Andy & Ari On3 - Could the Big Ten add more Pac-12 schools? | Florida State all but declares it wants out of the ACC

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Want to watch the show instead? Find it below, Like & Subscribe!https://youtube.com/live/WRZ1xe98ITkAndy and Yahoo!'s Dan Wetzel discuss the news Dan broke Wednesday that a group of Big Ten presidents is evaluating possible further westward expansion that could include Cal, Oregon, Stanford and Washington. Meanwhile, the Pac-12 awaits decisions from Arizona and Arizona State. Andy and Dan also talk about Florida State president Rick McCullough's declaration Wednesday that the Seminoles should look to leave the ACC. Does Florida State have a plan to get out of the ACC? Would the Big Ten or SEC take the Seminoles. (0:00-27:17)We return to actual football talk with an interview with Kansas State guard Cooper Beebe, who might be the best interior lineman in college football. (27:18-44:40)Later, Andy talks Oregon with Scoopduck publisher Justin Hopkins. (44:40-1:00:58)Out of nowhere, Arizona announces a meeting for Thursday evening starting at 9 PM ET (1:00:58-1:04:55)After a recruit's photo of a plate of food at a Michigan recruiting event went viral, Andy called professional pitmaster (and former Florida offensive lineman) Shannon Snell to discuss what a school should cook when recruits are on campus. Prepare for a deep barbecue conversation. (1:04:56-1:14:28)Andy's Extra Point returns to FSU, which did something highly unusual Wednesday. Will it work? (1:14:29-1:16:40)

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. We can't get away from realignment. I was expecting to get back to actual football today. I promise there will be actual football on this show at some point. Cooper Beebe, Kansas State, best interior offensive lineman in the country, according to a lot of the draft mix. You're going to hear from him today. We're going to talk actual football, but not before we talk realignment,

because I got the guy who broke a massive realignment story on Wednesday. Dan Wetzel from Yahoo clued us in that there's a subgroup of Big Ten presidents examining potentially taking some more schools from the Pac-12. Dan, what is going on with that? Yeah, four of them, four presidents met and started exploratory talks, preliminary talks. Would we want to add more teams to the league? Obviously, USC and UCLA are coming next season, 2024. The first move that totally destabilized the Pac-12 and predictably set what happened yesterday in motion where they didn't have as much media value because, hey, they no longer have LA. And they're looking and saying, do we want to go to 18 teams and add Oregon and Washington,

which Fox and NBC and CBS are very supportive of, or apparently supportive of? Do we then want to go further and just own the West Coast and move the Big Ten brand into the Bay Area and take Stanford and Cal also and go to 20, which appeals academically and recruiting-wise for not just players, but actual just regular students and things like that to presidents, but is less appealing to the TV people who would shell out the money. So they could stay at 16. We don't know. They could say,

hey, look, this is enough. 16 is already very large. Or they could say, let's go for broke. The Pac-12 is breaking up. Let's add Oregon and Washington. Let's do the whole thing. Or they could do somewhere in the middle. We'll see. But the big dog, the big 10, is back looking around at expansion possibilities. I'm so glad somebody read the column I wrote at my old job the day after Texas and Oklahoma said they were going to the SEC. And that said, hey, Big Ten, take USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Stanford, and Cal. So I'm glad somebody read that. I am surprised it took this long, I guess.

But it seems to me, Dan, and I don't know about you, that they're kind of sitting in wait to see what happens with Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah. And if those guys go and leave the Pac-12, then the Big Ten's not dealing the death blow, even though they already kind of did. Yeah, they do have this bit where they don't want to be the conference that killed another conference, especially their supposed alliance partner.

As you know, it's a really beautiful friendship they had. They looked each other in the eyes. They looked each other in the eyes, and now they're going to kill it. I find this comically hysterical and perfectly encapsulates college athletics um well we're not going to kill you although we already killed you it's like we we gave you the the original disease that put you on your deathbed but we're not going to give you the we're not gonna put the bullet in your head at the end to kill you um i mean look taking usc and ucla is what kill will will eventually kill the Pac-12.

There is a scenario where it could survive. But, yes, they're trying to see if Arizona goes and all of a sudden this thing is really rocky or if Utah and Arizona State go with them to the Big 12. We don't know if the Big 12 can really get to 16 teams. Will their media partners keep adding 31 million dollars a year to the bill to add arizona arizona state utah that is one uh you know road block here we don't know yet so a lot could happen but if this thing falls yeah they're circling the carcass and saying what do we want we're just going to pick this apart, scrap heap, whatever you got to do. And they can, it's quite amazing because they could essentially

get, they could probably get Oregon and Washington, Cal and Stanford at a discounted rate. Yeah. 60, 70% of revenue. Big 10 is going to make 50 to 65 million a year in media rights. I don't think it's quite settled exactly what it's going to be. You know, 70% of 65 million is still 42 million. That's 10 more than the big, you know, 70% of 50 is 35 million. It's still more than that. I'm so jealous about your math skills. Yeah, it's amazing.

I can't do this on the fly. You know, Andy, you know, I went to UMass, and it's a tremendous academic school. I'm surprised the Big Ten hasn't stepped in to grab it for the academics. Bring back Marcus Camby, and they might. Or the Harvard of Massachusetts, except for Harvard. You know, or the other Harvards. But anyway, we, you know, that's where you're at.

And you go, they can get these guys maybe on the cheap. And, you know, they can own the guys maybe on the cheap and you know they can own the west coast the whole thing makes no sense you got but you have a 16 flank out west well have them play the non-revenue sports as a league those six teams right you're not sending volleyball players to pascataway and you get the fourth window that maybe ESPN comes back to the table and throw some more millions on the fire. Um, but I, you know, a 20 team league, do you play the, do you play the conference championship game in the Rose bowl? I, I mentioned this on the show the other day, but when I interviewed Kevin Warren, when he was still the big 10 commissioner at the sports

business journal thing in Las Vegas last year, I said, was it difficult deciding that you weren't going to be making a deal with ESPN? And his answer I thought was very interesting because he said, oh, we haven't decided not to do a deal with ESPN. There's still a chance that could happen. I know Kevin Warren was keen on the idea of adding more from the West Coast. And so that said to me, oh, you'd sell the late night windows to ESPN. And that does seem like something that would make sense. Now here's what the irony of ironies would be.

Let's say all this happens. Let's say those three schools go to the Big 12 and the Big 10 takes those four schools and makes a deal with Apple to pay for it. Yeah. Now they wouldn't all be on apple because some of their games would be on nbc or cbs or fox or the big 10 network but some of their games would be on apple at that point could apple jump in that way um it's possible i mean they you know part of part of these deals was cutting down on the bidding. You know, if you eliminate a conference, there's less you have to pay one.

There's less inventory out there for TV networks to have to bid against each other. Like the Pac-12 became a less appealing thing that actually dries down the cost of other things. So this is all business. It's all money. You know, TV networks are driving all of this realignment. They don't, they don't care about the apple cup. They don't care whether you're ever going to have a chance to actually win your league. Yes. I mean, good, you know, good luck to Stanford in the big 10, my goodness, or Cal.

