The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1397 - The Cowboys Trade Micah Parsons to the Packers, College Football Week 1 Preview, Matt Rhule, Will Howard, Ryan Day, Nick Saban, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

On today's show, Pat and AJ Hawk are LIVE from the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio on the campus of Ohio State ahead of Saturday’s game between Texas and Ohio State, with the boys back in Indy as they discuss the massive trade yesterday right after the show as Micah Parsons was traded to the Packers for 2 1st round picks and Kenny Clark, what it means for the Packers, the Cowboys, Jerry Jones, and how this impacts everything in the NFC. They are also joined by four incredible guests including Head Coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Matt Rhule to chat about last night’s game and announce he’ll be coming on the show every week this football season, National Champion QB from Ohio State and current QB for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Will Howard joins the progrum to discuss last year’s team and being back at Ohio State, and what he expects this year to be like in Pittsburgh. Later, National Champion Head Coach of Ohio State, Ryan Day joins the show to preview this weekend’s matchup against Texas, and lastly 7x National Champion, the GOAT, and current analyst on College GameDay, Nick Saban joins the progrum to preview this weekend of college football and announce he will also be appearing every week during the football season. Make sure to subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN’s Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you, we’ll see you on Monday. Enjoy this weekend’s college football games. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. On this feel-good Friday, August 29, 2025, this program begins right now. Football! It's absolutely magical, and that game will be played on this field behind us as one takes on three to kick off this college football season. That's going to be remembered forever as the greatest of all time. Time. I'm obviously sitting next to. standing next to a man who's going to be remembered as one of the greatest

Buckeyes of all time calls this city home still at this point ran around with that gigantic head in this horseshoe and tried to CTE everybody that he's seen on the football field college football national champion Super Bowl champion Rotter Cup winner proud Buckeye former president of Ohio A.J. Hawke AJ Good to be here always good to be home they're clapping they're clapping oh good thanks boys appreciate you boy Oh, yeah! Come on, what a beautiful fall!

Yeah, come on the camera! Watch this, I can do this and just make him incredibly uncouthful. Yeah! Oh, is this one shot? This is here, went right down the barrel. Here we go. That's needed. I'm sure we need that one.

Now, back to me, please. Ladies and gentlemen. Okay, uh, whenever I say that today is a great day, I say that because we have actual football to react to. We had massive games last night. College football delivered exactly how we had hoped that it was would deliver. Now let's go back to the Thunderdome in Indianapolis, Indiana. The toxic tables there at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Ty, crazy life for you right now. We'll get into that in a second.

Then there's one half of the hammer. God Cowboys AP Tone. Tone. Last night, college football delivered in a massive way. What are some of the highlights, big takeaways that we need to know other than the fact, Taylor Swift? Oh. Football fan. Unreal. Not just NFL. She's all the way in on ball. Other than that, what should we be thinking about tone from last night? It was an electric night. 17 total games, and the best way to go through that is to go to the highlights. We start down in South Florida at Raymond James Stadium. We have the number 25 Boise State Broncos taken on USF,

and it was a 7-3 game in the second quarter until quarterback Byron Brown of USF decided to go crazy. That was a 29-yard touchdown run on 3rd and 10. And then we go to the third quarter, and he's got it again in the red zone, 15 yards out Byron Brown into the end zone again. South Florida goes up 24 to 7 there and kind of sealed the deal. Oh, but I forgot

something, Pat. I forgot. In the third quarter, about eight minutes left, punt, USF punt and getting the ball back. Uh-oh, it's a fake! It's not the punter dummies. That's a backup quarterback they ran out there. A little wiry-looking white guy. Must be the punter. No, backup quarterback.

Big ass brain down there, USF. Third string quarterback freshman Lachlin Hewlett comes in and throws the touchdown there. That got them to 17-7 before Byron Brown went in again. USF with the big upset to start this season in week one over Boise State. Who was favored to make the playoff? Okay, so obviously USF, big surprise. AJ, you said you called that middle of that highlight? Yeah, a little bit.

I don't know if I called it to be the blowout that it was, but yeah, I said USF and Coach Alex Golush are doing good things down there. You actually called them UCF what you were saying yesterday. A lot of people weren't able to understand it. Do you remember that, boys? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Now, let's go to Nebraska-Sincinnati last night, a little nightcap. How do we feel about that one, Tony?

It came down to a fourth and seven at one point on a final drive. What a game late there for Nebraska and Sinci. Yeah, let's go to Nebraska and Sinci, which was apparently a home game for Cincinnati, but it didn't look like or feel like it at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. It was a packed Nebraska crowd. and we will go to first half, 17 seconds left. Huge play right here.

Ryola goes to Hunter for the huge touchdown to end the second half. We always talk about that middle eight. That was huge for Nebraska there to go up 13 to 3, heading into the half. And then another huge play for Ryola and Nebraska. We got a fourth and two, early fourth quarter. Ryola to Dane Key to go up 20 to 10. Guess what, though? Cincinnati did not give up.

Brandon Sorsby fought. Cincinnati fought all game long. Here we are 39 seconds left. Sorsby deep down the right sideline picked off by Hartsog Jr. To end the game, that is a game that Nebraska used to lose. But not this year, Pat. This is year three of our sweet, sweet prince. So a huge win for Nebraska there. Coach Matt Ruhl will be joining us in about 10 minutes or so.

Can't wait to catch up with him. Nebraska getting a big-time win in these close games is something that the Cornhusker fans are not used to. That is certainly a game that they end up losing, going up 10 in the fourth quarter. Then Cincinnati starts creeping back. They make it a three-point game. Then there's a fourth and seven. And this is game on the line on that final drive. They pick it up. It's like, oh no, is Cincinnati going to break the hearts of Nebraska? Is college football week one about to start an electrifying fashion in front of a Nebraska cornhusker fan base? That was very loud throughout the entirety. And instead, big-time pick. To end it, it's beautiful. Love football.

Now, let's get to some professional football. Yesterday, the world was rattled. Holy Hill. Jerry Jones just sent Micah Parsons out of Dallas to the Green Bay Packers. Our instant reaction was filmed, obviously, when we weren't live. You can see that entire video on YouTube. During that entire reaction, Ty Schmidt was very clearly on the side of Packers or winning a Super Bowl. Packers will win the Super Bowl.

And Ty was basically calling this for a few days. Ty was even saying, hey, if they want to give him $45 million, $50 million, $55, we got it. And also, next year's first round pick, do it. The year after that, do it. You want to give five first round picks, do it, is what Ty Schmidt was actually saying. Turns out, all you got to do, $47 million a year, $34 million guaranteed each year in the highest guarantees in the history of a non-quarterback in NFL history. Who did the contract? Oh, David Mullageta, this guy, if all the records are broken when it comes to,

contract. Mulageta's name is on it right now. What an absolute dog being able to get this deal done with Green Bay before presenting the Dallas Cowboys with an offer that I guess Jerry thought he couldn't refuse. Kenny Clark, great football player. Not going to bash Kenny Clark at all in two first rounders. I think with what Ty was saying, I think that was more like what we all thought it was going to take for a guy like Michael Parsons, a game breaker, a game ender, a guy who Green Bay thinks is one player away, maybe that player away from winning a Super Bowl. And the odds, the sports books, 400 point turn for the Green Bay Packers. First, you're plus 2,000. Now you're plus 1,600 or whatever. That's big time swing in the sports books from the addition of one player. And all it counts, I'm sorry, 600 point swing. All it takes is two first rounders and Kenny Clark

is what people are saying. Now, if this works out for the Green Bay Packers, obviously everybody's going to mock and ridicule Jerry for losing his fastball. Even though the documentary about him, pretty nice. Pretty nice. Very good. Guys a dog.

Oh, yeah. But it feels like he loves. He lost this one, is what everybody's saying in the exact moment, and everybody thought he would get a deal done. He doesn't. AJ, let's go to you, pal. What are your thoughts on it all? I'm very happy as a Green Bay Packer alum and a fan of the team.

I love it. I think it was a great move, but the thing about it is, Jerry, you get two first round picks, obviously that's a Packers. What is it going to be? Late 20s, most likely, for both those. 32 is what you're hoping. I know, that's what I'm saying. The best case scenario, something happens,

and they get up in the teens or something, because these first rounders, pick number three is not the same as pick number 30. Now, you're still getting great players, but it's just a different level, I think, and you have a lot better chance to hit at 3 to 10, I guess, if you want a first round pick on that one. But I am very happy for the Green Bay Packers. I think Micah is going to fit in beautifully. I think they will love. Can you imagine the first time he runs out of that tunnel when they're doing introductions with the defense? Well, let's talk to an owner of the team. Ty Schmidt, yesterday you had quite an animated response to this entire thing. Now you've got a chance of sleep on it. Maybe some wet dreams.

Oh! Yeah, you never know. How was it, Ty? how are you feeling in the morning now as a Green Bay Packer owner and a guy that was saying, hey, whatever you need to send to Jerry, send to Jerry? Yeah, I'm on Cloud 9, to be honest with you. I mean, it was just a fantastic night, had maybe one of the best nights sleep I've had in a long time. And not just because we have football this weekend that matters and we had football last night,

but I'll tell you what, I was ecstatic coming in the office today. I just, it's nice to finally be on the side of, you know, the Packers are in this situation sometimes in the past. and then I got to be the one who'd be like, you know what, I didn't want that guy. He's not going to pan out. You know, this isn't the right move for them. They got fleeced or whatever. It was nice being on the side of the Packers actually got this guy. And I could just laugh last night as fans from other fan bases were saying like,

oh, yeah, you're going to love this guy when, you know, he's sitting out games or, you know, whatever the case may be. So, I mean, you know, a lot of people talking about how much money it's going to cost to pay him. The way I look at it is, I mean, they're in the, their window right now. And they know that. They paid the quarterback. They paid the, edge rusher. So I'm very, like AJ said, I'm very excited to see what Jeff Halfley will do with him as well. So yeah, it is. It's go win a Super Bowl. I mean, this is an aggressive move. Let's go win a Super Bowl. Yeah, I have to get the Super Bowl done. And then

if you're Dallas on the other side, obviously everyone's going to the, oh my gosh, the Dallas Mavericks traded Luca Donkich and the Dallas Cowboys lost Micah Parsons in the same year. That's terrible. It stinks for Dallas Cowboys fans, but it's another situation, kind of like Green Bay with Jordan Love. Like, you kind of have to wait and see. It stinks right now and you had your best player being Micah, but now you get two picks in the future.

You kind of have to wait and see how it pans out very similar to Jordan Love. Personally, I'm thinking this might be Jerry's Swan song. Maybe Stephen Jones does say, hey, maybe it's time for me to take the reins. I'm going to go get this done for you, Dad. Okay, I'm going to go get you. I'm going to make

you proud. I'm your first born. this boy, dad, let me take this team and take them back to the Super Bowl. I don't know if that'll happen, but if you're a Cowboys fan, just think like this. Hey, in two years from now, we basically just guaranteed ourselves, either Archmanning or Jeremiah Smith with all the first round

picks. I saw that out there. I saw that, and, you know, Jerry said we got full first round picks in the next two drafts, and who says that we ain't using that right now. He basically drops a stay tuned at the end of this thing. Go ahead and run that, Foxy?

The other thing that I want to say is we not only gives us four first round picks over the next two years. We not only do that. Nothing says we can't use some of those picks right now to go get somebody right now. Don't rule that out. Literally, literally saying, stay tuned. This shit ain't over yet. And this is kind of exactly what everybody has been chatting about with Jerry. And I think the documentary kind of lays out perfectly.

This dude is a master promoter in business man. This guy is a gambler. This guy even self-immittally, a little bit too good of a talker. Sometimes he writes some checks that his ass can't cash. Like he even says that in the opening of the entire thing. And during the premiere of this documentary, whenever he was on the red carpet, he said, you know, the Cowboys will always give you a little bit of drama. You know, if there isn't much to talk about Cowboys,

we'll kind of go in there and stir up some controversy. And I'll tell you what, a lot of the Cowboy fans, I think, are saying, that's what we're talking about, Jared. That's the problem. Yeah. We need to worry about winning a football game. Not worried about driving up controversy. And if you listen to Michael Irvin this morning on GetUp,

who, it is great to see Michael Irvin back on TV. Michael Irvin needs to hear that we are better as a sports world with him talking. In that documentary, he's phenomenal. And on Get Up this morning, he was fantastic. And he basically took some blame saying, I should have stepped in and said, Jerry, we can't be making this type of mistake. But he also said, it looked like Jerry was hurt. He said, it looked like Jerry was hurt.

Jerry was obviously offended and felt disrespected by Michael Parsons. is what everybody around him is seemingly saying. And one of the folks were saying he wasn't going to budge, I think that's because he was personally offended by the thought that he thought they had a deal done. Now, that deal, the handshake deal, a lot of people were saying, that's what Jerry bought the Cowboys on,

was a handshake deal. That would have been less money than what the deal would have been for Michael Parsons for the entirety of it all. And it's like, that's an interesting situation because for Jerry Jones, as great as a businessman as he is,

and I like that he's spinning it as they can make some magic out of this, Everybody's calling him an idiot. Everybody's saying he's lost his fastball, and everybody is saying that he's no longer the guy to be running his team that he created. That's a fascinating time for Jerry, I bet, as he looks in the mirror at night.

I mean, and his son, Stephen, who's gonna be running, you know, in the future whenever that comes, I mean, I just wanna know, like, we always say you don't want to mix, like, did he let his emotions get in the way of business? Didn't Michael Irvin mentioned something about that? Like, hey, you can't. Well, I don't know.

