Andy & Ari On3 - Why Notre Dame said NO to the Pop-Tarts Bowl | Tennessee fires DC Tim Banks | Florida AD Scott Stricklin Joins

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

As the College Football Playoff field has been announced, the glaring omission from the field was the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. With Notre Dame on the outside of the CFP looking in, the Irish declined an invitation to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl and will not play in a postseason bowl game. Watch here as Andy & Ari break down this interesting news and whether or not the Irish should have opted out. Do you agree? Andy's story on Notre Dame here: https://www.on3.com/news/notre-dame-got-milked-by-espn-for-drama-so-why-should-it-help-disney-generate-ratings-for-the-pop-tarts-bowl/ (0:00) On Today's Episode(0:37) Presenting Sponsor(2:22) Intro: Notre Dame & the Pop-Tarts Bowl(15:15) What this means for Notre Dame, the future(20:39) Gametime(21:53) CJ Baxter hits the portal(23:42) Jackson Arnold in the portal(27:30) Tulane's Hire(27:56) Tim Banks OUT as Tennessee DC(30:33) Academy Sports + Outdoors(31:32) Introducing Scott Stricklin(34:05) Florida AD Scott Stricklin joins(1:04:55) Wrapping up with Scott Stricklin(1:06:18) Conclusion: See you tomorrow! Later, Andy wraps up some transfer portal news over the weekend and an interesting staff change at Tennessee. While Josh Heupel and the Vols look for a new DC, is this position attractive with Tennessee's fast paced offense? Afterwards, Florida AD Scott Stricklin joins the show to recap the process of hiring Billy Napier's replacement and all the factors that went into the decision. Andy's story on Scott Stricklin: https://www.on3.com/news/inside-the-florida-coaching-search-that-pursued-lane-kiffin-and-landed-jon-sumrall/ A jam packed Andy & Ari On3 you won't want to miss!  Our show is presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Our show is sponsored by Academy Sports + Outdoors! https://www.academy.com/discount This show is also brought to you by Gametime! Take the guesswork out of buying college football tickets with Gametime.Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code STAPLES for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Swipe. Tap. Ticket. Go. Download the Gametime app today! Visit Gametime.co. Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/M2cdBLdBZLo Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM, Notre Dame snub from the college football playoff. Also skipping the Pop-Tarts bowl, did the Irish make the right call on that? And why did they make that call? Plus, Florida athletic director, Scott Strickland, breaks down the coaching search that started with everybody saying, go get Lane Kiffin. They didn't get Lane Kiffin. They ended up IDing John Somerall hiring him. Strickland breaks down that. entire process and explains how it all went down. Today on Andy and Arion 3, presented by BEDMGM. We are presented by BEDMGM. We use bed MGM lines and totals. And you can join us by joining BDMGM. If you have not signed up for BDMGM yet, use the bonus code CFB as in college

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1-800 gambler in the U.S. Call 8778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N. Y. 46737-369 in New York. Call 1-800 next step in Arizona. Call 1-800-327-5-0-50 in Massachusetts. Call 1-800 bets off in Iowa or 1-800-981-0023 in Puerto Rico first bet offer for new customers only subject to eligibility requirements rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with kansas crossing casino and hotel don't forget if you haven't signed up for bed-mgm yet use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today Welcome to Andy, Ari on three, attention 5, back NGM, and Ari, everybody has an opinion on Notre Dame.

You look at the lightnings on college football program, but the opinions now, based on Notre Dame's decision, get out a bowl game after being snubbed from the college football playoff. Yeah, Notre Dame fans asked Grock how many times I've tweeted about Notre Dame in the past month, and apparently it's 77 or something. that's all uh which i was thought was low but apparently is like way more than anybody else this isn't your fault you didn't make them the most interesting thing in college football for a month and a half you didn't cause notre dame to be used as a plot twist in an espn tv show espion set that system up

11 years ago when they started the college football playoff with the weekly weight rankings reveal look i don't blame the notre dame players for being upset and i don't blame the notre dame players for for believing the committee when it said over and over that Notre Dame was ahead of Miami. I do blame everybody else and the adults at Notre Dame for not explaining to the players,

hey, it's a little weird that we're ahead of them because we have the same record and the same resume and they beat us on the field. Somebody in charge should have said, hey, guys, this is a little off and it may be the committee's just stupid.

And I think that's what happened. Yeah, because I feel like this idea that it's a plot twist is interesting Because it's like if we acknowledge, which we have repeatedly, that the playoff reveal show every Tuesday is just a television show. Which we've said all along. But I think that when you say it's a plot twist, that means it was deliberate. Right.

And I don't think it was deliberate. I think the committee was stupid. We've said it all along. If you go back to our first ranking reveal show, that first Tuesday night, first week of November. Check tape. Ari and I, when they put. Miami at 18 and Notre Dame at 10 or whatever, it was eight spots apart.

Yeah. Ari and I are like, what the hell is this? Yeah. And we went in on it immediately and so did everybody else with a shred of common sense. Like, it was idiotic. So you have the committee doing something incredibly stupid and continuing to do the stupid thing over and over again and being told over and over again, it's stupid. Because remember, we said this the other day. It's not a jury that's sequestered for the entirety of the trial.

I mean, the committee chair is peppered with questions from media members every Tuesday night after they hear the ideas. They were told they were idiots for doing this. And eventually they got to the point where they put Notre Dame and Miami back to back. And they're like, oh my God, we haven't seen this the whole time. You know, the thing that's interesting, too, is that like we have other responsibilities in life. Like, we have to produce a show with River. We have to talk into a microphone. We have to write columns.

We have to edit. There's things that we do. They're in, and I know they have other lives, too, what they go back to, but like- Hunter Eurcheck had to hire a coach. I know, but like their whole thing is to do that. And like, for me, I don't understand why they could not see what was right in front of their faces.

Well, but, and so what this does for Notre Dame, though, and I don't blame the players for feeling like the run was taken from under them, because they were told week after week after week, you're in. And the funniest thing about this whole thing is that if, the committee would have just done it right the first time. We wouldn't have been griping about anything. And Notre Dame players would have been thinking we're in. They would have been like,

yeah, we're out and we hope something happens to get us in. To set this expectation that they were going to do it wrongly for five weeks has now painted me into a corner, makes me look like I'm a psychopath for tweeting about Notre Dame 77 times, where I am just confused for a month straight about the rankings not being correct. And then they get it correct at the end. and then the people who were flying high off of that error feel like something was taken from them.

