Andy & Ari On3 - New NFL Rules to affect College? Princely Umanmielen Calling Florida Out? Nebraska Introduces new AD

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

As March Madness takes a little hiatus, we turn to some more college football talk from the On3 Studios in Nashville. J.D. PicKell joins to discuss the new NFL rule changes and how it could translate over to the collegiate ranks. We also discuss Ole Miss transfer DE Princely Umanmielen and his comments at a media availability. How will Nebraska look with their new athletic director in Troy Dannen? All answered in this edition of Andy Staples On3(0:00-0:49) Intro(0:50-21:53) NFL Rule Changes(21:54-38:25) Princely Umanmielen, Florida Discussion(38:26-54:14) Nebraska AD Troy Dannen Introductory Press Conference(54:15-57:58) Conclusion - Dear Andy Tomorrow! Email your questions to [e-mail] to watch the show on YouTube? Join us live at 8 am et, M-F, on YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/ljlefKG9Oi4

welcome to andy staples on three in the home office in nashville jd piquel next to me showing me the site there's a there's a bench press back there jd and i are going to figure out who can do 225 more times spoiler alert it's him uh but we will we will get to that later we have a lot to talk about, J.D. We have actual football-ish news from another league, but I feel like we've got to get ready for it in college football. And then we've got a guy who transferred from one school, kind of throwing some dirt on the old school.

But a shade being thrown. Yeah. All right, let's start with what's going on in the NFL that we think is probably headed to college at some point. So the NFL passed a new kickoff rule, which allegedly is a one-year trial, but we'll see what happens. My guess is if it is successful in doing what it's supposed to in the NFL, we're going to see it in college football because I feel like, for the same reason, the NFL felt like the kickoff return had been eliminated. Basically, guys were just booming the ball through the end zone, touch back, let's go play at the 20-yard line, 25-yard line.

In college football, it's very similar. There's not as many kickoff returns. So the old XFL kickoff coming to the NFL, our friend Sam Schwartstein, who invented it, former Stanford center with Andrew Luck. What do you think? It looks weird. It looks weird.

It feels a little bit weird. It's going to be very bizarre to watch games open that way, if and when it does trickle down to college football, because that's kind of been a thing that's you know almost ceremonial in a way like once toe meets leather and the game starts and it's just not going to have the same still meet leather but the kicker will be in the same place he always was but the the coverage team's going to be on the other side of the field already with flash bolts that like in big games you see like is that gonna still be a thing like it is so there's

a landing zone it's kind of like sorry weird it's kind of like serving in ping pong right like you got to get it in the zone it's one of the serving in tennis sure it's one of those things that i think is really going to take i mean to be to be captain obvious here it's going to take some getting used to um now i do appreciate the fact that we're trying to minimize those high-impact collisions and try to take care of player safety. So I respect the heart behind it just as a fan watching it. I think it's going to be a little bit weird. We talked about this too.

Will Compton, who crushes it with Barstool, he was a team's guy in the NFL, and I think his take on it has been really interesting because at the NFL level, obviously, these guys are feeding families by covering kicks, the same at the collegiate well it's going to be different and what what they're saying is there will be running like the return teams will be running plays like they may be blocking it like an offensive play like you may see duo get blocked yeah and you're gonna have two return guys and like it's not an accident that cordial patterson signed with somebody today like he was born for this a hundred percent. But the question is,

will, will you actually get more returns? Cause I think if you do get more returns, it will come to college football probably within the next year or two, which is, and it's hard for, especially with all this change going on, like this is going to be a weird,

odd looking change, but I do think the, the, the heart is in the right place on this one and would be in the right place if they did it in college because I want to see more kickoff returns. I think the kickoff return is a really exciting play. I like the idea of a kickoff being potentially returned for a touchdown.

And this is one of those, you and I both bid on kickoff return teams in our lives and understood. Like, those collisions are hellacious. Because if you're on the kickoff team, you're running about 30 yards and colliding with somebody at full speed. If you're on the kickoff return team, you're running backward for about 15 yards, then running forward for about 15 yards and hitting somebody at full speed. It's nasty. It doesn't have to be that way. You can still have an exciting situation,

and I just want the guy with the ball to be able to return it and maybe score some points. 100%. I think it's no accident today that Devin Hester was trending on Twitter because of this whole rule change in ways it's going to impact the sport. But, yeah, like you mentioned, if you are the front line of the kickoff return team or if you're a guy that's trying to find a way to stay on the travel squad, being a part of the kickoff coverage team,

especially for most teams at the collegiate level, that's your ticket on the travel squad. And so that's your one play where you're like, all right, I am going full speed. I'm pulling somebody up, yes right, I am going full speed. I'm not going back on the defense or offense. I am giving it my all. I'm trying to put my entire soul through your Rydell, shut helmet, whatever you got on.

So having less runway to do that, probably a good thing. Curious how it impacts the kickers and the punters and how we evaluate that for the club. Yeah, and I thought Pat McAfee made a really good point about this because Pat was an NFL punter, obviously spent a lot of time in NFL special teams meetings, and he said the tweak the NFL made from the original rule may blunt the effect of what they want. Because originally it was going to be if there's a touchback,

the ball goes out to the 35, which is really punitive. It's essentially like kicking the ball out of bounds now. And they changed that. So now if there's a touchback, it goes to the 35, which is really punitive. It's essentially like kicking the ball out of bounds now. And they changed that. So now if there's a touchback, it goes to the 30. So what Pat is thinking is teams are still going to just kick it through the end zone. They're not even going to bother with the returns. I hope that's not the case. I hope that we do see returns.

