The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Big Suey: Jessica And Lucy Explain The College Football World

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Jess and Lucy are back with their Unnamed College Football Segment a.k.a. The Michigan MANifesto. They discuss Connor Stalions and Michigan Football, their upcoming game against Penn State, the CFP rankings, the Washington-USC shootout, previews of this week's game, and more. Then, we have an excerpt from the podcast "Sports Explains the World" and their episode 'Spider's Web' which explores the death of American Alpine skier Vladimir Peter Sabich at the hands of his girlfriend Claudine Longet, who claimed it was an accident. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. It would be a tragedy if we were losing one person to drug overdose every day. Even five, seven, or twelve people. It would be unimaginable if fifteen families a day received news of a lost loved one to overdose. But in Canada, we lose 20 people to overdose every single day. That's a crisis. At CAMH, we won't back down until there's no one left behind. Donate at CAMH.ca to help us treat addiction and build hope.

Welcome to the big sui! Presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Levitard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries that if they're just there.

That hasn't happened to you guys. I've done it. And now here's the marching band to nowhere, that face and the habitual liar. It's Thursday, slash maybe Friday, if you're listening on audio. And Jim Harbaugh has been suspended indefinitely from the University of Michigan, Wolverine's football program.

All the players have acquitted the protesting everyone's holding up the number four again for no reason. They are storming the main administration building on Michigan's campus. They have signs, they have flags. Ricks is shut down. Oh god, just kidding. We're recording this earlier in the week and we don't know yet what has befallen Michigan. All we know is that the the big ten is making some sort of decision. It's imminent. Yeah, I believe what is

happening is that the big ten sent Michigan a notice and we know you've been cheating. We're really not happy about it. No more misbehaving and that Michigan has to respond by the end of this recording. Hopefully, probably not. And just say, yeah, I think, or maybe we'll see you. Or maybe I don't know. Or we don't know that guy. Michigan, I will give them credit for what a,

oh, Willow is licking Dan's mouth guard. I guarantee you, he's gonna put that thing back in his mouth, his mouthpiecepiece his Miami Heat mouthpiece. This is a little Easter egg for anyone listening to this show because Dan's probably not. If you see Dan put the Miami Heat mouthpiece in his mouth in the next few weeks, you know where it's been.

But anyways, Michigan credit to them. They've been mudding the waters a little bit, trying to show that other big 10 teams also communicate with one another on sign stealing. As we talked about on the Levitar Show earlier this week, I think the distinction lies in the illegal scouting aspect of it and the fact that they had someone on their staff that went to games ahead of time and scouted them out. I've seen lots of columns by other cultural ball reporters and very smart people saying

that there's not a huge distinction between if you have an assistant coach for a team that's stealing signs in person, and then they're gonna go report it to another team. What's the big deal? What's the difference between that and what Connor Stallings was doing? Maybe there's not a huge distinction, but there is a NCAA by-law distinction, I guess.

So that's where things are still a little murky, but then there's also the big 10 that's now has a sportsmanship clause that they want to potentially invoke and all of this. It's getting a little messy, Lucy. It's, I think that the thing that is actually the rule-breaking part is you're allowed to steal signs, but it comes down to resources. We're Michigan, a school like Michigan, Alabama, whatever, they can afford to send their scouts to games and steal signs and whatever, but a school, a smaller Alabama, whatever, they can afford to send their scouts to games and

steal signs and whatever, but a small school, Central Michigan couldn't do that. And you said it so perfectly on the show earlier this week? Yes. You always say everything perfectly. Where you were like, why would they do it if there wasn't a competitive advantage to it? Why would they work this hard? Still that from Golek Senior.

He was right though. He was so right. He was so correct. Just kidding. And so they just started a trend, Purdue followed. That's what they do. I don't know why everyone's records and Purdue cash and straights. Hey, here's the thing that we've been saying all along.

Is that it's not that Michigan cheated. They got sloppy and they got caught. And there's the problem. Exactly. It's college football. Everyone's cheating. Don't get caught. And it was just like how sloppy it was. That's what's making me angry.

