Shutdown Fullcast - Shutdown Fullcast 4.6.0

Episode Date: March 10, 2016

An express edition of the Fullcast comes to you this week via travel and other annoyances of actual employment. A day late, yes, but not a dollar short because we're suddenly talking about ILLINOIS FOOTBALL SPENDING MONEY IN THE YEAR 2016. Take your opinions on what this means for the US economy and wad them up and deposit them in a trash can, because NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THIS MEANS. Also discussed: --NFL coaches who came to college with varying results --A sidenote on that maybe mentioning that maybe Bill Callahan wasn't the worst coach in the world while he was at Nebraska, maybe? (Maybe?) --I call former Arkansas running back Peyton Hillis "Perry Hillis" because I am having a month long stroke --A brief acknowledgment that two more players have left the Florida football team, a thing that is surprisingly easy to do --A long discussion for easily half of the podcast about the best and worst stores to be trapped. BASS PRO SHOPS FOR LIFE The audio quality is crap because we had to record on the road, and also because the Vox Media offices' HVAC system runs at the volume of a MiG-23 at full bore. 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. It's going to be a little fast this week. We're traveling around, moving, moving, doing things. Moving to shaking, shaking and moving. Ryan Nanny is not joining us from his hipster nest in Brooklyn. No, he is live from the district. You're in D.C., correct? Yeah, I am in a conference room that I think Vox.com people wanted to use to do actual work,

but sucks me them. Not today. Looks like you'll have to explain to them that you'll need the room more than they do. Matt Iglesias says that this is the year UCLA wins the national title. I think what you do is you make a map of the conference room and show that the spot where the conference room is, is where you are. Yeah, that would be good. Sure. the other person on this call besides myself and Ryan, that'd be Jason Kurt.

Jason, you were back in Georgia, correct? Yes, sir. Yeah, good deal. I made it back and am happy to report that trip from a D.C. bar to the D.C. airport through D.C. security and eating an entire D.C. pizza took up less time than did sitting in ATL traffic at 4 a.m. on the way to D.C. because Atlanta is a superior town Yep, you are doing your tradition of being extremely late

to college football meetings I've done that twice now Well yeah, but two of the other ones We're in Atlanta Yeah, so basically you're the Maya If we're not in Atlanta, let's see We've done three or four of these outside of Atlanta.

I've missed one entirely and was five hours late to one. And for the listeners, I'm kind of in charge, so of this specific thing. Spencer's still my boss, but I'm in charge of this specific sport. So, yeah. That and I would say this, that we did the meetings in D.C., and they actually kind of worked as much as I despise that town, and a good 80% of the people in it, they actually worked. So when you see all of that good college football content goodness, just know that it was hatched in the most unholy of places. A Maryland town.

Through and through. Have you seen this, the district video game? Yeah. Or it's like saying like a bombed out DC and like the game doesn't work. Like video games just don't work these days when they put them out and you got to wait like six months until they fix them. and people are putting up videos of like all the characters you can't actually walk through people so if someone needs to talk to like a merchant or something

everyone has to queue up and stand in line which is it's actually pretty DC when you get around to it like even a post-apocalyptic DC it's still you know you're standing around among people the other thing from this week that we do need to address before we go to our real topic, which is what is the worst store to be trapped in? Like if you

had to be trapped in it. We'll elaborate on the conditions for that, because that was a question. But something did happen this week, because the epicenter of the college football universe for the first and maybe only time this week, the first

week of March, was Illinois. Since Red Grange himself. Champagne from a real friend's three million dollar contracts for my lovey friends whoever red grange was Urbana from a haters

since the days of like that's Illinois football is this it's like red grange dick butkus Kurt Kittner goes to a roseball uh... juice Williams Juice Williams and Ron Zook go to a rose bowl and don't ask what happened in that roseball. Massive upset over

Ohio State that did not impact anything at all because it came in 2007 nothing and then the rest is just a burnt down arby's that's it but it still smells like rose beef because of like minnesota and like some of the other big 10 schools you sort of think like yeah they've had a glory you know a glory year span they've been good at some point Illinois they kind of look like Syracuse they're easy to confuse Syracuse used to be good and then you go back and look and Illinois's high points are like, well, they attended a Rose Bowl.

