The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1452 - NFL Week 11 Preview/Picks, TNF Recap, Pitt Head Football Coach Pat Narduzzi, Nick Saban, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

On today's show, Pat is LIVE from Pittsburgh ahead of tomorrow’s College GameDay for the Pitt/Notre Dame game while AJ Hawk and the boys are back in Indianapolis as they recap last night’s Thursday Night Football game as the Patriots moved to 9-2 and look to be back better than ever, before covering this weekend’s college football games and picking every game of the NFL week 11 slate against the spread. Joining the progrum to preview tomorrow’s game against Notre Dame and much more is the Head Football Coach of the Pitt Panthers, Pat Narduzzi. Later, 7x National Champion, the GOAT, Nick Saban joins the progrum to preview this weekend’s college football slate including the Notre Dame vs Pitt, this weekend’s biggest SEC tilts, the importance of of recruiting multi-sport athletes, and much more. 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 Overreaction Monday. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, Feel Good Friday, November 14th. This is the Pat McAfee Show. I'm A.J. Hawks sitting in for Pat here at his desk in Indy. He's in Pittsburgh. Huge matchup, boys. Football! It's what we're all talking about. Last night, obviously, New England Patriots take on the New York Jets.

The Patriots get a nice decisive victory. 13 points, I believe. Is that right, boys? And the line was, what, 12 and a half? Funny how that seems to play a factor. Those guys seem to always know what's going on. on when it comes to the sports world. Drake May, another solid, solid performance.

Trayvion Henderson, three touchdowns, unbelievable as a rookie, stepping in, playing well. Boston, Boston, Connor, especially. You guys feeling pretty damn good about yourselves, aren't you? Yeah, no doubt about it. I was shitting grin on my face for a long, long time. It was a hell of the night. Could have been a little more dominant, but, hey, it's a win. You go from eight and two to nine, two.

That's the only thing that matters. It is a win. Pat, what's going on, man? I know you got a nice, beautiful setup over there at Acresher Stadium, buddy. AJ, I appreciate that. Every time I bring you on to the show, you know, I let the world know you're a college football national champion or a Super Bowl champion or a rider cup winner. You know, I appreciate you just saying you hell with it. Pat, you're standing somewhere.

That is incredible. I appreciate you, AJ. You're the greatest. Thank you for traveling to Indiana. You look good, brother. You look very, Jack. You're the best. Now, in talks of tables, Boston Connor is obviously very excited.

That New England Patriots team was able to say hello to the world last night. And I don't think it was just the boys on the field. Now, obviously, that's a talented young bunch. I mean, Trace Vionn Henderson going for three touchdowns. And them being behind the left side of that offensive line, which is a rookie left tackle and a rookie left guard and a rookie running back, running it in from the handoff of a second-year quarterback. It's like all the pillar positions are seemingly up and to the right for a long, long time.

And then you think about Mike Vrable being the perfect supreme commander of this team. it felt like we've watched it all season through Conner's eyes, you know, when we're watching the Colts games and Connors down there wearing his Patriots here in the Indianapolis Colts Stadium and he's watching the game behind us. We hear him losing his mind to the team, not just this year, but in years past as well. This year felt different from the beginning. It felt like Mike Vrable had the boys ready to roll. And they talked all night about how, hey, there's a lot of first times happening for a lot of guys on the Patriots. And Mike Vrable might be the perfect guy to lead them.

He's one of the coaches who feels like he's still in the locker room. He's the alpha of the locker room. After the game, as the tunnel was kind of there, all Vrabel's doing is dabbing up literally every single human as they come back into the locker room. He clearly has a personal connection with everybody. And I think Drake May is special. I think I'm not the only one saying that. Obviously, he's the odds-on favorite for an MVP.

And not only does he bring – I think in the first half, he was like 14 of 16. I think he damn near had a perfect first half. And it's like he's in his second year, first year with Josh McDaniels, he's only going to get better. But every decision he makes is seemingly right. Everybody was worried about his fundamentals and his technique, that new ball whenever he was coming out of UNC because he's a freak athlete. Well, it turns out if you work on it and you're really, really athletic, you can figure it out while also having the ability to extend plays. That play obviously spectacular. There was one to the right where he's almost out of bounds and he shot puts it to Stefan Diggs for first down.

And it's like the shot put even had a perfect spiral on it. somehow. So this dude is only going to get better somehow, and this Patriots team is special. And Connor, I appreciated the fact that the New Englanders were able to celebrate that thing. That was late in the game. We all kind of knew it was over, and that place was filled to the gills. I love the Patriots fans are able to remind everybody, yeah, we still got it, and yeah, we're back. Is that how you felt watching the game, Connor? And obviously, now looking back on it, we should have sent your ass to this game. I apologize for not thinking about that earlier.

I do not apologize. The Jets are not worth my time. But yes, that is exactly how I think everybody feels in New England. The team being all the way back is one thing. But the fans being all the way back is a whole other thing. I mean, look at these throws. If you look up in the stands, everyone's standing as well. They're not just sitting there to watch the game.

They're there to be a part of the game. And I think that is a big thing in New England sports. It's they want the home field advantage across all four of the major sports, but especially football, because football, it just means more. You mentioned all the young guys and how awesome it is. I think the left guard, Jared Wilson, rookie from Georgia, shout out Kirby, Smart, Bloody Tuesdays. He had like a perfect, you know, all the stats, people, perfect, whatever the hell you want to call it, pass protection, run blocking the whole nine yards.

Will Campbell. I mean, they did a spotlight on Will Campbell versus Will MacDonald. And Will McDonald's a great player. I believe he ended up getting a sack actually but Will Campbell held his own and that was a huge thing not just against the Jets, just all season long and then he buries Michael

Clemens. It's after this on a little swim move from Michael Clemens who I believe it is a vet we saw him walking in with a bat and spikes around it when Aaron Rogers was playing with the Jets so it's not as if he's just some guy he's a bit of a dog but Will Campbell

is a bigger dog and the post game First of all, Amazon has the best pre-game halftime and post-game show in the business by far. I agree, by the way. I agree. Yeah, yeah. They're worth watching, I think.

Yes, they're worth staying up for, like, both with the players, but they also just do stuff that you don't think about. Now, bring in a Ryan Fitzpatrick in from New York when there's probably 2,000 different Ryan Fitzmajacks littered throughout Massachusetts. What are you going to do? But still hilarious that they did that in that post game, though. You know, they asked May. about Mike Vrable and everything he meets to him.

And, you know, May talks about how he helps me. He's coaching me on the sideline, not just with throwing the ball, but with everything it takes to be a quarterback. And May says in it, too, like, yeah, I'm taking the next three days off. I'm not going to be there until Monday. And Vrable actually talked about, too, you know, hey, look, I'm 50. These guys I'm coaching, you mentioned it, Pat, they're rookies. They're 21, 22, 23.

My youngest son is 23. So it does feel almost like a fatherly supreme leader to what you see. said. And to what Drake may mention about not being there, you know, for three straight days, I was kind of like, all right, well, don't love that, Drake. It's cool. We're nine and two, but you can easily still finish nine and eight. It is the NFL. But then Mike Frable had this to say in the locker room after the victory. Listen to me, I want to recognize a couple of things. Okay, so we're giving one clap. Pile push, touchdown. And then the last one is fourth down Number three, Del Pedestep?

Yeah! And I would say you could file Dell under the guys that just take advantage of their opportunities. Okay, I would file Dell under a guy that takes advantage of his opportunities so we know what that leads to. Okay, more opportunities. Fellas, let me just tell you real quick one thing. After 11 games, we got three days off. Okay, when we got here, okay, we wanted to put a program together for you. Okay, and that's not just me and the coaching staff or the player.

Okay, that's everybody in this building. Okay, so before you leave here, okay, with the treatment and the equipment and the video and everybody around us, okay, I'm thanking you for where we're at right now. Okay, we all got a long way to go, okay, and you guys are going to help us get there, okay, together. But that was the plan, not just the players, not just the coaches, the entire program, okay? Everything we do, okay, we're doing to help you to go out there and make plays, to perform, and to ultimately win. Okay, I'm proud to be. be your coach and I appreciate how hard you play, okay? But I'm also going to enjoy a couple days away from you.

Now enjoy this before for this now, man, be safe. See y'all boys on Monday. Love you guys, man. Pat to me, pass on three, one, two, three, Pat. I love that. Pat's on me. I love that, Pat's on me, Pats on three. And I appreciate the fact that they've had a long road here to start this season, you know?

So these three days, I think Vrable also, AJ, is maybe showing these guys how to be pros. Like, hey, we have a Thursday night game. If you want to take the next couple of days off, It's the middle of the season. We've had a long run thus far. You can certainly do that. I'm going to get the hell away from you. Now, there's going to be work put in, though,

because I think that's a team that they're building. I just appreciate his leadership, and I appreciate the buy-in that we see seemingly from everywhere Vrable is, AJ. Yeah, for young people that might not know of Vrable as a player in New England, like he was an unbelievable player. We know that, but could there be a better fit for a head coach of a franchise? And you think of the NFL, and you think of Mike Vrable,

like the fact that he's there and if they were able to, you know, they had Mayo for a year, obviously didn't really work how they planned. and to bring him in, it's like such a seamless transition. Are things going too well for the Patriots? Guys like Boston Conner getting nervous, you think? No, I don't know if things are going too well. I think they're only going to get better,

and I think that's the fear of every other team that the evil empire is back up there. Are these Patriots, Pat, I'm sorry to cut you off. Are these Patriots easier to root for maybe than the old Patriots, though? Is this a team where, I guess, nationwide, not just in Boston? Well, so I think Tom Brady did a little bit of a baby face play, right? Tom Brady, whenever he kind of retired, did a little bit of a baby face play because he was out of the evil empire.

I think we saw them fail a little bit. We saw Boston people, Massachusetts people, Revolution Region people kind of have to go through it a little bit in football, turn their attention to basketball again. Yeah, we got Celtics at most of the time. Yep. You know, whatever the case is. So I think we all got to experience that. And then we watched with Gerard Mayo, and I think, you know, not a lot of people thought

Drake May was going to be good. So it feels like Drake May is maybe an underdog story. We saw Vrabel get fired from the Titans. I think we all think the Titans are stupid for that. Everybody kind of agreed with that. So it's almost a couple redemption stories for some people that I think we're naturally going to get behind. But if the Patriots win a couple times here now,

they start making some real runs, which looks like they're going to. Everybody will hate them again. I think that is very clear. And I think that's what you heard from one half of the hammer. Cowboys AP tone. Is that what your takeaway is that you like the Patriots right now you're planning on hating them or that they're all the way back

and they're going to be a part of the picture and people are going to inevitably hate them again. Correct. The latter of those situations. And it's strictly because it's not the people because Braves is awesome. Absolutely love Mike Vrable. Drake May's awesome. Trevionne Henderson's awesome.

Well, Camel's awesome. Everyone on the team is awesome. But the colors and the team and you can't like or root for a team that's already won six Super Bowls in the last 25 years. Like that's just not something you can do if you are a football fan of another team. Like we can't like them. Please. The people on there, awesome.

You can root for them individually. But as a team, you could not root for them. The Patriots, though, seemingly likable. Yeah, yeah. Very much so. I don't, I don't want to burst the old let's hate them bubble because I would certainly see how that would make sense. But even Trayvion Henderson, I heard him talk after the game.

First time I've ever heard him speak. Have you ever, did you know that, did you, have you, he's maybe the most humble person I've heard talk. Oh, yeah. Drake May speaks, most humble person that you hear speak from a quarterback, especially one who's the odds-on-favor to win the MVP at this point of the season in his second year. Even coming out of college, it's like youngest of three brothers, younger, younger, younger, brother kind of beat down. I don't think he's ever going to become some arrogant prick, you know?

I don't think that's ever going to take place. And then Vrable is a guy that I think we all believe we'd like to have a beer or whiskey or maybe smoke a cigar, an entire tin of cope with, you know, like that. I do think it is a very like crew. And then Stefan Diggs even. I think Stefan Diggs, because of everything that has kind of happened in the past, there's maybe one belief about him. And he's in a very, very, very loud relationship. Congrats to them, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Congrats to them, having a baby. And both of them, obviously, publicly relationships and personal lives have been documented. They seemingly are having a good time together. And anytime two people find love and happiness together, we are happy for them. So congrats to them on doing that. But Stefan Diggs buying into this team completely. Like there's never any shade.

Last night he goes for 100 and some yards on nine catches. It's like Drake May understands who Stefan Diggs is. People are saying that Stefan Diggs back to being the Stefan Diggs that you thought he was going to be on the field. And it's like with Vrable, it feels like you have a guy that Stefan Diggs, you know, probably respects, I think. So like I think there's a chance that it all just kind of goes very swimmingly for them. They even have their own handshake. We even do our own handshake. They went backhand there.

I don't know if you saw that. He did slap, hug with everybody else. literally everybody else, including equipment staff. With Stefan Diggs, they go back, yeah, a little soft on that thing, back in on that. So it's like when you talk about, like, chemistry, superstars, it's a brand new guys, everybody's bought in. It's like, here's Stefan forces, like, stats, by the way. I mean, to Hembo Center for some stats, I just saw these down on the thing. Stefan Diggs, four small multiplier, 2009, 2012, Bill scoring offense, one from 23rd to second whenever you arrived.

Allen's QBR rank one from 24th to 3rd, okay, with his arrival. Now, granted, Josh Allen got a lot better in the off season and he didn't have a lot of accuracy deep balls. Stefan Diggs certainly helped that. Now, 2024 to 2025 Patriots scoring offense goes from 30th to 8th and May QBR goes from 17th to fourth. Once again, Drake may put in a lot of work. Josh McDaniels, we assume, is a much better offensive coordinator. But Stefan Diggs comes in and helps a lot. And I think they respect and appreciate him.

So hopefully, you know, there's not the other side of the entire thing, right? Conman, that's kind of the openness in there. Yeah, exactly. And I think that just goes back to Vrabble. You know, Stefan Diggs isn't on a, you know, the signing was three years, $60 million. But that's not how the contract was laid out. It was a prove-it deal. It was more so like a one-year, $14 million deal.

Hey, let's see if you can earn all that money. And he did. He earned everything that, you know, he is going to get because of, you know, what Mike Vrable is able to get him to buy into. I believe there was a report that Diggs actually chose the Patriots over the Broncos in this offseason, to me is a massive deal because going into the season, everyone was kind of aware the Broncos with Sean Pate and that offense was going to get it done.

It's nice that Vrable was able to kind of open Stefan Diggs's eyes to how much better Drake May is than Bo Nix. But that's the biggest deal for me is that just Diggs is one of those players that had this reputation of being a diva, of being a wide receiver, and you're still getting it. For me, I'm still getting it on the internet. Well, just wait, you know, when it's week 15 or it's the playoffs, and he only has two catches, no, that is not how Mike Vrable operates.

And I think Stefan Diggs understands that. And he also knows at this point in his career, he's being called the diva, the receiver, the prima donna, all those things. So the biggest thing for him is winning is kind of proving to basically everybody else that he's not just, hey, if I don't get my catches, if I don't get my touches, I'm going to be pissed off. It is about winning for Stefan Diggs. And that's showing up right now.

It's incredible. Yeah, and then on the flip side, AJ, you know, there's a tough offense on the other side. No, hey, they walk right down the field. They walk right down the field whenever they get the ball. 7-0 New York Jets. Hold the phone. I heard Conman say earlier today, is there a prop bet for them to have negative offensive rushing or negative offensive yards as a whole?

They start the game, walk right down the field, score a touchdown, hold the phone. Maybe the Jets are going to be dynamic. Maybe the Jets are going to spoil this. New England Patriots, prime time. Hello to the world that we are once again, the team in the NFL. That's why I thought they were early, and I'm like, I should have known. There was too, we were way too loud. We were way too loud about the Patriot's beating hell.

And then the game ends. Patriots cover, the underhits, and the other team is now on a rate that would be historically terrible. So when you think about what's going on with the New York football jets, okay? They're averaging a league low 139.9 passing yards per game. That'd be the lowest in the NFL since. the 20-22 bears, 130 and a half, who's worse, Justin Fields' quarterback.

So, I like Justin Fields. I don't want to bury Justin Fields. Okay, I'm not going to bury Justin Fields. I like Justin Fields. Great athlete, good dude, works hard. They told Aaron Rogers, get the fuck out of here. Okay, that's what they told Aaron Rogers to do. Now, I'm not saying Aaron Rogers is going to win the MVP this year,

but they, in their mind, were moving on to a new quarterback. quarterback's most important position. They seemingly, without even having a conversation with Aaron Rogers, they had made up their mind, we're getting him the hell out of here. Yep, what are you going to do a quarterback? Well, we'll get somebody better for sure. We'll definitely do that. Then there was multiple quarterbacks that are available this offseason.

Obviously, we saw some moves happen in some OGs, go take places. Joe Flacko is just kind of hanging out to potentially available wherever you're talking at. So whenever you think about what they did, they made a decision on a quarterback. They paid Justin Fields $30 million. They outbid the Pittsburgh Steelers on Justin Fields. And they've already, this is going to be their quarterback. So the conversation now is like, well, the Jets have all these picks and they're going to be able to rebuild this and they get rid of, you know, the old money and now they'll have new

money. It's like, who says that these people are making the right decisions in the most important part? Ty, who, what, how, am I judging that way too harshly? Because I think we were just so close to the story with Aaron coming on saying, I fly four and a half hours to this meeting. Like the way Aaron talked about this, Aaron was cool with whatever, would have stayed there. I'm not saying they should have kept them. We were very okay with them moving on.

But just like they seemingly made a decision, we're getting a new quarterback, and they chose Justin Fields to be the quarterback, and now it's going how it's going. So who says that they're going to be able to just choose the right one? I think that's a much harder decision than many people are talking about, Ty Schmidt. Yeah, without a doubt. And I think they actually, like, we talked about this at the start of the season. It kind of came from the Jets building and then from a lot of people who were talking about the Jets as a whole. The primer was basically, hey, we're going to have to play really good defense.

We're going to have to run the ball and we can't turn the ball over. They knew Justin Fields wasn't going to be a guy who was going to throw for a bunch of yards and throw a lot of touchdowns. And I just, in the NFL now, like, that is not a formula. You can't throw for 138 yards a game and win. You just can't. And he's obviously dynamic, what he can do with his legs. And I don't know if he need to go to, hey, can you imagine maybe this guy takes an offseason

and tries to be like a receiver or something because when he does have the ball, in his hands. He's electric. But to your point, like, does it matter how many? I mean, we were talking about this a little bit out there. And it's just like, do you think any of these guys that we see in this upcoming draft class, or you can even do the next one, are you confident in if the Jets were to take one of those guys that who they have in place is going to be able to get that guy to a point where they can restore the franchise to where it was, what, 25, 30 years ago? I don't think you can make that case right now. It seems like no matter who they get in there, they are doomed to fail.

Yeah, in evaluation, I think, is a big piece of building your team, especially if you're planning on rebuilding your entire team. And I'm just saying there's been a couple of decisions we've already seen to make that seemingly not going the best. You know, there is, I don't want to be the bear or bad news for the Jets for the future because I believe in Aaron Glenn. Mr. Mugi, yeah, okay, I assume he's going to do a great name. I mean, Mousy is a great name.

