Andy & Ari On3 - The NEVER-ENDING coaching carousel | Ohio State lands Chip Kelly | Who calls plays for Alabama?

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Today's show is brought to you by PrizePicks, the easiest way to play daily fantasy. All first time users who deposit and use the promo code ANDY will receive a 100 percent instant deposit match up to $100. If you deposit $100, PrizePicks will give you $100.Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/ANDY(0:00-1:29) Intro - Good Morning!(1:30-8:31) Super Bowl Overtime Strategy(8:32 -21:26) Coaching Carousel Update(21:27-25:02) Super Bowl Picks Update(25:03-46:28) Spencer Holbrook from Lettermen Row joins(46:29-1:06:34) Tim Watts from BamaOnline joins(1:06:35-1:07:28) ConclusionThe Super Bowl is over, but power conference teams are still looking for coaches.UCLA is searching for a head coach after Chip Kelly left Westwood on Friday to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator. Kelly replaces Bill O’Brien, who became Boston College’s head coach. Meanwhile, Alabama needs an offensive coordinator now that Ryan Grubb has taken the same position with the Seattle Seahawks.So who will be UCLA’s head coach? It doesn’t sound like Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck is in the running. Maybe it’s UNLV’s Barry Odom or Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White?Meanwhile, the dominoes kept falling elsewhere. On Sunday night, On3’s Gators Online reported that new Florida coach Craig Fitzgerald is leaving to reunite with O’Brien at Boston College.Spencer Holbrook of On3’s Lettermen Row joins to discuss Kelly’s move to Ohio State. Kelly coached Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day at New Hampshire, and Day spent much of his early career working for Kelly.Next, Tim Watts of On3’s Bama Online joins to talk about Alabama’s situation. Reports of Grubb’s move to Seattle surfaced just as the 30-day window for Alabama players to enter the transfer portal closed. What do the the Crimson Tide do now?Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/Cn503siZY0M

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Happy Monday morning. I can't believe I'm saying that. I can't believe I'm this energetic in the morning. I am not a morning person, but I am now because we're moving this show. This is the new home for Andy Staples on three, 8 a.m. Eastern time. We'll do it Monday through Friday.

And of course, once the season starts, we'll have those. We'll start on those nice Saturday night shows. But 8 a.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday. And of course, once the season starts, we'll have those, we'll start on those nice Saturday night shows, but 8 a.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, we can talk about what happened the night before. We can talk about what's coming up in the day ahead and we're going to have a lot of fun. But what we're talking about today, we're talking about a never ending coaching carousel. The Superbowl is over, but there is still a Power 2 team looking for a head coach. And who knows? If they hire another sitting Power Conference head coach, this thing just keeps going and

going and going and going. So it is the never-ending coaching carousel. If you think I'm going to sing the never-ending story theme song, well, you're probably right. The never-ending carousel. Oh, there I haven't done. Okay. So we're gonna talk about that because UCLA needs a coach. Chip Kelly's at Ohio State now. Bill O'Brien's at Boston College. And there are waves of reactions to that little sneaky, never ending carousel thing that happened on Super Bowl Sunday. We'll get to that in a little bit. But first we got to talk about what happened in the Super Bowl

because there is definitely, definitely a college flavor to the new NFL playoff overtime, which last night was the first any of us had seen of that format for overtime. And remember, that format came into existence because of that incredible game between the Bills and the Chiefs where Patrick Mahomes takes the Chiefs down, they win, and Josh Allen doesn't get to touch the ball in OT. So that was the reason for it. I don't think it was explained very well going into overtime because I saw a lot of confusion, including some by myself as the clock ticked down at the end of that first overtime period. But basically they said,

they're starting a new game, which that was a very creative way to say it. They could have been a little more clear, like, Hey, there's a second quarter of the new game too. So don't freak out about the clock, which I was freaking out about the clock. Cause I thought, okay, the 49ers just took a bunch of time off the clock here. And that was meaningful because you're guaranteed two possessions, but not necessarily an amount of time. So I'm thinking, oh, the chiefs have to score before the clock hits zero. And I didn't realize until I think Romo said it with about a minute to go, where he's like, no, they'll just start a new quarter.

So that shit, cause I was, I'm screaming at my TV. Why are they not calling timeout? Well, they didn't need to because they would have just started a new quarter. But what I saw was a lot of college football fans who were very sure that the 49ers made a mistake taking the ball first. And the reason for that is because they're college football fans.

We're so used to seeing this in college football where the teams are guaranteed possessions. And in college football, you take the ball second. You want to play defense first because you want to know what's going on. Now, there was that brief period where Houston was taking the ball first because they'd done a study and they'd seen that it didn't really make that big of a difference in terms of wins and losses. But it worked for them once.

It didn't work again. And then everybody sort of stopped. Now it's still, you take the ball second in college football. So the chiefs wanted the ball second. They wanted to play defense first. So whether they won the toss or lost the toss, they were going to be playing defense first because the 49ers were taking the ball. But Andy Reid said after the game, had they won the toss, they would have taken the ball second. And they had talked about it. And in fact, some of the Chiefs players said that going back into training camp,

they were talking about if they ended up in that situation, what would they do? And it was they wanted to play defense first, so they knew what they had to deal with. And that's, that's exactly what a college coach will tell you, or a college player will tell you. But here's my thing about this particular one. Everybody's killing the 49ers and Kyle Shanahan said that, that that was his choice. They had thought it through going into the game or going into the playoffs. What would their strategy be if they had to be in that situation and they definitely were going to take the ball first now what was interesting is the coaching staff had done that the players didn't seem to actually know

all of them what the rules were one of the players said after the game that he didn't know what the rules were. One of the players said after the game that he didn't know what the rules were until they flashed him on the Jumbotron, which that was a little crazy. But there's one difference now between that format and the college overtime format, other than college overtime goes to penalty kicks, the trading of two-point conversion attempts in overtime number three. But the one difference I saw that I thought was interesting and where I'm not killing the 49ers on this thing, because I think they made the right decision. I just think they should have covered me Cole Hardman on that last play instead of falling for the Travis Kelsey eye candy.

It's still, if you give up a touchdown and you score a field goal, you're going to lose. I do think the 49ers made the right call though, because there is a one very key difference between that overtime format and the college overtime format. I do, like, I feel like this is the venue to have this discussion

because we're all big college football fans. We have seen the guaranteed to possession overtime a lot since 1996. So we know how that situation works. We know how it goes. But here's the difference. This is the key difference. If you're the 49ers, you take the ball and you score. The Chiefs have the benefit of knowing what they need.

They also have the benefit of the fourth down decisions become easier. But here's the thing. If you end the first overtime tied, it becomes sudden death. And that's the difference. In college, if you end the first overtime tied, both teams possess the ball in the second overtime. That's the biggest difference. So if the 49ers had stopped the Chiefs and held them to a field goal, the 49ers get sudden death.

And they get the ball. And if they kick a field goal, they win the game. So I don't think they made the wrong decision there. I actually think the Chiefs would have made the wrong decision had they gotten it. The difference is the Chiefs scored a touchdown. And that's universal. Whether college overtime, pro overtime, you hold them to a field goal, and you score a touchdown, you're going to win. So that was the difference.

