Pablo Torre Finds Out - Unlocking the State Secrets of College Football, with FOIAball's "King of the Bros"

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

He dug up Dianna Russini's playlist for Mike Vrabel. And Osama bin Laden's p*rn stash from the CIA. He even got a DM from Bill Belichick's girlfriend on the prowl. Now, David Covucci is shattering the illusion of coaches' power — and the unfathomable pastimes of the billionaire booster class — one embarrassing document bomb at a time. Pablo finds a kindred spirit... and Jessica Smetana makes history.• Subscribe to FOIAball Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Oh, ah, oh! Right after this ad. I'm looking at how many views are on the Diana Rusini Spotify playlist. I just got asked to join the Twitter monetization program, and it asked for so much information. I was like, I can't do this.

You're like, I know how records can be used against you. Like connecting to Twitter through, my bank account was like, we can see your balances and recent transactions. It's like, no, no, please, I don't like that at all. But the downside is that the next time you have a post that has 19 million views on it, it will not be monetized. You can make $6. I did the math. I think it might have been like 120 had I been able to get it, which is, you know, I'm starting my own business here. I'll take anything I can get, even sort of evil dollars from Elon. Jess Matana, did you know of David Kavucci before the Diana Rucci any Spotify playlist?

I did. I've been following his newsletter, subscribing to his newsletter for a long time now. Oh, thank you. I mean, Foyabal is one of the all-time great sports newsletter ideas. I'd been kicking around in my head for a while and, like, any good journalist I got laid off and just figured now was the time to try my own thing. So I was able to hit the ground running because I had a lot of energy behind it, but it's still very new. It's only been publishing for eight months, so I'm very thrilled by the response so far. And was it therefore cruel when the thing that everybody broadly knew you for who isn't at this table was like you're the Diana Rusini Spotify playlist guy? Not necessarily because the last viral foi I did was pretty, I don't think my parents were too happy about that one.

Wait a minute, hold on. What was the last one that you did? If you just Google David Kavucci Osama bin Laden. Which I do biweekly. Wait a second. The post called you a quote, bro? Yes. I was working at a place called Bro Bible at the time, which is still somehow one of the only... You were foyering Osama bin Laden stuff at Bro Bible? Yeah. And... Wait, but I'll just read the headline because now it does kind of track. It says,

A Bro Asked the CIA about Osama bin Laden's porn stash. The agency answered. June 10, 2015. Actually, I sent that request May 26, so it's almost the 11-year anniversary of that. Wow. No. Happy anniversary. And eventually, I was part of some appeals that were brought, and we got the... We didn't get the pornography collection.

We got the record, so it's sort of on the... You didn't get the collection, interesting. No, but they did release a lot of his laptop files where it revealed he was, like, watching Tom and Jerry during the day and stuff like that. So I have... The very first FOIA I ever sent was the CIA, and I got, like, results. So I think that's pretty good. Oh, Osama bin Laden was into anime? I don't know.

Is Tom and Jerry anime? I think of the original. Was it easier or harder to FOIA, the CIA, than... college athletic departments. I've only sent one to the CIA, and I've had 100% success rate, so I'll go with easier. That seems like it tracks. So just to put a button on the Osama bin Laden Bourn's dash, we don't know specifically what Osama bin Laden was into as a matter of genre.

No. He's dead, so you're free to speculate. Do you want to speculate? Go ahead. I think he's into extensive anime porn. I think he's into extensive anime porn. I think one of the reason I heard back so quickly was because of how I asked. I was like, you know, he's the most wanted man in the world.

Like, we need to know, like, what was going on in his mind, you know, while he's being hunted by Predator Jones and U.S. forces. So, like, what got him off? I think I wrote that in my actual request. Hold on. I have another headline. This is from Mother Jones. CIA tells King of the Bros. He can't see Bin Laden's porn stash.

