Andy & Ari On3 - Would SEC schools BREAK AWAY from the NCAA? Greg Sankey says No | Parker Livingstone's transfer from Texas to OU | Kennesaw State HC Jerry Mack joins

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

On Monday afternoon, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey joined the Paul Finebaum Show to discuss where things currently stand with the SEC. During the interview, Paul Finebaum brings up if some SEC schools wanted to break away from the NCAA. Watch here as Greg Sankey discusses the state of college athletics while Andy & Ari break it down afterwards. Do you think the SEC is strong enough to separate?   (0:00) On Today’s Episode (0:53) Presenting Sponsor (2:59) Champ Week is underway (6:00) Commissioners at basketball tournaments: Greg Sankey on SEC (16:50) What would a super league look like? (29:49) Parker Livingstone: Across the Red River (41:45) Previewing Kennesaw St HC Jerry Mack (42:08) Jerry Mack joins the show (59:15) Jerry Mack’s Rules for Life (1:00:28) Conclusion: Hooty Hoo!   After discussing the SEC schools and the NCAA, Andy & Ari stay in conference and breakdown the transfer from Texas to Oklahoma with WR Parker Livingstone. How bizarre is this move? The fellas discuss.   To close out the show, Kennesaw State HC Jerry Mack joins Andy & Ari to discuss his path to be the Owls head coach and what it was like to win the C-USA in year one.   Send in your questions for Dear Andy & Ari here: [e-mail] [e-mail]   Our show is also presented by BetMGM!   If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works:   1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB. 2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. 3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sure you 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.   Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/join   Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/OLqh7XHFbJw   Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari Wasserman Producer: 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 to Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. Would the SEC ever consider just breaking away from the NCAA? We wouldn't be bringing it up if the SEC's own commissioner, Greg Sanky, hadn't brought it up yesterday. Now we've got to delve into this a little bit. Plus, Oklahoma receiver Parker Livingston, who used to be Texas receiver Parker Livingston, explains why he made the move. There was a really juicy quote, essentially. If I didn't have an agent, I'd still be in Austin.

We delve into what that means. Plus, Kennesaw State coach Jerry Mack, who in his first season led the Owls to the Conference USA title, Hootie Who! We'll be joined by Coach Mack on today's show, all on Annie and R.R.N3 presented by BEDMGM. This show is presented by BEDMGM, and there's no better place to be during March matchups than Las Vegas. This year, college basketball fans can win a VEDMGMGM.

VIP trip to the Court of Legends event featuring the Cavender Twins. Simply place sports bets and your position on the leaderboard will determine if you win one of the 25 grand prize packages. Just sign into your BEDMGM account, opt into the promotion, and start placing sports bets of at least $10 to climb the leaderboard. Make this March 1 to remember. Join the Court of Legends leaderboard and make it legendary with BEDMGM. If you haven't already signed up, download that app. use the bonus code CFB, that CFB is in college football, and start wagering with BetMGM,

and you can get involved in that sweepstakes. Also, if you're already a member at BetMGM, we've got a college basketball odds boost token for conference tourney week. Use that token at a college basketball, wager to your bet and activate the token. If your wager was made with that token, you will receive extra winnings in unrestricted bonus dollars.

Use that college basketball boost token. As you watch those conference tournament games this week, make it even more legendary with BedMGM. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only U.S. promotional offers are not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler in the U.S. Call 8778 Hope N.

or text Hope N.Y. 4-677369 in New York. Call 1-800 next step. in Arizona. Call 1-800-327-50-50-0 in Massachusetts. Call 1-800-off in Iowa or 1-800-9-1-0-0-2-3 in Puerto Rico. First bet offer for new customers only, subject to eligibility requirements, rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for bed-MGM yet, use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first-b offer today. Welcome to Annie and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. And by the way, if you are on that

BetMGM app, it is conference tournament week in college basketball. There is an odds boost all week if you want to use it on college basketball. Ari, I want to point one particular conference tournament out to the folks because this one starts on Wednesday. So you've got some time to do your homework. Starts on Wednesday. The teams I'm about to mention to you, Don't start playing until Thursday because they have buys. So Utah State, San Diego State, New Mexico, and Grand Canyon all have buys in the Mountain West tournament. Listen to these odds to win the tournament. Utah State plus 225, San Diego State plus 325, Grand Canyon plus 475, Boise State plus 550.

This is one where probably any of those four can take it home. And all of them plus numbers, all of them more than double your money. you got to figure out which one's going to win it. But that is, that's going to be a spicy tournament. So it's not just the big, big dogs. It's not just the SEC tournament and the big 10 tournament and the big 12 tournament. There's a lot of fun college hoops going on this week. Selection Sunday is this Sunday.

It is. You know, Andy, I don't want to jinx it, but this offseason is going by fast. I don't know about you. Last year kind of felt like a slog. I mean, we're going to be through March before we know it, Because we're the tournament. And March Madness gives us a really nice reprieve from the football off season. Because we're going to talk March Madness on this show.

It just, it takes over the sports world. And obviously, if you've been watching the show and listening to the show, you know we've been following college basketball all season along. We've been dropping little things in there. And this is going to be a really fun tournament. There's a lot of really good teams. And so it's a good during this conference championship week to get yourself. tuned up for that kind of watching. And I love this week, because this is one of those

you just randomly in the afternoon. You turn it on, you got a basketball game. That kind of starts tomorrow. Tonight we've got a couple of different finals, the Horizon League finals tonight, and you'll have people punching their tickets. The NEC is tonight, although Mercyhurst is not eligible. I bet you didn't know that.

I didn't know that, no. Long Island, the sharks, they're through. they're dancing. Yeah, we have, I need to look at the schedule here, but we have some pretty exciting games coming up today, even starting now. And if I would have realized that, I might have tossed in a few shekels,

starting off the iPod here. And hit the old MGM app. Yeah, don't worry. GM app, yeah. Don't worry. There's plenty tonight, and there's also a bunch tomorrow. The really everything gets started in earnest on Wednesday.

