The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - 10/19/17 - Reggie Bush & Matt Leinart + Notre Dame's case

Episode Date: October 19, 2017

Joel Klatt dives into his updated Top 10, while making a strong case for the Irish. Plus, Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart are here to relive some of their greatest moments at USC, and give a reflection of their famous victory over Notre Dame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, hey, welcome to Breaking the Huddle. I'm Joel Clatt with you every single Wednesday. This show is sponsored by Dr. Pepper, one because it's delicious. And at every tailgate and home gate, it is the one fan's crave, which is why I crave it right now. I'm getting a call right now, and I don't really care to answer this person's call, so I'm going to mute my phone. Thank you very much. Hey, I appreciate you joining us here on Facebook. A lot of good, fun stuff to talk about.

Huge show. After I get to my top 10, we've got Reggie. Bush and Matt Leinert in the house. So we're going to have a chat with them, some really cool stories we hope to get to about their USC D.C. Days, in particular with that USC Notre Dame game. So we'll talk about the Bush push. I'm sure we'll get to that. This show is always better if and when you participate at home. So share this show with your friends, get your friends involved, and then give me the snarkiest stuff about, hey, I hate your shirt, which would make you a bad person because it's October. That's why I'm wearing pink. But regardless, if you're a bad

person, that's fine, send something snarky, and we'll get to all your comments. As I'm getting this top 10 going, I want your thoughts. They're probably wrong, but whatever. I want your thoughts. We're going to get to them. It'll be a lot of fun because remember, this show is as good as you want to make it and as interactive as you want to make it. Let's get into it here, real quick. It's so good when it hits your lips. You know it and I know it. Dr. Pepper is tremendous. All right, top 10 this week. What is it? Week 8? It is week 8. Here we go. Oh, you. you're at number 10. Sneak back into the top 10.

All those losses up there ahead of you, like Auburns certainly helped owe you out. Listen, I've got OU this week. I'm headed to Kansas State as they take on the Wildcats. I think they're probably better than Kansas State, but here's what makes me a little bit nervous about Oklahoma. Oklahoma is a team right now that has held double-digit leads in three straight games and yet has trailed in all three of those games in the fourth quarter. That's not a great trend, right? That's something that they've got to change,

and in particular on the defensive side of things. The past defense has got to get great. You're not going to have Baker Mayfield all the time be able to bail you out. And in fact, in one of those, he was unable to bail him out, and they lost to Iowa State. So there's some things that they're going to have to fix.

There's no question about it. What are the positives? Mayfield. Mayfield, you've got Trey Sermin, the true freshman running back, CD Lamb, the true freshman wide receiver. I think he's a great player. Mayfield is set in the world on fire.

He's got a 207 rating. He just set the record, the NCAA record a year ago, and in the 190s so he could top that. He's also leading the country and completion percentage. Let's move on because a team that I'm really high on, that not many other people are really high on, and I don't know why, because their one loss was by one point to what I think is the second best team in the country,

and all they do is run the ball for 308 yards per game. Notre Dame AP voters What are you doing? Like, seriously, do you watch football or do you just go to bed constantly? Oh, we've got wrong Velcro and wrong Velcro. That's all right.

We're just going to put it right there. What are you doing, AP voters? Are you serious? Notre Dame is really good. Wimbush, when he's healthy and let's hope he's healthy to play against USC this week, is a very good quarterback. He takes care of the football for the most part.

offensive lines, one of the better offensive lines in all of college football. They're playing pretty good defense. And oh, by the way, Josh Adams is a heck of a back, a power back that he's fast. They get some big runs. I love Notre Dame. I love what they're doing right now. Yeah, I don't know why they're not getting the love. I really don't. Okay, let's move on to number eight. Do we have it? Yep, we've got the right Velcro. Fantastic. Boom, boom, boom. Oklahoma State is at number eight. You might be asking, well, why are they ahead of Oklahoma? Oh, where are they? The reason that the AP, this is my problem with the AP poll.

