Shutdown Fullcast - The Only National Signing Day Podcast Episode

Episode Date: February 4, 2020

Spencer and Holly are both out sick, so Jason and Ryan are joined by Banner Society's Alex Kirshner to talk about why Signing Day is suddenly a bad time for USC, what Georgia's rise as a talent state means, and what our individual college processes looked like. As a bonus, we're then joined by longtime contributor Brian Floyd to talk about the coaching change at Michigan State through the lens of "how could you drive an Acura to Africa from very very very far away?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome. Wow. To the shutdown full cast. The Internet's only college football recruiting podcast brought to you by Bannersociety. Dot Info. We are here today. You are hearing this, I believe, on or around or after national signing day. That applies to every day of the calendar.

And there are now two signing days, so doubly so. Ryan and I are joined today by Alex Kirshner, also of bannersociety. Half the podcast is sick. I thought it was banarsociety. Bannersociety.L.V. So we can trick you into thinking we're in Las Vegas. Is that what that's for?

Yeah. Yeah. It means Latvia? Huh. Yeah. Is this like the time Richard, didn't Richard accidentally book a flight once to Birmingham, England

instead of Birmingham, Alabama? Did I make that up? It's canon now. Hey, Richard, if you're listening to this, please, please slack me and let me know if I made that up or not. Is this what invented the Alabama or England game? Did Richard invent this? I don't think so. I think Alabama and England being the way that they are invented, the Alabama or England game.

Uh-huh. Watch 1917, by the way, if you want to do some Alabama or England. Is it the, uh, what? Walking four miles? A lot of exercise, is that what does it? Was that how far we think they walked? It's not very far, because they do a lot of sitting around, don't they? Because I kind of got the vibe that they're walking all the way across France,

but I realized they probably weren't walking all the way across France. I haven't seen the movie. What's their average foot speed when they're moving, not when they're sitting and exposit. I mean, they're walking with the urgency that, like, you might walk to the post office. Okay. yeah well like so so with some some urgency but not much right sure yeah like the post office is about to close but it's Wednesday so it's not that big a deal yeah right that's that's what he's doing cool I feel like I've served in world war one now thanks it's got to make the Alabama to

Birmingham analogy it's like you're walking from one end of the Hoover Mall to the other side well typical recruiting recruiting coverage just all about Bama just all about Bama just all about Alabama and England, the two most. Well, yeah. I mean, we want to talk about teams that didn't finish number one in recruiting. Wow. Wow. Okay, so this is the part where I say that I have almost no insight into what the current recruiting rankings are.

Like, I have a few scattered understandings. But if you just told me like, hey, where's this team roughly? It would be kind of like me. You know, people who play a price is right. game where you're like, oh, you clearly have no idea how much detergent is. That's me with recruiting. You're like a politician trying to impress common folk. Yeah. The mountain climbers going way off. You're like, how's, how's, I don't know, give me a team and I'll see how I can do. Alex, throw out a team and I'll, let's see if I can get within 10 of their recruiting

ranking. I'm not looking at a sheet, Jason, okay. Utah. Uh, 33. You're fairly close. See? Am I within 10? You're within 5. They're 28. Okay. Give me another one. LSU.

Five. Wow, you're only one off. Okay, I'm going to arrive at your work. Georgia Tech. I know Georgia Tech has been recruiting better, but they're still Georgia Tech, and Georgia is still Georgia. So I'm going to say 17.

Did I overshute? You are within, you're within 10. Okay. They're 26. This is, this. What about, what about USC? They're probably, they're doing pretty well. I know USC sucks, but I, I'm worried.

One 20, 24. Oh, no. No. Try again. Try again. They wish they were. You get a second, you get a second one, Ryan. 34.

Oh, no. Wait, wait. Wait, 44? Oh, well, you're within 10 now. Oh, my God. So are they, they're not, are they in the top 50? No. No.

Wow. So if you listen to this after final national signing day, USC might have crept their way into the top 50. I'm looking at- Fight on. Yeah. Fight on into the top 50. Looking at their prospect lists,

there's not a lot of warm. There's a lot of cool. So I don't think they'll be adding a whole lot of, big names. But, uh, yeah, USC is going to finish outside the top 40, which is completely fucking insane. It should be impossible. Last year, USC finishing 20. That was impossible. This is this is beyond impossible. This is this. So now this is me on prices, right? When, when you're, when it's like an item, I have no idea, when you're like, I don't know how much jet ski is. I shut. I grew up in Florida. But you're like, it's either $800 or $80,000. Ryan, I think at this

point you were playing um prices right in a fallout game uh-huh the jet ski is like corroded and full of poison and it's on fire mirror lurks covered cover this jet ski but these bottle caps you want those yeah so uh usc i um for a project for banner society got gov probably a post and or newsletter after signing day 2020. The biggest piece of information from this is USC, what in the fuck are you doing? They are currently 47 spots behind their average finish of the entire Internet ratings era, which basically 2020 back to 2002. Basically, like when they started getting good.