I don't think the 49ers had the wrong strategy. I just don't think they executed on defense. Had they executed on defense, Brock Purdy gets the ball in his hands with a chance to take them. I mean, really, the way Moody was kicking, you got to get to what? About the 35-yard line? And you got a chance to win the game? Scott in the chat, back to college football,

like 100,000 people cared about that game. Did you see the UF strength and condition coach left for BC? Is this a sign he never bought into Coach Naves and just took another job? Scott, we're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. We're trend surfing on the Super Bowl right now. But so here's the deal. I do think the 49ers made the right decision.

But you just got to execute. And it's just like college overtime. Whether you get the ball first or not, if you score a touchdown, you're probably going to win. There's a much better chance of you winning, scoring a touchdown in overtime number one. So that's what happened. All right. Let us get to the never-ending coaching carousel that Scott brought up. Yes. We can talk about the Florida thing because it is a domino of all this stuff. So I guess we can start where this particular set of dominoes started falling was about a week and a half ago when Jeff Halfley,

the Boston College coach, took the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator job. So Jeff Halfley goes to the Packers. Boston College now needs a coach. They start a search. That search took nine-ish days. Friday Friday Bill O'Brien is hired as the Boston College coach Bill O'Brien who was the Penn State head coach the Houston Texans head coach Alabama OC Patriots OC and for five glorious weeks the Ohio State OC was it five it wasn't it was only like three weeks but he was the Ohio State OC he leaves it five? No, it wasn't. Maybe it was only like three weeks, but he was the Ohio State OC. He leaves. Chip Kelly steps down at UCLA,

takes the Ohio State offensive coordinator job. We will talk to Spencer Holbrook of Letterman Row about that situation later in the show. But the domino of that one, Bill O'Brien going to Boston College.

Greg Fitzgerald, who was just hired as Florida's new strength coach, right before Florida enters what Billy Napier calls the identity phase of the off-season training program, heads to Boston College, where he's going to work with Bill O'Brien again. Now, he worked with Bill O'Brien with the Patriots, with the Texans. So they go way, I believe they go back to Harvard early in the, in the, near the turn of the century. These guys know each other. They've worked together a bunch of times. That's the reason. That said, it's a terrible look for Florida to lose a strength coach right now to Boston College. Also,

as they're going into a make or break year for Billy Napier, it does not look good for Billy Napier. Now, I'm going to say something that will probably throw more salt in the wound than anything else. Mark Hockey, the strength coach that they decided was not doing a good enough job, still on staff because they didn't want to pay his buyout. So you could just go back to him if you wanted to, or go find another strength coach. But there are so many questions now. Because, yes, while that pre-existing relationship was there,

Fitzgerald and O'Brien have worked together, this is probably not leaving without it being this particular guy getting a head coaching job. It doesn't look good. It's a terrible situation for Florida to be in. You know how I feel about strength coaches. They are basically the second most important person on staff. We talked about Ben Herbert leaving Michigan to join Jim Harbaugh at the Chargers. What a big blow that is to Michigan.

We talked about going back to Scott Cochran leaving Alabama and going to Georgia not as the strength coach. That was a huge blow to Alabama. It is very, very important to have somebody that you trust and believe in in that position. And Fitzgerald had a great reputation. And that's what Florida needed is someone who could build those guys up, make them stronger in the fourth quarter. Oh, back to the drawing board on that one. Matthew in the chat.

Talk about not bought in. How many times will Ryan Grubb tell Bama he's not interested in living in Tuscaloosa? He turned down saving and now bailed on his best friend to run back to Seattle. That is the other one we're going to talk about. We'll have Tim Watts from Bama online later in the show. That Alabama needs an offensive coordinator now because, again, never an in-coaching carousel. So Ryan Grubb was the OC at Washington with Kalen DeBoer. He's going to go to Alabama with Kalen DeBoer. He introduces himself as Alabama's offensive coordinator on signing day last week.

Nothing official had been said about anything. And still nothing official has been said about the next step. But conveniently enough, just as the 30-day transfer portal window closes ryan grubb is headed to seattle as the seahawks offensive coordinator and there had been smoke about this a couple of weeks earlier and then it just sort of died down and he was recruiting for alabama and then boom saturday, it pops right back up. And Ryan Grubb is headed, well, headed to Seattle is probably the wrong word. My guess is he never sold his house.

He's probably headed back to Seattle. And this is one of those things that if you're Alabama, you got to figure out what to do. Kalen DeBoer, it's obviously his offense. So he could elevate someone like Nick Sheridan, who's been with him for a few years. He could hire a different person. He will be the mastermind of the offense. And then someone else will call it. It's sort of like Nick Saban did when Kirby Smart

was the defensive coordinator, Jeremy Pruitt, where that person called it, but Nick Saban was heavily involved in all of the game planning and everything else. At Ohio State, it'll be a little bit different story where Ryan Day is giving up play calling game plan. And you know, he'll still be game planning, obviously, but giving up the play calling part of it because he wanted to concentrate more on the CEO aspects of it. Wasn wasn't really enthused about it, but realized it was probably better for the program if he did that.

That was going to be Bill O'Brien. Now it's going to be Chip Kelly, which I got to tell you, everything keeps coming up Buckeye this offseason. All of the things, like Caleb Downs falls into their laps. I mean, they had to beat out Georgia for him, but you needed a safety and you got the best possible one who was available on the transfer portal. You need an OC, you hire one with NFL experience that checks all the boxes you want. He then leaves after a few weeks and you get the guy who trained your head coach,

who taught him how to coach offense like it doesn't get any more i don't even know what the word is i mean it's just it's just a perfect situation for ohio state not a perfect situation for ucla obviously but chip kelly going to ohio state and I got a lot of questions. This is one of those that all of us who are deep in the college football weeds, the people who watch this show, you know that Chip Kelly was very out on the new version of college football, did not like the CEO duties that a head coach had to perform in this era of college football. You knew he was trying to get out to the NFL

and that he might even take a college OC job. But I don't think the wider world understood that. So Friday afternoon, I'm getting texts from friends that are like, how could you leave a head coaching job for an OC job in the same conference? Well, because he didn't want to do that stuff anymore. He didn't want to do the CEO part anymore. He wanted to call plays. He wanted to handle game planning. And now he gets to do that stuff. And Ryan Day, who is an excellent recruiter, who is good at all that stuff, like Chip Kelly's not a great recruiter. He's never has been,

he's a good evaluator. He's a good developer, but in terms of getting elite talent, that's not something he wants to deal with. It's the BS part of the recruiting, the salesman aspects of it. He's never had any, any desire to deal with any of that stuff. Ryan Day's been good at that stuff. So now you have Chip Kelly to call the plays. And obviously Chip Kelly and Ryan Day speak the same language because Chip Kelly taught him that language. And it's a great situation for Ohio State. UCLA, meanwhile, I think this is a better situation for UCLA too

because here's the deal with Chip Kelly. There's only one piece of it that involves his dissatisfaction with the state of college football, his lack of desire to recruit at the level you need to recruit to be successful in the Big Ten. The other piece of it is that UCLA telegraphed that they were going to be firing him this season. They kind of marshaled their forces a little bit after the loss to Arizona State. And it looked like they might fire him last season. And then they beat USC. That all dies down. Even after they lose to Cal, it was like, okay, you're going to be here in 2024. But if you're Chip Kelly and you experienced that week after the Arizona State

game, you're like, okay, these guys are going to fire me anyway. I don't like doing this stuff anymore. I got to get out of here. So he tries to go to the NFL. That window didn't open for him. He tried the Raiders, the Commanders had an OC opening, the Seahawks, and none of them hired him. So he still needed to get out because again, he was going to get fired by UCLA. So now UCLA is going to figure out who they're going to have as their head coach. Is it going to be PJ Fleck from Minnesota? No, it is not. On Saturday, PJ Fleck tweeted out, honored to be the head coach at Minnesota, ready for an elite 2024 season, back to our wedding anniversary trip. So PJ Fleck out, not a candidate at UCLA.

