Andy & Ari On3 - Coaching Carousel WRAP UP | Lane Kiffin's LSU decision | Auburn, Florida, Ole Miss, & Arkansas hires

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

As a wild weekend in college football concludes, join Andy & Ari TONIGHT for a special edition wrap-up show of the coaching carousel. So far, 3 hires have been made today with more potentially on the way: (0:00) On Tonight's Show(1:39) BetMGM(3:24) Intro: Coaching Carousel(5:28) Lane Kiffin to LSU(28:44) Pete Golding to Ole Miss(39:15) Jon Sumrall to Florida(53:45) Alex Golesh to Auburn(58:15) How crazy was Sunday?(59:46) Kentucky fires Mark Stoops(1:09:30) Penn State's Search(1:11:07) Ryan Silverfield to Arkansas(1:18:03) Michigan State Fires Jonathan Smith, Hires Pat Fitzgerald(1:25:46) Penn State's Search, pt 2(1:27:32) Conclusion: Lane Kiffin's First Tweet at LSU   Catch up with Andy & Ari TONIGHT around 11 pm et to wrap up this WILD Sunday in college football. This show is presented by Modelo! Some things in life are just made for each other. Peanut Butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. 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. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL Our show is also presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make 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. 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://youtube.com/live/nTCHCx91mdM Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

on tonight's episode of Annie and Ariana on three special bonus edition coaching carousel the postgame show lane kiffin goes to LSU it was a mess Pete Golding hired as his permanent replacement at Ole Miss John Sumerall hired at Florida. Alice Golish hired at Auburn. Ryan Silverfield hired at Arkansas. Jonathan Smith fired at Michigan State. Maybe Pat Fitzgerald replacing him at Michigan State. Also, at night Sunday, like, I don't know, about 10 o'clock Eastern time, the best job in college football open. Mark Stoops fired by Kentucky. They're going to pay that $38 million buyout. He's not going to make him pay it in 60 days, even though that's what his contract says. We talk about

all of those moves. Break them down from Lane Kiffin's decision to Ole Miss's decision not let Lane Kippen coach. Florida hiring another group of five head coach from the state of Louisiana, which the fan base, I think they know it's not the same person. I'm pretty sure they know that. I don't know if they know that to of course who now gets the best job in college football and is kentucky even the best job anymore because mark soups got fired we'll talk about it all on today's annie naryon three presented by bedmgm we are presented by bedmgm we use bedmgmgm lines and totals and you can join us by joining bedmgm if you have not signed up for bedmgmgm 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 MGM.

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Welcome to a special edition of Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BedmGM. It's our coaching carousel post game show. I think that's the best way to describe it, Ari, because this has been a day. This has been an incredible day. You and I woke up in Detroit. We had spent the weekend at the MGM Grand Detroit. We went to the Ohio State Michigan game. We knew there was going to be action today.

We had no idea there would be this much action. We were waiting on Lane Kiffin. Apparently, so was everybody else. Because when Lane Kiffin made his decision, Ari, to go to LSU, that's when Arkansas hired Ryan Silverfield, Auburn hired Alice Gulles, Florida hired John Summrow. all of it went official boom boom boom boom like that yeah it happened before lane went official which means we knew it was right around the corner um you know my my flight leaving detroit andy uh

we all got on the plane and we all boarded and they put on the intercom like right before we're supposed to take off the pilot's not here we can't find it and so we were sitting on the tarmac for two and a half hours and i was just reading twitter the whole time and thralled excuse me by what went on here obviously we've been in a 72 hour or maybe a three week holding power holding pattern with lane kiffin and i think that that specific conversation is so interesting i know we're going to get into everything but you know we alluded to this conversation in the car together after we went to the airport and like with four or five hours to let it marinate um what is your strongest prevailing opinion from what happened there today?

I think people, most people, understand now. You know, we asked the question, and I asked you the question last night, because you and I disagreed on this. You said, why not let Lane coach? And I said, you just can't. You can't do it if you're Ole Miss. That's a conference rival. It can't happen.

You ask every AD in the country. They say they would never let it happen. Justin in the chat says, why can't some people understand Ole Miss just couldn't let Kiffin stick around for at least another month, knowing he's going to a conference rival. That's exactly right. It was not tenable.

And Lane Kiffin, even in that interview with Marty Smith, by the private jet, you know, on the airfield, he said, now he said he understood where Keith Carter was coming from. But he's like, see, maybe some of the national people get why I should be able to coach. But Keith Carter's got to live here, so I understand that. No, in this situation, if you are going to a hated conference rival, you were going to not be allowed to coach. Like, if you were Georgia's coach going to Florida, you would not be allowed to coach in the college football playoff. If you were Alabama's coach going to Auburn, same thing.

Ole Miss and LSU are bitter, bitter, bitter rivals. If you've never been to Mississippi, maybe you don't understand you think it's just the egg bowl it's not this is a bitter bitter rival and so you cannot do that and i was talking to to someone who has worked at some of these schools a very wise person and they said when you give someone everything they get surprised when you tell them no and i think that was one of the interesting things and i hadn't thought about this Ari, what did I say was one of the pluses for the Ole Miss job for Lane Kiff and one of the reasons he should consider staying?

They would literally give him anything. Yes. They gave him 100% control. They gave him exactly what he wanted. So when he came to them and said, I'm taking the LSU job, but I'm still going to coach the team, and they're like, oh, no, you're not.

I think he was gobsmacked. Yeah. The last three weeks, we've been joking a lot about how this could go in any direction because Lane is being Lane and Lane is eccentric and Lane is weird and Lane's a troll and Lane could do this or he could do that. I think I underestimated because I don't see the crappy side of things because I try to put myself in the position and I would be grateful to Ole Miss for giving me everything, for giving me a new opportunity. at big time football after the sport had given up on me. I would be excited and amped up about the team that I put together in the season that they're having. And I didn't see how toxic it actually became coming.

I don't see that coming. And maybe that's just a bad thing about me or a good thing. You're too nice a person, Ari. That's all it is. You're not cynical enough. So like when I was making comments about let him coach, who cares, throw everything in the trash, go for it this year. like that was obscenely stupid now in retrospect because there's no possible way that these two

entities could exist with how much vitriol there was here's the thing that is so interesting to me about this as I continue to try to process this because I know that everybody on the internet is piling on Lane Kiffin right now and maybe he deserves it but I'm trying my best as a human being to put myself in his position and here is where I landed and I've been thinking about this on the airplane, not the shower for the last three, four hours. Yeah. Is on one hand, if the number one point of contention that Lane Kiffin had was a burning desire to stay at Ole Miss and see the job that he did through, I almost feel like you could make a case that that's an admirable thing. Now, maybe it's a selfish thing

because you want to do something that, you know, makes you allowed a person more. But I do understand why somebody would want to see their job through. That said, as you are deliberating, don't quit your job if you'd like to see your job through. Yeah. And but as you're deliberating for three weeks or a month even on whether you should do what you're doing, you have to at some point come to the understanding personally that there are pros and cons to every decision that you make in life. And part of the cons in this specific scenario was you do not get to see it through.

Like that is part of the deal As part of the decision making process So at the end of the road When you get to the point where you decide to eat that con And take the LSU job You don't get to demand that you get everything again That is part of what you have to give up In order to do what you're doing

Well and also like He was the king at Ole Miss And I don't think he realized He didn't own Ole Miss like it's their thing it is old misses program and so when he says i'm going to lSU he no longer has any ownership stake in it and so the people who continue to have the ownership stake are the ones who get to make the decisions and that's why i any school that wants to do this because there's actually a couple guys coaching in the american championship game eric morris at north

Texas, John Summerall at Tulane, who are going to other schools. Eric Morris has already been hired by Oklahoma State. John Summerall has been hired by Florida. The winner of that game is going to the playoff. Both Florida and Oklahoma State have said they will let the new coach coach in the playoff, and both Tulane and North Texas have said, we will let you stay in coaching the playoff. That is their prerogative.

