Shutdown Fullcast - Shutdown Fullcast 4.3.0

Episode Date: February 10, 2016

After a week off, the Fullcast returns with a review of Signing Day, the most important day in the college football calendar that no one really wants to discuss. WELL TOO BAD BECAUSE WE ARE DISCUSSING IT. Joining us is SB Nation Recruiting Overlord Bud Elliott. We discuss the following: --Why bachelor parties are overrated, and how even Tampa's strip clubs have some of the dumbest Florida-style business arrangements imaginable --How Alabama did well again guhhhh go away Alabama --The perils of bringing your school's equipment truck to a Georgia high school --Did you know Texas did well? Texas did well! A good foundation for an upstart program just trying to establish its name, that. --FLORIDA SIGNED A DOOLY COUNTY PROSPECT NAMED ANTONIUS. This is all perfect . --We just up and ask Bud if Ole Miss is "cheating" any more than anyone else, because that's the coded conversation everyone's having anyway --Reader questions, including a discussion of the Great Florida Python Challenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the shutdown fullcast. We took a week off due to travel and signing day and all kinds of messaboutness myself. I was in San Francisco for not the Super Bowl because I didn't want to stay for that. I was driving a really fast car. And so we're actually going to do a show this week. Hey, we're going to talk about signing day. Hey. And before we introduce any of the usuals, I got to say we got a special guest.

Jason Kirk. I lied. I'm going to introduce Jason. No, no, I'm not that special. And no, you're not the special guest. I'm going to ask you to introduce our special guest. Standing 6 foot 7, weighing in at 275 pounds. Oh, come on.

That's proportionate for 6.7? Yeah, that's what the rock weighs. Dude, he's like, yeah, he's like, no, he's like 255, man. I know he's billed as 275, and wrestlers never lie about their weights. Never. Okay, fine. 6'7, 235 pounds. There we go.

Okay. But Elliot, National Recruiting Director at SBNation.com, founder of Tomahawk Nation. Someone to follow online for photographs of him. Weielding a cat with a leash. Famed. The Internet's most popular man. Yeah. What's going on, guys?

Now, Ryan has a story, by the way, about how famous Bud is. If you don't know, Bud, but, among many other things, Bud has a spouse who could kill all of us. Fiancee. They're not hitched yet. Yeah, no, not hitched yet? No. That's coming up. Well, she's from Louisiana, so. So are you saying that she's just a verbal commit at this point?

I'm saying all laws are, all laws are suggestions there. I think she's a solid verbal, and we're actually going to get this thing signed in this couple of weeks. We may not actually announce the facts until late March, but... Silent commitment. Yeah, exactly. And in true Florida safe fashion, there's another fellow on the side that she's still straying along, just because Bud wants her to.

Just to wreck his class. Recruiting all the time. Because, you know, that guy could go to Florida, so, you know, you've got to lock him down, too, just to keep him from going somewhere else. But you, Ryan, this is how famous Bud is, if you don't know, on the internet. Ryan has a friend who we were discussing in our pre-show meeting gave us a little indication of Bud's fame. A buddy of mine from high school and my freshman year roommate at Florida texting me out of the blue, and this is all he said. I'm on a cruise with Bud

Elliot's fiance. And I responded that this was in easily the top five of text messages I did not expect to receive from my friend Sean. And about six, seven hours later, he texted me a picture of him on a cruise with Bud's fiancee Maggie and it was very, it was very special it was very, very special and I imagine it was good for her too

that she was on her Bachelorette Cruz and some random man was like, hey, that's Bud Elliot's fiance which is not creepy at all, but two things. One, what is your opinion on a cruise

as a vacation? I'm not a big fan of cruises. I think it's a good way to like take Midwesterners around and then kind of twirl them around on the Gulf and feed them buffet style. Oh, I'm here in Michigan Spring practice. Yeah, hey, that's the next frontier. Once the SEC kicks them out of IMG,

it's international waters, man. Harbaugh at international waters. They're setting up exactly what is it, 251 miles offshore, something like that? Yeah, yeah. with a pirate patch on his eye Is that sword real? Come fight me.

Urban, I'm telling you, it just ends with Urban Meyer screaming, I'm the captain now. That's how this ends. So have you been on a cruise before? I have. Okay. Yeah, like probably 10 years ago, I think.

Okay, how did it go? The parts I remember, I think, were pretty fun. The only thing about a cruise is this. You know, you're cruising to a destination, but it's like the only vacation where the vast majority of your time is taking up, actually getting there and coming back as opposed to enjoying the destination, which I don't know, it's kind of, the ocean looks pretty much the same for the vast majority of your trip. It's kind of boring. Ryan, have you ever been on a cruise? Oh, hell no. No, I'm not going to yet.

I'm not doing that. I mean, I will say this. So my 10-year high school reunion was a few years ago. and the organizers of said reunion at first wanted to do a booze cruise in Tampa, St. Petersburg, which was immediately vetoed because nobody wants to go to a high school reunion where you are trapped and you can't leave because you're on a boat. It was the worst idea I've ever heard. Jason, have you ever been on a cruise? Man, I still keep a bag in my desk drawer of condiment packets that I haven't used yet.

to save a few nickels, so no, no, no. I'm not from the side of the tracks we can afford cruises. No, no, see, I think you have a misapprehension of how much value there isn't a cruise and or how much it costs. I can't even look, brother. I can't even look.

