Andy & Ari On3 - What Jim Nagy BRINGS to Brent Venables' Oklahoma program as general manager

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

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This show is brought to you by Panini America, makers of the most collectible sports cards on the planet. Visit PaniniAmerica.net to start collecting your favorite college NFL stars and Ari, I have a pack of Panini's rookies and stars line here today. We're looking for Optichrome inserts. We're looking for Pandora parallels. Let's see what we get. See, yeah. Oh, that's satisfying. Everyone. These aren't college uniforms.

Yes, these are in the pro uniforms. Unlike the we were doing prison draft picks yesterday in the college uniforms. But we got Kirk Cousins, not a rookie, arguably not a star anymore. Yeah, Christian Kirk. I love this dude at Texas A&M. Absolutely loved him. He's if you've never talked to Christian. I don't know if you ever interviewed him Ari, but he's amazing. He's just he's just fun. I have interviewed him.

There was a big deal when he like left Scottsdale. Remember when those he was in the oh, that's right, right. He's from your hometown. Yeah, he was the same class as like three other five stars in Scottsdale in the same cycle and none of them with the ASU. I remember writing about that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. He looked pissing off the locals. Yeah. Kenneth Walker, the third, the man who got the bag for Mel Tucker, but Mel Tucker couldn't hold it. Dak Prescott. Real Devon Hain. Hey Chan now. Another another A and M kid. We got a rookie rush

Marshon. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. We got a rookie. Another JJ McCarty. I'm I'm getting a lot of JJ McCarthy's lately. Yeah, that's a good person to be getting. Well, here is uh here's one of my favorites who just I I have what this is Tyler Lockett and I have what's called the Tyler Lockett principle and I have what's called the Tyler Lockett Principle, and I'm applying it to TMAC in this year's draft. The Tyler Lockett Principle is when there's one guy and everybody knows that he's your only real

threat and he still puts up massive numbers, draft that guy. Yeah, that's a. That's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, so Tyler Lockett. I was I was dealing with Peter Schrager from the NFL Network. The other day he said we should be the Al-Azhar principle, but I like Tyler Lockett better so. Uh? We got Marshawn,

Neeland and Kool-Aid, McKinstry, Alabama to the New Orleans Saints so. Love ripping packs, love ripping packs. So what? Pretty big nuke. I wanted to show you that I know that you let me see. Let me see that I got From prism pack that I ripped Who's that right there? Is that Who is that? I can't tell I like oh, that's DJ Lagway. Oh, oh, he's wearing the

practice jersey. Okay. That's why I was like, why is he wearing a black jersey? Yeah, yeah. Practice jersey picture, but it's the rated prospect from the, the Panini draft picks product that you're opening. And I ripped a DJ. So like that, we are going to be talking about DJ tomorrow. We talk about your way too early All America team and you had some folks saying that was way way too early. So yeah, well there seems to be this thing and I think that like I am on board with it, but I saw somebody else tweet. I can't remember who that said. Why is DJ lagway getting all the

preseason all-american love and like Lenora Sellers is not getting any and I think we should talk about that. It's a great question. Yeah, it's a great question and DJ Lagway, of course, one of those guys you can pull out of the Panini Prism product. We also got some Prism Hoops Ari as we get closer to tournament. We're going to open some Hoops packs packs that box is a pretty valuable box because Caitlin Clark is one of the hottest selling cards in all like right even Caitlin Clark base cards are being sold for like 20 bucks right now so and

base card we can pull so like that if you have a Caitlin Clark Otto sitting in there you're gonna be in a pretty good position so that'll be a fun thing to pull once we get closer to the tournament. Yeah, we have some cards to sift through here after the show. But it's a fun time and so thankful for Panini for sponsoring us because there's nothing better than having something that you personally love also be a part of our show. So I'm really into it. And the more we talk about it, you guys will know how big of a rabbit hole I'm in. Visit pediniamerica.net, start your collection today. Let's go to the show. Welcome to Annie and Ari on three and Ari, we got to talk about a friend of ours getting a new job. And it's a dear Andy, dear Ari day.

We got a question right out of the shoot about this because our pal, Jim Nagy, who is the he was the executive director of the Senior Bowl, and you've seen him on the show a bunch. If you watch and listen to the show, you know, Jim Nagy, he is the new general manager at Oklahoma. And for those who don't know how this process went down, Oklahoma had contracted with a guy named Jake Rosenberg, who used to work with the Philadelphia Eagles,

who's advising colleges as they try to build their front offices. And so they wound up hiring Jim for this job, which is more of a closer to an NFL general manager job than say what we've been calling the general manager job in college. And that's kind of where things are going right now. And so we got a question from Chad yesterday,

as a Sooner fan, how excited should I be about the Jim Nagy hire? I know he's a great guest on the show, but how do you think he'll do in his role? Give us some hope. And Chad's probably representative of a lot of Oklahoma fans where last year did not go the way they wanted it to. It was a tough first year in the SEC. R, you and I have been over the reasons for it quite a bit. Part of it was that they had horrific injury luck at receiver.

Part of it was they made some tactical errors in recruiting offensive linemen years ago that kind of came home to roost last year. We think by getting John Matier at quarterback, that by that they changed that offensive line strategy a couple of years back, and it seems like it's probably gonna help work itself out We think they're gonna be better, but let's let's talk about I'm gonna warn you

Yep, this might be the whole show man. This is a very very fine Don't you think like it's like it's a very very deep topic. I Agree because it's so interesting Everybody is trying to find an answer for this personnel chief question. And also, like, who do they report to? How big of a role do they have? Like, how much of a say they have? Because in traditional college football, the head coach has complete dominion over personnel. There is no, you know, if he says that's not a take, it's not a take. If he says I want that guy, you're getting that guy. We don't know what's going to happen in terms of how much this veers toward what the NFL looks like, or does it morph into something completely different? And that's why, uh, to answer Chad's question, I think Jim's a really good hire for a role like this because. Jim had a different role at the senior bowl.

Like he wasn't an NFL GM, but he was scouting like an NFL scout. Cause that's what he was before that he scouted for the Seahawks and for the Patriots. And so he understands how NFL front offices are structured, but he also got plunged into the college world. And he's, he's talked about it on the show, like as NIL changed the way everything works, his role had to change. And he kind of became this sort of consignory to all these people who

were like, should I go? Should I stay? What should I do, Jim? Because he he's known for giving very honest, unfiltered opinions, and he's well respected by everybody in the business. And so he's seen a couple different sides of this. And I don't think he's gonna go in saying like, I know how the job has to be. This is what it has to look like because I don't think anybody knows what the job is supposed to look like yet. Well, I also think that it's different everywhere too. So first of all, let's talk about Jim for a second, right? I think that like if you are listening to the show, you probably know who he is, but like he is an NFL ish guy that has a keen eye for talent. And I think that if you go

look at who the senior bowl brings, a lot of people that play in that game are obvious stars from the game. But there's also people in that game that come from smaller universities that they've scouted over the year, um, that go to this game, then turn out to be really good NFL players. And he got them. Like Like I don't think that there is any question that he has scouting acumen, right? Like there's no doubt about it. Now, Oklahoma fans are viewing this and I think a lot of people are viewing this and I think even I am viewing this as a pretty significant and important hire in the sense of like going and getting somebody that you know is very, very good at evaluating.