I mean, Jerry's an emotional dude. He's been running the Cowboys, I think, with his emotions, for a long, long time and it's worked out pretty well, obviously not the last 25 and 30. I believe in gut instinct. Yeah. Okay.

Am I got it? Yeah. But he had to have thought. You were him for a second. Close your eyes. He had to have thought. Okay, Jerry kind of has the same haircut as that guy from Rutgers last night. That was sick.

Thinking about doing that. Is that what Hawks saving up for? I just figured that's my big surprise, man. Don't bullet. By the way, I love anybody that is, that is, confidence. Amen. I do too. National TV. I'm gonna stand right next to the coach. Let's get some airtime on this thing. I like it. Maybe that is a new cut for everybody. But Jerry, like the thought of him losing it is seemingly what everybody is saying. Yeah. Everybody's saying it. Even the

sports books, the sports books are saying the Green Bay Packers won this trade. Tone, this seems to be a massive jump for a player. This has to be the the biggest jump documented for a defensive player getting traded as opposed to an offensive player like a quarterback or something this feels like big movement has that been chatted about yeah it's huge movement because like you said yesterday we like there's times like when Rogers came to the Steelers the Steelers Super wards didn't move at all and that's a quarterback and now you have Micah Parsons who you know is moving these odds insanely not only for the Super Bowl but also for

the division and conference and everything like that and making the playoffs but also for Michael Parsons he is the defense he is now odds on favorite to defensive MVP. I can't remember the last time that it's probably never happened that the odds on favorite to be the defensive MVP has been traded to a team. And for a guy who roots for a team that has an elite edge rusher.

Everyone can say like, oh, the Cowboys are going to get better at rush defense and all this and Jerry can try to spin it like that. But when you have an elite edge rusher versus not having an elite edge rusher, it makes everything so much easier for your defense. Not only just him, okay, but Rashon Gary's going to get his now. Lucas

Van Ness is going to get his now. The corners like the there's some questions about the Packers corners they're not going to have to cover as long it helps the entire team so that's probably why one all those odds moved because of that because of his impact too because there's going to be a lot of money coming on the Packers because that's just kind of what happens and then three just overall that defense is just going to be so much better yeah tone I appreciate what you said there because you know we all talked about Revis Island and how much that affected every defense he was a part of because he can just take care of one guy what does an elite pass rusher do for the rest of the

defense, AJ? It's unbelievable. And I play with Clay Matthews, a guy that every offense had to game plan around every single week. The guy is so explosive. It's just, yeah, like you said, okay, say we have a Revis Island type situation. We're going to lock this corner up on this guy. He's going to follow the best receiver.

Yeah, it makes it much more difficult. The other 10 guys can kind of play more of a shell situation and take advantage of the matchups that you have. But when you have one guy that can go, not only, but that's the thing about Micah, he's so versatile, it would give me nightmares as a de-coordinated because you know this guy, like, Okay, where's he lined up? Okay, sometimes he's standing up two-point. He's lined up A-gap. He's mugged A-gap like he's an inside backer. And then when he's on the edge, he's such a pure and he's an unorthodox pass rush. I feel like how he can bend and move, it's not normal. Most people are not born with the capability to move like Micah Parsons can move. And when you couple that with work ethic, this is what you get. A guy that can wreck the game every single time he's on the field. So it will free up those other guys on defense a lot. And it will create opportunities, I think, for the other guys on defense. to make plays and to make impact plays. You know, the whole worry about him not being able to stop the damn run.

Jerry Jones said that. Where did that come from the last couple of days? How do you feel about playing, like, you know, this season? Well, I know we've got to get a lead run to ball. I know it's what we. That was the, he said it three times. I know. Well, you just run right at these types of guys and things like that.

So when was it that Jerry started trying to nitpick everything? Was it after the deal in his eyes wasn't upheld? Was he so offended, okay? Was he so offended that then he started looking back. Yeah, this guy doesn't stop to run, actually. Does he start Googling what people say bad things about Michael? Like, what are the bad? Like, I do believe these things.

Like, when did that all start happening? Because he was like the face of the Cowboys for a little bit. And then it was there, I love Micah, talking to his mom. And then when did it all become like, guy can't stop the damn run? Guys not. I mean, guys not. We're going to run right at him.

That's what we can't win the game like that. Our team got better. because of this. Like, that is not how Jerry operates with his stars ever, it feels like. It's not. I mean, Jerry is a master marketing guy. We know that. He's supposed to be in the wrestling business. Oh, for sure. He could...

Which is the problem. And what he could do. What if he was... What if he was going back through his old? He could go back through his old grade. So you get graded every single play and you're having a game and you go like an overall grade. I bet would have Jerry went back through some of

Michael's old grades from his linebacker coach or his outside, his edge coach. He's like, hey, Mike, it says, all your negatives are on run plays. What's going on here? Here we go. We can run with that. M.A., M.A., you see that? Loaf, Trader.

Yeah, I mean, that's, I guess if you want to, any great pass rusher, you could say. Find some negatives. You could always find something, but it doesn't matter. The positives outweigh everything when it comes to Mike. It feels like that's how Packers fans feel, and it feels like Jerry's like, we're moving home and stay tuned. Now, last night, college football was awesome, very late. And I'm not going to lie here. I fell asleep, second, third, and most of fourth quarter of the Nebraska Sins again.

Woke up, minute 30 left. What a great time to wake up. Perfect. You always do that perfectly. It is a perfect wake-up call. And I think it's maybe because the energy in the wakes me up, like gives me a little rattle. And I'm always half asleep while watching this shit. Last night, I watched this man get the first win of the season and win one of those close games that have potentially broken the hearts of Nebraska fans for the last hundred.

years. Ladies and gentlemen, in his third year at Nebraska, the head coach of the Cornhuskers, currently undefeated after a massive win last night, Matt Ruhle. Yeah, Coach. What is up? What is up, man? Good to see you guys. I like it. I like that you're standing. We're standing. You know, it's good energy here on this Field. Good Friday, especially being undefeated, I assume. How did Field getting that win last night? Obviously, a close one. You pull it out in front of a packed house at Arrowhead. How do you feel this morning, boss? Well, we got home about 3.34 o'clock. So I feel pretty alive right now. But, no, you're right. I mean, it was,

unbelievable. Arrowhead was packed. Andy Reid's out there shaking every kid's hand. Patrick Mahomes is on the sidelines. Travis Kelsey, Taylor Swift, are up in the stands. I mean, it's a, it was a who's who last night. So it was a cool environment. And to pick the ball off to win the game was pretty special. That was a Cincinnati home game. I'm sure they, I'm sure they felt that. Obviously, Nebraska fan base is one of the things that you were so pumped up about whenever you decided to take that job three years ago. What did you see from your team last night? What did you see from the quarterback last night that maybe makes you believe this could be a year that's special for your team? Like most third year rule coach teams, Temple, massive jump in a third year.

The culture's implemented. Baylor, third year, culture implemented, huge jump. And then I actually jump off a boat there in that particular third year. Now in your third year in Nebraska, what did you see last night that makes you think this team could be special or what do you think you need to work on? Well, obviously we have a lot to work on, but I thought I thought the biggest thing was our best players made plays. Our telemetic Emma Johnson ran for over 100 yards. You see an Isaiah Hunter here transferred in for us, made a big play to score a touchdown. And then, like I said, Malcolm Hartsog picks that ball off to win the game. And you know, you said it earlier, Pat, like I think the biggest thing, like when you watch the best teams in college football, you know, take out the talent, obviously.

But, I mean, the best teams, they go on expecting to win, man. They don't panic. A team comes roaring back. A team makes a couple plays. And they go out there and they just make a couple more plays. And so I felt for the first time last night a bunch of guys on the sidelines that were like, no, we're not going down. We're going to go out.

We're going to find a way to make a play. And they, their quarterback, Sorsby was awesome. He competed at a really high level. But at the end of the day, you know, like I said, Malcolm went up and took the ball away and we got to celebrate. Yeah, insane interception to end the game. Great way to kick off this college football season. It's going to be electrifying really late at night, but it was still an awesome thing. You know, got me out of my bed a little bit there.

Fourth and seven, you call that timeout. I was half asleep while you had to make that decision. They have no timeouts. You potentially could win the game. I knew there had to be some sort of, what do we want? Best play, Kodak. What goes into that decision, and how many people are kind of in your ear at that moment? Yeah, no, you, Codex exactly right, man.

Hey, let's take a picture. Let's see what they're in. Let's get the best defense possible. Let's get our guys a chance to so that we can see, all of our guys can see what they're in and try to go make a play. John Butler's our DC, a really smart guy, and he asked for it, so we did it. And, you know, you only have timeouts at the end of the game if your guys did things right in the third and fourth quarter.

And, you know, we played clean. We didn't have any massive, massive errors. So we were able to save our. timeouts down the stretch. They had to use a ball theirs to get the ball back. And we did that. Now, they went and made that play on fourth and seven, as you know, and great play by them. I can't say enough about their quarterback, but I thought he was a warrior last night.

Yeah, it was fun to watch him, especially in that moment. That's a huge moment. Fourth and seven game on the line throws a strike. But I enjoyed the joust that was happening between you and Cincinnati first week of the season. AJ has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, coach, I hear you this year was one of the first times you had. actually have captains you got voted on and you have captains now for this team. What made you do that?

What does this team, I guess, what's the culture like to where you felt like this is something that you should do? You know, AJ, I think a lot of times nowadays, guys are like, hey, you know, I'm going to lead by example. You know, I don't want to, if I say this, I don't know how people are going to react. I don't, coach, I'm not really up for all that. So we've always kind of done like, all right, I love a game captain, a game captain, let, you know, let leadership emerge.

But, you know, when you have a quarterback like we have in Dillon, when you have, have the guys we have on our back end. You know, we have, you know, a bunch of seniors in the secondary. We have an offensive line that wants to impose themselves. They came to me and they're like, hey, we want to lead. And so they recognize that nothing's going to be easy in college football nowadays. I mean, these conferences are hard, travels hard, everyone wants to play well. But they wanted to be the guys that led the whole thing and they asked for it.

So, you know, I don't want to be one of those coaches who's set in my ways. If the guys come to me and they say, coach, we want to vote for captains, man, I'm going to slap it to see on someone's chest and then hold them accountable and tell them to go do it. And so that's what I'm fired up about today. Like, you know, some of the football has to get a lot better. But the fact that our guys didn't panic and the leaders stepped up and led, that makes my job a lot easier. Yeah, let's talk about some of that leadership. Connor has a question for you, coach. Yeah, coach, I believe it was the second quarter, maybe the first, and it was first and goal from the one and there was a false start.

and I believe you guys ended up with a field goal instead of a touchdown. After that false start, you can see Rayola kind of look back towards the sideline and then come back to the huddle. And you could actually, they showed him not yelling at, but clearly holding the player that I won't name or tell his number that went off sides kind of letting him know like, hey, can't have that. You know, you could see him give him a few, some words to him. And then obviously that's the kind of the leadership you were just talking about.

You mentioned the accountability you have with your captains. What about your captains to the rest of the team? That seems like a very important kind of leadership down the line, if you will. Yeah, no doubt, man. I mean, I think that's the key, right? I mean, that game came down to, you know, one play. And what we're always trying to teach them, like, you know, typical coach. But it's so true is it's not always the one play that happened at the end of the game.

I mean, that, that, that touched, that field goal that was instead of touch, that was a four-point play. And so, you know, we don't want to embarrass people in public. We don't want to embarrass people on camera. I mean, we're not, you know, I'm trying to do that. But, I mean, as a brotherhood, when we step on that field, like, we've got to, we've got to have a mentality that iron sharpens iron. And we got to hold each other to a high standard. And that's the word that we try to talk a lot about nowadays is just standards. You know, it's not your feelings.

It's, it's what we're, what we expect. And so you can't fall start on the one. I mean, we were literally on the one inch line. Yeah. And, you know, those are the play. that in the past have sent us into like a free fall, right? And so, hey, we, you know, we, we, we, we dealt with it. We went out, we kicked the field, but we got off the field and reset.

And so that's the growth, I think, at Nebraska. But, yeah, we're going to hold each other accountable. We're tough, you know, we're tough, tough-minded. We don't need a soft environment where we're all, you know, walking on eggshells. I love everything about that. Okay, we like that's happening again. It feels like that's coming back into style. It is coming back.

Coach, do you feel that? Do you feel like it's, you feel like it's, you? you know, the tough, hard-nosed kind of mentality is coming back into the sport a little bit? I think absolutely so. I think we're all, we all gravitate towards those people, man. Like, you know, my guys get up in the morning, right? You know, I hear them. They listen to Inkey Johnson, you know, the hip-hop preacher.

They listen to David Goggins, John. Like, they want to be that. Like, I think as men, like, we want to go out and we want to do hard things. And so what we're just trying to do is build a culture where we tell them, like, it's okay to do hard things, you know? like people wake up every day and pay like, you know, a hundred bucks a month to go do CrossFit and do jump, jump around like ninjas and do all this hard stuff. Like, like we're going to try to do that in our football program.

And so I 100% think it's coming back. And I think it's a good thing. I think, you know, I want my kids. I have three kids. I want my kids to grow up not looking at everything in life as a threat. Like, oh, my God, I want them to see things as a challenge for them to overcome. And so I want my players to see it the same way. Opportunity there.

You know, that is what it's all about. Hearing you old school dudes talk about that, and the thought that it was almost going to disappear for a little bit. And I love the fact that you're like, let me see your algorithms, boys. Let me see the algorithms. What's on the explore page? What's on the explore page?

