The Josh Innes Show - Needlessly Self Important Fan Bases

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Quinn Ewers has declared for the NFL Draft. He had one of the best careers in the history of Texas football. Yet, the fans have never really appreciated him. Texas Football fans have overvalued Texas football history for a long time. What other team fanbases, college or pro, fit into this category? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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we are your local dignity memorial provider find us at dignity memorial.ca the dignity memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of service corporation international so uh mr quinn ewers is going to the nfl draft i think he still has an opportunity to like undeclare i think like currently he's declared for the draft but i do think there's a window that he could back out i may have read that if i read that wrong then i read that wrong but um he's a fascinating case first of all he's one of these guys that came from ohio state where ohio state just drafts the

shit out of quarterbacks then they all leave they all seemingly go on to be fucking incredible and then somehow the one that they pick up as a transfer a dude from fucking Kansas State is about to win the national title with Ohio State wild isn't it like you watch what all these dudes obviously like the Joe Burrows and you watch Quinn Ewers and you watch uh what's his name down at Syracuse McCord like you watch these guys you're like old like they don't miss they just draft so many good quarterbacks someone has to play and then they all leave it's nuts man but uh Quinn Ewers is going to leave Texas and I don't know that there's a guy who dealt with more shit from a place that was unwarranted based on the amount of success he had than this dude. Like you think about delusional

fan bases, right? I was, I was tweeting about this earlier, by the way, speaking of Twitter, I finally paid like the $10 for like the premium and to get the check mark and shit. And I'll be honest about why I feel like I tweet some quality shit sometimes and no one seems to fucking see it. And it messes with me. I'm like, this is funny quality shit and no one sees it. And it's gotta be because I'm not paying for the premium. Therefore it doesn't get bumped up to like higher status. Like, and like, and look, it fucks with me. Sometimes when these motherfuckers are like, Oh, this guy's got 35,000 followers, but only like four likes, like buying followers much the fuck I am. I've never bought a fucking follower in my life on Twitter.

I don't care to do that. But as I tweet shit and I'm like this, like, why is this not getting run? I was like, I'm going to try this because all the legit people seem to have it. All the people in media seem to have the little check marks and shit. So I'm like, rock on. Let's do this. So I did it and I got verified yesterday. First thing I tweet is that I tweeted something about wanting to move back to Houston and strongly considering it.

And the thing's got like 500 likes all of a sudden. Like what? Like more people are seeing this shit. It's bullshit that you have to pay to get your shit seen. considering it and the thing's got like 500 likes all of a sudden like what like how is like more people are seeing this shit it's bullshit that you have to pay to get your shit seen but if i'm gonna try to pimp out my podcast and everything else then i'm gonna do this this person responds though and says don't we're full of course they didn't use a uh an apostrophe. So it just says like we're full. So you were full? Do you have an opening now? Let's see. I'll quote tweet that. You me see how many likes that had. Again, I don't base my entire existence on likes and shit. I'm not my dad who like lives for that shit on Facebook. But if I'm going to pimp this podcast out and post links and try to get new followers to it and shit,

I need people to see the shit. And I tweeted, I'm strongly considering making the move back to Houston. Texas is amazing. 400 likes and it's been seen by 28,000 people. So thank you very much. And there's been a lot of positive feedback for that as well and new followers. So look, fuck it. I spend $10 a month. It'll help me pimp out the podcast and get more listeners rock on, right? So I believe that. But anyway, I digress. I did tweet out about how Texas fans are kind of on this Mount Rushmore of most unwarranted, self-important fan bases in all of sports, right? And when you think about those types,

like the Cowboys would be on there, but at least the Cowboys have won a lot of championships in their history. They just haven't won one in 30 years so like there's a whole new group like when I used to talk with Tank about this I'd be like why do you hate the Cowboys so much and part of it is because he's in Philly and he played for the Eagles and he's putting on a show for the dipshits like the low-hanging fruit shit so I get it it is what it is but part of it is because he views them as like when they get new dudes on the team that like to live off of the shit that other people what the cowboys did when you hadn't done shit like okay i get it fine but like cowboys people do fit into that delusional category

honestly the state of texas where i'd like to live the people that i love the climate that is a little hot for me but i grew up in it so who gives a a fuck? Like the Texas barbecue smoking, I love Texas. But just like, oh, basketball in the state of Indiana is one of those overrated things that you hear about all the time. Like guys, basketball, Indiana's a basketball state. Is it really? When's the last time the Indiana Hoosiers won the national championship? When's the last time the Pacers won the NBA championship? Help me out there. Maybe in the 60s when white dudes were still playing basketball, maybe it was. But what about Butler? Okay, Butler's closer than Indiana has been, but people love to talk about

how Indiana is a basketball state. Texas is that same way with football. But if you notice, no one in the state of Texas ever actually wins anything in football at the college or professional level. And Texas is right at the top of the heap because Texas is the team that gets the most run. Like it's this gigantic national powerhouse that has won billions of titles. Like if you didn't know, if you were just like plopped on the earth and they're like Texas football, you'd assume that Texas football was the shit and had been the shit for a hundred years. In reality, Texas has won like two or three titles. They were all a hundred years ago outside of the VY title, of course. That was an epic game, right? And they had a great run in the early 2000s to about the, you know, 2010.

