Andy & Ari On3 - Dear Andy: Is Jimbo Fisher's Contract the WORST in the History of sports? | Plus a Big 12 update

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Dear Andy: Is Jimbo Fisher's contract the worst in the history of sports? | Plus a Big 12 updateThank you to Gametime for sponsoring today's episode! Week 1 is days away, don't miss your chance to watch your favorite team. Download the Gametime App and enter code: STAPLES for $20 off your first purchase, terms apply. Last Minute Tickets, Lowest Prices, Guaranteed.Want to watch the show on YouTube Instead? Head on over to YouTube!https://youtube.com/live/ksh5YiszWzcIt's a Dear Andy show, so your questions are the stars!(0:00-3:21) First, the NCAA has denied James Madison's request for a waiver that would have allowed the Dukes to play in the Sun Belt title game.(3:22-4:44) In other news, Iowa star Cooper DeJean is out for the rest of the year(4:45-11:29) Also, a coaching carousel update:Northwestern plans to give interim coach David Braun the full-time job.(11:30-27:41) George Stoia III and Eddie Radosevich dumb it down for Andy as the Big 12 adjusts its tiebreaker procedures.(27:42-28:54) Now it's time for your questions:(28:55-36:54) Was Jimbo's contract the worst in sports history?(36:55-46:24) What is the funniest hire Texas A&M could make?(46:25-55:09) When will athletic directors stop getting pummeled by coaches' agents?(55:10-57:59) Why haven't we been talking about how Michigan signal-stealing could have affected the spread?(58:00-1:01:44) Was Michigan's lack of throwing against Penn State a concern?(1:01:45-1:08:09) How many more wins does Washington need to jump Florida State?(1:08:10-1:17:59) Who are the best under-the-radar hires of the past 15 years?(1:18:00) Conclusion

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. It's Wednesday night. That means it's a Dear Andy episode. Your questions are the stars and you guys have some incredible questions. We are going to get to those. But first, we've got to talk about a bunch of news. A lot of news hit on Wednesday afternoon. And a couple things that are kind of sad.

We'll start with James Madison. We know that the Dukes had requested a waiver. They're in their second season in the FBS. They're not supposed to be eligible for postseason play, but they requested a waiver because clearly they are good enough to be in the postseason. Clearly they have done everything they needed to do to be a good upstanding member of the FBS.

They are 10-0. They're the best team in the Sun Belt. But the NCAA, which never met an easy decision, it couldn't muck up, decides, let's just look like the bad guy again when we can have an easy W. Instead of the easy W, we'll look like the bad guy and we're not going to let JMU play in the postseason.

Now, they're going to end up letting them play in the postseason anyway, because there aren't going to be enough bowl-eligible teams. So they're going to end up going to a some bowl, but unfortunately, they're not going to get to play for the Sunbelt title, something they've earned, and they're not going to have a chance to be the highest ranked group of five champ, which would put them in a new year six bowl, which they probably would be if they were eligible to be that. It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. So Jacksonville state had also applied for the same kind of waiver. Uh, they were in their first year of FBS play and rich Rodriguez, this team is seven and three. They were denied as well.

There's a, you know, they could still get in with, with not enough bowl eligible teams, but it's just ridiculous that the NCAA can't ever just do the easy thing that people might like them for. They never do. They never, ever do. Never pick the easy win.

Statement from James Madison. We're obviously disappointed in the outcome of the NCAA's review of our request for bowl relief. We're saddened for our university community. In particular, we're devastated for our football program, the coaches, and student-athletes who have orchestrated an amazing season and earned the opportunity. As we turn the page, we have an incredible week lined up

with College Game Day. Oh Oh yeah, that's right. College game day is emanating from James Madison this weekend. So a three-hour infomercial for James Madison and oh, by the way, a three-hour infomercial against the NCAA. Again, you can't just take the W. You can't. I would love to meet the people who make these decisions. Actually, I have met a lot of the people who make these decisions. They are as bureaucratic and myopic as you think. So it's ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous. But unfortunately, that's the way it is. So watch game day, curse the NCAA. Nothing like passing up a chance to look like a nice guy.

They do it every time, every single time. Now, another piece of sad news that came down on Wednesday. Iowa cornerback Cooper DeGene, one of the best defensive players in the country, one of the most electric punt returners in the country, he's out for the season. He injured his lower leg, according to a statement from Kirk Ferentz. Scott Dockterman, who works for The Athletic, covers Iowa. He reported that it was a broken fibula. So Cooper Jean is out for Iowa's remaining games, which by the way, could include the Big Ten Championship. They are playing Illinois this weekend. And oh, by the way,

Illinois threw for 500 yards last week against Indiana. So having your best corner would be nice, but Iowa will persevere. Lord knows they've lost a lot of other players to injury too. Starting quarterback, best tight end, you name it. It just keeps piling up for the Hawkeyes. Very sad. Cooper DeGene probably going to be a very high pick in the NFL draft. This is a guy that does everything well, and he's going to test really well once he gets healthy. And hopefully this will not keep him from being drafted as high as he should be because as he's trying to recover, maybe he can't do as much. But I'm hoping that they just watch the tape because he's really good.

A better piece of news. So I remember sitting at Big Ten Media Days when David Braun had to get up and speak for Northwestern. So David Braun, the interim coach at Northwestern, thrown into this situation. He's a defensive coordinator. He was not at Northwestern for all of the stuff that got Pat Fitzgerald fired.

Braun had been hired this offseason to come in and run the defense. He'd been at North Dakota State, obviously one of the great programs in the FCS. And he just gets thrown into this situation after Pat Fitzgerald gets fired. Obviously, everybody's up in arms. The players, the other coaches, the administration, everything's going crazy. Oh, by the way, David Braun's wife was expecting a baby at any point. This is in late July. And you're thinking, this guy, he's earning every penny that they're paying him right now. You couldn't pay me enough to deal with this stuff. He's got no shot. And then you watch that

first game against Rutgers and you're like, they're so far in over their heads. This is going to be terrible. Well, guess what? David Braun has done an incredible job. Northwestern is five and five. You kind of knew something was up when they beat Minnesota early in the season, but recently they've beaten Maryland and Wisconsin. All they have to do is beat one of Purdue or Illinois to be bowl eligible. This is an incredible coaching job. Just amazing to take that situation and a roster that was not very good last year. And you are one win away from bowl eligibility. So David Braun on Wednesday rewarded by being named the permanent head coach

at Northwestern. And I realized I wrote a column saying, oh, Northwestern can use all that Big Ten money and buy a sitting power five coach. They don't need to. They may have found an absolute gem in David Braun because I don't know how many coaches could have led that group under those circumstances to the season they've had. It's really impressive what David Braun has done. The players clearly love him, and I'm excited to see what he does going forward because it probably won't get tougher

than the situation he got himself thrown into this year. So perhaps this is a chance for Northwestern to reboot, reset. We'll see what he does with the staff. But very cool that this guy who, I mean, we all wrote him off because who imagines that they're actually pretty good? But what a great, great story for David Braun. And he is now the permanent head coach at Northwestern. So good luck to the Wildcats going forward.

Good luck trying to get bowl eligible because there's a chance they're going to do it. You got to win one against either Purdue at home or on the road against Illinois. So I think it's possible. They can definitely get it done. So congratulations to new Northwestern Wildcats coach David Braun. Coming up next, there's a really interesting situation in the Big 12. As you know, they're playing with a 14-team Big 12 this year

before Texas and Oklahoma leave, before Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah show up. And they are divisionless, as they have been for a while. But obviously, it's not the true round robin that it was when they were a 10-team league. That has made the tiebreaker situation somewhat difficult to comprehend, especially because perhaps the tiebreakers weren't completely thought through when they wrote them down.

