This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. - I'm Stefan Curry and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of, you know, developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every set you get a little something different. - Visit gentlemanscutburbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Urban, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Urban, please visit gentlemanscutburbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. - Hey everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from The Stuff You Should Know Podcast and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. - We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. - That's right, maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of beanie babies, monopoly or yo-yos and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 days of Christmas toys playlist on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - Explain the mashup that occurs around the okay crowd. - How in the world is it Doc Holiday's business? - In episode 799 of the Meet Eater Podcast, host Steven Rinella talked with author in Old West's historian, Mark Lee Gardiner. - Whenever there was a posse form, Doc Holiday was always there to help out. - So he's like, I'm sick, I'm half dead. - I'd love to throw in. - So he just gets excited when there's a posse. - It's like your buddy drew a tag, you know? - Listen to the Meet Eater Podcasts on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - Welcome to the Solid Verbal. - Solid Verbal. - Come after me, I'm a man, I'm 40. - I've heard so many players say why I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day, eat a steak. - It's that wolf, woo. - And now, down and tie. - Hannah Bernstein. Welcome back, my friend, how are you? - I'm good, very excited for the show as I am. Every time we talk recruiting during the, I guess early signing period or sort of between early signing period and national signing day, obviously we're having Brandon Huffman on the show because he's the best and he is an annual tradition. I'm good, you know, it's heated up here. Everybody's on the edge of their seat waiting for my weather update, Ty. We are up to, I want to say low 30s, approaching maybe a 40 degree one time temp. - Yeah, buddy, boom. - I'm gonna go out for like an old man walking a little while. It's all happening, Ty. No, everything is good. - Today's episode is our annual catch up chat with Brandon Huffman of 24/7 sports who's gonna walk back through the early signing period with us. As we typically do when we do these episodes, we will have some team specific stuff about players, about coaches, about philosophies with respect to specific schools, but we also, I think, try to mix in and we might do it a little bit more than usual today. Some of those questions about just structurally, where is College for Ballat in the recruiting game? Because the portal has entered the chat. It has definitely taken on a bit of an outsized influence with respect to not just how schools are recruiting in their philosophy about it, but there's this whole hiring circuit now with coaches and GMs. The player personnel side of this, which definitely was not part of the conversation when we started this podcast back in 2008. It has very much changed the game. So we're gonna talk to Brandon about some of Colomé, some of Colomé, as always, he's very gracious with his time. I'm excited to have that chat as well. Before we go any further, hit follow, hit subscribe so that you don't miss any of the episodes. Go on out to playbowlbingo.com. Playbowlbingo.com. That will get you out to our Patreon. If it doesn't get you out to our Patreon, just go to patreon.com/solidverbal. Either way, at the very top of that page, you will see a pinned post, which is gonna give you the nitty-gritty details about our gamebowlbingo. It is free. All you need to do is sign up as a free or paid member of our Patreon to get access to the link all you need to do before the game walks at Friday on Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern is pick six prop bets from a big list of 30 that you think are gonna hit over the span of the next week. That's it, that's it. Just pick six at the end of the run here over the next week or so. The winner will get a Fabulous prize. We'll talk about that. And then we'll do it again in time for the next week of games. So we're gonna have four straight weeks here of bowlbingo. We're excited about it. It's our big end of your game. Going out again, play bowlbingo.com or patreon.com/solidverbal if you would like more information on that. That's it, that's the spiel. It's free. I love great spiel. The whole thing is free. That's why we call you Chris Spielman, right? That's what you do. Is that what you call me? I'll be hindered back to a lot of people, okay. All right, Dan, we do it at least once a year. What's our friend, Brandon Hoffman? National Recruiting Editor, 24/7 Sports. Pleasure to be with you. As always, Brandon, we make like an annual tradition out of this. We bring you on. We get the data dump of all things, national signing day, all things going on in and around the world of recruiting. It is a pleasure to be in your company once more. How are you, my friend? Oh, you know, a tradition unlike any other. And it's fitting because today was typically what would have been a signing day for the previous seven years, that third Wednesday in December. So, you know, we're right on schedule, even though the NCAA keeps moving the calendar, we don't. I had a question about it. It's a perfect segue, actually. Signing day, quote unquote. Obviously does not mean what it used to. This was officially our first early signing day without the national letter of intent, which had been around since like the early 60s, mid 60s. Can you explain for our audience what exactly guys are signing in the year of our Lord 2025 when they commit to a school? Or in the case of Legend Bay, not clearly signing, yeah. Yeah, they're signing many things. And what they're signing now is an intent to enroll. Now, if you remember, the letter of intent was considered by son to be the most one-sided contract in the sports, where it bound the player to the school. The school could drop a kid, they could, you know, tell a kid you're not coming, blah, blah, blah. Well, now with the players having the leverage, it's now an intent to enroll. And it only binds the school. So the school has to take a kid once he signs it, but now a player can get out of it much easier. I mean, we remember going back, tie you're another damn fan. You remember the whole of Eddie Vanderdose situation 12, 13 years ago when you had to go through hoops to get out of a letter of intent once you signed it. Well, now you bound the school, but the player has more flexibility. So what they're also signing though are typically their revenue sharing agreements. And most of those are agreed upon in June, where, you know, now, the last week in June, the early week, the first week in July are becoming more of the big weeks from a recruiting standpoint because those are when guys are making their commitments. And you don't see as much late kind of movement as you did in the old days. Those guys are agreeing upon their deals and they're ready to be done. And schools are ready to move on to the season. So now this first Wednesday, you get a little bit of drama. You get Brian Hartlein leading for a coaching job in the drama around Chris Henry. You get some late minute, you know, late last minute. Coaches know, hey, this guy's going to the league. We're going to need immediate help there. We've got it. We just came into an extra 500K if you want to come here. But yeah, now it's so much more of a formality. These guys have already been drawing allowances from schools for a couple of months. Most of these guys are already on campus now, getting ready for January. I mean, it's not as powerful a day as it once was. And it's kind of sad on one hand. But then you have all the stuff that goes on after that. The coach is leaving. The coach is getting fired. The coach is taking other jobs. And it kind of opens up that whole Pandora's Box once again. At the risk of asking a stupid question, I have potentially a stupid question. If I had a dollar for every time I heard somebody complain about the current state of the College football calendar, I would have an Italian villa somewhere. I am certainly not any better. I have done the same. Dan and I have both done it here on the show. But I think it's a valid point, right? You've got your early signing period in December, which is sort of the main event, I guess, for kids coming out of high school. We've also got a very active transfer portal, which has just started to kick up. Doesn't officially open for a couple of weeks. And then we've got another signing period once we get into the month of February. Then on top of it, layer in all of the coaching carousel movement. If I am a top recruit, why would I want to sign anything in the middle of the coaching carousel and before the transfer portal runs its course? What am I getting out of this as opposed to just waiting to see where everything settles and then committing to a school? - Was it Randy Mosk who said it's straight cash for me? - Yeah, signing bonus. - 'Cause that's what it is. It's about accelerating yourself to start getting the NL. Another thing that's not talked about a lot right now. We're seeing guys, and Dan and I have had this conversation before 'cause we're both Southern California products. The reclassification that is now happening in college football, or I'm sorry, in high school football, guys were, you know, holdbacks and double holdbacks. Now they're seeing my recruitment's blown up because I said I'm a 2027. I'm now two years away from getting that paycheck, but I'm old enough to be in this other class. Let me reclassify backup to my normal grade so I can start getting that NL a lot sooner. That's why guys are signing now. Because they're getting those bonuses. They're getting their signing bonuses. They're getting their allowances. They're getting their infusion of cash much quicker. And, you know, again, remember, it's not paid to play, it's all name-imagine likeness. So all the money they're getting is pure, right? There's no laundering going on. But what it is is, go give me the money, but I still may not sign with you for sure in four months from now. But thanks for all the cash you gave me up front, you know, as a result of this, because technically you weren't allowed to give me that. So guys are signing now largely to get to that payday much sooner. And by no fault of their own, I think you'll go get it. The, what I've been fascinated by is the one-sided nature of academia. The smart, well, we would think that they're smart people in athletic administration that are at these universities, masters degrees, PhDs, blah, blah, blah. And how they continue to be reckless with their own money. And, you know, kind of allow the money game to be what it's become. But if I'm the players, hey, if this rich booster wants to keep paying me extra to come there, I'm going there. I'll take that money for them. So really at the end of the day, like with everything that's going on in college football, it's about money. The sooner you can get to that infusion and cash, the quicker you'll sign and now that there is no limit to how many times you can transfer, how long it'll be till you're eligible to transfer. And more importantly, that quickly, I can get out of my letter of intent. I mean, Julian's saying, perfect example. He's sitting in a meeting in Alabama the year, almost two years ago, and Nick's saving me tires and two weeks later, he's at Ohio State. And Aaron Olland, in Tavy and St. Clair, you know, kind of there, I think it was Nolan was the one that was probably the most impacted by it. And now he, you know, that's South Carolina. But that's the thing. There's nothing that's really holding the players back anymore. So why not sign? Why not get a little bit of cash on the front end? And if things don't work out through coach, he leaves. You can, you're free to leave. - I know a lot of people that listen to this, listen for joy of the sport. People love college football. That's why we do the show. So when you hear all of this talk about money, being the primary motivator, it is obviously a little bit more of a cynical take than we would try to try to out there as we do this show. But it is clearly, it's a great factor that, yeah, we need to take into account here. Is there still some other element on the recruiting trail? Other than the money, are these guys still looking at systems that they're going to step into? Coaches that they're going to play for, the culture of the place that they're going to sign with? Or is it truly like 85% money that is governing where these guys end up? - You know, I think that the right answer to that is look at the last year's National Championship game. I mean, sure you had Quinshaw Junkins, you had Will Rogers that were transfer, or Will Howard that were transfers. You had Riley Leonard, who was a transfer. But the majority of that Notre Dame roster and that Ohio State roster was homegrown guys. The year before with Michigan and Washington, yeah, you had a Michael Penix in there, who was a transfer, but the core of that Washington team