Andy & Ari On3 - LATEST on Brendan Sorsby gambling situation at Texas Tech: Could Red Raiders turn to Will Hammond?

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

As more details unravel regarding the Brendan Sorsby gambling situation at Texas Tech, Andy & Ari breakdown the latest surrounding the Red Raiders in Lubbock. Will Texas Tech be comfortable turning to backup quarterback Will Hammond? Coming off a season-ending injury a season ago, how good of an option is Hammond? Watch here as Andy & Ari dive into this here.   (0:00) On Today’s Episode (1:00) Intro: Sorsby Latest, Next for Texas Tech (7:05) Punishments if Texas Tech tries to attain a blind transfer (14:55) Rules on Transfers in regards to Texas Tech (16:52) Baerskin (19:38) Back-up QBs: Intro (20:41) Florida (23:19) Clemson (26:11) Alabama (28:52) Notre Dame (30:11) Virginia (31:17) Missouri (31:53) Michigan (33:47) Ohio State (37:04) Tennessee (39:50) Closing out QB Discussion (41:35) NCAA: Guilty until proven innocent (56:45) Conclusion: See you tomorrow!   After the Brendan Sorsby discussion, the fellas turn to the notable teams across college football who are pleased with their backup quarterback situation. Andy & Ari go coast to coast on all the teams in CFB. Who did we miss?   To close, the guys visit a bizarre story out of the NCAA. Watch here as Andy analyzes the NCAA's proposed rules on tampering. Is it really guilty before proven innocent?   Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari Wasserman Producer: 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 Nareon 3 presented by BetMGM, the latest on the Britain Sorsby situation at Texas Tech. He's on a leave of absence. The NCAA is looking into gambling allegations and the Red Raiders trying to figure out what to do next. We'll talk about that. Plus, what teams, and I think Texas Tech is one of these, would feel comfortable if they had to play their backup quarterback, in games. In the Transfer Portal era, it is a short list usually, though it is longer than last year.

We'll break it down. Plus, the NCAA's Division I board has come up with a great idea to stop tampering. Just presume everyone guilty. We'll explain how that won't work. All on today's Andy and Arion 3 presented by BetMGM. Welcome to Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. MGM and Ari the Brendan Sorsby case is going to dominate the conversation in the college football world, probably for the next few weeks.

We're still processing all the news. It's been less than 24 hours as we record this since it broke. And there are a lot of questions. You had a question for me before we went on the air about what Texas Tech's next move is. and I do think it's interesting to talk about. So what was the thing that popped into your mind today? Texas Tech is in year two of its ascension into the upper pantheon of college football. They made the CFP for the first time.

They won the Big 12. Cody Campbell's investment paid off, I think. And then it was a great ROI enough to reinvest maybe even more into the following year to try to get further. Obviously, a big piece of that reinvestment was Brendan Sorsby, who was commanding $4 million plus for the one year. I think five million plus. Five million plus.

I think we're very safe saying $5 million plus. I don't know if it's just me. I always try to be conservative about the guesses. But, yes. A million is a conservative guess on this one. Okay. There's no spring portal transfer window. But when you have invested as much money as Texas Tech has and Cody Kemp,

has. If your primary investment into the next year, which is supposedly the person that's going to get you to score touchdowns when you reach the playoff, and you get blindsided by these allegations slash the situation, which are threatening his eligibility for the whole year, are you already bought in enough financially or invested enough financially for you to have to rectify this? somehow, you know, vis-a-vis go get somebody somehow. Well, there's two things here. So to go get somebody now, you have to do what the NCAA is calling a ghost transfer. They were calling them blind transfers, but they thought that was offensive to blind people. So they're calling them ghost transfers. I don't know if ghosts are offended or not. We'll explain what that means and the penalties that they've created.

So what you'd be risking if you do it. But before we do that, I will tell you, that there's a young man named Will Hammond, who's already on Texas Tech's roster, that they like a lot that was already there in a multi-year deal, who came into the Utah game last year and helped him win it,

and then was filling in for Baron Morton when he got hurt, he tore his ACL. And, you know, depending on who you ask at Texas Tech, if Will Hammond never tears his ACL, they may not go get a portal quarterback. They may just be rolling with Will Hammond. So he's,

coming off the ACL tier, so he's not 100% healthy. There is a chance that he's not ready for game one, but I think they're very confident that he'd be ready by like game three and that Kirk Francis, the transfer they got from Tulsa, would be able to fill in capably at first if Sorsby can't play at all. And so I think that's the reason why Texas Tech in particular wouldn't be heading out and trying to get a ghost transfer, which would be basically try to tamper somebody off somebody's roster right now

because there is no spring transfer portal window. Because remember, this time last year, people were still moving. Like, this is when Nico was moving to UCLA last year. And so you had that, you had Joey Aguilar, then moved to Tennessee. You had different opportunities for people to join teams. That's not the case this year. So here's the deal with the ghost transfer. The NCAA pass rules saying if you try to do this, like if you, because there's nothing,

there's no way to stop a person from withdrawing from one school and enrolling in another school. So you can't stop that. Now, presumably every quarterback worth having right now has a rev share deal with their school that would be fairly expensive to break. So that's another factor. But basically, if you were to do this, what the NCAA says they'll do to you is they will suspend your head coach for half the season. So six-game suspension for the head coach. And then they will find your football program 20% of its budget for the year.