Then they fell off a cliff. But Texas historically is not close in terms of championships and that kind of national dominance, like the Michigans, like the Notre Dames, like the Alabamas. I'm talking Alabama before Saban. They had that window where they sucked the post gene stallings. So basically like 93 to about 07 when they were terrible. They had a decade and a half run where Alabama wasn't Alabama. But before that, Alabama won a shit ton. Alabama historically

wins a lot, whether they really want them or they just claim them, they've won a lot. Texas has never actually won at the level that you would think they did based on how they are treated nationally by people. You would think that they are like the cock of the walk, like they're the Yankees of college football, and they're truly not. Notre Dame has pretty much been mediocre for the last damn near 40 years. Since I've been alive, Notre Dame has been a giant waste. But Notre Dame was like the tits for 50 or 60 years. Texas has never had a stretch for that long where they were even close to being the tits. They weren't even the tits when they were the tits in the early 2000s. USC, LSU, those type of programs were far exceeding what you

were getting out of Texas, even in like their salad days of this decade. So Texas to me has always been a program that has valued itself more than what it actually is. Now, you could argue most college programs are like that, sure. But you could be a fan of Auburn football, but nobody nationally views you as like, oh, my God, that's Auburn. Everybody nationally looks at Texas like Texas is the biggest shit on the planet. Yet, for whatever reason, Texas never really has the results to back that up. That kind of goes along with what we're getting out of Quinn Ewers. And let's play a couple of commercials here and we'll continue. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings. When it comes

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in 14 days limited time offer see terms at pick six dot draft kings dot com slash promos so Quinn Ewers when you think about how this guy was treated by many of the Texas fans, much of it had to do with the fact that he's got Arch Manning sitting behind him. And Arch Manning may end up being spectacular. Maybe Arch Manning will be just like his uncle. I guess that would be his Uncle Peyton or his Uncle Eli. He might go on to be an all-time great NFL player. Well, Peyton Manning's an all-time

NFL great. Eli is not, but he's going to get in the Hall of Fame because he beat Tom Brady twice. But I digress. He might be one of those guys. We might go back and look and go, holy shit, this guy is legit. But because he is this highly touted guy that was playing and breathing down the neck of Quinn Ewers, much of that fan base felt that it was okay to dump on Quinn Ewers. To go back to the discussion about how Texas has always been bigger in name than it has been in results, if you really go and look at the success that quarterbacks have had at Texas, it ain't much. Historically, you know, basically you had Colt McCoy who had an epic run Vince Young whose

numbers aren't great but Vince Young won the national title in the Heisman he's VY or you know he's the dude so all that's fine but let's not act like Texas has had decades and decades of incredible quarterback play they haven't you're talking major Applewhite who was fine at Texas you're talking about Colt McCoy. Quinn Ewers is easily top three or four, statistically certainly, results-wise certainly, in the history of the program. Yet that program and the fans that support it basically shit on this guy the entire time he was there because they wanted to see Arch. And that is what makes them delusional. What makes them delusional is they don't appreciate the fact that they've spent the last decade and a half firing and hiring

coaches, paying buyouts because they're not good at football. They're not on the level that they think they are. They're not good enough to look at the results from Quinn Ewers and say, what the fuck? Quinn Ewers sucks. You can't do that because you don't have the results. I'm an LSU fan, right? And we are spoiled as fuck because we ended up with Joe Burrow. So Joe Burrow, one of those Ohio State guys that came on down, was looking for an opportunity, and he won Coach O a title and was loaded with the Jeffersons and the Chases and all these guys. Fucking incredible. And then we got to follow Joe Burrow and we got to see another guy out of the portal. We got to see a guy named Jane

Daniels who also won the Heisman trophy, right? So LSU has multiple Heisman trophy winning quarterbacks. If you would have told somebody five years ago or really 10 years ago, 15, 20, 50 years ago, that LSU would have two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks in like a five-year stretch, they would tell you that you are high off your ass, right? LSU never had that kind of play. They'd get big name guys. When they would win titles, it would be with kind of just no-name dudes like, oh, what's his name? Matt Flynn won the national title. Matt M Flynn won the national title. Matt Mock won the national title.

