Andy & Ari On3 - FIGHT ON? USC’s Lincoln Riley projects a new confidence in 2026 | Tennessee QB sues NCAA | Alabama's QB Competition: Austin Mack or Keelon Russell?

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

As the college football offseason is underway, USC’s Lincoln Riley hopped on The Herd with Colin Cowherd to discuss the landscape of college football and what to expect in 2026. As the Trojans return a plethora of talent in Los Angeles including QB Jayden Maiava, how successful can the Trojans be this fall? Watch here as Andy & Ari dive deep into the Trojans ahead of Lincoln Riley’s 5th season with USC. (0:00) On Today’s Episode(1:05) Presenting Sponsor(3:26) Intro: Lincoln Riley’s Comments(6:00) Dissecting Lincoln Riley’s Quote(13:10) Donor Paying Players Now(17:04) Lincoln Riley’s Rhetoric Entering 2026(21:20) Is USC where it wants to be?(25:56) Programs who are investing more now(29:44) Ari’s Closing Point on USC(33:08) Tennessee QB Joey Aguilar files lawsuit vs NCAA(42:00) Ari’s Power rankings of Rodents(43:10) Ari’s time in insurance(47:00) Alabama’s QB Competition(59:42) Conclusion: Thanks for watching! After the USC conversation, Andy & Ari turn their attention to Knoxville, Tennessee, where QB Joey Aguilar is filing a lawsuit against the NCAA in hopes of running through the T for one more year in Neyland Stadium. Will Aguilar be the Volunteers’ QB in 2026? Watch here as Andy & Ari discuss. To close, the fellas dive into the world of quarterback competitions. While there are significantly less competitions at QB nationwide these days, there is one in Tuscaloosa that all eyes are on. Will Alabama roll with Keelon Russell or Austin Mack in Bryant-Denny Stadium this year? How will Kalen DeBoer’s offense look in year three at Alabama? Watch here as the guys discuss. Send us your Dear Andy & Ari questions for Thursday’s show! [e-mail]@on3.com Our show is also presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code ON3 and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code ON3.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code ON3 when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/join Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today is Andy and Ari on 3. Lincoln Riley goes off about why there is more parody in college football. Hint, hint, it's about who pays the players now and who used to pay the players. Ari and I will break that down. Also, Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar has sued the NCAA. Wait for it. Wait for it. In state court, which seems to be the way everybody's going as he tries to get an extra year of competition.

Yeah, we're going to have a lot of these. Also, Ryan Grubb, the Alabama offensive coordinator, talks about having two of the best quarterbacks in America. As he talks about Austin and Keel and Russell, the two quarterbacks will compete for Alabama's quarterback job. Ari and I will discuss this quarterback competition because it is now a rarity. We used to see this at schools all over the country. This might be the only one, the only real one, in all of the power. Our conferences, we'll talk about it all on today's Antian Ari on 3 presented by Bed MGM. We are presented by BetMGM.

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First bet offer for new customers only, subject to eligibility requirements, rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Annie and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. and are you thought things were slow? You thought the off-season would bring, you know, some days where we struggle to find material. I don't know if we're going to get that.

I don't think that's going to happen. Andy, I never worry about whether we're going to have a show because I know that you and I will disagree on something, even if there's no news. This is a year-round sport now. You know, the thing that I'm sure happens to you, a lot in your life is when you go to events and you talk to your wives, friends, or you talk to your friends, people go, so what do you do now? It's over.

He's talking about college football. Yeah, it's like, what do I do now? The same thing that I do during the season, which is talk about the insane sport of college football and all the crazy intricacies that go into making those games possible. So, you know, when you talk to a college football novice or somebody who knows college football exists but doesn't really pay attention to it like a fan does, I don't think they have an appreciation for what makes the sport special, which is the- It's this. It's what we're about to talk about. So Lincoln Riley went on The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Monday, and he played the hits. He said something that pretty much every message board fan has said.

over the last two years that other coaches have said, but you know what? Every time somebody says it, everybody goes, whoa! Here's Lincoln Riley on the herd. A lot of people grumble about the NIL, but I don't get the Indiana story without it.

And I was getting tired of Alabama and Clemson. Now that things have settled with the NIL, is there anything that you love about it? I think the parody. It's what you said. It's stories that wouldn't have happened before that are happening now. Now, you know, now there's not just one part of the country paying players. Everybody's able to do it. And it's a great thing because I do think it's created a much more level playing field and it's given schools the opportunity to really compete if they want to invest.

I think it's been a great thing for players. We all know there's still parts of it to be worked out. It's obviously not a finished product by any stretch of imagination, but it has gotten better. there has been a lot of positives, and I think you're going to continue to see a lot of great stories, a lot of new opportunities for all different types of programs, which I think is really good for the sport as a whole. We have a show. More than just one part of the country paying players. I haven't heard that one before. See, you forgot about this, Andy. Yes.

But during last off season, I was posting about why there's more parity in the sport. and I posted on Twitter a long diatribe of now that everybody can play players, it's different. And I don't know if we were talking directly about Alabama or it wasn't Alabama-related discussion. But my tweet made it to the Alabama message board and people freaked out that I was implying that Nick Sabin was cheating and nobody else cheats and that Alabama and the SEC are the only ones that cheat and whatever. which was not the implication at all. No. I think that when somebody says everybody is paying players, that means that everybody is investing in their roster in ways that they weren't before.

But what Lincoln Riley just said was what people accused me of saying last year. Ari, here's the thing. Not everybody paid players under the table. But it wasn't just the SEC. Lincoln Riley's former employer, Oklahoma, had some issues with stuff like that. This is just Google the name, Rhett Beaumar. Jim Tressel, hell of a guy. Great coach.

