Andy & Ari On3 - The Garrett Nussmeier injury butterfly effect that brought Lane Kiffin to LSU

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

It's a Megaboard Wednesday episode, and while the message boards are fired up across the country, Andy had a chance to spend some time with Garrett Nussmeier today at the Panini Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama. Watch here as Andy & Ari discuss Nussmeier's legacy in Baton Rouge and the ripple effect that eventually led Lane Kiffin to Tiger Stadium. How big of a domino was Garrett Nussmeier's injury to the rest of college football? Watch here as Andy & Ari dive deep into this. (0:00) On Today's Episode(1:15) Presenting Sponsor(3:01) Intro: Garrett Nussmeier's Legacy at LSU(5:55) Butterfly Effect for Nussmeier(12:35) When Nussmeier knew when to shut it down(14:31) Ari's story on Lane Kiffin and LSU in the portal(16:38) What is Garrett Nussmeier's draft stock?(18:48) Future for LSU(23:53) Dell(25:15) Bill Belichick's HOF Snub(38:05) Kentucky Basketball after losing to Vanderbilt(47:19) Cooper Barkate and Darian Mensah in Miami(56:20) Conclusion: Dear Andy & Ari tomorrow! Send your questions in to:[e-mail]@on3.com Ari's Story on LSU: https://www.on3.com/news/lane-kiffin-overhauled-lsu-roster-through-the-transfer-portal-now-comes-the-hard-part/ Andy's story on Bill Belichick: https://www.on3.com/news/did-the-decision-to-coach-north-carolina-help-keep-bill-belichick-out-of-the-hall-of-fame/ After Andy & Ari discuss LSU and Garrett Nussmeier talk, the guys head to Canton, Ohio, where Bill Belichick will not receive first-ballot Hall of Fame status. Why didn't the 8-time Super Bowl Champion get in? Andy has some thoughts. On Tuesday night, Kentucky basketball lost in the Music City to Vanderbilt, and now, the Wildcats sit at 14-7 with  over a month left in the regular season. Will Kentucky figure it out and make a run? Will Mark Pope ignite a flame in the Wildcats locker room? Find out here as Andy & Ari discuss the state of affairs for Wildcats basketball. With the additions of Cooper Barkate and Darian Mensah in Miami, how dynamic can this offense be? Watch as Andy & Ari discuss the explosive weapons on Miami's offense in 2026. The Dell XPS proves there’s no need to compromise—style, power, and reliability come together in one expertly crafted machine.Check out the all-new Dell XPS at Dell.com/XPS. Our show is also presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. 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 Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/lKWl8Ydpnmk Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today is Andy Nare on 3 presented by BetMGM. Former LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier talks about the nightmare of playing through injuries last season, whether he regrets not going into the draft this time last year. And what happens next for him? Plus North Carolina coach Bill Belichick, you might remember him as the guy who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. Yeah, he was not voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on his first chance. It's wild, and it made me ask a question. Did this happen because we saw him fail for a year at North Carolina?

Because it doesn't seem like there's any other valid reason. We'll talk about that. Plus, it is Megabort Wednesday. And if you've been on the KSR message board, that's our Kentucky site, there's a lot of firemark pope threads, a lot of them. We highlight one or two plus one that says, we are Indiana. somewhat unironically. Also, quarterback Darien Mensa does commit to Duke, which we expected to happen.

But we want to talk about the other Duke to Miami transfer, Cooper Barcate. What are the Keynes getting him? We'll talk about all of that on today's Annie and Orion 3 presented by Bed MGM. We are presented by BedMGM. We use BedMGM lines and totals. And you can join us by joining BedMGM. If you have not signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code. CFB is in college football, CFB, and you'll get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first

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and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Annie and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. I am here in lovely Mobile, Alabama. There are boats floating by behind me. There's some shipbuilding going on behind me. There's some team building, NFL team building going on in the room that just got vacated. I just saw a bunch of players and scouts leaving. They're getting ready to go to practice,

but they were doing the speed dating between the players and the scouts where a player sits with a team for five minutes and then they turn on the siren and they all move to the other team. And I was watching that go on. Big job interview. One of the guys engaged in this job interview, Ari, is Garrett Nussmeyer, the former LSU quarterback who, I think if he'd been here last year, we'd be talking about Garrett Nussmeier, the potential first round draft pick. We're having a very different conversation about him this year, Ari.

still low might be able to work his way up to pretty high on the draft boards right if he has a really good you know workout process not just only immobile but at the combine and stuff i mean it doesn't seem like a very deep quarterback class we talked yesterday about how the senior bowl was kind of like oh god no one's leaving it's like tell me what what's the the tenor with him and and what people are saying about him so the issue with garret nussmeyer is he's not fully healthy yet and and we're going to get into that because he's I talked to him today and he was available at the Senior Bowl Media Day. And he was pretty up front about what he's been dealing with injury-wise. He wasn't super specific. But you got a really good idea of why things looked the way they looked last season, why he ended up shutting it down last season. It was really bad. And I think we knew that watching it.

I think you and I said this on the show multiple times. We're like, he's hurt. He's hurt. He keeps trying to go out there. And I don't know if this is helping. This might be making it worse. and the injury was such, and he talked about it a little bit with Jacob Hester

and Matt Flynn, the two former LSU players who have a show in Baton Rouge, he talked about this a little bit yesterday, where he said, hey, I had this oblique injury, and I basically was throwing without the middle of my body, which if you've ever tried to do that, I mean, just imagine trying to do that. Grab a ball of any kind and try to throw it without rotating your body or imagining you have like searing pain every time you rotate your body,

that's what Garrett Muspar was dealing with. You know, it's like, remember it was like a big, I know it's been six months, but four months, but like it was a big deal like at the beginning of the year last year. Remember Brian Kelly went on a few rants about how he's healthy? And, you know, I wonder how much of this was impacting him at the beginning of the year. And if he were healthy, how different LSU season might have been. And, you know, frankly speaking, butterfly effect of fully healthy,

Garrett Usmeyer and college football. Yeah. Right. Is Brian Kelly still LSU's coach? Is Lane Kiffin's still Ole Miss's coach? Is Lane Kiffin Florida's coach right now? These are all things that probably were affected by this one injury because there were huge expectations going in on Garrett Nussmeyer.

