The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Bracing for a wild Spring Transfer Portal and Takeaways from Ohio State’s Spring Game

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Fox Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt explains why the upcoming Spring Transfer Portal has college football coaches around the country in a panic. He details why the lack of guidelines around transfers has caused this Portal window to become a leverage point for players. Klatt lays out his solutions to solve this unsustainable model for the good of the sport, its programs and its players. Joel then recaps his time at Ohio State this past week, including the buzz surrounding #1 overall recruit WR Jeremiah Smith. He also gives his takeaways from the Spring Game on FOX and his early thoughts on the Buckeyes in 2024. Klatt wraps up the podcast by answering mailbag questions including the story of when he and Dan Orlovsky faced off on the baseball diamond while at Detroit Lions training camp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The coaches are in a full panic, a full panic about the spring transfer window. And it's not just one. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football. It was one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. Hey, welcome into the program, everybody.

I'm Joel Clatt. This is the Joel Clatt Show. and I am excited to be back with you here today. Big show for you today. We're going to talk about this spring transfer portal in college football. I was at Ohio State for the spring game. I'll touch you on that. We got a little mailbag edition of the show,

so I'll hit some mailbag questions at the end of the show. That's all coming up. Remember to follow us, subscribe, wherever you're listening. Make sure to do that. Make sure to subscribe on the YouTube channel. Remember we've got exclusives out there, including our drop from last week, our exclusive on YouTube, which is our breakdown of my top six quarterbacks in the NFL draft.

I've got video there. So go check that out. Leave comments on YouTube. I love to jump in there. And then follow us on social media. At Joel Clat Show, wherever you like to social, we are there. And all of our content is there as well. Let's jump into it real quick because we've got a lot to cover today.

We've got a lot going on. And I've got a new lid here in honor of the Masters. That's right. This is my new Masters hat right here. I will tell you where to get it at the end of the show. It is a hat that you can go get yourselves. It's not like the Rose Bowl hat. It's not a full cut.

You can go get this one. I'll tell you where at the end of the show. The spring transfer portal opens on Tuesday in college football. Tuesday, April 16th, this thing kicks off and is open for 15 days. And at the end of this, April 30th, that's kind of the point of demarcation. And Brady and Coach Meyer and I were talking about it during the course of Ohio State Spring game last week. Players can enter this at any point. And as we know, there are very little, if any, parameters on transfers, number of transfers.

So let me just start with this. Coaches around college football, and I've been talking with coaches all offseason, whether it's been texting them, calling them, traveling and visiting them. I've been to Texas, I've been to Colorado, I've been to Ohio State, I'm going to go to Michigan next week. I'm going to go to Oregon and May. I've been to a lot of places. We've got spring meetings coming up. I've talked with everybody. And at no point during the course of the last couple of years, have I sensed the level of panic that I'm starting to hear from coaches about this spring transfer portal period? And I think it's indicative of where we're at, and in particular with the fact that the NCAA has given notice to the schools and to the programs that they are just not going to enforce even current on the book's rules.

They're just not going to do it based in large part due to the fact that the rules that they tried to enforce or against Tennessee, which we talked about a few months ago, Tennessee turned around and said, hey, what are you doing? trying to penalize us. Everybody's doing it. Everybody was right, by the way, in that. Tennessee was correct. Everyone was doing it. You can't just penalize us and target us. And the NCAA was right because, yes, technically, all of these things fall under existing rules and are technically against those existing rules. So what did the NCAA do? They're like, well, we don't want any more litigation, so have at it. And they threw their hands up like they've done with everything. And they've basically said, we're not going to, do anything. And at this point, this spring transfer window is going to be a free-for-all. If in the past, in the last year, like last year, let's just give an example, last year in the spring transfer window, it was more in line with guys that lost position battles in spring ball

would maybe try to go find a new place to play. So last year at this moment, coaches were actually, I would just say, like, not that excited about the spring window because they thought to themselves, you know, there's just not going to be a lot of great players in there. We're not going to transform our roster, even if we have an area of need. Maybe we'll go get somebody if it's an area of need, but it's not going to be anybody that's like super impactful. All right. Okay. So that was their thought before the spring transfer portal window last year. This year it's become something totally different.