So this bubbles up over the weekend as people who cover Kansas State, people who cover Oklahoma State, people who cover Oklahoma are trying to figure out, okay, what's going to happen with the team I cover if they win these next two, if they lose one of these, are they going to get to play in the Big 12 championship game? And Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and Kansas State are in this situation where if you looked at the rules as they were written up until Wednesday, Kansas State would go to the title game if they went out, if all three of those went out. But it didn't make a lot of sense. George Stoya and Eddie Radosevich of Soonerscoop are going to explain why. And we're going to have George.

Eddie and I are kind of similar in mind. George, very mature, very smart. He's going to explain the whole situation to me as if I am a toddler. Because that's what I need. Because it's confusing. We'll do that right after I tell you about Game Time. So Game Time is the place to get last minute tickets to sporting events, concerts, theater, comedy shows, you name it. They have tickets for it. If you want to go to Research Stadium in Corvallis this week, you want to see

Washington, Oregon State. It's a hot ticket. Everybody wants in, but you can get a ticket on game time. And in fact, you can look exactly where your seat would be. You have a photo that shows you the vantage point from the exact seat that you are looking at buying. And then a couple more taps and that ticket is yours. You can change it to one of your friends on game day. You can just text it to them. It makes it very easy. Game time has all of the games. You want to go watch Georgia play at Tennessee and get you into Neyland Stadium. Do you want to watch Texas play at Iowa State in Jack Trice Stadium?

The get-in price in Jack Trice Stadium as of Wednesday night, the lowest get-in price on game time, 23 bucks. That's a big game. That could be a really interesting game. If Texas doesn't win it, all of the tiebreaker scenarios become even more complicated in the Big 12.

Those tiebreaker scenarios we're about to talk about. But what's not complicated is using game time. You download that app, you redeem the code staples, and you'll get $20 off your first purchase. So game time, pick your ticket, see your vantage point, two more taps. It's all yours. Use the code staples and you get 20 bucks off your first purchase. All right. Now it is time for George Stoya of Sooner Scoop to do a little story time for myself and for Eddie Rudasevich to explain just what the heck the Big 12 was doing on Wednesday. Now, by George Stoyer III and Eddie Rudasevich of Sooner Scoop, because I need them

to help me. I need them to explain something to me because the Big 12 has had an issue with one of its tiebreaker scenarios. And if you've looked at, like there's a great website where you can take the remaining two weeks of Big 12 games and put in whatever result you want and it will spit out who's going to play in the championship game. And there's a bunch of different permutations to this. Like you could get Bedlam again, you could get Texas, Oklahoma State, you could get K-State, Oklahoma State. Like there's a lot of ways to go with this. But the Big 12 has made a change to the tiebreakers because somebody was looking at it and going, huh, something seems weird. So Eddie, I apologize for this. I'm going to ask George to do this because I saw on your show that he... Yeah. So George, like I'm a five-year-old,

explain what the Big 12 has done. Yeah, I will try my best. So George, like I'm a five-year-old, explain what the Big 12 has done. Yeah, I will try my best. So essentially, there are four teams right now tied for second place in the Big 12. So that leaves a lot of discrepancy of what's going to happen these last two weeks. Lots of football to be played. Like you said, you can kind of plug it in to a machine. It pops it out. Going into this, the assumption is, look, you could have a situation where Texas wins out their end. They're already in first place, but you have a situation where you could have Oklahoma, Oklahoma state and Kansas state all went out and there's a three-way tie for second. So who gets in? Well, logically you would look at that and you'd say, well, Oklahoma State, they beat both Oklahoma and Kansas State, so they should get in. But according to the rule, as it's written right now, the tiebreaker rule, it reads as though if there is a situation where there's multiple team ties, which this would fall into that category, and they didn't all play head to head and Oklahoma and Kansas state did not play this year, will not play this year. Then it goes to the second tiebreaker rule,

which is win percentage against common opponent in that scenario, Kansas state, Oklahoma state, Oklahoma all played UCF, Kansas and Iowa state, Kansas state would advance because they went three and oh, against those three teams, Oklahoma went 2-1, and Oklahoma State went 1-2. So the belief heading into this last couple weeks was that Kansas State, in that scenario, would get in. And that was being confirmed, according to Scott Wright of the Oklahoman. He confirmed that with a Big 12 official literally on Saturday. Well, everybody started reading into that, tweeting about it, writing about it.

We wrote about it. All the scenarios were like, isn't that such a dumb rule that Oklahoma State would get screwed over basically not be in it? Well, apparently the Big 12 saw that their message board posters. Yes. And they are now going in. They had a meeting on Wednesday with all the athletic directors. That meeting was completed Wednesday morning,

and they're supposedly supposed to have a statement come out sometime Wednesday, basically saying that the rule is now that OSU would get in because of head-to-head. And, you know, I guess in the meeting, from what I understand from the people I talked to, you know, there was a lot of talk of the Big 12 basically said the rule was written the wrong way in the first place. It wasn't clear. The argument was always supposed to be that head to head would take president in this situation. But clearly, again, you showed the rules. It did not read that way. It read in a way that Kansas State would get in in this situation. So I hope that makes somewhat sense. Oklahoma fans are pissed off because they think the big 12 is out to get them but in this scenario it's really kansas state uh that's getting screwed

and i even talked to some people over that cover kansas state and it sounds like they are uh you know the athletic administration there is pretty upset by this because they felt like they are now getting screwed well but oklahoma state was getting screwed first and here so here here's the original rule I have it up on the screen my favorite part is so head to head open parentheses best cumulative win percentage in games among the tide teams if not comma that doesn't belong there clearly this was never even edited like somebody just dashed this thing together and threw it out there uh barry trammell great okc area writer compared and contrasted theirs with the mountain west and like the mountain west is written in very clear concise language where you cannot there's no objection you can make so yeah oklahoma state would have absolutely been getting screwed here and but but what's amazing to me is they're calling this a model,

I don't like a clarification. They're literally changing the rule with two games left in the season. It's beautiful. And I think that that is like the main basis of every Oklahoma fans idea that the big 12 has been out to get Oklahoma. They've been out to get Texas. I think that just from a personal standpoint, it'd be real fun. Iflahoma and texas had like 12 or 13 penalties on saturday in provo and ames i think that would only add the fuel to the fire but yeah like if you're kansas state and i at the same time i do understand uh oklahoma state should win that tie breaker i think every person as big of an OU fan as they could be it's like they got beat in Stillwater same thing with Kansas State Oklahoma

State should win that tiebreaker it just goes back to the basis of the Big 12 kind of I don't know flying by the seat of their pants it seems like that's exactly that's exactly what it is I mean uh it what they really should do is have Nelly announce who's like Nelly should draw it from a hat and then take it to play half time and the two names are written inside of the band-aid on his on his eye exactly or when I was in high school if they had like a three-way tie at the top of the district or a four-way tie and you know the top two teams the district go to the playoffs they would have this crazy tiebreaker format where it's basically like a Kansas tiebreaker where the T like the teams would each get the ball from the 10 and whoever scored got to play against the other team that scored and like it could be over in like eight minutes and then you decide who's in the playoff like you need something like that made for TV I

know I was hoping to get on the, on the tiebreaker rules. The very bottom one is a coin toss. And I was like, please let us get you a Friday night lights, a Friday night lights. What a burger in the middle of nowhere. That would be amazing. That would have been great.

