Todd McShay Joins, and Week Zero Has Arrived

Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible, all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Welcome back to Wig or Tailgate. It is the Wednesday edition of the show. I'm your host, Tate Frazier, and it is officially time for college football week zero is here. We got a very fun show. We got Todd McShay from the McShay show joining us today. We got a lot to get to, but first and foremost, say what's up to our guys. Van Lathen, what up, Van? What? That trick. Get him. Let's raise the world. Can I wait, man? McShay was on. We talked about all kinds of different stuff. Joe attempted to keep the same energy, but he felt like we got all kinds of shows. We got a good show. We got a really good show, no fine bombing from Joe, according to Joe. He is also in the sleeveless TCU shirt getting ready to keep the team. Did they need you for wings here? What's going on? Now, the arm's so much bigger when I used to wear that shirt. So no, they can't use me for nothing right now. Is that the same shirt? Yeah. The arm's so gone by. I stole this, bro. So the toes of the milk is working. They got you fitting in your old clothes. Yeah, I'm saying, I was a big motherfucker back then, bro. I was, you know, like, I mean, but like, swole, I'm saying like that. How much did you say you was tipping the scales at? I was in my Pee-Ga's 2, 2, 14, 2, 14, OK. Yeah, 2, 14, 2, 14, 10 percent body fat. Yeah, 10 percent body fat. 10 percent body fat. 10 percent body fat. He needs to be single digits. OK, all right. OK, take. All right. All right. OK. All right. Yeah, tell me what you need. You need your men's body fat percentage. Take. Six, six, nine. Six, nine. Six, nine. OK. Don't do that. Don't do that. But so. No, I'm just asking. What is the body fat percentage of an elite college football running back? Like, what's the body fat percentage? I was going to say six to seven. I would probably say six to say, because you couldn't do that. That's what I just said. Yeah. What? I mean, I was. Yeah. Come on, Doctor. Obviously, I wasn't going to play an NFL or, you know, maybe like, I think about that some time. But anyway, related to that, when we talked, when we interviewed Todd, I started to tell this story about my old running backs coach, but Casey and I didn't forget it because. Take what van kept interrupting me. And so I couldn't remember why I was going to tell that story. But the reason I tell this story about my old running backs coach at TCU, but Casey, who used to be Bo Jackson's running back coach at Auburn. He, we asked Todd about, man, what is it like, when did you get confident in your opinion on grinding tape? Because I remember when I watched tape, and it was so boring. And I just was like, I couldn't even keep my eyes open. I thought the shit was white. And so that was one of the reasons I was like, man, maybe I don't love this game. Like I say, I do because I don't even like grinding tape right now. And so anyway, so that's, that's the connecting tissue to connect the tissue to the story. The question I asked Todd to answer an interview to make, to make them make more sense. I would call that I guess a teaser for what we're going to talk about with Todd McShay, but also a nice preface there from Joel. We appreciate that. Before we get to Todd though quickly, we do have some housekeeping at the top. We have a fantasy football draft, the ringer fantasy football guys. We have it. Wow, Friday van is in the league. Obviously he's repeating. I've been asked to be in the league with a caveat that Joel and I are captaining a team together. Now these are Joel's guys. Obviously his best friends here at the ringer network. He always wants to hang out with those guys. But it is fascinating. Joel, I wanted to get your thoughts on this. Are you in the group text for the fantasy draft? No. And then they put out a video. What fantasy track? The ringer fantasy. We have a team. Everybody's in town. There are a lot of Netflix, ask you more. So the only people that are telling you about it are your co-hosts here. Yeah, because you you dragged me into it. You knew that I didn't want to do it. So they asked me to ask you. They know that I'm not going to do anything. They know. You're still defending them throughout this whole thing. Yeah, okay. I mean, I respect you. But ask you to be a part of it. Ask you to be a part of it. Ask you to participate or show up or lend any type of. They respect. They respect. They respect. They respect my bandwidth. And they respect the fact that you know, I'm. I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to spoil it for the people. I don't. I've never done fantasy football. And I never will. Even if you see my name. No, you're doing it on Friday. You we have a team together. Yeah. Yeah. I want to announce something that my team is not my team alone. Since they asked you guys to get a team together. Okay. My team is going to be me and one Guillermo. Gil. Wow. Hell yeah. It's the rule. Yeah. Billy. I'm going to. I'm serious. I'm going to start hitting Billy up. I'm going to give him a list. Billy. Give me a list of players you want to draft. I might even be texting with you during the draft. I'm going to say. I'm just saying because. They don't want me to see this. Leave Billy out of the shit. Tailgate is four people. Right. Okay. You leave me out of this shit. This is another thing that hyphids in them are not getting right. Let me say something else they didn't get right. While we're on the subject. Okay. You guys will see this happen on Friday. They decided to draft order of the lead by having a long drive contest between hyphids, Craig and DK, which means that what they would do. Okay. We're driving for van. They will step up and then somebody would rip a drive. Hmm. Hyphids drove for me. It was 192. Fucking Craig. John Daley Holmeck is up there ripping 260 yard drives on behalf of other people. So now, see, you can't do the goddamn. I don't want my draft position being connected to the athletic ability of the whole set of goddamn show. That's right. Wow. And take, be honest, it caused the stir in the community. People were turning in their jerseys. They didn't want to do fantasy football anymore. I mean, the group red is all people just kind of saying, I'm out. You know, it was the Rudy moment. People were turning in their jerseys into the office. Yeah. A lot of drama, Joel, that you alluded, I guess. I guess so. Yeah. I'm not interested. So, I heard it was another driving range of hyphids went to without Joel. No, man. Look, let me tell you something. Danny worked with me, bro. He worked with me trying to swing that club. That first, I have so much more respect for golfers now. It sounds like you should have worked with Craig, honestly. It sounds like, yeah, you sure because Craig was nuking the bitches. I got to ask because there is, so everybody at the ringer talks about what they can do athletically, but don't nobody ever do shit, right? So we have to add ourselves that was part of the field day, right? So we don't really know who is what and what we don't know, right? It's only one thing that people seem to admit, which is that tape rules the rules of the ringer when it comes to golf. Wow. In many ways, tape and Craig Horbeck are kind of the same, both golfers slash basketball hoop. Yes, because who game is legendary around here? That's what they said. They say take out the spot up, shout up. That's what they fucking say. Now, let me ask you this tape. After watching Craig, really nuke bomb. He was averaging about 254's drive. I'm going to be honest with you. Do you think that is a chance that he's a better golfer than you? Respectfully, I play golf with all of them, you know? I mean, look, he hits the ball well, for sure. Wow. You have pussy shit. I mean, there's a golf with them. What happened? Respectfully, I beat the ass every time. I mean, respectfully. I put some on the ass, man. That's true. Just to let him talk with me. You know what I'm saying? Welcome to put it on that ass. I'm your DJ tape razor. Why don't you just like, bro, just say it. Put it on that ass. Shout out to Dedric Beasley. We used to all be playing the game. When Dedric would go up to touchdowns on you and Matt, he's looking at you and be like, welcome to. You know that ass. And after you did to the tape, you put something to put on that ass, back to church. I didn't play well when I played with him, but I think I shot like 77 or something. But yeah, I mean Craig got a good swing. Danny's getting better. I like, I like to see that there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, bro, bro, bro, bro, just keep it all the way real. I'm gonna ask you one last time. You little bro and I'm tape. I'm gonna ask you. But not enough. Not enough. one last time, bro. I'm asking again. Who won at golf? I just watched this video that you were talking about because they put it out there and you were saying that Craig was averaging like 250. So Craig hit for Tate and did he lay up because Tate was only 225. That's what I, yeah, there was, there was a little bit of when I saw when I saw Craig was hitting for me, I was like, oh, we're good money. I'm getting top four pick. And then it looked like he laid up. Yeah, he just kind of took a little bit off. So I don't know. But he didn't lay up for CR. No, he was all the way in. For CR, I think he hit like 260. It was, it was definitely, they said they didn't know who they were hitting for. I think they knew. Well, it just got down. Bro, my thing is this, they didn't know who they were hitting for it. Then that's even I, I get it. I understand. But that's even more nefarious because if you hit and then you assign the numbers after, I have way more questions about what you decided to do. It would almost be better off if it was like, hey, this drives for fan and you go up there and you try your best. But if you do it after you get the number, I guess you could randomize it and they probably did. But that makes it look like cheating. And I cannot wait. I can't wait. You, I'm glad you get to, I got to see this. This is my favorite time of year, angst, this angst in the fantasy football thing. Last year, I'm not going to spill a ringer family business. But last year, it was full of angst. Yeah. Crazy angst in the family in the fantasy football. So people leaving group chats, people out of here. Just fucking get out of here. I love it. So, y'all again, y'all talk all this shit about with the fantasy football crew doesn't do, or include me in. I didn't know none of this shit that y'all talking about. And I worked at the ringer family last year. I didn't know none. What you, what you guys are talking about, all this angst over friend. I was running his friends team for him last year. So, I wasn't even in the game. Well, we're invited to the league, Joel. You said you didn't want to be part of the league or the chat. I don't remember that. I don't remember the chat. That makes it. It was five minutes. That's how we started. I don't think anybody asked me last year, though. Nobody asked me last. It's not about this year. Yeah. Well, I mean, there you go. I told you, so your answer would be no. Every day, it doesn't matter. I mean, I, I, I'm not going to do anything fantasy football related in 2026, even if you see my name on it. Joel, at 11 Pacific on Friday, two o'clock your time. I'm calling you on the phone. I'm going to be on the phone. I'm going to lunch with my wife that day. Well, tell her that you had a phone call to be on during your lunch. Tell you got lost in the stacks. Yeah. Hey, man, you know, you're not being a real nigga right now. And, and, uh, man, Joel, yeah, the seventh picked you have any, any like inclination on who you might want. That's who we wanted. Seven, Joel. Don't get too much. So you got to grab a, at seven, you got a, you got a Jeff George. That's funny. That's funny. At seven, you got to kind of probably got to start the quarterbacks. Stan Stanley Humphreys. Stan Humphreys. Joel, maybe you go do some research on fantasy drafts and then Sydney, you know, grinds and take available grinds. He was a dog. I like him. I was thinking, I saw him on a state. Yeah. Yeah. Joel, who's your favorite running back? That's who we're going to take there at number seven and life. No, no, no, no, currently playing in the NFL. Are you kidding me? What? No, you want to take Adrian Peterson number seven in the 2026 fantasy football drafts. All the good backs will be gone by then. Oh, really? You think it's Todd girl, still playing? It's Joel. Okay, let me go. No, let me go. It's will be gone. What about be gone? What about Adrian? We won't be John. Be John going second. No, you don't think be John going second? I don't know. I don't know. Every year of fantasy football trips me up because it's like what you're supposed to do. And then the guys that you're supposed to take are usually not good or get hurt. And then the other guys are good. I don't know. Nobody wasn't here about fantasy football talk. Well, they have a very popular podcast, Joel. Yeah, that's very popular. And they're supposed to be your friends. And now you're taking more shots. That's first dissident. I don't take a shot at them. I'm trying to try to decide that it would be all I'm talking about. Yeah. That's the thing. So me and Guillermo Gill. Well, there you go. Well, no, wait a minute. Billy. Billy. Your last name is Gill. Yeah. So your name is, so your name could either be because you, so Billy Gill is one thing, but it has been Willie Gill, which would really be. That would have been pretty cool. Willie Gill, but it can also be like Guillermo Gill. Yeah. That's kind of fly, bro. Yeah, you know, he's a double G. There's a double G. Oh, man, Willie Gill. Where's he? Where's he? What's happening? I was looking to see I was like, that's a funny name, man. I'm surely somebody in the world is named Willie Gill. And I found one. Where is he at? It actually doesn't leave a date, but there's there is also Willie Gill. Who apparently played professional baseball or what? I don't know. Well, actually, there's no stats for him. Okay. You think he's a showgator? Sunberry. He put, oh, he because he played baseball in 1896. Oh, oh, Smoky Johnson probably not again. He's like that with Smoky Johnson, right? Yeah, probably not. I'll be essence. We got a very fun show coming up. We got one big guest joining us right after this. We got Todd McShay from the McShay show. We get a lot to get to his preseason QB rankings. We'll also talk Reggie Bush, Derek McFadden, Joel Gamer, the chance to finally answer that question. So it'll be a fun time. Stay with us. We'll be right back after the break. This is Ringer Tailgate presented by Fandole. College football is back and with more games than ever, there are more ways to play than ever from conference champions and national title futures to team props, Fandoise, everything you need to stay in the action all season long. Head to Fandole.com/tailgate to get started today must be 21 or older in select states 18 and older in DC can talk your Wyoming gambling problem called 1 800 gambler call 1 8 8 7 8 9 7 7 7 7 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Three, two, one. All right, joining us now as promise at the top of the show, you know him from the McShay show with Minsch. We got Todd McShay in the place to be hanging out on tailgate talking college football week zero and beyond Todd. Thanks so much for coming on the show, man. What's happening, fellas? I've been looking forward to this. Us two. We we've been looking forward to this for quite some time. We get a lot to ask you. Yeah, can we raise the roof, Todd? Can we raise the roof? Yeah, we have a top of shame. We got to raise the roof. Yeah, come on. All right. We got it. Got it. Not in that line of richy shit on here. There we go. There we go. Line of richy. Yeah, that's a good place to start. Let's start here, Todd, and then we'll get into it. We got a lot to ask you about. But just this season, kind of your vibes as we head into this season, like where are your heads at? Excited, you know, anxious. Like where are you as you kind of look ahead to the 2026 season? Oh, man, I'm excited to stop talking about all the other stuff, right? N-I-L five for five pro guys coming back now is the is the disjure. I keep trying to remind people like does anyone want to talk about like we might have the most talented group of quarterbacks ever to enter college football season? Oh, and by the way, we got Jeremiah Smith and Cam Coleman and and we got edge rushers like Dylan Stewart and Colin send it like come on, you know, like can we start talking about the guys that we're going to be that everyone's going to be fired up to talk about on Saturday. But it's like we get obsessed in the offseason with all this other stuff. And I'm I'm ready for it to be over. I'll be honest with you. So so there's that part of it. And then with that, you mentioned anxiety and I was like, what the hell would I be anxious about? But if I'm being honest, if you want to be transparent here, like I feel like I oversold the quarterbacks a little bit coming in the last year. And so I'm tripling down now this year. And so yeah, if we if all of a sudden sellers comes out and he's it's not any better than we thought and arch is still struggling with Ohio state and can't figure out that defense. And and and Dante more is making throwing a pick six in a big moment. Like if if these guys don't take that next step that we're all expecting them to, it could be a very frustrating year. So I wouldn't say I'm anxious, but I'm definitely like, come on, man, come like let's go. I know how good these guys are. And and then know where like to know that some are we got briles now in South Carolina. So Linaurus has got a guy who you can count on, you know, calling place. We get Sam Levitt with all that talent. But let's get him on schedule with Lane Kiffin who was for all the nonsense. The guy the dude can absolutely coach quarterbacks and develop them. So like a lot of these guys in news and now we get to see Mesta maker and you know, in a power for conference. So there's a lot to be excited about with with faces that we know