Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Bryce Young Wins the Heisman, Transfer Portal Fallout, and Dan Lanning is the Man in Eugene

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Geoff and Gabe are back with their weekly college football show to break down some ways to improve the Heisman voting system and talk about what we can take away from the way the transfer portal was used this season. Plus, with all the big money contracts being handed to CFB coaches lately, Gabe wonders if some NFL coaches could be tempted to drop down to the college level.After the break, Geoff shares his reactions on Oregon’s head coaching search, Dan Lanning, the man brought in to replace Mario Cristobal, and expectations for the Ducks next season. Notorious USC fan Gabe thinks the balance of power in the Pac 12 has shifted… tune in to find out if Geoff disagrees.Leave a rating if you enjoyed the episode, or a comment for a chance to be featured in a mailbag segment at the end of the season.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's monday december 13th i'm jeff schwartz alongside gabe going this is jeff schwartz this morning you were powered by the varsity podcast network we have some heisman winner update transfer portal discussion as we proceed to the offseason and oregon hired a football coach to talk about all of that the regular season is officially done with army and navy concluding the under now gabe as we are gambling fans. It's hit 16 times in a row in this contest. There were 17 first quarter points and it still went under to 34 and a half.

So some things change, but some things stay the same and we now get to bowl season. We'll talk extensively about bowls and which ones I like to wager on, just the general sentiment of bowl games. But Gabe, how are you, buddy? We have finally found a Heisman winner.

Yeah, the quarterback who plays for a team with 10 other pros on it award was named. There were very few to choose from. When you narrow the field down to just guys who will one day play in the NFL, who play on a team that is going to win a national championship. You end up with one of two options. And this year it was Bryce Young. Way to go, Bryce. He threw for 4,000-something yards, 40-something touchdowns, barely ever turned it over, had this amazing drive to win the Iron Bowl, played great in the SEC championship game. Obviously, he won the Heisman. He had a hell of a year, but he was also the guy we all predicted

before the season, the guy we didn't have to watch for six weeks, and it just was, just like I said last week, an inevitability. Can we stop making this an automatic quarterback award? I'm with you, Gabe. You know, it feels, and this is no slight to bryce young but it feels it feels very uh unsatisfying this season right because we had a season that was very odd it was not a normal season right i mean think about the the conference championship winners if you had told me it'd be baylor michigan utah and pittsburgh i would have been like yeah it's a weird season right the all the favorites outside of alab Alabama didn't win the conference and um but then we have an ordinary Heisman winner and look it's the first quarterback ever to win a Heisman Alabama which is surprising for how much success

they've had um but he's not even the best player on his team that's Will Anderson and I'm not and again I'm not sure Will Anderson should win the Heisman. I mean, I think if the Heisman is about overall impact on your team, not like best player, because I could argue that like Tyler Lindenbaum, Iowa's center, is the best player in the country comparative to what his peers are doing. And Will Anderson had a great season, and he should be commended for that season. But is he the Heisman winner?

I don't know. So I just kind of feel unsatisfied. You know, and Bryce Young, he didn't have this until they beat Georgia. That's the part about this, too, is he wasn't the Heisman winner until they beat Georgia. And if they had lost that game, I don't know who wins the Heisman. C.J. Stroud, I guess. The second place vote tallyer was Aidan Hutchinson,

who was the Michigan defensive end end but i don't think people wanted to give him the heisman um so it's you know congrats to him um the the part that i found most interesting about this is what he said afterwards and we've talked about this a lot on the nfl show because of tom brady for so many years and what at what motivates athletes he said afterwards i've always been ruled out and kind of doubted. For me, it's always been about not really proving them wrong, but proving to myself what I can accomplish. He was a five-star recruit, like the number one quarterback in the country.

He went to Alabama. So I just love how athletes can turn anything into a slight. Someone in my mention said, well, he's 14 years old. People said he wasn't tall enough to play quarterback. I'm like, all right. Well, I guess everyone's against you. Me against the world, right? I just love how athletes can find motivation and make up perceived slights to them.