And it lies in the vein of the NCAA throwing their hands up and creating this atmosphere where it's no longer a one-time transfer, where everyone can transfer, basically unlimited times. And here's what it's become. Any transfer portal opening up, any window that we have in the transfer portal, becomes a leverage point for players. It is free agency for every single player, every single player, every single. transfer portal window. So now the coaches are in a full panic, a full panic about the spring transfer window. And it's not just one. There's a lot of schools worried about a lot of players on their teams. They feel like trying to retain their own roster becomes like another bout of free agency. Because even guys that are getting NIL deals and healthy ones at their school

can and are and will come up to them in the next week. say, hey, I want more money, or I'm going to go over here because this school's offering me that. And the maddening part about that is that that is illegal. You can't have an inducement. There can't be tampering. And yet, that's running rampant right now. And because of that, every player is a free agent over the next 15 days starting on Tuesday. That's terrifying for coaches. It's totally terrifying for coaches. And you can see why. You can absolutely see why. You can absolutely see why. And so as opposed to last year when this window wasn't a lot of fireworks and wasn't all that exciting, I feel that the next 15 days, we could have some transformative names jump into the

transfer portal and change the balance of power and some conferences and maybe even in the country in terms of what we think of these teams and how we will rank them in the preseason going into the fall of 2024. That's interesting to me. That's incredibly interesting. thing to me. I don't know who it's going to be, but I guarantee you there's a big name or two. And the reason is, is that it's a leverage point for the players. So listen, do I blame the players for using this leverage point? No, it's a tool in their toolbox. Okay? And I've said this for a long time. I do not ever disparage someone that's trying to earn more money for their services. I just don't.

You know, like people move networks, people, coaches move from school to school. And it's like, hey, like, you're going to do that. I don't care when the PGA Tour guys jump to live golf. It's like, all right. Like, that's a decision that you have to make, okay? That's a decision that you have to make. I'm not going to disparage guys that take advantage of those opportunities. Now, I'm also not going to call guys crazy if they don't, right?

I'm not going to sit there and do either of those things. I think these are very personal decisions. Now, where does that leave us in the broader scope of where we're at in college football? Well, can we just for a moment pause and think to ourselves like how hypocritical and crazy it is to have a transfer portal open up on April 16th? Okay. In one sense, the NCAA, if we're going to pound on them, and I could just say like this industry as a whole, because the college football playoff people do this and athletic directors do this. all the time. They talk about December as this holy month that they have to protect because of

academics. We can't move the playoff up near the regular season. These kids have finals. What are we talking about? Even though every other sport plays right through their post seasons and travels right through their post seasons right during the finals time. So it's always been a lie. But this really lays it bare for all of us to see. Because what hasn't happened April 16th? Anyone? Anyone? We haven't concluded the semester. And yet it doesn't matter now. Does it? Does it? No. And so in both the December transfer portal window and here in the spring transfer portal window, we've got this window open before guys are even concluding those semesters. Academics have always been. Academics have always been second fiddle, and this lays it bare for everyone to see. All right. So April 16th,

that's a, that's a random spot because what, we need to be done by April 30th? Well, guess what's not also finished by April 16th across the country? Spring football. So here we are again, for the second time. We have two transfer portal windows, and in both of the windows, we open up the transfer portal while teams are still trying to practice. What are we doing? that is crazy. That is crazy. The portal should not open up until everybody's spring concludes. Now, if you want to put a point of demarcation,

and I understand every school kind of chooses when they play spring football, so are some of these programs to blame if their spring ball bleeds over the April 16th transfer portal window opening up? Yeah, sure. You could blame those schools. But why not get on the same page? What are we? One, do we need 15 days? No. Does it need to be open April 16th? No. We've got some teams like Michigan, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Texas, Oregon, USC, Florida State haven't even finished spring ball yet. Colorado's spring game is two weeks away.