And he can certainly get boozy with moosey, but it's like, we're going to find out. And this is the same way I was talking about Goot-Cunz, whenever I'm like, we're going to find out when he hadn't made a lot of decisions. He decided to move on from Aaron, so this is not me just talking in a new fashion. It's just like, what do we know about this team? What do we know about this franchise? What do we know about this organization? Well, we know before these guys, not good. And with these guys, we're assuming going to be good just strictly because we believe in Aaron Glenn.

Is that kind of why? Because I believe in Aaron Glenn? Is that why we're kind of believing in the right decisions being made? We see bad decisions made all the time, agent. Like, in the NFL, there's bad decisions made all the time. Every single day. And what happens again for the Jets? Exactly.

If you don't evaluate, you can build up all these picks you want. If you don't bring in the right people, like you continue to set your whole franchise back another year. Like, it's just, yeah, they have to, they got to figure something out pretty quick, I feel like. They're paying them $20 million this year, $10 million guaranteed next year, $30 million in total to be the quarterback for the Jets. And maybe they were just kind of looking to next year. and they have good eyes, we've been told, and they'll be able to find the talent that maybe we can't. Speaking of the talent,

we are standing in a state, I am standing in a stadium here that is obviously held a lot of talent on this ass grass field. I will say the grass field down here looks spectacular. I think the spray painters were probably out all night last night. But on that note, this place is going to be electrifying tomorrow. And, Connor, don't you have some stats on Pitt football's history here as we get set up? with the man that's been leading it for now 11 seasons at this point. Conman, this university of Pittsburgh, although, you know,

hasn't hosted college game day on a Saturday for 20 years. And although they haven't, you know, maybe been in the national championship game in the last long time, they create legends around here. And they have won national championships here. And it feels like there's a little special thing brewing with this new QB. Conman, tell the people a little bit about the University of Pittsburgh. football program, can you? Oh, absolutely, yeah. Pitt, we were kind of looking

into it. First of all, I had no idea they had this many Hall of Famers. Tony Dorset, Larry Fitzgerald, Aaron Donald, Dan Marino, Mike Dicka, Bill Fralick, Mark May, Lachon McCoy. Not sure if Lashon McCoy's in the Hall of Fame just yet, but still notable alumni, Curtis Martin, Tony

Saragusa. No, I'm not just reading that for the first time. Holy shit. Tony Saragusa went there. Let's go. Dorel Revis, James Connor, of course, still bringing it. notable pit coaches, Pop Warner. Come on now. Everybody played Pop Warner. You guys know where it started in Pitt, baby.

Nine national titles for the Pitt Panthers. Top 20 in all time. FBS wins, 12th most college football Hall of Fame inductees. I mean, the list kind of goes on and on. And not to mention, you know, it's in the beautiful city of Pittsburgh, baby. I mean, they share a facility with the Pittsburgh Steelers. That's kind of the coolest thing of all time when we're talking about college football team. and what you're trying to grow into a professional football players.

So, I mean, Pitt Panthers, don't look now, but they're kind of rolling, Hawker. Yeah, don't look now. Pat, I know you guys got set up there with another legend here at Acresure Stadium. What's going on? Ladies and gentlemen, the man who has led the 7-and-2 number 23 ranked Pit Panther football team this year and for the last 11 seasons, I believe, as a whole, head coach, Pat Nordizzi. Yay! Oh!

Hey! It was a little delay on that. clap. I didn't like that either, Coach. How are you feeling, Bub? I feel great. Huge weekend, it feels like, for your football program, but obviously just next weekend for you. Is that the mindset? That is the mindset. You know, it's just another game for us. You know, we've got a great team coming in here. We've got a great football team. Should be a great show tomorrow. Okay, so let's talk about what you said earlier in a week. You stepped in a little bit. Hey, I'm Italian.

Yeah. You're going to step in it a little bit. I'm going to step in it a little bit. We step in it. You know what I'm saying? I step in it all the time. But also you, I think. what your intent was what you would later say is like I want my team and everybody to know like hey for us our season is not derailed by whatever happens on Saturday but obviously national audience immediately hears that and goes what is this guy even saying how do you kind of get to the point of what your messaging is what your mindset is and how you're trying to kind of build a narrative each week. The most important thing is our football team we got a great football team and most important

thing is our guys in that room in our team room and their belief and I think our guys got a ton of belief in what we have ability-wise, you know, for tomorrow at noon. And that's the only thing matters is what our kids think. Yeah, I think so, too. We started chat about it yesterday, and some of the boys at the toxic table actually said, Narduz said that. Narduz said that, so that. Nardu said that because then Freeman's got to answer questions about winning 103 to 10. Was this a little, was this closed Sicilian, were you potentially doing a little chess play here to put all the pressure on Notre Dame? You know what? I don't know. I have no idea.

Oh. You know, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just worried about what we do out on the field tomorrow. It's about executing one plate of time, and we'll get it done. Hey, listen, you told me. Maybe I did do that. A.J. Hawk has a question for you, coach, back at the Thunderdome. Yeah, Coach. Hock. Yes. Hey, let me first. AJ.

Okay. What's up, coach? Coach Dantoneo talked about you all the time. Oh, he's the man. Coach D. He talked about you. He loves you. He loved you. You were his man. Oh, man. I love Coach Dantonio. I mean, he scared me to death every single day in my life I played for him, but I respected him. I would die for that guy, so I appreciate that and appreciate what he is doing. But speaking of great defenses, coach, your defense, especially stopping the run.

You have some stud linebackers, obviously, and you guys do a great job of stopping the run. Jeremiah loves comes into town. I guess what is it when he, playing great run defense. What do you have to do? I always say there's no secret thing you can do. It's just, hey, gap sound. It's all the boring cliche stuff. But what do you guys do so well?

How do you continue to do that? You know, AJ, we do what we do. I think that's the main thing. We're not going to change our defenses. I've seen some people change what they do structurally, you know, playing Notre Dame or some other, you know, great teams around the country. And the great thing is our guys get to go out and execute our defense and see how we match up against a great football team.

You know, we're going to play with three linebackers as you talk. Kyle Lewis, Braylin Lovelace, Rachine Biles, will be ready to roll. So we're excited to have him back. And, you know, we're going to go out and play defense. You know, it starts with that front four. But we're a four or three. We're not at four, two, five. and we think, you know, Kyle Lewis could play safety.

As you saw that one interception against Stanford, that was as good interception as ADB could have. We're just going to go out and play our game. Okay, let's talk about your game. It certainly looked a little bit different on the offensive side. AP Tone, Plumnative, who he's Duquesne guy. So you know how well, you've probably heard a couple things he said, but he loves what you're doing on the offense in the last few weeks.

Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, coach, I do. Obviously, you start the season with Eli Holstein, and now you have Mason Heinzel come in, who is a true freshman. How early did you know in his career since, because I know I believe he enrolled early, was there, like, before coming into the season,

did you know there was a chance he was going to play? Or, like, because Eli obviously had a great season. Last season, when did you know it was going to be Mason and just talk about him a little bit, how incredible he's been as a true freshman? Yeah, he's done an incredible job. He's a heck of a competitor. He's a preparer.

No, but we didn't think we were going to play Mason this year. We had, you know, total trust in Eli. I still do. but we had a couple bad games and we had to try something just to shake it up a little bit and, you know, I could have looked like one of those pizons making a bad decision. We don't like that. You know, and, you know, it worked out for us. We knew he was a, when he came in, we're like, this guy's special.

You know, the first time I saw him, he was our scout team quarterback in bowl practice, you know, before we even enrolled and took a class, and we were like, woo, you see him throw that ball. I mean, he can throw it, you know, he made our defense better in bowl practice. And, you know, so we knew there was, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, ability to get it done. But, you know, did we know it was going to be this early? Absolutely not. Coach, we rattled off all the Hall of Famers out of the University of Pittsburgh. Obviously, all the deep history and tradition. It feels like a lot of them coming back for this particular

game. It's going to be a huge environment, not only because Aaron Donald's numbers getting retired at halftime. Tony Dorsets getting acknowledged, there's going to be everybody seemingly in the history of Pitt football here tomorrow and special. Ty has a question for you about all of that. Yeah, Coach, with all that in mind, is there any plan to have any of those guys maybe address the team or talk to them and kind of remind them about the history and like the excellence and tradition that Pitt has had? We saw the Steelers. This happened a couple weeks ago where Coach Cowher came back and the 05 team was being recognized and we basically saw a new Steelers team on that Sunday. They looked unbelievable. And you could tell, you know, kind of being reminded of the history and the tradition from people who had done it at the highest level.

that added a little extra juice for the game? Like, are there any plans for that going into, obviously, this massive tilt this weekend? Yeah, we always got a plan. The first plan is, you know, Derell Revis is starting at the beginning of the game. So we're starting him at found the corner. That's bullshit. That's the first thing. Tony's going to come in and give me the old Hysman pose as well.

We may get him a couple snaps as well. You know, Jimbo covert, you know, all those guys. But, you know, to answer your question, you know, what we always have someone come in, on game day, speak to our football team. We've done it for a long time. I got that, AJ, you guys probably did it at Ohio State. Daytona, got it from probably Jim Tressel. But we always have an honorary captain come speak to our team.

So we've got an honorary captain coming in. I won't mention his name here because it's a special guest, but we're excited about the new guy coming in. You'll me break it to you today? Yeah. Tyler Palko's coming in. Oh! Use your own.

So Tyler Pappas. For you, break it on. I appreciate you doing that. Got it. And also, I love Tyler Palco. The Palco family, legendary football family in Pittsburgh. Obviously, he used to have the sick flow. His left hand spin was outrageous, and he's a great talker. He'll keep that thing colorful tomorrow, from my understanding. He will. He's kept it colorful after a game, I think. He might even have to play that. You know, if he's postgame, do you remember his post game? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what we need tomorrow out of him, maybe for a big one there.

There was a stat that was sent over to me. I think it was 2017, Miami came in here, number two, ranked team. They were like 12-point favorites or something like that. Obviously, Pitt ends up beating him. It was a massive upset. Whenever you think about what's on the line tomorrow for the other team, you've already acknowledged it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, a little bit too much, maybe. But whenever you think about what's on the line for the other team, do you tell the boys about that about a spoiler possibility? Do you use it as motivation or is that something not for you guys? One game. We'll talk about it afterwards. We've had some major upsets throughout. I mean, we went down in 2016 and beat Clemson at Clemson. But, you know,

what happened in the past doesn't really matter. This is 2025. You know, what happened in 23 when we went to, you know, South Bend, what happened in 20, none of that's going to matter. I mean, you know, Tony Dorset being here, that's not going to matter. It's going to be about what we do tomorrow. Well, Aaron Donald being here might better. Aaron Donald, I forgot to tell you, he's starting to.

No, you guys can't do this. Yeah, he's starting to, I forgot to mention him. I forgot those were they got. But he's actually starting a second half after he gets his jersey retired, then he comes out. Oh, new number. Yeah. Yeah, we're trying to retire that after this game. We'll retire both.

Both his numbers. I love everything. They've got G-League players signing for college basketball now. So you might be able to sign Aaron Donald, especially because he's going to be able to play forever. Now, speaking of Aaron Donald, I think he's given back massively to the program,

if I'm not mistaken. Connor has a question for you about all of that. Yeah, Coach, first of all, I had no idea Bill Goldberg was an alumni of the Pitt Panthers. I didn't realize his jersey was hanging in those drafters. Pretty cool. But one thing that's kind of different,

you know, we mentioned before is that how you guys share a facility with the Steelers. Is there any advantages that you see on a day-to-day basis with that kind of process? I mean, playing in Accresor Stadium, formerly known as Heinz Field, that also just being around their facility, kind of seeing how they operate. What are the advantages? And do you have any aspirations for wanting Pitt to have their own stadium, their own facilities,

or do you enjoy kind of the camaraderie and togetherness of sharing it with the Steelers? Yeah, Connor, you know, the ability to. practice next to Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers is absolutely probably one of the biggest advantages we have at Pittsburgh. In the summer, our guys will be out there watching their team practice. We get to watch the tempo. Recruits come in and watch what we do there with the Steelers. We're out there on the field at the same exact time practicing. They're on one end. Mike Tomlin's walking down, seeing what we're doing. We're walking off the field, watching what they're doing. I think it's a major advantage if all of our guys want to play in the National

Football League, but for our guys to go watch how we're going to. it's done at the next level at the same facility. And, you know, as a coach, I mean, it's special for us. I mean, you know, whether it's OTAs, we're out on that, we've got a patio over looking to practice. We can walk out there, see what they're doing, whether it's special teams, offense, defense, and just pick up, you know, different things. My first year here, I remember sitting my desk looking out the window, all of a sudden I saw them doing, you know, down and punts inside, or, yeah, punts inside the, you know, the 10-yard line, and watching them out there with a volleyball. It's like, what a heck of an idea. I mean, you talk about

just those little things that you can pick up as a football coach. It comes down to the details and the little things. Certainly. But they were using a volleyball, you know, which is going to bounce better for you so at least you can practice and have success in that ball. I thought, what a great idea. So, I mean, there's all kinds of things. That was one of the first things I picked by just looking out my window and I'm like, you know, getting off the phone running out on the patio to watch more. Hey, maybe I should be watching these guys practice. Maybe Tomlin's got to figure it out. Maybe the NFL does. Let's talk about your team and figuring it out. Obviously, when Kenny Pickett

was quarterback, I think he was the last time you guys won the ACC. You're still in it right now. The ACC is wide ass open. Obviously, Notre Dame. We play Notre Dame tomorrow, Pat. Will you get locked in? Like, you're worried about the next step. We're worried about just one football team. Come on, man.

No, no, but it didn't sound like that from earlier. We're in the past. Were you thinking about the next game? No. Are you sure? I just want to make sure. When you played? Well, I just want to, okay, so winning the ACC for the PIT program would obviously be gigantic.

Right now in the world that we're in, I think you tell me more, actually, because we're in this modern. ITIL recruiting road that we're in. I think having success is a great thing in the model, especially trying to get this younger generation that understands brands and business and everything more than ever. It feels like NIL, Pitt's going to be in a good spot. I mean, we just mentioned Aaron Donald. He's given back immensely. He's getting his number retired, and he's a college game day guest picker. And I think he has like a part of the locker room that he is given back. NIL, good. Transfer portal stuff, easy because you're in Pittsburgh. You talk

about tradition. If you win a championship, like what is the modern world for Pitt whenever it comes to recruiting and finding players? And how much do ACC championships and shit like that matter over maybe all the others? Yeah, winning every weekend certainly matters. I mean, it's your brand. We still have our Pitt brand. I think what we do as coaches, we develop

players. I don't know if anybody's developed a football team like we have. I think we've done it with Les in Pittsburgh. And all that NIL stuff is great. I want guys that love football. You know, we're going to take that lesser guy, maybe the guy that's not making as much or, you know, We've got two stars or three stars and develop them. I mean, look at a collage of Kansi and Savasier, Dennis, some of the guys that have gone,

Kenny Pickett. I mean, I think Kenny, you know, Kenny made peanuts when he was here. It was the first year of NIL. But guys that love football is the key. And winning a championship, you know, we've won one. I think there's only been three teams winning an ACC championship in the last 15 years. Clemson, obviously, Florida State and Pitt. So we've done it.

We've been there. But we're going to take it one time, you know, one play at a time and one game at a time. You guys have been paying players for a long time up here, haven't you? Back in the day, back in the day, they did. They did not give you enough? No, well, they didn't offer me anything. But now I'm starting to think maybe that one game, I think you remember 13-9, maybe they should throw that out.

Maybe we should get a win for that. Maybe. Because you guys are paying players around here. I'm going to investigate that. I'm going to get to the bottom of it. I want to let you know that. But I love the way your team plays. You always have a hard-nosed team.

I think that is something you would like your team to have, obviously. You say you're looking for guys that love ball. Being tough, too, feels an obligation from Pittsburgh. Is that an accurate depiction of that? We talk about attitude, effort, and toughness. And, you know, that effort and toughness is critical. I mean, we want to be a tough team. Whatever happens on that field tomorrow, you know, when people walk off the field,

they're going to get hit by pit. That's kind of a bar. Yeah. Hit by pit. That's kind of, I don't know if I can really say it that often in my life. Look at that. Hit by pit. Biles, he's back.

Yes, he is. Look at that. Is this a Biles highlight tape here today? It certainly is. Look at it. It's a defensive highlight, I think, for you guys. Absolutely. We are tough football team.

We know what to do. We play fast. Try to keep it simple. We'll let our guys go. Go ahead and hunt a little bit. AJ has the last question for you here, Coach. You mentioned recruiting these tough guys that love football. How do you know?

Is it tougher now to figure out if somebody truly does love ball with all the NIL situation and the money floating around? You're exactly right. I mean, I think that's part of the evaluation. That's part of those phone calls that you constantly have what's important to a kid just digging into who they are. You know, I'll say this. You know, when we get in conversations, our coaches are in schools talking to guys.

When the first thing comes up is money and what are you going to pay me, probably not a pit guy, okay? I want someone to tell me who's going to coach me, who's going to develop me. To me, those are important things. There's time to make money in the National Football League. And obviously, you know, I love that we can give our kids money now in NIL and RevShare. But, you know, that's all great. But we want guys that want to go out and play football win championships.

I'll say this, Coach. I didn't expect you to have Air Force ones on when you walked in. Hey, it looks pretty clean. My equipment guy's good now. Yeah, you look good. Hey, you look good. Not enough sauce, I think, for the pies on that you have, maybe a pinkie around. for tomorrow if you want to take down the Irish you know tomorrow's big

where you have an extra one for you maybe a lucky one in the bus yeah I'll get you yeah lucky one I used to wear one I had a point of one percent Italian to me 23 me told me that so I felt like I could really do all the shit I had thank the ring I tore on two chains I did it all you know you get it you understand I get it I know well I want you guys know you get right no no horn I used to have a horn I think I lost that in the ocean one summer you know the ocean's now yeah the wording off evil spirit basketball team I need one Look at Nardust.

Let's not go there. Did you hear about last night? No, I did not. I've been locked in. I got, I'm focused. Oh, well, let me update you. Yeah. West Virginia, guess what we're doing.

We're, we're smack. I mean, we are. We're bopping wood. We're tough. Hey, we're a tough out. West Virginia, we're a tough outfit. But did Bob Huggins come back last night? No, yeah.

You know, my dad trying to hire Bob Huggins at Youngstown Stadium. Smart man. Hey, let me, hey, let me just tell you this. It's about finishing. You know, it's not a one game season. It's about finishing. You can win a big game, but can you compete and do it week in and week out? Pitt does that.

All right. We appreciate your coach. I don't want to hurt your feelings. You did. We beat you. You didn't beat us. We beat ourselves, but it's okay. No.