And it didn't work out. When you hear about how the injury worked, and I'm going to play some Garrett Nussmeyer here in a second, and you will understand what he's talking about. But it was severe, and it really impacted his ability to throw. And I was watching a practice. for the Senior Bowl yesterday. And it still doesn't look like he can completely rip it yet.

He says he doesn't need surgery. He said he thinks, you know, it'll get better by a combine. It'll be better. By pro day, it'll be even better. So he, you know, hopefully for his sake, by pro day, he is back where he needs to be and can throw it well. But when you hear him talk about it, you will understand a little better exactly why things looked the way they looked last year.

So here's a, here's him on just the injury in general. Frustrating for sure. You know, a feeling of helplessness at times of feeling like we were doing the right things and not making any progress. And definitely kind of just was a snowball of things, you know, absolutely. But honestly, thankful to have gone through what I went through. Ultimately, it will make me a better player. And the adversity that I had to go through this year throughout my time at LSU has built me into who I am today. So there was a lot of that.

A lot of it's not anybody at LSU's fault. It's not Brian Kelly's fault. He was not going to blame anything. anybody for what happened. But you notice the number he's wearing on his jersey, number 18. If you're an LSU fan, you know what that means. If you're not an LSU fan, the number 18 is very special at LSU. Matt Mock Ward, he was a quarterback who helped him win the national title in 2003, and he passed it down to Jacob Hester, and he passed it. And it's been passed down. And basically, you are selected to wear number 18 now at LSU. It's very meaningful. And part of the reason he didn't

want to get off the field and was dealing with this and probably hurting himself and possibly hurting the team was that he felt like he owed it to the program as number 18 to do this. Well, one, you know, receiving the honor of wearing 18 at LSU that comes with the responsibility. And it didn't matter if I had one leg, you know, I was going to go out there. And so I'm a competitor at Hart and, you know, whatever it took to get me to be able to play that Saturday, you know, I was willing to do it. And I don't take, I wouldn't take any of it back. this is the hard part for me are you because this guy clearly cared deeply about lSU all he wanted to do is play and help the team and unfortunately because of the way things like he said snowballed in terms of the injury and his throwing motion kept getting worse and worse and the results kept getting worse and worse there wasn't much you could do and you know probably that puts the onus back on brian kelly i would think to manage that situation i don't know in this day and age of college football if that really

helps because the solution, the only one they would have had is go to Michael Van Buren. I don't know that that would have changed the way this season went had they done that. Yeah, I mean, there was a game, and I can't remember which one it was. It was towards the end of the year, and I was watching it. And Garrett was pulled out of the game prematurely for Van Buren, and he slammed his helmet against the bench in frustration. And I remember feeling like, yeah, this is just not what we expected. And I felt bad for him in the moment because it was so very clear that,

he was hampered by this injury. And, you know, I just can't get my mind off of the butterfly effect, man. Yeah. It's like that is crazy, right? Because it's not just, if somebody fired or not, when you think about the ripple effects of Brian Kelly's departure from LSU on college football in the last four months, I mean, think about how many players are in LSU now, like, where would Sam Levitt be if Garrett Nessmeyer never got hurt?

You know, like, it's just like a wild, like, you know, the athletic liked to do those back in the day, the butterfly effect. We should work on that story of like, well, you know where they stole that from. That was, there's a certain guy at Sports Illustrated who, who did a thing on what if Chris Leak had gained one more yard in one play

against LSU in 2004, how would have changed college football? Because that ultimately got Ronzoch fired and then it butterflyed out from there. Yeah, but this one would maybe be a pretty hefty. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, I'm not terribly busy the rest of the week.

I might be able to write that column. But it is, it is fascinating to think what would have happened and what might have changed. Because how many more wins does LSU need to not fire Bryant-Kah? Like what would it, what would have taken, what result would have had to been different? Would it have been, you know, remember they were very close in that Texas A&M game. LSU might have even been winning at half time. They were tied. And then A&M blew them out in the second half.

Like, what if they win that game? What happens differently if they win that game? I don't know if it changes, you know, If he's healthy, do they beat Alabama? There's so many questions, but, you know, it could have been very different because, you know, I'm looking at it. You're right. They lost two Ole Miss 2419 on the road in a very competitive game on September 27th. And Gary Nutsmire threw for less than 200 yards in that game.

It wasn't that competitive, if you remember. It was one of those Ole Miss made a lot of mistakes, but they never, it didn't feel like they were going to lose at any point. but a healthy year at Nussmeyer changes the math on that probably because all Ole Miss's mistakes probably have to get paid for a lot more. Yeah, because when you look at LSU's schedule, they had a really rough three-game stretch in October when they lost to Vanity, Texas A&M and Bama back to back to back. In A&M game, they got completely destroyed.

But if you wanted to go back and change the Ole Miss game to a win, which like you said might be kind of a stretch. But, you know, if he's healthy, it's healthy, It's healthy. It's a completely different situation because when Ole Miss made mistakes against LSU, they were not particularly worried about having to pay for those mistakes. Like they made an offensive mistake and they gave the ball back. They felt confident their defense can stop LSU and for the most part it did. A healthy Garrett and Usmeyer probably changes the math on that. Ole Miss fans, I'm sorry.