with new situations. Even that would be a DJ lagway. Baylor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you something real quick. Do just last thing on the narratives. Like it used to be the college football wasn't as year round as sport as it is now. Right. First fell in love with the sport. It would go dormant a little bit. Spring would pick up and then fall All the pick up, excuse me, the fall cancel pickup. Now though, it is. It has become NBA NFL year-round. Do you think the non-stop need for a headline in college football lends itself to the health of that sport like it does in other sports? Because the NBA does on the drop. So it does. We'll read it. It does, it does, and you're right. And for our business especially, it's good, right? It's time to shift it back. But it's a really fair point. And I think the transfer portal has added. If recruiting and national signing day is NFL draft day for the NFL, the transfer portal now has become this free agency element. And so you're right, it's a good perspective on it. And it does keep the game that we all love kind of in the national spotlight year-round. I just-- and I don't want to do this today. But every program is getting with the program. Oklahoma, I think, has the model that everyone's kind of trying to figure out. I don't want to say chasing, but Jim Nagy comes in for-- I worked with Jim back in 2000, 1999, 2000 with SFX and all that. And he just had to come in from Green Bay. And he was working with the agency there. And then we did some scouting stuff together early on. And he went off to the Patriots. And I think the Seahawks and the Chiefs. And then eventually it was the executive director of the senior ball. And he gets brought in as the general manager at Oklahoma. And he's like literally running a front office like you would in the NFL. And that allows Brent Venables, who's a phenomenal defensive coach and also gets the team element of it to focus on what he does. And now we're starting to see Florida called well, former GM. And I was just on with Andrew Luck earlier today. And what he is doing now is Stanford. So like everyone is creating this front office, right? Why is it-- and I know the why. It's money and everyone who's got their hand out. They don't want this system to be broken as it's currently constructed. But at some point, we've got to get a system in place through government assist, I guess, is the only way that's whatever GM and head coach in college football tells me. Like it's beyond them. But at some point, if we're going to pay them like pros, if we're going to structure the front office, like professional front offices, we've got to have a commissioner and a commissioning group or a governing body. And we also have to have a CFBPA, like an NFLPA, where they can battle, they can meet people on collective marketing and do all that so that not every-- it's one thing to be in the national media year round. It's another to look like a clown show. You know what I mean? Where it's like, what are we doing? I think that's kind of the next big step for college football. So you kind of build off of that tide. So a lot of people have fredded about the state of the game, because of the transfer portal, there's this mess. And they don't really have their arms around NIL. And teams that are in the group are six or lower. They don't have a chance to compete like they do, because they get picked clean, basically. But it sounds like when we were coming in here, you were really excited about the state of the game as it is right now, right? Like, I mean, because you're talking about quarterbacks like Mr. Maker, who had North Texas. He gets to go to Oklahoma State. Whoever gets to work with dignity, it seems like the system is working in terms of putting players in places where they can excel now, right? Joel, Joel, it ain't all bad. That's the thing. I think a lot of this stuff is good. Like, why is it these guys should be grinding in two days in the summer and working this hard and basically the sweat off of their backs is creating a billion dollar plus industry annually and not be part of the system too, to where they're going to get paid for it. Like, that doesn't make sense. And also, it used to be this, well, if a college player tries to transfer equipment, he's going to sit out a year and shame on him, you know what, like, it's opportunity. And why does the coach get to bounce wherever he wants and why NFL guys get to, so it creates this opportunity. And by the way, like, let's look at the draft the last few years. Bo Nex is kind of a laughing stock coming out of Auburn if he leaves Auburn and tries to go to the NFL because it's just bad mistake after badness. Jayden Daniels is like a fifth round pick if he leaves. Honestly, he's like a third round pick after his first year at LSU, but he's like a fifth round pick if he leaves after the last year at Arizona State. Cam Ward, fifth round pick, a lot of scouts I talked to going into his last year at Miami after a carnit word and Washington State. Joe Barrow. Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow, right, and we could continue. Yeah, like, it's been the best. Last year Fernando Mendoza, right? Jalen Hertz. Jalen Hertz. So like exactly. So I love it. I love that part of it because you know what? Maybe this situation isn't right. And now it's not guys leaving because they couldn't win a job for the most part. It's guys leaving because there's better opportunity opportunity to be developed. And that's like a meritocracy, right? Like, opportunity, take advantage, meets preparation and go and try to get the best situation for yourselves and also the best chance to go be in a competitive market and compete for a championship. So I don't have a problem with a lot of the things that have gone on. It's, I'm also the guy that's reading a lot of reports from NFL scouts too. And it's like, I'd like to find a way and I don't have the answer. So I want to preface it with that. I read a lot of these character backgrounds and what goes on and how many hands are out for like, all right, let's say you make a million dollars as a wide receiver, right? And for some individuals, great, you're collecting your million dollars. For other individuals, the guy will 10% goes to the agent and then I've got this runner who's been with me throughout the circuit. I would get a pay him percentage. I got this uncle who's causing problems. Maybe mom or dad has some kind of issue. So like, and all of a sudden, you're like, is there a way to try to figure out to, I'm not saying given the money, but don't give them the money, but also like, set them up for success in life and some kind of, whether it's a trust or some kind of, something where it's not like, all right, I get all this money, I'm gonna go spend it all this, 'cause I promise you, Todd McShay at 18 years old gets two million dollars. Like, who knows, both of those. Yeah, both of those. Yeah! Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Oh yeah, we have, we want to get to the games, but I do want to say that that what you just identified is the crux, is the crux here, right? Because if you're NFL player, you coming to the league, rookie symposium, hey, watch out for this, watch out for that, all right, go out there. You're pro and once you're pro and you get paid, like NFL NBA, major league baseball, a little bit of a different structure, but they can't afford to baby you a little bit too much. But I think what's happening here in college football is treating these players like money earners, like pros, but also remembering that they are at a fundamentally different stage in their development as people, then the guys that we're talking about, the difference between 18 and 23, there's just a gulf of difference, like a huge degree of difference and I still think that's the thing that we're kind of contending with. I know Joel doesn't agree, but-- Well, I mean, it's just a fact to send it. I mean, it's kind of just because 18 year olds are adults, like if 18 year old killed somebody, they'd be like, that's an adult. He should go to prison. So I just kind of feel like an 18 year old-- I hear that too. What, I'm just saying? Well, I'm just saying 18 year old can serve in the military. 18 year old can start working. With a ton of guidance, hold on, wait a second. Will you go to the military? They don't just say, hey, here's a rifle, see you in Afghanistan. They put it through basic. What the hell in the church and stuff, you learn them? I don't know if you're saying to pay-- You could pay 13,000. I'm sorry. All right, look at this. We didn't fight. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think it's a discussion that needs to happen. It doesn't have to all happen here. But instead of viewing ads, like we're not giving you all your money right now, I think if the right voices are listened to, people who have been in those position, who have worn those shoes, those cleats, and who have fought through all that, who have maybe made some mistakes, and some who were really good with it, if the right people were put in place to say, this seems like the right structure to where he doesn't-- he's earning this. He doesn't have to worry about certain things. But he's also-- he knows when his career's over, whether it's three years in the NFL, whether it's no years in the NFL, whether it's 15 years in the NFL, that it's not different from a pension plan. Or so I don't-- and again, I don't have the answer. I just want smart people and people with actual experience who have lived through this. To read all the scouting reports that I'm reading and the background checks that I'm reading and the horror stories of these young men at 18 years old or 19 or 20 or 21 or 22, of what they're earning, they're not getting. How many other people are taking it to go do things that maybe are awesome. And then they wake up one day and like, what's the percentage, right? What's the percentage even at the best schools? It's like, you know, the best schools this past year, Ohio State and 11 guys drafted. Like, how many other guys didn't get drafted from that team? So I don't know, it's just something to keep in mind. And I, this is going in a direction I didn't expect. I feel like training me at the top, figuring it out. But I, I do love this game, I care about this game. And I think it's, it's time for some people to start like stepping up and trying to protect this game a little bit. So not every off season is such an embarrassment when it comes to the type of news. I love all the news coming out, but not this type of news always. Yeah, and it takes away from the game itself, which is the problem that we're all kind of discussing here. But I want to talk about the guys that you have. We have the preseason QB rankings. Frees has the graphic here. As you sort of put this together, Todd, as you try to, you know, evaluate these guys, obviously Dante Moore up there on the list, probably would have been a top five pick if he decided to go into the NFL draft last year. But as you filled out the rest of the guys, like how much of it was Intel that you're getting, how much of it was you already evaluated some of these guys. So you had them in a certain position. Like, how did you get to this position where you have these 12 guys on the list? No, it's interesting because none of its Intel at this point, like obviously as we get closer, I rely on like medical stuff and character and off the field issues and certain things like that. At this point, it's like a guy had done reports. I had to go back and read all my notes on arch or on Dante. And some guys I hadn't even viewed yet through the NFL draft lens. But even with arch and Dante who we felt like we covered almost every single week last year and I'm watching tape and I'm gotten down game notes and I still went back and watched. And it's made like, I'm in a better mood in the summer. And so I feel like I give easier grades and no, but honestly, just getting a fresh start because you get so caught up in the narrative of arch sucked against Ohio State and that lasted four games and then it was this game. And it's like, yes, some of that's true. But also watching a full season through on coach copy tape and really evaluating, I just feel like it's a clearer picture without the strain of like, I get nine more guys I get to watch in the next two days. So mention I started from scratch on this man and just went back and watch all the tape on all these guys. And honestly, I thought the big question coming into the coming into the season was this great debate arch versus Dante. We're not there yet. It could be like Dante goes out and plays a little bit better than he did last year, correct some of the mistakes under pressure, makes a couple better decisions in bigger and big moments. And you see kind of that breakthrough. Absolutely, he could be the number one overall pick. In fact, he's the odds on favorite right now and I put him at number one on this list. But I've got arch sitting it, what, four, five, fifth on the list. Yeah, yeah. And Sam Levitt, you're like, how can you watch Sam Levitt say that he could, because I see talent in like he, Sam Levitt is brilliant running the football. Like explosive, dynamic, instinctive. And so you've got that element. The ball, it just eludes, explodes off his arm. He's got this, like this element of competitiveness and aggressiveness that like most of us are greatest strength is our big, our fatal flaw eventually or can be. But now he goes to a situation with Kiffin and throw out all the offseason, noise and all the other stuff. Like I just watch what, what Jackson Dart was when he, you know, he's a linebacker playing quarterback when, when he and Kiffin kind of started out on that path. And to see the development in the first rounder. Then we got a division two Ferris State, you know, turn it at chambles and what he evolved into in such a short period of time. I just, I think for Levitt needs scheduling, Levitt needs to know where his eyes need to be and Levitt needs a certain element of discipline in his game. If he gets those things like the last two before him and oh, by the way, this predates, like you go but all the way back to USC and what Kiffin was doing with some of those quarterbacks there. I think it could be the one of the big, like we get into October, what Kiffin and Levitt are doing offensively could be one of the big stories in college football. 'Cause I don't think people quite understand how physically gifted Levitt is. And so right now I got more Lenore Sellers who's a better passer than people want to give him credit for. There's inconsistency but my gosh, I see talented man. Like he is on a different level. He's the most physically gifted quarterback in this class. Stamp it. Now you got, you got Brian Kendall Briles coming in a new system, can he learn from that? There's just a lot to be excited about with this group and CJ Carr is like, it's, it seems to be like your fate. Like, you know, kind of the guy that's, you know, kind of risen up, you know, as a guy. He caught your attention at the Manning Passing Academy. - Right. - For instance, yeah. He did and I got to warn myself against like getting overly excited about him, like showing, like insurance, yeah, inverted cover and not even that, like even less than that man. I was getting excited watching him during the afternoon teaching high school quarter, just now playing defensive back in a scout look like inverting the safety leverages, coverages, what scene you're gonna hit. Like his, he's been around ball his whole life and you could say that for arch and smother guys, but you see it like with Lloyd Card, his legendary grandfather, the coach at Michigan. He just, it's so natural to him. And then like the repetitive motion, like his stroke is like, like he hits spots. It's like a jugs machine where you just set it to. And so now after a full year of playing and now with two first round running backs out of the picture, now the onus is on him. And the schedule is kind of cute too. Like he's got a pretty big runway to success this year. So I'm excited to see what CJ Carr has. I think he has a lot of the traits and I'm not talking physically like mentally, accuracy, decision making. I think he's, I think he's got the traits to be a damn good starting quarterback in the league. But I can say about like nine, 10, maybe 11 guys here. - Let me ask you a question here, 'cause I'm sure Joel's gonna get to some of the rankings of the quarterbacks, which one of these quarterbacks has the most insulation? Which one of these guys can play the worst and have their team still do the best? - Julian Sain, probably, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean none of them will, no team will succeed if they play poorly. - But like average game manager like come down there, just do what the offense is called upon them to do, but yet their team could still succeed at a high level. Is arching that situation, along with Sain, or is it just saying for you? - I mean, arch certainly would be the, I mean, honestly, the top three would probably be saying one car, two, more schedule, that defense? No car, car, two, CJ, car, two, arch would be three. I mean, I guess you could put more behind those guys. - I'm gonna say the matter to you. How much do you look at the quarterback position as somebody who has to be an elevator? - When you're, I do a lot, and if I'm being honest, I do, I have a lot more in the last 12 years or so. I think it now, evaluating quarterbacks shifted drastically right around Patrick Mahomes. I'm not saying he was the only one, but in my evaluation of where it was like, I used to joke, right, like Jaws and Merrill Hodge and those guys would come up from like NFL films, right? I used to call them the NFL films Biker gang. - We'd be talking about the same players, we'd go through a cycle like a couple of weeks of DSPN and Mel and I would be talking about this player's good, this player's not the, and Mel and I would disagree on it. And then all of a sudden, they got done with their film and they jumped on like, on 9.95 up to Bristol, Connecticut, and they've just come roaring in. You could hear them coming in, and they're like, Vince Young sucks, or there's got to be a plan, you know? They're like, but they weren't always wrong. In fact, like they got a lot right. But I only say that because it used to be like, footwork, mechanics, delivery, gotta be six threes, like right on the edge, but six, four, six, five, tall in the pocket, high carriage of the football, like, you know, like, and so that's kind of how I grew up in this whole thing, it's how everyone who was evaluating quarterbacks grew up in this, in this thing. And it was more about like, you could watch the feet and their delivery and their processing, and you can tell whether the ball's gonna be placed where it needs to be placed and all that. And then we started to see guys who were like, and I do quite it for anyone who's like a golfing fan, like Scotty Sheffler's got the worst mechanics of anyone out there. Like my home, my home's was a disaster. Like he was, he was, I like, he was literally, there were some throws, he made one like 55 yards in the air. Like not, feet should be, feet should be here. - Yeah. - Why would he live right now? - Billy, Billy, Joe, behind this scene right now. - Yeah, we got, and he's pissed. - Let's see what your mechanics are, McSheff. - But he's like this, and it's not like side-hung, it's like, something's just underneath. - Yeah. - Stop marine. - I thought the homes were so bad. - I thought the homes were so bad in college. I'm a TCU guy, and he played against us a few times. Except for that senior year, we heat through for like 700 yards against TCU, I will. was just like, man, this guy is so sloppy. Like, how is he ever going to be good? - Sloppy, sloppy. And then, but then I'd go through my notes and it'd be like, you know, feet or a feet or a mess, no discipline in the pocket, Roman or a, but back yard football, all like, like parallel feet or parallel to lunch, all these things would be like 55 yard completion, ball over shoulder, you know, like, and so I think it wasn't him necessarily, but he kind of opened up a lot of people's, including my eyes too. Let's make sure we're focusing on the result too, not just the process, you know? And so we've seen a Josh Allen come into the league and like, there were times where I'm like, you're missing the broad side of a barn, man. And then Lamar, like, certain throws, mid like crossers, like he would drill, but there were certain throws on the outside. It's like, it's not there yet. And Jalen Hertz wasn't there yet, getting better, but like, but all those guys get in the league and they had, they had, they all the same thing, mobility early on. 