Latest / Run After Cast: The College Football Podcast / Who's Winning the Off-Season? Portal Chaos & Off-Season Impressions
Transcript
- RAC2 Ryan: Hello and welcome to run after cast the college football podcast. My name's Ryan and I'm here with Chandler. RAC Aaron: How's it going, gentlemen? RAC2 Ryan: And I'm here with Aaron. Today we're just going over some off season news. Chandler, I'll give it to you. RAC2 Aaron 264: Hail State! RAC Aaron: Yeah. So the hottest thing off the press today, as we're recording this on March 6th, Trump had a meeting talking about the future of college football with a heavy focus on NIL. So I immediately saw that headline, clicked on it, brought it over, had to talk to you guys. So he had all the power four and five commissioners there. And he had people like Nick Saban, Urban Meyer. He had the MBA commissioner there and supposedly they were trying to get something. Formatted for the future of NIL and not make it the wild wild west and yada yada yada, but will it actually stick? Who knows? I just thought it was pretty cool that it got elevated to the White House and they had a formal meeting with the president there hosting it so I just wanted to kind of get your opinion on it and I thought it was pretty cool. Will it stick? Probably not, but what you got Ryan? RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I would I was gonna use the same wild west analogy that you got this billion dollar corporation here And there's no sanctions on it, you know, everything has sanctions consumerist country So obviously Trump's gonna do some about it, but I don't know why the NBA commissioner was there which is weird But I think like Nick Saban's definitely got some ideas. Do you think it's more of an issue? About the actual NIL or the fact that these guys are breaching their contracts and transferring RAC Aaron: You Are you? RAC2 Ryan: for the NIO. RAC Aaron: It's gotta be both. RAC2 Aaron 264: think this sounds like one of those like somebody was talking about NIL being a big deal. And this, this feels like a clarification meeting of like what's going on. These always scare me. Anytime we hear like a big, we're going to put a think tank together of the people that already make the decisions to fix something. Because if there was a good fix that they had in mind, it already be implemented. So it's, can completely see NIL being an issue that they're taking their time. They don't want to make any crazy adjustments to it right off the bat. I everybody at the high levels understands there's an issue. But if you get overzealous and like try to make too big of a change, it could really negatively impact the industry like crazy. So when it comes to money, I think they are always going to err on the side of how do we make the most amount of money without losing a lot of money. Now we've talked, mean, between gym sets, we have mentioned many times like NIL issues. What can we do to fix the NIL? Anything in that regard. That's three dudes chatting with no insight to the inside ball game. it does seem, it does seem like it's adjustable, but I think transferring becomes a big issue. The NILs, I do think there has to be some kind of regulation on it, but I think it needs to be at the school level. not the player level because a lot of times when we see these things implemented, it hurts the player, not the organization. The organization keeps making buckets and buckets of cash. mean, we could, you know, return back to the Johnny Manziel issue, looking back where it's like all he wanted to do was get paid when everybody else was getting paid on his name. And, you know, after it. Yeah, really push forward. And so I don't want to see the players necessarily punished for this. RAC Aaron: Exactly. Exactly, I mean that's why NIO was even created. RAC2 Aaron 264: And then everybody else be fine being able to throw shadow money at it like they've done since the dawn of football. But I think we need some organizational limits that are strict limits, you know, something where we can't have boosters coming in from the side angle. They're going to do it. I mean, there's there's no way it's just like saying there's no cheating in baseball. This is all behind the curtains. It's always going to exist. But he pit is strict is I'm sure they handle with the prevalence of gambling and things like that. RAC Aaron: percent. RAC2 Aaron 264: that we're seeing, which I'm sure is probably top priority for them is how to get safeguards in place. Cause I think even the pros are suffering for trying to keep players off the sports betting apps and things like that. So we'll see. RAC Aaron: And there was an interview with Coach O back when he was at LSU after he retired and left. He was talking about, now at NIL we don't have to bring the money through the back door. We can just walk in the front and just, it's crazy. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yep. That's a great interview. RAC2 Ryan: I know you mentioned Nick Saban was there, you know, he knows all about that, you know, back in the day. Yeah. RAC Aaron: ⁓ absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So on that same vein, I wanted to kind of shift gears and talk about big transfer portal moves, big coaching moves, all the kind of off season buzz that I'm sure everybody listening to this has heard about, but you that you haven't heard our professional opinions yet on them. So I wanted to get that out there. But as a quick note that I learned today, actually listen to another podcast about college football, the stars in recruiting when you're going through high school or being classified as a five star. RAC2 Aaron 264: Hell yeah. Hahaha RAC Aaron: There's only 32 slots given in every class to be a five star. And the reason being is there's 32 first round draft picks in NFL. So they want to mirror that same like, this is five star talent. This is probably a first round NFL talent. So there's 32 five stars in every class. And then there's 404 stars in every class. And I was talking to Ryan earlier about it. mean, there's probably 400 high school kids within a five mile radius of me playing football right now. So that's unbelievable to think about that there's only 400 and like Sometimes they get kind of overshadowed being the four star, like, we're not a five star. But I mean, to be in the top 400 is crazy. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, then to be in the top 32, I didn't know that I didn't know there was a limit on that star system. So that, that is really, really interesting. Cause I mean, that, that makes it way more competitive than I thought. Makes sense. Like I completely agree with it. Who I, this is something outside my realm of knowledge. Who's in charge of setting the stars for individual players. RAC Aaron: I didn't either until today. Yeah. I don't know. So the site that I always look at is 24 seven sports and they always have updated rankings and the off season. It's like every two months and then during the season and during like hot recruiting times, it's every other week and maybe even sooner than that, but there's always different pushes. like in may before the new season starts, like right around the summertime, whenever like summer camp starts, they'll have their final 20, 26 rankings, I think. And that's when they'll have the full list of 32 five stars, like solidified for the 26th class. RAC2 Aaron 264: Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: And then same thing like next May for the 2027 class. It'll be right around there, but I don't know who makes it. I would like to think it's somebody important. RAC2 Aaron 264: Cause yeah. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, but it's crazy because you guys like you got on three, you got 24 seven, you have all these different people that give out their ratings or whatever. And then nowadays there's people that look at all of them and you have the composite ratings, but I'm kind of shocked. There's only 32 five stars as well. Here in Florida, even I played with a guy and I think it depends on what school you are, but apparently it's really hard to be a five star. have to meet all these weird expectations. So someone I played with actually was talking about someone and saying that like, RAC Aaron: Exactly. RAC2 Ryan: Here you have to work at a certain, you have to play at a certain size school, which we were 6A and then you have to be on varsity all four years of high school to even be considered as a five star. So like, I don't know how it is in other States, but certain things like they put ceilings on it, which is crazy to me, which I didn't even know that. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. Yep. RAC2 Aaron 264: I guess if you're picking out a 32 nationwide per year, it does seem crazy that like four years of varsity, we'll have to deep dive that. That definitely is going to be a better ⁓ off season episode for us to do like a breaking down of the star system. Because I do think that's important, especially when we do get to like recruitment times and things like that. Who's pulling in talent. What was it? A years ago under Jimbo Fisher, A ⁓ had like the number one recruiting class overall, like the most five stars, everything in there. RAC Aaron: Exactly. Yeah, it's nuts. RAC2 Aaron 264: I think went like eight and four that season. And it is like to be able to see, you know, how the sausage is made on the backend at the high school level definitely is going to dictate what we're seeing at the college level too. RAC Aaron: ⁓ the hottest name, at least in my opinion, that was being floated around this off season was Sam Levitt. When his name hit the portal, every single national media outlet was on him quick. So he was one of those guys, big 12, freshman of the year. He went to the 2024 college ball playoffs with old Kam Scataboo. They had just a phenomenal run and phenomenal season. But when he entered the portal and went to LSU and got that huge contract for like $5 million, whatever it was, obviously it's not public knowledge yet, but there's a lot of speculation. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. RAC Aaron: ⁓ I just immediately thought what has he really proven other than that playoff run? I mean, what was this competition like? mean, as a big 10 fan, hard to say, but him going to LSU and having those SEC schedules, it's going to be night and day from the big 12. So is he really going to be a $5 million quarterback or is he going to be another Bryce Underwood where he got paid $4 million and didn't do anything? Who knows? RAC2 Ryan: I don't know. I think he's good from the interviews I've seen. He seems like a smart quarterback. But yeah, like for example, he definitely got carried by cam scatter. But that year, and then people also put this on to like the Dillingham situation where they think he's a great coach now because of Sam Levitt and cam scatter. But he even interviewed at Auburn this year and stuff. But I think just ended up going back. But what do you have like 2200 all purpose yards? Yeah. RAC Aaron: So yeah, I was about to say on that vein, Kam Skataboo had 2,200 yards in that season. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. RAC2 Aaron 264: But it is something, mean, as Mississippi State person, Lane Kiffin, that was the first time I felt like a moment of sympathy for Ole Miss. was like, that's a crazy move. I'm sure we are gonna deep dive on that a little bit more when we get into some coaching discussions in a later episode. Say what we wanna say about his behavior, the way he carried all through that. He does pretty good at talent. acquisition. Like when it comes down to putting pieces together, he is very good at that. And it's just, he's very good at it for a couple of years before he goes to a new school. So is he seeing something, is he seeing a scheme with Levitt behind it that's working with what he has? I think if we kind of go into like Sam Levitt first year, I don't think we're going to see a great first year. I think, you know, there's a lot of changes going for LSU. We're going to see a new scheme involved. We're going to see, you know, a lot of adjustments made. And I think there can be one of those where it's like, is he going to buckle under the media pressure when people are going to come down on him and say, why are you performing at this level? And I mean, you're switching conferences, you know, as much as we at the SEC fan club of two thirds of us here will say, you know, this we're hard hitting conference of say what you will about success, but There is a physical ball that's played. And I think for quarterback, sometimes that's a wake up call. He did play us during that scataboo playoff run season and they beat the pants off of us. So, you know, I can say with a little humility that he beat us. We weren't good, but you know, they did come in to an SEC team and absolutely wiped the floor with us. So, but we'll see. RAC Aaron: Yes. That's fair, but is he gonna be able to maintain it week after week? RAC2 Aaron 264: week now that we're going to see some big games happening and that constant pressure. RAC Aaron: Because LSU plays Georgia, they play Auburn, they play Alabama, they play Florida, they play all these different teams every year. It's not just like a, we're playing Mississippi State and then we're playing Stanford and then we're playing, you know, so. RAC2 Ryan: Throws it down my hip. It to be stayed down there. That's crazy. RAC Aaron: Well, he already mentioned it. it was was free. It was free game. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. It's true. Hey, we weren't any better. Yeah. We, think that same season, we almost blew it to NIU. So it's like, it's fine. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, but like RAC Aaron: It happens. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. But I mean, think Sam Levitt's just a kind of game manager type quarterback. He doesn't have that superstar aspect. Cause even last year, mean, Lane Kiffin, how many transfers did he have going into LSU this year? Like the whole team is different. yeah. Cause last year, correct me if I'm wrong, last year, I'm pretty sure they said it was two returners on the whole Ole Miss roster. It's like, he's done this before where he just read us the whole team, especially with LSU, the money they have, the RAC Aaron: ⁓ it's 40 plus, I think it's like, close to like 50. It's a lot. RAC2 Aaron 264: Mm-hmm. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: kinda program historically that they are even though they haven't been that good recently but I don't know I think with all that talent that he's bringing around him it might make him seem better than he actually is but he's definitely just a game manager type guy like a Ty Simpson maybe who like I don't know if he can really get it done but for the most part like you have to play 9 SEC games now week in week out hard talent I don't know if he can get it done every single week RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Ryan: I don't know if you can get it done when it gets hard, but for the most part I think the talent around him might carry him a little bit. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. And I, I still think for a first year coming into a new program quarterback, that's the best situation you can get. Like where, you know, you are not trying to win every game by yourself on your own back. Like you just, there's too many holes that you're going to experience if they can get them in a comfortable rhythm. And like I said, the thing he could impress me with is it does he stand up to the criticism? Does he not fold LSU is not a soft fan base. They let you know what they're thinking. RAC Aaron: No. RAC2 Aaron 264: all the time. So I, and I respect them for that, even though it's a scary stadium to be if you're in any color, but purple and gold there. So I think if he crumples, that's it. But being a game manager type that could be to his strength here. And that could be exactly what Kiffin's looking for where he's just looking, he's not looking for the guy who's going to take them all the way. He's looking for the guy that proves the system. And that's something where you can't really bolt him right out the gate with that. RAC2 Ryan: He just has to do enough, he can't make huge mistakes, and they'll be fine. And that might be all he's looking for right now. But I mean, even last year, they're coming off like a terrible season with Garrett Nussmeyer. And I'm even surprised they benched him for that other guy and like wasted his red shirt. But like it doesn't even matter now because Lane came and stuff, but yeah, it's just crazy. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. RAC Aaron: like you said, Aaron, if he wants to have this like kind of feel it out year with how much money and hype is surrounding Lane Kiffin and this transfer portal hall and all these guys coming in. And like you said, with the fan base, there's, feel like the stakes are too high for it to be like, ⁓ he's just, he'll be better as next year. Cause he's going into his junior year. So if he has a good year or if he doesn't, he can still declare for the draft. So I don't know if they're going to have the... the long enough leash to even allow him to have a feeler year. I think you, these should have to be thrown right in. RAC2 Aaron 264: No, I agree completely. That's what I mean is like that's where if he doesn't crumple under that pressure, because I think Kiffin is going to consider it a failure of a season if he goes under eight wins, because LSU is going to expect eight wins out of them. I mean, they're going to expect a playoff visit, but because last season was rough, think eight wins puts him in the clear, undoes some of the PR that he went into this with. And we'll see if he sees that in Levitt power to him. It could be one of those things where RAC Aaron: 100%. RAC2 Ryan: ⁓ yeah. RAC Aaron: Yes. RAC2 Aaron 264: You know, we look at this at the end of the season. We say that worked out brilliantly or it crashed and burned. Don't think there's necessarily a great middle ground for it because I think a six win season to just be bowl eligible is not going to be good enough for the fan base, especially as visceral as they reacted last year. RAC Aaron: 100%. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I'm gonna one-up you here. I'm gonna say nine games. Anything less than nine, unacceptable for what they're expecting out of this. I'm not trying to hate on you here for the Mississippi State thing, but like, historically when you think of SEC, me and my dad always use this analogy. We're like, yeah, we'll play these schools. We have the two little brother Mississippi schools that you have to beat. The Ole Miss and Mississippi State. I'm not trying to harp on you. But like, people have forgotten that because Lane Kiffins came in RAC2 Aaron 264: You No, absolutely fair. RAC2 Ryan: He's brought Ole Miss to 10 win season and then they're all like, Ole Miss is this great SEC school and they're historically just been kind of middle of the road SEC little brother territory But he's done that there imagine what he can do with all the resources at LSU and that's what they're expecting Like they're expecting him to come in and win this year and if he doesn't get it done, they're gonna be mad in nine wins It's like you can maybe go to the playoffs of nine wins nowadays. They got seven last year. So it's two up Yeah RAC2 Aaron 264: Absolutely. Initially with some SCC. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. RAC Aaron: No, and I think too, similar to Ohio State, LSU has the ability to recruit in state pretty much solely. They can monopolize their in state recruiting because there's nobody else in the state that they're competing with. Like Auburn, you're competing with Alabama. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah And they get so much great talent out of Louisiana. Like, it's crazy. RAC Aaron: Exactly. Exactly. Like Florida, Florida state, you have Florida, you have UCF, like you have all these people that you're recruiting against. But Louisiana, if you grow up in Louisiana, pretty much anywhere inside those borders, you're going to be an LSU fan. And I think as long like that's what Ed Orgeron did great. He tapped into that through and through. That's what he did. And he recruited well. Exactly. He tapped into it. So as long as lane can do that. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yep. Yep. He was a culture coach and absolutely did it to his advantage. RAC2 Ryan: Mm-hmm. I love you a culture coach, though RAC Aaron: and he's been a great recruiter at Ole Miss. If he can do that, it should be easier for him at LSU to do that. RAC2 Aaron 264: Absolutely. Absolutely. Cause I do feel like Mississippi is a torn state. might not, we do get talent. I'm going to say, you know, this is, this is a very self battering fan that I have as Mississippi State fan, but Mississippi is torn between you either love Mississippi State or you love Ole Miss. There is not a lot of flex in between. if somebody is a state person, they're more than likely not going to play at Ole Miss. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. RAC2 Aaron 264: There is an exception in IL changes things, but historically it's a torn school. So when you do get a state monopoly, that is tough to beat. RAC Aaron: 100%. Yes. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I feel like it's hard for y'all too, because y'all are just in the middle of everybody. You're right next to Louisiana, right next to Alabama, right next to Florida. All the Southern... Yeah, all those Southern guys are coming for the town of Mississippi. I mean Auburn, went for a deuce night from Mississippi. All those big guys, we just take them away. So it's not like... Yeah. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, we're next to a lot of good schools. Yeah. Yep. There's a lot of defensive talent there that gets taken out of state and good on the, the athletes for going to where they're going to shine. Just a couple of y'all. If you're really talented, if you're three star, say hello to us. ⁓ we will value you, but no, I agree. think nine wins realistically. Best case scenario. I mean, of course going all the way. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, yeah. RAC Aaron: 100%. RAC2 Aaron 264: is absolutely the best case, but I think they're realistic. You pull off a nine win season, your first season as a head coach or an incoming quarterback, a fresh team. That's an impressive, no, people don't question you as much. You go into that second year with a lot of steam under you. And I think that's really important. think momentum is what makes and breaks programs. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, and I don't think they're going to be able to go all the way this year, but that's just what I was saying. Like nine games, I think might be the ceiling, but I think it's also kind of the expectation somehow. The eights, like, ⁓ seven's unacceptable. Nine's like pretty good, but they're kind of expecting like a nine or 10, which is a little bit unrealistic. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think eight, you can play, you can play PR lane is okay at that. You can get behind the mic and he can, he can sell it to the boosters. And I think that's something he's good at. I think you're right. Nine puts them in the shore seat, like 10 he's riding high, like he's going in. Everybody loves them. They're like next year's our year. Nine is like, nobody's calling for his head on a platter. Eight. He makes the boosters feel safe. Seven people are mad. RAC Aaron: 100%. I tell you what, one of our buddies, ⁓ Mr. Matthew is going to be a little upset and biased towards our LSU opinions, but you know, he'll be okay. But on that same vein with the quarterbacks, going up north to Cincinnati, Brendan Soarsby, same kind of deal. He went from Cincinnati and now he's... Where is he at, Teal? He went to... Yes, I think he is fully committed to Texas Tech, but Cincinnati is currently trying to sue him. RAC2 Aaron 264: Hahaha RAC2 Ryan: He was going to go to Texas Tech, right? RAC Aaron: for breaching contract for $1 million and he had a $1 million buyout essentially for if he broke his contract, he would have to owe that $1 million back. So that's all going back and forth and it's rumored that it might be settled behind the scenes and not taken to court. Yeah, so. RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ It will be. Yeah. I can, I can guarantee that that is not going to court if he's committing to Texas tech. RAC Aaron: Exactly. RAC2 Aaron 264: How hard is that? You know, that's a phone call away from being solved. RAC Aaron: And to exactly. So the icing on the cake to it is his deal there is rumored to be between four and $6 million for his last year. And it's not proven, but it's highly speculated that he got a 1 % royalty in oil and gas in some kind of tycoon there in Texas on top of that four to $6 million. So that is. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, and all those big Texas oilmen, know, they'll get him a nice lawyer, you know. RAC2 Aaron 264: Every time. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, that's ridiculous. Yeah. RAC Aaron: Unbelievable. And we talk about, proving themselves. He's going from Cincinnati to Texas Tech. Enough said. He's not worth more than $6 million. I mean... RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, he's gonna be the richest football player ever. Yeah. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. At least in the college realm, like that, that is one of those things that could have amazing pants. Do not blame him. If that is what he got, you know, behind doors power to them, you know, that is something in our second episode and go ahead and let all of our listeners from the future here on know I'm always going to be biased to the players getting theirs. I think the young guys that they, they put in at this point, the, the work they have put in to get there is. RAC Aaron: 100 percent. Exactly. RAC2 Aaron 264: enormous. They are the top performers and you know, we're talking points of a percent level athletes. So this is a, this is a transitionary time before they get to the pros. Some of them aren't going to make it. Some get injuries that keep them out of it. They'll absolutely get them paid. It's the universities and the whole organization's responsibility to make sure there's a fairness across the board. I don't want to see that get out of hand, which we're already seeing. I mean, 1 % of Like industry profits. That's insane. That's crazy. That's like that, you know, star Wars merch level, like you're rich for the rest of your life and like raid on him. That's kind of the stuff that they'll need to tamp down in the future and make sure that doesn't happen. know, we know Texas tech that's how they're going to be. And until this does, Texas tech is going to be out there throwing checks. They are going to be signing people or as RAC Aaron: Exactly. Yes. Yes. RAC2 Aaron 264: as money as they possibly can. Texas loves the concept of buying a national championship. You know, every one of them in there, all the big schools in Texas love that idea. RAC Aaron: Exactly. I mean, it's one of those things though, where Texas tech likes somebody and like Ohio state likes somebody. Texas tech will not just a hundred thousand dollars more bid them. Like they're going to go 500,000, a million dollars more, like something astronomical because they have all these billionaire backing companies and people and boosters that they can get whoever they want if they like them enough. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah Yeah, absolutely. And, know, I will say it makes it harder for me when we go into the playoff season, when we see a team like that, or who I'm going to jump on and say, like, we can go behind this, but we're going to back and we're going to ride them all the way to the end. Once, know, once all your horses are out of the race, you got to have something to keep watching and be excited for. So that is something when you have that and you get that underdog story doesn't really go for the big paycheck guy. So hopefully they have the whole organization behind them that can get them there if they're paying for it. RAC Aaron: Exactly. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I- Yeah. And I have another thing that, ⁓ like there's all these guys that their entire life they grew up and I'm like, I'm going to go to this school. I'm going to play for my dream school. And it's to the point now where appeal is almost not at the same point as the money where they could go play for the school they want and they might get a million dollars and they might get three to go play from some other school, but they might've grown up, not had that much money their whole life. And it's like, no matter how much you want to play for that school that you grew up liking so much, like you. You have to go play for the other school. Like with Texas tech, especially like you give the Ohio state example, if there's going to be double, like you have to go. It's almost like life changing. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. If, if old miss offered me $4 million right now to be their fan for the rest of my life, you know, hotty toddy, like I'm doing it. Like, yeah, I'm, selling out. Like that's, that's an easy amount of money. So, you know, we have to put that in perspective of how many fans right now would sit there, you know, Chandler 5 million to be a Michigan fan. RAC Aaron: The jersey's in the mail. RAC2 Ryan: ⁓ no. RAC Aaron: 100 % RAC2 Ryan: ⁓ RAC Aaron: hard to pass up. RAC2 Aaron 264: It's like we treat the players like they're different than us in a lot of ways in that category. like. RAC Aaron: Yes. mean, five million dollars to go to a quarterback from Cincinnati is life changing money. I mean, those are. RAC2 Aaron 264: Crazy. Like that's having to work again money if they're smart with it. RAC Aaron: Exactly. mean, that's like a something you would see for like if Cam Newton was in the NIL era, if Cam Newton was getting paid to go to like play Alabama, like that's like you would give him $5 million. You'd give him some crazy deal to get him to come jump to your school. So no, knock on him. Like we said, go get your money, go get paid, let your agent do the, do the dirty work for you. But those kinds of numbers, when I saw that, I was like, that's like a game changer. Like you will have a national championship contention. Like you got your guy kind of paycheck. RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ absolutely. RAC Aaron: And is he that? I hope so, but that's just crazy. No, I mean, I don't either, but he has $5 million and who cares? RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's, it is, it is crazy. RAC2 Ryan: I don't think he's that. I do not think he's that. Yeah. Yeah, but if you're going to, if you're going to pay someone $5 million, at least get the best guy, know, the best guy. It's still go there for five. Apparently they think he's the best guy, but that's another thing. Texas tech is one those examples. think them and the Oregon guys said that he'll, he has unlimited checks. He's right in, they will pay as much money. Yeah. And then, yeah, they will pay as much money as they want to win. And Texas tech tried to do it this year. It didn't work, which is crazy to me. They could have got anyone they wanted, but I don't know if y'all saw this Mr. Beast said he was on a podcast and he said. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. RAC Aaron: Yeah. In Indiana. RAC2 Ryan: Who's the worst college football team and someone said ECU and he said he's thinking about making a video where he's gonna pay a hundred million dollars to buy the best team at ECU and win the national championship. Imagine he's come to Jeremiah Smith. Jeremiah Smith, I'll give you $15 million to come to ECU. know, do you think, do you think? RAC2 Aaron 264: Well, here's the thing. I don't even think a hundred million dollars does it anymore. I think that's scrap. That's not even your offensive side of the ball. That's not a coach contract. Like to completely revitalize the program. I think we're talking, you know, billion. Like I think we're talking major, major, major money because I mean, you're thinking about it. If you're $5 million for this, you're locked in, you're talking facility upgrades. You're talking huge, huge numbers to get there. Like you can buy the best players, that RAC Aaron: No. RAC2 Ryan: Mm-mm. RAC Aaron: Yep, yep, coaching staff. RAC2 Aaron 264: does not mean you're going to put them together and have a run. Now, can you boost a couple of wins out of that or, but all the way you have to have everything in place. Like you've, you're going to have one to two shots with buying a year and hoping it all pays off for you. And you could be spending $5 million on any one of these quarterbacks. goes into the first game, ACL tear. He's down like Let's not hope any of that happens. Let's hope every player makes it through the season healthy, that's $5 million out the, out the door. Like that does not win you that season. If that's the season you bought in on, there's too many variables. think, I think it gives you a good leg up. think it gives you a great boost, a great chance, but that's part of football. Like there's a depth chart for a reason and you can't buy every slot in that with the top of the line player. RAC Aaron: Injuries happen. We talked about it earlier. If Texas Tech is going to recruit against anybody, like the names you look for on recruiting now, if Texas Tech's involved, if Indiana's involved, if Oregon's involved, like those big booster programs. But if their talent recognition is not right, then maybe it doesn't matter because would an Auburn go after Brennan Sworsby to be their staple guy? Probably not. so then maybe, maybe unless they get that sorted out, they're just throwing money at whoever will come to the program. RAC2 Aaron 264: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Ryan: I hope not. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah RAC Aaron: And it's not the program just giving blank checks to people is enticing. Maybe they know that like the facilities black, the coaching staff is not there. The OC is not there. The strength of schedule is not there. Maybe they know that even if they get paid over there, they're not going to get the recognition they want. So who knows? RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, that's another thing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I'm hoping is that there's still some kind of appeal factor, but also how you mentioned the depth chart thing. I think we're losing the depth chart because nowadays everybody, all the backups, they're trying to go another school. They're trying to start. They're trying to get a million dollars. They're trying to start. You can't keep backups. We've had examples of this. Like y'all have Milan Grammy, Quincy Porter, two five star series left. We had a backup Deuce Knight, five star quarterback left. And this is just happening all the time. And I also think that that Mr. Beast scenario gives us a great RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Ryan: insight into really what, the boosters are looking at. Cause I don't think they really comprehend how much money they have, what the money can really get them. Cause he's, he probably doesn't even watch football and he's just like, ⁓ a hundred million dollars. You know, two years ago, that might've been fine. But then nowadays every single team, most of the big teams, what 50, 70 mil or whatever. Cause when a high state one, was 22 million. It's just doubling every year. RAC Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Texas is lineup this year is predicted to be at least 50 million, which is crazy. mean, we've talked about it a little bit, but like back to the Lane Kiffin situation and he's throwing out all this money to NIL. I mean, he was number one in the transfer portal recruiting, like coming in class. On 2026 class, he was, think, top five. So he's spent easily upwards of $50 million, if not more than that on his team coming in. And with the guy. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. That's crazy. RAC Aaron: Jordan Seton, I think was his name from Colorado, the office of tackle that his agent came out and said, Hey, our starting bid is $1.5 million. Nobody else come talk to us unless you're willing to take up that money. And he, got him. So they have so many big players that wanted so much money that these agents are just feeding to them that they're worth this much money. I mean, LSU is going to be the team to watch this year for make or break. Like, will they live up to hype? Like they have so much money circulating in that program right now. And so many moving parts that RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ yeah, yeah, end. RAC Aaron: it's gonna be it's gonna be a fun watch RAC2 Aaron 264: will say it is one of my interesting like preseason moments will be when the ranking charts come out and will that narrative be pushed at the highest level? Cause we do know that whatever's the commentary circles, whatever the main talking points are do tend to reflect in the ranking chart preseason. And that will be interesting to see do does the talking head world, including us fall into those RAC2 Ryan: It sure will. RAC2 Aaron 264: repetitive narrative grooves that pushes them forward into a top five position going into the season. And that's also something that when you get that top 10 out the gate that can be crushing to your program. If you are not ready for that first game, like any, any kind of pressure, any kind of bad performance or, you know, fumble on special teams, anything like that, that comes up and absolutely just change the discourse for the rest of your season for the team. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. And this AP thing too, it's such a big deal that first ranking. Cause last year I have a good example. Alabama's ranked super high and then FSU came in and beat them first week. And then they just threw FSU way up there, which is super unusual. Cause most of time those move them up a couple of spots. They'll put them at 25. I think they put them like somewhere like 15 or something. And then they just kept winning their game. Like they're nothing games were winning and winning them. They slowly moved up. RAC2 Aaron 264: Absolutely. Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Ryan: And they lost to Virginia because they're like, no, they're not actually that good. then Virginia shot up there and then they played nobody. So it's just so weird that like, there's no actual system going into it anymore, but it's all the speculative rankings and people like that just get thrown up there and the teams are actually doing good kind of get thrown a little farther back than they should be. RAC Aaron: Well, look at flip side of that. Look at Penn State. Penn State was preseason. I think they were top five and the Penn State and Notre Dame are always, always, always too hot. And I don't care who's on their roster. Saquon Barkley can come back to that team and they will probably not finish in the top 10. They just always fall out. They are always the big game losers. And they started preseason. What had to been top 10. RAC2 Ryan: I think there were two. I think there were two, three, right? Y'all were two, they were three. RAC Aaron: And then their head coach gets fired, sticks games in. Like it's unbelievable. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. I think, I think we'll see a repeat of that this year. I don't think Penn State will be a top 10 breaker, but I think Penn State is going to have a lot of growing pains because that was insane. That was definitely one of the craziest moments of last season was firing. RAC2 Ryan: Okay, think about it though. Mm-mm. RAC Aaron: I would, as a degenerate betting man, I would say that they are not gonna be a top 25 team this year. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, I'd throw it. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: No, they lost all of their players this year. They lost them all. I think Drew Allard doesn't get hurt. Last year they might win some games, you know? RAC Aaron: Oh, 100%. I mean, it is 8th year. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. But I'm, I'm going to go on the opposite and I'm going to fight for Notre Dame this year. I'm going to say, think, I think Notre Dame does get way high in the preseason, but I think, and they tend to come out slower, like out the gate. They, they seem to have to wake up a little bit. And then when they do, they have a great run in the middle of the season, but you're right. It's tends to be that like once that they get to that big game. RAC2 Ryan: I'm just kidding. ⁓ no. RAC2 Aaron 264: that something happened for them. RAC Aaron: I think they'll be a playoff team, but I think they will get, they'd be ranked too high in the beginning. But now with the new clause that they have, if Notre Dame finishes in the top 12 before postseason starts, they have an automatic bid into the playoffs. So guess what? RAC2 Ryan: Thank RAC2 Aaron 264: And I mean, and ask for better than that. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, and that's ridiculous to me. Yeah. RAC Aaron: Yeah, no conference championship. can just, you hey, we're top 12. Yeah. ⁓ RAC2 Aaron 264: They just slide in. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, that's ridiculous to me and every other sport that they play, they're in a conference. Football is the only one that they're just independent on. And then Aaron, you're talking about this. Yeah. And you're talking about, have a slow start. That's perfect for them. Apparently the first half of the season doesn't even count. Now for 12 team playoff, we put Alabama in there. They said, they said the first half doesn't count. They ended the season. The last four games are the only ones that matter now, unless they change something. So they just have to win the last four games and they're in. So. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're ACC in a lot of them. RAC2 Aaron 264: That was, that was crazy. Yeah. RAC Aaron: You Yeah, to an FSU team. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: They're gonna be 12 and they're in. RAC2 Aaron 264: And I do think that's another thing that we've talked about in IL. We've talked about some of the coaching, like there's a lot of issues that need to be addressed. I think AP ranking polling, absolutely up there. think that is a long standing issue that we have seen time and time again. I do think right now it's not a terrible system. It's not the worst one they could have, you know, having the voting committee, everything. I just think they need to make some changes to it. that allows a little bit more evaluation. I think when we get to the 25 rankings, we have to have for playoff contention and playoff contention alone. We need to evaluate on a check system. We need to look at play stats, game stats, defensive, offensive, and have a like checklist. Here's where you're going. If you're tied here, if this is comparable, this is where we're seeing that. I'm sure a lot of the voting block as metrics that are very similar to that. But I think we need a standardized set, similar to conference championships where it's like, well, they lost to this team, but beat this team. they're automatically in and it's like, but we have three teams that are 11 and one, but they're saying this word win was worth more than the other automatically. And it's like, but that that's a completely arbitrary system. We need something that has like statistically driven. Placing so nobody can argue about it. Like it's like we could even have that discussion of like, well, did they have an easier schedule? SEC is working to try to keep that schedule a little bit more, you know, balanced between difficulty by having these polls. And I think in the system that we're in now with NIL, the way we go into it, who knows what next season is going to be? Who knows who the powerhouses are going to be? We don't know how the strength of schedule is going to look till we're in it. So when we get to that final point, we need to stop looking at the last four games and say like, well, they're looking good here. It's like we need to evaluate who they were playing the stats to it. The counter stats from the teams that they played. It's too big of a money system to do this kind of Willy nilly. Like we need there should be a whole office, you know, of people that are crunching these numbers, just absolutely breaking it down all season long. They can afford it. They can afford as many salaries as they need to make that happen. But till we're there, it's just going to be this thing where Alabama, they have that way of getting to that committee and saying, we can do it. We can go all the way. We promise you we're going to do it. And then it's like, all right, we're to let you in. We're going to kick out somebody else and we're going to make sure that you're in it. And Notre Dame getting that automatic 12th position slot. Brilliant. mean, for their program. Brilliant. That is, that is really easy to do, but They will have to schmooze some people to make sure nobody, they're on that, if they're at the 11, 12 cusp, they're going to have to probably have some money going to some people to make sure that the whole organization doesn't turn on them to get them out of that slot, to give their team a chance to be in there. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, but I have a perfect solution for you actually that, um, I've been thinking about this for a while. I think the issue is that the committee is too subjective and I will admit that the old BCS system was flawed because the top two would automatically go. So if you had like three undefeated teams, you know, the only thing that matters really record you have three undefeated teams. One of them's kicked out. But nowadays with the 12 team playoff and with all the new AI and algorithm type stuff, we can make such a good algorithm. The top 12 go in. They're automatically in if we don't want to do the whole play in game thing. And that's like such a less subjective way because historically I think Alabama and Notre Dame have been the most biased people that they try to get in. But then this year it's like they could not get Notre Dame in because they accidentally did the thing where they put them right there with Miami and they lost head to head. They're all mad about it. Yeah. But if they weren't there like right next to each other and we had some kind of algorithm system where it lines them up one to 12. RAC Aaron: Yeah, Miami had hit it. RAC2 Ryan: They automatically go that would be pretty good and it would play in I think a end of year strength of schedule thing not a preseason strength of schedule because they always try to do that and not like this team I don't know if we should count the conference championships. I think last year Alabama lost the conference championship. They should be out They got destroyed because their big win was their win against Georgia and then Georgia came back and beat him 28-7 like that like auto out, but then they got auto in somehow RAC2 Aaron 264: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Ryan: It's all a subjective thing. Obviously I'm being a little bit biased and they're to be biased for him. So it's just, yeah. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. And I completely agree. ⁓ RAC Aaron: But here's the thing too, run a strength of schedule at end of the season, then guess what FSU turns into? Nothing. Like that game ended up being a non-conference game essentially because FSU ended up being nothing. So you have to kind of still value all the games as they play. I think there should be like multiple strength of schedule runs throughout the year to be able to encompass all of those. Cause at that time FSU hadn't won a conference game in what, two calendar years? So... RAC2 Ryan: Terrible. Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: That win meant a lot to the FSU program and should have hurt Alabama a lot more than it did. And at the end of the year, whenever they had that gauntlet where they went to Georgia and they won and they had that three or four stretch, they played ranked teams every week and they won and they got through it, which was great. But then that kind of overshadowed that FSU game in the very beginning. Like, hey, they're a completely new team in week 10, week one doesn't matter. So there has to be some kind of way to like, if the first three weeks are going to be essentially week zero games in the eyes of the committee. RAC2 Aaron 264: Absolutely. RAC Aaron: then teams like Texas are not going to schedule an Ohio State in the second week because that's going to hurt them when they already have to play nine SEC games. And I think that's why like Alabama and Georgia are restructuring their out of conference games because they don't want to have extra leverage the committee could have where, you lost here or hey, you lost here. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, but they really did win to a terrible unranked FSU team. And if we had some kind of system that the end of season, shrink the schedule was accounted for, then it'd be like, yeah, you lost to this terrible team. It's going to kick them back. Who'd they win against the end of the year? Like a five win Auburn team? That, yep. They really won that one. And then they really lost to the Georgia games. RAC2 Aaron 264: Well, I also think a lot of this could go away if we took out a lot of the standard system and we replaced it with a point value system. Like point scored is worth this many points. And so you're taking it across the schedule. Points allowed deducts this many points. And then you start comparing and you get these overall ranking numbers from that. You compare that to another team. building upon what they accomplished in the game versus what the lineup they win against accomplished. You build that for each team, each meet match each week. And that way as it's going through the system, you're seeing those numbers reflect the production of the team giving you kind of a final value that then you can directly compare removing biases, removing that of saying like, Hey, this team played a, you know, I'm sure this is how they do sports betting. I'm sure if we get to Vegas, there are guys that do this at this level every single second of the day. But then we don't have that in the actual sport itself. We don't have it in that final decision when we get there. And it seems like that's a pretty obvious thing. Now you're going to have to have a committee sit and put values onto these different categories. And that could be something where you have the athletic directors from each program meet during the off season. They all sit in a. RAC Aaron: for RAC2 Aaron 264: room and they all come up with agreements. You could take a whole three month session, but their athletic directors, they're getting paid a lot of money. They can sit there for two weeks until they come out. They lock the doors behind them. They say, you guys come up with something, you get into agreement and then we'll let you out. But until then it's like we need to, we need to have something that doesn't just feel like they should be in it or that they, this, they should have a chance or something like that. Those aren't that that's not the same level where you're expecting the games to be played at anymore. think that's we're talking years and years ago when we had a lot of these things in place and it really was down to the spirit of the ball game. We could we could run with that. But for now, we need to get a little bit more raunchy in the rules and say this is how it's done. If you want to do great, you got to put up points. You got to put yards and you got to make it the cleanest play you can. And I fully will self admit here. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Aaron 264: that that removes some of the sportsmanship of the game that keeps it from running up the clock, things like that. I think there needs to be part of the consideration of saying like, here's when they started pulling players. That's where we start softening some of the numbers because you do it for health and but you're to have to make that call. That's part of a coach. So it's a tough system to crack, but there's unlimited money. mean, it's money solves many, many problems. And if we're talking billions and billions and maybe RAC Aaron: Agree. RAC2 Aaron 264: to the trillion dollar limit of what this sport is raking in across the board every year, we can solve anything. I mean, there's just, there's just nothing hurtling in the way. RAC Aaron: Well there's a reason why people always tell you not to bet against Vegas. And it's because those guys, they drilled in so deep to all these games and all these stats and they're a numerical based business. So it's funny when you see like a one versus seven, but the sevens favored. And you can always tell like Vegas, they're always right most of the time. They're within a couple points spread, they're within a couple points of the over under. They're always pretty spot on. RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ yeah, absolutely. Yeah. RAC Aaron: So if they could like, exactly. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yes, bar injury or crazy like weather thing that happens, which I'm sure they even take into account. It is still something where it's like, it's hard to see a spread get absolutely decimated that just the game goes as normal flow. RAC Aaron: Yes. Like you said, if you have some kind of system to where like Vegas tracks it probably more accurately than the AP poll does. If you have a system where you take whatever they have and implement it to the AP poll, it would probably be a lot better overnight because they clearly put a lot more thought into it than the AP people do. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, when I say money solves problems, hire those guys, bring them in, put them in an office, say you were in charge of the AP poll. Now give us a number, give us the rankings by the end of the day. And I bet that would be a crazy system. RAC Aaron: Exactly. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, that'd be great because I'm sorry. Yeah. And that'd be great. Cause I, that's the issue with the committees is that they're super, super biased that they say they go through all these metrics, but as much as they want to say that it's obvious, like they had made decisions that that's not true. They put people in that shouldn't be in, they rank them higher and lower. RAC2 Aaron 264: Well, I mean, let's take into the evidence of last year with Arch Manning, who later in the season, you know, really developed. mean, he really got to show some. So grit as a quarterback there. Preseason, there was a narrative, there was a push, there was Arch Manning was everywhere. You know, we all saw those warbly Parker ads. We saw this, this walking head circuit of Arch Manning's Heisman favorite all the way through. We saw that reflected in the rankings. The Texas was high up there. ⁓ don't remember the exact number and you put that all on the back. they number one? Exactly. Okay. Perfect. And you put it on the back of a, what sophomore quarterback who had a couple snaps last year or the year previous. Yeah. Like, like some goal line soft. Yeah. It's like, was some gibbies. Yeah. And I, like, I feel bad for him. RAC2 Ryan: Yep, they were number one. RAC Aaron: and nothing meaningful. RAC2 Ryan: No, they were all kiwi drawers. Yeah. RAC Aaron: And then he goes to Columbus week one? ⁓ Come on. RAC2 Aaron 264: Because that's gotta be crying. You, I mean, you gotta be in your own head saying like, maybe I am the Heisman favorite. Maybe I'm going to, and then that first week you're coming back with like a Vietnam stare. Like it's rough. And I do think that's something where we start pushing the ESPN chat lines that we're affecting that. And that shouldn't be reflected in the polls. Like that, that is something if they are really looking at statistics, if they're looking at the analytics, really comparing it down to like, you know, nuts and bolts. RAC Aaron: 100 % Yeah. RAC2 Aaron 264: that they wouldn't have been ranked that high. RAC Aaron: No, I mean my dad had that magazine in his bathroom of like the whole preseason Heisman, the preseason like AP Poles, like it was all arch manning, arch manning this, Texas this, they bought this huge roster, they're gonna be immaculate, he's gonna be like the next coming of Jesus for Texas. And quickly it swapped. RAC2 Aaron 264: Everywhere. RAC2 Ryan: I have two, I have two things that I actually think this year with the new weapons like cam Coleman around him, I think he's actually going to thrive. He struggled a lot, but during the end of the year, he started picking up the pace. started doing pretty good. mean, they were even considered put them in because there's 50 50, like half the people you hear talk about the playoffs for saying there's all these metrics looking at and half the people you're talking about who would win right now if we put them in. And I think if they went truly off that they were putting Texas in like. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah! Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ RAC2 Ryan: I know Miami lost but they were better than Miami in my opinion. They were better than Oregon. They were better than Texas Tech. They were better than the G5s. So yeah, but this year I think they're real good. He's gonna get boosted a little with Cam Coleman, all those weapons, but he looked good at end of the year. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I'm excited to see how he develops. If he doesn't, as we were talking about with Levitt, he doesn't crumple under the pressure of that system, but you know, with his family lineage, with, with the people, you know, that he's got as a support system. I think he comes out of this, a good quarterback. don't know. I don't like when people throw away generational, like it's, know, just who's best that year. You know, I think whenever we're talking generational, we're talking, you know, one. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Aaron 264: So we'll see how far he goes, but he did show a lot of improvement. And like I said, that was a rough year to have to improve on was the year where everybody said you are, you know, might as well be the NFL MVP this year because you're, you're way beyond everybody else in this league. So we'll see, we'll see. It's going to be interesting. I will definitely have plenty to say when that preseason ranking drops, but that'll be something where we'll see it go. RAC Aaron: Yeah, Heisman national champion favorite. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, but going into last year, there was rumors that the people in the NFL were going to tank for him this year. They thought he was that good that they're going to tank to get Archfantic. He's not that good. RAC Aaron: It did not happen. RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ yeah. RAC Aaron: So on that same Texas, you know, high bandwagon and this year looking better than last year with Cam Coleman, huge name in the transfer portal. He's an Auburn guy through and through. He wanted to stay at Auburn, apparently goalish with his new NIL incentive based deals. You know, that's another story for another day. But I know, I mean, obviously his agent wanted money upfront. There's blank checks everywhere else ended up at Texas. He has a lot of weapons around him. He has an archmanny that's been there for a full year and ramped up. Like you guys said. throughout the end of the season. And now they have a lot of promise. So I wanted to center this towards you, Ryan, since you're the Auburn guy, what are your thoughts on Cam Coleman going to Texas? How do think he's going to do, especially in week two against Columbus, the Ohio State Buckeyes? Actually not in Columbus, it's at Texas this year. They're probably not good, but what's your opinion? RAC2 Ryan: very heartbroken that cam colman left us i had a cam colman jersey i was cam colman all the way dude i love cam colman man i love his watches love his chains everything about him i'm dude i'm thinking he must have saw that video the realtor lady that said you can be right there and then get to your house in five minutes ⁓ that was a crazy video he must have seen it must have worked he's probably there we could probably dox him somehow RAC Aaron: Ha ha. to Apple Watches. That was a crazy video. He's probably, yeah, he's probably living in that, in that condo now. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, but ⁓ man, it just hurts me so bad. He was one of those guys like Bownix was with us too, that Pam Coleman, that he went on this video I watched a long time ago with him and Ryan Williams and they're going into college and they were asking him how many offers they had. They were trying to like rank them in the line of like who they think was the highest and the least highest recruit. And he was the highest one there, but everyone was ranking him low cause he had a low amount of offers and stuff but he just said when I got an offer to Auburn I committed right then I'm going to Auburn I love Auburn and Bonehex was the same way he grew up an Auburn fan his dad played there but those guys it got to the point where nowadays no matter how much they want to play there they're just getting enough money at another school and I honestly think he would have stayed if Golish had a different kind of recruiting system with the NIL and everything he kind of just made it he just kind of disqualified any RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ yeah. RAC Aaron: Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: good player from coming to our school. But I'm glad he's going to Texas. He's going to have a great year there with Arch and everything. It just makes me sad he's not at Auburn. For y'all playing out of Ohio State, hopefully Devin Sanchez has the game of his life because Cam Coleman is Jeremiah Smith of the SEC. He's the second best receiver in the whole country. And that's saying a lot because the best receiver is Jeremiah Smith and he might be the best receiver I have ever seen with my eyes. So him being the second is saying a lot, you know. RAC2 Aaron 264: It is. RAC Aaron: It'll be interesting for sure. I'm not looking forward to it, but I am looking forward to it at the same time. Hopefully it's not a quick one-on-one start to the season. Hopefully it's a two-on-oh start to the season. That'll be, again, discussion for another time. There's, what, 60 new people coming into Auburn, 31 transfer portal pickups. mean, there's new coaching staff. There's new everything. So talk us through all those changes in the offseason. RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ yeah. RAC2 Ryan: I believe we have 39 incoming transfers. 13 from USF. Right? 