Shutdown Fullcast - Metal Gear Sorsby 4: Guns Up

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Ryan’s more Metal Gear than man nowSorsby case thoughts: We have some!Sure, let's try shunning to fix NCAA issues; it's not like anything else is workingThe first-ever use of "pro wrestling in the pejorative sense" in the show's interminable historyCody Campbell if nothing else please stop smiling at us on televisionBonus weather ambience in today's episode! Soothing rain sounds provided free of chargeLSU basketball recruiting speculation [oil term]Ryan ends one long-running game and begins another, shorter oneStick around for the end of the show to find out how excited we all are for the World Cup!The Shutdown Fullcast is on Patreon. This is how we pay our producers, and occasionally ourselves. If you'd like to help with that, give us $4 a month (or a larger, funnier number of your choosing) and we'll give you bonus episodes. As of this recording we have delivered 29 (twenty-nine!!) bonus episodes since launching in August. We think this is a pretty good deal (for you)Now through June 30, 100% of proceeds from PTKU merch sold through the Shutdown Fullstore will be donated to the Transgender Resource Center of New MexicoShutdown Fullcast is produced by Michael Ray Surber Fullcast theme variant arranged and performed by Patrick HowellDID YOU KNOW: Spencer and Holly write Channel 6, a year-round newsletter that is mostly about football, until it’s notBefore the world ends (again), treat yourself to Jason’s critically praised novel and other workTravel in your mind palace to Phantom Island, Ryan’s new show with Steven Godfrey, which is not a college football show because another simply cannot existCheck out Surber’s band, Killer Antz

I love that Ryan is so Kojima pilgrim right now. He is, he is, dude, you are in, your brain is, is that a fine suede right now? It's going to be so perfected by the amount of Hideo Kojima you are applying to it. Replaying the Metal Gear games is really, really doing things. It's really rewiring me in some interesting ways. I feel like you're going to get to a point where you start saying mystical things about it, where you're like, dude, it's unlocking the 98% of my brain I normally don't use. I'm looseying myself.

What is the status of this replay? We are, I am, we're doing Metal Gear Solid 2 now, and we agreed that our midway point would be after the Harrier fight. So I am up, I am through that and, and waiting for everybody else to catch up and do the episode before we do the next one. Yeah, you're going to, dude, you're going to be like, this will be like what I would consider to be benign AI. psychosis right like you're gonna be like no no kajima was like the game talks back to me it's also just like and I'm sure we'll talk about it when we do that recording but like there's so much jankiness and how these like sometimes these games are real fucking pain in the ass to play which I think kind of works on your like increases the psychosis as well because you're like

oh, this feels so, like, awkward and unnatural, and maybe the machines are right. And everything starts going sideways. Maybe I'm the one who needs to evolve. Metal Gear games are such good excuses for themselves. It's like, five is my favorite. Spencer, I think five might be your favorite as well. Five is also my favorite.

And when you say that online, people will say, don't you know it's not finished? I'm like, it looks finished to me. I bought a disc that had the game on it. I put the disc in. The disc do not have holes in it. How would you know if a Metal Gear game was? Exactly.

Oh, have you noticed the last 10 missions are just redoes of the previous? Are the others supposed to be significantly different? You're telling me I'm not having fun leading my dog with a knife into a base and taking it over? I'll do it 50 more times. I don't know. I don't know. My not son paired up with his psychic child seems like it's done to me. Yeah, they hijacked him back, dude.

What are you doing? Yeah, I'm playing a tape of a guy taking a shit to fool people outside the port-a-let I'm hiding in that I'm taking a shit. Later, I'll play David Bowie. Like, hey, did you notice this pastry building kind of doesn't have any point? And you're just stocking up on these, like, captive soldiers for no reason. Yeah, I'm going to go grab a half dozen more. What you want? I'm going to apologize for spending my time this way.

I'm going to sedate a bear, tie it to a balloon and take it home. why the fuck wouldn't I do that? Yeah. By the way, it's not David Bowie. It's mid-yurs version of the man who sold the world, which is even more of Deo Kojima that he's like, no, no, no, no, no, this weird 80s remake of this thing. Put it in a Walkman.

Go kill some Soviet troops. Put up a giant, like, cardboard display of a girl with big tits and be like, hey, Soviets, look, distraction. And they're like, oh, hubba, hubba. Yeah, man. It's, it's Soldier Island. It doesn't have to be finished. Yeah.

Right, right. Like, the entire shoot is about a utopia for soldiers where they don't have to have governments. I'm like, why do I want that to happen? I don't know. The great Lord and master coach him told me I want that to happen. Are you a good boss? Yeah, I come home every day and beat the shit out of my employees. Thank you, sir.

Mercilessly. It is very like master and commander if there were no other ships. If it was just like, yeah, man, we just sat here on the boat, thriving, throbbing, throats. I've been whole time. Oceans are now HR meetings. Yeah. But fun.

It just feels, every single one of his games feels like varying degrees of having a high fever and taking a lot of cough medicine. It's like, it's like 80% high culture that is far too beyond my way of perceiving anything, and then 20% the lowest culture you could think of. Yeah. Like eight college lectures all at once with a fart joke. joke. It's like what if AEW decided like hey this season the theme is nuclear proliferation that's what we're going of the mind yeah every so there are eight chris jericho and they all hate each other but they're all married and the games themselves do not lend themselves to coherence because they allow deliberately points where you can short-circuit

the flow of the game simply for no other point than for Hideo Kojima to go meta, meta, you're playing again. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying? And you're like, what does he say? What does he mean by this? And you're like, I don't know, maybe you thought it'd be funny if you could annihilate and just gun down a guy in the middle of a villain monologue, right? Like, Snake, the size of a gun, bha, bha, bha, bha, bha,

shut up. This gives me much to ponder. Yeah, yeah. You did it, Snake. You learned the lesson. What lesson? I just shot a guy in the face while he was talking. You are the game.

They're so they're so like thematically dense that I'm not even that worried about like oh I wonder if this was like bad for kids I'm like I think there was too much here like I kid you couldn't get you couldn't get brainwashed into it because you couldn't pick one thing I mean when you're a kid you're like one hand like boring big words I just want to blamplam blam blam blam like even the sneaking parts are like come on hurry up and you're like nanom machines It's seeping in, you just don't realize. So I played Phantom Pain. I've replayed it pretty recently with my elder son. And when Quiet appears, Quiet is the extremely fast assassin who...

I thought you're going to say extremely naked. Who due to a skin allergy... It's very... It's vitally critically important... Some sort of critically important plot element. She has to wear next to nothing. Yeah. Right?

Like her skin has to breathe. It's, she has like a gambling addiction to not wearing clothes. Yeah, that's right. I think, I think quiet should be declared eligible due to her skin allergy to clothes. If you haven't yet unlocked dog with knife, then the lady who must be nearly naked is, she should be your quarterback. Yeah, exactly. So if you can't get dog with knife, you get quiet. And quiet, when she appeared, my son, who is adolescent, looked up and goes, oh, come on!

So like too much for it for a young young man. My, my, it's too much. A young American teen looked up and was like, Hideo, Kojima. That's some bullshit. But look, this is, I appreciate the, the internal serious consistency when we played Metal Gear Solid, like, one of the running themes is that, like, Merrill, Merrill got a thick butt.

Yeah. Like, it's like, no, they're like. What a can. It's like the most serious, you know, blah, blah, whatever. And then, like, the camera's like, you saw this, right? Just wanted to make sure you didn't miss. The polygons I constructed for you.

These are games that are not horny, but they are sexual. It's very hard. Yeah, it's a very specific psychosis. Or it's like, nothing about this is erotic, but it's horny. Yeah. Also, I feel like Hideo Kojima is broadcasting to the, rest of the world when he does this, right? That when he does the Merrill butt thing, he's like, I live in Japan. This is a land that like a lot of highly developed democracy like economies. It's like,

we value the thing that we are not, right? Like we are like the epitome of beauty on both sides is going to be an underfed person who reeks of wealth, right? Meanwhile, Kojima is like, I am sending up a desperation signal. I, Hideo Kojima, demand the thickness. That's right. That's right. A rebel. I'm a rebel in all forms. I'll put a thick ass in a video game. All 32 polygons of it. Yeah. It's a lot.

