Andy & Ari On3 - Why do basketball coaches last longer than football coaches? | Inside Kadyn Proctor's re-transfer

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

Need to sneak in those tournament games while at work? Prime Video has you covered. Watch every game live, on your phone, on your laptop, or relax and watch at home on Prime Video, with a subscription. Prime Video gives you choices to add on channels like Paramount Plus and Max, both featuring March Madness tournament games, all in one place. It’s March, it’s Madness, stream it all on Prime Video.Learn more now…https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/storefront/ref=atv_hm_spo_c_rEmqNT_6_2?contentType=tournament&contentId=amzn1.dv.icid.64a44c0e-3ac7-4b14-ad4d-c2a438001f2c&jic=8%7CEgNhbGw%3D(0:00-3:17) Intro(3:18-8:38) Update on ACC, North Carolina, etc(8:39-29:07) Tim Watts joins to update on all things Bama(29:08-34:13) Phillip Dukes joins in on Dear Andy(34:14-42:15) Basketball Coaches vs Football Coaches(42:16-47:59) SEC Kick-Off Times with New TV Deal(48:00-51:59) Washington AD job vs Nebraska AD job(52:00-1:00:23) Buyouts?(1:00:24-1:02:14) Computer Laptop Organized Win Nexus this year?(1:02:15-1:12:08) Top Sites in Men's and Women's March Madness Tournaments(1:12:09-1:27:56) Dear Dukes, Deion Sanders' Recruiting Style?(1:27:57-1:28:23) Conclusion - Time for Madness! The NCAA Tournament begins in earnest today when Michigan State and Mississippi State tip off at noon eastern. Then it’s wall-to-wall basketball all weekend!Before we dive deeper into hoops, Tim Watts of On3’s Bama Online joins to talk offensive tackle Kadyn Proctor’s impending transfer BACK to Alabama from Iowa. What does this mean for the Crimson Tide? How did Proctor’s decision come about?Next up, it’s time for Dear Andy. Special guest Phillip Dukes, the host of On3’s Five Star Flex, joins Andy to answer your questions…Why do college basketball coaches seem to have more longevity in jobs than college football coaches?Why would athletic director Troy Dannen leave Washington for Nebraska?How will the TV networks handle the best Big Ten and SEC games as the SEC’s best game moves from CBS to ESPN/ABC and CBS goes all Big Ten at 3:30 p.m. ET?What are the top three first-weekend sites for the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments?Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube today and join us LIVE from 8-9 am ET! https://youtube.com/live/mJFgA_MXFiU

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. It's the best two sports days of the year. That's right. Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament. This is where you get the upsets. This is where you get the craziness. This is where you get the buzzer beaters. It all starts today.

And we actually have a new sponsor that can help you watch all of that madness today. If you need to sneak those tournament games while you're at work, if you're somewhere, perhaps a family obligation, you need to watch it on your phone or you want to put it on your TV. You've cut the cord, but you still want to watch March Madness. Prime Video has you covered. Watch every game live on your phone, on your laptop, or relax and watch at home with Prime Video with a subscription. Because Prime Video gives you the choice to add on channels. So you can add on Max and Paramount Plus,

which would get you all of the NCAA tournament games. And here's the deal. It's all within one app when you do it that way. When you add those channels on, you're not going from app to app. You're in the Prime Video app, one password, one app, very, very easy. So click the link in the show description on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform, however you're getting this show,

and get signed up. Add Prime, add on Paramount+, add on Max, within Prime. You got it. You're set. And it's one subscription, one app, one place. And you get all the games and you can put them on pretty much anywhere, including at work. I know you watch me at work.

You're going to watch March Madness at work too. It's March. It's madness. You can stream it all on Prime Video. Hit that link in the show description. All right. It's very exciting. Noon Eastern time.

MSU versus MSU. Michigan State versus Mississippi State. That kicks it all off. It is going to be a blissful, blissful two days of nonstop basketball. I hope you've at least carved out some time in the afternoon where you may not have to work or if your schedule is a little bit lighter, this is the best. This is the absolute best. We're going to talk about it later in the show.

We've got some good Dear Andy questions. One about why college basketball coaches seem to have more longevity than college football coaches. It got me thinking, is Tom Izzo basketball Bob Stoops or was Bob Stoops football Tom Izzo? These are the important questions we have to answer. We also have one, which tournament sites would you want to be at in person

this year? Would you most want to be at, could you have the most fun at men's and women's side? We'll talk about that as well. Philip Dukes, the host of the five-star flex on the on three recruits channel is going to join us to answer your dear Andy question. We've also got a couple good college football questions as well. First though, we're gonna talk about a couple of things. One, you've got the lawsuit with Clemson and the ACC, and we keep wondering, is anybody else going to potentially join in? Clemson and Florida State have now sued the ACC. The ACC has now sued

both of them back. So we've got that. The ACC sued Clemson in North Carolina on Wednesday. So we've got your dueling lawsuits everywhere. And so all eyes turned to Chapel Hill. And I thought it was interesting that Inside Carolina talked to the board of trustees chair for North Carolina because this is sort of how all this percolates. And these are the people who make these decisions. So John Pryor is the, is the BOT chair at North Carolina. And this is what he told Inside Carolina. He said, I think what Clemson is doing is a hundred percent proof positive that a significant portion of the membership of the conference is unhappy. I don't see how it is anyone's interest in anyone's interest for the ACC leadership to try and browbeat its member schools from getting access to information and being transparent. And that's

the kind of case Clemson is making. I think this shows what is supposed that what is supposed to be a member based organization is not being led in a way that represents the best interests of all the members, but instead it's really representing the bottom tier of the membership at the expense of the top tier, which is why Clemson and Florida State are doing what they're doing. I think that's just obvious. Clearly, one of the more powerful people in North Carolina on the same side as Clemson and Florida State, which makes sense. North Carolina is one of those schools that if they were a free agent, the Big Ten and the SEC would want them. They would be coveted by both. So they've been pretty cautious. Bubba Cunningham, the athletic director, has been very cautious.

And I thought it was interesting that Pryor mentioned that because Cunningham also talked to Inside Carolina last month, and he talked about how it's up to UNC to be a great partner to the ACC. And Pryor said this to Inside Carolina, it's a potential conflict and it's something that is disturbing based on some of the comments he's made recently, which seemed to support the ACC at the expense of Carolina. That's a bad look, quoting John Pryor. I think we all recognize that change is hard, but sometimes change is exactly what is needed. We all have to fight the comfort of complacency. And I think that now's the time to be very open to pursuing

all options, including those beyond remaining in the Atlantic Coast Conference. So you're wondering, when's the next board of trustees meeting? At North Carolina. It's next week. Could be more. Could be more on the way. So as you watch the Tar Heels in the NCAA tournament, they're number one seed. They're very good. Potential national title run maybe for North Carolina here. They are pretty well equipped to make a deep run in this tournament. But that will be hanging over that run because that board of trustees meeting between the first two weekends of the NCAA tournament, David G in the chat goes, what are the median schools in the ACC separating to half from the bottom half? So if you're looking for

that middle tier, the ones that have invested in football, are really interested in that, and want to be a big-time football school, but maybe just haven't been able to pull it off, I'd say NC State, I'd say Louisville, Virginia Tech, schools like that, they would want to be in any big-time football conference, but they just maybe don't have as big of a brand, but they certainly don't lack the willingness and have tried to spend money and have tried to do that. I think that's that group that's stuck in between everybody who's fighting in the ACC but that fight is going to continue and it's going to be interesting to see how the battle lines get drawn like we know where UNC stands we knew where UNC stood before this we knew they were on the same side as Clemson and Florida State we're pretty sure Miami's on that same side the question

is where does that group fall? Because I don't think they really want to be lumped in with the Boston colleges and the Syracuses, but they also don't have the capability necessarily that a Clemson or a Florida state or North Carolina has if they were on the open market. So I think it becomes a different situation. But we're going to find out. Again, North Carolina's got a Board of Trustees meeting next week. Could get very, very interesting. Before we get to Dear Andy and your questions, though, we got to talk about another big story that has happened this week. Caden Proctor, former Alabama offensive tackle, transferred to Iowa, now transferring back to Alabama.

It's been a wild, wild week. Tim Watts from Bama Online joined us to explain how this happened and what it means for the Crimson Tide. We're joined now by Tim Watts of Bama online and it's been odd week. Tim, you get up on on Tuesday and you're hearing suddenly Caden Proctor might come back to Alabama and then by Tuesday night, Caden Proctor is putting the Michael Jordan, I'm back meme on his Instagram story. Hey props for him to even know about that comeback. I'm back. You know what I mean? Not many people his age know that.

