Andy & Ari On3 - Behind the scenes with EA Sports College Football ‘26

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

The EA Sports College Football video game is set to release in a little over a month. In Orlando, Andy caught up with the principal game designer in Ben Haumiller, and he takes us behind the scenes of what new features will be included in this year's game. Are you excited for this year's game? A full show you don't want to miss with a GREAT discussion on USC (0:00-2:00) Intro: Teasing USC(2:01-13:49) Andy Played the game; Ari's Questions(13:50-22:47) Principal Game Designer Ben Haumiller joins(22:48-25:11) Continuing the EA Sports Discussion(25:12-28:36) Story Time - Ari's Daughter & Taylor Swift(28:37-49:27) USC Recruiting Discussion(49:28-54:57) The Population across the country(54:58-57:05) Wrapping up on USC(57:06-58:32) Ari's Magazine from 2002(58:33-1:06:29) Story Time: Ari as a Teenager(1:06:30-1:08:12) Conclusion Next, Ari wrote a story on USC after its big commitment from over the weekend. Andy & Ari discuss if USC is going to be for real in the future? Ari's story here: https://www.on3.com/news/projecting-usc-trojans-future-remains-a-confusing-puzzle-despite-recent-recruiting-success/ Later, while Ari was back in his childhood bedroom, he uncovered a magazine from 2002. A young Mack Brown is featured, and Ari takes us back in time. Watch our show LIVE on YouTube, M-F at 9:30 am et! https://www.youtube.com/@On3sports Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail]  

Welcome to Annie and Ariane 3. We got a lot to talk about today. I read a very interesting Ari Wasserman column about USC at on three on Tuesday morning, and I have a lot of some questions and just some thoughts because I find USC incredibly interesting going into this season, but also going forward because what the Trojans are doing in the recruiting class of 2026 doesn't match the production the last couple of years and suggests maybe something different is coming and better is

coming. But Ari, we will definitely have to talk about that because that column, the column got me fired up. It got you fired up? I thought it was kind of a I was like I'm tired of getting beaten up on Twitter. I'm just going to go right down the middle of pros and cons and I'll let you decide. I even said at the end of the column you decide leave me out of it. But like I will say there is no team in college football that has put me up into more of a pretzel

than USC because on one hand you you know, my original thoughts, as it pertains to USC from 2021 when Lincoln-Kiley hired multiple national titles incoming. Yes. No, no, I thought that they were going to be the SEC dominant program of the West Coast. And then like my anger towards how bad it went, went off the rails. And then I see recruiting results like this, and then I get excited again. And I'm in this perpetual, cuz I had good recruiting results this time last year too when I wrote a column. This is the type of stuff that gets me excited.

So it's like, when do you take the bait? When do you actually buy back into what USC is building? Because the thing that was most frustrating to me from a USC standpoint, at this point last year was, or not at this point last year, at the end of last regular season is, what is it that you cling to for hope? We'll get into that later on, but I'm excited to talk about it.

I think this is a different situation than last year. I know everybody who isn't following USC that closely is like, oh, it's the same as last year. I think it's different. We can talk about that, but we also need to talk about the college football video game a little more because I got to play last week, you did not. I know you have some questions. I also got

to talk to Ben Hall Miller, the principal designer of the game. And we'll play that interview today and hear from him. Because he's, you know, he's one of those guys that he was the one complaining about the game when he was a student at Florida State and just whipping people, you know, in the game. And now he's the one who hears your complaints and addresses them. So I think it's pretty interesting to hear about that process. But Ari, I'm curious, you know, as a person who plays this game a ton, what questions do you have for me

now that I've gotten to see it? Well, the thing that I'm most curious about is if there's any actual major changes that you could sense as somebody who played it to the engine or the way the gameplay feels. The biggest gameplay change in terms of feel, and if you played Madden last year, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, The biggest gameplay change in terms of feel, and if you played Madden last year, you will

know exactly what I'm talking about, is they added the physics-based tackling, which they added to Madden last year. And it just, especially when you are the user, like you're controlling the defender who's making the tackle, it feels like you have more control over that. Now it doesn't mean you're necessarily gonna be able to tackle easier. You'll notice when you're running the ball, you can run through tackles a little bit easier because the player making the tackle

actually has to be physically in position to make that tackle and has to hit you in the right place, wrap up in the right place. That stuff matters. They call it physics-based tackling because essentially it adheres now to the laws of physics as opposed to, oh, the defensive NPC ran into my guy with the ball and he fell down. He fell down, right. Because that's like some of the most frustrating things too is like when you

feel like you've got somebody on the ropes and then you like trip over them and it's like that person never would have made the tackle in real life. But you know also too like what team did you use? I was curious. I used a lot of different teams. It's one of those you got a few hours so I was trying to use as many teams as I could. So I played as Clemson to see and I thought they made Cade Klobnik who we had on the show yesterday, they made him pretty good. The Will-Help-Peter Woods combo at Clemson on the D-line is pretty awesome. I was just switching back and forth between those guys when I was controlling their defense and I was playing as our friend Chris Finini from The Athletic. We wanted to see the Clemson entrance because they

have different big game entrances and regular game entrances. So we we set it up as a big game. We set it up as a night game with the big game crew with the Chris Fowler, Kirk Herb Street announced crew to see if we get the full Clemson entrance. And you do like you get them coming off the bus. There's a drone show going on over the stadium as you're coming down the hill. It was awesome. But Chris wanted to see what Bryce Underwood looked like.

So he brought Michigan to Clemson. And so we got a chance to see Bryce Underwood in a tough road environment against a good D line. And I gotta tell you Ari, they gave Bryce Underwood some good traits, but all of the quarterbacks who are new starters, I'll lump arch manning into this too because I took arch manning To Georgia and played between the hedges with him The first year starting quarterbacks on the road

They're they're gonna struggle Yeah, because like that like last year they made a few players superhuman in the game and I understand why they did it. Like Jalen Milrow is by far the best player I think in the game and you know as funny as how the season turned out in the way that people were talking about him. It's like not true. You know, but also at the same time he was a superhuman in some respects. Did you find anything out about the online mechanism?

Is it still three minute quarters on road road to the national road? That part we did not get into that they didn't they got because some of the things they've changed in some of the modes are a lot deeper. So they'd spent a lot more time on that. So we did not get into that. That that will be interesting to find out as well. Um, because we were really just you could do play now and you could look at dynasty mode and road to glory mode, but I actually don't think we can talk about those quite yet.

We have to wait until they lift the embargo on that. But that'll be like, when we talk road to glory later this month, I think you're going to be fascinated by that. Because I think the changes they've made to that are really interesting. But that's the gameplay. That's the most they spent the most time on, right? It is by far the one they spent the most time on.

But just the regular gameplay, I think it's probably a little bit smoother. I don't think it's appreciably different other than the feeling of the tackling. Now there's one thing they did that I definitely appreciated as someone who just likes to chuck and duck sometimes, especially when I'm playing against my kid,

and this goes back years and years. The previous editions of the game, previous editions of Madden were all like this. If you throw a go ball and the DB is running evenly with the receiver, half the time the DB picks it off. And it doesn't seem to matter what position they're in. And that drove me insane.

