Andy & Ari On3 - How much does NIL REALLY factor in recruiting/transfer choices? | Which QB will Texas land in 2025?

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

It’s a very special Dear Andy, because we’re joined by On3’s newest star. Steve Wiltfong, the greatest recruiting reporter on the planet, has joined the company as the VP of recruiting and transfer portal.Steve and Andy will answer your questions, including…(0:00-2:02) Intro with Steve Wiltfong(2:03-5:42) Bear Alexander - Transfer Portal Update(5:43-9:02) John Calipari Introduced at Arkansas(9:03-16:35) NIL with 4 & 5 Stars(16:36-24:38) Keeping Up with Spring Football(24:39-32:31) Dabo Swinney Strategy(32:32-39:04) Blue Bloods and Final Four in Basketball Arena?(39:05-48:08) Texas Recruiting Update(48:09-54:11) Josh Allen's Recruiting(54:12-56:04) Coach's Contracts(56:05-1:01:33) Nathan Asks a Question with a Special Guest - Congrats Nathan!(1:01:34-1:04:08) Conclusion with Steve(1:04:09-1:05:06) Wrapping UpFor four- and five-star recruits, what percent of decisions are coming down to an extra 10-20 percent of NIL? Or is it even possible to know?With Dabo Swinney’s refusal to embrace the transfer portal, do you think it is at all possible for him and Clemson to return to the success that they were at a few years ago? Is he a good enough recruiter and/or developer of talent to not need the transfer portal at all? And do you think there is any coach in the country who could succeed with this strategy (not taking players from the portal) besides Dabo?Which quarterback will Texas land for the class of 2025?What’s the most important thing to look for in a spring game?Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and join us live, M-F, at 8 am et!

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. It is a very special Dear Andy edition of Andy Staples on three because we are joined by on three's newest employee. The best hire we've made so far, if I do say so myself. Steve Wilpong. How are we doing? Well, good morning. Thanks for that introduction, but I'm just excited to be part of this fabulous team. A lot of terrific hires. That's one of the reasons why I'm over here. So many people that have impacted this space are now working at On3 and just a pleasure to be on the same team as you, my friend. Well, you are the host of the Wilt Fong Whip Around on the On3 Recruits channel, which if you're not subscribed to that with the five-star flex with Philip Dukes, with Josh Newberg,

with the Wilfong whip around now, what are you even doing? You should be subscribed to this channel, the regular on three sports channel and the on three recruits channel. But Steve, you, you basically pioneered the way we cover recruiting and have done that through the years.

And I will ask you the first dear Steve question because the reader sent in some really good ones, but I got one for you. How has the coverage of recruiting changed even in the last three years now that transfer portal recruiting is such a huge part of it? Well, I think that it's more saturated than it used to be. There used to be a lot less people covering recruiting, I think that it's more saturated than it used to be. There used to be a lot less people covering recruiting, but now that it has become more mainstream and less niche, there's a lot more interest in these prospects, a lot more interest in roster building and how the transfer portal impacts that. There's a lot more people out there covering college football recruiting in the transfer portal right now.

Yeah, it's exploded. And we see it with the numbers. I mean, people love reading about this stuff. And it's become a kind of 24-7, 365 thing. And as we sit here three days away from the transfer portal reopening, I think it's just going to keep going. I will actually, a piece of news that we got to tell the people about, we mentioned Bear Alexander on yesterday's show. Bear Alexander, the USC defensive tackle, former Georgia defensive tackle. We had reported and other outlets had reported that he planned to enter the transfer portal.

Well, on his Twitter on Wednesday afternoon, he tweets out, I'm not crystal clear on the noise or any of this portal messes about. I'm here to finish what I started, and that's chasing a natty here at USC with my teammates. Hashtag fight on. So Bear, now it took Bear roughly 22 hours to find his phone and tweet this after all the stuff broke on Tuesday. So we will draw our own conclusions on that, Steve. Well, I mean, obviously, I think he was going to go in the portal, and then you have some conversations and you're not going in the portal.

Look, one of the top up-and-coming running backs in the country was thinking about going in the portal recently too until he had some conversations with his head football coaching staff. Some of these are public. Some of these are not public. But that Bear Alexander story started because he was going to go into the portal, and now he's not. And that's just the nature of college football right now.

And to go back to your first question, Andy, Jeremiah Smith, he is a true freshman receiver at Ohio State. And I would say most of Buckeye Nation is aware of this young man, the number one player in the country in the last recruiting cycle. But if you were to rewind it five, six years ago, in my opinion, Andy, over 100,000 fans inside the shoe every Saturday for a football game. The average Ohio State fan, the one that just tailgates on Saturday and watches the game or goes to the games, probably doesn't know who Jeremiah Smith is till he makes a play. But now with all the coverage of recruiting and all the interest in it, he's already a household name in the Ohio State market before he has even made a play on the football field.

You're exactly right. And I was on Finebomb yesterday, and I mentioned Cam Coleman, the freshman receiver at Auburn, because I don't know that Auburn's been as excited about a freshman in a long, long time. Maybe, I'm trying to think, well, Cam, when he a, as Juco transfer, but he wasn't a freshman. Uh, but it's been a while since they had somebody that they felt like could make an instant impact like that. But yeah, I think you're right. I think it, and especially with our access to information, access to video, these huddle clips that we can watch. I mean, my, my son is watching

all these guys on huddle way before we start hearing about them, even as recruits. His friends and him were passing around a picture of the kid from the Dallas area. He's an offensive tackle. He's like 6'8", 390 pounds. And there was the viral photo of him blocking the normal sized human being and like that was a year and a half ago and that the the middle schoolers are already passing that around no question my sons are nine and six years old and they'll watch something on overtime and say dad do you know who cam coleman is it's like i do i do buddy i have i am aware of the young man yes oh i can't wait i i i do hope cam coleman is as advertised because auburn hasn't had a truly dominant receiver since the 90s so i'm i'm

excited about that but we've got one one thing to pay off before we get to the deer 80 questions because the folks send in a lot of really good questions. But we kept promising everybody we're going to show Coach Cal calling the Hogs. As soon as it's official that John Calipari is going to Arkansas, we're going to show him calling the Hogs. We're going to compare it to the Bobby Petrino video. We're going to compare it to Sam Pittman when he got the job. Well, guess what? Coach Cal got out of calling the Hogs.

He does the thing. He does his deal. And then right as they're about to call the hogs, like you can hear the people going, he's like, I'm going to go talk to these coaches over here. And he's like, hey, Sam Pittman, what's going on? And he walks down off the stage and lets everybody else call the hogs.