They feel like that's a pretty effective deterrent. Now, here's the thing. If that ever gets taken to court, it will be launched into the sun very quickly. it cannot hold it up in court because it is essentially a group of competitors conspiring to price fix a labor market they're trying to do it a different way like the way they're doing it is they're not punishing the player so if the player isn't the one getting punished they feel like oh well you know we'll be okay no punishing the coach so that you can keep the player salaries down is still collusion you'd still lose so

the question is do you want to risk it? Do you want to risk the expense, the time, you have to get the injunction to keep your coach eligible to coach? Like you have to do all of that. And I do think there are probably schools out there, Ari, that if their high price transfer quarterback went down or for some reason couldn't play, they might try this. I don't think Texas is one of them. Okay. But just bear with me here and who's got one of the weakest schedules in college football this year Texas Tech do you know their first six games I know that it's not that hard that the back half of their big 12 schedules harder Arizona State's probably toughest game I think

Houston's going to be tough game three against Houston's going to be tough that's that's that's the Friday night game that they were everybody who's arguing about but you could probably wear a loss and still get into the big And you and you could get through the back half undefeated too if you're what you're supposed to be Arizona is supposed to be really good

obviously Cincinnati will be incentivized to beat you Yes that would be a little bit of return game if BB now so here's the thing the episode is about teams that are comfortable with their backup quarterback so

Texas Tech might feel like the cost of potentially losing Joey McGuire for a period of time or paying a huge financial penalty, the negative that doesn't, the gain of getting a new quarterback doesn't outweigh the negative of dealing with it. Also, could you convince a good enough quarterback to do it? I could think of one. Who? You haven't seen all the memes yesterday of like Dylan Raola has a chance to do the funniest thing in the world? Oh, okay. I got you. I got you. Yes, that is true. You have former Nebraska starter, Dylan Raola, backing up Dante Moore at Oregon. But again, and who's he compared to a lot?

Oh, good Lord. Yeah. Oh, my God. And what's cool? Do you want to have this conversation? You want to do this right now? You want to do this? No.

All right. Let me ask you this one, Ari. Okay. Is it worth risking six games of Joey McGuire to get Dylan Raola? I don't know the answer to that. Probably not from what I've seen. And I thought that Will Hammond actually looked good before he got hurt last year. So, like, we'll trust Texas Tech's evaluation and what they're doing.

But in theory, if they could get somebody to come. And listen, Andy, we're dealing with somebody who can shoulder the burden of this financial penalty of need be. And it's not even like they'd never have to pay it. Joey McGuire would never miss a game. The second you take it to court, it's newped. We've met Cody Campbell before, right? He doesn't strike against somebody who's going to shy away from doing those types of things if he feels it's necessary. Correct.

So, but here's the thing. The back half of your question is the more important question. Who is available to do that with? And I don't know the answer to that. And I don't know how much you would have to pay that person to, you know, fight through whatever agreements they may or made out of sign to come. Like, it would be a mess. But my question is, is how far does a program? And even if it's not Texas Tech go, because they're not going to be the only program.

in this new system that faces a crisis like this. Yeah, this is going to happen. It could happen in a more traditional way. Like somebody just gets hurt and a workout. Like this will happen. And we talked about it last year. We played the little game last year. We didn't do it until July or August of who's comfortable playing their backup in a game.

I think coaches kind of figured it out after last year because we, we sounded the alarm. And I'm sure every coach noticed even before we did that the way the market had worked is essentially if you spent money on a quarterback to be your starter, you had no experience behind him. Your backup situation was usually going to be a complete crap shoot. And I feel like teams did a better job this year of making sure they had something in the pipeline or a more traditional guy they signed out of high school who they've had.

It seemed like there were more options this year. Yeah. Well, we're going to get into all the teams, but I'll give you an example with Notre Dame and C.J. Carr. There's a three-man race for the backup job at Notre Dame, all involving guys who were highly recruited quarterbacks, who signed the Notre Dame. Two of them are freshmen.

One is a reclass. It was going to be class 27. And then one's a freshman this year. So they're both freshmen this year. And then they've got a redshirt freshman from last year. But that's much more traditional. A lot of these other ones, you see, like, you know, Miami went and got Dary and Mensa.

Emery Williams, who had experience and who had been backing up Cam Ward and then Carson Beck, he left. So I think that is the answer to the question, Andy, is are you able to get high school players that are willing to develop behind the scenes still and hold onto them? Because some places have done it. I mean, you can think of a few places that have maintained their backup quarterbacks and waiting for multiple years in this area. and the one that pops into my head is going to be somebody on the list. So, like, I don't want to blow the later conversation. But my point is that Texas Tech, regardless of what is being said now, did something. They went out and paid more than $5 million to get a quarterback.

And that action to me, regardless of what you will say the motivation was, is that when they took role of who they were and what they had and what happened, against Oregon in the playoff last year, they decided they needed to make an investment. Yeah, and they decided that before the Oregon game. Like, they were well on the path.

Remember, the Oregon game was a day before the, the portal open. I think Sorosby committed on, the game was the first of January. I think Sorosby committed on the fourth. Yeah. But the point is,

their offense was not good enough. They knew it. They went out and addressed it with a bunch of money by getting maybe the most valuable asset at the position in the portal. So that behavior alone shows you that they are in a place where they would want one. Whether they will go out and actually do something, I don't know the answer to that question. And maybe now retroactively, you can say, well, Hammond's ahead of schedule.

He played well. We anticipate that he'll be ready. But Andy, there's a lot riding on this season and a lot of money riding on it, you know, from an investment standpoint. And now you're also trusting somebody who is coming off of a very serious injury who may or may not be ready for the opener. So even if you're ready by week three, that means that you're trotting him out there in the first game of the year is against Houston.