Yeah, basically. That's a little slight bit of an aberration. but even still, man. Like, if we'd had 10-minute ratings back into the, you know, 40s, 30s, I don't know if USC ever would have finished this load. The, let's see, like looking at other teams, like in their general neighborhood, like, okay, FSU, they're not doing so awesome as a recording. They are 13 spots behind, but they have a first-year coach.

That's an easy, you know, clear, give them a break kind of thing. Miami, they're not doing so great. they're all of six spots behind their average, you know, Texas, five. Like that is what classifies usually as like a slightly below expectations kind of year. USC is, yeah, they're below Indiana. Is this like if LeBron James went out and just like in a finals game, you're like, yeah, he shot like two for 34? I guess it's all that time James Harden did that. Guess where he's from?

Does anybody know why USC is so bad this year? Well, two things, I would say. Well, actually one thing that's by far the biggest, so it should stand on its own. I think that recruits understand, like we all do, that Clay Helton is, like, not on great footing there. But, okay, but why is that true this year and not last year? it's a good question.

I think at some point you just become incredulous about how long someone can kind of keep that thing going. Okay. Like, I mean, we're all kind of gobsmacked at. I mean, he's probably a nice guy. He probably loves his family, but like, it's pretty wild that he remains in that job. Like, and it just seems very well in a year.

But, hey, he's still there, so. The, I still have a lot of data to go through, and obviously they sell a signing date to finish but this could be the worst finish ever by a top 10 recruiter and it really might not be all that close. Where are they in amongst their

Pack 12 cohort? Because that to me is always part. I say this because it's the flip of like South Carolina for example they're 10th in the Pac-12. They're 10th in the Pac-12. Oregon State Okay, Oregon State had a good year so I can at least understand, but oh wow.

They're below UCLA. Okay, no. Yeah, that I can't get behind. That I can't understand. And this is the key thing to think about here that really puts into context how bad things are for them right now. This year, there are 30 blue chip recruits from the state of California. Arizona State at last check had six of them. USC had two.

Wow. And this is another thing here is like, so two years ago after the first early signing day. If you looked at USC with 13 commits ranked 52nd, you'd think, oh, they're just going to sign 10 four stars and they'll be fine. That's not an option. Almost everyone signs the first time around this time. I was looking through the top 150 players. There's like four available. And the number one is the guy who's two Georgia for Georgia. And like, sure, USC will take him. But like, and there's one who's committed to South Carolina, but didn't sign. It's probably going somewhere else. Yeah, the other USC got him first. Yeah.

So, like, I think what's confusing here is, you know, this sort of breaks the existing understanding of USC, which is that USC should always be some baseline of good, not necessarily like 11 win good, but 9 win can win the division, you know, be in the top 25 good. what does this set up like for the next not this year for USC but like is 20 I'm trying to do the math is 2022 USC totally screwed I guess is what I'm saying I think they're going to be baseline okay for a bit because they have despite how horribly they've recruited and performed they still have a quarterback situation that should keep them near the top of the Pactold South most years but I don't know

I mean Caden Slovis I guess could be in the NFL in 2022 so who's to say there's also sort of like like there's a lot of long-term trends here like yes their athletic department is a big fucking mess and all that and yes like Clay Hilton was easy negative

recruiting paper for the last two years but like you know California is producing fewer and fewer defensive linemen we have a post on that at banish society. dot LV, you know, recruiting is truly nationalized for the top programs. Alabama can just raid USC for a top quarterback. The question there is why can USC not raid, you know, the South for defensive linemen?

And the answer to that is that that's where you go back to play health. Well, and that's also where like, you know, I know Alex has written the thing about what if they had hired Edo, despite his gravelly voice? Like, and I think one thing that probably maybe the athletic administration didn't appreciate at the time was like he was a big part of the recruiting pipeline to parts of the southeast. And I don't know that they have effectively replaced that at this point. The funny thing is like, you know, say they finally cut the court, hire a big name head coach, whatever. Guess where that first recruiting class is going to rank. Well, the first short one will be, you know, top 15 or whatever.

class it's in the top five yeah yeah so like they chose this they like this idea and they stuck with it that you know the you know the hardest part about signing day is um you don't it's not like it is it is interesting that it's happening at the same time that we're doing um doing politics that's that's that's the like the simplest way i can put it at this point but with politics you have the option to drop out. You can say, hey, I'm Cory Booker and I don't think I'm going to, you know, I don't think it makes sense for me to keep going. I'm going to drop out. You can't drop out a signing day. Like USC can't get up there and be like, well, we really want to thank all the recruits who fought for us. But, you know, we've decided like, this is not our year in college football. We'll think

about what you can do, what you can do in signing day, and you can also do this in like the IOCs is even when things are absolutely terrible for you, you can stand up there and be like, This class has shown the world. Right. But that's the only thing you can do. Yeah, like you're ranked 52nd and your USC and like, yeah, like you're Joe Biden and your fifth and the Iowa caucuses or whatever. I mean, at the time we're recording this, we don't know.