And like, I wanna be careful here because I don't want Oklahoma fans to think I'm being negative about what I think is a positive hire. But we have to unpack this a little bit, right? And the unpacking A is, is talent evaluation, I'd be curious to ask him and maybe I'll give him a call and talk to him about this, different from the NFL level

and even the end of college career level to like breaking down 13 year old, 14 year old kids, right? Like there is a difference between those two things. And I'm assuming that, you know, from an evaluation standpoint, Oklahoma is going to have multiple people doing this job. But that, to me, is the one question that I would have. And then. Like what is he going to do from a day to day basis? When to be in charge of the problem? Yeah, billion 2005 is an interesting comment here.

And this is something we see in the NFL and it's a question you ask with each NFL head coaching and GM job and now we're gonna have to start asking it with every college one. Oklahoma's GM and head coach are not tied together, billion 2005 writes in the comment. They report to two separate entities. So Brent Benwell's is terminated, it will not affect the general manager and he will have a hand in hiring. So what this means

essentially like he would report to Jocasta Leone, who's the athletic director. And this is this is a key part of this because you know, Florida just hired a GM, they ended up hiring Nick Polk, who used to work for the Atlanta Falcons. He was working for Athletes First, which is a group of sports agents. And originally, it seemed like that job was gonna report to the AD. When it was hired for, it became clear that that job was gonna report to Billy Napier,

the head coach, and that is a different job. And so it sounds like the Jim Nagy job is much more similar to the traditional NFL GM job where like, for example, the Bears, they fired Matt Nagy, no relation. They go higher than Johnson is their head coach, but Ryan Poles remains the GM. And Ryan Poles had a hand in choosing the new head coach. That feels like more of what this is. And if that's what this is, then that's completely uncharted territory, right?

Because the GM in college football for the past whatever, decades has been the head coach. The head coach is the is the person who has final say on on who's coming in right? Like and who who they're going after, who's tape they like, who they want to take a stab on, like how to use scholarship allocation for, you know, sure things versus position like like the GM that I mean, who do we find directly responsible for the talent on the roster, the head coach, right? So if you now move into this role, I kind of have a hard time separating the two.

Even if that's the case, there's got to be some sort of autonomy in terms of what system the coach wants to run and what type of players they're scouting and all these types of things. I'm assuming that that he would still like that Jim Nagy would still answer to Brent, right? Like, I don't even know how that works if he does certainly answer to but work in concert with like, in the NFL, when you have now you we we only notice when they don't see eye to eye, but like Brent Veach, the GM of the Chiefs and Andy Reid get along fabulously and collaborate. Brent says, what is Andy, what do you need? What are you thinking here? Here's who I like, who do you like? And that's how it's supposed to work. We all, we, we noticed it when it becomes like when, when hardball was with the 49ers and he and Trent

bulky got sideways and then it became a power struggle. So it's supposed to be a collaborative effort and I'm guessing, you know, you and I know Jim, like he's, he's going to go in there and work with Brent Venables. Like he's gonna go in there and say, hey Brent, what do you need to succeed here? How can I help you? And that's the part that's gonna be interesting. The GM is not answering directly to the coach and the GM would be around if the head coach were to be fired.

Almost feels like it's undermining the position of the head coach to me. Like based on the way that- Because we cover college football. This is how it's always been. If we covered the NFL, we'd be like, well, this seems pretty normal. Yeah. So I wondering it and I'm not saying that it is undermining to I'm just it feels weird because to me, the CEO and the coach and the talent accumulator and the recruiter and the scholarship breakdown. Like all of that used to fall on the head coach's desk. So if you're telling me now that like Brent's job is to like who's the main recruiter in this scenario?

Still Brent, right? I would think so. So like but you know what the main recruiter is Ari? Money? Money. Yeah. The main recruiter is Ari? Money. Yeah. The main recruiters in I'll Yeah, I do have a discussion too in the future about like, um, how important are official visits anymore? Like, because that used to be the biggest in the history. I had a discussion

with a personnel person about this the other day. Yeah. And I had a discussion with somebody who was actually talking about these GM jobs with that. Because they said, their thing was like, here's a terrible piece of inefficiency, which look, if you wanna find inefficiency, go look in a college athletic department. But why are you bringing all these people in that you know won't necessarily sign with you? Like, what's the point of that? Why do you have to have all of these people in that you know won't necessarily sign with you. Like what's the point of that? Why,

why do you have to have all of these people at the dinner that they're going to on the official visit? Like why, why does all these staff members have to go to the dinner at a giant steak house where everything's expensive? Why don't you just pare it down and shave 200 grand off the budget and buy yourself a backup offensive tackle? Andy, how many visits did you take to Nashville when On3 was trying to hire you? Zero.

Me too. Yeah, I did not visit New York when I got hired at Sports Illustrated. I had been in the building before, but not when I was up for the job. How many times? The Athletic did not have a brick and mortar office when I got hired. Yeah they did. It was in San Francisco and you didn't go. Oh they did. Okay that's right, that's right. But I never went there. I never went anywhere, both and on three at the Athletic or the Cleveland Plain dealer even. I might have at the Cleveland Plain dealer because I was an hour away. But yeah, so like I just feel like if that's the thing, but here's the most important and interesting thing to me. Who is the number one personnel person in the

entire country that comes to your head? Like who pops into your head when I ask you that? Mark Pantoni. Do you know what a salary was last year? I don't. Guess. Take a wild guess. $450,000. $351,000. Now, which their head coach is making $11 million a year. So Mark Pantoni, for those who don't know, is Ohio State's... GM. He's their GM. In terms of like, if it were an NFL front office, we would call him the probably director of player personnel. When he got the job there, it was director of player personnel, which is what all these

people were called. He invented this job. Like Pantoni started out as a student at Florida working for Urban Meyer when Urban Meyer was Florida's coach and essentially invented this job. And there are multiple people who've invented it in different ways. Like Austin Thomas, who's at LSU right now,

was another one who was doing it. Pat Suddus, who's at North Carolina. Austin Thomas? You know what his salary was last year? Oh, what's that? 425. You know Billy Glasscock who's at Ole Miss and used to work at Texas for a while there? 425. General Manager Courtney Morgan at Alabama who had a hand in both Washington and Michigan was making 777 in Alabama this year, which is a lot for that position. But like Marshall Malkow, who's at Oregon and has been all over the place and is considered one of the most... Considered one of the best, yes. Right, 550. So the thing that I'm

very curious about now with this, it's not just the naggy situation, but it's also, what does this mean for the people who have already been doing a really good job at that? Like with Lombardi making a million and a half. Like the entire- Let's talk about that, because producer River asked about Mike Lombardi, who's a former NFL GM, who works for Bill Balachek,

and now he's the GM at North Carolina. And it's interesting because River asked, is that a similar situation with North Carolina where Lombardi reports to somebody else? No, it's not because like Belichick's the one guy in the NFL who had full personnel control. So like Lombardi reports to Belichick. Yeah, so the thing that is interesting to me is have you been to the the we probably should go this year because it's in Nashville the player personnel

symposium. Have you ever gone to it? I haven't. It's just a, you know, kind of a meeting with all the people who work in personnel across the country. And I think that the general vibe in that room when I've gone is that we are grossly underpaid and underappreciated, right? Like, and I think a lot of the people in that room

probably have a aspiration of one day being an NFL GM because that to me or to them is the epitome of it's like me and you being the Lee like Adam Schefter for instance I don't know like what would we be so now that in PFT yeah yeah the thing that's interesting though is if Lombardi is going to make a million and a half at UNC and I don't know what Nagy's making. Have they reported what he's making? They have not, yeah. Yeah, I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm sure it's going to be north of a half a mil. Then all of a sudden the player personnel people who used to be the 30 to 150 thousand dollar employees that were getting raked over a barrel making graphics all day are now seeing a Renaissance

in their salary. And it's like, if Lombardi is making a million and a half at North Carolina, then what the hell is Mark Pantoni worth? Like, you know what I mean? Like what the heck? Well, remember- Pantoni's been lopsided when Urban Meyer took the job and brought Pantoni with him to Ohio State in 2012 or 13.

