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Living the Sport | Former Division One Tight End Talks About Life at Georgia Tech · Run After Cast: The College Football Podcast

• speaker-0: cast the college football podcast. As usual, I'm Aaron joined by my two friends, Ryan. guys. Today we're also joined by our special guest, Will coming to give us a perspective on a college football fan from a former player perspective. Normally this is where we kick over to the Raction news desk, but our news team was out on vacation this week. And so was the entirety of anything happening in college football. speaker-2: gentlemen. speaker-0: We don't have any news to share, but that also leaves us more time to talk to Will here, get things going. So Chandler, why don't you walk us on what we brought Will to talk to us about. speaker-3: Yeah, you know, I apologize. can, you can take it out of Ryan and I's pay. We didn't get any news this week. So, you know, I know it'll be reflected in our, in our quarterly report. Yeah. I mean, Will, I appreciate you coming on. You've been a family friend for a long time and you have a very unique perspective on college football, being a former player. So happy to have you on and I'll kick it to you to give a little background about yourself and we'll jump right into it. speaker-2: Well, thanks for having me first of all, like Chandler said, him having known each other since early, both grew up in the same small. speaker-1: Me and in high school. Town played football a much smaller school than he played baseball. speaker-2: in our same hometown. Essentially my football is I grew up in the middle of nowhere in the desert in California on a tiny Air Force base. Play at like an organized level other than you're kind of like a co-rec. speaker-1: story is I grew where there were no sports I was able to kind of. soccer or like mob ball kind of. speaker-2: bundled up with everybody. as soon as we from that Air Force base, my kind of first football as soon as possible playing football when I was 10 living out in Ohio was my first time wearing a helmet. And I thought I wanted to quit because it too head hurts as soon as you put it on and you think this is what a concussion feels. speaker-1: He moved. I have to play. So I started. tight, you know, the kind of thing like your. like, right. And so I can't say I was like hooked right away. The process was not necessarily fun. It's like coming back. was like, as of who speaker-2: on football way, but I just kept kind of compulsion of the football equivalent dreams or whatever. Once I just kept coming back, moved a couple, played some football out in Las Vegas and the. Where are you from? speaker-1: different times, play. Yes. Heat eventually settled in for our channel. I mean, that's really where things kind of stuck. speaker-2: I am, you know, like a proud football, Christian school in. That's where I played all through it up until graduating from high school. speaker-1: of Rocky bike. I still for it. It's great. Cool. I've had an incredible experience there had a really small coach. speaker-2: Staff that I'm so close to, know, kind of to the state. Those kind of people really, you know, just kind of forming my life in a lot of ways and. And also kind of just like a better understanding of what it does for me just as a person. I'm in my own kind of. speaker-1: So. I'll just kind of give it a go for the game. I had the opportunity in kind of a really strange way after my kind of like really quickly at that point. speaker-2: Sophomore year, just developing a lot and starting to like, experience a lot of success kind of in the back end of high school and kind of late blooming in that game a lot better. speaker-1: way grew a lot, understood the, stopped kind of overthinking things, started getting. speaker-2: attention from smaller schools and the kind of process is very strange, especially as you are kind of like hoping that you level teams are and then eventually one day, you know, I kind of. ⁓ speaker-1: of like D3 recruiting partners. might play at a higher level calling you. after my senior year was over, got the call that I had to on my dream academic school, is speaker-2: call ⁓ I had a spot at. Obviously Georgia Tech here in Atlanta where I live now. ⁓ scrap. To walk on in the fall of. speaker-1: So got the opportunity to play 2020, is kind of a wrinkle in my college football story. speaker-2: when I play that I'm sure we'll talk about more. speaker-0: You speaker-1: But yeah, I got there in 2020 was a walk on under Jeff Collins, former DC. ⁓ speaker-2: I know you're a team of choice and I'm sure you remember. speaker-1: Jeff Collins era there. Had a really hard experience, but a really great one. Played for that season. You know, retired, so to speak, whatever, whatever you can say at 19. To focus on school, kind of ended up finishing. speaker-2: and then kind of. ⁓ finishing by the masters of georgia tech and so really thankful for the opportunity to kind of do that alongside football in my life has been speaker-1: that. But yeah, I mean, up until really this point, football's a huge part of the story for most of my life as athlete. speaker-2: the app and then eventually over the last few years as a fan. So yeah, really happy to be here to talk about both parts of that. speaker-3: So what did your walk-on experience look like? So I know that's something that not a lot of people know about the process and especially the recruiting in general. So how does that work when you get the call? How do you get that kind of recruiting and what happens when you get on campus? Like walk us through it. speaker-1: Yeah, you know, it's a good question and some things that I can. And happen just because of obviously being recruited during it. Yeah, it works a little bit differently depending on what kind of school you're at. I had a particular receivers coach. I was a tight end in college. speaker-2: tell you about that should have happened that did pandemic and all of those kinds of things. . I played at a small school, repositioned, but it was primarily. speaker-1: played snaps at every like a running back, but you know, kind of find out as you're being scouted that you're maybe too tall to play running back at the power five level and too slow to play. speaker-2: out. wide out and so you got to settle on tight end. speaker-1: where you're like, I'm big kinda, you so it happens differently for every different kind of person. School like my receivers coach ⁓ pubs who kind of had my back in general. speaker-2: What? small line. Always broke. He kind of sat me down at the beginning of the year and kind of told me like, don't about the offer stuff this season and I'll take care of it kind of behind the scenes and so. speaker-1: Don't worry about the D1 stuff, worry about just play well. My process was kind of hands off in ways that not everybody's was also hands off in the sense that like I wasn't like being thrown. He wants attention. You had from like five D1. It's in talking to coach. speaker-2: You know, I was like scholarships left and right that demanded my, you know, like I the interest kind of non powerful schools that required a little bit more like can't visit and things like that, but they weren't necessarily academically aligned with the things I was interested in. speaker-1: And so my Georgia Tech process actually really just happened. had screenshot of an email ⁓ from Rob, just kind of that was from the recruiting director at Georgia Tech that just said, Hey, we've seen the film. Can't make any promises, but he's, you know, and so that was really the entirety of my recruitment. I woke up one I like, ⁓ FIFI player. so that day I had, speaker-2: up one day to ⁓ He's out of spot if you want. my process to Jordan's ex that I had an email and I was, you then like a post season workout that I was at for my high school. ⁓ and you know, that's kind of like the day. speaker-1: you show up. We were talking about it pre show but I do I'm the first person to speaker-2: the football program at my play in the five. speaker-1: on modern power five still am I guess hopefully that doesn't stay true for much longer you know I'd love to see that not be a thing anymore yeah like when you show up you feel like a million bucks because they roll out the red carpet for her speaker-2: everybody's heard the news. I'm going through the workout feeling like a million bucks. We're going to at the end of the on the day. speaker-1: We're doing a sprint workout, how to close it out. Or my hamstring on like the last rep of. And so this is like February, 2020 at this point, you know, two weeks later, have my injury because I just wasn't sure what the implications were. speaker-2: I've not told SortsTech about my application before that far out. was pretty sure I'd be recovered by the time I had to report. speaker-1: And so originally the process is once you get, I got a call from the lead recruiter at George. speaker-2: your spot. he invited me out to campus. was... speaker-1: supposed to do a recruiting visit with Chandler, your old speaker-2: classmate Juan Thomas from Niceville. speaker-1: My kind of, when they recruit you for these things, they usually try to find a personal connection either to your hometown or somebody who is like, kind of six degrees of. Wanya as I was walking out the door to drive up. speaker-2: you know, of separation away from you. for me, that was and or to Atlanta from where I was for my recruiting is that I get a call. speaker-1: from the lead recruiter who says, Hey, have you left yet? And I said, you should probably turn around. We're all leaving campus right now for this COVID day. Back. You Was no kidding in my front door, walking out to. Act close to tour. You're kind of, you're kind of couch with an injury plus of him. speaker-2: I'm walking out the door right now and he says. speaker-0: Thanks. speaker-2: we don't know when we'll be back. probably just stay home. to get in the car to drive semi-pounds. And then you know, you're not made for the next few months. And so. speaker-1: That really is kind of the bulk of the recruiting process. For some people, it's really intensive. If they want to come see you play, that might be a thing if you're like in consideration for like a scholarship at a competitive position, right? Like they're not extending a lot of offers to tight ends in general. speaker-2: in high school that kind of like in addition And so a lot of those guys come through these D1 programs as walk-ons. so hands off, they saw my film. They thought it was enough to kind of develop in the background over the course of the season and kind of just see what happens. And then that was really it. Yeah. speaker-1: And for me, that process was. speaker-3: you go on a visit there or is that going to be your first time up there? speaker-1: My first time up there was ⁓ the day before my first practice, just because that was when the campus opened back up for like in any capacity, right? Like think tech probably suspended classes that year from like mid February and moved everything. Any campus operations. Really? And during that recruiting process, like we didn't know. And so I kind of just heard. speaker-2: George. thing online and didn't open it again until August. know when that was going to be. Hey, when you're allowed to come back, we'll call you. that will be open. So be ready to come out in two weeks. speaker-1: And they called and said, Hey, like probably two weeks from now. A couple of days later, I get a text from them that says, it's actually you be here tomorrow. speaker-2: tomorrow. ⁓ speaker-0: Hahaha speaker-1: you know, sitting in my house mentally preparing to be. speaker-2: in nice for a couple more weeks, get the text, pack my whole life up. I'm out the door that you know, I'm on campus the next morning. And then you can't imagine anxiety. speaker-1: nights. speaker-0: generated at that. speaker-2: Thanks. speaker-1: Yeah, I think that it probably unlocks some new anxieties for me about a big speaker-2: late to things and missing things, whatever it is, right? speaker-1: But like, yeah, as an 18 year old who has obviously, you know, kind of never left for school, right? Like, I think that there's this perception from college football fans that these guys are just adults and professionals. And to an extent we are right. Like we're being like the equivalent of like a full time job. But we're also like, just like children over six foot tall, you know, like that is kind of part of this. Like, like I was not any less young than the average 18 year old. I was just like bigger. So. speaker-2: I'm playing football. speaker-1: So yeah, that's a huge life change to happen really suddenly. so, legitimately for walk-ons and for athletes for everything like that, they just kind of meet in the case of a sig. speaker-2: So, everybody actually leaving home and those graduated in 2020, like really suddenly part of like adversity that you're overcoming right away. speaker-1: I was a huge speaker-0: Well, that would lead me to a question that I think a lot of people either glancingly think about or don't think about at all is that a lot of these people, athletes that are coming in are 18 year old, as you're saying, an 18 year old young man going into a program like that. How much of an impact does the staff have to providing that structure for a young person out on their own in a lot of cases from various different walks of life coming in and having that. speaker-1: Yeah, I think the average answer that a player would give you is too much. speaker-2: sure. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I think that you, the thing that I'll really never forget is when I showed up. speaker-2: campus. was checked into the student athlete dorms because we've got, know, tech isn't really any control where on campus you can. Allowed to live off campus if you're not. It was one of the things that's waiting there when I checked. speaker-1: at most campuses, different the power five, there's some kind of roles on stay who you can stay with, you know, if you're. So I check into the student athlete. And for me, again, is like a pamphlet that basically it's like, doesn't really feel real. It feels kind of like like horror movie coded a little bit, but it's just like cheesy, like cartoonish pamphlet that basically is the effect of like, so you're a division one athlete, right? And you open it up. And there's like a there's like a pie chart on the inside. speaker-2: bit. speaker-1: And it says, imagine this is a hundred percent of your time, like waking, sleeping, studying, doing whatever. And there's a first little line on the graph that is like maybe like 25%. They're like, this is how much time division three players spend on their sport. This is how much time division two players spend. There's a final ring that like covers like the whole thing. It's like, this is you. You're like, Oh, okay. And so you keep reading. like, well, how'd and they're like, this will give you everything you need to like man athlete. And there's some ways, right? Like I, I obviously. speaker-2: of the student. speaker-1: played football for a lot less time. The average like guy that comes into the pot, I'd like a lot of people leave before their eligibility is up. Then you think either because of like, free to focus on school or having different. It's like kind of like finishing rate, so to speak is a lot lower than you think. But the guys who stayed for a lot longer remember this process better than me, but in some ways my like really short college football experience makes some of these memories really vivid, even if they're a little bit like exactly. But the thing I'll never forget is opening that pamphlet. One of the first things that it says on there, kind of like speaker-2: more of you One. Their paths or injuries or whatever, right? exaggerated. like your lifestyle non-negotiables, right? It's like. speaker-1: Be on time to every class, know, be on time to every practice. And the last one on there is like, make sure that you get these. speaker-2: at least six hours of sleep a night, not negotiable. Turn the page on the pamphlet. speaker-1: next he says like things to be aware of. is you will never sleep six hours in a night. It was like, okay, so I was over right. But like these coaches do provide a lot of support. And obviously, like my tight ends coach was really excellent form of support, obviously getting speaker-2: I'm camp is really like kind terrifying form of support at first because everything's just so unfamiliar and like, you know, like when you make a mistake, seems like the worst thing that's ever happened to you. speaker-1: causing you, but they do a lot of work to just kind of provide you the structure that. speaker-2: Bakes culture ball scene. speaker-1: like terrifying when you first get there, eventually after a speaker-2: months, it kind of realizes it's the thing that makes college football possible. Every day I would open my, it needed to be pretty much every second of the day from six in the morning until 8pm when meetings were over. It's just like, knew what was going on. You knew when you had to be there, all that kind of stuff. so yeah, pretty, you know, nine to nine business hours are spoken for and kind of like directly managed by coaches. Like when you're an underclassmen and speaker-1: For us, that was an app like app just told me where I. you know, 537. I like much, you know, most of your. especially. speaker-2: You know, you're stupid and speaker-1: You'll assume that there's no practice because somebody did. speaker-2: you kind of thing you know yeah speaker-3: That segues perfectly. that was my next question I had. Go through very like, I mean, can go drill down as much as you want, but I think this will format some questions well. Go through your typical, like you said, 6.37 to 8 p.m. Like what does your day to day look like as far as school, practice, all that kind of stuff? So what was your first real full day there? speaker-1: Yeah. So I think maybe a fair disclaimer is twofold. One, like your first is going to be like either at spring or something like that. Like whenever you're told to arrive, you're probably not in class. so you're kind of first couple of weeks. Like for me, speaker-2: Real day, the training or at fall camp. is. That was fall camp just because of the shortened season. Or just like football all the time where you. You're you're. You have another way out, whether that's just like stretching or recovery or whatever, you've got all of the different kind of. speaker-1: Those first couple of weeks, you show up at six, you're lifting, you have meetings, you have practice, you have work out. Contrast therapy, you know, injury rehab, all that kind of stuff is programmed into your day. All of your meals are at specific. You are with your teammates pretty much from that kind of like six AM until like dinner. And then you've got individual position meetings in the evening. It's just like your whole time. Or right. Like this it's similar in the NFL. That's why all of those guys are at hotels. It's just like when there's not any other district. speaker-2: the times you Misspoke it for Fall Camp. Every second is accounted for. So that. Doing things a lot different. There, because I was part of coach Collins philosophy. speaker-1: It's not really like realistic once the season starts and it's the place where you see programs. I was a morning practice team when I was. practices in the afternoon now under break. So like things are different sometimes. And so for me, there was usually, if there was a lift in practice, if there were meetings in the, like, not because it's not like this in high school is really, really, really tightly scripted at the college and pro levels. It was evident where you walk in in the morning and you have a meeting before practice to kind of prep for the day, but that prep for the day, a lot of times speaker-2: morning it would happen before. learning you would usually, this is maybe another thing that is like intuitive. especially in high level. for practice. just hand it says like not speaker-1: and scheduled. Only these are the exact times, weirdly specific times. speaker-2: sometimes, right? Where it's like, you know. speaker-1: 630 practice start 632 first whistle blow 634. like that. It's scheduled down to the minute, but also the individual plays you're probably running are scripted exactly that day. So you walk in and that is the time before those plays. If it heads up, it might be different this week. And obviously like for us, we would have practice. kind of go that evening. You kind speaker-2: warm up, stun, you know, kind of thing, right? Just a lot of times where you will learn kind of be about things that. Then last week, that kind of thing. then. through all that kind of stuff. ⁓ and then that kind of our watching footage of that practice seeing well, well, well, but didn't well, well, probably do some like, that kind of thing. then in between, more treatment, contrast therapy, that kind of thing. Student into a cloud. speaker-1: Outtape footage. Tween is either like more rehab. And then somewhere in there, kind of are right. so the morning kind of practice philosophy sometimes tightens that a lot, right? Like we weren't finishing on. And then, you really only kind of like. speaker-2: window that kind of stuff until usually after have a few hours available to like schedule all of your classes in. speaker-1: per day. And so usually you have this morning block, a bad day for life. speaker-2: And then like a dash of classes, four and a half, five hours in the evening and then back to meetings. And then you kind of study and stuff afterwards, but afternoon, more of the class schedule open to them, that kind of thing. on the coach's philosophy. speaker-1: to have more. So it depends a little bit on the campus. But generally speaking, there's probably about like speaker-2: Five to eight hours of your day kind of like reserve. It just can kind of happen to different times. speaker-1: Bye. speaker-0: and then having to frame the rest of your day. speaker-1: available. You guys are all from the south. So you are more aware of this and maybe like the average person, but regardless of if you're a student athlete, what a challenging school to a student. Sometimes part of the reason that recruiting for us, right. speaker-2: ever. George Texan extremely is a challenge. One of the things that I learned going in is like when they were talking to me, like, look, like a lot of the we offer our guys who possible for us to get them into the school. And so you can get in on your own, right. speaker-1: like that when there are walk-ons and film we like, but it's literally impossible. if there's, you know, kind of like young athletes out there, right, like I. speaker-2: was far more motivated about my, you know, like kind of sports than they just were less exciting to me, but they are actually. speaker-1: My class is right here. or the kind of people who are on the fence at a different level. If you're like the D3 guy who like might be able to his nudge into D2 or whatever. A lot of times like speaker-2: We'll write it. Thank level that is for you. You being able to get into the school without help is sometimes kind of the tiebreaker there. speaker-3: What was your major? Cause you're obviously pretty smart if you're getting in there and how did you manage that? Like, cause I know a lot of guys are like going to school to play football. And I know that if you're actually focusing on your academics, it's like you're actually being a real student athlete. speaker-1: Yeah, very flattering question, Ryan. Yeah, so I have a lot speaker-0: Yeah, but ⁓ speaker-2: In and outside of football. ⁓ Long relationship with Georgia Tech. I say that? know, Tech environment. I'll listen to this podcast. speaker-1: My friends from Brazil. know how loaded my long relationship with. So I came in as an economics and internet affairs freshman year, first three years here at Georgia Tech. speaker-2: I was that bachelors degree, I finished that. then ⁓ two years in first tech, was doing my master's in computer science and computing systems. so. speaker-1: My last. So most people on campus obviously are, speaker-2: generally STEM or engineering majors and economic in between that and like communications or business or humanities folks that are there. speaker-1: It's kind of ⁓ And so I think like my graduating major, think my year, like. speaker-2: out of like, you know, three or four thousand graduates, were like six of us from them. speaker-1: major that graduated that year didn't know all of them, which I think football had something to do with. But, ⁓ yeah. So that to answer your question about like how you manage that kind of thing, I guess you manage it. I, there's a lot of kind of just random gaps in my memory around school that year. Kind of like blessed enough to be academically successful that semester. My grade certainly impacted my stress levels and feeling of having everything under speaker-2: to be honest. think it was obviously. But it didn't really impacts in any way. it's. You. Control, right? Like three days. speaker-1: every is total chaos when school is like really, really hard and you're taking classes that are just genuinely like a lot more advanced than other calls. At Georgia Tech calculus one, calculus two. speaker-2: just will ask of you, you know, like to physics one and linear algebra or Janette or history major you're taking them if you're. speaker-1: And so like everybody, you're, you know, just how you're taking them. And so a lot of times that freshman year is kind of like really stressful. You know, people who, and so really I think like probably the way I managed it, if I, speaker-2: for aren't playing a sport at all. ⁓ speaker-1: ⁓ studying at random, all those kinds of things, you know, but you really, kind of like, there is an element of like, are, you are getting a privilege to do a full level. I've been part of the sacrifice. speaker-2: you, football at this high level, this is your time and your just kind of like capacity to get everything done. speaker-3: Do they have tutors ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, we're not usually the best students when it comes to tutors. think I had a lot of friends who were tutors for student athletes. And I don't know if we were always like the best patients, so to speak. ⁓ There's a lot of guys that I know, they came through the program, like genuinely like, really, really smart guys are really successful in their STEM fields. speaker-2: I do. that were just. you know, was ⁓ talking to a teammate of mine at the spring. if you're listening to this, you know, glad you. speaker-1: game the other day. took my advice to listen to the podcast. But like a guy like him, right? Like he, he played football for five years, was a captain his last year, you know, now is like a highly successful civil engineer here in the area. He, you know, he, was one of those guys, maybe he took to, you know, like, was just really just kind of genuinely successful in it for, you know, that there is this kind of maybe feeling from, I guess, pop culture or just with athletes in high school, that football is just kind of like uniquely like speaker-2: in the. I don't know. ⁓ his own right, will be in really, I think. just kind of like experiences. done build of like speaker-1: individual. And I totally understand that perspective because we kind of built a sport around kind of like this, like turn your brain into soup, you know, like, this is like a really mentally demanding sport. And so the guys who are successful in football, for the sector, almost without exception, speaker-2: of doing things like. Bye. and really really intelligent guys off the field as well. speaker-3: guess you like it's like this big like meathead sport. But like a lot of the guys are really good like Luke Keighley and Caleb Downs and stuff. So I feel like they're like so smart in football. It's like easy translation that like they have like a high IQ. So it's just that they want to apply. speaker-1: I think most student athletes that you'd talk to, if they have like maybe a lower GPA than you'd expect from just your average student. It's actually usually like not the case, but if it is, a lot of times it's just like, there's just only so many hours. I might take it. speaker-2: possible you would make. just because of the time demands, right? The day, and so that class that he would otherwise be capable of an A in. speaker-1: So there is sometimes some nuance there, right? Like part of the reason that there's a perception, you'd had in this of the sports because it's kind of like more fun attitude to approach like being on the field. You know, nobody wants to seem like the most book smart guy on the field, right? Like what to be the guy who's going to knock some. It's not necessarily like. Bested in like, you know, fighting. It is like, you know, I think it's cool to see how smart. Just in the real world, these are really intelligent, successful people. speaker-2: of that kind of like. these head off, right? like a thing that I'm all that from like non football players, right? Sometimes these guys are just who have overcome a lot of adversity to do what they did. speaker-0: I'd always be interested to see if somebody did like a conclusive study or a more broad study on athletes and rates of like learning disabilities, things like attention deficit disorder, things like that. Cause I know I was ADD as a child and seeing kids hyperfixate on something like football where their history class might not get them that way, but they're brilliant kids that can hyperfixate, spend all that time, learn the ins and outs of the game. And might not show on their academic record, but in their performance, you're seeing it. I've always wondered how much of that you see in that kind of environment. The speed of the game and when you really start to learn it, like, and you start to try to predict plays as you're watching things like that, you realize there's a depth there that's very tough to keep up with. speaker-1: It's tough to keep up and I would definitely, I have on right now. speaker-2: with on the computer that I'm talking on now, like some of my old playbooks and stuff like that. I think it would be. speaker-1: ⁓ I don't open them because I think it be embarrassed how much I forgot, right? Like there's so much like complexity is like an order of magnitude of like the guys that are playing in the NFL frighteningly more complicated than what we would play like in the ACC. But even that I felt like I was like being asked to do brain surgery. But sometimes like especially when I walked in and I was like, no, like a play is a color and a number. That's what you need to know. Right. That's the only information that I have to take. have to know. speaker-2: to the game and like. playing schemes