One of the things you'll notice, during these conference tournaments, especially the bigger conferences, there will be commissioners having their state of the conference type addresses. Greg Sankey's going to be in Nashville at the SEC tournament. He is in an interesting spot right now because he went on Paul Feinbaum show, which is obviously the SEC network. It's sort of state-run media. But he was talking about going to the White House on Friday,

the college sports panel that Donald Trump hosted, It was almost like Greg Sanky was doing some damage control off of that because Greg Sanky, who probably didn't expect to be thrown into this situation, had to inform the sitting U.S. president that there was this Supreme Court decision that happened a few years ago called Austin versus the NCAA, where the Supreme Court ruled nine nothing against the NCAA. And a justice that Donald Trump put on the court had the harshest response to the NCAA. And so there was a lot going on there. But Greg was talking to Paul Feinbaum about all the stuff going on in college athletics. And Paul asked an interesting question about, you know, would the SEC potentially do it on its own if there weren't agreements, if conferences couldn't get along, if people can figure out how to take the next steps in college sports? And I thought Greg Sanky's answer was very interesting. There are others who have suggested the SEC is a standalone league.

And I know you've always been more of an institutionalist, but what would you say to those who say the SEC is big enough? It could go out on his own and create its own market. Yeah, I appreciate the institutionalist observation. There are some who think I should be institutionalized probably at this point of my career. I appreciate that you can at least laugh at that. sometimes I think maybe I do need to be. We've built something really special.

I'd be fine if every other institution and every other conference stayed right where they are. I think we've built something with our 16 members that, again, I'll reference yesterday, the game between South Carolina and Texas and Greenville, South Carolina, with a full arena. It wasn't that way when we first went to Greenville and Texas. 2005, or even we started there on our current agreements. And we'll see the kind of excitement again in Nashville. The TV, the media interest in our games is spectacular. I think you need relationships.

You always want to be compared and you want to be competing against the best on a national level. And we've taken what has been historically a regional sport in college football in particular, or college sports broadly. use the platform of a great region in our 12 states and elevated the interest to a national level. That doesn't mean I just think you leap to something because I think that's filled with its own political

and legal and relational realities. But Paul, I'll just tell you, there is great frustration in my league that we've not been able to work collaboratively through some of the challenges or opportunities that we face. There's great frustration that, as we go through the economic transition with our student athletes, we haven't better defined the boundaries, the guardrails, and held people to those.

And we have a responsibility in that. So I'm not just casting, casting blame. That's part of us solving problems. And I think properly, that's where our focus should be. How do we work with colleagues to solve problems? Can we do that collectively? If there's a point at which we cannot do so, I think the conversation that informs the question that you ask, is there something you do alone? I think that that starts to generate more and more interest. But right now, and I think for the medium term, we're certainly focused on how do we keep the opportunities connected in Division I? While still, how do we make decisions that are effective for those of us, particularly in the four conferences, that being the SEC, the Big Ten? and the ACC and the Big 12. So there you go.

What's interesting there is he acknowledged that there are schools in his league that are very frustrated that would like to do something different. And he said that in Destin last year too. So this is not entirely new information. But that was one there. He said that on the show and the internet lit up because anytime we talk about potential realignment, super league, all that. When it's someone who actually has a hand in the decision-making process, your ears perk up.

So I think he made it pretty clear, already, that he would prefer that everybody stay where they are, that the structure generally remained the same. But it's interesting because I was clicking around on the internet, and our friend Matt Hayes at USA Today said that, you know, after the thing at the White House on Friday, the Big Ten of the SEC should just leave and form their own thing. So when you say, when he said, like, potentially breaking away,

if things can't get fixed, you took that as just Super League, right? I think there's a lot of versions of that. I think the way Paul phrased the question is the SEC doing its own thing, which I don't think is feasible. And I think Greg Sanky put that to bed pretty quickly. What did that also suck? Oh, yeah. Well, it's also not nearly as profitable because if you don't have the brands of the Big Ten and then some of the brands of the Big 12 and the ACC, it's not going to make as much money as it could. But I don't even think that an SEC fan would want that, even if it was just a pure SEC.

No, because then you could never, like, if you just did your own self-contained thing. Can't talk crap. Yeah, you couldn't, you couldn't do that. You couldn't say we're better than these people in this other state. Now, if you had your own standalone league and could convince Ohio State and Michigan and USC to join you in that league, that would be different. But that's not what we're talking about here. And I don't think they would do that. And then also, if that were to happen, and then one year, you know, a team that isn't in that league is awesome, the fan desire to see them play would not exist. and it would just be like a constant feeling of dissatisfaction to me. Like, that's the one thing, too, that, like, is we're probably going to have to acknowledge or at least live through

because I do believe that the Super League is going to happen at some point in my lifetime. I don't know if that's in 10 years or 20 or 30, but it's going to happen, I think. And when it does happen, we're going to get to a place where, you know, maybe the teams that aren't in the Super League are viewed as inferior, but a place where we're not going to get the ultimate national champion because the other teams that may or may not be very good who aren't a part of that league will never play the teams that are in it, which I think sucks. So, you know, my hope here, Andy, and I know that the president said, you know, over the weekend or, you know, before the weekend when this panel was held that, you know, they basically fixed the issues and next year, that's not happening. It's a very, very... Yeah, there's not going to be an executive order that fixes everything.

The bill they're trying to pass through Congress is never going to pass both houses of Congress. They're never going to get the antitrust exemptions they want. If they would like to have a central governance, they'll have to figure out how to do it, probably by negotiating with the athletes. But also, there is some stuff going on in Congress. Like, there's something that might pass, and that would be a change to the Sports Broadcasting Act. which would allow the colleges, the leagues to sell their TV rights as one, like the NFL does, like the teams of the NBA do. And that would potentially make them more money.