You know, there is a opportunity if every home team one over the next two weeks. Yes. It would be an eight way tie for first place in the big 12, which would just obviously for people in norman it would be a complete disaster because that means that you're losing a provo but it would be from a just entertainment standpoint kind of what the big 12 deserves with as cool as they would who would go to the title game in that scenario it's a great question do you have it i think eddie's got I have it pulled up so that we flip the coin also this website it's bball.net.nothing is that right something like that

yeah bball.notnothing.net.net yeah this sounds like a website from 1995. this is amazing it's amazing and it's accurate it's totally correct it was funny yesterday they've adjusted it already yeah it went down it was it was not on the site anymore like you couldn't get to it for like a couple hours then he fixed it and i was like wow this guy is this guy's fantastic it's the beauty of college football that people have been sitting around and spending their time at the office or wherever just trying to put all of the types of formulas in to see who's gonna play for the big 12 championship what are what are the odds that the person who created this

website created it while getting paid for work at least 75 right yeah yeah definitely and he's probably also posting on a message board somewhere talking about who should be fired from whatever school he covers or he so his he was tweeting it out too i guess he uh you know it's a big for basketball and how you're going to get into the conference tournament and what you're seeing is in that and then the ncaa tournament and he said this week though is like the most views it's ever gotten and it's just all big 12 football scenarios which is just hilarious and speaks to college football too. Well, the eight-way tie thing is amazing. Yeah. My friend Max Olson tweeted it out the other day, what the eight-way tie would look like, but he didn't hit the calculate button or show us what

happened after you hit the calculate button. Because I'm fascinated to know who wins, like who plays for the title in that scenario. I had to look up and see where a couple of these games were i was not familiar with uh west virginia where that is next week but all right i cannot wait for this but here's you know what this does though guys so we're moving to a divisionless world next year and obviously the big the big 12 has been way ahead of the curve on that with divisionless football but this is going to be amazing in every conference because we're going to have this sort of nonsense every november now and we talked about that on our podcast today is like should they go to divisions because you avoid these sorts of situations or no you know talked about what is it pods or whatever so it's like you know what what is it pods or whatever. So it's like, you know, what,

what is the easiest solution? Or like we talked about, do you just take the highest ranked teams? Cause I told Eddie, I said, if you look at it, if all these teams went out and you just want the two best teams in the big 12 to play each other, I think an objective person looks at it and goes, well, it's probably Oklahoma and Texas that are the two best teams. If that's the way you want to do it. And that's how the cultural playoff rankings are so do you put those in your tiebreaker situations or do you do it the head-to-head style which I mean I kind of lean towards look head-to-head is what should matter most but you know you know I could see a situation where you have the rankings come into play or something but I don't know but head-to-head doesn't help when everybody doesn't play everybody

in this particular case you do have a situation where Oklahoma State did beat both Kansas State and Oklahoma. So at least they've got that. But we're going to have an 18-team Big Ten. The ACC is going to be – I can't even do the math, 17. So it is going to be complicated like this because you'll have situations where it comes down to who played who and when, but no, don't make it any more logical. Like make it complete nonsense like this. I do agree with you on the ranking thing though, which by the way, the big 12 has history with remember oh you was the beneficiary of that in 2008 when they and texas and texas tech were all 11 and 1 and and 7-1 in the league

oh oklahoma fans uh oftentimes like to forget that they've been the beneficiary of the transfer portal they've been the beneficiary of the college football playoff and the way that that's all been set up uh and obviously uh you know inside the big 12 they've been the way that that's all been set up. And obviously, you know, inside the Big 12, they've been the beneficiary of a long time. Texas and OSU would win if every home team won over the next two weeks. I think that the most scenarios give you a Texas-Oklahoma State championship game. Like that, the tiebreaker against OU and Kansas State and everybody else.

And that's why, Andy, the three ways OU gets in is basically Texas loses to Iowa State, OU would get in. Texas loses to Texas Tech, and Iowa State beats Kansas State, OU would get in. And then if OSU just loses one of their last two games, either at Houston or BYU at home, OU gets in. It's those two teams. OSU and Texas.

They're in the driver's seat. They are in the driver's seat to reach the Big 12 championship game. Which would seem, you know, okay. And you say, oh, that sounds pretty safe. If one of those hadn't just lost 45-3 at UCF. Exactly. It was, I mean, they got curb stomped. And, you know, you would think that they're going to go down to Houston

and take care of business. The thing in Ames is really interesting this week, just because Texas has had in Jack Trice, and I think they've lost four or five. And now the comments from the offensive linemen kind of makes it even more interesting. And especially from the Oklahoma perspective with the 10 AM game in Provo, if you're into hate watching,

if you're an Oklahoma fan, and I'm sure that there's a lot of Oklahoma fans that wake up, they cheer for OU, and then they cheer against OSU and Texas every weekend these next two weeks are kind of made for you and I think George we talked about it today it would seem that unless something just drastically crazy happened you're probably going to know by Saturday night like I wouldn't think that Tech could go to Austin and win next weekend certainly don't think that BYU is going to go to stillwater and win stranger things have happened but saturday is a big day for the oklahoma football fan yeah it does feel like if texas and oklahoma state take care of business

this week it's not i don't have a lot of faith in texas tech against texas that if if texas is going to lose it's going to be to iowa state so Iowa State. And that's the Big 12's playoff chance right there because if Texas loses, that's it. Yeah. So, wow. But it is amazing. I don't recall a league ever changing a rule midseason, specifically two games to go.

Like, that is very unusual yeah and that's why I like again it goes to all the Oklahoma fans want to believe in this conspiracy that the Big 12 is out to get Oklahoma and you know I'm not gonna tell a fan how to be a fan I kind of love it uh that they're they're they're so out for that but uh I think at the end of the day this is not a situation where the Big 12 is trying to screw oklahoma because again this doesn't really affect them it doesn't affect them i mean yeah i i would be mad if i were k-state people now because it was written that way and even though in your heart of hearts you know that spot should go to oklahoma state you're like well hey but we

would have been there right yeah right it's crazy to think that they just went in and did that and not to mention that you know this athletic director uh teleconference or whatever it was today the meeting they have them every Wednesday but I know George you had talked to some people that like Oklahoma was completely unaware that this was even on the table going into I was I was told by multiple people at multiple different schools that they were unaware that this was even something that table going into i was i was told by multiple people at multiple different schools that they were unaware that this was even something that was going to be just by the way we're changing the rules and again that goes i love that they're calling it a clarification not a change in the rules and again that just i my point my takeaway from all of this is the big 12

is just i mean i this is probably harsh but they're run by morons right now like it's just it's not it's kind of a clown show. And the fact that we're even talking about this, that no one's like double checked that. Like you said, Annie didn't even take out the comma there in that one sentence. It's like, this is just, it's unbelievable. Well, I want to clarify something. Cause I, I, earlier in the season,

when they announced that Nelly was going to play halftime, I did a top five Nelly songs and I left the tip drill remix of the eye out of there and so I'm gonna I'm gonna clarify that the tip drill remix of EI is number two behind right ride with me or yeah I could say dilemma's number one for me I love dilemma's great Kelly Rowland's great but you know right right with me is the best Nelly song it's not close the the melodic quality of his voice plus plus it's still actually a hip-hop song but are you going to be in attendance for this Andy I should I I don't know should I should I go to the SEC Championship game which is a win and end playoff scenario game or should I go and and watch Nelly

I don't know I think that's a de facto national championship for a lot of people the uh georgia the way those teams two teams are playing i don't know if anybody in the culture yeah but but i don't think he's gonna do the tip drill well it's not really good for for network television i would i would bet not but maybe what is the uh the big 12's new slogan newer bigger faster stronger whatever i don't know they got rid of one true champion and But maybe what is the Big 12's new slogan? Newer, bigger, faster, stronger, whatever. I don't know. They got rid of one true champion, and all of a sudden, they don't even know who's going to be in the championship.

