Andy & Ari On3 - ACC’s NEW Conference Title Tiebreaker EXPLAINED | How will Miami and Florida State perform in 2026?

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

As the 2026 ACC Media Days are underway, new tiebreaker rules are being introduced to the conference this season. While Duke won the ACC title a season ago, Jim Phillips and the conference are implementing new rules for the title game that would have produced different participants a season ago. Watch here as Andy & Ari explain these new rules and discuss the impact here.   (0:00) On Today’s Episode (0:55) Presenting Sponsor (2:44) Intro: ACC tiebreakers EXPLAINED (20:38) Zen AI (21:42) Miami’s 2026 Outlook (35:42) Florida State’s 2026 Outlook (46:40) Florida State 2026 Schedule (56:20) Latest on Michigan AD Warde Manuel (1:06:03) Will Ari mow the yard anytime soon? (1:17:30) Thanks for watching!   Once Andy & Ari wrap up the tiebreaker discussion, the guys dive into Miami and Florida State. As both of these programs seem to be going in different directions, what should Hurricane and Seminole fans expect from their squads this season? Watch here as Andy & Ari dive deep into both Miami and Florida State.   Next up, Andy & Ari head back north to Ann Arbor, where more news has been leaked involving the Michigan AD Warde Manuel. What will happen from Thursday’s board meeting? Andy & Ari ponder.   To close, Producer River asks: “Is Ari planning to mow the yard anytime soon?” This leads to an in-depth discussion with Ari on house chores.   Thanks for watching! See you tomorrow! Send your questions to: [e-mail] [e-mail]   Our show is also presented by BetMGM!   If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works:   1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB. 2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. 3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sure you use bonus code CFB when you sign up!   Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary.   See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. This promotional offer is not available in DC, Mississippi, New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET (Available in the US) . 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only (if applicable). Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel   Check out Zen AI here: http://bit.ly/zenAI_bpp_itf   Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/join   Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/NZxJrek0Tnk   Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari Wasserman Producer: River Bailey   Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of Andy Naurion 3 presented by BetMGM, the original Bad at Math podcast tries to explain the new ACC tiebreaker procedures. Will this finally get Miami an ACC championship? Plus, we do talk about the hurricanes and winning from the front as Mario Cristobal hits ACC Media Days. Also today at ACCMedia days, Mike Norbel and the Florida State Seminoles were there. Miami, Florida State, two programs seemingly going in very different. directions. Mike Norvell says he's not coaching for his job. Ari and I are going to have to talk about that.

Plus, an update on the Ward Manual, Michigan situation. There's been a leak of the investigation to the Wall Street Journal, and it's not looking good for Ward Manual. We'll talk about it all on today's 18 on 3, presented by BetMGM. This show is sponsored by BetMGM. All the lines and totals you see come from BetMGM. And it is a big week in the world of sports. There's a lot going on.

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BetMGM and we have a tiebreaker format in the ACC finally, Ari, because this is the league that gave us the Duke Virginia ACC title game last year. Duke at the time had five losses, but three of those losses were out of conference. And so we got a very, interesting situation where the ACC champion did not make the playoff. The team that was tied that didn't make the championship game or one of the teams that was tied did not make the playoff and actually made it to the national title game. That would be Miami. So Ari, are you satisfied? Do you feel good about the ACC's new tiebreaker? Okay. So let's just back it up a little bit. Are we going into a safe space? Do we need to go into a safe space now?

Okay. So I have a lot of thoughts on this. So let's just start with the fact that like if you have a conference championship race, like if you lose all your non-conference games that shouldn't have an impact on the championship game. But the conference needs their best teams to play in it. So I do, I am satisfied that they made a change. And like the, the reason why. the Duke thing felt so weird is that most teams that lose as many games in the non-conference as Duke did last year. Well, win that many games in conference play. Yeah.

Can't win that many games in conference play. It was just a bizarre situation to begin with. But college football has a funny way of turning bizarre situations into reality. And we got it last year. But anybody who's listened to the show for the long time knows that we jokingly, and maybe I should, I don't know if you guys know this about Andy. He got a 1500 on his SAT, which means he's kind of a brainy. But the lower score was math.

We are a bad at math podcast, and I include myself in that. But I am horrible at math podcast. At math. I got a letter in the mail about from my mortgage company, but my escrow payment going, I don't know what the hell that means. I need to call them and talk about it. It means your property taxes went up or the cost of your garbage collection went up.

That's usually what that means. Yeah, for how much it's going up, something happened. I got to figure it out. But like it, I had a tweet on Tuesday that went semi-viral. which I do sometimes when I tweet about things that aren't in college football. As you know, I'm not always the brightest bulb in the in the lamp. But there was a prompt that said, name an education opinion that you that will have people at your throat.

And I said it's Flynn Ryder from Tangled with 19,000 swords at his throat. Yes. Instead of traditional math courses like geometry, I responded. All math courses should be about investing, interest in real life financial situations. Instead of teaching calculus, teach kids how to calculate. how much they'd make on a stock over X number of years at 9% annual return, including compound interest and dividends. My way of saying, basically, Andy, teach people the practicality of math, like, teach them math, but teach them in a way that they can actually use it in the future.

I agree with you on this, by the way. I don't think they should stop teaching geometry and calculus. I think they should do that too. I think what you're suggesting, like, should be required every ninth grader takes it. And yeah, if you get the other math too, that's great. I'm with you on this. I'm with you on this. I also have been pretty dragged on this. And a lot of people said that the stock situation that I gave is basically algebra.

Then my response to that would be teach it, teach algebra like that then. Teach it in a more practical way. Yes. I'm with you. I agree with you on that. I don't know that would change me being bad at math. Because I'll tell you, like as my kids grew up, I could help them with math to a point. Once they got in high school, I couldn't help them anymore.

And I took all those classes and like, I took AP calculus. I got an A&AP calculus. Buddy, I'm afraid of, of, do any of that stuff now. But all this to point out that you need to explain this to me because I'm not good at this stuff. I don't, but okay, I'm not great at math either. Like I said, but let's do this. Okay. we're going to break it down step by step.

There are a couple points here where people are going to get. Okay, Producer River put up the little screenshotable email, which was the dumbest thing they could have done because it doesn't actually explain the tiebreaker. So take that off our screen, River. That will not help anyone. Did you get a headache reading that? Because when I got it in my email, I was like, what is going on?

It makes it sound like if they have a three-way tie, they will use vibes to break the tie. That's not the truth. There's a much longer document that they have, like, it's a Google doc. It's funny you say that, though, because I don't think vibes would really be the solution here. Because vibes would have solved last year. There's a much longer document, and I think that helps. So, first of all, identifying the tied teams is going to be a process because in the ACCC, this year, but not just this year.

year, but especially this year, there are teams playing different numbers of conference games. The ACC is moving to nine conference games, but because of this is a transition year, four teams will play eight conference games. Weirdly, four of those teams were in my top five hardest ACC schedules because it's like Georgia Tech loading up on the non-conference. But that's going to cause a problem. They have 17 teams. They're never going to have all the teams playing the same number of games. I believe there will be one that does not play nine games every year going forward. And I don't mean to interrupt you, but every time you're explaining college football, it makes no sense.