They won't even let folks like me look at the boat. That's because you're part of the money in the fridge club, right? Listen, my granddaddy and I used to wash plastic it cups. They think it'll let me on one of them boats. Yeah, no, no. Are you saying you couldn't be in steerage? What? Bud is using

Floridian nautical terms. You can translate for the late person. Using water law, your words, bud. Yeah, water. That's maritime. It's maritime law. No, this is a different thing at FSU law. It's water law.

Water law. We've dumped it down for everybody. Hey, folks in Georgia need that water law with the whole fight y'all are going on with tennis. Oh, man, you just have to immediately start cracking on water right. This is negative recruiting. Yeah, our biggest weakness. You sure you want to go to Georgia?

You might just die in drought. You might dehydrate. But which Jones, the way he's got it cooking. My other question is this. Now, you're going to be married, and I think everyone who has been married who is male. I don't know about female. I won't speak to it. I've been to a bachelor party where I was the maid of honor, and I will tell you this, it was great.

Bachelor parties are far superior. Women are just better at having fun. Most bachelor parties, sad affairs. Like they're just kind of sad, overrated affairs. What do you have planned for yours first? Actually, did it over the weekend. We initially planned on Austin, and then we realized, like our whole group is in about a billion weddings this year,

so let's just do something closer to home. And so we did Tampa, played some golf, got pretty, hammered so I'm not sure I remember the entire weekend definitely ended up at the strip club and nobody got arrested which was good and it's actually more tired than that then hung over the next day because you know some of the strip clubs in Tampa well they're some of they're pretty decent quality I guess exhausting well right but you can't they don't serve alcohol and they make you do P90X well right yeah so it it's part it's it's instead of hospitals Tampa's just doing health, you know, like gym classes at strip clubs now.

It's actually pretty smart. You can bring your own alcohol in. If you buy one of the cups in the strip club, take it outside, grab the bottle that I guess you've hit in the bushes and then fill it up with liquor and then bring it back inside. And it will sell you a mixer. But none of us had the forethought to do that. So you can like smuggle anything in as long as you use their cup? That's like one of those riddles where it's like, okay, a tiger. A monkey and a lizard are on one side of the beach.

And you have to transfer them on the raft. Right. So my buddy bought a Red Bull. This is money laundering. This is what this is. Oh, no, not in Florida. We can use these cups to launder money. So he bought a Red Bull and the girl's like,

would you like to have a $6 cup? And he's like, for my Red Bull. And she looks at him like he doesn't understand the gig, which he doesn't. It's like speak easy code. And she's like, well, if you had to take it outside, you can bring it back in, in the cup. God, this is Tampa's fuck. It is.

Listen, I'm not selling you a gun. I'm just shaking your hand for $4,000. You pay for the gun. You pay for bullets with a free gun. There happens to be a gun in this snack pack. I mean, I think it's lunchable. This is school lunch. Yeah.

We're going to have the national championship there in 11 months. Yeah. This is just going to be, like, you thought you had a bad time in Arizona, which I didn't. Arizona's fine. It's okay.

It's what, it's the land of, it's the land of high-priced, high-quality chains. That's what, that's what it is. And Tampa, Tampa's, you know,

just wait. We will eat a lot of Cuban food, though. Man, I'm going to La Tarasita. Yeah, it's going to be good. I'm going to the Columbia. It's all happening.

We're just going to go to, we're just going to go to, we're just going to go to, the place near my high school that just sells Cuban bread, you just go there in the morning. You're just like, yep, coffee and bread, please. This is perfect. Yeah.

Carve it up. I live like a prisoner. A prisoner of carbohydrates. This is why the Arkham games are so appealing to me. That's true. But yeah, this is, this is, my, my bachelor party was underwhelming. It was just underwhelming. It's just kind of an underwhelming experience because you realize, like, you know,

that classic Rager behavior. is basically like sociopathic Olympics, right? Let's go out, yeah, let's engage in the strip club industry, one of the most uncomfortable group experiences on the planet. Yeah. Oh, and the ATMs went down. That was funny, watching people like trying to figure out what they were going to do when they didn't have, yeah, that was pulling out checkbooks and bartering.

Yeah. This is why I have all my money in Bitcoin. Make it windy. Make it disruptive tip at Bitcoin. Well, I do want to discuss signing day, because that did happen, and I think it's something that more than anything else in our fair sport requires some translation, because it's super important. Correct, bud, like we've done tons of studies, tons of little surveys, that basically show if you don't get four-and-five-star recruits, then guess what, you're not going to be real good. just true well you may be able to be pretty good we just don't know if you're actually going to get the ring you know if you want to win the whole thing you got to kind of recruit pretty well

signing day was kind of i don't want to say it was boring but we didn't have anybody no mom took off with the national letter of intent this year nobody announced to one school and then faxed to another i think the maybe the most dramatic thing we had was already planned and that was this one kid saying i'm actually going to wait to see if i get admission into Stanford, and if I don't, they don't pick a school in a month or two. Which, like, what kind of a drama is that when, like, a recruiter's like, I'd like to see if I get into this academically prestigious university, so please pause. Right. And he told us he was going to do it beforehand.

Yeah. This was the kid, by the way, Notre Dame drove their truck to his house, their equipment truck. Yeah, because, you know, a guy who's really interested in academics, that's going to be what sways him. What happened after that? Hey, we're here. Cool.

they just left it there it's his now okay uh didn't they take it to the school too yeah it went from his house to the high school where uh I think that's where we lost track of it so you guys want to go to Burger King we can't pay Notre Dame has a as a home and home with

Savannah high school now we also can't use the drive-thru this was yeah I was going to say that this was in Georgia correct Savannah yeah oh yeah it's a little truck full of Zaxby So, yeah, good. There's a real good chance that that truck is now a contraband. Right?