was homegrown. Same with Michigan, that core of that team. So at the end of the day, you know, Indiana is seemingly an outlier, if you will, in that the last couple of years, you've had these teams that have had the quick, get fixed, you know, kind of remedy of the portal. But at the end of the day, the National Champions were the teams that were still those developmental guys. The Georgia teams that were winning, were winning with the homegrown talent. Maybe you get a player or two here that just push across the finish line like it did with the Ohio State, but it was homegrown. And I think you even look at this here as playoff teams, or the top five teams. Yeah, Texas Tech is a team that's got a lot of transfer guys, but is anybody really giving Texas Tech a chance when you're comparing them to a Georgia, when you're comparing them to an Ohio State, when you're comparing them to an Oregon. You know, Oregon, I still consider Dante an Oregon homegrown guy. And yeah, he flipped to UCI at the last minute, but he's been an Oregon two of those three years. He was really an Oregon guy. And, you know, Ohio State, the Jeremiah Smith, the Julian San, who yes, he was a transfer, but he, you know, never did a spring practice at Alabama. At the end of the day, you still look at teams that are winning are doing that largely with the guys that their coach recruited and brought in. And if anything, you know, what it's doing is, if you're a big time school, that you know that you're still recruiting at a high level, you don't need to go and get 30 to 40 transfers like a school in Colorado, like university Colorado's doing. You know, Indiana is going to sustain it now to the point where crit-signated does not have to rely on the portal anymore. Now that he's shown, they're not a flash in the pan, that's going to help their recruiting. But, for the most part, these schools that have been consistently, since the college football playoffs start in 2014, I mean, go back to the 2014 playoffs, who were the four teams in it. Okay, Florida State, there it is, after it was Oregon, Ohio State, and Bama. All in the playoffs this year, all consistently been top 10, top 15 teams over the last decade. So, at the end of the day, if you're a fan of a school that's still recruiting at a high level, get attached to those players. - Right, but the calculus has changed a little bit in the way that you are able to recruit and maintain a roster in this NIL era. What I'm curious about, because outside of maybe the situations where coaches leave, we've seen anecdotally fewer crazy decommittments that it seems that there is, and this I assume is very much tied to these deals that players are signing or will sign. What can you say about the creativity of the deals that especially top players are signing when they commit, not necessarily when they sign the whatever the intent to enroll, but it seems like we could be talking about deals that involve, hey, if you don't take any visits, this is your bonus. Hey, if you stay committed and sign, this is your bonus that almost if you do anything or you think about doing anything dramatic, it's actually going to hurt your bottom line. Do we have those types of creative contracts? - You do, and it's all languaging, and that's why guys aren't flipping away from their schools like they did in the old days. Back in the old days when you flipped, it was because there was a double bag of cash at the school that you were flipping to. And I think that one of the more fascinating recruitments was Felix Ojo, the offensive lineman that's signing with Texas Tech, or that's Simon Texas Tech. And if you remember, when he committed, I think it was like the fourth of July, right around that fourth of July time, we were getting numbers, like pure numbers from reporters saying that he signed for X amount of dollars. Then he had other reporters that were quickly saying, well, he's not really getting that. It's a backload of deal, like you're dealing with a lot of creative language. And you have some that are trying to make the number a little bigger because that's going to entice other potential clients to sign with them, signing with the agent, not with the school. And you know, you have the school basically saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We aren't giving them that much because we don't want to tick off our locker room of our current guys who are gonna be making less than that. And they're actually here right now. So you're already seeing the posturing on both sides, whether it's the players representation, whether it's the school, and the numbers seem to be vastly different. And but there is, there is creativity going there. There are players that we're getting, hey, we know we're not going to get you, but we'll give you 10,000 just to come to this game day visit because it shows that we're aggressively trying to recruit you or trying to flip you. Even though we don't have a chance, we'll give you 10,000 fly you and your family here, give you tickets just to come to this game because your presence might actually make the kid that we have a real chance freak out and say, I want to commit or I'm going to make them what bigger priorities. So there's a lot of creativity going on behind the scenes, but you're also seeing some really wild numbers. I mean, by the time we get to press under the NFL, the signing bonus he got from Larry Ellison is going to be somewhere like 71 million. I mean, that just, they take on a life of their own. And that's the thing, like, do I think it's 11 million? It's probably close to that. Do I think it's 71 million? No, obviously not, but the thing is, there's still so much going on behind the scenes that even the numbers that you're being reported have some caveats in them. - What is the situation with parents and choosing agents and how they navigate? And I'm sure it's a conversation with parents, coaches, whoever trainers, how are agents being vetted? Are agents particularly good at selling top kids in a specific way right now? And on the flip side, are we now seeing coaches, GMs, and you talk about like trying to get a kid to visit for a certain game and getting a bonus for visiting for that game, whatever? Is the name of the game now also trying to impress agents? Because they are wielding a new kind of power. So the GM of Alabama or Oregon or Florida, whatever, they have to show agents that they're being serious because agents are now saying like, hey, I've dealt with these four schools and they're just more buttoned up and I believe their number is more than these three schools. And so now they are, they have, they wield like a power over recruits in their parents as well. Does that sound right? It does, and it all depends on kind of who that, that agent has as one of his players. Now, what we've seen like in the last three or four years is the more established kind of sports management firms like a CAA, like an athletes first, like a Wasserman clutch. They've gotten in the game, but they're only taken on eight to 10 clients at any time. Those are the guys they feel very confident are going to be first or second round draft picks in three or four years. So you're making the long-term game, but a lot more kind of boutique smaller agencies are getting involved. There, you know, there is no certification that you have to get through the NCA, like you do for the NFLPA or the MLBPA, you know, so I would not say there's a lot of great vetting going on. If I'm a parent and somebody tells me, hey, your kid that's at this FCS school or division two school, there's a need for a player of his caliber at this position. That school could probably give you 75 grand. You were going to jump on that, right? What they're not a lot of cases telling you, and, you know, in the book that John Taulty and Armin Ketain wrote about a year ago, there's a whole chapter on the Jaden Rashadak recruitment. And, you know, a lot of these guys aren't a staff. So I'm not saying this about Jaden's age. I'm just saying that a lot of them aren't as established. What they're not telling you is that I'm keeping 20%. Your son's value is actually 100 grand, but I'm telling you, you're going to get 75k, but I'm keeping 25 to myself. And all I did was send a couple DMs and made a couple calls. So there's some agents that certainly are legit. There, what you're seeing now is less of a emphasis on the general manager role being on the football ability, okay? That's falling to the personal department. That's falling to the sky department. Whereas when the GM's were first brought in, it was to be, hey, these are the guys we're going to recruit. This is what our board looks like. These are the five guys that fit our system. These are the guys that we want to really target. These are the five that have the analytics and the traits to fit into what we're doing. Now that general manager is essentially becoming a negotiator. Like how are you going to negotiate with this agent? You have to still have a little bit of football acumen because you need to make sure kind of in the sliding scale that what he's asking for monetarily, the talent still matches that. But it's more about the business side, more about the negotiation side than it is about the true football side of it. And that's why I'm so fascinated about Andrew Luck and Ron Rivera at Stanford and Cal respectively because they're both very sharp. I did a sit down with each of them in October. I'm just kind of talking about how they came from the NFL to this, but they're football guys. At the end of the day, they're both football guys. Now you've got to add in that layer of negotiating a contract with somebody. And now we're in an era two, you know, to Ty's point. We've got guys that the schools are announcing they're resigning with them. - Yeah, you know? - Which is still weird. It feels weird to see it online. - We just saw what Jay and my Ava at SC, yeah. - That was the one that this last two weeks when I've seen the resigning one. That's the one that's been kind of the jarring thing. - Okay, that's where we're at now. And, you know, after a few more agreements are agreed upon, we're gonna see more resigning. And it's just like, okay, this is, that's the bizarre part. Like where even the NFL doesn't do that unless it's an extension after, you know, a five year of the contract was played out. So I think that more than anything kind of speaks to where we're at, but at the same time, if you've got a player who's really good and another school said, hey, we're one missing piece away, you kind of have to celebrate the resigning because that guy could be all that a Miami is missing. He could be all that a other school is missing. So to win that, you're at least telling your fan base, hey, we're competitive, we're in the game. We resign this guy so we're not poverty, we're not broke. We could still be competitive. So it's just, when we used to celebrate, now we're signing resigning day. I think what makes a gentleman's cut different is me being a part of, you know, developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every set you get a little something different. Gentlemen's cut bourbon, Boone County Kentucky. For more on gentleman's cut bourbon, please visit gentlemanscutburbon.com. - Hey everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from The Stuff You Should Know Podcast and it's that time of year again and we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. So listen to the 12 days of Christmas toys playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hey, what's up everybody, Daniel Jeremiah here. - And I'm Bucky Brooks. - If you love breaking down football from every angle you're in the right place. Every week on Move the Six, Bucky Brooks and I dive deep into the game from the X's and O's to the front office moves shaping the league. - We kicked things off with Brian Baudinger, breaking down what really went down on Sunday. - It is as good a timing rhythm offense as there is in the league right now. - Ben Ratluas joins us for our rookie draft in Coordinator of the Week, where we highlight the rising stars and the masterminds calling the shots. DJ talked me into a Ronde Gadsten Jr. - He had a monster game, monster game. - And you hear from the voices who actually build the game. GM's coaches and players who give you insight you won't get anywhere else. - High standards and high care, that's the right combination. - So whether you're studying tape or just love great football talks, subscribe to Move the Six on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - One of the things that I think is indicative of all of this is if you look at top prospects across various states, big known recruiting states, like Texas and Florida and Georgia and California, whatever, and even smaller states. And I noticed this with Maryland, I noticed this with Colorado. You're not seeing fences in the same way. Like when you look at the top 10 in Texas, it's not all like UT and A&M. When you look at the top schools in Florida, I think the top Florida schools, I think have one of the top five of the top five commits and prospects in Florida. Obviously, California has been all over the place. The interesting thing that I think about too though is when you look at the smaller states, like Colorado, like Virginia or Maryland or whatever, that produced good amount of talent in New Jersey, it