Andy & Ari On3 - SEC vs Big Ten: How the NFL Draft results settle the dispute | Alabama-Ohio State series in trouble? Darryn Peterson and Kansas Hoops

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

The message board season is never over, and Andy & Ari dive into this week’s edition of Megaboard Wednesday. As Andy paroozes the megaboard, he notices a piece of news from Notre Dame regarding WR Malachi Fields and the NFL Draft, which then leads him to compare the numbers between the SEC and Big Ten. Watch here as Andy & Ari debate if the gap is really closing between the SEC and Big Ten. (0:00) On Today’s Episode(1:42) Presenting Sponsor(4:09) Intro: MegaBoard Wednesday(5:47) Dane Brugler’s List: Conference Dispute(14:55) Draft Picks by the Years: SEC vs Big Ten(33:10) Alabama-OSU Canceling?(42:49) Kansas-Arizona, Darryn Peterson(54:09) Big Ten Trifecta T-Shirt(59:20) What about the SEC Belt?(1:03:00) Winter Olympics Check In(1:15:25) Conclusion: Thanks for watching! After the Big Ten vs SEC discussion, the fellas take a look into a highly anticipated matchup between a Big Ten and SEC school: Ohio State and Alabama. Recently, it was suggested from Paul Finebaum that Alabama would heavily consider canceling this series. Scheduled to play in 2027 and 2028, would it be soft to cancel this matchup between two of the premiere programs in the sport? Andy & Ari think so. Next up, in hoops, the guys head to Lawrence, Kansas, where the 9th ranked Jayhawks just knocked off the top ranked Arizona Wildcats. While the game was exciting, there was also some other news regarding one of the more prominent players on Kansas’ roster: freshman star Darryn Peterson. As Peterson did not play against Arizona on Monday, his absence raised some questions and caused a stir on social media. Andy & Ari break it down here. To close the Megaboard segments, Andy & Ari notice a t-shirt that has been fairly popular as of late: The Big Ten Trifecta Championship shirt. Celebrating the championships of Michigan, Ohio State, and now Indiana, this t-shirt includes all three schools on the front. Is anyone really buying this? To wrap up the show, Andy & Ari head to the 2026 Winter Olympics. You’ll never believe where this wild story ends up. For Dear Andy & Ari, send in your questions here:[e-mail]@on3.com Our show is also presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code ON3 and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code ON3.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code ON3 when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/join Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. It's a megaboard Wednesday. We got some threads on the draft. And when we talk draft, we don't need to talk about what happens to the NFL teams that pick these players. What we really need to talk about what it means for the different conferences, because this is the best hard data we can get on which conferences are the most talented. The SEC has been dominating in the draft. But if you look at a lot of mock drafts for this year, you see a lot of non-SDC players predicted to go very high in the draft.

Maybe the SEC does not dominate in the same way. And is that a sign of the sport changing in the NIL and Transfer Portal era? We'll talk about that. We'll dig into some of those numbers. Also, Paul Feinbaum predicting that Alabama will cancel its upcoming series with Ohio State. Is that going to happen? Is it worthwhile to play games like this? Is it soft to cancel a series like this?

Ari and I will discuss. I don't know if we'll debate because I think we're probably on the same side on this. We like better games. Spoiler alert. Plus, somebody before the Kansas Arizona game, sitting courtside, was texting somebody else about Darren Peterson

that seemed to be some very interesting information. How did that get out? How did that work? And also, does Kansas even need Darren Peterson, given what happened in the Arizona game? We'll talk about it all on today's Andy and our on three presented by BetMGM. We are presented by BetMGM. We use BetmGM lines, totals and futures on this year's show. And if you're not signed up for BetMGM, now is the time because if you sign up using a bonus code on three, you can get up to a $1,500 new player offer plus 50% percent. off an annual subscription to the On3 college sports network. Here's how that works.

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and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Annie and Ari on three presented by BetMGM. It is a mega board Wednesday, and we are going to dive deep into the On3 message boards. We're also going to tack on a story that I know has hit some of the boards in the off-topic forums from the Olympics that Ari could not resist, and he texted it to us this morning, and I said, yeah, we're going to have to talk about that.

I think you know which one of this. I think you guys know. But it's a shame we're not starting the show with that handy, honestly. That could be the whole show. We are a college football show, though. We are not a biathlon show, nor are we a reality dating show. If we were either one, believe me, we'd be leading with that. And we would be bigger, by the way.

Let's start off on our Notre Dame message board on blue and gold. And it's a story that, that one of our guys at Blue and Gold wrote about Malachi Fields, the Notre Dame receiver. And it's from Jack Sobel. And it's the story definitely made some money. It's about how Malachi Fields made money for himself in the Senior Bowl. And I saw this and I said, okay, well, let's see where Malachi Fields lands. And it led me down a very interesting rabbit hole that has a little less to do with Notre Dame,

though Notre Dame figures into this as well. But more about conference superiority, which is strange, coming off the Notre Dame message board, but you'll understand in a second because my first stop to figure out where Malachi Fields kind of ranked in the draft pecking order was our friend and former co-worker

Dane Brugler at the Athletic. He had just put out his top 100 draft prospects. And this is the top 100, regardless of team or positional need. So it's not necessarily a mock draft. He's not saying they're going to all go in this order. But if you know, Dane historically, his top 100 has mirrored pretty closely to the actual top 100 in the draft.

And so I found it very interesting because you don't find an SEC player going until number 7. And then you don't see another one until number 15, which I thought was very interesting. And there are not as many, it seems like, SEC players at the top, which is something that Ari and I have been talking about over and over again as people argue, is the SEC better, is the Big Ten better, is the SEC falling down is the Big Ten above the SEC now because they've won three straight national titles. The only number that matters to me in these conference superiority debates, and really, it doesn't matter all that much in terms of who's better at the top, because we know who's better at the top because those teams win in the playoff. But if we're going to talk about

total depth of conference. We're going to talk about how hard schedules are. We're going to talk about what a grind it is. The only number that matters is how many players does your conference get drafted each year? Because the personnel people in the NFL, the coaches the NFL, the scouts the NFL, they get paid to pick the best players. They don't, they're not thinking about this in terms of feelings. Oh, I like this conference better. So we're going to pick this player. Nobody's ever said that. So what does it mean for the actual numbers? So Ari, you and I took a deep dive yesterday morning and started discussing this. And I do think it's getting pretty interesting.

Yeah, you know, the numbers I think are really interesting, but like also the philosophy of it is also pretty interesting, Andy, because on one hand, and it's the same thing with all teams, really, like how many teams, how many players are you going to get drafted? how many players have to be premium top 15 picks to make a difference. And it's like the SEC does have nine more on the list than the Big Ten. But if the Big Ten has, you know, more top 15 players, is there like a scale or a weight there that you have to assign to those dynamic,

like game-changing type guys? I mean, Jimmy Johnson assigned it. If you go to the draft trade chart, there's a huge way to sign to guys who are at the top of the draft versus guys that are further down in the draft. Yeah. Yeah. But so, yeah, why don't you go through the numbers? Because the numbers are interesting. Let that guide our conversation. Well, so we'll go through Dane's list a little bit. So he's got Arvel Reese is the number one prospect.