He said like in his introductory press conference or like one of the first press conferences that he did at Ohio State that Pantoni is the most important person in the conglomerate. And if that's the case, how has he been making 300K this whole time? Yes, it is time for that to go. Now remember USC just hired Chad Bowden away from Notre Dame. And I believe that the rumors were that that's a fairly high salary. Now it's USC.

They're private. They don't have to say what they're paying anybody. But I think that one's toward seven figures because USC needed to change some stuff in its recruiting. And so they went, they went and hired somebody from Notre Dame where they were doing it the way USC would like to do it. So if this is the way it's being done in Oklahoma, then is this the way it should be done at Ohio

state? Is this the way that it should be done in Alabama? Is this the way that it should be done or are they trying to mix it up? I think I think it depends like I don't think anybody knows how it's supposed to be done. Because the system is constantly changing. I mean, it's gonna change again.

If the house settlement gets approved and you go to revenue sharing, the system's gonna change again and it'll have radically changed two or three times over the past five years. So nobody actually knows what the right answer is. Everybody's trying stuff. So I think I want to write about this.

So do you think that the, like how do you view the Jim Nagy hire? Okay, so everyone says home run, the fact that they were able to get him is a huge deal for Oklahoma. All this, you know, everybody's saying this, but like, is this an experiment? Is this like-

Every one of these is an experiment. I know, but this seems like a pretty big hack at it. Like this is a pretty big. This is one of the this is one of the first where you've had a major college football program that looks at the changes in the sport and says. This looks more like the NFL now. Perhaps we need to consider an NFL management model as opposed to the more traditional college one. You also have to consider the timing

of it and where we are in the Venables time arc like it's like you don't really. Like you're messing with messing. You're changing. The mechanism for talent accumulation during a year in which he's probably entering like on the semi hots. The thing is, the talents

been accumulated for this year. Like I don't care what everybody said. Like I know everybody got you probably saw people saying last year the spring portal is going to be incredible and wild and we didn't say that because we would have been lying to you if we just said that the same thing is going to happen this year spring portal is not going to be that wild and Oklahoma, what they have right now is about what they have. So in terms of personnel, Jim Nagy is working on future years.

Brent Venables has to win this year. Yeah, does this, so but do you think that this is going to create leverage and change the position across the board at other places who have been successful. Like Oklahoma traditionally is one of the most successful programs in college football, but there's no question that they've fallen on hard times in recent years, right? I know they had one 10-win season under Venables, but I don't think that Oklahoma fans would be like, yeah, this is how we drew it up. You know, so like what, how does this change what happens at Miami? How does this change what happens at Ohio State or even Wisconsin?

Like, I don't know. Like this to me is like a complete departure from everything that we knew. And like also too, if this position exists, let's say Brent Venables has a 10 or 11 win season this year, which by the way, I think is on the table. Like I think they might have, Deion Burks is going to have a good year. John Matiers is a really good quarterback. Yep. Going to be better.

I don't question their defense with Venables in charge. Like I actually think that Oklahoma has a chance to be really good this year. So Oklahoma is really, really good this year. And then they stink in two years. Whose fault is it? It's a good question. But I can tell you the first person to get fired will be Breedventables because-

Is that how it works in the NFL? Our coaches just fire more GMs all the time? Usually. Even if you can see with your eyes that the players stink? Well, who? But in the NFL, yeah. Well, it depends on the situation. Like every situation is different. And that's what you got to remember. Every situation

is different in college too, because like you're talking about Ohio State. Now I'm with you. Mark Pantoni is criminally underpaid at Ohio State. I would not change the way Ohio State structure works because Ohio State structure is working. Like you don't need to change it. So like that's the thing that's interesting about Ohio State. is working. Like you don't need to change it. So like that's the thing that's interesting about Ohio State. It's like, I wrote a story in 2014 at the national championship game

about Mark Pantoni. So it's fricking 10 years ago. And you know how they have the media day setting? Yeah. How you go in and the entire team's wearing jumpsuits or whatever. And 2014, you go in and the entire teams wearing jumpsuits or whatever. And 2014 Mark was in the room, um, when they played, uh, Oregon in the national championship game. And like, I like remember thinking to myself, like,

and he had like kind of a smile on his face. It's like, God, can you imagine the sense of satisfaction of just being the small dude in the corner of the room where if you don't cover Ohio state, you might not even know who he is, who basically assembled this entire thing that brought Ohio State there. And then like you fast forward two or three or four years, and then Ohio State's playing Clemson in one of the bowl games and a playoff game, and I'm writing a story or reporting a story about Brent Venables being the first million dollar coordinator. And now Jim Knowles is getting paid north of two million at Penn State to go do the same job there, three million, three. And then you're like, who do you think is more important to Ohio State's success

last year, Jim Knowles or Mark Pantoni? It's like, who do you think is a bigger piece to doing it? Now also too, the flip side of this, and I'm not sure Mark would appreciate me saying this, but how important is Mark now that money is the ruler? Like that's the other thing. Like Mark was unbelievably important because of his evaluation and recruiting ability. But like now Ohio State can hire anybody to go out

and find really good players that they can wanna pay. Right? Like, I don't know. Like, is that weird? Let me take you behind the curtain on something that I've been working on because I'm working on a story that's going to come out probably early next month. We're trying to figure out like, how do you moneyball in college football in the new era? And as I was talking to some people, one of the one of the things that popped up was a compliment to Mark Pantoni that has nothing to do with him getting five star recruits that everybody wants. Like the thing is Mark Pantoni is doing due diligence that nobody even knows about on guys that are in other schools, classes that Ohio state has no room for.

Like just in case a spot opens up, somebody bails on them or just in case somebody winds up in the transfer portal, they're ready for it. Like that's the sort of thing that you need to be doing. Everybody needs to be doing. Not everybody does. People don't even do it well when they when they do have spots open and Pantone's doing it like watching senior film of players that are already going elsewhere and he doesn't have room for them. But just in case it comes back around where he might need a linebacker or a running back or whatever, he knows who, who to look at.

And that's the sort of thing. If you're good at the job, it doesn't matter how the job is structured. It doesn't matter what the responsibilities are. It doesn't matter what you get paid. You're good at the job. And we'll see how this goes because everyone's going to be different. Like you mentioned the NFL, like do they always fire the coach first? Like the Jags were a great example of this. For whatever reason, Chad Khan, the owner of the Jaguars, could not figure out that Trent Balke was the problem.

Like that he was the general manager and he survived multiple head coaches, even though everybody else in the league knew he was the problem. Well, sometimes when you just have the ear of the person who makes the decision and you're the one feeding them all their information, they don't realize you might be the problem. So it just depends on the situation. Every situation is different. And with these college football ones, I think you're gonna see a lot of experimentation about how to handle this. I just talked about Florida hiring somebody,

their model is going to be different than the one Oklahoma is using. But USC just hired somebody, their model is gonna be different too. But it's going to be fascinating to watch. It's going to be so interesting to watch because we don't know. Now, as far as Oklahoma goes and Jim Nagy specifically, the thing I like about Jim and this job is Jim is a very curious person by nature and he is not

going to come in and say, I know how this job should be. This is exactly, it should look exactly like John Schneider's job with the Seahawks. Now it's going to be here are all the different experiences I've had. Here's what I've noticed over the past few years dealing with people on both sides of this equation. As Senior Bowl Executive Director. Here's what we can try. That I think is going to be really interesting.