So on Friday night, which is going to be difficult. So, like, I don't know. I don't know the answer to this, but I do find it interesting because as annoying as the spring window was for a lot of coaches, having to retain your players after spring games and making sure that your roster is set and not having a whole new roster going into the fall,

I understand how aggravating that is. I can't imagine how helpless it feels to lose a player at this point in the calendar. and then feel like you have no chance after spring practice because Swar's B went through spring practice was playing and they're springing like that worst possible timing.

Right. They were at they, Pete Nacos reported that they learned about this like about a week and a half ago. But everything was full speed ahead. Really until yesterday. So this is going to be a fascinating situation to see how they handle this because again,

if this were last year, I bet they would have gone in the portal and gotten a quarterback. For sure, for sure. Now, maybe we can all hold our breath and hope that Dylan Raola actually morphs into Patrick Mahomes, or we just go into the Will Hammond thing, or maybe something will fall out of the sky, Andy, as things tend to do in the offseason. I don't know. They do, they do.

Is there a Juko QB? Because you could take a Juko for sure. Like, you still do that. Yeah. I'm sure that those stones will be turned over. So we'll track this, but I would not be shocked if Texas Tech challenged this. Someone's going to do it. I would be shocked because, one, they like Will Hammond.

Two, I don't think there's anybody going to get right now. Who would the juice be worth to squeeze? Because that is why they made these rules the way they did. They made them where you have to think about it because while you will, ultimately prevail, it will be a pain in the ass. Yeah. And getting the player has to outweigh the pain in the ass and these players are so financially bound by agreements they've signed with their current places.

It makes it harder to pry them away. Exactly. Exactly. And so, but that's, that's what they wanted more security and continuity. Yeah. So. I don't know if my brain just doesn't work properly, but I don't remember. Like, what do they do in 2005 when this happened?

In 2005, you hoped you had somebody on the roster. I mean, the example I can think of where a starting quarterback went down, and this was in-season. Like, 2013, Florida, Jeff Driscoll goes down, and they really didn't have much to back him up, and the whole thing spiraled out of control. Like, it was a really good defense, and the offense was essentially non-functional after that. And it's kind of like Syracuse last year. Syracuse was like that last year, where once Steve Angelly went down, They went from being a pretty good team to a terrible team.

And so, yeah, you got to hope you like the backup, which brings us to our next conversation. So interesting that we're having this conversation about what happens when you have a rainy day. Because bearskin is what happens when you have a rainy day. So after these words from bearskin, we're going to talk about backup QBs, you'd be comfortable putting in a game. If you ever been caught in the rain without a jacket, at a game, at a tailgate, on the sideline walking to the car, you already know the problem. And I'm telling you right now, Oxford, Mississippi, George Ole Miss, 2024. I was getting poured on.

Didn't have a rain jacket because I thought, oh, it's too bulky to bring. I don't have to worry about that now because I have the bearskin heavy storm rain jacket. It packs into its own pocket. You can stash in your truck, throw it in your bag, keep it in your glove box. It is always with you. It weighs almost nothing. And the second the sky opens up, you pull it out, and you are covered. We're talking 20,000 millimeter waterproof.

That is expedition grade, not a flimsy poncho, a real tape seam, sealed zipper rain jacket that handles sustained downpours. And it's completely PFAS free, no forever chemicals, which is more than most outdoor brands can say. Here's the part I really like. It zips directly into the bare skin hoodie, which if you don't have one of those, oh my goodness. So on a cold rainy game day, you zip the range of day. jacket onto the hoodie and you've got a full warm and waterproof system. When the rain stops, unzip the jacket, pack it back into its pocket and keep moving. Right now, bearskin is running 60% off on the heavy storm rain jacket with free shipping. Text Andy A&D Y to 36912. That's Andy to 36912,

and they'll send you a link to grab a jacket at 60% off. Keep it in your truck, keep in your bag. next time it rains. You are the guy who's ready. So text Andy to 36912 for 60% off. Andy to 36912. All right, all right. When there's a rainy day, you obviously put on your bear skin,

but also you hope that the backup quarterback is ready to perform when the ultimate rain comes and you lose your starter. I got my bear skin in the mail last week. and it's a really great idea to be able to have that extra layer. To zip the hoodie into the raincoat? Yeah.

To stay dry. I've never had anything like that before and I've needed. Good for them for figuring that out. I like when people innovate. I do too. I like the thought and they're smart. There's a reason they reached out to us because they know people going to football games are going to need this.

You know, you're not allowed to bring umbrellas in. most stadiums. Like you need a good raincoat. And so this is an ideal situation. And it's a raincoat that you can fold into its own pocket. Yes. It's awesome. Yes. We'll be bringing that in the fall. Okay, Andy, let's get into it. Yes. All right. So we mentioned Will Hammond already as a guy that they're comfortable with at Texas Tech. Again, depending on who you ask, if he never chairs his ACL, they maybe don't go into the portal inside a quarterback. Maybe they just go assuming he's going to be the guy. Who else is like this?

And we did this exercise last summer, and it was a lot harder to come up with names last summer. Now, we did not know what Trinidad Shambliss was going to be. So that was amiss by us, but I don't think even the people at all miss knew that yet. Yeah. And there's certainly going to be people that we don't name today that will maybe prevail in a way that we can't see coming,

but that's the beauty of doing remarkable things. You're not supposed to see them coming. Andy, I don't know what order you want to go in. Well, I want to start with a guy that we actually mentioned last year. One of the few that we felt like would be somebody who could step in if they needed him. And that was Aaron Filo. So Aaron Filo was Georgia Tech's backup quarterback last year. He was backing up Haynes King.