And he's not saying he's going to go number one. Dane thinks Fernando Mendoza is going to go number one. He's got Fernando Mendoza at number two. But so Arvorese, Fernando Mendoza, one, two, Caleb Downs at four, Sunny Stiles at five, Carnell Tate at 10, Vega Ionee at 13. from Penn State. McCuyah limit at 14 from USC. So how many did I just say? What is that? Is that eight of the top 15?

Yeah. What's wild to me, and I know we mentioned it on the show yesterday, is that they're all but one from one team, and that team didn't make the semis. True. Seven of the top 15. So seven of the top 15 from the Big Ten.

But yes, much of it is from Ohio State, and that also probably makes Ohio State fans sick to think about that they, had that level of talent and they got bounced in the quarters. Now, I will point out, there are multiple Miami players in here. He's got, he's got Rubeman Jr. at number nine. He's got CC Maui at number 11. He's got a key messador at number 19. So Ohio State got bounced by a team that also had a lot of premium talent on it. Yeah, which I guess is the playoff working. But like, SEC team either, by the way. Yeah, right. Both of their losses came to non-SEC teams.

But like the trend to me here, Andy, is are we is like the number changing. Like even though the SEC is still number one is the number more lopsided or less lopsided now that it's been in the past. And is there going to be a change of guard in 2009? Yeah. Because like this doesn't happen overnight. Like it's a trend, you know, little by little the gap closes. And then all of a sudden it's on the other way. Well, and the gap existed for a long time.

If you're wondering, the last time another league, a non-SCC league, had the most draft picks, it was 2004. So the SEC led the way in 2005 with 37, which would seem like an absurdly low number for any of these leagues now. But that's because conference realignment has changed the dynamics of this. But yeah, in 2004, the Big Ten led with 44 draft picks and the SEC had 42. The Big East was third that year with 28. Oh, man. Which is wild to me. Because it was a bunch of Miami and Virginia Tech.

And then there were some Boston College and Syracuse in there. There's some Rutgers guys in there. The Big East had decent football. And like you can kind of see where the, why the ACC did what it did. Because the year the ACC had 25. Within a couple of years, they'd already take in the Big East teams that were producing most of the talent. Yeah. Well, hey, guys, listen, you know, Andy and I haven't been working together for the entirety of this trend.

But for the large portion of the first five years or so that we did work together, we were in complete agreement that the SEC was by far the best conference. And for 15 years, almost 20 years, that was a fact, right? Like, so like now it's controversial to say, well, maybe they're not because of that, because of those stats. Well, and the reason I think this matters in terms of college football, is when you hear the SEC people say, well, our schedule is such a grind, it's harder. You should give us preferential treatment because if we have more losses, the playoff committee should give us preferential treatment because our schedules are harder.

I would agree with you as long as you are producing the most talent by a wide margin. And I don't know that that's happening anymore. Yeah. And I think the other thing that you have to consider here is 34 players is really good, but there are, what, five more teams in the league than there were before? Yeah. So in the top 100 of Danes, it's 34 SEC players and only 25 Big 10. So that does still favor the SEC pretty well.

If you want to go to last year's draft, last year's actual draft, 36 of the top 100 draft picks were SEC players, 27 were Big 10 players. So the SEC is still better. in the top third of the draft. And there's one of the thing that has to be taken to an account here, Andy, is that of the 25 players, if 10 of them are from Ohio State, I don't know the number, but we know that six of the top seven are. That also is a wide margin because it's not spread out at all.

It's one team that has most of them. And the SEC was doing that with Alabama and Georgia. And actually, if you look at the way it's dispersed now, and that's another way to dive into these numbers is if you look at Dane's list right now, it's a pretty broad spectrum of SEC teams that these guys are coming from. It's not all Alabama, Georgia at the top. Yeah. And I think that what you want to see if you're the Big Ten moving forward is the defensive end from Purdue being a top five pick consistently

or the safety from Minnesota instead of going to Oregon being a top five pick there. I think that when you look at the SEC and the spread of teams that actually have program changing or game changing players, it's probably still more spread out. But the question really is is the top of the SEC, which used to be the most dominant thing, right? Like the SEC has always had really good depth in terms of good players on a multitude of teams. But the SEC also dominated during an era in which Georgia and Alabama and LSU had mega teams. And like now, you know, you look at the top of the Big Ten, the Big Ten were the best teams in the country this past year. I think you can make the case that the Big Ten might have had, you know,

three of the top five or three of the top four even. And that's just not the case anymore. So the question is, if it's 34, 25 now, what was the spread? I guess we don't have Dane's numbers for the last 20 years, but I wonder what the spread was in terms of who was drafted the last three years and if it's getting closer and closer. Well, I can tell you in total draft picks because I have that.

Yeah. So in 2025, the SEC led the way with 79 draft picks. The Big Ten had 71. And that represented a, you know, a tighter gap than before. In 2024, now this is, it's different because in 20204, there was still a PAC 12. And it happened to coincide with one of the best periods of talent in PAC 12 history. The SEC led the way in,

2004 with 59. The Big Ten only had 42, and the Big Ten actually was third. The Pac-12 was number two with 43. And now the Big Ten has absorbed probably the two biggest producers from the Pac-12 in Oregon and USC. Washington is a very reliable producer of talent. UCLA actually is, too. I mean, like even recently, like Carson-Schwestinger gets in the NFL

and is one of the best rookies in the NFL. He was awesome for the Seahawks. Yeah. Um, okay, keep going though. Okay, so, 2023, the SEC had 62, the Big Ten had 55. So that's, that's the same as 25, the same gap. Uh, 2020, the SEC had 65 and the Big Ten had 48. So you've seen a little narrowing of the gap.

Yeah, but if you go back to 2017, is it like 60 to 23? Like, I can look that up for you. If you want to, if you want to sing for a second. Yeah. These eyes. These eyes have never going to see another light. I don't even know the lyrics of that song, River. I kind of like look it up when I do it.

You know, because that's always our main song that we sing as we're trying to vamp. And I don't even know the lyrics, which is embarrassing. What are other songs you would vamp to? I mean, that's just from Superbad, one of the greatest comedies that's ever graced the big screen. And yeah, like I saw that movie in Scottsdale, Arizona. So when the dude that was messed up said, my brother. mother flew all the way in from Scottsdale, Arizona, to watch you sing. The entire theater exploded.

So I just, like, have, like, a nostalgic memory of that. All right. I have the numbers for 2017. All right. The SEC led the way with 53 draft picks. Now, remember, this is, this is 2017. So this is pre-Texas and Oklahoma coming on board. 53 draft picks for the SEC.

The Big 10, number two, at 35. See, so, yeah, it's closing. It's closing. So, like, you know, I don't know. Listen, I, still think that the SEC by and large probably has a advantage in getting these players because the best players in the country are typically living in the South in high school. Is that still a fact? Like there's no G. But I don't know that that's a case because like, and I was going to,

I was going to bring this up. We're giving these leagues credit for these players, but we're really giving them credit for the last school they played for. For example, Casey Concepcion is a guy who's getting first round bus. He's a, he's a receiver from Texas A&M. But he played most of his career at NC State. So is he an SEC or an ACC guy? Fernando Mendoza is going to go number one. He played one year in Indiana. He played most of his career at Cal.

So he gets credit for that, the PAC 12, the ACC, or the Big Ten? Yeah, but like Casey Concepcion also played high school football in North Carolina, which is in the south. Like that's like I think that. And so did Fernando Mendoza. He played in Florida. That doesn't count as the south though. Miami is not the south.

