Shutdown Fullcast - Shutdown Fullcast 40 for 40: Nick Saban Has Failed The Gaming Community

Episode Date: January 10, 2018

WARNING! There's some football talk in this episode. I know, two in a row. What the shit is THAT about. The good news is, this is the last game we have to talk about for quite a while, so this podcast will return to its real strength: (file not found) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the shutdown forecast. Kind of a big moment for us because it's basically the last game we get to talk about for eight months, seven months, something like that. I'm not going to count. What am I going to count? Under 12 months, I think. I approach this in terms of moons. How many moons do we have between now and our next college football? Listen, let's just start the countdown clock. until Michigan Notre Dame

to start it now that's the only thing that Matt listen we're going to talk about the national championship game and people have feelings about it but me my heart has moved fully on to Michigan Notre Dame because one fan base is going to be so mad

oh so mad I like that you've already moved you're already you're already on that that's magnificent yeah I'm like a traveling salesman of hating so like the Georgia loss will sustain you and then your your life meter will be on on e you'll be running on hate fumes yeah and right then one of those teams loses yeah and then I'm good to go man I feel great that's good I can actually I what I do is I pickle certain losses and I let them I let them sustain me through the season for instance I'm not really I can't support feeling too great one way

the other about Georgia losing because because they they were awesome I have never felt farther from you I have never felt no no more different from you you're you're completely detached from reality and and that's weird

because usually that's me right but now no we've we're freaky Friday in this you've switch roles with me you they were great I here's the thing you're right and I'm using that to my advantage okay It's painful that Georgia had a championship in its fucking grasp and couldn't close the deal.

It's painful that Georgia got bailed out by Alabama kickers doing kicker shit, and they still couldn't do it. It's painful that the longest down-and-distance Alabama had in the whole goddamn game was the touchdown pass that won them the national title. And I love that shit. You're absolutely right. Georgia looked great, played great, had a fantastic game plan for most of the game. We can talk about that a little bit. Mostly didn't make mistakes. Definitely didn't look intimidated, scared, overwhelmed, any of that shit.

Good for Georgia. Georgia's probably going to win a national title in the next few years. But you know what? They didn't fucking do it yesterday. That's true. As a neutral observer, it's the only neutral observer on this recording. I thought both teams played hard. Yeah, no, like, really, like, I was left with nothing but cliches at the end of that game.

Both teams played hard. Thought everybody tried. Didn't think anybody really lost that game. There's a lot of hurt. I like that the coaches room was great about that, right? Especially when Papanastas missed the game-winning field goal. Oh, man. They were like, that young man's going to need counseling.

He's going to need a lot of love. If he's going to need a lot of handholding, life, life's going to get real brutal and rough for him. It's going to be bad. I like that coach cut was in the building because it feels like, you know, he really gets the mindset. That young man needs a shoulder. Yeah, if you're a, if you're a bama kicker, you're basically one of the nameless employees and die hard. Or it's like, well, even if you made it out alive, ah, you saw some shit in there. You're affected forever.

Did you save things? No, no, you did not. No, you did not. You were never, John McLean. man cutcliffe there were two things in that coaches room that like reduced me to stitches last night one was was cut one was cut cliff being the guy who's seen someone die before in every situation right like that was that was when the kicker missed that he's like yeah we've lost plenty of good young men into that we're going to have to you know like we'll do what we can for him but you got to understand he might

never he might never recover he's like country country house he's like oh yeah seen this. Yeah, that's a rare disorder. Oh, he's long gone. It's country lupus. Yeah, no, he'd seen that before. You could tell that somewhere haunted behind his eyes when that second and 26 happened and Tua dropped back for the past. He called for it to be a turnover, right? Because he's like, I've seen so much bad happen. I've seen so much evil in this world. And I know that this young man's just trying to make something happen. But I'm telling you, it's going to be a turnover. And when it happened, he was a gog. But do you?

you know who whose reaction did not change once his expression did not crack he betrayed no evidence of surprise in an offense prevailing at the last minute one-on-one against the defense mike gundy stone well why wouldn't it i he may have had painted on eyeballs he may have been asleep at that point that's fine he could be asleep it looked gangster as hell because what it happened i don't get out of bed for games with fewer than 60 combined points I think he looked at it and goes, well, that's a good start. Way to go, guys. I mean, he coaches an air raid team and the mascot has guns.