They don't care about tradition. They care about how many big brands can we get on TV that will deliver us 4 million plus viewers, 8 million plus, 10 million plus. And that's all they care about. And this entire, all of college athletics, no matter how much time they spend crying in front of Congress or holding little night commissions or issuing reports out of Indianapolis, this entire operation is being run by a couple of television networks. That's it. Well, in the Big Ten, especially. This is run by Fox. And here's the part I think is interesting, because you mentioned Cal and Stanford, which definitely seems like something the Big Ten presidents would prefer and not something Fox would want at all but I just spent a lot of my day watching a uh trustees meeting in Tallahassee well I guess it was on Zoom somebody was in a car but Florida State Florida State trustees meeting where they

basically declared we're done with the ACC We don't want to be here anymore. And it got me thinking, because your story had just come out, and so I was thinking about this. If you're Fox, how much more would you rather add Clemson and Florida State than Cal and Stanford to the Big Ten? Fox would absolutely like it. But there is more to this if the presidents are making deals and so i don't i i've done a bunch of theories i don't want to repeat myself but like you're trying to get the big 10 to own the bay area where the schools of the bay area tech company silicon Valley, all day long. That's very Larry Scott to me. Yes, but

regular students, right? Like I know this, like at the University of Michigan, I think their freshman class that's coming in, the most students entering the class are from the state of Michigan, obviously. Number two is, I believe, is California this year. So they're getting more kids from California to go to Michigan than Illinois or Ohio or any of the states right next to it. California has the people in California have money. They're willing to chase. So you want that. That's real economics there, too. Real economics.

An out-of-state student pays two to three times what an in-state student pays. And they're elite students, right? Yep. It's why I always say Nick Saban is worth about 20 times what they pay him in Alabama. Exactly. Because he's the one who's allowed them to take more out-of-state students because they get more applications because they're on TV all the time. And it is that part of it.

And Bama Rush. And Bama, that part of it is huge. And Bama Rush. And Bama Rush. That's true. Okay, do not, the sorority bit is doing it too. But yeah, that is your, that's your thing. So there is another economic in there. And I think that's what frustrates Florida State.

And I don't blame them. Florida State fans go, wait, what is this garbage? Why are we, who historically, and they're back. They haven't had a great 10 years, but they're back. They did win a national title 10 years ago. Yeah, they peaked and then dropped. They had a couple lean years, but whatever. We've earned this.

We've earned a seat at this table. How the heck aren't we at it? How are we 30 million behind? But not everything is about putting the best teams together right um and so you know if you're cal and look at your let's say you go around the big 10 let's say you're talking to purdue you say hey man you want to add clemson and florida state there's two more teams we probably can't beat. That's exactly right. Or you get a trip out to San Francisco. You see your rich alums.

You beat the hell out of Cal. It's all good. Hey, you know, how about a little something for the lower thing? So there's a lot there, and that's what the question is. Will the pieces fit? And I get Florida State's frustration. What's their solution other than continuing to scream, we want more money?

And why would the ACC give them more money if they know you're leaving anyway? This is what I've been saying since that was brought up as a solution in the ACC. It doesn't make any, like if you're the president of Boston College or Syracuse right now, why are you gonna agree to give Florida State more money?

By the time the conference eventually breaks up in 2036, which it would, you're not working there anymore. You're just the idiot who gave them more money. So they're not going to do that. Florida State's not going to abide by that. I mean, they had a trustee get up and say, hey, there's a deadline of August 15th to declare that you're not going to be in the conference after next year. I don't think they're going to hit that deadline,

but this trustee is like, we have to have a plan in place to do that within the next 12 months. They're going to try to leave. I'm not sure they have a plan. I want to know what it is if they have one. If it was that easy to get out of this grant of rights, someone would be out of the grant of rights, right? I don't know. I don't know. Clemson and Florida, they also all agreed unanimously to this thing not that long ago. And I will say this, if the media companies continue to struggle, this deal actually might not end up being that bad by the end. Right. ESPN may be like, I don't know if we can afford this anymore in 2034. So we'll see. You know, this thing may zoom back around a little bit. But I understand it is – it's very frustrating.

Like, if you're watching this show, if you listen to our podcast, you do any of that, you love the sport. And you love all of the sport. And you love that they play that a team in manhattan kansas can play and this is the team in boise a lot of the sport if all of this right the regional rivalries and the traditions of that and not just hey great because one of the things we talk about this a lot one of the most amazing things about college athletics is they have gotten the fans to root for revenue share. It is crazy. They wear it like, oh, I'm 31.7 million, the Big Ten. We're

only going to get this. We'll be 5 million below. It's not your money. You're not getting the money. Your school isn't going out of business. These schools are rich. They could raise it. They're not going to charge less for tickets. They don't charge less for tickets they don't sell you the hoodie for less they don't sell your parking place for less they find more way oh we're gonna sell beer now we're gonna do this we're gonna do that nobody sits around and goes hey you know what uh my nfl team we only went uh six and eleven this year but the owner my god the owner made made you know 400 million dollars on this thing i'm so so excited for him like come on you want to win and so it's like but they they're so into it and then they just waste the money hey let's do another new locker room let's buy out

that crappy offensive coordinator we shouldn't have bought we should you know all the different stuff and so you sit around and you go you, you're winning less. You're not playing the teams you want to play. But your athletic department is rich and you can hire 14 more deputy athletic directors. Is that really like you're Nebraska? Like how much fun is this? Great. You're rich. Is this fun? It's fun for the people who are rich. So that's why they keep doing it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I did some math and I realized that's not my strong suit, but I was listening to you and Ross Dellinger and Pat Forty on the College Football Enquirer podcast. And you were mentioning Arizona.

And we're talking about $10 million probably, difference between staying in the Pac-12 and going to the Big 12. And I did the math on the student fee. If you raise the student fee, 200 bucks on everybody. So 200 bucks on the, on the 37,000 undergrads and on the 9,000 grad students are having, it's 44,000 total. I told you I'm bad at math, but essentially you raise almost $9 million right there, 200 bucks a year jacking that fee up. Schools all over the FBS do this stuff. And they have a fairly small fee at Arizona

compared to like UCF, but you could do that and that money's there. And then you hit up a donor for the rest of it. You can pull that off and it's the same amount of money. Yes, absolutely. We talked about this. They charge about $100 in a student fee right now,

athletic fee at the University of Arizona. You pop that up to $300. It's still below, and I think I still got the math around here. I think somebody was charging, I don't know. UCF, Central Florida collects $28 million in athletic student fees collects $28 million in athletic student fees.

$28 million. It's a pretty great conference TV deal. They don't talk about that. They don't want that out there. They talk about something. Right? So you can come to 10. I've heard this a million times with Notre Dame.

Notre Dame, not making as much money as the Big Ten. No, they need the money. Have you ever walked around Notre Dame? I dare anyone to step foot on that campus and say, man, if only this place had a buck or two. Their most famous building has a golden dome on it. They have more money than they know what to do. Money is not the problem.

You almost said they have more money than God. They do not. They're the ones paying them. They're the middle guy. They're his banker. Look how much money. And this is my thing with Clemson and Florida State. I know this isn't good. Purdue's making $30 million more.

Michigan State's making. That's true. That is all true. But you know what? Purdue doesn't have Atlanta an hour and a half away. They don't have access to those recruits. They don't have Sunshine. They don't have other things.

They have astronauts. They made a lot of astronauts. They have astronauts. They got a lot of engineers. They're smart. There's a lot that goes into building a winner than just having the most money. In the last 10 years, would you rather be Indiana football with tons of money, or would you like to be an hour and a half away at Cincinnati with less money and tons of wins? Maybe a little more fun to be since a lot goes into winning. It's not just how much money we have. These 80s who are controlling the money and get paid off this money have sold this to the fans like it's the be all and end all. It just isn't. It just isn't. And it's not changing though and and i do think there's pressure on not just the ads but the pressure on the presidents from the fans because they don't want to feel in any way

disadvantaged now yes but they that's because they're sold that it's a just like right i guess there's tons of pressure on it everyone's flipping out oh my god we're arizona we got to give it all up because of 10 million you go hold on why your basketball program's still gonna be good yeah enough football team it's gonna be fine although if i'm arizona and i'm a big basketball fan i'm like yeah let's be in the same conference as baylor and kansas and but that might make it harder to win. That might make it harder to win. Yeah, that's true. But your gut, what do you think happens? Is it, because this could go a lot of ways.