And he had had to come in and play for Haynes King a little bit in 2024. So we said, yes, they would feel comfortable putting him in if he had to play a game. Now, Aaron Filo finds himself in a different situation now. He's at Florida, same offensive coordinator, Buster Faulkner, as he had at Georgia Tech, but he's in a competition with Tremel Jones Jr. Now, I don't know which of these guys is a starter. John Sumral says he doesn't know which of these guys are the starter. I think the assumption is that Fylo will start.

But my assumption is just from seeing Sumerl operate in the past, that he's going to play them both in the first two games, which is FAU and Campbell, and then they're going to probably figure out by the Auburn game, who's the guy. But I'd say based on what we saw in the spring, you would feel comfortable with either one of these guys taking snaps. Yeah, and I think that like the obvious places to start in this entire conversation, Andy, is places where there's an actual competition happening.

If the coach right now is struggling between two people to identify which one is the better option, that means that they're close enough in ability where if one had, to go in over for the other, that there shouldn't be a major drop-off. And, you know, this is an interesting dynamic that to transfer in with the relationship with the OEC versus the recruit that, you know, has kind of won the locker room. I'm very excited. I think Tramel Jones, Jr., he had the odds stacked against him, but I think his play keeps him in this thing, and it's kept him in this thing, and we'll keep him in this thing through fall. camp. And then it really will probably depend on what they each look like in real games. Yeah. And I do think that like there's this notion that when the transfer comes in, that the

transfer's already ahead because the transfer wouldn't have come in if he weren't. But I also like to look at the situations of things. And there's no possible way that Summerall is going to put a worst quarterback out there because the last thing on earth that he could possibly afford is to start off on the bad foot. I think that momentum is a crucial thing there. I mean, Florida has just needed momentum for years. And players aren't stupid. Remember when when Davos,

when he replaced Kelly Bryant with Trevor Lawrence and everybody's like, oh, he's going to lose the locker room? The locker room's not dumb. I mean, I was really young when that happened. I was like in my 20s when that happened, where people saying, is he going to lose the locker room? Because wasn't Trevor Lawrence, like, the number one overall player in his recruiting class? He was.

Yeah. Yeah. like Christian Wilkins like took Trevor Lawrence out to breakfast and it's like don't worry bro we got you. Isn't it isn't it crazy funny when you like look back at like talking points and things that we used to debate about in 2000? What year was that like 2000?

2018. Yeah they won the national title that year but like things that like used to be so taboo and crazy. It's like oh my God they got rid of the established veteran and put the rookie in and the freshman and how could they possibly do it? He's a five star guy and a generational talent is now a starter in the NFL.

Of course. So they had done exactly the same thing four years earlier with Colstout and Deshaun Watson. And it also played out in the same exact way, which was Deshaun Watson leading his team to a national championship eventually. So like it is. Speaking of Clemson, they're actually on this list and not in the same way, not in the they have a competition between two existing guys.

They have a competition between a veteran who's been the backup. That would be Christopher's. Vizina, and then Tate Reynolds is the true freshman from Arizona, who I think would have been out of this thing had he not really shown up in the spring. I think Vizina would just be handed it, and Dabbo has said if the season started today, Vizina's a starter. I suspect, though, they feel pretty comfortable putting Tate Reynolds in the game if they have to. Yeah, kids from Queen Creek and has bleached hair. I'm pretty on board with this. To make you feel like your high school experience? I know for a fact, and I don't know what Tate Reynolds' hair is currently. I'm just looking

at his recruiting profile and what I remember from when he was being recruited. I think that the percentage of people with bleached hair is still higher in Arizona than is in other places. Like we, we like leaned into that when it was cool, like in 2005, and I don't think we ever really truly grew out of it completely as a culture. I mean, you've got the sun all the time. You can put the sun in. I mean, if you are a hand from guy who slings pigskin for Clemson, like you can pull off bleached hair in a way that like I couldn't and good for you. But I do think that, you know, early risers or people who show up, we kind of alluded to this on the show yesterday of people who you get early returns from.

Does that mean that you have a higher likelihood of succeeding long term? And I think that there is something to that. So this is kind of the reverse of the old Clemson things, right? Because Vezina was a five-star prospect of I remember. correctly and Tate Reynolds is not. So it's not like... He was still a pretty big prospect. He's a three-starred.

Was he three-star? Oh, for some reason, he thought he's a four. Okay. Well, they like him, though. And so that's a different situation than say, Alabama. Alabama is two guys who've been on campus. Now, both of them were highly recruited.

One was very highly recruited in Keel and Russell. Austin Mack came to Alabama with Kailin DeBore. Austin Mack's been on. Alabama's roster for the last two years. He was Ty Simpson's backup last year. But Keel and Russell was on the roster last year, too. We talked about it after the spring game. Keel and Russell looked awesome.

And this is one of those I don't know what they're going to pick. I think people are predicting that by the end of the season, Keel and Russell is your guy. But I think no matter who you pick off the bat, if something happened to that person, you feel fine putting the other person in. You feel very comfortable with either one of those two. 1,000 percent.