I don't mean to do this to you because you won the game. You got to go to the playoffs. And they've been through enough. Ellis who's done enough to you already. Yeah. But it is fascinating to me. So he eventually, you mentioned that he's getting pulled for Van Buren. This is the Alabama game.

And it was shortly after that that he ended up getting shut down. And he talked at length about that game and then what happened over the next few days. And it's pretty interesting. Yeah. So half time the Alabama game, they obviously decided to try something different. And things weren't working. And so, you know, if you saw the game or saw me on the sideline, I was still me. I had a responsibility as 18 to still be that guy.

You know, things were going back to normal the next week. And, you know, Tuesday in practice, I tried to rip a throw and re-injured my app. At the time, which we still thought was a core injury, right? And so we never really fully knocked it out. And so from there, you know, we tried week to week to try and get me to be able to play. And it got to a point to where, you know, the play where I decided, hey, I can't do this. You know, I was throwing a front side shallow, which, you know, if you know, ball, that's an eight-yard throw. and immediately after I threw it, I bent over in pain.

And so, you know, at that point I knew, like, if I can't throw a frontside shallow, I'm not effective. I can't help my team win. And so from there, it wasn't really a decision I was able to make to not play. It was kind of forced upon me. So that play he's talking about was in practice after that, after he was pulled from the Alabama game. It was in practice later when he tried to throw the frontside shallow and realize that I can't, I can't help this team anymore.

And so that's just a tough. off realization because he was playing through a lot of pain already. And I think probably the hardest part is you played through all that pain, but you didn't get the benefits of it. You know, the coach got fired. Everything went to hell. The season didn't go the way you wanted it to. Your draft stock took a tumble.

Like all of that he suffered through. And now he's got to claw his way back here. I think that's the hardest part when you think about it. Well, you know, I guess number 18 not being effective and then causing LSU to have to fire its coach and end on Lane Kiffin might have actually been a great thing for them. You know, like they had class half full guy. Don't forget. Not Samire doesn't help him.

He's done. No, I know. But, you know, I think that you could make the real case. And I don't know if you saw this, Andy, but I wrote a column about Lane Kiffin and, you know, LSU place in all this tampering stuff and where they were at the end of the portal cycle. And like, I think you can unequivocally say that LSU was in a better spot now on January 28th, 2026 and it was on January 28th, 2025. So, you know, it's an unfortunate situation.

Obviously, you want everybody to go through college and I feel like they got the most out of their ability on the field. And that certainly wasn't the case for Garrett Nussmeyer. But at the same time, too, we've watched him play at a very high level for a long period of time. And my hope is that he gets healthy, can throw those, you know, passes that he has thrown so effectively throughout his entire career really well here at the combine and has another shot to make another team, you know,

better off as a result of his, his play. So I don't, it sucks. It just sucks when people get injured. And the thing is, yeah, the thing is like, he got asked, like, do you regret not going to the draft last year? How close were you to entering the draft last year? And his answer was pretty unequivocal.

So you don't have to feel that bad for him because this is a guy who I think is pretty solid in his faith, steady in his faith, and also in his belief in himself that he can come out of this. But here's what he said about that. Yeah, I mean, it was a tough decision. One, I always dreamed about playing in the NFL.

That's been my goal, my entire life. But at the same time, my dream has also always been to lead LSU to national championship. And so having that opportunity in front of me, it wasn't as hard of a decision as people might think. Because of me wanting to play in the NFL, I had to do my due diligence and think through. But the opportunity that was in front of me to play my last year at LSU, it was an easy decision for me. So there you go. He doesn't regret it. So I think he's going to be, I think you're right.

He's going to be fine. And the thing is, if he's the quarterback he was at the end of the 2024 season, if he's back to health, not only is he going to make an NFL roster, I think there's a chance that Garrett Asmire can wind up being an NFL starting quarterback. Yeah. So what's the actual thought process of his draft grade at the moment? Is he like a late round to undrafted free agent? Nobody knows.

Nobody knows because they don't know how healthy he is. They don't know how he's going to be able to throw for everybody. And I think a lot of that will depend on the next few months. Yeah. So what is the actual injury? So he still won't get really specific about it, but it sounds like it's in the abdominal wall. And basically any type of torsion when you were throwing aggravated it and kept making it worse. And he got asked today, do you need surgery?

He said, we don't believe I need surgery. And so that's one of those things when he goes to the combine, they will, you know, the combine is where the doctors all just surround you like you're in, you know, one of those movies. And he might get different opinions on that or they might all say, okay, you don't need surgery. That's cool. And go back to their teams and say, you can, you know, feel free drafting this guy because he's going to be okay. So I think, again, a lot of that is going to come out over the next month or so. But, you know, I'm always fascinated by this time because in the moment,

moment like it didn't serve garrant nussmire it didn't serve brian kelly it didn't serve anybody to talk about what he was going through during the season it obviously serves the gerard usmire now because you kind of understand more what he was dealing with and then he wants these NFL teams to understand what he was dealing with but while it was going on it's like no no he's healthy and oh i'm fine i'm not going to talk about it but we all knew something was up i mean it was you couldn't watch lSU without understanding something's off here Yeah, without question. And, you know, I don't know.

At times it feels like you will just want people to be frank with you during the season, but you certainly understand why you're not. Because like if Brian Kelly comes out and says, yeah, he's really hurt, then like what's the answer then? You know, like everyone. And that's Brian Kelly making excuses. But one more thing from Garrett Nussmeyer because he is now an LSU alum, obviously still very invested in the program.

He's very excited about Lane Kiffin. Yeah. I guess, as Bainbaum said the other day, he's going to get the last laugh. So I believe they're going to win. I believe that they're headed in the right direction. I believe he's great for the fit of the culture of Louisiana, of the players in the locker room. And obviously, you know, he's an unbelievable ex and those football coach as well. And so I think they're going to do some great things.

