Andy & Ari On3 - Mike Elko is ready to win NOW at Texas A&M | Will the potential CFP changes affect Notre Dame?

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Today's show is brought to you by PrizePicks, the easiest way to play daily fantasy. All first time users who deposit and use the promo code ANDY will receive a 100 percent instant deposit match up to $100. If you deposit $100, PrizePicks will give you $100.Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/ANDY0:00 Intro2:22 Court Storming 10113:23 Tennessee Wins vs NCAA20:12 Texas A&M Head Coach Mike Elko Joins35:26 Texas A&M Schedule Outlook38:45 Tyler Horka from Blue and Gold Join1:07:12 Happy Retirement, Peter KingTexas A&M Mike Elko is today’s special guest, and he talks taking over in College Station with a roster that he knows quite well because he was the Aggies’ defensive coordinator before he left for two seasons as Duke’s head coach. Elko explains the differences in taking over a program with no prior experience there and one where he’s familiar. He also explains why one of the most accomplished strength coaches in the sport called him looking for a job.Before Elko visits, we need to talk court/field storming. We’ve talked about it multiple times on the show, and the inevitable happened Saturday when Duke’s Kyle Filipowski was injured when Wake Forest fans stormed the court after beating Duke.Andy explains why this probably won’t stop court/field storming, but it might convince athletic departments to have a better security plan to ensure players get off the floor/field.Andy also breaks down the massive loss for the NCAA in federal court on Friday. A judge in Tennessee issued a preliminary injunction that essentially pauses the NCAA’s ability to enforce its name, image and likeness rules. Will this finally convince schools to start moving toward the more sensible method of schools paying players directly?Tyler Horka of On3’s Blue and Gold joins to explain what the potential changes to the College Football Playoff could mean for Notre Dame. Tyler also helps us dive into Notre Dame’s schedule to determine whether the Irish can go over the 9.5 win total set for them earlier this month.Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and join us live, M-F at 8 am et! https://youtube.com/live/U0rYdpstgVQ

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Big show for you today. We got Texas A&M coach Mike Elko talking about retooling that roster, talking about what it's like when you take over a team that you are very familiar with, as opposed to one like Duke that he was not familiar with. Really interesting conversation with one of the smartest coaches in college football. Very excited to see what he's going to do at Texas A&M. So we're going to talk to him in about 15 minutes. Also, Tyler Horka from Blue and Gold on Three's Notre Dame site will join us to talk about what these potential changes to the college football playoff, not the ones you already knew about that seemed to surprise people last week, but the ones that they're still talking about that they've got to figure out over the next month. What does that mean for Notre Dame? Because Notre Dame had pretty much the perfect setup with this system. That's going to be, I guess it's only going to exist for two years because even though they couldn't be a top four seed, Notre

Dame could always go 10 and two and make the playoff. So they would never have to join a conference in football. That's what they want. They were happy to trade never being a one through four seed for never having to join a conference. But now if there's going to be all these auto bids, well, that forces Notre Dame into a different position. So we'll talk to Tyler about that because I imagine that Notre Dame, which has a seat at the table in these discussions, is going to have a very strong opinion on how many auto bids there are. I think as long as there's a significant number of at-larges,

when I say significant, as long as there's more than four at-larges, I think there's a shot for Notre Dame as long as there's like more than four at-larges, I think there's a shot for Notre Dame as long as they're good. Because remember the auto bids, let's say the SEC and the Big Ten each get three, then probably those spots are going to get taken up by teams that are as good. And then Notre Dame will be among the best. So they would get the first or the second at large in those situations. And that's fine. But they're going to be pretty careful about that because they're trying to protect that

independence. That is very important to them, but it's going to be tricky. Before we get to that, though, we've talked about this multiple times on the show. The inevitable happened on Saturday. A player got hurt in a court storming. So the players, Dukes, Kyle Filipowski, the storming happened at Wake Forest. Wake Forest, by the way, is a Vegas favorite in this game. But of course, Stephen Deacon's fans have been through a lot. It's been a long time since Tim Duncan and Chris Paul. They're tie-dye. They haven't really gotten a chance to show it off on national TV too much.

So, of course, they stormed the court when they beat Duke. Now, what happens? We said this would happen eventually. We keep talking about this. A fan and Kyle Filipowski collide now. If you see the overhead shot, it looks like Filipowski tries to push the guy off. The guy trips, gets rolled up with Filipowski, and then a couple other students come in and hit him. Here's the deal. We've seen the

calls for banning. Everybody wants to ban the court storming. Look to the SEC, people. The SEC banned court and field storming more than a decade ago. It has not stopped in the SEC. It will not stop. You can ban it all you want. They're going to do it. You can't control that large of a group of 18 to 22-year-olds if they really want to get somewhere. So you need to accept the fact that these things are going to happen and have a plan for it. That's what Wake Forest, where they messed up. If you look at John Curry, the athletic director, the statement he put out after the game, he said they had an event management plan, but clearly it wasn't good enough. And I think a good way to look at this is you look at Ohio State, which learned from a mistake

earlier this year. So Ohio State had a women's game where their team upset Iowa. They had a fan collide with Kaitlyn Clark. That was not good. She was fine, but it happened. The next time Ohio State had a big upset on that court was the men beating Purdue in Jake Diebler's first game as interim coach after they fired Chris Holtman. That time, they had a plan. They walled off Purdue's bench, got Purdue players off the floor, and everybody went and had a good time. That's how it needs to happen. You saw that in the Creighton and UConn game last week. Remember, UConn crushed Marquette. We were like, who can beat UConn? Nobody can beat UConn. Well, then Creighton and UConn game last week. Remember, UConn crushed Marquette. We were like, who can beat UConn?

Nobody can beat UConn. Well, then Creighton beats UConn. Creighton students stormed the floor, but they had a plan, got the UConn players off the court. It was fine. It was fine. So we need to just understand, instead of just saying, ban these things,

you're not going to ban them, or you can ban them, but you're not going to stop them. Because you look at the SEC, they have these fines in place. All the ADs just pay the fines. They're happy to do it. So you're not going to stun gun these people. You're not tasering these kids when they try to come onto the floor. You're not going to have any sort of law enforcement presence there.

That costs too much because you've got to pay overtime for all those people. I mean, you'll have a little bit, but you're not going to have a wall of them. So you're going to have minimum wage employees in yellow jackets that you gave them before the game. They're not going to want to take a lot of physical abuse. So just understand what you're doing and concentrate what you've got on protecting the visiting team, getting them off the floor and letting everybody have a good time. Letting ESPN get its beautiful overhead shot of the court storming. Jay Billis has been the best about this because he's like, listen, my company that I work for loves that shot. They love it. They want the visual.

