Bussin' With The Boys - Luke Combs Talks New Album 'The Way I Am' + NFL Free Agency Reactions | Bussin’ With The Boys

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

On this episode of Bussin’ With The Boys, Will Compton and Taylor Lewan sit down with country superstar Luke Combs for a wide-ranging conversation that starts in the football locker room and ends on the main stage. The boys kick things off debating whether concussions exist before getting into Luke’s high school football days, including being teammates with Caleb Pressley and watching Brandon Spikes be an absolute man amongst boys. From there, Luke walks through when he first got into singing and what it was like booking that very first show. Luke opens up about moving to Nashville, learning the music business the hard way, and the relationships that helped him find his lane. He talks about breaking the mold in country music, whether he ever got jaded after blowing up, and who he wanted to meet when he first arrived in town. The conversation rolls through his favorite album he’s written, becoming a parent, whether he’s actually a fan of snow, and his diehard App State football fandom—including his thoughts on the current state of college football.  The episode opens with NFL free agency news, Maxx Crosby’s new deal, Ravens and Raiders outlook, an Andrew Luck vs. Joe Burrow debate, Justin Jefferson unfollowing J.J. McCarthy, Logan Paul possibly fighting NFL players, Will’s 40 time, BWTB stadium rankings, the White House UFC card, T-shirt contest winners, and Taylor’s Vegas trip. It wraps with talk about Luke’s new album, who he’s really a fan of, and a classic Bud Light question—plus country music, App State football, and balancing fame with family. Big hugs, tiny kisses.   0:00 Open 3:30 Free Agent News 5:24 Maxx Crosby 7:45 Outlook On Ravens 8:30 Raiders Outlook 28:00 Luck VS Burrow 30:40 Free Agent News 39:30 Justin Jefferson Unfollowed JJ McCarthy 43:30 Logan Paul Fighting NFL Players 49:30 Will’s 40 Time 54:30 BWTB Stadium Ranking 1:00:00 White House UFC Card 1:05:30 T-Shirt Contest Winners 1:07:30 Taylor’s Vegas Trip 1:13:51 Luke Combs Interview 1:14:00 Do Concussions Exist 1:17:12 Playing High School Ball1:23:55 Luke And Caleb Pressley Were Teammates1:26:46 Brandon Spikes Was A Man Amongst Boys In High School1:35:52 When Did He Get Into Singing1:43:20 Booking His First Show1:48:53 Coming To Nashville And Learning The Music Business1:59:31 Relationships That Helped Him2:02:21 Breaking The Mold In Country Music2:11:24 Did He Become Jaded At Any Point?2:15:24 Who Did He Want To Meet When He First Got To Nashville?2:18:36 Favorite Album He’s Written2:19:07 Being A Parent2:23:44 Fan Of Snow?2:27:40 Massive App State Football Fan2:35:00 Who Is Luke A Fan Of?2:48:48 State Of College Football2:56:29 His New Album3:03:56 Bud Light QuestionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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your podcasts. Ladies gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Bustin with the Boys. This is episode 370 with the one, the only Luke Combs. We have a little preview for your guys. We are talking about NFL free agency. Logan Paul, who's he fight?

Who should he fight? Also, Max Crosby has gone from the West Coast to the East Coast to the Ravens. What's taking place in the Raiders building as opposed to the Ravens building? And what it happens with the mental capacity of these plays? players where it comes to mental fortitude and put people pulling you in multiple different directions.

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You did great. It's been a long weekend. You did great. It's been a very, very long weekend. I was not only in Vegas doing regular Vegas things with the UFC and the power stuff and all that, but last second, I'm like, tell my wife and kids, you guys should come. We'll enjoy it. But it's gone from the late nights and then I get to sleep a little bit to late nights early mornings. I'm in an arcade.

I'm on Fremont Street. I'm ripping packs. That's kind of what happened. That's Vegas, baby. Vegas. That's what happens. What happens when you go to Vegas? You rip packs with your kids.

You rip packs with your kids that you do. So what are we getting into with that? What do you bet? I think I haven't seen my- My sweet prince. What's even going on today? Is there anything happening today? Is there anything going on?

Monday? Sam Ellinger or he re-signed with the Broncos. Sam Ellinger. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's going on today. One year, two million dollar deal. Night, hey, keep them guessing.

Hey, you see the Huskers took down the Hawkeyes and basketball. O-T. O-T. That's all the snowball effect. That's going to snow right down to fall. Yeah. Yeah. I see what you're saying.

Absolutely. You're picking it up because I'm putting it down for you to pick it up. Also, Michigan took Michigan State and Michigan State some dirty-ass plays. Dirty-ass school. Dirty-ass school. That's a dirty school. But yes, also Michigan first team to go undefeated on the road in the Big Ten since like 1964 or something. or something like that.

Is that? Is that true? Indiana. That date is it. That date is for sure incorrect, but that is a real staff. Since 1964? 70, so the shit, go pop that up. Go pop that.

Indiana Hoosers. Yeah. That's my job. We're not experts. We're a basketball school. We're a hockey school. Michigan's a sports school, dude. They are, they're doing the thing.

They're number one in hockey right now, too. I know hockey's been big for me in this last a couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah. That you guys should know that. Big for hockey. Should we get to the biggest? 1975.

1975. First time since 1975. So, you know, 13 years off. Time out. That says last undefeated NCAA D1 men's basketball team. Okay. Yeah, that's wrong. Hey, we're not experts on this show.

By the last time the Big Ten team finished without a loss. Without a loss. Yeah, in the Big Ten. Okay. Now they finish undefeated. We just finished undefeated in the Big Ten. Got you. Got you.

So we got one slice of the pie, not the whole. You set on the road for a second? And then that's what I'm like, is that a truth? I read it. You know how the brain works? You saw it reading a second ago. That's kind of how it goes. NFL Free Agency.

While I was in Vegas. Yeah. NFL Freezing kind of started. Yeah. What is it? The little tampering period. No, no, no. I'm talking about the Commodore.

Condor. Condor. The Commodore. Shout out of Andy. Shout to Andy. The biggest headline in for agency. Max Cross would be going to the Baltimore Ravens. For what, two first round picks?

Is that what it was? Does anybody think the Ravens overpaid at all in the back? I don't definitely know. Well, there was a, and again, this is, this is Exelor. It was a stat out there. All the first rounders who've got like traded where they didn't pan out to to where the team ended up winning a championship. So it kind of depends on what metric you're going by.

Yeah. No one's done it until someone does it. Like Max Crosby is a Hall of Fame defensive end that is currently like still in his prime. Absolutely. Ravens made an incredible move. They're clearly all in to win the Super Bowl this year. Like they're all in. They have a home wrecker on the line of scrimmoner.

on defense. Yeah. Then you got Roquant Smith, second level. Kyle Hamilton on the third level. Like, their dial, like Baltimore Ravens, like, I'm fired up for Max. Max in the purple, the black, he just seems like Baltimore. That pale skin is going to pop off that purple. Yeah.

It's going to be a great contrast. Yes, similar to how he was with the silver and black. Yep. On the macro, Ravens got a, I think they both won because you got Raiders now, two first round picks. You're going to get a quarterback with first overall. It's probably going to be Fernando Mendoza. Yep.

So you've got a quarterback that you're buying into for the future. Right. You got two first round picks that you're getting to continue to load up on draft capital for all of the holes that they have with the Raiders right now. You got to ship off your best player, like your best leader. Everything, everybody, everything that embodied being a Raider was Max Crosby. Right. Him going to Baltimore.

That sucks. But if you're a Raiders fan on just the pure business side on building toward the future, I think it's like both sides kind of won. Yeah. The side, just from my own. this is what I would do if I was a GM. I love the idea of acquiring assets that are already proven in the entity you're trying to

win, which is players that you know are good, bring them to your team as opposed to going into the draft and having more draft capital and taking a guess on guys. A lot more busts, a lot more bust out there as opposed to, I mean, this is a crazy comparison because this dude, like you said, is a Hall of Fame, a Hall of Fame defensive player. The issue with the Ravens has never been

the name talent on their roster. Like going into this year, it was their, contenders look at how all the names they have they should have the best defense and all of it all the NFL now their biggest issue last year was getting was getting to the football uh getting to the quarterback they're going to fix that quite a bit out that they know what's coming in practice we truly don't know what's coming in practice but everything you hear about practices you're going to have to take max crosbie out every once in a while just to make sure you can function sure the offense to figure out right they can have some success and then the question mark is is lamar jackson still lamar jackson i know a lot of people like raven's fans

are going to hate that but like we saw him he had his hamstring and even when he came back a lot of open field opportunities and still kind of getting taken down by one guy which never happens with lamar keep him healthy max on the edge but they might be them the ravens are in a great spot great i think the raiders we just talked about the macro on the micro i think max crosby leaving speaks to the continued dysfunction going on with the raiders and again i can i can tell the audience from things that I've just heard and it's very like this is very like I'm not in it in the raiders insiders the relationships everything else the way I used to be but things that I've heard shows that there are massive question marks like within the organization like Tom Brady

having all the juice that he has yeah who's his a PT guy is it Alex Guerrero or Guerrera sounds about right the name sounds correct the guy who worked on Tom Brady TB 12 method like the guys who would use Alex as Alex Guerrero, who would use Alex Guerrero as like their third party guy, like away from the Patriots. He is now, it seems like he has a lot of control inside the organization. And there's a lot of like friction and pushback with how much control he has because Tom Brady is kind of running running a lot of the operation. He is like a minority owner. I think it's super interesting because of all the TV stuff that he does and everything else and how he's involved.

It sounds like he is. And again, this is more hearsay. I don't know this to me. A lot of this is assumption. This is just like hearing all the things that I've heard. I have, obviously I have a great relationship with Max, but we never like talk about that side of everything. So you can take it for what it is.

But what I've just heard is that Tom has a lot of juice inside the organization. And it's ruffled feathers because of the empowerment of an Alex Guerrero. Yeah, because if you look at it from the outside and you're like, oh, Tom Brady, the best football player of all time. He now is going to give all of his little nuggets and little jewels to be able to be like, this is how you guys are great. But there's value in that. There's obviously value in that.

The question mark for me with Tom is how much is this the main storyline for him? Because he's got so many things going on with the broadcasting. He's got a bunch of different investments. There's all stuff with fanatics. Yeah. Like how does he, is he in the Raiders building a couple times a week? Making sure everything's going the way he is. Or is he sending out guys that he trusts to get it done because those are two totally different things.

Mark Davis, the owner. He's got a temperament, not only his haircut. Iconic. His decision making, question marks. And he makes decisions very quickly, which causes a lot of this turmoil taking place. Not letting guys get their guys in there, establish their type of culture, because everyone's kind of seeing from the NFL world, the Mike Vrable, the college role, the Kurt Signetti.

It's like, that's what we want immediately. And a lot of times you're not going to get that. You have a couple years for guys to get in there mold their culture and what they want. Right. It'll be interesting. And apparently the straw that broke the camel's back, the stuff that's like reported out there, is that when they sat Max at the end of the year. because Max wanted to play.

Like, Max is a guy. Yeah, dude. Max came out with a, as soon as they said he's, what he were putting on IR, he was dunking a basketball and shooting threes. Yeah. Clipped a video on it. My instinct.

And again, Max and I don't talk about those things. Like Max and I would just check in and like, you know, show love to each other. Ask how kids are, you know, all that kind of stuff's going. But when I'm watching that from the outside, I think that is kind of like optically.

It's showing Max's, you know, how upset he was that they were kind of deactivating him from the Ross. Because this is a dude who will play through it, through injuries. If Max can go, like Max is always going to go. You watch his video when he's leaving,

and you can just tell how authentic, genuine, how much he wanted to essentially be a Raider for life. And that is a guy you want to be a Raider for life because he's a captain. Not only is he a captain, but he's a Hall of Fame caliber player. Somebody who truly,

like, there's no question whether this guy dies for football. Yeah. Which is what you want to build around. And apparently it's like the straw that broke the camel's back is him getting deactivated and shut down. And the reporting is that they wanted to tank so they could get the first overall pen.

Which definitely sounds like based on Mark Davis's history, something that he would actually do. Yeah, it seems like a lot of misalignment. And again, this whole Alex Guerrero thing, I don't know what his title is. Can you look up with just what his title is within the organization? But you have head trainers, you have head strength coaches. And again, this is hearsay. What I've heard is Alex Guerrero has a lot of juice. Alex Guerrero, so Taylor and I, speaking from our, he's the wellness coordinator.

That's very broad. In my opinion, in my, my instinct tells me, Tom has a lot of juice to kind of operate as a, in the ownership of the Raiders. Yep. He has Alex Guerrero, his confidant, his guy. That is the guy that essentially reports to Tom. And he probably gives Tom all the ins and outs of what, in his opinion, of what everything kind of goes on, breaking down all the little details. The benefit of Alex Guerrero when he's with the Patriots is, you know as a player, anytime you never want to be in the training room. you never want an injury to get misconstrued or painted a certain way or you could be going

through it a lot more than what your trainer could be telling the head coach to where you're trying to get pushed back on the field to play and you're probably getting a third opinion that tells you I need to continue to rest. I need to kind of do other things. But it seems like the training staff is doubting me or the team is doubting me. So it creates this weird world to where as a player you start to learn the game within the game in the NFL. You start working with third party people in the off season. During the season, you'll have have a PT check in on you and kind of give you his opinion on what your injury is compared to what the athletic training room is telling you what the injury is because they're working

for the team with the team with the owner. So you see the training room is more of the op than you do. There are ally in all facets of everything. So Tom would use Alex Guerrero. Julian Edelman, I assume a lot of these guys on the Patriots would use Alex because Alex was a great third party resource. Now with Alex Guerrero working in the Raiders organization bringing, oh, hey, here's what Alex does. I'm sure when he first got there, everybody's probably excited. He probably had great relationships.

But Alex Guerrero is now, if you're a raider on that team, you could see Alex Guerrero as the op, as what you would call in any business culture, as the guy who's operating in the best interest of the logo, and not as much for the player like he once was when he was just a third-party guy getting to work kind of with the Patriots and really just work on Tom Brady

and whoever Tom wanted to bring in the circle. Now that you have Tom with all this juice and Alex Guerrero is like seen as the right-hand man kind of can overthrow the training room, kind of can overthrow whatever is going on because of what his relationship is with Tom Brady, you can see how that can create a dysfunction to where the relationship with Max or maybe the relationship with other players on the roster. That's kind of where you can create friction and kind of see it fall apart a little bit because Alice Guerrero is no longer a guy that as a player you can work with outside of

the business, outside of the logo. Yeah. Does that make sense? Buddy, yes. Like that, you painted a, you painted a, exactly. Do me a favorite to say that one more time verbatim. No, you, you nailed it. The biggest thing that I picked up from everything you said was as a player,

you learn in the process of being pulled in a million different directions. You get an injury. You get an injury. All right. Yeah. Trainer looks at it. MRI says X, Y, and Z. You're actually fine.

You can play this week. Agents that's over there and it's like, let's get a third party. Third party guys, like maybe take a week off, maybe don't. Like, you could hurt it more. Or a guy that you see that you have now, even, even outside of the, agent, a guy that you work with as a PT, like we've all had them. Like, there's a guy, like I can speak to Mel, I can speak to different guys that I've worked with to where you go right to them. And it's like, hey, this is what they're telling me. Here's what the MRI is.

And they're kind of telling you, ah, a week, this week, that would be pushing it. Right. In my opinion, you should do, you could do X, Y, and Z. Now, you have to take the information you got from a third party. You take it to the team, the head trainer. He's going to look you in the eyes and be like, hey, we got you, whatever we need to do for you. But then you figure out what are they saying to the up top people who has, essentially decide what your money is. Now, Alex Guerrero, this is all allegedly. This is all speculation.

We're having fun. We're trying to make sense of this crazy world. Trying to take our experiences. Right. Now we have all this kind of convoluted web that's taking place with this player that's essentially put in the middle of the mental warfare that takes place. People are talking about this player from this side. He needs to do it.

I don't know why he's not playing. The other side's like you need to make sure that you take care of your body because it's about sustaining longevity in this league. Now enter Alex Guerrero. So all that mental fortitude you to have as a player, you now have to have to have as a head trainer in the building as well. Because Alex Guerrero is not only reporting on this player, he's also reporting on what this head trainer is doing from a day-to-day basis,

especially with all his assistant associates with him as well. Yes. So now in the world, even the staff is under the microse. We sit in the like as Americans, as the NFL. We sit there as like these are alpha males, ultimate gladiator type of people. And then once you get down to the micro of it all,

everybody's dealing with their own storylines that take place. Yes. The more insecurity you can place in a person, the more cracks in the foundation you can get, especially when you're in a 20-week season. So when the player has it, you learn that over time. These assistant coaches, these trainers, they seem like they have it all together,

but a lot of times also have the same issues. And when the added pressure comes there, that's when you see a massive crumbling foundation. Am I following you correctly? Yes. Yes. Yes, yes. Hey, we kind of, the fans might not know, but we kind of are moving because that felt good.

Did you get all that, JP? It felt amazing. If I could just piggyback on that. It reminded me of those videos that's like, or wait, go ahead. I was just going to say, as you guys listening, us talking through all that, was that making sense? On the whole macro, if you're a Raiders fan, you know, you're getting draft capital. You're probably going to get Fernando. All these things are happening to be optimistic about.

and then on the flip side, on the micro of Max leaving, that could speak volumes to what is happening internally. You broke it down in such detail that I understand it fully. We need to clip that and we understand that. I'd be like, just do you understand this? Yeah. All Raiders fans should listen to that in true detail because, again, it's like if they win and they're making all these right moves,

then clearly like winning solves everything. It solves everything. The insight is doing what it should be doing to push the team forward. as in Max Crosby embodying everything you want as a raider. If you go fully into the weeds of it and it doesn't pan out for you, just don't be surprised because this is our instinct on the inner workings of what's going on. Because, hey, when you get into the mental part of the season, enter Max Crosby, who's going to play over everything and has those leadership capabilities

that he's clearly proven every player says about him. He's walking in the training room as well and checking guys like, can you actually play this week? He's got that type of personality. Yes, he is a thousand percent of that type of personality. So now you're losing that person that's, you know, he's for the boys. He's a player. He's also so at such a high level.

He's almost a coach as well. So he can play that back and forth game too, which essentially leads to elevation of most guys around you. Yeah. Going back to you talking about the Raiders on like the macro level, do you think they're going to use those picks and draft? Because they haven't particularly drafted well the last couple of years. I mean, they got Ashton Jentee, but I think three of their first round picks in the last like five or six years are no long.

longer on the team. That's a great question. Do you think they're going to use that as to go get a big fish or do you think they're going to try and draft? Clearly they think a little, they feel a little bit more, they probably feel confident going into this draft on getting those first round picks. I'm sure they're not like, oh, we suck at picking first rounders. Why do we have first round picks at our disposal if we suck at picking first rounders? Right. They need a lot of pieces. So I understand the move from a business perspective. You take out all the, the micro, you take out the feelings, everything going on. Like you had to send away a Hall of Fame player to get two, first round picks along with the first overall pick you have ashen genty but you need an

offensive line like you need weapons you need guys you clearly need guys on defense now like they need they have so many holes i mean if you go back and look at their last first round draft picks i mean cleveland feral jonathan abrams like they're no they were no longer on the team after two to three years yeah that was a different regime that was may up right guys though yeah and i mean who's to say like this whether it's tom or whoever's doing because now they have kubiak in the biggest question because yeah you look at the raiders roster and it's like there's so many holes there that's like you really you got to do a bunch of patchwork it's not going to work with having two first round picks when this is not going to solve all of

your issues so there's a lot of time till the draft where you can go find the players you want maybe grab a couple of guys that are more mid level for those first round picks or throw a second round pick in there because the biggest question mark and and if you look back at how the coaching carousel was going the raiders and the cardinals came down to the last two teams that were able to find their head coach. Both of them were vying for Clinton Kubiak. Raiders end up getting Clinton Kubiak. But I'm sure in that process, because of how the two franchises kind of handled themselves and their decision-making process and how quickly they make decisions, it's more difficult to sit there as a up-and-coming OC like Kubiak was at Seattle and be like,

do I really want to dive off into this deep end with this team? Because I don't know if 18 months from now or a year from now, I'm already on a hot seat. When you look at the roster and you're like, I know like, I believe in my brain and my abilities to put these guys in good positions, but do I actually have the talent to operate in a sense that I can get into January type of football? And the leadership above me to get the pieces that we're going to need to win a title. That's where, I bet you that's what was one of the reasons that took a little bit longer to get to, I think it was the Super Bowl, right after the Super Bowl when Kubiak took the job there,

right? So clearly he's in the playoffs. I'm not going to make the decision until after. but a lot of times, you know, they've already made the decision. They've told them everyone behind closed doors kind of knows. I could see that conversation with Kubiak being as, you know, highly touted as he was, sitting down with Davis and being like, I need to know, like, what your patience level is going into this.

