Andy & Ari On3 - Transfer Portal MADNESS: The latest on QB Demond Williams and Washington | Sam Leavitt Visiting Tennessee | Ty Simpson Declares for NFL Draft | CFP Semis FINAL PICKS

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

As the transfer portal is in full swing, the news does not seem to stop. On Tuesday night, Washington QB Demond Williams Jr. announced on Instagram he would be entering the transfer portal. Also, the Huskies QB signed a deal 4 days to prior to keep him as Washington's signal caller for 2026. How will this debacle end? Andy & Ari breakdown the latest. (0:00) On Today's Episode(1:16) Presenting Sponsor(3:18) Intro: Demond Williams Debacle(7:22) Detailing Demond Williams and Tuesday night(11:34) Is LSU after Williams?(14:43) How will this pan out for Demond Williams?(19:55) Is Washington Damaged?(26:38) PaniniAmerica.net(29:36) Sam Leavitt set to visit Tennessee(39:24) Florida's retainment of Jayden Woods(40:19) Ty Simpson Declares for NFL Draft(44:09) Modelo: CFP Picks(45:15) Final Picks: Miami vs Ole Miss(50:12) Final Picks: Oregon vs Indiana(56:40) Portal: Anthony Colandrea to Nebraska(57:44) Jackson Arnold to UNLV(59:19) Conclusion: Dear Andy & Ari Tomorrow Send your questions to:[e-mail]@on3.com   Meanwhile, as Demond Williams enters the portal, QB Sam Leavitt was at an LSU basketball game with Lane Kiffin on a visit. Now, the Sun Devils transfer QB is headed to Knoxville on Wednesday to visit with Josh Heupel and Tennessee. The transfer portal is WILD right now, and Andy & Ari have you covered LIVE today at 3 pm et/2 pm ct. This show is presented by Modelo! Some things in life are just made for each other. Peanut Butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Modelo and college football. If you’re watching this, it means you live and breathe football. All season long. You know what that makes you? A Full-Time Fan. Which means you deserve a Modelo. Because football wouldn’t be the same without you. Modelo is the official beer sponsor of The College Football Playoff. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL  We’re also brought to you by Panini! Panini delivers the most collectible sports cards and memorabilia on the planet. Check out the new exclusive Arch Manning collection or the Panini Prizm Draft Picks College Football series. Visit PaniniAmerica.net to start your collection today. 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. Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/xRjDEIY7qGo 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's Annie and Ari on three, the transfer portal is going nuts. Daman Williams, Washington quarterback announced on Tuesday night that he is going into the portal, much to the chagrin of Washington, with whom he just signed a deal. What does all of that mean? What is Washington's recourse here? Who is in the mix for DeMond Williams? We'll talk about all of that. Plus, a big keep possibly brewing at Florida.

We talked about Jaden Baugh yesterday. Maybe there is another potential big keep. Also, moving off the DeMond Williams news, Sam Levitt, the quarterback from Arizona State, who visited Kentucky last week, who visited LSU the other day. He is visiting Tennessee on Wednesday. The news never stops. The transfer portal never stops. Plus, there is still football this week.

Ari and I have our Mulligan picks, if necessary, for the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl, the college football playoff semifinals. We'll do it all today on Andy and Orion 3 presented by BetMGM. We are presented by BetMGM. We use all BetMGM lines and totals on this here show. Here's how you can get connected and start playing with BetMGM. download the app. You sign up using the code CFB, that's CFB, as in college football. You deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game and you can receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets. If your bet loses, just make sure you use the bonus code CFB as in college football when you sign up. And of course, if you're already signed up, we've got plenty for you this week.

The college football playoff semifinals on Thursday and Friday, January 8th, the 9th, to bet MGM hooking you up with a college football playoff odds boost token on those two days, Thursday and Friday, the 8th, and the 9th. This odds boost token is your ticket to the most exciting CFB playoff showdowns. Use your token to score a bigger payout if your bet hits. So that's how you do it. Sign up with BEDMGM. Join. Start playing.

Use those boosts and have fun. Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary with BEDMGM. See bedmgm.com for terms. 21 plus only U.S. promotional offers are not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler in the U.S. call 8778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y. 4673369 in New York. Call 1-800 next step in Arizona. Call 1-800-327-5-0-50 in Massachusetts. Call 1-800 bets off in Iowa or 1-800-9-8-1-0-2-3. in Puerto Rico. First bet offer for new customers only, subject to eligibility requirements, rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas

Crossing Casino and Hotel. Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. The transfer portal is still going crazy. if you thought it was going to slow down, it is not. And Ari, it's crazy to me to think that it only opened five days ago. Yeah. It feels like it's been a month. I mean, I think it's a different type of craziness.

Like, there's this type of craziness, which is people are entering that you don't think are entering and flips are happening and just kind of a bunch of wild moves. And the other type of craziness is unhinged talent coming in that you never could have imagined. I think it's more, this one seems more dysfunctional than it does deep. And maybe I'm off on that. I would agree with that. The dysfunction is off the charts, especially with the story we're going to talk about. But before we talk about DeMond Williams and Washington and where he might wind up and what Washington and the Big Ten may do in response, I want to post this comment from our friend Sailor Joe, who's here every time we go live. Sailor Joe just subscribed to On 3. to the website that we work for, that we write for.