But, and this is the thing, like, and I'll go to Matt Hayes' idea, the idea of the SEC and the Big Ten getting together and just doing something by themselves. Because if they did that and then swiped a couple brands from the ACC and the Big 12, you could have a market dominant league where most fans would be satisfied that the champion of that league is the real champion. Now, they don't want to do that. Like there's a reason the Big Ten and the SEC

put out a white paper a couple weeks ago saying, oh, we don't need to change the sports broadcasting act because Greg Sankey, who runs the SEC, Tony Petiti, who runs the Big Ten, neither one of them would be in charge of that new thing. And the SEC or the Big Ten might not have the same level of power relative to everybody else that they enjoy now.

So you're going to have active obstruction by those leagues to anything that puts everybody together, even though that would make everybody more money. Yeah. And none of this is ever going to take, the fans perspective or the perfection model, which is everybody is satisfied and everybody's playing by the same rules and everybody's still part of it into account.

And I don't think there's a way, like, there's nothing you can do that creates a system where everybody's got rules they like and that 136, well, it's 138 now, I think, right? 138 FBS teams, all are fine and are all, They're not on the same level. They're not. There's about 70 that are on a similar level. And then there's another about 70 that are on another level.

But I also think that the joy of the about 70 who are on another level of trying to level up and become one of the greats is the entertaining aspect of the sport. Like four years ago, Indiana would have been on a different level. Now, they're fortunate. Oh, no. Indiana is in the in the, in the, the top about 70 because of conference membership. But I agree with you. Like remember, we did this. We all did the Super League columns when soccer tried to do it.

Yeah. And their fans revolted and it never happened. But we all did the college football Super League. Like, who would be in it? Where you might take- Nobody had Indiana in it. Yeah. Like you might take Boise over Indiana because of a branding standpoint.

And obviously, there are programs that are certainly in the right place at the right time. Like, I think you can make the case that Purdue is in the right place. Maryland is in the right place. Vanderbilt, though much better now under Clark Lee's leaderships in the right place. There are other teams and other programs in college football that care more deeply about their football team than other programs that are in the right place. But don't have financial. Maybe. What'd you say?

Clemson and Florida State, maybe. Now, they have the finance. They have money. But they'd rather be in a league that makes more money. Yeah. But I think that you could probably go, like, who do you think cares more about football? TCU fans or Maryland fans? Like I think that I would say TCU fans probably care more about their football team.

And Maryland is in a more advantageous position based on conference alignment that, you know, their inclusion was possible over a model that doesn't even matter anymore, which is television markets. So, like, you know, there are lucky and unlucky situations to this. but it would be great if we instituted rules that at least favored the power conferences in a way that everybody feels like they're playing the same sport now there's still going to be places that invest more and have more advantageous geography and more robust fan bases there's no rule that you can institute that's going to make everybody equal but what i do think that we need to do because they weren't equal before right is come up with a system where everybody is playing by the same rules and then you allow the individual institutions to decide how much they want to spend. Now everybody it, but they have that now. Yeah. If you just ignore their attempts at making rules, which the rules don't actually matter. So everybody's ignoring them. They have that now. Yeah. They can choose to spend whatever they want and they can compete. And guess who won the championship

last year. Yeah. Not a team that was ever able to compete in the old system. I mean like tampering rules

and windows of Oh, I know, but what I'm telling you is, yeah. This is our friend Dan Wetzel says this all the time.

Why does anything have to change from now? Because they keep complaining about it? I think that they're making more money. The game's better. I think that the reason

why things have to change now is because the fan experience and following it has decreased. I think the games and the It hasn't though. The numbers don't suggest it has at all. No, no, no. I didn't finish what I was going to say. Okay. The games and the fall, it hasn't changed at all. The ratings on television actually have increased when I was arguing with Ralph Rousseau and you,

not you, more Ralph, about. Yeah, it wasn't me. I was not involved in this one. I went and I looked and I, because I didn't know the answer to this and I wondered if the CFP got so big that the ratings of the Bulls went down and they didn't. Like the regular Bowls like had some peak viewership years this past season, which makes no sense. But they did because people like watching football. You know where it's hit right now? The off season.

I disagree with that. I don't. People check out in a way in the off season that they didn't before. I don't think that's true at all. I think there's as many people checked in in the off season. there weren't that many people checked in the offseason before. I think that recruiting in general, high school recruiting used to be a major, a major, major major.

I think you are overestimating the number of people that cared about that. I hope I'm not because our entire company was based on it. No. And you know what? Our entire company is much bigger now because we're, instead of just focusing on those, the recruit nix, we're now focused on the fan all you. year round. Yeah. I think it's much harder for fans to feel like they can wrap their arms around all the changes that are happening on their team. And you used to be able to be a GM at home

and, you know, put a two-deep together and understand who came from where and like you used to know your team. I don't think the average fan knows their team nearly as well as they think that's the school's fault too, though. I think you're right about it. The changes are causing that too. I think the schools do a bad job of letting fans get to know their teams. I think that there is some of that, yeah. But I also think that there is a segment of fan that listens to our show and reads on three. That is a super fan that nothing that could ever happen would make them check out. I think the general fan has a much harder time keeping up with who.

Like, for instance, yesterday was the first day of NFL free agency, right? Yes. And you're saying, okay, two signs with the Falcons and this guy signed there, this guy signed there. at the end of the day, when it was all over with, I went and looked at a list of the moves that were made. Okay? Right. And I felt like in a 10 or 15 minute period,

because I wasn't following it live, I was able to kind of wrap my arms around who plays where now. And like who made good moves, who made bad moves. And obviously there will be more moves to come. But in the NFL, it's pretty, pretty easy to kind of get a... And it's much easier for you to know your NFL team's depth chart today. I don't even think...

plug in the couple of guys. And they could name players in the two deep of their new teams anymore. Like I'm with you on that. I think there's a way to do that. There's a way to fix that. The schools don't want to do it, but eventually they'll come around on it. Yeah. And I also too, and I would be curious to hear what Shannon has to say about this because

they have the raw data. But when I was a young reporter, if there was a Jewish, junior top 100 player in your state, fans were reading every update about that kid and following every intricacy of where he was visiting, what he was doing, how he was doing it, when his decision was being made, if he's going to flip, all these things with the anticipation of getting to the early signing period or to national signing day and figuring out where he's going to play, and there being a feeling of finality to that decision. I think that because there's no finality to that decision and people are flipping after they commit a year later, people are less invested

in the coming and goings of individual recruitments because they perceive that they don't matter anymore because they're just going to leave anyway. I think there's that. I also think that portal recruitments of big-time players get more attention because you already know that player. You've already seen that person play in college. That's only a week a year.

