Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Steven Godfrey on Why Lane Kiffin is right about Ole Miss... and wrong about LSU | 05.14

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Steven Godfrey on Why Lane Kiffin is right about Ole Miss... and wrong about LSU | 05.14 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

0:01
Speaker 1: Wave. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A
0:11
Speaker 1: wave original.
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Speaker 2: My name is Beaumont Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
0:15
Speaker 2: get your podcasts. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
0:19
Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
0:21
Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
0:24
Speaker 2: a hater. We have got Stephen Godfrey with us. And
0:27
Speaker 2: I have to say this because normally I have a
0:29
Speaker 2: way intro this on Wednesdays, a way intro this on Thursdays.
0:32
Speaker 2: and we thought originally this was going to go on Thursday,
0:35
Speaker 2: but then that boy Lane Kiffin popped up, got a
0:37
Speaker 2: little too hot for TV, and that's stuff we're going
0:40
Speaker 2: to talk about, like, you know, the seemingly impending financial
0:43
Speaker 2: doom of college sports. We'll get to that, but first, Lane...
0:48
Speaker 2: All right, so, and this happened. I'm not making this
0:51
Speaker 2: about me, but I did the thing on Trinidad and
0:53
Speaker 2: Chambliss for Vanity Fair. I had no idea that at
0:56
Speaker 2: the same time there was a Lane Kiffin article in
0:59
Speaker 2: the hopper. Not that they owed me this information or
1:01
Speaker 2: anything like that, but I had absolutely no idea. And
1:04
Speaker 2: then I found out it was happening because Lane posted
1:07
Speaker 2: pictures online from the photo shoot. And I'm like, oh,
1:11
Speaker 2: this will be interesting and fun. Overall, I got to
1:14
Speaker 2: tell you, I read the article. I think Chris Smith
1:16
Speaker 2: was the author.
1:17
Speaker 1: I read the article. I thought the article was.
1:19
Speaker 2: Interesting, though interesting in the way that Lane Kiffin keeps
1:23
Speaker 2: getting people to believe that he.
1:25
Speaker 1: Ain't that bad a guy, right? And not even that,
1:28
Speaker 1: because he might not be.
1:29
Speaker 2: I came away from reporting on the Chambliss story without
1:32
Speaker 2: talking to Lane, being like, oh, he's not as bad
1:33
Speaker 2: a guy as I thought he was. But he always
1:36
Speaker 2: makes people think he's just around the corner from some
1:39
Speaker 2: major breakthrough, right?
1:40
Speaker 1: He has always turned over.
1:42
Speaker 2: Some New Leaf, even if the reason you're there is
1:44
Speaker 2: because you don't feel like you feel like you got
1:46
Speaker 2: fooled one more time, but he always gets people on it.
1:49
Speaker 2: But what has been fascinating to me about this one
1:52
Speaker 2: is the quote that got everybody riled up. Shout out
1:55
Speaker 2: to the Vanity Fair social producers doing what social producers do.
1:59
Speaker 2: Forget the whole fucking article. We're going to have Lane
2:02
Speaker 2: make the point that, you know, when I tell people
2:04
Speaker 2: to come to Baton Rouge, they respond differently than when
2:06
Speaker 2: I say come to Oxford, Mississippi. And long and short,
2:10
Speaker 2: When I say Baton Rouge, I don't have to get
2:12
Speaker 2: somebody's grandmama and convince her.
2:14
Speaker 1: That it's okay, like I did with Oxford, Mississippi. And then...
2:19
Speaker 1: He went a little further and he said when they
2:21
Speaker 1: come to Baton Rouge, they're like, oh, look at the diversity.
2:24
Speaker 2: It doesn't look like there's any segregation here, implying that
2:27
Speaker 2: that is not what they said about Oxford.
2:30
Speaker 1: And Stephen Godfrey, Ole Miss grad, I am very curious.
2:34
Speaker 1: Where do we start? What you thought about this?
2:37
Speaker 2: I want you to go first because I don't want
2:38
Speaker 2: to do anything to poison these waters at all.
2:41
Speaker 1: All right. So here's the problem. We have to introduce
2:43
Speaker 1: two concepts that are simultaneously true but in conflict here.
2:46
Speaker 1: And the media does not like that. We are not
2:48
Speaker 1: built for that. All right. So let's get the obvious
2:50
Speaker 1: out of the way here, because I'll throw my credentials
2:53
Speaker 1: on the table. I am a product of said Aryan
2:57
Speaker 1: Nation Country Club Institute, all right? All right? I got a... Also,
3:02
Speaker 1: we'll get to the Sark thing later on in the segment,
3:04
Speaker 1: but there have been some aspersions cast about the quality
3:07
Speaker 1: of an Ole Miss degree, to which I can only
3:09
Speaker 1: confirm it took me six years to get a 1.96 GPA,
3:10
Speaker 1: all right?
3:11
Speaker 2: Yes. Every....
3:16
Speaker 1: Piece of the subject matter utilized by Lane Kiffin is
3:21
Speaker 1: obviously correct. It is obviously a completely real and concerning narrative,
3:29
Speaker 1: if you will. I'm going to use a lot of
3:30
Speaker 1: media buzzwords today. Lane Kiffin very tactically went directly at
3:37
Speaker 1: the weakest spot on Ole Miss' defense and Ole Miss'
3:39
Speaker 1: armor because we're... I'm going to have to jump around
3:41
Speaker 1: a little bit and talk about this kind of prolonged
3:43
Speaker 1: divorce with Lane Kiffin and why it's unique to... anything
3:46
Speaker 1: else that's ever happened in college football. So let's acknowledge
3:50
Speaker 1: the obvious about Ole Miss if we need to, right?
3:52
Speaker 1: I think I did this a little bit last time
3:53
Speaker 1: I was on the show. Yes. There's nothing he said
3:57
Speaker 1: that's factually inaccurate except, here we go, you ready? He's
4:02
Speaker 1: also completely talking out of his ass. And I know
4:06
Speaker 1: almost for certain that he did not run into any
4:10
Speaker 1: concerns about from a racial dynamic while recruiting for Ole Miss,
4:16
Speaker 1: especially and almost certainly in the last three seasons. That's
4:20
Speaker 1: because of the paradigm shift going from what we called recruiting,
4:24
Speaker 1: with my fingers decidedly making quotes, to actual player compensation.
4:28
Speaker 1: And we can get into that as well. So yes,
4:32
Speaker 1: the state of Ole Miss's perception is a very real
4:36
Speaker 1: and sensitive issue. The people who are actually in charge
4:40
Speaker 1: of that brand know exactly what dog whistle they are blowing, okay?
4:45
Speaker 1: There is absolutely a disingenuous misinformation campaign that works constantly
4:51
Speaker 1: in Mississippi to tell you it's not what you think
4:54
Speaker 1: it is. It's not the obvious. I'm so sick of
4:57
Speaker 1: the word gaslighting and yet this might be the most
4:59
Speaker 1: apt description of how Ole Miss markets itself, okay? Full stop.
5:03
Speaker 1: If you need any other evidence, just go and look
5:05
Speaker 1: at the kind of undergraduates they attract who are not athletes,
5:10
Speaker 1: who come from let's say maybe like a North Atlanta suburb,
5:15
Speaker 1: a Highland Park in Dallas, right? Young whites with a
5:19
Speaker 1: certain amount of money who didn't necessarily have the academics
5:22
Speaker 1: to get into a University of Georgia, a University of Texas,
5:26
Speaker 1: if you will, all right? So Ole Miss is what
5:29
Speaker 1: Ole Miss is, and we don't really need to pick
5:32
Speaker 1: that apart. However, Lane Kiffin, in a moment of, I think,
5:36
Speaker 1: a little bit of panic, flipped the only switch he
5:39
Speaker 1: had left, to try and shift public sentiment. So let's
5:43
Speaker 1: move on a little bit for a second, Bo, and
5:45
Speaker 1: I want to talk about why all this came to be.
5:48
Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin, in his entire career, never expected to receive
5:52
Speaker 1: this amount of public backlash for making an obvious job
5:57
Speaker 1: move to many, right? Up until maybe two years ago,
6:00
Speaker 1: if anybody were to leave Ole Miss for LSU, in
6:02
Speaker 1: terms of the football job, nobody would really think much
6:05
Speaker 1: of it, right? you start adding in the context of
6:08
Speaker 1: walking away from a playoff team that ended up going
6:10
Speaker 1: to the final four. All right. So that alone kind
6:13
Speaker 1: of carries some baggage with it. Then you start talking about, well,
6:16
Speaker 1: you know, with the NIL apparatus, we're seeing an evening
6:19
Speaker 1: out of top institutions in a way that we've never
6:21
Speaker 1: seen before. So you could take a Texas, you could
6:23
Speaker 1: take a Notre Dame. Then you could also take one
6:25
Speaker 1: of these upstart programs like an Indiana or an Ole Miss.