But like, you can just say things are great and we're on to New Hampshire or whatnot. And you're set. So what I'm hearing is Mayor Pete, 2021 USC head coach. Notre Dame, though. Yeah, Notre Dame. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Like, listen, he's wiped away. He's, he's like explained away McKinsey. He can explain away South Bend. It's fine. Yeah, okay. I also am realizing that I was a Clay Hilton semi-defender because this past season went fine considering quarterback injuries and all that. Because I assumed the early signing day surge would come because it always does for Pac-12 teams, particularly for U.S.

see. It didn't. At that point Clayleton lost his only defender. It was me. This is why we should also, like, if there's anything we can learn from the Iowa caucuses, spoiler, there's not. But if there is, it should be that we should also be able, like, teams should be able to take their classes. And, like, if USC looks at this class and I'm like, fuck, this isn't good enough, like, we should just punt on this class. They should be able to send them all, like, like USC, UCLA, and, I don't know, Arizona, she'd be like, fuck it.

They'll go to Arizona State now. We're going to build an Arizona State behemoth that can compete with Oregon because we think that would be funny and good. We don't want Oregon to be good. We're fine with Herm Edwards being good for a little. So like, we're going to caucus with them and you get all our recruits this year. You know, we're over here. One thing USC could do is pull a UAB, like cancel football.

Self-destroying. It's canceled football for one year. And then you have this big heartwarming public thing where the NCAA can't tell you, you know, oh, no, you can't stack your roster with like three recruiting classes at once and all that. Right. And then there you go, problem salt. Yeah. You would see could just too lay in this thing.

It could mean so many. We're done. Just be like, we're done with this football thing. We're going to cut our scholarships, go and play in the Mountain West. I like the UAB idea. because they have like a credible case for it at this point where they can say like, look, obviously we're in the middle of this like varsity blue scandal. Shit's pretty fucked up.

You know, we think it would be best if we just like put the football program on ice for two years. And then when, like, but I think the key with the UAB thing is you have to make it somebody else's fault so that you can fundraise off of it. So you can be like, look what those fat cats in Sacramento did to the proud Trojans. Give today so we can return to glory. It is hard to do this as a private school. Look what Aunt Becky did to us. Alex, I know you have some thoughts on California as a state as well,

vis-a-vis the state we're- Yeah, I think it's a beautiful state. I was there last summer. That's it? It's it. So next segment. Here's our Pebble Beach segment. I think that California is declassment. lining in its capacity as a producer of high-end football talent.

So for, I believe, the first time in the recruiting rankings era, and certainly at least since these rankings became fairly accurate, Georgia has now surpassed California in Blue Chip recruits to come out of the state. This year, there were 30 in California and 36 in Georgia. The last couple of years, California had been hanging on. It was like 48 to 40. They almost equaled out in 2017. But other than that, for the most part, California's had a pretty significant advantage

and been up there with Texas and Florida, which makes sense because these are very popular states as like the top three states for four and five-star recruits. But Georgia's population is, I understand, growing rapidly. And we've talked about this amongst ourselves that high school football in Georgia, is becoming a lot more professionalized. Coaches are seeing it as a stepping stone and some see it as a stepping stone and some see it as, you know, a destination place

to coach high school football. And the players are just really, really good in Georgia now. And I think you're seeing that with Georgia sort of supplanting USC, I think the last couple of years, along with Alabama and Ohio State as like the recruiters. Part of the reason USC's falling out of that group is all of USC's bullshit that we've discussed.

us at length, but part of it is that Georgia just is overflowing with good football players now. So Kirby Smart probably deserves a little less credit than he gets. Now you're speaking our language. But, yeah, Georgia's going to keep being a top five recruiter forever. Like, they're not going to have seasons where they, like, sign like, the number 15 class. It's just not going to happen. See, I disagree. George is going to be an Alabama-level recruiter for a while.

I disagree that Kirby Smart doesn't get credit for that because it's not like, A, while the strength of Georgia as a whole, as a state is significantly bigger than it was before, it's not like it wasn't anything five, ten years ago. And so much of, I think, what got Mark Richton trouble was, like, the failure. Like, people really didn't like seeing Deshawn Watson go to Clemson. And the fact that while Clemson is good, while Alabama and LSU and Auburn, are all close by while Tennessee is trying to get in, while Florida State, Florida, like the fact that, the fact that Kirby is still like, yeah, I know they're local,

but it's not like the competition is that far away or like geographically or talent-wise. And the fact that he is largely holding them off or holding his own, depending on your perspective, I still like, look, I'm not like usually, let's give Kirby smart a ton of credit. But I do think he deserves a little more. sure if i can temper that with two words on the subject of letting talent leave the state those would be just in fields he did leave the state that's true he left not only the state but also the roster but not on signing day that's the important thing not on signing day i understand get him get him get him on campus if there's anything dan schneider has taught us it's that

signing day is where championships happen okay fair enough this is i'm just going to keep slowly in the background building my case that curvy smart is mark richt um and this season is a pivotal one for that if you go back i would also add that like this year the the school that is out recruiting its usual you know place in the hierarchy by the most is georgia tech which is we said earlier they're like number 26 and might be able to go a little higher part of that is that they're no longer recruiting option kids i mean no doubt that is a significant factor and they're recruiting being better. So this is their first year without that and without a first year coach.

