Andy & Ari On3 - Is the College Football Playoff calendar BROKEN? How to fix the CFP schedule | Joey Aguilar receives TRO | FSU, Mike Norvell's Outlook

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

It’s a Megaboard Wednesday episode and the fansites are providing some incredible insight and comments on their favorite programs, but we start with the news of the College Football Playoff releasing dates and sites for next year’s games. How can this schedule be fixed? Andy & Ari discuss on today’s episode (0:00) On Today’s Episode(1:11) Presenting Sponsor(3:31) Intro: CFP Dates Revealed(9:56) In an Ideal World(12:32) Can the NFL help?(19:56) Andy’s Solution(23:27) Joey Aguilar granted TRO(38:30) Previewing Iowa’s Gennings Dunker(40:02) Gennings Dunker joins(48:23) Recapping Gennings Dunker(51:44) Ari and his nutrition(54:20) Florida State: Norvell’s Moment?(1:02:26) FSU’s Debt(1:10:20) Closing out Florida State(1:11:03) Conclusion: See you tomorrow! After the CFP talk, Andy & Ari head back to Rocky Top, where QB Joey Aguilar has been granted a TRO. With a hearing set for next week, Andy & Ari discuss this situation and what it means moving forward. Next up, the fellas re-visit the Senior Bowl, where Iowa OL Gennings Dunker joined Andy from Mobile. Listen as the talented lineman explains his incredible hair, nutrition, and love for water parks. To close Megaboard Wednesday, the fellas head down to Tallahassee to evaluate where things stand with Florida State upon the retirement of Gus Malzahn as the Seminoles’ OC. Also, it was reported yesterday that FSU is facing a significant debt, mainly from athletics. Watch here as Andy & Ari breakdown the happenings at Florida State. Send us your Dear Andy & Ari questions for Friday’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 Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/a3xiVcpQTCA 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 Naurion 3 presented by BetMGM. The schedule for this season's college football playoff is out, and it will stretch over 38, glorious, long, many opinions on this, and they vary wildly days. But this is a long college football playoff. And no game on New Year's Eve. A lot going on with the schedule. We'll talk about that.

Plus, an update on the joy. Aguilar case at Tennessee. He gets his temporary restraining order. I love that TRO is just now very commonplace in the language of college football and college basketball. You all know what it means? What does it mean for Tennessee and Joey Aguilar now that he's got it? Plus, it is Megaboard Wednesday. I took a deep dive into the Warchant message worthy, Florida State on 3 site. Holy cow, Gus Malzahn's retirement

stirred up some feelings. We'll talk about that and more on today's Andyoron 3 presented by BedMGM. We are presented by BetMGM. All the lines and totals come from BedMGM and is a big week in the sport of football. Big week for BetMGM.

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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 bed at MGM yet, use the bonus code. CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Andy Nguyen on 3.5BTMGM. We know the date of this year's college football playoff games. Finally. Wow. And it is a long, long stretch of college football playoffs.

Sorry. It starts December 18th and doesn't end until January 25th, 2007. Okay, so you said during the intro that the opinions are many and varied. I feel like everyone's opinion is the same. What's that? Everybody's, this is stupid. How can we not figure out the calendar? Why is it so far down?

Like what's too long? Why is there two weeks before? Everybody's saying the same. No, there are also people are like, yeah, this is how the dates fall on this particular year. This is where that Monday is. And so that's why it is. So there's some indifference as well, along with the, this is stupid crowd, which is probably the larger group.

Yeah, the larger group seems to be the, this is a stupid crowd. We don't want crowd I'm in. What's that? Who cares? Like, I want to watch. Okay, good, Ari. We can just stop the show right now.

Okay, let's stop. Nobody cares. Tomorrow. Guess we don't need to do it. Guess we don't need to talk about it. That's not at all what I was saying. What I'm saying is, is why are you upset about it? Like, I'm happy that it's longer.

I want it to last longer. Well, that's not who cares. That's I care, and I would like it to last longer. That's a different feeling. I don't understand why everybody's freaking out about how long it is. Is that a better way of putting it? There you go. There you go.

I don't know. I just think people like to complain. I don't know why anybody's surprised about this. We knew what the date of the national title game was going to be. We've known for a couple of years, I think. What's your? The date of the national title game. title of the game was going to. So this is

one of those things in college football where people kind of forget things and then it comes back around. It's like, oh, wait. Oh. Oh. But yeah, everybody's known it was January 25th because that's when that Monday falls. What's your favorite part of the college football season?

The games. Yeah. I like all the games too. What's your favorite part of the season? I kind of like November. I like the race at the end of the season. I like rivalry weekend. That's a perfectly acceptable answer. I think November is a pretty popular answer.

Mine's the playoff. And I'm okay with it being longer. If we get an extra week to talk about it and think about it and have it. It's not really longer. It's just more stretched out. There's just more time between games. That's really all it is. But it is interesting.

like the Wednesday quarterfinal, nothing going on New Year's Eve, and then three games on New Year's Day. I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah. And I don't know what the reason for that is. I know that there's like NFL things that you have to consider. And it's like I feel like most of the people who listen to our show probably also like the NFL. So like I'm also completely and totally fine with both sports having their own days. It gives us more property of football to watch, less to miss, more.

days filled with whether it be for work for us or for entertainment for them. Like, I'm okay with that. Like, I don't think that there needs to be a infringement on or competing with the two entities. And I saw that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that he would be willing to listen to college football in helping them with their various problems. And I don't know if that meant calendar, if that meant like NIL or both. And I think that there probably is a more reasonable solution.

But to me, I think that the bigger issue with college football. football isn't how many days there are between college football playoff games. It's when the free agency thing occurs. Bingo. I see, I think that's the thing. If free agency isn't going on during all this transfer portal isn't going on, and it's going to be for this year, for this coming year, because they haven't changed it. But they are talking about potentially changing it again. But yes, it is, everything sort of getting mashed into one where you have the one high school signing day that really matters. By the way, happy national signing day. It's first Wednesday in February. But the one that matters now is obviously the one in December.

So you have the one national signing day that matters squished in with the college football playoff, squished in with the transfer portal altogether. And I mean, the way this works out, if you look at the dates of the transfer portal this year, it would take up the entirety of the transfer portal. Obviously, the two teams playing in the final would get additional days in the transfer portal.

But it doesn't make a whole lot of, of sense from any standpoint, from a, you know, the teams having to deal with it while they're playing in the playoff or the, the as an entertainment product, trying to stay. Yeah. Culturally irrelevant. Like, something very interesting, you could put at a different time. And I do think that's going to happen eventually because I think the coaches who demanded that the transfer portal be in January, which was most of them last year, after going through

at once are now like, this sucks. Let's do it some other time. Yeah. We know that the college football calendar is a logistical nightmare because you have a football league and a sports league that's also competing with academic calendars. And it's a tug of war between academics and the growing momentum of professionalism and all that. Like, I get that.