So or a few weeks a year. But recruiting used to be like five-star sophomore from Georgia is taking a visit to USC this weekend was like a major talking point. And I don't know. maybe it's all perception, maybe the numbers, and hopefully the numbers will prove this wrong. But I do wish and I long for a system where high school recruiting is emphasized again because there was some sort of feeling that if you made it through that high school recruitment,

that your program had a better than 50% chance of developing that player and using him on the field at some point in the near future, which, you know, isn't necessarily the case anymore. Now, some places are better at it than others. Like Washington, the stadium that River just coincidentally. just showed on the on the screen there is a team that is trying better or trying to be better at that to develop their own players and retain their players and develop them from recruiting in order to make a good team but if you were saying there are some guys that we followed the recruitment up pretty closely for Miami who played for Miami in the national title game last

year so it's not completely gone but I agree with you that that that aspect of it has changed a lot the recruiting aspect of it the high school recruiting aspect of it made fall following college football year round a more intimate experience than it is now. So maybe I just don't, I don't think like we talk, you know, behind the scenes about capturing the sports fan who isn't necessarily a rabid day-to-day college football fan. Those people still, they weren't following recruiting before. They were like, okay, just tell me who my team has come August.

We're trying to capture you between February and August, which. you may be busy or you may decide you care more about major league baseball or the NBA and and I get that but that's part of the part of the deal too and as college football grows and becomes the more popular sport I mean this is the second most popular sport in America right now its numbers are better than the NBA's numbers yet the NBA makes more in TV money that's part of all this angst among the college football leaders is how do we make more money than the NBA hey, well, the way you do it is you sell it all together. It's you selling it separately that it's causing you to not make that money.

And the Sanky thing's interesting because he's talking about some of the frustration in his own league. Some of that's because they can't agree with the Big Ten on what to do about the playoff. Yeah. And so they're all frustrated with each other. And the second they figure out if they work together, they'll make more money. and not just the Big Ten and the SEC, but Big Ten, SEC, ACC, and Big 12, if they all worked really together,

they would make a lot more money. I suspect that in this scenario, Andy, and you've pointed this out in the past, that while money does make the world go around, there is something that might be more important than money in this specific instance, which is who's the biggest swinging member in the room. You know what I mean?

That's exactly right. That has been a detriment to that. because if they were all interested in making more money, there's a straight line. It's a solution to that. And it would have been done years ago. Yeah, but it's interesting because they complain about all this stuff,

but then they don't act like they care that much. It's like that would you rather. If I gave you a million dollars right now, but the person that you despise the most on Earth would get $5 million, would you do it? I don't think I would. I don't think I would. I don't know who that person did.

I guess that makes me a sucker. I want to know who that person is, but maybe off the air. He was working at a red lobster at one point. Oh. After having a much better job. He knows who he is. I don't know who I am. I don't know who that is, but not really after the show.

Red lobster is going through some hard times right now. They ordered me in time apparently. I don't know if you know. I don't think that red lobster is open anymore. But this is. This is going to be really interesting to see what happens over the next few years because the idea of a sitting conference commissioner saying this out loud five years ago would have been just your mind's just blown.

We've heard him say it twice in 10 months now. So this is headed toward something. We just don't know what. And we don't know what's going to look like. And I think that that causes a lot more angst than anything else. You know, they sent 100 minutes. at the White House talking about all these different things. And it was interesting because the commissioners had to correct the president

because he kept saying that, you know, this is going to kill women's sports and blah, blah, blah. And like Jim Phillips, the ACC commissioner got up and was like, we've added lots of scholarships in women's sports. And Greg's saying, we've added lots of scholarships in women's sports since NIL came into existence, since revenue sharing came into existence. So like their actions don't suggest that anybody's going out of business anytime soon. or that the sky is falling,

but the fissures are showing, the cracks are showing in the organizational structure of all this, they are going to have to figure out how they want to do it. And it's going to be as strange next few years as they do. Wow, but it was a pretty good segue there that I set you up for, which is the portal does provide us with another additional window that didn't exist of vast interest. and there was one. This part, yeah, this part, yeah, this part where guy who left one school for school's biggest rival explains why he left one school for school's biggest rival.

And the whole thing blows up again. Parker Livingston, wide receiver, played at Texas last year, number three in catches and receiving yards for the Longhorns last year. He is now playing at Oklahoma. Oklahoma had their spring media day. And so they had a bunch of players available, including Parker Livingston. And so our friends from Sooners Group talked to him. We have video from our friend Eddie Rudasovich.

We have audio from our friend, George Storia. And we'll start with one of the audio clips covering Oklahoma, by the way. I want to like that. Yeah. Yeah, by the way, if you're an Oklahoma fan, you need to be subscribed to Sooner's Group. It is the most complete coverage, and they're all over it all the time.

So one of the clips from George, one of the audio clips. It involves our friend Chris Benini from the athletic asking Parker Livingston some questions about his exit from Texas. And there was a quote that completely blew up on the internet. And I understand why because you could take it kind of however you want to take it. And I think there's a, there's some context there. So it's the clip where he's talking about as agent.

So producer River, can you play the clip where he's talking about his agent? No, he shoots me straight, and then I make a decision for myself and what's best for me. Probably a good reason to have an agent, right? I was able to kind of let you know what's going on outside. I mean, if I aren't having an agent, there's no, I would probably still be in Austin right now. Yeah, that's security. How valuable is that as a player? That's so valuable.