Everybody who played for him loves him. Three of his best players, Maurice Claret, Troy Smith, Terrell Pryor. All investigated by the NCAA for improper benefits. All of them. Now, was the SEC and its apparatus, for paying players under the table a little more sophisticated? Yes, it was. See, I would argue that that's them just being better at it.

Because you could argue that Tressel was terrible at it because they kept getting caught. Well, here's the actual. Kelly paid a recruits handler with a fucking check. The check. A university-issue check. There were some stuff going on on big boats in Miami, too, weren't there? Yeah. You know what I, you know, now that you bring up Tressel, you know, I don't know if I've said this on the show, but when Tressel resigned, that was Memorial Day.

And I slept in until 11 a.m. that morning. And he resigned at 7 a.m. because I was partying and I missed it. But, you know, what I would really love if I could go back in time and have the answer to one question. How did they get Tarell Pryor in the first place? because when you say that the SEC, it was just the SEC. But like the prior posy tatgate stuff actually wasn't stupid. Wasn't that. That was something completely different. But I was. The Troy Smith stuff was stupid too.

Let's be real. All of it was minor tickey tack stupid stuff. Which by the way, your old pal Andy said back then, these rules are dumb. There's nothing wrong with giving them money for being good at football. Yeah, but Terrell Pryor was a lot of people who thought I was nuts then. So yeah, welcome to my world now, all of you.

Terrell Pryor was the number one overall player in the country and maybe like the most Archmanning hyped recruit that we've seen in the last 25 years. And he had a dude named Ted Sarniak that was a mentor to him. I'd love very much to know how they arranged that to happen. Maybe, you know, maybe I'll be on a message. But, okay, to the greater point. Yeah. I do think the apparatus, and it has said it. Like, if you watch that clip from the herd, they posted a quote from Ed Orsran of a, you know,

now it goes in through the front door rather than the back door. That's a recent quote from Ed Orgeron. Like, that's, that's fine. Like, we can accept that this was going on. And I'm not going to get indignant about it. I don't care. Lincoln Riley's right. he's right

what I think is interesting is that he's the one saying it because he didn't go to USC from Oklahoma for parity he went to USC from Oklahoma so that they could be the dominant brand in the conference

and they could run that conference just turned out they were moving to another conference and doesn't quite work the same way in the Big Ten is it in the Pac-12 Yeah you know what I think is interesting and I don't know what this is

but there also seems to be an uptick in interest in being good at football lately. Like that's the other thing that gets lost in this discussion. Like everybody always says, oh, well, the SEC paid and no one else paid. Everybody, I think, that was winning at a high level and getting really good players had to be participating in some sort of scheme or cheating scandal because, you know, it's simple economics. A player isn't going to go to place B if place A is paying a lot of money and place B isn't most of the time. But why is it now that you can do it legally and through the front door, as that Orsuan put it,

that has also bred a more competitive environment in terms of diverse places wanting to win in a way that they never did before these rules change. It's what our pal Cody Campbell said, what our favorite billionaire Cody Campbell said. So he said this, I want to say two weeks ago, and it was a really interesting statement. He was talking about Alabama and Auburn specifically and how they were struggling to adapt in this era. And I will go back to something somebody said to me about Nick Saban several years ago. When all this started, I wish I remembered who said this because they were genius.

This was so prescient. They said Nick Saban might not last long in this because he knows he can't create more millionaires in the state of Alabama. And so that was what Cody Campbell is getting at, is there are places where they have some pretty well-off donors and maybe more well-off donors than the places that traditionally dominated college football. And those people, when properly engaged, can invest in a football program in a way that maybe even the traditional powers can't because they don't have as wealthy of a donor base. Now look, if Auburn got Tim Cook rolling, he's the CEO of Apple, he's an Auburn grad. If he wanted to, he could do the Cody Campbell thing for them. But to this point, that hasn't happened.

You know, Michigan, well, they got an Illinois grad to do it because Larry Ellison's wife went to Michigan and wanted him to help underwrite Bryce Underwood. So I do think changing the rules. And here's the other thing, Ari. There are schools, and I've talked to ADs about this. Like when NIL changed, there were donors who struggled with the idea. And this is not just in the Big Ten. This was in the SEC and everywhere else.

Like they struggle with the idea because it was taboo for so long. They're like, wait, I can't pay players. And the ADs were like, no, no, no, but yes, you can. So please do. And the ones who adopted that sooner got better fast. Here's the question that I don't know the answer to. you're smarter than me so you can help me. Indiana invested a ton of money into Kurt Signetti,

his extension, and their roster. Before these rules changed, Indiana did not invest in football at all. What is the thing about the rule change that made the entire apparatus to borrow your word? It's not that they didn't invest at all. It's not that they didn't invest at all. Before the rules changed,

I remember going to Indiana in 2020. So this is pre-NIL. And right before the pandemic is one of my last stops before the world shut down. And they're taking me through their building, which was relatively new at the time. And I'm like, man, this is beautiful. They spent a fortune on this place. They did. But they couldn't spend it on players back then.

But if you've got the money to build buildings, you have the money to pay players. I don't know this for a fact. and maybe doing Indiana alone isn't the right way to go about it because I'm not an expert on what their financial disbursement was back in the day. But if Indiana really wanted to win at football in 2010, they could have paid for a coach above market. They could have filled out a higher salary pool for the staff. They could have increased their recruiting budget.

It was a recent phenomenon that they were investing in football. But I would say that even Penn State, it was a fairly recent phenomenon. And as Producer River points out, the Big Ten's divisional structure made it where it kind of didn't matter what Indiana spent. Like the way the sport was constructed, think about this. This is a great point from Producer River. The way the sport was constructed from 2014 to 2020, there's a 14 playoff. You probably got to win your conference to get in. If you don't, you got to be the second best team in your conference.

