Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode Two Hundred Seventy

Transcript

Episode Two Hundred Seventy · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and seventy of the Death
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm your
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: host on today's show. The Lane Kiffin story explodes nationally
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and exposes so much about what is wrong with college
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: football and humanity. We have an adjustment in our AI
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: fear factor, rating why President Trump may have really picked JD.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Vance as his vice president, and a review of Ken
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Burns's PBS documentary on the American Revolution. Now, Normally, as
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: you know by now, I don't start an episode of
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: this podcast with anything related to sports unless something really
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: extraordinary has happened. Normally, I saved the sports stories for
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: the back end of the podcast. But I'm going to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: shift that strategy this week, and I think for good reason, because,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: without a doubt, the story that has broken through nationally
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is the Laane kid story. And it's a story that
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of passionate about, and I think
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I have some expertise regarding and some opinions that are
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: fairly unique and important, and they don't really have that
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: much to do with sports. See, I very very very
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: rarely ever talk about a sports story purely from the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: sports perspective, and I think this Lane Kiffin saga is
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: a really good example of that. It's going to seem
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: like it's a sports story, but it's really much larger
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and much more interesting than that. And the Lane kiffn
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: story broke through in the last week in a way
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: that was way bigger and more interesting and more telling
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: about the nature of our society and humanity than a
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: normal sports story. Now, the basic facts of this story
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: are so bizarre that if you made this story up,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: no one would believe you, even in this incredibly strange
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: time in which we live. In fact, some of the
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: details of the story are being weirdly ignored by the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: national news media and by a lot of the conversation
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: about what happened with Lane Kiffen on social media. Maybe
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: it's because the story is so big. I always have
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a rule that the biggest story is the more elements
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of it are going to be missed by either social
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: media or the legacy media, and that's clearly been the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: case here. But here are the basic facts in case
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: somehow you have missed it. So Lane Kiffin has been
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: a very controversial coach, mostly in college for really the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: last twenty years. Had a very short stint as the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: head coach of the then Oakland Raiders. But he's been
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a college coach, mostly in the Southeastern Conference. He's been
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: bounced around a lot. He's a good looking guy, he's funny,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: he's got a huge social media platform. The media loves him.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: He's very, very good for the media because he's interesting
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and controversial. In an age where you don't have many
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: college coaches left that are household names, Lanekiffen really might
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: be the last of the Mohicans, at least among people
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: who have never won anything. That's what's maybe most amazing
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: about this Lane Kiffin story. He's never even been to
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a major conference championship, never come close to winning a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: national championship. But we live in a world where potential
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: is more important than achievement. That's one of the first
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: things you're gonna learn about what we get from this story,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: is it Lane Kiffen proves that potential is way more
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: important in today's society than actual achievement, especially if people
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: really desperately want you to achieve your potential because you
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: were once young, now you're middle aged, good looking, charismatic.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: People generally want that potential to come to fruition and
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: has never really done so with Lane Kiff. In fact,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: he's most well known for having career implosions, and so
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: he's the coach at the University of Mississippi. They've done
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: very well the last few years, and this year they're
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: on the verge of qualifying for the playoffs for the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: first time, the expanded twelve team playoff, which I hate,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: which you'll have more thoughts about later on in this
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast. And the rumor breaks out that
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: he has been offered two different jobs, one at LSU
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and one at Florida, and the one that gets the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: most attention by far is the one at LSU. And
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it now appears in retrospect because we now know a
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: lot more than we did as this whole saga was unfolding,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that Lane Kiffin was always going to go to LSU,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that most, if not all, of what we heard publicly
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: was a ruse, and the part about the LSU situation
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: that has been weirdly just drop from the narrative. I
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: just I'm plumbexed as to why this is, because it
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: has all the elements of something that you would think
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: would be a very good fodder for both legacy and
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: social media conversation is that during this season, Lane Kiffin's
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: beautiful daughter Landry, has been dating one of LSU's best
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: defensive players and bragging about it online. And by the way,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: that player still has eligibility, So it's amazing to me
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that this part of the story has just basically been dropped.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: So Lane Kiffen has now taken a job with LSU
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: where he's gonna be theoretically coaching the guy who's having
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: sex with his daughter, which is just because a dad
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of two young daughters is crazy to begin with. But
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: then you also add in the fact that during this
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: entire saga, his son, not who's a very good high
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: school quarterback, was playing in the state playoffs in Mississippi.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that I despise about how
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin handled this whole deal is that he took
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: all of the attention away from what the University of
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Mississippi football team was doing and all they were achieving,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and placed it very narcissistically on himself. But it wasn't
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: just his own team. This whole thing was going down
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: on the Friday after Thanksgiving, the very day that his
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: son was playing in the state semi finals, as the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: quarterback of the Oxford, Mississippi high school football team. Now
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: had to be a massive distraction, and they ended up
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: losing that state semi final by one point. And knock
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Kiffin really probably had his worst game. I didn't see
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: any highlights, but statistically had his worst game of the season.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: This could not have helped this entire massive distraction. Lane
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Kiffn doesn't seem to give a shit about because he
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: only cares about himself. He's a classic narcissist. But we
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: went through this charade where they were going to play
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the Egg Bowl against their rival Mississippi State. If they win,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: they not only win the rivalry game, but they're effectively
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: into the playoffs. And in the last episode of the podcast,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I told you that my gut was telling me and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the tee leys were saying that Lane Kiffn had to
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: be leaving for LSU. The only reason why he wouldn't
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: be leaving for LSU is if this was some sort
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: of massive troll job, and that because Lane Kiffn is
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: so well known for trolling people on social media, this
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: was at least a theoretical possibility, but I didn't think
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: it was the most likely scenario at all. It seemed
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: very clear he was gone, because if he was going
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to stay, they would have announced that before the rivalry game.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: But it's obvious now, especially in retrospect, all that Mississippi
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: was doing, the Old Miss was doing was trying to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: hold this story off until they beat their rival and
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: they finished their regular season and they qualified for the playoffs.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And part of the proof of this that I was
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: commentating on this on social media as it was happening. Amazingly,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't see any other media commentators put two and
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: two together. But the announcement where he was supposed to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: go was going to come on Saturday, the day after
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the game, but it never came. And the reason I
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: believe is because there was a question as to whether
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: or not Old Miss was gonna make the SEC Championship game.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Because if Auburn upset Alabama, Old Miss would get to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: play in the SEC Championship game this coming weekend. And
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it was my theory and I still believe this to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: be true as of right now, that Lane Kiffen was
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: trying to make the argument to Old Miss, hey, look
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I'm leaving, but you gotta let me coach in the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: SEC Championship game because it's only six days or now, arm,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: could I really cause to your program going forward in
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: six days? The kids deserved this, I deserve this, the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: school deserves this. Whatever. Well, once Alabama hung on and won,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: that was no longer a legitimate issue, and sure enough,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: by Sunday morning, it had been finally announced, very belatedly,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: because I think this was in the works in a