And, you know, I do think that we have so many stories, Andy, in the past of, you know, Trevor Lawrence and Deshawn Watson being five-star kids who come in and take the world by storm. But we also have a lot of stories of people who gutted it out and became first-round draft picks, despite not ever really being the guy as a high school recruit or the guy on his team for a few years while he's in college. And that's been the case for Austin Mack at two different schools. So, you know, and Alabama clearly has got a front row seat to not every quarterback who's been drafted in the first. round out of Alabama has been the no doubt about it can't bench him rookie uh like to a tag of Iloa you know I mean Mac Jones is like a different a different career arc

Ty Simpson was the number 13 overall pick and he he sat three years before we can't three years he was sitting yeah so you know Alabama is very familiar with seeing success come at the quarterback position in multiple ways they've also had the five-star kid that it was awesome and you know had a great throw as a true freshman in the half-time of her overtime of his freshman season and they won the championship so like Alabama you've seen it happened in very a lot of ways and and most of the time it's ended out pretty good yeah and that's what you know I wonder just thinking about this reverse engineering this having this kind of competition instead of just going out and getting somebody probably puts you in a better situation going into

the season as long as you're really confident in the guys you're you're really confident in the guys got as long especially even if you're just really confident in one of them but it puts you in a better situation than just buying a quarterback for top dollar because i feel like that just tells everybody else okay that's the guy you can go somewhere else well i wonder i don't know if there's any way to to benefit from this but i wonder if you are a place andy that um does good faith quarterback competitions for people who are on your roster if that word gets around that that's how you operate and then it makes you easier for you to recruit high school players. Well, Notre Dame's a great example of this because what did we say last year?

We're like, well, we're being told that it's a close competition between C.J. Carr and Kenny Menchie. And it certainly feels like they gave Kenny Menci every chance to win the job. And he's going to start for Kentucky this year, so we'll see how good he is. CJ Carr clearly is good. They made a very good decision there. And then they've got a situation now where they've got, Ben A Bear, they've got Noah Grubbs, they've got Teddy Gerard,

they'll have to figure out who the backup is, but they have lots of options to work with. Noah Grubbs, by the way, the greatest player in the history of my high school. You talked about, you know, folks who grew up in your area in the bleached hair, any QB who can lead Lake Mary High School to a freaking state title,

we're not good at football traditionally. So Noah Grubbs, probably really good. I went to high school for you, the star of Young and the Restless? I don't think so. We did have two guys who are on our boys' volleyball team become male models. The rest of us had no shot, by the way, in high school, no shot. Oh, man, that's real kick in the knackers, bud.

Sorry to hear that for you. So I'll give you another interesting one. And this one had more layers of intrigue was Virginia. So Virginia has Bo Perbula, who's gone from, Penn State and then was the starter last year at Missouri. And then Missouri took Austin Simmons and then Bo left. And so Bo is at Virginia. Eli Holstein, who had been the starter at Pittsburgh, but then got supplanted by Mason

Heinzsche, he comes in. They also had, you know, Chandler Morris trying to get another year of eligibility. That, that ship has sailed. He's not going to be there. But now you've got two guys with pretty extensive experience who, whoever you pick, you're going to feel pretty good. Yeah, if Eli Holstein or Bo, Prubula is your backup quarterback, considering their career arcs,

that's not a deer in the headlight situation. They've all played, they both played a ton of football. So maybe more Holstein than Perbula, but, you know, different places, you know, what he went through. This isn't a guy who's a stranger to the spotlight in any way. So obviously we would have seen,

like to see how that would have played out if he didn't get hurt. I mean, he got off to a pretty hot start. I don't know if he's just proficient. Interestingly enough, enough, him getting hurt at Missouri sets up a situation at Missouri where you probably are in this boat too, because they picked Austin Simmons as their starter. They've already named him their starter. He's the Ole Miss transfer. Remember, he was the day one started Ole Miss last year got hurt. And then Trinidad Chamblis came in. So Austin Simmons has gone to Missouri. They've

named him the starter over Matt Zollars. But Matt Zollars, you saw play in place of Perbula last year. It wasn't terrible. Yeah. No, I think given time, and maturity, you'd feel very comfortable with him. Well, add them to the list. Yeah, that's what I was just thinking of that. Yeah. The other one, another situation where there is a clear, defined starter, but potentially some comfort in the backup situation is Michigan.

And it's interesting because they, you know, Bryce Underwood, obviously, starter. They went out and got Braden Fowler, Nicolosi from Colorado State, but he's not coming till after the spring. And this is somewhat. similar to them getting Mikey Keene last year who'd been at UCF in Fresno State. He just played a ton of football. And the hope was that Mikey Keene could help Bryce Underwood ease in.

Now, Mikey Keen got hurt before spring last year, and Underwood just had to take the reins at that point. But now Underwood's the guy. You've got Fowler Nicolosi coming in, but Tommy Carr as a freshman in the spring, people were really pumped about the way he came in. This is CJ Carr's younger brother, Lloyd Carr's grandson. And I think they are probably in a more comfortable situation than they ever would have imagined when all the stuff, you know, all those stuff was flying in December.

Yeah. Question, because I can't remember this off the top of my head and I might be confused. Is Braden Fowler, Nicolosi, the guy that got into a confrontation with Schuers, Is that for the game? I believe so. I think Shador Sanders is, that's the one where he was talking. Well, no, it wasn't the quarterback for Colorado State, was it? Yeah, I don't know.

I thought they exchanged it were. Now, now, Rayton Fowler, Nicholas was involved in a, in a controversy, none of his own making. His coach, Jay Norvell at the time, said, I believe accused Kansas State of tampering with him, but that was never. proven. Yeah, but he's been around for a while at the point. So, yeah, Michigan's good. How about their rival now? Uh, yes, Ohio State with Tavian St. Clair with the with the five star in state

prospect who sat last year behind Mr. Sayan. Yeah. And is signing up to sit again behind him. And then through some pretty cool touchdown passes in the spring game. They got people excited. Andy, can we have a safe space discussion real quick? Sure. And this might sound insane. Do you think that Julian San is like a top 10 pick? Like, do you think that, like, he is good?

