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Coach Brian Kelly Talks Why He Left Notre Dame For LSU, Adapting To The LSU Culture + NFL Plans? · Bussin' With The Boys

0:02
Speaker 1: Pladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of The Bus
0:05
Speaker 1: with the Boys Spring Tour. We are sitting here with
0:07
Speaker 1: Coach Kelly, Coach Electrostack to have you on. But first
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Speaker 2: EV's for everyone. Yeah, I'm everywhere everywhere. You're into EV's.
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Speaker 3: I have an EV. I don't know if I'm green.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no question. Way what a pleasure is that good?
0:49
Speaker 2: It is appreciate. It's been awesome.
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Speaker 4: Your staff everyone, we've we've been talking about it. Super accommodating.
0:56
Speaker 2: Well, they're scared of you guys, whole.
0:59
Speaker 4: Afraid of schools might not be then if that's how
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Speaker 4: it works, that if if all the places as far
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Speaker 4: as accommodation goes, I would give number one in Nebraska because.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what it is this year.
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Speaker 4: This year we've known Nebraska, Michigan. Yeah, we went to
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Speaker 4: Tennessee because they're in the backyard. We've gotten to know
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Speaker 4: South Carolina a little bit. But this year we kind
1:19
Speaker 4: of like stepped out and tried to going to new
1:20
Speaker 4: schools and everything like that. But your guys, is like
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Speaker 4: the accommodation, how the hospitality here is othern hospitality.
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Speaker 3: If we didn't do it that way it listen, we'd
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Speaker 3: be thrown out of the South.
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Speaker 2: Yes, question, I agree.
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Speaker 1: Louisiana isn't really like Louisiana is its own entity. Like
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Speaker 1: there's the South and there's Florida and.
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Speaker 2: Louisiana own country. Yeah, no doubt. What was the.
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Speaker 1: Experience like getting acclimated to here being in Notre Dame for.
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Speaker 3: So long, Well, it was definitely a change, but it
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Speaker 3: was it was a great change for me in a
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Speaker 3: sense of you know, you're in you know, you're in
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Speaker 3: the Midwest. You know it's certainly Notre Dame was a
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Speaker 3: great experience, But this is so much different relative to
2:01
Speaker 3: the day to day. As you can see, I'm a
2:02
Speaker 3: lot more relaxed. I don't have my tie on today.
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Speaker 3: It's just a relaxed, comfortable environment. And you know, it's
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Speaker 3: about people, it's about food, it's about football, and at
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Speaker 3: the time in my career, this was just a great
2:20
Speaker 3: stop for me and it's it's been really enjoyable.
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Speaker 4: What you've been at Cincinnati, Notre Dame now LSU as
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Speaker 4: a head coach. What stuck out about this job that
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Speaker 4: made you leave Notre Dame in the middle of playoff implications?
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Speaker 4: Obviously when you left that was a monster story. Yeah,
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Speaker 4: you kind of talk about that a little bit.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think that's overblown a little bit. We weren't
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Speaker 3: right in the middle of it. We kind of knew
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Speaker 3: where we were going to be in terms of that.
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Speaker 3: But that's neither here nor there. I think what's most
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Speaker 3: important was LSU and the leadership Scott Woodward. I had
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Speaker 3: known Scott for quite some time, familiar with him, certainly
3:00
Speaker 3: wanting to be in the SEC look guys to to
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Speaker 3: hear I know, but look, I mean you're talking about
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Speaker 3: each and every week, you know, playing against you know,
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Speaker 3: Saban and smart, and you know, the great teams in
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Speaker 3: this conference. I wanted to be measured by the best
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Speaker 3: and coming down here and playing against them. I had
3:23
Speaker 3: never done that, and so you know, it was one
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Speaker 3: of those opportunities for me that allowed me to come
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Speaker 3: to a university that had slipped from its standards, you know,
3:36
Speaker 3: having won a national championship in nineteen So the opportunity
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Speaker 3: was there, and then and then agatting a chance to
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Speaker 3: you know, be with the right people.
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Speaker 4: Well made it the most difficult leaving Notre Dame, and
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Speaker 4: after building such a.
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Speaker 3: Other players, it's the players, you know, It's always about,
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Speaker 3: you know, the relationships that you have with players, and
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Speaker 3: that's always the most difficult because, look, you never leave
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Speaker 3: on your term. It's always somebody else that dictates the timeline.
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Speaker 3: I don't dictate the timeline. It's it's the other school.
