Shutdown Fullcast - Shutdown Fullcast 4.63 - Todd Graham Saves The World

Episode Date: February 3, 2017

Per our guest Bud Elliott, National Signing Day is a thing that has happened and meant things to teams. Teams like Ole Miss, and Stanford, and Oklahoma, and The Wall of Hastily Stacked Human Hearts in Butch Jones's Basement. But we're here to talk about more than just who signed a good class and who didn't. We're here to talk about yard work. We're here to talk about improving your commitment announcement ceremony. And we're even here to talk about how Todd Graham -- yeah, that Todd Graham, the one you're thinking of -- could be the key to saving mankind from self-destruction. 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. Oh my, what a show we have today because we have Budrick Elliott in the booth. But you can say hi here. What's going on, you know? Air horns. If you don't know, Bud, Bud is the proprietor of Tomahawk Nation.

But is also... And four and four other Twitter accounts, he told me. at least four other Twitter accounts. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I know of one other Twitter account. Go ahead, list them. All right, so, SBA recruiting, which is the one you follow for this show, backup Tomahawk, which is the one I created when I used to get in Twitter jail,

but Chris Thorman has now kind of cleared me, so I don't get throttled anymore if I want to go on like a Twitter spree. And then the NCAA said we can't tweet live from the press box at baseball during playoff events. So I created FSU play-by-play, which we almost never use except during like baseball playoff season. And it's annoying to tweet play-by-play from like your main account. So if you want to have baseball, play-by-play, college baseball, you can follow that. Occasionally we'll use that. And at your fifth account, Trailballons.

Yes. Rogue, rog potus. I'm doing that. He's doing all of it. Yeah, yeah, rogue jimbo. It's true. We're Jimbo's in total control. It's like complete propaganda.

It's great. He's just raking in five stars and everyone's completely happy with him. And his truck looks clean this week. It's like the DPRK media account. Dear Leader, Dear Leader's vertical leap is really improved. Dear Leader's all natural hair looks better than ever. Dear Leader's shining, glimmering mat of hair is ever expanding. Hair Island is now truly hair archipelago.

Opinion. Does Deerleader have too much hair? More like a hair pangia. You know, yesterday it was slipping a little bit. Oh. Yeah. I spotted that on... You think he needs a little maintenance?

Perhaps. Especially if he's going to get an endorsement deal, which you're in Florida. We have all these old folks. You should definitely get a hair plug endorsement deal. You've got to make sure you're looking right before you really go. and pitch the end of it less his hair and more of like a putting green and be like he's just mixing it up you know oh jimbo's hair's running a little faster today look at that what if jimbo's hair on a step meter add some challenge is that it that's right that's right oh he's got sunday hair today usually he's got his friday hair on but who jimbo you might need a tiger proof that hair a little bit you try to land a you try to land a six iron on that hair you can't do it bounce right off welcome back to our golf podcast.

That was how FSU did yesterday. The only worry was Jimbo's hair. That's all you really need to know about it. That's really it. Yeah, they just did everything well. Did anything bad happen yesterday to Florida State recruiting wise? Oh, yeah. Like 80% of the day was a meltdown in the comment section because they started the day with a four-star backer from Georgia.

They missed on their next six targets, which were kind of, or next five guys, which were, they had some shot at. And so people were like, oh, this class is shot. I'm like, well, they did enroll like one of the best. early enrolling classes in the nation and they're pretty loaded and then they get Marvin Wilson and everybody was happy once again good I like that you have I think I'm going to say you've turned into it but it's probably like a multi multi tiered effort where Florida State is now Florida State fans are now sort of like crazed stockholders that are like the stock only went up 18% we miss projections this is bullshit what are we doing here that's fun um

Florida recruited as well. That's all we're going to say about it. Hey, Florida had a good day. If you say so. Florida shocked the world by bringing in enough three stars to crack the top 10. Hey, Florida, Florida went back to its roots. Okay, that's all you need to know. Yeah, that's right.

They brought back Spurrier, so that's all part of the plan. Brought back Spurier? Recruiting class sitting around what? 10th elimination? Yeah. Yeah. That's not bad. That's traditional.

I mean, you don't want to get too. big too fast that the urban Meyer model where you get a little tipsy and yeah the shareholder's become irrational all of a sudden like nothing's good enough and yeah maybe you recruit a guy who goes on to kill somebody I mean I put that last

I mean granted you're only like 17 spots ahead of Texas which is pretty embarrassing but hold on we're not we're not digging USC for bringing on a recruit who went on to kill somebody like how long does this last

Yeah, what's the statute of limitations here? Bud, bud, you'd know. We've got two lawyers on here. We can answer this. Neither of us are licensed to practice in California. Or me anywhere else, as it turns out. Can we talk about who really won signing day, though? And we didn't find out until today.