Indiana was in the same division as Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan. At what point were they ever going to be in a position to do anything in that strike? And I think that this is the answer. This is the answer because they could have spent all that money on coaches and they could have spent money on infrastructure, recruiting budget, all the things I just mentioned. But if there's no actual belief that you can get good players to come play there, then you kind of know that you're making a bad investment.

since NIL and Transfer Portal began, it has opened up a window for teams that traditionally could not get players like Fernando Mendoza and DiAngelo Pons and Eliza Sarat on their team. That has created a new enthusiasm for investing in football and the places that are non-traditionally, non-traditional powers. But the thing about those guys, Fernando Mendoza was under-recruited. he gets the last minute offer to Cal. DeAngelo Pons, nobody would touch him because he was 5'9, even though Jeremiah Smith's like, this guy's awesome. Please sign him. Elijah Surat started out at St. Francis in the MCS.

They had to back up the bridge truck to get Mendoza to go there, I bet. I'm sure they did because Georgia, Miami or after. There was an investment in the roster that wouldn't have been possible. Even if he was under-recruited out of high school. Well, this brings us back to USC, which I think it's interesting that Lincoln Riley is saying this, because there's a couple of things going on here. One, I think Lincoln Riley believes he's got a squad this year. I think the rhetoric from Lincoln Riley right now versus the rhetoric from Lincoln Riley last offseason feels very different. He feels like he's got a team now.

And last offseason it was, well, this has been a really tough build. we took over a bad situation, blah, blah, blah, blah. Excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse. I don't hear that now. I hear, I'm confident. We brought back all five starting offensive line. We brought back a really good quarterback. We have the number one recruiting class in the country coming in.

And why is all this happening? Because USC is spending in a way that it wasn't before. And it wasn't necessarily because of Lincoln Riley, though I'm sure he helped. it was their AD Jen Cohen going out and getting Chad Bowden, their GM from Notre Dame, and putting him with Lincoln Riley, who we know is a great developer of quarterbacks,

a great caller of offenses, and saying, okay, you've not been historically great as a head coach at getting all of the players on a roster that you need to really compete for national championships. You're great to be a quarterback. Right. That's not a new thing.

Yeah. He's never been particularly good at recruiting guys in the line of scrimmage, never particularly good at recruiting defensive players. So they bring in Chad Bowden, whose job is to evaluate, select, and attempt to compensate these players. And guess what? They bring in the best recruiting class in the country,

the number one overall player in the rival's rankings for class 2026, Luke Waifle. Like, that's a guy they're hoping will come in and be an immediate threat off the edge on their defense. They bring back all five starting offensive linemen. They bring back Jada, their quarterback. They are now in position to do this because USC finally was spending this way. But it's interesting to me that Lincoln Riley is the one saying this. Because I think when Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC, he didn't really want this kind of parity.

he was hoping that USC's traditional USCness would allow them to dominate in the PAC 12. I think they probably told them they were moving to the Big Ten. I'm not sure everybody at USC understood exactly what that would mean that Ohio State and Michigan and Penn State are pretty big freaking brands and you can't bigfoot them, that Oregon has now, you know, basically above U.S. in the pecking order in their own conference. So I think they've now come to that realization. Like everybody at USC's kind of figured that out,

and they understand how the world works now. And so it's interesting to hear him say that, because I don't disagree with him at all. I really don't. I think everybody being able to pay, the people who maybe had moral qualms about it or ethical qualms because it was against NCWA rules before, they've now come around.

Even the ones that when it was first made within the rules, they still didn't want to do it because they've been told for years it's morally and ethically wrong to pay people for being good at sports, which if you think about it real hard, that's the stupidest idea ever. Of course, there's nothing morally wrong with paying people for being good at sports. So now everybody's paying, now everybody's willing

and now USC is fully invested. So I want to ask you, Ari Wasserman, because we had a very famous bet when Lincoln Riley went to USC and it cost you a very, very expensive dinner at a steakhouse in Nashville last year when they did not make the playoff in his first three years at USC.

Is USC now where you thought USC could get when Lincoln Riley got there? No. Okay. I mean, I think that I want to see it. I mean, I think it may be on paper, it feels a little bit better. Right.

Yeah. No, what we know. What I thought USC was going to be was like peak Georgia on the West Coast. I thought that they were going to dominate recruiting on the West Coast. I thought that they were going to sign top five classes every year and that they were just going to run through the PAC 12 and be in the playoff every year. Now, obviously circumstances changed quite a bit very shortly after we made that bet. you know, they changed conferences, which was a boon for you. And then the playoff expanded, which was a boon for me, and it wasn't enough.

So I cannot believe that USC based, if you were to told me the day I wrote, I mean, you could go read the column I wrote on the athletic. I called a bunch of people on the West Coast, quarterback coaches and high school coaches in the area, and everybody was galvanized by the investment in, because it took quite a bit for them to go get him. Like going to get Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma was a testament from USC of their commitment to winning and football again. Except it was a testament of their commitment to winning the old way, which again, I'm not blaming anyone because the world had just changed. NIL was not even approved by the states until July of 2021. So Lincoln Riley got hired at USC in late November 2021.

Nobody knew how this was going to work. And so USC hired Lincoln Riley doing what everybody thought was the way you won because it was the way you won for that long. You went and hired the rock star coach and the players were just flocked to him. The world changed on them. They did not change as quickly as they should have. They are where they need to be now. the question is, as you pointed out,

will they actually turn that into wins against what is a fairly difficult Big Ten schedule? They don't have to play Notre Dame because they got out of that game. Now, we don't know how good Penn State's going to be, although I assume that we think they'll be a 10-win team. We don't know how great Indiana will be. I'm assuming that it's a healthy thing

to at least expect some sort of regression because you can't maintain what they just did, but still should be a very tough, out Ohio State we know will be very good and that's a Halloween Halloween game. Oregon's going to be really good. But they've got a tough and they have to play

Washington which is traditionally difficult. You know, but if they make the playoff next year and they get the thing rolling a little bit, you know, like I'll be honest with you, Andy. I know that, you know, USC is a private school and they had to guarantee Lincoln a ton of money to go there. But like, you know, given some of the way the way that some of the things were going in the last, you know, 18 months,

like I would have put him on my hot seat if it was an affordable thing to do. I think he has to win with this group. I think they have now given him everything he needs and he has to win. And that's fine. It's fair. It's perfectly fair. Because I think it would have been unfair had they not gone out and gotten the GM, gone out and gotten the players.