As you said, the pressure begins now for Lane Kiffin. Even the alums are talking about how awesome he's going to be, the very recent alums like Garrett Nersbire. Is Lane, you know, the one thing that I think is funny about that, clip there is the point where Garrett said that he's a good fit culturally for the state of Louisiana. And the thing that I think is so interesting is that when Brian Kelly was hired there, the number one gripe was this guy doesn't fit in here at all. Like this is, you know, and then you like look at Lane Kiffin's background.

You know, outside of a coaching stint at Tennessee and another coaching stint in Alabama, and then, of course, his most recent coaching student in Ole Miss. Like, he hasn't really been a Southern person. So culturally, he fits because he's a winner. Like, and like, I think that's what's so interesting is like, as I point out with LSU all the time, there's no better cultural fit for LSU than Ed Orgeron, and they still fired him for losing too much.

Yeah, Andy. But I think that that is, like, if you unpack that, it's kind of what I think Brian Kelly was ultimately not successful there. It's like Brian Kelly's culture fit with called into question very early just because he's not a very likable person to the fan. And like Lane Kiffin is a troll. He is the Joker. And by the way, if you read that column today, comic book references. I don't know if you're into that sort of thing.

But I'm a big comment. It was a movie reference, but sure. Yeah, I got you. It's a movie based on a, give me something here. That's a comic. I reference to Dark Night. And I think Christopher Nolan movie starring Heath Ledger. My goodness.

I mean, that's a deep thing I'm going to get. If you're not going to give me a fundamental movie, that's fine. I know. I just love that you pick, like, the most art house comic book movie of all time. It's the only one I've ever really seen. So, Andy, do you think that Lane Kiffin has the elements of the Joker in him? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

He's the ultimate troll, likes to watch the world burn. Absolutely. And whether this works or not, we'll see. It didn't work with Brian Kelly. and you know it's interesting like you said with the butterfly effect because if they'd want a couple more games they don't fire brian kelly and i think they go into this season still unhappy because they went into the last season still very unsure about brian kelly and they said okay you know we gave you all this money in the transfer portal you got all these guys now's your chance now or never and he didn't get it done so can lane kiffen do that because like you pointed out in your column

the pressure starts now. There's no there's no grace, there's no honeymoon. You get hired at LSU to win national championships. That is your job. There is no other job, no other goal, and they will love you forever

if you do. They'll also fire you quickly if you lose afterward, as O'Dor's Ron learned very quickly, but they will love you as long as you keep winning. As we die, die, dive deeper into my vast knowledge of the comic book world. There is one main difference between Lane Kiffin and the Joker.

The Joker, from what I understand, what did you say? He doesn't blow up hospitals? Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty big difference. The Joker wants to see the world burn and it is okay being in the flames burning with it as long as it proves the point that he makes and doesn't care about himself. Lane Kiffin wants to watch the world burn, but he does not want any flames anywhere around LSU or him. He wants to be successful.

He wants heat. It's just in the yoga studio, just not anywhere else. Yeah. He very deeply wants to be successful. And I think that, you know, this is a completely different team. 40 players in, Andy, 37 out.

That's a, what's the percentage of roster turnover before you can say this is a whole new team? I think that that reaches the point. This is a whole new team. Yeah, yeah. This is not, I'm taking over Brian Kelly's team. This is I've got my own team already. And then we'll see how it all comes together with the signing classes from here on out, whether they be from high school or the portal.

But, yeah, Lane Kiven has already very much put his stamp on the roster. We'll find out. We will find out where he lands, how good he is. He took Ole Miss and made it a team that can make the college football playoff. He did not coach it in the college football playoff because he's already LSU. And now we'll see if he can actually coach a game in the college football playoff with LSU. But it's Mega Board Wednesday. We have a lot of very juicy threads on the boards.

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All right, our mega board Wednesday. Let us head to Inside Carolina. The Tar Pit Premium from Younger Heel on Tuesday night. Coach B denied the Hall of Fame this year. That's right. Bill Belichick, North Carolina's coach, denied entry to the pro football Hall of Fame on the first ballot in which he was eligible. And I got to tell you, when I saw this coming out on Tuesday night, I thought it was a prank because it's Bill freaking Belichick.

Yeah. He won six Super Bowl as a head coach, two as a defensive coordinator. I mean, the list of coaches that are even in his peer group is impossibly short, and all the other ones are in the Hall of Fame. I was stunned by this, and it raised a question for me, Ari. Did watching him fail and flounder and look human and fallible for a year at North Carolina, give whoever these voters were the temerity to not vote for him?

Because you have to get 40 of the 50 votes to get enshrined. And he clearly fell short of that. I mean, I don't understand how you find more than 10 people who aren't going to vote for him. So did watching all of the circus with his girlfriend, all of the stuff, you know, with them losing, did that possibly cause somebody to not vote for him? Because I have to think, if you hadn't watched this past year of Bill Belichick, if the soap opera of that had not happened, that he's in. Yeah.

By the way, when you go to Google right now, I don't know if this is for everyone's computer, but it was on mine. I typed in who votes for, and the first suggestion was the NFL Hall of Fame. So like this is a pretty big deal. And I got to say, Andy, I posted to my Twitter without really reading much about it.

This is insane. How could anybody not see that this? this is a first ballot hall of famer. And that is universally the take. There aren't a lot of people out there. They're like, like, this makes sense or whatever. It makes no sense. So.

No. Now, there were, there are some potential reasons that go beyond anything else. Because I know I've seen, oh, well, he was a jerk. Okay, that doesn't. That shouldn't matter at all. It's for SpyGate. I don't think that's what it was. They did just change the eligibility requirements.

So it used to be that you had to wait five years as a coach. now you only have to be out of the game for one year. And so Bill Belichick was one of the first coaches who was able to be eligible that quickly. And so the one theory is that there were some voters who were kind of protesting against that. I don't care what you're protesting against. Like he's a Hall of Famer. There's no question about it. So like that's the only thing I can think of is you now watch this do be fallible for a while.