I have no idea. No, I'm just saying, like, do you think he's as good as people make him out to be? I think he's insanely accurate. He's insanely accurate. There's no doubt about it. But it's going to be hard to judge him because he is, he is working with better ingredients than most quarterbacks. And so that has to be taken into account.

I had this thought, and we're just two guys talking ball here, and you can call me insane and I'll accept it. But does Ohio State win the national title last year of Will Howard is their quarterback? No. Okay. No, I don't think so. Just more veteran presence, more ability to escape pressure, potentially.

I don't know. Do they have a better run game because of Will Howard? I don't think so. Well, maybe because he was a better designed runner. So maybe they could have used the quarterback in a way that they weren't getting yardage on the ground with the running backs. But their offensive line would have still been an issue. Yeah, I don't think it would have changed anything. And I'm not trying to come across, Andy, as like I'm nagging him.

I just mean like he was a first year starter isn't really that mobile and was thrown into a situation where nobody could block for him. I wasn't sure, like, if Tavian St. Clair will be the starter in 2027 and beyond. and do things physically that maybe Julian can't that'll make you scratch your head a little bit. But the point is, is that, you know, Ohio State's blessed to have both. Well, we've also seen situations where the more physically gifted quarterback pushed out the guy who had already put up good numbers. And I mean, is that not the archmanning Quinn Ewer's Texas situation? Yeah.

We're because saying it has an NFL future. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Say it has an NFL future. So it's not like it would be just go do whatever you want. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out. But I feel like there's people wanting to pile on Sayan because they didn't win the national title.

I don't think like Will Howard wasn't the reason they won the national title in 2024. And Julian Sayan wasn't the reason they didn't win it in 2025. Yeah. Like there were other other team factors. that contributed to both those things. Well, I think there were team factors that contributed to Julian Say and not being able to play his best. Correct, correct.

They have to be better on the offensive line. They just have to be better, and they know that. That's not a secret. But the fact that this is even like a fun conversation to have in the middle of the summertime just goes to show you the situation that they're in. Yeah. Let's talk about another quarterback competition where we will not get an answer until probably until the person runs out on the field, game one.

But it's two homegrown guys, one redshirt freshman, one true freshman, George McIntyre and Faison Brandon at Tennessee. I think Faison Brandon really establishing himself as the true freshman in this quarterback competition in the spring makes you confident that even if he's not the guy, if you got to go to him, you're feeling all right. If you're Josh Heiple, you're feeling okay having to go to him.

Yeah, I really don't know. Like, what's your sense of how this is going to play out if you had to guess? I still think George winds up starting, but I got the sense, and this is kind of similar

to the Florida situation where one guy came in with a more prohibitive advantage and the other guy played well enough that that advantage somewhat eroded. Yeah. Not gone, but it's eroded. For sure.

Which tends to happen when you have an alien on your team. It's very easy to be seduced by the alien, Andy. For you? Oh, I am a sucker. For an alien? Yeah. Yeah. No, listen, I do think this one's going to be fascinating to watch, but I think it's one of those deals where they probably

left spring feeling a lot better about their situation. Because I got to be honest with you, Ari, the thing that would keep me up at night as a coach is if I only had one good quarterback. For sure, there's no getting around it. Yeah, because it's like, you know, obviously there are other things you want to have a good offensive line, you want to have a good secretary. But if you only had one good quarterback, especially if you had a starter with any kind of injury history, like it would freak me out.

And then situations like what happened with Sorsby, I might not say. sleep for a week. Yeah, I mean, the real question here is, what do you think is a, like, if you were a, in the NFL, they draft backup quarterbacks. Like, a backup quarterback in the NFL is an important roster position. But in college football, yeah, depending on how you handle your starting quarterback situation, your backups could all take off. Like, you could be left with, with no experience whatsoever, or no highly recruited guys whatsoever, depending on how you negotiate it. But I think that you should also budget X number of dollars for a player that's okay sitting. Yes.

If they're being compensated for their role as the backup. If maybe it's a guy who would be a starter in the G5 or G6, or maybe it's a guy. Would this be Gunner Stockton when he was a backup at Georgia and Ryan Paglisi now at Georgia? Maybe so. Or maybe that budget just gets allocated to a five-star freshman who might not be completely ready but is insanely talented.

But you have to allocate. money to somebody to exist in your quarterback room one way or the other just in case whatever happens, happened to Texas Tech or an injury or whatever happens to you. Because you can't be torpedoed by, I mean, people, how many times a year are quarterbacks that are supposed to start not starting all the time? It's like not a thing that happens. Yeah, it doesn't have to be something crazy like the Brendan Sorsby situation. It could just be a sprained ankle.

Nobody could just, it literally fall in a parking lot of a Walmart after, uh, an ice storm and twist their ankle. Like, I mean, crazy stuff happens all the time. I twist my ankle and I'm not an athlete. You twist your ankle because you're not an athlete. Yeah, maybe that's true. But, yeah, this is, this is going to be a really interesting trend to watch. Because I just, it's such a small sample size and everybody's adjusting to everything.

I would argue that coaches took more care. Maybe it was because there was only one transfer portal window, but took more care to make sure they had somebody they might be comfortable with as a backup. It feels that way to me, Andy. Yeah. Yeah. And Texas Tech is the one where we already knew the backup's name

because we saw him in one of the biggest games the year last year coming into the Utah game. So Will Hammond is a guy that we were aware of and thought, okay, if you've got to go to him, you should feel pretty comfortable. So we shall see with Will Hammond. Ari. one more thing.

