Andy & Ari On3 - Brian Kelly DEFENDS Billy Napier ahead of the Florida vs LSU showdown in Baton Rouge

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Week 3 of College Football is approaching quickly, and on Monday, Brian Kelly defended his opponent ahead of the pivotal SEC matchup between Florida and LSU in Baton Rouge. After Billy Napier lost to USF this past Saturday, a question was asked to Brian Kelly regarding the Florida Gators head coach. Andy & Ari break down his comments here. (0:00-0:43) On Today’s Show(0:44-2:27) BetMGM(2:28-8:35) Intro: Brian Kelly defending Billy Napier?(8:36-14:03) What Brian Kelly said(14:04-27:13) Napier’s Status at Florida(27:14-28:35) Modelo(28:36-43:49) Matt Rhule’s Speech(43:50-45:31) Rhoback(45:32-58:53) Colorado’s QB room(58:54-1:11:59) Big 12 Officiating Crew(1:12:00-1:15:46) On3’s Megaboard(1:15:47-1:18:33) Dear Andy & Ari tomorrow(1:18:34-1:19:18) Conclusion: Subscribe to the On3 Sports YouTube! Next, Andy & Ari go to Lincoln, Nebraska, where the Huskers are looking to prove that they are not the same old Huskers of the past. Will Matt Rhule and Nebraska make the turn this year to prominence in the national landscape of college football? Andy seems to think they are on the right path. Later, the fellas head over to Boulder, Colorado, to go in depth on the quarterback room for Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes. After a big win over Delaware in week 2, the Buffs may have a new signal caller in Boulder for the season. What do you think? Also, some news out of the Big 12 regarding a game on Friday night: the officiating crew that worked the Missouri vs Kansas game this past weekend has been removed from its assignment on Friday night. Andy & Ari dive into this news. Send in your questions to Andy & Ari:[e-mail]@on3.com Our show is 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 sureyou 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. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Our show is sponsored by Rhoback, the most comfortable clothes on the planet! Use the code ANDY on Rhoback.com for a generous 20% off for all new customers through the end of this week. That’s 20% off all Performance Polos, Shorts and more with code ANDY This show is also sponsored by Modelo! Some things in life are just made for each other. Peanut Butter and jelly. Macaroni andcheese. Modelo and college football. If you’re watching this, it means you live and breathe football. All season long. You know what that makes you? A Full-Time Fan. Which means you deserve a Modelo. Because football wouldn’t be the same without you. Modelo is the official beer sponsor of The College Football Playoff. Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/Z3rSNuqAxpk Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail]

On today is Andy and Ari on 3. LSU coach Brian Kelly defends Florida coach Billy Napier ahead of their matchup on Saturday night in Death Valley. Is Kelly empathizing with a fellow coach in a similar position? Or does he just want Billy Napier to coach Florida forever? We ask the hard questions. Also, Matt Rule, halftime speech leaked. We'll talk about what Matt Ruhl said and why it means Nebraska is on the right track as a program. Plus, is there a new starting quarterback at Colorado? Talk about that and much more on today's edition of Andy and Ari on 3.

We have teamed up with BetMGM this season. We'll be using BetMGM lines to make all our picks. And we'll have special offers for our listeners each week. When you join BetMGM, you get access to a variety of parlay selection features. like same game parlays, live betting options, and more. If you haven't signed up or bet MGM yet, use the bonus code CFB, as in college football, CFB, and you'll get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with bed and GM. Here's how that works.

Download the bet MGM app and sign up using the bonus code CFB. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. You receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets if your bet loses. make sure use the bonus code CFB when you sign up. Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary with BetMGM. See Betmgmgm.com for terms. 21 plus only U.S. promotional offers are not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico.

Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler in the U.S. Call 8778 Hope N. or text Hope N.Y. 4-6-7-369 in New York. Call 1-800 next step in Arizona. Call 1-800-327-50-50 in Massachusetts, call 1-800 bets off in Iowa or 1-800-9-81-0-0-2-3 in Puerto Rico. First-Bet offer for new customers only, subject to eligibility requirements,

rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for bed MGM yet, use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Annie and Ari on three going to be a fun, fun week, fun, weekend. We've got all kinds of great games. We picked them yesterday. One of the games we picked, Ari and I were different sides of it. It's a tough, weird spread. It's a weird game. Florida at LSU, Florida coming off the lost of USF, LSU has beaten Clemson, did not look particularly great in the game against Louisiana Tech, but this is the SEC opener for both teams. Billy Napier is on the ropes. Brian Kelly seems to have his team where he wants it.

And that's why I thought it was interesting that Brian Kelly stepped in on Monday to defend Billy Napier, to defend the job Billy Napier is doing. I think, you know, for the Florida fans, they're pretty much out. But where is Brian Kelly on this situation? I thought, what he said was interesting because he should be able to empathize. He's in a very similar situation. Ari, were you surprised that Brian Kelly leaped to Billy Napier's defense? Yeah, I mean, I think that there is like, I don't know, like a brotherhood amongst coaches. And it's funny now because like Brian Kelly is out of it. But you know, we are what one possession away from him also being on, you know, in the hot seat. And I don't mean the hot seat in that he would be

fired but just like having to answer tough questions right and i and i think that um coaches are sympathetic to their peers when they're in that position because they have an appreciation for how hard the job is and they don't want to be in that position either um you know i think it's kind of a weird time because we i thought we were getting heel brian kelly after he jabbed a little uh at dabbo last week but you know i took it as two ways one we're in a fraternity of coaches we're going to look out for each other. Two, we're playing against Florida, a team that everybody's making fun of this week,

and if we lose to them, which I think is a distinct possibility, you know, the line is moving in the opposite direction. You know, you don't want it to look as bad. I thought it was a framing attempt to, you know, reallocate in the right direction some resources or thought of what's rational here. And I was not surprised to see this at all, were you?

I was a little bit surprised also because he mentioned Ed Orgeron in it and I was talking to somebody who covers LSU and they said they think this is the first time he has mentioned at Orgeron in a press conference by name and it's not like that's not a huge deal

it's just in the dynamics of that situation I find it interesting and maybe I find I I read too much into all these things. But I just thought it was really interesting. Producer River, I believe we have the clip because it was, Brian Kelly gets asked about Billy Napier and about Billy Napier's situation because obviously he is on the ropes once again.

He was on the ropes last season and certainly after the USF loss, very much in danger of losing that job. Yeah, but I know that LSU is also like feeling really good about itself, Andy. That's a good way to put it. The way I put it was probably not the right way. But like on the ropes. Ryan Kelly isn't out of the woods from being on the ropes, by the way. Like, I know that they're feeling good about the Clemson win, and rightfully so.

A lot of people feel like they're one of the three best teams in college football right now, but if they drop a few of these games in the first half of the season somehow, and they're sitting at two losses with a pretty tough schedule on the back half, he's going to be on the ropes too. He's not immune from being on the ropes. Right, exactly, because he, I think LSU justifiably has a higher standard at the moment than Florida does. Because LSU had a national title in 2019. They had a national title in 2007.

They had a national title in 2003. And I realize, Florida does have 06 and 08. But the fact that LSU did it in 19, in recent memory, makes their situation extremely different than Flores. Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember. Was it one or it was two years after LSU won the national title that Orgeron was out, right? Was it two years?