King of the Bros. I had put that just in my Twitter bio. I'm learning so much. 12 years ago, and, you know, when something about you goes viral, you have no control over it. So people were just putting, they, like, you know, declaratively stated that I was King of the Bros. And, you know, who was I to object at the time? Your Highness, excuse me for not properly introducing you. But this is the thing that I have been bonding with you about in real life.

Before you did publish Diana Rossini's Spotify playlist with Mike Frable called... Which feels like a personal violation. Or great journalist. because Freedom of Information Act requests, FOIA requests, are of course, the sort of etymology of FOIA ball. Yeah, so it was, the Freedom Information Act was a federal law started by one very cranky senator who was upset about overclassification of the Department of Defense.

And he spent, I think, about 10 years trying to get this bill passed. And then every state in the U.S. adopted laws after that federal legislation was passed. And the idea is that governments drive their power from the people in democracy, so they have a right to see everything you do. Now, it was sort of written, In the 1960s, the idea was you would just walk to the mayor's office and say, let me see the plans for the new park.

Let me see the, you know, construction schedule for the next couple of weeks. It's very quaint. Yeah. In the digital age, that's really metastasized. And state institutions have struggled to keep up because they get lots of requests. And average school gets like 1,000 to 2,000 a year. They usually only have one to two people responding to them. And those are usually great people who are trying to do their best.

But, you know, the idea is that they can't hide anything from you. So I believe it's Kentucky even has a clause in its state laws that's, say, you know, we must release records, even if they're embarrassing to the officials involved. So, like, the idea is that transparency is extremely important. I think it is one of the most important laws we have. But the idea of there is information out there, deeply, invasively personal information out there that has been published. It takes us to this, December 19th, 2022. Actually, one of your producers hit me up to look into it.

It was like, can you see what you can find? And instead of sharing that with you and turn and get it. into an actual episode. We tried to hire David like a bounty hunter. Exactly. And I just fired it out. I felt kind of bad.

I was like, I should have passed this along. I should have saved it so we could turn into a whole episode. But it kind of blew up. There's a four-game Titans losing streak.

Mike Brable was the coach. Diana Rusini makes a playlist in which it is shared with a user who is named Mike. The music here? It's not good songs, which I think was why this took off.

If it had been a really good playlist, I'm not sure if 19 million people are invested in it. But also, like, if I made a playlist for someone and it became public, no matter who that person is, I would be deeply embarrassed about it because I have a terrible taste of music as well. Did you have Papa Roach last resort, which is the 10th song on this? No, I did not comment on the quality of the music because a lot of people were instantly. just they were calling it garbage, terrible, the worst playlist they'd ever seen. And there were songs on there that were on my wedding must playlist. So I just zipped my mouth shut and said, yeah, you can't.

But I wasn't going to treat that out then. Was pump it louder by T.S. on the black eyed peas? No, no. We played Razier Glass by Pink. Oh, God. Okay. I enjoyed my wedding. I'm sorry you didn't. Well, I wasn't invited, but maybe this is going to go on the do not playlist on my upcoming wedding DJ set list. Would any of these songs make it on your?

God of Thunder by Kiss. Well, I will say as a Steelers fan, Renegade may be played at the last. Okay. It's what the Steelers play in the third quarter of every home game. Rable played, what, a year with the Steelers after he left the Patriots? Okay, yeah. I think so people were pointing out that Renegade was on there. But it was shared with the user named Mike, and after it went viral, the user Mike changed the name to Tycar, which is a portmanteau of Mike Raibald's two sons.

So, you know, a lot of people were like, maybe it's not him. Maybe it's just a random mic that she shared it with. But I'm pretty confident after that. I mean, to your point about how invasive some of the apps are. Well, no, not you. I mean, Spotify doesn't need to be a public-facing social media app. Like, most people are not using it for that. So the fact that, like, someone who is a public figure could have a searchable database of what they listened to, to me, is like, I wonder if these people even knew that someone could find this.