Well, apparently it drove a lot of people insane and they complained a lot and the designers addressed it this time. So now the DB has to have a certain level of awareness to get his head around on a play like that. So if he can't get his head around he can't like physically cannot intercept the ball. So a DB with lower awareness is going to now he might be able to get in the way and knock it down

but he's not picking you off on a play that you think is going to be he might be able to get in the way and knock it down, but he's not picking you off on a play that you think is going to be a touchdown. Right. Were there any surprises or anything that you didn't see coming that you that you think are interesting or is it just kind of right down the middle, like it's hard for me to try to figure out what because there's one thing that drives me insane is and this has been happening since I was 15 years old and that's like when you throw a pass to the flats or you're hitting an out route and

somebody has room to cut up field and they catch the ball and they continue to run out of bounds like I hope that they address that one day and maybe it's a really difficult thing to address but what surprised you about, you know, that flat pass is still, it still drives me nuts. I can't get up the sideline off a flat pass still. That one, they still haven't quite gathered. I actually, if they can, if I can make a suggestion Ari, one thing I would like to see them do is with the with the running backs or the receivers whoever is it is catching the ball alongside

what it is is their momentum is carrying them across the sideline because they're they're moving toward the sideline as they're as they're running a route. I would like to see the ones with the highest agility just be able to stop on a dime cut up field. Yeah. And I don't think it seems to matter that much what your agility is in that situation. I'm sure it does affect it somewhat, but it feels like anytime you're throwing

a little flat pass, if you get anywhere outside the hash mark, that gives you a score to go to the sideline. And if you have any head of steam towards the sideline, it's hard to cut up field. Yeah, okay. Well, I'm excited to hear what Ben has to say because he's a genius. I mean, I think he deserves a lot of credit for, you know, I think that the number one thing about the game, Andy, that the reason why we talk about it so much too is because the people who make it actually enjoy and love the sport the way that we do. Um, and they made the spirit of the game, echo the spirit of the game, you know? Um, so I can't wait to hear from them and see what he has to say.

It was, it was incredible being there and talking to the people who make the game, who came up and said, thank you for helping make our days go by faster. Cause like they're listening to you and me, they're listening to Josh Pate. They're listening to Debud and Tom Fornelli and Danny Kanell and Chip Patterson. They're listening to all of our shows and it's helping them work on the game. It's helping them get through the day

because this is their favorite sport too. And that does my heart good to know that that's where they're at. And in fact, one of the designers, when they were showing, you know, how they've evolved quarterback play and how they've evolved quarterback awareness and why certain quarterbacks are better than others, they put up my top 10 returning QBs. And there's quite a bit of disagreement over DJ Leggowit, number one.

Yeah, well, it's quite a bit of disagreement in the room. Ben messaged me and said, hey, when's your list of quarterbacks coming out? When's your top 25 coming out? They actually try to use writers' information to try to make the game as sharp as possible. Because listen, how do you think that they actually come up with these rankings in the game releases in July? Where do you think they come up with? They're not ranking the teams the way that we are too.

They have to rely on our information. They also talk to coaches too. A lot of the coaching talk is scheme, but it's really interesting. So Anthony, who makes the playbooks. He I have helped hook him up with Brendan Marion last year, who at the time was UNLV's offensive coordinator now Brendan Marion, Sacramento State Sacramento State is trying to move up to FBS,

but not in the FBS yet. But they're still building a go go offense. In case they do get up to FBS, so they'll have it. I mean, I just don't think that people even appreciate how much Anthony does in terms of film study, discussing with coaches to try to make the game mirror exactly what they're trying to do,

like the concepts and all the things that you see in real life. Like, I mean, his entire full-time job, I believe, is year-round studying playbooks and making movies. Yeah, he's been working a lot on realistic run fits, like how do linebackers react based on the play call and where the offensive lineman go because they want that to look realistic and I'm not sure how many people are actually worrying about that but I know there are a percentage of players who

do worry about that and it's more just you kind of know it, you can feel it. This looks like real football. Certain aspects don't. And I think the line play is where they've made it look a lot more like real football in the last few years. I just don't think they had the technology to do that in earlier iterations of the game. But, you know, pre in the prehistoric times before the game went away, like they just didn't have the horsepower, the computing power to make that work,

to have so many different potential options and player movements. And like if this offensive tackle does this and this happens. And I think now it's getting closer to the actual game of football, which is really chaotic when you think about it with 11 guys on

a side each having their own job. And if each person doesn't do their job, a different thing happens. Yeah. Yeah. It's real football now. Yeah. No, it's, it's pretty amazing. So, all right. Well, let's talk to Ben about the game. We had him on last year and he was very hopeful that things would work out. Things have worked out. Everybody's excited about the game this year. So let's, uh, let's talk about some of the changes. All right. I am here with principal game designer, Ben Howe Miller.

Ben, you, this has been a labor of love for you. 25 year employee of EA sports, basically since college, you brought it back last year. of EA Sports basically since college. You brought it back last year. How quickly were you making a list of here's what we got to do next year? I mean it's so funny you say that because as someone who worked on this game for a decade before right? Right. The last game that didn't have me involved was NCAO 4. So I've just I feel like I've grown up with this title and it goes away for 11 years. So I've been building this in my head for 11 years. I'm just now getting a chance to implement things that I've been thinking about for a long time, and I'm not the only one like that.

We've got a bunch of people on this team that are huge fans that have always come to the table of like, I want to do this, I want to do that. Yeah. But also too, as we said, the world of college football keeps changing and keeps evolving. So like we just put in the new playoff rules this last week. It got announced and gave us straight in the game for hours. That's not bad. That's, that's pretty good. And well, I remember when I was here last year, when announced and straight into the game. Four hours, that's not bad.

That's pretty good. Well, I remember when I was here last year, when we got to play the game, the first thing I did is I did a game at Lane Stadium and I was like, wait, there's no understanding. And you're like, hey, licensing music is expensive, sir. And then the trailer pops out. First thing I hear,

I've already played it at Lane Stadium. That entrance is unbelievable. Oh, and I mean, what a difference a year makes. Yeah. Last time, when we were talking last year, we didn't quite know what this was gonna be for us. Yeah. That it was gonna be this cultural phenomenon

that it turned into. Us true believers thought it would. Oh, I knew, cause I texted you, when you guys sent me the code, I started playing it, and so my son starts playing it. And he was 14 at the time, obviously was too young to have played the original game. He's texting his friends within 20 minutes saying,

this is the greatest video game of all time. And I texted you, I'm like, market research in my house says, you're gonna do just fine with this thing. I love that sample size, we got anymore. That's my guess exactly Exactly, but that is one of the more interesting things to me is because I'm around, you know, I have a teenager So I his friends were always over playing the game like it they were just like us at the same age Yeah, and I heard you guys talking about that the UN and the UN are we're talking about last week Yeah, it feels like you hit that nostalgia itch

But also to modernize it in a way and yeah, I was what that's exactly what we were going for was we couldn't just Repurpose the old game something just changed since then but we also couldn't just go completely a whole new direction people have things They get back. So that's what we kind of did for year one and now we're building on that Well, that's the part I like because you were as nerdy about college football as I am. So these things do matter. So I grew up a South Carolina fan. My first game in person was at Williams-Brice Stadium, the 2001 entrance and all that, and it wasn't there.