Wonder if he gets a raise out of this anyway. So who is a candidate? Well, that's a really interesting question. So we've heard Troy Taylor from Stanford might be a candidate, and I've seen people say, well, that's not the same conference anymore. Stanford is now in the ACC, which sounds so weird to say. UCLA is in the Big Ten. The Big Ten job is better, obviously. But I don't know if that's necessarily going to happen. Taylor's only been at Stanford a year. One other name I'd definitely think about is Nebraska defensive coordinator, Tony White,

UCLA grad. And, you know, I go back to when USC was looking for a defensive coordinator and Tony White's name popped up in that search. They ended up hiring DeAnson Lind from UCLA, who by the way, also might be a decent candidate for the UCLA head coaching job. He's at USC now. He got the USC job. But I remember Matt Rule talking about Tony White and basically saying, this guy is going to be a head coach sooner rather than later. It's just a matter of the right opportunity coming along. This may be the opportunity right here. And UCLA is not a bad job. I think people want to want to say what happened with Chip Kelly shows that it's a terrible job. I don't think that is the case.

I don't think it's the best job in the Big Ten because the administration at UCLA doesn't take football as seriously as Ohio State does, as Michigan does, as Oregon does. That's we know that, but it's still a great place to recruit to. You have an elite education that you can offer. You are in Westwood. You are Beverly Hills adjacent. You are surrounded by good talent in Los Angeles. You are surrounded by good talent who would like to go to your school or who would like to live where you are. You can do it. The right person can get talent at UCLA. And in terms of elite talent, we saw Jim Mora go get elite players, elite recruits.

You can do it at UCLA. It's not impossible. Chip Kelly just was not a fan of recruiting that type of player because he didn't want to deal with what you have to deal with to recruit those players. And that's why when Chip Kelly was offered the Florida and the UCLA jobs simultaneously, he very wisely chose UCLA because that is a better place for him. Now, it wasn't ultimately a long-term great place for him. But look, if you're not going to be engaged in the recruiting process and then rules changes happen that make it less palatable for you, then it's not going to happen for you. It's not going to be a good situation. And he's in a better situation now where Ryan Day can deal with all that stuff. So we'll see what UCLA does. Martin Jarman, of course, the obligatory John Wooden reference in the press release after

Chip Kelly's departure, Martin Jarman, the AD at UCLA says they need to be quick, but don't hurry with their coaching search, but they need to, they need to be quick and they might, might also need to hurry a little bit now all right before we talk to spencer holbrook of letterman row about chip kelly going to ohio state and what that means for the buckeyes we got to talk about prize picks had a good night on prize picks last night so you sign up for prize picks today best daily fantasy platform in america use the referral code andy you get an instant deposit match up to a hundred bucks. If you deposit a hundred, they'll match you a hundred. You deposit

50, they'll match you 50. So now my four pick Superbowl entry did not do so well. Uh, I did get my Harrison Butker more than one and a half field goals, but Devo Samuel did not have more than 59 and a half receiving yards. Brenda did not catch a touchdown pass. I should have, should have gone Juwan Jennings there, but the punters came through for me. That's right. It's probably in honor of the Tori Taylor interview last week, but Tommy Townsend and Mitch Wischnowski came through like champs. I said it would be a defensive struggle. Field position would matter, which it certainly did for three quarters. And so I had Tommy Townsend and Mitch Wisnowski each more than one and a half punts down inside the 20. Townsend had two, Wisnowski had three. Boom.

That is how a $50 bet, a $50 play becomes $150 payout. So download prize picks, referral code Andy. It'll match you up to $100. Plenty to handle this week. Lots of college basketball, NBA, NHL. I may try to get back into the power slap. I tried the power slap last. My PowerSnap research was not as good as it should have been. I did not come through with my PowerSnap picks, but I'm going to try again. Next PowerSnap competition, I'm trying again on PrizePix because if you can compete at it, PrizePix probably has squares for it. All right. Speaking of, let's, well, before we get to Spencer Holbrook, let us celebrate the punters.

This was from the Super Bowl Nickelodeon broadcast. But again, probably more just honoring of Torrey Taylor, who was on this show last week, the former Iowa punter, the punt god. So as the teams were trading punts Sunday night, Noah Eagle had to explain to SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Starr the glory that is Iowa football. So hey, SpongeBob and Patrick, have you guys ever heard of a place called Iowa? Iowaowa it sounds exotic well in iowa they like to say punting is winning and right now punting is very much winning for both these teams so by the way you can get punting is winning t-shirts that tory taylor endorses that will help a very nice charity in iowa city so you know just just remember that and and maybe spongebob and patrick will we'll get some t-shirts too

but we got to talk chip kelly to ohio state now because i don't think anybody's had a better off season than the buckeyes this certainly didn't work out well for UCLA, but this is an incredible situation for Ohio State, which if you just said when they hired Bill O'Brien that they're going to lose in three weeks later, you'd think, oh, what are they going to do? No, within hours, they were done. Now, Ohio State just continues to roll on. Here is Spencer Holbrook from Letterman Row. Joined now by Spencer Holbrook of Letterman Row who wrote one of the shortest-lived coaching hot boards in the history of coaching hot boards on Friday. Well, you had a pretty good

idea what was going to happen, Spencer but you got to put up a hot board when a big opening comes up on your beat and Bill O'Brien leaves Ohio State. Chip Kelly almost immediately hired. It feels like the Buckeyes keep falling ass backward into even better things. This off season Spencer. Yeah, it kind of does because you needed a safety. Nick Saban retires and Caleb Downs goes in the transfer portal. You take that swing, you get him. You need a, you

know, a quarterback and you wait it out until after the bowl game and you end up with Will Howard. You get an offensive coordinator who has the endorsement of both Nick Saban and Bill Belichick, which is almost impossible to find, and you luck into Bill O'Brien. Then all of a sudden he takes a job and Chip Kelly is available because right away multiple reports said, hey, he is informing UCLA that he's leaving. I wonder where he could be going. Well, he's probably going to go work for the guy that he mentored for a lot of

years. So it's just this off season keeps getting better for Ohio State. And it hasn't even been one step forward or one step backward. It's just been multiple steps forward at every turn and uh i can't really think of a better way for this offseason to go so far and even when it should have been a step backward for ohio state with o'brien because you know he's he's what they want he's you know nfl pedigree former nfl head coach former college head coach accomplished play caller at the pro and college levels, like all of the things you would want. There's actually only one other person who fits that description probably. And it's Chip Kelly.