'Cause you talk to anyone who's played the position in the NFL, no matter how smart you are, you're not gonna have the answers, right? As a rookie, even second year, there's gonna be so many answers that you get that question wrong in the test. But if you got feet that can move, they can get you out of trouble, and you can make the certain throw from a certain angle and some, you live to see the next set of downs and maybe, you know, and maybe one play makes up for two or three mistakes. So I've really started as a long answer for one question, but I've really started to focus on what it, let's start with, what does this guy do special? Is there something he does special? And if he doesn't, he better be awesome at everything, like in terms of like the processing, accuracy, ball out on time, all those things. If he's not a really good athlete or a great athlete, if he doesn't have a big time arm where he can make certain throws, then he better be really, really good at all the other things or else he's just gonna be a guy, you know? - So Todd, I have a question for you, but it's gonna require a little bit of a wind up here, okay? - You got it. - Oh shit. - I can do it. - I can do it in a minute too. - No, no, look, my colleagues are gonna talk shit. No, it's great. My colleagues are gonna talk all kinds of shit because last year, I've kind of offhandedly said, shit, I could grind some tape. But the reason I said that, Todd, and it was in reference to, you know, they were like, this is not a reason, Todd. - Yeah, it is. - Finn, don't look, you have to answer that question. - Okay, go ahead, go ahead, I'm like, yeah, yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. - Yeah, I'm gonna do it. - What did you say? - No, but what I did was I was just like, they would disagree with me about something in football. And then I think maybe your name came up with those references. I was like, shit, I could grind some tape. And so, the best way out on that, I like that. - Yeah, I like that. - Yeah, is that okay? So, but in all fairness, I'm just gonna say, like I was on the foot, the team of TCU in the mid 90s. - In the mid 90s. - Yeah. - Well, I'm just 'cause I'm trying to get through and get through. - I know your background. - Yeah, you do? - He's always flashing his verifies, Adam, so. - What, oh, okay. - Damn. - All right, well, you know my running backs coach was fresh from here. It was Bud Casey, who coached Jackson at Auburn. He was Bo Jackson at Coach Auburn. - Get to the question! - Yeah, what's up, stop, man. - You're winding up too much. - Now, there goes the best part of the show. - No, the wind up is over. - So anyway, I wanted to ask you, when you got confident with your opinion about football, like was there a particular prospect and one time you were out there, the first time you were out there and you're going against like the NFL caucuses, like the guys, the people that concerned themselves, experts, scouts, analysts, all the whole thing and you were going in a totally different direction and you were like, I'm confident enough to say this out loud. When did that happen for you? - First of all, you can grind. I think you got to get Billy Gill to talk to some of you guys and let's connect. - I would love to say, we could take session. - I hooked everyone up with the catapult or guys and you can watch all the college games over, like three hours later, there's a system in place, the ringer, we're all locked in. It's a family now, yeah. - Billy, Billy, you hear this? Let's make this happen at the show. - Yeah, we'll get you your own little folder. - Get your logic and how much tape you're watching. - I want it. - I want it. - You're going to be scary now. - He's going to be like Johnny Manziel's iPad, zero hours of tape. Stop it, don't, don't, don't disrespect. I'm glad you said Johnny and I are Kyler, okay. - We don't. - DeMarcus Russell. - Oh man. - Yeah, that was my first massive mistake. DeMarcus, honestly, Brady Quinn was probably the most public one, you know? - Okay. - Kuiper and I went to Valley, that's the famous Kuiper. - I don't remember that. - Right before the draft screaming at me. - Screaming at me. - They wouldn't let me go down to Bristol. I mean, go down to New York for the draft. So I stayed back in Bristol and I'm sitting there with an earpiece in and it's like 10 minutes before the draft and I hadn't really worked with Mel during a draft or before a draft and I didn't realize like what happened to him as a human being. Like he just, he becomes this ball of energy that it's not Mel the rest of the year. And so I start poking the bear and I'm like 26 years old, you know? And this is like my first shot like right before a draft to be like, call him out, like Brady Quinn's not, he's like, I don't see it. You have Brady Quinn is like fifth best player in this draft, like here are the negatives, here are the reasons why. And he went off, read in the face, screaming. And I was just like, I'll retire. If Brady Quinn is one of the best five quarterbacks in the league or something like that, I'll retire. I'll mark my words. I still ask him every once in a while as he retired. But that, I felt like I started, but that was like before, I think we've seen the shift in the quarterback position. But it took a while. And like I believed in what I was doing and I was very fortunate to be around a lot of like smart people. And even some of the coaches I had at Richmond in college went on to coach big time college football or like Joe Cullen is one of the best defensive line coaches in the NFL. And so like I was fortunate enough to be around it and kind of learn as I went. But it's, you know, the cliche of like, you know, there's all sorts of cliches about it. If I knew then what I know now and like you know, know too much just enough to be dangerous, you know. I didn't really have a clue until probably 30 in my early 30s. And I honestly got the older I get, the more I realized I didn't know. And the more I realized I don't know. And the more comfortable I am being like, I don't know. I need to know more. It's changing, right? Yeah, it is. And so I'm constantly talking to GM's scouts when we're out like the senior ball and like working their brains to find out like, what are you doing? What's your process? So like, but when I was younger, I was, I was, I had this level of like arrogance or not. Maybe like a pride pride is, I had a level of probably my ways the best way. I know how I'm doing it and it, it stunted me from growing for the handful of years. I think where it's like, we're going to do it this way. And now I'm like every year, like bring more in and let's learn. And maybe maybe I can kick some parts of my process out. So it's been fun. I don't know. There's something about like the last few years of finally taking a step back away from all the ESPN responsibilities and the daily shows and being where I've like, I feel like I've grown a lot and it's been, it's been awesome. And less pressure to have the takes, right? But when you go on those shows, it's like, give me the sound by, give me the take. Is this guy, you know, the guy or is he just. And I'll only be able to talk about 10 guys and a 256 player draft and all that. So it's, yeah, it's been refreshing. I'll be honest. There's being right even matter. Because it used to, because it doesn't really feel, it doesn't feel like it actually even matters it feels like, game in, game out, player in, player out, being able to give people insights and things that they don't even, nobody, I watch quarterbacks, talk about quarterbacking. I watch so many quarterbacks on YouTube right now. Talk about quarterbacking. And it fucking feels like they're merging the magician. It's magic. And I watch guys who I watched them play in college and in the NFL. And they weren't really lighting up the scoreboard. But when I watch them talk about the intricacies of the game, they have so much insight that it almost doesn't even matter if they're right or not about the guy that they're actually evaluating. What matters more is that they see the game in a different way and they help. Yeah, and they help me see the game in a different way. Because if I look at some of the predictions that are made about some of these players, a lot of times they are insanely wrong. But it doesn't seem to do a lot of damage to the reputations of the people making the predictions. Well, back in my day, but back in the day of like around 2007, let's say the, I don't know, 2017 or whatever it was. Not even maybe like 2012. There wasn't, there was no other real programming out there. There wasn't, there weren't all these shows. There weren't smart opinions and a lot of dumb opinions. But there weren't other places you could go get an opinion. So that was one of the great honors of being in my role for a long time was like it was either Kuiper or it was Mayok or it was me, you know? And so like, so when I failed, he's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's talking about, you know? And then, but if I got it right and Kuiper got it wrong, no one cared if I got something right. People only cared if I got it right. and somebody else got it wrong. So, but for some reason, there was such a magnifying glass on like, all right, it's draft season, March, April, let's talk about these guys. And then the second that one of those players that one of us loved didn't play well, the people would get on social media and sort of blasting us. So for a while, it mattered. And I think part of my growth in all this is like exactly what you're talking about, man. The value I hope for people listening and watching is, I've got 26 years of doing this. I've got developed relationships and fostered relationships in college and NFL and all that. And also, I've got 26 years of sitting and watching tape in a dark room and writing notes and I've learned from a lot of my mistakes. So I can share all those things, right? And so if I like to play a little bit more than somebody, like who cares at the end of the day, but hopefully that's the value in this, you know? I feel like you end up rooting for guys, like because you've evaluated them in a certain way, you know? Like Thai Simpson comes to mind. Like I see a lot of people already doing the victory laps on Thai Simpson, right? So it's like, you know, one of these guys, you know, everybody goes in. I don't even remember what I don't even remember have to the Rams are having him higher than anyone, not Nandor Lovsky. Yeah, but then there's like Eli Stowers is like been an embarrassment in Eagles campus allegedly. I have not sat in like really studied what he's done and maybe like my not even be active for the rookie year, if you trust people in social media, I don't know for like the week one, I should say and I saw his weaknesses and where he had to develop, but I didn't think that we'd be faced with a scenario in which like he has been really massively disappointing in rookie camp. So it definitely goes both ways. And then there's sort of like game accus for the Patriots. I love that guy gave him a late first round, well early second round grade, but considered him right there like the top 35 players in the draft and nobody else really was on board with it. So I kind of earmark every year. There's like probably 10 to 15 players that I'm only competing like nobody knows, nobody even cares, but I do, you know? So yeah, I quietly root for players, but then you hit the point right like bone X second round grade, like second like mid late second round grade for me. Good backup. Maybe could win some jobs as a starter. Just didn't see it. Didn't see it the way like saw some of the trades and then and then the second he gets drafted by Sean Peyton and knowing how much Sean Peyton like I did like that's my guy and and I'm like here we go, you know? And he's going to wind up outplaying what my evaluation was of him. And so even now like I was on cow, cowherd earlier today and he's talking about bone X and even in the back of my head, you know, this is just like a confessional right now. The back of my head, I'm talking about all the good things bone X and I wasn't quite as high on it, you know, and I'm saying all the right things, but in the back of my mind, I'm like, I still don't trust him. And then I walk out of the room and I'm literally walking downstairs and check out my kids what's going on guys. And I'm like, do I not trust him because I'm so stubborn on my own evaluation? Like at what point am I getting like, I don't trust what I watch the games is a, I think both Nick's career, I think it's a Disney movie. I don't think people understand it was just where he played himself into college football of security at or at Auburn. It was a, now he didn't do some magician shit against us. It was actually pretty impressive. Some of the stuff, some of the heroes people, but it legitimately had got to a point to where he was like in a bad situation and the fan base was rallying behind and his family was involved. It's like, is the guy going to figure it out? He gets to Oregon and I'm like, well, Oregon's going to get the bonus experience, but then that doesn't happen. He becomes good. Well, Stein got him right fast, right, like right away like he becomes good. And then even after he plays competently for them, I'm like, well, there's no way it's going to happen in the NFL. It's both Nick's. I watched him. We're talking about games against like Georgia Southern and stuff like that. Sometimes he lost and it's working and I give Sean Payton a lot of credit, but I still have this thing in my head where I watched this guy. I watched a freshman push him almost out of his job. It's hard to believe if you watch some stuff you can't unsee, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's going to. Yeah. Well, Todd, are you, are you ready since we're just talking about recent quarterbacks here? Are you ready to take your victory lap once you do our Sanders yet? Or would it, what is it going to take for you to come out? Because you were the, and I will say, when you first said that he was probably not going to go into first round, people went fucking crazy like they were like, it was like people thought you were making it up or whatever. So like given what has happened since then, do you feel like it's time for the victory lap? Where's the tricky part with the Shredor Sanders stuff, though? I didn't, I didn't view him as, I gave him a second round grade, but I still want to, I'd have to go back and look. He was in my top 40 players. So it was a weird one because I actually appreciate the quarterback. I think he has a skill level that can actually work in the NFL as a starter. It's this maturing that he has to do on maybe off the field, however you view it. There's this maturing that has to happen with his game, where he has to adjust and he can't get away with, and the same was true with Cam Ward that year. Cam Ward got away with a lot of stuff that you just can't get away with in the NFL. We're seeing that arc and we'll see Brian Debel can get him right and they bring in Colonel Tate and so far not so good, right, in the preseason at least. But so on one end of it, I really appreciated, like him as a passer in certain throws and I just had this instinct about him that I really liked, but then I got talking to people who were meeting with him. And the first, I'll never forget where I was, I won't say it, but I was sitting in a room in a hotel and one executive who was in the room with a certain team was like, and we would go through all the different players and some interviews and whatever. And in every year we