Well, one of the great, and this is something we've done on this show separately, we did it with the NBA gambling investigation that we did. people don't know that their favorite app is being used as a social media platform. Right. Venmo. Yes. Don't talk about Venmo. I know. It's too good.

It's too good to check everything through the Venmo user base and be like, oh, they forgot. Venmo's gotten a lot of college athletes in trouble because they've put, you know, stupid things on Venmo with names and titles that they shouldn't have put on Venmo and been investigated over it. And yet, I would say that having. cuff it by Beyonce as the first song on this playlist between Mike Graebel and Danielsini. Probably more embarrassing than... Well, it's a good song.

That one I... What's the implication? Man, right. I do want to ask you, though, because I... So I'm trying to see if I can find your Spotify playlist. I deleted it. Okay. Because I'm so paranoid about people finding out

how much I listened to the Les Mizz soundtrack. I mean, it would really... Oh, no, that's fantastic. It would do that all the time. It would shock people. That in heated rivalry. Like, it's just going back and... forth. But I followed you for a while now, and I saw a lot of people were, like, just accusing

you of, you know, engaging in smuddy, like, this isn't fair. Why are you doing this? This is, you know, an invasion of privacy. And you had a response to that. So I'm curious if you have any more thoughts on that. No, I mean, I understand that argument, I think. But especially in this day and age, public figures have sort of lost all right to privacy. You know, they all make so much money. They're very famous. You know, they're part of a social contract where they're supposed to live up to certain standards, even if they don't. So I don't have any sort of issue with it. And, you know, there are probably things I want to publish, but I didn't think that was, like, I don't understand how that could have impacted her well-being. She was already accused of

having an affair, has been going on for a long time. This was the thing in your defense, and as someone who resembles the target of the criticism that you just described, which is a fair point to raise for any journalist, this playlist was both hilarious and, and also, I think, as close to dispositive as it got in this story. Like, the reason it went viral was not just because this is so funny. It's how the fuck else do you spin a relationship, at the very least, that isn't deeply personal in any other way other than, man, these people really did have some sort of connection? One of the things I'm really fascinated by is sort of the myths of coaches is, you know, omnipotent being sort of super hard, dedicated. workers who are, you know, always on top of everything, always, you know, one step ahead.

Men of integrity. Yes. Kings of bros. Showing that, that's not exactly the case. I think there's a lot of illusions built up around a lot of public figures in this world, and it's fun to shatter those as best I can. Also, the digital literacy aspect of it that I think is, you could say it's generational, but I do think it impacts anyone in any generation that you don't realize how you're being tracked across these apps. And we should say that for those not familiar with your Uber, my liege. Ravel and Rusini, not the first bit of

playlist journalism that you've done. Yes, and this was just a couple weeks apart. I think I was on a Spotify searching kick. Sometimes I'll find sites that I like to sort of dig into and look at a lot of people. But Lane Kiffin, when he was run out of, well, not run out of Old Miss. He left Old Miss and was also run out.

A lot of his Pilates instructors and hot yoga teachers were sort of burning him on TikTok after the fact. And I don't know why I started searching this one, but I found a Pilates playlist that he listens to from a studio in Baton Rouge. The Pilates playlist was great. I listened to it like three times in a row

while I was writing an article about it. So his stuff was much better than, although he didn't come up with it. He just stole it from an instructor. Yeah. And it did seem like the Pilates community coming after him was what really hurt him the most in the midst of that debacle.

Well, hold on. The username here, M.L. Kiffin. Yes, we did deduce today that he is legally Monty Lane Kiffin, which is not what his Wikipedia page says. No, this is the fact-checking phase. Wikipedia says that he is Lane-Monte-Kiffin. And what you're here to report is that that is inaccurate.

Yes, and as he is going, you know, being persecuted in the media right now, we should note his initials are MLK. Son of Monty Kiffin making him, I believe, MLK Jr. I don't think anyone could quibble with that. At the very least, he's MK Ultra, the more famous of the MKs, the Monte Kiffins. Just on the playlist, Jess, like you're, are you a Pilates person? Not to profile you. It is spot on accurate profiling, though.