Go put the video on. We won. You did. You did. They don't call legal procedures anymore. Go ahead next. We won having Game Day come here. It feels like the city is alive.

and excited for tomorrow morning. We can't wait to experience it. Thank you for the hospitality, brother. We very much appreciate it. Where are you going to dinner today? Where's your special spot in Pittsburgh? So I eat Rudy's subs every time I come back. Also, Dallas-Hellipis.

What are you having for dinner? So Serafino's maybe I might stop by there. Is that your spot? That's my spot now. I get you reservations because they probably won't let you in, but I'll get you reservations to me. Listen, I've been in there under somebody else's reservation. I have been in there.

The guy that owns it. Joey. Yes. He's making it, and then he's delivering it, and then he's telling me where Bill Karr's from. Right down the street. I love that place. Yeah, that's a great place. That's my spot. That's one of my spots. I got plenty of spot.

There's so many great places out here. Yeah, so many. There's everywhere. You know, this is the best spot to eat food. I can guarantee you that. That's why I love Pittsburgh. There's Italians everywhere. So I go out to Indiana?

Nothing. No Italian. East Lansing. Nothing. It's a culture shock. It is. I'm sure it was. I go from Pittsburgh.

Exactly. Fazoles. He just said. Delicious. Delicious. Great gravy. Bravo. In East Lansing, that was it.

And Boca De Beppo starts showing up a little bit. Ooh, De Beppo. I'm telling you in Pittsburgh and then West Virginia as well, more than Italians everywhere. So you just assume that you can get a good something. I've never eaten down there. I don't think I ever will. I'll get poison trying to kill me.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea. You know, we got that hard edge. I know you're trying to gnarred edge. All right, we appreciate the hell out of you. All right, appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. Gozzi. I'll tell you what, I appreciate Coach's passion, his energy.

He's pretty pumped up for this game against Notre Dame. And I know there's a bunch of other good games. Tone, we see as we pop up the slate of college football games popping up this weekend. Tone, what's the most intriguing game here for you? Yeah, Narduzzi is a great fit. But all of these, like starting Notre Dame at Pitt, if Notre Dame loses, they are out of the college football playoff, most likely. USF and Navy, the winner of that one is first place in the American,

which is most likely going to be the conference that gets the 12 seed for the college football playoff outside of the group of five or whatever. Virginia at Duke, the winner of that most likely going to make the ACC championship game. Iowa and USC has got a win to keep the chances most likely for the Big Ten to get a fourth Big Ten team in there. And then those other two,

those two SEC games, the Oklahoma and Texas, I believe they're ranked 11 and 12 right now or 10 and 11 right now, if I'm not mistaken, in the college football playoff. So if they win, they jump up. If not, they can potentially come out and other teams could get in and then Alabama and Georgia would just solidify their spot in the playoff. All those games have huge

playoff implications this weekend. Yeah, a lot of teams that they have to win or they or their playoff hopes are dashed, I guess. I think, I don't know if Pat is still talking to Coach Narduzia. I like the Nard Edge. Yeah, he does have some Nard Dogg in him, but it's crazy seeing that

college football sleep pop up and it's week 12. Like, the season really is flying by. It's awesome that we're here because it's the most important. But, I mean, shit. Football, football is flying right now. It goes way too fast, Pat. I believe Coach Nardu's got back with the squad. Hey, he was bringing it today, Pat. Were you surprised at how juiced he was for this game? Every time he's been on the show, he's been great on the show. And I forget how

Italian he is. I mean, that is the perfect coach for this city, I would say. And I appreciate it how he kind of laid it out. Hey, we're looking to develop guys, you know, two, three star guys. Let's go ahead and build him. Let's go ahead and get after it. I appreciate where he's at. him saying the 100 to 10 thing I think was potentially a little yeah go ask Freeman if they win by 100 to 10 go ahead and ask them yeah put that on his tape yeah they should win 100 to 10 they're a very good team yeah all right go ask him about it and then have their players hear that as well and then have Notre Dame think to themselves yeah yeah yeah

whenever he said to me I'll know maybe you told me I'm like wait in Nard dues I'd be giving Nard dues a lot of credit doing that Italians are good at that gamesmanship. Maybe they are. And him saying, oh, I got so many spots around time. He loves it. He spent every Italian place in town every single day. I love it.

And this game is going to be gigantic. Literally, I think every person that is alive that has their name in this building is going to be here. Like, not just University of Pittsburgh guys. I think there's a bunch of Steelers coming, too, because obviously, bus, Jerome Bettis, Notre Dame guy. And I think Jerome Bettis has a couple of things. events happening like fundraisers so I think all his teammates are potentially coming as well so like I think it's going to be a I don't know from my understanding this is going to be a

Pittsburgh football just everything basically in here and that's incredible yeah I can't wait to kind of wake up tomorrow and see what it's like if I'm if I'm not mistaken either I believe his son is a wide receiver on Notre Dame I think he got his first catch last weekend I saw and then I believe Ike's kid Ike Taylor uh kid is still on Notre Dame as well so the ties are there's a lot of ties tomorrow between the Steelers and those two schools. Yeah, it should be pretty electrifying here in the city of Pittsburgh. I cannot wait to try to eat all the food that is going to be sent my way. I mean, there's a lot of Italians reaching out saying, we got a little...

Yeah, I assume you're going to get a bunch of meat delivered to game day set tomorrow, right? Yeah, tomorrow's food deliveries will be pretty epic. I couldn't feed and Sabin, you know, tomahawk steaks again, or, you know, all of it. Pittsburgh, brother. Hey. Can't do tomahawks there? Tomahawk steaks, you just said? I mean, we certainly can do steaks.

If you would like us to do meat, we can do meat. I don't know if that's what you like. But you've got to remember who, what is this entire city? Put some pasta on the side or something. You could spoon it. You could do it. You could twirl it in the spoon for them and put your hand under it and feed. You know, how people do that.

I will do the big spoon with the twisty soon. No, please don't put your finger. The hand underneath the fork thing, that just makes me crazy for some reason. Like that? They don't want to drop it. You know if someone's a. Like, you see people on movies trying to feed somebody and they put their little hand under the dumb spoon. Yeah, I don't want anything to drop.

Or the fork, you know, they don't want to spill anything on the table. You know, it's awesome. You see people feed each other alone? That's like, yeah, in movies and shows I do. Yeah, of course. Like, get your stupid hand out from underneath the fork. If it falls on the table, I'll wipe it up. Are you seeing somebody, you seeing somebody put their fingers over their nose when they jump into a pool.

Oh, don't do that. You accident, you accidentally see. somebody doing this in a movie. I don't like seeing the visual right now if you're doing it. Honestly, it's like that's one of those. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. Yeah, but you know, like the person that's doing that is trying to portray like I care. Like I care a lot.

You know, like that is what that is for. And you get disgusting. I think it's somebody saying, hey, I'm a big dog you here. Here you're all. I'm the king here. I'm your master. And they feed him. I can't wait.

Oh, you're talking like scataboo with that taco. I was just going to say, I cannot wait until we're at the next thing where we all have a meal together, and everyone does that to you all night long. I'm just going to be smacking forks all over, smack and forth the spaghetti out of your Hey, who's the big boy? Yeah, exactly.

That's exactly what it is. You're right. All right, I'm going to do that tomorrow. We just do it to Saban. I want to see what Saban does. Yeah, I can't wait. Okay, let's talk about some news happening around the NFL here before Hour One wraps up.

I'm live from Accresher Field, right? Is it Accure Stadium or your field. Exeter Stadium. Oh, yeah. There it says on the thing. So what's the field? Poop field?

Heinz Field. Heinz Field. And just like I said, I don't think there's any Heinz bottles in here. Remember, that was a big thing. Oh, yeah. Are they going to keep... Is Heinz still a sponsor or not? They still got 84 lumber.

Yeah, that's huge. Okay. That's fair. UPMC, obviously still doing it. Still bringing it. UPMC, huge for... Oh, I guess I could do this number here, I think. yeah yeah yeah yeah ptze oh no that's that's on that yeah i and i'm not on the wide let me go ahead

and uh figure this one out boom yeah brother yeah brother yeah brother oh yeah so yeah you see the ford fan zone there and then obviously you see the uh so right in that area back here used to be a hines bottle that people were really celebrated with yeah right on top of those right on top damn they're now it's forward down Now it's Accresure, which we all know what that is. The glass building that's standing tall above that is in every single photo of the city of Pittsburgh. It's PPG, obviously, that is an incredible building glass. They said people marveled at the architecture when that thing was pieced together.

And then bridges, you know, that's on that Jumbotron right there. We have the most bridges of any city in the world, I believe. Even Venice, counting. Is that accurate? I believe so. I believe so. You know, we have the most bridges in the world here in Pittsburgh, obviously, because our city is surrounded by rivers.

Two of them lead into one. The Allegheny and a Menongahela lead into Ohio. So we basically birthed that state. You're welcome, A.J. Hall. And that is, in Lennel and Steel, we built every city as well here. So we have a lot of pride, the people from Pittsburgh in the city of Pittsburgh. But not everybody in Pittsburgh are pit fans. Uh-oh.

Some people, there's actually some people within the city of Pittsburgh who don't like Pitt, like actually hate Pitt. Who do they like? Tone Diggs is one of them. Tone, would you like to speak on that a little bit more, potentially? I like that. How the city and the university within the city have an interesting relationship. And when you say Pitt, you're talking about the university.

When you say Pittsburgh, you're talking about the city. So people say, let's go to Pitt this weekend and watch the Steelers. No, that would be the university or be heading to. The city is Pittsburgh, the school. is Pitt. So there is quite a dilemma in the city about all of that. And there's a lot of pit people right to my left. I don't think

that hears it. So that is why I'm talking like this. I don't think they can hear me, but that is a very real thing in the city of Pittsburgh down. Can you back me up on that a little bit? Yes, I can back you up. Pittsburghers it drives them crazy when people call the city pit because that's the

university. The city is Pittsburgh. But no, there's a lot of college football fans in the city and they are divided between Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia, Ohio State, mostly because Duques, Duques, obviously, there's a huge fan base for Bobby Moe's as well, Bobby Moe, all of those, Carnegie Mellon, but like Penn State, West Virginia, Pitt, Ohio State, all within three hours. So like, there is huge fan bases of all of those schools. So it's not like, hey, just because the college is in the city means that everyone in the city is huge

fans of the University of Pitt. No, there's a lot of different other college football, you fan bases in the city and you know now on that note on that note tone every one of us know a lot of pit people oh yeah so we all know pit people but not everybody is pit people if that makes sense i i don't know and i think tomorrow from what my understanding is game day potentially going to be a football celebration i know pit's going to show up i know the pit fans are going to show up i can't wait to see the pit fans i'm excited for that kind of banter actually i'm pretty pumped up to see them on a spotlight but i think a lot of pittsburgh people are just coming from for football. I think you're going to see a lot of yinzers just for football celebration

tomorrow. And I think that's that's kind of what should be talked about because the University of Pittsburgh represents a city that is football. Like this is football town. Like that is 100% what it is throwing through. So tomorrow should be epic A.J. is what I'm thinking. And it's a professional sports town. And I just got word from a source. One of the Heinz bottles is down in the Great Hall, which is underneath the stands in the stadium where all the all the like the underneath so we can't see it. No, you the Great Hall, you walk through it when you walk through, I believe it's gate. That's not gate A, gate B or C on the side.

Oh, they buried it. They buried it. That's what I heard. No, no, no. And then they put the other one in the Heinz Museum, so, sorry. I mean, that doesn't help the Steelers. I don't see it. I heard they remember getting a red gold bottle in there. Shut up. I'll mute you right now. Shut your mouth.

And that is one thing that we all agree on, okay? We all agree on that in the entire city, whether you're a pit person or not. the fact that there is even other ketchup available are scary. That's a scary thing for society. So you get your red gold bullshit time. Hey, I didn't say it. I don't like red gold. I hate when we go around here somewhere. You go to a nice restaurant.

You sit down. You want some ketchup with your french fries. Oh, let me get some hans. Oh, nope, that's red gold. I'd rather piss on the side of my plate and dunk it in this stuff. So I don't love it either. I'm just saying what I've heard. Oh, you like that.

love it. See? There you go. Here's your guy. Yeah, I'd much rather dip it in red gold or hunts than urine. I mean, that's just common sense. Right? I figured you'd be with a one guy who'd soak them up. Yeah, I think so. But I think it's just a part of it. You know, I think it's a part of being from here, very proud of the Heinz catch up and everything that Heinz has done. So, yeah, I move out to Indiana. I think Red Gold is actually from Indiana. I believe it is. And back before anybody, I mean, I had a little bit of a following on Twitter around Indianapolis. Pretty good. It was pretty strong following around Indianapolis on Twitter.

And I walked to some place and they had Red Gold in front of me and I put a tweet out. I was like, this is disgusting. What are we even doing here? And I get called into the Colts office. You know, Red Gold's a big sponsor, big sponsor of the Colts. And they were wondering if I would change it. And they're not sponsored. If your guys' Twitter account wants to say they're good, sweet.

You go ahead and do that. they haven't given me anything except for nausea when i see them on a table or whatever and uh got all the way up to jim you know jim was asked to talk to me about it and jim goes brother can you just not kill them like i you can just just don't kill you imagine the owner being brought that like that comes to the owner's desk that's the best too hey we got you know pat's just that's killing one of our ketchup sponsors you got to talk to them are only they're from indiana they got coats logos all over the ketchup bottles they're they're in the entire facility i think i actually took a picture in the facility.

I was before I really knew business, you know, like, oh, they're probably paying to be in here if I had to guess. So I took a picture of that thing, like, yuck. I can't believe this was a few professional athletes. And turns out they're from India. We like to thank them for their ketchup fanhood of Heinz. We've done to your pickup. Being a fan of Heinz and trying to honor them by creating their ketchup.

But on that note, I ain't doing it ever. Not if I'm paying for it. Ty, huge things happened in baseball last night. Congratulations. First time, back-to-back MVPs in both leagues. Is that accurate? And Aaron Judge and Shohei having the seasons that they had going into the year, these are the two biggest stars.

Then boom, they back it up for baseball. Everything up into the right MLB-wise, especially with these two winning the MVP? Or what are your thoughts, Ty? Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, this is kind of the perfect scenario if you are Major League Baseball. you hope that the two biggest stars in the league could be the MVP's. Shohay was kind of a runaway in the NL. Very hard pressed to find another guy who would even, you know,

maybe be mentioned in the same sentence with him. It's kind of what he's doing year after year. Now that's his fourth MVP award already, which is crazy. I don't think it's nuts to say that, like, you know, Barry Bonds had seven MVPs in his career. Shohay could, I mean, this guy could win 10 MVPs. It seems like he's got a pretty, solid path to potentially

winning one every year. And then in the AO, that was where there was a lot of kind of discussion, and it ended up being one of the closest votes ever. Judgey, Aaron Judge ultimately did win the MVP. This is his third MVP award, and like you mentioned, back to back.

And he got 17 first place votes and 13 of the second place votes, and Cow Raleigh flipped that around. But if one voter would have flipped these guys around it, would have been a and a lot of people were saying, hey, Cal Raleigh should win this award. You know, historic season, unbelievable.

And while that is true, I was a little surprised he didn't win it. I just asked Gertie, I just said, hey, you just maybe put their stats side by side so we could kind of put this thing to rest. So you'll see Cal Raleigh, yes, he did hit more homers. He did have... That's his game. That's the game. That is the game.

Home runs bring the tickets. That home runs bring the views. Who had more? Yep, exactly. Now, granted, he didn't hit 20 more than Judge. You hit seven more, and, you know, so it's not that big. And you see down there, if you go down a little bit more, Judge's batting average was about 100 points higher. He did win the batting title. He's the first person to post a batting average and on base percentage and a slugging percentage of that magnitude since Barry Bonds, who a lot of people think is the best player of all time. And listen, right wrong or indifferent, whether you like it, the MVP is kind of like the MVP. in the NFL. It's going to go to a quarterback in this case. It pretty much goes to the best hitter. That's just how it goes.

So a lot of people are saying, well, why don't you account for Cal Raleigh? Catch it and all. He didn't win a gold glove. He obviously adds a lot of value for his team. But when you look at Judge's numbers, like, if you don't give it to him, it is just because it's fatigue. He is the best hitter in baseball. Now, Shoah is

the best player in baseball. On which side of the plate? On one side? That's seems like pretty easy. Imagine if Cal Raleigh just won on one side of the plate, that'd be pretty cool. Yeah, it would be, and he'd probably do decent. Now granted, I don't know if he just hit on

one side of the plate, if he's going to raise that batting average 100 points. That's a pretty fucking big margin when it comes to that. But no, Cal Rale had an unbelievable season. Judge is just one of the best five hitters of all time. And on that note, both Cal Raleigh, Shohay, and Aaron

Judge came on our show, so we're very thankful to all of them. And Aaron Judge, Congrats, brother. I am just clearly talking shit to Ty Schmidt in this big of the case. Aaron's a dog, and I'm very thankful for the season he had, for the good of sport. Same with Shohei and Cal Raleigh. You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story until now. People assume that I'm like, this pervert.

My name is Natalie Robamed, and in my new podcast, I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actors. to cult member. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma to other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify. That's annoying. What? You're a muffler. You don't hear it? Oh, I don't even notice it. I usually drown it out with the radio. How's this? Oh yeah? Way better. Save on insurance by switching to Bell Air Direct and use the money to fix your car. Bell Air Direct, insurance simplified. Conditions apply. Welcome back Outward 2 of the Pat McAfee Show. I'm A.J. Hawks sitting in for Pat here in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Pat's in Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Pitt. Big match-up, boys. Football! Pat, you mentioned something. I'm sorry. You mentioned something as you were coming back. You got a situation going on over there? What's happening?

It sounds like something's on the loose. There's nothing happening over here, AJ. There's nothing happening over here. It's more so where you guys are. I don't know if you know this, but Fox 59 News in Indianapolis is reporting that there is a chimpanzee on the loose at the zoo currently. Now, listen, these chimps are certainly a fantastic creature. When you look at them, you think to yourself, wow, that might be a damn human, just a little miniature version of it, but God damn, it's going to be stronger than any human could ever be.

So if you're around the Indianapolis Zoo area, don't only look on the ground, look in the sky. These things are great climbers. could be already in Ohio. We have no idea. Now Fox 59 is obviously breaking the news down. We appreciate them doing that, but you guys need to be on a lookout for the Thunderdome. We need no wires to be chewed on. We need nothing to be pulled out. We have no idea where this chimpanzee is going to head to. Let's make sure we have that place on lockdown. Maybe have Bill on night watch tonight outside, sitting on the roof, anything like that. Let's not take this for granted that there is a chimpanzee on

the loose. Now, Zito just sent a text into the group asking if we should send Mitt. I think that's a good idea. They'd become a best friend. I think we should send. Dunstan checks in. What's soft, dude? Great movie. They said they need you back in there.

Donston, Chetton was a great, great movie. Your dad and Bill are going hunting tomorrow, so I think they have the rifles on them. So if they want to get started early, don't shoot the chimpanzee. Run chimpanzee. We've seen those. conditions. You need to run. Get out of here, chimpanzee. Go on now. You're talking about the orangutan. Yeah, free them, too.

