Andy & Ari On3 - TCU's Sonny Dykes joins the show | Jim Harbaugh "not about a hamburger" NCAA case will keep going

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

TCU coach Sonny Dykes, fresh off an appearance in the national title game, joins Andy to explain how the latest version of the Horned Frogs has evolved after losing some excellent players to the draft and adding some familiar names in the transfer portal. (13:56-35:15)Want to watch this episode instead? Head on over to YouTube, don't forget to subscribe!https://youtube.com/live/SHTH3FmsWmA But first, Andy examines some quarterback news from the weekend. Florida has named a starter. Iowa's starter had to leave practice with an injury. And what about Alabama's three-man race? (0:00-11:24)Andy also breaks down the options for Cal and Stanford at this point. (11:25-13:55)After the Sonny Dykes interview, Ralph Russo of The Associated Press joins to discuss the NCAA's Committee on Infractions denying the negotiated resolution in a case involving Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh and several assistants. What does this mean for the timeline of the case, and what does it mean for Michigan's season? Also, does it affect Harbaugh's big-picture future at Michigan? (35:16-01:01:55)Ralph also will tease the release of the AP poll, which drops on Monday at noon ET. UCLA Commit Kwazi Gilmer released what could be the best commitment video of the year, and Andy breaks it down. (01:01:56-01:06:21)For this episode's Extra Point, Brett McMurphy did his due diligence and asked each Sun Belt their favorite musical artist. Andy breaks down their answers. (01:06:22-01:08:54)

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Already got comments up and everything. You guys are very excited tonight. There's a lot going on in college football because we got quarterback news from various parts of the country there's still realignment news going on there's ncaa news with michigan there's a lot and you know this the schedule of the show right now where we record sunday through thursday all this friday news dumping these people are doing it's making it difficult now remember once we get into the season, we'll also have shows on Saturday that will take all that into account.

But we got a lot to cover, stuff that happened Sunday, Saturday, and Friday. Let's start with something that happened this weekend out in Iowa. One of the scarier things that you're going to deal with in a preseason practice. And it's funny because, or not funny, none of this is funny, but practices are locked down for the most part. Usually there's not a lot of access to any practices, but every once in a while, a team's going to let everybody in and let people see. And it was kids day at Iowa.

They allowed the media in to watch practice. And Cade McNamara, the quarterback who's supposed to start for Iowa this year, transfer from Michigan. He's coming off a knee injury. He goes down on a non-contact injury. He was scrambling on a play and then winds up on the ground, goes off and comes back in street clothes. And it's like, oh gosh, what the heck happened fortunately it doesn't look like it's that serious kirk ferentz got asked about the injury our friends at the hawkeye report had the video here you go issue so you know it's unfortunate obviously uh you know he needs work like everybody out here needs work but hopefully nothing too serious one

of those things i'm sure he wants to test it out. I'm sure you guys want to see it too, but tough situation. You've got to go. Yeah, not today, certainly. So, you know, you look at him inside and, you know, see if we're a Harvard sponsor. Unfortunately, it's just muscle. So, yeah, no knees since that was the game you were working on? No, no.

No, no. Up above that, so. Did your heart stop a little bit? I mean, that's. Anytime anybody's down, that's not good. You know, we had one over on the sideline, too. Tanner's fine. But anytime anybody goes down, that's the worst part of football.

With, like, quarterback position, you're taking some shots. Is that a plan to be kind of aggressive today? I mean, those are never scripted, but they do happen. And we're improving on our protections, all those things. But certainly got work to do there are a lot of loose ends. So that's Kirk Ferentz. He says, upper body, soft tissue, not the knee, not what Cade McNamara was, was dealing with coming out of his career at Michigan.

If something were to happen, by the way, Deacon Hill, the Wisconsin transfer who's been in iowa would be probably the the backup there but it does sound like kate mcnamara is going to be okay so just kind of a collective holding of the breath there for a few minutes in iowa city uh that's that's just how these things go sometimes and a program that got bad news over the weekend or on friday uh florida lost justice boone one of their edge rushers, to a torn ACL. But also on Friday, Florida named officially Graham Mertz the starting quarterback. We pretty much knew that was going to happen when Billy Napier talked to us at SEC Media Days.

He basically talked about Graham as if he was the starter already. But this is one that we're waiting to hear them say, yeah, he's the guy. And there's a, there's a few of these like this going on around the country and Billy Napier talked about it on Friday. Explain why Rams is guy. Yeah, no, I do. I think the big thing I've been impressed with is just his ability to come in and learn the system, you know,

to translate what he knows and apply that to our system. And then just, you know, relentless in approach, you know, probably has worked as hard as any player on our team, probably as hard as a lot of players that I've been around, you know, in terms of the unseen hours, right? Those are what I'm talking about specifically. And the self-discipline to have a system, a process, a routine to work, to connect with players, ask very intelligent questions, and is anticipating problems, right? So Graham's done a great job and he's worked from

the minute he pulled up in the parking lot until just a while ago. He's continued to work to improve. So I've been very pleased in that regard. Level of professionalism here that I think is respected. So Graham Mertz, who was Wisconsin's starter last year, now going to be Florida's starter this year. Florida's former starter, Anthony Richardson, made his first NFL preseason start on Saturday. That was watched, I think, by a lot of Florida folks

because people want to see, did Florida get what they were supposed to get out of Anthony Richardson and what does that mean for what they're going to get out of Graham Mertz? And I don't know. If you watched Anthony Richardson's first start you saw a very bad interception and then you saw some bright spots which was basically like watching Anthony Richardson play at Florida so I don't know that much has changed there so we'll see what happens as he develops but now Graham Mertz will get a chance to show what he can do at Florida and and remember pretty good backfield to deal with at Florida.

Whether the young receivers come on, I think probably will have a lot to do with how well Graham Mertz handles that starting job. So if you're looking at a couple of guys you want to know about, Andy Jean, Trey Wilson, the freshman receivers, we'll see if they can help Ricky Pearsall out in terms of giving Florida a little downfield threat because I think Montrell Johnson and Trevor Etienne we know they're pretty good at running back so we'll see how that goes with that interesting to see around the country some of these other quarterback competitions Georgia still hasn't officially named anybody the starter we think it's going to be Carson Beck but you see coming out of their scrimmage word that Brock Vandegrift and Gunnar Watson have looked good. So not much definitive there.

We're waiting on Ohio State. Has Ohio State picked a starter? Is there separation? And we're going to start seeing some of this stuff in the next probably two, three days, four days as teams say, you know what, it's time to give one guy starters reps. And some of them aren't going to tell us, but I think some of them may just decide to say it. With Ohio State, with Devin Brown and Comacord, I get the sense that Ryan Day probably will announce that at some point. For Georgia, I don't know if the Currys aren't needs to announce it. I think it feels like Carson Beck's going to be the guy, but it does seem like that's another one that he could potentially announce

sooner rather than later. Because a lot of times they're looking for some separation. Georgia, they may be trying to figure out who the backup is. They may be trying to figure out who, is it V They may be trying to figure out who is it Vandegrift or is it, is it going to Watson? So we will see about that Alabama still trying to figure out the starting quarterback. That one, I don't know that we're going to get an answer to until the first game that that's one of those that I think the tide are going to string this one out. Now we may find out that one of the three guys that's really in the hunt for it has had his reps reduced, but we have not found that out yet. Alabama had a scrimmage on Saturday.

