Andy & Ari On3 - Washington's Jedd Fisch gears up for the Big Ten | An epic weekend in college hoops

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Today's show is brought to you by PrizePicks, the easiest way to play daily fantasy. All first time users that deposit and use the promo code ANDY will receive a 100% instant deposit match up to $100. If you deposit $100, PrizePicks will give you $100.Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/ANDYSubscribe to On3! ⬇️ youtube.com/on3sports/?sub_confirmati...(0:00-2:33) Intro(2:34-9:12) Friday Night Football on FOX(9:13-14:04) Earlier Signing Date Officially Approved(14:05-41:41) Jedd Fisch Joins(41:42-1:04:07) James Fletcher III joins to discuss March Madness on the horizon, his player of the year(1:04:08-1:04:39) ConclusionNew Washington coach Jedd Fisch joins the show to discuss taking over a team that played for the national title two months ago but only returns two starters. How did Fisch put together a staff that includes former Patriots defensive coordinator Steve Belichick? How weird was it taking over a program that had already signed a recruiting class (while Fisch had signed one at Arizona)? How are the preparations for joining the Big Ten going?On3’s resident bracketologist James Fletcher III visits to preview the final weekend of regular-season play in the power conferences and a weekend of tournament action in the mid-majors. Robbie Avila — AKA Cream Abdul-Jabbar or Larry Nerd — and the Indiana State Sycamores face Missouri State on Friday in the Missouri Valley Conference. On Saturday, Kentucky faces Tennessee, North Carolina faces Duke and Kansas faces Houston in massive power conference regular-season finales.Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and join us LIVE, M-F, 8 am et! https://youtube.com/live/lwFPBSE_wyI

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Happy Friday. We made it through the week, everybody. You may have a spring break coming up. We talked spring break destinations yesterday. My kids have a spring break coming up. I don't because there is no off season. We just keep right on rolling. Jared says, cold brew plus Andy's hot takes equal a great Friday commute. Thank you so much. Yeah. A little coffee. That is the one thing. I was always a coffee person, but the coffee hits different when you're getting ready for a show. And I am just enjoying this morning thing. And I hope a lot of you are too. Now, a lot of our friends watching this show

are going to be watching it delayed because the featured guest today, Washington coach Jed Fish. So we'll have some folks on the West Coast who will be popping in later on demand. And that's great. We love you. Thank you so much for coming.

Hit the like, hit the subscribe, maybe subscribe to the podcast version of it, and it'll pop right into your feed. Actually, we come out on podcasts right in time for your morning commute, just in time, like 6 a.m. Pacific time. So join up. It's free. We've got a little news before we get to Jed Fish, though. We're going to talk to Jed. We're also going to talk to our buddy James Fletcher III on Three's Resident Bracketologist because big final weekend of the regular season in the power conferences in college basketball. We've already got mid-major conference tournaments happening. Arch Madness is happening. Indiana State Sycamores are playing.

Robbie Avila. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Larry Nerd. He's taking the court 1 p.m. on Friday against Missouri State. If you haven't watched this guy yet, he is amazing. He wears the old school rec specs, navy blue shoes, but he looks like Nikola Jokic. He's got the great old school post moves. He's also a silky smooth passer. He looks like if we were out there, if we were 6'10 and had massive basketball skills, it's awesome. Plus, we got the Cameron

Indoor version of the UNC Duke game on Saturday, and we've got Kentucky at Tennessee on Saturday, and we've got Kansas at Houston on Saturday. So huge weekend in college hoops. We'll talk about that. But first, let's talk about how you're going to ease into your college football weekends this fall, because we got news from Fox on Friday that they are going to air a game each Friday night in primetime on Big Fox, not on FS1, not on BTN, Big Fox. And so this will be interesting. It'll be a Big 10, a Big 12, or a Mountain West game. And this is what I've said since the new Big 12 came together. This is the spot for the Big 12. This is where maybe not their best game of the week because their best game of the week

is still going to get pretty prime placement on Saturday. But maybe their second or third best game of the week would be awesome on Friday night because with the new Big 12, especially when you get into conference play in October, November, you're not really going to know what the best game is probably going into the week. There's probably gonna be three or four choices in the big 12 of what will wind up being the best game. So you got a chance of having a complete banger on Friday night that takes all of the sports world's attention. Now, look, some of us are going to be at high school football games on Friday night. I will be one of those people. I will have a kid playing high school football.

So if I'm not on the road for a game, I'm going to be at the high school game. But when I get home, that Fox game is still going to be on. I'll be watching. I bet all the folks who like to gamble on these games will be watching. So, you know, you get a late season Kansas State game, late season Utah game, that's going to be something. Plus, I imagine ESPN is still going to be using

that late Friday window, that 10 p.m. Eastern time Friday window. And there's enough in the Big 12 where you can start some games. You could have games from Provo or from Salt Lake City or from Tucson or from Tempe that start later. So you could have some cool Friday double headers if you're willing to change the channel.

But the reason Fox is doing this is they lost SmackDown, WWE SmackDown, that's going to USA Network. And it's interesting because I had this conversation with my friend Stuart Mandel from The Athletic a few years ago. I remember we were talking about this because he sent me a copy of the weekly TV ratings and not the cable ratings, but the network ratings that have all the scripted shows, your NCISs and all that. And Friday night was amazing because Friday night's always been kind of a ratings graveyard for those guys. But Stuart and I were talking about this, and I've talked to actually some people who work in Hollywood about this too. The cost of scripted shows is so astronomical compared to the cost of live sports. Like we talk about how much these networks pay

to televise these college football games. It's still a bargain compared to making a scripted show and praying people like it and praying it works. So this is a much more cost-effective thing for Fox to do, especially as they lose SmackDown. Like probably the math in the SmackDown decision is, hey, we don't want to overpay for SmackDown, which is expensive when we already own

all these rights to college football. And we could take a game that maybe we wouldn't be able to give enough shine to on a Saturday, or maybe we'd have to put it on FS1 on a Saturday. We're going to put it on Big Fox, give those programs the center stage, and also probably get about the same rating we get as a SmackDown show or definitely better than