Yes, I go to Pilates like six days a week. And the playlist strikes you as what? You know, there's a lot of terrible Pilates playlist out there. I've been subjected to listening to many of them. This one was not bad. I just like the idea that Jess is like, can we get a little more lay miss? I mean, if you did a remix to one day more in Pilates, I think it would really get the group going. Yeah, I want to stretch out empty chairs and empty tables.

Oh, no, don't make me cry, Bob. I had a spin instructor who always played a, like, techno remix of Defying Gravity as the last song. It was great. I loved it. It came on. It played it a lot, but it always went, yeah. Oh, I love that. Where does the drop come in? When she defies gravity? Are you kidding? Are you kidding? Have you seen the movie? Have you seen the movie? There's like 10 drops in the thing. They stretched that song out so much.

They were like, we know the sequel's not going to be that good, so we're going to make defying gravity a 20-minute long scene in the first Wicked. Wow. I'll leave the singing to y'all. His excellency does not partake in such shenanigans. I apologize. I have my court jesters here for me.

Oh, God. We're gesture maxing. So the thing that brought us together originally, before I tried to hire you as a bounty hunter to get good information on Diana Rusini and that whole story was who else but Jordan Hudson. Oh, God. That is the appropriate reaction. I find her charming.

I would like to state for the record I had no idea what we were going to talk about when I came into the office today, but so far, two for two on guesses. We have some surprises plan, though. Oh, I love a surprise. Well, the thing about Jordan as a character in a story of public records is that she is not so different from you and I. it turns out. No, she has been submitting public records to UNC. She sent four in December and two in April, trying to track down all the school's communications basically about her. She's looked for the term girlfriend. She's looked for communications with CBS. Jess, could you please read the first bullet point? Yes, it's a request and it says correspondence received or sent. That includes the terms Hudson,

Jordan, Belichick, girlfriend in the subject or body of the email. Insofar as we are also people who file public records requests of North Carolina, which I have done, which we have done as a show here, and you have done separately at FOIA ball. What happens is you realize as you're getting these requests, the paperwork back, that someone else is also doing the same thing, except she is the girlfriend of the head football coach who is the highest paid employee in the state of North Carolina, which I will dare say is an unprecedented dynamic. How many states do, or schools, I guess, do let you see requests? So some of them are very, very easy. Easy to see Iowa and North Carolina, Oregon.

But you can request them. They're public records themselves. You can request the requests. Yes. You can watch the watchman. North Carolina receives a public records request or a series of them from not only David Kavucci and Palo Tore finds out, but Jordan Hudson. How do we understand their response to Jordan to be? So I then, this sort of becomes a Russian nesting doll where I requested all the requests that Jordan had sent to see what she got back.

She requested your request of her request. She did, and then she sent me a little DM just waving. And I was like, that's correct. It's turtles all the way down here. But on Instagram, she DM'd you. She DMed me on Twitter. She followed me on Instagram. Oh.

And she has not watched any of my stories since she followed me, which I... We're offended by. But do you post good stories? I don't post much, but I do have a dog, and I post photos of her. So, like, I think she would appreciate it. Maybe. Do you think she's a dog person? Well, I don't know.

Oh, she had a parrot. She's a parrot person. Oh. She's a bird person. David is the only person who knows more about Jordan Hudson than me. Only because I have wanted to impress you and just text you the randomness thing. But just the idea that she has a parrot. I'm like, I got scooped on the parrot.

She was posted in R-slash-Birds a long time ago. I'm not... What? You know the Byrds subreddit? Yes. So she sends you a message basically saying, so that you're aware fully, I am watching you. That's what I figured it was because I replied.

And I said, hey, you know, I hope you haven't been hacked or something. I assume this is legit. but then she never wrote back, which is a little sad. And so when you request the requests of the requests, Carolina response is, I presume, saying, for for sake, guys. I feel I have probably gotten that response from some colleges, but they did seem to be keeping tabs on the fact that she was sending them. The head of communications for the athletic department was ced on them.