Because you hired him in kind of a bygone era. and you didn't necessarily equip them with the tools to win in this era. Now they have equipped him with the tools to win in this era. And if he doesn't, it's his fault. Well, there's another secondary point to this too, which I think is important to acknowledge, which is, yes, USC is investing in a way directly into the roster that maybe they weren't in the last five years, to your point. But if everybody else is doing it too, how much better are you than those people? Because Indiana is investing in their roster in ways that they weren't doing it before.

I'm sure Washington is. I'm sure everybody is trying to spend more. So, like, you know, if the rising tide lifts all boats, you still have to build a better boat. Because it's not like you're the only one trying something new. Everyone's trying something new. Everybody's paying players. Everybody's trying to retain their best guys. Like, USC isn't the only one that decided, aha.

Well, what if we just start caring about it now? Well, everybody cares about it now. Well, and that's what I find so interesting about this because I think he's got to win this year. But if you, like, go into the previous part of this discussion, about Indiana and its new commitment to investing in football in a way that it didn't before. How many programs do you think you could just name off the top of your head right now who are investing in football in a way that they weren't five years ago? I bet you we could do 15 or 10.

We had a head coach on our show yesterday from one of those schools. Right. Kentucky is one of those schools. Like there are now schools that we did not consider to be contenders in any way, shape, or form. that have money, and if they deploy it correctly, they can be very, very competitive now. Florida, Auburn,

Miss, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, South Carolina are all schools that are probably investing in football. And this is from the conference that traditionally invests in a lot. It just means more down there. Why don't you put up the Big Ten graphic?

We can go to the Big Ten now. Isn't Penn State, even though they've been traditionally good, investing a hell of a lot more into their program? I mean, the buyout of James Franklin alone is part of the investment. But yeah. Michigan's trying harder than they've ever tried before.

Everybody's trying harder. Nebraska's trying harder than they were before. Oregon, Washington. Yeah. So like, Wisconsin says they're going to give more money. Wisconsin said they didn't, they didn't do enough.

You remember I talked to Chris McIntosh when they decided to keep Luke fickle. He said, we didn't do enough. We're going to properly resource our guy. Everybody's trying. So you have to try even harder than everybody else who's trying and then do it better than them. That's the thing too that I think that gets lost in the Indiana discussion. Everybody talks about how Indiana, you know, tried harder and it worked. But the thing that gets lost in this discussion is how much better they were at doing it too.

Like, it wasn't just they spent more. They evaluated better. They coached better. They assembled a team that was built in to or built in to compete for each other better. They built a team that loved each other. Like all the cliche bullshit coaching statements that you say about college football were actually true at Indiana on top of that investment, on top of having the lead players. Like I still think that you still need to do all those things. So like, yeah, USC, you know, there are things to like about USC, certainly.

Do I think that USC's going to go 11 and 1 this year because of they started investing more in their roster? Probably not. So especially. They went nine. Okay. I'm going to push back on that, though, Ari. They went nine and three against the schedule that their Big Ten schedule probably wasn't as hard. They had to play Notre Dame.

Yeah. And I, this. This could be a 10-and-2 or an 11-1 team. Still disgusting to say that they're not playing Notre Dame, but... I know. It sucks. You know, I mean, yeah, 10-and-2. I mean, if they go 10-and-2 against that schedule, that's a playoff team, guaranteed. Right, and if Lincoln Riley puts him in the playoff, that's what he's...

That's what they're paying him for. Who's their best receiver? I don't know. I'm going to find out. I mean, that... Next week, we're going to go through the portal rankings, guys, and we're going to tell you... I'm never worried about receivers with Lincoln Riley. Yeah.

He's always got somebody. Yeah, but... Michael Lemon and Jacoby Lane are gone, but that's not something I worry about them having to replace. They'll have good receivers, and they have a good player throwing in the ball. Yeah. So we're going to find out, though. This is fascinating to me. I love when coaches say stuff like this because it makes everybody freak out.

It's like playing the hits. Well, I also think, too, that when you say, you know, I had a mentor in my life once, and you could probably guess who it is based on what I'm about to tell you. That said that when he anticipates having a argument or a disagreement with somebody that he plays the argument into his head and then purposefully says the thing that's most hurtful to the other person and tries to like envision, what's the worst thing that you could say to this person? And then they say it.

When you'd say that the South is the only place that used to pay players, you're bothering them because you're implying that they are the only one. ones that cheated back in the day. But I think that there's another layer to it that you're not considering, which is you're not as good at, like you said, they had the better apparatus for cheating back in the day. You've said that a million times as we started podcast together. Do they have a better apparatus for engaging in this sport?

I think you would argue that they don't. They do not. You're exactly right. So if you really peel back the layers of the onion on that, it's like, yeah, you used to cheat and no one else cheated. Now everyone's doing what you used to do and you can't do it as well as them. that means that your time is over. And I wonder in this world where the Big Ten has now won three championships in a row from three different programs,

if we're starting to see the result of your apparatus for compensating players isn't as extensive, it isn't as robust and it's certainly not as intricate as having a Fortune 500 company wanting to invest in your team like they do at Oregon or a billionaire like they do at Michigan or Ohio State's in one of the big, biggest cities, corporate cities in America. Like you don't have those towns in the South. So, like, are we now engaging in a change of the guard of who is elite and who wins national championships because the financial mechanisms that it takes to win at the highest level now don't come in a McDonald's bag?