that are. like and I don't know anybody else. speaker-1: and the field is doing, but now there are all these kind of levels of protection content, things getting changed at the line of scrimmage and routes that you decide you're going to run a certain way, like in real time, right? Like all of these things are, it's like a. speaker-2: depth about legitimate complexity step up, but to dive into for sure. speaker-1: It's, you know, it's a fun joke. speaker-3: That's kind of funny that made me think of this. I'm not trying to make fun of her, but my mom one day, I was like trying to explain something to football. I told her that they run like design plays and it almost blew her mind. they even run. Hard rule. Yeah, everybody's running around. speaker-0: She just thought football was like backyard. ⁓ I think to somebody who's looking at it, that's what it looks like when you first see it. know, people wait, they see the ball start moving and they all start trying to get at each other. And there's a lot more to it than that. speaker-1: his mom devoted her life to the ins and outs of the Tampa to system since this. So she's not being represented probably. She's actually like the biggest ball tower on the call right now. speaker-2: study. comments. now but ⁓ but rise. speaker-3: was gonna say there's probably levels but like even her to us and then us to like you is like a huge gap. I can't even like really imagine the stuff y'all speaker-1: There is the kind of like, I've, well, at this point, probably like, there's just so much to take in all the time that it's kind of like speaking to really pull back from it a lot. There's things that you lose the kind of, if we're talking about the ball knowledge, it just kind of a lot of it is execution, right? Of like a lot of watching like that, something I'm watching in a large, the thing that I will notice the most of like, ⁓ this is the thing that's like not quite. speaker-2: I've a lot about football. which of you. I think that. sticks around forever. kind of. Sometimes when I'm, you know, like watching the Superbowl or something like that, we're friends a lot of times like. speaker-1: Clicking is all of those kind of like, is this person actually executing poorly or is there just something going on? It's the problem, right? Like quarterback air mails a ball, like dirty guys head, everybody's furious at the quarterback. And you're kind of looking at it. We're like definitely ran the wrong route and it's and everybody, everybody's mad at Nelson fields or it's just like, well, because like, there's just other things, like those are the kinds of things where it's just that kind of like intuitive, like this was actually speaker-2: Over. you know, whoever and maybe shouldn't be. as it stick around. Here, wow, this wasn't. ⁓ speaker-1: rather than like, like I wouldn't I draw up probably. speaker-2: be able to like single play from when I was playing just like sitting down here right now. Don't last as long as the intuitive stuff. speaker-1: those kind of like technical things. speaker-3: Well, I feel like you're almost going to school to get like two separate degrees. Like I feel like you're going to go in and you're learning a playbook and formations and schemes and you're getting into it with your, your player positions, your coaching staffs, all that different stuff. And you're also trying to get a technical degree at a technical institution at the same time. So how, how do you go and juggle that separation to be like, ⁓ I have a final exam this week. but also like we're playing Georgia and I have to like go and study all these things like separate too. Like I've always wondered like how do you make that distinction? speaker-1: I mean, my thing, right? Like, you know, as freshmen walk on, I'm kind of like, and we're playing Notre Dame this week, but I'm not playing Notre Dame this week. I can ignore the playbook this week, just kind of lock in for my computer science. This week, I do not know any of the blocking schemes, but I do know how to program. speaker-2: May. And final, whatever it's like, all right. Like a, like an infinite loop, I guess, you know, I don't know. speaker-1: So I think like the question of the guys who really are dealing with the pressure of going out there on post like the role of really most young players right ⁓ even a lot of the young scholarship players to be that infrastructure of support around the people who are kind of caring. The way a little bit different because actual experts. speaker-2: are ⁓ performing Sundays as a terrain. is this. wait on Saturdays, right? like, the way we would judge things is because the expectation of like, this has to be perfect on Saturday. Really on us. speaker-1: isn't necessarily. So for me, you kind of did just tri-up, right? Like, bye. speaker-2: I just will not be, you know, watching this podcast. I. speaker-1: I don't have to ⁓ pretend like I watched more film than I did. It's just like, well, school's busy. We just start watching film. But that trade-off might happen in a different direction for somebody who's speaker-2: to that kind of. got a lot more Saturday responsibility than you know, ⁓ the freshman tight end or gray shirt or whatever doesn't have that kind of weight on their shoulders. speaker-1: that. speaker-0: With the landscape of college football now with NIL and transfers, you're seeing a lot of younger freshmen coming in, stepping into roles where they are Saturday guys, either at the D2 level or D5 level or group five level. Do you think on an individual level, do you think that a better experience for some of those younger guys as a whole? Did you like more of your being able to sit a bit more and ease into the system. speaker-1: you know, you're touching on something interesting there, right? Like there are a couple of like really brief exposure to, you know, I guess now power really unique, one of which was the fact that I showed up during COVID, right? And so just like everything was different. That was also the last year before NIL was a thing, right? Like, yeah. So it was something that we kind of would have we knew was probably happening eventually. But so there is a degree to which my experience in speaker-2: couple things that made. for football. Intuitions probably didn't know when. in college football. speaker-1: is kind of like blissfully ignorant of the fact to like other, like I could have been different context, right? And like I offer walk-ons today is rare. It's not impossible. you're football for a living as a college student, like the calculus, right? Like you might decide to transfer to a smaller or a D two school thousand dollars a year as opposed to on somewhere in pain. may be a better experience for some people. It be a worse experience. speaker-2: making a little bit of money and, and I, well, you know, playing It changes. Do want school where you might make like, you know, like a few thousand being a walk to go to school there. experience, right? Like, I think we would have speaker-1: ⁓ for me, think that it probably moved the needle for me because like the kind of, I do have, all were kind of strong enough that it was like, knew I was going to stay at Jordan tech and that I don't know if like necessarily the opportunity to. speaker-2: calls of what I was supposed be doing outside of football. I wasn't going to keep playing football. I don't really, it's for like a smaller school and maybe make like a little bit more money would have been like super compelling to me in that situation. speaker-1: So for some people, it is this like. speaker-2: Really like wonderful opportunity to provide for families and build like a stable financial foundation for themselves. addition to paying for this great education and this report is genuinely important. I'm very pro NIL in this report, but there's a lot of chaos introduced into the system from them. obviously like. speaker-1: The thousand There's some degree that that like obviously needs to be brought under control. There's probably some ways I like, would be probably more pro radical like, let's have college football players. You know, than just like somebody who's sitting on. Like, yeah. So from my perspective, like it kind of depends on what you actually wanted out of your car. It's if the only thing you wanted out of your college football experience is to go play. The school your dad went to school, be there for four years and what, right? Like. speaker-2: So the kind of like, have a, their couch, like not thinking about it, right? football experience. play at the that on the tough it out no matter what. speaker-1: It doesn't affect your experience and also like the lack of continuity between make your experience worse. If football is like, is like aspirational for you, it's a great. speaker-2: between teammates might. vehicle to kind of fuel that aspiration. speaker-3: So, ⁓ I know you mentioned smaller schools and I'd be kind of the same way as you. If I was a big Georgia Tech fan, I would consider just going there for school anyways. I know you probably didn't consider them, but did you go like tour any smaller schools? Cause I've been to Georgia Tech and it's like pretty amazing, but I was wondering how they compare. speaker-1: I I'm very, I guess. speaker-2: was a, you know, alum and somebody who understands kind of tech at this point. I'm like way shorter tech-pilled than I would have been going into. speaker-1: understanding of like unique culture towards a more. school like a lot of the reason why I ended up at this school others was because some of my D3 recruiting visits, I found out that our ships from those schools and so was kind of out on the D3 concept quicker than I thought I would be. did tour some smaller D1 schools for the summer recruiting process, right? Like there's a degree to which by the way, I don't know if you ever experienced this with, but like, like there was a smaller division one school here in the speaker-2: You don't get scholars. or kind of like. south that I toured, ⁓ thought had like an okay camp, not like an amazing one, like, a reasonable enough one. I went up to go introduce myself to the. ⁓ speaker-1: a coach afterwards. And he said the sentence that I think more than anything is just like the easiest way to tell somebody that it's like, there's like a zero percent chance that you're being offered at the school is where he shakes my hand. looks at me and he says, your coach tells me that you have great grades. And I was like, I'm just going to go, I'm going to leave my services are no longer required here. I'll go somewhere else. So there is like, yes, I did tour smaller schools in the D3 level at the kind of pay legal. speaker-2: guys. pastry level at the D1 level, like those kinds of things. you know, I I didn't want to play football free unless I was at like an hour. speaker-1: ⁓ decision. I was in the position right now for free aspirational school. felt like I was capable of playing the power five. really wanted to prove that to myself. But if you know you're walking on at the five you kind of speaker-2: power to have to make the decision in like a purely academic sense. so when I visited. speaker-1: Like he said, Ryan, thought it was an amazing campus. I was really kind of attracted to the idea. speaker-2: being in Atlanta and for, know, anybody who's listening, who isn't familiar with Jordan tech at all. It's Atlanta. Like it's really one of the country's kind of purest, like urban Metro campuses by location. that was really, the professors that I talked to were really cool and really like interested in my long-term kind of development. speaker-1: and like the heart to heart of it. feeling to me. ⁓ I knew that like if football was going to be an academic decision, was really the only place I wanted to play. speaker-2: So then when I made the decision to go to school there and the football thing kind of happened after that, it was like the perfect storm for me. speaker-0: imagine going from our area here in Niceville up to the heart of Atlanta didn't help that. I would say day to day change that you go through when you're going from just being an 18 year old high school student to an 18 year old college student being pretty crazy. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, the streets being because of a global pandemic actually in some ways coming back to campus the next year was even more jarring because it was like back. I was really. But yeah, I I was sitting. speaker-2: empty because it actually made the transition a lot easier. Atlanta to normal and that overwhelming. Um, I remember in the car outside the student athlete dorms with my dad when I first got there and he made the comments. Eventually Atlanta will speaker-1: this company was like, probably feel like you're. speaker-2: You know, like your city where it'll be like the thing that feels most familiar to me. Like this guy, you know, like. speaker-1: Kind one of those like, you know, dad moments where you're like, he is just like, well, just keep saying stuff to make me feel better than what he believes. true, but yeah. speaker-2: I mean, you know, I finished school here and it was kind of one of those things where it's like, there's not really any other city that I want to be in. so, like, you know, I've been here for, you know, three or four years after finishing my after kind of wrapping up at Georgia Tech as a whole. speaker-1: Yeah, was a big part of the adjustment, it's probably the part of my whole football experience the most, was just like a really. And that kind of feeds into your earlier question of like somebody like me, if the transfer portal was a bigger opportunity, it was like, no, I just, I. speaker-2: experience that starts. deep and significant love for the city of Atlanta. so again. wanted to learn. loved it here. I loved the school. I loved the challenge. It's asking of me academically because it also like, know, tech where it's like kind of most difficult academic year. speaker-1: that it was. Freshman years, kind of the year, is the most shell shocking, it's not anywhere close to the most. Right. Like, Jordan tech got a lot harder for me. Like just kind of that part of. speaker-2: And it also, you know, my football experience for, for that, the whole thing stick, you know. speaker-3: Being a student athlete, you get ⁓ access to a lot of different cool stuff, I'm sure, especially as a football player at a school like Georgia Tech. What were some behind the scenes, behind the curtain looks of things that you had access to or facilities or things in facilities? I'm sure you had chefs always whipping up some great food. What was your key behind the scenes stuff that you love to take advantage of? speaker-1: You know, I mean, there's a lot of ways you could answer this question, right? Like there's certain things about like, there's certain things about wearing a matching set on campus with the back with the every school kind of has like the piece of student athlete gear. That's like the designate is you're like, you're one of the Jordan tech. It's a Jordan tech. It's the backpack that they issue. That's the thing that it's like only getting those like a couple different ways. And if you got the, there wasn't being the student athlete, it's usually obvious. speaker-2: saying that. your way and the way. speaker-0: Thanks. speaker-1: And so, ⁓ there are some just kind of social perks you'd expect, right. So like, around, so to speak, right. Like, you know, we talk about