I never asked you this, but you've seen a lot of these different proposals from different media members and different personalities that, you know, give you the proposal for, you know, a college football season that begins in August and ends. Yeah. culmination on January 1. And I think that that makes more functional sense because it separates football from roster development and assembly. But do you think that if the roster assembly thing wasn't an issue that you would prefer that?

Like in your perfect world, would you want the national championship game to be on the first of January? I don't care, right? Because I don't even like you. Yeah. I don't really care if it's on the first of January or not. If you want to do that fine and start the season two weeks earlier, that's fine too. Like, give me, just don't shorten my, my season.

It's already the shortest season in major American sports. So let's, let's not deny ourselves the joy of college football. Because like, I love that. Here's getting paid now. It's fine. They can, they can keep playing. Yeah, six weeks of playoff talk. I think that's a net positive.

trying to like squish it all into a four month period from start to finish, I think is kind of difficult. And it shortens our entertainment window. Like I like it. And I don't know about you or if you're one of these types of people. But like I like looking forward to things. Like I like, oh, the national championship game is in eight days. I like the seven days leading up to it. I like this one it feels like it's just it's some exceptionally long windows in between.

like there's a long window between the quarters and the semis and a long window between the semis and the national title game, which again, it's fine. But you do want some regularity year to year. And I think that's what's strange is, you know, this year you had the quarters on a Wednesday and the semis started the following Thursday. and now you have two weeks between the quarters and the semis. And that doesn't, like, why is that? Like, the NFL, we know what they're going to do every year. The regular season ends.

There's a playoff week. There's another playoff weekend and another playoff weekend. And then they take a week off and they play the Super Bowl. Like, it's been that way forever. The only drawback that there is to the drawn out part of the calendar is the Rose Bowl and the traditional bowl game times back in the day. and even some of the first playoff round games, which still fall on this weekend,

occur during the time on the work calendar where people are typically off or slower at work. So people can actually enjoy the traveling and the pageantry that comes along with it. If you have a national championship game on Monday, January 27th or whatever day it is, people are going to work. And there are kickoff times on the West Coast

where people aren't even back from commuting from work yet when the game starts. And I think that that kind of stinks. but you know I'm you know I'm not very good with time zones I don't know how to fix that unless you want to kick the game off at 9th well you mentioned roger godell and i think that's probably the partnership that that could help the most and so our boss shan and terry and i co-authored a column that ran i think the day the national title game one of the things we talked about is the NFL and college football need to get together on this and they don't need to be competitors like the college football provides an incredible

developmental resource for the NFL that it does not have to pay for that none of the other pro leagues have. Major League Baseball has to pay for the minor league system. The NBA has to pay for the G League. Like none of the other pro, none of the other ones have this built-in developmental system that makes stars out of the players for free if you're the NFL. Like they're famous before they ever get to you, which makes your product even more about. viable. And then there's no reason for them to be competing over TV windows like they should be working together. Now, I have a little sort of conspiracy theory here. It's not even conspiracy

theory. It's just sort of connecting the dots. You do know what just got approved on Monday, right, Ari? What? That could be anything. The NFL buying an equity stake in ESPN? Oh, I saw that. Yes. Yeah. So what is one of the most valuable things that ESPN possesses? What are the NFL rights? What's one of the other most valuable things? Yes, college football rights. Correct.

Specifically, the entirety of the college football playoff. Now that the NFL is part owner of those rights, you might have an interest in seeing that do better. Would it not behoove the NFL to make sure that maybe even there's a cross-promotion, maybe you find a way to combine the things, there's a way to do this for sure. There's a way to do this.

And so I would like to see the NFL people and the leaders of the college football world get together and try to come up with the best way to do this where we get the most good football. And again, I realize a lot of people who follow this show only like college football, but I guarantee you most of you also watch the NFL. We see the numbers.

It's the most popular sports league in America. I think everybody be happier with a more efficient and efficient calendar. Functional football schedule. Like, like, I don't think it's a lot of schedule. Because I remember, like, there were NFL games happening during playoff games this year, right? Like, could the NFL in college football, like, could like the college football playoff game that was between Oregon and James Madison be the undercard for the NFL playoff game? Correct. But they're not on at the same time.

Because they were already on the same day. Like, is there a way that you could make it so that all these games are on different windows and that they work together, you know, they coexist and, you know, work together to make the viewing experience much better.

Like, because I remember when we were in Waco, the bears were playing that night. And that was like the crazy comeback. Yeah, I don't remember if the Oregon game had ended at that point, but I remember it was still very much going on. Yeah, I remember what games were going on the same time.

Yeah. one on the iPad and it was just like I wish that these games were on at different times now I don't remember what day of the week it was and I don't remember if like starting a game at noon could work that day it was a Saturday so we were at we were at a noon game that Saturday yeah we were at Miami Texas A&M yeah the other one could have started early I don't know I don't I don't I don't work in logistics that's not my job but I do think that like you also don't understand times it's like you would be the worst at logistics like if you you were hired as a vice president at UPS or FedEx, you would run the company into the ground immediately.

Time zone stress me out. Dude, you met him in time zone error because your computer didn't move back last week. So don't just put it on me. I know. Like they come for us all. But I only struggle with time zones when the time zone I think should be what it is. And then I'm like inexplicably in central time. That's also because you've never actually looked at a map before.

Yeah. Like when I was in, where was I? I was like in the panhand. Florida panhandle. Yeah. And I was like, understand that part of Florida is in central time. And I was like, this is central time. And I messed up my departure time to the Florida State Miami game because I thought I was an hour later than it was.

But yeah, no, yeah, I think we're both on the same page here. But like, I'm also like not that bent out of shape of having to wait two weeks between games if it has to be that way. So like my thing is, is if you're this concerned or the outrage is pouring through your soul because the games on January, 15th, the semifinal, two weeks after, it's like, okay, but like, I think that the number one concern for college football and its function is figuring out when to have free agency. And I think that this is a completely different issue from those two things. And, you know, I would be all four starting the season a few weeks earlier if that made it better in finishing it in early January so the portal could happen at the conclusion of the season. Like, I don't know what the logistics of all that

would be. I know it's highly complicated, but I do think that, you know, I'm able to, to call my mom and look at her through my phone and talk to her face to face. Like I think we can figure out a schedule that works. I think it's possible. This is, again, also, you don't need the bowls in this. That's also part of the problem

is if you're holding these things on campus, it's logistically a little easier to schedule them. But they'll figure it out eventually that they don't need the bowls. Yeah. They don't quite figure it out yet. So we'll see. But yes, long, long tail end of the football season.