Now it comes on a check with a corporation on it. They don't have it anymore. Is this the change in the swing back to North? I don't know. I don't know. Yes, it is. And that's why people do that. It'll change again.

You want to know why? Because people in the South care too damn much about it to lose at it. But I don't know what the response is to we can't compete with a limited brand. We can't compete with Nike. What's the response in Knoxville to that? I know Victoria's Secret. It's an old man who lives in Ohio. Yeah.

I'm not worried about it. And I'll tell you why. This is a correction. This is a market correction. It's what it is. When situations change, circumstances change, rules change, however it works. This is throughout history, you have market corrections. That's what this is.

And for the people who care really deeply about college football in the South, the programs that care deeply and want to win national titles, they'll figure it out. But it may take some time. It's not going to happen overnight. So that's going to be part of the fun of seeing how things evolve. And I guess we'll just have to have to wait and see what happens. But I think it's more interesting because we get more immediate feedback with the Lincoln Riley USC situation this year. Because I find that to be one of the most interesting situations in college football. Yeah.

All right. Let's move on to another very interesting situation. and something we're seeing kind of over and over again. And I think people are getting tired of it. I know people are getting tired of it. But there's one fan base. And it's usually there's always one fan base in all of these stories. They would love to see this happen.

Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar files an eligibility lawsuit against the NCAA on Monday in state court, in Tennessee, in Chancery Court in Knox County, Tennessee. see. Now, this is interesting because Joe Aguilar was originally part of the Diego Pavia lawsuit in federal court. He got himself dismissed from that case last week so that he could sue in state court. They're basically doing the same playbook that Trinidad Shambliss is using in Mississippi to try to get another year at Ole Miss and that Charles

Betiaco, the basketball player at Alabama, is using to allow him to play despite him having been in the G-League. So. And is there, is there a way that they would be able to get postponements in court that would last through the season so that they eligible? What you want is a temporary restraining order or an injunction that says until this is dealt with, until we come to a conclusion of this case, the NCAA is not allowed to enforce its rules. Yeah, the legal term is it would be enjoined from enforcing its rules. And so. And could you do that five months from now? Because you need to get through the season.

Well, civil cases take a long time, especially if you drag your feet. So if you get the injunction or you get the TRO, TRO tends to have a timestamp on it, like that Charles Betayacos on TRO number two, 10-day TRO number two. So you want the injunction. But if you get the injunction, yeah, you're probably going to get through the season. And so I'll lay out the facts of the Joey Aguilar case because it's different from the Trinidad-Chambliss case. In the Trinidad-Chamble's case, he played at Ferris State. he was there for four years.

He then plays a year at Ole Miss. He's trying to get another year to play. They're trying to say that the NCAA should have granted him a medical hardship for the 2022 season and did not. That's not what's going on in the Joey Aguilar case. Joey Aguilar played a year at Juko. They're saying the year at Juko should not count at all in the NCAA's calculation, that his years at Appalachian State and his year at Tennessee should be the only ones that

count. So there would be one redshirt year, three years of playing, which would leave him one more year to play. And the NCAA says, no, the year you played in Juko also counts, which it always did historically. So that's what they're going to argue. The chancellor, in chancery court, they call the judge's chancellors. The particular chancellor that was assigned to this case has two degrees from the University of Tennessee. And that's what we do in these is we just try to figure out, like what's the rooting interest of the judge? And he's going to say, did he like, did he go to Tennessee or like what?

He did? I know, okay, good. There's, I think three judges it could have been assigned to. And it's, they're randomly assigned. But they all went to Tennessee. So it doesn't matter.

That's a lecture. But that's the whole point of this. And I've, you know, discussed this a little bit with, with Tom Mars, who he's not involved in this case. He's an attorney who represents a lot of these players in these

situations. He's, is representing Trinidad. Shamblis. So he's the one who decided instead of taking the Trinidad Shambliss case to federal court, take it to state court, get the home field advantage. Like everybody in sports understands home field advantage. And that's what, that's what you're aiming for here. You're aiming for that whole field advantage. Like Trinidad Shamblis does not have to win to win. He has to get the injunction to win. Same with Joey Agar. And then I'm assuming that like reporter, I mean,

lawyers can also like file motions and forms like at the last possible minute all the time too to make sure that it keeps going as long as possible and in real life like civil cases do not it's not like TV like they'll knock those things out in a few days like yeah like if I sued you for five thousand dollar that Pukunuhua card that supposedly should be mine um that would take a while right like if I like filed a small claims case against you and how you got that card in the mail when it should have been to my address yeah Yeah, our lawyers would be going back and forth for months and be saying, okay, we need to schedule depositions now. We need to do this. We need to do this. We need to do that. And there are other civil cases in the pipeline that need to be dealt with first. So that's where you're using the naturally slow speed of the wheels of justice in your favor in this case.

When will we know whether these players got the injunction? Like, when is that supposed to happen? So Trinidad Chambleauce has a hearing scheduled for nine days from now. Okay. And presumably there will be a ruling fairly quickly after that within, you know, within a few days after that. And then if he gets the injunction, he's going to go play for Ole Miss this year because they'll be able to drag it out and run the clock out. If he doesn't, then he's got to get ready for the draft. So at a certain point, like you also have to like move on with your life and figure it out too, right?