But he had perhaps the greatest recruiting quote of all time, which as a recruiting reporter, I think you can fully appreciate, Steve. So here is Cal last night talking about taking the Arkansas job. And you know what? I'm jacked about another opportunity. I'm like, let's go. Now, I met with the team. There is no team. So now I got to – Hunter's really extremely confident,

but we got to get a roster together. I met with the team. There is no team. Welcome to the transfer portal, Aaristee. He said three guys. He said there were three guys and they're all in the portal, right? Yes, yes. And then one're all in the portal, right? Yes. Yes.

And then one guy is in the NBA draft. And, yeah, everybody else is – somebody's probably going to play for Muss at USC. Meanwhile, his Kentucky signees, several of them have asked out. So I would assume there's some guys coming. The Cavalry's coming. Basketball is wild because your roster is so small and yes my wife played volleyball at indiana state so we followed the sycamores closely this year and their whole

team's in the portal they lost their coach to st louis uh cream abdul-jabbar is in the portal you know he's there and they're all like they're going to st louis like that that feels like a done deal like cream abdul-jabbar, Larry Nerd, Robbie Avila is his real name, Rob Wave, Steph Blurry. I love all the nicknames. But he put the do not contact tag, which is the don't call me, I'll call you, which probably means he's following Josh Scherz to St. Louis. But yeah, it's interesting about this. I'll ask you before we get to the listener questions, because I talked to Jed Fish about this a while back, and he said that he actually didn't worry too much about the guys who Washington had signed who wanted out to go follow Kalen DeBoer,

because he's like, look, I had guys I signed at Arizona that wanted to come. It used to be that you couldn't do that. That was verboten. But now it's just like, okay, players are going to follow the coach. It happens. Absolutely. I mean, look, these players, there should be nothing policing a young man from doing what they think is best for them. Now, sometimes these guys don't make the best decisions for them, but that's ultimately up to them to weigh the pros and cons of these moves that they're going to make and then go out there and do it.

Yeah, it is amazing, and it's different. So much has changed in the last two or three years, and that brings us to our first question from the folks, and this is from CFB Down South. And this is what I think, I get this a lot. And I think because you talk to these players so much, you will have a lot better sense of this. So question is for four and five star recruits, what percentage of decisions are coming down to an extra 10 to 20% of NIL, or is it even possible to know? And I think what this question means is how much of it is a little bump in the NIL puts it over the top to go to maybe a school

that isn't as good at developing players for the draft or doesn't historically develop as many players for the draft or isn't as historically successful. Like how much of it is, I'm going to take this, this money will be the determining factor. And how many guys are like, okay, the money is a factor, but not the fact. I think for the majority, the money is a factor, but not the factor, but there are a handful of recruits that are trying to squeeze as much as they possibly can financially out of this process and view themselves as a brand and a product, perhaps even more than they do as a football player. But I think holistically, most of these kids are still trying to make a college decision based on a place that's going

to develop them to give them a chance to play football at the highest level for the longest amount of time to be drafted as early as possible so programs with those track records are still going to have the most success on the recruiting trail year in and year out and then I think the opportunity to play in the biggest games on the biggest stage. And that typically goes hand in hand with the programs that develop the best is obviously another big factor. And then certainly proximity and some of those things that have always been in play are in play as well. But like I said, there's a few kids each cycle where it's coming down the stretch and that

NIL offer opportunity is going to be the ultimate decider. And then look, we see kids that announce their commitments to schools, but their LOI is not in right away. Sometimes maybe that's because the first payment hasn't come in yet. So we are definitely seeing some of that, and maybe it's nothing to worry about, but that detail still needs, that box still needs to be checked, that payment needs to be checked. That payment needs to be on the way. And then my LOI is on the way. Well, I wrote quite a bit about the Jade and

Rashada situation at Florida. And there's just like the stories that keep coming out. Like in that particular situation, there was a payment in the contract that had not been paid. And actually at the time would have violated ncaa rules had they paid it but he hadn't gotten it yet and they're they're about to do the billy napier press conference and they're like we don't have it yet and and so they're they're checking in i i believe somebody told them that you probably shouldn't put billy napier up there unless you have his letter of intent. Otherwise, it's going to get really hairy. Now, it did get hairy anyway, but you're absolutely

right. I mean, that just becomes another leverage point, another place to negotiate, which we'll see what happens in college sports, Steve. I think they're headed toward an employment model with contracts and that sort of thing where that's going to get signed. And you're gonna say, we've signed this guy for three years and it's not going to be going back and renegotiating every five minutes. Well, I actually think obviously these collectives,

I think we're ultimately going to see them become internal and the schools and the universities are going to handle it. And the other thing you talk about a three-year contract, I'm not so sure we'll see three-year contracts. I think six months. I wouldn't sign one if I was a five-star. I'd only do a one. I wouldn't sign one if I'm the school either, unless you just know it's a really good player. Because six-month contracts early on with unproven players, you could get out of it if that player is not who you thought it would be or should be. And the players can get out of these contracts at any point. So if someone goes on to play over,

play their six month contract, they're going to get a better deal at your school, or they could go into the portal and get a better deal elsewhere. But if I'm a school and talking to some of these, talking to some of these personnel guys and coaches internally, a six-month deal is probably the best situation for everybody. But certainly, it protects the schools because if you recruit a young man and you're giving him a lot of money, and he ultimately does end up being that player that you expected him to be, you have some outs there to cover you. Because if you sign him to be, you have some outs there to cover you. Because if you sign him to a three-year deal, he might just hang out there forever and not make an

impact for you on the field. Well, and that's the thing. That would be interesting. So basically, every freshman's on a prove-it deal. And then if the freshman is good, you sign him to a three-year deal that gives the player an out to the nfl after two years like that that would make perfect sense and also create some more continuity because i think that's the the thing that that bugs fans is they don't like it they're going to fall in love with the player and that player is going to leave and that's the the biggest. Now, I contend that watching the numbers, they like reading about the horse race. They like reading about the movement of the players as well and following the movement of the players. But as fans of their own teams, they get frustrated when they see somebody who kind of came up through their team and now they're off to somewhere else.

So, yeah, I like the six-month prove-it deal. I could get with that. Again, it's just the – it protects everybody. The player can do whatever he wants whenever he wants, Andy, as you know. So if he doesn't like his deal, he can go into the portal. There's nothing holding him back. A kid could go to the portal every year and see what his worth is. But then the, the risk of that is, well, maybe, maybe your deal at your current place, all of a sudden go South, you know, or maybe there's some parameters in your contract.