I need to see motivation. I need to see fighting. Okay, little golf is fine. Don't know what all those stuff is, boys. Okay, a lot of this seems like you guys need to stop following a certain thing. Yeah, probably. I love that you're, everybody's Explorer page kind of looks the same at some point,

but I like that you're like listening to what the boys are getting jacked up to as I can learn about them. Now, there was some questions about something that has seemingly been a staple at Nebraska for a long time. The black shirts. Tone has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, coach, it's no secret that the first two years at Nebraska for you, the defense carried your team, and they were, they were unbelievable. And then this year, it felt like everyone was like,

oh, we got no worries about the offense, feels like the offense is going to be good, new O.C. But on the defense, also a new offensive coordinator, you lost a couple dogs off the D-line. So there was some questions about the defense that has carried the team. You talked about Sorsby. You made a couple of plays, but it felt like the defense, like you guys looked really good on the defensive side last night. How did you feel about that side?

How did it feel for them to close out the game? Yeah, you know, I thought we had some really good moments on defense, you know, and to your point, you know, we lost Ty Robinson, who was, I mean, he didn't get nearly enough credit. The Eagles got themselves an unbelievable player in Ty. Always do. We had the polar bear Nash last year. He's in Tampa Bay.

So we had some great ones. And, you know, there was some stretches in that game. I think it was when Pat was sleeping. So, Pat, I'm glad you slept through this part, brother. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, I'm glad because, you know, there were some parts of that game where we, you know, we went two straight drives where I don't even think they threw a pass and they went down and scored. And they just, they went tempo and, you know, you're in the Big Ten, you don't see a lot of tempo. And that's not an excuse.

That's like a, that we put on tape that if you go tempo against us, we didn't stop it last night, man. Like they just went play, play, play, play, play. And some of it was the quarterback dropping back and then just escaping up the middle. And he was running. And so we made the plays to close it out. We took the ball away twice, you know, which led to the win and led to a touchdown. But, man, we got to tackle better. We can't give up 200 yards rushing, especially, you know, you get into the Big Ten.

You face the teams that we're going to face. All this football right now is fun. But, you know, when it gets to be 40 degrees, when it gets to be 30 degrees, you better be able to stop the run. So we got some work to do this week. Yeah, it's Big Ten football, baby. Always will be. Hey, look out for that Iowa Hawkeye team. They've got more Kroniski now.

Ain't that right time? Yeah, well said, well said. And a lot of people are saying, hey, that Iowa-Nabrasca game at the end of the year could decide a playoff spot from the Big Ten. Coach, obviously, massive win last night. Like you said, you've got to clean some things up. But going into this year, like, is there maybe a different message to the team with, you know, everyone knows about the rule third year that team's going to go on and do great things and then

a lot of people nationally are saying you know hey Nebraska look at this team to maybe slip into the playoffs this year like does that change the message to the team at all or or not really and you guys can't pay attention to that kind of stuff you know I think it's a great question I think I think I think I think to some degree yes I mean to to a major degree yes it's like you know we we want to have our guys walking around this facility expecting to to go win and expecting for good things to happen. And, you know, we're a better team now that we were the last two years. We'll be, you know, I think we're on a great path of ascension that we'll continue on

for years to come. But, man, like, you have to expect good things to happen. You can't just be like, oh, I hope we get, you know, some crumbs at the table this year. I mean, you have to go out and fight for it. So my message to the guys is like, man, you have to take ownership of this. I'm going to do the best I can. I'll take ownership of my role. But you've got to go out and you've got to go make.

the plays to win the game. And, you know, that was what was so great. The message for last night was, you know, Malcolm coming over the top in cover two, it's him and another player, and it's, you know, 50-50 ball, and we won the game because of him. And so I've always believed that, like, you know, players win games. I'm a much better coach when I have great players. And so I want my players to go out there with a little bit of swagger, a little bit of confidence, a little bit of energy, and go make plays that maybe the last two years, they were like, oh, what if I make a mistake. We don't live in what if anymore. We're trying to live in what is and be in the moment and just go out there and play ball the way we know we how. The way we know we know how.

Feels like the culture's in. Does it feel like that with the boys? I mean, obviously we got a lot to learn. We got to play better ball and Big Ten football is going to happen at some point. You're going to have to win very tough games. That's everybody all the season long. But the third year thing, that's because you feel like that is kind of instituted in at this point? Yeah, I love the culture that we have I mean, like, I ran out of the tunnel for the first time ever because the guys were like, hey, coach, you need to run out of the tunnel. I said, I don't really believe in it. I think coaches should be in the side, let the players run out.

But, like, man, I love this group of guys. And, you know, they're not, like, they're a gritty, tough group. They're not, they're not entitled. They're not soft. They're tough and they're tough-minded. And so, I mean, that's, you know, I mean, I'm just a former walk on that's just, you know, trying to make my way in coaching. Like, I'm not one of these.

you know, big name guys. Trying to make your way. Yeah, yeah, trying to make your way. Yeah. Just trying to work my way, Pat. I mean, yeah, that's all. Okay. Which way is the field?

Yeah. But I love them. Like, it's like, you know what? Like, we're just, we're just, you know, we're just, you know, we're just going to quietly stand over here to Cornhuskers, you know, and, and, and, and, and battle our way. But, like, like, like I said, I don't believe anything will be easy in the Big Ten. But I like this, the, like, as Coach Paterno, you should say, this group has

moxy. They got, they got toughness. So, like, even getting in that locker room, I tell our guys all the time, like, there's no greater feeling in the world. You guys know this. There's no greater feeling in the world than being in the locker room after a big win. And a win like that was pretty dang cool. Hell, yeah, especially in Arrowhead. I mean, you talk about being in a legendary place in the history of the game and everything like that.

It was a cool way to start the season. And on that note, I'd like to officially announce to the world that we are incredibly lucky that we'll be riding alongside the Nebraska Cornhusker season this year, catching up with you every single week. We appreciate you agreeing to do that. We're very, very, very, very, very, very pumped about that. And we love you, man. We're big fans. So we appreciate you doing this.

We appreciate you believing that our show could be a potential additive. And also, congrats on all the weight loss. You look remarkable out there. I love that. I love that thing you just pull. There was a fat picture of me and then a skinny picture of me. Yeah, that's exactly why I said that. That was my first time seeing that graphic.

And I said, holy shit, there's the before and. the after right there. You look unbelievable and we're thankful you're doing this coach. First of all, I'm grateful. I mean, I think you know this, but I'm a fan of the show when I'm not on. I mean, it's on in this building all the time and I love the way

you guys speak authentically about what's going on in sports and so I'm so excited to represent Nebraska, but also to represent just football, college football. I mean, I was up this morning reading about the Parsons deal in case. I got some questions about that. Man, I want to I want to be a good member of the show.

And if I get boring, you can just do a weigh in and just see if I'm on the fat side or the skinny side. We can just see where I'm at as the season goes on. I like you're coming with ideas. That's a solution, we like that. Ideas. Hey, if it gets bad, just put me on a scale. Everything will work out.

It's not going to get bad because you're incredible with us every time you're on. We appreciate you. Congrats on the big win last week. Last night. We'll see you next week. Thank you, guys. Hey, whose house?

rules hot see you brother yeah I think that's the name is podcast rules has are you 100% pool should be now it is now it is now I didn't know if you wanted me uh I wasn't gonna bring anything back I was that I say our house I have seen the promo video where he does the walk and talk it's amazing thank you yes so follow the product we're trying to be the best okay is it rules house for sure do we don't know I don't know House rules. Oh, no. Oh, no.

No, I'm just kidding. I got no idea. I think it is house rules. It's house rules. It's confirmed. Oh, no. It's so close. Wait, was he on when you said who's house are?

Rules. Did he repeat it? No, no, no. He didn't know what I was doing. Obviously. It doesn't make sense. That could be. That's a rule.

Yeah, that could be a good thing. You sold me, though. Like, if you. Yeah. That was impressive. He's going to join us. I can't wait for that. Him with the Parsons stuff, we should have asked him.

We missed it. Yeah, pot him back up. It's Nebraska season. It's Nebraska season. Yeah, you're right, you're right. It is. Okay, joining us now is a man who's 6'7 foot 7, maybe 7 foot tall. And he's a national champion at this particular institution.

He's a guy who's currently a Pittsburgh Steeler. Ladies and a gentleman, Wojard. Yeah. Well, you'll be down there. Well, a strong death with that thumb. I just would like to let everybody know. That was a very, very strong, strong doubt. You can move in a little bit if you want inside that helmet.

Yeah, here we go. Let's see if we got you. What's up, gentlemen? Oh, yeah, you look so cool. How are you doing? How are you doing? No, you're good. Cameraman, can you just, Buck, can you have AJ and Will on that particular shot?

Zoom in camera, man. You look tall. You look tall. You don't look that bad. You look pretty tall. I got a little, I got a little bend in the knees. Yeah, very kind of you to do that. Will, thank you for joining us.

It's your first time back. since being drafted in Pittsburgh Steelers? Yeah, I think I stopped by for a little bit in like July, but really first time being back, you know, obviously under these circumstances, with a big game on the line. You know, I think it was like a two-day thing that I stopped by for. So it's good to be back, man. It feels like home.

How does it, yeah, you said it feels like home. Obviously you transfer in here and have this magical run last year, which had a couple, you know, obstacles in it, obviously. Early in the season of Oregon, we don't have to talk about the whole thing that happened on this particular field. you guys became the hottest team in football. We were watching some highlights from last year's game day and from last year whenever we were doing a simulcast. And it was evident to us that you guys were the best football team in America. Like you guys steamrolled through that playoff run.

What did it feel like in the moment? And when did you guys know that you were proverbially in your bag, if you will, last year? Because we saw it immediately, it felt like. Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously all the things that we went through throughout the season, you know, it wasn't ideal. It wasn't how we drew it up, you know, losing that Oregon, losing here, you know, to that team up north. But I think all those things that we did go through really did set us up for that run. And I think, you know, once we kind of came out in that Tennessee game, you know, and we started, you know, putting it on those guys. And then the Rose Bowl came and, you know, we start making some plays. I felt really confident going into both of those games.

But really, I think I was after that Rose Bowl or during that Rose Bowl where we all kind of looked at each other like, all right, man, like nobody's stopping us right now. Just the way that we're playing and, you know, the way that we were clicking on all cylinders. I mean, it was a hell of a run. It was one of the most memorable four games that, you know, I think a lot of people could say they have been through. And so I'll cherish it for a long time. But I learned a lot throughout that whole run of, you know, the playoffs.

And, you know, obviously nobody thought we were going to do anything for those first three weeks leading up to the Tennessee game. And then, you know, we really found it in ourselves. And it's a credit to the leaders that we had on that team last year and the seniors and all those guys that came back. And I'm just excited to watch these guys running back. and hopefully do it again this year. What's your relationship like with Coach Ryan Day?

Because obviously he was under immense amount of pressure. Just being the Ohio State coach, that's going to happen. I think every Ohio person understands. Got to win every game, yeah. The job is going to be difficult. It's all right. And obviously that is, I don't think it's unique just to Ohio, but here I think it is vastly different than,

I mean, it's every citizen in the state of Ohio. He's expecting the Buckeyes to win every single game. Every coach that has been here has won a national championship. Ryan, what have you done? What have you done? What have you done? Is all he was feeling. I think you guys had a team meeting or a player meeting or something.

And he guys really was like a gut check type situation from what I've been told. Ryan Day, kind of how he was being viewed and talked about. How did that kind of motivate you guys or generate your energy in how was the relationship through playoffs with him? Because he was getting thrown under every bus in the state of Ohio. I think elementary school, junior high, high school buses, Greyhound buses. Yeah, shorter buses, longer buses. He was getting thrown under every bus in Ohio. How much was that a part of the whole story?

It was a big part of it, man. And, like, you know, me, obviously, I don't have the same relationship that maybe a Jack Sawyer and a Mecca coming into the season that had with him. But coming out of it, I feel like, honestly, I mean, we all were in that thing together last year. And, you know, Ryan Day, like, he gave me a chance.

And I kind of think about, you know, what I owed to him. And, you know, when I sat down with him coming out of the transfer portal process, and how he, you know, really took me in and wanted to make me a better player. Like, I felt like I owed him and I made sure, you know, I was like, man, I got to get back to this guy, man. Like, he's given me so much, you know, he's given me this chance.

Like, I can't let him down. And, you know, we all, obviously, you know, you don't want to listen to the outside noise and everybody says that, you know, like, they don't go on social media, but we all, you have to, you know, you hear. It's 2024. It's 2024. It, you know, it gets to you see it. That's true.

But, you know, you hear it and, you know, it pissed us off. You know, we didn't, I wouldn't say we used it as motivation, but, you know, it did. It put a little chip on our shoulder. And I think it gave us really the spark that we needed, like to come together. And that, like you said, that player's only meeting that we had, it was just all of us players and Coach Day. And we hash some things out. You know, guys said their piece. You know, it was, it got real, you know, and there was no sensitivity about it.

Everyone was just honest. They stated their case. and no one really got uptight about it. And I think... How did it come about? Did Coach Dave bring it in? So, yeah. So the day after that, you know, after that day out here,

we got together as a leadership council. And we talked and we were like, hey, we got to get this group of guys together and talk about it and just, you know, lay everything out on the table. You know, if anyone has any questions about how we did what we did on that day, what happened, why, you know, why does this keep happening kind of deal? you know we wanted to hash all that stuff out and we went into that room and I mean there were times where it got ugly you know guys are yelling at each other and you know

tempers flared but like at the end of it we all came together and hand in hand in prayer and I feel like a moment like that is so defining for a team absolutely a less mature group would have taken that and just I mean no's not you know but we had such a good group of guys that were all mature and you know motivated and didn't want that to be the way that we remembered. And that was what we kept talking about, like, what's our legacy going to be? What do you want to be remembered for here at Ohio State?