Didn't sound like there was any indication that anything's changed on that front. Jalen Milrow, Ty Simpson, who are already there, Tyler Buckner, who just got there from Notre Dame. We don't yet know where that one stands. I saw, if you go to the Bama online message board, all the sleuths, they're looking at how often Tommy Reese ran the quarterback at Notre Dame. And what does that mean? Does that mean Milrow has the edge because he's the best runner of the bunch?

I don't know that we're going to figure this out. This one, maybe we have to wait on Nick Saban to tell us. And my guess is he will tell us by saying, Hey, you go out there with the ones in week one. But one thing I will say about Nick Saban, he's in a shockingly good mood right now. Shockingly good mood. I feel like this should scare some people. Let's hear Nick Saban at the end of his press conference after Saturday's scrimmage. I'm not used to this.

This feels different. You know, I kind of like what Pete Rose said the other night. Sparky Anderson, he said, had a great, was a great manager. And he asked him one time, what's the key to handling players? He says, well, you got to know when to kick them in the ass. You got to know when to pat them on the ass. And you got to know when not to say anything. So we're trying to figure that out.

But I think I've been kicking them in the ass a little bit more than I've been patting them on the ass. So we'll just keep on keeping on. Nick Saban playing the hits. He's got, I'm sure he's used that at least three times at press conferences throughout the years. Sparky Anderson, that's a deep cut considering it's 2023. I'm guessing it's been a while since he's used that, but he's used it before. But probably the middle Tennessee state game before we find out who Alabama starting quarterback is going to be. I just don't see him announcing that

we've got Sonny Dykes coming up, TCU head coach. He knows who his quarterback is going to be. It's going to be Chandler Morris, who by the way, started the season opener last year and then gave way to Max Duggan, but he's going to be the guy this year. We're also going to talk a little later in the show about Jim Harbaugh and the news that came out Friday that the NCAA is committee on infractions has denied the re the negotiated resolution. That is the official term that basically Michigan was negotiating a potential penalty for their NCAA case.

And that Harbaugh was going to be suspended for four games that has been denied. They're going to have to for four games. That has been denied. They're going to have to go to a full COI hearing, all that stuff. We got a comment from Nate the Great saying that the NCAA case is BS. Tennessee can have a bunch of infractions and get nothing, but Harbaugh says he didn't recall, and they tried to hit him with a four-game suspension. No bias there.

Nate, they are trying to hit him with longer than a four-game suspension. They denied the four-game suspension. So longer than that is on the table. They denied the four-game suspension. So longer than that is on the table now. And I will point out in Tennessee, the coach, Jeremy Pruitt, who happened to get fired by Tennessee, got a year suspension if he is hired any time in the next six years by a school in the NCAA. So they did hit him with a year suspension. So probably they're looking for a longer suspension for Jim Harbaugh. But we'll talk about that a little later.

We were going to have Chris Ballas from the Wolverine join us on that. In a first in my career as a host, I've never had a guest held up at the border. But Chris Ballas was in Canada this weekend. I don't know if there was a run on maple syrup and milk in bags. But he hit a traffic jam at the border and could not make the show, and that's okay. We'll talk to Chris a little bit later, but Ralph Russo of the Associated Press, nice enough to pinch hit for Chris. But before we get to all that, a little realignment update as well, because we're trying to figure out what's going to happen with Stanford and Cal,

Oregon State, Washington State. And Stanford and Cal, as you know, last week, talking to the ACC, trying to figure out if there's any way to make that work logistically. You saw the news on Friday, multiple outlets reporting that basically Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, NC State blocking that potential move, which makes sense. The ones that think they can get out to a conference that can pay them more money do not want to take in mouths to feed in the ACC that probably don't bring the kind of television value that they're looking for.

So they got to figure something out. And it feels like Cal and Stanford right now are separate from Oregon State and Washington State kind of doing their own thing, trying to say, hey, Big Ten, what about us? Hey, ACC, what about us? And then they'll start to think about some of the more probably plausible, logistically possible moves. And that would be some sort of merger with the Mountain West, some sort of merger with the AAC. Those are things that could happen, but I don't blame them for trying to get the best possible deal right now. But if I'm Oregon State and Washington State, I may be calling them up here in the next week or so and saying, guys, I don't think that's going to happen for you. None of us has a TV deal in 2024 now. We may need to make a decision here soon. So if we want to work together, let's probably do that. So we will see how that goes, but there is still

drama to be played out with what is left in what is now the Pac-4. One guy who's been in the Pac-12, whose school has been in pretty much every conference since the Southwest Conference folded. Sonny Dykes of TCU is up next talking about how they got to the national championship game. What that team did to come together. How this team is different. How you turn the page. And of course, we did ask about the jumbo-sized freshman offensive lineman who blew up the internet last week. We had to. Here is our interview with Sonny Dykes. We welcome TCU coach Sonny Dykes. And Sonny, I have to ask you about

this because I've heard you talk about last year's team, and I know we've turned the page and everything. But if I had told you at this point in camp last year you guys are going to play for the Big 12 title you're going to win a playoff game you're going to play for the national title how quickly would you have had me committed quickly quickly I mean you know how it is you go someplace and uh there's so much that needs to be done. And, you know, we had a good spring. Felt like our players worked hard leading into spring ball. We had a productive spring, but we had some significant issues that we needed to address, you know, depth-wise,

and we needed to stay healthy. And a lot of things had to happen just because of the makeup of the team, and they all happened. And sometimes it doesn't work that way, but that bunch, you know, really made the most of the opportunities they had last year. Guys played hard. You know, we got better every week. We got confidence. About the third week of fall camp last year, I thought, you know, this is a pretty good team.

We'll have a chance and we'll be competitive. And, you know, to our players' credit, they just kept building and kept getting better and won some games that, you know, were hard to win. With the transfers, you had a big impact on the transfer portal last year you're gonna need a big one this year but for example like your cornerback josh newton who you got from louisiana monroe last year did you know by now what kind of impact he was gonna have you know he's he's an interesting guy he uh what makes josh such a good player i mean he's obviously a good athlete he's got good size he's rangy he can run but it's just his competitive spirit his competitive nature and his desire to get better and and so when you watch somebody on

film and you don't really know him you can see his size and athleticism and all that but then you get him here and you go wow this kid's special just his work ethic and his toughness and you know he loves football and the guy just loves to play loves to practice loves to watch film he's the first guy in after practice to watch the tape he's one of the last guys to leave at night so you just sometimes you don't know what you're going to get until you get him here and and you know we knew his personality was good but we had no idea what his work ethic was going to be like and what his commitment was going to be like. And, you know, fortunately, we have a lot of guys on our team

that are built that way. You know, they're just competitive guys. They're players that may have been overlooked during the recruiting process, whatever the case may be. But, you know, they want to be good players. It's important to them, and they work really hard. Well, and it seems like the chemistry of last season's team was just so special. What sort of notes did you take from that?