So I'm excited for him. I'm excited for him. I can't wait to have him back on. Hopefully they don't put him in a bunker and never let him talk because he was absolutely one of my favorite guests. I know that everybody who watches and listens loved when he came on.

So we'll see Ari, it's gonna be a lot of fun. We do have a few more questions though. Yeah, I do. I do want to say Andy before we go that like I put Brenton Venables on my top 25 coaches list and you didn't, I don't think. And people were like really, really, really,

really mad at me for that. And like, I don't think he's a bad coach. Their team was decimated with injuries last year. It's like what like personnel is everything. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because we are talking about the mechanism for getting good players. And if that changes, that is a seismic shift in college football. Okay. And I think we did a pretty good job of like kind of,, I just wanna hammer that home. Like you wanna talk about NIL, you wanna talk about the expanded playoff or AQs

and all the things that we talk about all the time. Like how, could you imagine if the NFL is like, you know what, we're not gonna have a draft anymore. We're gonna do it this way. Or like, that's what this feels like. Just start recruiting. Yeah, like it does feel like a very significant, this is a significant hire for Oklahoma but this might turn out to be the significant hire for all of the sport

and I might write that today so I just wanted to say that didn't mean interrupt you love you that's great I cannot wait to read it we have a segment at the end of the show that I wanted to introduce to you before the show, but I didn't ask, but is Ari an asshole? Like is Ari the asshole kind of a because like, you know, you guys thought I was the asshole at Costco for putting my hand underneath the wrong way and the person snapping at me. I want to know in this scenario, I have a pest control problem how to handle this if it were okay. We yeah that into the show. We'll do the Yeah, if you if you if you frequent read it, there's a subreddit called

Am I the asshole? Am I the asshole? It would be a good segment because I'm trying to figure it out Yeah, a ITA it's it's very funny the scenarios that they that they wind up with are hilarious. So we will talk about that in a second. Right now, we gotta talk about fresh, never frozen beef though. When it comes to making the best burgers around, the basics matter. And Wendy's, well, they've got those burger basics on lock

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Get yourself a fresh, never frozen Wendy's burger today. All right, Ari, let us move on to another question. This guy definitely thinks you're the A-hole. This is Phil. Phil says, why is Wasserman so convinced that any SEC team with a 10 and two record would have gotten in when Nicole Aravak said that SMU was locked in by making its championship

game? I love the chief rabbi of the college football playoff committee. Well here's the thing. He's pitting you against Nicole when you weren't saying anything in opposition to Nicole. When Nicole said what she said. Alabama and Ole Miss already had three losses. Right. South Carolina already had three losses. So it wasn't going to change anything at that point. Yeah, she was right at that

point. The question that he's asking that he and I don't think he understands the question he's asking is. How are you so sure that they would have? Had SMU behind a two loss SEC team. Well, I can tell you one one way that I know. SMU is three spots behind Tennessee in the last rankings. That's that's two loss SEC now. Hey Andy, what's that? Thursday tin foil. Yep, yep, yep.

Making way to do it. Tin foil hat Thursday. Look at me. Look, let's go OK. I think like first of all, I think if you remove the Vanderbilt loss from Alabama's resume, they are unequivocally in because then they would have had

one terrible loss and it would have been to an Oklahoma team that people respect even if they were bad. And then you would have had them beating the SEC champ. Like, there's no way that they wouldn't have gotten it, in my opinion. Now, here's the tin foil part. I think it's possible that the committee would have ranked the entire thing differently

if Ole Miss and Alabama were two lost teams. I think we could have had a scenario where the conference champions weren't rewarded or the conference championship game losers were not rewarded in the way that they were last year. Like I think that because there was nobody else to go to that allowed them the ability to reward all the teams who lost their conference championship games. But like, could you imagine if SMU would have gotten in over a two loss Alabama team when the SEC, like if the SEC didn't, if you remove two of the worst losses that they had, like, could you imagine how

we would have viewed the SEC if Ole Miss didn't lose to Kentucky and Alabama didn't lose to Bandy? Let me give you another example because we can go week to week and see how this worked. So you know, Alabama loses to Oklahoma, Ole Miss loses to Florida. The following week, Miami loses to Syracuse and is knocked out of the ACC Championship game. Now Miami was ranked ahead of Ole Miss in South Carolina but not ahead of Alabama.

So a two loss Alabama absolutely would have gotten in. It wouldn't, I don't even think it would have been a debate. And here's the thing, but you know me, like I was very SMU should get in, Indiana should get in, all these teams should get in because they did their part when the SEC didn't do their part. I think if Alabama would have gone 10 and two, I would have been very vocal

about how Alabama should have been in. Well, okay, let's go back a couple weeks. Yeah. Like this is, so Phil, how are you so sure, Ari? Because the committee told us. Like, so this is week 12. This is the committee's rankings. So Alabama's already lost twice.

Alabama's lost to George and Vandy at this point. Ole Miss has lost to Kentucky and LSU at this point. They are sandwiched around a one loss Miami. So Alabama with two losses already head of a one loss Miami. They are both ahead of one loss SMU and far ahead. Right. Yeah. So like all this was four spots ahead of an SMU team that had one fewer loss. So how are you sure? Phil, he's sure because the committee told him.

So here's the thing. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to get a lot of the thoughts ahead of an SMU team that had one fewer loss. So how are you sure, Phil? He's sure because the committee told him. So here's the thing that and I don't want to sound condescending or an asshole on this. Okay. Yeah, you do. I really don't but it blows my mind. Like how hard it is for a lot of people to know what the committee is going to do.

Like we do talk a lot about like every Tuesday night when we come on, when they release their rankings, like we have been covering this and maybe we think about it all day and that's why we're more seasoned with it. But like we basically have an idea of what they're going to do and like that to me is because they value quality wins and they hurt you with terrible losses. And you can put it together, it's a puzzle. You can put it together.

And I will say that they did depart from their usual protocol this year in terms of the rewarding of the conference championship game losers. But for the most part, like remember when I got into that big fight with all those Tennessee fans about who would be ranked higher?

It's like, I wasn't trying to be antagonistic. It's like this is how they operate. Like it's like very clear how they operate on a week-to-week basis. And the last thing I wanted to say is that like the one thing that I will agree with and I want to give an olive branch to SEC fans, even Brad from Macon, I hope you're listening, I think that the SEC does play a harder schedule than the teams in the ACC play, right? I think that's a fair thing to say. I think as a result of that harder schedule in the imbalanced schedules that we have in this sport, that you are rewarded with more breathing room in the form of an extra loss in order to get in if you possess quality wins.

So Alabama at the end of the year, after getting blown out by Oklahoma, was a completely different team from a perception and resume standpoint than it would have been had it had one bad game. Like if they would have erased the Oklahoma loss or the Vanderbilt loss, they would have had one bad game with a pretty impressive win. Uh, and that to me would have been enough and you would be rewarded for playing that sec schedule, traversing that tough schedule, winning 10 games and having a quality win, like that's the way the system works. So the fact that they had the quality win got, got discounted at the end of the year, which is what people didn't understand because they had an extra loss.