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: done deal for a very long time, that Lane Kiffn
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: was abandoning his team after they have effectively qualified for
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the playoffs and going to coach arrival LSU. And there
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: were so many elements from a media perspective as to
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: how and why this went down that really exposed the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: sports media and ESPN as the total jokes that they
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: really are. The first thing I want to mention is
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that Kirk Herbstreet and effectively Nick Saban, who was lang
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Kiffn's old boss at Alabama. Frankly, without Nick Saban, I
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: don't think this is even a story today because Nick
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Saban took Lane Kiffin off the trash heap and made
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: him an assistant at Alabama. By the way, went through
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: in a remarkably similar situation where Kiffin took another job
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to be a head coach in Florida Atlantic several years ago,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: right before the National Championship game, and Saban essentially said
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: go leave, and Alabama ended up losing that National championship,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and I think by one point. So a lot of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: people believe that if Kiffin hadn't taken that job, Alabama
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: would have won that National championship. But Nick Saban and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Kirk Rbstreet are both on ESPN Game Day and they
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: were both carrying water. This is before the decision was official,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: but I think they knew, they had to know, They
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: had all the contacts to know. They knew that this
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: was going to happen, but by not declaring that it
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was going to happen, they were essentially carrying water for
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffen. But they might even further than that. They
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: were claiming that Lane Kiffen should be allowed to coach
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: at Old Miss after taking a job at LSU, which
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: is just insanity. It's ludicrous, it's absurd, it was embarrassing,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: especially given Nick Saban's history with this happening in the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: past with Kiffin as an assistant, and a lot of
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: people made what I think is a legitimate point. I
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: don't know how much it really impacted what was being
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: said on ESPN. But both Kirk Herbstreet and Nick Saban
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: are apparently represented by the agency CIA, which happens to
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: be the agency that represents Lane Kiffin, and there's all
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: sorts of conflicts of interest in these days. I mean,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you know, friendships are humongous in these situations, and obviously
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: business contacts matter. I have no idea what was influencing
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Herbstreet and Saban's commentary, but in the olden days, conflicts
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of interest like that would at least have been mentioned,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: and ideally people would have been hesitant, if not restricted,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: from making any sort of comment about the situation, especially
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: not a comment that could really impact the reality of
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the situation. Because Kirk Herbstreet is maybe the most prominent
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: college football commentator, and so if he is emphatically saying
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: that Lane Kiffin should be allowed to coach in the playoffs,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: which is insane. It's like having a double agent had
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: your organization and knowingly had your organization during the most
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: important time period of the year. It's absurd. But for
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: ESPN to allow this, and Kirkharbstreet to do this has
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: a major impact on what old miss is able to do.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: It's eroding old missus leverage, because old missus leverage is
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that most people before a Herbstreet or a Nick Saban
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: says otherwise, would understand it's completely ridiculous to allow a
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: guy who just betrayed you and who could cause all
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: sorts of damage to your program to continue coaching you,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: even in the playoffs. So that was an abomination what
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Herbstreet and Saban took part in there. And then we
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: have another situation which I thought was so telling about
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: how broken the news media is in general, in the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: sports media in particular, where we have these high paid,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: high profile guys Herbstreet and Saban carrying water for their
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: friend and effectively a colleague laying Kiffin saying all sorts
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of completely ridiculous things. And then we have an unknown
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: podcaster from Mississippi, a guy by the name of Ben Garrett,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: who had been very critical of Kiffen, essentially calling him
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a hoe, not a whole or a hoe before this
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: whole thing was official, and after the egg ball, Kiffin
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: went up to Garrett, who he's planned he didn't even
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: know his name, but he clearly knew who he was.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: He goes up to Garrett with at least five state
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: troopers surrounding him. Oh, you big, bad, badass, Lane Kiffin,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You're gonna go up to a kid and try to
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: intimidate him with five state troopers surrounding you, and essentially
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: threatened the kid to come into the press conference and
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: call him a hoe, which, to the credit of Ben Garrett,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: he did go into the press conference and did not
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: back down. And of course, the weirdest part of maybe
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the most telling part of that whole situation, was for
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Kiffin in the aftermath of this great victory. They've just
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: won their eleventh game for the first time in school history.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: They've just essentially clinched a playoff for the spot for
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the first time in school history. They beat their rival
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: on their rivals home field. You're leaving the field, you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: in retrospect, Lane Kiffin knew he was leaving the field
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: for the last time as Old Missus coach. And you're
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: so pissed off about what some podcasting kid that no
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: one's ever heard of before said about you that you
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: turn around and threatened him. Anybody with half a brain
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: new at that time, at that moment, there's no chance
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: lay can given his staying at Old Miss, because the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: only reason why that would cause you to be so upset,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: be so pissed off, to get so under your skin
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: is that you knew at some level it was true.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: If not to mention, you would never create that kind
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: of an incident, if you were gonna stay at Old Miss,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: your whole attitude would be completely different. And yet nobody
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: put two and two together because the sports media is
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a bunch of morons and they've all got massive conflicts
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: of interest. But kudos to Ben Garrett. But the only
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: good thing from immediate perspective that occurred in this whole
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: situation was that, you know, this guy all of a
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: sudden became a somebody certainly in Mississippi, if not beyond that,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: but he helped expose what was really going on with
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin. And so, sure enough, after the Iron Bowl
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: between Alabama and Auburn was over and Alabama had secured
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: their spot in the SEC Championship game, meaning that the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: next game that Ole Miss was going to play was
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: in the playoffs, which is several weeks from now, and
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: therefore that's too much time to allow Lane Kiffen to
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: be coaching at two different schools simultaneously with all sorts
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of things happening with regard to recruiting and the transfer portal.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: It was finally made official and lane kiffn put out
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: an absolutely absurd and laughable statement where, among other things,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: he referenced consulting with God. That's right, Lane Kiffin said
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that one of the entities with whom he consulted about
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: whether or not to take the LSU job was God.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And then apparently he went to a high authority and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: ask Nick Saban about the situation. So he goes to God,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: then he goes to Nick Saban. He also invoked his
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: dead father, he invoked Pete Carroll. I mean, he was
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: doing everything he possibly could to come up with people
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: or entities like God that were actually really responsible for
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: this decision and not him. But the overriding theme of
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the statement was I'm a victim. And this is where
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: we start to get into some really significant social issues
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: that have nothing really to do specifically with Lane Kiffin
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: or old miss. We now live in a world where
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: victimhood and victim status is maybe the most important thing
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you can achieve, especially when it comes to enduring a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: public controversy. And I can't stand this, but I have
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to tell you, I'm almost in awe that Lane Kiffen
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: was able to at least somewhat not totally, somewhat effectively
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: portray himself as a victim in this situation. And the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: audacity of this. You almost have to admire the audacity
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: of what lang Giffin did. He is screwing over a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: program that has never experienced anything like this, a city
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and a town of Oxford, Mississippi that's never experienced anything
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: quite like this, and at least not in the modern
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: history of the town and the sport. And he's doing it,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: he says, not for the money, but of course he's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: getting a massive raise. That's the other part of this
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: drives me crazy. Oh, I'm not doing this for the money.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I never done anything for the money, And well, then
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: why are you taking a massive raise. I mean, everything's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: at least at some level about money or prestige or both.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, just to be clear, I don't agree with
