Latest / Unafraid Show with George Wrighster / Will Donald Trump Fix CFB? Shawne Merriman Interview, 5 Most Important non-con Games

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Will Donald Trump Fix CFB? Shawne Merriman Interview, 5 Most Important non-con Games · Unafraid Show with George Wrighster

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Man. We got so much to
0:03
Speaker 1: talk about today. So President Donald Trump has called a
0:07
Speaker 1: college sports roundtable. All these big names from all over
0:11
Speaker 1: the place, but the most important people got left out.
0:15
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna talk about that and tell you who
0:17
Speaker 1: it is and whether this can actually work and get
0:20
Speaker 1: something done, or is this an opportunity for some powerful
0:24
Speaker 1: people just to get together and just say that they showed.
0:28
Speaker 2: Up and tried right.
0:31
Speaker 1: The brand new nil system in college sports they got
0:34
Speaker 1: put in last year with the House settlement. Remember I'm
0:38
Speaker 1: college football's truth teller, and everybody said this is gonna
0:41
Speaker 1: be the thing that gets us where we need to be.
0:44
Speaker 1: I told you last year it was not going to work,
0:46
Speaker 1: and there are so much data right now that tells
0:50
Speaker 1: us that it's broken. But but I always tell my kids,
0:55
Speaker 1: do not bring me problems, bring me solutions. So I
0:59
Speaker 1: got solutions for you guys as well. We are going
1:02
Speaker 1: to have mister Sean Merriman joining us today, former Maryland
1:08
Speaker 1: player NFL All Pro. We got to talk about the
1:11
Speaker 1: guys in college football, guys going to the NFL and
1:14
Speaker 1: everything in between, and who would win in a fight
1:17
Speaker 1: with Jake Paul because he's challenged a lot of athletes.
1:20
Speaker 1: Right now, we got to talk about Oregon's five most
1:24
Speaker 1: important games in twenty twenty six on their path to
1:28
Speaker 1: winning a national championship, and for everybody else, the five
1:32
Speaker 1: most important non conference games that will shape this college
1:36
Speaker 1: football season because a lot of people are pointing the games,
1:40
Speaker 1: we got the ones that are going to have lasting impacts,
1:44
Speaker 1: and we got so much more to talk about as well,
1:46
Speaker 1: and make sure that you guys like, share, subscribe, and
1:50
Speaker 1: most importantly, tell a friend about college Football's best show
1:55
Speaker 1: on YouTube and wherever else you may be watching it.
1:59
Speaker 1: If you're listening to be a podcast, thank you so much.
2:02
Speaker 1: But Sharon means Karen, let's get to the show. The
2:16
Speaker 1: first thing we got to talk about is Donald Trump's
2:19
Speaker 1: College Sports Roundtable and can it actually work?
2:22
Speaker 2: Who's there, why it matters? Everything else.
2:25
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that are just going to
2:27
Speaker 1: report to you what happened. I am going to give
2:30
Speaker 1: you the problems, tell you what it is, and then
2:33
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a solution about what's going
2:37
Speaker 1: on and how to fix everything. Because the biggest problems
2:41
Speaker 1: in college football right now are the calendar. In terms
2:46
Speaker 1: of the date, when the season ends, date, when the
2:47
Speaker 1: season starts, transfer, portal opening, everything else, recruiting, all of
2:53
Speaker 1: that as it relates to the calendar. Then we have
2:56
Speaker 1: a scheduling issue when it comes to scheduling more quality
3:01
Speaker 1: non conference games because people and teams are going the
3:04
Speaker 1: opposite way. There's an nil problem in terms of there
3:09
Speaker 1: you have teams that can spend way more forty million
3:12
Speaker 1: dollar rosters and then you have teams that are down
3:14
Speaker 1: at ten million dollar rosters and you're playing the same sport.
3:18
Speaker 2: Don't make sense.
3:20
Speaker 1: There's a pay for play issue, which involves INIL what's
3:24
Speaker 1: pay for play and what's actually real nil. And then
3:28
Speaker 1: there is an eligibility issue as it relates to do
3:31
Speaker 1: or do you have four years to play five? Do
3:33
Speaker 1: you have five to play five? What happens to juco
3:35
Speaker 1: D two years, everything in between. Then there's the college
3:41
Speaker 1: coaches transfer a portal because their portal is open all
3:44
Speaker 1: year long, from the beginning of the season to the
3:46
Speaker 1: end of the season, three sixty five seven days a week.
3:50
Speaker 1: Then there's the player's portal issue because now there's only
3:53
Speaker 1: one portal issue. But what happens if you just unenrolled
3:57
Speaker 1: from one place and enroll in another one later are
3:59
Speaker 1: no consequences.
4:00
Speaker 2: For that at all.
4:01
Speaker 1: And then there's officiating issues in terms of transparency there.
4:06
Speaker 1: And then there's a playoff size issue, which there is
4:09
Speaker 1: hotly debated about. So those are the main issues as
4:13
Speaker 1: it relates to college football. So the question is can
4:17
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's roundtable? Is this going to solve the issue?
4:23
Speaker 1: My issue with that is is no, because you have
4:28
Speaker 1: had the same people trying to fix college football and
4:33
Speaker 1: they have had to go kicking and screaming and being
4:38
Speaker 1: dragged to where we are right now. And had they
4:41
Speaker 1: been not only on the offensive, but forward thinking, we
4:46
Speaker 1: would not be here. I testified in twenty twenty in
4:50
Speaker 1: front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on name, image and likeness.
4:54
Speaker 1: Prior to that, we have had Austin versus d NCAA.
4:58
Speaker 1: We've had at Obannon versus the NC double A. The
5:01
Speaker 1: coaches have sued the NC double A all sorts of lawsuits.
5:05
Speaker 2: But what do they do?
5:06
Speaker 1: They eat along? And now the states have passed legislation.
5:12
Speaker 1: Mississippi has passed the legislation where nil is not going
5:16
Speaker 1: to be taxed. You have in terms of on the
5:19
Speaker 1: state level, you have you know, other states, Texas, Tennessee,
5:24
Speaker 1: Florida already that's built in. There's no state income tax there.
5:29
Speaker 1: You've had Tennessee and another state pass laws where the
5:34
Speaker 1: NC double A can't even investigate though for wrongdoing. So
5:42
Speaker 1: there's all of these problems. So the question is can
5:45
Speaker 1: this be solved there? And the truth is there are
5:49
Speaker 1: people on the list of people who are going to
5:52
Speaker 1: be there who can legitimately fix college sports people. Plenty
5:58
Speaker 1: of people there. There is no shortage of people. You're
6:01
Speaker 1: gonna have conference commissioners there. You even have the American
6:04
Speaker 1: Conference Commissioner there too, and Tim Pernetti. You have current
6:09
Speaker 1: athletic directors from Wake Forest, Iowa State Indiana, former athletic
6:13
Speaker 1: director Joe Castelloni, Bevqua from Notre Dame, former coaches Mac Brown,
6:23
Speaker 1: Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Cody Campbell, Texas tech board member,
6:27
Speaker 1: Heisman Trophy winners where Now, mind you, all of these
6:30
Speaker 1: people are not going to be there. All of these
6:33
Speaker 1: people were invited, Tim Tebow, Charlie Ward, other university chancellors
6:38
Speaker 1: and presidents from West Virginia, Clemson, Tennessee, Kansas, Nebraska, NBA
6:45
Speaker 1: commissioner Adam Silver, millionaire businessman David Blitzer, Mark Gannis, Tiger Woods.
6:55
Speaker 1: I don't know what he's gonna help with. Conda Leeza,
6:57
Speaker 1: Rice Bryson, Dishambeau, executives from Fox and ESPN. Where Trump
7:05
Speaker 1: is going to be the chair of the roundtable, Ron DeSantis,
7:10
Speaker 1: the governor of Florida, Randy Levine, the president of the Yankees.
7:14
Speaker 1: Then they just added Klay Travis and Tad Cruz in
7:20
Speaker 1: terms of the invited list. So, like I told you,
7:23
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people there who can legitimately fix
7:27
Speaker 1: college football, but nothing's going to get done there. I'm
7:32
Speaker 1: here to tell you, just like I have told you
7:35
Speaker 1: for years, Congress is not getting involved, and if they do,
7:40
Speaker 1: it still won't solve the issues that are presented in
7:44
Speaker 1: college football right now, none of them. This is going
7:47
Speaker 1: to be a gigantic circle jerk. This is going to
7:50
Speaker 1: be a behind the scenes, closed door meeting. Nothing is
7:54
Speaker 1: going to happen. And before anybody accuses me of this
7:59
Speaker 1: being oh, just because you're not a Trump guy, you
8:01
Speaker 1: just don't believe. No, no, no, here's here's the truth and
8:05
Speaker 1: what everybody has to admit. First of all, I don't
8:09
Speaker 1: care who the president is. I don't want him knowing
8:11
Speaker 1: too much about college football to begin with, because if
8:14
Speaker 1: he's too deep in the woods on it, I'm wondering
8:17
Speaker 1: how much he's really, you know, really doing the rest
8:19
Speaker 1: of his job. We in the middle of a war
8:21
Speaker 1: with Iran all sorts of other stuff, so this shouldn't
8:25
Speaker 1: even be at the top of his priority list or
8:28
Speaker 1: in terms of knowing everything about it. And the idea
8:31
Speaker 1: that the president has this magic knowledge about sports and
8:36
Speaker 1: business and foreign policy and the economy and nobody knows
8:41
Speaker 1: all of these things about everything. Now, should he have
8:43
Speaker 1: some smart people around him that know the answers to
8:46
Speaker 1: these things, Sure, right, But he ain't the one that's
8:49
Speaker 1: gonna have the answers to these things or force them
8:52
Speaker 1: to do the things that they need to do because
8:54
Speaker 1: he doesn't fully understand what is going on there. And
8:57
Speaker 1: we saw with the job justh Paide interview too.
9:00
Speaker 2: It's just the truth.
9:01
Speaker 1: That does not anti try. It's just what the facts
9:04
Speaker 1: actually are. And the reason why nothing's going to get
9:08
Speaker 1: done is because there are too many agendas in the
9:10
Speaker 1: room and there is no compromise. This is about retaining power,
9:16
Speaker 1: about retaining power, because if it weren't the most important
9:22
Speaker 1: negotiating partner is not even in the room, and that
9:27
Speaker 1: is the players. You are not going to get to
9:31
Speaker 1: a point where these lawsuits stop and there stability in
9:35
Speaker 1: college football without the players being involved. Every other professional sport,
9:42
Speaker 1: and yes I said professional sport, they have a player's
9:47
Speaker 1: association which then negotiates with one single body. You can't
9:52
Speaker 1: have it trying to the Big ten, trying to retain power.
9:55
Speaker 1: The sec ACC Big Ten, the Mountain West in the
10:00
Speaker 1: NCAA have their own power too for enforcement at all.
10:04
Speaker 1: That cannot happen. That is a major issue. And there
10:10
Speaker 1: are going to continue to be lawsuits. But there are
10:14
Speaker 1: some people under the disillusionment that an antitrust exemption is
10:19
Speaker 1: going to fix everything, but no, all it will is
10:24
Speaker 1: continue the status quo. And I believe because there's going
10:29
Speaker 1: to be a complete unwillingness and they have shown this,
10:33
Speaker 1: and when I say they, I mean leadership in college
10:35
Speaker 1: football has shown this for decades that they are not
10:40
Speaker 1: going to make significant changes without kicking and screaming. So
10:44
Speaker 1: I believe that before we get all of those scenes
10:47
Speaker 1: that I named earlier, all of those things fixed, before
10:50
Speaker 1: we get the calendar scheduling, nil pay for play eligibility, coaches,
10:56
Speaker 1: portal players, portal officiating, playoff side, any time anything. Before
11:01
Speaker 1: we get any of the significant issues fixed, it will
11:07
Speaker 1: not happen until this whole system breaks. It breaks or
11:11
Speaker 1: is on the verge of collapsing on side of itself.
11:15
Speaker 1: And the things that are going to break it donor fatigue,
11:19
Speaker 1: because there's only so many times that you can go
11:22
Speaker 1: to that that well, money is not infinite, that you
11:26
Speaker 1: can ask these same donors, hey we need five million
11:29
Speaker 1: this year, we need eight million this year, we need
11:30
Speaker 1: sixteen million this year, and especially if they don't feel
11:34
Speaker 1: like they are getting a return on their investment, that's
11:38
Speaker 1: the first thing. Donor fatigue is going to crush the system.
11:42
Speaker 1: Because these have to be money making enterprises. We have
11:47
Speaker 1: to start looking at college football as a money making
11:52
Speaker 1: enterprise and not as individual entities, because right now it
11:58
Speaker 1: operates as individual entity. Alabama is going to do what's
12:02
Speaker 1: best for Alabama. USC is gonna do what's best for
12:05
Speaker 1: USC and then you have the conferences, the Big ten,
12:09
Speaker 1: a SEC they are gonna do what's best for them
12:11
Speaker 1: individually in terms of as an entire conference, but it's
12:15
Speaker 1: gonna favor the people at the top your top teams.
12:19
Speaker 1: The Big Ten is gonna do with Michigan and Ohio
12:21
Speaker 1: State want more than what Rutgers and you know and
12:25
Speaker 1: Nebraska have to say about things.
12:27
Speaker 2: It's just the truth.
12:28
Speaker 1: Networks are going to get fed up with scheduling. They
12:32
Speaker 1: are going to say, we are demanding that you guys
12:36
Speaker 1: play eleven power four games. You can figure it out,
12:41
Speaker 1: and conferences are gonna be pitted against other conferences. That's
12:45
Speaker 1: going to be the fix, and the television networks are
12:48
Speaker 1: going to essentially force what has happened with all the
12:54
Speaker 1: other professional sports that media rights get bottled up and
13:00
Speaker 1: spread out amongst everybody. And yes, that means that Alabama
13:05
Speaker 1: may take a haircut, Ohio State takes a haircut. But
13:08
Speaker 1: then the bottom, it raises the bottom, which is going
13:12
Speaker 1: to then create more competitive product year in and year out,
13:16
Speaker 1: which is what the television networks want. They want more
13:20
Speaker 1: people watching more competitive games. In the NFL, people watch
13:25
Speaker 1: Jacksonville versus you know, Detroit, which is not a major city.
13:34
Speaker 1: You know, They're gonna watch the you know of the
13:38
Speaker 1: Arizona Cardinals versus another bad team because it's the NFL.
13:44
Speaker 1: There's competition in there. As fans then the next thing point,
13:50
Speaker 1: the pain point that it is going to break it
13:52
Speaker 1: is fans are going to become frustrated with schedules and
13:56
Speaker 1: roster inconsistency.
13:58
Speaker 2: I know that fans are now on.
14:00
Speaker 1: This, well, we got to schedule to get to the
14:01
Speaker 1: playoff things. But when you look at how much it
14:04
Speaker 1: costs to go to a game, to park, to pay
14:07
Speaker 1: for beer, to bring your kids, all of those things,
14:11
Speaker 1: and we're supposed to be watching more non competitive games, nah,
14:14
Speaker 1: that that's absolutely silly. So fans are going to grow
14:20
Speaker 1: frustrated as well. So those are the things that are
14:22
Speaker 1: going to break it, which is then going to force
14:26
Speaker 1: a fix the same way that the EA game where
14:33
Speaker 1: it ended up in the Ed Obannon lawsuit. Now we
14:38
Speaker 1: have nil and players can get paid. N C double
14:42
Speaker 1: A had to go kicking and screaming. So the question
14:45
Speaker 1: is how to fix this and who can fix it?
14:49
Speaker 1: N C double A President Charlie Baker, the Conference commissioners,
14:53
Speaker 1: particularly the SEC and the Big Ten with Greg Sankie,
14:56
Speaker 1: Antoni Pettiti, Jim Phillips from the ACC, and Brett Yormark
15:00
Speaker 1: from the Big twelve.
15:02
Speaker 2: Those are the key people.
15:04
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that the group of five schools
15:06
Speaker 1: don't matter. But you got to get these four on board,
15:09
Speaker 1: the conferences on board first, and then you need Brian
15:13
Speaker 1: Seeley from the College Sports Commission, which you created last
15:19
Speaker 1: year in the House settlement. He gets to be college
15:23
Speaker 1: Commissioner because you put him in charge already and you've
15:26
Speaker 1: said that he's this guy with the magic knowledge and
15:28
Speaker 1: all of this stuff enforcement and all that.
15:31
Speaker 2: He's the guy. So he's going to be the commissioner.
15:34
Speaker 1: That means that all of the conferences and the NCAA
15:38
Speaker 1: then have to seed power to the College Sports Commission.
15:42
Speaker 1: They don't want to do that. That's why we're not
15:45
Speaker 1: going to have a solution until that happens. Until power
15:49
Speaker 1: ceded to one particular entity, one place for then who
15:55
Speaker 1: the players to negotiate with. So that's that's the first step,
16:00
Speaker 1: is that those entities they need to say one person
16:05
Speaker 1: has to be in charge of the enterprise of college football.