It sure is a lot. It is good for my brain and my outlook on the world. Yeah. I think so. Listen, I think you're going to come out of this a better man. It's good to process information, lots of it. Information of any kind. You know, not that you needed it, Ryan.

I just think that, like, you know, iron sharpens iron. Sure. Yep. Got to get the reps in here. I think this time in the forge is just going to make you an even more beautiful and stronger night. I like iron-sharving iron indicating that Ryan is also making Metal Gear better, which I think that's true. I think it's true. No, I think Kojima would agree too. If the master creator said that's true, I would believe him.

This is a very important part that I think Hideo Kojima and every coach have in common, which is that all great coaches, when confronted with total bullshit that they've said, will attach it to something that happened that was positive and go, see? See? Right? Some of you'll go, hey, coach, when you reference this obscure work by Blaise Pascal in the speech, and the coach is like, I don't even know who Blaise Pascal is, but turn a phrase, whatever, I'll do it. Yeah, that was intentional.

I did that. You know, I get the guys to read books. I had them read that. He didn't. He didn't. So if you go to coach him and you'd be like, did this mean that in the game? He'll be like, perhaps that is part of the context. Yeah.

Yeah. Good shit. Really good shit. It's very important. It's very important that when somebody thinks you're smarter than you are, do not correct them. The Deo Kojean was really good at that. I don't know. He might be, I think it's the opposite with him.

I think he is too smart to. He graciously gives us glimpses of how smart he is, but he humbly understands that we can never be on his level. So he doesn't try to force us. He just gives us those glimpses. You know, I want to think that, but he allegedly has this disc of games that he will never have the time to make. Because he is over 60 now, even though he looks like he's 20.

Like Hideo Kojima looks like, he looks like kind of a haggard teenager at all times. Yeah, the nanomachines are keeping him young. And he has this disc that allegedly has all of these games on it. And he says that after his death, you know, it will be, it'll be the treasure trove somebody else can use to, you know, forge the bold new world that exists only in Hideo Kojima's mind. And when we get those, I'm convinced there are going to be things like Fart Wizard 3,000. Yeah. Right.

Just leisure shoot Larry games. This is where I put all the butts to naked for metal gear. Like, I mean, if you're, yeah, yeah, I remember this interview from like a couple years ago where he's talking about all his, like, ideas for projects, just jot it down or whatever. I'm like, yeah, man, that's a foundation of a religion, a century from now. Yeah. Or a minute from now. Well, it's also just going to be like, like, butt smasher five, right? They'll be like, what is it?

You smash the butt. With what? The butt hammer. That's what it is. Another butt. No, not enough lore. It needs more lore, too. No, no, we'll get more.

Well, that's why it's unfinished. Yeah, that's why you tell the story of buthammer man. Yeah, General Buthammer man. Ben Franklin found the buthammer originally and buried it for centuries. But which Ben Franklin. We found it even horrid. Punished Ben Franklin. We found a one who's even more French.

Bull gag. Franklin. That's just Ben Franklin. This Ben Franklin if they'd invented ball games. That's just old Hellfire Club been there. I'd like that you're suggesting Ben Franklin gets shocked by the lightning

bolt and is like horny as a result of it. That'd be a very filly thing, wouldn't it? Yeah, sure. That would be, yeah. I've got a cousin. You got to throw my lightning. Now he's like, super fucking horny. No, that's my thing. It's crazy.

He's crazy. Go fly a kite. He's like, hell yeah. Yeah, that's right. Ben Franklin, that shoots electricity out of his dick is 100% of Metal Gear villain. Yeah, his name's electric dickman. Voltage Wizard Electric Dickman. You need to go find it.

Ben Sparklin. Yeah, and you can't open the door to his office unless you go open the door to your actual house. And the game recognizes that. And they're like, thank you. How do you know? That's just how good the game. man. To the shutdown full cast.

You are listening to the internet's only college football podcast. I am Spencer Hall. And I am joined today by Ryan Nanny, Jason Kirk, Holly Anderson, and Michael Serber on the ones and twos. Jason, I interrupted.

You have college football news. I mean, we were already talking about college football news, but there's other college football news we can talk about. I haven't played the second death stranding, but apparently churches, the actual band shows up and they run a zoo or something. And they're not in character. It's just literally the band. They run an animal habitat. So I'm looking to get to that one.

But as far as college football goes, yeah, the Brendan Sorsby thing is happening. It is vitally, critically important that this young man must play as much college football as possible. medically necessary. It's kind of like the movie crank with him playing college football. If he is ever not playing college football specifically for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, we don't want to know what's happening. But it's the only thing holding back dark forces. Ryan, are we in a speed situation? I think we would be in his speed situation if Brendan Sorsby was insisting that he had to

keep gambling, that he couldn't stop gambling or else his body would shut down. That would be the speed situation here for me. That is the situation I am quoted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not too late to make that legal filing. To say like, hey, my body

is so... But you're going to say it's not too late to put him on a bus filled with explosives and sending kind of unfinished free. Based on some of the reaction online yesterday, I think you could get sufficient support for that right now. The 700 Club could have learned a lot from Howard Payne. 100%. I need to play college football or God will call me home.

We have done the oral Roberts defense. There is a college football game in that movie. Yeah. I mainly the like, yeah, it's the argument is made in Sorsby's name. But like, you know, this is Jeffrey, Jeffrey Kessler's invention. This whole like, he must be around a team thing. So like all credit for that brilliant creation should go to the lawyer. The one of one of several lawyers who is extremely good at just beating the

NCAA over and over. Like that guy formulating the must-play football or will die of gambling thing, I think he's the one I'm putting in the bus, so to speak. He's the one who gets to live out this bus thing. The other lawyer who is good at beating the NCAA Tom Mars, he had a quote in Yahoo. It's like right after this happened, like, I can't believe this. This is like, this shit was so shocking that Sorbsby is, um, currently emphasizing, allowed to play college football, that it was shocking other lawyers who their job is coming up with ways to beat the NCAA. Special shit.

It's really special shit. Why would Stephen Godfrey let Tom Mars say that? If you had a speed situation, I'd love it, by the way. It's not a real emergency. This bus can't slow down. There might be. It's not going to be yet. What's it going to hit?

Yeah, it doesn't even have to be on the road, man. 55 miles an hour? Yeah. We'll be lucky if we stick to that. Get this thing up to 80 and we won't hit anything. thing for nine hours? What is your, do any of you have a favorite overreaction to this news? Because, oh, okay, Holly's hands went up right away.

I would like to see. Holly, please, please share. I was really hesitant whether to even get into this today. But since you asked, the moment at which, I don't know why this was it, the moment that pushed me over the edge of, I do not care what happens to any of these. people anymore. Don't yell at me. Before you yell at me, I'm not saying, I'm not, I'm not saying that Brendan Sorsby is right. I am saying that he's funny. I am not saying that this is a good, just moral course of action for them to pursue. Can I tell you where I completely hopped off

with this? Please. Georgia declaring that they wouldn't schedule Texas Tech. really really okay setting aside the biggest really of it all which is the really where can you imagine for one second the tap dancing that sankie would be doing right now if this was a georgia player can you fucking imagine how i think we're big i think we're kind of getting off light even with the cody campbell of it all because this is happening at texas tech and this is not happening at ls u yet. This is not happening at Florida. You know, this is not happening at Bama. I mean, SORSU was almost the one who once.