I see your roster, but let me tell you, it's not great. Yeah. So there's so much for them to do. And Kubiak being an offensive guy, like, again, speaking on the optimism side, is if you think Fernando Mendoza is going to be who you think he's going to be as the number one overall pick, you'll have Fernando. He will be. You have Ashton-Genton.

who is a stud, Brock Bowers, Michael Mayer, like you have some pieces, foundational things to build around. And now through free agency in the draft, it's like,

how do you get a line of scrimmage, get a wide receiver one? They train away the wide receiver one. Right. Myers. If I'm the Raiders, I'm, if I'm a Raiders fan,

I am extremely pessimistic right now. Oh, I see, I'm the opposite. I'm the opposite. The messages I've gotten is, it doesn't, it's more pessimism

than it is optimistic. You got to be optimistic. got to believe every year is your year. You got to get in there. This is a franchise, bro, that's... I agree. Early 2000s, like, probably maybe longer than that.

Yeah. Most head coach turnover, organizational turnover. Yeah, it's interesting. The Raiders are now kind of coming out as like the front runner for all that. When really, we looked at the Browns for the longest time. The bangles before Joe Burrow got there. The fails, the jets.

And the one core thing that you at least had, no matter what, was just I'm proud that Max Crosby is on. football team. And dude, that news broke. Now he's gone. That news broke Friday. Yeah. Max was supposed to go to Power Slop Friday.

Obviously doesn't come for a very smart move by him. Everybody was talking about it the entire time. Like local Las Vegas people were like devastated at the idea that they're like their king is now gone. Yeah. It just sucks. It's a smart move for him to do it on his pod. Oh. Once I saw it.

What did he got that idea? Beautiful. Oh. Beautiful. I'll tell you what. But who do you think is more mad? Raiders fan base or Jamar Chase? Who's more mad about the Max Crosby trade news?

For those you that don't know, what was it? Jamar Chase, he was on a Twitch stream. He's at like a, he's just sitting on them. He hears his voice. Yeah. And apparently allegedly gets a text from Joe Burrow saying that Max Crosby has been traded to the Ravens and his words were I believe highly fucking pissed.

Highly fucking pissed was a phrase A direct quote that I heard Could be AI could not be I don't know This game's already above my head I can't handle it But seems like People are a little terrified

Would love to think that Joe Burrough Sent that text message To Jemar Chase While he's at the blackjack table With Jessica Alba Yes bro Hang on Jess I got to text my boy Real quick

This ain't good for us Joe's bum But then Jessica Alba's on your arm How can you get How old is Jessica Alba Doesn't matter Doesn't matter.

No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. You're absolutely right. It doesn't. She's a woman, bro. It's a business woman. Yeah. We're celebrating International Women's Day.

Yes, bro. Yeah. Yeah, A. He's done matter. That was a dumb question. I appreciate you. It's calm me out for that. Joe just wins, man.

He just wins. Except for on the football field, just right now. Whoa. Listen, just right now. That wasn't, that wasn't anything. That wasn't, I'm a massive Joe B fan. The way you said it. You said it like you were in a rush to get it out.

Like you wanted to say it. Like I've been itching. Yeah, yeah, but you lose on the football field. Except from the football field, I'm just going to get that out there right there. Like, hey, we got, this is a long form show. Yeah,

you thought you had to jump the gun like that? Joe Burrow. I will say this. We've talked about our white buffaloes all the time. And I, ever since the Super Bowl, Joe Burroughs my number one player, number one person over Vince Fawn. I need to get on bustle with the place.

He is efficient. The way he just, the aura. I'm sure Jessica Alba felt the same. same thing. Like he should, he, he, I know, trust me, I not only said this, I, for the first time my life took time to think about it. More than, hey, more than, it's been what, how many weeks is the Super Bowl?

A month? More like, we're at a month category. I've thought about Joe every day. More than Johnny Knoxville. More than Johnny Knoxville. Well, Vince Fons my one. Charles of Strana. More than Travis Estrada.

More than Machine Gun Kelly. More than if we had. Can't be honest. More than if we had Blink 182 on the bus all together. There it is. there it is no Blake one day to the entire band you're right absolutely

I had a dream about them the other day can I tell you guys my dream quickly I know this is not that kind of show this is a real dream so much show so much show I called my wife I called my wife

the morning I had this dream I was in Nashville I had a dream I was with Mark Tom and Travis and they're playing we're playing together I don't play We're all playing together

And I'm like You know, it'd be sick If we sang this song But Mark, you sang Tom's versus And Tom said Mark And their minds were fucking blown by that Woke up so happy That's it

That's the end of the story But yeah Thank you boys Blakely 18 number one Joe Burrow 2 Just the way he said Turned us down Turn us down

And then and then Reverta 2 You just got to find me on the right day Which means you feel like We need to set up shop in Cincinnati Until he's ready Yeah, it sounds like Joe Burroughs gone beyond a white boy with motion. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's breaking all sorts of trends right now.

Yeah, but you got to feel for him. I mean, T.J. Watt, Miles Garrett, Max Crosby. I mean, dear God. Trey Hendrickson. Trey Hendrickson's in free agency. Yeah. Most sacked, most hit quarterback. Yeah.

Which begs the question. There was that stat about Joe Burrow and Andrew Luck. And Andrew Luck, everyone was like, look how tough Andrew Luck is. This guy, he gets hit all the time, yet he still sits in there and faces it. Joe Burrow statistically has been hit more in the same amount of games. Is Joe Burrow tougher than Andrew Luck? Is that the question? What season did Andrew Luck retire in?

Eight. And where's Joe right now? I think at this point, let's say he's going to seven. So at the six-year mark, they've been hit, sacked the same amount right here. 201 for Burrow through 71 games compared to Luck, 157. that's crazy who you're taking in a fight yeah i think on paper if we're just having fun with it now have you seen andrew luck now yeah but i mean he's full stanford he's full of stanford he's he is a dog bro i'm talking trucking fools out there you're talking he's taking joe burrow over

angrily no he's flipping that he's flipping that i'll take andrew luck in a fight welcome to bustle with the boys have you seen pull about a recent photo of angel look are we talking recent we talking hey don't get fooled by the clark can't look yeah it doesn't matter when Yeah. You put those on Luke Kinkly. Yeah, I feel differently. Right.

Taylor, but there's no sleeper build. Taylor, you know this more than anyone. If you're a Titans fan, you know that Andrew Luck beat the dog shit out of us for his whole career. I honestly have to take Andrew Luck out of respect. I mean, truly,

it was a massacre. As far as grit goes. Like, just go to go do that top row. Top row. That third one in. That's grit. Yeah.

That's a gritty guy right there. It's a happy boy. He just wasn't happy playing. He didn't care to play anymore. Yeah. Just one happy plan. He wants to still play. You probably go back there.

But tease and peas to him with the cats coming after. Joe bro is way too pretty for that. Way too pretty. Ladies gentlemen, we enter up this episode to bring you neutral. Dude, have you tried neutral? If not, you guys are missing out. It'll taste so much better than anything else out there right now. It's made a real vodka and real juice.

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Back to this episode with Luke Paul. What other moves have happened? I saw Tua got released. Four-time captain. Four-time captain. DJ Moore. DJ more to the bills. Yeah, that's a big movie.

one. I think that's actually... Which one are you? I think DJ Moore of the bills is massive. Huge for the bills. The biggest issue they had, basically it turned into Josh Shallen has to be Superman every single game in order for them to even make it to the Super Bowl. Or make it run. And would they have Shakir? They had who was a rookie Coleman.

Coleman? He wasn't panning out. Yeah, he had a whole bunch of, I don't know if it was maturity issues, showing up late, whatever it was. Great offensive line, but like, it really was like you have no weapons on the perimeter to really help you out. is a massive addition for them. We'd love to see the bills make one more move like that on the offensive side of the ball. Maybe a little, what were they the number one run defense, number 32 past defense, or was it flipped? It might have been flipped.

It might have been flipped. So, okay, you find yourself a nice little nose or a three technique and then Bing, get you to another perimeter guy, and I love the bills. Like, this is turning into, like, I think like Josh Allen's going into his Joker face. Like, he's going to, he's about to, he's going to, I think this is Bill Super Bowl. Another breaking. I'm getting close to you. They make another move.

I'm back on them again. Ravens are a show me, don't tell me. Another breaking, not confirmed yet, but Adam Schaffner two seconds ago. Falcons are expected to pursue

to a Tung of Iloa. Oh shit. Really? Yeah. Travis Kelsey is expected to return. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Travis Kelsey expected to return. TK.

Couldn't see Travis Kelsey go anywhere else. No, no, they're going to work something out. They can put it out all. the articles they want that he's open and talking to other teams like that's all that's all optics yeah he's going to be a can't city chief for another yeah yeah yeah he can't go out on a shield like like they did last year uh two at tunga viola going to the falcons my opinion doesn't change by the falcons third in the division okay right clean take there's some maybe fourth there's some speculation maybe fourth clean tape that's clean take that's that's that's that's clean take

Kevin's that your food That's a good clean take That's a clean take No disrespected Tua But once again It's like hey you gotta kind of show me Don't tell me 92 mil

I'm stoked for you You've been paid But just when your boy was ripping packs I went to a couple of trading Like a couple of car places And I got some Like I think what 2020 What was there a rookie year?

21 whatever it was And they're like hey If you pull anybody but Tua in this pack You're doing good That's how you know it was bad It's made it to the trading cards Oh shit

You can't come good If you're panics Can I feel good if you're penics. No. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, but the mobility, the injuries, it's just. They're the same player.

But one's lower, one's upper as far as injuries goes. The upper is the brain. Yeah, that's they. That is it. You're absolutely right. He's one gang sign away from my plane anymore. Okay. All right.

Jesus. Christ, Mitch. Boy, talking about fendix. We'll leave that in, but this is just not a representation. That is not, yeah. Will Compton and Taylor 1 did not say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't promote CTE here.

Hey, we just have it. On a W though for the Bears going back to DJ Moore, they got a second round pick from it too. So I think I think that one was also a win-win. I know, but I feel like, Jay, just, bears kind of need them. Bears need them, but it, just from seeing kind of everything unfold, like, it's not like DJ Moore was touching the rock a whole lot. lot. And to be honest. And you saw even if you're the whole argument, and this is, this is a small

example, but the last route where he was kind of like jogging on. Like there could have been something there where DJ Moore, he's now got different grass, greener grass to go, you know, reset, restart. It probably just wasn't a fit with the bears. And then they can both kind of move on. Bears get a get set, get second around draft capital. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's good that they, where they, DJ Moore got trade from the Panthers to the Bears originally, correct? What is that? Was, he got, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. It's good, uh, draft equity out of him as well. just a few years later. Really, the bears, all they need

is when Caleb Williams' feet are set to be accurate. Because whenever he's off script, he's the greatest football player I've ever watched. But if he can just, you know, throw a slant with his feet set, I don't think anybody's always to come in. I don't want his feet set ever. Keep him on the move always.

Yeah, I want it. Cut the field in half or rolling left, rolling right. I would love to see the evolution of Caleb Williams, just drop him back, hitch, and just paint one right on somebody's chest. Yeah. That to me is just, that's football porn to me right there.

Yeah. The kids got all the, he's already got, nah, no, no, that's boring, man.

That's not, dude, that's the next level for Caleb. I want my, Caleb. You want him running? I want them run it. Like back in high school,

it would be called the 700 series, which is rolling left, 800 series, which is rolling right. 900 series was dropped back. We get the 900 series out of there. We're going left to right every play. One,

you might fake go right, and then, Hey, Caleb, do a spin back around to the other side. Call that Randall and Lamar when you're the Titans. Yes. Office of line, you're faking the hand up and you're doing a full rollout. You got two thirds of the field now as opposed to half of the field. For Asian science, AJ Brown heard, saw a tweet.

Not a whole lot of traction. Not a whole lot of traction right now. Not a whole lot going on with AJ. That's what I heard. That's what I heard. I love to see A.J. Brown end up a patriot. Yes. You know who else I love to see End up a Patriot?

Can I guess? Give me AFCN of C. Okay. AFC. Okay. South. Am I right? South. Okay. Hardworking. Hardworking. Sneaky athletic. Okay.

Gritty. All right. All the intangibles. Taysim Hill. Nope. That's NFC. Hold on. Will Compton? Do you get? Jeffrey Simmons. Nope. He's got motion. No, I don't have it.

You can't quite put your finger on it, can you? No. Alec Pierce. Alec Pierce this is oh that's a patient I've never got that in a million years even in my brain right now

he's out there sleep deprived brain I'm just thinking to myself he's about to get paid I think that's a patriot He's led to the league last two years in yards for catch he's a stud

oh he's a step come on now yep okay all right all right but the couple right looking patriots thinking about Braves

Braves if you're listening to bus and we know you do every week come on he does we already know the AJ Brown one, but it's just Alec Pierce. This would be Rudy. I'll put my jersey on the table. Get him to New England.

Get him to New England. Two weapons. Done. Free agency is going to be massive. But who's fighting Logan Paul is the question. Hang on, hang on. I got one more. One more speculation going on out there.

Go ahead. Mike Evans to the 49ers. Ooh, clean take. Hit him with that. Hit him with that. Clean that off. Mike Evans to the 49ers. Why?

Why? Have you, can I ask you this? Have you heard anything? He heard a couple of things. He's expected to get released within the next hour, and then there should be motion in that. He's already got in. By now that you're listening, there should be an answer to this. It should be done. Yeah.

So just know if it happened, Will Compton called it. You're not hearing it afterwards. Clean take. Clean take from the bus? We would love to see Mike Evans in a 49ers uniform. Would love to see Mike Evans in a 49th uniform. Keep an eye on that one. Keep an eye on it.

All right. I'll do one, and then we'll go to Logan Paul. Kyle Murray of the Jets Kyleor Murray of the Jets I like something about it He just seems like they love their runners They love guys that can scamper around a little bit A counter on reports out there

Vikings for Kyler Murray Interesting Former first rounder I believe somebody in Kevin O'Connell Pre-Pro meetings at Backup 9 Is that Derek? He ain't You get Kyleor Murray on the Vikings

And Kevin O'Connell They tap into that potential Yeah No And Coller Murray is a baller bro You think he's sitting behind nine? There's no way. Cooper Comstock, an employee of Bustin with the boys,

biggest K-1 fan that's out there. Friday, he made a prediction for the Vikings. I wasn't aware of this. Kyler Murray grew up a Vikings fan. Even though he's a Texas guy, he didn't want to be in the Cowboys regime. He says they suck. So he was a Vikings fan.

So I don't know. Do with that information what you will. I still love the idea of Aaron Rogers and the Vikings kind of making love for one year. Coupe is. Coop stays down. stays down his team were you talking

you were you just saying rogers and viking rogers vikings i think there's experience like all that yeah but man k1 with kevin o'connell bro j jettas

anybody with kevin o'connell honestly you see that j jr jrinson jenn jenn and nine unfollowed each other on instagram wait what yeah we got instagram drama we got instagram drama

this is allegedly please look it up for me someone told me and showed me but they might have refollowed each other but we had nine and Justin Jefferson I believe Justin Jefferson was the first one This is allegedly unfollow nine nine His rebuttal unfollowing Justin Jefferson on Instagram

Yeah That's a lot That's TMSS sports right there And I know on the surface that seems laughable and petty But that is a telling that is a You see that? I'm just looked it up That's today's football though

That's how you know That's how you know So drama taking place. And I understand. Justin Jefferson, he understands he has a finite amount of time. He's getting older. He is in his prime right now just a year ago. They're like, hey, greatest wide receiver in the NFL has a down year this year. Is it Justin Jefferson? Is it because the person that's throwing on the ball? A lot of people say it's the guy that's throwing the football. So, back and forth, emotions, egos, Ryan Holliday is trying to enter the chat. They won't open the door. There's a lot of

stuff taking place. So we will see. We will see. We will see. Throwing bombs to Justin Jefferson. That would be crazy. all the dbs back up and he just scampers for 25 scoots yeah i'll tell you what that that division because the vikings were the they were the anchor in that division and then also the lions taylor decker uh is requesting a trade they cut graham glasgow it doesn't seem like alexan's alone's going back there yeah it seems like uh cracks in foundation cracks in foundation with the lions packers it's just a reminder how quickly things can just change in one year yeah like when you have You're like one moment.

When did the Lions get knocked out? It's three years ago. Was it the divisional round? It wasn't the conference. No, this is the NFC Championship. NFC Championship. And just again. 49ers, right?

This is the year the 49ers played the Chiefs and lost the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Yeah. Yes. January 28, 2024. Yeah. And then so go ahead and continue. I was just going to say like, you know, there you're thinking,

Dan Campbell, the Lions, this organization. like they're going to be back in this spot year in and year out. Right. They're chasing the Super Bowl to now we're getting that we're having these conversations about Taylor Decker. I wonder why he requested a trade. Yeah. Glasgow moving on. Frank Rag now retiring.

Yeah. Well, Glasgow is asked to move on. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's what made the, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just like the turnover, how quickly things can, it's always year in and year out, bro.

That's why it's like when you touch it and taste it and you get knocked out. And guys like, oh, we'll be back. It's like, man, that is not how this shit works. And you know who had, who had. broke that down just beautifully was Clay Matthews because it was first year or second year they went they won the Super Bowl yeah yeah and every year's like we'll be back we'll be back and it's like like it's so hard to get again yeah it's it's almost better to be bad early because then you're like you know like then you make the playoffs and you're like boys we got to hold on to this feeling

this is incredible yeah I was going to say I think that's like when the Patriots were on their dynasty it seemed like they were always cutting guys that had a great year the year before or like a, say if Alex Anzolone was on that team, the Patriots, they always knew when to let the guy go. Like, they never held on to somebody for a year too long. Mm-hmm. And I feel like that's where the franchises make their next step is like getting that part right.

Yeah. So maybe that's it for a clean take. It's a good Kevin Central Foods. That's a clean take. That's a clean take. It's just, it's so hard to follow something with Tom Brady as your quarterback. Because he's elevating everybody around them, right? He's using, I mean, how many white guys they go through.

There's so many. I'm trying to remember a couple of days Some of us think holding on makes us strong But sometimes it is letting go That's beautiful That's just a bus and quote You guys get on a Tuesday Yeah something nice

Yeah right right? Some of you might be in a little conflict right now There you go take that You were going into NFL Transitioned in Logan Paul Yeah I was talking I was so obviously Logan Paul Was calling out no NFL

You know football player Can beat me in boxing I'll put a million dollars in line the name that kind of roast that the cream that rose to the top was Miles Garrett. You put up the photos of Logapal which by the way,

guys got a nice build on him but you put him next to a guy like Miles Garrett. It's like, oh shit. It's a freak show. It's a freak show. Yeah.

I talked to a couple people. So shout out Skipper Kelp. He's like a professional boxer at one point. He's now. Skip's awesome. And I'm like, can you break this down for me a little bit? And he's telling me like,

unless guys know how to box, like do it enough to where they understand the ins and outs. did myself a little lesson for the first time this weekend. So you kind of know. No, I don't know shit. I realized, oh, he's right, right. You realize like, okay, there is a huge learning curve.

He's like, unless these guys understand how to move the body and when to punch and how to react to other people, like, it doesn't matter. Like, I'm 165. I would be a guy that's like 250s ass if he doesn't know how to box because it's just such a different game. So that kind of makes me lean on Logan Paul, who's a guy who boxes all the time, whether people want to respect him or not respect. And the guy knows how to box from a base level. It's like he's probably right. But then you look at Miles Garrett and you're like, he could figure it out pretty fast.

Yeah, you just see him. Like this is a massive alien, a massive free. Yeah. But with the judges, you know, what was it, three minute rounds? Yeah. I think the issue too with Logan Paul coming out and saying that, and maybe I'm wrong, but I'd assume he probably wouldn't pass a drug test that would get you eligible for boxing.

Damn. Did I put that on him? I mean, WWE, it's hard. I feel like that's a fair assumption. Yeah, you're definitely doing things. We're not saying it's like a wrong thing. Right. And that, but that's what makes me mad when he does this thing.

It's like, dude, you go out, you say this. I'll fight anybody for a million dollars. And all these people say like, hey, we're ready. And then it comes back to you and all of a sudden it can't happen. I mean, it just is what it is. He's a brilliant marketer, promoter. Because it all stem from basically Tom Brady calling him a bitch. And then he's on the pod talking about I could whoop anybody in the NFL.

Yeah. Which you think about the boxing game. I was listening to even Ocho Cinco break it down too. Like, you know, it's like the stamina is just a different game. He's like, I'd be surprised any NFL player. If you're not just regularly, consistently boxing, I do think there are probably guys out there who do it that are just, that's not like their name is in anything in the NFL. But he was like, I'd be surprised. You kind of get, you kind of burn out quick within a minute.

It's just a different game. And Logan's obviously, he's good at that level. Like, he can do a variety of things. Dude is extremely athletic. Extremely. It's been funny watching him and Brady go back and forth on the, you know, on the, on the macro. promoting the flag football. It's like you're building it up for the flag football game

and everything else and it's stem from it. You kind of knew, like I was not surprised. I was bummed because Levyon Bell and a couple guys, even our boy, Dion Dawkins. Yeah. Our shuddy Dion Dawkins. Shlutty Dionne Dawkins is kind of nice with the mitts too. Them little jab look good.