The nuclear scenario that we've been discussing, I still don't think is greater than 50-50 right now. I agree. It's hard to predict and it's hard to put a number because a lot could happen. Let me say this. We kind of alluded to it earlier. Let's say the Big 12 goes to Fox and

ESPN. They're with Fox and ESPN. It says, okay, we're going to go to 16. We got Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. Fox and ESPN are going, look, man, that's another. We got to add three more. That's another $123 million. No, that's going to be

$90. That's Colorado too. Colorado, whatever. We're not paying that. We don't have that. We're not just going to give everyone a prorated deal. We'll take Arizona. I had somebody in the Big 12 yesterday tell me they definitely got enough to do 14 for full to 14 tv folks are good with 14 and that they have a path to 16 okay so let's say they can get if they get that done then

armageddon is going to hit but what if it's only 14 so i don't think this is a great path but let's just arizona then it chills out, I think. Right. And the Big Ten says, well, we're not going to be the one that they're going to take this little ethical high ground. It's like, well, we're not going to be the one to kill it. Also, they know in the long run they're going to get them whenever they need to anyway. Yeah. So if Arizona State and Utah stay and the Big Ten says, nah, we're not going to take Oregon and Washington then there's eight Pac-12 teams and you add San Diego State maybe add SMU or you add Boise whatever you do

it all chills out it's it's not that hard to see that happening also yeah and the thing is if you're Oregon and Washington at that point and Utah you look at that and you go, listen, there's an automatic playoff berth for the six highest ranked conference champs. We're going to, we're just going to trade that over and over. We have access. And, and I think there wouldn't, because people keep asking, are they going to change that particular rule with the playoff when the new contract hits two years after the changes? I don't think so. If the-12 is that, if it's what we just said. If the Pac-12 is there. If it is disintegrated or somehow merged with the Mountain West,

yeah, they probably dropped that number to five. Yeah, that would be five or who knows. Who knows what they do. But I agree. And let's say, look, we haven't gotten to the playoff. I think the playoff could be a stabilizer for all conferences because a path to get in becomes your thing. Gonzaga doesn't leave the West Coast Conference because it doesn't need to.

They're not sitting there going, oh, we don't have enough money. We'll just do our own thing, and it works because we're really good at basketball. We can still recruit. We can get to the Final Four. So not only that, playoff share of revenue is going to be based on how many teams you get in. One team in a 10-team league. You got 10 slices. You put one in a 16, you're getting a smaller share. So there's a little more there.

But mainly it's like, what do you get out of winning? What do you get out of late-season games that you're in playoff contention? Selling out your stadiums and all of those things, there's a big advantage to that, especially someone like an Arizona State that's still trying to build up or rebuild their program. Utah, Oregon, they pretty much fill up. But there is definitely a chance that this fades out.

But I think that big thing is can the Big 12 expand to 16 or is the media partner going to say you're stuck at 14? I think they can do 16 if Arizona State and Utah say yes. Yeah. My guess is that will happen and we'll end up with a 20-team Big Ten or an 18-team. The great land grab. I guess I would give more likely that this is it,

but I do think there's a chance it doesn't happen. I don't know. Yeah, it will be fascinating to watch. One more story I wanted to run by you because I know we talked about Hunter Deckers last night, the Iowa State quarterback. You guys on your podcast talked about him and an Iowa baseball player who got caught placing bets. The news out of Iowa City today,

Iowa backup kicker Aaron Blom, in charge of tampering with records. So he apparently placed, this is according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, approximately 170 underage sports wagers, including a bet on an Iowa football game. And Dan, you're not going to believe it, but he bet the under. He bet the under on the 2021 Iowa-Iowa State game,

which he didn't play in. So I'm not accusing anyone of shaving points or anything. But the total on that game was 45.5. And I know what you're thinking. What? That sounds awfully high. But in the Vegas remains undefeated category, the final score of that game was Iowa 27, Iowa State 17.

So 44.5. Ticket cashed. Unfortunately, you may never play again. By half a point. Yeah. A point and a half, I again. By half a point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 27. A point and a half, I think.

Point and a half. Point and a half. Okay. Well, that is the most Iowa-Iowa State bet of all time, a gambling scandal. We also got the moms setting up accounts for these kids. What is that? That's not a good idea. Right.

Not good parenting. You give your kid a sip of beer every once in a while. Yeah. We're not funding your gambling or having your gambling be under my name. I don't want your crappy picks. I see my kid picking games for free. I don't want his picks under my account. We have talked about this off air before.

U.S. Integrity that monitors all this stuff. Absolutely terrifying. air before uh u.s integrity that monitors all this stuff absolutely terrifying that if you have downloaded any of them draft kings bet mgm whatever fan do they know where you are right now within three feet yeah like they they know where your phone is they know what you're doing right now they're probably listening to this podcast i don't know um they are right on top of everything if you're involved in college athletics just don't it's podcast i don't know um they are right on top of everything if you're involved in college athletics just don't it's just just don't you just don't gamble you're gonna get my thing is like i don't care if some college football player puts five bucks on an nba game that doesn't bother

me but common sense do not bet on a game your team is involved in ncaa cares you can't bet on the nba because so you can bet on horse racing like yeah yeah ufc stuff like that just take a couple years off like it's just it's not the time for this uh because they're going to catch you and mom's phone is not the that ain't gonna work well and that's the thing i was initially reading it and being like well how come mom and dad just didn't say like, well, we made those bets. And I realized, oh no, no, they're geo located. Like they know exactly where you were and where mom and dad were when those bets were placed. And if you weren't in the same place, you can't do anything. 100%. They can tell you what part of the locker room made the bet.

If there's a bet right before they can tell you whether it was the referee's room, they can, they get, they're going to nail you. When you give away on that is amazing. It is. It is the new big brother, Dan. This has been fascinating. Always.

I know you're busy. You got, you got more stuff to do. You probably got more interviews to do, but we're going to have to get back together when the dust settles and, and figure out what the hell happened with all this stuff. Let's do it. Always fun to be on,

man. Congrats on the new show. Really happy for you. Thank you, sir. Listen to Dan on the College Football Inquirer podcast with Ross Dellinger and Pat Forty and read him at yahoosports.com. Well, I promised we would get back to football and we will get back to football. We've got to do it at some point. We've got to get back to football. And I think this is a great way to do it. I've told some of the sports information directors when I call to request interviews with people that we want to be a safe space for offensive linemen on this show. And I want to make sure that you get to hear from the best of the best

offensive linemen. You've already heard from Olufashnu, who may be the first offensive lineman drafted in the NFL next year. He's Penn State's left tackle. He's going to be playing in a lot of huge games this year. The next guy you're going to hear from, another one probably going to be drafted fairly high. He's one of the best interior linemen in the country. He could be in an NFL camp right now,

but he and three of his teammates, who also were starters on Kansas State's offensive line are back and they're trying to get a second straight Big 12 title. Ladies and gentlemen, let's talk to the great Cooper Beebe. We are joined now by Kansas State offensive lineman Cooper Beebe. And I call you offensive lineman Cooper because you have started at every position except center in your career. Is there snapping in your future? Do you snap after practice because you're one of those guys that just wants to be ready in case?