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: his decision. I think what he's doing is incredibly stupid.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, he had a great situation at Old Miss.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: They loved him there. He was obviously able to compete
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: on a national level. They just made the national playoffs.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, is it more difficult than all missed than
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: maybe it would be at LSU with all the resources
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: they're gonna have. Yeah, but you know what, some things
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: are more important than that, like your character, your conscience,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: who you are as a person, which apparently doesn't mean
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: shit anymore to anybody, including a lot of people to
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: this moment that are actually supportive of what Lane Giffen did.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And they're not just all LSU fans. I mean, it's
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: absolutely amazing to me that we now live in this
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: world where Lane Kiffn can effectively become a victim and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: where people will buy that and people will support what
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: he did because I would have done the same thing.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many people on social media
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: claim to me personally, you would have done exactly the
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: same thing. You would have taken the bag and the prestige. No, no,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I would not have because what is the fucking point
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of this whole thing? If you work to build a program,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: you almost make the SEC championship game, you're in the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: national playoffs, you're gonna have a home game in the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: National playoffs, and you decide to fly the coop for
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a rival. Now obviously the fucked up college football calendar
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: made this more problematic than it should be, but that
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't get Lane Kevin off the hook. He still made
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the decision. Sometimes we face difficult decisions in life, and
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes you're tested. This was a test Lane KIFFN failed,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: as did a whole lot of people who observed this,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and as did a lot of the news media. Let
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: me specifically mention ESPN again. Now, they put a reporter,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Marty Smith on this story, and watching the egg ball
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: was so disgusting because ESPN reporters were so lobbering. We
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: almost literally, almost literally slobbering all over Lane Kiffin. The
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: woman who did the postgame interview with him softballed him
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and then literally hugged him. Marty Smith, who was also
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: on the field, tried to hug Lane Kiff of after
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the game and kind of got brushed off. There should
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: never be any hugs, you know. Tom Hanks famously said,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: there's no crying in baseball. There's no hugging in journalist.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: You don't fucking hug the person who you're reporting on,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: which is especially when it's the biggest story of the day.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: But they softball him and they're hugging him, and it's
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: it's obvious. What they see is, oh my god, this
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: is such a big story, and if I can get
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: some sort of a scoop, it's gonna be so good
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: for me. So I need to kiss Lane's ass. I
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: need to be as soft and as easy on him
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: as possible. So you have got the national media kissing
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: his ass. Meanwhile, the Mississippi podcaster has called him aho
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: because he's got nothing to lose it. He knows he's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: not going to get the scoop. He's just telling the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: truth as he sees it. He turned out to be
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent right, and so everybody at ESPN is
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: trying desperately to get the scoop. Marty Smith is the reporter.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: He was placed there during Saturdays, not Bowl games, but
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: championship games or rivalry games, all day long, doing nothing
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: because there was no news because Lane Kiffen was fighting
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: with Old miss as to whether he could actually coach
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a theoretic less SEC championship game, which turned out not
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: to be relevant, as I already indicated. And so then finally,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: after the decision is revealed publicly, very belatedly on Sunday,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Marty Smith desperately wants to get something for all the
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: ass kissing he was engaged in. I mean, he's been
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: sitting there all weekend being super soft on Lane Kiffin
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: because he wants the interview. And apparently we know now
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: that Lane Giffen texted him and said, I'll do an
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: interview with you. Marty Smith tells a pretty funny story
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: about logistically him having to get through all sorts of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: barricades in their in their van to get to Lane
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Kiffen before he took off from the tarmac at Oxford,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Mississippi Airport to fly to Baton Rouge, and he finally
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: got there. But when he got there, of course, he
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: softballed the hell out of Lane Kiffin. There were all
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: sorts of important questions that should have been asked that
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: we're not asked. And yes, the interview bizarrely and pathetically
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and tellingly ended with a hug. By the way Marty
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Smith wanted the hug Lake Kevin Moore than Giffn one
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of the hug Smith. I think Kiffin actually felt uncomfortable
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that this is inappropriate. But this is how the modern media,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: especially the sports media special ESPN, sees a story. It's
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: not about getting to the truth, it's not about doing
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: your job. It's about being close to a viral story
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and having it be associated with you. And do you
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: get the attention that is associated with the biggest story
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of the week, or the month, or maybe of the
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: year in college football? And Marty Smith is somebody who
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: has always bugged the crap out of me because I
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: think Marty Smith is hired by ESPN almost purposely to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: sell out his own demographic. He's really the only reporter,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: one of the very few in all of legacy media
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that it's an unabashed white male Southerner. I talk all
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the time about how the Southern accent is effectively fading
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: away from legacy media. But ESPN realizes, you know what,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: we got a massive portion of our audience, especially for
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: college football, that are Southern males that still speak in
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: somewhat of a Southern accent. They still say y'all, they
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: still say dad gum, And wouldn't it be nice to
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: have a reporter that does that? And so Marty Smith
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: fills that role, which would be fine if not for
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the fact that Marty Smith's other role is not to
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: represent the Southern, white male, straight guy demographic. It's too
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: effectively in my opinion, undermine that very demographic because whenever
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: given the opportunity, Marty Smith will throw Southern white, straight
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: males under the bus because he's very politically correct, clearly liberal,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: promoting the ESPN liberal agenda. The best or the worst
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: example of what I'm talking about is the whole Bubble
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Wallace NASCAR news controversy from a couple of years ago,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: that ridiculous situation where the entire NASCAR world melted because
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: they stupidly thought that someone had placed a noose in
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the garage of an African American NASCAR driver, which was
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: always a ridiculous presumption to make. I was way out
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: of the in front of the curve on that I
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: told everybody, to much derision, that this is a bullshit narrative,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: there's no way this is true. Well it turned out
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: it wasn't true. But the reporter that jumped all over
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: it was Marty Smith because he's there to throw that
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: demographic under the bus. It's one thing to throw, you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Southern white males under the bus. The media members do
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that all the time, but when you're hired because you're
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: supposed to represent that demographic, it's particularly aggravating. Peyton Manning
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: does this to a certain degree when he did the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: whole bud Light commercial thing. Peyton Manning sold out because
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that's his demographic, straight white, mostly conservative, southern white males.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And Peyton Manning he got paid a lot of money
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to sell him out. Well, that's what Marty Smith's job is.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And so Marty Smith gets this quote unquote interview with
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin, which was a complete joke, and I posted
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: about it, and I even posted you can find it
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: for yourself. A series of questions that should have been
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: asked but were not. And because you know, journalism is dead,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry. If you sell out like Lane
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Kiffin did and you become that big of a story,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: you should be vulnerable to legitimate questions. And that did
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: not happen. And of course Lane Giffen did not do
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: any sort of a press conference in Mississippi. That would
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: have been horrendous. He knew. He learned from his situation
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee where he did kind of do a going
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: away press conference or at least a press availability that
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: was a disaster when he threw Tennessee under the bus
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: under less dramatic circumstances because they hadn't just made a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: national playoff, but you know he was a coward. He
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: ran away, He got a softball interview from Marty Smith,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and then he goes to the safety of Baton Rouge
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to finally answer questions. And I have to say, he
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: is a first team All Snake oil salesman. He is