And like a 1% chance that that truck is currently running beer back and forth from Texarkana to Georgia itself. With Notre Dame still on it. It's down in Juarez. Reading N.D. Nation. So do you think Brian Kelly rode down in that truck, or do you think he sent some staffers to drive the truck down? Then he flew down and hopped truck. I think he would get the back in the, in the, in the, in the LAMBO in the back?

No, I think he put like a lifelike mannequin of himself in the passenger seat just so people on the highway would think it was him, but then he flew down. So you're saying a Brian Kelly that was not screaming? I can't picture it. Well, are they painted purple? Yeah. You see, that's the thing. It's color adjustable.

It's like a high. It's like a mood ring you can have sex with. Okay. It's hyper-wrote. We'll go with that. Yeah, that and this. But I wanted to ask, just in general, if you were to list like the three schools

who had a pretty good time, like who just, you know, who did pretty well, who would they be? Well, Alabama, shockingly here, went from, I think, number nine or number 11 to start the week, and then they started, I don't want to use the word cutting, but they started clearing room in their class.

Cutting, cutting. Clearing inventory. It's like forest management. Reallocating resources. So they did that with some kids who have been committed to them for almost a whole year and in-state kids. And so my first thought was, you know in Star Wars where Obi-Wan says that's no moon and they realize it's the Death Star, that was kind of like that moment for Alabama was like, well, maybe this is the year Alabama won't sign the number one class. I think this was like Monday or Sunday.

and then I was like, oh, wait a second. Oh, no, they only have 17 kids in their class, and they just cut one of them to get down to 16. Like, if they really need to clear nine spots for signing day, something big is probably going to happen. And it did. Yeah, the kids that people thought might go to Florida and Georgia and all those other surrounding states didn't.

They decided that they were going to go to Alabama, one of which, by the way, was Ben Davis, the best inside linebacker in the country. He's an Alabama legacy. His dad is the leading tax. in the history of the school. Wait, wait, wait. Who's his dad?

What is his name? I wrote about him. Sam Davis. Yeah, he was at the signing ceremony. Bama Davis. I'm going to say his dad is Sam Shade. I'm just going to put that out there. Sam Shade.

His name is Wayne. His dad is Cornelius Bennett. His name is Wayne, Wayne Davis. That's right. Johnny Wayne. So people thought he might actually not go to Alabama, which I thought was kind of silly. It's like really same as not going to miss on this kid.

And I would also like to add that I have serious questions about Tubacca's academic eligibility. I'm excited for him. I'm excited to see him play at Alabama. He seems to have transferred all over the place. I don't know if some of those classes are actually going to take. Well, he's pretty clearly got a handler. No one can even get to him without that other guy, that shady character. That's true.

It's true. Listen, you're not recruiting Shibaka, you're recruiting Han. Hey, he's just trying to... Anytime you enter the room, you find the grandma. He's just trying... So, those the grandma. He's just trying to build a church in the canteen. It's all he's trying to do.

Just make a donation or two, okay? It's real simple. It's real simple. The other question I would have is this. You had Alabama. Who else? Who else? Could we say, okay, pretty nice day?

I would have to say, Florida State and Texas. FSU added six four and five-star prospects ended up with pretty clearly the best offensive line class in the country and in all, they signed 18 four-and-five-star kids

including a nice close which for Florida State fans, very happy about because last year they didn't close on anybody. And then Charlie Strong went from being rated in like the 30s a couple weeks ago to finishing with a top 10, top 15 type class depending on where you look.

Now, a lot of that was on defense. They did need defensive help. They also needed offense help. They didn't get quite as much of that, but they really cleaned up. And I'm so impressed with what Texas has done just because the sale of playing time is not quite there as much for them anymore. The newness of the coaching staff has kind of worn off a little bit.

They've lost, what, seven games, two years in a row, and yet they're still recruiting well. He's still getting talent to come to Austin. That should be a pretty easy place to recruit. to, but kids seem to be buying into this idea that Charlie is going to be there for the long term. To me, the thing about this Texas class is it's kind of easy to say, okay, y'all are making too much of a, like, I think it finished number 11 in the composite, which, you know,

they had an awesome signing day with the class as a whole. It's not rated all that high. But the thing to me is their entire strategy was the opposite of what Mac Brown did. So therefore, I'm all on board because, like, Mac Brown, we recall, you know, he'd have his class locked up by July and they need to just park it in the top five and it would finish in the top ten if charlie's doing the opposite of mac good it's a good class well mac was recruiting like from the womb right it was like well he's been committed for eight years but you know if you count the prenatal he's he's he's been with us for a long he's it's a texas he's it's a texas family

i'm just out here busting my butt recruiting on these on these kids who've been committed for six years now and they were also this was also like I think they were the highest rated, finished with the highest ranking of any program in the state, which is, yeah, and in the Big 12. That probably feels nice to not, like, get creamed by Texas A&M and not, I mean, TCU and Baylor both had pretty good days. And if Texas had not had a strong signing day, boy, it would not have been fun for them to hear like, hey, TCU's out recruiting you now. Have fun. I mean with a week to go They were behind Houston

Yeah Yeah So that was a pretty crucial close And like a lot of that was planned Like a lot of it was planned for drama But still Now explain to me how that happens All right

This is something but can shed light out Because people say Well they flipped a bunch of people Or they were going to have something At the last minute You know like I want to know How on earth Because this is this was an old Florida state thing

Was to leave like three spots And they're like well I don't know Florida State's going to pull it out this year and then Bowden on signing day would trot out like eight dudes he wasn't supposed to get at all and they'd go, well, all right, they were at like 15 and they ended up at one. Like, how does Texas do that and completely flip the script at the last moment? I think you really have to trust these kids. If they tell you that they're coming, you have to put a lot of trust in these guys

that they're not going to flip their commitment elsewhere because if you get them to go public with it, then you kind of get to leverage that public commitment. You kind of get to not this is a good thing to do, but it's certainly something that's done. and you say, hey, don't go back on your word. This is Texas. You know, Texans keep their word. And if they go back on it, there's pressure not to do that. That's called the Hank Hill recruiting.