Like, Illinois has never been good for more than, like, one year at a time. Here's what I like about Illinois deciding in early March to fire the coach that they had three months ago given a two-year extension. The reaction to this was obviously one of surprise, because this is not a time that you fire a head coach, especially if that head coach has not done something incredibly unseen. which Bill Cupid did not. But when we, the rest of the internet, pointed and gawked at this and said, what the hell is going on?

The response from Illinois fans was like, look, we just want to go eight and four. At no point was it, it did not fall into that category of, you know, there are certain schools that are like, with the right coach, we can be competing for national titles. Illinois fans are We're pretty realistic about this They're just like hey Just get a state in four We're good with that

They've really been beaten down to the point Where like their expectations are exactly where they should be For like if you're if you're a sane sports fan Who just wants to make it through this and have fun Look to Illinois right now Like they're happy because they actually hired a coach Yeah and a coach that a coach who's name they knew And I think that that's independent of quality.

I just think that they were shocked that they were going to get it. Because I think everyone thought PJ Fleck was going to get this job from Western Michigan. Illinois native. And noted actual crazy person. Noted person crazy enough to think that taking the Illinois job is a good idea. You know why PJ Fleck hasn't gotten a new job, right? Because that would require him to like sit still in a conference room and talk to another person without yelling or doing some sort of calisthenic.

Yeah. Well, a lot of people, another reason people thought it would be Fleck was the new AD in his first intro presser, he said, we're going to row the boat to victory, something like that. We're all going to get together and row the, and in hindsight, it's like, was he throwing everybody off the scent? Is this dude that devious that he's out? Like, we're going to keep sawing wood, folks. Yeah, and that turned out to not be the case at all.

We're going to shout War Eagle. And they go to Lovie Smith, which... Why don't you enjoy a refreshing cocker today? We just, we promise that the future of this program will be nutty. Or strong. If you give us another year. Oh. It should be noted, though.

There's, like, a few things about this hire. This should be noted, which are, like, alternately weird and laudable, right? Like, one, Illinois hired someone who's named people know, all right, yay. Two, they kind of at least embrace the strategy, which was, we'll get a guy who can legitimately say as NFL experience. A lot, a lot of NFL experience. Probably too much. But that NFL experience is almost perfect for Illinois.

Illinois, because nobody, you know, in the same way that Ron Zuck went to a Rose Bowl and everybody was like, yeah, it doesn't really mean anything. Luffy Smith went to a Super Bowl and at no point did people think like, oh, that's really proof he built something. Yeah, that and that and this, he's got a staff, which he has to recruit, we did write about this day, he has to recruit in March, which is kind of like forging for salmon in the dead of winter. It's just not a good thing if you're a bear on the hunt, which Lovie definitely is, no pun. I didn't even mean to turn into that. Think of it as like a dirty dozen thing, where he just has to find men who are so desperate that they'll take the job.

Like his sons. I saw that. I wouldn't worry about the calendar much. What were you going to say? I was going to say, yeah, I mean, maybe we shouldn't worry about the calendar, especially when you're hiring your sons, which I wanted to get on as a sign of the NFL's never-ending nepotism until you start looking at the rosters of college coaches

who have happily put their own sons on the roster or made them coordinators. Hi, Arbrile. I mean, shit, that just happened at Illinois. Yeah, it did. Illinois just fired a guy who hired his son. They hired the wrong son. Now they're hiring the right son.