But yeah, it was. He wasn't born. You know, the thing about it is you get so numb to everything because we've covered Justice Haynes, for instance, and several times Justice Haynes or Caleb Downs would go to Georgia and where they're from, where their parents live. And sometimes they'd end up on the University of Georgia campus where they have friends and teammates and everything else else so people that would start the transfer rumor

so when we saw that kate and proctor was hanging out with a former teammate at the beach and they were you know working out together and all that stuff you kind of wrote that's just friends being friends so we kind of just went through it with everything else that was happening but monday when the first time i was asked like have you heard anything about Caden Proctor transferred we went straight to yeah I'll dig into it I'll look and then yesterday I was at lunch with Andrew Bones probably 11 a.m and it really started to pop off and we started going hey you know we called Charlie Potter we call everybody we called Travis we said hey this this could be something that's happening we're preparing for it and then a few hours later I think the Iowa end leaked it all out that he had talked to the NIL.

But it's my understanding that he went back to Iowa in the first day, said I'm out. And, of course, they tried to talk him into staying. I mean, he's a heck of a football player. And I know he had some growing pains as a true freshman in the SEC. But so did Caleb Downs. He had growing pains. But Caleb Proctor is a big-time player. Of course, they tried to keep him, and of course, Alabama would like to have him back,

but didn't have this on the bingo card for Tuesday. Didn't have it in the middle of March. Didn't have that coming down the pipe. Well, and it answers a question for Alabama because Alabama's going to have to replace both offensive tackles. J.C. Latham, obviously a very big NFL prospect. He's going to have to replace both offensive tackles. JC Latham, obviously, a very big NFL prospect. He's going to be drafted here pretty soon but now they don't have to replace the left tackle and I so you

did a video with with Travis Ryan Andrew Bone from your site on Tuesday and I was fascinated watching the chat watching the Alabama fans in the chat where a bunch of them are like wait but he wasn't that good. Do we really want him back? And I'm like, guys, he was a true freshman starting in the sec and go watch the Georgia game. He was awesome by then. Yeah. I don't think, I think that you judge, I mean, it just depends what, how you want, you know, sports fans can be very casual and they can watch it. I mean, I truly, you see an offensive line and how many average fans,

just a fan of a school sees a great block or when he pulls or when he does this or picks up a band in a blitzer, not many really see that, right? But they see every hold, every sack. And you know, the confusing part is often is the guy, you can give up a sack, looks like you give up a sack and it wasn't actually your guy that you were responsible for. You know that better than anybody. So when the fan, you're just kind of looking at it. You don't notice the good things they do. It's like making an error in baseball or any mistake. The mistakes stand out.

You can't miss them. But yeah, anybody, Caden Proctor could go anywhere. When he went in the portal initially, he had contact. I mean, I can't even imagine how many schools contacted him trying to get him when he originally went into the portal. But I mean, you're getting a guy two questions after Nick Saban left two questions, huge questions where what are you going to do for center? What are you going to do for tackle? Got to find two tackles in a center where now you're down. You know, if this all goes through, it's still got to go through in a role and all that.

You're down to, you know, finding one tackle, which is a lot easier than finding two of them. Yeah. And you may have less of a Caden Proctor. You and I talked about this when we talked last week about how different things might be under Kalen DeBoer. Nick Saban liked his offensive lineman very big. So Caden Proctor and JC Latham started last season at about 360. And I would not be shocked if we're looking at a 330-pound Caden Proctor when this season starts. No, it wasn't shocking. And I've seen a lot of Alabama fans saying he needs to lose weight.

Well, he played. He was the exact same size as his other bookend tackle with J.C. Latham. They liked him big. They liked him big. They liked him bully. They liked him to push him around. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he was lighter. Again, we go back to J.C. Latham playing in that 360 range and checked into the NFL combine at 342.

I'm hoping he weighs today to see if he's even lighter because you notice in the NFL combine, people are talking about how great he moved and how well he looked, especially at that size, because he does look great. Proctor could easily lose that weight, but that staff was happy with how he looked. That wasn't a huge problem. Now, Kalen DeBoer and his staff might feel a little bit different, and he can change. And again, we're not talking, if you're 40 up, you're thinking losing 30 pounds is a big deal.

It is. We've got to starve yourself. You've got to get on the elliptical. You've got to do everything you can. talking if you're 40 up you're thinking losing 30 pounds is a big deal it is we gotta we gotta starve yourself you got to get on the elliptical you got to do everything you can probably need some boost there but I mean if you're 19 20 years old 360. you already weighed 360. yeah it melts right off if you start changing a couple things yeah yeah yeah he can he can twerk it he can tweak it and twerk he can tweak it pretty quickerk. He can tweak it pretty quick. Did you say he could twerk it? Because now I'm fascinated by the Instagram stories.

I have so many kids in this house, the things that run through my mind are not always matching what I should say. But he was one of those guys that really developed as the year went on. It's funny because like Pete Nacos and I have talked about how crazy the spring portal window could be. We act, this actually may be the best player who goes into the spring portal window. If it's not, I mean, I don't, you know, I don't know what to expect. I think it's easy to say it's going to be crazy because that's a guaranteed fact. There's no doubt it's going to be crazy because that's a guaranteed fact. There's no doubt it's going to be crazy. Just the portal from Alabama's perspective, along with Proctor and Keyon Saab, just the guys coming in have been crazy. And not so much the Washington

guys. They knew this staff that made perfect sense. But you have a lot of things happening now with guys at other schools. And when they get there, they might not be happy with their NIL deals after spring practice. They might not be happy with their role, their assistant, the coach that recruited them could have left, their position coach could have left. So the sky's the limit. We're seeing that in basketball right now. We have teams in the NCAA. Alabama got a commitment from a portal guy yesterday while they're flying to Spokane to play in the NCAA tournament. So again, my biggest problem with all this is the calendar is a mess. That's my first thing is like fix the cap. There's no way these things should be crossing over the way they are.

But I mean, the basketball calendar is an even dumber one. And I talked about this on the show the other day. Like all you've got to do is move the basketball calendar where to, to where the football portal window is April 15th. Like the whole season's over at that point. And people won't be turning down NIT invitations. Like that's not that complicated

because if the football guys can do it in December where two weeks before exams, three weeks before they have to be in there, or I guess a week before exams and then three weeks before they have to be on the new campus, they somehow managed to get all that done. If you did it in the second week of April, where you have a month and a half to figure out where you're going to go

and three months to figure out how to get there, I don't think that's too big of a problem. No, and I was giving the basketball props because they have, to me, they have the right idea with the signing period. You have one before the season and you have one after the season, which I think would be smart for football to do it instead of talking about adding an additional third signing period and make it even more confusing. But this window being open right now for 45 days, I mean,

you're probably struggling to keep everybody on your team right now. You got guys at the end of a bench at a really good program who wanna go somewhere else. And he sees these guys commit to the bigger programs as they start to trickle out and commit, they're gonna be urging to go. So if you're playing in the final four, as great as that experience is, you're almost gonna have to look at it. Do I play in the final four and miss my shot?

Or do I go in the portal and try to find my school? So made a lot of decisions really hard for a lot of these players. Yeah. It's like, it's like Nick Saban or Kirby smart or, or Jim Harbaugh or anybody in these coaches who've been in the playoff the last few years in football who have to recruit the portal while they're getting ready for their biggest games of the season. So, yeah, it's crazy. And, Tim, you're like me. You fully appreciate the beauty of the sports calendar. So I want to ask you, this is running on the first day of the NCAA tournament, the first day of the real NCAA tournament, the Thursday,

where it starts at noon Eastern time and goes past midnight Eastern time. What is this day like for you? This week has been great for me. First, I'm a Major League Baseball fan. Wake up and they're playing in South Korea, the Dodgers and the Padres. The NCAA tournament, that's the bookmark, especially because, you know, when I was younger, it was just one TV and they would just flip around the games, right? So your game you might want to see is at the bottom of the screen on the ticker. But now

you have three, four, and I'm a multi-TV guy. There's four or five at any point going on with sports. And so that's, to me, when you get all these apps, all the fire sticks, everything you can do with it, it's amazing. I can watch each game or glance at each game, focus on one game at a time. But yeah, it's one of the best times of the year. It doesn't really dampen, you know,

all the political stuff as far as NIL and everything else, the lawsuits and everything doesn't really bother me. I'm just a go with the flow guy. I'm not deterred by the NIL. I think it's just another thing we have to deal with. I imagine it's kind of, you know, I think we're kind of going through that era when they started doing free agency and baseball and a little bit of his story. And they had a major fit when the guys could go out and shop their talent and get it. But I mean, obviously Proctor, I don't expect him to be a normal situation, but I don't think there's anything locked in.