But also, like, you know, they're in Georgia. So I think you're going to see Georgia effect being just like a significantly better recruiter than it was under Paul Johnson. There's also a third factor that's like Paul Johnson didn't care about recruiting, you know. That too. It would have been fascinating to see what you could do as a flex bone recruiter in Atlanta with a school with academics that like shorten your list of potential candidates. but, like, strengthen you in the eyes of others, if you can't care, you know.

So the other, this is, I mean, like, Georgia Tech is a good example of this. The most depressing thing about signing day, if you want a reason to be depressed about signing day, is that, like, you can have a really good class, but because of the way football works, like, it really is so relative at this point where, you know, you take Georgia Tech currently sitting 26th and 24th. seven's team, team ratings. You're like, okay, that's pretty good. Well, Florida State is 20th and UNC is 18th and Miami is 17th and, you know, Clemson's way up there, Clemson's third right now. Like, there is this, I think of this mostly because there's always the SEC team that has a good year where you end up saying, wow, you know, South Carolina finished eight men recruiting this year

or something and you're like yeah and they're fourth in their division or some shit like that it is it is it is such a like relative power struggle that where it's it always seems odd to me that we talk about where you finish nationally because in some cases it doesn't matter at all like to me the USC story is it's much more interesting to me that USC is 10th in the pack 12 than outside of the top 50 nationally because like to put it Gently, I wasn't sure how many Pact 12 schools would be in the top 15 nationally. The best example of there this year, at least as of now, this could definitely fluctuate on signing day, but Auburn is seventh in the country, fifth in the division.

Yeah. The fifth in the conference, excuse me, fourth in the division. But they have to play Georgia anyway, so basically fifth. God, that sucks. That sucks. It sucks bad. Like South Carolina, like their average class is 20th. They're 19.

They're improving. They're 8th in the conference. Kentucky. Kentucky is right behind tech among the Power 5. Georgia Tech, excuse me, I'm from Georgia, so I call them Tech. Kentucky and the Power 5 in this year's like overachieving recruiters. They are ninth in the SEC ahead of all the teams who change coaches and or ADs, Vanderbilt. I also like that.

The 247 rankings don't make us choose between parts, different parts of college football. like FCS is mixed in here, the Ivy League is mixed in here, whatever. So you do get some really fun results because of that. And that's the thing I've always appreciated about these rankings, is you get to play like, okay, Army, for example, the place where there are literal restrictions on who you can recruit. The government says who can play Army football. one spot ahead of UMass, the place that anyone can play football at.

Literally independent. I can do total anarchy. My favorite of this on Early Signing Day was Arkansas for a while was behind not only San Jose State to whom they lost on the field, but also Princeton, I believe, a football factory. Didn't Arkansas just lose a quarterback to San Jose State and a transfer, too? Arkansas has been on an unbelievable, they did, they did, and they have been on an unbelievable run where remember the game that got Chad Morris, like fired, fired, they lost to WKU by like a great sum at home. Do you remember that? I mean, you could tell me any Arkansas game was the one that got him fired fired and I believe. His quarterback was an Arkansas transfer who, who some people, and we are not,

we are not giving, we don't know that the absolute fact is, but some people, some Arkansas fans, the impression that Chad Morris had run this kid off. Yeah. And he goes to WKU. He beat Arkansas by like a lot and scored multiple rushing and passing touchdowns. And then they lost a quarterback to the other non-excellent group of five team that beat them at home last year. Not good.

And then now Nick Starkle is the quarterback who I believe, I don't know if it's official or not, but rumoredly. No, it is, it seems to be a quarterback. Correct. So this last year, he played San Jose State through five interceptions, and Arkansas lost by seven. And now he will be playing for San Jose State. Which, is that a multi-game series? Let's see. While you all look that up, I just want to point out Princeton ranks ahead of Hawaii in their recruiting rankings.

Amazing. You have a wrong brain. Tennessee State is not on the schedule again, so the hottest can rest easy. Good to know. Good to know. You know, our schedule in Notre Dame this year? Yeah. At Notre Dame, that's going to be great, honestly. Yeah. Also, they're going to lose to Nevada, too. Can we?

That's a P.A.P.N. thing. Go on P.A. Pan if you want to fight about how Nevada is pronounced. can we talk about our personal signing days and how they I mean I don't know about y'all but yes I was not heavily recruited what order do we want to go in here I think we decided probably that Jason you this is this is so much predictive you had the least involved college process Alex it sounds like you had the most involved and I was somewhere in between sure so So, Jason, let's start with you, your journey to Kennesaw State, start to finish, go. Basically, GPS. Like 12th grade, it's kind of like, it was weird, man.