You know, meanwhile, like Ohio State is finished and some other schools have finished. So now those kids know whether they've won or lost a position battle in some cases. And so they can use the transfer portal for opportunity. Now, these other schools that have not concluded their spring practice, you're creating this incredible sense of FOMO in these players because if they're sensing that they're losing a position battle, they might be looking out there and thinking to themselves, well, I need to get into the transfer portal right now because remember, this is like a game of musical chairs. You don't want to be the one without a seat, without a spot, without a scholarship, without a starting opportunity when the music stops playing. So what are we doing? Like the system sucks. You've got to change it and be somebody, be smarter than what's going on. This has got to be fixed. It's not good for the players.

They don't know what seats are opening up. They can't be fully committed to their teams because they're thinking about a transfer potentially so that they can have an opportunity to play. It sucks for the country. coaches because they've got to recruit every one of their players twice a year and try to sign incoming high school recruits and try to recruit guys out of the transfer portal window. This is unsustainable and in so many cases we do it to ourselves. Okay.

So let's stop complaining, Joel, and let's start getting with the program of how do we fix this? All right. Well, I think it's pretty simple. The first thing I would do is that I would not have an open transfer point. portal window when teams are actively playing. Whether that's in the fall transfer portal window or in the spring transfer portal window, that's a very easy fix. That's just in the structure of how we do things. That's going to make things a lot better for players and coaches. Now let's get to a fix that is more meaningful and structural in terms of what we're actually doing with NIL and the transfer window.

We can't have free agency to this point twice a year with every player. It cannot be a leverage point. for every single player every single time. See, for years, for years, listen, when I played, was I taken advantage of? Yes. Have players historically been taken advantage of? Absolutely. Nobody would say that they haven't been. Okay?

So the pendulum was all the way on this side, right? And then in the blink of an eye, everyone was like, well, we got to start swinging the pendulum back. And do we swing it back to the middle? Nope. We slammed it all the way to the other side. All right. And all I'm saying is that we have to be adults and slowly bring that right back to the middle. Okay. There needs to be a negotiation. There needs to be some pain on both sides and there needs to be some gain on both sides. I know. It's a dumb pun. When I wrote it down, I was like, am I really going to say pain and gain on both sides? And I did it. I did it just for you. All right. And I hope you like it. What I'm talking about here is a collectively bargained agreement. That's what has to happen. We have got to get to this point and we've got to get to it quickly. All right. Now, some have argued, and I've even brought up this term about employment.

But the problem with employment is that you go into about a million rabbit holes really quickly. Because remember, every single state has different employment legal issues. And so we would be in the same boat that we are now where some states have a name image and likeness law. And it's a little bit different than other states. And so we are trying to compete in the same sport. And yet everyone's doing it 50 different ways. Well, it would be similar with employment. So I don't want employment.

I want these players to essentially work as independent. contractors. I want them to be able to enter into, excuse me, contract. And I want that contract to be governed by a collectively bargained agreement. This demands a players association. I think the players should be unionized. Now, some people hate that word. And to be honest, not my favorite. But an association would allow you to collectively bargain with the players. What would this achieve? A lot of things, I want to talk about three specifically, that you could collectively bargain these issues

that would make the sport much more sustainable, and it would make life better for both the players and the schools, the enterprise, if you want to call it that. All right, let's go, let's walk through them. What would a collectively bargain agreement achieve? Well, let's start with the fact that I would limit transfers. All right. And the way that you can limit transfers is threefold.

Number one, I would establish a revenue share. Jim Harbaugh has talked about it. A lot of coaches are starting to get on board with this, and I am in full agreement with this. I believe that the television revenue that is distributed to these schools should be shared with the players. Now, what that percentage is, I don't know. Okay. I'm not sitting at the table and negotiating the deal.

But I do know that a revenue share is needed. And it's needed for two reasons. Because, well, really, three, competitive balance. Not every school has the opportunity to raise the funds needed in their collective in order to, pay the players out of the collective via the boosters. All right? And the other things that this would do is the players would get a new budget and every school would have that budget.

And they would know what the budget is. So there would be a more, it would not be as secretive in terms of what are the funds available for every school, every coach, and every player. The other thing is that the schools would get a sustainable, output of distribution. And I think that this is an important point. See, right now, boosters, which have traditionally given to the athletic department, to fund athletic department endeavors, including things like, you know, training table and, you know, weight room and facilities and all these different things, well, now all of that money is being funneled just to collectives.