Correct. And both these players, I think, would be capable of making NFL rosters next year. I don't know, probably practice squad type guy if you're Aguilar, but Tennessee would love to have him. So they've got George McIntyre who signed as a freshman in the class of 25. They got Faison Brandon coming in, class of 26 guy. It's a competition between those two if Aguilar can't play. If Aguilar can play, look, Ari, I thought their offense was pretty functional under

regular. I would be fairly confident if he came back that they were going to have a decent offense. Yeah, for sure. And it also makes me wonder on the other side of the coin, too, of like, if they were super hyped up about Brandon, you might not want him back. But I guess that's what happens when you have a true freshman, right? Like, it's not a thing with. Well, and that's the thing with these cases, it's a case-by-case basis. Like, Ty Simpson's in the draft right now, and we've talked a lot about his situation. But it didn't feel to me like Ty Simpson going back to Alabama was much of an option. Right. I think Tennessee would take Aguilar back right now. Yeah. So that's the interesting part. Obviously, Ole Miss would take

Trinidad Shameless back if they can get him. But that is what we're waiting to see. And so that's why he's suing in state court. That's why probably his attorneys are feeling more confident because they do have that home field advantage. Now again, we don't know that just because the chancellor in this case went to Tennessee, that he's going to suddenly agree and be like, okay, you get the injunction. He may say, I've read the, you know, I've read your petition and

I just don't think you'd win. And that's when, when they do the injunctions, it's usually because they feel like the plaintiff has a very good chance of succeeding at trial. Yeah. I love the legal mechanisms and the weaseling going on here. Weaseling is probably the right word. And if they get injunctions, it'll be interesting to see, too, what if one does and one doesn't based on, it's the same exact thing. They're just in different states. Right. Exactly. And that's, there's a whole lot of these going on. There's like, there's one that I think kind of flew under the radar, but while we're talking about Tennessee, we may as well mention it. Jeremy Pruitt, he got a, he got a temporary restraining order in the state

of Alabama because he was looking at a job at Jacksonville State. And so, I don't know that the NCAA can, can enforce its show cause against Jeremy Pruitt right now because of that ruling. We're on the NCAA's board. I would just go home and, what's the insurance license? What's it called? PNC, I think. I've never had any desire to work in insurance. You know, when I first got into sports writing, I had to work at Allstate Insurance my first year doing it because I didn't make enough at sports writing

and I needed to supplement my income. And I got a license and I don't think it's active anymore, but it's a property PNC is what it's called. I would never buy insurance from you. Yeah. I was electric at it. But all I used to do was just, just like send out car quotes to people.

What are you going to do if you smash up your car? How are you going to pay for that? Yeah, I can see you. No, I mean, honestly, all I would do is they would, you know, people who, you know, you go online and you type in like car insurance quotes, like insurance agencies pay for those quotes. And then, you know, I'd have a stack of papers this high. And then I would just type in the information and then spit out whatever the algorithm says they would owe every month and send it to it. I love Ari just consulting.

the actuarial tables. Yeah, no, I mean, I was, I mean, I probably would have ended up in it. My dad's an insurance. I think that might have been what I ended up doing. And thankfully. I'm so glad. I'm so glad you found your calling here. Yeah, no, my dad doesn't seem to be the most fulfilled human being professionally.

So I'm kind of happy this worked out too because I get to talk to you every day about football. We're going to find out if it works out for Joey Aguilar. We'll find out if it works for the Tennessee balls. Josh Heipal going into year six in Knoxville. He's taken him with the college football playoff. But I think naturally the balls want more. Just getting there's not good enough. Got to get more.

So we will see what happens with Joey Aguilar. Obviously, we will keep you abreast of what's going on with Trinidad Shameless and all these other cases. But it's fascinating. That's a word we should be using more often, a breast. Abreast? Yeah, I like the Grammy's red carpet. There is a lot of abreast going on.

You know what I do at home a lot with my wife is I use words or places that sound sexual in words just to bother Brittany. I said gobbler's knob in our house like 19 times yesterday. And that's why she didn't want to know about the hedgehog anymore. And now, yeah. Groundhog, headhog. Sorry, mixing up Sonic the hedgehog in Puck Satani, Phil.

It's some guy got kicked out of a KFC in Punksitani yesterday for asking for an eight-piece groundhog. apparently there's another polar vortex coming in this week in like some of the cities that don't typically get snow it's that rat's fault dude you're saying you're saying Pucksitani is at fault for this okay you saw my rat rankings right no

Charles Entertainment cheese number one Punky number two I mean is it is every rodent available Yeah, Splinter. What about Mickey Mouse? I mean, they're my rankings, not yours. I'm not a big Disney guy.

You've got Chuckie Cheese over Mickey Mouse. Charles Entertainment Cheese, the rat, slings much better pizza than people think. When's the last time you had Chuckie Cheese pizza? We didn't have, we had showbiz where I was from. Okay. I was Joe Biz kid. Is it the same company?

I think the same founder. There's a whole thing. Like, I went away to that rabbit hole a few weeks ago, and I don't remember anything I read. I went to a birthday party with my daughter, because when you have a four-year-old, you get, you go,

like I had never stepped foot in Chuck E. Cheese for 25 years. And, uh, we went to a birthday party and Charles brought out some really, really good pizza. Like, I ate it.

And I was like, this is actually like really good. Like the rat slings good pie. And then I found out that Chuckie Cheese actually has an entire branch of their business where people just get delivery pizza from them. Like there are people who, use the rat the same way that we do with dominoes can you believe that like it would never even occur to me in a million years to just order a carry out from chucky cheese without any children

people do that and it's actually pretty good like i you should go for those are psychopaths i'll say our friend david oven at the athletic who uh who door dashes bennihanna yeah i'm sorry no i we had we had showbiz pizza with the rock of fire explosion okay fat's geronimo is a gorilla who plays keyboard, Beach Bears, guitar, and vocals. Mitzie Mozrella is the mouse. Billy Bob Broccoli is the bass. He's a brown bear from Tennessee. You saw when the cops came into Chucky Cheese and like

arrested the rat with, well, he was still in uniform and took him out with the cuffs on, right? Of course. That should have been bigger news, I think. That's wild. But if you go to Uber Eats right now and like type in like pizza, like Chucky Cheese will come up. You should just get a pizza for science reasons and try it. I don't have one in my little town that I live in.