And now you think that he's somebody different. than the one we just watched win all those Super Bowls? The thing that strikes me is kind of interesting about that, Andy, is that like he could stink at college football. It's like he doesn't get into the ball, Hall of Fame because he's bad at water skiing. It's a very different job and it's a different thing. And I understand they're both football and they're both coaching.

I understand that. But this is a completely new undertaking and challenge. And one frankly that he was very unfamiliar with. And, you know, I think that if you go back and watch a lot of the videos that you and I did last summer when this. all happened. There was some real criticism of the hiring process and whether we thought that he could do it and rightfully so.

And I still have my questions and, you know, thoughts about whether North Carolina made the right decision and whether they'll ever get to where, you know, people thought that it could go at some points during the Mac Brown era. That's all real. It has nothing to do with his candidacy for the NFL. Like he could lose, you know, eight games a year for five straight years and that wouldn't change my viewpoint on, like, you know, you see. the picture. The guy's got more rings on his hands

than somebody at a jewelry store. So, like, I just like, I don't know. And I get to that if you think he's a jerk, that, you know, you might be less inclined to want to reward him. But again, that's also a flawed voting process. The NFL Hall of name is selected by a

50-person selection committee composed of media members, primarily, with one representative from each NFL city, plus at-large members, including pro football writers of America. The group meets annual before the Super Bowl the vote on finalists requiring 80% approval of induction. 80%.

It should have not even come close to not reaching 80%. Maybe there would have been like one outlier who didn't vote for him, but like more than 10 people not voting for him is insane. Yeah. We voted in a nothing. No, there's always an asshole. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like that's, I would like to know what the actual reasoning behind it is. And like if there was. What's 20% of 50? That's 10, right? Yeah, it's 10 votes. What are the 10 people, if you got them all in a room, do they all think the same thing or do they all have individual thoughts on why they did? Yeah, I just don't know.

And it's amazing to me because I don't think you can come up with a valid reason. Like, we've just listed several things. My theory of you've watched him be fallible for a year. Okay, it's still not, it's not a good reason. It's not. If you saw him fail at North Carolina, that has nothing to do with. how good of a coach he was at the NFL. Maybe you are a, it was all Tom Brady person.

I understand where people are coming from when they make that argument, but it's also wrong. He had three distinct eras of dominance with the Patriots, and yes, Tom Brady was there for those two. But the fact that Bill Belichick, who, by the way, also was the GM, managed that roster through those three distinct eras and still won Super Bowls in all of them. I mean, it's unbelievable.

Yeah. It's not going to happen again. And so that's the part. So no matter what happens in North Carolina, that shouldn't affect it. Whether he was a jerk or not, shouldn't affect it. I really, I mean, I know the SpyGate thing bothers some people. I don't care that much about it. How do people view SpyGate?

Do they think that's a huge deal? I didn't think so. I certainly don't. It doesn't feel to me like people in the NFL think of SpyGate the way people in Major League Baseball think about taking steroids, which is what is keeping a lot. lot of people in Major League Baseball out of the Hall of Fame. But I don't feel like SpyGate really got that. And it's something like DeflateGate's not going to keep Tom Brady out on the first ballot, right?

Tom Brady's getting in on the first ballot. Andy, also, and maybe this was college football thought, but like Bill Belichick also drafted Tom Brady. Like, you know, I think drafting him counts for something, you know, I don't know. The thing that I feel like with the Tom Brady, discussion that is so important and is really hard to quantify is how individually great was he? And I think you could say he's the greatest quarterback of all time. But can the greatest quarterback of all time overcome a bad roster around him, bad GM, a bad coach in order to accomplish that? Like I don't think that the greatest quarterback of all time could accomplish

all that on his own. Like I think that like the thought process that Bill Belichick Like, I don't think people even appreciate how hard it is to have a dynasty in the NFL. When you think about the rules, the way that. Think about how hard it is to win Super Bowl's period. Dan Marino played for Don Shula. And Don Shula won the Super Bowl. But Dan Marino never won one with Don Shula. Like, think about how hard it is to win those.

Like, Don Shula is the winningest coach of all time, had one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. And they couldn't win one together. You know, and it's crazy. How many Pat, so Patrick Mahomes has played in four Super Bowls in one three, right? Yes. No, he's lost two. So he's played five in one three.

Okay. So like Patrick Mahomes going on the run that he's gone on with the Chiefs has kind of like made it feel normal a little bit. And maybe it's because Patrick Mahomes is one of the greatest. I mean, he's already one of the goats, right? Oh, yeah. And Andy Reid is the first, like, Andy Reid is a first, like, Andy Reid is a first ballot hall of fame coach. If Andy Reid's left off his first year, I'll be stunned.

Andy, there's like a likelihood or a chance that like Mahomes never plays for another Super Bowl because it's really, really hard. Yes. He is only half the way of what the Belichick has done. Like it is like it blows. And maybe Mahomes will because he's great. I'm not, but like it wouldn't be crazy if he played eight more years and never went back. You know how hard it is to go to the Super Bowl?

Exactly. So. I just, I don't get it. I do think his image and our image of him has, has been hurt by this past year. Probably more the off the field stuff than the on the field stuff, but the on the field stuff has not helped. You want to say the quiet part out loud here. The quiet part out loud is if he didn't take a picture of him reeling a mermaid out of the ocean,

would this be different? I think that's part of it. But I do think, I do think getting crushed by TCU, getting crushed by Clemson, you know, losing to wake. for us losing to Duke in North Carolina state in back to back weeks. Like those are things that do matter and the greatest of all time should be doing better than that. Plenty of jerks in the Hall of Fame.