So it's never going away and it's fine, but we need to have some, some ground rules. And so here's what I think should happen. There's two things. One, and this goes for football or basketball. There needs to be a vote before every game fan vote. You do. I don't care if you do a Twitter poll, it doesn't have to be super scientific. Just put it out there. Is this a court storming or field storming game? Yes or no. And if the answer is over 50% or even it's close to 50%,

have your plan ready. Tell your, tell your people when you're handing them their yellow jackets before the game. Listen, if it looks like we're going to win, get your butt over to the visiting bench and form a wall. That's it. So if you have that idea in your head going in, you know, and I think there's

certain teams that bring it like Duke basketball. People love to hate Duke basketball. They want to, they want to storm the court after they beat Duke. Alabama football. If you beat Alabama on your home field, you want to storm the field. Everybody wants to do that. Now, maybe that changes now that Nick Saban's retired, but that's certainly the feeling right now. So you've got that. You've got your vote. You've got your poll. You kind of know where you're at. The second thing you do is you make a video. I was at a theme park this weekend, and I was noticing all the videos they have before you get on the ride, where they show the people getting on the Harry Potter ride, and it shows you how to buckle your seatbelt. Now,

nobody ever watches these things because you see them get on the ride and they still have no clue how to buckle their seatbelt, but you have it there so that if somebody sues afterward, you can say, we showed you this video. And so you show the video before the game and then you show it at the under four timeout, which I realize you're going to think you're jinxing your home team. Your coach is going to get pissed off because it'll obviously light a fire under the visiting team. But you got to do it. This is liability here. We're just trying to minimize exposure here. So you've got your video.

Now, the video shows what to do. And maybe tell the students, because this is one where Wake Forest students messed up. Wake Forest students were on the court as the clock was expiring. Like you got to give yourself two, three, four, five seconds. Like maybe have them count down from five. So make that a whole thing. Get the cheerleaders involved. Count down from five and then boom, you're on the court.

But you have that video and it explains the process. In the video, of course, you have the students who have volunteered to be the actors in your video. You have them storm the court in a very orderly fashion. I'm going on the court. We're going to have a good time. But you don't have them like sprinting on the court. And in the video, shame people who have their cell phones out, who have their phone out videoing. Don't shoot video when you're storming the court. Remember it. Keep it in your mental

bank. It's a great memory for you to have. There'll be a YouTube video of everybody storming the court. You don't need your first person POV of storming the court. Or if you really want to do it, do it safely and strap a GoPro to your chest. Get some tech involved. It's a better bit rate or better megapixel count anyway. So you got that. The second thing you're going to put in that video is a warning that you do not interact with a player.

You do not touch a player. You don't breathe on a player because you are in their space and whatever they do to you is perfectly okay. Like we are okay with them messing you up because you are in their space. So like I've seen people say, well, Filipowski pushed the kid for who cares? The kid's in his space. Filipowski could have done whatever he wanted to to the kid. It would have been fine. Here's how you show people you mean business on that front. In your video, in your how to storm the court video, you include a clip from the malice at the palace.

Remember the big Pacers-Pistons fight that spilled into the stands? We're not talking about the Ron Artest part in the stands. We're talking about their Jermaine O'Neal punch on the court. When the dude comes on the court, he puts his fists up. Everybody's slipping because there's soda all over the court. And Jermaine O'Neal comes in and just bashes this dude. Now, Jermaine O'Neal slipped in soda before he hit the guy. Had he not slipped, he probably would have killed him.

So show that video. Show that punch. If you mess with a player, this is what will happen to you. We're not responsible. Done. Done. That's it. You've covered yourselves because they're going to keep coming. So accept that. It doesn't matter if you find them, they'll just pay it and just be done with it. I will say this kid from Wake Forest, a couple notes on him.

He did not have his phone out. So good on you for not having your phone out. But where were you going? If you watch the video, the kid that hits Filipowski is sprinting full speed somewhere. Like, I don't know where he was going. Because the idea when you storm the court is you go to center court and jump up and down. He was going so fast. He had his head down. He was going to speed right over center court and go over the other baseline. He was never going to get his momentum stopped in time to get to center court and just celebrate there. So I don't know what, he didn't have a

plan. Like the other thing is have a plan, have a plan if you're going to storm the court or storm the field. I will tell you, I was at the Alabama Ole Miss game in 2014 in football. That was the Katy Perry game. Ole Miss wins that game. Now there's a wall that separates the stands from the field. It's a solid five and a half foot drop. Put this way, the sundresses and the rather nice clothes that the men tend to wear. So the sundresses the ladies wear, the rather nice clothes the men tend to wear to the Ole Miss games. Not built for coming down off that wall. Modesty was thrown to the wind. We saw it all that day in Oxford.

Although there was, I mean, people were just making out on the field at that point. So it didn't really matter, but we saw it all. So just remember, have a plan. Know you're going into a court or field storming type event and be ready for it. And don't touch the players. That's it. Hopefully Kyle Filipowski is okay. This will not stop court storming. That's just how it goes. All right. a little more news. We have a Friday news dump from federal court in the Eastern District of Tennessee. The state of Tennessee and the Commonwealth of Virginia had sued the NCAA over its NIL rules.

And a judge said, NIL rules don't apply till the trial. Preliminary injunction was issued. The judge has already said he's pretty sure the NCAA is going to lose the trial. So now the NCAA has to figure out what do you do because the NIA rules are basically suspended for now. Schools, which have been negotiating with players beforehand through their collectives, well, they're going to keep doing what they've been doing. But now the NCAA can't enforce its rules. Tennessee's off the hook. Florida, in the Jaden Rashada case, off the hook. The rules are never coming back. I don't know what the NCAA was thinking when they were like, I know we're going to go after some of the biggest cash

cow schools because they've been negotiating NIL deals with players before they got to campus. What did you think was going to happen? Of course, one of them was going to sue you. And now the other states will probably get involved because they know they're going to win. And these rules are never coming back. So hopefully the conference commissioners, the schools, the NCAA officials, all of them will accept the fact that the inevitable is coming. The schools will be directly paying the players. They're probably

going to be employees. They're probably going to collectively bargain this stuff. Get over it. Get moving toward the next thing. Stop trying to live in the past. I would love to meet the NCAA enforcement honk who came up with the idea of, I know, let's go get Florida State and Florida and Tennessee and all these other schools. What a moron this person was. You essentially defanged the entire NCAA enforcement process. Or maybe that's what you wanted to do. Maybe that was your idea all along.

If so, galaxy brain thinking on your part. But that's where everything is right now. And so the smart thing to do, if you're the schools at this point, would be to shape some new NCAA rules about this. Now, whether they can do that or not is another question. This is why the Big Ten and the SEC formed the advisory group. Because when you have all those people in one room, somebody will come up with a good idea and then somebody else will be like, well, that doesn't work for me. And then somebody, that doesn't work for me. Well, guess what? There's nothing that's going to work for all of you. There's nothing that's going to work for 364

Division I schools. There's nothing that's going to work for 133 FBS schools. So it may be that you have to kind of break up a little bit into your component parts. And the schools that can afford stuff can do stuff. And the schools that can't afford stuff, go do something else. It's okay. It won't be the end of the world. We see the morons on Twitter all the time that are like, well, this is going to make the gap between the haves and the have-nots. That was the Grand Canyon already. Okay. Akron was never going to be Alabama ever.