Again, fine by me. I would like it if the middle of free agency wasn't going on at the same time. So. Not best for the show either. It would be awesome to have a week roster building only show. And that kind of is what it is. And then it takes away from actually talking about the games. A week.

Dude, if they put that in April, we get a month. out of it. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, the NBA squeezes a lot. The NFL squeezes a ton out of their roster building time. So it's, it's definitely something they can, they can pull off. And I think, again, the coaches who didn't like that part of it have come around. Speaking of coaches, uh, Lane Kiffin had his thoughts on the schedule. He says somehow the calendar got worse on purpose. So now, I did see. On the, so on the Bingle Tiger, our LSU website, this is Megaboard Wednesday, of course, they had a whole thread on this topic. And of course, highlighted Lane Kiffin's quote about it.

They are expecting to participate and expecting to participate for a long time in this particular tournament. So they got a vested interest in it. Yeah. And I think that like the ad drop date for the academic calendar of some colleges is kind of a wild. like pickle for you to be in so like if you happen to be playing it's not a wild pickle you want me to solve it for you yes please the transfer portal is in march you want to move schools you enroll in summer a at your new school you have no spring practice you have otas that start with summer a no i meant like in the current moment it's kind of a pickle yeah there's nothing they can do

about that yeah but that's what they're going to end up that's what they're going to end up doing probably because as bad as they wanted to have all the teams together in January and do the all season program and all that, the coaches realized it really sucks to try to do it this way. Really sucks. And it's not really, like, that's not necessarily a playoff issue. We talked about the playoff teams and what they were dealing with more because they were in the playoff and the teams were talking about.

That's not most teams. That doesn't affect most teams. but it's still a pain because they're all still dealing with high school recruiting at the same time. It would actually allow them to separate all of these different things into their own buckets, which would probably make them easier to deal with. And if your solution to this issue ever came true, then the playoff schedule is fine. Yeah, the playoff schedule doesn't matter at that point. Now, again, and I think we're going to have a clip from John Somer.

all the new Florida coach later in the show talking about something else but in his press conference that he had on Wednesday he also mentioned he'd be fine with the season starting a week or two earlier yeah because you could do that like if you wanted to have the same length of season you could start it where we have week zero now or you can go a week ahead of that and you could end it in in the first week of January if you wanted to yeah so and that would change you know like rivalry weekend and all that stuff, but that's a small change. We just have to figure it out. Yeah, and that's, that's, that is a part of it because it's TV obviously would like rivalry. We can be on Thanksgiving weekend. Because that's when people are home.

Yeah. But people, people will watch good games whenever they are. Yeah. If the 2019 LSU Alabama game taught us anything, because that was the, that was the one where they're like, oh, CBS screwed up, they used their prime time window on some other game and they're so stupid. Everybody watched the damn game at 3.30. It didn't change anything. Yeah. People will go find the games. Yeah. People say what time does the game start

and then they make their plans accordingly, not the other way around. Exactly. Exactly. So there are solutions and we'll just have to figure out what they are. I just don't even know what the time frame is. Are we even close to having the real discussion with the people who make these decisions and changing

any of this or is it just offseason fodder for us? No, I think they're always talking about. it. And I do think, again, I'll bring it, that NFL deal with ESPN, I think this is probably the time they're talking about it more because you have more people kind of entering the chat. So it is something, I'm sure the ESPN executives are mulling over right now because they're probably having meetings with the NFL people. And obviously, this deal's been in place for a while. The integration had already started. But they've got, they'll talk about it more. And I do wonder, you know, if that will going forward change how the schedule works, but we will see. Well, here's

to another summer of how to fix college football columns. There we go. At least we got something. Next up, we got some big news out of Knoxville. Joey Aguilar on Wednesday, granted a temporary restraining order. It is Mega board Wednesday. And so, of course, we go to the VolQuest message boards, and this thing hit the VolQuest message boards within seconds of the decision. So what does this mean? Specifically right now. We talked about this case. Joey Aguilar got himself removed from the Diego Pavia federal lawsuit over Jucco eligibility. He then filed a suit in state court in Tennessee earlier this week. what does that mean?

It means he's trying to say that my year in Juko does not count toward my NCAA eligibility, that those are two different things. So he is trying to get an extra year, which would be his fourth year playing football at an NCAA school. And then, of course, one of the years would be a red shirt to be four to play five, which is what the rule currently states. But forever and ever, they've always considered years in Juko to count against your eligibility. So in this case, he's trying to say it does not count.

The judge grants a temporary restraining order does not mean that this is over. It does mean he can go do workouts with the Tennessee football team. So he's doing off-season workouts now. There will be a hearing. They will petition for an injunction. And if they get the injunction, which would be the judge saying, hey, I think this case might succeed on its merits, therefore you can't enforce your rules

while the case is pending. If that happens, I think his legal team will make sure the wheels of justice spend just slowly enough to make sure the case is pending for all of the football season. God, it's such a hack. It's such a legal hack.

So like also if this goes through, then can you just play three years of Juko or two years of Juko? Sorry, not three. and and then i mean if this goes through you probably could play three years of juco too like who's going to stop you you play six years of juco and ten years in the NCAA i thought juco was only two years it is if you if you're smart oh i'm sure there are people who've who've gone a little longer in juco there's there are people who've needed three years to get that a yeah what is a what is a sixth year juco person they're not doctors uh but like it is

I think I've met some six-year Jucco people before. Yeah. That might be related to some. It could be a little boon for your, you know, your eligibility. I don't know, man. This is wild. Like, I feel like Pete Nacos posted some of the legal documents today. And I don't know if you read part of the argument before we started the show.

But like there's a part of the argument here that just says the request relief runs only out to Aguilar and the NCAA suffers no harm if Aguilar plays NCAA. AAA football for a fourth season. It's like, I actually, of all the things that like I can get on board of like not being bullshit, it's like, yeah, I want to play a fourth year of NCAA football. Like, is it really that big of a DLP plays? But I just think that like it's not necessarily Joey Aguilar's case in his specifics that is interesting here. It's what claims can anybody make moving forward. And is everybody next year at this time, if these succeed, like a Trinidad Jambler succeeds in playing by by the wheels of justice moving slow. and they both do this. Like is half the, half the senior class next year just going to sue the NCAA? Yes.

It's wild. Because there's money in this. Like, if you're a good college football player, but not good enough to play in the NFL or not good enough to be a very high draft pick in the NFL, you can make a lot more money playing college football. So yes, you would try to extend your eligibility window as far as you can.

So literally could go to medical school. That would be cool. Like, if, like, you could. I don't know how you'd handle having gross anatomy and playing football at the same time. I don't know. That seems like a lot of work. But like you do your easy classes in the spring or in the fall and then you do the like really tough ones where you go to the hospital in the spring. They're all toughest medical school.