I know. I know. But just from Aladdin. attitude perspective. Yeah. But yeah, like, so I think it's interesting

that like there's always going to be like a clear, like the easiest path to the best players because we can both agree that it's still a fact that the best high school players are in the South

or the largest margin of them or quantity of them. Yeah, but I do think the NIL and Transfer Portal era has changed where they wind up. I think they're not going to, and Brett Bielman talked to us about this last week.

They're not going to sit and this is going to affect Ohio State too. Like I got all credit to Ryan Day because he's still managing to put together these rosters. But you're seeing it with Alabama and Georgia where these guys just aren't going to sit for two years before they get a chance to play meaningful snaps. They're going to go play somewhere else,

whether that's somewhere else in the SEC or somewhere in the Big Ten or somewhere in the Big 12. They're going to go somewhere else. And I think that's, what is flattening this right now is you can make money now and play meaningful snaps. You're worth more to an Arkansas or to a Minnesota than you are to an Ohio State or a Georgia because they need you now. Yep, that's true.

And I know that like Ohio State lost more than 30 players in the portal this year. And, you know, some of those are, well, you're never going to play here, but some of those are you would play here if you stayed, right? Yeah. And losing a lot of those players is what turns into this. So, you know, I know that, you know, Ohio State the last two years, I mean, when you think about the fact that Ohio State has six of the top seven players from the big 10 and one of the six of the top 15 players in the country on their roster a year after what they put into

the NFL after winning the national championship game, it almost should feel like that's impossible. Like after Ohio. No, like, like stand up and applaud Ryan Day. and Mark Pantone, who's their general manager, for being able to do that in this era, I do wonder how long they can keep doing it in this era. Yeah. And it just goes to show you,

and it's another lesson, too, about why the Transfer Portal era is changing things, because typically in the past, a team like Ohio State that had six of the top 15 players on Dane Bruegler's list wouldn't have a gaping hole on their roster that caused them to lose a game. Like even with all the teams, all the players that they had and all the great.

And like, listen, Andy, two of those players that like were the most important pieces of Ohio State's team are returning next year. So that doesn't even account for like Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayan. Right. And yet they still couldn't block two players from Miami who are on this list. And it cost them maybe their second consecutive national championship. And I feel like when you look back at the 2020 Alabama team or the 2019 LSU teams are some of the best teams of our playoff era generation, the loaded teams didn't have roster holes. Yeah, you did not see a positional hole at all.

And you're right. And that's, it's going to be the teams with the fewest holes that win the national title. That's a, that's good. Because Indiana, let's look at their, look at their roster. Like, you didn't have one position group where you're like, this one is severely lagging behind the others. you felt like they have NFL offensive linemen. They're not all going to go to the NFL this year. Like Pat Coogan is going to play in the NFL next year.

Carter Smith is staying at Indiana, but he's going to go play in the NFL eventually. They've got guys that are going to be NFL offensive linemen. They've got guys that are going to be NFL DBs. They've got guys that are going to be NFL receivers. They've got guys that are going to be NFL defensive linemen. Like everybody, and look, the Ohio State guys are going to be NFL guys too, but they're not as good and probably won't be as draft.

as high as some of these Miami guys are talking about. And how many, would you rather have a team that has four players in the top 20? Or would you rather have a team that has a fourth round draft pick in every position room? Fourth round draft pick in every position. This is, this is why we say the Jets would kick the crap out of any college team. Because in football, you pick on the weak spots. and if there's a glaring weakness in one or more places and the other team has fewer weaknesses,

you're probably going to lose. Yeah. And in football, one mismatch can blow the entire game. Yes. Yeah, and that's the other thing is I go back to, there was a bowl game in the Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech era when they were running the option. The option is a great offense unless there's a defensive tackle.

who can throw the guard back into the mesh. And that happened when they played LSU in this bowl game where basically LSU's defensive line were just throwing Georgia Tech offensive linemen back into the quarterback fullback mesh and there was nothing you could do about it. Like there was no shot. And that one weakness

destroyed their entire game plan. And so that had happened in football. And that's the danger now. Like Alabama, really good players. Quite a few players on this list that Dane has. They couldn't block in the run game. They weren't particularly great at blocking the past game,

but they really couldn't block in a run game. Yeah. And Ohio State's roster hole also lined up with the two best players on Miami's team who are in the top 20. That's just bad luck, too. Two of the three, because one of the other ones was on their offensive line. Yeah, right. But the two ends that are in the top 20 were going directly.

into the tackles that are non-existent on Ohio State's draft board. Yeah, and that's what happened. I mean, we could break it down further, but that's it's really what happened. And that's what happened to them against Indiana, too. So it's, but like this is fun. I think that like in the off season, you know, as we miss games, I really do like these, these context discussions because we're just trying to keep our our heads above water and trying to analyze the sport properly as it,

evolves. And, you know, seeing these things is really crucial for us. And like the actual results of the NFL draft are going to be really crucial for us because as we start to break down the raw data, it doesn't matter what you say with your Twitter fingers on the internet or whatever call am I right. This is facts right here. Who was the who was the best? This isn't feelings. This isn't how somebody feels about conference strength. This is just these guys are trying to keep their jobs by picking the best players. And if they are deciding that players from another league are trending toward being better than players from one league, it means something. It doesn't mean it when I say it. It means it when they say it with their

with their actions and with their money. Their money. Yeah, more or more so with their money. So yeah, well, thank you for doing that. That was really good. I enjoy that. That 2004 was well, because that, so that was pre the era of anybody caring about conference superiority. So like nobody wrote any stories about which conference had the most in 2004. So I just, I, you know, copied the table of the NFL draft picks, put it in a spreadsheet and just attach the conference name next to every school. By the way, a lot of looking up on my part to see who was in what conference when, because I couldn't remember when all of the various Biggie schools moved over to the ACC. RIP, I couldn't remember when the Mountain West broke away from the whack. I couldn't remember

like who was in conference USA at that point. It was, it was wild. Like the whack was a very viable conference back then in the UBS. Even your beautiful memory driven mind couldn't remember all that stuff. No. Yeah. It's like Louisiana Tech was in the whack. What?

Yeah. Was the only non-SEC team to win a national championship before the Big Ten's defending trifecta was at Ohio State was the only one? or was there another one in Florida State and Clinton. That's right. The ACC 1 3. They had two from Clemson and one from four state. I just erased ACC history. I'm sorry, guys.

And that's a big mistake. I shouldn't have forgotten about Clemson. But I was like trying to But the thing is Florida State and Clemson in those instances recruited exactly like the SEC teams that were winning. They were built exactly the same way with players from exactly the same places. And maybe one day they'll join their family

and be in the SEC. So, but no, I still believe that conference superiority thing started with Florida beating Ohio State in the national title game after the 06 season. And I'm telling you, it started in front of Jarvis Moss's locker after that game when he said there were five better teams in the SEC than that team we beat tonight. And he might have actually been right is the crazy part. But the thing is, we had spent that entire season going, who's better? or Ohio State or Michigan because nobody else is,

clearly no one else can compete with them. When in reality, like that USC team that year probably could have beaten both of them. The Florida team beat Ohio State. The Auburn team that beat Florida on the right day could have beaten anybody. God.