Because it's not, obviously it's not something you can just bottle and recreate, but how can you kind of help it along toward that point? Yeah, the great thing is that, you know, the guys on this year's team, a big part of them were on last year's team and they saw the leadership. They saw, you know, Chandler Morris had an opportunity to sit back and watch Max Duggan and learn from Max and learn how he handled adversity, you know, not being the starter going into game one and, you know, how he just kept working hard, kept his head down. And so I think everybody on our team had a chance to see that.

I think it had a huge impact on all of us, really. And our players, our players, you know, learned a lot, uh, from that run last year. I mean, they, they saw how important leadership was. They saw how important it was to, uh, to battle through adversity. You know, we had some games early on where we were down 17 points in the second half and, and guys kept believing and kept fighting and rallied and got us to 12 and 0 in the regular season and so you know there was a lot of stuff again a lot of plays that we had to make and a lot of things that guys had to do that weren't always easy so this year's bunch I feel

really good about our leadership you know we're still trying to figure out who exactly are going to be the go-to guys but we have we enough candidates. We really do. We have guys that are bought into the program, that work hard, that have enough skins on the wall to be leaders. And then we have some new additions to our program as well, guys that are starting to really take those leadership reins and starting to lead more consistently. So you mentioned your quarterback Chandler Morris. I heard him say something the other day that kind of – it was the record stretch.

Like, huh? Did he really say that? Okay, so you're working a couple different guys at center. So he's got to figure out how to take snaps from all of them. Chandler claims he has the best hands on the team. Any truth to that? You know what? He's got pretty good hands.

I mean, you know, it's funny. You don't think about that as a quarterback, but it's important. I mean, these guys are catching the ball all the time. More than anybody else. They probably catch more balls than anybody, exactly. And, you know, they're doing it all day, every day. And Chandler has been taking a lot of snaps since he was a little kid. You know, his dad was obviously a football coach and a very successful one.

And so he is no telling how many balls he's caught in his life. And he does have an ability to catch the ball and get it out of his hand very, very quickly. And again, you can tell it's a skill that he's been working on since he was a young kid. Now, Chandler's dad was a high school coach when he was little, but Chandler mostly grew up with his dad as a college coach. How much do you think seeing kind of the broad spectrum,

because Chad kind of went through everything in the last few years, seeing the broad spectrum of that helped Chandler deal with last year? Yeah, I think we all learn. I was fortunate enough to grow up, my dad was a coach, a high school coach, and ended up being a long-time college coach as well. And when you're around your dad every day and you see, you know, number one, how hard you have to work and number two, the ups and downs of football, whether it's high school football, college football, whatever the case may be, you know, it's it's galvanizing. I mean, you really learn a lot from it. You do have an opportunity to see how important it is to keep

your priorities straight. And probably one of the biggest things I learned from my dad was to never get too high, never get too low. It's always, you know, we say it all the time. The film is never as bad as it looks and it's never as good as it looks. And the reality is usually somewhere in the middle. And I think Chandler's had an opportunity to learn that from Chad. You know, as you said, Chad was a fast riser, you know, through the ranks, very successful high school coach, had success at SMU and has encountered some difficult times since then.

And that's part of being a coach, part of being a player. We've all been through it. I went through it myself at Cal, and it's no fun to go through something like that. But Chad's a guy that's going to have a real bright future, and Chandler, I think, taking it one day at a time and realizing that when you have success, you've got to wake up the next day and find a way to do it all over again. You mentioned your time at Cal. I'm curious, as that was ending, in your mind, are you thinking, I know what kind of coach I am?

I know what I can be. Or is there some reflection? Do you have to go back and reevaluate everything? Yeah. I mean, look, and reevaluate everything? Yeah. I mean, look, you reevaluate everything anyway. I was lucky, though. I got fired at Cal in 2016 and had a chance to come to TCU in 2017 and work for Gary Patterson as an analyst and just learned a ton. It was good for me because, as you said, I don't care who you are, when you're not as successful as you think

you're going to be or you want to be, then, you know, it affects your confidence. And I think when I got here to TCU at 17, you know, I was thinking, man, we didn't do this right. We didn't do that right. If I hadn't, I would do this all over again. And I really learned probably as much as anything else from being here that we weren't that far off the mark. You know, we really weren't. We were – there were some things that we needed to change, we needed to improve. But I think that the one thing probably I learned more than anything else is just how important fit is, you know, whether fit as a player, fit as a coach, fit as a program. And then the second thing was just the importance of leadership, you know,

from the top down. And, you know, if you're going to be successful in college football, it starts with the leaders of the university. It starts with your chancellor and your president and obviously carries down to your athletic director. And if you don't have strong leadership, you don't have a chance. And that's the bottom line. And it's very difficult to win and you have to have everybody pulling the rope the same way. And so that was a great lesson for me. And I was fortunate enough to end up at TCU where I think we have some of the best leadership in college athletics for sure. Yeah. And it sounds like you're good news this week. Cause it seems like somebody was sniffing around your AD and he's happy where he is. That's, that's probably

great for you guys. It is. Yeah. I think if you spend some time here in Fort Worth and at TCU, you know, you're going to realize this is a really cool place, really special place, great place to live. You know, it's a big city, 13th largest city in the country Fort Worth is, but it feels like a small college town. And so you really get the best of both worlds. You know, I liked, I like to go eat and go do stuff and have fun. You know, when, when we're not in season and you can do all that in Dallas and Fort Worth,

and you have this huge Metroplex right here, um, and great, great places to eat great, great, uh, entertainment options, but you also have a small kind of college town feel you have the, you know, the unwavering undying support of Fort Worth, uh, Fort Worth is all in on TCU and, and it makes it a really fun place to live and to go to work every day every day yeah those bacon burn-ins from high and barbecue would have me ready to sign probably in about 30 seconds so that that would be easy no question you mentioned fit and and you again had to you know this is just a reality for everybody your your roster will change so much every year because of the transfer portal you brought in a bunch of guys this year especially on offense because i know you're a little deeper on defense right now, but Trey Sanders, a running

back from Bama, JoJo Earl from Bama, Tommy Brockermeyer from Bama. They didn't all come from Bama, but J.P. Richardson from Oklahoma State. You've got a Jackson State transfer who you can mine for info on Deion for the first game. Yeah, yeah, no question. Yeah, we've got a lot of transfers. We have another wide receiver who's been very impressive, Jalen Robinson, so far, came from Ole Miss. And, you know, it's funny, almost all those guys were guys that we had some kind of experience with. We either tried to recruit them before we knew them.