Oh, 100%. A hundred percent. So yeah, I don't care what you feel about Bill Belichick. He should have gotten in. No questions asked. But I did, like I felt like I had to ask that question because I wonder if it had just been this Bill Belichick is Darth Vader image. And look, I know his last couple years of the Patriots.

were not great either. But he still had that visage of this is the greatest of all time. This man can do no wrong. And then we saw him do a lot of wrong professionally. I'm not even talking about the personal stuff.

We saw him not handle a situation professionally as well as we thought he could. And I don't know. We'll see. I also don't think that the criteria for getting into any Hall of Fame is being great and the best every single year of your entire career.

Absolutely. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's not a real. And again, this is the pro football Hall of Fame. Like, yeah, Jimmy Johnson, who's also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, better college coach than Bill Belichick. That's okay.

Bill Belichick probably still a better pro coach than Jimmy Johnson, although Jimmy Johnson, one of the better pro GM coaches of all times too. Oh, one last thing, Andy. Yep. One last. I did a quick Google search.

Which coaches in the Hall of Fame have the most Super Bowls? Do you know the answer? to this who would be number one right now in the current Hall of Fame? Bill Belichick. There's four. Yes, yes. Bill Belichick would have more.

Yeah, you have Chuck Knoll, you have Bill Walsh, you have, you know, some guys that won a lot. Andrew, John Scho. Vince LaGlevardi only is, too. And that's what the trophy's name after. Now, now there was no Super Bowl for a lot of Vince, Vince LaVarty's career. So there's that. But, yeah, it is, it's a travesty that he's not in. We'll see what happens with the North Carolina thing.

They've hired Bobby Petrino to run the offense. The offense was the biggest part of the problem last year. Because if you watch North Carolina week to week, their defense did get better as the season went on. Their offense never got any better. And Freddie Kitchens just was not a good college offensive coordinator. We know that Bobby Petrino is a good college offensive coordinator. So perhaps that'll work.

Those two personalities. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. But, you know, who knows? Maybe get into a bowl game. We'll soften everybody's views. They didn't have any good players. That was their biggest.

Well, they're going to have to fix that too. And that is Bill Belichick's fault because he hired Michael Lombardi, the general manager. He watched Michael Lombardi go after guys that they were basically competing with G5 schools to sign and should have known better. So producer River points out we have to, we now have to point out his Halloween costumes of the past few years. He's been Bobby Petrino and Bill Belichick. And he also left the pub in the microwave at the office. That was not River. I was never proven.

And when the office reopens again, his name will be cleared. All right. Back to the megaboard. And Ari, I'm going to drag you into a basketball conversation because I have not seen this level of, well, I have. because we had a very active football coaching carousel. But our friends at Kentucky Sports Radio on the boards at KSR, they are just beside themselves right now. Kenny for Heisman, 69, posted a firemark Pope thread.

And in parentheses, he said, Vandy first half under 16 timeout. So this is four minutes in to Kentucky's loss to Vanderbilt on Tuesday night, which by Kentucky got destroyed at Memorial Gymnasium. There was really nothing to kind of wait around to see. I think that that was an okay time to post it. Horrible start. WTF Pope, embarrassing. That isn't even the best thread that got posted on KSR on Tuesday night.

It was this one. And it is titled, We Are Indiana, a poster name Maximum Scott posted this one. And said WTF, like loss for word. And it's funny because this is how down bad the Kentucky people are. It took multiple responses to this thread before somebody goes, does that mean we're going to football national championship soon? Nobody even had enough of a sense of humor to treat this the way it should have been. It was more like, oh yeah, Indiana used to be really good at basketball,

and now they're kind of mediocre at basketball, although they did beat Purdue on Tuesday night. But, yeah, we should be depressed about this. and not, wait, this means you're going to win the national title in football. Go Will Stein. Like, this is how down bad Kentucky people are right now. 14 and 7 this year. And as never pointed out before the show started, I think that Kentucky has lost to every other blue blood that it's played this year

outside of Indiana. And I think that this is a football podcast, but there are a lot of things in basketball that mirror football. And there's one thing that's unequivocally true. Kentucky has been traditionally one of the greatest college basketball programs in the country. It is expected to make runs to the final four every year, and it is as close to the Alabama football job as you can find in college basketball. Now, there are others, right? I'm sure Duke and North Carolina have something to say about that. But if you are 14 and 7 in college basketball, that means that your team stinks.

by comparison to what you expect. And if you stink and you lose to Vanderbilt by 25, I understand why those message boards exist. And I don't know, in terms of roster building and all the things that occur, I'm sure that basketball is dealing with the same type of things that football is dealing with with NIL. And that's what makes this interesting

is they have spent a lot of money on that roster. I asked our friend Nick Rauch from KSR, to give me a football analogy. And he said it's essentially if you had the Texas Tech roster spend or the Texas roster spend for next season. I think that would be a good one. So the Texas football roster spend for 2006 and then Texas finishes kind of middle of the pack in the SEC.

That is what it would feel like, given what they've spent on this roster this year. Yeah, I think the Texas Tech thing's a bad analogy because Texas Tech was trying to take a big, swing and become something that they aren't. It's a blue blood. And Nick pointed that out. He's like, they don't have the same expectations.

This, that's why he shifted it to Texas. He said, more like Texas with the roster that they've pulled in the portal this year. If they, you know, and we don't know what's going to happen to the next year, but if they were, I don't know, eight and four. Right. So I get it. And I don't know how many years you get as a basketball coach. And I know that there's more variation.