Yeah, he's saying he would step in. But here's the thing is if that, let's say that, like, Dionne Dawkins and Logan Paul were like, all right, we're going to do a fight. The bills, two seconds later are like, you're not doing that fight. Yeah. That's not, that will not happen.

An active NFL player cannot do that. Similar to how the W.W.E. was with Logan Paul. And Logan might have known that that was going to be, like, again, Logan is very good at just, again, marketing, promotion, like, playing these games to bring a lot of attention to. Like, creating a lot of that attention. And he could have known in the back of his mind. Like, even he had that call on the stream, I would not be surprised if he even set up that call. Like, him knowing already that he couldn't do it. And like, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to call me while I'm on the stream. And we'll kind of act, you know, we'll kind of have fun through it. Yeah. Because a dude is in the WW. You've touched it already, but like you can have your opinion about the Paul brothers. You can't say that they're not the greatest markers in the entire world. All roads lead to Jake versus Logan Paul boxing match. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I know like we've kind of, I talked your ear off about this on the phone the other day. Jared, I saw him at the airport when I'm just talking about Pokemon cards. But when I've like jumped the Pokemon card thing, I went to these trading card places and they're like, Logan Paul is a huge reason why. these, all these cards are absolutely skyrocketing right now. Like he is like changed the game. He's manipulating markets. That's how good of a marketer he is.

Yeah. He said that he now when he's buying these Pokemon cards, he does not talk about it for a couple months or like a year leading into it. So the market will go down and then he can get a better price on it. And then he'll start talking about it when it's time to sell his card, which is like genius. Sounds like insider trade. Sounds like there's not a lot of regulation on this game that he's got.

It sounds like we get to get a game with Logan Paul and be like, hey, what card do you buy him? just on the low because I'm about it. Without knowing anything legal. I'll say this. Just you're saying. Any, any, uh,

Pokemon people watching this? Poncho Pikachu's. Is this like a different variation of a Pikachu? I'm gonna say it's Poncho Pikachu. Okay. I mean, I fuck with Pikachu. Yeah.

Yeah. What he does. Like, you know, he's a loyal dog. He's a loyal ass dog. Yeah. Do you remember the first movie,

the first Pokemon movie? Of course I cried. Okay. You're talking about me and mute two? Yeah. When, Ash gets turning to stone. And Pikachu starts just electrocating him over and over again.

Yeah. Buddy, full tears. Yeah. Full tears. Yeah. Watching that. Pikachu is one of one. One of one.

Anywho. Yeah. I would have loved to have seen, it seemed like it was happening. Leveon Bell and Logan Paul. I would have loved to have seen it. Just because I respect and appreciate that Leveon Bell was so just, he's just about the action. Yeah. He's like, he'll figure whether or not he's seeing it as an opportunity to get, you know,

you know, wherever Levion is with everything. It's like getting it, like being a part of the attention, like playing his game to get in there, like being vocal about it all, going back and forth with the beef on. I'm here for the entertainment. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm here for the theatrics. I would love to see Levion Bell. Big fan of Levion. Yeah. Big fan of his work. Very patient runner. Very patient. Levion Bell is my first player of the game in Nebraska.

I'm just tossing that. First what the game? Player of the game. Oh, nice. They coined it by coming out party. Really? Just, you know. Leveon, he was a little too patient with you, huh?

A little too patient. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got bit by the snake a little bit, huh? Yeah. Damn, got his ass. That's all what he did to Beast Mode. Yeah. You said, break down out.

You know. By the way, messed up throwing that second clip in there. Whoever, whoever edited that clip, throw me gas trying to chase old buddy on the sidelines. And they added the audio, they added the audio like nobody was even around him. I was like, yeah. I know. There's been a couple of things that have slided you in the last week or so, right?

They bustling with the boys' social team. They killed you on your 40 time. And then you and Clay had to break all that down last week. Clay, I think, started strong. We have you talked on the phone about it. Hey, you started strong with that because I've been kind of a hater of the 40 time for a long time as well. And you kind of, you fold it. You folded right in front of wheel.

You know, I had to let them have it. I had to get Dobb on the phone. Yeah, no, I saw. I saw. Then when Dob broke down. But he doesn't know that like, you, dobs in your pocket. Yeah. Or the Dobb kind of speaking that professionalism.

Like, Dobb is my boy. I love Dobb, but Dobbs never going to speak ill about Will Compton. Ever. Well, he wouldn't lie. He wouldn't lie. He wouldn't lie, but he like, he wouldn't lie, but he like,

you know, he's fabricated a little bit. No, he wouldn't. You've been around Dow. He'd have to abackate a little bit. Dow would bust my balls if I needed my balls. Yeah, yeah, if you need your balls plus. He needed to bring me, bring me back down the earth. The hardest thing is just the, it's the pro day.

And then is it laser? Is it not laser? Yeah. And then Will right now is going to say, oh, buddy, it was laser. I understand that. There's nothing else I need to explain, man. Why do people believe Bo Jackson, but they don't believe Will Compton? Yeah, thank you, man.

I think there's a lot of film we can look at to debunk what you just said. A lot of, like, which film were we talking about? Like, Will. We don't got film from Bo's 40. Will and the intro last week goes, uh, testing time. I was phenomenal on field time. It didn't translate as much. Was that a correct statement?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And so you're saying, you say what you're saying, I've already, and the laser short. Like he doesn't have the bill to beef that fast. Will it doesn't have that fast in the bill. Now this, right here, you pretty quick on the side to side. Yeah. Look at that.

686. You know. That's kind of nice. Don't you in the broad? Just like every, everything you're, yeah, I wasn't that great in the broad. I was in the eights. But listen, you guys, I don't know what it is about that. I don't know what it is about the black.

short arms. But you got a little dwarfism in that run. My torso, my torso's longer than my lower body and my arms are short. So that's where that look comes from. And look, Dobby even said it too. Like, listen, I was surprised. Like, I do nothing but surprised people. At the end of the day, I'm known as an overachiever than that. I'll have to take that. I can't look at them back. Yeah, I look like a specimen. It's the Excel short. I just think when you're running. I know. What am I thinking? You thought it was probably tough in that. You thought it was probably tough. In that, year maybe yeah i guess so i mean those things are below the knees i know i like i'm even when i watch i'm like what the fuck was what i think that was hot

and then even the arm action like he's you're like swimming he's got his hand like this when he's running that's drag right there that's drag that's that's aero dynamic my lat my lats are too built i got to go on from the side like hey hey this freeze frame though that torso look nice that torso look nice and it's a long torso but if someone showed me this like What do you think this cat ran? I'd be like, 491. Free spray was the best.

When I sat with agents, your arms look insanely small right now. It was projected that I would run a 485. 485. 485. It was projected. Like when I'd sit down with agents when we're kind of...

Looks like your hips are turning towards the screen right now. They're trying to rep me. Yeah. What do they know? Yeah, what did they know? What did they know? And the boy got zero neck. zero arm length

and neck was 19 and a half oh bro yeah I believe that now it's like who knows 14 and a half I don't know dude my neck's my neck's little tanning too

I gotta get my neck right my traps and everything are gone it's you know hey it's about to be spring it's probably spring yeah

you know what you need more than ever an accountability that's it you need right now I do I need some self-discipline it's time to get out of the solo workouts maybe go find a class I've gotten out of them

I haven't done the workouts. That's the problem. I'm way ahead of you. I've scrapped the solo workouts. Bustin came out with a top 10 most difficult stave to play at. What was your opinion of this? Dog shit.

Okay. I commented. I said, this is why people don't respect this because we got idiots making graphics like this. Very important way. Got a lot of attention, got a lot of engagement. We got some roll, quote tweeting it with the gator because the swamps at the top. I haven't been to the swamp.

What Pete say about it? You guys said Peyton did a video? He made his own top 10 stadiums. And he disagreed with our list for sure. Who do you have one? Neeland. Nealyn. I agree with Neeland.

I think LSU. He got a college station in there. LSU's. LSU at night is right there. Yeah. I think that was on there. Penn State is loud. See, that's where Pate has been to a lot of these spots where he's, you know, he's got, like I played at Penn State, but it was literally the week, the weekend of the St. Dostkey shit that came out.

So it was a little weird. Yeah, it was a little, yeah, yeah. It was a little awkward in the stadium. It wasn't like a rocking stadium. Ohio State. Put your hands on guys. Like, all right. We played Ohio State at night.

Like, that was loud. I would, like, just again, I didn't play. It is loud. I didn't play it, Neeland, but I've been at a couple games. It was that Ole Miss game from years ago when Kiffin came like that. The stadium was crazy, bro. By the loudest I've listened to. Husky Stadium.

Husky Stadium. I hear a lot about Husky Stadium. Played there very loud because they got the bleachers. It echoes. The Northwest, they own that tech, so they understand how that sound in there, you know. Seattle. So who's, oh, that's Pate's graphic. Yeah, Husky Stadium, I think, is loud.

Oregon, when we went there for Ohio State was loud. I don't know what it is on, like, a consistent. I don't know if it's full. It's just the only issue that Oregon has is 55,000. Yeah. Their buying is great, though. Like, not very many stadiums have students show up two hours before the game. Yeah.

Just sitting there. That student section was packed two hours ago in the game. That was sick. And again, that could have been just because Ohio State was coming to town. Yeah, it could have been. Because think about it. When we were eating there that morning, like, there was no traffic anywhere. It was so hot.

They're all in the stadium. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So what's y'all's top 10?

Toughest places to play. Or experienced. I'd go five and five each. Yeah. Top fives. Okay, I'm going to start just saying names. This isn't a particular order. But Neeland is my one.

Ohio State's up there from playing at it. Kyle Field, Texas A&M, I think he's loud. See, I wasn't as impressed with Kyle Field. I thought like the chance, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Asentry, all that. Like when we went to, what was it? A&M Notre Dame is what I'm thinking of. Like, it was loud at times, but from a consistent loudness, like Neeland and LSU

were my top two that I've witnessed myself. LSU is loud, yes. Yeah. Husters, I wouldn't put in the top five, but they're probably six. Like, it gets loud. I obviously have the Huskers in there. I'm not going to use them. We went to Nebraska, Colorado.

I thought that was loud. Ohio State is loud. Penn State is very loud Oregon I want to go to a game in the swamp so bad every year I think we talk about it at Fall Tour it's like we got to get to the swamp we got to get to the swamp They got to up their level

Yeah Yeah Where else have we been You're on to Norman I was at Norman Norman Norman I hear Norman's electric Norman is top ten hardest places do enjoy a football game That's got to be it

That's got to be what it is Or maybe even top five. Probably one. Probably one. As far as for me, trying to enjoy a football game, normally be my number one hardest place to enjoy a game. So a tough place. Tough place.

Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't at the South Carolina game. South Carolina, Tennessee. They would definitely be up there. The amount of sandstorm that you all played was crazy that game. Like what? Three months off of an ACL surgery?

Just out there. They're storming the field. There's some trucks. It's like, hell, yeah. All right. Hell yeah, boys. And this is in 2009. But Virginia Tech when we went to Virginia Tech was rocking.

I heard nasty there. Yeah. What was that? Did they play in the gym, man? Yeah. Before you come out, you're like in the locker room and you hear just everything kind of rattling and shaking. You hear the vibrations, everything. The fans go nuts.

Hopefully James Franklin. Do what? Yeah. Notre Dame. They'll be back. When I played at Notre Dame, I think it was my third year. And they had like this lady singing some Irish song and they came out. It was green and gold.

yellow on the lights, it was loud as shit. See, and that could be the difference of me thinking Kyle Field is really loud because we play there at night and I felt like it was rocking. But I feel you on the experience of the sideline. Yeah, yeah, we played there. And it was loud. Like witnessing being at Notre Dame games, to me, it just feels like a smaller Michigan to where it's really not that loud.

Same architect that built Michigan. Yeah. Yeah. Now Michigan might be up there just from an intimidation standpoint. You walk in. Oh, my God. Then it's not that loud. that it's not your right boys it's not that loud but you walk in you're like oh shit it's about to be

a bit of a deal today so maybe your boots are shaking while the national anthem's playing i don't know i don't know um well i think we white house card white house card got announced yeah yeah yeah how do you feel about it first initial thoughts just give me i think it's a good card okay i you said everything you need to say by that one statement i think it's a good card right i think it's an awesome card i think compared to where everything started with the White House hype coming out. Yeah. I think it didn't come close to hitting what we thought the expectation might be. That's because...

But I think it's still a... I think it's still like a good card. No John Jones, no Connor McGregor. Yeah. I think everybody thought those were the two that were going to be like kind of headlining this event. And Olympic wrestler, Gabe Stevenson. Yeah. Gable Stevenson.

He was going to make... He was apparently going to make his debut, the White House on like the undercard. But it was just, you know, stacked from top to bottom. Yeah. But it's still a good card. Yeah. I'll tell you. And knowing that the Iliot Topora and, uh, is it,

Micahev. Yeah, Micahev. Knowing that that fight fell through, ooh, that would have been awesome. Buddy, Teporia, his walkout, Hammond and Alex Pereira's walkouts are the two that I got like the most goosebumps on. Yeah. He comes out in the Spaniard. Were you, were you with me, JP? For which one?

The Iliot Teporeen versus Olivera. That had to be Jack then. Yeah. Jack and Jared. When he came out and we're sitting there and he looks down, he looks at the, he looks at the, guy in the red blazer that's kind of there for security and gives him a wink looks at danny and then just merks oliver in the first round like immediate massive damn yeah immediate it's gonna be electric got like an oar about him we were like this guy's a champion yeah dude i'm telling

if perera beats gone then he's the goat of ufc history over john jones yeah i mean three titles middleweight light heavyweight heavyweight well how what's you're feeling on the white house card I think it's good. I think like a lot of people overreacted. They're like John Jones, Connor McGregor is not on it. Half of UFC fans love to just hate on John Jones for half the year anyways.

And then when he decides a fight, everybody wants to be his fan. Yeah. I'm just like, y'all criticize this man all year. Then you act like you want to see him fight so bad. Connor McGregor obviously would be hype, but Teporia and Gae,

like they're at a way higher level than Connor McGregor right now. Yeah. And it's kind of like the nostalgia of McGregor. fighting would be cool but as far as quality it's like a lot higher quality i heard i heard somebody talking about this but it's like if the white white house fights already and get you know super bowl type level of views because of the location what's happening 250th anniversary of the birth of america i mean historical it's going to be a electric historical like they're on the south lawn they're going to have 5 000 seats and then on a different lawn i must be the north lawn or

something like that hello lawns they're going to have 80 000 people watching right there a bad idea, honestly. Given the climate, for sure. But things could cool down. We're still far enough away to maybe things are chill by that. I'll be doing my best to be there. Yeah, we gotta get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is smart. Off topic, Alec Pierce, staying with the Colts four years, 112. $116 million. Congratulations. $116 million for years. Congratulations to Alan Pierce. Bag. You see, um,

McDuffie got a huge deal with the Rams too. He got like a four-year, was it over 100? Oh, from the trade? Yeah, from Kansas City trading him. People talk about how the corners with the chiefs go basically to develop and they go somewhere else and just get their bag. Yeah. And I feel like he's just another.

But a lot of guys do a free agency. Like, you want to stay with the team forever. But if you feel like you're getting lowball from the team or you understand what your market could be, it's like, dude, you only get one shot to go out there and maximize your financial earnings. And it's different. Well, yeah, but the cheap, The Chiefs and the Patriots, when Tom was at the Patriots, it was the same thing.

Like, they would get guys in, develop them, make them great. And then be like, hey, you have to take a home discount because we have Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady. They're like, well, I'm not going to do that. And they go and head off and get paid. In the Rams. Yeah, but it was, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, in the Rams always go from the standpoint of just, they just trade their draft capital. Yeah, which I kind of like.

For players. I like that a lot. You got McVeigh who's just a stud. I love the thing. He's the man. He's the man. We've got to get him on the bus. What were we talking about?

Oh, yeah, the White House card. Yeah, that's going to be electric. I feel like it's, you know, it's the Internet. So they're obviously going to overreact. And when you're thinking John Jones, Kana McGregor, who else? You alluded, oh, when Michael Jeff or Micaheff falls through, it's like when you feel like all these names are going to be on it and they're not on it, you're like, oh, this sucks. You told us this is the one we wanted. It's like, yeah, we all want the greatest card.

Going back to what I said was like, you have this massive fight on the White House, which regardless of getting massive views. the move would be to the next couple of weeks, that's when you have the McGregor on or the John Jones if you're going to have those guys enter the UFC because now you're double dipping on your view count. Yeah, that's what kind of McGregor's out there. You know, when he was on Kale Sonan. Chell Sonan.

Yeah, Chale Sonan. When he's on his podcast talking through it, he's like, I'm never on the 200 or 300 or the sphere fight. Like you see me on like 201, 301, because those cars are going to be huge and get the viewership and get the buys that they're going to get. You put me on like a 201, 3-0-1,

because you're still going to double-dip. You're still going to, like, at the end of the day, we're all cattle. I mean, he's not wrong, but at all. That's every sport. Yeah, that's every sport. You're a number, you're this or that. Max Crosby, he's cattle.

Cattle. Cattle. Clean take. Max Crosby, Waggo beef. Waggoo beef. He's just roaming. Yeah. Roaming the fields.

Right. Whole milk. Oh, milk. For those you that weren't savvy to this, we had ourselves a merch competition. Yes, some housekeeping. Fans were given the opportunity to create their own merch, send it into Bustin with the boys.

The boys then said, okay, these are our top 10 favorites, top five favorites. Put it out there. And then whoever sold the most merch will get how much money, Wilcompton? $3,000 for the first place. $1,000 for first place. In this envelope, this true classic envelope,

is the winner of the merch contest. Top three, right we're doing the top three Sherm I believe so I did not see what germ handed y'all but I bet he put top three I bet he put top three first place from the amount of buys gets 3,000

second place two thousand third place $1,000 to the fans who created this merch I'm gonna hand you that envelope you can do the honors right here we go let's see you got all three got all three I just want to know we may it open up pretty fast okay coming in third place

of the merch design contest is the Tunnel of Chaos shirt A tunnel of chaos A thousand dollars to that creator Second place The Magic School Bus shirt Yeah that one went hard

He was a big fan of that one And the first place drum roll Is the PT6 No One is coming to save you shirt Yeah That designer will be getting $3,000 We'll have our people Give with your people

Yeah we'll figure it out Jeremy Clump, you have to figure that out. Yeah. If it takes a long time, just know Will Combs and I did nothing. It's all on Clump. That's all on Clump. Expect it by Q4. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Taxes, you know how we're going to. Tag, too, if you're trying to talk to somebody directly, it's the Nutty Professor profile. That's Jeremy Clump. Yeah. That is correct. That's the Jeremy Clump. That's the guy who kind of handles those stuff up.

Is there anything else, you boys, we got anything else? Luke Combs was phenomenal. Amazing. I forgot to say that at the top. Luke Combs. This interview with. Luke Holmes phenomenal. If you're an Appalachian State fan, you're going to love this one.

Yeah, the Brandon Spike story, we have to get Brandon Spikes on the bus. Yep, that must be happening soon. Also, a tunnel of chaos of log. When does that come out? Matt Malone. At Matt Malone. He needs to come out in the next 48 hours. So Matt Malone is the one editing.

I know he was out there doing all the content. He's the one editing. Yeah, yeah. He's editing along with the boys. He said a lot of the fellas are going to help him out too. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of his first

Get him right His first swing at it A lot of fun content in there A lot of this is a different one too We got scary for a second Got scary I'll tell you I'll say this I'll say this

My credit line at Red Rock is $500,000 At one point I was one bed away From being maxed out of my credit line The vlog will be out to 48 hours How was Matt's vibe? What was the vibe about? That was good, nervous energy Like you could just tell

He really wanted to do well He had the rookie mentality Like anything I can do I'm going to do There's a few times where In my brain I'm like Hey did you grab this like no I didn't I'm thinking Jack I should have told you Jack would have known to do that

Jared would have known to do that Because he has been around it a few times But I think overall the boy crushed it I think he had his camera out He's to go through a lot of stuff He's like 12 hours total of footage But he was feeling I'm like hey You don't got to film this part

we're kind of just walking somewhere right now like it was yeah but hey he was on it he like truly you could tell that matt want like more than anything wants to do well and that is the biggest thing so it's almost like these clips which you're about to put out it's everything everything everything like this is your judgment day essentially like can you take the next step can you make a vlog you got your phone with mark Zuckerberg but can you can you build the vlog so this uh mark took a book picture i went up who was i talking to before oh uh hunter campbell went up to hunter kent out hunter dude the fucking man that's him up uh we were talking for a second turn around and matt's on zuck hey can i get a photo real quick just real fast like i walked past him

and he came about he goes i had to get it had to get that one yeah all right all right man whatever whatever you got to do clean take yeah i want to say that's so funny that you tell that story because I'm overhearing conversation on their side of the shop. And I just hear Matt, I think I heard like Derek asking like, did you feel like were you getting Starstruck? No, I don't really get Starstruck by guys like that. I don't really. You did say that.