And that's how we all do it. That's how Bryce Young did it. He's at Alabama. He didn't start last year because the 15th overall pick was starting in front of him. Then he came in and one year won the Heisman. No one's doubted him, but it's just you make it up in your mind. And that's what motivates all of us. Yeah.

And that guy who was ahead of him last year played behind two first-round NFL picks, each of whom competed for a Heisman. Heisman contenders had to beat each other out for jobs before transferring to become Heisman contenders at other top schools. Look, it's a really fun moment in the college football season, and like you said, there's nothing against Bryson. Guy's a great player. He had a great final couple games of the year good for him but what if we got a creative here what if we threw

out a few suggestions i know a lot of people online are coming up with ideas because they feel kind of like we do uh hank our producer threw a few in here what what about a few quickies to maybe tweak the format of the heisman's that we don't just get best quarterback on best team versus second best quarterback on second best team. So what if you could only cap the number of quarterbacks that could be on a ballot? What if you said only a couple quarterbacks, so you get, you put your Bryce and your Stroud in there, but then you got to go find those other guys like the ones you named. Would that help? Yes. Um, yes um we do have other awards though we have you know offensive player of the year essentially we have defensive player there now those are not

the names of the awards we have you know wide receiver and a linebacker of the year and we have an outland trophy and a remington trophy and a lombardi trophy those are the ones i know because they're related to the offensive defensive line line. But we have these other honors, right? So even though the Heisman might just be quarterback or running back award, there's been one kind of non-offensive player to win in the last forever, which is Woodson. I'm not even sure there's been a defensive player to ever win. Last night I was on the radio and our host, me and Chris Plank, were going through the Heisman winners and we saw these guys listed as end, right?

And you're like, oh, defensive end. That's actually tight end. It's like 1939. They were called ends. They weren't called defensive ends. They were just called ends. It's an offensive award. But again, there are other avenues to win awards

if you're a defensive player. And so you just have to accept that's where we're at. The NFL MVP, we talk about this all the time. I mean, Aaron Donald, J.J. Watt, you can make a case they should have won the last seven or eight years. But the quarterback is the most valuable position. That's why, again, Will Anderson's not on the ballot. Okay, you put him on there. I guess he missed by just a couple votes.

But is he the most impactful player on the team? No, that's Bryce Young. And so that's what it comes down to, right? And there's never going to be a time when the quarterback's not the most valuable player on the team. Unless you go to the Patriots and play in 2021. Then you can afford to be the least valuable player on the team. Fair enough. Fair enough.

But, you know, so I'm okay with it being what it is because we all acknowledge what it is. But the Heisman has like 900 voters, buddy. It's a big group. I'm actually, I've seen some. But the Heisman has like 900 voters, buddy. It's a big group. I'm actually, I've seen some people share their Heisman. I'm surprised I'm not a Heisman voter yet. Like, come on, Heisman Trust. Throw your boy a bone. Let me vote for it.

It'd just be three offensive linemen, but it would be maybe better than what we have now. You know, there are people that, you see the list. Some people voted for Desmond Ritter number one as the number one and Jordan Davis. Like, what are we doing, guys? Those aren't high. So, at this point, it's just kind of ceremonial, right?

I mean, did you watch the Heisman ceremony last night? We all knew Bryson was going to win. He won by, like, 2,000 points. It wasn't even close. Yeah, the ceremony is a little bit different when you aren't either crowning like an all-time brilliant college football season you know and we've seen that obviously a bunch of the heisman winners you and i can remember it was the culmination of like an all-time great college football season um not just the piling up of some stats uh sure it was or it was a close call or there

were two or three guys and you really didn't know who was going to win it this didn't really necessarily have either of those right which is why it's a little unsatisfying because the season has kind of been like that right where quarterbacks haven't been as good certain teams haven't been as good other teams have filled that void um but i mean i mean is if you put Kenny Pickett on Alabama, does he have the same stats as Bryce Young? Probably. I would assume so. Yeah. So Kenny Pickett, by the way, now has gotten the fake slide banned

because of his antics. I actually like that. It's pretty cool, but I get why they banned it. So, yeah, look, the Heisman signals the end of the season, anticlimactic. We knew who was going to win. And, you know, I just think that the older I get, the less I care about who wins awards because I just watch the football. Like, it doesn't matter to me.