16:11
Speaker 1: And once they do that, that will be the first
16:13
Speaker 1: step two recovery. Step two then is there needs to
16:18
Speaker 1: be a meeting with potential leadership for the players. So
16:22
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of different bids and then
16:26
Speaker 1: somebody gets chosen but it is going to be a
16:30
Speaker 1: jointed by the leadership at the NFLPA, in MLBPA, NHLPA,
16:36
Speaker 1: NBA PA, W NBA PA, all the other pas that
16:39
Speaker 1: you want. So it can a system be built for
16:43
Speaker 1: the players. Is that going to be easy?
16:45
Speaker 3: No?
16:46
Speaker 2: Are there different issues at.
16:47
Speaker 1: Division one, Division two Naia Everything well Innaia is not
16:52
Speaker 1: part of the NBA.
16:53
Speaker 2: But Division two, Division three fcs.
16:55
Speaker 1: Yes, I get that that is complicated, but it is doable.
17:01
Speaker 1: And then from there step three, because you have two
17:05
Speaker 1: separate entities now that now can talk, you can negotiate
17:10
Speaker 1: all those issues and come up with a college football
17:15
Speaker 1: collective bargaining agreement which then will be able to solve
17:20
Speaker 1: the issues of the calendar. They'll be able to actively
17:23
Speaker 1: negotiate it, and you will have fewer people having a.
17:27
Speaker 2: Say so invested interests in it.
17:31
Speaker 1: So now we're doing what's best for the enterprise of
17:35
Speaker 1: college football. If you're doing what's best for the enterprise
17:38
Speaker 1: of college football, it's easy to fix the calendar. If
17:42
Speaker 1: you're doing what's best for the enterprise of college football,
17:45
Speaker 1: figuring out schedule uniformity and parody easy. Figuring out conferences
17:53
Speaker 1: will then be easy. Nil that'll still be a little
17:58
Speaker 1: bit difficult in terms of governing it and pay for play,
18:02
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about more in a little bit, But
18:06
Speaker 1: eligibility years easy because when players then sign on to
18:11
Speaker 1: be part of the union, which you have to do
18:14
Speaker 1: to play, that's it. You are then governed by those rules. Coaches,
18:22
Speaker 1: the coaches transfer portal, they'll have to stay until the
18:25
Speaker 1: season ends. Easy players portal, easy officiating, transparency, they're easy.
18:32
Speaker 1: Then you'll be able to negotiate the playoff side very easy.
18:38
Speaker 1: So we keep trying to fight uphill on something that
18:41
Speaker 1: should be a downhill slope. But the problem is it's
18:46
Speaker 1: about money, and it's about power, and it's about control,
18:49
Speaker 1: and they don't want to see it. This is why
18:52
Speaker 1: I have said, if I'm college football's commissioner, or if
18:55
Speaker 1: I'm in charge, if I can wipe my magic wind
18:59
Speaker 1: right now, that's what we're doing. That is the three
19:02
Speaker 1: step plan to fix college football, period are The next
19:06
Speaker 1: thing that Piggy's back off the top of this is
19:08
Speaker 1: that same brand new NIL system in college sports that
19:13
Speaker 1: they created with the College Sports Commission. It was supposed
19:17
Speaker 1: to revolutionize and the salary caps were supposed to be
19:21
Speaker 1: twenty point five million dollars for this twenty point for
19:25
Speaker 1: this twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six season. It
19:29
Speaker 1: didn't work, and now the organization, the CSC College Sports Commission.
19:36
Speaker 1: They then hied Deloitte, the accounting firm, to create an
19:41
Speaker 1: entity called nil go that was supposed to govern everything,
19:45
Speaker 1: get all of these deals through and figure out what
19:48
Speaker 1: was not market value.
19:50
Speaker 2: And again I.
19:51
Speaker 1: Will tell you very quickly, there is pay for play
19:54
Speaker 1: and there's NIL. Everything is lumped under the NIL umbrella
19:58
Speaker 1: right now. But the majority the money that the players
20:01
Speaker 1: are making is for pay per play. It is not
20:02
Speaker 1: for NIO. That is crucial for you guys to understand.
20:06
Speaker 1: So after the House versus the NCAA settlement, that's when
20:10
Speaker 1: the College Sports Commission got created, and that that was
20:16
Speaker 1: their mandate to make a system where NIL deals are
20:22
Speaker 1: legitimate or if pay for play was disguised as in IO.
20:26
Speaker 1: So the problem is now that the lawyers representing the
20:30
Speaker 1: athletes that they're actually starting to dig into the process
20:33
Speaker 1: because some of the deals are reportedly getting stuck in
20:37
Speaker 1: the system for months and others are being rejected entirely.
20:42
Speaker 1: And that means that athletes could be losing millions of
20:44
Speaker 1: dollars in potential compensation while their deals sitting limbo. Now, granted,
20:50
Speaker 1: some of these deals should be sitting in limbo, some
20:53
Speaker 1: of them should not be approved. And the whole point
20:57
Speaker 1: of this was to create a level playing field where
21:01
Speaker 1: you don't have a team having a fifteen million dollar
21:03
Speaker 1: roster or a ten million dollar roster and then people
21:06
Speaker 1: being able to go way above that twenty double the
21:09
Speaker 1: twenty million dollar cap to forty million, which we're hearing
21:12
Speaker 1: is happening in this twenty twenty six year. That's a
21:16
Speaker 1: that's an inherent problem. Baseball is dealing with this right now.
21:21
Speaker 1: People are mad at what the Dodgers are spending versus
21:24
Speaker 1: what the Kansas City Royals or the Tampa Bay Rays
21:27
Speaker 1: are spending. They are upset with that. They're like, it's
21:31
Speaker 1: bad for baseball. So if it's bad for baseball, why
21:35
Speaker 1: would it not be bad for college football? The enterprise
21:38
Speaker 1: of college football, not each individual brand. And I don't
21:43
Speaker 1: know why we can't come up with the leadership can't
21:46
Speaker 1: figure out that we need to do what's best for
21:48
Speaker 1: college football and not what's best for enterprises.
21:52
Speaker 2: So back to it.
21:53
Speaker 1: So what happens if a deal is rejected, well, the
21:57
Speaker 1: consequences they can be serious, because if a deal gets
22:00
Speaker 1: rejected then a player might actually have to give money
22:03
Speaker 1: back or they have to go to arbitration to challenge
22:06
Speaker 1: the decision. And if an athlete keeps the money from
22:09
Speaker 1: a deal that gets denied, then you could lose eligibility
22:14
Speaker 1: and so But here are the numbers on this so far.
22:17
Speaker 1: So far, the clearinghouse says it has approved more than
22:20
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand NIL deals worth about one hundred and twenty
22:24
Speaker 1: seven million dollars. But it also has rejected hundreds of
22:28
Speaker 1: deals worth around fifteen million dollars, which shows how much
22:32
Speaker 1: money is actually at stake here. Now, let's look at
22:35
Speaker 1: the big picture of this whole thing. This is the
22:39
Speaker 1: newest chapter in the chaos of NIO. The system was
22:43
Speaker 1: created to prevent schools and boosters from simply paying players directly.
22:48
Speaker 1: But now everybody's asking the one big question. Should anybody
22:53
Speaker 1: be deciding what athletes market value is? In the first place,
22:59
Speaker 1: here is where I stand on it. So to get
23:03
Speaker 1: around these nio go deals, shoe companies Adidas, Nike, under
23:09
Speaker 1: Army or anybody else has been going around it and
23:14
Speaker 1: signing a bunch of players to two deals. That way,
23:20
Speaker 1: then they can get paid above the cap, above what
23:23
Speaker 1: they were able to do. Lear Field is doing the
23:25
Speaker 1: same thing, and other companies with their media rights are
23:28
Speaker 1: doing the exact same same thing.
23:33
Speaker 2: So this is a problem.
23:35
Speaker 1: And I want to point to the world of basketball
23:38
Speaker 1: for a second, because this is exactly what is going
23:41
Speaker 1: on in the NBA with Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers
23:45
Speaker 1: right now. Pablo Tore Investigates is doing a phenomenal job.
23:50
Speaker 1: So the Clippers were only able to offer Kawhi Leonard
23:54
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money based upon the NBA rules
23:58
Speaker 1: salary cap all the way, all of that's constructed what
24:01
Speaker 1: the Clippers allegedly, but there's a lot of smoking guns
24:05
Speaker 1: around this decided to do with with Aspire, Aspiration all
24:10
Speaker 1: this and other companies was to pay Kawhi Leonard additional money.
24:16
Speaker 1: That way, then he would not lose any money for
24:19
Speaker 1: signing with the Clippers compared to re signing with the
24:22
Speaker 1: Raptors or other teams. So they went they circumvented the
24:28
Speaker 1: salary cap or at least as the allegation, to pay
24:34
Speaker 1: him more money that way. Then he was happy. That's
24:39
Speaker 1: what's happening in college football. This is the reason why
24:44
Speaker 1: that I believe even though I'm a player advocate, got
24:47
Speaker 1: a kid playing college football, got another kid probably will
24:51
Speaker 1: be playing college football, might have another kid who might
24:53
Speaker 1: be playing volleyball in college. I want players to make money,
24:57
Speaker 1: but I do understand that this has to operate like
25:01
Speaker 1: an enterprise and a business. Players should be able to
25:05
Speaker 1: make unlimited nil money. They should be able to make
25:10
Speaker 1: limited pay for play money. The salary cap is real.
25:16
Speaker 1: Think about this, Lebron James making a billion dollars from
25:22
Speaker 1: Nike worth the contracts because marketable got his own shoe,
25:25
Speaker 1: all of this stuff. In the NBA, he was capped
25:29
Speaker 1: at thirty forty fifty million at times because of their
25:32
Speaker 1: salary cap. To keep a competitive balance, which is exactly
25:37
Speaker 1: what it should be in college football, the NFL works
25:40
Speaker 1: the exact same way. That's what needs to be done,
25:45
Speaker 1: and until we do that, we are going to have
25:48
Speaker 1: significant problems. But listen, in just a minute, guys, we
25:54
Speaker 1: will have Sean Merriman, mister lights out himself on the program.
26:01
Speaker 1: Got a bunch of questions to ask him. So y'all
26:03
Speaker 1: make sure y'all keep it locked here. But first I
26:06
Speaker 1: want to tell you guys as well, like share, subscribe,
26:11
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26:15
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26:33
Speaker 1: See if you guys can get the best of the day.
26:37
Speaker 1: And I will be showing you guys what I am
26:39
Speaker 1: playing as well. But Sean Merriman up next. Keep it locked.
26:46
Speaker 1: We are now on with mister Sean Merriman. You have
26:50
Speaker 1: seen him as mister lights out in the NFL plan
26:55
Speaker 1: for the Chargers. Man got drafted what two thousand and
26:58
Speaker 1: five out Maryland, all pro pro bowler, played with a
27:04
Speaker 1: lot of great players as well, and a and all
27:07
Speaker 1: around man who understands what it's like to be an
27:10
Speaker 1: edge rusher.
27:11
Speaker 2: Sean. Thanks for coming on, man, appreciate it. Man.
27:15
Speaker 4: Thanks having all right.
27:16
Speaker 1: So I've been looking at you and your Maryland Terrapians.
27:20
Speaker 1: You guys, Mike Mike Loxley over there. You got a
27:23
Speaker 1: nice little quarterback. Mister Malik Washington. They they decided to
27:28
Speaker 1: run it back this year and they said, listen, we're
27:30
Speaker 1: gonna go full investment. We're gonna take care of these
27:33
Speaker 1: kids from out here in Maryland and recruit this area.
27:38
Speaker 1: How are you feeling about the terra Pians and you've
27:40
Speaker 1: been keeping up with them everything around there.
27:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, man.
27:45
Speaker 5: You know, for me, it's it's like a different time, right,
27:49
Speaker 5: because it's like back in the day, it was more
27:52
Speaker 5: about relationship, right. I grew up in Prince Georgias County, Maryland,
27:56
Speaker 5: and I stay home, you know, was it was a
27:58
Speaker 5: big thing for me to stay home. Now guys are
28:00
Speaker 5: going where the money is, and so you know that
28:03
Speaker 5: the time is different. But knowing that Locksley and that
28:07
Speaker 5: crew's going to have more money this year, it's gonna
28:11
Speaker 5: be it's gonna be a game changer, man, because you
28:14
Speaker 5: can't compete, to be really honest, you can't compete in
28:16
Speaker 5: the Big ten if you don't have money.
28:18
Speaker 4: I mean, you got you're going to get schools that's loaded,
28:21
Speaker 4: and you know.
28:22
Speaker 5: It's almost like going to a gunfight with a sling shot,
28:25
Speaker 5: and it's it's hard to do.
28:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've been obviously advocating for players being paid
28:32
Speaker 1: and everything. But I do believe that they that there
28:35
Speaker 1: needs to be some sort of salary cap the way
28:39
Speaker 1: it's like the NFL to where you can only make
28:43
Speaker 1: so much money from your rookie deal and your contract,
28:46
Speaker 1: but actual real nil is unlimited, where you know, if
28:51
Speaker 1: you're popular, you can make twenty thirty forty fifty million
28:54
Speaker 1: dollars outside of the game. But that for the parody
28:57
Speaker 1: of the game, that there needs to be a salary cap.
28:59
Speaker 5: Where you there no, no, I agree, man, it has
29:03
Speaker 5: to be some kind of guardrail on what's going on.
29:07
Speaker 5: And I always felt like this. I always felt that
29:09
Speaker 5: the guys should get paid. I always felt that way
29:11
Speaker 5: they should got I believe they should have been making
29:13
Speaker 5: money off of their jerseys or any kind of signing,
29:16
Speaker 5: little appearances, you know, if a car dealership wants to,
29:20
Speaker 5: you know, do some kind of set up with them.
29:22
Speaker 4: Like I always felt they should be paid. But now
29:26
Speaker 4: it's gotten kind of crazy.
29:27
Speaker 5: It's gotten it's gotten too much where there's no accountability
29:33
Speaker 5: for the for the actual players if it doesn't go well, right,
29:37
Speaker 5: the kid who left the quarterback and left from Tennessee
29:40
Speaker 5: and went over to u C. L A I believe
29:42
Speaker 5: you left with a couple million bucks, right, I mean,
29:45
Speaker 5: I don't even think he had to give it back.
29:46
Speaker 5: So I think that if you are going into the
29:50
Speaker 5: portal or go somewhere and transfer, there should be some
29:53
Speaker 5: kind of stipulation where you got to pay that money back,
29:55
Speaker 5: because there's no business that I know of, and at
29:59
Speaker 5: least in this country where somebody can give you a
30:02
Speaker 5: couple million bucks.
30:03
Speaker 4: And you could just get up take it.
30:04
Speaker 5: I don't like to be here and go somewhere else
30:07
Speaker 5: with no repercussions. And so for me, it's like, what
30:10
Speaker 5: do you what are you teaching these What are you
30:11
Speaker 5: teaching these guys if you're putting that in place that
30:15
Speaker 5: they don't have to honor a contract or they don't
30:17
Speaker 5: have to honor you know, a deal, because at any
30:21
Speaker 5: point in time, if they don't feel comfortable where they're at,
30:24
Speaker 5: maybe get in the argument with the coach, maybe they
30:25
Speaker 5: don't like the system, they say, you know what, let
30:27
Speaker 5: me take this two million, three million bucks, get up
30:30
Speaker 5: and go somewhere else. I think that's where the rules
30:32
Speaker 5: need to come in place more than anything else.
30:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely do believe because when you get out
30:37
Speaker 1: in the real, real world contracts or contracts. You try
30:40
Speaker 1: to get out of an NFL contract, you can try
30:44
Speaker 1: to fight, you can try to pout, you can try
30:47
Speaker 1: to do whatever you but at the end of the day,
30:50
Speaker 1: you signed that deal and you got to honor the
30:55
Speaker 1: terms of it. And sometimes it happens where you didn't
30:58
Speaker 1: hit free agency in the right year or this or that,
31:02
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's just bad luck and you can't just
31:05
Speaker 1: try to say, oh well, listen, listen, listen, I don't
31:08
Speaker 1: like this. Let's let's let's rip this up and tear
31:10
Speaker 1: it up.
31:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can go, you can go to the Players Association,
31:17
Speaker 5: you can do whatever you want. Once that contract is
31:19
Speaker 5: there is there. And you know, myself, I got son,
31:22
Speaker 5: you know, justin Merriman. He's fifteen, he's he actually just
31:25
Speaker 5: announced it's going to Saint Francis this year. Trains from
31:28
Speaker 5: the Saint Francis and so he plays quarterback, one of
31:31
Speaker 5: the best, one of the top quarterbacks in the country
31:34
Speaker 5: right now. And so now I got to deal with
31:37
Speaker 5: it personally, you know, with him, and it's coming up,
31:40
Speaker 5: and I know that it's gonna be a fun time
31:42
Speaker 5: because he's I know he's gonna earn everything he has,
31:44
Speaker 5: but also too, man, there's responsibility that comes with that, right,
31:48
Speaker 5: Like there's a there's now you have to perform. It
31:52
Speaker 5: kind of takes away from how the game used to
31:55
Speaker 5: be fun. Right you go out and just play for
31:57
Speaker 5: the love of game. Now it's it's a bus start
32:00
Speaker 5: from high school.