Florida International was never going to compete for real with Ohio State. Never. So get over it. It's never happening. Make a system that you can actually live with that will work. And for now, through the players, enjoy. Because it's never going to get any better than this. Like once you're collectively bargaining, you're not going to make this much money. Right now, you have completely,

a completely open market and no rules. There are no rules. So cash in boys. You deserve it. NCAA got a nice run. It was a good scam for a long time, but it's probably over now. So time to make some rules that actually work. Time to do it sensibly. You don't really need collectives anymore. You kind of have the schools paying directly.

There's no rules. Again, take advantage of this, guys. It's time for some meaningful change. There are no rules. They can't enforce them. So make up your own system that'll actually work all right see it's not that hard you know what else is easy prize picks the best daily fantasy platform in the universe you're

playing against a number you're not playing as a bunch of sharks or a bunch of your idiot friends in your fantasy league, although that you might want to play against them. But download the PrizePix app. Use the referral code, Andy. They will match your first deposit up to $100. And you can play college basketball, NBA, soccer, darts, you name it. So like college basketball, you got big Monday night

and you're basically deciding Raekwon battle at West Virginia. He's playing against Kansas state. The number on him is 14 and a half points. Do you think he will score more points or less points than 14 and a half? That's one square. You pick at least two. You can go to five squares. The more squares you choose, the bigger the payout, but also the tougher it is. So if you're supremely confident about two squares, you go with those two squares. If you really want to just let it ride, maybe you go to five. That is how you prize pick. And again, everything like darts. They got darts. How many 180s are getting thrown in a particular darts match? Can you figure that out?

No power slap so far this week, but if it comes back, I'll let you know. So go to prize picks, download that app, use the code Andy, and they will match your first deposit up to $100. It is so much fun. Also fun was talking to Texas A&M coach Mike Elko because this guy, we saw him as a first time head coach at Duke and you knew right away this guy's got something because Duke's a tough place to win. He walked in there right away. They immediately got better. Remember that, that season opener against Clemson this year, the beginning of his year two. And you had our buddy, Tom Lugenbill

on the field going, these guys look just as talented as Clemson. Mike Elko knows what he's doing. And he's back at Texas A&M where he serves as the defense coordinator under Jimbo Fisher. I'm really excited to see what he does. Even more excited after talking to him. Here is Mike Elko. Joined now by the head coach at Texas A&M, Mike Elko. And coach, has anything actually calmed down for you? I realize you're now throwing strikes off the mound for Jim Schlossnagel.

Things have gone well so far, but does it ever slow down? No. Obviously, the month of February helps a little bit, and it's an opportunity for you to get around your guys and spend a little bit more time in College Station and not having to travel and not having recruits come on campus. Not that recruiting ever slows down, but it is a nice opportunity to just kind of catch your breath and start to build some roots in College Station around this program and where you want this thing to go.

How much does it help that you did spend four years there before you went to Duke and were around for the recruiting process for a lot of these guys on this roster? Yeah, I think it helps with familiarity. I think it helps you as you start making connections, building relationships, starting this process of getting with people. I think you're in a much better starting point because you've got such a strong base for what this place is about, what this community is about, what this school is about. I think where you're starting from is at a much more elevated level. And that can only help as you start to

build the foundation of this. I heard you talking about between year one and year two at Duke, you were talking about that first year at Duke and you're talking about when you first become a head coach, you have no idea how many different directions you're going to be pulled. What's it like the second time when you've been through that process once? Are you a little better prepared for it? Yeah, I think so. But I also think the timing of this was so different. What I got to do, fortunately, it was towards the end of the December recruiting period, which limited our ability to do things in recruiting, but also gave you an opportunity to really kind of hunker down and and build the staff get together with the players you know when you take over in the beginning of december in the modern world of college football you know there's an

awful lot of things going on at that point that you're trying to manage and so uh having the preparation help i don't know if it was an apples to apples type comparison. Well, and especially with this one, I think people look at the recruiting classes and recruiting rankings for Texas A&M over the last few years. But you had some work to do with the roster because they'd lost quite a bit to the portal. You had to get the numbers right. Yeah. I mean, we had some massive deficiencies in certain areas that we had to hit really, really well in the January portal. And, you know, we were able to do some things in December, but I think the majority of what we were primed to do was in December

or in January. And so, you know, we went into January knowing we needed to fill some critical spots, and I think we came out of January in a much better position with where this roster is and what it looks like moving forward. Well, and I know a lot of that is kind of speed dating, but I'm very curious about Nick Skorton, who you got from Purdue. But he's from Bryan, Texas.

He's basically from in town. How aware were you of him when you were at the D.C. at A&M and he was in high school? Yeah, very much much so because that was actually my area so when i was here as the dc i recruited the local schools and so um i got a chance to watch him move around as a sophomore and i told him this when we got him on campus for his visit i said if you had told me you were going to be 280 at that time i'd have been much more excited about being here he was kind of one of those middle linebackers with the big

structure that you thought maybe, but you didn't really know what his body was really going to turn into. And, you know, and now he comes back a couple of years later as a 280 pound, big physical defensive end with a tremendous amount of production in the big 10 and the guy that we're really excited we were able to get back here. you you worked for a long time with dave clausen before going out on your own as a dc but you were at fordham with him and bowling green and wake forest and i'm curious how much did working at those schools hone your eye in terms of what you're looking for in a recruit does it change how you're how you look at raw talent versus upside and development capability yeah I think and I've said this a couple times Andy I think our goal and our job is to make sure we recruit a roster that at the end of each cycle has a significant amount of NFL talent on

it and and I think if you look around the country, the teams that are winning and playing for this thing have a lot of NFL talent. I think, you know, my background being from smaller schools all the way up to Texas A&M and being a part of signing these big number one ranked recruiting classes, you realize that NFL talent comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes and maybe you have an appreciation for what what you're looking for in a kid that maybe predicts what his future looks like in your program what type of productivity you can get from him is it and does that change your view of of how we look at because I I work for a company where we we we hand out star ratings and that sort of thing I would imagine you come at that from with it with a very different view because you started your career and spent what 15 20 years recruiting guys that didn't have star rankings yeah listen we want to recruit five stars that are evaluated by texas a m as five stars and that's no disrespect to on three and we got a lot

of respect for the job that you guys do and the work that you do. We just might not always see eye to eye on it. And we were here and when I was here at Texas A&M, I think we did some very similar things. You know, we signed some of the top defensive players in the state of Texas. We got it to Marvin Leal. We got a Jalen Jones. Those were five star kids that were extremely highly coveted kids. And then, you know, we went and we found a three-star kid in East St. Louis named Antonio Johnson,

who we thought was a five-star talent and was wired the right way. And he made the all-rookie team, according to ESPN, this year for the Jacksonville Jaguars. And so I think we are trying to sign the best kids at their position across the country. I just think there's maybe a little bit of a different picture that we put into what defines the best kids at each position. One other thing I imagine spending so much time on a Dave Klaassen staff, he has sent me the list of the restaurants that he tries to hit when he's recruiting. When you are on his staff, how nice is it when the head coach shows up for some of those in-home visits? Because it seems like you're going to get some nice dinners out of it too.