I think in football, it's harder for, like in basketball, the postseason is so expansive and so immediate, like if you lose because you had a bad matchup or another shooter got hot from the floor, like that happens in basketball. I actually think you can make the case that it's harder to win a national championship in basketball than it is in football just because of what you have to go through

in the tournament to get there and how it's easier to lose to teams that are inferior in basketball than is in football. But like expectations are expectations. Investments are investments. And, you know, winning and losing is a pretty cut and try. situation. So, like, I completely understand and don't think they're crazy at all

for posting those threads because you have a standard to meet and Kentucky's not meeting them and isn't going to meet them this year. With the investment. If they are like they have been most of the season, they still probably make the tournament. They probably make it as like an eight or nine seed.

And then who knows? Maybe they get hot. They go to the elite eight. People feel differently about this team. But right now, they are very, because you know, Mark Byington, the coach at Vanderbilt, he got hired the same year as Mark Pope. And he's doing awesome. River, do we have the Mark Byington quote from last night?

Because a lot of Kentucky fans made the trip south to Nashville to watch the game. Here's what Mark Bryanton said after that. We had an opportunity tonight to make a lot of people feel good. Maybe the people wearing blue didn't feel good. But they can go down the Broadway and get drunk or do something. It's cold. So I don't know, drink a lot. It's cold, though.

that right now. But I do think this, we knew that there's value in us and kind of extra value in us and represent things the right way. So, Ari, do you happen to know what school Mark Bionton coached before he coached at Vanderbilt? No. He coached it James Madison. Oh, wow. Do you realize that Vanderbilt is now awesome at basketball? Like, that's, I'm not exaggerating. Like they're really good this year. Whatever was going on in Harrisonburg, Virginia, when Kurt Signetti was coaching the football team and Mark Byneton was coaching the basketball team.

Like it's, you can port it elsewhere. It's pretty impressive. Yeah, you know, I always remember like when I was living in Ohio and I went to Miami of Ohio, they had like the cradle of coaches, like, shrine there, you know,

maybe they got something in the water out there. I don't know. The UCLA fans are hoping with Bob Chesney showing up. Yeah, right. Vanderbilt having a good basketball team too is kind of great. Oh, yeah. Now, the Kentucky part, the psychology of this gets more complex as we move forward. And we're going to have Jeff Goodman from Field of 68 on the show on Friday to explain this in greater detail.

But Ari, do you know who Kentucky plays next? I don't. They play Arkansas. Who coaches Arkansas? I know this. Yeah. Slick hair. Yinser.

I know who he is. I'm just, his name's escaping me. Marcus Camby, Derek Rose. Hold on. UMass, Memphis, Kentucky. John Calipari. There you go. We're going to make you a basketball expert before you know it.

Now, John Calapari. That's when I knew. His name was escaping me for some reason. Who was never fired at Kentucky, but was essentially, like, was essentially in the place that Mark Stoops was at the end of the football season at Kentucky. And there was a lot of decision-making going on with the AD Mitch Barnhart. He ultimately decides to keep Cal, but I don't know, I still don't know exactly how that timing worked because I think Cal was probably working on getting the Arkansas job at that point.

And Cal leaves and takes the Arkansas job. Thus, Kentucky didn't have to deal with another season where he might have been on the hot seat or the idea of paying him a buyout. But remember, Arkansas was really bad at first in SEC play last year and then beat Kentucky when they played. Now Arkansas is having a pretty good season and Kentucky comes in. So this is the chance for Kentucky to turn things around or Cal can just drive the stake in even further. Yeah, well, I mean, the stakes already in there, right? Because didn't Arkansas make a deep run on the NCAA tournament last year? They did.

They did. That came got way better as a season went on. And they did it, if I remember correctly, with a large portion of the roster coming. directly from Lexington. So, you know, that's kind of a rough pill to swallow. But at the same time, regardless of whether or not you think that Calipari was the chief reason for all the success, I think the place is bigger than the coach. Whoever is in charge there is, must either equal the good years that Calipari had there or exceed them because that's the expectation for anybody who's the coach there, period.

Exactly, exactly. So we will see what happens, but we'll talk to Jeff Goodman in more detail about this on Friday. One more megaboard thread, Ari, and it's our friends at Kane Sport, we talked a lot about Miami this week. We got news from our man Pete Nacos. I believe late Tuesday night. Might have been early Wednesday morning, but I think it was late Tuesday night,

that Darien Mensa had committed to Miami, which we talked about in the show yesterday. We knew that's where he was. headed after duke settled with him and let him go but i was looking at the megaboard and you know checking out gary firman's war room at cane sport and i found a thread about the other player moving from duke to miami and this is one we have not talked as much about but this also could be a massive pickup for them and this is from from joe on the megaboard says cooper barcate is my kind of player He said, I've made countless posts on this board over the past two decades about our need for smart players. I'm a hurricane fan spoiled by the likes of Bernie Cozar, Rodney Bellinger, Steve Walsh, Kandorsi, Dan, Morgan, John Vilma, Ed Reed.

The list goes on. Lots of really smart players. I just prefer players whose football IQs match or exceed their standard IQ. It's just my preference. And he said, watching the video highlights of Cooper Barcate is a revelation. As I said, in another thread where his QB is a Mensa, Barcate himself, Barkade himself is a MENSA as in the organization for really smart people that former Texas coach Tom Herman is a member of. So I'm excited about this because we haven't talked much about Barcate coming with MENSA, but having somebody who you already have a connection with,

and Barcate was Duke's leading receiver this year after joining them as a transfer from Harvard. But having that person already where you have chemistry as you move into a new offense, I think is a pretty critical thing. Have you looked at Miami's offensive depth chart projection for next year? I just sent it to you guys in the chat. Pretty good. Pretty pretty pretty good. Yeah, go for it.

Darien Mentson, a quarterback. Running back, Fletcher Brown, Lyle Pringle. Pringle entered the portal, but then came back. And stayed. Arcade and Tony at the receiver position. Jacobs von and Moore as wide receiver three. Lofton Gilbert at tight end. And their offensive line is going to have Samson Okunola,

who was a five-star prospect. Jackson Cantwell and a few other returners. So like they might have. Now I don't want to like go on a on a bender here and start the Miami propaganda machine on January 28th. I think I need a break from being the chief propagandist for Miami.