That's true. Well, I'm glad we've clarified things, boys. You're welcome. Eddie Rutasiewicz and George Stoyer III, thank you so much. Absolutely. I'm so glad I finally cleared that up. It's been bugging me for a while. It really has.

So the tip drill into the top five of Nelly songs. And I'm not sure what I'm kicking out, but it's in there. And again, I don't, I'm going to be like the big 12. I don't even have to follow my own rules. I can change the rules midstream because that's exactly what they did. They changed the rules in November with two games to go. That's wild. All right.

It is time for Dear Andy. It is time for your questions. Great questions this week. We've got quite a few about Jimbo Fisher and what happens to Texas A&M from here. We've got some about Michigan, of course. And we've got some about the coaching carousel in general. This has been a very busy week. And so it has inspired a lot of questions from you.

We'll start with Jamie in National. Jamie's the guy who keeps the scoring on the quarterback draft between me and Jesse Simonton, which I'm still winning, I believe. Still winning. I appreciate all that Jaden Daniels has contributed because he's basically carried me the whole season. But here's what Jamie asked. Jimbo Fisher's A&M contract, is it the worst in sports history? Not just college football, but sports history. And if not, what tops it? So I went down a bad contract rabbit hole. And I know what you're going to say. I guarantee you, most of you are yelling Bobby Bonilla at your screens or at your phone or at your car stereo

right now. And I'm going to tell you that Bobby Bonilla, while a bad contract, is nowhere near one of the worst contracts in sports. So here's the deal with the Bobby Bonilla contract. I believe it was Bobby Bonilla's ex-wife who negotiated this with the Mets because she felt like he wasn't great with money. So she wanted to make sure he was getting some money year after year for a long time rather than getting a bunch up front. So she wanted to make sure he was getting some money year after year for a long time rather than getting a bunch up front. So essentially the Mets owed Bobby Bonilla $5.9 million in 1999. They made a deal where they would pay $1.2 million every July 1st from 2011 to 2035. So essentially they turned a $5.1 million debt into a $29.8 million debt. And I know what

you're thinking. Well, that's a terrible idea. That's a terrible deal, but that's not exactly what happened. Remember that meant the Mets got to keep that money. Now we're going to pretend they didn't invest some of it with Bernie Madoff and just say, let's say they invested it in an average fund using Standard & Poor's 500 stocks. If you did that, if you invested $5.9 million in 1999, today it would be worth $33.3 million. So now they would have had to start pulling off million-dollar chunks of that in 2011. So it wouldn't be quite that much. But it'd be roughly about the same amount as they promised. So I don't know that the Mets made that bad of a deal.

So we'll toss that one aside. So Jimbo Fisher is getting paid $76 million to not work. 25% of that due within 60 days. That's bad. That's a lot. It's one of the worst. But Josh McDaniels, who just got fired from the Raiders, I was talking to an agent who represents coaches shortly before Josh McDaniels got fired, maybe a week and a half before Josh McDaniels got fired. And this person was explaining why he wasn't going to get fired, because the Raiders would owe him $51 million. So they're going to pay him $51 million to not work. He didn't even make it two seasons. He went nine and 16.

And you knew what was going to happen because unlike Jimbo Fisher, who was four years removed from a national title, Josh McDaniels had been a head coach before. Yeah, he was a good, really good offensive coordinator with the Patriots. Believe it or not, offensive coordinators tend to look good when Tom Brady's their quarterback.

He was a terrible head coach at the Broncos. Everybody knew that. He reneged on being the head coach of the Colts. So the Raiders knew what they were getting themselves into and promised all this money anyway. And now they're paying $51 million for him to not work. At least Texas A&M got six years out of Jimbo before they paid him all this money anyway. And now they're paying $51 million for him to not work. At least Texas A&M got six years out of Jimbo before they paid him all this money to not work. There are, however,

there's a few athlete deals that rival this one in terms of just dead money or money that certainly didn't pay off. Chandler Parsons in the NBA, he signed a four-year $94 million deal with the Grizzlies. He was coming off a knee injury and the knee never really healed. So he only played 95 games in three years. Then he got traded to the Hawks. He only played five games there. Unfortunately, he got hit by a drunk driver and the injuries he suffered there, he ended up retiring. But that's all that the Grizzlies got out of the four-year $94 million deal was 95 games. So they probably wound up paying about as much dead money as A&M is going to pay to Jimbo.

Carson Wentz signed a four-year deal with the Eagles. The actual total is even bigger than this, but in the NFL, you only worry about the guarantee. It had $107 million guaranteed. You guys know what Carson Wentz has done over the last few years. Now, I know he just re-signed with the Raiders, but 107 million, if we're talking dead money or money that was earned relative to Jimbo Fisher, this one's close. This one's close. This one might be the, well, in the NBA right now, James Harden is making $35.6 million this season. We know what has happened with James Harden.

He's been just killing teams left and right and then demanding trades. So since he's been playing with the Clippers, they're 0-4. $35.6 million this season. So that one, getting up there, it was a two-year deal worth about $70 million. So the one that really is amazing, there's a soccer player who played 48 minutes for Leeds United.

So 48 minutes over the course of the time he was there, Gene Kevin Augustin. Leeds United paid a 15.5 million pound transfer fee, and then his contract was 25.5 million pounds. Now, with the exchange rate right now, that's about $50 million totals, 40 million pounds, about 50 million bucks total for 48 minutes of gameplay. That's probably the worst.

That's probably worse than Jimbo's, but that is, that's terrible. That is a bad contract. So Texas A&M folks don't feel so bad. And look, we know how Jimbo's contract came to be. It's not really the fault of anyone currently. Well, they did extend him, but there's a reason why it had to be extended the way it did, although you still didn't actually have to do it. But remember, Scott Woodward was the AD who hired Jimbo. Woodward had no leverage when he hired him,

so he fully guaranteed a 10-year $75 million contract. There was no buyout on Jimbo's end if he wanted to leave. So when Scott Woodward left Texas A&M and went to LSU and then fired Ed Orgeron and needed a football coach, the assumption in College Station was, oh, he's going to hire Jimbo Fisher because he can. He doesn't have to pay us a penny. And they're still, they're coming off the pandemic season where Texas A&M was nine and one.

Now this is 2021, so they've started to trend back down. But that was the fear. The fear was that he'd just leave for nothing. And so they said, what else can we give you? 10 years, $95 million. Here you go. And they should have said, if you would like to leave, leave. Because as we know now, Scott Woodward is not considering Jimbo Fisher.

He hired Brian Kelly, who, by the way, already has more SEC West titles than Jimbo Fisher did. Unbelievable. $76 million. Oh, no, we got more Jimbo questions. Just wait. From David in San Antonio, we all assume Jimbo is going to spend more time with his family and enjoy his millions of dollars, but let's have some fun and pretend that Jimbo is going to work in college football next year. What would be the weirdest, funniest, or if you feel like it, most realistic job he could have next year? Well, listen, I think Neil Brown may have coached his way to safety at West Virginia. So the idea of Jimbo going home,

I think that might be out. But David in San Antonio has some great ideas. Quote, unquote, recruiting analysts at Michigan. I don't know if I want, I mean, Jimbo Fisher can afford all the tickets that Connor Stallions was buying for sure 100% he doesn't even need to hit anybody else up like there's no paper trail because he's just paying cash for everything offensive coordinator at Iowa they are going to one. Brian Ferentz not coming back. I think Jimbo Fisher and Kirk Ferentz would get along.

