Andy & Ari On3 - Ranking the TOP returning players for the 2026 CFB season: Where is Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss? Kalani Sitake's IMPACT at BYU | Revisiting the rivalry draft

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

Last week, Ari unveiled his top 10 returning players for the 2026 college football season. While it’s no secret the players on Ari’s list are extremely impactful, there is a glaring omission that plenty of fans online pointed out: Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss. Should the electrifying QB out of Ole Miss be on the list? Watch here as Andy & Ari debate.   (0:00) On Today’s Episode (1:12) Presenting Sponsor (2:55) Intro: Ari’s List (9:45) Looking at Ari’s list from last year (12:36) Ahmad Hardy latest (15:06) Who did we miss? (22:22) Closing out Ari’s list (23:09) Kalani Sitake and BYU (39:22) Tommy Moffitt at Texas A&M (39:40) Should Notre Dame & BYU become PERMANENT opponents? (46:11) Other Rivalries we’d like to see (51:48) Revisiting the Top Rivalries Draft (1:04:11) Ari gets frozen yogurt, Rankings (1:07:02) Conclusion: See you tomorrow!   Once Andy & Ari wrap up Ari’s top returners list, the guys head over to Provo, Utah, where Kalani Sitake returns to BYU after being courted by Penn State back in the fall. What kind of impact does Sitake have on the Cougars as they try to compete for and win the Big 12 conference?   Also, should Notre Dame become a permanent opponent for BYU each year? Andy thinks so   Moving on, the fellas revisit the Top Rivalries draft from Friday’s show and Andy admits he may have made a mistake.   Thanks for watching!   Send your questions to: [e-mail] [e-mail]   Our show is also presented by BetMGM!   If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works:   1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB. 2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. 3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sure you use bonus code CFB when you sign up!   Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary.   See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. This promotional offer is not available in DC, Mississippi, New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET (Available in the US) . 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only (if applicable). Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel   Watch our show on YouTube instead! https://youtu.be/QaK4iWZHZLc   Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari Wasserman Producer: River Bailey   Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of Andy and Ari on three presented by Bet MGM, our man Ari is being battered on the internet for his top 10 returning players in college football in 2026 list. Who should he have had on there? Who doesn't belong on there? And what's this thing going to look like at the end of the season? Because I don't remember any of us having Fernando Mendoza on our list this time last year. We'll talk about that. Plus, Kalani Sataki talks to our Pete Nacos about staying at BYU. even when Penn State was an option.

Ari and I break down that decision, plus what happens next for BYU. Also, an idea for an annual rivalry for the Cougars and Notre Dame. I think that would be a really fun matchup. We'll talk about that today. Plus, we will also revisit our draft of the top college football rivalries from Friday, because that got both me and R.E.L. that on the internet a lot.

And there's one that I left off my list. that I'm feeling some remorse over. We'll talk about that. All on today's Andy Naurion 3, presented by BetMGM. We are presented by BetMGM. All the lines and totals you see on this show come from BetMGM. And if you're not already signed up, you download the app. You sign up using the code CFB.

That CFB is in college football. You can get up to $1,500 in bonus bets for doing that. If you are already signed up, there's a lot going on for you this week. The BetmGM hat trick jackpot is still going on. So every NHL playoff game, you have a chance to win a share of $10,000 in bonus bets by placing an anytime goal score wager. And if that player gets a hat trick, so three or more goals, then you can enjoy part of $10,000 in bonus bets, a share of $10,000 in bonus bets.

Also, there's an NBA odds boost token running all week. The conference finals matchups are set. you've got the thunder and the spurs, you've got the calves and the Knicks. How are you feel about those? Well, now's a chance if you have a very strong feeling, activate your odds boost, and you can wager with boosted odds on the NBA conference finals. That's all happening at BetMGM this week,

so make it legendary with BetMGM. See Betmgm.com for terms 21 plus, only this promotional offer is not available in D.C., Mississippi, New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem call 1-800 Gambler or 1-800 My Reset available in the U.S. 8778-8-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope-N-Y 4667-369 in New York, 1-800-3-0-0-0-Masachusetts, 1-800-1-800-1-800-1-8-0-2-3 in Puerto Rico. First bet offer for new customers only, if applicable, subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel.

Welcome to Andy and Arion 3 presented by Bet MGM, and it is list C. It is the off season. It is time for Ari to get yelled out on the internet because he made a list and left your favorite player off. That's just how this goes this time of year. Ari, but you put out your top 10 returning players in college football list last week. And the On 3 graphic came out and there was a certain fan base

that was more miffed than the others, I think. There was no Trinidad Shambliss on your list. And the Ole Miss fans. And you know what that means? That means I think he sucks. I don't think that's what that means, considering he's like the first guy on the also under consideration list at the bottom of your column. No, it, uh, well, you had Keywan Lacey and Trinidad Chamas.

Yeah, they're both really good in both probably top 15 players nationally, if not top 10 players. I think that this is just difficult because, you know, as I was going through it, sometimes, you know, when you make a list, it doesn't really crystallize for you, Andy, until you see how people react to it. And a lot of people reacted negatively to the Trinidad omission, which made me think, well, maybe I did make a mistake and I'm okay with it. So I wanted to ask you, I asked you at the end of the episode, I'm going to ask you now, do you think that it's insane that he's not there?

Like, you might disagree with it, but do you think it's insane? not insane, but I will say if I were going through the list of people coming back in college football who could really change a game by themselves. Like change a game against a really good team by themselves. We have evidence of Trinidad Shambliss doing that. We have evidence of Trinidad Shambliss doing that in the Georgia game, in the quarterfinals of the playoffs. I don't know how many guys that are playing college football this year can do something like that.

And we know he can because we've seen it happen. That would be my argument. And I've got to do one of these myself. So I will probably cheat off your paper a little bit here. But the reason I would put him in the top 10 is what I just said. By himself, he can tilt the balance in a game between two very good teams. And that's a pretty rare thing. But if you do that, then the quarterback position in general is going to be weighted heavier than other positions.

because it's more easily impacting games from that position. Well, yes, because that's how the sport works. So that's okay. So then you can make a little of top. I appreciate you spreading the love among the positions. Like you've got Carter Smith on here from Indiana, who's a really good left tackle. And so I'm glad you're doing that.

I'm glad that there's positional representation here. But yes, quarterbacks. And the problem, though, is, too, is if you include Carter Smith, who I would probably venture to say that 80% of, college football fans generally don't even know who that is, then you're removing a spot from somebody who's famous. So it's harder to include everybody who I believe deserve to be included

while getting everybody on there. Let's go through your list for the people listening in podcast form. You had Jeremiah Smith at number one, Notre Dame Corner Leonard Moore at number two, and he's been great since he had to come in there as a freshman. He's probably going to be in the draft next year. He's probably a top five pick. All the NFL draft people love him.

Number three, Malachi, Tony, who what we just talked about, who can change a game single-handedly. That's a guy who can do that. Number four, Colin Simmons from Texas. Number five, Dylan Stewart from South Carolina, who might be the biggest alien of anybody playing college football right now. Carter Smith from Indiana, number six. Number seven, Archmanning. Number eight, Dante Moore, Oregon's quarterback. Number nine, Ahmad Hardy from Missouri.

We'll talk about him in a second. Number 10, Cam Coleman, the receiver who transferred from Aubrey. to Texas this offseason. So there's one player in here, if I'm going to be honest with you, because that's the benefit of reading my stories and coming to the show. I get to actually explain.