Yeah, no, I definitely – this spring I've definitely been getting the snaps in, and that's something I'll be working on. You can never not add value to yourself, so if that comes to it and I need to play center, I'll be ready. So you are in the little apple right now. You are surrounded by many, many hats that you have collected over the years. You don't have to be there right now. You could be in some NFL camp right now, and you've got a bunch of teammates who are now back for their sixth year of eligibility. How did you guys all decide,

hey, we're coming back for one more time? Yeah. So, you know, after the season, you know, the O-line kind of got together at one of the local spots here in Manhattan, So Long Saloon. And, you know, we just kind of sat down and talked, and it was kind of a group thing. You know, we felt like, you know, we weren't done with our college careers. You know, we thought there's, you know, more out there. So, you know, we kind of came together and decided, you know, we're going to have one more shot at this,

and we're going to, you know, bring everybody back and, you know, see if we can elevate from last year. Whose idea was it to name it Bring Back the Beef? Because KT Levison, Hayden Gillum, Christian Duffy, these are all multi-year starters who are coming back for their sixth year. You're calling it Bring Back the Beef. That's great branding. I think there's probably an IL deal in there somewhere. Who came up with that? I want to say one of our old GAs, Hayden Wall, kind of. He kind of redesigned.

We have, I think I have it. Hold on. Oh, sweet. Yeah, if you're watching on the video right now, we've. So I have a hat that he made. Oh, that's beautiful. Hat he designed from the Kansas beef logo. And I don't know, it just kind of stuck.

You know, we had a lot of interest in that and people really loved it. So it kind of just stuck. So I'd say he's kind of the designer of that. The So Long Saloon seems like a weird place to meet when you're not saying so long like when you're going to say we're back yeah we're just i mean there's definitely one of the top top places to eat um aggieville so it just happened to be you know where we went were there any aggieville donuts consumed before after no? No. Those things are spectacular. Absolutely. That's what, so actually,

I'm going to give you a chance to brag on your town here, because for those who have not been to the Little Apple, it is one of America's great college towns. Explain to the folks what it's like to be a student in Manhattan, Kansas. I mean, it's just, it's a great time. I mean, especially I will, it's, it's a great time. I mean, especially I will say if you're of age, um, stuff elevates a lot better in this town. Uh, but there's, no, there's just definitely a lot, a lot of stuff to do and, you know, going out, going out with

friends, you know, meet new people. Aggieville is definitely the place to be, especially after games. The first time I went to Manhattan, I stayed at a hotel that was near a coffee shop called Rodina's Bakehouse. And they had what was called a butter flight. Basically, they had four different kinds of butter and they just give you a bunch of bread and you could test all the butters. And I was like, this is my kind of place. So let's talk about this comeback for you, you Cooper because obviously you're coming off a big 12 title very you know big season lots of expectations ahead Will Howard's back at

quarterback you know Chris Kleiman has had a chance to really get his his guys in now how excited are you guys for this season oh we, we're beyond excited. You know, we kind of talked about after last year, you know, that's what we're trying to do more this year. And like you said, you know, having all of us back, dudes like Will taking over fully as a quarterback, you know, we're super excited. You know, we're trying to be, you know, the first team in K-State history to win back-to-back big 12 championships that's that's never been done here um and you know we got the team to do it so you know we're super excited how much of of all this is you know the place in history would be it for the team or for

yourself i i read something we were talking about looking on the wall and seeing jordy nelson's name and darren sproll's name and Colin Klein, your offensive coordinator's name. What did it mean to you to be one of those guys? Oh, it would mean the world to me. You know, I love Manhattan, Kansas. You know, it'll always be a part of my heart. But, you know, I want to see myself in history, you know, when, you know, years down the road when I bring my kids to games,

you know, I want to be able to look up there and be like, hey, look, that's your dad. You know, he did great things here. And, yeah, it's just something you'll remember for the rest of your life. And also your little brother's a freshman this year. Yeah. And he's even bigger than you. How's he doing? How's he adjusting to camp?

And how were the workouts for him the first time? It definitely was a slap in the face when he got here. But, I mean, it is for most freshmen. But, no, he's doing really well. He finally, you know, got to the point where, you know, he wasn't struggling through workouts. And now he's excited. He got fall camp coming up. And I don't think they quite understand what fall camp entails yet,

but they'll surely learn here soon. So let's talk about how you got to K-State because I thought you were reading about your recruitment and something your dad said struck me. He said that he was telling you and your high school coaches all along, hey, he's going to play offensive line even though you were telling college coaches, hey, I want to play D-tackle. Yeah, so I mean, just, you know, one of the things, you know, when I grew up, I was just like, you know, offense, you know, never gets the love. It's always the defensive players that get all the love. So, you know, going into college, I was

like, you know what, I want to play defense. You want to be that guy that gets all the love, makes the big plays. But when we got to K-State, me and my dad walking in the locker room, and we went over to my locker, and we saw 50 on my nameplate. You're supposed to get 98, right? So we kind of looked at each other and goes, oh, it might be a playing offensive line. And then, of course, right after that, I go in, talk to Coach Kleiman and Coach Riley, our offensive line coach. And sure enough, I didn't even last a minute or anything at defensive line. I got moved straight to offense.

But, you know, it's worked out pretty well. I was going to say, because you say, Oh, there's no love, but I was on your mom's Twitter feed before this interview, which is when it comes out of my mouth like that sounds terrible. I'm sorry. But, but your mom has pictures of you and her in Barnes and Noble. And there's the Phil steel college football preview and you are on the cover and she made you take pictures with that. I'm looking at that picture. And when people were watching this video, there will be that photo.

We will be showing it. So I'm warning you now. But you don't look like you really want to take that picture. Well, it's a funny story. So I was actually down in Frisco from the o-line masterminds camp and we were just killing time walking through the mall and i saw i didn't even realize it at first but i just saw the um college book and i was like oh i'll just go see what they said about k-state and sure enough we walked over there and i'm like whoa i'm on the cover of this um so it was a

pretty pretty cool experience and my parents parents were definitely excited for that. So I definitely had to, my mom forced me to take some pictures and she bought like eight books, I think. That's awesome. Well, Phil will appreciate the business. He's the best. So you mentioned that O-Line Masterminds camp, that's Duke Miniweather is the coach who runs that. He always brings in the star.

There's always Lane Johnson or Steve Hutchinson, some really big-time people. What was it like to be around those guys? It was just a phenomenal experience just to see, like you said, you've got a lot of Hall of Fame guys that come in and kind of give their perspective on different things. And just to see how how they approach the game, you know, with the little stuff they do to make them great. It's just really eye opening as offense lineman. You know, you kind of take that knowledge in and kind of add to your game or, you know, add to your routines and different stuff like that.

Because, you know, you're wanting to be in their position one day. I read that you talked to Steve Hutchinson for 45 minutes about stance, which is the sexiest O-line conversation ever. How did that go? It was funny because throughout the whole camp, one of the most important things they talked about is stance, stance, stance. You wouldn't think it's a big deal. But, you know, being able to do everything out of one stance, making it look the same the entire time is really key to be an offensive lineman.