Because if that happens, then yeah, you can add it to the college gaming fund. Although I will say, so I talked to Greg Sciano about this years ago. This was before he ever went to the Tampa Bay Bucks when he was the Rutgers coach the first time around. And remember Eric Legrand, he had been paralyzed covering a kickoff. He hit and had his, his head was down and it was a horrible situation. And Greg Shiano then said, you have to do something about kickoffs and at the time everybody was still kind of tradition bound what was like now it's they're fine but now that more touchbacks have happened in touchback like kick kickers can just boom the ball through the end zone even at the college level anytime they want it's become an unsafe play when someone returns it

and a boring play most of the time. So how do you make it more exciting but also take the unsafe piece out of it? I thought Greg Sciano had an even better idea because here's what I hate about the NFL's rule. Onside kick, only in the fourth quarter, you must be trailing, you have to declare. That is so stupid. it's like you gotta hold

up a flag like oh we're gonna do an onside kick no one's ever gonna recover an onside kick very lame if that if you do it like that that's not fun i want teams to be able to recover an onside kick and i will tell you jd my favorite onside kick ever was by a team that was winning you know which one i'm talking about? Was it National Championship game? Alabama in the National Championship game. The biggest smile you've ever seen from Nick Saban when Marlon Humphrey caught the sky kick against Clemson.

Just perfectly placed. Because Deshaun Watson's tearing apart Alabama's defense, and Nick Saban goes, you know what? We've got to steal a possession here. Sure. You couldn't do that with that rule. Yeah. That sucks. It's a total gamesmanship move to be able to have the surprise onside but we've got to steal a possession here. You shouldn't do that with that rule. That sucks.

It's a total gamesmanship move to be able to have the surprise onside. And like you just said, in those games where you're trying to steal a possession, you realize, hey, this is going to be a thing where whoever has more possessions wins the ballgame. That's going to be massive. It's absolutely massive. So here's where Greg Sciano's suggestion should come into play. So if you're the college football oversight committee, the people who do the rules,

if you're looking at what's going on in the NFL and you say, okay, they're increasing returns, great. Let's think about what we do with kickoffs. I don't think you can do Greg Sciano's idea in the NFL because the punters are simply too good. But what he says to do or what he said to do back then, and I thought it was a great idea, is you just have a punt to start each possession.

Like a real punt with a snap, and the punter kicks it. Now, again, if you've never played football, maybe you don't understand the distinction between punt coverage and kickoff coverage. But punt coverage, the blocker is shadowing the gunner, the tackler, all the way down the field. It is not a situation where anybody's got a 20-yard head start and colliding with somebody. It's more we're battling back and forth, and then, yes, you may hit the ball carrier hard, but he's the ball carrier. The ball carrier.

That's the price you pay. You carry the pigskin. Yeah. So that's the thing, and you carry the pigskin yeah you know so that's the thing and here's why i love that because you could do the play that i think would become the most exciting play in football instead of an onside kick you say if you can run a play and gain 15 yards 20 yards whatever you decide the yardage to gain is whatever you figure out what success rate you want on that play and work your way backward through the analytics.

So let's say it's a 1st and 15, or a 4th and 15, essentially. If you gain that 15 yards, you keep the ball. If you don't, the other team gets the ball where it sits. So I have two thoughts off of that. The first is, can you do an Aussie style punt in this format yes second question does that then change the way that we're recruiting punters at this level 100 because you gotta be able to do it a little bit Tori Taylor becomes the ultimate weapon for sure becomes the ultimate weapon but I don't think there's enough good punters in college football

to make it where it would be boring like the the NFL, every punter's too good. He would kick it a million miles in the air and a long way. For sure. And it would just be a fair catch or the returner would get the hell out of the way because they're scared. Yeah. So that won't work in the NFL. But in college, it would definitely work. And the thing is, you could run fake punts as onside kicks or you could just send your offense out on the field

and run a play so when you recover so backtracking yeah the ball is not touched by the returner yep same thing we see where it gets down within the 20 free kick that that's a good question i mean is it if you recover it do you that's that's where i think because the punters can can kick it so high in the air that's where you have where you've got to figure that part out. Yeah. And that's why they have the landing zone thing in the NFL. But I think in college you could probably get away with that and have punt rules or maybe even move them back.

It would be fun. And force them to kick it farther. It would be fun. I would love it, but mostly I would love it because you could steal possessions that way. And instead of – because I always thought the onside kick is a little random. Like here you've got this former Aussie rules football player or this former soccer player kicking an oblong ball

and hoping it bounces in a very random way. Like what football skill is that? Teeing the ball up sideways and then having to just try and get your foot under it. Why not have football players playing football determining whether you're going to keep the ball up sideways and then have like just try and get your foot why not have football players playing football determining whether you're going to keep the ball or not and the change that you'd call a fair catch it was off one hop and all those like can you imagine and and this this is where you could do the nick saban surprise thing because if you actually make it a scrimmage kick with the snap you could run a fake in the second quarter and steal a possession.

And it would be awesome. It would be very cool. And you're recruiting punters probably. And at the camp, you're saying, all right, how far can you throw? Yes! You got a hose on you? Can you swing the ball around?

You don't remember Tom Tupa. You're too young to remember Tom Tupa. I remember Kai Kroger. Yeah, Tom Tupa was a quarterback at Ohio State who became an NFL punter. There it is. Like, can you imagine? He was built for this era. Just born too early.

That's all it was. Oh, my God. I'm telling you, this would be so much fun. If we're talking about rules changes to better the game and make it safer, that's the way you do it. And I do love our friend Sam Schwartz. We're going to have Sam on the show one of these days because he's a genius.

He was Andrew Luck's center at Stanford. He tells incredible stories about how Jim Harbaugh taught snapping and taking snaps from under center that involves knuckles and buttholes. He's an incredible storyteller. But also, he's an idea guy. Like, if you watch the Amazon Prime games on Thursday night on the NFL, he's the guy on the alternate channel with all the advanced stats. Okay, cool.