Do we have to? Yeah. Tennessee. Oh, they did. You know why? You know why? Because they changed the whole damn recruiting metric. They evaluate who really loves to play the game.

That's right. You're out there. caring about things like speed and agility and strength and experience and skill. Not Butch Jones, man. But Jones only cares about one thing. Five star hearts. Which, let me be clear, if you have a five star heart, you should go to the doctor right away. You have at least one extra ventricle, and that's not ideal.

Here at the University of Tennessee, we're pleased to announce we've signed Captain Planet. I want to start with a review of the works of Butch Jones over the past nine months or so that he did answer Tennessee's disappointing 2016 season by saying that they'd already won the championship of life. So really, what's the SEC championship to anyone? I quote, championship of life. additionally butch Jones when regarding the team winning the SECE East as a goal for the year said well you never heard me talk about it when in fact um I believe butch Jones had explicitly talked about it on several occasions so there's another list of another thing butch Jones said uh in butch Jones in addition to the five star heart right it is fond of saying the brick by brick mantra right yes programmed

brick by brick which is confusing because bricks don't have hearts bricks I mean yeah and in addition to that really like

it never mentions mortar unless unless hold on unless Butch Jones has a wall in his basement

that's made of petrified human hearts I think he's maybe we've been getting this all wrong maybe we think it's all rah rah motivational bullshit

but the championship of life actually refers to human lives that Butch Jones has taken and he keeps trophies of them in a basement in a wall. Can we talk about how fucking metal Butch Jones is? I do like the no mortar theory

because that means you're just literally building a pile. That works for Phil Fulmer. You just got some big bricks. It's like, well look, here's John Henderson. That's a big brick. And that fits with Tennessee's season as a whole because, you know, you start stacking it and you're like,

oh, this is looking pretty good. I'm sure it doesn't have any structural problems, and then it falls and many injuries result in the process. Tennessee football. The whole thing looked like Eastern Michigan's entrance. My God. Yeah, it's rough. By the way, bud, bud, how was their recruiting day overall?

It was okay. They got the number one ESPN player, Tray Smith, who's a five star, and Butch Jones tweets out, five star brick by brick with fireworks photos when they get a five star so he does seem to care about that a little bit when they actually get him um his sister also works for the school which is really smart recruiting hmm how's that how's that work are you trying to say maybe that occasionally there's a correlation between a relative getting a job at a school or an associated business and a recruit you wouldn't say that hey hey hey hold on ivy league schools get to do legacies

what's wrong with that you say in the ivies aren't something to aspire to I might say that their selection for talent and overall fresh blood entering the system, not exactly the best model, no. I'll go out on that limb. Absolute. We have to get to questions quickly because I don't know anything about recruiting, and I'm only allowed to say that now that I got done yesterday hosting a two-hour national signing day show. Our company makes some interesting choices.

So I'm going to... Bud was on it, so we're good. Bud was on it, and so is Amy Campbell. and they're very talented and they actually pay attention to this. I'm going to start with this question from Trayton Miller at Trayton Miller on Twitter. How funny is it that Texas can't recruit in the state of Texas? Oh, it's real funny. I mean, yeah.

I think if it happens next year, then we're going to ratchet up the funniness a whole lot. To a major level. Yeah. Like, but why can't they do this? I don't know if Tom Herman had the connections that Texas fans thought he, had in that state. And I also think that they, look, they missed on some top kids.

They didn't reach a whole lot. You know, they flipped a kid from UCF, but they kind of did pocket some scholarships and said, look, we'll get back to you next year. If we have a better year on the field, we'll probably have a little more momentum. Well, and UCF in exchange flipped a kid

from Maryland. Who is almost certainly not going to qualify. Well, whew. No, that's, come on, that doesn't. Does that matter in the ACC with a team like Maryland and the ACC? It doesn't matter.

Do you think Maryland's in the ACC? Because they play Auburn every year. Yeah, what? They're not in the ACC. No, they are in the ACC. That's ridiculous. They're a charter member. Where else would they go?

They're a big East team. What other conference would take Maryland? What other conference would be dumb enough to take Maryland? What other conference would hunger after them? Like, oh, yeah, let's go get Maryland. Hey, by the way, by the way, top 20 recruiter, Maryland. Were you aware of this, Spencer? man you know what top 20 recruiter is like the waffle house influential member of the waffle house determining something's good all right it's just like what i mean all right if you say top 10 maybe that means something but once you get past any ranking into the 15 to 25 range you're just making it up i think that's general for everything yeah i mean that's we already know we already know that's true of like the top 25 in general for college like nobody looks and says oh that team's number 20 no no no

I want you to, like, let's take this back to just another case, okay? Presidents, all right? If I ask you a list, like, five good presidents, you can think of five you can make a pretty good case for, right? You know, you're like, Lincoln, all right, that's cool. That's the Alabama presidents, like, one. I mean, he's the Alabama presidents in every important way, but one. As far as number of achievements go. Correct, correct.