So I'm going to have an agent Have those conversations with the GM Or you know, what's the future for you? What's their what's their point for you? And so I think that's I think having an agent's the biggest thing for For a college athlete. Okay, so if I didn't have an agent,

I'd probably still be in Austin right now, which is I got to admit a very sexy quote, especially if that's the only part of it you got. What is... Now, we played the longer clip so you could hear the context. Talk to me like I'm 11 years old and tell me why that's juicy because it's not landing for me. Because you cover the business of this. You understand what the agent's job is.

You deal with agents all the time. Like you understand his job is to explain the market to the client. I talked to Ron Slavin, who's Parker Livingston's agent yesterday. And here's basically what's going on. So we'll take his statement. If I didn't have an agent, I'd still be in Austin. So why would he still be in Austin? Well, one of the things that Ron Slavin's job is to do is explain to him what the market is for the player at the school he's at, at other schools, but also what could change at your school.

So the thing that Ron Slavin finds out that everybody in the agent world knew this, and that's their job. is that Cam Coleman's leaving Auburn, that Texas is very interested in Cam Coleman. And Texas is probably going to, if they really want Cam Coleman, have to spend a lot of money to get Cam Coleman, which means there's probably not going to be a ton of money left over for other receivers.

So if Parker Livingston wants to make a significant amount of money, he probably has to go somewhere else. And also, if he wants to be wide receiver one at Texas, well, Texas is probably spending in a way that's not going to allow that to happen. Now, Ryan Wingo is also staying in Texas. So Texas is making these decisions. And I know that everybody thinks Texas has a gazillion dollars and they just write a check whenever they want somebody. But that's not how the real world works.

Even if you don't have a salary cap, there is a finite amount of money you have. There's also a finite amount of money you are willing to spend on each position group because you don't want things to get out of whack. Like, you have to set a peck. order based on paycheck. They set the pecking order. Cam Coleman's one, Ryan Wingo's two. Parker Livingston, the highest he could be was three.

But there are other schools where he's not going to be three and he's going to make more money. Yeah. I was just amused because it's like how much, how is that? That's probably true for 85% of the people who transfer. It's true for all of them. That's the whole point. But we're not, we spent 150 years with this sport where you couldn't do that. Yeah.

We were stuck or you had to sit for a year. And so people cannot fathom leaving one rival for another because it was never a thing. Like the negative incentives for leaving were so high that even if you, like, you wouldn't, you weren't really leaving for a better paycheck, even in the under, the table days, you weren't making that much more money. It was really probably more about role in the scheme if you did it back then. But if you had to sit out of year, that wipes out potential benefits of getting the bigger role.

This isn't the first time it's happened. And this, I remember there was a Boren brother who transferred from Michigan to Ohio State when I was on the beat. before the Nile era. So back then, it felt more personal because if Oklahoma is actually in the market for the position and the Texas player is the highest rated player available at that position, it feels less deliberate than that move did, right? Because now the free agency team happens to have a need, player from rival fills that need,

pay that player, right? So I don't know if Parker Livingston went into the portal with the, intention of spurning Texas for Oklahoma. I think that they did it to maximize value. So for me, but now Oklahoma is one of the two schools he was considering. He considered Indiana and Oklahoma. Right. He would have fit in really well at Indiana too.

But yeah, I don't know what the terms of the deals were or why he ultimately chose to stay. Maybe it's close to home. There's a million reasons why somebody would have done that. But he's not at Texas, not just only because he doesn't have an agent. It's also because Texas prioritized other players at his position. Right. The thing is if you don't have an agent, you're just skipping merrily along, and the next, you know, they give you a renewal and you're like, okay, here's, I'll sign. No, I mean, there's some of that too. But also, I think that there are players out there. I think most people are pretty keen and aware of, like, they're positioning on their own depth charts. Sure. And we've seen, we've seen it in the old days with recruiting when they bring in a hot shot freshman. Same thing. People used to leave and transfer and sit out all the time.

because they were buried on the depth chart. And like sitting out a year in that position, like when Joe Burrow left, no, Joe Burrow was a graduate, so he didn't have to sit out. But when people leave, they feel like sitting out the following year wasn't as big of a penalty because they were sitting out at the place

that they were at already. So like that. Yeah. You know, but. And Livingston was not going to be wide receiver one at Texas. He wasn't. Period.

The second you know Cam Coleman's coming, you know you're not going to be wire receiver one. and Wingo had more receiving yards and catches than him last year too. So now, is he wide receiver one at Oklahoma? I mean, Isaiah Satania might have something to say about that. But he's certainly closer to it than he would have been at Texas. Yeah. And he's making more money than he would have made at Texas.

Yeah. So, and also, that doesn't mean that if you're a Texas fan, you shouldn't talk crap to him. I don't know if I would sign. Oh, 100%. And he said it himself. Yeah. He said it himself.

He said, when I was at Texas, I wanted to beat the crap at a, out of Oklahoma. Now that I'm at Oklahoma, I'm going to beat the crap out of Texas. Like, he gets it. Yeah.

And like, it's part of the sport, too, is like, even if it wasn't malicious. Like, I don't know if he was like, F,

Texas, I'm going to go to the place that hurts them the most because they screwed me. Like, maybe there is some element of that under the hood somewhere. He said that he liked Oklahoma

because it was closer to, Oklahoma versus Indiana, that he liked the idea of playing it at Oklahoma is closer to home. He's from the DFW area. Yeah, he's about a three hour drive from home.

Three hour away. a two and a half hour drive away, but that still, you still left to play for a rival. So even if it's not malicious or it worked out that way. And you have to pay the consequences from a fan perspective with that. Now, I think it's insane when people, you know, personally attack or threaten somebody in their Instagram DMs like he was describing in that interview. And I, well, we got that quote. We got that quote.