Like, he's definitely, yeah, if you lived in the Old West and you saw, let me put it this way. Spencer, if you were at Publix and you saw two guys get into a fight and then they like squared up and drew on each other and one shot the other, you'd be, that fuck you up, right? Mike Gundy lives in the Old West He sees this shit all the time This doesn't mean anything to him Which publics This is okay fair Fair

Location matters here Right I like that Mike Gundy So the last time he was involved With a national title game Was 2011 when it was going to be LSU Obama and he was publicly making his case On national TV after blowing out the Sooners

And he was basically saying If you let us in the game won't suck And now here he is stuck Watching two SEC teams in a title game again So you can forgive him for not being too overjoyed with like the scoreless first quarter and Bama not scoring until the third quarter and all that. But the game did not suck. It did not suck. It just took a while to get, no, no, get rolling as far as points go for people who need numbers to know that the game is good.

That and that and this that I enjoyed that for once the players mattered a lot because the coaches were kind of at a loss, right? after that first half, Georgia didn't really know, didn't really know what to do with the lead. So they kind of just, I don't know, what the hell do we do with this? And Bama, they didn't really know how to sort of come back. So it was like, okay, Tua, get out there and make something happen. Let's see what you got. And Georgia, I don't know. Jake From, you've come this far.

Let's see what you got. Let's see how you do. And it was magnificent. I love it when all of a sudden. players like matter way more than you know the coaches because then they start making outrageous plays deron pain drawn pain last night was a one-man jail break he was he was like a police battering vehicle yeah no he was he he was he was a officer pain officer pain lieutenant pain not major that's too too obvious too obviously he's lieutenant also that's copyright

infringement yes no definitely um but The Waynes will come after us for that. The other thing that I was absolutely flummoxed by in terms of Duran Payne is this, that we know his name. Like how, Bama's D-line is so deep and it has been so deep for years that you just sort of tend to go, oh, yeah. Like, you know, Bama D-Lineman, standard profile, right? 64, 6-3, about 3-20, right? Vertical leap of nine feet once, right? squat, you know, like power clean of everything

and capable of running a 4-6, 4-7, right? That's over 10 yards, average. Yeah, that's your standard guy. How good do you have to be that we know your name? But don't we usually know? I feel like every year there's one de-lineman on Bama. Yeah, there's always one standout. They're the ghostbuster villain.

Like, Bama's got a lot of ghosts and they'll all fuck you up. Every year Bama's D-line has, like, the final boss and all the others are his, like, equally scary minions. Yeah. All right. Guys, we're going to throw two blockers at Zool. I don't think it's going to work, but we're going to try it. Yeah, I don't, you know, they usually do have one. I feel like Payne has an exaggerated profile this year, right?

Probably equaled only by massive genius from last year. God, what was his name? Jonathan Allen. Jonathan Allen, yeah. Like, that's sick that Jonathan Allen can happen one year and Duran Payne happens the next, right? Like, I talked to Chris Verdeard about this, that if you had a Jonathan Allen or a Duran Payne, like, Ryan, if we had him at Florida, they'd be like a generational player, right? If we had one of those guys, maybe I'm just averaging him higher because I know that Duran Payne last night when three or four people were on top of a ball carrier, Duran Payne thought it was in. entirely necessary and good to do a flying springing leap onto the pile like oh yeah he did the

stinger splash he he dropped he dropped a load on him brother and dared him to get off the mat yeah and he's he's bigger than sting to say the least that's that's not a sting that's a that's a full um disemboweling garrating a flop a laser uh that's a corner it's a quartering quartering that's good yeah like a full pulverization of whatever was underneath him right it was it was the Mario like buttstone mm-hmm with a way bigger Mario like a warrior but stuff I thought Bama's defense it one number that really jumps out is the 12 tackles for loss and they were coming from all over you had linebackers dbs everyone that is like an insanely uh aggressive game and looked up that is it's second most of