Like a big rumor last night was Caleb Downs was going to Alabama. There was nothing really to it other than Proctor had flipped to Alabama or was expected to come back to Alabama. Now I'm saying flipped. That's how crazy this is. He flipped to him once. Yeah, he's flipped. Yeah, he is a flip-flop back

and forth there. But you have the guys, you know, Caleb Downs, the rumor was hot and heavy. It's so bad the collective had to come out this morning and say Caleb's locked in. Now, there was no substance behind Caleb because he was at practice Ohio State. And at this point, you're just following the tea leaves and the clues. But again, that collective saying he's locked in, I'm not saying anything other than anything is on the table, in my opinion, right now. Anything is on the table. But what we know is where things sit now.

Caden Proctor is expected to go in the portal. That's a fact. He said it. And Caleb Downs is at Ohio State practice. But rumors, you know, the rumors, the hot and heavy thing was Twitter was on fire with the, oh, boy, if what I'm being told is true, it's going to be big news. Well, yeah, something's going to happen in the next year. Something big is going to happen at every school.

So that was very popular. But it was flying through. Proctor set off a domino effect of everything. And it was even now this morning. I mean, it's kind of feels, I mean, it's still surprising. We're discussing it right now. Well, and the thing, like, I think because of the timing of when they happened, when Caden Proctor went into the portal from Alabama,

when Caleb Downs went into the portal from Alabama, I think people just naturally attached the two things together. They were both caused by the same inciting event and that was Nick Saban retiring, but that doesn't mean they were done for the same reasons. Yeah. And also, I mean, it's like, if you're going to tag a Proctor to, um, Caleb downs, do you not tag Amari Nye Black and isaiah bond and uh you know everybody else des rich you can't they're all can't come back uh you know julian's saying there's so many guys that went seth mclaughlin you know i literally had a friend i know he was kidding but he said what if they sent

seth to ohio state to learn how to snap and he's coming back to bam and i'm like what is oh my god like what you know that is peak sdc conspiracy theory right there he said it tongue-in-cheek but there's zero doubt he was asking me if i thought it was possible he's a lawyer it's not some crazy guy you heard you heard ryan day though he put it on milrose cadence he can ryan day i don't care what there's no cadence that said snap the ball, roll the ball back to the quarterback. At my shins, yeah. And 30 feet to his right. I mean, I watch a ton of football. You watch it, when the ball is snapped early, where does it usually hit the quarterback? Hands, face. In the hands of the face mask, yeah.

Yes, the cadence, that's when the snap's off. It doesn't roll back there. There's no cadence for, you know. And also another thing is, hey, we knew Seth was a really good – I hope he's great this year. I hope he does a good job. He's a good kid. He worked hard at Alabama. He dealt with a lot. But Seth was good at Alabama practices too.

That's how he got the job. And he was great in certain games, like the SEC Championship game. He just had to yip sometimes, and hopefully he got the job. And he was great in certain games like the SEC championship game. He just had to yip sometimes and hopefully he got over it and moved on. But to blame the cadence, there's no hut-hut, which means snap that 10 feet to the right and roll it back here. There's no cadence. Also, it's very loud in most stadiums. A lot of times it's a clap or it's a motion and not necessarily something anybody's saying. No matter what, unless it's hitting your inside of your thigh, that

ball shouldn't come back there like a Phil Negro knuckleball. That's the thing. Like you said, I think Seth McLaughlin's going to be just fine because even if there are future snapping issues, he can move to guard and block very well and make lots of money playing football for a long time so that's not really that's not really i just thought it was very funny that ryan did chime in probably i mean i think he's doing the right thing he's probably trying to give him some confidence and say yeah i mean you don't get far in life going it's your fault you know what i mean you got to take? You got to take the goodwill hunting approach with, it's not your fault to really get somebody over a hunt a lot of times. There's not

a lot of times you can say it is you, it's not me without people being angry at you. So I think that's the right approach. Seth's a guy, you know, a low, you know, a low, you know, three-star guy wasn't highly recruited. I think he's overachieved up to get to that. Unfortunate with the snaps, hoping he fixes it, but I don't think Jalen Milrow was a problem for him at all. Well, and Jalen Milrow did have some issues last year when Caden Proctor was trying to get his sea legs. But I'm telling you right now, I can't wait to see Caden Proctor as a sophomore. I think he's going to be a really good left tackle. And by the time he's midway through his sophomore year when he's a junior, he's going to be one of the best in the country. And now Alabama's got that

again, we think. We'll see, but we think. Well, I mean, again, you know, the thing is, but we think, well, I mean, if you want to start any offense, you want to start with the offensive line, right? I'm always going to believe that. I think most football purists do. They've got two interior offensive linemen. This is right after Nick Saban left with all American types, Jaden and Tyler Booker. Those are all American type interior offensive linemen. Then you had three spots to fill. Parker comes in. Parker Brailsford from Washington. He was second team, all Pac-12 as a freshman. And then, you know, you get Proctor to come in at left. You got three or four guys battling for right. It looks a lot easier now than it did a few days after Nick Saban left,

that's for sure. And you want to get those guys, Coach Capp's got to be pretty excited. You got guys coming in and the portal window is going to open up for other positions. And if you look at what, what did Alabama lose when Nick Saban left? And I'm not saying these are all apple to apple, so don't get me wrong. But they lost Caleb Downs and they got Keon Saab. They lost Proctor. They're going to get Proctor. You know what I mean? They're kind of filling those voids. They lost Seth. They're going to get Parker. So you see these guys filling in. Isaiah Bond left and they got Jeremy Bernard. They lost a tight end, Nye Black. They got Jose Cuevas, who's getting really good reviews from the people I talked to about practice so far, which is only one weekend. But he did average

40 yards of reception when he was at Washington. So they're kind of replacing the parts they've missed. And again, I'm not saying the only one where you can say for sure it's their equals is Proctor for Proctor. The rest of them, it's your debate, but a lot of people are high on, and I like saying that Proctor to Proctor. Sounds like an eighties detective show. It does. It sounds like it'd be a great eighties middle infield, you know, Proctor to Proctor. Proctor to Proctor to Proctor to proctor to proctor. Oh, that would be fantastic. Our really, our really bad law firm is trying to, it's going to end up in federal court. But yeah, you had these, you have all this stuff happening and filling those voids.

And I still expect April to be, because the one thing about Alabama is they're still getting to know their roster, right? They've had a week with them to see them in pads on the field. What works, what doesn't work? And you know what? Some people won't like the new system. Some people will love the new system. So there's a lot of jockeying going back and forth.

But I do, the one thing I am pretty confident about, I think Kalen DeBoer and his staff are going to be able to fill a good roster when it comes August. I think they're going to have a lot of talent on the field, especially from the needs they feel they have, which is more important than what, you know, any ranking or anything else. It's are they feeling the needs they feel they've got? Yeah, it is going to be fascinating to watch. And there is a lot of moving parts that we'll see throughout April and May.

He's been a busy guy. If you look at it, if you look at Kalen DeBoer from the guys who left to Ryan Williams to possibly Caden Proctor, if you lay out the timeline, he's been an active fellow. He's had a lot going on there recruiting-wise with the prep ranks and also another thing he did, he kept a lot of those other transfers like Damani Jackson. So they were able to keep some talent that could have you know went back in the portal as well well we're going to find out what

that roster looks like exactly I can't wait to see the a day game and what they yeah I mean just to see them on the field with somebody not Nick Saban leading them is going to be really interesting now it's going to be fantastic to see something new and I think the prop you know when Nick Saban leading them is going to be really interesting. No, it's going to be fantastic to see something new. And I think the problem, you know, when Nick Saban retired, and I asked this on the board last night, I said, I would like to, I wanted a grade. Where do you think Alabama stands on a scale of one to 10, 70 days after Nick Saban retired? What grade would you give them? I mean, not factoring in, I know they got to play games and all that stuff but where do

you feel al university of alabama is 70 days after nick saban retired that's what i asked i think the reviews have been pretty good i think you've got to be pretty positive um you know lost some guys got some guys doing the right things a lot of positive energy i didn't expect it to be sitting in this well this if i'd have known about the NIL, I for sure would be covering tennis or something, you know, when he retired. I'd own a tennis site. I'd be ready to go. Well, I think you're doing just fine. And Bama Online doing great right now, especially with the news that Caden Proctor is returning.

Tim Watts, thank you so much. Anytime, Andy. Thank you. The great Tim Watts talking Caden Proctor, re-transferring to Alabama. Transferring back. We'll have to come up with a word for that. Actually, we'll make that our first Dear Andy question, or we'll make it a Dear Dukes question. First, let me introduce the host of the Five Star Flex on the On3Recruits channel.

One of my favorite co-workers, Phil Dukes. How we doing? Oh, you are muted, sir. You are muted. Ah, the joys of live podcasting. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. You hear me? Oh, we got it.

We got Dukes. What's up? Hey, what's going on, Andy? How you doing? Good. So we are ready to roll. Yeah, my dear Dukes question. We're going to do some dear Andy questions with you.