I'm telling you, the biggest barrier entry for the sport that we talk about is the fact that it takes so long to explain anything. I feel like to be a college football fan who listens to this podcast, you had to be a college football fan for 20 years to get to this. point of understanding, which maybe you need a large baseline level of knowledge to jump into this. So yeah, so this is this is the first issue. Like identifying the tied teams. It's not even identify the tied teams. Yeah. Last year, there was a big tie, a big group of teams that had a six and two conference record. Like that was the problem. Virginia made the the championship game because they had the best conference record at 7 and 1. But then Duke, Miami, Georgia Tech, SMU, and Pittsburgh. That's five teams had a 6 and 2 conference record. Well, this year, it's going to be even more fun,

because some of those teams might have a 6 and 2 conference record, and some of those teams might have a 7 and 2 conference record, but they will be considered tied based on the procedure here. Because if you just did it by winning percentage in that case, the seven and two would be the six and two. But then it would be a disadvantage to play less games, which is a fair. Yeah. Correct. So that's an issue. So that that's where the things will come into play.

Like we're going to have some weirdness. And it'll, it'll, you know, get down to the last game of the season. And one team's going to be hoping somebody loses so that they don't finish seven and two and be tied with the six and two. It's also a disadvantage inherently to play one extra ACC. They will be tied with them. Wait, wait, wait. Because they'll have the same number of conference wins.

So at six and three, at least the way I'm reading this, they'll still be tied with the six and twos. Right. So we have new tiebreakers, but part of the protocol of these new tiebreakers is just trying to figure out who's even tied. Yes. That's the first step.

And it's, by the way, Jim Phillips, the ACC commissioner at the ACC Spring meeting said he wanted every conference to adopt uniform tiebreakers. Why would he ever say that? None of the other conferences have to deal with this crap because they haven't even number of teams. Well, I mean, I guess the overall question, and I'll ask you the overall question again when we get to the end of your explanation, is why does it like, okay, I understand that there's like a math issue here in terms of people having identical records at the end of it. But it seems like once you even identify who's tied, that it's still more complicated than it should be. So that's if you are seven and two, I'm sorry, if you were, if you are six and two going into your final game and it's a conference game, and the tie is going to be at six and two.

Let's say if you got some eight game teams. You could sit your whole team and it doesn't matter, right? it won't matter. But then there's college football playoff implications. Implications, yes. So, yes, which gets to the next step of it. The tied team with the best rank, so they're going to try to use head-to-head to sort this out.

But again, it's a 17-te-team conference with teams playing varying numbers of conference games. And having five teams at six and two or in that area is going to be more common. Yeah, head-to-head's not going to work most of the time. Like it's not it it will be lovely if there's one team that has the best conference record like if one team goes nine and oh in conference play and they're in and then you've got a two way tie for second place and they played each other like that would be glorious. But in 17 teams, teams, you're going to have three or four teams every year I feel like. So here's what they're going to use.

The tied team with the best ranking and the team success ranking provided by sports source analytics following the conclusion of regular season games is placed into the championship game and removed from the tie. If necessary, then the tiebreaker restarts, that's if they're all tied at the top. And that's a formula that the CFP committee uses, right? It is. SportsSource Analytics is a firm that compiles a bunch of different statistics. One of my favorite sites, CFBStats.com, is actually run by them. But this is a number that we've not really gotten to see, but my understanding is it's very similar to SP Plus.

It's similar to the FPI, some of the other metrics that. It should basically mirror the CFP rankings or at least help aid in that. Right. And it is a piece that the CFP committee relies upon fairly heavily. Now, you're probably asking, why don't they just use the CFP rankings? Because the idea is you're trying to get the most teams into the playoff possible. Wouldn't you just want to use the CFP rankings? Here's why you don't do that.

the CFP rankings are revealed on Tuesday night at 7 o'clock Eastern time. So you have to prepare, yeah. Yeah, if you've got a bunch of teams tied, you can't be like, hey, you guys just start practicing and you'll find out Tuesday night whether you actually need to play on Saturday or not. So they're not doing that. So this ranking will be compiled immediately when the game's end. But to make people feel better, the ranking that they're actually using

would have still had Miami ahead last year, right? It would have, yeah. And it's interesting. So again, we don't have, because that's not something that's publicly released. I would like it to be publicly released going into the end of the season. I think that would be useful if a league is going to use this. But I went back and looked at SP Plus going into championship week last year. And I thought that was interesting because if you just took the two, like, now using the tiebreaker formulas,

Virginia's in, and it would have taken Miami as the next team. If somehow Virginia had lost another game and they were all tied, it would have been Miami Pittsburgh based on SP Plus, which I would assume is probably fairly similar to the sports rankings. And it makes sense, too. I also don't know because I just, I understand that people are afraid of leaks and all these different things, but like if they use the CFP rankings, you know, they release them on Tuesday. They're not usually even done by Tuesday morning, right?

So they couldn't even, it's not like they're hiding the information. They're just not finished yet. It's not done yet. Yeah, exactly. Because you remember, like the ADs on the committee have to be at their team's game on Saturday. They're not sitting in there. Yes. And having people do it faster would create a rushed process, which wouldn't be good for the sake of conference championship game tiebreakers. So, like, I understand that that's probably, again, there may be no conference championship

games this time next year because they've gone to a 2014 playoff. I don't know. But this is the sort of thing. I think you're right, Ari. This is the sort of thing that drives people crazy about college football, where it feels like you need a PhD to understand the most basic thing. I think I just should have taken more attention in algebra in high school. I don't know.

I don't think it's that. I think it just, and the amount of possibilities just boggles. the mind. And so as we went down the stretch last year, I think I started doing this with like three weeks less than the season. I was writing a, I was doing a written piece every week for on three on the ACC tiebreaker scenarios because it was just bananas. And I remember writing like, do not forget that Duke could still make it. And they did. Yeah, that was like a bit that we had for three weeks going into it. They ended up doing it. You know, but I think that the worst case scenario here for the ACC

was that their conference champion didn't get in, right? Yes. But I also think that that's way less of a situation for the ACC than what happened had Miami not gotten in. They're now contractually getting in. The champion will get in. If this, if last

year we're done with this year's CFP rules, Duke's in, James Madison doesn't make it. Yeah. So it is, I don't know. I just can't stop thinking about what would have happened last year if Miami got left out to the ACC.

Well, they'd have been very unhappy. I mean, their part-time partner Notre Dame would have been pretty happy about it. Yeah, but it's probably a headache that Jim Phillips, I mean, Jim Phillips got a headache anyway with Notre Dame, but probably a headache that he probably would have wanted to avoid and did, luckily. Yeah. Now, it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out

because Miami feels like an overwhelming favorite in the league this year. But again, Miami has been in the league for over 20 years and has not won the conference yet. It's the strangest thing. It really is. But that's the tiebreaker. We'll see if it needs to be used. My guess is it will just because of the weirdness of the schedules. I mean, I guess to summarize the whole thing, though, is that take all this information and this long convoluted email

and just kind of like know that the best teams that have the best shots when the championship are probably going to get in. Right? Is that a fair way of summarizing it? I would think so. I would hope so. Now, their non-conference records will be important to that. Absolutely. And as they were last year.

What's interesting to me is you could say this incentivizes poor scheduling, which is something I worry about. And if you look at the ACCC, this is the league least guilty of bad non-conference scheduling. A lot of these schools are scheduling hard on conference schedules. Well, I'm not sure that's true, Andy, because if you have a really big non-conference win, doesn't that really factor into the ESP? That would help you, yes.

