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Talk to Me, Goose · Troy Boyz

• Talk to Me, Goose mixdown: This is Gunnar Watson, two-time Sunbelt champion, and you're now listening to the Troy Boys podcast. Welcome back to the Troy Boys podcast. we are here to break down the game that happened between us and La La and to get ready for a game against ULM. I am Trojan Joe. I am not here to discuss this absolute tragedy alone. let's welcome in the Trojan who got blackened, battered, and served on a bed of dirty rice in La La. Seabass. What's up, C Bass? Hey Joe. disappointed to have missed last week. you know, I I I really I really have a lot to say about James Madison and their departure. and I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to talk about that again later. but man, th this game was an absolute letdown in probably every phase of the game and I and I feel like we're gonna you know ad nauseum try to get through this, but very, very disappointed in the show in this past week. yeah. I I don't think any Trojan is even feeling mediocre about this game. This was one of the worst Troy football outings I have ever witnessed. So let's finish welcoming in our crew here with the only bird that's gonna be on campus this week that is not a war hawk, Birdman. Welcome in, Birdman. Hey, what's going on, guys? yeah, tough weekend, tough loss this past weekend. definitely not the Trojan team that we that we know. head coach Jared Parker said it in the press conference that they were distracted. I don't know why they could have been. maybe it's because he gave them some extra days off when they should have been practicing. I don't know. but we're gonna talk more about it and hopefully we don't redo this same thing this weekend coming up against another Louisiana team. Yeah, for sure. Jared definitely was not only failing as a coach on the sidelines, but also as a coach at the press conference and in interviews, just saying a lot of stuff that Trojans did not want to hear. so for the La La game, one week after 437 rushing yards, the Trojans went down to Lafayette and got run out of the building. 33 to 6. Troy is now three and three, one and one in the Sunbelt, 3 0 at home, 0 3 on the road. so obviously things are not feeling good. I think Trojan Nation is pretty depressed at the moment. so let's break down what happened against the raging Cajuns. Bass, tell us about that Trojan defense against the Cajuns. Yeah, Joe, the the Cajuns came into this game doing exactly what they said they would, and they ran all over RD. Our defense allowed two hundred and forty-three yards on the ground on forty-nine rushes. That's roughly fifty more yards than their average of 193 allowed a game coming into this. and they allowed three rushing touchdowns, four different running backs for Lafayette earned fifty plus yards. That's insane. their quarterback, Lunch Winfield, did not have a stellar game. He only threw for seventy yards, but it's because he never had to throw the ball. they their their team was so secure in their run game that they didn't need to have Winfield do much. third down for us was an absolute disaster. very upset about this. This is not the brand of football I'm used to seeing. We put ourselves in position to get off the field and let our offense attempt to find a pulse seventeen times. And unfortunately, Lala converted ten of those times, which is well beyond our third down percentage conversion rate of thirty-one percent coming into this game. Absolutely unacceptable on that front. Troy recorded zero sacks, none, zero zilch. No pressure applied. That snapped Donnie Smith's nine game sack streak. we dropped two potential interceptions there for us, and both of those turned into Cajun touchdown drives. and we have a grand total of two TFLs combined. Four players had half TFLs. so the bottom line in all of this, defense let too much up this week. And this is not the standard I and many other Trojans come to expect from the from the wall, from the mighty Trojan Death Machine, that this wasn't it. The lone bright spot this week was probably number 18 Jordan Perry. He's the fifth year senior spear out of Jefferson, Georgia. He picked up his career high of 13 tackles. So good on you. We had one player out there actually sitting at the standard and everybody else was sitting below against a game that was very important. That like if if we positioned ourselves appropriately in the West, This game would probably ultimately be the decider, and now we're behind the eight ball in many ways. So I'm very upset at the showing from our defense, and I and I really hope we do something to correct this and ULM be a get right game before we have a a back half of the season. That's that's not easy. You know, we have a lot of games ahead of us that are not gonna be slouch games. And so I'm hoping we make some adjustments so that we don't we don't run down this the rest of the season being an embarrassment. Yeah. we looked pretty terrible from a unit that we even on bad years, Troy has a good defense. So pretty sad to see that. unfortunately I feel a a lot like this transition's going to be, you know, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Birdman, tell us about this Trojan offense against La La. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately. offensively we weren't that that much impressive either. 267 total yards, 12 first downs, three of twelve on third down, one of four on fourth, and we only had possession of the ball for twenty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds. The Sunbel's number one rushing offense managed a hundred and twenty-six yards on twenty-eight carries against a defense that came in allowing a hundred a game. Goose Crowder went nine of sixteen for sixty-five yards before he got injured. it looked like it was a shoulder injury on a run play. Then Tucker Kilcrease came on and went five of ten for 76 and scored Troy's only touchdown on a 23 yard run. also highlight Jace Petty, four catches for 69 yards. He was the only receiver who really did anything. unfortunately Crowder is day-to-day and he has quote a shot for Saturday, but There's no there's no telling what's gonna happen there. so once again our backfield, our team is gonna be definitely kinda in a funk. Bottom line, we've had two fumbles, a fifteen play drive that ended in a missed field goal and a final drive that died on downs and the Louisiana twenty two. And Parker said, I take full responsibility for this loss as I always do. And you know what, buddy? I don't think you're taking enough responsibility as it seems. So that's all I have to say about that. Yeah, there's you know, finally something Goose Crowder and I have in common. We're both apparently have a shot ready for Saturday, because I don't know exactly what we're gonna look like, even coming back to Troy, but happy to hear that he at least is a in consideration. But I think we have a lot of discussions to have about kind of who should be out there at signal caller with the way that we're looking this season. special teams is just more of the same, more bad stuff. Nareel White muffed the first quarter punt. Louisiana got a hold of it, and three plays later, scored the first touchdown seven to nothing. Ethan Head, zero for two, missed a forty-two-yard field goal, and then missed the extra point after Tucker did manage to score. That's five missed kicks in three road games. We're just not performing well in the road. Evan Crenshaw was the best player on the field, four punts, fifty-three and a half yard average, two inside the 20, and a 73 yarder. That's the longest by a Trojan since 2018. and the eighth longest in the FPS this season. TJ Lott did have four kickoff returns for 66 yards. Tony Stirner, the kicker for La La, meanwhile went two for two, one from forty-two and one for forty-six. So special teams didn't even manage to just stay out of the way. they actually kind of were a a point that drug us down in this game. Birdman, you now have probably the most difficult job difficult job of the podcast, and that is to really root around in the twigs and berries that you call a home and tell us who performed best in this terrible game in this week's edition of the best in the nest. Yeah, guys, I mean it's always hard to find a high point or positive in in losses like this that shouldn't have happened. but I do think we can show the punters some love. Evan Crenshaw Absolutely fantastic performance on his end. Four punts, fifty-three and a half yard average, a career long of seventy-three, longest by Trojan since twenty eighteen, like Joe mentioned. So and two inside the twenty. also honorable mention to Jordan Perry, who had a career high tackles, thirteen total and a pass breakup. So something was working. not everybody seemed to be on the same connection or wifi, unfortunately. But these two guys, they must not be on dial up. So if you Have a mantle clear it off because you just got your first best in the nest of the twenty twenty six season. Yep, absolutely congrats, gentlemen. looking forward to a better result for the team as a whole coming out of this coming Saturday. before we turn the page on last week, let's take one final look around the Sunbelt Conference and see if the Sunbelt has indeed continued rising in this week's edition of the rising report. all right guys, so fewer games. We're now playing each other. James Madison beat Georgia State 49-22. Georgia Southern beat Old Dominion 23-15. App State beats Coastal Carolina 35-32. La Tech beat ULM 24-0. And Arkansas State beat Southern Miss 2. 