But my dear Dukes question is this going to do some dear Andy questions with you, but my dear Duke's question is this. What do we call a retransfer? We've had a few of these. Caden Proctor's not the first. Like Austin Stogner went back to Oklahoma from South Carolina last year. We've seen it. But what do we call it when someone goes back to their first school? You know what? So in years past, when recruits were about to go to a school

or they just committed to a school, I think Gus Malzahn used to say boom. So what if we went with a boomerang? Yes. That's it. The boomerang. So Kate Proctor is a boomerang. I love it. That's perfect. That is perfect. Well, since we have not gotten a chance to talk to you since all that broke, were you surprised by that news? Absolutely. That was definitely not on my bingo board for 2024 that Caden Proctor would be going back to Alabama.

I mean, at first I didn't even know if it was legal. I had to go brush up my knowledge as far as transfer portal rules. I'm like, how does he get the transfer again? You had to read about federal court. The reason you can do it is an injunction issued to read about federal court because that's the reason it works the reason you can do it is an injunction issued in december in federal court yeah it's crazy man like so yeah um

it was really surprising but i think it speaks to what they're building in alabama for sure uh i think the the the tone has changed a little bit where you got a lot of what's a nick saban's legacy but now like one of the first thing I've talked to from players in Alabama they're just like oh we get to play music in practice now and I think that the atmosphere is like we're still Alabama we have that still hard-nosed tough legacy but now it's a little more fun and I think aka Debo uh Caleb DeBoer is uh adding that to the to the mix in Alabama, and it's exciting. I just – now I want to hear DeBo coming and the bike squeaking,

and then Kalen DeBoer comes into the frame and not Tiny Lister. Jeremy says, do you think A-Day will sell out the way it did with Saban's first A-Day? I do. I think they get a full house because they're excited about this roster. Yeah. I absolutely think they'll get a full house and I think just to see somebody else come out in that crimson is going to be

so different and it's an event. It's a beginning of an era, a new era, a changing of the guard, and I think that there are going to be some things that are going to be, I hate to say it, but so under Nick Saban, everybody talked about the NFL, right? But maybe not fun.

It's going to be so much more fun in Alabama right now because I think it's more of a loose West Coast type vibe in the southeastern environment. And I think it's going to be really cool. So I think people are going to line up in droves to go to the spring game. As you said, we had not seen this. That's not true. We saw it a little bit with LSU in 2019. That Ed Orgeron staff, that group, they seem to have – and listen, if you have Joe Burrow throwing to Jamar Chase

and Justin Jefferson, you're having fun. But we have not seen that because the SEC teams that have been good, even if you think back, so the Saban teams, the Kirby Smart teams, they have their own kind of very similar regimented style. The Urban Meyer teams at Florida, like it felt like everything was about to explode at all times. Like we've not seen a loosey-goosey good SEC team in a while, other than 2019 LSU.

Yeah, and I think we're due, right? I think you need that every now and then for people to kind of get behind it as far as on a national landscape. And I think what it's going to do is also help Alabama recruit even more when you just see how loose they can be and how fun it can be in Tuscaloosa. I mean, when you think about the type of players that they have, they have one of the most dynamic quarterbacks in the country. You add in probably the most electrifying high school wide receiver.

I'm not saying he may have been the best overall, but as far as pure electricity, it doesn't get any better than Ryan Williams. And I think a lot of people are going to come out and want to see it. And I think it'll be fun. If they start winning in year one, yeah, it's going to get ugly in the SEC. I cannot wait. Now, the Nick Saban retiring actually feeds into our first year any questions. This is from Crawford. He got me thinking on this one. He said, why do basketball coaches last so much longer than football coaches? Tom Izzo and Jim Boeheim

come to mind. Both are highly thought of, but each only has one national title in their career. I don't think you can coach football for 20 plus years with only one title to show for it. And so I immediately thought of Bob Stoops and Mack Brown because both of them have the one title. And like Izzo, so Izzo won his national title in 2000. And like seven months later, Bob Stoops won his national title. Bob Stoops has been retired for seven years. And Tom Izzo is tipping it off at noon today, like with no signs of slowing down. Right. I think, so I'm a little bit out of the box here.

But what I think is when basketball, in basketball, you can get your focal point of your attack from one of five positions. And it can even be the sixth guy that can be the most important guy on your team. Well, in football, your focal point is going to be one, the quarterback. And if you have a good run on quarterbacks, then you're going to be good. But if you miss on a five-star, you miss on this guy who is a can't-miss product, then the next thing you know is people saying, hey, look at Dabo Sweeney. When he had that great run on quarterbacks, he was the toast of the town when it came to being the next big guy or the next big thing,

and Clemson is going to be here for years. Well, they kind of missed on a guy or two and now it's up. Is it time? Has Dabo lost it? Does he know how to recruit? And I think it's directly tied to quarterback play in a lot of ways. So I think that it's a little bit easier in basketball to maintain that relevancy because you can get your focal point of your attack from a multitude of positions.

Yeah, you could have a good point guard or a transcendent wing player and just build around that. If you don't have the quarterback, it's interesting that you put it that way, because I was thinking the other direction in terms of recruiting. Cause like basketball, you could turn your roster over every season and you're still only dealing with 13 scholarships, right? Like that's half of a football recruiting class. And like now football has to deal with possibly all 85 turning over or re-recruiting all 85. So like, I think the pressure in recruiting for a football coach is a much,

much worse situation. Like even in the old, you know, old rules when it wasn't as stressful as it is now in football, you still had 25 to 30 new players a year. Basketball, you had three to eight new players a year. Like that was it's a big difference. It's a huge difference. And I think the pressure that comes along with not even just recruiting based on talent, but recruiting based on culture. If you get the wrong guy who's supremely talented,

he can really pretty much sink your whole ship. So understand that the football culture is so much different from basketball with the level of aggression and physicality that goes along with the sport. So if you get it wrong, and you've got so many more places to get it wrong, you can really easily identify a character on a basketball team because like you said the roster is is almost a fourth or a fifth or a sixth of what a football roster is i know that math is horrible but still you kind of get my point we're bad at math show that's what we do so don't worry okay but but yeah it's and it's

amazing the i was looking at this. So you mentioned Dabo. And Dabo is one of the longest tenured coaches in college football. He started in 2009 at Clemson. He was the interim in 2008. That's the same year Calipari started at Kentucky. And now Calipari is a little bit different animal because he is in the highest pressure basketball job. He's in the equivalent

of the Alabama or Ohio State football job in basketball and like if they lose this weekend like if they don't get out of this weekend there's gonna be a lot of pressure on Cal there's gonna be a lot of pressure on Kentucky and Cal's got basically what amounts to a lifetime contract. But I don't think they would fire Cal. I do think if Dabo can't win the ACC in the next couple years, I don't think they would fire Dabo. But I think he might go, you know what? Maybe Bob Stoops had it right, and mid-50s retirement is for me. Yeah, I think this landscape in particular just will kind of even expedite

that process for Dabo. I mean, it's a headache. Excuse me, when you talk to guys in the coaching profession, it's like you go to college to get your money or AKA you go to college to get your bank because it comes with hazard pay

because of everything you have to deal with. According to the NFL, all you have to do is go coach your technique and coach guys up to what they're doing on Saturday. In the college ranks, you got to coach a guy Monday through Sunday about everything that goes along with it. How do you spend your NIL money?

Are you happy? Hey, can I get you some milk, sir? Whatever it has to be, whatever you have to do in order to keep guys happy, you have to do in the college football realm. And I think Davos Swinney, who's always been a guy, he's had a structured way of recruiting. He does official visits on one weekend. He's not leading with NIL.

He's not telling you everything you're going to get at Clemson. And he's allowing guys to walk who think that you're not you know, like you're not that, so to speak, you're bigger than a program because of what you've done. He'll let a guy like that walk. He won't even approach certain guys if they have the wrong attitude. And I think now the way college football is, you've got to, you really, if you don't have the guys, it's the Jimmy's and Joe's thing. And there's so much now is like Jimmy's and Joe's and fur coats is Jimmy's

and Joe Namath's. Jimmy's and Joe Namath's.'s man you are a branding machine we got boomerangs already we got jimmy's and joe namath's i i this is this is perfect and and i i think you're right about that now it's interesting because like the top end football recruiting is just now becoming like top end basketball recruiting always was. So I think the basketball coaches are a little more used to dealing with that. So it's going to be a very interesting situation going forward. And we'll see if the football churn continues. Because Bill Self's been at Kansas for 21 years.