I'm like, you guys really, you're gonna use fake names, even though Connor Sallion still sound like a fake name. Poor name, for sure. It's what everyone's saying. Finnmo, everything was very just like public Venmo. Yeah, don't do that. It was a rookie operation. It was not good.

So as we're recording this, we don't yet know what has happened if there has been a punishment. Maybe there hasn't been one who the hell knows, but we do know everyone's pissed off. No matter what happens between the time we're recording this and the time you're listening to it, everyone's mad. Michigan fans are mad. The rest of the big 10 is mad. Fans are mad.

Jim Harboss always mad. And that's really all that there is to take away from this. Everyone's going to be pissed no matter what happens. Tell for us we're enjoying the whole thing. Yeah, I just think it's funny. I've always been... My stance on this entire thing has been like, this is incredible content.

I want more. I did not see the vacuum cleaning thing coming. I just didn't see it. I didn't expect it. I didn't see the Venmo thing come. I didn't know there would be a manifesto. I just want more. I don't want it to end.

I just want more forever. There is going to be an awesome documentary on this in 10 years, like just a phenomenal 30 for 30 or HBO special, like I cannot wait. It's going to be so good. And I can't wait to see whose cast is Jim Harbaugh. It's going to be titled The Michigan Man. Yeah.

Well, all new meaning to Michigan Man this month. Man of Festo. Man, you have The Michigan Man of Festo. That's the title of this podcast. Go blue, Halo the Victors. So speaking of Michigan, they finally have a game this weekend that people will watch.

It's fun watching Dr. Jim McCarthy sneak up in the Heisman odds all season and Michigan just win week after week after week with no one really having much to say about it. And that will finally change even though as you have already discussed vociferously and many many have agreed. It is against James Franklin Penn State team which historically has not been a team that puts up much of a fight in a prime time game. No, that's 100% true. I think another thing is we just want to take James Franklin out of the equation which is tough to do. Michigan and Penn

State I don't think it matches up well in Penn State's favor. Their issue is they can't move the ball down the field. That's why James Franklin has screened me reporters on press conferences because people are like, why don't you know the ball, D.P. you won't do it. So Michigan's defense is phenomenal. And when Penn State played Iowa, oh my God, did they struggle moving the ball? The score doesn't really indicate it, but they had a really, really tough time. And I think Michigan's defense is better.

I just don't think that Penn State's offense is up to what Michigan has, just talent-wise, experience-wise. I'm hoping it's competitive, but I don't, I'm not that optimistic, because when I watch Penn State Ohio State the whole time, all I was thinking is, wow, Michigan's a lot better than both of these teams. Yeah, that was also my reaction.

I mean, Penn State as James Franklin said after the game, one of the best teams in the country. So I guess we'll get to find out if he was as full of crap as we said he was after that game when we saw two, kind of stinker offenses facing off against one another. But yeah, this is going to be, without a doubt, their toughest tests so far of the season. So we'll definitely be watching that game.

You will not be there because you do not want to go back to Happy Valley. And I think that that's a good choice. You should not have to go there twice in one season. I don't want to go there twice in one season. I would say it is an awesome stadium. It is a cute college town. That is the most difficult place to get to in the world.

Oh my gosh. It is. State college, there's, if you want to fly to the airport, state college is like $1,000. If you want to fly to the airport, state college is like $1,000. If you want to fly to an airport nearby, fly into Harrisburg. It's like two hours away. Okay, you don't want to fly into Harrisburg because that's expensive. Great.

You have to fly into Pittsburgh, or Philly, which are over three hours away. Good luck finding the hotel. It wasn't worth it to me. Fun fact. State college was where my father's flight was supposed to land that ended up crashing, but he didn't make it in time. That's a story I've told on the Levitard show before. That's my Suzy eating Pesto story.

Real tiktokers know. Anyways, I have a little bit of angst when I think about State College for that reason. But in other news, Lucy, the College Football Playoff rankings have been updated this week. We're both in the same boat where we don't really want to talk about them too much because there's so much ball left to be played. But was there anything really stick out to you? Is there anything interesting to glean from Tuesday and I think rankings?