The one who was, I said yet, I said yet. But for like this is, this would have had, this would have had the equivalent effect. You know, you know what could have happened? Do you know what could have happened to have had the exact same effect as this Georgia declaration? Spencer, have you also declared that you will not be placed? playing. I am not going to be playing. You will not be playing Texas Tech and football. I was so rare and you were going to swap in Tennessee State for Texas Tech. Really? This was the only thing stopping me. That was it. Otherwise, I would have given them a wapin' antel whalen. But no, my

virtue prevents me from scheduling Texas Tech. I know what they were doing. I know what they were doing. I'm not even saying they should not form a wall against this sort of behavior because the NCAA equivalent of social shaming since the legal system keeps not working and also is a weird and dumb tool for this. The social shaming or the NCAA equivalent may be our only way forward in terms of governance, but at the same time, be for fucking real. I think it is very noteworthy that you also have the Big Ten talking about this. You have a few big 12 ADs talking about this, and they're the ones who I'm like, no, stop.

You're not forfeiting conference games. Your valor is not that vast. Nebraska said the same thing, too. Nebraska last played Texas Tech in 2009. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, thanks guys. Nebraska leading the way in the Big Ten, as always. God.

I mean, I get it from like a face value perspective where it's just like, okay, where you're signaling that this is not cool and anyone else who does this, you'll be frozen out and blah, blah, blah. Also, it just reads, especially when it's Georgia, whose school president is one of the biggest SEC breakaway people. It just reads as one more excuse for, oh, see, the poor schools can't cover themselves. We need to launch our own thing, which Big Ten and SEC, they just adore each other.

So, of course, that'll go perfectly if they break away. But, like, yeah, it's, on the one hand, somebody's got to do something. And on the other, the schools that are the loudest about it at this time are also the ones who would be fine not ever being with any school in Texas Tech Stratosphere anyway. Spencer, do you have a favorite overreaction? I think my favorite overreaction is the notion that the NCAA, they're like, oh, man, listen, the NCAA has got to fight this. With what? With what? There's a hole in the bucket, dear silent.

Like beyond an appeal or what? First of all, this is my, this is to this situation. The analog I have is, have you ever been with a relative who is dying? And there is one of one person who is like, they're going to make it out. And they really believe it. You feel real bad for them, you know? But otherwise, the rest of you are kind of like, we're waiting here for this person to die.

Anyone who insists at the NCAA, like, get up off the mat! You got it, Mac! No. Fight back. Fight back! They are! Don't give up!

The last time they fought back, they... They are fighting back to the utmost that they possibly could. This is what it looks like when they fight back. They have equipped themselves with these, weapons. There were other weapons that could have equipped themselves with in any decade in the previous century, but these are the slappers they've chosen. For lots and lots of people within college sports, like lots and lots of people are not like the CEO or whatever of Fox Sports. Lots of people are just like, hey, we want to be part of a sporting association that makes some degree of

sense. And I get that. And like, somebody's got to do something. The NCAA can't because it has not legally designed itself as a thing that can do anything, but like, somebody's got to have a way to make it so that, like, the one and only, like, universally acknowledged sports rule can be enforced. So, like, uh, big 12, you're going to do anything? Playoff, playoff can't do anything. Uh, individual schools, which is, like, kind of how you recreate the NCAA from first principals. This is, like, individual schools all being mad about the same thing. Um, this is, like, watching a bunch of Bitcoin bros get scammed and be like, we need a federal reserve of some type. Sure.

Someone needs to step in. Someone's got to do something about it. We should invent some monetary policy. It's like we have like Elon and his bros going into the federal government ripping shit out and then realizing like, oh, that's why that was there. That was load bearing. It's like that, except we never had the load bearing thing to begin with. And every institution in college sports has spent this entire time looking for it and like realizing the NCAA isn't it and has never been it, it has never been empowered to be it, because it's not serious.

It's raining here. That's what that noise is. Oh, it did look like it was raining. I thought you had a fan on or something. Yeah. Is it too loud? No. No, no.

It's soothing and pleasant. I'm glad to hear it sounds awesome because it sounds great here. But like the... I'm sorry for typing. Do you hear loud white noise while Jason was talking? I was not talking about Jason. I mean... Serber currently doing a Joker laugh, by the way.

That was my nickname back in high school. With a Z. Everything sounds fine here, guys. Very soothing. That's old DJ Cool Ray. But yeah, like, they're going to, you know, like the SEC is going to break away to make its own rules. Literally right now, they just tried this shit. They just tried.

We're going to make an NIL governing body. Oh, we all hate it. They're going to make an SEC. Okay, where LSU is stealing Ole Miss's coach. Texas is talking shit about Ole Misses' actual. academics, everybody's robbing players left and right, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, they're going to enforce themselves. They're going to have their own circuit judges and cops who ride around just the southeastern

conference that now spans from Oklahoma to South Carolina. But like, there's this thing, we need to make a new governing body. Okay, you got to give it cops. The current cops can't do shit. What are new cops going to do? Jason, you said an incredible phrase in there that I feel like we could unpack in an entire episode of its own making that was just fan fiction. SEC Circuit judges.

Yeah, I mean, like, there was like, it was like, okay, can the playoff ban Texas Tech? Well, if they do that, that means they got to ban the next school that falls through the cracks. That means they need cops to do that. That means they're taking, that means next thing, you know, there's an entire rule book on the college football playoff.com that is a duplicate of the NCAA's rules and someone challenges the college football playoff in court and gets the same fucking result. Like, it's, It's all just fundamentally the shit is not designed as a workplace.

So this is what leads me to my favorite overreaction. And I saw this from like multiple people who I think are smart, who were like, oh. Oh God, we lost Jason to the elements. The rain has taken him. I'm sure he'll be back. It really, it took me a while to notice it, but I noticed how loud it was, not that it's gone. My favorite overreaction is smart people being like, well, I guess baseball. and football, pro football and basketball are all screwed with their...

I guess anyone can gamble on anything everywhere, no. You don't have to call people smart just because they're nice to us when they say shit like that. Yeah, that's dumb. No, I don't think this opinion was... I don't actually know who Ryan's talking about, but if you do and you're one of our friends, I'm sorry, that was some dumb shit you said. It was like the idea that what happened, there is a general thing happening here where people... The sort of slightly less dumb but still pretty dumb version of this is, well, if I'm a college football player, I'm just plopping down $10,000 tomorrow because I can do whatever I want, which is done for two reasons.

Number one, at no point at any of this has it been suggested that Brendan Sorsby was good at gambling. Right. He said he hasn't. Even he himself. Yeah. He bet on the Indiana Hoosiers for Kurt Signetti. Right. Like, there, I think there is a difference between, oh, there's somebody who's working with usually organized crime to, like, fix a match and get paid to do it.

And somebody who's like, I gamble a lot. And based on the odds, I can tell you how well that I play a lot of parlayes. Brother, I know how that turned out for you. It didn't go great. This was not some, like, huge profit opportunity for you. So, number one, that's out there. Number two, if you think like, well, this is my sign, I can rely on this retired judge who got pulled off the bench to come make one ruling in one case in Texas and therefore, like, everything's good and that will definitely happen to me. That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard.

Especially because, like, we haven't seen the appeal yet. And like, there is this assumption that like, oh, it's going to take 12 months and he'll already be in the NFL by the, you don't have fucking know that. They've accelerated several of these things. There's been several of these things where it's like a kid gets ruling it can play, Judge to overturns it a week later. Even if it does. This raises the additional incredible specter of they accelerate it and lose again. Even if it does go past the season and he gets to play the whole time because of like the way that the appellate system works.

And because judges will not change their goddamn schedules. I'm in a hurry. That's too bad. No. Being a judge sounds great. You become a judge because you were a lawyer and you had to do all that before. Now you don't want to do it. Now you're like, no, it's my calendar.