If Tulane had said to John Summerall, nope, you're going to Gainesville, we're going to let everybody else coach that would have been fine too that would have been their decision it's their program and john summerall probably would have still left yes and i think that that's the thing too it's like everybody is saying that lane kiffin left his team high and dry and i feel like yeah he did but also not because he wanted to and also not because other people in his position wouldn't have had to do the same thing he wasn't because he wanted to but he had a choice. His choice

I've stayed at Ole Miss. So that's the other cross-section of what makes this complicated because everybody is playing clips from the ESPN series about how he's a changed man and how Ole Miss did everything. Like obviously that's what's going to happen.

And like my thought process is if I felt like I was a scumbag or I was doing things in the past that I wanted to be better at, does that prohibit you from following your heart in trying something new like i don't think that you're like but you don't get to dictate the terms when you quit your job but there is this notion i think out there that because he left ls u that he

is a selfish unchanged human and i thought that that was unfair but then sunday happened and all the reports about what was going on about taking staff with him all these different things well here's the thing we don't know yet which ones are what happened actually true yeah mr big play bray asked did he really tell them i coach or i take all the coaches we don't know if that's exactly how it went down we do know he was trying to take a considerable amount of the offensive coaches the defensive coaches were were mostly not coming pete golding had been fairly resistant to it i think pete golding saw an opportunity and sure enough pete golding was named the permanent head coach edelmiss this is a defensive

coordinator. So, yes, because Lane Kiffin has to assemble a staff at LSU. Now, I assume he's going to keep Blake Baker and a lot of that LSU defensive staff and didn't need a lot of the Ole Miss defensive staff. So there's that part of it too. But I would imagine he wants to take a lot of the Ole Miss offensive staff. Charlie Weiss, Jr., their OC, he got on the plane. He got on the plane. You heard all the booing from the Ole Miss fans at the airport. as Charlie West Jr. boarded the plane. Those videos were all floating around on the internet. I have to hop in here.

Yeah, go ahead. Been reading the chat, been thinking about this. People are upset about the way he handled it. What would have been the right way? I'm leaving for LSU, not today, during the buy week before the Egg Bowl. I'm leaving for LSU. I would like to continue coaching this team,

but it is your program. What would you like me to do? That's it. That's not what he said. Yeah, because even if there was a, because like, listen, just because two adult men or a group of adults

are arguing about the terms of something doesn't mean that that has to be public, I thought it was in poor taste to put that in the statement that he wrote. as if he's like, hey, guys, I wanted to stay here. He wants to be the victim here. He wants Keith Carter to be the bad guy. Keith Carter is the bad guy and he wanted me out of here.

And like, I think that part of this too is that life is all about perspective. And sometimes when my wife and I will argue about something and then we'll recount how it went, we'll have two very different versions of what happened in the same room and it's frustrating. And I can understand how two different people in opposite directions, feel like something might have gone differently. I live that every now and then. But at the end of the road here, your prerogative was to leave, Lane.

You're not the victim here. They would have given you as much money as you wanted, as many resources or whatever promise that you made them. It had already proven that through six years that they were willing to do that. You're actually closer to the national title at Ole Miss than you are at LSU because you're in the playoff right now. I think that my takeaway from this is it is a very difficult

situation for somebody who wants to take another job and a job that I've been set on the show is a better job. The one thing that you cannot be today, you can be rich, you can be hated, you can be excited, you could be lauded in Baton Rouge, you cannot be the victim today. So no effects 83 says the NCAA needs to fix it. Okay, I'm going to, we're going to squash this one right here. Like every time Nick Saban says the NCAA needs to fix it. the calendar. Okay. Nick Saban, do you want to move Christmas? We've talked about this.

The semester system is the problem. The business of college is a lot bigger than the business of college sports. They're not changing the semester system. The calendar's not changing. Get over it. Nick Saban is the closest person to college football king, right? right you think about commissioner you think about respect you think about success you think about knowledge you think about just every possible thing that that person charisma everything my pet peeve is when people point out a problem without offering a solution right and the problem anybody he wants solved fix the calendar how it's it's not getting it's like the basic problem you have is never going to get fixed unless you either move the season, which you're not going

to, or you get everybody on the quarter system so that you're not doing all this stuff in December. I've thought about this too, and this is a really good comment, Andy, from Mark, and I, River, try to find it while I'm talking. I can't find it. He just said all Lane would have had to do, and I don't know how tenable this is, but what if Lane Kiffin would have said, hey, LSU, wink, wink, nudge, I would really like to work there. Talk to me after the season.

Is that something that could have been arranged, or is that, is the calendar and the timing of it impossible for LSU to wait? LSU was not going to do that. LSU is not going to wait, not just because of the signing day, because of the possibility that Lane Kiffin might change his mind if he wins the national title in Ole Miss. Yeah. So LSU wasn't going to wait for that. the people that on three knew way in advance that I wanted to come here.

And I finished out my contract and my obligations to the athletic before I did. Now, I'm not a football coach and things are different. But I made up my mind long before I left. And I don't know if there's a way to make up your mind, communicate that through your agent, that my mind is made up. He obviously didn't need to worry about the contract like he's going to get. get paid you know like they could have had a handshake gentleman's agreement and maybe that's me thinking glass half fool everybody's a good person again and that's a mistake but i wonder if

because like i i wonder more than anything it's like what ls u was going to do lane kiffin had all the leverage in the world in this situation and if lane kiffin's number one wish was to keep coaching o miss while also taking the job could he have done something could his agent have done something to navigate this better. No, no, because LSU is not going to wait that long. You can have a wink-wink deal. And here's the thing, if you have a wink-wink deal, this all blows up and gets Bessie in the playoff or going or leading into the

playoff. Because it's going to leak. Yeah. Because if LSU doesn't hire a coach, people aren't stupid. They know what's going to happen. Ole Miss isn't stupid. Like, that's the deal. Yeah.

Well, and here's the other messy part about college football, and I don't know if there's any fix to this either. It's not the calendar. This happened with Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma, too. Lincoln Riley didn't just leave Oklahoma. He took Caleb Williams with him. He took pieces with him. I mean, he didn't. Caleb Williams followed him. Yeah, he took him with him. However you want to phrase it. Yeah. He went there and he won a Heisman at USC. and I think part of the reason why people are so upset is that Lane Kiffin had people on the plane with him too.

Because yeah, and this is a little bit different too than Caleb Williams because Caleb Williams left in the offseason. He's taking important pieces of their staff as they're embarking on the most important time in their program's history. And he doesn't have to take them. He,

because remember, he's probably keeping a lot of the LSU defensive staff he's probably keeping Frank Wilson, who's the running backs coach, who's kind of Mr. Louisiana. Like you can functionally recruit with who you got right. And like you just put Frank Wilson

and Corey Raymond on the road and you can recruit a hell of a class at LSU. So you didn't have to bring Charlie Weiss Jr. Right now. They didn't have to come with you. They could have coached it out at Ole Miss. But then, and then, see, because I'm torn on this

because it's like, well, if I were somebody who had important people around me. Let's just say I was the star of this show. Okay. I'm not. You're the star. You are. Let's say I was. And somebody called me and said, hey, Ari, I want you to come do exactly what you're doing it on three. I want to make a huge podcast. You and a co-host. You can pick anybody in the world that you want to do it with you. It's already going great. We love what you're doing. Do that. Who do you want as your co-host? And I say, I would like Andy to be my co-host. Is that me, like what, is that me mistreat i mean you did this you brought me with you but the difference is i waited for you

i didn't force the athletic to let you go no i know but is are you a bad person by wanting to bring your guys with you i should have done that no you're not a bad person but the thing is your guys were going to come your guys could have come afterward yeah and and maybe that's another thing like people would have figured out okay that's a wink wink deal whatever i think with coordinators is a different thing because we've seen it happen a bunch of times, except for the one time when the coordinator got fired and who was that coordinator? Lane Kiff. We don't know for sure, but I'm going to go on record and say this.

If Lane Kiffin uttered anything that was close to this sentence, either you let me coach or I'm going to pick your program apart. If any iteration of that scenario, I don't think he said that. I really don't believe he said it like that. or any insinuation of that, that is a total scumbag move. If that did not happen, then where do we draw the line between you're a scumbag and you're a human who wants to do what's best for himself? Like, that's like, you draw it wherever you want.