You don't want to, you know, tip people off. You're doing certain plays and stuff like that. So it was kind of eye-opening. But, you know, you're like, okay, you know, I get in a stance every play, whatever, no big deal. It's, you know, muscle memory. But, you know, to really hear what they had to say about it was pretty eye-opening. And those guys have it down to this granular detail because it's not –

this is not – like you know the difference between a light stance and a heavy stance. You're not going to let some D lineman know you're pulling, that sort of thing. But what is it like when an NFL guy, you know, a longtime NFL veteran explains how to not tip the play? No, it's it's really interesting just because they have a whole lot of different perspective and like information when it comes to that. You know, it's something like you said, as simple as, you know, weight distribution or different stuff like that, just to see them go into so much detail that you

didn't even realize that was there. I'm honest. It's just super eye-opening. It was such a great experience. So what would your ideal scenario be for this season? Because you guys have put a lot of planning into this. I always feel like when you have this many experienced offensive linemen coming back it's it's the easiest building block to a special season but what would what would your dream scenario be here um I'd say um you know win win another uh big 12 championship and you know get in the playoff and you know see if we can win it all would be our, would be our dream scenario. So as you're doing this, you're also still progressing toward the NFL draft,

which you probably would have drafted pretty high had you left, but now you've got, you know, pro football focus has used the best interior offensive lineman in the coming out this year. Do you think about that? Are you you aware of that are you following that or is that something you can't worry about um it's something i mean it's you're definitely aware of it i mean it's you can't get away from it i get tagged and all sorts of different things and you know oh he's best with one of the best returning blah blah but you know it's something you got to put on the back burner you know i, I, I can't, I'm focused on, on this season and, you know, I'm gonna have a great season and,

you know, let the NFL play out after that. But, um, you know, I gotta worry about, you know, getting wins and having a good season this year. So you kind of just put it on the back burner. Do you have a favorite play that you've been tagged in over the last few months by the draft next? Cause they're always looking like, Oh, we found this one from Cooper. This is a gem. Do you have one that you're like, ooh, that's pretty awesome? Yeah, definitely it's against Tulane. You know, I was pulling out. Yeah, I remember this one.

I knocked down two dudes, which I didn't even realize at the time. Yeah, no, I get tagged in that one, you know, every other day it seems like. So that would probably be one of the best ones I get tagged in that one, you know, every other day it seems like. So that would probably be one of the best ones I get tagged in. What was that like when you all were watching it back for the first time and you realized what happened? I mean, it was pretty cool. I think, you know, it probably didn't help that we lost. Right, yeah.

You know, it's not something you – you don't really look for the good plays, I guess, when you lose. But no, it was definitely, it was pretty cool because I didn't even nobody really realized it. And, you know, you just coaches just tip your hat. You're like, wow, that's, you know, that's a phenomenal play. And you don't even realize you did it. But yeah, I mean, it didn't really matter to me. I mean, we were lost. So I was more frustrated about frustrated about that more than anything. You've played both tackle positions and both guard positions in college.

Do you prefer guard to tackle? Yeah, I would rather play guard. I think my body type definitely suits playing inside a lot more. When I played tackle, they needed somebody to play tackle, and I wanted you know, when I played tackle, you know, they needed somebody to play tackle. And, you know, I wanted to play. So I was like, you know, I'll go for it. I'll give it my best shot.

But I would definitely say there's more to like at guard for me than there is to tackle. You sound like – when you say that, I mean, contact. That's what we're talking about, right? Contact against fellow 300 plus pounders because it's not it's not pass setting against king felix every day in practice i'm sure that was a an adventure with an edge rusher absolutely um you know i i enjoy when when dudes don't don't try to um run away from you you know at the at the edge position you know they're all about avoiding

contact but you know right right here in the middle, it's all about contact. That's all you get. That's something I enjoy. You know, I didn't have the longest arms out there at tackle, and dudes were quite a bit faster than I was. So it definitely made stuff hard on me. But, you know, I was able to get it done. All right.

Well, and you've also brought back the beef for returning starting offensive lineman at K-State about a million years combined experience you're the young guy in that group what's that like no it's funny because um like you said you know you've I've played for so long and you think I would be the old guy but to know that you know there's dudes that are on the old line is a dude that's married another dude. That's that's engaged. And, you know, I'm the young guy and it's, it's cool because, you know, even though I'm the young guy, I think a lot of them still, still look to me for advice,

different stuff like that. Just, just to know that, you know, the guys kind of rely on me is a good feeling. It's always a fun dynamic because I always make fun of how old I am just to know that there's even older people on our team. How is that even possible? But, no, it's definitely something you kind of look at and you're like, wow, I'm still the young guy on this whole line. I was reading that when you went to Big 12 Mini Days, it was only the second time in your life that you'd worn a suit.

Are you prepared? Because you're in your early 20s now. Are you prepared for the number of weddings you're going to have to go to? You better get used to the suit. Yeah, no. I'm definitely, I think, more prepared now. But, yeah, it's getting close to that age where wedding season's coming for a lot of my friends. So it'll be interesting. I'm not a huge dress-up guy, but you got to do what you got to do.

Next time we see you in a suit might be draft night. That's the plan. Unless you win the Heisman. I want to see you in the tux at the Heisman ceremony. I'm all for an O-lineman winning the Heisman. And if anybody's going to win it, you, uh, Olu Fashnu from Penn state, who we interviewed last week, and we talked steak with, and actually now that I'm thinking about it, we need to start a tradition here on this show. This is a fairly new show. Olu was talking about what his, his dream steak is. He's a Tomahawk ribeye, medium rare guy. So i'm giving you the whole cow and you can cook it however you want it what's the dream oh i would go ribeye medium rare for sure beautiful it listen it it's an

o-line thing i think i i i know i have a feeling every o-line man i talk to will have the same answer and does my heart good. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. That is Cooper BB. And I tell you what, that guy is a lot of fun. I cannot wait to see what he does this year.

Remember three other starting offensive linemen for K-State team last year are back. Those guys are six-year seniors cooper is a senior this is a veteran group and it's going to be very exciting to see what they can do now we're going back to a little more realignment talk but also some some coach talk because we had justin hopkins fromDuck on. He covers Oregon. ScoopDuck is the on three site covering Oregon. And obviously Oregon is in the mix for this deal. We talked to Justin a little bit before Dan Wetzel's story broke, but we obviously covered a lot of the ground that we

would have covered afterward anyway. And it's very interesting to see where Oregon sits because from a brand standpoint, they may be one of the best on the board. Oregon, we don't know if Florida State or Clemson or anybody else can get out of the ACC right now. Of the schools that are movable right now, Oregon's probably the biggest brand on the board. Talked about that. that we also talked about dan lanning's new contract and how organ may have solved for keeping their coach which is something that's been an issue for them lately we're joined now by justin hopkins from scoop duck party on three network and justin we keep talking about arizona arizona state and utah in terms of what happens with the Pac-12. But Oregon, arguably the biggest brand in the Pac-12, where do they stand in terms of this potential TV deal,

in terms of other realignment? Where is Oregon right now? Oregon's probably been the most interesting because, as you said they they probably have the most weight to throw around in the conference with Washington right there as well Oregon and Washington the top two but Oregon's been probably the quietest of everybody throughout everything they just really haven't said much you know hey yeah we're we're committed to the Pac-12 if it can work but not you know not like they're saying that every other day. So, you know, for me, I think just from what we know and, and it could, we could be way off, but I think Oregon is committed to keeping some form of the PAC 12 conference alive, if it makes sense.