It was two years. It was 20, 21, yeah. So it wasn't quite as drastic as what we saw at some other places. Auburn fired a national championship coach like a year after in Gene Chisick. So like, but the standard at LSU is very high even after you win a title. So imagine what the standard is, you know, we talk about this idea of good, goodwill or, you know, equity in your position and everything that you can do from a winning standpoint to, you know, get the benefit of the doubt to get that equity within the

fan base. And LSU grew tired of Ed Orgeron very quickly after they assembled maybe one of the four best college football teams of all time. You know, I mean, think about how quickly the clock ran out on that. Yeah. And Ryan Kelly is on year four now and they're two and oh and they feel good and they beat Clemson. But if they don't make the SEC championship game this year or they stumble and finish nine and three again or whatever, on the ropes is exactly where he's going to be. And I think he can sympathize that situation because he's not immune or ignorant to his situation he didn't come into this season thinking that you know everybody was happy with him like he knows the score um he's happy with his team i think he thinks that this can be a

really good team but i know that i'm sure he gets a pit in his stomach you know thinking about what could go wrong if you turn the ball over in the red zone a few times in a game or you know your defense has a few breakdowns like it you know how quickly it turns and baton rouge probably quick quickly faster than other it can turn as quick as if billy napier gets off the ropes and beats the them this week because Billy Napier beat them last year. So that's probably where Brian Kelly's head's at. But let's play the clip. So Brian Kelly gets asked about Billy Napier. Here's his response. So Billy Napier, I know you know you have some experience playing against him. I'm wondering, I'm asking this in the context of, you know, a lot of people calling for his head down

there. You don't have to comment on that. But I would welcome it. Crazy. But what have you learned about him as a coach and what are you impressed with him? It's a really good football coach. You know, he knows his team. He knows what their strengths and weaknesses are. You can see it on film. He's building a culture that is fit to his eye in terms of what he wants to do. He's doing it his way. That's awesome.

I think that, you know, look, I came in here, right, and Ed was here. He won a national championship, right? But he did it his way, right? It was his way, and that's fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. That's the way he went. They wanted to make a change. I do it my way.

It takes time to put in your philosophy and the way you like to do things. I do them a lot different than Ed does. But he's still one, right? They asked for a change. I came. It takes time to make that change. And it's the same thing with Billy. Billy's come in after two or three other head coaches that changed the way the other coaches did it.

And now he's starting to stabilize that program. So people talk about whatever they want. crazy. It takes you what it takes. And he'll get that thing where he wants it. I think he's got it right now. They beat us last year. So, again, we need to worry about us, and that's what we do. I worry about what we do on a day-to-day basis and make sure we're prepared to be our best on Saturday. Was that considered a rant? Close. It was borderline rant? No, I can't do that anymore. They make memes of that.

Did I? I did the fake. I did the fake. It was a fake. Very self-aware Brian Kelly there at the end. Now, I sent this clip to someone at Florida, and they texted back. I envision him going back to his office and laughing as he watches it on replay. But I actually don't think this is a, I want Billy Napier to stay forever because I can beat him every year. One, they're not going to be playing Florida every year, most likely in the new SEC scheduling arrangement. it'd be twice every four years. Two, he did lose to Billy Napier last year. I do think he's legitimately worried about this game

because he watched the film. And Brian Kelly says this earlier in that press conference. He said, you know, you watch that film. Yes, Florida made mistakes, but they were only a couple of plays away from winning the USF game pretty comfortably. So I do take exception to one thing he said. Okay.

All right, go for it. And that is the illusion that the results of Florida are acceptable. Like, he already has it where they want. No, he doesn't. He said they already do. No, he doesn't. He has it where they are a 500 team every year, and that's certainly not good enough. And that's not good enough for Billy.

So I think that that's like there's ways of saying things. But when I start to try to step in on these podcasts, is when people say things that aren't true and what he said was. He does not have Florida he wants it. If Brian Kelly had gone 6 and 7, 5 and 7, 8 and 5 in the first three years at LSU, would he be LSU coach right now? I don't think that he would be, no. Yeah, and they would have paid like $70 million to make him not LSU's coach.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're right. I think they would have found the money. Like if he put those three years in the books, they would have found the money. yeah and you know we talk about tiers of expectations in the SEC i think florida is beneath lSU and alabama and georgia in terms of what they'll tolerate clearly um but there's also a limit and what they're tolerating right now is far below even the second tier of expectation like this isn't just uh you know we're not going to win a national championship every other year like

georgia but you know you still have to be competitive and you can't lose to south florida and you can't be under 500. I mean, it's just not there. And I don't care what illusion any coach is under in terms of how hard it is to coach in the SEC or how long it takes. It certainly does take time. It takes way less time now than it did five years ago. It doesn't take time, though, really when it's working. I mean, Florida is a good example, and I realize this is a different era of college football, but Urban Meyer won a national title in year two. And Urban Meyer won a national title in year three at Ohio State. Kirby Smart was in the national

title game in year two at Georgia. It doesn't when it's the right person. It doesn't take that much time. We've talked about this on the past, on the show in the past, and I wrote a column at the Athletic about this when Mel Tucker

was struggling at Michigan State, obviously I did not age well, but I did not foresee how his end would come. But when you sign these 10-year contracts and you're forced in to patience like USC is with Lincoln Riley and, you know, LSU is to a certain extent with Brian Kelly and James Franklin at Penn State. The question that I have is how many coaches, and I don't even know if we can answer this

because coaches got fired so quickly in the last 15 years that it's hard to like play the what if game, but how many coaches have had a start like Billy Napier of three underwhelming seasons at a place that has won a national championship in the previous, you know, 15 years before he took over and then turned out to be a successful coach. Yeah, so I got emails this past week from somebody referencing Mike Shashefsky at Duke. Boy, glad they didn't fire him. I was in preschool when that happened. I'm old.

That's not how the world works anymore. Nobody's going to get that kind of time. The only, how many, I don't know anything about basketball or his history. How many years did he get? I don't even know. Was it a lot? He got three or four fairly mediocre season, what you would consider mediocre seasons, and then started winning really big.

Because the only example in football that we can talk about from our era would be Davosweeney. But Davosweeney won the ACC early. He won his ACC division in his first full year as the head coach. He was on the ropes in his second full year as head coach in 2000. 10 and he fired his offensive coordinator who do you remember what that guy's name was uh i do but i need a minute you shouldn't we're talking about him right now billy napier yeah yeah so dabo sweet he fires billy napier at the end of the two thousand nine uh 2010 season that's right and and then clemson ascends so wasn't wasn't wasn't the a cc in 2011

He didn't take that long. Am I miss remembering this because Davosweeney, like in year four, I thought was on the hot seat. Year two, he was on the hot seat in year two, 2010. So there's no example then of coaches that got extra time that turned out to be great? There are very few that I can think of. Jim Harbaugh? Jim Harbaugh was really good out of the gate. He just couldn't beat Ohio State.

Yeah. Yeah, Jim Harbaugh. I'm trying to think of coaches that broke through after being on the hot seat. seat but Jim Harbaugh also like had 10 win seasons almost every year didn't he correct it wasn't like it was a complete failure or complete mediocrity there are very few examples of this yeah and like I think part of the reason why there were so few examples of it is because people were just fired so you never really had the opportunity to if you had a rough two or three years to start like Tennessee got into this mix right like they had guys there for two three years and they kept firing them and

hiring new people and I feel like all the hiring and firing and the church and Here's the thing about Tennessee. Tennessee is a great example of this. This is everybody, it's not unique to the Florida message boards. This is every message board everywhere. The second you start talking about firing an underperforming coach

fairly early in his tenure, now Napier is not actually early in his tenure anymore, but the second you start talking about it, is everybody's going to leave. The whole roster is going to be gone. What are you going to do then? Okay. Tennessee fires Jeremy Pruitt. Do you know what happened? everyone left

we were like this is going to be a six year reclamation project they are never going to get it back Josh Heiple won 10 games

in year two when it's the right guy it's the right guy so are you talking yourself into Billy being the wrong guy right now talking myself into it talking yourself into a place

where it's unsalvageable it's clearly unsalvageable I mean I would have said it was clearly unsalvageable last year. I did say it. I wrote that it has to end, and then they changed their mind

because they were going to fire him. Yeah, so you're actually a retro-rexamly going to be right. No, I can't take any credit for being right on this because I have been wrong, because I did drink the Kool-Aid after they beat LSU and Ole Miss last year, thinking they had turned a corner. Remember, remember how negative I was last off-season about Florida. And the Florida fans were mad at me.