It was really weird. Like, I didn't meet with academic advisors in high school before college. Just sort of showed up one day, you know? Yeah. Yeah, man. Did you, did you do, like, is chemistry the only place you applied? Yep. Right.

Got it in one. Yep. One take, one shot. I like that because. I don't know what I would have done if I've been rejected. I like that because you're, you are like the wide receiver who throws one pass in a game in a box career. You're like one for one for 38 yards. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Alex, what is the far, the farther end of this spectrum look like? Like, I mean, I didn't apply to that many schools. I applied to five. I did not get into Northwestern, which was the reach for me. So that was, that was. So to be official, not a Medell grad officially, though I did think about getting all of us t-shirts that said that when I was there for my brother, because my brother was a better student than me and did go to Northwestern. But I thought about getting us those t-shirts didn't still could. Who knows what I'll be back. It wound up coming down for me to Wisconsin and Maryland. I had had fun at Wisconsin. Madison is a fun place.

I'd gone there when I was like, I had a cousin who went there. And so I went there when I was like a sophomore in high school. And I remember just like having a great time going to a hockey game. I was really confused because after that we went to a pregame, he said. And I was like, is there like another game tonight? Like what are we doing? What is this pregame?

I was, like, very, very confused by that. And then, you know, so I had a good time there. But in the end, Wisconsin was a little far. So I kind of did the GPS thing as well and went to Maryland. I thought about Penn State, but didn't want to go there for various reasons. What graduating high school class are you? 12, 2012. How much paper mail did you get for colleges?

I got a lot of paper mail. Yes, so much paper mail. And in fact, I have my school that I remember. These guys sent me the most paper mail. Okay. For me, it was Arcadia University. Where is that? I think in Philly or somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Not in Philly. It sounds like its own country. It's in one side Pennsylvania, which is in, it's near a, Walmart for sure it's it's it's kind of north of philly yeah it's near philly okay that seems like that seems like i mean this looks like a pretty nice no no no you know the thing we got to do because we're on the internet we say it's in philly right right and then you just wait for someone right that's actually a great way to kind of virally market your podcast it's just to like say something's in a city and then just wait for people from that city again this is another example of like man i don't know why people

people bother leaving Google reviews for a college. This is great. This school needs to get their priority straight. This school is more like a traveling agency than it is a university. They are number one in study. This is what this person said, a board. Who cares? Boat school.

Hey, can we make a hat? This is boat school? Yes. There is a really rough Google reviews for this college. I would is assuming most of them will be about like the food court. no it's different it's like no it's it's it's much different it's like very very in-depth things about what they're disappointed in with the school or what they loved about it well they're there in many ways like they're like a hotel review housing was deplorable mice roaches poorly insulated walls and

windows no security fire alarms go off weekly and the apartment building still has original elderly residents who constantly complain and cause issues with this what are you talking about are Are you telling me that Arcadia has a dorm where students never left? Like, they graduated 40 years ago, but they couldn't kick them out. So they just lived there now? Can I read the real, the real all-star review of on Google? One star out of five by Duck, Duck. They say school is diverse, or they are trying to make it that way.

That is wonderful. Unfortunately, there was racism against white people that goes on, and the school does nothing about it. Wow. how many stars went with that review but now I see why they build me so much stuff because you don't want me on the internet that's yeah that's right

but you wouldn't go on the internet to look for them but for the I don't know I just I find it I don't know if I'm comforted or disquieted by the fact that in you know you graduated over a decade after I did from high school in colleges were still doing the like just dump a fucking bunch of mail at you yeah Alex did they send you memes of like you photoshopped on the cover of like Fortune magazine and they're like I never got edits which pissed me off

no they didn't do that for potential polysize slash journalism measures did you have unc's defensive coordinator DMing you information about colleges the offensive coordinator yeah oh sorry yes sorry excuse me You won't say who. It could be anyone. That's why I messed that up, Alex. I maybe had a more involved college shirts than you did. Although you did a thing I did not do, which was college visits.

You did at least one college visit, it sounds like. Did a couple. Did Wisconsin and did Maryland. I remember the Maryland one because that was the day of the U.S. killed bin Laden. Did you feel then that it was your Patriot? duty to a tour. Right. Right.

Yeah, that was, I felt like if I come, you know, to the, to the University of Maryland, it'll be great for the national security. That's right. Every time you look at that turtle statue, do you think, we got him? Do you think SEAL Team 6 before they went in? They were like, all right, go Terps. Turtle Team 6, sir. Hey, hey, Bin Laden, time to fear the turtle.