Yeah. So Dave and I, completely different tastes on food. Dave was always a food carnivore. I always felt like the local neighborhood Applebee's was the right spot. And so, yeah, it was interesting him and I working together as long as we did with some slightly different views on what we were looking for when we were going out to dinner together on the road. We will not get into how many riblets you can put down when they do the all you can eat riblets, but let's just say my number has been high in the past. I am curious about, so Tommy Moffitt is your strength coach. And for those who don't know, Tommy Moffitt was LSU strength coach from 2000 to 2021. So through the Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron eras and I heard him interviewed he said he actually called you first yeah so it you know it was interesting obviously Dave Philly

did a great job for us at Duke and um for some personal family reasons he he decided he was going to stay in Durham and and so we were out looking for who was going to be our new guy here and you know Tommy Moffitt actually was one of the people who reached out and said, I got I got a lot of interest in the job. And so, you know, that's obviously a call that you have to take. You can't you can't not take the call from the legend of the strength and conditioning industry across college football. And when I got on the phone, two things jumped out to me really, really quickly. You know, one was how modernized his thoughts were and how much he has evolved over the years to kind of match what sports science has brought to strength and conditioning, what load management and GPS systems have brought,

and just kind of his integrating that into what is still at its core, an old school program. And then just his hunger still you know I think he's a guy who's obviously accomplished so much in college football and in strength and conditioning but is is extremely hungry to go build another program leave his mark on another university and I think is extremely hungry to get back into that national championship picture and when you combine those two things i don't know that there's much more you could be looking for well and you've been in this industry a long time what does it say about a guy that he was the guy for three different administrations and three different coaching staffs that won national titles yeah i mean it says everything

and when we went into the process this was something we talked about we did this at duke and i think it was important here for us too you know everybody talks about the strength and conditioning coach being an integral piece of building the culture in your program a lot of times as we look at what makes a successful strength and conditioning coach a big part of it is just program success because Because if that's really the guy that's building the culture, and that's the guy that's building a lot of those intangible qualities that lead to winning, what you want is a strength and conditioning coach that is one. And when you can identify someone who is one at the highest level, under multiple regimes with different

philosophies and different head coaching styles. I think it just speaks to the quality of culture that gets built in that weight room. And that to me is a huge piece of what we're trying to get done. One of the first things you did when you got to Duke was basically interview the players and ask what they felt like they were getting out of the program, what they felt like they needed to get more of out of the program and i i heard you say that that in that particular case you identified nutrition as a as a point of emphasis that you needed to get fixed right away did you do the same thing at texas a m did did you talk to all those players and and what did you feel like you needed to to attack right away after talking to them yeah you know it's funny i did talk to all the players

it was a little different because i think i had a little bit more knowledge on what i felt like were some of the things that we needed to get better at and um you know i just we we maybe had to get just back to being a blue collar program i think that probably more than anything and that's um you know something that that is really critical when you compile talent and you compile elite players from all over the country, how you tie those people together and connect those people together and get those guys to understand that there's still a level of work ethic that's required in order to elevate to the levels you really want to get to, that became our focus, right? And some of that is, you know, simple as, you know, coming to meals together, sitting down, putting your phone away and having conversations with your teammates to, you know, maybe a little bit different approach to what we're doing in strength and conditioning or some

of the different things we're doing from a team building standpoint in the off season, just a lot of different little nuances that you can build into your off season program to help pull all of this thing really together. One of the things that struck me about the first Duke team you had was that you saw the personality of that team pretty much from day one watching them play how much of that was instilled now in the in the offseason program and how's that how's that working with with these current guys yeah i think all of it's instilled now i think this is the time of year where you get to focus on who your identity is or what are those intangible factors that you want to define yourself as. I think the closer you get to the season, the more ball-centric all of your

conversation has to become because, you know, pretty soon there's going to be a game plan for how we're going to go out and try to beat Notre Dame. And that's going to take the priority over everything. But along the way, you can't lose sight of some of these, you know, some of the grit, some of the mental toughness, some of the togetherness, some of the culture things that you have to do in order to have the program be as successful as you want it. And now is the best time of year for that. You know, there's no football. You're not really, there's no, you're not stressed up against the time gun to get things ready. You get to really just dive in and focus on those things and building that foundation the way you want to.

You brought in Colin Klein as your offensive coordinator. You talk about grit and that kind of program. That's what he played in at Kansas State. That's what he coached in Chris Kleiman's administration at Kansas State. How did you decide that he was the guy? Because you guys, your paths hadn't crossed, had they? No. So I did, you know, my process in that is similar.

What I do is I sit down and I watch guys that I think make sense for us and study them as if I was a defensive coordinator and just kind of look through the schematic challenges they present, how they sequence plays, how they maneuver their offense throughout the season. And I did that with a handful of potential candidates that I thought made sense and then got a chance to kind of hone in on Colin and really talk to him and spend some quality time with him. And, you know, you talk about being in a gritty program he's also about as gritty at quarterback as there ever was yeah exactly um you know I just think it it kind of matched and there's a great human he's extremely intelligent he's very bright he's got a really good feel and

pulse on how he wants to attack defenses uh and I think our our philosophies married very well together our personalities married very well together and he's obviously been a great addition for us here and you guys open with Notre Dame you mentioned that that's obviously a game that everybody's excited to see but how weird is it going to be you go to a new school Notre Dame comes to town and it's your quarterback Riley Leonard from dude yeah it's it's uh it's the modern era of college football, right? This is this is how it goes nowadays. And, you know, obviously, I got so much respect for Riley and he's such a great kid and a great quarterback and a great competitor. And, you know, I pick an awful lot of quarterbacks.

I'd rather be on the other sideline for me and my opener than him. But, you know, it is what it is. And that's the world we live in today. And so I think there's a lot of mutual respect between the two of us. But I think he knows, like I know, we're both high-level competitors too. And so for those three and a half hours, we won't be rooting for each other. And then we'll shake hands and wish each other the best for the rest of the year. I can't wait to see that game.

I can't wait to see what your team looks like. Coach, thank you so much for the time. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on, Andy. We'll do it again sometime that is mike elko your new texas a&m head coach and it is going to be fun to watch them that schedule obviously starts with notre dame and then it's the the new sec it ends with texas coming to college station there's a lot to chew on there, including basically you start five of the first six at home. You got to go to Gainesville, and then you got to go to Starkville.

As those go, as road games in the SEC go, those aren't as bad as they could be. And then you get LSU, and the at Auburn, Texas closing kick is pretty rough. Did anybody catch how diplomatic Mike Elko's answer was when I asked him the first thing he wanted to attack? Because he talked about when you bring in elite talent, you have to show those guys that there's a certain work ethic involved. You catch that? It was a very diplomatic way of saying that despite the fact that they brought in all these five stars, it might not have been the most cohesive group of five stars. And I don't know if that's a shot at Jimbo Fisher or just it's facts. They didn't play like they had as much talent as they had. And so Mike Elko's job is to make them play like they have more talent than they have, which is what his Duke teams played like. So that's the challenge there. But it is interesting because

people I've talked to about Texas A&M, and this is not from Mike Elko, this is folks that have followed the program closely for years and years, felt like that group of players, especially that 22 class, but also just classes in general in the later Jimbo Fisher years, that yes, there were some big time talents that were brought in, but a lot of it wasn't collected in an organized way. It wasn't collected in a class balance or positional balance kind of way. And you heard Mike Elko talk about having to do a lot of work with the roster. Some of that because people left the transfer portal, but some of it was because there were positions where they were deficient.