Right. I know you won't go back on your word. Now, Bobby. So you really got to, you got to foster this kind of attitude of cohesion between these kids who are going to commit. And they could say, hey, we're going to make a big splash. We're going to get everybody talking about Texas. If we all wait and we all do this on Saturday.

They had, what, five, six kids. They added on Saturday. who people think they probably had locked up for a couple weeks. I think that's the way you do it. And it's harder to do it now, I think, than it is to do it back in Bobby Bowden's day because there really was no internet back then, back when he was actually recruiting well. And so you didn't know. A lot of times it wasn't planned back in the day with Bobby Bowden.

They weren't all silence. I think a lot of them were just, hey, I'm going to choose Ford State. But you didn't know that if you're a five-star DB and Ocala doing it, that a kid in Tampa and a kid in Miami weren't also doing it. Nowadays in the internet, you could sit there and watch, say, oh, wait a second. Maybe I don't want to be the fourth stud cornerback to commit in this class. Maybe I'll go elsewhere. Back in the day, they didn't have that option.

Back in the, Peyton Manning had to call you on the phone. There was somewhere where Charlie Strong said that their whole strategy was don't take commits because then other schools will know exactly who to recruit against. Because if a kid comes out and says it doesn't commit it to Texas, well, every school just pounces and says you're playing for the five and seven team. But if they're still up in the air, then you're able to recruit against them on an even playing field. And it would be funny if somebody were to try that, and it backfired on them. And I think that's important because you got it right.

And I saw a lot of people out there misconstrueing what Charlie said. And they thought he said, don't take commits because then people will start recruiting him just because they're kids that Texas went after. As if, like, nobody realized these players were good until Texas took their commitment. Yeah, the way he said it was a lot more humble and self-aware. Right. Yeah. But, you know, if you're recruiting against Texas, you don't say that. You're like, did you hear what Charlie said?

Yeah, he said you weren't shit till he found you. He said, Texas made you. That's what he said. Here's my card. I coach for literally any other school in Texas recruiting against you. I can't believe he said that. Hi, I'm Orangebloods.com here. I'm Tom, I'm Tom Rice.

I'm definitely not Jeff Ketchum. Definitely not anyone who. who's transparently working for the school for my own interest. You're not somebody that, okay, never mind. Yeah. There's a lot of ways you could go in this, but I don't, but I'm not going to give you the rope to hang yourself. For once, I'm going to be the voice of reason.

Wow, this is a weird podcast. It's right, Coach Spencer. Yeah. We've talked about serious things about recruiting. I don't know what's going on anymore. I need to save you for the fourth quarter, son. The other thing I wanted to ask, too, was, A couple of schools I just want to ask about in short.

I mean, just pulling one at random. You know, just one at random, not of interest to anyone on this podcast. Florida, you know, a new staff sort of still getting their legs, their sea legs, recruiting-wise. How did they do in your entirely unbiased opinion? You know, the overall class is fine. They signed nine blue-chip guys, 25 overall. They did legitimately meet a lot of needs numerically. They restocked their death chart in some spots.

They got some more guys on defense to help him out. They signed a really, I think a true impact receiver in Tyree Cleveland, who was from Jacksonville, had to move to Houston with his aunt, and then ended up coming back to Florida. They got the quarterback that, as far as I know, that they wanted uttered the Jacob East and he went to Georgia in Felipe Franks, who is a, I don't think he's like an instant impact type guy, but he definitely has some of the best tools in the class.

as you watch him, and a huge arm, fairly athletic for being 6-6. I think that Florida fans, the downside of this is probably, they didn't really close very well. And they had a lot of momentum over the summer. Kids in this state were talking about Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida. And then the Will Greer, people said, behind Will Greer. It was like, oh, God, that's what they have behind Will Greer. And the momentum just kind of wore off. And eventually, you know, some kids started looking at.

at Bama more, Florida State more, Georgia more, and they just weren't able to snowball that momentum and make it last until signing day. Look, Florida had, as we now know, a wide receiver at quarterback, so there is nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. Respectable. It's what happens at the college level.

Sometimes you just misidentify what position you're supposed to play for, I don't know, seven years. It can happen. Who's to say why? Yeah. We all crapped on Mac Brown for recruiting quarterbacks as safeties. Maybe Florida recruited some safeties as quarterbacks. Yeah.

The universe needs balance. Yeah. See? I would also say Florida had signed 12 guys got in early, which I think is the largest amount in the country. So a lot of these guys are going to be ready to play and play early because they're going to be able to go through spring. Frank's the quarterback.

I don't think is going to be Florida starter this year. he's in for spring. Maybe he'll make big leaps and bounds in the first spring he'll be able to play there. Johnson Gardner, who's a really, really athletic, competitive nickel. I think he can play safety, can play nickel, maybe he can replace Keanu O'Neill, can do a lot of good things for you there.