But if you remove that extra loss, their resume is better than Indiana's and better than SMU's. And then at that point, which we can return back to the tin foil hat part, is how do you reward Indiana? How do you reward SMU? And even how do you, to a certain extent, reward Penn State with a pretty high ranking? you lose those games when you have teams like

SM when you have teams like Alabama and Ole Miss sitting there at the end at 10 and 2 with quality wins that those teams didn't possess because Penn State didn't have any quality wins during the year either remember? Quality wins are the most important thing that you can do but you cannot lose too many games because then you lose those wins. If you have two losses and great wins the great wins matter more than the wins. If you have two losses and great wins, the great wins matter more than the losses. If you have three losses, you're out. Unless unless there's nobody else in there. Well, it's so Matt Ruhl went on that

rollin on with Urban Meyer on Urban Meyers podcast and was talking about why should I ever play a tough schedule like we beat Colorado in the same week Notre Dame lost to New Orleans, Illinois. Like, what does it matter? I'm like, yeah, but Notre Dame didn't lose again and you lost a bunch of games. So maybe that had something to do with it. We have to continually explain to people the value of attaining a quality win. The reason why you schedule big games is

because when you get those big wins, it forgives future blunders. Like that's the point of having good wins. Good wins, what is the number one metric that committee cares about? Good wins. Good wins way more than bad losses. Now you can't have too many bad losses, but like this is not that difficult.

And like I would, there's no way that you could definitively like change history and be like, this is what the committee would have done if this happened. But like, I'm fairly certain. I am certain that Alabama and or Ole Miss would have gotten in a 10 and two with the wins that they had, both of which. So breaking news from our guy, Ferris Khan, who's a Michigan fan, Michigan AD Ward manual declared that 75% of the $20.5 million revenue share will go to football. The other 25% will be split between other sports. I wish more went to other sports. And his explanation for this is if revenue share goes 75% plus for football

schools, basketball schools like Connecticut and Gonzaga can outspend them in basketball. Okay, here's the thing. Football makes more than 75% of your revenue. The other sports should feel lucky they're getting anything. Like football makes almost all of the money. And I like some of it. Smash the numbers this year every day and I love the guy. Yeah. First college football fan I would ever hear make that comment. Yeah, people care. Let Connecticut and Gonzaga have their thing. Let them have it. I don't know if there are a lot of Michigan fans out there that are like,

well, we're not going to have enough money to compete in basketball. I think that basketball is a completely different animal. And if you can buy one really good player, then you have a chance. It's completely different. If I were a Michigan fan, I would want all of it to go to football. Like, I don't know, I would want 95% of it to go to football and leave just enough for men's basketball to get some players that maybe make a run in the tournament. But like, I don't know if this is

true everywhere, Andy. But I'm assuming that a run to the Final Four for UConn means more than a run to the final four for Michigan would be. I'm not saying it's not fun and that Michigan fans don't enjoy it, but like I remember this. Like when I covered Ohio State basketball, I covered some really good teams like early in my career, teams that went to the final four. I've covered the final four before. And I wrote a huge, remember G'Angelo Russell? I mean, obviously he's in the A's bill. I wrote this, I talked to his dad, I went to Louisville where he was from,

and I wrote this huge profile on D'Angelo Russell that dropped on the morning of the first day of the tournament. Like I was like, this is going, you know like how newspapers used to do it? Like have a big feature, big story, the day an event happens. And that was also a newspaper idea. But at the same time was at a place that tracked your metrics.

And the hardest part about my career back then was I was covering recruiting college basketball and football at the same time, which shouldn't really be one person's job, I don't think. So like the same day the tournament started, like Ohio State's backup left guard, like tore his ACL or something. And I wrote a quick like 200 word story about that for the website. And it did like 50 times better

than the G Angelo Russell story that I worked six weeks to report. And the moral of the story is that like Ohio State loved the final four runs and they have fans that care about basketball, but it is nothing. It is a drop in the bucket in comparison to what people care about. Oh, yeah. I had a when I was working at SI, I would always kind of pick the first weekend site based on what football

schools I wanted to go visit nearby. And so I can't remember where the first weekend site was, but it was near Austin. So I went and did a Texas story. It was Mac, Mac Brown was still the coach. And so I had a Mac Brown going into spring practice column. And then it did like 10 times what my game story off the sweet 16, Kentucky, Indiana game that we can did like 10 times what my game story off the Sweet 16 Kentucky Indiana game that weekend did like 10

times. I think college basketball is fun. I think people love watching it. Here's the difference between college basketball and college football to me. Like I cannot wait. I'm going to Vegas for the first round of the NCAA tournament. I'm just the Thursday to Saturday. I'm just going because I go with my wife and friends every year. It's kind of a tradition and I cannot wait to watch the games, to bet on the games, to drink all day, go to the pool after the day. You know, it's going to be an amazing two days but at the same time I spend zero time reading about it. Like I spend zero time thinking about it. The event is the event and I enjoy watching the event. But like with football, we have to have a 30 minute conversation right now about whether or not Jim Nagy is going to shift the paradigm of the way the personnel directors are like. Does that exist in basketball at all? dedicated hardcore NBA fan base.

There's a dedicated hardcore college basketball fan base too, but college basketball is different in that it has the best tournament in American sports. And I think it's so weird because it's a small hardcore fan base during the season that explodes into the national consciousness as the season ends. So that's the part that makes it really interesting. Natural consciousness is an obsession with the event, not an

obsession with the sport. Right. Right. But the event is coming, so you got to get ready for the event, but there, there is money to be made. I mean, look, I was watching a lot of college hoops last night and I'm looking at the crowds and anything that draws 12, 15,000 people a game, which a lot of these like the big 10 and SEC schools

are drawing right now, there's big money in that too. Like it's still good money. I'm assuming it just doesn't make it doesn't make football type money, but it makes good money. But I'm also assuming too, and I'm not trying to undermine like Kentucky fans and Duke fans. I'm assuming they're on message boards every day. Like which shooting guard are we going after? They treat it the same way.

And Kentucky fans are interesting because I think they get sort of painted with a broad broad. All you guys just care about basketball. They they're the one I would, I would point to that cares as deeply about basketball and football. And they're the same, you know, you know kind of saying and I'm glad we have KSR on our team Yeah, here's a take though Because Vanderbilt basketball has been pretty good at times in the past, right? They beat Texas A&M last night big upset on the road. I Guarantee you the vast vast majority if not all

Vanderbilt fans had more gratification in beating Alabama than what happened last night. Right? Like I think that a run to the playoff for... I'm even wondering, let me ask you this, you can do a poll. Do you think Indiana fans got more gratification out of their football run last year than they did from their basketball runs? And Indiana is a basketball school.

Well I'm not sure sure Indiana students have, I don't know. We'll have to have Talia Goodman on our women's basketball reporter because she's an IU grad. Like recent, like I want to know, do Indiana students remember when Indiana was good at men's basketball? Do you think average Indiana fan or Indiana student, would you rather your team make the final four in football or basketball next year? What do you think they would pick? Oh, I think they'd pick football.

And that's a basketball school. Yeah. What's the point of it? So like, and I'm not trying to shit on college basketball. I'm just saying like, it's just not the same. The event is the event, but it's not the same. And that's why I go crazy every single time you or anyone else compares football to basketball, because it's like that's not the...

I never compare it to basketball. I always say football is football. Actually, let's throw this question here from Chris in Phoenix. Andy, I'm stealing this from a YouTube comment I saw on another show. Is college football going to destroy itself in the same way that NASCAR did? Can you see any parallels in this analogy? Admittedly not a NASCAR guy, so I can't take that leap myself, but you are a redneck from the South, so you might have some authority to speak upon this. Actually, Chris got it probably from a comment from Matt, the Georgia fan on this show, who says it all the time and says it to me on Twitter all the time.