Explaining what everything means. And he's one of those people I feel like I just sit him in a room and say, all right, sit here for three hours. And when I come back, you're going to tell me how to make a better peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And he would figure it out. So I want to set him on this and see if he has any ideas that would be different in the college game than the pro game.

I would hope so. With the big brain from Stanford. Because I don't, like, I know people think I just say, oh, if the NFL does it, then college football should do it. I don't believe that. I don't feel that way. There are things the NFL does that are better than college football. Like, if you catch the ball diving and no one touches you, you can get up and run with it. Sure.

That's a great rule. College should adopt that. Sure. There's another rule in the NFL that just changed that college better stay away from. Do not touch it. Don't do it. Do not do it. This hip drop tackle thing.

Yeah. Oh, my God. This is going to be a disaster. Very bad deal. Because I think for those that are trying to understand, like, okay, why is this a bad thing? You're seeing a lot of snippets in the Twitter sphere on Instagram of going to be a safety or a linebacker going and making a tackle on a ball carry at an angle and then dropping their weight essentially dropping their hip like the you know the label implies and then that weight then falls on someone's knee or ankle you get rolled up on and the thing that i think is hard

to discern here andy's if i'm a defensive player like i'm taught to come you know drive your feet obviously that's a big part of it but like in some in some cases like wait yourself is the the If I'm a defensive player, I'm taught to drive your feet, obviously. That's a big part of it. You can't unweight yourself is the terminology they're using. Just get the guy down is what I was taught. You cannot tackle someone if you are behind them or beside them. There is no other way to physically bring them down than doing what they're saying is now illegal. So you have now eliminated tackles from behind from the game, or you have forced officials to make a judgment call

every single time you have one of those tackles. You're going to have those tackles that are on a third and nine, where they tackle the ball carrier after a seven-yard gain from behind. And it's going to be great. And the fans are going to be like, yeah, we stopped him. And then there's a flag. And they're going to say, why? Hip drop tackle.

And you're going to look at it and you're like, ah, it's tiki-tac. Is that – you really want to make this? You tell me your own – I don't know. I don't know if that's right. Here's one thing where I'll say I'm glad college football has not followed the NFL down this path. In the NFL, when you watch a game, there are times when you will see a a defensive player sack the quarterback and it looks like a perfectly normal sack and then they drop a flag

and they say roughing the passer you put your entire body weight on him and sometimes they did kind of slam him down but you're trying to tackle the man who doesn't want to be tackled. So I'm glad college didn't follow that, and I hope they don't follow that. And, look, I understand why the NFL has it, because if you lose Patrick Mahomes for most of a season, for your economic model's sake, that's not great. But in Harrison Smith, the safety for the for the Vikings who used to be uh at Notre Dame uh he he talked about this he's like listen I understand it from a

business perspective but as a defender this sucks yeah and I think it's I don't think that should be overlooked the way that like football people are talking about this like guys that actually played in the league ball carriers Jonathan Stewart's tweeting out. He's like, you know, former running back in Oregon, running back for the Carolina Panthers. He's like, this is a bad thing for football. Well, that's how you know it's different. Because like when the targeting rules came out in college football

and in the NFL, because the NFL was a little later on the targeting rules in college, you had former players going, oh, that's fine. We don't need hits like that in the game. Like former players, like none of that matters. You can still tackle people. You don't have to knock them into next week. You don't have to headhunt. In this one, every single former player you've heard from

has said, this is stupid. This will be a disaster. You cannot enforce this, at least not evenly. You're making it way too subjective for the officials. You're putting more pressure on them that they're never going to be able to live up to 100%. And so, yeah,

if I'm college football, if I am the, if, if I'm on the football oversight, if I'm one of those ADs or I believe, I think Kirby smarts, the coach on it now, or he was the coach on it last year.

I'm saying let's avoid that. We could look into the kickoff thing. Yeah. We'll look into that because we would like to have kickoff returns too. Kickoff returns are fun. Fans love kickoff returns. I love kickoff returns as a coach because if I have better athletes than you, there's a chance that we may be able to steal some points on special teams.

For sure. And I think the kickoff thing is interesting. I'm curious to see across the board what, like, the extra football persona response is going to be today. Because we know there's some – and I probably fall into this category a little bit just with how I am nostalgia about it to begin with. I'm like, okay, this has been a part of the game for how long? And I understand the thought, okay, guys are bigger, faster, stronger. We want to minimize the CTE impact.

So there's much bigger issues at play. But I also think there was also a point in football where we didn't wear helmets or we had leather helmets. And it's like things that evolve typically have a better chance of improving, staying alive, all these things. And I've seen the you're ruining the game responses to but i've also seen people go well it would be more interesting than commercial touchback commercial definitely and so if you are trying to make the game more interesting i absolutely am willing to

listen to your ideas i think that is that's important but like the hip drop thing, it's going to be bad. When everyone involved in the game, from coaches to players to everybody, says this is going to be bad, this is not going to work the way you think it is, that one you've got to pay attention to. You've got to perk the ears up and listen. When there is the entire population saying something, it might not be a bad idea to listen to that population. Well, okay, so I gave you mine.

The one thing in college football, if I could change the rule, the rule I would change is if you're a ball carrier, you went down, but you didn't get touched, you can get up and keep running until someone touches you. Like that's a no-brainer, should have been changed 50 years ago, don't know why it exists in the college game now. Is there a rule like that for you that you would like to see done differently in either college or the NFL? I'll give you an example.