Yeah. Yeah. Like Tom Brady, like Tom was cool to me, but I'm thinking let's talk business. I just yell from the streamer of Matt. Shut the fuck up, dude. Hey, Tom was awesome. Tom was talking to Dana turns around. He said, he dabbed me up.

What's up? Taylor? I was like, oh shit, you remember. You remember? Okay. Yeah, with the cross arms. What's up, man? Talked about broadcasting.

Talked about a bunch of stuff, dude. And hey, I head up at the eyes. I said, bro, we got to get you on bus with the boys. And he, eye to eye, goes, I would love to come on your show. So we need him. Tom Brady's on the clock. By the way, more handsome in person. Yeah.

More handsome in person, boys. He's got the sauce. He's got the sauce. He was wearing these glasses. And I was just like, buddy, I get it. I understand. You should have hit him with Matt Filman from a couple rows back. And you just do the lean in where you put your hand on his back and whisper up in his ear.

Like that one gal did. what's her name? Alex Earl. Alex Earl, yeah. Oh. He said he should have some time. Yeah, I didn't have enough time to ask him about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Save it for the pod. Dude, Tom will be electric, bro. Yeah, he's got to come on. He's got to come on. I mean, he's the goat. Michigan, man. Yeah. Gotta get him on.

Ask him about the Raider stuff. Like, just point blank. Are you fucking it up in there, bro? Bro. Yeah. Give him his side of the story. You hate Max Crosby? Yeah, what's the deal?

What was the thing with that? Why'd you do that? I thought you guys would be boys. Luke Combs. Yeah. Hell of an episode. Luke Combs Electric starts off with CTE, literally. And we dive into a lot of fun.

You guys are going to enjoy it. As always, subscribe, follow along, leave comments at BustinWT on all social channels. Hold on. Get him right. At bus and wtb.com. What did I say? You'd bust BWTE. Oh, that messed that up.

BWTB. You know how it is, man. You know how it gets it. Yeah. Yeah. You saw me. that at the beginning. You're good.

Hey, two half-braids making a full one. Yeah. You look. Tiny kisses. We'll see you next time. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers and guess what?

We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to our first people

to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember.

I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast

where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis,

and I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Jen Chinch win. I mean, she went down at three to, Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me.

And she likes Clay. Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface. Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fellas, we interrupt this episode because we are presented by Jim Beam. Listen, boys, as you all know, we have now entered what could be the worst time of the year. That's right, football is over, even though we got NFL for agency today. What are we supposed to do on Sunday or Monday or Thursday? So much time, so little football. Whoa, whoa, whoa, well, easy now.

Just because football is over, the hang doesn't have to stop because believe it or not, there's still a ton of stuff to get excited for. We're talking basketball, hockey, tennis, baseball, and the big soccer tournament taking place right here in the good old U.S. of A, all to be enjoyed with a crisp, delicious, and oh, so refreshing Jim Beam and Lemonade. I get it. It's like you're taking the Lemon of football being over and turning it in a lemonade.

Correction. I'm taking the lemon of football being over and turning into Jim Beam and lemonade. You could not be more right because Jim Beam and Lemonade is always the right call. It's light flavor. It's refreshing. It's so, so delicious, no matter what you need.

no matter what you and your boys are watching because at the end of the day no matter what the sport is you're pivoting to this offseason it'll be best enjoyed together yeah that's right it's why you're drake drink drink kentucky straight bourbon whiskey 40% alcohol per volume 26 james b beam distilling coat clermont kentucky and as always this interview with luke combs is brought to us by bud light easy to drink easy to enjoy and bud light is always brew with four simple ingredients for a clean crisp taste anything for the clean, crisp taste of Bud Light. Stuck up now at Budlight.com and find a store near you.

That's budlite.com slash locator to find a store near you. Bud Light is the official beer sponsor of the NFL, NFL, NFL draft in the UFC, which is now on Paramount Plus, a lot of Bud Light partners, boys. We're talking Shane Gillis, Peyton Manning, George Kittle, and the boys, the name a few. And Bruce Buffer, the voice of the UFC. Wow. Wow. Easy to drink. Easy to enjoy.

Clean, crisp, ice cold, bud light. enjoy this interview with Luke Combs. The thing definitely a real is kind of wild. Yeah. Because if you think about it, what happened? We're rolling right now. Oh, yeah. I kind of love the idea of believing that concussions don't exist.

Like, I am, like, I've... Just a hair this. We're starting off line. This is where my brain is. You don't have to co-sign on any of this. I think science is fake. Yeah. I think the Earth is also flawed.

At the beginning of this. Just the thought process of ignorance is bliss. Like think about in high school when you're like starting to train you're learning about lifting You're learning about like oh if I eat more protein I'll get bigger stronger faster and then you go to KFC also science also science also science so basically what I'm saying is there's levels to science in my brain Like there's like how far into science do I want to get before I'm like that's the cut off that's it I'm done with that's where I stop believing yeah because if I just think if I was still living in the the high school world of like KFC McDonald's subway yeah I'd be kind of

of living nice. Yeah. Yeah. Like in your mind, that would just like good food. Yeah. Now I got to think about gluten, micoplastics,

EMF, is the San Francisco 49ers facility? Is it plagued with like a 5G? Mm-hmm. Whatever that problem is. Yeah. And it's like, how much stress do we want to cause in life?

So that brings me back to concussions. I'm just like, hey, maybe if a player thinks they don't exist, that's amazing. It's like when Puka was talking about it. The psychopathing in you as a football player listens to that and you're like,

he gets it. This guy gets it. In just the world. Yeah. In just the world of football. Team guy. Team guy. Glue guy.

You know what I mean? It's like you're having an argument on the playground and Puka Nuku hits you with concussions don't exist and you're saying like giving that Kurtzignetti. Yeah. You're on it, brother. Like you figured out the game. Or like Puka would be a dude. Like if your teammate goes down and he's concussed and they're kind of treating him and looking at him,

if Pooka were to say to me, hey, dude, concussions don't exist. I beg, we're on the same page. run this and then quietly talk shit about that individual it wasn't that hard of it yeah I mean you never play a high school ball like guys would get hurt and you kind of get with your boys be like is he really fucking hurt right yeah yeah yeah yeah no definitely

but then you realize quickly that it was oh as you begin to age you're like yeah it was probably real you know so my shoulder sucks now I'm like I didn't play good I wasn't even good and I'm still injured from doing it Yeah. So I'd say some of it, you know, concussions, we'll see. Jury's still out. My senior, yeah, jury's still out of concussions. We don't know. We can't be too sure.

We can't be too sure. We can't be because we're not scientists. Someone is certainly sure of it. I have a general studies degree. I am not equipped to tell people whether or not concussions. I don't even have a degree, dude. Boom. So basically same. We kind of got the same kind of thing. So if anything comes out of it, it's Luke Combs doesn't believe in concussions. Luke Combs doesn't mean you need education. You don't need an education to be successful in life. I would say, I would say, say that's scientifically proven that you don't need that. That one is scientifically, you don't necessarily happen. You need to come on and just say you're going to donate your brain after you go to see if you have any form of CTE. And they're like, man, this guy was a real idiot. How did he make it?

Yeah. Well, guess we'll never know. We should probably reel it in before just an article, these guys laughing about brain damage. Yeah. Certainly. Just guys having fun? Yeah, it is.

It is. But to keep it on savagery of football. When we met for the first time, it was at Titans and Friends. Am I correct in saying that? Tighten you? Like tight in you tied in you but they did tight ends Yeah it was called titans in first

That's right Where they did all the music stuff You came in and it was like three bros hanging out They haven't seen each other in a long time Yes And you started going through Football growing up Oh yeah

And playing against Brandon Spikes Well playing's a That's a bit of an overstatement Okay All right What kind of motor did you have when you were in high school Not one Not one

Not one What was a two cylinder out there Yeah I was like a like a nice Like a nice compact in a oversized body you know the motor of a Kia the body of like a larger minivan you know you were the dude who you just wanted to go stand by during practice and hear some good jokes that my literally had a coach that my nickname was jokes was my nickname really just probably not the

nickname you want on the football team no doubt yeah my nickname wasn't like blade you know what I mean or anything like that. That's indicative of what was going on. Go stand by jokes. You're like, hey, you're going to struggle making this football team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did. I did struggle to make the team. But I did, you know, I was there. It was around.

What was the high school? Yeah. Walk us through some high school football experience. Some high school football stories. A lot of, uh, I was on the shit list a lot. That was the, I had a coach named Keyes Hour. He played on the Miami Dolphins back in the day as a defensive end. And he was like probably, he might have been in his 70s.

then and he was like I mean he was like spit and dip spit on your hands like when you were down in the you don't I mean like he was that guy like he was there was no concussions definitely were this guy yeah concussions were certainly not real to keys hour a awesome guy though but I would always I was singing a lot in high school too man so I would miss like I would miss practice for like chorus shit and the next day I would come back he's like well combs you're on my shit list and he would just tell me that. He would just tell me that. And I was like, well, okay, I could, I could see that.

What do you say stuff like just mad that, hey, you're missing practice required? Basically, yeah, yeah. There was no, there wasn't any slurs flying around, but it was close. You know, we flirted the line of some slurs flying around, I would imagine. Now you sit there and you're like, I really proved that motherfucker wrong. Yeah, he's a nice guy, though. You mean, at the time, I can understand it. You know what I mean? You're trying to shape young men at that time. You know what I mean?

Like, he probably thinks I'm cool now, though. Yeah. But I wasn't, that wasn't very cool back then for sure. Super weak guy for my size relative to my size. So that was always great. That always helped a lot at practice, you know. Wasn't exactly, if you could tell, wasn't really dialed into the weight room a lot. You know, wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't my happy place.

Hey, is this you right here? That's me. Rocking the seventh. It's double seven shoes. Come on D-Line, O-Line. D, okay, and I was hoping we would get into this on the way over here because I was thinking about I should have played O-Line. It was my destiny.

Yeah. You know, obviously don't have the size to be in the league by any stretch of the imagination. But I think I would have been good at it. But I was obsessed with playing D-Line because I just wanted to tackle people. That was like I didn't want to have any like rules and regulations on how to hit someone. These fundamentals were beneath you. I just wanted to hit people. That was it.

That was a good way of doing that, you know. But I remember we go through my entire high school career, my coaches trying to talk me into playing offensive line. And I was like, I'm not doing it. It's not aggressive enough for me. Even though I wasn't aggressive at all, really. My mind, I was highly aggressive. You were sitting there and tell your coaches it's not.

I'm like, bro, listen, you can't put a leash on a rabbit dog, dude. Like, I'm going to get, I'm getting somebody on this, you know. Like, I'm running. down the wide receiver screen from the noseguard position in my mind, you know. So I remember we have this big, like, it's the last week of like my senior year. We're just like getting ready to go into the playoffs. And we had an entire team. He's like we're going to do an entire team like one-on-one Oklahoma tournament.

Like O line, D-line, but everybody on the team, every position. And I ended up winning the whole thing. And my coaches were so pissed at the end. And they were like, you, son of a bitch, like you should have played offensive wine. We told you this whole time we told you to play offensive wine. And I was like, yeah, yeah. That's one of my bigger regrets. I wish I would have played offensive wine, to be quite honest.

Because now it's like an art form. Now I'm like, damn. Yeah. I just didn't have the vision then, man. Control aggression. Not that it would have mattered. I'd be in the same place now just with more concussions. That's the only difference.

More alleged. Alleged. Cynchions. Alleged concussions. Dude, when you were in high school, were you as logical as you are sitting here being like, this was a dead end road for me? Or were you even in high school, like, maybe I could be the one. The other size cat.

I didn't have, I didn't have any, any delusions of like ending up where I'm at now or like being a football player or anything. I was just like, I'm going to be just like some boring ass dude probably. Which was like, because everybody kind of just was. You know, I don't know. I just thought that's how the world worked at that point. Like my parent, you know, my dad was a maintenance. man my mom worked at the bank you know like nobody's a superstar mommy brothers or sisters so i'm like

i'm just well i guess you just you go to school and then you go to college and then you get a job and then you hate that for 30 years or so and then you're good you know that's kind of what i thought happened i don't know it's like i mean not that my parents didn't push me to do whatever i want wanted you know and like chase my dreams or whatever but i didn't really even have any dreams at that time other than just like to keep the party going you know let's just go to college to just because that's what you do. Yeah. Right. You know, I wasn't like, man, I'd be like a pipe welder. You know, I didn't have like this thing. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Yeah, you didn't have a why. You didn't have a like this is where I want to go in life. No, it's just like how do I get

women to not think that I'm 300 pounds. You know what I mean? Winter helped. You know what I mean? Large coats things of that nature were very helpful in that endeavor. Some of those big North Face jackets, man. You can hide a lot. You ended at Applachian State, dude, winter's longer there. Yeah. There's a lot more wintertime in Boone, North Carolina. When guys are looking for where they're going to go to college, they're thinking about best education, networking. You're thinking where can I? I'm thinking where can I hide this? Where can I hide? Correct. You guys sit next to him and Caleb Presley on the sideline. Oh, that is crazy. Were you guys in the same high school team? Yeah. He was three years younger

than me. So his freshman year was my senior year. And he was like the emergency quarterback. So he like started for the JV team, but he would dress on Fridays. What was he like in high school? I mean, he wasn't as as like outlandish as he is now. And again, I mean that in a good way. You know what I mean? Like he's great. I mean, I love Caleb.

He's so funny. And he was funny then, but he was more like clean cut, like more kind of like stereotypical, like high school quarterback guy at that time. You know what I mean? He wasn't like outwardly being as funny as he is now. But I mean, some of that, we spent a lot of time hanging out. I played as much as he did, which was not. So we spent a lot of time together on the sidelines.

We need sling the rock? Yeah, he could throw it for sure. But at that time, you're like, this kid probably stinks, dude. You don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like, you know, I mean, I wasn't.

I'm like, this guy must be as good as me, which is not good. You know, and then he goes on to Winnestate Championship and all that stuff after after I'm gone. Did you play with Chase, too? No. So Chase was four years. years older than me. So he graduated when I was in eighth grade. But he was the guy they brought down to the middle school. And they were like, look at this fucking guy. Pretty good looking dude,

right? You could be this guy if you played football. He was like the like, he was like the marketing tool to get me to get concussions for nothing. Like it was like, hey, sacrifice your mind for the betterment of the program. You know, you'll get absolutely nothing for it. That's so wild. That's your high school. And then Ben Johnson, dude. Ben Johnson, A.C. Reynolds High School. Played with Chase Rice. They're on the same team.

Really? Head coach of the Bears. Ben was the quarterback. Where are we from? What town? It's near like a nuclear research. It's got to be. No, it's Asheville, North Carolina.

Rico Dowdow also went to our high school. No shit. Did you play with Rico Duttle? No, Rico is kind of, I think Rico is around Catole. Third year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know. I think Rico was probably, I don't, not exactly sure what year he graduated, but I would imagine him and Caleb were around each other at least at the same time. I don't know that they were, I don't think they were on the same team. But I think Rico would have maybe been like a freshman. Caleb was a senior. It just graduated somewhere in that neighborhood. Some star power coming out of that area.

Weirdly enough. Yeah. And all like in a really small window of time. Yeah. Because we didn't have anybody equal it ever on our high school ever. ever. How far away was Brandon Spikes? That was he close in your area?

That was probably like an hour and a half away, like down the mountain. We didn't play them regularly. We played them in the playoffs one time. So you got to witness that man on the field. Yeah, it was terrifying. He looked as old as he does now at 18, or allegedly 18 at the time. Like full beard, full dreads, dude. Like, it's terrifying.

He walks out and you're like, oh, that guy's like, that guy's on the team. Got it. Yeah. It's not the strength coach. Cool, man. I'm glad that that guy's playing against us. That's going to go well. How are your coaches trying to fire you up when playing against a specimen like Brandon Spice?

They weren't trying to fire me up. I'm telling you that way. They were not concerned about what I had going on. They were, I think, aware of like, I mean, at that time he was already committed to Florida at that time. And, you know, he's like a five-star linebacker at that time. And for good reason, you know, because you're thinking this whole buildup, you're doing the whole week of, we're playing this guy and this and that that was a great team they're always a good team shelby's i think he was on shelby crest there's two high schools from there both always really

good and he comes out and we had a we had a really good running back that year my um and he was i think he was going to western carolina like and so we're like this guy's like the best guy ever dude he's the best running back ever yeah and so our coach is like we're running fucking straight at this dude first play and i'm like straight at britton oh yeah dude set the tone getting the boys juiced up. Set the tone, dude. Let's get physical. Let's go right.

That's not skirting around it. You know what I mean? And boy, that went horribly wrong. And did set the tone for the game, but not in the way that we had hoped. He, I mean, absolutely annihilated our running back, who also had dreads. He gets down over top of him after destroying him for like a two-yard loss. After he's blown the fullback up, we're running power high at this time. Fullback folded.

piece of paper gone running back folded gets over top of him grabs a dreadlock and rips it out of his head from his helmet and wraps it around his wrist like a bracelet and wears it the rest of the game and that was the end of the game the game was over at that point straight up like did he look over at the side that he do anything yeah oh yeah yeah like he looked over at the sign line and was like it's going to be a long game coach, to our head coach, to the head coach of our team. And it was, yeah, it was, it was gnarly, dude. I was like, oh, there's levels to this. This is a whole, and I'm already below just kind of the base level of like high school football in general.

And then that happened. And I was like, this guy could be in the NFL like tomorrow. What is the score of this game? It's, I mean, it was not going to be. You could probably Google it. I would imagine. It's somewhere. Shelby Crest.

versus AC Reynolds High School. This would have been like 2006, probably. Playoffs. Is this your senior year? No, this is my sophomore year. Sophomore year. So I'm also watching this as a frail young child. Yeah.

Do I really want to? I'm like, do I really want to? Is it something I really want to know? You're hoping the boys out there stay healthy. You can't have them going out. Well, because I'm at the time, dude, I'm on like JV. And so I'm like, too, thank gosh. Like, no chance I'm getting in, even though there wasn't anyways.

But even if I would have been on the team, there was no chance I was getting in. But I'm really going. 65 to 15 dude 65 to 15 yeah yep there you go that's the game

yeah it was tough man yep that's the one and dude we were we were a good team man we were good we were not like a bad team you sure yeah I'm sure yeah they were there I mean he was bro it's Brandon Spikes was there other guys you looked out there

you're like oh shit or was it really just one Like he was the first day you'd have the bus. He was, yeah, yeah. He was the guy, you come out and you're like, this guy doesn't even, he looks like a man, like a man, like someone's dad. Like, that's what he looked like in high school. That guy came out, dude. And you're like, wow, we don't have any guys that are look like that at all, dude.

We don't have any, like, guys that are 6'5 and like 320 solid muscle, you know? We saw him. So we did the SEC championship and he was like part of like one of the commercial breaks, like in the second quarter or something like that. And Will asked him about this exact. story. Yeah. And he essentially thinks back, he's like, man, that's back when I was first starting to take bodies.

Yeah. I really don't remember. I'm not thinking this motherfucker has killed. He was legit kill people on the football field. He was saying I took a lot of bodies. Wow. Couldn't quite put it together, but maybe when he hears this. He'll be like, oh yeah. He'll be coming on. He's like I did see a guy cowering

in fear. And that was me. Yeah. Just the farthest part of the sideline could possibly be like pussy? I'm like, pussy. So I got an even better story about him from a year before because he was like he's famous in the whole state at this point. Like even his junior year, it's like this kid's a, he's a freak, dude. Like he's going to be a real talent. And he was so that year, his senior year, they had moved up to 4A.

We were a 4A school. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. It's a high school football player. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep. It is. So it's three. So the year before they're 3A team. And they play one of our rival high schools, who was a 3A school. And my buddy Michael was on the sideline. And he's like, Spikes is in the game. It's another playoff game.

And he's not on the field. So he's not on the team. He's just a fan. And he's like talking shit. Oh, he's like front row with the thing. He's like, you suck, dude. He's like giving him the shit over the whole thing. He's like, I don't know if he catches an interception or something happened.

runs over to the sideline to my buddy and was like, I'll fucking kill you. And then he was just like, he said he was just like, oh, God. And he was like, he would have. He would have killed me. If given the chance, dude. But yeah, but yeah, dude, he was an animal, say the least. I didn't even met the guy.

And he had that great of an impression. Yeah, check this out. Check this out, dude. Yeah, so that's wild, dude. Yeah. Same age in that photo. dude. Look at that is that's that's parody right there okay you know that is you can really put it into perspective dude maybe I didn't want to play off in someone now that I think about it yeah he was a

super nice dude he was incredibly nice to us seems like he would be a great guy he just a dog yeah got the switch no doubt turn it on turn it off and he was part of those like those tebo years in florida was just like my god there was like actual murders happening yeah yeah like on and off yeah Apparently, yeah. Allegedly. Once again, just like, just to clarify.

Yeah. Yeah. We were talking to you, he was a gouging No Sean Moreno. You got out. You can find that. Clare of Georgia.

Remember that? Florida Georgia game. Like, and it was like, it wasn't like maybe. It was like, no. He's like,

you can see No Charananero's eyes. And he's like just. Yeah, he's attacking that guy. Yeah, dude. He was getting into it.