They were like, you're way too negative. You're just, you know, you just don't believe. And I'm like, no, I just don't see how the roster's gotten any better. And then I'm taking victory laps after the Miami and Texas A&M games. And then they turn it around. I'm like, oh, crap, I was wrong. But you could. But I shouldn't have doubted myself because then I became wrong by drinking the Kool-Aid,

spending all off-season blowing sunshine up everybody's butt at Florida. And pumping up, you know, DJ Lagway, number one quarterback, all that stuff. I'm going to wind up looking really stupid for all of that. Yeah. I mean, I guess there's two avenues of this could look. Like, they could, like, what if they beat LSU? Like that, like. And they might.

And that is what makes this game so interesting because they might. Or they might beat Miami or they might beat Texas or they might be Texas A&M. What I don't see happening is them beating most of those. Yeah. So here's the deal with this. When you wrote the column that you wrote about how it clearly is not working after they lost to A&M last year and that you had seen enough, I actually think you could make the case where we can't take credit for it because I was on the Florida bandwagon with you in the off season. But you could make the case that you were technically right then. now something I can't take it I can't do it because I then became wrong and I don't mind

saying I but I don't I but I think I don't mind saying I was wrong about this like I'm going to get a lot of this stuff wrong it's an unpredictable sport yeah for sure but I think the point I'm trying to make though isn't that you should take credit for being right initially it's that if you think that in today's sport at any point if you get to that point with a coach like Billy Napier who has been in the program for three years or in his third season and you get to that point where this isn't working very rarely if ever is there been an illustration of somebody being wrong about that in the long term like if Florida would have come out and beat USF and it was a three point favorite or three point dog and they beat LSU and then he's their

long term then you would have been wrong about that what I'm saying is you got to that point for a reason and when you get to that point for a reason the mistake wasn't getting to that point the mistake was buying back in well and that's the thing i i've said this a lot this week and i think this is something i need to probably say whenever we see these situations because this is not unique to florida we're going to see this in other places too when somebody tells you who they are listen to them that's it so i think we unintentionally uncovered a thesis on the show which is if you're not good by by the beginning of year three you're not the guy like do you think that force patience theory is stupid now i don't i i don't think it's stupid because

one i'd never root for somebody to get fired like here's the thing if billy napier gets fired he's going to make a bunch of money he's like 20 million bucks 10 million do right away but down the line in that staff there's people who aren't making tons of money and they've got to find new jobs and they've got to find new schools for their kids and they've got to move and like i don't want that to happen to anybody so that's where i'm very conflicted on this stuff because it's going to happen it's a competitive industry people are going to get fired so but i don't ever want to feel like i'm rooting for somebody to get fired no i do i do but i do feel like there's a point a lot of the time and and i probably because i again don't want to see people get fired

probably started drinking the kool-lade again but yes there's a point everywhere and every program where you're like, yeah, we've seen enough. And I don't think you have to go very far to see what you need to see. Yeah, I think that it's funny because I was drinking Mel Tucker Kool-Aid. Like I thought, well, things are going poorly right now. But by year six, when they still have to have him as their coach, they're going to be pretty good. And in other situations where he had a normal contract, it wasn't a God contract, he would have been fired after year three and we never would have seen it.

I'm excited to see it play out with the long-term. because of it. And then I start unwel, like, wrapping some of the forced patients cases that I was using in that column. And it was Davosweeney, who we just talked about. It was Jim Harbaugh, who was very good. James Franklin is in that mix. And none of these guys were bad. So James Franklin, like, James Franklin won the big 10 in year three. Yeah. And it's not, it's not, that's the thing. It's forced patients to get over the hump with coaches that illustrated they could be really good. But there isn't very many examples, if any, that I can come up with with a coach being very, very bad or very underneath the standard of wherever he's coaching in the first two or three years who broke through and then won a national title. Like that's the thing about Florida.

Like we always talk about, well, they have to do X, Y, and Z for him to keep his job. But ultimately, the goal that Florida is to win a national title. So even if Florida wins nine games this year, that might give you hope. But if they won nine years, still, yeah. It's still not good enough in the long term. like is this the person that's going to get you over the hump to win a national title or is this a person who can go nine and three because going nine and three even if they would have gone nine and three and he saved his job if they go nine and three next year people are going to get mad again like that we just had a massive debate about whether kail and devore might get fired for a second nine and three season in alabama so yeah that's actually now you've got me like thinking about the entire theory of forced patients and i might be back into it it's like because i also feel this way about players um i know that there are people people who break out after a red shirt year and sitting on the bench two or three years. But for the most part, if somebody's going to be truly special, like Malachi Tony, for

instance, at Miami. How long did it take him to show up? How long did it take Jeremiah to show up? How long did it take Ryan Smith to show up? How many, how long did it take for Cam Coleman to show up? Now, I will say with players, there are guys who develop and there are guys who maybe need the right situation or that's more prevalent on the lines where you actually need the time physically to get up to speed. But I think like special skill position players, linebackers like Harold Perkins like immediately like how many I mean that quarterbacks sometimes need time to that's yeah not always but sometimes I think that quarterback is a good one but also quarterbacks in my opinion for the most part should never start right away so right for the

quarterback I think we're going to have that discussion tomorrow by the way yeah okay I'll shut so here's here's the thing with Florida with LSU but mostly with Florida I wrote this in a column yesterday, and I truly believe this. A lot of Florida fans are like, why don't they do something now? You don't need to do anything now. The schedule will take care of this. The schedule is what it is. It is very hard. And either he will go on a miracle run and give you what you want and you'll keep him, or the schedule will tear him to pieces. Either way, whatever is supposed to happen is going to happen. And you'll probably have a pretty good idea by the Georgia game, what's supposed to happen. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think the

question is, is what's the point of keeping him? It's like, what is there in this world of roster assembly, what is there to gain by firing early? Like, in the old days, there's something like, if you fire him now, what, aside from maybe saving some money in, you know, buyout months, which isn't significant at all in the entire course of a buyout. Yeah, because he's getting like 75% of his remaining salary anyway. Yeah, he's getting it anyway. So what does your team, your program have to gain by at least letting him run it out? I don't think that there's anything to lose by keeping him.

Right. And that's- Because back in the day, you used to worry about like, okay, well, if you fire a coach, you want to give him as much time as possible to get a recruiting class together. You know, like, and that's kind of out the window now. And it's still important. And we'll see. we don't really know where the transfer portal timing is going to be this year because the

football oversight committee just passed you know they want it to be one window in January the committee that's supposed to approve that meets in October they may or may not approve that for this year like nobody knows that's a big boom for podcast industry by the way if we can get one in January like the Monday after the two days we're not have to do it in December when we're talking about lots of playoff games when there's only like three playoff games left I think yeah I'm all for that's the one thing the NFL figured out right separating the competition from on the field and the competition. Also, it's probably better for

the coaches and the players. Yeah, everybody. Who loses it? Probably better for the coaches. Who loses in that scenario? No one. All right. Well, we like that idea and not just for our own selfish purposes. Does you know what we love, Ari?

Modelo. I think a lot of people, a lot of Florida fans and LSU fans cracked a cold medello after those games on Saturday night because the Florida fans are just trying to, you know, wallow in their own crampulence. And the LSU fans are like, wait,

is the offense good? I don't know. But that's the sort of thing you ponder with the medello in your hand, because Medello is the official beer of college football. It's the perfect reward for your fandom. It's the official sponsor the college football playoff, the place everybody's trying to get. If you're

listening to this, you have been recruited, and it is time for an ice cold reward. And that reward is a lovely, lovely medello. Nothing like taking some time cracking open the can flipping open the bottle

with peeling back the foil like it's a special gift and thinking about where your team's at. If you're listening to this, it means you live and breathe football all season long and that makes you a full-time fan which means you deserve a medello. So tonight, as you think deeply about where your team's at, where your coach is at, crack a medella.