Mike Krzyzewski coached Duke for 42 years. 42 years. It's wild. And I can't imagine. So we got Kirk Ferentz at Iowa, who's been there since 1999. Kyle Whittingham and Mike Gundy started their schools in 2005, but there's really nobody else that's even on that level. So I think we got some more issues with Dukes. I believe he's frozen right now, and that's okay. We will effort to get him back because we have to get him back because it's a

very important Dear Andy question. It's actually another Dear Dukes question that I have to get him back because we have to get him back because there's a very important Dear Andy question. It's actually another Dear Dukes question that I have to ask him because Deion Sanders defended his recruiting philosophy, which I thought was very interesting. And he doesn't visit people where they are. He wants them to come to him. And it was a pretty fascinating answer. So we're going to talk to Dukes about that shortly. Dukes, by the way, just got a text from his internet provider that, yeah, we're doing some work in your area. Don't they know he's on the show right now? What's wrong with these people? Come on. All right. That's okay. We will plow

ahead with dear Andy. We've got some good questions. So if we get Duke's back, that's great. If not, we're good. We got lots of your questions. So our next question comes from Keely. Hey, Andy, first off, love the show and really appreciate all the content you put out there. One of my favorite college football podcasts, hands down. My question is around kickoff times this season. I'm a Vols season ticket holder who likes to plan ahead as much as possible for the fall. For the longest time, it was easy to predict when the Vols would be playing in either the 330 CBS slot or a night game just by taking a look at the SEC slate that weekend. Now with the Big Ten taking that spot on CBS,

I'm curious, how is that network planning on using it? The past few seasons, the best big 10 game was at noon on Fox. Do you see that changing or moving to three 30? I have to imagine that makes an impact on how ESPN handles SEC games. The top game obviously gets her curbside at 8 PM on ABC. But what about the second best game? Should SEC schools be ready for more noon kicks or night games? I understand

this likely hasn't been publicized by networks, but just your best guess will do. All right, Keely. So I can give you one that's not a guess. The Big Ten, I can explain very easily. So Fox is going to continue with that best Big Ten game at noon. They're paying the most for it. They pay the most for Big Ten rights. They get the pick. So the best Big Ten game probably will still be at noon. Now, remember, Fox still has Big 12 rights. Occasionally, there's going to be a game that they feel like supersedes that. I doubt very seriously it's going to happen very often. Usually Usually you're going to see the best big 10 game at noon on Saturday. Now I, here's the thing best is a subjective term because historically, since Fox has started doing this and I realized it's not a huge sample size, they'll tend to go with if a mega brand. So Ohio state of Michigan usually is what we're talking

about in this case. If they're playing a team that maybe isn't going to give them the best game and there may be a more competitive game somewhere else, they're still going with the Ohio State or Michigan game. And they're going to probably have that one. So CBS is going to get that second pick. And NBC, we'll see exactly how the CBS and NBC division of labor works in the Big Ten, but that CBS 330 game is usually going to be the second best Big Ten game, which I think a lot of weeks could wind up being the best Big Ten game. You've seen that in the SEC. In the past, when CBS got the first pick, sometimes they'd pick a game and they'd put on at 3.30 and it'd be okay. But the game that's on ESPN at seven o'clock wound up being a better game. A lot of times it's sort of, you're just guessing

at that point, 11 days out. Now, as far as the SEC goes, and I think this is an interesting point here. It's all in the same family of networks now, which gives them more flexibility. Like they don't have to put the best game at three 30. They don't have to put the best game at eight. They can kind of figure out what they want to do. And what some SEC ADs told me that they thought would be interesting when all of the SEC migrated to the ESPN Disney family of networks is that they think they're going to be able to put out kickoff times a lot earlier in the year, that they're not always going to have to wait until 11 days out to figure out what network is going to be on, what time the kickoff is going to be.

They should at least be able to give you a window. This is going to be a day game. This is going to be a night game before even several know, even several months out. And I think that'll be helpful. Also, I think we've seen that it doesn't necessarily matter if it's a primetime game, if it's an afternoon game, people will find the best game. I go back to 2019. LSU Alabama was the game of the year that year in the SEC, CBS got crushed because they picked a Georgia Notre Dame game to be their primetime game, which they had Notre Dame coming to Athens. I mean, that's a big deal.

I don't blame them for that choice. Well, the LSU Alabama game did a monster rating at 330. People will find the game. Dukes, we got Dukes back. How dare they do internet work in your neighborhood while you're on the show? What are we even doing here? What is their problem?

Well, you look and sound beautiful. So I want to ask you because, you know, you grew up in SEC country. You're an Auburn grad. Part of Keeley's question is this whole transition of CBS isn't going to have the best SEC game anymore. Is it going to be weird for you trying to figure out those first few weeks what to do at 3.30 Eastern time? Is your remote going to automatically go to CBS or do you have to recalibrate?

I'm definitely going to have to recalibrate. It's going to be weird. It's one of those things that it's kind of almost been ingrained in you as an SEC fan where to be at 3.30 on a Saturday. And so now you can be in the same place, but it's not going to feel the same. It's not going to look the same. Now, I'm also a big proponent of change, so maybe there will be some things that are better. But the one thing about when you love something is that you're able to create memories. And this is going to make you appreciate some of those CBS games a whole lot more and be excited for the future on ABC.

Yeah, I miss Vern. I still miss Vern. Vern was the best at – he could be the voice of God if he needed to, but he could be your hilarious drunk uncle at the same time. Like, not many people can do that. It's in basketball terms. It's like being able to be Jim Nance and Bill Raftery at the same time, which is very, very difficult. All right, let's move on to Chris's question. And this took to some news that happened yesterday. Is Nebraska a better athletic director job than Washington Washington will start collecting those big big 10 checks eventually so Troy Dannon left Washington after about five and

a half months there he was at Tulane he goes to Washington think about this Dukes this is your tenure in your five and a half months there you go to the national title game in football your coach leaves you have to hire a new football coach and You go to the national title game in football, your coach leaves, you have to hire a new football coach, and then you fire the basketball coach, and then you peace out to Nebraska. Pew! What a deal! Right.

That's tough. But I think to answer Chris's question, I think Nebraska's a better football job when it comes to tradition, which when you think about how athletic departments are structured, football, nine times out of ten, is going to be the driving force in the athletic department. So along those lines, yes. But when you talk about overall sports, what's the is it the Davis Cup that people win when you're the best all around? I think it's the Learfield Directors it's changed a couple times but yeah yeah yep so i think your best opportunity to win that award for the best all around will probably be at washington but uh you know that remains to be seen but just in my opinion i think football wise you got to go

nebraska but when it comes to uh to overall the trajectory of the athletic department, I would say that Washington was probably a better job. Well, so Washington, and this is where it gets confusing, because Washington's better at football than Nebraska right now and has been better at football than Nebraska for most of the last 10 years. But Nebraska is probably the more desirable ad job you can probably wind up getting paid more ultimately there they've got donors who will just keep donating they will throw money at the problem until they get it fixed like if you're an ad

that's what you want you want people who will just throw money at the problem and at Washington I don't think it's as big sports are not as huge a priority for Washington even though they are a very big priority that has always been a very good football program it's a great fan base but they're not as it's not a lunatic fan base like Nebraska which if you're an AD this is a double-edged sword but you know they're going to give you a bunch of money so I think if you're Troy Dannenen who toiled at Tulane for a long time trying to break into the big time, this does give you a chance to kind of have a lot more toys

and a lot more money to work with at Nebraska, even though, yes, Washington will be getting a full share in the Big Ten eventually. They're not right now. But I just thought it was Wild Dukes. And Troy Dannen, I've talked to him over the years. He's actually very level-headed about all the rules. He's always said the transfer rules should change, that they were unfair to the players. So he's not the right person to be calling a hypocrite for moving around. Whereas some of these other ADs that have tried to restrict the players movement and then they move around it's it's a lot worse but I will say it's hilariously funny watching

all these ADs go to Washington and these conference commissioners go to Washington and beg Congress for guardrails when you have an AD who's leaving after six months to go to another school right yeah absolutely and he really got the most, when you talk about efficiency, when you talk, I mean, good guys. Hey,

you know what? Hire him, fire him. I'll see you guys. See, see you in the big 10 championship. You just fired Mike Hopkins as your basketball coach. And,

and then, you know, the head Hunter search for in person calls. He was like, Hey, would you want the nebraska job and you're like oh i don't have to hire this next basketball coach let's go hey man i left the seat warm for you exactly exactly all right here's a uh somewhat related question

from benji when a coach leaves the school to go elsewhere who generally pays the previous school the coach's buyout is it the coach the new school or the new school's boosters that is uh it's a complicated question very low because it's it's changed over the years like it used to be like when a buyout in the old days when the buy buyout was like 500 grand, it was the coach's job to pay it. And he'd pay it out of the, out of the new salary. He'd just, the school, the new school would be like, Hey, we're paying you a bunch more money.