There were positions where they had more guys. Like D-line, they recruited a ton of D-line and even though they lost some, they still had plenty. So it just depends on how you focus your recruiting efforts. And that's why I asked him about learning to recruit as a Fordham coach, as a Bowling Green coach, as a Wake Forest coach, because you do tend to look at things differently. Now, the trick is to be able to use those evaluation skills to parse the talents of the high four stars and the five stars that you can now sign at Texas A&M. It's not about doing what we thought Brian Harsin was trying to do,

which was find gritty three stars that were going to then somehow play against Georgia and Alabama at Auburn. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about understanding as, as Kirby smart does, as Nick Saban did, which high four stars, which five stars fit what you do and allow you to do it even better. That's what Mike Elko has to figure out. So if he can do it, it's going to be fun in college station, but the team coming in week one is going to be a very tough opponent. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and we are joined now by Tyler Horka of On 3's Blue and Gold. He covers Notre Dame. Tyler, we got to talk

about a lot of things because we've been doing these deep dive segments into the team's schedules when the win totals come out. So FanDuel put out Notre Dame's win total at nine and a half. We got to talk about that, but I want to talk more about Notre Dame, the playoff, and relevance. Because you got it from every direction last week, including Stephen A. Smith. Yeah, I mean, in February, that's exactly what you want. Like, I was like, thank God Stephen A. Smith is talking about Notre Dame football. Obviously, in March, that's going to be a separate story. Because we're going to be covering football practices.

We're going to see Riley Leonard on the field in a Notre Dame uniform for the first time. So in March, we're going to have actual stuff to cover. But when Stephen A. Smith started talking about Notre Dame football and relevance, I was like, thank God it's February. This is exactly what we need. And like we were talking about off air,

it gave me a little material to write a column as well. So we'll talk about that, obviously. But you just spent all that time talking to Mike Elko, and I thought it was a really good conversation. And that's kind of where everyone's heads at. Like the Stephen A. Smith thing, that was a blip. It lasted for about three or four days. But really, Andy, this entire offseason, these Notre Dame fans are thinking about Texas A&M because when you look at the schedule, and we're about to do that right now, it's that game. And then you look at all these other games and you're saying, holy cow, we could go into our first bye week undefeated. We might still be undefeated when Florida State rolls in the first week of November or second week of November, but Notre Dame has a bye in the first week. So Andy, I don't

know about you, but I'm looking at all these games and I'm thinking if you can just get by Mike Elko and Texas A&M at College Station in week one, who else is going to trip you up before you get to Florida State? Yeah, well, I got a few ideas. And so that nine and a half win total, and I always feel this way when we look at a team schedule, I'll throw Florida's out there this year. Cause that's the one everybody's saying is the hardest. We're not, that's going to be the most difficult schedule. There will be two teams on that schedule who we think are going to be good, who stink. And it won't end up being.

And the same thing in the opposite direction is going to happen for Notre Dame. I think, I think there's going to be a couple of teams on the schedule that you're like, wait a second. These guys are better than we thought. I I'll tell you, and I'll tell you which ones I think they are Louisville who beat them last year, I think is going to be better this year than they were last year. Uh, by the way, that schedule has a, has the wrong Miami on it, on the graphic. Uh, Miami of Ohio is the team they're playing cradle of coaches, Miami of Ohio, but that's not the team I was talking about. So Louisville, I do think Jeff Brom has a plan. They were excellent. The transfer

portal, the other one, October 19th, Georgia tech, they play at Mercedes Benz stadium. That's, that's going to be a most, you know, half Notre Dame crowd still, but I think Brad key's done a great job at Georgia tech. They're going to be a lot tougher than people realize. Yeah, I remember covering football games here in South Bend, and I would get home, and we have a magazine to put out at Blue and Gold Illustrated the day after every single game, and I would be sitting in this exact same chair, put the TV on, just kind of float through the other games, and I'd be surprised pleasantly at what Brent Key was doing with that Georgia Tech team. It seemed like every week I'd get on there and say, how is Georgia Tech hanging with this team? Or how is Georgia Tech beating that team? So that one does scare me a little bit. The Louisville

one scares you for all the reasons that you just mentioned, Andy. It's a good football team. Jeff Brom is a good football coach. They did well in the portal, like you said. So that one should scare Notre Dame fans. But I think Notre Dame is going to come into that one with a little extra themselves because of what happened in Louisville last year. You can make a case that was probably Notre Dame's most embarrassing outing of the season. I know the 10 dudes at Ohio or against Ohio State here in South Bend. That was embarrassing for other reasons, but it was a no-show at Louisville and Sam Hartman threw three picks and, and that game was over early in the third quarter. So, and then I want to kind of piggyback on something else you said.

I totally agree with the, someone's going to surprise you narrative. And then someone's going to be surprisingly bad. Like last year for Notre Dame, that was USC. Like Caleb Williams Williams I still think was one of the three best I mean top five obviously he's a Heisman Trophy winner quarterback in college football and Notre Dame just ran over those guys here in South Bend and I think you're you're looking at USC and you're thinking okay that that's no longer what like we went into last season thinking Ohio State Cle Clemson, USC.

If Notre Dame can go 2-1 in those games and win everything else, they're a college football playoff game. Well, it turns out they do go 2-1 – no, they go 1-2 in those games, mind you. And then the other thing was, like you said, Andy, someone's going to trip you up somewhere along the way, and that ended up being Louisville. And then you look at Clemson last year as well the way their season was going if you were a Notre Dame fan you were thinking okay we're gonna you're feeling great about that game going in yeah you're gonna beat these Tigers and then that ended up being one of those games that you surprisingly lost as well so getting back to the whole crux of this conversation I think 9.5 is the perfect number because they won nine games

last year if you keep going like Marcus Freeman was eight number because they won nine games last year. If you keep going, like Marcus Freeman was eight and four year one, nine and three year two. If you think it's going to be 10 and two and year three, but it could also be nine and three again, not at 9.5. That's the number. Well, and really it becomes a question of, is Notre Dame going to make the playoff or not?