It'll help you ruminate. All right, Ari. We've got to talk about a leak. Nebraska's got leaks. Leaks. Now, Will Compton, proud Nebraska alum, co-host of Bustin with the boys, posted this leaked Matt Rule halftime speech from the Akron game. Nebraska at this point

was up 33 to nothing against Akron and all the Nebraska fans saw me tweet about this last night and thought I was making fun of Nebraska. I was just making fun of bleeps and leaks. I love what Matt Rule was saying here. I love this. This gives me even more confidence

that Matt Rule is going to have a Matt Rule year three this year at Nebraska. So producer River, play that clip. Maybe I just have a different standard. I don't like that freaking moving the ball. They're dropping back at the end of the half. Like, we're on the side as me and John are saying, they'll take a knee here.

They'll run the ball. They don't fear you. They don't respect you enough yet. And if that sounds like coach beat, then you have the wrong brain. They're dropping back against our starting defense. They're cutting our own line at the end of the half. All you young guys are, just go back there and chill.

I want my opportunity. Some of you guys are getting an opportunity right now. I told you, I'm going to get an opportunity right now. I told you I don't care what the score is. I told you I care what the tape looks like. Did I trip when the ball was fumbled? No, I don't care what happens in the game. I want to see what the next play is.

You have one half. Defense, you have one half. If they tried to drop back and throw it and that quarterback's on the ground, I want new guys in there rushing. I want them hit. I want them never to say our name again. You believe the fact that for 43 seconds left,

they just gave us the ball back. They're still dropping back. They have the balls that cunt you. After you guys get the goal, you put it down and score. You may be put the freaking red and the white in. And when you guys get in, you go play. I don't care what the score is. Troy told you shutouts are precious.

We almost gave them a shutout. I want them freaking, I don't want them ever to say our name again. That's the killer instinct I ask about. Not what does my hair look like? What do I look like in the freaking mirror? I walk in here, guys in the mirror checking themselves out. Got a chance of the shutout. You guys got a chance of freaking

hanging out of him and we haven't hung in a long time. We don't work hard enough to go take what we want. Go take what you want. You want to get in the game? DJ, you run your ass off on all those routes all week.

Now you've got a chance to get in the game made. If your brother and your brothers will put them away. It's about time people say, I don't want to schedule those guys anymore. I don't want to play those guys anymore. And if my stand is too high, then leave. And if you're with me, go out there

and do not. Do not. I don't want to see a smile. I don't want to see nothing silly. I want to see a bunch of guys locked in and wants to make a team quid. I don't know why. He showed you guys Bronx sale at the end of it.

You know what he said that guy? After beat him out of that viker gang. He said, look at me. Look at me. I did this to you. He wasn't scared to make sure that guy knew who he was. I did this to you.

When you're shaking their hand at the end of the game, they better have that look in their eye. You did it to him. It's supposed to be 33-0. It's supposed to be that score. Now, once a second. have supposed to look like. I'll see you guys on the field. I love it. Did you see the play? I mean, they're locked in. This is 33 to nothing against Akron. This is when everything, your attention

can slip. Everybody's locked in. They closed out the shutout. He's not wrong. Shutouts are hard to do. I don't care who you're playing. This is what Nebraska has needed. And we talked about this when they beat Cincinnati. And I realize they have not played the toughest competition yet, but I don't care because look at the way they are trying to beat people listen to what he's saying make them quit that's what nick sabin used to say make his ass quit and winning the games you're supposed to win playing the way you're supposed to play week to week is the hardest thing to get a team to do it is the hardest thing about a program build if mat rule has that part right and so far it looks like he does

you should be very excited about what is coming for Nebraska very excited. Yeah, I mean, I think that hunger is probably the root of all success, right, when it comes to playing college football. And, you know, I think that

keeping a high standard against the team that's not equipped to compete with you is an important step in the right direction because it trained you on how to play when you're playing teams who could beat you. You know, Nebraska, I think is a very interesting team, and, you know, I've been paying attention to them a little bit closer than maybe I otherwise would because Nebraska fans hate me at the moment, and I'm

really excited to see it. Oh, God, they hate me because of you. Like, I tweeted, I quote tweeted this, Will Compton's tweet, I quote tweeted, and I said, Kirby Smart leaked speeches don't have bleeps in them. And they think that was an anti-Nabrasca comment. I was just making fun of the fact that it was pretty clearly strategically leaked, which, by the way, the Kirby Smart when we play all the time from halftime of the Florida game in 2021, also very strategically leaked for recruiting purposes. Like, yeah, you want people to see that. You want prospective players to see what Matt Rule is like day to day, what he's like at halftime, what kind of program he's running. That's what you're going to get from him for real. Like, that's not the recruiting pitch. That is him for real.

when he is your coach, and you saw the result. And this has been the problem at Nebraska under previous administrations where they just could not get out of their own way, they could not win all the games they were supposed to win, forget the ones that they aren't supposed to win. They couldn't win the ones they were supposed to win. Now he's got them where they can win the ones they're supposed to win and win them in dominant fashion.

And when he talks about people not wanting to play you, like Nebraska, when I was a teenager, like we kept the Nebraska weight room like what their average offensive line bench press and squat was and their average D line offensive squat and bench press were like we kept them on a sign over our weight room because Nebraska was the standard period they kicked everyone's ass and everybody who played them knew they were going to get their ass kicked and that's what Matt Ruhl is trying to bring back and you have to you

like you can't do that to Michigan before you do that to Akron you know i'm looking at their schedule right now because a lot of times too when you see 68 to nothing it's like okay well you know whatever who cares like it's like i almost sometimes feel like the bigger the score gets the less credible the win is because it's just you know it's it's the team you're playing is so overmatched that like you can't draw anything from it but i'm looking back and i'm already at like 2018 i'm trying to find the last time nebraska won a game like this you're seeing what I'm saying here. Exactly. There's not, on 2016, they beat Wyoming 52 to 17, but there isn't a lot of like 68 to nothing. There's none of it. And they had, you know, 48, 9 in 2015 against South

Alabama, McNeese State 31 to 24 in 2014. It's been over a decade. I mean, I embedded with the Troy team that went up there and beat them. The last time. The last time they hung a score like this that i can see and it wasn't a shutout was against idaho state in 2012 when they won 73 to 7 so that's a 13 year period and they've played some overmatch teams in the last 13 years and it didn't happen that way so you know when you're talking about georgia or alabama like what alabama did to louisiana tech wait no that wasn't louisiana tech who did they play doesn't matter what they did so they played louisiana monroe sorry louisiana tech with lSU right Yes, and that was much closer than the home team wanted.

It doesn't really register because you see that from those teams all the time. I didn't really think twice about this until you brought this up, but I think that is a nice step in the right direction. And, you know, there's a lot of people out there that are holding on to me. Like, when we instantly reacted to Nebraska's season opening win against Cincinnati, I made a comment on this show about how, you know, Dylan Raolo, may not be the sensational player that we thought he could be coming out, you know. And they're holding on to that pretty hard.

So, and I don't know if you have changed your mind about that. I don't know that I have. I don't know that it matters. I think he has the capacity to be a good college quarterback, which that's what you need. I think when people have it in their heads that you don't like them, they like grasp at every single thing that you say and try to make it worse. like I have some sort of ax to grind against Nebraska. Well, here's the thing.

We're not going to come out and be like, you guys are going to win the national title this year because we don't think that's true. And I don't think you do it. We don't do that. If we try, like, if you listen to the show, I hope the thing that you can appreciate about us is that we're not always going to be right. We're certainly not always going to be wrong because we're right about a lot of things. But we're just doing the best that we can to give you real analysis of what we see.

And whether or not you agree with that, that's fine. But I'm looking at Nebraska schedule. right now, and there isn't a single team that I don't think they can beat until they go on the road to November, on November 22nd, and that's at Penn State. Houston Christian, Michigan, Michigan State, Maryland, Minnesota, Northwestern, even USC, that's looked really good. UCLA, if you're actually, like, instead of, like, yelling at us, now, you know what, yell at us, it's fine. I'd rather you yell at us than ignore us. But, like, the thought process here of, like, Andy, if you're about it, and Rayola's a god, and you guys are, go freaking do it now.