If you want to read our columns, if you want to read Pete Nacos' breaking news, if you want to read Chris Lowe's breaking news, Bretman Murphy's breaking news, your team site. We have experts covering almost every team. Sailor Joe says, just subscribe to their website,

and I feel like I'm in a whole new world of understanding what's going on from a 30,000-foot view. Totally not a paid advertisement, and it's not. But right now, you can get one year of On3 at 50% off the end. annual rate. So $59.99 for one year of On 3, you get your team site, you get your message board,

your community. You get everybody else's message board, which we're, we're doing a megaboard Wednesday. So you see how fun it is to deal with everybody else's message boards. You get the national team. That's me and Ari and Chris Lowe and Brettman Murphy and Pete Nacos. And you get the best transfer portal coverage. You get the best recruiting coverage out of high school with rivals and Steve Wilfong. You get it all. So 50% off. the QR code producer river throw that up on the screen please hit that QR code and you can join and that's that's Pete Nacos right there that smiley guy is Pete Nacos who's busy breaking all the news and he's all over this DeMond Williams story and I think this is a good transition too Andy because I wanted to also point out that you wrote an excellent story about the demand Williams situation that you can find on on three and I am 99% sure you have to be a subscriber some of them are free just to give you a little taste it's called salesmanship but that one was a really good story and I enjoyed reading it. So, well, and we're going to get into it because it's about why this one feels a little bit different than some of the other cases where somebody's leaving after just signing a deal with a school.

The QR code on the screen right now, if you're watching on the YouTube, we'll take you right to that story. It's Megaboard Wednesday, Ari. So, of course, we use the threads on the On3 Megaboard to guide us through the show. the funniest part about this one was I could have gone to any of our team sites and founded DeMond Williams threat today. The one that wound up on the megaboard is the most ironic one of all

because it's from our Clemson site, Tiger Illustrated. And just the headline from Austin Cole 21, DeMond Williams, and he says, I'd bring out the brink's truck for this guy. And of course, Clemson, the school that uses the portal to the Leafs, They're using it now. But Dabo, as I said, we'll never tamper.

We'll never do that. Clemson is not one of the schools that we're talking about as a potential destination. I think that message literally is the contrary to, like, Dabo Sweeney's entire, like, ethos. Dabo died a little inside knowing one of his fans said that because so this is, this is what happened. Okay, because we have not been on the air since all this happened. on Tuesday night, DeMond Williams drops a post on Instagram saying, hey, thanks to everybody at Washington.

I have loved it here. It's been awesome. I'm hitting the portal. Washington people, you know, the people who work at Washington, very quickly point out to multiple reporters, including R. Pete Nacos,

that he just signed a deal with Washington like four days earlier. A new deal, which Ross Dellinger from Yahoo is now reported on, on Wednesday is worth $4 million annually. So we were trying to figure out what the money was, $4 million, which is in line with the top quarterbacks in the country this year, what they are receiving.

So that's the amount. Pete Dammel from ESPN reporting that the liquidated damages caused the buyout, that there isn't a specific number on it, which I find that very interesting. We'll get into that when we talk about my column. But this set off a chain reaction, Ari. Because DeMond Williams is one of the best returning quarterbacks in the country. He's very exciting.

He completed 70% of his passes last year. He can throw. He can run. He can do it all. It's understandable why somebody would want him. It's just very interesting because he just resigned with Washington and now he's doing this. And so the question is, who is after him? Yeah.

And who is after him could actually turn out. to be bad news for the school that's after him, right? Because I don't like, has there ever, has anyone ever gotten in trouble for tampering? Like, has it ever happened? Hadn't happened yet. So I wonder, like, if it ever does happen, like, if this is how it happens. Because now we're talking about the legal issues of things that go on on a seven figure, four million dollar deal. Yeah, I am very curious about this. I think there's two ways of looking at it. One is obviously the legal ramifications and how much Washington. how much leverage Washington has to exert their side of the contract in court and what

that means in terms of what that means for DeMond Williams and his future. But the other side of it too is just like socially, like how bizarre this is. Because like, you know, I think that we have been pretty clear on the show that players in his position, I mean, $4 million from Washington to play quarterback, you know, is more, It's worth more than multi-year deals in some rookie quarterback contracts in the NFL. How you sign some? What did you say? All but like the top 17 picks.

Hold on. Let me call up the rookie salary scale for 2026. You can vamp for a little bit. Yeah. So I would love to know, and I'm sure we will know as reporting continues, what occurred in the last three days and what could have changed. because if tampering was in play or some sudden change of heart happened, I'm assuming that that sudden change of heart must have been in the picture at some point

than before the last four or five days. But from a, from Washington standpoint, Andy, even if they were to file suit or cause him to pay a unspecified amount of money and damages, like the hayes in the barn here, like he's not playing at Washington next year. I don't think so either, and it's interesting because, like, you know, we've had multiple people report that Washington certainly won't try, won't insert him into the transfer portal. We saw that last year with Xavier Lucas at Wisconsin. He's a cornerback who played for Wisconsin in 2024 as a freshman. They wouldn't put him in the transfer portal because they thought Miami was tampering.

He just withdrew from Wisconsin and enrolled at Miami. Like, you don't have to go in the portal. So I don't know that DeMond Williams will ever get put in the portal, and it doesn't matter. If he wants to go to another school, he will withdraw from Washington, and he will enroll at, I don't know, maybe LSU. Yeah, and I think maybe I'm being naive here, but maybe what happened was LSU wants this guy or has wanted this guy for quite some time. Desperation is sitting in because they have yet to sign a big quarterback transfer. Well, no, they had a quarterback on campus last night, Ari. That's interesting about this.

Sam Levitt, the Arizona State transfer, was on LSU's campus. He was at a basketball game with Lane Kiffin when all this came out. We don't have rights to the photo. You've seen it on the Internet. If you go to my Twitter at Andy Staples, it's there. I retweet it and said, captioned this. The photo from the Baton Rouge Advocate photographer shows Sam Levitt on his phone, Lane Kiffin looking over like, huh?

And we don't know exactly when that photo was. and we don't know exactly what Sam Levitt's looking at, but it was taken around the same time that the DeMond Williams News hit. And that makes it very interesting because we found out within the hour that Sam Levitt was going to visit Tennessee. So I don't, we don't know the order of operations here, but, but LSU is one of the schools that is rumored to be after DeMond Williams. The other one is Oregon, which has a quarterback right now, Dante Moore, but Dante Moore is potentially the first or second pick in the draft, and he may decide after the college football playoff that he would like to go to the NFL.