You know, John Paul Richardson, as you talked about, came over, and his dad, Bucky, and I are good friends. And, you know, some family ties go way back. Uh, and so there's a lot of guys that, although they may be new to our program that we've actually known for a long time, either through the recruiting process, you know, the Brockermeyers are from Fort Worth. Um, you know, Jalen Robinson's from Fort Worth, uh, Jojo Earl is from Aledo. And so these are all guys that, you know, went off to different schools and have had a chance to come back. And, you know, it's been good for them. You know, I think it's great for

them to be close to home around friends and family and people that can be supportive of them. And, you know, those guys are all good football players and they're going to make a big impact in our program. And as I said, as you said, you know, fit is important. I mean, those guys fit what we're looking for. They have the right kind of mentality. They're obviously talented players. But, you know, being home, there's nothing like having a chance to play at home. Is that something you told your staff at SMU and now at TCU? Because the DFW produces so many players.

Do you say, hey, look, when they say thanks but no thanks, you say, hey, keep the relationship open, be nice, make sure everybody still loves everybody in case that comes around yeah for sure yeah for sure I mean our first year at SMU we had Reggie Robertson was a kid from Mesquite that came home and he ended up being a really good player for us and then you know the next year we were fortunate enough to get Shane Buchel you know Shane came over was at Texas and was from Arlington and you know Shane really changed our program at SMU. He just came in and provided such a spark and gave us that kind of leadership

and quarterback play that we needed and went on now. He's in the NFL with Kansas City, and I'm sure he'll have a long NFL career. But you've got to get those kind of kids. And the great thing was, as you said, in the Metroplex, whether SMU or TCU, these kids go off sometimes to school, and maybe it doesn't work the way they want it to. Shane played at Texas as a true freshman and got banged up a little bit, lost the job, and needed a fresh restart.

And we were fortunate enough to convince him to come home and play close to home. And so I think Dallas, Fort Worth, and Metroplex provides tons of opportunities for us to go out and get kids to come back and play for a program that's going to play in big games on a national stage and have a chance to win championships. So you opened against Colorado. I remember watching you guys against Colorado last year.

I don't think I had many people with me watching that game late at night. But this time it's going to be everybody watching the team that just played for the national title against Coach Prime. How do you handle that, though, when their roster has turned over? Like, unrecognizable from what you played last year. Do you watch Jackson State for Shadur and Kent State for what Sean Lewis is going to call? How do you handle that? Yeah, you know, you start with scheme. And so, as you said, you got to watch the coordinators and kind of where those guys were and what they did before. And then you try to, you know, watch the guys that are going to be important players. Obviously,

you know, Shadur was at Jackson State. So we'll spend a lot of time watching his tape and trying to evaluate what he can do well and what he can't do well and what he struggles with. And the important thing, I think, for us, honestly, and I think it's always this way going into the first game, is you have to prepare for your opponent, but really more than anything else, you have to just prepare to go play well. You're going to see things that you don't expect. It's going to happen no matter who you play.

People are always going to make changes, you know, in the offseason and make adjustments. And this is going to be much different because, again, you know, we're not even going to bother watching Colorado's film from last year. There's no point of doing that. New schemes, new players, new everything. So it'll be a complete challenge for us and something that'll be different. But the main thing we have to do is just make sure our team's ready to play,

you know, that we can go out and we can minimize mistakes. We can, you know, take care of the football. We can be sound on special teams. All the things that get you beat early, no pre-snap penalties, you know, explosive plays. All the things that matter to winning and losing, especially matter in early ballgames. I mean, those things are all magnified in your first two or three ballgames.

Can your new OC, Kendall Bryles, help with that? Because Sean Lewis, their new coordinator who was Kent State's head coach, obviously comes from the same family tree as Coach Bryles. That offense is pretty similar. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Kendall will be able to help us and Sean will be able to help them. And so, you know, I think those two things will kind of negate each other, but, you know, again, as I said earlier, I'm sure he'll evolve to the players. I mean, that's a good thing about

the system that Kendall runs is it's, it's a system that can plug and play. I mean, you can, you can put in, if you, if you got a lot of really good receivers, you could get into five wide. If you've got a lot of really good tight ends, you can play with 12 or 13 personnel. There's just a lot of different things you can do to take advantage of the players that you have. So both those guys are really good coaches, and they'll both have their teams ready to play. Yeah, it's funny. Everybody thinks that's a wide-open passing offense. That offense is designed to run for 400 yards a game if it's working right.

Yeah, I think that's what really has drew me to Kendall, honestly, and drew me to this offense that they've been running for a while. It's just their ability to run the football. And I think if you look at our team last year, that's what made our team good, was we could consistently run the ball and we ran it against good people. And we've got to get better. I mean, we really do. We've got to be able to run it in short yardage situations better and, and do some things better than we did last year. But, but, you know, we need to be able to run the football. We have to be a physical football team.

I think, you know, people think, you know, I'm an air raid guy, grew up in the air raid and, and, you know, everybody thinks you just drop back and throw the ball all the time. You know, we were 55% run last year and, and, and so we believe in running the ball and think it's important. So your defense, much deeper than the line. I know you rolled out a spring practice last year,

I think with five scholarship defensive linemen had to fill through the portal. It feels like you have so much back. But I was impressed with how you could play complimentary football last year. I go back to the Texas game where that didn't look like most of your other wins. Was that something you decided Sunday, Monday going into that game? This is going to be the strategy or is it something that happened during the flow of the game? Yeah. You know, I bet if you ask, ask me and Steve Sarkisian both, I mean, we would have said it

would have been a shootout. You know, just two really good offenses and two defenses that probably hadn't been quite as good as the offenses up to that point. You know, and all of a sudden it's a 3-0 ballgame at halftime. I don't think anybody anticipated that. You know, your job as a coach is to – you have ideas about how you think things are going to go and ideas about, you know, this is going to be a shootout. And then all of a sudden, for whatever reason, both defenses come out and play really well. And so what we had to do was change our mentality a little bit as the game went on and, you know, take a little bit less risk.

If you're going to get into a high scoring ballgame, then you're going to go for it a little bit more on fourth down. Field position is not that important. Well, if it's a low scoring ballgame, then field position is position is critical um you know you got to do a great job punting uh special teams become really important and and so you know as the game progressed our mentality had to change to adapt to what was happening and you know as i said earlier that's one of the things that i think we do well is you know every game is its own game and every game, you want to win it different ways. And we won that game playing great defense and, and punting the ball and not turning the ball over.

And then you got into, we got into a shootout against Michigan where we had to score a bunch of points. Which is not what you thought that was game. Yeah, exactly. And that's what I, that's what I liked about our team last year is, you know, we could figure out different ways to win games. And, you know, you look at the Baylor game,

we struggled offensively most of that game and were able to rally and, and, you know, we can figure out different ways to win games. And, you know, you look at the Baylor game, we struggled offensively most of that game and were able to rally and, you know, figure out how to win that too. Yeah, that Friday walkthrough where you're making sure everybody knows what special team they're on and can get organized very quickly probably came through big time in that Baylor game. It did. Yeah. I mean, you know, when you have the kind of season we had last year, you're going to have

to win some games like that. And I'm sure you're going to have to win some games like that. And I'm sure we're going to have to win some this year. And so that's – attention to detail is going to be a big deal for us, having our guys prepared for situational football. I mean, if you look at our league, you know, the league, there's not much difference between the teams at the top of the league and the teams at the bottom. And so every single week it's going to be very competitive.