And again, he gets it. So I don't think he's saying he's a victim here. So here is Parker Livingston explaining, announcing that he was leaving Texas for Oklahoma. And it got out a little early and he had to call an audible. Crossing the Red River like that, you're going to get a lot of hate. Did it cross your mind at all when you were making this decision? Yeah, so after I committed to, I'm pretty committed here. You were driving back down to Dallas with my parents.

And they're like, my mom was like, oh, boy. It was about to I wasn't going to post it until the next day Until like five, six o'clock But somehow it got out at like noon Then I was coming in I was like all right well Looks like I was going to post us now But my mom was like you're about to get so much

Hey on it So I actually I deleted Instagram and Twitter And I just I didn't get on it for about two and a half lead I didn't get on it until I came back Until we came up here like January 17th Yeah

And I just I was not going through it The thing is, like, I'm still getting messages about, like, it. And so I'm still getting tags and tagged in TikToks and whatnot. And I'm just like, I mean, how do you handle that? And, like, who are some of the people that maybe you lean on, like, your parents, I'm sure? Yeah, like, when you are receiving something like, I mean, it's all talk at the end of the day. I mean, it is what it is.

I mean, it's just two passionate fan bases and going at it. And, you know, it's happening across the Red River. And so, yeah, I think I lean on my parents and my brothers a lot. And nothing my agent. And I think I lean on them the most about, you know, that kind of situation. And that kind of hatred that I was getting. But, you know, I'm thankful for my time at Texas. It's a great university, great program.

And great players, great coaches. And, you know, just didn't work out. And I'm excited to be. I'm going to sooner. October 10th. The Cotton Bowl. That's where this will all boil over. It's going to be fun.

That's it. This is one thing. This will make the rivalry. be more spicy for sure. Yeah. And your final line in your column, it's just business and business will get nasty in Dallas and October 10th. That's exactly right. It's going to be nasty. And that's fun. That's fun. But yes, the reasons Parker Livingston made his decision perfectly sensible, especially in the week that NFL free agency opens, we're watching all that in real time. It makes sense. It's still just kind of weird.

seeing it on the college level. But that is life. Ari, next up, we're going to talk to a guy who has to deal with this in a very different way. Jerry Mack, the head coach of Kennesaw State. In his first year, he led the Owls to the Conference USA title. That Syracuse took his quarterback and Kansas State took his best freshman edge rusher because that's how this stuff works. Jerry's going to explain how he keeps it going in that environment.

We'll talk to Jerry Mac next. We are joined now by Jerry Mack, the head coach of Kennesaw State, took over the owls, led them to a conference USA title year one. And for those who don't know, this is what you say when you're at Kennesaw State and you greet another Kennesaw State Al. Hooty Hoooo! That is exactly right. Your hooty who was great at your initial press conference. Yours was better than the ADs. Look, I think I got teased about that from a lot of friends and family, to be honest, which.

Well, you, okay, so you had previous, like the year before you had worked with the Jaguars. You'd been a position coach with the Jaguars. So you had to figure out the Duval thing there. And then you moved from Duval to Hootie Who? Look, the Duval situation was a lot cooler at that time than I thought Hootty Who was. But I tell you what, it all worked out really good. I heard it was a lot of joking when I left Jacksonville about my hooty who. within the locker rooms and around the building.

Yeah, but that's because it's too many kids playing college. Like, they're too young. It's an outcast song. It came out when we were in high school. Exactly right. You're short our age a little bit, but you're exactly right. Jerry, Liam Cohen got teased a lot for how he said Duval in his introductory news conference in Jacksonville.

So maybe that's just like if you get teased for something like that, then you go on and have a really good season because you did in your first year. How'd that manifest? Look, me and him both, I guess those things were good luck more than anything else. So that was a good part of it. So when you interviewed for that job, you know, Milton Overton, your AD there talked about, you came in, you had a qualitative analysis of their roster versus everybody else's roster in Conference USA.

You said, here's where we're good. Here's where we need to improve. Here's how I can improve the guys on the roster. How much were you working, you know, through the years because you'd been a head coach before at North Carolina Central. I think you were, what, 33 when you got that job? And then went back to being assistant afterward. How much after you left North Carolina Central to go to Rice to the O.C.,

were you working on, okay, the next time I have an opportunity to be a head coach, here's how I want to do it now that I know how it works. Man, a hundred a million miles an hour. I think the biggest thing that I learned was to just really sit back and have an opportunity to see what can I improve it? What situations and things, whether it be schematically, whether it be building the roster, whatever that looks like, how can I continue to improve?

So during my time after I left North Carolina Central, I visited with a lot of different athletic directors. And I think a lot of people to understand there are so many talented individuals just in the building that you have. I got a chance to go to Rice University, and our athletic director, Joe Cargall, he was awesome for me and my development. Then I got a chance to go to University of Tennessee.

and all those assistant ADs and all those people that were upper administration, they had since went on to be ADs and athletic directors. Now, I would sit down with those people. They gave me time in the summertime to come up to their office. And I had a list of questions, everything from what are ADs looking for, how are the agents, how involved are the agents, how involved are the search firms, all those different questions that as an assistant you don't always know the answers to. They allow me an opportunity to sit in their offices and ask those questions.

And then also to just putting together the staff as my time through Rice University, my time of University of Tennessee. And even I looked at some individuals that wanted to join me from Jacksonville, we just couldn't make some of those situations happen. I was always looking for when I get my next opportunity, what is this going to look like for me? And you have to stay on the cutting edge. And you have to continue to evolve with all the changing the landscape. Because when I left North Carolina, Central 2017 to all the way now,

obviously when I got this head coach an opportunity in 2024, you can just see the landscape of college football is dramatically different. So I had to continue to revise things over the summertime and doing my time off. Jerry, when you have a successful season the way that you do, and then the consequence for that is losing players, how does that make you feel and how do you stay motivated through that? I'm going to be honest with you. I love it.