Would you like to see the spot foul pass interference come to college or would you like it eliminated in the NFL? That's a good question. I think I'll go spot foul for both college and NFL because, I mean, we understand there's a very big difference between 15 yards and a first down when it was a 50-yard bomb. That doesn't make a ton of sense to me at any level of football. I just feel like because the all-PI offense has become so prevalent,

where you've got a quarterback who deliberately under throws, forcing the receiver to go back through a defender who has established good position. That's why I'm actually anti-spot foul. I think the NFL should do what college does because they're abusing it now. They're abusing it. You should only get 15 yards because you are deliberately throwing an uncatchable ball to force the receiver back through a defender who's done his job maybe there is a max yardage that you can you know achieve like if it's if it's 60 yards downfield hey we'll give you 25 okay so maybe we can workshop that the one that actually came to mind though as we talked about

this i would love to see uniformity for how many feet you need in balance for a catch i think one feet makes the most or one foot makes the most sense like it's about your hands it's not about having in the nfl they love points in offense sure that would create more points in offense one foot makes a lot of sense to me yeah if it's about your hands that's catching it is so spectacular to me watching these guys when they go from college to the nfl the the really good receivers to see them learn to tap those two toes like it's a it's like watching ballet i'm in ross brown yeah it comes to mind yeah it is art but i agree with you i think we get more acrobatic catches on the sideline and be more fun be way better, I'm all about that.

Yeah, no, I think college does that better than the NFL. So, yeah, this would be – I like that we're actually talking football. It's in March. In March. This is incredible. It's phenomenal. Actual football. Who would have thought?

I know. But this will be interesting. So watch this kickoff this fall in the NFL because if it is successful and bring more returns, I would bet we're going to see it in college football pretty soon, whether we want it or not. I bet it's probably coming. So, all right, J.D., we have another topic to talk about. And so we've talked a whole lot about all the people who've transferred between last season

and this season we're going to be talking about a lot more of those people possibly some of the same people when the transfer portal window opens again on april 15th but one person who we have not heard from since his transfer at least publicly is prince leo man me ellen so prince leo man me ellen was a florida edge rusher last year, one of Florida's better players on the team. He entered the transfer portal after the season, and he wound up at Ole Miss, one of a great defensive line haul at Ole Miss

that also includes Walter Nolan from Texas A&M. Prince Liaman Miellon spoke to the media in Oxford, and here's what he had to say. My attack in the run game a little bit, but I feel like here I'm getting coached harder for things like that. I feel like at Florida, the way I was coached, it was almost as if they were just telling me to go out there and use my talent, if that makes sense.

But here, Coach Lou and Coach Joyner, they really on me about the little things, you know, attacking the run. Coach Lou really goes through the progressions of the drops and the routes that are being run when I have to go into coverage. Like when I was at Florida, it was like they would just tell me, go drop to this area, and I would have to figure out everything else on my own. But here, you know, they go real into depth.

I feel like I'm actually getting, you know, developed here. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Shea being thrilled. thrown throwing the old staff under the bus now uh florida's had some staff changes uh sean spencer was let go as the d-line coach gerald chapman comes in mike peterson still coaching the edge rushers so i'm not sure who he's throwing shade at here exactly other than the entirety of the florida defensive staff much of which is still there but that's that's rough and you said this to me when we saw the clip and you're like billy napier needs the season to get here just needs to play really quickly football games need to be played here.

And it's tough because I don't know that Prince Lee, Oman Mialin, from me watching that through my first watch, was like, I don't think he went to the podium saying like, all right, I'm about to just hook this Florida staff. He's trying to compliment Pete Golding and his staff at Ole Miss. No, I mean, what you mentioned that we talked about before we got on air, like there's nothing that's going to be said that's going to remedy the thing that Steve Spurrier said, that Prince Leo Manmielin said. Like what's going to help remedy this is getting a win week one against Miami and starting the season off with a bang.

And then we, you know, don't even think about this. Well, and you've already, if you have not seen this yet, J.D. put out a video a couple weeks ago, the never too early series. He's already starting to preview. He's already starting to preview the big week big week one week two week three games and uh florida miami was was the first one because it's one of those like it it's one of those crazy games where it does not matter who wins the opposing fan base is going to want to jump off a cliff and it'll be week one yeah so it'll be like a nice start to the college football season and it might not be representative of what that team will be. Not at all.

I mean, Florida beat Utah. First game to Billy Napier, Aaron. We were like, okay, Billy Napier, give him the crown. Is Anthony Richardson going to be a first-round draft? Wait, he was a first-round draft pick. Is he going to win the Heisman? All those conversations. What about Utah?

Are they in the tank now? And then we saw, okay, week one is a very small piece of the puzzle. So, yeah, it's going to be intense. But, yeah, Florida's in that situation where – and this is the problem you get into when – I think the transfer portal era exacerbates this problem where if you have bad news, if you're coming off a not great season

and you have some bad news, it just compounds and compounds. And there's not really a way to create good news unless you spend like a drunken sailor on NIL in the transfer portal and get some very different players that you get everybody excited about. But the problem is, when you're in this situation where Billy Napier is right now, it's hard to get those guys to come because they don't know what the future holds immediately in florida sure they don't know what they're signing up for either i mean this this whole game too not to go back too far to this preview but like andy i don't know if you feel

the same way if it were played at a neutral site i'd probably lean pretty heavily towards miami now maybe that's me like you just said with the. Now, maybe that's me, like you just said, with the recency bias. Maybe that's me drinking the Cam Ward Kool-Aid. But the fact that it's played in Gainesville in the swamp just throws a total variable of, like, who the heck knows what's about to happen in this game kind of field. Yeah, I have no idea. I suspect Miami is better than what we saw last year.