I think he'd look at... Kirk would be like, listen, Jimbo. We're going to punt to win. And Jimbo's like, I've been punting to win all my life. That could be a match made in heaven right there. Is this heaven? No. It's Iowa.

I like it. Another one from David in San Antonio. Head coach at Duke if Elko, Mike Elko, the current Duke coach, former A&M defensive coordinator, if he were to go to Texas A&M. That's a good thought. But we just saw Jimbo not do more with more. He did a lot less with more. So what's he supposed to do with less? Like Mike Elko, classic more with less.

Jimbo Fisher, the last few years, classic less with more. If you're doing less with more, imagine how little you're going to do with less. So no, that's a non-starter. Anything under Nick Saban in Alabama, I think that ship has sailed, David. I do not think Nick will be offering the place in the Nick Saban Witness Relocation Program, or Witness Protection Program, as Mike Loxley called it, there will be no Jimbo as an analyst on Nick's staff. Now, because the SEC is the most competitive place in the world, would Kirby Smart hire Jimbo Fisher as an analyst? Maybe.

How about this one? This would be fun. Not gonna happen, but wow. Scott Woodward at lsu hires jimbo fisher as an analyst knocks on brian kelly's door bk just wanted to let you know hired a new analyst i think you're gonna like it he's been here before he was the oc here once so i know mike denbrock's doing a great job jane Daniels just won the Heisman. I got it. But listen, if you need anything, just ask Jimbo. He's the one lighting $100 bills on fire for fun over there in the corner.

That would be funny. Don't think it's going to happen. We now turn the page forward about what Texas A&M does next. This one comes from Sarge. Sarge is what Texas A&M does next. This one comes from Sarge. Sarge is a Texas A&M fan. Who could A&M hire that would provide the best content for you and other sports media types due to the reaction? Well, I think the funniest hire Texas A&M could make is definitely Lane Kiffin.

I would be highly entertained by Lane Kiffin at Texas A&M. If we think about it, like if you watch the show with Billy Lucci on Sunday, Lane Kiffin, I think, put Texas A&M people in the glass cage of emotion that caused them to finally decide to fire Jimbo Fisher. Because remember, Lane Kiffin, the week of that game, was like, well, their goal is to be bowl eligible. We aim a little higher here. And he says that after he has spent the previous 10 minutes talking about how to have the greatest talent since the 85 Bears.

It was a complete psychological operation by Lane Kiffin to get inside their heads, crawl around, and do all manner of damage. And boy, did he ever. Boy, did he ever. Because once they lost that game, it's like, oh, they do. I don't know if they do more with less at Ole Miss. I think they do a lot more with less at Ole Miss. I think they do a lot with a lot at Ole Miss. But Jimbo didn't do a lot with a lot. Jimbo did a little with a lot.

So Lane Kiffin going to Texas A&M would be funny because Lane Kiffin, all of the stuff he said about NIL at Ole Miss has been interpreted as a complaint, but it's not. He's just saying, here's what's going on. These programs have more money. They can get better players. So if he was at a program with as close to unlimited money as programs get, what kind of players would he get? Probably pretty good ones. Now, if he didn't win national titles with them, you can't make any excuses. Like at Ole Miss, you go 10-2, and you lose to Alabama and Georgia.

That's fine. He can stand up after the Georgia game and be like, listen, they got all these five stars. How many five stars we got? Like one? That's fine. You can do that at Ole Miss. You know where you can't do that?

Texas A&M. Because you could get the five stars, and then when you get the five stars, as Jimbo Fisher learned the hard way, you got to beat Alabama. You don't get to lose to Alabama he did beat Alabama once still fire still fire so I think Lane would be the most fun like if we could go into different eras vintage vintage Steve Spurrier in Texas A&M, at Texas A&M would be hilarious.

Him just firing off jokes, because A&M has been a fairly serious operation, with the exception of the early Kevin Sumlin years. Texas A&M has been a very serious operation for a very long time. It may need to loosen up a little bit. I actually think Dabo Sweeney would be funny at Texas A&M too. I know he's not going there, but Dabo Sweeney would laugh at every yell leader joke. He'd wear the overalls.

He would definitely wear the overalls. He'd be like, you know that smooth-brained? He'd have it all down. He'd have the cadence down and everything. Lily Livert? It'd be perfect. I'd pay to see Dabo in the overalls at Yale practice, it would be glorious, but he's not going there. He's not going there. We talked about candidates the other day. Obviously, Dan Lanning is not in it anymore. He's the guy, if they had their wishlist and they said, what does your perfect coach look like?

It has Dan Lanning. The guy has Dan Lanning's resume, but that's not happening for them. But Mike Elko, I think would be a good choice. I still think Lance Leipold would be a good choice. I think Lance Leipold would be a good choice for anybody because he can win anywhere. I think Jed Fish would be an interesting choice at Arizona. Now, if UCLA fires Chip Kelly,

I think Jed Fish would be a candidate there. I don't think anything's happening to Billy Napier at Florida, but I would imagine Jed Fish, proud Florida alum, probably would like that job at some point down the road. So that's one to look at because Jed Fish and his staff evaluated their 2022 class like the this is a good good mathematics like i want to talk to bill connelly or parker fleming or one of my favorite analytics college football nerds to see if we can quantify this like how much more did jed fish get out of his 2022 class relative to expectations than Jimbo Fisher got out of his 2022 class. Because Jimbo Fisher's was number one in the country by a long shot. It had all those great defensive linemen.

Jed Fisher's class for Arizona was a great class, but nothing close to what Jimbo signed. Meanwhile, Jed's got double digitdigit starters out of that class, and they just keep on winning now. They got seven wins this season. So that's an interesting thought, because I do think if UCLA were to open, Jed Fish, Jonathan Smith from Oregon State, those would be two coaches whose names would be up for that.

But man, he might be good at Texas A&M. Running, you know, a guy with NFL experience, maybe run it like an NFL personnel department. It's worth thinking about, Aggies. It's worth thinking about. Let's go to a question from Anthony, and he sent in a video. Dear Randy, my question for you is, now that Jimbo Fisher has been fired

and the coaching carousel is starting to go right now, with Jimbo Fisher being fired recently and the Mel Tucker incident, do you see administrations going away from doing the 10-year massive contracts for these coaches to prevent them from having to make these massive payouts and setting new records every time they want to fire a coach? I know in previous podcasts you had talked to how agents have been working over school administrations for years, always getting their guys a raise.

But do you think this is going to be a tipping point with how universities are running their finances and how they, with their coaches and working in better work in better buyouts throughout the course of the contract. Instead of having to pay Jim a figure 70, $76 million. Thanks, Andy. Have a good one.

And then I've got another one from crisis. It's, it's similar to Anthony's and probably even more succinct. Why do you think athletic director versus agent is such a lopsided matchup and will it ever balance out or are ADs doomed to lose? Don't put Joe Castiglione there, River Bailey, our producer. What are you doing? Joe Castiglione hadn't been knocked in the creek by anybody.