6:28
Speaker 1: And you have a tough time following your compass as
6:31
Speaker 1: to what is a value program? What is a top
6:33
Speaker 1: 10 job? What is, What is a place where you
6:35
Speaker 1: can or cannot win a national title? All of this
6:38
Speaker 1: kind of bears down on Lane Kiffin this offseason cycle,
6:41
Speaker 1: on top of the fact that he is, in fact,
6:43
Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin, who welcomes and actively encourages attention to be
6:48
Speaker 1: placed upon him at all times. All right. By the way,
6:52
Speaker 1: some of my favorite parts of this, and we're going
6:54
Speaker 1: to have to jump around a little bit. I don't
6:57
Speaker 1: know if this is going to shock anybody, but if
6:58
Speaker 1: you think you're going from a conservative bastion in Oxford
7:01
Speaker 1: to some sort of progressively liberal bastion in Baton Rouge,
7:06
Speaker 1: I've already said this twice today, but one of my favorite,
7:10
Speaker 1: go look up Interstate 110. It runs through Baton Rouge.
7:15
Speaker 1: Go look up why Interstate 110 is shaped the way
7:18
Speaker 1: it is and the direction it follows. If you ever
7:22
Speaker 1: want a great story about race in America, especially the South,
7:26
Speaker 1: I learned this from Luther Campbell of all people. It
7:28
Speaker 1: was actually because I was spending some time with him
7:30
Speaker 1: for a profile, but he wrote about this in his autobiography.
7:33
Speaker 1: Look at all the interstate construction in post-World War II America.
7:37
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's all through our shit and the way
7:39
Speaker 1: it is constructed, right? So the city I'm sitting in
7:42
Speaker 1: right now in Nashville, the structure of Interstate 440, it's
7:45
Speaker 1: the same thing that bisects the city, has a particular
7:48
Speaker 1: kind of wonk to it, for lack of a better term.
7:51
Speaker 1: That's because it split Jefferson Street dead down the middle,
7:55
Speaker 1: which if you're from a place like Atlanta, that would
7:56
Speaker 1: be like if you dropped the interstate directly on Sweet Auburn, okay? Yeah,
8:01
Speaker 1: kind of, sort of. So Baton Rouge is, shockingly enough,
8:06
Speaker 1: maybe not the progressive liberal enclave that Lane would have
8:09
Speaker 1: you believe, but my favorite part of this is the, remember,
8:12
Speaker 1: it was a aggressively MAGA, aggressively Republican governor that started
8:16
Speaker 1: the courtship of Lane Kiffin in the first place. So
8:19
Speaker 1: all of these GOP Strategists, conservatives and operatives and state
8:23
Speaker 1: reps now are defending a guy who is essentially using
8:26
Speaker 1: the one cudgel they hate the most, which is to
8:29
Speaker 1: talk about race relations, as a reason for coming to Louisiana.
8:33
Speaker 1: So it's great because they're they've got their hands wrapped
8:36
Speaker 1: around this double edged sword and they can't let go. So, yeah,
8:39
Speaker 1: it was the fun part of Baton Rouge, though, for me,
8:42
Speaker 1: as it relates is.
8:44
Speaker 2: And I hadn't really thought about this until I scanned
8:47
Speaker 2: the whole map and tried to think of schools that
8:49
Speaker 2: can do this.
8:49
Speaker 1: It's really two.
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Speaker 2: It's Florida State and LSU that have always had the
8:53
Speaker 2: ability to say in recruiting, but if you just go
8:56
Speaker 2: on the other side of town, Yeah, there's this other
8:59
Speaker 2: school that you can really party at. Now, they like
9:02
Speaker 2: staying at LSU. Don't get me wrong, right? But where
9:05
Speaker 2: Lane says, when I say Baton Rouge, it doesn't sound
9:07
Speaker 2: like Oxford because I know personally when I hear Baton Rouge,
9:10
Speaker 2: I think about the other side of town, right? Yeah,
9:13
Speaker 2: I think about something completely different than LSU. So if
9:17
Speaker 2: Lane had just said that, he'd have been okay. But
9:20
Speaker 2: Lane got it sounded like LSU looks honestly like a
9:23
Speaker 2: school that doesn't exist.
9:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's in Baton Rouge, Vermont or something. I mean,
9:29
Speaker 1: this is the kind of, like this level of disingenuousness,
9:32
Speaker 1: I kind of respect it. But again, what I encourage
9:35
Speaker 1: people to do is not take any of this stuff
9:37
Speaker 1: at its face value or its merits. This guy is
9:39
Speaker 1: trying to play chess right now and he's trying to
9:41
Speaker 1: come from behind because he is a very, very self-consumed
9:45
Speaker 1: individual and his public image is so much more important
9:48
Speaker 1: to him than it is for any other coach I've
9:51
Speaker 1: ever encountered in 20, 25 years of sports media. This
9:54
Speaker 1: guy's weakness is also his strength, which is that he
9:57
Speaker 1: can at all times seem magnanimous. And when there are
10:02
Speaker 1: actual moments of football stress, he can sort of absorb
10:04
Speaker 1: that attention away from his players. He is a savant
10:07
Speaker 1: as an offensive play caller. He is an incredible developer
10:10
Speaker 1: of quarterback talent, but he's also his own worst enemy.
10:13
Speaker 1: I hate to operate in cliche. So Until he gets
10:16
Speaker 1: actual tackle football to be consumed with for a little while,
10:18
Speaker 1: I would expect this cycle to persist. But I don't
10:21
Speaker 1: know if you saw this, Beau. He has issued an
10:23
Speaker 1: apology of sorts this afternoon to On3Sports for specifically the,
10:29
Speaker 1: I guess, commenting on the obvious in Oxford or sort
10:32
Speaker 1: of stating the thing. The problem is he kind of
10:34
Speaker 1: got a little, well, there's no kind of, he got
10:36
Speaker 1: beat up yesterday because he, there's so many places I
10:40
Speaker 1: can go with this. Lane Kiffin does not have the
10:43
Speaker 1: cleanest closet, right? Lane Kiffin has realized in real time
10:48
Speaker 1: that the same people who helped enable and cover up
10:50
Speaker 1: his path, his journey, if you will, and I'll leave
10:55
Speaker 1: it at that, are the same people that he has
10:57
Speaker 1: just enraged in the one area, the one sensitivity. The
11:01
Speaker 1: sore spot. The sore spot they have. The weakest spot
11:04
Speaker 1: that these people in Mississippi have. And so I think
11:07
Speaker 1: he's trying to backtrack a little bit lest we start
11:10
Speaker 1: to see some tabloid fodder spring up between now and
11:12
Speaker 1: September from some aggrieved parties in Mississippi, which at this
11:16
Speaker 1: point on this day, as we record this on May 12th,
11:20
Speaker 1: I would be shocked if we don't have some sort
11:23
Speaker 1: of revelation surface up from one of Kiffin's previous transgressions.
11:28
Speaker 1: because he's pissed off all of his body movers. He's
11:30
Speaker 1: pissed off all the people who dug the shallow graves.
11:33
Speaker 1: So yes, so I have an observation, right? I love
11:36
Speaker 1: when I get to ask my white friends about these things.
11:40
Speaker 1: The phrase, the race card is very interesting.
11:42
Speaker 2: White people do not like it when they feel like
11:44
Speaker 2: black people play quote unquote.
11:46
Speaker 1: The race card.
11:46
Speaker 2: And the reason is they know that bitch don't never
11:49
Speaker 2: get declined, right?
11:51
Speaker 1: Like white people are far.
11:53
Speaker 2: More aware of the prevalence of racism than black people are.
11:56
Speaker 2: We're just over here guessing, right? Sometimes we get it
11:58
Speaker 2: wrong in ways that like we assume the racism isn't there.
12:02
Speaker 1: I mean, is there, but it isn't.
12:03
Speaker 2: But there's also a lot of times where it's around
12:05
Speaker 2: and we have absolutely no idea, but within, especially amongst Southerners,
12:11
Speaker 2: the idea that the other people are racist gets people
12:14
Speaker 2: to jump up, right? Like the Mississippi people are making
12:17
Speaker 2: the argument, honestly, hey, we know how you guys get
12:19
Speaker 2: down also. Like as you, the point that you made,
12:22
Speaker 2: you're not going to argue to anybody of the progressive
12:24
Speaker 2: nature of Baton Rouge, of LSU, of Jeff Landry, or
12:27
Speaker 2: anything else.
12:28
Speaker 1: You're not going to be able to do it.