I mean, I think the big thing was Greg McAroy was so mad on the show. I thought he was going to explode. And it was valid. He was making phenomenal points just because I think his issue and most issues with the poll is that there isn't just like a defined standard where certain teams are ranked high because of strength of schedule, certain teams are ranked high because of eye tests,

certain teams are lower because of this. Bob blah blah. They're rewarding things but just not on an equal basis. And so they're all great points, but when it comes down to it, this stuff will all work itself out. So that's why I don't like get that upset over it. Because if you have problems with Ohio State, being number one, they'll play Michigan. Georgia beat Mizzou, they'll play Ole Miss. Like Michigan plays Penn State this weekend.

Like it will all just work itself out. So there's no reason. And like I'll start getting mad like two weeks before. Cause that's when it starts to really matter. Yeah, I mean, it's fun to get mad. Don't get all of us complaining and being mad. That's like my list. Taylor's like nodding like he's at church right now.

Like, yes, this is exactly right. I say I will never get triggered by these. And then they come out and I'm like, how was Ohio State number one? I get triggered every week. And like, why is Penn State number 10? I don't, I don't have a dog in that fight. I don't care about Penn State.

Like I don't care about them. So that's the best team as they should be all the time. But yeah, I'm with you. I think Greg McElroy's point, why he was mad was because of the whole Alabama not moving up after beating LSU situation. And I think there's something to that. It's interesting. Like Alabama's a team that played probably their toughest game of the season early in the

year and they lost and they figured out some things on offense since. Jalen Milro in the game against LSU, right? Looked like a different quarterback. At least, well, he looked like the same quarterback, but they gave him like real opportunities to win, I thought. So, Alabama's been playing really well lately and if you haven't, if you wrote them off after the Texas game, I have some bad news for you. Nick Sabin, still a good coach. Their team still very talented. Their defense. Very fun. It does stink that Jane Daniels got

hurt in that game because it was shaping up to be like a huge offensive battle between both of those teams scoring a lot of points, but then he got hurt. And we're not going gonna argue about the targeting of it all right now, but it sucked. It sucked to see him go out. Like he's been having like a really great season, and he scores lots of points in his so fun to watch, but Alabama won.

And so you don't get, like the fact that they didn't get like a little bit of a boost from that, I could see why Greg McElroy's pissed off. Yeah, his big issue was, okay, who is Oregon's best one against? Text the stat? That's fair. Utah?

Utah should be before text attack, I don't know what's in that. But I understand it. It's just one of those things where like, it's also his job to sit and talk about the rankings on me. And it'll all work itself out. Don't lose your cool over it. Okay, something crazy could happen this weekend. Hopefully it does.

I've been missing something crazy this season. Yeah, and like the Washington Oregon argument is going to, like there's, I think there's a lot of people watching the games that think Oregon looks like an incredibly complete team that has one loss and that maybe they are a little bit better than Washington so they should be ranked higher. But like you have to play the games and you have to play the results in Oregon loss the

game. And those two teams still have to play a lot of other ranked teams to end the year. And so that kind of thing works itself out generally, especially when there's a packed well championship game that they may both be playing in. As we see USC lose again this past week on two Washington and another crazy game. So yeah, I'm with you. These things work themselves out generally.

The committee hasn't had to make that difficult of a decision yet with the ranking. So that's why Lucy and I aren't that pissed off about it. Look, I don't really trust a bunch of athletic directors to put together a great list. There's no, I don't mean to be mean, but there's no way all of them are watching every game. No, I can't watch it.

No, no one can't, it's impossible. That's why like any, like I, and I will speak on behalf of every national media college football podcast, they're very hard to do because unless you have like a thousand producers, like you can't keep tabs on all these things, I didn't watch the James Madison game. I'm sorry about that, but I didn't.

There was no way Condoleezza Rice was turning it to every Wisconsin game. There's no shot. I will tell you one thing, athletic directors could rank very well, and that is hotel kind of rock fists. I feel like they're in the top 99 percentile of people who could rank a free hotel meal. That's what Boo-Gorgon should start talking about. You're born for that. When Kirk Hirschut asked him about rings, but let me tell you about the Hilton in Jappel Hill. Yes. That he would say that it's like 100%.