It's not my job or your job to tell people how they should feel about Lane Kiffin. You're allowed to feel however the hell you want about him. Mm-hmm. And I imagine how you feel about him depends on whether you wear purple and gold or navy in red. Yeah, which brings me to the next thing that I've been brainstorming in my brain, Andy. If you are LSU and you are watching this play out, do you think Ole Miss and their fans are a bunch of babies? Or are you on high alert that when the Buffalo Bill's job opens up in 2029 that you're next?

what do I say about every coach when people ask me how come these coaches don't do this with the buyout and don't do this with the buyout what do I always say they never think they're going to fail when a school hires a coach they never think it's going to end badly when somebody gets married they never sit there at the altar and they're like oh shoot this is you know 50% of these things end to divorce this is probably going to end up with us you know across the table at a lawyer's office. Nobody ever thinks of that. So I guarantee you LSU is not thinking of that. You don't think people think of red flags? Not right now. This is a honeymoon phase, baby. Yeah.

If your honeymoon phase begins when you show up to someone else's wedding on a motorcycle and a leather jacket and then put them on the back of your bike, you might while you're driving up the PC. on your way to your new happy life think like that was messed up pre-nups exist andy that's true i also may have had a family member who had a third wedding in a uh at a roll of rink you're not going to believe it it didn't work out ultimately did you go to this the marriage didn't i was no this was this was before i was born that's pretty fucking fire

Andy but but red flag I don't know some people have their wedding anniversaries at Arby's and they seem to be very happy I don't know every way love is a is a moving target but if you're an LHU fan are you nervous or you just pumped I think they're just pumped because if it does end poorly that means that you did a lot of winning between now and ending pearly too right and I said said this more and more as this cycle has gone on, like the way I'm looking at this now, it almost got six good years, Elaine Kiffin. If you get five good years out of a hire, you're ahead. Okay. So also it like, because like here's the scenario. You always do these things where it's like if I could give you all the information now and you can go back and

remake the decision again, like Ole Miss probably still hires Lane Kiffin at the beginning of it, right? A hundred percent. If they knew how it ended, they got, they still got, they still got, they're in the college football playoff of course they would do it again they would do it again a hundred out of a hundred times yeah I wonder if Lane Kiffin thought in the back

of his head or in his heart that he had a really good team this year and they might make a run but they are not good enough to win the national title and the only time I can ever get a team that's good enough to win a national title is if I go to LSU I mean I would imagine and that's what he was thinking, because he left.

If he thought he could consistently compete for the national title at Ole Miss, I think he would have stayed there. Yeah. Well, he's referenced this a few times. I've heard him say it. He said it to Marty Smith in that interview. And by the way, he looked really rattled in that, didn't he? Lane?

I thought Lane looked like he had just had the worst day of his life and he was anxious and uncomfortable. It's probably been a very stressful day for him and Marty was not asking easy questions. Yeah. He was a, yeah, he seemed visibly shaken to me. And maybe, you know, he's thinking this is Tennessee all over again, right? I mean, you don't want to get on an airplane and have people flipping you off and, you know, calling you an F-B. But it is.

Look, if your desire is to be liked, he's in the wrong profession. But his reputation, long before that cheesy documentary aired, had flipped. I think once he got to Bama and was really good at Bama, people started to like him. People started to like him again. And Andy, as he tweeted funny things and he trolled people on Twitter and he said funny things in his news conference,

nobody, unless you were a rival fan, thought, oh, that guy's a dick. Everybody was laughing with him. And everybody will be laughing with him again as the LSU coach, except the old man. Miss fans. Yes, except the old miss fan. I don't think that. I think that he became a villain today again. A big villain. If he wants to embrace the heel turn and be the villain, he can play it. I'm telling you right now, if he's winning it at LSU and tweeting funny things and trolling

people, everybody will get over this. Old Miss fans will never get over this, but everybody else will. A casual fan of a place like Ole Miss, which is, by the way, now. Tennessee fans like him now, Ari. Do they? Most of them do, or at least are amused by him. Okay. I'll line myself down.

Let us, let us, let us, we have to talk, unfortunately, Lane sucked all the oxygen out of this, but we got to talk about some of these other things because Ole Miss made a higher today. They did. Ole Miss made a hireder. Pete Golding is your new Ole Miss head coach. So this is interconnected with the other job openings and how things went down on Sunday. So the guy that Ole Miss probably was going to call, the first phone call, if Lane had said last week, hey, I'm leaving. And they already did their due diligence on this, and I'm sure intermediaries were consulted.

But Ole Miss's first phone call was going to be to John Somerall. John Summerall, at that point, about a week ago, was pretty far down the road with Auburn. Then we all heard that Florida came in and talked to him. And when it became clear that Florida was not going to get Lane Kiffin, and here I will stop to answer Thomas's question. Thomas, Andy, what did Florida do to screw up the lane situation? Is it related to Scott Strickland or not bending the knee more and offering more? Did LSU just pony up more and give him more?

Is Florida better than LSU? Thomas, everybody offered the same thing. same amount of money. I don't think Lane like the fact that Florida had interviewed some GM candidates, but he'd been told, don't worry about it. You'll, you just bring your own guy. We'll put that aside. Don't worry. You can come here and do it the way you want to. He just picked LSU because he wanted the LSU job more. I know that's hard for Florida people to understand. It's not hard for anybody else to understand. LSU is a better job

I say that as a proud Florida graduate three of the last four LSU coaches have won national titles it's easier to win there that's why he took the job over Florida that's it it's not that complicated Nick Sabin told him to take LSU his agent Jimmy Sexton told him take LSU

and it turns out too that all of our job rankings and everything that we said in the last month kind of turned out to be true because it's like of all the scenarios that could have played out for Lane Kiffin, the most likely one is what ended up being the answer. And I don't think that we knew that it was going to be this messy. But I think that in hiring Golding, Andy, I find there to be a powerful, it's powerful than bringing in somebody who wasn't here. So let me get to this. The Sumral thing, I was curious, would

John Sumrall entertained the offer from or an offer from Ole Miss or at least interest from Ole Miss after Lane Kiffin made his decision. And it was interesting because the Domino's started falling very quickly Sunday when we realized Lane Kiffin had made a decision. Arkansas hired Ryan Silverfield very quickly. Auburn hired Alex Kowlish from USF very quickly. Silverfield was from Memphis. At that point, me and and Chris Lowe and Pete Nacos are reaching out to people in the Somerall camp at Florida saying, okay, we know you guys were getting down the road here, but is Sumerall waiting on Ole Miss? And then we got an indication that he was not waiting on Ole Miss.

And within a few minutes, we'd reported a story that he'd taken the Florida job. And so that was interesting because, He did decide because he was going to go to Auburn and then that fell apart for whatever reason, which I'm sure that's going to come out. He liked Florida, Florida liked him. Florida wasn't going to get Lane. But then Ole Miss, their first choice was then, you know, from outside was gone. Pete Golding wanted to be there. Pete Golding, I don't think, was interested in leaving for LSU.

Now, I think if we're speaking about this practically, Lane Kiffin's probably planning on keeping Blake Baker at LSU. I think Pete Golding saw this as an opportunity, and Keith Carter, the athletic director at Ole Miss, saw this as an opportunity to have continuity, to have someone who could maybe keep most of this together. Now, not everybody, because the strength coach is gone, the O.C. got on the plane.

So they're going to have to work. to put together a staff. I tweeted this fun fact, though, and people went crazy. The last time a coach left a top 10 program to become LSU's coach, the school he left immediately promoted its defensive coordinator to a full-time head coach. That has worked out really well for Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman. And when I tweeted that, people are, well, Pete Goldie's not Marcus Freeman. Well, you didn't know who Marcus Freeman was when he was.

he got the job either. You didn't know what he'd be as a head coach. It turns out he's awesome. I don't know if Pete Golding's going to be awesome. Sometimes a backup quarterback comes into the game and then never comes out of it. Like Trinidad Shambliss this year for Ole Miss. Like it happens. Yeah.