And I always say, no, it's not like that because racing is racing and football is football. One is boring and sucks and one is awesome. Like, what happened with NASCAR is around the turn of the century, NASCAR was booming as it got a better TV deal, got exposed to more people, and they thought, okay, NASCAR is going to be able to take on the NFL someday. But NASCAR had a fixed ceiling on it. And that is people who like watching car racing. It's just, it's, it's not that many people in America in the world. It's bigger because you have F1. Well, F1's getting big, isn't it? F1's super boring, just like soccer.

I know, but is F1 getting big? So it makes sense that these people in other countries would like it. So going to a NASCAR race would probably be fun, but watching it on TV, it's like, it's not? I can attest, nope. I went to one, I went to the Homestead race. Now look, it wasn't a restrictor plate race,

so I realized that the ones in Daytona and Talladega are supposed to be more interesting because they race like four wide and they have crashes and stuff. But like the girl in front of us at the one I went to flicked off Jeff Gordon every time he drove by. There were 200 laps, like double birds to Jeff Gordon.

Every time, then I forget who she liked. Or no, she was Tony Stewart. Tony Stewart double birds every time he drove by. And I forget who she liked, but whoever she liked, she'd every time. 200 laps. You know what I don't get here in the chat says NASCAR made it unwatchable. No, what made it unwatchable is a bunch of cars turning left and the lead never changes. So here's what I don't understand, because like golf is super popular now. Like golf is-

And also boring. Yeah. Yeah. Golf, like watching the Masters, the nap, the weekend nap with the Masters on in the background is the best nap in America. Like it's the best nap ever. But the thing I don't understand about individual sports and tennis and other things that people get excited about is like, when you root for Michigan, you're a Michigan man, you're from Michigan, you went there in most cases, like you are a Michigan person. Right. Like when you root for like NASCAR, it's like, yeah, I just like Jeff. Like why?

Like why would you? Like, okay, what? Big fan of Bubba. Why are you rooting for Zala Torres in golf? Like you met the guy? Like why are you just rooting for like Steve? Like, I don't understand. I understand like if you're a big fan.

I would argue NBA fandom is similar to that now too. Because NBA fandom feels more player driven than team driven. Utah Jazz fans show up for Utah Jazz because they have Salt Lake City pride. They're not showing up this year because they stink. When you root for a team that has your city on it, it's a civic pride. I understand that. When you were rooting for a college football team, that has your city on it, it's a civic pride. I understand that. Like when you were rooting for college football team, that's your frickin school. You have pride. Like why are you like an adult sitting in a sports book being like, oh, I hope Tiger wins.

Who gives a crap if Tiger wins today? He's a millionaire. I don't have any connections to the people. Am I nuts? No, you're not. The Tiger thing to me is always been fascinating because I've had favorite athletes. What do you do? Why do you like or not like him? He's just a dude in a car of short guy. From what I understand to short game,

you gotta be a short thing to be a NASCAR driver, right? I think it helps. But the the Tiger thing never made sense to me. Like people are like, oh, Tigers play in this weekend, so. Like OK, that's the thing I understood, like Tiger in his in his peak right when he's winning the Masters by a billion strokes, yes, or if you like like if you want to watch somebody play well,

but like you know, Tiger Woods odds and gambling now are so off because so many people want to bet on him and root on him or root for him. And it's like, what personal connection do you have to tie? Like I have friends who are like, I can't wait to watch Tiger today. And it's like, first of all, he's not good anymore. Second of all, he hasn't been like the best dude in his life. Like I don't understand. They're just reconnecting with a piece of their formative years. Yeah. That's what it's like. Friends of yours, friends of yours, your

age were Tiger Woods. So I was in college when Tiger won the 97 Masters. So you guys would have been in late elementary school, early middle. So these guys would have been in high school, early college when Tiger was at his most dominant.

Yeah. So that's what it is. It's all it is. And this, I think we figured it out because this is the same way with our teams and our sports and our formats for our sports. I was better when it was like this. We like whatever it is was going on when we were 17 to 23 years old. It was perfect. Everything else sucks. Yeah, it is was going on when we were 17 to 23 years old. It is that was perfect. Everything else

sucks. Yeah, it is true. Yeah. But like I just like I don't know if it's just me, but I've never had like a personal connection. I like wet blanket here. I root for Ricky Fowler and Victor Hovland because we are all Oklahoma State. I'm see like I understand like again, civic pride, like I got a Brooks fan, I assume then too, right? Yeah. And like also former Oklahoma State Javon Throer. You're also talking to somebody who knows, like I know less about NASCAR than I know about like physics. You know, like I don't, I don't know anything about NASCAR. But like Dale Earnhardt Jr. God rest his soul. He's alive. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is alive.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. not Jr. Sorry. Dale Earnhardt Jr senior is like a folk hero in the South, right? Like people look at Dale Earnhardt as like one of the greatest individual athletes of all time. Is that a fair? There are cars in the town where I live that are still painted up with the number three. So educate me, educate me then on the southern connection to Dale Earnhardt. Like what was he, like why did this happen? I mean, he was beloved because he was the intimidator. He was kind of viewed as a rebel. He had a very aggressive driving style. I'm not the right person to ask. I get that I was born in South Carolina

and lived in the South and my mom's from Alabama and all that but like it it never landed with me. Yeah. It just didn't. I'm not saying I'm not saying that you should but but here's here's I'll get back to the original point Ari the original point of the question where II say it won't happen to college football the way it happened to NASCAR because college football is awesome and NASCAR is boring. Like, I've never met a person from the South who was like, yeah, you know, college football doesn't land for me. Just doesn't seem like if you like sports

and you're from the South, you like college football. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it didn't land for me. I'm not saying you shouldn't like it. And like It just it didn't land for me. I'm not saying you shouldn't like it. And like I also don't like the NASCAR change the rules to make it less exciting because like that's what hockey has done

things right to change rules so there's more scoring in it. It's like I I think soccer is the most boring sport on the face of the earth and it's the most popular sport on the planet. So like I mean what I

think doesn't matter. I'm just have always been curious to personal connections with other people that you don't know that has always been kind of weird to me. And it's like, it's funny, because somebody like mocked me for my card collections. Right? And it's like, I have this DJ lagway card I showed you here. You don't know him. I don't know, he said, Well, I actually have met him. And you have met him. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not

holding this DJ lagway card, because I like have a picture of him in my house. And I love him so yeah. I'm not holding this DJ Lagway card because I have a picture of him in my house and I love him so much. I'm holding it because I think he's really good. He plays for a really high profile team and this could be worth a lot of money one day. That's what drives me. So I don't know, yeah, I might've just alienated 80% of our audience

and I'm sorry. I don't think you did. I don't get it, I just don't get it. I don't think you did. All right, one more question. This is from a lie and I ever so true. It's two questions, but I actually think the person in the second question is the answer to the first question. Who is the new voice among coaches in college football and can Illinois sustain the success under Brett Bielema in the long run. So I do think Brett Bielema probably is going to be the most outspoken of the coaches. I think maybe Matt Rule is one that we'll hear a lot from. Trying to think of anybody else who comes to mind.

There's a difference between loudest and funniest and voice. Like when Nick Saban spoke about things, people heard and listened. Like Nick Saban was the unequivocal voice of our sport. Right? But I'm talking about among other coaches. Because I do think other coaches respect Brett Bielema and Matt Rule. And other coaches, yeah. But I'm just saying, like, which is the coach when he says something people set up to listen? But I'm just saying, like, which is the coach when he says something people set up to listen? Kirby? I think Kirby Smart would be the person, but Kirby Smart never does it. Yes, he does. Just doesn't do it publicly. So Kirby Smart's been on the NCAA Football Rules Committee, like, he's been in those roles. He just doesn't do it publicly. He does it behind the scenes.