But I also think that, and you might believe this or might not, we're at the forefront of conference realignment, in my opinion. I think the whole thing is going to continue to change over the next three to six years. And so I think if you're Oregon, you're afraid of getting locked into something too long term, no matter what it is, Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, whatever, any of those scenarios, I think you're afraid of getting locked into something too long term because I feel that, you know, and I believe Oregon believes this. We're at the forefront of conference realignment that's going to probably really, you know, take a major shape in the next three to six years. Yeah. And Dennis Dodd had a story in CBS Sports dot com today that was very interesting talking about what if a private equity company came in and funded a conference and, you know, you could break off some from the ACC and some from the Big 12 and Oregon and Washington and make a bespoke conference

that somebody just pays for. And, you know, five years ago, we'd be like, that sounds insane. And now it's like, yeah, I'd believe pretty much anything at this point. Yeah. I mean, live golf popped up out of nowhere, right? Yeah. Let's not get the Saudis involved. Right. These are public universities. I don't know if the states are going to go for that, but, but no, I, it's true. It's,

it's very interesting because Oregon does feel like they, they have a big brand, but you, the not getting locked in part feels important. The other part of it is playoff access. You know, if a version of the Pac-12 survives, it feels like Oregon, Washington, if Utah stays, those three are just slugging it out for a spot every single year. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think a lot of fans don't see that, like close to Oregon, close to Washington. They don't see that. And if you take a step back and say, Hey man, you, you know, the, you top three, maybe if Stanford can continue to develop,

maybe you top four, you're slugging it out. That's probably the easiest path to the playoff. If you can remain in some sort of conference that remains competitive financially you know, a move to the big 10 is going to make that really difficult. Not just because there's great programs out there. That's a lot of travel and big travel. And I don't think fans are really kind of thinking long-term. I think, you know, they're thinking short-term like, Oh, the pack can't survive. It can survive. It's, it's actually not that hard to, you know, imagine them surviving, but you know,

if they're only making 20 million a year, yeah, they're, they're going to continue dying the slow death. Is, is the, the playoff access thing. You know, if they're only making 20 million a year, yeah, they're going to continue dying the slow death. Is the playoff access thing, it feels like that's a piece that's important to Oregon's administration, at least from people I've talked to over the last year or so. Well, so the way I feel about this is, you know, Colorado, for example, and Arizona, for example, you know, I don't know that they have the resources financially that Oregon does or Washington does. Right. So I think schools are are are need to take they need to take these decisions and make it for themselves. So Oregon, you know, let's say they're they're losing 10 million dollars a year in revenue, media deal revenue. They can sustain that. They could figure out a way to come up with that money and remain competitive. Washington could probably do the same. Arizona and Colorado, I don't think, could manage that quite as easily. So they needed to make a decision for them, like the proposed deal is, you're almost betting on yourself to remain in the pack under this revised deal and saying, hey, we believe we can

win games. And if we win games, we're going to be rewarded financially for it. So not everybody has to make the same decision Colorado does, in my opinion. Yeah. And the thing I find interesting about what was floated out in terms of the TV deal. We don't know exactly what the numbers are, but the idea of a subscription service and you get more money, the more you sell. It does feel like Oregon and Washington, because they have the biggest and most passionate fan bases, would be doing most of the heavy lifting on that one too.

So I wonder if they could possibly get a little bit more because they're selling more subscriptions if that goes that way. Yeah. And should you win? I wonder if there's escalators like, hey, you get to keep whatever bowl money you get. That'll go 100% to you. Or if you make a playoff, you get to keep that money. Or you win a national championship, you get to keep that money. If you start betting on yourself, all of a sudden you're talking about maybe making $40 million instead of $20, but it is a gamble. Yeah. And Oregon, it feels like they've been so close. They make the national championship game in 2014 and in 2010.

Phil Knight had invested so much into the program. Is it the feeling of they need to win a national championship at some point is that the last frontier right now it really is I think regardless of any of this I think with Dan Lanning's contract that was recently renegotiated and some of these other things I think that you're seeing you know Phil Knight saying hey look whatever it takes to win I want to do it of course legally within the rules and reasonably I'm not going to just sit here and throw money and throw money but I think if you're Oregon you're looking at this conference realignment stuff and that's probably one of the biggest parts of this decision I think for Oregon is the fact that

they're very well aware that they want to try and win a national championship. It's something that Phil has expressed repeatedly that is on his mind. And I think that that is a, you know, a piece of this conversation that again, might not be, you know, something for Arizona and Colorado. They're in different situations. So I believe that's part of it. So you mentioned Dan Lanning's new contract and it, it takes care of, I think the thing that has been bugging Oregon for a while and, and Oregon lost Willie Taggart to Florida state. They lost Mario Cristobal to Miami understandable on the Cristobal thing. It's his alma mater and everything,

but he had a pretty significant buyout, but not as significant as Dan Lanning. So if you would like to hire Dan Lanning, if you're another school, if you'd like to hire Dan Lanning after this year, it will cost you $20 million. If you would like to hire Dan Lanning after next year, it will cost you $20 million. Three years from now, $20 million. Four years now, $20 million. You see where I'm going with this. Justin, do you think they finally hit upon the formula to make sure nobody poaches their coach? Yeah, it's funny. Just talking to fans on my message board, it was like, hey, look, again, if something happened to Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, and they wanted Dan Lanning, there's no buyout that could keep those schools from coming.

Well, and then the $20 million buyout comes out and I think, yeah, that might do it. So by the time, by the time the $20 million buyouts there, by the time, let's say you've got to increase his $7 million salary that it is currently, you know, you're talking probably 8 million, 9 million, whatever the number is, you're talking about $30 million. If you want to hire Dan Lanning, I would imagine that he would have needed to one, two national championships at that point for that to make sense to anybody. So, yeah, I think Oregon kind of got it right here. It was a great contract for both sides. Obviously, Dan Lanning is earning more money. And the cool part is this is something Rob Mullins has never done in the past.

He's never been this ambitious this early on in a coach's career to kind of re-up or renegotiate their salary. So it shows a commitment from that side, you know, and then Dan Lanning rewarded him and said, Hey, look, I'll agree to a $20 million buyout. So both sides got something at the table. And like you said, it gives Oregon that continuity that they've been chasing since the Chip Kelly, Markel Fritch years. I also think Dan Lanning is a little bit different situation than Willie Taggart and Mario Cristobal, who were guys that had been tied to a geographical region before they went out to Oregon. Dan Lanning's from Kansas. He's coached at Memphis.

He's coached at Georgia. He's been in Alabama. He he's been in different, he's been at Arizona state. Like he's been in different places. And so there's no necessarily I'm going home situation. Well, I don't think Kansas can afford it. Let's be perfectly honest, but, but it feels like that, that also makes this situation different. Yeah. It's like you said, I think fans knew when Willie Taggart came to Oregon, there was always this, you know, hey, if Florida State ever opened, that'd be the one to watch. Well, Florida State hadn't opened in like 30 years.

So, you don't have to worry about it. No big deal. Of course, that year, Florida State opens. It hadn't opened in 40 years. They hired about in 76 and went straight to Jimbo. So, I knew it was a while. Yeah. Yeah.

And of course, you know, and then Mario Cristobal, he said all the right things and, you know, he was committed to Oregon and, but everybody knew there's one job that could open up. And of course it opened up and then not to mention they opened up the checkbook for him. So, you know, that's been tough. And like you said, Lanning's not tied to any one school, right? It's not like, you know, for me, I said Georgia and Alabama, just cause it seems like, well, if he's leaving, he's going somewhere that's a proven one.

Those are the two that came to mind, but yeah, he doesn't have any special ties to those. He coached at them briefly, but it's not like he was a tenured there for 10 years or anything like that. Well, and I did the math. I had a friend and I did the math on what it would be if Texas A&M were to fire Jimbo Fisher and decide Dan Lanning was their guy. Because Jimbo Fisher would be owed 25% of his buyout right off the bat. So if you would like to hire Dan Lanning, if you're Texas A&M and you decide to make a change and you would like to hire Dan Lanning, your total spend, including Lanning's salary, his buyout, what you have to pay Jimbo right away. Your total spend is over 60 million dollars up front. Oh, my God. So I don't think you're doing that.

And it's crazy because college football has gotten so aggressive with money. Right. It's just some of these salaries are out of hand. Like it's unreal. But and we probably joke about that. And then next thing you know, you know, they're making an offer to Dan Lanning in two years. I know. I said all that. Somebody can clip this.