Like, this is, there's, this is a time to do it. But back to my point of they can now win the games they're supposed to win. Let's look at the schedule again. Which of these games would you say they are supposed to win? I'm not even going to say Michigan, but I think they can beat Michigan. In fact, we'll see how the picks go next week, but I'm very much leaning toward picking Nebraska to beat Michigan. Michigan State, they should beat. Maryland, they should beat. Minnesota is going to be tough, but I think they should beat them. That's on the road.

They should beat Northwestern. Don't know about USC yet. USC looks awfully good this season. They should beat UCLA. I think they should beat Iowa based on what we've seen from Iowa so far this season. So what does that make your record? I think I just, I think I just, I think I just a nine and three season and there are games in there that you could still win. because they're kind of toss-ups. Like you might have cooked up a playoff scenario if they win one of the toss-ups. Correct.

And that is what you want. That is what you hope for when you hired Matt Rule. And what I am saying is what you saw in that speech is Matt Rule giving you exactly what you hired him for exactly what you want. And that is you want to raise the floor first

and then you raise the ceiling. And he has raised the floor for Nebraska. And that is how you raise the floor. You create a standard and you stick to it. It's the same stuff we were talking about with Alabama last week. Now, granted, that loss of Florida State is maybe it's an anomaly. We don't know. But the difference between the Nick Sabin teams and the Kalin-de-Bore teams is that the Nick Saban teams didn't lose games they weren't supposed to lose. They played to a standard. And it was them against them. It was not them against the opponent.

What you saw in that locker room from Matt Rule and from the Cornhuskers was them against them. Was Matt Rule saying starters kick their ass enough that I can put the backups in? Backups, you're working your asses off at practice. You want an opportunity. Now's your opportunity. Go take advantage of it. Don't screw up the shutout for us. Like that's how you do that.

That's how you do it. Yeah. And for all of you who still have it in your head that like we are anti-Nabrasca. go watch videos from last year when Rayola committed go read columns even back at the athletic I was like basically had a corn husk tattooed on my chest when he flipped from uh what he flipped from Georgia I wrote an entire column about how amazing it is for like like your contrived viewpoint like I think if Nebraska made the playoff it would be freaking awesome it would be awesome and that rule is speaking of Georgia I love that guy here's why you don't believe

bleaked audio because the original leaked Kirby Smart audio not bleeped we bleeped because we didn't want the E on the show here's the bleeped version you know you is prepared for this for a 365 days I think about that locker room think about getting our opportunity all you went through this week to get ready for this game now is when you pay the price you go out there with energy enthusiasm take out ain't nobody this room should be cautious ain't nobody's room nervous about it. Go out here. Don't think about scoreboard.

Don't think about shit. You think about knocking the . If you hear what Box said on Monday, and I sat in, I wanted to get right then. Doors out here. Two years ago. I got a pride joy. Tell me you guys up, you're going to play the right way.

You play the right way. You're not. You stay out of the . You tackle the ball. It's easy. Look at the right. Put your shit on the office and kick your special teams, guys. It's about who we are.

I believe in you. Let's go get. I can't even hear what you're saying. I think that was a pregame speech. There's a halftime speech from Florida, Georgia, and 21, and this is equally profane. Like, one, he strings so many cuss words together that the beeps just keep going. But, yeah, that's why you don't bleep your leaked video.

just you know put it out there but that said what matt rule you to bring up to me and or like help me with he said something at the end of the video and i've watched it three times now and i can't pick up on it there's something about about like hurting somebody and then saying you're the person he's talking about a scene from a bronx tale okay a bronx tale that's right yeah yeah the biker gang okay it's coming now okay got it like yeah who did it i know hey matt rule is a xenophile like he's watched some good movies. And I think he's got some good examples as far as that goes. You don't make good movies anymore. This is another topic for another day. But yes, Nebraska fans, be very excited. Houston Christian coming to town this week. You're probably going to need an equally rousing halftime speech

because Nebraska should be mowing them down if you're playing to the standard. And then, of course, Michigan next week, and then it gets really fun. So let's see what happens. Ari, we're going to talk about Roebuck. I am wearing my Hezzy hoodie right now. You can get Nebraska hoodies. You can get Michigan hoodies. Roebuck has everything. Now, I don't know that the Florida folks are wearing them as prominently this week,

but this is the Florida Hezzy hoodie that they sent me. It is spectacular. This is the most comfortable garment in the world. And there's the Nebraska one right there. Look at that. That is beautiful. Yeah, R-H-O-B-A-C-K-com, rowback.com, hoodies, polos, quarter-zips, shorts, joggers,

you name it. Use the code Andy for 20% off your first order. Roback.com, R-H-O-B-A-C-K, use the code Andy for 20% off your first order. Look at that. We've got to get River, that kind of T-E-1, the black one with the power T's for me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got to get River.

Does River have that? Not yet, but we, you know, his birthday. is coming up. James his birthday. Same as your daughter's and mine. That's right. I forgot about that. Okay.

Well, I'll, maybe I'll get it for him for his birthday. We'll see. All right. So I am, I don't know, can we show the Nebraska one again?

That one's awesome, too. Look at that. That's perfect right there. Yeah. It's, the material is so soft that you can't even try to explain it. You just have to touch it.

That's outstanding. And so if you want to watch your Matt Rule halftime speeches and rep the Cornhuskers, that is the way to do it right there. Roeback.com, code Andy, 20% off your first order. Ari, let us move to a former rival of Nebraska. They're not in the same conference anymore. But Colorado, with a very interesting situation at quarterback. So Pete Thammel from ESPN reports that Ryan Stobb is going to be the starting quarterback

at Colorado when they play Houston on, Friday night to open Big 12 play. And we saw this play out during the Delaware game, which shockingly was on Big Fox because I know Dion Sanders sells, but I don't think they had a lot to choose from that day for Fox. But this was very interesting to watch because you saw Caden Salter start that game. You saw Julian Lewis, the highly tattered freshman, come into that game. And then Ryan Stobb came into that game. everybody kind of got an equal shot against a similar opponent.

And what Ryan Stob did, there's no guarantee that it translates against the Big 12 defense. But he looked awesome. He looked spectacular. And this is a guy who's been on the roster. He came in for Chador for a period in 2023. There was a game Chador got knocked out of. He played Utah. Yeah, and Ryan Stob played it.

And so he's been on the roster the entire. time. So Dion Sanders knows what he can do, understands him very well. And you saw the way they structured the playing time for this game. So how did it, how did it work, Ari? It was a couple series each. So Dion Sanders said that after the Georgia Tech game, that he prayed on the quarterback scenario. And like, if you were following Colorado, your thought process would be that he was, there were two people in that prayer, right? Like, uh, yeah, Caden Salter, the Liberty Transfer, who, you know, was presumably here to start for the year while Juju Lewis developed. And the other one, obviously, is Juju Lewis.

I don't think that anybody thought, myself included, that Ryan Stopp was a part of the equation. But basically what Dion Sanders said he decided to do or what he landed on was to start from the beginning, give all three of those guys multiple possessions and to let the tape tell the story. And I think Caden Salter looked, you know, fine. Like there's nothing spectacular. They were up, I believe, 10 to 7 when they were. they pulled him out. Then they put in Jujoo Lewis, who looked like a freshman, two for four for eight yards. He was sacked once, I believe. It wasn't like what you were hoping it would

look like. Then they put Stob in, and then by the time Stob came out, it was 31 to 7. So he through a long touchdown pass, I think it was a 75-yard touchdown pass, looked really, really good, was explosive. People were freaking out about it. Then after the game, Got the ball out on time. Can I, I want to point that out. Got the ball out in a very timely fashion. After the game when they were interviewing, that 71-yard past the sincere Brown was like really, really nice throw.

And Brown was wide open, but he put it right on the money, got it out on time. They were interviewing Stobb with Dionne Sanders on the field for the post-game television interview. And Stob said he had a dream for why he didn't transfer this. And why didn't you transfer? You could have left multiple times. like, why are you still here? You weren't part of the plans or didn't seem like you were part of the plans.