32:01
Speaker 4: Yep, and then they keeps.
32:02
Speaker 5: It translates all the way to college and so the
32:05
Speaker 5: game is just completely different than what it was.
32:08
Speaker 2: Oh, it definitely is.
32:09
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest things that I think is
32:13
Speaker 1: that there has to be some sort of collective bargaining
32:15
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are pushing back on it.
32:18
Speaker 1: The you know, the ACC, big ten, SEC, NCAA are
32:22
Speaker 1: all pushing back. But this is a power thing and
32:25
Speaker 1: they want to keep keep their power, keep making more
32:28
Speaker 1: money than everybody else. And college football's biggest issue I see, Sean,
32:33
Speaker 1: is that we're not looking well, the leadership is not
32:36
Speaker 1: looking at college football as an enterprise like they're looking
32:41
Speaker 1: at as individual things. The SEC and then amongst them, Alabama's
32:44
Speaker 1: gonna do what's best for them, Georgia's gonna do what's
32:47
Speaker 1: best for them, Oregon's gonna do what's best for them,
32:49
Speaker 1: Washington's gonna do what's best for them and then the conferences,
32:52
Speaker 1: but they're not looking at it as college football and
32:55
Speaker 1: growing the actual game. And that parody is the best
33:00
Speaker 1: thing that Indiana being able to win, merely being able
33:04
Speaker 1: to win, Rutgers being able to win, Nebraska being able
33:06
Speaker 1: to win, along with Ohio State and you know, and
33:10
Speaker 1: Georgia and all them, that that's actually the thing that's
33:12
Speaker 1: going to grow the.
33:13
Speaker 5: Game, No, no, no doubt about that, which I could
33:17
Speaker 5: take it. What's coming down the pipeline off of that
33:19
Speaker 5: is that everybody's gonna branch off anyway on their own
33:22
Speaker 5: and become their own entity.
33:24
Speaker 4: Right.
33:24
Speaker 5: And so when they branch off and become their own entity,
33:28
Speaker 5: they operate as an individual.
33:30
Speaker 2: Right.
33:30
Speaker 4: Everybody's gonna operate as individual.
33:32
Speaker 5: Alabama's gonna operate the way Alabama wants to operate, and
33:35
Speaker 5: Florida's gonna operate how they want to operate, Miami and
33:37
Speaker 5: so forth.
33:38
Speaker 4: And so when that happens, it's going to create an imbalance.
33:43
Speaker 5: It's just going to create enbalance because you know, Alabama's
33:46
Speaker 5: gonna get all the money, Ohio State's gonna get all
33:48
Speaker 5: the money. You know, Miami is gonna go to those
33:51
Speaker 5: schools and then you're gonna have these other schools that's
33:54
Speaker 5: you know, that's in a whim and trying to figure
33:56
Speaker 5: it out and trying to compete and figure out a
33:58
Speaker 5: ways to compete. And so that's why that's that's where
34:01
Speaker 5: I see things going in the long run. And I
34:04
Speaker 5: think they have a way now if they have some
34:08
Speaker 5: kind of guardrail something around it where team colleges and
34:12
Speaker 5: schools can't just do.
34:13
Speaker 4: They want, players can't do if they want, and if.
34:15
Speaker 5: They fix it now, it'll be better for the long
34:18
Speaker 5: term of the game.
34:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent agree.
34:22
Speaker 1: Now, Now let's talk about some of the players actually
34:25
Speaker 1: in the game right right now. There are a bunch
34:28
Speaker 1: of big names going out to the draft this this year,
34:32
Speaker 1: and some of the ones that people are super excited
34:34
Speaker 1: about in terms of edge rushers, they're super excited about
34:37
Speaker 1: Reuben Bain Junior, r Vel Reees, David Bailey, Cashes how
34:42
Speaker 1: like that, those are the guys that they're looking at
34:44
Speaker 1: and set Cedric Falk as well Kendrick Falulk as potential
34:48
Speaker 1: first rounders. Out of those guys, when you watch film
34:52
Speaker 1: or when you've seen them in games or at the combine,
34:55
Speaker 1: who are your favorite ones to watch.
34:58
Speaker 4: I would say, what's what's named? The first one?
35:00
Speaker 2: You named Ruben dan out of Miami.
35:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, out of Miami. I really like him a lot.
35:06
Speaker 5: And let me tell you this, man, So, I mean,
35:09
Speaker 5: I don't I haven't looked at the history of the combine,
35:12
Speaker 5: but this may be the first time in a long time,
35:14
Speaker 5: the d lineman. You have so many of these guys
35:17
Speaker 5: running low four fives.
35:18
Speaker 4: Yes, you know.
35:20
Speaker 5: I mean you know when you had our time, when
35:23
Speaker 5: we came out, you had a couple guys running four five.
35:26
Speaker 4: It's like everybody has turned their head like, who the
35:29
Speaker 4: hell is this is? This is that?
35:32
Speaker 5: Now you've got four or five six guys running four
35:34
Speaker 5: fives and low four fives.
35:36
Speaker 4: Which is crazy.
35:37
Speaker 5: I mean the kid from Ohio State, the linebacker, I mean,
35:41
Speaker 5: his his measurables were was insane.
35:43
Speaker 4: It was this sudden I.
35:44
Speaker 2: Forgot sunny sunny styles. Yeah.
35:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, like the game is just different.
35:53
Speaker 5: And I know that, you know the evolution of the
35:55
Speaker 5: athlete and all that stuff, but it's getting to a
35:57
Speaker 5: point now where that a lot of these guys measurables
36:01
Speaker 5: are so crazy that you see some of the guys
36:03
Speaker 5: are jumping up from the third round and now late
36:06
Speaker 5: first because of these numbers that they're produced doing a combine. Now,
36:09
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna sit up there and say that everything
36:11
Speaker 5: they did the comboud is going to translate to the
36:13
Speaker 5: football field.
36:14
Speaker 4: But the guys who wasn't on the map before maybe
36:18
Speaker 4: a mid to late you know, late.
36:20
Speaker 5: Round pick are jumping up because of these intangibles and
36:23
Speaker 5: these numbers they're putting up.
36:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's eye popping some of them. But one
36:30
Speaker 1: of the big things that gets scrutinized a lot, and you,
36:33
Speaker 1: as an edge rusher know, is arm length.
36:36
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
36:37
Speaker 1: They they talk about Reuben Bain and his arm lengths,
36:39
Speaker 1: where like, I think he's probably going to end up
36:42
Speaker 1: like like a three four D end as opposed to
36:47
Speaker 1: necessarily a true Like I don't think it's a four
36:49
Speaker 1: to three I'm sorry, three four d ND. I'm sorry
36:53
Speaker 1: three four outside linebacker. But how big of a deal
36:57
Speaker 1: do you think that arm length really is for a
36:59
Speaker 1: pass rusher.
37:01
Speaker 4: It's it's everything.
37:02
Speaker 5: And I was just having this conversation about the other
37:05
Speaker 5: day about Miles Garrett. I mean, look the way Miles
37:08
Speaker 5: Garrett is built, just his body, stat his his structure
37:11
Speaker 5: in stature in general, like this dude arms hangs like
37:15
Speaker 5: by his knees.
37:16
Speaker 2: He gets standing up straight.
37:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, And so when when you have those kind of
37:22
Speaker 5: measurables and you and then you as an outside linebacker
37:26
Speaker 5: in Russia and you got the mentality, because that's that's
37:30
Speaker 5: a lot that's not that's not measured in this combine
37:34
Speaker 5: those things as far as mentality, and they want to
37:36
Speaker 5: go out and play football is going to be seen
37:38
Speaker 5: on film. Right, So if you got that, you go
37:40
Speaker 5: out there making plays, You run through guys and you
37:43
Speaker 5: chasing somebody back down from the backside, and you're showing
37:46
Speaker 5: that and then you got those measurables.
37:48
Speaker 4: Those are your those are your first front guys period.
37:50
Speaker 5: But that's why they do these measuring the barves, like
37:53
Speaker 5: they have you up on stage in front of all
37:55
Speaker 5: these gms and in front office and they and they
37:58
Speaker 5: do what they make you put your arms up. They yes,
38:00
Speaker 5: because they know those things are important.
38:04
Speaker 1: So how how much does that actually translate into the game.
38:10
Speaker 1: Because we've seen will Will Campbell who got drafted from LSU,
38:15
Speaker 1: got drafted, he played in the Super Bowl, had a
38:18
Speaker 1: rough day against some Seahawks lineman d Lineman and they
38:23
Speaker 1: kept tarking, Oh it's arm linked, arm linked, arm link.
38:26
Speaker 1: So for tackle and edge rusher, that relationship like from
38:32
Speaker 1: a scale from one to ten, how big of a
38:34
Speaker 1: deal is that? And would you draft a guy, you know,
38:38
Speaker 1: top five with shorter arms?
38:41
Speaker 4: No?
38:43
Speaker 5: No, if I was a general GM, no, absolutely not,
38:46
Speaker 5: because you got to think the top five, top ten guys.
38:49
Speaker 5: I would even go as far as your top fifteen.
38:53
Speaker 5: They got to jump off the map, and not just
38:55
Speaker 5: on film. I'm talking about the measurables alone. You know,
38:58
Speaker 5: you know I played, I played with the you know,
39:00
Speaker 5: use Darvis pros. Right, if Darres Pros had you know,
39:04
Speaker 5: if he was three inches more tall and had another
39:05
Speaker 5: fifteen pounds on him, this, he's a top five draft pick,
39:09
Speaker 5: no doubt, No matter what he didn't call it, he's
39:11
Speaker 5: a top five.
39:12
Speaker 4: He end up going I think third or fourth round.
39:13
Speaker 5: But if he goes out and he has a couple
39:16
Speaker 5: more inches and he got you know, fifteen pounds on him,
39:19
Speaker 5: he's a top five draft pick.
39:20
Speaker 4: So your top five, top ten, maybe even up the
39:23
Speaker 4: top fifteen.
39:24
Speaker 5: Their measureables, their attributes have to jump off the screen,
39:28
Speaker 5: not just what they did on film. Because there's a
39:30
Speaker 5: lot of really good football players. But good football players
39:33
Speaker 5: don't go top fifteen. You got freak athletes that go
39:37
Speaker 5: top fifteen.
39:38
Speaker 2: So you explain this to.
39:39
Speaker 1: People all the time that like, look at the tape,
39:42
Speaker 1: I'm like, listen, it doesn't matter what the tape says.
39:46
Speaker 1: Is Yes, there are some very good football players. But
39:50
Speaker 1: NFL teams when they're talking about drafts, and especially in
39:53
Speaker 1: the first round at all, but especially the top of
39:55
Speaker 1: the first round, they they need to you gotta look
39:58
Speaker 1: good getting off the bus.
40:00
Speaker 5: I tell everybody you gotta do the past the eye test, right,
40:04
Speaker 5: you gotta pass. If you're someone in that top ten,
40:06
Speaker 5: top fifteen, you gotta pass the eye tests. You can't
40:08
Speaker 5: come in the room I don't care what position you
40:10
Speaker 5: play and not knowing if a guy work at a
40:13
Speaker 5: grocery stool where he played football, when he walk in
40:15
Speaker 5: that room, you're like, oh, Okay, that dude he played
40:18
Speaker 5: for somebody. I don't know who he is, but I
40:20
Speaker 5: know he played for somebody. So you have to have
40:21
Speaker 5: that part about you. And I'm not saying the film
40:24
Speaker 5: doesn't matter. The film definitely matters. But when you talk
40:26
Speaker 5: about somebody in the top ten to top fifteen.
40:29
Speaker 4: They have to they have.
40:30
Speaker 5: Something about them physically has to jump off the page.
40:35
Speaker 1: And one of those guys to me is David Bailey
40:38
Speaker 1: from from Texas Tech. And mind you, I watched a
40:44
Speaker 1: good amount of him, but when he played against Oregon
40:47
Speaker 1: in the Orange Bowl, that might have been one of
40:50
Speaker 1: the best halves of college football edge played that I
40:54
Speaker 1: had seen. He knocked down two or three passes, had
40:57
Speaker 1: two sacks. It just he was causing havoc every single play.
41:03
Speaker 1: And then when he goes to the combine he kind
41:05
Speaker 1: of struggled in some of the change of direction drills,
41:09
Speaker 1: but I was thinking, ain't nobody gonna ask him to
41:11
Speaker 1: drop dropping coverage?
41:13
Speaker 2: So no, So.
41:16
Speaker 1: When you watch a guy like like that, how excited
41:19
Speaker 1: do you get and what do you think about him?
41:22
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I'll tell you this, and you're right.
41:25
Speaker 5: So when I came into the NFL, I played for
41:27
Speaker 5: Wayne Phillips, and Wayne phillips whole thing was his defense coordinator.
41:31
Speaker 5: He his whole thing was you're gonna do eighty percent
41:34
Speaker 5: of with you're great at you're gonna do twenty percent,
41:36
Speaker 5: which you're not.
41:37
Speaker 4: And I ain't wanna drop man.
41:38
Speaker 5: They knew it, So I was only dropping in the
41:40
Speaker 5: coverage about twenty twenty five percent of the time. Other
41:42
Speaker 5: than that, I'm Russian. Barey is the same thing. He's
41:45
Speaker 5: not gonna be a guy at best. You might have
41:47
Speaker 5: him covering the running back to the flats or you know,
41:49
Speaker 5: covering the tight end or something on the scenes, but
41:51
Speaker 5: he's not covering anybody. This is this is a guy
41:54
Speaker 5: that's going forward. And again now we talked to reverse
41:59
Speaker 5: he did. He didn't look that great in some of
42:01
Speaker 5: those some of those drills when he was changed directions,
42:04
Speaker 5: and a lot of that has to do with just
42:06
Speaker 5: reps right when I came out and DeMarcus Ware.
42:09
Speaker 4: I mean, DeMarcus was.
42:10
Speaker 5: A hand hand in the ground guy in college, and
42:15
Speaker 5: then when he got to the pros, he at least
42:17
Speaker 5: the first year he was not I wouldn't say struggling,
42:20
Speaker 5: but he had to get used to standing up and
42:22
Speaker 5: being able to being able.
42:24
Speaker 4: To work in space. But he turned out to be
42:26
Speaker 4: a Hall of Famer.
42:26
Speaker 5: So it doesn't really matter if you're not gonna be
42:32
Speaker 5: using that guy in that in those kinds of situations
42:34
Speaker 5: as much can he go get the quarterback and can
42:38
Speaker 5: he make the big player.
42:39
Speaker 4: We need him too. And if those two questions are answered,
42:42
Speaker 4: there you have it.
42:44
Speaker 2: Dude.
42:45
Speaker 1: I remember DeMarcus Ware first year we were playing in Jacksonville.
42:49
Speaker 1: We played Dallas, first game of the season. I'm I'm attached.
42:54
Speaker 1: We're in a three by one and I'm attached to
42:57
Speaker 1: the tackle. But but I'm off the line and I'm
43:00
Speaker 1: looking and and I had I had a check flat,
43:04
Speaker 1: so I got a check to see if if he
43:05
Speaker 1: comes off off the slot, because at that point in time,
43:08
Speaker 1: they were still he's a rookie, so.
43:10
Speaker 2: There they got him stretched stretched out.
43:12
Speaker 1: He was kind of he lined up over the slot
43:15
Speaker 1: at first, and then I saw him creeping down. I'm like, okay,
43:18
Speaker 1: this kid from Troy saw him in the preseason a
43:21
Speaker 1: little bit. Don't really know much about it, and there's
43:24
Speaker 1: no book on him. Man, he comes off the edge.
43:29
Speaker 1: I see him coming, I'm like, okay, okay, okay. And
43:32
Speaker 1: I don't know whether he's gonna try to spit. I mean,
43:34
Speaker 1: whether he's gonna try to speed rush off the edge.
43:37
Speaker 2: Whatever.
43:37
Speaker 1: Man, he ran smack dab into me and I turned
43:42
Speaker 1: around some kind of way. He knocked me backwards and
43:44
Speaker 1: I had to butt block him. Just to get the
43:47
Speaker 1: just so the quarterback and get the ball off. It
43:49
Speaker 1: was by far one of the most embarrassing plays of
43:52
Speaker 1: my career. But it also but he didn't get a sack,
43:55
Speaker 1: he didn't hit the quarterback. But that was my That
43:58
Speaker 1: was like a oh oh, this oh, this boy from Troy,
44:02
Speaker 1: Oh oh he for real? Man, I knew that play
44:07
Speaker 1: one that I had in an encounter with with him.
44:10
Speaker 3: Man.
44:10
Speaker 5: And I'll tell you because I was used to playing
44:12
Speaker 5: up in college.
44:13
Speaker 4: I played.
44:14
Speaker 5: I played up where I could see the line of
44:15
Speaker 5: scrimmage and I'll put my hand in the dirt on
44:17
Speaker 5: you know, past the situations I need to nicoladon. But
44:20
Speaker 5: for the most part I was standing up. And so
44:22
Speaker 5: by the time I got to the NFL, standing up
44:24
Speaker 5: was easy for me. But they just want me to
44:26
Speaker 5: go get the quarterback. But you know, you talk about
44:28
Speaker 5: the Marcus man like, you know, his first year, they
44:31
Speaker 5: asked him to stand up as a as an outside
44:33
Speaker 5: linebackers a three four defense. And that's a different world, right,
44:37
Speaker 5: So you look at guys nowadays like a Will Anderson,
44:40
Speaker 5: who you know, I remember watching Will Anderson when we
44:43
Speaker 5: was at Alabama as a freshman.