You could have told me that Joe Schmo won the Heisman. It wouldn't have changed how I felt about the season. It wouldn't have changed how I watch the playoffs or how I watch the bowl season. But for some people, it does matter a lot, obviously. It it's a pretty cool trophy you're in an exclusive club now um and uh congrats to Bryce Young in the end I mean it's a cool thing for him but do we we don't care about awards as much in society do we do you think people care some like our age doesn't really care about this do we uh I don't know I think the last couple of years have taken away the

importance of certain awards because you can't really have the award ceremonies or the field has been lacking i'm thinking of the oscars and the emmys um i'll tell you what here's a way to sum up the heisman this show helped champion one man's cause uh we came up short we let him down uh so i say we owe an apology to the people's heisman the punter matt oriza you will always be our heisman winner in 2021 mr oriza we look forward to watching you uh boom 60 yarders in the nfl one day you've got second or third round future and uh you have a fan in me and jeff and our producer hank especially he he for sure has like second round jets pick written all over him he would be instantly the best player on the jets the most impactful too he would be team mv no it's for

sure gonna be job his belichick's gonna draft him for sure it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest and then i would have to go from loving this young man to hating him instantly and i hope that doesn't happen let's talk about some other big names we're going to switch around so listen jeff i have this hypothesis and it's not really an original to me there are a lot of smarter people to happen. Let's talk about other big names. We're going to switch around. So listen, Jeff, I have this hypothesis and it's not really an original to me. There are a lot of smarter people talking about this right now. I can't possibly say all the smart words a guy like Bill Barnwell can use. But people are talking about the importance of a college coach now. Well, first of all, people like Barnwell are talking about nfl coaches may

end up coaching in college because the money and the job is better that's one thing people are thinking about i disagree with that but okay well then take it up with bill barnwell and so you can text about that the other thing though that springs from that is that the job of a college coach is a little different now than it used to be 100 i am hypothesizing and many agree that it is more about how well you do with the transfer portal now than how well you do with the relative unknowns of recruits from high school. That if you go find an already proven capable college player and get him to transfer to be your star player at your program,

that matters more than finding a 17 year old and hoping he turns out great proven by some of the best coaches in college football right now. What say you to this theory? All right, so obviously coaching now has changed because of many things. One, name and likeness, right? It's a new ball game now.

Players leaving bowl games. We talked about this last week. Kenny Pickett, who I mentioned earlier as a Heisman finalist, he is skipping a New Year's Six bowl game, an important bowl game for university of pittsburgh who last time they might have played a new year's six bowl was like 2004 when when urban meyers utah team beat pittsburgh like it's been that long since they won the conference of playing in the

new year's six bowl he's not playing that so that's different obviously and you mentioned transfer portal i was originally against open transfer for many reasons. I think we've stated them on our show before. I just, I think sometimes we look to make changes before thinking it through, especially at that age, right? You kind of just, with hindsight, now that I'm older, I went through the process. I was hurt in 2006 in college, played terribly, probably would have transferred. I wasn't in with my coaches very well. I just had a bad year. Played terribly. Probably would have transferred.

I wasn't in with my coaches very well. I just had a bad year. I stuck through it. I learned a lot of lessons during that year. I started in 2007 and went to NFL. It was good for me. It's just my personal experience, obviously. Everyone has a different experience.