And, you know, we could use that last game to just crumble and make everything kind of fall on top of each other. But, like, at the end of the day, we were just like, man, we got to, we got to set the record straight and go out here. And we knew the only way that we could make what we did right is by winning an national championship. Crazy that it was all still available for you

as the entire state was kind of crumbling. There was still this magical opportunity. that everybody is hunting for. That is literally the only thing that is on the top of the mountain. You guys have it forever. Congratulations. That is a wonderful thing.

Tone back at the Thunderdome has a question for you. Yeah, Will, first and foremost, I love you. Just want to get that out there. I just want to say that. First, secondly, can you grow a beer because you're giving me Big Ben vibes

when I was watching you in practice and stuff like that. I got Big Ben vibes. And then thirdly, more importantly, how has this year's expectations changed if they have it all? with the hand injury because I know that that was a bummer and didn't get to see you in preseason but has anything changed as far as your role or expectations for this season?

You know, I think all along I was looking at this season as a as a developmental year and I think we all kind of were with the Steelers. You know, obviously you don't bring Aaron Rogers for no reason. Like he's a he's a guy that's coming in to be the be the guy, you know, at least for this year, for this year and we don't know what it'll look like going forward. But right now, You know, I'm going into this season saying I want to learn everything I possibly can from Aaron and just watch the way that he goes about his business. Like obviously, like you said, Tone, like I killed me that I couldn't be out there for the preseason. I felt like I was having a really good fall camp and wanted to kind of carry that into the preseason and show Steelers Nation, you know, what I was capable of.

But obviously, you know, you got to trust the plan. And, you know, God wasn't, didn't want me out there this preseason. For what reason? I don't know why. But I got to trust it and understand. that you know this is all part of my development and uh in a long long term in the grand scheme of things um you know i just got to keep working and um use this year as a developmental year and on the on the facial hair note um working on it uh really i i i i shaved yesterday we get back in on that we get back in on that buck he's from canada he's got he's got great control of that looks good i sure does like the clean shave up there that's a little too close but i went i went clean shaving this weekend but hey going forward tone i'll think about i'll think about you when i'm uh when i'm doing

my i appreciate that in the mirror yeah you got a nice baby face brother i think i do i do the entire thing you're like super jovial baby face but we saw you out there dancing with the boys we saw you out there dancing with the boys whenever you were uh doing your thing they loved you uh new teammates i assume do as well go ahead a j so aaron rogers obviously in the room with him you get to see him on the field i guess what is it really like watching him operate on the field like even in walk-throughs. We were there for one day. I was peeking out the window watching your guys walk-through. I could just see his little, how he just bounces down the field. I'm sure he got everything, especially when he's feeling good. You definitely know when he's feeling good.

Oh, yeah. Or if he's pissed off. Picking grass out of the ground. Oh, yeah. So, like, what is it like, what's been like to observe that, not only meeting room, but on the field, and just how he commands the huddle and kind of has everybody, like, all on the same page. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a great point. I think the biggest thing about Aaron that, that I have been, like, by and I feel like when you think about Aaron Rogers everyone talks about the arm strength and the arm talent and the ability to have that he has physically but nobody talks about what he's capable of up here up here and his his mental capacity for the game and the things that he's thinking about every single play like just watching his

process is crazy like I mean all the cadence operation that he does and and just you know his knowledge of the game and the fronts and how that you know correlates to the pressures and the back end and I mean, everything that he talks about, it just makes sense. And he has taught me a ton and he's been super, super open. Like, even if he, you know, he has a bad play at practice where he might be pissed off. And, you know, if I ask him, hey, like, you know, what was your thought process there? Like, he'll come over to me no matter how pissed off he is and he'll tell me.

And he's very open with not just me, but, you know, Skyler and Mason and everybody else on the offense. He'll talk to a practice squad tight end, the same that he talks to D.K., you know. No, I heard he's. I swear. I mean, I'm really. He's like, you know, he's a, no, I mean, he gets on everybody and he expects excellence and, you know, he's demanding and he's a great leader. I've just, it's been great to just sit back and watch the way that he operates and I've been learning from it and trying to pick his brain as much as I can. Yeah, smart. You're even doing, mimicking his motions on the field. Feels like you're watching his every move. Feels like the right guy to do that with, especially with your leadership style, brother. We got to watch that on display. A lot of alphas on that team. You know, that could have won one way instead of one to the other with you being the guy that guides the ship to a national championship. Now, on that note, Connor has a question for you.

Yeah, thank goodness it went the utter way, Will, because it was nice to see you guys kind of just coast to a national championship. One of the guys on that team who's going to be playing tomorrow, Jeremiah Smith, what is it like seriously playing with a dude like that? And as you've been in training camp in these preseason games, do you ever look on the, field and say like, oh yeah, Jeremiah Smith's better than that guy, that guy, that guy, that guy, and then get to D.K. McCaff and think like, okay, that's probably exactly what Jeremiah Smith is, just an absolute freak of nature. Yeah, it's a sight to behold, man, like watching number four play football, you know, both with the Steelers and with the, with the Buckeyes. I mean, they're both unbelievable players and they're very, very comparable in a lot of ways. But, yeah,

I mean, JJ is, he's a freak, man. And I was telling people before the season last year, like, this kid's going to be one of the best in the country as a freshman. And they were all like, you know, we'll believe it when we see it. And, I mean, I think everyone saw it pretty loud and clear last year. I mean, he's, he's unbelievable. I mean, he can do everything. He's big.

He catches freaking every single ball you throw at him. I mean, I think when it's all said and done, he could very, very well be. And I know that's saying a lot, but he could be one of the best to ever do it. but he's so talented and I'm excited to watch him ball out this week obviously sad it's not me throwing the ball to him but I'm excited to watch Julian too man I think I think those two are going to have a good connection and looking forward to it what do you think about Julian well that's my guy man he's California cool you know he's he's he's got one of the best releases I've seen ball comes out pretty oh it's pretty man it sure is I mean he he can spin that thing and there's no doubt about that but I'm excited to go out there and watch his you know, his demeanor and the way that he leads these boys, like that's, you know, when you really talk about being the quarterback of a football team, especially a football team like this, like that is one of the marquee things that you have to do is you got to lead those guys, you got to make sure that you're taking them from point A to point B every single

game and they're riding with you. And I think I'm excited to see that come out of him, you know, because I know he has it inside of him. And I think he's been developing that all camp. And I mean, he can physically like he's up there with everyone. But I'm just excited to see him, you know, go out there and be the guy and lead these guys, man. It's, I'm looking forward to it, man. Jules is a great kid. Is he tough? He's got to be tough. Oh, yeah.

It's Ohio State. You got to be tough. They're running the little blow-up smashy thing you got out here on the field. Oh, nice. I mean, they got, yep, yep, yep, yeah. And boom, boom, boom, eat some. Eat some.

Got some legs in the air. This is preparation for one verse three. This is Ohio. This is what it's all about. What perfect timing to cut to that. Ryan, great shot, because really, really awesome stuff. Ty has a question, I think, to follow up on everything we're talking about with the quarterback. Yeah, Will, obviously, you know, Julian and you had massively different paths, you know, ahead of your first start.

Have you talked to him at all in terms of, like, what can he expect on Saturday? I mean, your first game was against Akron, so it's a little bit different, you know, and you're not getting thrown right into the belly of the beast like he will against Texas. But have you talked to him? Have you given him any advice? and, you know, just like how much different was it for you putting on that Ohio State uniform for your first start? Yeah, it's obviously very different circumstances for me and him, but, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a football game, you know? And I told him, and I, you know, I texted him when, you know, when the news officially came out.

And I, you know, I stay in contact with him and with Lincoln and with all the quarterbacks, really, I try to. But, you know, the thing that I told him is, man, there's not a lot of people that understand what we're going through as, being the Ohio State quarterback. So, you know, I just said, like, if you ever need to talk to me about anything, you know, just let me know, just like a lot of the guys ahead of me did for me, you know, and it's a different place, you know, Ohio State being the guy, being the quarterback. There's a lot of eyes, there's a lot of pressure, but you can't treat it like that. You got to just treat it like it's another game. And, you know, obviously this being his first collegious start, collegiate game, you know, it's a big one. But, you know, I know that he has it in him and that, you know,

He got to watch us go on that whole run last year, and he was a part of it, so he got to see really big games. So I'm excited to see him go out there and take the step with him actually doing it, because I know he's a dude, man. He's a stud, and no, he's got a lot of weapons at his disposal. He's too tall, isn't he? Who to me? Yeah, you guys are kind of Cisleanoing AJ a little bit. Sorry, AJ.

I'm okay with that. I'm okay. I'm perfect size my forehead to go right into their chin. my kids call me short all the time like this exact height I wanted to be actually well man wins hey that was a big thing I was talking about whenever it was going through the draft thing yeah by the way shout to you thrown at the hotel late at night I appreciate Indianapolis yeah somebody out of the blue called and said that who like you know this guy's out in the middle of a parking lot middle of the night getting a throwing session in I yeah shout to

that guy out of the blue you say but who was it just out of the blue was a very interesting way to put it. Who was it? Well, it was, what I'm saying is it was not like, I didn't follow up and say like, hey, if you see anything, don't done, let me know. It was it came out of nowhere, is what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I got attacked and then I got attacked for lying about you, but so I want to let you know, like, I was a big supporter of yours through the whole draft process because I didn't think you were getting enough love from what we watched with the playoff run. And we were we were first on the CJ Strauss up, not the first,

but we saw C.J. Stroud play, and we're like, that's a Sunday guy right there, like right in front of our eyes. I've had the opportunity with my position to stand on the sidelines of a lot of football games. Oh, yeah. So, with Simulcast, I'm getting a chance to see a lot of positions that I've been in before. And, like, your size was the big thing, I thought. Yeah. You're fucking gigantic.

You can move, and then your leadership. I hope it all works out. I hope the thumb gets better. I like that he came in for a really strong dab here with me. Oh, yeah. So we're not worried about that, right? We're all good, man. It's, you know, I'm back to throwing this week, so it's feeling good, going in the right direction.

But I really appreciate you guys, man. Seriously, like, I saw all the love and I do appreciate you guys, man. It kind of said something. I was getting through there. Yeah, thanks a lot. I should have smoked out. I was just letting you take it, man. I should have just spoke up.

Actually, it's the reason why I like you. It's because you did, yeah, hey, listen, I'm saying there's no reason to adding spotlight, which is what I appreciate about you. You're a superstar, you're a national champion, and you're a cool dude. And I think your story is an inspiring one, and I can't wait to see what you're right for your professional career. Are you getting celebrated here this weekend?

Not that I know of. I think we all kind of did that for the spring game when we had all our rings given out and all that. Because I know they want to focus on this year and beating the Longhorns. Oh, you're talking about, hey, new team, this team hasn't won anything. Don't be a distraction, Will.

Okay, please don't. Stay out of the way. Ladies and gentlemen, National Champion, Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback, Woolhart. They will. Appreciate you guys, man. Thanks for having me on, fellas. Easy on that hand.

Easy on that hand. That's your... I was just ranking on it pretty good. No reaction. Yeah. I just want to know. He looks like he's a bowler, you know? Yeah, it looks cool like Rick Kempore.

Oh, Pat, you know what he should do? He should go live in Seven's basement like Sid lived in Mario's basement. Hey, Will. Tone says you should live in Rothersburg's basement like Sidney Crosby did with Mario. Yeah, it's nice. I've ever seen. He's in, actually, I think. Smart.

He likes it. Why doesn't Seven do that for a city, by the way? He would. I think he would. Well, Spent might be living down there. Yeah, that's a good point. You got a chef, too. That chef's really good.

Spank, obviously, awesome. That is the nicest basement I have ever seen. AJ, that guy won you guys a national championship there. I like that he feels like he's at home. Because, boy, for a little bit last year, that was not the case at all. This entire Ohio State team

was getting run out of the state of Ohio. Ohio, and then they win a national championship, and it's like, thank you for your service. And then to his point, hey, Ryan Day, that means nothing right now. That is kind of how I feel like every school feels, but definitely this school. Yeah, definitely. It's, yeah, what is it to where when you win, it's so people almost get, they get more anxious, more nervous when it comes to like the coaching staff, and they want to make sure you don't let your your foot off the gas and you continue and don't get comfortable, all that stuff.

That's what college football is, though. It's a great, it's a great situation to be in. Hey, let's not get complacent. We just won the national championship. Well, what are you well in? It's a lot of pressure, I guess. I'm just saying, well, just because, like, to AJ's point, like Mac Brown talked about that, Texas.

Like, towards the end, even though they were winning a ton, it doesn't become, like, fun to win. It just becomes a relief, and I'm not saying Ohio State's there just yet. I do have a question for you two. Why is Tabittle sound like such shit? Because whatever's being played in your background, so terrible. A bunch of dying ducks. They're just warming up, pal.

They're just all warming up. up scattered throughout. Did they lose it? People are saying. There's individual horns all over the place, you know, like right there, just random horn players around the stadium. It has been wild.