It's got the same debate that we have about the playoff. Well, no, right. Miami would have been bolstered by the Notre Dame win. That's what would have gotten him in. So, yeah, if you're Georgia Tech and you beat, like, remember, Georgia Tech has Colorado, Tennessee, and Georgia, and their non-conference schedule. They're one of the teams that plays eight conference games. If you're a tied team, if you're Georgia Tech and you go in and beat Georgia the last week of the season,

that's probably putting you in the ACC championship game if you're trying to break a tie where you don't have a head-to-head. Did you just not use Tennessee because that's an automatic win for them? I didn't say that. We just know Georgia's going to be good and that's going to be the last game of the season. That's why I'm, but no. He's messing with Producer River. For those who don't know, Producer Rivers evolved for life.

And Ari just, you know, try to stab him in the heart right there. Can it just be a bit for a show where, because it's like scary because if you clip it or the wrong person clips it and they don't understand the joke, I don't actually think that Georgia Tech is an automatic victory at Tennessee this year. What I do know is that I like saying things that bother producer river. So how can I like make that a thing of like where I just constantly.

He's laughing now. I don't think he's worried. Yeah. Okay. I think he's worried about the yellow jackets. Ari, after these words from Zen AI, we're going to talk about the favorites in the ACC, the Miami Hurricanes.

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Zen AI is an invite-only beta right now. So you join the wait list today and you get a chance at early access. So you go to zen.aI, that's z-en.a-i, to sign up. Or you can head to our show notes for the direct link. That's zen.a-i, zen.a-i. Okay, all right, we've talked about tiebreakers. This is a team that, of course, was in the big tie. that did not go to the championship game,

but did go to a different championship game. Miami went to the national championship game. The idea is to make sure this never happens again with this tieburger. Miami itself can make sure this never happens again by just holding serve in the ACC. And this is, so this is my question to you, because I saw Mario Cristobal talk at ACC Media Days.

Today I saw Derry Mensa talk. They are very much downplaying the expectations. this year we and and maria crystal ball very clear we haven't done anything yet this team hasn't done anything that team went to the national title game this team hasn't done squat but my question to you is this can miami do what the miami teams of the 80s and 90s did and that is win from the front that is come in with massive expectations and deliver on them that's not something the miami of the 21st century has done Miami last year dropped two ACC games, then showed in the playoff how good it was,

can they just make it easy on themselves and handle an ACC schedule this year? Winning from the front is the final phase of evolution in the sport, right? I mean, obviously winning a national championship is what solidifies that, but being the favorite and then winning as the favorite is what you want your program to eventually be, right? I don't think any, I mean, I think every coach wants to win a conference championship. Every coach wants to have a deep CFP run. But, you know, we get so bogged down at times, excuse me, on individual seasons that we forget the overall goal, which is to situate your program, your program, not your team at a high level and have the expectations follow. So the question for Miami and other teams like it is not can you, you know, get through.

a season 10 and 2 make the playoff and go on a really fun run that culminated in your home stadium. It's whether you can be a team that's favored to win the ACC five years in a row and win it four times. Like that's what you're building. And then you hope after that you can go win a national championship. But, you know, sometimes I think back to the old days, like even when I was covering Ohio State, we have goals. The goals are to win the Big Ten, make the championship game. Like shouldn't the goals, even though they're not as important to fans anymore because the way the sport has changed? changed it'll be to dominate your conference.

Because dominating your conference is like the pre-rec or the automatic qualifier that gets you into the bigger dance. And I do think it's kind of funny that like Duke has more conference championships than Miami in the ACC. But if Miami can't win from the front in this conference, especially in this year, another is going to be some good teams. I think SMU will be good. Virginia might be good.

I think Cal might be sneaky good. Who knows about Florida. Virginia's probably good again. Virginia is pretty good. Louisville will be good. There aren't like peak Georgia. that there's no that doesn't exist because clemson's down right now so um like if you can't do it now then what's the missing element because like everything that you want in a program miami

possesses you know they have the resources they have the roster they kill the portal they kill high school recruiting they have the geographical footprint that allows you know connections to be made to elite level athletes in in south florida like when you think about like all the ingredients that goes into making a great program i think miami possesses it um great national fan base, like a lot of things. And yet still, you know, has gone 20 years or whatever since being truly dominant program. So winning from the front, I think is a really interesting thought process because, you know, my expectation is. And I saw, you know, I referenced this yesterday, but, you know, another platform did projected wins game by game.

And they had Miami winning all of them, you know. And I think that it's important to go out and do that. Okay, well, let's do the old Phil Steele thing. Phil Steele would always do the how many games is this team favored in. So let's pop the schedule up again. Miami will be fair. I'm looking to schedule right now. If you're listening in podcast form at Stanford, Florida, A&M, at Wake Forest, Central Michigan, at Clemson, Florida State, Pittsburgh, at North Carolina, at Notre Dame, Duke, Virginia Tech, Boston College.

So Miami will be favored 11 games. All but one, yeah. Yeah. I don't think there was anything that can happen where there will be dogs on the road. road at Notre Dame, or like favored on the road at Notre Dame. I mean, I guess, like, if Miami's undefeated in Notre Dame has lost to BYU, maybe, but that's still the only scenario I can see. Yeah, maybe. I think Notre Dame was favored by three last year in Miami.

So, and this is the, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about Notre Dame, but, you know, Miami is a very hyped, you know, clear favorite to win the, the ACC, but like, this is the most preseason hype a Notre Dame team has had maybe ever in my adult life maybe not that's what I was going to say there were several generations of preseason hype for no no no you know what I'm I'm ignoring modern era like yeah yeah yeah I'm with you okay I don't know what happened in 1963 but yeah you know I do need to be better and I've actually thought about this at being a better like college football historian like I need to go read books about the history of college football in my job like it's kind of a shame that I don't know those things I will recognize

recommend the opening kickoff by Dave Rebson as you're first. That's a, it's a great one about the early history of college football. Do you think it's on tape? I bet it is. Dave has a very soothing voice too. You know my buddy just bought me a book. I want to show it to you. And I'm sure you've read it because that you are.

Have you read this? Oh, the John Ed Bradley. I have not read that. I need to read that. He said it's an incredible book. John Bradley, former Sports Illustrated writer played at LSU. It never rains in Tiger Stadium is what I'm holding up. But yeah, I need to do it.

need to be better about reading these types of things because I think it'll make us a better podcast. So sorry about that. I do feel like I know college football like a steel freaking trap though since 2000, right? Like that's good. You say so. We'll see on the next time you get the who am I and I have to do the questions. Speaking of which that's tomorrow and you get the questions. Yeah. That's right. Oh, by the way, okay, can we play guess the line Miami Notre Dame right now in bed MGM? Do you see, are you looking at it? I am looking at it. Miami, I mean, sorry, Notre Dame minus five and a half. Notre Dame minus six and a half.

Very good. So, but that will be the only game, barring some catastrophe that Miami's not favored in. Look, Miami has to replace quite a bit in the trenches. If you go in the look at the D-line, they went and got Damon Wilson out of the portal on the edge. He was at Missouri last year. And your second most impactful transfer in the ACC this year?

Yes, yes. And actually, he was the highest ranked transfer in the ACC, according to our On3 transfer portal rankings. But I just consider Dary Mensa to be probably ultimately more impactful. And the Daryin Mensa of it all is really interesting. And I was thinking about this today. Shannon Dawson is someone we don't talk about enough probably in this equation. But Miami keeping Shannon Dawson as the offensive coordinator

to work with Dary and Mensa is going to be, I think, really good for both parties because I think Shannon Dawson is going to be able to call a little less conservatively with Dary Mensa. And I heard Dary Minson talking about it today where he said this offense feels a lot more like the one he ran at Tulane with more play action versus the one he ran at Duke, which was a little more of an air raid. And if you look at his numbers at Tulane, like his numbers at Duke were good. He threw for a ton of yards.