Now, to be clear, the Indianapolis Zoo is a very good zoo. It is a lot of money on preservation of animals and yada, all that stuff. They take care of our stuff. Visitors say, Chimp on the loose at Indiana Zoo fire crews called for animal bite. Okay. So he bit somebody and then took it off? We don't know. We don't know what's being real. This Fox 59 news. reporter. I will say I have a lot of respect for the people that run that zoo. Private zoo, no state

money. It's a, they run it themselves. It's a wonderful zoo and obviously great for our community, but chimpanzee on the loose needs to be I've seen dealt with whenever it. The Indianapolis Zoo says the loose chimp has been sedated and safely

recapture. Okay. No staff guests with the chimp were injured and the zoo has since been rewritten. We got them. So he was loose for 12 minutes or what happened? I don't know. In chimpanzee minutes, that's two years. Long enough to go get an RPG from the basement of the zoo and safely get him back to where he needs to go.

I'm happy, though, that they got Caesar, you know. When he gets Caesar back, it feels like you get the entire flock. What are monkeys? Group of monkeys called? Cackle? A murder. Pride. A collective.

That's a lion. A collective. Because they're humans, obviously. They're like the committee and the committee of the committees. I appreciate that they're back. It's a beautiful Friday here from Pittsburgh as tomorrow. Notre Dame and Pitt will play. Notre Dame needs a win to continue their national championship hopes.

And tomorrow for Pitt will be an absolutely insane scene. Jerome Bettis, obviously living legend in Pittsburgh for what the bus was able to do, winning a Super Bowl. He's on home time in his retirement game. in Detroit. He's coming back, obviously, because he's Notre Dame Legend, has a lot of events around, so we assume that entire team is going to be back representing as well. And then for the University of Pittsburgh, Aaron Donald will have his number retired at halftime, so all the pit grades are going to be here as well. Should be a fantastic weekend of ball, and college football

is going to do great. I think Sunday is going to be spectacular. And last night, we had a great game to kick it all off for week 11 up there in New England. Drake May in this New England Patriots team. Trace Vion Henderson, running back out of Ohio State goes for three touchdowns. Drake May almost has a perfect night. Stefan Diggs has over 100 yards. Will Campbell and the other rookie playing left guard named... Jared Wilson. He's an absolute beast. Brable, obviously, Supreme Commander on the defensive side, after giving up a touchdown on the first drive, basically shut it down for the rest of the way. Huge night for Patriots fans to celebrate. Anything we're missing there, Conman, that hasn't been talked about enough about last night.

AFC East Battle, where the New England Patriots say we're the best team once again in this division. I think just to hammer home, the buy-in from the entire team, Fox, if you actually go to the start of the video of Rabel, dapping everybody up and just pause it, Milton Williams, who is the highest paid player in the history of the New England Patriots, which is crazy to say, detackle. He's actually standing behind here on the right side, waiting right there on the right side, also waiting to dapp everybody up. He didn't finish the game. He left with the ankle, went to the locker room, came back out, tried to get back in the game,

and Vrable basically said, like, hey, let's get ahead of this and let's relax a little bit. He's on the right side there, and he waited with Vrable to dab up everybody basically for New England. The other thing, too, that was really cool, is just he was tweeting from the locker room as well. No one was during the game? During the game.

I don't know if you want to. pull it up Bruce but if you go to his account Christian Barmore hasn't had a sack in a while but he actually said in his tweet I think it was two years or a year for Christian Barmore because he had the last year he had the really tough situation with

the blood clots so he missed most of the year so he hadn't had a sack and when Christian Barmore did get a sack last night Milton Williams just tweeted and it was at like 11 p.m. The game was damn near over but he tweeted just like hell yeah B-mo and I think that's the biggest thing because we talked about the digs buy-in,

but even just the Milton Williams, the highest-paid player, he really doesn't have to, you know, one, battle to be out there, but two, do stuff like this, which is really cool. And then the other little thing, I think, just to highlight was the Mack Holland's entrance. He wore the 9-88 suicide prevention line

while he's walking into the game. And, like, I just think that's really cool. Not to mention Chris Gonzalez, he does a lot of help with one of the mental health places, the charity and I'm I'm forgetting the name now but that's kind of his you know specialty foundation if you will and then Mac Holland's doing that you know with everything going on like the Marshawn-Neil in situation one thing but just everybody on a day-to-day Matt Collins doing that in prime time you know we know he does wear the funny stuff

and he does all the sweet Instagram videos he's like fixing the washing machine or he's changing the oil in a car doing all kind of like great stuff like I enjoy his content yeah exactly like it's typically funny and like the videos he makes are hilarious he's wearing like a like a three-piece suit as he's breaking down like the bermuda triangle sometimes but him doing something like that in prime time i just thought was really cool and it's just the team as a whole it's crazy that you know as we talk about the rookies and everything you know pat mentioned the left tackle left guard being rookies but it's just the premier positions in general like yes drake may's 23 will campbell you know he's 21 and he was locked down one once again, and he's gone up against, you know, T.J. Watt, Max Crosby, Miles Garrett, who had five sex, but still has been battle tested throughout the season. It's incredible when you think about those positions being as young as they are. You know, Christian Gonzalez is kind of being lost in the fold because you never hear Christian Gonzalez's name. You just don't. He flies up and makes tackles. He actually had five tackles last night, so it was a little bit more. But he's

23. And this thing that he does for the last two weeks, last week he wore Bobby Wool. this week he wore Larry Legend. Stuff like that is so cool just because you're kind of seeing the players on the team, the young guys specifically on the team, like embrace not just the Patriots in the city of Boston, but embracing the history of sports within the city of Boston. Like that in itself, I think, reflects a lot about kind of the knowledge Mike Vrable brings. Christian Gonzalez was never doing this before this season as far as those type of shirts,

but now, you know, seeing that, that kind of makes me think, like, oh, okay, so Vrable's also educating them on, like, the sports fandom. How special it is. I'm sure he tries to tell me, guys, it's not like this everywhere else. For you players that this is the only NFL experience you know. Like, it's not like this. I was in Green Bay for nine years, and guys would leave and come back or they'd come from other places, and they'd be like, man, this is, this place is special.

Like, it doesn't, they don't do it like this everywhere. As we're talking about legends, Gronk, what do you call it? What do you do? The keeper of the light. He's the keeper of the light here. I don't know. Jesus. This is amazing.

Damn here, yank that kid off the top of the lighthouse. Look how high up they are, too. Gronk is just everything he's doing is full go. Like, I love this whole situation with what Gron. He was, yeah, here we go. Smashing guitars. Who's he singing with here? Von Jovi?

Yeah, I don't think it was J.B.J. John Wond Jovi. And I think Kenny is back on tour. I'm assuming it's just... Almost killed that camera. One of the locals, maybe Dalton and the Sheriff. But yeah, Gronk being back as well is just so. cool to see for me as

someone who grew up with him and you know him going to Tampa everything that's all forgotten he's a patriot for life baby were you surprised like you can't be surprised yeah we're glad he he retired as a patriot but like you weren't surprised by that right there's no he was in what was there two years yeah yeah he was there for two years but yeah it's not something you're like

surprised by it's just more so the gesture like we know gronk is retired he obviously isn't coming back to play football but the just the gesture of hey I'm going to make it a point that I love this place way more than anywhere else. And even though I played for Tampa and won a Super Bowl here,

that doesn't discredit all the time I spent in New England. This is where he grew up. This is where he met his longtime girlfriend. Like so many things had happened in New England. Is this before the game? Sorry to cut you up. No, I believe it. I think this is halftime, actually. I think he's trying to get the people

going at halftime because his whole before the game was the keeper of the light thing. So it's just, it's awesome to see stuff like this. And it just goes back to how much football means to the people in New England. Yeah, football means a lot to to most people that watch us, fans all over the country. And Pat, I believe, is sitting down

with our Friday legend with you, Pat. Here we go. Here we go. Coach, Nick Samson. Yeah, I think that's a great descriptor there. The Friday legend, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Friday afternoon, Nick Sabin. Yeah, go! Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the hell out of you, man. How's it feel to be here in Pittsburgh?

Your thoughts on the city of Pittsburgh as a whole. You coach for the Cleveland Browns, obviously, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns have, and have had for a long time, that robbery. I don't know how much University of Pittsburgh history do you have, and what are your thoughts on us being here? Well, I love being here because, A, about 125 miles down the road,

down I-79 is where I grew up. So to come to Pittsburgh when I was a kid, whether it was to go to Kenneywood Park, see the Steelers once a year, see the pirates once a year. That was like it, man. That was it. Kenny Wood. And then, of all things. Tell me more about Pennywood, please.

Oh, go ahead. I love it. The, what was it, the PIP or something? Yeah, certainly, yeah. Yeah, I still remember that. The rabbit, yeah, all of them. The Jack Rabbit? Yeah, from when I was a kid. But, ironically, if you had to guess what year that was.

You know, 60s. Hasn't changed a bit since. Okay, don't listen to him. But go ahead, I'm sorry. So then ironically, everyone where I grew up is a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. I've been a Pittsburgh Steeler fan all my life. and then I go to the Cleveland Browns. So when we play Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh,

I got to get 100 tickets for Steelers fans. And then when I get in a bus to leave the game, they're all out there fighting Nick Browns fans. Exactly, exactly. None of them rooted for me. Yeah, I mean, that's a Pittsburgh story in a staple there with the fighting and football. But it is a football town.

Like very much a football town you can feel it. And I think tomorrow morning is going to be special. Tell me about this pit team, what you've learned from watching. We just talked to Narduzi. And he said everybody that's on his team, he wants to love ball. He wants to be tough, obviously. He's going to have a lot of greats back.

What do you think about this current pit team? And can they knock off Notre Dame from the college football playoff? That's what's on the line tomorrow, basically. Well, I think Pat Narduzzi's done an outstanding job here. No question. I think this is a tough job, and I think the job he's done this year with this team. This freshman quarterback, I mean, this guy is the real deal now. He's athletic.

He can run. Really good passer. And they're throwing at 63% of the time. So to me, this is the type of team. When you have a passing team that can make explosive plays and they're going to air it out all the time, they're the type of team that can upset a team that's better because as long as they can protect well enough and the guys can make plays, they've got a chance to score points. So that can always, you know, when you're a, I call it wad ball team, like you're running a ball,

running a ball, and you play somebody better, that's hard. This, not so hard, because you can take advantage of making big plays. Now, the question to me is going to be, how does Pitt's receivers match up against Notre Dame secondary because Notre Dame plays a lot of man-to-man. So if they can't be man-to-man, they'll have a tough time, even though they're going to throw the ball effective. So, yeah, Notre Dame has quite the advantage, I assume, in recruiting for DBs. They got NFL DBs all over the place.

Not that Pitt doesn't have NFL guys, but I'm just saying Notre Dame has been built basically with five stars. So on the outside, whenever you talk about wide receiver DBs, that's a great athlete out there normally. And you're talking about wad ball whenever you play a better team. That's normally because the D-line better athletes than what the offensive line is used to, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, now you're creating a matchup with, you know, is R.O. line good enough to block their D-line, where it's a lot easier to get receivers and a quarterback that can make throws and just get in their way long enough until we can throw it.

And you think that's our duty's playing tomorrow? What do you think Notre Dame's plan is just a standard? Let's play how we play. We run the ball all over this team and kind of dominate from beginning to end. Do you think that's a Freeman saying? Well, I think, you know, they're scoring 39 points a game. So Notre Dame's got a pretty powerful offense and it's balanced. You know, they can run it. They can run it can run. So I'm sure they're going to think that we can continue to do these kinds of things. But Pitt's defense has been really good against the run. They're one of the top teams in the country and stop on the run. So if you can make them one dimensional, I think you've got a chance. I think what Narduzi's thinking is, I'm going to try to affect the quarterback. They pressure like 40% of the time, try to upset, you know, car as a quarterback, and then can we make enough plays on offense throwing a football to score enough points to have a chance to win this game?

A lot of Italians where you grew up? Yeah, a lot of Eastern European people in Italians, yes, sir. Eastern European, I like that. I'm Croatian, that's why I have to say Eastern European. Because you're describing to us on a map. where the hell Croatia is that's what you just did to me most people don't know but it's Eastern European I knew that right by Turkey that would be for a rest of my yeah we love Croatia don't don't we have Croatian oh yeah come on DC Bratti

Kakoste yeah do you know Bruceovich is actually married into a or getting married into a or yeah no getting married into a Croatian family he speaks a little bit do you speak row oh yeah I know Dobra good yeah you know I mean Michael grandparents spoke Croatian and, you know, when I was a kid, but... How's Croatian food? Croatian food good? I went there once and visited and was not that impressed. You got to try the Chavopi.

The Chavopi's are phenomenal. I never heard of it. I like Italian food, man. Here he's Italian and speaking cook and I love it. So that's what I was about to say here in Pittsburgh, there's like a thousand Italian spots. I'm excited to see what you end up doing, what you end up getting in. to. This place has great food all over the place. Yeah, well, you know,

Savel's on our staff, South Sincere. Yes. And I guess his family has a little deli or something here, and we used to bring the, you know, sausage and all that stuff in. It was good. Yeah, Sincerees have one. There'll be a bubba-da-bo-ba-a-a-a-a-i right down the road, and then

there'll be a soupa da poopo dappini around the corner and they get a pepi there and then you'll get a giulio then you'll get a giulio then you get a maraudo then you'll get a maraudo then you'll get a impovito these are just people i grew up with de beppo sounds to me like you're pretty expert i know a lot yeah and i took a 23 of me and uh found out i was 0.01% italian and uh that really changed a lot of things that i'd said nick i'd like to let you know that was a big moment in my life. Don't you think, Nick? I think that was a big moment for the way I'd been operating. Don't you agree? Franklin Morado up there?

Absolutely. Yeah, that changed a lot of things. You know, you had viewed a certain group of people a certain way, and then when you realized you were a part of that group, I think you became more enlightened. No. No, that is, I don't think that is exactly right. I was the only Irish guy. Okay, it was all

Italians. I was the only Irish guy. So obviously, football town, shit-talking town, only Irish guy, all Italians. You could probably assume how that probably went, especially with me, being involved. Then I found out I'm actually part of Italian. It's like, wait a minute. So we got to go back and try to change some things.

But great, we make great food. I mean, we made great food. And you talk about Kenny Wood, huh. You need to go back there. They're opening up for you tonight if you want to go stop. I hadn't been there for probably 50 years. Go ahead tonight. Everybody still look the same.

Yeah, I'd love to go. Shut up, AJ. Shut up, AJ. I heard a little negative stuff out there. We don't need to talk about that. AJ actually has the last question for you on this particular game before we move on to the rest of the college football slate. So coach, that field behind you gets a lot of play.

It gets talked about a lot. We've seen some situations that turf there is not always stable. Were you a coach that made your players? Like, did you ever talk about the field conditions going in? I know in the NFL coaches do this where sometimes they'll make their players wear screw-ins in certain situations. Was that something that you actually talked about or you cared to talk about with your team?

Yeah, what I talked about with my team was that's a bad field, get some shoes that work. It was really simple. I wasn't going to try to pick the shoes for them, and then they come to me saying, he's hurt my feet. Get some shoes that work, but don't look at me when you slip and fall, and you could run for a touchdown, because I'm going to just look at you and say, get some shoes that work.

It's a simple. Coach Haven said this in the meeting. He said, I told the boys, as long as it's 53 yards wide, 100 yards long, we're going to play football. It doesn't matter what it is. I followed up immediately. Coach Chavin said that as a man that doesn't have to run a single yard on that particular. But it is real.

Both teams have to play on it. Let's not talk about it. What are we even talking about, basically? That's right. But, you know, but every stadium that I have played in, as soon as I walked in this room and looked at this field, I remember playing the Steelers here when I was a coach of the Dolphins. And, you know, we worked so hard. They were cornered cat.

Dick LeBoe was the defensive coordinator. But most of the time when they cornered cat, they played three deep zone. And we worked hard when they went to two-trapped because it was all. always throw it hot to the X. Dante called Pepper. Like the cat. Hot to the X. Two trap. Pick six. It's the first thing I remember. I mean, why can't I remember

good things when I go to the stadium? Is this what you remember? You remember them dancing into that? Dancing in the street, baby. Absolutely. The grass does look good. Now, granted, with where we're sitting, we're not able to get as good of a shot. But the grass does look good. Now, granted, they do spray paint it, too. I mean, that is

just as a matter of fact that they do. and I don't want to get on that. It looks much better than I thought, honestly. Yeah, it looks good. It looks good. But, you know, the problem with the field is, you know, people like to use zoyser grass on a field because that makes a really nice field,

but then it doesn't grow when it's not warm enough. So you have to put rye grass to complement it to make it green. Now, this is a problem, and I never wanted to do this. So I said, we got to get some grass that grows until football season is over because when you put dry grass on a field, the blades are really thick in the ryegrass and it makes it very slick, especially if it's damp at all. And people are slipping and sliding because the cleats don't go in the ground because the grass is so thick. Yeah, so it's kind of like your cleat sticks on top of it as opposed to it. So it's almost like

you're on actually skids. That's right. The grass is thick. I know exactly what you're talking about as you're explaining it. I had no idea you had a green thumb. I'm a Kentucky bluegrass fan myself. That is my favorite style of grass. Yeah, well, I just wanted something that the players wouldn't, because, you know, you get this happening in practice and you lose players and get hurt with twisted ankles and all this kind of stuff because you got bad footing. So I was a stickler on that big time. What about Bermuda grass? That's pretty good grass as well.

Oh, yeah. But it doesn't grow when it gets cold either, so you've got a problem. Bermuda grass, soft-ass grass. Supergrass. Seat teams not being able to play in the cold. That might be true, but they sure is how to play in the southeast. Yes, they again. Speaking of the southeast, Diggs has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, coach, let's go down to Sabin Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Alabama has a big one this weekend. But overall, I want to talk not only about this game, but their overall picture.

They are 120th, I believe, in running the football. Can you win a national championship or get to a national championship being a one-dimensional offense, in your opinion? Well, I think it's hard. I really do, but if you've got a good enough quarterback and you've got good enough receivers, which that's the strength of their team to me, you know, Ty Simpson and the receiver core, and they make a lot of explosive plays. Now they have struggled to run the ball. The offensive line is going to have to continue to improve because they have pretty decent backs,

but they just have not been able to sustain and finish in the run game at all, which puts them behind the sticks a lot. but they make more explosive plays on run downs. That play right there that you're watching right now is a first and ten play. So I'm like, throw the ball when they think you're going to run it and just keep making explosive plays that way. And if you want to run it better, run it when they think you're going to throw it and maybe you'll do a better job and develop some confidence in your ability to run the ball.

Okay, so on that note, the SEC has a lot of games. There's a lot of games left with a lot on the line. Ty wants to ask you about a big one down in Athens. And it's crazy to think all the teams at the top of the SEC are going to have to play each other, you know? And you're going to hear a lot of the SEC people say, isn't that convenient, okay? All the best teams have to play against the best teams. So now the number in that second column, the lost number, is going to have to go up for some of these good teams. Are they going to beat the hell out of each other?