I voted in it for one year, and I realized how ill-informed most of the AP voters were. And so I got out of it. I think that the AP poll is a joke. I think there are some voters that try to do a really nice job, but then there are others that are just all brand-based. They don't really watch what's going on. First of all, Oklahoma State's loss is way better than Oklahoma's. Okay?

They also are better and more efficient than Notre Dame in particular offensively. So that's why I have the order that I do. There is rhyme or reason here. This is the number one total offense in the country. Oklahoma State. Mason Rudolph is a quarterback that's wrong for 394 yards. That's the number one in the country. He's leading the country in that category.

He's leading the country when it comes to completion yards per completion. That's going to be a tough team to beat. In fact, if I had to lay money on who I think is going to win the Big 12, I think it's going to be Oklahoma State. TCU fans, you might be upset at that. I think you're going to rematch against Oklahoma State in Dallas, and I don't know if you want to rematch, because they're not going to play as poorly a game as they did against you at home

when you beat them, and we'll see how the chips fall at that point. All right, let's move on. Now that I sufficiently made everyone in the Big 12 outside of Oklahoma State fans angry. Clemson is at number seven. I thought this was generous because of the Syracuse loss. I'm giving you credit for winning the national championship a year ago. I'm giving you credit because a lot of that game was played with essentially your backup quarterback after Kelly Bryant went down. We knew he was battling the ankle injury going down.

He gets kind of banged up as far as the head injury is concerned. So Clemson sits there at number seven. A couple of things that I do really like about Clemson is the fact that their defense is so athletic up front. front. That's going to pay dividends down the stretch. If, if, and this is the big if, if they play with effort. Now, I wanted to get to that because I thought they gave such poor effort against Syracuse. Dabo touched on it, and he knows this. Listen, he's a great coach. I think Dabo Sweeney's is one of the better coaches in America. And he understands that if you give as poor effort as what you give against Syracuse, they're going to beat you, and that's what happened. So give a lot

credit to Dino Babers. I thought he did a great job, getting his team ready to play. But, yeah, That's going to be the number 17 of the country. I'm going to go with undefeated Wisconsin at 6. Okay? So the reason that I've got Wisconsin right there is because I'm still a little uneasy about their ability to throw the ball with Alex Hornibrook. We've seen them throw the ball really efficiently at times, and then we've seen them struggle at times.

We know they can run it. Jonathan Taylor is one of the best backs in the country. Whether you're talking about freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, it doesn't matter. This guy is really, really. good. I love what they do on defense. Their fifth in the country, giving up only 13.3, roughly, points per game. Jim Leonard, their coordinator, I say it every single week. He's the name I bring up. Paul Chris, Jim Leonard, they're well coached. They're going to be there in the end. It won't shock me at all if they're undefeated playing in the Big Ten championship game.

So they're going to be sitting there at number six. Down the road, their toughest game of the regular season is likely going to be when they host Michigan. So keep your eye on that. All right, here we Not going to be happy, are you? Not going to be happy. Trust me, I heard it on Twitter ever since I released this. TCU at number five. Frog fans, I love you. I really do.

I love what you've been able to do this year. That win at Oklahoma State is one of the two, three best wins in college football so far. I think that the best win was Oklahoma at Ohio State. And TCU at Oklahoma State is probably the next. because that's a big, you know, like contender versus contender. Clearly Syracuse beating Clemson, that's a big win for them. Cowell beating Washington State, Arizona State beating Washington.

Those are big wins. But when you're talking about contender versus contender, big wins, OU of Ohio State, TCU over Oklahoma State, those were huge. TCU, their defense held Kansas State to 216 yards last week in a weird game that had a couple of different lightning delays. They held Kansas State to only 10 first down. So their defense for Gary Patterson playing really well. I'm a big fan of what Kenny Hill has been doing this year.

He's improved. If you look at what Kenny Hill has been over the course of his career, he's improved in almost every single statistical category, and that's good. And namely, he doesn't turn the ball over quite as often as he used to. All right, so here's the controversial one. So I've got Notre Dame in the top 10, which not many people do. And then I've got Ohio State in the top four. Now, I've seen Ohio State back-to-back weeks.