a scripted show. So this is much more cost-effective for them. This makes perfect sense. I realize there's some people who are saying, okay, big 12 country, big 10 country, that is an attack on high school football. We're going to have to let that go. Especially like in the big 12, the teams that came from the American, they were already playing on Friday nights. They already kind of crossed the Rubicon on that one. So plus listen, you're at the high school game. There's a timeout it's halftime. You can pop it on your phone now. You can still watch a little bit. So that will be an interesting little wrinkle. And I do think if you're a college football sicko

like me and like all of you guys, it's going to be fun. It's going to be helpful because I loved it back in the day when you'd have some big power conference games on Thursday night. The ACC in October would take over Thursdays. And when the NFL went back to Thursday night, that sort of disappeared. And you'd see the occasional good game on Friday night. Like last year, that Colorado Stanford game, that was a very late Friday night game,

but it was awesome. Like that's one of those where schools that don't normally get the same amount of attention on a Saturday because Saturday's schedule is so loaded. Those schools are going to get a huge bump from a network TV game that goes out to the entire country that is free if you have an antenna. So I'm very curious to see which games get picked, how they pick the games. I'm telling you the big 12 in November, it should be all big 12 in November because you'll have a menu of basically three, four games each week. We're going to go, all of these could be good.

All of these could have some kind of playoff implications. And the teams are so close together in that league. Like you have a really good chance of getting a tight competitive game, maybe one that goes to overtime. And that's the thing. Don't, don't pick the big 10 blowout because you've got a brand name school you want to put on. I think they're going to do that some of the time, but don't do that every time. Please consider the big 12 in those spots because there's a better chance of getting a more competitive game. So I can't wait. Very excited about Friday night football on Fox, because I think that's going to give some schools that don't normally get the shine

a little more shine. And then we'll see what happens. But I think Friday night is going to be the official start of college football weekend now. And if you're out at the bars, if you are, again, coming home from a high school game, you can just crack a beer and really just get settled in for a really good weekend. Because you'll have your Friday night, you'll have your all-day Saturday, and then you can do NFL on Sunday. It's a pretty good weekend. I'm good with that. Something I'm not particularly good with, we discussed yesterday, the National Signing Day date in December has been officially moved now. We talked about it yesterday. Pete Thamel had reported it earlier saying it was going to be

approved. It has now been officially approved. They're moving the first signing day for football to the Wednesday after the final regular season game. So that for this year, that would be December 4th. Now this makes sense if you're going to add a summer signing period, which they still may do, but not for this year. And I understand why they wouldn't do it for this year because the class of 2025 is already pretty deep into its recruiting process. And you don't want to make that big change right now. But this will make the coaching carousel

for this coming season absolutely bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. So just get ready for that. Get ready for that. Struggling coaches will be fired by Halloween. New coaches will be hired on the day of the last regular season game. Like they will come off the field. They will do their interview after the, after the game, there will be a very awkward question about, Hey, are you considering the so-and-so job? And they're going to deflect it. And then like two hours later, there will be a press release that says this person has taken this job. So get ready for that. And then get ready for

that school that just lost its coach to the school that fired its coach. They're not going to have a coach on national signing day. They're just going to say, look, we're going all transfer portal. And it's going to be wild. Jeff Fuller says, Andy, today is teacher in service day at the school I work at. I have your pod on my earbuds in. Thank you. That's right. Helping you get through your work day. That is one of the reasons why we moved this show to mornings because we know you like to goof off at work. We get home at eight o'clock at night. You got stuff going on. Your kid's got stuff going on. Your spouse has stuff going on. But right now, you're at work. You should be being productive,

but instead you're listening to me. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. As someone who spent most of his career as a sports writer, who was writing stories, writing columns that I know were being read on the toilet at various offices throughout America. I understand how this works. I understand how you want to consume your content. So thank you for validating that. And I hope that I am helping you get through your workday because you guys helped me get through mine. And mine is an absolute pleasure, an absolute pleasure. It's also an absolute pleasure to be sponsored by PrizePix. Download that PrizePix app now. First deposit up to a hundred dollars. They will match it. If you use the referral code, Andy prize picks the most fun daily fantasy platform in America. It is so cool. You're playing against

the number. You're not playing as a bunch of sharks, college basketball, NBA, NHL, darts, e-sports, you name it. They got it. If there is competition going on, there's probably a prize pick square for it. And you're picking at least two squares. You can go up to five. The more squares you pick, the higher the potential payout. So let's say you're doing a basketball game. Let's say you're doing the Duke North Carolina basketball game. North Carolina is going to Cameron on Saturday. Armando Baycott, when they set the board, they will set a number of points for Armando Baycott, probably like 12.5 or 13.5. And you say, I think he will score more than that, or I think he will score less than that. It's that simple. That's one square. You throw another square on

there. Maybe you throw two, three more squares on there and off you go. So download the prize picks app, use the referral code Andy, and they will match your first deposit up to $100. Now it is time to talk to a very special guest. You've heard from him on this show in his old job, but this is the first appearance in his new job. So Jed Fish, we saw him resurrect Arizona's program. And then when Kalen DeBoer left Washington for Alabama, Jed headed to Washington. Washington, we know, just played for the national title. That team, though, will look very, very different when Jed officially leads it out of the tunnel

for the first time at Husky Stadium. So how does this work? How did that process work? This is a man who had two hours to decide he wanted to take the job. He will go inside that two hours. He will also discuss hiring Steve Belichick as the defensive coordinator. There's a lot going on in Seattle. A lot has changed since we saw the Huskies play Michigan in the national title game. Here is Jed Fish. And now by the man with the best office view in all of college football, new Washington coach Jed Fish. How are we doing, Jed? I'm doing good, my man. It is beautiful here.