We are thankful and lucky to be here. The sun's shining directly on our backs. Hour two on the other side. Tim's new scrambled egg loaded croissant. Or is it croissant? No matter how you say it, start your day with freshly cracked scrambled eggs loaded on a buttery, flaky croissant.

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Football! It is amazing, and that man is a national champion head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, Ryan Day. Coach, the boys back in the Thunderdome, both the talks of tables at Ty Schmidt and at Boston Connor, and one half of the Hammer. Dot.

Cowboys AP tone, pumped to you. We're thankfully, hey, we thought he hated us. Is that not accurate? Yes, very accurate. Yeah, now we don't have to hate him. Love you guys. We want to let you know that. We are that way, though.

That is how we operate. We always will. It's not, I think it's a good trait, but a lot of people view it is not great. And it's probably put me, exactly, it's like the Buckeyes last season. So we thought you hated us, so we in return had to hate you. Very thankful that you don't hate us because we did not want to hate you. Strictly because what you have done here and what you've had to battle through, now granted, I'm just getting baptized in a college football over the last five years.

I understand the state of Ohio has loved the Buckeyes for a very long time. But what we have watched you have to go through with the success that you've had, and then the failures that have happened, and then the reaction and the criticism and how it felt like the entire state was on fire, and then you were able to lead the boys to get a national championship. It's like, you should be commended. You are somebody that we like. You are a dog. You need to know that. And we just want to officially say, because we didn't get a chance to interview him after the national championship, if you do a goal, three requests. Congratulations, dude. Congratulations from all of us.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad I'm here. No, love you guys. You guys are right unbelievable. and, you know, you're great for the sport, you know, and just the positivity that you guys bring every day and just pumping up the game. It's something we all respect here in Columbus. You don't have to say that. Let's talk, though, about everything I mentioned. It got loud, and I know you're not supposed to listen to the press clippings or hear what's outside, but in Ohio, I think it's everywhere. So you had to have heard it. Obviously, families involved, there's everything. That got real loud. Whenever you're trying to motivate the boys, How much of it is there like, why do I dedicate so much time for this fan base

that literally is trying to run me out of town any time we take one misstep? Was there any of that thought or how do you kind of stay focused while it's getting real loud and negative outside? I mean, that's part of the job. I remember during the press conference when, you know, Urban kind of handed the whistle over to me. And I said, you got to win the rivalry game, then you've got to win every game after that. That's how it works at Ohio State. And that's the expectations. And so along the way, there's going to be things that are different.

and you've got to work through those and if you're going to let it crumble you or you know fall apart then then you're not going to make it and so this this job is for tough people who can handle it and so you know last year I think was a great example of that but you know when you talk about the fan base like these people love Ohio State it's love it love it and it's a responsibility that we have and it's bigger than any one person any one player any one coach and the guys understand that and they understand what comes with that and when we lose a game around here it's not good you got to figure it out because there's a lot lot riding on every single game and that's that's how it works and you know but if but if you're willing to stick together tough times aren't going to last but tough people do and that's that's something that we learned last year for with our guys I love to watch that I love to hear that in the run you guys went on we had a chance to be on a sideline for all of it your team was obviously together will Howard just chitchatted about the players only meeting and you and how it got a little ugly in there for a little bit feels like people can come together after there is a little bit of a tussle I'll say or some disagreements did you know your team had the ability to

to win the national championship still at that moment? In that meeting, was it like this is good for the boys to kind of get after it and narrowed all the grievances? Like, when did you know the team could go and maybe get to the top of the mountain? Well, when we got down with that game, I mean, there's no reason we should have lost that game. We knew it.

And coming out of it, it was like, all right, are you going to focus on the results or where you are in the process and identifying what has to get fixed? Because at the end of the day, we can sit there and complain about what happened or sit back and look at that game and say, okay, now, you know, let it beat you twice.

Can't do that. got to learn from it and figure out what the things are that we need to get fixed it was like in the oregon game we got some things fixed in that oregon game and then we had to sort some some things out with their offensive line and when you lose simmons you know who was a first-round draft pick at left tackle and then you have to move donovan out and then two weeks earlier now you're losing your remington award winner at center and there was a lot going on right there and we knew we had to make some changes to get some things fixed if we were going to make the run that we went on but then you know the last time we were in the stadium against tennessee you know our backs were against the wall and we felt

like coming out of that game, if we could play the way we played in that game, then there wasn't anybody in the country that was going to beat us. Nico Ia Maliava cracked three helmets. I think your defense is doing A-OK in that particular game. What was it? Negative 55 degrees down here, too? Love that the North, you know, got a big-time win. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, Coach, I actually mentioned the Tennessee pregame to you before we got on air here.

So Pat, I and the boys were all standing on the sidelines. Jack Sawyer's down here talking to every Tennessee player walking off the field. there's a couple ladies that were saying some very hurtful things to the Tennessee players but it was tasteful but hurtful I would hurt your feelings she's yelling you don't even look like you lift what are you the JV team she had some good stuff but then

Ohio yeah much yeah much deeper than that but have you been a part of a pregame that felt that I don't know what I don't even know how to describe what it felt like just so much it was just like hey these dudes are ready like everybody was ready on the sideline I felt like and it felt like the game was already over before it started yeah um yeah hard

explain when you think about a playoff game in Ohio Stadium, you think about having cold weather, you think about, you know, be in the middle of December, and just think about a rowdy crowd and everything that would come with that. And, you know, for all of us, whether it was the fans or, you know, alums or players or coaches, like our backs were against the wall there. And we just, we had that mentality right out of the gate. And, you know, there was a decent amount of orange here in this stadium. And like, you know. Game day, they took over game day. I just want to let you know. I was coming out ready to do the whole, oh, H, oh, I was ready to do all that.

And they said it was Rocky Top, brother. There was orange everywhere. I was a little tired because we came from Notre Dame the night before. It was freezing ass cold, and it was a big moment. But there was Tennessee had invaded almost. That's what it felt like in the morning. It felt like that in the morning. And then we got in here, it wasn't as prevalent as, there certainly was.

But in the morning, it felt like this is going to be a volunteer's home game in the horseshoe. We started talking shit to him very loudly. Buckeyes fans showed up. I stayed calm the whole time, though, coach. In the moment, I was like, it doesn't matter. Just kickoffs in 10 hours. We'll be all right. The fans will be here when it matters.

And they were, but this place was rocking that night. And I think it was a good moment between your team and the fans, I think. Yeah. And I think so. And a lot of, yeah, no question. And a lot of people came up to me and say that's one of their favorite games that they've been a part of, just the atmosphere and everything that came with it. And it just kickstarted us. You know, after you win that game, you're going to the Rose Bowl.

And it's like, okay, yeah, we got three more games. We've got to win here. We've got to go on this run. And it allowed us some confidence coming out of the game. But it was good to see us, you know, respond that way. And so now, you know, the next game that we're here, we're playing Texas. And so you think about the way we ended last season with some of these monster games, and here we are, you know, about to kick it off against the great team here

and, you know, another monster game to start the season. One verse three, we love that your team's doing it because this is obviously a big part of the conversation is playing in these big games. Okay, because the schedule, the record, the losses, obviously you guys were right in the middle of that the first year with the expanded college football playoff. Let's talk about the young buck you got playing quarterback here. obviously not young, been around, has experienced things. We talked to Will Howard.

He was on the sideline and a massive piece of that playoff run. What are our expectations? What should we see? Guy can spin it. I'm watching these highlights. These balls are coming out. Great. What is your expectation and what are you telling him before he goes out there?

Well, the thing that I've said to him and I've really said to our team is that there's no expectation other than winning the game. Because when you go into a first start like this as a quarterback or any position, especially a game like this, it's easy to start saying, well, you know, I need to throw for this many touchdowns or have this many tackles or whatever it might. might be. And then all of a sudden when the game doesn't go the way you expect, you can find yourself kind of getting distracted. That can't be the case here. You know, we have to figure out a way to win the game. That's it. You got to play really, really hard. But for him, you know, he's got

to trust what he does every day in practice. He got a chance to see Will lead last year and see his command in the huddle and how he handled those types of things. And every day he's growing more and more. Once we named him a starter, I feel like he's picked up some momentum. So he's got to go play in the game. This is going to be his first start ever at Ohio State. Against Texas, week one? I mean, how about that? Welcome to Ohio State. But this is why you come to Ohio State. This is why you come into the horseshoe and playing games like this.

And so it's going to be a hell of a start. Yeah, we're very excited about it as college football fans. He's got a new weapon. Obviously, everybody's a new weapon for him because it's first time starting. But there's a tight end that you guys have got. Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Coach, I wanted to ask you about Max Clare, because you brought him in from Purdue.

You brought in a D-N from North Carolina. Some teams use the portal because they need to. I don't know if the Ohio State needs to. so how do you guys feel like how do you decide that you want to what positions you want to supplement and what guys are right for a team that is you know you got you recruit so well you're already loaded like so how do you decide what guys are right and what positions are right well I think the first thing is you know now more than ever you have to recruit really well and then retain the guys that

you're developing because if not every year the turnover just is too much to handle and so if you want to you know sustain a culture it's it all starts with high school recruiting. But along the way, you know, the transfer portal can also, you know, take from you. So if you look at last year, we got done with our game on January 20th, and the portal was open for five days. It wasn't open for anybody else other than us in Notre Dame. And, you know, we lost seven guys in the portal in that stretch right there. And so we have to replace those holes. So when you look at the guys that we've had over the years, it's to replace holes that are in our roster. And so we hand-select those guys and first off, make sure they fit our culture, because that's

the most important thing. And then obviously if they can help us on the field. Let's talk about another guy you stole from West Virginia. Yeah. Good player. Yeah. Great player. Well, he's gotten bigger. He's gotten stronger. He's in great shape. I'm doing a great job, man. He's excited to play in this game. I think for him coming in, there was a lot to adjust for him in understanding exactly how we do things here. But he was a very good player at West Virginia. And I'm excited to see him run tomorrow. Yeah, CJ's a dog. It was very nice to watch him, and I'm actually kind of proud of them. Like, yeah, you weren't got good luck.

You know, like it is a great time to be here in Columbus. I think everybody understands that. It is crazy that you're playing Texas tomorrow to start the season. Ty is a question for you. Yeah, Coach, obviously, you're no stranger to the pomp and circumstance of a massive game, you know, with game day being there and all that

kind of stuff. You've had those experiences several times at the horseshoe, but how excited are you to be able to throw your team into the fire week, against the number one ranked team in the nation and kind of see what they're made of. And on the flip side, how much can you actually learn about your team from a week one game like this? Yeah, I'm extremely excited to play in this game. Texas is excellent.

You know, they're super talented. They're very well coached. I think Sark does a great job. I think their coaches do a great job. Certainly, Arch is a tremendous player and they have great players in all three phases. But, you know, for us, week one, to get some real feedback on where we are to kind of start our journey into this season is going to be tremendous. And to have this game at home, you know, the atmosphere is going to be crazy. And a noon kickoff, you know, I just think that for our fans to get back together again early in the season for a game like this is going to be tremendous.

And it's going to give our team a reference point, a younger team. You know, when you look at all the guys we lost last year, there's a lot of guys are going to be doing it for the first time here tomorrow. But it's going to give them a reference point as they move throughout the season. Yeah, and it's got to feel good that these types of games are going to be possible going forward for teams because it feels like college football playoff is understanding that this is good for the sport for you guys to battle early. Right. So it doesn't mean seasons over here after week one. It's going to feel like it here, you know, you want a national championship. I don't care is what some Ohio guy is going to say Saturday night, if you guys don't get the dub. You've become noon kings, okay? You certainly have. This place is going to be insane, I would assume, tomorrow. That's all expectation tomorrow is going to be.

be absolutely rocking Texas travels you know no they got a great fan base great team it's going to be it's just an awesome day for college football and here we go we're about 24 hours out let's talk about it coach corsos last game day yeah thoughts on that as a whole because you're going to be on the show which is awesome we're very thankful you're coming through of course but it's going to be a celebration of a guy who really changed the shape in the face of college ball and certainly college game day obviously yeah I think when when it's all said and done we all want to have an impact and in Lee corso's had an impact not only as a coach and the players and the coaches that he was around.

But then also here, you know, on game day and ESPN and what he's done and just brought so much enjoyment and, you know, celebration to the sport. And, again, another guy who's very positive about builds people up. And, you know, in day and age where it's easy to rip people down and tear people down and be negative, this is not somebody who's done that. He's built people up and he certainly made an impact as a coach in the game, but then actually as an ambassador later on in his life and just done so many great things.

He's got a lot of respect from everybody here. Yeah, I think everybody, I think that's been very evident. Very rarely is the whole world unified in an opinion. It feels like everybody's behind Coach Corso. Right. It's going to be electric tomorrow. I got a little bit of insight on what's happening tomorrow. It's going to be electrifying tomorrow as we celebrate the shit out of him.

And then between now and then, any hobbies? Any hobbies? What is, uh... I know you're big tennis guy, right? I go over there and it's a little bit. Actually, I wonder what's your opinion on pickleball. I hear the tennis players hate pickleball people. No, pickleball's great.

Yeah, pickleball's great. You're a tennis player? So the tennis facility is right across the street, and Ty Tucker, who's an unbelievable coach. During COVID, he started inviting me over there. And so for about 30 minutes, about two or three times a week, I go over there and just hammered a tennis. Great exercise, right? Unbelievable. And the team's really good.