And in the team that makes the fewest mistakes is oftentimes going to be the team that wins. So I can't let you go without asking about the freshmen on your roster who blew up the internet this week. So Breon Ramsey Brooks, Bubba. Yep. He is an impressive looking 6'5", 455. How's he doing in camp? You know what? He's actually doing well. He's much further along than we thought he would be. You know, he's a guy that, you know, coming in, we knew it was going to be a little bit of a project.

You know, he's a really big guy. He's surprisingly athletic for someone as big as he is. And, you know, the thing I love about Breon is he's worked really hard. I mean, he's got a great work ethic. You know, he came in, we started slow. You know, we kind of progressed. We knew he needed to get in shape, and we weren't just going to throw him out there, you know, day one.

But he's progressed. He's probably ahead of the benchmarks that we thought he would be at. And he's but we, he's progressed. He's, he's probably ahead of the benchmarks that we thought he would be at. And he's a really, really good athlete. I think he's learning how to work. And so I'm really excited about his future. He's a great kid. Got a great personality. It's obviously got tremendous size and for someone his size, I mean, he can really move. And so, you know, he's one of those kids that if he continues to progress, he's got a bright future. I know, Coach, but please don't ask me about the true freshman offensive lineman. I understand it takes a while to develop, but I appreciate that because I had to ask because he was all over the Internet this week.

He handled that OK? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I mean, I think he was surprised. I think we all were a little bit. I mean, these things kind of sometimes take on a life of their own. You're not quite sure why they do. And I guess it's a little bit of a curiosity because he's a big guy. There's not too many, you know, 450-pound college football players out there. But he's a guy that, I mean, he's going to play big. I mean, he's just a big person.

You know, he's going to, you know, eventually get down into 300s and that's, you know, where he's going to end up playing. And, you know, he's handled it well. I think he's been a little surprised by all the attention and I think he's just one of those kids that just wants to go to work and realizes he's got some work to do. But as I said, man, he's really talented. He's a super kid.

He's a lot of fun. I mean, the kid's got a ton of personality and and uh you know i'm like i said excited about his future coach thank you so much appreciate it no thanks for having me really appreciate it that is ccu head coach sunny dykes and uh sounds like a man very confident about his team but it it's crazy. They're playing Colorado week one, but not watching a single frame of Colorado last year, even though they played Colorado last year, because that is how dramatically Coach Prime has flipped the roster.

Sorry about roster flips. We were going to have Chris Ballas come on and talk about the Jim Harbaugh news. Stuck at the border. It's never happened before. I've never had Mounties involved in booking my show. But fortunately, the man himself, Ralph Russo from the Associated Press, pinch hitting on the day before the Associated Press poll drops, which probably means I was going to ask Ralph to come on tomorrow night.

What's going on, Ralph? Yeah, you screwed that screwed that up didn't you i was kind of waiting i was waiting for the fact when you texted what i assumed was oh he's gonna ask me to see if come on the show tomorrow night and i'll come on the show tomorrow night if you need okay just very nice but but yeah i just i had a feeling that this was uh this was was – I'm happy to help. I'm happy to be your second choice, your third choice. Whatever pinch-hitting role needed, I'm happy to join in. You're always my first choice, and I know the Mounties – well, actually, there's probably U.S. Border Patrol,

this check and the folks coming back in. So that's what Chris is dealing with right now. If he's got some ketchup-fl flavored potato chips or other Canadian delicacies that he's trying to bring back across the border. But Ralph, I, we were bringing Chris on to talk about this Michigan thing. I think,

I think you're eminently qualified to talk about this. You've covered a bunch of NCAA investigations and understand exactly how this works. The, the thing that amazed me is i can't recall ever seeing the ncaa make a statement about something like this it's actually against their own rules to do it but derrick proffered the the vice president in charge of hearing operations i'll read this to you because yeah well i hope the pr staff realized before they sent it out that it was as funny as it is.

The Michigan infractions case is related to impermissible and off-campus recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period and impermissible coaching activities. Not a cheeseburger. It is not uncommon for the COI to seek clarification on key facts prior to accepting. The COI may also reject a negotiated resolution. They throw NR in there like we know what it means. If it determines that the agreement is not in the best interest of the association or the penalties are not reasonable, if the involved parties cannot resolve a case through a negotiated resolution process,

it may proceed to a hearing, but the committee believes cooperation is the best avenue to quickly resolve issues. It's not about a cheeseburger, Ralph that was a little aggressive like that popped so you know not that people want to know about my life but like this thing started breaking while i was at a concert last night so i am trying to like chase this story and and asking the nc hey, I heard there's a statement. Could you email me the statement? Can you text me the statement? And that statement pops into my text messages. And I'm like, oh, really? Like that's that's an interesting approach. But yeah, the NCAA tends not to be that aggressive.

Right. And they're clearly trying to listen to a degree. They're right. Like we keep using the same phrase when it comes to listen to a degree. They're right. Like we keep using the same phrase when it comes to this whole Harbaugh mess. It's not the crime. It's the cover up. Well, they've been out. They've been outspun on this one. Like what?

That's a good point. That's a good point. That's what they're mad about. They got outspun. Yeah. Michigan clearly, right, has sort of portrayed this as like, listen, this is a minor thing. But that's the point. It was a minor thing until Harbaugh did the Harbaugh thing for whatever reason, whether he was just forgetful or weird Harbaugh or truly just lying or pigheaded, any of the above, all of the above, one from column A, one from column B, you all of a sudden, this becomes something where slap on the wrist, maybe a scholarship here or there, maybe some limits in recruiting to now we're talking

suspending the head coach of a possible national championship contender. Yeah. And that's the thing. So I would say probably if this has got to go to a full committee on infractions hearing, he won't miss any games this year because it won't be resolved. There will be no punishments levied until after this season's over. Yeah. I mean, you know, so I don't have, I haven't talked to anybody about the timing of this, but you're right. We've been through enough of these to know that once you get to the point where you're not going to have a negotiated resolution, it's going to go to the committee on infractions. Now you've got to get on their calendar. These people have other jobs. understand the committee on infractions is made of people who work at schools and athletic departments, commissioners, athletic directors, people along those lines. So to say like, oh,

we just need to slap it on the calendar, that could easily be six, seven months. And then you have to have the hearing and then they have to process that. I mean, he could be the coach of the Raiders by the time this is and yeah i'd set you up on that right you brought up my next question yeah of course right i mean yeah everything we've seen about this suggests to us that you know okay he's flirted with the nfl two years in a row clearly that's a challenge he would like to to again. This could be a very special team. Given how many NFL guys he thinks he has on this roster, this is probably his best shot at winning a national title in college.