Yeah. Andy, I know I made this joke before. Is that not The Bachelor? Oh, these two had an awesome date, and then it cuts away, and they're like the woman who was on the date's making out with another guy in the other room. Like, I feel like that's kind of like what it feels like. And like, listen, you know, you can speculate about what he may have been looking at. Maybe he's looking at the tweet. Maybe he's looking at Instagram. I don't know what the guys looking at. What I do know is is that, you know, if you get to a place that LSU was in, which is we desperately need a quarterback, even if you believe things are going well with Sam Levitt with the way that the NIL contracts have been set up and the way that they money has

been coming in, like you never really quite know what's going to happen. So you have to have a contingency plan. And if LSU's contingency plan or priority is the Mon Williams, then you you owe it to yourself to try to shake that fruit off the branch before Sam Levitt comes to a final decision. So in my head, I can fantasize a world where- Or if you want him more, and you might just want him more. That might be all there is to it. But if you do want him more, the timing of the tampering is weird to me, because they could have tampered a week ago. They could have tapped Well, and that's what makes this so confusing and messed up, because if he never signs the contract, Washington, he can go wherever he wants. He can have a bidding war.

Like, there's no, there's no issue. Washington has no recourse if he doesn't sign a contract. So, Dan Coyote in the chat says, we need contracts, receiving school on the hook for previous school's investment, too much flux, not good for the sport to go 10 and 2 and then 2 and 10. There's a contract. There is a contract. he signed one yeah there's no there's no contract or at least i think the point of the comment is that if he signs a four million dollar deal with washington then the side then if he were to do what if only r we had a system where schools took people of value from other schools and paid them money for that yeah that's what that's what the common man spelled out in their contract that

LSU or whoever DeMond Williams ends up would be subject to paying the $4 million balance that Washington agreed to pay on top of a $4 million balance. That's not how you write a contract. There'd be a buyout. There'd be a liquidated damages clause that says if the player leaves, he owes this. If we terminate the player, we owe this. Like that's what they do with the coaches. And, you know, for somebody like DeMond Williams, I'd set it like a million bucks.

If it's a $4 million salary, I'd set it to like a million bucks. well that's what they do with the coaches right so we also have to like talk about this in a way so that my dumb ass can figure it out and people listening can figure it out but even if Washington were to file suit and we're losing we're using LSU as an example but well let's just say big state wants in this situation if big state is desperate enough or wants his talent enough that really is of no consequence to DeMond Williams if big state decides to pay the buyout for him on top of what they pay him, which really isn't that much money when you consider, I mean, it's 25% more. You might pay a 25% luxury tax in order to secure the guy that you want. So, like, I don't know what this means for DeMond Williams, but he certainly will be on the field playing for somebody else next year. I did ask around and because I wanted to know if you do pay, because like, if you pay

somebody's buyout, does that count against your rev share money, which is supposed to be capped, but we know it isn't really. But theoretically it is. And what if what if a carburelorship decides they want to pay the buyout? Exactly. Exactly. Now, the IRS views it all as revenue, because that's, we've seen it with coaches. Like, schools have had to create different ways to structure the way they pay their coaches because when they when they pay their buyouts to the old school the IRS just views that as income so if you if the guy had a five million dollar buyout at the old school and you hired him and he makes seven million dollars a year he's going to make 12 million dollars in income from you in that first year but he's only going to be taken home

seven of it and he's going to have a tax bill for 12 million based on 12 million and you got to figure out how to how to alleviate that burden same situation here So, but yes, theoretically, you could have somebody else to it. You could have one of your corporate sponsors pay it. You could have anybody pay it if you wanted to. Say me from being stupid, though. I think the salary cap thought process is just dumb because there is revenue directly from the school that is going to be used and allocated properly.

And then the Wild Wild West, which is Fred from Volkswagen, Jeep Grand Cherokee Ford, and then he can pay you wherever you want. That is somewhat, quote, unquote, regulated. They have the College Sports Commission. Now they have NIL Go. But the thing is, if you can attach that to like a big corporation, like a corporate ad deal, something like that, they're pushing it right through.

Right. They're not about to say that that's not legit. So you can find ways to do it. Have they successfully knocked down or struck down a deal that they found to be not of market value yet? Yes, it has happened multiple times. It's happened a bunch of times. And hasn't it been challenged back yet in court? Not efficient.

Not yet. They're putting through a lot more deals than they're knocking down. So there are ways to do it. And that's why you're seeing like Ohio State announced to deal with Leerfield today. These are called MMR Multimedia Rights Companies. That's what these companies are doing. They're helping them generate. deals that can be then diverted to players.

Corporations are shell companies to pay more money. Yeah, I mean, they're not shut. It's the corporation's money and they're paying it, but they would have been paying it to the school anyway as a sponsorship. They're shell companies for Ohio State's purpose, though. It's not that they don't make money. We're not accusing Ohio State of doing anything wrong. Like, I'm just saying all of these schools have corporate sponsors that would have paid them

for corporate sponsorships and they're going to still pay them the same amount of money. It's just some of it's going to be deals for the players. right but there's a lot of wiggle room in that in that outer space of money because when it's a when it's a big corporation the nilgo system is not going to kick that back the the people at deloid are not kicking that back right and then endless ponds it turns into willie wonka's chocolate factory of money at that point if you want to get creative enough yeah yeah there's no there's no real cap and there's not going to be one until they do a collective bargain agreement. And there will not be regulation of what is going on with DeMond Williams right now until they do a collective bargain agreement. That's the thing these schools need to figure out. They need to quit pretending they're not paying them for sports. They need to quit saying we're buying their NIL rights. Just say we're paying them to play football. They are our employees and bargain with them. You may need to set up a unit

like by conference or when you create the Super League just have them be the employer so they're not employed by the schools so you're not dealing with a bunch of different state employment laws but you can do this and you're going to have to

because if you don't want to deal with this anymore you have to do something else and like what I wrote about DeMond Williams why is this different from Xavier Lucas last year Xavier Lucas last year was a freshman who had played at Wisconsin but had not been a regular starter. Everyone knew he was going to be good,

but it was impossible to say how good. And Xavier Lucas's attorney could argue you could find an equal talent with the money you were going to pay him. So you are not particularly damaged. In this particular case, Washington could probably say, we cannot find a talent equal to DeMond Williams

at this point, because there's no spring transfer portal anymore. Sam Levitt's the only person with a similar resume in the portal right now, and God forbid we tamper because we're trying not to tamper, and somebody's tampering with our guy. So Washington, I feel like has a case here, but because of the timing of it, right? Because a $4 million clip, you could find, yeah, a comparable player, but a comparable player at this point in the portal.