12:29
Speaker 2: So those people really, really, really don't like it when
12:32
Speaker 2: you pop up and say that. I saw Tim Brando
12:35
Speaker 2: basically labeling that hate speech. And Tim Brando's living in Shreveport, Louisiana, where,
12:40
Speaker 2: by the way, my daddy has always said the meanest
12:43
Speaker 2: white people in the world exist.
12:44
Speaker 1: But what I'm.
12:45
Speaker 2: Saying is this white man in Louisiana put on his
12:48
Speaker 2: cape to protect the virtue and honor of Ole Miss because.
12:52
Speaker 1: We just don't talk like that, right?
12:54
Speaker 2: Like he was, he's operating under the premise that, hey man,
12:57
Speaker 2: if we just crew up and decide that we're not
12:59
Speaker 2: going to do this to each other, we won't, we
13:02
Speaker 2: won't have no issues, right? But he feels like Lane
13:05
Speaker 2: violated what is like implicitly the code of what's going on.
13:09
Speaker 1: On the other hand, What Lane does have on his
13:12
Speaker 1: side with LSU, and I look this up, they.
13:14
Speaker 2: Have a much higher black enrollment number than the majority
13:18
Speaker 2: of schools in the SEC. Now, Ole Miss's number, I think,
13:21
Speaker 2: is somewhere around 11%, which is double the number of
13:24
Speaker 2: many schools in the SEC. The issue, of course, is
13:27
Speaker 2: that Ole Miss's black population is somewhere between 35 and 40,
13:31
Speaker 2: which is to say that the 11 feels very, very,
13:34
Speaker 2: very paltry under those circumstances, right? Yes. But where Elaine
13:40
Speaker 2: bothered me with this is that you marched in 2020
13:44
Speaker 2: with Mike Leach, rest in peace, where you guys bit
13:47
Speaker 2: your lips and marched to the statehouse to try to
13:50
Speaker 2: get the state flag changed to take the stars and
13:53
Speaker 2: bars off of it because it was ultimately bad for business, right?
13:57
Speaker 2: Anything that Lane is talking about right now about the
14:00
Speaker 2: racial state of affairs at Ole Miss, Lane could have
14:03
Speaker 2: done something about it. Because let me tell you, a
14:05
Speaker 2: progressive man who did speak on some of his problems
14:08
Speaker 2: with the way race presented in Oxford.
14:10
Speaker 1: Tommy Tuberville.
14:12
Speaker 2: OK, so it doesn't take the most courageous man in
14:15
Speaker 2: the world to actually do something about this in real time.
14:18
Speaker 1: Lane did not do that.
14:19
Speaker 2: Lane waited until he got to LSU to decide that
14:23
Speaker 2: he was going to say something about this and everything
14:25
Speaker 2: he said about them. Hold on to Confederate imagery and
14:28
Speaker 2: Colonel Reb and all of this. And to be fair
14:30
Speaker 2: to Lane, Lane tried to hide it.
14:31
Speaker 1: Lane get that.
14:32
Speaker 2: It's the sip when Lane talks about it. It's Ole
14:35
Speaker 2: Miss when the white folks talk about it, when you're
14:37
Speaker 2: selling it to the players. It's one thing when I
14:39
Speaker 2: went down there, I found it very interesting that to
14:41
Speaker 2: get to the football facility at Ole Miss. And I
14:43
Speaker 2: don't think this is necessarily done like this on purpose,
14:45
Speaker 2: but it works out nicely. If you come from Memphis,
14:47
Speaker 2: you come straight down that road and you make a
14:50
Speaker 2: right and go to the facility and you ain't got
14:52
Speaker 2: to see nothing else. They get you right there in
14:56
Speaker 2: the offices. They know they got that problem.
14:58
Speaker 1: Right. Right.
14:59
Speaker 2: But they also can't do so much to change it
15:02
Speaker 2: because the other people like the other stuff, too.
15:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about who's in charge. So it really comes
15:10
Speaker 1: down to, when you're talking about Ole Miss, it's about
15:11
Speaker 1: who's in charge. If you want to give total fealty
15:15
Speaker 1: to a guy like Kiffin, and had he stayed, I'll
15:19
Speaker 1: play out a hypothetical with you real fast. Let's say
15:21
Speaker 1: he stays. Let's say they just go to the same scenario.
15:23
Speaker 1: They go to the Final Four. They lose to Mario
15:26
Speaker 1: Cristobal in Miami. But everything that's happened this offseason, Chambliss
15:31
Speaker 1: comes back. Kiwan Lacey comes back, but now you got
15:34
Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin coming back as well. Lane Kiffin has now
15:36
Speaker 1: rebuked LSU. He turned down Auburn, by the way. So
15:39
Speaker 1: if it was a racist hotbed, I guess he could
15:41
Speaker 1: have gone to Auburn to the warm, progressive hands of
15:44
Speaker 1: Southeast Alabama. He could have gone to Auburn three years
15:48
Speaker 1: ago now. But let's say he stays. It is possible
15:51
Speaker 1: in time he would actually be the first person in
15:54
Speaker 1: the history of that university to build enough equity to
15:58
Speaker 1: make more changes. I'm not going to say all of
16:01
Speaker 1: the changes. I'm not going to say one particular change
16:05
Speaker 1: because you can kind of pick from a variety of things.
16:07
Speaker 1: I think he could have pushed an agenda along that
16:10
Speaker 1: would have found an audience amongst those who would actually
16:13
Speaker 1: maybe push the right button or maybe take their hand
16:16
Speaker 1: off of it, if you will. So I think it's
16:18
Speaker 1: possible he could have been the one. He never had
16:22
Speaker 1: any interest in that whatsoever. Like, I want to be
16:25
Speaker 1: clear about this. He has co-opted the concept of modern
16:29
Speaker 1: race relations specifically to help his own PR campaign in
16:32
Speaker 1: the offseason because people looked at Ole Miss in a
16:35
Speaker 1: way that Lane did not from a football standpoint. Again,
16:39
Speaker 1: I got to be careful here on how I talk
16:40
Speaker 1: about the institution and what happened on that football team
16:43
Speaker 1: the last two years. They overachieved or, and we don't
16:47
Speaker 1: really know this yet, they're setting a new standard and
16:50
Speaker 1: a new blueprint because they have been very intuitive and
16:55
Speaker 1: very intelligent in how they structure their NIL. One of
16:58
Speaker 1: the things that I cannot criticize about my alma mater
17:00
Speaker 1: is the way they have gone about building roster payments,
17:04
Speaker 1: the way they have gone about managing the payroll, the
17:07
Speaker 1: way they have evaluated and paid talent. I really think
17:10
Speaker 1: it's second only to the very, very top tier of
17:12
Speaker 1: the sport. And it is the reason why they are
17:16
Speaker 1: now considered to be, I mean, they're at least playoff
17:18
Speaker 1: contenders going back into the season without their head coach.
17:21
Speaker 1: Even with Pete, even with, you know, Pete Golding, kind
17:24
Speaker 1: of just a glorified, you know, Saban defensive assistant. at
17:27
Speaker 1: the helm they don't have their savant play caller anymore
17:29
Speaker 1: so let's back up a little bit you're talking about
17:34
Speaker 1: playing the race card i find it interesting that lane
17:43
Speaker 1: kiffin outsider non-southerner um established name before he gets to
17:52
Speaker 1: the sec right like everyone in america knew like he
17:54
Speaker 1: was coach of the raiders which feels like 30 years
17:56
Speaker 1: ago right if he was following the kind of normal
18:00
Speaker 1: script of the outsider who comes to the south this
18:03
Speaker 1: would have been front of mind his first year in
18:06
Speaker 1: knoxville Yes. Right. I would say maybe the first year
18:09
Speaker 1: he gets to Knoxville to at least acknowledge what's going
18:12
Speaker 1: on in terms of race relations. Certainly, Beau, from recruiting
18:15
Speaker 1: this out. It's not about the cities that it's not
18:17
Speaker 1: about Knoxville or Oxford or Baton Rouge or these cities.
18:20
Speaker 1: It's about where you go. Right. Because at a certain
18:22
Speaker 1: point in all those places, you know where you got
18:24
Speaker 1: to go. You got to go to Memphis. Yeah. OK,
18:27
Speaker 1: you got to go to Atlanta. You got to go
18:29
Speaker 1: to the cities where you got to go to Birmingham
18:31
Speaker 1: where these things actually happened in history. So I find
18:34
Speaker 1: it interesting that Lane Kiffin has any kind of epiphany
18:36
Speaker 1: in terms of race relations or anything like that so
18:39
Speaker 1: late in his existence. All right.
18:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:42
Speaker 1: That, you know, the race card part of this is
18:45
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating. One thing I have to like since
18:48
Speaker 1: since we're we're in the coaches film room of white
18:51
Speaker 1: folks right now. OK, so welcome in, especially Southern whites.