And I was against it. Then it became a thing. Open transfer didn't. And I just, it's what we're doing now, i've accepted it right it's part of what what it is now but the transfer portal was never supposed to be this where starting caliber players and guys who are starting leave their school to find other schools nfl free agency which is fine i mean i'm again once it started started and i'm on board with transfers but to your point if you're a top level coach now, you used to only have to recruit high school kids.

And then they're there. They're there for four or five years. Then you have to recruit your own players and then keep recruiting them while they're on your team. A lot of older coaches have said, I just, I don't want to keep recruiting my own players. And now you have to recruit transfer portal players. And there are, you can't build your roster with transfer portal players, but you can add two or three impactful players,

most often at the offensive skill position player, running back, wide receiver, quarterback, that can really help your team go to the next level. We saw in the Pat Dole Conference with what Utah did, the running back position. You know, Mel Tucker's done it really well. It's adding two, three, four guys and thinking to yourself, hey, I'm deficient at this position.

I'd either rather get an older player to come and play right now or I just can't, you know, I missed on running back, so let me go find a running back. Either or is true, right? So it's, and mel tucker did his hank notes out of 15 guys that's not that's unusual that's not going to happen every year partly because you have scholarship limits right so you can't just add a bunch of players without either releasing a bunch of players off their scholarship or just having a bunch of guys you

know graduate or whatnot so that's why you 15 is a lot that's not that's abnormal i was talking before um marco sebastopol left oregon about a quarterback transfer a bunch of people point out like we're gonna have these scholarships like you can't just have a bunch of guys come in unless you have an open scholarship for them um but yes it is a tool that coaches can use to improve their team but again though this is the, this is the concern. This is the concern. Is that you get in this cycle of always needing a transfer player to position to win.

That's hard to do, right? You ideally want to bring guys into your program, recruit them up, and have them for two or three or four years to play. Not just get one year. What if one year you miss out on a transfer kid and transfer portal?

And then you just have a roster that's not very talented. And then players, then you struggle. Then recruits don't want to come to you, right? So it's a fine line of, okay, we missed on a couple guys in recruiting class. Let's bring one or two guys in. But we also need to have our young guys be able to play well because they're there for two or three years. Some of these transfers are there just for one year.

It's hard to win consistently built off the transfer portal. Okay, fair points all around. And we've already highlighted Mel Tucker being above average, at least for now, at getting kids who are pretty good to come to him. And he figured out a way to fit him in. His running back is a great example. But most of the Heisman winning quarterbacks, or at least Heisman contending

quarterbacks that we've seen in the last few years had transfer in their past and a few of them had lincoln riley in their in their past but i i think that what is interesting to me is that you know unlike free agency in the nfl where you've already seen him and now you know you're paying a premium for a guy he's not really as valuable anymore because he's off that rookie deal now you get to go sign him for what he's supposedly quote-unquote worth here there's it's not quite like that like here you're going out and you're you're getting a guy who knows he has no leverage he's stuck behind someone better than him or who coach likes more than him and you're saying come over here and play it's just a different kind of mentality in that

recruitment than getting a high school kid who's getting recruited by six schools. And he's told he's the best guy at the position. Like he has all kinds of leverage, right? Doesn't that change the dynamic a little? You said the transfer portal kid has leverage or recruiting kid has less leverage, has less leverage because he's, he's stuck. It's it's come play here or sit on the bench for a year. Versus as a senior year or a junior, whenever you're getting recruited, you're like, I could go to Alabama or Florida or Georgia. Which side has more leverage?