Even four days ago, Brendan Sorsby is still in the portal. Josh Hoover was in the portal. Like you had a better chance. There was more supply. But now, like Ty Simpson didn't go in the portal. Ty Simpson went pro. We're going to talk about that in a minute. They just don't have the options there.

So I sympathize with Washington and I feel like they'd have a case if they were admitting they paid him to play football, which they're not. Yeah. And so this is a really in-depth financial discussion and I'm happy to have it. Like I also, before we go to the next segment, Andy, want to tap into the feelings aspect of this too because that's who I am I'm in touch with my feelings players are made into villains in this sport all the time Nico was a villain last year if you leave to I mean Parker Livingstone I can't imagine

what kind of villain he's going to be next year you're going to Texas Oklahoma yeah players leave and in fans have a hard time dealing with that this seems to be a whole another level of villain because of the circle of it. Because he did the contract. All he had to do was not sign the contract. There's another level to this too.

And everyone's talking about it. I know it's uncomfortable. It's a podcast. The timing of which he announced his decision. Yes. Yes. The Washington football. team, a lot of the members were at a funeral or a celebration of life for another Washington

athlete who had passed away. The timing could not have been worse. And people are very upset about that. So I don't know how this is going to play out, but I think it's pretty clear regardless of what happens in court or through the phone or texts on attorneys or however they communicate that this relationship is severed and I can't imagine a fan base resenting that player more than this one will resent tomorrow. Yeah, no, it's going to be Washington going after money. That's what this is going to be.

He's going to play somewhere else in Washington is going to try to go after some money. That's what this is. And will it ever see the inside of a courtroom? Who knows? Probably not. Like that Xavier Lucas case where Wisconsin and their collective sued Miami,

it has a telephone status conference on March 16th, I believe. Like, it's not going to end any times. They're still in discovery. Yeah. He's going to be, like, Xavier Lucas has been long gone. In the NFL by the movie, yeah. Yeah.

So this is not going to go away anytime soon unless they decide to start collectively bargaining with the athletes. When the score act did not get put up for a vote in the house, they should have realized that's it. There's no other way. Start figuring out how to do that because that will allow you to eliminate. situations like this but until you do it you can't lastly have you taken into account or thought because this is how my brain works my brain is permanently on uh bachelor island a marriage

between demand williams and lane kiffin feels feels kind of perfect doesn't it i don't watch comic book movies but it feels like it's like the revenge of the sith or something is the sith bad the sith is bad uh always there are two a master and an apprentice so master and an apprentice per i nailed that right well there you always talk about which coach should lean into the heel villain role my god oh it's lane kiffin there's no question he yeah he just needs to embrace it and swaddle himself in it be the villain all there are times where the fan base that's affected hates the player and the rest of the country's enjoying popping popcorn watching it,

but they're not impacted by it emotionally, and then there's the joy of the other fan base. But sometimes people do things, Lane Kiffin being one and maybe even DeMond Williams being another, where their actions are so egregious that general fans that don't have any dog in the fight of the circumstance end up disliking that person as a result of their behavior, which is a whole other level of like,

if you get like the guys that are on the outside watching the fight to join the fight, that's when things become heated in this sport. So I know I was given strict instructions to not interrupt you and you're trying to wrap up a segment, but I was dying for the last 12 hours to say that. So anyway, your turn. Well, no, now it's Panini's turn. We're going to talk about our friends at Panini America.

Go to Panini America.com. or not net to collect your favorite college and NFL stars. Ari, I have opened up a hobby box of Panini Prism draft picks here. So these are the, we were opening the, the blaster boxes before with the five card packs, 10 card pack here. And we pulled that beautiful Josh Allen on campus card out the last time. So I've got, I've got 10 of these here. I've got Jalen Walker from Georgia. I've got Billy Bowman, Jr. from Oklahoma.

Here's a good one. Rated rookie Andrew Marsh, the freshman Michigan received. Rated prospect now because they have NIL deals. Oh, you're right. I'm so sorry. You're right. They honored the rated rookie of past and made it rated

prospect. But that's bad at a card. I have to look. I believe we are still waiting on Andrew Marsh's decision. in terms of whether he's back at Michigan, but they were feeling pretty good about it, trending positively, according to our site. So, no, I believe he's coming back.

So they feel good about that. Okay. Elijah Badger from Florida. Jalen Milrow. Oh, we got an autograph. One of my favorite players from last year, Kelvin Banks, Jr. Yeah, that's a graphic.

That's an appropriate pickup for you, bud. You're an offensive line guy. Yeah. Prison break, Armari and Hampton. Cam Ward, hype. That's number to 75. Might want to hold on to that one. I think I will.

Another rated prospect, Julian Say, and he had a pretty good first year as a starter. And Savian Williams. That's a hell of a pack there, Ari. Great pack. Great pack, Andy. I've got stacks and stacks and stacks of cards out of that product. Because Panini sent me some boxes.