And that's why Nick Saving won't go to the theater, y'all. How is the play, Scott Cochran? But once you get to, if I said, who's the 15th best president? You'd be like, ah, that guy's like, he's actually not that. However, however, if you said who's the 43rd best president you would know, and that is where Maryland usually recruits. So we talk about Old Miss now? Oh, shit.

The 43rd president and Ole Miss probably do have several things in common. We, I feel, I think it was Luke, maybe, who joked at the beginning of the day that he really wanted to see a coach come out and say like, yeah, you know, this class is garbage. And Hugh Fries came pretty close to doing that. He called it, he wasn't, did he call it a penalty? He said his class was a penalty. Yeah, he said that, he said that about teenagers that he had convinced to come to his school. holy shit what a what a hard thing to hear on your first day officially affiliated with a new university like well not a kid I wanted but what can you do well I don't know why the good Lord saw fit to afflict me with this group of young men but I have chosen to bear the burden of having to look at them for the next three to four years I am calling this the Job class

I mean, really, like, Bud, you pay attention to this way more than we do. Have you ever heard of a coach just openly being like, yeah, I don't know, man. This is, this is trash. No. No, I haven't. I mean, this is. Like, even in the USC years and some of those down Miami years, like, they still manage to put on the face of, you know, hey. But you bitch about the-cited about who we got.

You bitch about the number of scholarships that you have. You don't bitch about the quality kids used to fill the scholarships you actually do have. Yeah, I mean, the line here is so easy. it's just you just say well we're you know we're excited about the kids that we got we think we got some diamonds in the rough like even i can fucking rattle this off mississippi is classically underscouned yeah we definitely have some some yeah high profile so oh man at the very at the very least me still relatively a recruiting novice i know what to say no matter what happens you know what not a class that you're going to see a whole lot of five stars in but we address the needs that

we had there you go that's right we addressed our needs needs get out of the room don't do that we're more about coaching them up the only one allowed to complain about their class is nick sabin and he did he got on tv and said well we would have liked to get more cornerbacks um can i remind everybody where did they place they they were they were first they had their highest scoring class ever for the seventh year in a row yeah they convinced the top hundred recruit to take a gray shirt off but he got a free shirt uh free trip to france So that worked out. Yeah, they converted the Eiffel Tower into the Alabama A.

Put the little mullet at the top. It certainly lacks the seraphs necessary. And this trip was overseen by another outlet that does video. Bleacher Report is the name of the outlet. You can say it. It's a nice video. Fine. They did a fine job.

There's some backstory there. over who was supposed to be broadcasting live at the opening this summer, because ESPN has it on TV and maybe certain things were or were not supposed to be shown live. So that feud goes back a little bit longer than that awful announcing article had. Can I give you a fun thing from rival recruiting rankings? Just a few fun things. I like to just throw these out here.

Okay, because we're talking about Hugh Freeze. And if you remember the glee in Dan Mullen's voice, when somebody asked him about his quarterback, and who else had recruited him and he gleefully said UT Chattanooga Old Miss is ranked 39th following teams all ahead

of Old Miss Baylor who if you remember had no recruits. It's like one one recruit like a month ago congratulations fell behind a team that actually didn't have a recruiting class Old Miss Pitt Pitt is a spot

ahead of you Oklahoma State and Air Arizona, both ahead of you. Yeah, I mean, Pitt won the national championship, so I don't see what's out about that. True. Yeah, I know. Put Pitt in. But Arizona is confusing, yeah. Yeah, Kentucky, Kentucky finished ahead of Ole Miss at 26th.

Utah, a Pac-12 team, not named USC or Oregon or Washington, finished ahead of Ole Miss. Oh, Maryland? Yeah, that 17th spot. They finished way up there. Will Must champ out recruited you? Will Must champ out recruited you bad. but my favorite in the 27th spot sitting there with a cigar in his mouth probably laughing his ass off in the house at this point dan mullen's house in starkville

it's got to have add-ons to add-ons right like he's got to be like you in sim city when you built the perfect city and you're like i don't know it's just build another archaeology we could use a ninth floor yeah how many bubbles we got in this room i don't know we got like nine bubbles it's crazy uh yeah they're at 27 So they are a full 12 spots ahead of the penalty that is Old Mrs. Recruiting class. That's got to be the hashtag. Just follow them with that. Like, you know how coaches tweet like to brand their classes with hashtags?