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: exceedingly good at this, which is why the media loves him.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But I think there's more motivation here in the way
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the media, specifically ESPN, was handling this situation than just
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: personally liking Lane Kiffin, maybe having conflicts of interest seeing
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: his potential. I mean, potential is so incredibly important to
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the news media. I mean, you know, maybe the best
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: example I personally can give is the way Lane Kiffen
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: was treated by ESPN and the way Joe Paterno was
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: treated by ESPN. Right, I mean, obviously they're different situations,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: but in my opinion, Lane Kiffen was far more culpable
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: of bad behavior than Joe Paterno was. But even if
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: we just presume at the time back in November of
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: twenty eleven, when that whole story exploded, that Joe Patna
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: was even remotely guilty of anything, he was being accused
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: of ESPN just destroyed Paterno, And the main reason, other
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: than the virtue signaling, was that there was no future
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: potential for Joe Paterno. Joe Paterno was of no value
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: to ESPN in the future or to any of this
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: particular individuals other than maybe giving one interview, which he
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't giving. It was, you know, Scott Paterno stupidly made
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: it clear that Joe Paturna would be giving no interviews,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: which eliminated any real desire for anybody in the news
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: media to stick up for Joe Paterno and to kiss
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: his ass. So when you're an old dude who's on
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the verge of being fired, has just been fired, and
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: you're not giving interviews, you have nothing to give the media.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: If you're a guy who's still perceived as young and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: you're hot on ste social media, and your interview has
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: tremendous value, even if it's a bullshit, softball interview, and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have years and years in the future where
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: a relationship could be of value to someone in the media,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: they're gonna treat you far, far better. And and so
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that's part of what was happening with the way that
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: lang Giffen was treated. But I actually think it goes
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: deeper from ESPN's perspective, because you cannot lose sight of
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the fact that ESPN literally owns the college Football Playoff.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: They created it, their you know, overlords, their corporate overlords
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: created it. They did so, I believe because they needed
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: viable gambling inventory and the ball system was no longer
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: providing that because there were so many opt outs. People
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: didn't have faith embedting on the ball games. So now
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: they created eleven quote unquote playoff games. That magic word playoff,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: which I've come to hate because I think it's destroying
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: so much about sports. But you have these playoff games
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: where people will feel comfortable betting on them, and that's
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: what ESPN now is based on. Their business model imploded
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: with cable bundling going away. It was the greatest boondoggle
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: in the history of modern television sports, maybe in television
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: sports period, and they had a new they needed a
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: new business model, so they embraced gambling, and so the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: College Football Playoff gives ESPN exactly what it was, viable
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: gambling inventory. But that also means they're very, very protective
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: of the playoff and the credibility of the playoff, and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: what Lane Kiffen was doing is going right at the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: heart of the credibility of the playoff. Because if a
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: coach of a team that's never come close to wing
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: them international championship before and it's about to play a
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: home game when the playoff decides to abandon that school
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: for a rival that's nowhere near the playoff, then what
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: value does the playoff really have? Now, maybe that's too
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: difficult a thought process for most people. For me, it's not.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why it would be for most people,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: because that's immediately where I went to. I mean, even
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: as cynical as I am about the playoff, it became
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: much more difficult for me post playing Kiffin leaving to
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: even bother or care about all the machinations of who's
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: gonna make the playoff, which ESPN is understandab be obsessed
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: with because they own the whole operation. Because I'm like, well,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: what the fuck difference does this make? Obviously it doesn't matter.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: It doesn't even matter to head coach of Old miss
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: So why would I care about who's making the playoffs?
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: So I actually think that part of why I'm trying
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to give hurt Street and saving the benefit of the
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: dowd here, because I think in general they're pretty decent guys.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: I think they're real agenda, other than maybe a personal
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: relationship with Kiffin is protecting the perceived credibility of the playoff,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: because if people lose the belief in the credibility of
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the playoff, then the whole thing could implode. So I
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: think that ESPN had that incentive. I also think ESPN
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: has a unique incentive to protect Lane Kiffen, or to
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: try to preserve their narrative at least a little bit,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: because they have the embarrassment of just having created this
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: documentary called The Many Lives of Lane Kickit Kiffen, Lane
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Kiffen The Many Lives of Maine Kiffen, which I watched
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and I was at least partially bamboozled by, which is
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: basically an effort to try to propagandize and pretend that
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin is a brand new man and that he's
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: going to stay in Oxford because he loves Oxford, and
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that he's not the same guy he used to be. Well,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: that whole documentary completely imploded. So ESPN has a lot
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: to be embarrassed about here, so they're trying to put
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: lipstick on the pig. But I also think with regard
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to the playoff, if they're thinking about this, clearly they
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: need to be worried about this sparking a player contagion
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: when it comes to opting out of the playoffs. I've
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: talked about this previously. This has been a prediction I've
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: been making since the beginning of this whole twelve team
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: playoff fiasco, which is that over time, players are going
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: to start to realize, hey, wait a minute, why the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: hell am I bothering, Especially if my team is a
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: low seeded team and I'm playing a road game in
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: a cold weather site in December when I have to play,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I have to win four games to win a national
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: championship against higher seeded teams. Why the fuck do I
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: need that now? Maybe their NIL contract is set up
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: where they get paid specifically for that game. I don't know.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: I've never seen this pacifics of how that works. But
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: from the standpoint of preserving your draft viability or just
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: now wanted to go through the pain of the ass
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: of more and more practice, more and more games, I mean,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: when the chances of actually winning a national championship are
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: exceedingly low if you're a lower seeded team, why would
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I bother. We've already seen several situations in recent years.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: A couple of backup quarterbacks from top teams have transferred out.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: You almost had Tennessee's starting quarterback last year opt out
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of the playoffs or hold out for more money. He
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: ended up going to UCLA. I mean, so we've already
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: seen signs that this is a problem. But if a
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: head coach is prominent, a Lane Kiffin drops out, there
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: is a very good chance that that could spark a
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: player contagion, and that's a real crisis for ESPN if
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that happens. Now, we have no sign of that yet,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: but we don't have an official play off bracket yet,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: so that's still possibly gonna happen in the future. I
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: still predict whether it's this year, next year, whatever. Players
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: are eventually going to realize that this is not that
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: great a deal for that, especially under specific circumstances. I mean,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: it's a very long season, and I mean we're already
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: asking a ridiculous amount of these players, especially the ones
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that aren't getting a lot of nil money. Right now,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: you play a rivalry game, maybe a conference championship game,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: and then you could have at least three, maybe four
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: more playoff games during Christmas and New Years into the
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: New Year, and only one team ends up making it
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: all worthwhile. Hell, making the semi finals doesn't mean shit
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: because James Franklin got fired a few games into this
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: season after being two plays for making the national championship
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: game last year at Penn State. So none of this
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: really matters other than maybe winning the whole thing. ESPN
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: had a lot of different incentives to try to protect
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin at all costs. I will say that some
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: of the national news media outside of ESPN has actually
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: been pretty good on the Lane Kiffin story. I mean,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: there's been a lot of criticism of Lane Kiffin, and
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: rightfully so, and so I think they deserve credit. But
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: ESPN has largely been terrible. But I also have to
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: say there's been more support for Lane Kiffin among the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: public outside of Mississippi, where he's now hated. I mean,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: they're going after him in every possible way. They went