I bought like five more because I'm obsessed with the college this is i'm going through these i've got i've got them all right here um here's one that's kind of cool uh marcel reed rated prospect oh man nice that's number to 249 that's blue but yeah we're we're still going through it um and Xavier rup watts former motor safety place with Falcons good rookie year yep that's uh that's number to 15 so you know this is my I love this. I sometimes feel like if my life were different, this could be my profession.

I went to a card shop with some other friends last week and those people make pretty good money and they get to be around cards all day. It's my jam. You guys should look into collecting. It's the best intersection between fanhood, collecting, investing, buying and selling. There's a whole world out there.

Check out Panini for it. Panini America.comnet to start your collection today. Let us move to our next megaboard thread. This one started by our friend Austin Price at VolQuest. Yet another reason to subscribe to On3 because you get great team sites like VolQuest that have incredible reporters like Austin. And Austin is as plugged in as anybody who covers Tennessee. And so while all of the DeMond Williams drama was going on last night,

Austin posts this. Now, it was, he posted at 9.58 p.m. Eastern Time. This was not long after Sam Levitt left that LSU, South Carolina, a basketball game. And it is Sam Levitt set to visit Rocky Top starting on Wednesday. Could Sam Levitt be Tennessee's quarterback of the future, well, of next year? That would be a pretty good situation. I mean, I don't know. I'm about as good as analyzing which quarterbacks are going to be elite as anyone else. But my preconceived notion of this year's portal cycle was that Sam Levitt would be the jewel of it. Now, there are some players

that went into it that, you know, are kind of shocking as we just got done talking about for 30 minutes, but still like, I still believe this. If he's healthy and playing well, he's about as good as you can get. And I do like to play the game in my head, Andy, of what could have been on his phone screen during that picture that was circulating? Because like, what if Sam Levitt is actually the reason why this all happened? While on the visit, his people decided he wanted to go to Tennessee, made things a little bit uncomfortable earlier in the day. LSU has decided that maybe he wasn't in the cards for that. I don't know.

Yeah. We know. It's all tuck in our assumption when Kentucky very quickly pivoted and snagged Kenny Menchie, who had previously committed to Nebraska, who was Notre Dame's backup this past year, our assumption was that that was because Kentucky was out of the Sam Levitt sweepstakes. So we'll see. we probably are going to have to wait days, weeks to get all of the information on this about what actually happened last night in terms of timeline.

So Sam Levitt is recovering from foot surgery. He had a Liss-Frank fracture of his right foot. And so he's recovering from that. So there are questions about, you know, when's he going to be ready to play again? He's supposed to be ready for next season, though. And I would say, based on what we've seen from Sam Levitt when he's played, you can feel very confident that if you get Sam Levitt, you're getting a very good quarterback as long as he's healthy.

I wonder how much coming off of a major injury changes the negotiations of your NIL deal. Maybe in some cases it does and maybe some doesn't. I don't know. Depending on how desperate you are to get him, maybe you're more likely to look past that sort of thing. But we also have to acknowledge, too, that if a player gets injured, they're still being compensated. So there is inherent risk involved with people who are not 100,

healthy when you are going down this road again all speculation but if i were kentucky i would pay a lot of money for him if i were tennessee i would pay a lot of money for him i mean like listen i i know that like tennessee didn't have the year that they hoped that they would have but all things considered if you like went back and you told or remember the day after nico iamaliava entered the portal last spring if we would have told you that they would have got joey agelar and hypo and the guys would get eight wins out of that team i think you'd be like that's really good job right like he was in a bad position i wouldn't have been shocked if nico had stayed and that had been their record so it didn't mean that badly no like tennessee picking up a player who's like

a he's more of a truck than a trailer is a pretty good thing to think about if you're a tennessee fan and i know producer river's all jiggled up inside look at him he's smiling you don't even you know he's not actually smiling but i got thumbs up are you happy river pop up here are you happy do you want this i don't know if my mic's working i've had some bad your mic's working let's go okay uh yeah he's been my white well since he announced this a few weeks ago so yeah i well i i planned a recruiting visit for him uh where you take him to stock and barrel for burgers and bourbon he's 21 i think that's fine uh then there's some moonshine mountain cookies waiting for him back at the hotel room if you've not had a moonshine mountain

cookie, get your ass to Knoxville and get one. Those things are unreal. They're about yay thick. I know the podcast listeners are wondering how thick, yay thick is. My fingers are about three years apart. Yeah, I've seen that. I've seen that length quite a bit in my life. But I'm wondering if you've taken me to Knoxville, and I've never even heard of that. So I've been to Knoxville with you twice, and I've never heard of that. Well, I'm going to have to take you there. I'm going to have to take you there. There's a player each year who is termed the cookie monster. and it's usually a DB, and if they get a certain number, well, I think they've done DBs and receivers,

but it has to do with touchdown catches, and there's free cookies involved. Oh, my God, I'm looking at the Google images of this. Are you kidding me? I'm not a sweet guy, but I'm percolating here. Yeah, yeah. So that Scramble Jake's for breakfast, cinnamon roll there. I'm telling you, he's committing.

The man's committing. But we'll find out. I am very curious to see what happens with Sam Levitt, because all of this feels interconnected and I don't feel like we'll know really what's going on until one of these guys, either Sam Levitt or DeMond Williams, chooses a school. Yeah, someone's going to write a really big story about this and it's going to be like the hit of the internet that day. And it might be.