So that's, I don't live in a vast metropolis. Next time we're on a road trip, we should go to there for just lunch, just two adults. Get a pie. They put garlic on the crust. They like, they care. As you just talked about the cops walking into Chucky Cheese, what do you think is going to happen when we walk in? I think we could hire Tom Mars and he would get us out of it. And then Junction, they're just there for the pie.

All right. So it has to be a chicken cheese in Arkansas. All right. That's enough. I was going to make a joke. So if, let's say, if Joey Aguilar does not prevail in court, there will be a quarterback competition in Tennessee between George McIntyre and Faison Brandon.

But that would be a rare occurrence. I want to take you to my mind. Montgomery, Alabama. And last night, Ryan Grubb is visiting the Alabama High School Coaches Convention. He's talking to the coaches and making sure he's helping recruit. So he's the offense coordinator at Alabama.

He said to W. AKA, a Montgomery television station, that Alabama has, quote, two of the best quarterbacks in the country. And he's talking, of course, about Austin Mack and Keel and Russell, the two players who will be competing for the starting job at Alabama. And this got me to thinking, Ari, is this the only high-profile QB competition we're going to see unless the Joey Aguilar thing doesn't work? Like, is anybody else doing one of these this year? When you pose the question, I went through the Power 5 and I couldn't find another one. Am I forgetting one?

I don't think you are. I think the transfer portal has, yeah. There might be a few where we're not sure entirely who will be the starter. So there will be, but like we're talking about like high profile like. Yeah, like Virginia, because Chandler Morris has done, they've got Bo Perbuehl and Eli Holstein, who are both transfers. We don't know who's going on that job. But there's not guys that have been sitting on the roster who are going to now compete for that

starting job anywhere but Alabama, basically. So Keel and Russell signed out of high school class of 2025 he registered last year. Austin Mack signed originally with Washington but followed Kalin the board of Alabama so has been on Alabama's roster for the past two years. This is what it used to be everywhere. This is what everybody used to do. And now nobody does it anymore. Like think about that, Ari.

Think about it in five years we've gone from. from this being a completely normal occurrence to nobody's doing this. Andy, I actually think that it's important to kind of like look at some of the programs that have really good quarterback situations and all these places that actually have great quarterback situations don't have a competition. Like Oregon, for instance, has Dante Moore and Dylan Raola. Like that's a hell of a back. That's a hell of a bad.

But Dante Moore is the starter, right? Like you go to Houston, or Texas, I mean, sorry, not Houston. Arch Manning is there, but you have Dia Bell on the bench, and you have some of the other guy, M.J. Morris, the guy who came in last year's is there. Texas Tech has Will Hammond still, right? But Brendan Sorsby is the starter. What about LSU?

I mean, they got two. They got Hussein Longstreet to come in, who was a five-star player who was supposed to be the next great USC quarterback, but Sam Levitt's the starter. Ohio State has Tavian St. Clair, but Julian San is the starter. Like, there are some places. that do have like recognizable names, both being prospect or a transfer that are sitting on the bench this year

or not playing, but none of them are engaged in a high quarterback or a high profile quarterback competition. Yeah. Now, it is fascinating because we didn't have much of it last year either. Notre Dame was probably the biggest one, and it was CJ Carr versus Kenny Benching. It kind of went down to the wire.

Now, what's interesting about this now is you think you could probably do it more easily now with no spring transfer portal because if somebody got the wrong vibe coming out of spring in the days of the spring transfer portal, they could just leave and then some quarterback needy team might pick them up.

But now there is no portal. Now it doesn't mean that's necessarily going to stop anybody from going anywhere. We'll see about that. But it would seem like you could actually have a competition and it seems like Keel and Russell and Austin Mac are comfortable with the idea of, hey, one of us ain't getting this thing.

There are going to be a bunch of teams probably that get through spring and don't love what they have in their quarterback room. Maybe somebody gets injured in the spring. Something happened. People become desperate. And like, for instance, if you are a guy like Hussein Longstreet,

who is a player who has never really played yet but has traits that jump off the page and is expected to be a really high-level player in this level eventually. And you decide you want to hire Tom Mars or somebody else and figure out a way to challenge the spring portal window not existing or withdrawing from school or whatever other way. He could make a lot of money by using the desperation of a team that needs somebody. And he's just one of the examples. Any of the examples that I said of players like Tavian St. Clair would be in that category. Duce Knight at Ole Miss. He's sitting behind Trinidad and Chambliss potentially how that goes.

Maybe or he may be starting. You have quarterback situations like Will Hammond, I think, could command a nice little check probably. Because I thought he played quite well in his time when Baron Morton was injured last year. Like I don't know. Like I don't know if there. I think my prediction would be at this moment, Andy, that we will get one. high profile quarterback transfer in the spring that will rock the boat one way or the other. Don't you think that's a fair thought?

I think somebody might try. I don't think it's going to be either. I don't think it'll be either of the guys at Alabama. I think the guys at Alabama are, one, Alabama is not going to name a starter after the spring. They're going to push that thing into the fall. It'll probably be very similar to the Notre Dame competition last year. And it'll be interesting to watch the old school competition shake out because talking about this earlier in the show,

but it didn't feel like Ty Simpson coming back to Alabama was an option, which I don't know about you. Does that say to you that they feel like one of these two is a better option than Ty Simpson? It's actually kind of confusing to me because I actually believe that Ty Simpson might be a great pro prospect. So like if he is a great pro prospect,

like I'm surprised they wouldn't want him back. But at the same time, you know, in college football these days, you got to keep it moving, man. You know, new next. Well, and Ty Simpson was a good quarterback at Alabama last year, especially as we go back and kind of sift through the details of the season, you realize he was carrying them for a lot of that. Yeah.