I decide when I go on vacation with Barb. You don't decide. Daddy is going to the Bahamas. In the appeals court where it's four Texas Tech judges and the chief judge was, I believe, the head of Texas Tech law at one point, or might still be, I don't know. Judge talking horse, I believe. You can, you know, talk yourself into like, okay, they'll just slow. walk this and we got away with attending one playoff game like that's the upside for texas

like if you're better to slow walk something than judge talking horse if you're the ncdbara you will see this through to the end because even if you even if you can't sort of like nail soresby and get him thrown out of this season you still want to get a final ruling from wherever you have to get it that says yes the ncdbola can enforce its anti-gambling provisions there is no, like, I understand that, like, in this specific scenario, Sorosby may have pulled a fast one, and Texas Tech may get away with it. And you can be mad about that, and you can think that that's bullshit. But I think it's very chicken little to be like, and therefore the NCAA can never enforce this ever again. So just, just line up at Fan Duel today and start the game.

Yes. Just as it is being used as cover by the SEC, by the Big Ten, to advance their interests that don't really have anything to do with this at all, so too is it being used to advance anxieties that have nothing to do with this at all. I do see the argument that, like, right now, for the time being, the message that is being sent to all these adolescent athletes is, fuck it, right? And like in the scenario where the NCAA finally gets a sane and sensible ruling a year from now rather than a week from now, like that's an entire year in which athletes are seeing Brendan Sorsby highlights watching Texas Tech games because a lot of people are going to watch this shit if he actually sees the field and just take the message. And like, okay, fuck it. So like, yeah, eventually we might get back around to like, all right, the NCAA is allowed to enforce his rules on this specific thing and nothing else.

but like it's going to be even more education will be needed. We've already seen a lot of education has been needed. I'm going to do one of those pithy little statements right now, but it's because I think this one is actually going to have some relevance. He's playing next season, and a lot of people are going to watch these games, and all of the broadcast crews on every single one of these networks that's showing these games is going to throw to their Draft King's partner, or similar. And then go back to shaking their games.

heads. I think like the most sane view of the NCAA's ability to enforce gambling legislation at this point, gambling prohibitions at this point rather, is that it is inconsistent in its enforcement and its strength. The NCAA by its own practice was very inconsistent in terms of like who got a transfer, who got cleared to transfer or who didn't. Who got punished for this behavior or who didn't? like, I think this idea that if it's not 100% all of the time, the hammer must be dropped, that you have no deterrence effect whatsoever, and everybody will think that, like, the rules don't exist flies in the face in both directions of, like, how the NCAA has actually existed with coaches, with athletic directors, with athletes.

Like, they have always lived in a world where it's like the rules exist. And you might get, you might get, you might get absolutely. slammed for it, you might get SMU'd for it, or you might get UNC'd for it. And the idea that you can predict that and say like, aha, I understand the future now

based on this one thing that happened is fucking foolish. There are plenty of schools who Ohio State thought they understood that and didn't get to play for a national championship because they thought, well, we don't need to take a bull ban. We'll go lose to Florida and fucking the Gator

Bowl. And we'll be fine. and they miscalculated. USC thought they understood how the NCAA were, and they miscalculated, and lost the shitload of scholarships. I don't even know if you can use miscalculated as the word there, because that implies that there was some set correct mathematical answer, that those schools got correct when really it was the math that was the problem, not their calculation of it.

Yes. That's a good way to put it. What the answer was when there wasn't one. They were doing astrology. If the appellate court says, yes, we think the NCAA, like, okay, now your alarm level can go up a bit. Because that's like a trial court actually, like if we get through a trial and if we actually sort of like hear this out. Because nothing that happened, I think what has been wildly misunderstood here is that nothing that happened yesterday was a judge saying like, I've decided the NCAA's rules aren't real. That's not what a preliminary injunction is.

And I'm not going to get too far into it because, honestly, Alex Karshener on Splitzone Duo did a great episode with a special guest that, like, explains this better than I could. What is an NFL show talking about this? Sam Rerick, I think. Sam Rilk, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is an NFL show, but because of the supplemental draft, that's the possible connection there you have. So. Thank you.

Yeah, I just, I think it's been very interesting to see. And maybe it is a reflection of the sort of. of like this is the one rule that everyone says like that that's the thing you can't do like it has created a a truly impressive amount of furor i think to an extent it's valid because like this is such a red line and this is so ingrained in so many people that like as as a thing that is just so on its face obvious and universally accepted that to even appear to somewhat fuck with it is like terrifying for a lot of people who want sports to be like you know competitively valid or whatever um for those who care about that but like the fact that you know this this judge just sort

of shambled in and didn't really explain it just like yeah the kid needs football he needs hook him up to the football machine he needs it or it'll explode because of a reparable harm oh god it was like et and elliott he needs it he needs it back you're scaring him and he just sort of ambles off like, I don't, like, if there'd been a longer explanation, like, if, like, I, I, I, I think, you know, court people should explain the absolute fucking basics sometimes, you know, like, by the way, I am not saying the NCAA doesn't have jurisdiction. I'm literally just saying, we have to, like, put the brakes in this for blah, blah, you know, or whatever the fuck. But, like, I think it is valid for people to be very alarmed by something so unanimously popular as,

for at least the past century being fucked with in any way and especially I think part of it is it's the NCAA on the other side an organization that we've seen lose time after time after time after time which lends no confidence to the idea of the NCAA like getting a favorable ruling

because it just it has looked completely vulnerable for 40 years now because it is and so when it is the only thing standing against like a sport becoming pro wrestling in the pejorative sense like i get it i get i get why it's alarming i do not get one thing which is an accusation i saw leveled several times of uh it's just you know college football's a joke it's a joke by the way dumb guy alert if you refer to something as a joke or

someone as a clown bush league clown fraud it's bush league i want something serious like MLB. Yeah, sure, I'm sure, dude. A serious league, like the NFL. Yeah, you mean a fucking cartel. The NFL, or the MLB literally playing in minor league parks right now. Literally playing in minor league parks. Like, literally can't do shit.

Like, anytime anyone tries to do anything in MLB, they're like, well, it's too hard, too hard. Pirates pay people in sawdust. And they're like, yeah, I'm sorry, nothing to be done. Nothing to be done. That's when people say, well, college football's a joke. Yeah, that's why we're here. But also as above, so below.

This is a major court, like, this is a minor court case at best. Like, I don't think this is indicative of any grand fracture in the crust of this particular world. I don't think that this is a big pivot point. But I do think it's indicative of, most of life is ridiculous. and a lot of it's bullshit. And this is, college football is kind of a ridiculous bullshit game at times

that somehow manages to hold meaning despite all of this. And if you find it very offensive, the notion that you were involved with a joke or something deeply unsurious, I think that this myopia is probably benefiting you on a mental health base. You should embrace it.

You should stick to that. Don't look at the larger scale of things. Don't. Your tiny little mind will fall apart like a house made of matchsticks. You're not ready for Metal Gear 5. You're not. You are so not ready for the Phantom Pain.

I need you to stick to Fortnite. Just buy your little skins. Commissioner Kojima. The sense that, like, you know, one thing explains everything else. And, like, I completely agree with that. Like, college football, like, yeah, it is especially cartoonish. But I think you're completely right that it is a reflection of things that appear to be better constructed. Because why is the NCAA so powerless here?

Because it's not an actual workplace. Because it has never actually collectively bargained the ability to punish any of it. It's employees because they're not employees. Like it has never, it is the same anti-worker mentality that permeates so many other things in society. Like, yeah, the NFL has that too, but it also has a different kind of paperwork, so it has more power. But like the NFL sure as fuck wouldn't want to have to abide by rules if, you know, if it could make that trade. The NCAA wanted a world in which players aren't employees. Okay, this is what happens.

and all that goes back to, you know, anti-lab, class warfare, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, this is one of the reasons, by the way, is that the NFL doesn't want a minor league. They already have one. They don't want to pay for it, and they don't have to because they have one that's subsidized by, hold on, let me see a list of the most of the least likely people. Public universities and private universities. Makes total sense. It makes total sense.