I have remorse about one that maybe I might have changed. Do you want to guess who it is or do you just want me to tell you? Is it you would put Trinidad in there instead of Dante Moore? I will hear an argument that that's not what it is. Do you think Dylan Stewart deserves to be in the top 10? Because production-wise, he was not

very productive last year. Yes, because I think if you said to any college coach in America, your number one edge rusher or Dylan Stewart, who would you rather have, they would all take Dylan Stewart? Yeah. You know, it's hard because the graphic does say top 10 returning players. Maybe Sark wouldn't trade Colin Simmons for him, maybe. But Dylan Stewart has every trait.

And like, I'll give an example. Diego Pavia, we were talking to him at the senior bowl. And somebody asked him about talent and, you know, who really changed the game. Yeah. And he said, when I saw Dylan Stewart, Dylan Stewart's freshman year, so this is not this past year, but in 2024. He's like, when I saw Dylan Stewart, I was like, oh, there really are human beings who can completely wreck your entire game plan. And he's one of them. Yes.

Now, you would have liked it if you were a South Carolina fan for it to manifest into more than four and a half sacks in the entire season. So like that's where I got kind of, well, it's like this guy would be scary to see anywhere in public because you don't know if it's if it's human. But at the same time, I don't know if he actually wrecked the games the way that he could have at his potential last year, which no, he definitely didn't. Now, part of that is because on the other side of the ball, South Carolina, it couldn't block it all. Yeah. And that's also hurt them. It's also important and this will be a good segue, Andy, to what we're going to talk about. I think that there's a fundamental misunderstanding, too, of when I do these lists, zero percent of me is reviewing what

has already happened. Now, obviously, you use what people did already to try to inform your opinion about the future. But when I do this, I'm doing my best to create a list in May that will resemble what the list looks like in December and January. So that said, we can go back to my 2025 list and see how I did. Now, like, I'm not always good at the great at this. And there's a lot of people who can make a list. And I think that probably eight out of the 10 names would be the same on everyone's list. I don't know that it was overly controversial. But let's just see how I did last year and, you know, where things ended up. Okay. Do you want me to read off the list from last year? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Last year, my number one player was Jeremiah Smith. I think that that was

successful. My number two player was Caleb Downs. I think that was successful. Number three, DJ Lagway, that was almost. Yeah, yeah. And I'll take blame for that too because I overhyped him too. And last year when we made the list, you also have to remember that all the quarterbacks that existed were more speculative assets than they were proven assets. So I went on a limb and I saw this as a freak that illustrates all the potential in the world. I think he's going to bring Florida to a really successful season, say Billy Napier's job. And obviously that didn't happen.

You remember last season if you listened to the show, Andy and I were both very high on Florida. but we were both very wrong. Number four, Ryan Williams. I also think that that was probably a miss. Now, we saw glimpses like we always do, but he will be the first to tell you that last year didn't go the way that he planned because, well, Andy, you know,

he changed his name for a fresh start. You know, he adds Coleman to his jersey now for a fresh start to honor his mother's family. We'll see how that goes. Number five, Colin Simmons. That was a hit. Number six, Dylan Stewart. Now, I don't know.

Dylan Stewart. Right. Coming off his freshman year, it was justified last year's production maybe not so that that's definitely one we can argue number seven Peter Woods

production didn't justify it got picked in the draft very high but production didn't justify it eight Arch Manning no shouldn't and yet looking back probably shouldn't have been on there maybe deserves to be on there now

but had you grow up my contention with Arch Manning is that we were a year early, but I'm not getting off the ship. I'm off the DJ Lagway ship. He's not on the list anymore. He's going to have to play his way back on there. He might be able to play his way back on there.

Baylor's an exciting team for me to want to watch this year. Number nine, Jeremiah Love, I think was a hit, but also very under. Play too low. Probably should have been higher. Yeah. Probably should have been higher. And then, of course, number 10,

Sam Levitt, who I mean, he got hurt, so it's kind of hard, but he also was the most. He got hurt, but he beat Texas Tech. Nobody else in the Big 12 did that. Yeah. And I think that a lot of people, too, were kind of surprised at the height that Sam Levitt was getting at this time last year. And now, like, he has become more of a household name in the sport being the LSU quarterback and one of the most expensive transfers in the portal this year. It seems more acceptable, but he didn't make my list this year.

So, you know, we'll see how it goes. But I think that I probably had a 65 or 70% hit rate, depending on how you want to view, Dylan Stewart last year. And I think that this year, I think the top 10 list. that people would do, even the fans yelling at me, I think you would probably see fewer Dylan Stewart's. You might see fewer Carter Smiths. Maybe you would have Kiwan Lacey there instead of Ahmaud Hardy, especially considering what just happened to him.

Okay, so with Amad Hardy, let's explain, because this came out, I believe the day before he got shot. So Eli Drinkwitz has talked since then. An arrest has been made in this case, and it sounds like Amad Hardy just unfortunately was in the wrong. place and they don't know if he's going to you know what his situation is going to they're hopeful that he can play this season but there's no guarantee right now so uh you know you're just rooting for him to to get better but that's the situation he's in right now so that that's that's that's the

explanation for why he's on the list and it came out before all that happened but in in this situation where now it's up in the air you you'd probably throw kew on lacey there and it actually was written before it happened and it came out after and i didn't but i just wanted to make sure that that. Well, we didn't know what his recovery timeline was at that. But I didn't want to remove the guy from the list because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Right. You know, I don't know how good he's going to be. We've seen people, you know, deal with an injury like this and it's been really debilitating and we've seen other people recover it from it shockingly fast. I don't know the extent of his injury. But if you think

that me, including Ahmad Hardy on this list is insane, just know that if this list went to 25, much like the college football playoff rankings that like he won with lacy would be two spots maybe behind him. Like I still think that Amad Hardy if I had if you if you had to pick between the two and it's just like would you rather have pizza or a really good burger? Like I don't know. But you're happy either way. You're happy either way. So, um, you know, I think that Ole Miss people without Trinidad Chambliss on the list, you know, are rightfully upset. If I were a fan of Ole Miss, I would be upset too.

But the good news for Ole Miss, if you were listening to this. you have two of the top 15 players in the country, in my opinion, without question, and you should be very... I'll take that in most cases. Yeah. Because there's not many other teams we can talk about that have that. There are a lot of really good players in college football, and it's very hard to whittle it down to 10. And, like, I'm going on an Ole Miss, our Ole Miss site show on Thursday. So I'll wear a vest there and try to explain myself.

But it's the talk of champions? Yeah, we're going, we're going to, Ben and Brad. We're going to have an appearance on there. So, and I don't know what we're going to talk about, but we'll see where it has. Well, I think it's interesting, looking at the list of guys who are also under consideration, which is where you have Kiwan Lacey and Trinidad Champlain. There are some really good players there. You have Julian Sayan, Ohio State's quarterback in that spot.

You have Matea Lungali, who is probably Oregon's best returning pass rusher. He's in that spot. He could be one at the end of this season. I'm interested in, so we looked at your last year's one. If we did it at the end of last season, Fernando Mendoza would have been number one. There was no one, not a single person,

who would have had Fernando Mendoza on that list this time last year. So I'm curious, if we're going to project for people who didn't make your under consideration or your list. Who could be number one? Who could we look back on now that kind of, we think, came out of nowhere? Oh, man.

