, this is like, it's happened. This is yeah, they love this. They love this game. They're buddies. They're talking tons of shit. They are excited to win this, whatever we're doing. And that's when you're like, all right, we got it. Right. So when did that happen here? You know, I think it's a more recent thing. You know, I think today was really a step that I felt different. Yeah. Like I felt because that was coming. Yeah, probably. Yeah, we thought you were out there. So I told them all they have to practice up there. That's right. No, but today felt like today felt like, I mean, the offense is always going to be a little bit behind the defense, right? Because defense just gets to run around with their hair on fire and make plays. And then the offense eventually catches up. And today felt competitive as hell out there felt like they were having fun. And we could have stayed out there and practiced. I brought him up and then we called it, you know, they thought practice is over and we went into an overtime period. So we did the overtime ones, you know, however we did it. And then after, you know, we we brought him up again. And they're like double over time, like they didn't want to leave that field today. And to me, that's a good sign like they could, we could have stayed out there for three more hours and they would have loved every minute of it. Can you talk about your quarterback without going into coach speak? Yeah, I can. Okay. Yeah, I sure can. I think, you know, first I empathize with what he went through last year. It was his whole life up to this point in time in his collegiate life. You know, he was the villain in college football for a minute there, right? And he's so far from that like he is an unbelievable young man from an unbelievable family. And there's a lot about his, all of his eight, I believe siblings has a mother and father at home who love him and support him to no end and, and, you know, a brother on the team. And it's pretty awesome to watch this guy, you know, just go out here and compete every day. He's one of them too. That'll be, you know, hands under, you know, ready to snap the ball and talk it to somebody else out there. You know, that he's a fierce fierce competitor and a really, you know, unbelievable person that has the attention of this team. Can you have a quarterback that's not a fierce competitor? It depends on what's to see. I guess. Yeah. I think it depends on what's around him. I would say any names, but there's NFL guys that won Super Bowls that had unbelievable defenses, unbelievable returners and the special teams game, you know, and really ran the ball. And all they want to do is try to punt it on fourth down and not turn it over. And the defense managers will take care of this. You can do that, but it's a lot harder to do that way. And you have to be really buttoned up and dominant on the other sides when it's pretty even in a league like we play in, where probably teams will be more talented than us. It's sort of positions in certain moments of the year. You know, you need a guy like you need a guy like you need a guy because he's the one every time I tell everybody that you're going to win at least eight games. They're like, Oh, and then they're like, I want about the quarterback. And I'm like, well, he's definitely talented. Yes. Right. And you know, you have all these transfers that's the other thing people can figure out. Yeah. What do you have? How many transfers shown? I think we'd 54. I think we ended up with. You'd think you were going to end up with. Oh, man. I don't. Did you think it was going to be like over 50? Like, did you have any idea? You know, so this was the interesting part. We showed up here on the third of January. Yeah. Right. And that's when I think the portal opened on the third. So the portal opened on the third and later that day, we had 17 kids come and visit on the third. Okay. So think about it. Now we're in school because we're on the quarter system. Yeah. So the semester started. So the whole team's in here and is the whole team sitting in this room. You're looking like, all right, I got to grab a meeting with this kid and a grab a meeting with that kid. I got here after staying, but you don't have time to really do that a lot because of the fact that you're bringing in 17 other kids and you're parading them around while your team's lifting in the weight room, you know, doing what they're doing and this guy might not be staying. And then the agents are calling and everything else is happening. And eventually like, we can't, you know, we're not going to get to his number. He could go. He can go. He can go. I understand how you do this and also have a family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my family wasn't here. So I was living in that hotel right there, in that hotel for 60 days, you know, and it was what it was. You don't want your family here at the beginning because you're never going to see him anyway. Yeah. And I think it just was, it's part of it. So that was ultimately, you know, bringing together an entire team and coaches, by the way, then now you're going into an official visit. You met these guys three days ago, some of them three days ago. You don't really know them. And you're trying to speak the same language through these official visits and figure it all out. Yeah. You know, next thing you know, there you have it. But the number grew when kids laughed or saw how many kids were coming by. Eventually, I remember having to go to the weight room