almost seems like there's a vacuum that we're seeing like, for instance Oregon, right? Oregon I think is starting two corners from Maryland just signed a five star offensive tackle from Maryland. How much do you see vacuums now when in Maryland? Obviously Maryland has been disappointing and the Virginia schools haven't recruited all that well. And we've seen like Alabama hit the DMV heart under Nick Saban, but their priorities have changed. Do you notice more and more of these like state vacuums of the major states and of the somewhat lesser states? - You know, it's funny 'cause there's actually kind of like a two-part answer to that. - Okay. - One, recruiting is so national now that you don't need to worry about putting a fence around your state because the game is so national, the conferences are so national. - Total. - The coaches are so national. You know, I look at UCLA hiring Bob Chesney, who's never been west of what Pennsylvania in his coaching career. And now he's coming to UCLA while they're in the big 10s, so it makes sense, he's gonna be, you know, he's familiar with a lot more of those big 10 states, but in the old days, a school like UCLA would never hire anybody that has no west coast ties. I mean, you think about the hires that they've made with, in the last, since Terry Donahy retired. And Chip Kelly, at least spent time at Oregon and even though he's coast guy, Jim Moore was from the northwest, but everybody else was a UCLA guy. Okay, now they're going across the country to hire a coach because the game is so national. The flip side to that is one thing that Lincoln rightly really struggled with his first couple of years at USC, and obviously this was to the benefit of an Oregon, is he wanted to recruit nationally, he wanted to recruit Florida, he wanted to recruit Georgia, he wanted to recruit Texas and use the USC national brand. And would get these commitments from Georgia and Florida and Texas in April, but then lose them come December. Those guys would stay home and people keep saying, why don't you just focus on your backyard? He hires Chad Bowden, Bowden comes in, they start focusing on their backyard and they get all those players and end up with a number one class. So you're seeing that there's still a need to recruit locally, but at the same time, you don't need to just focus locally. You got to recruit nationally. And I think that's because the sport has become such a transient game with the portal. Like where am I going to go fit? It's no longer about, hey, this place is close to home. With my NIL deal, my parents get to go to every game. They've got four flights, two hotel rooms or four tickets for every game. So the old days you could only play if the game was on television otherwise they'd have to drive. Now these parents are at every game, the families are at every game. So you're seeing vacuums, you're seeing an emphasis on local recruiting in some cases. But at the same time, if you're only focusing locally, you're going to, you're not going to be competitive and you saw that with the Georgia. You've seen that with Alabama. I mean, you look at some of these teams and yes, they've got the ability to recruit nationally and they do. They still have a pretty good backyard of talent. I mean, Caleb de Bort took a lot of grief in his first full class in 2025 because I think they had six players from the state of California. Well, he was familiar there. Well, then as he gets his feet under him, they're recruiting better in state. But at the same time, you're Alabama. You're a national brand. You can recruit California. You can go get the best players in California. Let Auburn go recruit just those kids from the state of Alabama. How is that working out for them? So that's the whole thing. How many times have we seen this? And I know with Mario Cristobal, there's no state that takes more pride outside of Texas than the state of Florida. And we got to recruit the local kids. And you see all the high school coaches get on Twitter and get in their feelings that the in-state school is on recruiting. Well, if you're Mario, why would you just recruit the state of Florida when you can go recruit Texas? When you can go recruit California? We can recruit Georgia. When you can recruit the Northwest and the Northeast. I mean, it's, you need to focus on your backyard. At the same time, you better not only focus on your backyard. That makes any sense at all. Right. I had a question about that. And he kind of answered it. But I wanted to ask specifically about West Coast kids because we've had two seasons now with different conference maps. Big 10 ACC obviously both expanding all the way out to the West Coast. How does the top talent on the West Coast feel now about quote unquote staying home? Given that home means you're gonna play a road game at Rutgers. Your parents might not be there. You're gonna play on the road and Charlottesville Virginia, your parents might not be able to get there. Is that changing the calculus at all for schools like Oregon or whoever on the West Coast that typically would have at least in the recent past a much different philosophy? Yeah, I mean, I think we're at the point now where if you're a West Coast kid, you're looking to go to the Big 10 of the SEC no matter what. And that doesn't mean you're looking to go to the Oregon USC UCLA Washington Big 10. You're attracted to the Ohio State, the Michigan, the Penn State Big 10. You're attracted to the SEC. You know, it's funny because West Coast kids had an easy time leaving. And this has been going on for a decade. I mean, I think one of the most kind of the biggest jolting reality was the class of 2020 where you had three of the top four quarterbacks in the country all from Southern California. And then went to Clemson, Alabama, and Ohio State respectively. And it worked out famously for two of those three, not so much for the third, but the point being that those West Coast kids have always been willing to leave. And now you've got the Big 10 with four schools in your footprint, but they're in the Big 10. It's just as easy for those guys to leave. Now because, hey, I still get to play in front of my folks twice a year, every, every couple of years. But I'm going to go play at a factory where there is more financial gain. And, you know, it's, I mean, Fernando Mendoza, it was from Florida. Never got recruited by any of the in-state schools. Going to Yale ends up at Cal, now he's at Indiana, and he's from Miami. So, you know, Julian St. was signed with Alabama, committed, and ended up at Ohio State, and he's from California. I think that we're now at a point where these guys just want to play on the biggest stages. They don't care that it's not in their backyard. They don't care that it's not local. If I need to go down to South Florida to go play my college ball, that's going to help my brand. I'm going to get paid. I'm going to get an opportunity to win a national championship, get drafted high, so be it. I'll do it. These players, too, remember, this generation of kids are doing a lot of travel 7 on 7, a lot of travel camp. So, they're already traveling all over the country as it is as 15 and 16 year olds, which makes the move. I mean, there's a reason IMG has been so successful. They're getting kids to leave as sophomores in high school to go to IMG and enroll there. So, these guys are already used to leaving their backyard, but they're doing it much earlier. So, you know, we're now at a point where if you're a USC and you're UCLA, an organ in Washington extent, organ does recruit better nationally than any of those three other schools right now. And I think it's been that way going back to, you know, probably when Willy Tagger first got there. And, I mean, they always were kind of recruiting nationally. And they obviously had a lot of guys from Texas as well, but they become this national band. I think it was like 14 different states were represented in their 2025 class. So, they recruit nationally and organ can do that because they don't have the elite talent in their state to just focus on that. But I will give Dan landing this. He does a good job of still keeping those best players from the state of organ at organ, which his predecessors didn't always do. And that's the thing. I think now kids almost look if you're staying local, or you're wearing a scarlet letter because you're playing for the local team, especially those four big 10 schools. If you're a Oklahoma kid, you're a Texas kid, are you, if you're a kid from the state of Texas and you want to go to the SEC, is going to A&M or Texas really a flex anymore or do you need to go to a traditional SEC school to really show your level? And I think that's kind of the same way on the West Coast right now. Well, with all that said, and sort of more specific to this class, I don't want to make too much of it, but the top three players, all of whom are quarterbacks, at least according to 24/7, went to Houston, Tennessee and Vandy, which is not typically the top three that I would be accustomed to seeing. And I wonder, is this any sign of parity now with where we're at in recruiting? Or are we just talking about kids in Kishan Henderson, Jared Curtis, who are from their respective areas, Houston, Vanderbilt, and wanted to stay close to home. What does this tell you about where we're at with recruiting right now? I mean, I think it's incredible parity. I think it now shows that, and we've, we've heard the rummings, but Elliott has said this for years that as soon as the pay gap close, parity increased. And I think you're going to continue to see that. We saw it in basketball last year. We're aging to events that is not even LDS signs with BYU because of the compensation. So you're going to see that trickle into football more and more, but it also, you know, just Kishan Henderson signed with Houston if they're still in the American conference. I don't know, but there's a bigger revenue share now that Houston's in the big 12 than there would have been in the American. So maybe the compensation is there. Does Jared Curtis sign with Vanderbilt? If Diego Pavia is having the year, isn't having the year he's having. If Clark Lee, you know, if Clark Lee had left, I don't think Jared Curtis ends up at Vanderbilt. He probably still signs with Georgia. But you know, Vanderbilt's showing that if you do things to be competitive, you can be competitive on the field and you'll be able to attract recruits because you have the academia part of it. You've got a great location. So I think you're going to see more of the Houston's and the Vanderbilt's in the top 10s than in previous years. Now, all that to be said, you keep trickling down and you've still got the LSU, the USC, the Michigan's, the Miami's, the Notre Dame's, in those top 10s. The schools that you kind of expect to be there. But we've seen it in basketball, right? Where we've seen that Gonzaga be competitive like they have for 25 years because that's all Gonzaga had. Was basketball, but they were at least competitively winning recruiting battles. And I think with football now, you're going to see schools like the Texas Techs of the World. They're going to win more recruiting battles than they ever did before and the playing field's getting even in out a lot more. - How much of it is, and not to say that, you know, you're the schools you mentioned in Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon, whoever. How much of it is the confidence when if you're recruiting quarterback, if you're recruiting certain players, you're like, yeah, I don't know if I want to spend that on a quarterback who's 16, 17, when maybe we just sit and wait for the North Texas kid and he'll come in and we've seen him play college football or we wait and see, like, ooh, bonus is on the market. Ooh, you know, Dylan Gabriel. Like, obviously you look at the quarterback list, for example, and there's still those huge schools. But is there a certain amount of thinking if you are those major places? Yeah, maybe we'll just get Riley Leonard in two years and that's gonna be how we approach this position because it just seems maybe more fiscally responsible in the long term. - You know, it's fascinating because I'll use USC as an example of that. For all the success that Lincoln Riley has had as a quarterback developer and, you know, a guy who's turned out so many first round draft picks, the only guy he's had from his freshman year to the end of that time, the entire time was Caleb William and he had him at two different schools. Kyler Murray was a transfer. Jalen Hertz was a transfer. Obviously, Jake Mayaba was a transfer. Baker Mayfield is a transfer. So, you know, even the best quarterback developer in college football is still dipping into the portal and part of it, it's not because, you know, he didn't develop the younger guys. It's now those younger guys don't want to wait. And I remember seeing this back in the old day, Barton Simmons, who's now the general manager at Vanderbilt, used to say this when we were up to 24/7. People would give these quarterbacks, 'cause remember, in the old days, quarterbacks were the only ones that transferred. If you were a backup, then you got beat out by somebody all there and you had a way, you were gonna transfer because you wanted to get on the field and they'd say, "Oh, he's afraid to compete." No, that's the problem. He's not afraid