There were more competitive teams out there, but we had in our minds that the two at the top of the Big Ten were the best. And then it flipped after that to then going, oh, well, only the SEC teams can win. And I think now, all that's over. Like, you have three straight

Big Ten titles. We'll actually talk about that in a bit because we've got another Mega Board thread about that. But I just think the SEC's come back to Earth and spread out more among the SEC. And so now I think the next step actually are not just the Big Ten maybe overtaking the SEC at some point

in terms of sheer numbers. Which they should. They have more teams. but the Big Ten spreading out. Can Ohio State keep doing this where they have such a prohibitively talented roster relative to the rest of the league? Or does some of those guys start saying, you know what? I'm going to go to Penn State. I'm going to go to Oregon.

I'm going to go. And obviously, Oregon's getting its share now. Penn State's getting its share now. Are some of them going to go to Michigan State or something going to go to Wisconsin? Or some of them going to go to Washington to Illinois? Like once that starts happening, is a different world.

Yeah. I mean, it already is kind of happening at a place that like we never would have considered it. And they won the title. But in the end of the more overall pick.

Andy, do you believe in parallel universes? Like, do you think that there's like a, like a billionaire Andy in another universe somewhere? No, I believe parallel universes

are a plot device for lazy Hollywood screenwriters. But yes, go ahead. Well, college football in 2004 was just one big parallel universe. Everybody's plan.

but they'll never play each other. Like they're all next, like they're parallel to each other. Yeah. Like USC, like how crazy is it? Like just as you like hit like said that it like hit me. It's like college football's entire system for a century was so freaking stupid.

I am like so happy that we get a playoff and these teams get to play each other. Yeah. So 03. So the 04 draft is coming off the 03 season. If you want to remember what what happened there, LSU wins the BCS title by beating Oklahoma. in the BCS title game. USC probably deserved a spot in that title game,

but you could only have two, and the resumes were fairly close, and they picked two. And so that was Nick Saban winning the BCS at LSU. USC was probably as good or better than LSU or Oklahoma that year. And then the next year, USC and Oklahoma play, USC destroys Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, undefeated Auburn is left out.

Doesn't get to play at all. You know, when you think about it, like this year, who are the top two seeds in this year's tournament again? They were Indiana and Ohio State. So this year would have been a bad example because the national champion would have just been Indiana still.

But I wonder how many times in the 20 years that we've been doing, or I've been doing this professionally, you a little bit longer, did the best team in the country not even play in the final game? Well, the 10 seed that made the national title game would not have made the 14 playoff, so the Miami, Notre Dame, which made the national title game last year, and Ohio State, which also made the national title game last year, would not have made the 14 playoff.

Yeah. And this is even in the playoff era. Like, if you even go back to like just playoff, if you would have just gone back to like the BCS formula during the playoff, like a lot of the teams that made it, to the champion like the first championship was the four seed um and like it's just why and teams that never got a chance that we would I would have loved to have seen play in those areas 2004 Auburn would have loved to see them in a tournament uh 2007 Georgia would have loved to see them in a tournament 2011 Oklahoma State would have loved to see them in a tournament like I mean but

just think about never got a chance the 10 year run of dominance that the SEC had from 2004 to 2014, the nine seasons or the 10 seasons between those two years where they were crushing it in the NFL draft based on the numbers you just presented. And they never intersected unless there was a random non-conference game with some of the teams that, you know, might have played or did play in the championship game. And it's just like, let's be honest. I know that, you know, some people are annoyed by the conference supremacy argument, Andy, but like, which conferences were the best used to have a major impact on everything in a way that. that it maybe doesn't anymore because Miami could be in a conference that we don't perceive to be as dominant as the SEC and still got a team in that has a chance to make a run.

But like back then, they didn't play each other. And we never found out at all. Now, the good thing with Miami is like this year, they had USF and Florida on the schedule. Now, Florida didn't turn out to be that good. But USF was one of the better teams in the American. Miami did beat Florida, which, you know, gave you at least a comparison point with the other, the SEC teams that they would have been matched. against in the playoff conversation. But yeah, it's amazing.

But to your point, let's go to our next megaboard threat. This one is from BAM online. And this one's going to make you mad. I'll tell you right now. Looks like Ohio State Series is on the chopping block. Austin Bama posted this on the Bama Online Message Board. And this is after Paul Feinbaum, who works for ESPN and the SEC Network,

went on the air and said that he believes Alabama will cancel its upcoming home and home with Ohio State. Because, well, Paul took it a lot of different directions in terms of, you know, what Kailen DeBoer needs to do and all that. But the base reason for it would be them saying their SEC schedule is so tough going to nine conference games that that game can only hurt them and it can't help them. And it just drives me insane. That's not true. I mean, it's also not true. It's not true. If you win it, it helps you a lot.

Maybe you're worried about losing it. Yeah, which is why it's really soft to cancel it. I hate this. But you know what I think it's going to take? You know what I think it's going to take? And we're going to get there eventually. Nine and three teams will make the playoff, especially if the-

three team that won a game like this, and that's the differentiating factor. You just haven't had the situation yet. Yeah, but it will happen and it will occur. I mean, I'll give you one where it did, it kind of did happen. happened. 2016. So, 2006 is different, obviously different 14 playoff versus the 12th team playoff.

But that Ohio State team, which did not win the Big Ten, because they lost to Penn State, and Penn State won the Big Ten. But Penn State had two losses early in the season. Ohio State got in, I think, only because they went to Oklahoma that year in one. they had a road win against a power conference champion because Oklahoma ended up winning the Big 12 that year. If they don't have a road win against a power conference champion, I don't think they get in the playoff that year.

You know, I have been thinking a lot about this and I wanted to ask you this. Do you think if Texas would have beaten Ohio State on the road in week one and then lost another like the England lost to A&M they would have gotten in because I do? I think so. I think maybe. Or maybe not A&M because they needed that A&M win. But if they would have lost another random game in the air, SEC. Well, right. If they'd have lost, well, I mean, losing to Arkansas would have been really bad, but, you know, that sort of thing.

Hold on. I'm with you. I do think, let's say they lost to Vanderbilt, which would have put Vanderbilt in. Vanderbilt would have been 11 and 1. Yeah, I mean, it gets a little murky when you start putting other like cusp teams in with wins, but I'm looking at their 20, 25. They almost lost to Mississippi State. Let's just say they lost in Mississippi State, but they beat Ohio State. Yeah, or they, yeah, instead of making that crazy comeback to beat Mississippi State, they just lost. by 7 in regulation. But they beat Ohio State. That would have given them wins over Ohio State, Oklahoma,

Vanderbilt, in Texas A&M. That would have been like four top 10 wins and one top 15 win. They would have gotten in the 12 seed. They're the 10 seat or whatever in that case. Yeah. Like Miami would have been out.

And why? Because Miami didn't have a big non-conference win. Or they did, but they didn't have enough wins. Right. But Florida didn't hold up into the bargain. like if Florida had been one of the better teams in the SEC in Miami beat them, that's a different story. But yes, I think you're right.

The problem is everybody's just prisoners of the moment and that situation hasn't happened yet. They're like, well, you know, Texas got screwed because they scheduled Ohio State. They should have just scheduled Rice. No, just beat Ohio State. I think that people undervalue, and we argue about this all the time,

the importance of a top five win. Like, I just don't think that people realize. wise. I don't understand how they don't see it, but it's right there in front of your face. So, and I think it forgives you for the, it almost makes losing to bad teams less relevant because they care more about who you beat than who you lost to. Well, and because I want, I don't know, I'm not on the committee, but the way I look at it, and this is the reason why when I did my mock on championship Saturday, I had Notre Dame in Alabama out, because I'm looking at it like, who can win these.

games in this tournament. Who can beat the teams in this tournament? And between Alabama and Notre Dame, my thinking was Notre Dame can beat more of the teams in this tournament than Alabama can. And they did not have the resume. Right. And they didn't have the win. Yeah. USC or Notre Dame will not get in because they didn't play each other. The exact opposite's going to happen to them. And I hope people are punished for soft schedules. Like, that's what I want somebody who's 10 and 2 who played a just disgusting non-conference and then got a really easy conference draw to just be left out. I mean, it literally just happened.