18:56
Speaker 1: It starts with an unwillingness. to self-examine because i am
19:02
Speaker 1: of a believer that if you are white and southern
19:05
Speaker 1: and you are over the age of 15 to 20
19:09
Speaker 1: no one's hands are totally clean by today's standards and
19:13
Speaker 1: i think that's actually a sign of progress as we
19:16
Speaker 1: go so in other words if i were to repeat
19:18
Speaker 1: that statement 20 years from now amongst southern whites i
19:21
Speaker 1: would want that to still be true because what it
19:22
Speaker 1: means is we're advancing the standard right what it means
19:26
Speaker 1: is that your existence at 15 or 18 years old
19:29
Speaker 1: Some of the things you may have heard and not
19:31
Speaker 1: done anything about, some of the things that you thought
19:32
Speaker 1: were socially acceptable, et cetera, et cetera. So it starts
19:35
Speaker 1: from a place of unease because nobody really wants to self-examine.
19:39
Speaker 1: Then you get into that outsider thing with Kiffin not
19:42
Speaker 1: being of Mississippi or being of the South. Then you
19:45
Speaker 1: get into he abandoned us after talking so wonderfully about
19:49
Speaker 1: the healing palaces. of Mississippi, specifically about Oxford, specifically about these,
19:54
Speaker 1: this culture that took care of him when his father
19:56
Speaker 1: died and all the things they saw him through in
19:58
Speaker 1: the hot yoga and all this kind of nonsense. So
20:01
Speaker 1: it's a betrayal on multiple levels. But then at the
20:03
Speaker 1: end of the day, you're also left with a bunch
20:05
Speaker 1: of people who are Southern and white and who have
20:08
Speaker 1: been called this by an outsider. And that is where
20:11
Speaker 1: it becomes the bridge too far. This is not one
20:14
Speaker 1: of your own. Yeah.
20:16
Speaker 2: But I will say this in fairness to laying on that,
20:18
Speaker 2: because I know the perception is outsider. David Cutcliffe is
20:22
Speaker 2: from Birmingham. and he made his bones at Tennessee. Now,
20:27
Speaker 2: I would argue it's a different Oxford, Mississippi that he
20:29
Speaker 2: went to in 2000 or 2001 than the one that
20:33
Speaker 2: Lane Kiffin went to. But he got there also and
20:35
Speaker 2: was like.
20:35
Speaker 1: Whoo, buddy. Yeah, so Cut got hired my freshman year.
20:39
Speaker 1: So I did not know I was going to Ole Miss,
20:42
Speaker 1: and I don't think Cutcliffe knew he was going to
20:43
Speaker 1: Ole Miss until about the same time. He went from
20:46
Speaker 1: calling plays for a national title team, calling the offensive
20:49
Speaker 1: plays for Peyton Manning to– Bam. You wanted a head
20:54
Speaker 1: coaching job? Well, you got one, right? Right. I kind
20:56
Speaker 1: of honestly, that's how I felt when I hit the
20:58
Speaker 1: campus as well. Yes, it's different. But also, let's go
21:05
Speaker 1: back to your buddy Tommy for a second. We're actually
21:07
Speaker 1: hitting the 30-year anniversary of what is sort of known
21:10
Speaker 1: in the state as the stick band. So that was
21:13
Speaker 1: Tommy Tuberville's prescient, I guess, move to not ban the
21:18
Speaker 1: waving of the Confederate flag. Not to impede on anyone's
21:21
Speaker 1: First Amendment rights, Beau, but to simply take away the
21:24
Speaker 1: device from which a flag can be effectively displayed. And
21:27
Speaker 1: if you think about it, that is some 4D chess.
21:30
Speaker 1: It really was. That was brilliant. You ever try and wave...
21:33
Speaker 1: I don't have anything on my desk. You ever try
21:34
Speaker 1: and wave anything that's limp without something that's firm? Like,
21:39
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of genius. So... You know, it's ironic,
21:44
Speaker 1: to say the least, to see Tommy Tuberville's political career progress.
21:47
Speaker 1: But even then, and I think this is, again, this
21:50
Speaker 1: is why people are so upset today, is because Ole
21:53
Speaker 1: Miss has never been higher. Their Q rating has never
21:55
Speaker 1: been higher in terms of their football value. And then
21:58
Speaker 1: you go back to this thing that's, it's the target
22:01
Speaker 1: they refuse to remove from their back, but it's also
22:03
Speaker 1: their weakest point. So you go back to something that's
22:06
Speaker 1: been essentially hounding them throughout the modern era of football
22:10
Speaker 1: at their highest point, And this is why they're so upset.
22:13
Speaker 1: And also, I got a lot of texts. I got
22:15
Speaker 1: a lot of phone calls yesterday. This was not the
22:19
Speaker 1: issue for Lane Kiffin. The issue was money. We can
22:21
Speaker 1: actually compare these two jobs if you want to. I mean,
22:23
Speaker 1: I think the perception here is more interesting than what
22:26
Speaker 1: he's actually alleging. I think he's grasping at straws because
22:28
Speaker 1: he's trying to make himself kind of move into a
22:30
Speaker 1: savior complex role. But the real issue here is the
22:34
Speaker 1: actual money. And the kids that ended up at Ole
22:37
Speaker 1: Miss the last two or three years were from a
22:39
Speaker 1: larger national footprint than they ever have been And I
22:42
Speaker 1: would say better compensated than a lot of teams in
22:46
Speaker 1: the SEC, some that might surprise you. Yeah, I will
22:49
Speaker 1: make this point.
22:50
Speaker 2: And when I did the story on Chambliss, I asked
22:54
Speaker 2: every single member of the Chambliss family if they had
22:57
Speaker 2: any concern about sending their son to play at the
23:01
Speaker 2: University of Mississippi, specifically with the Mississippi part. Okay.
23:06
Speaker 1: It was a no all the way across the board, right?
23:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if I want to extrapolate fully
23:12
Speaker 2: from that, but I think that for a lot of
23:14
Speaker 2: the people surrounding Ole Miss, they thought they'd finally beat
23:17
Speaker 2: the rap. We are so far removed from the images
23:22
Speaker 2: of the flags on sticks and everything else that if
23:25
Speaker 2: you're a certain age, you don't necessarily know why Ole
23:28
Speaker 2: Miss as a name lands with me. The way, like,
23:31
Speaker 2: why would I think of University of Mississippi differently than
23:34
Speaker 2: I think of Mississippi State necessarily without the flags waving
23:36
Speaker 2: and everything else? I think they thought that they had
23:39
Speaker 2: beat the rap and then Lane, I think they need
23:42
Speaker 2: to listen to Lane on this and be like, oh,
23:43
Speaker 2: wait a minute.
23:44
Speaker 1: So this was still coming up, except.
23:46
Speaker 2: Nobody trusts lane when he talks and that that i
23:49
Speaker 2: think is the part that sets them up but i
23:51
Speaker 2: do want to break here and then come back because
23:54
Speaker 2: i do want to talk to you about comparing the
23:56
Speaker 2: jobs because when lane left i had some questions about
23:58
Speaker 2: how much better the job was that he was going
24:00
Speaker 2: to we'll talk about that coming up next you can
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25:05
Speaker 1: All right, we are back here with Stephen Godfrey.
25:09
Speaker 2: And Lane making, it is really funny listening to LSU
25:14
Speaker 2: versus Ole Miss on. who the real racist is, right?
25:18
Speaker 2: It's the Spider-Man meme, right? Everybody's sitting here pointing at
25:21
Speaker 2: each other in this way. And by the way, the
25:24
Speaker 2: argument that LSU has on its side in recruiting is
25:27
Speaker 2: actually bored of racism, which is the big school full
25:29
Speaker 2: of black people on the other side of 110, right?
25:32
Speaker 2: Like it's all weirdo Southern back and forth stuff as
25:36
Speaker 2: it goes. But Ole Miss, I think, They got to
25:40
Speaker 2: look at it this way, too, that in the pay
25:41
Speaker 2: for play era, this helps them overcome the past more
25:45
Speaker 2: than anything ever did.
25:46
Speaker 1: Because now we're just talking about cold, hard cash. That's
25:48
Speaker 1: all it is. Yeah. Because in application, you're.
25:51
Speaker 2: Probably going to a school that's going to feel racist
25:54
Speaker 2: at points, no matter where you go.
25:56
Speaker 1: Any of these schools, let alone the SEC. Right. But
25:59
Speaker 1: just about any of them. But LSU's advantage had always been.
26:02
Speaker 2: A school with a whole bunch of football players. who
26:06
Speaker 2: all go to LSU when the time has come, right?