And that's why Mike Huckabee is the only end. answer for Illinois football. That's a whole offensive line right there, those three boys. You just got a large adult son. The recruiting thing is after seeing the coaches he was reportedly interested in, it's kind of worrisome, like they're all very NFL, but you can sort of see how they can all recruit. Like if Mike Sherman comes aboard as in some sort of assistant, he's a high school coach

right now, so that wouldn't exactly be a jump down for him. like as everyone agrees he can recruit an offensive line uh you know and and most of the other guys are really young so at least they could pick it up quickly and uh garrick mcgee is apparently it's apparently official as the offensive coordinator uh bobby petrino teams 10 to score points it's it's it's kind of the coaching staff you'd recommend i guess kind of it was a ring endorsement yeah i mean i'm just uncomfortable with seeing Illinois sort of having its pick of things. Well, they pick the time, man.

Who was, who's going to compete with you? Somebody's going to try this next year and totally botch it. Like, the one thing Illinois ever did right, somebody's going to try to replicate it and fail. Purdue, Purdue, Purdue, don't do it, Purdue. No, they'll hire Rahim Morris, and then all three of the most recent Tampa Bay Bucks coaches will beat in the Big Ten.

The Big Ten. which I kind of wonder like this is the thing for NFL guys they never get too high or too low because they're extremely corporate and it like doesn't it just never seems to work at the college level like when you talk about college versus pro coaches which I don't think is as much of a disaster maybe as it used to be I'm not real sure why it used to be that if you hired some retread pro coach you could just count on like two to three years of soporific low margin football that ended with like a four four and eight or five and seven season. Just looking at you, Bill Callahan, right? Aw. Yeah. Who Bill Callahan, by the way, went on to, like, be really successful again in the NFL

and to do a pretty good job at what he was doing. Like, he was the offensive line coach for all of those productive DeMarco Murray seasons in Dallas, right? He did a good job at what he was supposed to do. It just isn't, it's a different sort of mindset mentality and tool box when you're talking about what you need to do at the college level, which, yeah, does kind of involve being this charismatic weirdo who has a license to talk to 16 and 17-year-old boys all day.

Well, when you put it that way. It's true. It's one of the few times when you as a 50-year-old man can sit there and just text 17-year-old boys. Hey, how you doing? I mean, it's that or go to Orlando and put boy bands. together so I guess like when this happened the immediate backlash thing was you know he probably won't win a national title there because he hasn't recruited recently it's a slow down slow down slow down you know like this ohio state didn't hire him Illinois hired him if they go to a bowl next year

everyone is happy I would laugh I would laugh if love he did that and he went five and seven and took a job somewhere else. I like the way his contract sets up. Like, apparently the bucks are still paying him for two years. And Illinois is spending only $2 million a year for the next two years. And then his contract actually catches up with the Big Ten. Like right now, what they're spending big on is assistant pay. Their assistant pay was way behind.

And they basically doubled it. But for now, the bucks are still paying by far most of his salary. What that basically is is like when you get a credit card where it's like no interest for the first six months. And you're like, well, I mean, this can't be a bad decision. This is Lovie Smith, the free direct TV package of coaches. Yeah, he is. Oh, my God.

With Lovie, if you subscribe to Lovie, you get HBO for like a year, for free. I love Game of Thrones. $70 a month for the two years after that. But for free, for a year. Amazing. You've heard of HBO. you've heard of Lubby Smith and can we go back by the way

like when we talk about people like NFL coaches who actually worked in the college and college like the people who did are just these like absolute like football savats like Pete Carroll who if you believe Pete Carroll

completely rebooted his mainframe like he's one of the few human beings to actually do a defragmentation on his hard drive and live because he was okay with the Patriots. He goes and he's awesome at USC. And then he goes and he's awesome at Seattle. And somewhere between like the age of 45 and 315, which he is now, he completely changed the way he did things. Jimmy Johnson, Jimmy Johnson's another coach, who won titles both in the

NFL and in the college ranks. And pretty much everyone agrees that he's probably the smartest. Okay, this is a, can I just like damn with faint praise? Yeah. Frank Broils, Frank Broils, the legendary coach at Arkansas. said that Jimmy Johnson was the smartest football player he'd ever seen come out of Arkansas. Damn, that is smarter than the scholars at that fine university. He's smarter than Perry Hillis. Wow. I think everyone agrees that Jimmy is the best of this whole genre of coach.