He threw for a ton of touchdowns. He was a more efficient passer at Tulane. So this offense may suit him better. You know Shannon Dawson's my favorite offense coordinator in college football, right? I know you got mad during the Texas A&M game. I don't know. I don't remember what happened in the A&M. No, I was the thing I got most Matt.

Yeah, a lot of, I love the grab ass though. The plays are like, what the hell was that? They do it a lot. We're really mad, but yeah. No, the thing that made me mad was that they didn't waste more time on their final drive before giving the ball back to A&M. Like if that game. would have ended differently, which, by the way, with a throw in the end zone, with the seconds

left on the game, it could have. We are right back in the Mario Cristobald doesn't know how to man. You got to score there because you've, you've scored three points in the whole game. If you can get in the end zone, just get in the end zone. Don't, don't fart around. I don't know if I remember this correctly, but they were, the field goal would have put them in the head, right? Yeah, it would have won the game with the field goal. Tied at three, yes. Yeah.

And they could have kicked the field goal was. The wind was blowing a billion miles an hour and people had already missed chip shot field goals. You know what I love about our show is that we're relitigating a discussion that we had? So why do you like Shannon Dawson or were you being sarcastic? I love Shannon Dawson because I enjoy watching the cool plays that he draws up. Sometimes I think he abuses them, but he's pretty creative human being. And by the way, obviously got really the most out of what Miami had to offer, offensively last year. Obviously, you know, they have really good backs. They had a great

offensive line. I think the quarterback to a certain extent was limited. But like Miami didn't go. That that's, that's what I was getting at. I don't know if Dary and Mince is as good as Cam Ward, but I think he's probably better than Carson Beck. I think that it's a fact that he's better than Carson Beck. I think if Dery and Mentsa was their quarterback last year, they would have won the national title. This is going to be fun to watch because Remember Cooper Barcate with, it came with Dary Mentson. Cooper Barcate was Duke's leading receiver last year. Over 70 catches, 1,100 yards receiving.

Cooper Barcate was the primary focus of defenses trying to stop Duke. Guess what? He ain't your primary focus. He's two now. Yeah. You're worried about Malachi. So Cooper Barcate is going to be playing against your second best coverage guy. Your second best coverage guy is about to get dominated.

Yes. I put Cooper Barcade in my top 10 receivers list I did a month ago for this reason. Man, I just like, I didn't know this morning and maybe I should have put it together because it's ACC Media Day right now that we would have a Miami segment on today's show. But I did read your story about the three or the 10 most impactful ACC transfers and there are three Miami's, right? So, I mean, I could have had a fourth there. But it's, yeah, and then we talk about Mark Fletcher Jr. coming back. And the way that, like, we'll see how the offensive line, because remember, they lose Markle Bell, they lose obviously Francis Maui Noah, who's a first round draft pick,

Brockermeyer the center out of eligibility. So it will be revamped. But that's something they've been building from the inside for a while. So I have faith in Mario Cristobal and Alex Mirabal, their offensive line coach, who we had on the show right before the title game. I have faith in them to put a good offensive line on the field. so I'm not worried about Mark Fletcher. And that's the other thing is you've got to be so scared of what they can do.

That duo play they run is just brutal. And our buddy, J.D. Pichel put Miami as his number one offensive unit in the country coming into the year. I don't know if you saw that. I think there's a chance they could be pretty explosive. I put them number one. Who would you put over them? I think Notre Dame is going to be really, really good. This is the deepest receiving court Notre Dame's had.

a while. CJ Carr is a great quarterback. The line's going to be good. Ohio State's obviously going to be very, very productive. But if you had a, you know, a life-changing decision to make. I like the, this comes back to Shannon Dawson, actually. I like the way Miami plays. I think Miami plays great complimentary football.

I think Shannon Dawson calls the game in a way that respects the fact that they have a good defense that Corey Heatherman's going to get the job done on the other side of ball and it's not because this is what this is what their problem was the year before when they had Cam Ward they just had to outscore you that that's all they could do they can beat you in multiple ways now and Shannon Josson can adjust the play calling sliders based on what the defense can help them with yeah and they also it was a great example of that last year don't they have one of the best if not the best offensive line coach in college football too alice mirrorball yeah big fan I only lost DC Maui Noah, but like my expectation is that they'll figure it out.

Yeah. And like Jackson Cantwell, the number one offensive line recruit in the country, probably going to plug in and play right away, like CC Maui Noah did. One of the most highly compensated offensive line recruits in the NIL era. I think that that's the responsibility of that kid to go in and he's coached by the right guy. Yeah. So I'm excited to see them this year because I do think they probably are going to take that next step that level up where they just handle business in the conference.

Because that's really been the issue is Miami not being able to handle its business against teams that it should beat in conference play. That's the last step before they truly hit that elite level. Yep. Yep. Let us travel north. We'll go up the Florida Turnpike, hit I-75, hang a Louie on a, hang a left on I-10. Many, many hours later, it's a big state.

We're in Tallahassee. Mike Norvell and company took stage at ACC Media Days on Monday. Florida State coming off a very disappointing year. They were coming off an even more disappointing year before. Mike Norvell gets asked if he's coaching for his job. And he says, no, I don't think so. All right, he's absolutely coaching for his job. Yeah.

You know, in fairness, I don't know what you're supposed to say to that. Yeah. Like, are you supposed to be like, yeah, I'm coaching for my job? It's just, you're never going to get that answer. I'm coaching for my job every day, Ari. I think we're podcasting for our jobs every day. Hell yeah, we are. Writing columns for our job every day.

But I don't. That's how you have to look at it. That, now, Mike Norvell. is saying the right things. He's saying, I love the mentality of this team. I'm excited about this. I truly enjoyed Ashton Daniels being asked about my ACC quarterback rankings and him not being in the top 10.

And was he insulted by that? I think he kind of was. But, well, I mean, did I see enough at Auburn to put him on there last year? I mean, he did make Auburn's offense better. Let's, I fully admit that. Yeah. I don't know that you messed up there. You might end up being wrong.

That's the fun thing about these lists. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you just go. If I end up being wrong, that's great. There's really not enough information even. Yeah. It's not a great sample size. Yeah.

So, you know, they should, we should like at the end of the year just revisit all of them and then do like updated ones. Yeah. I think it would be good. Good content as they said. I think that that was rational. Now, the question that somebody should ask in January, ask Ashton Daniels is if you are offended by that, are you prepared for, similarly what DJ Lagway had to go through.

Now, maybe this isn't as high profile. We're not a five-star prospect that everybody thinks is going to be the next Cam Newton. But, you know, you are in a position where your performance will directly impact the future of your head coach and maybe directly the entire program. Just like we said with Lagway last week in Baylor, even though the coach's job may be riding on the results this season, it doesn't feel like it's the quarterback's responsibility to save said coach's job. It is not Ashton Daniels responsibility to save Mike Norvell's job. Can I be frank with you, though? You may. If you were coaching for your job, would you want to pin that on Ashton Daniels?

How much money did my school give me to spend on players? Which then makes this entire conversation complicated and it might not even be Mike Norville's fault. Like depending on how far down the rabbit all you go through. It is the conversation we need to have because we discussed this. Okay, we talked to Eric Morris from over. Oklahoma State this week. Oklahoma State last year, Mike Gundy, all-time great coach.