I can tell you that. The views are just incredible. Well, now I know you've probably seen a lot of your office because you take this job and obviously they were just playing the national championship game, but the team you inherit is going to look awfully different from that team. So what have you got to do in terms of figuring out who on this roster can play over the next few months? Yeah, I think we're at, I think 20 of 22 starters are gone, which is pretty incredible. All 11 on offense are gone, and then nine on defense are gone. And so we've got to figure out really who we are as a team. We've got to figure out what we want the program or the team to look like. I think it's so rare that you're looking at a spot where you have five offensive linemen all gone, where you have what arguably could be a first-round quarterback, first-round receiver gone, second- and third-round receivers gone, the whole defensive front gone. So it's spring ball for us.

We're going to push it back. We're going to start in April and play our spring game in May and see, like, how long we could use this amount of time for the weight room, for the two-hour meeting, the, you know, two hours a week of football and just try to get it going a little bit and get to know the kids, use occasional meals and do some things. So we have about 74 scholarship players right now. And then after that, we'll figure out how we can add in in the spring portal. How different is this situation from taking over to Arizona? Arizona, you took over a team that had gone 0-12, but there were returning starters.

There were guys who had played in the program. Is it more of a clean slate here than there, I guess? Yeah. I think the difference is when we got to Arizona in 100 years, they only won 10 games three times. And when we took over Arizona, they were coming off of a nine-touchdown loss against the rival. And we had about 10 or 11 returning starters on that team.

We were trying to figure out who wanted to play football, who wanted to be a part of it. We didn't have a recruiting class. We had no freshmen in that first year. We were kind of trying to figure it all out at once. This time around, we're taking off a team that played in the national championship game, won 14 and one the year before, played in the Alamo Bowl, which we played in Arizona last year,

and trying to figure out exactly, like, what does this team look like? Who are these guys? And, you know, why didn't they play? Because there's a lot of talent out here. They just had an extremely, extremely talented older football team. Michael Penix was in his sixth year of college. A lot of those guys were a part of three head coaching staffs with Chris Peterson, Jimmy Lake, and Coach DeBoer. So it's just a completely different program in that regard. I think Washington in itself has a huge name recognition. One of the few Pac-12 teams

that won a national championship, I think them and USC, and now we're entering into the Big Ten. So now not only are we building a new team with new players, but we're building it in a new conference. So how much of the Big Ten shift is on your mind daily? I mean, you weren't at Washington, but you were at a Pac-12 program. And if you'd stayed at Arizona, you'd be shifting to the Big 12. So you were going to do this one way or the other. But how much of it is trying to familiarize yourself with new opponents that you're going to see every year? Yeah, I mean, every day.

Every day we talk about the Big Ten. Every day we talk about who we're competing with. Some of the games that we have coming up. Rematch against Michigan. Go to Penn State in November. Play a game in New Jersey on the East Coast. Go to Iowa. Kinnick Stadium and be a part of that.

We talk about the fact that we still have USC, we still have Oregon, we still have UCLA. The monster games on the schedule, the Apple Cup still, but playing at week three rather than week 12. So you've got all these games that you have to deal with and handle of opponents that you're not familiar with. And then you have to, on top of that, recognize you're playing in a, you know, when you go to Penn State, which I did when I was at Michigan,

you're going to 105,000 people stadium that are probably all dressed in white. You know, they're probably got the whole whiteout going for that game in November. I would assume it'll be insane. I would guess the national championship rematch here in Seattle, playing some of these games in, you know, neutral game. We're playing against Washington State in the Apple Cup. There's so much to it that it's just a fascinating time to be in college football. And as we know, when you're in the Big Ten, these games are going to be all over television. They're going to be slapped all over the noon,

the three o'clock, the one o'clock, the four o'clock kicks. They'll be everywhere and anywhere. And the fact that we've got this huge opportunity is just incredible. So how different is college football from when you took over at Arizona? Because that's one thing I talked to you about this when you were at Arizona, you know, you came in just as all this stuff was changing. So you kind of came in with a fresh perspective on it, but now you've been in it. How different are things now versus three years ago? Oh, my God. Well, you know, I made the comment that when I got hired at Arizona, NIL didn't come up, Transfer Portal didn't come up, and none of the conversations had anything to do with, let's call it player acquisition outside of recruiting,

and none of the conversations had to do with all of the other factors that have to do with conference realignment and CFP and none of those things were addressed. We were really talking about starting over at Arizona. We were talking about how are we going to build our team with a high school class and that's kind of what our expectation was and then things just started happening quickly in that first year, year and a half. We didn't even make a move on the roster to use the head coach exemption. We didn't. There wasn't one player that we got rid of that was on scholarship this time around. It's completely different. I mean, even to the point of injunctions are coming in on a day-to-day basis of collectives being able to talk to players and player agents.

The idea of the constant conversations regarding how are you going to recruit? Are you going to spend your time focused on a high school recruiting? Which is, I'm a huge believer in I'm not changing that mentality. I just think that the best way to develop a culture is through taking high school kids, recruiting them, getting to know them, getting to know their families, and building the program with them. But understanding that now there's this supreme sense of urgency of when now, and you can't just pass up on great players. So you have that combination of both going.

It's a constant change and it's a totally different group of teams that we're playing with that when you're a university of Washington in the PAC 12, you can get in on every single player on the West coast. You're now university of Washington in the big 10, you know, I have to, you have to resell your brand. You have to make sure people recognize what Washington football is outside of California, Hawaii, Washington, let's call it the Vegas area, and Arizona. We got to sell this Washington brand nationwide now if we're going to play four games on the East Coast. So in Arizona, the cornerstone of what made your team so successful last year is that 2022 class, the first class you signed when you had a full cycle.

