The Josh Innes Show - Random Thoughts: Performance Impacts Expectations

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Hello Friends! Sorry for the delay. I've been dealing with some throat problems. I'm here now. Lets rock. LSU got whopped by Texas A&M Saturday and blew a chance to make it to the CFP. I'm irrationally annoyed by fans who are saying that it's ok to lose to A&M because no one thought LSU would win 9 games to begin with. That's loser talk. Today we discuss examples of where performance alters expectations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Josh. Got to tell you about our friends over at Aqueduct Plumbing Company. It's our friend Billy and Mary, of course, and they help us present this podcast to you. And we appreciate them and we appreciate everything they've done for us. So if you need any plumbing work done in the Houston area, now would be the time to just reach out. Give them a call. 281-488-6238. 281-488-6238 or aquaductplumbingcompany.com. They are at your disposal. Hello, everybody. So you guys know that I root for LSU and LSU shit the bed mightily. I mean, just mightily. An impressive bed shitting on Saturday when they had everything out in front of them. Everything was out in front of them.

Like, again, were they guaranteed a spot in the college football playoff? No. Would they have made the college football playoff? Probably still not. But they had a 10-point favorite situation against Texas A&M. A&M who's lost to Appalachian State. A&M who sucked against UMass. LSU coming off of wins against Alabama and Arkansas and UAB feeling good about themselves. Nine and two. All they have to do in that scenario is win. Doesn't matter if it's ugly.

Doesn't matter if it's pretty. Does not matter. Most of their games have been ugly wins anyway. So just go win the game. You get to 10-2. 10-win season. That's awesome. Then you get to play Georgia. And at that point, all bets are

off. Hey, you're going to be a 15-16 point underdog. YOLO. Let her rip. If somehow you upset Georgia, you probably get into the college football playoff. More than likely you don't upset Georgia. So you hope to play tough with them. You finish the season 10-3. You go to a nice bowl game, and that's great. Of course, that didn't happen. They went out. They shit the bed. They lost. They sucked. I mean, they were awful. That game was dreadful. Even though it was 17-17 in the second half of that game, and LSU had stopped them two

times in a row to start the second half, and they had the ball and they were driving, and they fumbled the scoop and score, and they never recovered from that. It was brutal. It was just, they never looked ready to play the game. And whatever. They lost. It is what it is. But I will tell you what annoys me.

Something that annoys me, like, more than you can fathom. It's when people, when fans, go with this angle. Well, you know, they did a lot better than we expected them to do this year, so it's hard for me to be mad about them losing to Texas A&M. Huh? What? Help me understand that logic. Now, I can understand. Going into the season, nobody picked LSU to win the SEC West and they won the SEC West

that's an accomplishment I'm not trying to diminish what they did no one thought they had a chance at hell of beating Alabama they beat Alabama nobody would have thought they'd finish nine and three especially after the way they played against Florida State I get it, fine. But performance adjusts expectations, right? It'd be like if you looked at the Philadelphia Phillies. No one in the world thought the Phillies would be in the World Series, right? It's totally okay when you have a lead in the World Series to be upset that you blew the World Series even though you weren't expected to be there. You're allowed to be pissed off about that. In 10 years, in five years, in two Like, you're allowed to be pissed off about that. In 10 years, in 5 years, in 2 weeks, you'll look back on it and go,

wow, we really accomplished something awesome that nobody thought we would do. That's cool. But in the moment, it's totally okay to say, what the actual fuck did we just do? And that's the way LSU fans should view that game and the same way Tennessee fans should view that. Tennessee has sucked for the last 15 years. This is 20 years. This is the best year they've had in 20-some-odd years. They were one win against a bad South Carolina team away from going to the college football

playoff. They were penciled in. All they had to do was beat South Carolina on the road, Vanderbilt on the road, and they were going to find their way into the college football playoff, and they didn't get in. It'd be easy for someone to say, well, you know, I mean, no one thought they'd be 10-2, or we thought that's what they'd be. We thought they would lose to Georgia, and they'd lose to Alabama and be 10-2. So, hey, at least we beat Alabama, and that's a step in the right direction.