But, Bud, what was FSU this year? Like, Tribe 17 or something? Yeah, they just changed the year. It's always Tribe something. That's easy to remember. So Ole Miss, we got to go the penalty. Yeah, this is a robust and rich brew. If you want to know, by the way, Randy Edsel, who pulled her scholarship from a recruit after coming on board, after the firing of Bob Diaco, where'd they finish a hundred.

A hundred. Good thing they cut the dead weight. But was there anything else that we obviously just missed in making full? fun of most of this that is like an actual trend i mean we talked about talking about old miss tanking talked about yeah florida state and alabama just raking in talent as as usual uh is there anything that we missed uh stanford had a really nice class they got probably the two best offensive tackles in the country the best like pocket passer immobile passer in the country and maybe the best pass catching tied in so your intellectual bra out of brutality stanford ball

probably going to continue. In Georgia. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, Georgia signed 24-and-five-star recruits and the rest of the SEC East combined, signed 26. Also, also Oklahoma compared to the rest of the Big 12. Oklahoma had 18 blue chips, and the rest of the league had 14. Where did all those Texas recruits go? North to Oklahoma.

Everywhere. Yeah, everywhere else. Everywhere. This was, listen, during the summer, like, I know people don't really like to pay attention to recruiting until signing day, and I'm not just specifically calling out Ryan and Spencer, but pay attention to what Bud's telling you in the summer, because it'll pay off months later. Bud was telling you all about this. Recruits are holding on Texas and A&M to see how the season goes, and meanwhile, they're listening to Oklahoma. Look at the recruiting rankings. Kirk, but I didn't talk to the right kids.

Remember if I had just talked to the other kids at the camp. We would have found the kids that love A&M in a long way. I hear what you're saying, but summer is really when I catch up on Antiques Road Show, and that's precious to me. That's fine, too. The February Antiques Road Show, I'm sure it all pays off. I don't actually know what I do in the summer, to be honest. I have no clue. There's just three months of blank space and eating and sleeping.

Hey, here's a good segue. This is a question from David Fulton at the Real Fulton. what's an acceptable number of beers to drink while mowing per hour spent well I guess the first question is we talking like a ride-on mower here or give us all the permutations shit well I think first of all the overarching question

and I will throw to butt here he's the yard work expert is what do you mean by acceptable because if you're writing this show that bar is low let's view acceptable as optimal in terms of mowing efficiency and drink refreshment

You're trying to balance those two things. And if you overserve, you're going to, you know, maybe feel more refreshed, but you're not going to be as good at mowing. If you focus too much on the mowing, you're not going to feel as refreshed. So where is the sweet spot? You don't have a good time, but not fuck up your yard. Yeah. Oh, so we're not talking about, I initially read it as how many should you drink when you're done mowing?

We're talking about like before and during the natural mowing. I see, I see, wow. And as a principle of statutory construction, I have no choice but to read well as meaning during the mark. I can't talk about it. I'm going to say probably no more than three an hour. I agree. If somebody's pounding like five beers an hour while they mow the lawn, they are there for other purposes than landscaping. Like you could probably still do a pretty good job.

I mean, if you six beers, two hours of yard work, I don't think anybody would notice. But I'm a pretty big guy. I'm not quite as big as Ryan here in the booth, but. Yeah, Bud says I'm up to 260, so look out. Blooming. I got a question from, and Bud said he had an answer here. From Dr. Patty Jones on Twitter, did anyone commit by holding up a baby animal this year? The answer is no.

There's almost always a dog. There was never a dog. Georgia had its best class ever without any dogs, though they did have a baby pug like a month ago. But I don't think that counts. But what you got here? So somebody in the studio, I think it might have been Jess, said, has anybody committed, like, gender reveal style where they actually cut into the cake to reveal the colors? And I said, no, people have had different cakes and then they cut into that, you know, different cake. But I don't think anybody's ever committed to be revealing the colors of the cake.

So next year, somebody definitely needs to do that. Well, here's the thing, though. If you're going to do that, your top three or four, however it is, they need to be pretty distinct because then you're going to get into it like, no, no, no. That's Tennessee orange. That's not Texas Orange. That's perfect for us. We'll blog that. That's, I mean, yeah, we will play that.

I have decided to choose between the University of Alabama, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Here's my choice. Oh, no. Surprise. Surprise Ohio State cake. We did have Jemias Williams not pick the nicer hat, maybe for the first time ever. Which we were, which, you know, Bud and I were talking about this on the live show that usually you You see the hats laid out, and there's one that looks like it's already been sort of pre-treated

to look good on your head, and the other ones still have stickers on them or look like you bought them at the gas station. They're ratchet, is what they are. Yeah. And normally, the recruit goes with the hat that's going to look good, but this guy took my advice and used that logic against everybody. He turned down a chrome Georgia hat, sticker still on. Flatville.