Well, that's going to hurt these athletic departments. And they're not going to be able to to provide the services to the players that they would normally provide because they're trying to take their budget and move it to the players. Well, in a lot of ways, if we just cut into the television revenue and shared that with the players, now that booster money could still go to the school. So now it's more sustainable. You're not having to go out there and raise some unspecified number every single year. We would know what it is and you could start to allocate it to players. So that's number one. Number two, you could negotiate with the players and limit the mobility. Okay. And this is, this is a big one. And for me, it's one that on the surface level, you would

think to yourself, why would the players do this? But I think it would also be good for them. I really do. I would try to negotiate with an association and say, rather than unlimited transfers, I would allow one transfer in your undergraduate and one transfer in your postgraduate. So if you get a degree, you can transfer a second time. But if you don't, you can only transfer once without penalty. A lot of kids are graduating within probably about three and a half years as the average, three in change right now because most of them are coming in the second semester of their senior years. Most of them are taking summer class. About three and a half, you know, just under four years.

That's about the norm in college football. And in that time, getting a free transfer is place. any more than that, and you're just trying to out leverage the system by becoming a free agent as many times as you possibly can. Okay. One as an undergrad, one as a postgrad. You earn your degree, bam. Now you can go wherever you want. And this also achieves something else.

Let's say you've waited, you're in a position battle. Let's say it's a spring football, like Joe Burrow and Dwayne Haskins. You're in a battle and you want to win the battle, but you don't win the battle. Well, guess what? As a postgraduate, even if you transferred into that place, you should be allowed to go and further your opportunities. You have held up your end of the bargain by achieving your degree, so then you earn that second transfer without penalty. I think that this would do a couple of different things. Think of it from this perspective.

It would, even with two transfers, it would encourage kids and young men to mature because they would have to be more committed to their program, even though they could still have one trend. They would be more committed. Nick Saban had a great quote with us when talking about his fear is that when kids are halfway committed, they will never reach their potential. What they don't even realize is that getting through hard things, being refined by the fire, maturing, that's in their best interests. And when we allow them to essentially take their ball and go home unlimited times, that's not allowing them to be their best. Why not allow them to be their best? By telling them that, like, listen, your decisions are going to impact you, even though you have freedom to move and you have

autonomy to move once as an undergrad and once as a postgrad, now at least you're going to have and be forced to go through tough times in order to mature. On the flip side, for the enterprise for the coach for the program, now it's not every single player that would be eligible to transfer in every single transfer window. So now you don't have to worry about your entire roster. Let's just say for sake of argument, sake of argument. Let me give you an example in this regard. Imagine if right now, after free agency in the NFL, when Kirk Cousins signed with the Atlanta Falcons, imagine if he could just be like, hey, you know what, I'm a free agent again. What do we think? Bitter bidders, let's go. Who wants to start the bidding?

No, that wouldn't happen. Of course, that wouldn't happen. So why do we allow that to happen in college football? We should limit that. We should limit that. Just like they do through a collectively bargain agreement, through a contract, through all of these things that we have mechanisms to fix and encourage a brighter future for college football. and we need to take those and implement those. The last thing that a collectively bargain agreement would achieve, or one thing that I would negotiate in, is that third-party representation would be forced to register with the association. Just like if there is an agent that wishes to represent an NFL player, he's got to register with the NFLPA.

Got to go take a test. They know who he is. They know his practice. They know it's out of the shadows. Okay? We desperately need that in college football because we have far too many young men and families that are being taken advantage of by third party representation that doesn't know what they're doing or they're taking advantage of the families and those players by working in pay structures in perpetuity. I have seen this now several times. Now, if we have an association and we have a collectively bargain agreement, guess what we force those people to do? Be registered with the association. So if someone was shady, they wouldn't get to do business.