All right, so we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about more from this past weekend, more from this upcoming weekend, and we're going to beg someone, please, let Lucy on your sale gate, tailgates. I love a boat. The Toys Aras Toy Book is here, packed with holiday wishlist goodies and amazing deals. Save big on toys from Paw Patrol, squish mellows, Barbie, Lego, Disney, and more of the brand's kids really want. 3,500 plus items on sale.

But these Toys Book deals end November 15th, so hurry up and visit your nearest Toys Araw store. Click or tap the banner to find one near you. Don Lebertard. Well, my point about Jimbo Fisher is that, and it's Sabin, he's been trying to cancel me. For saying that Mrs. Met has cake, and Bobby Bowden would have said, Mrs. Met, she has snatched. have said Mrs. Met she has snatched

Stu gots I never pay for a player now a wood paper Mrs. Met to give me a lap dance This is the down lebertar show with a Stu gots So we talked earlier about what the potential of the offensive sort of shoot out between Alabama and LSU Could have been had you didn't think it was not got hurt? Wow did Washington USC deliver that it was a game that so clearly defense was optional it was not necessary Alex Grinch was fired it's it's led to a point now where USC's unranked

they've lost what to three in a row Kayla Williams is getting a ton of heat for crying in a game. That was a little silly. Look, you guys aren't mean to me when I cry in every single game. Well, some of you are. But for the most part, people, like, I don't, I'm just give him a break. He's 21, 22 years old. He cares about something.

He's crying. Get over it. I just, he was like crying with his parents too. Like, I get that people give him a hard time because he like painted like FU Utah and like FU ND on his nails. But I'm in jail, get over it. And also I will say like if Twitter existed when Tim Teebo cried, they would have roasted him too.

I would have tweeted something. I think the internet is very cruel and they hate anyone that cries, especially someone like Caleb Williams who carries himself with a lot of confidence. So I was bumped to see all of that, but this has been a team because of their defense. So I was head to score like 45 plus 50 plus points to win games, like even against Cal. Even against unranked teams, and that's not me being shady to Cal, but like, come on. Like, you gotta like stop someone at some point. And so with a team like Washington

that has a very good offense and a team like USC led by Alex Grinch's defense, it kind of thought this one was a little bit inevitable. That Washington was gonna be able to outscore them in the end, but Kayla put up a fight. And the news came out after the game, not long after Alex Grinch finally has been let go from Lincoln Riley stuff.

Yeah, I'm sure the defense is still going to be bad though because Lincoln Riley has been the only consistent and the defenses we've seen at USC and Oklahoma. I think Alex Grinch will find like a nice like lower level power five job and honestly probably do like decently well I think it's more as much of a product of Lincoln Riley as it was, Alex Grinch. It's not gonna get any easier for USC. They go to Oregon this weekend. That's not going to be fun.

I just hope Caleb Williams doesn't sit out. Stop telling him that. Quit being mean to him and stop telling him to sit out. That's tough. He's definitely gonna end up on Sabin's staff, Alex Grinch. Oh, absolutely. Going to be like excellent there. Gonna get another head coach and gig afterwards.

This is the next Sabin School of Rehabilitated College Football Coaches, and it never gets old. Thank you for your service. Brian Ferrance, offensive analyst, Alabama football, absolutely. And then he's gonna end up on the Patriots. It's gonna be so crazy. So anyways, that USC's out of it,

I mean, they're not making the play off this year. I mean, I think that much was obvious after they got blown up by Notre Dame. Texas on the other hand, not out of it. I mean, they're not making the play off this year. I mean, I think that much was obvious after they got blown out by Notre Dame. Texas, on the other hand, not out of it, despite their backup starting, while Quinnier was just still hurt, they had to go to overtime against Kansas State in a crazy finish of a game.

Lucy, did you ever at any point think that Texas was going to let this one slip through their fingers. So we were out at Benlum during this and we were lucky, but by the time we got to the stadium, we caught the end of this game because when we were tailgating, it was the only game that people had on their TVs. And it was like, Texas up 27, 3 or something. And I was like, all right, well, this one's cooked and done. Yeah, I was like, oh, it's over.