And probably was a smart maneuver. Andy, I think that there is something powerful in promoting from within at a time of crisis. Because if you've looked and I don't know if this was, have just been the case had they hired anybody today. But there's a certain level of we have our guy. He was here the whole time watching over this team and we're going into the playoff with our guy who wants to be here, who wants to be at Ole Miss, who prioritizes us. I think that if you are an Ole Miss fan, because you're probably weren't really in the mood to start looking at

hot boards and freaking out about what was next. Like you have your guy already in place and now you can move forward as a unit with who was left over with some continuity going into this postseason and then going into signing day, which is Wednesday, by the way, you know, with your staff or the majority of your staff in place. He's going to go have to find an OC and there's going to be some decisions that need to be made. But in terms of turbulence and then kind of a stillness there that I think is powerful, like, and I don't know what you think of this move, but I like it in the short term at the very least. Well, and no lap in the chat with a truism, when you have a team that is good with a good

record promoting from within is the move. You covered Ohio State. How set up for success was Ryan Day, who was promoted from within? And Gene Smith, the AD at the time, did say when Urban Meyer told him he was retiring, Gene did look outside briefly. He looked at a few outside canons. He ended up wanting to keep Ryan Day in part because the infrastructure was so great at Ohio State. Now, like I said, Lane took the strength coach, Lane took the O.C.

Ryan Day got to keep Mickey Marotti's strength coach. You got to keep Mark Pantone, the recruiting guy. Ohio State is as good as it is now in part because they made the decision that kept that infrastructure together. Ryan Day also, I think, had a year of Lee Lagway time. We're getting to, we'll get to Florida. knowing he was going to be taking that job too. I broke a story a year before it happened that he was going to be the coach in waiting. So like that wasn't a move out of left field.

And I think that obviously when you're already on a cruise ship and then you get to take the wheel, that's a lot easier than trying to do a little boat across the ocean. And, you know, Ryan Day, I think you'd say with a straight face right now, you might be right, you might be wrong, might be the best, you know, current coach. Like, I mean, Andy, we haven't talked about this at all, but like if you had to tick one team, one coach right now, would you take Kirby or Ryan?

Kirby still? Oh, that'd be a tough one. That would be a very tough. Probably still Kirby because Kirby got two, but if Ryan Day wins a title in six weeks. Yeah. Caleb in the chat, how much will CFP Doc Ole Miss for losing its head coach? Hunter Your Check got asked about that last week,

the Arkansas ID, who's the chair of the committee, and also the guy who hired Ryan Silverfield today. He said that they did not know what to do with that because they've not seen Ole Miss play without Lane Kiffin. So I'll be curious to see what they do Tuesday night. Yet another reason I'm fascinated by what Tuesday Night's rankings are going to bring. Does it change Ole Miss's ranking? Do they move up, do they move down because there's doubt about that? Does it do it?

Six, seven, six, seven. Yeah, yeah, you have to. But I think that's. there are no danger of being they might lose the they're not going to get knocked out of the playoff they're going to the playoff i don't even think they i don't even think they get knocked out of a home game right and funny enough the way that this stuff works you could lose a seed spot or two and have a better matchup so like i don't i wouldn't lose too much sleep over that if i were an old miss

fan um but i'm very excited to see if pete golden golden uses this as an opportunity to galvanize the recruiting front. You know, a lot of the players, I was watching clips from Ole Miss Spirit show after, you know, this all went down. And it seems like there are a lot of people in the locker room who are excited to put the drama behind them and get back to work. And the more I think about it, the more information that's out there, it would have been highly dysfunctional of Lane State. So, like, if you remove the thing that is causing dysfunction, the uncertainty, the worry, the anxiety. and you replace it with a person who could steady the ship. I think that's healthy.

The one question that I would have to you, Andy, is that when you think of Ole Miss football, the last few years, you don't think about the defense. And they hired a defensive person. Well, last year, the defense was amazing. Yeah. The talent was better on defense last year. But you think high-flying offense when you think of Ole Miss.

You do. So his offense, of course, his offense, of course, coordinator hire eventually is going to have to be the right one. But I think that's a problem for down the road. All right. Well, I'm glad you brought that up. So we cannot talk about just this job all day because we have so many other things to get to. We were talking about the Florida situation. Lane obviously was quartered by Florida. So let's go to Florida now. John Somerall hired it Florida. This is one where I think John Sumerall understood this. I know athletic director, Scott Strickland, understood this,

that there was going to be a massive blowback from the fan base hiring John Sumerall because it just fired Billy Napier, who was a group of five coach from a school in a state of Louisiana, and the idea of hiring another group of five coach from a school in the state of Louisiana, the average rank-and-file Florida fan

was not going to abide that. They wanted Lane Kiffin. That's who they wanted. That's who they wanted. that's who they had their hearts set on. And so someone whose resume looked similar to Billy Napier's, even though John Somerall and Billy Napier could not be more different, was going to enrage them. And enrage them, it did. And so I will be very interested on Monday.

When Scott Strickland and Billy and John, I said Billy Napier, there you go. When Scott Strickland and John Summerall get up at the press conference in Gainesville, how directly do they address that? Because I do think John Summerall gets that. He understands that he's got an uphill climb. They're already trying to fire Ronzook.com him and he has to figure out how to succeed in spite of that.

Andy, how many fan bases are happy right now in the SEC? One, LSU. Oh, in the whole SEC? No, I mean like from the day's fallout. Like, one? One. Well, Kentucky's happy until they make a hire that they don't like. But yeah, one, LSU.

Yeah. I think that it's unfair that John Summerall, who, by the way, was the second hottest candidate in the entire carousel. I don't know where you would rank him in relation to James Franklin. But he's second. right is Auburn happy yes Auburn wanted him

Ole Miss would have wanted him Florida clearly wanted him because they hired him Arkansas would have hired him probably he wasn't even in the mix for it because he was looking at at other jobs in the SEC so yes this is a guy who was very much wanted but he's getting torpedoed right now in the court of public because he coaches in the same

state that Billy Napier coached in before he went that's it right that's it so but like that's a crappy way to start. Yes, but I will say this. Here's a quote from John Sumerall on Sunday that I thought this is where I was like, okay, he gets what he's walking into here. Like he's been briefed and understands the assignment here. He said, one of my first priorities will be to assemble an incredible staff,

including an offensive coordinator who understands that at Florida, having an explosive offense isn't optional. It's mandatory. he's right he's a hundred percent right on that they want you to score points defensive guys at florida you know there's will must champ severe mistrust well must champ had great defenses the cardinal sin of will must champ who would have won huge at florida the cardinal sin he came in with the idea that he needed to run a prehistoric offense and it didn't occur to him until too late that he needed to modernize on that side of the ball

Yeah. I think it's possible, though, that Florida got a star and he's not being appreciated right now. It is possible. But here's what I'm going to say about that. Because I'm not going to just, there's none of these guys that I'm going to come out and say, this guy's definitely going to be a star or this guy's going to stink because it's a crapshoot. We never know. Brian Kelly didn't get it done at LSU. That would have been shocking on the day he was hired. Shocking. We don't know.

But I agree with you. If you look at John Summerall's career and what he's done, if he can hire the right OC, keep DJ Lagway or go get another quarterback who can be a star. And I don't know if they're keeping DJ lagway. This is a two-way street. DJ Lagway has to decide he wants to play in whatever offense is coming. And then the new OC has to decide DJ's the right quarterback for that. Yeah, DJ, DJ Lagway didn't have a good enough year to be barking any orders in anybody either.

So let's let's acknowledge that. Oh, I think he still could because here's the thing. Every coach in America is going to look at DJ Lagway and go, I can fix him. I know, I know. I can fix him. But like, like Florida does. Including potentially whoever. Florida hires.