Yeah, I wrote about that Saturday morning at Letterman row.com that, you know, Ryan Day found something that he that may be incredibly unique in Bill O'Brien with the NFL head coaching college head coaching college play calling NFL play calling all of that experience uh there's only and I wrote that Saturday morning there's only one person that fit the bill even better and it's the guy who mentored him and it's just so convenient that Chip Kelly wanted out of UCLA so badly that he was willing to do this and take this move. And Ryan Day's not going to turn that down at all. The run scheme that Chip Kelly has, that's exactly what Ryan Day wants

with Quinshawn Jenkins and Trayvon Henderson. The passing concepts with Brian Hartline married with those run concepts, Ryan Day could not draw that up better. And now you've got an offense still headed up by Ryan Day, but has the guy that taught him offense on it. The guy who taught him offense, his offensive line coach from a couple of years ago, when that offense at UCLA really cooked is still on this staff. And so you were looking at a lot of factors coming together that make Chip Kelly, maybe even a more perfect hire than Bill O'Brien. And that's saying a lot considering the pedigree that O'Brien brought to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Well, and it feels like Chip would have gotten this the first time around, except he was trying to get an NFL OC jobs. And if he, if that hadn't been an option, then this probably happens

earlier. But, you know, when it happened, it just felt like it was the the perfect situation obviously not for ucla but we kind of knew i didn't feel like when the the first ian rapaport report came out about chip interviewing twice for the raiders job and not getting it that he was going somewhere just a matter of where yeah it was pretty clear that no matter what, Martin Jarman was going to have a head coaching search, right? And so Chip interviews with the Raiders and that doesn't go, maybe it went well, but he didn't get the job. And then he interviews with the Seahawks. And by that time, you're just kind of saying, okay, like, where's this going? And who's UCLA going to hire? Because they're obviously not going to have Chip Kelly on the sideline come next August for training camp.

So Ryan Day was more than happy to pick him up and bring him to Columbus. And the offense is the pedigree in that offensive meeting room is pretty stark right now. To add a guy like him to all those young minds that are in there. Ryan Day used to be the most senior member of that staff with Tony Alford. Now that is not the case because you've got somebody who's coached in national championship games, somebody who's led the Philadelphia Eagles to a pretty good season there when he was the head coach there and had his struggles in the NFL, but still knows what he's doing there. So yeah, it couldn't have worked out better, but it is crazy to think about that UCLA lost its head coach to a conference opponent

and just an office coordinator. Well, no, I think a lot of it has to do with how Chip feels about where the game is going and has never been a huge fan of recruiting in general. Now the recruiting piece of it, that falls on Ryan Day, you know, ultimately. Chip's got to recruit, but it's not

like the buck stops with him anymore. No, and I don't think Chip's being brought in needing to recruit because Justin Fry is going to recruit the offensive line. Each of the position coaches have their unit running pretty well on the recruiting trail, and the head coach is a quarterback coach who gets praised every time CJ Stroud steps up to the microphone. So Chip doesn't really have to do a lot of recruiting.

I think that the best thing that Chip Kelly can do on the recruiting trail is be in the building when recruits show up. Hey, here's Chip Kelly, he's our offensive coordinator. Remember the neon green Oregon jerseys? Yeah, that was the coach. So like, it's not, it won't be that hard to sell Chip Kelly on the recruiting trail to have guys come play for him. I really think that he can help them recruiting, but he's not going to be asked to do the dirty work or, you know, well, I can't say dirty work because that means so many different things to your audience, Andy, but it's not even dirty. There are no rules anymore. Like that hearing is going on in Tennessee tomorrow. There's no, there's no rules anymore. But this is kind of what they were going to have Bill O'Brien do, right? Yeah, I would say, you know, Bill O'Brien,

you get it, get on the phone with the recruits and say, right? Yeah, I would say, you know, Bill O'Brien, you get it, get on the phone with the recruits and say, Hey, remember when I coached Tom Brady? And, you know, remember when I did this with, with Penn state and actually made a couple quarterbacks who weren't any good, look pretty good. You know, that was the recruiting pitch with Bill O'Brien. Now it's with Chip Kelly. It's like, I think that he's going to be able to recruit running backs better than quarterbacks. Ryan Day knows what he's doing, recruiting quarterbacks and Chip Kelly can, he's doing recruiting quarterbacks. And Chip Bailey can just get on the phone and talk about the NFL guys that he's coached and the college offenses that he put out there and the rushing attack that he was able to do.

The recruiting aspect, we didn't even really think about it when he first gets hired on Friday just because, hey, he's going to come call plays and the rest of the offensive staff is going to keep doing their thing. It's not as much a recruiting piece at all. And I think it was smart of Brian Day to look at his staff, see the lineup of recruiters that he has already, and say, okay, we don't really need a recruiter at the offensive coordinator position. We've got the recruiters that we want. Now we need to go find a ball coach who can just call plays and be a ball coach.

And Chip Kelly wanted to do that, and that's exactly what he gets to do now. Well, and it's amazing how perfectly it works out because he is available. He's there. I'm curious if Chip Kelly's not available, like he's hell bent on getting back to the NFL or wants to stay as the head coach at UCLA and Bill O'Brien leaves. What were the chances that Ryan Day ends up calling the plays again at Ohio State this year? Yeah, it was an option on the hot board just because he said front and center on Wednesday, I did not want to give this up. He loves calling plays.

I think that's where he's the most passionate for other than anything else in college football is calling plays. But he understands that the job requires so much more of that. He's getting pulled out of offensive meeting rooms to go do other things now. He's getting phone calls in the middle of offensive meetings. Instead of thinking about, he said, instead of thinking about third and fourth from the 21-yard line, he's thinking about so many other things. And so he can't call plays anymore.

So I think there was a 0% chance he was going to go back to it. But the fact that he said that he didn't want to give it up, I mean, maybe we should have put that at maybe 1% just because he was going to have to find somebody to do it because he knows he can't. But it made it, if Chip Kelly said no, it would have made it even more of a reluctant Ryan Day when it comes to giving that up actually. And I find it so interesting that, now one of the reasons Chip Kelly wanted to leave UCLA was UCLA kind of telegraphed

that they were probably going to fire him after this season. But the other part of it was he was sick of some of the stuff that you have to do as the CEO, all of the NIL transfer portal roster management stuff. And it's interesting that the reason Chip Kelly is coming to Ohio State is because Ryan Day needs more time to do the things Chip Kelly hated doing at UCLA.

Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting. But remember where these two came from. Chip Kelly coached for four seasons at Oregon when it was just college football in maybe the purest form that it could have possibly been there from 2009 to 2012. You're thinking about an era that we can't even fathom anymore. Ryan Day was almost born into this. 2019, the transfer portal opens right after his first year, and he's got to kind of hit the ground running with that. And so for Chip, he's seen all of this change over the years. For Ryan Day, he's kind of been brought up with all of the change. And so it is interesting. I love reading about Chip Kelly because he is as much of just a pure football coach as you can get in today's college football. Whereas Ryan Day has kind of

learned how to be a CEO more and more each year. He's given up more responsibility each year. And this is the biggest step yet. It's almost like a leap of faith for him. But, but yeah, Chip is definitely much more of that classic ball coach than Ryan Day is for sure. Well, and let's talk about how these two came together. I mean, Ryan Day was Chip Kelly's quarterback at New Hampshire. Kelly was the OC, Dave was the QB, and then they worked together at New Hampshire. They worked together in the NFL. It feels like a pretty seamless transition here. Yeah, yeah. And I think the terminology is going to be the exact same. This is a guy who has studied Chip.