I mean, they hammering the ball 80, 100, 120 miles an hour, and just getting after it for about a half hour. It's a great workout, come back in, and you're in a better headspace when you come back. It's quite a range. 80 to 120 miles an hour. They kind of feel like an off-speed pitch there. pitch these guys hammer the hammer the I mean you watch the US open you see how hard to hit the ball it's unbelievable you fight anybody over there like we're seeing the the two women and the there's no beef going on over there all right something

to think about uh congrats to you on becoming a national champion and let's remember that means nothing ain't that right boys yeah that means nothing coach means nothing everybody's at the bottom of the mountain I think you should take in that you were the way you won, how you won, the circumstance in which you won, I hope you cherish that and realize how special it is for the rest of your life. And good luck trying to do it again as it starts tomorrow against Texas. You're the man. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for not hating us. And also, thank you for the hoodies. We got a couple of hoodies. We got a couple of hoodies. We can't be bought that easily, coach. I can.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Conman, I think you wear size 12 as well, right? Yeah, all right. Fine. If there's shoes, we can be bought. that easily coach yeah yeah yeah yep I'm a size 12 and these bad boys are brought in here and oh yeah yeah yeah I think national championship right there man I think maybe we can be purchased you know oh it's a couple more couple more actual hoodies yeah there's there's multiple here we are very thankful we are happy you don't hate us all right I think no seriously New Hampshire guy. Yeah.

New Hampshire's lived for your dot. We liked you a lot. That's right. Yeah. No, no, no. I'll love here and I'd love to come on the show as many times as I can, guys. Appreciate you. We appreciate you.

Good luck, ladies and gentlemen, National Champion, Ryan Day. Yeah, Coach! That was very cool of you to do that. Thank you, thank you. Really cool for those two to keep playing too. It sounds great. Yeah, these horns playing over you, I think we need to do a little bit of a check in the totem pole. Just a little bit of a check in the totem pole.

Just a little heads up. Just something to think about. They don't want to start any more problems. That's a bit of culture. We don't want to start any more problems. That is the problem. Tabittle thinks they're bigger than the head coach of the football team. They have to have that type of moxie that would dot the fucking eye out here.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, 1-18 on a Friday. They're in the upper bowl practicing. You kind of have to respect it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Now, granted, could it? Nothing. Could we do it at 1118?

What was it? No, we don't have. Nobody should be. stopping anything for us. So that is first and foremost, whatever they need to do to get ready for tomorrow, that's cool. That is an interesting thing to do. And it, it sounds pretty shite. It sounds incredibly shiating. They may be tuning on my thing. I don't think they're trying to play a little number. They're trying to play the hits. Yeah, but do they know a lot of people are hearing it? Like that is the, maybe there's a community case. A lot of people are hearing it.

And it does not sound up to Biddle standards because we've got individual solo performances happening in 45 different places throughout the horseshoe here. I think it's going to be tough to be on the same page. They need somebody in them. Yeah, where's the microphone? Where's that guy? Yeah, keeping them all on the same page. That's a big horn right there.

I don't know what that one is. That's a big. That's a big horn. Carried that thing around. They're doing the stairs. Solo, we missed them. Sorry, Ryan. Solo tub.

All right, before Coach Saban joins us, which is going to be awesome. Cannot wait to chat with him again. That was a really cool thing last year, getting a chance to just watch Sabin be Sabin. He is one of the goats, you know. So whenever you get the chance to watch a goat, talk a goat, learn from a goat, it's like you've got to do that.

He was so cool to us last year. Don't you think, boys? Yeah, man, of doubt, too cool to us. And the stuff that he was saying, like, the amount of game he was just giving was incredible. I mean, of course, the Vanderbilt situation happened, but that's going to happen. Awesome. And, yeah, still, it made it even cooler, but just hearing Sabin talk, like, ball. it's an honor.

It's like Belichick. And he also pretended to like us other guys at dinner when we went out. Good points. Yeah. And in Ireland, didn't he say, you guys ask good questions? He did. Yeah, because he said it. Football guys, he respects us.

Yeah, he saw you drinking beers and then he was like, it's crazy because the other guys are kind of, they even ask good questions. And that's you guys, right? Yeah, we're the other guys. And that's the cool part. You guys are the other guys? I didn't know that you guys were the other guys.

We, in this situation, we are the utter guys. We're to bugle boys. We're to utter guys. It's like when you and AJ and Dbutt are like, when we were in the locker room, even though the other guys weren't in the locker room, they're still a lot to talk about. It's like, thank you guys for allowing us to be the utter guys. Yeah.

So is every day another day then if you guys are the other guys? Because I didn't know that that was what you guys were going. Yeah, you're going to wake up every morning and treat it as another day. Yeah, but you see what's going on here, age? Do you see what's happening here? Do you understand what's going on? A little bit. Does Stanford Steve have any idea?

Yes, he definitely does. The impact that he has on this show. We love Stanford, Steve. He's the man. We just hope that he loves us. Don't we boys? Yes, we do. From one another guy to another guy.

We asked him yet. Did you ask this morning by each other? He said he didn't expect the graphic. Yeah. Yeah. If we saw it, we saw that he didn't expect it. Like you always say, you know, played the hand a little too hard, a little too firm. flew too close to the sun

you know when we overdo it it's always the problem we thought it might be a chance like Lou Holtz the second time you know shouldn't have done it we had it we had the moment and then we had well we got a one-on-one with Marcus Freeman and Ryan Day

need to bring in Lou Holtz in our National Championship need to barge in Lou Holtz yeah Ty actually had to rush that mask on too because we're late we almost the universe almost told us not to do it like hey not enough time we will

I think I talked to you shortly before you think we should do it I'm like yeah why not it seems like a great time yeah CFP gives us time to sit with the coaches how are you going to spend it mask now I mean that's something you look back on like no matter forever and it's like that was one of the most ridiculous things probably that's ever happened is Marcus Freeman knows what's going on

Oh, geez. I can't believe this is happening. We're at the National Championship right now. Yeah, that's on us. We're learning as we go. Speaking of learning as we go, we haven't talked about a lot of things that have happened around the NFL that aren't just Michael Parson. Michael, sorry.

Michael Parsons, says Jerry Jones to the Green Bay Packers. Conman, what's some other headlines that we need to hit? Vrable's handling business up there, huh? Yeah, Vrable's handling business. Very weird. Gibral Pepper's breaking news was released today from New England. This was the last captain, actually, remaining from the 2024. New England Patriots. I was still on the team. So now 2025, New England Patriots will have brand new captains. Very interesting. We'll see what happens. Definitely was one of the leaders in New England and was one of our best players.

This was stunning to me, especially because all the trade rumors with the Patriots that were going around when it came to, you know, Terry McLaren or Trey Hendrickson. Gibral-Peppers was never a player that was kind of up in the air for that. So that's what's going on, New England, and Vrable's making his turnover. Who knows what we'll see happening. The other thing in New England, you could argue, is the new NFL Nike rivalries jerseys. Hell yeah. This was kind of took the internet by storm a little bit last night. NFC, or yesterday, NFC, West, AFC East.

They got all their new jerseys. That should be sweet. Something that we really haven't seen as far lately in the NFL, which I think some people might be worried about would be the Las Vegas Raiders only announced three captains. Now, I thought you had to have seven captains to have a good football team.

The Raiders only have three. It's defense, offense, special teams. I'm worried there might not be as much leadership in Vegas as they might want to for Pete Carroll and the boys. I love that there's only three. They're all three, I think, in their minds, the best in the world. Cole is the best punter in the world right now in his mind.

He's representing special teams. Max Crosby thinks he's the best defensive end in the world. He's clearly the leader of that defense, as is Cole of the special teams. And Gino Smith with Pete Carroll had the best offense in the NFL. He's thinking he's the best in the world. And I like that Pete Carroll says these three are our leaders. By far, we only need three Cs. That's old school.

They'll probably have a week-to-week one, if I had to guess, where there'll be a rotating cast. But I think it's good that there's only three. They know who's who, as opposed to seven captains. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply.

Learn more at Amex.ca. Slash-YMex. This episode is brought to you by Defender, with its 620. 26 horsepower twin turbo V8 engine. The defender, Octa, is taking on the Dakar rally. The ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more at landrover.ca. Joining us now is a man who knows leadership better than anybody on Earth.

Ladies and gentlemen, a man who's won 1,000 national championships, and now is the man on college game day, our friend, Coach Sabay. Yeah, good to be here, man. It's great to see you. How is the off-season? It was great. It was great. I missed some of my partners here in the team, especially you.

Well, we missed you as well. You were talked about a lot into Thunderdown. The boys and I have such a high regard for you, not only because of what you've accomplished, but how you've transitioned into speaking into microphones has been flawless. You need to know that. You think that this is just easy, I think,

because you've been great at it. You're fucking great for football. Are that not right, boys? Amen. Without a doubt, yep. Huge. No questions. You are great for football.

So I appreciate the fact that we get to talk to you, and I guess we'll make the announcement now. Coach Saban will be joining us every single for us. Yeah. I enjoy it. Yeah, you're great for football, though. Glad to be here. Okay, let's talk about this season.

We got Texas, Ohio State to kick this thing off. Three top ten matchups in the first weekend. How do you feel about that potentially becoming a thing going forward? and what should we expect from these teams that are ranked very high in your eyes? Well, you know, first of all, I think it's great that we have games like this, and I wish we had them every week. I wish that, you know, some way somebody could control the schedule a little bit, that we had some inter-conference games and the best games.

So it's great for the fan experience. You know, when it comes to this season, I mean, this is one of the most difficult seasons to really predict, you know, who's going to do what, especially after the first few teams, because there's so many changes on roster, There's so many quarterback changing teams, and who's going to fit in the best? Where is the leadership, the chemistry going to come from, how they're going to fit in with the players that they have? What's a production going to be?

Hard to figure out. How do you feel about quarterbacks going to be? Now, granted, Sane's been here for a little bit. Starts with you. Arch has been there for a few years. That's good. But there's a lot of teams that got brand new quarterbacks. Obviously, we've seen it go in one particular direction with Florida State.

Whenever they have DJ Uiangolole, it doesn't work out, they go down. Will Howard comes here, they go up. How do you feel about the new quarterback coming in maybe for a year just to see if the good team can maybe win an Addy? Well, you know, I think it's all about the guy. You know, if the guy's got maturity and leadership and the team's going to sort of respond to them, that's a big thing. But also maturity to me is the definition of

can you stay focused on the right stuff. You know, and as a competitor, you've got to be able to stay focused on the right stuff, especially a quarterback because you've got the ball, you're distributing the ball every place. So it's important that you can gain the respect of your team by making good choices and decisions and communicating well with the team. Do you miss it? It was reported like four times you're going back to coaching this all of season. You know what?

And that came out of nowhere. I mean, Ms. Terry said, where did that come from? I mean, she wouldn't let me do it, number one. I've never thought about doing it number two. And I don't know how somebody could just come up with this out of thin air. Now you're running a government arm too, remember that? What was it, boy, Nick Saban's going to head up the new college football committee as, yeah. Commission.

Yeah, the commission, you remember that? Congratulations. Hey, thank you for work. Coach. And you know, I didn't know anything about that either. And Ms. Terry sees it on, I don't know, the internet somewhere, and she says, why do you tell me about this? Tell you about what? I didn't know anything about it.

Oh, no, the internet's getting you some shit at home. I love that. You would be the right guy for the job, which is why it went so viral. Because as soon as they said, Coach Saban's going to run a college football commission with the government, everybody's like, yes, he's the right guy. So everybody was pumped that it was. Massive amount of work, massive amount of work to do it all. Now, obviously you're going to be an ear.

You will certainly help. I feel like you love college football, want to see it succeed. You're still in the Alabama building, I think, on a weekly basis or daily basis. Who knows what your schedule is? But I saw you speaking to them. You're still very much involved in college football. I want to see the best for college football. You're not going to be running the commission.

But are you getting ideas run by you? Are you a part of what the future of this thing looks like? Because the game, I think, is immaculate. And that's all anybody wants to kind of keep pure. Yeah, and, you know, I'm very much committed to it in every way. And I would be a part of a commission if it was a real commission created by the government that was actually going to enforce some rules and regulations and guidelines that would help the game and promote the players in the game.

I'm all for players making money. But, you know, you need some guidelines relative to competition and creating some parity in the league. I mean, every competitive venue has it. I'm all for players. But I am really all for college football. You know, there's so much enthusiasm, so much interest in college football. And, you know, it's still pure in a way. And sometimes we can't let that purity sort of leave what it has always been.

Yeah, I love college football. The environment, it's what we have to represent America whenever you talk about best fanhoods. Like, over in Europe, they got the hole. They're crazy. Gumpy was actually over there in Spain, experiencing. You know, I was over there as a young lad watching the game. We're talking about flares being shot off in the crowd. Like, they are chanting going insane.

America's representation, college football fans. And we got a great venue here for tomorrow to kind of kick off this incredible season. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, coach, tomorrow with these quarterbacks, we always hear the cliche, say, hey, what do you do to a young, inexperienced guy? Oh, heat him up, move them off the spot, try to throw some pressure at them. I guess if you had a young, like I say inexperienced quarterback, how do you get them?

Think about every other position. Like, we get all jacked up and you get excited and you, you're all, your adrenaline's going, go out and hit somebody. The quarterback is kind of the opposite. How do I hone it in and kind of dial in all of this energy? I guess what do you tell a young quarterback going into games like this? Well, I think the most important thing is you've got to play one play at a time and you can't let a bad play affect you.