And so that part I'm still not entirely understanding. And maybe that given what we've heard from Ty Simpson, he just wants to go play the NFL. And that's okay. And it sounds like he's going to get picked fairly high. So maybe that's just it. And, you know, I might be going too deep into the financial rabbit hole here. But I wonder, too, like even if you have a person that has been in your program for a long time or, you know, had a productive season, if you have invested millions of dollars in your backups in retaining them, if there is ever any urge to push people along because you don't want the sunken cost and the investments of the players that were you or.

playing to be. Oh, I mean, I've talked to coaches about that before this era, before they had to shell out bucks for guys who weren't playing as backups. And yeah, it is, it was a real thing. It was, you know, keeping the machinery moving and keeping kind of a balance to your quarterback recruiting was always a priority. But you know, we always say we're not assembling programs anymore we're assembling teams. And I wonder if people who are writing the checks to the players on the team view it that way or if they view their payments from the previous year

to be a sunken cost that they're willing to lose as long as they get their roster right the next year or if they believe that the investment in the money that they paid a backup the previous year should be paid off the following year. I think I can sum up the feelings of the check writers thusly. If you win, whatever we paid is fine. If you lose, you wasted our money. That's it.

So I think with Alabama, they're very excited about both these guys. They're not going to tip their hand. Probably not at all during the spring about who's winning that competition. And yeah, that's going to be a fall. Watch it.

A fall answer probably. But, you know, players are also a little bit more sophisticated than they used to be too, where it's like, if I'm not playing, I need to know now because I have an opportunity to make money and to play next year somewhere else. And I'll throw another potential power conference one at you. So Florida, I think Aaron Philo is coming from Georgia Tech,

where he played for current Florida offensive coordinator, Buster Faulkner, with the idea that he's going to start. And I think that's probably the plan. But Florida kept a guy named Tramel Jones, who was beloved by the teammates. He did most of the first team reps when DJ Lagway, was hurt during the off season last year. So very much a, he was a retention priority when the new staff got there, which I thought

was interesting, because they were obviously going out and getting a guy who had worked with the OC before. The fact that he was a retention priority suggests to me that he may get a chance. And I do think that'll be something to watch as we go in, you know, through the spring and into the fall. But it's not as overt. like Alabama is the only one saying like these two guys are here they've been here they're on fairly equal footing and we're going to pick one of them yeah and I just think that

every single place that's in this position has to navigate their coach their their quarterback room so delicately and I know that it's going to be a case by case basis but I'm very curious to see how this one plays out I am too because all the questions we have about Kailen DeBoer, clearly, look, if Alabama is better up front, protects the quarterback better, blocks in the run game better, whether they pick Russell or Mac, it's not going to matter. They're going to be better than they were last year. That was the problem.

They could not run the ball. They did not protect Ty Simpson very well. It came home to roost toward the end of the season, especially when he got dinged up in the Georgia game in the SEC championship. and in the offense just completely shut down. So it really depends on what they put in front of whoever wins this quarterback competition, probably more than who wins it. But Ari, we'll put you on a spot.

It's February 3rd, but why not? Let's start taking bets. Who you got? Day one starter for Alabama, Twitter 26. Keel and Russell, all right. Who did you think I was going to pick? Mr. Stars Matter.

I also hit a really fat Keelan Russell card that's at PSA right now, so I'm kind of rooting for him. Now the truth comes out. No, I just, he is from Dallas. Like he played high school football at Duncanville. And when he was in high school, like the entire city knew who he was. Yeah. So I've been very interested in tracking his career.

And he's big, big kid, very athletic with a big arm. But, you know, there is something to be said about experience that Austin Mac has. Being in the system at Washington coming with them has looked proficient. And, you know, at times when he's in the game, like, I don't know who's going to win. But I'm always going to favor. Like, if you ask me, ask me the Tennessee one now. Who am I going to pick? You're going to pick Faison, Brandon.

I just love big, armed. athletic freaks at the quarterback position that come out of high school. George McIntyre was also a very high-profile recruit. He's not a physical freak. All right. Well, I can't wait to see how it plays out. This is something we're going to be following all offseason, of course. We'll have so much more to follow.

Tomorrow is a megaboard Wednesday. Thursday, by the way, dear Andy, dear Ari, get your questions in early. Get your questions in early for dear Andy, dear Ari. Andy Stapleson3 at gmail.com. Ari. at On3.com. We love it when you ask your questions because you are the most intelligent

and best-looking listeners and viewers in America. I'm going to Phoenix this weekend, so we need the questions early because we're recording them early. Please. I wasn't going to say that. I was just going to throw it out there. I'm asking these good-looking people

with great hearts to do us a favor. Yeah, get those questions in, and we will have a vibrant mailbag session on Thursday. I can tell you right now we're going to have a vibrant megaboard Wednesday. One thing I want to talk about, because I stumbled onto the War Chant message boards, our Florida State cited on three. Stumbled onto their message board on Monday night. Okay, we reacted one way to the Gus Malzon retirement,

which is what a career innovator, trailblazer. we were kind of looking back at Gus Malazahn's work history. The Florida State fans, of course, because they're worried about their team right now. Oh my. That's as tough as a reaction as I've seen from a fan base in February. So we'll go through some of the threads

on the Warchamp message boards, but also we'll hit some of these other ones because, listen, college football never stops. the message boards never stop there's always something and now we are going to have some fun with these message boards the off season is where it truly gets on edge that's the best one we'll talk to you tomorrow