Hey, this is what we're going to pay you. But if you go on the portal, you owe us this much back. So we're going to see some things like that moving forward. I've got a question from the chat. This is Boosted931. He says, you think Boo Carter at Tennessee will play on both sides of the ball? Hearing he's really, really turning heads. Travis Hunter 2.0. What do you think about that, Steve? Well, he was a terrific two-way player on the high school level that I remember Ohio State was considering as a potential running back prospect. So he certainly has that skill set. I know he impressed Tennessee in camp, locking down receivers in the secondary, locking down older receivers when he was young in camp. And so certainly that's where Tennessee saw him making a great impact early on. But in today's era of college football, if you have an exciting player that can give you some snaps on

offense and be a difference maker there, and it's not too challenging to understand what your responsibilities are, then certainly I think we've seen it in the past beyond Travis Hunter, but it's few and far between. Travis Hunter is a special talent. It's hard for me to say, hey, anybody's Travis Hunter 2.0, just like it's hard for me to call any five foot nine and a half quarterback that's 160 pounds Bryce Young. Exactly, exactly. All right, we got a question from Travis who says, spring games are completely controlled and mostly don't mean anything. So what is the right way to keep up with spring football? What type of things do you look for or listen for over spring that actually means something?

Another way of saying it, what does a good spring look like? On the other hand, what would happen to make something a bad spring? And this is what I get a lot, Steve, because people are like, how many spring games are you going to go to? I'm like, if I'm lucky, zero, because those are fairly useless for information gathering. The best is when you can watch a scrimmage, a real scrimmage that maybe isn't open to the public where they're running ones against ones and you can actually see who's really improved. Yeah. The spring game's a celebration of the end of spring camp, which was probably a physical 14 practices leading up to that where kids are trying to fight their way, fight for position on depth chart.

Maybe you're ingraining new position coaches or a new coordinator. Take Penn State, for instance. They have a new offensive coordinator in Happy Valley. And defensive. Yeah, Tom Allen's there. Thanks for the reminder. So, yeah, two new coordinators in Happy Valley. And defensive. Yeah, Tom Allen's there. Thanks for the reminder. So, yeah, two new coordinators in Happy Valley. And so getting those guys incorporated with the players,

the players get a feel for the coordinators. They get a sense for what their personnel is, and it starts coming together as you start now preparing for fall camp, which then catapults you into the season. You know, I'm talking to some prospects that were at Georgia's very first spring practice. I don't even think they were in pads. And they said it was still as physical a practice as they've been to Georgia. The secret sauce to Georgia is just how physical they practice. So even when they don't have pads on for this first spring practice, they're getting after it over there in Athens.

So the 14 practices that we're not privy to, you know, some programs allow the media to get in there for 15, 20 minutes. Maybe there is one full open practice, but that's probably also a throwaway than when they're just kind of working on fundamentals and things of that nature. But spring football is absolutely very important to kind of set the tone, to see what you have, see how guys have developed in the weight room in the off season, what kind of film work they've done and work they've done on their own to prepare themselves for this upcoming season. Also setting the two deep. We had Jake Rowe on yesterday and

we were talking about Georgia and their roster situation. And I said, you know, should Georgia be worried about losing guys to the portal? And Jake said, well, they're going to have to because they're at 88 scholarships right now. And they're also planning on maybe shopping a little bit in the portal. So there will be movement. And I think that's in this new era, especially kind of figuring out where everybody fits. And if you're a coach, I wonder about this, Steve, you know, when you talk to these players, can coaches, we know what they do with quarterbacks, but I'm talking about more of the other positions. Can coaches afford to try to string these competitions along through the summer, or do they have to kind of make a

decision at this point or guys are going to the portal? Well, that's a good question because I think that if kids generally know exactly where they are at on the depth chart and if that's third string, they're going to, you know, they might be looking for greener pastures right away where if they know that they're in the mix for potential playing time in the fall, maybe they stick it out and fight it out and then stick around and go on the team. I think, I think there are times where coaches want the player to know, Hey man, your third string, you should probably get in the portal. Um, but I was talking to, I was talking to an sec head coach the other day that was like, I think we're going to lose our third string,

such and such in the portal. Uh, but they want to keep them for depth purposes but they don't think they're going to so it's like we got to find that guy from someone else's team that's getting in the portal and it's like a trade we're just trading our third string defensive whatever for your third string defensive whatever he's not happy here your guy's not happy there just bring him up we. We just need someone to come in and play 12 snaps, man, and provide depth. And if we get hurt, maybe they play more. So there's going to be all kinds of little portal wrinkles going on. There might be some high profile difference makers that get in, like we saw the kid from Oregon State. But I don't necessarily know if this portal is going to be,

this portal season is going to be what it's built up to be, Andy, like it was following this past season. I mean, do you see a lot of starters and difference makers getting in the portal here after spring ball? So I have seen the people, it's almost like rapture predictions. It's almost like the televangelists that tell you the rapture is coming tomorrow and you better watch out because a bunch of cars may be unmanned. I'm not sure that's true. I talked to a personnel director at a big school a couple weeks ago and said, all right, is it going to be as wild as everybody's saying?

He's like, no, no. He's like, it will be more active than last spring, but not as active by far as December. Because in December, that's when people want to move so they can be at spring practice at their new school. And as far as different, here's where I'm concerned or I would be concerned, Steve. If I'm a non-SEC, non-Big Ten school, and I have some people who are really good, like if I'm an ACC or Big 12 school, and I have some people who are really good last year who decided to come back and have gone through spring with me, but there are these schools in the SEC and Big Ten with a glaring hole at that position. That's where I'm worried. That's where I'm worried that somebody comes in very targeted and says, you gained 1,400 yards last year on the ground. Please come to our school. We're going to feature you. That's where I'd be scared. The other piece of it, and I'm curious to know what you think about this, because I've been thinking about this a lot the last few days. If you're a school that has a head coach that starts the season on the hot seat, we were mentioning Sam Pittman earlier.

Arkansas is a good example of this. Obviously, he has to be much better to keep his job. Do the vultures come in now and cherry pick Arkansas's best players and say, hey, your coach may get fired. Why don't you just come here? Because we're on the upswing. We're not in that position. That's what I wonder because we haven't seen that yet. But I do think at some point we'll see that with a school.