Dude, it was a heated rivalry. What are you going to say, you know? Yeah, can you find the clip? There's got to be a clip. Yeah, look at the clip. Yeah, because I remember it was a big stink, dude. It was a big stink when that happened.

Did you have any thoughts about going to Georgia? You just want to go to upstate? You want to keep the body covered? No, I was, I was an upstate guy. I mean, I went to a, I think I went to a summer camp there in, like, probably eighth grade or something. And I was like, man, I'm in. I want to go here. Oh, yeah, this is it.

They were like trying to get him off of them, dude. just ripping his eyes out. I mean, quite literally. Yeah, he stuck him too. Yeah. Yeah, that's gnarly, dude. That is gnarly stuff. Just trying to pull him off.

He's like getting him off of me. You might kill this guy. And every kid from your high school is watching that being like, yeah, that checks. All of it checks out. Yeah, got it. That must be the same guy. I can't tell him because he has the helmet on, but I'm pretty sure that's the same guy. Yeah.

Has to be the same guy. Because you don't start there at eye gouging. You don't start there. No, no, no, no. Yeah, that's a, you know what I mean? The eye gouging, the spitting, the dirty play. Like, that's a long trait. I'm going to try to get in someone's head.

That's not the first time. No. Yeah. I can't imagine we do more boys in high school. Besides, take dreads as souvenirs after he's taking parties. Is that fullback? Did he finish the game? Yeah. Oh, good for that.

He's against his own choice, I would imagine. Again, for the team. He's got to stumble at his side line. No, no, no. And they're like, you're good. Yeah, you got to get this smelling salt. You're good, dude. You're all, you're good to go.

Yeah. So music. Yeah. Yeah. What, obviously you're doing music from a young age. If you're missing football practice. Yeah. To go to choir, you said it was.

Yep. When did this passion start for you? I just kind of sang forever, man. I don't know. I just, I just always. did for what as soon as I could talk I was singing I'm not sure why but I just was you know it's kind of like I guess it'd be like I don't it's like being tall or something dude like you can just you just are you truly I mean it really is like that I mean it's obviously something you everybody

could get better at anything but your ability to get better at something is there's some sort of innate ceiling that you will hit right like I could never run as fast as the fastest kind of the world no matter how hard I tried I just don't have that trait or whatever it is and And I think singing can be similar to that. I just gravitated towards it, enjoyed it. And I don't know. It was a way for me to get through school, which I didn't really love that much. You know, I wasn't a big, like, wasn't a big learning guy, you know?

At least think I enjoy learning stuff, but only stuff that I want to learn. Yeah. I don't want to, like, have to learn things that I don't like. I just completely checked out at that point. So, yeah, it was a, I mean, I was in, I mean, I was in choir from sixth grade to I graduate high school. I mean, it was a quarter of my entire experience in public school. He's going to four classes a day, one of them's chorus every day from sixth grade to 12th grade. And when did you decide like, okay, I'm going to pursue this? Was it like 21? Yeah, it's at Appstate,

like 21 around that time. And again, I'm in school. I'm not loving it. I was singing in like a couple groups like, um, I don't know, like I don't know what you'd call it like a club or what I wasn't in like the music program you know i didn't want to major in music um because again there would have been i felt like it would have taken some of the joy out of it for me a little bit and i just didn't i struggle a lot with like reading music you know i can do it but it takes me a long time um i'm not great at i'm not great at like math and in music when you break it down like it's very mathematical if you're like when you're really trying to get into like the science of music um i that part I struggle with. It takes me a long time to get through things like that. So that was that would have

been a huge challenge in majoring in music. You know, it would have been like I've just not cut out for this version of like doing music for a living. And at the time, so at the time I just was, that was like, well, I'm just not going to do music. I'll just be a hobby that I have and that'll be fine because I enjoy doing it and I'll do something else. And then when I picked the guitar up, it all just kind of made sense. You know, I picked it up and not that I'm particularly, really good at it. I can get by, basically. But I knew my voice was strong enough at that time to just,

for people to be able to see past that. Like, if I started singing, they wouldn't even care what the guitar was doing, as long as it was passable to some extent. They would be fine with it. And so I started playing. Basically the summer after my junior year at App State, I picked it up.

I spent all summer learning it. Because I didn't have anything else going on besides working, which I've, you know, hated. I was like, fuck. I was working the same job. I worked in high school, which was brutal. It's awesome in high school. What were you doing?

I was working at a, like a giant, imagine like a giant Chuckie cheese on steroids. It's called Asheville's Fun Depot. RIP, it's no longer around. Indoor go carts, outdoor go carts, climbing wall, bumper cars, laser tag, mini golf. That sounds like a dream. It's a dream high school gig. This is it. Oh, man.

Man, I've ripped a lot of farts in that place. That place is awesome. I love that place, dude. That place was, that place ripped. It was a great job to have in high school. But then when I went back at 21, it was still a great job to have in high school. And so I was like, oh, man, now I'm the weird older guy that works here. And this is, it was a stark, it was like a stark vision into the future of like, if I don't figure something out, like, this is, this could be it for me.

you know and I was not okay with that you know I was just kind of got started getting depressed about like man is this going to be like what I'm doing am I going to be like working laser tag when I'm 40 years old you know it's like really don't want to be doing that you know so I can't imagine any woman is going to want to marry a guy that's working laser tag at 40 or 45 at least any woman that I would potentially be interested in marrying yeah yeah so it was but it was that that summer needed to happen, man, you know, for this to all come to fruition. It just needed to happen that way. And that kind of self-conversation was kind of propelled you, kind of sparked the motivation to dive deeper into your, into your, like, artistic side with music? Yeah, it was just, it was just, you know,

I'm there and I'm basically like, I picked the guitar. My parents had bought me a guitar in seventh grade, and I didn't really play it at all or use it. Um, it was. It was just one of those, it was like another thing my parents wanted me to do that I didn't want to do at that time, if that makes sense. And so I had that same guitar in the closet. And my mom was like, I was sitting on the, like, on the deck out back or on the side of the house somewhere. And just bummed out. I had like worked a shift and came home. And it's like, it's summer. Like none of my friends are in town anymore. They're all in, you know, Raleigh or Chapel Hill or back in Boone or wherever they're at in school. And I'm just at home living my parents. Like, basically failing out of college at the time too and just going like what am i going to do man like i'm not going to finish school like i knew it basically had accepted it at that time like really like i'm not going to you know i'm just digging myself into this giant like financial hole to like continue to like put off the inevitable which is like not finishing school and i'm working this kind of like menial job living at home and i'm like i'm like dude year and a half bro i might be here

for real, like living at my parents' house, like not going back to school and like not having any insight to this thing. And that was like super depressing to be a part of. And my mom came out and she's like, why don't you play that guitar that, you know, we bought you or whatever. And she told me the, the famous line that she told me was like, we need Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw didn't learn to play guitar until they were 21. And whether that's true or not, I still don't know. Let me give me that a fact check, but if she made up that lie, it worked big time. Because I was like, man, if those guys can do it, I could probably do it too, you know? And so it was basically I picked it up as just a means to like, it wasn't like I picked it up.

I was like, well, this will be my job. I just picked it up and like, well, this will at least get me through this summer. You know what I mean? 18 or 19, okay? Yeah. Hedged it a little bit, but I like that. Yeah, off two years is nothing. Yeah, it's not bad.

It's not bad. Great pool by your mom. Yeah, great pool. And man, I fell in love with it that summer, and I always loved singing and just started trying to learn other people's songs and singing them. Because I was like, man, anytime I would play, you know, I'd bring my guitar somewhere and play. Or if people were at my house and I was playing, people loved it, you know, even though it wasn't very good, you know, to me at that time. And it just kept progressing, man. I just kept going down that path.

And then, I don't know, fast forward maybe a year and a half, I'm like booking my first show. Which was today, maybe. Like today, 14 years ago, today or yesterday was my first show ever. No shit. Yeah, crazy. That's crazy, man. That is fucking nuts. Yeah, it's crazy, man.

So what led to you getting to book your first show? Because you talk about, like, just playing around your friends and stuff like that. But are you, like, out in public playing to where somebody notices you can book a show? No. No, no, no. I'm like, I'm basically coming up with this plan in the apartment at this point. And I'm like, I think I could be good enough to do, you know, like, like, like, like an hour or whatever and just play for people.

I knew, I was like, I knew a bunch of my friends would come on if I, you know, if I invited them and stuff. And I played my first show at the Parthenon cafe. There's no longer there either in Boone. And,

but I played rugby in college and I, I loved it, man, because it was just like everything I wanted out of football. It's like almost no strategy and just pure violence. You know, it was like, which is so sick.

And so yeah, there it is. That's my first show ever. Good pull show. borrowed my neighbor's guitar the son of my guitar I borrowed another friend's PA system and it was a dollar to get in and I made 200 bucks which was more than I made it both my jobs that week and I was like I was like bro this is this is it yeah like that that was the day that I was like this is what I'm doing 14 years ago today 14 years ago today I was like this is it man like I can do this and it wasn't

even like I want to be some big star. That wasn't the, that wasn't the thought. But I'm like, this is something I could do and really enjoy and make a living and be happy doing this. That was the idea. That was when the light bulb went off. And then as things continued to progress, like more and more people were just coming to the shows. And, you know, over the course of the next two years, basically, I spent every waking moment. Like, I was putting together press kits for myself, like sending them off to bars and restaurants all around North Carolina saying, hey, book me for this show. You know, I basically play for, you know, pay me a hundred bucks or whatever and I'll come.

Because I knew I could throw the tip jar out, make, you know, 50, 75 more bucks that way. And it was worth it because it was just me and my buddy Adam basically. We just get in my car, his car, and drive down the mountain and play for a couple hours and come home and have fun, too. It's like you're drinking free and eating free. and, you know, people, like, everybody thinks you're great when you're playing music. Like, if you're decent, even if you're decent at a bar, people are like, it's got some awesome. People love like music.

Yeah. Especially when the expectations low. Yeah. Because you're just like, I'm in some chicken wing restaurant somewhere in Winston Salem. Like, how good can this guy be? Yeah. Like, how bad can he be? Yeah.

Really bad. He could be really bad. But, you know, odds are he's not going to be the next, whatever, you know. So it was always like a pleasant. surprised. That's me and Adam there. That was the day we met actually and met him. He lived in, he's from Boone originally, went to high school there and had went to play baseball somewhere and then transferred back to App. And I would watch a lot of his videos. And I didn't know he went to App, didn't know he's from there, but he played a lot of covers of a lot of the songs that I

liked and his hands were always visible. So I could see how he was playing the songs. And that's how I would learn songs. It was like I'd watch some of his videos. And then one of the videos, he came out in an App State hat. I was like, you got to be shitting me, dude. Is this like a random hat? It's like popped to like Google or whatever, I don't know, Facebook, I guess, on this guy. And I sent him a message.

And I'm like, hey, man, do you live in Boone? Like I saw one of your, I've watched a bunch of your videos. And he was like, yeah, man, I'm from here. I live here. And he lived like five minutes down the road from me. And then he came over to my house. That was the first thing we ever did. together and we played hundreds of shows after that in town together. So he had some like gigs.

He was already booking. So he kind of let me glob onto those and then I let him glob into my gigs. So we doubled our gigs and split the money. So twice as many people would see us play and then we'd still make the same amount of money. Because any show was a good show then. Like it was like anywhere that would let you play anytime. Right. Yeah, I played a coffee shop on a Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon sometimes. If that was what I could get, that's what I would take, you know. And it worked out, man. It worked out. It was crazy, dude.

Some of the videos, too, looked like you were spread some of the awareness through social platforms like Vine. Oh, big time. Yeah. Vine was huge for me. And that was, it wasn't intentional. It wasn't like now it's a strategy, right? Like now it's like social media is the game. Back then it was kind of this uncharted territory.

Everybody was on it. Yeah. But no one had discovered it as a marketing tool or a business tool. Trailblazing. So it was kind of unintentionally. So, yeah, it wasn't like, you know, it would be great. is to like get a bunch of followers and then get those people to all potentially buy songs and tickets like it just kind of turned into that there was no like there was no light bulb moment it was

just like that's what everybody my age was doing at that time and then it it became this this big thing that that ultimately became like one of the main reasons for my success because i had leverage when i came to nashville i was already selling a bunch of tickets and i was already selling my own songs and I didn't even realize that was a big deal. So as you're coming to Nashville, like what? It looks like it could be. That's a lot. That's a big boy. It's a hefty. You're a hefty boy coming in there. You're leveraging against what when you come to Nashville? Like, compared to what most people, most artists go up against when they come here? Yeah, because it's not the trend anymore. Obviously with, you know, now everybody's figured out the social media game. So that's the way you do it is,

you know, back then it was like everybody would just move to Nashville on a wing and a prayer with a dream, you know, and it's like everybody's unproven. You have nothing to offer, really the label or anyone that would sign you other than this guy, we think, could maybe have potential. That was the only thing you could offer. Now kids are coming to town with, well, I've sold 100,000 copies of my songs and I'm doing shows and I have two million TikTok followers. And it's like it's undeniable, right? Like you can't argue with those statistics. But back then, I came, not with those kind of numbers, but with numbers that were really good and nobody had anything. And I didn't even really use that as a selling point.

You know, I was just kind of like, I thought that's what everyone had. I was like, well, you moved to Nashville, dude. Like, you're ready to be like, you're in the league, dude. You know what I mean? It's like showing up to the, to the, basically to the Super Bowl. And you're like, well, I've never actually played, but. And it's like, what are you talking? What do you mean?

never played before but like that was what was going on it was just you just come to town and see how good you were the good guy in your little town and then you come and see how you stack up against everybody else you know yeah come with that type of leverage what is that leverage was really wasn't there yeah i was just going to say like what is that leverage by like what does that leverage get you on the the business side of things because jelly was a few years ago he's breaking down how like the record labels work how they you money at the percentage points and he's trying to flip it and Like how does we put so many different kind of breakdowns. I'm always just fascinated.

Yeah. I mean, it, it grant. So like I got passed on by Sony my first year in Nashville. And then I ended up signing with them two years later. And that is one of the best things that ever happened to me, dude. Because two years later, I've got my first album is done. I basically own the entire thing.

I license it to the label. I'm already selling out my own shows. So then when it comes down to negotiating the points of the deal, I'm like, well, I could just not sign and just keep doing what I'm doing. I don't need to sign. Yeah. What was something that Sony offers that makes it. Oh, yeah, this is a great move to make. When you're talking about I can already sell my own shows.

I already have my album done. You have obviously of a fan base established. What could Sony give you? Radio. Yeah. Okay. And at that time, that's the only thing you really needed at that time. that was radio like Sony has a bunch of slots or they have a whole team that goes out and basically they know everyone at every you know reporting radio station in the country so they that's how you know your song doesn't get on the radio by accident dude especially at that time it was very gate kept you know and that's not cost big money to get on the radio too i mean big money in the in the terms of the people the amount of people it took to work your records you know i mean they have a whole you know so like at that time

I'm at Sony, there's three imprints at Sony at that time. So there's Sony Columbia, Sony Arista, and RCA, I believe. So there's three teams. So like if I'm at Columbia, then Kenny Chesney at the time was at RCA or Arista and Brad Paisley was at one of the other two and Carrie Underwood was there and Kane Brown had just got signed and Chris Young is there. And it's there all different imprints and each imprint had its own radio team of five people so like a head of promotion a southeast rep a northeast rep a Midwest rep a Southwest rep and a Northwest rep just to work your song to radio so then they would take your song and go hey we've got this new guy and listen to this song get your like actually sit down and listen to it they were basically a and R in your song to the

radio and you could do these deals where it would be like okay well well you know if you sit down and listen to the song like well you know there's that big kenny shows coming up you know what i mean like probably want to come chill at that you know what i mean like yeah be cool to chill at the kitty show you yeah and it's like that's all understood and it's not like it's you know back in the day they would just show up with briefcases of money in the 70s it was like here's a bunch of money played the song and like okay that doesn't happen anymore you know and now it's completely different because streaming is way different and you know that's stuff still kind of baffles me like how those things work.

I would imagine there's something kind of similarish going on maybe. And it's not a slight to anyone or anything. It's just the nature of the business at that time. But you couldn't do that on your own. You need a team that knows how to how to play ball. Like you need basically you need a coaching staff almost and to put it in sports terms. Like you need to like here's the play we're going to run. You have the skill to run the play.

Let us go. Let us go show everybody. what you can do. Let us get you on the field with everyone. You know what I mean? So it's a crazy business. But yeah, I mean, the difference could be, these are all, we'll fake numbers of this thing.

So let's say, you know, those old arithmetic questions where they'd be like, would you rather have a penny a second for every day for the rest of your life? Or would you ever have a penny and double it for a month? Or would you rather have $1,000 every day for 10 years? And you're like, you've tried to. to like do the math on which one of those is better, but record deals are the same way. So it's like, let's say a label comes to you and says, your new artist with no leverage and they go, hey, man, we'll give you two million bucks up front. Like maybe the sign and bonus is $500,000,

non-recoupable. So you get the $2 million, $500,000 of it is yours, no strings attached. The other million and a half, you're going to basically is a interest-free loan that you're going to pay back to us after you've made money because we took all the inherent risk to sign you to the deal. And then as you earn, like as your earning power increases, we take that money back. And then let's say they go, well, you're going to make, we're going to take 25% of all the tickets you sell, 25% of all the T-shirts you sell, 75% of all the records you sell or whatever. Or you could take a deal and say, hey, two years later, you've got all this leverage and you go, I don't want any money up front at all. And they're like, that always blows their mind. They're like, what do you mean? You don't want any money. I'm like, don't need it.

I'd rather have the percentage points back over time. And so, well, maybe you guys keep no percentage of my merch and no percentage of my tickets and you keep 10% of the record because it's huge now. So the 10% may be more than the deal you were already offering me. But a lot of people, let's say you're, I don't know, you're freaking Elton John and you sign that deal when you have nothing. And then they got you in that deal for seven records. That could be like you're almost your whole career. Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm not even on my seventh record yet.

This will be my sixth record that I'm promoting right now. So I can't imagine being in a deal that was structured that way. And they have no incentive to negotiate. Right. would they, why would they change your deal at this point? That was the whole goal is to get you to this point where the label is just like printing money. And that's the nature of the business, man. It's not like a slide at the way labels operate, but it's like some of those big long deals are definitely set up to be advantageous for them in the end as opposed to you. Right. Which is just

because at the time, they were taking all the risk because nobody was coming to town with anything. And they're basically fronting you millions of dollars to start your career. And then the way you pay them back is a percentage of your earnings over the rest of your career. Especially a high interest loan, even though it's a no interest. You know, when you pay it back and you don't, you know, it doesn't increase. But they just make a ton on the end. Yeah. When you first get to Nashville, do you have representation already?

Or are you kind of running solo? You're knocking on doors. You're going down like music row. No, I'm not going to like those days. We're long over. at that at one time was the was the process like you can just go down and knock on it this time you wouldn't even know and even answer they'd be like don't answer that some random guy with a guitar here brutal yeah um you know which would be brutal it would be a lot of brutal brutal uh run-ins with people i would imagine um and it's i mean i'm there i have no manager i have no book an agent i've no anything so i just moved to town i had enough money to not have to work just from playing shows and I had released a couple songs in college. So I wasn't worried about like,

how am I going to make a living? I knew at least two years. I got at least two years of like just cruise control. Like, yeah, I can just go out and network and try to write songs with people and see what happens in this two year period. That was basically in my mind,

what was going to happen. You know, it's like just see what happens for two years and then readjust. Um, so I did that, man. I would write five days a week for weeks and weeks and weeks on end go play writer's nights go try to meet people um and then it wrote you know eventually

what was my first record not really even intentionally it was just like well i got all these songs and i need to put some more songs out and then i made an ep and then that transitioned into making a record and it just all kind of fell into place you know it's just it was like for lack of a better term like baby steps man like it was like there was i was never looking at the finish line i was just always looking at the next step what's the next step what's the next next thing I need to do, you know, like get to the next thing and then I can get to the next thing. And then ultimately, all of a sudden you're like at the top and you're like weird. Yeah. Weird that like because none of it felt it didn't feel like this big task because I was never looking at how many steps I had

left. I was just like, well, I can get to the next one. That's easy. Just, you know, just do the next thing. Yeah. Just to go from here, it's pretty black and white. It was like, I mean, there's no playbook, but it was just, it became obvious over time. Let's just do whatever we got to. We got to. do to like get to the next point and like continue and give ourselves a better chance every day um and it was fun man it was so those were fun times well we're a couple uh like pivotal relationships you made that kind of you know kind of catapulted into the next baby steps or maybe you got to you know you got to go through a baby step fast because of a you know certain relationships that you had made that you're like oh man this will be yeah big for my career now that i look back on it

yeah i um i mean meeting meeting my kind of group of guys that I, you know, still write with to this day was huge. I mean, when that record came out, I think every person that wrote on that album, I think there was only one person that even had a publishing deal. So, like, we're all basically guys and gals that just met each other at the bar that wrote that record, which is like my biggest record, you know? Yeah. And it was all just like, that was like love of the game, like, just trying to write the best stuff we could write. And then ultimately turns into this like huge album that like changes my life or whatever. So those were the first important, but the first important relationships that I had when I got to town.