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Speaker 3: It's the other university that dictates timeline. So you never
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Speaker 3: get to say I'm leaving when I want to leave.
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Speaker 3: And so that's what makes it difficult. And every stop
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Speaker 3: along the way that I've left, it's never been a
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Speaker 3: great time. But if you're making that decision to leave,
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Speaker 3: the most difficult is the relationships that you have with
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Speaker 3: your players.
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Speaker 1: Talk about the development of football in high school in
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Speaker 1: the South, because it seems like programs like Alabama, programs
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Speaker 1: like LSU, you guys just have an immaculate amount of talent.
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Speaker 2: Always like, what are they feeding them? What's going on?
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Speaker 3: Lack of distractions, right, you know, they're not sitting in
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Speaker 3: front of you know, PlayStations. You know, there's not a
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Speaker 3: lot of other things that take them away from field sports.
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Speaker 3: They're outside playing for the most part, and you know,
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Speaker 3: whether it's being involved in football or track and field
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Speaker 3: or you know training, they're involved in this game and
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Speaker 3: it's something that you know they can do year round.
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Speaker 3: The weather obviously has a lot to do with it,
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Speaker 3: the ability to play spring football. All of those things,
5:21
Speaker 3: although they seem small when you add them all up,
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Speaker 3: each one of them contributes to really good high school football,
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Speaker 3: really good feeder systems relative to you know, colleges that
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Speaker 3: are down here, and in particular, kids grow up wanting
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Speaker 3: to play at the flagship school and there's not a
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Speaker 3: lot of state universities that have that. Right, maybe Ohio
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Speaker 3: State and LSU benefit the most from in state where
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Speaker 3: I want to go play for the buck guys I
5:51
Speaker 3: want to go play for the Tigers.
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Speaker 2: And because of that, it makes for really good recruiter.
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Speaker 4: You do feel it walking around, like when we were
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Speaker 4: walking around and seeing Mike the Tiger and then kind
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Speaker 4: of walking around the basketball arena and everything else, like
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Speaker 4: you just feel everybody walk around, kids are on field trips,
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Speaker 4: like it just feels like people live for sports at LSU.
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Speaker 2: No doubt.
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Speaker 3: And look, I mean, and it couldn't probably come together
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Speaker 3: any better. Right Our baseball team's number one in the country,
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Speaker 3: you know, they had fourteen thousand. You know, our women's basketball,
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Speaker 3: you know, certainly softball, track and fields one and two.
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Speaker 3: I mean, it is about not just one sport here.
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Speaker 3: It's all of those sports are looking to win championships
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Speaker 3: and you can feel it, and look, the bar is high,
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Speaker 3: you know, and because of that, I think it brings
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Speaker 3: everybody up when it comes to, you know, the expectations.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously keeping the players in Louisiana. Everybody from Louisiana
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Speaker 1: wants to be here. When you go to these other
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Speaker 1: states like these California, Texas, these other big time states
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Speaker 1: for recruiting, how is it adjusting to like the culture
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Speaker 1: down here for those guys that maybe come on the
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Speaker 1: West Coast or different parts of the country.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I don't know that it so I'll
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Speaker 3: even take myself right. People talked, you know, probably for
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Speaker 3: the first two weeks when I took the job, how's
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Speaker 3: he going to adapt to the culture? How's he going
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Speaker 3: to adapt? So what is culture? Culture is standards, you know,
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Speaker 3: a way of life. And to me, what you had
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Speaker 3: to adapt to here was simply the weather. You know,
7:27
Speaker 3: the foods. I love the food. I'm originally from Massachusetts.
7:30
Speaker 3: I grew up on Cape God. I love seafood, right,
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Speaker 3: I didn't get much of that in the Midwest, so
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Speaker 3: here it was great to get back to that kind
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Speaker 3: of seafood. And but it's really weather. Because people are
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Speaker 3: friendly and they love football. So if you like that,
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Speaker 3: there's not a big change relative to that. It's it's
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Speaker 3: really just about, you know, being comfortable with the standards,
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Speaker 3: and the standards are about excellence, and I think that
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Speaker 3: that's an easy one for me.
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Speaker 4: Having a little fun and talking about getting acclimated to
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Speaker 4: the culture. In that first couple of weeks, we again
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Speaker 4: having fun. In those first couple weeks, you went to
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Speaker 4: a basketball game, the accent is family. How much fun
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Speaker 4: did everybody in the building have surrounding that? And did
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Speaker 4: you try to fake an accent to say fames?