44:45
Speaker 4: I got a call about Will.
44:47
Speaker 5: We had a we had a writer at the University
44:49
Speaker 5: of Maryland, Will Matt, who I was close with. He
44:52
Speaker 5: called me when he got the job that Alabama. He said, Sean,
44:57
Speaker 5: they got a guy down here that reminds me like
44:58
Speaker 5: about a lot like you know, I've.
45:01
Speaker 4: Heard it a hundred times. I'm like, dude, man, come on, okay, Okay,
45:05
Speaker 4: I'm like, man.
45:06
Speaker 5: Like, come on, I've heard this so many times. He said, no, man,
45:10
Speaker 5: he's a little light. He's a little light, but he
45:13
Speaker 5: got it like he when he gets some weight on him.
45:15
Speaker 4: This dude's gonna be on. Stop with you.
45:17
Speaker 5: He reminds me a lot of us. Said, Okay, send
45:19
Speaker 5: me some film on him. He sent me some film
45:22
Speaker 5: at practice. I think they were doing one on ones
45:23
Speaker 5: or something like that. And I called him immediately. I said,
45:26
Speaker 5: this dude's going to be a dog and shorten off,
45:29
Speaker 5: gaining like another fifteen or twenty plus pounds, putting some
45:32
Speaker 5: muscle on and look at it, Nail. You know, so
45:35
Speaker 5: again you've taken Will Anderson and you ask him to
45:40
Speaker 5: do something he's not accustomed to doing. Dropping in covers,
45:43
Speaker 5: dropping in flask covering and tightening down the scene who cares.
45:46
Speaker 4: What he looked like in the combine.
45:47
Speaker 5: This dude can get out of the quarterback and that's
45:50
Speaker 5: where as a GM, that's what my mindset would be.
45:54
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, dude, I am so excited about that.
45:58
Speaker 1: But I want to hit you a couple more more
46:00
Speaker 1: angles before we get out here.
46:02
Speaker 2: One of them is, have you seen this this Jake
46:06
Speaker 2: Paul nonsense?
46:08
Speaker 1: Because you've been in the fight game for a while,
46:11
Speaker 1: and so you are around some of the top MMA
46:14
Speaker 1: people around.
46:16
Speaker 2: And you know pugilists as well. And I was a dude.
46:20
Speaker 1: I boxed in the offseason, so I understand the craft.
46:23
Speaker 1: I understand all of this. But he's saying that he
46:27
Speaker 1: would chat He'll put up a million dollars to fight
46:32
Speaker 1: any NFL player or something like that. Sean, would you
46:37
Speaker 1: get in the ring with with with with him, because
46:40
Speaker 1: I know you about that life too.
46:42
Speaker 4: Well with Logan. Yeah, it's funny, man, I saw it
46:46
Speaker 4: the other day. I mean, of course I would. But
46:51
Speaker 4: I'm forty one, dude, so I'll get in there.
46:53
Speaker 5: I feel spar I feel great, you know, probably some
46:56
Speaker 5: of the probably the best shape I've been ever, just
46:58
Speaker 5: because I'm able to take care of my body a
47:00
Speaker 5: little different and trained different. But exclude me right for
47:03
Speaker 5: a minute, because I've been doing it for a long time,
47:05
Speaker 5: so I actually it would make sense if we did fight.
47:10
Speaker 4: I would warn.
47:12
Speaker 5: Any if you said you boxed on the off season.
47:14
Speaker 5: I would warn any athlete, current or former. If you
47:18
Speaker 5: get in that ringo cage, make sure.
47:20
Speaker 4: That you have sparring, make sure you got a training camp.
47:25
Speaker 5: Because football does not translate in the in the rage
47:29
Speaker 5: or in a cage or ring.
47:31
Speaker 4: It just doesn't.
47:32
Speaker 5: So you have to have real time in that in
47:35
Speaker 5: that ring or that cage. Because yeah, I think Logan,
47:38
Speaker 5: an active guy who hasn't stepped into a ring before,
47:42
Speaker 5: He's probably gonna knock out because the craft is just different.
47:45
Speaker 4: Now you take somebody like a Le'Veon Bell, like a friend,
47:50
Speaker 4: like a.
47:50
Speaker 5: Frank Gore, you take any one of those two guys
47:54
Speaker 5: that got it real experience in the ring, Logan gonna
47:58
Speaker 5: have a problem because you're not You're not known in
48:00
Speaker 5: this hard I have so many arguments with so I
48:04
Speaker 5: call them civilians. I have so many arguments with Sevilla's.
48:07
Speaker 5: I said, dude, let me tell you them. We are different.
48:10
Speaker 5: We're different than anybody you ever met before your life.
48:13
Speaker 5: Strength wise, mentality wise, we're different. So the average human
48:17
Speaker 5: being don't even know the strength. I mean, you know,
48:21
Speaker 5: and and so you go to barbershop, you know, I'll go,
48:23
Speaker 5: I'll go get my haircut. You got dudes in there
48:25
Speaker 5: talking like, oh yeah, you know the second or third
48:27
Speaker 5: string guy. He ain't this he I said, let me
48:29
Speaker 5: tell you some of that third string dude from Mississippi State, Yes,
48:32
Speaker 5: would take you and dump you on the side of
48:34
Speaker 5: your damn head. Yeah, I mean the third string due
48:37
Speaker 5: who ain't even get in the game, who don't even
48:39
Speaker 5: see the field. This dude is so strong and so athletic,
48:42
Speaker 5: he could do damage. Now imagine what a guy that's
48:44
Speaker 5: a that's we just talked about, a top ten, top
48:47
Speaker 5: fifteen pick, or or somebody just in general with with
48:51
Speaker 5: you know, athleticism and strength and coordination.
48:54
Speaker 4: Out of this world.
48:55
Speaker 5: They pick up combat sports, they pick up boxing. Mma,
48:59
Speaker 5: these guys, I'm gonna come champion. We're so used to
49:03
Speaker 5: seeing people that's wait bigger than us and stronger than us.
49:05
Speaker 5: I mean, every single week I'm seeing a tackle to
49:08
Speaker 5: six six sixty seven, three hundred and thirty plus.
49:10
Speaker 4: Pounds with good feet and you know, so.
49:13
Speaker 5: If I can take if I can take him and
49:15
Speaker 5: toss him around and hip toss him or you know,
49:18
Speaker 5: give him a hump move and get him out the way,
49:20
Speaker 5: then somebody in my size is a joke. What the
49:22
Speaker 5: difference is is if you if you don't have actual
49:26
Speaker 5: experience and the end of that first round you gus out,
49:30
Speaker 5: somebody is gonna tee off on you.
49:31
Speaker 4: And so those are the things that you need to
49:33
Speaker 4: learn if you're gonna step and do that.
49:35
Speaker 2: Dude.
49:36
Speaker 1: When I used to box in the off season, my
49:38
Speaker 1: trainer's name is Joseph Joseph Ojamo, and we used to
49:42
Speaker 1: spar and we used to play no Noah headshots because
49:45
Speaker 1: he was like, yo, you you get hitting the head
49:48
Speaker 1: in the season, let's not do it. But then occasion
49:50
Speaker 1: I was spar spar with some other guys, but my
49:52
Speaker 1: first time sparring with him, And mind you, he was
49:55
Speaker 1: a professional boxer, so he was taking a light on me.
49:58
Speaker 2: He used to wear big old pillows.
49:59
Speaker 1: These were like thirty two ounce gloves against me, like
50:02
Speaker 1: just big old pillows. And and mind you, I'm six
50:07
Speaker 1: three two fifty five at the time. He's every bit
50:12
Speaker 1: of five ten one ninety five, two oh five, maybe right, man,
50:20
Speaker 1: you would have thought that I was in there with
50:22
Speaker 1: jaws after I gassed out after the first two minutes.
50:25
Speaker 1: And it is the most helpless feeling in the whole world.
50:28
Speaker 1: Like nobody knows what it's like. If you've never been
50:32
Speaker 1: in a ring with somebody who's more skilled than you,
50:38
Speaker 1: and you're in there, you can be bigger, stronger, and
50:40
Speaker 1: you absolutely feel helpless.
50:43
Speaker 4: It's the worst feeling.
50:44
Speaker 5: And that's why I laugh at people when they're home
50:46
Speaker 5: watching a fight, whether it's him and May of boxing,
50:49
Speaker 5: and they're like, why did you throw the Why.
50:50
Speaker 4: Didn't you throw the right? Why don't you tell them?
50:54
Speaker 4: Trust me?
50:55
Speaker 5: And his mind he wanted to, his body is telling
50:57
Speaker 5: him he cannot right, Well, you don't do.
51:00
Speaker 2: It if you know what's coming back.
51:03
Speaker 5: Yeah, And when you get to that point, there's nothing
51:06
Speaker 5: you can do.
51:07
Speaker 4: There is absolutely your your your you're defenseless.
51:10
Speaker 5: And if you're in there with somebody that's skilled, that
51:13
Speaker 5: know what they're doing, right, when you hit that moment
51:16
Speaker 5: and you gutsing up, that's when they start picking you apart.
51:19
Speaker 4: And you got two things.
51:20
Speaker 5: You take those punches and try to recover and get
51:22
Speaker 5: out the round or you go down right.
51:25
Speaker 4: I mean, those are the two options you have.
51:27
Speaker 1: So you know I would to put it and then
51:29
Speaker 1: and then and then the civilians say, oh my god,
51:32
Speaker 1: he quit, he just gave up. I'll never do that. Yeah, okay,
51:36
Speaker 1: you would. You would have never even got to the
51:38
Speaker 1: point to get in the ring too quick. So don't
51:41
Speaker 1: even get.
51:43
Speaker 4: Most most won't, man, most most people won't.
51:46
Speaker 5: And I'm just so used to because playing the football,
51:50
Speaker 5: you you hear people say all the time that they
51:52
Speaker 5: would have done this, they would have done that, said, dude,
51:54
Speaker 5: you go across the middle, get you get your bell wrung.
51:56
Speaker 4: It's gonna disturb you the next time.
51:58
Speaker 5: You're gonna do it, like, oh why they put did
52:00
Speaker 5: he put his hands out because he just got almost
52:02
Speaker 5: knocked out the last time, so that's still in his head.
52:06
Speaker 5: And so I just block out when i'm when I'm
52:08
Speaker 5: around what I call civilians that somebody didn't play football,
52:12
Speaker 5: or somebody that didn't has never fought, never sparred, never
52:15
Speaker 5: been in on another professional because you you gain a
52:18
Speaker 5: different level of respect when you do. You understand how
52:22
Speaker 5: tired you can. You understand when when you get the
52:25
Speaker 5: wind knocked out. He or you understand when you catch
52:27
Speaker 5: one up in here and you're you're it's blurring. You're
52:30
Speaker 5: trying to get your vision back, but they also are
52:33
Speaker 5: still tagging on you. See, you got to cover up.
52:35
Speaker 5: And so once you understand that, you look at everything
52:38
Speaker 5: much different.
52:40
Speaker 2: Facts.
52:40
Speaker 1: Speaking of looking at things different, that one of the
52:43
Speaker 1: things that's helped me look at things different is watching
52:46
Speaker 1: my own kid play football. So I did not want
52:50
Speaker 1: my kids to play football, but but for some reason,
52:53
Speaker 1: they've been determined to play. And so I got to
52:56
Speaker 1: some play in college football right now. I got a
52:59
Speaker 1: eighth grader gett ready to be in the ninth grader.
53:01
Speaker 1: They both play quarterback and sean There's nothing I didn't
53:07
Speaker 1: I'm not like a worrying type of person when I
53:11
Speaker 1: when I played, I wasn't scared. But when I watched
53:14
Speaker 1: my kids play, I'm like, oh, just like, please God,
53:18
Speaker 1: just let him get out the game say. It is
53:21
Speaker 1: the most nerve wracking thing, and I but I love
53:24
Speaker 1: watching him play, but I also hate every second of it.
53:28
Speaker 1: It's hard, man, It's so hard because you know the
53:31
Speaker 1: brutality of the game.
53:32
Speaker 5: In the first place, he's gonna get his you know
53:34
Speaker 5: he's gonna get his bell wrong. You know, maybe one
53:36
Speaker 5: of these plays he gets up a little slower, and
53:38
Speaker 5: your heart drop, you know a little bit.
53:40
Speaker 2: You know.
53:41
Speaker 5: I remember my son he was when he was eleven
53:43
Speaker 5: years old. He was playing, he got his bell rung,
53:44
Speaker 5: he got hit, and he was getting up slow.
53:47
Speaker 3: You know.
53:47
Speaker 5: His mom wanted to run on the damn field and
53:50
Speaker 5: do all this stuff whatever. In my head, I'm thinking
53:52
Speaker 5: like it's part of the game. But I did have
53:54
Speaker 5: the conversation with him after the game and I let
53:58
Speaker 5: him know. I said, hey, you don't have to play,
54:00
Speaker 5: just know, but you don't have to play because of me.
54:02
Speaker 4: You can do whatever you want.
54:04
Speaker 5: And just as you said, he looked at me like
54:07
Speaker 5: I said something like I disrespected him, you know, like
54:10
Speaker 5: a disrespectful way. And I said, okay, that's it. I'm
54:13
Speaker 5: not no more conversation. I'm not trying to talk you
54:15
Speaker 5: out of it. And I'm glad I didn't.
54:17
Speaker 2: Man.
54:17
Speaker 5: I think, honestly, I think the football has done more
54:20
Speaker 5: for me, not even just from a financial standpoint, but
54:24
Speaker 5: football builds something in you that you can't replace if
54:26
Speaker 5: you didn't play, and I use it in my everyday life.
54:29
Speaker 5: And all the business and just my regiment. Now, I
54:32
Speaker 5: still six days a week I'm minute gym. I'm still
54:34
Speaker 5: tied to a regimen. And that's because I play football.
54:36
Speaker 5: So those are things that I'll never regret it.
54:41
Speaker 1: So what is it like in terms of the mentally
54:44
Speaker 1: helping shape your son? Right, because he's a quarterback. And
54:50
Speaker 1: the thing that I've found because I'm around a lot
54:51
Speaker 1: of professional athletes who have kids, there're sometimes where your
54:56
Speaker 1: kids it's hard for them to listen to dad, and
55:01
Speaker 1: there's sometimes we have to step back there. So where
55:04
Speaker 1: where are you at with that journey? And what has
55:06
Speaker 1: his fatherhood taught you up? When dealing with this part
55:10
Speaker 1: of it.
55:11
Speaker 5: I think it's easier for me because I achieved everything
55:14
Speaker 5: I ever wanted to do playing football, right, other than
55:16
Speaker 5: being a super Bowl champion, I mean that's that's the
55:18
Speaker 5: only I didn't get a ring, But everything else I
55:21
Speaker 5: feel like I achieved.
55:22
Speaker 4: So I have no reason to live through my son yep.
55:25
Speaker 5: Right, And so I think I think when I when
55:28
Speaker 5: I see some of the other parents at the games
55:30
Speaker 5: and they're they're like so locked in and on their
55:32
Speaker 5: kid and and just going at them and whatever.
55:35
Speaker 4: It's it's almost they're living through their kid.
55:39
Speaker 5: They're they're like doing what they couldn't do, and they're
55:42
Speaker 5: living through their kid. So it allows me, because I
55:45
Speaker 5: achieved everything I wanted to achieve, to sit back in fact.
55:47
Speaker 5: I mean when my my son was younger, you know,
55:50
Speaker 5: his coaches were always trying to come and get me
55:52
Speaker 5: to talk to the team and do more, and I'm like, dude,
55:55
Speaker 5: I'm in the background. I'm here as a parent, you know,
55:57
Speaker 5: like I wanted. If they asked asked me to do
55:59
Speaker 5: something here and there, I'll jump in. But for the
56:02
Speaker 5: most part, I'll let myself come to me with questions.
56:05
Speaker 5: You know, if you ask a question, I'll give them advice.
56:07
Speaker 5: He making his decision and that's how we roll. So
56:10
Speaker 5: I just got him through. Man, I don't have to
56:12
Speaker 5: push him. I mean even since he was like eight
56:14
Speaker 5: or nine years old or ten years old, when he's
56:17
Speaker 5: with me, I'll kind of tap him on a foot
56:18
Speaker 5: six o'clock in the morning when I'm going to the gym,
56:20
Speaker 5: and he'll get up, no complaints, won't won't say anything,
56:23
Speaker 5: don't make an excuse.
56:24
Speaker 4: So I never really had to push him.
56:26
Speaker 5: So it allows me, really in a sense, to sit
56:28
Speaker 5: back and just let him work and just guide him
56:30
Speaker 5: when he got questions.
56:31
Speaker 2: Oh that's dope.
56:33
Speaker 1: Now, now I have some questions about tech technology a
56:36
Speaker 1: lot of other people do. You've been in a lot
56:39
Speaker 1: of big businesses. AI is dominating the space. AI is
56:44
Speaker 1: the future, and you're doing some big, big things with
56:49
Speaker 1: with PTF.