and say to our current team, like, look, stop it. Like, stop having your agents call, stop worrying about who we're bringing in. We're going to get to 105 guys on this team. Right. I don't care where you go. You're not going somewhere where there's not seven or eight running backs. Right. You're not going somewhere. There's not 20 some offense alignment. You're going somewhere where there's not 10 safeties and, you know, eight corners. You're not going. Like, that's how these rosters are built. So you can go somewhere, but no, if you go somewhere else, they're probably bringing someone else too. You're not going to go somewhere and be the only running back on the team. So relax. If you like it here, if you value this education, if you like what you see so far from all of us, just stay if you don't leave. And that was ultimately, you know, what we just had to eventually get to. And then the good and bad of the quarter system is that it could visits on the third school started already. So they fly back home, pack a bag and fly right back out, right? As we got later in that window, we would tell them, if you're coming out here and you like it, just, you know, pack a bag, you got to fly somewhere, so they have to fly back to their aunts house somewhere in Arizona or wherever and then come back because they couldn't really stay. They had to fly out and come back. So we had that set up for guys like to be able to understand that, you know, you got to move in quick to school started. Then the quarter ended, you know, wherever it ended and guys were still in the portal, that allowed us to bring a couple guys in before spring ball started. So it's almost like we had two windows, you know, as an unfortunate, because most of the time I've been at places where school starts on January 27th. So the portal opened on the third, you have all that time to build your team, right? We start school on the third, the same day the portal opens, like that's kind of a tough job. You know, I don't want to say you inherited like a losing culture, but it wasn't going great here. Yeah. And it's like you got to basically pour disinfectant all over the place and try to reinvigorate stuff and change. Yeah. Make it an optimistic situation and then a pessimistic one. That's right. And I think that's what it's been for a little while. Like if it's going to go wrong, you know, it's probably going to happen here. It's going to go wrong here with with with us and I think coming in and I think being on the outside, looking in, you can really see the power of this UCLA, you know, degree, university. I said it a million times. There's first round draft picks and Olympic gold medalists walking around in the athletic department. And then there's future CEOs and lawyers and doctors and everybody else walking around this campus at a regular students, like you have a chance to breathe some pretty rare air as you walk around here and we're one good football team away from being arguably the most dominant athletic department in the country. We won three national championships this year and eight conference championships. I don't know if we might already be the most dominant, but if you don't have a good football team, it's hard to say that you are that. So, you know, that's what we're charged with and that's what we're excited to do. But you're right. The biggest way to win is first stop losing. Stop doing the things that the losing teams do. Right. And I think that is which is being unprepared during the week, being undisciplined, not being worried about yourself first, right, not putting the team first. Do I get credit over the team all of that's that and that's what breaks teams apart. Right. I think we keep identifying it. He only mentioned these three guys in the post game speech. You know, I had seven yards where we just got to keep talking about the team, the team, the team, ultimately is what this entire thing, you know, has to be built on and everybody's got to understand that. And then in the end, for us, we'll treat them how they treat the team and if they treat the team well, they'll get it back, you know, well, if they don't, they won't. And I think that's life, though, right? Like you get whatever you give, you know, if you're kind of a shitty person, you're probably going to have they're probably going to be shitty. Being a view everybody is like, they don't like me and they're, they're this and they're that. Well, it's probably what you are the them. But it's kind of the way the world, I believe, works. So our guys understand that and keep fighting that fight. Speaking of shitty, people don't realize your abject hatred for USC, I bet you've really concealed that. Now I'm just trying to get a trouble, but you see, you see, you see your big, you see your big rival now. Yes. Yes. I'm ready for it to come back. I don't feel like it's ever fully been cooking the entire time I've lived there since 2002, where I was like, this is, because the USC, all of those, everybody who went there, all the alumni, they'll hate UCLA and vice versa. Yeah. And yet we don't really get a chance to battle that much. Yeah, that's healthy, I guess. Right. Yeah. We got to change it. And because people think about like Duke UNC, you know, it's just in general, like for the schools, but I don't think people realize there's a lot of animosity. Yeah, we got to get back. You know, we got to get it back. It's got to be a lot more compelling. If you want to say something mean about Lincoln Riley enough enough that I enjoyed