And like you said, high school kids that you developed. How do you strike that balance now? How do you make those decisions? Because I talked to Lane Kiffin about this the other day, and he was talking about how much more critical evaluation is. And it's not like you have two decisions. It used to be your decision was, do I offer this person a scholarship or do I not offer this person a scholarship? Now it's like, do I offer this person a scholarship or where do they slot in on all of this like how can I get two good years out of them if I take them as a transfer like how do you strike the balance yeah I mean I think it's it was a very different time in 2022 which was way back to two years ago yeah but you know one of the things that what we did

is at the same time we brought in noah fafita we brought in jayden delora through the transfer portal the same time we brought in uh tetra mcmillan we brought in jacob cowan through the transfer portal the the same time we were you know talking to Mike Wiley about not transferring was the same time we were signing Jonah Coleman. The same time Jordan Morgan was developing, we were bringing in Jonah Sevanea. The same time that so, you know, even and you keep going down the list, Tanner McLaughlin as a transfer, Kian Burnett as a freshman. So while we were developing or while we were building our freshman class, we were bringing in what I would consider top notch players for our junior and senior class. And the idea was going to be that while that wall or freshmen were going to move the program to a spot where we always dreamt of it being, which ended up being a 10-win season last year, the people that came in the portal were going to allow that to occur.

I didn't think we'd win 10 without winning five the year before. I didn't think we could win five the year before without having really elite transfers come in. And that's kind of how it all balanced itself out. I think we have to do the same thing here. We have to make this class of 25 elite, elite. We have to go as big as we can go, sign 28 players from the freshman class, do everything we possibly can and plug areas of need with transfers and see where, you know, where that all falls. And I think that is kind of how our program is going to get built. And that's

how you could have sustained success. So your staff's a mix of guys with college and NFL experience. Steve Belichick is your defensive coordinator. We last saw him on the Patriots sideline. Obviously we know who his dad is, but he's been in the NFL. He's never had to recruit. I heard him talking on Chris Long's podcast about FaceTime a high school kid for the first time. What's that like when you get these guys in who've been in the NFL and you're like, okay, so this is NIL, but we need them to sign an NLI.

How much of that do you have to get out of the way first? Steve's great. Steve's like, what acronym is this again now? What is this acronym you guys are talking about? We have an academic meeting going on. But first of all, you've got to be a great football coach. That's the number one prerequisite for us hiring a coach at Washington. You better be a good coach.

You better have shown your ability to make players better and develop players. That's why hiring Steve was a coup in some regard and a huge win for our program and others. He called the defense for four years at the Patriots. In those four years, it was the number one total defense over a four-year span. Yes, he's coached in the NFL 12 years. Prior to that, he was a college student at Rutgers

as a long snapper for Greg Sciano. And what I think we got from Steve is we've got this ability to be able to put a system in that we know is going to work and then recruiting is not difficult recruiting just takes time and if you have guys that really work hard and are committed to working hard anybody can recruit it's just a want you to work hard. Vinny Sinceri, you know, I brought in Vinny Sinceri as well from the NFL, but Vinny's dad is one of the most well-known. Sal. Yeah.

He's one of the most well-known college coaches there is. So Vinny grew up in it. Vinny saw his dad recruit with maps and pay phones and now to cell phones and now to laptops to iPads, to text messaging. So I wasn't worried at all in that regard, but I wanted great ball coaches.

And then we brought in Robert Bala from Alabama, and he was a linebacker coach for Nick Saban. So I felt very confident that he understood that. But, again, it was from the West Coast, from Oceanside. And then everyone else I brought I coached with at Arizona. They were on our staff for three years each. So we brought 21 staff members from Arizona and came and joined our program here. And we really built it the way we wanted it. Now, especially because so much recruiting is done through the portal, does that also change

what you are looking for in a recruiter because i would think the the nfl experience that this is how we can prepare you for the league piece of it becomes very important to those transfers especially whereas you still need the guys who know all of the high school coaches who know all of the trainers in an area who can call hey i i got a i got a kid as a freshman in high. Who's going to be amazing in three years. Like you need both of those things now. Yeah, you do. Um, I don't know one trainer and I don't know one seven on seven coach. And I don't really, I've never been able to really recruit that way myself because I felt like I've been, when you go back and forth from the NFL to college, you don't really build those same relationships.

So it's critical that certain coaches on our staff have great ties and have only coached in college football. John Richardson, Kevin Cummings, Jason Cafusi, Jimmy Doherty, those guys, Jordan Pau-Pau, those five guys have only coached in college ball and they know everybody. Um, and they know really what it looks like. And I always lean on them of like, Hey, where do you see this guy, you know, developing into in year two, year three, Matt Doherty, our director of player personnel, Josh Moore, a more our director of recruiting. Those two guys know exactly what we want. They've been with me for Matt over seven years, Josh, three years going on four and they know exactly what we want our program to look like. But then with those five, then you've got Brennan Carroll, Steve Belichick, Vinny Sinceri, Scotty Graham, and myself that have all coached in the NFL.

Robert Bala I mentioned earlier, and he would be our sixth, but the other five of us have all coached in the NFL. Robert Ball, I mentioned earlier, and he would be our six, but the other five of us have all coached in the NFL. And our experiences are more along the lines of, okay, what does a player personnel department look like? What does a director of pro scouting do? What does a director of college scouting do? How do we correlate those jobs to our program? And then how do we make sure that we're making wise decisions on you know measurables uh really we talk about how does this guy help our team today Bill Parcells used to always say don't bring in a free agent that gets um that's your highest paid player because you have a split locker room right away so you got to be very aware of that as you're

bringing in transfers uh our goal is not to have a split locker room. Our goal is to build a great locker room with a mix of college and pro players. I was going to say, how much does having that experience help deal with all this new stuff, which is not new stuff to people in the NFL? Yeah, I mean, for us, one of the things that I've said is that we don't have to sell them on the NFL. We tell them about the NFL because combined, we're over 80 years of NFL experience. When you bring in guys that have all been raised in the league, even our defensive graduate assistant, it's John Lynch's son who played at stanford so he's been raised

in the league he's been raised in not just being having a dad as a player but then also as an evaluator um when you have luke del rio who's moved around and been with his dad who's been a long time nfl head coach and coordinator yeah you're just a gator stacking gators there like that we we know how that is that that is true um and you do that and you bring those guys in they know what it looks like and they can have those conversations with the kids and they could say hey this is how we do it this is what the program is going to look like this is how it's going to work and uh we can tell you that when you sit in the draft room this is what what they're looking for, and this is what they want.