Everybody's doctor is the best. Congratulations. I thought about these classes. I don't know. I will point out because you brought up Trinidad, Shambliss the Ole Miss quarterback. His case is different than Joey Aguilar's. They both filed in state court for the same purpose as they want that home field advantage. But Trinidad Shambliss, what he's trying to do is say, because remember, he didn't play Juko.

He was at Ferris State for four years, then Ole Miss for one year. And he redshirted at Ferris State. He did not play at all his redshirt freshman year at Ferris State. So he red shirts in 2021. In 2022, he does not play as a registered freshman. And, what they're saying is he had a medical condition. They have medical records from that time that they are, have sent to the NCAA. And they're trying to get the NCAA to essentially retroactively give him, we call it a medical red shirt.

NCAA parlance is a medical hardship waiver. But that's what they're trying to do. And you've seen them before with guys that had really obvious injuries. Like somebody just, you know, wrecked his, you know, had compound fracture in his leg and missed, missed two years. Like, they give them back an extra year. So you've seen that before.

And so what they're saying is by denying Trinidad Shameless this waiver, they are not following their own rules. So it's a little bit different case. But it doesn't matter what the case is about as long as the goal is to try to stall that. And the only thing Trinidad Shameless cares about is does he get to play this year? The only thing Joey Aguilar cares about is does he get to play for Tennessee this year. And that is the whole point of all this. So everybody's watching. Everybody's paying attention.

As long as you have a semi-compelling case, whether it's real or not. Yeah. It has to be convincing enough in court to get the injunction for, to get an injunction, do I understand this correctly? I did not go to law school, but you know this stuff more than me, is that the judge has to rule that you have a reasonable case that could go your right. And that's what it says. If you read the TRO that was released on Wednesday,

it says that it seems like the plaintiff's case might succeed on the merits. And that is, that's what the judge has to decide. and usually like if they didn't think so, they'd probably be very close to throwing the case out anyway. So this seems to be going forward. And we'll know more after Friday. We'll know more after they have that hearing on Friday. And we can figure out do we think Joe Agler is going to play for Tennessee this year or not?

It's still this, I would say, gives you an idea that he might be playing for Tennessee. He might be playing, yeah, this year. everybody's paying attention to this. It's not just these. You've got the Charles Bettyaco case in basketball where he's playing for Alabama after having played in the G League. His is not a time window thing.

His is more of... Income. Income. Right. He wasn't good enough in the G League in the NBA and he wants to play some more and he's going to get paid to play at Alabama. So they're watching all this.

And obviously all the coaches are getting asked about this. So Florida coach John Summerall was doing his signing day press conference on Wednesday, and he got a question about it. Eligibility challenges and things. Do you have to at least, do you think maybe it's a matter of time before that happens in football where somebody who went pro comes back? And do you have to open yourself up to the possibility of that might happen and maybe create a space for that? Yeah, I wasn't planning on the show us today, but we're going to file a temporary restraining order to see if Tim Tebow can play short yards and goal line, I hate quarterback. So I don't know what the hell is

going on all that. Like, I don't understand it. I'm not smart to figure it out. I'm not going to make any statements that's going to be bulletin board other than Tebow probably here because I'm not smart if I understand all this legal stuff. To me, you're either in college or you're pro, which one are you? You know, I don't know. But I don't understand all of it. Like, we've gotten to where it's like, hey, you can appeal for a Juco year, a COVID year, a six year, a ninth year. How many years? I mean, you know, the model has been five years to play four. I don't, the conversation around some people with five for five, I don't think's going very far because of litigation is what it sounds like to me. I don't know, all that stuff.

I don't understand all of it. We're going to coach who they let us coach and recruit who they let us recruit. But the problem is, is I think that's such a moving target that you don't know who's allowed to play. I mean, and that rule may change tonight or tomorrow or whatever. And so I don't know. But, yeah, we'll see if Tebow gets his years I went back. John Summerall is really all of us in this thing. He is.

Because I think he put that really well. Like, I don't know who's allowed to play. It seems like somebody new every day. Yeah. And I think what he said is probably because he said, you're either in college or you're a pro. And I think that's something that the average fan probably feels the same way, understands the distinction.

The thing is, we've created this distinction over years. and years, and it's very clear to us. I don't know that there's a real legal distinction, though. And I think that's the issue. So they've got to get that part figured out, which, I mean, we'll see. I said, I think this is the one place the NCAA can actually argue. But in state court, it doesn't work that way because they're arguing different things. This is not an antitrust case.

This is not a case of somebody going to the federal court system and saying, hey, these competitors colluded to create this rule that keeps my client from making more money. Here's where it gets murky because of the distinction that John Summerall himself just said, right? You're either in college or you're a pro. Well, legally and financially, college football players are pros. Right, correct. So like for us. where when I point that out, people always tweet at me, they're not employees.

Like, okay, I'm an employee of On 3. I'm not an employee of Yahoo. But Yahoo pays me to do a show. Am I a professional podcaster? Based on Yahoo paying me to do a podcast? Yeah. Yeah, I am. Answer this question with an open heart. Did Jeremiah Smith, a professional football player? Absolutely. It's paid lots of money to play football. Like how could you say no to that? Oh, speaking of that, we've learned something.

We had this discussion about this very thing a few weeks ago. And we both were like, you know, do you need this to do this? Are you a professional driver if you get paid to drive? Yeah, yeah, I remember that. If you're an Uber driver, if you're a NASCAR driver, you're being paid to drive one way the other. And you said, but don't you have to have a license in NASCAR? I was like, I don't think so. Apparently you do.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's a very dangerous activity. and if I needed to get like certified to go scuba diving, I can't imagine to let you drive a NASCAR without doing some sort of safety. Yeah. So apparently you do need that. But you don't need a license to get paid to play football.

You don't need a license to get paid to play basketball. And if someone pays you to play football, your professional football player, if someone pays you to play basketball, your professional basketball player. So I get why the courts don't see the distinction. Yeah. It's all verbal.

I see it because I've been watching this my entire life. and you see it and everybody out there listening sees it. And I don't, I, maybe, people tell me, I don't know, email us, hit us up on social media. I don't really want 35 year olds who've played professional, well, professional is wrong word, who've played in the NFL or the NBA. I don't really want them playing in college. I don't. I like to see the traditional college age group playing in college.

You know, you think about it. With the occasional guy who served 10 years in the army and then came and played college football. Like, that's fine. I'm good with that. That worked. Yeah. I mean, it gets murky. Like, here's the thing that is interesting to me.

So this year, I'm just like looking at my desk, as you know, my desk is covered with sports cards. And I'm looking at it. And the first card that came up on my desk that just sitting here is a. DJ Giddens rookie card for the Colt. I just went and looked at DJ Gidden's rookie stats. 26 carries for 96 yards and a four point or a four yard average in the NFL this year. He would have been a huge portal addition for somebody or would be a huge boon to their running back room if he wanted to play college football next year. Yes.