And obviously, they haven't worked together since 2016 in the NFL. 49ers. Yeah, with the 49ers, Ryan Day came to Ohio State for the 2017 and 2018 season. And Chip obviously went on to UCLA. Chip has learned a lot about the game since then. From everything that I've heard and read about Chip the last couple days, there was a deep dive into the option that helped him form a new age running game for UCLA, and Zach Charbonnet was incredible in that running game. Maybe there's a little bit for Ryan Day to try to learn from Chip here in the next couple of weeks

before spring ball gets started, but everything should be pretty seamless. And it should be even easier to back off of the O'Brien stuff and get right to the Kelly stuff. Cause it should be pretty, pretty easy to transition. Well, it's interesting. Cause I know Will Howard, when he talked to you guys was very quick to point out,

Hey, I'm a pretty good thrower too. But we do know Will Howard was when he talked to you guys, was very quick to point out, hey, I'm a pretty good thrower too. But we do know Will Howard was a really good runner at K-State. And when you're saying this stuff about the Chip Kelly offense, and you're right, he did, because he wasn't running the same offense he was running at Oregon. He evolved quite a bit over the years. And that offense that he ran with Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Zach Charbonnet DTR quarterback and Charbonnet is the the main running back I I'm imagining that with Will Howard and

then the the one-two punch of Travion Henderson and Quinch on Judkins at tip that's a pretty pretty formidable offense yeah I think it's going to be really fun to watch them scheme that up uh because if you put on the the oregon offense for chip kelly he might uh throw up a little bit the ucla offense was almost the antithesis of the the oregon stuff he was running just because it was so much more power and so much more uh you know maybe scheme sound than the oregon stuff where it looked like the fastest show on turf ucla was a punch you in the mouth well well okay we we we're gonna have to give you some youtube clips on the old oregon stuff because it was it's very much between the tackles when it was at its best it

felt like it was so much more spread than that ucla stuff like there was definitely an evolution there with chip kelly where uh you know that oregon team i always thought they were a little light uh in the hips i'll just keep it PG. They were. Yeah. And that UCLA team was kind of mauling people with Justin Fry as the offensive line coach. And I think that's where you'll see the biggest difference for Ohio State. It's like Justin Fry is going to get back to that bread and butter of what they were doing at UCLA on the offensive line that was producing like Sean

Ryan, who ends up getting drafted by the Packers. It was a really good play. One of two top 100 recruits, Chip Kelly, signed as the head coach at UCLA. Well, look what happens when you sign good players. It's almost, you know, I think there's a saying. Ohio State signs about 12 of those a year. Yeah, exactly. So, like, all of these factors, and, you know, we can sit here for an hour and talk about this,

but everything just points to a more cohesive offense, even than what O'Brien would have ran. You know, Ryan Day was talking about how he learned a lot from Bill O'Brien these last couple weeks and how, you know, Bill O'Brien looked at the play sheets and looked at the, you know, the way they were doing things and said, okay, let's make this a little more simple. Why do we call this this way?

And Ryan Day said, well, we, you well, week seven of 2018, this happened, and so we just started calling it that. And Bill O'Brien's like, well, let's call it this because then it's easier to learn. And so there was a little bit of term change there with Ryan Day and Bill O'Brien the last few weeks. But I think everything with Chip Kelly coming in makes it a little bit easier and also a lot more fun because the storylines are just endless. I think that if we had like a draft

of things that you're going to hear on the broadcast, did you know that Ryan Day played for Chip Kelly and now Kelly, you know, those kind of things are, you know, crazy. Yeah. It is the new Tim Tebow and Riley Cooper are roommates for sure. Or Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley are roommates. Yeah. It's we're, we're definitely headed to that territory, but I am curious, Spencer, you've gotten to talk to a lot of the new arrivals for the Buckeyes of late, Will Howard, Caleb Downs, Quinshawn Judkins. How excited are they to be in this kind of college football machine? Yeah, it was interesting because obviously there was a few questions about NIL because

of what Lane Kiffin tweeted and the storylines that have talked about Ohio State and NIL. And most of them have said, like, we know that we can win a championship here and this is a championship level team. And I thought that was interesting just because, you know, with all of the focus on Ohio State for some reason with this NIL stuff, They are just dead set on working. And Ryan Day said it best, you know, you can put a slogan anywhere, but at the end of the day, you're here to work. And they're done with the slogans. They're just working hard. And you can get that sense from the transfers. They're ready to just hit the ground running. They're ready to give up to work. They're ready for spring ball for sure. Because, you know, you get to the middle of the winter and it gets a little tedious trying to go lift every single day.

You know that better than anybody, but they're very excited. It is a championship caliber team with a championship caliber coaching staff, for sure, especially now with Chip Kelly. And they know the opportunities in front of them. You know, Caleb Downs, Ryan Day was it was kind of hilarious. Somebody asked Ryan Day if Caleb Downs was a day one starter. And Ryan Day said, well, he's got to earn it. Nothing's given here. But he's going to be pretty hard to beat. So if you want to try to beat him, step up and try to beat him.

But Ohio State fully understands the talent on hand. Ryan Day said pressure is a privilege. These transfers said basically the exact same thing. They know that the expectations are going to be championship or bust and i think the transfers have really embraced that even will kasmeric from ohio university it just embraced that championship or bus mentality that he's never really had on him before well and the thing i think about with these guys the reason i am so high on them for next year isn't necessarily the like the big names they've gotten in the portal it's that JT Tumalao uh Jack Sawyer they're Latham Ransom they're all coming back that you know Sonny Stiles now gets to move to a position he probably should be playing

or should have been playing all along when Caleb Downs gets there and it feels very similar to me like the older Michigan players after last offseason deciding to come back for one more ride because they felt like this could potentially be a special group. And as we know, they were right. And I felt like I heard a lot of the same things from the JTTs and the Jacks Warriors. Yeah, it's interesting. You compare and contrast the way that we've talked about last

year's Michigan offseason with this year's Ohio State offseason the transfers made the headlines for Ohio State this offseason the returners made the made the headlines for Michigan last offseason and I think if they wouldn't have gotten Will Howard they wouldn't have gotten Caleb Downs you know no quinch on Judkins in this we would still be talking about a fantastic offseason for Ohio State because of all the guys deciding to come back and you know it reminds me when they went and got the transfers of michigan going out and getting uh i think josh wallace's name from the corner from from umass josiah stewart ladarius henderson drake nugent all guys that were transfers who started last year yeah yeah exactly and they just plugged the holes where they needed them why they didn't

go into the transfer portal you know looking for the biggest superstars in the game, like Caleb Downs. He just happened to be there, you know, obviously once he went in, they went after it, but they were just going in to look for holes that needed plug once they got all those returners back. And that's the thing that excites me the most is like, how is the culture going to work with these new transfers coming in? And obviously there's NIL at play there and it's like

well they've got a pretty good foundation with you know 11 guys who could have went to the nfl and instead decided to come back for another year and and you got to rely on your leadership when you bring in transfers but they certainly got a lot of it and you know one of them yeah and i mean i know i know no ohio state fan likes to hear michigan comparisons but in this case i think they'll like it and one of the things we were doing going into last season was counting how many draft picks the Michigan team was going to have come this April. It's going to be very high. It's going to potentially challenge the record that's held by Georgia. I'm looking at the Ohio State depth chart right now for 2024. There are easily double-digit draft picks and another possibly like 15 plus situation.