Because 10 and two, I think gets you in, in this system. And I don't know how much you laughed last week. I was very tickled by people discovering for the first time that Notre Dame could only be the five seed in this playoff system. Like where have you been for three years? This is, this is not a secret, but, but it is, I mean, this is the ideal situation for Notre Dame I think because it allows them to keep their their independence if they go 10 and 2 they're in now we don't know how long it's going to last after the next two years but it does feel like if they can win 10 games this year Tyler they're in the playoff yeah 10 and 2 is going to be weird because it's either going to be you're 10 and 2 and you tripped up somewhere that you shouldn't,

or you're going to be 10-2 and you lost to Texas A&M and you lost to Florida State. And I think there's going to be conversations about Notre Dame at that point. It's going to be, okay, they're 10-2, but who'd they beat? Because if they go 10-2 and they lose to Texas A&M and they lose to Florida State, then, yeah, you beat Louisville, who's probably going to be ranked at the time. We talked about Georgia Tech could be a decent win, but those might be your two best wins if you lose to both Texas A&M and Florida State. So I think you've got to win

at least one of those games, obviously, if you're Notre Dame. You win both, then I think you're in because you have two really good wins at that point. And you probably don't trip. If you beat both of those teams, Andy, you probably don't trip up twice elsewhere. Right. Notre Dame beats Texas A&M and beats Florida state. I think we're talking about an 11 and one Notre Dame team. And then at that point, Andy,

we're talking about exactly what Notre Dame wants because Jack Swarbrick was in the room when this college football playoff was designed. If Notre Dame is 11-1, you could be talking about the number five seed or the number six seed and being one of those two best teams that hosts a playoff game in the first round. And that is what, getting back to what you were saying a minute ago, people don't understand and realize Notre Dame wanted this because they want to play a home game in December as obviously a higher seed compared to who they'll be playing. If they're a five seed, they're going to be playing the 12 seed. You should win that game, especially at that stadium that you're showing on the video right now. So that's kind of the best case scenario for me for

Notre Dame this year. I don't think they're a 12-0 team. Marcus Freeman's not there yet as a head coach, but if you go 11-1, you're talking about hosting a home playoff game in December, for Notre Dame this year. I don't think they're a 12-0 team. Marcus Freeman's not there yet as a head coach. But if you go 11-1, you're talking about hosting a home playoff game in December. And that's why Jack Swarbrick was in that room and said, yeah, we'll give up our bye if it means that we can play at home in December as a 5-6-7 seed, something like that.

And it's a fair trade because they don't have to play a conference championship game. And so the teams that will be in the top four will have had to win a conference championship game. So it makes sense. There's this narrative that Notre Dame has to play an extra game. It's like, no, actually, Notre Dame has not been playing an extra game for as long as they've been in college football outside of that 2020 season when they had to play in the ACC. So, yeah, that's the trade-off is okay. If you're Alabama or Georgia or someone who's going to win the SEC and you don't have to play that first

round game, you still had to presumably win the SEC championship to get to that point. Notre Dame is sitting at home watching those games on their couch that weekend. So that's the trade-off right there. Yeah. Well, let's talk about this team. Riley Leonard comes in at quarterback, Mike Denbrock, the new offensive coordinator. He was the offensive coordinator for LSU. Jane Daniels won the Heisman trophy, Malik neighbors and Brian Thomas. Awesome at receiver. Can Notre Dame, you know, capture some of that magic. I, my question for you, Tyler, cause I, I think we know Riley Leonard's good. I think we know Mike Denbrock is a good play caller, but who's he throwing to? Who's Riley Leonard throwing to? Hodgepodge group of guys. I mean, they just got three from the transfer portal,

Bo Collins of Clemson being one of those. He's actually the one that's not on campus. Jaden Harrison of Marshall and Chris Mitchell of Florida International. Both of those guys are on campus and they will be at spring practice, like I was talking about a little bit earlier next month. So that's when we kind of figure out the pecking order and the hierarchy of all this, I think, is when we see these guys on the field for the first time next year. But you've got those three transfers. You've got three, I believe it is, true freshmen coming in.

Cam Williams is the big one of those three. He was borderline five-star. I think he got dropped down to a four-star with all three of his latest rankings. But, I mean, he's a dude. He's a guy that can contribute right away. So I think he's in the mix. And then you have that interesting group of returners, like the Jaden Greathouses of the world.

Jordan Faison came on. And I think I was watching Notre Dame's lacrosse game yesterday, which, by the way, Jordan Faison scored a goal and he scored a goal in all three lacrosse games that he's played in his college career for the defending national champion, Notre Dame Fighting Irish. So that is very impressive. But the commentator said that he was talking to Sam Hartman at the Senior Bowl a couple of weeks ago. And Sam Hartman said, yeah, Jordan Faison by the end of the year was our best wide receiver at Notre Dame. So that's a good thing. And it's a bad thing because it's obviously an unforeseen talent that came up and now you have a guy for the next three years. But if a scholarship lacrosse player who was a walk-on for your football program, if Sam Hartman is definitively telling you, hey, he's our best wide receiver,

what does that say about the other guys? I'm not sure. It says a lot about Jordan Faison, but I'm not sure what it says about the other guys. So I agree with you, Andy. That's the big question. Will this team have receiving potential? We're going to find out a little bit next month. And then obviously August 31st in College Station, we'll see who Riley Leonard is throwing

to then. college station we'll see who riley leonard is throwing to them well as a as a lacrosse dad who now has to watch a lot of lacrosse pretty much every day of my life uh the idea of a great midfielder as a slot receiver a midi they call midis yeah it's oh yeah it definitely works because that's that's the guy who has to be kind of the, he's kind of a point guard on, on the lacrosse field. And yeah, that would be a, that would be excellent. The, the, the agility, the, the aggressiveness, all that stuff that's required. Great for slot receivers, perfect body type, everything. So that I am excited about that. I'm glad Sam Hartman said that because I think that's something Notre Dame has just been missing. The tight end has been the focal point of their passing game for what feels like the last four or five years. If they could just get a couple of guys where maybe you got some guys leading up on

the outside, but also somebody who can come from the slot and get open, it changes it all. And I think Riley Leonard changed a lot. You're going through every Riley Leonard start at Duke, which I love for a series of stories. What have you learned so far about Riley Leonard? Heck of an athlete. I mean, that's where it starts. And I'm going to do a column at the end of this all just kind of say, because we've got the individual stories and you can go to blueandgold.com and find all those. There's one story per start. He started 21 games at Duke. Every single game that we've been through, I think we have four left. The broadcast starts with, hey, remember, this guy played basketball in high school

and he wanted to be a scholarship basketball player. I think he had a conversation with Coach K, like, hey, Coach, if you let me walk on, man, I think I can do something. Every single game starts with that. And then you see it. You see why. I mean, the 44 yard touchdown run against Clemson. The game that I just most recently did was Northwestern, who ended up being a pretty good team last year. And he beat Northwestern twice in his career, but he had a 33 yard run last year against Northwestern. This is obviously before the injury stuff started.