to compete. He wants to compete and he wants to be a starter, so he's gonna go somewhere where he has the opportunity to start. Now, if you become a guy who sat in the back for two, three years, you haven't been able to play, you have no value, you have no draw. So that's why you're seeing quarterbacks leave early. You better be very confident in your coach's ability, and if you're that head coach, you better be very confident in your own ability to develop and be able to keep that kid patient like Sark has been able to do. Two Sark's credit. He's been able to do that with Arge. And again, Quinn, you were his head, his ear and the wilderness, but then he came back to Texas. Sark has kind of shown that he's the one guy that will stick with the homegrown guy. Obviously, you know, Ryan Day had CJ Stroud. Common Core didn't necessarily move the needle. They lose him and they win a national championship. Julian San again. I'm giving Julian San kind of Ohio State credit, even though he did Son of Alabama. But the Julian Sands, the CJ Strouds, the Arge, they're kind of unicorns. It's more often than not now going to be the Fernando Mendoza's, the Diego Pavia's, the guys that went somewhere else and just needed the Cam Wars, that just needed a better cast to characters around them to be better. And if I'm a coach and I do have this young guy, but this is a make or break here, if I can get that elite quarterback and he's the difference between us, go in 11 and 1, 12 and 0, or 9 and 3 and playing in, you know, a regular New Year's table, I will sacrifice that two years of development with that quarterback to go all in for next year. So to answer the original question, I don't know that there is the value in paying a lot of that money to an incoming high schooler unless you are confident as hell that he's going to come in and either start as a true freshman at the latest as a registered freshman and you can develop him and give him weapons around him that will make that investment worthwhile. Because otherwise, go take a backup who's probably gonna transfer anyway and save that money for a bigger name quarterback in the year from now. - Yeah, and also it probably makes it easier to say like we love him, but we're not going over like 1.1, right? That you can set that like hard cap on like what you feel like a quarterback is worth. And then almost by the way, makes your job not obsolete, but like when you talk about like hey, this is how I feel about, you know, take Brandon Faeson or Jared Curtis or something like that. Like this is how I feel about him now, but it kind of doesn't matter because he's not going to be evaluated necessarily on how he is as a high school quarterback or a high school prospect. But really when you look at like when we talked about the class with Dante Moore and Nico and Jaden Rashada and Arch, like most of these guys, most of these blue chip guys are gone from where they were initially. And in the long term, how they're viewed as high school prospects, like doesn't matter at all. - Right, right. And you know, it's funny because one guy that I forgot to mention is Gunner Stockton, who Georgia for as elite a level as they have recruited, you know, their quarterback recruiting hasn't always been like the elite five star guy, like a Jared Curtis. Remember they did have Dylan Raella committed at one point, but it's been more the Gunner Stockton's, the Carson Vex that weren't that top in guy, but a guy that was willing to wait. Obviously Stetson Betty was, you know, he was much traveled, but you know, Georgia has kind of shown the remedy, like hey, if you get a kid, get a local kid who's bought into this program and turned him loose, but you know, if you go back to kind of those other schools and you go back to what the investment is, I mean, it's why you're seeing, and I think Arizona State is a great example of that. When the rumors started up a couple of weeks ago that Sam Levit was willing to leave, he didn't see Kenny Dillingham go on a full on crusade to say, no, stay here, we need you, where the difference is kind of like, hey, you know, we wish them all the best, we'd think of for all the success because now if I'm an ASU, I, and I, you know, as he's sitting there jostling and posturing to get more, you know, more resources now to stay at ASU, and I don't have the full 20 million in revenue sharing, I only have 15 million. Is it really smart to put 20% of my revenue into one quarterback when I need help on the offensive line and I need help with the receiver position? So you're gonna see some schools kind of go with a money ball. - Right, totally. - You have to. You can't overpay for a quarterback. Now if you're a school that's the bluest of blue bloods and you have everything but a quarterback, then sure you'll go pay double digit X amount of, you know, eight digits for a quarterback. But most schools are gonna be able to, hey, if we have five million of extra money to play with, let's not put all five million in a quarterback, let's put two and a half million in a quarterback, a million to a receiver, a million to a left tackle, and 500 grand to a corner, now we still have the same competitive chance. - Right, and say like, can we approximate 80% of Sam Levitt's production with like Hassan Long Street, right? A USC back up with what seems to be a good pedigree. It seems like that's where things I guess have been now. - I mean, I'm sure Fernando Mendoza is getting a good chunk of money to go to. - Totally. Especially when Miami was in play and he's a Miami kid. But I also think Indiana has done a tremendous job last two years of balancing their books right, so that they're not overpaying for a big name superstar. I mean, remember is, Dan, you and I are packed 12 guys. We watched Fernando Mendoza for a couple of years at Cal. I remember being at the game, I covered the the Cal USC game. - Yeah, you dropped like 50 on SC, yeah. - Yes, and they lost on a missed two point conversion, but you saw two high-spin trophy winners and two potential number one draft picks in Caleb Williams and Fernando Mendoza. Caleb Williams was every bit the penny that he was worth. But if you would've told me two years ago that, hey, you're watching the guy's gonna win a high-spin a two years, by the way, he's gonna do it in Indiana, who by the way is gonna be undefeated in the Big Ten champion, and by the way is going to the Rose Bowl, who by the way is one of the last two times ever, I would've been like, dude, what is going on? I know we're in Berkeley and we're in things happy, but that's beyond the realm of possibility. But that's the thing, you, for every cam ward, what was the return on the cam ward investment for Miami? They didn't make the playoff, yeah, they got the number one pick, but they didn't make the playoff. You're almost better off making a wider investment on more players than just going all in on one year in and year out, rather than unless you have that one year, like, this is the make or break year. If I'm Ohio State and I've got this 2021 class that we just need a quarterback to get us across the line, we'll go get Will Howard, we'll get Quenchal Juncus to go to Trayvon Henderson, those two guys make the difference. You put all your chips in, yes. Otherwise, I think you're gonna see more schools kind of do the money ball approach. Fair enough, I, okay, there's a number that I saw and it's 49. I don't know, 49 means anything to you. Immediately when you think about the class of 2026, it is the number of commits and signies that Rich Rodriguez signed at West Virginia. Pushing 50 signies. I just want to know how, why, what? What will happen? Like 49 incoming freshmen. What was your reaction as this class was developing? You know, obviously this is a different part of the world that you're used to, but when you see this new reality, and you know, USC, you've mentioned their class. I think it's something like 35 commitment, something like that. Like, these are just numbers we haven't seen before. When you see those numbers, where does your brain go? Well, it goes so this is where we're at because what we forget to account for is that 45 guys went into the portal as soon as Rich Rodriguez got there. Remember, he got hired after signing day. Neil Brown was fired after signing day, so he gets their prior looks to this class that these guys can't play in the big 12. So I'm going to run them all out. Well, you got to replace those bodies. And now that there's no longer the 25 to 28 scholarship cap, you just got to be under that 85 cap, you could sign 49 guys. I mean, they used to be reserved for the Army Air Force and navies of the world to bring in 50 guys each year. Someone would go to the Pref Academy before they got there. But now when you see 49 guys in a class, it's not super striking because 49 guys just left. The more fascinating number of those 49, how many make it to year two at West Virginia? Like, are you signing playable talent or are you signing death? At this point, you're trying to have 85 bodies, but of those 85 bodies. I mean, I remember sitting with Chris Peterson back in 2015, 2016 when he was at Washington. And, you know, him saying that like, if we can hit on 60% of our class, we're going to be pretty happy with the results. Now, if he signed 49 guys, that would mean 25 of those guys are playing. If you can even retain 25 of those guys, that's a victory in self. Let alone if they can even play. But now, you know, the days of there being two quarterbacks in a class, those are fewer and far between because you'll know very quickly, if I'm third on the death chart, he's fourth on the death chart, I got a better chance to be in the guy that fourth, but the guy is now fourth on the death chart that came in the same class, he's gone. So with 49 players that you're signing, yeah, you're filling your body, but now you've got 49 true freshmen on an 85 man power four roster in 2026. Is that going to be competitive? Is that going to win you games? Or are you playing for 2028, 2029 at that point? I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of, you know, developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip you get a little something different. - Visit gentlemancutperben.com for your nearest, total wines or Besmo. Gentleman's Cut Perben, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Perben, please visit gentlemancutperben.com. So listen to the 12 days of Christmas toys playlist on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. - Hey, what's up everybody, Daniel Jeremiah here and I'm Bucky Brooks. If you love breaking down football from every angle you're in the right place. - We kicked things off with Brian Bodinger breaking down what really went down on Sunday. - Then Rhett Lewis joins us for our rookie draft and coordinator of the week where we highlight the rising stars and the masterminds calling the shots. DJ talked me into a rendez-gadden junior. - DMs, coaches and players who give you insight you won't get anywhere else. - So whether you're studying tape or just love great football talks, subscribe to Move the Six on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - I'm looking right now at your top 10 at 24/7 sports.com, USC, Alabama, Oregon, Notre Dame and Georgia are your top five to round out the top 10. It's a Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas, Texas, and Miami, a lot of the usual suspects. I don't really care about the top classes, Brandon. What I care about is which schools, which programs did the best job getting exactly what they need? It's easy, I think, to stack stars on top of stars to get a highly rated recruiting class. I shouldn't say easy, it's not that easy, but certainly if you're one of the blue bloods, it's a little bit easier. Who did the best job to go out and get exactly what they need to take the next step out on the field? - I may be showing my West Coast bias here, but I think Oregon and USC both did that. They got players at positions that need, they got players at premium positions as see going and getting to Keene Pepe, one of the best, I don't know if it's alignment in the country. Getting key players at key positions that are high school guys, rather than having to go and wait for guys that are at another school that you're gonna have to overpay for. I think that Oregon and USC both did probably the best job of filling needs. The Oregon, I think, did it a little better because Oregon's class, I believe it was the second highest class in terms of average star rating per player. So while it didn't have the amount of players signed that a USC did, Oregon was very particular and very picky about who they took. Now, there was a couple players here and there that Oregon lost to USC that would have made their class even better. A couple of guys from Southern California that stuck, but I think both Oregon and USC have did a really good job and I think, you know, I know how to stay. Holding on to Chris Henry when it looked like you might lose him, you know, that was a victory in itself, especially when Kaden Dixon Wyatt left two days before to stay home and go to USC. I think, you know, there's a reason in USC still hasn't got to the playoffs under Lincoln Ryder, but if you look at those other schools that are in the top 10, everyone shoot. You go to the top 12 that I'm going through the top 13, 14, 15, 16. I mean, everyone at the top 