Yeah. I think the entire starting 11 on defense and that's not, I don't say that lightly whatsoever, but the entire starting 11 on defense, I think will be a draft picks. And you know, if you told me they were all in the top, in the first five rounds, I wouldn't be surprised at all. Even a guy like Ty Hamiltonilton who doesn't get talked about a lot returned for another year uh his younger brother devon hamilton who's pretty good for the jags yeah he's very good he's going to be a guy that that people look at uh as you know one of the lowest drafted players on that defense this upcoming year and he's going to be a pretty good nfl player i think the offense obviously the two running backs and will howard's going to get

drafted and all of those receivers. The offensive line is the thing that you wonder, like are they going to be able to challenge for the record that's probably going to be set by Michigan this year or is going to stand with Georgia? I'm curious, but there's at least 11 guys who I know can play in the NFL because they all decided to come back. And then you just add a few more, sprinkle in a few more of those late rounds here and there,

and you're looking at a group that could challenge, like you said, for that record that Michigan made very well set this year. We're going to find out if they do, and now we're going to find out if Ohio State can replicate that feat, because I do think now they're going to be the favorite of the national title going into the season,

unless some weird things happen the rest of the way, which it's been a weird offseason. Yeah, I mean, if they lose the offensive coordinator again after three weeks maybe we'll have a different conversation but until then uh i've got them maybe penciled in as like top two i don't think there's i think it's one two georgia ohio state however you feel your personal feelings yeah and then a little bit of a gap um and maybe oregon pushes that gap maybe another team that I'm not thinking of right now pushes that gap but it looks to me like it's a it's a two team uh race for the off season

national championship and then you gotta go do the real thing. That's that's exactly right. Doing the real things. The only one that counts. Don't joke about another offensive coordinator cuz the way this off season going that very well might happen. Spencer Holbrook, thank you so much. Thanks, Andy. No, you should not joke about losing another offensive coordinator. It worked out very well for Ohio State this time. Who knows what would happen if it happened again.

But it did happen at Alabama. It did happen at Alabama. They are now in need of an offensive coordinator. And this has been a strange month since Nick Saban retired. We had to call Tim Watts again. We had to get him to explain all of this to us again, Tim Watts from Bama online, because Ryan Grubb consigliere of Kalen DeBoer. He's headed to Seattle. Hoff, theirBoer. He's headed to Seattle.

Hoff, their offensive line coach, also headed to Seattle. What happens next at Alabama? We'll find out. But conveniently enough, the Grubb news didn't come out until after the transfer portal window closed. I'm sure that wasn't completely planned. I'm sure nobody thought of that before, and it was just

pure coincidence here's tim watts joined out by tim watts of bam online and a lot going on in the world of alabama football though there are no official announcements well really ever like was ryan grubb ever announced as alabama's? He's not been announced as Seattle's OC either, but it sure seems like he's gone. Well, Grubb announced himself as Alabama's offensive coordinator. And I think, you know, there was a lot of speculation this week. He was speaking to Red Elfin Clubs. I heard and talked to people that attended the events. I mean, Kalen DeBoer introduced him as Alabama's offensive coordinator.

People met him and shook his hand. attended the events I mean Kalen DeBoer introduced him as Alabama's offensive coordinator people met him and shook his hand it became official Wednesday when he walked up stood in Alabama gear and said I'm Ryan grub I'm your offensive coordinator and that was the big Red Elephant Club 2000 plus members in Brian Denny Stadium absolutely a big signing day thing every year so he announced himself um at that moment so you kind of thought maybe this was behind him. You thought maybe this, the staff was settled in because there'd been a lot of discussion because he hadn't changed the social media.

And again, I mean, you and I discussed this off the air. I'm not sure that was a big clue because I'm not sure he's a guy that really cares much about social media, but he was the only coach that didn't do it. So there was questions being asked and, you know, Friday night out of the blue, he shows up, you know, having dinner, you know, having dinner with the Seahawks head coach and I think the GM. So, I mean, all of it just kind of broke loose really fast and to make it even more difficult to track, they were all on vacation because after Wednesday, when signing day was done, um, Kalen DeBoer and the staff were off, I think, until midday tomorrow, around lunch maybe.

So they were all spread out across the country, and some of those guys are moving their stuff from Seattle. So him being in Seattle wasn't a huge deal, because I'm sure other staff members are there, you know, packing, because a lot of that happened quick. And Courtney Morgan's a perfect example of that. He probably had to deal with that. So,

yeah, long story short, there is nothing official. I expect it. So, right. And what do we think Kalen DeBoer does? Nick Sheridan, who's been with him at multiple stops, was with him at Indiana, was with him at Washington. He's listed as the co-OC or was the co-OC at Washington and the tight ends coach. Nick's been a play caller at Indiana before. Would he get a shot or would it be maybe somebody a little more experienced? We just saw Ohio State hire freaking Chip Kelly to call plays. Yeah, you never know who's available anymore, right? You have a head Division I Power 5 coach going to be a – and probably a really good move for Kelly also to go over there and be the offensive coordinator at Ohio State.

I think it's still up in the air, but I did read somewhere where the Alabama athletic director said they knew this was a possibility. I mean, I'm almost positive his name was going to pop up in that UCLA head coach. I think that Grubb was going to – if he was in Tuscaloosa, I figured this would be a one-year stint anyways, because he was going to have a lot of attention and a lot of eyes on him. But you know the thing, like we had to do a lot of research. I did when Caleb DeBoer was hired. I didn't know a lot about the Washington coach. Not a lot of SEC Southern connections. Knew him from Indiana a little bit. Knew him at Washington, what he did. But when I started digging into it, I mean, the one thing is talking to coaches that know

who he is, coaches that have coached with him, they all described him as the play, you know, the offensive, you know, madman. Mastermind, yeah. Yeah, he's the mastermind. That's a good way to put it. So they all talked about him being the genius behind the offense. So he was getting all that credit to begin with. That's not to take anything away from Ryan Grubb, because I think his reputation precedes him.

You can see the interest that he's drawn. He obviously did a good job, but when they described Kalen DeBoer, it was pretty similar when they talked Alabama defense all these years and Nick Saban. It's his system. It's always going to be his system, and it feeds off of him. So what he does from here, I think he's got a lot of options. I think Sheridan is one. I think you always going to be his system, and it feeds off of him. So what he does from here, I think he's got a lot of options. I think Sheridan is one. I think you're going to hear some popular names pop up. But to know he had some sort of plan based on what the athletic director said, then I think that he's not starting at square one,

very similar to Kalen DeBoer getting hired in 41 hours or whatever it was. They're not starting at the first stage. Yeah, it's going to be a tough look. And I would use – if I'm an Auburn coach or a Georgia coach, I'm going to use it against them because the timing of the Grubb-Seattle leak came out as the transfer portal window was closing. And I think that's – I don't know that that would have changed much because Alabama players have been in class for however many weeks now. So you were going to leave you're going to leave it in spring anyway but

it is a i just the timing was was icky on that one and if you knew and it was already going to happen you should have just let it happen yeah but i think when you're dealing with college coaches you're dealing with semantics right i mean if somebody came out and said well i was the alabama offensive coordinator on wednesday and i got the offer on thursday so again that's semantics, right? I mean, if somebody came out and said, well, I was the Alabama offensive coordinator on Wednesday, and I got the offer on Thursday. So again, that's semantics. I mean, the greatest coach in history stood right in front of a crowd of reporters and said, I won't be the next Alabama coach, right?