those, they're real, they happen, right. Like, you know, we'll think more important to the team than you are. You know, so exciting that you practice football, you know, tell you, but, ⁓ yeah, I mean, like in terms of the actual like lifestyle benefits, there is a way that walk on a lot. speaker-2: as walking with the backpack. people. You know, ⁓ it's place of all. You're like, well, I. like benefit from that during. speaker-1: the COVID year, there were some ways where that was adjusted just because of like safety and stuff like that. I guess like I will speak to the parts of my experience that I unique to that year, because they were also part of the kind of like, or maybe less training. But also the ones that just like, speaker-2: So I know where you're things that were ⁓ desirable or more fresh about that would never have repeated themselves in a different situation, speaker-1: Like walk-ons had a separate locker room that year because of distancing rules, which was like, think you can imagine in kind of togetherness perspective, that being like a frustration, but it was also just like necessary. And it's not something that you're coaching staff, right? Like the thing Chandler's really after is that he knew me before football and he knew me I showed up just like looking like a completely different human from a nutrition perspective three months later, back over Christmas. speaker-2: because of social distancing rules, know, from like a team unity kind of like training thing. You can hold against. when I speaker-3: this guy was a unit when he came back home for Christmas. I was like, dude, this man has been eating, he's been lifting, he's good to go. speaker-1: Yeah. So I probably finished high school at like, as like a six one, six two in kind of person. And like, and I school you're like, yeah, that's big. Like I'm, feeling myself like, like want me to play them. Like I'm probably I got on campus. do all kind of. And I sit down in the tight end room and tight end coach, you know, probably compassionately in his way, you know, he was like, yeah, so like, we're going to fix this, but you're what we'd consider like severely undersized. speaker-2: I'm like, you know, these colleges for them, like a useful size, like my onboarding physical and stuff like that. speaker-1: What does that mean? He's like, well, you're too short. You're too late. Fix one of those things. And so we're going to get your weight up. And I was like, well, what does that mean? He was like, I need you over 255 pounds. I'm like, coach, I got here because I could divide that's so much weight a week. don't know how to do that. And so I probably like the kind of challenge to do that when you're working out that much and you're and you don't have a car freshman everywhere. Right. Like for me, that was probably speaker-2: And we can. ⁓ by the end of the season. don't even know. You know, you're practicing all the time. you're, once you're Probably like a six to 8,000. I kind of. speaker-1: count a day was the like intake. this is what you need to be on the trajectory. speaker-2: to gain the weight that you need. If that's, if for my sake, I was not an offensive lineman. ⁓ speaker-1: Seems like a lot to you. You should just be really. who had bigger calorie deficit demands and larger jumps that they had to make, right? Like a lot of those offensive line are the same size as me, depending on where they play. And they're asking 250, 260, it's like 300, 320, 350. And it just happens just for the like. speaker-2: And like. coming in at the same drive to, you know. to happen as fast as possible. not ⁓ learning the just kind of like safety of like and is speaker-1: experience or the opportunity, but. These guys, a senior defensive, like running at you at practice is like the most terrifying thing in 18 can see. just really wish you were 30 pounds heavier. it's like, there's a basic, just like injury, especially at high level. If you too small for your position, you are putting yourself at risk, right? Like, ⁓ there's a reason that when like, you know, Vita fail. ⁓ speaker-2: year old. survive that interaction, right? Prevention of college football that it's like you are sprawls gets hit by like, you or something like that on a jet sweep. Like everybody watching is going to like kind of So. speaker-1: You know, because it's just like, it's not good, right? Generally speaking, yes, like at most large football programs, is national chef's kind of speaker-2: separate dining hall with professionals that are just available ⁓ when you need them. ⁓ speaker-1: They're pretty nice. know, like it's probably different than the normal college experience. lot of like different things that accommodate like different types of players, like people who need higher calorie situations, people who are maybe trying to lose weight for different reasons, fresher ingredients, a more options, sometimes nicer amenities. There's, there's a degree to which that like the seams kind of system-y to the outside viewer, but the NCAA does have like rules about this. like that student athlete dorm rule has to be available. speaker-2: reason. ⁓ cast. speaker-1: to all students on campus. The way that they end up being segmented in most situations is like two ways. One is probably inertia where it's like, I don't think you really want to be in there, even if the food is nicer, just for the like the awkwardness of it. And a lot of times during prime meal times, if it's like a team meal dining hall is going to be closed and other people can't get into it, whatever the things, but also just the kind of like the other way is like sometimes the dining hall is like more expensive for non-athletes than regular students. Like there's different ways that that kind of thing happens, but it's not actually usually like restricted. If you go to a power five school, by the way, I would like speaker-2: this guy. speaker-1: And you're not an athlete. Like this is not an endorsement of just like, ⁓ explore the student athlete dining halls. I would be playing at one school. I don't know what will happen. I don't suggest like, I don't suggest that being the place where you go make friends your freshman year. ⁓ just, right. I guess not what I'm saying. You should not do that. But yeah. And so that's part of the way that they help support these guys gain weight. Sometimes there's nutritionists that are much more strict than I had, right? Like I was able to eat. speaker-3: Hey guys, how's it going? speaker-2: Coming up with like, it's not enough without the supervision to gain weight that they're happy with. But like, sometimes they'll help with like, you know, special stuff, tent. Shanks or whatever it is that'll help. speaker-1: help with special 1000 calorie. Help you get weight. And then obviously, like the other thing, right, like these are big schools that have a lot of sponsors, like every morning, you're probably speaker-2: be walking into some kind of like sponsored thing that is, you know, providing food for you really. speaker-1: Obviously Chick-fil-A is an independent company. At Georgia Tech, you're probably getting like a... speaker-2: a flight or that morning when you walk in, if you're doing like a morning practice, that was definitely true for us that year. I playing the story that I usually tell people in other Atlanta institution on Mellow Mushroom Pizza. If you're familiar, the year that I played, we would have like a particular pregame meeting on Thursday nights. speaker-1: ⁓ that I was ⁓ of most weeks ⁓ as you get out of that meeting, each person is handled. speaker-2: Kind of walk out and then, you know, a large, not a mushroom pizza and a 20 P you know, pressure to gain weight. I was usually, and if you're not sure, it's to 8,000 calories a day is the last meal of the day. I'm going home with food. All minutes and then probably the oven afterwards and eating that whole thing afterwards as well. Like this was the stuff that you're doing to speaker-1: like for a guy who's under like eyeballing what my, you know, my those two pieces, just deleting them all in like 15 years, putting a dish on us. not like speaker-2: walk in the next morning and having like lost four pounds. Like it really was like, if it was like arms reach of me, I wasn't speaker-1: took like, if it was edible, and it was when it had to be speaker-3: I mean you can just for the casual Jersey Mike's connoisseur that I am and I'm sure a lot of people are a giant club of Jersey Mike's with everything on it is like 2,000 calories. You'd have to eat four of those a day to be at 8,000. That's an incredible amount of food and that's like a cheap kind of way to do it. You're eating cleaner food than that usually to get your 8,000. That's just a lot speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: for a pizza. speaker-1: You know, like I just told my two pizzas a night story, you know, like it's kind of like, like, is. Yeah. speaker-3: Is it anything that's not just like diet or water or speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: mean, when I first got there, I was really worried about, you know, you're kind of like you're told you have to put on 30 pounds. You're like, well, I don't want to like, know. speaker-1: Like, I don't want to feel less athletic leaving here than when I walked in. Protein, Instagram, whatever. you just, I just couldn't keep it. I just couldn't. It's like not for me to eat enough. speaker-2: You know, you're like, I'm gonna do it all like, you know. do it. was physically possible. Lean protein to hit those kind of markers. The guys who are making millions of dollars find a way, you know, they're not they're not getting their calories in the same way I was. speaker-1: For me, it was just too tough to just try. speaker-2: know, protein max my way and just, you know. speaker-3: Did you have a go-to meal that you always got? Like look at the chef, make eye contact and they know you're coming, like this is my meal. speaker-0: Okay. speaker-2: most the day, especially when I was in the process of getting speaker-1: Most of my weight meal included at least a diet meal style. speaker-2: Every kind of your kind any home burger plate, you're kind of walking over with like. It's right. So you've got like a huge pasta. speaker-1: the the collect plate. You've got like the taco plate, you've got the burger plate, you've got you're drinking full sugar drinks because you need the liquid calories to stay there kind of thing. ⁓ And you speaker-2: the sandwich thing. get that. You know, you might also have like a, like some kind of accountability of that, of like a co- My fitness pal at the end of the day or whatever. Like, so there is some degree where you're like, I got to get that number at the speaker-1: that needs to see your top of the app high enough that I don't get in trouble tomorrow. speaker-2: You know, so it really was just kind of like my go-to was like every station you're grabbing something off of it. speaker-1: you speaker-3: It's just the one of each. speaker-1: Yeah, it's like, give me whatever. speaker-0: I think it's for somebody that might be outside of that, haven't really spent a lot of time in weight rooms or in sports that are demanding like that. When you're talking that calories, it isn't just to put on the weight. It's to be able just to recover day to day. We three spend tons of time in the gym. And if I dip too low trying to lose weight, I feel terrible all week. And that's just a small deficit. speaker-2: business. speaker-1: Yeah, you're right. And I you know, I'm a little bit that are in the gym and just his like anatomically impossible that he's lifting like deficit. It just like I'm just I'm just you know, he's still probably better. He probably feels terrible doing it right. Yeah, like they're huge. speaker-2: exactly. disappointed listeners can't specifically watch Brian. amounts of weight. It's pressing like 9,000 pounds or whatever, right? review. speaker-0: I'd worry for his life if he goes into. speaker-2: Deeper than the devil. speaker-1: I honestly, I say that. speaker-3: comes off the bar and it starts becoming a suicide grip more. speaker-1: Yeah. Any note of flattery. I have a. speaker-2: I say this without. been in weight rooms, guys who are pro bowlers now with guys who are in the NFL now. I've never been like as shocked by like the sheer lifting prowess of anybody in my life as when I first lifted with Ryan. Like it was like genuinely like speaker-1: Bye, just like- like, ⁓ like a little bit like unsettling I was like, yeah, am I seeing this right now? This is the craziest strength to weight ratio that I've speaker-2: how. seen in my life. speaker-3: Cause you look like you were there with like Jameer Gibbs and everybody. ⁓ speaker-2: About as sure as about as shocking ⁓ First lift of fall camp in like the freshman development group kind of with us that morning lifting with those guys and speaker-1: I mean like he was. He was like a you know, he's not like a huge dude. Like, like as much as I possibly can. I look up and like, that like. speaker-2: And I remember lifting, we were doing like squats that day over in Jameer's doing, he's got bucks 70, like repping out like double digit reps at like, you know, like four 20 plus on squat. But he's like sitting there staring at him and then like, know, the next morning he's like starting basically. Right. So it's just like, there is a degree, right? Like everybody who gets to the power five has some degree of just like competency. speaker-1: at football, but we're not all like whatever special 1 % of like, you may were totally like that, like, like genuinely, you know, speaker-2: The 1 % is there's some of us who are in like a speck that 1 % guys. some of the most like just like shocking athleticism I've really ever seen, you know. speaker-3: Well, being in like those situations skewed your perspective on like working out and stuff. Like if you just go to like a normal commercial jam, just- speaker-2: there's a lot more like mass monsters in a commercial gym than there are in like a football locker room. Like everything we're doing is like purposeful. So like a lot of these guys aren't necessarily like going in there to lift as much as they possibly can. It's like we've got a task and we need to be good thing and we work out to that effect, right? Like a lot of the stuff that happens like average, often muscle head of the gym is like, no, that's just cardio. You're not speaker-1: weight room. stimulating meaningful hypertrophy with that lift. Like, yeah, we know. It's not the idea. speaker-2: it's like. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-2: So there it has, I don't know if it's skewed my perspective because they're just who are just like so strong, you know. speaker-1: So many people out there. like that, was true before I was playing. You got a lot of X. speaker-2: ball in college. It's been true after athletes in the gym as well, like a lot more ex athletes that are like a lot more successful at their former sport than I was right. Like, so there is in some way, kind of the shock and awe hasn't necessarily carried over. But a lot of that is to do with the environment. If they're early, you're kind of like, ⁓ I'm this like all hallowed ground, so to speak, right? Like when I'm at LA fitness and I see a guy like, you know, pushing weight that should not be possible. I'm more just like, speaker-1: like the in like kind of college football. you all that time in the how old college football ground I'm still getting mixed eight year old you know speaker-2: by this like 48. speaker-3: and tests and all kinds of stuff. speaker-2: No speaker-0: Now, I would, while we're talking about the weight room and that experience, did you find anything like very different from being a high school lifter athlete to the weight room in college that change up the protocol? speaker-1: special. speaker-2: for somebody who's on the practice squad, right. It's kind of like most of their competition happens kind of in the day to day as opposed to like on Saturdays being in that weight room is like the most fun part of being like an underclassmen of being, you know, somebody who's not necessarily on the travel roster or whatever. Like that is the kind of stuff that especially for me, that was the petition that I was kind of living and breathing for. I was the place where you meaningful progress day to day, like some ways where like speaker-1: and who the like. Like this was the copy. you're seeing like there's the way. speaker-2: Lightroom is kind of an accessory to what you do when you're like the best player on your high school team where it's like, don't even really need to push myself that hard here because it's kind of like, I can't be sore for Friday night. speaker-1: You tell like. night, whatever. ⁓ speaker-2: that position, most of the kind of signals that you're growing as a football player happened before they happen on the field. At least that was true for me, right? Like, cause that was where I was seeing like the dividends of, you know, be burgers a day or whatever it was, right? Like that's where I was seeing that progress first. And so then as you're making that, when that starts to catch up and you realize you're like, ⁓ wow, I'm like a lot better at football than I was, you know, three months ago or whatever, right? Like there's more of a relationship between those two things than there is in high school, right? Because like a lot of the guys that are good in high speaker-1: weight room. you know, eating like school. speaker-2: are horrible in the gym or a lot of the guys who are great in the gym in high school are horrible. I like relationship to the weight room and like the culture there was like directly connected to me feeling like I was growing. speaker-1: But like, I felt like my. that we had. speaker-3: as a player. do they have like, I know you talked about weight goals and obviously you can't change height goals, but do they have numerical goals set up for position groups across the board as far as like in the gym goes or on field attributes? Like do they have things that they want players to hit throughout the year to get those starting or meaningful roles like in depth pieces? speaker-1: didn't really do we had a couple. speaker-2: I'm sure a lot of programs do. A things that we would do that were kind of like traditions. Under like somebody who's been a really successful strength and conditioning coach in college football and somebody who I have a lot of like high regard for, but like was like known for being unconventional. there, may be some ways that like experience and progress tracking portion is like unusual, but for us, there were just kind of a few like child by fire, like traditions that we would do. You know, we would do kind of like. speaker-1: I was. my ex that like I tried. speaker-2: Every once in a while we would do kind of like combine style, like 225 tests on like bench press. Like you kind of just intuitively know if you're progressing or not in that scenario, like where you're, ⁓ my combine test was better at the beginning of the season than it was at the end. must've gotten stronger kind of thing. Other than that, it's kind of just like the coaches are helping you make sure that you're pushing yourself hard enough, right? Like they might be telling you to add weight or take weight off. They might be changing things in real time, but for us, there wasn't like a huge like, Hey, you've got to be doing 80%. speaker-1: you speaker-2: Of your max for like this, whatever, right? Like it wasn't that kind of programming. was like, these are the lifts we need to get done. And it's kind of on us to make sure that we're pushing ourselves. ⁓ and if it doesn't seem like we are, they'll kind of, you know, make sure that, that the workout is productive. speaker-0: Yeah, I feel like there's there's people that quickly can identify if you have not hit the we'll say exhaustion threshold that they expect. speaker-1: Yeah, and I mean the other work. speaker-2: Another thing that is probably saying, and I think this is maybe when you think about there's a lot of lessons in football or sports in general that don't really carry over into real life. know like every single one of us that played sports in high school or middle school or whatever, we're probably told that like time is speaker-1: on being like 30 to 15. That's like, that was, they lied to told me over into my telling the truth, maybe. speaker-2: 15 to 30 minutes early to everything like that. That lesson. That would carry a real life. were not. Some of it's unique to living to Atlanta. Nobody's on time to anything here in the, in the Microsoft teamsification of society. speaker-1: Like you actually, like you can't. speaker-2: show up that are related things anymore, right? Like some of those lessons don't carry over, you know, one of the kinds of ones that like commitment to the self-accountability piece of it. So, right there, can quickly identify if you're not pushing yourself hard enough in the gym, but also like in the corporate world in life and certainly there's a degree to which if you're not pushing yourself hard enough, people might just like not stop you. Like so much of it is you're accountable to speaker-1: Like, you know, really did though is that. Like you said, there's people who can. culture ball. like keep up with the people around you, you'll just get. speaker-2: left behind, right? And like, sometimes that is like, you know, losing a scholarship, getting cut, not being fighting back as a walk on the previous year. Like that's the kind of time when the consequence might catch up to you. A lot of times it's pretty easy on that roster than everybody else until they decide that you're not worth keeping around, you know? And so like that self accountability matters a ton in college football in a way that it is going to be kind of like imposed upon you in high school. speaker-1: for easy to just be like way worse. speaker-3: So what is your, like say mid-season game week, like what does that practice scheme look like throughout the week? Like how do you go like starting Monday all the way up until night before game time? Like what is your week structure look like holistically? as you through? speaker-1: I mean, the. speaker-2: For us, general, like broad strokes of every practice kind of looked the same in terms of like, as individual portions, where position groups are working on like position specific things with just the coaches and you have team periods and you have specialty experience and all that kind of stuff. The intensity of those practices just kind of tapers off naturally as you get closer to game day, they become less physical and they become shorter. You know, you might cut certain periods at different times, like generally speaking, it kind speaker-1: You have. like speaker-2: most college football practices probably follow a formula of. speaker-1: ⁓ You get there, you warm up. speaker-2: up, you have special teams, you have individual stuff, you have team stuff. some sort of competitive aspect mixed in there somewhere of like guys just like competing with each other over the course of the, of the course of the day. then you're like, these practices are really tight and efficient because there's NCAA rules about how long you can practice for. There's rules about. speaker-1: you might have. You're kind of done, right? You know how speaker-2: many times you can practice in a day, like how much time coaches can spend with players. so like some of the kind of like, know, college football being a full-time job thing is actually a lot of the like time spent getting between those kinds of things, right? It's like, speaker-1: Yeah, you you've got a. speaker-2: You know, 6 30 AM lift, but you're there at six. And so like, you've got this whole kind of like process of getting there and the actual lift itself. When somebody looks at it, you're like, there's just how that makes up your whole day. But a lot of it is the kind of lifestyle around college football more than the thing itself, right? Like a Friday practice before a game. If it happens at all, it's going to be like, you know, 30 minutes, 35 minutes, you know, guys are going to walk through stuff really quickly, go over a couple of essential things and then get out of there. Right? Like if you're like, speaker-1: not on the speaker-2: Kind of like first couple rungs of the depth chart that might not even be a practice you participate in. You might just be on the sidelines or kind of like in a lift that's separate from what those guys are doing. Like if it's an away game, that calculus changes a lot because. speaker-1: that because you've got all these Mack trucks full of weight equipment, medical equipment, equipment they got to get to where. speaker-2: know, film wherever you're going. And that's even more true in the power. speaker-1: four era, right? Like if Jordan Sacco's speaker-2: So infrastructure around has to change because those trucks got to get to Cal and all of the things that that team's going to require need to be there on Friday, whenever they get there. And so the timeline kind of condenses in some, you know, kind of intuitive ways, depending on like, you know, what's going on that week. speaker-0: So as an athlete, that kind of leave you in week to week adjustment where it's like, can have a consistent schedule, but there's so many changes that will come up that you're kind of just waiting for. speaker-1: Yeah, I think that, for everybody, like definitely. speaker-2: There's just a general way where. College sports just kind of require a certain degree of flexibility and like willingness to like not have a consistent routine that could be really helpful. The thing that makes these guys successful is the fact that in the face of all of these like inconsistent routines, they have really consistent discipline. If their day looks different, their process looks the same. Like they still find a way to make sure all of these essential things are happening, right? Whether that's film or recovery or nutrition or whatever, right? Like that's the kind of things that it's like, if the, if the week looks different, you got to adjust, you got to make sure those essential things still happen. speaker-1: actually at that point. every week. speaker-3: I'm going to ask a very educational question here about academics that nobody cares about on this College Ball Podcast. But I've always wondered with, because we mentioned away games and stuff like that. Like now with the playoff structure, you have December games that go into finals weeks. You have games that bleed into January. So if you have to travel to a game on say a Wednesday, how hard is it or coordinate with? teachers and faculty to be able to get those exams in early or homework early. Like, what do you have to do to like navigate that process? Because I know like, nobody thinks about that as a fan, like, ⁓ these guys don't have finals or anything else going on. speaker-1: Yeah, I think there's the perception. speaker-2: that like, kind of exempt from inconvenient academic things. speaker-1: making time for it, the pushing things back in a couple of days, the maybe the school makes sure that you're. But the work still has to be great. Like a lot of these guys are doing homework on planes or in hotel rooms when they have spare time presentations. I know. If you're in like a group project with. I just have to. Hey, this is our presentation. speaker-2: turning things early. professors will accommodate those things get done somehow. They're turning in on the road that it's pretty common. You know, student athlete spaces student athlete, you sometimes work to accommodate those kinds of things where it's like, and this is, know, John Smith's component of the presentation from the hotel in Syracuse, New York, you know, right? Those kinds of things they. speaker-1: like change a lot. And so I guess the part of your question of like, what does that process look like? The school just helps make it happen. don't the grades. So there's a degree of like, we'll work out the logistics for you so that you can kind of be in two places at once. speaker-2: But they don't make disappear. They don't make the assignments disappear. time, but the work's got to get done when it's got to get done. So sometimes that like, and I'm speculating here, right? Like I'm not drawing on specific examples, right? But like you might, that's like, speaker-1: maybe. Hey, like I can still I have to make a decision, Hey, I can still get a B in this class with like a. speaker-2: really terrible grade on the final. I'm just going to air mail the final from my hotel room, do terrible on it and, you know, live to fight another day. Right. Like that's, those are the kinds of decisions. You know, difficult academic school, those calculations like independent of sports, because I certainly like once I quit football, right. speaker-1: that you yourself like if you're at a really you might be making Was still making those calculations. Like, there's some ways where like the setting is different for the athlete. speaker-2: the But the actual challenges kind of remain the same, you know, it's like today we got to make it happen. speaker-1: There's not enough hours in this. speaker-0: Yeah. The school, the student athletes with flexibility, not in a ski. speaker-1: helps. speaker-2: to get out of work. Yeah, definitely. speaker-1: And I think that like, in particular, one of the things that is probably a big misconception is the standard of, ⁓ like, ⁓ in like the day to day, like, especially at these big schools, like. speaker-2: absenteeism. which is probably showing up to very different classes. He knows players are in almost every single class day to make sure that they're not skipping a lot of accountability around these guys to handle the process. Right. named Franklin showing up to those classes was a pretty normal event to like see him check in, make sure the players were there. they weren't, the punishment happens depends on the coach and their philosophy and stuff like that. At Georgia Tech, was a lot of times. speaker-1: There's a I went to Penn State. what kind of what we refer to as study all, which is basically just like, ⁓ with the coaches and you're studying because they're just like too intimidated to do anything, but be productive on your phone or something. Some coaches may do. speaker-2: You're sitting arou- staring at you and it's. You may not be allowed to that room or whatever, Like, do like, you know, the kind of physical punishment of running or whatever, you know, like, don't, don't know what all college football coaches do, but you know, if you're just a regular student, there's no consequence for just skipping class one day, but like for a student athlete, there may be, know, beyond just like, you know, a couple of percentage points off on like 10 % of your syllabus. speaker-3: Was there any weird other