23 to 13. Southern Mess appears to be just kind of the you know artificial confidence giver this year for the Sun Belt. all right, guys. Which result surprised you the most? Bass, go ahead. Yeah, I'm gonna take the Louisiana Tech win over ULM. the game was at z at zero all at halftime. and then Louisiana Tech, second half of the game, takes on those twenty-four unanswered. ULM finished the game with two hundred and twenty eight total yards, sixty-three of them being on the ground, two for eleven on third down, for two in the red zone, eleven penalties, a hundred and eighteen yards on that. what's surprising though is that two weeks earlier ULM scored thirty five points and gained almost four hundred and fifty yards on South Alabama. and then they turn around and get shut out by a team and they're they're they're they're Third Sunbelt game at home against an in state opponent right next door. yeah, i i it it's it's shocking. Like this was a team that, you know, whenever that game happened against South, we were like, mm, maybe they're not as bad as we thought they were. and then they turn around and do this. so I i I think it's interesting to note and U L being a volatile team is kind of dangerous for us 'cause that's who we play this week. Yeah, absolutely. And especially with our kind of tricky quarterback situation, they're gonna be coming in looking for a chance to get a victory, which they sorely need. Birdman, how about you? Which results surprised you the most? Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm gonna go with Arkansas State and Southern Miss game. total score was twenty-three to thirteen. Arkansas State held the ball for 40 minutes and eight seconds, and Southern Miss had it for right under 20. Arkansas State went three for three on fourth down and stopped almost said Ole Miss, Southern Miss, for three. And Clune Van Andel hit field goals from twenty-nine forty and forty-four yard line. and this was two weeks after Landry liddied through for three hundred and sixteen on us. The Golden Eagles managed two hundred and eight passing yards and thirteen points at home. And then Steve Robinson had eighty-four rushing yards and the only touchdown drive of consequence. this is surprising why? Because it was Arkansas State's first road win of the year. Southern Miss has now lost five straight and the team that dropped thirty-four on us is one and five. So either we made them look really good or they made us look really bad. And honestly, it's probably both on on this occasion right now. So yeah. Yeah. I think you know, Southern Miss looks so terrible because they are. And the fact that, you know, we had the struggles we did against them in the second half points towards you know some big changes that Jared's gotta try to make here heading into the back half of this season. for myself, I'll go ahead and take App versus Coastal. App beats Coastal 35 to 32 on a Friday night. you know, AP trailed 24 to 14 at halftime and then scored 21 straight. Coastals Deuce Bailey threw for 298 yards and three touchdowns. Robbie Washington had 118 receiving yards. but AP State put up 516 total yards, 253 on the ground, and really turned it around. you know, the fact that App won is not surprising. They were a one and a half point favorite. but you know, the fact that they needed a 21-0 run to beat a two and five team. that's a little surprising. That's not the app state that most Troy fans kind of look for. they've obviously been a perennial power, but right now kind of showing some struggles. all right, guys. Thankfully, it is time to turn the page. you know, up next we've got University of Louisiana Monroe Warhawks. we are back at the VAT, 3 p.m. kickoff. It is military appreciation day. So we're hoping to see some awesome uniforms. it's also parent and family weekend. and Troy is three and at home. So we are coming back to defend the wall. ULM is and six. they just got shut out at home. and Troy is a big favorite. Bass, go ahead and give us some thoughts on this UL Monroe Warhawks team so far this season. Yeah, ULM's head coach Bryant Vincent in his third season, just a disaster, man. Like you said, they're and six, and two in conference right now, and they're losing by an average of twenty one points. And and you know, like I said earlier, that this is a volatile team. They can be dangerous if given the right atmosphere, so let's not do that. their losses this season include a sixty two to thirteen drubbing at Mississippi State, twenty six to twenty loss at UAB, gross. 