Ty has a question about Athens, Georgia coach. Yeah, coach, that Texas Georgia game, you know, Texas over the last four weeks, obviously they're four and O, but a couple, you know, tight overtime games and then, you know, the Vandy game last week being tighter than, you know, maybe some people thought it would be, but Arch has looked unbelievable. And then on the flip side, you know, Georgia kind of just, you know, workman like they just continue to win and win. Do you, how do you see that game going? And do you think that most of the questions that people had about Texas, you know, a couple weeks ago have maybe been answered because they're kind of, you know, coming back pretty strong here. And I think a lot of people see them as, okay, you know, this is. is maybe a little partially the team we expected to see coming into the season. Well, I think Texas has improved for two reasons.

I think in the last two games, Arches played better. He's playing with a little more rhythm and not hurrying everything up, and he's been more effective and efficient and his completion percentages way up and all that, and the offensive line has played better. So those two things, I think, have made them show improvement as a team, but they still haven't been a dominant team. I mean, even the games that they've won, they either had to come back and win, win in overtime,

or, you know, just barely beat Vanderbilt. And then they had terrible issues last week in the secondary where they gave up over 300 yards passing. So they still have issues on their team that I think they need to resolve. Now, they're going to play a really good team, and this week would be a great week to do it. But I'm telling what, this Georgia team, now, their offense, I mean, they can run it.

Gunner makes plays. They've got some decent receivers who can make plays. I mean, they're a good team. The only thing that is George's issue is they don't have a significant pass rusher and they don't create a lot of negative plays on defense and they haven't been able to get off the field on third down like they historically have been able. So that allows the other team to keep the ball.

So those are things that they can improve on. So both teams have some flaws that they need to improve upon and whoever can do it in this game best will have the best chance to win. Now, on that note, Georgia very much in the running for a national championship right now. They pick up a loss to Texas. It'll be a huge conversation about them losing to Texas. Texas at some point, and I think they're going to play Texas A&M as well. They're going to pick it.

But if they pick up two wins here with how the entire season is gone, all of a sudden, Texas right back in a conversation. What's conversation about Georgia? What's conversation about Alabama? As they've gotten through the hardest schedule that maybe the entire college football season has had, it's like you guys down the south are certainly going to have a lot of reasons to be pissed about whatever happens at the end. And it is because of the scheduling. But we want these big games to happen.

So it's kind of like an interesting dilemma right now involved. Yeah, I would like to have the good games. I think that's good for fans. I think it's good for football. I think players love playing in games, you know, like this game here, or like, you know, the Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Texas, A&M, Texas later on. But when it comes to getting in the playoffs because of the way it's set up,

it's not necessarily in your best interest to play a tough schedule right now. But when you've got seven teams in the top 15, which you don't want to admit the SEC's worth a damn. They got to play each other. Mr. Big Ten over here. In the 12, and the 12. So they're going to play each other. So somebody's got to lose. So somebody's going to end up with three losses and they're not going to be able to get in the playoffs, but yet they may be a better team than some of the teams who get in the playoffs. It happened already last year. You know, the first last year was the first year of the 12 team playoff. And, you know, the BCS model where there was a bunch of different, then we pick which

one's a national championship. And then the four teams was obviously a big expansion. Everybody was pissed about who's the fifth team. Now with the 12 team one, now everybody's pissed about who the 13th team is because, you know, the five highest ranked champions, is Notre Dame going to get a spot? Well, everybody in football, the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, definitely. Everybody's pulling for Notre Dame to lose at some point, but Notre Dame still has a track to the college football players. For sure, if they win these games. And that takes away a spot now. from one of these teams you're talking about that has to play one of these schedules. And that kind of goes to Ohio State's conversation now.

Desmond Howard's been bringing it up for a few weeks because he's obviously Michigan guy, but also I think he's been tasked with doing some Ohio State, you know, research, basically, for college game day. And he's like, listen, Ohio State hasn't really played anybody. Now, granted, every game you could lose in college football. You're talking about 18-year-olds, the 22-year-olds, I guess there's some 45-year-olds playing in certain situations, but, you know, it's a younger group. And having everybody show up every single week as part of you being great in why.

you're the goat. So winning every game is certainly impressive. Dominating every game, definitely impressive. But when you look at who they've played, you don't really see anybody on the schedule. So I think we don't know. Dan Rolovsky yesterday comes out and goes, we don't have their good team. We'd never seen them lose it in the fourth quarter. Kind of contradicts himself there. We don't know if they're a good team. They've never been down in the quarter. It's like, well, well, you know, if they were not a good team, I guess they would have some times where they're down at some point in the game. But I think what a lot of people are saying they haven't been tested. So, like, how do you look at an Ohio State team? Because they have been so

damn dominant, but it feels like they haven't had like a staple win other than Texas at the beginning of the year and everybody thought Texas at that point was nowhere near what everybody thinks they were going to be now. You know, like how do you judge the Ohio State kind of run that they've been on? Right. Well, they've been dominant. I mean, they're only given up like seven points a game defensively and they score a whole bunch of points. They've got good receivers, the quarterback's played well. They don't run the ball great if they have a flaw. But at the same time, I always wanted our teams to be tested. I always wanted to play against good teams because I wanted to see how, what the competitive spirit of our team really was, what the mental toughness was,

how we could overcome adversity. Because when you dominate everybody, then you get in a tight game, people start getting frustrated because they're not dominating. It's got to win. You know, I mean, you can't get frustrated just because you're not dominating the game. But I do think Ohio State has a good team. I think there's three teams that's kind of proven they're a cut above A&M, Ohio State, and Indiana. Those three teams have kind of shown that they're cut above the other team. The other teams are good enough to beat them, but they all have a little flaw or something that they need to overcome. So it'll be interesting to see how that works out down the stretch here.

Okay, so in the NFL they say, like the people in the know, after the season starts, everybody kind of understands that there's probably like seven to eight teams that could actually go win the Super Bowl. In college, it feels like there is tears each year on who can actually win, and then everybody else that is in the good level. That's why people are saying, if we go to 16-team playoff, or if we go to whatever, like, doesn't matter because a lot of these teams are just going to get the doors blown off on whenever they play against the good team. How many teams are those normally? Three, four teams that are built for it? And did you know your teams were national championship teams during a season? Or did you think,

with some of your squads, like maybe we're not at the level that we need to be to be actual national championship. I don't know if that makes sense in the question. Yeah, it does. And most of the time I didn't know because I think when you're coaching a team, you're always looking at what do we need to improve on. So you're not actually trying to compare that team to all the other teams. But I do remember one thought I had. You know, we won a national championship in 20.

Waddle broke his leg at Tennessee on a kickoff return. I shouldn't even brought it out, but he did, and he got hurt. And I'm saying we had Smitty, we had Waddle, and we had a really good quarterback, you know, Mac, and I said, you know, this team's got a chance. But we got to do it because we have the good skill guys. And when Waddle got hurt, I said, in my mind, it went through my mind as soon as they told me he was hurt and he was out. We won't have a chance to win now, but we did. Yeah, and Waddle played, right, if I recall, in the national championship. I played a few plays.

He could run in a straight line back. that he had a hard time to change in direction and he wanted to play. Oh, yeah. And he caught a pass or two. But, you know, Smitty had a phenomenal year and won the Heisman Trophy. And, you know, we had balance on the team. But that's the only team that I remember ever thinking that something happened that... It's going to be tough.

It's going to be tough. When Tua got hurt, had the same feeling. Because that was one of the best teams we ever had is the year Tua broke his hip. That was one of the best teams we ever had because we had four first round draft pick receivers. and I like them receivers, man. They scored fast, and they get on me about, you know, me thinking being a defensive guy, we're scoring too fast and protect the defense.

I loved it. I loved it when we scored fast. The reason why they think that is because watching old school Alabama, you were winning, but it was just like so boring. You know, you were just handing a ball off. You guys just running all over people, and then, all right, your defense is going to dominate the other side. And it was like it was 1970, 1980.

We're just going to beat the hell out. And you guys did. And that was like, we're a tough football team. We're going to pound the shit out of you. Quarterback never really got a lot of credit. It was always everybody else. So then when you make that change to become like an explosive offense and keep up basically with what football it became, everybody did assume that you hated it.

They're like, oh, Sabin's yearning for the days where we're all falling asleep in the third quarter as they're just pounding another team into oblivion. The people thought that about you, Coach. No, they probably did. But I actually figured out when people, worth on RPO's and going no huddle fast and start scoring 40 points a game that we will not be able to win playing this style of football. We have to be able to utilize, you know, make people defend the whole field vertically and horizontally, have great skill guys, get a great quarterback,

and score more points. And, you know, we won some championships by outscoring people rather than playing defense. Yeah, I'd say you won some championships. The trophies are all over the house. There you go, they're literally falling out of those on the shelves. Seven-time national champion. The national championship odds right now are sitting with Ohio State at plus 185 at the very top of this thing. Indiana plus 450. Texas A&M plus 750, to your point about the three teams above. They also have Alabama in that, if you were to look at the odds, not that much different from Texas A&M.

Notre Dame plus 1,000, big one here at Pitt. There's going to be a lot of energy here in this building. I think it's going to be a tough one for them. Georgia plus 1,300. Texas plus 3,500 down there at the bottom. obviously meeting, Oregon and the mix, Texas Tech, Ole Miss, and that rounds out the odds. But, you know, one thing about this whole thing, and, you know, you say Ohio State hadn't played a tough schedule, but just take an Alabama, which I'm closest to because I live there, this has been a tremendous grind for this team.

I mean, they've played like four or five games in a row against really top opponents. You know, now they're going to go play Oklahoma, who's a top opponent. You know, LSU is no slouch, regardless of what you think, from a player standpoint. So they've been through this gauntlet. So can they actually build on the momentum that they have, or are they going to get the poor me's, I call it, because sometimes your team gets the poor mes at this time of the season. You know, poor me, I'm tired, poor me, I'm hurt, poor me, this and that, all that.

And if you get that, then you don't practice as well, you don't prepare as well, you don't play as well, and those things start showing up in your performance. And I'm just hoping this team can sustain their way through it and prove that they are where they should be. I love you just looking at a guy saying, oh, poor me. I love it. That's where it all came. I call it the poor me's.

The amount of time you've seen somebody patner thinking a certain way, just in your brain coming up with the poor me's, I wish I was there for that moment. Sounds amazing. But the fact that you have motivation for every single situation is why you're the of college football, and we're lucky that you chat with us every week. Let's talk about sports as a whole, and let's talk about the game that happened last night. The guy who's the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman is in his second year, Drake May.

Boston Connor has a question for you about him. Yeah, Coach, Greg Olson put out a tweet kind of about basically the importance of recruits playing other sports. He does a foundation, Youth, Inc, and it's just all about getting kids into all types of sports, and he kind of tagged it with a photo of you and Sark at Drake May's High School. I believe it's the Mustangs he represented in high school and it's you watching him play basketball but I just wanted to ask you about the importance and what you would do when recruiting players

was there ever a time where you went to watch Julio Jones or a Derek Henry and they were maybe hitting a baseball 600 feet or dunking a basketball from the free throw line and you honestly had more respect for what they were as an athlete and a football player was there ever a time too where you damn near one to recruit a kid

and get him to commit early so he didn't go to the NBA or go to the MLB within a year. And what do you think about that when it comes to recruits now who typically focus in one sport and then in their offseason are playing that same sport or preparing for that sports next season? Do you think that recruits all over should be playing at least two sports? And how much does it show you when you get to see a guy outside of football compete in a different field. Yeah, well, first of all, Drake May was one of those guys that you're talking about in the first part of your question that really impressed me by the way he played basketball. He probably could have played basketball at North Carolina, too, and was going to out of high

school. And one of the reasons that, you know, he was committed to us for a long time. His family was all Carolina, which I knew would, you know, eventually be an obstacle. But he wanted to play basketball as well. And so, and he probably could have, because I was very impressed watching him play basketball. I mean, this guy was a good player. And he obviously is everything that we thought he was going to be coming out of high school as an NFL player now and also had a great college career. So he was one of those guys that impressed.

I was never a guy. I liked it when players played multiple sports. Because to me, that says something about them as a competitor. You know, that they love to play, they love to compete, they wanted to play whatever was in season because that's how I grew up. That's how we all did it, you know, back in the day. And I love to see guys do that. And I think other sports tells you a lot about a guy. Like baseball is basically boring. All right. But to me, no, no, no, no. Baseball's good.

But I'd love guys that played baseball because to me, even though it's a slow game, you have to have more athletic intuition to play the game than other games. I mean, you can run track and run track meet and have no athletic intuition. fast. But in baseball, you've got to make lots of choices and decisions about is it a ball or a strike? Should I hit it? Should I not hit it? What pitches he's throwing from the time it leaves the pitcher's hand and gets a home play? Nobody can teach you that. Ball judgment. You know, I mean, how many DBs do you see that have terrible ball judgment? I used to like to recruit track guys to play corner, and after they'd give up big plays because they couldn't judge a ball,

I started recruiting baseball players. I knew they could judge a ball. So, you know, these are all things that I think you can learn about players when you watch them play other sports. And I loved it when guys played other sports. And I was never opposed to guys playing other sports because I didn't think it ever affected their development in terms of what they would do in the future. Okay, so let's talk about that because I think there's a lot of gurus and specialists and experts that are telling a lot of these young guys and young athletes. I have a daughter, she's two and a half. She hasn't been in it yet. I think AJ would be able to maybe speak to this better than all of us in Ohio. I don't know how it goes and how AJ

he's a professional athlete and played every single sport. So I'd assume AJ agrees with us. But what is the sell, AJ? They're saying that you've got to spend every single minute that you have working on your craft if you want to be able to become a professional. Is that basically the sell for these people to only do one sport year round that you've experienced with your kids or that they pitch to other kids? Yeah, I mean, I've kind of experienced it all and talked to all different kinds of coaches.

From what I've found that bad coaches want their one kids to specialize in one sport, like coaches that aren't great. They want to specialize. they just make it really tough. You have to be an absolute stud to play like three sports in high school now because basketball is going all year round, lacrosse is all year round. Football is the one that's like, hey, football is football season. Yeah, you have off-season stuff, but I just think they make it tough

because there's so many things you have to miss if you do want to play other sports. But if you just got to be good enough, you've got to be too good to where, hey, guess what? I'll be there once this basketball season's over. I'll show up at lacrosse, but I'm that good you're going to have to play me. That's kind of how it is right now, I feel like. And on that note, AJ, I think all these experts and gurus that probably never made it, and they probably blame the fact that they didn't make it because they didn't solely focus maybe on one sport, so they're projecting themselves onto younger athletes.

It's like, I think you develop in your main sport by playing other sports. Even though you're missing out on some reps, it's like what you're gaining, your point about ball judgment, everything like that. These other sports make you better at your sports. So it's like, I don't get it. Now, granted, I had schools looking at me in three different sports coming out of high school. I don't know how many people have that. But on that note, it's like I grew up playing every sport.

I didn't play video games as much because I had ADD. So I was playing sports, sports, sports, and everyone fed into the other seemingly. And I don't know how that kind of gets missed. Yeah, but to AJ's point, it's more difficult for guys to play all sports. When I was in school, I played whatever was in season, I played. But football ran into basketball, especially if you've gotten to. playoffs, but we might miss a few games, but then we'd come and play. Well, it's harder to do.

But my point is, the best player is the best player. I don't care how much you try to develop them and how much he specializes growing up and all that. Like Michael Dean Perry, he didn't like to practice. But when I was at the Cleveland Browns and we'd put him on a sled and it was, how fast can you hit the sled? His hands would be on the sled and all them other defensive linemen with their hands still be in the ground.

he was just that much quicker than everybody else. So did he have to specialize in his sport from the time he was eight years old to do that? I don't think so. He said it feels like people are trying to make decisions that have already been made for most people and how they're created. That's awesome. Well, and kids get burned out. Yes. I mean, how many tennis players and people like that did you hear about that they start

specializing when they're eight years old and by the time they're 16 they want to quit? So we have a CFO Phil is a picture. grad he's all excited about this obviously oh yeah he's super bummed about peck getting a little bit of love little celebration for the university of pittsburgh he's got boy little phil okay little phil really good hockey player hockey you know is one of those sports where it's a lot of commitment they move out of their hometowns you know and he's very good but they have made a conscious decision i think at this stage of his life where yeah you're still playing baseball we're still doing other sports because it's going to help hockey but at some point he's going to have to fully commit to

hockey because of the amount of time that it kind of takes. It's interesting what sports have become. I think to you and AJ's point, like some of these sports are going to commit football. How about those Olympic sports? Like, let's just say figure skating, swimming. Insane. Those things are like the amount of, it's like 4 a.m.

You're in the pool, and you need to be in the pool for three hours, and then you're going to do school, and then afterwards you're in the pool. It's like, how do you do anything? I don't know. I guess that's tough to balance, AJ. So I have a question for you. So from a hockey standpoint, you know, these. guys get drafted when they're 17, 18 years old. They can still go to college and play.

They can go to some, you know, league somewhere in Canada or wherever they're from and play. And then they turn pro when they're 21. You think that's ever happening in football? It's already happened. They're pro whenever they get recruited. And then they transfer and then they transfer and they're already pro. So yeah, I think it's already happening. Yeah, IMG. Yeah, but the NFL team doesn't have to draft them out of high school. That's different. Oh, you're saying having the rights out of high school develop somewhere. So like teams draft high schoolers and then send them to Ohio State to develop or something like that. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Oh, wow. And then the other question I have is now that they let guys come from the G League back to college hoops. College hoops. Is the New York Giants going to be able to send their third team quarterback to Penn State to develop at some point? These are my questions. not Penn State. These are my questions, he says.

You guys ask me questions. I'm asking. I never thought about that. I mean, it's happening with hockey right now, to your point, Gavin McKenna, I don't think he's been drafted yet, but he's been the number one recruit prospect for the NHO for multiple years now

and kind of out of nowhere, he decided to go to Penn State this year. Instead. Because they have money, because the amount of money that they're paying there. The penguin's first round. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Tom. Go ahead, Tom. No, I was to say the penguin's first round draft pick is at Michigan right now. He's leading the college hockey and scoring right now. So they have his rights and he's playing at Michigan leading the NCAA.

My brother-in-law did. My brother-in drafted number three overall in NHL and he went and played in Michigan two years and then went to the NHL. Okay, is that just because the team he got drafted to? I guess we should ask Nick. Nikki Skates in the back there, Frank Pisano. What is it with hockey? They still keep your rights.

They can send you to any school or how's that kind of work? No, and I mean, it's different. It's case-by-case circumstances. So, like, in AJ's case there, I believe Jack was, Jack Johnson was drafted to the Columbus Blue Jackets, or I'm sorry, Carolina Hurricanes. He may not have been ready to make the pro team. He said that, yeah. He said he wasn't ready. He admitted to me.

I was not ready. I needed to go play in college. So they give him a couple years to develop, and he gets to, you know, he's free reign of where he goes to school or if he goes to play junior or anything like that. But then he goes to their mission. Did they do this in baseball, tie? Is this baseball too or no, are they designated for the minor? Sorry, go ahead. Is that a hockey?