And they went heavy on the junior college route. They stole a corner away from Arkansas at junior college. They got Mark Thompson, I think, is a really good running back at a Dodge City, at Jukot in Kansas there. And they got Fricky Hammond's little brother. Remember him? Hammond,

Hallandale, who's actually, I think a year younger than his class to maybe still has more development potential than his quote-unquote

senior film might suggest. And I got all those kids in early. Can I also remind you we did get MacArthur Burnett out of, who MacArthur Burnett may be the most important

recruit in this class and hear me out. I know he's a running back that's not exactly our weakest position. But MacArthur Burnett is one from Pahoki, extremely important the Florida program.

Always have to have at least one dude from Pahoki, the rabbit chasers themselves. And I say that because that's the heritage of the town, to literally chase rabbits when they burn the sugar cane because it's West Palm Beach County. And that's the thing that people still do. The other thing is that MacArthur Burnett's nickname is Nut Nutt. That's his nickname.

It's Nut Nutt, which you're on the team. You're hired. You can't wait to scream that when he returns a punt. Can you? Nope. Nope, it's going to happen. Oh, and three, by the way, if he returns that punt, we're getting 15 on the kickoff because he's noted for jumping and flipping into the end zone,

especially when he doesn't have to. So there, that's MacArthur Burnett. So everything's fine. Oh, it's fine. Florida also signed a badass pass rusher name Antonius Clayton out of Dooley County, Georgia. Yeah. That's good. So we signed a country dude

He's a time traveling Roman gladiator Who ended up in Dooley County Yeah Awesome Time travel sucks Ancient Rome had better water access That's why we don't That's why we don't use this technology

Like the whole argument That time travel Like time travels random And it only takes you to really rural places Anybody you wanted to ask about Ryan Besides you know The uninvested Florida

let's so so the pack 12 was pretty quiet it felt like I mean the just because they didn't have anybody that was like oh man USC's got a monster class or whatever um who's like is there is there a program that had like a sneaky good day or is sort of like eh you might want to watch out for that that team in a year or two because they're starting to put together some pieces and they might you know, out of nowhere, jump a tier or two above their current station out west. I don't know how many tiers are going to be jumping, but Stanford put together one of the best classes that David Shaw has ever had. You'll be shocked here.

They got a really good pro-style quarterback and then also a really good in-line tied-in. Oh, yeah, right? And they added some quality outfits of lime into it. What Stanford did this year, though, I think it's interesting. They did much better at the skill position. They got some guys who can play corner to sure up that back in. They may still get Demetrius Robertson, who is the, by some people, the number one player in Georgia, a kid is still waiting on him to sign.

And then I think Washington did a really good job as well. They're not a top two class into Pac-12 or anything. That's going to be USC, UCLA, just because of the proximity to talent. But Washington getting a kid like Byron Murphy out of Arizona, a really nice corner. I think Brennan Wellington is going to be a good linebacker for them. They have some nice pieces in this class. And I'm pretty sure Chris Peterson knows how to develop talent and make the most of it and knows how to identify kids. So when I see them signing some high-profile kids in addition to the sort of gyms that you always figure Peterson's going to be able to get, those are encouraging signs in Washington.

You know who did not have a great signing day in fact 12? That would be Oregon. Oregon did not have a have a real fun end of the day and also I think this week they had a yet another quarterback transfer out of the program this was a former four star yeah and he's he's going to FCS Towson which is actually a very fine FCS program it's a fine FCS program but that's not real that's not really supposed to happen no it's not great when you bring in a four star who and it's not I mean he didn't really even do do anything depth chart-wise while he was there but like there there there are some hints that maybe the wheels are starting to come off the Oregon wagon a little bit yeah what we're what we're saying here is uh they brought in an FCS they just made a trade a transaction with the FCS level at the quarterback position so for next year at quarterback right I think we keep an eye on this kid at

towson so this kid's gonna have a big year it's a farm it's a farm it's a It's a farm system kind of thing. It's like soccer. Yeah. When you sell a player out on loan. He's on loan. I was going to say, is this just Oregon just bothering, like, borrowing people again? All Oregon does is just loan players now.

They're basically an EPL team. God, this is, ooh. And, I mean, Mark Helfridge does have some. That's a sorry, my soccer knowledge takes me. Mark Helfridge does sort of have an EPL coach quality to him, so. He does. He just sort of stands there with his arms folded, and you just sort of, sort of like, God damn it.

And looks pretty fit. That's true. He looks very fit. And if I told you that Mark Halfridge was a inherently wealthy and kind of from a noble background, I could believe that, too. If he had been involved in like an affair with some sort of like. You know, like a French prime minister's wife or something. Exactly. I would believe that as well.

And three of you told me that, you know, he summers on the coast of del Sol and spends time with his children, Guillermo and Maximilian. I'd be like, yeah, this is all totally plausible. Why doesn't Oregon have those, like, fancy airline chairs on their bench? They will. Like, they're the program that's going to bring that over from soccer to college football, right? Oh, yeah, huge chairs, immense, like. With the little plexiglass huts.

Yeah, they almost look like, they almost look like Ricaro seats. Yeah. Like, they look like racing seats, bud. Hmm. They'll have the big plexiglass huts. has hut for the entire 100 player roster. So it's like a dome inside the stadium. Is that still like fans don't throw things at them?

Is this here comfy? Oh, no. They have a little awning that extends over them. So even if you did throw something, it wouldn't matter. It just bounced harmlessly off the top. They're ahead of us on this. They've got this. God, that's brilliant.