And in November, they might be like, yeah, they're doing it. Yeah. You said they wouldn't. But all of a sudden, Billy Lucci is reporting Texas A&M is pursuing Dan Lanning. And we're like, what? Well, listen, we all know Lucci here. Lucci could fund half of that himself so right it's not a problem but yeah it is pretty amazing now let's let's talk about the ducks

on the field because this is a roster i feel like you know it's weird we don't we don't give utah enough credit they've won two pack 12 titles in in a row. Everybody's on USC for good reason. They bring back the Heisman Trophy winner. They've revamped that roster even more. The body types look like the teams that compete for national titles. But it feels like Oregon is right there in terms of talent and what they're bringing back. Yeah, I mean, everybody's got USC as the favorite

and I totally get it, right? They're going to score buckets of points. All right. I mean, basically to beat USC, you're going to have to probably score 45 points to beat them. Like that's the reality. So, I mean, they're going to be in a lot of fun shootouts. They're going to be a lot of fun to watch, but I believe that if we're talking about those top four and we're and we're saying USC Washington Oregon and Utah you could make a case for any of the four they're all good teams you know I think Utah lost a lot they might see a little bit of fall off this year but they return Cam Rising and Cam Rising's a darn good quarterback who might be like the fourth or fifth best quarterback in the conference which is crazy well and And you lose Dalton Kincaid as a first round tight end, but Brant Queethy comes back, who, by the way,

Dalton Kincaid was playing behind before Brant Queethy got hurt. So there's a lot of – there's so much talent. We didn't mention Oregon State even, which won 10 games and brought almost everybody back. So, yeah, it feels like a very fun league this year but it also feels like Oregon has an opportunity especially the way the schedule shakes out to to to win it and that's the key so right now you know last year they opened up with Georgia and we remember that beat down very well okay that was a tough game tough way for your new head coach to

play his first ever game as the head coach. But second game of the season is Texas tech. Okay. They're going to be good. They're going to be really good. They're going to compete in the big 12. That'll that's a winnable game for Oregon, but it's also a very good measuring stick right away. And then you've got USC at home. You know, that's, that game is going to be epic. I mean, I imagine we'll see everybody under the sun out for that game at Austin stadium, Oregon versus USC last time ever is, you know, that's that game is going to be epic. I mean, I imagine we'll see everybody under the sun out for that game at Austin Stadium, Oregon versus USC last time ever as, you know, as Pac-12 opponents. That'll be big. You play Washington. I mean, Oregon's got some games that if they win, they're going to have not only, you know, they need the wins, but they're going to have a great resume to boot. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing with the, with the league being so strong this year. And it's, that's the hardest thing with me watching all this other

stuff, this, this realignment stuff go on. They should be able to celebrate in the PAC 12, having the deepest league they've had in, I don't even know how long, I mean, USC was a national power at one point, but it didn't feel like the rest of the league was, was quite up there with them in the early two thousands. This is a case where five, six teams look really good. And some of the other, like Arizona feels ascendant.

It feels like they're getting better. So I just, I, it sucks that that's, you know, we had to lead off with five minutes of who's going to be in this league, but that's, that's where we're at. So, with five minutes of who's going to be in this league but that's that's where we're at so yeah no it's going to be a fun i think people are going to be talking about the pac-12 a lot this year and deservedly so it's going to be a ton of fun and

like you said arizona's getting better colorado's hired dion and rejuvenated that program dillingham is going to be a terrific fire hire for asu. Maybe not this year, but they're going to get there. And like you said, we have no idea what the conference will look like next year. It is amazing, but we do know that there's gonna be some good games this year. Justin, thank you so much. Thank you. We really don't know what the conference is going to look like next year

because while we were listening to me and Justin talk, a little more news broke. The Arizona Board of Regents at 5.52 Mountain Standard Time on Wednesday, which is 8.52 Eastern. If you don't know, Mountain Standard Time, they don't believe in daylight savings time in Arizona, but that's neither here nor there. They will have a meeting scheduled

for the Arizona Board of Regents at 6 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on Thursday. So 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. Here's what they're talking about in executive session. So if we watch, if we're on the live stream, all we're going to see is the call to order. But here's what they're going to talk about in the executive session. Pursuant to some Arizona laws that you don't care about, for a review of assignments for Arizona State University President Michael Crow and University of Arizona

President Robert Robbins, also pursuant to some more Arizona laws you don't care about, for possible legal advice and discussion regarding university athletics. So that is not only Robert Robbins, the president of Arizona, that is also Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State. Now, from covering realignment before, if we're going by the order of operations, and this is different in every school, it's different in every state, different in every university system, but a lot of times,

one of the steps before a key decision gets made involving conference alignment, or probably accepting a big conference media rights deal, either one, is that the board gives the authority to the president to negotiate. And so I would say this looks like a strong sign that they would be giving the authority to those two presidents to negotiate conference affiliation, which might lead you to believe that maybe they're going to change conferences so we'll see what happens we will be covering that on thursday night we'll stay on late we'll do whatever we got to do to cover that and make sure that you know about it and

i'm fascinated because you heard Dan Wetzel. We've been talking about all this. If Arizona and Arizona State move, I would also expect Utah to move. If that were to happen, then a lot of the kind of nuclear option stuff becomes on the table. So we'll pay attention all day tomorrow. News may leak before that meeting. Remember the board meeting where Colorado approved that they were going to move to the big 12 from the PAC 12. It had already leaked the day before we already knew exactly what was going to happen. So if I had to guess, I'd say that's, that's what they're headed toward, but we will find out

for now though. Let's go back to back to the important business of actual football. Well, not actual football. Acquiring actual football players. So if you were on the internet this weekend, you saw Elijah Dotson, who's a recruit. He was at Michigan on a visit. And he posted a picture of a plate of food. And it blew up. It was all over the internet. And I saw that thing and I thought to myself, man, I need to talk to an expert about this. I need to talk to somebody who knows about cooking for recruits and who knows about good

eating as a recruit. And I only know one person who was a star recruit who became a professional pit master, and that man's name is Shannon Snell. So former Florida offensive lineman, current pit master, Shannon Snell joins the show. This was a big recruiting weekend everywhere around the country. Everybody had their big recruiting weekend. Alabama had, I think they call it the championship cookout. Michigan had folks. Ohio State had folks. Florida had folks. So we saw this food, and I'm using the term lightly, from Michigan. One of the recruits posted this. It's some sad little wholesale club chicken fingers. There's a hot dog. I see one grow mark.

There's some mac and cheese. And I thought to myself, I need to have an expert on to discuss this because I know a guy who does cook for recruits every once in a while. His name is Shannon Snell. Now here's the thing about Shannon. He is the head pit master for all the Sonny's barbecues in North Central Florida. But Shannon also has been a blue chip recruit. He played for the Florida Gators. He played in the NFL. And Shannon, now I'm not going to age you here, but did they have stars for recruits when you were coming up i'm trying to remember you you might have been one of the original five stars yeah so actually i was right below i was rated like a top four stars i think my it was 0.9888 i was right below that five star mark so i'm not hating

on it i just and i just found that out a couple months ago when i checked it i don't think i was checking back in a day i was gonna say that wasn't a thing you thought about in the late 90s, early 2000s, when all that stuff was just coming out, when you were a Hillsboro High School Terrier. Yeah, it wasn't really a thing back then. We were just, you know, stars didn't really matter. It was about getting to college and making things happen. Now, let's talk about what you're doing now, though, because you were the head pit master

brand ambassador for sunny's barbecue in north central florida which by the way is where sunny's barbecue was born it was born in gainesville out on waldo road right so the you've been cooking for the folks at uf for a while and they they brought you in for their, what do they call it, grill in the ville for their recruiting weekend this past weekend. So tell the folks what you made for the recruits that were in Gainesville. All right. So we, well, every year we want to kind of set the game up, right? Because it is like the last opportunity that the recruits

and the coaching staff are going to get together before the season starts. So you got to make a lasting impression. So we decided to do some baby back ribs, some St. Louis ribs. We did a strawberry shortcake. We did burn-ins.