You still have hockey? Yeah. No, I was going to ask. They still keep the rights for two or three years, though, right? Oh, yeah. When they draft a guy out of high school? So on that note, baseball, Pat White, whenever he was with us, he got drafted like four times because they wanted his rights, I think, just in case football didn't work. Ty, is baseball doing this with college, too?

Because I know, like, don't guys get drafted and then choose to go to college? Do their rights remain with the guys that they got drafted to? No. So it changes. So, like, we talked about this with Kyler Murray. Like, in that instance, like, if he were to go back and play, like, the A's, still have his rights. But if you get drafted first round out of high school or first overall pick, a lot of times what will happen is they can't agree on a signing bonus or something,

you know, or the team sucks and they don't want to go there and just kind of wither away in the minors, those guys will go to college. And then when they become draft eligible, their rights are open again so they can be drafted by anybody. Three years. Yep. Three years. Yeah. So you mentioned a guy there, Pat White. Yeah. Guess who he was committed to. Yeah, I heard. You don't want to play quarterback. Yeah, and again, what a dumb ass. I'll tell you what. I watch his ass, take the snap, and run all over every field.

And I wrote his coattails to some big moments. I mean, it was awesome, right? It was fantastic. He was cool, man. He was a great leader, too, like incredible leader. Like, that's the thing about him. His dad, fire chief, I think. So, like, his dad, obviously.

Mobile. Yeah, Mobile, Alabama. The home of Mardi Gras. That's where Marty Gras was actually created. Then I went down into Orleans. I learned all this at Senior Bowl whenever I was very intoxicated. I missed my flight to the ESPN skills kicking contest. Why does none of that surprise?

I should have been a little bit more locked in, especially with how I understand how it all works now at this point. Could you imagine? I go down to that ESPN kicking contest. I miss the first meeting because I missed the flight out of Mobile, Alabama. There's only like two flights a day out of that place. So obviously I'm stuck there. I missed the meeting, missed the rehearsal, missed the rules,

miss the engagement, miss all the gifts, the swag. everybody knows that I missed a flight, and I assume they know why I missed the flight. I showdown or win a contest or two, and then I kind of get out of there wearing pink cleats, and I think everybody goes, you either like this guy or you hate this guy. Thank God, Bill Paulian said, we like this guy. And he got a little boozed up, Bill Pullian said. Who cares? They won a senior bowl.

Let's do that. But, boy, I could have certainly been making sandwiches here in Pittsburgh for the rest of my life. And it would have been at Rudy's Sups. And you might learn a little bit about Rudy's tomorrow tone digs. Watch your mouth and your tone whenever it comes up tomorrow. on the internet, okay, Tone? Rudy's is my favorite best cheeseburger sell in the country.

Is that basically like a meatball sub? Nope. Coach. Coach, I'm sorry, you got to deal with this. I love these guys, though. They're really good. They bring out the best in you, too. Thanks, coach.

Coach, you like meatball subs? Coach, you like meatball subs? You like meatball? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes. Meatball subs are just meatballs. How about pepperoni rolls? You guys know what pepperoni rolls?

Oh, yeah. These guys don't even know what pepperoni rolls are. She's made them before. Yeah, she brought them to Alabama. I think we had them in Alabama. Listen, a lot of Italians around. We know a pepperoni rolls. Oh, yeah, we do.

Meatball subs, though, can't have it. How about mashed potatoes? You like mashed potatoes? Not my favorite. 50-50. We like that. How about pizza? We have pizza?

Oh, yeah. I like pizza. You're in very good shape. What is your diet? Do you eat? Do you eat a lot of that? What are you? I try to work out.

I always save up for a good. dinner, spaghetti, whatever. Oh, so you're fasting almost during the day and then housing dinner? Yeah. Because you look good. I love that. I appreciate it. I'm going to try to force it.

You know, when you're my age, you've got to get ready for 90 now. So that's my theory. Smart. You got to work out a little bit, stay in shape. And that's why you're Nick Saban. You know what I'm thinking about? I ain't going to make the 40. Ladies and gentlemen, Nick's good.

Coach does look good, though. Yeah. Yeah, he looks really good. Skin's glowing. He is glowing. Everything about it. Every single week, it feels like the guy gets better looking, gets better in shape. And he's better, more and more comfortable on TV.

Just have fun up there. You can tell he, like, legitimately enjoys doing it. Whereas early on, you know, I think it might have been like, man, what am I doing up here? I'm sure that's so jarring when you've coached your entire life to all the sudden, like, you know, you're talking about the eighth best big 10 game or something like that. And it's like, what the hell am I doing? But you can tell he, like, he genuinely enjoys it and has a lot of fun up there. And, like, changing his viewpoint to your point, like, him having that idea about the media as a coach

for your whole life being like, don't listen to them. They're stupid. They don't know what they're talking. Just avoid him at all costs. I don't want to talk. Oh, hey, coach, you want to do this? No. My first answer is no every single time.

Feed him shit and keep him in the dark. Yeah, and now you're part of it. So it's a whole situation, I guess. I think Pat might have some, I don't know if he has rude. these subs, I don't know what he has going on over there. You know what I have. Oh, you got a meatball sub? What do you got? No, no way. This is my sack of subs, baby.

Oh, hell, yeah. What kind you like you, again? Whole Italian hot, lettuce, onion, mayo. Thank you so much. Yes, definitely grilled, cooked, and I would like some fries on the side with a little bit of cheese. The issue is, I think this has been here for a while, so it's a little bit chilly. It'll still be there.

Let's not get it twisted. It's really, you see, I need more caboli's, cargo pocket to maybe do nature's microwave in this entire thing. But yeah, I mean, yep, and that's a cold one. We don't want to eat that one. You got a microwave over there? There's got to be in the suite, right? Yeah.

So I think the only thing I'm worried this one feels, we'll figure it out. There's a sack of six subs here. Maybe if you'll be damn fine. But I have not eat. I've not ate? Eaten. Eaton? Yeah.

I've not eaten strictly because the amount of food that I'm about to have to go eat, you know, because there's a lot of this about to go happen, and I know a lot of people that have a lot of food places around town, and I'm trying to show love and obviously say hello. And also, the food here is so good. So it's like, I literally have not eaten. Is that what you read upon? Sure. I've not eaten in like, uh, since yesterday, before show. Last night, I had like a couple peanut butter balls before bed. Oh, nice. Delicious. Keep me over. And then this morning, I had three cups of coffee, I think, this morning, a little bit too much. much. As I was drinking a third one, I'm like, what am I doing? I need to get a water.

I love this. I love this for you. Yeah, and I chuck another one. So I am very hungry coming out of this show here, and I'm about to go eat like 15 different restaurants, I think. So I cannot wait for that. I'm excited for that. And, you know, it's nice to be just, look at this place, dude. What are they say in Pittsburgh? Could you ask for a better Pittsburgh day than that? Is it gray out? Yeah. Is it awesome? Of course. Are we preparing for a massive football weekend? Oh, let's have one here in Pittsburgh. Lucky to be here. And I'm going to eat the hell out of all their food.

So that's the thing. I talked to Narduzi about it when he was talking about going up to Lansing. There's just no Italians over there. It is, it's a culture shock, AJ. There's Italians over there in Ohio, right? Yeah, there's definitely different pockets where there's more than others. But yeah, there's Italians. Youngstown.

Youngstown, especially North East, yeah. The Irish and the Italian create this city. You know, like that is kind of what is plum, super Italian place. Obviously, there's a lot of times everywhere. But I am excited to see how many fighting Irish fans there are tomorrow. I think a lot. I think a lot. Yeah, I think so, too.

I think it's going to be pretty, because the Irish are heavy here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tone. Yeah, I made a mistake when I was talking about Ohio State, Penn State, West Virginia, and Pitt. I should have also included Notre Dame because just growing up, like, there's just, there's so many Notre Dame fans all over the country. But also when you grow up Italian Catholic town, there's also a lot of Notre Dame fans there. I also made a mistake earlier in the show. I misread something on the internet. A group of monkeys is actually called a troop, not a collective. So I just wanted to get that off my chest as well

because it's been burning a hole inside of the last hour. Yeah, a troop of chimpanzee. That also sounds incredible. Yeah, collective sounded right, though, because these things like the gossip. So when I looked it up, a group of like, when you look up, hey, what's this group of animal? Whether it be, you know, a murder for Ravens or a troop for monkeys,

I believe that is a collective noun. So I read collective there and just spit it out of my stupid fucking mouth. No, Stone, it's okay. It's okay, dude. You're right. You corrected yourself. Thank you. That's important.

A group of chimpanzees is called a troop or tribe. Tribe would have been better. I think I'm going to use the word. I think I'm going to use the word tribe tomorrow when describing ins or so. Just a little inside big. Okay. So that's your ideal right there, your go-to? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That looks good, yummy. Look at the bread, the Mancini's bread. Yeah, the bread looks fantastic. They make their own bread in-house? Well, they get it from Mancini's. Down a strip. Yeah. I thought, I assumed they shipped it in from somewhere, somehow out of state.

Sicily. You're kidding me? Out of state? You think we're getting shit from out of state for this? What are you? Right here is just mine. buddy okay now I will say this thing's been sitting at the bottom of this

bag yeah that came through a little bit yeah in the bite or the look in the look certainly looked a little bagging it's definitely it's not about how it looks you need to show some respect

please I thought that's part of it meal is that flat bread or you put that under a brick no it drove over in the bus bottom of a bag it was at the bottom of a bag it was at the bottom of

I could probably sit on that for two days. He's got a lot of regular. Maybe. Maybe. All right. Oh, my God. It's still good. Still good.

All right. Have an incredible weekend. Football is going to be amazing. We're very appreciative of it. We'll be back for overreaction Monday. Game day tomorrow morning. We'll be live on X and on ESPN. It should be electrifying morning in Pittsburgh.

We'll see you then. I felt like I really nailed it. I almost choked on it. Show will be live on X, though. Nice. Love that. Last week had a little, I don't know, I guess what we call it, internet outage in Indiana right before

one live, so we had to battle through that quickly as it got started and the boys did a great job back into Thunderdome. Tomorrow we'll be once again live on X from the city of Pittsburgh. We're going to have a great backdrop. I mean, we're right alongside the river. The stadium's going to be right around the corner. The city of Pittsburgh is going to be right around the corner. going to show up in a big way to celebrate football.

And there's a massive Notre Dame Pitt game that's going to be kicking off immediately afterwards. The stars are going to be in abundance. Pittsburgh royalty is going to be everywhere. And we can't wait for the morning. And, you know, there is a dispute going on between, you know, two parties. And there's a lot of people missing ball and missing the things that they love. Just know that on X tomorrow, Game Day, will be live and for free.

Shout out to ESPN. and Jimmy Pitaro, Burke Magnus, Old Faso, and everybody that says, yeah, let's continue to do that. That's good for our fans. That's good for football. And that's good for unifying ball fans, which is certainly something that we need at this point. So we'll be live on next tomorrow, and it should be a scene tomorrow, I believe, is how they describe these types of things, AJ. Yeah, I think it's going to be an interesting collection. I know we talked about, what is 50-50?

You think fans pit to Notre Dame? Like, what's it in? I want to know in the stadium, when's it going to be loudest? when who's on, you know, who, say Notre Dame's on offense, or the Pitt's fan, pit fan's going to be louder than when Notre Dame's fans for a constant noise, the whole time. Incredible atmosphere. Like the World Cup.

I think it will be incredible atmosphere, for real. I do wonder what the percentage would be. Who would know that? Seatheek would know that? And right now, you can get $30 off tickets if you use the code, Pat, M-C-M-C-A-F-E. That works for all event types, football, MLB, concert, Broadway, you name it, If it has tickets, Seekek has your tickets. And you can get $30 off with the code Pat McAfee.

It doesn't matter if you're a new or repeat purchaser, $30 off with P-A-T, M-C-A-F-E. Restrictions apply, obviously, you're going to have to pay attention to those. And we appreciate the hell out of Seek, the greatest ticket-buying platform on planet Earth and the moon. That's right, AJ. Are we going back? But there was an event that was going to be had. Well, I've heard we've been there six times, somebody said to Kim Kardashian.

I heard we are going back. We are going back. Who? Who's doing it? Do we know the guy? The United States of fucking America. U.S. Chimpanzee that escaped in the Indianapolis zoo, yeah.

They used to take chimps into space, right? Before they took humans? Yeah. Just to test to see if it worked. Just make sure they're exploits. Were they good joystick? Are they good pilots? Great pilots.

That's what I heard. Yeah. Really. Well, they don't get, they don't get distracted. I guess no chimpanzees have ADD. Nope. That's a big part of getting to the moon. For whatever, for whatever reason, too, they were just excellent.

excellent at being able to land a lunar module, you know, and actually lock it into the dock. It took a while for our, you know, actual, you know, male and female pilots. They trained our astronaut. Correct. Exactly. Yeah, dude. Cool. Yep. They did this.

More you learned. Exactly. Sign language. Everyone was like, holy shit. Yep. Yeah, whoa, we didn't do that when we're going to space. Why is he still? Why don't you put a diaper on your poops all over still? Well, the pooping thing's quite an issue for a lot of animals, like fat corgis. and also chimpanzees, I think.

But didn't we just caught, we just caught something. I just saw something. Bezos? Yeah, Bezos Blue Origin became the second company to be able to successfully land the rocket after it took off. Yes. But didn't that catch something from the moon or Mars or something? I think there was something alongside of that with another place that,

whether it could catch something that comes back or it did catch something that's coming back. I'm not sure. Yeah, the thing I read was that it's like testing. to see I guess like the something about the sun basically changing like the atmosphere around Mars and like why that is like I think that's what the ultimate goal is I don't know if that's actually happened yet but apparently scientists have noticed like hey something's going on with the suns and it's it's changing what's going on with Mars right now that was an interesting theory that I I didn't really think of is like the sun basically took Mars atmosphere yeah I think

is basically what this talked about. Correct. So we see it as the red planet. This particular tweet that I read, and who knows if it's real, basically said it's red because it was fried to a crisp, basically by the sun. The sun basically just took its entire atmosphere, which makes you wonder, did they, you know,

did they potentially go in, you know, because the sun not in there, and did they do their entire thing? Hopefully we learn that. You think it's in our lifetime? We learn about any of the other shit? Yeah. I mean, they'll be going to Mars in our lifetime.

We're going to Mars within the next five, ten years, right? sending humans? How long's it take to get there? Like nine months? No. Isn't it like a nine month one way or a year? That's Avatar you're talking about. They're trying to train.

A girl who's training to do it, she knows she's not coming back. No, we don't have one-way missions. We know that. They say that. I think in the next generation, like in your guys' kids' generation is when it'll happen, lifetime. I don't know if like we might be on the, like, the very end of when it's happening. When we go there or when we habitate and we build things and we live there,

you're saying, just go on. A.J. Hawks, to A.J. Hawks point, internet tells us it takes seven to ten months to get to Mars. AJ, I like that. I like that. Because I started, I got overwhelmed. When I heard, like, people were going to be in a spaceship for nine months traveling one way and then you get there knowing you have nine or ten months back. Like, that's a mental test. That's more like that right there freaks me out. Well, maybe they put them like Jacob Solie in one of those tubes and he's kind of put you to sleep for six, seven months. Yeah, I've been nice. Yeah, and you don't even know. It's just like I have a sleepy six months. taking a nap, wake up, we're two months out from Mars. Okay, well, I need to learn a lot. What are we doing up there?

And then on the way back, yep, you know the deal. We'll put your ass to sleep until we get to around the moon. And we'll wake you up, send you back into America. Now, the thought on that just becoming reality is kind of what Elon is talking about, right? He talked about just being able to pick up and just buzz-in-up. He's going to have to, right? He's going to be a time we have to go live on another planet. So he's an alien, right?

I mean, sure. Precisely. Hybrid. All right. take a break, and then on the other side, let's make our picks, and then let's have a hell of a Friday, shall we, AJ? And by the way, by the way, yeah. Rest in peace.

Are you already finished? Housed. Already. Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's sitting at the bottom of a bag and it's crushing. It's a little bit chilly, and it's supposed to be hot. Still delightful around here, still number one out here. All right, let's get to a break on the other side. We'll make our picks, and then we'll get the hell out of here for the greatest weekend.

in the history of weekends because it's the next weekend. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. Take fight! Fight! Get no frills, delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass.

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There's a big one this weekend, boys. Football! Oh, we got Goop. What's up? Goopi, I see you. Your dolphins actually looking pretty good. We'll see what happens in the pick the picks these days. I might actually jump over and pick the dolphins here, I think. Okay, great work, AJ. Yeah, this is Gumpy. Okay, Gumpy is the greatest internet splunker on Earth from Canada.

in Miami Dolphins, my name is Pat McAfee. Thank you so much. I am from this city in which I am currently live from for game day here for Pitt, Notre Dame tomorrow. We love the way A.J. kind of handles his business, doesn't he? Oh, baby, Hogger. It's hard. Gump is such a presence.

You know, sorry about that. He's such a present. I lift my head up and I see Gump right here. Yeah, I understand. And we get excited when we see Gump, but maybe not everybody knows who the hell Gump's shoes. Well, Gump is here to help us navigate this NFL Sunday slate and make sure we're getting all the right picks. It's not just us here.

on the screen. There's the toxic table as well at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Boys, we need all the info we can get whenever we're making these picks because we're trying to have a perfect slate today, con man. Oh, hell yeah. We got it all locked in. A lot of stuff moving, actually, not trades at all. It's way past the deadline, but injuries,

things of that nature. We got it. Ty Schmidt, I hope you and the Packers Faithful didn't hear what a radio guy down in Atlanta said. I don't know if you heard what he said. He basically said uh source says

that he trusts and he respects or saying maybe maybe the floor not that sweet up there in Green Bay listen to this time I got an interesting phone call earlier in the week from somebody I trust in the media

who told me to put something on my radar said okay put it at the back of my mind now the problem is I'll forget so I had to bring it up here or else it would just escape I was told by somebody to keep an eye on Matt LaFleur And I said, tell me more Because we're here in the midst of the Rahim Morris discussion about short term, long term

We know the Rahim Morris era will end at some point with him being fired Whether it's at the end of this year, I don't know, Monday, next year Five games into 2026, I don't know But I was told that the Packers, who were one of the more stable franchises in all of the NFL Might make a switch at quarterback, or a head coach, excuse me, if they don't make the playoffs which i was shocked to hear matt lafleur's record with the green bay packers is 72 36 and 1 in seven seasons that's one of the great starts to a career anybody's ever had and he's handled the whole transition of jordan love thing beautifully he's done they

there's never drama uh they don't attract free agents that that's why the micah thing was so big for them because they just don't do stuff like that but i was told that he still has a connection with the falcons a good relationship and would be interested in coming back here and i will tell you 100% that is the perfect choice for this franchise that could save them like i'm talking about if green bay was ever and this to me would be short-sighted if they're ever in the position where like we just can't move forward with mat lafleur if rehem's employed and matt leflore is not rheim's unemployed the next day you go get matt leflore as your head coach play sheet in his hand bring stability in a way you're ready for this that dan reeves brought it in the 90s when the

when the falcons were following jerry glan bill and june jones and they needed stability Dan was further along in his career, but remember what Dan brought, experience, winning, he could work with young quarterbacks. Matt LaFleur can bring all that stuff, because you and I both know this, Charles. After you go back-to-back first-time head coaches, what do you have to do? Oh, yeah, you've got to go with experience, Scott. I think Arthur's going to say we need a commodity. Now, my fear is that would be Mike McCarthy,

and that would scare the hell of me because Mike McCarthy doesn't do much for me. But if Matt LaFleur, if what I was told is true, that the Packers would even consider moving on from LaFleur if they missed the playoffs, if I'm the Falcons, snap him up. No-brainer. Hey, turn off nose to turn off nose down there, 680 the fan in Atlanta. And, Ty, do you hear the way other teams are speaking about your coach? And does that make you change your tune a little bit?