And you can either hear someone tell you that from what they've been told before, or you can tell them that because you lived through it. And we hope that the latter is what people want to listen to. One of your quarterbacks, Will Rogers, started four years at Mississippi State, had come to play for kalen went looked around he's he's back with you it's interesting because you played him the last two years so i imagine you got a pretty good level of familiarity with him no doubt as an sec homer like yourself you definitely have a much better familiarity than i do with, but we did play. We played against them twice.

We played better the second time than we did the first time. Obviously, it was two different staffs when he was with Coach Leach. He had incredible production. I think he has close to 1,900 attempts, 12,000 yards. He started a ton of football games. It was really important that we brought in a veteran quarterback because we also brought in DeMond Williams. And DeMond Williams was committed to us at Arizona. And this kid is elite, elite, elite, elite talent. He's got everything that you want in a player from a GPA. I said your GPA and your

40 time is about the same. It's unbelievable. He's special in a lot of ways. To have Will help mentor DeMond through this process is going to be enormous. We were able to hold on to Marmar, who was committed to Coach DeBoer's staff and was a true freshman when he walked in the door in January. So we got a nice little quarterback room going,

but Will's going to be a huge part of what we're trying to get accomplished, and I saw it right in front of me. So this is, all about this is, because I realize, like you signed a class at Arizona before you wind up leaving that they signed a class at Washington before they left. How is, how strange is that to walk into? You've got a full class here. You're not, you're not even trying to scramble to recruit a class. Yeah. It's really, really different. Um. But nowadays, you know, they can get out of their, their, what is it? NLI or NIL? NLIs.

NLI, yeah. NLIs and came to us. I think about 10 guys or eight guys that signed with Washington got out of their NLIs and went elsewhere. I know probably four or five of them went to Bama and then a few others went to some other programs. It's just the world we're living in right now. So often these players are committing to the coaching staff, and there's just not enough time in a short period of time to regrow their trust or build their trust so quickly. A lot of times you recruited the same players, and they chose a staff or a head coach or a program over another program,

and then all of a sudden their guy's not there anymore. So now they're just going to go with them. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I never fought any player that came to me and said they wanted to go in the portal or that they were going to go to Alabama or they were going to transfer there. I get it. I encourage it in some regard that they needed to feel comfortable in their college career. Otherwise they'll want to transfer in April.

So the sooner the better is what I was saying to them. Yeah. And you get the guys who want to be with you and guys you've ID'd that you want. I did hear you say something about that during the job change, which just fascinated me because I'm always amazed about how little face-to-face time and how little time elapses in these coaching searches, which are for huge jobs, CEO jobs that, you know, you're, you've got huge staffs, tons of money involved. You got two hours to decide if you were taking this job. What are those two hours like? Well, stressful in a lot of ways, uh, you almost, you, you, you start fighting with

yourself of saying, is it easier to say no? Is it easier not to move? Is it easier to just go with, okay, I'm comfortable and, you know, almost take the easy way out in a lot of ways. And then you start realizing all of the potential and the upside. And as I like to say, I'm going to work just as hard wherever at that job versus this job. So if I'm going to work just as hard, why would I not want to put myself in a position where we can be at a different level for the years to come? That we'll be able to have certain resources through the Big Ten multimedia rights. We'll have a certain schedule that, you know, is just hard to compete with when you're playing all of these elite teams and elite programs week in and week out. And it was really hard. It's emotional. You try to, you make a lot of decisions based on,

you got to fight your brain with your heart in a lot of ways. And then in the end, you just make a decision and your wife and kids are on board with it. And, or if they're not on board with it, you can't make the decision and then you got to go and they don't let you you know i've said it numerous times they just don't let you spend a lot of time talking about the why or the what or the who and you just got to do it we're very happy i hadn't thought about that so i heard you talking about that with with my pal ari wasserman like they they won't let you do that because they think it might be tampering which i had never thought about but i guess it makes sense but it sounds awful it is awful it is awful i mean every time i get a text from a former player i just have i write back the ncaa

does not allow me to talk to you so that's really that's a real nice thing to do um yet in the nfl you could be sitting there talking you know you could be on one team and you could talk to another quarterback or another guy that you coached and no one's wondering if you're tampering or not. I mean, there are some personal elements to this job that, you know, but it is what it is. It's the job that they've decided. It's what they've claimed that is a way to avoid tampering. And I guess they would say that I would stand up there in the room

and I don't know how long you talk anyway. I saw Coach Saban in the article I read yesterday said that he had a six minute team meeting to talk about his retirement. And he wasn't leaving for another school, yeah. Yeah, I mean, our meeting, I guess went four or five minutes. I don't know, something like that.

What else is there to say i i had to change jobs last year i don't remember any of the conversations with my bosses lasting more than four or five minutes initially because i don't know what else i don't know what else there is to say um i think you start putting yourself in a bad position or a weird position if you talk too much and um i mean the situation was what it was. And then we had to move on and we had to start building our program in Seattle in the exact same manner

that we built our program in Arizona. And that was a people first program. And you've got a lot of room to where, I mean, it's basically a clean sheet right now. So I imagine that's pretty exciting 46 scholarship athletes when I got here 46 so we were 39 scholarships short of the minimum right or of the maximum so we are now currently I think at 70 so okay uh're, we're building up, we're building up to the right number, but we, we have a lot of spots available come April.

For those who might want to enter the spring transfer portal that, you know, it's a lovely view in Seattle. It's a pretty good football. Yeah, no, it will. And they did just play for the national championship. There is that too. So, well, Jed, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And, uh, and good luck with, uh, with the team on the field in April and then, uh, with, with all the recruiting after April. Thanks. I appreciate it, buddy. Good talking to you man that is jed fish your new head coach of the washington huskies and that two-hour thing is is it doesn't surprise me because they move so fast in these searches but i did a story years ago where i talked to athletic directors and coaches about what that

period is like the the in-person interview, if you even do one. In a lot of cases, they don't do them anymore, but they still do sometimes. And you only get a couple hours with the person and you're deciding if they're going to take this massive job that is a huge CEO job with tons of employees and pays seven figures. And I just can't, I remember when I interviewed for a job covering high schools in the farthest flung bureau of the Tampa Tribune that paid $35,000 and my interview lasted nine hours. And the person who competed with me for that job actually got to stay overnight, which is why I was surprised that I got the job. But it's for35,000 a year covering high school sports job, you get like, oh, 10 times the exposure that you do for this seven-figure CEO job.