You know, those kind of guys are winning titles for you. It wasn't, you know, big time. Like, they never really, Tommy Hodson. Just go down the list of guys that have played. Josh Booty. Like, these are not dudes. You also had Burt Jones at one point. That's 100 years ago.

So, like, you look at the guys that have, then Jamarcus Russell, who was the number one overall pick and then never amounted to shit because he really enjoyed coding. Like, all that shit. But I'm an LSU guy. But now, look, I fall into this category because when you look at what you got out of Joe Burrow and Jane Daniels, right, then we look at the season that LSU just had with Garrett Nussmeier. Garrett Nussmeier statistically put up a season that was basically on par with two of the greatest LSU seasons ever. Joe Burrow the year he won the Heisman, Jane Daniels the one he Heisman.

You want to know the guys that those dudes were throwing to? You're talking about Jane Daniels throwing to Malik Neighbors and all these guys. You're talking about the starting daniels throwing to malik neighbors and and all these guys you're talking about uh the the starting wide receivers for lsu in the year that joe burrow won it you're talking about chase and jefferson they were just fucking freaks and beasts and they were incredible so like i'm an lsu guy i watch garrett nesmeyer and i'll be like fuck this guy fucking sucks if you would have basically if you never saw what happened from joe burrow if you never saw what happened from Joe Burrow and you never saw what happened with Jane Daniels you'd look at LSU and as an LSU fan we look at what we saw last season

out of Garrett Nussmeyer we'd go this is the greatest quarterback season in the history of LSU but because with recency bias and new money we're seeing two Heisman Trophy winners at quarterback in the last five, six years. All of a sudden, we're like, oh, yeah, that guy's not even good enough for us. We're delusional in that way, right? But at least LSU in this century has won three national titles. And LSU has been to the national title game four times at this point. And they've won the national title with three different coaches and may win it with a fourth. Texas hadn't done that. That ain't Texas. they've won the national title with three different coaches and may win it with a fourth. Texas hadn't done that.

That ain't Texas. They've won one. They've been to a couple. They won one. And then they've spent 15 years being not irrelevant, but not as relevant as a longhorn network would indicate. They are delusional. I think, not even delusional.

Delusional's not fair. There are other programs, like A&M is closer to delusional than Texas. Texas isn even delusional. Delusional is not fair. There are other programs, like A&M is closer to delusional than Texas. Texas isn't delusional. Texas really likes Texas and has an overinflated sense of value for themselves. A&M wants to be Texas. A&M is closer to delusional, but A&M has a ton of money invested in the program. A&M has a gigantic fan base. Like, they're just weird. They're weirdos. But let's talk about delusional. Let's eliminate delusional

and let's go just overinflated sense of worth from a fan base. You can argue Philadelphia is like that because it's not like Philadelphia is a historically great town for sports. Like, you would think, based on how little success they actually have in sports in Philly, you would think that maybe people would go, hey, maybe our way of treating athletes like they're dog shit all

the time. Maybe that's not the route, but that doesn't stop them. They just double down. They're like, no, it's your job to be fucking good to a degree. I guess I kind of admire it. But yes, they had the Andy Reid run before that. The 90s were nothing special. The 80s were really nothing special. The 70s were nothing special. The Eagles have never been a special football franchise in terms of wins and losses, particularly in the postseason. But people in Philadelphia talk like any coach that doesn't win 100 fucking playoff games is a loser, unless you're Buddy Ryan, who they blow on a consistent basis despite the

fact that he won zero games as the coach of the Eagles in the postseason but what does it matter but like are they truly an overinflated sense of worth like Cowboy fans have an overinflated sense of worth because they like to dick swing about the championships they won in a previous era so I would put them above the Cowboys there I would put the New York Knicks in that category like like You can't really throw the Yankees in. The Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2009, but the Yankees do have, what, 28 of them. They won in the 2000s, they won in the 90s, and they won in the late 2000s, right? So they haven't won in a while, but they also keep going to the playoffs. They've been to the LCS. So I look at

the Yankees and I go, do they have an overinflated sense of worth, which is based on results? Not really. Cause since about 1995, for about 30 years now, since the Joe Torrey run started there with that, that new group of Yankees, like they're pretty fucking good. So I don't view them as an overinflated sense. Like to me, it's either like a new money or a franchise. It's only won once, but they really dick swing, right? Like I could argue that the Steelers are like that. The Steelers have won two Super Bowls in the 2000s, didn't win dick in the 90s, didn't win dick in the 80s, right? So like, do you look at them as kind of a franchise? But one that I would certainly put on that Mount Rushmore is the New York Knicks. And a lot of that comes from the fact that the media, like apparently everyone in the media believes,

A, they're Knicks fans, and B, they believe the whole goddamn world loves the New York Knicks or cares about the New York Knicks. Nobody outside of New York cares about the Knicks. The number of fucking times you hear somebody go, God, the NBA is just better when the New York Knicks are good. Really? Who gives a fuck?