38-35 loss against in-state FCS opponent, southeastern Louisiana. And that's one of the games I talked about in the Verizon Report a couple months ago. 45 to 17 loss at Florida Atlantic, 52 to 35 loss against South Alabama, the game I just talked about that they they showed life, they showed possibility of of of doing something, but they still didn't pull that one out. and then like I just talked about that Louisiana Tech loss. they give up 41.2 points per game. That's 137th of 138 in nation. an average of 183 yards a game allowed. That's 136th of 138 in the nation. and 230 of those are on the ground. They're a minus four team in turnovers, that's 114th in the nation. So offensively not pretty, and they're really prone to some turnovers there. the quarterback is just a question mark form as well. Houston transfer, Austin Carlisle opened the season as a starter. and he's currently sitting as the leading rusher with 230 yards, but Aiden Armena took over, and he has nine hundred and seventy-four passing yards and six touchdowns. Armena threw two picks on Saturday and was benched back in favor of Carlisle. So we might see both these quarterbacks. They don't really know what's gonna happen there. Marcellus Jackson is their top receiver, thirty-two catches for two hundred and sixty-five yards. In the Clemson transfer, Parker flew him. he has two touchdowns as well. That's of note. Troy leads the series against the Warhawks 10-8. and we won 37-14 in Monroe last year. But head coach Jared Parker has lost to the Warhawks before when they came to the vet in 2024 where the Warhawks took the W 13-9. So no one should be taking this one for granted. They can do it. They've done it before. They might do it again. Noah Flemings has 51 tackles and Tyrell Brown, two and a half sacks, and a blocked field goal in the game on Saturday. Those are the names on defense that you need to know about. If Troy's run game can't get going against this defense that lets up 230 yards in the rush game, we've got problems that need addressing well beyond this game. there's some serious question marks like we've talked about earlier in our game against Louisiana Lafayette. So I'm kinda hoping we get we get right here against Monroe, make some adjustments, make some changes, because we can't keep doing the same. You know, we we started the season very strong. We started in a positive place. We were we were giving praises. I had the Sarah McLaughlin special, apologizing to Coach Parker. And and and now I wish I could undo that because the the this is not what I want to see and I'm hoping he fixes it and makes us eat our own jock. I c I could go edit that episode. You know, I'm just gonna take it out. Like No, no, no, no, no, no. Leave it, leave it. It's it's it's history now. Yeah. So you know, Bass, excellent breakdown there. there might even be a few Trojans after what we witnessed last week that hear that breakdown. And are crazy enough to thinking about wagering a little bit of money on this game. so we send Bass down to the Mississippi State line where sports betting is not as frowned upon to figure out what's going on with the wise guys in this week's edition of Makin' Moolah in Pascagoula. All right, Bass, so what are you hearing when you look at the books? Look, this game opened with Troy being a seventeen and a half point favorite. we averaged twenty-four points a game. So I I don't know how we would reach seventeen and a half. the line has already shifted to Troy being a fourteen and a half point favorite. That's a three point move already this early. and the money is still continuing to lean to the Warhawks. The over under is set at fifteen and a half. Detroit money line is minus seven fifty. The ESPN FPI pretty bullish still on the Trojans. They're giving us a ninety one point two percent chance to win this game. So the Vegas predicted score right now is the Trojans 32 ULM eighteen. and if you're curious about last week, Louisiana was a four and a half point favorite and they covered by well over three touchdowns and ran the under still. so we were very wrong in our thought that that that they had that. very incorrect. I mean they were right. They that they got that one. I will I will say last week I did say I don't think this was gonna be that close of a game. I said one team was gonna run forward with this ball game. And I just want to say I was right. I just yeah, Bird gotta come up that one time and say he was right, you know. Hey, at least it wasn't Texas State. Yeah. Yeah, Bird, how's that how's the tattoo treating you? This episode of Inkwatch. Yeah, that's what I thought. All right. so we we've got got our marching orders in terms of maybe avoiding the sports books. for this week. if you're down in the Atmore area, just you know s treat it like a punt. Just wave wave it off, fair catch, leave it alone. all right, now it's time to let all of Trojan Nation gather around the banks of the pond where the bass lives and throw in some bait to try to catch a sea bass in this week's edition of the tackle box. All right, bass. so this one actually was sent in to us from a listener. Thank you, listener, almost before the La La game was even over. it is not a shocker. I