56:50
Speaker 2: Can you tell us about that?
56:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, we PTF is a AI advertising technology.
56:57
Speaker 4: And I always say, and I've been saying at the.
56:59
Speaker 5: Last four or five years, if you're if you're not
57:01
Speaker 5: including AI something you're doing, you're gonna get left behind
57:04
Speaker 5: because that's where everything is going to go.
57:06
Speaker 4: And we haven't even seen the tip of iceberg.
57:08
Speaker 5: I mean, I wasn't a technology dude before you know
57:11
Speaker 5: about up to about five years ago, I had no
57:13
Speaker 5: idea about certain things, and I got really dove in
57:17
Speaker 5: heavy because I wanted to find solutions for like different
57:20
Speaker 5: live sports and advertising and marketing. The sponsorship was a
57:24
Speaker 5: big thing that that everyone needed. If you own an organization,
57:28
Speaker 5: I don't care if as MMA or boxing or soccer
57:31
Speaker 5: or basketball.
57:32
Speaker 4: Like you need sponsorship. You need you know, you need advertisements.
57:36
Speaker 5: So this AI allows you to implement virtually sponsors on
57:41
Speaker 5: on a mat and the canvas. It allows you to
57:44
Speaker 5: do UH, you know, doing soccer games, put images on
57:47
Speaker 5: the field that looks like it's there, but it's not there.
57:50
Speaker 5: And that that same sponsor could be seen in a
57:54
Speaker 5: different region of the world. Right, somebody in South America
57:56
Speaker 5: is looking at something different, somebody in Canada's look at
57:59
Speaker 5: something different.
57:59
Speaker 4: Do you just seeing something different?
58:01
Speaker 5: So to allow all these UH sponsors to gain access globally,
58:07
Speaker 5: but you know, the the the promotion or or organization
58:12
Speaker 5: they're making revenue off of it. So we provided a
58:14
Speaker 5: solution man that that could be used in any sport.
58:18
Speaker 5: And and so that we're gonna we're gonna announce some
58:20
Speaker 5: some leagues we just UH and and organizations we just signed.
58:25
Speaker 5: We're gonna big, big announcements coming that they're gonna implement
58:28
Speaker 5: our technology in it to UH.
58:30
Speaker 4: To be a part of their live broadcast.
58:33
Speaker 1: Well see see this is see these are the things
58:35
Speaker 1: that I love to hear because everybody thinks big dumb
58:38
Speaker 1: athlete don't know things, But there are so many of
58:41
Speaker 1: us doing great things out in the world post sports
58:45
Speaker 1: and everything else. And Sean Man, I appreciate you coming
58:48
Speaker 1: on you guys. Hee Sean Merriment. Make sure you go
58:51
Speaker 1: check check out everything that he's doing and check out
58:55
Speaker 1: your son.
58:55
Speaker 2: Man.
58:56
Speaker 1: I'm super excited, and I'm sure we will see him
58:58
Speaker 1: on the circuit soon because my my fourteen year old,
59:02
Speaker 1: he'll be out on the circuit.
59:03
Speaker 2: This is it this year. Appreciate you coming on man, you.
59:06
Speaker 4: Got it, Ben, Thanks for having appreciate it.
59:09
Speaker 1: I hope y'all enjoyed that interview with mister Sean Merriman.
59:13
Speaker 1: And now is our man, mister Ralph Amsden in the
59:18
Speaker 1: building aka rain Man, the man that knows all the
59:21
Speaker 1: things that you wish that you knew, but once he
59:23
Speaker 1: tells you, you're like, I'm not sure if I wanted
59:26
Speaker 1: to know that keeper of all the knowledge that is
59:30
Speaker 1: that is written in books and dark corners of the Internet,
59:35
Speaker 1: but like the PG version of them. But we've been
59:40
Speaker 1: talking about this college football season. We've been talking about
59:42
Speaker 1: the Oregon Ducks their season. So we're gonna give you
59:45
Speaker 1: the five most important games of Oregon season and also
59:50
Speaker 1: the five most important non conference games across college football
59:55
Speaker 1: that are going to impact the season. Not necessarily the
59:58
Speaker 1: biggest names, but the game games that are going to
1:00:00
Speaker 1: have the biggest impact on the entire season depending on
1:00:05
Speaker 1: their outcomes. So, but we're gonna start. I have been
1:00:09
Speaker 1: on this Oregon Duck hype train. Remember last year, I said,
1:00:12
Speaker 1: I don't think that they're gonna win the national championship,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: but I do think that they're gonna have a good team,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: They're gonna have a chip in a chair, They're gonna
1:00:18
Speaker 1: have a shot.
1:00:19
Speaker 2: And they did.
1:00:19
Speaker 1: They made it to the semifinals. This year, Ralph, feels
1:00:24
Speaker 1: to me like twenty twenty four. Ohio State feels like
1:00:27
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion. What the outcome is going to be.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: Now in that season, they're lost to Michigan and they're
1:00:34
Speaker 1: lost to Oregon. Put that in doubt. And if it
1:00:37
Speaker 1: weren't a twelve team playoff, they would have had no shot.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: But this is the world that we live in, So
1:00:43
Speaker 1: Oregon doesn't have to be perfect. Usually gotta be perfect
1:00:46
Speaker 1: for your last four games of this the season. And
1:00:51
Speaker 1: I have lost sleep. I have been nervous. I have
1:00:54
Speaker 1: been scared, I Ralph, I have been I have contemplate
1:01:00
Speaker 1: how much I was going to put this out this
1:01:03
Speaker 1: year because I didn't want to jinx it.
1:01:06
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be the Minch.
1:01:08
Speaker 1: I did not want to be any of the things
1:01:11
Speaker 1: that caused us not to win.
1:01:12
Speaker 2: But then I was like, why would I be scared?
1:01:17
Speaker 2: Why would I be scared? You?
1:01:18
Speaker 1: I tell my kids to be bold, to stand on business,
1:01:24
Speaker 1: and then I would come out here and tiptoe around
1:01:27
Speaker 1: something that I fell in my soul just because No,
1:01:33
Speaker 1: Dan Lanning and company, they should feel some pressure. They
1:01:36
Speaker 1: are the hunted and not the hunters right now. And
1:01:40
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that. Ralph, tell me why I'm wrong.
1:01:45
Speaker 3: I don't know what to do here, Like I can't
1:01:49
Speaker 3: reach across the screen and patch on the back and
1:01:51
Speaker 3: say it's gonna be okay because you're You're in here
1:01:55
Speaker 3: having an internal struggle about whether or not your team
1:01:58
Speaker 3: is gonna win a national championship. Meanwhile, I spent all
1:02:02
Speaker 3: night last night watching the head coach of one of
1:02:04
Speaker 3: the teams I root for fight with fans. So you
1:02:09
Speaker 3: and I are just not the same. Wyoming's head coach.
1:02:14
Speaker 3: Wyoming's head coach going back and forth with somebody with
1:02:17
Speaker 3: three hundred followers is making me loose sleep. What's making
1:02:21
Speaker 3: you lose sleep?
1:02:22
Speaker 2: Is like, Ah, is.
1:02:23
Speaker 3: Oregon gonna win the Natty? Or are they gonna fall
1:02:25
Speaker 3: short in the Semis again. I don't know what to
1:02:29
Speaker 3: do to comfort you here. I will say that any
1:02:31
Speaker 3: team that's losing their offensive and defensive coordinator maybe has
1:02:35
Speaker 3: to give you some pause. But as far as talent goes,
1:02:38
Speaker 3: and schedule goes, and returning players, and where the other
1:02:43
Speaker 3: elite teams are at with some of the question marks
1:02:45
Speaker 3: they have, I think you deserve to feel good. The
1:02:48
Speaker 3: issue is last year around this time, you felt good
1:02:52
Speaker 3: about Clemson, but even you would admit that was a risk.
1:02:55
Speaker 3: You were trying to do a high risk, high reward thing,
1:02:58
Speaker 3: and you came out here to the South and we
1:03:01
Speaker 3: went and visited Dabo. We got a little drunk on
1:03:03
Speaker 3: the on the Church of Clemson.
1:03:06
Speaker 1: But we didn't watch practice. And I watched practice, I
1:03:10
Speaker 1: wouldn't know.
1:03:13
Speaker 3: But no, I mean, I can't relate to what you're
1:03:16
Speaker 3: going through right now. But I if I was an
1:03:19
Speaker 3: Oregon fan, I would be very excited.
1:03:22
Speaker 1: So okay, So for anybody that doesn't know, Okay, so
1:03:28
Speaker 1: I went and played at Oregon. I don't really have
1:03:32
Speaker 1: an NFL team. I root for players that I know
1:03:34
Speaker 1: a lot of the players from college football, So I
1:03:37
Speaker 1: don't really have an NFL team, But I do like
1:03:39
Speaker 1: the Chiefs right right now. I do because I'm a
1:03:43
Speaker 1: big Patrick my Homes fan, And in the NBA, I'm
1:03:48
Speaker 1: a Lakers fan.
1:03:49
Speaker 2: I am a Dodgers fan.
1:03:52
Speaker 1: But I really love Stephan the Warriors too, because mind
1:03:58
Speaker 1: you players, You're attracted to players now as much because
1:04:03
Speaker 1: there's so much movement. So I do think that. But
1:04:06
Speaker 1: but the Lakers are my are my squad. But I
1:04:09
Speaker 1: do really enjoy seeing the Warriors win. But if Lakers
1:04:12
Speaker 1: and Warriors are playing, I'm rooting for the Lakers.
1:04:14
Speaker 3: I do love that you. You support all of these
1:04:17
Speaker 3: teams that have like a strong ring culture, but the
1:04:22
Speaker 3: one you care about the most, the one whose logo
1:04:24
Speaker 3: is shaped like a ring. They don't got one yet.
1:04:28
Speaker 3: So I can see why this was so important for you.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: Okay, so I was getting at this, but now I
1:04:37
Speaker 1: gotta be a little a little more aggressive because Ralph
1:04:41
Speaker 1: he he so happens to root for poverty franchises. The
1:04:47
Speaker 1: Arizona State Sun Devils, the I'm in Baseball.
1:04:53
Speaker 3: In the nineteen eighties good in baseball in the nineteen.
1:04:55
Speaker 1: Eighties, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Phoenix Sons, the ringless Phoenix
1:05:04
Speaker 1: Sons and the Wyoming Cowboys.
1:05:09
Speaker 2: So that's what you got. So so yeah, I don't
1:05:13
Speaker 2: know what.
1:05:14
Speaker 1: It's like to cheer for poverty teams, so I can't
1:05:18
Speaker 1: even imagine like being an irrelevant team. And the Oregon Ducks, yes,
1:05:23
Speaker 1: we have not won a national championship, they have not
1:05:25
Speaker 1: won yet.
1:05:26
Speaker 2: However, we are getting so close. And it's funny because.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: Or every Oregon fan knows, right, every Oregon fan knows
1:05:37
Speaker 1: that we need a natty like deep down inside, we
1:05:40
Speaker 1: love the fact that you can be proud of your
1:05:42
Speaker 1: team every year, that you can count on ten to
1:05:46
Speaker 1: eleven wins, that you are going to be one of
1:05:49
Speaker 1: the most talked about brands, you're gonna be a top
1:05:52
Speaker 1: ten program, all of these things.
1:05:55
Speaker 2: You are proud of that.
1:05:58
Speaker 1: But you also want to, you know, actually put on
1:06:02
Speaker 1: the veil and get married one day.
1:06:05
Speaker 2: You don't.
1:06:06
Speaker 1: You don't want to just be the bridesmaid every single time,
1:06:10
Speaker 1: like like, yes, you look good and you're dressed, you're
1:06:12
Speaker 1: looking snatched, you got your tuxedo all, you're looking fresh.
1:06:15
Speaker 2: The pictures are amazing.
1:06:20
Speaker 1: But you gotta get the But you gotta get the
1:06:22
Speaker 1: ring on, man, you gotta get the ID because I
1:06:25
Speaker 1: was watching merrit at First Sight last night and it
1:06:30
Speaker 1: had the actual weddings and some of the people got married,
1:06:34
Speaker 1: some of them didn't, and there was some unexpected no's
1:06:38
Speaker 1: and I get it. And that's what it is. Organ
1:06:41
Speaker 1: has to get the yes like where you're you're standing there, Oregon,
1:06:45
Speaker 1: standing there, guys. Uh, well, do you take the National
1:06:52
Speaker 1: Championship trophy to be your lawfully wedded husband or wife
1:06:56
Speaker 1: and to having to hold and Organs it's like I do,
1:07:02
Speaker 1: and and you know, the camera pans over to the
1:07:05
Speaker 1: other person they ask them the same question, and he
1:07:08
Speaker 1: goes there's an awkward pause, that pregnant pause that they
1:07:14
Speaker 1: put in for TV for dramatic effect, and Orgon's just
1:07:17
Speaker 1: waiting on the I do I love you with all
1:07:21
Speaker 1: my heart and right now and all the previous times
1:07:26
Speaker 1: since mind you. Organ's played in the National Championship twice
1:07:29
Speaker 1: since twenty ten. In the actual championship game, lost by
1:07:32
Speaker 1: three to cam Newton, then lost to Ezekiel Elliott and
1:07:36
Speaker 1: Ohio State. They've been close a bunch of times to
1:07:39
Speaker 1: making it as well in twenty twelve when they didn't
1:07:43
Speaker 1: get put in and you know, all all that so,
1:07:45
Speaker 1: and you're standing there and they're not saying no, they're
1:07:51
Speaker 1: saying not right now, we still have a little bit
1:07:56
Speaker 1: of work to do on our relationship. It's not you,
1:08:00
Speaker 1: it's me. I'm not quite there yet. And that's where
1:08:03
Speaker 1: Oregon fans are, and they are sick and tired of that.
1:08:07
Speaker 1: And Oregon fan I'm letting you know right now, Oregon
1:08:11
Speaker 1: fans are going to go insane on people on the internet,
1:08:16
Speaker 1: all the USC fans, all of the Ohio States, all
1:08:19
Speaker 1: of all of these fans. Oh what is the old
1:08:21
Speaker 1: stand for? On the side of your helmets? Everybody hears
1:08:25
Speaker 1: all the jokes ten thousand uniform combinations, no rings, and.
1:08:30
Speaker 2: We hear it.
1:08:33
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you I am going to act a
1:08:37
Speaker 1: donkey Ralph when it does happen.
1:08:40
Speaker 2: But let's get to these games though tonight.
1:08:43
Speaker 3: I'm gonna interject real quick. The thing you described this
1:08:46
Speaker 3: is what it reminds me of, because what I worry
1:08:48
Speaker 3: about for Oregon fans is that you all turn into
1:08:50
Speaker 3: just a bunch of haters because there is that moment
1:08:53
Speaker 3: when you go home for Thanksgiving every year and you're
1:08:55
Speaker 3: single and Grandma's at the table, like what, no, no,
1:08:59
Speaker 3: girlfriend but no fiance yet, Like, who's gonna give me
1:09:02
Speaker 3: great grand babies? In the first few years, it hurts,
1:09:05
Speaker 3: it stings, But then you get to a point where
1:09:10
Speaker 3: you're like, maybe it's not gonna happen for me, and
1:09:12
Speaker 3: you stop rooting for yourself to succeed and you start
1:09:15
Speaker 3: rooting for Grandma to die.
1:09:17
Speaker 1: So these questions, dude, never see, I can't.
1:09:23
Speaker 3: That's where we're like, is being a hater of Ohio State,
1:09:26
Speaker 3: being a hater in Michigan, the hater of all these
1:09:28
Speaker 3: other teams that that that are on the on the prespice.
1:09:31
Speaker 3: I know you love love college football, but I think
1:09:34
Speaker 3: that that's what if those expectations are baked in that
1:09:37
Speaker 3: much this year, I think that that's what Oregon fans
1:09:39
Speaker 3: are at risk of, is just becoming the world's greatest haters. Okay,
1:09:44
Speaker 3: because it's not gonna happen to me, It's not gonna
1:09:47
Speaker 3: happen for anybody.
1:09:48
Speaker 1: Indiana versus so Indiana versus Miami in the National Championship
1:09:54
Speaker 1: this year.
1:09:55
Speaker 2: Who do you think?
1:09:56
Speaker 1: I because because remember we do breakdowns on the show
1:09:59
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff, and I give an honest
1:10:02
Speaker 1: opinion and break everything down honestly, who do you think
1:10:06
Speaker 1: that in my soul that I did not say publicly
1:10:08
Speaker 1: who I wanted to win?
1:10:11
Speaker 2: It was either Mario Christobald, the guy.
1:10:12
Speaker 1: Who left you and went to Miami, or Indiana, who
1:10:16
Speaker 1: jumped the line and just beat you twice in the
1:10:20
Speaker 1: same season, only team that beat you and only team
1:10:23
Speaker 1: that may have even been able to.
1:10:25
Speaker 2: Beat you all year.
1:10:28
Speaker 1: Who do you think that in my soul that I
1:10:31
Speaker 1: actually wanted to win the game?