Does anybody come into your mind? Let me rack my brain. Well, and you think about, like, CJ Carr would not be coming out of nowhere. I think, right, right. Yeah.

Well, okay, let me ask you this. Jaron Kiabe-Sungapultelli, Cal's quarterback. Is that coming out of nowhere? Would he qualify? You know what I think you need to do? I think you need to go to the list of transfer, like the transfer rankings on On 3,

and then scroll down to page 2 or 3 and try to pick out names from that region. Because it would be easy to cherry pick like Jordan Seton. No, the person where the new head coach flew all the way to Hawaii without showering to try to retain, probably didn't come out of nowhere. You know, like, yeah, he definitely didn't come out of nowhere. You know, but there are players,

because here's the thing about Fernando Mendoza, everybody knew who Fernando Mendoza was at this time last year. Correct. The Trinidad Chambliss story and the Fernando Mendoza story are very different. Fernando Mendoza, I believe, had an offer to go to Georgia, didn't he? Georgia or Miami. He could have gone to either one. He had an opportunity to go to, like, it's not like this guy just came out of nowhere.

He was, he had a beautiful ball at Cal and, you know, obviously, you know, flourish in a way that people didn't foresee. Like Drew Mestemaker is not coming out of nowhere either. No, but I'm trying to think of like quarterback. Like what, like, I hate to say. Kenny Minchie. How about Kenny Minchin blows up at Kentucky? I think that's a pretty good comparison. I got another one for you, Andy.

Look at me, please. DJ Lagway. What a story that would be. What if he's awesome? What a story? What if he's awesome? He has a good arm. He still has good traits.

Those didn't go away. Yeah. No. That would be outstanding. That would be incredible. What if DJ Lagway is a Heisman finalist? Well, absolutely. It would be an incredible story.

So, you know, there are players. But I also think, yeah, here's a lot of, Adam Trick. We're talking a lot about Brendan Sorsby, obviously, because he's been in the news. But Adam Trick at Texas Tech, the edge rusher they got from Miami of Ohio. Yeah.

He might be the best player they got in the portal, depending on how the Soresby situation plays out. Another good way to do it too would be, and maybe this would be a great segment for later in the week. We actually prepared for it. Like who's this year's Fernando Mendoza and you go through teams in the top 25 or teams that we perceive will be in the top 25

or in the playoff mix, go through their transfer classes and see who's a player that came in their position. You know who we need to have on for that? Our friend Cody Belair. Yeah. You know what? Let's have Cody on and talk about it.

Yeah. Because Cody was the one when, When Sam Levitt was leaving Michigan State and going to Arizona State, before we'd even play a snap for Arizona State, Cody was like, you guys need to watch Sam Levitt. So much about this, Andy, is about physical traits and situation. Fernando Mendoza had great physical traits, and he went to a great situation with two high-end draft pick receivers

and the best coach in the country and had the best year of his career. Like, who went to a play, who has got great physical traits that Cody would have been aware of since they were in high school, who transferred into a new situation at a position of needs, for a place that's going to be competing at a high level, and you have your formula for who's got a chance to take the world by storm next year. Yeah. Or maybe it's somebody we know who's in a different place.

That could be Josh Hoover going to Indiana and following in Fernando Mendoza's footsteps. We talked to Matt Campbell last week, the Penn State coach. What if it's Rocco Beck? Yeah. What if it's Rocco Becked as the Penn State quarterback? Yeah. Who were players who were highly productive at their previous thoughts, but nobody cared to notice all that much because they played on bad teams.

Yeah, and Rocco wasn't on a bad team, but he wasn't on a playoff team. Let me change the word bad to out-of-sight teams. Here's another one. A guy who was a starting quarterback last year got hurt, and his replacement turned out to be awesome. Austin Simmons, former Ole Miss quarterback now at Missouri. Austin Simmons won the job, by the way. Austin Simmons was the plan last year, and Austin Simmons would have continued to be the plan.

That's what I always love about these stories, too. It's like Trinidad Chambliss is not on my top 10, but the coach that just got poached away from Ole Miss and given one of the biggest contracts and investments in college football history needed an injury to figure it out for himself. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So very inexact science, but I think your list is mostly.

sound. I probably would have put Trinidad on there. But the thing is, like, if I'm putting him on there instead of, say, Dante Moore, I'm going to get yelled out by the Oregon fans for that. Yeah. I mean, the goal shouldn't be push Cam Coleman down because, you know, it's probably safer to leave Cam Coleman off the list, but then you don't get to be right if he blows up. I want to be right. I'm doing my best to do this in good faith. I'm not trying to get people not to yell at me. I could have made a list where no one would yell at me. I mean, you know, you can do make a list. You know what? You make a top 10 list, which is just the Navy Army draft pick over and over again, and you won't get yelled at. Producer River pointing something out that

that I had not noticed. This is the only new transfer on his team. Everybody else has been, what was on their team last year. Like, Amad Hardy was a transfer. Dante Moore was a transfer, but not last year. I've been personally, emotionally and spiritually obsessed with Cam Coleman since he was in high school, though. So like, I have an issue with that. But it is easier to pick. I mean, it's not like this is a surprise. If you're very successful and one of the best players in the country, you're probably less likely to leave your situation because things are going well. Correct. So like, but Cam Coleman, this is a pure speculative play. And I think people are like, why is Cam Coleman on the list? It's like, check back in December. Right. But Texas is the only team.

in the country that has or on the list that has three different players on it. And that is also... Maybe I need to do a different kind of list. Maybe my list needs to be the new faces and the new places. Yeah, I mean, if you agree with my list 80% of the way, there's no reason for you to do your own.

Yeah, because it's going to be a lot of the same guys. So, yeah, let's do that. And let's have Cody on. I will text Cody as soon as we get off the year. Because I do think that's a great way to look at this next season is who could be Fernando Mendoza in 2026? Who could be that person? They'd call them for you too.

That's fantastic. Fantastic. Ari, we've got to talk about a coach who had a chance to go somewhere else, but did not. We'll do that next. Ari, we had Matt Campbell, the new Penn State coach on the show last week. our guy Pete Naco's talked to the person who could have been Penn State's new coach. Kalani Sataki stays at BYU. Crumble cookie was involved.

And Kalani Sataki was pretty open with Pete about what happened there. And usually coaches don't talk about this, but this is, you and I have met Kalani Sataki. He's a different cat. And I expected him to have a fairly straightforward answer for stuff like this. And so this is what he said to Pete about the Penn State interest. It got real quickly after people started to find out about it. The decision-making process had to happen almost overnight, looking at what Penn State was doing, what they were trying to offer.

I had to decide what I wanted and what I considered compensation for me and what I was chasing. And he ended up staying with BYU and also said, honestly, there's nothing against Penn State. They're a fine institution. They got the right guy and Matt Campbell. I have tons of respect to their fans and the people there. I just don't know much about the area in recruiting there.

I'm very confident in my abilities as a coach and a leader. When it came down to it, I had to decide what was more important. It was really hard for me to leave, especially knowing how much the fans appreciate me here. Sometimes when you get caught up in the business, you overlook the things that matter most. It all works out the way it's supposed to. I'm glad I'm here, and I'm glad Penn State got the man they wanted.