It's a damn good football team. Like, I get it. There's some of you in your maize and blue pajamas or, you know, like, I get it. You don't like Ohio State. They're a team kind of like the Yankees that everybody else loves to hate, right? I understand that. Alabama and Ohio State are going to get the majority of the hate out there when it comes to the entrant web and net.

But if you actually watch the games, that team is. is playing as well as anybody in the country. I would argue that they're right now playing as efficient as Alabama is. They are not quite as good on special teams, but offensively, they've scored 50 points in four straight games. Defensively, they just got out of a stretch where they held the opponent under 100 yards passing in four straight games. You might look at Nebraska throwing the ball for over 300 yards and be like, whoa, they

gave up 300 yards to Nebraska throwing the football. was mostly, if not all, garbage time yardage. I mean, they were sensational. They scored touchdowns on eight straight possessions. J.T. Barrett accounts for seven touchdowns. He had six incompletions in the entire game. Ohio State is for real. I'm just telling you nobody is going to want to line up against them and play them. And the team that's going to have to do that after they play Michigan is my number three team, Penn State. So Penn State is number three. That's not a great resume. Let's just call it what it is. Penn State fans love to hate on me right now, but it's just not a great resume.

I would favor Ohio State over Penn State. You're very lucky that I did not put Ohio State above Penn State because your offensive line has been average at best. Trace McSorley has kind of been a greater racer for that offensive line. You've got Sequin Barkley, and he's only run for 100 yards in two of your games. just get in the way of people up front, and he's going to run for 100 yards. Literally, just get in the way.

You don't even have to block him. Like, screen them, like it's basketball. Just walk around like this and screen guys, and he's going to run for 100 yards. So I like Penn State. I love their defense. I really do. Jason Cabinda is a great player at the linebacker position.

Barkley is amazing. the guys obviously they're leading rusher. Did you know he's also their leading receiver with 29 catches? And they're having to do that. They're having to throw the ball to him. They're having to put him back on the kickoff return. I believe, and this is not from Coach Franklin, but I believe it's because the offensive line is so bad.

You see, if he was going to affect the game to the tune of 200 yards rushing per game, giving it to him 15 or 20 times, which he's very capable of, let's put that out there. He's very capable of it. If he could do that, then that's where they would get him his, touches, but because they're so bad on the offensive line right now, they have to find other ways to get him the ball so that he can affect the game positively in their direction. So they throw it to him, 29 catches leads the team, and they've got him back on kick returns, and he's affected

the game positively in both of those areas. I love Sequin Barclay. He right now would be my number two for the Heisman Trophy. Okay, let's get to the top two teams in the country. Georgia, UGA fans. Now, I know I made the switch last week on the show, and I put Georgia at number one and it was very dramatic. The fact of the matter is is that Alabama is just so balanced, right? They just do not have an off day. Remember that was coming on the heels that Bama had only the, what was it, an eight point win, seven point win over Texas A&M.

I was feeling like, yeah, you know, Georgia's going to get some love. Listen, number two in the country, take it, Georgia fans. You cannot be unhappy with Georgia at number two. Again, this is where the AP poll voters, they're just moving a team up and up and up. So Penn State for the AP poll is in the number two position. Their resume, their eye test, none of it is better than Georgia. Georgia is so much clearly a better football team than Penn State, and it's easy to see. They've got a better win on their resume.

They're dominating teams to a greater degree on their resume. All of those different things. This is a team right now in Georgia that has a true freshman quarterback that's thrown for 62 percent, nine yards per attempt, 12 touchdowns, three interceptions, and he's sixth in the country and pass her efficiency rating. That's on their offensive side. By the way, they've scored 40 or more points four times this year. They didn't do it once last year.

They just hung 50 last week. Their eighth in time of possession. Fifth and third down conversions. They had over 320 yards passing and 350 yards rushing last week. They're very balanced. All of that is on top of the fact that they've got one of the better defenses in the country. They are not going anywhere. That is likely going to be a one-vers-two SEC championship game with both teams being

undefeated. And we'll see the way that that plays out, they both might get into the playoffs, and they both might deserve to get into the playoffs. We'll see what happens around the rest of the country. And number one, Alabama. Did you know that they're 33 and 1 in their last 34 games? That is stupid. As in good, right? Because I know you need to clarify for some of you. Like stupid good. Bama is balanced. That only loss was obviously Clemson in the national championship game. during that stretch. So 34 games, and 19 times they've held their opponent to 10 or fewer points, eight times in the last 34 to three or less.