Now, maybe given what they've been doing, he could probably do it again, build something up like this again. But yeah, could he just say, look, I'm going to the NFL after this and I'm not dealing with any of this crap? Listen, when this issue first arose, there was some murmurs about it late last year, sort of heading into the playoff. And then we started hearing the more of the mission, the Harbaugh leaving. And then as you did a little reporting on this and sunk your teeth thing, you realize, oh, wait a second. These two things might be related. He might be heading to the NFL because he doesn't either want to deal with this stuff. Or maybe this stuff is like legit bad. Like before you pieced it all together, maybe he's looking at like a year suspension.

Well, if that's the case, I'm out of out of here right so there was this feeling that these two things were linked then there was this feeling that well it won't be that bad so we're going to run it back and there's just so many layers to harbaugh right because there was also the idea of like maybe if somebody really would have wanted him he would have gone to the nfl because that's also been another piece of this the last couple of years right he went to the to the Vikings and talked to them, but they were not going to hire him. Well, yeah. I mean, depending on who you believe, maybe he wasn't prepared enough. Maybe he was their second choice all along.

Even last year with the Broncos, there was some interest, but then Sean Payton came. So I would believe, though, that there is probably, if he gets his act together and really wants in the NFL, my suspicion is he could probably end up in the NFL next year if that's what he wants. Especially coming off of a year where maybe he wins a playoff game and hell, maybe he wins a national championship. You would think somebody out there might think he would be a good NFL head coach again because he's already been a good NFL head coach. Right. And that's, that's the other piece of this. It's not like somebody who's been a good college coach and maybe they want

to try the NFL. He took a team to the Superbowl already. I mean, two AFC with three, two or three straight AFC championship games. And it was a bad team when he got there. That's the other thing. Like what he did at San Francisco was similar to the Stanford situation

and the Michigan situation. He flipped it almost immediately. Listen, he comes with the Harbaugh thing, right? He left the San Francisco situation because people were like, Jim, we are tired of you, right? Yeah. And I think in college that doesn't happen quite as much because the roster flips over and assistant coaches flip over and you don't have an owner and a GM. You have an AD.

You have an AD and a president. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a different dynamic. Right. So I think he's a little more tolerable, his quirkiness in a college setting. But, yeah, I don't know. Andy, I just think that I'm at the point where I think I'd be surprised if Harbaugh's the coach of Michigan.

I think they probably have at least one, if not two, possible successors on the staff right now. Sharon Moore or Mike Hart probably would be logical candidates. And I know Sharon Moore is mixed up in this as well, but I don't know that it's anything that would prevent him from getting the job. I don't think to the extent where it would prevent him. I believe there are some people in the Michigan ecosystem who believe Sharon Moore is their Ryan Day. He will be ready to- Don't say that to Michigan and Ohio State people. They're going to twist that in a different way. You know that. know that's a good point that's a good point michigan people might think

oh no wait a second we don't want that that guy keeps losing the rivalry yeah it's yeah we we have to be careful talking you know we talk about it that way for for people who are fans of most other programs are like oh ryan day is awesome he wins most of his games. But yes, it's different within the rivalry. But I do wonder if this is it for him. And he maybe goes into this thinking, well, I am just going to blow it out this year. And if you're an NFL franchise and you have a job opening and you look at the roster that they've put together, and just, I don't know about you, Ralph, but the thing that impresses me the most is how many NFL players they have. Like when you talk to scouts,

when you talk to Jim Nagy from the senior bowl, they talk about a, a just massive number. Jim Harbaugh told our friend Bruce Feldman, he thinks 20 guys go drafted that that seems a little aggressive, but it's still gonna, it's gonna be a lot and the fact that they've been able to develop guys like this without having necessarily the same raw material as georgia or ohio state or alabama i would think that would bode well if this some of these guys were to go to the nfl they are recruiting at a very good level at michigan but

no they're not recruiting at alabama georgia but no, they're not recruiting at Alabama, Georgia level. Yeah. They're not bringing in that. So yes, they are. I don't want to make it sound like Michigan's doing this with a bunch of two and three stars, right. But they are definitely doing it with more of the lower four stars, maybe some three stars with high upside, some five stars in there as well and blue chippers. But yeah, I mean, they're creating NFL players. He's running, you know, they're running offenses.

If that really matters, that may be in some ways, you know, I hate, I hate even to go down that road because the NFL and college offenses have become, you know, where do they end? Where does it want to start? But the fact of the matter is he's an NFL guy who is producing NFL players. And, you know, other than his somewhat oddball personality, he's got a great track record in the NFL. So if that doesn't happen or if he does wind up not being at Michigan next year, he will not be around for the Titanic clashes against conference rivals, Oregon and Washington.

I want to move elsewhere in the Big Ten and ask you this, because our friend Amy Juice from the Lincoln Journal-Star talked to Trev Alberts on Sunday. Yeah, it was a really good interview. And here's a quote from Nebraska Athletic Director Trev Alberts to Amy Juice. History is unkind to conferences that had not had the courage to expand.

I don't believe it's done. It's never been done. It's more likely that there'll be continued periods of angst. I believe that the next go round, that's my basic conclusion will be far more disruptive than anything we're currently engaged in. So is this Trev Alberts predicting what we on this show call conference Pangea?

It sounds like it, because what could be far worse than or worse? He didn't write one. Did he use the word disruptive? More disruptive. I think. Yeah. What could be more disruptive than,

Hey, we're going to go to not even a 65 team power, whatever, but we're going to go to a 40 team super conference or, or super league kind of situation, maybe less than that. And I mean, you know, you're chopping out 25 power five teams. That means, you know, when you start getting into that area, you start thinking about conference contraction right start getting into the

conversation of will the big 10 cut loose some of its bottom rung teams or will the bottom will the top rung of the big 10 in the sec be lured away right like like a new premier league right right like we've seen this if you follow english soccer you've seen what this could conceivably look like so somebody brought this up to me on the mail in in the mailbag show last week and i i thought it was interesting because i thought it was because i always get the question about when are they going to cut from the bottom and my thought is they're not they're not going to cut from the bottom they're not going to cut from the bottom. They're not going to do that. But what if Alabama and Ohio State and Michigan and Texas and all of them go, we don't need to subsidize anybody. We're going to go do our own thing.

Yeah, it's semantics, right? You're not cutting from the bottom. You're actually just taking the top layer. And the top layer is saying goodbye to the bottom right we're not cutting you we're leaving yes yeah it's not it's not you it's us yes and by us by by it's us it's it's us wanting to cash those huge checks yeah yeah i mean we talk about yeah we've had this conversation all that's a lot about at some point when does al and LSU look across the table at Missouri and Mississippi State I hate always using bandy Missouri and Mississippi State and say what

exactly do you do here right like what like what what do you do that helps me yeah because they're having that same conversation in the ACC right now right right? Exactly. That's the conversation that's going on in the ACC and bringing the tumult. They feel like these upper crust teams feel like we deserve more. And they're looking across the room and saying like, you're not helping us here. You're not like, why should you get more?