That hat looked like a goddamn puff daddy video. And he picked the thing that he found in his uncle's golf cart. I was stunned. I had the post-prepped. I had my finger on the button. He picked up the garbage hat and I couldn't move. I think he was making an honest statement to himself without realizing it about what it's going to be like to play at Georgia for the next couple of years

versus what it's going to be like to play for Wilmus. I have decided to never again touch anything shiny. I'm going to South Carolina. I couldn't believe. He's a master of deception. Like, Muscham's defense isn't known for all that manner of deceit, but man, you need to have this kid back there doing all kinds of deceptive work. But how much time do you get to take off now between, like,

have you already started thinking about next year's recruiting class? Well, today is National Unfollow Day. So unless you're actually legitimately funny as a recruit, There's maybe like five of them. You're going to get the unfollowed today, and somebody's going to have to figure out how to follow all these 2018 kids. You've already threatened several members of our staff with that duty. I tell you know, if y'all don't look too busy there in the slack,

I might type drop that truck card down and be like, hey, today is National Follow Day. We tell no lies on this show, but has done this. But like, when does that start in earnest? because it feels like it just is constant. And I know part of that is because it's dominated by the outlets that only do recruiting. So they have a vested interest in making you think that this is literally a 365-day-a-year thing because you're paying for it on those sites. But realistically, when can most people actually start to pay attention to next year if they want to?

If you really want to pay attention next year, spring is kind of late spring. A lot of the offers go out. college coaches stopping by spring football at high school across the south and in places that actually play spring ball. That's kind of when the picture starts to become a little clearer as far as who's going to get offers. In summer camp season, it clarifies a little more. This year of the timetable might get moved up because the potential for the early signing day that the NCAA is contemplating. I'm actually going to be in Houston on Saturday for the Houston Nike camp. So when I ask how many, how many days do you get off the answer is

one i'm going to take some days off but i used to try and take you know like almost immediately off after signing day and there's some there's some good blogging to do after those days so the week after this week is the week i'll probably really not be available too much um is spencer back did you die oh yeah yeah i'm back hey we missed dad's home dad's home and he's furious so look out kits um by by comparison spencer when is the next time that you're going to pay attention to college football recruiting 365 days from college football recruiting

yeah about 363 days okay have you ever have you ever gotten into it at all at any point? No no no I don't I would just prefer to be handed

in Excel sheet quarterly somebody just looks at I'm like oh okay cool that's it I mean there are so many people who compile this stuff for you that the idea of trying to become independently knowledgeable on it

seems like it's just economically like inefficient. I have, not only do I have bud, I have like 400 tables that I can pull off of recruiting sites. I have,

you know, at least three or four people I know who I can ask and just go, okay, how are they doing? Right? At this point, there's coaches who'll tell you,

yeah, you know, like they get pretty frank about it. They're like, yeah, I don't know, we're not, we're not really seeing what we want, and you can get an idea.

That's if you need it, right? And there is, one other thing that makes this all a lot easier. And it's that there's a huge correlation between getting three, four, and five stars and being in the top ten. It's just like there's no real genius to that. So you could look at that and you can kind of, you know, go back and sort of go, oh, yeah,

that class of 2012. It's right here. Somebody laid it all out for me and look at that. The only thing I wish I knew more about was who recruited where. That to me is kind of interesting because then I can ask. actually see like, okay, who makes a difference and who doesn't, right? Like, for example, Damien Craig, Damien Craig was just fired at LSU, okay? And all I'd heard about when he was a Florida State was, man, this guy's an amazing recruiter, right? He's phenomenal. And then, like,

today it's like, oh man, Damien Craig's fired. Okay. What happened? I need to know. Yeah, this is secretly one of the most interesting days in the college football calendar because it's when all the position coaches get axed that you're like, oh, so you were just keeping them until that kid signed the letter? Oh, well, that's fun. That seems cool. Like maybe four-star defensive tackle Neil Farrell out of Mobile?

Yeah. Yeah. To into LSU. Yeah. Like, Bud can probably answer this best, but is it true that some of these, they're not officially recruiting coordinators, but they're not really position coaches.

Like, their contracts are more geared around post-signing day. as far as like when they expire and whatnot yeah yeah yeah oh that's like something we should for you I'm trying to think all right other outlets other outlets don't listen don't listen other outlets no takesies you guys don't turn off your your listener stats on SoundCloud so I

feel safe saying this so he's not he's not wrong no he's not wrong um Yeah, it is, but it is helpful that it is just sort of a volume game. I agree with Spencer.