I heard a good record there, Gump. Did our years were we the only ones that heard that record? That is a good record. 70-20 and 1 or something like that, I believe, is what he said. And then I heard somebody fart into a microphone. I don't know if that was in Atlanta or back there at the Thunderdome. But, Ty, that's who your head coach is. Let's remember that.

You know, one team's potential perspective trash is another's. What do they say? One trash, one treasure in the other way. Does that change the way you think about this season, Ty, knowing now how Atlanta's turnoff potentially feels about LaFleur? I mean, it certainly is a bit startling, and that makes sense. You know, I could see Matt LaFleur while his team is 5, 3 in 1 and in the middle of a division race and trying to get into the playoffs.

I could see him being like, you know what, I wouldn't mind going back and coaching in Atlanta. I could see that happening. So that certainly makes sense. No, you know, hey, listen, this would be a home run for Atlanta. If this were to happen and Matt LaFleur were to be let go and Atlanta hires him, I mean, you want to talk about winning the offseason, winning the coaching cycle, certainly. But what I'm more concerned with is every opportunity Peter Schrager gets, he's opening up his goddamn mouth and saying, hey, Jeff Halfley to the Giants.

You know, just last year, Ben Johnson had the opportunity to go into Scrager. with the lions and remember they beat them like a drum he he did everything in his playbook and that really wowed bears ownership and you know everyone in that organization that's why they went to hire him and jeffley has that opportunity to do that this sunday so the floor thing's one thing listen if they don't get the defense fixed his ass probably is going to get fired um and if they don't make the playoffs i think it's very fair to say that carman policy is going to say all right pal. There's a reason I didn't give you an extension before the season hit the fucking

bricks. But I need Schrager to stop trying to get Jeff Halfley out of town as the defensive coordinator on every single one of these fucking shows. He's been doing it for several days now, and I'm sick and tired of it. Yeah, I think the conversation around

policy making moves is certainly a policy that we like. Him not given the extension to Guten Kuntz and LaFleur was almost a message. Don't you think, AJ? Yeah, of course. I mean, When you go in there, it's like a proof it year, I feel like, isn't it? Hey, you go out there and you, I don't know exactly how far he has to go to make Gutten Kootz and the rest of the organization happy.

I mean, what does that look like? How many, you got to get to the Super Bowl? Well, I mean, I don't know about Super Bowl, but like there has to be some sort of growth. Like they've done the whole, hey, we're going to make the playoffs, win a game, and then that's it. You definitely need to start scoring more points, obviously. Yeah, that, of course, but also, like, policy is a dog from day one, didn't he come on and say, like, yeah, we're not just going to extend these guys for no reason.

Like, they've got to prove it. They already had that. Sorry, go ahead, Pat. No, I was going to say, and then he makes that huge micah play. It's like, hey, we are different than what we used to be is what he's saying, Ty, to kind of echo what Connor just said. Yeah, without a doubt. And this has not been the way the Packers have operated, obviously, for quite some time.

But when they made the playoffs a couple years ago, you know, in Love's first year, like that was like the big surprise. Like, wow, this team, this super young team, they won a playoff game. but, you know, it's the same deal with the Steelers, like, and the Packers. Like, you, after a while, getting to the playoffs and then getting beat like a drum in the first round, like, that doesn't mean shit. This team has, is, you know, one of the most storied franchises in the NFL. Like, you need to at least make a deep run into the playoffs because, again,

Jordan Love isn't on a rookie contract. He's making $55 million a year. You traded for Michael Parsons. Like, you have two of the highest paid guys in the NFL on both sides. So, like, you got to go do something with that. I don't think getting into the first round of the playoffs and getting beat is, like, people want to see a Super Bowl. No.

Let's talk about Super Bowl teams. Let's talk about the Sunday slate. Last night, we both picked the New England Patriots to cover by 12 and a half. They did the hammer. Dots. Boys told us the under was the right bet. That hit as well. Are we seeing the board better than ever?

We shall see, look at DoorDash delivering for everybody on their game days. We appreciate that. We're 1.0 heading into the weekend. Washington commanders taking on the dolphins. Dolphins favored by two and a half in Madrid, Spain. 9.30 a.m. kickoff, which is obviously spectacular for ball fans. Gumpy, let's hear. What are your thoughts? Your favorite in a game. Way to go, dude. Way to go. I don't know if everybody knows this, but Miami actually been adopted as Spain's team. They're going to continue to go. Why would you do that to a new country?

Well, they just, that's how it is. Where'd you hear that, go? That's how it is. We're going to be going there every year. We gave up a home game to go there this year. This is what's going to happen. No, but Spain is like a great place. Remember, we've been seeing out of the Espanio following with J.J. Watt,

in the morning we drink coffee in the afternoon it's drop. And then we play stunkering. We win. Everyone is Espanio. El-Julyo. Lookie, lookie, lucky, lookie. it's another fucking goal yeah like we like these people don't we we like spain why would we place the dolphins upon them that's like the kids that are born jets fans we watched them last

week with sauce gardner when he got traded there running around crying and everybody's like yeah that's first of many kid just get used to it that's kind of what is why are we doing that to spain you wouldn't wish this life upon an entire country would you why would you why would you say that i mean if i was a fan in spain and i just saw what the dolphins did to the bills and they're marching into Spain, I'd be happy to them be my squad, you know. Two and a half point favorites, you like that or not? Yeah, I mean, they love us there. Malik Washington, he's going to score a touchdown.

He got a jersey from Fernando Torres, Liverpool, Athletico, Madrid, legend. Okay. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it? I'm not going to lie. I've been leaning dolphins for a while, but you know what? I can trust my instincts. I'm taking the commanders on this one.

Wow. Okay. You can get three if you want the manager. I'll take commanders plus three then, yeah. All right, I'll take commanders plus three as well. Okay, let's go to the next game. Chargers versus the Jaguars. Chargers favored by two and a half going in to Duval.

Obviously, heartbreak last week for Jacksonville in the end. Chargers starting to find themselves. Anything we need to know about this line, Tone Dig, 69% on the Chargers we see there. 69% on the Chargers. It is two and a half or three, so you get Chargers minus two and a half or the Jaguars plus the three. obviously we know with the Chargers they had their offensive line issues as far as

injuries are concerned and how PFF feels about them but other than that everything is pretty up and up as far as the starters and things like that as you know Travis Hunter obviously out Trevor Lawrence what's the question for him is he a guy is he not a guy well the Chargers defense is certainly problematic AJ who do you like how do you like it I have a hard time picking against I really like this Chargers team but for whatever reason I like the Jags here at plus three at home. Okay, you got the Jags plus three. I'll take the Chargers minus two and a half.

Carolina Panthers taking on the Atlanta Falcons. Both these teams, I guess, who knows? More so, Carolina Panthers feel like they could be good. Atlanta Falcons, down up, down up. They're like a Catholic church session with the way they kind of go about to playing this season. Ty Schmidt, Carolina Panthers, Atlanta Falcons, your immediate lean is what? I'm going to say Panthers. You know, I know Rico Dowdell is one.

once again, a bit banged up, but I think last week was a little bit of an aberrition. You know, like the Panthers have been kind of up and down, but the Falcons are just like one week, and it really hasn't been like this for a while. Early on in the season, one week they look like world beaters, and then they looked like shit. And then I feel like they've kind of bottomed out in the last few weeks. So I like the Panthers. Something we need to think about, too, as the Falcons continue to play against the Panthers,

is the Rams have the Falcons first round pick. So right now the Rams have a top 10 pick in the NFL draft and they're also a Super Bowl favorite. So the Falcons are either going to really screw the entire NFC by sucking and then giving the Rams a top 10 pick and letting them get a great player and or their future at quarterback. So, you know, Atlanta might need to pick it up a little bit here. We're going to need you here. Yeah, they're 10th right now. A loss to the Panthers would not be good because I don't think their schedules is too favorable. Certainly in play to potentially get a top five pick, I mean, depending upon what the rest of the year looks like.

I think there's going to be some draft conversation on the show tomorrow. I'm happy that we got that list in there. Who do you like? How do you like it, Gums? I like the Falcons just because they're at home. They seem to show up at home, and they lost 30 to nothing away to the Panthers, maybe a little revenge here. AJ, who do you like? I like the Falcons here as well.

I mean, three and a half feels like a lot, but I would take the Falcons at home. I think Raheem Morris, he sees those comments being made about his job and his job security. he wants to make sure he gets a win and shuts that up. Okay, can I get four or four and a half on this, or is it just three and a half? Three and a half across the board. Is Dowdo not playing? Is that what you said? He's banged up, but I think all indications are that he should be able to go, but it hasn't been confirmed yet.

I'll take the Carolina Bantor's plus three and a half. Post-Germany one-clock game. True. Hey. That's tough for Atlanta. Overtime game. Yeah, good point. Overtime, Germany game.

second flight out we've learned I just saw them play good against the Colts how much do they have left in that tank Colts kind of bottled up Bijon though Rahim Morris knows too now like dude if I don't win fucking Mountain Floors is a coach Turnoff says it Gotta happen

Done deal All right give me the I'll take the Panthers I think the Panthers plus three and having on this field right behind us The Cincinnati Bengals will be traveling to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, it'll come one day after Notre Dame pit on this exact same field

that has certainly been questioned before. So look for it to be a little bit of a mutter on Sunday. Who does that help? Who does that hurt? Four and a half is the current spread with the Steelers being the favorite. Ton Diggs, what should we be thinking? And this has 66% of the bets

are on the Cincinnati Bengals plus four and a half. Yes, everybody loves the Bengals. I saw for the Bengals. Shmar Stewart is out as well as Trey Hendry. So neither of those guys will be back for the defense that has not been great so far. Steelers in one o'clock window right where we want them. And we already blew a primetime game against the Bengals this year. So we already got that out of the way.

So I'm actually feeling pretty good about this one. Connor, man, I'm sorry. Connor, what is the story? Joe Burrow has been practicing the last few days. Doesn't mean he's playing, but just means he's back to potentially playing. Is that the story we're getting? Yeah, bingo, three straight days of practice for Joe Burrow. He's already been designated to return off the IR, so his windows open.

It's looking like it's not going to be this week, but it seems as though next week that he might practice. I mean, I mean, play rather. If you do three straight, if he's doing stuff like this on a turf toe, he must be pretty healthy. Everything we heard from Jason Glazer kind of indicates that he is feeling good and he attacked his rehab. Kind of butchered that, but whatever. But so I would assume that the vibes, at least in the Bengals are pretty good. And they know, hey, if we win one of these next three at least in them, Burrow comes back, then they got

a shot. Why is you wearing green sweats? Why is you wearing green sweats? What's going on? Yeah, what kind of sweats are the other guy's wearing? Black, black, black, black, black, black, black. Black, black, black, black. Look at Joey Flack, moving. Yeah, why is he wearing green? I don't know. I don't like that at all. He's a fashion guy. Yeah, exactly. He's got that

pizzazzed. At least they're not super bagging, though. Yeah, I don't care. This is, what do we? It is kind of weird. Give me the picture. Pittsburgh Steelers, whatever. I don't like that that's happening. I don't like that. I don't know.

That's not how I, man, I just feel like I learned. A lot of coaches would send you back in. A lot of coaches are sending you back in and get your team issue on. It seems like such a small detail, but I feel like I just learned a lot about Joey Burrow and the Bengals right there, like legitimately. I feel like I just learned a lot about it over there. Yeah. Just by the color of the sweatpants.

And people are going to say that's ridiculous and absurd for me to say, I get it. You've never been a part of an NFL team either. But like, that's a decision and a choice. and then everybody else sees it as well. I don't know if I like that at all. And I love Joey Burrow. I feel like I'm one of his biggest fans, actually. Given the Steelers, if that's a lot to be happening everywhere,

they obviously got everything on control. I'm sure Zach Taylor put the hammered down, though, after he saw that. He might have actually put the pants in his locker for him to where. He need to be dressing different to everybody else because he is. By the way, Joey Burrow is different to everybody else. Flacco has certainly been great to Pittsburgh Steelers defense. You know, throughout the entirety of the season has a, hasn't been fantastic, but as of the last couple weeks, they've been much better.

Will Joey Flack get the Pittsburgh Steelers back-to-back as a Cincinnati Bengals quarterback? I don't think so. I like Pittsburgh Steelers minus four and a half here at Accresher Stadium. What are your thoughts, AJ? Yeah, I'm going to go Steelers minus four and a half at home. I feel like the Steelers have to find a way to double Jamar this game or whatever. Remember last time they played? It was a Jamar show for no doubt.

He's going to get his, but maybe they won't give him 12 or 14 catches. someone might implore hot coffee or something on his original pants his black ones right as he were going out to practice yeah but they're black sweats so you can have coffee it's probably hot it's hot all over my dung area like i got to change oh okay too hot the bengal's logo that it'll be too cold maybe it'll be too cold because once you get hot coffee on your dog area it's hot you get anything go outside they're sick all the sudden cold yeah yeah right maybe it was mayonnaise too dropping out of one of the Rudy sub sandwiches he was eating.

And any time you get mayonnaise on the groin area, especially with black sweats, everybody automatically assumes this guy's got come on his face. So maybe that's what happened. It's a good point. That's true. Imagine this conversation if he was running with white mayonnaise all over his dong area.

Pat, you would be ruined up. Maybe he was excited to be back playing ball. And the Bengals don't want that to be the narrative about the entire thing. And neither is Joe. Okay, so I get it now. All right. I didn't even think about that being an outcome.

I'm happy. We kind of worked it through. He dropped mayonnaise on his pants. We've all been there. People judge you. He said, give me the green sweats, even though everybody else is wearing black sweats. That's Joey B football. Okay, we appreciate him doing that.

Justin, it seems like we all like the Steelers. Let's go. Houston Texans, favored by five and a half, headed into the team that has the projected. Number one overall pick, again, the Tennessee Titans. Anything we need to know about this one, Tone? Titans coming off of a buy. We all know how good Coach McCoy is off of the buy. And then C.J. Stroud is still out with a concussion, so we will have Davis, Dougie Mills, starting again on the road for the Texans.

26 Zip in the fourth, right? For the Houston Texans, that's what they're coming off. So what that sounds like to me is Dougie Mills figured it out. And Dougie Mills going to Music City, I think he's about to sing quite a tune. I like the Houston Texans minus five, if I can get it. Yes, yes, you can. A minus five Houston Texans in Nashville, even though I love that. Go ahead, AJ. I'm going to take the Houston Texans, his minus five. I think old Davis, Dougie Mills showed us some stuff last week.

I think he's going to continue to ride that heater. Yeah, I was about saying, not just last week. Doggy's been putting tape up. We like them. I love Dougie Mills. He should be starting for an NFL team. Well, he is. He's got full time.

Not my team, but, you know, somebody's. How many teams you got? You guys would fucking love that. Oh, my God. Two is spinning it right now. I understand he's spinning it, for the good of Spain in their football fanhoods. Spain would love Dougie Mills.

Yeah, Dougie Mills' neck in Spain. They might try and keep them there. Ooh, all right, let's go to the next game. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Buffalo Bills. J.J. Watt is on the call. Both these teams coming off a loss. 63% of the bets are in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers getting six and a half, or can they get even more?

No, it's actually, I'm seeing five and a halfs across the board, and there's one six out there now. Okay, so now it's down to six. Six, I guess, is what you can get if you like the Buffalo Bills. AJ, your thoughts on how the game's going to go? Man, the Buffalo Bills are, I mean, I was picking them to win a Super Bowl before the season. I still don't count that out, but I like the Tampa Bay Bucks here coming off a loss, getting what, six and a half?

You get six. Yeah, Bucky Irving is out. Chris Godwin is out. I believe Hassan Redick is also out. I'm not sure about Anthony Nelson, the player who got one of B.A.'s balls a few weeks back for his performance against the Saints. And then Dalton Kincaid also did not practice yesterday. Yeah, there it is.

He is out another D-Lyman for them. Fadarian Mathis, unbelievable spelling. He not playing is actually huge because they are so banged up on the D-line for Buffalo. Okay, so I like the Buffalo Beals. Minus 5 is what I heard I can get. AJ, who are you on? I'm on the Tampa Bay Bucks here at what? Plus six.

Oh, six. Okay. Okay. Green Bay Packers fresh off a great performance, taking on the New York Giants, favored by seven and a half at MetLife. Sixty three percent of the bets are on the Green Bay Packers. Ty Schmidt, it doesn't sound like you've been as optimistic about the Green Bay Packers long term, but seven and a half point favorites on the road with 63 percent of the people betting on them. Feels like the rest of the world likes Green Bay this weekend. How do you feel about it? Yeah, I mean, I guess there is a part of me that thinks this could be like the Jamis coming out party, where he throws for a bunch of touchdowns and a bunch of yards. But we were talking before the show,

and Connor mentioned, you know, in the wake of Trayvion Henderson having that three touchdown game last night, B.A. saying how rookies basically just need to be ready to go, like right now. The Packers, I think, expected a lot of Matthew Golden. He didn't play last week, but he's a guy they need to get going this week big time. Ever since Tucker Kraft got hurt, they haven't really been able to run the ball. Like, they need Matthew Golden. I kind of expect him to have a big game.

And yeah, I think this is a good bounce back spot for the Packers because everyone is kind of potentially exaggerating their demise pretty early here. AJ, who do you like? I like the Packers here. I think, you know, James might have a little bit of magic in him, but I like what this Packers defense is able to do. And hopefully the offense finds a way to get going. Okay, six and a half for sure.

The Packers at minus six and a half alongside AJ Hawk. Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings, NFC, North Battle. 61% of the money is on the Chicago Bears heading into J.J. McCarthy's World. I'm sorry. Nine's world there. Nine is favored by two and a half. What am I not seeing here, Ty Schmidt? Bears' defense is very, very, very banged up. Yeah, they just announced T.J. Edwards in the middle. He's their leader on defense. He's in the middle linebacker. He is out on Sunday. JJ's going to get a win, and he just feels like that's who J.J. McCarthy is. I already beat the Bears once in Chicago. That was his coming out party.

That's when 9 was born, if you will. No, 9's been there, brother. Nine's won a national championship. Nine was on the bench last year getting rehabilitation, but it was always down in there. It's all about controlling 9 so we can keep the competitive stamina and the spirit throughout all four cores. How do you keep 9 on track?