They were like, oh, well, that sandstorm's their song. No, this year you've got the whole thing. So if you play a night game at Williams-Brice Stadium, cocky comes out of the cockaboos and they're playing the theme from 2001 and I don't know the German name for it, I'm sorry. But it's just that level of detail is what gets me every time.

That's what we love, right? We are college football fans through and through. As I said last year, right? I watch more college football by 3.30 opening weekend than NFL the entire year. And that's because I just, I love to consume everything about this sport and the minutiae of this sport makes so much fun for a game to be able to build and see it in there and so you see things that we've added this year

these small touches that we do because we listen to what fans wanted to say and also to like the quality of life stuff if you're playing this game for a thousand hours those little things can annoy you to no end and we know that they annoyed us because we're playing it that that's Ari he's a thousand hours. Those little things can annoy you to no end. And we know that they annoyed us because we're playing it. That's Ari. He's a thousand hour player for sure. So yeah. And it is it is amazing that just some of the little touches where, uh, to pull the player card up, you can always just do that. Now you don't have to back out of the menu to do that. And those were just too hard to get to sometimes.

So that's what we wanted to make it of like, you can play this game for that long and those little things just irritate you. We had to get those out to be able to make you want to play things longer and longer, add new things, refine some things that we didn't quite get right the first time, just making an evolutionary process. I'm always more interested in gameplay itself. Just the little bit I've gotten to play so far,

you brought in the tackling system that Madden introduced last year. I love that because I feel like I'm more in control, but I gotta tell you. Block steering is my favorite thing as someone. And I don't know, like some of you guys out there might play as linebackers, might play as DBs. I play as a D and or a D tackle every play when I'm on defense. And like I was will help from Clemson, the Purdue transfer.

I'm like, Dabo took a transfer. Well, that dude can steer people. Right. Because you would to dumb it down, like you guys have a system where the D Lyman can actually, if he is good enough, make the offensive Lyman kind of move where he wants him to.

Right. And I mean, that's true to life, right? It's something that we're trying to add to the game that make it more authentic, more realistic, give you more control and more options. You know, we were saying before, it wasn't that long ago where defensive logic was just chase ball, the ball, defensive players just wear the ball, go get it. Yeah. And now you've got stunts and twists. You've got things like steering.

You've got all these different elements, run fits that we added a few years ago that really add more logic and complexity to the game. Well, and talking to Anthony, who works on your playbooks, I I don't think people appreciate what level of work is going on, because Anthony's doing zooms with defensive coaches saying, how do you play this? How do you fit this particular formation, or this play out of this formation?

And he's explaining to me how that all works now. And I'm thinking, you know, I don't even know that 90% of the people who play this game are going to appreciate that, but the 10% who do are gonna really appreciate it. And that's why I love a guy like Anthony being here and you didn't have to talk to him because we're not just like video game nerds.

Yes, we are, but there's a lot of sports here. I was gonna say that Ben diagram is a heavy overlap. It is a flat circle, yeah. But you know, you talk to Anthony and like, I'll see you play Ben diagram is a heavy overlap. It is a flat circle, yeah. But you know, you talk to Anthony and like, I'll see a play or I'll see a formation that I haven't seen before and I'll be, hey Anthony, what's this?

30 minutes later, he's giving me the full breakdown of the coach that invented it, all the places. Like he is just this blocking knowledge in his Rolodex of coaches he talks to just helps us make the game better. So I asked Lane Kiffin the other day if he got any approval over his animations. He says says no.

Have you gotten feedback from the coaches on their looks? Cause some of the, like I gotta say, Sark, you nailed, the hair is perfect on Sark. When I saw that for the first time, I was like, okay, that's him. Yeah, that, that. Like there's pieces about things of coaches to make them look like themselves.

And so most coaches have not seen their likeness yet. I think some will see that for the first time today, which really goes out. We have plenty more to go with that. But yeah, it was kind of hitting that piece of the authenticity and what they look like and trying to make the coaches feel like themselves. And how big was it to get coaches into the game this time?

Because, OK, they're big in the NFL, but coaches are a bigger deal in college football. Yeah. And so that was a big undertaking for us this year. We started with players last year. That was a conscious choice. We said, if we're coming back and we have the chance to put players in, that's the focus, don't put anything else in.

That's going to draw an eye away from it. Go with players first year. So we did that. Now we're coming back and adding coaches, head coaches and coordinators. Yeah. So I didn't realize it and you pull up the screen today and there's James Franklin and nailed James Franklin too, by the way. Or Keegan-Michael Key depending on if he's playing

James Franklin, but nailed James Franklin and then you're like, oh, but if you want to be Andy Cotillnicki or Jim Knowles, you can. Right, and that's so great. And also too, the addition of those guys, just to be able to play them, if you want to, sure. You have to take over as a program and have them as your coordinators, that's great too.

But the real fun comes in when you see how they show up elsewhere. So when you see, the real fun comes in when you see how they show up elsewhere. So when you see, and sin future years, you see where coaches wound up. And we were showing like Jason Candle. Oh, you had a stripper, Jason. When I saw Jason Candle, this was supposed to be, I think, five years in the future.

And Jason Candle's the head coach at Iowa, I was like, well, he'll take that. Like, that's perfect, that's his dream. So you see those sort of things. Like, you know, Alex Golis was at Penn State. It's so much fun to add that stuff was happening last year. Yeah, but you didn't recognize it because they were all fake names. Now you've got real coaches in there that you say,

Oh, where where's Dan Mullen going after you leaves you and LV like you can see in this game. Oh, yeah. I might go. And also you've added more levels of detail because as you pointed out to me when we're playing out there, somebody was playing at Florida State. you've added more levels of detail. Cause as you pointed out to me, when we were playing out there, somebody was playing at Florida State. And you're like, look at the New Duke Campbell Stadium and your alma mater is looking good. Before it actually happens in real life.

That's another fun part is some of the new pieces you see. You guys play a great game of, can you tell where this player went to the transfer portal? This game will make you know that so much better. You played this, you played the Ari game for a week and then played that? Oh no, we were playing whose's Team Is It Anyway with Ari before the game comes out

because I don't want him to cheat. It's so much harder. But then all of a sudden you start playing the game and you pick up and you're playing against a random team, you're like, oh yeah, that's where he went. Well, I know you are very busy. I have to go continue to my butt kick by Chris Finini in this game.

But thank you so much, Ben. Oh, thank you. Always a pleasure. Awesome. That has been Hal Miller. He is the principal game designer for EA Sports College Football 26 and one of our favorite people, one of our favorite listeners to this show. And yeah, are you're going to be invited next year either? Either you're going instead of me or we're going together.