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: to the airport and booed him and gave him the finger.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: His yoga class has been posting nasty things about him.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Women are now posting dms that they were getting from
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin while he was there. I mean, he is
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: persona on grada at Old Miss. But I actually think
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Old Miss is gonna be fine. And you know, a
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: lot of times these things can actually work in the
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: opposite direction of perception. And I think that Old Miss
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: is probably going to win their first round playoff game
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and maybe maybe win it easily. They're gonna have a
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: home playoff game. The entire community is gonna be galvanized.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: They're gonna be pumped for this beyond anything you've ever
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: seen before. The energy is going to be off the charts.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Link ifn allowed their offensive coordinator who would left with
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: him to LSU to come back to Old Miss, and
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: so I think their continuity is going to be at
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: least somewhat intact. They'll be playing a lower seeded team.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I would be stunned if Old Miss loses that first
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: playoff game. I mean, they're gonna have a chip on
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: their shoulder. Expectations are actually going to be fairly low.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: A lot of the pressures off because they have a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: built in excuse if they were to lose. So I
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: think they win that first round playoff game. I think
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: they're gonna have a much much more difficult time in
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the second playoff game where they play a team that
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: got to buy in a bowl, and then maybe you know,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: not having Kiffin around has a little bit more impact.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: But Ole Miss is going to be fine. But I
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: just want to make one last point about Old Miss
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and why what Kiffin did was so awful and so
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: lacking in character, and why I personally never would have
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: even considered doing this. And I think this is part
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: of the equation that has been completely left out of
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the national conversation at least as far as I can tell,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: and that is that we're talking about Oxford Mississippi here,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: all right, and Lane Kiffin is such a selfish, narcissistic
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: asshole that I don't think he even considered this part
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of the equation. This is not USC Okay, where Kiffen
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: famously was fired on the tarmac by Pat Hayden several
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: years ago, and at that point it looked like his
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: college football coaching career was engraved jeopardy. At USC, the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: people there, they're all rich, They've all got a lot
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: going on in their lives. USC has won lots of championships, won,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: lots of Heisman trophies, one trip to the playoff. If
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: it gets sabotaged by a coach leaving, yeah they'll think
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: that sucks. But it's not that big of a deal.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: It's really not a world ender. These people are gonna
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: move on with their lives very very quickly. If they
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: live in Los Angeles, there's a million other things going
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: on in sports and other areas of life. But that's
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: not the case in Oxford, Mississippi. In Oxford, Mississippi, this
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: is it. Okay, this is all they have, and they've
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: been waiting for something like this for a very long time.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: They got one national championship a million years ago during
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the whole segregation controversy. Then they got the Archie Manning,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the Eli Manning era, and now they got this. And
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: this is the best team they probably had, certainly in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: the modern era, the most wins. They're international playoffs, they're
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: gonna have a home game. This is a huge deal
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: for the people of Oxford, Mississippi and the surrounding area,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and Lane Kiffin selfishly hindered that, and he took away
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: almost all of the attention from what the team had
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: accomplished and placed it selfishly and narcissistically on him, and
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: that's what made this so wrong. And I mean, there's
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: so many elements of what lang Given did that are infuriating,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: but that, to me is at the heart of the
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: whole thing that's being lost. This is a somewhat unique
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: situation given the state of Mississippi and the hardships of
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the state of Mississippi have endured by the way. You know, educationally,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: there's a thing called the Mississippi Miracle now where things
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: are turning around because weirdly, they've jettisoned a lot of liberal,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: progressive academic policies and surprise, surprise, that's really working in Mississippi.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, so the state itself is turning things around,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: and they finally get this awesome chance in a sport
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: that they really care about to do something unprecedented, and
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffen selfishly stabs the school that gave him an
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: opportunity to be back at the highest level in the
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: back and he deserves all the score and he's getting
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: and probably a whole lot more, especially when it comes
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: to ESPN coverage. One last point on Lane Kiffen. I
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: have to acknowledge part of why he pisses me off
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: so much is that even I fell prey to this
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: narrative that he was at least somewhat of a changed man,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that he had grown, that he had matured the whole
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: many Lives of Lane Kiffen ESPN documentary, And so that
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: pisses me off a bit that I was naive enough,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: because I'm always trying. As much of a pessimist as
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: I am, I'm always trying to believe the best in
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: people until I have no other choice, until they remove
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: all doubt. I guess I kind of go by the
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: three strikes rule, and Kiffin probably had already had three strikes,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: but I was willing to take one off just to
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: give him another opportunity. Maybe he had been given a
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: raw deal, you know, maybe there was. And I really
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: think a lot of this comes back. A whole huge
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: portion of the Lane Kiffin narrative comes back to the
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Roar Shack test. That was what happened with the Oakland
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Raiders and Al Davis. And it's really interesting to me
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: how many people who really know this situation have gone
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: back to that circumstance with an entirely new perspective, seeing
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: that through a completely different prism. I actually think that
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffen benefited tremendously from having been fired by Al Davis,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: because when Al Davis held what is a very famous
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: press conference in the history of the NFL, I mean unprecedented,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: where he came forward with a PowerPoint presentation to completely
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: eviscerate the coach that he had just fired in a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: way that no one never heard before, and I don't
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: think anyone's heard since. May called him a liar at
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a fraud and he's not the guy that I thought
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I hired. I mean, and Al Davis at one point
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: was a giant in the football world. And in any
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: previous iteration of Al Davis, it would have ended the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: career of a young guy Lane Kiffin, who had gotten
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: this huge break as a super young former college coach
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: at USC assistant to being the head coach of the
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Oakland Raiders. It would have ended their career. But here's
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: what happened. Davis was getting on in years and he
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: looked terrible. I mean, he looked absolutely horrendous, and he
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: had made a lot of bad decisions football wise. JaMarcus Russell,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: who was a disaster as a quarterback, ironically from LSU.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how all these things come back together. But
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: with al Davis, if he had looked like Al Davis
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: did five or ten years earlier, I think Lane Kiffin's
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: career was over at that point. But weirdly everyone thought, wow,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: al Davis has lost it, and poor Lane Kiffin had
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: to deal with the cranky, insane old dude. Well, when
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: you look back now, al Davis was right. He just
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: looked terrible saying it. And so if you take the
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can do this with almost anything in life.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: But if you take away Reggie Bush from USC when
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Lane Kiffin was an assistant, and you make Al Davis
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: look like he's not a crazy person during that press conference,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: lane Kiffin is done. He's coaching high school. These coaches,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: He's coaching his son wherever the hell he would be
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: living in high school at this time. But that's just
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the way life works out. But Al Davis was right.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: And I think the biggest takeaway from the Lane Kiffin
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: story from a humanity perspective is, you know what, folks,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: as much as we would like to believe that people
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: are capable of significant change, in the vast, vast majority
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: of cases, they're not. People don't change. A tiger doesn't
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: change their stripes, even if they become an LSU tiger.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't happen. As much as we would like
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: to believe that it does. It just doesn't. And Lane
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Kiffen is a perfect example of that. And then from
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: a broader perspective, I started to think, you know, why
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: is there not universal There's a lot, but why is
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: there not universal condemnation of Lane Giffen among our society?