So when it gets to college coaches, when it gets to any kind of coach in any profession, I mean, it's just all bets are off. And I don't know the details of how this went down, and I don't know if we'll ever know them. But I think that, you know, Alabama knew it was a possibility that he was going to be a big name. He was somebody, Grubb was somebody who's going to be a big name and people were going to come after him and he was going to have opportunities. But yeah, as an SEC, speaking on that, it doesn't matter what you do though. You know,

they're going to hit you with your haircut or, you know, the girl you dated in high school, your seventh grade Halloween costume. So that's, that's certainly fair game. Yeah. Everything's fair game in SEC recruiting. And that's, you know, that's something that Kalen DeBoer has got to get used to. How do, how do you think he did that first time around? It's, you know, it's a different situation where you're not trying to sign a bunch of guys in February. They did get Ryan Williams, which is a huge get, but this was a lot of laying groundwork for the class of 2025. What are some of the reports in from the high school coaches, from the people who've gotten to meet him?

Well, you also got Noah Carter, who is the top player in Arizona, one of the best players in the country. I mean, a guy that fits in defensively with what they want to do. Had signed with Washington, got out of his letter of intent and came to Alabama. And I'll tell you what, you got to be able to recruit a little bit to get kids from Washington. Austin Mack, the center, the wide receiver, those guys move across the country to play for them. So you got to know a little bit about recruiting and recruiting is just building relationships, right? And well, the NIO, that fact,

that factors in now it's relationships and that kind of stuff. But you know, the early reviews or the junior days were good. They got a really good crowd in. It was, it was kind of West coast heavy, which you would expect because those are the guys they're most familiar with. I really think them and the people that cover Alabama was trying to get through that Friday at midnight. I think I had a clock running it down, you know, to get their portal shut. That's the next step. Quiet February. It's dead recruiting to get there. Take your you know, take your time off and start setting up the future for the 25 class.

I still think there's their goal. They still have a lot of people that know the area and players they're going to target, but they've got a lot of evaluation to do. But early reports were good. And again, like you said, they landed Ryan Williams. I mean, Kalen DeBoer was hired on Friday. Monday, Ryan Williams was on campus. That was kind of the guy they had to get. And I think getting him, Bama fans took a big breath. There was relief in getting Ryan Williams. Had he not went there and then they lose, you know, gruff to the NFL, you know, I think there would be a, there'd be a mass panic. Well, so we were talking about this last week, Tim, the Alabama wind total already out on FanDuel. Now it obviously can change as, as the

months go by, but nine and a half, it's the lowest one since 2016, which I was surprised. I thought it, I thought it'd be lower than the, I didn't remember it being that low in 16 when, you know, they were coming off losing Derrick Henry, Jake Coker, Kenyon Drake, all those guys and tons of guys on defense. But how do you feel about that number? It's weird to see. because it's usually double digits. Yeah, I mean, it's right on the verge of double digits. I mean, you look at the schedule they've got. You've added Texas.

You've added Oklahoma. Alabama has a tough schedule next year, so that was already a number. I don't care if Nick Saban was there or not. You weren't looking at an undefeated, guaranteed season with that schedule that they have, and other SEC schools are certainly going to be able to say the same thing, but I think that's a fair number. I think the number is nine to 10 wins when you look at the schedule and the talent coming back. It's hard for me to really know exactly what this team's going to be because it's not a finished team. I mean, you still have a portal in April. And again,

it's a portal in and a portal out. So you could have guys leaving, you could have guys coming in, it could change the dynamics. Because you look at the portal guys they brought in now. They've got a kid that was looking to be an all-PAC-12 type caliber wide receiver, the wide receiver number one for Washington next year. They got a all-PAC-12 center that came in. So they've got some guys that came in who were talented. So they're able to add more in that April portal. Again, we don't even know who's in the April portal, right? But the defense is, April's when the BS stops because you're going to have to show your depth chart to some degree. In December, you can say, oh, you're going to start in April.

But if you're not in April, if you're a third-team cornerback, third-team wide receiver in April, those are going to be the guys. Even second-team are going to be looking to, you know, you know, to, you know, to make a move probably. Well, and what's interesting about it now is because of the sec rule where you can't go to another sec school and play next year, the, it changes who's shopping and where like Alabama is probably a program that's shopping. We know Auburn shopping for a quarterback. We know there's a couple other sec programs that are, that are still in shopping mode, but they've got to probably shop from the big 10 or shop from the big 12 or the ACC.

Meanwhile, we know Michigan is a big shopper right now. They've got a couple of spots that they need to fill. And that's a place that I would imagine, even if you're at a top-line SEC team, you might think about that. Yeah, I'm also wondering how many of those Michigan players will go out shopping theirself. I mean, they've lost head coach, led them to national championship. They've lost a huge amount of seniors that they're familiar with, their teammates. Whole defensive staff.

Yeah, five assistant coaches so far. So they should be some guys looking to get out. And you saw that with Alabama with Caleb Downs, when the guys he knew the closest, the people that he was the closest with, from coordinator to position to the head coach, and he went off and took off once Saban retired. There's going to be kids on that team that are very loyal to Jim Harbaugh that went to play for Jim Harbaugh.

Nothing against the current coaches at Alabama or Michigan, but Jim Harbaugh is a big name. So there could be guys looking too. So they're going to have a lot of battles. And then you've got UCLA jumped in the mix. They've got guys that could be looking to get out. They're probably going to be shoppers too. So there's a lot that's going to happen in April, I'm guessing.

Yeah. Pete Nacos has been trying to tell us for weeks that it's going to be wild in April. I and I I always thought that the the SEC rule kind of tamps it down a little bit because I feel like most SEC players want to play for an SEC school and that that settles things but I don't know. I mean, with the level of quality of some of these programs outside the SEC that need stuff, it does feel like it might not just be a Bear Alexander type this year. In this situation, in the SEC, I think you're looking at more people going

after the SEC's players, obviously the most talented conference. SEC's got less to pull from, right? They're already the ones with the most talented conference. SEC's got less to pull from, right? They're already, you know, they're already the ones with the most talent. So they're going to still be able to cherry pick, and the top guys will still get people. But also you've got to look at how set are the rosters. You've got to think some of these guys are pretty close to the 85 that they like. So you're going to have to basically cut and add, add and cut, you know,

to keep your number at the 85. You want to have as much depth as possible. But you will have guys. But you make a good point. I mean, you know, kids that grow up in the South. You want to have as much depth as possible. But you will have guys. But you make a good point. I mean, kids that grow up in the South tend to want to play for schools in the South. Somebody that could benefit from that is somebody local like a Georgia Tech, a school that's in Atlanta. Florida State has made a killing off of it.