Although he did. I don't know. He did guarantee a lot to Brent Venables, who was a coordinator. Like Brent Venables buyout at Oklahoma should have been $1 more than what his buyout at Clemson was. You want to be head coach or not? Spoiler, significantly more than his buyout at Clemson as DC. So here's the deal with the athletic directors and the agents.

This is why this happens. The ADs are not spending their own money. They work in a system where their job is to spend all of the money every year and they'll get more, but then they have to spend it all again. They're not supposed to save it because they work for nonprofits. They're not supposed to show a profit. Also, they can't give it to the players. So they got to put it somewhere. They got to do something with it. So what do they do? They tear down perfectly good buildings and rebuild them, or they give coaches ridiculous deals. Here's the other part of it with the AD. If you're hiring, like let's say you've hired a coach,

fired a coach, and you're hiring that next coach. You know you're getting fired before that coach is getting fired. They're not going to let you hire another one. So whatever you give that coach doesn't matter because you don't have to worry about it. You're not on the hook for it. Some other schmuck's on the hook for it. You're not on the hook for it. Some other schmuck's on the hook for it. That's why ADs get destroyed in these negotiations. Now, as to Anthony's question,

will they stop giving the 10-year deals? They should because you saw Michigan State. I still think they're going to have to give Mel Tucker some money. I don't know how much. And you saw what Texas A&M is going to have to pay Jimbo Fisher. It's incredibly dumb to lock yourself in for that long. Think of how different college football was 10 years ago. Think about how different it'll be 10 years from now. Do you want to be locked in? Like, we know most coaches don't make it 10 years. It's amazing to me because this AD coach relationship, the way this works,

the courtships, the amount of time involved in the courtships is, is a very small amount of time. It's really like the bachelor. When you think about it, you think I've, I watched the Jesse Palmer season of the bachelor when he was the, what the bachelor.

I don't have a lot of experience with The Bachelor. I know there've been about 87 seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and Old Guy Bachelor since then. I do see the commercials during football, but I understand the gist of the show. You put all these beautiful people together and you have one person deciding between all the beautiful people that they are meeting. And inevitably, because it makes good television, they say how much they're in love with the one or two people left at the end. But they're not really.

How many of those people are still together? I think there's like one couple still together. That's basically coaching hires. Like Kirk Ferentz and Iowa are still together. Everybody else got divorced. Everybody else got divorced. But they have to, they have to they have these whirlwind courtships where the the face-to-face part of these interviews for these multi-million dollar jobs usually a course of hours we're talking like four to eight hours face-to-face before these jobs get offered. Like I got interviewed for eight hours for a high school job covering Pasco County preps

at the Tampa Tribune that paid 35 grand a year. I got an eight hour interview for that. And they still had some more questions later. Imagine if that job paid $8 million a year and they were going to guarantee me 70 million over the term, the life of the term. And they only had four hours to do it. And then, of course, they fall in love, these ADs, or at least they have to act like they're in love. This is, again, like The Bachelor.

I'm sure these people aren't really in love on The Bachelor, but it's good for the show if you act like it. It's also good for the show in college football if you act like it. So they get on stage. This coach is the finest man I have ever met. He raises his players like his own sons. He turns them into better men. That's the kind of crap you get. You're hiring him to win.

That's all that matters. You will fire him if he loses. You will keep him if he wins. And that's it. But they keep doing this again and again and again and they have no idea what the concept of replacement value is because the like 80s never know when they have a replacement level coach replacement level coach is somebody who's going you know at what should be what could possibly be a 10 or 11 win program,

it's somebody winning seven and eight games a year. That's a replacement level coach. And as long as they're not terrible, the agent will go, well, my guy's got to have at least five years on his deal or he can't recruit. And everybody's like, oh, well, that's just a phantom extension when they add that extra year. That doesn't mean, no, it means something. Because when you fire him, that's real money tacked on. And so they keep doing this over and over again because they got to spend all the money,

can't show a profit. And yeah, I do think it will eventually turn. It'll turn when the players or employees, which is happening, It'll happen soon. Even between now and then, if a school could figure out how to take all of its donor money, like the TV money coming in, they keep that. They use that to run the department. They use that to pay the coaches. Then you use the donor money to pay the players. And how you do that is you tell the donor, don't give it directly to the school because we're not allowed to directly pay the players. And how you do that is you tell the donor, don't give it directly to the school because we're not allowed to directly pay the players. Give it to the collective.

All of it. All that we used to ask for to get your name on a building or whatever, give it to the collective. The school that figures that out is not going to have to pay the coach all that much. They're just going to have better players. But we'll see.

I don't have a lot of faith in a whole robust change. I think there will be some really dumb contracts done this year. I'm very confident there will be some dumb contracts that produce enormous buyouts a few years from now. Because it's the bachelor and they're going to get divorced. Let's go to Justin from South Carolina. Why until the last few days has there been little to no connection between the Michigan science ceiling scandal and the impact it's had on the gambling public? One thing that Vegas has always looked for is the integrity or

looked after is the integrity of their lines. There's been a huge impact on the results in Michigan games for two to three years that has massive dollar amount implications. Now, I'm not claiming or arguing that Connor Stallings did this for making illegal wagers, but why has Michigan still been showing up on the boards? I don't understand why they have not been taken off the board at all the sports books. Well, the reason they haven't been taken off the board is the casinos feel comfortable allowing those bets. One,

I don't think, I don't know that if you go back that you can put a number value on exactly what they got, like how much of it was just having better players than most of the teams they played, how much of it was having an advantage because you had the signals. Also, other teams have signals that were acquired in ways that the NCAA allows. So I don't know how much that changes the line, but I do know that's why, or one of the reasons why the Big Ten was under pressure to act quickly, because it is a kind of an integrity of the game issue. It is a line issue. But remember, as soon as the investigation was announced, the Big Ten said they had alerted all of Michigan's future opponents.

So they start changing their signs. So it's not an issue necessarily going forward. Now, I realize it's almost impossible to change all of your signs in a week or so. But by the time the Penn State game happened, Penn State had had plenty of time to make adjustments. I don't know that. I know Penn State, I was at the game. Penn State was holding up a poster board with a peach on it. I don't know what that meant. I think it probably had something to do with butt because the peach means butt in emoji talk. But I don't know the Michigan knew what it meant either. So I don't think it has a necessarily quantifiable effect.

I think if it did, you would see the lines change, or you would see the books take those lines off the board. If they thought that they couldn't control it or they couldn't accurately set the line, they're taking it off the board. They're not going to take the risk of being on the wrong side of that if a bunch of people win their bets. So I think that's probably why. They can't really get a quantifiable effect. Otherwise they would just take them off the board. The fact that they keep putting them on the board should tell you something. This goes to Ty in Detroit. And Ty does ask about

Michigan almost every week, but this is a, this is an on-field question. I hear a lot of pundits say that it's a bad sign that Michigan throws second half versus Penn state. However, J.J. McCarthy still went seven to eight passing. They seem to figure out protection after the first two drives. Their decision to stop throwing was largely based on the fact they knew Penn State couldn't score much and didn't want to run the risk of a fluky turnover. What was your stance on that? Also, Penn State defense is legit, so if you even can run it on them, who else can stop them? Well, they're about to play a very good defense in Ohio State. I think Ohio State has improved dramatically on defense because they're not giving up the explosive plays they gave up last year.

The Michigan game was a great example of those explosive plays. The Cornelius Johnson touchdowns, those really kept Ohio State in the game. Or sorry, kept Michigan in the game. I think Ohio State may have been able to run away with it without those, or at least build enough of a lead that Michigan, once it found its running game in the second half, wouldn't have been able to come back.