You know, they think that they have a landing spot in another conference. I don't want to rehash the whole ACC granted rights thing. You know, they think that they have a landing spot in another conference. I don't want to rehash the whole ACC grand rights thing, but that's the conversation. The conversation is what exactly do you, you know, Duke, Syracuse, et cetera, do for me, Florida State, Clemson, UNC? Since you brought that up, though, Tuesday is the deadline. If someone were to want to leave the ACC and be somewhere else in 2024, do you suspect anybody jumps now or do you think that's just talk? So it would be naive at this point for me to dismiss it, right? There has been

so much talk. There has been so much saber rattling by Florida State. Understand that Clemson, Florida State, UNC, maybe to a slightly lesser degree me to say, nah, that's not going to happen. Again, I mean, they're signaling, they've literally signaled we want out. So it would be silly for me to dismiss it. I just have not been able to pin down one person. And I understand why, like nobody's going to tell you their strategy, right? Nobody's going to tell you, well, how are you going to do this? I've had this conversation with folks in the ACC, you know, kind of late some of these schools and you or have an idea of what's going on at some of these schools. And the conversation goes, so how are you going to do this? And the answer is like something to the extent of even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you. Right. Exactly. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that's the occurrence that that's what will happen in a couple of days.

But I think, as I said, I'd be naive to to be surprised. The most telling thing I heard in that Florida State Board of Trustees meeting where basically they all had their speeches prepared and talked about how they wanted to get out of the ACC. There was a trustee named Justin Roth who said, hey, it's probably not feasible to be withdrawing from the ACC by August 15th. But then he followed that up with, but we ought to have a plan to make sure we can by a year from now right which that's what i i sooner rather than later feels like the the most accurate way to say it but maybe not immediately i hate see the problem with conference realignment is it could always lead to another you peel back in the layer of the onion you can get into another discussion and i don't it's also like my economics teacher in high school,

when we used to ask her, when does the short-term become the long-term? She's like, when it does. And, but I would also say this, like part of me feels like the, the ACC is absolutely losing the PR battle to the big 12,

right? Yes. The ACC is probably in as good a shape as the big 12. And I understand the contract comes up and that's going to change the dynamics. If everybody wanted to be in the ACC, they would be in a very secure, stable position right now. Right. So, so it doesn't, this, all the bluster doesn't help the conference. They lose the PR battle. I would also suggest that at some point, maybe the ACC should spin it this way internally. We're not at a disadvantage because our contract doesn't come up sooner. The Big 12 is at a disadvantage because they're all free agents

and somebody can come get them. We have the stability. In a few years, hey, if Colorado, if Dion hits at Colorado, boy, Colorado, that's right next to Nebraska. That'd be an interesting addition for a conference that wants to build westward, right? If Arizona, you can create all these scenarios in a few years where, well, it's too difficult to get the ACC schools, right? But if the SEC wants to add an Arizona State's cooking under Kenny Dillingham, well, that's close to Texas, right? Listen, it's very hypothetical. All this New Mexico erasure in real life is just so bad in albuquerque and taos taos is beautiful like oh my god elba new mexico is such a cool place

such a cool place definitely visit albuquerque the but the fact that like again i'm being maybe a little bit like hyperbolic or a little exaggerating a little but the fact of the matter is like you could spin it to the idea that, hey, the Big 12, those teams are going to be exposed in a few years. And if I'm the ACC, TCU looks like an ACC school. I don't know. I just think that there are different ways. Going back to Trev Albert's comments about not expanding,

when I'm thinking Stanford, Cal, and SMU, I'm also starting to think, now how can I piece in some of those Big 12 schools and make all this connect? That would be the interesting part because I think what makes the Big 12 feel so stable is they all feel like they're on the same page. They all feel like nobody's going nobody's gonna nobody's gonna come

for us yeah they're not gonna get poached and whereas clemson and florida state clearly exist on a different level in terms of viewership and competitiveness than the rest of the acc those are their national champions from the last 10 years harmony in the big 12 is based on they they all look at each other and feel like they're simpatico right they all have this feeling of like we're all in the same boat here yeah we all are together pulling the same rope where none of us yeah maybe maybe nobody maybe we're a little bit of an island of misfits toys where nobody really wants us but we have strength in numbers and we can be powerful together. And I would just say like the fact of the matter is everybody's aspirational.

And if one of those schools or a couple of those schools all of a sudden start pushing the envelope and finding a new ceiling and become appealing to, to somebody else, then, then harmony goes out the window. You heard it here first. Ralph Russo predicts another UCF national championship in the SEC scooping them up. That's the next round. Dude, I am convinced that all of this Florida State bluster is them looking at UCF and thinking they are going to be making more money than us in a few years.

We cannot have this. I think the ucf piece of this really i hate to use this word because it sounds very pejorative and i'm not trying to i think it triggered florida state a little bit like that idea of like probably right that ucf is now is now at our level is a huge school in a bigger city has got to be unsettling to some it's an eye-opener it is and and i'm sure it had a lot you're staring at a new reality there that is like an uncomfortable spot i agree ralph you've got something big coming out tomorrow the associated press poll first pre-season poll drops i know you can't tell us who's where we're going to get, get some variety from the

coaches poll though. Any, anything, you know, it's funny. Like you go to that line. If I told you I'd have to kill you. Actually, if I told you I would be killed. Oh, okay. I don't need that. I need someone to come in. And, and when I have a guest stopped at the border or, you know, in a traffic jam at the border, I need to be able to call someone. So I can't have AP killing you. Yeah. Yeah. I believe AP has a, as a sniper trained on me at all times for the 48 hours leading up to the poll. So yeah, listen, the poll drops tomorrow at noon Eastern. You can find it on the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, at my account, which is right below my face. There's an X account that's an AP Top 25 X account.

We'll be plastered all over. And, you know, do I think there'll be a little bit of variety? You know, it's weird, Andy, in the world of way too early rankings, I think it's hard not to have group think. We've been ranking these teams since January 12th. Right. So it's hard not to have some group think. I think we'll have a few things that maybe are a little different from the coach's poll. But we like to think of it, we have the last word before the season,

and we are the unofficial start of the college football season. It starts tomorrow folks i and we can celebrate the 10-year anniversary i don't know if that was today or yesterday of when i went to florida state media day in 2013 and i'm frantically texting ralph i need to change my ballot i have florida state right it's ranked way too low because i think i had him like eight and i was like ral, I got to move into like three. This team looks amazing. I am.

I'm trying to, I thought we were going to recount the conversation of when you almost killed me in the press box after a championship game, because you hadn't voted and you were on deadline, but I was also on deadline and I needed that damn poll done to start doing my job too. That was, that was the end of my term as an AP pole. I'm never doing this again. I believe I screamed that at one point.