Best coach in the school's history. But they were freezing him out. Eric Morris is getting way more to spend than Mike Gundy ever got because they didn't trust Mike Gundy to spend it right. Yep. Now, Florida State is spending more than Oklahoma State did last year.

Got a little bit of a chicken and egg thing here going on, right? But where does, okay, Pete Nacos and I have talked about this. I've talked about this with people at Florida State. If you were to place where Florida State is spending within the ACC, six, seven, eight somewhere in there. Not how you spend if you think you're going to win the league. You want to play a game? Yeah, let's play it.

Now, it might be a little bit more difficult because we don't know how much everybody's getting paid. And I don't know how much Ash and Daniels is getting paid. I do know he's not getting paid as much as Sam Levin. I'm going to just transfer quarterbacks that came in through the portal. And you tell me if you'd rather have that quarterback or Ashton Daniels. And I might, and I might. This is he looks like I really don't like Ashton Daniels.

I do like Ashton Daniels. I thought, again, he made Auburn better when he played last year. I'm not going to pick like the most highly compensated ones. Okay. Which might make it a little bit different in terms of what your answers might be, because in some cases, it might actually be Ashton Daniels. I'm not setting this up to humiliating him.

Okay, great. So, like, Aidan Childs. Ashton Daniels. Okay. Cutter Bowley. Cutter bully. Jaden Craig. That's hard because he's going up a level, so we don't know.

Based on what CCU people have told me, I said, Jaden Craig. Kenny Minchie. Kenny Minchie. Caden Hauser. Ooh, that's a tough one. These are very hard questions, by the way, because these guys are new, it might be. Cate and Houser, so, yeah, we should probably help everybody with this.

Caten Houser is going from East Carolina to Illinois. And I go Caten Houser on that, I think. Okay. Colton Joseph at Wisconsin from Old Dominion. I think this is a very similar. Now, Colton Joseph is probably a better runner. He's one of the best runner running quarterbacks that moved in the portal this year. probably Colton Joseph.

Yep. Anthony Calandria, the offensive player, the reigning offensive player of the Mountain West Conference last year. Yeah, he was at UNLV last year. You saw it in Virginia before that. He's going to be Nebraska's quarterback this year. Calandria is fun, but also maddening, but also fun. But this is another tough one.

Yeah. I think they go Calandria, though. Lincoln-Kineholz. Keenholz, sorry. I don't know why he mispranuts his name. Reports out of Louisville really good. So I think I'd go Keenholz on this one. Alberto Mendoza.

Not enough. I don't know what, not a lot of sample size. I know, but sometimes the, he's for his little brother. He was the backup at Indiana last year. He's going to be Georgia Tech starter this year. So I, like that's one. I don't know enough about him.

I'd have to say Ashton Daniels because I've seen some of Ashton Daniels a little bit. And the good parts are really, good. Last one and then we'll stop the game because I'm trying to make a point here. Yeah. Bo Perbula. I think that's a wash and Bo is going to start at Virginia this year. So based on your answers, because I was asking quarterbacks that were either at places or near the income chart to where I would expect Ashton Daniels to be at Florida State. It would have been fair. It's interesting. I think Kenny Menchie's making significantly more. And he might be.

Because, because remember he was going to go to Nebraska and then Kentucky swooped in. So I just, I intentionally didn't pick Sam Levitt and Darian Mensa and Josh Oliver and Lackley and back. It's not fair to him. Yeah. But my question to you is, if you are coaching for your job, do you think or is it your thought process that Mike Norbell, assuming that he was, you know, handicapped a little bit with the amount of money that he had, pick the best one because the thing that we know about Mike Norvell or the thing that we came to expect about him three years ago was that he was an absurdly good portal evaluator. He was the original portal king who assembled a regular season undefeated team based on both one-year rentals and multiple year transfers.

Do you trust as Florida State fan or administrator Mike Norvel's evaluation of Ashton Daniels and do you think he made the right decision with some of the other names that were out? there that you might have taken over him that they could have had in my opinion maybe they could know if everybody's recruitment's different you know i'm not picking it but like those are the same class of quarterback like my understanding of who ashen januels is well but okay so far let's let's let's let's let's flip this a bit if you're these quarterbacks let me give you i want you to examine a coach's contractual situation the the temperature of the room Colton Joseph went to Wisconsin. Okay.

That's what Luke Fickle was going to be one of them. Would you rather play for Luke Fickle or Mike Norville right now? I mean, also, how many is you get a one-year shot at this thing. So, like, I mean, you're only, who cares? Who cares? I'd rather play for Mr. Mr. Rubell? Answer.

Mike Norbell. Okay. Matt Ruhle or Mike Norvell? Matt Ruh. Kenny Dillingham or Mike Norville? Kenny Dillingham. Will Stine or Mike Norville? Will Stein.

Mm-hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Tony Elliott or Mike Norvell? Tony Elliott. No, Mike Norvelle. Because you also have to take into account. I'd rather play at Florida State than Virginia.

You've obviously never been to grounds with some fourth years and some third years. Maybe the most beautiful campus in America, Virginia. Oh, no, I've heard this. Buildings are nice. I would rather play at the traditional power. I get what you're saying. I understand what you're saying there. I actually, given the play on Virginia's offensive line last year, if I'm a QB, and what they were bringing back, I probably picked Virginia's situation.

I'm just saying it's a huge bet on a player that's relatively unproven. And if he didn't have the money, he didn't have the money. You are acting like they had a huge plethora of other options. I am not sure they did. And that's what I'm trying to tell you. Yeah. Because those other quarterbacks were playing the. that coach or Mike Norvell game,

just like Mike Norvel was playing to this quarterback or that quarterback game. There's two sides to that. Yeah. But I also think that, you know, we're not that far removed from when he was referred to as coach handsome

when they were in vogue, right? Like, I mean, Alabama was, when Alabama had him on the list, like he, that was not a, it was not made up. I don't know.

The front page of the New York Times up here on my wall when I'm reading unbeaten and unchosen. That wasn't that long ago. No, it wasn't. But it feels like a million years ago. He's got further than a lot of the coaches that you just mentioned. Let's call up the schedule.

Let's play the same game we played with Miami. How many of these games will Florida State be favored in? For the podcast listeners, I will read them off to you. New Mexico State Week Zero. SMU comes to Tallahassee on Labor Day at Alabama. Central Arkansas. Virginia and Tallahassee at Louisville, at Miami,

Clemson. The Virginia, Louisville, Miami, by the way, is three weeks in a row. Clemson is after at Miami, at BC, at Pitt, NC State at home, Florida at home. They're going to be favored against New Mexico State. They are currently not favored against SMU, but it's closer than you think.

to pull it up right now, but I want to say that when I looked at it last time, it was about two and a half. Really? It was SMU by two and a half on the road. Interesting. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have thought it would have been bigger. So they will not be favored at Alabama. They will be favored against Central Arkansas.

They might be favored against Virginia at home, but they might not be favored against Louisville on the road. And they definitely won't be favored against Miami. Clemson, I think we don't know yet. They'll be favored against BC. Not sure about Pitt. Not on the road, no. Probably.

And not Florida. So we're talking about half and half right now. Yeah. Which is a wild place for them to be. And then obviously how they perform in the first four weeks of the season will also determine what the back half looks like in terms of spread. But if we're just doing it right now, I would probably say four to six games they'd be favored in.