That's a everybody turned out great situation. Yeah. You know, I do think it is interesting because I wonder of the percentage of coaches, Andy, who make decisions about their careers, how many do it for reasons that ultimately turn out to not be that important to them. You know, like, if you actually, like, go back and look at,

like, you pull 100 random coaches who have gone through the rankings or the ranks of college football, and you ask them, do you like every career move that you made? Do you think that, like, 70% would, like, take back at least one? Like, maybe even more.

And I think that it makes, I always compare myself to these people because it's the only frame of reference that I have, but I do feel like one of the blessings in my life has been, you know, making career jumps that actually turned out to be great and being in the right place at the right time a lot of times. But I have been offered jobs in the past

that could have totally derailed my trajectory. I've been offered jobs at places that were worse off than the athletic and certainly worse off than on three that I could have taken for a little bit more money or what I thought was more prestige at the time, been laid off a year later, and then not been on the show with you today. So, like, I do think that being a great legendary college football coach is every bit about which opportunities you choose to take, not just when they arrive.

And I'm happy for him because I do think that everybody makes different decisions and, you know, finds fulfillment in different ways. And it seems to me like he's the perfect fit for BYU. And if he's happy there, why would you rock the boat and then, you know, put your, I mean, like, I think Matt Campbell made the same risk to a certain extent. But Matt Campbell's risk came after seven to ten years of. of considering what that opportunity would have to look like. That's what Matt Campbell was waiting for. That's not what Kalani Sataki was waiting for. Right.

I think it was kind of a surprise to Kalani Sataki that the interest came. And it was a slow burn at first. The way he said it, I think, was pretty accurate where he said, once people started to find out the decision process had to go pretty fast, it was a little bit slower courtship. And then the word got out. And once the word got out, it all happened within 24 hours. Like the Crumble Cookie guy, and we're not just making Crumble Cookie jokes.

The CEO of Crumble Cookie is a BYU booster and put together a pretty good package and rally the donors to make sure that Kalani Saki knew how loved he was at BYU and allowed Kalani Satki to ask for some more things, which, you know, NIL budget, that sort of thing, staff budget. And so once the work got out. I'm still kind of confused, Andy, of where BYU stands and the panel. antheon of NIL capabilities. Like, I don't know.

They had the highest paid, or one of the highest paid basketball players in the country in AJ DeVonso last year. Yeah. They, in terms of having an entity affiliated with your university that could tip the scale, they could just put a thumb on the scale, NIL-wise, like, similar to the way Cody Campbell has at Texas Tech. BYU has that in the, in the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints. so that the Mormon church is, it runs BYU.

It has tons of money. Yeah. But it is not to this point just said, hey, in, you know, in order to promote the church and to promote BYU, we're going to pump all this money in. That's not how it's happened. It's, they basically had to go to their donors and get it. Yeah. But location, recruiting footprint, all these different things that he's clearly, you know, comfortable with. I think that that makes sense.

And obviously, BYU too, Andy, let's not forget. BYU has been just as close as Penn State even to doing some pretty big things. Now, Penn State went to the, made the playoff and went to the semi. So maybe that's a little bit. But they've been knocking on the door of the playoff now for the last few years. And I do wonder if the difference between BYU making it or saying competitive on the same field as Texas Tech for four quarters comes down to the things that Kalani Sataki asked for in order to stay. Like, I mean, that's the other thing, too. you have a pretty good, as the head coach, a pretty good thumbprint or, or, you know, finger on the pulse of how your program is and how far away it is from doing the things that you need to be done.

And obviously, he thought that that was the case. Now, I do like to play hypotheticals and think about, you know, how we would perceive things if things were different, Andy, like, how will we be thinking about Kalani Sataki at Penn State. So you kind of feel like it would be kind of the same exact discussion that we were having about Matt Campbell with, you know, has always had less with more and or done a little bit different though. Because Kalani Sataki has never been on that side of the country. He's never coached over there. Like Matt Campbell is from Ohio. From there, you started out of Mountain Union. He was Toledo's head coach. Like Toledo is an easy drive from State College, Pennsylvania.

He knows that area very well. Kalani Sataki, as he pointed out to Pete, has not worked there before. Now, I will say, BYU coach heading east to a place where he's not been before Bronco Menon Hall did really, really well at Virginia. It wasn't like Bronco Menon Hall went to Virginia and failed. He ran into a situation at Virginia where he basically was being told, here, you must hire this coordinator. And he's like, I'm not playing that game.

But he was succeeding more than in previous Virginia coaches had succeeded. But I would argue that Matt Campbell is probably the more natural fit at Penn State than Kalani Sataki. And Kalani Sataki, I just looked at his bio, has never coached east of Utah. right ever like he hasn't even had stints somewhere so obviously like but again i'm very curious too of how much any of this stuff matters in an in a world where you are proven that you know how to coach football you know how to motivate uh teams and honestly would you say that you know bYU has been consistently one of the toughest outs you know they might not have been the best team or the the most talented team in the country but they've always been one of the toughest outs if you

gave Kalani Sataki the NIL fund that Penn State's probably committed to Matt Campbell, and then you let him coach those players the same. Now, here's one thing that stood out to me, and I want to talk to you about this. Okay. Remember when we, Kalani Sataki doesn't have the same viewpoint on how to manage his roster with NIL as some of the other coaches, too. Yes. I'm glad you brought this. We had a really interesting, you and I had an interesting discussion with him at Big 12 Media Days about this last year. He does not want to be involved in the money part at all. he wants to let the GM handle that and he coaches the players that way the how much you're you're getting paid does not bleed into his relationship with the players and how to coach them

when to put them in when to take them out all the different things he made it seem like he was even kind of not 100% ignorant but kind of ignorant to what everybody was making I don't think ignorant is the word I think I think he's intentionally manufacturing a wall yes that's that's what I mean yes yeah it's sort of like when In our old, we don't have this now because of the show. Like with the show, we, you know, we talk to our advertisers. We're in contact with our advertisers. When we worked for newspapers and when we worked for, like when I worked for Sports

Illustrated, when you worked for the athletic, when I worked for the athletic, we didn't have anything to do with the advertisers. And it's always been in journalism, they called it, you know, well, the term was Chinese wall, but I don't know if you're allowed to say that anymore. Just called the blue wall and make it a Michigan topic. Yeah, but it was essentially an invisible wall where these people over here handle this and these people over here handle this. And that was the impression I got hearing Kalani Sataki talk about the way he handled.

And I'm curious, like, and we'll see him again at Big 12 Media Days. We need to have him on the show too. I wonder if his feelings on that have changed any. But I think that's a really interesting piece of it. Here's another one. this time last year we were just finding out that they were probably not going to have Jake Retzliff as their starting quarterback they end up starting a player in Bear Bachmeier who was a true freshman who had gone through spring practice with another team like that was their

quarterback situation and they still went 11 and 2 12 and 2 with the bowl game that's incredible yeah that is absolutely incredible that they were that good I think I had Kalani Sataki of my top 15 coaches in America in the list that we did last summer. Like, I have a lot of respect for him. The one question I wanted to ask you and I didn't get to was, do you think that if Kalani Sataki's viewpoint of, you know, let's call it church and state, finances and football, and the division of that between coaches and administrators or staffers

can work at a place like Penn State? I think so because there are places in the NFL where that works. There are places in the NFL where you have. have a very strong front office and a very strong coach. Philadelphia is probably a good example of that. I'm sure Howie Roseman and Nick Siriani talk, but Nick Sirianni is probably like Howie, you buy the groceries and I'll cook the meal.