State governments. I'm looking at this and apparently. the car dealers of Mississippi inadvertently subsidized the Los Angeles Rams. Okay, yeah, that all checks out. Of course, the CEO and co-founder of Double Eagle Energy Holdings

is holding this whole thing afloat. Can we talk about Cody Campbell? Yeah, can I give you... First of all, Cody Campbell? That diaper is full, buddy. This fucking guy, this dude who like bought himself, bought Texas Tech University, bought the football team,

bought Brendan Sorsby. Boughtsopal team. Buy the commissionership of college football, setting himself up as the savior of the sport. They're running a bunch of fucking commercials smiling at me and not really explaining what he wants me to type in the QR code or whatever the fuck for. Like, this guy being at the centerpiece of both propping up Texas Tech's whole thing here

and in a statement saying, I'm trying to fix the system. I'm trying to fix the broken system of college football. By using Ted Cruz. Great job, sir. Like, you are the man in the hot dog suit. Like, you know, like this is, it is so on the nose, on the face. There aren't even any jokes about it. The dude funding, the, like, most reviled, like, most, let me say,

most unanimously reviled decision in college sports history, perhaps. And also propping himself up as I'm the guy who's going to. to save this. Like, what the fuck do you even do with this, man? All right. So I have my most hairbrain conspiracy theory. I'm not saying this is plausible, but I am saying... Don't back off it. Say it with your chest. No, no, no, no. I got the dumb juice for you, okay? What I need you to do is go ahead and pour this poison straight in the ear of your dumbest friend. You ready? Okay, here it is. Okay. All my dumbest friends are on this call. Okay, who's the one funding all this? Who's one? Go think about it. Go look about it. It's Cody

Campbell, right? That's old C.C.C. Cody Campbell, okay? And guess what? Can you even spell Cody Campbell without Obama? You can't. Again, listen, you're getting a little ahead of me here. I don't want to buy. You got one A too many.

Listen, I got a lot of bombs to drop, okay? And that's one, but I need you just go ahead and keep it in the bay for a minute, okay? One bomb defused. However, I need you to go ahead. Play it out for me here, okay? What does Cody Campbell do? What's his school? Texas Tech.

Who's their quarterback? It's Brendan Sorosby. Brendan Sorosby, yeah, he might have come. Might have come with some demons. Might have come with a couple of skeletons in that closet. That would have been so much better if he'd come with demons. You know what? He did come with a demon.

That's not what you meant. A demon named Gambler. And gambler himself coming to Texas Tech. Why would he do that? Just go ahead. Give me the little Brian Winhorse. Why would he do that? Why would he bring this quarterback in?

Well, what's the one thing that can fracture the integrity of a league? What's the one thing that can shake a system to its core? That's right. If we question the very integrity of the context, upon which that sport is based itself. And what better way to do that than to cast doubt on them by putting at the core of the competitive product, a quarterback who might have been playing for the other team? That's right.

Vice, crime. Where's the conspiracy theory? You ready? You ready? Okay. By putting all of that in there, by putting all of that in there, by putting all that in there at the core of the game itself, who stands to benefit? Who?

Why? The very person calling for the salvation of the sport. The very person who, by buying off a senator, boy, a really purchasable senator, by the way, just like legs up ready to go. That's Ted Cruz. Write a check and his eggs could be yours. Is he at the OBGYN? Eggs popping out. Sorry, I got to say this right now.

Ted Cruz, Cloaca. Okay, I'm good. Yeah, I'm not even, listen. I didn't even flinch. Noted counselor. Yeah, you're going to have to do way worse than that. Yeah. So who stands to benefit? That's right. Cody Campbell by securing this. Does he? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guarantee you.

People are going to be flocking like save us Cody Campbell from the shit. Granted, I understand. Also, there are numerous recent examples of Americans fleeing to the person who broke the thing. I get it. I understand. But that was with dumb, boring shit like politics. Here we're talking about college football. The thing people take seriously, what are you doing? By passing this act, you're effectively salary capping it. Let's go make business cheaper for Cody Campbell, but at a scale, which is still sufficiently advantageous for a booster with his kind of money. Right. Also, I see this dude calling for this thing, and I'm like, must be a bad idea. Yes, but you're smart. No, I'm approaching that from the, that's the Texas tech guy, right? Perspective.

That's all I need to know about. about him. Oh, well, listen. Didn't he, didn't he do the, wasn't he the gambling quarterback guy? That's all I need to know. Well, yeah, but you know, you could put two and two together. For the rest of them, we have to teach him how to open that third eye. That's one and one. So there is, that suggests that there is a real fucked up alternative path here where Cody Campbell instead goes the opposite way and says, no, I am instructing Texas Tech to cut, cut SORSB to be, to be, like, we must stand. against this breach and therefore become like reinvigorate himself as the hero of college athletics potentially all depends on how it lays i still don't think enough people know who he is

considering how much he's been on tv i think no i mean it's no i know i know but i think there's also i don't think you need to know who he is i think if you hear this is the texas tech booster those words are poisonous right now but at the same time like i'm not at asking people to do like seventh level uh cojima trigonometry philosophy texas tech guy okay so all we need to do then cody campbell's just got to pick a new like texas tech that's shirond is tarnished it's time to move on to somebody else i'm getting there hang on cogie campbell it's time for it's time for ucf booster cody campbell wow unthinkable levels of toxicity where's this back going to the moon that's right

It's time for South Carolina super donor Cody K. Oh, thank God, yes. South Carolina is not doing so well that they would say no to Cody Campbell dollars. You kidding me? Come on. Is there anything, is there any power in the universe that might induce South Carolina to say no to Cody Campbell? I mean, South Carolina's like, you got any more than gambling players? We can use a few.

Love you, Shane. Listen, me, Shane Beamer. I'm down to my last card, so to speak. So if you got... If you don't mind me saying, you can see I'm out of faces. I do think Brendan Sorsby's life is going to suck this year. Like, pretty bad. Well, here's the thing.

He's not a very accurate quarterback, Ryan. No, yes, that's part of it. Yes. Huh. He's got terrible accuracy numbers. And he papers overall... What is terrible about? They're not good.

He's not awesome. No, man. Like, go... All right. Spencer, show your work. Clark Brooks, formerly SEC stat cat. Clark Brooks is like, yeah, dude, like he's, he is like in the bottom quartile of accuracy

as adjusted, like, adjusted accuracy for all quarterbacks. He papers over. Last year at Cincinnati, his completion percentage was just under 62%, and he threw 27 touchdowns and five picks. At Cincinnati. Last year at Cincinnati, yes. In the same conference.

In the same, yeah, right. Yeah, in the same conference. Yeah. But I don't think he's... Listen, if this were all on the up and up and this were all played straight, it does not seem like the player you would want to go out on this particular... Right. I'll completely agree with that.

Like, $4 million? Okay, I'm getting Carson Beck vibes all over again. Yeah, like, one thing... One thing, by the way, that in the court case that made me laugh when it says, it was like, it will do irreparable harm to him. And I'm like, this is a back-ass word's way of saying that this is the peak of his potential earning. Look, but that's the same thing like Trinidad Chamlas said. Man, the Jets drafted Zach Wilson.

This happens at all levels of football. That's the same thing all of these lawyers say is like, I must be allowed to play college football or I will be broke tomorrow. Right. What I'm saying is no one else will ever pay me money to play football. What I'm saying is that in this case, I don't know if that's inaccurate. I think they always say that. And in some cases, it's more accurate.

And I think like for these cases, for me, Sorsebee is like that's going to be a college first guy. Yeah. The range is out here. Yeah, I mean, he was also getting like, I don't know, fourth round supplemental draft type, you know, type discussion, especially because it was like a very light crop of quarterbacks this year. So I don't know. Like a stout white boy tends to be a popular quarterback pick. I just think, like, the attention he's going to, like, maybe I'm stupid for saying this.