13. The Auburn Bulls. Have you seen that logo? They took the U of the bull and put the A over it and made an Auburn Bull. I didn't send it to you because I knew you'd make me a shirt. I knew you'd make me a shirt. RAC Aaron: Okay. The Auburn Bulls. We're going to make that a thing. That's great. We're going to make it. We're going to make that. ⁓ RAC2 Aaron 264: Hey, Auburn will never say no to another mascot dad. RAC Aaron: Yeah, the Eagles, the Bulls, and the Tigers. Well, it's rock and roll. Yeah, so talk us through what you think of the guys you got. How's the Byron Brown train going? Is he going to be the next Cam, or not Cam Coleman, Cam Newton? I mean, what are we thinking over there in the old plains? RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, right? I am very very disappointed in the transfer portal and everything. So a little preface how we went over last season a little bit. I think there was a lot of hype going into last season. We got all the guys that were gonna come in and be game changers and we really did. We got all the good recruits. We got all the good guys and we just didn't get it done. We had the talent and we played on a level to win. RAC Aaron: Good start. RAC2 Ryan: eight or nine games when I originally said we're gonna win nine or ten games but you look at a certified box score enjoyer and they're gonna say ⁓ you're terrible you only won five games but the difference is every single week most people have one or two gut-wrenching games every year but for us every single week was just a new detrimental kind of gut-wrenching game that we played really good we played good enough to do it we produced and we couldn't get it done But our offensive system was so flawed, unfortunately, because I know that Hugh Freeze was sick, he definitely took a big drawback. If you look at our offensive system from the years before, we just couldn't get it done. And we had a top three defense going into last year because there's stats. I believe it was Ohio State Auburn and Indiana going into rival league. We were the only three teams not to give up 24 points in the whole year. So we're just not letting anyone score on us. But then even though we fired Hugh Freeze, I was I'm skeptical when we got goalish originally, but then I figured out he was an offensive coordinator at Tennessee and I have some stats for y'all. So in 2021, he set school records for points, 511 total yards, 1174 touchdowns at 67 and rushing first downs at 164. So he did pretty good that first year he was there in 2021, but in 2022 he did even better. And he was the NCAA leader in scoring offense, total offense and yards per play. And he also averaged 300 passing yards and 200 rushing yards a game in the SEC, 2022. This is right before he did this as an offensive coordinator. And then he went to South Florida as a head coach. So I'm actually pretty happy with that, that he is this big kind of offensive mind. He's going to bring a lot of that. And that's what we're missing. We were this defensive team. We had DJ Durkin and a great team. RAC Aaron: What year was that? RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: But we lost a lot of those players. He wasn't willing to pay him Coleman on offense and he wasn't willing to pay Kai and Lee and Jay Crawford on defense who Jay Crawford arguably might've been the best player on our team. He was the cam Coleman of our defense. He was very versatile and then Kai and Lee is the best man to man. One of the best man to man corners in the country, but we, lost them both. But my whole thing, even last year we had all these guys. We had the hype coming in. And even though our record didn't really reflect it, we only won five games. But that makes me even more skeptical now, because the only real thing that we got are USF players and Byron Brown. And Byron Brown's whole thing, everyone's freaking out that he's going to be the next Kim Coleman. He threw for 3,000 yards. He rushed for a thousand yards. But if you look at him, you can't find highlights to this guy. Good for us. Another thing, we got a guy named Keyshawn Singleton, who is a receiver who it would have been nice to have him and Kim Coleman, but he's going to have to replace Kim Coleman. He's a six foot three, 215 pound guy. Every single Byron Brown highlight I've seen is him trucking some guy from Boise State or throwing a double coverage jump ball to Keyshawn Singleton and he comes down with it. But even Byron Brown, we had an old receiver named Anthony Shortz and he played back when Gus was there and he's pretty good, but he was even saying he was skeptical of Byron Brown. But there's so much narrative around here that whenever Byron Brown came in to the system and he actually showed up on campus, Anthony Schwartz was saying how he's surprised about how he showed up and he took such an initiative and he was such a leader. Half of our team was from USF and he was already their leader. So it's pretty easy to sit into that role. And then the whole media is, ⁓ Anthony Schwartz is backing Byron Brown. Byron Brown's going to be good. Byron Brown's a great leader. He's going to be the next Kim Newton. But he's unproven to me. Everyone's saying he is so good. He threw for 3000. He ran for 1000. He's proven, but he played in the big 12 in the two big games of the year. They beat Florida, who was terrible and they lost 50 to 10 to Miami. So the only actual team we played, we got blown out, but that's scary because when they asked Byron Brown, what we expected for them to see the season, he only said, we're going to score a lot of points, a lot of points. Oh, I hope that's true. But then that brings me to the next thing. Our big failures were. Golis, his only thing when he came in was player retention failed. Then he said, I'm a big run guy. like to run the ball a lot. We got to get offensive tackles. I'd always get the notifications. Blah, blah, blah on campus. It was always lineman. And then he came out and they said, what's the one position you think you did the worst on? He said, offensive lineman. He's really worried about the offensive line, apparently. So everything he's saying he's going to do, he's failed so far. And that leads me to, he's also said that his only goal is to win this year, that the Auburn family is tired of losing and they're going to win this year. He's going to do everything he can. That's a whole reason he brought Byron Brown in. Since he bought Byron Brown, our five star deuce night left. All of our other players left because of his incentive based contracts that he was trying to give all these people. For example, he's going to give him $3 million. He might've paid them around the same. RAC Aaron: Perfect. RAC2 Ryan: But you have to do this, this, and this. You have to get this many yards. And instead of paying that, know, Kim Cormac go to Texas and they just write him a check for that, right? Right then. He is worth it. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. And I also think that's a, that's a consequence of the system we're in now. I mean, this stuff has come fast and I think there's a lot of coaches that are trying things. I think this is a, you know, a scorpions tail that bit him in the back. Like this is one that he tried something. He was thinking maybe I can maybe get there. Might've gotten to Auburn thinking he was going to have a lot more resources, but Auburn's not a Texas. Auburn's not a, you know, Ohio or Indiana. It's not. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Aaron 264: It's not the deepest pockets in the world. And, know, he, he had a big jump up, you know, Auburn is still a big school. Okay. There's nothing, there's no slight there, but if you're going in saying, Hey, we're going to do this. We're going to get into the recruiting. He might've not, he might've overvalued how many people are going to come to a tickstart program that nobody knows about. That's another thing is when you're firing your coach every three years. And you're bringing in a new guy. What player is going to say like, okay, I can take a risk here or I can go get generationally wealthy at another school. And I don't have to do a thing. Like I can just show up and get, you know, break my leg and I'm good for the rest of my life. Other than trying to gamble on it. You know, you got to give your players something. If you are a school and I'll throw Auburn, I think Auburn's a much higher level than a Mississippi state in this regard. But if you are a culture school. And you are built around that. we talked about, know, when Bo Nix was there, you need to support that and you need to give every resource that you have to develop that. And if you have somebody that you can't let go of, you need to provide them a reason to stay that might not necessarily be financially. You can't just see them in that rail. You need a coach that's built a system that these players feel appreciated. They understand they feel comfortable in it and they feel like. It's worth investing themselves into even at a monetary loss. RAC Aaron: But Cam Coleman's a guy that you can build a team around. Like he's proven day in and day out on a team that he got bracketed every single game, just like Jeremiah Smith does, and he's still put up 1,300 plus yards and tens of touchdowns every single season he's had. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, in- RAC2 Aaron 264: Absolutely. Well, and that is going to be where I put a failing on the director, not necessarily the coach. You're bringing a coach. You chose to fire your head coach when you have this talent, when you've got somebody on your roster and there was no, there was no security. RAC Aaron: Yeah. NIL, NIL incentives. Exactly. NIL incentives are out the window for guys like that. Like there's, there's the aliens of the world that are in college football that you just pay whatever you want if they're in your program to keep them there because RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah! And that's where the director's got to hit the streets. He's got to be knocking on boosters doors with hat in hand saying, listen, we got our new coach, Gaullish. I believe in him. think he's, I think he's it. I hired him. So, you know, please, please just spare a couple measly million dollars for me. And I'm going to give it to this, to our coach to pay our extremely, extremely talented players to keep them there. And if that director. RAC Aaron: Exactly. RAC2 Aaron 264: and crew above the coach did not step in and intervene to assist in that procurement. I think that's where we got to start looking at those programs above that, because we do like to draw the line at the coach and they're not always the ones that get to make all the financial decisions. RAC Aaron: think the money was the problem though for at least his case. The NIL incentives that he created that he, think the total amount he would have gotten at the end of the year if he performed the way he was going to would have been right around what Texas was paying him, maybe a little less, but that's neither here nor there. I think it was more the fact that he had to check all these boxes throughout the year and his agent wasn't getting the money upfront, but his agent was like, Hey, you can go get this money upfront here and we can just, you know, float through the season. And I think that was really the root problem. think Golis wanted to pay him the money, but he wanted to just tear step through. RAC2 Aaron 264: Absolutely. that. Yeah. I, but I also think that's where you, you know, like I said, somebody comes in from that higher level and says like, love the incentive program. I think we keep it in place. This guy gets a check. This guy gets it straight off the gate and keep the incentives for him. can double it. Nobody can take them away from us then that way. And, we give them that check at the start of the season that keeps them. can't let your prime talent go. And you know, I don't like that's what the world of college football is right now. RAC Aaron: Yeah. percent. RAC2 Aaron 264: That, like you said, we need those players. need that culture. think that's what separates us from a lot of other sports and why college football fans are here is we love our teams. We love to hate the teams we hate. It's about the identity and the players want to take part in that just as much as we do. But you know, you can't turn down 4 million from somewhere else. So I mean, that's a circular conversation. We're to come back and back to over and over and over again, probably from now till they change it in the future. I could be old and in the ground by then, but that is something that in the meantime, while the rules as written as the way they are structure of the whole school needs to be on that same page. And if they lose somebody, you know, you can't point to just one person. That's going to be the whole chain that's lost it. So I'd be excited, you know, as a not Auburn fan, but as an SEC fan, I'd love to see Golis. I think this year is going to be a rough year for him. I think that's any first year head coach, I normally think I give them the benefit of the doubt to say, let's let them have a bad season, but let's see something worth fighting for. Let's see something stand up. So if he can deliver that, I think it'd be great. I think he does have the potential for a great second season when he's proved his concept and he can recruit based off of a proven concept. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, and that's what I'm so worried about. We had the money. I mean, especially last year, 30 million dollars would have gone a long way. We had 30 mil coming into this year. I know teams like Texas have 50, but the way he set it up, he is some sort of arrogant. There's two different types of arrogance. I'm thinking here. There's one that he is so arrogant that me and my guys are better than your guys. Y'all are coming to play for me. Why should you come play with me? And he's not a Nick Saban that he's able to do that. Or he's so arrogant. Why are you gonna come play for me? Cuz Jay Crawford for example, I think he got $300,000 last year. They didn't realize how good he was. He was our best defensive player He said I'll double it. I'll give you six hundred thousand. He wanted a million He's like I'm not gonna win it I'm not gonna pay that and we're under a flawed system where he's gonna see cam Coleman and his production and he's gonna say I have this guy who can get the same production I'm gonna pay him half the price. This is not the game that we're playing that we're trying to save money We're trying to get the best guy. And if you can get away with having less guy, Cam Coleman's gonna do it just as good. He's gonna do it better. The other guys are gonna do it better. So the incentive-based program just kind of ruined that for us. Because the whole reason you have NIL is to kind of protect these young guys when they might get injured and they can't go to the NFL and make money. Where if there's incentive-based and he's hurt, he's not gonna get his money. So he's just kind of ruining the whole point of why NIL was established in the first place here. And we even had guys like, like Milan Graham and Quincy Porter from Chandler school from Ohio state, which I think those are like the perfect guys. want five stars who are on the bench. They're not playing cause they're behind the best receiver ever. Jeremiah Smith. And they're going to go to Notre Dame and they're going to be the one of the best receiving do us in the country. We could have had them. We could have had all these kinds of people and we're not getting these big kind of players from the Alabama's and the Texas is the LSU is these big starters. We're getting people from South Florida. We're getting random guys from G5 schools who we think are just little diamond in the rough people. We're not getting these proven guys. And that's where I'm worried because we don't have the hype. We don't have the roster that we're going. We're just hoping that somehow some way we're wishing that it could work somehow. And last year we had all the tools. It kind of worked. It didn't work where it's just like, so like speculative coming in where I need to see the spring game. I need to see these guys really play. My big thing here is we're keeping Jeremiah Cobb our running back. We're getting the quiche on Singleton. I like the tight end they're bringing over. But other than that, there's just not a lot of big guys coming in. I'm worried we're gonna win four games. Any of it is, like you were saying, I know it seems right now like we don't have a lot of appeal. Chandler, how much appeal do we have right now? RAC Aaron: in a country standpoint or a SEC standpoint. RAC2 Ryan: In a country standpoint, how much does Auburn have appeal? RAC Aaron: I would say that you are definitely in the top 25 of programs, historically. Currently, maybe not. I say it's barely. I think you have too much of a revolving door right now with coaching staff and players and records and all kinds of different stuff. There's no consistency. RAC2 Ryan: Okay, cause I- Is that? Yeah, cause that's what hurts me. That's what hurts me so bad is we've so lost the plot of what is Auburn football. It's been five years pretty much since we've been the T the old kind of team that we was. know that Chandler, you kind of watched it more recently when you were this deep into football, but even now we're talking about Lane Kiffin. Yeah. He took that big job at LSU. Like historically we're the same as LSU. We've historically split games or we win two games and then they win one. We look at the Tim Tebow years, we beat them every year. We historically split games to Alabama. was years where we won, there was time where we had six years