The NCAA put out some news yesterday, and part of it was this bigger overarching thing that actually, and I will give the NCAA credit here, because a lot of times things don't make sense. And a lot of times they don't exercise common sense. But I do think they are exercising common sense with this five years to play five thing, basically getting rid of waivers,

which is how they're losing these eligibility cases in court is uneven application of the waiver process. So basically they're going to say you've got five years to play five. They came out yesterday and said the people whose eligibility just ended were not going to give them an extra year. It would start next year or possibly the year after that. Great. That's cool. Good comment. This is a Division I one board. And I'll say this again because I always say it. And I want people understand. The schools are the NCAA. The NCAA is the schools. When I criticize the NCAA. I'm not criticizing necessarily the people who work in

Indianapolis in the office. It is the schools who make the rules. There was another potential rule in this press release that was tucked way down under the common sense stuff. And it said it was regarding tampering.

Ari, do you want me to read you the text of this rule? Please do. Because I laughed very hard at everybody's responses to the text of this rule. It was one of those. I read it and it was like, wait, did I, does that say what I think it said? Yes, it did. So this is in regard to transfers and tampering enforcement. So they have a paragraph about changing a rule, like tweaking a rule a little bit because the Big Ten asked essentially the Demand Williams rule where if you're in a

multi-year contract that says they don't have to put you in the transfer portal because you're under a multi-year contract, then you don't have to put the kid in transfer portal if they say they want to transfer. Perfectly understandable. Everybody agreed to that. The player agreed. The agent agreed. Great.

Go for it. This is the next paragraph. The board also introduced a proposal that would direct the infractions process to presume violations occurred in cases of impermissible contact with transfer students, i.e. tampering. If the proposal is adopted by the Division I. cabinet in June, schools suspected of tampering with student athletes prior to their entry into the transfer portal would need to demonstrate that violation did not occur to avoid penalties. Translation, you're guilty until proven innocent. You have to prove you didn't tamper.

Every coach is dead if this rule passes. Done. Every coach. Andy, have you ever ordered something off of Amazon and then the package doesn't arrive and then you alert Amazon? that the package never came and then they asked you for proof that your package didn't come and like these people who are like uploading pictures of them holding out their palms empty. That's what this kind of reminds. I mean, how do you do that? Like if my wife was like, if my wife was proof to me,

you didn't text other girls last weekend. Right. I mean, I could give her my phone, but is that definitive proof? Well, yeah, I had, I had a guy on, on X.

So I didn't say Twitter that time. Yesterday saying, well, no, you can very easily. prove I can prove I didn't break my leg by showing you my healthy leg. I'm like, okay, prove to me you didn't make this phone call. I can show you the records. I'm like, no, you used a burner and you threw it away. I said you did. And then somebody else chimes in with, yeah, prove you didn't buy a kilo of cocaine yesterday. How are you going to do that? What were

they thinking? They weren't. Or they just enjoy suffering. Like, so, I wrote a comment about this on three. This literally happened three years ago where their solution to another thing was just presume guilt. And it did not go well for the NCAA. Like, I don't know how to break this to you guys. Guilty until proven innocent may work

for like a banana republic dictator. Doesn't usually work in the United States of America. The courts tend to frown upon processes that are guilty until proven innocent. Yeah, it's so anti-American. Yeah, well. So. Well, yeah, well.

So he did this. Three years ago. Three years ago. Remember when it was against the rules for NIL to be used as a recruiting inducement? Yes. Okay. So that was a rule.

And of course, everyone was using NIL as a recruiting inducement. So they start, investigating. And they had put out guidance in January 2023 saying, we are going to presume you are guilty unless you can prove you didn't use it as a recruiting inducement. One of the schools they went after was Tennessee. And Tennessee had signed Nico I.M. Aliaba to this big NIL deal

and he had chosen to go to Tennessee, probably because of the big NIL deal. Did they use it as a recruiting inducement? Of course they did. But they were going after other schools too. Tennessee was not the only one. But Tennessee's attorney general was very aggressive and very open to helping out old state you because that is how you score political brownie points in the state of Tennessee is you help out the balls.

And Jonathan Scrimetti, their AG, got some help from the AG in Virginia, and they filed a lawsuit saying, hey, you cannot enforce this because it violates the Sherman Act, the federal antitrust law. It took them less than a month to get an injunction. In the meantime, they recruited the attorney general, the attorneys general in New York, in Florida, and in D.C. to join the case and sue the NCAA. Basically, the NCAA surrendered. They quote unquote settled, but they surrendered, and those rules went away. That's exactly, imagine they try to suspend Lane Kiffin for tampering because they told, they said, Lane, can you prove you didn't tamper?

It's so insane. I don't even know how to analyze it. Like, do you know how fast the Louisiana Attorney General will be up their butts? Yeah, it's the same exact thing as the Amazon thing. Just because you have a picture of your empty hand doesn't mean that the box isn't in your bedroom. Exactly. Yeah. So you've got like, obviously the most high profile case is Clemson versus Ole Miss.

Clemson accusing Ole Miss of tampering. Now, presumably Clemson sent evidence. And if there's evidence, fine. Like, I get it. But the idea of presuming guilt and then making the accused prove a negative, like, it's nonsense. It's utter nonsense. A few years ago.

And I have some friends that are like in shape, but also like eat like animals. Hey, kind of like you. But they, one guy brought Swiss rolls. You know those. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

For the following morning after going out, he was like prepared to eat these Swiss rolls the next morning. Like this was like a hangover remedy. And one of our friends ate these Swiss rolls. And the following morning turned into a court case of who, was the person who ate these Swiss rolls while completely inebriated the night before, and I was charged with the crime. Andy, what do you know about me?