And like I don't know what his eligibility was. I have no idea how many years of college he played or if his eligibility is exhausted. You know how many players there are in the NFL like DJ Giddens? Oh, tons. And most of them only last a couple of years in the NFL. Yeah. And it's every position. It's not DJ Giddens.

Rocket Sanders. And I'm looking at guys that may or may not. Kelle Mullings, the running back from Michigan. He was on the Titans. Like these guys that go into the pros and don't end up being great starting every down backs or even people who are really in the game plan, who would be one of the top 15 running backs in college football. Like, I don't know.

Once you rip this Band-Aid off, you're going to have how many DJ Giddens are going to try to come back to college and make a bag playing for a year? I just feel like we have to stop it or like everybody's going to do it. Both. Yeah, and I don't know that it's going to stop because the individual state courts are not going to stop it. And like Charlie Baker, the NCAA president said they got to get the state courts

and the federal courts on the same page. And as Tom Mars, who is one of the, the attorneys for Trinidad Shameless pointed out that would require amending article three of the constitution that's not probably going to happen anytime soon you know there's another one kaleb johnson he was awesome at iowa not really big new oh yeah i'm trying to think of just guys that were like a really really good in college you did nothing listen the running back position is one where you can really yeah you can come up with a very long list so that that we're going to find out more. We'll learn more on Friday, but I would say this probably what happened on

Wednesday suggests that Joe Aguilar is going to get his chance. But we shall see. Ari, on our megaboard Wednesday, let us move to another topic. This is from Hawkeye Report, or Iowa cited on three. NFL mock draft. Jones and Dunker picked in round two. Dunker, of course, is Jennings Dunker, the former Iowa offensive lineman, who was a revelation at the Senior Bowl last week.

Everybody loved seeing Jennings Dunker. That's a mullet. That guy's a unit. Jennings, like, and he's six foot six. He weighed in it, I believe, 320 at the Senior Bowl. So I talked to him in Mobile. We're about to play that interview. This is a guy who you're going to hear in the interview.

He takes a picture of everything he eats and sends it to his dietitian. He's 6.6.320. If you saw him from a distance and didn't know how big he was, you'd be like, oh, that guy weighs like 265. He's just in that kind of shape. Like, he is an incredible athlete. And a good reason why Iowa won the Joe Moore Award this past year, why Iowa was so good on the offensive line.

But we had a great conversation about why I was so consistently good at producing offensive linemen, at producing discipline, tough teams. And also about who a 6'6-320-pound offensive lineman is afraid of. Andy. Here. Yes. Go. Go.

I'll talk about it after. Here's a Jennings Dunker. Join now by Jennings Dunker from Iowa, the Joe Moore Award. to winning offensive line. I got to ask you about what is it like when that trophy shows up? You know, it's pretty awesome. You know, you've seen photos of it online. Like, we have a little miniature one in our facility,

but then when it shows up, like, it's just massive. They're bringing in a forklift, right? You'd have to. I mean, it's so big. It's like seven or eight feet tall. I don't know if you've seen a picture. I have, and I actually seen it at the Alabama facility one year when they want it. And it's wild.

They're like, but I came to imagine, like, it's the most perfect thing for offensive line because it, weighs a ton. Yeah, it's huge. Literally. Yeah. And it's all five. It's the whole group.

And that seems like the spirit of the position, period. Like, you couldn't do it without your other guys. Right. And I think the best part, too, is like, if you look at the back of it, there's plaques with guys' names on it or, like, you know, the previous winners of it, like, it's not just those five. It's like the guys that would rotate in with them. Oh, that's awesome.

So it's like more than just the five. Yep. So I think to me, like, that's like the best part. So we got to ask, this look, how long have you been rocking the mullet? So I started last season. I ran a case study on Connor Colby, if you know who that is. So his freshman year of college, he rocked a bullet. He was a freshman American.

The next year, he cut it. He did good, but not as good. Right. And then he rocked it this previous year, got drafted. So I kind of took that, you know, like in stride. And I was like, all right, I better rock one with you, dude. It's like, I played next to him and we both rock him. So this is the way you get drafted.

This is the secret sauce. I think that's the secret sauce for all. I mean, I did my own case study on Connor and I think he would agree. Well, yeah, I mean, it's a small sample size, but I think that's the, I could go with that. Yeah, small case study, but yeah. So you're from Lena, Illinois. Yep. Iowa is your only offer.

Yep. When you get to Iowa City, are you thinking about this, you know, the NFL? Is that something that it's in the picture or is it just, I'm trying to survive. No, I mean, I don't, no, not at all. You know, I mean, coming from a town of like 2700 people and we, you know, played a, we didn't play as complex as an offense. We did at Iowa. Yeah. I was just trying to figure out the playbook. And I also had to get surgery in my freshman year. Yeah. So I had to deal with that too. And, you know, being away from all my buddies and stuff and trying to figure out of my own. So what is it about Kirk Francis's program?

How is it that you guys are always so disciplined, so tough? I mean, we've said this on a show a bunch of times. You guys were probably the most underrated team in America this year. You look at the way you play at Indiana. Look at the way he played Oregon. You beat Vanderbilt in the bowl game. What is it that you guys do every year that makes it so consistent? Honestly, we do the exact same thing. So every day we do the exact same drills. We're coached the exact same way. You know, the exact same things are being looked at like in my gaining ground my first step or when I can contact my passport crunch. And I just repeatedly go over the same thing every day. And then also, too, like, the best thing about Coach Farrant is he's developing men before football players.

So he wants you to be a man off the field and, like, how you take care of your business. And then the football player falls. That's how he does things. And it's awesome. So we were talking before we got started. And I think with Iowa, we always envision, like, you guys are working out like Rocky and Russia with trees and, you know, in the snow. But you're telling me they track your sleep. Like, it's very scientific.

You're fresh one year. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then the dietary stuff is awesome. and we have all the, like, nutritional advice you would need from our strength coaches and all the food. And I think we spend, like, close to the most money in the country on food. What is your favorite Iowa training table meal? What's the best thing they make?

I'm going to go graze and then they make cassidias for breakfast sometimes. Those are almost like a treat or unreal. Breakfast cassidias? What are we put in six of them? What do we put in breakfast cassidia? It's cheese. I'd have to ask a pee. I think it's like cheese, chicken.

I don't know what is, what is good. It's loaded. It's awesome. And how many do we eat at once? I probably like six of them. And these are full size. No, no, no, they're like little, they're kind of like squares. But you, six them?

They're so good. Okay, so you probably don't. Like, how many calories a day do you have to eat to keep your weight where it needs to be? So right now I'm at 4732, I want to say. Okay. I have it in my app on my phone, but. Well, you said you have to take a picture and send it to, of everything you eat. Yeah, yeah.