She then sent that to Brandon Faber, who was like Belichick's PR man, his chief of staff, which I love to imagine poor Belichick's chief of staff having to decide whether to go tell them. Oh, God, yeah. It went to the AD and the AD in waiting, and also went to the top communications officials. So six people were informed that she was sending FOIAs. Which is not standard for all of the FOIAs. I don't think so. I haven't requested everyone else's foias to see that.

But, like, in communications I've seen, no, it doesn't seem like they're making it to the highest levels of the school. The particular topics that seem to be animating Jordan Hudson's Inquisition, it seems to still go back to the interview on television that broke the story wide open for like the mainstream, which is that CBS interview and her interactions with the network. Jordan was a constant presence during our interview. How did you guys meet? Not talking about this.

No? No. It's a topic neither one of them is comfortable commenting on. What in the records request sort of indicated the CBS stuff? How obvious was it? So Jordan was requesting, emails between the university and a producer at CBS. And there's nothing there. You know, most people are just doing their job. They're asking about interviews. There wasn't,

UNC wasn't, like, emailing surreptitiously, like, please ask about the relationship. Please blow this up. So in all the request she's gotten back, I haven't found anything that she could use or be interesting. It's just sort of very basic stuff. But also just to state the obvious, like I can put myself in the shoes of a television producer, having done that before. If I was up to some nefarious business with an end goal in sight, and I'm not saying CBS was, I wouldn't be putting that over public communication either. So you'd have to be both complicit in wanting to make her look bad, but also careless enough to put it over an email that someone like you could find that out via a FOIA request. It is unlikely that there would be some,

again, to borrow the language of our time, some smoking gun. A paper trail. Paper trail that has, Aha, everyone was colluding against us, me and Bill, or at least me, Jordan Hudson. It's unlikely that there would be that sort of evidence. But the attempt to make sure, you attempt to find out, I both relate to and find so fascinating because... Okay, so we're like the scene in Austin Powers where Dr. Evil's talking to Austin Powers and he's like, we're not so different you and I. Remember when I told you we're not so different, you and I? We're not so different, you and I. See, I did say that.

But it's you and Jordan Hudson. That's right. I get where we're going here. After my stories about her doing, after my stories about her doing public records requests blew up, she responded to, I think, Stuart Mandel tweeted about it. And she said, oh, so it's only fantastic when the athletic does it. I replied he said, no, I think it's great that you're doing this. I think it's very interesting.

Yeah, I would love to know why, though. Like, what do you think is out there? And maybe, you know, for a lot of people who are new to it, you do think there's a smoking gun. And, you know, when I first started my career, I figured I could get everything. And you sort of have to learn how state employees work, how they communicate, what platforms they use. And so it takes a little bit of learning, but she's getting there. I wouldn't count her out. Are you offering to tutor Jordan Hudson in public records requests?

Why not? I was a former teacher? The problem why a lot of records offices are overworked is that a lot of corporations use it to get contract info to get better, make more competitive bids, information, you know, that can lead to a better profit. Journalists don't use it as much as you would think. Correct. But I do believe anyone can send a FOIA request, and I think anyone should. So I, sure, if she is listening to this, I will give her my intro to public records

seminar. It's about 60 minutes. I can teach her how to get exactly what she wants. And so the question that I have now is, okay, so Jordan Hudson is doing this over here, and is Bill Belichick in on these requests? Does he have a sense that this is even happening? Is he supportive of this? And we don't have the evidence that suggests one way or the other in the records that he would be.

No. But we do have, from earlier this week, an interview that he gave, Bill Belichick gave, Sean Hannity, the King of Fox News. And it sort of expresses a certain level of perhaps media criticism as well. Like CBS, I was stunned. at how horribly you were treated. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it either.