Yeah. But then also, like, there's the relative mystery that we always seem to have of Florida State, which is how good are they? Like, last year we didn't know. I mean, for a minute there, last year we thought they were back. I mean, like, after week one. They beat, they beat Alabama week one. Like, that's the craziest part of this. Week one.

If they don't beat Alabama, are we having a completely different discussion about a completely different coach right now? What would you mean? Like, would we be thinking of, of Dibor? Like if Alabama had just gone in there and eaten their lunch in Tallahassee, week one. I think we would just be talking more negative leave about Mike Norvel. Interesting. Okay, so I have called up SMU floor state on bed MGM. Yeah, SMU is a two and a half point favorite on the road.

I'm actually surprised it's that close. I actually think I might. I'll be right back. Got to make a call. Got to make a call to my guy. Yeah. I don't know. Don't you think that SMU is going to win the game?

by more than three? I would have thought that Alabama would be a lot of. But I thought Alabama was going to be Florida State last year and they sure as hell didn't. So yeah. I want to have one holistic conversation about Florida State before we change the subject, okay? Which is

the thing that I actually have thought about writing about this and I have not yet. But you guys remember when we did the bit, we had, I think it was a listener who wrote in Greenblood, remember? and the green blood concept is changing the guard of what a blue blood is, which is the teams that are paying the most or commiserate with like the teams that want to win an national title. Miami's on this list.

Like Tennessee would be on this list. Obviously, Ohio State, Georgia, the usual is around this list. But Oregon, Tennessee, Texas Tech now. Yes. Those are green ones. I picked up the phone while starting to think about doing this and maybe I can still do it. It's still July. It feels like the season's right around the corner.

but we still have some offseason left. August is a long, boring month. I called our buddy friend of the program and noted math nerd Pete Nacos. And I asked him, would Florida State be a green blood? And he responded, and I quote, oh, no. No, if you're sixth in the ACC and spending on roster, you are not a green blood.

We know that. Oh, oh, no. So this brings up the question. him because I think this is going to be interesting and Mike Norvell was certainly not the first, will not be the last to be judged based on wins and losses. But if you are a coach who has once assembled a team that went undefeated and would have made the playoff at the quarterback not hurt themselves, did you forget how to coach or did your circumstances change? And if your circumstances changed to the point where you were no longer competitive financially, because of other issues,

not just because of fan support, but Florida State also has a stadium renovation, and a lot of other expenditures right now, if you aren't given the resources financially to compete at a high level, how much is the impending doom of the program your fault? And there's the flip side of this. Maybe it is your fault because you stunk and people don't want to donate to you.

And I don't know which one it is with him. Well, I don't know if it's a chicken egg thing here with Norville, though, because I do think they were pretty competitive on salary for a while. Were they competitive on salary the year they wrapped the bed two years ago? Yes. Then it is his fault.

Yeah. But it's hard because it's hard to get yourself out of a hole. It is. But the question is can you win in this environment? And it's hard to tell. It's hard to make that judgment because this environment keeps changing. You know what happens a lot in college football? And we talked about it with Virginia Tech this week.

We've talked about it a lot with coaches who go to new places. It's like, I wouldn't have taken the job if the athletic director at, University X didn't promise me all the resources that they weren't giving to their last guys. And I remember James Franklin was very open about, you know, the previous two coaches and how they were kind of dealt a bad hand because they were, you know, tasked to do something without being given the financial resources to do it and they failed. But a lot of coaches who get canned from places that didn't win enough. And I think maybe Luke Fickle, the name that you mentioned is another interesting example of this, which is, you know, not taking away all the burden of the fault from him. I'm sure he deserves the lion's share of the blame. But if you are facing Ohio State and you're facing Oregon and Indiana and Penn State and all these teams

in your conference and you aren't paying relative to what they're paying, then it doesn't matter if you're Vince Lombardi. I think that there's a certain level of responsibility that should get put at the foot of somebody other than the head coach, which makes it harder to evaluate the job. Essentially, it's funny, it's hard in that circumstance to judge if a guy should be kept or just given more resources or let go. If you are consistently providing resources commensurate with the rest of your league, it's actually never been easier to decide whether you should fire your coach or keep them.

But Florida State is kind of hampered right now financially. Do I understand that correctly? They aren't in the ability. They're not a wash in cash, but I do think if they were excited, they could probably gin up some more. So if you're Mike Norvell and you're coaching for your job right now, you're not coaching for your job with the best circumstance. So it's already like the deck is stacked against you.

And that's by design because they want to move on from you. Right. Which is what happened to Mike Gundy last year. But at the same time. And Mike Gundy did it to himself. Let's not be, you know, Pollyanna about it. Florida State in 2024, well, paying similarly to its peers, went two in 10.

their one conference win was a 14-9 win at home against Cal. And their other win was a 41-7 win over Charleston Southern. Everything else was a loss. And I think that the team tapped out. And I think that whenever you talk about coaches and whether they can stay on, it's not necessarily how good they are. But like if your spirit breaks or your team quits on you, that's usually a pretty good, pretty good indication.

It's an indicator. That was the DJ Weungalong, Lai team. and remember they tried to go after Cam Ward. They could not afford Cam Ward. Do you imagine? Outbid. Right. How much difference we Cam Ward have made quite a bit.

And how much of Mike Norvell's ultimate downfall, pending a miracle, can be put on the feet of the people that didn't raise enough money to sign Cam Ward. Maybe your team doesn't tap out if you have a Heisman finalist on your team, or the number one overall pick in the draft. Maybe he's not a Heisman finalist or the number one overall pick of each. goes there. Yeah, that's something we never know.

But we know he's good. We know DJ Ewe and Rungal away is not. So like it's not, it's not apples to apples here. Obviously, you know, Miami cultivated that and put a great line around him and they had, you know, Jacoby George and Xavier Restrepo and dudes on that team to help him. And Dawson, who we talked about calling a place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so all situations are created equally, but I think it's a fairly easy conclusion to make that I'd rather have Cam Ward. Fascinating situation. I would have rather have Cam Ward. Ward before the Miami season. Yeah. We move from one evolving situation to another.

This one evolving a little bit faster. Ward Manual in Michigan, we still don't know what the outcome of this is going to be. Ward Manual goes on the radio in Detroit on Tuesday, defends his tenure. Tuesday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal gets a leak of some of the material that's in the investigative report, well, there's probably no written report, but the General Block investigation. General Block is the law firm that Michigan's hired to investigate

this situation. And one of the things leaked to the Wall Street Journal was that on August 29, 2004, a note on Michigan letterhead from Ward Manual to Sharon Moore, saying, I would prefer you didn't travel with Paige Scheiber that you wouldn't have her accompanying you on trips. This is your administrative assistant who you are having an affair with and sounds like everybody knew you were having an affair with and instead of saying maybe you should break this off, maybe you should do, in writing, yeah, don't travel with her.

that doesn't look good. That really doesn't look good. And I think the anti-Word Manual faction leaked this because Ward Manual had come out pretty strong in his own defense. And that is them trying to say, you know what? We got to, we're going to have to nip this in the bud. That's it, right? One would think you don't need much more than that.