any bama defense of the nick sabin era uh top by only like a 2011 blow out against old miss where they had more than 12 tackles for loss that's an incredible number to have against you know like an offense and an offensive line is talented as georgias they were just in george's backfield all day long frequently against frequently against nick chub but yeah like one of the big surprises for me this year has been watching sony michel be the vicious physical runner right like that that wasn't really sort of what i had on him coming in and he just got meaner as time went on yeah i mean over the over the course of the season sony michel averaged like a good yard and a yard almost two yards more than nick chub and nick chub had a fine year

but last night, Nick Chubb was not a meaningful threat for a lot of this game, which was weird. I will say, I do think Georgia did one thing a little frustrating based on the first half compared to the second half. This is what they did on first down in the first half. They threw the ball 11 times, and they ran the ball eight times. And that, like, really stood out, especially to start the game where, I don't know, it felt like we got what like nine plays in and Georgia had not run the ball at all even though they it was seven straight passes with head coaches of like multiple other teams tweeting like please start running right right and and granted these 11 first down passes were not all successful

there are incompletions in there there are completions for a loss so like but but it had the this weird effect of sort of saying you you can't sort of assume that you know what's going to happen in the second half that ratio changes to three passes on first down to nine runs and that's where it just sort of like Jake Fromm played great and everybody and in the second half especially it was like oh completed this third and 16 third and eight third and 12 he keeps completing these but that is not a great way to live that is paycheck to paycheck offense and eventually yeah you're going to have two bills come do at the same time.

Sorry. Yeah, and you did. You did. Yeah. The, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, a little bit of a couple extra tolls on a couple extra fees out of Georgia's paycheck, it seemed. Sure. Consider, consider, consider the refs like your cable company where the, oh, well, there's, there's a, there's a surcharge for the, oh, yeah, well, we'll be there.

Uh, uh, we'll give you a call between the hours of four and eight, and we'll give Bama five calls during Matt time. I mean, was officiating a real beef in your mind when you watch the? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, big time.

I mean, it's the game's only flaw, in my opinion. It's like, I think we could call this game like an all-time absolute classic. If, I mean, there were four standout bad calls and every single one was against Georgia, and all of them were really costly. One of them would have set up a field goal for sure. One was on the tying touchdown at the very end. the game like i think overall play to play bama played a better game but if it had been called down the middle georgia would have one you know i did have a thought like which is unusual

but i'd have a thought about this game which was was the best thing that happened to alabama jalen hertz missing an open t d on that first drive god in i don't i i will subtly disagree with that no i don't think that was the best thing that happened because because Was he going to get any after that? I don't know. That doesn't start, right? Like, the game doesn't work out the same way if Tua doesn't come in in the third quarter, correct? Does he come in if Jalen hits that?

It's a good question. I mean, the flip side of that is that that Bama drive specifically was so impressive to watch. If you just, like, sort of shut down everything else you watched in the first half and you just look at that drive that started the Bama 36 and if it had ended in a touchdown this is what we would have seen the the game opens with Georgia going three plays three yards throwing a pick Bama going almost 70 yards down the field for a touchdown I think it's it's hard to say that like the whole tenor of the game doesn't change based on that to a coming in absolutely save their asses but I don't know that it like it needed to happen exactly in the way that it did yeah maybe you could make

that call with with some points on the board sure yeah I don't know it's a very it's it's an admittedly completely irresponsible hypothetical but I did think that last night that like how different is the game and do we get the kind of boring strangulation that I thought we might get if Jalen Hertz is even sort of competent in that first half and they have like a lead or tied maybe I mean part of it was also that The Bama defense just didn't play that great in the first half. They had the interception to start the game, and they forced a punt on the drive after that. But after that, Georgia gets drives of 14, 13, 6, and 9 plays.