Well, if 9 wins more games, people are going to have to respect 9 and JJ for the time that he does on a football field. I guess I'll take the Minnesota Vikings minus 2.5, even though I don't love it at all. I love Ben Johnson. I'd love to hear good, better, base, never laid a race, and do good as better and better as base,

because I love that quote personally. I've certainly known it for a long, long time. No, fuck that. Give me the Bears. Also, for the Vikings, T.J. Edwards being out for the Bears, big deal. Jonathan Grenard hasn't practiced this week for the Vikings, so not sure if he's going to be good to go.

I just thought of, like, no, Chicago Bears. stole that one last week. Give me the Vikings. I'm going to take the Vikings minus two and a half. I'm going to take the Vikings minus two and a half. Still believe in the Bears long term, but I like the Vikings this weekend to win that game. What do you think, AJ? I'm kind of with you. I mean, you're waffling back and forth got me, I got me thinking for sure, but I was leaning Vikings earlier. I'm going to stick with it. Vikings minus two and a half at home. This is a good football game. This is a good football game. We like that this football game's having a lot of them across the slate, including a San Francisco 49ers of Brock

Purdy, I do believe, favored by two and a half flying into beautiful Phoenix, Arizona to be taken on the Arizona Cardinals. 72% of the money is on the San Francisco 49ers, and Brock Purdy will return as the San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback versus Cardinals. Kyle Shanahan told 49ers game playing, which is a great show. We love 49ers game playing. Oh, yeah. We turn that show on every week. And we, because of a YouTube ESPN dispute, we've actually had to find different ways to watch 49ers game playing. And we've certainly been able to dodge, duck, dive, and dodge our way to being able to hear the 49ers

game playing show, because that one's the fucking show. Isn't it not going to be? Especially with Shanahan. Oh, when he stops by, he always says something. It's good ball talk. He's got such a good flat bill on. He always looks cool. And he says, Brock Purdy is our quarterback. I think Brock Purdy crushes this weekend. Give me the San Francisco 49ers minus

two and a half, AJ. Yep, give me the San Francisco 49ers as a well. Brock Purdy, I think he's been. Can you imagine how, like, the pent-up energy this dude has to get back in the field. He's heard Conman say that that Max's taking his gig. He's not going to have a job anymore, so he's ready to get out there and show us that he's still the man. Somebody's playing drums on the microphone. If you could stop doing that, that'd be great. You're blowing out my ear drums. The Seattle Seahawks were taking on the L.A. Rams,

75% of the bets are on the Seattle Seahawks. That's wild to think about is the Rams are favored by three and a half, and they're going to be in their midnight mode jerseys. Matthew Stafford's going to look so damn cool. I cannot wait to see how that turns out in so five. Four o'clock slate, absolutely low. this week, we feel. Seattle Seahawks, one of the best teams in ball. 75% of the monies on the Seattle Seahawks. Is it plus three and a half, plus four? What is the most we can get, Tone? Yeah, you can get, the most you could get if you want the Seahawks is plus three and a half or minus three for the Rams.

Okay, so give me plus three and a half Seattle Seahawks. L.A. Rams might win the game. This is the two for them. I don't want to put it on the official record. Love that. No, never mind. Completely forget what I just said. Seattle Seahawks plus three and a half. I like where they're at. like where they're at a lot. I don't know who wins, but I like the Seattle Seahawks plus three and half. I think this is a road game. McDonald on the road has been damn near unstoppable. And yeah, I think this is a big one for Sam Darnold to continue to be Sam Darnold of now as opposed to Sam Darnold of yesterday year. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it?

Man, this is a tough one, too, when you think about me, the Seattle defense scored twice last week. I like the Rams here. I can get the Rams at minus three, tone. Is that right? Okay, I'll take the Rams at home. What do they call it again? What's their There are dark uniforms? Midnight mode. I like midnight mode. Midnight mode, Matthew Stafford. He stays on track to win the MVP possibly.

Give me the Rams. Okay. There's a chance for both. Conman, you were going to say something, I think, before I cut you off? No, no, all good. Not at all. But Sam Darnold, I think they were talking about it earlier on the broadcast TV, whatever the fuck.

It's kind of a redemption day game for Darnold. Last time the Vikings, when he was with the Vikings, they went and played the Rams. He got absolutely shit kicked. So they were talking about that angle. Also for the Seattle Seahawks, now the second week with Rashid Shaheed in the lineup. So their offense probably going to be firing on a much higher cylinder. And, of course, the Cooper Cup return.

We talked about it yesterday. That's seemingly a big deal. Pookin the Kuhu is already like, I can't wait to see, I can't wait to see Cooper Cup. I can't wait. It's going to be awesome. So he might not be thinking about Paul, man. Nine and Dine podcast, hopefully he has another episode maybe before the game with Stafford and Cup. 75% of the money on Seattle is crazy.

Congrats to the Seahawks. Getting some respect. That's what that says to me. Gensity Chiefs at the Denver Broncos, Chiefs favored by three and a half with 58% of the money. Dumpy, your first thoughts on this line. This feels like the Chiefs, you know, AFC West, Broncos at the top right now. There's still the Chiefs Division, and I think they show it in a big way. Broncos kind of been skating by lately.

They've been winning games, but they've been tight. I don't think they can do that this week. AJ, your thoughts on what Gumpi just said and how you see this game going? I mean, as much as I hate to say it, I completely agree with Gump. I kind of have the same thought. I kind of have the same thought. And I don't mean I hate to say, you know, as you were saying, though, Gump, I was just cosigned every single statement you had.

Give me the chiefs on this one. Is it minus three or is it minus three and a half across the board? It's three and a half or four. So if you wanted the Broncos, you're getting in four. Okay, I'll take the Chiefs minus three and a half. You know what, minus four, actually. Give me the Chiefs minus four. Okay, I'll take that.

No, no. Actually, no, I don't want that. Don't to that. I would take that half point. I just got over $500 for the first time last week. Ravens Browns, Ravens favored by seven and a half with 78% of the vote. Yep, I'll run it as well. Give me the Baltimore Ravens minus seven and a half in Cleveland.

I like Dylan Gabriel, though. I don't think he's bad. And that's kind of quietly not been a story anymore. Because until Dylan Gabriel plays full ash cheeks, which is definitely going to come. Maybe this game. Maybe the Baltimore Ravens defense can fully click and confuse the young quarterback. But I see him spinning it, making good decisions, and it's not really a conversation. So good for Dylan Gabriel, good for them and all of it.

But Ravens are on a comeback, revenge tour after starting this season like absolute bums. Sportsbooks had them as the favorites in the AFC North, even whenever they only won one game in the first six or whatever the case was. That's because they know what they have. 78% of the money doesn't scare me because it's already hit this season at 80% rate. Give me the Ravens minus 7 and a half. I love what they're about to do in Cleveland. Man, see, yeah, Lamar, he missed one practice. There's a sore knee, but they said he's fine.

He's full go. He'll be okay on Sunday. You know what? For whatever, I like the Browns here. I think the Browns find a way, their defense finds a way to keep this game closer. Give me the Browns plus seven and a half. What do you guys think about the situation with the quarterback, Pat? because, like, I agree with what you said, especially after the Patriots played the Browns.

Like, Dylan Gabriel is solid. He is a good quarterback. He'll be in the NFL for a while. But at what point do you think that they say, okay, we've seen Dylan, he's great. We can, you know, have him be our guy. Do you think there's a time where this season, where it's like, let's just put Chador out there just to at least see? Because say he goes and plays really well, then he could be a trade piece or Dylan Gabriel could be a trade piece. Do you think that's a possibility at some point? Well, I'm not 100% sure. You know, maybe Shador could play for the plumb Mustangs.

We'd certainly love it. But fifth round, fifth round draft pick rookie, third round draft pick rookie, if they think Dylan Gabriel is their guy for the future, they should give him more reps, right? Like, that's kind of the balance. Like, if you think he's the guy, you should give him more reps. Like backup quarterbacks aren't getting a lot of reps in practice

because the starting quarterback is who they want to go with. So if we do want to get a look at Shador, I love it. I certainly wouldn't mind. watching Shador Sanders play football in the NFL again, certainly would enjoy that, or watch him play football just in general. But if Dylan Gabriel is your guy, more reps the better. Like that is what we're trying to get in this entire thing. Now, I think, do they think long-term Dylan's the guy?

Do they think he's not? I think they're probably trying to figure that out. But that's why the conversation is what it is whenever they draft him in a third round, then they draft Shador in the fifth round, then they bring in Kenny Pickett. They're bringing Joe Flacco. It's like, how are you going to be able to manage it all? And what if you do find a guy is everybody else can be able to find? well, we're going to trade Joe, we're going to get Kenny out here,

and then we're going to play Dylan Gabriel, and then Shador, is he the backup? Well, we'll see. It's like, all right, we're going to piss off everybody. That is, it's an interesting dynamic, but if Dylan's your guy, I think you've got to give him reps. I'm not saying he is. I'm just saying if he is, the more, the better, AJ. That is kind of how I would view it if I was on the team. Yeah, and the fact that they draft him the third round, they want him to be the guy.

So, yeah, he needs to get every single possible look he can in practice and the game. So, yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I think so. Now, granted, to your point, though, Connor, like, can we just get a look at this guy? Like, you guys... I would like to look at Shador. You're right. It would be good to see him in real game action.

Even if you, like, even if they say to Dylan, hey, you are a guy, but we're just going to give, you know, Shador a game. Like, and I'm not going to say... Yeah, not mid-season. Yeah, that's not. But if they... He's still got to Sean Watson, too. Oh, yeah. He might come back.

He could. At some point, he's out... Come back trail. At some point, this year, he will be healthy. enough to play, won't he? I don't know. I don't know. I will see.

But, Connor, I just think if they think Dylan's their guy, reps. Yeah. We need as many as possible. Like, every situation is good situation because it's a situation and he needs more situations. You know, like that is how, if they think he's the guy. If they don't think he's the guy, why not try to see what Shador's got? Like, that is certainly something a lot of us would like to see, but that all comes down to what they think is actually going to be the future there.

Yeah, that's just what I thought about watching the Jets. Because, you know, as you're watching them, it's like, okay, this teams don't work close. But, you know, what happens if they get a quarterback? And then you just start going through, you know, the draft and what draft pick they'll have and stuff. And then you start thinking like, shit, there are guys out there who, like, Shador, who haven't had an opportunity. Like, do you take a flyer on one of those guys and try and pull them out? Do the Browns even trade a Shador? But, yeah, it's just a crazy situation.

Very crazy situation. And obviously all those teams could have drafted Shador. Yeah. Baltimore wanted to draft Shador, and then they were told no, because they didn't want, you know, the potential sit behind Lamar, even though Lamar may be incredible guy to sit behind and learn from. But now there's Cleveland. We'll see how it all works out. We would like to see Shador play football, but also we'd like the Cleveland Browns to make good football decisions for their team, which I think Cleveland Browns fans say, ha! Yeah, right.

That's not how it goes around here. Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday night football. Thank God we got a banger. Yep. Because we're actually going to be waiting all day for Sunday night. Jerry Gough and Gibbs go into Philly fights. Jayleigh Hertz is Siri on E.J. Brown saying, where's the ball for me? They got a lot going on in Philadelphia, always.

They were able to win a Super Bowl with all. always having drama somehow. Like, hey, don't have distractions, don't have drama, don't have negative vibes. Philadelphia's like, yeah, right, brother, we're going to have it every day all the time. We're going to win games and people are going to be pissed off, including our own fans. They're going to call for our head coach's job after we're fucking six and one. They're going to say, we need this guy out of here. Then we're going to go on to win a Super Bowl somehow.

And then on the flip side, the Detroit Lions, they've completely saved an entire city of football fandom by having some greatness with MCDC who's not scared to be a tough guy. And Jared Gough, who's resurrected his career from being a guy who was kicked out of the city of stars to a guy whose name is chanted all around Detroit Rock City.

Who wins? How do they win? Is there any different lines, Tone Diggs? And 82 percent of the public bets riding with the Lions plus two and a half. There are no other lines that is two and a half across the board. And then when you look at injuries, Lions, Terry and Arnold, Kirby

Joseph and Sam LaPorta did not practice. Lane Johnson did practice for the Eagles. So that's your injury report for the game. Foxy, 82% of the people are betting on your team. Congratulations being at this point of life. How do you feel getting two and a half points in Philadelphia on Sunday night? I love it. Got a quick stat for you.

Jared Goff, 22 and 10 against the spread as an underdog with the Detroit Lions. I assume that's why 82% of the people are riding with the Detroit lines. like you mentioned the eagles are kind of a mess right now the media at least is making it that way which as a fan of the lions i actually don't like because that means i think they could come in you know rally and make this a really good game but i like where the lion sit i like where mcdc sits so we'll see how this goes this is a big big test for our lions oh i forgot about four eyes mcdc back behind the wheel oh yeah gumpy your thoughts your thoughts on this uh game here i love the lions, but it reeks, smells like a square dog a little bit. I wouldn't be surprised if the

Eagles win, but I would, as a betting man, I would like the lions on the point. 82% of the bets plus, plus two and a half for the Detroit Lions is what he is referring to as stinky. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it? I mean, Dan Campbell, Carlton plays, Jemir Gibbs, Jared Goff. I have to go with them. Give me the Lions plus two and a half. Hook line and sinker. I'm going with the Lions as well. Have you got a sports book? Exactly what you were. wanted us to do. We did it. Okay, congratulations. They might be running closed Sicilian against us. You know, it's great to have this plum football hoodie on. It's great to be back in the city of

Pittsburgh. Tomorrow will be a hell of a celebration of the greatest sport on earth football here in the city of Pittsburgh. We hope you will join us. College Game Day will be live on ESPN. It will also be live on our X account if you cannot get to ESPN due to any disputes that are taking place. AJ, I know you're going to DoorDash and you can win every week with DoorDash, Save up to $250 this season when you wore on game days. AJ, I know you like that pizza. I like the white, like, linen glove holding it like that all awkwardly with your thumb over top more, actually. AJ, I know you like that pizza.

There you go. Wow. Right through the paper. The paper is part of the problem there. There's the paper. You got short arms, dude. Yeah, Jay, tell us about that pizza that you're holding right there. This beautiful looking, not, pizza actually doesn't look that good.

So I don't know why this Muppet or whatever this thing is doing it's holding it like it is, but maybe that's why because he's so disgusted by this piece of pizza that he's going to hold it. His thumb all weird. All you think he's about to throw that piece of pizza. He's probably going to throw it. I haven't even thought about that. So the Muppet or the duck that is holding that piece of pizza, he's saying, get this shit out of here.

Let me dooredash some good pie. And I'm going to do a lot of that here in Pittsburgh. I couldn't even fathom all the great pizzas in the local spot. that are on DoorDash here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Holy fuck. Have you thought about that tone? Yeah, I just did. I was one in mind.

I literally just thought of the tone. I'm sorry, go ahead. But unfortunately, I know a lot of those mom and pop shop owners, and they're saying we ain't letting DoorDash take any of our money. Oh. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I actually just opened it.

As you were saying it, I just thought of that, too. Like, you think Dallas is letting DoorDash fucking do anything? Not a chance. But it's just because the quality. The quality is so high. And Doordash does great job of actually transporting your food in the concealed bags to keep them warm. But with those mom and pop shops, they just have so much strength on her and respect for their product that they know it just means more when you come into the shop. Yeah, strength and honor, obviously, is what we're looking for whenever you're having a slice of pie around here.

That's right in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hey, great work back there in Indianapolis, boys. You crushed it this week. You too, dude. Big week. Behind the glass. Oh, it was a big week. I completely forgot about it.

It was a huge week. Great work behind the glass, boys. Work, boys. Graphic design, boys. Where you go out there, GDP? There you go. GDPs. GDB.

Mitt, really good work, Mitt. Almost saved the chimpanzee today, Mitt. Tough week for the McMahon family. Mitt showed up every single day. We appreciate him for doing that. AJ, thank you for traveling to Indianapolis, Indiana, here at the Thunderdome. You're the greatest man.

You are truly one of a kind, and nobody will ever do. dispute that. Appreciate that. Good job. You and Gump are going to have a nice dinner tonight?

Where are you going? I'm about to eat like seven. I'm about to eat a lot. You got a lot of people asking to come eat, don't you? Yeah, there's a lot of food that's about to be enjoyed. Great food, so I'm here for it.

But it's going to be one of those ones. I've talked about this whenever when I got arrested for public intoxication, I was put in the NFL Substance of Abuse program. Three months in the first phase, I aced it, and then he moved me

into the second phase. I wasn't happy about that. And second phase was just like the first phase, but it was 24 months long. So in total, 27 months of substance abuse program. I was tested over 200 times, eight times a month I was tested. And, you know, couldn't do anything. Couldn't be seen with a beer. Couldn't do anything.

I used to vacation back in the city of Pittsburgh. I'd come spend Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday back in Pittsburgh. And we would just do one thing and one thing alone. And that would be hammer booth. I mean, we would just absolutely. hammer booze. And I had to stop, you know, for, for 27 months. I had to completely cut it out. And I was getting tested a lot. I learned a lot about myself, cold turkey on everything. And then the lockout happened. And the lockout was no, no testing, okay, because the lockout was out.

There was no testing. So I said, I'm a booze every day of this lockout. So that when it's over, I don't want to booze anymore. You know, like that is, I'm going to, I'm going to really that lockout ended up being a hundred-some days. I'll tell you, I did not expect that. But lo and behold, by the end of that thing, I did not want anything to do with booze. And I would like to thank the city of Pittsburgh because they were a big part of that time during a lockout.

I'd like to thank Nick. Nick's liver, kidney, and insides also took a big hit through that time. Thank you, Nick. Thank you for everything. You're welcome, we're welcome. But, yeah, I appreciate that. I know we won hard. We didn't expect that lockout to be that long.

I don't think any of us did. Boy, we certainly went, and by the time it was over, it was like, all right, I'm not drinking anymore. What today's going to be is I'm going to eat so much food today from here where it's like, all right, I'm good until the next time I come back to Pittsburgh because there's so much good food. So, tomorrow, tomorrow, you're going to see me probably 260,000, 270. I'm about to be stuffed like a pig, but on the way out, I'm not going to want to have it, and I'll be good without it for at least the foreseeable future. So, AJ, this should be a great time here in Pittsburgh. Lucky to be here. Can't wait for tomorrow morning.

Thank you for traveling. Safe Travel is back to Ohio. And yeah, let's enjoy the hell out of the greatest weekend of all time. Be your friend, tell her friend something nice. It might change your life. We're in this thing together. Team on me. Team on three.

Have a good one, boys. You too, man. Feel the love of the city, dude. Well, Rivers Casino could show a little bit more. Oh. Still number one. Good luck. Yeah, a lot of love still.

Six card 21s. A fuck out of my face. That changes. I'm not going out of a casino. Nope. Team on me. Team on three. Have a great weekend.

We love you. Thank you for allowing us to do this for a living. One, two, three. Team. Goodbye.