The other thing is Oregon is like, it's like a dugout. That's not dug into anything. it's an above ground dugout it's a it's a dug up is what it is a dug up that sounds like something dabbo would come up with what hashtag dug up they tried to dig us down but we dug up we dug up bring your own dug oh wow oh my girl a girl you go find a man named dug and you bring him to clemson we'll dug him up i'll give you i'll do the dug right now i'll give you eight dollars for every dug dab Stiffle

I did want to ask this It's a sensitive question Okay And this is me I'm asking like This is like the highest Creative difficulty I can possibly think of

Okay So I'm going to ask it Which is this Which is Hey hey bud How's old miss How's old miss recruiting this well I think what did I say

On the podcast Ain't played it buddy Faith and family Lessing is the way to go with that one. Bountiful blessings. Just like Creflow Dollar. The Lord has entrusted Hugh Freeze

as the steward of a blossoming empire. And did you hear that out of Jason Kirk's mouth? Steward. Steward of abundance. He's just laying these blessings at the foot of the cross. All these mustard seeds. So I don't really think old this. 315 mustard seeds.

But, Bud actually has an answer to this. We should let him. All right. I don't think Old Miss is cheating like that much more than everybody else. But I think it's more noticeable

or at least fans think it's more noticeable because Old Miss has never won anything, right? Like in your mind you can say, oh, why did that five start to go to Alabama? Oh, because they have like a billion national titles and they send everybody to the NFL, et cetera, et cetera. And it's, you know, you don't have to live in Mississippi. So, you know, the same thing with LSU, and with all these other schools that sign most of these elite players,

maybe with the exception of A&N, which is kind of also, that is kind of funny if you think about it. A&N was signing all these studs, and they had never won anything. And Old Miss was signing all these studs. Everybody's like cheating. But I think part of it's because the in-state talent in Texas is more, it's easier to justify, as opposed to there's not a whole lot of in-state talent in Mississippi. So Old Miss is actually pulling kids who are studs from out of state, and that really gets people fired up. Also, was it much easier for us to just be like, well, this is what comes from that SEC bump, Texas A&M. Welcome.

Oh, you're right. Oh. Well, part of it was, it was right after Kim D. Sheet, which was an actual high profile, like, even casual fans know who he is, commit. And that was followed by Treadwell and Tunsell kind of just popping up out of nowhere. Oh, from Chicago and Florida? Yeah. Yeah. And like, well, I mean, like with A&M, it's, oh, yeah, there's a five-star quarterback from Houston. You know, 1,800 miles away in the same state, that makes sense. Yeah. But when it's across seven state lines, that's when you say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Also, I think it's this, too.

I think there is a, if I had to identify the exact percentage of suspicion, which people say, I'll miss Chayton. I'm like, okay, I think I know what you're getting at here, which is this. How are you getting this many high-profile young African-American athletes to go to Ole Miss? because this is still an issue, right? This is, because it's Old Miss. It's Old Miss. It's the school that has literally the worst reputation historically. But they have at least on its face attempted to do something about that, which probably matters.

Big time, big time. Now, I mean, this is not, again, this is not me saying that that's the way things are now. This is the reputation. And when people want to be suspicious for any reason, this is one of the things that I think. lurks in the back of people's mind. Beautiful. Let's do questions. Yeah.

Let's start. Bud has a good, it's a good segue because it's about recruiting, and it's perfect for Bud because he just gets to be hateful. So, Bud, let's start with your question. All right. This is from Ben Bryner, who works for the state newspaper in South Carolina. He says, of all fan bases insisting recruiting rankings don't matter, which is the saddest, parentheses, outside Purdue.

That is sad. man. Aren't we all outside Purdue in some sense? Indiana was just dabbing on those guys. Lord willing. Did you see that our Indiana blog ran an article shit talking someone about football recruiting and that someone was Purdue and it was actually factually correct. You know what?

Good. That's rough. Everybody needs one enemy that they're confident they could kill. Like you need that in your life. Not saying you're going to go out and kill them. but you need one person that you know is out there in the world that you're like if I had to and if it came to it I would choke the life out of that motherfucker Purdue is that for Indiana.

So who is Purdue? Yeah, who is Purdue? No one. Purdue, like, yeah, it's not Purdue. Purdue has Kansas, but they didn't really play. Purdue has the Swiss Guard. I think, I think it'd go to overtime, but I think Purdue could be the Swiss Guard. The military of Lichtenstein.

Oh, it's rough. it's bad it's super bad i've wanted and i've wished nothing but ill on peru fans just because i were in indiana fans for a long time because i saw them accosting a guy in a purdue t-shirt at the kentucky derby one year and i was like of all the places of all the times displace of humanity it's like three drunk indiana fans in a year they won three games taunting a peru fan because they beat them in football but now i understand i've i haven't been that far down but I've been to the depths, so I get it. I understand your pain.

I forgive you. But aside from Purdue, who do we get to laugh at because they get to pretend recruiting doesn't matter because they had a bad day? I'm really enjoying the cognitive distance going on right now with Michigan State fans who forever told me that recruiting ranks didn't matter. And for them, they kind of didn't because they still managed to beat Ohio State in Michigan, who pretty clearly out-recruited day.