Yeah, probably. Just do a definitive timeline of what happened and what, like, because there's Domino, effect here and I don't know who's Domino knocked over the first one. That started the whole thing. And that's the thing. Like, we're, if you can tell, we're, we're avoiding declarative statements about this right now because I don't think there's any declarative statement to be made yet. Like, it's, there's been this assumption that if you get the first visit in the transfer portal, that that you've got that person, that you're, you're going to get them. But I think everybody's recruitment's different. Yeah. And Sam Levita is on visit three right now. There's a, there's a flip, flips in the portal

are happening. Yes. We talked about a big one yesterday with Kenny Menchie, who again, Sam Levitt had been at Kentucky. He goes to LSU for a visit. Kentucky promptly flips Kenny Minchie away from Nebraska. And so we don't yet know what Domino is the first domino. And that's the intriguing part about all this. Yeah, because the first domino is one who gets all the blame, right? credit blame i mean that i don't know it depends in this environment like who you root for well yeah or also if sam levitt is the first domino then he's fully within his right to be the first domino if damon williams is the first domino that adds to the aura yeah yeah and look i don't i don't want to paint the guy as a villain but oh no it's going to happen anyway the washing he's doing it pretty well himself here andy like you know and it's not

I think there's a difference between villain and bad person. I don't think that anyone's saying he's a bad person, but you are certainly a villain in the sport, for sure. Now, Sam Levitt, again, I think he was the one that most people thought when they heard he was going on the portal, that's the quarterback I want my team to get if you are a quarterback needy team. And we know what can happen if you are a star in Knoxville, if you take Tennessee to places like the college football playoff. Yeah.

You become very popular. So I'm sure he's in the midst of feeling the love as we speak. You know, so we'll see how that works out. And, well, this is interesting. And I wanted to ask you this in the previous segment,

but I think it kind of pertains to this and every other move in the portal. If DeMond Williams has to pay back X number of dollars as a result of this whole thing and the school that he winds up at, lovingly pays it. What does that message send to any player who's very good, who signs any contract with anyone? Like, what's to stop anybody from signing a contract? The school will just pay it.

Yeah, no, no, I think that's exactly what the message it sends. Okay. I don't think they care about this anyway. I don't think their agents care about it. And, like, some of these agents also represent coaches. Some of these agents are at professional agencies. They represent NFL players, too. Don't assume it's somebody's uncle doing these deals.

Yeah. Because if I were a player, though, like in the NFL, you can't do this. And we've explained why. But in this current system, what is to stop another player from accepting and signing a contract for a very lucrative deal and then shopping himself or his agent shopping behind the scenes afterward for a better deal saying, hey, we signed this already. We already have this. It's this bird in the hand. If you want our bird to be in your hand, then pay us. But we already have this.

This isn't a negotiation. You know what's stopping that right now? Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. So again, you want to stop it. You want to regulate it. Negotiate with the players.

If they agree to it, you can have all the rules you want. That's the difference. And so that's why the NFL can have rules and you don't. But you can figure it out. I promise. All right, one more little note out of the SEC. we talked about Florida retaining Jaden Baugh yesterday, the running back that we figured everybody would want

if he hit the portal, he never did. They had another player who did hit the portal. They had an edge rusher named Jaden Woods, who they were very fond of as a freshman this year. Our man, Pete Nacos, predicting that Jaden Woods is returning to Florida. So that's another big one for John Sumral. his retention checklist of Dallas Wilson,

Jaden ball, Jaden Woods, 100%. So that one pretty big. Doodoo. Yeah, one more before we get to our Mulligans, because we do need to talk about the playoff games. There is one tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. One more, though.

This is not a transfer portal move, but is another megaboard thread that was kind of expecting to see. And we saw it today from Bama Online, Ty Simpson, Charlie Potter, Ty Simpson is turning pro. So Ty Simpson, Alabama's quarterback, he's headed the NFL. We were wondering whether he was going to go to the NFL or the portal. I think what this means is Ty Simpson believes that he's probably one of the three or four top quarterbacks in the draft. and we'll see where that lands in. I don't know exactly where that lands in my, I think Fernando Mendoza and Dante Moore,

if he decides to leave, they should feel very confident that they're going to be top 10 picks. I don't know where Ty Simpson will be. I'll be curious to see how he performs in the pre-draft process because he's got some good tape out there where he, like you talk about that first Georgia game, the Vandy game, the Tennessee game, the Missouri game. Like he looked awesome, just, you know, lights out on third and fourth down. not so great the rest, you know, toward the end of the season, but he was banged up. His team couldn't run the ball. So I am very curious to see where he winds up in the draft.

And I'd love to hear, and this is probably one of those combine interviews, Ari, where he explains why he did this instead of either coming back to Alabama or entering the portal where you asked, and I looked it up and didn't pay it off with the DeMond Williams thing, the $4 million, which I think Ty Simpson could have commanded that much. Do you know where you have to be picked to have a higher rookie salary than $4 million? Is it like the top 25? Top 15. Top 15.

Which, if Ty Simpson's going pro, that seems to suggest that this is what he believes is going to happen for him. I mean, I think that he had a really good year. I think it's very easy. I think it's very easy to remember how the team did and then lump those memories in with the player when it's the quarterback. Let's be very clear. Alabama absolutely sucked at running the ball.

Sucked at it. If they had a really good running game, I think he would have been even better. And, you know, I just, you know, we came into the season, starting, wondering whether Ty Simpson would be good enough to get Alabama where it needed to go. I don't look back at this Alabama season and view Ty Simpson as the reason they didn't go further. I view Ty Simpson as the reason they did go further. He would have been the reason they

did go further. He'd been the only reason. Yeah. Yeah. He's the reason they got there, I think. And I think that when you're breaking down the tape as an NFL draft analyst or scout, you're going to like what you see there. And again, we talk about, about this all the time. Not a very heavy draft class. This is certainly somebody I think who will be taken in the first round. I don't know if that's top 15 or back 17, but he's going to be a first round pick. So, and I understand why he would go. And frankly speaking, Alabama has a lot to be excited about him about quarterback. I will point out that Carson Beck declared about this time last year and then decided into the portal instead. So it's not cut and dry, but it did sound

as the deliberations were going on, like the NFL is where Ty Simpson was leaning. Very similar to Jalen Millrow last year, who wanted to go pro. We've talked about this with Quinn Ewers, who could have definitely made more money had he stayed in college, but he wanted to go try to be an NFL quarterback.