Well, any kind of tampering is on the table, you know, so there's definitely people working behind the scenes, looking at group of five schools and sending feelers out to that person's camp, whether it's their high school coach or some kind of connection, or maybe even go back to when Alec Pierce was at Cincinnati. You know, there were schools reaching out to him back then saying, hey, man, you can do what you're doing there at Cincinnati on this stage here. You know, so that stuff's been happening for years. Yeah. And I go back to a couple of years ago. West Virginia kind of got decimated early, early in the NIL era. West Virginia came out of spring and it felt like everybody was, was, was getting picked off. And then we had Neil Brown on and he talked about that. They've improved their NIL situation and they feel like they can keep everybody they want to keep. Like, and that's, that's the thing. Can your school keep who you want to keep? And I think certain schools have been great.

Like I think Florida State's been great at identifying who do we want to keep? Who can we afford to let walk if we need to? And it's really about using that money efficiently. But while we're talking transfer portal, Turner has a great question. It's something we've talked about a lot over the last few weeks.

So Turner asks, with Dabo Sweeney's refusal to embrace the transfer portal, do you think it is at all possible for him and Clemson to return to the success that they were at a few years ago? Is he a good enough recruiter and or developer of talent to not need the transfer portal at all? And do you think there's any coach in the country who could succeed with this strategy, not taking players from the portal besides Dabo? Well, I think Clemson is recruiting at a high level in this 2025 cycle.

My biggest question mark with Clemson has been when Dabo Sweeney and that staff were making those championship runs, they had elite quarterback play. They had absolute tremendous difference makers on the perimeter and in the running back room. And some of those guys are some of the best players in the NFL still right now. They were outstanding on the defensive front.

And so they haven't recruited that quarterback position at that level since, and it's hard to do that. He's also lost some tremendous assistant coaches that have gone on to other places, and it's tough to fill those shoes. You might fill them with good coaches, but he lost some great coaches from some of those dynasty runs. But what I will say is I think that we're nitpicking a program that won double-digit games again this past year.

They played in a New Year's Six game two years ago. I understand the standard is winning a national championship. Do I think that Clemson could look to the portal for one or two Clemson-type guys a cycle? Yes, I think that there are guys that fit the mold of Clemson that are in the portal that would love to go there and maybe help them shore up a room that's doesn't have the depth necessary, or maybe they didn't recruit to the standard.

Maybe guys just didn't pan out the way they thought they would, or maybe they lost some guys early in the NFL draft or had some injuries. Do I think Clemson should look to the portal for their kind of guy? Absolutely. But I think that we're nitpicking a program that is still in the hunt for conference titles every year. And when you do that, you've got a chance to make the college football playoff. And we'll go from there.

But they had tremendous quarterback play in the Davos Sweeney era. The wideouts were unbelievable. And some of the best defensive linemen that are making a difference in the NFL were in that program too. And they just haven't had that kind of elite talent, but they've still been pretty good. We'll see if he can get it back there. This is a really good recruiting class that he has in the fold right now in 2025. Well, and that's the thing. I feel like they've lost enough players to the portal. Like Bo Collins, for example, is going to Notre Dame this year.

You've seen that. And they just have to replace. He's not T. Higgins. No, none of these receivers have been. Sammy Watkins hadn't been walking through that door of late, but when they've lost those guys, they've not replaced them with guys of a similar age. They've just signed new freshmen,

which makes your depth really young. And I think that's, that's the problem is like you said, if they should spot recruit in the portal, go get two, three guys that are Clemson guys at positions of need. You're fine. Like that's, that's all you really need to do, I think, to, you, Kate Klubnick talked about it early in the spring where like at receiver last year, they were so banged up that there were times that they had players running routes and games that they'd not really run in practice with the first team before. And you've got to be able to overcome that. You've got to have some older depth because that's the problem.

I would think Steve is your NC States, your, your Florida States, the teams you're competing against, they are bringing in that older depth through the portal. And so they get just a fraction older than you, which kind of negates your raw athletic superiority from your high school recruiting. I think we agree. I think that they can supplement their roster with the portal with guys that fit their culture. But their culture is their superpower, right? Even this past year when everybody was taking shots at them and saying Clemson was done, they rallied and won a lot of football games there at the end of the year and had some fun over the last couple months and salvaged the season and finished strong.

And I think that's a testament to their culture because a lot of programs, the wheels would have just fell off there and maybe they don't even make a bowl game. So he protects that culture and I admire it I just think that the question with Clemson one thing that they did this year Andy they made one of the best off-season assistant coach hires in the country in my opinion by going out and getting Matt Luke that was a tremendous hire for them it was a position room where they have not had much success getting players drafted. In spite of winning national championships and stuff, their offensive line was not full of NFL players. You bring in Matt Luke.

He has a track record of NFL player development. He knows how it was done at Georgia. He was very integral in that. They are a major factor on the recruiting trail this cycle with some of the best offensive linemen in the country. And I also think, most importantly, he can coach to the standard that's necessary of winning the national championship. And I think that Clemson lost a lot of national championship caliber assistant coaches, and every coach does that.

And so it's hard to continue to measure up to that. And so you see, it's hard to win 13, 14 games. That's the expectation at Clemson every year because of what they've built. And they're going to try and do that again this year and the next year, but it's the perfect storm of having great coaching and great players. When you look at this Michigan staff that just won the national championship, Jesse Minner is as hot a defensive coordinator as there is in the country. He's not on the NFL. He'll probably be an NFL coach in the next couple years.

You know, you look at Mike McDonald was the defensive coordinator before that. He's now an NFL head coach. You just look at the Saban staffs and all of that. Like the Clemson staff was the same thing. A lot of those guys went on to become head coaches. They were some of the best assistant coaches in the country. So we're talking about recruiting and player evaluating, but it was a whole combination of things for Clemson that has seen them go

from a 14 win team to go, gosh, a 12 win team. I mean, it's well, the, the Matt Lukier is is inspired because it offensive line is the position they really needed to improve and the thing about Matt if you've met him like the his personality is perfect for that Dabo culture and that Dabo system he probably wasn't necessarily a personality fit at Georgia even though he's such a good offensive line coach and such a good recruiter

that he fit in fine there. But I think he'd be more comfortable working with Dabo and probably is going to feel like this is, this is the kind of place I should be. And I think you're right. He's going to make that offensive line better, which is going to be fun to watch. We have a video question. Sometimes the folks like to see themselves on the screen. So Justin sent us a question. Dear Andy, what is a harder job coaching a blue blood college football program or blue

blood college basketball program? What is the definition of a blue blood in these day and age? Also, will the final four ever be played in a basketball specific arena again? I am thinking of like, the Northeast is no longer in play for the final four. Thank you. Bye. All right. I'll answer Justin's question for the second question first. That's an easy one. No, it will never be played in a basketball arena again. Remember the Lorenzo Charles tip in the Jim Valvano running around the court that happened at the pit in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That was New Mexico's home gym where they were playing the final four. No, it's always going to be a football stadium. Now there's too much money in it, but the blue blood question, Steve, you know, I saw