You could just sort of look at it and be like, oh, did we get a lot of the good guys? Cool. It's not, the NFL draft is very different because, you know, if you, if you care about a specific team, they're really only, you're only going to get maybe three chances to get somebody who is probably going to be on the roster long term. So I get why people obsess over it, but it is weird that people get, like, Bud was saying today that, was the LSU message ward was hopping because Marvin Wilson ended up going to Florida State. And it's like, yeah, it's just, it's one guy. And if it was the NFL draft and you were like, shit, we really missed out on, you know, this one amazing player.

Yeah, that makes sense in the grander scheme. But like, one guy can't tip it that far. I mean, you can get mad about how your class looks overall, but you shouldn't get mad over one player. That just seems ridiculous. If you were going to get mad, if you were going to get mad over one player, though. Yeah. This is where I will actually pay attention to, like, individual players, quarterback. Okay.

That's quarterback. But again, if you're an LSU fan, you're used to living without that. If you're an LSU fan, I'm going to define the position as the most important offensive player in the field, usually lining up. Running back intermediary. My single favorite thing about LSU's class. Two quarterbacks. Coach O'Soo, well, they're taking just one at a time out of where we're going to take two. I got the number one pick on the one quarterback's crystal ball

because when he decommitted, I forgot to flip my crystal ball to Auburn because I was busy, like, actually creating content, as opposed, just crystal balling daily. And then he decided he was not going to flip to Auburn his plan, and he recommitted the LSU. So my existing pick from, like, 2014, of LSU was then the number one LSU pick for the kid. And, yeah. So my LSU predictor raking shut up like crazy.

You're a champion. We got any more questions we want to have? Jason, you fancy any of those? Let's see if any new ones have dropped in. What's the most Georgia way to landscape a yard? I'm guessing it involves guns. Yes, Daniel, but you're right. That's not anyone we need to answer.

The most Georgia way to landscape your lawn is to get a bunch of ingrates from Ohio to come down here and burn it for you. Wow. That's, oh, my gosh. It's factual. Oh, I like this one. This is from Dakota Moyer. Would you agree that trimming palm trees, builds the most character as landscaping goes.

I'm going to say no, because character building has to be something that trimming palm trees is something you've got to work up to. You've got to sort of show that you already have character before you earn the privilege of getting to use the long toggle palm tree trimmer. What builds character is hauling mulch. Once you as a middle schooler are asked to go to Home Depot, maybe get a hot dog, but probably not, and have to load the truck with mulch bags and then carry the mulch bags and then spread them out? Like, there is nothing more character building than saying, hey, take this fancy trash, haul it and spread it nicely because that's what mulch is.

And because it's summer, it will have rained. Yes. And so the mulch bag will act, and Home Depot keeps their mulch outside. So the mulch bag will contain a lot of excess moisture when you pick it up. The, like, nasty-ass mulch juice will spread on your chair. You know what it might also have? His fucking ants. Mulsed bag, I guarantee you one in five.

Oh. That shit's got fire ants all up in it. So that's the maximum landscape and character building exercise, is mulching. I don't actually agree with character building. We just need to call it pain tolerance. Okay. Because that's all it is. Yeah, well, we're speaking Big Ten here.

Things that suck make you a better person. We're describing Southern things in Big Ten terminology. Remember, character building is what's, somebody who doesn't want to pay you calls something that sucks for you to do it, right? Like, that's all it is. Your dad's like, well, you need to go out and do this chore I don't want to do because it'll build your character, sure. Sure, sure, sure.

I did want to talk briefly about Oregon just because, A, Godfrey did an embed at Oregon and wrote a very nice piece that you should go find on our website about Willie Taggart's first class there. But B, more personally, I got sent a link to. a Tampa area high school coach, the coach at the high school I attended, Hillsborough, basically said that he, and he claims other coaches in Tampa,

had no relationship with Willie Taggart, and that by losing Willie Taggart to Oregon and getting Charlie Strong, USF has gone from a Kia to a Cadillac. I mean, Oregon's basically creating Florigan, as is their catchphrase. and they got more good kids out of Florida than they probably ever have before under CHIP or Help Rich.

So that's... Well, yeah. Shut down full cast. Sponsored by Kia. A perfectly good car and nobody buys Cadillacs anymore. Exactly. Like, listen, I'm just going to ride for the Sorrento for the rest of my life. What I mostly like about comments like this is that,

and this is definitely true in other states as well, I like the coaches who are so invested in, like, their personal relationship with college coaches. And I get that it's important. And I get that you can't just sort of, like, you know, ignore it. But I'm sorry. This happens every time. No, no, no. This is.