Yeah, I'm saying publicly. He does behind scenes even complained about things publicly all the time. Yeah. Usually to make sure it would benefit next savings team. No, I know, but that's why I'm sure Kirby's pretty big on the rules that help Georgia to behind the scenes, but I'm surprised that there's no

coach out there who. Use this throws his weight around in a public forum in order to be the voice of the disc like I mean, Dion Sanders has more public comments right now than anybody about things and you might not like the number like Dion Sanders might be the biggest voice in the sport right now. Well, one of the ones among the coaches back in the day was David Cutcliffe when he was at Duke. Yeah, because he was one that everybody respected. He spanned multiple generations, like he had worked for Bear Bryant. So I don't know who that is right now,

although I do think Beelima is one who is not shy about giving his opinion, whether it's publicly or to other coaches. But also you have to acknowledge the one thing that has to happen for it to be taken seriously. Like Brett Beelima holding his arms out at a bowl game on a sideline. I mean, if Illinois makes the playoff this year, you got to win. You got to win and you got to win big in order for people.

That's the thing. Like Nick Saban said, and people took it seriously because Nick Saban was a winner and Nick Saban knew how to build a program. And like, you remember like the, I mean, when you and I were at the athletic and Nick Saban like dropped that Jimbo Fisher comment. You remember that? What a day I raked in this room like are we have to do a show right now? Has it happened since? The next day when Jimbo Fisher went to jerk the closest thing we've gotten to that? It was Brett and- And Shane. And Beamer.

And Shane Beamer. Who else? So, and I know there, again, there's a difference between feuds and disputes and things. I mean, Kirby Smart, what he said about Johnny Manziel could have been about a rule or a coach or something. Like no one cares. And it didn't really get as much traction

as maybe it would have had it not been about Johnny Manziel and it would have been something else. But like, I think that like when Kirby Smart speaks if he like were to use his time at the Georgia podium to bring up an issue about college football rules that should be changed or that he doesn't like people would listen to that digest it and debate it and I don't know that there's other coaches like River River chimes in with Dabo. I think people listen to Dabo, right? I don't know that they listen to Dabo as intently because some of the things he said,

I think he was being a little hyperbolic and now it just looks different. But I think when Dabo's really, when he's not being hyperbolic, when he's really getting down, because I always bring up the interview he did with Roddy Jones last year at the ACC Spring Meetings, where he very accurately explained their situation

with the transfer portal. Like when Dabo gives you a good, thoughtful answer, it's usually very interesting. And Dabo's a very smart guy. So, like I think, I do think him, and he's one enough that everybody's gonna be, okay, we'll listen to you. Yeah.

Dabo has gone on too many hyperbolic rants that turned out to not be true though. Right. Right, you can't say the stuff about I don't want to work in an environment where players are getting paid. Right. Like you do and you are. So yeah. And then he said last year that he never said that, which is hilarious because it's like it was filmed and quoted. But yeah. But Kirby would be my number one person if he wanted to throw his weight around. So and I think he should. And as for the second part of the question, can Illinois sustain success under Brett Beilema? I think so, but it depends on what you, how you define success. If Illinois is realistic

about how it defines success, then yes, I do think it's sustained success. Because what success would be at Illinois, historically, is every once in a while you have a year like last year, and maybe they equal that or surpass that this year. But if that happens, there's probably a little dip after that, and then you come back to this in a couple of years. That feels to me like what success reasonably would be called in Illinois. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. And I think that Brett, the thing too is like I think that there should be an influx

or a, and I think maybe even from a media standpoint, I think people are so afraid, and this happens at the player level too, of saying something that's going to get scrutinized or blow up in a negative way. And it's like, I think we need to embrace personality. I think we need to celebrate personality. Like I can't stand that players can't celebrate on the field. Like, I think that like we should, if you have something you'd like to say, or you want to talk your, you want to talk your trash, then do it.

Again, entertainment product, entertainer, say the thing. Well, I remember when Will Muschamp was coaching at Florida in South Carolina. So if you've ever been around Will Muschamp and he's not on camera, he's one of the funniest human beings in the world. And he grew up idolizing Steve Spurrier. And so he wanted to kind of be like that as a coach,

but his thing was, I'm not gonna do that unless I'm winning big, because that's the reason Spurrier got away with it. And he never got to the point where he was winning big enough to really do it. And I feel like that's just an opportunity lost, because that guy unfiltered just going would have been hysterical.

It would have been awesome. Everybody's different. Everybody's different than they are in front of the camera. Everyone. And I don't know why. Even I'm different sometimes. You are not in the least bit different. All right.

We got to go with Ari's question to the audience. Is Ari the a-holehole this is a new recurring segment So I I walk around Andy with an existential dread that like I'm the problem because like I feel like I There are I know you're not supposed to curse, but I have to in this instance. So please forgive me. I Think once a day to my head am I the only one seeing this shit? Like I think like, or like, am I the, like, is that like a new thing too? Or am I the only one who does that? Like, I feel like everybody does it.

Everybody does. All right. Cause it's like, you're not that special. What the hell's going on here? So anyway, here's what happened this morning. Um, so we have a leak that came through our roof, or like this, the first floor, it's above our bathroom. We have a leak of some sort coming from the bathtub. And I need to have a plumber who's coming today take a look over the source of the leak as we might have to file an insurance claim and it's a whole thing. But as a result of the leak that happened, we had to cut us a hole in the ceiling of the first floor thing in order to try to identify what the leak was coming from and to get the

wet drywall out. And now there's a small hole in our ceiling. And as after this has happened, and I don't know if it's related or if it's not, we've had a bunch of red flying ants come into our house. It's not like an insane amount, but like there are bugs in our house and like my wife has no temperament whatsoever. We talked about it, we talked about it for 25 minutes last night over and over and over again. I was like, Britt, I got it. We're going to call the pest guy. He's going to come tomorrow and we're going to figure it out. So we have a recurring, like you've been to my house, Andy, we are not in a traditional neighborhood.

Like behind us is a nature preserve. So like we have probably more exposure to wildlife and insects than other people do. So it's gonna be, I think just par for the course of my job or of this house, like that from time to time, like bugs might come in. I live in Florida, we're dealing with critters all the time. Okay. So and it's not the end of the world like it just it's just maybe 10 ants that

we saw. So but it's something that we want to take care of because we have a daughter and we don't want her to get stung or you know whatever. So I call the pest company that we have today. They come every quarter like everybody else who has pest, and they spray the house and do what they do. And I said, hey, we have an infestation of insects in our bath, in our bottom floor that may or may not be coming from the ceiling or a hole in the bathroom or whatever. Can you please come out here and do it? And they're like, sorry, we don't have same day appointments. I was like, what? Like, what do you mean? Like, how do you not have same day appointments? Your entire existence is to stop vermin from coming into homes. And when vermin do, people want them out of their homes.

They don't live with them. How do you not have same day appointments? So now I'm like, I'm gonna call them after the show's over and be like, forget you, I'm gonna go to another company that can take care of our issues when they arise. Cause that's why you exist. A, am I the asshole? Yes.

Okay. Fix my problem now, peasant. But there are certain problems, like plumbers come the same day because if you need a plumber. Because your house may get flooded. I know. If you have 10 ants, you're not going to die. You want to 10 ants, yeah. Ice them right and spray them. Okay, so you don't think that they should have... Same day appointments? ...emergency to like fix people... They should offer you a same day appointment at quadruple the price. I'll pay it!