And the last time we saw Miami in that bowl game, they were awful. So they will presumably be better. Last year it was a big offensive line haul. This year it was a big D-line haul. But also they had some pretty good young players that you suspect will sort of evolve. Florida, they had some young players to be excited about like Eugene Wilson Graham Mertz I thought was was actually better than expected at quarterback but Shamar James should be back like that that should be a a very exciting thing but you lose

a Prince Liam Ann Meehan who should have like in a past era wasn't going anywhere yeah like wouldn't have left. Been the leader for your defense. Yeah. Been the guy to kind of lead the charge into, you know, his final year in Gainesville more or less. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's the thing that is tough for them is did they, did Florida net out better talent-wise after this offseason? Now you can talk about LJ McC and dj lagway and the recruiting class the question is what impact is that going to make this year because i think in the old model like i i've said this about billy napier multiple times if he'd been hired in 2010 i think he'd be sitting in a really good spot right now because he would have had three good recruiting classes the first recruiting class would have been coming of age trevor etn instead of being in athens georgia now he had a bad weekend in athens sure but he's in athens georgia he would

still be at florida princely man miel and still be at florida Like those guys would not have left, but it's a different era. Totally. You weren't hired in 2010. You were hired in, in before the 2022 season. Yeah. And so you have to adapt, you have to adjust. And I think they've been slow on the transfer portal the entire time. And part of it was, I think when they got got there you hadn't seen yet Lincoln Riley do the flip that he did now that was the same year yeah but you hadn't seen many coaches flip a roster via the transfer portal the way now it is common and an accepted practice like if a new coach comes in of course he's flipping the roster totally yeah that didn't happen year one at Florida I think that put them behind the eight ball and i think them letting a lot get away this year and not bringing in a lot that felt like a

comparable replacement is going to be a problem and the tough part too coming from louisiana it wasn't like he came from in oklahoma and could bring his heisman quarterback his his slot receiver he brought montreal john Johnson and Osiris Torrance who was a great offensive lineman for them he brought some dudes but I mean just like the the overall he was able to have of guys that could help him at the SEC level was different Andy I don't know how you feel about this but like I look at Florida this year and granted the South Carolina game very much so could have lost took a great effort in the fourth quarter come back down 10 but there's two other games where it's like hey you make the field goal against

Arkansas hey you don't give up fourth and 17 against a really good Missouri team like I know the label on this team is five and seven but I keep looking at I know they lost some pieces Prince Lee and Mamiel we mentioned um I don't know that it's a five and seven roster I feel like it's a maybe five and seven execution that we saw last year. Well, is it a five? Okay, five and seven rosters is a hard thing to articulate now. Sure, sure. Because the schedules are different. They're not equal in the SEC. What a five and seven roster looks like against Ole Miss' schedule

is very different than what a five and seven roster looks like against Florida's schedule. Because a five and seven roster against Florida's 2024 schedule might not win five games. Yeah, without question so and I think that's the thing too like Florida could very realistically finish six and six and probably be like a top 30 team in the country depending on what those six and six look like pretty good job and I wonder you're considering and I worry a little bit about like what is the approval rating in Gainesville if you go six and seven five and seven and then finish 6-6,

and who knows about the bowl game? Because I feel like the context is so crucial. Like you said, the schedule. They finished with five college football playoff teams. How it looks matters. That's the thing, is how does it look? Game 6 at Tennessee, I think, is where the rubber may meet the road. But here's the thing.

Nobody's talking about Texas A&M coming to Gainesville. Like, that is a tricky one. Mike Elko is going to have them better. Like, they're going to be probably significantly better than they were last year. The UCF game. Like, I realize they were scheduled. I think they were scheduled, I think they were actually scheduled by,

I think one dates back to the Jeremy Foley as athletic director era, and one is in the Scott Strickland era, but Miami and UCF playing in the same year, when you already have Florida State, and it's a very good version of Florida State, like, that is brutal. Because Miami, obviously they want to beat you. But UCF wants to beat you even worse.

For sure. UCF wants to go to the swamp and beat you. Now remember, UCF did win the last time they played. It was in a bowl game. Yeah, I remember, yeah. But very different situation then. This one would hurt so much more yeah and it is and somebody somebody was trying to burn me because i went to florida they were like i bet kj jefferson's

gonna bring ucf in there and win i'm like that's a really bold prediction considering he beat them with a worse arkansas team like the arkansas team he was on is probably worse, or was worse, last year's, than this UCF team's going to be. Yeah. So you've got to worry about that. Like, that is a scary schedule. And it's not just everybody keeps looking at the back half. There's some scary stuff in the front half. Especially with the way that it shapes up.

I mean, let's say Miami doesn't go your way. Let's say you beat Samford. A&M, know who knows at Mississippi State and then that game against UCF like Andy that could kind of be the one depending on how the vibes are in Gainesville like it's not an enormously patient if you don't win that game it crushes the vibes the vibes I mean the vibes die on the vine no matter what has happened the vibe bowl that is the vibe bowl yeah yeah with the one against UCF yeah it's massive and also the fact that it's in-state.

UCF, as much as maybe they're perceived as not one of those big three, they're now a power conference school. They're one of those schools that's kind of trending upward. It's massive for offense. That's the reason why Florida never wanted to schedule UCF or USF because it is kind of a no-win situation. You beat them. You were supposed to beat them.

You lose to them. The world is ending. And of a no-win situation. You beat them. You were supposed to beat them. You lose to them. The world is ending. And now they're in that situation. So I just – it feels like piling on at this point. Hearing Prince Liam and Mielle say that, I don't – people keep – like I go on Feinbaum and he'll always say, what's the temperature in Gainesville? I'm like, the temperature is lukewarm.

The fan base is apathetic. They're not excited. They're scared of what's going to happen. But it feels at this point like it's just piling on. It almost is like it's reached a point where if somebody comes out in the next two weeks and says something derogatory about Florida and their staff, it's like, okay, I'm literally at – I'm already at this place where it doesn't matter. You can't hurt me anymore.