This is so disrespectful to Barry Switzer. I'm sorry. Sorry, Barry. Well, I mean, Jimmy kind of in a way, too, stepped into two really good situations. I mean, Dallas wasn't exactly a power before he got there, but, like, you know, between the Hershal Walker trade and whatnot, things were set up pretty well. Anyway, now we're talking about the NFL. So Illinois just has to trade its best player, right? Which is, yeah, that individual, Mikey Dudick.

That one. Mikey Dudeck, isn't that his name? Yeah, that's, if they just trade him. It's Richard Menon Hall. Trade him. Still have his rights somehow. It's a, ah, you forgot to sign the right form. That sucks.

You trade Richard Menon, you trade Richard Menon Hall and Will Leach, and you see what you get back. It's like a fine, listen, it's like a fine ham. You just have to scrape the mold off those rights, and you can still use them. In Spanish, that's how they eat it over it. there. It is. Hamon. Hamon de football.

Hey, let's talk about places you can get stuck. Yeah. Speaking of champagne. You can get stuck on the Florida football roster, evidently. No, you can't. No, you can't, actually.

They'll take you off it. There's actually no place easier to leave. Because Trian Harris and Antonio Calloway are off the Florida roster, by the way. I think that's the other thing we have to mention. They've been away from the program since January. It's March. We didn't know that.

The Eagles should write a sequel to Hotel California called Florida Football. You can check it any time you want, and then, hey, just transfer. You can also check out anytime you want. You can always leave. God, that song's trash. What struck you to as the best places our readers submitted as places you could get stuck? Well, we should, like, a lot of this boggues. out on, I think, the definition of what a store is.

Yeah, because... That and also the length of the stay. Yeah, okay. The length of the stay and the circumstances of the stay. For the sake of framing, I don't want the zombie apocalypse one, because I think that alters the calculus. I'm talking about sheer boredom with maybe a smidge of survival and sustenance, right? This is, you have been locked in a store that is, that the manager just didn't notice you

there when he locked up and he's not coming back for three days okay right is that roughly okay okay okay okay three days or a week after a week it started to get kind of after a week it's started to get kind of desperate but yeah let's assume three days to a week okay um I think also store has to be a place that actually sells goods because somebody said great clips and that's a really that's a really terrifying answer but great clips is not really a store it's a it's a it's a it's a It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a place where services are rendered. So that's what you'd call it, a place where services are rendered? Yeah.

Yeah, I think we can play with it. Now, the grand argument I've had is that the Bass Pro Shops is the best place to be stuck. And now that can extend even further. Like, I maintain that being stuck in a Bass Pro Shops for three to four days would be okay. being stuck in a bass pro shops for like three or four weeks is sustainable you could probably do that I would argue that being stuck in a vast pro shop by yourself is uh I'll bump that up to pretty good like that's like camping without any mosquitoes especially I looked up the Memphis one okay are you ready for all of the things that you could do if you do not know the old pyramid which yes

looks like the Luxor in downtown Memphis if the Luxor was already rusting the pyramid in Memphis accepted Bass Pro Shops bid to be their primary anchor after I don't know like 800 things went wrong they finally found the 800 first that worked which is this massive Bass Pro Shops okay these are the following things

that you can find in that Bass Pro Shops okay they have a bowling alley They have Bucks, Fish Bowl, and Grill Technical-themed restaurant and bar With a saltwater aquarium And a 13-lane ocean-themed bowling alley Ocean-themed bowling alley Uh-huh, uh-huh