They said that I don't... I'm not saying that they shouldn't be compensated more. Plumbers are more expensive when they have to come the same day. Again, a plumbing emergency is much more of an emergency. Okay, but Andy, my situation may not be an emergency. In my wife's mind, it's World War Three. Okay, but some raid and kill the ants. I understand. The ants are dead. I killed them. What I don't what if it was a bigger what what if I had an anthill

and you're focusing on my problem and my problem isn't dire enough where I might need him to come immediately. But what if it was, they do not offer it. That's the problem. Right, because their business model is based on preventative maintenance, not acute situations.

So if I had a wash nest that was endangering my house, then what would I do? Just live with it until they come or get a hotel? I don't understand. Buy some freaking wasps spray. What's wrong with you? Oh man. Yeah, I don't know. Do you know how many wasps nests we have? Do you know where I live? What do you do with the level of bugs?

You get a psychopath with a little glasses and you just spray the thing? What are you nuts? I don't do that. Have you ever used Wasp spray before? It goes like 20 feet. It's actually lots of fun. Okay, but like I'm going to call,

I'm going to call a pest control company today and one will come to my house and they will solve my problem and When they do I will compensate them and I find it bizarre that the company that I have doesn't offer it Wait wait, that says are you we need to be shit home depot or lows? I have been to Home Depot with Ari before. It is one of the most fun experiences ever. I went to Home Depot with Ari to buy a propane tank. It was amazing. As someone who once worked for Terminix, sorry,

but this is not an emergency, sir. Okay, listen, Andy, again, I understand that my specific instance is not an emergency. What I'm saying is if I were to have an emergency, then maybe they would send somebody out. I didn't even tell them the nature of my issue. I said we had a pest infestation river was there. We I need you to come into my house and fix it. Like we don't offer same day

appointments. Well, you got to give them more specifics than that because they probably hear that all the time. You know, my house is overrun with rats. Somebody's probably coming. See, I found 15 ants. Okay, here's the thing. Here's the thing that I want to know, though, just to appease my wife. So this will turn from ATIA to like, hey, chat, help me out here.

My wife hates bugs. And she was serious of like, do we need to get a hotel because I can't even sleep with the thought that an ant or like these flying red ants will land on my face. Like this and I don't know if she's being dramatic. But in order to get you need to move out of Texas, then what I'm saying is, is in order to get through the day and to appease her when she gets home, like what's the solution to this? Do I kill the ants? Oh, the ants are dead and

gone, but they keep then there's no problem. They keep showing up. If I go downstairs where I killed the ants are dead and gone, but they keep showing up. They keep showing up. If I go downstairs where I killed the ants from will be more. Like there's an infestation. Can you track them to where they're coming from and just shoot some spray into there? They're in one room and they're in the other room, but they're everywhere. I don't know where they're coming from. I need a person who works in pest control to come tell me where they come from.

I don't know what to do. How do I appease my wife? Somebody help me. I don't know what to do. I literally have no clue. It's not go get an exterminator. Clearly. It's not as simple as go get raid and spray the area. Like what do I do if I don't know where they're coming from? Outside of call the person who's in charge of okay. So what do I type into YouTube? I have- Willie T with the greatest advice ever, cause it's true. Everything can be solved with a YouTube video.

Everything. What would you type into YouTube? How do I find where- Infestation, how do I find it? How do I find an infestation in my house? How do I find the source of an infestation? Let's do it. Let's Google it right now.

How do I find the source of an ant infestation? All right. Let's click the videos tab. Look at that. How to find ants in your house, ants inspection. How to find where ants are coming from. How to get rid of ants. Kill ants in your home. Get rid of ants. Keep it easy.

How to figure out where ants are coming from videos. That's how I'm going to spend my Thursday. Rather than paying the person who works at a company what's designed to specialize in this. Who's got other appointments? You're not that special. I know. OK, maybe ITIA. I T I A. I don't know. He said, hey, my wife is really upset and I need someone to come out here today and I have 30 seconds before the show starts.

Big timeing them like that is not helpful. I'm not big timeed, Jim. I thought honestly when I called in I thought like, yeah, sure, we have your address on file. We'll send somebody out between 12 and five. And I'll be like, okay. Unreal stuff. Raymond Horton goes, Ari grew up living the high class life. No, he didn't.

That's the funny part about this. Ari did not grow up in a mansion. He just acts like he did. Yeah. I grew up in a house where when you needed help, you called people who specialized in the problem. That's what happened. And like, I think that that in a house where when you needed help you called people who specialized in the problem That's that's what happened and like I think that's a rational and okay place as a redneck who gets asked about NASCAR Like we just live in a part of the country where like

You try to figure it out first before you pay somebody now the problem with that This is where your philosophy may be better, is half the time when you try to figure it out at first, you cause a more expensive problem than you would have if you just hired somebody. Yeah, that's my biggest fear in life. It's how I end up on a ladder with a chainsaw yesterday. And not, not. Yeah yeah I didn't cut anything off that shouldn't

have been cut off but you know that I appreciate you you guys are great and I love that you're here and if you think I am the a-hole then I love you but everyone is saying hey get ant traps it's like okay it doesn't stop the problem I want them to stop coming into my house I don't want to kill them. If you put the But everyone is saying, hey, get ant traps. It's like, okay, that doesn't stop the problem. I want them to stop coming into my house. I don't wanna kill them. If you put the ant traps in the correct place, it will. That's all the exterminator's gonna do.

I want him to spray the entire house in like every single ant that even looks at it dies. That's what I want. Oh my God. Ari, I love you. I want. Oh my God. Ari, I love you. I do. Thank you. I don't want to be in customer service when you call ever.

Yeah, I mean, the first thing I'm going to do when we hang up is not Google and YouTube video. I'm going to call other extermination companies to come solve the problem. Because Willie Tee has solved, Willie Tee's just full of of helpful solutions. Move to Alaska, no ants. Done. Yeah. But I'm also stressed because my wife is stressed about it.

And that energy has been transferred on to me. Christopher says, I would not get those traps. I would get boric acid. Ooh, yeah. Arian and acid. Christopher Wright, you live in Dallas. I'll just pay you directly to come over here and handle it. If you weren't determined, actually, you're my guy. I'll give you my address off the show right now. You can fix it for me and I'll pay you. I want to pay you my money to fix the problem. I'm not trying to take advantage of anybody. I want to patronize your business.

That's the other thing I can't stand in life. When you have a business and you turn customers away. If your business is going really well, you can't stand in life. Like when you have a business and you turn customers away, like you're like, if you are going really well, you can't serve every customer. If they are so busy that they cannot come to my house today, then that means that they're leaving money on the table by not having a big enough workforce to service the community. Right? Ari, I love, I love the micro economics lesson. Could you imagine if like we got to 10,000 listeners on live YouTube and then YouTube's like, sorry, 10,001, we don't have room for you today. We got we got a bandwidth for you. Is that what happened today to me? Is that not what happened? I listen, I'm watching the numbers climb on this segment. Like, yeah, we keep doing these. We may we may be at 100,000

live viewers who are here to like, listen and sailor Joe nailed it. This is it right here. I don't want to do it. Okay. I don't want to YouTube it. I don't want to go to home Depot. I don't want to buy boric acid or even get boric acid. I want somebody to come fix home Depot. So when every, I don't even know what that is. If I walked into

Home Depot and asked for boric acid, would they think I'm Walter White trying to decompose a body in a tub? I don't know what that is. Okay. So like all your suggestions of what to do are things I don't want to do. I want somebody to help me that knows what they're doing. I don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to pretend like I do. I'm not that guy and I'm never going to be that guy ever. I love you Ari. Or X with sugar in it. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe I'll put it in my air fryer and see what happens.

We love you. It's Ari's All-America Team tomorrow. Come yell at him some more.