sit down for like an hour and we just go through a bunch of players. And he's like, and we got to Shadour and he's like, everything's off the record. He's like, this is got to be I was like, he goes, honestly, he goes, I don't even know what to say because I can't, I'm not sure if he was just acting the clown. So we wouldn't draft him or something or if that's who he is, but our interview couldn't have got any worse. And the worst part is, I don't know that Shadour cared that we cared or how we felt. And I was like, Oh, okay. So now I start like, you know, reaching out to some other people and they're like, yeah, it didn't go well. And it's like, he's almost like it came into ours with the headphones on and he kind of got into a fight with one one offensive coach here and I'm like, this isn't, this isn't good. But even even knowing all of that and trying to warn everyone and even honestly, like, I'm like, where's everyone else? I'm not, I'm not the information guy. We got a bunch of them in the league. I try to stay in my lane when it comes to that stuff. I'll tell you about the evaluation and, but, but like, this isn't my role to be like breaking news about there's a player out there who's highly sought after and really kind of the face of this draft who's not interviewing well. In fact, he has people questioned if he's trying to tank the interviews or if he just like doesn't care that they, what they think of him. And, and why isn't, and I don't want to say specific names, but we all know the names. Why isn't that guy, that guy, that guy, and that guy reporting the same thing? And then it, and then it became a question in my mind of, are they kind of protecting this whole thing because don't forget dad is at that time on every commercial you watch on Saturdays and Sundays. And so what are we protecting? Because maybe, maybe we have some league rights and we got a bunch of games and maybe a game day or something's going up to the boulder. So like, I don't know, it was, it was hard to figure out, but no one was talking about it. And I know I'm not the only person who knew. So I liked Shadour a lot as a player. I knew about some of the immaturity in some of the areas we had to grow, but I also have seen a lot of young men who weren't ready maybe for all that and maybe had been in, and I said, not I said, but like put into kind of bubble wrap throughout college and their experience. And then, then grow when they get into the NFL and around grown men and you got to kind of learn it all on the fly. So I'm still holding out for Shadour. I just was shocked that no one else was talking about it when it was such an obvious thing that people inside the NFL were talking about. In this day and age with social media and the amount of NFL insiders that were out there blew my mind. I think the reason why people might not have been talking about it is because it probably blows the lid off of a couple of uncomfortable conversations. Let's say that like Shadour Sanders didn't care what people thought about him, right? And he came into a meeting and he was, you know, overconfident, it looked like arrogance and all that. It's stuff like that. A lot of people would say, well, that was the same way. Obviously he didn't win a husband trophy that Johnny Menzel would act that you see the other people act like that and it's perceived a little bit different, not to throw this off the rails a little bit, but some people, some people look at Shadour Sanders and they expect a humility that should come along with him. They see his father and him. They see confidence. They see a young black guy with the bling and stuff like that. And sometimes that comes off to people. like as if he's arrogant, or if there's something else. But really, he's just a super handsome quarter back who's come from a background where he doesn't know how to like, gravel for an opportunity. He's been a man all the time. And it's kind of what they get put off by it. But it's really, like it, I don't, I wanna name it. It's, there's a cultural glitch there. Like they don't, it bothers them more when Shadoor does it. 'Cause I see a lot of athletes all the time to where they would say that that looks like confidence. You think that's fair? - Yeah, I get what you're saying. But the league's black, he's black. Top, that's what I'm saying. - You wanna have a real conversation? Let's have it. - 15, 15 years ago, and all years before that, there was a bunch of rich white men sitting in a room that were making all those decisions. There were general managers, and is the balance where it needs to be absolutely not. But also, and everyone had to look the same and talk the same and act the same. And there was an expectation of, especially in that position that is uniformity. - There was a uniformity there. - But a quarterback, yeah. - Yeah, that it was gonna be, it was gonna be, a six-foot, three to six-foot, five white men who have very smart and looks you in the eye and shake your hands and says all the right things and go on a white board and do all the, and give all the answers to the tech, that's not the league today. And all the people in that room are all different social, economical backgrounds, races, like, and by the way, like, came wards in those same rooms. And he acts differently than Shadour acts. And they act differently than Fernando Mendoza acts, obviously. But so, like, the quarterback position is all shapes, social, social, economical backgrounds. It can, it can look a lot of different ways. But throw out even quarterback, it shouldn't look disrespectful. And it shouldn't, and it shouldn't look disinterested. I think that's what, that's the vibe I was getting. - From the guys you talked to. In the old guard in the NFL, there were a lot of problems with it. And I'm not saying the entire old guard has been kicked out of the NFL, but the vast majority, like vast, vast majority is, is gone. And I think we can all pinpoint some names. But yeah, it's, it's changed, like, man, Zell grew, it was white and grew up with a lot of money. His grandfather's money, apparently, and all that. There's a lot of teams that snifed out kind of the bullshit. The, the. - Q's-diction's taught. - He was like, like, not to take anything away from Johnny, but Johnny, not to, Johnny's had some problems. I don't mean to bang on people, but we all know. Like, even at that time, he was going fucking nuts. - No. - Like, like, he was a minis. And he got him into the first round, you know what I mean? - Because he was a minis, because he, he, he did something to Alabama and Nick Sabin that just didn't get done. - Yeah, that yes. - And all his games have itself. - Yeah, and so it's, I think we've come a long way with all that stuff. And that's why it was kind of surprising to hear, because like, that, that room, those interviews, like, sometimes you walk in as a player and you're just getting ripped, and they want to see your reaction. Like, those room for 15 minutes can go a lot of different ways. It can be good, it can be cordial, it can be smart, it can be like fun, it can be disrespectful, it can be angry, it can be a lot of different things. But I never get reports like the reports I was getting from the Shedor stuff where it was just like, disinterested. Like, not, you know, and it wasn't like, I don't know, it was just different. And I just feel like, last thing I was surprised is, I think this is really interesting. Last thing I say about this, and like, guys, I'm not one of the shields. We've been very critical of Colorado football and like the whole deal. Last thing I say about this is like, it is interesting to me, and I think actually, the thing that's gonna keep Shedor in the league and allow Shedor to actually get a chance to be a good quarterback is the fact that nothing can take his confidence away from him, that he has this really, that he has this belief, and they're all, they're very, very pious and religious family, and that belief seems to be, his belief in himself doesn't seem like belief. It feels like faith. Like it actually does, I totally agree. Right, it feels like faith. It feels like he has faith in the things that made him. So a lot of the failures that would have humbled other players, I don't think they'll humble him. And I think that maybe in those rooms, while they were doing things that probably work, it probably, there was probably a glitch there 'cause they were certainly embarrassed when the fifth round picked him. Let's be honest. That certainly was what was tough for the one. And can be humbling. Right. But also it can be motivating. Motivating. Yeah, I think, I said it earlier in this show, I say it a lot. Like it's amazing to me how many times, whether it's personal, like business, sports, like your greatest strength, often is your fatal flaw. And I think draft weekend, what you're talking about became his fatal flaw. But also that almost delusional level of confidence sometimes can get him through any kind of roller coaster he's about to face. And you know what, maybe not starting the first week and letting the other guy go out there to Sean Watson. And if things go great, great. But if they don't then come in and the bar set a little lower and the excitement for him to come in, and it's almost like now, now I've got this team. Now and now it's my, you know, I don't know. It sets up for him at some point this season to get an opportunity to kind of pick up some pieces and carry this team. And to showcase whether it's for the Browns in the future, they get two first round picks next year or for another team that says, you know what, there ain't 32 of them that can be as good as him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What's that? Yeah. But you still always say like the brightest light cast, the darkest shadow, right? So it's like the great thing that you have can create a long shadow as well. So that's exactly what we're talking about. Wow. Let's take it. Literally, right? Yeah. Let's off the clock. Yeah, I guess that's what we're talking about. Oh, he's always been nervous about the quiet guy, you know? Yeah. He's taken up the air. He's taking in all this information. I'm locked in. A favorite storyline for you this season, college football-wise, Todd. Like what are you most excited to kind of hone in? I mean, obviously we can talk about the Link Kiffin of it all. I mean, Jeremiah Smith obviously is going to have a great year. Maybe Texas with Sark and Archmating obviously. But like, well, for you, what is your favorite storyline that you're locked in on? There's a couple of them. OK. And they're under the radar. I think CJ Bailey and NC State are-- Oh, I love that. Wow. Whoa. Totally. No one's talking. CJ Bailey is legit 66. He's legit phenomenally, just phenomenal athletically. And I watched that Manning Passing Academy don't get too carried away. But like, a little bit more refinement in this air about him while he's on the field with all these-- Year three, guys. Yeah. Year three for him. I'm here in the defensive lines a little bit better. The offensive lines a little bit better. I like their running back. Duke Sanders, I forget his-- but Duke is his first name. I think that they, in an ACC that-- I mean, it's up for grabs outside of Miami. Keep an eye on NC State. Iowa is interesting. They don't even have a quarterback. And I don't know that it necessarily even matters at this point. They never need one. Right? Like, I could see them winning 10 games. I think Tony Diaz is his wide receiver. They brought in from UT, like real Grand Valley or something. Like, guys, and even-- but he's-- I watched some of his tape and he's like-- they got two tight ends that are awesome, as always. I think Iowa's a team to look out for. But there's a couple that-- out your way, right, in California. Those two Southern California teams, USC and UCLA, they have legitimate dudes. A quarter-brown. Niko Iamaliyava for all the shit he's taking. All the shit he's taking-- this is Joe's got stuff. And I don't care. Dad's involvement, and I'm telling you-- I'm telling you, Chesney got himself. He's got-- he's a first-round talent. Now, can they bottle it up? More consistent decisions. But he's making NFL throws. And he's ripping it down the field. Excuse me. His deep accuracy is atrocious if you go back to Tennessee, especially when you're like, it was almost became a joke in scouting circles. Just get that first deep throw out. There were some throws that the receivers just crossed on the goal line. And it's almost in the stands. But they didn't throw the ball vertically a lot with them last year. I'm interested to see if that element. But within the first 25 yards, he can just rip it. I don't know that UCLA is going to be that great this year in the first year with Bob Chesney there. But they've got a quarterback that I think is absolutely special. And then, Jayden Mayava is-- Well, that's it. When I sat down and watched the full year on tape, there's something about this cat, man. He is strong. He breaks tackles. He's not twitchy and necessarily fast, but the mobility element throwing on the run, showing up in big moments, competitiveness, makes all the throw. He's in the weird part with him is watching him. I thought it was, everything was more off script. He's like one of the more refined pastors in this class. He'll pick your ass apart if you're not where you need to be defensively, and now he's got another year of experience. So, yeah, there's a bunch of different storyline. Oh, and by the way, Dimon Williams is one of my favorite quarterbacks in the game players in the country too. Almost had him. Almost had him. Almost had him. Yeah, almost had him. Almost had him. We got to live it, but almost had him. Totally honest. I'll do a program. Let me ask you a question. You guys get to ask me all the questions today. I'm bringing you guys on our show so that I can flip this script, but I'm going to do it real quickly here. Would you have rather him, rather had him or love it? Well, Levitt's injury issues at first really scared the shit out of everybody in the fan base. But man, once Levitt got into Baton Rouge and you started listening to people not just talk about what they saw from him, like all of the things that you talked about earlier, these are the things that you're hearing from people that are close to LSU. And these are the things that I actually didn't even know about the player. I watched him at state and he looked really great and you saw him make a lot of plays. But you would hear from people and it's weird, you'd hear that he's even better than what he showed on the field. So the answer then would have been, I was really excited to get Williams in, but it looks like it things worked out for LSU the way they were supposed to. Yeah, Lane's throw that they got this guy. I know that, but probably would have been thrilled with either, because they're both both. That's what we wanted. That's what Longstreet is for. Sores be, yeah, it's unfortunate, man, because he's one of the two, he's one of the three or four most talented quarterbacks in this class too, but he's just not even close to there yet. And now we can't play. And we'll see him at the senior ball, I guess, you know, that's a brutal situation. Damn. Okay. I don't know how much time we have with the tie, but I have either one or two questions. I'm going to let you decide you get to pick, which one are you going to answer, okay? Yeah. That's actually at first. Yeah. You can decide. I never thought of it. Yeah. So this is the first. That both so good. I just want you. So the first option A is, is that anything Brendan Sores be could do to elevate his stock in the offseason or as the die cast, the second question was or option B, we're calling it. I don't, you saw the ESPN project from a couple of months ago that had the best players of all time with their jersey numbers. And the most controversial one, apparently that I found out was the idea that Derek McFadden deserved the number five and not Reggie Bush. And we want to ask you to settle that. Like, is it that absurd that people consider Derek McFadden to be better than Reggie Bush? So option A, option B, A is so intricate and boring right now that I don't, let's, let's go with B. Okay. Reggie Bush is the best five of all time. That's what we give it up. Thank you. Don't worry about it. I'm ready for that. Don't worry about it, bro. Even I love Derek McFadden. Even if that's like, people, people at the, like, it's a ridiculous thing to say to your face. They nobody say that. McFadden was a dog. It's, it's toxic. I'm tired of your time, please. Yeah. I mean, there's just something iconic about five and like, fight on and, and the trojens and like, the, the highlight reels and the, and that era and Pete Carroll and like, thunder and lightning. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe, and I was there for both of them. Like, I was like, wow. I was out in Fayetteville, Arkansas and, and, and my bag didn't make that, didn't make it from one flight to the next. I was too young to realize I need to care everything on. And, and I had to go to the Walmart that's open 24/7 because it's the home of, of Walmart and, you know, got like an, an $89 suit and kind of look sharp. Um, so I, like, I've been there for there. I saw Darren up close person, multiple games live. Like, it was awesome. He wasn't, he, he wasn't five, like the real five, you know. Yeah. That's I. Right. I thought you were, you were McFadden guy. Yeah. You made the art. He's a contrarian is what he is. Yes, he is. Yeah. No. I just don't. You say left. Joel says right. They're statistics. They're statistics are basically equivalent. Uh, if you, first of all, if you don't, but the thing that, the, the, the qualification I have with Darren McFadden is that his quarterback was Casey Dick. And Reggie Buschers was Matt Liner. He had Duane Jarrett, uh, Dominique Bern. I hear you. I know why he had everything around it. Everything was set up for Reggie Buschers succeed. Do people really think that Darren McFadden couldn't have done with Reggie Busch, did he? Have you played in that offense at USC? Yeah, but there was something about the way he did it. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. And also not just that though, I gotta say, man, he, he don't act like that Arkansas team that Felix Jones was, they had, they had dogs. Pay the wheelers. Pay the wheelers. Pay the wheelers. They threw. And it wasn't really, it was a, that was a, that, that team had dogs on it. That was one of the best teams that they have to say that because they beat, they beat your national champion in 2007. That's right. Beat our what? Yeah. Okay. Just whatever. They, they beat, they beat the first two loss national champion. They beat our football. A national champion is what you say. Yeah. What happened to those purple lights behind you? I think they're dimming. They went out. Oh, man. Well, I get that. That was your final question, right, Joel? Yeah, that was it. That was it. Okay. Van, anything else you got for Todd? No, man, this has been fucking awesome, man. I'm glad to see you. Great. I love you guys. Thank you, Todd. You're the best. We appreciate you coming on the show. Anytime. I love your show. This has been fun, man. Well, yeah, and we're going to, I'm already, I'm already trying to nail you guys down to come on ours. So let's, uh, let's make that happen. I love it. Um, uh, McShay and Minch, they're the best if you want to get locked in on what's happening. And football from the draft perspective or just college football in general. Go check them out. Todd, thanks so much for coming to the show and great to see you, man. You got a guess. We'll see you guys soon. I'm sure I can't. I'll say what up. Shout out to Dan. I will. Yeah. I will. He keeps us on track. There you have it. Todd McShay coming on the show. I appreciate Todd joining. That was a lot of fun. Joe, you had a good time with Todd, right? You guys buried the hatchet. You didn't find bomb out for the most part. I mean, we never had a hatchet problem, but you know, Todd was great. And just like I said on the text chain the night before, I was really excited about it. I knew it was going to be good. And I assume our listeners and viewers are going to agree with us. I feel like if we had asked them about Diana Rossini, he would have answered it. You know, we got him that we got him that like calm and loose on on on air. Calm and loose. You know, we were in 227. Yeah, we talked to him about that next time. But yeah, great to have Todd on the show. Appreciate him. But let's get into it. One big prediction. We got football this weekend. Week zero, obviously, the big game in Dublin, North Carolina, TCU, house divided here on tailgate. My team, Joel's team. We'll talk about that. San Jose State, USC, NC State, Virginia is a really good game. I ACC show down 330 on ESPN. We got Jacksonville State, North Dakota State, Sac State, Eastern Michigan, Hawaii at Stanford, New Mexico State, Florida State, Memphis, UNLV, Van, I'll go to you first. One big prediction. What are you looking forward to? And what do you expect to see? Week zero. The end of the bill, Bella check the Arab begins. Wow, I have a feeling. So TCU is a seven and a half point favorite. Okay, there's North Carolina. Yeah, I think it's going to be way worse than that. You think it's going to be like it was last year, a bludgeoning. Right. North Carolina will have the opportunity to actually show that they've showed up some of their positions of need. They're breaking in a lot of new guys. They've answered a lot of questions. I don't think it's going to matter. I think TCU is going to fuck them up. And this is going to be the beginning of the end of the bill, Bella check area. I think this is the last season he coaches in Chapel Hill. Wow. Wow. A prophetic there. I mean, you called it last year, Brian Kelly. You got him out. So maybe no, Bella check step one here. Would that be welcome for you, Tate? It wouldn't be welcome because I wanted to work, but at this point, it does feel like the writing is on the wall. Lombardi, there's no word on his return. It's been. There's no worry. Why don't you text him and ask him if he's going to come back. It's illegal. It doesn't matter, Joel. Okay. We're done now. You're not, I mean, you want to publish it? You could ask him, is your, is your dog? This is being, but you just, this is being published right now that we're reliably air. Oh, yeah. This would be public. If I say anything, but yeah, no, Lombardi, Steve Bella check has a medical issue. So they have no defensive coordinator. So you don't have a son. You don't have his number one confidant. And you don't really have a quarterback, you can believe in. Obviously, Billy Edwards is going to play. Um, so yeah, it does feel like the writing is on the wall for the beginning of the end for Bill Bella check. But I would love for him to shock the world. Joel, uh, do you think that's possible? Are you all in on the horn frogs? - Yeah, well, I mean, I just want to make sure that you guys don't miss, you know, try to take my words out of context or put words in my mouth. 'Cause I do think TCU is going to win the game. But I don't think football happens like that. Teams have pride. Like they don't, you very rarely, unless there's just such an overwhelming talent disparity that nothing can overcome it. You don't usually see teams of a similar level like get blown out two years in a row. Like you just, if you usually don't happen like that, well, I know that's just a little bit of juju. And also just sort of think people are forgetting like built, like UNC was not a good team last year, but after the first few weeks, they were not a bad team. Like they won a lot of games that they lost. They were in three ones, they lost three one-score games last year. Imagine if you flip those three one-score games, all of a sudden we're talking about seven and five, and not four and eight. And so, and then look, every time they played against a good player last year, like they kind of, with the exception of Josh Hoover, they held JKS and check. Virginia needed OT to beat UNC last year. And Virginia played in the ACC Championship game. They shut down Dairy and Mensa. So I just think, you know, Villa checked, I think the defense is going to be right. It got better at the end of the year last year. And I think that there's going to be some improvement there. And I actually think between Bobby Patrino and Billy Edwards, that's probably going to produce a lot more offense than Freddie Kitchens and G.O. Lopez. Okay. Jordan ship is not-- Patrino is the one that you're buying into. Yeah, I mean, I don't think, I think Edwards is a very competent power for starting quarterback. I don't think he's great, I don't think, but I think he gives you a floor. And he was pretty decent that year, Maryland, two years ago. He almost threw for 300 yards and three TVs against Indiana that year. And they went to the playoffs that year. So I'm just saying, I don't think UNC is going to win, but I think there's going to be-- UNC has a better chance. They're going to be in Dublin. Weird shit always happens in those games-- Supposed to rain as well. Yeah, it's going to be in the sun. It's going to be British, open conditions. It's going to be a nasty game kind of-- Dublin and Dublin. Have you ever been to Dublin? I've never been. I want it, man, we could have-- Man, fuck it, man. We could have been there, though. I just realized that. We should have been there. That's what that's all about. That we probably should have gone. Yeah, we should have probably should have gone. I wouldn't say it, but we should have gone. We'll tap our chest there. We should have been there for this game. But the weather doesn't look great. I like that you're trying to spin this where you think North Carolina could win this game, Joel. This is the classic first jinx move by you. Do you all remember when everybody thought Dion Sanders was a good college football coach because he beat Sonny Dex? So again, I just don't think-- I don't think UNC is good. I don't think they have a future with Bill Belichek as a coach, but I think he's a very competent coach. It's the first week of the year. It's in weird circumstances. TCU still has a new quarterback in a new offense. This is a lot of shit. They could go wonky in the first game. So I just don't see UNC losing by 34 again. Yeah, Jaden Craig, Jordan Dwyer. Dwyer is who killed him last year. Yeah, Dwyer. Yeah, he was not doing that. He was not doing that. At a huge game. So he's still there. I think he has a little bit of a Nick injury, like something going on, but they said he's going to play. So yeah, be a fascinating game. But yeah, it's a little bit of a Nick. I don't know what was coming, bro. [LAUGHTER] They were like, what the fuck? It's a Nick at night, you know what I mean? Oh, Nick at night. I think he's got a little Nick with him. [LAUGHTER] I don't know what the injury is. They don't say what it is, you know? We don't get any information because Joe School doesn't want people reporting on their team anymore. Oh, let me first of all, I was just about to help you to get away from that. So I was going to get Van off of you and transition. But that's fine. But no, so I do because people ask me to say something about this. And yeah, I think it's fucked up. I mean-- In case you missed it, the Star Telegram, their beat reporter has been banned from reporting on games, the press box, right? That's the story, Joe. Yes, Steven Johnson, they reported on a fight that resulted in the dismissal of the safety that was going to replace Bud Clark. He was the conference USA code defensive player of the year. Bud Clark now on the Seahawks. Now we're on the Seahawks, yeah. And so he got kicked off the team. And apparently, because he got into a fight, the victim got beat up pretty bad and had to go to the hospital. We didn't know those details at first. TCU just said the kid was no longer going to be at the program. Well, comes to find out the Star Telegram printed all those details and about the fight and everything. And they've been a buildup of tension in the locker room and all this other stuff. And so yeah, they reported the story like they should, because that is news. It is news for the real reason why a guy you figure it was going to be one of the best defensive players is no longer on the team. And it also points to, I mean, the quintessential locker room problem, right? Like when you hear about something like that, and so it suggests some disconnectedness in the locker room. That's the nicest way I can put it. And so for them to block out the journalists in the media because they didn't want them putting out there, I think it's fucked up. Steven Johnson is a great young reporter. I think he's done a fantastic job on that TCU beat. And yeah, I mean, I hope TCU reconsideres this because I think that's bullshit. Like we shouldn't be afraid. We shouldn't be afraid of the truth. Yeah, so it feels like some bad karma for TCU heading over to that. I mean, I'll say, though, this might be good for Bella check. Might be good for the target. A lot of shit going on, man, a lot of shit going on. Say this and not to take this into a deep rabbit hole. But stuff like this is just indicative of an eroding relationship between America and American culture and its journalistic institutions. That's right. And the fact of the matter is journalism is supposed to report stories like this. It's supposed to be a secret of truth. And you can't just shut it up when it doesn't report stories that make you look amazing. And everybody wants PR. They don't want journalism. Nobody wants that like we were like documentaries now. Documentaries used to be, hey, let's get a look at this person's life. Now documentary starts with that person sitting down and just in their microphone. Well, I'm not going to get a great doc. You might get an entertaining doc. But you're not going to learn very much new, right? 100%. Yeah, that's kind of the world we live in. Nobody wants the actual news of your report. They want the version that they want to be reported. That is not on its basis journalism. So that's the fascinating part. One big prediction for me, ACC, taking center stage during week zero. We got Florida State that's going to be playing on the CW. That's going to be fun to want to see what Florida State looks like with their new quarterback there. We also have a big game, NC State at Virginia. You heard Nick Shea say that he's buying into CJ Bailey. NC State, if you look at their schedule, it looks like there could be, I mean, look, you can do this almost any year with NC State. 10 wins is on the table. Daniel, 1/11 last year. So this is a big showdown. NC State, Virginia, on Saturday, in prime time, 330 Eastern, 1230 Pacific, so pretty good. It's in Charlottesville and not Brazil. Like, oh my god, this game was in Brazil, then we wouldn't be able to really evaluate it. Yeah, like a game in Dublin. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it would have been cool for the players to go, but for everybody else, it just would have been a logistical nightmare. Not really, by the way, Brazil is wild. Like, wait, no, dummy, what have you been to Brazil? What are you talking about? I've got a lot of people that have been in Brazil and they've gotten robbed in Brazil, so I don't know. But there's always a lot of things happening to me. This has happened to me, bro. That happened to me, this is the end. I'd be careful in Brazil, but it's probably a lot of years here. Bro, no, no, this is the essence, bro. I think a lot of these years, like, it's my offense. I got my money's worth. You know, he's a G. It's a state of, it should be a good game. And honestly, I think Virginia's going to win this game, but I think NC State could run the table after losing this game. So I think it's going to have some implications for the ACC championship game potentially. So for week zero, there's a lot of people complaining about the slate saying they're not excited about the slate, but I think week zero slate. This is some good games, man. Yeah, I think this is a really-- Memphis, you and LV, is that right? That game could have actual playoff implications. Yeah, I think you got a couple of big time teams, playing Florida State's plan. I think this is a decent week zero. I'm interested in the North Dakota State game, man. OK. Yeah, Jacksonville State of North Dakota. This is going to be North Dakota State's first game up at the FBS level. Boy, Tate, are you so fucking right? This NC State schedule sets up so fucking well for them. Yeah, they might win out. They could win out. What? No, they play Louisville's the only game. That I can see them losing. Man, I mean, they look terrible. Obviously, they get Duke at home. They're on the road against Florida State. I think that's going to be a tougher game than we think it's going to be right now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they beat Caroline every year, so that game on the road doesn't really matter. We don't know what Van D is going to be, I mean, right? Because Diego Pavi is one of the greatest players in program history, if not the greatest. Yeah, I think he's taking it down to him. Yeah, but I mean that's not too fresh with a quarterback right no - No, no, no. Billy's burrow, which ended up beating out Jared Curtis. - Oh, he did beat out Curtis. - He did Curtis. - Okay. So Curtis is gonna start the season on the bench. And look, man, I mean, Vanderbilt, I mean, maybe I just don't think NC State is a program that can say, we gonna walk into Vanderbilt and come out with a win. And you can say that confidently. - It'd be good for the ACC for them to do that. - Oh yeah, y'all need some. Y'all need some besides Miami. - Joel, look what they did last year. Beat up on a lot of people. - Remember that Alabama game? - Oh, yeah. That got me out of heaven a long time ago. That's right. And that was it. - That was belt. - That was belt. It was beating. - That was belt. That was belt. That was it. - I came tonight. - Yeah. - I mean, so I went to Big 12 came out to the ACC that weekend. - I mean, just ask Mario Cristobal. He was talking about his record versus the SEC. - Okay. - That's pretty well. - No, they were single time. - So there you go, week zero. Any other thoughts on week zero Van? Anything else that you see that you wanna point out to me? - No. I think this will be one of the more exciting week zeros for me because as we talked about with McShay, I cannot wait for some actual football to take place after all of these fucking issues. I can't wait to watch some of these teams play ball. - Yeah, we need football to save us from all the injunctions and litigation that's happening in the sport. We'll talk about that a little bit later. We do have our tailgate season awards. We did then last year for the Gators. Joe dressed up look really nice. So we had a good time doing that out in Los Angeles. But we wanted to do just a little quick rundown to preseason awards and we'll start with the Joll Award, which I still have in my possession. Nico's award, he won the Joll Award last year. Shout out to Billy for crafting this beautiful award that Nico still needs to pick up. We'll see if we can get it to Nico. - We've got Nico out there. - Preseason award, Joel, for you. I mean, who was on your list? Obviously Nico, you're off the bandwagon. So he's probably-- - Oh, no, no, no. I mean, he's free to fly away now. I was supported in. I was pretty much one of the few people in the country publicly that was willing to defend the kid, say something nice about it. And he ended up flourishing and things are going to really take off for him now that he has Bob Chesney and the twinkle around him this year. So yeah, he's got the twinkle. - By the way, Bill Simmons went to where we went to. - I saw that. - He reviewed Bob Chesney in the same location. So Bob Chesney getting a lot of-- - Was that Ray J. Song? - What Ray J. Song? - Oh, I know the song. They didn't wait a minute. - They didn't want to reach. - One wish. - Yeah. - They didn't want to wear this one. - That's why I thought. - That's what I thought when I saw Bill over at UCLA. - I'm sure it was a fantastic interview. That's his dog, man. - That's his man. - Bill is a UCLA fan now. I mean, I don't think he's a booster, but he's-- - I think he is an unofficial booster. - I think he's part