I do kind of feel like I'm mostly. at Texas Tech and maybe Kessler because I'm like, oh, I don't think you're actually invested in helping Brennan Soresby, have, have like a better life, like deal with, like, I absolutely buy that he is a gambling addict based on what he has sort of disclosed to the NCAA and to the court. And I think it should be the goal of everybody involved, the, the, you know, responsible adults to sort of do what they can to help him deal with that. And I can't help but feel like, yeah, that's a, that's a thing that some of these parties are hiding behind. And they don't actually give a shit as to whether Brennan Soresby beats this gambling addiction, like, or, or learns to

live with it in a healthier way as long as he can play quarterback for them. Yeah, like, I have felt fine making some jokes about the gambling addiction thing because so is texas tech like they're not taking it seriously so it must not be that bad like yeah the dude was gambling on angolan handball it's pretty bad but like if you're trying to have it both ways like i have to be allowed to do my five million dollar job because of uh the rules i broke because you know like it's trying to have it both ways. And the broadcasts are just going to be spectacles, Texas Tech broadcasts. Like, it's going to go in every direction.

You're going to get some, like, you're going to get moralizing, and you're also going to get, I think, at some point, like, sympathizing. You'll get the adversity storyline, for sure. It'll depend on the win-loss record, right? Yes, and it'll depend on how he plays. If tech is 7-0, then look at what he's overcome. Yep. He has overcome so much himself.

Technically. Which will be, yeah, the whole thing is, man. The whole thing sucks because at one point, you know, you're going, well, he obviously did have a serious issue. And at the same point, you have to say, well, when am I going to stop thinking about that watching him? When am I going to, like every time he throws a pick, right? And he's like, oh, what was he seeing?

and someone in your head's going to go dollar signs brother to say nothing of that's the problem that's going to get worse when he goes to the NFL yeah if he goes to the NFL like if it is if it is that serious then treat it that serious and like yeah I understand he did a month of rehab but like if it remains such a problem that a judge has to step in the judge stepping in to say the solution is to play high stakes football where you have a ton of money in your hand And like, that's a big disconnect. Yeah, like for an addict, this is like a drunk who works in a bar. But I think that's like mostly, to me, that is mostly reflective of, oh, the fact that the court system is the way to deal with this is totally bonkers. Crazy. Like, and it's, but it is the way for all the reasons Jason laid out earlier, it is the way that all NCAA business effectively happens now.

Like, there are pros and cons for sure. about baseball handling all of its business internally and deciding what will happen with suspensions and performance enhancing drugs. And, you know, like, God knows labor issues are not in a great place with that organization right now. But court, like, okay, so for instance, the timeline is the thing people are really harping on about like, oh, you know, this, this thing's going to stretch out. He's going to get to play the whole season.

And I think it's getting painted as like this canny thing that Texas Tech and Sorsby did to be like, aha, if I get this injunction, it will effectively free me from NCAA bullshit for a whole year. And I knew that. And that was my plan all along. And it's really just like, and it's really just a function of the way courts work.

Yeah, it was largely the supplemental draft is coming up. Can you hear? This would be also a very funny time for any of the parties involved from Soresby all the way on up to the NCAA to develop medium to long-term thinking. Right. Like the whole, yeah, there's just a lot of this that the, the, the, Holly and I were talking about the venue shopping thing as well. And everybody's so eager to be like, look at this court, they filed in.

Look at this judge. Even though the judge who ended up hearing this is a Houston grad who was retired and isn't even up for, and isn't even from the county, whatever. And it's like, yeah, man, that shit happens all the time. Like, this is, there is nothing. people are getting mad at... It's like switching jerseys. Yeah, people are getting mad at the court system for functioning in the ways that it functions for everything.

Like, nothing that happened here is particularly... Sinister. Yeah, yeah. You might not like it. And I think Jason is right that, like, I also would have liked to hear some more detail. I am a little confused as to, like, the probability of success argument here

and why that... justified an injunction. But like, from the pure perspective of this judge was asked like, hey, do you think Brendan Sorsby has a case against the NCAA? And if so, can you sort of like prevent him from suffering consequences that could not be recompensed? I think he did the right job. It's just a really shitty mechanism to have it go through, frankly.

It's just all going through the wrong machine. Yeah, and like if, you know, if they do the thing that has been done in other cases and in two weeks they say, okay, now we are ruling on this, now that we've all taken a beat and we're going to say, okay, you can't gamble. You know, like if it all works out, that'll be a funny moment, I guess. But it'll still, it'll still, you know, it'll still be a thing where like, oh, the NCAA was on pens and needles and the entire time they were counting on a Texas Tech law judge, most likely, to rule against Texas Tech. thing is just sort of like, you know, to the extent the House settlement is direct payment of players. It's like, okay, how did we get there? Was it like through some form of something like bargaining between the NCAA, it's member institutions, players? No, it's a class action lawsuit that's being overseen by third parties and includes this whole new creation full of

baseball bros who get to decide what NIL is real and what, like, we have worked ourselves. And by we I really do mean the NCAA and the schools have worked ourselves into such logic pretzels and now everybody is like, I don't like that these pretzels have holes in them. This is crazy. How did this happen? It's like, how could it fucking not, man? And like the $20.5 million thing, the salary cap that every school has for its own payments, like where'd that number come from? A judge said, uh, let's do 20.5 million. Like that's it. It wasn't it wasn't like the two councils of arbitrators and that this is the perfect formula and da da da da it's like that's what the court said a judge clearly cashing out his own kalshi bet to make that number and then yeah and then like every school is

like ah we'll just breeze past it see what happens and and like every school i imagine how many schools whose um coaches administrators blah blah blah are mad about texas tech their own budgets are all sailing past 20.5 you know what i mean and that's not to say that like people should be allowed to gamble It's just to say, nobody follows the rules. This is just the one you have to follow. And when would these schools have ever had to learn that their actions have consequences? Yeah. And that when those consequences come, that they have to accept them.

When would they've ever had to learn that? Like the central property at the core of all of this, there's two things that are of value. One is the player's skill, right? Like, the player's labor is of value. And the second thing is the actual game itself that is sold as a product. and the player's value we have attached to people now. That's it. That's cool. Like it took us 150 years, but we managed to attach value to person.

The next step in all of this will be establishing that college football exists. Any minute now. Any minute now. It's essentially, it's essentially, right now it is essentially legally what minds were in the 19th century. There are a lot of laws that apply to those. right there is a lot of laws that apply to mines but whenever something goes wrong in the mines whoa what mine doesn't exist what this company has the rights to it well a boulder fell on a on a worker and they're like technically that's an act of god because the earth just fell on it oh sorry 50%

of this mine is owned by a whale in the middle of the atlantic ocean and you'll never serve him with papers we're trying to find him trying very hard to find him like what kind of bullshit maritime law shit is this because we can't actually attach any laws or rules to it because no one admits that it exists it is a business that is incorporated under universities that technically is not a business and it's played by technically not employees everybody is running away from the uranium that we are all mining right that is radioactive making people sick and makes bombs and is extremely valuable and no one wants to admit that it's that it has to be somebody's responsibility. They're like, I don't know if you should do it. I don't know.

Just be careful. I think the hybrid nature of academia enterprise and big business, like for decades and decades, all of those 150 years, the powers have been able to dance between both of them and be one thing and the other at the same time, depending on what most benefits of situation here. Obviously, you see both of them in that the school and its boosters had the money to pay for a super expensive lawyer, and also the judge sees, well, the kid needs to be on his college teammates, right? The judge doesn't see, and I understand this isn't the final decision. The judge isn't making the final decision.

But still, the idea that like, oh, oh, these are just the boys in the schoolyard. He has to hang out with his buddies, you know. This is extra funny given that we have no idea in either direction how popular he is or is not in that locker room. He just got there. That all, that's the biggest reason why we don't know. It does occur to me that if the NCAA is regretting any, well, I don't know if the NCAA is capable of regret, but if they are, I think one of the, like, hardest parts about the NIL era at this point, and technically it's not totally gone, but it's effectively pretty well dead, is that you can't disassociate, like, it's so much harder to disassociate a booster at this point. I think we have probably always had Cody Campbell's in the sport, guys who are like, I got a scheme, and this is how we're going to do it.