like nuance-y things in the day to day that they were like, get in trouble for? Like don't seem that big a deal. speaker-1: the ones that was unique to COVID was like, ⁓ where you went. like, if you see pictures from me, I had like, ⁓ because you were the expectation was you would do what was necessary. There's a perfectly reasonable one. You do whatever it takes to make sure that the whole team is healthy and that everybody's available. And we don't. speaker-2: saw that era, extremely long hair. was just kind of like, we would have lot of even though it was like a difficult to uphold that like, if we have a situation where we have to cancel the game because speaker-1: too many people have COVID, right? Like in our situation, it did happen to us at one point in the season, I think. speaker-2: It was a game against Pitt that we had to cancel because between the two teams, weren't enough players to like field roster. Like a huge COVID outbreak in Pittsburgh and like, you know, one in our group and stuff like that. Right. speaker-1: that was safe because there were there was like So there are some of those nuances that it's like, you're not on a team as like a normal college student, but your life is about like protecting the team, right? Like the coaches will go to clubs that they know players should be at. Sure. They're there. And right. there's plenty, plenty of jokes you can make about that, right? Like about like, you know, what kind of works really happening when they show up there, right? Like, but the coaches will make sure that players lifestyle protects the. ⁓ there's a degree of that, that like what you're at. speaker-2: Watch it. and make sure. was in line with something that team, know, and so, but like so much of it, I see, right. Kind of comes down to a coach's individual culture and things that they think are important. If a coach thinks it's really important that player that might be like an expectation on them, right? Like everyone, the nuance was like, it's early to everything. And so that was the nuance and that kind of extended in online classes. But like, if you had had an in-person class, like speaker-1: Like in the front three rows of a class. coaches wanted us to be at least 30 minutes. like we were all speaker-2: The expectation probably would have been kind of not enforced, but like, you know, got to be early to those classes. And so there is just kind of a standard on how you just operate your life in the day to day that not. And, know, obviously like a lot of it's, you know, not being enforced. wouldn't be a true Georgia Tech if I didn't just take an opportunity to throw a shot. Mathens just like. speaker-1: all of it can be enforced. a lot. ⁓ the team for clearly whatever standard of living is being enforced in Georgia. is, it is not being, right? Like we're on, we're on, we're on seven or what's something like that in the last few years, right? You don't gotta cut that out in post. I'll say anything negative about that. I mean, some of it depends on culture. Usually. Yeah. Like you're different. speaker-2: Hork. Y26. speaker-3: It's Hellcats and alcohol. speaker-2: record. Your standard of living is going to be in terms of just how you carry yourself and like what you get up to. speaker-3: 30 minutes early thing like ever throw you off the like if you had lifts and you couldn't leave because you had to be 30 minutes early do you had to like stay at the speaker-1: Once you're there, you just don't leave until like. speaker-2: the last thing is done, you know, for the sake of like being on time. speaker-1: And it's really kind of like at that point, it's like, if everything's happening, consecutive early, right? Like it, like if practice started at six, ever, and from that perspective, like, you're not going to be, you know, if the lift in practice all over, but the lift in practice would usually probably be 30 minutes apart, but you you kind of read. speaker-2: You're just there. Seven, was usually there like, or whatever. They're five minutes apart. They're not going to be like. in between the lines. You're like, okay, that just means I head there right after practice, you know. speaker-1: The main thing that touched me up was ⁓ my, was, I was not informed of the fact until it was too late. I had a bit of a like, ⁓ speaker-2: that's early rule. Like family emergency that required me to like be on the phone for like longer than I expected one day. stay. I'll be right on time to practice today. And I know that that's like not. speaker-1: and I'm straight on because I was like, ⁓ can still just be. thing, but you can't usually do it. speaker-2: I'm like sprinting across campus trying to get there and I've got. You know, what's going on, what you missing? Right? I show up. Out of the list, because they're like, you're not, you know, X minutes early, whatever. And I'm like. No, that was a thing. They were like. speaker-1: Every coach is like calling me like what. immediately get You know, like, die to the king. got to stand around people who don't know what's going on too. And so I was like, but what if, you know, X horrible thing happened to me and I was dealing with that. they were like, well, sounds like you need a fricking lift, you know, and then you kind of maybe get the, you kind of get welcomed back into the way we're right. Like the culture of us not without a soul, right. But like the like speaker-2: force. process is pretty unflinching, you know, and there's 125 guys on the roster, like, if you're not there, that data lift somebody else is, you know, speaker-3: So what were some of the niche activities that you did outside of lifting or football or whatever? Was there pickleball, pick up basketball, PlayStation, a locker room? What were some of the things that the guys did outside of ball or lifting? speaker-1: tour in ACL during fall camp. speaker-2: that basketball is like a hard no for us. Like we were not allowed to play basketball. speaker-1: a lot of, lot of, like shared yoga sessions during fall camp. was like a thing. of the funniest videos on my camera roll are the best athletes. speaker-2: structure. of some of the things I've ever been around, know, to like a, you know, royalty free yoga YouTube. You know. speaker-1: video to get healthy. Most of the things that we did because of COVID stuff like speaker-2: was like unstructured things that would happen in people's apartments, right? Like, it's just, I think that are living on campus, generally are only staying with other student athletes. And so that just kind of provides like a quote unquote safe space for you to just kind of like be with your guys in different places. And so like. speaker-1: student athletes. A lot of the kind of, so there's just like the, like a lot of the like NBA about like which players want to get, ⁓ taking over and out of room kind of thing. Like a lot of it is like unstructured like that, you know, programs. wasn't really how it's going to tech is, some player life things built into. speaker-2: structured things would happen. Those kind of things that happen. baits. They're this really heated and end up in the locker. some. programs have a lot of like. the locker room, like text, not a kind of like game room in the locker room, Clemson slide in the locker room, type of thing, whatever. Right. informally and organically and look back on really fondly about those kinds of things. You're just like the random moments where you were just with your teammates in. speaker-1: like a lot of that kind of stuff happens. And that's kind of one of things that you moments where you didn't have to be right like there is some degree of the fact that like when your whole life speaker-2: is built around football. Like the best moments are the ones that actually asked to be there and you're kind of there anyways, you know, sometimes that would happen in the form of like, like the end of fall camp, was like a unstructured. speaker-1: You are an ag- So like at the, at. team dinner or like a fan event or something. speaker-2: like that that would just really fun. know, there was was one day where we there was like a really bad COVID outbreak in the ACC and we like weren't sure if the season was going to happen or not during fall camp and so that day we just like speaker-1: ⁓ at the end of practice. speaker-2: Just like our coaches were like, we're playing catch today. And so we were just out there just like no time that we were in Bobby Dodd stadium, just like with as much time as we wanted to just, you know, ⁓ enjoy each other's company and just hope that we were going to get to go play football the next day. You know, and so a lot of that is kind of stuff that happens just kind of in the background. speaker-3: So I know George Tech Adidas, right? Are they still sponsored by Adidas? Primarily? as far as gear goes, like I know Oregon, Super Epicenter, anything they want they can have. So when you had fittings come in for helmets, visors, cleats, gloves, everything, like whenever you wanted something of that brand or sponsor, were you able to just get it or customize it however you wanted it? Like if you had a specific helmet you liked, could you get that fitted for you and all that kind of stuff? speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. So when you show up and you get your fitting, basically any helmet that's available in like art. speaker-2: equipment kind of quote unquote, you know, database, so to speak. was flex guy. That's, so that's what I wanted. That's what I, that's what I, you pick a visor that you want, you pick which kind of cleats you like the best and like, basically it's going to be, you know, in your locker, like there's a lot of like kind of things, right? Like where some days like new clothes will just kind of show up in your locker that are maybe like a brand's thing. speaker-1: You just select what you want, right? Like the speed. had. Basically anytime you need something, it's delivered to you. player life thing. part of thing for us every week we had different like team gear though, which was like unique to that week. speaker-2: show up that was. And so like, if it was, you know, homecoming, like the homecoming shirt might look different that week, or you might just get like a bunch of clothes in Walker for. And or something like that, right. speaker-1: ⁓ you're like an adidas press event. Like there are a lot of kind of like random pieces of tech. Just the probably were like. speaker-2: Just kind of here that I'll kind of always have around that stuck with me. Shocking part is all of the stuff, just the sheer amount of stuff that I couldn't keep. speaker-1: Like when I left in terms of like, how much gear was issued to me, like I probably like went through that one. speaker-2: season, like a 14 game season, I probably had like six to eight pairs of cleats that I went through that were provided, you know, five or six pairs of gloves, like all the different kind of. And then they give you all these, you know, just clothes that you can wear outside. And obviously my, you know, the backpack, this, you know, the status symbol, whatever thing that I, you know, hardly even ended up using. not even, I think I have it still it's, you know, under my bed somewhere, but. speaker-1: all the different kinds of things. the team. ⁓ yeah, I mean, gear part of it, like to that people would think of like the extra. speaker-2: Let's not. The extent. against him like, you're getting like $400 worth of Nike gear a week. If you're in a school like that doesn't that doesn't really happen. speaker-1: But it is a lot, it's way more than anybody needs, but it's, you know, it is like a cool privilege to just be. speaker-2: we could possibly need. It's more than. given a lot of stuff that nobody else has that's unique to your kind of experience. Like, you know, struggle and success is a place like tech and just kind of having those things like physical reminders of the stuff that you did. But like the, you know, the pads and the elements, everything like all of that is exactly as you request basically within what the brand can offer you. speaker-1: ⁓ week two. your Yeah, like all the things related to how you your job. speaker-3: to keep like this is probably a stupid question but you get to keep like helmets and all that kind of stuff that you had like do you have your game helmet still? speaker-1: Dude, I wish. It's so hard. I don't have any journey. Had some while, but a few years later, and this is also. speaker-2: It's to get those kinds of things. don't have any, I don't thing. I don't know if it's true at all schools, but it's not something you necessarily. speaker-1: In because like I said, the kind of finishing rate of college, there are actually rules in Intermural Sports League, how long students had to speaker-2: sports is lower than you think. about like long athletes away after finishing playing their sport before they could like play with other people. But a year after finishing football to be allowed to like play intermural football with anybody on campus. so, you know, when I to play, you know, intermural football, like my non sports friends, it's kind like, well, the only cleats I have now are all these like, these like pairs of team issued cleats that I had from when I finished sports and no, stall. speaker-1: And so like I had to wait. I showed up. immediately right it's just like yeah you leave team gear line around it's gone it's just it it is going to disappear speaker-2: instantly and so there's some stuff that I've lost due to the kind of like you ⁓ speaker-3: theft. speaker-1: and Jordan, any hack, know, which isn't necessarily a problem. the only, like, I'm not getting stuff stolen all the time, but, ⁓ but if you leave it, Paris. speaker-2: you know, know, team issued a data space. speaker-3: So I'm guessing they stand out more than the usual, go to Dick's Sporting Goods, please. speaker-1: They're just, they're just, speaker-2: It just might be colors that you wouldn't necessarily get otherwise, right? It's not, they're not particularly odd day. And C double A like only so much color that could be on a pair of fleets. And they'll have to be associated with the uniform that week. So pretty. Arbitrary and design, but you kind of know when you see them, you're like, ⁓ that's different. speaker-1: It's just because of the rules, right? Yeah, they're usually like concerned. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. And I can assume if you're at the school, participating in intramural sports, you know what your team's dressed in and you're ready. speaker-2: I got these probably my size. I'm just gonna yeah myself kind of thing speaker-0: You know, there might be four touch sizes too small for me, but you know. speaker-1: I mean, it was kind of a feeling for me when I... speaker-2: left the team and you know, I accidentally donated my cleats. It's kind of like, this is a thing. was like, speaker-1: had my whatever. How do you buy gear for yourself? What do you even what do people even buy anymore? This all stuff is just speaker-2: like showing up in a box for me for the last year. I don't know. I don't know what to do. speaker-1: to know. used to like when you're buying stuff every year in high school, you kind of know what you like and you know what's new and like what the thing on the you can. But I spent like years like an adidas guy, Libia, this guy. speaker-2: the market is, switch brands whenever you want. guy and can all get it in. And so then it was just like a, speaker-1: How do you even manage this process? speaker-2: success now that you're kind like doing it for yourself again. speaker-1: What's the best way to say this? If there are 125 football players. speaker-2: D1 roster and it's my sophomore year and I am not on the D1 roster anymore. speaker-1: no worse than like the 126th best football player in school, right? Like, you know, like, it's just like, there's just a, also go to an engineering school, right? Like these aren't, these aren't guys who like had like huge football drapes and like could have gone to A lot of these are like, so, to be clear, that also includes my own, like one of my main, ⁓ intramural speaker-2: play. D1 necessarily in any other school. Folks that like have never played football before and like. like my own teammates, right? And, Maryse is like another friend of mine who was a walk on and then, you know, left the team was playing in roles and stuff like that. speaker-1: that ⁓ was ⁓ like a backup quarterback, right? And so that's like, you know, the walk on that's like the third to fifth quarterback on the death chart, right? And then as soon as it's like you're watching speaker-2: retainer who That guy steps onto the field and watching, you know, like prime Patrick Malone amongst just like normal people. speaker-1: Right. Like that guy just looks outrageously good on an interview. Like play against him was a lot of fun because it's. Some degree, right, where I had a great time with my intermural team. I think it's possible. speaker-2: field and so just like you know there's possible in real quarterback Carter is going to watch this is a shout out. interview quarterback we had a lot of fun. speaker-1: to him. He's a great We weren't ever like a dominant team, but you know, like I had. speaker-2: myself fine. speaker-0: Is that the situation? Something where you see a guy sticks to go up, he's 240 and you're like, he looks like he plays. speaker-3: He's like You know, guy definitely... speaker-2: I it's funny. speaker-1: I think it's funny. will. I'm kind of shouting out a of speaker-2: friends who I think will probably listen to this and or see stuff get clipped. then I'll, I'm going to make fun of one of my best friends. name is Sam Hodges who knows I'm recording this right now because he was texting me right before this, but speaker-1: But I I'll never forget like that effect that you just described the kind of like incognition is not as horrible as you think because Sam and I used to play in a real sports together. speaker-2: Did Rick. ⁓ time. And we were part of this, like, you know, Christian ministry on campus called RUF, where we would like build our own intramural teams. ⁓ And remember Sam telling me when speaker-1: feel. I was like, yeah, he was like, I'd assume just because if you're like, that you're like the slowest guy in all of kind of like group of people. And I was like, and he's like, really? Well, like, where do think I you are? And I'm like, the fastest. He's like, you're you know, whatever. And I'm like, it does. I think the way that I described it was like, we're gonna play our first in a real game and you apologize. It's you got to get up to the effort. He's like, I'm sorry. I don't actually speaker-2: size, I are like. Sam, no, I'm not. to me for saying that after. speaker-1: care. I'm just you know, like these it but it is kind of like there's a reality. Just to me. Like speaker-2: You know, they've like, there were guys that like, kind of like normal looking dudes, but on a new real field that just like randomly on one play, I'd get absolutely mixed by. speaker-1: Like great athletes come all over the place. And so that cuts both ways. That's really all that there is to say. there's no sense in pretending a good inter because I was a perfectly fine regular footballer. But there's also just like, it's totally reasonable for people to just speaker-2: It's like not assume that coming into it. It's a different game. speaker-1: One, it's, you know, And also just because like the people who are the best athletes are speaker-2: a lot of times like surprising, you know, and so like, there's totally like this perception that I'm not like the world's greatest cinema player or anything like that, you know, because I'm ⁓ speaker-3: I mean... speaker-1: really happy for people to have. not, but you know, like you can handle it. speaker-3: It is funny though, looking at like the combine. mean, you get these like defense of tackles, offensive tackles, offensive guards. I mean, some of them are running like sub fives, if not a little bit over. I got like a five, one, five, two, 40. And like you would think like your buddy, I mean, 300 pound guy, there's no way you can move like that. But again, we're talking about the top 1 % of athletes that are in their sport. And yeah, totally. They have the world-class training facilities. have world-class nutritionists. They have the speed and agility guys. They have everything they need to be able to perfectly tune their body to what is needed on the field. And like even you have these big, we always call them clunky tight ends because it looks like they just, you know, get hit and then fall down. They don't ever like break tackles or shimmy out of things. But just like you said, like, I mean, you're still flying down the field because you're getting compared to these receivers that are running like four threes. So these two are still moving. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, it also it also keeps something like inter like speaker-2: any real sports in good perspective. I know that like. speaker-1: the, like, we are all guys who went to college, right? Like we know that, like, that's basically our super bowl. speaker-2: every Tuesday night or whatever at 10 p.m. speaker-3: Yeah, like 9 or 10 PM. ⁓ speaker-1: There's only there's so good. There's only so good it can make you feel to like speaker-2: score a touchdown in a real flag football game. speaker-1: When that same 300 guy that you just talked about has put you horizontal, like in like in a practice, you know, it's just like, you know, I, I know how many levels there are above me. It's like, it just, makes it very fun and very casual. Just kind of removes the stake. It's like, look, I've gotten just totally guys way better than me before. It's like, doesn't have to be. speaker-2: Five times. ⁓ There's a 7 because next by Super Bowl, but then, you know, you show up and it's like, know I've played in bigger environments than this, this like Wednesday night, 11 PM, intramural playoff game is like the most important thing that's ever happened to me. speaker-1: for whatever reason. It's like... Yeah, it just hits. It just hits, yeah. speaker-3: It just hits just. And it's always like midnight. So it's never like seven, seven thirty. It's like one o'clock in the morning. We'd play at 10. We play at 10 p.m. There was an intramural softball tournament like a couple of months ago. And one of the games was scheduled for midnight because there's just multiple games in a row. We didn't. speaker-2: normal time. speaker-1: It's never the time. speaker-2: Yeah, I was never I never made it far enough in the high end playoffs to be to be played the overnighters. speaker-3: to get a hotel for camping out at the I.M. Field. speaker-1: Yeah, you bring your tent to the field that day. speaker-3: You're tailgating for your one o'clock speaker-1: right. speaker-2: like ends of sports in general now and people who are generally like Ryan I don't know if you've graduated yet but it's like do you guys have relationships like playing sports yourselves like post school speaker-1: like that, like what you guys have like a competitive outlet. speaker-2: as like, know, out of school sports lovers. speaker-3: My competitive outlet ended very quickly because it started in the college realm after I played high school baseball, got into college, didn't play any collegiate sports, but wanted to play IAM football. First game of IAM football, jumped, landed, my ACL. So it was the most unathletic feeling of my life. You started playing are we? Yes, I did. yeah, we're good then. But, I mean, playing... speaker-1: We scored on that play though, right? speaker-3: organized sports my whole entire life. I was a catcher and it rhymes the same thing. I never got any kind of long term injury more than like a rolled ankle here or there, like a bum shoulder, like whatever. But playing non-contact, co-rec intramural football, not even just a mens league. were playing, we were playing everybody. All is welcome. speaker-1: It's the just for fun of the just for fun. speaker-3: Exactly. And then the first game just blew my ACL. So I've never, never touched back in the competitive scene since, you know, I'm still a little scarred to do that. don't Yeah. For me, I think definitely the gym is like my main competitive outlet, even though I'm not here winning there with anybody. Nobody wants to compete with you there. Yeah. But I get to go there every day. It's fun, you know, but yeah. So I played football and baseball all the way up. like until 10th grade, I was playing them all, but baseball was like the sport that was like, my dad played it. I played it. I was so focused on it that like football was my fun sport that like, I still took it really seriously, but I got to go there. I got to work out. It was more exciting. The locker room was just so fun. My best friends were on that team. So I just got to play. And then I got knee surgery going into 10th grade. because of baseball from catching my whole life that had to quit playing football. And that was like kind of sad. kind of wish I played again, but I was also super small. So it was like fine. But then when I got into college, I would just kept working out because I realized like 11th, 12th grade in baseball that even though I was like playing and I was fine, I was like getting hurt and stuff. I just realized I liked the gym more. whenever like baseball stopped, I just kept going to the gym every day. And then when intramurals came around, I was like, oh, this is fun. You know, we had a bunch of kids I played baseball with in high school over there. Somehow I'm a three time volleyball champion, reigning champ. got carried by this kid. He's a Hall of Famer. Camden Chambers is a Hall of Famer at UWF Intramural. And he carried me to three years in a row there. And the first year we played intramural football, it was me and him. And like a couple other friends, but we were kind of like, didn't have a full roster. The whole team wouldn't show up every time. So we were just kind of playing for fun. You know, we were throwing the ball kind of reach out. just take turns playing quarterback. But the next year, another kid we played baseball with transferred into UWF and he was one of my roommates that year. And then we got a kid that played football in Niceville and just a few other kids. actually put together, there was a kid that played in Navarre. We put together like a pretty good team and we lost the championship though. But those are like some of the best moments of my life. We're playing a brat and we're winning 40 to nothing because we're all sort of confident. if you're on the field or just getting smoked, that's why I was asking you how good you are. speaker-1: mean, football is a team sport. I think that one of things that I like about every speaker-2: for. the kind of man nature of like being a football fan, right? Like there's ways that if you've kind of got the couch quarterback that doesn't know ball, that is like, you know, got really strong opinions, but it has like, you know, backing of any kind of knowledge, otherwise known as, speaker-1: You can be frustrated. every University of Georgia fan I've ever met actually. ⁓ besides that, like one of the great things about football is there's like there is something about it that like no matter what degree of serious you're playing and kind of retain some of the magic that speaker-2: business. made somebody like me kind of give my childhood and early. speaker-1: to it, right? Like it is worth like getting kind of sold out and kind of like really over invested in even if we're just kind of about it. That's like inherently unifying and like, just the kind of like group obsession of it that is really honestly like, yeah, it totally makes speaker-2: sitting on the couch watching it because there is something about communal. And so since like an intramural championship is like the most electric environment. speaker-1: ever because it like it's not like a pretend feeling like it actually is like it feels you know being at the shoe on speaker-2: It's like. Saturday night against Penn State because it's much fun. speaker-1: There's something intangible about just how it just makes it worth enjoying to that. speaker-2: Intensity like in any situation. speaker-3: with no fans back there. speaker-1: ⁓ We got the spring game JPEG in the background. speaker-0: Okay. speaker-3: Will has more fans than Saru. speaker-0: Yeah. It would be because when we set this up, one of the SEC fans here might have been biased, in one day. speaker-3: What's the most- speaker-1: Forgive y'all for the lack. I've been watching your clips. Not enough ACC representation going on. That's what I'm here for. I'm here to plug Stanford versus Cal or whatever. speaker-3: was right. Stadium has more fans in that picture whenever that was than they've had ever. So that must have been like their most sold out game they've ever had. And he just found that like that's what he Google. speaker-0: Virginia Tech. speaker-1: Yeah, this is like the 2017 Laquan speaker-2: Egg bowl or something like that. speaker-0: You know, I had to Photoshop a lot more in the back. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-3: Yeah, yeah. Those are all those maroon dots back there. speaker-1: 800 errands ⁓ speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: I mean, I can't pretend like I played for a school that has speaker-2: massive stadium Bobby Dodd seats like around 50,000. speaker-1: people, but it is the oldest stadium in college football. speaker-2: So think that does make it the best one. speaker-3: default cycle. speaker-1: like a rule, but it is the first. it's kind of like, we need a community college 222 to zero there and you know, in the world war era. It's a great story. mean, coach Bobby Dodd had like a personal beef with the guy that was coaching this man because of financial issues. Had to shut the year and Bobby Dodd informed him and said, I don't want you to the program down. got to play. And so they just had to grab like, speaker-2: You know. speaker-3: or whatever. ⁓ speaker-2: other team, the other school shut their program down in the middle, forced the contract, playoffs. speaker-1: like off the street basically on campus nobody that leaves the stars in all four quarters. speaker-2: You I think maybe like three total yards the whole game or something like that. don't know. you know, they're largest block. Probably somewhat, but iconic. speaker-1: in college football. speaker-3: Yeah, I've been to the stadium one time. It was really nice. When I was in eighth grade, our football coach actually used to play at Georgia Tech and he took our whole football team there. speaker-2: It's electric. the flats are packed and know, I can't get in the skyline back there, got back of head is lit up in the back corner. speaker-1: game. He's got the American quarter. They're I mean, it really like college football stadium. But like, yeah, mean, Bobby Dodd is very special. speaker-2: its own kind of magic to it. I've spent a lot of time there when it's empty. I've spent a lot of time there when it's full, you know, it's a special place for sure. Of course. speaker-1: ⁓ It's pretty special. speaker-3: markets. speaker-0: One perspective that I think you get to bring that a lot of people that are just watching our seasons year in year out don't get to bring in is that former player side of it. How does that change your fan perspective now? speaker-1: I think I, well, for one, I realized I think I left a lot less if I have a, like would spend it in like silence, not because I'm like, brain in like the way that I'm understanding this game, but just because like it feels. I, speaker-2: own devices I talk a lot during games and I used to have it my way the average game I probably absolute like You know, big. So intense and so personal that like, just want to take it in, in real time. speaker-1: as focused as I can. So that like effect I kind of like every single game that day but it's speaker-2: watch maybe less football than I used to where I Saturday necessarily. And like the ones that are most important to me, you know, I'm really locked in for the cost of a playoff, especially the semifinals because I'm anti expansion for teams was enough. speaker-1: ⁓ he'll just let that slide on. ⁓ but like I've rarely locked in for those games. I'm really locked in for tech games. grew up, ⁓ my, you know, ⁓ USC Southern California fan, ⁓ remain today. speaker-2: and still am. I always moved around a lot, but I grew up a year and I'm really loyal to that franchise. Fight on platonically, you know. speaker-1: ⁓ But yeah, I think like really more than any. I just. speaker-2: Anything I could honestly put down to simply like, just, you know, as, as hard and as rewarding as that kind of really short season of my life was I now a lot. speaker-1: football more than I used to and really part of the reason why I left when I did was to kind of like preserve maybe over my welcome and speaker-2: of that feeling and avoid the kind of like trap of staying and leaving feeling like the sport had kind of like cost me something that I didn't want it to cost me, you know, just, like being able to enjoy it. speaker-1: ⁓ took functionally like about a year, like I, I season. speaker-2: My didn't really watch any of the college football playoff. I know it was not super locked in the following year. And then it was kind of like, I was back, you know, college football more than ever. think like, have like a connection to why I love it now. And so that makes like, you know, maybe the amount of like raw football that I consume a little bit smaller. My like enjoyment of it, intense, you know? Yeah. speaker-1: The year after like. But I think, yeah, I have this personal. But like really. speaker-3: Yeah. Well, is there anything we didn't ask that you wanted to say, or do you have any funny stories or anything to end it? speaker-1: Well, I guess the only detail that never came up and I'm shocked it didn't come up because it's the most important. There's over the course of like, kind of told you guys about how I tore my hands. I also tore my hamstring again that towards the end of week of the Notre. And I was that kind of end of football career and stuff like that. I think that maybe this anecdote to close on that like very speaker-2: kind of like thing that happened to me that semester like. the day I got my roster spot at Georgia Tech. That season, toward the end of day in game, we were preparing in like mid-October. So, you know, that of was the end of my... is just kind of the situations that are frustrating and painful and upsetting kind of have like this little grain of just. speaker-1: always like normal life to that, you can kind of just look back and be like, ⁓ yeah, like there was a way in which like my day to day kind of changed there, but nothing really changed. And so the scenario was we were practicing on a Thursday. had had a short and I had been nursing an issue on speaker-2: warm up than normal, was cold out. My other, like on my other leg. speaker-1: I was just sitting a little bit. They, like a grade two partial tear and my, but, ⁓ was in the middle of catching a pass and turning up field and feeling really athletic. And so I grabbed, you know, like, ⁓ half the ball. speaker-2: hamstring that day. of. punched out with my hands like 30 yards out of bounds. speaker-1: And so I'm thinking like, ⁓ man, this is like a really bad injury. Season. Whatever. Stay in the meeting. We get all the way through the meeting. don't. speaker-2: You know, I'm going to be out for this. Let me get some sympathy. talked about the play at all and then my coach just like pulls it up. ⁓ He watches the ball fly out of the stands and he just doesn't say anything just rewinds it. speaker-1: I he just plays it. speaker-0: slice them off. speaker-1: it's rewind, we probably watch it five or six times. Everybody's laughing their heads off at me. They're like, they're like, we've never seen anybody find the spectacularly before. And I and I'm sitting there like, guys, I felt out of bounds. Like, this is like a like, this is like a plus two on the net yardage on the play. It's like a inconsequential fumble. And they're and they're like, Yeah, but on the contrary, you look like an idiot. So it's like, the films lost to me for time, I'll never see it again. This to it. I would. speaker-2: some trouble. I don't have access. speaker-1: Probably glad because it's burned them look pretty stupid. speaker-2: I do stupid in it because it's not obvious that I'm injured. It's just obvious that like I've lost control of the ball from speaker-1: Like genuinely like, you know, the, right hash. speaker-2: into the stands basically. Like I've never seen a ball fly that far, that far. was. speaker-1: It was like it had been just like completely off the field of play. then I on the field of play on the grounds immobile. but there, there is the normal scene made fun of by your guys for a mistake. Doesn't go away when happens. That kind of like cuts your season short. And so there is something kind of. speaker-2: still. of being. that thing. nice and know humanizing about it. don't know if that's it you know like a close out on that was really the only detail that was like speaker-1: Interesting story, but if we're looking for something to kind Yeah, it never came off, but my injury and kind of like being uninjured. speaker-2: big part of my last like, you know, month and a half, two months of that season. speaker-3: Well, how's your hamstring now? Connected. speaker-2: It's connected. Yeah, you know. speaker-1: it's in one piece. I've been fielding a lot of questions about it recently because I Luca Donchich suffered injury and I get a lot of me and I'm like dude I was if he's back at all that's incredible so I've got a lot of press about it. It feels all right now. speaker-2: the same engine. Why he's not back yet. He's not walking for like two months. speaker-3: I've been here. I've been here like me and Luca. Luca reached out. speaker-1: There's very few things athletically that I could say I have in common with Luka Doncic. ⁓ We've had the same injury, I guess. speaker-2: you speaker-3: I have the same thing like last October I tore my rectus femoris and then like Jeremiah Smith did too so I was like you speaker-1: You can have it. speaker-2: With, you know, with the best wide receiver in the NFL before he got drafted. you know. speaker-3: The old rectum femoris tear happens to them all. ⁓ speaker-2: Yeah, I mean. speaker-1: You gotta watch your diet to protect your erected speaker-2: No. speaker-3: Yeah, those 8,000 calorie days would not be too good with that rectum tear. speaker-1: The two pizzas a day with the hot wigs, yeah, the rectum femoris was an injury I had to play through. It was tough. speaker-2: Yeah. is that. speaker-0: and plenty of rats. Yeah. speaker-3: Dude, 8,000! speaker-1: Eventually stop counting. Like you're just like the scales. speaker-2: going up, we just, we're doing something okay. speaker-0: To close us out here, the last thing I'd ask is for any of the seniors in high school this year that might be fielding offers, looking at this process from somebody who's already been through it, what piece of advice would you give? speaker-1: The worst thing that you can do to your recruiting, be concerned enough about it that it. Your year. Most people will probably have their offers on tape at that point. so the. speaker-2: as a senior in high school is makes it worse than your junior. your game is a little bit inconsequential. You might not lose offers, might not lose roster spots or PWOs from like a slightly regressive senior year. speaker-1: wear like you might. That is like all of the last like kind of safe high school development you have a chance to do to just be like the better you can. speaker-2: player possibly be before you show up in the spring or in the summer whenever. speaker-1: So really, I think that's the of practical advice is don't let your concern for getting as many offers as possible lead to a senior that isn't as good as it can be. But I think the kind of hidden character is there. The reason I'm grateful I got that advice. speaker-2: your years. kind of like, advice for my coach to like not forgo just like having the best senior year that I possibly could. speaker-1: is that football at 18 years old will always feel like the most important thing that's ever happened to you. And it should feel that way. Like, cause at this point in your life, it probably is the most important thing that's ever happened to you. But eight years from now, a single extra offer or like a little bit more if you're really good, isn't necessarily worth the things that you will learn by just like doing right by your teammates and trying to go win as much as possible. Or the things that you'll learn about yourself from just trying to enjoy that last. speaker-2: it. and possibly your senior year of high school. part of the season of life. Like you don't actually need to rush through this process as a person as a speaker-1: person, player as like a member of a team, the people around you deserve better than that. You definitely deserve better than that. I mean, I think that like, if you really are able to trust the people, just let them know regularly to help you with them. And just focus on being the person can be at the thing that you are right now. Once you get to that next, whether it's like walking on at a big school for a year, being a man stay at never playing football again. speaker-2: able to go around you with your recruiting process, what your goals are, ask them right. And best player you possibly. saying what you know. a small school like speaker-1: Those are the things that like, regardless of what path ends up happening, like are the things that you. Right. Like you regret. speaker-2: You might like obsessing over the problem too much when you've got something really great in front of you, which is, you know, chance to play in college teammates to mean a lot to all those kinds of things. speaker-1: I school for speaker-3: I'm inspired. I'm gonna go brush off my junior and senior tape now. speaker-1: Let us know, dudes. ⁓ speaker-0: Teams looking for a walk on that's 35 years old and out of shape. speaker-1: An archive of my huddle tapes from 17. Yeah, well, hey, I've had a great time today, y'all. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. speaker-2: It's been a lot of fun to talk about. speaker-3: to do a follow on video and get you out next time you're here on the field and we can go brush off those cleats and know, get you back to work. speaker-0: show just how fast you are on the field. You'll to compare it to. So you'll look downright speaker-3: Beating. speaker-1: The rest is probably pretty rusty. I've been out of school for a year now. speaker-2: guys. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-3: But you can It'd be cool to have you walk us through like a day in the weight room that you went through or like a day out and like your, your, like if your tight end room drills, like your just tight end drills, we could run those like on a, like, speaker-1: Y'all would kill that. I'm going have to train for that to make sure I don't look too rusty. speaker-3: Yeah, Ryan can be sucked in. speaker-0: for the lifting segment. speaker-1: Ryan's gonna be like, guys, playing college football is easy. speaker-2: You're like. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-3: We could do like a simulated day. That would be so fun. When you're home, we'll get the tape. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: love the stuff you are doing here. speaker-3: If you're speaker-1: Of course. speaker-0: what we do together in the future with it. We will be doing something because this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for coming on. This was a great insight into it. I'm sure anybody listening that hadn't played learned a lot from your stories here and got to see a different side of the college athlete than maybe we just see on a Saturday clip. So do you have anything that you wanted to shout out? Where can people find you? Anything that you're working on that you want people to check out? speaker-1: There's things that I'm working on. There's things that people. speaker-2: could check me out on. things that I'm working on in my job that I can't talk about because of NDAs. The only thing want to say is speaker-1: thing I'm doing is the good word, which is to hell with Georgia for gonna hate those guys. How about them dogs piss on them every single day. We hate those guys. We don't have anything nice to say about them. If you're watching this show, and you're a dogs fan, unfollow unsubscribe. Nobody wants you. We're blocking you. This is official run after cast messaging. Everybody feels this way in this room exhaustively. Your business speaker-3: this week. speaker-0: Maybe next week you come back. speaker-3: That's a different perspective. speaker-1: I would be like, oh, sweet, you're on Kirby Smart. I'm like, wow, I really, de-tada. speaker-2: next speaker-3: Bring on for the clapping time. I'll say Georgia, Shaylor, you should too because. speaker-0: you hurting? speaker-2: I haven't forgotten about that. speaker-3: Okay. speaker-1: You would have been national champions that year. speaker-3: JSN had that corn hamstring as well. It must be going around. You gave it to him. Well, his cleats are too big. we go. His cleats are too this out. I'm not getting this conversation with Teal. Yeah. speaker-0: ⁓ So before I lose these two to another couple hours of arguing cleat sizes, we'll go ahead and let you all know. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. Please go to our social media pages, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, follow us on there. That's a huge help to keep us growing. All the links for that will be found on the link tree in the description of the episode. Also, if you can review the episode of whatever podcast streaming platform you listen to us on, it's also another huge part to unlocking the algorithm and getting us up in front of more people. Those of you that have done it, thank you. Those of that will thank you as well. But until next week, we'll continue on with Hawking football until the season starts. So until next time.