With a big plastic shark Right, as their mascot That's just looming in the middle of the thing They have the big Cyprus lodge Which is a wilderness hotel Inside the Baspro shops they have the lookout which is a breathtaking glass floor candelievering observation deck at the top of the 32-story steel pyramid rusting steel pyramid

they have 200, I'm sorry 600,000 gallons of water features and on Saturdays it too they feed the alligators hell yeah yeah there's your entertainment feed the alligators yourself yeah you could you could go feed the alligators if you want want to. The fish feedings happen at 10 and 5 Central time every day. If you're

planning, you can stop by the Beretta Gun Library. It's not a gun shop. It's a gun library. It's educational. Bring the kids. So you're going to get smarter during your stay. Yep. They also have the Ducks Unlimited Waterfowling Heritage Center

where you can learn more about this country's fine heritage of water fowling, which I believe is what it's called when you just slaughtered is a shotgun from a blind. I'm not against it. I'm just saying that's also what you're doing. Or you can call it waterfowling.

There's an archery range. There's an arcade shooting gallery. Calling it waterfowling, that's like calling a person peopling. When people talk about vortices and about pyramids and about certain points in the universe, organizing organic energy into powerful, powerful centers of spiritual harmony,

I'm starting to believe the pyramid in Memphis once they put a bass pro shops in there is one of those. So I'm saying I think you would be fine for like three days in there. You would enjoy it. For most dads, that's a spectacular vacation. Yeah, you can do a whole,

whole, whole lot worse. Yeah, you could. Where could you do worse, Jason Girk? Of all the things that people sent us, my favorite one I saw was the Build a Bear Workshop. Oh, man. Because, I mean, yeah, there's entertainment to be had because the entire facility is about creating with raw materials.

But I don't know. I mean, you're making friends for yourself. That's good. I guess it's better than a lot of places, but it feels worse because I guess it would be a test of how quickly human can go insane. Because if you're commanding a bare arm by day two, that's two. much power for anyone. And they're

going to turn on you. They will. Yes. If you've gone that far, you know that the bear is

treacherous and all they really crave is food. And ultimately they'll outnumber you. Which, sure,

you can probably take 10 build of bears, but once you get an army of 30 of them going, it's like the

how many kindergartners ask you a question? Yeah, would you rather fight 100 build of bears or one bear

the build. What if you What if you went to Build a Bear and found out that there was, like, what if you uncovered some sort of plot that Bill the Bear was, you know, collecting data on children to turn them into some sort of Manchurian candidate army against their... That's a little elaborate. I just always assumed Build a Bear is like how people, like, move dope.

Yeah. I guess that's fine. Right? Yeah, I'm building a bear. There's like a whole pound of heroin, like, inside the thing. I just want to hear Push-A-Tee's bear pun about selling cocaine. Build a bear. I build it bare. Gold Miss.

The other place somebody mentioned was like a pool supply store, which I found to be particularly horrifying because it's toys that you cannot use out of context and poison. That's the entire store. Just poison and maybe a few chairs. That would be the only good. thing about it, bad fluorescent lighting, and then like flotation devices. It smell awful. It'd be a really bad place to be trapped. It's probably not the worst, but up there, or at least worse than you think it is, William Sonoma. Because you'll sort of learn firsthand about how useless luxury items are. Because you'll think,

oh, I have all this, I have all these things at my disposal that I couldn't normally afford forward, then you'll quickly realize that all you can do is eat a $15 brownie mix, dry. Yeah, either that are like, oh, wow, these $8 cheesecrackers are just not cutting it. Because you can't, there's nowhere to sleep, there's nothing to actually amuse yourself, you'll just have to look at Vitam mixes and be like, huh, okay, well, hopefully I won't kill myself with one of these, or maybe I will. so what if it is the worst food place to be stuck that's not necessarily restaurant but it's food specific place i thought about restaurants that would be bad to be stuck in like in the

mall like they just dropped the cage and you know trapped you in there a synabonds a synabonds like odor creeping into your flesh that's that's the situation of sheer mental anguish i'll take great american cookie company nobody ever wants more than one piece of cookie cake. And if you were staring down three plus days of cookie cake, my God. I think your body's organs would shut

down out of self-preservation. I'd be like, you don't know what you're doing. Ryan's in safe mode. I also think being trapped in a subway would be horrible. Yeah, because you would just smell like.

the bread and then you have nothing to eat with Subway and I'm not saying that would get bad on like year, day two, but I'm saying when you had to sleep in like maybe the curved uncomfortable benches, right? Yeah. You woke up to the smell of like

if you spoke up to the smell of moldering onions and like that dough. Oh, no sir. But think of all the subclub stamps you'd have. You'd feel like a king. Oh yeah. That's Do they even do that anymore? I have no idea.