Just pay your buyout. But now you can't do that. Some of these buyouts are so big, like the tax hit that the new coach would get would be obscene. Like, okay, I'll give you an example. And Oregon fans, don't freak out on me. I know Dan Lanning isn't going anywhere. Part of the reason he's not going anywhere

is his $20 million buyout. But let's, Dukes, and we're bad at math show. So I'm gonna ask you to help me be bad at math and correct me if I mess anything up. And I'm sure I'm gonna mess some of this stuff up.. So let's say we're going to use the roundest numbers possible because we're a bad at math show, but let's say hypothetical school X hired Dan Lanning away from Oregon and was willing to pay the $20 million buyout. And they were going to pay Dan Lanning $10 million a year. So if you did it the old way, which is the coach just pays his buyout, the coach is on the hook for the buyout to the old school,

even if you gave him the money to pay the buyout, you're essentially giving him $30 million in salary that first year. Well, you're going to take a 40% federal income tax hit on that. So that's $12 million. Your salary's only 10 million. So you're going to come out $2 million in the hole. Right. Yeah. That's why they don't do that anymore. Right. Can you even imagine like, hey, so you're going to fill out your 1040 and you're going to put $30 million as revenue for this year, as income for this year. And once you're done writing that check to the IRS, you're going to come out $2 million in the red. Well, first of all, that would be some red I would love to swim in, first and foremost.

My name attached to $30 million of anything I feel like I can make work. But for the sake of this exercise, yeah, I mean, it's tough. And I think the way that they backload these contracts to make sure that coaches do stay and put a deterrent from them to look for new opportunities. Now it's just like an arms race. So if you got a guy who can get it right to the original question, I think the other school, the boosters, whoever it is. And I think, Andy, you're probably more well versed as far as that goes. But whoever it is, they'll take care of it and they'll figure it out to make sure that they get their guy to where you're comfortable. Well, and here's how it works a lot now is the school, the new school will just buy the contract from the old school. They'll say, we are purchasing this contract.

The purchase price is whatever the buyout figure is. So in our hypothetical, the new school would actually probably pay Oregon $20 million to buy Dan Lanning's contract. And then they would say, we're just reworking this contract that we have purchased from Oregon. And then the new school writes that off as a business expense. That was the cost of acquiring that talent. And then the new school writes that off as a business expense. That was the cost of acquiring that talent. And so we've seen that. We've also seen, this is a lot of reason why coaches have the LLC that they get paid to so they can structure things so that they don't take the huge tax hit from the buyout. I believe Kevinvin summons was called yes sir llc um i that might make it one of my favorite things is looking through coaches contracts to find out what their llc is called

because it's always something wow something fun this is i i'm a dork i understand uh okay as far as i got a dear andy what would your llc be if you're the $30 million coach? Heaven is a Buffet LLC. Let's go. That was the name of my restaurant review column in the school paper at Florida. I love it. Yes. Now, as you can see, I put some thought into this. For sure.

So as far as who pays that, where does that money come from for the school? It can come from the school's operating budget or, you know, the athletic department's operating budget, the money they get from the conference for TV revenue and all that. It can, you know, ticket sales, all of it can come from that pool. It can come from the pool of donations. It really can come from everywhere. But in practice, the way it usually works is if you are going to fire a coach and hire a new coach, you are probably going to your biggest money donors and saying, we are going to need a cash infusion. We are going to need you to write.

I love how our producer River just immediately goes to the Jimbo Fisher B-roll. That's impressive work, River. I don't even know. I didn't even know we had Jimbo Fisher B-roll, but there it is. So yes, Texas A&M had to go to the big money people and say, we are going to need $77 million. We're going to need like 50% of that up front. So yeah, that's what you got to do.

You need to make sure that cash is on hand because yes, you are going to have to pay whatever you owe that coach. Now it could be 25% of the buyout, 50% of the buyout, depending on the terms of his contract. And then you're also going to have to pay some upfront cash to get your new coach. So that would be the way you do that. It's probably not a satisfying answer for Benji, but it is. It's one of those things where the money can come from anywhere, but in reality, you're going to need some cash on hand. You're probably going to have to hit up your big,

your big whales, which I, I don't know about you Dukes. I would struggle with that with asking people, excuse me. Um, I realized you've given me millions of dollars in the past. I'm going to need like 5 million more from you. and I'm going to then go over there and get five million from him. I can't really promise anything in return for this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's rarefied air for a guy to take. Hey, I have this much disposable income that this money isn't going to make me any money, but I'm still going to give it to you now. Or it's I have so much money that I'm going to give you this so I don't have to give it to Uncle Sam. Like if I don't give it to you, Uncle Sam's going to take it anyway. So you take it. Man, could you imagine just being able to go look to write a check for that,

like to be able to say, how much do you need? $10 million? Done. Done. Hey, man, get the right guy this time. All right, see you later. Right. And it may not work out.

And your $10 million is just poof. That's right. Man, think about it from an Auburn perspective. Like when you go, like the pressure that goes along with Hugh Freeze right now, you had to pay Gus, you had to pay Harsin, and now Hugh Freeze has to make it work. So that's a lot of pressure when you think about how much money that has already been doled out to tell people to go away. Like, Brian Harsin is living his best life right now. Yes.

Gus Malzahn is still eating. So, and then not even to mention like years past, uh, coach cheese, like all of those guys who left that position that had to be paid to get out. So paid to be shown the door.

It's a really crazy business, but it's one that I would love to get in. So if there's anybody out there that would like to buy Dukes' contract, you know, at 10 million, please, I'm your guy. I do think our boss, Shannon Terry, if someone wanted to buy either of our contracts for 10 million, would happily sell it to them.

He'll go with us. Oh, he's taking a cut. I mean, he's taking a significant cut. Shannon is a businessman. Actually, to quote Jay-Z, I mean, he's taking a significant cut. Shannon is a businessman. I love Shannon. Actually, to quote Jay-Z, Shannon Terry is not a businessman. Shannon Terry is a businessman.

There you go, Andy. Jay-Z's best line, by the way. Absolutely. And it was in a Kanye song. Hands down. All right. David G has a question in the chat. Dear Andy, we see a computer laptop organized win nexus this offseason so for those who are unfamiliar who maybe have just come to the show since i've been at on three at my old old place we called it the andy staples show

and so we had a ranking that we do in the offseason called the andy staples show computer laptop organized win nexus. I will let you use the first letter of each word to figure out what that spells. But that was our our off season rankings. And essentially, we would try to rank teams in a way that would piss the most people off possible. And it was amazing because you always like whether you put Notre Dame too low or too high would crush. You always whoever's better among Texas or Texas A&M, you put them lower than the other one. And that made people furious who didn't who didn't understand what we're doing.

But I will say the last time we did it, we stretched that bit way too far. It stopped being funny at like minute three and we went for like 30 minutes so we may have we may have just retired that bit i i don't know that i can i don't know that i can resuscitate it i beat the horse so thoroughly after it was dead that it just i'm ashamed because it was a good bit, but it was a good bit for a minute at a time. Can't make a whole show out of it. And you live and you learn. Right.

But yeah, the Aslan rankings will probably not be coming back. And it's okay. Actually, now that I know that you Dukes are a branding machine, we'll figure out how we want to set up our rankings. But one more question from Doug before I get to my dear Dukes question. So Doug has a basketball question for us,

and it has to do with the tournament going on right now. What would be the top three men's and women's sites you'd go to for the first and second rounds, taking into account the city itself the city itself the game quality and weather factors you'd want to consider all right dukes i have a few and i don't know if there's any so like let's the men's tournament we've got let's see memphis we've got brooklyn pittsburgh spokane, Charlotte, Omaha, Indianapolis, some good options. But I'll start out with my first because I think the way the pod system works. So it's not like back in the day, it would be these guys are from this region. They are all going to feed into this region. Now it's like a 4 to 14 pods

so instead of like a 1 through 8 seeds you're not getting that so i'm going to start with memphis because first of all you've got nebraska and texas a&m where uh nebraska's athletic director just left for texas a&m so you have awkwardness there, but you've got a one 16 and an eight nine pot. So you got Houston Longwood, Nebraska A&M, like Houston could lose that second game. Houston could lose to whoever wins the eight nine game. So if I got a chance to see a one seed go down, I want to see that. Plus you've got Beale street. And then the other pod that's there is three Baylor versus 14 Colgate and six Clemson versus number 11, New Mexico, Clemson, New Mexico is the one where like Vegas is picking New Mexico, even though they're the 11th seed. So when you've got a

potentially misseeded team, there's, there's all kinds of chaos that could brew. So if New Mexico beats Clemson, they could also beat Baylor. And so I'm looking for upsets. I like that, Andy. So I was thinking purely if I were to go to some of these games, what city would I like to go get a whole bunch of beer and go sit and chill and watch the NCAA tournament? So me being from Atlanta, I like Charlotte. Charlotte is a super cool city to go watch sports in.