And it's pretty amazing how all that works. But yeah, two hours. Decide now. One man who asked to make some decisions here coming off the weekend, our resident bracketologist, James Fletcher III. James, we got some games this weekend that could impact that number one seed line. You predicted after last weekend that Tennessee was going to jump to the number one seed line. They certainly helped themselves by beating South Carolina the other night,

but they get Kentucky. So they can either solidify or have a little, you know, give Arizona some hope, but let's talk number one seed line in terms of Tennessee versus Arizona. And also UConn versus Purdue. Who's the number one overall seed. Yeah. I think right now produce still holds that edge, but as I said,

in our updated bracketology, which released late last night, early this morning, depending on where you live, UConn has closed the gap. That win against Marquette really did close that gap back together. And I think that it's neck and neck between Purdue and UConn at this point. I think for those two teams, as long as we wrap up the regular season with a win for both of them, which I would expect based on who they're playing, I think that once we get into the Big Ten and the Big East tournament, it might come down to who goes the furthest in those conference tournaments for who gets the number one overall seed. Can UConn win the Big East while Purdue slips up? Can Purdue win the Big Ten and see UConn slip up against somebody there in their conference?

So it's getting real close between those two. It might ultimately come down to what route do you face on the way to your conference championship if both of them are able to run the table before Selection Sunday. But down at the bottom of the one line, you've got Tennessee and Arizona. Tennessee did cement their spot on the one line against South Carolina. That was good to see from them because they also secured the SEC regular season title, which was a big point of focus for them late in this regular season. Now for them, it's about run through that SEC tournament, make sure you don't take any bad losses.

They really need to win the SEC tournament to remove all doubt of who the last number one seed will be, because Arizona does still have enough of a path through the Pac-12. We saw them survive this week as well, pick up a win. So for both of those teams, it's very important to run the table in order to secure that final one seed and host that West regional. So here's my thing on this. Does it, I know you want to be the one seed because you want to play a 16 in the first game, but I mean, for Tennessee, especially this particular year, like I'm looking at the tournament sites and I'm looking specifically at second weekend sites, because that's where it matters if you're the one seed, because the pod system allows that Tennessee will go somewhere

close as a, as a top four seed in the first two rounds. So we're not worried about that. But if you're Tennessee, do you care one way or the other? Or would you even prefer to be a two to stay closer to home? Because you're going to LA if you get the one, probably because there's no other West Coast teams in that mix. Although it's Boston, Detroit, or Dallas, which aren't really close either. So does it even matter? Right. I don't think that there is some home run location. If you're Tennessee in that second weekend, there is no Charlotte, which is of course a first weekend, even Memphis within their own state. There's nothing really even in the Southeast for them to point to and want that regional. So I think if you're them,

you really are focused on where will our fans travel during March Madness? That's the super regional that you want to end up in. So LA, not a bad option. It's very easy access. You usually can get a flight into LA. It's a huge airport. So you know that there's going to be a lot to do there. Your fan base is going to feel like it's an event.

If they're able to travel to Los Angeles for a game, whereas maybe Detroit, perhaps they don't view it quite in that same way. Maybe there's not Delta hub, lovely airport, lovely airport. And so I think that Dallas obviously would be a big one because Dallas, there's a little more familiarity with that Southeast as it relates to Dallas.

Bad memories there, James. They lost to Loyola Chicago in Dallas last night, and they played there in the tourney. Yeah, but maybe they avenged it. Who knows? Whatever the case, I don't think that there's anywhere in these regions that you look at and say that place is undoubtedly better for Tennessee to go to, whether it's from a fan participation standpoint or from a regional light,

like the travel is just so much easier to do there. Yeah. We've got a few days to prepare for these games in the NCAA tournament. You're able to travel out early if you need to, get back. You've got a few days between that Sunday and that next Thursday when you're going to start preparing again for the next round of games. So I really don't think that the regions are going to be a big deal for Tennessee, although they will in that first weekend.

They're likely going to end up in Charlotte, which could definitely be an advantage, that one right down the road from them in East Tennessee. Yeah, one of the teams that could be with them in Charlotte is North Carolina in a different pod. They are going to Cameron Indoor this weekend. Everybody loves this game. I love the Duke-North Carolina rivalry.

I especially love the game at Cameron because of the setting, the student section, everything. How do you handicap this one? I think handicapping is basically impossible. I mean, this rivalry goes beyond what players are on the floor and what the history of the season has been. These two teams, when they get together, it is going to be an absolute war. And we've seen that time and time again. One team is maybe having a down year. Just a couple years ago, we talked about that North Carolina team that made the run through the NCAA tournament.

They were having a down season. All of a sudden, they start playing Duke, and wow, they look like a Final Four team. So there is so much to this rivalry that brings it together, that makes it unique. And so when the teams are this close on paper already, I think it's just about impossible to pick out who's going to win. You'd give Duke the slight advantage just because they're at Cameron. Like you said, they've got home court, but these North Carolina players, a lot of them have been there for a while now. They know what it's like to play at Duke,

and so they're not going to be caught off guard by that arena and that atmosphere. So we have a live question from our friend Nathan. He usually asks questions on the Deer Anity episodes. Nathan's a Nebraska fan. Is Nebraska ball in? They are currently in the field. That bracketology that I referenced just out right now, you can find it on on three's front page. They are in as a nine seed currently. So they've, they've kind of bumped themselves up into that, that next little category, a little

