PTI - Ryan Day Objects to Transfer Portal Changes

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the NCAA transfer portal, the MLB, and the US Men's National Team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Part of the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. We've been hosting this show for nearly 24 years, Tony. How do you think we've changed?

Tony Kornheiser. Even sexier now? Oh, really? In that Betty White sort of way? I hadn't thought of it quite like Betty White. We're moving up. We're getting on up. I just thought of it quite like Betty White,

but now that you bring her up, sure, in that way. Uh-uh. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, the Tigers Top the Yankees. He's Maricio Cacetino wants the heat. Sure. And Steve Young joins us for five good minutes. But we begin today with college football and the coach of the defending national champion objecting to a proposal that would have just one transfer window that would open in early January.

Ryan Day does not like the idea because the college football playoffs are going on then and at least four teams would still be playing. Last year, Ohio State would have still been playing. Currently, there are two transfer windows, one in December, one in April. Will Bunn, does Ryan Day have valid reservations about the proposed change in the portal window? Probably. He probably does. Ryan Day, like every other college football coach, is coming at this from a standpoint of perspective of self-preservation. Here's what I need, because my team is playing late into January, and I don't have the benefit of this other thing. And he's got point there.

But you know what? There's only 12 teams in the playoff, and you only had four of them left by then. So that means all the others are, you know, maybe not so invested in this. And here's what should happen. And I, Tony, I'm in this because, as you know, I deal with Big Ten stuff all the time. And I'm hearing that perspective mostly. But the championship game is on January 20th. So make the damn deadline.

Just go to January 21. Open it. Open it then. Just open it then. This is not that hard. This is the simplest thing in the history of the world. It is. Ryan Day is.

You say there are 12 teams now. go to 16, that's four more teams. Okay. You don't want to penalize your good teams because they're still playing. Okay. Because the transfer portal has upended college football. Yes, it has. Every team, every year, 30, 40, maybe 50 guys come

and they go. Way more than that. Bill Belichick has 70 new players. In his first year at Colorado, Dionne Sanders had 80 new players. So look, now they're not all transfers. Several hundred. They're not all transfers. But if you have this one portal opportunity,

and you are a coach, that's how you recruit next year's team. If you are a player and you don't like the coach or you want more playing time, boom, you go into the portal. So there's chaos there. As long as everybody's under the same umbrella, you can handle it. This is a change to the umbrella. Just wait till the season's over. Look, I understand having one portal window.

Not two. I understand that. But you have to wait until everybody is either playing or not playing. You cannot penalize teams. They're administrative reasons people don't want to wait. I don't care about them. Let me just say, let me go back to something

you said that is important. You said whatever number you use, Tony, I'm going to bet you that of Division I, football players, I'll just go Division I. I'll bet you more than 60%.

I'll go as high as 65%. Transfer these last two years. That number's about that. So this is important to them. I get it. This is the rolling tide of college football now. You cannot say that, oh, there's only four teams left.

So they're hell with them. You can't say that. No. By the way, so we can find this out during the break, right, from AI. You know, AI will have some number. They'll offer up a number to see if I'm right about my 60 to 65 percent. Oh, good, a correction box. Good.

That's what I want. Let's move in the meantime to baseball. The Tigers knocked around the Yanks for nine runs in the seventh last night on the way to a 12-2 win. The Tigers are two and a half games better than the Yanks? Tony, which of these two are you more bullish on? as we now are a week into September, almost two, and we head down the stretch. I am more bullish on the Tigers,

because I believe the Tigers have been a first-place team all season, though the division they're in this year is not as good as it was last year, but the Yankees are a second-place team, maybe a third-place team if the Red Sox get hot. And that thing you mentioned about the nine runs, nine runs in a seventh inning against two relievers, I believe all earned the relievers did not get a single out. They got rocked.

August 1st, the Yankee bullpen is an ERA of 505, whereas in the month of August, the Tigers was 298. I can't be bullish on a team with a 505 ERA in the bullpen. It's too much bullpen stuff in games. I'm going to take you further. I can't be bullish on anybody. There's nobody to be bullish on the entire major leagues. You can start with the Tigers and Angels.

You know that I think. But you can't because the Dodgers aren't even, we don't even know they're going to win a division. The Dodgers could be in a wildcar situation on the road of Rickley Field. I still think if their pitching is good. They're dominant. You know. Toronto, the Yankees, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland. Texas even is now six games over 500 and moving on up.

Houston, which is lost, you know, seven of ten. Seattle, if I go to the National League, the Cubs, they're three clear. I think they're three clear right now of San Diego for the first wild-car spot. But the Reds are still in it. The Mets have a wild-car spot. The Padres are going to like to be in. The Dodgers are not clear of anything. San Francisco's back in it.