And I understand. But. Bobby louder. Yeah, 100%. But the NCAA had some ability to say, like, hey, that guy, we fucking hate him. He's a pain in the ass, and he's causing trouble. And we would like him to go away and at least have a more difficult time being the face of this. Being somebody that people have to listen to, being somebody that, like, reporters will go to for information.

But now they can't do that. Now, like, the Cody Campbell's of the world, and I, frankly, I doubt he's the only one are sort of like, ha ha! Batman's dead! I'll do whatever I want! But, like, I'm Batman now, right? Like, I am... I am...

I will... I guess it is a little more death of Superman, I suppose. That's what it is. It's very much like, no one is in charge, therefore, and it's both I can get away with whatever I want. I made my family. And I am the one who should be in charge. Yeah. And mind you, this is also.

A lovely cheese pizza just for me. Just for Texas. A last note on the Texas texiness of this, by the way, is that Cody Campbell's obviously the person writing the biggest checks there, but all politics are local. There is no guarantee whatsoever. that we know how this is actually playing out within Texas Tech. There's none. Like, you assume you go, oh, hey, man, they're all on the same page. Nope, from what I've seen that place is a bucket of crabs.

And I don't care how sizable a crab Cody Campbell might be at the moment. Somebody wants to kneecap him. There is also, I think, I understand the impulse from Texas Tech fans who are like, wait a second. All this shit happens somewhere else. And it seems like the second school where it didn't. where he wasn't betting on his own team, they might have known about it. And like, I think there is this like sense of hot potato about like,

why the fuck are we the ones who are going to have to eat all this shit and be the villains of college football when Indiana was not properly supervising what was going on? And while Cincinnati maybe knew about it and let it happen, like I understand the frustration with that of this idea of like, it would be a little bit if you sign an NBA, player and then they were like we've decided he's suspended for the season based on these technical fouls from two years ago when he played for somebody else where you'd be like all right well yeah

those fouls happen but why do we have to eat all the shit for it again it's just a fucked up system yeah also you were last that's yeah that's everyone's paying his lawyer that's it yeah I think to me that's the thing yeah right now you are currently holding it might be it I suggest you get him to transfer somewhere else if that bothers you a whole lot. Go ahead. Throw it to a fourth. And you know what? Somebody would pick it up.

LSU would pick. Lane would be like, yeah, yeah, it's controversial. I'll do it. Sounds awesome. And LSU would be like,

gambling's good. We do it on every play. I bet we score. Life is a gambling. Will Wade, Colin Brennan, say, Hey man,

you who? Welcome to our LSU basketball recruiting episode. It's our most profitable one. I think it's time for a little business. Should we make a verge? Podcast business. What's the business? Podcast business.

It's a business. Podcast business. We go too long now. No, I'm going to keep this one really. I can keep this really short, actually. I was thinking about how to do this. Okay. I'll do this.

One of you is going to do the home field read. I'm going to do the collective read for everybody else. The common element of Channel 6, Phantom Island, until Saturday, killer ants with a Z, is that they are limitless resources where, hey, you can sign up today. You can go to Channel 6. Is it Channel 6, S-I-X? Channel 6S-I-X. News. Spell it out, don't be lazy.

Thank you. You can go to Phantom Island. You can find the Until Saturday newsletter from The Athletic and Jason. You can find killer ants with a Z or a Z, depending on the country in which you live, on music platforms, pretty much of your choice. And you think, I can do this whenever. There will never be a, the club will never get full. We will never reach the fire code of, sorry.

But what if that's not true? What if one day, Holly and Spencer say, no, we have as many channel six subscribers as we want, and no more are coming? What if Jason says until Saturday is free? But we've decided the people who are here are the ones we want. What if Cerber says, that's it. The rest of this stays in the vault. If you don't already have Killer Ant's music, you can't have it anymore.

What if Stephen and I say, nope, no more Phantom Island subscribers? Which one of us is running paramount in this scenario? I nominate Spencer because I think that's funniest. Yeah. A number of levels, yeah. Why would you risk that? Like, you can't assume that just because the door has been open the whole time that it always will be open. So that's my only suggestion to you today is that, like, don't assume that this is always the way it's going to be, that the internet is always open and free and accessible.

That sounds ominous. We can slam the door shut. We can bar you. That's right. We can say you may never enter the hallowed halls of Phantom Island, Channel 6, until. Saturday, killer ants, we can say, no boss. We have the people who are welcome and no one else may get on the boat. So don't take that risk. Just go sign up for all those things. What if the shutdown forecast says no, no more patrons. We have patrons enough. You may go now. You may not hear the

special bonus con. You will never hear Jason waxing poetic about the X-Men. You will never hear Spencer explaining for all mankind. None of these things are available to you. You lose, sir. Don't be that person. Go sign up for all of these things. There, I did all the reads for those things in one fell swoop, and I just need one of you to take the baton to do the homefield read now.

Homefield apparel.com. My favorite website. It's time once again to visit it. Let's see here. The school we've been talking about most today is Texas Tech. Have we looked at their paraphernalia recently? Yes, we have. we have. Again, I'm looking, the tortilla shirt. What they need right now is more money.

They're going to freaking need it. The Texas Tech page we have looked at recently, South Carolina, we have established that you need help. So let's sell some South Carolina shirts. Let's see. At homefield apparel.com, first thing I see is a, it's great to be a Gamecock trucker hat. It will be once you folks buy some stuff so they can afford some players. Lots of other great stuff here at Homefieldapparel.com, South Carolina page. The fighting Gamecock shirt with the old-timey, looks like a hand-drawn chicken. I say that with all parries. It's a very nice drawing.

The black magic hat. I don't feel like I should be wearing that as a white baby, but it is a very nice hat. It is a phenomenal hat. You have to stick to the white cox hat of your forebears. It might have been one I would have attempted to get away with in high school. You know what I mean? Because there were times. There were times when you could sort of.

Joe Morrison was O'N1, okay? That's what you need to know about the Black Magic era. He was O'N-1. Yeah, I did have a Moor House hat that I got away with, so. Does it say Moore Hat? I had a Famu shirt, and I got lots of compliments on it, frankly. Yeah, it just feels this is a little different than that. I feel like the Famu Snake is so cool that it just transcends.

It's fun to do this. That is the most fun, like, fan gesture. Yeah, anyway. Homefield apparel.com. Also, the forever to the South Carolina hoodie. The chicken appears to be bowing. I mean, this is a strong page. I didn't know what my hopes would be, 97 South Carolina basketball.

But I just tell you, man, every single week, I pull up homefield apparel.com and just look at a school's page that I maybe haven't looked at in years. And every time I'm like, damn, I would wear all of this stuff available for me at homefield apparel.com. That's like an art gallery you can buy. Mm-hmm. That's what it is. Turn your body into an art gallery. Here's a health, Carolina. I have that one.

It's a chicken. I have that one. Oh, I love that one, yeah. I don't know what the hell that means, but I believe it. Yes, that's correct. Yes, Dr. Chicken, the surgeon general was South Carolina. It's what we decided yellow bile was not one of the humors. Chicken was, though.

Well, your blood's got plenty of chicken in it. Off you go. I don't want to see you back around here. That seems accurate enough. Homefield apparel.com. All right. Is it announcement time? Announcement time.