I've been hurt too many times. I'm numb to this. I'm titanium. I think it's what people would tell you. Come back week one is what I would say. Yeah, and I think that's – if you're Billy Napier, because I get people asking me all the time, what should Billy Napier do different? Do this, do this. There is nothing that matters that he could do different right now in terms of media strategy or what he says.

None of that matters. You either win or you don't. If he goes out there and has a great season, great. He gets to keep being Florida's coach. If he doesn't have a good season, he's probably not going to be Florida's coach. That is really all it comes down to. keep being Florida's coach. If he doesn't have a good season, he's probably not going to be Florida's coach. That is really all it comes down to. And I realize that is a very simplistic and probably counterproductive way to look at that

as someone who has to host shows from now until football season starts. But that's the truth. And I love what you said. It matters how it looks with him in some of those games, especially if they can kind of keep it on. Yeah, are you competitive against college football playoff teams then that is a very different thing than if you're getting blown out by college football playoff teams or losing to

teams that have no business even thinking about a college football and i hope that nuance is baked into the majority of the fan base's assessment of what this year is because the way they finish that schedule is hunger Games. And the front half isn't easy either. So I hope that 6-6 is like, we're using some context. And the SEC flipping the schedule, and I said this was going to happen. When they tabled the idea of whether they're going to do 8 or 9

games until 2026, when they said they're definitely doing 8 conference games in 2025, I said this will happen. They're just going to flip the 24 schedule. and everybody's like why would they they can't do that that's not fair to certain teams and you know and yeah if you're tennessee or old miss you're like great that's way better from the back if you are florida or georgia you're like oh god i get what do you what do we talk at least at least georgia's hard

road games become hard home games but this still sucks it's still hard what's that mean stop giving me your toughest battles it's the georgia florida logo exactly i mean and that's it so but here's why i said that when i said it why i said they're just going to flip the schedule because i think they're ultimately going to go to nine games because they're not going to miss a texas a&m texas game they're not going to miss a georgia auburn game they're not going to miss a Texas A&M-Texas game. They're not going to miss a Georgia-Auburn game. They're not going to miss an Alabama-Tennessee game. Those are all games that go away if you stay at eight games and you have that same schedule.

Now, if you were to add teams, it becomes a different situation. You're going probably to a new schedule format anyway. And you can decide if it's eight or nine and figure out what you want to do. But I guarantee you this. They're not going to miss any Texas or Texas A&M games. They're going to play every year. They're going to figure out a way to make them play every year. They're going to figure out a way for Tennessee and Alabama

to play every year. And they're going to figure out a way for Georgia and Auburn to play every year. So however that looks, and I realize I'm the one who's like, well, they're definitely going to do nine games. They'll always do nine games. They're going to nine games. Sure.

Well, let's be real here. College football is going to change dramatically over the next three, four, five years, two, three, four, five years. I don't know what it's going to look like. I just know that no matter how many teams they have, the SEC is not stupid enough to have Texas and Texas A&M in the same league and not have them play every year. Can't do that.

You can't do that. And I think the other part of this too, which is interesting, is the way that it impacts the college football playoff. The SEC, which is, I mean, not arguably, arguably however you feel about the Big Ten, the most talented conference in college football, we're not going to have our teams go kill each other for the sake of maybe sacrificing one extra college football playoffs loss.

So as we start to expand this field and expand the margin for error in the regular season, I think that also is a blinking neon arrow saying, nine games coming soon, stay tuned. I also think ESPN at some point is going to pony up a little extra dough. Have to, right? They're good for it. Listen, the SEC becomes an even more important property for them going forward as they start a new product

where they're going to try to sell it directly to you as the consumer they need this they they need that group of very dedicated fan bases to keep paying up for the product and the way you do that is by guaranteeing them better games and that that's how extra conference games give you those better games. So we'll see what happens. But, man, it is – it's March and it doesn't stop. Madness, baby. March Madness. That's what they mean when they say March Madness.

Yeah, they're not talking about basketball. They're talking about dudes who came out of the transfer portal trashing their old school. That's what they're talking about basketball. They're talking about dudes who came out of the transfer portal trashing their old school. That's what they're talking about. We go from one guy who hopped in the transfer portal and wound up at another school, Prince Liam Van Mielen, to another guy who just wound up at another school because there's no transfer portal for athletic directors.

But Troy Dannen has quite the odyssey in the past seven months. He was Tulane's athletic director for a very long time. He was trying to get a power conference job. He finally lands one at Washington. Washington then goes to the national title game in football. His coach, Kalen DeBoer, leaves for Alabama. He hires Jed Fish from Arizona as the new coach. And then he fires Mike Hopkins as the men's

basketball coach so very busy time at Washington for Troy Dannon you notice I didn't say who he hired to replace Mike Hopkins because before he could do that he got hired away at Nebraska to replace Trev Alberts who had gone to Texas A&M I I know that's all very confusing. You got all that. I feel like I need the crime scene board here to explain all it. But long story short, Troy Dannen was at Tulane, went to Washington. Now he's at Nebraska. And he had his introductory press conference in Lincoln and was taking questions from the media on Tuesday. It was very interesting to hear Troy Dannen talk.

And Troy has always been a pretty forward-thinking guy. I actually felt a little bad when I made fun of Troy on Twitter when he left Washington for Nebraska. I said, we really got to stop these guys from just hopping into the transfer portal again. And we're making Caden Proctor jokes at that point. But Troy has always been a little more forward thinking as far as ADs go. He was one of the early proponents of changing the transfer rules to make them a little more fair to the players. So he's probably not the guy to be making fun of for that, to be calling a hypocrite there, but he's the one who gets caught in that crossfire because he did only stay at Washington for a few months. And, you know, I think we'll find out how that works out, why that particular move was made.