Do you ever get, does the dietitian come back? Like, no, no, no, we can't have this. Not with me, no. Oh, the discipline is there. I'm too scared to mess up. If you knew him, you would do. What's he like? He's awesome.

Okay. You might be able to choke me out, though. Oh, he's a big dude. This is a diet. He's, okay, you are 330 pounds, and you're saying somebody's a big dude. Like, he's a big dude. So, terrifying dietitians, is that, and how do you get set up with that? Is that someone your agent sets you up with?

Yeah, so I had talked to Logan Lee. about like training places. Yeah. And he talked to me about this place next three in Fort Myers. So then my agent also was connected there with the guy that runs it. Right. So I just went there and I trusted Logan Lee and my agent. And so now you're just taking pictures and sending and just praying.

Dude, this is okay. But I mean, that is the most aligned thing ever. Because I'm doing exactly what they tell me to do. I'm going to do this exactly the right way. This is just the next logical step of your first step. the initial punch. Like all of, it, it takes you back to high school, like the, where you do the drills with the first step, second step, third step. When will you cut loose, though?

When, when is that going to be all right? The only time I've been cutting loose is my trainer knows all the, you know, all the water parks in the area. Oh. So me and all the O-line boys been tearing up the water parks down in Fort Myers. We are a water park. We are a water park. Oh, yeah. Okay.

So as a former wet and wild lifeguard, that was my job in high school. a big water park guy what slides are we straight down are we a bunch of dudes on the big tube going as fast as possible the weight limit on that that one's scary so they send you off

well we had two big guys do it so what would their combined weight be probably about 600 okay I think the two weight was 400 fell off the tube that got dicey but it was funny and they were okay listen you're talking to somebody who who's pushed the limits of all of those things

who has been nearly suspended for surfing on tubes down slides. So, oh, yeah. No, when you work there, you've already signed all the forums. You're not suing them. Right. But, yeah, okay. So we got Kendred Waterpark Spirits. What is it like when you guys, the linemen show?

And which linemen are we talked about here? Who's in the group? Ludo's been going. Okay. Garrett, UCLA. David, he played a nose tackle at Kentucky. Christian, he played it. Oh my gosh.

California. No. Cal Poly. No, it's a red school. A red school. San Diego. Oh, yeah. San Diego State.

The Aztecs, yeah. So we got like 15. And then Kobe's I'm going too. Oh, my God. So we got like 1,800 pounds of dudes going to the water parks. Well, the first day, so I was looking in the local ones. And I never realized it was like more of a kid water park. So it's like, there was just like a giant obstacle course in the middle of this like.

big pool yeah i wish that was actually sick but it was like a lot of little kids around around but it was pretty fun actually well i i will i will give you the rundown of the florid water parks when we when we're off the air i don't know if that's ever yeah yeah you can't give free advertising on the show so yeah jennings i i can't thank you enough good luck in the draft if there is not video of you going down the the you know the high straight down slides at the draft i'll be highly disappointed so espn and nfl network get work. Thank you. I'll send one in for them. You know, I'm terrible at transitions, Andy. I'm sorry. I'm going to go see a therapist. I don't know. I can, you know, I can tell when you're

winding down and I still blurt stuff out and I, it's not good podcasting and I'll be better. Just please accept my apology. That said, we talk about how, you know, I'm a terrible talent evaluator. I'm a terrible agent. A lot of things I'm terrible at. Are there just certain players where it's just like, look at that guy. Like, Like, yes. You know Jennings Dunker is going to be a successful NFL player as long as he's healthy. Like he's going to be a long time starter in the NFL.

And I mean, you heard him talk. Like that is a guy who gets it, who's just going to go work his ass off and he's going to be really good. And so like projection is about a second round draft pick. I hope for him he goes as high as humanly possible. But I just, you're right.

he's one of those guys that you just look at and you're like, yeah. I know if I pick him, I'm good at this position for a long time. What vibes he has. He has Tate Ratlidge vibes to me. Yeah, not the same kind of accent, but yes, Tate Ratlich, who is played for Georgia and started at guard for the Detroit Lions last year was a second round draft pick, actually. And I think these two, those two would get along really, really well. I don't believe the lions need a guard.

I think they'd like to move Graham Glasgow back to guard and draft a center to really replace Frank Ragnow. But I can't wait to see what happens. I think if you have a mall at your grade in the NFL draft as an offensive lineman goes up at least one round. I hope so. For Jennings Dunker's sake, because how cool is that guy? Yeah, I am kind of amused by how somebody that size is afraid of his nutritionist. And it made me feel like maybe we all should have somebody that we have to send every single thing that we eat. a picture of. Could you imagine during the day, like, of if you had to do that, like,

if there was somebody holding you accountable for everything you put in your mouth, and you like were contractually or whatever, if you were obligated for whatever reason to not be able to hide anything, every single thing that you put in your mouth, you have to send a picture of to somebody, I would probably be, you know, 50 pounds lighter. I would too. And especially when I was really in my heavy days. And my wife would tell me, like, are you sure you need to eat this? And then I get mad about it. And I'm like, I'm fine.

I'm working out. Yeah, if I had that person who I was just terrified of, maybe it should have been. I should have just taking pictures and send them. Although I did take pictures back in those days and send them to my wife. And she's like, we have a problem. We need to talk. So this week.

It didn't stop me is what I'm saying. It's funny because like I thought you were terrified of your wife because I am terrified of mine. And it's a funny story that this has happened in my household. but you know it was like a snow day a snow week last week and I don't know what it is about me I don't know if this is a childhood thing or a trauma thing I don't know but whenever it's like

I'm home for the day or I'm trapped in the house or there's a storm or it's snowing or whatever like I get a wild craving for red barren frozen pizza okay like I just feel like every single person should have an emergency barrier no free ads but red baron let's go, come on. It is an excellent, excellent, excellent, frozen pizza. Not an ad. Wish it was. And I asked my

wife, can I go get a Red Baron pizza and have that dinner? She goes, what's the last time you went to the gym? And she goes, you were 340 pounds. I'm allowed to every single time. And I didn't eat Red Baron for dinner. So like, and she's, I'm allowed to talk about this. We're never letting that happen again. And it's just like it. I like it. Or 11, but like that. If I had to send her out and that's how that's how jennings dunker can also be afraid of his nutritionist. Imagine if you just send a white, your wife, a picture of everything that you ate. She would think you're an animal.

I did. She did. I would, I would get divorced if I sent a picture to my wife of every single thing I ate. She would be mortified. That ritz cracker from under the fridge? I think location matters more. Like mine was more nutritional value.