No one cares. They haven't gives a fuck? No one cares. They haven't won a title since the 70s. They've been to a couple NBA finals in that stretch. There is no, like, I would argue that the ultimate overrated brand or overinflated brand is the New York Knicks. It's not the New York Giants. They've won a couple Super Bowls in this decade. No one cares about the Jets.

The Yankees are still, at least for the last 30 years, have been a consistent winning franchise and have won a handful of World Series in that 30 years. When you talk just straight up, overinflated, results don't match, I would put Texas up there, Texas football, maybe just the whole goddamn state of Texas in football. And I would certainly put the New York Knicks. They would fit right in there as well. The Dodgers I would strongly consider, but again, they're consistently really good. But I'd consider them.

Trying to think of other, like baseball-wise, is there another example? Like not really the Red Sox. I mean, the Red Sox have been good for two and a half decades for the most part now, and they've won a handful of World Series. And I also don't think they're overinflated. Like that's the key in this. You've got to look for overinflated sense of worth from their fans, et cetera. You can throw the Cowboys on there. I think that's fair because people get caught up in the idea that, oh my God, it's the Cowboys and we're America's team. I don't think people give as much

of a shit about the Cowboys, but fine. Texas football, maybe the whole state, and certainly the New York Knicks, an overinflated sense of value. I need to find two others. They're a hockey example. Not that anybody gives a fuck about hockey that's listening to this podcast probably um but like to me the overinflated comes with when the media is like the world is better when this team's in the playoffs like really so you mean to tell me that i would i'm not gonna watch but now that this team's in i guess i'm extra interested bullshit i don't really see a lot like if the new york knicks are in the playoffs or not it's not going to impact how i watch the nba playoffs like i I don't think the Celtics are like that like the Celtics they've won a title recently they won another title in the 2000s they're consistently pretty fucking good in

the last two and a half decades like I don't think college basketball there may be like Kentucky I think Kentucky's a good example of that. That Cal won one, right? With Kentucky. But essentially, Kentucky is one of those things that was really fucking good before like desegregation. Like Kentucky fucked hard, right? And basically every coach that's ever been there that's worth a shit has seemingly won for the most part. But if you go to Kentucky and you look at Kentucky basketball from about the mid-90s on we're talking 30 something years I think they have two titles I think Tubby won one early and then you got one from Cal and outside of that Kentucky's just they're just sort of there they're living off of shit that

happened back before black people could vote so like good, good for you, Kentucky. Like, oh my God, it's the blue and they put 20,000 people in every game. Great. Who gives a shit? So I would put Kentucky basketball in the overinflated sense of worth category. So we're going Texas football, maybe the whole state. We're going with the New York Knicks overinflated sense of worth. And then we are going with the Kentucky, the big blue of Kentucky in football. And now you need to find just one more, that overinflated sense of worth when you really haven't done shit. You haven't done shit in a long time. People talk about how it's a big deal that you're there, but no one really gives a shit. Good Duke. Well, if you want to throw a rivalry into there,

if you want to put these two teams playing each other, I don't believe that anybody outside of the state of North Carolina truly gives a shit when Duke and North Carolina play basketball. Like I was brainwashed in my youth by ESPN to believe that all these rivalries that ESPN cares about were big deals. Like the Yankees and the Red Sox, you gotta watch the Yankees and the Red Sox. Something wild always fucking happens. What ends up happening is the game is fucking five hours long. That's what happens when those two teams play like Duke and Carolina. Oh God, it's, it's tobacco road. I don't give a fuck. And not to say that Duke hasn't won recently. They have Carolina's won recently, but like, like the idea that and carolina draws any eyeballs to a tv like who gives

a shit i'd throw michigan might be in that category to michigan football you could argue they love to talk about how they have the biggest stadium in terms of capacity and like great you've won like once recently who gives a shit like you have far more seasons of being pretty shitty than you have seasons of being dominant you know i put them into that category of overinflated sense of worth from the fans. Hey, if you want to add to any, you can text me or tweet me or DM me, whatever. You can let me know. But I'm finna head out. So we'll talk again.