26:09
Speaker 2: If they don't go to LSU, it's typically because LSU
26:12
Speaker 2: did not want them. But the University of Mississippi have
26:15
Speaker 2: been better than them, clearly, for the last couple of years.
26:18
Speaker 2: And it raised the question, how much better in this
26:21
Speaker 2: day and age is the LSU job really? I don't
26:26
Speaker 2: have the answer. I still think the LSU job is better,
26:28
Speaker 2: but how much better? I think you've got more insight in.
26:31
Speaker 2: if it's better at all to you.
26:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I'm going to start my response by agreement
26:34
Speaker 1: and say, I don't know exactly. And I, and I think,
26:36
Speaker 1: I think it would be ridiculously disingenuous for anybody to
26:41
Speaker 1: try and grade some of these jobs right now. Yeah.
26:43
Speaker 1: The reality is that we are taking 80 years of
26:46
Speaker 1: history of one sport, and then we're cramming three years
26:48
Speaker 1: of context to a new landscape and trying to make
26:51
Speaker 1: these things work together. They're not going to. Usually if
26:56
Speaker 1: you have a larger state population, You have a larger
27:02
Speaker 1: state university with more enrollment. Admission standards are fair. And
27:07
Speaker 1: what I mean, I mean that from a football player sense.
27:09
Speaker 1: I'm not going to dress that up. It's easier to
27:12
Speaker 1: get into LSU than it is to get into Texas
27:14
Speaker 1: or Virginia or North Carolina, right? So if you have
27:17
Speaker 1: those headwinds, you have a state full of football fans
27:20
Speaker 1: and a traditional football footprint, then if the numbers are
27:25
Speaker 1: higher in column A than they are in column B,
27:27
Speaker 1: then you go with column A. But what has upended
27:30
Speaker 1: the sport is the success of Indiana, the ascension of
27:34
Speaker 1: a program like Ole Miss, the concept, even two years ago,
27:37
Speaker 1: look at a program, look at, look at Illinois, look
27:39
Speaker 1: at South Carolina, right? We're seeing this. Even Miami's return.
27:44
Speaker 1: Miami should not have ever returned by the standards of
27:48
Speaker 1: the Saban era of college football, right? They had not,
27:51
Speaker 1: they had nothing to offer that the champions of those
27:54
Speaker 1: eras could. And what you're seeing at Alabama right now
27:57
Speaker 1: is I think just a, I'm not joking, Bo. They're
28:01
Speaker 1: bordering on existential crisis because none of the parameters that
28:05
Speaker 1: built the Saban standard are even applicable to the modern game.
28:09
Speaker 1: I said this this morning on my Yahoo show, and
28:12
Speaker 1: Andy Staples, my co-host, he was like, oh, God. I
28:16
Speaker 1: don't know if Saban's like a 10-game winner if he's
28:19
Speaker 1: coaching right now because none of what they did and
28:21
Speaker 1: the way they built their depth and the style of
28:23
Speaker 1: football they played by hoarding talent It's closer to the
28:27
Speaker 1: 1960s than it is to 2023. Okay? So to answer
28:32
Speaker 1: your question, for the history of the sport, since the
28:38
Speaker 1: SEC was fully desegregated, the answer should be LSU. And
28:45
Speaker 1: I think right now, gun to my head, May of 2026,
28:48
Speaker 1: the answer is still LSU. But I do think the
28:51
Speaker 1: margin has decreased. And it's decreased noticeably. at some of
28:56
Speaker 1: these schools. That I think is the answer. Now, how
29:00
Speaker 1: this plays out and what the ROI is on Lane
29:03
Speaker 1: is going to be hard to measure because they're paying
29:05
Speaker 1: him a King's ransom in salary. But it's really just
29:08
Speaker 1: going to come down to how well can they fund
29:11
Speaker 1: and manage that NIL apparatus. And I want to be clear,
29:14
Speaker 1: one more thing. It's not just about the money y'all
29:16
Speaker 1: throw in. It's not about, hey, we got $ 80 million
29:19
Speaker 1: and this team's got $ 40 million because I keep saying
29:21
Speaker 1: this and people don't believe me. Indiana, that's not the
29:25
Speaker 1: biggest payroll in college football. It wasn't close. They are
29:30
Speaker 1: paying their kids well, and they are doing a good
29:32
Speaker 1: job of it. But I am telling you for a fact,
29:34
Speaker 1: you can't look if you could throw money at a
29:36
Speaker 1: problem and win in college football we'd be talking about
29:39
Speaker 1: texas a & m' s 15th national title and they ain't
29:41
Speaker 1: got none all right.
29:44
Speaker 2: Yeah like the to me in the old paradigm lsu
29:50
Speaker 2: should have been the best job in america yes right
29:53
Speaker 2: top five yeah Yeah, well, I used to say Texas
29:57
Speaker 2: was the best job, but the part that I misunderstood
29:59
Speaker 2: about Texas for all those years was Texas is only
30:02
Speaker 2: close to Texas. Like, it's really difficult to go get somebody,
30:06
Speaker 2: even from, call it Baton Rouge or whatever, to go
30:08
Speaker 2: to Austin.
30:09
Speaker 1: That's a really long drive, right?
30:11
Speaker 2: Like, the nature of it, and there are all these
30:13
Speaker 2: other schools in the area or whatever. You got to
30:15
Speaker 2: fight with OU in the north of all of these things.
30:17
Speaker 2: LSU has a great, and I think Georgia was also
30:21
Speaker 2: on this list, right? Like Georgia and LSU, I think
30:23
Speaker 2: are right next to each other because they have proximity
30:25
Speaker 2: to talent, not just in their own state, but also regionally.
30:28
Speaker 2: And then a big enough name that when you really
30:30
Speaker 2: needed to, you could go out nationally and you could
30:33
Speaker 2: get somebody in.
30:34
Speaker 1: And for LSU and.
30:35
Speaker 2: Georgia for the longest time, you could just say anybody
30:37
Speaker 2: from our state we want. Ohio State was in a
30:40
Speaker 2: very similar situation. If they're around here, we can go
30:42
Speaker 2: ahead and we can get them. But now that money
30:45
Speaker 2: is involved, and like you said, the big thing is,
30:47
Speaker 2: It's the second level of the depth chart that doesn't
30:50
Speaker 2: look like it used to for the powers.
30:52
Speaker 1: It's not possible. Yeah, you can't do that sort of
30:55
Speaker 1: stuff anymore.
30:56
Speaker 2: So now that you can't do that and it then
31:00
Speaker 2: becomes about the money, what also becomes really important to
31:03
Speaker 2: me is how good a coach your coach actually is.
31:06
Speaker 1: So like in basketball, where you could just roll the
31:08
Speaker 1: ball out there and make it happen. Yeah.
31:11
Speaker 2: Running counter to what I'm saying is that Mario Cristobal
31:13
Speaker 2: got to a national championship game. So maybe you can
31:16
Speaker 2: roll the ball out here and make it happen. But
31:19
Speaker 2: the value of the coach, to me, should actually get
31:21
Speaker 2: a little bit higher, though less as the acquirer of
31:24
Speaker 2: talent than the person who actually maximized.
31:27
Speaker 1: The problem compounding all of this is that we are
31:29
Speaker 1: trying to logically pick apart a value set. What we're
31:32
Speaker 1: trying to do is ascribe value to the different categories. Coaching,
31:37
Speaker 1: university capacity, NIL. roster construction and players college football has
31:44
Speaker 1: a disease, especially in the South. And that is that
31:47
Speaker 1: they are addicted to statues. They w they want to
31:49
Speaker 1: take coaches and they want to burnish their myth into
31:52
Speaker 1: something that's bigger than life. How this is born out
31:56
Speaker 1: should go without explanation, but just in case you're new here,
32:00
Speaker 1: there is the statue built statue building culture is it's
32:04
Speaker 1: based on building icons out of the white man in charge.
32:08
Speaker 1: It always has been. You could say it's less or
32:11
Speaker 1: more about race depending on how you want to frame it.
32:13
Speaker 1: That's fine. But look, there's no statues of players in Tuscaloosa. None.
32:20
Speaker 1: Think about all the players off the top of your
32:22
Speaker 1: head that you can that are in the NFL just
32:24
Speaker 1: right now. Just the last 10 years.
32:26
Speaker 2: And it's funny because by comparison, they got a statue
32:28
Speaker 2: of all three Selman brothers at Oklahoma.
32:34
Speaker 1: Afflicted as an Atlanta fan I am, Quintores Lopez Jones is,
32:38
Speaker 1: to me, the greatest physical wide receiver I've ever seen
32:40
Speaker 1: in my life. No statue in Tuscaloosa.
32:42
Speaker 2: None.
32:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. But his coach has a statue. Yeah. And the
32:45
Speaker 1: coach for him has a statue. So I'm not picking here.