Like, look at what Texas coaches are saying about Charlie Strong right now. Like, anytime any coach leaves. mountain like talk shit that's it yeah all the high school coaches get to say actually we didn't like that guy i i trailed off there because bud made me stop back on my timeline and bud's going to tell you why uh we found another butch jones thing during this this is this is a bob chute thing it's oh bob shute that's fine no i know what you're going to say and it's good bob schoops thinks that the defense needs uh less drama uh also less injuries which i maybe flip those two i maybe lead with less injuries yeah

Again, like, why do we always lead with the metaphorical? Why don't we lead with, we need fewer ruptured ligaments? Is that, but like when he said that, is that kind of trying to sound like he's avoiding excuses? Because, like, if you say we had too many injuries, then everyone says, oh, I'm making excuses, you should coach your way around that. But if he says, we had this problem and also injuries, I don't know. I'm defending Tennessee. I'm sorry for that. You shouldn't be.

Jason's defending Tennessee because he wants to be able to blog everything Tennessee, like for the rest of time. it's straight content i mean shit jason might be in line to be the next coach who knows like two hours ago there was another butch jones quote that i was like i we should blog this and and and and Alex said well i don't know this is kind of a misread of what he actually meant and he's okay fine we'll stand down and then five star heart showed up and it's like shit i think i think that means that butch jones reads espionation says something

if we don't blog it he's like all right let's go up and that was a seven i'll give you an you have to fence him in you have to resist you have to contain him otherwise you'll normalize his behavior you can't normalize butch jones ever normalize butch jones um i did actually did didn't did we discuss the baby animal question we did yeah that was while you were disconnected if you went away in sure that's fine editing this is going to be a fucking nightmare anyway so uh wait great i i think holding up the actual trojan mascot that is the trojan i think that would be really like a wriggling a baby version no no no no you have to i think you you have to be super meta with this what you

do is you have you get wheeled in in a another a wooden construction of another school's mascot like if you're considering um going to ucla you get wheeled in in a wooden bear and then you burst forth in u sc clothing it works on all levels let's do this someone either that somebody needs to do that or they need to have the sack with some poor guy

in a Trojan costume like wriggling in it right and then just sort of releases him right and somebody's like who was that guy and you're like I don't know I just picked him up put him in a sack I'm a linebacker I get the man I'm assigned

and I picked him off the side of the road and put him in a Trojan outfit the other one would be if somebody held up the box of condoms right somebody said well you know you should hold a box of condoms right and i thought well they're high schoolers right they're going to be like yo they're magnums right also people might people might think you're going to arizona state and then you think about it and you say actually i think i will go to arizona's i think that would be the best recruiting pitch for

arizona state if on signing day Todd graham's just waiting there and he hasn't made offer and he hasn't even talked to them or made any contact with them and they go yeah you know i've decided i'm going to take my talents to picks nice as hat off the table Alabama and then Todd Graham just like pops up and goes but what if you went to Arizona state like half of them would be like oh shit I hadn't even thought about that you know what that sounds great bye like just then like Todd Graham and you know it's not like Todd Graham doesn't have experience hastily leaving places on jets with a deal, okay? So he could just do that.

But this time he gets to do it with the deckery. Right. Again, five-star recruit, like, out of plaque mine, right? Sitting there like, yeah, I'm thinking about going to USC. But what if you went to Arizona State? Right, man? It's amazing. I think this works for, like, all levels of life, right?

When you're like, well, I was thinking about taking that job in Anchorage and somebody just pops their head out of a garbage can. They're like, you could go to Arizona State. I'm thinking about taking the L-SAT. Or you could go to Arizona State. And like 50% of the people Like people think there are plans in life And things that you should do or shouldn't do

And destinations and destinies and things that should be That's a lie Just apply the Arizona State thing to it You're like, I don't know I was thinking about taking this other job I bet if you wanted to, Spencer You could get a tenure track professor job At Arizona State within a year

I want tenure in a year That's what I'm doing. like three years to school president i think listen listen y'all all we do is give out good ideas for free listen arizona state todd graham i know you're listening hashtag or you could go to arizona state every tweet all right just just let's try that like after a recruit tweets out his top four and your arizona state's not on it just reply with that let's just try this with our trash president, right? He'd fall for it, too.

He's like, this is a great idea. He's basically the like half-blind, dumbass at the OTB spinning conspiracy theories for you. So he's got like his white supremacist council over there. But I'm like, you should start a war with Iran. And like, Todd Graham pops out of the like, yes. And he's like, or you could go there's always save the world. Right.