The 9 there is a touchdown drive that starts at the Georgia 31 with less than a minute 20 to play. That defense did not look great in the first half And I don't think that Two of being out there would have changed that dramatically I mean maybe Bamma staying on the field a little longer And maybe they're having some field position But like these drives

These are drives starting inside the Georgia 25 It's not like Georgia in the first half Was getting this awesome field position And taking advantage of it Can we talk about the most important thing in the game is it the interception interception combo oh it's rogerico that's correct

thank you holly mom's here nonch don't know the hour be on high alert at all time weird how did you know what I have tattooed on my leg who do you think put it there in your sleep preemie his flesh no like literally it is made of cream it is it's like he's like a fine bruley the the most important thing

in the game is roderigo blank and ship because i want i want everybody to know that rodrigo blankenship is what's like one of the things that's great about college football right uh rodrigo blankenship like kicker with rec specs uh kind of looks like i don't know um if somebody had cut a little piece off of like Rivers Cuomo and planted him in the soil of Sprayberry High School, right? Which is mostly dip juice, if we're going to be honest, right? It's just like soil and dip juice. And then... No, I resent this.

You resent. Little too close to the bone, eh? That's Lasseter, damn it. That's Lasseter High School. Yeah, that's those country some bitches at Lasseter. That's right, because they're vastly different. Um, they were colonized by an entirely different type of suburban Atlanta night. Anyway, the, the, the, speaking of colonialism, the, Roderigo Blankenship could have been the hero in this game because Rodriguez Blankenship did like the gutsiest kick I've seen in recent memory, which is hitting a 51 yarder to keep overtime alive and get something on the board for Georgia after Jake Fromm took a huge sack on their first possession of over.

time and there was like no doubt like it was almost like you know the coaches room the other night like oklahoma's kicker walked up and everybody went like oh like rodrigo walked up total opposite like no man he's nailing this from 60 there's no doubt he's hitting this and he's so close to being a hero and then to a tug of iloa just comes out and buries rodrigo in the history books i want everybody to know that i see you potential hero rodrigo you're right there meanwhile if your Bama's kicker. They're showing you on the sidelines with, like, your teammates writing you notes like, hey, we'll love you no matter what. Don't worry. Hey, you know, I think you're, I think you're really, you were really helpful in our macroeconomics class. Thank you for that. You have

value in many ways. Don't forget. Well, for Adam Griffith the last time this happened. And the time before that, when this happened. I mean, last night, last night, like, lest we forget, right? Bama lost a national, like, Vama lost the chance to win a national title on a kick. Twice? Yeah. And they just got to go. They got to go overtime.

Like, how good is this program and how lucky have they been? Like, they're real, real, real, real, real, real, real good, right? But they also occasionally get real lucky that they blew a title winning kick last night. And it did not come back to bite them in the ass. Do you think that's why Nick, like, what really is driving Nick Sabin? Do you think part of him's like, I gotta, oh, no, this is the like Xbox achievement. and I have to get done win a national championship on a field goal.

God, God, dammit. He's got a, he's got a hundred and twenty-four out of the one hundred and twenty-five. And, God, damn it, he's going to coach ten more years. Oh, I will find, I will find all these trophies. I've written before about how he's going to continue trying to make, to up the degree of difficulty for himself, because he's going to get bored. And that's why he'll eventually end up with the longhorns of the cowboys or whatever used to be the joke, but is it wrong?

Is it completely off base to think that maybe it's not that he can't recruit or retain or develop the most replicable position on the team year after year? But rather that he's trying to see if he can do it. Like you're going back to the beginning of Mario Kart and now you're playing on 150cc. He's got to find a way to keep the magic alive for himself, right? To keep the spice in his marriage. This is his speed run. Hey, look at me.

No, no kickers. 98 seconds. Here we go. No, I think he's the dad who wants to keep the thermostat on 78 for the entire summer when it comes to kickers, right? Like, somebody's like, Nick, you got to spend more than the 38 allotted minutes you have on your budget every year for that.

And he's like, it's not coming out of anything else, damn it. I have. Meanwhile, George is going for an entirely different achievement. GoldenEye style, kickers only. They'd be fine with that, damn it. They'd be absolutely fine. I like this thing where Georgia just rides a new freshman who takes the job every single year, right? Like, that's it.

Like, Easton's going to transfer to Washington or wherever he's going to go. Fromm will get the job. And then next year, it'll be like, man, you know what? Jake Fromm, you did a great job last year, but I think this new kid's got it coming in. I think that's how we're going to work. That's how they continue to keep the quarterback humble, right? Like somebody's dad is out there and they're like, you know, humility is important and coach smart. He knows that.