And I actually do believe, Andy, that if they would have done it the right way from the beginning, if Miami was ranked ahead of Notre Dame from the beginning, like it should have been, yeah, that they would be playing in the Pop-Tarts. I think so too. Yeah. But here's my thing, because I'm Mr. Play the games, put the ball down, ball on a scoreboards, all that matters. I don't blame the Notre Dame players for not wanting to do this. Yeah, but here's the question.

And I don't blame the Notre Dame administration for saying, you know what, Disney company, you use this for your TV show we're not going to help you with this other TV show you want to use truth serum right in your neck right here okay I need to climp my nails so I might have heard I'm sorry do you think this is about television revenue at the core of your being I think this is about you screwed us so we're going to screw you

you think that the players who voted not to play are like let's show those guys at the television studios we're not going to be a problem I think it's you screwed us we're going to screw you I don't believe that I do I think that's that's what's being said I don't think a 21-year-old or a 20-year-old kid. So why would they not play? Because it's their decision to not play. You think it's a his-y-fit? Yeah. That's all it is? I do. So do you think Marcus Freeman should have sat him down and said, guys? I do. Interesting. Okay. Like, I think that I

understand where they're, because like on one side of the coin, if they were a plot twist in a television show and they were mistreated with their emotions based on what their expectations were set to be and what actually happened, that's messed up. I think they believe that. I think they really believe that though i don't i don't think they would agree with what we just said that the committee's just dumb and and i said this i tweeted this on on sunday like don't assume a conspiracy when garden variety stupidity is probably the answer but i also but if you're the person aggrieved by it you're going to assume a conspiracy but i also don't know if people are players or even coaches are seasoned enough to be like well how can we stick it back to the man let's hit him right

where it hurts so you're a good property just a just i'm taking my ball and go home. I do. Well, here's the other thing, too. Like, I don't know how much of a windfall there's going to be, uh, because all the sports writers love to praise the life-size pop-tart thing. And so they get their free swag bag in the mail. And like it turns into a- I got the pop-darts costume. Yeah, I know. I can actually dress as a pop-part. The pop-tarts have actually done the best job of marketing their bowl and giving people to read the outside of football. So they've done a great job with it. I don't know what the actual bottom line hit is going to be if Notre Dame is not playing Yeah, I look.

So like, it's going to get a bunch of viewers because it's on December 27th and it's on. And it's the only football game on usually in its window. Last year, Miami and Iowa State played. But I bet, I watched it. I bet the game will get fewer. Fewer. It's Georgia Tech, BYU. I bet Norder name BYU would do a better number than Georgia Tech.

Right. But let me ask you this. Is the shortfall of income that the television networks are going to get based on the difference Oh, it's negligible. Negligible. big enough to then cut off your nose to spite your face because bold practices are important. I don't care what anybody says. I know it's a new transfer portal transient world.

But Notre Dame, by the way, and I'm going to write this column this week and people are going to be like, oh, don't suck up to us. Like Marcus Freeman was on USA Today on National Signing Day because he didn't have to worry about flipping people flipping out. He signed four or five star prospects and maybe the best high school recruiting class in like Notre Dame history, in the least in the recorded internet era. Like they are a healthy program. But the thing is, they are such a healthy program that they actually don't need the bowl practice.

But I actually think that there's no such thing as not needing to practice football for three weeks organized with your team. I don't think that like four quarters of live action is not. If nobody's into it, it's not going to help you. I think that it's Marcus Freeman's job. It's not like they're not going to lift weight, sorry. Like they're going to be doing stuff. Yeah, I think it's Marcus Freeman's job to make his team into it. They're playing a game.

You're representing Notre Dame. This is more tape for you. And if there's a freshman on the team that hasn't played. yet. Right. And can play three quarters of live action football against a very good BYU team that probably cares.

Right. That's an important development. Like I'm not saying it's the difference between winning or losing the national championship, but I've never seen a place willingly opt out of the ability to practice organized football. It's like you could turn this three weeks

into spring football if you wanted to. The Georgia fans have chimed in, understandably. There are guys always playing. You go back to 2023. They lost the SEC championship game to Alabama. Yeah. They dropped from number one to number six. Yeah. What did they do? I mean, yeah, they beat the crap out of Florida State.

Notre Dame played Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl in 2015 when Ohio State's entire season was winner go home. They lost the Michigan State. They played Ohio State locked back in, beat the crap out of Michigan the following week, knowing that they were out and then beat the crap out of Notre Dame in the bowl. And that set them up for a playoff run the following year. So like, I don't know. I don't think. that Notre Dame is not going to be able to make the playoff next year because they don't do these bowl preps. But I don't know if the spite that you think they're doing outweighs the cost of what I don't think it's the flex they think it is. I'm just explaining why I think they're doing it. And also I just think Marcus Freeman needs to sit people down in the in the room and say,

hey, you play college football to play college football. Like, and I understand again, I like I see both sides of the coin. I don't feel very passionately about it. But I think that there are other ways. Yeah, I'm not going to get up here and talk about the same. sanctity to the bowl system. There's no such thing. Yeah, and I don't care about the bulls either. Like that, if you really want them to play, do what the players era tournament did in basketball and just, just pay him to play. I don't care about the bowl season. They'll play.

I don't need care about executives and getting branding deals. But I do like college football and I enjoy watching it. I enjoy watching Notre Dame play. And I think that part of being a successful coach, which Marcus Freeman has been ultimately in the top 1% of in college football is about creating a culture and environment where people only care about playing the game. So do you think this is a mistake I do by Marcus Freeman. Yes.

Not sitting those players down and saying are you sure about this? I wasn't in the room. I don't know who made the decision. I feel like we're going to get some more information as we go forward. Like this, when we go to the senior bowl, this might be a good question to ask of Notre Dame players. Like what was that meeting like? Because there will be some time in between and they may be more comfortable talking about.

And like, I don't want to like lay responsibility solely on Marcus Freeman. Yeah. I don't know if the administrative. I think we need to know. because Pete Bavocua, their athletic director, was fired up. But I think that Pete Bavuk was comments on TV and on radio in the last few days, or in the last 24 hours since this happened, were far more impactful than any statement of not playing in a bowl game.

Like what he said, I thought was powerful, how he felt was powerful. He didn't mince words. I thought that that was what you do in that situation. If you feel like you've been wronged, Notre Dame has a right to feel wronged, you as an adult sternly share the, those viewpoints because I don't think he's acted inappropriately. I think he's fully within his rights to say the things that he's been saying. Absolutely. And then you go and then go play a game and beat the shit out of somebody. I do think it was the players that that were the

infant, that were the ones who decided not. Yeah. But I think that as the adults, you need to make perspective about the bigger. Because here's the other thing. Yeah, well, give them all the information and let them make the decision. They're playing BYU. Right. Who is another team that feels the same way that Notre Dame does. Yeah. So go play a game, beat the crap out of of BYU and say, hey, look at the mistake that you made. And I don't know, it doesn't matter. You're going to go into the next year. But, like, I feel like this.