1:10:34
Speaker 3: Is your T shirt red right now?
1:10:36
Speaker 2: Yes?
1:10:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where I feel like your heart was at
1:10:41
Speaker 3: it was.
1:10:42
Speaker 2: It was I'm not gonna lie.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: I was actually happy for them. I was happy for
1:10:48
Speaker 1: Fernando Mendoza. I was happy for the Land of Misfit
1:10:54
Speaker 1: Toys winning. I thought it was better for college football
1:10:56
Speaker 1: than a non traditional power won because I've been screaming
1:11:00
Speaker 1: about hope for however long, for years upon years, that
1:11:04
Speaker 1: hope is the most important thing that we need in
1:11:06
Speaker 1: college football, that fans need. So so yeah, I was like,
1:11:11
Speaker 1: I thought it was best for everybody, including me, that Indiana.
1:11:14
Speaker 3: One, and I'm I'm glad that they were able to
1:11:20
Speaker 3: protect your mental health and yeah, get you through another offseason.
1:11:25
Speaker 2: All right?
1:11:25
Speaker 1: So now, to get to a national championship. To get
1:11:28
Speaker 1: to like you do not have to get their unscathed.
1:11:32
Speaker 1: This is the thing that I need everybody to understand.
1:11:36
Speaker 1: So Oregon schedule this year, Ralph, there it is a
1:11:41
Speaker 1: The non conference is a little like it's not. It
1:11:45
Speaker 1: doesn't appear to be on paper, the toughest thing that
1:11:50
Speaker 1: you've ever seen. Because you got Boise State, which is
1:11:54
Speaker 1: you know, they're a good program.
1:11:56
Speaker 2: You have.
1:11:59
Speaker 1: Yeah State, really good program. You have Oklahoma State, which
1:12:04
Speaker 1: we cannot guarantee what Oklahoma State is going to be.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: All of these are North Texas players, new head coach
1:12:12
Speaker 1: mess to Maker, one of the top passers in all
1:12:15
Speaker 1: of college football, going to Oklahoma State, a bunch of
1:12:20
Speaker 1: transfers in. This could be Indiana all over again in
1:12:25
Speaker 1: year one with Kurt six Signetti, so that game could
1:12:28
Speaker 1: be significantly more tough than people think. And then the
1:12:32
Speaker 1: Portland State game is a layup. So Ralph, I am
1:12:36
Speaker 1: not afraid of the non conference so so much.
1:12:41
Speaker 2: It is more.
1:12:44
Speaker 1: It's more everything else, Like it's the rest of the
1:12:47
Speaker 1: games that I am concerned about. But they but I
1:12:51
Speaker 1: understand as well. They don't have to make it through
1:12:53
Speaker 1: all the games unscathed. And that's why the games that
1:12:56
Speaker 1: I'm choosing as their most important games are the the
1:13:00
Speaker 1: ones I'm choosing.
1:13:06
Speaker 2: Okay, here.
1:13:09
Speaker 3: I said, let's get through it. Let's uh, let's let's
1:13:11
Speaker 3: run through these games.
1:13:13
Speaker 2: Okay.
1:13:13
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna put the schedule up on the I'm
1:13:18
Speaker 1: gonna put the schedule up on the screen the way
1:13:20
Speaker 1: everybody can see it, and then we will.
1:13:26
Speaker 2: Get to it.
1:13:32
Speaker 1: Oh, we're we're getting much much better at this, Ralph,
1:13:36
Speaker 1: much much better at this.
1:13:37
Speaker 2: Look at the professional operation around this joint. Okay, so people.
1:13:41
Speaker 3: Don't know, people don't know you're a technological wizard.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know if I will go with wizard.
1:13:48
Speaker 1: But here's the here's the thing, here's the truth. When
1:13:51
Speaker 1: you're starting a solo operation, it is on you. It's
1:13:55
Speaker 1: been on me, it's been on Ralph and then the
1:13:57
Speaker 1: But but the technical part of it, being able to
1:13:59
Speaker 1: put the stuff up on the screen, all of this stuff,
1:14:01
Speaker 1: I had to teach myself how to do it. There
1:14:05
Speaker 1: is not a We do have a fancy editor, but
1:14:08
Speaker 1: he does all this stuff posts. But during it, this
1:14:11
Speaker 1: is all your boy. So the five most important games
1:14:18
Speaker 1: to me, Ralph, and we'll start with the earliest one.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: That is September twenty sixth at La Memorial Coliseum versus USC.
1:14:31
Speaker 1: That is Oregon's first most important game because it is
1:14:36
Speaker 1: a recruiting game, USC versus Oregon Honor Falave a whole
1:14:45
Speaker 1: bunch of other recruits that they battle for all the time.
1:14:48
Speaker 1: USC spending major coins, one of the most expensive rosters
1:14:51
Speaker 1: in college football. But I thought Oregon was buying all
1:14:55
Speaker 1: the players. No USC is buying all the players. So
1:14:58
Speaker 1: is Texas is you know, Texas Tech all these other teams.
1:15:03
Speaker 1: They're spending more, much, significantly more money. We're talking forty
1:15:06
Speaker 1: million dollar rosters that have been confirmed by a lot
1:15:11
Speaker 1: of the insiders. So, Ralph, this game is a statement game.
1:15:16
Speaker 1: This is Dan Lanning versus Lane Kiff Langevin Lincoln Riley.
1:15:22
Speaker 2: This is a game for pride. This is a game.
1:15:25
Speaker 1: USC wants this game so much because they will try
1:15:29
Speaker 1: to act like they are superior to everybody.
1:15:32
Speaker 2: But for the last twenty.
1:15:33
Speaker 1: Years they got nothing going. And Oregon has been significantly better.
1:15:37
Speaker 1: And USC fans won't publicly admit it, but privately, when
1:15:42
Speaker 1: I'm on their their message boards, when I'm talking to
1:15:46
Speaker 1: their former players, Matt lioner Terrell Thomas and the rest
1:15:51
Speaker 1: of the crew that I see on a regular basis. Oh,
1:15:54
Speaker 1: they know that this game matters, and that's why USC
1:15:59
Speaker 1: is going to be as ready as they can be.
1:16:01
Speaker 1: They're better at home and Oregon. After getting a you know,
1:16:07
Speaker 1: some some tune up games, you gotta be ready to
1:16:09
Speaker 1: go right out the gate.
1:16:15
Speaker 3: So you mentioned the recruiting, and to me, it's not
1:16:19
Speaker 3: just about the upcoming classes. It's about this class that
1:16:22
Speaker 3: just happened. USC secured the number one recruiting class in
1:16:26
Speaker 3: the country. They went to New Jersey to do it,
1:16:29
Speaker 3: they went to Ohio to do it. They took a
1:16:31
Speaker 3: bunch of kids out of Texas, Hawaii, Utah. They they
1:16:36
Speaker 3: weren't they Actually, if you just isolate what they got
1:16:38
Speaker 3: from southern California, it wasn't a bad recruiting class either.
1:16:42
Speaker 3: But there is this prevailing attitude amongst USC fans. They're like, Hey,
1:16:50
Speaker 3: if we're gonna be mid, we better be mid with Californians. Like,
1:16:55
Speaker 3: if you're gonna leave the state to fill this roster,
1:16:59
Speaker 3: to make it a national roster, then we better be winning. Yes,
1:17:03
Speaker 3: that is an attitude that exists amongst a lot of
1:17:07
Speaker 3: USC fans who deserve, for the amount of passion and investment,
1:17:15
Speaker 3: certainly deserve to have better results than they've had the
1:17:17
Speaker 3: last few years. I don't know a lot of USC
1:17:20
Speaker 3: fans who are out making excuses for Lincoln Riley. They
1:17:25
Speaker 3: want to win, they want to beat Oregon, they want
1:17:27
Speaker 3: to beat UCLA. They want to be the dominant West
1:17:29
Speaker 3: Coast team. They got a roster that seemingly can get
1:17:34
Speaker 3: them there. They've got nine of the top one hundred
1:17:36
Speaker 3: players in the country. This is going to be a
1:17:41
Speaker 3: signal to those players, yes, whether or not they chose
1:17:45
Speaker 3: the right school yep.
1:17:47
Speaker 1: And that is why I said these are the five
1:17:51
Speaker 1: games Oregon cannot lose, the five games that the Oregon
1:17:56
Speaker 1: Ducks cannot lose this season, because if they lose any
1:18:00
Speaker 1: of these five games, it is going to or more
1:18:03
Speaker 1: than one of these five games, it is going to
1:18:05
Speaker 1: impact them making the college football playoffs and their ability
1:18:08
Speaker 1: to win a national championship.
1:18:10
Speaker 2: Period. So and think about it.
1:18:13
Speaker 3: If you're Luke Waffle, the top five player in the
1:18:16
Speaker 3: country edge rusher out of New Jersey, you had that
1:18:19
Speaker 3: Oregon offer, you turned them down. Yep. If you're Mark Bowman,
1:18:22
Speaker 3: you had that Oregon offer a lot of people think
1:18:25
Speaker 3: you might be one of the top tight ends to
1:18:27
Speaker 3: play college football. You know, the ratings agencies they don't
1:18:33
Speaker 3: have him as a future first round pick, which I
1:18:35
Speaker 3: think is fascinating because they're in disagreement with a lot
1:18:38
Speaker 3: of the college coaches around the country. Yeah, but he
1:18:41
Speaker 3: turned down Oregon. You know, you got a lot of
1:18:44
Speaker 3: these guys that shows USC over Oregon. If they get
1:18:48
Speaker 3: on campus and they prepare, an Oregon comes to LA
1:18:50
Speaker 3: and smacks him in the mouth, it's going to plant
1:18:52
Speaker 3: that seed of doubt on whether or not they did
1:18:54
Speaker 3: the right thing, whether or not they committed to a
1:18:57
Speaker 3: coach that's in his last go round, assuming they have
1:19:02
Speaker 3: the financial ability to replace him, or that they could
1:19:06
Speaker 3: have been somewhere that is consistently winning ten to eleven
1:19:09
Speaker 3: games and played in the college football playoffs.
1:19:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
1:19:16
Speaker 1: Oregon cannot lose the USC game and then the next
1:19:20
Speaker 1: most important game, because I do believe they're gonna get
1:19:22
Speaker 1: through the three non conference games Oklahoma State, Boise State,
1:19:26
Speaker 1: and Portland State unscathed. So then you would be four
1:19:30
Speaker 1: and oh believe that they're gonna get through UCLA and Nebraska.
1:19:34
Speaker 1: Both games are at home then at Illinois. This is
1:19:39
Speaker 1: a tough game. It is at Memorial Stadium in Champagne.
1:19:46
Speaker 1: Got a chance to go there interview Brett Bielama Ralph
1:19:50
Speaker 1: that places a metal ten box. I can't even imagine
1:19:55
Speaker 1: how loud it is going to be in that game.
1:19:57
Speaker 1: Because Illinois has gotten a tape. They know what their
1:20:02
Speaker 1: fans did to USC last year when USC went in
1:20:05
Speaker 1: there and crumbled at the end of the game, and
1:20:09
Speaker 1: they are going to show up loud and proud. That's
1:20:11
Speaker 1: a game that Oregon has to be ready for, has
1:20:15
Speaker 1: to be ready for on October twenty fourth. That is
1:20:19
Speaker 1: going to be honestly one of the more difficult games
1:20:21
Speaker 1: that they have on the entire season.
1:20:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:20:25
Speaker 3: I mean, how many of these teams on here run
1:20:28
Speaker 3: a three three five? Not many rights, correct, if any, So,
1:20:34
Speaker 3: so it's already a wrinkle that's gonna look a little
1:20:38
Speaker 3: bit different. You would think that if anybody had the
1:20:40
Speaker 3: ability to solve the three three five, if Illinois does
1:20:43
Speaker 3: end up running that with Bobby Howk taking over as
1:20:47
Speaker 3: as defensive coordinator, you know, if if that ends up
1:20:52
Speaker 3: being the case, you would think that Oregon, in a
1:20:55
Speaker 3: power running situation would be able to handle themselves, but
1:20:59
Speaker 3: you're also running the ball on the road, which means
1:21:02
Speaker 3: it has the potential to be a close game. You
1:21:05
Speaker 3: saw how they looked at Northwestern last year, a team
1:21:08
Speaker 3: that they were exponentially more talented than. But it's still
1:21:11
Speaker 3: a road Big Ten game in the Midwest. The travel
1:21:16
Speaker 3: is tough. This isn't you know. If Illinois is not
1:21:21
Speaker 3: like a top tier team, you might be looking at
1:21:24
Speaker 3: a nine am local kickoff, which is tough on you
1:21:29
Speaker 3: as well. Illinois is extremely well coached, They're tough, they
1:21:36
Speaker 3: can manufacture yards, they can play keep away with the football.
1:21:41
Speaker 3: I don't think the talent matches up at all in
1:21:45
Speaker 3: this game, but I think it is incredibly dangerous, especially
1:21:49
Speaker 3: because it comes in the meat of your schedule of
1:21:52
Speaker 3: having to play you know, what, is it like eight
1:21:55
Speaker 3: nine games in a row. So I don't know. I
1:21:59
Speaker 3: think that this game could be way higher on the
1:22:01
Speaker 3: list for me, just because of watching how Oregon looked
1:22:06
Speaker 3: at Northwestern last year and just knowing how tough it
1:22:10
Speaker 3: is to win on the road in the Big Ten.
1:22:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, for for sure.
1:22:15
Speaker 1: Next game up, I'm going to actually skip over the
1:22:18
Speaker 1: Ohio State game as one of Oregon's five most important games.
1:22:24
Speaker 1: The specific reason why is because I don't believe the
1:22:28
Speaker 1: outcome of that game matters. If Oregon takes care of
1:22:31
Speaker 1: the other five five games that we saw in twenty.
1:22:37
Speaker 3: Huh, as long as no one gets lightly correct destroyed.
1:22:43
Speaker 1: I mean even even even then an eleven to one game,
1:22:47
Speaker 1: if Ohio State gets destroyed by Oregon or Oregon gets
1:22:51
Speaker 1: did destroyed by Ohio State, I don't think it. I
1:22:54
Speaker 1: don't think it would matter because you're gonna make the
1:22:56
Speaker 1: college football playoff and then you take take it from
1:22:59
Speaker 1: a the That's why I don't believe that the outcome
1:23:02
Speaker 1: of the Ohio State game matters at all in terms
1:23:05
Speaker 1: of either one of those teams. But we're talking about
1:23:08
Speaker 1: Oregon right now. Making the college football playoffs or winning
1:23:12
Speaker 1: a national.
1:23:13
Speaker 3: Championship didn't matter two years ago.
1:23:15
Speaker 1: Yep, Michigan. This Michigan game on November fourteenth, This game
1:23:26
Speaker 1: Ralph is crucially important, crucially important for Oregon and their season,
1:23:33
Speaker 1: very important because they got a new head coach who
1:23:37
Speaker 1: is very familiar with them in Kyle Whittingham. He's played
1:23:41
Speaker 1: against Dan Lanning. He's also played at Autin Stadium countless times.
1:23:46
Speaker 1: He knows what to expect. He's gonna know what to expect.
1:23:50
Speaker 1: Some of his players have also played against Oregon, so
1:23:54
Speaker 1: this is not a situation where this is gonna be
1:23:58
Speaker 1: new to them. And now, granted, the last time that
1:24:02
Speaker 1: those players played against Oregon it was in the Big House.
1:24:08
Speaker 1: And some of those players are gonna be angry. They're
1:24:10
Speaker 1: gonna be upset because they got embarrassed in the game.
1:24:12
Speaker 1: They watched their fans walking out, like Dan Lanning told
1:24:17
Speaker 1: him it was going to happen. So I this game, Ralph,
1:24:22
Speaker 1: is just because Michigan is talented and now that they're
1:24:28
Speaker 1: going to be better coached under Kyle Whittingham than Sharon Moore,
1:24:33
Speaker 1: this game feels a lot more dangerous than it did.
1:24:36
Speaker 2: You know?
1:24:38
Speaker 1: In the middle on December first, actually, hell, on December tenth.
1:24:46
Speaker 3: Do you remember a certain game that was played between
1:24:51
Speaker 3: Kyle Whittingham and I believe Mark Halfridge. At the time,
1:24:57
Speaker 3: this would have been the number thirteen ranked Oregon hosting
1:25:01
Speaker 3: hosting the number eighteen ranked utah Utes. Do you do
1:25:05
Speaker 3: you happen to remember what happened in that game?
1:25:10
Speaker 2: Is that the Britain Covey game?
1:25:17
Speaker 3: Uh? Well, I mean Britain. Covey certainly had an impact.
1:25:22
Speaker 3: That game was caught a he caught a second quarter
1:25:24
Speaker 3: touchdown pass and then when he started doing doing some
1:25:29
Speaker 3: more stuff as well.
1:25:31
Speaker 2: What what what year was this?
1:25:35
Speaker 4: Oh?
1:25:36
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that was Yes, that was the Mark
1:25:38
Speaker 1: Helfrid's year. The uh, that was the year Helfrid's got
1:25:41
Speaker 1: got fired. Bro that everything went to hell that year.