And maybe that's what happened to Vanderbilt this year. I mean, it literally just happened in Notre Dame, too. They lost two, two games against their two best team. They went 10 and 2. Yeah. Yeah. So it does, but like Notre Dame, I'm sympathetic to to a certain extent because Notre Dame scheduling is a little bit different.

I want to punish the people who drop non-conference games because their conference schedule is too hard for them. Yeah, and the question is going back to the discussion we had earlier about draft picks coming out of each league, is the SEC schedule really that much of a grind that you can't do this in 27 and 28? It'd be one thing because like South Carolina is dropping NC State. Okay, but South Carolina is not dropping Clemson. They're still playing Clemson every year. Alabama doesn't have a non-conference rival that they play every year in state. If Florida State ever gets good, it has to play Florida State every year.

I mean, there's teams that have tough. Yeah, right. Alabama doesn't have that. They would just be dropping this to choose to play an easier non-conference schedule. Now, this year, Alabama's got Florida State, and they're keeping them. Oh, yeah. And that's good. I'm glad they are.

It's easy to keep them now. Well, not compared to what happened last year. Now, when you think about what happened to Bama last year against him. So, but I hope they do not cancel it. I hope we can shame. Let's start shaming now. So Greg Byrne, Alabama Athletic Director, feel the shame. The shame is coming at you.

Shame. It's like, yeah, you don't watch Game of Thrones, but shame, shame, shame. I'm going to ring the bell. I'll be the septa. Every time I hate getting going to the shower, but you'll shame at me. So do not be soft and cancel this series. is your freaking Alabama. Let me tell you something, Andy.

There is nothing, nothing more powerful than writing the word soft than a column headline on On3.com. Yeah, don't do it. Don't be soft. But like, this is, is this a theory from Paul? It isn't information yet, right? It is a theory.

And it may be one of those theories that got floated to see how the populace would react. And I will say, like on the message board thread, it was it was kind of split between Bama fans on Bama online. There were some that said, by all means, cancel it. It doesn't do us any good based on the playoff committee rankings. And then there are some that say, no, we are Alabama. We don't do this. We don't duck people.

We're not scared of people. Also, if you pay for season tickets, don't you want to be entertained? It's like almost like, oh, you know, let's have some. filler episodes in the fifth season of Breaking Bad because it got too intense. Like what are we talking about? Like I don't understand like you're not you know it just like it does not

compute to me and I you know what else doesn't compute to me and you can solo me on this one river I'm just going to be quick but it's don't tell me about how awesome it is that the new playoff system that's been expanded gives us more inventory of good exciting

matchups and then root for your team to cancel a non-conference game. It's It's completely and utterly. Right. You've got Mulligans, too, in conference play. Just be good. Just be good. Can we get a t-shirt that just says, just be good?

And say it like Sebastian Manos Calco. I think that works on a lot of levels, doesn't it? Is that the first Andy and Arion 3 t-shirt? Josh Pate told me years ago. He's like, don't do the merch too soon. He's like, build up the merch. Build up the sayings, build up the lore. and then hit him with the merch.

Yeah, I mean, I think grab ass has to be on a shirt, Andy, of some kind. Agreed. But just be good. Works on so many levels. Tampa better's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I don't know if people would buy them.

But as we'll revisit this later on in the show. I think it might be relevant later. It might. But yes, Alabama, please don't do this. I don't know if somebody floated this to Paul to see how everybody would react. we're reacting badly. Don't do it. It's bad.

I want to see Alabama play Ohio State in 27 and 28. I do. I think most people do. Yeah. I might write about this today. You go ahead. I figured you might. Soft.

Yeah, I figured that. That word's going to the headline. Okay. Our next megaboard thread, this is one that we were going crazy over this one on Monday night. So if you watch, the big Monday game between Kansas and Arizona and basketball.

This was a huge matchup in the Big 12. I watched it. To the best teams. Ari watched it. Ari is like, I'm going to watch basketball game. It was awesome. Go ahead. Sorry.

I just wanted to let you know that even I watched it. It was a great game, even though your alma mater lost. But the craziest part, and this was all, this was running rampant throughout the game, is this tweet. from Barstall, Arizona early in or I guess before the game. It was before the game.

And it was, yeah, it was somebody sitting behind, somebody sitting at the scorers table at Fogg Allen Fieldhouse. And they were texting someone they knew. And so the camera zooms in on the text and you can read the text. And the text says, so he's sick and he didn't tell anyone in practice.

And Bill said, don't half ass it. If you're going to play, if you're going to play, if not sit. DP, who's Darren Peterson, who Kansas is a star freshman, probably the highest paid player on the roster, said, F it, I'm out. This is what this person is texting.

And so during the game, I think this came out at halftime, Daniel Burke, who's one of the PR guys for Kansas. Who used to work at Arizona, or covering Arizona, by the way. I don't know if you know that. Yeah, right. Used to work in Arizona.

Correct. The beat writer, yeah. Yeah. Tweets this out. The person texting in this video is a contracted crew worker who handles official stats during the game for ESPN. He does not work for Kansas and he's not affiliated with the athletic department in any way. He has no inside information and was speculating, we are handling internally.

Okay, a couple things. If he has no inside information, there's nothing to handle internally. Right. So clearly he had inside information. And now, Darren Peterson misses the game. Flu-like symptoms were the reason given, which tracks with the text, by the way. Like, I completely believe everybody in this scenario other than he had no inside information.

I believe everything else about this because that's probably, I mean, that makes perfect sense. If he's feeling sick and he's not quite 100%, that is the sort of thing a coach like Bill Self would say, hey, if you feel like you can go, go. But if you can't go 100% or close to 100% and you think you might hurt the team, then sit. Like that's a normal thing. Now, I realize this is a bigger issue

because Darren Peterson's availability has not been particularly reliable this year. And that's tough because he's supposed to be the best player. I'll point out what happened in that game. Kansas without Darren Peterson took down a previously undefeated team. So Eric,

congratulations to Bob Knight's Indiana team that remains the last undefeated basketball national champion because there won't be one this year. So, yeah, I hit Kansas before the game because I don't watch sports without feeling it something.

because I just felt like Arizona is not going on defeat this year. Kansas on the road. Also, Bill Self now 40 and O in Big Monday home games. Is that a real? 40 and O. It's insane. And then the spread jumped from Arizona minus two and a half to Arizona minus four and a half like a minute before the game started.

And I was like, what the hell? And then as you were watching it on TV, they're like, oh, the best players not playing. And then the Texas is Twitter. I'm like, oh, goddamn. But I think a lot of people, thought that that text was a big deal, Andy, because of the gambling implications, but that's just a big story in general, which brings us to Joe Tipton story.