Play, play him. Do it for the fridge. The Maryland accent, the one we were like, every vowel is back to me and has an oomelot. I'm not yours. I did not. So I did not do any college visits because I didn't realize that was a thing people did until it was way too late in the process. And I think my parents intentionally, like, didn't bring it up because they didn't,

it does sound terrible. Like, hey, go travel, potentially. far away with your kid to look at a place that might cost you a bunch of money to figure out if they'll like it based on like two two nice days in the spring or some shit like that so they they never suggested it was a possibility i didn't ask about it so i applied to places that in retrospect i'm like that would have been like i applied to the university of chicago if i had gone to chicago and had just like never been to the city or the university that's a fucking wild-ass decision on my part. I will also say

I applied to Notre Dame. I don't actually know why I did that. I just did. I think he did. I applied Notre Dame. I got into Notre Dame and I remember getting the acceptance letter looking at it and just being like oh no, I don't want to do that. Yeah.

I'm not doing that at all. You still have it? No, I don't have that acceptance letter. Chicago is weird because part of their interview process, part of their application process rather is they do an in-person interview with you. But if you're not in Chicago, they like find a local alum to come to your house and like interview you. So we had this guy, this stranger came to our house, this Chicago alum living in North Tampa at like, and we like gave him, we made like a cheese plate. And he sat in

our living room and talk to me about a college he had, he was like, yeah, I haven't been back in like 15 years. I don't know how much has changed. Blah, blah, blah. So was it, was it, was it Lovey Smith in town? It was regrettably. It was regrettably not Lovey Smith. Um, but that was a weird thing I remember. But ultimately, um, yeah, I just went to Florida because that shit was cheap. Yeah. Turns out, turns out, if you can go to college for cheap, you should do that. You should do that thing. It's not a bad idea. Instead of the not cheap thing. Like the only things states are good for, like states are imaginary, fake, terrible for the country and all that stuff. But like when it comes to cheap college, states are very important. I'm going to go

ahead and see what University of Florida's Google reviews look like. Sporting a positive 4.3. So that's good to see. Some pretty good reviews here overall. I got gotta say five star five star five star now are these like useful no one uh it's big and beautiful campus a lot of gator vibes don't know what that means if you know you know uh not sure why people give google reviews to a university but might as well uf is great you left that one that was you regrettably i did not i live in the same town as where this university is been there and it's awesome. How old do we think that's a nice, a nice review by like a high school student right

there. Okay, wait, I found a one-star review. Go Knowles. This one doesn't even make sense. I can't read it. It's like so incoherent. Okay, here we go. Here's a good one.

Great education program. If you are a billionaire. Got them. If you're a billionaire, you shouldn't go to UF. I'm going to be honest. What are we getting at there? Are they teaching like trickle-down economics or something? I don't know.

I don't know. But if you're a billionaire, you shouldn't go to college. We have one here that's like a customer service was terrible type review. Yeah. Yeah. Man, it just occurred to me. There's probably somebody who's made a college decision based on these reviews. Yeah, because like, well, like, think about it, you're driving through town, you're like, you know what I could really go for and like...

You just pull up your phone. The passenger in your car is like, what, like donuts and you're like, nah, college. A four-year bachelor's degree. We're going to be here a while. You better pick the right one. Yeah. These people are harsh. I say this, but it's not like U.S.

It's not like the official rankings are that much, are like that much better. No, not at all. Man. I'm looking at a one-star review here that just gives them one star because Aaron Hernandez went there. Hey, you know what? They got, they got answer for that. We're all accountable for things. When you think academic shame, you think Aaron Hernandez.

Yeah, sheesh. Someone left for one star of you saying the teachers all had ligma and, give it to me oh wow that's definitely florida also folks uh hours before signing day we have some late breaking news michigan state is making a coaching change so we are joined as always by spartan's insider brian floyd for the latest floyd what can you tell us all right so last week little wayne dropped an album called funeral and on it there's this song called know you know with two chains and here's the thing that i've been trying to figure out for the last like three years or four days and yeah we know this has nothing to do with anything but who cares on it there's a

lyric that says a buyer and acura tell her to drive it to africa and it's it's basically two chains saying i'm rich enough to buy you a car and tell you to go away except i was trying to figure out can you actually do this right can you buy an acura drive it off the lot on a dealership somewhere and drive it to africa which you think logically like you can't because you think of acura as as American cars were made in America or buying in America and that's not really possible. So we were talking this morning and decided to make it a challenge to figure out where you can legally buy an accurate dealership and drive it to Africa with a couple of like caveats to this. The first is we're going to ignore all regional domestic geopolitics, borders, et cetera,

because that gets really confusing. The second one is you have to be able to plug it in on Google Maps and have Google say it is technically possible. So it'll give you like a route. And the third is that Google has some weird rules around China where you can't actually get out of China, which will come into play here. China has to go like that too. Yeah. So we're going to be able to drive to the border and then go from there in terms of routes if we need to take it. Cool. Cool. So the first thing you need to know about Accurang is that you would assume it's a Japanese car, right? Like a lot of people plug that connection in. You can't buy one in Japan. Some of them made there, parts of them made