I'm not going to watch this one. And then we got back into the stadium and we're able to watch the end of it. I don't put too much weight on this game because Kansas State is historically a team that screws things up for everyone they play, including themselves sometimes. And Texas has always struggled against them. Like the state of Kansas has kind of had

Texas' number the last few years. I'm not, this is like a very fickle Kansas state team. Like Texas winning a close game makes more sense to me. I still think they're a really good team. Quenures didn't play. Like Texas has the most impressive win in the country at Alabama. Like I'm not too worried about Texas and I don't believe the rest of their schedule is that difficult. So most likely we'll be going to the big 12 championship game where maybe they meet, you know, Oklahoma state who won Bad limb the game that you were at. We talked briefly last week about Oli Gordon they're running back in what a stud he is. Taylor came in on Monday

and was like hey did you see the interception that Oli Gordon threw because he was throwing the ball on like a reverse play. And I was like, no, I didn't, and I looked it up, and it was hilarious. So credit to him and his run game, but maybe not the best passer. It didn't matter though, because they won. No, it was awesome.

Ollie Gordon, I don't know if I've ever been to a game, and maybe it's, you know, I wouldn't have star athletes, so maybe that's like, what the, so I'm sorry, I don't know. That's not a Caleb Hart. No, but like when I went to La Porta, yeah, but it wasn't like, the only thing I've seen similar at a football game

was is sort of Tori Taylor, the Iowa punter, where when I went to Oklahoma State, the whole crowd, like I saw more Ollie Gordon t-shirts than just general Oklahoma State t-shirts. Like students weren't body painting OSU, they were body painting Oli, which I'm sure there are examples of that at other schools. I just hadn't been to a game like that football-wise.

It was really, really cool. He's an awesome player. He's so fun to watch. This Oklahoma State team has turned things around just to like the wildest extent. Maybe Oklahoma's overrated, who cares? You beat a rival that always beats you for the last time. It was one of the most special events in college football.

I'm so lucky I got to be able to do this. So you're gonna cry again. And all I gordon rules, I'm sorry, Sam LaPorta. I'm sorry. There was a couple other games that were not of the ranked variety this weekend. Like okay, Georgia beat Missouri, blah, blah, blah. We got the one out of the way.

One of them, with O was Florida beating Arkansas. Arkansas or flor I'm sorry florida losing to Arkansas Which was like Arkansas's third win of the season and San Pippins buy out Goes down if he's the low five hundred so this was a big win for him and a terrible loss for the gators There's also a really brutal Barudal Miami NC State game in which Miami was only able to score three points. And then of the ranked varieties, Air Force, our beloved Air Force Academy, Falcons, they lost

to Army, an Army team below 500, only two wins the season. That was about a shocking as of a result as it gets in college football. I did not get to watch this game, but I believe I thought I heard that they turned the ball over like an insane number of times. Like nine maybe? We need to fact check it,

because I could just be completely making that up. But I guess that's what happens. I don't know. America won and lost at the same time. Yeah, it's really tough when that happens. The other two interceptions, six turnovers, nine little dramatic. Maybe they have four fumbles, four lost fumbles.

That's brutal. That's insane. You don't want to do that. You turn them all over six times. You're going to lose. Georgia, Mizzou, if we want to talk about it for just like a half a second, sure. Happens every year.

Every single year, Georgia plays Mizzou close in the first half. Yeah. And we're like, wow, we got a game. This is going to be the year they do it. No, it's not. It's like Indiana, like competing for a big game against Michigan or Ohio State, where they're close for a half. And you're like, this is the year Indiana is going to do it. It's never the year.

And it's never the year for Mizzou. Indiana, just so good. By the way, won this week. Yeah, against was constant. It was constant. Absolutely great for me. Iowa is now alone in the Big Ten West standing. The loop fickle era is not off to a good start in Madison.