JD Piquel was talking about this the other day about is Georgia blue blood. I don't even know if I care if somebody's a blue, like Georgia's, I look at it as, are you a national title contender right now or not? And Georgia's a national title contender right now or not and george is a national title contender year in year out lsu like i wouldn't consider lsu of blue blood because they weren't great like when i was a kid lsu was kind of average but nick saban came in unlocked the formula and now they've won three national titles under three different head coaches like does that make them a blue blood i don know, but does that make them scary if you have to play them? Yes, it does.

Those Independence Bowls under Coach DiNardo didn't move the needle for you back when you were a kid. Man, Jerry DiNardo had some players, though. He had some dudes. Alan Fanica. Booger. That's some dudes. No question. Look, Blue Bloods, to me, I've kind of lost track of who they are.

Yeah. But I look at it the same way as you. Who are the programs capable of winning a national championship? And when you look at college football right now, you obviously have Georgia. Alabama is still in the mix with this new coaching staff. Texas Longhorns are right there. Ohio State Buckeyes for sure.

Michigan is coming off a title. But those first four programs are kind of the ones that immediately come to mind for me when you come into this season. And then you'll have some programs like Notre Dame that look like playoff teams that are in the hunt. And so it'll be exciting to see what they can do with this more expanded playoff. Yeah, it'll be very interesting. As far as the blue blood thing goes, I guess my definition of a blue blood is somebody who was good when my grandparents were watching and good when my parents were watching and good now. So that pretty much limits it to like Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Michigan.

That's about it. Like that, that's it. But like, what's the definition of like good for some people it's like national championship or bust. And that's like, what, what standard are you living your life to where like, if you don't win 14, you're just the fraud, you know, if you're 12 and two, you're just not that good. So, you know. Yeah, I think maybe Notre Dame,

because they're now relevant and good again after a little break. But, yeah, I like the way you did it. Who are the national title contenders? Who right now? Because, texas has had ups and downs they've had periods you know they had daryl royal where they were very good obviously early mac brown era they were dominant now it feels like they're back to that but they've had their ebbs and flows usc has had its ebbs and flows um yeah it It's, it's. When you look at those West programs, USC was as dominant as anybody under Pete Carroll.

He's as good a college football coach as anybody in our lifetime, Andy. But Oregon's kind of been the most successful program out West over the last, what, 15 years they've played in the most, them in Washington, excuse me. Yeah. Washington's made some college football playoffs and obviously played in a title game too. So.

It's, it's going to be, yeah. It'll be interesting seeing those two in the big 10. I, and let me, I'll do a dear, dear Fong question. Does it change Oregon and Washington's recruiting being the big 10? Does it change their territory? Like Oregon, it feels like has been recruiting nationally since, I guess, Mike Belotti. Like, do they have to change anything about what they do or are they already kind of on track? Oregon had on threes, number four ranked recruiting class last cycle.

Dan Lanning's been in the top 10 all three cycles. They do recruit nationally. They have the Nike brand there. I think moving to the big 10 maybe helps them another inch or two on the recruiting trail, but they're obviously a title contender. They've crushed the portal. Nobody's recruited portal quarterbacks better than Oregon holistically. I mean, obviously USC landed Caleb Williams, but Oregon going Bo Nix, Dylan Gabriel, and Dante Moore. I think that's phenomenal. So it's obviously- Hey, back to Vernon Adams. It goes all the way back. Yeah. It's a destination place for players. Dan Lanning's obviously an exceptional head coach

when it comes to building relationships with players and top prospects. He was one of the best recruiters on Georgia staff, helped them recruit guys like Malachi Starks, which were wars on the trail against programs like Clemson. People are like, oh, it's so easy to recruit against Georgia. Well, the other team, there's two other programs that have great logos on their windbreaker too. So I think that he pours into recruiting and roster building and roster management. And here comes Oregon coming into the Big Ten. I think that they're coming into the Big Ten the same way Texas is coming into the SEC, where they'll both have a chance to be very competitive from day one in those leagues.

And obviously, it'll be a little more challenging from Saturday to Saturday with the physicality for both those programs will be a little different than what they were accustomed to in their old leagues. But from a talent perspective, these teams are loaded because they've done a fantastic job of recruiting. Steve Sarkeesian's had multiple top five recruiting classes. Dan Lanning, again, top five recruiting class last year. So those programs are right there in the thick of it for the way that they've hit the portal and hit the recruiting trail. So we got one from Ryan and this is a very specific Texas recruiting couple of questions. He's got a two-parter. So he warns us. It's a long two-parter.

So I appreciate your time. Where is Texas at with the Corian Moore and Kalik Lockett? Seems like they're in it still for both of them. Can Texas fans get excited about the idea of getting both of them? And also what about Texas quarterback commit KJ Lacey? Do you guys think he will stay with Texas throughout the process? So far, Texas has only offered three QBs, Lacey Underwood and Lewis, Bryce Underwood, of course, committed to LSU. There've been rumblings of them doing a lot of work on SMU

commit and Duncanville quarterback Keelan Russell, but so far he hasn't been offered. If you had to guess, who does Texas land at quarterback for the 2025 recruiting cycle? Well, I certainly could see a scenario where they land both DeCorey and Moore and Kalik Lockett. They were both recently on campus. Moore has been on campus a ton. In-state kid currently committed to LSU also, but he's considering several programs. Ohio State's getting them back on campus for a second time this spring. Oregon is in the thick of that one. He's been to Eugene a few times. He's

going to be back at Oregon in May. Then he's going to take his official visits, but Texas is certainly one of the front runners to flip to Corey and Moore from LSU. And then Lockett just had a fantastic visit to Texas, getting a lot of one-on-one time with Coach Sarkeesian was huge. His family was really impressed with just the overall culture of the program. They just enjoyed the vibe and atmosphere that Coach Sarkeesian and his staff have created around that program. And when you talk about the offense that Steve Sarkeesian has boasted for so many years, the way he can scheme those wide receivers open, It really speaks to these top players when he can go and show the film of Devontae Smith winning the Heisman trophy and just how open he was consistently