I think they're – Don't call their downtown downtown. It's uptown. Man, I just learned that lesson when I went to the Lil Baby concert in September, and I got that lesson super quick. But I really think Charlotte is one of those booming cities. It's like a it's like a cross between nashville and atlanta so i really like charlotte um my next city i just left

there for the combine is indianapolis now funny story about indianapolis so i'm i'm there i'm covering i'm talking to agents i'm talking'm talking to NFL guys and trying to get information. And from that point, there was a National Association of Black Journalism meetup at some dive bar around the corner. Well, I got there late and there was nothing but locals there. I think I see Jeff Teague sitting behind me. I'm a huge Hawks fan. What? Right. So I instantly, hey, man, let's take a shot, man. I loved you in

Atlanta. And the guy's just like staring me in the face. He's like, all right. It's not Jeff Teague. It's his little brother Marquise. And I'm telling him about all this stuff and all of his exploits in Atlanta that he did not do. And so then by the time I find out

it's Marquise Teague, he was just like, yo, I'm just going to keep taking the shot since it's my birthday anyway. I said, okay, well, cool. Marquis Teague, by the way, won a national title at Kentucky. Like, big deal in his own right. Yeah, absolutely. And great career. His high school highlight tape is unbelievable.

Yeah. From that point, his family comes in, his sister, cousins, auntie, and all we do is laugh all night about me thinking he's Jeff Teague. They're like, oh, no, that's Moop. Yeah, everybody says they look alike. They say anytime you come back to Indianapolis, you call up, got their

number. The next time I go, I'm hooking up with the Teague family. I'm an honorary cousin. That's one of the reasons that Indianapolis is definitely somewhere that I would love to go watch the NCAA tournament. That is amazing. And also, in this particular case, well, also Indianapolis, very walkable city. Like you fly in, you take a cab downtown, your hotel is downtown, you can walk everywhere you need to walk. So you never have to worry about a rental car.

I appreciate that. I appreciate a good walkable city like Indianapolis, New Orleans, San Antonio. Those are very good. But in this particular case, you got Purdue there. They lost to a 16 seed last year. I don't think that's going to happen again. But you never know. And you worry about them losing an 8-9 game because they've lost.

They lost to Northwestern, which is an 8 seed. So there's a possibility you could see something wild there, and you might run into a person that you – well, someone you think you love, but it's actually their brother and you become a member of their family. I just love that it was Marcus Teague. I thought you were going to say it's just some guy who looks like Jeff Teague. The fact that it's Marcus Teague and you become a member of the extended Teague family is

so much better. Yeah, true story. I didn't realize they looked that much alike, but they really do. I never put it together that they looked that much alike. Jeff was already starring in the NBA by the time

Marquise got to Kentucky. You didn't see them together very often. That is incredible. I'll throw one more at you for this weekend for the men's side. Pittsburgh, highly underrated city, great downtown. Creighton and Akron, South Carolina and Oregon. Oregon's another one where they got hot, won the Pac-12 tournament. They're kind of a different team now that they're almost fully healthy. They could create some chaos. They might be able to beat, let's say they beat South Carolina if they pull the upset there.

They might also be able to pull the upset against Creighton. You've also got Kentucky playing Oakland. If Oakland beats Kentucky, that's hilarious for various reasons because Kentucky fans will just be completely off the ledge. But I think Kentucky beats Oakland. They completely off the ledge but I think Kentucky beats Oakland they'll play the winner Texas Tech NC State NC State with the the DJs DJ Burns and DJ Horn now DJ Horn's the score DJ Burns is the offensive tackle playing basketball he's 6'8 275 list well Dukes listed at 275 yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. But silky smooth passer. And I don't know.

When I covered the NCAA tournament every year for SI, one of my pet projects was always figuring out who'd be the best football player in the tournament. And I always would get a reason. So like Jay Crowder, who's still in the NBA, I missed his calling as an NFL tight end. Uh, but I remember covering VCU one year and Mo Alley Cox was on VCU's team, did not play football in college. He's in the NFL now. Yeah, absolutely. And like DJ Burns, DJ Burns is going to go make millions of dollars playing in

Europe. I get that. But I want to go to DJ Burns and be like, do you understand that you could be like a $30 million a year offensive tackle? Yeah, 1000%. Man, his footwork is so incredible to me. When I watch what he does, even if he rebounds and goes coast to coast, you can tell that he just has a certain amount of coordination that you don't see at guys a lot of times at his height, but definitely not his girth. So he's one of those guys that I definitely agree with. And what if you could put him in a hybrid tight end tackle role where –

like when you run those tight end plays, when you go super strong, when you're in that super strong set and you bootleg or you play action and you throw it to the corner, he's unstoppable there. Yeah. I don't know what you do with that. And, again, the feet alone. Just watching the feet, like this is – man, you were leaving millions on the table here.

And I realize he's going to have a very nice life throwing dimes out of double teams in Greece. And that's okay. Right. But he's leaving millions on the table. And as for the women's side, now the women's tournament's different. They play at home sites in the first weekend. So I'd probably want to go to Iowa City

and see the Caitlin Clark show, see a massively packed arena. I think that'd be fun. But if I had to pick any women's site during the tournament, I would want to go to Albany next weekend because you have a potential LSU-Iowa Elite 8 game. Rematch the national title game. Flo'Jay Johnson, Angel Reese versus Caitlin Clark. Come on. That's the matchup of either of these.

That's the one everybody wants to see. And then whoever wins that plays South Carolina probably for the national title. That's what everybody wants to see. Yeah, absolutely. I think especially with how highly publicized that championship game was last year, the rematch is probably going to be the highest rated television-wise that I think will possibly eat the men's tournament. It might be.

Yeah, I would bet it beats all the men's Elite Eight games and maybe the national championship game. I can't wait. I cannot wait. It's going to be so much fun. But now we have one more question, and it's a Dear Dukes question. So Deion Sanders, we know he's doing things differently. He said he's going to do things differently. But a USA Today story came out, and it basically said you know Deion Sanders not making in-home visits not visiting

schools not doing the things that pretty much every other head coach does and so Deion Sanders had a press conference on Wednesday he brought this up unprompted there's an article that came out that said I don't go on visits. Okay. My approach, it's totally different than many coaches' approach. Sometimes I look, I'm a businessman as well, so I try to save our university money every darn chance I get. So for me to go to, let's just say I'm going to Florida and I'm visiting whatever school, IMG, you don't think those coaches are going to be a little upset

if I don't come by the school down the street? You don't think it's going to be pandemonium if I'm going to get naysayed if I don't go another 45 minutes? Then if I go to that one, then I go, well, I didn't come to that school. Now the coach is mad, so he's not going to let the kid come because he's mad because I chose to go to that school over that school. See, other coaches, they could do that, but I can't. I can't.

And I've really pretty much done a personal survey. I really, truly, in all my heart, believe that parents don't want me at their house. They want to come see my house. They want to see how I live, how I get down. Okay. So here's my thing about this, Dukes. It seems like he's got a couple different reasons and they don't really match up, which suggests to me that maybe he's just making excuses here.

I'm a businessman. I'm trying to save the school of money. Well, I can't go because everybody be mad at me because I went to their school and not some other school. Like, don't you think people get mad at Kirby Smart if he doesn't go to their school? Right. Yeah. I mean, so the only thing that threw me off was when he started with the, I'm trying to say, the school money. Maybe he is. I can't call the man a liar. But what I can say is that that don't line up with the Deion Sanders mentality of what we, the perception of who we think Deion is.

Now, maybe in his heart of hearts, he says, you know what? That recruiting visit is going to cost $1,200 or $10,000, whatever much it costs for Deion to travel. I want to make sure that the school knows that I'm serious about us saving money. So I'm not going to do that. I'm going to sacrifice. All right, that's kind of where you got me. Now, Deion the hustler, Deion the celebrity, and I think he is a little right.

All right, perfect example. Last week, my aunt, Nashville, Tennessee, she texted me. She says, I'm going to the Deion Sanders book signing event at Barnes & Noble in Atlanta. Would you like to come? She drove four hours to come to this man's book signing. I go to the book signing. They say, the line is out of the door. This is on Cumberland Boulevard in Atlanta, Georgia, right by the battery.

The line is out of the door. People are bringing him gifts, bringing his daughter, his unborn grandchild, bringing him gifts, bringing Shadur. The lady in front of me in line was like, all right, I got this bag. This is for Shadur. Okay, Dion, this is your gift right here. And this is in the picture line. People go up.