That was just incredible because he avoids a sack in the backfield. I mean, it's a head-on rusher, pre-rusher, and he just kind of elusively sidesteps him, gets up to the line of scrimmage, and there's about three or four guys who could tackle him there. And somehow, all of a sudden, he's running free. And on the sideline, he finishes it with a little stiff arm on the defensive back. So the athleticism is there. As as far as the throwing I think that's where this conversation it doesn't start there because he is such a good athlete but it needs to end there because that's what it's going to come down to for him we talked about the wide receivers and he has that's out of his

control but what is in his control is accuracy making the right reads I think there's a lot of times in these games that I've been going through them where he just comes off of reads and then takes off and runs. And that's what an athlete will do. He will overly rely on his legs a little bit. But then there are other times where he just throws to the wrong guy and there's an open read. And maybe it's because he doesn't get to that read or he isn't anticipating it. But I think these are things that Mike Denbrough can work on with him because you mentioned Jaden Daniels a little bit earlier. I remember watching Jaden Daniels at Arizona State and I never thought, oh yeah, that guy's going to win the Heisman Trophy someday. So I think there was something that Mike Denbrock said to him or there's some

conversations that were had. And look, Jaden Daniels, all the credit goes to him because he eventually just kind of tapped his potential and he was like I am this guy but I think Riley Leonard could do that too I think if Mike Denbrock says the right things Riley Leonard can learn hey I am this guy like I'm not just the runner I can make these throws so the potential is definitely there and I mean he wouldn't be talked about as maybe one of the best NFL prospects in this class if like like I think the potential is there. Uh, if he just kind of taps it like Jane Daniels did. All right. So Tyler, we talked about this year and the playoff system changing this year feels tailor-made for Notre Dame, almost as if their athletic director was in the room and it was created. Uh, but now there's talk about they're going to change things starting in 2026,

automatic bids. And the number we've heard, like Ross Dellinger at Yahoo put the story out where he was talking about 14 team playoff, 14. And 14 seems to be the number that everybody's talked about after that meeting last week, not 16, even though 16 was thrown out there, but 14. And then you could have as many as four auto bids for the SEC, four for the Big Ten, and then two each for the ACC and Big 12, and then one for the highest ranked group of five. I'm bad at math. This is a bad at math show.

That sounds like 13 of 14 spots. That's a lot. Yeah. I was just in my head going, okay, okay. I mean, once you, once you said big 10 and sec at four each, that's already over half the field right there. There's only six left. And then obviously there's two other power conferences or whatever we're calling those these days. Yeah. We're talking about seats at the table. I think that's the cliche that a lot of people like to use. Notre Dame is literally

watching these chairs get filled up while it's just sitting there. And that's when this gets scary. Because right now, like you said, Andy, this is tailor-made. This is set up perfectly. Seven at-large spots. I mean, if you look at going back to when Brian Kelly was rolling with this program, winning 10 games every single year, five years in a row, you look at where Notre Dame finished in the polls those years, they're going to make a 12 team playoff. And even last year when Notre Dame went nine and three, they got close. Like it was close.

And that's why I think at the beginning of this conversation, Andy, you were saying 10 and two, that gets you in like you're in. And I'm saying 11 and one, you're obviously in at that point. But as soon as you go to a 14 teams and the SEC has taken up, what, over a third or around a third of those in the Big Ten, and then that's over half, that gets scary for Notre Dame. You'd have to be 11-1 or 12-0. Yeah, if there's only one at large.

And even 11-1 might not get it for you, probably would. But that's the thing. Now, I still think that this is a beginning of a negotiation type situation where they throw that out they're okay with less than that so it if even if you went to three for the sec three for the big 10 one each for the acc and big 12 one for the highest rank then you have five at larges notre d Dame's probably cool with that. But anything that forces Notre Dame toward a conference, I think is problematic for them. Yeah. I mean, that's what we've been dealing with for the last two years, right? For the entire time that I've been here, this will be my fourth

year covering Notre Dame football. And it seems like for two or three of those, all we've been talking about every single off season, except for when Stephen A. Smith goes on a little rant about relevance, is should Notre Dame join a conference or not? And it's funny, it's literally become a total war, Andy, because if you have no dog in this fight and you're not a Notre Dame fan and you are completely on the outside, you're screaming, why aren't you joining a conference? Just get in. That's kind of where that Stephen A. Smith rant started because I think the beginning of the conversation, they were talking about, okay, how does this changed playoff, which really isn't a changed playoff, affect Notre Dame? And then they started talking about relevance. But that has been the dominating offseason storyline every single year for probably the

last three years is should Notre Dame join a conference? And look, they just re-upped with NBC and got all the money Jack Swarbrick talks about his tenets of what needs to happen for Notre Dame to remain independent it's money and access to a college football playoff those are the two big ones the third one is do we have a tv home for our non-revenue sports like the Olympics the Olympic sports I was watching Notre Dame lacrosse yesterday on ESPNU. So that right now, that box is getting filled as well. All three are getting filled. So as it stands right now, Notre Dame is happy not to join a conference.

But as soon as you start taking up those chairs at the college football playoff table, that changes things because Notre Dame wants to win a national championship. And if the path and the access is not there, they will make sure they make the necessary changes to arrive at a place where they can get into the college football playoff rather easily. And that format is supposed to be approved within the next month because they need to do it for TV purposes and planning purposes. But we'll see,

because obviously there's still more realignment potentially in the air. So people have Aqua, the successor to Jack Swarbrick, who's retiring this year, may have, may have to do some stuff too, but let's, let's talk about the, the Stephen A. Smith thing, because the relevance discussion for Notre Dame is always hilarious to me. Like was Michigan irrelevant before they won the national title last year? No, they were very relevant in the sport of college football. Always a relevant conversation. My favorite part of any Notre Dame thing is when I put out a Notre Dame story or we have a Notre Dame segment on the show, people are like, I don't care about Notre Dame. Like, yeah, you do. Cause

you just told me you did. Yeah. When we do say it? Yeah, we do that same segment, and it's – even if it's a school like Penn State, which is a big deal, you don't have people, I don't care about Penn State. They don't do that. They just ignore it. But Notre Dame makes people feel a certain kind of way, one way or the other. Yeah, and Stephen A. Smith knew what he was doing.

Stephen A. Smith has known what he's been doing for a long time like he's a smart dude uh and then Andy people started trying to tell me that Stephen A. Smith is not relevant and I was like no no no I put it in my very highly relevant yeah he's very highly relevant he knows that so that you're talking about two very relevant things and and that's why it got as much play as it did. So, I mean, I was not surprised that he said it. I was not surprised at the backlash. And then some people, the people that were rushing to agree with Stephen A. Smith just proved my point even further. And what you were just saying even further, Andy, because if Notre Dame's not relevant, you're not going to be talking about them. And everyone started talking about them with that little rant. So Notre Dame's not relevant, you're not going to be talking about them. And everyone started talking about them with that little rant.

So Notre Dame is relevant. And we were talking about this off air as well. Have the Dallas Cowboys not been relevant for the last 30 years just because they haven't won a Super Bowl since January of 1936? And this is where Stephen A comes in. Stephen A has built a career trolling the Dallas Cowboys. I mean, there's obviously more to him than that, but my, perhaps my favorite thing he does is troll the Dallas Cowboys and their fans.