Yeah. No, mine's like, wait. You know how I eat. You ordered the platter for four at the barbecue place? Andy would do that, by the way. I would order the family meal for four for myself. It's the perfect example. You and I were leaving a football game in Columbus, Ohio earlier,

and we stopped at the airport at sheets before we left to eat lunch. Yes. You decided, I'm not going to eat this shit. Me. Coffee. We met an agent. I got cheese curds and some. crappy sandwich that tasted terrible.

If I would have sent a picture to Britt what I ate for lunch that day, she would have been mortified. And these are the things that she'll never know. Yeah, because she doesn't listen to the show. No, I think she does at times, but never all the way to the end. My wife never does. Ever. So this is my safe space.

I can say anything I want here. It never gets back to her. I do have is that there are friends of hers that do listen to the show. And there are also people on. Twitter. She's not on Twitter who see some of the jokes I make about her on Twitter. And whenever I make jokes about things, they have a funny way of getting back

to her. So I might have made a mistake. But, you know, we'll see what happens. Yeah. She gets home today. There's no other options. She gets home from work today and she's like, Ari, cheese curds, really? As a side dish. Because we're not good

cheese shirts. All right. One more for Mega Board Wednesday. And this one was I had a hard time choosing the thread. Let's put it that way. So we go to WarChamp. That is Florida State original OG, one of the great all-time team sites ever in the history of this industry.

So it's the best community of Florida State fans out there, and they are very passionate, and they love their Seminoles. And when Gus Malzahn retired, Ari and I took a more global view of it. We were talking about Gus Malzon's career and what he meant to the sport. obviously, you know, he's done so much going from being a high school coach to to being the head coach at Auburn and UCF. But they took a more immediate look at it as, you know, Gus was the OC at Florida State last year. None of them were particularly happy with the performance of the offense last year. The timing of it they didn't like because obviously this means Florida State can't go out and hire an offensive coordinator. They end up promoting Tim Harris Jr.

And basically what it means is Mike Norville is going to call it. called plays. And Grumpy B.K. sent this thread. And this is, I found this to be the most interesting take on it, but also the least openly hostile thread. If you had a war chance message word right now, it is fire Mike Norville, fire Michael, Michael Alford the AD. It's fire everyone. They're like, they are ready to clean house. This fan base is furious at the way things are going on. So here's what Grumpy B.K. wrote, I can't help but think Mike was forced by all. offered in the administration to bring in a real play calling OC and replace his friends on staff after the fallout of 2004.

Gus was the easy answer as he's a friendly for Mike and would be the least disrupted. So after that didn't yield significantly different results in terms of wins and losses, the quote-unquote comprehensive assessment resulted in the replacement of the GM. And so now with Gus, quote-unquote, retiring, we choose basically to go with it, without an experienced offensive coordinator and we just revert to the same setup as we in 2004, but with a new GM defensive coordinator and a few new position coaches. Mike picks backup play calling, gives up recruiting and contract negotiations. Is Mike laughing at the administration saying, where you're back to where he started,

I told you so. It is kind of funny because you do realize and have to at least acknowledge that whatever is happening at the administrative and coaching level at Florida State the last few years that it's not functioning properly, right? Like there's misfires happening there. And I think what happens when things are not being run competently is you kind of chase your tail a little bit. It end up in some of the places just historically, both corporate America or any other sports organization, whatever, where it's like you end up, I mean, this stuff happens at companies that we've worked for where it's like we're going to try this and then we're going to do this. And then a year later, you're back to where you were at the beginning.

And it's just I think that, you know, given the timing of this, I don't know like what Florida State's options are if they wanted to go get a hot shot O.C. see how many of those are available or if it's a big enough place. I mean, I would assume that it is. I don't know, Andy, based on what it happened. But like ending up back where you started is not really a great feeling, I don't think, because where you started wasn't working. Yeah. So I don't know that Mike Norville's play calling was the problem.

I think it was more roster construction, chemistry, everything else. But this is, I understand there. their frustration with the timing. Having watched this, and I think the Florida state fans, you know, most of them living in Florida, probably see a lot of Florida stuff.

They should understand a little bit of this from last year with Florida with Billy Napier because there was a lot of pressure on Billy to hire a play calling OC. He didn't because he knew he's on, you know, potentially this was last chance. He was either going to, as you put it,

go down with his hands on the wheel. The other piece of this, like let's say, because we had heard rumblings about Gus Malzahn potentially stepping down after the season. Let's say that it happened. And it had been in the in the throws of the coaching carousel where you could have theoretically hired any offensive coordinator you wanted to.

I don't think most desirable offensive coordinators would have been willing to take the job at Florida State given the current circumstances because obviously Mike Norville is seriously under fire. there are doubts about whether he would make it through this season. You would have to overpay significantly and guarantee at least three years of salary to even get someone to take the job. So I don't think the person that some of these folks are imagining would have taken the job.

I don't think they would have taken it. And I think that's probably, now with the Billy Napier thing, Billy Napier was very stubborn on that front. was not going to hire anybody who wasn't going to run his offense. It really limited the options down to where there were none, but they would have been in the same situation where they would have had to overpay, guarantee three years, and then you're on the hook for even more salary.

If you're Florida State, you're looking at this like, we don't know if this is going to work. Norvelle's buyout is ridiculously expensive right now, ridiculously expensive next year, ridiculously expensive the year after that. If they're terrible, they're going to bite the bullet and do it, just like Kentucky did,

just like Penn State did, just like Texas A&M did. And so if I'm them, I'm not taking on additional additional salary now. Yeah. And like if you go back to the year where Florida Snake got screwed in the playoff,

what do they have on their team? They had a really good quarterback before he got injured. They had two good receivers. They had an NFL running back. They had Braden Fiske and Jared Verst together on their defensive line, which by the way, is the core of the Rams defensive line that made the NFC championship game this year.

And they're both awesome. Yes. What don't they have on their current team? None of that. So like get mad all you want about the structure of the staff and who's calling plays and all these things. Just get better players and things become easier. And I think that's the problem.

Florida State just hasn't been getting good enough players, period. It is. And this is something that you've talked about all along with their high school recruiting. Now, they did really well in the transfer portal for a while. I mean, Braden Fiske, Jared Verse, Keon Coleman. Those are really good transfer portal players. But they got Coleman after that foundation. Already productive.