And that's why he gets a different guy in there every single year because you don't want somebody thinking they're bigger than the team. You know, a junior quarterback, that's dangerous, the team continuity right there. Freshman. You might have a coup. Yeah, you might have a coup. You might have a-

Let a David Green stick around too long. You've got a coup. Yeah, I mean, that's actually what happened. You know what? Coach Rick never saw that. He thought experience mattered, whereas, I don't know, maybe people get worse when they play quarterback for longer. Maybe they try too hard.

I do like that the new dome does kind of look like a golden eye level too. Just sort of like weird stupid angles polygony. You're just sort of like, what is this was this supposed to be a thing? No, just run around it and shoot each other. It's fine. We discovered last night that you can see into the dome. Of course you can there's glass, but when you're above it at like the CNN Marta station

you can see, you know, see the crowd, see the screens on the inside. but the combination of the black and gold graphics and decorations that were happening gave it this kind of hideous ochre cast that does look very golden-eye-ish or maybe just like a really filthy terrarium. Yeah, that's why at the golden eye level that you play with, you basically play with like half-eaten wing bones. That's it. If you've never seen it, there's a Wings of Atlanta Instagram account

that photographs nothing but chicken wings that have been left on the ground. which you would think oh how many pictures of that can you take quite a few listener quite a few they're all over the place it'd be the custom weapon in that dome because they're like cigarettes here like you go out to stand on the steps and hey you got a wing now let's review nick saven short fucking impossible to beat just incredibly incredibly dower and kills you not necessarily in some explosive way by but just sneak it up on you and like punching you right in the small of the back he's odd job he's a hundred percent odd job do do your job job what's wait kirby's got the the odd job silhouette though and constant and inexplicable

indoor hat wear and he's he's sneaky short he ain't much taller than nick i don't think do you Nick has a height ceiling for people like he won't tilt his chin all the way up to any man I wonder if there's like a secret threshold for his coaches that's this new OC's problem he's a big fella they just can't quite connect door next to haven they can't connect because the new guy has to stoop down I bet I bet lane kiffin stood on a ladder a bunch around the Alabama offices for no reason hey yeah just check it out this uh check it out the fire alarm looks pretty cool how's it going he wore boots

like he'd just wear boots with lifts in them around Nick like who man you seen these Nick Morton Lane sit on the big chair like Dr. Phil you know there used to be a thing where I can't remember who did this like it was Andy Kaufman he would do the

mock skit where the talk show host would have like a really huge chair right and the and the guest would have like something that was two inches off the ground. That's got to be what Saban's office is like. Right. Welcome. It elevates depending on need. Holding down the button. Almost there. Perfect. Hey, did you guys notice? I had not seen him before last night because I guess it never occurred

to me that he needed one that Sabin has a get-backed man. No, I, what? He's like this, I have, I have never seen him before last night, but he was some kind of like, I just noticed him because he was very tall and he was next to Sabin, so he looked like his job was to be carrying Sabin around Yoda style on his back, but kind of an American History X looking dude. Maybe he just had turkey slices

to hand him. Oh, I'm feeling parched. Hand me another turkey slice, please. Like he sucks the weight, so he sucks the juice out of Oh my God, you're right. This is my luncheble assistant. He liquefize lunchebles inside himself and baby birds him to me. Give me the goddamn turkey smoothie.

It's more efficient. I mean, really, like, if anyone was going to drink the turkey smoothie, it'd be Nick, right? Like, it's faster. I think Coach Gary here is, like, he's got the IV stand with the wheels on it, and it's got the turkey going straight into the vein. Our off-season goals to learn how to photosynthesize food is for assholes. Photosophysize turkey.

We're going to build a turkey sun here in Tufts. out here like imbibing the essence of the sun and moon and turkey juice for electrolytes this is a big ass turkey in the sky Virginia Tech's like woo all right that was our chance did you

I did not see it on TV because I saw it live Kendrick Lamar at halftime it was very good it was extremely good it was extremely good I was told his lip syncing was off It was a little far away for us to see whether that was true. I will tell you everyone sounds bad in that part playing live, right? Like even Outcast, you're like, man, Outcast is awesome. This place sucks.