But when you lose as a 22-point favorite to South Carolina after starting 10-0 or 9-1 is what they were at the time. Of course, it changes everything. Expectations change everything. Performance changes everything. That's the way this works. 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 to basketball payouts, DraftKings Pick 6 posterizes the competition, including prize picks. It's a

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Pick six not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario. Void where prohibited. One per new customer. Bonus award. It is non-withdrawable. pick six credits that expire in 14 days. Limited time offer. See terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. So yeah, LSU people thought they'd go six and six, seven and five, whatever they would be, and they'd go to a crappy bowl. They'd be lucky to do that. And yes, it is very possible for two things to be true. I was fighting with my

buddy Martin about this. My buddy is a big LSU guy. He actually graduated from LSU. One of my best friends. Handles my money. There's not much of it, so he's not handling much, but he handles my money. And we were texting during the game. He's like, this game's pissing me off, blah, blah, blah. And he started sending me screenshots from his buddies. And his buddies, again, were kind of echoing that same sentiment of, well, you know, I mean, nobody thought we'd be here. It's a hell of an accomplishment. LSU being 9-3 right now is an accomplishment based on preseason expectations. But being 9-3 after you were 9-2 and all you had to do was be the shitty Texas A&M team,

and there's no way around it. There's no way you sit there and go, you know what, A&M, they're feisty. No, fuck you. A&M struggled against UMass. They lost to App State. They're a bad football team. They stink.

You can tell me about all their freshmen, and I don't care. I mean, I was watching that damn game, and Joe Tessitore and the red-haired dope from Alabama are the worst. But Greg McIlroy, like I'm listening to Joe Tessitore and the red-haired dope from Alabama are the worst. But Greg McIlroy, like I'm listening to Joe Tessitore and he's trying to explain to you how special it is, what we're seeing from Texas A&M and, oh, this kid didn't quit when he could have quit, but they just came out and fought. It doesn't matter. LSU was a better team and a team that was primed to be in a position where they would

still be alive in the college football playoff and they blew it. And when you blow it, you should be held accountable for blowing it. Like Brian Kelly tried that angle too. His angle was, well, you know, we had a hell of a year and I'm not going to let it take away from what we accomplished. Well, you know what? It does take away from what you accomplish. Like I like you and I give you credit for doing a wonderful job this year

for the most part. The team got better as the year went on. Fine. But I see Brian Kelly say, this has been one of the most enjoyable years of my career, watching these guys grow. This was not a step back. This was a bump in the road.

They will learn from this. It's a step back. You lose to bad teams when you have a chance to put yourself in great position. You blew it. You won a home game against Bama. Great win. You did get better as the year went on. But there's no way you can look at that game and go, you know what? Things are okay. We're going in the right direction. Not in that moment. Maybe five months from now you can. Maybe at SEC media days next year. Maybe leading into the bowl game

this year. But the day you lose to A&M with a chance for your season to be, I mean, you talk about immaculate given all the circumstances. 10-2 in the college football playoff talk with an SEC championship game coming up against

Georgia. Well, you totally deflated that shit. Who knows? Maybe now they'll just come out and go nuts. I don't know. Jilly's convinced they're going to win, and Jilly's a far better gambler than me, so maybe you take her advice. But still. But, like, even in life, in your own life, the expectations, it's like this, right? So if you would have told me back in 2007 or 2008, might have been 2009, when I was working in Baton Rouge and I was working 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. running boards and everything else and doing a little one-hour show on the sports station with Matt, and that was my life. I got hooked up with a guy by the name of John Chelesnik who ran a website and still does called Sportscasters Talent Agency of America. It's basically like having an agent, but you don't

have to pay the guy. You basically pay $25 a month, and he kind of sends out your audio and your stuff to people, and that's how a lot of these PDs find some of these young dopes like I was in 2008, 2009. And that's how Gavin in Houston heard me. And that's how I got that gig, whatever. Well, I remember sitting back in Baton Rouge, 22, 23. At the time, I guess I was 22-ish, 23. And I dropped out of LSU and I'm making, I got laid off for a few months, and then they brought me back, and I was making $19,500 a year. Actually, they might have moved me up to $21,500 at that point, I think. Either way, I was making about $20,000. I had no money. I'm paying rent, like $900 rent on an apartment.

Like, think about that math. I'm paying $900 rent for an apartment. I make $20,000 before taxes. It's obvious. Actually, that apartment, I think it was $800 or $900 rent for an apartment. I make $20,000 before taxes. It's obvious. Actually, that apartment, I think it was $800 or $900. I mean, I was a disaster financially. Still am. But I was a real disaster.

I made no money. And my goal when I sat there was, you know what? I think the next logical move for me would be working in a place like Memphis or Birmingham. Those are the two cities I told myself. I said, Josh, those seem realistic. You're currently in market number 80. I think it was number 84, 83 at the time, or maybe 80. And it moved it. Maybe 77 is where it was. I think it's now in the low 70s. So I was like, radio market number 77. And my goal was to kind of go regionally with it and go, OK, what's the next logical move? What would be a city that would make sense?