The other thing, too, and I don't know if this matters to them, but the entire sports world right now is calling them cry babies. Yes. And, like, I don't know if that's what happened or how you want to paint it. If you're a Notre Dame fan, you certainly don't view that way. But perception is reality. You have people from Barstool going on viral video saying, hey, this is a joke. Everybody's changed that sign to play like a champion.

Yeah, that's a viral image. take my ball and go home today like is that yeah is that good for your program like i just i don't know i don't think that the benefit of you know sticking it to the man is really as impactful as they think it is and i i i here's where i'll push back on that i actually think there's enough people who believe everything is in the espn conspiracy well yeah it's who will get behind notre dame on this one yeah yeah i don't know because that's it i was i was enjoying that like it's a conspiracy to protect the acc the acc is going to be dead in five years. Nobody's protecting the ACC.

And I do believe that, like, a lot of the ACC graphics that were posted, you know, propping up Miami did, you know, damage to their relationship with Notre Dame, which has propped up a lot of the ratings of their team games to begin with. But that relationship, it's interesting because with the SEC going to nine conference games, with everybody having massive conferences now, the only way Notre Dame is going to play power conference teams in November. is that ACC scheduling deal. So they need each other.

Yeah, yeah. That's a good column. That's a good thing. That's right, I think. But yeah, no, I do think that, like, my thing is, like, I always have, like, a strong opinion about something. And that's kind of, you know, a lightning rod for people. I actually see both sides of the coin here.

I really do. I really truly do. And if I were Notre Dame and people don't want to hear from... Do you think if Notre Dame players had had five days instead of an hour to make the decision? Do you think they'd be playing? Maybe, yeah. I think that it was the knee-jerk reaction to, we were screwed. Now, let's screw somebody.

But I think that in the long run, it would have been better for them to play. And I truly do believe, and Notre Dame fans don't want to hear this for me. Because there's a lot of them who, you know, what happens when you're disappointed? You want to blame somebody, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You want to find a scapegoat. I'm the scapegoat for some people. They think that I'm the person that poison.

You think very highly of yourself. you want to go look through my mentions bro i know like i mean i'll go look through it there are i got at least 50 people saying you're the reason this happened and that's ridiculous flattering but ridiculous it's funny that no miami fans are like you're our hero it's never positive yeah no i'm no one's hero i'm i'm the enemy yeah and like if you you don't want to hear this for me but i truly do understand your plight i do and part of the reason why you feel that plight is the same exact reason I was freaking out. Like, you were told and sold a bill of goods.

I also bought that bill of goods and mistaked it for incompetence. And then we got to the right selection. Oh, I don't think we mistaked it for incompetence. Yeah. I think it was pure incompetence. I was ultimately corrected. Like, at the end of the road, I think, I don't think that Notre Dame fans are pissed off that the decision was unjust. I think they're upset of the way that it was packaged and sold for them. It's funny because Notre Dame fans actually, I find as a fan base, they're among the smart

and most rational. I think they understand where everybody was coming from arguing for Miami. And they would have, if the roles have been reversed, they know everybody would have been arguing for Notre Dame.

But I get it. Because you feel like you've been used. And if you feel like you've been used, you don't want to help the person who you believe just used you and that person was Mickey Mouse. And they don't want to help Mickey Mouse right now. But also,

players on the team that are not ever going to play another game for Notre Dame. Their seasons abruptly ended. They thought they were going to the playoff. Now their careers are over. That sucks. Fans like watching their team play football. Of course.

That's the whole reason why those television, like the fans don't get to watch. Could have gone to Orlando, could have gone to Disney. And I actually think that BYU, Notre Dame would have been one of the more compelling bowl matchups that we even got. So as a consumer, we don't get that game anymore. And of course, the development and practice time, which you can say is imperative or not. I also think this is going to be a thing. where the teams that just missed the cut,

they are going to be really mad. And perhaps, perhaps the conferences and the bowls may want to think about that and give them a little bit of time before they make a final decision. Because basically there was a conference call with the ACC, because Notre Dame is kind of tied in with the ACC Bowls. And it was like, okay, we need a decision for you right now. I mean, here's the thing, too. If I just got told I'm dead or my goal,

are over. I don't want to see that freaking Pop-Tart mascot. No. That's the last thing I want to see. It's amusing on December 27th. It's not amusing when it's the first thing you see. Yeah, you just crush my dreams and here's a giant anthropomorphic pastry. Yeah.

And also, we have to be honest, Notre Dame fans online were sending that image to Miami fans for like the last month. So like that is like, you know, enjoy the Pop-Tarts bowl. Miami. Like, that was their number one antagonistic route. So it would have been a bad unfortunate look to actually have to play in that game. And actually, I wonder, too, if they were playing in a bowl that wasn't so flamboyant, if they would be playing in it. Like, what if they were just playing in, like, the Outback Bowl? Doesn't exist. Yeah, I know. I'm just saying. I'm just saying, like, a bowl that had,

like, a regular sponsor that didn't pop a human being out of a toaster that got eaten alive. Like, I feel like the game is more of a caricature of, like, the, like, it's like, Yeah, it's not, it's like, yeah, here's how ridiculous this is. Two teams that had a pretty good season, but not good enough. Now go play in the grab ass bowl and we'll pop a human out of a toaster at the end of it. Ari. What? Yeah.

Next year. Next year. The 2006 on three grab ass bowl. Love it. Is that not the, lie for Myrtle Beach. Yeah. Let's do it now. The mascot is just a plastic ass.

It'd be great. But yeah, like, I understand. I'm critical and understand. I think it's a however you want to feel about it is your prerogative. And I hope that Andy and I gave you both sides. And then your opinion, you can derive on your own. And next year, if something happens, it's not, you know, Notre Dame, we assume we'll be in the playoff next year. They might win the national title next year.