Yes, Joe Tipton, our great college basketball reporter at On 3 put this out today, and he's been talking to people around college basketball. And this is what Joe Tipson got from a general manager of a different college basketball program. Is one $3 million freshman worth more than three, million players who are fully bought in for a season. That is such a general manager thing to say, by the way. But it's true. Who wins in March typically?

Not the team with the best player. I guess the teams in college basketball that wins in March are the older teams that play well together. Yeah, I mean, Jay Wright would tell you the get old, stay old. Tony Bennett at Virginia won with a team that didn't have a ton of, like DeAndre Hunter was the biggest star that team but it was not loaded with future NBA players. With what we know about how much college players are making at certain positions in the football, like $3 million for a star player in basketball seems like a bargain to me. It is a bit of one, you know, because like A.J. DeBanza, the BYU players,

probably the highest paid college athlete in terms of just purely from the NIL, school rep, share NIL. And BYU is good. they're not as good as probably not as good as Kansas or we're going to find out there in the same league. So we had Calvin Sampson talking about it at Houston

the other day saying we have a poor athletic department. We're not going to be able to get these players. But to this point, like the Kansas team without Darren Peterson took down Arizona. Like if we guys just go by where these teams are ranked right now, this was an elite eight game,

essentially. This means you're this would, you put this in the tournament, this would be the number one overall seed being knocked out by another team in the elite eight. I think that's incorrect what you just said. Kansas would be a two seed in the tournament. They're number nine. They'd be a three seed. A three seed. So that would they wouldn't play in the elite eight. You're right. You're right. They wouldn't play until the national semi-final. But you get what I'm saying. Yeah. I get what you're sorry. I misunderstood what you're saying, but yes,

I get what you're saying. In terms of quality, yeah, in terms of quality of game, this could be an elite eight game, this could be the national semi-final. Like that could be... And they did it without their best player is what you're saying. Without him, which means they can beat anybody in the tournament. And also, I think probably means we're in for a pretty wild tournament, by the way. Because you look at like Michigan, Houston. We just saw Duke get beat by North Carolina and North Carolina turn around and lose to Miami.

Yeah. But Yukon, Florida's coming on of late. Nebraska is awesome this year. Illinois is awesome this year. There are so many good teams right now, and we don't know who's going to get hot. I think instead of like Cinderella upsets, this could be the tournament of just nobody knows

what the hell is going to happen. Yeah, it's going to be great. Always is great. And I do think that in college basketball, too, the NIL stuff, like actually expands the bigger marketing potential than it does in football. True. Like I went and looked like Cooper Flag.

Like he made almost $30 million at Duke last year because he got to deal with Fanatics and New Balance. Like I don't know. That doesn't happen. And those are real NIL deals. Yeah. The guy who's going to be the number one pick in the basketball draft, which Darren Peterson might be, by the way,

that person commands a massive, like real NIL money. Because basketball players are there. They have, you know, they have their own named shoe. They wear their own name shoe. shoe on the court. You can buy their own name shoe and wear it to school. They're not under a helmet. You see their faces. They're more marketable. So, but he's saying even when you watch like state farm commercials, it's like, oh my God, it's pro bowl quarterback Aaron Rogers. Yeah, they have to tell you. Yeah. They don't know who, like, they don't know who, like, and by the way,

which defeats the entire purpose of even having them, if I'm being honest. And the Cooper flag, New Balance commercials, they're not telling you that's Cooper flag. No, who knows. Yeah, like, you know who LeBron is. Like, I do wonder, like, who do you think, do you think, like, Stefan Diggs would get, like, recognized in a grocery store in, like, San Antonio? No. No, I think now bigger, like, Jordan Myelotamite, the, the Eagles left tackle, because he's six, eight, three hundred to 80 pounds.

Like, would Jackson Smith and Jigba get recognized in New Orleans? Would Jackson Smith and Jigba get recognized in Seattle? Yeah, probably. Probably, yes, but let's say drives down to Portland. Does anybody recognize it? Like, everybody knows what Patrick Mahomes looks like, but I think they know what he looks like because he's in so many commercials. Yeah.

But, like, yeah. And I think that baseball is funny because baseball has that same problem. Like, and baseball doesn't even wear a helmet, but like Mike Trout, could Mike Trout get, I don't think people would recognize Mike Trout. He's one of the single greatest players that's ever lived. Right. Yeah. Right.

We'd recognize Shohay. that's probably the only guy that we just recognize. Also, you don't see a ton of of 6-4 Japanese guys who are just jacked. Yeah, that guy's unbelievable. Yeah, but

basketball does it in a way that other sports can't. So, everybody knows what James Hardin looks like. For better and for worse. James Hardin has a, you know, stack of tens or stack of singles walking in.

James Harden pictures with no beard when he was at ASU? It's wild. I covered a couple of his games at ASU. No beer. I remember thinking, this guy does not look like he should be a star. He doesn't move like it, but then he gets the ball in his hands and he finds his way to the rim every time. Yeah, you should feel good about yourself. You're like one of the few men that like could like be clean shaven and handsome.

I'm happy for you. I can't grow beard. That's the only reason. You know, that's a bet that I'm going to keep in the holster. though. Like, you can't shave for two months. I just want to see what happens. I think we, I think our boss, Shane and Terry might chime in there. Because if I, if I just look like crap on the show, which I would, he's probably going to be like, you have to do something different guys. I was the final product of no, no, no, no shave for two months. If I, I think if I, I think eventually a beard would come in, it would be very multi-colored. It would be a lot, it would be a bunch of gray and possibly other colors in there too.

So my hair has been, I had a, I had a, I had red hair when I was born. I had bright blonde hair when I was kindergarten-ish, and then it turned brown. So my hair, my follicles do weird things. That could go on the T-shirt. My follicles do weird things, yes. All right, well, speaking of T-shirts,

I'm glad you brought this up. So our guy Mike Singer, who works for Blue and Gold, that's our Notre Dame site. He put this on the message board the other day and asked the same question Ari and I did when we got texted the link to this thing, it was just, it's fascinating to me. The headline on the message board is,

who's buying this shirt? And it is on the Big Ten website, and it says the championship trifecta, and it has the Big Ten logo, and it says trifecta, Michigan, Ohio State and Indiana logos. And it is a, hold on, I'm going to click the link here.

I think it's $3.4.99. This t-shirt. That's wild. And Ari and I asked the same question. Who in the hell is this for? Because no self-respecting. Michigan fan is buying a shirt with an Ohio State logo on it. No Ohio State fan is buying a shirt with a Michigan logo on it.

Celebrating your championships. And if you're an Indiana fan, there's so much dedicated Indiana title merchandise. Why aren't our like our guys at Roebuck just put out an Indiana title. And I don't think that Indiana is personally interested in, celebrating Ohio State Michigan's titles. No. But

but our friend Chris Panini over at the athletic tweeted this out the other day. He said so the Big Ten trifecta shirt is basically sold out. And at the time Chris was looking at it, the only sizes remaining in stock were double XL. No, no, 3X.

2X was gone. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. 3XL. So, what, which by the way, that's shattering a ton of Big Ten stereotypes right there that the 3x is the only one left available. If Wisconsin was one of the teams, it would have been sold out. Let me tell you, right?

Oh, cram. It's really good. I get it. But I look this morning, all sizes available again. Yeah. No. So they've re-stocked quickly. Yeah, they've won stock X for a while.

And then they're like, you know, we'll just want to sell these directly. I just want to see the big 10 marketing stringer bell. We back up. I do want to buy this shirt and wear it the next time Paul Feinbaum invites me onto his show. Do you think that would be funny? I think Brad from Macon's head would explode. You should wear it. Like, we got to get you on.