The Phillies are the only. team in the top 10 teams right now that is one seven of ten. All the rest of them are somewhere between four and five and six. I'll give you another reason. I'll give you another reason why I'm more bullish on the Tigers. Tarik Scoubel. He's a chance

to come back two years in a row for Saw Young and has an outside chance at the Triple Crown two years ago. The Yankees freed and Rodon have had great years. But Scobble's ERA is one full run under theirs. He's the best guy out. Yet, yet,

Yet Detroit didn't have anything in that division. In Cleveland, which is awakened reasonably, not going to catch the tigers. So, you know, I don't know what it means. The choice was who we are more bullish on. That's what I said. None of them. Let's move to soccer. The U.S. men's national team beat Japan last night, two nothing in one of those friendlies

after a string of disappointing results. The new U.S. coach, Maricio Pachitino said, don't criticize my players, criticize me. Here's a direct quote. Criticize me, criticize me, but let the players play free, unquote. it even rhymes. Wilbon is that a fair request? No.

It's a stupid request that falls on deaf ears. Because Pontchitino has no standing, he has no stature. We're not even sure if he has a team that's worthy of our attention,

much less criticism. He's got nothing. He's been around two minutes and he's asking people what to... We'll criticize whatever we damn well please criticize and he'll live with it.

Whether it's him or his... these people are professionals. They're not in high school. When you and were not recovering highs? And you didn't want to criticize little 14-year-old Johnny because he might weep when he got home? I didn't, but I know secretly you did. I regret it to this day.

No, what is this dude talking about? And I'm sure you agree with this. I agree with it largely. Look, this is coaching 101. This is criticize me. I've got a long-term contract. Lay off my players. How long as he?

Coaches do this because they know their locker room. They know which guys are fragile in the psyche, and they know which guys might crumble if they get too much criticism. I'm sure the guy's a good coach. He's coaching the Premier League. He's coached in League one in France. But in this context, he has no standing. But here is what matters.

In the United States, when you lose, everybody gets criticized. The players, the coach is the GM. These friendlies, so what? This is about the World Cup. If you get bounced out of the World Cup early, everybody's going down the drain. because we are one of the hosts of the World Cup. We are hosting the finals. If we don't get to the knockout round or if we get drilled like five nothing, it's disastrous.

This is results-based. And I understand his sentiment, but it's not going to go. Don't even say it publicly. We're 10 months away from the biggest sporting event in the world. In the world. And you are like begging? Yes. And what?

Come on now. I mean, I don't want to hear that. The tone of this whole summer has been not good for that program. It hasn't been. And so now we're criticizing him. Where is it? The star of the team don't play into friendlies, do play in the friendlies. We don't even know what he's doing yet.

You know, they need to write themselves in something other than a friendly. Let's take a break. Coming up, J.J. McCarthy did something. No one has done since Steve Young. And you know what? We're going to ask Steve Young about that. We'll also ask him whether he thinks my man, Caleb Williams, will end up excelling within Ben Johnson's offense.

I remember when the Yankees were great all the time. time when I was a kid. They're not great now. Aaron Judge is great. They are not great. Let's stick into some NFL issues with our great friend and the man I taught all about private equity, Ball of Fame quarterback Steve Young. Let us start with this. This is going to be very personal for you. J.J. McCarthy is the first starting quarterback in the NFL to come back from 10 down in the fourth quarter of his NFL debut since you did it in Tampa Bay in 1985. what did you see when you watched J.J. McCarthy? Well, first of all, Tony,

thank you for finding the one highlight of my season in Tampa. No, the second highlight was coming back the next year, San Francisco as a quarterback for the 49ers. We played in Tampa, and I went out at a halftime to receive the 1986 MVP of the two and 14 bucks in front of the crowd. But JJ, we got to think about J.J. McCarthy. Look, Sam Donald was below, I mean, in one season,

People loved them and the locker room loved him. So he has now to enter as a young, inexperienced quarterback. He goes down to Chicago on opening Monday night under all that pressure and then throw, when he threw the pick six, didn't you all? I mean, I was like, oh, my. Game over. Yeah. Not only game over, but it's like now you've got to set you, the hills that you got to climb,

the filters you got to go through to kind of get there, that it's just, you just don't want to start like a horse that gets out of the gate and then falls flat on its face. And then to see him gather himself after the pick six, gritty and go get it done, there's nothing greater that could happen to a first-time quarterback in the NFL than what happened to JJ. His team now can point to it. Hopefully, you know, if things go sour, then go, but he did it in week one and it was great. And so I just, there's nothing better than what happened to J.J. McCarthy and for J.J.