I ended up at a, a friend of mine had a showcase at the exit in. And he was like, do you want to come play before me at, you know, like a showcase is basically, you've been in town for a while. You're decently established, you know enough people where you can, it's basically open invite to people in the industry to come watch you perform. It's almost like an audition for like a record deal or a publishing deal or a booking deal or whatever. Like you invite people from all these agencies to come and that it's only happening when you have like a lot of momentum going on. So he asked me to come play like first to four like first guy and I played like just by myself maybe with like Kurt, who's like in my band now but at the time he wasn't and we played a couple of songs acoustic so i

played my set a couple songs end up backstage and there's like a bunch of dudes back there like suited out like doing the whole thing stereotypical right like suits you know and uh they're like hey man we work for this book an agency called APA was the name of the agency they're big in a lot of other entertainment spaces, but in Nashville, they were relatively new, getting into the country music world. So their Nashville office wasn't very big. And they were like, we'd love to set up a meeting with you, whatever. I'm like, listen, dude, I'm in.

If you guys can get me shows, I'm in. Like, if you can get book shows for me, like, that would take a ton off my plate because I basically wasn't able to play any shows because all my connections were back in North Carolina. And so I wasn't going to commute, you know, eight hours to go make $200 bucks. it just didn't make sense anymore. So I always knew that the only way I'm going to get anybody to be interested in my music at all is get in front of them. Like no one's going to look at a picture of me and go,

this guy's a star. We've got to get this guy up here. I just knew that. It's just the harsh reality of my life at that time. And it's really my life now still, to be honest. But it's like you just know. Is that Luke Combs? You know, you're like, okay, well, I mean,

the people that are crushed. at that time are Florida Georgia Line, Sam Hunt, Chase Rice. Like, I mean, those dudes are hot, bro. Like, they're hot. And, like, I'm not hot. I'm not tall. I'm not in shape. And I'm like, you know, I wasn't like an ex-college athlete or like they have all

these good. They have great stories and they're good looking and they're like charismatic, you know, like. And so I'm like, man, I got nothing on these guys. And so at the time, it was like, no. nobody in town was interested in signing a guy like me because it's like, well, this is the thing that's working ain't this guy. And Nashville loves to play it safe, man. Like when they see a thing that works, they love to go, let's find more of that thing that works and just continue to hammer that

until somebody breaks the mold and then we'll just pour everyone else into that same mold. And again, it's no fault because it's a low risk. Like you know that people love FGL. So you sign Chase or you sign Sam Hunt. Like you, like it's just, it's a plug and play kind of thing. Right. It's not a bad thing.

You get the playbook. You might as well use the playbook. 100%. Everybody's running three tight end. Let's run three tight end. You know what I mean? Let's all do it. You know,

it's working. And I mean, look at this guy. This guy's beautiful, dude. Look at this guy. That is fucked up. He's beautiful, dude.

Yeah, he's gorgeous. He's incredibly talented guy, you know. He's like, he's like shooting like ski and like old, like Philson stuff. And you're like, this guy's cool, dude, you know? Like, nobody thinks about me in that vein.

Riley Green. Would you type in like super hot? This motherfucker right here. This guy pisses me off with his looks. But there's a lot of those guys, you know? It's hard to like... This guy makes me more mad than snow. It's hard to compete, dude.

What are we doing here with this? Look at that, man. Chisle. Chisle. Chisle. And so... Beach trip between him. Show that.

There's no picture. pictures of me. You know, they're just just not. You need to just take a lot of these photos. Maybe pop and we can't AI it now, though. You need to like recreate a lot of these photos. Yeah, would you like type in Luke come shirtless and I guarantee there's not many. There you go.

This is more of my drip here, dude. Boxy, you know, flattering kind of, you know, lean into like the bad genetics, you know, like the close eyes and like, like, the close eyes and like, you know, you know, size and like the not fully grown in beard like lean into that stuff you do you do need to take like this starting out era of the sam hunts and riley green and just photoshop your face on top of them yeah for sure just recreate some of the photos like yeah the boat one that riley grew was just on he just drops one shirtless and what are we got shirtless and what buff hell yeah that's gonna that's gonna come up oh baby yeah surprisingly not hairy though up top Which is weird.

Like the arms are air in the episode. But it's very shaven other than that. Your dad is wild. Yeah, that's what gives me a little, I'm going to have this in my room though every day and be like, it's going to be me, man, you know? Dead guy's taking Brandon Spikes out. Yeah, for sure.

No problem. He's got a chance at least. Yeah, he stands a chance. But so I'm up against kind of that thing at the time, which is the normal Nashville look and mold at that time. And the really the big pivotal moment, there we go. That guy is taking out. Spikes, that guy for sure.

And the mold, like the guy that really breaks the mold is Chris Stapleton. And it comes out in just bad ass, bro. Like incredible singer, incredible writer. If you lived in Nashville, you knew who Chris Tableton was. You just already knew. You know, it was a travesty. It took that long for him to get to that. point, you know. I mean, he was like, he was your favorite writer's favorite writer in town at

that time, you know, and still is. But when he did that performance with Timberlake at the CMAs, it was a whole different. It just blew them. It was like, it was this groundbreaking moment of like everybody in town knew without talking to each other like shit just changed for sure. Because like, if it ain't that good, it ain't going to work, dude. Because now people know, the cat's out of the bag, dude. Like, people know that exists. And that's going to be an issue. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's a problem. Yeah, that's going to be an issue for hot dudes everywhere is that that guy is crushing right now. And it's taken a while for there to be a new hot dude. You know, you got Riley now, but still not a lot of super hot dudes running around. Yeah. Jelly, it's not hot, dude. I'm not hot.

We're not hot. It's fine. Yeah. It's okay. You know what I mean? And so really, if the Stapleton moment doesn't happen, I don't know that my stuff happens. out in the same way because then people were willing to go now my stuff took off I mean maybe I when was that Stapleton performance yeah what do you know the date on that I'll find it if you know the date I could really don't think your stuff takes off without not in the same way like that not maybe it does but I don't know if it takes off in Nashville within the industry like I don't know that I get some of the chances I get without that moment. Got you.

2015. Okay, so I'm living in Nashville. I moved in September of 14. So this happens November of 15. So I've already got hurricane. I already written it. I had already released it on my own, but still nothing was really going on with it.

And this happens. And then I start getting like, people are knocking on my door like, they're like, bro, we need ugly guy, dude. This is your time, bro. This is you're the year. guy. I'm like, yes. So, no, I get my deal in, uh, did you have any when you see, see this go down. I'm sure you watched it. I watched it live. You watched it live. It did a piece

of you go, I've got, this is it. This is my time. It wasn't like, oh, this is incredible. No, it wasn't a, this is my time. It was a, this is a absolute ground like, like a magnetic like polar shift in what will be popular in country music. And it won't happen tomorrow, but this is the start. Because of how successful and how much people were just raving about. You can just, yeah, you just watched it and you just knew it was so different than anything you had seen on the CMA Awards in a long time. And then the reaction to, I mean, he just becomes a star like overnight. I mean, obviously he was, I mean, he was an OG at that point in the game, but nobody knew about him outside of town. Unless you were listening to the steel drivers.

And then even then it was just he was the singer of the steel drivers. Was it Chris Stapleton in the steel drivers or was just steel drivers? Gotcha. Yeah, he was just the lead singer for the steel drivers and was right in a lot of that stuff too. But he was pretty famous in town amongst writers and artists and stuff. And everyone was like, how is this guy not huge, dude? Because everyone was scared to take the risk, man. Like it was like, I mean, I would be, I would love to know the story of how that CMA performance even came together.

because it wasn't like he had some big deal and it was like he was this new artist and everybody knows he's about to blow up so let's put him on the CMA awards it's like all of a sudden he's on there and you're like is like Chris Stapleton like damn that guy's badass dude yeah and then just everybody became a iteration of country it was I mean it was I mean it really was man it was groundbreaking dude and that was so cool as a fan of the genre and as a guy felt like guys like myself didn't really get a chance at that time. Like you saw it and it was like, oh, this guy, like, I'm cheering for this guy. Like, I don't care if it affects me or not.

But like, I'm pumped that this guy's getting. Because to me, I felt like at that time a little bit, I was a little bit like bummed out because I'm going, well, man, what's it take to get a chance, dude? Like, how good do you have to be? It would be like if everybody in the NBA had a 20 inch vertical. And you had a 45 inch vertical. And they were like, uh, no jumping. You, guy that jumps good, don't jump at all. Let these other guys jump.

People like watching these guys jump. They're good. They're good looking guys. They jump okay. And then all of a sudden, this fucker gets up and hits the 50 inch vertical. And you're like, oh, people can jump that high. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. And I was like, oh, man, they might let me get a jump in it. Jump in. You know what I mean? I was like, now I might get a chance to show, show my stuff a little bit. Were you ever like jaded to the situation before the script, Chris Stapleton came up? Not too bad. In some ways.

You had to be to some extent. Dude, everybody's got that piece. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because there was a lot of like, there was a lot of guys who I felt like at that time. And again, this is like, this is not the way I feel now.

But the way I felt then was like, man, like, I'm like, bro. Like this is not, it's not braggy. This is just the mindset of me at this time. Young dude feels like. like he can play ball with the best of them going, I am a lot better than these other guys that are doing this. And like, why can't I even get on the field with these guys? Which is the most normal thing. Yeah, I'm like, I can hang. Like, let me up there and I'll show you what it's what playing ball looks like. Not that I'm the best guy in the world or anything, but I

felt I had supreme confidence in my ability to get up and sing and perform with anybody that was doing it or anybody that's doing it now. And maybe that's, you know, maybe that's like oblivious or maybe that's ridiculous to say. You're just thinking for better or worse. Yeah. I can, I can do it. I should at least get the same shot as everyone else. And I'm not getting that shot right now.

And so I'm just going to have to go earn my shot and make it myself. And so when APA offered me that booking deal, I was like, dude, I'll do whatever, man. Like book me shows because I'm just going to have to go prove to anybody and everybody that I can hang. And that was going out and playing shows. I knew if I played in a room of 50 people and I came back to that town. the next year there'd be 100 or 200 and if i just kept doing that it would just double or triple every time until we're playing in stadiums the part of you ever just like you know it's it's late night you're about to go to bed you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're like it's time to

get out steroids yeah oh yeah still it's not it's like they did that yesterday yeah it's time to reshape the physique yeah i need to get it going yeah god be on steroids would be cool probably not like from health standpoint and a lot. But I'd for the short turn, it would rip, dude. I would be unbearable. I always tell my, this one. That guy's a menace, dude. A mannest.

That guy's a menace. Dude. Get us some testosterone. Always tell my buddies, I'm like, God made me fat for a reason, because if I was in good shape, I would be miserable to be around. Like, and people would just be like, God, here comes this guy again, dude. He's got to take a shirt off. He's going to definitely taking his shirt off.

You know, it's just like, maybe. Like, you would hate me if I was in good shape. But then I'm like, you see me and I'm rocking a 3x shirt. You're like, you know what? Scott, I'm not worried that my, my girlfriend's fall in love with this guy. She's not going to. Look at this guy. Love it.

You're not afraid of that guy. That guy's in the bar. That's not Mr. Steele, your girl right there, dude. It just isn't. It just is not. You know what I mean? That's just the way it is. And that's okay with me, you know?

Before this, Chris Stapleton, 2015, had you met, Chris Stapleton before that. Mm-mm. Hadn't met him at that time. So when you're getting to Nashville and your brain, you're like, well, I was there. I was already in town. I just had it in.

We were in different leagues. So he was way above this. I've seen this AI picture of us. That's beautiful. You need to recreate that in a nice sunset. DM it to him. Yeah, it's pretty sick. It's like, hey, man, can we do a little photo shoot together?

Just going to be walking in a field or. Got any spare time? Yeah. Yeah. Between having a bunch of kids. and stuff. I know we both got a bunch of kids, but like, let's go hang out to field. Find a spot out and leap to short hour, man, and just do it. Let's just do the thing. Yeah. Yeah. That is nice. That is. Someone's making those. Those already existed. Yeah. Wow.

That's, that makes you think a little bit, huh? You think it's like a sex thing a little bit? You think there's someone that's like, I'm into like heftier guys on this. There's a category right there for sure. Yeah. For sure that makes that happen. Yeah. But when you're getting to Nashville, who are you thinking in your brain, I got to meet these people? And then when you learn the game, who you're like, I really got to meet these people? I think it was a lot of it for me was songwriters, were the people that I wanted to meet because I knew that they could make me better. And I knew I could learn a lot from them. And that was my big focus at that time was being the best I could be so that I knew whenever I did get my shot that I was even more prepared for it than I thought that I was.

And I wanted to write people that were better than me, better singers, better guitar players. And basically everyone was. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of really talented people in this town, man. And I think those were the people that I really gravitated towards was, man, how did this, you know, like Jonathan Singleton, a dear friend of mine, he produces my records with me now. We own a publishing company together. He gave me my first publishing deal. And when that happened, it was like a dream, dude.

And I was like, this guy is like, he's like one of my heroes, like one of my songwriting heroes. Like he's written all these. I mean, his first cut was watching airplanes, Gary Allen. The first one you ever got cut. You know what I mean? And it's just, he's written, I mean, 20 something number ones, maybe 30, close to 30 now or something. A decent amount of which we've written together with each other and a few we've written for other people together. And just being able to be in rooms with those people, man, is like, is just, that's my favorite thing to do is like,

is to not like to go into a room and know I never think I'm the best guy in the room in like that to me is the wrong attitude like what can I learn from this person how can this person make me better how can I be there be there for them if they're not having their best day in the writing room like like how can I be a good team player man and the thing I love about writing songs is it really is a collaborative thing now there's a lot of people who can write really great songs by themselves you know, and I've done that myself, but it's, I like the, the process of us doing it together, man. Like, that's the thing that I derive a lot of joy from. Because then we can all, I guess back to the first record, man, my first seven singles, it was everyone that wrote on them's first number one song. And that's like, that's not just seven people. It's like 14 people. So it's like everybody's break was like, we did it all. We all did it together. You know, and that's the, that's like you can't even.

You know, you can't recreate that, man. Like, because now all those people basically have full-time songwriting gigs and have written number one songs for other people. And that was like their break as much as it was mine was getting. And I take a lot of pride and I have a lot of joy, you know, from being able to like not only make my own dreams come true, but help my friends accomplish their goals too. You know, because if we can't, if we don't have each other, like what do we have? you know like doing it all by yourself would just be you know be kind of like who do you even

talk to about it you know like who are you even excited who's even excited about it if you don't have anybody to call and go you know you have the number one party with your you know your best buddies in town i mean that's like awesome you know it's dream come true stuff you know yeah what's been your uh aside from this album it's been your favorite album to write oh fathers and sons for smee and there's no question i don't think it will ever you know i mean i mean this is what I do. I mean, now, you know, it's to look like I have high blood pressure and hang out with my kids. You know what I mean? It's like, that's kind of my deal right now. And, um, you know, I love to tie in too with like the relationship you had with your dad. Yeah. I mean, it's like,

I mean, it's, you know, it's, I mean, parenting is, is a difficult thing, you know, it's like there's no, there's no playbook for it. I mean, everybody's version of right and wrong ways of doing it are different and how everybody approaches it is different. And, you know, I just wanted my kids to know when they're older, obviously, even now, but even when I made this record, not old enough to understand it. Like, my kids are just getting to, like, where they don't want me to go places before they just be like, I'm leaving. And they're like, okay, we'll get the fuck out of here.

Why are you telling me? I'm playing magnetiles, dude. Yeah. Magnetals go so hard. Oh, my kids, all they want to do is smash them, though, dude. Yeah. But you get, they don't want to build them. What are the ages of years?

Three and a half, two and a half and a half and due in a month. Oh, congratulations, bro. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Yes. I'm with you on that. I have a three and a one year old. And the three year old is now like it's, she gets very heartbroken when you're leaving.

It sucks. Doesn't it, dude. My kids asked me all day because I was just in L.A. for a week doing some album stuff. And my oldest son, text was like, he's like, dad, are you going to work today? And I was like, yeah, I'm going to work. He's like, are you going to work on a plane? and I was like, no, I'm just going in my truck, buddy. I'm not, I'm not getting on the plane.

Like, I'll be back tonight. You know what I mean? He's worried that I'm like not going to be back. He's going to be a couple days? Yeah, he's like, dude, are you coming? Like, we're building magnetiles, bro. Are we doing air tubes or not? Like, we're doing air tubes.

You know what I'm like, yeah, man, we're doing air tubes. I got an eight to five year old, a little bit older. Yeah. But we get in those magnet tiles still to this day. I bet it gets really wild at that age. We got a full skyscrapers going on. Oh, dude. There's barns and farms.

We got a nice. set up yeah we got like lions now there's all we're starting to get into the more obscure magnetiles now see i think yeah you know to me can i be honest with you yeah kind of a waste magnetals no the obscure like different theme because to me it's like the more the like manitiles are a quantity over quality game like you want as many magitals as possible because i want to make yeah the biggest tallest yeah yeah i want to drive again building yeah and when i have like little girl castle ones it kind it's like it's kind of throws yeah because it's only like this tall it's It's not like unique shapes.

Just give us the squares. Give me the big squares. Give me the long squares. I need the big squares for foundation. No triangles, bro. Why do we even have the triangles? Yeah. They're terrible.

Yeah. You got to kind of like lean them together. Yeah, you're like balancing them a little bit. The triangle is like I want to do it. I'm like sweetheart. Just carefully lean this one into the point of the other one. Yeah. And there's like the there's like the obtuse triangle that doesn't even make a square when

you put two of them together. Yep. And you're like, why did they make these? Right. And you think yourself all just make a cool little like, like, like long triangles are chill, small triangles are chill. But then there's the weird triangle that doesn't fit. Go up a little bit, sure. You got that one can make a square.

That might be the small ones I got beef with because they don't. So there's ones that don't make a square. There's ones that don't make a square. That's, I know I'm not crazy. There's ones that don't make a square. Yeah, I'm like, design. Right. But then it's the end.

The top of the castle. My kids just want to. smash them to do. Yeah. They just want the tallest one I can make and then knock it over. Yeah. I don't know if your kids are too young for this yet, but oh, how you were as a child, but I was big into Legos.

Legos were, you gave ADHD big time. You put me in a room with Legos. I'm good for two hours. Yep. I would love to get into that. I was never like a Lego kid. I was like Lincoln Logs. Yeah.

Like Lincoln Logs. There's only a finite amount of things you can do with Lincoln Logs. Like you have the whole world at your feet when it comes to Legos, especially they have like these insane things now. Right. Like the very detail. Like you could build like model. The Roan Coliseum.

You can build like the Death Star, bro. Dude, I know the Millennium Falcon. It's like, fuck, dude. Dude, I have the Titanic. I've been working it for two years. It's still not done. It's not done. My manager has a Lego room in his house, bro.

Kind of dope. Kind of dope. Kind of dope. I wish I had that much time. But my kids are big into Harry Potter. So we do the Harry Potter one, the Lego ones. What I love about it. Bro, it's crazy.

What I love about is they're into it, but they're only into it for like 30 minutes. And then they're like, do you mind, dad, if you finish this? I'm like, really, I don't. You know what? I don't want to have to do that, but I will if I... For the family, I'll make this sacrifice right now. Yeah, I'll build this whole thing just for the kids. Dude. You know what I mean?

That's what Rannings kid had. How long is that taking you to build? Months. In a room by myself? A day, at least. If you have the whole day... Oh, yeah, yeah, way longer than that. I'm saying three to five days.

Three to five is the magic number of this day. Perfect for snow day. Perfect for snow day. Perfect for snow day. Dude, the Amazon, that thing to your house for the snow coming up. There's snow coming up. Oh, we had a full conversation about it, dude. You a snow day guy?

Oh, I love a snow day. Love a good snow day. That's a good, that's a clean take. Yeah, it's a clean take. Everyone likes, uh, snow day, no doubt. Yeah. I'm with you on that. How do you feel about snow?

After two weeks? Hmm. You see, you're Michigan guy. No, hey. He's an Arizona boy. I was, I grew up in Arizona. But what were we thinking of snow days in Michigan? I was thinking I want to put a gun in my mouth for something.

Yeah, because you're like brutal. Dude. The kids change it, dude, because that one day, awesome. Yeah. Day two, dude. Back to school, bro. Get out. It's like, what are we doing?

I'm done sledding. It's cold. Your mom's tired. I'm tired. Clean. Nobody wants to go out. Clean. JP brought up a good.

He's like three to five days of snow is the move. Because I get with the kids, how excited they get. You go out of snowmen. you go on the sleds. Yep. But then we got to go back in the house. We take the boots off. I have to get 15 layers.

And we got to put 15 layers back on to go back outside. It's like. And not to mention you're only outside for like 20 minutes. Yeah. Like they can't the second there's snow in the pants or in the shirt. Moment tears are to come. Yeah. Just crying.