meeting them seems like a great guy Why do why do you think you got underestimated over and over again with these coaching searches? I think that you got it It's gonna be it. It's easy. It's lazy to do right and lazy to say is hey, he never coach there. It's easy Right like it's a very easy thing for anybody to say and I think for me again from from D3 to D2 to FCS You rose a yeah, but yeah, but that's right and I think that's always what it's kind of be till you till you prove it So I don't there's not a minute that I worry about you know what anybody on the outside says because I've lived it so many times over You know to me. It's not a lot of winning the last 10 years. It's not about any of that It's about what do we believe in this room forget about everybody else right and I say the other thing that I try to make sure our guys Know is that you don't don't read the good right because then if you read the good right now because we're great right now Right, we have played a game like everybody loves us. It's unbelievable. It's phenomenal undefeated like it it is all what it is It's it's when you know the tough times show up You know, you're not gonna want to hear what they have to say on the outside and those that were your biggest supporters sometimes become your Biggest opposition and for me I want to know that we're doing it right in this room. Yeah, that's true This is like the perfect time right now. Yes, it's like you're on the second date with somebody you might date for like three years That's right. Like this is awesome. Yeah, that no flaws. Let's go to the movies and get some ice cream right here perfect right now That's perfect. What's the number one thing you're getting from UCLA fans when people meet you and they talk to you what they say they They have energy man. They got energy. They got some juice right now like they're desperate. They are ex I don't feel Desperation I feel hope and I feel like gratitude and I feel like excitement, you know, I feel like there's a belief and and what is But you got to believe it long before you ever see it right and it takes all of them and that there's a village of people that we Need to support this and they're doing an unbelievable job, but we just had an event on the over there at the hotel and I Think last year there was a hundred people there was close to the 400, you know, in this donor dinner that we had the other day and just You know the energy they got for this the excitement they have for this You know this time around they feel like it's gonna be different and it will be well It's like Lewis Cage has done helped us with PR the ringer and me personally for you I haven't seen him in 10 years and then he showed up today for this. Yeah, and I just thought that he's locked in he's UCLA fan It was it was it was great to finally meet him in person again and see him talk to him When's the first game? September 5th We pine cal That cal I think I'm going to the Michigan game. Yeah, do it Yeah, let's see. I got a lot of girls Sakura this this my daughter's last season. So I have a pack schedule But I'm coming to at least to come to a couple home games to this is my new team. Yes, you have to you have to support it This is I have a lot of stake here. I know you do. I know you do if we will we will do that and we have we expect a lot from you Too though. Yeah, you got to tell me what else you expect. Yeah, I'm happy to be like I'm trying to think of like the positive Adult in the sports in the college sports movie. I don't want to be like the JT wash blue chips characters Yes, just comes in the screams at you. No, no, no. We'll talk about we'll just carve that role Let's talk about it a little bit more. I want to be like the guy in Hoosiers. It's just in the stands rooting for everybody Just like happy and happy. Yeah, that's you and not sugar. I'm not the drunk that feature person Yeah, just gonna be the happy guy. All right. Good luck. I'm glad you're here. Yeah, man. Thanks for thanks for hopefully turning around You so football. Yeah, well, thanks for being here and honestly thanks from the beginning You know, I remember talking to Casey about the whole thing and and he just said he had a conversation with you and and uh He sent me the list. Yeah. They had some preliminary list and I'm like where's Chesney? Yeah, how is going? Yeah, right right and then you just kept winning You're right. Yeah, well, I won't be here without you brother. So I appreciate well, you'd be you'd be here either way But I was happy to play a small yes small tiny part. I appreciate I'm good luck. This is thanks man. I should All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks the house. Thanks to Bob Chesney and everybody at UCLA for helping out Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Thanks to Jesse Who somehow joined the pod today even though the Dodgers are in semi-free fall. I'm glad he was here I am going to be back on this feed on Tuesday Fantasy time fantasy football. We're doing it. The big preview is going to be on Tuesday And rewatching most Monday at Paul 13. So see you later in the week You Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus and president dc Kentucky or Wyoming game prom called 100 gamble or 1 800 by reset call 888 7977777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut or md gambling help.org in Maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 80327 50 50 for 24 seven sport Massachusetts or call 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 877 777 0 7867