You know, I always try to tell our quarterbacks, they all want to make plays. They all talk about making plays, making plays. I said, how about eliminate in a bad place? You know, if we don't have drive-stopping mistakes, whether it's a sack we shouldn't have taken, whether it's a turnover that we shouldn't have had, because the number one thing for a quarterback to me is, can identify what the defense is doing, can I communicate it to my teammates, and once I get the ball in my hands, can I execute with good judgment and decision-making inaccuracy with the ball for throwing it, and it'll offer whatever it is.

So I think those things are really, really important to stay focused on. And there's so much noise, you know, I call it rat poison out there, relative to these quarterbacks at these kind of programs, that that makes it even more difficult for these guys to stay focused on the right stuff. Modern day. Will Howard actually admitted to us, which every player, it's not really an admission at this point. He was like, we're told not to read the stuff, but it's impossible. Like nowadays it's impossible.

It's literally everywhere. Have to have a very mentally tough quarterback to lead the team. Tone has a question for you about another quarterback. Yeah, coach, obviously it's year two for Kaelin DeBore, and he brought in his OC Ryan Grub to be back this year. But obviously the biggest question right now is Ty Simpson, who's a new quarterback, who obviously you know well. I saw an article recently about how you called

and you were talking to his dad, who's also a head coach, like, hey, you know, Ty needs to stay here when he gets to play here. Things can be great with him. What do we need to know about Ty Simpson that we don't know? the guy and then also the player on the field. Yeah, well, I think Ty is, you know, a great young man who has, and I have all the respect in the world for these guys that, you know, stay in a program for three years, develop, wait their turn,

and I think that's the thing that Ty has done extremely well. You know, Todd, there's so many of these guys that grow up now being outcome-oriented, you know, and they're always looking at results, you know, how many passes that I completely, how many touchdowns that I have. then they create these expectations for themselves, and when they don't live up to them, they get frustrated very easily, and that body language is not good for a quarterback, it's not good for a team. So that's the big thing that Ties had to sort of work his way through, is not get affected

by a bad play, stay focused on the next play, because he's got all the talent in the world. He's got legs that are real. He's a very accurate passer. He's a good decision maker. He's smart. He's a good leader. So it'll be interesting to see how he can maintain the consistency in play. performance that defines success by not getting affected by ups and downs in a game.

Do you think that there's going to be any quarterback changes early? Like how long do you think these great teams who have new quarterbacks are giving them a leash? What do you think? Well, I think it depends on who the next guy. Oh, okay, okay. I think it depends a lot on who the next guy is. You know, I mean, sometimes if you have a young guy that you really have a lot of confidence in, that you think he may not be ready, kind of like the Tua Jalen Hertz thing that we went through a few years ago.

you know, we kept playing, you know, Tua thinking that one of these days he's going to be ready and he actually went and was ready in the national championship. All right, but that was the plan. Yeah, it worked out. We were trying to bring that guy along, and, you know, Jalen was struggling a little bit toward the end of the season, beat up a little bit and all that. So if you can bring a guy along and you have a really good player behind your quarterback, then you can afford to have a little bit of a short leash if you think it's not the team.

not moving in the right direction. There's a lot of difficult decisions that are made. It feels like nowadays, college football, a little bit more like pro football than it's ever been. And if you have some pro football experience, it might help you. Ty has a question for you. Yeah, coach, for the last eight months or to a year, however long it's been, everyone's got to weigh in on Bill Belichick in North Carolina and have an opinion about,

you know, whatever. We had Michael Lombardi on yesterday, and he said that they had a couple of conversations with you, reached out with you, you know, just for advice or, whatever the case may be, now that we're a couple days ahead of them actually taking the field and we're going to see the product on the field, what are your expectations for this North Carolina football team? And do you think the whole situation will feel different to Bill or is coaching ultimately just coaching? No, I think coaching is coaching, but I do think there's some, what I would call operational differences, you know, in college. I mean, just take the sidelines, for instance.

You've got 45 guys on the sidelines in the NFL. You know, in college, you could have 100. So that changes a lot of, how do you manage that? How does it affect you? How does it impact you? But that's just a sort of a stupid operational. Oh, my God. It sounds like you hate how much conjecture is around, yep, congestion on the side.

I made certain guys stand behind the bench because I hated the traffic on the sidelines. But my point is this. They've got 70 new players at North Carolina. Carolina on their roster. You know, Bill is a great coach. He's a great teacher, and he's great at developing players. So if you have that many new players, you really don't have a chance to develop them. So, you know, my expectation, it's going to be a little bit of a work in progress, and he's going to make all these players better, and they're going to benefit and create more value for their future because of Bill, but it's going to take a little time. And I think

everybody should understand that. Yeah, we're going to be there on Monday. for TCU, UNC, a big kickoff for them on Monday night down in Chapel Hill. Michael Lombardi just keeps saying how beautiful it is. You need to come down to see us. It's beautiful down here. He's always selling. You have to, I guess, as a college football coach.

That's kind of what they're doing now. Nobody did it as good as you, brother. Connor has a question for you. Yeah, Coach, we just had Ryan Day on, and we kind of talked about the mentality of the team going into this year, how, you know, last year's great, but they didn't do anything. And we were kind of talking about how it almost turns into a relief of winning versus, you know, wanting to win in that type of, you know, mindset.

But for your teams with Bama, you know, I'm assuming after you guys won national championships, it was very similar, hey, now that that season's over, we haven't done anything I think you've mentioned before. You know, I take 20, I've taken 24 hours after a national championship, but then you're right back to it. What do you think that will do for Ohio State? Do you think that is probably the smartest way to go about it for both the coach and the team, and do you think that they'll have a lot of success in, you know, going on to try and repeat this year? Well, I do think it's something you have to overcome. And you mentioned the word relief. I call it relief syndrome. Oh, yeah. In other words, you do something

special, which society promotes this, so we all grow up this way. And then we should get rewarded for that, and we should be able to rest on our laurels. You know, kind of like when we all made an A on the first test and we jacked around for the next two weeks and made a C on the next test and we were happy to have a B average. Yeah, but I started at C though. So you had to make an A on the next. But this whole concept of having to deal with success because, you know, success is not a continuum and nothing in the past that's going to that you had success with is going to really affect your ability to have success in the future. So this is not normal. I mean, it's something that You know, players have to be aware of.

You have to coach it into them that they can't rest on their laurels because everybody's shooting at you. You become the mountain. Ohio State won the national championship. Everybody wants to beat them even worse now than ever before. So players have to understand that. It's a new team.

Everybody's got to buy into the new role that they have, the leadership that they have, and you've got to replace that hunger that's created by not having success. Like Ohio State getting beat by Michigan last year, probably had as much to do with them winning a national championship as anything. Absolutely. Yeah.

A lot of re-perspective. Yeah. You coming out and yelling at their fan base after that was awesome. Sweet. They needed it. Listen. They needed it. Get in line and shut up.

This team can win a national championship. Right. Yeah. And they got this, you know, psychological disposition about Michigan that's just killing them. Killing them. Yeah. Michigan's dancing. the entire time. Because even when Ohio State

wins the national championship, now Michigan's getting credit for it, and that is certainly something they dance with all offseason. AJ has a question for you, coach. Yeah, college football rivalries. It's a unique world we live in, I guess, in this whole situation. But for tomorrow, noon kickoff out here. What are you expecting to see? Like, what do you, I guess in the first game, too, when you're coaching, your first time

you guys go on the field, what do you want to see out of your team? Well, you know, you want to see your team execute with discipline and not make the kind of errors in the game that are going to affect the outcome of the game. Like last night, the Nebraska game. First one at the one, guy jumps off sides. You get penalized, then you end up kicking a field goal. I mean, those kind of things just absolutely kill you. And those are the

kind of mistakes that you want to have the discipline to be able to execute in the game so you don't have those issues and you don't have those problems. Let me just tell you something. Another coach in the country really knows exactly how his team's going to respond in the first game. You know, because you don't even know based on how your offense did against your defense maybe your defense is really good and you think you don't have a lot of confidence in your offense, but the fact of the matter is it just because your defense is pretty good,

your offense may not be that bad. So you have all these questions running around in your mind and you can't really know what's going to happen until they go out there and play. You know, and one of the things that I used to do that, you know, my assistants used to get mad at is they wanted to coach all the time. And Belichick did this to me.

I coached all the time. And every now and then, we'd have a team session where Bill said, let the players play. You're not allowed to make calls for them. You're not allowed to correct them. You're not allowed to do anything. Let the players play. So that's what happens in the game.

Nobody tells you what to do. Nobody makes the call at linebacker, which way you're slanting, or what coverage are we playing. So you've got to let the players play. So they can take it to the game and they have confidence in what they're going to do, which is really important in the first game. And the more maturity your team has, probably the better chance you have to do that in the first game. Returning starters is always something we look at. And then

amount of starts that players have during the transfer portal era now is something that's looking at especially with what Sig was able to do at Indiana, even though he's talking all that shit all the time. He was certainly able to turn over that roster and that culture pretty quickly. Are we going to see more of that, you think? Like Vandy was obviously awesome because of everything

that happened with that. Their entire run, Arizona State comes out of nowhere. They win the Big 12. They get into the dance. Indiana nobody expected ever to be good at football in the Big Ten. Feels like it does provide for that, this modern era that we have here. Yeah, there's no question about it. And everybody's choosing how to build a team.

And I think it's interesting that Clemson has kind of built their team, developing the players that they recruited and have very little coming out of the portal or going into the portal. Where LSU, who has a lot of people coming back, they have the most players that started six games or more at a major college. 18 guys in a portal have started six games in, you know, Power 4. Yeah, big games. Yeah.

So they've added a ton of people to their team that can have an impact on the game. But how are those pieces going to fit together, especially early in the season? Yeah, if you pay the wrong guy. Pay the wrong guy. Get out of luck. Yep. That was a great moment last year. That was a great moment.

You didn't pay attention to any of the NFL stuff right now with Micah? Do you know Jerry Jones well? How can you not? Yeah, it's everywhere. I do not know Jerry Jones very. well. But, man, I tell you what, when you got a significant, dominant player, especially pass rusher, I mean, those guys are so hard to find. I mean, boy, it would be just hard for me as a coach to let a guy like that go, but it is what it is. It is what it is. And there's been a lot of

great clips coming out of all of it, including Micah celebrating around the house and telling his mom, she's retired forever, obviously. And that's cool for him from the personal side, but the Green Bay Packers feel the exact same way you do. They go, hold on. We just picked up out two firsts, and Kenny Clark, great player. Nobody's talking about that enough. Great player. He's a great player. Kenny's got to stop the run. Kenny's a great player, and Jerry said he got to stop the run, but I think there's a lot of teams saying, is this, did we all know this is what it took to get Micah Parsons? I think anybody would want a dominant pass rush around their team. Jerry's getting judged pretty hard right now by everybody. Yeah, I think so because,

you know, there's certain guys that affect a game and, you know, wide receivers can affect a game, quarterback can affect a game, great runner can affect a game. But pass rushers, in this day and age of football, when over 60% of the plays in the NFL are passes, and that guy can impact the game, not just in sacks, but how many times do you affect the quarterback? And how much is he worried about you as a rusher? I just think that's the one place on defense that a guy can really make an impact. Like you could say our whole secondary, we've got to cover five guys. You got one pass rusher. You don't have to cover anybody.

It's like the quarterback. Yeah, you're right. Ball's coming out quick. Coming out quick, too. I mean, that makes everybody else's life very easy. And that's how Ty feels as a Green Bay Packer fan. And we as football fans, can't thank you enough, brother. How about tomorrow, Coach Corso's final game day?

That's good. I just, we just went through the meeting a little bit ago. They'll be paying their respects to the man who did a lot for college ball. What are your thoughts about him before you get on the show and then now being able to work with him last year? Well, you know, the one thing I think Lee Corso did, and he did it with such grace, is, you know, we used to just watch games and people would, you know, call the game. He brought entertainment to this business, which is what you do, and we all have an opportunity to do for the fans. It made it better for the fans. It was more enjoyable.

He's got a great personality. I still remember, I mean, when I was playing at Kent State, we had Jack Lambert, and we played his Louisville team, and they had Howard Stevens and, you know, Tom Jackson and all these guys. I mean, they had a really, really good team, and they beat the shit out of us. That was something. So I know him from the coaches side, too. I'm playing against them and seeing what he did in Indiana. We played them when I was here at Ohio State. But what he did for the entertainment business part of it is to me the greatest contribution that he made to college sports.

I agree. I think people don't realize the value of that. Yeah, I think college football on a rocket ship, obviously, because the tradition and the pageantry and the game and football is the greatest sport on earth. But like what he did to help, you watch what game day's growth was with Lee Corso in college football's popularity. And it's like there was a driving force behind a lot of it. And Lee Corso's face is synonymous with it. And it's like getting a chance to watch him work here the last couple of years has obviously been in honor.

He's been incredibly kind to me. And just as a fan, whenever I watched it before, I like somebody to get, you know, not scared to go there and spin it up. You know, mix it up a little bit. And it's not just like me that is benefiting from that. You think about everybody. Charles Barkley, obviously, it's a massive person I look up to in his business

because the way he speaks his mind, the way he delivers the way he entertains every single time he speaks. It's like Lee Corso, Charles Barkley, are the two in my eyes that are up there in the Mount Rushmore of sports entertainment. And, yeah, tomorrow's going to be a sweet day honoring them, you know? Yeah, I know, you know, my first experience at Texas A&M, I'm a coach, so I'm serious about the game. All right, and I get there, and, you know, they're singing to you when you come on stage. Okay.

Country Road. Thank you. All right, and then you're standing on a chair. Yeah. And then he's dancing the jig with Notre Dame stuff. And I'm saying, what the hell do I get into here? You're great. You're great, though.