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Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, who would, Like, that's the stupidest thing
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Speaker 3: to try to do.
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Speaker 2: I think I would try to do that.
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Speaker 1: Would I would try to do it every single day.
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Speaker 3: When you have a Boston accent, I mean, and you're
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Speaker 3: in the Midwest and then you go down South, You're
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Speaker 3: you're going to be all messed up anyway, And and
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Speaker 3: I think I have a bit of a strange accent anyway,
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Speaker 3: So add another one.
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Speaker 2: I think it's it's it's crazy anyway.
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Speaker 1: So so you're claiming we routed the system a little bit,
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Speaker 1: you're thrown off. I mean a lot of people from
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Speaker 1: the South and you might have caught a couple of
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Speaker 1: things and deciding you be a little nervous not do
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Speaker 1: it too. We people in Nashville, they start talking Southern
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Speaker 1: to me.
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Speaker 2: I started people, and you start hearing family.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's almost like that's natural, that's how
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Speaker 3: you say it. And I'm just trying to be like
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Speaker 3: everybody else. And then throw your boss that accent in
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Speaker 3: there too, And heck, I couldn't tell you what's coming
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Speaker 3: out of my mouth.
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Speaker 1: Little boss ocasion, Yeah, little boss, Yeah, You've had so
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Speaker 1: much success as a head coach. I remember twenty twelve,
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of talk and speculation about you leaving
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Speaker 1: Notre Dame and going to the NFL, and you decided
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Speaker 1: not to do that. What came into that decision making
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Speaker 1: of wanting to stay in the college football.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it was the decentralization of the pro game,
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Speaker 3: where you know, I've been used to my whole life,
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Speaker 3: like the old kind of Bill Parcells quote, you know,
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Speaker 3: shop for the groceries and cook the meal. You know,
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Speaker 3: you don't do that in the NFL, especially. You know,
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Speaker 3: the time that I would have been going, I would
9:57
Speaker 3: have been not handling the roster. I would not have
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Speaker 3: been the GM. I would have been simply the football coach.
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Speaker 3: And I've been used to handling the scholarships and making
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Speaker 3: final decisions on you know, who was getting the final
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Speaker 3: say relative to anything that happened in the program. And
10:16
Speaker 3: when you go to the NFL, you lose a lot
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Speaker 3: of that control. And not that I'm a control freak,
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Speaker 3: as much as I just felt like I had all
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Speaker 3: of those things at Notre Dame, and I was going
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Speaker 3: to give all that up, and I just wasn't ready
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Speaker 3: to do that.
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Speaker 1: Do you think there's ever a time you see yourself
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Speaker 1: becoming an NFL head coach?
10:37
Speaker 2: No, I'm all in, yeah, this is it.
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Speaker 3: I love what I do because I've refound the if
10:45
Speaker 3: that's a word, the relationships with the players, and I
10:48
Speaker 3: enjoy that too much. And you know, not being a
10:51
Speaker 3: play caller anymore, I'm not in meetings. I don't have
10:54
Speaker 3: to sit in those long meetings, so I can be downstairs,
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Speaker 3: I could be in the training room, I can eat
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Speaker 3: with the guys, and it just allows you that opportunity
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Speaker 3: to be with the players more.
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Speaker 4: What does that scalability look like? Because you could be
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Speaker 4: a head coach who's very invested in offense or defense
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Speaker 4: or everything else, and when you've kind of scaled yourself
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Speaker 4: to surround yourself with these minds around you, like, what
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Speaker 4: does that look like?
11:13
Speaker 2: Fix football?
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Speaker 3: I mean, fix the issues that the coordinators need help with.
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Speaker 3: I've been on both sides of the ball. I've been
11:21
Speaker 3: a coordinator on offense and defensive, call players on both
11:25
Speaker 3: sides of the ball. So I think just being available
11:27
Speaker 3: to fix any issues that we might have. Be available
11:31
Speaker 3: for those guys. We meet every day, you know, with
11:33
Speaker 3: the coordinators. So for me, if there are any particular
11:38
Speaker 3: issues that crop up, be a sounding ward, be there
11:41
Speaker 3: with hey, experience, this is my thirty second year being
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Speaker 3: a head coach, and maybe just lend a little bit
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Speaker 3: of that experience to those guys and help them along
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Speaker 3: the way.
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Speaker 4: When you were first kind of going through that transition too,
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Speaker 4: is a hard kind of like letting go oh being
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Speaker 4: a coordinator and be like, all right, let me just
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Speaker 4: let me just trust them and not let me buy
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Speaker 4: my tongue.