Todd Graham was our last. With his Britney Spears style headset. Oh, God. like all these pundits are like he's diabolical it seems like a simple strategy but it's working most stable country in the world our president's been tempi for three years straight what's he doing dackeries is that how a president acts it is now yeah it is now does it help Arizona State like go better than nine and three no no no that's nothing does no no so this came up yesterday do you think we could create a fake recruit Twitter account and convince fans not

saying Tennessee fans here any fan base of course right right to tweet at it the goods that would come to their school yeah yes I think we yeah I absolutely think we could and I'm yeah another idea other outlets please don't steal we're going to do a year long story on this but here here's the problem we'll get in We'll get to invested in it, and then we'll accidentally commit to Arizona State. What's the problem? The only problem is how do we decide which of us gets to go? It's going to be you, Jason.

I've seen Spencer and I. We can't do it. Yeah, which coach, by the way, is going to actually, like, fall for it first? I've already ripped on Tennessee so much today. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, no, no, no, the answer is Rutgers. Is Randy Shannon do this at Miami? No, the answer is Rutgers.

Ruckers is going to be like, a recruit that nobody's snapped up. Hello! Wasn't it Randy Shannon who is literally just looking at rivals rankings? Yes. Okay, so all we got to do is foil the outlets, and then someone will follow. Well, Randy Shannon's probably not in a position of importance. No, surely he's not back at a Power 5 school. So that's cool.

For sure. No, back in the day, the stories like rivals and scout used to do this to each other. They would create a fake recruit and then say, like, this school offered to see if the other outlet would steal their information. wow okay so we need to get back to this and then recruiting is the dumbest cold war ever i predict two things will happen two things yeah okay will happen when we create our fake recruit okay one that he'll become real it'll be like the Tibetan story of the hat we'll talk about the hat as a monster so often that the hat becomes real. So we're making our own, what is it, Shazam, the movie with Sinbad?

To use the Creflow dollar phrase, we will speak him into existence. Correct. This is our Mandela effect moment. We will actually speak this recruit into existence. He will walk onto the stage. We'll have no idea who he is. He'll actually just be like an 18-year-old who's large. He'll never played before and somebody will just show up as his mother, right?

It'll just all spontaneously happen. And then when it happens, we'll be like, Oh, shit. This is going way too far. This is absolutely insane. Just some large Swedish boy who doesn't speak English. Exactly. Somebody will just claim to be his mother because we'll have written about him

and some, like, delusional person will just show up and be like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to Arizona State. Yeah. What will happen? He'll say, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm announcing I'm going to, um, I'm going to, um, I'm going to the University of Florida and then out of a garbage can

pop up. He'll go, did you think about going to Arizona State? And he'll go. I did want to ask, since you two are actually our Georgia correspondence, like, state of Georgia, we determined that he would probably have to be from one of these super, like, small Georgia counties. What Georgia County should our fake recruit be from?

Or can you make up a new Georgia County? Well, we have about 200. Right, that's what we pick Georgia. Right. So I would go one of those, can we go one of those counties that's like probably down around Wake Cross? Can we do that? I think we hit them with the head fake. We go with Butts County.

So all they do is laugh at Butts County. They don't actually check. We hide it in sight. Hold on. Hashtag fake crutes. They'll say, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, buts County, that can't be real. Anyway, I don't know where this kid's from, but he's got an air. on a state offer okay because i was going to go troitland troitland county he's at soberton

soaperton high school and troitland because everybody will be like troitland oh that's that's acceptably obscure oh yeah a lot of good kids could see i've never even heard of that county is that right no it's real troiland yeah remember remember there's actually a jeff davis county jesus see like the thing about living in georgia is you can live here for decades and still have never heard of, like, lots of the counties. It's like the Louvre. Yeah, my wife and I printed out a map with all the counties once and kept it in the car and played county bingo for about two years.

And there were counties on there that we never saw. Never. There are probably 100 Georgia counties I've never been in. What is the fastest time you could actually drive through every Georgia county that you had to do it? No, you can't know. I don't think. There are probably some that don't have roads. Oh, what, do you think Decatur County or Miller?

Like, one of those places that's just like pine trees and syphilis down in the south? Sorry, sorry, son, this county's a lake. Seminole County? No, no, son. They got nothing. By the way, there's, there is a Telfare County, which is a corruption of Talaferra, which is also a county. So we have a Telfare. We have a Telfare, and then we have a Telfare.

You have a designer imposter county. We have a designer imposter county of a nothing county. There's a Dade County, Georgia. You know what, you know where it is? It's the furthest northwest corner. Do you know what it's famous for? Two things. The real life inspiration for Matlock was born there and the clan.

That's what Dade County is famous for, Georgia. Our best and our worst. Our best and our worst. But yeah, we'll say he's from Troitland County. We'll say he's from Soverton High School. and we'll just we'll just set him up and he'll end up going to fucking Arizona State.