That's insane. That's the most balanced team in America. That's the best roster in America. That's probably the best coach in America. Damien Harris is running like a madman. nine touchdowns averaging just over nine yards of carry. By the way, Hertz is playing his best football. He gets better and better every single week.

I love what Brian Dayball, the new offensive coordinator, is doing with Alabama. So there it is. Bama, Georgia, Penn State, you're lucky Penn State. I didn't move this. I want to so bad. Not to spite you, but to spite you. You know what I mean. Ohio State 4, TCU, Wisconsin, Clemson, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame

with the wrong. Velcro and OU. That's it. That's the top 10. So let's get to some of your comments because I'm sure they were golden. I would love to get to them and here we go. Here's a couple of them. Let's okay. Somebody read it out. Right off. Let's start with how Ohio State sucks with an X from David. Way to go. I just love the fact that in this time of like conservation and energy conservation, you go with an X rather than the CKS. So well done. Economy of letters and a tweet.

I love it. What else did it say? Right off. Let's start with how Ohio State sucks from David. I just love it. Ohio State is like so good. And like I'm picturing you, let's all picture David. Okay?

David lives, oh, what do we think? Like, do we think in Ann Arbor or just in some other place in Michigan? Let's all do Michigan. Remember, anybody that knows anybody? from Michigan, they put up their hand and they're like, okay, I'm from, and like right here is Ann Arbor and like here is Lansing, you got the like the upper peninsula. Where do you think David is from? David is from like right here probably. So like there's some Notre Dame affiliation which is just South New Chicago's right around like, what is this, Michigan? I don't know.

So David's from right over here and he's just like, he just hates Ohio State, right? He doesn't really know if he's a Michigan fan or if he's a Notre Dame fan, but he knows. Josie hates Ohio State. The fact of the matter is, though, David, you are wrong. All right? Those facts just don't add up. I laid them out for you, and I told you all the stats about Ohio State, what they're doing, what they have been doing. And this will be proven out.

I'll go on a limb that say that Ohio State's going to go to the playoff and they're going to be a 12-1 Big Ten champ. Just a guess. You've got more Ohio State hate. Oh, I'm sure. Everyone loves to hate on Ohio State. I guess beating teams like UNLV, Army Pitt, and FCS schools make you a quality team from Robert. FCS schools, I'm struggling. What was the FCS school? There was no FCS school.

Don't you bring your alternative facts to me? What do you think this is? Some sort of joint session of Congress? Unbelievable. Yeah, listen, I understand that their schedule hasn't been great, but was so. Syracuse a tough game? What about Cal? What about Arizona State? What about LSU after they lost to Troy? Those tough games? Schedule builders? Like momentum builders? See, here's the thing that I can't stand about comments like this is the fact that you don't give credit to teams that are, let's say, average teams for playing up in certain games. Did you know that Ohio State, Bama, Oklahoma,

types of teams, they get everybody's best shot. It's everybody's Super Bowl when they play Ohio State. And so when Ohio State goes out and throttles those teams and actually takes care of business, which, by the way, Clemson couldn't, they don't get any credit. Who did they play? Well, they just played Nebraska, by the way, and tied them for all-time wins at like 892, I believe the number is. If you Google it, you'll probably see that I'm right. I do it for a living. They just throttled them, scored on eight straight drives. The score wasn't even as close as what the 50 plus to 14. I mean, what do you want them to do?

They've got a game in front of them. They go out and they handle it. Just like Washington couldn't and Washington State couldn't and Auburn couldn't and Clemson couldn't. So let's start giving credit for teams to actually go out there and win games. By the way, how's the Iowa State? They have schedule builder? Is that the one you want to schedule? Yeah, that's right.