32:50
Speaker 1: I'm trying to explain that there's going to be a
32:53
Speaker 1: serious and brutal detox amongst those who write checks that
32:58
Speaker 1: make things happen to understand that dumping money at the
33:02
Speaker 1: feet of one man who never tackles, who never throws
33:05
Speaker 1: the ball, to fix the problem and become the standard
33:10
Speaker 1: is no longer applicable. It will not yield you success.
33:13
Speaker 1: I need everyone listening or watching to understand there is
33:17
Speaker 1: a reason Nick Saban stepped down as quickly and as
33:23
Speaker 1: vehemently as he did. He knew immediately that the jig
33:27
Speaker 1: was up. Immediately, okay? The first second after they lost
33:32
Speaker 1: to Michigan in the Rose Bowl, And some of his
33:35
Speaker 1: players matriculated in and so wanted to start talking about
33:37
Speaker 1: their deals. Okay, Scooby-Doo villain time. That mask came off.
33:42
Speaker 1: I gotta go, right? I'm out. Because I can't bully.
33:46
Speaker 1: I can't stockpile. All right? And I can't suck out
33:50
Speaker 1: the resources from the surrounding areas. You know, what made
33:53
Speaker 1: Alabama a behemoth under Nick Saban was the city of
33:55
Speaker 1: Atlanta and the state of Florida. But you can't do
33:58
Speaker 1: that anymore because you can't have... Bo, I'm not kidding. Alabama,
34:02
Speaker 1: towards the end, didn't cheat. I'm kind of like the
34:05
Speaker 1: expert at this throughout my career on bag men. They
34:09
Speaker 1: really didn't cheat that much towards the end of the
34:11
Speaker 1: Saban era. You know why? They have to. They would
34:14
Speaker 1: do this. They would walk in with a piece of paper,
34:17
Speaker 1: and they would lay it down on the table. What
34:19
Speaker 1: position do you play? Right guard? Okay. What position do
34:22
Speaker 1: you play? Outside linebacker? What are you, a nickel? Great. One, two, three, four, five,
34:27
Speaker 1: six guys who have played that position. are in the
34:30
Speaker 1: league right now. Of those six guys, maybe three are
34:34
Speaker 1: on their second contract. There was nothing else that could
34:39
Speaker 1: supersede that. I don't care if Ole Miss or Auburn
34:42
Speaker 1: or somebody else had a bag of cash in a
34:44
Speaker 1: parking lot. That was the clearest path to becoming a millionaire,
34:49
Speaker 1: to becoming successful. a person who could actually receive and
34:53
Speaker 1: distribute life-changing wealth to their family. And now you can
34:57
Speaker 1: receive life-changing wealth for your family your junior year. Dante
35:01
Speaker 1: Moore stayed at Oregon instead of going to the Jets.
35:04
Speaker 1: Full stop. Right. Trinidad Chambliss went back to Ole Miss. Yeah,
35:08
Speaker 1: because it's a much better financial move. So now we
35:11
Speaker 1: go back to talking about Ole Miss. We talk about LSU.
35:13
Speaker 1: I don't care where the school is. If you organize
35:15
Speaker 1: the money well, hey, man, there are no D-tackles in Oregon. Bro,
35:20
Speaker 1: there ain't nobody fucking... I'm sorry, there's just like high
35:23
Speaker 1: school football and Eugene? Are you kidding me?
35:26
Speaker 2: That year they played against Auburn in the national championship game.
35:28
Speaker 2: One of their starting defensive tackles was 255 pounds.
35:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. And now they're cherry picking the same guys that
35:35
Speaker 1: Georgia is. They're cherry... Dan Lanning is not doing anything
35:38
Speaker 1: that Kirby Smart is not. So now it's about an
35:42
Speaker 1: arms race and who can best utilize the infrastructure. But
35:44
Speaker 1: when I say these things, the default setting... for college
35:48
Speaker 1: football fans especially in the south and midwest who are
35:51
Speaker 1: predominantly still white middle or upper class is to default
35:55
Speaker 1: to the idea of we got it we need the
35:57
Speaker 1: right coach we need the right coach but what if
36:00
Speaker 1: you don't what i mean i'm serious what if you
36:02
Speaker 1: don't i am not i'm not nba versed i i
36:06
Speaker 1: i never covered the nba in my career but i
36:09
Speaker 1: know this when you're building a championship dude so i'm
36:11
Speaker 1: a hawks fan how much am i putting on quinn
36:14
Speaker 1: snyder to make this run right now right How much
36:17
Speaker 1: am I putting on Quinn Snyder? How much am I
36:19
Speaker 1: putting on Jalen on the floor? Right. That's if that
36:23
Speaker 1: mentality were to bleed over into this sport, I think
36:26
Speaker 1: the culture of college football would change tremendously in a
36:29
Speaker 1: way that a lot of people don't want to for,
36:31
Speaker 1: you know, reasons.
36:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it's interesting because Cignetti just got a gazillion
36:35
Speaker 2: dollars that seems to be very well earned because the
36:37
Speaker 2: idea of Indiana's national champion and it's a bunch of
36:40
Speaker 2: his guys.
36:41
Speaker 1: Right. And, you know, it was and like you said,
36:43
Speaker 1: they weren't.
36:44
Speaker 2: I'm sure that Michigan was spending more money on players
36:47
Speaker 2: than Indiana was. Yet Indiana had what was clearly the
36:49
Speaker 2: best team in the Big Ten. So I'm still at
36:52
Speaker 2: this point inclined to believe that it matters somewhat. The
36:56
Speaker 2: guy obviously that needs to be shaking in his fucking
36:58
Speaker 2: boots is Ryan Day. Because now it is officially like, dude,
37:01
Speaker 2: we literally can get anybody to do this stuff.
37:04
Speaker 1: Anybody in the world. I would say him. I would
37:06
Speaker 1: say Cristobal. And then contextually, I would say because of
37:10
Speaker 1: what's going on in Austin, I would say Sark is
37:13
Speaker 1: in a very interesting situation. Yes. Oh, this is the year. Buddy,
37:18
Speaker 1: if it ain't, your ass is out. In fact, I'll
37:20
Speaker 1: go one further, and I guess this would be newsmaking
37:23
Speaker 1: of some degree, having covered the sport for a long time.
37:26
Speaker 1: Will Muschamp coming over is very interesting to me. Will
37:29
Speaker 1: Muschamp had a catbird ideal retirement gig, right? So he's
37:33
Speaker 1: got one son playing for Vanderbilt. He's with his buddy Kirby.
37:37
Speaker 1: He works whenever he wants to. He's in an ideal
37:39
Speaker 1: situation at his alma mater. There's no pressure on him
37:42
Speaker 1: whatsoever at Georgia. He is going over to Texas this year,
37:45
Speaker 1: I think, because there's enough Palace intrigue to where this
37:49
Speaker 1: is kind of a thing that smart ADs do. If
37:51
Speaker 1: they can smell even the slightest bit of blood going
37:54
Speaker 1: into a season with expectations, they need to know where
37:57
Speaker 1: that interim is going to be. There is a ton
38:00
Speaker 1: of pressure on Steve Sarkeesian right now. Massive amount. At
38:03
Speaker 1: least Ryan Day has the hardware. Yeah. That might buy him,
38:08
Speaker 1: if you're comparing the two, that might buy him a
38:11
Speaker 1: little bit more time. Yeah. And is it?
38:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. Because the Ohio State is interesting because the fans
38:17
Speaker 2: firmly believe that is the machine that does this, but
38:19
Speaker 2: not the coach, which is a fair point. I will
38:22
Speaker 2: just simply note that every coach that has ever done
38:24
Speaker 2: it as Ohio State is in the Hall of Fame.
38:27
Speaker 2: And the guys that have not done it are not
38:29
Speaker 2: Earl Bruce, not in the Hall of Fame. John Cooper,
38:31
Speaker 2: not going to anybody's Hall of Fame. All the other guys,
38:34
Speaker 2: if you to make it work, it does seem to
38:36
Speaker 2: be a Hall of Fame job that we all think
38:38
Speaker 2: that we could make the Hall of Fame.
38:39
Speaker 1: If we manage to get it. Sure. Texas is an interesting.
38:42
Speaker 2: Job because it's, I mean, one guy has maxed it
38:47
Speaker 2: out ever.
38:47
Speaker 1: And Mack did not max it out.
38:49
Speaker 2: Mack got to the mountaintop that one time, but Mack
38:51
Speaker 2: did not max this job out. And Royal, I would argue,
38:54
Speaker 2: I think they won those championships in like 61 and 63,
38:57
Speaker 2: but the big thing was, and it's impossible to explain
38:59
Speaker 2: this to people, they broke out the wishbones for the
39:02
Speaker 2: first time in the middle of a season, and they
39:04
Speaker 2: won 30 games in a row. It was it was
39:07
Speaker 2: like the first iPhone. Nobody had ever seen it before.