I'm saying the kid has more leverage in high school than in college. Yes. I, I, I'm just saying,'m just saying like like i'm just i'm just curious like what what do you mean by i'm just curious like what you mean by like leverage over where they go or the program yeah what what options they have in front of them well yeah sure because the transfer portal we're seeing like less than 10 of power five kids end up at power five schools 100 and that's and that that's my point it was one of my points about why the transfer portal i didn't think was going to be as popular as good for the sport as we thought right because because there are plenty of players who are leaving like where like good schools to go somewhere else there's no guarantee they're going to find a good spot to go we're in high school to your point i guess the leverage is you

have more opportunity to choose where you can go and choose the right place that works for you. But again, you then have to get there, win a job, play well. And I know recruiting is an ugly thing. It can be, right? A lot of things are said to players. Part of it is they're said, you know, you're going to play right away. And then when they don't, they transfer out somewhere else and they might even not not play right away at the new

place they turn but how many times i'll give you organ for example this year we had a middle linebacker transfer out and he ended up playing i think at boise he started all season so it worked out for him but after week one we had two middle linebackers go out. He would have started the entire season at Oregon. We had a wide receiver transfer out, Micah Pittman. And the week he decided to transfer out, two, our top two wide receivers, got hurt. And he would have played that entire week and maybe next year and everything. Because those are two older players as well. They won't be back, I don't think, next year. And that's part of it. Inj and everything, right? Because those are two older players as well. They won't be back, I don't think, next year.

And that's part of it. Injuries happen, right? And sometimes you have to be patient. It's hard at that age, I get it, to be patient because the rush to go to the NFL is so quick, right? If I play here, I'll go to the NFL in three years and I'm done, right? I've done my job in college. And I get that that is a really difficult thing to sit and be patient, but I think sometimes kids are too

quick to rush and you're right I guess the leverage of finding a home because you're going into a portal hoping you find a home and there are look it'd be naive to think that there are not current coaches at schools trying to recruit players to transfer right like it's kind of naive to think that kids go to transfer portal and have never talked to another team i mean like there are times where two days later they're on a new team right oh what a surprise they're on a new team two days later yeah they've been talking to them right so um but it is our it is part of the game now game if you're not set up to do it and and not accepting of this is the game that you're not going to win as a coach it's that simple all right well then let's bring it home uh to your neck of the woods here with the biggest transfer portal name discussed

since he got benched by lincoln riley spencer rattler rumors he might end up at ucla which would then mean he was playing against lincoln riley who's at usc now of course um rattler being the best example because he was supposed to be this year's Heisman winner at Oklahoma under Riley. Then he gets benched and the coach leaves. So if he moves west, does he become next year's Heisman favorite just to tie those first two topics together? I mean, he got benched with Lincoln Riley. I mean, you go to UCLA and he's better with Chip than he was with Lincoln Riley. I mean, you go to UCLA and he's better with Chip than he was with Lincoln Riley,

or goes to Arizona with Jed Fish, or goes to Herm Edwards, Jane Daniels is coming back. There was talk about him going to Oregon. I mean, if you got benched at Oklahoma in that offense, I don't know if you're going to succeed anywhere else. Yeah. And that's why I don't think he's found a home yet. There was talk about Oregon needing a transfer, which is a quarterback possibly, but I don't think he's found a home yet. Let's talk about Oregon needing a transfer,

which is a quarterback possibly. But I don't really, again, if you get benched in Lincoln Riley's offense, and it's not like Caleb Williams lit it up either. He had a few pretty exciting games. He did, but they also were scoreless against Kansas in the first half, didn't play well against Baylor, Oklahoma State. He had some exciting moments, but it wasn't like he was wickedly good, where Spencer

Rattler, you know, like, oh, well, I see why they benched you for Caleb Williams, right? There wasn't much of that. So, I would be concerned that Rattler might, maybe he's just not good. I don't know. I wonder a little bit about, this is a sort of a weird thinker for you, but you're smart.