And it works pretty well for them. Philadelphia fans hate Nick Seriani, don't they? It depends on the day. Depends on the game. I mean, the guy won last year they did. But they also hate him. But it's like weird. They were mad at the OC for most of last season, so they have a new OC now.

But yeah, I am just fascinated by that because I do wonder, like, at a certain point, like in college football, do you have to be more of a CEO now than ever before, or can you still be all about football? I remember when Chip Kelly came to Ohio State and he said, I just wanted to get back to playing ball and coaching and being around ball and thinking all about ball and being around my guys and drawing up plays and putting people in the best, you know, situation to succeed all those things. And I didn't want to be a head coach because of that and that he wanted to be a coordinator

because he wanted to get down to just being a ball coach. And it was just like, can you just be a ball coach as a head coach anywhere in 2026 and beyond? I don't know if you can. I think like that's what Oklahoma is trying to have with Brent Venable's coaching, Jim Nagy, General Managing. And like George Stoya, Sooner's Scoop, had a great story last week. We should have George on to talk about that. that's great because because that is that is the model that I think a lot of of schools probably want to get to but either don't know how or they're just not in a position where the coach is is going to give up that much power but venables and naggy so far seem to have a pretty good relationship and like what naggy said to george and jim naggy said the same thing to me last season where he's like I'm never going to give brin a player he doesn't want

like we're always going to be on the same page about that and i think that's that's a something that you can do so calani sotaki i don't think is is out on a limb here i think he's got the right idea and i understand i he when we talked to him about it already he explained it really well i thought because it he feels like it changes the relationship between player and coach and he would just like to be the coach and the more fascinating to me about what he said was it changes his calculus on how to use them. Yeah, which is, yeah, nobody only to ever admit to that except maybe him, but it's true. It's absolutely true. You know when you buy a pair of Jordans that are like rare, because you're a Jordan's guy, right? Yeah. And like you're so happy you have this old

pair of Jordans. And this probably works for anything that you buy that you really love. And you don't want to wear them because you don't want to ruin them. And it's like, it defeats the entire point of shoes. Like it's like it's sort of the opposite when you're paying somebody tons of money you have to you feel like you have to use them even if they're not as good as somebody else. But you also don't want to get mud on them when you don't have to. That's true. That's true. So there's there's a lot of dynamics to play here. But I would say the job Colanii Sataki did last year, one of the best coaching jobs in the country, which is why Penn State was interested. And I think it worked out best for both schools. And especially like BYU. is in a goods position. And look, BYU has been a consistently good football program for a while.

You know, they have, they have really back to Bronco Menon Hall and not in an easy situation either because they go from the Mountain West to independent. They kind of fight their way through being independent. Since they've gotten in the Big 12, they've been pretty good. And I think conference affiliation is going to help them. And it's interesting because who did Notre Dame turned to when USC ducked out of that series? They said, we'll consistently good. We'll be why you yeah, we'll come to Provo because we know you're going to give us a good game. We know you're going to challenge us. That's a, I mean, that's a sign of respect right there. Yeah. Lastly, too, they did all those things, created the consistency and have been very good all while overcoming an honor

code that probably stops 85% of players from ever even being interested in playing there, which is like, which is like unbelievable. We talk about like Notre Dame's and Northwestern and Stanford's academic restrictions. Like this is probably harder to overcome than academic. There's probably more people who meet the academic thresholds to play at Northwestern than meet the personality profile to want to play at BYU and adhere to an honor code like that. You have to want to want to do that. That is just a personal choice.

It's not even a matter of because you get good enough grades like these other places. You have to choose that. And yeah, it's probably going to be hard to find 18-year-olds or 18-22-year-olds who want to choose that necessarily. And they've done a great job of finding it. And look, you can say, oh, well, you can fudge that sort of day. But they don't fudge it. Like, Jake Retzeliff did not play for them last year. He was going to be suspended for seven games.

That's their starting quarterback. And they're just like, oh, well. Yep, you can't do it. So, you know, I think that this was an awesome story. If you haven't read it, check out On 3. Pete's been doing a great job. Obviously, he's all over the place. But, you know, Pete breaks news, and then he calls coaches and does interviews with them during the offseason.

He's a Swiss Army knife. And I'm so happy to be on his team and have him on 3. And thank you so much for giving us a segment, Pete. Yeah, you want to read this story, by the way, on3.com slash join. You can get a national subscription for 1999 for your first year, which allows you to read everything by Pete, by me, by Ari, by Brett Mc Murphy, by Chris Lowe. Great Chris Lowe story, by the way, that came out on Monday on Tommy Moffitt, the Texas A&M strength coach, who was the he was the longtime LSU strength coach.

He talks about getting fired by Brian Kelly at LSU and why he decided to come back to college football with Mike Elko at Texas A&M. Really, really good stuff. Ari, before we get off the BYU subject, can I throw something else out there? This is something that I was talking about at ACC Spring meetings with our friend Pete Sampson, who covers Notre Dame. Would you love to see a Notre Dame BYU annual series? Because I would. I think that would be awesome.

Like, I know Notre Dame and USC are talking, and they're hoping to get that rivalry back going by 2030. But if you're Notre Dame, if you and BYU could come to an agreement to play every year, I think that would be incredible for both programs. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we talked about the Notre Dame USC stuff last week. I was like, this would be awesome. And, you know, I said it before. I'll say it again.

Like, I think that the religious rivalry thing is really cool, you know. Yeah. And it's, you know, different faiths and but very proud institutions that are very important about propping up their faith. And like having that rivalry between two teams that are, you know, frankly, very far away, but also very different. But also share one thing in common, which is they want to be excellent in football. Who wouldn't want that? And I don't know that I believe, you know, Notre Dame, given the situation that they're in being independent and not having, you know,

an entire season already given to them, like, I don't think that getting USC back on track should necessarily prohibit this from happening. And I think that it only can help BYU. You, listen, we talked about this last week, and maybe this will be a good column. But like, don't you kind of wish, don't you think BYU, you wishes they played Notre Dame last year? Like, I think that like both teams have something to gain in this instance, right? BYU gets a tent-pole, non-conference game that allows them to potentially get the quality win that they lacked last year to get them in the playoff and Notre Dame has another consistently good team on their schedule

so that last year, what happened last year would be avoided. I'll give an example. If you replaced one BYU non-conference opponent with Notre Dame and Notre Dame puts BYU in either instead of Boise State or Arkansas, you know, not one of the ACC games because the Notre Dame has to play those The winner of the game. Yeah, and like Stanford, Navy, USC, those are games that rival games have to get played.

But let's say BYU is in that. So in 2025, if they play each other, Ari, whoever wins the game, assuming all the rest of the season goes that way, makes the playoff. Yep. I think that I am all for a discussion of creating a new non-conference rivalry. And I don't know if Notre Dame feels like they need to do this.