I tell these guys when we recruit them, whether they're transfers or whether they're incoming high school players, if you're leaving for what would be a better financial opportunity, that means that we have probably done something right, and we've had success. And you saw I lost several players to the power force this past year. Some were experienced players. They had played college football before. Some were just true freshmen that came in and had great,

great seasons this past year. So in my mind, it's just being able to stay fluid. You know, whether it's coaches have the same opportunity as players. I have a lot of young coaches on my staff. So the reality of it is my office and coordinator, defense coordinator position coaches, those guys, as we continue to have success, they're going to get posted as well.

They're going to create opportunities and options for themselves after they leave Kennesaw State. And the only thing that does is just make our program that much better because we're able to attract really good young talent, whether it be coaches or whether it be players. But at the same time, we're continued to increase and continue to win games hopefully at Kennesaw. Well, and I'm wondering, so Elijah Hill is,

one of the players you lost to, you recruit him out of Arkansas. He's incredible as a freshman, leads your team and tackles for loss. K-State grabs him. How do you use that? When you're talking to the next Elijah Hill, how do you explain all that and pitch it in a way that makes that that kid want to come play for you? We continue to talk about Kennesaw State is the land of opportunity. You know, the location that we sit in being 35 minutes from the Atlanta airport, a major airport, the metropolitan area of just Atlanta will be in a suburb, so we're not in the

heart and soul of necessarily the city. We consider this a land of opportunity. So that means when you walk into our building and when you walk into our program, coaches are going to pour into you, support staff is going to pour it to you. And what that's going to create for you is hopefully you have options at the end of the day. At the end of the season, my hope and my dream is that everybody in our program creates options for themselves. That means more options at Kennesaw. that may be, it mean, that situation, or there may be more options outside on the open market. And that's everyone in the program. So when we get those young people to come into the program and they kind of see what's going on and how we move and how we flow,

and they look at a guy like Elijah Hill who led the league in Sachs as a true freshman. And he didn't even get here to the summertime. He was the guy that was an early graduate. And then the things that he was able to do and the body of work that he was able to put forth in just one season. and now he's able to go in and make a lot of money and hopefully do some great things for his family. I want them to all understand when you walk into this place, that's what you're creating for yourself. We all want options at the end of the day. Some guys' situation will be different than others.

Some guys will want those options at Kennesaw State. Others will want that option somewhere else. At the same time, if you've heard anything that Kurt Zignetti had said the last few months, you know, at the end of their Indiana's run to the title and then after it, he gave so much credit to his continuity on his staff and on his roster. And I'm wondering, how much do you have to change as a coach or as a leader if continuity is less likely in your situation and in your case a good thing? And how have you had to adapt to a new way of growing because you still want to grow your program through losses. How do you do that? I think you got to just understand that that is the

way of the world. One thing that is inevitable is it's going to constantly be changed and you're going to have to constantly evolve. We were very fortunate this year. We only lost one assistant coach. That means all our coaches from the previous regime are still here. So that's unheard of a lot of times when you have the success that we've had at this level of football. But at the same time, you can never be a dinosaur. We're always trying to stay on the cutting edge. We're constantly trying to figure out, you know, how to use analytics more, how to use AI that's on the cutting edge right now. We're trying to figure out how to influx our program with those certain things. So as a coach, you know, now more than ever in our game, you better continue to be figuring out how you're going

to continue to evolve, how you're going to continue to stay on the cutting edge, be adjustable, be adaptable to losing coaches, losing players, and how you're going to keep the culture of what you're trying to do. High school players are still going to be kind of the foundation of what you do because you have a chance to keep those guys potentially longer in your building in Lager Hill situation, probably not as much. But most of the time, you're going to have a chance to keep your high school football players a little bit longer, which is going to continue to lay the foundation. And, you know, we're very unique.

You know, I don't ever want to change schematically what we're doing, offense, defense, and teams. I like those things. So I'm always trying to find the people in our building that are somewhat next up as well, right? So we're trying to groom. It's a developmental program, not only for certain players, But it's also a developmental ground for coaches because I'm trying to find those coaches, those young coaches, analysts, graduate assistants in the building that we can potentially promote one day

so we can kind of keep the continuity and consistency within our programs. You know, I remember Nick Saban saying that very thing. That was what he would talk about. That's why they would bring in those analysts because they wanted somebody who could just plug in when they lot. They knew they were going to lose somebody. So they wanted somebody they could plug in. You traded quarterbacks with serious. Syracuse. Like, do you call Fran Brown and say, are we actually having a trade here? Is this working?

Your starter from last year is going to be there. Ricky Collins, who had played for them last year, is coming to you. Is that weird? Did you, what was the order of that? Who, were you getting Ricky first or was Amari headed there first? You know what? You never know what the real true order is, but I can't tell you this. I knew Amari was going there. first. And I did not know Ricky was going to leave Syracuse and obviously until you hit the market. I had recruited Dylan Sampson from Baton, Louisiana when I was at University Tennessee. I naturally went through Woodlawn. That's where Ricky went to high school at because it was a situation where, you know, you're trying to hit the schools in an area that has some talent and end up getting a player, actually a corner out of their next cycle. But I had met Ricky. I knew about Ricky. I knew his coaches. I knew all those different things. So when he hit the market,

It was like, man, there's an opportunity to get somebody. I know I've seen practice. I've seen play. I know he's extremely talented. You watch the fan from Syracuse. I feel like there's some skill sets that he had that we could utilize and kind of what we do offensively. So just to be honest, which I never talked to coach, Coach Fran Brown. I did know a couple of other coaches up there on the staff office coordinator.