of the situation. But I mean, the twinkle, bro. The twinkle is real, man. The twinkle is real. I believe it. I believe it. - Yeah, but the Jolo or Jolo? - Oh, yeah, my bad. Sorry, yeah, anyway. - Yeah, so anyway, the-- So, yeah, some of the nominees were McCoy Hughes. He's starting over at Houston. He was a 1,400-yard rush at Tulane. Went up to Oregon, didn't play. He's going to Houston. I'm one of them out of the first school I ever loved. I think he's gonna take off and under Willie Fritz again. The mom Williams, he was on the list, Bryce Underwood. I'm kind of hoping he does well. But the top guy on my list for the Jolo award right now in the preseason, I'm gonna take a page from Van. With Van said the other week, that he wanted to see Ryan Coleman Williams succeed, even though he's, even though that might harm LSU. - You love distressed assets. - Yeah, I do. - This is what the Jolo award is about. So, that's me in DJ Lagway, okay? - Oh, well. - Bailey Lagway does not help me at all. I want to see Bailey fuck up forever and be sorry. But, man, I want DJ to succeed. Man, he's such a, he's suffered such a drop in regard in a steam over the last year. And I just don't like what people have been talking about him. And also, the John Sumbral. He's coming in there. He's gonna be Mr. fucking tough guy. No, that kind of shit. And, you know, the competitive, you know, DJ Lagway wasn't competitive enough. And they didn't like the fire in his eyes. Whatever the fuck they were talking about. And so he walked on and went to Baylor, which is his father's school, Derek Lagway, who was a great Houston area running back when I was coming up. And so, he's going back to Baylor. He's healthy this year. Jake Spavidall has worked with a lot of great quarterbacks. He's an offensive coordinator in Baylor, Johnny Mansell, Gino Smith, Kase Keenan, a whole bunch of guys. And apparently, they say DJ's been putting in the work, you know? I was watching him grind some tape from Vett Freshman here. And I was like, I'm seeing the stuff. I feel like he's going to have a really good year this year, man. So I don't know if he can save Dave Miranda's job, but if he can just have his name mentioned among the great quarterbacks in the game again, that would be lovely. So the preseason nominee for the Joel Award, DJ Lagway of Baylor. - I like that. - DJ Lagway of Baylor. - DJ Lagway. - DJ Lagway. - I like that. - Good kid. Got caught up in the bad situation there. There's no reason not to root for him. - Me too. Yeah, I'm with it. I think that's a good call. - A character of the year, Van, I'll go to you for this. You know characters very well. It's sort of college football. Who do you have a character of the year? - Easy, easy, easy word. That's Lane Kiffin at LSU. - Definitely. - The character in college football. We're going to see how the character actually meets the results right now. Because it's not going to be enough to be a funny guy. It's going to have to be something with it right now. You're not taking the fixer up her and then bringing it out there for people to see it. You're not flipping anything. This is LSU and these fans have an expectation. But whatever happens this year is going to be entertaining if it involves Lane Kiffin. So that's my character of the year. - Yeah, we get hot yoga every single week. We get him trying to get players to sue the NCAA. So Lane Kiffin has had an incredible offseason. And that is why I think it's very fair for him to be a character of the year. Let's go to your expertise, Joel. Daddy of the year, obviously last year. - Oh god. - That's high Simpson. What was your favorite year? - I never said that. - No, you said he was your dad. - I love that. - You said he was your dad from a ramp? - I don't know. - No way with the ramp. - That's the biggest dad. - That's Vance Verbiage. That's not my, that's okay. - So give the word out. - Yeah, Daddy of the year. Who do you call for? - Who's your dad? - Hold on, I'm looking it up on my screen now. All right. So, you guys, man, you just, you'd fluster in me right now. So, my Daddy of the year. Wait, that's not the document, bro. What happened to that? - Joel. - This is my fault. - Okay, hold on, here you go. Daddy of the year. - Speak from your heart, Joel. - Who's your daddy? - Daddy. - Daddy of the year. Malacot, Malacot Tony. - Okay, that's a good one. - If Rubin Bain was like the big dog of Miami, like I get, or you know, he was like the general of the team, like Malacot Tony was like the lieutenant general. I mean, he's just 5'11, 188 out of Liberty City. - It was given like Birdman Little Wayne last year, yeah. - Well, you know, like, do you know what it has to, what it takes for people to call you baby Jesus, coming out of South Florida? Like, just think of all the great players that have ever come out of there. And that guy got the nickname baby Jesus. And then he lived up to it on the stage. And he's, again, he's not a big dude, man, but he was crazy productive. He was one of the best players on the field. I mean, oh shit. I mean, how many players were better than him in the National Championship game last year? - Not many. - Not very many, like maybe Rubin, you know, Fernando, you probably put him ahead of him, but not very many people over him. So yeah, man, he's in the mold of like that generation of canes, not the Michael Irving generation, but the Andre Johnson, Ed Reed, Willis McGay, he the kind of required assassin kind of guy. So. - Twitchy explosive. - Twitchy just different makers. Like Jersey selling star power down in South Florida. - Yeah, for sure. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I like that big daddy of the year, according to Joel Anderson, Malachai Tony. So we'll make that graphic for sure. Next up, image makeover of the year, man. I'll go to you, who's gonna, you know, redefine who they are as a program or a person. - Lord of football. - Wow. - Wow. - Okay. - It's not going to be a season that is going to be a return to glory type of season, but it is going to be a season that is a return to respect the ability, process, and success. It's going to be a successful season, as much as I hate to say this for Florida. It's going to be a successful season. And people are going to see, it's not gonna happen overnight, that maybe they're on to something with some raw. That's my makeover of the year, for sure, a Florida football. Joel, you don't agree with that. - No, I mean, I was going to go with you, say, - I like that pick, though. - Yeah, I like the UCLA, okay. - Well, I don't like the pick because I just don't think Florida's going to be good under this guy. Like, in the end, you guys accused me of being a contrarian during the McShay interview. This is an occasion where I'm, because so many people are talking this dude up, and I just, I don't like what I've seen. Like, I begin to lane that he won there. He won in Troy, he has the resume, but so did Billy Napier, when he showed up in Gainesville. - What position group at Florida scares you the most? - Right back. - Receivers? - Okay. So what I'm saying is, you don't care about someone on that Florida. All right, you don't know what they got going on. You have no clue. - No, wait, what are you talking about, dude? - No, no, no, you don't fuck with him. You're basically all the fact that you, for some reason, that was a good answer. - That's right. - That's right, that is the right answer there. And also, it's actually not about answering. - Do people think Aaron Fowlow is that great? I don't, what's, - My thing is this, Florida seems, Florida, Florida seems have been really, really, really focused on rebuilding their football team from the inside out. And when you do that, you establish a floor. I feel like Florida has been obsessed with their ceiling for the last four seasons, right? Because elite programs aren't obsessed with their floor. They're obsessed with their ceiling. So when you're in a, that they don't care about the floor. They care about grabbing trophies and stuff. Well, Florida wasn't in a elite program. And they weren't in the position to care about their ceiling. They should have, like, put more investment into their floor because it's gonna be a slower build there than it was any time before that. Remember all the talk about what Anthony Richardson could do, what DJ Lagway could do, what these players were capable of. Meanwhile, you did not have a competent program that could undergar at the talent of these guys. I think that some role is a floor center with the way he's built in his team. And so in a couple of years, they'll bear fruit. But this year, they're gonna have a successful season. - All right, yeah, that's just one of the ones I happen to disagree on. But if it's just a feeling, I mean, they could be good. They could be good. Also, this thing, Florida's ceiling is a little bit overrated, but that's either here. I'm just surprised y'all shit know UCLA. - Florida's ceiling is overrated. - We're not shit know UCLA. - He just threw out Florida as a job. - So it's funny to me that you say shit like that. - Yeah, I know that. - It's like, it's like, it's crazy so what does that mean. - It's funny to me that you say shit like that. - 20 years ago. - Their ceiling is clearly having some of the best college football teams of all time. 20 years ago. - Okay, football is changed, football is changed, man. That was a, it was a, it was a dinner. - It has changed, but what I'm telling you is that is when you have, when you can recruit Florida, like Florida, recruit Florida, when you have the coach, that's what can happen at that program. It's certain programs have been around for 150 years and never done shit. And I can name one, but I'm not gonna do it. - Yeah, you know what's Carolina? I don't know why you would say that about what's Carolina. - Yeah, you ever heard of Lawrence Taylor? - Yeah, he played for us. - You heard about the real LT is with Daniel. - Down, you got a little LT, you know what I'm saying. - We got a real LT. - Real LT. - You really want to claim it, you really want to claim it. - You really want to claim it. - You really want to claim it, LT is crazy. Hold on, so Daniel Thomas is now going to be called Lil Bro LT, that's crazy. Is that true? Is that true? - I mean, he got his nickname off the real guy, right? - No, his name is of Daniel Thomas and it's LT. You really want to claim your LT right now, for real? - That's what you want. - I keep my opinions on the field, Joe. - On the field. - Separate the art from the artist. - Yeah. - Okay, okay. - You was talking about how much you loved 12 play last year? - You love art briles. - Yeah. - I don't love art briles. - You also love OJ as Billy just point out. - Yeah, OJ Simpson, don't accuse me of that. - You've been the biggest, Joe. You've been the biggest OJ Simpson advocate. - That's not the worst. - That's the worst. - You might be the only OJ Simpson advocate in the world. - Some say there's a white woman somewhere that would prove you wrong. - Probably a couple. - Yeah. - The few. - Yeah. - I mean, shit, Cam and Mace had them on. He was a correspondent for them. - That was good content. - Yeah, they knew what they were doing. - Yeah, I think that was them. - All right, so Image Makeover for you, Vayne Florida for you, Joel, UCLA. I'm gonna throw a coach out, Dan Mullin. I think Dan Mullin's just gonna make the playoff and then get a P4 job. I think that's gonna be the year that that happens. So, there you go. Those are our big three for Image Makeover the year. Last one, best friend of the program. Joel, do you have someone as a nominee? I mean, Bill Bellamy could be on the list. - I mean, yeah, man, we had TJ Friendly last year, right? - I think he was our best friend of the program. - Yeah, he was our best friend of the program. I was saying, what if we just made a little, I'll tell you this, Spencer, we never pulled the billi says I'll tell you this. - Bell was really sad. Bell was really pathetic. What if we got Luke, man? Oh, that would be awesome. What if we got Luke to be the friend of the program, man? Miami is back, you know? They got real live Miami dudes down there. What if we got Luke on? He just finished up his congressional, he lost his primary to Debra Wasserman Schultz, I think. But that's fine, that frees him up. He's got time now, you know what I'm saying? He knows ball. Let's maybe get, we could bring Luke on. - Well, we love to have Luke on. - We can, we can, we can, we can, we can, we can, we can. - Let's go, put the, dude, put the, dude, put the, dude. - Yeah, dude, bro, man, we get, yeah, we get whatever. - Yeah, well, well, that shit, Luke. - We also, I mean, we got some good guests, potentially lined up coming up. - Oh shit. - Former Heisman Trophy winner. - Oh, yeah, that's right. - He made it up being our best friend in the program. I know he's my favorite player. I ever watch Play Football, so. - Really? - Oh, yeah. - Are you favorite? - Your favorite player, your watch, that's okay. - He's my favorite player. - That's all right. - I didn't defend him to the death, but he's. - Oh, you don't care a lot of Panthers. I'm also not even, you know what? There you go. Okay. So, number one pick, with Jerry Richardson, being how Cam Newton is. Like, yeah, yes, I mentioned it earlier. Like Cam Newton to go in there and win over Jerry Richardson. - Oh, yeah. - That's, I'm a razor root for that. - Yeah, man, no, I love Cam. I think Cam's great. - Yeah, I guess we just spoiled it, but yeah. - Oh, we'll see what happens. - Well, you said Jerry Richardson, so I mean, come on. - Yeah, that's true. Van, best friend of the program. You have everybody else you want to throw out? - No, no, no, I think those are some good ones right there. - Okay. - Cody Campbell is another one that's thrown out there. - Van, well, Cody Campbell, I had Cody Campbell on there. I would love to get him on the show. What, why are you waiting up, Cody Campbell? - I mean, he was always supposed to be on our show. And then, he went-- - Joe said it was some hos yet. - He went on, yeah, he went on Dan Dockage, made a national headlines and then canceled our interview. (laughs) So, what you're saying right now is, you feel like Cody Campbell is a hoe. - I said, he hold out. - Okay, I can't disagree with you. So, he hold out. - You separated the artists? - I said with artists. - Yeah, there you go. - But I do think we need, because college football is such a capitalist endeavor now, so capitalist thing. We do need like one rich booster friend of the program. We need a booster. - Damn. - Which was my point. Like, we-- - John Mellon camp. - Somebody, you know what I'm saying? Jack and Diane money, he still got it. Like, we, as a college football team, we need a booster. - Okay. - And until gate this season, it should be a search for a booster. We need to talk grades or Gordon McEarnin, - Damn. - Cody Campbell, we need a booster. Who is going to be our step up Gator? - Listen, what's the guy from Miami? - Neville Shapiro. - Neville Shapiro, we need somebody like that. So never throw at the good party too, man, apparently. - Yeah, he was having a great time and taking pictures of everybody. - 'Cause we go out, we do a lot of different stuff for the Gators and for Telgate. We need, and the name of our NL, N-I-L fun, Room 227. - There you go. - Room 227. - It's a Room 227. - Whatever, I put it in the branding, that's fine, but whatever. - Yeah, well, you know how I go, nigga. - I can't wait for next season when we're doing it in 2027. It's gonna be a year of 227. - The year of 227. - I think that might be the year that Telgate really takes off, you know, just being branding and everything. We'll see what happens. All right, let's get a top five headlines of the week. They're kind of all connected because this was the major headline. NFL players are already holding college football. What happened, Joel? - My ears were hurting, bro. I'm wearing a new glasses on. - Okay. - All right, Joel, you good now? - Yeah, really, go, keep going. Let's do it. - Let's do it. - Top five headlines of the week. Again, the big headline and we got some kind of, you know, things that played off of this. But anyways, NFL players returning to college football, Dan landing from Oregon came out. This was the take of the week. He said, quote, "You're a professional. "I want you to declare for the draft." So to let any of those players come back, fair or unfair to them, it's unfair to the sport. I think it's unfair to the players that are on current teams for those guys to be coming back. The conferences got together at the big 10. Pass the rule that basically, you're gonna get majorly penalized. Your coach is gonna miss 50% of the games. You're gonna get fined a million dollars. SEC was unanimous as well. ACC is voting as we speak and are recording right now. So all of these conferences coming together to try to ban this, but there was one man who does not want to ban it. And it is of course, Lane Kiffin. They have tied in Daekwon Wright coming back to play for LSU. That was one of the big ones. Wright is believed to be the first player. He could play for an NFL team and then go back to college. So let's start there. Dan landing kind of started a ripple effect to the reaction being, don't let this happen. Lane Kiffin is fighting back. He says, you can't decide what injunctions you want to enforce. Van, you are in the midst of your LSU fandom and your thoughts on kind of where Lane Kiffin sits right now. - So I agree that you should not be able to play in the NFL and come back to college. I think it's that's a bright precedent. I think it's a terrible thing. I agree. That's my answer. I agree. I also see a slight degree of validity in the specific. case of somebody who had this five or five, if you guys don't know what happened here, is the class of 2022 here, the kids that came in during that time, they didn't get a chance to play, they played four years. So they played there four years while this five or five rule was made that granted another year to some other people. Well, that decision was made. Once those guys, some of them had already made the decision to go to the NFL, and by the time all this legal stuff happens, they're trying to get the year back that they would have gotten had they been awarded at the right time. So you could make a decision that those guys were actually screwed, that had they known that they could come back for another season, that they would have taken that season, particularly in the cases like guys like Jack Poverne, that they would have taken that season rather than going to the NFL. All of that is true. I get all of that. So I do think that there's a valid case from those guys that got us to be heard. However, my overall thought about this, LSU or no LSU, is that too bad so sad. That is the way that it works. You have now become a professional athlete. And once you've become a professional athlete, I still think that there is a distinct advantage to participate in in professional athletics, even to the degree that some of these guys have already. So going through training camp, going through a training camp, all of that. I don't think that this precedent should be set, although I do think that there is a good chance that particularly those guys play for LSU next year. I think that I think you'll be able to find judges in Louisiana, to be able to find judges in Baton Rouge. And not only that, I'm not so sure that the SEC is going to be able to suspend coaches like they think they will, because if you look at the TRO, it kind of stops people from being able to take entities to being able to, like enact penalties against players and coaches for the results of the TRO. Yeah, Jeffrey Kessler is going to be in court ripping these people in new. Yeah. Right. So some of the language that is in the TRO, I think might preclude my tie to SEC's hands a little bit, even in being able to suspend the coach or suspend the player or take something out on the school. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting power play to see just how much of school like LSU want to be, well, want to run a file of the SEC in the situation like this. And just how much of a Maverick Lane Kiffin actually is. Well, and the conferences are going to learn what the NCAA has already learned, right? Is that they can't actually enforce a lot of the things they try to enforce. And if they go to court, they're going to lose. And I think that's the real, it's like a veiled threat to say, like, hey, if you do this, we're going to do this. But again, if they do want to take it to court, great for billable hours, great for the lawyers, but it's going to be a situation where they may lose in court because they don't have the right to actually do what they're threatening to do, which is why it's so fast inning. You see it happening in basketball. You got guys coming back for the five for five. So, yeah, it's an interesting, based on the court case you're in, may mean you're eligible or ineligible. It's a tough situation. Like we said, with Todd, once the football starts, I think we'll be fine. But for now, a lot of chaos, Joel. Yeah, I mean, there is no precedent. This is not going to happen again. This is a one year exception because NCAA fucked up and didn't tell those kids that they were going to have the five for five. Okay. Right. It's just the most overheated rhetoric since the Brendan Sores. Be shit. If I said, they quantify it's 22 years old, man. It ain't like they bring it back a 28 year old six year grizzled veteran to come back and play. Yeah, David and Joku isn't coming back to play tight. Yeah. So I'm just like, God, this is a one time thing. It's not going to happen again next year. But I also just for a second though, the concept of it. So you know that in college, there are two sports that if you get drafted, you can still go back and play in college, right? And it's baseball and hockey. Yeah. Baseball and hockey. And the thing is and supposedly the difference between the two is that and they can just draft you. The MLB and NHL can just draft you without you wanting to be drafted, right? Right. Right. Right. You're already. You're offing in all the time. You're on to put your name there. So that distinction is very key there because there's no act of action in you declaring for the draft. But see, you don't put your name. It's not your own volition. No, that's right. That's right. But the thing is is that no none of these teams, and if I talk to people in Major League Baseball, none of these teams are drafting those kids without agreements. Like they're just that they're just not going to do it. Like they know what does not happen all the time. It absolutely does. I would say so happens all the time at a guy like that, like that, like that a guy like it, well, not all the times, but it happens frequently happens enough that a guy is either caught between two sports or whatever. And they'll draft them anyway. I thought with no, no, no, no, no, the thing is though, that's it. They still will make an agreement. They'll they'll sign him with the understanding that he still is going to do it. But it's very rare. And I the guy, the couple of guys I talked to, they between the two of them, they only had one example of a kid reaching an agreement, get drafted, and then being like, nah, fuck you, man. Sorry. I'm not going to come back because usually agents don't want to deal with that kind of shit. There's like you, if we're seeing it more. Because guys can make more money playing college baseball sometime. Right. So like, what's the problem with kids getting drafted in and not working out? There's like, yeah, I didn't want to go get drafted at this point or this team can still retain my rights and go back to college. Like I just, I thought once upon a time before the kids got paid, there was this sort of thought and talk around the idea that if a kid went to the draft, got bad information, went lower than expected. The colleges were sort of willing to welcome, willing to welcome them back. And it seems like somehow the belief around this has gotten regressive, like the more hard line on the kids, because I know that that was some talk about doing this a generation ago. So we see with basketball, you test the waters, then you can pull your name out. This is what I would say if I was going to make like a case for what the difference is. Number one, when you go to, when you, when you get drafted, let's just take baseball, when you take baseball, like you drafted, you go to the minor leagues. So you're in the minor leagues and you're grinding it out into minor leagues, you're figuring it out into minor leagues. But what you don't have access to as a minor league baseball player for the time that you're in minor league baseball is the coaching, the nutrition, and all of the infrastructure that comes along with being in major league baseball. It would be like, like, so when you go to the NFL, especially for some of these players, well, they have been practicing, getting nutrition, working out, doing all of that stuff with an NFL football team for this long. So like they're, they're with an NFL football team. I'm not advocating that. Okay. Okay. So I'm not advocating a kid that goes to training camp and decides not working out. I'm just saying, well, that's what's happening right now. Right. But I'm just saying, I don't think, first of all, it's not going to happen again. Like that's over. But I'm just saying, I don't, I don't, I think that we can be a little bit more lenient on one end with guys and the, you know, and you say and figure it out on the front. Get drafted. No, get drafted or whatever in the NFL. And they said, no, man, that's not what I want. I didn't want that. And then they'd be able to go back to college. Like that. I actually have no problem with it. If you're talking about the fact that look, I put my name in a draft, like the pushback that you're going to get from that is from the NFL. Right. Because, like, I know, but there they spin a pick on you now. I spent a pick on, right? Like let's say, let's say, let's entertain his rights. What if they retain his rights? I mean, they retain his rights will happen. Then what if he goes and blows his fucking Achilles up? I mean, that's all. I know what I'm saying is like, he was just saying, but like the NFL is going to be the lead that has a problem with that because they're going to be like, because what you're going to see then is you going to see guys go, you know, I thought I was, I thought I was like a late first rounder and I went to third. Okay. I'm a late first rounder. I went to third. Fuck that. I can come back and play again from a third round. Get paid, get paid the whole now. And then you're going to have NFL teams going, well, I spent the third round pick on you. Now, I'll tell you something. If you think that the players are in a bad situation now, when they're going up against or that in the NCAA is fucked now, when they're going up against the courts and the conferences, if the fucking NFL gets involved, if they have a stake in this, there's going to be no fucking way that they can win. I mean, that's right. If they get involved, if they start to go weird, like we're screwed in this situation, there's no way that the players are going to be able to win. So it might be able to, it might be whove them everybody in these entire situations to sit down and make a decision that both promotes their interest, but also is holistic. Because if the league starts to think that it's costing them something with the way they can lean on the NCAA and the television people and all of that, it becomes a losing, a losing effort. No, I feel you, I mean, I think you could do compensatory picks or whatever if something went wrong or whatever. But my thought was again, so many people lie about, well, I'm just worried about kids going out and leaving early and getting bad advice and all this shit. And then when the rubber meets the road, it's like, well, they made the decision. And I'm just like, yo, like, all right. We're like, let's give them a chance to go back to college. But I know, I'm talking about the world that I want to see, not the one that I live in. So I get it actually, I look, I would actually have no problem with you, because you know, you know what I think of back in the day? I think of Scotty Thurmond. Do you remember him? Oh, yeah, Arkansas, kind of like kind the Danish Scottish. - Yeah, three-point shooter, like three-point shooter. I think of Skythurmin. Skythurmin came out, I think, a little too early, went to an agent, like after he had an agent, he couldn't go back to school. And I'm like, "Yo, man, that's a career and a player that could have been nice." If he wouldn't have got bad advice from somebody else, or if he can go back and have that season back in Arkansas, or that maybe my name would be too see. I think it was one season that he fucked up. If I remember that story correctly, I'm doing this off the top of my head. So I have no problem with that, but I just think, by the time you get to a training camp and you start to get coached and you start to all that, that's the situation that's tough. - It's like having trade secrets, you know, from a company and then going to another company. It's like, you get trade secrets from the NFL to then go take back to a program. - Yeah, I don't think you should be able to go to no damn camp. With the exception of the kids this year, just 'cause they didn't have all the information. - It's a very specific case, yeah. And it feels like it's ramping up late because then there's less time to litigate and figure it out, which is also fascinating. - Absolutely. - Go wait, Van, did you go out and maybe take, you probably know, 'cause you know a lot of shit, man. You really do. - It's like, I'm really complimenting you and you shit on me all the time. - Yeah, I'm smiling. - Guess what Scotty Thurmond's nickname was? The Rustin Rifle, 'cause he's from Rustin. - Oh, 'cause he's from Rustin. - Yeah, that's a good one. - We need better nicknames. It's like, we used to have incredible nicknames for everybody, you know, I don't know if that was just the press at the time was so good at coming up with the nicknames. - Big nasty, cordless rooms and that, speaking of that, Arkansas team was nasty. - Oh, they were. - They were called, man. - They were called. - It's good to see Arkansas be good at basketball again. - It is. - You know, with Cal there. So, yeah, fun times. Next up, so that's a big story, obviously. This is an also a fascinating story, Van. I wanna get your thoughts on this Walker Jones, who's the executive director of the Globe Collective, who's the NIL Collective role miss, said that he had the FBI sweep the building for bugs after Lane Kiffin left for LSU. Walker was looking under his desk when someone asked what he was doing. He said, "Just trust me. You don't know this guy like I did." End quote. Character of the year, right, Van? - I love that type of shit. Bug 'em out. Get that intel. Get that knowledge. - And have to be safe is homeless. - Forgiveness, not permission. Sweep it sweep it, even if they, even if there are no bugs, you made them pay for the sweep, and you made them know it. I'm talking paranoid. You read that piece shit. I always feel like somebody - What are you doing? - Bear with it. - I can't sleep, I'm gonna get up late. I'm gonna get up late. They have to get me, man. That's how they feel about Lane Kiffin, man. That's the fuck I'm talking about. - Yeah, hilarious though. That story can't happen. - They got the know. - Yeah, Pete Golden came out and said that they had someone close to the program that I guess was FBI trained. So he thought it was a little bit blown on a proportion as far as the story, but still a fascinating story. - And you really also, you being some host, 'cause I mean, look, you wanted, you wanted Lane Kiffin so bad. Like this is why you're so mad. You wanted Lane Kiffin so fucking bad. If you think that's the character of the dude, and it's really kind of funny because you hear all this shit about, we kept all his bad y'all, his dirt and Oxford about that shit. - And yet y'all still wanted him. He took out a high tide and never been too before. You still wanted him bad. He left and now you mad about it. I just think that's some host shit, man. - Yeah, it sounds like some host shit to me. I think that's a very fair point. Next up, Tennessee, named true freshman, Faeson Brandon, starting quarterback. Also, Kielon Russell for Alabama. So a lot of guys getting named this week for starting quarterbacks. But I thought Faeson Brandon's a big one, just 'cause of Heipel, his offense, the fact that he believes in a five-star freshman. And he thought some Faeson Brandon, Joel Orvan, they want you guys. I mean, I think that the question for Tennessee, everybody just believes in what Josh Heipel could do as a coach. The question for Tennessee was going to be, whether or not they were going to be able to get a splashy transfer in or whether or not they were going to have to work from within the structure of their recruiting. And it seems like they've seen enough. But it also seems like this could also possibly be a season where Tennessee is actually willing to take a step back, not a step back in so far as they were so good last year, but a step back in terms of even their perception to build for the future of this kid. I think that could work at Tennessee. - Kid in the rest. - In the rest. - In the rest of them in there. What I'm wondering is, if Keel and Russell doesn't, if the light doesn't come on right away in Alabama, how do people in Tuscaloosa respond to it? He is a fucking talented QB, but if it doesn't happen right away, then at least to them dropping some games or losing three or four games this year, does the board have sort of the building stature there to kind of withstand what's going to be like a freak out from the Alabama faithful? - Yeah, it's tough on your Alabama. I mean, you know, you're never going to reach those heights again probably. - Man, fuck. - How the statement was, yeah. - Yeah. - It's tough of my ass, man, fuck 'em. It's tough being Rupert Murdoch's kids. - No, it's like cool. - Yeah, it's a different day. - Yeah, fuck, fuck, learn, get it out the mud, like everybody else been doing. - Right. - So what's going to happen? And maybe he'll be fine for him. Like they have a lot of talent down there. - The one thing I think about, is that Keel and the boys, since I've known of him, he's not had a bad quarterback. - Yeah. - That's a pretty good record, you know? So, you know, I assume, I mean, look, he had, I mean, he had Michael Pinnix, and then all of a sudden, Todd Simpson, nobody was talking about him. And all is a top three job. - Should we give him credit as the norm? - No, you know, for Todd Simpson to become that? I mean, I don't know if he's a dad, he's a coach, and, you know. - Yeah, but I mean, like he got his chance and got, and he cultivated an offense that allowed him to excel. - Yeah. - What do you do if you're Austin Mac, though? - I know, I don't. - Mac look kind of good. You know, if you're Austin Mac and you followed him down there from Washington, like, what is Austin Mac, dude? You back up Alabama, did you lose Mac? Does he go somewhere like what? - He got a transfer. - He got a transfer, man. - I'd go to Washington. - You go, 'cause you're DeMont Williams. You think, well, DeMont Williams, next year. You know? - Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think he was Austin Mac. He's gonna have options. He's gonna, yeah, he's gonna sit this year. Maybe I'll get a chance to play. I mean, he got, he got a Russell as a freshman. Anything could happen. - Right, you know. - Mac has that physical trait, though. Like when he's on the field, he looks like he's gonna be - Gigantic. - Yeah, he's huge. - Gigantic, but you just wonder, you know, you follow the coach down there. You believe in that coach, speaking of quarterback development, you believe that that coach can develop you and you're gonna get a chance to develop with that coach. But the guy behind you now has what, five fucking years. Like, he's got a shit ton of time. Like, you have to beat that player out. You almost have to transfer. - Yeah. - Yeah. - 100%. Kind of feels like an Austin Sim in this Trident Ed Chamber situation, you know, Sim is thought he was the guy and dip out, go to