I've been dying to talk about this. Okay, when they hired Luke fickle, brought on Phil Longo. Wisconsin, great hire with Luke Fickle. That was the right move. Completely changing your entire offensive identity is crazy to do when you're Wisconsin and you have like so solidified what you are. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe I think we should do like a little college football head coach deep dive in a couple weeks because another game that happened this weekend was the Spedigull Notre Dame Clemson. And Luke Fickle wasn't of the same coaching carousel as Marcus Freeman and Brett Venables and like Enrily and Brian Kelly, all coaches that have like had real high ups and real low lows as head coaches in the last couple years. But he probably would have been a top candidate for the Notre Dame job head since

and had he not been going to the playoff that year. So that whole turn of events and all of the things that unfolded after the Brian Kelly to LSU and Lincoln Riley to USC Hires, it has been interesting and I don't know if any of those fan bases are happy right now. You could go even further to win Luke Fickle interviewed for the Michigan State job after Mark Dantonio was let go and he didn't go

because he was like, my wife didn't want or something like that. I don't remember the reason. Yeah, weird vibes. He was right about that. He was right. And then like two years later, they put Hitler on the video board that's been a wild ride.

But yeah, so I don't know who's happy in college football other than, I mean, not even Alabama fans right now. So Georgia fans will go with that. They've been downed, so they're not having that. Number two, for real. You're right. They're facing adversity right now and they are facing Ole Miss on Saturday.

The number nine team in the country, Georgia has not let you go to any of their games. And so for that reason and for the Tommy Reese reasons of it all, Tommy Reese is my reason. I'm an Alabama fan now. I don't know what Georgia's problem is respectfully. They just keep saying no over and over and over again. We've gotten like five rejections from them. I'm having a good time. I would shed great light on your university. Oh my God, Oklahoma State. I bet they loved it.

I wish they're a college bar. I could do that for you and Athens, but it's whatever. It's whatever. Athens is a fun little town. I wonder if Athens is fun. It's fun. It's like a million bars. It is weird that everyone wears,

literally the exact same outfit, but you could say that about a lot of schools in the South, so I won't knock them for it. Everyone's got either the black polo and khakis or the red polo and khakis. And they're all Peter Malar and yeah, an advisor. It's pretty much like, it's all pretty much the same. It's very interesting, but Lucy will not be going there.

She's also not going to the Penn State game, which we have already taken Michigan and the points in that one. What else do we have this week? Entenacy and Missouri, that could be a fun one, although I'm not sure how much it will matter in the grand scheme of things. Maybe this is like a New Year six ball type situation that we're playing for here for Mizzou, but I don't know. It's I think it's going to be really fun. I actually have Mizzou, but I don't know. It's, I think it's gonna be really fun. I actually have Mizzou in this one.

I think Tennessee's a little bit on the overrated side. Georgia goes and plays at Tennessee next week too, which we're fingers crossed, trying to get the yes from that one. Rocky top, please come through. I would love to go. But yeah, I think that's a really fun game. I'm really excited.

We're going to Utah at Washington. I think that's going to be super fun. Washington keeps flirting with a loss and Utah is definitely a team that could take advantage of that. It should be really fun. I'm excited. It's going to be a good weekend and then we have I guess two more till the end of the regular season, which I'm going to throw up everywhere I'm so sad. That is really sad. I think what always strikes me is that I'm like always so excited for the final weekend where all the rivalry teams play against one another and then it comes and then it goes

so quickly. And we have got like Thanksgiving Day with the egg bowl. This year also the NFL putting games on Black Friday. Stay off my lawn. That's a college football day. I don't want to watch NFL games after Thanksgiving. That belongs to Iowa and Nebraska. Perfect thing to make you feel sick after Thanksgiving. That's yeah, that sounds disgusting. It will be. I will be digesting my food, watching

Mississippi and Mississippi state do the absolutely most disgusting things you've ever seen on a football field. And that's all I want. I don't want anything else. It delivers every year. We have Oregon, Oregon, state on Friday. This is a sad rubber week because a lot of things are ending. It really is. I damned the TV networks, Lucy. Except for, except for hours, drive games at work. Yes, we love draft the draft Kings Network. You would never ruin college football. What's behind a life electrified? What's lighting up our communities? You would never ruin college football. the newest carbon energy source. Ontario Power Generation is shaping the clean energy future by investing in Ontario and electrifying life every day. See how at opg.com.

Metrolinx and cross links are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Cross Town LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. You hear Dan talk about it all the time. In our fractured media landscape, it feels like there's no place for real journalism,

especially sports journalism anymore. The days of ESPN the magazine and long-form written features like the ones by Dan were basically elevated literature disguised as sport stories. In his place came Netflix, Hagueography, Manufactured PR, and a billion athlete pods. Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say I like the old form. Recently, Dan and Skipper partnered with Wondery and Campside, the two top podcast companies in the game, and they created the new show Sports Explains the World. Sports Explains the World will teleport you back to the golden era of journalism, where long-form lives and storytelling is king. Here's an excerpt of Sports Explains the World.