So this is the thing. And maybe this is a secondary conversation, but it still relates back to Mike Norvell. At one point in time, when you brought up the name. nickname, which is like a fake annual award that we give, called the Portal King, you might have said Mike Norvell or at least had his name in the picture. I think that the undisputed Portal King is probably Lane Kiffin, right? And then you see what Lane Kiffin did in the portal immediately at LSU the second he got there. They signed so many good players. And I did a list then I think we'll talk about it early next week today

of the 10 most influential individual signies of the portal cycle. And like three of them could have been LSU signies. And maybe that is partially because LSU has more resources. I don't know, but Florida State has a ton. Why is Florida State not landing Keon Coleman anymore? Keon Coleman was already made receiver. Doesn't have a ton. And that's part of the problem.

in the rev share era where you didn't have to put additional money on top of that. Another story that came out about Florida State yesterday was really interesting. It was a sportico, and it's about the level of debt that Florida State's athletic department is carrying. So they reported $437 million in athletics-related debt, and athletics made up 71% of the entire university's total debt. and the debt is all from renovations to the stadium and building the football operations building. That's, they, you know, basically they're paying a really big mortgage. The colloquial term we'd use for Florida State if we were talking about it in our own

personal lives would be house poor, like they're house poor right now. It's not like they're not poor, poor, they've got money. But I don't know what the debt service is on $437 million in debt. Like, I don't know what the mortgage payment is, but it's a lot. Yeah, and I don't know. Here's the thing, Andy, and I'm not, maybe I should be better at this, but, you know, hand up I'm not. Like, do most programs face X number of dollars of debt and how atypical is Florida State situation? Everybody has debt.

Very few have this kind of debt. Yeah. And everybody carries debt. It's like sometimes people want like an iPod. This, this athletic department is $50 million in debt. Okay. lots of people have an equal percentage of debt in their own lives if they own a house and pay a mortgage. Like that's normal.

This is having a really gigantic mortgage payment is what it is. But they have recent reasons to have that debt. How much does having that type of debt impact your ability to invest in the roster? Or those two different buckets of money? Well, not really because you've got to get, you want to get as many donations as you can from everybody. Now, sometimes the donations can go in different directions.

Like in the NIL, like the pure NIL era before RevShare, you tell somebody who was going to give a bunch of money to your athletic department, hey, give that to the collective. And that way we can give it to the players. Now you need to fund your RevShare through the athletic department. So you need that bucket to be full.

But then you also need people to be funding your collective, to be funding other sources. of revenue. If you're Florida State, though, and you have this mortgage payment, a lot of your donations are going toward paying that, probably. You are probably soliciting donations

to help pay for that as well. They did a bond issue to cover these costs, and that's what they're dealing with now. They're dealing with the debt from that. That's really the issue here is you're hitting up donors, again and again and again and again you're not getting

results out of that. Where did Florida State rank in the On3 Transfer Portal rankings? You're looking at this right now? I am. I had to look it up. I don't have to look it up. I'm just quitting you. I don't. Yeah. I don't know.

And it's hard because it also depends on how many you take. Let me I'll tell you. Wild guess I'm going to say 19th. Okay, 44th. Okay. Okay.

And I don't, I didn't know that off the top of my head. What we do know at this point, again, we're people. We need to take time as well as you do to try to figure out where everybody went. There was a lot of names. But Florida State is not getting any of the marquee guys, period. They aren't getting Jordan Seton. They aren't getting Sam Levitt. They aren't getting, you know, anybody.

I can go down the list of names. And when they got Keon Coleman, they got that guy. And that guy had a huge impact directly on the following season. So while we yell about Mike Norvell and all the coordinator situations and who's calling plays and all these things, if their debt is the reason or they don't have enough money as a reason, whatever the reason may be, your most recent success was predicated on dominating the portal. You are no longer dominating the portal, nor are you dominating high school football recruiting.

So to me, this seems to be a labyrinth of just nonsensical discussion point when the real issue here's the other part of it too. They have some money. It's not like they're broke, but if you get the same offer from two different schools and one coaches it on the hot seat and one isn't, where are you going? Yeah, you're going to the place that's more stable for sure, which means you might have to overpay somebody to make. make it more stable. Like that, like, what's everyone else doing? I don't know. I, they're not, they don't have good players.

So to me, it's that simple. Like, and I understand that like, the sport has changed and, you know, sometimes people in the portal come in that are undervalued or underrecognized and have great years. I'm not saying that everybody that Florida State signed stinks. But what I am saying is that there was a lot of game changing, game breaking transfers in the portal this year that could have helped Florida State at places of need and they didn't go and get those marquee guys.

And you know who did? And I also think everybody caught up to what they were doing in the portal. There are a lot of timing issues here because the stuff they did with the stadium, the decision to make the football operations, but all that happened really before this era started in earnest. So that was the, that was the quote-unquote correct thing to do back then. Now we know it's not. What do I always say, Ari, what is the best way to improve your stadium?

to have a better football team. Put better players in it. Yeah. That's the best way to improve your stadium and make more money. Well, the world changed on them on that front. And now they're dealing with the debt of this. And now they've got to figure out how to get better players when now the other piece of it is hindering their ability to do that.

And it's a brutal situation. And I just want to say, I feel so bad for their fans. because also an ironic thing because the fans view the way out of this situation as replacing the coach with an enormous buyout, which then does what? It only asks you to spend money. Yeah. So like I don't know. I don't know what the solution is here. But Mike Norvell went from being a candidate for the Alabama job three years ago to now being on the hot seat for two years straight.

And like, I don't know why he stopped being able to get good players. but if it is a financial discussion, then he's getting a bunch of crap that he doesn't even deserve because it's not his fault. Well, and maybe he can just say that because if this doesn't work, I don't know what else you do

if you're Florida State, but make a change. But you're right. It puts them in a pretty tough situation, no matter what. Sure does, bud. Sure does. So I feel very, very much for the Florida State fans.

If you're not to remember, check out the WordChamp Message Board. You'll see, these are people who they're diehards, they care a lot, and they're so frustrated. And I wish there was something we could say that would make it better or that would help explain it. But it's just, it's been a rough, rough past few years because, you know, they go from getting screwed out of making the playoff. And then all of a sudden, they're terrible. And then you think when they beat Alabama, it's okay. It's okay. That was just an anomaly last year.

We're back. We're fine. And that's not the case. Yeah. And there's a lot to go through as a fan. It is. And so, yeah, we're thinking about you guys on War Chant. I hope this will, you know, I don't even know what to say.

I really don't because I don't know. what would make it better, if anything. But good luck to you guys. I hope your team is legitimately better this year because you deserve some joy in your lives. After all, what you've been dealing with the last few years. But I get why you're skeptical that that's going to happen. Because it doesn't feel like anything's really changing.

Yeah. Ari, we got some big guess coming tomorrow. Also get your questions in Friday. We're moving, we're moving, dear Andy and dear already to Friday this week. It might be all off, you know, that might be the Friday,

Friday staple. We get your questions in, Andy Stapleson3 at gmail.com, ari.wosterman aton3.com. You know where to find us on social media too. Hit us with your questions. Some big guests tomorrow.

Ari has one that, you know, occasionally needles him via text, pays attention to the show a little bit. He coaches, he's a head coach now. That's your hint. Who's he going to be? Tune in tomorrow.