Another team in the same boat, we won't make you decide within an hour. If you want to play in the grab ass bowl, we'll give you a solid 48 hours to decide. You know, Notre Dame might be into the grab ass bowl now if we could get the infrastructure in place. They don't have a game to play. I'm going to go make some phone. All right. The college football playoff bracket is set. Do you want to go to some of these amazing college football playoff

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playoff first round game or go to college station. Watch Miami, Texas A&M. A little bit tougher ticket there. The get in price there, $454. And it goes up from there. If you want to sit in the good seats, you're talking about a grand or more. That's a very hot ticket. They've been waiting a long, long time for a college football playoff game in college station. It is happening. And if you want to be there, game time is the place to get your tickets. Download the game time app. Use the code Staples and get $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Got a little news in the world of college football. And here's the thing. So this day, this Monday, for the past two years, has been the day that the transfer portal opened. So this was,

was a wild news day. Remember a couple of years ago, Kyle McCord hopped in the portal, left Ohio State, wound up at Syracuse. That was a huge bomb of news where Kyle McCourt's name ended up to the transfer portal. It's like, holy crap. Well, as you can see, the calendar has changed. The transfer portal is not opening up until January 2nd, but we are starting to get news about players jumping into the transfer portal. The big name on Monday, C.J. Baxter, Texas running back, and C.J. had a great freshman year, got hurt going into a sophomore year, and kind of got lost in the shuffle at that point. I think C.J.'s Baxter can still be a good back for somebody, and I'm interested to see what the transfer market is going to be for him,

because I do think there's a lot of schools that need an effective running back. This is a guy who was a big-time recruit who was excellent right out of the gate at Texas, but then he's got an injury history that you got to deal with. And that's something that we're going to see in the transfer portal, especially at running back where people can come out of the shoot hot, but they can sustain an injury. And sometimes they come back from those and sometimes they don't. And it's really going to be up to this is where this feels almost like the NFL where how much is your medical going to affect your market? And that's what C.J. Baxter has to show, hey, I'm completely healthy. I can be the featured back on a really good team. So I'm going to be interested to see

how his recruitment goes. Another name that we saw over the weekend hopping in the transfer portal, and this is not surprising at all. Jackson Arnold leaving Auburn. So Jackson Arnold was the star recruit at Oklahoma for a two-year period. It was, we'll just wait till the Jackson Arnold era begins. He red shirts his first season there behind Dylan Gabriel. He starts for Oklahoma last year. It's a disaster of a season. They had a terrible offensive line. All the receivers got hurt. And then he goes to Auburn this year ends up getting benched in favor of Ashton Daniels. So this is a case of you kind of know what Jackson Arnold is, but he's still got that five-star past. He still have some five-star traits. But what level of school needs to take Jackson-Arnell?

And what level of school can Jackson-Arnold succeed at? I think that's the interesting thing, because I'm sure if he wants, he can probably get a decent power conference program to bite, but is that where he needs to be? Does he need to be at a different spot? Does he need to be in a different conference to be more successful? Like is, this is, you know, Jackson Arnold was a great Texas size pool quarterback. Does he need to be playing the Big 12?

We'll see. That's another thing to watch. But we're going to get this kind of news as we go forward. we're going to get these these this person is going into the transfer portal but they won't actually be going into the transfer portal until january 2nd but by announcing it i'm not saying there's tampering i'm not saying schools flout the NCAA rules about recruiting people who aren't in transfer portal yet but yes i am that's exactly what everybody's going to do people are going to make it known that they're in the portal and that they're available

or they will be in the portal and they're going to be available and so by the time they enter the portal, they're probably going to have a pretty idea where they're going. So this is a little bit like if we're comparing this to NFL time periods, this is like the tampering period before free agency begins, which is really when all the free agency decisions actually get made. So be on the lookout. You know, it's not going to be like it has been in the past few years. We're on this Monday and then over the next couple of days, you just got a wave of everybody who's going to the portal. It's going to trickle out a little more. than that. You're going to have people finish their bowl games. You're going to have people that

are trying to figure out, you know, kind of behind the scenes what they're going to do before they even say anything about where they're going in the transfer portal or not. So I think that's going to happen. I think you have a lot of schools that are attempting to retain their best players. So there's, there's negotiation with current school going on. And that's really why they move the portal window to where they did is this gives the schools a chance to to have a negotiation period to retain their players. It's them getting most favored nation status, essentially, even though they really aren't.

A lot of cases, they don't have that much protection. Some of them do. It depends. It goes from contract to contract. But we'll see what happens. We will get more names, though. C.J. Baxter, Jackson, Arnold, just the beginning. There will be more names that hit,

even though they can't actually go into the portal until January 2nd. So that market's going to be big. Pete Nacos didn't get to breathe. Like coaching carousel ended, this started. So Pete Nacos is going to be the octopus playing eight different instruments with each arm. That's what he'll be over the next few weeks. We probably need to get Pete Nacos seven more cell phones. I think that would be the fair thing to do as a company.

But you'll probably see a little bit of Pete talking about these transfer portal guys, their decisions, what schools they're targeting. That's going to be a big, big storyline this month, along with the college football playoff and along with the bowl games. Let's not forget the bowl games, guys. But the coaching carousel also still spinning. Now, it slowed down on the head coaching front. You had Tulane hiring Will Hall,

former John Somerall assistant, former Southern Miss head coach. He's got the Tulane job. So that was the news on Monday. But other coaching news on Monday, I think probably a bigger fan base, and they're very keenly interested in where this goes, is Tennessee defensive coordinator, Tim Banks, has been fired.

So Banks was part of Josh Heppel's original staff at Tennessee. I think Tim Banks' defense was probably the strength of the Tennessee team that made the college football playoff in 2024. But Josh Heppel felt like it wasn't going as well as it should, that the defense wasn't as good as it could be. And I'll be interested to see how this search goes and who Josh Heippel winds up with. because I think if this had been Josh Hebel coming out of UCF,

people would be looking at the offense he runs, which is the old Art Riles Baylor offense. And they would have said, okay, this is a guy who runs an offense that is massively uptempo. They want to run 110 plays a game. I'm not sure I want to coach defense opposite that because it's very hard to practice the way you want.

It's also hard to play the way you want because you're getting put back on the field a ton. I think Josh Heipples proven over his time at Tennessee that he is willing to adjust the tempo of his offense to allow his team to play complimentary football. I think that's something that he would have had to prove before. Now he has proof of concept of that. So I do think it opens up the pool of potential defensive coordinators for him.

Stay tuned to On 3 and to VolQuest to get more specific names over the next few days because you'll see some names emerge over the next day or so. But I do think that pool is going to be a lot deeper because Josh Heipel has shown shown that he is willing to play complimentary football. That was the big fear with everybody who ran that offense. But I think you've seen it now with Lane Kiffin, with Josh Heiple, that they've evolved it to a point that you can play dominant defense opposite that offense. You saw it with Pete Golding's defense in 2024 at Ole Miss.

It's possible. It's possible. It's not going to happen every single year, but it's certainly possible when you have the talent that you can play a very dominant brand of defense. defense, and they still get to run that offense the way they want to. And I think that that's a big step forward for the people who run that offense, but hard to say words today, specifically for Josh Heiple, who now has that proof of concept.