Before we begin, a quick warning. This episode contains adult content and language and descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised. I wasn't much of an athlete as a kid, but I did play a lot of sports video games. And for me, the appeal of those games was that they gave you this little taste of what it would feel like to be an elite athlete without that pesky lifetime of training or blinding glare of the media spotlight. I could lounge on thick pillows in my mom's basement, wearing mesh shorts and drinking cherry coke, and with a few flicks of my thumbs on a molded plastic controller,

I could soar off the halfpipe and nail a double kick flip. I could sink impossible putts. I could launch 500 foot bombs that cleared the bleachers. And looking back, I think that one of the secrets to the appeal of those games was the athletes they put on the cover of the video game box. Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods, Ken Griffey Jr. on the cover of the video game box. Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods, Ken Griffey Jr. Stars, who maybe weren't the best all-around players in their sport, but who seemed to shine a little brighter

than almost anyone else who played it. They just had this extra wattage, this uncanny cocktail of talent and charisma. They seemed to bend the angle of every slope in their favor. And there have always been athletes like that, since way before video games, players who somehow make you feel like it could be you out there, doing these extraordinary things.

They have so much power over our imaginations. And because of that, it's tempting to believe that they're in control of their own stories. But they aren't. That's what makes it so heartbreaking when their careers don't work out the way we hope, whether they fall from grace or are taken from us too soon. A handsome Olympic skier.

Spider-maski! Everyone look up to spider. Everyone want into be spider. A sexy friend stall it. She was the ciders after get hold of spider, a killing that shook a ritzy resort town. Chances are, if you've heard the name Spider-Sabbage before, it's because of the way he died. In 1976, Savage was shot to death in Aspen, Colorado by his girlfriend, Claudine LaJay. LaJay claimed the shooting was an accident. On the night of Savage's death, Langer said Spider had been showing her how to use a 22 caliber pistol

and that the gun inadvertently discharged in her hand. But the couple had been on the rocks. And after the shooting, rumors swirled that Savage was a playboy who loved female attention. His friends believed Laungette had grown jealous. Now, Savage was a handsome olympic skier, he had been on the cover of GQ, and Laungette was a glamorous former Vegas performer.

She'd been previously married to singer Andy Williams, and had a brief career in Hollywood. So when Laungetet was charged in the shooting and went to trial, National Reporters descended on the tiny yet enchanting Colorado mountain town where she and spider lived. As one journalist gushed,

this story has everything. There's love and hate and sex and glamour and aspen. Wow. love and hate and sex and glamour and aspen. Wow! Meanwhile, in court, crucial evidence was withheld, the result of seeming missteps by the local police and prosecutors. In the end, Launget was convicted of negligent homicide, which is actually a less serious charge than manslaughter. She was sentenced to just 30 days in the Pitkin County jail. After she got out, she never spoke to the media about the incident again. In the wake of the criminal trial, the Savage family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Longé. She denied the allegations, settled out of court, and reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement. So what really happened the night Savage died remains a mystery,

which, naturally, makes it juicy bait for true crime fans. In the decades since the shooting, magazines and TV news shows have rehashed the story over and over again, always asking slightly different versions of the same old question. A hot shot young skier killed by a quote unquote femme fatal, was it an accident or something else? A murder mystery in a star-studded resort town, and a glamour couple in the glare of a scandalous killing. Tonight, on Power, Privilege, and Justice. Well, reporter Gloria Liu thought there might be an even more interesting tale to tell than

the one about Sabuch's death. Namely, the story of his life. Because it turns out, Spider-Sabuch's career also dovetails with a fascinating chapter of skiing history when a group of scrappy Americans tried to create a renegade race tour to rival the Europe-centered World Cup. It also turns out that Sabuch's life held other secrets, in particular a big one, that Sabbage's friends and family kept private for over 45 years. As Gloria would discover, there's even more mystery than we thought when it comes to

Spider-Sabbage. From Wondery and Metal Arc Media, an association with Campside Media, this is Scorts Explains the World. I'm Sam Dingman. This week, reporter Gloria Lu examines the fresh questions that arise when you try to move past an old narrative. Today on the show, spiders will. Park One, downhill.