Oh, you lost to them. See, you're making me take shots at teams that I don't want to take shots out. I almost said screw you. But I didn't, but I kind of did. Notre Dame is on here. This is where I leave because this dude has no credibility from Harry. No credibility, none whatsoever. Only the fact that Notre Dame's only loss is to the second best team in America by a point.

Like Harry, I don't, like I don't, what do you mean? No credibility. What did you want Notre Dame to do? do. They beat Michigan State, who beat Michigan, right? I mean, they beat Boston College, who just beat Louisville. Like, I, what, I'm sorry? Oh, what was that? I'm sorry? Oh, that's right. You're calling yourself an idiot? Yeah, well, you should, because this is stupid. This is just stupid. But congratulations, you send in the worst comment of the day. No credibility from Harry. Unbelievable. Hey, here's what I can't wait to get to.

I'm going to drink a little more Dr. Pepper, and then we're going to welcome in Reggie Bush and Matt Liner. Let's have a little story time. What do you think, huh? All right, nice treat here because obviously USC's got a huge game against Notre Dame and a couple of guys that played pretty well in that rivalry for a few years sitting here. We're always with Matt, so he's not special today. Reggie Bush joins us. We got a couple of Heisman trophies now on the set. We got one. We got one. I was making sure you have one back here. Yeah, we got it. There it is. We didn't get around. There it is.

There it is. Oh, it's up there. Yeah. This week has got to bring back a lot of memories for you guys, I'm sure, because of that epic game. I mean, I'm sure between the Texas game for the national championship and then the Notre Dame game, that's got to be the game you guys get asked about the most, right? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Right? Yeah, it is for sure. And you guys, the Bush push. So, I mean, you know, so cliche. It's legal now. It is legal now. It is legal then, too. Take us through it. Our colleague, Brady Quinn, it. just has not.

Matter of fact, we're Brady Quinn. Yeah, exactly. He can't get over it. He's so sour. He's so sour. Take me through that last drive, okay? Because you guys are down. Basically, it's all on the line, right?

Because this is the BCS. If you lose, there's no guarantees you're going to get in the national championship game. You're going for a third straight national championship. That's all there is. That's the only reason you come back. And then you're kind of stuck in this dog fight down in the fourth quarter. You take the field. What do you guys remember about that?

drive? Well, I remember the fourth and 12. What was it? Fourth and 15? Fourth and nine. Fourth and nine. I remember thinking at that point, like, I mean, it's probably, this is it. This is probably it. And, you know, it's just fourth and nine. Obviously, it's just so hard to convert. I mean, I don't even know what the percentages of the chances of converting that, but it has to be like five percent. And then were you on the field? I was on the field. Yeah, I was on the field. So I forget I either had a checkdown or a burst route. And I just remember when Matt threw the ball, and I turned around, and I saw DJ catch it and then take off running it. And I thought the game was over, but obviously he's not that fast. The grass was high, and he's not fast. Yeah, he's grass.

But the play, it was, it was, there's a couple of plays that always stand out, third and 20, which we did a check down to Reg, and he got, he made a guy miss, and he got 12, or 11, obviously. So that was because we were. To even give you a chance at fourth of that. Pete was like, hey, check the ball down, give it to Reg, get 10, get half back, and. make it manageable. Fourth and ten is manageable. You know, sometimes. And fourth and nine, that was a play. And then I remember when DJ caught it, I was like looking at the sideline. I was immediately thinking, one, don't score because there's too much time left. And he slows that anyway. Love you doing, but it's slow. And then just to kind of settle down and say, we had plenty of time.

We had over a minute. And then another play in that drive that people forget, it was like third and four on the in the 10-yard line. And he got a first down, which was huge. It was just a play and I remember he mowed someone over just to get to move the chains because move the chain stops the clock we can regroup and all that that was a big play I don't think it stopped the clock back then did it no it stopped the first down yeah to redo and then once we first down did but then it's no no the first down for us at least to get settled because we weren't like and then you spiked it on first if I'm no I that's the one where I went oh you and then you're out of balance speaking enough fast right Reggie the Reggie knows I'm a good app I'm a good app you are you are

I looked like a horrible athlete. I only had to do is jump two more inches over him. I would have scored a touch date. And it would have been a much, like, cooler play, you know, like instead of me just getting my butt pushed in. You may or may not have looked like a baby deer on ice. Dude, that looked so bad. I fumbled.