Their hands. They don't want their gloves on, but their hands are cold. Right. And they don't know that. And they're talking about the gloves on inside the house. Yeah. If having the gloves on, my hands won't be cold. Right.

But I'm mad just my hands are cold. But I'm also mad because I'm always mad because I'm glad because I'm glad. So obviously you're very familiar with the transfer portal. Yes. And how it all works. Yes, I am. If the transfer portal existed in 2009, my freshman year of college, that first snowfall, I would have been, I'm out of you. I am gone.

Yeah, I would have been a portal guy. Okay. So that's freshman year 2009. 2009. So we're same age then. 34? 35. 36.

I'll be 36 next month. So we have a early birthday, man. Not the same age. Those are your. I'm July. I'm July. I graduated high school in 2009. I graduated high school in 2009.

Okay, I'm 08. I was 08. 08, baby. Keeping it alive. Yeah. Soon as you get up. Keep in the life. There's not many of us left.

Do you know what I mean? Ooh, yeah. Yeah. I can't. It's just quickly approaching the day when people are like, man, dude, my dad was one of the 1900s, bro. That's not going to happen, dude. We're going to be those guys.

Yeah. Our kids are going to be like, dude, I can't believe that guy was around and, 1900 like 1990 that guy was yeah that's in that weird it's brutal to think about it is brutal I see things on Instagram where they go up to kids like hey well how old is old if like oh if you're born in 2000 year old and it's like 2000 yeah yeah that was nine damn 25 they think 25's old I guess so man these kids just you know these kids are man yeah lost generation is what they have protecting their brains from concussions they get these kids Believing in concussions.

Believing. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it's just crazy word, dude. Yeah, it's crazy. And also, Will was born in 89. Ooh, 1988. Yeah. Doesn't that feel disgusting?

It feels, it does, yeah. It feels antique at this point. You're vintage. A lot of patina. You know what I mean? Yeah. That is wild. Yeah.

But anyway, man, yeah, snow days are, I love snow days. love snow days. As soon as we get to the week, we're out. Snow week's tough. Snow week's tough. And in Nashville, it's, it's a snow week, dude. Like, they're shutting down. Like, in Michigan, they're like, whatever. Let's just back to work. They keep a pushing

on that. What, dude? No doubt. Well, Boone was the same way, man. It was like, if it snowed up there, it was like, big whoop, dude, get to class. Yeah. Yeah. Unless the buses couldn't run. Right. Spoiler alert, if you're going to App State, the buses always can run. Genetically engineered the buses to always run in the snow. So you're never getting any snow days up there.

So your freshman year of college was 08? Oh, no. You know what's coming next, don't you? I know what's coming. That was actually my senior year of high school. I'd rather just get back. It was actually my senior year of it. Yeah, I mean, I've got the jersey.

What the jersey? The Armani Edwards game jersey. No way. If you want to come see it. Yeah, I'll let you come see it if you want. That's real crazy. Just Taylor holding the jersey, oh, smiling. Just.

Yeah, you like brought that up. Like the movie for, like, oh, I went to Ab State. I'm thinking, I was in high school. I wasn't going to say anything. No, you knew. You brought it up. You said, Abstay, you said, oh, you were a Michigan guy. I see where you're headed.

We all know. You got a beautiful brain. Your brain still functions fully. And I could keep up with that. I could keep up with it. It's almost like, it's in like, it's, it was inevitable. It was going to happen. Yeah.

I wouldn't have said anything. Were you a huge, were like, were you a big App State college football fan? I was. Yeah. because I knew I wanted to go to school there. Did you know Jeremy Kimbrough? Yeah, he was playing there.

Yeah, linebacker. He was undrafted. He was on the Redskins with me. Dude, he was a stud, dude. Yeah, he's, I think he works on like a NASCAR pit crew now. A lot of those guys do. A lot of guys do. He could thump, bro.

He was like, maybe he might have like the career record for tackles. There's a chance. He was a monster. Yeah. He was good, man. We've had some good players in and out, man. The transfer portal era has really crushed a school like ours, man. It's really tough.

Like, you were already. I wouldn't say I wouldn't go that far, you know. But it's like, I don't know, now it's before it was like you get all these undersized, underrecruited guys. And it was, listen, I love that the guys can make money. That is beautiful, by the way. Oh, my God. It's beautiful, dude.

Jesus. I mean, it's just, you see it in the fall. dude is even crazier put that thing in the fall for me buddy put it you don't even have to a i at some places you don't even have to a i bang it's that beautiful dude that's real that's real yeah that's a real spot and uh it was great going to school there so then the michigan game was my senior year of high school and i was i was i was trying to go to app i didn't know if i was like going to get in or not yeah there's the baseball field insane that's got a filter that's a crazy filter. But it's been the transfer thing has really hurt us, man, because we don't have a ton of,

like, there's not a ton of money coming in and out. You donate? That's cool. I'm not doing. You're an NIL guy? I'm not donating. I feel like I need some concessions. Oh, what do you want? I need some assurances. I'm not giving someone a good chunk, dude, to come there for a season. Let's just, hey, let's pretend we're on a podcast right now. Okay. An app state person might come across this clip right now for you to donate to Appalachia State what do you what do you need? Contracts. Players. Player contracts.

Two year? Yep. Got to have it. Two year, got to have it. Guarantee you have to have it. One year's not enough. And you want to know which guy you got to. Because if they got, well, it's not even that.

It's more like any player. That's my guy out there. But no and it's like. Buying players. So wild. It's a wild thing. That's weird to think about, man. Getting into some dicey.

water. Very dicey waters there. But listen, dude, that one's mine up there. Yeah, dude. I'm freaking out there. That one right there.

Bought and paid for two-year contract. How close those eyes are, dude. Guy are so close. It's crazy, dude. But, dude, I love, I mean,

I'm die-hard at me. We had a really tough season this season. Worst season I've seen in a long time. And I just don't know, I just don't know that in the portal era that we're in now that a school like us, and this is going to be such a hot take, I'm going to get absolutely eviscerated by our fans. I would love to see us go back down to FCS.

Because then there's a chance that you win a national championship. I mean, the best thing that can happen to us is get beat by Oregon by 50 points. Buddy, that's the end of the season. You are singing to me right now. It's like, that's the best thing we got, dude, is we need. Oregon State one like one year. Don't count it. And that was barely.

That was barely, dude. That's not even a highlight of the season, dude. Or you get a G5 playoff. Right, which is get beat by Oregon by 60 points. But I'm saying G5. G5 had their own playoff. I've been preaching this for a while. Group of five, like make it a whole different league, basically.

Yeah. Group of five national champion. Power five national champion. Yeah, 100%. Something. G5 audience swinging in air right now. hate it too. He's like, they're like one of us is saying this right now, which breaks their heart. No, it's, and listen, dude, it would be cool and it brings, but the, the amount of PR that we got from winning those three national championships at the FCS level and the Michigan game is huge, dude.

That was, so going in to that year, like, I think App State was the hardest school in North Carolina to get in behind Duke that year. Because so many people applied and wanted to go to school there just because of those games. and now to know that we won't have those games anymore or it won't like we won't ever get to touch or taste that thing and that was enough for me. I love that we are Division I, it's cool to me like I'm so proud to have went to school there and I want to be a part of that.

But I mean like again dude like I think sometimes like people think I'm Jeff Bezos too like where they're like, dude give us $10 million. And I'm like, what? I'm like, hold on a second, dude. Let's reevaluate the thing here. Yeah, you show them the full bank account there. You're like, hey, we're not. This is crazy.

Yeah, what about like 10,000? What do you think about that? Does I get you going or what? It's like, I mean, I would want to, but it would be really hard to know that, you know, the players that you're helping are also going to ultimately leave. because, you know, you think about, I mean, App State doesn't win three national championships in the poor era. They win one. And then all the players leave and go somewhere else.

And then you start over. Yeah. We start over every single year, dude. Who's, I've been on the team? They don't even know any of the guys on the team. There's like two guys from last season on the whole team. And how do you develop? Like, how does your fan base not feel robbed every single year?

And not that they're doing anything that anyone else isn't doing. it's like that everywhere. Even at the bigger school, it's like one guy gets mad at his position coach and doesn't get to play one game. But the fucking I'm transferring that. Yeah. Like what kind of precedent is that setting for these kids too, man? Like that's not the way life works, dude.

Like it's just not a sustainable model for even the rest of your life, let alone your football career. Yeah. You know, but it's the, I mean, it's the, I mean, that's the world we live in right now. So you've got to figure it out. But I think there does need to be some, something needs to change at some point. And when when that changes, I don't know. You know, God, you're preaching right now, man.

It's a bigger conversation, you know. So, how'd you become a, uh, I'd you become a, uh, Georgia fan? I'm not. You know, there's a big misconception that I'm a Georgia fan that I have SEC allegiances. I don't have any particular. I'm glad we can address these rumors. Yeah. I was told by a Georgia bulldog.

Wow. That you were a Georgia fan. Interesting. That's interesting. I'm trying to, because I've been waiting to go public with this. for a long time. And listen, my kids, they can go to school wherever they want as long as it's upstate.

They can go anywhere. They will be going there, whether they like it or not. But say my children do go to another school against my own will, you know, which there would be allowed to if it came down to it. But I feel like I'm as a young fan, I'm diehard Carolina Panthers guy. That's my thing. It has been forever. I'm five years old.

I'm living in Charlotte when they become a team, right? Like I am washed in the blood of the Panthers. It just has to be that way. Yeah. There's no going back. But I didn't have growing up in North Carolina, you don't really, my dad, my dad liked NFL. He's from Ohio. He liked the Browns.

And the Browns went away, and he became a Panthers fan when the Panthers became a team. So we didn't. My dad didn't go to college. And my mom went to Western Carolina for like a semester. So I didn't have a lot of this. So we didn't have like, I didn't have this big like power five thing in our house where it was like house divided. Like, you know, like we didn't have that. Yeah.

So I do create that on my own, which is I'm an app state guy, ride or die no matter what. But it's like I almost feel like I've been like where do I want my kids to be like I want my kids to have a chance to win an Addy as a fan. Like how do I do that? Who do you pick? Michigan. Michigan. It's like everyone has been so great to us. We played games everywhere.

And, you know, it's hard to kind of like, it's scary to pick one because then you're there. You know what I mean? But I feel like it's time. Like, my kids are going to like football in the next like two or three years. And like I can just be getting afraid of the light at the end of the tunnel as it creeps ever closer. To being like, we are this fan of this thing. Right. And they're not going to, all they know, I've been a fan.

I've been a fan my whole life. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like I want them to have that experience of like going to a game, you know, at, you know, Sanford Stadium or wherever to the big house. And like feeling like a part of that, I've been to a ton of those games, but I'm not like, it's not the same as if you go and you've been a Michigan van your whole life. But like I want that for my kids because I didn't have that same thing. I had the upstate thing. That was beautiful.

And it was I wouldn't trade it for the world. And my kids will be at a state fence, no choice. Right. But like, but you ain't winning a natty at half state. It's just not going to happen right now. It's right. Yeah. Is there where Georgia came in at?

What's the addressing? So I got, so one of my best friends in the world was a, um, a grad assistant at Georgia. Um, we wrote winning Raines of Ports together. We've written a couple number ones together. Uh, his name's Ray Fulcher. He guys may have run across me. He's a great dude and lives here in town. And, um, he was a, he was a, um, student assistant there like,

when like Stafford was there like David Pollock years that kind of stuff so he's like would jump in front of a bus for Kirby Smart like right now like if I called it out's like dude Kirby's Kirby's got a flat tire he's in Miami he's like I'm driving I'm there like he is absolutely in and but like just seeing people that have that passion for that and I've I've just inherently like become friends with a lot of people who are are big time Georgia fans. And so ultimately, like we did, I did a show in Athens this year for, I have a sponsorship with Columbia Sportswear. And I did an underplay at the Georgia theater this year, like a surprise show. Like we announced it the morning of the show. And then did college game day.

Actually, Bailey Zimmerman was the musical guest, but I was in town. So we came and did a song we have together for that. And I've had some great, great memories in Athens. Man, it's a really fun town. But I'm getting down to like having to picked. And I feel like I'm going to have to like make an announcement at some point. Yeah. I am this fan, dude. You know what I mean? Like do I need like do we need the hats out?

Got to get the hats. I mean. I think you have to make it dramatic. So like I know I'm going to have that upstate hat on. It's going to be known that that's number one, dude. Like hope whoever team doesn't play app. Right. This is your giving my kids hope.

This is like giving my kids like as like SEC, Big Ten. kind of like that whole thing. That moment. That moment. Do lean one way or the other on SEC or baked ten? And we're just have, this is now gone from a podcast. We're just thinking about what's best for your children.

100%. What it feels, and what it feels too is you're, your AF state, number one, right or die. But now you're trying to choose a fandom of who could potentially win a national title. In their life.

I'm not going to be the guy that's like, I'm going to just, who's winning a bunch of them. Let's just be fans of them. That's not the road. Like, I want them to have some misery. They need some misery in their lives. Let me introduce you to the 2025 Michigan Wolverine.

That's your school right there. 1-1-23. Head coach leaves, a bunch of allegations of whether they cheated or not. A lot of things going on. Bad year, seven and five, we get the number one quarterback in the all of college football or high school football. They say he's the greatest thing of all time. He has an underwhelming year this year. Turns out he never had a quarterback coach.

head coach allegedly having an affair with somebody wild stuff yeah he's true insert Kyle Whittingham from Utah who spent 27 years the head coach of Utah yeah comes over retains his roster has a top 16 portal or I think they just came out with a number 11 overall roster one of the youngest teams in the big 10 you're saying there's hope I'm saying there's hope I'm not saying there's hope I'm saying there's opportunity there's no way I'm not getting boot out of that stadium because I'm showing up in app stuff every I can never get over it.

It's like they've ruined it. Like, they've ruined it. Like, you know? You know what? That hurts. It's probably best you're not with us. Because the reason you're getting booed out, I'm like, yeah, he's probably right. You would get booed out of that stadium.

Yeah, I would. You'd be a good cornhusker. Oh, you'd be a good cornhusker. See, I feel like right now my biggest thing against me is time and accessibility to games. You know what I mean? Like, I live in Tennessee. Like, my kids are from Tennessee. Yeah.

Like, do they need to be Tennessee fans? Like, that's where they grew up. Like, I think... What city do you live in? I live here. What school is? Vanderbilt guy. So I'm more of a public school guy, though.

I like that. You know what I mean? I like that. Like college basketball, I'm going Tarr. I know Michigan's out, but that's public school. I'm a lot of work. Because I'm, uh, basketball, Tar Heels guy. You know, growing up in North Carolina, you got to pick.

You're Carolina, you're Duke. NC State. Sometimes. Sometimes. You got to pick. So there's Carolina basketball. I already get ripped apart by the app fans just because there's pictures of me in the Carolina

stuff. You know what I mean? I get shredded for that. But proximity, we're pitching UK now. We're getting some pitches. I think we're just throwing up. It's a mind of the brainstorm. We're helping the brainstorm. Vandy's still the hometown squad.

I think of the amount of games you can take the kiddos to. And they're on the come up. They're on the come up. Allegedly. Allegedly. They flipped that kid down the street. The five-star kid. Who was at?

Georgia. Georgia. He was at Georgia. Right. Man, what an interesting thing that is. What do you think happens there? Yeah, Tennessee would be a good one too, though. De Niro?

Tannero. Right? 100%. It's got to be. But how do you work that out? Like, let's say you've already given a kid a bunch of money or something. I don't even know how this works. Let's say allegedly you give this high school kid a bunch of monies in high school.

And then he decommits on signing day. Like, does he owe you the money back? Like, how does that work? I think he's got to sign first before you give him the money. Yeah. But it's happening. This day and age, the kids can sign. And then flip.

I think the more getting close to the like where we're honing it in, kids, the whole thing, volunteers might be your team. They're close. They're close three hours away. It's good fan base too. And they're not a team. They haven't won, right? Quarterback this year, App State guy, Joey Aguilar.

Yeah. Up state guy. Had a pretty good season. He did well. Oh, wow, really? Oh, my gosh. We're getting fancy. I'm getting compliments.

You're getting recruited. He's getting recruited. Every time you talked about how ugly you are, Jack was in his head going, no way. He was shaking his head back there going, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's like, it's all about how you present yourself. Right. He's trying to give me like, oh.

Or is a little bit. This is what Jack sees. That's what Jackson's. Tennessee face hat is wild, dude. Like a temp tattoo, you know. Game Day. That could be me on Game Day, dude. Just sure.

off. I come out looking like Jason Mamma, dude, just like full shirt off, face hat. Hell yeah. That'd be wild. Tennessee might have to be your school. So you think I go away for a year all publicly. Like nobody sees me. Hit the steroids. We talked about that. Full tribals, which is going to be weird. Probably people are going to think that's weird. And then come on college game day. That's when people hear I'm shirt off, absolutely jacked, face tattoo of whatever team I decide. The few hats in front of you make it like a LeBron the decision.

Three official visits would be wild. Here's what I think. We're filming this. Can we say when we're filming this? I know this comes out in March, but this is being filmed on January 19th, 2026. Good. I think January 19th, 2027, you come back

on the bus and give us an official. You put the hat on. It doesn't have to be a podcast. We just get you in there. Gosh, that gets a lot of doubt. You give us your talk. You have a full year. Full year for people to sell you on why you should become a fan of your other school.

And every college town, every college town you go and play in, you now claim it as you're taking an official visit. Yeah. Official visit. I am doing some colleges. You're doing some OVs. I'm doing, I'm doing Ames. I'm doing Iowa State. Doing Notre Dame.

Nice. You go, Will. Yeah. Notre Dame would be a good one. Wow. Wow. Do Notre Dame doing Knoxville, actually. Doing a show in Knoxville.

You play it right. Interesting. That's a good opportunity for you to be hosted. So maybe I get walling out, Chesney comes out. Yeah, a lot of Tennessee guys, a lot of Tennessee guys. You're the only one getting a- Peyton comes out, you know, we do a little catch me and him. Probably.

If we get a video from Peyton Manning, are you committing on the spot, you think? Who's one person that you'd be like, I gotta go there. There he's. I love Darius, man. I do love Darius. He's Gamecock, yeah. See, I got a lot of South Carolina ties, too.

I got people pulling me in all directions. It is 80th. Her 80th today. Happy birthday, Dolly. Yep. And when you go to these schools, you need to get, you need to go through the ringer of all the, you know, photos they take. God. God.

You should have to get the Jersey zone and get the gloves. We can, hey, I'm the look super jagged. Bro, you got to do that at least once. That would be really funny, actually. That would be a great video series to do. Of like every school I go to. Yeah. I'm like, give me an official visit.

Give me an official visit. You know what I mean? Just do like a LeBron James, the decision. Yeah. That is crazy. Oh, man, that's funny, dude. That would be, that's, I think the official visit thing has some legs. Absolutely.

Oh, yeah. I think that's some good content. It's literally just your team reaching out to them being like, Luke would love to have a tour of your facility and then be like, oh, my God, yes. And we usually do that anyways. But we would just film it and it would just be a little bit more ridiculous. And you got to do a photo shoot. That's what we need to do right there.

Go to a game. Go to an half state game. I would love that. Yeah. Fliped. Yeah. Flip on signing day. How many?

How many? Oh, we'll do it on signing day. I'll pick on signing day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'll flip at the end. We thought we had them. Like he did the visit and everything. He drank, we drank like 15 Gatorades.

He didn't even need any. He didn't even need any. He didn't. I think he's just drinking those because they're like sodas kind of. gives me that vibe that he just drinks him. He thinks they're good for him. You know what I mean? He thinks they're healthy.

Yeah. Yeah, he's giving me that vibe. This needs to happen, man. This could be a massive 26 for you. I think so. A massive year. How many upstate games you go to a year? Didn't go to one this year.

Yep. It's tough. Didn't go to one this year. Not because I didn't want to. It's hard to get. My first stadium show ever was an app. One of my favorite shows. I mean, of all time, dude, you know, I mean, just never beat that moment for me.

I mean, it's really selfishly, like, I would honestly love my kids to go there just so I could go back all the time. I mean, it's like probably my favorite place in the world. I've just so many great memories there. And, you know, it's where my career started. It's where, you know, my sadness ended from not knowing what I was going to do the rest of my life. You know, and just like, I mean, those games there, man, like they're, I mean, those are great people, dude, and they're great fans. and it's just electric, dude. I mean, that, and that's what I say when I say, like, I want something to happen in the college football world because, like, I want to be able to have that back.

Like, I miss that. Like, even though we weren't Division 1, the games, like, meant more right now. Because right now it feels like we're a farm team for, you know, these Power 5 schools. Players come in for a year. They play. They do well. It stinks, dude. It warms my heart that.

For him, it just comes back to the idea of college football. It really does, man. Like, he's playing in some real games again. I do, man. Like, come on. I want it. You know? I might have to go to Appstate for the Spring Tour and App State.