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: When did our society decide that selling out, whether it's
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: for money or prestige, is inherently good or at least acceptable,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: no matter who gets harmed in the process. When did
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that happen? When did it change that we would condemn somebody,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: you know, even if they are good looking and charismatic
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: and popular, for doing something that was obviously wrong. And
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: I will always believe And I tweeted about this, and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I got some interesting responses, and it was a pretty
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: popular tweet. But I will always believe that something either
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: fundamentally changed or we stopped pretending. And I think this
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: is an interesting question I don't have an answer to
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: which is it did we change at this time or
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: did we just stop pretending. But for me, it will
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: always be the Bill Clinton in perjury Monica Lewinsky scandal
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: that was at a time period of my life, late
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, I was still in retrospect, pretty naive. I
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: still wanted to believe the best in people in society
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: in America, and at first it was absolutely stunning to
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: me that Bill Clinton could have an affair with a
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: young intern, lie about it under oath, suborn the perjury
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: of his secretary Betty Curry, which he clearly did obstruct justice,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: have it all come out, and not only would he
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: not be removed from office, he wouldn't even come close
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: to being removed from office because the Senate would have
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: a sham trial atter he was impeached. But in the end,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton would actually be at least as popular, if
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: not more popular, than he was before the scandal broke.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: That was stunning to me. It was even more stunning
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to my grand father, who was still alive at the time,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: and I remember watching that impeachment trial with him trying
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: to explain to him that this was not going to
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: be a real trial, that this was a sham, that
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the fix was in. No one was going to on
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the Democratic side was going to vote to remove him,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: and my grandfather, who loved this country more than anybody
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I've ever met, truly believed to the last second, even
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: with me trying to explain to him that this was
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: not going to happen, he truly believed that Clinton was
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: going to be removed from office because he just couldn't
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: comprehend the country that he had lived I guess eighty
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: years of his life at that time, or more than that,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: somewhere in that range. He just couldn't believe that the
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: America he knew would let this happen. And frankly, my
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: grandfather's reaction made me think, well, maybe something did change.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, because he was a smart guy, he'd lived
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: a long, very interesting life. He was stunned by this,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: and maybe that was the correct take on it. But
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I actually have come to believe that it wasn't a change.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I think we just stopped pretending. I think the unique
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: circumstances of that situation, which included Clinton having the audacity
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: to fight it. I mean, that was really a classic
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: situation where in the past, Nixon being the perfect example,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: the president just would have resigned to keep the country
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: from going through that kind of embarrassment and never would
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: have dreamed that he could get away with this. And
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: what Clinton did was he tested that premise and he
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: ended up being vindicated in that test because it turned
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: out the public didn't really give a shit. And so
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I think probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I think it both changed in that time period. But
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I think also maybe even more than fifty percent, it
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: was a situation where we were presuming things about the
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: way the public believed regarding issues of morality, principle, and
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: character that were just not true. We were believing a
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: fairy tale. The reality is most people just don't give
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: a damn. You know why, because most people aren't very
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: good and if you're not a very good person, then
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: you know, it makes you feel better about yourself that
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: the president could be such a piece of shit and
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: get away with it. People love that, and for whatever
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the reason is, I actually think we were just pretending,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: and I think the media was kind of pretending. The
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: media was people forget this. But the media at first
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: thought Clinton was done and then they started to realize,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: oh shit, or maybe good for them because they all
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: like Bill Clinton. Oh my gosh. The public doesn't care
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: about this. They actually kind of like it. And since
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: then things have gotten even worse. Where you know, if
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: you're a celebrity and people like you, and you've got
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: a big social media following, and people feel like they
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: would have done the same thing, it's really just win,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: you know, ironically enough, giving out Davis's role of this story,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: it's just win baby. That was his old slogan, Just
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: win baby, because if you win, if you get the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: big prestigious job with a lot of money, inherently that's
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: the right thing. It doesn't matter that you screwed people
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: over and then you lied and you betrayed people in
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the process. And by the way, you know, you've overshadowed
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: your own team and your own son's high school football
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: state semi final, and now you're putting your daughter in
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: a very weird situation where you're coaching her white friend
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: at LSU. You don't care because for some reason, you
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: think the LSU job is all that great, which, by
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: the way, I don't even think the LSU job is
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: all that great anymore. I mean, I'm a big believe
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: that college football has changed so dramatically. Yeah, it's a
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: great job. The it's got a lot of resources, it's
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: got some tradition. I don't think the tradition means shit anymore.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I really don't. And I'm not even sure that recruiting
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: base in Louisiana means anything anymore, because we're living in
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: a world where college football is a national sport now.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Regions and locations mean nothing now, at least almost nothing,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and certainly going in that direction. So I'm not actually
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: sold that Kiffin is going to be as a huge
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: success on at LSU. He might be, and I do
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: think that Old miss will be harmed in the long
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: run because of the fact that they've lost Lane Kiffin.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: They've lost that kind of a recruiting magnet. But I
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: would not have done what Lane Giffen did, and I
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: would not have done it mainly because it's the wrong
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: thing to do, which used to matter, but it doesn't,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: whether it's in sports or politics, or entertainment or real life.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: And that's sad. And I do think that the Lane
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Kiffen situation does illustrate the larger destruction of college football
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: as we've known it. And I had a lot of
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: people over the last several days, you know, contact me
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: and say Hey, you must be loving the Lane KIFFNS
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: story because it really exposes so much of what you've
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: been saying as having been true and pressient. And my
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: response is always, I guess maybe, but I don't care
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: about that. I hate the fact that this happened. I
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: hate the fact that college football, the greatest sport ever
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: team to sport ever designed, certainly in America, maybe in
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: the world, is being destroyed before our eyes. And let's
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: be clear, just so people understand, and I don't think
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: most members of the media get this, and certainly ESPN,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: as I've already articulated, as no incentive to make this
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: clear to the public. This happened with regard to Lane Kiff,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: and because of the expanded playoffs, and because of the
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: transfer portal and nil. It's all interconnected. But the part
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: of this equation that people aren't putting together is the
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: expanded playoffs, because the expanded playoffs put all the emphasis
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: on making the playoff. And so what ended up happening
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: at LSU and at Penn State and other places is
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: that as soon as you got eliminated from the playoffs,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: because that's all that matters in a twelve team playoff world,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it used to be making the playoffs was
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: a pipe trim, two team playoff, four team playoffs. You
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: could still have a very successful season if you didn't
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: make the playoffs. There was no shame in not making
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: the playoffs. New Year's Day Bowl games, for instance, still
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: mattered at least a little bit in perception. Well now
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: that's all gone. So now we have this very strange
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: phenomenon where as soon as you were eliminated for the playoffs,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: you fire your coach, Yes, because you want a head
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: start on trying to find a new one. And I
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: can't stand that. I mean, to me, you're telling your
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: whole team and your school you're giving up on the year.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: You know, winnings record doesn't matter, your rivalry game doesn't matter,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: making a ball game doesn't matter. All that matters is
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the playoffs. And that's what set this situation up, was
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: this obsession with the expanded playoffs, and that's why we're
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: having the firings now. There's also this issue of the calendar,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: which is absolutely fucked up. But partially why the calendar
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: is fucked up for football is because it's based on
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the academic calendar. People seem to forget that there are still,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: at least theoretically, schools involved in all this. There's still