Can we expense it out? Because $3499 for a t-shirt is pretty steep. Yeah. When we sell the Andy and R.A. T-shirts, when we sell the Just Be Good T-shirts, we got to find a lower price point than that. It won't be a lower price point. But, you know, that would be a really funny troll. But, yeah, I don't know who's wearing this.

Like, if you saw that person in public, you're like, what, where did you bought that shirt? Because 3499 can get you like that. The best thing about being a college fan, I think, or one of the best things is the cool apparel that all these schools have. And 3499 can get you a pretty good shirt for your, like, I mean, like if you're a Michigan fan, can get you like a dry fit Michigan. shirt with a Jordan logo on it. Like I don't know who's buying it. I don't know. Well, and I want to interview.

Like, if you bought one, please let us know. You know where to find us. Andy Stapleson3 at gmail.com. R.E. Dot Wasserman at On3.com. By the way, get your mailback questions in now. I believe our friend Jake Crane is going to help us answer questions on Friday. So get your questions in now,

college football and beyond, and t-shirt-related questions. Yeah, if you own one of these, please let us know. We want to delve into your psyche. We want to know why. Because I had this theory about the SEC chant and who that was for.

I never really thought the SEC chant was for Alabama fans or Georgia fans. I always felt like that was for South Carolina fans or Mississippi State fans or, you know, Arkansas fans where their team wasn't going to win the national title, but they wanted to kind of take some ownership of it. So you're basically telling me that there's an Iowa fan walking around with a shirt on and no right now. I don't think the Iowa fan would buy this shirt. Now, I will say there is that SEC

belt that I sent you guys on the group text. Yeah. That is very expensive. And I've definitely seen people wearing it out in the wild. Smathers and Branson is the name of the company that makes it. it is $195 retail, and it has needlepoint stitching of all the SEC logos. Now, the first time I saw this, it was Indestine at the Red Bar, at the Bar at the Red Bar, which is pretty much the perfect place, Great in Beach, Florida, if we're being exact, the perfect place to spot one of these in the wild. This was back when it was a 12-team logo. I think you need some more inches on the waistline with 16.

R. He points out that Peter Burns wore it to SEC Media. Yes, Peter Burns dedicated SES. Oh, yes, sorry, he did wear it to Big Ten Media Day. He was visiting Vegas. I forgot why he was there, but he was visiting Vegas, and he made sure to wear it. So I'm on the Country Club Prep website right now where they sell the Needle Point Belt. That's exactly where I thought you would, like, if I had no idea where to buy it, I would have just typed in Country Club, Brad. Are you not going to believe this.

they are out of 38s, 42s, and 44s. I mean, I've seen that belt quite a bit in Texas, people wearing it in public. Like, that's a very popular apparel. If you're 36 or 40, that's your only shot right now. Okay. Well, it just depends on what month of the year it is for me. Yeah.

Sending a photo of this to produce a river because, like, do you think they could make the Big Ten belt? Do you think people would pay almost $200 for the Big Ten belt the way they do the SEC belt? Don't think. that that would work because fashion in the South is different. Like that goes like with what the frat kid would wear to a game. Like well also can you fit 18 look so about.

I mean that's got to be the Wisconsin size belt. Yeah, my belt maybe. But like you know, you know the the frat boy uniform, right? It's the khaki shorts, the polo and the boat shoes. Right. Beat up white hat with the bill. Yeah. all the way around.

Way down. Yeah. I mean, you know what I'm talking about. That belt goes with those outfits. I don't think big 10 people dress. Like, if you go to a big 10 game,

they're all wearing jerseys and hoodies. So, you know, it's just a different climate too. So maybe, maybe not. But the question is, are they wearing a trifecta shirt under their hoodies now?

I mean, I don't know who's buying this. So if you did buy it, please tell us. I don't know who it is. I don't know what you're thinking or why. I need to know why you did it. Like, if you work for the conference office, I get it.

But I mean, this is just a response to maybe this is just the Big Ten's response to the SEC chance. Maybe this is maybe a Big Ten fan would buy this because they feel like it's antagonistic towards SEC people. Which is fine. I think that's a good reason. I think it's a great reason. If that's the reason, God bless you. Yeah. Troll the SEC with your shirt by all means.

But like I just don't see. And it's more specific for me to the Michigan, Ohio State rivalry. Like neither of those fan bases would ever celebrate the other one's championship. Yeah, but it would be kind of crazy to like walk around with that shirt on like in Athens. It'd be awesome. It'd be so funny. I mean, that's the equivalent of like wearing a team's jersey to a game that your team's not playing in. Which I always find strange.

Yeah, I hate it. Like, just wear a plain shirt. It's not, I'm going to a game. I therefore must wear a jersey. there's always a straggling Michigan fan or Ohio State fan at the games of the other team that they're not playing in that are wearing a where you see like a random Tennessee Titans jersey but it's not the jersey of a guy who played for one of the two college teams. Yeah, when I covered Ohio State, you always used to see people like, it'd be like Ohio State, Illinois and week like week nine and some guy with a Michigan jersey, which is go to the game.

It's like, what are we doing? Well, you know what you're seeking, they're seeking conflict and attention. Yeah. Yeah. All right. If you own one of these shirts, tell us if anybody at the Big Ten wants to send Ari one of these shirts, he's your next cell? XL, yeah. I'm buying one.

I'm buying it on fine bomb. I'm buying it right now for Pine Bomb. He's going to wear it on Fine Bomb. Okay. As promised, it's time for the Winter Olympics report. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I don't like the skating's fine.

The luge is fine. The skiing is fine. Before we get into the actual topic, I wanted to ask you something. Yes. They were showing the bob sledding. Yes. Jamaica, we have a bobsled team.

Sorry. Yeah. And it's a really long course, right? Like they're bobsledding for a long time. Where do these people practice? On bobsled runs in northern climbs. like are there a lot of bob sled runs like i just like some of the events i'm like watching like that psychopath that ran uphill a mile in six minutes and skis and it's just like where do these

people a come up with these activities and being where do you even practice these things well the cross country skiing there's plenty of places to practice wait so whether in europe or in america so so the event where you're just wearing skis and running uphill for a mile is called cross-country skiing? I'm not sure what you're talking about. What you're talking about sounds like cross-country skiing. I thought cross-country skiing was just like long routes of skiing. It's long, it's supposed to be long and flat.

Oh, mountaineering. You're talking about mountaineering. Okay, is that what it's called? Yeah. He had a sub-six-minute mile pace uphills on skis, this human. Uphill on skis going 10 miles an hour. I'm going to send it to River. why we talk about the thing and then maybe at the end we can revisit it.

But like, I know, this is a mean. What we care about today is biathlon. Biathlon, one of the more interesting sports where you're essentially training to be a James Bond villain's lackey. Because you're skiing and shooting. You ski some,

you stop and you shoot some. So you're, you're training to be a henchman of a James Bond villain. That is insane, right? Are they not insane? They're insane. Who came up with this shit?