Mizzou. Last one, I just thought this was a fascinating story, just 'cause we talked about Texas Tech quarterback with source be so much. But apparently for the state, former for the state quarterback, Tommy Castellanos, who we, you know, became a star for the first week of the season, has been rumored to be on a trip to Lubbock, Texas to take a look at Texas Tech. And seems like a great insurance policy to have him there, potentially on a five for five type situation. Will Hammond coming back from ACL, he had Castellanos to be there, two for one quarterback deal. Pretty good set up for the monster big 12, Joel. - First of all, look, I don't care about Tech, Tommy Castellanos. And look, this isn't racist, 'cause I don't have any power in this situation. You need to start running routes, start learning how to run around trees. - Oh, man. - That was just like that. - That was just like this. - Oh my God. - No, no. - Yeah, that was it. - That's that. - You don't all get to say. - I can't believe you, Joel. - All that shit you'd be talking in the first thing. - Oh, you have a really bad word. - No, really, that's racist. - That's crazy. - He's a really good person. - Thanks for the racism. - And you take growing up in the essence. I mean, maybe I'll do you need to reflect, 'cause y'all are grew up in it. (laughs) But, no, I mean, come on, Tommy, man, you already didn't get drafted. A quarterback like, bro, like just, this is your chance to start over. - You're gonna do something else. - You're the same guy that's, like, let this young man get paid. And you were pulling a TJ Finley. Like, I can tell you. - Yeah, it's just so weird. - Yeah. - So, like, I'm looking out for the black man's financial future. - But he's played good quarterback. - Yeah, he was pretty good last year. - I mean, this is the problem. - The NFL saw, with Tommy Kesselinos had to offer it, and they passed on it. All right, so don't do it again. Don't wait. - It's not about, always don't be in a foul. - You should know that. - A quarterback sitting behind Will Hammond for a year, bro. - He's not gonna sit behind him. He's gonna play until Hammond tells you. - Start asking Joey McGuire to do some gadget shit for you, dog. Draw up some shit for you. Do some jet screens. Whatever. - I can't believe this is happening. - I legitimately have nothing left. I have nothing left to believe it. Joel has become the essence. I never thought that was Joel. - I'll never thought I was Joel. Like, Joel. - That's not what you told the heart. You're higher learning, I guess. That's not what you told your eye, learn how to. - I was messing around with him. - That was before you just said what you said though. - Right. - Joel, the same people. I can imagine Joel trying to coach Randall Cunningham in 1977. - No! - Joel, like-- - Randall Cunningham! - Joel's been Randall Cunningham. - Get out the wide out. - Please say what your brother did. Why don't you do what your brother did? Say a man couldn't have him. Why don't you get out there and get out of the football? - Please take a picture with Van. - You're a big guy. - Because he's compared you to Tommy Castellanos, okay? So you feel free to direct your eye, Van, because I'm not racist enough to see that they're not the same quarterback. Everybody has to go through a different journey. Should Reggie McNeil of Moodler receiver? - No. - Should Tommy Castellanos? - Yes. - He should try something else. - I don't think he should. I don't know if I did a size even ever receiver. So he's better being a quarterback who can run around and make some plays, but you wouldn't think that because you didn't vote for Barack Obama, either. - That's just you. - I'm gonna be talking about that. - Bill Puckshaw. - Oh, you regret the phone. - No, I'm happy with Obama. Obama is the best. You know he was number one on my list of five. No, he was number two, right? 'Cause Abraham Lincoln. And then it was Obama. - So maybe that's the way that you put a white man. - Yeah. - We don't give Barack Obama without Abe Lincoln. - Somebody would have got it done. - I don't know. - I don't know. - I don't know. - I don't know. - But he did it. - But he did it in a time. - And was willing to do it. - Look at this. - Look at this, Joel. - I'm gonna put him. Look, Abraham Lincoln put the whole, put thousands of lives on him. - Should we raise the roof for Abe Lincoln? - I guess we got our, I guess we have to, even though. - Yeah, we have to. - I would raise it for Obama, but. - Yeah, Van, don't raise the roof for Obama, then. - Raise the roof for Obama. - Come on. - Yes, please. - I'll raise the roof for Obama. - Okay. - I'm going to the left of Obama right now. - Okay. - But, you know, I raised the roof for him for the time that I could still be into that type of shit I was into. - Yeah. - Oh, yeah, I don't regret my vote at all. Shit. - I voted for the vote. - Two votes. - You know what I'm saying? - Yeah, vote for twice. - Imagine setting your makeup. Then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Delta Miss technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin. That still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Maybelline, New York. - Maybe it's Maybelline. - All right, there you have it. Top five headlines of the week. Any parting shots, we got football on Saturday. Hope everybody enjoys it. We're going to be live starting week one. So this weekend, we're going to do probably some Instagram reaction video, something like that. But again, any parting shots, Joel, I know you're laughing right now. - No, man. Y'all go read my 26 story line for the 2026 season that is on the site right now. You know, check that out. How many words is that? - Almost 5,000. - That's what I'm talking about. - I'm excited. I'm going to be in LA next week. So it's Billy. - Yeah. - We're going to be live and I'm going to do field day. We just going to be go to work and do it. Do you think we'll have dinner? We're out there. - We definitely have multiple dinners. - You said multiple dinners. Yeah, we got multiple dinners. I think we should do some one on one, though. Maybe no field day, but just some one on one. - Some one on one. - Yeah, Joel, how you feeling? You ready? - I feel pretty good. I mean, I'm much better shaped than I was the last time. So, I mean, I'm not in good shape, but I'm in better shape than I was, man. - So I feel better. - The interesting thing is you have a farmer's tent. Don't even look down like you don't. It's a reckless, reckless farmer's tent. - I think it was smart, though, to kind of endear yourself to a certain type of audience, the essence. - Yeah. - I mean, I mean, there was a time in my life when people said I was kind of country, you know? My family is country. We just some poll black folks from Arkansas, Louisiana, Doug. That's just where I come from. That's the same thing. - Don't claim my, don't claim my shit. - Yeah, what, what's that? You don't look. - Don't claim my shit, bro. - Don't claim my shit. - I don't claim my shit. - 'Cause if that shit was happening in that Southern, - Oh man. - That would be a fucking page of Fox News. I don't wanna make too much light of it, 'cause they had drug dealers, scummy, low culture, like per capita drug dealers, running around up there selling dope to unassuming innocent college kids. I'm telling you, bro, if that was happening right now at A&M, they might let Howard slide. - No, Howard would get fucked up too. - People with HBCUs would actually take pleasure in that too, probably if he happened to Howard. But that's another story. - Well, it does feel like blow to coming out based on that story. Timothy Chalamet plays Pablo Pledge Cabar. That's a movie. - Yeah, we'll see. - I mean, man, you know, yeah, I mean, it is kind of funny. I never even thought about it like that. But the other thing I was thinking about, what are the Black sororities gonna do? I'm kind of videos, man. Like, what are the AKS? - I think if they started, it would end the other video. It would be like when Jackie Robinson started playing baseball, you know, it's like take the life out of the white girl sorority videos. - Well, I mean, 'cause they wouldn't be able to dance anymore. - No, I mean, you can't start white people from Dancing, bro. This is not going to happen. - We've tried. - Yeah. - Over the course. - That's not going to happen. - We've tried. You ever been in the place before? I told you how to who let the dogs out story from the varsity. - Yeah. - But like, in the varsity, when me and my boy Ryan was in the varsity at LSU, and then who let the dogs out drop? And I had never heard the record. And everybody starts going crazy. I was actually trying to make my way through the crowd. Tate, I don't know what comes over white people when who let dogs out comes out. - Yeah. - I don't understand that. - And this is how we do it. - It's a visceral reaction. - They love this is how we do it too. - They return to the Mac. - Absolutely. - I don't, bro. Like, it's like to me, if whenever we do rise up and take over America, we're gonna do it. Hacking the computer systems and all at the same time, just playing who let the dogs out. - White chicks too. - All the white people. - That should be the story. - Just losing their minds. They're going crazy. Their eyes glass over. Who, who, who, who. Like, they love that shit, bro. I can't not, I don't understand it. And so like, when that happens, meaning joke, that's what we're gonna go through. We're gonna have the banking. We're gonna take our reparations. But we're gonna distract our who let the dogs out. We'll let the dogs out. We'll let the juices out. - I like it. - Wait, did you know that who let the dogs out was about ugly women? Like, what point? - Yeah. - You find that out. - I feel like that was a hurry between the lines, you know? - Really? I thought they were just talking about like, dog ass niggas. - No. - Yeah, what's up? - I think everyone kind of picked up like that. Like the club and they're like, who let the dogs out? What the fuck? - I didn't get it. - I didn't get it. - Yeah. I didn't know that. - Yeah, well there you have it. Bring your tailgate, Wednesday. - Billy, get Billy back. Because people always be complaining that we don't have Billy on screen enough. And your fans and your subreddit, bro. Like, they're looking for you. Now, I know you're going to a whole bunch of other podcasts on this one, Billy. So, whatever. That's fine. And so, you say shade your friends in that way. - Joe, I thought you were going to say something nice. - Yeah, just bring me on. Sorry. - Oh, no, I'm just saying. I'm just like, you have fans here, dog. The people want to see you, Billy. - Can I ask you a question? - I'm just going to ask you a question. I don't come in for a row, I don't care. I don't know, but we've already talked that we've already had our shit on Twitter before now. He made our memory. I mean, I'm not dude why it's rolling. Roll, you could easily crack horrible. I want to say while people were doing that. What the fuck does he mean? Bitch, you could listen to the podcast. There's a link in the tweet. So you could listen and find out what I meant by that, which is that when the Rockets won the championship in 94 over the next I was excited as a fan. I'm in my pop house out on the east side. Shout out Clinton Park and I'm hype and me hugging my dad. I'm just the first time one of my team just won a national, I mean, a world championship. And you said, where's my ring? You know, then I'm driving home. I got into my 8700 CX, I'm on 16 going back to Mo City. And I was like, wow, it's over for me. And you know, I'm saying like the rockets, you know, Mario, everybody else going to get to be hype, you know, and dream, they go party and all this shit. And I was like, yo, I'm just. Some of us just another day for me. It was cool. I was happy, but it was just sort of like, wow, all the energy you put into being a fan. And then you realize, I think I should do it this. You know, so that's, so that kind of hit me a little bit. And it was a little bit sobering. But the next year when we swept the magic, I had the freedom to enjoy it a little bit more because I got in the streets with my cousins and my friends. And we, you know, we did it in. So yeah, that was the context that I was saying, but you can easily, for the people that don't understand what clips are sometimes they take snippets of things that you say stitched them together to make them seem interesting. Okay. But that's not everything that I said. Yeah, you can easily listen to the podcast. Thank you for giving me the floor for that building. Mm-hmm. What year was this? Where year was what? The ring that you wanted, 1994, 1994, 1994, 'cause it happened during the OJ chase. If you remember it. Oh, that's why you have such a connection with the OJ, yeah, I literally did me and my boys. The first time we went to LA. We took a road trip from Stanford to LA. And we drove around Brentwood. We were joking. We were looking for a knife. What? You went. Big naked. No, we went to the slots and swap meat on that trip. Yeah, man, that was the regular shit that people do when they come to L.A. Shout out to everybody down. That was my first time. But what Niggas don't do when they come to L.A. is drive around looking for OJ's knife. What type of shit? It was a joke. We were just kind of looking in Brentwood. I'd never seen. That's like a bad idea to begin with. It's just look going around looking for. We were very naive. I was 18 years old. What would you have done had you found OJ's knife? That's a good question. I mean, hey, bro, I'm turning in. That would have been some sort of heirloom, some sort of shit. I'm sure we could have got some money for you. You would have donated to Rose Bowl, you know, for the hot. I didn't know them like that. But Imagine if we were there and Joe's like, I actually got something. Shout out to Rose Bowl guy. I mean, they took got out of OJ, all the OJ display. Just that one thing from when he made the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in '93. The last good year of his life. Mm hmm. When's your birthday, Joel? May 28th. Oh, damn. All right. Yeah, got a lot of time. Yeah, I found something you might like here on eBay. Really? What? Don't maybe. Just get it for 1994 championship rings for sale here on eBay. Oh, yeah, replica is but still I would fuck with that. Man, I was listening to the other day, bro. You know, you could buy a popcorn popper. An antique popcorn popper. What? Bands, give me the wrap it up, boss. Oh, yeah, my bad. Sorry. What do you want to antique popcorn popper for? Yeah, you want to get one for your house? My son. You know, kids can't eat popcorn to they're like four years old because they could like choke on it and shit. I didn't know that. Maybe he's couldn't drink water until the other day. Yeah, it's crazy water. Yeah. No, they can't. Baby's can't drink water. Thank you. I got I got looked at like I was a crazy person. Babies can't do anything cool. No, I can do a lot less than you think water than like they could die. Like, mm hmm. It's why I know that. So baby doesn't drink water. It doesn't drink water. What is the baby drink? Breast milk or breast milk? Yeah, mm hmm. So the baby drinks the breast milk, but no, this is so this is fascinating. I think about it now. I've never seen a baby drink water. So a baby drinks the breast milk or baby drinks no water. Guys, this almost has to be wrong. No, it's right. No, they start mixing in. They start mixing in silence around six months, but it's got to be certain kinds of very soft kind of food, another other kind of stuff. And you could probably put a little bit of water. I mean, it's not like the baby's going to pick up a fucking cup and drink it at eight months. Well, my friend who has a more baby, but you could put it on a bottle. I was like, you just give it some water. You're fine. He was like, you can't get babies water. Like, you know, I was like, what? So no water for the babies. No, you guys have kids. These babies drink no water. They didn't. I don't remember my babies drinking water. They can't. Yeah, they say babies understand, but this is the AI overview. So baby's under six months old should not drink playing water because it because it can cause a dangerous condition called water intoxication. Yeah, man. So just I probably want the water. So that I mean, they may be a good point. Yeah, save it. Preserve it for us. Yeah, I didn't click on the link though. I just went to the search. So you're getting popcorn machine. No, let's go get your Desmond was like, yo, he's going to start eating popcorn. Okay, he's going to start eating popcorn. I was like, yo, man, I was telling him about he didn't care about how you said to make popcorn on the stone. Yeah, if you go to then you would go to the movie. And I was like, yo, when we start going to movies, you can get popcorn look like this. And I'll show on Instagram, you know, the pictures on Google search and Google images. And then I saw you could get one of them ones that you have at the at the movie theater, like a old school popcorn machine for like 600 bucks. I got one. That was more expensive than I thought. Do you really? I swear, but you're a movie guy. So it makes a lot of sense. But that's the that's dope. That's what I got one in the crib. Should we go to dinner when you're here, Joe, and we'll watch a movie at Vanta's house. All right, that's a nice final note to leave on right there. All right, ring your tailgate. We'll be back next Wednesday. Big van on campus returns. Read Joel's story. They wrote on the ringer dot com. Raise the roof. Yeah. Um, and we will see you guys all next week. Must be 21 or older and president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and older and president DC can tuck your Wyoming gambling problem called 1-800 gambler or 1-800 my reset call 1-8-8-7-8-9-7-777. Or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8-7-7-8 hope in Y or text hope in Y in New York for Louisiana. Call 1-8-7-77-0-7-8-6-7. Imagine setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip. Just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippie setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Maybelline.