I mean, my God. It all worked out. It did. Okay, then the bush push. Like, what's, do you know, like, okay, you're going to sneak it? Do you know I'm just going to shove him into the end zone? Well, no, at the time. I had said something to him.

That was the thing, as I said, because it was all disarrated. No, we were, the line. men were up. It was all kind of disarray. And like, I was looking at Pete and I just went like this because that was our sign for me to spike. Or it was a built-in quarterback wedge or spike. But then they were all there. And I remember it was people were just kind of getting their bearings that everyone rushed the field after that. So we had time. So I remember going to Reggie. I'm like, I just was like, dude, I just was like, dude, I just was like, what are you going to do? He said, I think him was going to sneak it. I didn't. Dude, I was like, all right. And then he's like, all right, got whatever. And

And then he kind of snuck up a little bit. You can kind of just see he creeped up. I was just going to do whatever it was necessary. Yeah. And it actually turned out perfectly because I kind of spun like right to where he was. Yeah. He got, so he hiked the ball, he got knocked back initially. And then.

That's because I didn't have a lot of legs. That's all right. That baby deer. He got knocked back initially almost to me. And I just, and then he rolled left. And then I just gave him to that. To my defense. It was about eight guys right.

I was. And I didn't forget, Tom Zibakowski, who was a good player, the safety. He was literally waiting for me. He knew. Like, he knew. And I was like, I'm coming, dude. So, oh, man, it was such a, it was crazy. I remember after that game, just being emotionally drained.

Yeah, I bet. I was, that was the most. That year had to be draining. I've ever been. I've ever been after a football game. Just, I remember leading up to the game, we usually always went to Notre Dame two days before because of the time difference. We pull up to the stadium. We usually do a walk through.

We went straight from the airport to the stadium. We'll pull up in the middle of their pep rally. So the little leprechaun is up there leading the freaking sea of green people. They were pushing our bus. They were shaking our bus. We pulled up. This is Friday. This was Thursday.

Thursday. They normally weren't like, like, it wasn't like Notre Dame. They're not like a real crazy crowd. I don't think that game was. But it wasn't like, you know, it just wasn't like a super home field. We walk in, we do our, I mean, but there were thousands of people greeting us signs. I remember. It was actually cool.

I was like, okay, this is going to be like the real deal. I think they had Joe Montana. Someone came and spoke at the pep rally. Their pep rally. So that's the game this week, USC Notre Dame. It's got to be nice for you guys to see USC back winning the Rose Bowl last year. Sam had a great year. And then this year, even though they haven't played their best and they got beat by Washington State,

this game this week with Notre Dame seems to have more juice than it has in a long time. Because both teams are, they've got a lot on. the line. I think that's what makes this game great. The rivalry is always good, but it's better when both teams are playing for something. So when we played against them, it was always for something because of BCS, but they were ranked too. They were a top 10 team a couple years in a row. And that game was always in November, so it was always a big game. So that's what this feels like, because Notre Dame is very much alive in this thing because their schedule is brutal. If they went out, I mean, it would be hard to argue them not into it. And then as up and down as USC has been,

the tough part of their schedules out of the way is after this game, you know. So, and they still have an opportunity. I think a one-lost Pack 12 U.S.C. team may get into the playoff because of the name and their, you know, their non-conference wins. Matt and I before the year, you know, we just look at quarterbacks. So we're like, man, this is the year of the quarterback, for sure, you know, or list them all off, ranking them all this stuff. Now all of a sudden, man, the running backs are dominating this season in college football.

Sequan Barkley, Bryce Love at Stanford. Coming off a couple of years where Christian McCaffrey was doing very Reggie Bush-like things in the PAC-12. USC's got a couple of great backs. I'm sure you've seen Ronald and Stephen. Run the ball. We got to run the ball more. I mean, listen, I love Matt Bart. Matt Barkley.

Sorry. San Arnold. I don't even know where that came from that. Matt Barclay, at least you could have said, you know, liners were like booty or something. Well, Matt Barclay is the all-time passing leader at USC. I love Sam Donald. I'm sorry. Can we talk about Ronald Donald?

I know. I'm sorry. I had to. I have to. Ronald Jones reminds me to you. Yeah. I like what the backs bring to the game, man. They're tough.

They're fast, life's explosive. And I think Sam Donald is great in what he brings to the team. Obviously, I love his full work in the pocket. He's his escapeability is really good. Second to none. He has a strong arm. I think they're putting a little bit too much pressure on him.

with his arm with his arms to throw the football he's still young as we can see he still makes some mistakes but granted i've seen him make some throws that i've seen oh yeah i've played with nfl quarterbacks that i know can't make those throws so i think they got to run the ball a little bit more to take the pressure up with him early you know give some easy stuff some boots and some you know some naked stuff like that but you know as the game progresses and it gets more more confident than allow him to stretch the ball down the field but you know we got two great running backs and a really good offensive line that can I can block. I'm interested just sitting here with you guys, because you guys were the only

teammates ever to play a college football game as Heisman winners. Yeah. You know, like, did you, it's crazy, right? It's just, yeah, yeah, have you ever, like, did you realize it at the time, like, how unique it was or how special it was? And since then, what has it been now, 10 years, 11 years? Have you reflected on that time and what it was like to play together and on that team? At the time, you know, we were just enjoying just being around our team, our guys. The culture that we built within that team was unlike any culture. Even in NFL, I've never experienced that. Even a year we won the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the culture, it's just a little bit different, right?

Because there's so many different dynamics that go into the professional level. But, you know, at the college level, I mean, we were just, it just seemed like we were all like brothers, right? We were all like one big family, and I know it sounds cliche, but that's a lot of college level. really how it was like even to this day a lot of those guys from the team a lot of the coaches guys are still some of my best friends that i talked to that that text chat that text chain that i was on the text chain for three days and i was advised to get off of it because it's horrible but it's awesome but to reggie's point so yeah they're like in his point like i think when you're living in the moment we were young man yeah i'm so young like and now when we're kings of los angeles right

Not a now, that's when it, like, gives me goosebumps to talk about it because it's like, damn, we were like part of history. But living it, it was like, it was normal. Yeah. Which is strange, but it was our norm. You guys were bigger, to put it into, like, if you're a kid watching and you're 18 or 16 or 18 years old, these two guys were bigger in Los Angeles than what Yossiel Pueig is right now. I'm serious. Like, that's, you guys were the entity in L.A. It was wild.

with we're getting older. Reg is still like, because I'll spend some time at USC with these guys. Like he, the players now are 18 to 20, 21 still like, I'm old. So they don't remember me, which is fine. They still like, oh, Reggie, you play with Reggie Bush. Right. Like even like my son, Cole, who's 11, his friends remember, I mean, they don't remember. His parents told them.

But like this, the name is, I mean, it's like, it's going to live on. I mean, it sounds kind of dumb, but it's true. It's very cool. Yeah, it's so cool. I've got a real quick story. about Reggie, because this is my only tie. I know this story. This is a great story.

Reggie is what, third pick? Second pick. Second pick in the draft in 2006. I was a senior in 05, I don't know, right? I was a senior in 05 with these guys. You weren't a senior, you were a junior, but we all come out together. I was just an undrafted free agent, right? So just trying, so I went to Detroit, and then I'm going to go to the New Orleans Saints rookie minicamp without a contract.

And so they buy me a plane ticket and they're. everything and that's great. And I get on in Denver and Reggie has connected in Denver and is going to fly down to New Orleans. So Reggie's sitting in first class and I'm like, oh, there's Reggie Bush. I'm walking back to like 37B. And so we get to the airport. Yeah, we get to the airport in New Orleans. And like he's just down at baggage claim. And finally I'm sitting at baggage claim and like he just kind of like rolls me his bag. And I was like, no, I'll take his bag. And we just like walked out to the car. He didn't realize that I was going to play as well. Hey, this has been brought to you by Dr. Pepper.

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