We did smoked wings. Some other stuff. We did a shrimp pasta, Alfredo's shrimp pasta, and I smoked the shrimp. Yeah, it was prime rib that we've done. Your famous seven cheese mac and cheese? The seven cheese mac and cheese, which is a homemade recipe. It literally has seven different kinds of cheese in it, and it's baked. It's got a nice golden crisp, a nice golden topping on top of it.

So we did it up, and it was fantastic. I love doing that kind of stuff. Well, it's amazing to me to see the photos that you sent me of this stuff because when we looked at the Michigan one, it got – well, cooked is probably the wrong word on social media. Let's take a look at this again i want to i want to post this plate one more time listen i listen you and i are in florida publics would never with these chicken tenders uh you know they're not public chicken tenders

those are the farthest thing from it they're not even they're not even public cookies those things are that's sad all the way around and that's the thing is like when you don't ever want to have a plate like that posted. I get it. Some of these recruits make up their own plates. But ain't no way in heck that I know the University of Florida is going to have hot dogs at a really big-time event or box mac and cheese or chicken tenders that look like they're not even real.

So it is what it is. I guess that's what they do up north, but that's not what we do in the south and they've won two consecutive big 10 titles so whatever they're doing they're they're probably doing it okay listen i can't barbara says he's drafted so they've knocked off ohio state a couple of times too so you can't really say that their recipe is is in the food so maybe it's something different so shan i i'm interested because you served as a as a guy who eats a lot of barbecue who cooks it but not nearly as well as you but eats a lot of it and i feel like i eat it very well um you went st louis ribs and baby backs is that is that because different people have different preferences do you have different preference in terms of what you prefer to cook? Yeah, I was born and bred on St. Louis ribs.

I like the belly. You know, the St. Louis ribs come from the belly of the hog. They got a little bit more fat content. It's a little bit easier to cook those because, you know, just because you can mess up a little bit on it and they still come out fantastic. You know, baby backs don't have that, that intramuscular fat. If you overcook them, that's actually supposed to be a good thing. You want them nice and tender. But if you undercook them,

you can end up messing them up. So, but I was just raised on St. Louis ribs. I love doing them. Whenever I go to a barbecue competition, recently I was on barbecue USA on the food network. And that was one of the competitions we did, and we did St. Louis ribs. That's what wins competitions, so that's what I'm going to stick with. Well, I love the just pillow of meat on top of a St. Louis rib. That's when you – and you can put – like, what people mess up is good barbecue is not fall off the bone. That's right.

Fall off the bone is you boil it. But when it's smoked properly, you're going to be able to tug it a little bit, and it'll come off clean off the bone. And that pillow of meat, when you pull it off the bone, it's the perfect bite. Yeah, when you get it right, Andy, it's like perfect. And just as you said, your ribs are supposed to have a little bit of tug to it, not enough where you're trying to yank away at the bone, but enough when you bite into it, you get that nice real even bite and you see your teeth march into it.

That's like, it's like the perfect, it's like the perfect storm when it comes to barbecue. The burn ends also. So you're a Florida guy. That's a, that's a Kansas city, Texas kind of thing. Were there any Texas kids? I'm trying to remember the the guest list on the recruiting weekend i know the the well dj lagway was there there you go i was about to get the very go yeah you know those burn-ins are fantastic i actually did test texas brisket as well um i

love texas beef texas brisket i went out to dallas maybe about seven years ago and you know I tasted brisket out there and I said what is so different because it was fantastic yeah and all they do is garlic salt and pepper and that's what they do and they do it well they believe the beef should speak for itself and sure enough I love I love it so I've been trying to replicate that I came to a pretty good recipe ever since so it's more it's more than how you trim it right it is it is it is so it's rounding the edges actually squaring the brisket up and getting it to a point where the smoke flows evenly over top of it you're only using a certain kind of woods like oak hickory and mesquite so you're not using a whole lot of uh different kinds of wood a lot of times they're cooked on an off

stick burner and garlic salt and pepper maybe a little bit of seasoned salt, maybe some celery salt, but that's it. No sugars, nothing that's weird. The beef is supposed to really talk for itself and let the smoke do the work. So when you were growing up, did you cook quite a bit in your house or did you cook as a, as a college student or when did, when did this take hold? It's funny. My grandfather used to cook when he was in the backyard. I used to be in over in, uh, over in West Tampa. They had a house over there, and he had this big old barrel smoker, this big old offset barrel smoker.

And I remember for, like, family reunions, that's where I would be at. I'd be out back probably because I just wanted the taste of ribs that he was bringing out before everybody else got some. But he'd be out there, and I'd be out there with him, and I just was so interested that he wouldn't have like a, like a, like a burner or wouldn't have electricity yet. He was coming out with all this really dope barbecue. So I think it really kind of evolved from there because I always said I

wanted to do something, the food industry, more specifically barbecue, because just to those times I would hang out with him and I would see this kind of stuff. It would be so fun. It would be so cool. And the taste, the smoke on me on, on proteins is like, like fantastic. It's one of my favorite things that I eat. And it's really, it really hasn't changed in my, I'm going to go and age myself, my 41 years of life. We, we may have to make you the official show barbecues correspondent. I think we may have to do that because we're going to talk about it a lot on this show. I'm everybody you know i just moved over to on three this is a fairly new show there's some

people who've not who are new to me we're gonna talk about barbecue a lot on this show so shannon hopefully you you don't mind if i bug you every once in a while i may i may send you some photos be like okay i need a critique on this andy i don't mind at all it's barbecue i get to critique it make it to critique it make it to try it and heck even my sparks and neurons in my head to maybe start firing something else up myself so i i love it thank you so much and i'm very hungry now i have to look at those pictures thank you shannon Thank you, Shannon. We'll find some barbecue after that.

But we do have one more thing to talk about. Obviously, we're going to have a big show tomorrow night because we've got an Arizona Board of Regents meeting and some stuff's going to happen. And like I was saying before, when they are authorizing the two presidents, Arizona and Arizona States, to make deals regarding conference affiliation, which probably is what they're talking about, it usually means there's movement afoot. So this could be it for the Pac-12. We'll see. We've said that about the Big 12 before. We've had people say the Big 12 is dead, and then the Big 12 rose from the dead.

So we're not going to say anything definitive until we know what's happening. But it definitely seems like that movement is coming, and we'll have to see exactly how it plays out. And all this makes me think about a statement that one of the Florida State trustees made in their meeting today, a trustee named Deborah Sargent. And she was talking about where Florida State finds itself, where they don't want to be in this position. They'd rather be happy with their conference affiliation, but this is just what they've been pushed into. And if you're Oregon, if you're Washington, you probably feel the same way. As soon as USC and UCLA left,

you got pushed into a situation. Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, probably also feeling the same way. So everybody's here and we're all at DEFCON 1. And so Deborah Sargent said this today and I found it very fitting. And so we have to do what we have to do, but it would be with, you know, very humbly in a way that we don't want to have to do this, but we have to do what it takes to compete. Thank you.

I think we just need to believe in ourselves and what we have. If this is a game of chicken, I hope it's not. It's a giant game of chicken. That's all's not. It's a giant game of chicken. That's all it is. It's a giant game of chicken. And we're going to see who runs into who. Maybe tomorrow. We'll talk to you later.