Most of my chain restaurant. I feel like there's a lot of places where you walk in with your stamp card and they're like, oh, yeah, we don't do that anymore. And you just, you want to sue them for fraud or something. Well, the nice thing is when you go into a restaurant like that and they panic and they're like, well, I guess we have to honor it. Like, you know, promises and promise. You feel like, you feel like you're collecting some debt from decades ago. We'll do it this time.

Like, oh, oh, good. I, at least I have so many subway carts that are full just sitting around the house. But thank goodness I got to use this one. It's the perfect crime. Faced out in 2005, by the way. Jesus. Now I really want to show up with one. I'll hear what I'll do.

I'll show up. Just like all investments, they've appreciated over time. Mm-hmm. I'll show up. You give me the biggest sandwich you have. It's still 12 inches, sir. It's still, that's all we have. Over time, you get more. I can give you two of them if you like.

No. They're still functionally worthless. Why doesn't this country have a living sandwich wage? What I'm going to do is show up in a black-eyed peas t-shirt and pretend to be a time traveler. You have to help me. All I have is subclub cards. you know and if you don't do it you can talk to the hand because i got that boom boom boom

boom oh 2003 jokes the land i come from alabama has not done much yeah yeah that's actually most people from alabama are time travelers whether they want to be or not another place that somebody is 171 1968 1941 2011 they just jump her around from a specific set of like 16 years um i another person mentioned lids lids would be a despicable place how long how long how long would you have to be trapped in a lids before you would

poop in insert sports team you hate hat less time than i want to admit and uh i guess if you have any because you're going to factor in they're going to factor in they're going to find me in here. Right. And it will be hard to insist that it was like that when you found it. It was the other guy. Part of this is do you know you're being rescued after a five days or whatever or not? Because if you think you're stuck in there forever, then on day four, you've lost all hope. And every saint's hat in there has been defaced in horrible ways. But if you know, then you can you know you can exert some willpower and just a few i think being trapped in a car dealership would be a nightmare like you're trapped inside a car dealership because you cannot drive the

cars without befouling your own air right most most them have a couch or two and i've got one tv but there's nothing to read that isn't a car manual and the food comes exclusively from a really poorly maintained an infrequently replenished snack machine. Yeah, or one of those put a quarter in and you get like eight chicklets. Yeah.

I guess the thing about being stuck at a card in a dealership for like six days is that would replicate the experience of buying a car. So no real change. Exactly. Like the pain is level. It just stays the same.

I also thought that being trapped if you had to pick a place, you could do all right if you were trapped in someplace like a big lot because your curiosity could probably be, I think your curiosity at everything that is actually in a big lot could probably take up a day. And then after that, there's just this real steep falloff in terms of please get me out of the collection of brick of brack and crap. The other good news is most of these stores, if you know you're getting rescued in five days, you're probably, you can't like go to hog wild like you can't break a lot of shit because it's expensive how much money how much debt can you rack up at a big lots like you could you could burn down half the store and they'd be like

you owe it's two hundred and thirty dollars sir i'll write that check those those imitation zunes aren't cheap well how you i mean you could sue right ryan as my attorney can you advise me that if i'm stuck in a big lots for five days i can sue big lots yes yes you can and and and as your attorney i advise you to intentionally lock yourself in a big lots for five days and somehow prevent anyone else from going inside yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah the uh the big lots near us the l is burnt out so the sign says bigots and uh you know it's and uh...