Is it possible that all the coaches are going to feel more pressure to play younger players? To say, I held my promise, five-star guy. Look at this. You got in there and you played as a freshman. You played as a sophomore. Plays a redshirt freshman. And that we're going to see younger, smaller, less prepared players in bigger and bigger spots. And therefore, the game is going to need to spread out and be less the way you like it. Big dudes smashing each other and more just dudes running around playing scheme do you think that's possible i think you're never you're always going to win in the trenches okay yeah all right i i think we're going to see younger and younger players in bigger and bigger spots on bigger and bigger programs because these

coaches are going to have to live up to those promises or they're going to be out of jobs. So let's talk about a guy who's got a brand new job and it's very close to home for you, Dan Lanning. So he's going to wait around until after Georgia finishes their run, then go take over at your Oregon program. What's your reaction to the hire? All right. So this news broke. Today is, we'll record this on Sunday. So the news broke Friday. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put out a tweet saying, Oregon got their new guy, Dan Lanning, defense coordinator of Georgia. Oregon then vehemently denied it through multiple sources.

One of their former SIDs tweeted out, this is probably true, Oregon just wanted to break it themselves. And then 25 hours later, Oregon broke it themselves. So I've done a lot of research on Dan Lanning. Gabe, he's 35. Yeah. He is my age.

So is Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame. So was Lincoln Rye. I think Lincoln Rye was 36 when he got the Oklahoma job. So dude is a grinder, buddy. He drove like 13 hours to interview for a Pittsburgh GA job. He's been an analyst at Arizona State. He worked with hours interview for a pittsburgh ga job he's been a he's been a analyst at arizona state he worked with saban for years at ga he's been the the d coordinator at georgia for two years now so i asked around about him because i didn't know much about about dan and i i i'm friends with a good buddy of his who's a who coach in Division I. And he said he's a stud.

He said high energy, great recruiter, family guy, kind of a new school thinker. He's 35, obviously, and just like a go-getter. And obviously from kind of the Saban tree, Georgia. And if you look at his recruiting, at least the guys that he has been assigned at least 24-7, slam dunked. It's a younger Mario Cristobal, right? It's a high-energy, high recruiter.

Obviously, defensive genius, I guess, has been great. I'm excited for it. And what I'm excited for is recruits, players, and current players are pumped forward to Oregon. So that means they hired the right guy. And Rob Mullins, our athletic director, has hired great coaches. Dana Ullman for basketball, Kelly Graves for women's basketball.

I'm sure you guys are tuning in to listen to me talk about Oregon women's basketball. But it's been a great program since Kelly Graves got there. He hired a softball coach from Oklahoma. I trust that they have vetted who Dan Lanning is, who he's going to be, and who the staff is going to bring, which will be very important. Who's your OC?

Who's your offensive line coach? They'll probably keep the recruiting staff already in place at Oregon. And so I will always side with young, innovative coach. Love it. I love it. The common thing I've heard, Gabe, it's so silly to me, he has no head coaching experience. Who gives a rip?

Everyone who starts as a head coach never has head coaching experience. Look at Oregon. Chip Kelly was a New Hampshire offensive coordinator. Went to Oregon, was OC for two years. Then became the head coach, went 46 and seven. Pretty good. Mario Cristobal, he was an FIU. It was hard to win an FI fiu but he was okay at fiu

it's really hard to win give him credit that his record was like 27 and 47 goes to oregon 35 and 13 went to rose bowl like the idea that that you have to have a coaching experience can you coach or can you not coach can you podcast or can you not podcast, right? Like, I know it's not as simple as that sometimes, but everyone I've talked to has shared the same sentiment. Great recruiter, which is you have to, you cannot win unless you have bodies in college football. End of story. You can't do it.

And so if he can recruit players to Oregon, nail his coordinator hires, nail his offensive line coach, which is really important. I have a lot of faith. And our team is good his offensive line coach, which is really important. I have a lot of faith. And our team is good, dude. It is a talented roster. Even Mark Christobal on his way out made a point to say many times.