McCarthy and for J.J. to get started in the season. Not for some of us. for you, not for Bears fan. You know, it's the first time I ever rooted against that heart of Chicago kid. All right, we're going to go to the other side of this though, Stephen. I said yesterday, Caleb Williams has to be deprogrammed from the Iberthus era. And as a quarterback who had to adjust to a new offensive system, a time or two in your life, what does that take to do? Michael, you hit me at the heart of what my passion is for the game today, is that so many defensive coordinator-focused head coaches

do not understand the position. And more than ever, the quarterback is football. And people say, oh, that's, Steve, that's crap. Look, I know it's conflated, but it's not that conflated. And so to not understand the position, you can see the teams that don't understand it and why they're not very good at it. So there is a transition.

And having to learn a new offense is a transition. But then let's also look at Ben Johnson. Just looked it up on chat, GBT. He's never coached a mobile quarterback. And being a mobile quarterback, I was told in 1987, I was telling Tony, like I was told by Gray Perkins, I hate scramblers. Like it is unusual.

In today's game, it's a prototype. If you're going to be a great innovative offensive coordinator or head coach of quarterbacks, you need to be able to deal with the prototype. This is the prototype. This is Ben Johnson's first chance at that prototype. And I'm telling you that's a transition. That is not simple for coach and quarterback. And to be able to gain that trust and understanding.

And Caleb's trying to understand the one thing that's so hard today is that I don't exactly when to go. I want to be a sophisticated pastor of the football. I want to be Dan Marino. I want to be Payman. I want to be Tom Brady. But I also know that there's free yards out there to go get every game. I don't want to lose them. And that dilemma needs a lot of care and concern. And I wish because I did it and lived it, I kind of wish I could like they could connect to my brain and I could just give it to them because it's very hard for people that don't. If you play quarterback the NFL, 18, 20 years, but never were able to capable of moving around, you would not know what to say. You would not know what to teach. And I think that's unique to the guys today.

We're old enough to remember when Steve was like the father of that. I mean, after Tarkington and Starback, then it did Steve. Not the grandfather, right? Not the grandfather. Not the grandfather. We won't saddle you with that. Brian Dayball seemed to waffle on Russell Wilson being his starter. We two. Russell has been at this a long time, Steve. If you hear him, your head coach sort of, what do you do week two if you're Wilson? You got to become the reason that you win some games because you know in the background, people are chirping for Jackson Dart because it's just the game today.

Why is he standing there? Why is he sitting there? We're going to lose games. Might as well lose him with Jackson Dart. You know, that's out one game. That's how it gets started. And so Russell's been through it. He's a veteran, but he knows perception is nine-tenths of the law as well, not possession.

I learned in law school. Perception is, I need to go be a reason. And he's old enough and mature enough, and he can figure it out. Go be the reason they win some games and hold on to your job. Because you know it's if when the coach starts the waffle, you've got to get to Wednesday morning

and hope that you're not getting benched because it's close. So I would say, Russell, go be the reason. And that's not easy. Well, get you out of here on this, and we're doing this question because the quote is so great. Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh said that the hit on Justin Herbert by linebacker, Duke Trank,

quote, would have killed a lesser man. Okay. That's how big that hit was. Let's be honest about that, unquote. As someone who took big hits in your career, how perilous did that one look to you? What was with the love affair between Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert? Look, I saw Justin Herbert in Oregon, he came to Stanford,

and I got season tickets. There's no more pretty throwing motion other than Andrew Luck in history. I mean, it is a thing of beauty. I remember almost tearing up watching him, throw the football. So I understand the love affair, but let's stop. Let's go look at that hit again. He turns his back. The lineback gets a free run. Thank you. 15 years ago before the rule changes. His head is, he's leaping from six yards away, knifing into you. Like, come on. He has to bring his feet and knock him down. And I'm surprised he didn't try to pick him up. And I'd like,

talk about overreaction. But I understand he's trying to defend his quarterback. I remember the fridge getting me straight on when I play. the refrigerator Perry for the Bears. He was, how much, Michael, $3.50? Yeah. I mean, and he got me straight on,

tip me over, and I thought to myself, oh, this is it. I'm dead. I'm going to die. And he took me down and landed on me, and I thought he broke me. Like I broke.

Like my, just, and I got up, I'm like, oh, I didn't break. I thought for sure I was dead. That is great.

Look, I'm not trying to consider. I'm not a get off my lawn kind of guy, but let's, let's, come on. Get off the lawn on that one. Harbaugh. Nobody can hit the quarterback today. Went to far. There's such a pleasure to have you. So, thank you so much.

Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it. You guys the best. Let's take one last break still to come. Wilbon's old neighbor hits home run number 50. And Fernando Tatis Jr. pulls one back again. I got to remind Steve, but when Tio got hit in the end zone in a playoff game,

But now Steve was gone by then. He wasn't the quarterback, but T.O. got hit. He got crushed by two Packers, I think, in the NFC title game. Happy time, people. Happy 51st birthday, Ben Wallace. The Hall of Fame Center, so honored for his defensive and rebounding prowess, was originally signed by the Washington Bullets out of Virginia Union in 1996. His stat line in Washington was anemic.

He averaged 1.1 points and 1.7 rebounds coming. off the bench in just 34 games. But when Wallace got to Detroit, he flourished. Four different times Wallace was NBA defensive player of the year. Between 2000 and 2006, Wallace averaged 12.9 rebounds for the Pistons, and he was on their 2004 championship team. Wallace was never a scorer, averaging 5.7 points per game through 16 seasons. But the Pistons retired is number three jersey nonetheless.

They better had. He's the only undrafted player to ever. make the basketball hall of fame in the NBA. Is that right? That's right. And by the way, how could the Bullets Wizards give up on him? He would have been pretty good with that Gilbert Arenas Jameson. I think he would have been playing with those guys.

Happy anniversary Pete Sampras. On this day, 35 years ago, Sampris defeated Andre Agassie and the final of the U.S. Open and at 19 became the youngest man to ever win the Open. Along the way, Sampris beat the sixth seed, Thomas Mooster. The three-seat, Yvonne Lendel. breaking Lendell Street of eight consecutive U.S. Open Finals, then John McEnroe in the semis and Agassie in the final. Sampras went on to win 14 majors,

the most of any American man in the open era. Sampras first reached number one in the world in 1993, and over the course of his career, held that ranking for a total of 286 weeks. When Sampros retired, his 14 majors was the record, but that has since been surpassed by Federer and Adala and Djokovovina. He never got to love he should have gotten. Because he was in between those.

two eras. You mentioned Lendell and McEnroe and then you move forward and you get the triplets who you know, Joker's the only one there. But he's the best he's the best American. I know but he didn't know we didn't know that at the time. Right? Well he was piling him up. And he had to share it with Agassiz. He was piling up

Wimbledon's in the U.S. Open. I'm doing the golf course too. That's right. Happy trails to one home run for Tyler Stevenson but not a second. The Reds catcher launched one out to right in the fourth inning of last night's game against the Padres. San Diego whitefielder Fernando Tatis Jr. tracked it and brought it back on yet another spectacular play at the wall.

Tatis Jr. has four such catches in just the last 27 games at Petco Park and to think that Tatis spent the early part of his career in shortstop. But later in the ninth, Stevenson got his revenge, hitting a homer to left that proved to be the game winner for the rest because Tatis don't play left. With the loss, the Padres fell two back of the Dodgers in the NL West. L.A. beat the Rockies behind a two-run homer. from Muky Betz who's batting 333 over his last 31 games. You know why for many reasons I cannot really against the Dodgers. I do not ever against the Dodgers. But the Padres are so exciting.

They're exciting. And they hate each other. And Tatis. And that matters. And you want to see him play each other, but not this year. Not this year. One correction. Steve Young did, in fact, throw that pass to Terrell Owens

when he took that big hit against the Packers in 1999. And one of his mission. Brock Purdy did not practice. They, Kyle Shanney and said it would be a long shot. for him to play Sunday at New Orleans, so Mac Jones will start. You have to change my pick. Oh, and you're a confidenceful? Let's go the big finish.

Let's do it. The Aces beat the Sky for their 15th straight, as you predicted, and the Storm took the last playoff spot, which is the bigger deal. The Storm. I mean, the Aces, that was a homecoming game, and it was not a real game. The Storm getting in the playoffs, congratulations. Sox starter, Connolly Early, struck out 11 over 5 in his Major League debut. Got to be impressed.

Very impressed. He went to UVA. He's a Richmond kid. Yeah, it was very impressive. Cub starter, Kate Horton, has a 1-25 ERA. Since July 1st. You find that significant? Yeah, because he's our ace, our stopper,

and he's the rookie of the year in the National League. Flawless. Oh, not the Miz. Not the Miz. No, not the Mitz. Oh, whoa. Hold the presses. Kyle Schwabler, it is fittieth of the season last night.

It's a big deal, living. He's a monster. He is so much better than both of us thought he would be when he first came up. He's a force in baseball. Last one, Anthony Rizzle will retire as a call on Saturday at Wrigley Field. You must be excited. Yes, I am. If I wasn't going to be at Northwestern Oregon, I'd be at Riggily Field to just for Rizzo.

Huh? We're out of time. We were trying to do better the next time. Dr. Melissa Lockney's shout out. I'm Mike Wilbon. Same time tomorrow, knuckleheads.