Well, you can just drive so we should just go together. OK. But yes, your Florida residents is really coming. We're going to hang out with it. I think it's more like they want to make sure they're fair to all the outlets and they're not giving on three preferential treatment. So I got to I got to work on that and make sure we can both sneak in because it's an interesting crew because there's folks who do what we do,

like our friend Chris Finini and Robbie Callan from CBS. And then there's these YouTube influencers who just have these huge YouTube channels. There's like professional Madden players that come. It's fascinating to see the cross-section of people. The people who do our job, but also like Chris Finini's like covers the game, like it's a beat. So the video game as well.

And pro wrestling too. I will have to add that to our skillset, but. No, I don't think that's gonna happen for me, Andy. You go ahead. That seems like something you would get into You know the thing about pro I did I did as a as a middle schooler, but not not so much recently You probably are the type of person that like knows a bunch about wrestling anyway, just because I know Yeah, like you just like yeah, actually the Undertaker was born in Utah and yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna take his big Texas fan

I will tell you that yes,. See, you know, that's his Longhorns. Yeah, actually, I think I knew that too, because he goes with the games, right? Yeah. But also, that's, that's what I was watching. Like his, his peak was when I was actually watching as a middle schooler. So, but yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be fun. And the video game is, is absolutely like, I love the fact that now we have this thing that comes out in July, where I can be playing the game

and my wife can say, what are you doing? And I can say, I'm doing research for the show, madam. Does that play in your household? Sometimes. Sometimes, but the thing is my son will back me up on it. He'll be like, yeah, mom, he needs to see who, you know, he just needs to see how the, the Texas office is going to look with Arch plane. I, uh, used to tell Britt that, uh, I covered football at the beginning of our

relationship and she would stay off my case on Sundays when I was watching the NFL. And then she caught on. She goes, do you ever write about the NFL? I was like, no, I only cover college. And she goes, so is this part of your job at all? And I'm like, no. And then she put the gabache on that pretty quickly. She leaves me alone on Saturday.

She knows she's gotten to that point where she knows I have to do what I have to do, but very short leash for NFL consumption in my household in the fall. Yeah, you just need your daughter to become a massive NFL fan, then it's just bonding. It's not gonna happen. I hoped it would, but it's not.

I already know. Oh man. My wife's in Paris right now and my three year old's asking her to bring her home makeup and high heels. I think we're gonna- Right, yeah, I think you're done there. Yeah. I can probably fly my son out every once in a while if you need, if you need a dude to watch games with.

He can come out and we can just like bro out, you know, he has lots of takes on the NFL. So yeah, I can't compete with his NFL. When you watch the NFL, you're just being a good dad. When I watch the NFL, I'm being a bad dad. As it turns out, I'm an amazing dad between January and August, and just a deadbeat dad from August to January. I don't know how that works for you. That's it, we gotta figure out how to get Liv hooked.

We'll figure it out. It's not too late. She's not even four yet. We can make this work. Yeah, I'm hoping. Because doesn't your daughter have some interest in college football? Not in the least.

Oh, I thought that she was really interested in what you do and will watch the games and try to get closer to you. She's interested in what I do. She does not care what happens in the games. She wants to be on a show. She wants to be a star. But probably not talking about college

football. Yeah. Well, if we want to start a site like an offshoot Taylor Swift podcast, she's our girl. Oh, that's speaking of that breaking news. My daughter has now found Taylor Swift and it's happening. There you go. Well, Taylor got her her back catalog back. So three hundred sixty million dollars well spent. Is that what you want? I was OK. Good. Well, for those who need a programming note, a little offseason programming, stay tuned in two thousand twenty eight. We'll have a a fully formed Taylor Swift podcast along with this show.

I'm sure there probably is a Taylor Swift podcast along with this show. I'm sure there probably is Taylor Swift podcast out there that just, you know, crushes it. Well, there are, but we can do it better. Yeah, yeah, I'd have to. We're coming from a much more competitive environment in the college football space. That's right, that's right. All right, smooth segue, smooth transition. I can't do it. I

can't do a smooth. But I was hoping to figure it out. I was trying. I just couldn't. I just couldn't. I was going through the different Taylor Swift song titles and lyrics and and there really is a Taylor Swift lyric for everything. I got one for you. We're almost 22 minutes into the podcast right now. So if you're watching on Twitter, please switch over to YouTube. We're going to get into the meat of this USC discussion. Did I do there? There you go. There you go. And we could use 22 for

that too, because 2022 was Lincoln Riley's first year USC was also his best year at USC. And it's gotten progressively worse each year. But, but if you are watching what's going on in the class of 2026 in the recruiting, you are saying the Trojans are doing something different here. They just got a commitment from Mark Bowman, the tight end from modern day modern day is a massive powerhouse high school in Orange County, California in Santa Ana,

where USC used to get a lot of really good players from. And it has not been as fruitful a pipeline recently, but Mark Bowman is a five star tight end, six, four, two, 30, number one tight end in this class, number 12 overall prospect in the on three industry rankings. He just committed to USC. They've got a D tackle from modern day who they flipped from Oregon. Tomohini to Pui. The class is currently number one in the class of 2026.

It's one of those that we'll see as more classes fill up here in the next month or so if it stays number one. But Ari, if it stays intact, we're looking at probably a top five type class, right? Yeah. I mean, like the thing that you have to look at when it comes to the recruiting rankings in June is what the average player ranking is. And like that is more revelatory than the actual ranking because you obviously get more. Right, this class has a lot of players in it relative to some of the other places that that usually have

high rank recruiting classes. The USC class ranks number one overall because it has 27 commitments and every other team in the top 15 has between like five and 16 is the second highest. So they're going to be number one by default and have a higher score. But the thing that you want to see is the average rating. That's the average rating per player and they're at about 9050 and like team like LSU whose number two has 9322 average rating and you

know a lot of teams, you know, round out the top tenor in the 91 92 range, which is a significant difference in terms of average of the quality of the player, but they have done a really good job and I think I counted up yesterday that they had seven players in the top 200 nationally in the industry ranking. So like I, they are getting a good class and we had a long discussion to Andy of what it takes to actually compete at the highest level in this year's college, in this day's college

football. And I don't necessarily believe that you have to recruit the same level of superclass that you had to in 2017 in order to get to where you need to go, especially if you are a USC fan or, you know, truther. So anyway, they put this commitment out and I tweeted about how that's what you want to see the five-star tight end from the local high school you know committing to your program is the is the Secret sauce I felt like and I got two messages and River if you can put that back up for me for a second From other media member personalities, and I didn't want to reveal them because I don't want to you know blow their takes

I'm sure that they'll you'll tell them on their own shows or on their own Twitters. But the first message, and this all happened within like five minutes too, read USC's recruiting class is going to crumble like Jenga blocks. And then the next message, which came like two minutes later was,

USC is about to be back. Offensive genius coach that people left for dead, retooled defensive staff commitment to NIL and it's in Los Angeles. And it's like for me, three years ago or four years ago, I was person two. You know what I mean? And last year I became person one. But now I don't know what person I am because I do still love what USC has in terms of the ingredients of being great. It's the same stuff that I believed in before, which is coach that is an offensive genius.