Jeff Nixon was a good friend of mine. And, you know, all those guys, Josh Gaddis, who was the receiver coach, like all those guys kind of raved about like the potential that he could. that he could have. So, you know, at that time, he had already, he was already in the portal. He'd already decided to move on. So we shot our shot and, man, it was fortunate. We was able to get him in our building. Dylan Samson, by the way, taught me and Ari how to, how to do end zone dances when he was at Tennessee. We visited him in Knoxville and we're like, all right, you got to show us how this works. Cleveland Brown right there is what that is. He should have told you about this official visit. Like, we had closed.

kneeling where they walked in the locker room and you know the whole show going on all that good stuff dylan was the first person who ever did a backwards flip in full uniform as he was coming out and getting introduced oh my god and you know we got to get this guy at this point right yeah you got you got you got to you got to say something about yeah there's something about dylan who's you know he lights up a room in a way that most other people can't and then he was a very good football player too and obviously now he's in the nfl and you know at a year young stage of a very promising career. Jerry, I wanted to ask you this because I think it's interesting. You mentioned at the beginning of this interview that when players move up to bigger

levels or better financial situations, that that's good for you. I also know that Kenneslaw can be the beneficiary of players who might not be getting their time at those larger levels who want to come down and excel at your level. How do you evaluate that when players are on the market? And is it difficult to sift through the reasons why somebody may need to do that? And, you know, how much detail is there in such a short amount of time that you have to go through in order to make sure someone's a right fit for your program? That's a really good question. Pounding the, pounding the pavement, beating the pavement, and constantly on the telephones. I feel like out of all the teams that play major college football, I think either myself or somebody on our staff has a connection

to somebody on every single staff. So that means we can pick up the phone that we can really get a fair assessment on, okay, what are the issues? Why is these young man leaving? What are you seeing pros, cons, what other red flags? And they'll be really honest with it. Just from a standpoint of one coach to another coach, we feel like we can get really good assessment and really good value. I think the second part of that is, man, it doesn't take long to really read young people. It doesn't take long to read people at all, in my opinion. And I think that's why we've had success. We're going to bring them in 36 hours or so. And we're going to get a chance to sit down with them, break bread with them.

They're going to sometimes bring their family members. We are evaluating everything. We're evaluating how they speak to their parents or the person that they bring in, how they come in the building. When they get around our players in the evening or whatnot, we evaluate exactly, are they a good fit? We're calling those guys on the phone. So it is a mad rush for those 36 hours just to see if that person is going to be a fit.

When the red flag start to show up on the official visit or in our time, with them, then we move on really, really fast. I mean, there have been times where we brought guys in, we've known really in the first four to five hours just eating with them. This guy's not going to be a fit for our culture. So we decide not to not move on within their visit from a standpoint of whatever we got on an it, on an itinerary. That's really important to me. We have to make those assessments extremely fast. Are we going to hit all the time? No, we're not going to hit all the time. That's not what we have to do. That's not going to be part of it. But the key is to make sure we hit extremely more than we missed. And I think that's where our success lie this past year.

I was going to say, and you seem to know what the culture you want looks like. And that's why I was wondering how quickly you knew because your schedule was the way it set up was kind of weird. I mean, it's pretty normal at this level because you've got, you're going to have a couple of games on the road against bigger conference opponents. So you go scare the hell out of Wake Forest week one. And we had Jake Dickard on the show and he said, watch out for Kennesaw State. because they about beat us. You played Indiana after that, which I'm sure you knew way before everybody else

what was about to happen to everybody else. But then you get rolling. And like the only other game you lost in regular season was Jacksonville State, which you avenge that loss in the conference championship game. When did you know this group was going to be special and that they were really going to get it going? I always refer back to this certain event that happened in

fall camp in practice. We were having a red zone period and I'm a big, hey, I want to be tackled to the ground. I want to be a tackle in our red zone period because I want to see if the backs, if the receivers can actually break tackles and if defenders can actually bring people to the ground. So in a short, short quarter. So, you know, we had a situation where, hey, the game was on the line. We put a situation, hey, it's four down at like two to three yards. The office throws like a perimeter, perimeter tag, perimeter screen out there. I would, I would, watch the defensive alignment who ended up being a first team defense alignment for us come from all the way inside and haul haul butt all the way to the sideline and it was just it was like bees to honey it was literally 10 11 dudes on that guy at that time

and it was exemplified exactly what we have on the front of our helmet is hetm hit him hit everything that moves like those guys were flying to the ball and when i saw the energy the effort and i saw the way that they attacked the ball, we instantly went in the film room the next evening, that evening. We talked about that is the standard. That is what we want to look like at all times. Not just this one plate, but we were able to showcase like this is the standard of how we want to play football here in Kansas State. And all they did was carry that over for the next whatever games all the way into the season. When you turn it, wait, Forrest game on, you can see it's just bodies to the ball constantly.

Like no matter who has the ball, who's got the ball in their hand, we got letting guys flying to the ball. and gave us a chance at the very end to really try to win the football game. Andy? Oh, yeah. First time, yes. That's right. First time guess, always gets the same question at the end. Jerry Mack, what is your ironclad rule, one rule, or could be multiple rules?

What are your rules for life? That's a good question. I think on my tombstone, what is going to read is SPV. And what that stands for is what I talked about when I first came in our program, that sacrifice, passion, and vision. And in my world, to me, anybody's going to be successful. They have to sacrifice things. It doesn't matter whether your parent, a CEO, football coach, it doesn't matter.

There are going to be things you have to sacrifice. The passion in which you do those things with, that's going to be super important to make sure that you do it to the best of your ability. Even when times you get hard, you're still going to have the passion and the energy to go out there and execute whatever you got to do. And then everything that you do, everything that I've ever done in my life, I've always had a vision as soon as I walked in the door. head football coach parenting like you know discipline guys whatever it looks like i've always had a vision on where i want to take this take things that is uh that is beautiful right there and uh so spiv makes me think of s wv which takes me back to the early 90s again and so you know what i'm going to say is hooty who do who oh oh we got to do yeah that is you got to throw the house

Who do you? That's the best one in college football. That's the best one. I mean, Texas and Hookham, that's fine. That's the best one. Jerry, Matt, thank you so much. Thank you, Coach. Thank you, for you, guys.