I was stunned. I hope you saw him. Well, you know, as we've seen recently, there have been more editing problems. Then they go back to over a couple of years, multiple examples of editing and interview process and all that. I thought that the interview I had with them

was done very deceptively. And I've asked for the transcript from them, and they won't give it to me. They've done that with others. I'm not really sure what that policy is. You can have the transcript. I'll give it to you. But what a, well, go ahead.

I didn't let you finish it. Yeah. So kind of confused about their, some of the things that they say they are, but I don't really seem living up to the trust that they, that they talk about. And on Tuesday, incidentally, Jordan Hudson promoted this same clip of Bill Belichick talking to Sean Hannity on her Instagram stories. Can you imagine listening to an hour of that?

Like, the two charisma-less individuals that I've ever listened to, my God. In a wood-paneled billiards hall. Yes, like a smoky cigar lounge. And I think it's worth reminding people at the Brain Trust here, the inner circle of Bill Belichick, part of the reason why I've been, again, both like trying to be self-aware, but also so serious in my embrace of this stupid story is because he is the highest paid employee in the state of North Carolina. And he has these two advisors that are so, I think, essential to understanding how this archetype of how to live in public has been turned inside out.

One of them, Jordan Hudson, the other one, if you're wondering, like, how conspiratorial is this inner circle? the other one happens to be Mike Lombardi. Who is, I learned a JFK assassination truther, and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. He just does not believe the official narrative, and he's gone on the solving JFK podcast twice. In one appearance, he did talk about how the media is spinning a narrative against the truth,

which I think goes to speak a lot to his mindset. The media creates a narrative, and that narrative will never go away because that's what the media wants to create. And part of the attraction for me for this case is this never-ending desire by our media to continue with the narrative when they know it's not true. That's what resonates with me the most why I'm fascinated with this because they're a broader issue than just who did it. Now I'm Dr. Evil looking at Mike Lombardium.

I'm like, we're not so different to you and I. The highest general manager in college football and Jess Montana, overlapping Venn diagram when it comes to JFK. JFC assassination conspiracies. As the media now, why have you been telling us that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? What I'm finding out today, Jess, is that I killed JFK.

Oh. We did it. You shouldn't say that on camera. Can we cut that? My reaction to that is, man, go recruit some high schoolers. Yeah, the suspicious opening you should be obsessed with is the transfer portal, sir.

The other reason, Jess, I wanted to have David on, is because when it comes to the money in college sports, it's been my goal to put a human face on it. And so you've been on the sidelines of college football games and surrounded by all of these boosters of some amount of wealth, I can only presume. And I have wondered, who the fuck are these people? Yeah, there's a level of booster where it is a person who is maybe one. well known in their industry, but they're not like a celebrity famous person. And so everyone will be paying attention to like the former athlete who will be on the sideline or the celebrity on the sideline. But then there's like the country's richest man over here that no one really recognizes but is secretly the money behind the entire operation. Yes. There's like Matthew McConaughey's,

plural. They're like T. Boone Pickens's. He's just sort of like, you know, people who live on top of oil wells, I can only presume. But how do we actually find out who is on these sidelines in this era in which Michael Lombardi, by the way, yes, was going to Saudi Arabia to consider, can we get money from over there? Who are the people in America that can actually put a face and a name to? So a lot of states have exceptions for donors to public universities. You can't get their names, which I think is a little absurd because they're funneling wealth into these schools. And with that comes a lot of influence. And these are places that still should be operating. for the benefit of the public good.

So I think you should know who gives money to that. So I was recently, I got some documents back from Texas covering some communications with their old NIL collective. And they had mentioned that for a million dollars, given to the athletic department, you could get sideline passes to all Texas football home games for five years. I was doing the math on that.

So a million dollars every home game for five years. It's actually not that bad if you have it. It's a good deal. Yeah. Yeah. I just got to, you know. I like what it's just the point. college sports where it's like, that's a steal.