week in and week out, just schematically. It's impressive. And those kinds of things, Kalik Lockett and his family definitely recognize. So that's going to be a war on the trail too. LSU, Texas A&M, Florida State, USC, some of the other top contenders for Khaliq Lockett. And then as far as quarterback recruiting goes, I do think that they'll ultimately sign Lacey. He was also just back on campus. The relationship with A.J. Millwee, Coach Sarkeesian, and again, just the track record

of quarterback play in that system is also exciting. Now, he's certainly been visiting Auburn and been on some other campuses for game days. But I think in today's current climate, you know, that happens a lot with everybody. And I think under the circumstances, Texas is still the one where I think he'll land at. Now, if things go real sideways with Auburn quarterback recruiting, you know, we'll see. You know, Auburn's in the mix for this young man, Husan Longstreet out of Corona, California. He's going to announce his commitment this weekend. I like the way that's setting up for Texas A&M,

but Auburn's a finalist. Then Auburn's also on the short list for Julian Lewis, who you mentioned Texas has offered. Julian Lewis has currently committed to USC. He was recently back at USC for a three-day visit. And I think there was a time where it looked like Julian Lewis was not going to stay in the USC class. Now, after that visit, there's some people that spent time with him that feel as good about it as they have. But he went to

Auburn a couple times this spring. And there's some people around the Auburn program that have spent time with Julian Lewis. I think that Auburn has a great chance of flipping him. Georgia, Alabama, Colorado, also in the mix for Julian Lewis. So there's some dominoes, some moving parts, but right now I like KJ Lacey to stick with Texas. And I think my answer was as long as your question, my brother. Well, it actually brings another question for me because we talked about all of the defensive side of the ball commits that USC got, which a couple of those guys from the state of Georgia, which is also where Julian Lewis is from, one guy from Jacksonville, Florida.

How much does keeping Julian Lewis in the class matter in terms of those other folks? Is it, is it especially all the Georgia guys? Is it, is it something where they're potentially wanting to all go somewhere together or is that independent of each other? Well, I think Julian Lewis's commitment to USC is powerful in the sense that his peers see that this is one of the top quarterbacks in America committed to the Trojans. But so, so it gives you recruiting is a game of inches and that gives the Trojans a couple more inches on the trail and certainly helps them recruit in SEC country when they're recruiting guys like Jakeem Stewart, the number one player in the on three player rankings in 2026. He mentions all the time that he has a relationship with Julian Lewis. CJ Wiley is a

top receiver in Georgia, helped Milton win a state championship. If he flips to an SEC school, maybe it helps that SEC school recruit C.J. Wiley. So Julian Lewis is a guy that has a presence around his peers, and they're aware of him. But I still think, for the most part, most of these guys make their own decisions. And if USC were to lose Julian Lewis, I don't fear quarterback recruiting moving forward for Lincoln Riley and company. He's typically able to pivot fast. He lost Brock Vandergrift to Georgia,

ended up getting Caleb Williams in that class at Oklahoma. It worked out okay. Yeah, he only needs to offer one or two quarterbacks a year because people understand the weight of what that means for them potentially. Because not only – if you go play quarterback for Lincoln Riley, it's not just that you've got a great chance to be a first-rounder. It's that you have a great chance to be the number one overall pick. It's not that you have a chance to win the Heisman Trophy.

It's that you probably will win the Heisman Trophy if you are the starter for him under center. So his track record at that position, really only Ryan Day rivals that right now. Am I wrong, Andy? Am I overlooking someone as I talk? I don't think there's anybody. I think Sark is probably more for the receivers as you were talking about, but I think quarterbacks like knowing that they're going to play with dynamic receivers. So I think that helps. But I don't think there's anybody with a better name than Lincoln Riley in terms of quarterback recruiting because his track record speaks for itself. But Ryan Day can at least walk in that room and sit down at the same table

and say CJ Stroud might be the best up and coming quarterback in the NFL. He was here. And then that's just, I got some other first rounders on my list here too. Yeah. And those two really are the only ones right now. And I'm curious though, because the way you manage quarterbacks on your roster has changed considerably. Look, even before they changed the transfer rules, quarterbacks were transferring like crazy. But now, the rule used to be you signed a quarterback in every class regardless of what circumstances were changed because you were going to lose quarterbacks to the portal.

Do you still need to sign a freshman quarterback in every class or should you aim to bring in one freshman and one transfer quarterback in every class or should you aim to bring in one freshman and one transfer quarterback in every class? Well, however you get to four scholarship quarterbacks on your roster, whatever the recipe is for that, I think is what you're trying to do. So like take Oregon. We've talked about how they crushed the portal. Don't take Moore, Dylan Gabriel, Bo Nix. They don't want to live in that space. They got Austin Novosad on the roster. The returns are going into his second year, his second spring ball.

I don't know if this is his first spring ball. I forget if he enrolled early, but he's doing well. And then they have Achilles Smith Jr. committed to them in 2025. They would like to take a second high school quarterback in this cycle and start building it up foundationally that way. I think that's still the recipe to have Carson Beck in your program developing, and then Gunnar Stockton behind him, and then Ryan Puglisi and so on and so forth in a perfect world. That's how schools would want to do it. but if it doesn't work out that way we can go get dylan gabriel because we're just not good enough to play at the level we want to play at

today with austin novosad maybe but that doesn't mean we can't win with austin novosad and in oregon's case ty thompson was a big-time recruit and he stayed on the roster and he stayed through Bo Nix and he was there before Bo Nix and he wanted to be at Oregon. He tried and it just didn't work out. But I do think, yeah, you're right. If you could, if you can have somebody who's willing to stay, if you can get a freshman who's willing to wait a little bit, then you might wind up with a Carson Beck. And that, like you said, is the ideal where you have a guy who's been in your program three years and they can start for you for two years. And that's kind of how it was happening with Ohio State, too. And if you look at the quarterbacks that are competing for national championships or the quarterbacks that are getting drafted highly, for the most part, many of them don't start at 18 years old. Yeah, yeah. Actually Actually that brings us to an

interesting question from Jeff and it's dear Steve via Andy. And it's about a quarterback who was definitely not ready to start at a big school at 18 years old, uh, was a late bloomer of late bloomers and turned into a really good quarterback. I've always been curious as to why Josh Allen didn't have more than a couple offers coming out of Juco. I'm not saying Alabama, Clemson, or Ohio State needed to be knocking on his door, but I've seen the film along with this high school film. I'm no recruiting expert like yourself, but I think he showed enough skill and potential for more FCS G5 and lower level power conference schools to take a chance on him. What gives? don't, I've actually got a lot of background on this because I did a big Josh Allen story for SI when he was at Wyoming and I've got a photo that will help