15, the only school in the top 15 that hasn't been in the playoffs is USC. All right, but obviously USC does have an advantage that all these kids are still going to be the next Reggie Bush to ask them, even though Reggie Bush stopped playing college football 20 years ago. The point being that if you look at the teams that are consistently playing in the playoffs or competing, they're the teams that are still recruiting at a high level and it goes back to Buddy Elliott's Blue Chip rankings and the Blue Chip ratio. So I think, you know, those schools, in what what, I don't think people give enough credit to those kind of schools for their consistency in recruiting at such a high level knowing that players are going there and you may commit to a school and there's a law jam at your position. Now, nobody did it better than Alabama did back in the 2010s. I remember when Rashon Evans was coming out, he was the number, like the number three player in the country. He was finalist for UCLA, Auburn, and UCLA, UCLA, Auburn, and Alabama. His dad played it at Auburn. UCLA told me he'll be the next Anthony Bar and Nick Sabin basically said, "You can come here, "you don't probably be three years before you see the field." Maybe four years 'cause we got five guys just like you. The number three player in the country. He goes to Alabama, doesn't start regularly till the end of his junior year, becomes a first round draft pick. Schools like the Ohio State, the Alabama's, the Georgia's, the organs that can consistently recruit at a high level and do it each year, knowing that there's a law jam at a lot of those positions and yet still convinced guys to come there, that there's something to be said about. They're not one year flash in the pan. I mean, remember, we did have that one Texas A&M class two years ago or three years ago where they signed everybody and then like none of those guys stuck with it. They were kind of an outlier. We had the old Miss class, the famous Hugh Fries old Miss class. That was kind of the outlier. When you have the consistency of these schools do, signing these players, developing these players, and even if they lose these players, they're able to backfill those positions. I think you see why they're consistently taught programs. - Brandon, whether it's due to, let's say, coaching turnover, mismanagement, bad philosophy, take your pick. Are there any recruiting operations that you look at now based on what we saw during the early signing period? And you're like, yeah, that's on life support over there at school X. There are schools like that that you kind of wonder what were they doing. You're seeing more in the portal though. You're seeing more with the portal. We're now because the portal's more expensive. You're throwing more money at players in the portal. And you're like, that's the guy you're given that amount of money to. So you're now seeing what schools that kind of did have those life supports. They're now understanding, shoot. We've got to be competitive. And I think, you know, going back to the Stanford and call analogy was it was a, they were the two that went with a general manager overseeing football. They're the ones that are making the decision on who's going to be recruited, who's going to be offered. Because now they're in a completely different part of the country from a conference standpoint. They are, you know, in a completely different situation than they were comfortably in the pack 12 that they changed their entire approach. Stanford is, you know, now taking some transfers in. They're doing a little bit more with NIL. They're doing things that you would have never thought transfers. I think it's an easy one to say. But I still think with, you know, Clemson has got to modernize. And I think that we saw some hints that maybe it was changing and maybe they didn't change. But it's either evolve or get left behind. And I think we're starting to see that now where a Duke and a Virginia are playing in the ACC Championship game, you know, where, right. If you're Clemson, you can no longer rely on what you did in 2018 anymore. That is an eternity ago into this modern era of recruits. And so if you're not modernizing, nobody cares about the slide in the locker room. If you're not winning, OK, you've got to win. You've got to be taken care of these players. You've got to be compensating. And if you don't change that approach, then it might be time to find a new coach. It might be fine to find a new philosophy in doing it. But I think that there were certainly some schools that you kind of look at and you're like, what are you doing? And it got remedied in the offseason with coaching changes. I want to take the flip side to that very mean question, Ty. It's such a mean, dude, everybody knows that. Just people want to know. People want to know. And I understand why Brandon doesn't necessarily want to answer that question. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's OK. What I want to know is because we do see results get dramatically better for a number of teams every year, right? We saw how much Virginia invested, for instance, in the portal last year. Obviously, we've seen what Texas Tech has done in terms of its aggression successfully. Even like this year with Arizona, right? That Jetfish did a good job recruiting in Tucson and laid the groundwork for that roster. And they brought in a bunch of transfers and new coaches and everything like that. I wonder if you look at the last year or even this year's class. And it's impossible to know obviously with high school players. But when you look at what whatever team has done, is there a team that you're like, they're not good right now? I really like the groundwork that's being laid. And I really like their aggression, be it high school, or whatever, where you're like, there's interesting things happening to that roster and maybe not this year. But in the coming two, three years, they're kind of interesting. I think no question, Virginia Tech. And at the expense of Penn State, Virginia Tech is that program that we know that James Franklin kind of track talent. We know that he can win 10 games a year. We know that he can be competitive. And that's in a conference where you had two ginormous programs in Ohio State and Michigan, even before Oregon got there. You had Ohio State Michigan. He was still competitive in the big 10. Now what's he going to do in the ACC where it's like, Florida State can't seem to get out of their own way. You're not entirely sure what Clemson's doing in the year of our Lord 2025. And Miami, it's always one or two game time decisions or game decisions away from being 8 and 4 or 12 and 0. There is the perfect indoor there for Virginia Tech in 2026 to be competitive, but really 2027, 2028. I don't think it'll be the long slow burn like it was in Virginia. And by slow burn, I mean, it was year three for Tony Elliott at Virginia where things finally turn around. But we're now in an era two where Tony Elliott might get a little bit of grace. And that is even taken to account what he went through that first year with the tragedy that happened at Virginia. Just from an on-the-field standpoint, we have seen D'Shan Foster get fired after 15 games. We saw Trent Bregg get fired after 18 games. And that was that they're all the moderns. We saw that coaches are no longer making it past year two anymore, Brian Harson. I don't think made it past year two when he was at Auburn. You're seeing less patience and more willingness to pull the trigger quickly and make a coaching change. So are we even going to see situations like Virginia anymore where they're going to let it kind of percolate for a couple of years before you finally have that breakthrough season? Or is every school now expecting a Corkset signetti type of rejuvenation in year one? Everybody thinks now we need to be able to do what Indiana has done in two years. No, I don't think that's possible. I think that might be more of a unicorn. I mean, shoot. It took Joey McGuire five years to really get Texas Tech cook him. And he was recruiting at a pretty high level. But our school's going to be patient enough. And I think Virginia Tech has been through the wilderness enough over the last decade that they will be patient enough. But I don't think they need to be too patient because I think that conference is in a position and Virginia Tech's in a position in that conference where they can with a couple of good offseason portal maneuvers can be very competitive in that conference pretty quickly. So that's the one that I would say put a pin there. And it's large because we know the kind of recruiting that James Franklin can do. But now he can do it in a much more attainable conference. He got me feeling bad now, Dan, that I asked him a mean question. No, he shouldn't. He'll bad tire a journalist here. Let me, I'm not a journalist. Let me have a little Jay, let me go in a different direction. Brandon, who are your pet players from this most recent class? Who do you like? Who would you go to bat for? Who would you want on your team if you were a GM out there right now? I mean, I am a, it's an easy one to say because, you know, he is the best, in my opinion, the best player in this class. It's Keisha on Henderson. Just watching the way he carries himself, watching the way he plays. When he came to the All-American Bowl last year, last year was the first year that they brought underclass into the All-American Bowl, the Navy All-American Bowl in San Antonio. He was the MVP there. And you could just see that he had this confidence in himself. And the talent was there too. But I think that he is the kind of dynamic player that takes Houston from, hey, you know, it's a cute season they had under Willie Fritz too. This team could very much be a big 12 contender each year that he's behind center. So that's kind of an easy one. But, you know, let alone what he's gonna do at Ohio State in three years. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, how many times do we see the first month of the season? Oh, you know, future Miami quarterback, Jaren Kiyave, Songa Pulitali. She's having a great game. I mean, there's always that. But there's also for Tita, money in Houston. So, I don't know that's that much of a possibility. But, you know, if I'm gonna go with a couple of guys that I think have a chance to be very special and, you know, Zion Eli. Whether he sticks with Maryland after year one, this guy is flat out incredible. I watched him at the Polynesian Bowl last year as a junior. He was phenomenal the entire week. And I am a big fan of elite explosive ed rushers, like that that can absolutely disrupt an offense. And I think that he has that chance. Now, you know, Michael Oxy has another year. Well, Lake Washington's coming back. I mean, Maryland might be in Show Me Mode for Michael Oxy. But a guy like Zion Eli is the kind of guy that could save a job. There's, you know, some Jadevion Cloney to his game. Just that explosiveness that he could be a true kind of program changer of doing steering itself, Carolina type, where Zion Eli is that guy that I think is, you know, the one we're gonna be talking about a ton next year. Larger because Michael Oxy has to play him from a stance of like you got this player held onto him. You got to get him on the field. Now, the only downside of Zion Eli is he doesn't play offense. And Maryland still is gonna have to find a way to score points. But he's gonna be a guy that I think is gonna get turned loose and really be utilized in, you know, a way that he can become a household name even though he's playing defense in a very offense-driven sport. So those are probably two of the guys, but I think going the long term here, and I'm not doing it just to play Kay Dan here. I love Trader and Ball. You know, I think he's one of those guys. And one thing we've seen with Oregon is they do a really good job of distributing the carries at the running back position. And it seems like one guy goes down, one guy gets injured, and the next guy comes in. I mean, Jordan Davidson literally, I remember seeing this kid in the seventh grade, he kind of forget about him because he's at modern day. You know, there's this glut of running back. He comes back and completely changes his body and he looks awesome as a freshman. And, you know, they're just, they do a really good job of their running backs. And so he's that guy that I think he's not a top 50 player, but when we're talking future freshman all American next year, he won't be the guy. Jordan Davidson will be the guy, but this is the guy that comes in and gets you 650, 700 yards here. And then he becomes your future back in 2028. So that's one name to kind of put a pin on, too, that maybe he's in the household name of a Zion elite, of a Keishan Henderson, but a guy that I think's gonna be a very big impact player in college. - I have three programs specifically that I want to ask you about. They're not schools that finished in the top 10, just outside of that. - Lehigh. - What does Lehigh's class look like? - Yeah. - We'll talk about Lehigh on a separate episode. - Okay. - Washington, Florida State, North Carolina. Three schools that are interesting for a variety of reasons, most of them different from one another. But Washington, as of now, so as Jetfish who knows, there's time. Florida State with Mike Norvell, obviously on the