He can show potential defensive coordinator. He can say, look, here's how we did it in 2024, where we were kind of a grinded out running team, and we let our defense cook. Because I think the history of that offense, it's been, oh, if the head coach likes that offense, they're not going to care about how you practice defense. They care.

Josh Heppel definitely cares. So fascinated to see how that search goes. Before we talk about another search, I'll tell you about our friends at Academy Sports and Outdoors. The holiday season is here, and Academy Sports and Outdoors has the legendary gifts and undefeatable prices every day. Shop in store or at academy.com to save on gifts

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new workout clothes, if I want a new cooler. Hint, hint, hint, hint, family. If I want a new cooler, hint, hint, they can go to Academy or they can go to academy.com. Fun does not lose at Academy. Speaking of coaching searches in the coaching carousel, now it's time to dig deep into the hires that have already been made. And we have a very special interview today.

Scott Strickland, the athletic director at Florida, is going to talk about the search that landed John Summerall. This is an interesting interview. This is an unusual one for me. I got to say, I don't think I've ever done an in-depth post-search interview with an athletic director where that athletic director publicly named a coach that they pursued and didn't get. It's a pretty unusual one. Usually they say, we're only going to talk about the guy we hired,

and then you might get a little off-the-record conversation, with ADs about who they looked at and how that process went. Very rarely do you get an on-the-record discussion of a person that they pursued but didn't get. I think in this case, Scott Strickland understood you don't do one of these unless you're going to talk about Lane Kiffin because everybody knew that that's who you're going after at first. Everybody knew that that's who the Florida fan base initially wanted. So that part of it, I think, is pretty rare and pretty interesting. But also how they landed John Somerall and how they decided John Sumerall was their guy, I think is a really fascinating thing, too. They kind of narrowed it down after the conversation with Lane Kiffin

kind of petered out. They narrowed it down to a couple folks. You'll hear me say, I'm going to guess at who the other person was because there was a sitting head coach that didn't take the job, and Scott Strickland would not name him in the interview from talking to people around the search. I am pretty sure that person is Clark Lee from Vanderbilt who wound up signing an extension at Vanderbilt. And Clark Lee talked to quite a few schools that had openings during this cycle. But I believe it was either Black Friday

or the day after that he said, hey, I'm sticking to Vanderbilt and I'm going to be here for a while. So this was a really interesting coaching search because it was one of those where as soon as they fired Billy Napier, you knew who they were going after. But then a week after they fired Billy Napier,

LSU opened. And oh, by the way, Lane Kiffa was coaching Ole Miss to the playoff, and Ole Miss certainly looked like an attractive place to stay. So the odds of Florida getting him didn't seem particularly high. And Scott Strickland talks about how that all went down, the timeline of it all, and how they decided John Summerall was the guy,

and then also how they beat the clock to beat out some other schools for John Summerall. Here's Scott Strickland. joined by Florida Athletic Director Scott Strickland, who is done flying around the country. He's got his coach, John Somerall, is not in Gainesville yet. He's working his way there. As we record this, he's about to coach in the American championship game, and maybe we'll see if he winds up earning a playoff berth with Tulane. But Scott, what are these last few days been like?

for you now that the work is done. Everybody knows who you hired. He's got his coordinators. And it seems like the news has been relatively good so far the first few days of John Summerall's tenure. Yeah. Well, thanks, Andy. For one thing, I'm sleeping a little bit better now that John is signed up and ready to leave the Gators pending his two-lane commitment. you know it's when we were on the other side of this and all the noise was about you know we'll won't talk around it was around Lane Kiffin and and we had known for probably a week that that wasn't the direction the Florida search was going to head that there was there had to be a time where Gator nation understood that but you didn't want to move too early with that because you

You didn't want people zeroing in on John and disrupting what he had going on. And you also, you didn't want to wait too late, so it broke right when the day you're announcing, John. You know, it got pretty close. I'm not sure we timed it just right, but that was, you know, a not surprising response from, you know, people who, a fan base who for months or weeks at least, have been thinking one thing to have to have. that change one thing they were excited about to have that change anyone you put up the after that um initially was going to be met with some resistance it's a credit to john his his energy his charisma uh his passion that they they you know the press conference at the press conference he was able to kind of uh get people to turn the page and get excited about him and then

hiring the coordinators in such short notice in just a couple days um and everybody said from the beginning, including me and the others who were part of the search process, that the OC position was going to be a really critical one. And obviously, we haven't announced anything as of this taping, but where that is heading is got people really excited as well. So he's checked every box possible in a very short period of time, and it's one of the reasons I'm really excited about having him here in Gainesville. Well, and I'm sure you guys help prep him for the press conference, but how much of that was John wanting to kind of, straightforward tackle the questions that people had about him because obviously there were going

to be a bunch and he didn't seem to really shy away from that when he was talking you know there was very little that he he actually discussed with me anyway about his press conference and the comments he actually asked me during one of our visits about um the step down and um and not just that that second straight hire of a group of five coach from the state of Louisiana, which is just such a weird Venn diagram, right, of all the candidates out there. He actually brought that up to me. And I just, you know, I said, hey, man, it's initially people are not going to like it. And if you win enough, if you're the right guy and you have the right energy and you win enough games, it'll be a footnote. And it should not drive the decision here.

And I said, the question is, can you handle it? I mean, you're going to take some flak. just i'm going to take a lot of flag but some of that's going to hit you and um you know he he like me was not worried about that but he wanted to make sure i was aware of it which obviously it was so you you brought up lane kiffin and obviously that was the name everybody had on their mind when you decided to to part ways with billy napier and i always thought that's a strange situation to be in because because i remember i actually remember when jeremy foley hired urban mire and it was a thing where everybody in the country who had a job wanted Urban Meyer. It came down to Florida and Notre Dame where I remember watching the

Notre Dame plane fly into Salt Lake City to talk to him. And this one was even weirder because when LSU opened, it became pretty clear, oh, they're going to try to go after him too. And he's leading Ole Miss to the playoff potentially. That seems like it would be an attractive place to stay. How did those first few weeks of the search go when it was obvious everybody's kind of pushing you toward this one guy well we we you know just candidly we had a lot of interest in in lane and you know how could you not right with the success that he's he had had he um when when you talk to people to uh candidates who have been doing this a while they're going to have some um some scars there's going to be some parts of their career where they

successful. And to see, you know, Lane obviously had those and to see the success he had Ole Miss, that's appealing, right? Because somebody who's learned and they've grown. So it wasn't just we were being pushed to him. We were interested in him as a possibility. And I'd say strongly interested. But at the same time, you know, we knew we couldn't just count on that. And so we were doing our due diligence on a number of candidates and ended up talking to, you know, nearly a dozen when it was all said and done. But, you know, it was, it was obvious where that was shaping up. And there was a flurry of initial engagement, I would say, really positive conversations. And then the communication became a little more erratic.