I don't think that Lincoln Riley all of a sudden stinks as a coach. I don't know if I have the same faith in him as a program builder as I do, or as I did before, but I have the same faith in him to put together an offensive, you know, juggernaut. I think that that is a bona fide set in stone skill set of his. You don't luck your way into four Heisman finalists. You just don't. Okay. You know, and part of that is recruiting, but also part of that is doing, you know, your job once they're there to get them in that position. They're in California, which is a very fertile recruiting ground. They are a sexy program, in my opinion. I feel like playing at USC is cool.

They've got some of the best uniforms in the country. There's a lot of things to like. And I think the hardest thing about college football, at least traditionally, and I think that's changed a little bit the last few years, is that going to a place and how hard a job is, is really based on whether or not you can find a clear and identifiable plan and not only find it but execute it. And USC has shown in the past that it can execute its plan by getting really good players in California and then piecing the rest of their class together nationally.

So right now USC is going into a year, this is year five, right? Is this year five or year four? Year five, right? This is year four. I'm sorry, year four of Lincoln Riley. Year four of Lincoln Riley, sorry, but year five or year four year five, right? This is your four. I'm sorry You're four of Lincoln Riley your four of Lincoln Riley Sorry, but like year five of him like kind of being in the USC like in terms of the calendar And like you don't want to see a team that has that much Potential get worse every year and now you're coming into the year. And what do you feel like they're a

Middle of the pack big ten team from an analysis standpoint heading into the year and what do you feel like they're a middle of the pack, big 10 team from an analysis standpoint heading into the year. People think that they're between six and eight probably in terms of best Vegas has them at seven and a half, right? So what that's right in the middle. And it's like, that's not what you want to see. But then at the same time, you're seeing the ingredients of what makes a program great, which is getting a five star tight end who has been compared to Brock Bowers away from Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and other teams.

So like to me, it's puzzling because like I have been as down on USC as anybody in the country because I had a hard time at the end of the football season saying, hey, what is the thing if you're a USC fan that you can latch onto and feel really good about as it pertains to the future?

Husson Longstreet I think might've been one and feel really good about as it pertains to the future. Um, who's on long street, I think might've been one thing because she had a five star quarterback to come in. You know, you feel really good about that, but like we didn't know what the program's identity was. The defensive, you know, Renaissance was good. Um, in terms of going from one of the worst defenses from an elite level school that you've ever seen to a passable one, but you don't know that you feel really great about USC being a dominant

defense in the future. And their offense comes in without any bona fide, you know star players that that are up in the same conversations with the Cam Coleman, Jeremiah Smith, Ryan Williams, and that's not something that you would expect in year four of the Lincoln Riley era So like what do you buy into more? I'm very curious to know like what made you so fired up reading it? Do you buy into more of like, oh, well they're gonna go eight and four this year or seven and five and they're gonna lose their class or do you think something's different about this?

And can you latch onto something that makes you believe that Lincoln Riley isn't dead in LA? What is the thing I keep saying about Lincoln Riley? I don't know, what is it? I think he's too smart to not figure it out. Okay, he's 41 years old. He's still younger than most people are when they get their

first head coaching job. There's still time to learn and to build on the things that he does really well and fix the things that he doesn't do really well. And what we're seeing now for the first time in Lincoln that he does really well and fix the things that he doesn't do really well. And what we're seeing now for the first time in Lincoln Riley's tenure as a head coach is them getting top 100 players. Now I realize what happened last summer.

I realized that we need to get through these next few months and this class needs to hold together for that to be true. Because remember, there was a situation last year where you had Justice Terry and Isaiah Gibson and Drake Stubbs that were all committed and they were from clear across the country. Justice Terry and Isaiah Gibson were from Georgia and Drake Stubbs was from Florida and they all decommitted. They had all committed in a fairly compressed time and then they all decommitted. They had all committed in a fairly compressed time and then they all decommitted in a fairly compressed time and they all end up

going somewhere different. Justice Terry went to Texas, Isaiah Gibson went to Georgia, Drake Stubbs went to Florida. I get why someone would say, this class, what's the difference? Well, I think this one's gonna stick. They've made some changes that should help. They hired Chad Bowden away from Notre Dame as the GM. They certainly seem to be in the mix for a lot more people who are difference makers. And that's been the problem for Lincoln Riley

throughout his tenure as a head coach. He'll get the QB, but they don't necessarily get a ton of difference makers on both lines of scrimmage. They're not getting, you know, they're just not getting the level of player that say Georgia or Ohio State or Alabama gets. And when you, you know, when you had your initial vision of what USC would be under Lincoln Riley.

Ari, I know you thought that they would recruit like those programs, but they didn't early on. They didn't seem it's, I don't know if it was, they weren't trying that hard or those people just weren't interested. And look, I realize we're gonna come to the NIL piece of this. So clearly USC is competitive on the NIL front with this, this stuff, but that doesn't mean much of anything

because Oregon's competitive on the NIL front. So is Texas, so is Georgia, so is Alabama. Like maybe it means that USC has decided to compete with the likes of them. And if that's the case and they get those kinds of players, I think there's a really good chance that they can be better. Now, here's where that contract

is gonna help Lincoln Riley. Because as good as this class can be, if it holds together, it can't help them until next year at the earliest and probably not really until 2027. So does that mean you're gonna have more seven and five or eight and four between now and then, which probably isn't gonna be that satisfying, but the sort of good news bad news is you can't afford to fire him so... Yeah you're kind of into it. You got to wait till these dudes get a chance to develop and

guess what that might work. Yeah, so here's the second curveball and you read the story so you know where I'm headed with this, but Charles Power are one of our scouts at on three wrote a really interesting story back in May May 9th. My dad's birthday. Happy birthday dad. Why high school football factories are producing tons of recruits, but few NFL draft picks. And I think it's a very interesting thought process because two of the most important schools in the footprint of,

you know, USC's build our football factories, right? You have, you know, Matter Day, which is where Bowman goes, and St. John Bosco, right? Like, and, or DJ you went, or DJ you went and you and he went in for reference, here's the track record of blue chip players from 2016 to the two 2021 recruiting cycles, and the subsequent NFL draft picks used in the story that he had. Matter Day, during that period, went to of four with five stars drafted and O for 12

with four stars drafted, which is an insane, insane number. Percentages of four stars that get drafted. Yeah, O for 12 is insane, okay? And then St. John Bosco, one of two five stars drafted. And by the way, if you're a five star prospect and you don't get drafted, something went by the way, if you're a five star prospect and you don't get drafted, something went terribly wrong. Because if you're a five star prospect, you're just a physical freak that will get drafted

based on potentially, even if you don't have a great college career. And then St. John Bosco had one of 11 four stars drafted. That means three out of six, which is only 50%. And Cody Belair said, I think it's 66 or 70% five star draft rate. And then one of 23, four stars, which is absolutely utterly insane, Andy. And you have to go into the question of.