1:25:45
Speaker 1: I do the the Washington game was bad, The Utah
1:25:49
Speaker 1: game was bad, the I think the Cow game was bad.
1:25:53
Speaker 1: It was a horrendous set of events. The Oregon State
1:25:56
Speaker 1: game went went left. Yeah, it was horror.
1:26:02
Speaker 3: And that was with a god an injured Travis Wilson.
1:26:06
Speaker 3: Utah put up sixty two points on Oregon fifty six
1:26:10
Speaker 3: in the first three quarters. And that happened in Eugene.
1:26:13
Speaker 3: And so I think that's something that that Oregon fans
1:26:17
Speaker 3: have to have to remember. Can't put that one out
1:26:19
Speaker 3: of your memory. Winning Cam I think had four wins
1:26:24
Speaker 3: against Oregon. That was the only one that I remember
1:26:26
Speaker 3: being in Eugene. But that ended an era. I mean
1:26:31
Speaker 3: that was that had to me. That was the beginning
1:26:34
Speaker 3: of the end of Mark Helvin.
1:26:37
Speaker 1: For forever because they had always hired from within that. Yes,
1:26:43
Speaker 1: that was the beginning of changing everything.
1:26:46
Speaker 3: So yeah, I agree with you on the basis of
1:26:50
Speaker 3: being a Pac twelve fan for for as long as
1:26:53
Speaker 3: I've been, That's a game that always sticks out to
1:26:55
Speaker 3: me because, you know, I know that maybe Oregon fans
1:26:59
Speaker 3: don't look back fondly on Jeff Lockey, but like, that
1:27:02
Speaker 3: wasn't a bad team. You still had Royce Freeman, you
1:27:04
Speaker 3: still had some good players. And Utah came in and
1:27:10
Speaker 3: twenty four first downs and just brutalized you what you're
1:27:15
Speaker 3: you're high on Kyle Winningain. Imagine what this guy is
1:27:18
Speaker 3: going to be able to do with some of the talent.
1:27:20
Speaker 3: Then that heat gets scared.
1:27:22
Speaker 2: You got to kick him while he's down, kick him
1:27:24
Speaker 2: before he gets up.
1:27:27
Speaker 1: I am dude, Okay, let me explain this twenty fifteen
1:27:31
Speaker 1: season to you, two Oregon fans. Is Oregon fan as
1:27:37
Speaker 1: a former Oregon player, all the players that I know
1:27:41
Speaker 1: that played on that team. Whenever we get to talking
1:27:43
Speaker 1: about football, I'm always like, you were on that team.
1:27:47
Speaker 1: Y'all sucked? Like that was embarrassing, Like that was honestly
1:27:52
Speaker 1: the most embarrassing season of being an Oregon fan, period period,
1:27:58
Speaker 1: bar none. And I mean, mind you, I became an
1:28:01
Speaker 1: Oregon fan in eight ninety nine when I got there,
1:28:05
Speaker 1: so so my fandom does not extend back to the
1:28:08
Speaker 1: Toilet Bowl and all of those other games that older
1:28:11
Speaker 1: Oregon fans have experiences of. But in my experiences, nineteen
1:28:15
Speaker 1: ninety nine, that was the single most embarrassing season that
1:28:19
Speaker 1: we ever had.
1:28:28
Speaker 3: I think you might actually be conflating it with the
1:28:30
Speaker 3: following year. Are you talking about the four and eight season? Yes, yeah, No,
1:28:37
Speaker 3: Utah busted Oregon when they went nine and four in
1:28:40
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen. You're talking about the twenty sixteen season. Utah
1:28:46
Speaker 3: came in and beat their ass one year off the
1:28:48
Speaker 3: Natty when Mark Helfrich went nine and four and they
1:28:51
Speaker 3: finished the season with the loss to TCU oh w thirty.
1:28:57
Speaker 1: We were up thirty points on TC and lost in
1:28:59
Speaker 1: the Bulgain. Yeah, dude, Helper had had to go. Those
1:29:03
Speaker 1: two seasons were so bad put together that they felled
1:29:08
Speaker 1: like one.
1:29:11
Speaker 3: It was the twenty sixteen year when you realize like, oh,
1:29:16
Speaker 3: they had just getting lost to Nebraska, given up thirty five,
1:29:19
Speaker 3: They lost to Colorado, given up forty one, and then
1:29:21
Speaker 3: the numbers just kept getting higher. They gave up fifty
1:29:24
Speaker 3: one to Washington State and then seventy to Washington and
1:29:28
Speaker 3: then they have an improved defensive performance where they lose
1:29:32
Speaker 3: forty nine to fifty two to col Yeah. No, twenty
1:29:35
Speaker 3: sixteen was when you were in hell. But what I
1:29:38
Speaker 3: was always impressed with was that Whittingham came in when
1:29:40
Speaker 3: they were still Actually I.
1:29:41
Speaker 2: Do remember that. Yeah, yep, all right.
1:29:47
Speaker 1: The next most important game November twenty first at Michigan State.
1:29:53
Speaker 1: And you might be like George, Michigan State's breaking in
1:29:56
Speaker 1: a brand new head coach, transfer portal players.
1:29:59
Speaker 2: There's no way that they're No.
1:30:00
Speaker 1: Michigan State is not going to be a talent wise
1:30:04
Speaker 1: competitive game. Oregon would have had their bye six or
1:30:09
Speaker 1: seven weeks prior. They're gonna have played seventh. This is
1:30:13
Speaker 1: their seventh consecutive game in a row. They are going
1:30:18
Speaker 1: to be going to East Lansing. It is going though
1:30:21
Speaker 1: the weather could be a significant issue depending on what
1:30:24
Speaker 1: time of data game is. This is going to be
1:30:26
Speaker 1: a difficult out. This is gonna be like but it's
1:30:29
Speaker 1: gonna be an out that they can get out of,
1:30:31
Speaker 1: but they cannot be playing around. This is gonna be
1:30:34
Speaker 1: one of those games where guys are hurt, guys are injured,
1:30:38
Speaker 1: and you just gotta suck it up and grit it out.
1:30:40
Speaker 3: In East Lansing, I don't feel the same way. And
1:30:46
Speaker 3: I know that we're talking about the twenty eighteen Big
1:30:49
Speaker 3: Ten Coach of the Year in Pat Fitzgerald. But I'm
1:30:53
Speaker 3: also you know, his redemption to her, his time off
1:30:57
Speaker 3: where he just increasingly became a more desirable, uh stabilizing
1:31:02
Speaker 3: force for some program out there, especially after he was
1:31:05
Speaker 3: exonerated of any knowledge of any hazing that happened at Northwestern,
1:31:10
Speaker 3: has made people forget that he did go four and
1:31:12
Speaker 3: twenty over his last two seasons there. I don't I
1:31:17
Speaker 3: don't think they have their stuff together this season. You
1:31:22
Speaker 3: gotta be serious about any Big ten road game. That
1:31:24
Speaker 3: is one true, But I think Michigan State probably got
1:31:29
Speaker 3: one more year of getting of tumbling around in the dryer?
1:31:37
Speaker 2: Is it tumbled around in a dryer?
1:31:38
Speaker 3: I like, what once this once the money faucet like
1:31:42
Speaker 3: really is pumping. Once this foundation is set up and
1:31:45
Speaker 3: they have a the sustainable way to run their program,
1:31:48
Speaker 3: I think they're going to be a huge problem for
1:31:49
Speaker 3: a long time to come. I just don't think it's
1:31:51
Speaker 3: going to be in twenty twenty six, but it is.
1:31:54
Speaker 3: It's a big game, obviously, it's a it's a it's
1:31:57
Speaker 3: it's a can't lose, maybe a bone must win. Yeah.
1:32:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:32:02
Speaker 1: And then the last game this November twenty eighth, Oregon
1:32:08
Speaker 1: versus the dirty dogs Washington Huskies. And now I feel
1:32:14
Speaker 1: conflicted because you everybody knows hate the Washington Huskies, but
1:32:18
Speaker 1: I do like Jetfish. I like a lot of the
1:32:22
Speaker 1: guys on their on their staff. JP Losman, the dude
1:32:26
Speaker 1: I've known since I was in high school. A who's
1:32:30
Speaker 1: their new quarterbacks culture officer coordinator Scotty Scotty Graham who
1:32:35
Speaker 1: used to work at the at the PA. I know
1:32:37
Speaker 1: other people on their on their staff. So it's conflicting
1:32:40
Speaker 1: because I know people on their staff, which is the
1:32:43
Speaker 1: same thing at at Illinois, at no, people on USC staff,
1:32:48
Speaker 1: us LA, all these other places. So I want them
1:32:51
Speaker 1: to be successful, but then there's your rival, hate Washington,
1:32:56
Speaker 1: and I want to dog walk them. But I also
1:32:59
Speaker 1: know that Jetfish is a good coach and they are
1:33:05
Speaker 1: moving things in the right direction. However, I've said I
1:33:08
Speaker 1: am highly concerned about Washington for this year, how they're
1:33:11
Speaker 1: going to react to demand Williams trying to leave like
1:33:17
Speaker 1: they're trying to sugarcoated you. We've heard jetfish. Hey, there's
1:33:21
Speaker 1: a lot of places their quarterback left ours didn't well because.
1:33:25
Speaker 2: You'll force them back, sir. But I get it.
1:33:31
Speaker 1: I understand why he's taking this approach to it, But
1:33:34
Speaker 1: I just don't know how well it's gonna go over
1:33:37
Speaker 1: with fans when they lose a football game because them
1:33:41
Speaker 1: same fans recall them a loser midget on social media.
1:33:46
Speaker 2: That's not cool. And there's it's gonna be like.
1:33:52
Speaker 1: You go to a family function and two people are
1:33:56
Speaker 1: having beef in that family and it's an underlie tension
1:34:01
Speaker 1: even though everybody knows, Like everybody knows the underlying tension
1:34:05
Speaker 1: is there, they just don't want to acknowledge it on
1:34:09
Speaker 1: that level as much, and they're just hoping everything's okay.
1:34:13
Speaker 1: But the second some wrong thing is said, in this case,
1:34:17
Speaker 1: the wrong loss, wrong pick something else, it is going
1:34:21
Speaker 1: to blow up and their whole season could go left.
1:34:24
Speaker 1: But this game against Washington in Aunton Stadium, this feels
1:34:29
Speaker 1: like a this is a must win for them. They
1:34:32
Speaker 1: cannot lose this football game and go win a national Championship.
1:34:35
Speaker 2: I don't think.
1:34:36
Speaker 1: Unless it's a reverse of Ohio State where they lose
1:34:40
Speaker 1: to an inferior Michigan team and then go win the Natty.
1:34:44
Speaker 2: Those are the only.
1:34:45
Speaker 3: Two options you would take that trade what getting getting
1:34:53
Speaker 3: wrecked by Washington and well, I won't make it nattycause
1:34:56
Speaker 3: Natty's and winning Natty wat I won't make it win
1:35:00
Speaker 3: a Natty because that's obvious guaranteed spot in the Natty.
1:35:08
Speaker 2: But but we got to lose to Washington bad.
1:35:14
Speaker 1: Hell no, because we might never get the Natty anyway. No, no, no,
1:35:17
Speaker 1: I'd rather I'd rather tear Washington a new asshole and
1:35:23
Speaker 1: then and then take our chances going our own route
1:35:26
Speaker 1: being being a men of men of destiny. We don't
1:35:29
Speaker 1: need no damn charity, we don't need no help.
1:35:32
Speaker 3: I love that. The other side of that is remove
1:35:35
Speaker 3: the guarantee of appearing in a national championship, like, remove
1:35:39
Speaker 3: the guarantee that you appear for the mystery of whether
1:35:42
Speaker 3: or not you beat Washington, not like.
1:35:47
Speaker 2: Not like I believe that we're gonna beat Washington, right and.
1:35:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would rather take my chances get into
1:35:56
Speaker 1: the National Championship just uh, the old fashioned way than
1:36:03
Speaker 1: a guarantee there because we don't.
1:36:06
Speaker 2: No, no, you can't, can't lose to them. No.
1:36:10
Speaker 3: I do feel bad for you though in some way,
1:36:14
Speaker 3: because like it's gotta be a tough team to root again,
1:36:20
Speaker 3: Like I know you're supposed to, but like you got
1:36:24
Speaker 3: Taylor Mays out there on that coaching staff. I know you,
1:36:26
Speaker 3: you know you've followed him for a long time.
1:36:29
Speaker 2: Said, it's not tough for me to root against them.
1:36:31
Speaker 1: I want to beat them seventy eight thousand to zero, Ralph,
1:36:36
Speaker 1: don't you think it'd be easier if.
1:36:37
Speaker 3: They didn't have thirty eight players from California? Thirty one
1:36:41
Speaker 3: probably saw in person.
1:36:42
Speaker 2: No, you're not not even a little bit, dude, Ralph.
1:36:46
Speaker 1: I play my son in college, and I try to
1:36:51
Speaker 1: beat the blackoff of him.
1:36:53
Speaker 2: I try to. I try to.
1:36:56
Speaker 1: Just just tear his confidence apart to my own son
1:37:02
Speaker 1: when we're playing video games.
1:37:04
Speaker 2: So what do you think I want to do against
1:37:06
Speaker 2: a rival.
1:37:08
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm too literal of a person to not
1:37:11
Speaker 3: imagine that every time you score a touchdown, he gets whiter.
1:37:21
Speaker 3: You're up sixty and going for two, and it just
1:37:24
Speaker 3: cuts to him and he looks like powder.
1:37:28
Speaker 1: Well, The tough part is is that I can't beat
1:37:32
Speaker 1: him that bad because Cayden is actually very good at college.
1:37:36
Speaker 1: So it's sometimes it's a dogfight, and occasionally he actually wins,
1:37:40
Speaker 1: but it's about as often as Washington Accributory. Now, now
1:37:47
Speaker 1: we got to talk about the five most important non
1:37:53
Speaker 1: conference games in college football, the five games that are
1:37:58
Speaker 1: going to shape the college foot ball season, the five
1:38:02
Speaker 1: games that are going to have a lasting impact on
1:38:09
Speaker 1: what happens. We're gonna take the top five. I'll go
1:38:12
Speaker 1: first and Ralph will go after that. My first game,
1:38:16
Speaker 1: Ralph is November first. Excuse me, My first game is
1:38:30
Speaker 1: November seventh, Miami at Notre Dame. Ralph, Miami at Notre Dame.
1:38:39
Speaker 1: This game because it's so late in the season this year.
1:38:42
Speaker 1: Remember this game took place early last year, and all
1:38:47
Speaker 1: year Notre Dame's in front of Miami. Because Miami lost
1:38:51
Speaker 1: to Louisville and they lost to SMU in the middle
1:38:54
Speaker 1: of the season. Notre Dame is just just rolling rattles
1:38:59
Speaker 1: off ten in a row. They're looking like the Darling.
1:39:03
Speaker 1: And you know, I wrote Miami off because there was
1:39:06
Speaker 1: no chance they were gonna make the ACC Championship.
1:39:08
Speaker 4: Game.
1:39:08
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, so they're not gonna get into
1:39:10
Speaker 1: College Football Playoff. What they found a way to get in.
1:39:14
Speaker 1: This is a revenge game. And this game is also
1:39:17
Speaker 1: going to shape a lot of the talking points surrounding
1:39:20
Speaker 1: Notre Dame and surrounding their inclusion into the College Football
1:39:25
Speaker 1: Playoff and everything in between. This game is highly important
1:39:30
Speaker 1: for Mario Christobal. It is highly important for Marcus Freeman.
1:39:33
Speaker 1: Marcus Freeman can't miss the College Football Playoff again. And yeah,
1:39:39
Speaker 1: I want one of these teams won't be going to
1:39:42
Speaker 1: the College Football Playoff and it'll be the loser.
1:39:49
Speaker 3: That's bold. That's a bold prediction that the loser of
1:39:52
Speaker 3: this game isn't going to make the the CFP. That
1:39:56
Speaker 3: would technically be two years in a row where that
1:39:59
Speaker 3: was true, Right, yep, exactly, because if you think about it,
1:40:04
Speaker 3: if that if that game goes the one played different
1:40:08
Speaker 3: early in the season, then you got Notre Dame in
1:40:11
Speaker 3: the CFP and Miami's on the outside because they would
1:40:14
Speaker 3: have had what four losses?
1:40:16
Speaker 2: Yep exactly. So right, what's your first game?
1:40:23
Speaker 3: Uh? The obvious? I mean, couldn't get more obvious. We
1:40:27
Speaker 3: got Ohio State in Texas running it back in what
1:40:30
Speaker 3: My father in law, who decided that he wanted to
1:40:33
Speaker 3: try to become a college football fan at the beginning
1:40:35
Speaker 3: of last year, decided was enough for him to take
1:40:38
Speaker 3: the rest of the year off. One of the ugliest
1:40:42
Speaker 3: games of twenty twenty five. That game was saying look, yeah, saying,
1:40:49
Speaker 3: look like crap. Arch Manning looked like crap. You want
1:40:55
Speaker 3: you want, obviously your defenses to go out there and shine.
1:41:00
Speaker 3: We ended up finding out that Texas wasn't what they
1:41:02
Speaker 3: were the year before. Defensively. They ended up firing Pete
1:41:05
Speaker 3: Klekowski as their defensive coordinator after the season was over.