Washington has already replaced Troy Dan and Pat Chun, who was at Washington State, is now moving to Washington. And this is one of those that you kind of knew that the best people at Oregon State and Washington State, once the Pac-12 dissolved, you knew they were probably going to be going elsewhere. You saw Jonathan Smith leave Oregon State for Michigan State as the football coach. Pat Chun, who did a great job as AD at Washington State, he's off to become the new AD at Washington, replacing Troy Dannen.

Now, I think Pat will be a pretty forward-thinking AD at Washington. He's been in the Big Ten before. He was at Ohio State as an assistant AD. Troy, though, he is what your AD should probably sound like these days. I want you to listen to some of the things that Troy Dannen said in that introductory press conference in Nebraska. And I want you to ask yourself, is my school's AD thinking this way?

Is he talking this way? Because if he's not, or she, then you probably have a problem. You either already know you have a problem or you're about to have a problem in the next two, three years. So I want you to listen to what Troy Dannen said. And we'll start with a question from Steve Sipple of On3's Husker Online asking Troy about the relationship between the athletic department

and the collective. You mentioned the collective. Why do you feel it's important in your role to have a relationship with that collective? Because the number one commitment to success is to the student athlete. And as I mentioned, you know, in the day, that might have been providing a strength coach. In the day, that might have been a laptop. In the day, that might have been a coach who was going to prepare them for the next level. In the day.

Today's day is there is a sharing of resources with the student athletes. And so if we're going to compete, if we're going to recruit and retain, everybody in this department has to support what lies ahead for student athletes to be a part of the economic model of this. Today, it's NIL. Tomorrow, it's going to be something different, and we will pivot and evolve into that. But so it would not – I would be missing if I tried to avoid the reality of what the name of the game is today. In the day, it was a strength coach. Kind of a shout out to the history of Nebraska, Boyd Epley,

the original college strength coach, invented the entire genre. But Troy Dannen's right about this. If you are not thinking along these lines, if you are not thinking about how you can help your collective better retain, recruit athletes, and yes, they can recruit them now because right now there's an injunction. There are essentially no NIL rules. Then you are behind. You are not where you need to be. Your athletic department leadership is not thinking the way it needs to think. It is not understanding where things are going. And what's interesting is there's a big stadium renovation project that is in the works at Nebraska. And that's something they've been talking about a lot over the last few years. Well, Troy and I got asked about that

as well. And his answer was very telling. The stadium renovation project, what do you know about it? What do you like? What can you share about plans for that? Yeah, I really don't know anything about it, quite honestly. I read, you know, when it comes across the ticker in the morning, right? You read about it, but I don't know the fundamentals. It will be something I have to get myself up to speed on very, very quickly.

I think I have some meetings as early as Thursday, starting to try to learn a little bit about it. I will say this, and it's true with anything. If it helps us win, great. If it doesn't help us win, I want to win. And so the assessment of anything that we do, stadium, any facility, any infrastructure, any person we hire, any dollar we invest. Does it help us win? Does it help us win academically?

Does it help us win socially or does it help us win on the field? Those are the criteria by which every dollar we spend should be measured. So what I've been saying, if you've been watching this show, I've said multiple times over the past year, the best way to improve your stadium is to put better players in it. If you think you need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on nicer seats, you are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, that doesn't mean you should never try to improve your stadium.

You should never do any of these projects. In fact, this Nebraska project, I believe, is similar to the one that they're undertaking at Kansas right now where they've already earmarked the money. They've got the money. And there's going to be more to it. There's retail. There's maybe a hotel. At the Kansas one, there will be retail, a hotel. There will be other things that the university can use to derive revenue from what you're building there.

But if you're building something that only helps you seven Saturdays a year and doesn't help you actually win the game, if it just makes somebody's tushy a little more comfortable as they watch the game, that is probably not going to help you because winning football games with better players that you have to now pay for, that is the way you do it. That is the way you increase donations. That is the way you increase fan happiness. Yes, the tushy may be happy with the cushioned seat and the seat back, the chair back, but every part of the body is happier with a win. And that is what Troy Dannen has to deal with at Nebraska. Remember, this is a program that has not made a bowl game since 2017. They've got to figure it out. You've heard from Matt Rule

multiple times in this show. We talked to Sean Callahan and Steve Sipple from Husker Online. They've explained where Nebraska's at the passion is there the money's there they do seem to prioritize NIL and did before Trev Alberts left but you've heard this from Troy Dannen now they're they're going to be putting the money into the things that matter or driving the money toward the stuff that actually matters. Because right now, you've got to tell your donors, hey, don't give it to us. Give it to the collective. And that's got to be incredibly hard for ADs who grew up in the business asking for money, saying, give it to us. Tax deductible. Give it to us. We'll figure it out. You give it

to us. That's not it anymore. At the moment, the collectives are the ones that pay the players. If you want better players, your collective needs to be funded better. And so that's how you've got to figure it out. And if it means a stadium renovation project is not as grandiose as you expected or gets put off for a little bit or changes, so be it. If the team in the stadium is winning, you'll have more money later on to do an even bigger stadium renovation project. That's the key. Nebraska's not the only school where that's a thing.

There's quite a few schools, J.D. and I talked about Florida, where they are kicking around the idea of a major renovation to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. I'm telling you right now, if they would like to make Ben Hill Griffin Stadium nicer, they need to fund the collective to put better players in it. That will make it nicer. If they want to make Memorial Stadium nicer in Lincoln,

fund the collective. Put the best players possible in it. That's the way to do it. And it seems like Troy Dannen understands that. It seems like that's his priority. I mean, that answer about the stadium project, you would have never heard that from an athletic director five years ago. An athletic director would have been crazy to say that five years ago

because it's essentially saying, give it to them, don't give it to me. Give it to them. But that's how it goes. And the other thing that I thought was interesting that Troy Dannen said is he understands that that may not be how that works forever and probably sooner rather than later that's going to change where it won't be give it to them it will be give it to me but instead of me giving it to the coaches

or me giving it to tearing down this perfectly good facility and rebuilding a nicer facility with some waterfalls, the school will be giving it to the players. And they've got to figure out how to do that in the best way that brings the most talent. Whether there's limits on what you can give or not, that would provide another wrinkle. But you've got to be able to spend it wisely.