I talked to Mario the other day via text. He made the point, same as he's made to everyone else. He left it with three top ten classes in a row. And we're like 15 now. And if Dan Lanning can come and get some of the kids who left and a couple of them were in San Diego we go back to the top 10 four straight years of top 10 classes we have dudes there

can he motivate them it's the same thing everyone has to do but I'm excited for the hire I've heard nothing bad about him he's young, he's 35 he's my age, he's a head coach at Oregon so I hope to be able to talk to him eventually and yeah he's young he's 35 he's 35 he's my age he's a head coach at Oregon dude so hope to be able to talk to him eventually and yeah he's gonna coach Georgia sort of Kirby Starr said they're gonna have two other coaches take over play calling I guess he's just like there in

spirit I guess I don't this is the oddest thing about it so bowl season with when your coach leaves is very weird so let's take like Oregon and Oklahoma they play in the Alamo Bowl which is wild that both teams are playing without without coaches essentially Oregon has coaches who are going to be hired by Miami but most coaches contracts run up at the end of bowl season so their coach they were just out recruiting for Miami. They're coming back to Eugene to coach the bowl game. Our offensive coordinator is the head coach at Akron, coming back to coach the bowl game. Then we're going to have a whole new staff there as well

who is coming from Georgia, coming from other places to come there January 2nd and take over, essentially. Oklahoma has coaches who are at USC, but coaching Oklahoma for the bowl game. It's a very weird vibe. I've never experienced that in my career. I just had the same coach,

but you're being coached by someone who really motivated to win out of pride, I guess, but like they don't really give a shit. Why do they care? If you, it's just, it's a very, it's a weird dynamic.

They're there because their contract says so because they have a bonus that's why most of these coaches don't officially start till like january 2nd if you look at a lot of their contracts because these guys are done december 31st um we're dynamic of bowl games but i'm excited for it um again everyone i've talked to who i trust said it's a really really high good hire. Again, there's a risk in hiring someone who's never been a head coach before and who's young, but I'm all for it. Let me ask you this. You mentioned the Saban tree earlier.

So he's sort of part of that indirectly. Former Saban assistants are now spread across the South. He's got to face a few of them in the SEC. We got Mario now at Miami. Mel is up at Michigan State. Far as I can tell, the only person with a real Saban coaching tree sort of pedigree right now at a big program out West is this guy. And I wonder, is importing what Saban has done well

out to the Pac-12 going to be a thing. Well, for Oregon, it is. And look, Dan Lanning might be there three years and leave, like Mario did. How about this, though? Nick Saban's 2015 staff at Alabama. Ready? Lane Kiffin, head coach at Ole Miss.

Kirby Smart, head coach at Georgia. Mario Cristobal, head coach at Miami. Billy Napier, head coach at old miss kirby smart head coach at georgia mario cristobal head coach of miami billy napier head coach at florida mel tucker and dan lanning pretty freaking good um look the thing that oregon gets is it's a body's game it's a recruiting game and you need and i think now more than any other time in college sports the head coach of a football team is is in my opinion less required to be good at x and o's and more required to be good at recruiting game management jimmy's and joe's like you you can you can hire good coordinators yeah but you have to bring in bodies to win at these schools. And that's what Dan Lanning can do.

So that's what I'm excited about. You know, the other hires that they had talked about didn't really, you know, I mean, Chip Kelly is a retread and Justin Wilcox. This is a much better, just a much better overall, I think, hire than they were kind of hinting. And I do think there was, Phil Knight, I think, did they were kind of hinting. And I do think there was, um, Phil Knight, I think did call urban Meyer.