But they don't give up those explosives anymore. As for what Michigan did against Penn State, I had no problem with it whatsoever. It was the weirdest 24 hours that I can remember seeing for a college football team. Jerome Moore finds out he's coaching the team on Friday night. Still doesn't know Saturday morning if he's going to wind up being the head coach for that game because they're trying to get the injunction. They don't get the injunction. He winds up being the head coach. And it's working. And yes, you know that Penn State's not going to be able to score, but let's talk

numbers here. Since we're talking what they did and what was J.J. McCarthy's performance, J.J. McCarthy was seven of eight for 60 yards. I know that sounds bad, but that's seven and a half yards per attempt. It's like a pretty average yards per attempt. It's actually 1.3 yards per attempt more than Penn State was allowing all season. So J.J. McCarthy was actually a relatively efficient quarterback against Penn State's defense. And I don't worry about J.J. McCarthy because I've seen him when he has to throw them to a win. I've seen him against Ohio State. I know he can do it. I bet he's going to throw all over Maryland this weekend. They needed to get out of Happy Valley with a win. They knew Penn State's offense was not going to do

much. I don't have any issue with what they did. And I also think running the ball 32 times in a row, and I do realize there were passes sprinkled in, there was a pass interference call, there were some called passes that turned into scrambles. But the way they won that game, the way they called that game is as demoralizing as it can get for an opponent. They just obliterated Penn State psychologically by doing that.

And if I'm a future opponent, I watch that. I'm like, oh, dang, these guys are just going to lean on you. These guys just keep coming. I actually think they sent a stronger message than they would have had J.J. McCarthy thrown for 178 yards. I think that they sent a very strong message. Now, I think they're going to have to throw to beat Ohio State. But they did what they needed to win the game. And again, you hear me all the time say, just do the thing that works

and keep doing the thing that works. So I'm never going to criticize when a play caller continues to do the thing that works. Never. This was from Casey. This is a playoff committee ranking question. How many wins over ranked opponents does Washington need to finally jump Florida state and into the college football playoff top four? My cynical side says the committee would take a 12 and one big 10 and sec runner up over

the Huskies. And it's ridiculous. I think what Casey means is over a 13 and Oh, Washington, not a chance. Casey, if Washington is 13 and O, they are in the playoff, and I don't think they're number four either. I would say if Washington beats Oregon State this weekend, there's a chance we see them jump Florida State. We saw Georgia jump Ohio State last week with an impressive win. I'm telling you right now, if Washington goes to Corvallis and beats Oregon State, I don't care if it's by a point. That's an impressive win. That's a very impressive win.

And for Washington to be a 13-0 Pac-12 champ, they've got to win in Corvallis. They've got to win the Apple Cup, which Washington State has fallen off a lot lately. But then they would have to beat Oregon again in Vegas, in a neutral site instead of at home. It would absolutely be good enough to make the playoff. There's no question in my mind if Washington is 13-0. They're in the playoff, and they're number three or number two or maybe even number one.

Florida State, now, because of the way the ACC, the other contenders have kind of fallen off, and it's basically them and Louisville. I do think Florida State could be 13 and 0 and make the playoff at four. Again, I don't think they would be left out. I think they would make the playoff at 13 and 0, but I could see them making it at four. But I will bet you if Florida State's going to win this weekend, but if Washington goes to Corvallis and wins, and again, it's no guarantee. Oregon State is the betting favorite in this game. But if Washington wins, they're going to jump FSU because the committee is going to look at the resume at that point and go, you know what? I think they've put together a more impressive resume.

So don't worry, Casey. You're worried about the Alabama-Georgia thing. You're worried about the Michigan-Ohio State thing. If the Huskies keep winning, they're in. Now, if it's a 12-1, let's say they lose in Corvallis, beat Oregon. It's a different story. I'd worry then. If they keep winning, you don't need to worry. Next question comes from Eric. With the firing of Mike Yuricich as the OC at Penn State, I was curious if you think this has any impact on Drew Allen remaining at Penn State long-term. It wasn't a secret two years ago that when he committed to Penn State, one of, if not the main reason he picked State College was because of his relationship with Yursich. Could it be dependent on who James Franklin brings in next? Personally, I haven't been overly impressed by him so far,

but also think it's unfair to fully judge him yet with this being his first full year as the starter. Also, I think that a reunion with Joe Moorhead could be a great hire, especially seeing as his body of work at Akron so far has not been great. Is this just a Penn State fan trying to bring the band back together or do you think this makes some sense? I absolutely think it makes sense, Eric.

So Joe Moorhead, for those who don't remember, was an excellent offensive coordinator at Penn State in the Trace McSorley era. He had been the head coach at Fordham. He was running a very innovative offense there. He gets hired by James Franklin and runs a great offense at Penn State. They end up winning the Big Ten in 2016. Moorhead is hired at Mississippi State after Dan Mullen leaves for Florida. He's only there two years. I think he got a raw deal at Mississippi State. I know there were issues there at the end, players not showing up to bowl practice,

that sort of thing. But he didn't do badly as the head coach at Mississippi State. So he goes to Oregon, good job as OC there, goes to Akron as the head coach. He wanted to get back into that part of the country and he wanted to be a head coach again. It is not going well for him in the Zips. It's a short drive to State College. I do think that would be a good hire for James Franklin. And as far as Drew Aller and how bad he would want to play for Mike Yersuch, well, you watched how well Drew Aller played for Mike Yersuch. You watched what he did with the plays Mike Yersuch called.

If I'm Drew Aller, that's not who I want to tie my wagon to. I'm saying, Coach Franklin, find somebody who calls better plays for me. And so who's that going to be? Moorhead's the name that everybody keeps coming up with because it seems so obvious. Here's another one. Sean Lewis, former Kent State head coach,

currently at Colorado, got demoted. Now, I don't know if James Franklin is that schematically extreme because Sean Lewis runs the old Baylor offense where the wide receivers are split out very, very wide. It's very high tempo. Now, there's a heavy inside run element to it, but it also is not as diverse as what Penn State has run in the past.

There's also the matter of if Dino Babers gets fired at Syracuse, Sean Lewis might be up for that job as a head coach. So it will be very interesting to see what Penn State does with this job because I have racked my brain trying to figure out who the potential candidates for it would be. Obviously, Moorhead makes the most sense, but I don't think like Ricky Ronnie's not leaving Old Dominion, so you're not having that get the band back together situation. But the Moorhead thing feels like it makes too much sense. And I feel like he could do a good job with Drew Aller. So we'll see what happens.

Of course, we're not finishing a deer or any segment without a question from our buddy Nathan. Take it away, Nathan. Maybe we don't have Nathan. Oh oh hold on nathan's coming i'm told nathan is he's nathan walks and talks during his questions so i think he's just there's a long preamble he's walking silently i don't know. I'm being told Nathan's coming. He's walking this way. Maybe not.