He was happy with his career at Texas. Maybe Ty Simpson is happy with what he's done at Alabama. Feels like he's done what he needs to, doesn't want to play for another team in college, and wants to be a pro. And that's fine. That is absolutely fine. All right, Ari.

Crack a medello for this one. Actually, you should crack a medello because you've been awesome at this. You've been picking games in the playoff very, very well. You grab a medello, you stay game day ready all season long. But Ari deserves a medello just to celebrate how great he's been at picking games in the college football playoff. You were 4-0 in the quarters. because you use your mulligan against the spread and you use your mulligan to flip

almost jordan no you had Ole Miss Georgia yeah i laid the points of the Ohio state and then I switched to Miami with more time to think about it yeah yeah and you had a good you had a good first round too so I am excited to see if you are willing to change your mind on any of this I believe we're on we're both on the same size of it but

I also don't know if you know this is a time for you to celebrate with a medello, the official beer of the college football playoff. So when the Fiesta Bowl pops on and you're watching Miami Ole Miss, do it with an ice cold medella. Ari, it's Mulligan time if you want it. I'm curious because you've been so good at this so far.

Are you even willing to entertain the idea of changing? Latest lines, we'll start with Fiesta Bowl. Miami, Ole Miss on Thursday. Ole Miss is a three and a half point dog. You have picked the hurricanes to cover. Are you willing to change your mind on that? I'm not. The reason why I picked Miami was because of their lines of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

And I actually think that Ole Miss is a very trendy pick here. I think a lot of people think Ole Miss is going to win. People watch high-flying offense. They get excited. They think that that team is just. just going to roll over everybody like that's just a very very common viewpoint and i don't think they're going to be able to move the ball as seamlessly as they did against georgia with miami miami's front seven is brutally hard to move the ball against and i'm just going to go with the lines on

this so i don't know these two games i think are very hard i think i could talk myself into any of these four teams not only winning their matchup in this round but winning the national title. And I think you agree with me on this, right? This is a really difficult, my final. And all four of them, maybe not so much Oregon, but three out of the four are newcomers in this whole thing. And it's just exciting. But I'm just going to lean with, you know, kind of how you lean, right? Like good old fashioned football is one in the trenches. And I think that that's how Miami's going to win games. And I think they're going to continue to do that. So I originally picked Miami to cover two. I am actually less confident now

than I was. Because Trinidad's shameless, the more I think about it is magic. Like he's just magic. And in college football, sometimes magic works. Sometimes magic gets you through. And that's been the hardest thing for me is do I flip this pick? Because I do get some points. It's not a lot of points, three and a half points in this game.

But I would get some points if I flip the pick. But the hardest part for me, with that is I have been pretty good pick in Miami all year long. Like my first big gotcha pick of the year was Miami Money Line against Notre Dame. And so the question is, do I buy the Disney story, as you call it, which I think Ole Miss could absolutely make the Disney story come true? Like, Ole Miss could win this game and then go beat whoever they play in the national title game and win the title, this is not saying they can't, but I'm with you again.

I keep coming back to the lines of scrimmage. I wrote a story this week about the most devastating play Miami's been running this college football playoff, which is they run duo out of the pistol. And so far, that was a football guy story. That was a football guy story. I'm so proud because during this show, I got a text from our friend Jeff Schwartz who played at Oregon and then played in the NFL, played offensive line, and knows he's forgotten more about football than I'll ever know. And he's like, I'm so glad you mentioned the receiver blocking when you were talking about Miami running duo, because if you don't have a pass option on it, you've got to dig out the safety with the receiver. And I will say, this is James Brockermier, the center from Miami was the one who put me on this. Malachi Tony and C.J. Daniels are dogs as blockers. Absolute freaking dogs.

Because Brockermeyer is like, okay, watch this play, watch this play. And then that was after the A&M game. There's a play in the Ohio State game where Beck motions C.J. Daniels over. And he ends up lining up kind of right behind the right tackle or maybe behind the tight end on the right side. And then he just fires through the A gap and crushes a linebacker. And it's like, receivers aren't supposed to do that. So it's not just the big guys up front. But by the way, combined weight of Miami's starting offensive line, are 1,645 pounds?

It's a lot of pounds. And they're very athletic at that size. So like Francis Maui, I know, their right tackle is incredibly athletic as a 345 pound dude. So, yeah, I am going to stick with the Miami to cover. I was very close to flipping it because again if you're going to give me points and tread it at Shambliss it's hard to turn down Let's be honest

This could also be a game where we're watching it And it's the beginning of the second quarter We're just like oh shit You know like I mean like if if it's a rolling Sometimes it's rolling I feel like either of the Yeah either one of these games could be that We could completely subvert what we thought

going into the game So we're both staying with Miami for this one Let us move now to the Peach Bowl Oregon and Indiana. Indiana is a three and a half point favorite in this game. They played once this year. Indiana won in Eugene. I just have a hard time picking against Indiana. I don't feel like that's changed for me. It hasn't changed for me, but we'll both probably use them all again because I think

when we initially picked it, it was four. I'll take the three and a half. Yeah, I'll take the lower. And we'll get the half point. But yeah, like this is kind of a feeling situation for me, too, because, like, I actually wrote a column this morning, Andy, that's, I filed a few hours ago. I guess it's probably going to go tomorrow. Just called disappointed in your team, Oregon is the lesson to carry into the offseason. And then I was going through how much Oregon lost after last year. I don't know if you remember this.

I forgot. But Oregon set a school record in most draft picks in a single draft class last year. Do you remember that? I did know that. And, you know, they had, like, Derek Harmon was a first rounder. they had so much quality that they lost and they had to really replace it out of the transfer portal. So that would be your Dylan Thinemann, that would be your Isaiah World, that would be your manual pregnon. Like they've done a really good job of replacing obscene quality with more obscene quality.