Okay. I have a prepared statement here. That's it. That's the whole statement. Roughly 13 years ago, I was still a practicing attorney in the state of New York. And I was approached with the FBI with a request that I have not disclosed. until today. The government wanted me to infiltrate and destabilize a relatively new podcast known as the quote shutdown fullcast and because I love my country I accepted

this assignment without hesitation and over the ensuing years I cannally worked my way into full-time employment at Fox Media where I secretly worked to destroy the show as my sole focus. Sometimes this was with incredibly poor audio Sometimes it was with bad opinions or terrible jokes. Sometimes it was with advertising reads, intentionally designed to alienate sponsors and ruin the commercial prospects of the full cast. But today, I admit defeat. Despite my best efforts and the assistance of several corporate media partners in my job,

the full cast cannot be brought down. It cannot be sunk. So I am announcing, for real, that I am leaving the show at the end of August. I want to congratulate Jason, Holly, and Spencer for outwitting me for all these years. And I swear that I will no longer attempt to sabotage this podcast going forward. Though, I reserve the right to undermine it in minor ways over the next three months. You thought you could get away. You know, I was going to be real sorry about this until you said Ted Cruz, Cloaca.

And now I'm fine with me. Yeah, I know. Good. Totally good with it. Do you want to play a game? I love game. We'd love to play a game. Play us out first.

Spencer, this is a game specifically for you. You may enlist the help of Jason Hawley and Serber as you play it, though. All right. Obviously, a big, big 12 day here on the shutdown forecast. Big day for Big 12 and crime and law and justice. And so, Spencer, we're going to play a very simple game. It is called Big. 12 staff member or Walker, Texas Ranger character.

Wow. I'm going to give you a name. This is the hardest game you have ever created. I'm going to give you a name. And all you have to tell me is whether it's the name of a character who was on Walker, Texas Ranger. If you could tell me anything about them, that's fine and fun, but you don't have to. Or whether this is the name of somebody who is a coach within the big 12 footprint. Okay.

Okay. Do you understand the rules? I understand the rules. I'm ready to proceed. I'm going to start with some easy ones just to warm me up, okay? Okay. Victor Leroux. That is a Walker, Texas Ranger character. That is correct. Victor Leroux had a multi-arc run as a villain on Walker, Texas Ranger.

Morgan Scali. That is Utah's head coach. That is correct, yes. All right. You don't have any good cowboy noises. You've got the game down. All right, here we go. These are warm-ups, though.

You're about to get to the hard shit. Brian Falcon. Shit. Come on. Brian Falcon. I am going to assume that's a Walker character. That is indeed, a Native American character on Walker, Texas Ranger. Brian?

Yeah, yeah. You're okay. Brian Falcon. Boomer Knight. K-N-I-G-H-T. Boomer Knight. I'm going to listen. All right.

I know this is like A-B-A-B, but I'm going to guess B and say that it is a Big 12 coach. Nope. This is Hulk Hogan's character on Walker, Texas Ranger. How could I have forgotten the canon? How could I have forgotten the lore?

All right. Honestly, Ryan, I have watched a shitload of that show, and I had totally forgotten that Hulk Hogan. All right. Slade Nagle. That is a coach. That is a coach. Slade Nagle is a coach.

Slade Nagle is. the offensive coordinator at Houston that's correct Rob Grande Rob Grande is 100% Walker character Rob Grande is the special teams coordinator at Iowa State Rob Grosvene Rob Grande big Robb all right

Cosmo von Dusenberg Shut up Walker a Texas Ranger character Cosmo von Dusenberg was indeed a German police officer on Walker, Texas. They were like, what's the German name? And they're like, ah, easy answer. Everyone knows.

I taught him something to sing for the batternese. That ain't be late, but it didn't be good. All right. Cody Krill. Cody Krill. C-O-D-Y-C-R-I-L-L. Cody Krill's a coach. Cody Krill is indeed the offense.

He's the offensive line coach at Oklahoma State. You have two left. Okay. Donovan Riggs. I'm going to go. Here, no, I'm going to have you both of them, and you tell me which one is the Walker character, which one is the Big 12 coach, ready?

Okay. Donovan Riggs and Jordan Dove, just like the bird. I think Jordan Dove is a coach, and I think Donovan Riggs is the character. Jordan Dove is indeed the defensive tackles coach at Kansas State, and Donovan Riggs, his character on Walker, played by Gary Busey. That's it. That's the whole game. You won. No matter what. You won the game. I thought I did really well. I think you did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I originally did this with characters from the, not the Landman. What's the Yellowstone universe? But I was much happier.

It was more fun, honestly, to switch it. Because Gary Busey hasn't been in the Yellowstone universe. That seems crazy. Not even Jake Bucy, I don't think. He's just going to end up in the universe, but like not because Sheridan wanted him there. There are also too many, there are also too many Yellowstone universe shows, and I appreciate that Walker, Texas Ranger, no spinoffs, just core material. That's right. Just what? Like, why would you spin it off?

You would get further away from Chuck Norris, and thus the warmth central to the universe's well-being. This show is so good, dude. I know you're replaying the Metal Gear games. Really, you need to just do an extended sit and watch of those things. The El Coyote arc alone, where Chuck Norris goes undercover as a Mexican migrant worker and attempts to be like a believable Mexican. And you're probably thinking, well, he probably does some accent. Nope, not a bit of accent work.

He doesn't talk. That's his disguise. He puts on some bronzer. And he puts, he puts on a bronzer. Does he dye the beard at all? No. It's just Walker, but like he puts on some bronzer and a bandana and a weird duster. And he's like, I'm Mexican.

And you go, I, dude, this is so offensive, but let's see where it goes. If you imagine that every Walker episode is actually Riker in the holodeck playing Walker, they all make, the show makes total sense. it does additionally i do think chuck norris for those episodes did believe he was mexican you know like he's one of those guys who when you were when i was like hey so you know he was part native american okay cool hey chuck did you know you were part korean yeah i studied in korea so um i'm now part korean okay yeah sure he was one of those guys he's a real new yorker he had that steven seagal thing of like i studied martial arts so suddenly i'm unmoored in time and identity like he's just like yeah i've always been here i climbed mount ever

I'm Uzbek, yeah, but I'm also Congolese. Or like, yeah. Yeah, he had no identity permanent, so the last place he went was where he was from. He's like, yeah, I went to a Thai restaurant and now I am Thai. Like the Latino community claiming Scott Hall. Like Mega Man, no, like Kirby, actually. I think the Latino community claiming Scott Hall is completely real. It's completely legit.

If they say he is, yep, yeah, 100%. That's like me claiming Foghorn, Leghorn, as an official. Southerner. Yep, cartoon. Actual Great Southerner. God, the Walker, Texas Ranger episode about Brennan Soresby would have fucking ruled. Cody Campbell would have got roundhouse

kicked right in the dick. I've had enough of you, Walker. Pow, and a judge being like, completely justified you support. Clang. Does Stark Norris have a known Big 12 affiliation? Not to my knowledge. Or like which one? I just assume, I just assumed Texas, but

you know. I mean, they were out of Dallas, so I'm going to give a SMU. He's from Oklahoma. Yeah, but he's from Oklahoma, but he's got real Oklahoma State energy. Yeah, sure. Yeah. He does, but Walker was from, Walker was from Dallas.

So, like, that's pretty Oklahoma State, too. That is, that's true. He lived in Kansas and then California. Man, he really is the Pack-Tor. So it is a big team champion. Actually, if you lived in Kansas and California, regular Texas would probably be the most logical. Yeah, or Ohio State. You're going to love Columbus.

Where do you live? L.A. haven't been back there in years. LA's awesome. I think we also wanted to really briefly, if we can. The World Cup is happening whether we want it to or not. Honestly, like, I don't know. We could just skip this.

You want to skip this? Yeah. Is that our bit? Listen, man, we're like an hour 20. If you just want to, yeah. Yeah, we're already at 80-something minutes. Yeah. I mean, it's a bummer, so we don't have to talk about it.

It'll still be. here next week and it'll probably be dumber. Yeah. The Azteco looks cool now, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hey, hey, y'all, we had like sort of floated, like, doing some sort of, I sort of said a couple of days ago in Slack, like, I guess we should do some sort of World Cup thing.

And then did I flesh that idea out? No. No, not at all. So here we are. Here's how we're going to do it, okay? A rare post show meeting. Hey, Jason, do you want to talk about the World Cup? Scotland's going to win. That's all I know.