If they get USC back, they'll also have Clemson. and then they'll have their ACC agreement, which means they'll probably play, you know, Miami and Florida State most years, which means one of them should, you know, hopefully be good. And maybe they don't feel like they need to overly do it. But like if I were Notre Dame, my chief objective, especially considering the fact they are accumulating talent at a way that they haven't been doing in 20 years. Like I wrote a column that ran over the weekend or it was on Friday about Marcus Freeman and they got a five-star prospect last week. Like, you know, Andy, it was seven years ago or 10 years ago when Notre Dame faced Alabama in the in the, in the call. college football playoff and we had a month's worth of shows talking about how one team just didn't have the horses to compete and then they got blown off the field like Notre Dame isn't going to be

getting on the field with anybody moving forward unless things change in a big way that we don't see coming where they are the inferior talented team they're either going to be slightly less talented as talented or more talented than every single team that they play on their schedule so and frankly speaking I think that you know they should be you know vastly more talented than BYU on an annual basis, you know, given what we know about those two programs right now. So I think that there is only one chief objective if I'm Notre Dame, which is to do the exact opposite of the offseason talking point and is to create the most sexy schedule that you can come up with so that you have a chance to amass quality wins.

And then it's not just amassing quality wins. It's also forgiving losses. You have to be able to give yourself a chance to get out of holes in years when you get into a hole. They got into a hole last year. And it didn't matter that they were one of the best teams in the country. couldn't dig themselves out statistically because they didn't play anybody that allowed them to do that. They need to have at least three or four good teams on their schedule every single year that are going to be top 15, top 10 caliber teams in order to make sure that what happened last year never happens again.

Because that was a scheduling thing. It was a bad luck thing, right? We didn't know that USC was going to be where they were. We didn't know that certain teams on their schedule were going to be as down. You never knew that Purdue was going to be the worst team in the Big Ten. You don't know how it's going to turn out in eight years, but you do know that BYU was like Arkansas being as bad as. they were. When you schedule that game, you didn't think that was possible. But BYU probably stops that because they have never really been terrible on a long

and certain basis. They're always good. I also think BYU, because they've been independent fairly recently, understand what Notre Dame is dealing with. And I think that the ability to empathize with that, plus, again, it is beneficial for both parties. When Notre Dame comes Provo, it's, you know, it's a huge deal. BYU goes to South Bend, Notre Dame fans are going to be thrilled to have a good team coming in. Like that's, it's a, it would be a great rivalry. I'd love to see it. I would love to see it. That's, that's one that. Who wouldn't want to watch Notre Dame go into Provo? Who would, what, what BYU fan wouldn't want to get amped up for the game? You know, get a bunch of swigs and go out to the game and, you know, get amped up for a night game with

Notre Dame under the lights, man, that'd be sick. If the happy accident of Notre Dame and USC not playing right now is that you get Notre Dame and BYU more often, I'm okay with that. But again, annual would be awesome. I really do think these two would make a super fun annual matchup. Would love to see it every year. And I think it'd just be cool. It'd be good for the sport.

Dibbs. You want to call them? please. I have a story tomorrow. I don't have one yet. Knock yourself out. There you go. That's a new bit on our show.

I don't know how many people, Andy, listen to the show and read us. I hope that there's a lot of people who do both. But I want a new bit on the show, which is if we stumble into a conversation that's really interesting, whoever says dibs first gets it. I don't know if that's okay with you, but I'll let you deal with the legal stuff.

Just give me the fun hypothetical rivalry. There's plenty of it. Yeah, that's no problem. Yes, I think that's good. All right, while we're, while we're on this topic, is there another one that you'd like to see rivalry? Is there one that doesn't get played or that only gets played occasionally that you think would be a good natural fit?

Because I just feel like this is such a natural fit. I mean, there are a lot of games I would love to see played in games that have been played in the past that don't. I'm not going to bring back rivalries that had just been canceled. Like, I would obviously love to see Bedlam. played still. Yeah. You'll see the backyard brawl every year.

Yeah. But I would like to see Ohio State Notre Dame play regularly. I think that that's a classic game between two teams that, you know, in the 90s, they had a bunch of good matchups. And then, of course, the last time they played in South Bend, it came down to a two-yard play at the end of the game with a, you know, weird defensive alignment. That would be fun. I don't know.

Does that count as a rivalry? I don't think it does, but it would be a cool series. Yeah, but that's a game that's fun. Now, Ohio State has done a really good job of scheduling. marquee non-conference opponents. So they're doing fine on that. And if they're going to keep getting schedules from the Big Ten that look like this one, they're going to have to be careful how many of those they schedule.

You know a game I liked watching and I think would be fun. Arizona State and Mississippi State when they played. I think that's like a weird one that like I was like. It were fun, yeah. Like a fun game between two teams that are from different parts of the country and different conferences. I do think that if you have to answer this question, Andy, you should probably answer it obviously with

teams that are that are either in the mix for CFP contention or in conferences that like need the context for the committee. And I think that that's always a good one. Like picking a team in the big 12 and a team that should be somewhere in the bottom half of the SEC and letting them play, gives us a good litmus test of like where does the big 12 stack up against the SEC? I think like we need clues like that. And like that doesn't, that's no rivalry. That's nothing special. But I enjoyed watching those games. I'm just trying to think outside of the box. Producer River says Tennessee against either Virginia or North Carolina. Nice border states. Yeah, that'd be cool. I'd be good with that. Tennessee, Virginia Tech would be good. North Carolina, South Carolina.

They played a few times in the Spurrier era, and those were fun. Yeah, I like the geography piece of it. I like if there's something in common with Notre Dame and BYU, where they're both religious schools, BYU wasn't independent and understand. So I like, I like those. Can I make one up? factors. Yeah. Just make one up. And you're a historian, you have the entire encyclopedia of college football in your brain.

But like, I'd like to see like LSU and Florida State because they're regionally not that far away from each other, but they're all throwing different. So they played a neutral site, quote, unquote, neutral site home and home a few years ago where they play it. Remember, they played in New Orleans. Yeah. And the next year they played in Orlando. And Florida State won both of those.

22 and 23, I believe. But I thought that was a really cool thing because that was in Florida State was one of the top teams in the ACC playing. one of the top teams. Speaking of history, you want some fun history about that matchup. Sure. Just in your brain. Go ahead and show everybody. Late 70s, early 80s, Florida State played at LSU five years in a row, including one matchup where Bobby Bowden basically told his wife, if they beat us, I'm going to LSU next year. Oh, and Florida State won, so he stayed. It's the best thing that ever happened to Florida State. Well, of course. Yeah.

Yeah, that would be a fun, like, if you know, think, like have facts like that. The single biggest games, stakes-wise, that were, that the public was unaware of before the game started. Oh, that's a great column. Okay, dibs on that one. I'm going to go. Yeah, you can have that one. You note into the memory banks. And because I, nothing else is coming up in my head on that.

But there's a few, well, there's a few where I know a certain result triggered. something like it's kind of like the butterfly effect thing but like a little bit like but like it's like reverse butterfly effect you use what would have happened if the other result happened but like when i i did a column years ago at s i on what would have happened if chris leek had gained one more yard on a third down play against ls u in the 2004 ls u florida game where i i'm pretty sure this is some speculation on my part but i was a beat writer covering florida the tuesday time. So having talked to a lot of people in charge, I'm pretty sure Ron Zook would have been able to pull out of the slide had they beaten LSU. Because if they beat LSU, they might not lose

Mississippi State. He might not get fired. It might change the course of college football history, because obviously then Notre Dame gets Urban Meyer because he doesn't choose between Notre Dame and Florida. Notre Dame is the only real option at that point. And I think it would have changed a lot about college football. But yeah, if you've got another one of those, if you know from your team where there was a situation where a coach was going to leave if they lost or they saved their job or they got fired because they lost in that game, like, let us know, hit us up because I'd love to make a list like that. But Bobby Bowden told us that story one year. It was at the Dick Vitale gala where he raised money to fight cancer and they were honoring Bobby Bowden. And he told that

entire story in detail. And it was wild to think that. Bobby Bowden could have been LSU's coach in the eight. Can you imagine how dominant LSU would have been with Bobby Bowden coach? I didn't want to think about it. And I'm just happy that Florida State got something there. I don't want to pile that on them right now. That's not a kind topic to come up within the current era of Florida State football. Actually, while we're on topic of Florida State, I do want to revisit Ari, what we talked about on Friday.