Yeah, you're like just literally, totally outside with far off echoes all, you know, like across the street echoes, you know, like not enough to where it's like internal acoustics, but far enough away. Like, yeah, it seemed like it was kind of that thing where it was like the, the, like synced lip sync you know where you're you're actually performing and they're sort of tying it to the vocal track yeah it was a little off and it was it was clear everyone was very cold the screens in the park where we were were synced up were synced up well I thought like nothing was visibly awry what was going on in the stadium while they were doing a halftime

show outside there were people saying that they saw about five minutes of it that That's fucking weird, right? Yeah. I mean, I think if you're in the stadium, you probably prefer the marching vans to Kendrick just based on the fan bases. Well, and also, the stadium can plausibly say like, yeah, he just, he couldn't get through security in time. Sorry, it was supposed to be in here. Just couldn't make it work. That's true.

Yeah. Kendrick Lamar stuck outside. But I assume Holly and Spencer are not here to talk about Kendrick Lamar. They're here to talk about their new best friend that they met. or I should say observed. I didn't feel, we're not worthy to befriend this man. And now I did say, I will say, before we talk about Eric, the vape king of Centennial Park. The vape king of Conyers.

Yes, the Vap King of Conyers, Georgia. Before we talk about Eric, we did have two guys behind us who were wearing real tree, like full real tree rain gear, like hunting gear at the Kendrick Lamar show. Sure. This was such a pure Atlanta moment. Yeah, it was, it was real good. Do you think that's because that's the only, like, warm clothing they had? I think so. No, I think they knew it was going to be cold and rainy outside, and they came prepared appropriately, regardless of, like, cultural, contextual situation.

Sure. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean, like, Cammo's pretty normal around here. And they were, I went back and I was like, hey, man, you all, you know, like, that's, like, extremely real that you guys are wearing real treat of this show. And they were like, what? The Spencer went up and tried talking about it and they're like, it's cold. Yeah, I don't think they were guys who understand when other guys talk to them, right? Like when you're like, hey, how you doing? Nice to meet you.

They'd be like, oh. Especially about clothes. Yeah, what do you know? I like your clothes. But what? Oh, you mean my second skin. Yeah, I have to have it. You can see me?

There were at least five incomprehensible wrong steps that I made in the short span of about nine words with those guys. So it was a successful social interaction, is what I was saying. Another successful social interaction with another human. The guy who was the real hero, though, was Eric the king of Conyers. Standing in front of us, he was a UGA fan. And what, you know, it looked like an old century 21 jacket. It did.

A reference which dates me. It kind of also looked like a master's jacket. It was like a two large kind of a camel coat blazer situation. which it was it contrasted with the real tree guys for one thing but for another thing he was wearing backwards ball cap what looked just like i don't know new balances or something he's got what is at best a blazer so he's not prepared for this kind of meteorological situation but he's in full compliance with the clear bag policy he's got one of those branded clear bags in his left hand, and I only noticed this because

he went, while windmilling wildly for the entirety of Kendrick's set, he switched back and forth seamlessly between an extremely full stadium cup of beer, his

clear bag, and his vape pen without that I could see ever setting one down. And he was right in front of us, and so I kind of started to watch him like a little side show attraction while they were setting up. And that's when he turned and unleashed, honest to God, a vape cloud, the size of like a Dodge Caravan. Yeah.

And the shape. And it had a sliding door. And you have to understand that he was between us and the stage and there were fog effects coming out of the stage. And then all of a sudden, an additional fog effect bloomed up right in front of us in front of this backlit man. And all we could see was him, the silhouette of his vaping hand. and the clear back. It was pretty much like, I know Georgia

like Georgia lost last night a football game, but they won so much more as Eric danced so hard to Kendrick Lamar that the dudes next to us said, hey, shit, he getting it, bro. Look at that.

Yeah, people around us were like stopping to watch to Marvel at just his love for life. Yeah, it was a genuine respect by the people who beheld him. So again, Georgia, there's a lot of ways to win at life. Football's just one of them. You could, you can also be the vape king of Conyers, Georgia. You can be Rodrigo. You can be Eric. Or you can be a sad loser. But the paths are available to you.