explain some things. So river, our producer, please. Uh, okay. So we've got, we're showing a photo of Josh Allen and his brother when they were in high school. Josh is the smaller guy in this photo. He's skinny. He was a beanpole in high school. He was like 140 pounds as a high school junior. He was like 6'3", 170 as a high school senior. So that's why he ended up having to go to Reedley Junior College. Also, he's from Fireball, California. Here's a story his parents told me, Steve, that I thought was awesome. So Tom Allen, sorry, not Tom Allen,, uh, who was then the coach at Texas is actually from near fireball. Fireball is a small farming community about 45 minutes from Fresno. And they reached out to Tom Herman because they thought he'd be the only coach in America who had even heard of fireball and no response, got nothing. So that, that about sums up Josh Allen's recruiting coming

out of high school. Uh, but you know, you, you've seen this, like, it seems like coaches have a physical archetype that they want. And if you don't fit that, you got to be like Bryce Young at modern day for them to even take a look at you. Well, it's just proof that you get, you know, these kids get the opportunity to ultimately write their own story. And Josh Allen's path to the NFL took him through Juco and Wyoming and into the first round. Obviously in hindsight,

he could have played anywhere in the country and into the first round. Obviously, in hindsight, he could have played anywhere in the country and been the guy, but that was what he needed to become the player that he ultimately has become. The one that we get a lot of questions on is Cooper Cup, and it's the same thing. How was Cooper Cup ranked, whatever, two-star or whatever? And it's like, well, these guys develop on the next level, you know, and sometimes we miss. And, you know, it's not like the Pac-12 schools were beaten down the door of Cooper Cup too, but Cooper Cup went to college with his lunch pail and his hard hat and wrote his own story and ultimately became one of the best players in the NFL. And there's still so many stories like that in football.

It's the ultimate team sport. So's the ultimate development sport. You have to be smart to play. There's so much pre-snap stuff and things going on out there, reading coverages. There's just so many things that go into what makes a great NFL player. But obviously, Josh Allen is someone that could have played quarterback anywhere. Cooper Cupps, someone that could have played receiver anywhere. Their early chapters weren't destined for them to play on the biggest stage, but certainly now their household names playing the most popular sport in the country. Yeah. And Josh coming out of JUCO to answer Jeff's question, he was pretty good, but he still was not showing all the traits. Josh got faster as he got older his nickname in high school baseball

was tortuga a turtle if you don't speak any spanish like he was slow and then became it you don't it's not something you normally see with a person like normally kids who are fast are fast they're fast at six years old they're fast at 12 years old they're fast at 18 years old but he got faster as he got older. And I think that's part of his game that if you were even looking at his Juco film, you didn't quite see yet. So, uh, the, the, the greatest part of all that is so Brent vegan, who's now the head coach at Montana state was the OC at Wyoming at the time.

And they had had, they'd sent an assistant to Reedley to look at another player. He saw Josh Allen. He told Brent vegan, Hey, you need to watch this guy. And, and vegan watched him and liked him, but they already had a quarterback committed.

So it was a guy out of Oregon named Eric Dungy, who college football fans should remember as a very athletic quarterback. We played for Syracuse. Well, when Eric Dungy flipped to Syracuse, which I believe was early in Dino Baber's tenure, but it might've been before that. That's when they went and got Josh Allen at Wyoming. So thank you, Eric Dungy for helping launch Josh Allen's career. But that,

that, that, that you were, and you were just talking about it earlier with, with Juju Lewis and with, with KJ Lacey, like the quarterback domino effect is always fascinating to me. There was a year, Steve, where I did a thing, and I think it was, I'm trying to remember, oh, it was Brandon Wimbush. When he decommitted from Penn State and flipped to Notre Dame, I did an illustration of the domino effect that went all the way down into the FCS based on that one move. I kind of forget what played out after that. I just know Wimbush had a fantastic senior year in the state of New Jersey, then came into South Bend and showed some flashes early, just didn't take off from there. Yeah. But it was crazy because that one was one where you could

very obviously find all the moves. I wish SI's website hadn't been completely wiped out because I'd love to find that and see who else was in the mix there. But it was a lot of guys that moved around based on Brandon Wimbush changing his mind. So, yeah, those quarterback flips can change a lot of things. All right. We got a couple more. This is an easy one from Dominic. I can answer this in about two seconds, but this is something that I think you guys who are sickos are going to appreciate.

So here's a question from Dominic. Many times over the course of listening to your show, including Tuesday's show talking about Coach Calipari, I hear you mention that you have read over the contract to see what the buyout is. I know this can be done for public university coaches more so than private university coaches. I'm just wondering where would I be able to find these contracts to look over them? Thanks for your help and keep up the great work.

All right, so here's what you do. This is the dirty secret and anybody can do this. You don't have to be a reporter. You don't have to file a Freedom of Information Act request. If the contract is already available, which in a lot of cases it is, Google the coach's name and the letters PDF. The coach's name, the word contract, and the letters PDF. You will probably find it. Like John Calipari's contract was on the University of

Kentucky website. Every amendment to it from when he signed originally in 2009. So you could read the whole thing. And there's actually an attorney out in Washington state who was collecting all the football coaches contracts and had a database of them. He has not been updating that as frequently as he was before, but that was a place where a lot of those were stored. So yeah, if you want to know what somebody's buyout is and they coach at a public school, coach's name, the word contract, the letters, PDF, you'll probably be able to read it in full and figure out what's going on. It's a, that's, that's the dirty secret. I, I, I wish I could say I have insider access and I do, I can, you know, I know some people where I can get some contracts a little bit earlier or I can get some information off a private school coach's contract.

But those private school ones, you're not going to see posted on the internet unless they wound up in a lawsuit or something like that because they guard that stuff pretty fiercely. So, all right. One more question, Stephen. This is definitely a good one for you. Our friend Nathan, he didn't ask a question last week or the week before, and I think we're about to find out why. Here's his question. Dear Andy, two weeks ago, I became a dad. So my question is this, isn't my responsibility as a sports fan to raise my son to be the same, to root for the same team that I do? Or is it my duty as a parent to let him choose his own favorite team? Also, who do I have to bribe in order to get him ranked as a five-star athlete?