Because the idea is to win. And especially in Nebraska, where they have not won. Where they're used to winning, but it's been a long time. Let's hear Troy Dannen's probably most telling answer. The one thing that's absolute that's going to happen, there will be a line item in our budget for student athletes at some point in time. And I don't know what form that takes. I don't know whether the courts and or legislators

force that on us. I don't know how much of it is we will be proactive and put that plan in place ourselves as an enterprise. But that will be coming. And it is not optional. I talked a lot about NIL today in 1890. That is what NIL will transition into. And we better be supporting it to the max today because as we transition, we will be supporting it to the max tomorrow. I said this earlier and I hate to repeat myself, but we've always focused on coach recruitment and retention and how important that is, people. Time to focus on student athlete recruitment and retention. And it's a different model.

Some people don't like it. And those who don't want to embrace it, that's fine. I know this, we will embrace it. Because that is the, when I say the price of success, coaches contracts, price of success. And we will be able to pay the price for success. So again, if your athletic director doesn't sound like this, if they're not talking like this, if they are one of the people who has a problem with it that Troy Dannen was talking about, you have a problem.

Your school has a problem. If your athletic director does not sound like that, you're about to get left behind, or maybe you already have been left behind. But that is reality. That is realism from somebody who's been grinding away at the group of five level for a long, long time, who understood that change was coming and saw it from a place where it was going to be more difficult to deal with. Like it's way easier for Troy Dannen to deal with these changes at Nebraska than it would have

been if he'd still been at Tulane. So I think there's an appreciation of that when you hear him talk about it. But what he's saying is they're going to be paying the athletes directly. It's happening. It's coming. He doesn't know how it's coming. It may come from the courts. It may come because the schools actually decided to do something proactive for once and figure it out themselves. But it's coming.

So it's good to hear this out loud this is stuff that athletic directors have been saying quietly for the past three four years really since nil came into existence it's nice that someone at a big school is now saying it out loud there are there are others who feel this way and there are others who say it out loud now. But the majority still don't want to say this out loud. The majority still want to pretend that there's a chance they can go back to the old way, at least publicly. Privately, almost everybody accepts that things are about to change dramatically, and they better be ready for it. But at least we know Nebraska has an AD who

understands things are about to change dramatically and seems to be preparing for that. Now, that said, Nebraska still has to win games in football. They've got a men's basketball team that's never won an NCAA tournament game. They made it this year. So all of this stuff has to actually be brought to fruition by Troy Dannen, by Matt Rule, by Fred Hoiberg, by all the people who are tasked with bringing it to fruition. But at least everybody seems to be on the same page, pulling in the same direction. That's a very good start.

And again, go back and listen to what Troy Dannen said. If your AD doesn't sound like that, you got a problem, big problem. And it may be time to start thinking about doing something else. All right. That has been a wonderful show here from the home office in Nashville. We'll be back here pretty soon because I believe I'm coming up for the opening of the transfer portal window in the spring. It's going to be wild. So I think we're going to have a lot of the team together here in Nashville for that. Remember, we did a show, J.D. Piquel and I,

on the day the transfer portal window opened in December, and it was wild, but we think this one could be pretty interesting too. Last year was a little bit tame. Based on the intel we're getting behind the scenes, this is shaping up to be a pretty interesting portal window. A lot could change I mean we've talked about it we've talked about you know Michigan probably needs a quarterback there are other teams that are trying to fill holes where we're not entirely sure who they're going to get where they're going to get them from but if the help wanted signs are out then they're

probably going to be some guys that are going to dive in. Plus, you have different dynamics at play in the spring. Remember, SEC guys can't transfer to another SEC school and play right away. So you're going to have SEC teams that are looking outside the league. You're going to have teams from outside the SEC trying to cherry pick from inside the SEC. A lot of drama coming, and it's coming quick. It's coming in the next three weeks.

So get ready for that. Also, a coaching change at Kentucky. Basketball. No, no, it's not what we've been talking about. It's not the Cal Perry thing. As far as we know, he's still safe. He did his radio show on Monday night. Was scheduled to meet with Mitch Barnhart on Tuesday.

Seems safe enough. No, no. Kentucky hired Kenny Brooks from Virginia Tech to coach the women's team. He's replacing Kyra Elsey, who got fired. Sorry, I had to. I had to say, a Kentucky basketball coaching change. Oh my gosh.

A little cheap, but you know, I appreciate you sticking with us this far. So we gotta shock you a little bit. You know what will not shock me? Is if you guys ask me a bunch of great questions. Because Thursday is a Dear Andy show. Which means I am answering your questions. You are driving the show and you know how much we love your questions. I've already got one. Somebody asked me a question in February and I missed it. They just sent me a tweet.

I missed it. It's spectacular. Let's put it this way it it connects nick saban to the marvel cinematic universe i'll leave it at that but it's a great question and i will be answering that on dear andy but also i want more questions and you can send them to me on twitter andy underscore staples on instagram andy underscore staples you can email them to me if you've got an epically long question. AndyStaplesOn3 at gmail.com. You can also turn the camera on yourself. Turn the phone on yourself. Send me a video of you asking your question.

Our friend Nathan does that quite a bit. Our friend Willie does that. Be moderately internet famous for like a solid 25 seconds. Andystapleson3 at gmail.com. Cannot wait to see your questions. Cannot wait to answer them on Thursday. We'll talk to you then.