But now, Michigan State has been good enough for so long that they're actually like landing some of these. top kids. And so now they're in this weird spot. We're like, well, these recruiting rankings don't matter. We're going to celebrate just based on what this, the image and what this looks like for our program. I'm like, okay. Yeah. TCU, kind of the same. Basically, all these schools that have been so good with the quote-unquote sleepers for so long, Michigan State, TCU, kind of Baylor. Now they're stepping up and they're starting to actually sign some more top kids. And it's just funny to watch the fan base

has evolved there. I think South Carolina is a school that will tell you after signing day that recruiting rankings really don't matter despite the fact that I think the number one thing why you hired Will Mustchamp was for recruiting, right? That was kind of the justification. I don't know. Are there other good

reasons to hire Will Must champ y'all? No. I'm sorry, I fell asleep. What were we talking about? Surely there are lots of good reasons. I guess Mississippi State, too. I got an argument in Mississippi State fans a couple weeks back. I said, I think Dan Mullen's a good recruiter.

I'm like, well, look at his results. And I was like, well, yeah, look at where the school is located. Like, he doesn't have a, you know, 8, zillion tonne forklift that can just move Starkville somewhere else. Their fans seem to think it doesn't matter either, but they kind of keep finishing last in the West and recruiting and not all that close to the top and actually on the field. So if those schools are moving up into sort of accepting that recruiting matters because they're finally better at it, who's moving down and is saying, oh, we've sworn off this stuff?

I feel like Nebraska fans are kind of getting there. I mean, it's been about not a full decade yet, but they're kind of getting to where they don't sign a whole lot of elite kids. Although I do like their class and off a lot, and it was a top 25 class. It was the best division for what it's worth. yeah uh although that is still would be what fifth or sixth and not worth much i think pin state fans are a group that has been telling me now about their sleepers in their class for for an awful lot and i feel like a and m fans are not caring about recruiting quite as much anymore now that they're not doing quite so well on it yeah those makes sense when when james franklin is like

the the whole thing about him is oh he can bring in top 15 classes and then you'll look at the teams, which scholarship issues and all, sure, sure, sure. But then maybe you say, maybe we should go back to the top 40 classes. We like those better. Yeah, that'd be nice. Whose question is next? Who wants to go next? I'll go next. This is from Dakota Moyer at Dak Moyer on Twitter. Which one of these is the most Florida pet? Gator, Anaconda, or Tiger? The knee-jerk reaction here is to say alligator, although I don't think that's correct. I think, you know, Certainly, as Spencer and Bud and I can all attest, there are alligators all over the damn state of Florida. And to the point where there is no public place where an alligator can show up and you are surprised.

Like, if you went to a food court at a mall and they were like, oh, yeah, it's closed. We got an alligator over at the Panda Express. You'd be like, yeah, that sounds right. Yep, not surprised. That happens. You just got to, you know, let him amble on out of there. He's not harming anybody. He just wants some orange chicken.

I think the answer to this is tiger, because gators and snakes are fairly common in Florida in the while. Anagonda is in part because people brought them as pets and then said, uh-oh, I can't deal with this, and left them like some sort of venomous Moses. But tigers are the ones that have no place in the state. Don't make sense there. Must require an unusual level of bribery. or fraud or shipping flim flammery to acquire and are easily the they feel like the ones that people are going to be the most reckless with

like I would definitely uh I wouldn't be shocked to read a story about like oh yeah this guy flipped his Jeep because he was riding with a tiger in the passenger seat and it attacked him that's that's some real Florida pet shit another thing about tigers in Florida, they just keep faking field goals on you. I hate you so much. I haven't done anything to you this week. Just sorry. I'm so sorry. He's just mad because Falcons couldn't get that transitive Super Bowl. We came 15 points away.

It's just negative 15 transitive Super Bowl champs. That's a man. When you get Matt Ryan for that many years in a row, it's like eating vanilla ice cream for like a month straight. Not even the good vanilla ice cream. No, some waxy shit. Hold on. Walgreens has their own brand of ice cream. And you get to eat it for seven years. I mean, he tweets about Pepsi.

Yeah. In Atlanta? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. I don't still fit anymore. Dude, this is my favorite thing about that Ryan is that if Matt Ryan were to walk around Atlanta, like Matt Ryan, Matt Ryan has absolutely no cue rating here whatsoever. Like, I think he would have to go.

I think we've mentioned this before. or a Panera in Sandy Springs. That's where Matt Ryan would get polite, like, hello, sir. If you go to a falcon, like an average falcons game, how many people there are wearing Matt Ryan jerseys or shirts or whatever? It's all, Julio. I'll break it down with you. Our three most popular players are the Bama player, the punter, and the fullback.

If that ain't SEC, I don't know what it is. It's true, though. I've never seen anyone in a Matt Ryan jersey. Now, I don't think that's indicative because I tend to tune them out. But still, that's my testimony is that I've never seen anyone in a Matt Ryan jersey.

Only Falcons jersey I've ever needed is Dion. We'll buy one for Elena. It's fine. Go and else. I agree on the tiger, by the way. I think it's very indicative of our state's total lack of regulation. I actually don't think it's illegal to own a tiger in the state.

No, Florida, I believe, requires some crude licensing. If you want a state that doesn't require any licensing for an exotic cat at all, Oklahoma, you can just basically keep one in your backyard. But Tiger is definitely a thing you get arrested for on like a zoning violation or something. Mm-hmm. Right. So me like, oh, you didn't, I'm sorry, you didn't, you didn't properly declare this before the Homeowners Association. You got to register. You're illegal tiger.

And what do tigers eat in Florida? Keydeer? Man, they just eat meat. You just got to get as much meat as you. All right. Taco Bell. My wife's uncle, when he was at med school, Tulane, they stole the LSU Tiger. This was back like, we're talking like 60 years ago now.