We drafted rivalries. And when that sucker hit the internet, when that sucker hit social media, who boy, people had very strong opinions. I think you got piled on for leaving or for leaving the Iron Bowl for me at number three. I got piled on. And here I will express some regret here where I think we all messed up, but especially me. I should have had Florida Florida State on this list. Okay. So like I actually was like looking through the responses before the show today. And like I think that I acknowledged during the actual recording of it that I probably made a mistake not taking the Iron Bowl second.

But in terms of the rest of my list, like I know Minnesota, Wisconsin wasn't going to be a pick for the public. I think that that was probably for a small region of the country to appreciate that I picked. But like I'm pretty good. Like the fact that I got A&M in Texas in the fourth round to me is,

is almost makes up for some of the errors that I made earlier on. There isn't a game on the, on, maybe at the end, like Washington, Oregon was a really good pick. I kind of panicked at the end. But I don't know, is there anything that like you are just really upset about? Is that the one Florida Florida State? Yeah, Florida Florida State because there were so many instances in the 90s where it affected the national championship. You have the hatred of a, you know, in-state rivalry where everybody knows each other.

Both schools recruit against each other a ton. So you had that. Plus the games had such massive stakes at the end of the season. But the problem there is that neither one's been good at the same time or they haven't both been good at the same time for 25 years. So in the Urban Meyer era, that was what the Seminoles call the lost decade before Bobby Bowden got run out. And then when Jimbo Fisher got them really good at Florida State, that's when Florida was down. So we haven't really seen them both be great at the same time. Like the last, I think really good when we're both of them were kind of up

was 2012, where Florida was having a good season. I think they went 11 and 1 in the regular season and lost to Georgia. That's where they ended up losing the Louisville and the Sugar Bowl that year. And then Florida State was on the verge of becoming really, really good, but not quite there yet because they end up winning the national title in 2013. So that 2012 game, Florida goes up to Tallahassee and wins that one. That's the one where must champ's like, oh, you better learn to fit the power if you're going to play the University of Florida. And then the next year, Florida goes four and eight. And Florida State just destroys everyone. You know what I don't know, Andy, and you can help walk me through this zero day since my

last mic issue. In the state of Florida, I picked a rivalry in the second round between Florida State and Miami and my understanding as somebody who's not from there or lives there, that that's the most bitter one. Like, can you rank the three, the triangles of like which ones are most bitter? It depends on when. It just depends on, like, your age will determine how you feel about it. this you know if if you came of age in the 90s well in the in the early 90s you're going to say

Florida State Miami because those were the biggest games if you came of age in the mid to late 90s you're going to say Florida Florida State because those were the bigger games of national import you're probably not going to say Florida Miami because my alma mater ducked out of that as an annual affair you know that was they played every year until the late 80s and then Florida's like nah, we're good. And so they've played some since then, but not that frequently. So I do think it's probably between Florida Florida State and Florida State Miami, because those are annual games. But I think it just depends on who you root for, how old you are, how you feel about that. Because that's the other thing. Between Florida State fans and Florida fans, for some of them,

Florida, Florida State is the most bitter rivalry and considered the most important rivalry. but for others, Florida State fans, there are those who consider Miami the big arrival, and there are Florida fans who consider Georgia the bigger rival. And it depends on, again, how old you are. It's funny. Your circumstances were. You say this, Andy, because last night I was watching game seven

of the Eastern Conference, or to go to the Eastern Conference finals, Cavs Pistons. And my dad's from Cleveland, so he's a big, you know, Cavs guy. And I was watching it with him. And the Cavs were up by like 31 points. with like the fourth quarter left, and he was like freaking out over fouls

and saying things like, we have to keep our foot on the gas. We can't let this go. And I just looked at him. I'm like, Dad, the Cavs wouldn't have to score again for the rest of the game and they're probably going to win.

I say this because I did watch the Pistons rally from 22 down and halftime in game six in Orlando to beat the magic and then beat them in game seven. So I don't blame your dad for feeling that way. Plus, as a Cleveland sports fan, I am sure he has. has a lot of PTSD.

Let's say the Michael Jordan shot over Craig Elo, the John Elway drive. It's funny that you're bringing this up because he looked at me like angrily because I was like kind of like laughing. I was like, dad, like, this game's over, relax. Like, and he goes, you have not lived through the things that I've lived through. Exactly. I mean, in his mind is burning his brain. Like, because when I was a kid, you were, you were a baby at this point.

So I was an event during the drive and the fumble. Like I was a drop. But the Jordan shot over Craig Elo. You were a baby. Like I was in elementary school. And so elementary middle school. And like that was in the Gatorade commercial that played during every sporting event ever of Michael hitting that shot. And he kind of twists and turns.

And then he's like this. And you just see Craig Elo just melt. The reason why I bring this up though, Andy is because you do, you say like rivalries are created. Like my dad hates the Denver Broncos more. than anything in the entire world for obvious reasons, but like somebody like me is like, who cares about the Broncos? So it like does depend on your era. And like when I was a kid, Miami, Florida State was like the game. So like that has obviously shaped my thing. But I do not know the NBA at all. I don't know the history of it at all. Like I do know like

the iconic moments and the Jordan stuff and all that. But like if you lose a 31 point lead in the fourth quarter, that would be the biggest collapse maybe in the history of sports. Right. Like that wasn't just a Cleveland thing. That was like, you're up by right. I mean, shoot, the comeback the Pistons had against the magic was one of those because the magic had the fewest, I believe they had the fewest points and a half of any playoff team ever.

It only scored six points in the third quarter, if I remember correctly. I think it was eight. Eight. Yeah. I think they scored, I, please correct this I'm wrong, everybody, but I think it was 17 for the entire half. That wouldn't have been erasing a 33 point lead in the fourth. No, it wouldn't have been.

But, yeah, I, I, I, Don't blame your dad. But that's, right. Rivalries leave scars. And all of these things affect, you know. But the NBA is a good example because the rivalries in the NBA were, have always been historically created out of playoff series. Era.