probably don't even need to read it to you. I'm sure you know what it is, but here is their question. quote Losing is one thing, getting embarrassed is another, and Jared Parker had extra time to prepare for our conference opponent whose state wants to demote them to FCS. Year three under Jared Parker is a disappointment, and I don't see it getting better. Who would be a good replacement for Jared Parker? it's really early in the cycle to even start talking about that because you don't know who's actually available and on the market right now. But and and the volatility of college football is like really throwing it for a loop too. It's kind of difficult to make these these judgment calls. but I I feel like a name i it if if you were to ask me somebody that I think that that could step in, if if we had the money enough To convince them to leave their job right now and come over here, I would probably start with Jerry Mack. He's currently the head coach at Kennesaw State. He took that team from two and ten to ten and three in a conference championship last year. He he has the experience and ability to take a team that's, you know, relatively rural in nature, kind of gritty in nature, but still has resources in their backyard and the ability to recruit. a and build a a a a solid foundational team. Look, Troy is known for their defense. Like w we ha I think we have defense on lock. It might be time to consider somebody with some strong offensive prowess again and bring that back. and and Jerry Mack does have that. the question is is could we potentially pull him from his current position? That remains to be seen. I but that was like the first thought that jumped out of my head is that that's somebody who took a really crappy program in a terrible spot in a conference that's not really in solid you know on solid footing and turn it around in a year. And so I I feel like that that would be something if we could convince him to leave that, that that would be something I you know maybe look at. Yeah. No, absolutely. you know, a name that I would love to see considered, even though he's now in the NFL ranks, so it would take a little bit of you know, fundraising from the boys down at Tyne Daily Fieldhouse, but Chris Kiffin. you may have heard of his slightly more famous older brother. but you know, I think Chris has been a solid recruiter in the southeast, and also, you know, brings a little bit of that kind of notoriety. You know, players these days want to go to a place that has some some hype behind it. and I think having kind of that Kiffen brand on campus could be really helpful. and he's shown that while he is a kiffen, he's much more of a Monty Kiffen than Elaine Kiffen. You know, he's not not causing trouble, doesn't seem to have a lot of problems in his personal life. So that is definitely a name I would love to see. you know, as you look around Troy fans, you see a lot of different folks discussed. we obviously, as you said, we have a long way to go from there. and you know, it You know, you see Jared win four more games, then all of a sudden this is probably a non question. Yeah. but you know, I think if he doesn't win more than two of the games that are left, all of a sudden this is a very realistic question and Kyle George all of a sudden is he's on the hot seat. Yeah. And let's take a look at these remaining games and kind of walk through those real quick. Monroe, we know about James Madison. Scary. That's a scary one on the road. Louisiana Tech, it's homecoming, but Louisiana Tech's been scary. South Alabama's always a question mark. Georgia Southern, another question mark team. They're good some days. They're bad others. And Arkansas State hates us. So I mean that there's there's a lot there there's a lot of hills we gotta climb between now and then. But I'm I'm I'm confident that we can. All the pieces exist. We talked about that in the preseason. Everything's present. It's just not coming together appropriately right now. And it did at the start of the season, but we've just not been able to execute since that Missouri loss, man. We just we just haven't been able to fix whatever went wrong there. Yeah, and I feel like if if you know it we're gonna learn a lot about how Jared Parker sees his own future by what we see on Saturday. 