I wasn't thinking money or anything. It was just which city, which market would seem like a logical step in the right direction. And it was either I said to myself, I circled Birmingham and I circled Memphis. I'm like, I think I'm ready to go to markets like that and can do very well. Memphis was in the market like in the 50s. And I think that Birmingham was kind of in that same ballpark right around there. I didn't really think about New Orleans. New Orleans felt too big and unattainable. It was those two cities, Memphis, a big SEC town, and Birmingham, a huge SEC town. Those were the two thoughts that I had. And I said, if I can get to those, and I told this guy that, this John Cholesnik at Sportscaster's Talent Agency of America, I told him, I think that these are the two best situations potentially for me that I think I have a chance. And I told him to look for that if there was anything. Now, little did I know that there are no jobs really in cities like that because they're markets where people don't get paid to work very much. I mean, obviously,

there's some good stuff in those, but they're not just hiring randos from Baton Rouge. It's not like it's a feeder system anymore. It's a different world. But anyway, I digress. And then a couple of months after that is when I had the opportunity to meet Gavin at 610, and I also had the opportunity to do an on-air audition for a job at 790, which I didn't end up doing because they canceled it. I was in town and they moved it. And I said, oh, fuck that.

I'd rather work at CBS anyway. And I told them I'd love to work. I told Gavin that. I said, they want me to do this. I'd like to work for you. Basically hired me upon meeting me. And that was that. But why do I tell you this? What does it have to do with expectations versus performance? Well, in, I don't know, July of 2009, I thought, hey, I'm good enough to work in Birmingham or Memphis. And if one of those jobs came up, I'd like to go to those cities. That would be the next logical step. Well, then I got a job in Houston on a morning show and doing an hour show on my own. That changes my expectations. It's easy to sit there and go, I mean, Josh, you got a job in Houston. I mean, what else could there be? Well,

now I have a job in Houston. So now my expectation is working in those places, cities like a Houston or a major market, a Dallas, a Miami, a Boston. That was my thought process. At that point, Memphis's were out of the question. Birmingham's were out of the question. Huntsville, Alabama's were out of the question. Cape Girardeau, Missouri and Fayetteville, Arkansas, those were all out of the question because now I worked in Houston and that changes the outlook. That changes the expectation. It's the same with LSU or Tennessee. The expectation and the actual achievement and the accomplishment in what you've actually done, performance, changes expectation.

So if you told me LSU was going to finish the season 9-3, I'd say, great, that's a solid year. They probably lost to Bama. I would have thought that Florida State was a toss-up, but they could have lost to an Ole Miss. They went 9-3 and had some highs, had some lows, whatever, and that was a great year and above average. Given the way things have gone the last couple of years, 9-3 is spectacular. That's great. What a job. But when you go out and you beat Alabama and you're 9-2, in particular beating Alabama, which doesn't happen that often, you beat Bama and you're 9-2 with one crappy game to go, and you win that and you're at least in the running for the college football playoff, and you not only lose to a team with four wins that's not going to a bowl,

you get embarrassed by a team with four wins that's not going to a bowl, you get embarrassed by a team with four wins that's not going to a bowl. I don't view it as, boy, what a great year though, man. I mean, nobody thought we'd be here. I don't do that. It'd be like if the Philly, now nobody thought the Phillies would be the Astros in the World Series. The Astros were the favorite. But in a similar sense, I mean, if Philly fans, I think they'll look back in five years or five minutes and say, hey, great run by the Phillies. Nobody thought we'd get there. And I would respect that. And maybe in 10 years we look back on 9-3 LSU and go, boy, that Bama game was great.

It was a classic. And it was. But it doesn't change the fact that the performance by LSU or the performance by Tennessee when all they had to do was beat South Carolina and beat Vanderbilt to basically go to the college football playoff without having to play in the conference championship, that changes things. And your performance can do that. If I hadn't gotten a job in Houston and somehow I did get a job in Birmingham, then it changes your expectations and everything. But the performance or the job, that changes it. You know, I worked in two major markets when I worked in Houston and Philly.

When I got fired in Philly, Memphis reached out to me and said, hey, we have an opening here. Would you be interested? And now I probably would be because I just think my point of view is different on things. But at the time, I'm like, no, I'm a major market guy. I'm taking a major market job. Portland called. I'm like, nah, Portland's a little too small. I'm a major market guy. I'm taking a major market job. Portland called. I'm like, nah, Portland's a little too small. I'm a big market guy. And I was a commodity.

If I had never worked in Philly and Houston, then Memphis looks more appealing. But it's not the way it works. So when I see these people whining on that thing and telling people, stop being so mean. It was a great year. And this was amazing. Maybe in five years, I'll look at it that way, but as I sit here today on November 28th and when I'm recording this at whatever time it is, 8, 9, whatever time it is, when I sit back and look at this, I say to myself, eh, they blew it.

Again, performance impacts expectation.