One would think. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty definitive proof that he was aware of inappropriate behavior very early on. At that point, as a look at the date on that, August 29, 2024, Sharon Moore has not coached a game as Michigan's head coach, as the full-time. Obviously, he acted as the head coach in several games in 2023. But as the full-time Michigan head coach, this is before his season opener. the 80s already aware of this. Question about just the way things work in college football,

because I don't know the answer to this, and I probably should. This is a no-ego podcast, a bad at math, no-ego podcast. How often do administrative assistants even travel with the coach? Well, I mean, I think there are times when it happens. But like, usually not on recruiting trips or anything like that. So I'm just trying to figure out like if somebody like I'm trying to think that was going to do a speech at the booster club and in, you know, a town, you know, a few towns over or they or sometimes or they take the private jet to do one of those. Sometimes they're their assistant or a lot of times their chief of staff will come with them. Yeah.

But that's a little bit different role. But how regular would a note like this be? Like is it possible that someone at another university would get a similar note? Highly irregular. Highly irregular. Highly irregular. So yeah, that's it for me. Yeah, I don't know what else you need.

And I do wonder at this point, because so the regularly scheduled Board of Regents meeting taking place on Thursday, the official agenda says nothing about board manual or the investigation or anything like that. Now, obviously, they could go into executive session and get briefed, quote-unquote, briefed on the investigation. That's the sort of thing you can do. but this feels like a back and forth designed to decide whether you're firing somebody for cause or whether you're going to pay a buyout. Also, why would you write a topic. That sounds like to me. Yeah, it feels like a conversation you could have in person or on the phone.

I mean, my understanding would be if you were writing a letter like that, that you would know that it's a highly sensitive topic. And also, you're leaving a paper trail. Right. That's what I'm saying. You would know institutionally not to write that. One would think. Or, I mean, because there's no way that you're,

if you're word manual, you put this forward saying, this is evidence I acted properly in this situation. No, it just means that it wasn't, it wasn't handled properly. That's all that is. Yeah.

And look, cause and effect. We talked about it on yesterday's show. Ultimately, this boils down to, I screwed up the football hire, which is the, The Cardinal Sin. Yeah.

If you're in AD, is screwing up the football hire. My understanding of this or my prediction, I don't know if this is irresponsible, if it is. We're updating you on this. I think that there is probably going to be another piece of news that comes out fairly soon after this. Yeah. When I saw that pop up on my Twitter feed yesterday.

Yeah. So the leaks to Wall Street Journal. Our show comes out at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Yeah. The Wall Street Journal leaked. I believe that that story popped up, I want to say, like 330, 345, something like that. Yeah. The longer this goes without an outcome, and by an outcome, I mean probably Ward Manual not working in Michigan anymore, I would assume the more leaks there will be.

Yeah. I don't, I, my, when I read that, my perception was this is going to be done quickly now. And my guess is there's like, they're saving more. Yeah. Because that's damning. But again, if you are them, if you are the, let's say, I don't know, Michigan region who happens to know what's in the report, you're not going to put the most embarrassing thing out there first.

You're going to try to never let the most embarrassing stuff ever get out if you're playing your cards right. And guys, just a reminder, this wasn't just an affair. this went off the rails. Yes. Well, it's also, it is also, and the reason it was an issue and the reason it was a fireable offense is this is a superior subordinate relationship, like working relationship, which is mostly not okay in really any business in America. Right. But the negligence to. Because of the power dynamics.

The negligence that was involved in. either hiring him or keeping him on led to a not just an affair, but a disaster. Yeah, an absolutely bizarre situation at season's end that affected the entire team that affected the team's performance. And again, we've asked this question a million times. I know how I feel cynically. If they beat Ohio State last year, does it change what happened? I am a cynic with you. I think this does not.

No. I think if, I think if Paige Schiver flipped the way she flipped in terms of what she was telling the administration, I think you're probably right. I think it doesn't matter if they would have been a certain. Yeah. There's a certain threshold that you can survive.

I think this crossed that threshold. Yeah. Yeah. Because at that point, then she is, she is just telling the, truth, whereas the truth had been obscured from the administration before. Yeah. Yeah.

And if it wouldn't have changed, that would have been one of the college football storylines probably that then creeps into bigger than football and becomes a morality issue. Correct. Which, you know, occurs in college football. I mean, it is a morality issue as it is. And then part of the word manual story is there, there are, this is not the only scandal that he's presided over.

There are many, many of them. And I'd say an outsized number of them compared to... But this piece of information, other large athletic parties, completely negates any discussion that you want to have about how many wins they've had. Like, this is a completely different discussion. Or about whether you handled it properly.

Because, well, this tells you a lot of things that you're dumb enough to put it on Michigan letterhead. Not great, Bob. Might also be a fireable offense. Yeah. if we're looking at it from the other side, from the other direction of, you're not even good at covering this up.

Mm-hmm. So. Yeah. I mean, we're on standby, officially, I think. Yeah. And Word Manual will keep telling everybody, I don't know what the future holds.

I plan to be here. This seems, this seems like something you can't walk away from. But the board meeting is Thursday. we will let you know what happened once that's over. Thank you for watching. Producer River wanted me to ask you if you're mowing the yard anytime soon. Hugo will be here sometime this week.

Oh, is that? Okay, that's your guy? Okay. He's awesome. Yeah, he's a great, he's a great landscaper. I might mow my lawn today just for fun. Do you know, at the risk of this going 10 more minutes, I will say, It's not that weird to have a landscaper.

A lot of people do. It's weird to not know how to mill your own lawn. It's weird to not know how to use an electric lawn. Producer River, please post the photo. That's Producer River back home in Tennessee. They got property. Also, the guns. Yeah, the gun show is real with producer.

Is that a backpack? What is that river? What do we got on there? No, that's like it was hot that day. It's just like a wet towel around my neck. Oh, okay. I didn't know he had one of those like camelbacks where you put the water. How many acres are we talking about?

About one, one and a half. It takes about an hour and a half to do it. Yeah. Do they have landkeepers out there or would they go out of business? No, there's a lot. There's a lot of people that go the mowing route and start their own business in East Tennessee. But that's just in our garage. And I hope that out that day.

We have a family friend who lives in New Jersey, like in more rural New Jersey, who has a front yard that looks like in like the Grey Gatsby or something and they have people come up like i mean it's the biggest front yard i've ever seen now obviously the further out away from the city you are the more land you can have it at an affordable right but god who's mowing this i just i think ri wants to buy this riding mower for his own house which that would be ridiculous i don't have that much with a self-propelled electric lawnmower just a regular you know walk behind self-propelled electric lawnmower it would probably take you 12 to 15 minutes to mow Ari's long. Yeah, I don't even know.

I don't have a house that could store that. Do you have a shed, your family have a shed? Yep, in the garage. You have a garage, Ari. You have a garage. You have a Mercedes that doesn't move very often. Yeah. And then your wife's car.

Actually, quite a bit. The garage has a toolbox, a mower, and the best thing in the world, a fridge in the garage just for drinks. Oh, speaking of which, I do need to get a freezer for our garage. I have a beer fridge in the garage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

We have a little fridge for drinks in our kitchen island, but I need to get a freezer for, like, meat and stuff for our garage, which maybe I'll do today. But, yeah, if you're telling me what I'd rather park a lawnmower. You can't run an electric lawnmower, you're going to become freeze a bunch of meat guy? No, our actual freezer just sucks. Like, we don't have a lot of room in it,

but, like, we have a lot of baby stuff, like, like, like, popsicles and things like that that, like, take a lot of room. We have a garage fridge and a garage full, freezer. So yeah, I'm with you. I understand. I just don't see you as as freeze a side of beef. No, no, no, no, God. Well, maybe burgers that are already cut for you, you know, or things that you would buy at Trader Joe's. Yeah, it's a Trader Joseph situation. It's not more of a, it's not, I'm going to shoot an animal and put it in my freezer type of situation. No. But if you're, if you're like, judgment is like, would you rather have a 2001 Mercedes SL 500 with 36,000 miles on in your

garage or that lawnmower, I think I made the right choice. I'm feeling pretty good about my life's direction right now. I think you're doing okay. And I can teach you how to use an electric lawnmower in 25 seconds. Yeah, we could start an alternate channel where it's just you teaching me how to be a man. I think people would like really enjoy them. I don't know how to be like real men, real men would run circles around me. I'm terrible at most of this stuff.