He said, I don't know. I had a dream. And I enjoy, you know, playing for Dion. And then Dion interrupted and said, yeah, he's like Martin Luther Stobb is what he called. Oh, my God. I don't know if you'd call that. Yeah. And he said it again in his post-game news conference.

But I thought that this was really, really cool because here's the thing. We were at Big 12 Media Days in Friscoe a few months ago. and Ju-Ju-Louis showed up wearing a $140,000 watch, okay? Right. It was a AP Royal Oak. And I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Otomar Pigay? Yes.

Sorry. And you pronounce it properly. I'm proud of you. You're not into luxury items. I'm not. I know more about luxury items than you do, and that is the only thing. I'm into lift kits. Yeah, you are.

You're the truck lifted up guy. You know, you want your truck, like, facing the hood of the, the... No, no, not squatted. Squatting's dumb. I don't want you to spot your truck. That's all that one. I'm not a 23-year-old who lives in Myrtle Beach. Have you seen those memes that say, I'm not going to tell anybody I've hit the lottery,

but there will be signs. Yours will be a squatted truck. Yeah, no. But somebody hit the lottery, by the way. I don't know if you saw that. A few people. I did. Two people, but let's continue with Caden Salter in his watch.

Or no, Jujie Lewis in his watch. Yeah, but what I was going to get at, Andy, is I thought it was, that if you're going to go get out a five-star prospect or a high-end four-star, and that's the person that's going to replace Shadour Sanders, and you want him to continue on what, you know, we know of Colorado, which is flashy, loud, exciting, and interesting, then you bring that person a Big 12 Media Day, and it isn't a typical succession plan the way that you would see at other places.

You know, in my time covering all these media days, I think you can count on, you know, one hand or, you know, at most two, how many true freshmen show up to those things. And I thought that was like a cool thing for Colorado to sell to future players to bring. And I think that there's this notion from everybody outside, including myself at times, that Colorado is going to be loud and flashy and that they're going to do things in a typical way and that we view Colorado's entire roster through that prism. We view it through the Travis Hunter prism, the Shador Sanders prism,

the prism of excitement, the prism of fame. And I think that we lost track or lose track of the fact that Colorado's roster, you know, at least two years ago, was very transient. There are a lot of players on this team from diverse backgrounds. And if you, like, look at how many players Colorado brought in over the course of the past two or three years through the portal, 85% of those players are anonymous. People don't know who they are. You know who Shador Sanders is.

You know who Travis Hunter is. But if you go ask the regular college football fan who their outside linebacker is, that transferred from, you know, God knows where. They don't know. And then I thought it was really special to see a player who initially committed to Colorado under Carl Darrell, which you would think would be completely, like, non-existent on this roster. Yeah, and basically, I mean, Dion, when he got there,

said most of y'all aren't going to be here. And a person... Which includes the guys who committed to Durrell. A person who committed to Durrell at the quarterback position between Shador Sanders and Juju Lewis and Caden Salter would have every reason in the world to leave. Why would you stay there? You're not of the culture that they are making

because you were there in the losing culture beforehand. You're young. You think you can play. Why wouldn't you go to a place that more illustrates? And there are so many players on this roster that did not leave or players that came in anonymously who have put in work behind the scenes and then allowed, once he got the opportunity and he shined in the opportunity,

I thought it's cool that the atypical guy that you aren't talking about all offseason is the person that's starting on Saturday. Can I tell you what Dion did that reminds me of Jim Harbaugh a little bit? What's that? So do you remember Jim Harbaugh going into the 2020 season? So they win the national title in 2023.

This is a season before. 2021 is when they break through and they win the Big Ten. Cade McNamara was their starter in 2021. J.J. McCarthy was a true freshman. going into the 2022 season, remember, Harbaugh splits up. They had a couple kind of early season, basically preseason games against overmatched opponents. And Harbaugh splits it up.

He's like, I'm going to give McNamara this game, and I'm going to give McCarthy this game. And then for game three, we'll kind of figure it out based on who performed well in game one in game two. That was Harbaugh giving the guy who started for a Big Ten title team a chance, but he knew what was going to happen. He knew that when J.J. McCarthy started, it was going to look completely different. And there's a reason J.J. McCarthy won a game on Monday night football as a first-round draft pick against the Bears last night for the Vikings.

And Cade McNamara plays for East Tennessee State now. Like, these are reasons. And Jim Harbaugh knew this. I think Dion Sanders, now he had a different situation because they opened with Georgia Tech. and then they have this big 12 opening against Houston on a Friday night this week. So the Delaware game is really their only chance to experiment. I think Dion Sanders knew what we were going to see. I think he structured it that way on purpose.

I think he did it in that order on purpose. And I think he knew what was going to happen because he'd seen enough of it at practice to know what was going to happen. And I don't know what this means for the long term. Pete Thammel reported on Tuesday I know as we were recording this show that Stobb is expected to start for Colorado

on Friday night against Houston. He has yet to speak with the media. I think he's scheduled to speak on Tuesday. He will have spoken. I think by the time this comes out, we're not going to say that he's 100% the starter. Dion can say that more than one are going to play still. But I think it's pretty evident from what I saw on Saturday

that Juju just might not be ready to play as much as we thought he would. And Deon made that very clear after the game. He said there's a lot of sense. stuff and he doesn't want to throw him in earlier that he needs to and then you don't want to couch him yeah you don't want to get you know and and i get it um but maybe that doesn't mean that he's done playing or that he won't continue to develop in games if and when those opportunities present themselves for colorado but the thing that i think is most interesting here is like what do you do with caden salter right like and this is a player that we knew or have seen play at a very

high level. But the biggest takeaway, more than anything, Andy, is that if this situation were happening anywhere else, this might be a footnote at the end of a show, if that even. And the thing that makes it so interesting about Colorado is that Colorado is a program that is filled with characters. You have Dion Sanders, the most famous head coach maybe ever. You have Caden Salter, the high level transfer that played at Liberty, who was effective during an undefeated season for another team who was supposed to start this year and kind of hand the reins over to the next you know great quarterback or the next colorado quarterback and you have julian lewis who on his recruiting visit has chador sanders handing him the keys in a photo right symbolic gesture and like

who doesn't want to you know if college football is an entertainment product and i was trying to explain this to somebody over the weekend it's like college football is more like pro wrestling that it is like the NFL because the story lines that happen off the field are so bizarre and so out of left field, you don't even really think about it. And honestly, I hadn't thought at all about Ryan Stobb for two years. I didn't even consider that this was a possibility. So the fact that we are in this position now makes it, you know, I don't know that Colorado is going to go win the Big 12.

You know, we've made fools of ourselves in the past, you know, betting against them and, you know, maybe they'll surprise us again and be there because, you know what, man, I know that Georgia Tech spotted them a bunch of turnovers at the beginning of that game, but Colorado could have. have maybe even should have won that game. And beating Georgia Tech in an opener would have been a hell of a way to start your season. Like maybe they'll surprise us. But like, what if Ryan Stob is just awesome? What he was just awesome for the rest of the year? And that's how they found their guy. It's entirely possible. He made a joke at the end of the call. It's like somebody, you know,

his time is now get him a diamond covered Casio. I think he should wear a G-shock just for fun. You know, some G-shocks are incredibly expensive. Like, there's some rare ones. I know. They've become a thing now. Just get the normal cheap G-shock and just, like, run for a touchdown and hold it up. Be like, yeah, this can take a pounding. Is the G-shock the official watch of college football coaches? And I don't know. Not like officially, but like a lot of coaches wear it, don't they? I have not noticed that.

I don't pay attention to watches as much as you do, but I will keep an eye on it. I don't know. Dude, there's an $8,000. G-shock round-cut diamond-pronged case to watch for sale at Tracks NYC, which is a diamond dealer in New York City for $9,000 if you want to go get that for him. Like that would be... I think he'd do well with the $100 one. I think that's more of the style.