And the timing of when that began to occur, kind of just reading the tea leaves gave me the impression that, you know, it's a good thing we talk to other people. And we're going to have to look at some other candidates. Okay. So you said you about a dozen, you know, so we're talking about, you know, 10, 11 different people who aren't Lane Kiffin. Right. When you realize this is probably not happening with him, how soon do you feel like John Sumral is your guy? What did you need to do to get to the point where you thought that's the guy I want to hire? John was someone from the very beginning that I had an interest in, that we had an interest in.

We actually, he may have been the first coach we spoke with directly, not in person, but just, you know, virtually. Early on in the process, and it was almost like I wanted him to know, I don't know where this thing is going to go, but we think highly of you. And so, but we, I would say we got, I want to say, we went, we started going down this other path and we started spending a lot of time on that other path, all the while making sure we were doing our due diligence on the other candidates. And then there's probably probably about 10 days before Thanksgiving. So the last couple weeks of the regular season that, you know, we just made the decision, hey, we've got it. We've got it really. we don't want anybody to feel like they're second. We need to really go in hard on two or three people that we believe, based on what we've seen so far, can be the next head coach of Florida Gators. And John was always at the top of that group.

And the other thing is, you know, no one's naive, no one's, everyone knew the whole lane situation, right? Every candidate we talked to understood that. And there were several candidates that wouldn't talk to us early on because of that dynamic. Because they're like, you know, they're just going to end up doing wanting to do this with Lane. And we were clear through our, you know, we use Chad Chat, Chatelose with Turnkey as our search consultant. He was clear with the agents and others that, you know, nothing was a foregone conclusion. We definitely had a true live search going on. And John was willing to talk to us.

and I think both his side and our side quickly developed a comfort level and a rapport. It just was near the end of the process before it really started to make sense for both of us to go that direction. Well, and the other part of it with John, I think that, you know, I don't know that all the fans understand the dynamics. Because in some cases, you're maybe not working against peer schools or other schools, or maybe it's just they have a good job and they're trying to decide whether they want to keep their good job or go to your job. John had Auburned after him. If Lane left Ole Miss, they were going to call him. I'm sure Arkansas was interested in him. How much did that dynamic play into it, especially as you got toward the end of the process? I would say I was very aware of what else

was happening in the marketplace and how Domino's might start to fall and wanted to make sure that the gators were positioned to be at the front of that line, if at all possible. And so I was, and you're right, there was a lot of traffic around John in a positive way, right? There were a lot of schools making it known to him that they would be really intrigued if he came and led their program. So we were trying to be really proactive there. And there was one other candidate that we kind of felt the same about that, you know, because again, you don't know where this thing is going to to go. I had no idea.

Who stayed at their current job? What's that? Would that be a person who stayed at their current job? I can either confirm or deny that. Okay. Okay. I'll guess at it after the, after the airs. Yeah, you're good at that.

That's why you're good reporter. You know, I had no idea, Jenny Somerall's connection to Auburn, her being an alum. I had no idea how strong that tie was. Obviously, they had worked at Ole Miss. I didn't, you know, he went to Kentucky. I didn't know if they were going to have an opening at this point, but you just, you just never know. But I did know we had a great job at the University of Florida. I sensed that he had a legit interest in it.

And once we made it known to him that our interest in him was genuine, I think it kind of put us in a really good position. So you mentioned Chad Chattlos at Turnkey, and that's one of the more interesting aspects of this. Florida had not been a school that used search firms an awful lot. Jeremy didn't really use them. and you hadn't used them. You did use Chad when you hired Todd Golden.

Is that right? I did not. No, I did not. We did not use a search firm in that high. Sorry about that. So you hired national championship winning coach without one. But it was one of those things that I've known Chad for over 10 years. I ran into him right before the Georgia, Texas game.

He and his daughter were going in. And he was all happy because he's a Navy grad. Navy just won a big game the night before. And people on the message boards, the amount of fiction that came out about the search firm, what they do, I believe they fired you at some point. I had never heard of a search firm firing the school, but I hear that's not true. No, you know, we hired them so that, you know, that relationship would have worked the other way. But we had a great working relationship throughout the process. We had used Chad for some other searches.

We just recently hired a deputy AD as a chief commercial officer, a guy named Michael Seeley. Okay, that's where it was. We used turnkey for that, had a really good experience. Chad was my conduit because I knew Chad, but we used some other people in their business that had more familiar with that space to land their chief commercial officer, Michael. So, you know, I guess recently we had used them had a really good experience. I have years ago, in my prior job, I used a search firm for a job. And I felt like everything that we were thinking about got out among agents.

And I don't know if it was the search consultant's fault, but I kind of wondered, you know, that that might not be the case. And so I just decided a long time ago make this circle really tight. And, you know, the old, I think it's a Ben Franklin quote, that, you know, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. You know, just the fewer people you have engaged, the better chance you have of keeping information tied. And the reason it's really important is because you don't want your cards to be out there on the table for every other school to know what you're doing. And you don't want all the, and the candidates don't want their names out there, usually. And that's what I try to explain to people about the search firm thing, because everybody thinks that the search firm is picking the coach for you or they hand you a list of these are the guys you should look at.

I know they do compile lists and that sort of thing. But I find in these high profile searches, it's more to do exactly what you were saying. Discretion to use as a go between where you can keep some information under control. Correct. And certainly, you know, Chad has a wealth of contacts. I picked his brain constantly like, hey, Chad, who are we missing? Who's not on our list? You know, a name would come up and he would have some, you know, he might have already done due diligence on that can at first.

search a year ago that he could draw from and kind of shorten our homework assignment up a little bit, if you will. There's so much, and again, Chad's a pro. And, you know, there's, I'm really comfortable using Chad that there's other, I'm sure other great search consultants up there, but I just have a lot of confidence in him. And I think one of the reasons you were talking about all the misinformation that was out there. I think the team we use, Duke Warner from my staff, one of my associate ADs, who was part of the Todd Golden hiring process as well. Use Danny Werfel, Gator Great Heism Trophy winner, National Champion. Danny was a unique person to include, you know, in his personal, professional life,

he had the time to give us to, you know, and this was a pretty time-intensive process. Obviously, our Gator-made program, which is like our life skills program under Coach Napier, that we're going to continue utilized Danny around the program quite a bit. We had a Danny Wharfell GatorMade Player the month in our program the last few years. And so Danny understood the current roster. He understood the, you know, kind of what the situation on the ground was. So I just thought he'd bring a great perspective. And I trusted him.