You are a phenomenal. You're one for one. You won an Emmy. Yeah. Boom. That's it. Must have been a bit of them. Did he win a couple of them?

He won the newcomer, right? And then before Jim's that? I thought before two, Sabin and Bill, when they had their sit down one-on-one for an hour, they won an award for that as well. You're just collecting these things, I guess? Is there trophies? I'm going to win them. Don't shave in football. It was a little bit of a bummer, though.

He's only said, really said all right once. All right. I really just want to make an impact and help people understand the game better and enjoy the game better. That's my number one. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. All right. Has it been fun? It sounds like he was told not to do. Have you been having fun with it? For real?

Yeah, I love it. It's been very enjoyable. And I like the preparation part of it too. It keeps him watching film, evaluating players, looking at schemes. I love it. Keeps you in it without having to, you know... Work 14 hours a day. Or go to the press conference afterwards or have to recruit a kid back to your team.

I mean, there's a lot that you don't have to do. You've earned this position, and we're all lucky to watch it. Can't wait to see you tomorrow. game day, and every single week joining us on Friday's. We're very thankful for that. Good. I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, the goat. Coach, hey, coach.

He walked in. Coach, coach, coach. All right, guys. There it is. See, why can we get a couple of those? That's what I'm saying. Clean fit. Always like a clean fit. Oh, yeah. He looks pretty jacked.

He is jacked. Might have been squatting. You ever seen him with a shirt off? 12-pack. Did you get better this off-season or no? The abs that, like, go. Matt Collins. Okay, sure.

Kind of like age. What? You're shooting scratch golf or now? Oh, Matt Patricia's over here. Nice. Is he coming on? Coach, coach, coach, coach.

Yeah, he was trying to come on to a head. Oh, that was great, huh? It was. That was a great, bro. Dap-up hug By far Coach looks great He does

He looks good He does look good Yeah he does I don't believe Nice healthy spot He looks really good He's got a good beard on him right now too Yeah yeah

Does he have his wallet and keys on him Or That was an amazing moment Epic moment Absolutely epic moment That defense is gonna be pretty good With Maddie P at the hell

Well and also Caleb Danz is out there You know you forget about that You start diving back into all this College football stuff and Tone's guide was obviously phenomenal at it but also like just diving in watching film from last year you forget that Caleb Downs is the best player

on the field when he's on the field like he's a genius on there. Think about that, there's a safety too, like a guy that can, great safeties can cover up a lot of mistakes if there are any kind of mistakes early. Yeah, and then on the offensive side, Jeremiah says, see you, coach. Good luck, man. Good luck.

Good luck. Oh, H, coach. It's gonna be fun. Hey, arch can move, bro. This ain't another manning. The spy on him. He's saying another manning, yeah. He's saying another manning. Arch does like to wibble.

Arch is a shot. Last year in the playoffs, too, and popped right up. Yeah, I'm impressed with him. Yeah, did not whine at all about, hey, I got a concussion. He was right back. Because I don't know. Obviously. What, you think he was so concussed?

He didn't know he was concussed. Yes. He definitely knew. He had to get up a little shit. Because he bobbed a little bit. He did. Oh, yeah. They thought it was going to be a fumble.

He did wooble. It looked like one. A bit obley. How about when he, I mean, he's got the, he's got the mocks. Oh, yeah. The cookout this summer? Exactly. The new age manning.

Yes, he is, he is the modern, evolved manning. He's been at the Manning Passing Academy since he's 10 years old. All these guys go to the Manning Passing Academy, trying to learn stuff. He's been doing it since he's 10. So, like, there's so many things that I think are going to be showcased this season, especially in a Sark offense. Remember what he was able to do with Mack Jones, whenever you have a quarterback that is so dynamic

and can understand everything that's going on. Not to Quinn yours couldn't. But they got four twos everywhere. And Sark and Arch have been together for a while now. That's huge. Arch is speaking the same language as Sark. Has been since he's 10, but definitely now in this entire thing. It's like, I'm very eager to see this offense for Texas

because obviously you're going to have to be great to win a Super Bowl or win a national championship. But it's like, Arch is the Heisman favorite for a reason. And to start with Ohio State in Columbus, is a pretty wild move. I mean, that is a wild start to your career, kind of dropped into the fire. With Matt Patricia,

multiple times Super Bowl champion defense coordinator kind of scheming against you, I'm eager to see what this Texas offense looks like because I know the possibilities are huge for them. Oh, yeah, and think if you are the Texas offense and you're Sark, you're thinking, okay, what kind of defense is Mattie Patricia going to put an install for this Ohio State team?

We know they're replacing a lot of great players, but they have a lot of great players coming back. That's the thing, too. like the whole first quarter, the whole first half might be kind of a feeling out process. Let's see how we're going to respond to each other. What have we not talked about that we need to talk about today? Boys on his Feel Good Friday, a couple of people who have kind of come in his stadium. Got a West Virginia Mountaineer guy up here.

Good to see him. A couple lads in the back just got here. I believe the AD was here. Brady Quinn's here. Love that. Unbelievable. Brady Quinn looks unbelievable. I don't even know if we're allowed to show him because, you know.

Definitely don't. Yeah. Big rivalry situation. I mean, we show him. I would not have a problem with it, but there's potentially a... There's a lot of stuff going on. Hey, can you show Brady Quinn right there? Yeah, quick shot.

Here, give me a thumbs up, Brady. Show Brady Quinn right there. I'm sorry, let me cut to that. Oh, he's hiding. Oh, he's not a fuck. Oh, what a wutz! He was scared. Oh, not a lot.

Not a lot, not a lot, not a lot. Too handsome for the show. With Brady Quinn, Pat, did you see the new Notre Dame promo with Shane Gills. Yes, yes, I did see that. I enjoy that his dad had a major speaking role in that time. I like the dad's in there

and I like these wearing Notre Dame stuff. They also just put out their injury report for Sunday's game and he is actually on the injury report. I believe he is out. And the reason they listed was tailgating. He's actually classic. He's on the injury report with

Real players. I don't want to give anything away, but he was the guy that I FaceTime that was watching the Catholic first convicts documentary the other day. And I'll tell you what, he did have a, he is an athlete too. He's no longer that offensive line size. He's slimmed down a little. Oh, about that. He's doing arenas now. He's doing arenas now.

You know, he's got to be able to be mobile. He's got to be active. A.T.H. before Shane Gillis is how it's always supposed to be. And, you know, whenever he's taking a pass set, people think, this guy's an absolute stuff. But what he's eager for is to see if this Notre Dame team can get through week one. This is a massive week one. The rest of their schedule, if we've looked at it, it's going to get real louder for the people that don't like Notre Dame. People that don't like Notre Dame.

I'm not saying I'm one of those people. My name's Patrick McAfee. I love when the Irish are fighting. Sure. I love it. Just like him. Bang. On dogs.

I do love that. I do love that. But if you look at their schedule, there's going to be a lot of people in the Big Ten and the SEC, and certainly the Big 12, West Virginia's conference, that are going to say, where's the, where's the, where's the schedule? And Notre Dame, obviously, it's not their fault. They are in a great position with how big their fans are. But this is a big one, I think, for the old resume, for the rest of the season for Notre Dame.

Yeah, you don't want to get behind the eight ball early on. But also, going back to that Shane Gillis commercial, like, how about Marcus Freeman's performance? Great job. There's not many college coaches that could perform. It was long, too. That wasn't just like a short thing. That took some time to film. It was a full content piece.

Yeah. Yeah, it was full content piece. It wasn't just, you know, a 30-second commercial. Marcus Freeman, his hair's grown in real strong. He looks good, man. Marcus looks... Real strong. He's aging in reverse, too.

Like, I was with him here at Ohio State. He was two years younger than me. The guy looks awesome. Looks like he's 25. I'm excited to see Miami's Carson Beck-led team down there. Because obviously, if Miami continues to run like they did last year with Cam, maybe that Miami fan base is back. Maybe the U is back.

Maybe Gumpy and the boys can get excited for the U kind of coming into college football relevancy again, pal. Yeah, I don't take this. Ah, it's Mike's off. Of course. Gumpy, you want to come up here. I wonder if there will be any fans are harder. Come here, Goop.

There's going to be fans, Tone. Miami has a hard time filling that place up. Very, very hard time. A bunch of people go to that. Yeah. Yeah, especially taking it as a chance. trip down to Florida. All right, let's go get burnt in South Florida and watch the boys play against Miami. We'll get after it again. We're going to run out of time too if you don't.

We need a sense of urgency out of you, Gump. And how's the microphone's backwards, dead backwards on that. That's good. You're good. Yeah. There it is. Tick, tick, tick to tick. That was up here. Ladies and gentlemen, that's Gumpy. Yeah, go. Don't sleep on Miami now. Miami who? Hurricanes. Okay, we won't sleep on them. How's it been over the? in the sun pretty hot yeah the uh my computer was actually kind of crashed a few times now tv just crashed out actually here it might be me yeah there's people yelling back here uh okay i just drove 60 and a half hours to watch a high state kicked their hand pretty good

that came through a little bit that was awesome it is an honor to be here college football week one kicks off in a huge way tomorrow three top 10 matchups. College Game Day, Coach Corso's final headgear pick. We're lucky as how to be here. We'll be enjoying college football and football being all the way back. Shout to Buck D. and Ryan, the camera people here. Shout to all the ESPN people that set this up for us to be live.

Shout to you boys back in Indy for making this happen. And football is all the way back. Let's celebrate the shit out of that. We'll be here for Overreaction Monday. Let's enjoy this. Greatest weekend of all time. Goodbye. I feel like I really nailed it.

Nailed it. You nailed it. Are you, speaking of the cameras, are these brand new, like, 16K cameras? Because this is the clearest you guys have ever been. Yep. So I think this is the actual game day camera. Oh, that makes sense. And also the lighting.

The lighting is very good. Because remember, I think lighting is a big deal. You know what else has been great? The audio. Yeah. The audio has been fantastic. And yeah, this has really gone off without a hitch. It feels like, except for the talk back, but we were able to work through all that. This is amazing. And those

fucking horns. Yeah. The bottom of the barrel of Tabittle. Yeah, those did sound like shite the entire time. Do you think that's like punishment? You know how like football players have to run? These guys have fucked up their notes so many times that they just got to go sit in the top of the stadium and blow their horse. It's just like the judge machine.

Yeah, is it? I don't, I genuinely don't know what was going on there. They couldn't have wanted that to be. They had to be tuning their instruments, is my guess. You got your door. It's not a music call or something? Yeah, but the stadium, you're going to be in the stadium tomorrow. He's going to get your reps in.

No, now, Gumpy, now you're kind of getting... Well, that's, I'm used to that, you know. They did that over in Spain a few times. I tell you what, I don't know if I would stand on a box if it was the option. I think that's almost worse, no? No, I'm with you. The chat is saying you're way too close to age here right up. Well, he moved over close to me.

Oh, look at that. Wow. Door dash. Door dash a new bud. Gump and his hawk. What's up hard? Win every week with DoorDash treats. Save up the $250 bucks this season when you order on game days.

DoorDash, bringing everything to you. That's good new LRAP right there. Yeah, I like that LRAP. Whose hands that? I like that LRAP. Is that the duck? Yeah. Is that the...

Go ahead. Scoot. You could kind of line your arm up. Yeah, you're right. Dumpy, you get maybe. You got to get your arm down. There you go. A little lower.

Yeah, you got the lower. On the table. Sink. There it is. Boom. Yeah. That's it. There it is. Gump, thank you for holding that pizza for our friends at Dordad.

Take a bite. What does it feel like? It's a delicious piece of it. We moved it. Dean, get back in there. Get back, get back to where we were. Got it. A little higher, a little higher.

Arms got to go down a little bit. Yeah. Shout out to Gumpy and Dorda. Shape of that $250 this season when you order on game day. Delicious piece of pie. That is right. We call it pizza in America, but if you want a pizza pie in your eye, DoorDash will deliver that. That's how Canadians hold pizza.

All right. Well, if you put it back on, it went with the joke on me. I got a luncheon. I got to go to a luncheon that started. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Grand entrance. What time?

Yeah, coming in with the Biddle, right? The Biddle's leading you in, right? You and all those boopy trumpet players, they're the ones leading you in. All right. It's been an honor to be here. We are so thankful to be a part of college football in a tiny way. Thank you all so much for watching. Have the greatest weekend of all time.

Boys, great work. Way to battle through the technical difficulties early in the back. Zito, I do believe we pushed it a little bit close today. I think we should have probably turned left whenever we decided to turn right. But the fact that you decided to dive right into it, I respect and appreciate that that is what a Zito production is. One minute and 30 seconds before we want live, everything in my ears started working and in the area. So like that is great work, Zee. Oh yeah, boy, I appreciate it doing that.

Great work, Zee. And the fact that you said, yeah, I should attempt to do this at the time in which you did, I was alarmed, but it worked out. So I appreciate you doing that. And everybody that made this possible, you're the best. All right. Have a great weekend. the nice of my change their life. We're in this thing together. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team. Goodbye.

imagined. I decided I wanted to have one of the most organized goodbyes in history. 30 for 30 podcast presents chasing basketball heaven. Available now, wherever you get your podcast. Talk about stepping up. It's time to level up your game. Introducing the all new ESPN app. All of ESPN all in one place. You're home for the most live sports and the best championship moments. The electricity is palpable. Step up your game. with no annual contract required. It's the ultimate fan experience. Level up for more on the ESPN app or at stream.esPN.com.

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