So, Ari, this game is going to be very interesting. Colorado playing at Houston Friday night. This spices up the Friday night slate, for sure, with Stobb potentially starting for Colorado at Houston. Connor Wegman, former Texas A&M quarterback, is now Houston's quarterback. The Cougars trying to, you know, in their new conference, trying to establish a foothold. They were two and O. They've beaten Stephen F. Austin and Rice.

But now conference play begins and we see what happens. So another interesting piece of this game that came up on Tuesday. Tuesday morning, the Big 12 sends out an announcement that the crew, that worked the Kansas Missouri game. So it was at Missouri at SEC school, but Kansas is the Big 12 school. Typically in a non-conference game, the visiting team,

their conference brings the officials. So these were Big 12 officials working the Kansas Missouri game. They were supposed to work this Colorado Houston game. And they are not at this point. And we know that because the release said that they were scheduled to work a game, on Friday night, which I believe this is the only game involving Big 12 teams on Friday night. No, Arizona State are playing on Friday night. Oh, it could have been Arizona

K State. Okay. So we don't know if it's Arizona K State or this game, but one of those games, they're not working. And I wanted to get your take on this. So I'll tell you what happened. So basically, they are suspending the crew for missing one call in particular. It wasn't even a call. the first touchdown of the game, Missouri scores a touchdown, the extra point gets blocked. There was an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Missouri somewhere in there. I can't remember exactly where, but it required Missouri to kick off from the 20. So Eli Drinkwood sends out the punter to do the kick, which if you give up a safety, you see that all the time, or a team that gives up the safety instead of doing a standard kickoff from the 20, they'll punt from the 20.

but because this wasn't a safety, this was a touchdown. And so apparently by rule, you got to kick off in that instance. Missouri punted, officials didn't notice. They didn't do anything. And so they get dinged for that. Now, I don't think it was just that. I was corresponding with somebody at Missouri on Tuesday, and they said, hey, this was one of the worst officiated games I've ever seen.

It was called badly both directions. and so this feels like more of a cumulative punishment, but that was the one thing they could say, you definitely screwed this up. Yeah. I mean, I watched the game, but that's the one hard thing when you have nine games going at once.

Like, it's hard to really lock in. I don't remember feeling like, wow, there are a lot of bad calls in this game. That's not to say that there weren't, but there was no overt, obvious one outside of that punt where it's like that could have impacted. the result of the game that i can and that that didn't impact the result of the game it's just yeah i think that's the one clear thing they missed that the big 12 could get them on and

but i'm more interested in what you think about this public reprimand public discipline because it's not something we've seen from the other conferences the SEC like when i posted this this morning most of the responses were tagging greggsanky saying how come you don't do this in the SEC. Yeah. And they do, they do discipline officials. They just don't make it public. I mean, there's two schools of thought on this, which is publicly reprimanding an official then undermines their credibility moving forward. And the last thing that you would want is official's credibility to be undermined, right? I mean, there was a ref in basketball. And, you know, and I've never been, and who's the announcer or who are the refs of this game person. But in basketball, it's far more prevalent because of fouls. In college basketball, of all everybody knows TV Teddy Valentine everybody knows Doug Shows like

there are minor celebrities in the sport and that's what I was getting at like I Ted Valentine there was Ed Hightower I think was another one there are these refs that At Hightower is an NBA guy right No I thought he was a 90% He's a college guy yeah

Just from my brief three year stint covering basketball These were names are like Oh well Valentine's Yeah he's at high tower is a college Oh I remember at High Tower. Okay. I see his picture. Yeah. Was he theatrical with some

of the calls that he made and people were like he was trying to make it seem like the show was about him? Well, that's definitely Ted Valentine. That's Valentine. I'm getting confused. Ted Valentine never met a charge that he couldn't slide like four feet across the court to demonstrate. But at the same time, every single call that they make

as a result of the refs, like I think it's better if the refs are anonymous. I think it's better if you don't know where they're from or who they are. The less recognize a bit, like recognition you give these people, the less that people can come up with conspiracy theories and why they're screwing their favorite teams. Right.

So the public reprimand, I think, is good for the sake of, like, hey, we have a standard that we're going to uphold and you need to do it this way. But if those refs ever come back and their names get out there, then every single time they rep a game moving forward, you're going to have a swath of fan. Their names are out there, so you're going to get it. Yeah.

But I do think there needs to be some accountability. If you feel like the game was refereed poorly or officiated poorly, like you have to do something. And I will tell you, this is the hardest, job in the world. I have the ultimate sympathy for the officials because they have chosen a very difficult job. There's no way anybody's ever satisfied. You just get yelled at the whole time. But that said, you've accepted it, and so you need to do the best job you can. And if you do make egregious mistakes, punishment for those should be accepted. And people make mistakes.

I think people are forgiving of mistakes. And I was trying to remember, because I did remember once in the SEC in the last 20 years this happening and it happened in 2009 there was a public reprimand of a crew in the SEC and it was a crew that there was a Florida Arkansas game

and there was a really bad unnecessary roughness call away from the ball that Urban Meyer just went insane over and because that crew had also been involved in a controversial call that was wrong

a few weeks earlier, Mike Slive, who was then commissioner of the SEC, publicly reprimanded them and suspended them. But I haven't really seen that much in any of the other leagues since then. It's not been a really common thing. The thing that we have to acknowledge too is how much replay has assisted in their jobs. There are two penalties now that are really, really hard, right? And it's

pass interference, I think, in targeting. And those are like secondary-based because they're subjective to a certain extent. But like game deciding fumbles or was that a catch? Did they get their feet down? Like all the hardest things that are hard to see like in the moment. Because you know, sometimes when you're watching the replay, we don't even know if it's a catch after the replay.

Like let alone. You and I saw that twice in games in person. We saw that in the LFU Clemson game with Barry and Brown. And we saw it again with Nick Harbour in the South Carolina of Virginia Tech game where we're both like, hey, that's a touchdown. Oh, wait. I mean, I don't remember. You were a little bit older than me in watching football before,

but like how many times were games decided in 1996 because a fumble wasn't called a fumble when it clearly was? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The fact that you get to at least get turnovers and touchdowns correct, I think it's a huge deal. I will point out holding is the other one that they can still make. In the Monday night football game between the Bears and the Vikings,

there was a terrible holding call where the defensive lineman fell down, offensive lineman falls on top of him because that's what you're supposed to do and they called holding it's not it's not holding when you do that so yeah like the the new call holding and the the calls of holding are difficult um i think it's a way worse look when they miss a hold and they just don't see it than it is like over calling it but it is to me like i i don't really ever feel it's very rare that i feel that a game has been decided by a call and i used to think that was more common. So replay has certainly helped. But, you know, I can't stand when people blame refs when something happens unless it's like completely, like that Saints call that happened in the

playoffs like eight years ago. You remember that? There's a pass and a fair call, but like the one I can think of in college football, the last one I feel like really did affect the outcome of the game was that that Fiesta Bowl, you and I covered together between Clemson and Ohio State. There was a targeting call that Bosa changed the entire tone of the game. You know, game not on boza it was on a it was on a diva it was on a corner it was on their nickel corner and uh yeah the guy from jacks the guy from that fiesta bowl bosa got yeah removed from another fiesta for targeting yeah yeah no but that that one did feel like it changed the whole game you wrote a story about it was that your whole story after the game was over it was because i talked i talked to steve shaw

who is the the secretary editor rules editor for for all of college football now and he explained the call very well to me I really appreciated him taking the time to explain the call and it was one of those situations where they called it correctly by the letter of the rule but it was a it was an egregious

thing that it affected the game because there clearly was no intent to harm there clearly was no intent to target and it was just a frustrating situation it's funny because later in the game wasn't there a catch like that a Clemson receiver got in the flat that looked like a fumble and then

There was another controversial call in that game, too, that people say should have been a scoop and score. The column I wrote off that game was more a criticism of the targeting rule itself, that there needed to be some variation in it so that you didn't just toss a guy out of a game and completely changing game for a bad reason. Yeah, it kind of happened at the end of the Baylor SMU game, too. Did you see this one? I did not see that one. Sawyer Robertson was running late in the game. Or was it Sawyer Roberts? No, no, SMU was Kevin Jennings was running late in the game.