there. But it's just the division of Honda that they kind of gave to America and parts of the world and said, here, take this. So when I was trying to figure out where to start, I just stupidly started looking for accurate dealerships in like Siberia before going, oh, let's see where you can actually find it. So what we have is some options here. The first one is Kuwait, which is a very easy option. You just drive it across and go right into Africa. It's actually pretty easy. But if we're looking for the furthest, you need to go to Ukraine or China and figure out how to navigate from there. The rest of them are all out, Mexico, North America, Canada, you can't drive it around. So Jason, where should we start here? Man, so what if we start with the short, let's start with the Ukraine

since that's closer? So Ukraine's not technically difficult, although, researching it I found one like little wrinkle to it that kind of stops your journey into place it needs to stop but um you can basically drive down through the middle east and end up so you go like Ukraine Georgia Turkey uh city Lebanon Israel Egypt now the last part of the trip gets tricky you have to stop in Egypt that don't apparently they don't allow you to cross borders if you have Israel passport stamps into Africa but this is He didn't change challenge because he did not say drive it to Sudan. He specified Egypt or he specified just Africa, not a specific country you have to read.

Exactly. So that was one of the caveats that I was working on there as well is like you just had to get into kind of mainland. You had to cross the Suez is how it was marking it. So it's doable there. But that's actually a pretty short journey. The real fun is you can make a journey that's longer and it takes longer just to get out of China. And so that's what we're going to figure out how to do. Now, with this one, did you like, did you just trace on Google Maps like with your finger

because it won't actually tell you? No, no, no. So what I did was figure out where the accurate dealerships are for accuracy, like down to the mile. So you can actually go find accurate dealerships in Shanghai and a couple other places. Shanghai looked like was the furthest. And so I mapped from Shanghai to the borders of certain countries to see what was actually possible and how long it would take.

What I found was Kazakhstan was probably the best bet. Okay. I have a, I should preface that I didn't take any physics classes in high school or college. Do we think somebody who listens to this podcast can give us an estimate of how high the ramp on the straight of Gibraltar would need to be and how fast the, for an accurate going at, top speed to ramp across Gibraltar into Sayuta, the small Spanish territory in, I believe, the northwestern corner of Africa, to just sort of ramp over the strait of Gibraltar. And I know people are saying, like, you can't do that, but there's a little documentary called Fast 9 coming out, which I think suggests that cars are capable of much more than we think.

So that is what I would like somebody to calculate. the rough estimate I am seeing online is that it is 30 nautical miles which normally would take a boat which is much slower than an Accura obviously and can't ramp at all between five to seven hours so that's that's the ramp

that's the jump I want somebody to calculate how far back does this ramp need to be and how high does it need to get and we're assuming Dominic Sorretto is driving correct correct does it have that little like grappling hook thing like you see in the trailer for the new one like can we use that i i don't know what it will grapple to since it will be in the middle of it'll in the middle of the sea oh okay okay now we're thinking i was saying like there are mountains like sort of to the east of morocco because like

it's going to launch at the speed of light and go like a hundred miles so miles and then it'll pull you in but helicopter's very good thinking okay okay it's just like you set them up like it's a what is it one of the video games where you just kind of grappling from helicopter helicopter. Yeah, you're playing what is that bionic arm man, that one? Yeah, yeah.

So this is doable. So we're back in Shanghai. Is that correct? That is correct. And we're going to go from Shanghai. So we're driving off the lot in Shanghai now. And it looked like taking a combination of old silk roads that are now highways will lead you to Kazakhstan and towards the possibility of

came to Africa. So the route that I took, oh yeah, go ahead. No, well, no, please go ahead. No, I have a separate thing. I want you to finish. So that'll take you about 40 hours. That's just kind of like where we're starting there. Go ahead. I just like, what is the point of having a president who is a Russian asset if we can't, if we can't get the land bridge between Russia and Alaska built so that we can say, yes, you can buy an Accura in Kansas and drive. it all the way to Africa. Like, look, I have accepted that this is just the world we live in and there's nothing

to do about it. But can we get some fucking perks? Can we build the highway across the goddamn Bering Strait already? And when we say highway, we mean, of course, Accura ramp. Accura ramp, that's right. So we can call our missions with Accuras. Are you telling

me President Space Force couldn't be talked into building an Accura ramp in Alaska? The branch of our big, beautiful military The Accura ramps. Ramp force! Floyd, when you were first researching this matter,

I suggested going south of the Himalayas through India, because there are a lot of... Did your think tank look into this at all? No, to be honest, I looked at the Himalayan and thought about the Ackia trying to make it through those. And it was like... We're going around them and under them. Okay.

that's actually possible. Now I haven't looked at it and you can see where the limitation of my time were because I was doing it while juggling a baby this morning.

Yeah. You did this, correct? You know what sucks is that Spencer's going to now pitch us on like, hey, let me go.