But the reason why I bring this up is because last year, Oregon was like the epitome of disappointment. and it probably felt like to a lot of them and at least to the rest of the country that maybe Oregon just isn't at that level with teams like Ohio State no matter what they do. Then they have a record draft class losing 10 guys in one draft.

You named the names. They go in and they get some important pieces on the offensive line defensive backfield and like now they're further along. So part of me too feels like you know maybe this is a lot about knocking on the door like you say and granted Indiana also was in the playoff last year and they had a disappointing end of their season so you can make the case that they're also knocking on the door but there are a lot

this is just two really good teams playing each other are you now the one piece of injury news that is tough is jordan davison organ's freshman back is out it sounds like he broke his collarbone so he's not going to play in this game that that's going to put a lot of pressure on Noah Whittington to carry the load for Oregon. I saw a poster on Twitter throw out, hey, why don't you hand it to Kenyon Sadiq a few times? And I'm for that. I just want to see that. I think that would be fun. I mean, if Alabama can hand the ball off to offensive linemen 12 times a year, then that could happen, right? Kenyon Sadiq would be. I worry because Indiana just suffocates your running game. And if you're used to having two

kind of bell cow backs that you you alternate between it's asking a lot of no waydington so so i mean i think in this game you can make a case for both um the thing that actually is moving me the most is just picturing curt signetti's face and his raised eyebrow and being like you know really pick against that human being uh look at that good really good production from river there um just hard to pick against we have a lot of kurt signetti scowling pictures a lot Yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the point. If you're watching this right now live is me every time I walk by the bathroom, my wife's getting changed.

Butchoo! Yeah. I, listen, I have a really hard time picking against that guy. And it, and it's crazy because that's how. much he's earned everyone's respect. He's coaching against Dan Lannning, the guy everybody loves. Yeah.

Kurtzignetti's like scary. The look on his face, and there it is. There's the look on his face when Kailin DeBore was trying the hide Ty Simpson as the personal protector on the puck team and run

freeze. You know to that if Indiana wins the next two games, he is going to celebrate and smile and laugh and like let loose in a way that we're not anticipating like i'm kind of here for that so we don't know we would see sabin do that when they won yeah i mean i remember talking to nick sabin after they they want remember they beat clemson in that first alabama climson national title game the one in arizona i remember talking to him right after his press conference and he just seemed so happy and and so relieved and i think it was because he thought

maybe that team wasn't one that he believed could go all the way but it had some really good leaders and they did then he went to the locker room and made recruiting calls yeah well I'm sure he was he was back to business like five minutes later

but yeah these guys these guys little cut it loose every once in a while but no Kurtzay night he's going to be all business on Friday night at the Peach Bowl and so is Dan Lanning I love this match up this was a great game the first time around I mean, when Oregon had the pick six, so Brandon Finney Jr., who had two picks and a fumble

recovery in the Orange Bowl, by the way, Brandon Finney Jr. has the pick six to make it 20 to 20, and then Mendoza just marches Indiana down the field, and they score immediately after giving away those seven points. You knew. That's when you knew. You get some swings like that in this game, it's going to be a hell of an entertainment. game yeah seeing some people in the chat saying well we've had bobby night before so we're kind of into this vibe he's not bobby night but i would be kind of cool if like he threw a water bottle onto the field or something after the call was a call or a whole bench i mean yeah if you're a football coach you should throw a bench if a basketball coach threw a chair yeah or just smoke a sig on the

sideline that'd be pretty cool you want to you want to have some transfer portal uh closing the circle Ari? Go ahead. All right. So filling in from last, from something that we talked about yesterday, remember, we talked a lot yesterday about Nebraska losing Kenny Menchie to Kentucky. And what do you do about that? And so they had a list of quarterbacks that they were going to look at.

They went pretty quick. Anthony Calandria, who played at UNLV this past year, formerly at Virginia, has committed to play for Nebraska. He is one of those kind of no, no, no, yes, yes, yes type quarterbacks. He's a lot of fun to watch. If you're his coach, there are times when you might close your eyes and pray. So that's what you have to look forward to, Nebraska fans. It could be fun.

Oh, Sailor Joe just got his Panini, Texas packs. Rip him, bud. Congratulations to Sailor Joe. Good luck. They got the Ohio state ones and the Texas ones now and more coming. So Anthony Calandria, UNLV played for Dan Mullen this past year and Mullen's first year at UNLV. He's going to Nebraska, which means Dan Mullen needs a new quarterback in Vegas.

Who he got, Ari? Do you know who it is? I do. I actually look at my text messages during the show, but I knew who was going to. Sorry, I'm polite enough to not look at my text messages during the show because I'm so locked in locked in on my friends. Go ahead. Oh, yeah, I know who it is.

I know who it is. Yeah, Jackson Arnold. Jackson Arnold, Oklahoma, Auburn, and now UNLV, can Dan Mullen unlock the former five-star quarterback? I have a lot of thoughts about this. One of them is being, he has made a lot of money in his career, and now he's not playing in the power level anymore. Right. But playing for a coach who has produced some really good quarterbacks. Yeah. No, I'm not saying, you know, his career is over, but it just, it is possible in college football right now to be a multi, multi, multi millionaire and never even sniff the NFL, which is wild. It's a weird sport. It's such a strange time in the sport. It's what we talked about with the Ty Simpson thing. Like if you're a quarterback, you better be a top 15 pick or.

you make more money in college yeah just if i had had any uh advice for jackson arnold stay away from the bubble craps machine i think will get you it goes quick yeah just got to some shows at the sphere dude yeah enjoy enjoy that money tomorrow dear andy dear rie we will we're gonna do it live again we're doing it live during the the transfer portal weeks because we need to so andy staples On3 at gmail.com. Ari.wasterman at On3.com. We're coming to you live twice tomorrow. So 3 p.m. Eastern time, the normal showtime.

Also live after the Fiesta Bowl, breaking down the Miami-Elmiss game. One half of the national championship matchup will be set. We'll talk to you twice tomorrow.