Yeah. So what I wound up requesting recently from the University of Texas was a list of everyone who had gotten sideline passes to the games, and that was not protected under Texas public records law. So I was able to see that at an average Texas game, you know, their last home game against Texas A&M, there's

four billionaires there, you know, two people in oil, one in, I believe, real estate, and the guy who married into the Pace Picante family, who then He divorced his wife and bought her out for $90 million and then sold the company for a billion a couple years later. And like worth noting now more than ever, these people do play a more direct hand in the success of their universities that they were supported, of their football programs than in years

past, I would say. And I would also add to that, you're a Virginia Tech alum. We have no billionaires. James Franklin, though, was the Penn State head coach. And part of the shock of him being fired midseason was how much his buyout was going to be. And so these schools say, well, this buyout money will not come from our university or from our athletic budget. We'll have these private donors. We won't really say who's doing it. And if you are around the university or, you know, work in media around the university, maybe you'll know who it is or hear who it might be.

But like, these are not things that they publicly advertise where they'll say this booster is actually paying for the Franklin buyout, right? There's no endowed buyout. Exactly. It used to be, right, like you'd put your name on a library. now kind of the ultimate mark of being a mover and shaker is you're one of these people on the sidelines who is funding stuff that enables, in this case, the University of Texas to be... Eight and four?

Yes, to be eight and four. And still claiming we are the cream of the crop in college sports, which Texas does believe about itself and what they sell about themselves. And the numbers are pretty astounding. I think AL.com recently the story that the University of Texas brought in $168 million. in donations just to its athletic program last year. So who is on the list that gets access to the sidelines at the University of Texas?

Other than salsa air? One of my favorites that I found was the owner of, I believe, eight car dealerships in the Austin area, which the Austin Business Journal said brought in like $700 million in revenue last year, which is wild. I didn't realize car dealerships. I knew they were generated a lot of money. I didn't realize it was that much. but he gave a million dollars to the university a couple years ago,

not to the athletics department, but directly to the school. And he was on the list of people who had received sideline passes, but he's also currently on trial for allegedly burning down several businesses in the Austin area. Four fires in three months. Fire investigators say one man is behind them all. 75-year-old Dorsey Brian Hardiman is the owner of Continental Automotive Group, which operates several car dealerships in Texas. During all four fires,

Hartman's Mercedes-Benz SUV was seen on the properties. Fire investigators say they were all set by gasoline and strike matches. Far be it for me to advise how to arson. But leaving allegedly your Mercedes-Benz SUV at the scene of each of those stories. Especially when you have access to other cars. I didn't even think about that. Wow. Wow.

There's a burnt orange joke there somewhere. I don't know where it is. Gosh, okay. Just pretend that like I nailed it. Okay. I reached out to the University of Texas and they didn't respond, but I did find photos of him on the foundation website at a game recently. And so, yeah, all I can cite, I suppose, is this email from 2024 that Brian Harderman sent to the Austin Business Journal

in which he denied involvement. And his attorney, for the record, did not respond to requests that you, David, had sent to. him. What's the biggest reason that there's so much privacy granted for these people? Maybe the world should it know that what I do is I own and operate a hunting lodge in the state of Texas that allows me to facilitate the killing of exotic wildlife. Yes, that's another billionaire on the list. And according to Forbes, he is co-owner of the Greystone Castle. It's not just a hunting lodge. It is a castle in the middle and over Texas where you can. hunt ibex and impela and springbok. This castle, this Greystone Castle sporting club, the website, Texas Hossotality in an extraordinary setting. We are an Orvis endorsed wing shooting lodge, which is clearly a thing. And your bird hunting trips can include dove, quail,

pheasant, Hungarian partridge, duck, and turkey, combine any of these hunts with our five-star-rated lodging, and you have a hunting trip fit for a king. King of the bros. If they wanted to chase me for the work I'm doing, you know, like, if they want to give me a, like... If they want to hunt for sport. I do not volunteer that. Turn around is fair play. What we should be doing is... I don't know if I'm going to be allowed in Texas after this, so...