Let me go do this. Well, Spencer listens to this. He'll lay out the exact roads you take through South East. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, I did this. We'll get our old buddy Ryan Van Bibber

He'll be like, oh, yeah, I did this. I took that trip. It's wild. So the India route I actually ended up looking at was, you have China handled. You have China figured out. You have mastered the route to China. I was looking into how far can our ferry game take us? Because I believe you mentioned that fairies are allowed.

Like you're not allowed to ship the boat across the ocean, but if it is a regularly running ferry. That's like a ferry that commuters use, basically. So there is a ferry from Singapore to Indonesia. Okay. If you're in Indonesia, then you can just drive right across to Papua New Guinea. And I found there is a website where they will ship you a 97 Accura from Philadelphia to Papua. It says right there, 1997 Accura NX for sale and Papua New Guinea. It's 66,000 base, so I imagine the shipping that's like triple that.

But if we were to do away with the dealership stipulation, we could do it from somewhere even further east than Tokyo. But at that point, I feel like we're bending multiple rules here. Where's Elon Musk's car at this point? It's in space, right? Right. But do we know where in space it is? So we'll shoot it out of the sky and it'll land somewhere in that. a Sahara where it's not in danger to

have a little bit. Is that Junior Floyd's first appearance on our podcast? That is, I think. Sorry. Sorry, buddy. So the premise of the lyric, by the way, and this is where it works for Jason's advantage,

is that you're rich enough to just buy a car and tell someone to drive until they, like, get somewhere. So that does work. If you were like, yeah, I got a dealership that shifts into this exotic country, go get your car. It's four times the price. Sure. The other I was looking at,

to if we say ferries are allowed is you can take a ferry from Morocco to Gibraltar. Then you can take a ferry from France to England. Then you can take a ferry from the north of Scotland to the Furrow Islands to Iceland. There are

fairies all this way. I was furious to discover there is no ferry from Iceland to Greenland. And then Greenland is very far away from Canada actually. Like you think it's like, oh, it's right there. No, it's super fucking far away. Yeah, Mercator projection.

bitch so like you could do it from Iceland you could you could drive from Iceland and Morocco I don't know it feels like getting out of Morocco is going to be easier than getting out of Egypt so like perhaps you could drive all the way around the west coast of Africa

I didn't get that far but you could drive if ferries are allowed you could purchase an Acura have it shipped to the name of the city in Iceland is Acura I'm sorry, there's an Accura city. It's filled as follows, A-K-U-R-E-Y.

That says Accura in Iceland. Yeah, that's Accura right there. Yeah, man. So, like, it's literally written on the signage all throughout Iceland. They want your Accura to be driven to Equatorial Guinea. Here's two things. One, as children of the 80s, I think we can all agree that it sucks that we're in 2020 and we don't have cars that can drive across the ocean.

I understand the limitations and why this makes sense, but like what have we been doing for the last 35 years, science? Like, way to do nothing. Two, the discussion we're having right now, inane and stupid as it is, it's not wildly different from the ones, the original, like, this is basically what Magellan did at one point. Just sat around with his buddies and he was like, yeah, you go here, You go over this way, you know, you are, did Magellan get cannibalized?

Did I make that up? No, he got hit by an Accura. So also, you can go, you can take, Australia has ferries as far north as Mabuyag Island. I'm sorry for mispronouncing that. And Papua New Guinea has fairies. To all our listeners out there, by the way, sorry. Yeah, to all you folks there on this island. they have a three-star hotel might want to check out.

There are ferries from Papua New Guinea to islands that are like very close to this island. They're just not linked. If we can link those, like, and this is beyond the rules, so I'm not going to propose it. But if there were just one ferry linking those two countries, then you could drive from Tasmania to Egypt. What have you just ramped from one ferry to the other ferry? Okay. As long as you get one ramp, yeah, we can put this off. Helicopters. I think you can actually do this from New Zealand with one ramp.

So what we need to do is collect a bunch of money and start a lobbying effort and make this a reality, right? Oh, we're going to do an infrastructure boondoggle? Hell yes. Oh, yeah. New Zealand is super fucking far away from everything, too. It's amazing New Zealand is populated. Go on. Go on. Go on. Yeah, so Accuro. James, both. If you guys want to team up, give us the money. We'll do this. We'll make Spencer do this. We will, I don't know, I don't want to commit to it. As the EIC, I don't want to commit to it being content. In some ways, it's funny. Or if we just say, yeah, go do this. Then we say, we're not, we're not posting that. So, like, it's not even a podcast while Spencer is is ramping from Australia to Indonesia. To be clear, Spencer is frequently incapable of podcasting from a stationary position. and now you want to send him halfway around the world

and tell him to podcast from Inside and Acura. I think what this means is we are riding along with him recording a podcast. I can't do. I got stuff. I can't do this. But it's, yeah, I haven't told you which year it is. Anyway, Mark Antonio, out at Michigan State. More breaking news from Brian Floyd, Michigan's Maven Insider, specialist, doctor. Thank you, Floyd.