And he was awesome. So the three of us were really the search committee. I had a group of trustees that I kind of used as a kitchen cabinet to bounce ideas. And also make sure when we got to the point we had to get a contract. approved, you know, they weren't hearing this for the first time. They knew where we had been and why we were at the position we were. So that was really the only group that knew what was happening. And because that group kept the information so tight, they create a vacuum of news about our search, which is the way I've always felt like you should run a search. There should be no real information out there. But in a situation where it's a really interesting topic and a lot of people are passionate about it, when there is that vacuum of information, It creates an opportunity for people to fill it with false narratives and just things that aren't true. Like the turnkey news that you said, there was another one about a donor that we gave Lane a deadline. And it happened to coincide with kickoff of his game and we didn't need it.

Because the donor forced us to do this, we walked away. This could not be further from the truth. Well, and I've had some conversations with that donor, Gary Condren, who, I mean, I don't know if there's anybody who loves Florida more. more than Gary and as people so for for people who don't follow Florida that closely or you know maybe are fans of other schools Gary is one of those people who is heavily involved and and has been very gracious in what he's given to you guys over the last few years to to try to help the program but he's never struck me as a you must do this Scott because I gave you all this money he's never struck me as that kind of person you you read that well again

No one loves the Florida Gators or has been as generous to the Gators as Gary Conjorn has. And at no time was he had any inappropriate. He, you know, I may have talked to him once a week during this process. And there were some things I told him, just Gary, I can't share with you. But there were some things I could. And so, and he understood it. I mean, but he was not in the middle of the process. He didn't know who we were talking to when.

And, you know, he had kind of understood. who we were looking at and and we had a couple other donors that boosters that that you know were of that kind of same stature as far as how they have supported the program and and deserve to to kind of be in have a little bit of information but none of our guys that's one of the things make florida really unique is it's not a stereotypical boosters running the program kind of place that you might you know the chad powers show might make you think is exactly is what happens that's that's not what happens and um And so to see Gary and others do things the way you would want from a governance standpoint to be supportive, be interested, but not be trying to run things. And to see someone come out with the narrative that is totally the opposite of that and make them some kind of villain is just it's really unfortunate. And again, I think a lot of it is because we did such a good job of key from the information time. People just were trying to connect dots that didn't exist and create narrative.

that were untrue well and in your circle that you had was about as good as you could do because like i i met duke when he was the trainer for the basketball team and and when he was working with billy donovan and there's not a more dedicated loyal employee that that you're going to find and he's worked his way up to that leadership position and deservedly so and then danny werfel i was a walk on uh when danny was a senior i was my freshman year and you know you're not going to meet many better human beings. And the thing I thought was interesting about Danny, because a lot of these people, a lot of people who would be invited into that sort of position would be trying to leverage it or use it for something. Danny doesn't want to be an AD. Danny doesn't want to, he doesn't want to do anything

with this. He just wanted to help Florida. And so I've been listening to, he's done a few interviews since all this happened. It's been really interesting hearing his perspective on it because this was all new to him. Yeah, I think he was a little taken aback by how involved the agents were in the process, and the agents are highly involved in this process, not just at Florida throughout the whole search cycle. And I think he was, and this is not smirching all agents, but I think he was surprised by some of the lack of candor or or um i'm trying to think play some games sometimes yeah people people play games with information and i think yeah i think dany was a little surprised by that i think he was a little surprised by the links we would go to travel under the radar and in ways

that people wouldn't like necessarily notice that and it became harder when you add someone like dany warful because you know he's the most recognizable of the three of us yeah and so like slipping him in and out of hotels or airports is not as easy you got you got caught at least once and i i can't i can't sell you on air who caught you or where it was but because i can't give away who it was all right fair enough but you but you did get caught at least once that we know of so at some point that's going to happen because we yeah we we did get out and about and see people in the flesh so at some point some you know we and we were going you know if you think about it you go to a small town, a small college town, you're visible. If you go to a big city,

there's a lot of people there that you could run into, even though it's a bigger city. Well, I think about how many people I randomly run into in airports or in, you know, just in a hotel somewhere. And you guys know a lot of people. And so it's, it's pretty tough. But one other thing I really wanted to make sure we talked about is the general manager process where you hired Dave Caldwell, former Jacksville Jaguars. And I want to talk about the timing of that process because I got I went on fine mom a couple weeks ago in the middle of the process and I was actually surprised I didn't get a a phone call from you after this one and I'm I'm glad I didn't but he he asked me about Lane Kiffin and the general manager process and I said this is when I

knew you guys had interviewed some former NFL GMs as you were looking for for a general manager but I also understood and I tried to relay this on the show that you were still in dialogue with Lane Kiffin, I think, at this point. And Lane had preferred to maybe bring his own guy. And you said, oh, absolutely, we'll talk, we'll talk to him too. And I'm curious. Was there ever any talk of, we're going to do the organizational structure this way, or was that always something you talked about with the various candidates? We, we, so I'm convinced that what we asked head football coaches in this day and age in the SEC to do today, where they have to be the CEO of the program,

in effect, the head of human resources, you know, yeah, human resources. They have to be in charge of sales. They have to be in charge of the money. I mean, what we're asking them to do is no one person can do. And Nick Saban did it really well for so long, and so everybody thinks, well, that's how you have to do it. And he's a bit of a unicorn, as we all know. So we need our coaches to coach and to lead their team, and I think we need to put somebody else in a really high-level executive as a partner to that coach to worry about everything else, including the recruiting and the rev share dollars or the NIL or the contracts or, you know, team travel, all that other stuff.

We need somebody else to be responsible for all that and be a partner to the coach. And so I was convinced that going forward to the University of Florida, for our coaches be successful, whoever we bring in, we're not going to just throw them in the football building and say, good luck. We're going to put a structure around them that gives them a chance to be as successful as possible. So I think the GM model is what makes sense there. The GM and the head coach, neither report to one another. They both report to the athletic director, but they've got to work together. So you think about if you have a really heavy wagon to pull, instead of just telling one person to pull it, you had two people pull it, you're going to have more success. So we did. Simultaneous to when we

started the coaching search, we started GM search. And the goal, at one point, we thought, do we want to just hire a GM and let that GM help us hire the coach? And that's certainly a, you know, a fine path to go down. But the lot of NFL teams do. Right. The, you know, somewhat early in the process, maybe by the end of October, I realized we've got to find a match. We've got to find two people that not only will, you know, feel good about this structure, but will really want to work together to make it if we have any chance for it to be successful. So different coaches felt differently about it. And I felt like some of the GM candidates we interviewed might work differently with different coaches. And once we got down to the last couple names, not named Lane

Kiffin, I thought Dave Caldwell was the guy that we had talked to on the GM side that number one would match with either one of those two. And number two brought the level of executive skill and football acumen that could be really successful in that position. So with, and I'll add a little inside baseball. So we actually, we had a couple face-to-face visits with John Summerall. And the second one, the last one we had with him, we actually took Dave with us. And we told John at the time.