They wait. We waited in line. Shadur's driving a Bentley. He doesn't need gifts. Man, his celebrity status is he's the only coach that I've seen that his celebrity has really kind of overtaken who he is as a coach. He's going to have different – he's right. It's going to be a little bit different,

not just because of him being Deion Sanders, Colorado's head football coach, but him being Deion Sanders, the community hero. As far as when you look in the black community, Deion Sanders, he's a lightning, he's a lightning rod for conversation based on what he sold his whole life. It's always been the Dion show, the highlighting, the high stepping, the music, the kids, the TV shows, the clothes, the shoes. I got a pair of Dion's right there. It's kind of he's more to the culture than he is. He's more to the African-American and the hip hop culture than what he may be to some in the college football culture. And I think that's going to rub some people the wrong way.

And understandably so, because if you want a college football coach, do you want a guy who, and it's up to you, and it's up to the consumer of how they want to consume their college football, because do you want a guy that can bring out multiple, that can bring out people in droves because of how he looks and how he dresses and how fly he is? Or do you want a guy who doesn't care about how he looks and how he dresses and how fly he is or do you want a guy who doesn't care about how he looks that's going to just walk in and coach football and be

all x's and o's and you have to make that determination for yourself i think that it works well for what he's trying to do as far as his answer goes i mean dion hey that's dion man that was a very political answer i almost wanted to vote for office when he hit me with that one. He went a little further, and he talked about how when he was in high school, he didn't want Bobby Bowden in his house, and he felt like the rats and roaches came out after 7 p.m. And I've talked to players, to parents, to coaches about that situation where there are players and parents parents who because of their economic

situation don't want people coming by or they don't feel like they're putting their best foot forward when the coach comes by so they go meet somewhere else not not at the house and i understand that completely the other piece that i did think was was valid is he said they recruit out of the transfer portal a bunch how often do you visit players in the transfer portal? That, and that, that made sense because those people do want to come to your campus and they don't really care about the bells and whistles at that point. The transfer guys are like, how are you going to use me?

What's my role in the, in the scheme. That's great. I get that. Here's my thing with Dion though, because you talked about, you know, you could have your,

your traditional football coach who just goes and coaches football and isn't all of the things that Deion is. But why can't you just be both? Deion is a cultural force, but he's also a football coach. He could be recruiting in a similar fashion to Kirby Smart, who, by the way, is a very famous person in the state of Georgia. He's not not Dion level. But if Kirby Smart walks into a grocery store, he's getting mobbed like this is this is not that different. Yeah. So this isn't a like a like where where it's totally polar opposites. Like Kirby, and one thing I will say, I've met both of them. Kirby is cool and Deion is cool, but they're cool in different ways, right?

Yes. See, Kirby, Kirby is really, really down to earth. There isn't a single air of arrogance about him. Deion is almost like the swagger precedes him before he gets there. And if you're a guy that feeds on type of stuff, like I was a guy, I wore my bandana when I was playing ball. I wanted a high step if I scored. I was a guy who fed it. I got gold chains on right now. So he's going to be the type of guy that I kind of relate to. For the average guy, he's not. Now, if Deion can ever find that balance, and I just don't think

that he wants to, he's very capable. If he wanted to go to a high school and he wanted to go recruit in-home, he couldn't make it so where it would be the best in-home visits ever. People would be saying, Dion came to my house. He could actually do that. I don't think he wants to. And it may be a time thing. I don't know. I really don't. But I know for a fact that Dion were to say that I'm going to go on a home visit tour. It would be the most highly publicized home visits of all home visits ever. See, what I think is going on here and I would like to be proven wrong on this because I was an initial very enthusiastic adopter of Dion, but now the longer this goes, the more I think, okay, he doesn't necessarily want to do the things he's got to do to win at a very high level here. And he keeps saying that he's got this plan.

That's different. He's operating differently and he's doing it differently. Okay. Well, we need to see that work and you're going to have a very difficult schedule this year if you're Deion Sanders like you start with North Dakota State you lose to North Dakota State that's really embarrassing right but it's entirely possible it's one of the best programs in the FCS you are not one of the best programs in the FBS, or at least based on what we've seen, you're not. Do you then play Nebraska? Nebraska will be better than the Nebraska team you beat

last year. It is going to be hard, and I do wonder, does the shine last if there's no improvement this season? Yeah, I don't think it lasts. I think toward the end of the season, people got a little bit of fatigue. When it comes to Colorado, there's the ground swell, got a little, you know, it wasn't as much as it was when you start, like, now, you come out, you win those games, everybody's going

crazy, you got all of the clicks, you got all of the clicks on the internet, it's Deion, Deion, Deion, Colorado, Colorado, Colorado. And then you start to get into them not finishing games, them giving up a bunch of points. Deion has to fix it. I think the staff that they have there is very capable of fixing it.

But I also do think that if you don't win this year, I mean, you go from one win to four wins. I think you get to seven wins, you can consider that to be a success. Seven wins isn't a gimme in that conference. No, gosh, no. At all. Like you said, you look at their non-conference game, their non-conference schedule, I don't want to play North Dakota State.

Like the coach of North Dakota State is one where they are a hard-nosed, blue-collar football team that thrives on going to play teams like this who pull up in the Bentleys and they got the Louis V luggage and all of that. You got to line it up on the football field, sir. And I think that's going to be the difference when Colorado turns the corner, and I'm not sure if they have yet, and maybe they have. But when they say line it up, turn the cameras off, figure it out, we don't care.

We got to play football today. And I think that's going to be – that's basically the powder keg that's waiting at Colorado. If he can ever light that match and light that fire under that team to where they say, you know what, we don't care about any of this extra stuff. Let's put the Dion show to the side. Let's go play ball. If he can figure out how to harness all of that influence that he has and

still make one of those hard nose, tough cultured football programs that even the most traditional football fan can appreciate, then I think you're, I think, I think he'll be a problem for years to come, but you got to find that balance. I think you're right. And that's the he'll be a problem for years to come, but you got to find that balance. I think you're right. And that's the, the why not both thing is the question. And if you're wondering about their,

their schedule draw in the big 12, it is not easy. Like they, they have to, they, they get Kansas state and Utah at home, but they have to play both Kansas state and Utah. Those are probably the best teams in the, in the league. They have to go to Orlando and play UCF. They have to go to Tucson to play Arizona. They get Oklahoma State there. Mike Gundy, he proves it time and time again. We keep writing

him off. He keeps pumping out winners. So that's the part with Deion. I was ready to believe because you hear the players at Jackson State and you hear them talk about the discipline and how how the program gets run. But the problem now is and this feeds into your area of expertise is I don't feel like they recruit at a high enough level to win at the level they want because they're not acting like a developmental program. They're acting like a program that brings in four and five star talent, which for the most part, they don't like the few guys, but not the it's not like Alabama or Ohio State where the bulk of the guys are. Yeah, it's going to be tough. And I think what you got to do is really focus on if you're not going to recruit at high school level, if you're not going to recruit at that rate of that four-star. In order to be good, you got to have a lot of four-stars and a few five-stars if you're not getting a ton of five-stars. And if you get a lot of five stars,

you can really gamble on some three stars and get size speed, guys. But to raise the total level of that program, he's going to have to start landing more and more guys. And to your point, I mean, you go after these five-star guys who end up, you know, they flirt with you and they end up going to other schools. Now you got to start and say, I need really good three stars, almost four stars on a consistent basis. And if he can do that, yeah.

But those guys, like you said, are developmental guys. They're not the day one starters. And even if you go, if he were to sign a class full of five stars, you still don't guarantee that these guys come in ready to play. So he's going to – and I think the approach that they're taking in the transfer portal, you got to even be better in the portal, to be honest. But this spring portal is going to be super important for Colorado to raise the level of the talent that they have because –

let's look at Ole Miss. Ole Miss doesn't exactly kill it in high school recruiting every year. What they do is they get one or two of the best guys in Mississippi. They get a lot of guys who can play football from surrounding states in the southeast. And then they go to the portal and say, all right, give me the best guys and we'll surround you. If Deion can figure out how to kind of adapt that policy, then maybe you can see more success as far as recruiting. But until then, it's going to be scheme. And, like, what is their scheme?

What is their identity when it comes to playing football? And we don't know yet because they go from Sean Lewis to Pat Shermer midseason now that's Pat Shermer on offense all the way. That suggested to me kind of a turn back the clock type offense, which I don't think they have the line for it. So you better prove me wrong in the portal. I'll tell you this. Deion is a very unique case study based on who he is.

And no other coach should look at what Deion is doing and think that they can do it right or wrong whether he wins you don't have the cachet yep because you're not Deion you're not Deion and what we're going to see is if Deion is Deion right or is the people who say he you, is traditional college football thinking ideology right? And we'll see. And Deion is probably the only person that could have went and met that head up and wanted to. So we'll see.

Well, you know, who's always right. You. Duke's the scoop. Thank you for helping answer the Dear Andy questions. Thank you for answering this Dear Dukes question. It's been a pleasure. Let's all go watch some basketball, everybody. Yep.

Let's do it. Thank you, Andy. Yep. We'll talk to you tomorrow. All right, bro.