Florida doesn't need to get down on bended knee to make sure that they play Kate to his desires. And I don't think they will. I don't think they will let anybody hold them hostage. I think Jaden Ball will be the number one priority other than DJ Lagway for

retention. Because everybody in the world is going to want Jaden Ball. There's not a program in the country that wouldn't want Jaden Ball right now. So you've got to do that. What will the offense look like? I don't yet know. Some of the names I've heard you've got a couple people who've been on the Charlie Weiss Jr. was somebody

that they really wanted to talk to, but I don't, he got on a plane to LSU. So I'm guessing he's off the table. But that's interesting because it means that offense, the veer and shoot, the old Art Bryles, Baylor offense, which Tennessee runs it with Josh Heiple, Mississippi State runs it with Jeff Levy. Lane Kiffin runs it, obviously. It's pretty popular now. And it is a very spread out. They will chuck it deep. They'll go vertical. Florida just saw it in the swamp with Tennessee, which beat them. So would you like maybe try to take Joey Halsey, the Tennessee OC? Or would you want to go different, a different type of offense? One other name I heard, which I was very intrigued by, is Buster Faulkner, the offensive coordinator at Georgia Tech. Now, it's that they

spread it out and they'll go vertical, but they'll also pound you in the run game. And that one seems probably a little more like it would wed to a defensive-minded coaches philosophy. But the more I think about it, I don't know that a defensive-minded coach is definitely they're going to shy away from an offense like the one Tennessee runs because you look at what Josh Heppel's done at Tennessee. Last year, when his defense was better than his offense, he let that defense cook. He didn't try to run 150 plays offensively a game.

and get his defense gassed. And he slowed things down and let his defense be as good as it was. So I do think there's a way to do that. I think a smart coach can figure that out. Josh Heidel has figured it out. Other coaches will be able to figure that out. I was just surprised today because it's like, if you got a guy that you knew for a fact that at least two other SEC teams

in similar situations were like dying to get, like the reaction to that should have been positive. And I think that they were so brainwashed by what were Billy Napier came from that they're not thinking clearly about what could. I don't think I'm going to defend them a little bit here. Okay. It's not just that. They wanted Lane Kiffin. They

had their hearts sent on Lane Kiffin. For two months they thought they were getting Lane Kiffin. Two and a half weeks ago, they were sure they were getting Lane Kiffin. And so it has been a lot to come to grips with. And it's like we were talking about earlier when the person asked the question, how did Florida screw this up?

It might be that Florida didn't screw this up. It might be that Lane Kiffin listen to all the people around him who said LSU gives you a better chance to win the national title right now than Florida does. But it would almost be easier to accept if they did something to screw it up because then you wouldn't have to look into the mirror and say, hey, we're a second class citizen to LSU too. Right, but there's one way to fix that. Go win national championships.

Florida wasn't a second class citizen to anybody when Steve Spurrier coach there. Yeah. Or win Urban Meyer coach there. And you hire the right coach, it doesn't matter. And more now than any other time in my lifetime in this profession, what is a great job is fluid. Exactly. More fluid than it used to be.

So, Florida is going to be structured differently. And we talked about the hiring of the general manager. And that's a situation that they had interviewed four former NFL GMs who

were working currently as assistant GMs. And that did not sit well with Lane. Now they told Lane, hey, we're not going to do that. If you don't want us to do that, you can bring whatever personnel people you want. John Summerall doesn't get that leeway. He doesn't have that leverage.

So David Caldwell is the guy that they're hiring to be the GM. And I think this will be a much more similar structure to what they have at Oklahoma, where Jim Nagy is the GM, Brent Venables is the head coach, and they kind of exist like this on the organizational chart. It's not like this. We're going pretty well in year one there, by the way. Sure did. Sure did. So David Caldwell, former Jacksonville Jaguars GM, the Jags fans, mixed bag with him. They appreciated him putting together that really good team that got deep in the playoffs in 2017. Miles Jack's knee may not have been down. Those are a good team. But then it didn't go well the years after that.

So he has been working with Howie Roseman with Philadelphia Eagles. That's probably where the connections made because obviously Howie Roseman, Florida grad, but, you know, how much did Caldwell take from working with Howie Roseman? Now, what I would take from working with Howard Roseman is sign as many Georgia players as you can because that's really working really well for Howie Roseman. But you got to sign them before they go to Georgia now. That's the problem if you're David Caldwell. You got to figure out how to sign them before they go to Georgia. Yeah. I'm fired up for Florida. I'm excited to see how it plays out. I really am.

I think he has a chance to be good, but I think he understands that they're going to be negative until he wins. But I think the thing you've got to understand is you can win the press conference and then the negativity can still come. I will take you back, Ari, to Urban Meyer's first year at Florida, 2005. That was a clear win the press conference. Florida beats Notre Dame to get Urban Meyer away from Utah. And that was a honeymoon of a first off season. And then Urban Meyer goes to Tuscaloosa and gets boat raced. And then a few weeks later, he goes to Baton Rouge, and they have the ball four times in the fourth quarter and can't even cross their own 30-yard line.

After that game, Ari, it didn't matter what he said in the press conference. The press conference was over. The winning the press conference was long in the rearview mirror. They wanted blood. And it was until after he beat Georgia that year that they settled down a little bit. But they were still mad going to the offseason. They win the national title next year. But I wonder what I'm saying.

What living through Billy Napier and the amount of time that he got, because he did get an extra year, if there is a different or at least a shift in what should be a successful year one for him. like if he wins eight or like are we back in like having a eight or nine win seasons a great year florida hasn't happened one of those in a while so yeah he's he's a little bit lucky on that front whereas some of these other whoever gets the pen state job they're not going to be able to do that they're they're going to be howling if you only win eight games at penn state that for sure lSU but yeah florida if you win eight or nine they haven't done that so yeah that that would be improvement, I still, he's better off just winning a bunch, being in playoff contention.

And look, here's the thing. We are in the transfer portal NIL era. You can flip a roster very quickly. You can make it your own. You can win quickly. And this is a guy. So he's been a head coach for four years. Two years of Troy, won the Sunbelt both of those years.

Two years at Tulane so far, he's been in the American Championship game both years. he hasn't won it yet, but we'll see if they win it this year. So it's pretty good at developing a roster. Remember guys' quarterback stolen last year? Darien Mentsso went to Duke right after the season ended. Yeah. So he's been through this. So he's got to figure it out quickly.

And look, I'll be the first to tell you. We've said this. You and I keep saying this. If you aren't winning by year two, if you aren't showing dramatic improvement by year two, you're not the guy. That's the mistake Florida made with Billy Napier. It's sort of like Hugh Freeze at Auburn this year

in the press conference where they talk about Kirby Smart making the national title game in his second year at Georgia. And he's like, that's not true. That can't be true. No, it's true. Kirby Smart made the national title game as second year at Georgia.

Urban Meyer won the national title of second year at Florida. Like, yeah, you're good coach. Ryan Day was a national title game in his second year. correct if you're a good coach yeah you you you do it uh dan landing was playing for the the pack 12 title his second year at organ and he won the big 10 in his third year like if you're a good coach it will it will be obvious immediately once the game starts how much harder in the SEC because there are so many teams that expect that mm-hmm somebody has to you mention that Ari because Auburn is another team that expects that.

And I asked you earlier in the in the show tonight, Andy, if only one fan base was happy and a bunch of Auburn people are like Auburn's happy. Is Auburn happy? I think some of them are happy. Or do they feel like... But I think a lot of them wanted some roll.

I think a lot of them wanted some roll. But Alice Golish is a fun, fun hire. I was talking earlier about the veer and shoot offense, what Josh Heppel's done at Tennessee. Alex Gullish was Tennessee's offensive coordinator before going to USF. He's been really good at USF.

And I think people look at the record the first two years. He was seven and six the first two years at USF and then they improved dramatically this year. The first two years there, especially the second year with Byron Brown being hurt and still going seven and six, like that is a harder job than people realize. Like Jeff Scott struggled mightily in that job. And not many people have been successful at it. So Alex Gulles figured out how to win there.

Very impressive. And if you look at athletically, I mean, they improve their personnel so much in the time he was there. It's not a soft offense he runs. Like, they will hit you in the mouth. And it is, again, it is that old Routreisvier and shoot offense. But it's, it's all these guys like Josh Heipel and Alice Gullish have kind of put their own flavor to it. It's going to be a fun offense he brings to Auburn. and we'll see what happens,

but maybe they keep DJ Durkin as defensive coordinator. They had a really good defense this year. Improve the offense a lot and have a really good defense. Guess what? I think it's always a good sign when you find a coach who elevated the team's talent. Yeah. And now, Auburn already had good talent.

They got to try to retain some of it. But getting talent to Auburn has never been the problem. Yeah. Now, one of the problems is you're going to be annually compared to one of the premier programs in the sport. So I know that their expectation isn't to beat Alabama every year. But, you know, we watched, well, I think that like, when I mean like that, I just, I don't mean that they're going to fire their coach if they don't want it every year. I don't think that Auburn processes the rivalry like Ohio State or Michigan does.