Okay. That answers my next question is how involved was John and aware of who it was going to be? So we told John from the very beginning, this is a model we're going to go down. And he didn't push back. In fact, he said, I think that makes a lot of sense. I'd like to hear more about it. And the next time we talk more about it. And then the third time, we actually brought Dave in to the conversation.

They got to meet face to face and start, you know, hey, it's kind of like you're doing on a blind date, to be quite honest with you. Hey, this is a really important job. We want you two to work together. What do you think of each other? And they hit it off and got along. And it's interesting. Even this week while John's been back in New Orleans coaching the Green Wave, and we've been having phone calls, on signing day, he actually went out of his way to say, hey, by the way, Dave Caldwell is doing an awesome job. I mean, I'm so glad that guy's there because he's really good at what he does.

And so Dave Caldwell is working on roster retention, working on prepping for the portal. Evaluations, that whole thing. Yeah. And it's interesting because this is the sort of time when, in the old. days, the coach you hired who is still working with his old team, and that happens more often than not when you have a good coordinator or a guy kind of jumping a level, it's interesting that now there's somebody who does that part for them, which I'm sure has made John Summerall's life as the Tulane coach this week a little bit easier. Yeah, and hey, the coach is still going to

have a say on what, you know, who gets put on the roster. It's not like the coach, there's not like a wall there. Right. There's, there's collaboration. There's, there's conversation. There's been guys this week. It's really interesting to watch even the short term. There's been guys this week that that John has brought to Dave. Hey, look at this guy telling him what you think. And Dave has said, hey, I like this. I don't like that. You know, if we could get him for at this point out of a contract, you know, this salary or so to speak, I'd not just use that term, But this rev share number, then yeah, if not, I don't, I think we can get somebody better in this position in the portal. And it's just, that's the way this is supposed to work.

You have two professionals who know the sport really well working together to get the best outcome to make sure we're using our resources wisely and get the most talented people we can. And that's something that Dave Caldwell has a lot of experience with that, you know, the college GMs are learning that right now. But he's already done it where he's got here's your, here's your set, here's your amount of money. And whether you guys end up with any sort of real cap or not, there's still a, there's not a money tree. You just pluck it off. Like there's an amount of money to spend. So, yeah, I am curious how that process works. Does it make it more efficient?

Because you guys are kind of on, I'm trying to think, Oklahoma has this with Jim Nagy, but you're only the second SEC school to have this arrangement. Yeah. And I actually got on the phone with Randall Stevenson. who's, you know, the former AT&T CEO, who's helping Oklahoma through this. And I've talked to Joe Castiglione, my good friend there. Because we, you know, we tried to do some version of this last year, and it just didn't fit with our, with where we were at the time. And so I think this is going to become more and more common.

And there is going to be a, there is a pool of talent. If you imagine it this way, if college football never existed. and we just started up at one day, we decided we're going to have a bunch of football teams. A lot of the talent we would go get from a coaching standpoint would be NFL guys, right? We would go find coordinators, position coaches, former NFL head coaches, who are no longer current head coaches. And we would be using that. That would be our talent pool. Now, I'm not saying they have to come from the NFL, but there's a lot of really talented people in the NFL who are in a position to come and be effective. in the college space.

Now, they're going to have to learn. Dave's going to have to surround himself with people who understand the college space and recruiting because he didn't have to do that when he was in the NFL. Right, you just draft. They have to come. Right, so it's not a, it's not seamless. There is a learning curve that it's going to happen.

But just so happens, we've all invested in these personnel staffs that happen to know a lot about recruiting and college football. We're just putting an executive over that to make sure going forward that is a sustainable model that can take a load off the coach so John Somerall can focus on leading his 105 guys to the best of his ability. Well, you mentioned you've been sleeping better. So I want to ask, you bring John Sumerl back to Gainesville on Monday night.

He gets introduced. When your head hit the pillow that night, what it feel like? Oh, it's, you know, we still have a lot of work to do. But it's hard to explain that what your body feels like and your emotions feel like. like when you're when you have such an important position to feel and it and you haven't decided on who that is yet and for us it was about a six or seven week period and it's almost like you're going through an extended virus um you don't sleep well you don't eat well and it's not because it's not necessarily you're stressed actually i think my stress level was

better this time than i when i've done in the past um but it was it's just like you want to get you want to get it done you have like a big homework assignment just weighing on you all consuming yeah that's all you're thinking about and you want to turn it in and get the a and so when when john said he was coming and we got that we got that signed that was you know that that was a happy day and and then you know then we had to navigate all the PR piece and you know the storm that came from the lane news and navigating that but you knew at some point all that was going to shift because i knew gator nation was going to see and john Somerall with me and Duke and Danny Sawling saw in him.

That is Scott Strickland. Very interesting conversation about that coaching search. I said it before the interview. I'd said it during the interview that I'd guess again. It's Clark Lee, I believe, is the other candidate besides John Sumral that Scott Strickland had zeroed in on. And I know they talked to Clark Lee. And obviously, Scott didn't tell me that, but we had enough.

We had enough eyes and ears throughout this search, telling us stuff at On 3 that's pretty confident that that's who that is. Fascinating conversation. I think we're going to have to make this a tradition. I think we're going to have to, when they have the coaching searches each year, the AD comes here, sits down with us and says this is how it all went down. And I'm going to show them this video and I'm going to be like, guys, Scott talked about Lane Kiffin. you have to talk about the guys you tried to get to. We'll see how many of them actually want to do that. But I do appreciate Scott Strickland for talking about that

because I think it's one of those that's pretty tough for sitting AD to do that. But I think in his position and especially in the situation where the Florida fans were pretty up in arms when it was clear they were not going to get Lane Kiffin, I think Scott felt like he owed them an explanation. So now you've seen it. and future A.Ds, A.Ds that are hiring coaches next year, now you know,

come on here after you get that hire made. We want to hear the whole story. If you want to tell the planes, trains, and automobiles stuff that Scott wouldn't tell us, even better. Let's go. Hey,