clock to try and turn that around. And North Carolina, which is nothing if not interesting now that Bill Belichick is in town. - Yeah, I am very intrigued by North Carolina. Obviously, you know, is Bill Belichick and the coach, these guys he's bringing in for more than three years. But not unlike West Virginia, they have a large amount of talent that they're bringing in. They're bringing in nearly 40 guys. So those are players that Mike Lombardi and Bill Belichick said, "Hey, we're bringing you in and you need to be ready to compete." And I think that those guys are gonna get on the field early. They're gonna be a pretty young team, but there's some talent there. Obviously, you know, bringing in a quarterback, like Travis Burgess, you're gonna bring him in with the hope that he can come in and be a guy for you. And maybe you go with the youth movement. We obviously have seen Bill Belichick, you know, never have an aversion to playing young quarterbacks and going with a younger model. So it would be surprise if he goes that route. See what he did there Ty, come on, stay current. But I think that was good. - That was good. - Thank you. I think with North Carolina, they got to, you know, have hit on all those guys because the portal clearly didn't work for them and they better have evaluated these guys when they got to develop them. Florida State, you know, it was two years ago that they were undefeated in the regular season. So you, you know, you expect them to recruit at a high level, but when Miami seems to be doing a much more aggressive job and then, you know, there's all the talk about Mike Morveli. Is he going to survive this? Is he going to do it? They're recruiting, coming off the two intense season was actually better than you would have expected. But they still aren't winning the key recruiting battles like they did in the old days under Jimbo Fisher and like they did under Bobby Baden. And I think that, you know, what Florida State needs to do right now is they need to make sure that they hit on the portal because as great as the portal was for them in the 2023 season, it was a disaster for them in 2024 and it wasn't that great in 2025. So they can't afford to play a young talent. I think North Carolina's got a little bit more flexibility with playing some of the youth there, but Florida State, they've got to win right now. Which means that I think of those three, Washington did the most impressive job because for them to have a top 12 class and really not have a huge amount of talent in their backyard, not like the, you know, the state of Washington did in the late 2010s when, you know, you had the JT2 model of ours and the Mekke Buca's those type, I really like what Washington did in this class and it wasn't just with West Coast kids. I mean, they go down and they get a kid like Jordan Clay who's been committed to Baylor for some time, a top 100 kid. They get him Mason James out of Oklahoma, out of Norman. They go and get him, you know, Washington is now showing that their quarterbacks from the East Coast. I think he's from New Jersey. I mean, Washington for so many years and I've said it on the show, there's not a fan base that wants the local kids to stay home more than Washington and takes it more personally when a local kid doesn't stay home. But Washington always seemed to want to just recruit the West Coast. Now they're expanding with, you know, Jed Fish, they're having experience all across the country. His director recruiting Marcus Griff and all those assistant coaches that have been all around the country, they're recruiting more naturally. And so seeing Washington be a number 12 class, this is what happens when you have a full year. Remember when that coaching change happened in Washington, it was in mid-January. And so he lost a lot of those players. And nowadays, if you are hired in January, you still have 11 months to sign a day, but you're six months, seven months behind. That attention had already been turned to the 2025 class by the previous Washington coaches in August. Jed Fish goes there, tries to salvage the roster. So now you're seeing what he can do. He did it with his class of 2025 after he had been there. But now the 2026 class, you're really seeing. And if you look at his two best classes at Arizona, it was after he had his feet under him. And that was the team at class. That was the Noah Fefida. And you know, a lot of those players followed him to Washington, the Ephesian price socks, the Jonah Coleman's. I really like what Washington did in this class. And I think that, you know, if you look at it again, two years ago, they played for a national championship. And they recruited really well under Chris Peterson. Did not recruit really well at all under Jimmy Lake. And it was tepid under killing the board, but Jed Fish is getting him back. And there has been a huge focus on recruiting homegrown talent. So of those three, I'm the most intrigued by Washington. And I think that they've got a lot of players. They're Cody Green, who was committed to Oregon, modern day lineman, but he's from Seattle originally. I would be shocked if he's not starting on the offense line for University of Washington when they open the season next year. They've got some key players that they had a freshman all-American on the offensive line this year. And that means you're doing a good job at developing and getting those players into the position. And I think that Washington has a couple of guys in this class that they were a pretty young team. Yeah, they're going to lose Denzel Boss. And they lose a couple of other guys. But I really like the youth of this team. And I think that they can really compete for a playoff spot, assuming that Mon Williams is back in Jed Fish, doesn't go somewhere else. It seems that, and it's my opinion, that we're kind of in a holding pattern right now because of Michigan has a top 12 class at the moment. And they don't have a signed head coach at the moment. And so, it seems like we are due for Domino's. We just had Bruce Feldman on and he said he always anticipates the carousel to keep spinning no matter what. Washington, excuse me, Michigan has a top whatever 12-ish class right now. I think they have the number one edge rusher, the number one running back in this class. And you have a roster with a ton of talent and then you could see Domino's based on who takes that Michigan job. A lot of big names at a lot of big schools. Do you anticipate from your end of things, from your side of things, for things to get particularly hairy in these next three weeks in the recruiting world? - Potentially, but I will give Michigan this, that they did recruit really well. And to the point that they've only lost two commitments, two guys that signed in the last week since you're on more. Now, remember, they don't have to wait like the portal until January 2nd. They don't have to wait for the five days after a new coach is hired to put their names in the portal. Those guys can ask out of their letter, ASAP. And only two of those have done that. And only one was a top two for seven guy Matt Lowe with the tight end out of Montana, who was leaning heavily to Texas Tech for the majority of his recruitment. Ultimately, Simon Michigan, he ended up signing with Texas Tech last week. But I think given all the term will, all the stuff that's gone on in the last week for Michigan, to only lose really one impact player. It only two guys total. And now you could potentially bring in a kiln to bore or a Kenny Dealingham or any other coach that's being linked there. I think that that's pretty impressive. But that goes back to what I said at the very beginning of the show. A lot of times guys are still signing for other reasons than just the football part of it. And hey, let me at least see if the screen practice to see if I'm a good fit for this coach. And if I'm a good for this scheme or if that's when the coach gets there, he may see, hey, we don't want big athletic tight ends. We want small and athletic tight ends. We want bigger linemen that can't move around, but they're massive. They may fit differently schematically. I think given the way Rossers are in that, you can quickly fix with the portal. A lot of it will really shake out for Michigan in that January 2nd to the 16th window. Because by then you should have a coach in place. You'll know where you have your knees. And if you're a player who may have been told by Sean Moore, hey, you're going to come in and play as a freshman because we have a need there. Well, now this new coach comes in and brings four guys at the position. Now you're not going to be on that quicker path to playing time. So now might be the time to Lee. But remember, a lot of these guys are moving on to campus like in the next week to 10 days, too. So you kind of got to move a little bit quicker if you're Michigan. And we may have more clarity by Friday night or Saturday. By the way, similarly, LSU, I think actually leads the nation in average recruit rating right now in a smaller class. What do you expect from there as Lane Kiffin tries to both keep this class together and solidify more in the next whatever month and a half? I think the portal king is going to be the king of the portal come January. He is going to enhance that class and enhance that roster in the month of January. But I think we are people forget. Lane Kiffin had the number one class in the country in 2013, despite having limited scholarships because he inherited the Pete Carroll mess. And he had the number one class in the country back in 2013. Jaylen Ramsey was committed. Any Vander Doses was committed. They had so many elite players. And then the season fell apart. But he was recruited into USC with sanctions with fewer scholarships. Now it doesn't seem like there's any real sanctions anymore. Not that it really matters because Lane is now going to be able to recruit at a very high level. Lamar Brown is greeting him at LSU when he gets there. I think if we are going to really talk about what's the school that besides the Virginia Tech who isn't good, LSU has been fine. They just had a coach that couldn't get out of his own way. LSU is going to be a top three to five recruiting class. I think every year, as long as Lane's there, because he won't have to rely on the portal as heavily. And LSU is still a brand name. It's still a hot name. I mean, they've had a few years where they've underachieved. But we've gone from my era where there's always 95 Nebraska or 2001 Miami to now. It's all about 2019 LSU. It's Justin Jefferson, it's Jamar Chase, it's Joel Burrow. LSU is still a hot name. And they're going to have the resources there to allow Lane to recruit at a high level. So it's going to be heavy portal this January. But I think that 2027 recruiting class for LSU is going to be the one that people need to start going off crap. Now we've got to deal with LSU recruiting at an elite level again. Yeah. Brandon, let me get you out of here with a few rapid fire questions. OK. Big 12 recruiting. We've got Texas Tech. We've got BYU, both of whom played in the Big 12 championship game. After that, Dan mentioned earlier, West Virginia's got 49 commits. That's a lot of potatoes, OK? But outside of them, Utah, one really high level guy, two four star guys currently sitting at fourth per your rankings. You've got Arizona and TCU and Arizona state kind of a little bit further down on that list. Who do you look at? Maybe outside of those top two within the Big 12 as a program that right now you've identified as they're a school to watch in terms of overall recruiting prowess. I think it's Utah. And here's why they have always recruited at a pretty good level, not an elite level. But on Friday when Kyle Whittingham announced his retirement or at least they was stepping down, I reached out to almost every Utah commit. And not one of them was worried at all. They all kind of were expecting Morgan Scalier to take over there. There's that's going to be one of the most seamless transitions of the head coach. But now there's no longer the looming hangover of his Kyle Whittingham even going to be your coach. Now it's Morgan Scalier's show. And Utah showed this year by going after Devon Danpier by bringing in Jason Beckas, their offensive coordinator that they knew that they had some things to fix. And they did that. And I think that the best thing that ever happened to Utah is BYU being super competitive in the first years that Utah was in the Big 12. Because now we got Utah dealing with private equity. We have Utah now realized they've got to get into the arms race. But if you look at this class, it's really good. They were able to get Kelvin Obat out of Idaho. He had it a pick in Utah over, I think it was Michigan, Oregon, and USC. And largely because his head coach, Jordan Gross, was a first round draft pick out of the same high school. Went to Utah was a first round draft pick. And he really fit in there. Celeste Moe was committed to Tennessee. He flipped to Utah on signing day. They were able to flip a couple of other guys in state. But Utah, what they've been able to do so well over the last decade is develop players, get them drafted very early, recruit at a pretty good level, maybe not an elite level, but be competitive enough. And I think that with BWU getting so good, so quick in the big 12, that's almost forcing Utah's hand to have to