Yeah. So folks like Andy is like, like, like much slimmer now, but you still like that back then you outweighed me by a good 40, 50 pounds and you were probably a solid three, three to four inches taller than me. But like as angry as he was that I was bugging him, I was just as angry that I had to bug him. So it would have been pretty interesting for at least a couple of minutes in that press box.

Yes. We did bury the hatchet though. Cause I was like, Ralph, I was like, Ralph, I understand I was delaying you and doing your job. Here's the easiest way. I'm never going to vote in your poll again. Yes. We have been much better friends since you stopped voting in the poll. Yes. And this is why I rank things like cakes and cartoon-themed songs instead of college football teams. Although, I'm sure we'll come up with a college football ranking on this show just to get the viewers all fired up. Everybody's got to rank it. Hey, listen. It's the backbone of college football ranking on this show just to get the viewers all fired up.

Everybody's got to rank it. Hey, listen, it's the backbone of college football. People ask me, why does the poll still exist? You don't do a national championship anymore. Hey, man, we're the only consistent in college football since 1936. This sport changes so damn much. And over the last 20 years, it's changed five times over so drastically. But we keep doing that.

And I think you can tell the history of college football through the AP poll. Maybe that's me being a company man, but I think it still has a place in college football. 1936, also known as the last time a team three-peated as a college football national champion. Minnesota. Though that was as you know that oh here we go first those first two were retroactively crowning uh Minnesota the first AP poll but Minnesota was the first champion in the AP poll and as Kirby Smart put it like no disrespect to the Gophers but like I don't know if my audience is really going to be down with like

the 30s Gophers repeat right it's a three-peat I don't know if my audience is really going to be down with the 30s Gophers repeat. It's a repeat. I don't know if they're really going to relate to Bernie Bierman's team. Well, we will find out at noon Eastern on Monday whether AP poll voters think the Georgia Bulldogs can three-peat. Ralph Russo, thank you so much for pitching in, and we hope that Chris Ballas has made it back to the good old U.S. of A by now. Always a pleasure,so. Thank you so much for pitching in. And we hope that Chris Ballas has made it back to the good old US of A by now.

Always a pleasure, Andy. Thank you. Thanks, Ralph. All right. The great Ralph Russo. And we will break down the Associated Press poll on Monday. Now, Monday is, of course,

a Dear Andy show. So I want to hear your questions. You can find me on social media. I'm Andy underscore Staples. Andy underscore Staples on Instagram. Also, you can email me your question. And if you want to shoot video of your question with your phone and send it to me

and be marginally internet famous, andystapleson3atgmail.com. That's the address you send it to we love to hear from you we love your questions it helps us make a better show and we're gonna have a lot i imagine to talk about because the season is so close as ralph pointed out the release of the associated press preseason poll is pretty much the unofficial start of the football season but we are very close to week zero as we mentioned earlier in the show you have starting quarterbacks being named officially now this is the sort of thing that gets us gets our blood really going but I did want to throw a

little bit of recruiting news at you I don't think you've, you might not have seen this one come out on Friday. This was, this was a really good one. So remember the LeBron commercial, one of his early Nike commercials, where he's training in the pool and kind of an homage to Eddie Murphy in, in coming to America or in a nutty professor where he's playing all the roles at once. It was very good. But Quasi Gilmer, who's a receiver from West Hills, California, recreated that commercial as a commitment video, played all the roles.

Guarantee LeBron had a stuntman for his. Quasi didn't. The production value on this sucker's amazing. You got to see it. Turn in the pool hey I could come in anytime you just let me know what time is good for you you can't get the league training in the pool you think Odell training in the pool

nah I don't think so stop looking at my powerade here I come cannonball Stop looking at my powerade. Here I come. Cannonball. Don't make me take out this Invisalign. Come on in. He won't get in. He a TikToker. He don't want to mess up his lighting. Pretty boy.

Hey coach, let me call you back. I'm about to commit right now. So a backflip into the pool to announce his commitment to ucla and there were a little easter eggs and clues about his other finalists throughout the thing if you haven't if you're listening in podcast form you need to find this video you can go to our youtube page on three youtube page where you can watch the show or on three recruits, any of their social media channels, they've got it on there. This was tremendous. He, he does a backflip into his pool. No stunt man required. He's doing his, he's like Tom Cruise doing his own stunts, but he was also looking at Stanford and Washington. I believe there were a couple other schools. Oklahoma was in there. And so UCLA commit Quasi Gilmer, best commit video of the year so far. And really, I mean, I don't know how much,

but he's throwing brands in there, potential NIL. See, that's a great highlight reel for potential NIL deals as well. And so, you know, drops the power and Invisalign and say, Hey, you know, if you want to come throw some money my way, throw a sponsorship my way, I'm right here for you. I like it. I like when they, when they take it in their own hands and say, I will build my brand. But it, it was pretty spectacular. Not, you know, you had a few years ago, had Bleacher Report actually pumping money into these commitment videos. This looked like it was done, you know, on a budget, but tremendous, tremendous production value. We now get to our extra point.

And it comes to us courtesy of our friend Brett McMurphy at the Action Network, who quizzed the Sunbelt head coaches on their favorite musical artists. And I don't think there's probably not a ton of surprises in here. If you've met these guys, it makes sense. And you see there's some generational divides here. Coastal Carolina, Tim Beck, James Madison, Kirk Cignetti. These are older guys. So Tim Beck's an Eagles fan.

Kirk Cignetti's an Neil Young fan. Charles Huff from Marshall is a Michael Jackson guy. G.J. Kenny, the youngest coach, Texas State. Little baby. There you go. Terry Bowden, the oldest of these coaches, James Taylor. The most interesting thing is the same guy shows up twice. The same artist shows up twice. So Georgia Southern's Clay Helton, a man who knows where his bread is buttered. Clay Helton, the reinvention of him at Georgia Southern has been tremendous.

He's got Cole Swindell as his favorite artist, as the Georgia Southern coach should, because Cole Swindell went to Georgia Southern, wears a Georgia Southern hat in every concert, every video. It's just perfect. But meanwhile, Butch Jones also has Cole Swindell as his favorite. You can't have a guy who advertises one of your conference rivals every concert as your favorite. You can't do that. And you could have picked another. Maybe you could pick Luke Bryan if you want a Georgia Southern grad.

At least he's not wearing the Georgia Southern hat everywhere. But you can't do that, Butch. You've got to pick somebody else. So Justin Moore is a huge Arkansas fan, so I don't know if the Arkansas State coach can pick him. But we got Will Hall from Southern Miss with Jimmy Buffett. See, that's understanding. Jimmy Buffett is a Gulf Coast guy.

He's from the Gulf Coast. Like he probably played Southern Miss a million times growing up. So you got to understand these. Everything's political when you're a head football coach. So great job, Clay Helton. He's got it figured out. We got it figured out too. Remember, Dear Andy Show tomorrow. Get those questions to me.

Andy Staples on three at gmail.com at Andy underscore Staples. Cannot wait to see them. Also, we're going to have a guest. Mike Norvell, the head coach of the florida state seminoles will join us on monday talk to you then