We'll start with number one. I don't know where you fall on this, Steve. I kind of want my kids to pick their own allegiances sports-wise. Like, I don't know where you fall on this, Steve. I kind of want my kids to pick their own allegiances sports-wise. I don't want them to just say, well, here's where dad went to school or here's where mom went to school, so that's who we're fans of. I want them to kind of come by it organically because I feel like that's the fun part. Well, from a pro sports standpoint, they kind of just fall in line. I got two sons. They're Cubs fans.

We live in Indianapolis. We like the Colts and we like the Pacers, but they start to like players. So it's a player's game for them. They like Luka, Donchik. My six-year-old loves Derrick Henry. And the only reason why he didn't wear his Derrick Henry jersey to the Colts-Titans game this past year is because it was actually the game where Jonathan Taylor came back from his contract dispute. And so we were able to convince him that, look, this is Jonathan Taylor's first game back. You should wear your Jonathan Taylor instead of wearing your Derrick Henry jersey into Lucas Oil Stadium. So just put them around the sports.

They'll start falling in love with players. And if you've missed the top of the show, they're going to come across players on overtime or YouTube or whatever. And guys are going to become their favorites. And the funny thing to me, my kid was recently opening up packs of basketball cards and he like took four of them out of there and discarded all the rest. And I'm like, this guy's a good player. This guy's a good player.

This guy's a good player. And he's like, just cause it's a good player. It doesn't mean it's a good card, dad. So things here. And, but college sports,

you know, they, they typically, they kind of just fall in line to what they're exposed to. So your kid will probably like what you like until it falls in love with the favorite player. It reminds me of a question I got at my old job of doing the mailbag. And the person asked me that they'd grown up in a family of Florida fans,

but they did not get into UF. They did get into Florida state and they were going to be a freshman at Florida state. And they said, what should I do? Should I wear Gator stuff? Should I boycott the games? What should I do? And I said, go to the games. Wear neutral colors if it bothers you wearing Seminole stuff, but go to the games with your friends that you've met on campus and see how you feel.

And I said, I bet you will come back in a year and say that you're a florida state fan and they they wrote me back a year later and absolutely had made great friends loved going to the games and were a simonoles fan like that i i think that's part of it too is is the environment you get plunged into like i don't my kids are are i have one that's about to start high school one that's still in middle school i have no clue where they're going to go to college. So they'll probably be fans of wherever they go to school. Well, interesting you bring that up. Good way to close it. Like, let's just say you're a huge college basketball fan as a kid and you grow up and you root for UConn.

And then you go to Indiana. You go to Indiana for your college experience. So you start loving Indiana basketball. But that doesn't necessarily still trump your childhood allegiance. Yeah. So now maybe you kind of root for two and you hope they don't play head to head. Well, I had a weird one. So I grew up a South Carolina fan.

I was born in Columbia. We lived there until I was in second grade and then we moved away. But I stayed a South Carolina fan through school. I ended up going to Florida because I had an academic scholarship to Florida and walked on there. That's where I met Steve Spurrier. And the funny thing is like, I obviously love what Steve Spurrier did at Florida and certainly was very helpful to me in my life and career. But I'm actually more appreciative of what he did at South Carolina because I know how much harder that was. As someone who grew up a South Carolina fan, I fully appreciate the difficulty level of winning 11 games three years in a row at South Carolina versus turning Florida into a national power. So, yeah, it's yeah, I think that's exactly what I was saying.

Right. You know, you still sometimes your childhood allegiance will still pull you through if you go to a powerhouse, but you rooted for a powerhouse. Yeah. It's, it's so it's such a strange dynamic, but congratulations to Nathan, by the way. And to his other question, Steve. Yeah, we, uh, so you can't bribe somebody to be a five-star like Charles power has to see you and fall in love. That's, that's pretty much all it is. I heard you could bribe Cody Belair though. Maybe, maybe. Well, it, it, we'll close with this. Cause you, I know you are, uh, you were in the travel baseball coaching world. I have been plunged into this lacrosse world uh very recently i'm surrounded by parents who think there's all these different things they can do to get their kid a scholarship and i just want to i just want to tell them guys they just have to be really good

i don't know how else to describe it in the world of huddle and all of this information the coaches will find them they just have to be really good. And play varsity first before we even start talking about it. Please, please do. Please be good on varsity. Can we wait until then? Get an Adam's apple too, you know. That's what I say.

These kids don't have Adam's apples yet, you know. So nature hasn't taken over. I got asked by another parent the other day is like does your son want to play lacrosse or football in college I'm like he's an eighth grader I have no idea if he's gonna play any sport in college like did you see that'll all work itself out did you see Matt Leinart's like Instagram posts making fun of baseball travel schedules yesterday no but I I know he's he's deep in it because he's got some kids that play some sports it's cold it's it's crazy and yeah you're you're in the thick of it too there there is a uh there was a very funny one that another parent uh another lacrosse parent sent me and it's a guy who clearly his kids are involved in travel sports. And they said, yeah, we've, uh, so we've just booked a tournament in Nicaragua.

And if we win two games there, we're going to have what we're going to have a couple of games in Honduras on Sunday. And if we win that, uh, we're going to have to raft over to Cuba on Monday. Uh, we're waiting on coach. You're going to coach is going to check into the exchange rates. So we'll, we'll let you know what the tournament fees are. Well,

maybe in about five hours, Matt liner, it's still the bit. Oh yeah. Oh, Oh, Oh, did we just out Matt liner?

Oh, well, my heart goes out to all of you who are in that, that travel sports suck right now. And, uh, everybody else. Thank you so much for your questions. Awesome questions. I'm so happy. Steve Wiltfong is here.

Steve, you're going to see him on the show quite a bit. And Steve, just thank you for joining us. And, uh, this is going to be a lot of fun. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. You guys take care. All right right we'll be back friday we're gonna talk what does kentucky do for their basketball coach maybe they have one by then who knows we had scott drew eating chips and salsa we had chip and joanna gains fighting the big blue nation. A lot going on in that coaching search.

Also getting you ready for a bunch of spring games. We got Miami, got Tennessee, got Georgia, got Florida, got Ole Miss, got UCF. There's a lot of spring games on Saturday. We're going to have to get you set up, talk about some of these games because who knows? By Monday, these guys could be going somewhere else. That's right. Transfer portal opens Monday. So get ready.

Strap in. It's going to be a fun, fun weekend. We'll get you all set up for it on tomorrow's show. Thank you so much for watching.