And how does it become your life's work to get good? Listen, some people are just really good at skiing and shooting, not one or the other, but both. So, and not great enough at either one should just win at that. Because those are robots, you can just ski or you can just shoot. That'll get you a gold medal too. Okay. All right.

this is not even the funny part that's just the sport Sterla Holm Legreed whose name I'm sure I am You nailed it dude you nailed it won the bronze medal in the 20 kilometer 20 kilometer biathlon

This is the second time we've used the word kilometer on this show this week Oh god He used his post race interview To reveal that he had cheated on his girlfriend Six months ago I bet the love of my life, the world's most beautiful, sweetest person, like Reed said through tears. And three

months ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life and cheated on her. So basically, he's using his platform after the crowning achievement of his sporting career to admit to the world that he cheated on his girl and try to, all right, I'm just going to say it, shoot his shot. to get her back. And the event in it of itself is ridiculous. But like, shoot or shoot, Ari.

The calculus of this is I found the love of my life six months ago, which by the way, good for you for recognizing that quickly because a lot of people need more time. I got engaged after three months. We celebrated our 25th anniversary this year. Coincidentally, three months into his relationship is when he cheated on her. Yeah, I didn't do that.

So I propose. he cheated. Okay. There's your difference. I've never cheated on a significant other. And I know that people give into temptation and it's a very common thing. And I think that people make mistakes and they probably regret those things. Obviously, male libido can go a long way and ruining your life as we've covered extensively on the show over the years.

But to put yourself in a position where you're like, I made a mistake. I wish I didn't do that. I love that person. I can't live without them. This has been a horrible three months. I'm going to torpedo that person and me on live television after doing the thing that I've been working my whole life to achieve to get this person back is insane calculus from somebody who's very good of the firearm. It's a giant red flag. If I were her, I would, if I had any thoughts of reconciliation, they would be gone. and a Norwegian newspaper founder,

and I'm guessing that she probably feels the same way. She chose to remain anonymous, did not, fortunately, her name's not been put out there, and I'm glad, and please nobody put her name out there. She said, I did not choose to be put in this position, and it hurts to have, have to be in it. We have had contact,

and he is aware of my opinions on this. In other words, he probably said, I'm going to do this. And she's probably like, please don't do this. Yeah, or he did it without talking to her, hoping that this would be like the end of like a Disney movie where he's running through an airport to get her back. And they could just explode in his face.

Although, I will say, I thought the crazy son of a bitch is going to pull it off, Andy. Like, I mean, like that, like, I mean, I guess if you are at the end of your rope. You know the other part of this, right? So his teammate on Team Norway, Johann Ola, Johann Olaav Baton. Johann Ola Baton won the gold.

Our hero won the bronze here. Johan's trying to celebrate winning the freaking gold medal. And I mean, because even in Norway, I doubt biathlon gets that much pub. I think every gold medal in the country gets a lot of pub. Like, that's his moment. Well, right. Yeah. But what do you think was the biggest story in Oslo?

Do you think it was Johann winning the gold? Or this? This is maybe actually one of the greatest. I cheated on my girl. This is one of the greatest sports stories of our generation. And like, listen, the Norway paper that found the girl without her name being out there, that's peak journalism. Like, if this was an American athlete, like Nicole Auerbach would have had her in the athletic or on NBC in five minutes.

Like, that was what she used to do. That's Nicole's specialty, though. Yeah, Nicole, like, would find. If you go viral, Nicole will find you. Yeah. Nicole found the. dude that was like reading at the Florida State game with a shirt off and like had a story. He found the lady, she found the girl who was knitting at the Kansas game.

Yeah. Yeah. She would have found the girl. She found, was it, was it an LSU fan that was just glaring at the camera? Yeah. It was LSU Alabama game. It was LSU girl and she was looking into the camera like, angrily when they were losing. It was like, it was the first Kurt Signetti mean mug. Yes. So here's what, here's what, here's what Ligreid said. about his teammate, Johann Olav, who won the goal. Now I hope I didn't ruin Johann's day. Maybe it was really selfish of me to give that interview. I'm not really here mentally.

I mean, that's a man who's torn up about you if you're out there. I say this not as a human being, but as someone who does shows for a living. Put a microphone in front of this man whenever possible. I'm not really here mentally is gold. You know, I do think like, you know, now in the age of Tinder and Bumble and stuff that a lot of people's origin stories aren't that interesting. You know, like my dad met my mom in a foreign country and like walked up to her randomly. And the only reason why my mom talked to him is because one of her friends lied to her and said that he had talked to her.

Like, it's like an insane story. And I think that's cool. Like my origin story is meeting somebody through a friend that I went to college with. Like I'm happy that like I have like a cool story. I met my wife at a bar. Right. But like you met her naturally. I think that like meeting somebody naturally makes for a better than we swiped right on each other.

And I'm not saying it's bad if you do. A lot of people find their wives and husbands this way in 2025 and beyond. But think about the origin story. If they were to get married, we met, we felt deeply in love. and he made a mistake and he used his crowning achievement in life to torpedo himself on national television and became a viral sensation to win me back. I kind of find that to be a little heartwarming.

I think he made it about him and not about her. It was a backfire. It was a backfire. And that is probably the reason she's staying as far away as humanly possible. I think he thought that if he used his moment to talk about her that that would show. I know what he was trying. Like, I don't think that, like, I'm just saying, like, that guy clearly cares about the person,

whether he deserves her back or not as a discussion for another day. But, like, he does care. I hope there's light at the end of the tunnel for both of us. He said in that initial interview, and that she can still love me. I don't have high hopes for this union. Would you watch an hour documentary about the next month of their lives? Because I would.

It's like, remember the astronaut? lady who wore the astronaut diapers so she could drive to stalk the guy. She drove from Texas to Florida to stalk the guy without stopping because she was wearing astronaut diapers. This falls into that bucket for me. I would have still gone to the bathroom while filling up my car. Listen, she's an engineer. She's all about efficiency.

You know what, man? I'm happy I have a podcast because I've been willing, I've been wanting to talk about this. So it's good. And good luck to both of you. I will say that that would be a good move. I'd say good luck, you crazy kids, but only one of you's crazy, and the other one is probably staying far away.

Good luck, you crazy kids. Do we have the uphill skiing video? Yeah. Are we allowed? What is that? What is that? I think that's mountaineering. I guess that's mountaineering.

Okay. I might have to have river sensor that. Six minute mile. Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. I think we're going to put a black bar over that. Okay.

If you see, please don't, copyright strike us okay well just so you know it's a man running up a hill with skis on that's you you didn't have to watch the video to know it and it's become a meme of like when my wife tells me the kids are asleep to come upstairs it is you that is actually probably like a gift to represent your life just constantly skiing uphill yeah no i mean like that's gonna go viral for like anytime anybody makes a sexual joke. It's like it's that. Me on my way to my girlfriend's house when she said

her parents are in the word. I just use Forrest Gump coming around the corner. Yeah. Running around that fence. Yeah. But you know, there's got to be some evolution to these things. We can't keep going with a mid-90s movie. We've got to get new things online. And I'm so happy. Gift culture has made life better for everyone. Yes. Yes, it has.

So also have message boards. If you're not already signed up for on three, get yourself an on-three subscription because then you can enjoy all of the message words the way we do. I spent Wednesday morning diving deep into all the message words, and it was so much fun. Trust me, it's February, it's the off-season. Everybody's still finding plenty to talk about. So right now, you sign up for BADMGM, you get 50% off.

You're on-three subscription using the code on-3. So sign up for Bedavidim, use your code on three, get 50% off your on three subscription, and dive into those message boards with us as we do every Wednesday on Megaboard Wednesday. It has been a pleasure and we will talk to you tomorrow.