Okay. 50 years ago. They stole the LSU Tiger, and they said the problem with it wasn't, you know, getting it around or handling it. The problem was putting it in a garage and then trying to keep it. from roaring and alerting the neighbors because it was roaring and alerting the neighbors and they literally like they couldn't throw enough steak they were like ultimately it became

an economic issue because it would roar when it was hungry because it was used to being fed they're like it was a perfectly fine tiger it was just chill it was just a big cat you know that wasn't any more or less hostile than you imagine a really big cat would be but still they were out of money

they couldn't feed it anymore it's a smart tiger This is the best part of the whole thing. What happened? Well, we let it go. And I never got any further detail other than that. Man. I'm sure some Publix took it in.

So I have a question. This is from Gimme Grits. Give me grits. Could a guinea pig ever be a four-star capyvara, or are they too undersized? Well, I don't think you're going four-star, but I do think you send that guinea pig to Jucco, you know, make sure he gets the grades, bulks up a little bit, have him go play for Bill Snyder, boom, quarterback. So you're saying he would be classified as an athlete? Absolutely. I want to go ahead and just make clear the schools that we are saying could develop this.

But what schools are going to get us there? I feel like Baylor could probably take him and run the Wildcat no matter what. Ryan's totally right on Kansas State. Let me see. Jimbo would probably get him drafted. Jimbo'd give him that signing bonus. He'd be like a third rounder.

He'd be like, I don't know. A guinea pig slash capy bar. Well, on the whiteboard, he was pretty good. I don't know. I could see like, The guinea pig committing to Syracuse, being buried on the depth chart, having, like, getting called up, having to play two games at quarterback, be like, wow, guinea pig's really got something, and then shredding an ACL.

That's it. It's just about Buffalo Bill's falling for him again to get it again. Well, if nothing else, Georgia could turn him into someone with one very specific special teams duty. They can do that with anybody. Would he be welcome at Minnesota? Hmm. Yeah. Like blend in among the gophers?

Yeah. Just get fat on dilly bars. So, yeah, that's a question of, are they going to get mad because he's trying to claim gopherness? He doesn't have the essence. But then he runs that wheel route. And it all falls away. Oh, my gosh. It's a literal, it's a literal wheel route.

I'll also state this, too. He's going to have to put on a lot of weight. Happy Pairs. How much you think of a guy? Capoe Barra weighs. Ooh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say 70 pounds, maybe. 70 pounds, said Bud's got 60, Jason. Your Capi Barra bet on weight.

What do we have so far? 60 and 70. I'll go 50, then. Dude, they can wait like anywhere between 70 and 100. I mean, that is a robo. Actually, males can get up to 150. That is a robust rodent. Sheesh.

Yeah. Which, basically, they also look. haughty as hell. Like, people are like, ooh, that's just a big rat. I'm like, no, look at them. So what I'm hearing is if we want the guinea pig to become a capybara

has to train with Peyton Manning's wife. That's CGH. It's like he went to the Capi Barra's house, but that doesn't say anything about whether the Capi Barra got it or not. Maybe the Capi Barra's wife wasn't feeling as confident as she once did. Okay.

Go boss. Oh, did you see, uh, did you see the statistic that Peyton Manning has beaten every NFL and college football team that he has played. He's beaten them at least once. Except for Florida.

It's always ruining something. He can never undo it. Hey, don't push your luck, brother. He can never undo it. Like he comes back as coach or plays Bush Jones just so he can get a winner of Florida. And then he loses six in a row.

God damn it. Worth it. And then T. Martin comes in as the interim coach. Team Martin just wins the national title. They're like... They're doing it with Pate's players. I don't feel like our program has the same class we had under Peyton. If you know what I mean.

Just the same class. And then in his last year at Tennessee, of course, Peyton loses the national championship to Michigan head coach Charles Woodson. This comes to us from... from YARGO Not on Twitter, I believe. Starts for the J. Bud ever done the Python Challenge? And I'll direct that one straight to Bud,

in part because I do not, I am not Florida enough to know what the Python challenge is. Oh, Spencer and I know what this is. Yeah, no, this is the hunt. We almost did this. We couldn't get the editorial plan together in time. Remember this? This is States.

Like 2011? Yeah. So I was going to go on on the Challenge, even though I just now learned what it is. Yeah. You just didn't know it by this name. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So they only captured like 20, right, total. I think in that hunt out of like thousands of people who did it, which is not a very good ratio. Yes, because remember why the python is so supremely Florida. Not only is it huge and just a menace to the ecosystem it's in. It's also extremely hard to kill or track. it's hard to uh it's hard to detain it's off the grid uh in in 2013 the python hunt captured 68 invasive snakes out of how many entrance well they had 1600 people and according to this national geographic

article says nearly 1600 people from 38 states most of them inexperienced hunters Registry. No. And, you know, like, you just really like, here's what you just need to learn in life. It's that don't, don't wait to be qualified because you know what? No one else is.

No one. Like, no one is waiting to be qualified. Florida's just proof of this. People just show up. You learn by doing. Or by. That's also a really bad place to, like, to actually shoot yourself or somebody,

like on an airboat in the middle of the Everglades. You're probably, not going to make it. Yeah, but that's going to happen whether or not the state... It'll make you live forever. Yeah, just dip yourselves in the cleansing water. Curify yourselves in the healing waters. Lake Okeechobee.

Lake Ogachobee bullshit. He's going to say, listen, if that agricultural runoff doesn't turn you into a mutant on the spot, you're good.