You're a raccoon, but you don't like sweets. Not really a sweets guy. Yeah. But I took a offense because maybe I have a few extra pounds that I am, that they were, I was presumed guilty. Yes. How did you prove you didn't eat the Swiss rolls? I brought evidence that said, hey, I know that I'm not always the cleanest eater.

But I would never buy Swiss rolls in a gas station. And this isn't my, this isn't my deal. And eventually one of my other friends cracked. And I said, listen, my weight is not circumstantial evidence. But see, if Lane Kippen tries that, he's not going to make Jeff Levy crack. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. But.

It's every man. himself. Yeah, somebody cracked because they were, they were a good person. Like, I ate it. All right, dude, it was me. But also, Ari, I don't want to, I don't want to make it seem like I'm defending anything here, but like every coach is tampering, except the Service Academy guys. I mean, it's every bit as, is every bit as stupid as the, you can't use NIL as an inducement. You mean to tell me that you can't tell a high school or that if you come to our school, we have a lot of donors who might pay you a lot of money? Like, that's insane. Exactly. So Tony Petitie, the Big Ten Commissioner, did ask earlier this year for them to pause enforcement

of the tampering rules so they could rewrite the rules to better reflect the situation now. Because let's be perfectly honest, in the portal, especially in one transfer portal window era, you have very little time to get to know the person you're recruiting. dare I say if they had some skeletons in their closet that might come back and bite you in the ass. Hint, hint, everything we've been talking about the last two days with Texas Tech and Brendan Sorsby. Yeah. So you're already under the gun trying to figure out how to get this person to come to you to your team. Are they good enough to be on your team?

Are they the player you want? Do they fit into your team? and you need to vet them and you're saying there is no contact before they go in the portal when once they go in you may have an hour

to figure out if you want to take them like perhaps the rules don't need to be rewritten yeah I'm going to tamper in that situation I'm not going to lie to you Ari I'm going to tamper my ass off

yeah what if you just changed the word tamper to do diligence it's not that It's still the team the player is on is going to get pissed that schools are calling that player. Yeah. Because they're trying, you're trying to rip them. Like, in the NFL, you're not calling a player under contract. I'm sure all the other men at the mall get mad at me when I walk by their wife.

I'm sure they're terrified, too. Like, look at that. Look at Mr. Stuyo girl there. Listen, man, if your player's ready to leave, he's going to leave regardless of whether he's called or not. That's the other part. They know who's leaving and who's not. Yeah. Like, they're not.

I mean, there are, there are, there are, is more open than, then they want to claim. Where, where people are offered something that they didn't know was available to them and might be swayed to consider an option that they weren't considering before. But I think nine times out of ten, the player who's tampered with would have been gone regardless. So I, I think this probably won't pass the cabinet because I don't, like, as stupid as some of these decisions have been through the years, I, I find it hard to believe they'd be this stupid. but if they do and they really start going after every coach that is accused of tampering, it is going to be so funny. So funny.

When the coaches sue and the various AGs, Sue. This reminds me of like one of the scenes from like a good fellows or something where at the end of the movie, all the mobsters are arrested and they're all like walking into the prison together. Like it's like, now like all. half the coaches in the SEC in the same room and one slicing garlic very thin.

That would be funny. Yeah, yeah. But that's not going to happen. None of them are going to get punished because you can't do this. You just can't. And I hope they figure that out. But again, part of me wonders if they will do the pass it and just let the carnage happen. You know, Andy, I'm not the brightest bald.

I don't understand a lot of things about how the world works. And I know, like for instance, last night it was lightning in our house. And I was alone with my daughter while my wife was at a work dinner. And I told her, we can't shower because it's lightning out because my parents perpetuated that lie that you're more likely to get struck by lightning through the showerhead. And I realized that that was a lie, much like pushing the light in the middle of the car at night. night in the back seat was a crime. Like, you know, these things that are parents are horrible. Your parents brainwashed you in the best possible ways.

I know, but, like, this is, like, not just my parents. This is, like, things that everybody that grew up in my generation heard from their parents. But, like, I am so fascinated by how something this stupid could get far enough to be a lower third on our podcast without somebody standing up in the room and going, this makes no sense. Like, how do we even get that far? I have always advocated that the NCAA hired Vice President of Common Sense. and that person just sits there all day. Yeah.

And people bring in, okay, here's this idea. Oh, five to play five. Good idea. Great job. Pursue that. Here's this idea. Guilty till proven isn't. No, that's idiotic and you're going to look like any sense.

Like a complete dumb ass if you put this out in the public. And somebody's so underqualified in life to understand what common sense is could do the job. That's the thing that's so crazy. This is like way down the line of like, When I saw the headline this morning, I was like, oh, my God. I was like, what are we doing here? But that's the NCAA for you. That's what they're doing here.

I was talking to somebody else and like, that is a really poorly written paragraph. I'm like, it is poorly written on purpose. Yes. Someone was embarrassed that they had to write this. Yeah. Nor do I think that there's a way to elegantly write that paragraph. Nonsense is nonsense no matter what it's wearing, you know? So we'll see, but we'll pay attention when the D1 cabinet

it meets in June. The headline's going to be that five to play five because obviously it is going to change a lot of stuff about college sports. But I'll be very, very curious to see if I don't think this will pass, but if it does, ladies and gentlemen,

start your billable hours. Let's go. Ari, it's been a lot of fun. Megaboard Wednesday tomorrow. I can't imagine what site will be perusing. Hi, Red Raider Sports. We'll talk to you tomorrow.