Yeah. Yeah. It was the bad boy pistons and could Jordan and the Bulls finally overcome them? And then when they did, it was the Knicks. And the Knicks stood in their way at that point. they would get past them. I do kind of feel bad for the Pistons, Andy, because they were the team that the Cavs had to get over

at the beginning of LeBron's Prime. And they were the team that Jordan had to get over. It's like, why are the pistons always standing in the way of like the greatest players of all time? Because they're just that close. And it's sort of like you taking the Red River game instead of the Iron Bowl. When you take Darko and you have a chance to take Mello,

because remember, Darko was on an NBA championship. I cannot believe. And I was waiting for them. this. I was waiting for Texas and OU fans to absolutely steamroll you last week when you referred to the OU. They're also football fans and they know I'm right. No, they might know that you're right that the Iron Bowl should be ranked higher, but you were referring to them as Darko Milichit is like such an insult because like that was a flame out. I mean, I was referring to the Iron Bowl as mellow. It wasn't like I was referring to the Iron Bowl as LeBron. No, I know, but you're

referring to the game that I chose as a as a as a lottery flame out like that's not what that is well no I was referring to you you ignored the obvious choice for the the one that was yeah was a little more controversial so but I also would have in this instance if this this analogy would have made sense if darko militia wasn't as good as Carmelo but also was an all-star nine years in a row like it right it would have made more sense that way and I apologize but they didn't they didn't come up on offense for that I feel like I get, I get, uh, avalanched way more than you. And sometimes you say things that I think deserve an avalanche. Well, I'm just easier to, you can start that. You can be the one who goes to the foot of the mountain and he yells, hey, I just, I don't take pleasure in you getting avalanche. You should. Uh, do you take pleasure in me like over the weekend getting avalanched?

No, I didn't even look at it. Okay. But you knew what happened, right? Oh, yeah. But the thing is, I wouldn't have had to look at it. I knew when it came out of your. your mouth what was going to happen. I don't know what it is.

Maybe I'm like, who says a sadist, I like it. I don't know how much Twitter pays for that level of engagement. I mean, are you putting an addition on your house? Is that what we're doing? I think that on three is probably the one that is going to get the most engagement because they're the ones that get the check for it because it's their tweet.

I had to get the prize. I didn't post it. Gotcha. Well, but good for it. our company. I'll be the punching bag for them. I thought it was a lot of fun. That whole process was fun. And we'll go back and forth on whether we do rankings or draft because I think we did a draft in this case because we knew we'd all have the same first pick. And we probably would have had a lot of the

same picks if we just did our top five. So when we think that's going to happen, we think there's going to be a lot of overlap. We'll do a draft. But Ari, I want to just kind of throw this up on our topic for Friday, by the way. I don't know if you have that in your head. So if you have a, it's College football related draft. The food one was good. The rivalry one is good. I'm trying to think of ones that, like, because we can't do this every off season. Or maybe we can.

I don't know. But we haven't done like college football nuts and bolts discussions of like. We haven't done. Yeah, we haven't done who is LBU. We haven't done who is, or who's the best running back in college football. Like, there's a lot of ways we can go with this. But I will, I want to toss this a little bit out here. So we're going to, like the idea of the random.

ranking is something that came from columns I did at Sports Illustrated, and I would do my mailbag column, and I was tired of being an AP voter and ranking college football team, so I wanted to rank anything else. And so we would do some pretty weird, like really random rankings. Like, the moments in the Atlanta's Morissette song, ironic, ranked from most to least ironic. When we get to the season, we will do non-college football because there would be so much college football. Yes. That's a good plan. You'll get the pallet cleanser at the end of the week before you go into the into your weekends. Like when you go to a yogurt shop, what are in, you know when you go to a yogurt shop, the self-serve ones? Yeah. That, um, you have to like pull the lever and fill up your own cup and then at

the end of it, there's like a huge bar full of toppings and there's like 50 of them and you get the cheese with a little scoop with the, what is the top five ice cream topping that you can self-serve and throw on there? Like as I saw captain. Yeah, I don't know. I was like to draft on that one. I think there would be quite a bit of variability there. Yeah, but I was like, you know how I struggle with big menus? My wife told me to go get frozen yogurt for the family last week, and I went there and I did the yogurt part.

I was like, oh, this is easy. And then I got to like the topping bar. Just barely couldn't feel my body from my legs down. Like I didn't know what to do. Captain Crunch. By the way, Captain Crunch, dude. Oreos, Butterfingers, Oreos, Butterfingers. What do I do?

They got peanuts, they got chocolate chips, they got cookies, they got tea, they got toffee, they got cereal, they got fruit loops. It was just like hot fudge. It was wild, dude. Yes. So that's what you have to look forward to in season. But out of season, we do need to keep them college football really because I do feel like they give us something to argue about and God does we need. And it's really the only time, too, where you can unplug and do the 40,000 foot view of things. Let's do a

And we can keep We can make the circumstances random How about For Friday How's this sound? Best College quarterback Since 2000 Okay

That's on a draft I think we're probably going to be I think that's probably a draft right? Right Like I mean we all aren't going to take One person who's going to be number one or number two for everybody. Yeah, we'll draft it.

Yeah. Draft it too. How old are you, River? Are you old enough? Yeah, I'm 27. So remember Tim Tebow? Plenty.

Plenty. But do you remember Eric Crouch? No. Jason White. Yeah. That was like, there were a lot of quarterbacks that were very good that weren't just on the dot in 2000.

Yeah, but this will keep us all from having Cam Newton. Yeah. Number one. So, River's not getting the first pick again and I'm not picking in the middle, which means I'm picking number one. Okay. You'll still speed it up somehow. I'll pick number three again and beat you both.

I did this past time. Yeah. Well, it's fine. Like, all right, then I'll just tell you guys right now I'm taking Cam Newton. All right. That's my number one. You're on the clock. You're on the clock.

You have four days. And it's like I'm taking Fernando Mendoza. Like, you know you've got a whole four months to figure out what the number two pick is. But no, that's, you know, that's, you're going to hold four months to figure out what the number two pick is. But, but no, It'll be fun because I also think that in this draft, Andy, it's not just about who was really good in the NFL. Like, I think there's some really good pools. Oh, I think we should.

I mean, I guess anybody can pick however they want to, but I think it should be based on what you're in college. Yeah. I don't think your NFL production should have anything to do with it. Yeah. And like there's a lot, a lot. I think that we should all have great lists. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I'm mentally going down the list right now and this is going to be a lot of fun. This is going to be a lot of fun. All right. Well, good. We got a segment knocked out for Friday. It's going to be a big week. Got the Big Ten meetings going on. I'm sure we'll mention the 2014 playoff once or twice.

We're talking to our friend Clark Brooks, the stat cat, because he has his top 100 players coming out. And if you remember correctly, when he did that last year, I realized I'd made a massive mistake and did not have Indiana. and my way too early top 25 corrected that mistake after because there were Indiana had I think five players in the top 100 impact players and they were basically you know with all the teams we thought were going to win the national title you know Andy we have not done a post spring top 25 as a podcast yet do you want to do that after we talk to Clark and and kind of do it together

producer river says no he's like absolutely not why is that bad I don't know. River, why do you? Yeah, pop up here, River. Why don't you want to do it? What do we know? What do we know in May that we can? We know a hell of a lot more in this May than we knew last May.

Do we? Do we? I mean, like, the players went through three to the time, right? Like, last year there was a lot of movement, like, after, like, in spring and after spring. I would say that's true. That would be like July. Trinidad. It's not like the movement that happened.

caused us to really know anything because like this is the time of last year when Trinidad Chamblis was choosing Ole Miss. None of us knew what that meant. None of us had any clue with that meant. Because we don't know if there's another like double A player out there that is like on a roster somewhere that's going to win the Heisman this year that we shouldn't do it.

Oh, we should do it. I think we should do it. I don't know if it's more work for you, River, but I do think that it is May 18th and we have a few more months left of episodes. We've got to get through. I'm just trying to save you from getting yelled at online. I like it.

It's also part of the job. We should just accept that. Yeah, I'm getting along with that online. Because, you know, my favorite thing about it and how I know.