I could just... The coaching carousel in full spin, I wanted to talk to you about under-the-radar candidates, but not for this year. As we all know, hiring a coach is about as much as a crapshoot as drafting a quarterback high in the first round of the NFL draft. We're all hoping for Nick Saban, but most of the time it's Jimbo Fisher or much worse. So my question is, who are some of your favorite under-the-radar hires of the last 10, 15 years. Coaches who, when they were hired, no one was really talking about them,

and they just silently got to work and did an incredible job. That doesn't have to be winning a national title, but taking their program someplace where no one thought it would go. I'm thinking Lance Leipold at Kansas is the perfect example of this, partly because of when he was hired, no one talked about it. But he was a perfect fit. So give me a couple of your favorite examples of such under-the-radar type coaches. I like the Lance Leipold at Kansas example. I will give you a better one

than that though, Nathan. Lance Leipold at Buffalo, because we knew that Lance Leipold, when he went from Buffalo to Kansas, at least people who'd been really paying attention, knew that Lance Leipold had a chance to rebuild Kansas because we'd seen what he did at Buffalo. So I think Lance Leipold going to Buffalo from Wisconsin Whitewater is one of my favorites. And I did a story back when I was at the athletic where Danny White took me through the hiring process. Danny was the AD at Buffalo. He's currently the AD at Tennessee. He shows up again in this answer because I thought about this one when I got the question, jotted down some notes,

and Danny White hires, there's another one in here too. But in recent years, I think Mike Elko at Duke's won. We looked at Mike Elko as a really good defensive coordinator at Texas A&M. I'm not sure how much anybody knew about him as a potential head coach other than the people who worked with him the people who played for him but in the media you know we didn't we didn't know exactly what he was going to be very quickly he established that he is a great head coach when nine games his first year at Duke they're still playing very well despite they're on their third quarterback right now I mean they almost beat North Carolina the other night, double overtime loss. I think Mike Elko has done a phenomenal job and that's, that's why he's getting mentioned as a potential next Texas A&M coach.

I mentioned Jed Fish earlier in the show at Arizona. That's one that it was, you know, I, those of us who cover sport have known Jed for a long time because he was the OC at Michigan. He was the OC at Miami. Um, he's been in the NFL. So the NFL side, they know him too. I always figured he want to stay in the NFL cause he bounced around. Uh, he was with the Rams in his last NFL gig. And my thought was he's going to try to become an offensive coordinator in the NFL. And if you catch lightning in a bottle, then you're a head coach in the NFL. But he wanted to be a head coach in college and he had a plan. And you heard him on the show last week.

And if you didn't see that interview, it's on the YouTube page. Go watch it. You will come away very impressed with Jed Fish. And so his hiring, his evaluation, his recruiting, he's turned out to be a really good college head coach, but that's something that most people would not have known. And I'm guessing the Arizona administration saw it because he came in and presented all this as a plan and saying, here's what I can do. But I think if you're just casually watching, you hadn't seen that. You're just saying, oh, is that the guy who was with Al Golden at Miami or who was at Michigan for a little while?

He's done a really good job. Again, I think there could be quite a few schools in this cycle who may take a crack at Jed Fish. Chris Kleiman at Kansas State to replace Bill Snyder is another one, I think. Now, I realize Chris Kleiman was at North Dakota State, so he's winning at a really good clip there. But I do feel like people are reluctant to try to hire somebody to bring them up a level from division three from the FCS. But Chris Kleiman was the ideal person to replace Bill Snyder because he was going to run a developmental program just like Bill Snyder was, but Chris Kleiman,

a little more open to new ideas. And you've seen him mess around with the offense a little bit, mess around with the defense. He got, he's got Avery Johnson.. That's when I think Chris Kleiman will get interest from other schools, but I'm of the belief that if you have a special quarterback that you may want to stay where you are, Avery Johnson, we'll see how he develops, but he could be a special quarterback over the next couple of years. That's probably incentive for Chris Kleinman to stay there.

The one that might be my favorite of these, and I mentioned that Danny White hired Lance Leipold at Buffalo. The one that I remember the guy getting hired and thinking, wait, he wanted to be a head coach? I didn't even know that. It was Josh Heupel at UCF. So Heupel was the OC at Missouri when Scott Frost left UCF for Nebraska. So Danny White's the AD at UCF.

He's come from Buffalo. He's become the AD at UCF. And he's looking around. And this is a job. Remember, they're coming off an undefeated season. So everybody and their brother is a job. Remember they're coming off an undefeated season. So everybody and their brother wants this job. And he goes and hires Josh Heupel who was on zero lists, who just, but there was a connection. Danny's brother, Brian, who's currently the Florida athletic

athletic or Florida Atlantic athletic director. He'd worked at Missouri with Josh Heupel, knew how people felt about him when they were in the program, and said, hey, this guy's doing some special things and could vouch for him. And so he gets the interview, and Danny said once they had the interview, it was over.

So Heupel comes in at UCF, and he picks up right where Scott Frost left off. He's just winning. And then when Danny got the Tennessee job, he went and he talked to some people. And his thought was none of these guys are better than Josh Hypo. And so he hires Josh Hypo. And I think at that time, people were looking at that one as, oh, he's just hiring the guy that he's comfortable with because that's who he hired at UCF. That's not what it was.

He legitimately thought he was the best guy for the Tennessee program. And I know people are mad at Josh Heupel right now. I know the Vols fans are a little discouraged after what happened against Missouri. But you tell me, is your program better off right now than it was three years ago before Josh Heupel showed up? Abso-freaking-lutely. There's a high ceiling for the Tennessee program right now under Josh Heupel. So I always thought that hire was good. I want to go back. So Nathan gave me the last 10 or 15 years.

I'm going to, I'm going to violate the time element here because I think the, the one that for me, and I realized it was probably considered a pretty big deal locally, just because this was an alum. He'd been a famous quarterback at the school, but I don't think nationally people realized how successful this guy was going to be for how long Mike Gundy promoted to replace Les Miles before the 2005 season at Oklahoma State. Remember Les Miles gets the LSU job, Gundy gets promoted, and Oklahoma State had been better under Miles. They had been about as good as they'd been,

really, since Gundy was the QB. And you didn't know if they were going to be able to keep that going, but Gundy took the program to heights it has never attained before and has kept them consistently good stand up 4203 james franklin at vandy that's a good one too so james franklin was the coach and waiting behind ralph regent at maryland maryland decides they don't want to do that

deal they're going to go hire somebody else pretty sure that was randy Edsel that they hired at that point. And then James Franklin gets the Vanderbilt job. I think he went six and seven or seven and six his first year, and then nine and four, nine and four before going to Penn State. That's a good example. But I still think Gundy, of all of those, is the best one. And I realize that's a little bit longer, a little bit further back than Nathan said. But he just, again, he's the modern, the modern day Bill Snyder. And I realized Bill Snyder was coaching until

not very long ago, but he's that next generations, Bill Snyder, where he did, we talk or we're talking about less with more, more with less, all that. He's always done more with less. And who knows? If they can bounce back from that UCF loss, they might win a very confusing tiebreaker where the rules just got changed. I'm still a little fuzzy on that. Probably going to go back and watch that clip

with George Stoya and Eddie Radosevich where they explain it to me. Big 12 is very confusing. But I think Oklahoma State is in a better place, what I gathered, Oklahoma State is in a better place Wednesday than they were on Tuesday. So good luck to the Cowboys. Guys, great questions.

Unbelievable. We got one more show before the games and it's going to be a fun one. Chris Ballas from the Wolverine will join us to give us an update on the Jim Harbaugh situation. Remember they have that hearing on Friday morning for the injunction. Judge Judy is not

presiding. I don't know if that means if that's good or bad for Harbaugh. As much as he loves Judge Judy, I don't know how much Judge Judy would love him in this case. I would love to see that, though. If we could sub out Timothy Connors for Judge Judy, I think that would be great television. So we're going to talk to Chris Ballas about that. My old tag team partner, Ari Wasserman of The Athletic and the Until Saturday podcast also joins. He has very hot, blazing takes about the Michigan situation and the Texas A&M job.

I will set him straight. All of that and more on the show on Thursday.