You know, like, I think that they. I mean, Gus Malzon would disagree, but go ahead. Yeah, I think that, but when it was all said and done, I read a lot of comments of like, we had a coach who beat Alabama inexplicably once every three years during Nick Saban's run. That was amazing. I wish we could get that back. Like, I don't know. You would be more familiar with it than I would.

but that's a tough spot to be in if you regardless if you're compared directly to to Alabama so like you're in a whole new ball game and a whole new area and a whole new level and like that's always a challenge right out of the gate for Auburn yeah I don't know how because I think there's going to be quite a bit of continuity here I think you can keep a lot of this roster together Now, I don't know of the quarterback situation. Ashton Daniels has a redshirt. There's a reason, like, he didn't play the Mercer game,

so he only play a fourth game in the Iron Bowl. I thought he looked awesome on Saturday night, by the way. He did, he did. So, you know, is that who winds up being there? Is it Deuce Knight who looked really good in his one start? you know that's that's the question do or is it or do you bring in somebody because at this point when you bring a new coach you just assume everybody everything's on the table roster wise and you should go to a Auburn's opening press conference and ask him if he has a handicap I we just

said Alex doesn't play golf EHL 97 in the chat it'd be a funny question I think he's prepared he get prepped for it. I know the Auburn PR staff will prep him for that question just in case a smart Alike like you shows up. That's me. Because like, you know, the one thing that's like this has been a very serious podcast and rightfully so because there's a lot of big moves and, you know, program changing, you know, risks that were taken today. But today was a truly bad shit crazy day. Like we were talking about Lenton for 30 minutes. And we didn't even mention that they put his clothes in the parking lot like what other sport in america is is the clothes in the parking lot the new christmas tree on the curb it's a new thing yeah and it was like the perfect metaphor to me too

andy because it was just like if you are a person who comes home to their spouse cheating and you throw them out of the house in every movie i've ever seen what does the woman or man do they go into the closet they rip the clothes off the hanger and they throw it out the window like that's exactly what just happened today oh yeah this happened and it's just like i made this analogy earlier college football is love island with football games on saturdays in the fall like today was a truly and utterly ridiculous day what other sport in the world then maybe it happens in soccer or maybe a little bit in the NBA do you get a day like we got today yeah this was like the the scene in waiting to exhale when she blows up the car

you're missing out you're missing out yeah but yeah goaler said he doesn't have time for golf in an interview. See, this is, this is the interesting stuff. PLG 5025. Can we talk Kentucky? All right. Let's talk Kentucky. Let's do it, Ari. Let's do it. Let's do it. The best job in college football trademark opened on Sunday. Very late. I'd say about 10 o'clock Eastern time. Mark Stoops fired at Kentucky. After the 41-0 lost to Louisville on Saturday, you assume something was up. Now, $38 million buyout. The contract called for it to be paid within 60 days, and that I had called multiple times the most prohibitive buyout in America. Mark Stoops, according to R. Chris Lowe and Pete Nacos, is willing to play ball on this thing and actually

take that amount of money over a period of years. So that, I think, you know, because I don't think Kentucky fans want to remember Mark Stoops negatively, because Mark Stubbs rescued their program. It was down bad after the Joker Phillips era, and he brought it back, and he was one of the best coaches in Kentucky history. He rescued their program. If you zoom out from the last two years, and what he did there was the opposite of a scumbag move, right? Exactly. Exactly. He wanted his money, he wanted his money, but he was willing to not make it.

difficult for them to do it because $38 million all at once I don't care how rich you are that is a ton so he wanted this pay that man his money pay that man his money pay that me but he's willing to take it a little bit slower yeah and I don't know I'm not highbrow enough financially to know this but aren't there some benefits too to having the steady income over time than just getting it all in one lump sum or is it better to get it all at once. Harry, you're the one who telling me about the time value of money. Yeah.

I don't know, like from a tax purpose. He's already in the top bracket, right? So even if you get it all at once, your tax at the same rate as if you get it over time, I don't have a tricky accountant. You're asking the wrong person for this. I am, I am unfortunately not as smart as I should do.

Don't they say if you hit the lottery that it's smarter to take the lump sum and then invest it? Yeah. So maybe he should, maybe he's just being a, good guy. I don't know. He's being a good guy because, and look, he's made a lot of money off Kentucky. But the reason we called Mark Stoop's job, well, the Kentucky job, the best job in America was because as long as you won eight games every year, they weren't going to fire you. They were going to celebrate you. Whereas if you're at LSU, if you're at Florida,

if you're at Auburn, if you're at Alabama, if you're Tennessee, if you're Texas, if you're Texas A&M, if you win eight games every year, they will eventually fire you and probably not too long after that streak starts. If you can continuously do it at Kentucky, you are a hero. The problem is he stopped doing that. Yeah. And winning eight games now is harder.

Right? Nine, yeah, nine SEC games, nine conference games, with something Kentucky fought very hard against because that puts Kentucky behind the eight ball because that's one less win they can just schedule every year. I mean, like, if we're living in a world where Vanderbilt is going to be pounding the table for a playoff spot a week from tonight. Well, that also eliminates your, when Vandy's 10 and 2, it eliminates any excuse

you might have had at Kentucky. It's just harder. There's no easy win for nine of your 12 games. And then, you know, Kentucky, from what I recall, too, has scheduled, I mean, they play Louisville once a year, so that's 10. I mean, it's hard. Yep. It is.

My question to you now, though, is, did Mark Stoop, eventually get killed for not meeting the expectations that he only showed them was possible? And will the next coach be beholden to those expectations? Yes and yes. And that's why you and I have an assignment, not tonight, but you and I have an assignment going forward. We have to pick a new best job in college football because Kentucky is no longer the best job in college football. Because when you get fired for losing at Kentucky, then that, why did we call? at the best job in college football because they would pay you almost what a coach who competes

for conference championships would make it another school. And they never actually expected you to win one. That's what made it the best job. There's one aspect of the best job in America discussion that you're also forgetting. We coined this before the NIL era started and they had a clear identifiable recruitment plan that they can execute long term. Like that was the other thing. Kentucky was doing something that they were able to sustain. and I don't know if that plan exists anymore in terms of infiltrating Ohio and taking some of those second tier prospects that Ohio State doesn't have room for and stealing them away from Big Ten teams. You know, I still think that Ohio is going to be an important battleground state for them in the recruiting process. But like all those things combined, plus the amount of money that Mark Stoops' bio was made it pretty attractive.

John in the chat, but he wasn't meeting what you were mentioning. You're right. He had fallen off. And I don't know that it was going to get any better. He'd lost Vince Mero, who was his recruiting conigliary, to Louisville, which is kind of an insult to injury situation. So, yeah, I do think the time had come there. Now, what happens next to Kentucky?

You and I have talked about how many sitting head coaches are getting hired. I had a conversation with an agent tonight who mentioned that a group of five school that is looking for a coach, that they're only looking for sitting head coaches. I'm like, guys, what's wrong with coordinators? There's some good coordinators out there. There's one coordinator that I want to mention for Kentucky. Will Stein, Oregon offensive coordinator, former Louisville quarterback, but they won't hold it against him. I believe he has family, some Kentucky football connections in his family.

But he's also a native of the state, understands the state really well, has actually worked at Louisville early in his career, and then went over to Texas. It was a high school coach in Texas, UTSAOC, and then the Oregon OC. So he's got a pretty diverse set of experiences. is he's viewed as one of the rising stars in the business. Ari, can I give you one more name, who is a sitting head coach? I think if you wanted to bring Dan Mullen back to the SEC, Kentucky's the perfect place to do it. Yeah, and his team's playing in the conference championship game, right? Yes, his UNLV team playing for the Mountain West Championship this week.

Why do you think this obsession with sitting head coaches exists when 8 to the 10 best coaches in college football were coordinators before they got hired in their current jobs? I just think for whatever reason, AD's got it in their head this cycle that they had to do that. Because timing-wise, Kentucky firing Mark Stoops, the day that four other coaches in his own conference were either fired or moved on or hired, it's kind of a bad time. But Kentucky is also fortunate enough to get to pick one of these awesome coordinators that have been completely forgotten for no reason.