39:10
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, if the.
39:11
Speaker 1: Air raid had been dropped in like between between play
39:15
Speaker 1: sets like, yeah. Yes. And given to a legitimate power.
39:19
Speaker 2: Yes.
39:19
Speaker 1: When they did it. Yeah. But nobody has maxed it
39:22
Speaker 1: out since.
39:22
Speaker 2: And everybody has been like, you know, there's really no
39:24
Speaker 2: excuse for this thing not being maxed out. Now, the
39:26
Speaker 2: excuse that they have for much of the time, very
39:29
Speaker 2: similar to the Ole Miss excuse. You said a tweet
39:30
Speaker 2: about this once. Ole Miss looks at Alabama is like,
39:33
Speaker 2: how come we're not as good as you? The same
39:35
Speaker 2: way Texas looks at Oklahoma says, how come we're not
39:37
Speaker 2: as good as you? And the answer is your own racism.
39:40
Speaker 2: It's done you in for a very, very, very long time.
39:42
Speaker 2: In fact, in 2020, when the world was trying to
39:44
Speaker 2: change everything, Texas is like them boys going to put
39:46
Speaker 2: their toes on the line and sing our racism carol.
39:50
Speaker 1: That's what they're going to do. Yes, they are. So
39:53
Speaker 1: let's back up for a second. Let's talk about LSU
39:55
Speaker 1: and Ole Miss for a second. Why do we have
39:58
Speaker 1: all of those numbers in column A that says LSU
40:02
Speaker 1: is a better job? It's because of state population. It's
40:04
Speaker 1: because of the state economy. It's because the amount of
40:07
Speaker 1: disposable income available for a particular NIL donor, like all
40:10
Speaker 1: of these numbers add up for a reason. So now
40:13
Speaker 1: let's talk about the state of Alabama and the state
40:15
Speaker 1: of Georgia and the state of Mississippi. They all sit
40:16
Speaker 1: next to each other, right? Okay. One of those states
40:20
Speaker 1: had a capital city that aggressively, and I'm not saying perfectly.
40:25
Speaker 1: But I'm saying aggressively endeavor to better their racial dynamic
40:28
Speaker 1: to welcome not only– this wasn't– by the way, none
40:31
Speaker 1: of this is altruism. I want to be really clear here.
40:33
Speaker 1: I'm not sitting here talking as a cookie-cutter white liberal.
40:37
Speaker 1: This is about making money. But this is ultimately what
40:39
Speaker 1: we're talking about as well when it comes to football.
40:41
Speaker 1: It's about money. So the state of Georgia and the
40:43
Speaker 1: city of Atlanta 30, 40, 50 years ago said, you
40:48
Speaker 1: know what? You know what's more profitable than holding on
40:52
Speaker 1: to the old ways? And fighting the good fight against
40:55
Speaker 1: the minorities, making some money, right? So the city and
41:00
Speaker 1: state government for a time with Atlanta and Georgia locked
41:03
Speaker 1: arms and said, hey, every European business, you know what
41:05
Speaker 1: we are? Air travels the future. We're going to be
41:08
Speaker 1: the way station for the world. We're going to bring
41:10
Speaker 1: in all these German and Dutch and English businesses. We
41:13
Speaker 1: already have every interstate in America and every train yard
41:15
Speaker 1: that comes through here. Guess what that trickles down to, Bo?
41:19
Speaker 1: In 2026, the University of Georgia is damn near a
41:21
Speaker 1: professional football team for that reason, because they have the
41:24
Speaker 1: city of Atlanta, that population, and specifically that urban population,
41:29
Speaker 1: as we say in white circles, in case we're worried
41:31
Speaker 1: about someone maybe overhearing it. It's an urban population that
41:35
Speaker 1: creates football players, okay? So why does Mississippi not have
41:39
Speaker 1: any of that? Because they didn't do any of that 40, 50,
41:43
Speaker 1: 60 years ago. So if you just look at Ole
41:46
Speaker 1: Miss and LSU, Louisiana is not a racially harmonious institution
41:54
Speaker 1: by any stretch, right? New Orleans has its problems. Baton
41:56
Speaker 1: Rouge has its problems. But Mississippi stands alone as the
42:02
Speaker 1: forefront example of staring at progress, Staring at progress with
42:06
Speaker 1: all its potential financially. I'm not talking about anything other
42:09
Speaker 1: than financial for a second. Okay. I'm not doing that
42:11
Speaker 1: Pollyanna shit and saying, guess what? And then they pull
42:15
Speaker 1: out a gun and shoot themselves in the foot twice over,
42:17
Speaker 1: twice over. So to go all the way back around,
42:20
Speaker 1: Kiffin ultimately made a financial decision. LSU is paying him more.
42:24
Speaker 1: They're promising more in NIL. The reason they're doing that
42:27
Speaker 1: is because there are fewer people and fewer millionaires in Mississippi.
42:31
Speaker 1: And then when we ask ourselves why, We got to
42:33
Speaker 1: start talking about things that we don't like to talk about.
42:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Mississippi used to have the most millionaires per
42:39
Speaker 2: capita in America, but that was back when the industry
42:43
Speaker 2: was configured a little differently. You make a great point
42:45
Speaker 2: about Atlanta because it's something that I hadn't really thought
42:48
Speaker 2: about until this moment as you said it, but just
42:51
Speaker 2: about every city in that main drag of the South
42:54
Speaker 2: has tried to, every state in that main drag of
42:56
Speaker 2: the South has tried to choke out its major city.
42:59
Speaker 2: Louisiana has historically tried to choke out New Orleans. Tennessee
43:01
Speaker 2: has done it with Memphis. Alabama has done that with Birmingham.
43:04
Speaker 2: It is criminal what Mississippi does with Jackson. Atlanta is
43:08
Speaker 2: the only one where the state did not decide to
43:10
Speaker 2: kill it. There are some very interesting trades in order
43:13
Speaker 2: to make it work that way, but they did not
43:15
Speaker 2: decide to kill it.
43:16
Speaker 1: And look at what the results were. Yeah. And when
43:18
Speaker 1: you have some billionaire business come from out of town,
43:21
Speaker 1: they have to have a city for the infrastructure. This
43:23
Speaker 1: is like, I feel like we're now in a sociology class,
43:25
Speaker 1: but all of this fact, the reason I work in football,
43:28
Speaker 1: the reason why I work in college football specifically is
43:29
Speaker 1: I can tell you any story in the world. with
43:31
Speaker 1: college football. You may not want to hear it, and
43:34
Speaker 1: I may have to dress it up a lot more
43:36
Speaker 1: football for you to get the medicine down, but we
43:38
Speaker 1: can sit here and talk about the economic destruction of
43:42
Speaker 1: the South, the advancement of a place like Atlanta. It
43:44
Speaker 1: all factors into football. That's why the SEC championship's in
43:48
Speaker 1: one city and it's not in another. Birmingham's a great example.
43:50
Speaker 1: If anything, Alabama's football success stands in contrast to the economic, social,
43:56
Speaker 1: and racial development of the state of Alabama. It almost
43:59
Speaker 1: is impossible at times to rectify.
44:02
Speaker 2: I'll ask you this before we get out of here.
44:04
Speaker 2: Do you have any plans to be in Oxford? I
44:06
Speaker 2: believe it is the third weekend in September. when lane
44:08
Speaker 2: is going to make his return. Cause I'm, I'm kind
44:11
Speaker 2: of tempted. I kind of always want to see what
44:13
Speaker 2: it's going to be all bags.
44:14
Speaker 1: They are hot.
44:15
Speaker 2: They are salty down there. Even Trinidad Chambers, who was
44:18
Speaker 2: not salty. I asked him when the game was, he
44:20
Speaker 2: knew the date and he sucked his lip. What he said,
44:22
Speaker 2: he was ready for a rock for that one.
44:25
Speaker 1: No, I got a 4k television. Look, I am. I
44:27
Speaker 1: am an Ole Miss expat. I have logged my time
44:29
Speaker 1: and I want nothing to do with that. I'm married
44:31
Speaker 1: into an LSU family. I'm more than aware of the
44:34
Speaker 1: circumstances and all that. I'm sure I'll be writing and,
44:37
Speaker 1: podcasting off of it. But as of this moment, no,
44:40
Speaker 1: no one has put an amount of money in front
44:42
Speaker 1: of me that's going to make me go deal with
44:43
Speaker 1: that nonsense. I'll tell you this about LSU.