'cause it's possible if we ran out of the tunnel on Saturday playing Jack James as the quarterback. We are actually not giving ourselves the best possible chance to win this year, but we're giving ourselves a better chance to win next year. however, that would take a lot of confidence from Jared that he's gonna have a job next year. and so if instead you see us marching goose out there, you know, who's who's still kind of a little injured, a little banged up. then I think you know that Jared certainly feels like, hey, I gotta I gotta win now. and so that I think will be an interesting point just from the from the very beginning of the game, right after the boys from Fort Rucker fly over the stadium in a helicopter, we're gonna learn a lot more about this Troy team and and how Jared feels about his future. So we'll see. all right last little bit of work for this evening, gentlemen. it is time for me to wander into the hottest corner of the internet, which these days is starting to feel better and better. It's getting a little chilly in the mornings here in the grandest valley in Alabama. so happy to go in and experience a little bit of this heat as I bring all of Trojan Nation, the Troy fans, dot com, hot take of the week. Absolutely, yeah. Spending way too much time at Sisters, I'm sure, will be the next complaint. all right, so this week's winter, pretty solid, just on its own. and brings us back to talking about an old friend of ours, somebody we've had on the pod. So here we go. Quote this was in response to Jared Parker's weekly press conference. quote, Jared needs to go see the folks at Jones Medical because he is too sleepy. He probably needs a CPAP machine. I'd recommend the Sonyitsu Worldwind Deluxe Triple XL with reservoir/slash koi pond. I'm sure, I'm sure he can find a deal on this and all his medical needs. At Jones Medical and Oxygen Supply. my gosh. Okay, look, as somebody who sleeps with a CPEP at like I've never heard of this. I kind of want it. Like Koi Pond. Koi Pond is wild. Yeah. I mean you could have the bass. The bass could be there with you, you know. And that would be nice. Every night you get to hear market quad. Can you be in the koi pond and get all of the benefits of the CPAP? Is that possible? I mean, could you imagine going to bed and listening to stats about the overunder of a game? Like could you imagine? gosh. yeah. So congratulations to this week's winner. Excellent post. And Jared, yeah, you need to wake up a little bit, buddy. You're you're feeling a little sleepy when you're talking to the press, and the Trojan nation is not happy about it. So congrats to this week's winner, you are the Troyfans.com. Hot tick of the week. all right, guys, we have somehow gotten through it. we have made it through breaking down one of the worst losses I've ever seen watching Troy football since 2003. and we've gotten folks ready for ULM. So let's finish up by giving some closing remarks. Bass, go ahead, give us your closing remarks. And if you'd like, I know last week you were dealing with the suds. if you want to use a little bit of your closing remarks to talk about your feelings about the Duke Dogs leaving the conference, we would love we'd love to hear that as much. Yeah, I'll start with the I'll start with the closing remarks. like, rate, subscribe, review to the Troy Boys podcast, share us, that's how people get to hear about us. Troy's annual military appreciation game, like Joe talked about, is this week against the Warhawks, kickoff set for 3 p.m. in the vet. all active duty, retired military, and veterans, you can request free tickets to this game if you didn't know that. Just email athleticsmarketing at troy.edu and let them know that you you're looking for some tickets to the game and they'll they'll hook you up. and thank y'all for your service. we really do appreciate it. Look, all all this tomfoolery and all that fun stuff that we do on this this podcast is is small potatoes compared to the service you put in for our country and we appreciate that. And there there's like a slew of stuff going on during this game. You can go to Troytrojans dot com, get you some tickets a and find out more about this game and all the incentives they got for students and people going to the game. l let's talk about let's talk about James Madison. Who do you think you are? What gives you the right? I mean, seriously, like you've been here for what? Six minutes? Sit down. Literally. All right. Y you ain't been here long. Look, you've been here long enough to beat up on old Dominion. You've been here long enough to beat up on Georgia State. buddy. You've been here long enough to take care of Louisiana Monroe and Texas State at one time, who's now in the Pac twelve R. I. P. and Peace. Good riddance. Bye. we didn't like you anyway. y'all your fan base is sad, pathetic, whining, cry babies. take your streamers with you. I'm sure the American Conference will love you. I'm I'm sure everybody's real excited for you to go play Charlotte. I'm sure everybody's real excited for you to go play Tulsa. Have fun with how much money you're gonna make and media rights and you're gonna spend it all on travel. I I really hope you enjoy that. so long. Thanks for all the fish. and and on to the next one. So now that's the question I have. I don't know. I I I I'm not I'm not privy to if y'all really talked about