Another name that pops into my head is Brian Hartline. Yes. Speaking of a state of Ohio, which is an important state for Kentucky because it's due north of you, Brian Hartline is the office coordinator at Ohio State. He is the best receivers coach on the planet. And that might be a, because like we were talking about him with Penn State. And it's like when you think about geographically where Kentucky sits where they would recruit, how far of a drive it is from Columbus, a place that he's very familiar with, and, you know, the level of job that it is. That might be the perfect stepping stone or entry, I should say, not stepping stone, entry into the SEC because geographically it's the closest, it's the northern, it's the northernmost SEC team, right?

And it is, you know. Also, do you remember where Brian Hartline's brother, Mike, played football? He played in Kentucky. He played in Kentucky. That's right. Mike Hartline was a good player in Kentucky. I forgot about that. so that's a name i would i would i had ohio state fans my mentions today threatening me

when i said we were going live he said don't say brian hartlein's name once on this podcast or i'm going to get mad at you but it's like well i i've been saying brian hartleyn's name for penn state since penn state so yeah but i actually you can't make the case that kentucky's a better fit defending national chance for brian hartlein's been a bucky since he was in diapers he's not leaving keep dreaming kentucky keep dreaming penn state do you not want him to to have success in life do you not want him to meet his professional goals? Ryan Day's not leaving. The head coaching job at Ohio State's not open.

Brian Hartlein's going to go be a head coach somewhere at some point. Yeah. I hate to break that to you. You know, he could go somewhere and who knows, maybe Ryan Day will be the head coach of the Patriots in seven years. You don't know how this stuff's going to play out. Yeah. But I'm interested to see who Kentucky hires because Kentucky has been one that has been very negatively

be affected by the NIL era and they had as you said a very clearly defined identity very clearly defined recruiting footprint and all of that has changed so they need someone who can who can adapt and survive and live in this era it's not impossible though because the team that beat them two weeks ago and the team that beat Tennessee this past weekend Vanderbilt Clark Lee came in was was getting shredded by the NIL era for a time and then altered his philosophy and figured it out. Got himself a quarterback, too. Andy, another segue here.

How do we not know who Penn State's coach is? Unbelievable. Unbelievable, that's still out there. They were the first to move from their coach, right? The first of the big, big, big, big ones, yes. Does that scare you if you're a Penn State fan? So I'm either scared or quietly confident, and it depends on how I feel about my AD.

Does Pat Kraft already know what he's doing and they're just waiting on somebody who's in a conference championship game? Is that what's going on? Maybe. Aha, here's an interesting. I mentioned this on the show the other night. I'm glad you brought this up.

Kalani Sataki to Penn State. That's one that you think is potentially not movable because that is alma mater. BYU's in a conference championship game. How crazy would that be? Because remember, Ole Miss is in the playoff. They've already lost their coach. One of the, whoever wins the American is going to have lost their coach and is in the

playoff. BYU might make the playoff. I don't know if Kalani Sataki is a candidate for Penn State. I think he's someone they should certainly be interested in because I think anybody should be interested in Kalani Stakey. But I think, I think that's a fascinating name. And then throughout there. Andy, lastly.

We have to talk about Ryan Silverfield in Arkansas because he has not. We have two more, not just Ryan Silverfield. Who am I forgetting? The Michigan State fired Jonathan Smith and hired Pat Fitzgerald. Okay. Let's go to Arkansas first. Yes. I'm not really receiving a warm welcome to Fayetteville.

He and John Summerall need to get on a group chat. Ryan is getting it way worse, I think. I don't know. I think it's terrible both ways. And it's in both cases. it's people not appreciating that this person is a good coach. Yeah. Arkansas fans, I think thought they were going to get goalish,

and I think they did get leveraged by golish into the Auburn job, which is it's just all dominoes. Like, Summerall bumps to Florida, goalish bumps to Auburn, and then Arkansas circles back on Silverfield, who's a guy they talked to early in the process. Arkansas took some big swings early. I'll be curious to see if we ever find out

how many decently huge names they tried to talk to. But they didn't get any traction with anybody. So they were always going to probably be hiring either hot power conference coordinator or hot group of five head coach. And they ended up going with hot group of five head coach who's not as hot as the one Florida hired

or the one that Auburn hired. I think that it's probably bad optics because we can't have a real discussion about this without at least acknowledging that they were once in position and the favorite to win their conference and they've lost their last three games, right? Yeah, the end of their season has been bad. So that is a problem and it's the worst possible time for them to have a slide. Right. And I just think that Arkansas wants to feel, and this might just,

be a projection, maybe not even on Ryan Silverfield, but just the position that they are, they are in the panthe end of the SEC. They want to feel like they are able to stand arm and arm with Auburn and some of the other teams, Ole Miss even, in hiring the right guy, and it might feel like them from an optic standpoint that they didn't get their choice and that they wound up with the least desirable candidate that was available. I'm just, that's, or that's at least the way they feel. I'm not saying that's true. So out of the fan base feels. They want Hunter Eurocheck fired.

They're mad at Ryan Silverfield. And I'm going to say the same thing to them. I'm going to say the Florida people. Let the man coach some games. You don't know. If he's losing, then be as mad as you want. This isn't about winning press conferences, about winning football games.

Hiring a college football coach is kind of like the same thing as the NFL draft. You don't know if something's a good or bad pick unless they stink. They boo every offensive lineman that gets picked because they don't know them. Like, And sometimes that guy is great. And sometimes you have to remember that if you've heard of him or you know this person and they're somebody that you can get, that's probably a bad sign. Right. Right.

Like that was, remember when Arkansas opened and everybody's like, what if Gabo went to Arkansas? Dabo was never going to Arkansas because he makes $11 million a year at Clemson and they weren't firing him. And if you're in a position to get Dabo, there's probably a reason for it. right just because you heard of him it's the same thing with with people who thought that link and riley was going to florida which made no sense oh he he was good at oklahoma five years ago and we might i've heard of him let's go get him like there's there's needs to be more

analysis than that also didn't seem to really be interested in coaching the cc so it didn't make a lot of sense yeah so he's been on the show he's a good dude Arkansas doesn't want to hear that he's a good dude because Sam Pittman was a really good dude, the best dude, right? Yes. They want a winner. They want to win games. But look, he's been a winner at Memphis's level. The question is, can you win at Arkansas's level?

And Arkansas is a hard job. And I know Arkansas fans are sick of hearing that. But it's the truth. You're in a very difficult conference. It's a hyper-competitive league. everybody spends as much money as you spend. Like Arkansas actually has a ton of money. Here's the one thing that I would be curious about.

FedEx is in Memphis, right? It is, yes. And Memphis, from what I understand, had one of the better NIL outfits in the American. And they had built in advantages of roster building and retention from a financial standpoint that their peers, or most of their peers, possess, right? Then you go to Arkansas and you have Walmart, which is kind of like the same

thing as having FedEx. But the difference in the SEC is that you are not one of the bigger spenders. So if you're not winning your conference at Memphis with the financial advantage, then what can you cling to if you're upset right now if you are bringing somebody in who no longer has that advantage? Right. And Hunter Eurocheck laid it out. I thought very, and in a very interesting way. Now, he was talking to a touchdown club. I think he told too much truth and he got killed for it.

But the fact of the matter is, he said, you know, they hired John Caliperi to coach the basketball team. And they funded John Caliperi's roster in a way that allows him to be very competitive. Hunter Eurochek said they were not funding Sam Pittman's roster in a way that allowed him to be competitive. If you do that with Ryan Silverfield, you will set him up to fail. So you'd better rally the corporate money of which there is a lot in Northwest Arkansas. And you'd better fund his roster at an acceptable level. And remember, an acceptable level is like Ole Miss, like Missouri. Can you do it like Texas and Texas A&M?

Maybe not, but you've got to try to get close. And hopefully we don't have to explain to an AD how much better being a big, big time football school is for your bottom line, too. Right. It makes people spend more money. Good investment. Yeah. Yeah. Also, if he's talking to a quarterback club at any point in the next few weeks, I would love to hear his take on Miami, Notre Dame.