44:45
Speaker 2: You mentioned this in marrying into the family, and I
44:47
Speaker 2: do think they do a good job of this in
44:49
Speaker 2: their public presentation. They have married in, like, Just enough
44:55
Speaker 2: elements of kind of HBCU football culture all the way
44:58
Speaker 2: down to play and talking outside of your neck and
45:00
Speaker 2: everything else. And you get the white lady at the
45:02
Speaker 2: White House dancing to get to get and all of
45:04
Speaker 2: that stuff. And that combined with the South Louisiana accent,
45:08
Speaker 2: they do project the image of being.
45:11
Speaker 1: Cooler whites than the others. Like, you know, it's very
45:14
Speaker 1: particular way. It's not it's not white. I mean, I'm
45:19
Speaker 1: going to be very careful how I say this because
45:22
Speaker 1: I married a white woman from Louisiana who has Cajun heritage.
45:26
Speaker 1: It's not Southern white. It's not. It's not WASP. I'm
45:28
Speaker 1: just telling you. So I was born a WASP, a
45:30
Speaker 1: white Anglo-Saxon Protestant from the South. It is not. And
45:34
Speaker 1: amongst whites, they will talk about this. It is something else,
45:38
Speaker 1: slightly off. Now, when it comes time, of course, in
45:40
Speaker 1: a moment of reckoning, you know how that designation is
45:42
Speaker 1: going to fall. I'm not trying to push that. But
45:46
Speaker 1: it is not... the planter class of Mississippi or, you know, the,
45:51
Speaker 1: the cracker, the sort of cracker genetics of, of where
45:54
Speaker 1: I'm from in Georgia, it is not the same kind
45:57
Speaker 1: of white person. Just like I may, I would maybe
45:59
Speaker 1: an advance that further on the other side of the spectrum.
46:01
Speaker 1: If you go to East Tennessee or you go to Kentucky,
46:04
Speaker 1: that also is a completely different culture by the way.
46:07
Speaker 1: And by the way, as far as I'm concerned, if
46:09
Speaker 1: I'm on the committee, still scariest white folks in the world.
46:12
Speaker 2: Oh, buddy, I've made that Eastern Tennessee drive, that I-64 across.
46:16
Speaker 2: That is Southern Indiana and Eastern Kentucky are the only
46:19
Speaker 2: two places where I was like, I need to hurry
46:21
Speaker 2: up and get back in the car.
46:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, if anybody thinks all this
46:24
Speaker 1: is some sort of racial reckoning for the SEC, Indiana
46:26
Speaker 1: just won the national title. I don't know how much
46:28
Speaker 1: time people have spent in Indiana, but let's not kid ourselves, okay?
46:32
Speaker 2: No, no, that's where, and this is a longer discussion
46:36
Speaker 2: for another day, But I understand the arguments that people
46:39
Speaker 2: make about, well, what if these boys from the South
46:41
Speaker 2: stop going to SEC schools in protest of the redistricting
46:46
Speaker 2: things that we've seen? And it's like, you mean and
46:48
Speaker 2: go to these other places that would do the exact
46:50
Speaker 2: same thing if they had these if they had those dynamics?
46:53
Speaker 2: I mean, I get your point. I'm just telling you,
46:55
Speaker 2: you're going to another. The only reason Colorado is not
46:58
Speaker 2: Mississippi is Colorado is not 37 percent black. If it was,
47:02
Speaker 2: Colorado would be Mississippi.
47:04
Speaker 1: Just letting you guys know. And that's the weird dynamic
47:06
Speaker 1: that happens in white circles where you get talked down
47:09
Speaker 1: to by white liberals from like Connecticut suburbs. And you
47:14
Speaker 1: kind of have to walk a line if you're on
47:17
Speaker 1: my side of the fence as a white where you're like, hey, look,
47:19
Speaker 1: I appreciate what you're saying. You also have absolutely no
47:21
Speaker 1: context for what it's like to grow up in a
47:23
Speaker 1: multiracial environment because everything was brought to you as a
47:26
Speaker 1: documentary or a textbook. The actual dynamic is very, very different.
47:30
Speaker 1: Very different. It reminds me of, I think it was
47:33
Speaker 1: you that I had this conversation with when Jamel Hill
47:36
Speaker 1: was advocating for the boycott of these programs and that
47:40
Speaker 1: for all these NFL players or future NFL talent to
47:43
Speaker 1: go to the HBCUs. Again, the only template I can
47:47
Speaker 1: use here, the only thing I can reduce this to,
47:49
Speaker 1: the only metric that matters because it's the only thing
47:51
Speaker 1: that will actually affect change is money. And I'm not
47:54
Speaker 1: saying that because I don't have a soul. I'm saying
47:55
Speaker 1: that because I know I am incredibly critical of the
47:58
Speaker 1: ruling class and I know what's going to happen. I
48:00
Speaker 1: don't understand that boycott. And somebody on social media keeps
48:03
Speaker 1: hitting me up about, I know what you're talking about
48:06
Speaker 1: is the same as her proposition that everyone should go.
48:08
Speaker 1: Like all of a sudden these five-star wide receivers should
48:10
Speaker 1: start playing for Grambling or Valley. Why are we making
48:14
Speaker 1: this labor class take the hit? Yes. Like financially, why
48:20
Speaker 1: is a five-star receiver denying himself the ability to iron
48:24
Speaker 1: sharpens iron, et cetera, play in the big two conferences
48:26
Speaker 1: and then go to the NFL? Why should he assume
48:29
Speaker 1: that financial burden? And so it's the same thing right now.
48:34
Speaker 1: To take it all the way home for Ole Miss,
48:36
Speaker 1: if you're a black player right now and you're considering
48:39
Speaker 1: Ole Miss versus X other SEC school, make sure the
48:42
Speaker 1: money's right. That's it. And then make sure your NFL
48:45
Speaker 1: path is straight.
48:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, the point I made about the HBCU thing was
48:49
Speaker 2: my favorite college football example to tell you everything you
48:51
Speaker 2: need to know about how shit works. When the state
48:53
Speaker 2: of Alabama or the University of Alabama system would not
48:56
Speaker 2: allow Jimbo Fisher. take that job at uab in 2007
49:00
Speaker 2: some think it's because they wanted him to be savings
49:03
Speaker 2: offensive coordinator some think it's because that search at the
49:06
Speaker 2: time was going so poorly that they were afraid that
49:08
Speaker 2: uab would have a better coach than alabama and they
49:10
Speaker 2: could not that was before saving was a hail mary
49:13
Speaker 2: hire people don't remember that it wasn't supposed to go
49:15
Speaker 2: that way rich rodriguez was supposed to be the guy
49:16
Speaker 2: to take that job but anyway i say all that
49:18
Speaker 2: to say if the state stepped up to stop uab
49:23
Speaker 2: from getting jimbo fisher i don't know what you think
49:27
Speaker 2: they were going to do to stop alabama state.
49:30
Speaker 1: Well uh i i can i bet your producer's laughing
49:32
Speaker 1: right now because right before we started i told him
49:36
Speaker 1: that is the perfect segue for me to come back
49:37
Speaker 1: on the show in about two months because I may
49:40
Speaker 1: or may not have a miniseries cooking thing on that
49:43
Speaker 1: exact story. So that was, that was perfect. I appreciate
49:46
Speaker 1: the serendipity there, but yes, I'll be back very soon
49:48
Speaker 1: to talk a lot about UAB.
49:50
Speaker 2: Hey, that is Steven Godfrey. I didn't rattle off all
49:53
Speaker 2: the places you could find him at the start. You
49:55
Speaker 2: can find him at Yahoo. Which podcast are you doing now?
49:58
Speaker 2: Cause I know you got like three of them. Yes.
50:00
Speaker 1: Uh, Yahoo college football inquires where I appear weekly phantom Island,
50:03
Speaker 1: myself and Ryan Nanny phantom Island dot show. And I
50:06
Speaker 1: got a bunch of mini series coming out this summer. Uh,
50:08
Speaker 1: I will be back to, to bug you guys to
50:10
Speaker 1: go listen to him, but I appreciate the time though.
50:12
Speaker 2: Amen.
50:12
Speaker 1: Appreciate you.
50:13
Speaker 2: And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us
50:14
Speaker 2: here on The Right Time. We do this four days
50:17
Speaker 2: a week. Ryan Brumley handing everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. BomaniJonesLive.com.
50:22
Speaker 1: Check us out.
50:23
Speaker 2: Live show May 15th in Atlanta. Hit the voicemail line 323-596-7767. Remember,
50:30
Speaker 2: follow The Right Time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us,
50:33
Speaker 2: give us five stars. You only give us four stars.
50:35
Speaker 2: I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk
50:37
Speaker 2: to you guys in a couple of days.
50:39
Speaker 1: Take it easy. Thank you.