bit of breathing room as they head into the post season. So no room to slip up against any bad teams, but I think that Nebraska is really getting close to dancing in March and having a fun little run here for their fan base. So speaking of bubble, we saw Florida Atlantic make a run to the Final Four last year. They're sitting there, I think their net ranking is 37 right now, which would put them kind of at the very back of the at-larges. Are the Owls going to make it or do they need to win the American Conference Tournament? I think they still are in good position to make it despite being in that nine or 10 seed conversation as we speak today, because they've got a game against Memphis to wrap up the regular season. Now that Memphis team, not what we thought

they were at one point this season, but now they look much better. And so that one will be dangerous for the Owls in that the computers aren't going to treat that game the way that they would have a couple months ago if you lose to Memphis at home down there. So it's going to be a struggle for them. I think that's going to be a really good game. I think it'll be almost reminiscent of, if we can remember on the final day of the regular season, Houston and Memphis kind of became a thing for a few years before they bolted for the big 12. Two teams just got up for each other. You could tell that all season, the focus was on that final game of the season where they could really make a statement to the selection committee as the two best teams in the AAC.

So I think we're going to see that kind of focus from these two teams coming into that final matchup of the regular season. And then once we get into the American tournament, I think for FAU, the key to staying in the field, because they've got a little bit of, I don't want to call it cushion, but that last four in, they're still ahead of that. They're in the last four buys as we stand today. So say you drop that last regular season game, there's still a way to keep your spot in the NCAA tournament field without winning the conference tournament. But the way you're going to do that is to probably make a run to the championship game, which means you've got to probably beat either a Memphis,

a North Texas, the South Florida team, which has done so well in conference play. You're going to have to beat somebody who's got a good basketball team along that path and pick up another quad two probably win in that conference tournament. Yeah, you think USF and FAU are the two from the American that would get in if it's a two-bid league? That Memphis team, they've turned it around. We saw them fall apart, and everyone kind of rolled their eyes. Well, what is this team now? Are they that sample size that we saw at the beginning of the year where they were incredible, but then some of those teams that they beat

kind of fell off, the resume didn't look as good as it once did. Or were they team that team in the middle of the season that dropped a quad four game against rice. It was impossible to figure out what that team was. Well, now they're stringing together wins. They beat FAU in Memphis. And so I think Penny Hardaway's team from a talent perspective,

they are right there with FAU as the most talented team in the American so I'm not going to rule them out of that conference tournament title but I think that they've really run short on rope to get an at-large bid they'd be relying on a lot of teams to slip up around them and they'd have to pick up that FAU win and of course make a run probably to the championship game anyways so might as as well try to get that last game. You've hearkened back to the glory days of American Conference basketball. I mean, last year, back when Memphis and Houston were slugging it out.

Houston now in the Big 12, they finish their regular season against a plucky little program called Kansas. Kansas beat them pretty badly at Fog Allen, but Houston gets Kansas in Houston at the Fertitta Center. This is a chance I would assume for Houston just solidify itself on the one line. Yeah, Houston should be safe on the one line. As of now, they've kind of separated their resume enough

that those top three teams, Purdue, UConn, and Houston, with what they've got left on the schedule, they are one seeds. We can stop really with the top three seed conversation. We know who they're going to be. It's just what order they're going to finish in and which regions they're going to be able to host. So when we talk about Houston, what this game against Kansas can do, I think the biggest thing is that it validates everything

that they've been able to do. Houston has gone through this regular season, really just kind of run away with that Big 12 title in the regular season. They look like the same Houston team that we saw in the American. And a lot of people question, will the way that they play in the American translate to the same success in the Big 12? Because they're playing better teams each week, each day. They're going up against, as we talked about, that Saturday to Monday jump that you have to make.

You're playing a top 10 team on Saturday, then a top 15 team on Monday on the road. It's so difficult. How would they cope with that? And they've done exactly what they've done every season for the past, what, four or five years under Kelvin Sampson. They just keep picking up wins and they're going to play their brand of basketball. This isn't a situation where they recruited a new type of player because they knew they were going to have to compete with big 12 teams. No, they said, we're sticking with what we do. We're going to recruit guys out of the transfer portal because this is not a team that returns all of their talent. They lost Marcus Sasser.

They lost a top draft pick from last year. So they have really done a really nice job at keeping their identity and being really secure. And it's great to have Kelvin Sampson, a veteran head coach who's been around the block. He's coached just about everywhere. He knew what he does was going to work no matter where they took it. So he doubled down on it. And this game against Kansas,

I think if they're able to win it, would just be a victory lap on everything they've accomplished throughout the regular season. Now we got mid-major conference tournaments going on right now. This afternoon, 1 p.m. Eastern time. This is on ESPN plus. So we're still not to linear television yet for our man, Robbie Avila, who is the post dude for the Indiana State Sycamores.

Maybe the biggest Indiana State player since Larry Bird? Am I wrong? I mean, I'm not sure if there's, that's probably true in terms of at least celebrity status. Yeah, I think that he has kind of brought that team forward into this conversation as the centerpiece for a really good mid-major program. So I think, yeah, you can put him in there and we'll see how he performs in March. But we could be talking about a guy

who gets into that conversation with a Doug McDermott, guys like that who kind of are synonymous with the program that they play. Yeah. So what is your favorite nickname? We've got our guy, Matt Jones called him Cream Abdul-Jabbar. Larry Nerd is one that's been out there. Steph Blurry. What's your favorite? All right. I hadn't heard that last one yet. That one, that one been out there. Steph Blurry. What's your favorite?

I hadn't heard that last one yet. That one really got me. Steph Blurry. I think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has to be the one just because it fits what he does. He's a big man out on the court. He's making the reads.

I've seen people try to play around with comparing him to Jokic, but I haven't seen a nickname that's as good as those three. Right. The game is probably more similar to Jokic because he does have some back-to-the-basket post moves a la Kareem, but it's more of run the offense through him, allow him to facilitate. He sees the floor so well, and, and, and the game is, is like,

it comes very naturally to him. Like his basketball IQ is off the charts. And so that's where the Jokic comparisons make a lot of sense. If I think the Kareem ones would make more sense if this were a different era and you just had the six, 10 guy back at somebody down and hitting the sky hook. Yeah. If he hits a sky hook in March madness,

we might just break all of the TV records and all of the social media views. We will get millions and millions of views if he's able to hit one of those. Yep, and here's how the TV part works for him if you want to watch him in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. So they're on CBS Sports Network.