You could teach me. The baseline necessary skills to be considered a male. Like, I teach you how to change a tire. I teach you how to change oil. Yeah, like, are you a change your own tire on the side of the highway guy? I can do it. I have done it before. If your, if your truck got a flat tire on the highway today, would you call

AAA or would you change it to the spare? I have AAA, so I'd probably call them, but I could change it if I wanted to. AAA. I'm a AAA guy. I don't know if you know that. Well, the family has AAA, so it's available to me if I want to use it. Yeah. But yeah. I have driven by people on the highway changing their tire on 103 degree day on the side of the highway. And it's like, that could never be me. Well, part of it is dangerous and AAA has equipment that allows them to do it very quickly.

You know what else is dangerous? Not being 100% confident that you did it right and then driving on it and then dying because your wheels fall off on the highway. If you're too dumb to tighten your lug nuts back up, that's on you. I might be too dumb to feel like I did a proper. Do you know there's a reinforced spot at the bottom where you put the jack so you don't bend the frame of your car? You're aware of that, right? Yes. You thought about that for a second.

Yeah, because I have a very, like, I drive an electric car now and it's a very heavy car and I went to get my, that had a nail in my tire. I don't plug my own tires. your own tires. I went to a no, I don't play my own tires. No, I don't play my own tires. No, I remember being anxious because the reinforcement spot to lift my car has to be used or it'll break. And I remember like looking it up like where to make sure they put the jack so that the car did mess up. That's the other thing like, because I once had to change a tire on a rental car because it was like, you call the rental car company and they're like, we'll be there in like three hours.

They're like, okay. And I just like, it was a vehicle I'd never driven before. and the good thing is there's a YouTube video for every vehicle. So you just type in, you're making model, change tire, and it'll show you where the jack is. It'll show you how to get the spare out. It's all on YouTube. I'm having, you know, we're an hour and 10 in. You don't like it.

You can shut it off, guys. What are the, like, do you have like a list of baseline male talents or like needs or like, what are the 10 things that I would have to do? And you don't have to give it to me right now, but I'm curious. The 10 things every man should be able to do. I don't say it's not a male thing. Like I, because I think that's an insult to our female listeners and viewers. Let's just say as a homeowner, the things that that you might need to be able to do.

Well, you guys are constantly calling in my manhood. So that's why I said that. And I would never have my wife mowed along. It's more fun to do it that way. But I don't want to, again, I don't want to insult our female viewers. Yeah. Yeah, you know how to mow your lawn. Because this started off air with you tell you.

telling me, you got frustrated not because the mower was bogging down and you didn't know why. And the answer is always the grass is too thick, raise the deck, cut it, lower the deck to your preferred height, then cut it. Then you want to worry about it again because you will just mow your lawn regularly. So that's like multiple coats. Just once though. It's not more than once. You don't have to do that once. because once you get it to the height you want it, then you're, unless you're just one of those people who lets your lawn grow and look terrible.

It was, well, we just bought the house when I attempted this. And, well, yes. So the grass had it overgrown as a result. Right.

Somebody needed to cut the grass. So that would be one. I would say learn to change a light fixture or an electrical outlet. Like we changed, we switched out an electrical outlet this week. because one of the plugs had become stripped and you couldn't get a plug to stay on. Okay. I actually might need to do that.

So I'm happy that you think that. Do you know where your breaker box is? I do. Because I have a frustrating situation where the breaker box, like one of the breakers, you're halfway there. Yeah, but I'm not changing. I like go and click the switch back on when it trips. I know that.

Right. Okay. So. But then you would call an electrician to fix the brake. that trips because you know what a GFCI outlet is? No. It's the outlet with a button. You know how to,

if that trips just to hit the button? Yeah, but that's like third, first grade level stuff. Well, so is mowing the lawn. So I don't know what you don't. No, mowing the lawn is inherently physical. That's just pushing a button.

Anything that you can fix by pushing a button, I'm all on board to do. I don't know how to hang pictures. Do you, okay. Anchoring in the wall? To put anchors into drywall? I understand the concept, but every time I do it, I hit the hammer and the anchor bends and I get mad. So I stop doing it.

You don't know what a dead blow hammer? I don't know what that means. It's easier to get the anchors in with one of those. A dead blow hammer? It has many other uses, but that is one of the things you can use it for. Yeah, like I drill it and there's two things. Or you can drill the right size hole. That all is also.

So I either drill the wrong size hole or the hole is too small and then I hit the anchor and then it bends and doesn't work and then I get mad and then somebody comes over and I pay you know how to use stud finder I do yeah okay it beeps it does okay but I never understood the importance of finding the stud until recently you don't need to use an anchor that's the importance yeah I wish I could show people my office I didn't hang any of this stuff but like we have like a floating shelf and like I tried to do that and it was an absolute nightmare floating shelves are a pain in the butt it was wiggling after I got done not usually a one-man job depending on the size of the shelf somebody needs to be holding and somebody needs to be drilling

like it's just well somebody who needs to be holding and somebody needs to be measuring I need to buy a new TV for our loft because our TV was pretty old and doesn't work like I will not be I will not be mounting that on my own like I don't do any of that stuff you definitely need to use your stud finder for that one do you mount your own televisions yes yeah see like you know you're you're way further down the the capable chart than I anything like that.

It actually gives me anxiety. I think our birthday present for R.A. next week should be a laser level stud finder combo. I have that. Let him go to town. He wouldn't use it. He just call somebody. Do you own channel lock pliers? Actually, I have a hose that I can't get out of the spicket right now.

Like, it's like on too tight, and I don't know what to do to get it out. And it's really bothering. Channel lock. But I have pliers, and I should try it. Perfect job, but what kind of pliers do you have? I have the little ones. That one fit around the hose picket. Okay, channel lock pliers come in various sizes.

It's not a little or big situation. It's a functionality situation. I do not have that. Okay. I think I know what I'm getting you for your birthday. Yeah, maybe I can try to get my hose out because it's like bad to keep your hose plugged in, right? If it freezes, I guess, but in the middle of the summer. or no, not bad.

Good, so I've got time. Okay. All right, well, I don't want to get Ari first birthday. Cross that off the list. Hey, every citizen's your questions. Do you know how many people are listening to this are discussed right now?

Very few because it's an hour and 15 minutes in, but I want to tell you all who are still here. One, send us your questions. Andy Stapleson3 at gmail.com, R.e. dot Wasserman aton3.com. Two, we love you so much. much. Thank you for being here. Thank you for putting up with us. Thank you for still listening after that. But I will say, I think that I am more common than you think. I think that me and River are

more common than you think. No, I think you guys are more common than me, but I think there's a lot of me out there. I hope not. I think there's a lot of people like me out there. I know one other one. I think you're one of a kind. We'll talk to you tomorrow.