1:41:11
Speaker 3: And Ohio State, you know, they had an incredibly talented defense,
1:41:16
Speaker 3: but they you know, they were exploited at the end
1:41:18
Speaker 3: of the year. So an ugly game. I'm hoping for
1:41:22
Speaker 3: a better football game, one that is maybe more indicative
1:41:25
Speaker 3: of how things are gonna look later in the season.
1:41:27
Speaker 3: But it's tough. It's tough early on. You got an
1:41:31
Speaker 3: early favorite year.
1:41:33
Speaker 2: Okay, So this game is down in Austin, Texas. Better
1:41:40
Speaker 2: not lose this game.
1:41:42
Speaker 1: If Texas loses this game, oh my god, and they
1:41:46
Speaker 1: missed a college football playoff.
1:41:47
Speaker 2: They are going to cry that we're never scheduling anybody. Eric, Yeah, maybe.
1:41:55
Speaker 1: You left us out the playoff twice because we lost
1:41:57
Speaker 1: to Ohio State. No, no, that that game won't keep
1:42:02
Speaker 1: you out. It'll be the other games that you lose
1:42:04
Speaker 1: that keep you out. So I do believe that this
1:42:07
Speaker 1: game is gonna put a lot of pressure on the loser. Okay,
1:42:11
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on the loser to make it
1:42:15
Speaker 1: through the season with one loss.
1:42:17
Speaker 4: That's it.
1:42:18
Speaker 1: It is gonna like to with only one more loss,
1:42:21
Speaker 1: and it can't be a bad one, like it would
1:42:26
Speaker 1: be like Oregon losing to Michigan State, like or Nebraska.
1:42:30
Speaker 1: That's not gonna look very good. So so you gotta be,
1:42:37
Speaker 1: you know, like that game is going to matter.
1:42:40
Speaker 2: So I believe that.
1:42:44
Speaker 1: I like what Ohio State has come and coming back
1:42:49
Speaker 1: quarterback wise, everything else. And Texas they went all in
1:42:55
Speaker 1: with with Will Musschamp as their defensive coordinator. That has
1:43:00
Speaker 1: to pay dividends versus Ohio State. I'm actually Arthur Smith. Yeah,
1:43:06
Speaker 1: Arthur Smith versus Will must Champion.
1:43:09
Speaker 3: Who knew? Who knew we were going to get that
1:43:11
Speaker 3: match up three months ago?
1:43:14
Speaker 2: Dude?
1:43:14
Speaker 3: Who could have ever imagined?
1:43:16
Speaker 1: I'm not an Arthur Smith fan, I'm going to put
1:43:18
Speaker 1: that out there in the in the atmosphere. As an
1:43:22
Speaker 1: officer coordinator, I think he's mid but this is college football,
1:43:27
Speaker 1: so he may have something there in college football because
1:43:31
Speaker 1: people don't really have the book on him, and you
1:43:34
Speaker 1: do different things in the NFL than you do in
1:43:36
Speaker 1: college football, So he may have some success. But I
1:43:41
Speaker 1: am not as big a believer in this Texas team
1:43:45
Speaker 1: until I see it. So if I had to pick
1:43:47
Speaker 1: an early pick, I'm picking again when an oppicer coordinator
1:43:51
Speaker 1: I don't like, versus a team that I feel is
1:43:55
Speaker 1: iffy about Ohio State lost a lot on defense, I'm
1:44:00
Speaker 1: going to take Texas early early picked Texas.
1:44:04
Speaker 3: Okay, And I know I don't like it. Though I
1:44:08
Speaker 3: know you're not an Arthur Smith fan, but I constantly
1:44:12
Speaker 3: think about how good Ryan Tannehill looked in twenty nineteen
1:44:15
Speaker 3: and twenty twenty. Yeah, he looked like one of the
1:44:18
Speaker 3: top six quarterbacks on Earth yep, and then after that
1:44:22
Speaker 3: he kind of fell off when Arthur Smith moved on
1:44:24
Speaker 3: to Atlanta. So but maybe do you think maybe what
1:44:27
Speaker 3: he brings to the table. You know, he was dealing
1:44:29
Speaker 3: with Aaron Rodgers, just a minute ago. Is that going
1:44:31
Speaker 3: to be too complicated for Julian Saying or is it
1:44:34
Speaker 3: going to set up Julian Saying to be the guy
1:44:36
Speaker 3: moving in one of the deepest quarterbacks as.
1:44:38
Speaker 1: Like a lot of the things that they did with
1:44:40
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers, it made no no sense. But yeah, next
1:44:44
Speaker 1: game up for me, September nineteenth, Florida State versus Alabama.
1:44:51
Speaker 1: Lord shined down from Heaven. So this game is on
1:44:56
Speaker 1: September nineteenth. It is not going to be known the
1:45:01
Speaker 1: ramifications of this game until much later, until much later,
1:45:08
Speaker 1: because obviously you have Mike Norvelle is on the hot
1:45:17
Speaker 1: seat over there at Florida State, but they couldn't buy
1:45:22
Speaker 1: him him out, so you know, there's not a lot that.
1:45:25
Speaker 2: They could do in this situation.
1:45:27
Speaker 1: Florida State, on the other hand, let's look at their
1:45:29
Speaker 1: schedule super super quick the way you know everybody can
1:45:34
Speaker 1: see what the hell is going going on there.
1:45:36
Speaker 2: So prior to the.
1:45:40
Speaker 1: Florida State game, oh sorry, this is out at Alabama schedule.
1:45:44
Speaker 1: East Carolina at Kentucky, So at least they get to
1:45:47
Speaker 1: warm up for Florida State a little bit and then
1:45:50
Speaker 1: for Alabama after that. South Carolina at Mississippi State, Georgia
1:45:54
Speaker 1: at Tennessee, Texas A and m at LSU at Vanderbilt.
1:45:58
Speaker 1: Then they got Chattanooga and then Auburn ralph if they
1:46:03
Speaker 1: if they lose to Florida State, and let's say they
1:46:09
Speaker 1: beat Georgia because they can't because Georgia can't beat Alabama
1:46:13
Speaker 1: for some reason, and then they lose a game another
1:46:17
Speaker 1: game or two in the SEC, you could be looking
1:46:19
Speaker 1: at another nine to three team and that is not
1:46:23
Speaker 1: gonna and that's not gonna get them in the College
1:46:25
Speaker 1: Football playoff and Kaylin de Boor, he is going to
1:46:29
Speaker 1: be looked at as a pariah again.
1:46:35
Speaker 3: This is one of those games that makes me wish
1:46:38
Speaker 3: I could bug Jimmy Sexton's phone because these are both
1:46:44
Speaker 3: his guys. I mean, he got a lot of guys
1:46:47
Speaker 3: out there, got fourteen of the sixteen SEC coaches or
1:46:50
Speaker 3: Jimmy Sexton clients. Yeah, but Caylin de Boor and Mike
1:46:54
Speaker 3: Norvel are two of the bigger contracts he's ever negotiated.
1:46:59
Speaker 3: And you say, the consequences of this game might not
1:47:02
Speaker 3: be felt for later, but if one of these teams
1:47:05
Speaker 3: loses and loses badly, you got another two score game.
1:47:09
Speaker 3: His phone's gonna be ringing off the hook that day. Yeah,
1:47:12
Speaker 3: some people who are pissed at him for putting these
1:47:14
Speaker 3: schools in this situation in the first place, and some
1:47:18
Speaker 3: from the clients that he already has that says like, hey,
1:47:20
Speaker 3: you still got the number for Florida State's ad and
1:47:24
Speaker 3: and uh and greg Byrne in your in your rolodex.
1:47:28
Speaker 3: So you know, I think the consequences if the game
1:47:32
Speaker 3: gets bad enough, I think the consequences might be a
1:47:34
Speaker 3: little more immediate than you're thinking.
1:47:36
Speaker 1: Well, well, particularly for Florida State because look at their schedule.
1:47:41
Speaker 1: They got New Mexico State first in week zero, then
1:47:45
Speaker 1: they play SMU that is a losable game and it's
1:47:49
Speaker 1: a conference game, and then they have a buy if
1:47:52
Speaker 1: they come back and get boat raced by Alabama and
1:47:56
Speaker 1: start out the season one in two, Bro, that could uh,
1:48:00
Speaker 1: it could be James Franklin over at that point because
1:48:04
Speaker 1: because they're gonna beat Central Arkansas and then if they
1:48:07
Speaker 1: come back and lose to Virginia and start off the
1:48:09
Speaker 1: season two and three, it could be over before they
1:48:13
Speaker 1: even get to two and three.
1:48:15
Speaker 3: Ralph, yep, I mean there's a possibility that in this game,
1:48:22
Speaker 3: we we get a few extra camera shots of Tim
1:48:26
Speaker 3: Harris Junior, who took over for Gus Malson as the
1:48:30
Speaker 3: offensive coordinator, because we damn. My worry for Florida State
1:48:33
Speaker 3: is they end up looking like twenty twenty five Penn State,
1:48:37
Speaker 3: where we have Tim Harris Junior coaching nine games and
1:48:39
Speaker 3: going seven and two, and people are wondering do we
1:48:42
Speaker 3: just give the job to him or what do we
1:48:44
Speaker 3: do here? Oh? Yeah, and I like Mike Norvel. I
1:48:48
Speaker 3: covered Mike Norvel and in his time at at Arizona State,
1:48:52
Speaker 3: and you definitely want him to do well, But I
1:48:55
Speaker 3: just didn't think it. Both things have not looked great
1:48:57
Speaker 3: for him outside of Jordan Travis at quarterback, and beyond that,
1:49:01
Speaker 3: Gus Melson coming in to to try to write the
1:49:04
Speaker 3: ship and then retiring ten months later. It just doesn't
1:49:09
Speaker 3: seem like we're headed in the right direction in Tallahassee.
1:49:14
Speaker 2: For sure, totally agree with that what's your what's your
1:49:19
Speaker 2: next game?
1:49:21
Speaker 3: So my next game is gonna be a rematch. Unfortunately
1:49:30
Speaker 3: this year we will not have somebody coaching against their
1:49:33
Speaker 3: alma mater in Oklahoma versus Michigan. Yeah, as as Sharon
1:49:40
Speaker 3: Moore has moved on to spend more time with his family,
1:49:44
Speaker 3: and so this game is still incredibly important. It's gonna
1:49:48
Speaker 3: be an awesome litmus test for whether or not you know,
1:49:51
Speaker 3: Jay Hills defense is ready, and and and Kyle Whittingham,
1:49:55
Speaker 3: and you know that they've they've gotten a handle on
1:49:57
Speaker 3: that roster. But I only think this is a year
1:50:01
Speaker 3: where Oklahoma says, look, we raised up a bunch of pros.
1:50:05
Speaker 3: We've been recruiting like crazy on the defensive side of
1:50:08
Speaker 3: the ball. We're going into year two with John Mattier.
1:50:12
Speaker 3: Everything should be set up for Oklahoma to make a
1:50:15
Speaker 3: legit run, not just to make the College Football Playoff,
1:50:19
Speaker 3: but to potentially win the SEC.
1:50:22
Speaker 1: Well, they got to get their offense better. Their offense
1:50:25
Speaker 1: was stinky poopoo last year.
1:50:28
Speaker 3: Well, but you and I know they went into last
1:50:31
Speaker 3: season with maybe just talent alone, a bottom two or
1:50:35
Speaker 3: three wide receiver corps.
1:50:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:50:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that part, that part of it is hopefully
1:50:42
Speaker 3: something that they have, Yeah, because.
1:50:44
Speaker 1: They can't the same MOSC quarterback is back. If he
1:50:47
Speaker 1: can fix some of his accuracy issues, it will definitely
1:50:52
Speaker 1: improve this this offense. I believe that they have a
1:50:55
Speaker 1: legit shot and that game is September to twelfth, the
1:50:58
Speaker 1: last game another team that was already on this list,
1:51:02
Speaker 1: Notre Dame at BYU.
1:51:06
Speaker 2: I love this game.
1:51:08
Speaker 1: This is supposed to be Notre Dame versus USC. That's
1:51:13
Speaker 1: what this is supposed to be.
1:51:16
Speaker 2: But so for all the USC people, Oh no, it
1:51:21
Speaker 2: was both of us that wanted to cancel the game.
1:51:23
Speaker 1: No, clearly not, because Notre Dame replaced you with BYU,
1:51:30
Speaker 1: a team that has finished in the top fifteen to
1:51:32
Speaker 1: the last few years. This is a competitive game, and
1:51:36
Speaker 1: not only are they playing them, they're playing them in
1:51:38
Speaker 1: provo where BYU is five and one in the last
1:51:42
Speaker 1: five years against top twenty five teams. They didn't schedule
1:51:46
Speaker 1: a layup. USC scheduled San Jose State in Week zero.
1:51:51
Speaker 1: They didn't try to do anything better. So this game
1:51:57
Speaker 1: is going to shape how we look at USC. It
1:52:00
Speaker 1: is going to shape how we look at Notre Dame.
1:52:03
Speaker 1: It is going to shape how we look at by U.
1:52:06
Speaker 1: Because the two teams last year that beat Notre Dame,
1:52:09
Speaker 1: where did they go?
1:52:10
Speaker 3: Ralph to the College Football Playoff?
1:52:16
Speaker 1: Texas A and m and Miami both made the College
1:52:20
Speaker 1: Football Playoff. So USC, while you thought this game was
1:52:24
Speaker 1: too hard. And then also when people are Notre Dame
1:52:27
Speaker 1: schedule sucks and up they're they're, they're they're twice on
1:52:32
Speaker 1: this list. They got no FCS opponents, I don't believe,
1:52:39
Speaker 1: and they're playing all all Big ten and SEC teams.
1:52:43
Speaker 1: They can't help the Stanford's bad.
1:52:45
Speaker 2: They can't help that.
1:52:46
Speaker 1: That's some of the teams that they scheduled are poor
1:52:49
Speaker 1: this year. But we don't even know if they're gonna
1:52:51
Speaker 1: be poor because everything changes in college football at the drop.
1:52:56
Speaker 4: Of a hat.
1:52:59
Speaker 3: I gotta be honest, and I love the way BYU
1:53:01
Speaker 3: goes about college football and college basketball. You know, they're
1:53:04
Speaker 3: really trying to be real players in that space with
1:53:08
Speaker 3: the aj Demonta and they just got a Bruce Branch commitment.
1:53:11
Speaker 3: That's Paul George reincarnated. They're over here on the football end.
1:53:16
Speaker 3: And there was a rumor that Kilani Sataki could be
1:53:20
Speaker 3: a Penn State target, and a week later, Kilanie Sataki
1:53:24
Speaker 3: is making nine million dollars a year with ten to
1:53:28
Speaker 3: fifteen million extra dedicated to roster enhancement and roster building.
1:53:34
Speaker 3: And they're like, yeah, give us Notre Dame to give
1:53:37
Speaker 3: us the give us the school that had five five
1:53:40
Speaker 3: star commitments in the twenty twenty six class, whereas our
1:53:44
Speaker 3: entire conference in the Big twelve only had two. If
1:53:48
Speaker 3: there's a football game to be played, BYU will show
1:53:51
Speaker 3: up for it. They if if by you could, they
1:53:55
Speaker 3: would take an invitation to the SEC or Big ten tomorrow.
1:54:00
Speaker 3: Their whole thing is like, we will figure it out when.
1:54:03
Speaker 2: We get there anywhere, and we will figure.
1:54:06
Speaker 3: It out the rest and they they they play like
1:54:09
Speaker 3: monsters at home. And they took quite a risk last
1:54:12
Speaker 3: year going with a freshman at at at quarterback. They're
1:54:16
Speaker 3: kind of forced into that position, but they made it work,
1:54:19
Speaker 3: and I you know, there they got some questions to
1:54:22
Speaker 3: answer as far as what they're going to do on
1:54:24
Speaker 3: the on on the defense because I think what winning
1:54:26
Speaker 3: him that that was their DC that he picked off
1:54:29
Speaker 3: and and Jay Hill or whatever. But that you know,
1:54:32
Speaker 3: at some point, maybe not this year, maybe maybe you disagree, George.
1:54:37
Speaker 3: At some point the expectations are going to catch up
1:54:41
Speaker 3: for for BYU and their fans are going to say like, heck, yeah,
1:54:45
Speaker 3: we scheduled Notre Dame and they're going to move on
1:54:47
Speaker 3: to like and we better beat them.
1:54:49
Speaker 2: I don't know if this year is that year.
1:54:53
Speaker 3: But they're giving themselves an opportunity and I think that's
1:54:56
Speaker 3: to be respected. I think that's what any college football
1:54:59
Speaker 3: fan should want, that their head coaches and that their
1:55:03
Speaker 3: culture is that you know, if we lose, we lose,
1:55:07
Speaker 3: but you can't say we didn't show.
1:55:08
Speaker 1: Up big facts, big facts, and you guys that is
1:55:14
Speaker 1: unafraid Joe George right Scots football. So today, y'all make
1:55:17
Speaker 1: sure that you like, share, subscribe, get notifications, tell a
1:55:21
Speaker 1: friend about the show, and most importantly share