Bring them out of the shadows. So this obviously protects the players. And the enterprise, the program and the coaches, what do they get out of this? I think we limit tampering. Why? Because we know who they are. You see, in the NFL, we can enforce. tampering to a much more, more, I would say strong degree or accurate degree because we know all the parties involved. They're in the light. We can say, oh, let me see your phone. I'm sorry, you represent him, right? Okay, let me see your phone. You're a registered agent with us, aren't you? Let me see your phone. Was there tampering or was there not? So if these

agents are registered. And if they start to tamper, like for instance, what's happening right now is that agents, not the players themselves, are out there shopping their players around the country with the players currently on rosters. That's not what this is supposed to be. That's not what this is supposed to be. Then they'll get offers and they'll take it back to their player and they'll say, hey, you know, school X is going to give you $200,000. And so now player goes to his coach and says, hey, coach, like, I'm going to get a $200,000 offer. And the coach is like, what do you mean? From who?

Well, I do. Why are we playing that game? We have tools to fix this. So we should fix this. And I think we do that with a collectively bargain agreement. And all of those things would be better for both parties, better for both parties. So what are they again? Number one, we need to negotiate in a revenue share with the players.

I think we need to limit mobility. One transfer as an undergraduate. One transfer as a postgraduate. And then we would force third party representation to register with the association so that we can bring all this shady activity into the light. We can stop tampering. We can stop these people, if you will, from taking advantage of players and their families. So those are a couple of things right there. I get a little worked up about this stuff because, again,

we are on the precipice of such an amazing era of college football with the with the playoff expanding with the quality of play with with the amount of parity that we've seen come into the game in the last few years we really are like right at the tip of the spear in terms of this this era that will catapult college football you know into the stratosphere and we just have to fix the structure and it's totally fixable totally fixable. We have the tools necessary to fix the structure of the sport. Saturday last week, I was in Ohio State. First time ever, spring game in college football was broadcast on broadcast television. And we aired Ohio State Spring Game. It was really, I got to tell you,

I had a blast. It was really fun. 80,000 people there. There's a lot of buzz about this team, obviously. Can't wait to go to Ann Arbor next week, a little bit more on that in a second. But I wanted to just, especially for Buckeye fans and just college football fans, because this team is going to be really good. I'd be very shocked if this team is not one or two in the preseason poll. And, you know, like some takeaways after being around the program for the last couple of days. Number one is, is there is some serious buzz. And I know, like, Brian Hartline is not going to be happy with me for saying this, but like there's some serious buzz. is about Jeremiah Smith.

He was the number one overall recruit out of high school in last year's class. And man, being around him, seeing him in person, watching him play, he's the real deal. He's going to be one of the better players in college football, not just better freshmen, but one of the better players in college football. I genuinely believe that he is one of the most rare talents I've seen at that age in a long time. in a long time. And that's as far as I want to go because, again, like, I don't want to put too much pressure on this young man. Like, let's let this. He's just, he's a kid, basically. Let's let him mature, learn, grow into the football player that he will be.

And I do believe he will be a phenomenal football player. So far this spring, Julian Sane, who transferred in from Alabama, he has impressed at the quarterback position. I didn't think he played all that great on Saturday, but it was a windy day, and that's a really good defense. So, you know, those two things you kind of take with a grain of salt. The quarterback room in general is interesting, and I'll hit on that in a little bit because there's a lot of guys in there kind of going through this battle.

And then the other buzz is just Chip Kelly being your play caller. Like, this guy is as good of a football coach from the head coaching perspective as we've seen in a long time. And what was fascinating to me about being around Chip is this renewed sense of joy that he has about being back around ball and not having to be the CEO, where he gets to actually coach football, which is what these guys want to do in the first place. This is what they fell in love with was coaching ball, helping guys become better than they think they can be. and growing and developing these young men into not only great men, but also great football players. And he has that joy back. And I do think it's going to be interesting to see them run his offense in terms of the run game.

All right. The biggest takeaway on the field that I had is that that defense likely going to be as good as any defense in the country. I would be pretty surprised if they're not the best defense in the country. They brought almost everybody back, and then they add Caleb Downs. It's like, wow, okay. They made some adjustment at linebacker where they needed to fill some holes. Remember, Tommy Eichenberg is leaving to the NFL. They're going to be fantastic on the back end in the secondary.