I don't think he's going to be telling any truth on that. I think it's going to be very couched. He's going to do a six, seven joke. Yeah, this is just funny. Boss Hog, I'm going to have to, we got to talk about Michigan State briefly, but Boss Hogg, the Florida Gator said, why have one lane if you could have two lanes? Thank you. All right, let's talk Michigan State. Michigan State fired Jonathan Smith on Sunday, and it felt like about 40 minutes later at Pop that they were hiring former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, who's been out. He was fired Northwestern. He then sued Northwestern. We think the terms of the settlement are, or the terms of, yeah, it was a settlement. We think the terms of the settlement are private, but we think that Northwestern probably ended up paying him an awful lot of money because he was going to win the lawsuit.

So he's back in coaching. I find this one very interesting because if we look at the end of the Pat Fitzgerald era at Northwestern, I'm not talking about the hazing scandal and the firing. I'm talking about the on-the-field record in the last few years at Northwestern. Other than the pandemic season when they were good and made the Big Ten championship game, his last three non-pandemic years were very bad.

Ari, would you care to hazard a guess of what his Big Ten record was in 2019, 2021, and 2022? You asked me this question already before. I don't remember the exact number, but it's putrid. Three and 24. Yeah, and it was a single digit. Yeah.

So now he enters a completely different world of college football. So he's got to show that he can adjust to this world. And it is completely different than the one he left. But he wasn't winning much than the one he left. So maybe he did need to adjust. It's funny because when I look back at Pat Fitzgerald's tenure, I don't I don't recall that stat that's not the bad stuff yeah because he was awesome for most of the time he was there yeah absolutely awesome

when I think of Pat Fitzgerald I think of a coach who for years not just one year for multiple years got every last drop of potential out of his roster yes and overachieved at a place that has some pretty stringent academic restrictions right and that that's the part that I find interesting, Ari. I think he's fishing from a much more stocked pond now recruiting-wise. Because at Michigan State, you can take, you can just take more players than you can at Northwestern. You have more available to you. Yeah.

And I think that the Kurt Signetti thing makes it interesting because it's like, oh, you want to go get a lightning rod that's going to take you to the playoff in year one. But like, what's the most important qualification for a Michigan State higher? Would it be somebody who's gotten less out of more before? or more out of less, I mean? Yes. No, you definitely want to get more out of less, and that is what Dantonio did when he was winning there. You've just got to be able to do it in this era.

And that's, see, when I wasn't sure what was going to happen with Smith, it clearly this was set up pretty far in advance, given how fast the higher came down. But Heartline, who we just talked about, Brian Hartline, the OC at Ohio State, that's when I thought if, if, Michigan State made a move would make logical sense at Michigan State. Fitzgerald, I thought you'd put it like maybe Stanford. Now they hired Tevita Pritchard, who's an alum.

But I thought Fitzgerald might be a better fit at a place like that, because it is very similar to Northwestern. But I'm intrigued to see what Pat Fitzgerald does when he can recruit anybody. Yeah. And, yeah. not be restricted, for sure. Now, will Michigan State's current position on the totem pole financially be a challenge that's more difficult than getting somebody to get a high test score?

Well, and that's the thing. So you have a new AD&J bat. He comes from Georgia Tech, and before that, he was a lieutenant in Alabama. So he's been at the wealthiest of the wealthy, and he's been in a place where it's not so easy. And he did a good job at Georgia Tech cultivating donors. And it was a better situation when he left than what he found. And so I think at a place like Michigan State, which is a large, large state school, huge alumni base, I do think he can cultivate donors so that it's possible to fund this thing in a way that can work.

like here's my question to you are we've talked about what wisconsin is doing keeping look fickle and they are going to they say they're going to invest more in the roster can can michigan state invest as much in the roster as wisconsin can i would think so okay can michigan state invest as much in the roster as northwestern can i would think so illinois uh larry ellison's involved in that right Larry Ellison seems to be helping his wife's team out. In Michigan or head of the wife's college, but Larry Ellison went there. So I don't know.

Yeah, Sean Con, the owner of the Jaguars went to Illinois too, but I really don't think they've donated much. Can Michigan State fund the roster as well as Minnesota? Yes. Rutgers. Yes. Maryland. I don't know.

I think they probably can. I think they're probably on that level, if nothing else. So what I'm saying is you can be in the top quarter of the Big Ten if you get more out of the roster you have. Here's the college that you should be asking. Can they invest as much as Indiana? That's a great question. And I think they can.

And the funny thing about winning is you get richer. Indiana now has more to invest. yeah what happens when you buy a stock and it goes up you want to buy more of it so i i was i'm very curious about this hire because it was not good at the end at northwestern it has nothing to do with the scandal part of it yeah i mean jonathan smith like went to michigan state was there for a few years and like was boring unfortunately and i never knew right it's weird because jonathan smith's a good football football coach. What he did at Oregon State was awesome. And he just got no traction. It felt like there

was no forward progress at Michigan State. Pat Fitzgerald is going to have to come in and very quickly turn that around. Otherwise, why did you do this? I don't know if it's going to work, but I thought that Fitzgerald's resume made him a worthy candidate. I just worry about the way his resume because we talked this is what we were talking about we were talking about the arkansas job and people you've heard of when you've heard of them and you can get them there's usually a reason now he's a bit of a distressed asset because the way things ended at northwestern but again the on-field performance is the part i'm concerned about not the other stuff so he will have to he will have to he will have to

prove that that was the anomaly and that going forward he can he can coach in this era yep i'm excited to see you play out all right ari i think we hit them all nobody else got fired while we were talking nobody else got hired while we were talking hold on hold on before we go i'm just going to i'm just going to go to uh to blue white illustrated at our Penn State site and just make sure that nobody got hired while we were talking.

Hold on. We would know. Going to the Lions Den, I know. Yes, we have this group chat at work with all the newsbreakers in it and we would definitely know. They are on the Penn State

football coaching hotboard version 7.0. Our guy Sean Fitz, put that out. Would you care to guess how many threads the page has now or how many pages the thread has now? 27. 404. Oh, I thought this was new.

No. It's, this one's been, but this was only been working for about a week and a half, already. Okay. So, yeah, it's, that's where they're at right now. They're on page 404 of Hotboard 7.0. They'll hire a coach eventually. They have heartline in the bag. They just can't announce it to after Ohio State plays for the national title.

I thought you were to say the Big Ten championship game, which I would have totally believed. And then you're killing me, killing me. I still think it might be Bob Chesney, James Madison coach, who also might be the playoff if James Madison beats Troy in the Sunbelt title game and Duke beats Virginia in the ACC title game. Hey, Ari, also something had happened while we were live, Lane Kiffin with his first tweet as the LSU you coach it's mike the tiger it's not hitting the same to me do you i mean mike the tiger has his own twitter feed so it's not going to be like a jew skiffin thing i'm just saying his tweets aren't hitting for me yet not yet you're just you're you're mad at him i'm not mad at him but i could understand why every single fan base in america that can resemble old miss

would resent his existence in the moment fight on natty's andy All right, so you guys aren't spreading any more rumors that Lincoln is leading USC. We never did in the first place. We don't know. You're stuck with him, dude. You know what my favorite phenomenon is with people on the internet? Hmm. Is when.

Can I have a tip-in-law, that too? Yeah, these people, they make up something that you said up in their head. They get mad at that thing that you think you said or made up that you said, and then they tweeted at you like you said it. And I'm like, buddy. yeah we are the ones who were like oh there's a rumor that lane kiffin talked to a auburn and we're like why like it doesn't make sense from either side when did either of us ever say that he was leaving USC ever there are those rumors they're out on the message boards

but again came here to our show as we're alive to accuse us of saying something we've never said and then got retroactively mad about that made up thing do you know how many stages of delusion you have to get into to get to that point? The stages that you think Lane is, I got Lane on the brain. You think Lincoln Riley is leaving USC for your school, or you think your school would hire Lincoln Riley. Again, why would an SEC school hire Lincoln Riley

when he's made very clear he doesn't want to coach in that league? Three o'clock, Easter time. You and I Championship Week Show Can Ari come back? No, he can't. I'm going to win for the year,

but I had a terrible week. I had a good week, I think. You had a great week. I had a terrible one. I'm going to make it up. 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Championship week, Pick, show. We'll see you on Monday.