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Speaker 3: It's got to be Yeah, I don't know that the
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Speaker 3: trust was the issue. It was finding the right outlets.
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Speaker 3: In other words, you know, where can I find myself
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Speaker 3: during the day doing the things that I was used
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Speaker 3: to doing scripting and you.
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Speaker 2: Know, I got seven on seven to do.
12:16
Speaker 3: I've got to script these you know, plays and team
12:18
Speaker 3: and so, you know, really filling in those voids, and
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Speaker 3: it really was filled in with what my why is,
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Speaker 3: and that is spending more time in the training room,
12:28
Speaker 3: you know, spending more time you know with the players,
12:32
Speaker 3: support staff, making sure that we've got the right things
12:35
Speaker 3: in place for our players in terms of recovery, and
12:38
Speaker 3: so that was trying to find that niche early on
12:42
Speaker 3: and where that void would be filled was the hardest part.
12:46
Speaker 1: When these guys from high school are coming into college.
12:49
Speaker 1: What are the pillars that you stand on as far
12:51
Speaker 1: as your program goes and how do you implement that
12:53
Speaker 1: on guys that are seventeen eighteen years old, especially the
12:55
Speaker 1: early en roll league guys.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, consistency and approach in terms of of the day
13:01
Speaker 3: to day in terms of you know, look, this is
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Speaker 3: about graduating our players and player for championships.
13:08
Speaker 2: How do we get you there?
13:10
Speaker 3: And really working on what are those things that will
13:14
Speaker 3: help you, Like attention to detail, you know, you know,
13:18
Speaker 3: having good habits, being reliable. You've been in an NFL
13:21
Speaker 3: locker room. I mean what does everybody want? Just being
13:25
Speaker 3: on time? You know, be a good teammate. You know,
13:29
Speaker 3: those are standards that are not that hard, and sometimes
13:32
Speaker 3: we make it harder than it is. So really just
13:35
Speaker 3: giving them the basic principles of you know, good values
13:39
Speaker 3: on a day to day basis and being consistent with
13:41
Speaker 3: it and making sure that we apply those every single day,
13:45
Speaker 3: and those are really the most important.
13:47
Speaker 4: I know. We have to let you go here soon
13:49
Speaker 4: because you're about to go to a sports a sports
13:51
Speaker 4: science media and that's what I want to ask you about, Like,
13:53
Speaker 4: how do you implement the sports science because when we
13:56
Speaker 4: were talking about before the before the podcast, we're talking
13:58
Speaker 4: about how it's misunderstanding everything else. How do you use
14:01
Speaker 4: sports science as a tool and not the end all
14:04
Speaker 4: be all, like some people can kind of misconsure or
14:07
Speaker 4: look into it too much.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So my job is to put together in this
14:10
Speaker 3: building a high performance team for our student athletes, right,
14:13
Speaker 3: and so that high performance team touches our student athletes
14:16
Speaker 3: from you know, mental performance training, to nutrition, to strength
14:21
Speaker 3: and conditioning, you know, to understanding what their sleep patterns
14:25
Speaker 3: are with aura and and so all of that touches them.
14:29
Speaker 3: But we want it to be collaborative, right, We want
14:31
Speaker 3: them all working together, not separately. So sports science is
14:36
Speaker 3: that delivery system for human performance, and sometimes they're all
14:40
Speaker 3: working in separate areas and they don't want to share
14:42
Speaker 3: their work, and so just getting them under one umbrella
14:46
Speaker 3: and making sure that they're working together cohesively, and I
14:50
Speaker 3: think that that's a competitive advantage. And if you're able
14:53
Speaker 3: to do that and deliver it, the right way. I
14:56
Speaker 3: think those are things that you can do to be
14:58
Speaker 3: just a step ahead.
14:59
Speaker 1: I love that which We appreciate your time. Thanks, amazing facility.
15:02
Speaker 1: Everything is top nauseating. We are in the hospitality.
15:05
Speaker 3: Is great to spend some time with you guys. We
15:07
Speaker 3: look forward to seeing it in the fall.
15:09
Speaker 4: Ye yes, we would love that to a night game,
15:12
Speaker 4: to come to a night game.
15:13
Speaker 2: It lives up to the hype. I'm going to tell
15:15
Speaker 2: you that we can. We can just let you know
15:17
Speaker 2: we're in.
15:17
Speaker 1: You made a big mistake offering that.
15:19
Speaker 2: Thanks guys,