Lathen Ransom didn't even play Saturday, and they've got great corners. They've got Caleb Downs. they've got ransom and there was really nowhere to throw the football on that secondary. And even the depth that they had with some of their younger guys was pretty incredible. So again, I think that Ohio State has the potential to be the best defense in the country. Now the quarterback battle. You've got Will Howard and Devin Brown that are legitimately, I would say right now, competing for that starter spot.

Will Howard got the first snaps. He was 9 of 13 for 77 yards. Brown was five of seven for 66 yards, did have a touchdown, did not throw an interception, ran it three times, although them not being live, it's hard to really get a feel for what's going on. They are going to be driving a car that nobody else in college football is driving. Whoever takes the snaps. Now, whether it's Will Howard or Devin Brown, they're going to have, I would expect, a run game that features the two best running backs in college football. Travion Henderson and Quinshawn Judkins. These two guys are going to be a problem for

defenses. I'm interested to see if they are in the field, in the back field at the same time. I'm interested to see the schematics that Chip Kelly uses in order to try to run the football. All of that interests me a great deal. Then you get to the wide receiver core and they are as deep a wide receiver core and as good of a wide receiver core as there is in college football. A mecca, Buka is back. Carnal Tate is back. Jalen Ballard is back. And then you've got what could be the best of them all. And Jeremiah Smith as a true freshman.

And they've got other guys, Brandon Innes. They have got a ton of players that are incredibly gifted on the outside. So whoever the quarterback is, just keep it on the rails. I don't think that they're going to need spectacular quarterback play in order to play elite-level offense. the level of what's going on at the skill positions. My biggest concern for them is actually not quarterback. It's actually offensive line. I do think that they could suffer some growing pains early with their offensive line.

That's why I'm interested to see what Chip Kelly does with the run game, because he's been able to run the football with less than dominant offensive fronts, basically his whole career. And so the schematics of how he does that, if he's able to do that and protect an offensive line and a quarterback with all the skill around them, in particular in the running back room, then this offense is going to have a real shot. They have the luxury of having incredible depth,

a number of veteran players, which I think is going to be important. And so to make a run, remember, you're going to have to play 16 or 17 games now with a new playoff. They've got the depth and the talent to go out there and potentially win a national championship. This is going to be a lot of people's preseason number one or number two team. And I'm certainly in that mode. I think that they're a really great team. Now, about to head up to Ann Arbor this week, so I can't wait. So we will be running this back.

So Michigan's spring game live on Fox noon Eastern on Saturday. They will be having a ring ceremony for the national championship team from a year ago. Coach Harbaugh is going to be there. A lot of those former players are going to be there. Ginny and I will talk to a lot of those players down on the field. Charles Woodson is going to join us on the broadcast, and we will be taking a look at what will be a very different Michigan team this next year. New head coach and Sharon Moore, even though he was an existing promoted from within hire. They've got some new assistant coaches as well.

And they're going to have a new face at quarterback, just like the Buckeyes. This is not the veteran team that they were a year ago. And I can't wait to see what the identity is of the Michigan Wolverines and what they can do. in this year after winning the national championship a year ago. Let's get to some mailbag. Remember, anybody can write a mailbag question about any topic that you want. All you got to do is send it into the Joel Clatch Show mailbag at gmail.com. And I've got three here today that I wanted to get to.

And yeah, I'm excited for this. So let's get into it. The first one says, hello, Joel and your fantastic team. I am writing to ask if you can provide advice to a young father who's about to add baby number two this spring. Congratulations. What was the biggest change in your life when you and your wife went from one to two kids? Any and all advice is appreciated. P.S. Love the show. An advice you give. You can tell us genuine, which is what all of us need in 2024. And all we can control is our own effort. Yes. That's exactly right. Hunter W.

First of all, thank you. And here's my best advice. buckle up, Hunter, because what you thought was life-changing with baby number two, or excuse me, number one, buckle up, buckle up. Because here's what you don't realize yet. And Hunter, it sounds like you're a great father because you're seeking out advice. You're concerned about being a great father. Step one to being a great father. Be concerned about being a great father.