Walking up to the base of the Gondolin Outs, a powder day, so a lot of people skiing. Nestle deep in the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of 8,000 feet, Aspen is one of the most glamorous, and expensive ski towns in the world. A lot of happy looking skiers and cold looking skiers, it's kind of overcast. It's a place where you can meet a billionaire in a bar,

drop $27,000 on Champagne sprays at lunch, and also ski some of the best and most consistent powder in the country. But Aspen wasn't always a playground for the Uber Rich. In the 1970s, when Spider was here, the town was a kind of Alpine Shangri-La, where young, free-loving ski bumps, cowboys and celebrities all partied it up together. So, why did... What made you want to move to Aspen? I always wanted to live here. I remember the day I drove into this valley.

Me and my girlfriends would leave school on Friday as early as possible. And come up with a weekend and we just couch served and skied every day and party every night and... And I... Dee Dee Brinkman remembers those times. She arrived in Aspen in the 70s and never left. Diddy is a lifelong friend of spiders, and I'm here at her house, hoping to get a better

idea of who he was beyond the headlines. This is my favorite picture of spider. It was probably in the late 60s or early 70s. Diddy's house is up a winding mountain road just outside of town on a five acre hillside lot that she bought for just $28,000 in 1973. Today, Zillow estimates it's worth six and a half million dollars. What do you like about this picture of spider? I don't know, he's just, spider was born a blue-dine charm.

I just like it because he's young and the respect that he was still so naive in a way. And I don't know, there's just something so sweet about it. Dede and Spider were part of what locals now call old Aspen, that cohort of young hippies and ski bums who arrived in the 60s and 70s. As Didy showed us around the house, my producer Cody noticed a poster on the wall. It read Hunter for Sheriff. That'd be Hunter as in Hunter as Thompson, the iconic author, Gonzo journalist, and infamous Aspen local.

Did you download? I didn't have a really well because I live with Bob, brought us to Sheriff for nine years and he was Hunter's best friend. So we spent a lot of nights and days at Hunter's, um, terrifying, really. I still live to tell stories. Cody and I are dying to hear these stories, but our questions will have to wait. We're here to talk about Spider. Didian Spider go way back to well before their time in Aspen.

She grew up ski racing with him in Northern California, and she tells me about the tiny town of Kibers where he grew up. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. It's a post office and a gas station and it's in the wilderness. Spiders kindergarten through eighth grade years were spent in a one-room school house, where a single teacher taught all the kids. Tranny, Spiders mom, was the post mistress and I think they were like 18 boxes, you know, in the post office. And their dad was highly patrolman, flat.

DD was six or seven when she started ski racing at Adelvice, a little hill near South Lake Tahoe. That's where she met Spider and his siblings, older sister Mary and younger brother Steve, who everyone called Pinkie. The Savage family apparently loved nicknames. Spider's birth name is Vladimir, after his dad. But he got his nickname for the gangly limbs he had as a premature baby, and it stuck.

Pinky was bright pink when he was born. The kids were on a local California teen together called the blue hornets. They all skewed in these thick cotton smocks. And these are the jerseys all of us had. Can I feel this? These are caught in resistance at all. No. They're just like cotton, right? The families drove to far away spots like mammoth and yosemite for races. Spiders' parents worked a lot, so he often rode to races with DD and her dad in their old Pontiac.

What was Spider like when he as a kid? You know, he was just kind of, he wasn't as tantal when he was little because he had these long arms and legs and he was kind of like alt- teeth and big ears and a goopy haircut. The kids loved to ski and be outdoors and they had fun on and off the hill. It's Friday night and Pinky Water ski together in the summer.

We lived on the lake and they brought their boat up and I used to go bird hunting. You know I was pretty much the tomboy and I'm getting trouble with the rest of them. We'd throw cherry bombs down the toilets of, I mean, why I don't know, but that was kind of our favorite thing to do.