One of the quarterbacks was, and they were trying to go get into field goal range as time expired. And the quarterback slid at the very last second, like was in the middle, like ran through the middle of the offensive line, up the middle of the field. And a player dove at him and put his head down a little bit and ended up hitting his helmet against the quarterback. helmet and they called targeting initially and it's like how is it targeting if somebody's just trying to make a regular tackle and then someone else's helmet appears at the last second because they slid I think there needs to be a rule about how late a quarterback can slide to or like at least a good faith attempt to try to discern the intent of the defender because sometimes the defender if they're already on their way to make a tackle or to try to bring somebody down

they can't control it they're already in the air yeah and the refs actually took targeting off the board and made the right decision there. So, you know, targeting is very difficult because there's multiple ways of doing it. There's the big hit way. There's the crown of the helmet way. There's the time in the play or, you know, unless like there's so many different factors that play into it. I feel like we're just trained now that anytime somebody lays a big hit, it's a penalty. And it's like, that's not always true either. But also at the same time, understanding that safety and the well-being of the players is the utmost importance as well. So it's like a very tricky topic. Because I feel like there's a need for targeting, but you also don't want to ruin the game.

If you go back and watch games from the 90s, the head hunting was really bad. You really don't want to go back to that. So there, but there's a happy medium. I think they're still trying to work on it. And again, I don't, I don't ever think the refs are trying to do anything wrong. I mean, anytime they're trying to do the best they can. Anytime there's subjectivity, the team's fans on the wrong side of the call are going to exploit the middle ground there. They're not going to ever go as a right call. Of course they're going to freak out. But I think for the most part, the games, you have to go back four years to go back to a game.

And I believe that penalty that you wrote about happened in the second quarter. It did. It did. It didn't lose Ohio State the game. but it changed the game. Completely. It changed the game for sure, yeah. So, well, the interesting to see what happens.

So one of those two Big 12 games on Friday night, there will be a different crew than there was supposed to be. I don't know. I don't know if we'll find out who was supposed to be doing what, but it will be different. We'll see if the Big 12 does this more going forward because they've gotten a fairly positive reaction from it. So I'll be interested to see what Brett,

Your Mark and company do with this going forward because, I didn't expect to come out today. And, you know, I think everybody in the other league is probably looking at it. Like, oh, wow, they didn't, the world didn't end when they said the refs messed up. Yeah. Maybe we should do that every once in a while. I don't know. I don't know how everybody's going to respond to this because, again, everybody has very different ideas about how that's supposed to work.

But tomorrow, Ari, we were going to have some fun with one of the newest features at On 3. By the way, if you're not already subscribed to On 3, now is the best time ever. We just landed Chris Lowe. We got more big news coming next week. We do? Oh, yeah. Will you call me when this is over? Yes, I'll fill you in.

But we have more big news coming next week. So join On 3 for a dollar for your first week and get access to the athletic for an entire year. So you get On 3 and the athletic, two places that have employed us. And so the new featured on three, Ari, that I love, that I am so excited about, is the megaboard. So it is essentially the greatest hits of all the message boards. So when you belong to On Three, so let's say you're an LSU fan and you have a membership to the Bengal Tiger or you're a Michigan fan and you have a membership to the Wolverine, you have access to everybody's message board. Like you can read everybody's premium message boards. And it's so much fun because it can feel like behind enemy line stuff or if you're just curious about, oh, is this fan base melting down? You can go read exactly how they're melting down. So what the megaboard does is it creates the best of all of those boards. It's very similar to if you if you use Reddit a lot, when you open Reddit, you get this curated page of things it thinks you're going to find interesting. And it's really similar to two.

read it just without the am I overreacting and the crazy texts from whoever somebody's first date was like you don't get a lot of crazy screenshot texts on the megaboard and on three what you do get is really good college football discussion great meltdowns people just going berserk over things it's awesome so join on three one dollar for your first week get a full year of the athletic in the process and you can you can watch the megaboard and I'm telling you I'm on this thing all day it is incredible and so tomorrow Ari what we're going to do is we are going to grab the juiciest topics from the megaboard and I've already got a few hand selected I'm very excited about because

it's interesting there's a good mix in there some of them are people freaking out because their team lost which is some of them yeah they're it those are unbelievable but But some of them are really good, substantive discussions. Like, I'll give an example. I think we're going to use this one unless something else comes up and trumps it. But there's a great discussion on the Letterman-Roe message board. So Letterman-Roe is our Ohio State site. A really interesting discussion of Bryce Underwood.

It is not what you think it is. It is not just Ohio State fans trashing a Michigan player. It is Ohio State fans having a legitimate, very intelligent discussion. about a Michigan player that I think actually is a great wider national discussion so we will look at that I think there's

some good South Carolina Vandy stuff we need to do a little South Carolina Vandy mini preview anyway because I think that's going to be really fun game but yeah we're going in the mega we need a name for it we thought about megaboard madness message board madness

something that doesn't steal from March Madness keyboard Cowboys was when we threw around there I like keyboard Cowboys If you guys have a good idea for the name of this segment because I think it's going to be something we do every week

hit us up Also for Thursday show Dear Andy, dear Ari hit us up with your questions you want to find us I'm at Andy Stapleson3 at gmail.com Ari is atari.

It ari.wasterman at On3.com You can find us on social media. I'm at Andy underscore Staples on Twitter and Instagram. Ari is it at Wasserman on Twitter and Instagram. Ask us your questions. They will be answered on Thursday's show. But if you got a suggestion for that segment, for that name, I'm bad at names, terrible at names.

You guys are very smart and I trust you. I think you can come up with something because I do think this is going to become one of these staples, pun intended, of the show, because our message boards are freaking awesome. And now we have a great way to compile the best of them together. So again, another reason. People have made so much hay off of like screenshoting message board posts on Twitter. And it's like, it's our message board. Well, and I'll take people high in the curtain. Yeah.

We weren't sure at first because we didn't want, we don't ever want people to think we're making fun of our own customers. We don't want you guys to think we're making fun of you who are dedicated and, you know, give us money and, you know, are part of our community. We don't want to make fun of you. So if you're looking for, ha, ha, this guy's stupid because he wrote this on the message board that's not going to be what we're doing we're not doing it there will be plenty of people for that we did have one post on the alabama site where somebody blamed nick sabin for ruining

college football after that was pretty funny that was pretty funny um and i will say i think the other bama online members policed that one pretty well like nobody had to come in and make fun and it's just an interesting time to come up with a thought that nick sabin's the blame for the demise of the sport right after you lost to Florida State. There are a lot of really good discussions, and I'm excited to sing my teeth into it. But I love this idea. When we heard before it launched what it was going to be, I was like, we have the smartest people in the world working for this company.

This is amazing. This is what I've been looking for my entire life. Yeah, we are really, really into college football, and the people who run our company are so much, so much, so much, so much into it too. So deep into it. So it seems like we're all kind of working in the same team here and I'm excited to get it. And I haven't even read that Bryce Underwood discussion yet. I need to get into that. So good. I texted it to you and River. I'm telling you right now, even if we don't get to it on the show, folks who are in the audience who are on three members, just go to the megaboard and look for that Bryce Underwood discussion

from Letterman Row. It is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Also, Speaking of subscriptions, here's one that won't cost you a dime. Subscribe to the On Three Sports YouTube page so you know when we are going live, which is after games on Saturdays and when there's big news, and so that we get new shows. And you know about the new shows and you get the push notifications when J.D. Pekyll has an awesome video or when we have something that you want to see. So subscribe to the On Three Sports YouTube channel.

Subscribe to this show on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode. you know if it's on podcast you don't even have to look at us it's amazing all right i'm going to read the mega board now because i'm going to say it's to pick topics for tomorrow's show but it's really because it's what i would have been doing anyway we love you talk to tomorrow