Florida State. They're probably full of the guys that were backups at Alabama. They've got several of them over there, but they've added a lot of talent. They could add more. I mean, that's still Florida State. A lot of people remember Florida State. Clemson's out here saying, we're good. If Clemson were to take Portal, guys, you would have a ton of interest in that program, right? So that helps Florida State even more. So there's a lot of risk and reward being weighed by programs. I'm curious to see what, personally, just what happens with Clemson.

How can they hold up? I mean, because if they win, if they can win doing it their way, they prove you can do it. But I just think it's really hard to pull that off. I don't think you can because it – or, well, you can win, but I don't think you can win at the level that they used to win because it's just you're not as efficient as everybody else. Everybody else can,

can cover their mistakes up much faster and you have to sort of develop your way out of mistakes. And that's just, it's going to, it's going to put them in situations like last year in the Florida state game, where if Clemson has one receiver that they'd gotten out of the portal, that was a dynamic number one receiver,

they probably win that game. You mean like Keon Coleman? You know what I mean? Like Keon Coleman. I mean, that's definitely a game changer for them. I'm curious to see. I hope they actually can do it and show that some teams can be stable. But again, when you lose a left tackle like Alabama did, if you're Clemson, if you lose

that guy, because they'll still lose guys, I'm guessing, to the portal. So if they don't bring any in, that's just like a huge disadvantage to me but yeah if you do lose that you kind of feel it's almost like free it is free agency for college or well in Alabama's situation last year I thought was interesting on the offensive line because in the in the old system before the transfer rules changed there would have been a center that they could have put in who could have snapped and also blocked effectively. But they didn't feel comfortable putting anybody in behind Seth McLaughlin when he was having issues snapping because they didn't feel like they could get stuff blocked. And I mean, that never would have happened in 2015,

16, 17, but it does now. And that's why I just, I don't know that there's going to be one team that just dominates everybody from now on. No, I think you're going to have to be super heavy in the NIL because that's the easiest way to keep people happy, right? You know, if you're paying your backup to stay, you know, I mean, that that's going to be good motivation for somebody to stay and be patient, but it's going to be expensive to keep that, that true freshman who's behind some, some you know good players and you're trying to convince him to stay another year or two to even have a chance to play but that's one way to do it's just straight up you know you know pay them to stay pay them to play pay them to stay we we got a lot we're trying to

try to do is that i know they they say pay to plays against the rules, which the rules may go away soon. But is pay to stay against the rule? I've never heard anybody say anything bad about pay to stay. I don't really think there's rules. I don't think so either. I mean, the NCAA is trying to enforce rules. I mean, I just like the no pay for play was like, I mean, you knew this was coming. If you're paying a kid to sign with you, that is literally the definition of pay for play.

And we knew that would come. I mean, we knew that, you know, the kids would want that to get their fair share. And, you know, for some of these guys, you know, you look at it from a, I mean, the percentage of these players that are going to make it to the NFL small, this might be the best chance to get ahead at life. I mean, if you can, you know you if you can graduate put it simple if you can graduate from a college and still have a hundred thousand dollars in the bank you you're winning you know you're waiting oh yeah can you imagine tim graduating college and having the money to put a down payment on a house right right when you got it it would change your financial trajectory for the rest of your life and we're talking, you know,

everybody focuses on he got 5 million or Nico at Tennessee got 2 million a year or whatever. A lot of these guys are just trying to get through and survive and just get their degree. And I mean, everybody wants to play in the NFL. You and I wanted to play in the NFL or the NBA. Everybody wants to do it. Everybody's not going to have that opportunity, but you're right. Free education, no debt, a hundred thousand dollars in a paid off car. You're have that opportunity. You're right. Free education, no debt, $100,000 in a paid-off car. You're winning

at 22. You're winning. You're winning. Unless your old buddy who's trying to transfer to Tulsa and get $80,000 a year. These stories, I'm almost wondering if they're not a little hyperbole, but I believe them. I don't think that was.

I think Kevin Wilson was really reading from the text message. I wanted to say, I wanted to think he's trying to make a point, but I believed it. I was like, man, that is, that is crazy. You know, it's just, yeah. And hopefully I still, I still hope this, that the geeks committees can get together and come to some kind of rule agreement and, and, and give players what they're deserved and what you feel they're deserved. I think they're tampering for me. I know we're on a side tangent, but tampering for me is the issue. It's confusing.

There's a lot being told to get somebody in the portal. I've heard a lot of horror stories, not really in the SEC level, but to get guys into the portal. Well, let's talk about our unknown player who is trying to transfer to Tulsa. Right. Like somebody told him you should you should get in the portal. You should you can get this kind of money. You can't like you can't get that kind of money at Tulsa. You you shouldn't even bother trying like somebody lied to you and no, you're right and and I

do think that they're gonna come to something whether it's collective bargaining or something they got to figure out something that that survives an antitrust suit which would probably be collective bargaining but that would allow for player movement rules and real transfer rule or real tampering rules that have real penalties so i think you can limit the tamper and if you you limit the tamper and windows, you can't have eight portal windows. That's eight tampering windows. I mean, you gotta, you're gonna have to narrow this down to some bit. You know, I think you, you know, again, Alabama, Michigan, you go through a coaching change, UCLA, you go through a portal window, you go through the coaching

change. That thing was 30 days. Like I was telling people on Thursday and Friday, it's still open. They were like, that can't be possible. I was like, no, for real. It closes Friday at midnight. Yeah, you could probably get all that action covered in a week. But the problem, the problem again with that is you got to get the players. You probably have to get the players to sign off on it, which I think a players union or something like that would. They'd be like, okay, two windows is fine.

That's plenty. Nobody's going to listen to me, but I really think that you give them a 10 to 12, 14 day window after the new coach is named. Yeah. Don't let them, don't, I mean, Kalen DeBoer showed up and you already had guys gone that he never really even got to meet.

Yeah. Give them a chance to have a meeting. Say, you know, here's who I am. If you still want to leave, go. Right. Caleb Downs did that. He met the coach. He talked and did what he needed to do, and he left.

That's the option. They've got a fair option. He can see both sides. But if you don't even know who the coach is, and let's be clear, Alabama's coaching change was in 41 hours. Michigan's was that guy that was already there. All these coaching changes aren't going to take place in 48 hours someone's going to do a week so you've got a week before the coach is even there he might

show up and not want the job boston college took nine days yeah that's it that was back growing you know 15 years ago nine days was nothing that was the speed record. Today, it is. It's forever. Yeah. Well, it's changing fast, and it keeps on changing. Tim Watts, thank you so much. I appreciate it, Andy. That's the great Tim Watts, and we'll see what happens with Alabama. We asked Tim about that Alabama win total, which our friends at FanDuel had dropped Alabama and Colorado win totals as of last week.

Well, guess what? Now they've dropped basically all of the power conferences on us. So we got to talk about those as the week goes on. There's a lot of them. We want to make sure we delve deep into those things because they're pretty interesting. I've been perusing them, and there are some pretty fascinating ones. So we'll start talking about those on Tuesday. We'll also have our friend Pete Nacos from On3 joining us on Tuesday morning.

It's a whole new world. Happy Monday morning, everybody. Thanks for joining. We'll talk to you tomorrow. We'll talk to you tomorrow.