be just as aggressive. And I think this class showing, to be able to flip Celeste Moe up, front Tennessee to be able to get a Kelvin Obat with all the other kind of more bluer bloods that were after him. That part tends well. And now there's no longer the question of Morgan Scali. Is he going to stay-- or I'm sorry, with Kyle Whittingham. Is he staying? Is he retiring? This is Morgan Scali's team. He's got that roster, how he wants it to be. And I think Utah is going to be a perennial contender for a playup. Or even though they didn't make it this year, they're going to be a team that's, they've always recruited well. You're going to see pretty good staff continuity there that I think that this class is going to be a very good class for them in the long run. Matt Campbell takes a bigger job at Penn State where he's going to have more resources. What do you expect with his recruiting operation at a bigger place? I think it's going to be incredible. Because I think that speaking of guys very much like Kyle Whittingham, their ability to develop and evaluate and get the right fits and then turn those guys in, I think Matt Campbell is kind of the master of that. And we've seen a lot of coaches like that over the year. We were always wondering, what's he going to do when he's got a different logo on that polo? What can he do when he has more talent to attract and he can do more with more resources? And I think Matt Campbell, I think Penn State, is going to benefit greatly. They may not have the sexy recruiting classes like James Franklin brought in. There may not be the 110K strong tweets like James Franklin who really love recruiting. But I think you're going to have such a complete roster and players that are going to be evaluated really well, but more importantly, be developed really well and fit. I think I'm not at all saying that this is going to be USC hiring Pete Carroll in 2001, not at all. But I think this could end up being the best backing into a really good hire that you're going to see in the 2025 cycle. Who had the most alarming class to you in the SEC? In terms of bad or in terms of really good life? Which is never way you want to take it, man. I'm going to leave this one up to you. Yeah, I mean, I would say that probably the most alarming class is just how quickly things fell apart with Aubrey. I would have thought with Alex Golisch getting hired that two days before the Sunday they might have been there, but they were starting to lose so much traction as it was. All the talk about Braille and Womack as he going to stick around, I mean, speaking of, I've used this for a couple of times. Coaches that can get out of their own way. Aubrey just seemingly can't ever get out of their own way. And they should be able to recruit at such a high level. There's so much good in state talent. And they've been able to get it, but they haven't been able to utilize it. Cam Coleman has been criminally underutilized. So you look at Aubrey. I think Golisch is going to do well there. But there's no reason that with Aubrey and with the resources that they have, with huge freezes, job security, or not, they still should have had a better class than the one that they did. And then to the flip side, if you're looking at a class that you're like, hey, this is kind of intriguing. This is kind of interesting. It's Mississippi State. I mean, I think that Jeff Levy did a really good job with this class and going back to Braille and Womack to be able to flip him to, you know, Mississippi State is forgotten at times in the SEC. And that's probably because you have a larger than life lane kick in at the in-state rally. But I kind of like what Mississippi State did this year. They beat Arizona State early in the season. They were competitive in some games that, you know, they ultimately couldn't finish out. But there were signs left there. And Mississippi State, they kind of have to, they're much like Matt Campbell when he was at Iowa State. They have to nail the evaluation and development side. And I kind of like Mississippi State finishing, you know, with the class that's just outside of top 10 in the SEC because that's still pretty good on the national scale. - I have two more quick ones in that whole class. - I promise, tie. We're gonna let you out of here, okay? I am looking at your ACC rankings right now. Duke and Virginia, both of whom played for the conference title are currently at the bottom of the ACC recruiting rankings. Is this a signal to you? Should this be a signal to other fans of the ACC? Even Louisville is in the lower half of the conference right now with respect to recruiting rankings. Do you take this as a signal that these are portal schools now? - Yes. On one hand, and both were quarterbacked by portals and very expensive portal attracting, like, getting a dairy and minza. I mean, that costs Duke quite a bit of money. But I think that, you know, many days in Tony Out would love to be able to develop a guy, but at the same time, you know, they're not gonna attract any elite quarterback like the blue bloods are. So they're gonna have to be heavy portal schools in the long run. But it also shows you that, you know, and I've said this for years, you don't necessarily see the bump in your recruiting office successful season in that immediate class. You see it in the following class. So I would anticipate that the 2027 class for Duke and Virginia is going to be much better, especially for Virginia. Because their worst questions come into the season is Tony Elliott the right fit for the guy. Now he's one terrible flea flicker away from potentially being in the playoff and turning that thing around entirely. But now he's shown, give me some patience, give me some time and look what I can do. And I think Virginia's 2027 class should be better. Of course, you now have James Franklin in state that you're having to recruit against. But I think that both are kind of geared for the portal, but I also think they're gonna see a better bump in the recruiting coming in 26 and 27. And while we're on the ACC, I do have to say, I'm very impressed with what Stanford did in this class. Because you take a guy like Andrew Luck who hasn't been in the collegiate game for a decade and basically put him in charge of this program. He singlehandedly himself was recruiting this class, not a head coach. Frank Reich did very little recruiting at all. Yeah, the assistants were doing it. His Stanford recruiting staff was doing a lot, but I saw Andrew Luck at a couple of high school games this year. He's getting on the road to go watch quarterbacks and one of them was the quarterback. They flipped from Vanderbilt, Michael Mitchell, but to not have a coach for nine months and still be able to recruit a class that was pretty solid by ACC standards, it's not the Stanford classes they had in a David Shaw, but it's a different era. With NIL and the transfer portal and Stanford being slow to adapt, for them to finish with a top 10 class in a conference on the other side of the country, I think it's pretty intriguing to see what Andrew Luck was able to do at Stanford. Rhonda there to some extent, but that's gonna be ramped up. We're gonna be talking about Cal next year in the ACC rankings because Tosempoi will go back. We talked about the fans here there. Tosempoi is going to build a fence around Northern California that I think could really benefit Cal and Jared and some of the TeleStain is gonna be a big help for them moving forward too. Final question I promise. I am looking right now at the now group of six because the Pac-12 has been reconstituted in some form whether we like that or not. Obviously this round of the college football playoff, we have two group of five teams. So there is an emphasis for sure on, I don't wanna say that level of college football, but a level other than the power for. The teams that right now are atop their respective conferences. Temple in the American Western Kentucky, UNLV, Boise State, App State, and I believe Bowling Green in the Mac. So clearly these are schools that are prioritizing where they're at with respect to high school recruiting, maybe because they can't be or aren't as active in the transfer portal for a whole multitude of reasons. Are there any schools on the G six level that to you rise above the rest and should be on our radar as college football fans given this new world where there will be at least one annual rep in the college football playoff from that G five G six level. Yeah, I'm looking forward to what Billy Napier is going to do with his portal class J.M.U. and if he can continue to do that. And I think that they're gonna recruit at a high level, you know, with him there for a couple of years. But I think if you look at the most consistent G five, G six program over the last 20 years, it's been Boise State. And there was a reason that they were the first G five team that went to the playoff last year. You know, we're a nine and four season and a Mountain West championship is drawing criticism because of the uneven play of the Boise State did. But if you look back, they're still gonna have the best class going into the Pactwell. They've got the best reputation, the best history in the last 20 years of any of the new Pactwell schools or any of the current Pactwell schools that are still sticking around. They recruit at a kind of a national brand level better than any G five school. And there's a reason they have the highest rated G five class or G six class in the country because Boise State has always done well. They've always punched above their weight on the field, but they've also punched above their weight in recruiting. They have traditionally beaten a number of powerful and powerful five schools or the BCS schools in recruiting battles going back to when Chris Peterson was there. And I don't think that's changed at all because I think Spencer Danielsim is showing what a good recruiter he can be and that the Boise State brand can get you drafted. I mean, Cage KC is potential second round draft pick. I watched him play in high school and now he's gonna be a second round draft pick and you know, a mid three-star guy from the Pacific Northwest. A national gente is a four star, he goes there, he thrives at the top five pick. Boise State continues to show the development. And if there's any school in the G five level that does a better job of retaining their talent, there's better than Boise State, I'd like to see it. And that's where I think the difference is and that's why they are so consistently good is that they do a really good job of holding onto their players. Now, can they do that long term? I don't know because the revenue sharing is such a big difference at the power of five level to the G five level. But if one G five school is getting in the playoffs, I think Boise State's the one that you're gonna have to kind of earmark in every year as being one of the contenders out of the new pack 12 and one of the three or four contenders nationally. - What an Andre Williams performance from Brandon Huffman. - Unbelievable. - 42 carries, 233 yards, just muscling through the defensive line of contents. - He's a machine, man. - You are a machine, Brandon. - I'm about to knock out a PD light here. (laughing) Hold off this hold on getting it. - That's great. That's great. Love to hear it. Brandon Huffman, 24/7 sports. Thank you so much for all of your time. Your insight as always, be sure to follow Brandon, check out all of his work. I'm sure you'll be seeing him in videos across this great land these next few weeks talking about recruiting aside from the beautiful one he's doing right now. Anything else we should know about. That's on your radar. Work wise, football wise. You're in the sunshine now in the winter time. That's nice. - I am, it's like what's 75 today? What does it expect to be? No great skies from me. No, I mean, believe it or not, we still have all American games. We have the El-American bowl. The Ender Armor game and Apollon Asian bowl in January. But that's all going to be massively overshadowed because January 2nd, after those New Year's Day bowls, the portal opens. And you think these last couple of weeks have been crazy? Oh, baby, I think January 2nd to the 16th with all these coaching changes. With all these new coaches and new places, it's going to be a wild 14 days. And should serve as a nice little distraction as we get ready for the semi-finals in the national championship. - Have you heard any just like, I'm not asking for specifics here, but are you sitting on any just like bonkers rumors, whether it be in respect to a transfer coaching movement? And people tell you things, they don't tell us. So are you sitting on any of that stuff right now that you are just crazy curious to see if it comes to fruition? - Very much so. And it's going to be at the quarterback position. It's going to be a lot that has to do with who lands where and who prioritizes who that I think could really, change kind of the game moving forward with which schools are competitive quickly in 2026. - Incredible. - Can't wait. Brandon Hoffman again, 24/7 sports. We very much appreciate your time. We very much appreciate you leaving it all out in the field. I can hear the voice. So go hit that pdf light. You are one of truly the unique characters that we have on this show. We love it every time. We get a chance to talk to