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: some academic portion of this equation. I don't think it
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: really matters very much to most football players anymore. Hell,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: when you watch a football game, they used to tell
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: you when they put the player profile up, they used
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: to put their school year and their major. Well, the
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: major has been long god, because it's ludicrous to even
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: bother with. Now they don't even know what year you are,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: especially post COVID, when players are playing seven or eight
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: years and they got red shirts and no one even
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: knows what the rules are they so they barely even
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: put whether you're a junior or a senior or whatever
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: it is. So but in theory, the academic calendar is
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: still driving the bus here, and football is in a
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: much more vulnerable position than, for instance, basketball, because basketball
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: ends in the spring, where you know, the next year's
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: freshman class has already decided where they're going, the school
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: year is almost over, you're in the second semester. I mean,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: it's just a completely different dynamic than what happens with football,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: because football ends right when the first semester ends. You
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: got a lot of That's why the transfer rules the
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: way they are, you've got next year's recruiting class deciding
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: where they're going to go. It's just far more vulnerable
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: because of the time of year in comparison to the
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: academic calendar that football has played. And now there's all
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: these people trying to come up with a solution to
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: this problem, which is, in my opinion, when I've heard
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: so far, is another Pandora's box. All of this has
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: been a Pandora's box that I've been warning for years
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: is going to end up in disaster. And you know
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: now they're people including the head coach at Texas Tech,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: who's getting a lot of publicity for saying, let's move
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: the entire calendar up. Let's start the season in like
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: basically mid or late mid August, and let's end it
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: at Thanksgiving with the conference championship games, and we can
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: be done with all this before the academic calendar swallows
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: us all up. Well, they're all sorts of ramifications for that.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: The people don't seem to be understanding. This is my
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: number one pet peeve, and all of this. People are
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: really really bad, especially sports media people are really really
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: bad at understanding unintended consequences, But they're are all sorts
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: of problems with that change in the calendar, even though
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: to most people go, oh, that sounds great. I mean,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: first of all, you're turning football into a summer sport
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: for ninety percent of the schools that actually matter, which
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: are already in the South, which I don't like. But
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: they're much deeper problems than that, one of which is
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: this whole issue of the conference championships, which just absolutely
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: drives me bananas that people are not understanding the ramifications.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: You know, part of what people are proposing is, well,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: let's get rid of the conference championships. That'll save us
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: a week in the calendar, and maybe we can create
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: a situation where Elaine Kiffin isn't incentivized or forced to
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: make this decision to leave before his team goes to
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: the playoffs. Well, here's what the numbskulls in the sports
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: media do not understand, and that is that if you
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: get rid of the conference championship games, you have no
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: conference champions because these conferences have become so large, especially
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: the Big ten in the SEC, that you don't play
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: like half the teams. And so if you're trying to
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: determine a champion based upon just the regular season, it
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: becomes a complete and total joke. We're already seeing that
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: when it comes to who's getting into the conference championship games,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: which in my opinion, is an abomination, which I'm gonna
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: get to more in just a second. But if you
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: get rid of the conference championship games, at least you have,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: in theory with a conference championship game, you have a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: somewhat legitimate conference championship. It's flawed, it is very flawed
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: in its current iteration, but at least it's theoretically viable.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: It's something that people can take seriously. But if you
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: get rid of the conference championship game, now you're in
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: a situation where you have no legitimate conference champion. No
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: one's going to take it. And seriously, when you don't
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: even play half your teams and it's all based upon
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: what schedule you got that year, which you have no
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: control over, it's just totally random. No one's gonna take
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: that seriously. And if you don't have a conference champion,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: you don't have a conference. And if you don't have
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: a conference, the entire system of college football collapses. The
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: entire DNA of college football changes. Even the NFL is
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: smart enough to understand that you gotta keep the conferences
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: separate so that you have, you know, the tradition of
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: the NFC and the AFC, and the winners of those
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: conferences play in the Super Bowl, and those teams buy
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: and large stay the same every year. Even they understand
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: the NFL you gotta have divisions, and you can't fuck
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: with the divisions because that creates some sense of continuity
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: and rivalry. And even though it's all bullshit because all
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: the players change on a year to year basis once
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: like college football is now doing, you know, the Eagles
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: versus the Cowboys, the Eagles versus the Giants, it's still
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: theoretically matters to Eagles fans as someone who grew up
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: as an Eagle fan, because that's been the case forever
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: and ever. You play them twice a year, so the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: division has some semblance of at least perceives significance. You
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: take that away from college football, you make it a
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: completely national game. Eventually the entire thing implodes because what's
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: the most popular conference by far, the SCC. The SEC
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: is built on those state by state or intra state rivalries.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: That's what drives the bus, that's what fuels the passion.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: If you take away any concept of an SEC champion
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: and you just make everything national, and you just happen
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: to play more teams from the same group that you're in,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: and by the way, there's no rhyme or reason as
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: to who you're playing in any particular year. That is
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: going to eventually fade away, and I believe probably fade
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: away pretty quickly. So these people that say, oh, let's
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: get rid of the conference championship games, they're antiquated now anyway,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: by the way they are. They become a nuisance because
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: of the stupid expanded playoff. But that's an argument for
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: not having expanded the playoff, not for getting rid of
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: the conference championship games. But of course, what we're seeing
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: this week is actually going to for the idiots, and
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the idiots are running the asylum here. For the idiots
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: is going to further the argument that we need to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: expand the playoff more rather than reduce it. That's what's
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: going to happen, because this whole situation this week is
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: a shit show. Just as I predicted over the last
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, I saw this coming down the pike,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: it was very clear you got too many teams with
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: two losses, no way to set rate them, and the
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: whole thing is just going to be an utter joke.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: There're gonna be several teams that will be left out
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: of the playoffs for no apparent reason, and there're gonna
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: be several teams in the playoffs for no apparent reason.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: It's just gonna basically be the committee throwing darts at
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the dartboard because there's no logical way to separate them.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: And this was always going to be the case when
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: you went to a twelve team playoff. I've always been
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: against the twelve team playoff. I thought last year's version
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: of it was horrendous. It provided basically two decent games
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: out of eleven. It destroyed the sanctity of the conference
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: championship games because all the conference champions lost. It showed
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: that the buy had no real value, I mean, the
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: whole It couldn't have been worse in my opinion. I mean,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Ohio State losing to their arrival and then going on
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: a four game win streak and winning the whole thing.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, in my view, last year was an abomination.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: But for some reason, mainly because ESPN is driving the
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: narrative and they have a massive, massive conflict of interest.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: People perceive last year's playoff is good, and what's gonna
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: happen this year is they're gonna see all this controversy
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: involving who gets in and who doesn't, and they say, well,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: let's expand that way, we would have been able to
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: get all these teams that might have gotten in this year,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: like a Texas or a Vanderbilt that have interesting arguments,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: that are for some reason not going to be able
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: to get in, mainly because they don't want to put
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: eight teams in the SEC in or seven teams from
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: the SEC into the playoffs. If we expand the playoffs,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: that fixes the problem, which, of course that never ends
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: because no matter where you put the number, there's always
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: gonna be arguments over who gets in and who doesn't.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: But the part of this shit show that I want
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: to reference here because no one in the media will
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: tell you about this, and ESPN has a very strong
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: incentive to not explain this because it just completely destroys
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the credibility of the entire process, is how all these
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: teams are even being determined as to whether or not
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: they're eligible to play in these conference championship games this weekend.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: This is amazing to me. I guarantee you ninety eight
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: percent of college football fans could not tell you because
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: ESPN hasn't said a word about it. Why it is,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: for instance, that Texas A and M, that tied with
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: three other teams for the best record in the SEC
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: is not playing in the SEC conference championship game. Why
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: is that? I mean, it's just been accepted. Oh well, okay,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: the two teams are going to be Alabama and Georgia.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: But ESPN will never tell you why, because if they
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: told you why, you'd go, what the fuck is that
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: all about? Texas A and M lost this four team
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: tiebreaker because they didn't play any of the other three teams.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: To be clear, they have no control over that. Conference
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: scheduling is not in their hands. The conference does that.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Which teams they play is done not by them. But
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: they didn't play Alabama, Georgia or Old Miss, and so
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the tiebreaker was the best combined record of their conference opponents,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: which is basically just total bullshit. It's just flipping a coin,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: and Texas A and M had zero. By the way,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I told you yet Texas A and M was gonna
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: lose to Texas. I'll take some credit for that since
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I rarely make specific sports predictions, but I was correct
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: in that assessment. But because they lost to Texas and
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: they fell into a four way time through no fault
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: on their own, having nothing to do with anything they
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: did on the football field, nothing, Texas A and M
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: lost this tiebreaker because because their opponents that they had
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: no control over, they didn't pick their conference opponents didn't
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: have as good a record as the other three teams did.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: And as absurd as that is, it might not be
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: as bad as what happened in the ACC. In the ACC,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: there's a five way tie, a five way tie for
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: second place to get to play Virginia in the ACC tournament. Somehow, Duke,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: a team with a seven and five overall record, won
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: that five way tiebreaker. Why the same reason, through no
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: fault or benefit or achievement of their own, the teams
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: that they got scheduled in the conference happened to half
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: the best record. It's just completely ridiculous. But ESPN won't
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: tell you this. They'll just pretend that there was some
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: merit based reason for why Duke got in, or why
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Texas A and M didn't, And it has nothing to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: do with anything. It's purely random. They might as well
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: just flip a coin that would be as as relevant
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: or as credible as the process that they're using, because
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: the conferences are too fucking big, which goes to my
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: major point of the Pandora's box. When you have radical
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: realignment and you have massive conferences where note, you know
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: you only play half the teams and you got nil
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: and you got instant transfers and you got an expanded playoff,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: it's gonna end very, very badly. You're gonna have massive
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: unintended consequences. And I have been as prescient, probably more
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: pressian than anybody else could possibly be and telling you
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: exactly how this was gonna go down. And there's so
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: many absurdities to this entire process. You got Vanderbilt. You
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: know who I know. Our executive producer, Mike Agavino is
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: an alumn for Vanderbilt, is probably very upset about Vanderbilt's
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: not gonna make the playoff, partially because they beat the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: hell out of their rival Tennessee, and you're thinking, what,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: They're not gonna make it because they beat their Tennessee. Yeah,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: they beat him so badly that Tennessee fell in the rankings,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: So Vanderbilt actually lost points when it came to their
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: strength of schedule. I mean, there's a very easy fix
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: for that, folks. And this gets really deep into the weeds.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: But I don't understand when you are evaluating teams that
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: are on the bubble and you're evaluating who they beat,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: you should be evaluating those other teams based upon their
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: record in games where they didn't play the team being evaluated,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: whether it's a win or a loss. You shouldn't be
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: punished for having beaten a team and reducing their record,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: just like you shouldn't be advantaged. As I think in
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: a weird way, Notre Dame is being advantaged by having
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: lost to Miami, a team that they're being compared to.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've said many times on social media. You know,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: if you're a Miami fan, you gotta be thinking, boy,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: if Miami had only lost to a team as good
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: as Miami, they would be in a better position. It's
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: just it's a very simple fix. You just take the
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: games that the team that's being evaluated play their opponents
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: out of the equation either win or loss. So you
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be punished for having killed the team so badly
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: that their ranking gets reduced, and it shouldn't work in
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: the opposite direction either. But there's absolutely no good way
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: to choose between Notre Dame and Miami. There is none.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame probably had a better overall resume, but Miami
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: beat Notre Dame and head to head on the matter.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's how many angels can dance on
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: the head of a pin. It's ridiculous. But of course
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: what's gonna happen here is they're just gonna expand the playoff.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: That's what they're gonna do. It's gonna go to sixteen
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: and then it's gonna go to twenty four. That's what's
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: gonna happen, and that will destroy everything, but it'll make
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: ESPN more money. At least they think it'll make them
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: more money. Now, whether it kills the Golden goose in
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: the long run and the whole system implodes, I don't know.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think college sports and college football is
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: in a lot worse economic situation than people are letting
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: on University of Colorado, where Deon Sanders supposedly saved the program.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: Just announced today that they're losing all sorts of money
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: on football. And this is a school that's gotten as
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: much publicity per win as anybody in the history of
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: the sport in the last couple of years, and they're
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: losing lots and lots of money. And so, I mean,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I just I hate the twelve team playoff. I think
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: it is the cause of so many problems. I don't
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: think it's viable. I don't think it's credible. There's so
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: much injustice, whether it's Notre Dame versus Miami or Texas
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: versus Oklahoma. I do not understand how the hell Oklahoma
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: is a lock to make the playoff when they got
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: their asses kicked by Texas and they only beat one
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: team that's even decent, Alabama. I actually think from a
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: media perspective, Oklahoma is interesting because I think the twelve
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: team playoff is too large for the sports media to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: be able to properly handle. That's how short everyone's attention
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: span is. I think O look, Oklahoma has somehow slipped
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: through the cracks of scrutiny. There's no reason for Alabama
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: to be a lock, especially by the way of Alabama,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: I mean of Oklahoma to be a lock. There's no
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: reason for Alabama to be a lock. If Alabama gets
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: crushed this weekend by Georgia. What the fuck is Alabama's argument?
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, what the fuck is Oklahoma's argument? Both those teams,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: Alabama would have three losses and Oklahoma's only win would
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: be against Alabama, which would be greatly diminished. So why
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: are these two teams locks? I don't understand it. In Texas,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: they have three losses, but they play an exceedingly difficult schedule,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: they have more good wins than anybody else in the country,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: and they're totally out of consideration. Apparently at this point
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But of course the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: solution it's going to be the exact opposite of the
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: way it should go. The solution is going to be
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: expand the playoffs further, when in fact, we should be
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: going back to the way it was. We should be
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: looking at this and going, holy shit. Did no one
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: warn us I never heard of this guy, John Zigler.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: Did no one warn us about all the ramifications of
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: what we've done over the last couple of years. Let's
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: go back to the way it was before it's too late.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: No one's going to do that, especially when ESPN is
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: financially motivated to do exactly the opposite. And it's just sad,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: it's pathetic, it's frust It's particularly frustrating for me because
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: I believe I've been warning people about this for a
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: very very long time, and I think I've been largely
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: of not totally indicated. Thanks for listening to today's free
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: drop of the abbreviated show. If you're interested in listening
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: to the entire show, you must become a patron. Please
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: go to Patreon. That's p A t R e O
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: N dot com. Patreon dot com slash the Death of
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: Journalism with John Ziggler. My name is j O h
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: N z I E G L e R. That's patreon
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: dot com slash the Death of Journalism with John Ziggler.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Good luck to you on that. But that's how you
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: can subscribe.