that or not outside. I I have my thoughts and opinions on who we should bring in because clearly we have to. I there's two parts of this. Do we just get away from divisions? Like are we done with that or do we maintain that? Like I like it from the standpoint of financially for our institutions is the best thing. it it's better for us to maintain that. I I feel like it doesn't provide us the best opportunity in a conference championship game sometimes because sometimes one division does have two teams that are better. I I don't know what y'all's thoughts are on that. Anybody got words there? Well I mean now that they're the C FP's about to make a shake up with all of their stuff, I feel like that's not gonna matter anyway. I don't care about them. Look I I could go off on a tangent on that too. I think that that's an embarrassment for the sport. No one has at any point during any of that thought about schools like Troy. No one. No one. No one ever thought about it. I think it makes it worse for us. I think it makes scheduling more difficult for us. I think it makes it makes so much about all of this more difficult. I think it makes our conference in a weaker position. it's all about money, but sh d do do our conference commissioners like step up and say what's going on? Like You know, we're you know, y you get to count us as a game, why don't you we get to talk either? You know, w we're one of your twelve games you get to claim in your regular season. So why don't we have a voice at the table either? And I get that we don't bring the viewers and I don't bring it that we I get that. I totally understand that. But at the end of the day, if you're gonna claim us as a benefit for your institution to make more money, then then at some point we gotta get something in return. And right now we're not getting that. So I I I feel like that that's it that that whole that's a whole can of worms we don't have enough time for. because we're talking about James Madison. but I who do we bring in? Do we stay at the number that we're at? Because I feel like at one point I don't know anymore because it's been so long since we've talked about it, but the number of teams we had in our conference was set that way because that maximized revenue sharing for each individual school. That was the number that maximized how much money we could get for each school that it participated. So is that number the same? Is that different? And that that stuff I don't know. That's stuff that I'm sure Keith Gill does know, but he's not gonna say anything because our conference is terrible at media and and we're really bad at at communications. We think we're great. You know, we got the chick that says rising, cool. But beyond that, we're not really good at at marketing ourselves as a conference. So I don't I don't really know. but i you know, do we just add one team or do we add multiple teams? Because if we add multiple teams, that changes the way we who we recruit and who we bring into our conference. I really think the conference USA is pretty easy pickings. I because they they're not they're not in a good spot. I really think we need to stop pulling from the FCS. I think I think we gotta stop that. The FBS is already large enough, and the more that we bring in, the more it watered down and dilutes our conference and standing as a whole. So I I think we need to stop with that. if we're bringing in just one team, I feel like Western Kentucky's probably a good grab if they're willing to leave and come back. I I know I've I know I've said my piece against Western Kentucky and I know I don't like because they left us at one point for dead and now they're struggling. But I feel like Western Kentucky has a decent enough football profile that would fit into our conference well. They would still sit in the east, kind of, not really, but kind of. and their basketball is is quality. So I feel like that would help that that profile as well. if we're gonna go multiple, I I know no one wants to hear it, but I think Jacksonville State's a good grab. That's what I said. Yeah, Byrne talked about Jacksonville State. I've I suggested the university that ate Birmingham. UA D. That's disgusting. Look and I look and I don't know that they'll leave to come to us because they make so much more money in their conference right now. And and that's another thing that the Sun Belt does really poorly. We'd negotiate our our T V media rights deals awfully. Like we just say, Yeah, thanks. We appreciate being here. and we don't actually fight for what we're worth. I I feel like Troy making the super regionals And the College World Series and baseball did help our fr our standing a little bit. And we should be we should be using that and taking advantage of that. But again, conference not really good at branding ourselves. we're not doing