Dude, you might have to go to App State for the spring tour. I did tell some of my buddies, I was like, listen, your kids go to App State, I'll pay for it. I'm not going to lie and say I haven't said that to people. And pretty much meant it, really. Pretty much meant it. I'm like, pretty much like seriously, if your kids go there, I'll pay for it. I'll sponsor you. Just so like we can all be fans together and there's a bunch of us and we're all like.

Yeah. Paying for fandom is a crazy move, but you won't pay for players. No. Because the fandom's forever. Fandoms forever, dude. The players for a year. I don't get paid to be a fan. It costs me to be a fan now at this point.

And I'm paying guys. It's really costing me. So I'm going to be a fan at that's a fair point. But I think I would just need concessions. I would need to know that you're going to be there for two years. That's it. I'm not asking you to be there four years. If you turn out to be a first round talent, I want you to go on and be great.

somewhere else. I think that's the beauty of those schools is there were so many guys that were great when I was there that never got, they never got recruited by these big teams and they balled out at App State. They went to the league. There's guys that are crushing in the league that went to App State right now, you know, and we had that history of, that was our whole identity as a team was like guys that just were an inch too short or 10 pounds too light or their 40 speed was just not fast enough, but they had heart twice the size of guys with, with, you know, bigger frames than them. Yeah.

And that's how, I mean, Jerry Moore, one of those games there, man, was he recruited a certain type of player. And now those players don't, they just don't, there's no incentive for them to stay. Yeah. You know what I mean? Other than what it was like, they just want to go there because that might be a chance to play well and go somewhere else. You know, it's like, I don't know.

It's just like, I mean, imagine a guy goes like. He's stuck two to, like, pay for, say, one player and he was a good player, to still, if it only put, you know, production on the field of still, like, a losing season. Or, like, right about 500. Yeah, exactly. Even if he's telling you he'll stay for two years. Right. Right.

It's like, shit, why am I just throwing my money for us to still have a mediocre season? Yeah. Darington Evans, former teammate was AppState. Yeah. Yeah, he was an Appstate cat. Love to stream. Extreme streaming guy. Akeem Davis Gator.

App State guy. Yep. Yep. App State guy. We've had a bunch. We got a couple of linemen in the league, man. We've always put some guys in the, always have guys get drafted every year, basically. Yeah.

But I don't know that that might not, that doesn't change now, you know. Because like any transfers we get are either they're still on the ride up and they're still going to leave or they're on the way down. It's guys that underperformed and they're like, well, now I got to go. These guys that hit the portal, nobody wanted them. Oh, right. Yeah, right. Exactly.

So it's kind of a, it just kind of sets you up for that thing. And obviously coaching matters, but like, how does a coach get to build any consistency with a player that has a new scheme every year? Different skill sets, different guys, different coaches every year, different facility. Like, they don't even, like, they're basically on a vacation in a town they play football. And, like, you come there and stay for not even a whole year. How does that build any? How does that build anything?

How do you build a cold? around that as a coach. Yeah, it's like the team right, the camaraderie of the locker room, keeping everybody together, you lose, it's your sophomore year and you're like next year's our year. Exactly. Exactly. Like this is our year. Right. Everybody will be back. 90% of these guys will be here next year. Right. What's the Indiana thing, dude? We got to talk about it. What's happened there? What has happened? No clue. Big Nettie, bro. Bro. Big Nettie is. It's wild. It's wild. This is the greatest coaching we've ever seen in the history of the game. I talk to people that I know about this.

Like I try to explain it to people that I know that don't like pay that much attention to football. Like someone that doesn't like that listens to Taylor Swift is explaining to someone that doesn't listen to Taylor Swift about her albums. Yeah. I'm like it's that big of a deal, guys. You don't understand. No top 300 players. It never happens. It doesn't happen.

There's no five star guys. Yeah. He's got 44 guys that are 24 and 25 years old that are just production. He's like, I'm over production versus potential. They're the best coach team. They don't make mistakes. Yeah. The fucking back shoulder throw all day, every day, dude.

Their back shoulder is unstoppable. It's unstoppable. Well, he's, and he's just, I mean, Mendoza's just an impenetrable mind, dude. He's just like, he's got the AI brain. He's like, oh, shoot. He got AI brain for sure. Shoot. Dude.

The guy says, shoot. He's a dog and he doesn't even know he's a dog, dude. He's a dog that doesn't even know how to bar. That's the best kind. A hundred percent of best kind, dude. And you see his family on the sideline. They're so sweet, dude. Everybody's so nice.

Amazing. How can you not love the guy? You have to. I love him. You have to love him. I love every time he's on the mic after a game. Oh, bro. Because he's fired up.

His voice is like, yeah. Just talking about how greatest teammates are on how we're all together. It's like, holy- Yeah, he's like, we won the glue. Everything you want with football. He's like, I just want to be one of the guy. laughing as he fingers around the microphones he's telling him too he's like intention i was joking with my wife about this the other day he did an interview and i'm like he's gonna be like it was so

they were doing some spotlight on him on ESPN before maybe the quarterfinal game or something and he's like well yeah like i just wanted to come in and establish that i'm one of the guys that was like his thing he said and i told my wife i'm like i bet that all the guys on the team are like this guy, like, we have to tell this guy all year he's not one of the guys unless we win the natty. He's never one of the guys. Like, he will be. We just don't tell him.

He's one of the guys. And so the whole time he's like, I think if we can win the natty, like, I might get to be one of the guys. Maybe all the guys were like, want to go out to dinner and like hang out and stuff after practice. And like, that's been his motivation the entire time. Just he wants to be accepted by his kids. Yeah. Like he wants his teammates to be like, that's my guy over there. And he's like, yes.

Like, they win the natty. And he's like, they're all hug. game and yeah he's like I'm one of the guys man and they're like holding the thing he's like on the phone with his parents after each day saying like you know he's like mom all the kids in school really like me now yeah yeah yeah it's like that's so awesome forever friend I'm yeah we're like dude like none of us are hitting the portal now yeah just we're not even going to get drafted we just want to hang man we're just hang guys you know I just picture there's one player on the team that has held back everybody else from being one of the guys with him and then they win the

natty and it's like maverick and iceman and the first top one When he goes and shakes his hand, they have this long look at each other and he's finally done it. And then he grabs the trophy and lifts it up. It's the Schwarzenegger, like, you son of a bitch, dude. They just do the fucking muscles are like going. Yes, dude. Yeah, that's awesome. It would be.

Yeah. I love your passion for college football. Oh, I'm a huge. I love your passion for it. I'm a diehard football fan, man. It's like, it's all I give a shit about sports wise, really in a lot of ways. How about your passion for this next album? I got a lot.

I got a lot of it. Not quite as much as college football, but as much as college football. Okay, I'm talking. We're done talking college ball. I'm like, damn, football talks over. I just, we don't have to do this. Mom, I was really hitting it off

with the weird talking college ball. They wanted to plug my album. It's like, mom, me and the busing guys played four square. Like, I really think they think I'm cool, dude. Like, it was awesome. I think I'm one of the guys. I think I'm one of the guys. It's like, but no, this, this record,

it's, it's been a long time coming for me. You know, I did Fathers and Sons two years ago, and that was like, never supposed to be like a commercial success like that wasn't the reason that we put that record out and that was something i wanted to do for myself and for my kids and you know just something that i hoped that you know people could relate to in some sense and it was that i think you know i i do you know not a lot of people have heard that record but the people that did hear it really love it and uh so i'm i'm very proud of that but it's been i mean it's coming up on four years now since i've

put out a record where I'm like, okay, well, let's actually like, let's get in the game. You know what I mean? Like get in the on deck circle, take a couple hacks at it, get up to the plate, see what we can do. Like, I basically, you know, purposefully kept myself on the sidelines, like trying to raise my boys and, you know, just playing enough shows to kind of keep my momentum going a little bit. And also give people a breather, man. Like I think sometimes taking time away is a really good thing. You know, I was I was really, really popular at the time that, you know, my, the fast car stuff came out and then it just got even bigger.

And I feel like people were just seeing so much of me all the time. I'm like, man, people must be sick of like seeing me all the time on stuff, you know. And so in my mind, I'm going, well, why not just kind of step away, take things at my own speed, be around with my kids and my wife and build that, you know, that bond with my boys. you know, let my wife know that me and my family is my top priority. But, you know, I'm ready to kind of step into this next chapter and see what it looks like, man, this record is my way of doing that, you know, and going, hey, man, I still feel like I can write, you know, really, you know, successful, like commercially viable stuff. That's something I think, you know, my core fan base has been dying for for a long time.

And I hope this album delivers, delivers for them. I put myself fully into this and spent a lot of time working on it. I recorded 40 songs for this record. It's 22 songs, but I recorded 40 and narrowed it down to the number it's at now. And I just felt like it's the best that I got, man. So if it doesn't work, I'm kind of screwed. But, you know, I still got college football. Yeah.

I still got my commitment to look forward to it. But it's, yeah, it's exciting, man. And it's, you know, it's not, it's not reinventing the wheel by any, you know, stretch of the imagination. You know, I, I think it's me pushing myself in within the bounds of what I already do. You know, it's not like I set out to make a dance record or something. You know what I mean? Like, it's, you know, it's what I think a lot of my fans have come to expect.

And then I also think, you know, fans that I may have been introduced to in the last couple years via the fast car thing or via some of the festivals we played last year can like can listen to and go okay i like this i can get into this you know um it's not the extreme version of you know of anything it's really like what i want to do the songs i love the kind of music i like the shit i want to do with my buddies which is the same thing i did on my first record and my second record and you know it was just always that was basically just me and my boys writing stuff and what's what's the best stuff we got that we've come up with in the last two years and this is it you know it's like i don't want to try to make it sound any more poetic than it needs to be it's just i mean it's just

you know i'm throwing gas like that's i'm trying to do like i'm trying to throw fastballs down the middle i'm not trying to do anything special in a sense where it's it's not going to come out of left field man you know what i mean it's just going to be right down the middle i think um stuff that I hope people will love. What, uh, when you're releasing an album, is your seventh album right now? Oh, sixth. Sixth album. When you're releasing album, what is like the highest stress point for you when the,

when the album is released? Is it like knowing what the first 24 hours look like? Um, the first week looks like. I don't worry as much. It's like, I feel like the, the pressure is already off a little bit because like, sleepless in a hotel room came out and it's doing so well. Um, so I know. like if people like that,

then I think there's going to be other stuff on the album that they love. And like if we had, if this record was coming out and there was no songs that had been kind of come out before the record, like no instant grad stuff that had done well, I would be really concerned about it. I'd be like, man,

because like when you're doing the pre-release stuff, you're trying to kind of like, you're showing them like a little bit of your hand. Like you're not just given strictly B-side songs. maybe one or two, but if you instant grab four of the 22, like two of those you're hoping are like, two of those are kind of like, hey man, like here's a little bit of what the album is going to be like. So you really want one of those songs to take off. Now, which one is it going to be?

You never really know. So that would have been the biggest trust point for me. For me, it's narrowing the songs down. Like getting to the point, like making the track list from 40 to 22 is really hard. because if I've recorded the song like I love it I think it's a great song and I would love for people to get to hear it but I'm not going to put out a 40 song record it's just not like something that works for me so it was tough to get rid of you know 18 songs because there are songs that I believe in that I think are good and but you just can't you can't have everything on there you know what I mean I mean you could I guess but I wanted people to it to be an album that I felt like people could digest in one sitting if they wanted to do that, but also be enough stuff to where they go, well, man, you haven't really given us a record in four years. So it better not be 10 songs. Yeah. Or we're going to be pissed. Like, that's all we get.

Like, seen a sequel to your favorite movie and it's been 10 years and it's 30 minutes. And you're like, that's the whole movie. That's it. Like, all we got was 30 minutes. It was good. A good 30 minutes, but it's supposed to be two hours. What happened? You know what I mean? So it's, I don't know. There's just a lot of, there's so many unknowns with music. too, man. Like, anytime I think a song is going to be big, it's usually not. I don't know. It just works that way. So I'm thankful for there having been a lot of songs that I didn't think would be good because those have all turned out really well. So maybe that's the magic. You just don't try to, I've learned you just can't pick what people are going to like. They're just going to like what they like. And you can't really predict it as much as you would think. Every once in a while, you get one right. But most of the time, it's like, I don't know. I don't know what people are going to like. It's crap shoot.

You just put them all out and see which one they love the most. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy stuff. We've talked about a lot of things today. A lot of subjects have taken place where we have the Bud Light question. Okay. And we know that anybody would do anything for a nice cold, crisp Bud Light.

What is something that Luke Combs would do anything for? Can't say family. Ooh. Can't say family. I have one in my head right now and it's like, if he doesn't hit this. Is he really what he says? he is. Probably like fried baloney

sandwich. You know, that's definitely close. That was my thought too, Sherey. I was like, if he doesn't say this.

I thought you were talking about stuff that could actually happen. Oh. Fried. Fried baloney sandwich. Now, that,

you're talking like fantasy stuff that's I'm talking in the degree would you do anything for, bro. And he doesn't have to be oh,

Panther Super Bowl. Panther Super Bowl over an App State Natty D-1 Oh God Yeah Yeah Or a fried baloney sandwich It's both good

Can you rank those three Fried baloney sandwich You rank those three for us I can get any day It's pretty good though Fried baloney sandwich at the Super Bowl Fried baloney sandwich watching the Panthers Play App State in the Super Bowl

Perfect day Yeah Yeah get the chips off there though They get the chips. Really? On the fry bologna. I like chips on sandwiches, but not my fried bologna. Some things are sacred, damn it.

Some things are sacred, damn it, you know? No, okay. So if Abstate and Addy, yeah, that would like, but that to in this realm of like reality, it's like it can't really happen right now. Just it just can't. Like, you guys get that. You know that right now. It's not like a thing that can happen right now.

I would love that, now that's WIC. That's insane right there. That's way too thick of a baloney slice for a sandwich. That's a baloney steak, I believe they call that. Yeah. That's a filet. Yeah. Flay bologna.

But Panther Super Bowl, yeah. I'm selling the farm on that, man. Like, I would just, I'd do anything for that. That's my, like I've been there and I've watched us lose two. And it's just, it sucks, bro. Do you ever, do you ever think about that last Super Bowl? all the time. And I think about Cam Newton

not jumping on that fumble? All the time, bro, that's all I think about it. As a fan, what were you thinking when Cam Newton didn't jump on that fumble? Because that's like first drive, second, that was early in the game,

I believe. The first drive of the game, I don't know if that's when the fumble happened or not. First drive of the game, I knew we weren't going to win. First drive. That's got to be a painful reality. It was.

And it was like, wow, Vaughn Miller is going to win this game all by himself. and he did. The Broncos defense won the game, that game, and it was heartbreaking because we had, I mean, dude, we don't, you know, we don't choke out against the Falcons in the last game of the season. We're undefeated, dude. We lost one game the whole season. Lost of the Atlanta Falcons, the last game of the season, and lost the Super Bowl.

And that team was like, felt unstoppable in a lot of respects, man. like that team just fives like i mean you have all the pieces are in place dude i mean everybody's there you know and you're just like how did it not happen how did it not happen yeah i just don't know i mean keekly like he's up i mean top i mean he's probably my favorite player of all time i would say i mean it's like guy was an animal bro guy was an animal animal animal love that cat dude yeah and he's like no social media no social media guy like doesn't do anything man like doesn't do any of the stereotypical stuff that we're all doing he's everything you want a live backer yeah it's like not like doesn't care to be the center of attention guy like he's just

absolute film rat like i remember talking to um ben jones you know ben i know ben's a ben was my dog that said you were a georgia bulldog fan to my face wow oh my gosh i didn't want to say his name but you brought him up yes ben jones ben's a stud god god He is a stud. He is all the time. He is the toughest guy ever me. He is an awesome. And bless you.

And I remember Ben, I was talking to Ben one time when he was still playing. And this is when Keeckley, that's kind of that, I don't know if it was that year, but it was that same team, same core team. Yeah. Cam, Keekley, Greg Olson, the whole cast of characters we had, Thomas Davis. I remember they came to town. The Panthers came and did a joint practice. you're probably on the Titans at this time. I remember Ben telling me

as I was asking him about the whole Keeckley thing and he was like, bro, that guy's insane. I'm like, what do you mean? He knew every play we were going to run. Every time. He's higher practice. And he's like, so, you know, Thomas Davis went to Georgia, Ben went to Georgia, obviously.

And he's like, hey, we were going to get lunch. And he's like, dude, let's invite Kikley to lunch. And Thomas Davis was like, oh, dude, he's not going to lunch. He's like, what do you mean? He's not going to lunch. He's like, he's going to watch film. dude he's not going to lunch like he's the only got like he never he doesn't do anything else like he practices and watches film and works out and goes to bed and like that's what he does

and he's not gonna like hang out he doesn't want to like hang out or like yeah rumor has it when he first got in the league he didn't buy a tv damn he's just all ball he's just had a football on the wall, dude. He just watched it, dude. He just sat there looking at it. I'm getting that ball. I'm getting that ball. He was wild, bro. He was incredible, man. When he retired early, I was devastated.

Sam. Dude, so that practice, you're talking about that joint practice. When we go to teams, the first play we came out, he was like, run this way. And I'm like thinking, how the fuck? Does he know that? Like, how would he have any idea? It's the first day. Connor Stallings.

Yeah. Yeah. Probably. See you're on staff? Yeah, you think Connor was working with him back then? This had to be what, like 16? Alius. Yeah, different names.

Was it 16 or 17? Was it Stallions? Was it that a name? Such a cool ass name, though. Connor Stallions. Connor Stallions. Gosh. But yeah, dude, he called out, I think there was like nine plays in that one verse

ones and he called out seven of them. And when we called the screen and he called out the screen, and I was like, well, this is dead. This is, even before the ball snapped, be like it's over and we're not going to check in anything right now because it's practice how do you beat that dude like you how do you don't you how do you don't you don't know we would play the panthers and uh rable the head coach would come and be like you block 59 59 right yeah 59 you buy you block 59 you're gonna you're gonna

have an opportunity to win the game you don't block them the game's over like that's how significant he was to his team it's just he's a legend I remember when we drafted him I was like, I was like, who the fuck is this guy? I'm like, bro, get me like, get me. Brandon Spice. Give me somebody. Good, dude. Like, who is this guy, dude?

Boston College. This guy looks like a guy hung out with the high school. What is this guy? And then he's not, though. He's not a guy hung out. I was going to say, I don't think that looks. That's CMC. Ripped, shred it out.

Yeah. Shred it out. But yeah, look at this guy. Killer. Stalian Clark Kent is good Yeah Truly like put the uniform on and just become an Absolute lunatic

He's a menace dude Yeah Absolute menace I already was like a pretty good shit talker man That was kind of some rumors going around like He was like uh because he's real like when you meet him He's real kind of like Real mild put together like real timid Some of the guys I know were like

But he get out there he was like vicious out there dude He never said a word Even worse Even worse That might be even worse I don't know what, like when we did that during practices. Yeah. You're not scared of that guy.

No. Until you are. Is he, till you are? Is he the most star stroke you've ever been meeting somebody? Well, I met him on FaceTime or on Zoom. I know like a Zoom interview.

So I didn't have a chance to be. I mean, definitely some of the Panthers guys, man, like especially in the guys when I was growing up, I would probably be like Steve Smith. I'm like, gosh, fucking Smitty, dude. Like, watch this guy grow up.

Like, Musa Muhammad. I would be like moose. Ricky Prol. Come on, dude. Moose. Brad Hoover? Oh, man. Yeah, he got him, dude.

Jake the Lone. Jake the snake. Oh, man. He was all raging Cajun. He was great. Who were the backs back then? Jonathan Stewart, but who was... DeAngelo Williams.

DeAngelo Williams. Didn't you smack Jonathan Stewart? Mike Tolbert. Oh, Mike Tolbert. Tim Biaka Batook. Mike Toler. Wild pull. So I got some wild.

I got some wild deep. Rodney Pete. Julius Peppers. Julie. Julia. That's our wild pull. That's first ballot cat right there. You know.

Who else? Chris Gamble? Chris Gamble? Captain Monterlin? Yeah, dude. There's some deep, deep knowledge going on with me. I'm trying to think of we had some one else. I hate to cut this short, but I have to leave.

I have to get back to the house. Nanny's got a, she's pregnant. she's got an appointment of 445 and do it all right that's the end of the show guys thank you so much subscribe I like a man that practices

what he preaches dad life dad life he's like I'm a good dad you get up in the interview good dad confirmed good dad safe travels safe travels he's actually had nowhere to go right now he's just like God

I know that I have to leave it four so I'm gonna do that right now yeah that's a good question oh it's a different one confirmed good debt All right. Yeah, confirm a good dad. Hey, look, we appreciate you coming, ma'am.

Oh, of course. I know that when we did tight ends and friends, it was like that little conversation we had in that back green room. Yeah. We got to get this guy in the pod. Yeah. And it's take it a little bit. It has. Yeah.

We finally got you on. We did it, man. We did it. In between dadding. Good time. Good times. Looking forward to your commitment. Yes.

January 19, 27. 2027 on the bus right here. I love it, boy. Book it. Please subscribe. Great five stars. See you guys. Hell yeah. Nice to work, fellas.

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