If they win today, they'll be on CBS Sports Network Saturday. If they make the final of the tournament, they'll be on CBS. So we'll actually get a chance to see him on our cable systems or on network TV. And I think he's the one. There's some other ones in the mid-major group that people are going to fall in love with, but he's the one the whole country would fall in love with. When Ja Morant was playing for Murray State, you knew if Ja Morant got in the tournament, he was going to blow it.

Now, they lost the one game they played, right? He blew up, but they ended up losing the first game. But it was like, oh my God, look at this guy. Yeah, I think they got, because he was there two years, I think they got one win. Yeah, they did. That's right. They did get one win in advance his sophomore year. Yeah. Yeah. But I agree with you that it's always good for the sport to have these mid-major guys who become a storyline throughout March because it brings in this whole extra set of eyes. The diehard college basketball fans, they're going to watch all of these big games.

The NBA fans will be flooding in. They want to watch all of these big games. The NBA fans will be flooding in. They want to watch all the draft prospects. But you're going to have plenty of people who are just around the house, who are at a party with everyone else because they don't want to feel left out. And they're going to be watching these games, looking out on the TV and saying, who's the guy I can root for? And John Morant had a little bit of that in that he was a guy who nobody recruited. Nobody really believed in. He was small. He was skinny. You could kind of picture yourself if you were a

14, 15 year old, who's just starting to starting to bulk up. You can kind of look at him and be like, well, that's what I look like. I could do this someday. Now coming forward to Robbie Avila and it's anyone who's sitting on their couch can picture being Robbie Avila standing out there and convince themselves that I can do that. I could be this basketball player starring for Indiana state and the whole country behind me, tweeting my name, giving me nicknames, laughing and joking about how great I am. It's great to have basketball stars and athletes in general who we can relate with that we can feel like sitting on the couch we could do that because then we go out there to the backyard we try to do it and we realize oh wow maybe he is extremely talented and doing things that i could never do

yes he is also 6'10 he also can see 90 degrees in either direction and like knows when somebody's you know popping open on a backdoor cut and can hit them with a perfect pat like you can't do that but that's all right James who is your your player of the year if the season ended today like who you giving the Naismith award to uh Zach Eadie I know that there's been kind of this push for Dalton Connect and I've loved everything he's been able to do in the SEC. I think he's the SEC player of the year at this point. But for Zach Eadie to come back to college basketball and to improve from what he did last year, he's the reigning national player of the year, and he has been a better basketball player this year than he was the last year. So that goes in from a scoring perspective. He's looked like a much more well-rounded basketball player. From a rebounding perspective, you see him starting to understand the game at a little bit higher level. Defensively, he's moving his feet a little bit better than he has in the past. We've seen him, his conditioning level, get better

and better. And these are little improvements around the margins for a guy who, like I said, was already the best player in the country last season. But for him to come back, show improvement. And I think the biggest kind of support that you're going to see for Zach Eadie being the player of the year for a second consecutive year is the fact that there are mock drafters out there who have him now in the lottery. We're talking about a guy who was not even considering the NBA draft last year in any meaningful way because there wasn't a whole lot of interest to a guy who this year, because of a larger sample size, and like I said, all those improvements on the margins that these teams are seeing are now considering him as a

potential starter long-term in the NBA at his size and with his ability to impact things on offense and defense. Well, and he's also a great athlete. If we, you know, you go back to his history, played hockey, played baseball growing up, like there's more to Zach Eadie than just being seven, four. Unfortunately, the way college basketball works, them getting beat by Fairleigh Dickinson becomes the whole story. So they need to do what Virginia did after they lost to UMBC, come back and have the big run. Now, Virginia won the national title.

Maybe Purdue can do that. But you at least have to have a deep run into the Elite Eight or the Final Four. So hopefully Purdue can shake that monkey off the back because you don't want to wear that for your whole life. Yeah, and I was somebody who was a little bit hesitant on Purdue early on in the season wondering, can they translate this to postseason success? Because last year we saw them be a 1C. We know how good they are against the Big Ten when they run through that non-conference schedule. But what's it going to look like

when a team that plays a unique style goes head-to-head against them and can just throw everything at Zach Eady? Well, I think that they've answered that question in a lot of ways. They still have to answer the ultimate question. They have to take the test. But in the practice tests, what we've seen is that they've got a few more things that

are on their side than they had last year. I think Braden Smith is going to be huge for this Purdue team when we get to the tournament. Because what was last year, a freshman guard who was trying to run the offense, maybe you could fluster him when you threw doubles at him, when you just took away Zach Eady completely in the post, when you just swarmed him and made the freshman guard make a decision. That's just not going to work the same way that it worked last year if you try it again this year. Braden Smith has turned into one of the best point guards

in all of college basketball and shown that his decision-making, that his composure is on a whole other level alongside the improvement that we've seen from Zach Eady. And so I think that could be a real difference maker when we see them get into these high pressure situations. All right. Well, James, I appreciate it. We got lots of big mid-major tournament action this weekend. We got the end of the regular season in the Power Conference, but Power Conference tournaments next weekend. And then Selection Sunday is a scant nine days away.

Thank you so much. Yeah, appreciate it. We will have an automatic bid on Saturday. That'll be the first one. That's right. We can congratulate some people on their induction in the NCAA tournament on Monday. Thank you, James.

Yeah, thank you. Speaking of Monday's show, we got a big, big guest for you. Huge guest for you. Oklahoma coach Brent Venables will join us on Monday's show. That's a more fun guest for the rest of the week too. So just get ready. Next week is going to be a blast on Andy Staples on three. This one was fun too though. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks so much for liking, subscribing, you name it. We love you. We'll talk to you on Monday.