you, make a smarter. So thank you again as always for your time and enjoy the holidays. Appreciate it. Happy holidays you guys too. We'll see you here in a couple of weeks on the portal circuit. - Yes sir. All right, Dan there you go. Brandon Hoffman, 24/7 sports, national recruiting editor. He is a frickin machine man. - He is and it's especially impressive because I'm sure in like previous eras of recruiting, he can, you know, he knows like the sophomores and juniors and seniors and then we go through like the home stretch of the season and visits and signing day and then they're just sort of off to college and he goes back to the high school ranks, right? And he follows college football because he's a college football fan and like you need to sort of have that context for high school recruiting. But now with the portal, he kind of has to keep track of everything all of the time on both sides of your corner. - I wanted to ask you about that but we ran out of time. I could keep it longer. - What we do, like I don't watch the NFL, you watch the Giants, but you're not like an all day red zone like fantasy gamble. Like that's not who you are. - I mean the Giants definitely - Basically G5 at this point, but I continue. But like I look at the NFL and I'm always just like pleasantly surprised that a player that I spoke about for a few years is doing well in the NFL, like just not good for him. Like Jonathan Taylor is good for the cults? What a pleasure to see. I loved watching him in college. But you could tell me that Jonathan Taylor didn't work out or just had like unlucky injury lock or history or whatever and be like, damn, that stinks. Oh well, wish him the best. And so that he has to continue on from high school to college and that people continue on from college to the NFL. Like I'll just like look at stats every once in a while. NFL leaders and be like pleasantly surprised that somebody's good. And then I just continue on with my day. What these guys have to do with the portal world now because it's all one in the same, especially contractually and NIL stuff that Brandon doing this nationally. It's just, it's an undertaking. Very impressive. I wanted to ask him how the word recruiting has changed for him now. As a national quote unquote recruiting editor, recruiting is so different, you know, 'cause schools are building out NFL style scouting operations. They're no longer just in the game for high school prospects. They're basically recruiting everyone all the time. So how has his job changed now that this is a more holistic thing? I mean, I, he sort of spoke to it a little bit and I think schools are definitely answering that question. Everyone's got a little bit of a different approach, but it's a hard job. And his ability just at a moment's notice, we didn't give him any of that stuff beforehand. No. So his ability to kind of just go from recall, I had half a notion to just throw out a random two-star guy and say, tell me, no, I didn't want to put him in a bad spot 'cause he's already, like, deal with the cold and given us so much of his time. I don't want to make him look bad. That's a lot. But man, he's incredible. Go and follow him, go and check him out at 24/7 brand and it's like a national treasure. I'm sure if you were like this two-star kid from Artija, like somewhere in Southern California, he could be like, all right, well, his dad was in the minor league system for the Padres. Dad, I think he could handle pretty well. When you say NFL, by the way, when you're like, it's almost like a for better and for worse situation because as we get into portal season, I think a lot of these schools, if not all of these schools, like, it's not a limitless bank that they're dealing with. And so I don't think when we're seeing a lot of these guys enter the portal, it's necessarily like, I don't like being at Kansas State. I don't like being at USC. I think a lot of it is, hey, we want to renegotiate your deal. We think you're a 350K guy, not necessarily an 825K guy. And so at that point, then there's the math of like, do I think I can get five, 10 somewhere? And I think that's what we're into right now, which does feel like the NFL. - Does it take anything away from you? - Like hearing about this out in the open. 'Cause I think a lot of this already went on behind the scenes we just didn't know about it. - Sure. - It's different though. It really does feel different to me. I think for a long time, many of the people listening and you guys can call me out if I'm off base with this, but there was such pageant tree and romanticism associated with college football if only because we didn't talk about this stuff. And there's part of me that thinks maybe it was all better off when we just had it going on in the shadows. Where it wasn't so front stage center, we didn't have to deal with this whenever we logged on to our message board of choice. But now here we are and it's out in the open and I think the players are better for it. I've always believed you and I have both been like bonded and that the player should be compensated. They should be able to earn off their likeness, but it has definitely reframed the conversation in a way that I think a lot of people are still uncomfortable with. - Sure, it's definitely different. It's definitely, again, it's hard for us specifically because we're most concerned with schools that are like of the gilded feel in our name in Oregon. - For better, yeah. - I don't think we can speak to it feeling different or like having a yuck factor because Notre Dame's not gonna lose players they want and Oregon's not gonna lose players they want by and large if they're playing and people are getting along reasonably well behind the scenes, that's just how it seems from the outside. So from that perspective, not a lot has changed for me personally, but looking at the sport as a whole, I'm always fascinated no matter the sport of like, you know, you look at the NBA and the Mac Steels and the aprons and the mid-level exceptions. Like I think there is something super interesting about the construction of rosters and teams and how you value players or draft picks or salary caps or going over the cap or there being no cap or you're deferring payment for 10 years that's worth like $800 million. Like the business of it all is interesting to me, but at the same time I can't help but feel for the guys who feel like they're being squeezed out. And we're watching players who were like pretty good in contributing, but now have to go to a considerably smaller school and smaller stage because there's a new hot freshman coming in and the books need to be balanced. Like that's not my thing, but by and large, you know, the only certainty in life is change. And so the teams who are rolling with it best and in the best financial way are the ones who are gonna succeed. But yeah, it takes a little bit away from me, but like we're also in a universe in which we have to pay attention to TV ratings and networks sort of putting their thumbs on the scale of realignment and stuff like that. So if we have to be exposed to more of like the underbelly of players making hundreds of thousands of dollars, that's kind of okay by me. Like I don't know, all things considered the like the bummers of this sport, players making more money and finding out about the money that they're all making. That's fine by me, I don't know. I would welcome feedback from the Verbalhood,
[email protected]. And I know this is well tread territory. This conversation's been going on for a couple of years. Now this isn't a new thing. And I think I have a pretty good sense for where our community is at with respect to how the conversation has changed. They talk about it all the time over on our discord. But it's just a really, really fascinating conversation because we've been doing this so long and we have seen how the sport has evolved and this injection of money into every conversation has I think from any cheapened the value of college football. And I don't know, I
[email protected], we know your thoughts on the matter. I still will never get used to looking on social media and seeing Jada Mayovah has resigned his deal. That was definitely a different experience for me. Like maybe that's where the hat ceremony goes next. You know, like the hat ceremonies with the high school recruits and I haven't seen a much on the transfer market so far, transfer market, transfer portal. Well, we have seen, okay. So we saw a little bit with Chris Henry Jr., who appears to be like a transformationally good, great, whatever talent at receiver. Speaking of feeling old, by the way, continue. Yes, the son of the late Chris Henry, NFL receiving excellence. The, I think his process was, he's, I think he's from Ohio, moved to Southern California, was incredible for a high school power there, committed to Ohio State. The next step was he announced that he was shutting down his commitment, which is a thing now, right? That like I no longer want to be recruited. I am solid to, you know, ex school. And then Brian Hartline left, but he still said that he was signing with Ohio State at his high school commitment ceremony. Didn't sign and then went on Pat McAfee show to confirm once again that he was signing. Right. So he committed to Ohio State like four or five times in the process. And that's just a new thing. And can't wait to watch him play for the buck eyes. I think was considering like USC and Oregon and Texas or something down the stretch, but it is wild that you're like, I'm committed. I'm done being recruited. I'm still signing. I have decided that, yes, once again, I am going to sign and I have signed. Like it's a lot, but it's what we do with. Also, I'm sorry I told you to shut up during that interview. You should never apologize, right? I always need to be told. No, you, you, my, all of my loved ones. You, you, you, you had me in my feels after telling me I asked a mean question, which is kind of a mean question. I knew it when I wrote it, but I was okay with the question time. I know it's okay. You know, I love you, you know this. No, no, I, I should be, I'm everybody listening to this show is nodding in agreement. I guess every so often Dan should be told to shut up. That seems normal. I do care about Lehigh. We can talk about Lehigh at a different episode, but I apologize. Okay, I do. I don't like the outbursts like that towards you. You're my friend. Okay, Ty, you're only a human. All right. Thank you to one and all for hanging with us here. Longer show than usual, but hopefully a lot of great information from our friend Brandon Hoffman. Again, check him out 24/7 National Recruiting Editor. You can find him across social media talking about his wisdom. Here's got a lot to share and well, as he said, it's going to get interesting here over there. I cannot wait to hear maybe we'll get it on background what these rumors were and what he was looking for. But it will get interesting as we dive a little bit deeper into the transfer portal. Of course, as many people are listening to this, we have playoff games this weekend. Dan and I will be doing our normal thing where we recap the action on the live stream afterwards. TBD and whether or not we're going to do a watch along or anything crazy. So stay tuned to our social media channels. We'll keep you posted if anything pops up on that front. But any final thoughts on Carlos Alcarez and Juan Carlos Ferraro, his longtime coach splitting? I mean, what does it mean for his future? That's a legendary partnership, Ty. I mean, I heard rumblings of the coach maybe taking on an assistant role at USC, but who's to say? Oh, I thought you were going to do the like, I had heard this, but didn't want to say anything, like the classic. You have to tweet out the eyes or something. Right, all right. Okay, I have no info. I'm just going to tweet the eyes. Yeah, of course. The eyes, the eyes always get me. It's big move, big move in the tennis world. All right, thank you again to Brandon. Thank you again to the Verbalar Hood. You know how to reach out solverbotgmail.com. Pope, just see you all this weekend after the first round of college football playoff action in the meantime for that guy, Dan, for myself, Ty. You know the drill state solid. Peace. I'm Stefan Curry and this is Gentleman's Cut. Visit Gentleman's Cutperbin.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. Gentleman's Cutperbin, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cutperbin, please visit gentlemanscutperbin.com. Hey, everybody. It's Chuck and Josh from The Stuff You Should Know Podcast. And it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right, maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of beanie babies, monopoly or yo-yo's and a whole lot more. Explain the mashup that occurs around the okay crowd. How in the world is it Doc Holiday's business? In episode 799 of The Meat Eater Podcast, host Stephen Rinella talked with author in Old West's historian, Mark Lee Gardiner. Whenever there was a posse formed, Doc Holiday was always there to help out. Yeah, he's like, I'm sick, I'm half dead. I'd love to throw in. So he just gets excited when there's a posse. It's like your buddy drew a tag, you know? Listen to The Meat Eater Podcasts on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast, Guaranteed Human.
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