This isn't the entire state of California, but there have been people who have theorized this for a long time, which is even though players who go to these powerhouse programs in the state of California are ranked equivalent, it's their equivalent to a lot of the players that you'll get out of the South, whether or not they're actually built in good enough to play college football at a high level and ultimately get drafted. And if your recruiting ground is not as good as the data represents, then that could also lead to problems. So it's just like,

on one hand, they just got a five star prospect from one of the schools that we just mentioned, but their five star prospect, four star prospect draft hit ratio is low. So you can get super excited about them getting those. And I felt like the reason why USC would be awesome is because they would own Matter day in Bosco. But

even if you own them, is that enough like and that that that drives me crazy because that scares me. It's like even if you do the clear and identifiable plan, there's no guarantee even at that point that you're going to get to where you want to go because the public high schools in Georgia just might have better college players there and I don't know if there's a way to quantify it. Well, the one way I like to look is who else is recruiting somebody really hard?

Because if people that you know are good evaluators are hard after somebody, then you should feel fairly confident. You know who was after Mark Bowman the hardest? Georgia. Other than USC? Texas and Georgia Kirby smart does not give a crap what we rank somebody does not care has a great reputation of

sure, he gets the five-star guys, but he also goes and offers lad Lad McConkey who nobody seems to want and Kirby see something special. And oh yeah, he's right. So the fact that Kirby wanted this dude real bad, I think it was a good chance he's pretty good. I was, there was an offensive lineman that Florida got a commitment from over the weekend. And it was one of those things where, oh, he's a three star. And then somebody in the message board points out,

but look at the offers. And it was like Georgia, Alabama, Clemson. It's like, Oh, okay. So maybe this guy's slightly under ranked. I don't know. Mark Bowman is probably not under ranked even though he's a very highly ranked player because everybody went after him the same way. Like you don't see anybody, like Oregon offered him to Ole Miss offered him. Like everybody offered him. Everybody who's anybody was working hard to get him. I think this is probably a very good player. Yeah. And I don't want to turn this into a conversation of whether or not Bowman himself is going to be good because I understand what you're saying

and and to point out like Charles's story was not all about California schools. It was about the big factory school. So IMG Academy, which is in Bradenton, Florida, Bish Gorman in Las Vegas, Grayson High School in Georgia. So it was the ones that just pump out players year after year. And look, I think that it's natural that when you've had that many players go on to successful college careers, of course, more college coaches come through every spring practice. Your players do get exposed more to to those

coaches and yeah, they're going to get recruited more than players somewhere else. So but then there's the other things too. The other is the other thing too of just our California players in general is good. Well, that that's a different question entirely and and like I always get in trouble because I always talk about the Florida player versus the Georgia player versus the Texas player. And you know, the California players are good. The thing about like Georgia and Florida always were better per capita, like Louisiana was

always better per capita. California is just a huge state. It's the most populous state in America. There's a lot of people. So there's therefore gonna be a lot of good football players, but you actually have to pick through a little more carefully in California because there's just more people.

Yeah. Also too, Bruce Feldman and Tony Morales, the athletic wrote the story a long time ago, I think two or three years ago, but there's no linemen in California either, which is a major problem. You know why? Everybody's too healthy. Everyone's too healthy and there's the beach. I did it. I did a story years ago. I want to say this is 2010 because I'd asked Chip Kelly when he was the coach at Oregon, what's the hardest position to recruit or to find good players at? And he said, finding a ready-made defensive tackle, like a guy who can come in and play right away, those people hardly exist.

They're very rare. And he said, especially on the West Coast, it feels like they're all in the South. And I called anthropologists, I called sociologists, I looked at all these different demographic data. You know what, did it, you know what, overlaid perfectly? I took the hometowns of every defensive lineman in the NFL and made a map. I found a map that matched it perfectly. What was it?

The obesity map. See, that doesn't make sense, Andy, because the best offensive lineman are big but also freaks. Are you saying the freaks in California play linebacker? Because they're too healthy. What I'm saying is the places

where there more fat people. Most of their kids are going to be fat too, but sometimes their kids are just big but not fat. That's the free. There's no correlation between general natural size and obesity. No, but if you are a larger person in general, bigger is bigger.

I know, but being- You meet bigger person. But being fat- Bigger people tend to hook up with bigger people. I mean, maybe that's true, I guess. I don't know. I don't think that like if you're an overweight per like I'm an overweight person. Very less so than I was a year ago. I'm just telling you the obesity map match perfectly.

I know I know it's wrong, but I bet if we did it again in 2025, it would still work. There's no correlation between obesity and the size that you're supposed to be naturally. Like being obese is you put on extra weight on a regular sized frame. What I think actually is happening is that the lifestyle and the health standards and the just generally wanting to look good in California is different. So if you're a big person or a big freak that came from that you need to look up Lamar.

Ari you're you're like Lamar. Lamar's the person who thought that brachiosaurus is had long necks because they had to stretch to get the good leaves on the trees or or die or giraffes had a stretch to get the good leaves on the trees and their necks elongated. or or or giraffes had to stretch to get the good leaves on the trees and their necks elongated. That was Lamarck. Darwin got it right. Darwin understood that the longer necked giraffes mated with longer necked giraffes

and survived to mate with longer necked giraffes because they could get the leaves that were higher up on the tree and thus more likely to survive. I think that you're more likely if you're an athletic big person. That's evolution with Andy and Ari. Yeah, I didn't know who the other guy was. I knew who Charles Darwin was. You don't know LeVarque because he was wrong. Well, you know him because you're a freak. But the thing that I wanted to say though is that if you get,

if you're a big person in California, you're more likely to play tight end or linebacker because you're athletic and healthy. Whereas if you are a big person in Mississippi or Mississippi or a place that's higher on the obesity map where that you're not California cool and wearing quick silver, then you're more likely to lean into getting bigger and bulkier and playing off. I don't know, like there's got to be a theory. There's no, there's no, what is the other reason? Like is the population in California generally smaller and less athletic? That can't be true. I doubt that. I don't think it's a case of like the Balkan states have taller

people in general than other places., I'd say our population in America is somewhat normalized. I don't think there's, it's that different from one region of the country to the other. Well, let me ask you this. Who was that offensive lineman that was like five, like 350 pounds and was doing box jumps that could qualify him for the Olympics

that he was on Alabama. I can't remember his name. Well, Tristan Werfs who played at Iowa could do that. Yeah, no, but there was one kid at Alabama and he was very nice kid. I just, his name is escaping me right now. He played at IMG. He was an offensive tackle. He just got drafted. And he was like 350 pounds and jumping higher than DBs. Evan Neal. Evan Neal. Evan Neal. That's right. Like it doesn't matter where that guy's from. And I actually would find it offensive if matter where that guy's from. And I actually would find it offensive if you compare that guy's athletic ability to the obesity map. Like

that guy was just a freaking nature. Well, he's from Florida. So those people don't tend to exist in California. You, uh, went to journalism school. I went to journalism school. Maybe we'll next week we'll have somebody on from the biology department at Harvard to try to bring the, but like there is a reason. I know he went to IMG, but what I'm saying is he's actually from Florida. He's from South Florida. No, I know, I know.