in a row. We beat them in 2017. They went to the national championship and they lost, but like we beat them that year, the best thing get. So like we historically are that good, but we have lost that kind of thing that people don't really understand what kind of program we're supposed to be. We were such a good program that we win eight games. But if you lose the Alabama and Georgia game, you're gone. You have to win both those games. You're fired. And we have to win 10 games. And that's the kind of standard that we need to bring back. So I don't know if Golis doesn't understand at what kind of school he's really at and what kind of leverage he really has. Or I don't know if he just doesn't understand where he is or if he thinks I did get this big job and then is taking it for granted that everyone be crawling to come. play for him and they're not so he can't do anything now. RAC2 Aaron 264: we'll have to see because I will say from my outsider, I've been watching, you know, SEC ball. I'd say SEC is where I keep most of my game watching. But I started right around that 2016 timeframe, 2016, 2017 and like really paying attention. And that's what I saw in Auburn because, know, we're in the pain handle of Florida. Auburn's one of the talked about schools. And I felt like watching that from a complete outsider. could be completely wrong on this. There was this ghost of Sabin on Auburn's back where they wanted a coach that was saving and they kept just like pushing and pushing and it cost them their identity. Like it didn't look like it was fun to play football at Auburn anymore. Like the fans were still there, but even then you stall, you started seeing the crowds thinning out. They were still having good seasons, but something about it. They lost who they were along that way. Like you're saying. And for me, one of those big moments we've talked about this before was when Cadillac was the interim and I was like, This is great. I'd love to see. I think they needed to make that decision of we rebuild the program and try to win a national championship or do we rebuild our culture? And I think they chose to keep pushing for success and to keep chasing the Saban dream instead of taking a few years, you know, cause I will fully admit right now from where it was looking, Cadillac wasn't going to come in there and be a spectacular head coach. But when you watched him talk to the players and interact with him, it was electric. It was something where I was like, want that guy. I want somebody like him for our head coach. it just seemed to be something where, you know, freeze had his systems. It definitely was there, but it just still felt like it felt like a sad place to play football for a little while. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. And I'm not mad at the decision to try to kind of get a new coach and rebuild because our families, are so loyal. Like we have been terrible this last five years. think it's some stat like we've sold out 22 home games in a row. So pretty much the last four or five years in a row sold out every single home game playing nobody. We're playing South Alabama and like we might lose because we're so terrible and stuff. So I'm not mad at them trying to actually get the coach, but we're still reaping the Brian Harson years that he did so bad. He didn't recruit. We're still just going with that. Even with Cadillac, we had Ravi Astrid as our quarterback. You cannot win a game with Ravi Astrid. No offense if you're watching this, he's terrible. He's the worst quarterback I've ever seen. He's, he's, he's an athlete, but he, ⁓ man, he's, you gotta watch some film on him. That's good. RAC2 Aaron 264: And that was like, I, and I could stay, you know, my statements on Auburn there because we as Mississippi state, same boat after we lost Dan Mullen, we've never been the same team. Like Mike Leach brought something else out in us that was like, you know, a cool stepdad came in and like bought us a cool bike for Christmas. And it was fun. Like I, were smiling in the house and it was something where it was like, this was fun. And then losing him was just a heartbreak, but it's like after Mullen, we had more head and our system just went into the. dirt like face first. It felt like there was nothing. We had leech. We didn't have to win with leech. I was thrilled to watch every game eight and four perfect season like if we win the egg bowl good enough for me. I'm happy with that. That was all I needed as a fan. felt connected to the fan base. It really pushed me into that like beloved loyal fan for life. And then once he passed we brought in our net. I was happy with our net. I really liked the guy. He was going from the air raid to an NFL playbook, an impossible task to do after your head coach pack. And he was the guy who kept the team together, but he was never going to run an air raid because nobody can do it just like Mike Leach could. And Mike Leach built his custom team to do it the way he liked. So we fired him what six games into the first season. We had him as head coach and we bring in another guy and I was like, Hey, we just ruined a potential coach and our net. You know, I really think if you're bringing a gun guy, you gotta give him the time to develop. But where we're at right now is in that same dredge where it's like it doesn't like I've still got to tune in. I'm still going to watch the games. I'm still going to be here for it, but it doesn't feel the same. Like I just don't have that connection. I don't feel like running through a wall, putting some pads on and going down for that coach, you know, off my couch. RAC Aaron: And you guys had a busy off season as well. You guys had, I think, four new transfer people coming in. I mean, what's your opinion on all new guys coming in with that? mean, you have any hope with any of those guys? Do you think they're going to be difference makers? No. I think it was, I mean, I don't even want to, we can cut it if you don't want it in. But I think there was like one or two four stars and the rest were like three or two stars. So I mean, what difference are you really going to make? Who knows? RAC2 Aaron 264: I don't know. RAC2 Ryan: Hehe. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, which, hey, miss, it's a three star school. That's who we are. That's why Dan Mullen worked for us. Dan Mullen's a three star coach. He knew how to get those guys and he knew how to work with them. We are not a five star school. can't afford five stars. You know, I learned today there's only 32 of them. So, ⁓ we don't have that kind of money. We have to make do with three stars and below. Like that is our world. That's who we get. Four stars are going to leave if they show any. RAC2 Ryan: Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: Yeah. RAC2 Aaron 264: Promise because somebody's going to pay them some money. If we use them well, they will be gone the next season. As I said in our, in a previous episode, know, Camario Taylor's my, my silver star. I. The prize he's still here. I didn't see anything last season that showed me beyond Camario Taylor saying I'll go get that first down. I'll just throw the ball to the guy and he'll come down with it if he decides to catch it. Like that, he was the spark that got us anything. And I felt like he wasn't protected. He wasn't. You like the program wasn't being developed around him. It was just like he's working for right now. So keep running what we're running our defenses in shambles. And that's hard to say. That's hard to stomach. He's going to have to part the ocean here for me to believe in this. Miracles going to happen. Like, yeah, need to see something. Yeah. It's going to have to be crazy good for me to even have faith. And right now I got none. I see us. I don't think we're going bowling again. That's my personal beliefs in our s**t. RAC Aaron: Yeah, Moses is coming out as your DC. What about the egg bowl you gonna you gonna you gonna crack some eggs or are you you getting scrambled? ⁓ man RAC2 Aaron 264: and what those things are gonna be. No, we're going to beat bad. Like all I can hope for is the only thing that happens is Ole Miss has a worse season than we do. And I hope we get to beat them down. We're punching down. That's my only hope for the eyeball. And it is, it's tough. You know, we'll see the narrative. Every game you watch with Mississippi State this year has been, look at this team. Look at the sprite they're showing in their development. This is a different team than we saw last season. was like, it really is. It really was making the same mistakes. We just beat Arizona. RAC Aaron: There you go. RAC2 Aaron 264: state early on when they were still ranked in the top 10. And it was our first time doing it forever. And it was like, we tore our, we tore our, you know, field goal down. And I was like that we didn't, we should have saved that one. Well, you know, we just needed any excuse to storm the field, but I still felt like, you know, we really pushed that one. So yeah, we had five wins. We didn't deserve five wins. I think that's our, I think that's our limit right now, unless, because the schedule is going to get a lot harder. Those nine SEC games are going to be tough for us. RAC Aaron: great rank game win. Yeah, going from 8 to 9 is a big deal. RAC2 Aaron 264: We are going to get beat. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: Hey, we play all this year. We'll see how that goes. It's weird. I'm used to playing y'all. I'm used to playing y'all, but these last couple years it's been weird since they got rid of the conferences. We used to play y'all and Ole Miss every year. But it's got weird since they got rid of the divisions. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. And that, that look forward to that episode. RAC Aaron: Where is it? RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. I do like the new sec system. Like I do like the drawing lots and holding it for a little bit, but like it does feel different because I do miss playing the same kind of core group, but I do think that helps mitigate some of the disaster talk in the sec that we see where it's like, have a dominant one half and then they kind of let us hang out in a little area by itself. We, you know, we were all there to get beat by Alabama at some point so we could, they could go to the conference championship. RAC Aaron: Where is it at? RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, it's cool. Yeah RAC2 Aaron 264: And then that was that was the way that worked. So. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, because we always had like a heavy west and we got like Georgia in the east. So yeah, but I think we play ⁓ at Mississippi State. So that'd be interesting. Yeah. We also play like LSU. We play all the old people we used to play. play Mississippi State. We play LSU. We used to play them like every single year. Somehow we're a rivalry school with everyone. We're LSU's rivals, Georgia's rivals, Florida's rivals, Alabama's rivals. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yep. Yep. RAC Aaron: I mean, we should make the trip. Let's make the trip. RAC2 Aaron 264: bring your pro. Yeah. RAC Aaron: It means more in the SEC, guys. mean, you gotta get that through your head. RAC2 Aaron 264: That's true. That's true. But that I'm very excited for that matchup. think we are going to me and you were probably going to talk about that for the rest of the season, because it looks like we both could not have a whole lot to talk about this season. So. RAC2 Ryan: It sure does. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: I think, I think we should on March 7th stamp for our viewers that we will be doing a live reaction podcast that game. RAC2 Aaron 264: Easily. Yeah, that is going to be one we will we are going to be in person watching that so that there's gonna be plenty of games We're doing it together. So Look forward to that. Yeah, you'll see some of it RAC Aaron: Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I'm so nervous about the season. I think now I'm just I'm missing Hugh Freeze, man. There's so many people that hated Hugh Freeze. It's so easy. Dude, it's so easy to hate Hugh Freeze. Like, it's worse for him that he got sick than me. But I think if he doesn't get sick, we're like a great football team right now. And then we're just rebuilding again. Because, oh, man, it hurts me so much. RAC2 Aaron 264: you RAC Aaron: Freeze warning, RAC2 Aaron 264: I was one of them. RAC Aaron: And he has a competent offensive coordinator and quarterbacks and all those things too. But yeah, if he wasn't sick, it would help too. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I know. know Jackson Arnold. Jackson Arnold though, wasn't really that bad. Hugh Freeze. Dude, this is the crazy thing. Every single year. I'm so quick. It's the coach's fault. It's the quarterback's fault. I don't think this like it was Hugh Freeze's fault in the sense that he didn't let the offensive coordinator call the plays. And in his sense of, I don't know, maybe just bad quarterback recruiting. But even you see like when they switch systems, they produce in the system. So I think it was just the offensive coordinator, but I would pay Hugh Freeze. For example, if he was such a good recruiter, if we had $30 million budget for recruiting, I would hire Hugh Freeze for $5 million instead of six that he would have got for his coaching salary. And I would have said, your only job is to get people to come to our school and then give him the rest of the 25 million to get it. We'd have the best roster ever. If we had that. RAC Aaron: Not with $25 million she wouldn't. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, no. RAC2 Ryan: ⁓ we would, with you Frees we would, with you Frees we would. He gets people to come here. You know, we have a Peel channel, go on. RAC Aaron: And now it's 25 million and don't. RAC2 Ryan: I'm so sorry. I forgot to say this. The whole thing. I think the goal ish issue is I think he predetermined that $30 million that he was like, yeah, me and my guys are going to get paid. Like almost like there's people that need him to house it or whatever. And like, goal ish come house set my house. And they have this big house. He's like, okay. And they come back to take their house back and goal ish is there with all his usf guys. We've taken over this house. This is our house. We're not leaving. You know, he's came in infiltrated Auburn and brought all his guys. But I'm worried like we be buying around 4.4 million dollars. He's an untested quarterback in my eyes Why are we paying him 4.4 mil? I think he told his guys what they're getting before we before they left So then he's trying to make these budget cuts on the guys we already have Because he's like, I already like gave my guys 20 mil. I only have 10 I can't give cam colman three million dollars out of my 10 Million and he's trying to make budget cuts. Sorry. Yeah, go on. That was my last field RAC Aaron: No, I mean you're spot on. RAC2 Aaron 264: No. Hey, like I said, that all gets undone if he wins. If he, if he pulls out an amazing season, it's crazy. I think it's a long shot. I think it's, I think it's crazy. mean, we both, we'll both see, you know. RAC Aaron: For sure, for sure. think it goes back to us talking in the beginning with the Big 12 with with Brennan Sworsby. I mean, has USF really been battle tested outside of Florida and Miami? Miami, definitely not. They might as well have not showed up. RAC2 Aaron 264: No, no, it's a. RAC2 Ryan: They were battle tested, they just failed miserably. But I'm gonna have on the goalish hat, I'm gonna have on the goalish hat. I'm still probably one of the most loyal Auburn fans, you know, I'm gonna watch every single game, every minute of every game, but I'm just very worried going. There's no actual tangible hope. The things that I can put my finger on, this is why we're gonna win or this is why we're gonna lose. It's all speculative, I hope it comes out. I'm gonna go to the spring game, hopefully I see something there. I'll let y'all know if there's something big, you know. RAC Aaron: battle exactly If not, might have to just suit up and go and just have a little walk on tryout for yourself. RAC2 Aaron 264: Well. Yeah. No, I will say the make or break point for your season next year is when you play us. You lose to us. Fire him. Get out. It's gonna be, there's no hope. Yeah. But if you beat us and you've proved nothing. RAC2 Ryan: ⁓ dude, if they'd let me I would. Don't even... yeah. RAC Aaron: Don't let him get on the bus. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, Chairman, I'm sorry we've talked about the big SEC where it means more so much. Do you want to talk about your little Big Ten conference? RAC Aaron: No, I mean, it's fitting like two thirds of the talk, SEC, you know, we can, we can circle it back while people, know, we can roll some ads during, while I talk and we can just. RAC2 Aaron 264: Well, because yeah, yeah, because, Hey, here's the long and short. We have to talk this long to feel good about where our programs are going and hope here's, here's the Ohio state recap. Y'all are going to do good next year. It'd be a good year for you. Yeah. Yeah. So, ⁓ you know, what big changes do you have a better vetted defense that has more snaps under them than last year? get a bunch of stuff developed. RAC2 Ryan: Hahaha You RAC Aaron: Yeah, they're going to be in the playoffs again, so that'll be pretty good to look forward to. RAC2 Aaron 264: On call, maybe a kicker, did you get a new kicker? RAC Aaron: Yes they did, they got a guy from Baylor. RAC2 Aaron 264: So, there you go. Welcome to winning the whole thing. RAC2 Ryan: Finally. Finally. RAC Aaron: And he's, he's, he's made multiple 50 plus yarders last year. And one of them was in the big 12 championship. mean, come on. RAC2 Aaron 264: So yeah, there's just nothing that's left for you to fix. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, it means so. RAC Aaron: I mean, so the bi- RAC2 Ryan: Kicking's universal though. Kicking's universal though. You can kick a ball on a field anywhere. RAC Aaron: Yes. Here's the thing though. will tell you, paint this picture for you. Let's, let's fast forward to September. We're in Texas. This Mr. Baylor comes in for a game winning field goal. He misses it. Guess how many kicks he makes in big moments again, the rest of the year. Zero. It all is once, yeah, once he has the first one off his belt, he's fine. But no, I mean, I think the biggest off season, I mean, there's, there was a ton of people, the people that left that I was surprised on, I'll touch on that first. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yes it is. hehe RAC2 Ryan: Zero. Hopefully it's not 13 to 10. RAC Aaron: Mylon Graham, Quincy Porter, like we talked about earlier, they played rotational pieces this year, but they didn't get a lot of meaningful snaps. They probably combined, maybe had 12 catches. They great big upside, but they just never got in the rotation because Brian Hartline has always been a, you prove you can be on the field. You will be in my short rotation. If you can't, then I'm not going to rotate five, six, seven ⁓ receivers deep and get you in just because. Them leaving was kind of a shot, but they picked up guys like Earl Little Jr. from FSU, who's going to be a great nickel corner. They picked up a guy from Duke, Harry Moore. He was the highest PFF graded safety in 2024 before he had ACL surgery in 2025. So hopefully that's better. But they picked up Arthur Smith in the off season, proven NFL OC. They might not like him at the Steelers, but hey. He's going to be in college and he's going to have a lot better of talent to work with versus the people he's going up on the other side of the line against. He's not playing NFL talent and most games he goes up against, he's going to have equal, if not better talent on his side of the ball. So it's just going to be schematically getting those things working. I think. RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ yeah. Yep. Well, and I mean, RAC2 Ryan: that's a huge pickup because even in the NFL, they had a like a pretty bad offensive roster and they still produced pretty good. They have a 40 year old Aaron Rodgers, have DK Metcalf, he's punching Lions fans in the stands and then you have a washed up Valdez Scantling, you know, but him coming in, his offensive tackle coach coming in, that's so huge for y'all. RAC Aaron: Ha ha ha! So. Yes. RAC2 Aaron 264: I can't speak high enough about how big of a pool that is. mean, NFL world knows the Steelers have always been a well oiled machine. They've had bad years, but they don't make changes. They ride forever. You know, I mean, how long was Mike Tomlin there? 13 years or something like that. like they threw the good through the bad. And so when you're pulling talent from that, this is somebody who knows how to work and establish long-term systems. RAC Aaron: Long time. Yep. RAC2 Ryan: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Aaron 264: Get those things. mean, that is just crazy. And then you put a powerhouse with offensive powerhouse talent. Like the sky's the limit for y'all. RAC Aaron: I mean, I think at the Steelers, they had the cheapest NFL offense. They were 32 of 32 as far as spending roster on offensive side of the ball. And they still had a top 20, if not, I think it creeped into the top 15 at times, but a top 20 in production offense. So that's doing more with less to a T. So now on the flip side, he's going to come to the college scene and they have Allen flooded all over the field and all he has to do. RAC2 Aaron 264: Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: is Eam to that talent and for the love of everything, fix the offensive line blocking. And if he can do those two things with Matt Patrician, other side cooking up on the mad scientist side of the ball, it could be a good season. But the, the true test is going to be him coming in. They just hired his assistant offensive line coach from the Steelers as well today. He came in and he is now, he took one of the assistant offensive line coaches already at Ohio State. Now he's partnering up with his ex NFL coach and RAC2 Aaron 264: Easily. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, and I think- RAC Aaron: They will hopefully get the offensive line rocking and rolling, but the big test will be week two against Texas in Texas. We'll know very quickly if the offensive line scheming has been fixed or if it's still during the headlights blocking and Julian Sagan has like 1.2 seconds to throw the ball. So we'll see very quickly. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, and I think I saw a thing that said y'all have the hardest schedule in the country this year. Is that true? RAC Aaron: Yeah, they have, I mean, it could change. Just like last year, they had a number one ranked Texas. They had a number two ranked Penn State and Penn State ended up being like school of the blind by the end of the year. So I think coming in, they have potentially six ranked games as of now. It'll be on the preseason ranking. They'll have at Texas, they'll have at Indiana, they'll have at USC, they'll have at Iowa. And those are all, they all finished ranked, two of those being in the top five. And then they'll have home against Oregon and then they'll have home against Michigan. So that right there is six dogfights of games that are going to be a ranked game. And then you have your three non-conference games. And then all of a sudden you only have three, three to six games that are going to be, you know, you should win, but then you have another six. You have half your season where if you don't show up, you could very easily go six and six. And that would be disaster. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, but that's good for y'all because y'all have the chance to win those games. But a lot of times people are like, ⁓ high states in the big 10, they don't play competition. So I think it's a good chance for you to prove yourself. think also Ryan Day saw something in getting NFL knowledge with Matt Patricia and tried to do the same thing with Arthur Smith. And the two big things last year, y'all had the best defense in the country. Your big things, your offensive line suffered. You have this new offensive line coach. You have these veteran guys coming back. You have Arthur Smith. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yes. RAC Aaron: Yes. 100 percent. RAC2 Ryan: He's not going to let them play bad, you know, those NFL guys, everything's one in the trenches. He knows that he's going to fix them up. Just like we saw Matt Patricia come in and you could just see how much smarter and how much more sound the defense looked. think your offensive line will look like that. He'll kind of fix your offense. Cause the other thing, the issue was that y'all played so slow all year that when it was really time to turn it on, you couldn't just turn it on. But he's used to going there and playing NFL talent every week. You got guys like Jeremiah Smith, Chris Henry Jr. You got Legend Bay. He's just coming out there having fun, putting up numbers, you know, every week. You have to, you have to show up. You're playing Oregon. You have a reason to run up the score. You can't play slow. You have to come out like you're scoring a hundred points, you know, and he'll do that. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. RAC Aaron: Exactly. RAC2 Aaron 264: Well, and I also think another key thing that a lot of people don't think on the offensive side of the ball when you're making big changes like that, his clock management is going to be already tried and tested. You know, at the NFL level, like every moment matters on the offensive side. So we're going to see somebody who's not like a. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. RAC2 Aaron 264: an offensive coordinator that's coming from like a G5 or a Pac-12 or something like that, that all of a sudden gets into a SEC tempo ball game or a big 10 tempo ball game and flounders in those like last two minutes and things like that, burning timeouts on improper setups, too many men on the field type stuff. Those very early mistakes you see coaches make, I think, you know, probably what we'll see in that beginning of Ohio State, I think you will have some plague. Of false starts on the offensive line because of the big tempo shift. So I would, that's the thing I'd look out for, but I would say like first four games, you're going to see those flags come out after that. It's going to be discipline, discipline, discipline. And you will in that last four stretch with a very disciplined line. If the talent rises up to the coaching. RAC Aaron: And I think. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I hope he fixes that early though and gives him a sense of discipline. Also, I knew you mentioned the G- Yeah, and I knew you mentioned the G5 guy. Sumraal. What do all think about Sumraal? I think he's a prime example. He's a G5 guy going to SEC just like your time off. I don't think he's really gonna do all that good. What do you all think? RAC Aaron: Yes, they need to. I mean, I think you guys were in the mix of Golish or Somerol. know off the bat when those two coaches became available, I know Somerol was where the rumors were leaning towards Auburn. And I know you and I for sure, we're both a little skeptical like, usually in those kinds of programs, you want a proven guy to be sticking in for that role. Maybe he's good, maybe he flourishes at Florida. But I wouldn't want to be the program to take that shot to bring him up from G5 up to RAC2 Aaron 264: Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: that kind of program. mean, look at Billy Napier. He wouldn't, he couldn't get rid of an offensive coordinating role. He was too stubborn to get rid of that. He was a great coach overall. Maybe his OCing wasn't good, but as a head coach, when he stepped back, he was fine. Is he going to be better than him? Probably not. RAC2 Aaron 264: So, yeah. It to me, this is a crazy Florida rot. have created for themselves. Post-molten like Mullen was a guy they didn't let cook. They get rid of them. And now they're in this like constant, like we're hiring of, I'm not going to say no name. I don't think that's fair to G5 conference, but you're hiring somebody that is not familiar at, you know, the D1 big conference level and putting them in charge of. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. RAC2 Aaron 264: A huge program. mean, Florida is a big time program and they expect big time results. They're bringing in guys like when they did with Napier and they're like, where's our 10 win season? And it's like, he's got to learn what to do from the basics here. Like he knows how to coach, but there's a lot of adjustments. I'm sure there's so many different rule changes. I'm sure there's conference restrictions that all of a sudden he's like, I got this plan ready to go. He immediately get a lawyer pops into his office and said, by the way, you can't do any of that. And then he has to completely recalibrate. And that is a very, very difficult situation that they will not get themselves out of. Like they just keep doing it to themselves. You know, I know they were doing the Kiffin court where it was like, we, want them here. Honestly, not a bad choice for their program where they get an experienced guy like that. That's worked under a lot of programs, get them rebuilt a little bit to bring in a guy that they want, but you can't have both. You can't have a new head coach in a big division and a 10 win season that first year. You know, those first three years are going to be rocky and they just keep doing that. They're not poaching a head coach from an established program. They're trying to cheap out, but still get the wins. RAC Aaron: Agree. RAC2 Ryan: They're reminding me a lot of Auburn where Billy Napier and Hugh Fries are actually like pretty similar. The fact they're both just too too ego to get rid of the offensive coordinating situation when that was the issue, but they're good coaches. But when I heard, I know I seems like a hate goal watch a lot right now. I actually like him. I'm just really worried about it or whatever, but I did not want some role. The only G five coaches really came in and done anything is Kurt Signetti, but he's just a different type of breed. They don't make Kurt Signetti. It's not every G five coaches. RAC2 Aaron 264: Mm-hmm. RAC Aaron: mean, he came from Nick Saban's staff though. Like he was groomed for years under the greatest coach of all time in college football. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, yeah. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. And that's crazy to me. You have him, you have, ⁓ Kirby smart. got who else is there? There's all those guys. ⁓ yeah. Sarkeesian, Dan Lanning, they're all under that saving system. Even Kiffin's under the saving system. But I mean, someone's not going to go and turn that program around, but he seems so like I'm the guy. He went in. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. RAC Aaron: was underneath it. RAC2 Aaron 264: Well, mean, a Jimbo Faker. RAC Aaron: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. RAC2 Ryan: kick DJ Lagway out, you know, you're not my guy, he's a five-star at high school, you're going to Baylor, where he's making all these big moves that I almost think he might be able to fake his way so good that people believe he's great that they'll almost buy into it he'll get players, which then it might actually, then he's actually good. But I think he's like, not that good. I think he's just kind of playing it for as long as he can. RAC2 Aaron 264: think if Florida sticks it out, if they give him five years, we can see who he is as a coach. We can see his identity, but that's when you invest in a coach like that. You're signing on for that development plan and Florida isn't. So he'll probably be there three years. They'll probably have some sparks. He'll have some things that if they, like, if they had time to iron it out, it could develop into something, but they're going to expect this huge, huge win. They're going to be disappointed. They're going to start calling for his head halfway through this season. If he is not winning every game or one loss at that point. So we'll see if he crumples. mean, when it comes to what they're saying, I don't listen to any coach player, anything when they get there, because it feels like every player goes there it's like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to win the whole thing. Coach comes in. Like, I really believe in the program we're developing here. I think we're going to score more points than our opponents score on us. And I think that's going to lead to a lot of one football games. And it's like, just stop talking. Just don't tell me anything like that was a waste of my time in an audio clip. So if we're not talking deep knowledge of it, which I get it, you as a coach, I wouldn't want to spread by whole plan out to everybody else. mean, not all of them, Mike Leach, where they come in, they go, I'm going to throw the ball and he sure threw that ball. You know, that, that is, we knew what was going to happen. So he had no problem telling everybody what he was going to do. So I get that, but we will have to see. I think it's, I think it's a very toxic set up for him. You know, you feel like you want to go to something like a Duke. You want to go to something like a Wake Forest. You want to go to something like a Mississippi State. I'm throwing myself in that category of, know, we are the schools that coaches learn big time coaching at, and then they go to their homes. You know, we're the foster schools for good coaches and they either flame out with us and, or they go to bigger, brighter passion. And Florida is not one of them. They are not a testing grounds. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I'm kind of worried they're gonna eat him alive. He's never won a single ranked game ever in his entire coaching career. And then their whole things, but like he played at Troy, he played at Tulane, how are you supposed to win a ranked game? But the whole narrative behind a guy like that is that, he went and turned these programs around. But did you really make it a successful program if you can't win a single ranked game? You're making them a good program for their conference or you're making them just a mediocre team in the whole... NCA so I'm just worried they're gonna eat him alive. They're gonna come in. Go ahead RAC Aaron: Well, lacks the stepping stone. Most coaches go from a G5 and they go to an assistant OC or a wide receiver coach or an offensive line coach or something at some prominent school. And they almost not take a step back, but they laterally transfer over to not take any more responsibility than they had there or even less in a prominent SEC Big Ten, some ACC conference with a bigger stage. And then they work their way through those ranks. You can't just jump from a Troy to then be a head coach of Alabama. That just doesn't work. So you have to, like, if he, if he would have gone to Florida and been a assistant OC or a wide receivers coach or a tight ends coach or an offensive line coach for a couple of years and they're like, Hey, we really like this guy. And then they promote from within. Fine. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. Yeah, it seems ridiculous. RAC2 Aaron 264: ⁓ yeah. I'll even give OCDC as a, like, as a jump, like it's a big jump, but you prove there, you know, you get, say, Hey, this guy's really pulling this together. Our offense looks amazing. Our defense is struggling. We're having a lot of head coaching errors. We're going to bring him in as our guy. I think you commit to that. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. RAC Aaron: 100 % 100 % Cause you can almost kill your career jumping that big, that quick. If you fail at Florida, you're not going to be able to go to any other school that at that kind of caliber. Correct. Correct. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I think- RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, you're going to be starting back. You're going to have to a huge step back. ⁓ mean, look at Dan Mullen. I still think Dan Mullen, degradeful. I like not an all-timer. You know, we're not talking, we're not talking national championship right now. He could become one, you know, goes to Las Vegas, does really well out there. He's at Las Vegas right now because Florida fired him. You know, he is not, he should be at a bigger school than that. He should be somewhere that has a developing program. has an opportunity to go all the way if he does his job right. Las Vegas isn't that team. Now granted, can't blame the guy. He's out in Vegas making millions of dollars. That seems like a great place to make millions of dollars, but it seems to me like that's a prime example of a coach who came from an SEC school as a head coach. Three years didn't produce, you know, a conference title. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. RAC2 Aaron 264: or a championship and they're like next. And now this is his first station at a head coach since then. He was a talking head for a while. That's rough. That's tough to do to a coach. I don't think it's fair. I'd be interested to see if they still have the same athletic director since then. I have no knowledge of it whatsoever. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. I don't know. That'd be interesting. But yeah, another guy who took like stepping stones is like Brian Heartline, for example, was, um, was that, yeah, he did it right. He worked his way up. He's getting a head coach job at South Florida. was just like a medium-ish school. And then he could try to work his way up. But I mean, his thing's like, RAC Aaron: I don't know. He did it right. Yeah. But he went from assistant wide receiver coach to wide receiver coach for five years. Had one of the greatest recruiting runs ever with Crystal Lavey, Garrett Wilson, Jackson Smith and Jigba, all those guys. And Mecca, Marvin Harrison, like first round draft pick out of first round draft pick. And then he sprung that into an OC job. he, was he going to be an OC for long-term? No. But guess what? He did okay. And he got a head coaching job at USF. And that's a good jump. because you're not going from like Ohio State to then like Georgia. You're not taking Kirby's Mars job or something. Like you're going to USF and you're going to be fine. Where he's not expected to win 10 games. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, and it's a realistic jump. Yeah, and it's a realistic jump. And the amount of recruiting and development he's done with wide receivers, like down there, he's near that Miami Gardens area where JMI is from, and all those guys are going to want to come play for him now. Yeah. RAC Aaron: and Brandon NSC, all those guys. Yep. RAC2 Aaron 264: Well, and it was like, as I mentioned, you know, when we did Zach Arnett dirty, you bring in a DC first time head coach, fire him six games into his first season. That is something where like I, as a fan, haven't been able to get back on board with our AD in LeBee because that was a backroom deal that felt, you know, very, very exploitive where it was like, we're going to hire Arnett so we don't lose our team. I think they plan to fire him from the, before the season started. That's all speculative. It's all alleged, but that's how I feel. And yeah, it's confirmed, but it is something where it's like, felt like we ruined the guy. was like, he's a young coach. He's taken it on. I liked him. He met, he matched our defensive personality as a team. He developed a lot of NFL defensive talent. It was something to look forward to. And then when he got rid of them, I was like, I just couldn't imagine him recovery. think he became like a box caller for Ole Miss for a little while. RAC Aaron: You heard it here first. It's confirmed that that was... RAC2 Aaron 264: Like he, well, you know, he wasn't stepping into like an official position, basically, you know, he wasn't a DC again. And I was like, man, that's, that's, that's crazy that his career has taken that trajectory when he was just at that point where head coach was on the table, because we made a bad decision. RAC2 Ryan: Yet college football is brutal though. You don't get it done, you're out. Especially now, everyone thinks they can win the national championship every single year with all the NIL and the transfer stuff. So if you're not getting it done, you're gone. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I expect this. It create like the most unexpected. RAC Aaron: I mean, James Franklin's a huge example of that. RAC2 Ryan: Nah, he needed to be gone though. He needed to be gone though. RAC Aaron: Penn State was nothing before he was there and he brought them to consistent 10 win seasons. Yeah, he couldn't beat Ohio State and yeah, he couldn't beat Michigan, but guess what they did before he was there? Lost a lot more games than just those two. He made playoffs multiple years. He won bowl games. He made Penn State a ranked team every single year. And now guess what? They just let him go because he lost like two games and then they spiraled. now they're going to be disaster next year. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. RAC2 Ryan: That is true. I don't think they should have got rid of them, but there's a big difference of him winning 10 games and playing Kiffin winning 10 games. I like Ole Miss. RAC2 Aaron 264: I mean, I think it was the craziest firing of the year. RAC Aaron: I'm saying Ole Miss was in the same boat that they never won big games, never had eight, nine, 10 win seasons, and they became that. He was the same way. He recruited Saquon Barkley. RAC2 Ryan: Maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is true. The sequence is generational. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. And I mean, coaches that can identify that talent, pursue them, lock them in. That's a, that's a credit to their, to their program. But I think this year's coaching carousel is going to be the wildest one we have seen in a long time. That is my preemptive strike in this one. If I was putting money, if I was doing my parlay, it's going to be braziest coaching year we've ever seen. There's going to be a RAC Aaron: Yeah, like they RAC2 Aaron 264: surprise strong team that we nobody saw coming and Alabama will somehow talk their way into the playoffs again. So that's my safe bet. RAC Aaron: Auburn Bulls. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. Do you think they use the Notre Dame rule? Does it get used this year? RAC Aaron: It has to. It's written. RAC2 Aaron 264: I think... RAC2 Ryan: Well, no, no, I mean like they could be on like in the area where like they're supposed to get kicked out and they get put in Yeah, are they gonna be? RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. But do they, do they get pumped to 13? Yeah. RAC Aaron: No, I'm saying if they before the college ball ranking show like finalizes before postseason championships happen, all games happen, anything like that. If they are numerically one through 12, like, yeah, where the G five has to go in, blah, blah, blah. Like they have a spot. It doesn't matter about the other like G five. RAC2 Ryan: Yes, I understand. RAC2 Aaron 264: I think it only counts if they are in that top five to seven unarguable. If they are near 10, I can see them coming up with some garbage to rank them 13th to keep them out. If for some reason it comes down to Alabama being on the shopping block again. I mean, we see it every time and not to say Alabama's got great talent. They produce, they look good all the time, but RAC Aaron: But that's before that. Before the final rankings come out, they would already have a spot. Like, it wouldn't matter if they're a hundredth. RAC2 Ryan: I'm saying RAC2 Aaron 264: Yes, but that that is if they, if the ranking poll puts them in the top 12 and that is where. RAC Aaron: Yeah, but that's decided before the committee. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, bro. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Well, I'm talking about just the polling, get rid of them. Does dude, does that get into him and. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: But I'm saying, does it get needed this year? Yeah, are they gonna be top six? Yeah, like are they gonna be top six? Are they gonna be 15? Or do you think they're gonna be in the vicinity where they're gonna need to use the rule to keep them in? RAC2 Aaron 264: I think we see them between 10 and 15th and we are going to see it's going to be a point flip when that final ranking comes out, whether or not they're on the plus side and whether or not they deserve to be on the plus side. That is where it could be. Cause I could see both. could see them being really good, but at that cusp with like a bad loss or a bad two losses that they shouldn't have lost and they did, or we see them with two losses that were tough. RAC Aaron: No. RAC2 Aaron 264: And they were really strong, but were dominant the rest of the year. So they're right at that point. the ranking poll comes down and says, Nope, I think that's 13th. We're Alabama at 12th. One of those two scenarios is going to happen in my playbook. RAC Aaron: As much as I hate Notre Dame, think they will be probably, I don't think they'll be ranked top 10. Maybe they will pre-season, but I think they are a top 10 team once they get into it the whole season. I don't think they are out of the top at all during the season. They have way too many pieces. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, I could see it. RAC2 Aaron 264: I'd love to see it. think I believe in them like that. Well, I think Freeman has done a great job putting this team together. think he's still developing as a head coach, you know, as an interim guy who stepped up the school went with them and they're, they're getting paid off for it. I mean, he has, he has put that together after Kelly hit the blocks and you know, burn the bridge on the way out, basically saying like, I'm not getting to the championship if I'm with Notre Dame and he came back in. I really like what he's doing. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. He's one of four teams or one of four coaches that have ever made the College of the World Playoff National Championship. So he, Marcus Freeman knows what he's doing. RAC2 Ryan: think Notre Dame's gonna be really good. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah. Yeah. RAC2 Ryan: would be really good though. mean, they have that freshman quarterback. He's going to get developed more. know they're losing. They're losing Jeremiah love, but he only had so much production. think he had 1300 offensive yards, but he's really good. So him, them losing him, not good. But I think Mylon Graham and Quincy Porter are going to be one of the best receiver do is in the country. They're very slept on. They just get overshined by Jeremiah Smith. RAC Aaron: Mm-hmm. I mean, yeah, they didn't touch the field. What's crazy too is to wrap to the G5 conversation. Evan McEwen came from UTSA in the transfer portal this year for Ohio State. And he runs a sub 10, 300 meter. Like he's a very fast guy, but he didn't play any talent. So now you have him coming in, you have Kyle Parker from LSU coming in. You have Chris Henry coming in as a true freshman. RAC2 Aaron 264: Yeah, well, and I also think. RAC Aaron: Quincy Porter and Mylon Graham, think that's like we were talking about the gym the other day. They're scared of the competition there and they'd wanted the for sure paycheck. And that's why they dipped in Notre Dame. And I think you're going to see that a lot more throughout the country of just people like, Hey, my spot's not secure. If I can get a secure spot and a paycheck somewhere else through the loyalty, because I'm going to go get paid and play. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah, yeah, plan paid. RAC2 Aaron 264: But how do we fix the transfer issue? Topic we're going have to cover in another episode, but you'll have to just have to tune in and find out. So join us next week as we take a peek into the future of what we think this season can hold. We got a lot of teams. We've kind of brushed on who we think's going, but there's a lot of talent out there to see who might make the top 10. So we'll have to lay some predictions down into next season, next week when we come back on Rack. RAC2 Ryan: Yeah. RAC Aaron: Yeah.