But that office is going to be awesome next year. They're going to be awesome next year. Yeah. Shannon Dawson must be a fairly happy person right now. They're offensive coordinator because he's got a lot to work with. And you know, I think we talked about

barcate is an underrated edition. The underrated keep for Miami is they kept both their coordinators. They kept Shannon Dawson and Corey Heatherman. Those guys did a great job this year, and they're going to have a lot to work with next year. Yeah. And I think I said this on the show, but I did write a recruiting profile about Cooper Barcate back in 2021 for the athletic. And he was a Southern California kid that had power. or five offers who chose Harvard.

And he did it because he wanted to transfer at the end of his Harvard career. And like his career is working exactly the plan that he had. A lot of times people have plans when they're in high school. He's seen it through and then goes to Duke and now gets to play one final year at Miami for a team that's going to want to play for or compete for a national championship. And the story that always stands out to me about him is when he was a kid, he went to a sporting event with his father, Harold. And he said, dad, one of the best things.

and the entire world has got to be the best job in the world's got to be a pro athlete. And his dad pointed up into the box and said, no, the best job in the world is owning a team. Like, that's weird. Well, he's probably going to play for the team before he owns it. So, like, Barcates an NFL receiver. Like, he will move on to the next level and play at some point in the NFL. But, yeah, we'll see if he uses that Harvard degree to potentially own a team later. But this is, like, you know, I don't know that Carson's,

and Beck had a favorite Recipe Tony's probably, it would be any quarterback's favorite receiver but like the connection with Cam Ward and Xavier Restrepo the year before was almost psychic and they didn't play together before Cam Ward got there. Like Cam Ward

was at Washington State and Restrepo had been in Miami the whole time, but they had just a kind of a mind melt going on. And if Darien Minson can develop that with Malachi Tony and it already has it with Cooper Barcate, holy cow, this can be fun to watch.

Yeah, Barcate's dad played at UCLA for Terry Donahue in the 80s. His grandfather played at LSU. His sister played on Harvard's women's lacrosse team. And he had offers from UCLA, ASU, Arkansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Purdue, Utah, Virginia Tech, and many others and chose to go to Harvard. So this is a guy who has a plan and is executing the plan, and he's really good. He's really good. This isn't like a cute, like Harvard player turned out to be much better than they anticipated. and like he had he was already yeah he was already there so uh yeah big pickup for miami this will be

interesting and we need to do this uh just stick a pin in this uh as as we go through the next few weeks and months as these rosters settle and we we get kind of final versions of what these rosters are going to be we need to start going through these these depth charts to see what this is actually going to look like because I think I don't know about you are a one thing I've learned in the in the NIL transfer portal era is if you don't start familiarizing yourself with what these teams are going to look like you can be very surprised come August and Andy we spent on like we're talking about these rosters and really trying to break them down and there are still times where I'll be watching a game in November and I'll go oh my god he's on this team yeah yeah excellent it's hard to

keep track of. But if you start looking at Miami's roster and some of the portal pickups that they've gotten, that 20 to one number that we talked about last week, I don't even know if it is still 20 to 1. That's a kind of a nice stab I would take for their next season. They're going to be really good. Yeah. And so as to our conversation yesterday about should just be the quarterback procurement method for everybody, or should everybody try to find these types of players that the very experienced, pretty old quarterback, like Miami's done the last three years?

So admittedly, this person is biased, but Kane's research on Twitter sent me this. In the 2025 college football playoff, there were 11 games that could be won. transfer quarterbacks won 10 of them and homegrown quarterbacks won one of them. Oh, boy. Ty Simpson was the only one who won a game.

So Alabama beat Oklahoma. That was the only one. And if Oklahoma had won that game, it would have been over for the homegrown because John Mater was a transfer. So that's kind of where they're at right now. Yeah. I can't wait until we have five years of data

to really unpack this stuff. but we will be on top of the trends as they go. And the trend right now, we're certainly doing it that way. It's so fascinating because I'm at the Senior Bowl. And some of the people here are kind of the analytics crowd who come in and try to help the NFL teams with their draft strategies. And obviously, they're all working in college football as well. And I was talking to somebody yesterday about this. And everybody has their own idea about how to build a team.

And this person was like, it's actually pretty exciting because you're going to get new ideas. and some of them are going to really work and it's going to filter through all the college football may filter up to the NFL. But there's such a diversity of ways to look at it right now that everybody's just trying to figure out what works. I think Miami with that formula that Mario Cristobal broke down on our show in September, where he said,

we have several buckets of players. We want elite players out of high school, but we want also older transfer players who can come in and fill a need right away. but also transfers who have eligibility remaining, who then can develop on our team, but help right away. That's probably the most logical formula.

It's just really hard to pull off, and I think they've pulled it off pretty well. Yeah, no, they've got a great blend. And everybody, for the most part, that went deep into the playoff this year, had a good blend. So, yeah, Miami is on the rise, for sure, and I think they're going to be really good again next year.

All right. Well, we'll probably delve into some other rosters, but tomorrow we will delve into your questions. Dear Andy and Ari, you know where to find us. Andy Stapleson3 at gmail.com. Ari.com. You can also hit us up on social media at Andy Staples at Ari Wasserman on Twitter

at Andy underscore Staples on Instagram at Ari Wasserman on Instagram. Ask your questions because you ask the best questions, the most intelligent viewers and listeners of any show. in college football. They're also the best looking. I'm meeting a lot of you. Very, very good-looking crew.

Very attractive. Yeah. So get us those questions. Now that I've sufficiently buttered you up, send us some good questions, and we will attempt to answer them on tomorrow show. We'll talk to you then.