But what I'm saying like, why don't those players exist at the same rate in California as they do in Texas, Georgia, Louisiana. It's time to redo that story. It's time to redo that story. But it's a biological story. Well, I'll give you an example. Like sometimes there are easier explanations. Like why does the Salt Lake City area have so many good defensive and offensive linemen that come from there?

Well, it's simple. The Mormon Church, the Mormon Church proselytizing Polynesia, convert people to Mormonism. A lot of Polynesians moved to Salt Lake City and therefore there's a larger Polynesian population in Salt Lake City. Polynesians tend to be larger people because anthropologically speaking, to dominate life on those islands over thousands and thousands of years, you had to be good at hand-to-hand combat. They were not a culture that had projectile weapons. They were a culture that relied on hand to hand combat. Therefore the bigger people survived and they are a bigger culture. So you're saying that the Polynesian existence from the beginning of time and hand to hand combat in their environments and in their

habitats actually was just an evolution to be great defensive lineman. Basically, yeah. They're like wrestling bears. If somebody in Tonga or Samoa had been like, here's the trebuchet, they might have been a lot smaller. But also too, like there's a direct religious and there's a direct reason for why that group of people lives in this area. Right, it's very easy to draw the line and understand why. California's a melting pot of people. Yes, and maybe that's it. Maybe it is more of a, not cult, it's a cultural melting pot for sure, but it's also just a melting pot in general of people from very different places who have very different genetic backgrounds.

And I'd say now you might be getting onto something and this is this is taking a turn that I did not expect this show to take. But in other parts of the country, the populations are slightly more homogenous and therefore you do get a more predictable end result as a kid. I also wonder if there's an economic thing to it too and I understand that there are some people who live in Southern California or a large portion of Southern California that aren't from economically gifted backgrounds but when you start talking about the types of person that makes up the bulk of the population who's able to afford living in LA, then maybe that tends to more of a mindset that

would want to play offensively. I don't know, we're just theorizing here. It's fascinating. Maybe I need to go back and do that story again. It was interesting in 2010, it seems like it's still interesting now. Bruce Feldman and Antonio wrote, There Are No Liman Here, two years ago. I don't remember what the numbers were. it seems like it's still interesting now. Yeah, I mean Bruce Feldman and Antonio wrote there are no linemen here like two years ago and like they did. I don't remember what the numbers were. I don't remember. And they talked to a bunch of coaches.

It was a very good story. Yeah, right. And it was a big deal and I think that you could trace and like that's the thing too of like Oregon's peak dominance of the Pac 12 and what they turned out to be like when Mario Cristobal was really humming there was because their offensive lines beat the crap out of everybody and could like hang with Utah and USC would lose to Utah every year because they didn't have enough linemen to keep up with those teams. Right. And where did the best Oregon offensive linemen of that era come from? Salt Lake City. That's right. It wasn't California. Yeah, Penny Sewell's from Salt Lake City. So it's fascinating and that's as USC's coach something Lincoln Riley has to overcome and figure out.

But the good news is, if you go back to Pete Carroll, Pete Carroll was really good at recruiting LA and Southern California, but he's also really good at finding good players elsewhere. You know, they go get Nicole Roby out of frost-proof Florida. They get, um, why am I blanking on the running back from Louisiana? That, but they, they, they got great players from everywhere when they were. At USC. And, and I think there's a lot of people who grow up, who still grow up saying, you know, I'd love to go play in Hollywood. Like, so I think they have that. Now, the NIL stuff does change don't see why they wouldn't be able to recruit with all the big

the big guns of college football. I mean, yeah, you need more money to be thriving in L.A. too. I don't know. I actually have no idea whether or not NIL and the cost of living even is a thing, but you need to get paid more USC to enjoy. I mean, yeah, state income even as a thing, but you need to get paid more at USC to enjoy. I mean, yeah, state income tax is a thing. Like if you make a lot of money in NIL,

the amount you pay in state income tax in California versus the amount you'd pay, which is zero in Texas or Florida or Tennessee, or any of the states where they've changed the law to make it where you don't have to pay state income tax, if it's in IL. It's a big difference. There's a lot to unpack here and I think we should probably keep talking about this as we go forward. All right, Judge Andy, but what's your verdict with USC? Are you willing to believe? Are you in person messing with person? I'm willing to believe that a better future is coming, but it may take a little bit.

And so how patient are you going to be? And the good news and the bad news, like I said earlier, is forced patience seems to be in effect here. Yep. I don't think they can fire Lincoln Riley. They can't afford it. So even if he had what you consider to be a subpar season this year or next year, like you're still sticking with him. And the thing is if he keeps recruiting like this, you put together two or three recruiting classes like this, it will get better. Like it'll be fine. Yeah. So maybe it's possible and my hope is that I was actually right at the beginning about USC, but I was wrong about the timeframe it would take. We'll find out.

We'll find out. Ari, because USC people hate me. They hate me now and they forgot where I was three years ago. I owe you. They haven't forgotten. It's more just you remind them of how they felt and how they feel now. And that angers them too. and I don't blame them. Yeah. We have one more thing to talk about though because when we finished recording

Tuesday's show you pulled, great for those who don't know Ari's in his childhood bedroom right now. He's visiting his parents in Arizona. When we finished recording the Tuesday show, you pulled something out of your desk drawer. Can you show, don't open it, but show us the cover. That is the 2002 Girls of the Big 12 issue of Playboy, which also had the 2002 Playboy All-America team in it. Ari, how old were you in 2002? 14. Where did you acquire this magazine? I think I stole it from one of my friend's dad's. And it's just been in there. It's just been in my desk for 20 years. Yeah. So.

And shout out to my parents for not rooting through my stuff, by the way. Seriously. They just didn't change. Actually, I have an interesting story about rooting through. You've been out of the house for 20 years at this point. I moved out of the house. Come up. I know. I think they know it's there. I just think they just didn't

move it because they have respectful of my privacy. I don't know. Ari might want to see what was going on at Texas Tech in 2002. All right quick aside story time. And I don't know I'm gonna get fired but when I was 16 years old, my parents went out of town and left me at home alone for the first time for a weekend. And my friend and I and a few other buddies went to a strip club that we found out wasn't carting people, okay? We were 16 and like, dude,

we couldn't have looked a day over 15. Like there's no way that these people at the front door didn't know we were kids. You were like the kids from Super bad. You were like McLovin in the liquor store. Yes, like we looked like that. And I don't even think we attempted to dress older. We went to the strip club and whatever we knew that they would let us in. I don't know how we

got this information, but kids have a funny way of finding stuff out. So anyway, we go we have a great time. You know, first lap dances, all these things that you know, you do when you're 15. And one of the things that was there, there was a prominent porn star there that night doing an appearance. And you could pay 15 or $20. And back in 2001, or whatever, 2002 or 2003, you could pay 20 bucks, you can get a Polaroid taken with that person naked. Anyway being 20 being 15 years old I thought that was the coolest thing in the world because at the time she was a very recognizable porn star and I put it in my desk drawer and my mom found it like three years ago. Three years ago? Yeah. She can't even yell at you at that point, right? There's nothing to yell at. They were less like, what the hell is this? Um, and I'll tell you off the air what I was doing in the picture, but like I thought I was a badass back then and my mom had this Polaroid and I don't know, it could be in here still, but anyway, I'm assuming they knew this

Playboy magazine was in here. Anyway, it's funny that I stumbled upon it because it does highlight two of my most avid interests from when I was 14 years old, which is college football and girls. I just thought it made, like, when you held it up, it made me sadder to think about realignment. Yeah, the girls of the big 12, but anyway, so- Would they even do girls of the big 12 now? Or would only be girls of the big 10 in the SEC? Yeah, they don't do girls of the Pac 12, but anyway, so. Would they even do girls of the big 12 now? Or would only be girls of the big 10 in the SEC?