And Hunter, you clearly are. So kudos to you. Kudos to you. I respect that. Now, baby won. It was awesome, right? And it was probably really hard. You're like, boy, you talk about it. Change. Yes. Under your lifestyle changes with baby number one. But what you don't realize is that you were more of a spectator to that change than you realize. And you're about to find out what it means to actually go in the game.

You see, as much as we want to support our wives when they have children, we are mostly spectators. Even if you get a bottle of formula or even, you know, if your wife pumps her breast milk and you're doing midnight feedings, you think like, man, this is hard. The woman is sustaining the infant's life. it is a totally different role. And we are there to support, in large part, our wives when that happens. Okay? Now, yes, you are loving that child. And you have a vital role in the infancy stage for your children.

But it's a different role. It's not a sustaining role. All right. That's what your wife is about to dive right back into is the sustaining role. She is about to have an infant that can't do anything and will rely completely on her. Their sustenance is totally dependent on the mom. And guess what? Now there's another human involved.

And you're in. So listen, this is what's so great. I will always remember when we, Henry is our oldest and when we had Samuel, our middle child now. But when we had Sam, I got to spend so much time with. Henry. I no longer had my own time. I was no longer a spectator. If I wasn't at work, I was in it. Because guess what? Sarah was with Sam. You know, all of us know that the infant stage is very hard. So I was with Henry and I was taking care of Henry. I did Henry's baths. I read him all of his bedtime stories. I did all of those things. I woke up and cooked him his breakfast. I would get him

his lunch if I was home. I would help him with dinner. I would clean him up. I'd do all these things. Why? Because there's an infant attached to Sarah. She can't do those things. So you are in. You're going to go from spectator mode or even teammate mode to in the game. So buckle up, Hunter. And guess what? You're going to do great, man.

You're going to do great. That's my advice. All right. Quinn S. writes in to the Joel Clatchell mailbag. He says, Dear Joel, I love listening to the show and watching Big Noon Saturdays. Nice. Thank you, Quinn. I appreciate that.

He says, I am a young D3 football coach with aspirations to coach Division 1 football. What advice do you have for a young college football coach to maximize their career and player success? Man, I love this one. This is really good. And you know what? I do think that the advice that I'm going to give, one part of this is going to apply to everybody out there, not just coaches. And then the other part is going to be very specific to coaches. Okay.

Okay. So the first one is network. network, network, network, network. And that's for all of us all the time. Treat people the right way and network. Now, here's some advice when you're networking. And this especially is true Quinn in the football coach world, okay? Culture, community, whatever you want to call it. Is as long as you are not taking advantage of people's time, as long as you, as long as they don't feel like you're trying to shortcut or steal or fast-track ways to success.

And as long as you are humble and genuinely want to learn, most people will help you. And the other thing I would say is like, if you don't have an ego, you see, what happens in the coaching world, and by the way, if you want to tie this to any business venture, if you're a young person in any business whatsoever and any career path, I think. that this applies to you. One, people hire people. So in order to move up, in order to get new opportunities, in order to get new jobs, you're going to have to have the right relationships. In order to have the right relationships, you're going to have to network. Okay, so you've got to do that. But nobody wants the person that when people, let's just put it like this, if someone contacts me and want something from me, and I can tell all they want to do is climb the ladder, or all they want to do is take advantage of me, or all they want to do is move,

I'm less likely to help them. But if they're humble and I think that they just want to learn, I'm very likely to help them. And it's the same with coaches. If you don't have an ego and you call coaches around the country, they will help you, and you will learn and you will grow. Now, the next one will be more of specific advice to a coach, And that is, at all times, coach with information and not volume.

I think it's very prevalent in coaching circles to think that you've just got to shout all the time and say things like, let's go and yell things like finish. That's not information. Okay. I believe that humans react to information, not volume. So communicate the why. All right. You're teaching what you're doing. You're even teaching them how to do it.

Tell them why. When you get all the way to that third level of why, now you're really coaching with information. Okay? Try to abstain from just yelling, let's go. Or come on. Those things are not information. Coach with information, not volume. Quinn, good luck, man. If I can ever help you, let me know. Last one, Patrick D. writes in, says, hey, Joel, big fan of the show.