And it is like that their show, if it doesn't have a Cowboys segment in it, that's probably less than 10% of their shows. So he gets it. And Notre Dame, you made this comparison in your column, very much the Dallas Cowboys of college football. Everyone has an opinion on them, and usually they hate them, but they feel about them very strongly, as opposed to other teams where you just don't feel that strongly. And that's why I'm actually a Cowboys fan, born and raised in the Dallas

Fort worth area. So I, I can connect and sympathize. You probably, you were growing up when they were winning Superbowls. No, the last time that they won a Superbowl, I was three or four months old. I was born in 1995. So good God, I'm old. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry about that. I am literally like the living embodiment of whenever I'm old. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry about that. I am literally like the living embodiment of whenever I'm having this conversation, I can say I can almost say that the Dallas Cowboys have not won a Super Bowl in my lifetime. I can say that Notre Dame has never won a national championship

in my lifetime. And I think that, Andy, correct me if I'm wrong here. If I were to say that Notre Dame is America's team because you either love them or hate them. I honestly grew up indifferent when I was in Texas. Like I saw Notre Dame and I was like, that's Notre Dame. That's cool. That's college football. And this is think of the mid thousands. I mean, we're talking Charlie Weiss and I was still like Notre Dame is Notre Dame and I'm a thousand miles away in Texas. And I still felt that. So you either love them or you hate them or you're weird like me. And you kind of grew up in the middle of that, but like as great as Alabama has been for the last 15 years, Andy, would you say that Alabama is America's team or no, I do think people hate them in the Darth Vader way. way i will say so when i was a kid when i was a kid in the 80s the hatred for notre dame was fairly similar to the hatred for alabama and in the

saban era so good yeah yeah now was it there there's more grudging respect for the saban alabama teams like people just hated notre dame but but with with the Notre Dame hatred back when I was a kid, it was very different. It was because Notre Dame was always on TV and your team might not always be on TV. People who are your age or younger do not understand what it's like to not be able to watch your team on television every week. If you want to laugh, there's an old clemson recruiting video from like 1981 that's on youtube and they talk about how many times clemson's been on national television in the previous two seasons like it's insane and but notre dame was all like every notre dame home game was on nbc every notre d Dame game got rebroadcast on Sunday mornings pretty much

everywhere in the country was syndicated and so you really hated Notre Dame because you're like how come my team didn't get that treatment but now it's not the same yeah and I guess that's what I'm talking about when growing up in the mid-thousands it's like yeah Notre Dame's on TV but at that point everyone else kind of started to be on TV as well. So, yeah, but that's relevance, though, Andy. And that's like the foundation of relevance. Getting back to this, you know, what started this conversation. Why is Notre Dame relevant in 2024 without having won a national championship in 36 years?

It's because they were the team that was on TV every single week. And Notre Dame was college football. here's a nebraska fan popping in i would go as far as to say nebraska is still relevant obviously we still talk about nebraska how many times have you talked about nebraska on this show andy and they have a spot in exactly that's relevant right because every time i talk about nebraska lots of people watch it. Yeah. And we haven't been talking about Nebraska this entire time, but a Nebraska fan just popped in and wanted to say something.

So that's relevance. And that was the headline of my article even was don't confuse success with relevance because they're two entirely different things. And Nebraska is an even greater example of that because Notre Dame has actually still been successful in the last uh five to ten years definitely the last five years they made they made the 14 playoff like twice how many how many programs would kill to have done that yeah i there's only eight that have made multiple college football playoffs and there's only six since the college football playoffs started in 2014, only six teams have won the national championship. So if you're telling, and there's the sixth right there. If you're telling me that only half a dozen teams out of 130 plus in the FBS can be relevant,

then I don't know why I'm on this show at 9am talking about college football, because six fan bases that should care about this stuff, but it doesn't work like that. Yeah, because I see a full Notre Dame stadium every week. I see 100,000 plus at Tennessee every week. I see all these places that are quote unquote irrelevant. It seems like they're pretty important to some people. So exactly. Well, Tyler, thank you so much. I'm with you on Notre Dame's schedule. I'm very excited to see what they look like in the Mike Denbrock, Riley Leonard era of offense. And 9.5, good number. Yeah, man, just get through that first one,

and I think they're going over 9.5. You lose that first one, and then you're just talking about doubt the entire year. So that's a huge one, and that's what makes college football so awesome like we get to start with that and it's a barometer for both sides because you talked to Mike Elko this entire time I am so interested and intrigued from his perspective because I can literally visualize both things Andy at the end of that game you're either talking Mike Elko has arrived and he's at Texas A&M and he doesn't need a rebuilding year or whatever he's going for it now or if they lose that game everyone's just going to be saying hey give them time it's going to be okay like it's going to be

one of those two things and and that's going to be awesome because you get to talk about that always no matter which one it is the the the other great thing about college football is we get to massively overreact to things. And that is a game that no matter what happens, we will massively overreact. And I cannot wait. Tyler, thank you so much. Thank you, guys. The great Tyler Horka from Blue and Gold.

He covers Notre Dame. If you are a Notre Dame fan and you're already subscribed to Blue and Gold, what are you waiting for? Get over there. The best Notre Dame coverage on the internet. Before we go, I do want to say one thing. I want to just pass along congratulations.

Peter King, famous NFL writer, used to work at Sports Illustrated. Now works for NBC Sports. He wrote a column today announcing his retirement and just wanted to say congrats to him. Count me among the people who believe that this retirement quote, I'm using air quotes here, won't last too long because I'm not sure Peter knows how to be bored and I'm not sure he knows how to not do this stuff, but what a career for those of us who, who made a lot of our career writing on the internet, Peter King kind of showed us the way he started out with a column that started in the late nineties, where he would write his magazine column for sports illustrated. And his editor suggested, Hey, why don't you kind

of empty your notebook on the internet? And the internet column became bigger than everything else because people loved Peter's personality. They loved the way he covered things. And as someone who worked with him at Sports Illustrated for a long time, there's not a better coworker you will ever meet. He treated every single person like they were the most important person in the organization, even though he was actually the most important person in the organization, even though he was actually the most important person in the organization. And just one of those people that you meet them and they're

even better than everybody says. And so congratulations to Peter. Hope you enjoy retirement. I'm guessing you're going to work some because I don't think you can help yourself. And I'm glad for that. So thanks for that. And thanks for all the great writing over the years and keeping us entertained. And one of my favorite things about that farewell column that Peter wrote, there's a part in there where he's like, here's who you should read now. And it's for NFL writers, age range from 26 to 50 plus different, you know, different points of view, different parts of the spectrum. And he's just, he's just trying to help everybody else out, lift them up. And that's what he always did. So Peter, congratulations, enjoy retirement. And guys, we got to talk a little more college basketball tomorrow. We're getting really close to selection Sunday. We got conference tournaments coming up

at the end of the regular season, not this weekend, but next weekend. So we're talking a little more college hoops. Hopefully there will not be a court storming injury that we need to talk about because we've already solved that problem. Just watch the beginning of the show again. So ADs, you're trying to figure it out. Conference commissioners, watch the beginning of the show again. You'll figure it out. And we got more college football to talk.

There are no rules. What do we do? There are no rules. What do we do? There's no rules. It's going to be fun. Talk to you tomorrow.