that. So if we're gonna pick up multiple schools, I would like to pick up three. If we pick up Jacksonville State, they're gonna demand Kennesaw State. because they're they're their new rival, right? They're the trolley replacement. and they're it's in the footprint. they're quality team now. Why not? I feel like that would work pretty naturally if we brought them in, put Jacksonville State in the west, Kennesaw in the east, and Western Kentucky in the east. I think it works. I know people are gonna say, well you can't get Western Kentucky without middle Tennessee State. Yes you can. No one no one cares about Mitsu. When's the last time you thought of Mitsu? Twenty twenty, when we lost. That's the last time you thought of Mitsu. That's it. So it's been six years. So I I think that we sh we should just leave him for dead too. All right. Now that everybody's bored listening to my thoughts on all of that, JMU, good seeing you. Have fun. I hope you lose every game the rest of your life. Amen. Yeah. I I actually boo whenever James Madison appears on stage during productions of Hamilton. That's how much I hate those guys. Birdman. Go ahead and give us some of your closing remarks. Absolutely. so good to have the bass back. We needed your we needed your thoughts last week, but I'm glad we got today. This is a special. And I'm just I'm I'm just let's go. I love it. That's what we're here for. It is festivus in October. I'm just airing all of my grievances today. You should make a Troy fans account and just hop on and just start typing this stuff away, man. Absolutely not because I can't because I can't be the award winner. That would be a conflict of interest. I I can't I can't I can't throw fire takes on there and put a put an award on my mantle. That would just be wrong. I know you're I know you're fired up 'cause I mean we lost on Saturday and then your squad's about to lose on Friday. So I know I know you've got a lot to be fired up about. Slow down now. All right. Slow down. Okay. Bird. Go ahead, Bird Bird. You need to wander into this minefield here and and see if you can give some closing remarks without getting in trouble. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'll I'll just say this. I you know, we've seen the Trojans at their worst before under other, you know, management. We've seen them at their best under other management as well. so I mean, who knows what's gonna happen. You know, I I do hope that this was just a a fluke and this was just, you know, they were distracted. I don't know. The the variables, they're just they resemble a lot of what we've seen before. the goose getting hurt again, you know, I I wish him quick healing, but it's just like what's happening in the weight room, what's happening conditioning here, like what's what's going on. I don't know. There there's just there's a lot of unknown there. and I'm I'm concerned about it. but at the end of the day, still a Trojan. Still gonna cheer on, still gonna hope for the best. you know, on Saturday I'm still gonna, you know, have my morning mimosa take a shot and then I am gonna root for the Trojans to say 4 by 50. And then if somebody asks me who I think the new head coach should be, I'm gonna tell them well Nick Saban, 'cause he's available. so anyways, go Trojans, and we'll see what happens. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it this is tough. I had kind of a double header of awfulness because obviously Troy looks terrible. and then my wall my wife Salma Mater, Colorado, lost a tough one as well at like two o'clock in the morning. nothing like Big Twelve football, right? and so it a lot of a lot of just bruised feelings, not wanting to watch college football final the next morning. but we do love Troy. it's why we follow the team. you know, as Jack Hawkins always reminds us, the football team is the front porch of the university. So that's the most important thing. but we gotta have a nice front porch. Somebody's gotta sweep it off every now and then. and I think Jared Parker, I think it might be time for him to get swept off. So you know, we've we've tried, I think, to be very fair with him. but I think I don't know if it's hiring decisions. I don't know if it's X's and O's. I don't know what it is. But whatever it is, it's simply not working. So he has the rest of this season to make believers out of Trojan Nation, but he's got a very tough hill to climb. so I do hope everybody is going to get into the vet on Saturday. this team needs you and they deserve you. They got the name of our school on their chest. So get down to Troy and cheer loud and help us beat these warhawks. thank you so much for joining us for this episode. that is the bird, that is the bass. I am Trojan Joe. And as always, I'll end this episode by saying go, Trojans. And God bless Bless you, Blaze Brown.