Or on R-slash-birds. I did recently find some messages that former head coaches wrote on bombs to Osama bin Laden. All roads. Charlie... Speaking of Notre Dame, Charlie Weiss wrote, you will lose. Go Irish. Wait, he, he, like, wrote it on a bomb? Yes.

I'm sorry, I don't quite... understand how one does that. So they did a tour, like, of military bases in the Middle East? Charlie Ways wrote, decided schematic advantage on a fucking bomb. You guys just love your Patriots head coaches on this show. It's, I can't stop referring to the New England Patriots coaching tree. He wrote it on a, you can write on bombs? Yeah, like when you're touring like you know's military bases.

They let people write, like, they don't let, like, Pablo right on the bomb. It's like, it's like a message in a bottle, but also the exact opposite. He wrote Go Irish on the Yeah, go Irish. It's a fucking Catholic school, dude. What are you doing? Right, you got a bomb? You wrote Go Irish?

I don't think Pope Leo would have approved if I didn't go Irish on a bomb. He wrote Go Irish, but really deserved an asterisk that said, America. Yeah. I was almost like, wait, the Irish have he stopped? What if he was like his last thoughts? What did I do to the Irish?

There's so many levels to what? rich people do that I have like no access to like shooting springbox writing on bombs. I mean, this is just like an unfathomable pastime. Like I really don't. I have nothing. I got nothing on this. Sound more broke. As Jess wonders, how do these people live behind closed doors? How do these, coaches? What are they doing? And how do they wield their power? It brings us to something that Jess is absolutely in the dark about. And frankly, I am kind of too, except, that, David, one of the things you have discovered is a phone number that I want us to dial from inside of the studio because I think Jess Matana has the ability to make history.

Me? Yes. How so? Because, David, we asked Jess to prepare one thing specifically, well, 25 things, actually. You guys asked me to do a top 25 college football ranking in May. Well, it's because we value your expertise. Yeah, I mean, we love to talk, you know, teams here. features. Like, this is a real-deal sports podcast. That's right. Who you got this year?

We're doing sports, obviously. How did you get this phone number? This was from some emails. ECUs, Blake Harrell was sending... This is an actual call we're making right now. Who am I talking to? Just channel Charlie Weiss. Yes. Hello, you have reached the voting line for the USA Today Sports Croaches Poll. This line is for football and men's basketball.

basketball. Please give your name in school, followed by your top 25 selections in order, beginning with number one. As you read, please check your ballot carefully to make sure you have not duplicated a team. Identify yourself first, please. Thank you for calling. Begin speaking at the tone. Leave your message at the tone. Press pound when finished. This is Charlie Weiss from the University of Notre Dame. Number one, Ohio State. Number two, Oregon. Number three, Notre Dame. 4, Georgia. Number 5, Indiana. Number 6, Texas.

Number 7, Texas Tech. Number 8, Miami. Number 9, Texas A&M. Number 10, LSU. Number 11, Alabama. Number 12, Oklahoma. Number 13. USC, that's Southern California.

Number 14, Michigan. 15, Tennessee. 16, Ole Miss. 17, Penn State. 18, BYU. 19, Florida. 20, Missouri, 21, Washington, 22, Iowa, 23, Clemson, 24, South Carolina, 25, Utah. No UNC.

No Virginia Tech. UNC, I mean, their wins totals like four and a half right now in the sports books. Really? Their schedule's pretty hard. Should we end the call? I just let them keep listening to us. Oh, yeah, no, no. I am also Charlie Weiss.

You've made history. I believe you're the first woman to... We've made history. You're the first woman to ever vote in the coaches' polls. We're still voting. Hang up the... Cut this. Go Irish.

Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Walter Averoma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tuminello. Studio engineering by RG Systems, sound design by Andrew Bersick, Digital Strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern,

theme song, as always, by John Bravo. I'll talk to you next time.