Dan Orlovsky was on the Pat McAfee show. That's right. He was. He goes on there all the time. And told a story about how you and he were in the Lions training camp together, which, yeah, that's true. Dan and I were teammates for a short time. guys went to the baseball field together after practices and you cooked him. Oh my gosh. I don't realize he told that story. What do you remember about that day? And was it as bad for Dan as he said it was? Oh, wow. Patrick, let me just tell you my version. I haven't heard that Dan went on Pat's show and told this story. First of all, yes, in 2006, I was in training camp with the Detroit Lions. John Kittner was the kind of the starting quarterback.

Josh McCown was in that quarterback room, Dan Orlovski and myself. It was a great time. And every one of those guys was very classy, professional, awesome dudes. And so I remember that camp fondly. And I remember this day if it's the same story. So here's the story. Well, as you know, I was a minor league baseball player. And then I went back to football and then I played at Colorado.

And so at this point, in 2006, I am four years basically removed from playing minor league baseball. And I got right, you know, like some high A, some things like that. Like, nothing to write home about. I was a very good baseball player, but didn't work out for me. So Dan starts running his mouth in training camp about how good a baseball player he was and how for sure he could have been a minor league baseball player. But he wanted to focus on football. And I just was kind of laughing. And I was like, you know, like, no, like you don't understand.

Everyone thinks that they can play another sport, but no, like, you can't. And I know that because I did it. I played it, right? I know what it takes. I know how hard we all worked. And I know what it looked like. I saw it right up close and personal. Heck, I hit second behind Ricky Henderson for a full week in spring training in 2001.

Two. Was it two? It was 2002. Anyways, like I've seen it up close and personal. So Dan's run in his mouth. Oh, man, I could throw a bowl right past you. I could strike you out for sure. And then he's like, I'm 6'4.

And he was running his mouth. And so finally, it wasn't even me that gets sick of it. It's Kitna. John Kitna, who's the best? John Kitna is one of the classiest best individuals I've ever been around in my life. I love John Kitna. And John finally, like, takes my side. And he was just like, Dan, would you shut up?

There is no way that you could strike Joel out or even throw a pitch by him. And I'm like, that's accurate. There's no way he could do that. And he was like, no, for sure I could. However much you want to bet on it. And so John, he's like, prove it, done, let's go. And he's like, get in the car. And so we left the facility.

We went and got baseball bats. can't even remember from where, maybe John's house or something, and baseballs, and we drove the local high school. This is during camp, during training camp. And we go to the local high school and Dan's got his football cleats on. And I'm worried about his arm. I'm like, he's a quarterback. We're all trying to make the team. You know, they thought highly of them in the organization. And I'm like worried about like, I don't want him to try to overthrow and throw out his arm. But sure enough, he starts loosening up and like getting really loose. And he's, he's like in a lather because he's like, oh, I'm for sure going to throw it right past clap. And in the back of my mind, I'm like, I don't care if I'm four years

removed or not. Like, this is, he doesn't understand. I can hit a 98 mile an hour fastball. The hardest he's going to throw is 90 or 91 at most, which is like batting practice. And so sure enough, I'm like, okay, are you ready? And I dig in. And then just as like a slight at the end, I was like, where do you want it? And now, he's really pissed. He's like, oh, whatever, whatever, man, hit it to right field. I'm right-handed. And so I'm like, okay, fine. And he rears back. And he, I mean, I can see the veins. He's like, and he throws this ball as hard as he can. And I hit it basically off the right field fence. I think it one hop the wire, like we thought it might go out. Just, wow, right to right field.

And Kitna is on the side. Be like, yeah. Needless to say. Dan was humbled. Oh, man. I love you, Dan. I can't believe you told that story on McAfee's show. That's great. All right. Saturday, Michigan Spring Game, noon on Fox.

Can't wait for that. Next Monday, make sure to tune into the program. My final mock draft is we are getting set because, remember, that's draft a week. So my final mock draft is coming next Monday. Tune in for that. And that's going to be a good one. I'm going to have all my last minute information. So my best mock draft will be my last mock draft.

And that drops on Monday. As always, thank you so much for listening to the program. Make sure to follow us on all the socials, YouTube, and wherever you're listening to this podcast, we will see you next Monday.