So, um, um, and it just was like, it just kind of interesting how the urban Meyer, you know, and maybe we'll talk about this on tomorrow's show, all the urban Meyer kind of,

everyone hates him in Jacksonville. Maybe he needs to leave. Rumors broke yesterday when Oregon was supposed to hire a coach. It was kind of interesting how that worked out i'm glad that urban meyer wasn't hired because god i couldn't have i mean i would have had to root for him and i just didn't want to do it so i'm glad uh yeah yeah we we will talk about that on our tuesday show um the reports that urban meyer told all his assistant coaches they were losers you hired him urban yeah uh-huh um well i mean that that sort of sums up the college game i i want to come back to one thing

real quick because you teased it why are you so sure that we're not going to see nfl coaches fringe nfl coaches i'm not talking about Bill Belichick. Fringe NFL coaches wouldn't leap at the chance to go be Oregon's head coach for as much money as Dan Lanning's going to make or go be Oklahoma's head coach. Some of these elite college jobs where you don't even have to report what you're making, where you get private jets and all kinds of crazy competition. You don't have to report what you're making at private schools like USC. You got to report what you're making at Oklahoma. But are we you report you're making a loma but are we sure that like bill belichick's not getting 15 million

dollars a year like a lot of people think he's making 25 a year when you get all the incentives so we were talking this last night was there was an organ twitter spaces that went for like 48 hours it was it was incredible the organ athletic director got on twitter spaces dan lanning's brother did and i got on there last night as well. And people were asking me about this. Like, well, let's look at a pro offensive line coach. Come to college. They're making over a million dollars in the NFL. No recruiting.

Dealing with adults. You get an off season. You don't have to try to convince a 15-year-old to come to your school. Why would you want to do all that? It's why a lot of college coaches come to your school, why would you want to do all that? It's why a lot of, it's why a lot of college coaches go to the NFL, not vice versa, right? We don't have a lot of NFL head coaches going down unless they get fired. And even then they don't often do that. Um, so sorry to interrupt you, but you just made the case for why you wouldn't as a coordinator,

as an assistant wouldn't make this choice. I'm talking about you're the head coach of an okay NFL team. You're the Colts head coach. There, I said the Colts. Because why would you want to recruit? Like, why would you want to do that? Well, I don't know, but there's a lot of things you're willing to do for double the money. Yeah, but I think we underestimate how much these pro coaches are making, dude.

All right. I mean, this would be impossible to talk about as a pure hypothetical, but it seems to me that there are plenty of crappy head coaching jobs in the NFL that are making a few million bucks a year with no real hope of success. I think they're all making far more than a couple million dollars a year. All right. So maybe the money isn't this way. Like I i said bill barnwell wrote a whole long piece about this this is more of his theory than mine i'd love for you to go argue about it with him because

he's smart and i'm not but i do think this college football offseason maybe shifted the economics slightly when we saw or at least had hinted what some of these guys can make. And that if you're an okay NFL coach, you have to at least be like, yes, hello, Mr. AD person. I'm listening. How much? Jeez, going back to recruit, these guys don't want to do it ever at all. Yeah, I mean, when you put it that way, having to try to convince a 15-year-old to come play for you,

that sounds miserable. I wouldn't want to do that either. But you put $15 million in front of me i'm i'm on tiktok trying to figure it out i don't think i again i don't think that i think that these coaches are getting seven eight nine million dollars a year in the nfl so going to make the same money at at at a college school is just not exciting for them all right, thus concludes this week's college talk. Congrats to Bryce Young, sincerely. I mean, you know, listen, he had a great season. He won the award.

Good for him. Good for him. We're talking NFL on Tuesday, and you're making bets on Thursday. Yes, yes. We will start getting to bowl season, by the way, on Thursday. Matt's going to love it. So I'm sure that we'll talk about that.

You know, college basketball, it's just hard to wager on. The lines just aren't out before games. So we'll start kind of getting into some college basketball talk as we... Alabama's up two straight huge wins for Bama in basketball. So we'll start talking more about college basketball as we get into

the new year. And we're back tomorrow with a little NFL show. Big weekend for a bunch of teams. We head down the stretch of the NFL. Alright guys, we're back tomorrow with a little NFL show. Big weekend for a bunch of teams as we head down the stretch of the NFL. Alright guys, we're powered by the Varsity Podcast Network. Talk to you guys tomorrow. Have a great time. you