Yeah, they don't do girls of the Pac-12 anymore, which by the way, is probably the best option. Does Playboy even exist anymore? I don't know, does it? I don't know. That's how old we are. You know what I don't know? How are there still like porn DVD stores

that are open on the highway? Can someone explain that to me? Okay, I'm not. I'd rather not get fired today, so I will not explain. Understand like it's not even a sex thing. It's a technology thing. Who's paying money for DVDs or

pornography? Who's got a DVD player? They're in business and they're everywhere. You know, it's the same people who are buying the physical copy of the video game instead of just downloading it. Maybe it'll be worth some people just want a physical copy. So yeah, in 20 years, it's going to be really expensive to get a porn DVD. Who didn't play away have one in the national title in 2002? Who they have in there? Let's start here because I have to flip through this and it's going to bring back some memories.

But here is the All-American team. Don't open it. Oh, okay. It's just the All-American team. No, no, it's the I've got it. I'm going to show All-American team. Don't open it! Oh, okay, it's just the All-American team. No, no, it's the All-American team. I've got it. I'm not gonna show. All-American team. Let me read off some names from 2002's All-American team. This isn't just the Big 12, it's the entire America.

Clarence Farmer, running back Arizona. Brett Williams, offensive lineman, Florida State. Eli Manning, Ole Miss quarterback. It was kind of good. Kelly Washington, wide receiver, Tennessee. Tennessee, yep. Charles Rogers, receiver from Michigan State, who was an absolute dog.

Derek Dockery, the offensive lineman from Texas. Bernard Berrien, Fresno State wide receiver. John Stinchcomb, offensive lineman, Georgia. Damon Duvall, punter, place kicker, Auburn. That's a lexicon. Auburn, yeah. Al Johnson, center, Washington. Lee Suggs. Running back Virginia Tech.

Ontario Smith, kick returner, Oregon. You remember Ontario Smith. I definitely remember Ontario Smith. Isn't he the one that tried to bring the Whizinator through an airport? I think that might be, what's the Whizinator again? Is it like supposed to clean your pee for a drug test? I think it was supposed to be a a prosthetic you know. Oh, it's a prosthetic pee pee. So somebody so if you

had clean pee with you, you could you could push it out for this thing and people would think you were actually doing it. So that's electric. Okay. Um, Eugene Wilson, defensive back Illinois, Dan Dyke, athlete Georgia Tech, Brady James linebacker LSU, Troy Palamalu, defensive back USC, Aaron Hunt, defensive lineman, the coach is Mack Brown. And if you want to see old young Mack Brown, look at young Mack Brown. He looks spectacular. I'm holding my phone. So let me try to like show you without it looking weird. Oh yeah. Mac Brown. Okay. Um, we have Corey. If I, if I had an ad for this episode said Ari shows

you pictures from an old playboy, how disappointed would people be when they find out it's just Mack Brown? You want hot pictures from 2002 Playboy Magazine? Mack Brown. Mack Brown and pleaded khakis, baby. Let me finish though. E.J. Henderson, linebacker Maryland. Clifton Smith, linebacker Q.S. Defensive back Mike Doss, Ohio State, Sammy Davis defensive back from A&M and William Joseph defensive lineman from Miami. And this is

the year that Ohio State won the national title and there's only one preseason All-American from that Ohio State team that I think set an NFL draft record. So the Ohio State team that had like 40 future pros on it. Yeah, top 10 or the top 20 going into the 2002 season and River. This is how you know you weren't even born yet, probably, but he was alive. Texas was number one at 12 and oh Miami 11 and one at two.

These are the records from the previous year. And by the way, a nice blast to the past to Andy of like understanding how time cycle work like this is the preview in October of 2002 remember when people well the way magazines work is the October issue probably came out August 28th okay I don't know how that works but Tennessee was four wazoo was five Florida State six Vatek seven Ohio State was eight in the polls going into the year Tennessee was. They just lost John Henderson and Albert Hainsworth to the draft. So this is a lot of belief in Kate in Casey Clausen throwing to Kelly Washington,

which we still do in today's era, you know, blind trust in teams. Nebraska 9 Georgia 10 Marshall 11. I don't know how that what was going on there. I don't know. I don't wash was that Brian left which is time. I believe so. I was not on this list. I guess Eli Manning was pretty good too.

Colorado 13, Florida 14, Oregon 15, Michigan 16, Louisville 17, Syracuse 18, Oregon 19, Penn State 20. And there's some other colorful pages in here that I'm not going to show you, but it's. No, no, OK, well, you're not going to show the pages, but. What school when wins Ari's Big 12 championship from that year we know that Oklahoma, B, Colorado in the actual Big 12 championship game, but what?

What school wins Ari's Big 12 championship? OK, so you want me to go through it here and tell you which big who's the Big 12 champ? Yeah. Believe it or not Andy. Iowa State. Oh, I believe it. Hey. I don't have this magazine memorized to memory like I have to open it and look through it. This was like my Bible back in 2002. Anyway, congratulations. By the way, Anyway, congratulations. By the way, Byron left, which is Marshall stats in 2002. 4268 passing yards and 30 touchdowns. He did all right. I've got some sports illustrates in here. Here, I've got like an old one, like college football previews.

This one is from September of 03, SI's top 10. Look at that. Do you know how many cover or magazines you probably are on that are just stuffed in some random kid's desk right now? Have you thought about that? I'm happy about that. Like, that's one thing at EA, they had these kind of lockers set up to show

all the different aspects of the game and people's favorite moments from the game. And they had two SI covers that the people had signed. So it was Ezekiel Elliott from the game against Oregon when they won the national title, and then Tua Tunga-Vai'loa from the second and 26th game. And I wrote both those cover stories. And I was like, oh, they had them sign it, but not me.

You should sign every single one. I would, I would devalue the both of those covers, but yeah, I was like, hey, you know, I could put my neck in. Well, what if I take it to Sharpie to sign my name next to like, see, my name's right there. You should, you should. You, you are the reason that magazine existed. The girls are the big 12 though. I was, yeah. I think it had a pretty,

pretty storied history before I showed up. By the way, Oklahoma. Yeah, I think Oklahoma might be the big 12 champ. It's funny though, the big 12 champ on the field and off of it. Congratulations Sooners. Now, can you do it in the SEC? And with that we'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye.