The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 967 - Michael Lombardi, Kirk Herbstreit, Duke Football Head Coach Mike Elko, Mike The Miz, Pacman Jones LIVE In The ThunderDome, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

On today's show, Pat, Pacman Jones, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about the different contracts around the NFL that still haven't been resolved, Travis Kelce hyperextending his knee in practice leaving his status in jeopardy for Thursday's game, and everything else happening around the NFL as we close in on the start of the season. Joining the show is former GM of the Cleveland Browns, host of the GM Shuffle and Lombardi Line, NY Times best selling author (his new book "Football Done Right," is available today), Michael Lombardi joins the show to chat about everything going on in the NFL as we approach the start of the season, and announce that he'll be on the show every Friday for the entire football season (14:56-51:16). Next, the voice of College Football, Kirk Herbstreit joins the show to chat about whether or not Clemson is dead, an incredible week 1 in college football, and what he's excited about for the NFL season (59:55-1:38:45). Later, Duke Football Head Coach Mike Elko joins the show fresh off a massive win against #9 ranked Clemson, turning Duke around in such a short time, his philosophy, if it's difficult recruiting at Duke with the academic standards, and much more (1:38:47-1:55:09). Lastly, WWE Superstar, Mike The Miz joins the show briefly to talk about his masterclass work in the ring last night on Raw against John Cena (2:02:50-2:06:16). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show. We appreciate the hell out of all of you. We'll see you on Thursday on ESPN, ⁠youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow⁠ , and ESPN's Youtube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello beautiful people. Welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome. On this, whoa, this is the last show for ESPN Tuesday. September 5th, 2023, the sports program starts now. Football! It is happening. Last night there was a field that got stormed because an upset took place when Duke beat the dog shit out of the Clemson Tigers 28-7, which only had seven because of a punt being muffed, you're talking about dominance from Elko, Riley Leonard, and the Blue Devils that all of them seemed to have a belief that they were going to get that done.

Yep. And then all of us who just assumed that that boy Dabo Sweeney was always going to have a great team. Why? Because since that boy Dabo Sweeney has been the head coach of the Clemson Tigers, they've had a team. They've had incredible quarterbacks. They've been able to win games.

They have five stars everywhere. This is an SEC school in the ACC. That's what Clemson is because, remember, that boy Dabo Sweeney learned from Nick Saban in the SEC. This is an SEC. Are they dead? Uh-oh. Feels like it. It might be.

We saw Florida State. Yeah, good luck. Florida State beat the shit out of LSU, and Florida State looked very good. Very fast. Very, very fast. Very tough. Very strong.

They felt very good. Then you also think about North Carolina. North Carolina, what they did to South Carolina, they got Drake Mabels. Let's assume they're going to be a little bit better. Then you start looking at Clemson, and you start looking at the hierarchy of the ACC. It's like, whoa, buddy. What does the future look like

too? And everybody's saying, well, Clemson refused to use the transfer portal when the fashion at other schools are that are having a lot of success. Well, that boy, Dabo Sweeney, go ahead and turn it around to catch up with the modern day. We'll see, I guess. This could be a bad year for Clemson, though. They looked bad last night. Really bad. And

Cade Klubnick, a guy that I really appreciated and really liked and thought that he was going to come into his own, number one dual-threat quarterback out of the country two years ago. Now, that's Shador Sanders, I believe, here as well, which we just watched. Yeah, he's pretty good. We watched with over 500 and some, whatever the case. So I thought he was going to be – he didn't – Rodley Leonard sold the show, and then after the game, he was like,

excuse me, Professor Taylor Smith, Jackson Johnson, whatever the name of the professor was, can you please delay the homework being due at midnight? Because I believe our game ran a little long and Field Storm, it was hard to get out. Sorry about it. That's Duke, though. That's the difference.

And that's a problem for Clemson. We'll talk to Kirk Herbstreit today about 110, about an hour and five minutes, about his thoughts. And remember, his boys went to Clemson. He knows Dabo. He knows Clemson. That's right. He knows Dabo. He knows Clemson. He's seen them win national championships. There's a lot of things to chat about with Kirk Herbstreit,

especially after this electrifying week one of college football happened. Shout out to Labor Day taking place. Shout out to the NFL being a couple days away. There's still some drama around the NFL that we're going to have to chat about. And there's a lot of other shit going on. The Talks at Table is here. At Boston Corner. At Ty Schmidt. One half of the hammer.

Darn! Cowboys turn. Diggs is here. The other half of the hammer. Darn! Cowboys on. The Toxic Table is here. At Boston Corner. At Ty Schmidt. One half of the hammer. Done. Cowboys Tone Diggs is here. The other half of the hammer. Done. Cowboys Bubba Gumpino is here. And 14-year. NFL icon Pac-Man Jones is here. Hey, Pac.

You look super fucking cool today. Great for you, brother. Did you see this? Snap. Snap out. Smell me? Oh, no way. Rip them off.

Snap off. Tear them away for what's below. No, no, no. We don't got levels to this. We don't have layers. You're not wearing shorts already? That is a rookie move, my friend. Commando, man.

Hey, those were, yeah, because they're not normally the tightest up top because they can't be because half of it just splits in half. Yeah, you can yank them. So normally those things do fall down. That was our generation, I think. Oh, yeah. The tearaway snap downs. I mean, that was an incredible time.

And then obviously, you know, I think Val Venis used to. Yes, he did. Just go ahead and start that. And once we saw Val Venis do his thing with his hips, those snap-offs were never viewed the same way. They had a little fashion. Ladies. There it is.

They cut his penis off, actually, on the one night. He grew it back, though. But what did happen was I don't think people ever wore those again. So now I'm getting to see them. They're coming back. It feels good. It feels good to see those again.

It's a nice little taste of nostalgia. And if you need to make something happen in a jiffy, we are in there. No problems. Good for you.

With the chucks, too. Did you see that? Good look. Hey, you look good today, Pac. Just don't fall because you land on those buttons and it fucking hurts.

On the knee, on the outside of the knee? Never really think about falling. It's never been a problem. I'm pretty balanced. You are getting older. You're getting a little slower. Something to think about. 4'5", you are faster than most older people.

I feel good today. Seven-minute mile, you know. You ran over here? Yeah. Fox ran 644 today, I heard it. Yes, sir. Do you go on the one that doesn't have any control on it? The bent one? Or do you go on the normal

trip? The normal one. So he runs on that sprinting one. It's a little bit different there. It has no brakes. That thing's just all gas. I'm so used to it at this point, I kind of forget. I honestly... Let's go, Fox. It kind of terrifies me a little bit to get on there. It does. I feel like I'm going to tear an ACL. Yeah, you're just going to

keep running, then you're going to fall. But Foxy's on there every single morning. Yeah, moves good. 125 pounds, but he's been doing arms and stuff. That's right. Because he has a little brother who's like a more handsome, jocked version of him. Taller. He's a little bigger beard. Better beard. More jock. His hair's

a longer hair. Something's never changed, you longer hair I've heard this my whole life about my little brother this is the first time I've ever had to send it out of my mouth my entire life since we were this tall everyone's like wow that's your bigger brother no it's not that's my little brother no no he might be your younger brother yeah that's what you're saying

what is his name? Ben Ben's a dog dude Ben has fucking traps. Yeah. We're talking. Yes, he does. Ben is like if, so he's like the, Fox is like the H&M model of the family. Yeah.

I call it the mannequin. Yep. Okay, this motherfucker got no muscle tone, but he is the mannequin. Nah, not those H&M ones. You ever seen them? True. I've never been in there. Under Armour.

They got those. Yeah, you're talking about like the sportsers. The H&M ones are just like in there. He's like the Under Armour man. Yeah, bingo. Tractor supply. Yeah, bingo. That's who he is.

It is unbelievable. Yeah, O-lineman, D-lineman in high school. I will say this about the Fox family. All of them hilariously handsome. Like fucking hilariously attractive looking for a white face. So then this one neighbor boy, who I don't know what his name is, you probably know who it is.

I was talking to Ben and I think the other one, and clearly just looked exactly like Fox. This was my first time getting to chat with him. And then there was this other one, clearly not a Fox. He was like, I'm the other brother. And I'm like, no, you are not. No offense to you,

but you are not a Fox. No, he's not. What we are talking about here, I'm talking about just a chiseled fucking jawline. His hair is just whatever. And then this guy who looks a lot more like me or Connor was like, I'm a fox. I'm like, you are not. No offense to you. Your family's awesome though, Foxy.

Yeah, my older brother actually skinnier than me too, believe it or not. He also talks a little bit more shit. I do believe he's a bit more toxic than Evan. 10 million times yeah i'll pick that up yeah i can go on from ever yeah yeah he talked about his golf game and about how he just ruins evan in about hole one or whatever i'm like oh this guy pretty this guy goes this guy's a little bit different than uh evan is but your family is is fantastic appreciate it i don't know where we were headed before that but i do know the lines are kicking off the NFL season on Thursday night against Kansas City Chiefs.

I would love to talk about MCDC being a part of the Manning cast audition and crushing it just like everything else he's ever done. I would love to chit-chat about Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid building another dynasty that we're going to talk about forever, much like we're going to celebrate this weekend with Tom Brady going back to New England for the first time as a fan

and I assume getting everything fucking retired and everything that's going to happen. That's going to celebrate this weekend with Tom Brady going back to New England for the first time as a fan. I assume getting everything fucking retired and everything that's going to happen. That's going to happen with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid at some point in Kansas City. It's going to be an incredible day whenever that takes place. But that's not what the conversation is. Chris Jones is not there. No, he's not. Chris Jones, though, just tipped the iceberg whenever we start looking into it, whenever you talk about a little defensive drama.

Chris Jones is Defense Player of the Year candidate. He is not with Kansas City Chiefs. Defense Player of the Year, Bosa, not with the San Francisco 49ers. Christian Wilkins, dog for the Miami Dolphins. He is currently holding in. Is that still the case, Gumpy? He's playing. He's good to go week one.

Okay, so they figured that out. He's no longer mad about it? They just didn't get a deal done in time. Oh, okay. Well, I guess. We'll circle back in the offseason. Training camp's over. that out. He's no longer mad about it? They just didn't get a deal done in time. Oh, okay. We'll circle back. Training camp's over. Circle back. I mean, if we weren't going to pay me, I wasn't going to do all that bullshit. I guess I'll play the regular season, though, so I appreciate

Christian Wilkins figuring that out. Clemson guy? Met him down in Clemson. That might have been the last time Clemson had a good day. Chris Jones. Chandler Jones now, we're finding out, might be in the middle of a situation with the Raiders. This has not been talked about at all. Obviously, Chandler Jones is, we're finding out, might be in the middle of a situation with the Raiders. This has not been talked about at all. Obviously, Chandler Jones is this guy who's just a specimen, comes from a family of specimens. You're talking about the greatest fighter of all time is one of his brothers.

His little brother, Arthur Jones, won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens. He is just an absolute freak show and has over 10 sacks in like the last 15 years straight. That's just how he does it. He's posted some shit on his Instagram stories that made us go, wait a minute. What's going on over there? What's going on? What is going on over there? They won't let me in the building, though.

Trying to provoke, and I would assume there's a word there that I cannot say. Right. Oh, okay. You know what I'm talking about? No, I do. Yeah, I thought it was just blank. Like you fill it in. Oh, he was like, hey, whatever you're thinking.

Mad Libs. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. I think it was probably. You know what he said. I know what he said. What?

It was not trying to provoke a N. A guy? What was that? A N word. No. No. That's what you think that said? That's not okay.

Whoa. I thought it said guy. Me too. I don't want him to be offended by me saying he's just a normal guy. Because he's not a normal guy. I know exactly what he said. Hold on. Hold on. You're telling me he says, they won't let me in the

building though. Trying to provoke a... No. That's what he said. So you're telling me, he says, they won't let me in the building, though, trying to provoke a... No. Whoa. Is that what he said? Okay. What? All right, that's good journalism. People say we don't have that.

Got to the bottom of it. So quickly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because you can't see it. Well, it looks like it's four letters, like dog. Not anything that has a W and a G. Yeah, not anything that has more than four letters. All right.

Well, now that's figured out. I guess what he's talking about, though, is there's some sort of situation going on with the building and Chandler Jones not being able to get in, not being able to get a hold of somebody, not being able to talk to somebody. 20 hours ago, though, he posted that he got him both Tom Ford sunglasses, both Josh McDaniels and the general manager. So I have no idea if they're in the middle of a negotiation and things are going good. We almost got a deal done. Let me go get some shades. And all of a sudden things went bad. I don't know if there's actual personal petty beef going on. I don't know if something happened quickly, like what allegedly happened with Darren Waller and Josh McDaniels, where Josh McDaniels gave away, I think, allegedly where Darren Waller and Kelsey Plummer were getting married. And they were like, we hate this guy. This is not how this is going to go down.

This is a very interesting thing that just, fuck it. I don't want to play for the Raiders if that's my head coach or GM. I want Patrick Graham. Ivy League. Whoa! That might have been it. With the salute emoji.

Five letters. You were doing the math there. You were doing the math. You thought it was four. You mis been it. With the salute emoji. Five letters. You were doing the math there. You were doing the math. Yeah. You thought it was four. You misread it. Yeah, you did. It was five letters.

Yeah, that's right. But anyways, what is it? What? And I would like to ask the Raiders people. We understand that we have an East Coast bias. And the Raiders, the only conversation we genuinely had was about Jimmy G not being healthy enough to fulfill his obligations as a starting quarterback for their team. And then Devontae Adams said, I don't know what the hell they're doing over here.

So that's some negative stuff. We apologize for that. We hope you have a great year. Josh Jacobs is back. That's good news. But this particular case, I did not know this was happening. Did anybody know this was taking place? And what do we think is popping off, Adam?

It came out of left field, but he is pissed about something. Yeah, and I don't know how this – is it a deal money thing? He said he wanted them in his building. Yeah, that's what doesn't make sense. And to Dixie's point, like he's been paid a couple times. Is this possibly just McDaniels as a head coach isn't as successful as before because this is his second stint, and again, it's going sour. I honestly, when I first saw it, I was like,

Mark Davis forgot to pay the electric bill again. His key fob didn't work and it's just like, what the fuck's going on? But really, you know, gotta go to dinner, guys. And he forgot to pay the electric bill. Because out in Vegas, there's a lot of five-star restaurants, so he's going to have to go to dinner a lot. Exactly. Well, they've got a lot of rain recently, so maybe Al was dealing with

some flooding in his house. And he probably pays his cell phone, but Al's passed away. Rest in peace. Speaking about Davis, Michael Lombardi will be joining us in about five minutes. Hell yeah. And he probably pays the cell phone bill. House. House. House. House. Speaking about Davis, Michael Lombardi will be joining us in about five minutes. Hell yeah. And I believe he worked for him. He probably pays the cell phone bill, though, for the GM and for the head coach, too. So maybe that's the issue. It's been tough to contact them.

So I do love the fact, and Registrants are going to hate this, that immediately upon something like this happening, we go, oh, the ineptitude of the building is what is the actual problem here, because that could be the case. But also, why would this be a case? Josh McDaniels doesn't feel like a guy who would ever want his players not to get extra working. No. Right?

Yeah, definitely not. That would be the complete opposite of what we think of Josh McDaniels. I think Josh McDaniels is known for a lot of things. I think being an asshole is one of them. And normally, it's like work, work, work like work work work work work work not be a human work work can't communicate with people can't let people know your actual feelings can't get something point across without coming across as just like a robot i think that's what people think of josh mcdaniel now he and tom brady had a great relationship but he is a head coach with denver

did not end up well i mean then there was other things in situations now he's out here so it's like him wanting to get extra work feels like a weird thing for him to get mad about. But if that is the case, hey, let that guy work. Let him work. It was Labor Day yesterday. Yeah. He wanted to work on it. Let the guy work if he wants to work.

And let Chandler know we're on your side. If you want to get better and they're not letting you, fuck them. But also, let's bet against the team that's not letting anybody get better. 100%. Okay, that's a little bit of an issue. You have to. That's how we had to think about the Bengals for a while when they didn't have an indoor facility. It's like, guys don't really want to get extra work whenever it's four degrees

and maybe it's snowing sideways. You think guys want to go get extra work out next to that fucking road? Or you think maybe they'll say, eh, tomorrow, we'll see if the weather's better. Where guys who have an indoor facility are like, I'm gonna go run 30 extra routes, I'm gonna go hit this thing, I'm gonna go do this because I have the opportunity. It's here. So if Chandler Jones wants extra work,

they won't let him. What are they doing? Is this the pros? Is this the highest level? What are we doing? The timeline makes no sense either. If they were negotiating for a while, you would think that we would have heard about this a little sooner as opposed to he's going and buying them very nice sunglasses from Tom Ford and then the next day he's like,

fuck these guys. I don't want to play here anymore. Like, that just makes no sense. And you would assume McDaniels, like, he was the OC, but, like, they spent time together in New England too. So he says in one of those posts, like, hey, I've known this. I've known my head coach and GM for a long time. Like, they've known me since I was a kid, so it's weird that things would go sour so quickly.

Yeah, I hope everything's okay. Right. Right at the scene. For sure. We only got four or five days for the game. Yeah. And they traded for him, too. They went out and got him from Arizona.

That was one of their first moves, I thought. Joining us now is a man who might have the information for this. Obviously, he's been a general manager in the NFL. He's been a consultant in the NFL. He's an author. He's a TED Talker. He's a podcast host. He's a live show host. He's a manager in the NFL. He's been a consultant in the NFL. He's an author. He's a TED Talker. He's a podcast host. He's a live show host.

He's a friend of the program. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Lombardi. Lomba, we'll dive into this being a massive day for you and how incredibly proud we are of you for releasing Football Done Right, his most recent book, is available today. We'll dive into this later. We'll dive into this later. Let's talk about what's going on right now here. So it's Chandler Jones stuff ends up on his Instagram

story. And obviously we've been talking about defensive drama. You know, you got Bosa, you got Chris Jones, you have Wilkins having a thing, Brian Burns in Carolina. Now Chandler Jones name has popped into the stratosphere because of an Instagram story. And this popped up about him not being able to get into extra work and the text message. I don't know who he's texting there, but there's certainly some interesting messages from top to bottom there. But then you look 20 hours ago, he was buying Tom Ford sunglasses for the head coach and the general manager

on his Instagram story. Do you know anything about this and what could this be about? And how'd we get here? We had no idea there was anything brewing. You know, I didn't have any idea there was anything brewing either. And I usually talk to my son on the way to work in the morning. And of course, he only tells me about the grandchildren. So I don't hear about much of what's going on in the building. I can't tell.

But here's what I do know. I think everybody's waiting for Nick Bosa's contract to get done, because it's going to set off a lot of interest in terms of where this is going. We know T.J. Watt got $28 million a year. He got as close to Aaron Donald as you can get. He got $80 million guaranteed. Miles Garrett's at $25 million. So I think what all these ends are waiting for is the reestablishment of the market for Nick Bosa. Now, the Chandler Jones one, sometimes it never always goes as planned with Chandler Jones.

So you always have to be a little bit wondering what's happened because one minute he was happy. Yesterday, today, he's not. Yeah, it's fascinating. We hope everything's okay, too, because you also have to think, like, maybe he's just going through something right now where he's pissed off. So we hope he's okay. Not that that could be the case. And maybe there's this whole story that we had no idea was brewing behind the scenes. And we hope everybody ends up with everything they want exactly that's what happens out there

and obviously that won't be the case but let's go with brian burns he's holding out and you just alluded to it there with bosa and then now obviously chris jones and the chiefs are allegedly this is just being reported on the internet who knows what's real allegedly chris jones and chiefs way off bosa and the niners close do we know if that's real. Allegedly, Chris Jones and the Chiefs way off. Bosa and the Niners close. Do we know if that's real? And what does that actually mean? Look, I think the Bosa deal is real because it's not a hard contract to do. The conversation centers on a couple of factors. Are we going to pay you more than Aaron Donald? The contract is old. Aaron Donald's contract was done a while ago. And it's still $7 million higher than the nearest defensive tackle, right?

Quinton Williams' deal didn't even come close to where Donald is. And Williams isn't the same player. He's great, but he's not Aaron Donald. However, that being said, it's kind of an older contract. So the Bosa deal is, look, are we going to pay you more? We know T.J. Watt's deal came in at $28 million. We know Miles Garrett's deal at $25 million. Can we settle this at $28 million. We know his model Garrett's deal at $25 million. Can we settle this at $31 million?

Is it $30 million? Is it $29 million? And then you get into the guarantee. T.J. got $80 million fully guaranteed. Bosa's certainly going to get over $100 million. Some guys, as we talked about last week with Kyler Murray's deal, the skill and the injury play a factor in the total guarantee. But I fully expect Bosa to get done i

have expected this for a while it's not a hard contract to do it's how much are they going to get close to donald or they're going to over donald okay and obviously then the guarantees the bosses have been pretty adamant business-wise about the guarantees even whenever a contract is slotted like a draft contract well the is we're going to max them out. The Bosa have been known for that. Hopefully they get it done. We're getting close, though, right? I mean, this is too close for comfort.

You said it's an easy deal. We said it's an easy deal. Schefter said it was an easy deal. Rapport said it was an easy deal. Everybody said, yeah, it'll get done. It's just how it goes. Bosa hasn't done a lot of training camps. He's played pretty good.

So next question. Thanks. Trey Lance, yeah, we're trading him. Yeah, thanks. That's what Shanahan actually said. And now we're getting four days, five days. Why is it, you know, in there, there should be an urgency. Well, in these deals, you argue over language. Like let's take Joey Bosa's deal. He argued with the Chargers. It wasn't the guarantee as much as it was the language of the payback of the guarantee. That's what held that deal up and he got 100 million guaranteed and so a lot of these times when you're in these negotiations it's the disbursement of the funds that creates some conversations and it takes

longer when are we going to pay you most most people think the nfl has this bundle of cash sitting in the bank that they're just going to disperse. When in reality, the NFL is they get their money when the TV pays. They get some money in August, September, October, November, December, and January. They get the bulk of their TV revenue. And that's the cash flow for NFL teams. And so when you pay out to the players, you have to be aware of your cash flow, especially considering if you did something in the offseason where you paid. And that becomes a little bit of a tenuous negotiation. Okay, well, hopefully they're able to get it done. You think he plays this weekend,

regardless of when this deal gets done? Today's Tuesday. If he's in by Wednesday, he plays. As long as the heat and humidity isn't a factor. Look, they've got to get him on the field. He'll be involved in, forget downs, he'll be involved when Pittsburgh's in 11 personnel. He'll be involved in critical situations for the fourth quarter. That's going to be most important. As you guys know, having played the game, if you put him out there and he's not 100%, he ends up getting injured, and that's the worst thing that could happen.

So you've got to gradually bring him back into this. Yeah, but we're assuming he's in shape. He bosa yeah you know he's a jungle cat i mean look i could say this i mean most of these guys work out they're not you know like josh jacobs he's been in camp will he play hell yeah he's probably in really good shape to play and so these holdouts sometimes are better for the teams because you know the running back's not going to get hurt and you know bosa wasn't going to play in the preseason anyway it's like joe burrow i mean yes he's got a calf but he's going to play and he'll play well last year he had five turnovers they had five turnovers as a team but they moved the football up and down the field on pittsburgh

they just turned it over okay so i appreciate the silver lining there like yeah we had no opportunity to get josh jacobs hurt here in training camp right then he wasn't even a question we playing him in preseason hey he's not here we don't we don't even have to answer that question now we got a healthy josh jacobs going in congrats the raiders hopefully chandler jones situation gets figured out the bosa situation gets figured out sounds like what you're saying though about chris jones is that he's waiting on the bosa deal to get done you think and then once that deal gets done then they'll figure out where he falls in place there. And they're saying they're far away. What does that mean? What does that mean? Well, I think they're far away because Quentin Williams comes in at 24 million. And so they could give him a bump up to that number. But I think he wants to get a number

that's above Aaron Donald, which is in that defensive end number. To me, TJ walked at 28 million. So look, this guy on the field last year was the most disruptive inside player. He was one of the best defensive players in the league last year. There's no one could argue that. 15 and a half sacks, 48 quarterback hits. You know, when you take him out of their defense, it's going to force Spagnola to run more of a zero. He's got to put some pressure on him.

And you can run the football on Kansas City now. And without him, it's going to be a completely different game. When you play Kansas City with Chris Jones at three technique, I don't think people understand how important a three technique is in the NFL. And they're not just an abundance, right? They're just not out there. They're like quarterbacks. They're hard to find. And when you have a great one, they're hard to stop. So you have to set the protection to this three technique. Without Chris Jones, you just come to the line of scrimmage and run whatever protection you want. There's a big difference in the game.

Yeah, it's easier to run some games whenever you've got a three technique who commands attention in the middle of the offensive line. You know, you can chip as much as you want, but you run out of numbers at some point whenever the focal point's in the middle. I hope they get it done. You think he's going to get traded, though? There was a little conversation this weekend that the team that you were used to be the general manager of was going to go ahead and trade for Chris Jones.

Cleveland Browns, we're going to go ahead and bring him in. You think Veach will have to move on, or you think this gets ugly enough for that to take place, or how do you think it works out? I think different than Jonathan Taylor, everybody will pay Chris Jones. I think different than Jonathan Taylor, people will pay a premium to get them just because of the position, not because of anything other than we know there's a lot of running backs. There are no three techniques. This is completely an economic issue, right? Supply and demand. There's no three techniques. Look, as great as the Bucks were on defense without the three technique, without the great Warren Sapp,

they're not the same team, right? That's why Sapp's got a gold jacket, because that's what makes the defense. Pete Carroll will tell you, in 2013 and 14, when they were 22 and two at home, it was because they had a great defensive front. And Michael Bennett at three technique was a disruptive force. And without that, they're not the same team. There goes home field home field advantage you know they're 20 and 15 over the last three years wonder why you don't have a three technique interesting so chris jones knows that which it sounds like he understands that and hopefully he'll get paid because we're gonna miss him on thursday yeah we're gonna miss watching this you're saying there's only a few of these guys that exist the best one in the nfl we won't get to see thursday night but hopefully business-wise it'll all end up panning out and my last one for you about a situation that you brought up on this

show before the boys have the questions you brought up the Kyler Murray contract situations you alluded to it a little bit earlier where there's like another 56 million dollars guaranteed to Kyler if he was to get injured if he comes back this particular season and you said with looking at that contract the way it's set up with where he is, you're assuming they're not going to play him. You think they're not going to play him. That got picked up by some other people, obviously became a storyline and all this. I saw this video of Kyler Murray walking

last weekend, last Friday night with the captains here. And I know he's coming off an injury and they're not expecting him to start now, but I mean, his gait looks a little bit slow. You know what I mean? He's talking to these ladies at UL Speed, walking, I don't know how far along he is. He's probably a few months out.

But with all of this happening around him, with what you just said, they just named him captain yesterday. Okay, he's captain of the team. And I think there were some inside sources saying we're going to play him. That is not a real thought. Everybody's been bought in to Kyler Murray.

That's how they got their jobs. What do you think about that? And if you had to say right now, if you had to bet, let's say all of the money that this book gets, if you had to bet that, now I know you're not a gambling man. You're just like giving everybody else information

to gamble with. But if you had to do that, what would you say? Kyler plays or doesn't play this year? I think he doesn't play. Just look at him walk there. First of all, lateral quickness is his game, right? You put him out there and he's not 100%. That's really on the club. That's

not on Kyler. You can't risk that. And you and I both know coming off an ACL, if you don't have your same quickness or speed, look at James Robinson. He was a really good running back for Jacksonville. Got the injury. He hasn't been the same since. You got to be really careful when you rush a guy back. And where I think the Cardinals will be when he could be medically cleared to play see here's the big difference being medically cleared to play and being able to play are two different things the doctor can clear him but can he play to the level that we're used to seeing him play that to me is a standard that's above and beyond a doctor. Okay, so you're thinking that he's just not going to make it back? I don't think he could make it back. And if I were the GM of the Cardinals,

I wouldn't want him to come back. And now I will say this, if he acts like the leader of the team, since he's been named the captain, and he's doing everything to be a great player and to immerse himself in the team, and he's on the headset and he's encouraging players during the week and he's doing all the things we want, I got no problem picking up the money because he's going to be the starting quarterback. However, that being said, look, you watched Drake May this weekend. I was texting you. That kid's special, right?

Caleb Williams is special. Michael Pennix is really good. There's Sam Hartman. Wow, we got a lot of quarterbacks. Let's be honest here. Let's be honest. Yeah. Sandersbacks let's be honest here let's be on yeah let's say sanders let's be honest right like there's a lot of quarterbacks right you got the first pick in the draft you these are business decisions they're not emotional decisions and you've got to make the right call you know if caleb williams was coming out last year i don't

think the bears trade the pick i just don't i don't and with these quarterbacks i'm watching, I can't wait for college football because every Saturday we're going to see a quarterback play that's really good. And I think that's going to drive it as well. That's a very fascinating development there. You're saying that you don't think he's going to be able to be healthier, his best version of himself to get back. There's also a thought like, what would their record be when he gets back? And is it like, do we want to potentially risk the $56 million? But if they do that, then they're potentially pissing him off, right? Just like the Derek Carr situation, then they have to move on. And then the news coming out of the building that when they were hired,

they were all in on Kyler Murray, like that doesn't change the way you think at all? You don't think that's a part of it or a stipulation of it all? I think that's a PR statement. I think that's noise. I don't think that's accurate. I think, to me, if you take that job, you know, you've got to say just like when Sean Payton took the job in Denver, he was he took the job, basically saying, let me evaluate Russell. I know you guys signed Russell, but I'm going to make my determination on Russell as we move forward. I think the month of September will go a lot to that evaluation, right? I don't know where Sean would be at this point, but I think he's not locked in. It isn't

like, okay, Russell's on the team, forget about it. I think it's the same thing there. You can't predispose these financial decisions, especially when you make a change in the coaching staff. Here's where I think people got a lot of things messed up. Kime and the owner, Michael Bidwell, they wanted Kyler Murray. And they hired Cliff to help coach Kyler. It wasn't Cliff came in and then brought Murray in. People have this backwards. They wanted Murray, and they thought Cliff would be the right head coach. That's the difference.

And now Kime's not there anymore, so things have changed. That is a very interesting development because it's not like cliff has any say it's like no cliff you're here to make our guy that we want good that is and when that doesn't happen well when they have a little bit of success i guess they have 11 wins and they see development they're like all right it's working let's pay you again and then kyler says i hate this guy yeah and they're like well fuck this is the complete opposite of what you're supposed to do and then he's gone gm's gone and then now the new coach new gm are in a situation where they got a contract from somebody else that they have to abide by and you're saying as a person has probably been in the situation before that's a pr statement that's not very real and once we get two three months into this thing and then once fans start seeing what's

the potential and what's possibilities, they'll buy in with us as well. Let's just kind of move forward. Fascinating out there because he got paid a lot of money. Yeah. And it was real loud. Real loud. Top ten draft pick.

Yeah. MLB and the NFL. Oh, yeah. Incredible athlete. Only had success. Literally, that's it. And then now, for whatever reason, it's not working out. I'm fascinated by it. And what will he become? You think he goes somewhere and becomes good?

I think the hard part is he's got to defeat this the way people defend them, right? And so people rush him inside. It's what's happened to Baker Mayfield. When you attack him inside the paint, which is the area between the two guards back to the quarterback, if you get in front of Kyler Murray, he plays small, which he is. But if you allow him to make those beat-beat plays where he's running right, running left, and that speed and that quickness in the open field with that gun that he has as an arm, then all of a sudden he becomes different. But if you go back and watch the Seattle game the last year before the playoff game and the Rams game, you watch those two games, the way people rushed him, the defensive coordinators

that understand pass rush is really the only way to control great quarterbacks. They got it right, and I think that he's not been able to offset that. I'm excited to see how Bryce Young handles it all. Connor has a question for you. Yeah, Lambeau, a place that is near and dear to both of our hearts, Foxborough,

Massachusetts, is bringing Brady back home this weekend on Sunday. There's been a lot of stuff from both Tom and Bill talking about the relationship. From your experience, what are those two like, especially now that Tom is no longer the competitor

in the league? Do you expect maybe a retirement from number 12? Maybe the Patriots have left a backup spot for Tom to come back and play perhaps what do you think we can expect on Sunday and also just Patriots as a whole are we just gonna fucking suck this year or what's kind of the expectation I should have well let's start the first thing I mean I've been around both of them in the meetings with both of them and I think there's just tremendous mutual respect I think Bill learned a lot of about the quarterbacking position from Tom and Tom

learned a lot about culture and building a football team and how to win games from Bill. So I've never seen anything but mutual respect. And like in any relationship, there's always going to be highs and lows. You know, this didn't work. Oh, shoot, we should do this. But I think it was based on mutual respect and that's the only thing you can do and i think the loyalty to one another and loyalty is about telling each other what the truth is right loyalty is about saying the truth so i think they both tell each other the truth so i think that's really i think it's good i think it's only going to get better because i think when brady went to tampa i think brady assumed like a lot of us do, that everything that

happens in New England happens at all 31 other places in terms of preparation, attention to detail, all that. And what he found when he got there, people look different. People do things differently. It's not all the same. And so when you're institutionalized, like we are in that system, you look at it and say, whoa, wait a minute, this isn't what I'm used to. I think there's a greater sense of appreciation. As far as New England, I think their offensive line's got to come together early in the season. I think they're really good on defense. They're going to play better against these movement quarterbacks.

They were 0-4 against them last year. But I think they're going to be good on defense. Stevenson's good. I think Zeke Elliott's got a little juice left in him because he's no longer hurt than he was last year. Look, it's going to be hard. The division's hard. Every game's hard.

I mean, this is what I laugh about. People say, well, they've got a hard schedule. Tell me what's an easy schedule. Yeah, I know. I mean, nobody ever – it's like what I wrote about in the book. You know, like Marty Schottenheimer won 200 freaking games in pro football. Like nine people on planet Earth did that. And yet this poor guy can't get a sniff to get

the Hall of Fame because he didn't win a playoff game or two playoffs. Give me a break. You know how hard it is? This whole nonsense, the schedule. I promise you, everybody in Baltimore are tight because Arizona is coming to town. They're not sitting there thinking, oh, we're playing a lame dunk. We're

playing a terrible team. They're worried about it. Everybody you worry about every game every week. Yeah, everybody's getting paid. Everybody has a salary cap. It's always going to be tough. And if you look at the teams that stink, normally they'll be in like nine, ten games, one score games where if they just so happen to pick up a fumble, let's say a center sneezes while snapping the ball,

and it hits his left ass cheek instead of straight back, and the quarterback misses it, and the D-tackle scores a touchdown. Bang, these teams that are 2-15 potentially have like four – which happens in football, all those things. All the time. It happened in New England last year. We could go through five plays in New England season. No, we're good.

And it would have changed their season. Connor knows that. I mean, so they're not that far – you're not that far away. They weren't getting beat like Chicago, which was getting beat by an average of eight and a half points, or unfortunately like the Colts, which got beat by, you know, those two teams were

what I call 50-minute teams. They played well for 50 minutes, and then it fell apart. Yeah, there's always going to be one or two plays that are going to get you. For the Colts, there was four or five a game last year. For the Bears, there was more, which is good. That's why I said number one overall pick. Only way it can go is up, see? Only way it can go is up.

I want to go back. You said that Tom's going to have greater appreciation for New England because he thought that everywhere was like New England. I think Bill probably too with Tom, right? Oh, yeah. I can make any quarterback. No, I think, look, the way that Tom

behaves, his work ethic his dedication his ability to take his craft seriously like peyton did like some of the greats i mean this is a little bit of a you know generations have come and gone since tom brady has had that long career there and people are different you know we have social media now there's a lot of distractions and i think there's certainly an appreciation for somebody who sees the way to compete the same way as those two guys have. I think that's hard to find today. Yeah, I'm appreciative of the fact that we got to witness it.

Yes. I think there's going to be more. Like what I learned about Drake May whenever I met him, not a social media guy, didn't even sniff at the 5 million thing. Don't even want to look at it. Just here. I want to play football. Yeah, me too. Because when I hear that, I'm like, I hear a little bit of an old school fucking guy

who has the body to potentially do it and the skill to do it. Then Deion talking about Shador. Like the way he talks about Shador, how he acts, how he wants the ball. It's like, alright, we got a couple guys in a couple generations here that'll hopefully continue to carry the mantle because this young group, Burrow, Mahomes, Allen, Herbert.

It feels like they're like Hurts, certainly. Lamar, we got a good crew coming in. We got superstars on the way. It's a big deal for the league whenever that happens, but what Tom and Bill were able to accomplish, god damn. Look at Hurts' career. I mean, he's a kid who got benched at a half time of the sugar of a championship game because he couldn't throw the ball effectively and he changed his career he went and he all he did is keep his head down and work hard went to oklahoma he didn't i mean

remember him on the sideline of that of that game you know where he got benched and he's cheering on to it i mean that says a lot about the character of the human being and you have to applaud that and i think that's something that goes into the evaluation process and i think it does on dion i think it's what's been untold about dion is i think dion's weekend proved that he's really a he's a great leader and leadership matters for head coaches and b he picked a really good coaching staff. And he let those guys coach. He let that offensive, Sean Lewis, the offensive coordinator of Colorado, former head coach at Kent State, did a great job.

The defensive staff. And I think what Deion understood was he's a great recruiter. He can pick talent. And he's also willing to let his coaches work within the program. Holds players accountable. program holds players accountable. He holds them accountable, you know, and that's something that people are sometimes scared to do,

but not Dion. Dion knows he's got that gold jacket. He knows the standard of excellence to be a great player and a great team. I applaud him. Yeah. Everybody knows the standard, but a lot of people don't have the courage to withhold it. That's right.

You know what I mean? Like a lot of people just take the easy way out and go, oh, he'll figure it out. Oh, he can get away with it. To be a person who has the resume, has the gold jacket, wants the standard, knows the standard, but also says not scared to have the uncomfortable, hey, you're fucking up.

Yeah. That can't happen. Like that isn't something a lot of people have. And I do believe that that's been misunderstood about Deion since the entire thing has started, even whenever he was back at Jackson State. And we heard West Virginia was potentially interested. And I'm like, yo, sign Deion.

Let's get Deion as our head coach. And then you heard people that didn't really fully understand Deion. They're like, we don't need that type of ball. It's like, what is that type of ball? What is that type of ball? Hard working? Winning? Winning?

A little bit of moxie and swagger. That is like a perfect football team is what Deion's looking for. Batisio might suck, right? Let's see how they do Nebraska. Let's see how they back it up. There's a young crew, brand new. Let's go in and back it up against Nebraska. I'm excited to watch it. Pac-Man has a question

for you, Lombo. Lombo, with your experience with the Joe Burrow contract situation, would you try to go ahead and get this contract done before the season, or is it not a rush situation? Me personally, I think you would want him to be most comfortable. With your experience, how would you handle that? Well, Pac-Man, you played there, right? You know how Mike Brown is.

And when Mike brown says he's going to pay somebody i think there's probably a short list of people that he's ever said that about right i mean you can you can amen me on that one there and i love mike brown i think mike brown's i think mike brown's old school and i love everything about mike brown and i love about his father and all those things so i don't think burrow's the type of kid where he's going to let this bother him i think he's got an agent to handle it. And when the agent says we got a deal done, then he's going to go in and sign the deal. But I don't think it's going to affect him. I think he's watching Jim Schwartz's defense of Cleveland. I think he's fully immersed in

the season because he knows he's going to get paid. And Mike Brown has admitted he's going to pay him, has admitted this. So I don't think there's much to worry about. I think it won't affect him whatsoever. And I think what he's probably pissed off about is he turned the ball over five times against Pittsburgh in the opener last year, and they lost. Well, I hope his calf is okay. Yeah. But if this thing does linger, you know,

the conversation is going to get loud about are they able to afford him? You know, are they able to afford you know are they able to afford them because you talk about that yeah everybody thinks you just have a pile of money around the nfl that's not how everywhere is you know yeah but mike's smart mike mike you know look mike understands that you have to pay for something that you can't find i i don't think they'll they'll find the money i mean they'll find the money just like colorado decided they found the money for deon sometimes you just got you have to find the money and i don't think they'll find the money. I mean, they'll find the money. Just like Colorado decided they found the money for Deion. Sometimes you just got, you have to find the money. And I don't get the sense from Burrow. I think he's going to be like Kelsey and he's going to be like McKenzie, Patrick Mahomes.

I think he's going to be, look, I want a good deal, but I don't need to have everything. Right. That's just my sense of the kid. I could be wrong. A hundred million in Ohio too. Oh yeah. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Go ahead, Ty. Lambeau, going back to JT, when it came out that the Packers were potentially the mystery team, a lot of people were saying, it's possible that the Colts still trade him before the October 31st trade deadline. We heard Shane Steich say that in his absence,

it'll kind of just be a running back by committee. Whoever's got the hot hand is going to get the most, most of the carries. But if you're Chris Ballard, do you think there's a chance after he comes off pup that they are going to try to trade him this year? Or are we just going to be in the same song and dance, same situation come next off season at this time? Well, I think we'll be in the same song and dance

next offseason i think i wouldn't be surprised if they franchise them to protect their rights because he is he does have value and i think he went out there and the agent you know found out that what the market really is and they never brought a deal to ballard that was good enough for ballard for based on what the player thinks his value is. I know it's hard for the agent to recognize that, but look, they were saying it was negotiating in bad faith. That's what they were saying. You know, he wouldn't accept it. Anything. Yeah. I mean, I, well, Ballard, I think Ballard would have, I think he would have that except you, you know, why should he take a discount deal for a guy who's a star player? You know,

I didn't really believe the green day one. When has green Bay ever done that? When has green Bay ever traded and then paid a player like that aaron jones they redid his contract aj dylan now were they going to trade a back for a back maybe they would have done that but i never got the sense that anybody was going to redo the deal how's that end how's it end how's this end how's it end you got to agree i think this is one of those things okay well it ends if if if the colts take a discount look everybody in the league would like jonathan taylor on their team for a third or fourth remember the year the eagles won the super bowl what they traded for a running back it gave up a fifth round pick jay ajay for a fifth

round pick from miami or fourth round. He came in and played really well. Then he was a free agent, right? Then he became a free agent. I mean, that was because Miami took the value of the deal and didn't want to wait for the capacity to re-pick. I don't think that's the case here. I think the value of the player, based on what the agent's telling the Colts, why should they take a less deal?

So then the other team who would take him on a $4 million deal, or would they just up how much they would give him this year and then he would be a free agent after this year? He would be a free agent after this year. And whoever takes him would have the right to franchise him because in that rookie contract, there's no— So wouldn't he do the same thing he's doing? I guess, is it just a personal thing with Indianapolis now, you think?

Yeah. I mean, look, the agent has gone through the marketplace, right? And so has Austin Eckler. So has Barkley. So has Josh Jacobs. And, you know, is there a tolerance to pay somebody $12 million a year? Yeah, I think there is. I think somebody will pay $12 million a year for a running back.

Will somebody pay $17? I don't think so. Man, I would like to see this end sometime. Yeah, it'd be sweet. I still have Dolphins people tweeting me about saying, like, a request from the Colts for the Dolphins' number two wide receiver when we're giving up Jonathan Taylor if they weren't going to give us a one or something like that.

That is not a wild request. I don't think that's a wild request. Don't do it. You fucking don't think that's a wild request. Don't do it. You fucking don't know. You wrote a book called Football Done Right. Don't you even think about this, saying that that is not a wild request is the number two wide receiver. He's not number two on your team.

No shit. He'll be our number one. He's number two on your team is what I'm talking about. And if you're not going to give us a one for this a wild request is that and then it turns out there wasn't even an offer there was no there's no offers ever even made it wasn't even real like a wild request it's like how's that wild i don't request in that book i write about in that book i have a whole chapter on trades and how trades are made and what often affects the trade you know and usually some trade some trades are made just get this guy out of the building you know we got to

get him out of the building so they trade them and they take reduced on right i don't think that's going to be ballard's position some trades are the team is so desperate we're one player away they overpay herschel walker you know the vik overpay, the Packers for John Hadle. So there's all these conditions that I think I write about in the book. I don't see any of these conditions applying to the Jonathan Taylor situation. I can't take it.

What if he's not healthy? We haven't seen him run or nothing. He had to leave camp to go out of state to get some sort of rehab. That's my question. Let's just say he's not healthy, right? Maybe that's why they couldn't work out the deal. All right, week six, he might be healthy, might not, and you don't come up with a deal with him.

If you don't get traded, do you leave him on pup? If you leave him on pup, you still have the rights to him the next year, right? Totally. Well, that pup year counts as an accrued season, so it goes towards his pension and it goes towards his free agency. So now they have to declare, they have to either franchise him or he becomes a free agent. The only list that he would not get an accrued season on is if he went on that

NFI list. And that's, that obviously is too late. So he's going to get an accrued season. And once he does that, he, he then becomes free agency. So maybe that'd be doing him a favor.

Hey, we'll put you on PUP for the year. Good luck. We'll see you later. Last question here from Tone Diggs Paisano. Yeah, Lambeau, we're here. We're here. We're finally here. Week one, any betting trends for week one or anything you like this weekend

that you've looked at in the early board? You know, I think a lot of people are going to be all down on the Rams, and for good reason based on what we saw 41 to nothing in the last preseason game but i think you have to take the rams in context they played seattle twice last year with not a very good team you know and they one game was four point the last game of the season was 19 to 16 and went to overtime in those two games where raheemem Morris is the defensive coordinator going against the Seattle offense, which he knows really well, they picked off Geno Smith five times. If you're going to play the Rams and take the points at five and a half, this might be the only month to do it because once

they start getting injuries, I think it's going to become problematic. The first games are always the hardest games to handicap and lesser teams can play better. So I think that line at five and a half last year, look, were they any good last year? Donald didn't play in the last game of the year. Were they any good last year on defense at the end of the year? No. But they turned over Geno Smith. They intercepted him five times in two games,

and it took overtime for them to win the game, and Baker Mayfield was the quarterback in the last game. I think the Rams will play better. Do I think Seattle wins? Yeah, but five and a half is a lot of points. Hey, we like that lot there, Lomba. Okay. We appreciate you, buddy.

Let's talk about football done right here. Setting the record straight on the coaches, players, and history of the NFL. My boy. Forward by award-winning sportscaster Jim Nance. Whoa. Does he start it with hello, friends? Yeah.

He does not. No, it was just so nice of him. He and I worked together at CBS the year I was out of football, and I've been friends with him, and he's just tremendous. As I tell people all the time, as nice as Jim Nance appears on television, he's nicer in person, and he was so kind to write the foreword for me, and I greatly appreciate it. Look, this book is a labor of love for me because I learned as much about everything that I put in the book because I wish I would have written it 20 years earlier.

And I try to pay tribute to the older players and especially some of the great coaches like Buddy Parker's up for the Hall of Fame. I write a lot about Buddy Parker, how it was an injustice. He's not in the Hall of Fame. And also, you know, Marty Schottenheimer, the great Dan Reeves. He can't get it. He's got 200 wins count in playoffs. He can's not in the Hall of Fame. And also, you know, Marty Schottenheimer, the great Dan Reeves, he can't get it. He's got 200 wins count in playoffs. He can't get in the Hall of Fame. I think there has to be a criteria for coaches. Look, if the owners want to put themselves in, that's great. They loan the league, they can put themselves in. But the coaches who give their blood and guts up for the league, just like the players, I think there has to be a criteria. And I think Dion's right. What I try to do in the book is put it into echelons.

Like, you know, Randy Moss as a wide receiver, his gold jacket is a lot different than Tommy McDonald's gold jacket as a wide receiver. They're both in the Hall of Fame. I'm not trying to run them out of there. He wants a different hall. But they're different. He's saying what's the next floor, second floor.

Let's go ahead and make sure we understand that there's levels to this. And that's what I wrote about. I love this. And that's what I wrote about. I love it. And that's what I wrote about. You also have top 100 players in here? Top 100 players of all time, yeah. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of debate about that. But then top 10 coaches of all time too.

Starts with the top 10 coaches. And how the coaching tree started. I think it's really important for young coaches to understand how the game has evolved and where the game came from. And so what I try to do is do all that in the book and try to break it down and study the draft and the impact of telling, you know, I work at VEASAN, right? And so the great Brett Musburger started VEASAN five years ago with his nephew, Brian. This man deserves to be, because he advanced the game. NFL Live, when they

went NFL Today and they played the music, everybody knows it. Him and the Greeks started talking about betting. It was incredible. It advanced the game. Hey, number 97 on your top 100 players certainly piqued my interest. I love that. I put a kicker in there, Pat. I was not

going to disrespect you. There's no way. There's no way. I put a kicker in there, Pat. I was not going to disrespect you. There's no way. So there's no way. 97 is a kicker. That one iron he hit against me in Foxborough, I can still remember it. When he kicked it, I thought there's no chance he can get it, and it looked like Tiger Woods' one iron. And that alone got his ass in the book right there.

That one iron that sent me home with a loss got him in the book. This man right here, Adam Vinatieri, top 100 players of all time. Hell yeah. In Paizan's new book, Football Done Right. Incredible stories, incredible knowledge, a little history lesson. Oh, front of the program. Did I just open the page to you? No way.

Yeah, it feels like we know some of the people in there. We'll learn about them a lot more through Football Done Right. Available now. Perfect timing as we get into the season. As a new season starts, let's embark on an adventure back to how we got here. And who got us to this point in the NFL's history in which we're at the top of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Lombardi. Thank you, buddy.

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Lombo. Also, oh, Lombo, are you there? Lombo, are you there? Yeah. Hey, Lombo's going to be joining us every single Friday throughout the entire season. Oh, hell yeah. Thanks you guys. Thank you, Lombo. Also, oh, Lombo, are you there? Lombo, are you there? Yeah. Hey, Lombo's going to be joining us every single Friday throughout the entire season. Oh, hell yeah. Thanks, guys.

That's huge. Hey, we're pumped about it. Thankful for you, ladies and gentlemen. I'm psyched. Yeah, hell yeah. Michael Lombardi, thank you. Yeah, Lombo. We're going to have to figure out the end of conversations, though.

With him? With Michael? Yeah, because he's always, thank you. All right, I'm out of here. All right. All right. All right. Good to see you.

I don't want to take up any more of your time. Is that okay? Yep. It's all right, Lombo. Yeah, he's going, thank you, all right, I'm out of here. All right, all right. Good to see you. I don't want to take up any more of your time. Is that okay? Yep. It's all right, Lomba. Yeah, he's going to join every Friday. I think that's the right time for him to come on, because then he'll just, all the shit he has heard for the last five days, he's kind of just.

Yep. Injuries and stuff, too. I said it. I said it Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday. Sunday, somebody told me that. Yeah. It's like, Lomba, nobody in the football world has heard that. No, it's been out there. No, I definitely wrote about it in a newsletter. I think like, nobody in the football world has heard that. No idea.

It's been out there. I definitely wrote about it in a newsletter. I think I had it in my book. In a book. By that time of the week, he's already watched all the film, too, and digested every single number on every single game and line of that week. Yeah, I didn't like that bet because a guy that can't relate to the younger guys, I'm not betting with his ass. Who?

Stafford. Matthew Stafford? Yeah. Why would I bet with a guy who said they can't relate to the young guy? Nah, dude. That was at home. He was talking about. Just shooting the breeze.

He was going to just buy a little margarita. Same Jimmy Buffett. I'm not betting with him, Connor. Yeah, he was just having a conversation with his wife about how the locker room has changed since the beginning of his career to now. Now it's tough for me to understand what these guys are saying. Everything's litty. That's why Lama was great, though, because the Rams are going to be fucking terrible, but he sees how they play their opponent.

Matchups. Yes. And no Cooper Cup, though. He's still in Minnesota? That guy got an Airbnb at that old lady's house? I think so. Probably. Well, who knows how the deal works with those people.

But, I mean, if they don't have the number one wide receiver. What are you saying? I'm just saying who knows how the deal works with those people. But, I mean, if they don't have the number one Roger C, what do you say? I'm just saying who knows how the payment is transferred. Is this like the former Hall of Fame guy, Dave, when he said to me? Oh, that little boy. Dave? Yeah, Dave Baker. Big Dave.

Oh, David Baker. Remember when he said I was invited to his house? There's a chance that the way. Don't fuck my wife. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Remember we said we weren't going to say the F word today. Oh, yeah.

That's right. Yeah, I actually wrote it down. Next hour, next hour, next hour. He said that, though. That wasn't me. We'll start that next hour Oh, yeah, that's right. Next hour, next hour, next hour. He said that, though. That wasn't me. We'll start that next hour. He did say that. He did.

You had to bring him, what, 250 Hershey's Sunday pies? No, it was McDonald's. We actually sent him a $500 gift card at Burger King. And he spent it in a day. He used it for lunch. Because he's the king. And he's also eight feet tall. Oh, yeah, 450.

Nothing against him. He rocks a 5XL shirt. I am not going to be having sexual relations with your wife. Okay? First of all, I'm married. Yep. Love her. Second of all, let's say I wasn't.

You think I'm going to have sex with the actual giant's wife? Not a chance. No way, sir. I have a little bit of a brain here. There's no way I'm Shrek in real life. Yeah. You're not having with Penelope.

Whatever the fuck her name is. Nobody's doing that because Shrek's just got to do the Wreck-It Ralph thing. That's a fair warning, though. Just don't do it. I appreciate that. Why does he think he's got to say that? I know how you young guns act sometimes. Just don't fuck my wife. We got a great guest room for you. He invited me to sleep

in his house and immediately followed up. In his bed. Just don't fuck my wife. We got great guest room for you. He invited me to sleep in his house and immediately followed up. In his bed. Just don't fuck my wife. I'm glad he retired though to do what he did because it is catchy as fuck. What? You don't recognize the voice? Woppa, woppa, woppa, woppa. That's David Baker.

Wow. Because that retirement came out of nowhere. It must have been a quick advertising turnaround. Free burgers for life if you fucking We missed. Oh yeah, next hour. Four minutes we're doing. Well, they had Hans Zimmer actually compose those things. That wasn't just some

Where is David Baker? I don't know. We appreciate him. He was good at what he did. He was. And he's even better at BK doing nothing. I hope he is. If he is doing a Whopper, Whopper, Junior Whopper one and two and three of

Whoppers. They're pretty good. Burger King has a catchy fucking thing. Oh yeah. Basically, I can't wait to see these commercials this football season. Yeah. I'm pretty excited to see who got it right, who got it wrong, what sales agencies are lying to people. You know, because there's some advertisements that make you hate the company. For sure.

And it's like there's no way the company knew that was happening when these ad agencies pitch them this novel concept. I'm excited to see which companies are those ones. Well, and we've already, I mean, let off the Heisman commercials where RG3's lifted in the mirror saying, you look good, and then he says it back to himself. I thought that was awesome. What happened?

The mirror was talking? I haven't seen it. So, yeah, he's doing curls in the mirror, RG3 is, but then inside the mirror is also RG3, and he's leading the workout. And then RG3 in the mirror says, looking good, RG3. And then RG3, who's lifting in real world, is saying, looking good, RG3. Back to RG3. Oh, I love that.

Little inception. Did they have a little thing? No top, no dreidel, nothing like that. Little inception. Did they have a little thing? No top, no top, no dreidel, nothing like that. RG3 said that Riley last night reminded him of Vanilla Vic. What? Jesus. Really? He called him Vanilla Vic.

I like that call. Me too. I've never heard that. That's interesting. No, that's not a good call, bro. Why not? What do you mean? He kind of is Vanilla Vic. Did you? What do you mean? He kind of is.

Did you see him run his ass? He was like a tiptoe. He hit the feet of a shorebird. He did. No. No one's ever used that term before. There's no reason. See.

See. See. You see. See, Tony. There's no reason. I've never heard it. They said it once. Who would they say that about last year?

Oh, Daniel Jones. Oh, that was it. They actually, they were making, the internet actually had its way with Daniel Jones. They were actually making him a, like Michael Vick and his face kind of mixed into one. Statistically speaking though, Daniel Jones is a better running quarterback than Michael Vick. I mean, if you find some stats that say that,

I'm sure you could put those out into the public, but then when you say what you just said, people just won't ever take you seriously. I did it in Bruce's voice. Oh, that was a well actually? Let's get to a break. Daniel Jones, also the fastest quarterback in the NFL. If we recall, he clocked the highest.

Whopper, Whopper, Beer, Whopper, crispy, tender meals and Whopper. He looks good. He does. Lost a little bit of weight. His shoulders. Must be doing keto. Just straight burgers every day. Flame grilled burgers.

Yeah, he walks in with five Whoppers stacked up like pancakes. And he's just boom. With American cheese in the middle. He looks like he eats about 10 of them. Whoa. He looks like he's on Ozempic. Yeah. He's not just doing Whoppers, too.

He does the chicken fry fingers. Hey, Dave, we missers, too. He does, like, the chicken fry fingers. Hey, Dave, we miss you, buddy. Miss you, Dave. Love you, Dave. What? Hall of Fame hasn't been the same since it's been gone. It hasn't. No, it's been different.

We don't want to say anything, but. I mean, what happened to the lights at the Hall of Fame game? True. You think David Baker ain't getting on a bicycle as soon as those lights go out? Yeah. Yeah, kidding me. Exactly. Those things are.

Exactly. In a heartbeat. Actually, he's probably from the Green Mile. Just fucking powers himself. John Coffey? Yeah. So electric. That's David Baker. Yep. Just sticks his hands in the transformer and just sits in there for the whole game.

Stadium. They just feed him Whoppers. Yeah, just feed him Whoppers. Need no Whoppers. Losing juice. Yeah. Need another one. This show. Yep.

And joining us live from Manatee, Ohio, is a man who's a college football national champion, a Super Bowl champion, a rider winner, a COVID survivor, father of 10, president of Ohio, one of them. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. Hey, A.J.

A.J., how you doing, pal? Big night for college football last night. That was a big night. You didn't think Clemson was going to figure that thing out? I thought Clemson was going to figure it out the whole time. I assume that's what everybody thought because we have seen, you know, these bigger schools struggle early. And then inevitably the size, the athleticism, the talent just takes over.

And in the fourth quarter, okay, this is what it was supposed to be. They end up winning by 17-20 somehow. But that wasn't the case at all last night. Duke was like, uh-uh. We're going the opposite direction with this entire thing. Duke was in complete control. The only reason they scored is because of a muff. You're talking about a bad-looking Clemson Tigers team

who was ranked top 10 before we entered the evening. I think that's strictly because of the respect for Dabo Sweeney. Yeah, I thought they were going to pull it out last night. But now I'm worried about, hey, they're three in the ACC at best right now. Yeah, I think it just shows like how tough it is to truly stay on top like in these teams that continue to have like sustained success year after year it's a brutal it's a brutal game and now the quarterback that he used to have all of a sudden goes out has a great night yeah yeah just i don't know like like dabbo said didn't say it's the

weirdest game he's ever been a part of something like that yep absolutely and i think there's going to be more weird games coming down the pipeline here for this Clemson Tigers football team. But, yeah, DJ Uyunglele throws for five touchdowns in his Oregon State debut and looks like he's a natural fit for that entire team that's going to make a run at the Pac-12. I mean, you're talking about a real deal. Joining us now is a guy who has all the information on everything. And also, he's two bulls.

Played for Dab-Boy. Good bull. Dab-O-Schweeney down there in Clemson. So he might have a little bit more information than what we have from the outside looking in. They're dead is what a lot of people are thinking. Will he agree with that or change the tone of all the conversation?

Ladies and gentlemen, the face of college football for the last 27 years. Ladies and gentlemen, the incredibly fit Kirk Herbstreit. Yeah, we heard it. How are you, pal? What's up, boys? How we doing?

Hey, listen. I don't want to throw you right into this series of a conversation, and you look really good right there. Look how good you look. Wow. Wow. Look how thin you are right now. Unreal.

This is from national championship last year. Yeah, I got a goiter there, I think, in that national championship pick. A what? I don't think I know what you're talking about. What is that? A goiter. Some excess weight around the neck. I'm trying to catch up to AJ. Is that what you're talking about. What is that? A goiter. Some excess weight around the neck. I'm trying to catch up to AJ.

Is that what you're talking about? I'm trying to lean out. There? Yeah. Oh, that's just the angle in the lighting. Like a turkey. That's the end of the season, bro. He's doing Thursday nights, game days.

Yeah, it's a lot. Game day production meeting. I learned a lot about that year, about diet and exercise. And all I did was prepare. I didn't think about anything else. Yeah, I mean, that was tough. We don't know how you survived. Now, you would go on to have a four or five-month vacation.

Right, exactly. And we felt terrible for you during the season last year. And then there was a couple. Seven months on the back end. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, geez. Boo-hoo. There was a couple months. I want to let you know, all season last year and then there was a couple seven seven months on the back oh geez there was a couple months i want to let you know all season last year we're feeling terrible like god kirk yeah hope you're all right hope you're okay honestly we're like this guy 27 years into this thing just signed up for triple the amount of work let alone chase playing high school football

traveling back to that on friday nights in the middle of the whole thing it's bananas and then like two three months after the season ended you know we're just you know we think that and we're just like fuck this guy hold on Kirk is on his fourth vacation right now having a time of his life do you feel good going into the year do you feel great you look great you look great great okay good feel great excited ready to go can. Yeah. First couple weeks have been fun. I think so, too. Been great games last night. I've not been on the bus. I haven't been on your bus yet, though.

You know, I need to get on the bus this week. Okay. Well, come on in. You're welcome anytime, obviously. We got a nice setup for you. Even a bunk if you ever need it. You know, they put you in a place that you don't love the bed. We got a bunk for you.

No worries at all. I'll even give you my bed. You can take my bed. I'm going to set up camp back there. I'm going to take one of the bunks, I think, this week. Come on! Come on! You're welcome! There you go, Herbie. There might be some vitamin smell every once in a while

just popping up into your nostrils. Don't worry about it. Just keep it moving. It'll make you better. But let's talk about getting better. Are the Clemson Tigers dead, dude? Like, honestly, last time we had a field storm for the first time. Let's go. College football all the way back. Fans going crazy. What a scene. What a moment. What a big-time upset.

Colorado over TCU. Whoa. Duke over Clemson. Oh, Darius Rucker. Pick this. Pick Duke over Clemson. And we were all like, all right, bro, you need to relax. He even said, I'm not picking with my brain.

My kid basically talked shit to me and said, are you going to pick another school in South Carolina? No way. Give me Duke. Nobody expected this. Elko, the turnaround insane. And now with Dabo, he's maybe, what, third, fourth in ACC, let alone everywhere else? Is he going to get him back? And is this the new Clemson?

I don't think it's a new Clemson. You know, if you look at how last season ended and what happened in this game, there's reason to, you know, question what the heck's going on with him. I think we all thought the change of offensive coordinator and quarterback with Club Net I mean, there's reason to, you know, question what the heck's going on with him. I think we all thought the change of offensive coordinator and quarterback with Club Net coming in was going to get them going in a good direction. There were kind of high expectations. I just want to let everybody know the team that they played won eight games last year. Mike Yelko is a great coach. You could see the difference in attitude and the way they've done a job in recruiting and bringing in some portal guys.

They're flying on defense. So I think Duke will end up being a good team. I love their quarterback, Riley Leonard. I loved him before that game. Loved him that much more after that game. So they played a good team on the road. This isn't cash all your chips, that's it. That stock's dead on Clemson.

They've got a lot of work to do. Garrett Riley is the guy that led TCU, Max Duggan, all the way to the national championship a year ago. Guy knows what he's doing. But that didn't look like his offense last night. So there's a few things there. You and I were texting a little bit back and forth. They had a run of some receivers.

Go back to T. Higgins. Going, you know, way back to DeAndre Hopkins, Mike Williams. And they had some great guys. Hunter Renfro. I mean, they just had – it seems like everybody that played receiver at Clemson went to the NFL. And then they've recruited incredibly well at that position over the last five years. But if you watch them, you haven't seen that. You haven't seen NFL difference makers and receivers. So while we all want to look at quarterback, I'm kind of looking at what's around that

quarterback. They've never been a dominant offensive line. They've had really good backs in the past with Travis Etienne type guys. Shipley's good. I don't know if he's like, hold your breath, game changer good. The receivers are solid, but not NFL guys that strike fear in your heart. So they got to come up with a plan that's going to open up this offense a bit and give Cade Klupnick a chance, a guy that can run it and throw it. I don't think it's done. I don't think Clemson screwed. The season's over. They got a couple games to be able to win over the next –

they have Charles to Southern and FAU. So they're going to win two games. And then they got Florida State. And the Florida State team we saw the other night – Oh, damn. Against that team we saw last night, you like Florida State's chances, right? So they've got a right to ship in these next two games,

and they get ready for a very talented Florida State team that comes to Death Valley. They're not going to Tallahassee. They come to Death Valley, and by then they should be 2-1 and playing with more confidence and at home at night. If you can win that game, then everybody's talking differently about you. A lot of season left. We're going to call you back.

Herbie on our end just froze up there. Your face while you were talking. You look good. The message was clear, but we couldn't see you as good. He's saying, hey, we've got a couple weeks here to figure out whether or not this is going to be it. And I do love the fact that college football is still a lot of growth.

You know, you're still coaching. You're still developing. Cade Klubnick certainly is going to develop even more. You would hope so, or you would think so at least. But when he said it didn't look like Garrett Riley's offense, that's because in the pre-show, I was watching Matt Berry, Ocho, and Mullins talk about it.

They did an interview, I think, with Dabo live from the field. And Dabo said that Garrett has had to come in and learn the Clemson offense. Right. So he came in in January. Our Clemson offense is our Clemson offense. He had to learn the Clemson offense. And now he's at a point where he's very comfortable with it. So we are literally getting a chance to watch Garrett Riley call that Clemson

offense for the first time last night against somebody that wasn't a Clemson defense or what he was thinking. That's an interesting move. Yeah. AJ, that's an interesting move. That's very interesting to me. Usually if you're bringing in a new coordinator, you're bringing in his scheme and what he runs, what they run,

because that's what you like. I would like to see if there's other teams that are doing this as well. Yeah, and if we could get Herbie back, I believe it's still frozen. Yeah, I want to know Herbie's thoughts on that for real. Yeah, that's why as soon as he brought up the Garrett Riley, that did not look like his offense. Feels like Herbie also knows that he's running somebody else's offense. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us again is one of the presidents of Ohio,

a guy who's been the college football face for the last three decades, super handsome, out of Centerville, Ohio. Ladies and gentlemen, Kirk Herbstreit. Hey, Herbie. Hey, we apologize. Let's get right back into it. All good. You look fantastic.

So you said that offense didn't look like Garrett Riley's offense. I was listening to Matt Berry, Ocho, and Mullins interview Dabo before the game last night live on the field. And he said that Garrett Riley came in and had to learn Clemson's offense. We have Clemson's offense. He's been in here since January. He's excited to watch what Garrett Riley does with the Clemson offense tonight against somebody that isn't Clemson was pretty much his answer in that whole thing.

Is that normal? Is that how college football works? Because in the NFL, you hire a guy and it's like, all right, this guy's offense is coming in. This guy's coming in. Here it was like Dabo made it sound, at least, and I might be misreading what he said, is like, hey, this is how we run things.

This is our plays. You figure out your best plays. Is that normal? Is that how college football normally is? Well, I think Dabo has a way of saying things where, of course, he hired Garrett Riley to bring in that kind of offensive style. Right. I mean, that's why he that's why he went out and brought him in. What's normal in college football is exactly what you see in the NFL.

Guy has a lot of success in one area or he learned underneath a guy that had a lot of success. And you think, OK, well, this guy knew Sean McVay's offense, so we're going to hire him at Minnesota and let Kevin O'Connell run the offense and be the head coach in Minnesota. That's what happens in college football, too. So I'm a little bit surprised by what he said, according to what he said, hey, we're going to run the Clemson offense, not Garrett Riley's offense. I think he's trying to say, we do everything here as a team. Got it.

Nobody's an individual. We're not running one guys. It's a collaborative effort. I think that's what he's trying to say. Okay, got it. Yeah, because I could easily, that's why I ended, I misunderstand what he was saying there because I was alarmed by it. It's like, well, why would you bring in that guy then if it's not going to be

just, you know, you can hire anybody, I guess. No offense, but you could figure it out to do anybody's offense. Ah, nonetheless, if they can get better, it'll be a great coaching story. It's like, hey, Dabo, still got the fastball. If they can't, though, it's going to get loud, isn't it?

It's going to get loud. Buddy. It was already getting loud last year. I mean, and everybody put it on dj right every everybody talked about dj ue ungule and it's just you know man remember the good old days with trevor lawrence and deshaun watson and when we had a quarterback to win and it all fell on him and kate klubnick i think has has a ton of talent. I think that'll eventually play itself out. This kid won three state championships in the great state of Texas with high school

football, which is a tough thing to do. He went three, sophomore, junior, senior year, at the big level. I mean, he's playing the big boys. He battled against Quinn Ewers. I mean, he played real teams and real players. And so he's a talented kid, but they got to get him going and he needs help around him. Let's also remember this. They fumbled the ball twice inside the 10-yard line. I'm not making excuses for him, but the score ended up being 28-7. But if any of those scores go in, you know, it's a game that goes down to the wire at the very least. It ended up being a game that got away from them because of those turnovers. But, you know, it's a game that goes down to the wire at the very least. It ended up being a game that got away from them because of those turnovers. But, you know, they had over 200 yards rushing, over 200 yards passing.

But they'd be the first ones to tell you they got to get things going. And they need to become way more explosive as an offense if they're going to do what they want to do. Tough. ACC seemingly at the top this year as well. Teams have only gotten better. Excited to see how they pan out. Go ahead, AJ. Kirk, what did you make of the Ohio State-Indiana game?

I know people around Ohio are not too – they just want to air the ball, air it out a little bit more, I guess, in the future. But, you know, it's tough to – you win by 20 and people get upset. But that's just where the standard is, I guess, for Ohio State. How do you think everything looks going forward for them? Well, there's a standard and then there's a psychotic standard. And I would say that the 15% that represent Ohio State on social media fall into that

category of psychotic. They're out of their minds. And what they do is they make players, high school players, not want to play for that program because of how they're just such jackasses. They drive me crazy with everything that they do. Kyle McCord's trying to learn how to play the position. Kyle McCord's not going to be where C.J. Sproud was at the end of his career when he went on to go play for the Houston Texans as a top five pick in the draft.

He needs time, right? So let's give him that time. They opened up on the road against a Big Ten team that's not bad. So Ryan Day knows what he's doing. It's amazing how people, again, the very small percent that's very vocal they want to get after ryan day they want to get after kyle mccord they want to fire everybody fire everybody get rid of everybody everybody sucks uh these guys are very talented players they're they just need time to work together let the offensive line have some reps believe it or not to build continuity uh

this kid kyle mccord can rip it. He's got receivers that can make plays. Just because Marvin Harrison didn't make any catches in his first game doesn't mean that Kyle McCord sucks. So I'm pretty happy with the start. And you'll see Youngstown State and Western Kentucky, it'll be two games to be able to, everyone will be now the other extreme. Holy cow, he's going to win the Heisman. You know, after the next two weeks, he's going to win the Heisman. So it'll all come back down to earth. We'll find out who they

are when they go to South Bend week four. Whoa. That's going to be fun, especially with the way Sam Hartman has appeared to be for that Notre Dame school. I'm so happy for Coach Freeman up there. Finding his culture, it's settling in. Speaking of finding a culture, you know what the Ohio State folks will want these next two weeks, and I think it's their fault, Oklahoma back.

Huh? 73 zip on Butch Jones. Did you see his soul leave his body there? Now, I think he's on some stuff. You know what I mean? His neck to head is pretty big. And I've known Butch Jones a long time. His first GA stop, West Virginia, he ran a punt team.

When I got put in the punter and I didn't know how to punt, he was the guy running the punt team. So I've known old baby, mini Rich Rod for a long time. And seeing his boys just get smoked by Oklahoma was a damn shame. I didn't feel like there was a lot of that. And normally that's a big college football thing. This year has seemingly started vastly different than years past. Is that accurate, you think, or no?

I think we're in for a great year this year. Oh, it's going to be a monster year. I think some of these teams that have been down, you know, have a chance to get their offense going. And, you know, if you look at the opponents we even saw and talked about it on college game day, there weren't a whole lot of conference matchups. There weren't a whole lot of good versus good, ranked versus ranked.

So it afforded these teams to be able to get off to a great start home game against a team that you should blow out, and a lot of people did. So you have a lot of offense. I think the matchups are going to be coming up in the next few weeks are really going to kind of whet our appetite for the season that's going to come. The Pac-12, you and I talked about on the air and off the air. The depth in that conference is frightening. I mean, I think you have seven teams.

I don't think the top 25 came out yet this week. Maybe it has, but I haven't seen it. But I think there's seven teams when you include these teams like Oregon State and Colorado, USC and UCLA, Washington, Utah. That conference is loaded. And to see what Colorado did, I saw you talk to Coach Prime yesterday. I know it's created a lot of buzz. So yeah, man, it's going to be a great year. The last year we have four teams more than likely in the playoff. And just because if you lost a game week one and you're a talented team,

still a long way to go. Get things right. Still have a great year. Yeah, I think so too. And I talked to AJ about this. I think with the NIL strategy for some teams who aren't able to get a lot of money, don't have a lot of money, but have a good amount of money. Let's spend that on like key positions. Let's get like a D end.

Who's like a five-star guy. Let's get like a wide receiver. Who's a five-star guy. Let's get maybe, you know, running back or quarterback. So I think some of these teams that are traditionally crop are going to be able to have at least a chance at a couple of positions to wreck a game, you know, cause they got big time guys. I think we're going to see some upsets a game, you know, because they've got big-time guys.

I think we're going to see some upsets this year, a lot more because of that. I think you're going to see smaller schools who've invested in a couple positions who have guys, like everybody else has, are going to be able to upset some people whenever it's a little dry or boring in November, you know what I mean? When it starts getting a little chilly in those morning, noon game, it's like early, dreary day, and all of a sudden, there's a guy on the other team who's getting paid $100,000 to be there, one of the only NIL guys, and he sees this as a primetime game. I'm going to go make a couple plays, disrupt everything.

I think we're in for a good one. And to your point about seven teams in the Pac-12 being ranked, how about them not being able to get a fucking deal done when all anybody's looking for right now is football rights? You know what I mean? We just said we weren't going to say the F word here. How about them not being able to get a fucking deal done when all anybody's looking for right now is football rights? You know what I mean? Crazy. We just said we weren't going to say the F word here. 28 minutes in.

Going to have to stop this for on Thursday launch. Pretty good, sir. The college is beautiful. NFL kicks off on Thursday. There's still some storylines here brewing with some contract situations on the defense side of the ball and JT as well. But I think this season in the NFL is going to be a banger, Kirk. The AFC loaded. NFC has got a lot of teams that are trying to prove themselves

and become the next generation. We've got a great NFL season ahead, and I think Amazon has a great schedule ahead this year as well. Yeah, there's so many storylines in the, what do you call it, the men's league. Your guy Aaron Rodgers going over to the New York Jets. Think about that division alone. I mean, think about those matchups every single week. You're intrigued to watch the Jets. What's going to happen with Mac Jones, with Billy O'Brien

coming over to call his plays. We're excited to see that. Buffalo, we know about with Josh Allen, the Dolphins. I mean, that's just one division. Then you go around and look at, you know, how does Jordan love to do trying to replace Aaron Rodgers and the Vikings after, you know, having an incredible year where they 13 and four, they end up losing to the Giants. And now they're talking about trying to be better than they were a year ago, lost some good people, try to replace them. open up with Philly uh next week on on Thursday are actually our first game so there there are a ton of storylines not to mention the obvious with Mahomes and Kansas City and Philly and trying to get back to that Super Bowl again and this time

trying to win it uh Joe Burrow hopefully healthy okay calf that held him out of camp uh Cleveland now that Deshaun Watson has a year under his belt, trying to learn to see what he can do, another offseason to try to get better. They open up with Sensi. I mean, you just go around the entire league, and there's storylines, and like you said, it's going to be a lot of fun to see who can last

and make a run near the end. Somehow football has gotten better. It's a beautiful thing. Pac-Man's got a question for you, Herbie. Hey, Herbie. We haven't talked much about Tennessee because a lot of different other teams have been getting headlines, but I think they did a couple things on the offseason with DeHop.

Do you think they have a chance of winning their division, or is it more of a rebuilding year for them? Great question. I feel like I always fall back to rabel in culture the last year was kind of an anomaly as far as his time there uh nobody knows him better than aj but i i'm a huge fan of what he does and how he does it and you know where they were with the injuries these last few years if they could just stay healthy. I do feel like Pac-Man, they're kind of a forgotten team right now. I think there's so much buzz about –

I know Pac-Man's high on the Colts and what they can do this year. A lot of people. With Anthony Richardson coming in. We've got another rookie quarterback down in Houston. Jacksonville looks like on paper the team to beat, but I never count out Braves. Never, ever, ever. And you know he's going to have a defense that can fly around.

But Pat's bullish on the Colts like he is with West Virginia this year. No, I'm out of West Virginia. That's over. I told you it was going to be a quick one. We're either going to do it or we're not. What about this week against Duquesne? Wait a second. I told you.

We went through their entire schedule, and I counted five wins. Whoa. And you got mad at me. It ain't over with you. It is for me. It's over. Listen, I will certainly be paying attention to them beat up on the Dukes this weekend. Sure.

I said yesterday, if West Virginia loses to Duquesne, they need to go rip the visor off of his head. With his. On the sideline. With the scalp. Not that. What's that? They're not what? They're not going to lose to Duquesne. When we went through our list there of five wins, that was one of their own.

There's a win right there. There's a loss to Pitt. I'll give you a win against Texas Tech. Thank you. They had a great start to the season. Thanks. TCU, they stink. They just lost to a team that brought in 80-some guys.

Obviously. Houston's done. Dana's done if you want to coach there because I'll have to see what it's going to get by then. Oklahoma State. I set the over-under at five. I'm going to hold true to that. Fool! Well, see, for me, I think I've said every single time,

we're going to go into Happy Valley, we're going to win, and then we're going to go to the college football playoff because Garrett Green's going to run wild. Guess what didn't happen? We did not go in there and win. He ran wild, though. He was running wild. We didn't complete two passes, though.

I mean, we didn't look like a football team. So then all of a sudden while I'm watching it, I start getting upset. He was running all the place. We didn't complete two passes, though. I mean, we didn't look like a football team. So then all of a sudden while I'm watching it, I start getting upset. I'm like, why is this such a big deal that West Virginia is potentially going to beat Penn State? Shouldn't be this way. Shouldn't be five years into a tenure. Like, you know what? You guys are going to actually go Oppenheimer a nuclear bomb and go beat Penn State.

Like, that is what people are acting like. It's like, that shouldn't be how we're viewed. We got NIL money. We have championships. We have them. What? And then now this guy just, there's no moxie. This team's cropped, dude.

This team's cropped. Total cropped. Players are good, though. No job. Players are good. No job. When you guys played, you guys had difference makers how many guys

on that roster right now would have played when Pac-Man Jones was on that team you were on that team, Tavon Austin was on that team you guys had some players how many guys that you watched the other night would have played on those West Virginia teams

I just want to know how many could have survived is what I'm saying. Like our workouts are, that's what I want to know. I think that's our biggest issue. I think all of us, X guys' biggest issue is like how they go about doing what they're doing. It's not just about that they do it. It's like how

are we a tough team, a hard-nosed team? Is it like, does it represent West Virginia? That's a gritty state, dude. You know what i mean so like i think yeah just the overall of it i just it's tough it's tough and i don't like that you're asking for a change there are you asking for a change i i have no say and i what i'm learning is when i say stuff everybody kind of does it so I don't like calling for people's jobs Because people deserve it

But also, come on bro You're five years into this thing Nobody thought you had a chance Against a team that's third in the Big Ten Could be different this year We don't know how it ends We don't know how it ends They're good They are good this year. We don't know how it ends. We don't know how it ends.

They're good. They are good this year. They're good. That helps me a lot. But let's just say they're third in the Big Ten if we're to look at how it's been over the last 10 years or whatever it has been for Penn State. It's like we're in the Big 12. It's another power five.

And people are saying we got no shot against number three in the Big Ten. It's like, come on, bro. That can't be the case. We got money. You had no like, come on, bro. That can't be the case. We got money. You had no shot. You had no shot. That can't be. That's what I'm saying.

That is my exact point here. Kirk Herbstreit, one of the voices of college football for the last three decades. I say we're going in Happy Valley to beat Penn State. And this guy's fifth year as coach. In my face. Good one. Laughed in my face on TV. And it's like, that shouldn't be the reaction that people think of your program, Neil.

Just change it. Figure it out, Neil. Figure it out. He won't. Figure it out. People agree with you, too, in West Virginia. It's not like we're sitting up here saying different things. We've got to win.

But I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like being that bearer of that news. But also. Hey, tell me about Thursday. Tell me what's going on. Tell me what we got going. Open it this first day. We got a big day on Friday.

Talk to me. It's a big week. It's pretty large. Yeah, we're off tomorrow because test on test on test. You know what I mean? Got a triple stamp or double stamp. That's right. Redundancies. Yeah. Had two fibers coming into here. Now we got five fibers coming into here and we still can't connect with Herb Street.

So, you know, that seems to be an interesting thing that has kind of taken place. There'll be a satellite truck out here as well. That's right. So five fibers and a satellite truck. All of them have to be tested. Yeah, of course. I would like to say we are not paying for that. That was certainly something that was negotiated by.

So we feel like ESPN very much invested on making sure we get off the ground. So we're very thankful for that. Of course. Very thankful for that. Yeah. Seems a bit much, but. Not broadcasting to the moon, you know, and just going to. Bingo.

Going to prison. Same YouTube that we've been going to for about five years now. Good. And then same ESPN that's been ripping our show for a long time. Same one. So we're very pumped, very thankful to be there. But, yeah, we've got some big guests coming up. We're going to have a little football to chit-chat about.

We're going to try not to say fuck. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. How are you going to handle that? To be clear, and I don't want to throw anybody on the bus, I am at the stage of my life where I can, you know, because I have to for game day, obviously. For WWE, you have to. There's other times you've got to do it in here.

Might get a little bit comfortable in the conversations. But this is the first time since Westwood won when we were on radio where the boys are going to be tested, you know. And I'm excited. I think the boys will be able to figure it out. We're professionals. Who are you most concerned about? With the F word?

Yeah. Nobody. Nobody. I think Tony. I think everybody's good. I think everybody's good. How was that? Connor is going to say something, though, that's going to piss off.

Yes, that's going to happen, whether there's a swear word in it or not. Yeah, that's going to happen. He's going to reference something that is real and happening that people are not going to be happy about it even mentioning, even though Conor didn't create this news. No, no. He's just letting people know that this exists. And the way he chooses to deliver, that is certainly going to be something.

And I got like four things just sitting in a holster right now. You've been waiting, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a couple updates to some news stories I've been waiting to give. Had 30 birds outside today. Man. Just so you know. Yeah, didn't we?

Birds. Yeah, yeah. Had plenty of them out there. 30 of them. What do you think the connection is a little down with Kirk, huh? You think about that yet? Have you? Because I have.

Maybe too many things are on our network. Maybe. He thinks birds are fake, Kirk. They are. It too many things are on our network. Maybe. He thinks birds are fake, Kirk. They are. It's not a think. They are. Holy shit. He doesn't think birds are real.

Like, eagles are real. Okay? Those are animals. Yep. It's America. He said these little birds, though, they're all just the government. Yeah, government drones. Spies.

Pigeons. All of them. So watch them. Watch them when they fly over your car. They're listening. That's right. Why do you think they're standing on those power lines, huh? Be charging.

That's this guy. Real thought. He's not the only one either, Herbie. No. He's not the only guy that feels that way. So that's going to happen on ESPN right there. Yep. And then all of a sudden.

These assholes. Oh, my God. It's going to be loud. It's going to get loud. So that's the thing that I'm most, I don't want to say worried about because it's inevitable, but that's the thing that's going to get the loudest, I think. We are certainly going to be talking shit about something, and people are going to take our words and put them as journalism fact,

and then whenever you take jokes and put them into lawsuits, they certainly read a little bit different than the delivery and the context of it. So that's the big thing I think people, we're going to have to work through. You know what I mean, Herbie? I think that's the first month or so, two months, three months, probably whole season. Yeah. And if Friday, is the whole crew going to Tuscaloosa? Yeah.

I don't know about whole crew because we got 15 employees every year, so it'd be 16 deep if we were to fly down there hotel room setup and everything but a majority of the crew's going out we're actually in the middle of figuring that out right now who can be here and do their job who has to be there and do their job so this is something like we're excited about doing getting to go on location without us me having to rent a truck yeah a stage set up and internet and lease permits to put us into a place like espn having us at the game day location so sweet so incredibly sweet like very pumped about it now it's like all right we still got to execute a show though so and we have this much room and flight like it's just now we got other problems to deal with, but they're good problems.

Friday should be gigantic, though. We're thinking. If people show up, Herbie, you know what I mean? Might need you in the crowd doing one of these. Ooh, nice. For us. No, no. You'll have a huge crowd there.

They're going to be going crazy. You kidding me? I've never been down there, Tuscaloosa. I've never been down there. That's a good place. This is our first time going down there. It's going to be wild this weekend, huh? Oh, they're awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're passionate. So they'll been down there. That's a good place. This is our first time going down there. It's going to be wild this weekend, huh? Yeah. Oh, they're awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're passionate. So they'll be out there. Just make sure what time they need to be out there. Make sure they know to be out there. 11 a.m. local. 11 a.m. local. That's when the show starts.

Yep. They'll be out there. Make sure you're there at 1055. Yeah. 1055, 1050. Some bottomless mimosas before perhaps yeah yeah let's see you do whatever you gotta do to have a good time what i've heard is it's hot as shit though herbie well it's for you and i it's always hot right so i was impressed i told you at the break last week that sun going off of our back usually i'm trying to dab my forehead if i feel a little

moisture you just you had it falling off your chin didn't even bother you you didn't one time think about and i look over at des des doesn't have a speck of sweat on his forehead i look at you and me and it's just fallen it's It's just like we jumped into a pool. Yes. At the break. Yeah. And you're not even concerned about it. I really respect that.

That's a hell of a job by you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I saw you patting your head, and then Trish was bringing up paper towels or whatever. I'm like, get out. What are we doing? I'm nowhere near done.

I'm nowhere near. So we stop this right here this thing is still you know what i mean you're just throwing you might as well just throw a little bottle of water at a forest fire sure right now this is not yeah that paper towel is going to get engulfed we don't have enough time during this commercial break you just said to hell with it you didn't even you didn't it didn't even affect you you weren't worried about it at all i got pretty dehydrated about an hour and a half in i got real tired i will say i lost all of the all the liquid in my body i was down in water it was great to be back in front of people wasn't it herbie it was great it was great

yeah yeah the energy the energy for a neutral site game that was that was a great uh a great set of south carolina comes strong but north carolina i think they're i think they're feeling a little cocky about what they have this year with Drake May and the boys. They got a heck of a team. They showed up great. South Carolina's a little cocky too. You know that? A lot of cocks out there.

As soon as I found out that they actually, like, that's how they talk. Just cocks. AJ, you knew that was coming, right? I didn't know. Oh, yeah. We saw head coach choking a cock right after the game as well.

Yeah. What's that? AJ always sees the Cox coming. We know that. Well, the Cox, I didn't, you know. They were sharing advice at the end of the game. Oh, yeah, I did see. Yeah, Mack Brown said, get over here.

Yeah, he did. Let me talk to you. Let me teach you a little something. You know, he grabbed him right by his, what, it did sink. Yeah, Mac Brown said, get over here. Yeah, he did. Let me talk to you. Let me teach you a little something. You know, he grabbed him right by his, what is it called? Oh, yeah, what was it, Kirk? A goiter. Grabbed his goiter. He did grab the goiter.

Give me your goiter. Give me your goddammit. Because, you know, he was a hokey. He was a hokey at one point, so they're known for their goiters. Exactly. And now, obviously, he's a cock. Cocks got good goiters. So Mac Brown just wanted to feel that goiter.

That's what he wanted to do. Come here, boy. Shane Beamer and Mack were very incredibly kind with their time. I do appreciate the fact about college game day. It's like that is so appreciated by college football fans. You know? Like those kids that were out there for three hours in 110-degree heat, whatever it was out there, neutral site game, game is until the night.

Like they're showing up for college football. They're showing up for the school like it's a duty. I respect and appreciate that so much that that happens. That's cool. It is. This weekend they're saying it's going to be bananas in Tuscaloosa. They're saying it's going to be a full-on shit. They're like talking about this is going to be one of the biggest game days

that there's ever been because of the Texas event that has happened here so early in the season. Is that what we should expect? That's going to be bananas over there. It's going to be wild. Yeah, Denny Chimes right in the middle of the tailgating scene in Tuscaloosa. They start on Thursday, so we don't have to worry about it being a night game. They get their tailgating going early, and they're fired up, man.

I mean, and Texas will bring some fans, too. So Greg Stanky, the SEC commissioner, was telling me that a lot of these big Alabama games at home, they'll have 30,000 or 45,000 people outside of the stadium, like at a viewing party, because they can't get in to watch the game. So it'll be one of those kind of scenes this weekend in Tuscaloosa for sure. All right. You going collared shirt again? You going collared shirt?

I don't know. I don't know. It was hot. Yeah, how hot was it with the collar? It was real hot. You know what I mean? There was nothing breathing here either. Usually the neck.

What made you go that route? So David Allen is a guy from Pittsburgh, a tailor from Pittsburgh. He has incredible clothes. breathing here either usually the neck what made you go what made you go that route so david allen uh is a guy from pittsburgh a tailor from pittsburgh he has incredible clothes he made me a couple shirts that are like athletic fit like very comfortable nice light with a stiff neck too which i if i'm gonna wear a collar i need a stiff neck you know what i mean i don't want to start because i sweat a lot so like that thing i don't need that thing to be flailing right you know what i mean like My body not built to be in a collared shirt, a button-down shirt.

I'm a spark plug. I'm not supposed to do this. This is not how it's supposed to be. But if I'm going to do it... This guy took time out of his life to craft these shirts for me because I was very appreciative of it. I wore it, obviously. I thought it looked very good. I appreciated it. I did. But boy, I never sweat like that.

I don't think. Long time. You know what I mean? I think my body just had no – The collar held up great in the sweat. It did, right? It was pretty stiff. It stayed. It looked like a neck brace.

I was trying to look at Darius Rucker. I was trying to look at Darius Rucker like this. Couldn't even get to the hoodie. You know, I was doing my thing. But maybe, I don't know, Alabama, Southerns, I probably should for the good of them. It does feel like we're staring down a tank top game, though. Yeah, it's going to be a hot one, too. It feels like it's a tank top operation.

It feels like it. Well, you're calling the game that night, too. Maybe you go tank top for the game, and you go collar for game day. Ah! So we got both kind of jotted down. We'll see. I don't know how big of a suitcase I'm bringing.

You guys are on ESPN2 for the game, right? Yeah, people are happy about that. Not showing another college football game. Another thing to blame you for. Boom. Just being pissed off. Last thing before we let you go. Friday night, buddy. Listen.

I know there's a big-time game Saturday night. I know we got game day Saturday morning. It's going to be incredible. I know we're live Friday from the Quad, I do believe, at Alabama. Friday night, though, in Ohio. Uh-oh. Look out. Uh-oh.

With Rowe and Pac-Man, been waiting to get a piece of St. X for an entire year, so they're going to get them Friday. St. X coming off a tough loss down in Tennessee. Withrow is just scoring 45-50 a game on everybody they play. Oh, no. His godson is just lighting everybody up, so St. X has their hands full. No, your son playing good, too. We got our hands full, too. Y'all got a good group over there, man. The tight end is a their hands full. No, your son playing good, too. We got our hands full, too.

Y'all got a good group over there, man. The tight end is a dog, too. Oh, this is good. Yeah, it's a big suckfest. This is very nice of you guys. We got some shit. St. X and Withrow, this is obviously two massive powerhouses in Ohio clashing. Chris Henry Jr. is representing Withrow via the Pac-Man Jones house.

He's 6'6", 4'4", sophomore. Windmill Duncan. Chase. Probably the best receiver in the state of Ohio right up in that discussion, even though he's a sophomore. Yeah, he's pretty good. Yeah. He's a dog, too.

He's a dog. He's working every single day. And then there's Chase Herbstreit on the he's working every single day and then there's chase herbstreet on the other side leading the boys that's right jake herbstreet cutting promo video hell yeah every single week i mean you got you got real royalty battling here in the state of ohio on friday night i'm excited for what happened in tennessee tough team tough team really talented had some tennessee ball commits and they were just well coached. It was just a good game in the first half, and then they pulled away and made some plays and hit some big plays against the corners.

So that's why it's going to be an interesting matchup against Chris Henry because he's so athletic and so skilled. So we'll see. We will certainly. It's at Withrow, which I hear is a beautiful stadium. I've never been there. It's going to be a hostile environment. Oh, yeah?

Oh, yeah. Oh, Kirk's going to be walking in there with a couple of the boys. You can watch on the ESPX broadcast for San Xavier. I've watched a few games on here. Watch old Chase do his thing. Pretty good broadcast. Okay. Pretty good broadcast. Okay. Pretty good broadcast.

Worth it. Not too shabby. Thankful for you, Herbie. Thank you so much. We'll see you down in Alabama, pal. Yep. You guys have a great week. Talk to you soon.

You got it. You're the man. So we're not out on Clemson. No, not yet. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the face of college football, Kirk Herbst. Hey, Kirk. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the face of college football, Kirk Herbst. Hey, Kirk!

Joining us live after a rather large evening down at Duke University. The Duke Blue Devils were 3-9, okay? Then they hire this defense coordinator for Texas A&M. They go 9-4. Damn. Now in his second year as head coach, they're 1-0 with a win over the Clemson Tigers 28-7 last night where people are calling it the biggest win in the history of the program. Ladies and gentlemen, head coach of the Duke Blue Devils football team, Mike Elko. What's up, fellas? I got to get you to be my hype man, Pat.

You don't need me, pal. The numbers in your team are speaking for themselves. What a win last night, Coach. Yeah. What a win. Yeah, it was a heck of a night. It was a, obviously for our program, that was something that was, you know, truly special and obviously to beat those guys in the opener. But just to have the environment we had, to have the turnout we had for Duke football from where this place was before I got here, you know, to have the scene of us rushing the stadium

and just to have our kids get to experience what college football should be like. That was pretty cool. Well, not only after the game. Before the game, you guys came out. This looks so cool. Yeah. Hey, I don't know how cool. If you know how cool you guys look coming out, you look super cool.

Like the team. Well, that's. Go ahead. It's the one thing we can control, right? We got to look good to play good. Amen. So let's start dying into that. You play good. Obviously,, right? We've got to look good to play good. Amen. So let's start dying into that. You play good.

Obviously, they pay good. We talked to Dion yesterday about the turnaround of Colorado and him finding his people. 86, obviously, new players. They get a big-time win over TCU. You had a similar flip with Duke last year. They're 3-9, then you go 9-4. How do you turn a program around?

What is the key piece in your eyes in what you had to do to get that place believing not only the team, but the entire university almost? Yeah, I think we were in a little bit different situation. I think we had a lot of kids who maybe just needed a little bit different path and direction. And I think what we discovered really quick was we had a lot of really good kids that were really willing to do a lot to change the direction of this program and kind of change the perception of who they were. And so we were able to take the group that we had, give them a direction, mold them. I think we made some tremendous changes to strength and conditioning, to nutrition.

Everybody who has come through here has said we look like a bigger, faster, stronger football team than we were before we got here and um we've just been able to take the kids that we had and instill confidence in them and i think that's just kind of bled through the entire community university and everything hell yeah it's been fun to watch go ahead aj where do you go from here i know like you hear coaches talk about handling success that sometimes that's the toughest thing now you guys have this big program changing win now what does it look like what's the rest of this week look like for you and the rest of your team yeah i tried to retire last night but they wouldn't let me so now it's

now it's about trying to get going on a short now we um listen we we talk a lot around here about like what it takes to be success and the steps that you have to go through and you know everybody wants to pat us on the back for every small victory along the way. But I think we're really truly here for the long haul and we're here to build something special. I think our kids are all in with that. And so, you know, we had a great win last night, but you know, like every coach, there's things on that film that need to get corrected. There's big opportunities coming down the road for us and for us to get where

we really want to go this year and make this a season, not a game. Um, you know, we got some things we got to fix and get better at. And so we'll go to work at that tomorrow and get ready to play again on a short turnaround this weekend. Top of the ACC looks very solid this year. I mean, it's kind of happening everywhere in this modern NIL world in transfer portal world. We assume that every program that is going to have

success is going to utilize it Duke not easy to get into right that's a tough place has that been a problem for you or how do you go about recruiting I guess to find your guys that can be Duke football players yeah I think we've used it the right way I think I think the first thing we talk about all the time with the transfer portal around here is retaining our guys and keeping our guys out of it. And that's something that we were we were really successful at. You know, we have a starting quarterback who's extremely talented. And, you know, we had to make sure he stayed at Duke. We've got a left tackle who's extremely talented.

And there's a bunch of other guys like that, that that it was really important that we got them to believe and buy into what we were capable of doing here. And that's where it started. And then we were them to believe and buy into what we were capable of doing here. And that's where it started. And then we were able to go out and add some pieces. You know, we had, we had two corners out there that, that played at a really high level at the university of Miami and at Texas A&M a couple of years ago, and had been dealing with some injuries. We had a kid started right tackle for us who had been a multi-year starter at Stanford.

And so we can plug and play and find some guys in some different areas that could come in and help. But, you know, by and large, we're going to be homegrown and we're going to develop our culture through our own recruits. Hey, built on stone. I mean, that's kind of how the greatest teams kind of figure it out. You mentioned your quarterback there, Riley Leonard, quite a hello to the world last night for a lot of people that maybe didn't

know him. I appreciate you saying, Hey, we got to keep this guy here and figure out how to do that. Whenever you look at him as a player in the big picture, and obviously Scumbag didn't do his homework. That's right. Scumbag didn't do his homework last night. I don't know if you know that. Get his ass running.

Didn't turn in his homework on time. Had to do that. This guy's special, though. I mean, he made some plays last night that I think made a lot of NFL teams go like, wait a minute, you've got a Duke kid. That means Duke brain. And he got some real moxie. And he was able to lead a team to beat Clemson.

So, behind the scenes, probably the right guy. What do we not know about Riley to those of us that maybe were just introduced to him in a big way last night? Yeah, he's got an amazing ability to up his level at the exact right moments. If you go back and you look at last year, you know, his three biggest games for us last year were against Jaden Daniels at Kansas, Drake May at North Carolina, and Sam Hartman at Wake. And those were the three biggest quarterbacks we played against last year. And then, you know, last night coming into this stage, you know, we knew he was going to find a way to make some plays for us. And obviously that run he had where he broke a bunch of tackles and went gallivanting down the sideline for a touchdown, man,

that obviously changed the momentum of that game in a big way. And that's just who he is. He can make play with his feet. He can make plays with his arm. And he just has a tremendous moxie about when to step this level up and make the right play. Yeah. He looked cool, bro. Oh, you know what I mean? That looked the part too. Not only like everything just, and I'm like, we haven't talked about this guy at all. Nobody's talking about him. Go ahead. He's an interesting kid. He's a three nine GPA. He's quiet as can be off the field, man. But when

he gets on the field, he's got a swagger and a confidence about him that like, you know, you'll run through a wall for that kid. And, uh, that's unique. It really is. And he's a unique, special kid. Like Luke Keekly used to have. Remember they talked about him. It was like going into a phone booth. This guy's actually Clark Kenny. His glasses on, super nerd. Then you get him on the field.

Ah! It's an incredible, that's a great thing to have because that 3.9 GPA means, especially at the quarterback position, I can handle everything. I'm excited to see how the NFL people start chit-chatting about Riley, especially after last night.

Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Coach, obviously you're from Jersey, so you're a hard nose, and then you went to Penn, and you were a ball hawk and hard hit and safety there, and you've always been on the defensive side of the ball as a coach. You always had great defenses at Texas A&M, and then you came here and turned around the defense pretty quickly. Is it scheme, or is it like last night you could just tell,

like, you guys have 11 guys in the picture at all times. What is the key to success that you've always had great defenses? Yeah, it's probably a combination of both of what you said about me. I think, to me, it starts with toughness and grit. I think there's some endangerements. At Duke! At Duke! Isn't that interesting? At Duke.

It never changes. The game of football is the game of football no matter where you're at. If you want to play good defense, you've got to play with toughness and grit and all that stuff. You've got to have it. But then I think maybe a little bit within our scheme that's unique in how we utilize our

pieces and try to put kids in positions to be successful and maybe have a little bit more of an evolving type scheme that can fit our personnel as opposed to just a blank playbook that's got to travel and we've got to recruit personnel to fit the scheme. You know, we can kind of make this scheme fit around the types of players we have. And I think that's something we've been able to do over the years pretty successfully. Go ahead, AJ. around the types of players we have and i think that's something we've been able to do over the years pretty successfully god agent is that something that that great coaches can do where

you you don't have to be stuck like hey this is what we do and where what you got to plug you we got to plug you into one of these spots like is that especially i guess the future of college football too to where hey we're going to recruit people and then bring them in see what they do best and try to craft everything around them yeah i I think it's maybe a little bit of both. But what I would say with me is it's my background. You know, I was my first defensive coordinator job was the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Then I went to Hofstra.

Then I went to Bowling Green. And, you know, those were places where you had to take your pieces that you had and figure out how to best utilize them to be successful. It wasn't I didn't cut my teeth in the SEC where we can go get every five star and come in and make him, you know what I mean? And so I think, I think some of that just shaped me, you know what I mean? I think then there's nothing wrong with either philosophy in my opinion. But, you know, I never was really at that place as I was learning how to put this defensive

scheme together. And then for me, as I got to the places where we had the elite talent, it still was able to evolve it the right way. And I think the Texas A&M kids really believed in what we did. And so it was interesting to just kind of see it all come together at each level that I've been able to do it. They felt your effect whenever you left, and then Duke obviously felt your immediate arrival.

3-9, 9-4, 1-0. Ty has a question for you about all that yeah coach just curious when you first took the duke job was part of the appeal like hey i have the opportunity to go to maybe the most historically strong blue blood basketball school and like actually turn it into a football program we all know the kind of like boosters and excitement they have around the basketball team, but then you turn things around and start winning, and people get excited about Duke football. Was that part of the appeal when you first took the job or no?

Yeah, I think it was two things. One, I think Duke is unique, and in this world of, you mentioned it, the NIL, the transfer portal, we feel like Duke has a little something different that we can sell, and we can get kids here to buy into what Duke stands for and what can do, what Duke can do for them beyond the game. And I think that helps us with roster control a little bit. And then you look at, okay, well, then can you be successful? And that's where the basketball thing comes in. We have a lot of programs and basketball is obviously the biggest one that compete at a really high national level.

And when you see an athletics program that knows how to support a national premier program, then you believe that, OK, if I can just go in and get them on board with some of the things we need to tweak and change about football, hopefully we can get this thing up and over. And I think we've got great alignment with our administration right now and getting a lot of things done for these kids. Yeah, I'd say it's working out. I think it's working. I think it's working, Coach. Pac-Man Jones has something for you. Hey, Coach, I wanted to ask the question, how hard

is it to get these guys out the transport portal? You say you like to keep your guys down when they got 78 brand new bodies. How hard is it getting these guys out the transport portal and who had a bigger week? Did the Dukies have a bigger week? Or did Colorado have a bigger week this week?

Hey, listen, we're far enough from Colorado that they can have a big week and so can we. I'll take it out of that conversation. No, we can get kids in. Obviously, Duke's a little bit of a different place in terms of academics and who we can get into school, but we don't have any bigger issues getting kids out of the transfer portal.

I just think it's different. I think what Deion took over versus what I took over were just two different situations. We had enough kids here that we could build around and win with. And so we just decided to do that instead. Hey, new AP top 25. You guys are 21. Colorado is 22. So I think. Duke wins. But we did. I think you're.

Hell yeah. Great week. Connor has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach. You mentioned the team playing with toughness and grit. And then you also mentioned how, you know, you want to hold on to the guys that you guys recruit and you don't want to, you know, have them go into the portal. Is it hard to balance that when you're trying mentioned how you know you want to hold on to the guys that you guys recruit and you don't want to you know have them go into the portal is it hard to balance that when you're

trying to you know instill grit and toughness into a team like in practice is it difficult to coach kids really hard while also trying to understand like hey we still love this kid and want him to be around and we don't want him to leave yeah I think a lot of that is relationship driven. I think if kids these days know you care about them and know they can trust you, you can coach them in ways that they know you're developing them to be the best they can become. If it's just some of that old school mentality of like do what I said just because I said it, I think that doesn't go quite as well nowadays. But I think we've got really good relationships in this building

and we spend a lot of time getting to know these kids and spending a lot of time with them. I think that allows us the opportunity to kind of push their buttons because they know it's coming from the right spot and the right place. Coach, what a time it was when Google didn't exist. Motherfuckers used to just say shit.

You know what I mean? You didn't even have to know. You didn't even know if it was right no yeah you're from new jersey i mean i couldn't even imagine pittsburgh the same way it's like hey why does this happen just a matter of fact answer that is so wrong and cannot be checked and then just go about your life it's a little different now it's a little different now now we gotta be a little smarter with these guys they can get a lot of information really quick and And you lose all credibility immediately. You remember with that? Did you hear what this dipshit did?

That ain't right. Check it out. That ain't right at all. It's right here on my... See, I can't listen to anything you say for the rest of your life. You talked about nutrition and the weight room and everything. And obviously in college, the weight room is the place that you're living. I mean, that is obviously a huge piece of it.

What type of lifting we do? We got Olympic lifting. What is the movement? What's the nutrition? You got shakes and smoothies for everybody. And is that just standard operating procedure now at D1 football? Yeah, I think from a lifting standpoint, we're Olympic lifting. And I think we're trying to move weight down there and build confidence through the amount of weight that we can do. And so our kids know that when they go in and they work out, they're trying to move weight down there and build confidence through the amount of weight that we can do. And so, you know, our kids know that when they go in and they work out, they're going to work out hard. And I think we've been pretty well documented on social media with what we're

trying to do down there. And we hired Dave Feely from the University of Miami and he's done a phenomenal job of just kind of building the culture down there. And the games that we've made have been phenomenal. And I think from a nutrition standpoint, I don't think we're doing anything special. I think we were behind standpoint, I don't think we're doing anything special. I think we were behind the times at Duke.

I don't think we were doing it the way Notre Dame was or Texas A&M was. And I think that was something I noticed immediately was if we want to have a Power Five football team and we want to compete in this league against teams like Clemson, we've got to do a much better job of exactly what you said. The shakes, the nutrition, the constantly monitoring

how our kids are eating, training table. Again, nothing that's not commonplace amongst the elite programs, but something we had to do to become an elite program or to challenge to become an elite program. Speaking of being an elite program, man, this picture from last night after the win, those fans could not wait. They were standing on the side. They were standing in the end zone pretty much like,

man, we got three scores. We're up by, we're absolutely dominant. This is a beautiful thing, I think, for a coach who's trying to rebuild an entire culture. What did you tell the team afterwards in the locker room whenever the quiet kind of finally came after this huge win? Yeah, I mean, I just told them it's a testament

to what people can do when they come together and they're willing to work for something. I think that's one of the things that maybe gets lost a little bit in society today with how much gets put on social media and how much emphasis gets put on what people say about you. You can still just work really, really hard and change who you are and change what you're all about. And I think our kids have done that. And I think last night was a huge testimony to that on the national stage. Hey, you've done a great job down there, Coach. We appreciate the hell out of you taking time to chit-chat with us. And they're calling it the biggest win in the history of the program,

people were saying. Wow. Well, now I've got to go back to work and make sure we don't have the biggest loss in the history of the program. It's a good idea. I appreciate you guys having me on. It's always great to see you guys. Hey, you too.

We appreciate the hell out of you, ladies and gentlemen, Coach Mike Elko. Yeah! That's hilarious. Yeah, we got another game coming. Yeah. Let's go ahead and talk about – With that one too. Let's not bounce down.

Yeah. Yeah, top 25. They just released the AP. Colorado, Buffaloes, 22 in the country right now. The Duke Blue Devils, 21 in the country right now. I do not know all the others. Those are just the information that I was fed via Zito on the other side. I saw some tweets kind of giving some stuff away.

This is a big deal now because going into week one of college ball, I don't think we knew anybody. No. You know what I mean? We didn't know anybody. A win right now that a team got that maybe we're not respecting, in like five weeks could be like, hey, you remember they beat

who's... Crazy. College football has that a lot more than the NFL, I do believe. Here's top 25. Number one, Georgia Bulldogs. The reigning back-to-back national champions. Then Michigan at two. Alabama at three. Florida State all the way up to four. Top five. They look good. And then Ohio State obviously only wins by 20 at two. Alabama at three. Florida State all the way up to four. Top five. They look good.

And Ohio State obviously only wins by 20 at Indiana. That'll drop you down a little bit. SC, Penn State. That's what I'm talking about. West Virginia lost to the number seven team in the country. I got to keep that in mind. Damn good. Moral victory.

Moral victory. There's no such thing as moral victory. You almost accepted it, though. Well, for this one, we got to accept it. No, I'm just saying, like, it's number 17 in the country. Okay? They built some confidence. They built some confidence, for sure.

Would I rather have the seven next to our team's name? And has that happened in the past? Yes. Sure. Is that expected, I think, by some? Yeah. Yeah. But it's just not.

Pennix, spinning it at eight. Tennessee, nine. They're up two spots from 10. Good for Washington. Notre Dame and Sam Hartman at 10. Texas going into Alabama this weekend at 11. The Utes at 12. Oregon, LSU, Kansas State, Oregon State.

Oh, DJ Uyunglele. Bob Drake-May. 16, Drake-May, North Carolina. I guess, you know, he threw a couple picks. I don't know how they probably feel about South Carolina. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's probably a conversation.

Oklahoma wins 73-zip. They're at 18. But they could all move quickly. If they continue to do that, they can move quickly up there. Wisconsin, good for old Fickle. Ole Miss, Dukies at 21. Colorado, 22. Texas A&M, Top 25 for Jimbo.

Love that. Tulane. And then Clemson still at 25. Damn. I think that's the Dabo effect. Everybody just assumes. Where was Clemson before the loss? Nine.

Nine. Nine. Somebody had them at like eight, I think, or seven, too. Coach's Bowl, maybe? I think there's been, yeah. They were all, they were way up there. Way up there. I mean, coaches of their own teams don't really know what they have until you play a couple games. I think there's been, yeah. They were way up there. Way up there.

Coaches of their own teams don't really know what they have until you play a couple games. Yeah. I think Georgia knows. At least, yeah. I mean, yeah. I think Georgia knows. Kind of a factory. Kind of a factory.

I think Alabama was pretty pumped whenever they saw Milrow complete some passes. Drop a ball, pick it up, run it 40 yards. Shake people. And score. Still have the wiggle and complete some passes. He seemingly got better. Let's hope he makes great decisions as well. I think Alabama knows.

Just a quick count. I think Pac-12 and SEC both have six in the top 25. Congrats to Pac-12. There it is. Couldn't get a deal done. That's unbelievable. Why? Why does that happen? Makes no sense. happen that's what I'm saying I don't know I don't know just as somebody who

you know enjoys the business aspect of things I don't know how that one slips through the cracks you know what I mean that's like how anything happens if I didn't have YouTube TV I wouldn't have been able to watch the game last night. Like, old-school Spectrum box I have, it's not on.

I have to go to YouTube TV and watch. Okay, so Coffin Flop, obviously, is what caused the big issue between Corncob TV and, I think, Spectrum. Yeah. No, it was those two. Yeah, I took it down. Yeah, because what? You said Coffin Flop?

Yeah. Yeah. We're not reading shit. I was thinking of a different coffin situation where somebody rode one out of a thing. Also, also, some people say that's where a coffin flop was born. Talking about when the big show hopped on top of it? Yep. That was a sturdy coffin.

It was. Have we ever talked about that before? We've never really mentioned that. The big show hopping on top of a coffin? Yeah. No, yeah. You guys ever seen that? It's pretty good. You talking about Big Boss Man?

I think if I remember, he puts a chain on. Oh, yeah. I think maybe last week we may have revisited this. Is there a cop car? You didn't see what happened. It was a cop car. Last night, because The Miz fought someone. The Miz fought an invisible guy last night.

And won. Can I watch it? Yes. Shout out to Stu, cameraman as well. He's the first person documented in TV history who captured an invisible man on camera. That's what Stu does, baby. That's what Stu does. Wait, was this a way to get Miz a victory? Is that what we're doing?

There was no actual match. It wasn't a safety match. It was a sit-down. It was a real thing. No, it did happen. Oh, okay. So he actually fought an invisible man. Boom.

Beat the shit out of him. You think it's a joke? This is Stu on the camera. This is John Cena. Wait a second. You don't see him. There he is. He's right over there.

Moving around. Just did not reach my arm. Bye-bye. He's all right, Stu. Let's go to work, Stu. It's time. And then the Miz. Obviously, he was a guest on Miz TV.

John Cena was. Came out here. Here it is. Let's go to work, Stu. And here, John Cena, full sprint. Up on the thing. Slide in. Boom, there he is.

Rubs the ropes. Throws the thing. Slides in. There he is. There's the hat. There he is. Miz, obviously everybody's pumped about this. Have a seat, he says. Mm-hmm. Miz is awesome. He's so good.

Not just Miz. Somebody thought of this idea. I mean, that's my favorite part. You should hear Cole now, too. Not just this. Somebody thought of this idea. I mean, that's my favorite part. You should hear Cole now, too. Cole was awesome. I can't see him. Yeah. Can't see him.

Where is he? So who's the invisible guy he's yelling at? John Cena. Come on. Hey. Hey, Jay. Can't see me. My time is now.

John Cena, by the way, even as the invisible man that he was, he gave Miz some lip. He did. And they got into it at the end. That gets a lot better. He punches him. They got into a full fight at the end of this. Wait, is there another voice coming back at Miz?

Can we hear somebody going at Miz? No. Look how pissed he is. He never should have turned his back on the Miz. Oh, my God. Miz, you got no power? Oh, he missed him. Ducked him. Grabbed him. Miz. Oh my God. There's your little bar. Oh, he missed him. Ducked him.

Grabbed him. Boom. Scull rushing finale. Holy shit. To John Cena. There is a holy shit chant that comes to me in the afternoon.

No way. Wait, when did this happen? Last night. Last night. I'm so happy. With the right face on the Miz. Face on the Miz.

With the right face on the Miz, he should get a fucking Oscar. Cena ducks him. Oh, my God. And boom. What's up, John? What's up, John? I'll tell you what. The Miz does not tiptoe into anything.

He's jumping in full go. I mean, that is one of the greatest segments of television in the history of the world. Thank you, Mitch. The entrance. Still really dangerous. Yeah. Yep. segments of television in the history of the world. They were dying backstage. Oh my God. Everybody backstage was having the time of their life. That needs to win an award. Yes. Best actor.

Can we put the fight between Miz and Cena back up, please, so I can watch it one more time? He fucked Cena as quick as grace of all time. You know what I mean? He's going to duck. Hey, we're live. We are live.

We are live. We are live. That's great. I'm in an airport. So, awesome. Yeah, but. Hold on. But, as a guy who, as a guy, as a guy who has lost, what, 245 straight matches, right?

Thank you for your, thank you for that. I appreciate that, that you're keeping record of how many times I've lost in the WWE. It's just true. As a guy who has lost 245, you beat the shit out of Cena last night, bro. I have never seen anything like that. Way to go, Miz. Way to go.

I don't care if it's real Cena, invisible Cena. I'll take him down each and every time, no doubt in my mind, every day, all day. It's just the type of person I am. Yeah, but how about he ducked you there? You went for a lariat. He ducked you, then he had to kind of bounce back. Did you expect that? How dare him push me

in that ring? Like, you don't come into my ring in WWE on Monday Night Raw and come onto my show, Miz TV, and push me. And then, luckily, I couldn't believe he ducked my swing. That was one thing that I couldn't even believe. But then once he swung at me, I know what's happening.

I know the Skull Crushing finale is happening. Drop him out. And after the promo, I threw him out of the ring because that's the type of man I am. That is my ring. That is just what I do. I don't think... How gratifying was that? Did you have a couple cold ones last night to celebrate?

What did you get to see in there? I did not, actually. I had some water. I had a good night's sleep. And now I'm actually at the airport. I'm going to find a gym, work out. And then I have a couple drafts today for fantasy football. What's your team name?

I have Kelsey in one of my leagues. I'm a little nervous because I just hyperextended his knee. He might not play week one against the Detroit Lions. I kind of need Kelsey to step it up, put a little ice on it, maybe a little dirt, and get out there week one and show me some stuff.

Alright, I don't know if he's going to be able to take you serious with what you did last night, but we will certainly relay the message. I appreciate the hell out of you, Miz. You're the man. You should win an award for last night, you and Stu both. Thank you. By the way, how great was Stu? Great with that camera work.

I don't know how he captured him. I couldn't see him. He had him, though. I don't know how he did that. Because he's done it so He had him, though. I don't know how he did that. Did the crowd see him? I didn't hear the reaction. Did the crowd see him? Wow, Clemson. Clemson lost at Duke last night. What? Holy S? Stupid? They were saying holy stupid? I got holy, obviously I don't think you can swear in the show, but holy S champs.

What? Holy S? Stupid? They were saying holy stew? Yes, holy stupid. Holy smokes. Yes, that's what they were saying. Holy smokes.

Holy smokes. Oh, okay. Were you smoking cigs? Did you like? What did they say though? You can say it. They said what? Oh, they said holy shit champs.

F word. Look at you. You got holy shit chance. Oh! That's worse. Look at you. You got holy shit chance. Look at me. Look at me. I took off my jacket and they started saying holy shit with an invisible person. That's how good I am.

How good I am, bro? I'm real good. It's true. How's life right now for you? How's life for you? How you feeling? I'm great, especially after watching you

wrestle an invisible man. Yeah. Football's back. How excited are you and the boys? I'm great especially after watching you Wrestle in Invisible Man How excited are you and the boys We're pumped Watch the show One fucking time Watch the show We lost service We lost service

Kirk was shopping too I was crying tears Both now while watching that and whenever i saw it on the internet last night just the amount of commitment from so many people how did they set it up but how did they set up to where cena was invisible how did that happen well cena la night and miz payback payback it was a ref it was a full it's a full thing cena's been this is. But this is the first time we've had an invisible match though, correct?

I assume wrestling has had this before. Just because wrestling is the greatest thing of all time. But this is the first invisible man. Oh, I didn't even see him push him. He did shove the shit out. Can you go back to the beginning of this? This is the beginning.

He threw his head. Didn't slap him. He threw his head. That's what I thought. Look at him. Oh, push. You son of a bitch. Holy shit. Holy shit. It's going to happen.

It's going to happen. It's my show. Too's going to happen. It's going to happen. Not going to do it. Not going to do it. It's my show. Too good of a guy. Oh, he's seen him. He's seen him. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. I did it. Woo. That's what I thought. Throw the mic at him. Throw the mic at him.

We're not going to catch you in it. Look how upset he was. Dude. I'd be pissed too. He's going to try it. Yep. He can't do it. Wrestling's the greatest, dude.

Yeah. Wrestling is the greatest. Laughing, crying to myself while watching that last night. So good. Oh. Man. Thank you. I hope his kids watch.

I hope Miz's kids watch him wrestle. Who'd you wrestle tonight, Dad? Oh, John Cena. They're in the biz. Check it out. Mom's in the biz. They know. They know.

They've been around buildings. They understand. Yeah. What did Dad have to do tonight for work? Wrestle an invisible man. What? I won. Don't worry.

It was a real man. Count that as a win, kids. Let's go to some phone calls here. Let's go to Steven in Italy. Paesano, what's going on? Hey, what's going on, boys? Keep it moving. Nailed it.

Yeah. Grazie. Prego. Doesn't sound it. Hey, prego. Hey, question I got for you guys. Keep it moving Nailed it Yeah Grazie Prego Doesn't sound Gabagool Hey Question I got for you guys Big Seahawks fan

And with the Seahawks Drafting gold these past two years For Charles Cross Kenneth Walker III Tariq Woolen JSN Witherspoon And then I got

And then I got Gino Breaking the Seahawks Single passing yards With Tyler Lockett And DK With Jamar Charles Coming back How does one expect me To believe the Singhawks single passing yards with Tyler Lockett and DK with Jamar Charles coming back. I just want to expect me to believe the Singhawks are not going to be absolute dogs this year. Steven, where do you live at in Italy?

Why do you live over there? I'm in Naples. I'm in the military. Oh, we appreciate your service, pal. How is it over there? No, I love it, man. Pizza, everything is great about it. Nice. Foxy got engaged over there. He, I love it, man. Pizza, everything is great about it. Nice. Foxy got engaged over there. He said pasta,

pasta, pasta. So much pasta. Alright, Stephen. Stephen agrees. He didn't say anything. Yeah, he's probably eating pasta. Well, I mean, it is a nice observation that Italy has pasta, but the way Foxy described it is like... No, you legitimately can't get anything else but pizza or pasta.

I'm not being exaggerated at all. It's like rice in China. You can get fish. There's fish everywhere, isn't there? And fish and seafood. Yes, you're correct. What part of Italy? You've been to Italy?

Just Rome, I believe. Whoa. Just Rome, I believe. Oh, you're roaming around. I know. I got to see the Coliseum. Like 12 years ago, I got to go see the Coliseum. Is he going there for the Ryder Cup?

Is he invited back to the... Yeah, what are you doing? Man, I wish. That'd be sweet, wouldn't it? Well, they need your 12 years ago, I got to go see the Coliseum. Is he going there for the Ryder Cup? Is he invited back to the? Yeah, what are you doing? Man, I wish. That'd be sweet, wouldn't it? Well, they need your Moxie, I think, on the team. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. I would agree.

Plus, if Draco Malfoy goes under again, they're going to need someone to resuscitate him. That's crazy that happened. Weren't you there for that? Kelly Slater basically saved him, yeah. That's crazy. Really? Very scary.

Swimmer? Surfer, asshole. Oh, okay, because surfers can't swim. Well, of course he can swim. He's a surfer. Exactly. So who was wrong? I feel like you probably were.

You're technically not wrong, Tony. You did kind of dig yourself out of that. Well, which is classic. That's another thing that ESPN is going to have to get used to. He did say that, but remember, just 30 seconds later. He clarifies. People aren't going to do that. People aren't going to wait on him.

This asshole in the cowboy hat has gone too far. Coach Elko was awesome. Yeah, he was. He's a beast. They're going to be very good. High energy, too, it looked like. He seems like he gets it. Jersey, tough guy, too.

Want to pen so he understands the big brain stuff. Like, hey, yeah, you're going to have to be smart to get into Duke, obviously. But also, we can still be tough guys and football guys, which I love. Because some people utilize the excuse, we can't get guys in here, can't get guys in here, can't get guys in here. Elko's like, you just got to get the right guys. You know, Stanford was able to do that for a long time. Stanford was the pipeline for super smart, football players and then that just kind of

fizzled out those guys exist you got to be able to find them i think elko is like hey we're gonna find them we're gonna develop them and we're gonna be a good football team what a place for him to have success too unreal i got big money down there oh yeah yeah and it's a little bit more easier these days too because you don't have to take the sct or the act all you gotta do is have a good great point average so i think it's kind of easier to get these days, too, because you don't have to take the SCT or the ACT. All you got to do is have a good grade point average. So it's kind of easier to get dogs. Oh, really? I think that's different at places like Duke, though.

No, it's not. Really? That's awesome. You don't have to take SAT to go play college football in no school. Did COVID change all that, Pat? Yeah, it did. Your grade points average have to be really high to go to Duke. You might have to have a 3.8 or 3.9.

You can't have no Cs on your report card. But as far as taking a test, you don't have to take a test to get in no more. That's amazing news. I would have been fucked. The test was the thing that got me. Yeah, the test was hard. The test was the one that helped. January of this year, they said you don't need an SAT or ACT score to play.

That is a big deal. That is a huge deal. What about for other people? What about someone that's not going to play sports and they just want to get in because it's impossible to get into most of these schools well you gotta call that guy go by the same rules if you're not playing sport go through the back side side door you're gonna go through the side door you're gonna be on the crew i know people with like three nines and 17 million extracurriculars that don't get into these these good schools yeah well they should have had a four oh so a good time exactly every kid applying

has all that i've thought about that with my daughter, you know. I didn't take school serious, and I don't know if I'm going to change my stances on that. So I'm trying to figure out how I will enforce to her that she has to do this. This is something you have to do, and you might as well get straight A's if you're going to do it. But those parent-teacher conferences are certainly going to be something. I can't wait for that because with the way schooling is now,

there's a lot of people getting homeschooled and shit now too, right? Yeah. Because COVID? Probably, yeah. COVID is really, I think it's like kind of, right? How's it going? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You going to do the homeschool thing? It's a lot of work. Tebow was homeschooled. I mean. I learned that on that talk. He was playing for a high school. Yeah. While being homeschooled. And at the high learned that on that talk. He was playing for a high school. Yeah. While being homeschooled.

And at the high school, like talking, he was the leader. I'm surprised those kids were like. Who the fuck is this guy? That homeschool shit? No, no, no. COVID was enough for me. Your ass is getting up out of here, buddy. Yeah, I don't know how.

They need to. I think that's when teachers kind of realized they had a little leverage. Yeah. Because every parent got to experience what their life is. Now, they signed up for it, knew what it was like. Yeah. They went to school for it and everything like that. And they get to experience, like, I'm not saying, I'm not diving into that whole world.

But I think a lot of teachers are like, oh, now you see what our life is like. Okay. Now's a good time to say, we need a little more money. Yep. We need a little bit more say. We need a little bit more say. We need a little bit more of this. And a lot of parents are like, as long as I don't have to sit at home and do this whole thing again, well, whatever the fuck you want.

And then there's other parents going, I'm in charge. I'm in charge of what my kids learn at your school. It's like, whew, it feels like this is something that's just going to continue to kind of boil completely. And then it's going to explode. And I think that's slowly happening right now, right? if my algo is showing some accurate stuff school board meetings people yelling school board meetings are huge yeah like people are crazy about school board stuff yeah they're real deal now people are treating like they're running for president people are treating school board speeches yes to the school board as if it's like an election campaign wild they actually have power though i think coven made everyone realize oh oh, these are actually the local stuff.

That's where you can actually make some change. If you want to change something, that's how you figure it out. Man, I don't dive into that world, but I know a lot of people that they get inundated, and that becomes their identity, like figuring out who to get elected to the school board and then what they want for their – that's crazy. Well, good luck to everybody figuring that out. AJ, we know, too. I mean, he's putting together his office right now.

What's that? With the Secretary of Ohio and Defense of Ohio. So do you and Herbstreet have half crowns that you wear? I think Herbie has the crown, for sure. No, you also have. Would it be a half crown? And when you guys come together, it's like the ultimate, oh. Like everybody goes, oh.

Yeah, I think that's how it is. Is it like the Dwight Howard ring that goes on the Rolls Royce that starts the car at the front? Is that what your head and Kirk's head are like whenever you guys combine in there? Because you're both the presidents of Ohio. Is it O-H on your head and an I-O on Herbie's head? And who decides who gets O and who gets O? You know what I mean?

Who decided that? What is it like with the crowns that you guys were given? You say we're the presidents of Ohio, correct? Yeah, but Ohio's a dictatorship, obviously. In your royalty now. That's why the crown. I don't know, man. You could just ask Kirk about all this.

Kirk has relations. He's been how many years at game day? 27? I think it's 28. Think of the people he knows. Kirk knows everybody. When I'll say something about college football, like, oh, my natural reaction is just to think this about this,

Herbie will be like, come on, bud. That's not, you know? And I'm like, well, that would make sense.

He's come on. And he's like, when he says that type of stuff, I'm like, oh, this guy has probably seen this thing happen probably a thousand times over the last 30 years. And just be like,

nah, this is how this is going to go. It's fascinating. Whenever he has been the face of college football. And here's him on a stage with you, Vrabes Gonzo. That's Schlage's? Nugent. That's Mike Nugent?

Yeah, the Sonny Unger Banquet. It's the thing my Centerville High School does to honor the guy that died in Vietnam that played for Centerville. Well, thank you for your service, sir, who went to Vietnam. Is this shortly there? Look at your fucking head.

I know. It's so big. I think it was right after my first year. Braves was still playing. Braves was amazing, by the way, that whole night. So I assume Braves was awesome, but Braves is a big guy. Braves is a big guy.

Yeah, huge. He's huge. This looks like an Ohio chief of staff meter. Yeah. It really does. Truly. Look at Gonzo. This guy is going to get run out of town.

Yeah, multiple times. Doesn't know it yet. Doesn't know it yet. This guy is going to have a great career, do his thing. This guy is going to be a head coach of an NFL team and considered tough guy, big guy. Yeah. Look how fucking large. Look at this.

Bro. I think it's just perspective of where the picture was taken, right? You're furthest away from the camera. So it should be the opposite, actually. This isn't a Centerville thing either, Zito said. The internet says this is Ohio Hall of Fame thing, obviously. Nope. It is Sonny Unger banquet, but yeah.

Okay, well, the internet's lying. Look at Kirk's chair. Look at Kirk's chair. Look at Kirk's chair. It's a Centerville painted chair that says his name on it. They auctioned him off after to raise money. So because your cheeks were on this one, they were auctioning it off? Mm-hmm. I think mine's a Centerville.

No, mine's Packers. But we signed them, and they probably made $20 on them. Who knows? $20? Someone from Ohio is buying the chair that A.J. Hawk's nutsack was on for $2,000. Could you imagine this one? I mean, geez.

Yeah, for real. Bro, though, let's. Are you kidding me, dude? Yeah, it does look pretty large in there, man. Yeah. It does. Yeah, dude. I'm okay with it. I wonder if that's why you got drafted. Probably. Holy shit. Look at this guy in there. Yeah. It does. Yeah. I'm okay with it.

I wonder if that's why you got drafted. Probably. Holy shit. Look at this guy's head. Probably. Who want to hit the head? Holy shit. I should try to lose like 90 pounds and then just have a big bobblehead sitting on top

of my body. I showed you the picture whenever I got down to 205 or whatever. Oh, you did. Yes. My head looked like an actual bobblehead sitting on top of my body, but my head's never looked like that. Not many have. That's the only thing you can see on this photo. Herbstree looks like he's 12.

He does. Gonzo looks the exact same. He does. Gonzo's been a 45-year-old man for about 30 years now. Nugent's a dog, obviously, dressed incredibly cool. Vrabes looks so thin. Oh, yeah, he does. I didn't know Vrabes looks so thin. Oh, yeah, he does. I didn't know Vrabes got this thin.

Was this while you were still playing? Yeah. I think he was still in the Patriots then. He hadn't even gone to the Chiefs. Look at those shoes, Vrabel, too. Dude, so many cigs. How many cigs do you think during, before, or after this thing? I don't know if there's other ones.

We rode in a limo from Columbus to one of these events, and it was a good time. Dolphin, I think it was two packs. With a vape and a zinc. He's the best. It was awesome. This dude is so awesome. And then look at you.

You're two of him. You are two of him right there. Well, I mean, that's an extra boxy gigantic suit from circa 2007. Don't matter. You love those. How much did you weigh here? I did back when they were big. How much did you weigh here, you think? Probably 245. Jesus. What do you think Braves was? 225?

230? No, Braves was like 250, man. Braves was like 6'5". Oh, yeah. I guess his knees. Yeah, they are protruding a little more. You see him. He's a giant. He's a giant. That's what I'm saying. Look at you, dude. Nuge's head is just so big. So big. Yeah, well, Nuge doesn't have a very big head.

And his feet also don't touch the floor. He's got to really lean forward. Neither would mine. It's not a shot at all. That was not meant to be a shot. Anyways, Ohio has created some great things. This is one of them. And that head is maybe the largest of all time. So big. Hershey's got a lot of Jordan Spieth in him.

He does, doesn't he? For some reason, when I glance over there, it's like... That's what Herbie looks like this year, by the way. Herbie's real. Have you seen him? Yeah, but so what did he say last year? He said, I just prepared. Is he saying he didn't do anything?

He didn't eat right? He didn't work out? Is that what he was trying to tell us? I think towards the year, he said, oh, I just prepared. Is he saying he, like, he didn't do anything, he didn't eat right, and he didn't work out? Is that what he was trying to tell us? I think, like, towards the end, he got a little, because every time you get tired, you get lazy, you know? And when you travel a bunch, you're naturally going to get tired. So then you get lazy, some people. There are some people who are just.

No, it's easy, especially if you're traveling a lot, it's easy to eat poor, too. Oh, yeah, here we go, and just grab whatever. Pizza's available at every single place you go to like hey a snack here is available food's here available so i think maybe he did that and then i don't know i don't remember him getting too big last year i don't remember but i assume that i assume there was a full meeting afterwards either with him or somebody else where it's like i need to figure out how to maintain energy through fall and their first answer is because i've had this question to people i'm like, I need to figure out how to maintain energy through fall. And their first answer is, cause I've had this question to people. I'm like,

Hey, I need to figure out how to maintain my energy through fall. It's absurd. And it's like, not going to be able to dial back to schedule. So that's not an answer. So like need another answer. Like, what do you put in your body? What do you, how much are you working out? Like that whole thing. I wonder if Kirk had one of those because it is certainly, you know, paid off. I'm trying to work out more more that's what i've been told as you work out more that'll happen but my body's going a different direction than his his body's going into h&m model he looks really good right now really good you could tell when he pulled up that photo he probably looked at that national championship photo multiple times like the gobbler on my neck because i yeah i didn't

say i didn't notice anything. That's funny. That's the first thing he notices. I'm like, I guess it's... That was probably a full-on conversation he was having all season. Probably. I assume. That is so rude. What did you say, Conor?

So rude. The gobbler? Not what he said. Your amateur sketch that you just did. No, no, no, no. That is just what I saw. Connor said the reason why Herbie is dieting is because this is what he used to look like in Drew on the dry race.

No, no, no. Let's go ahead and show. Let's go ahead and show the people. I always want to turn Java so we can actually get a good look at it. Let's go ahead and show. This is not what I thought. This is what people were saying Herbie looked like last year. And I did not make this as a slight to Herbie.

This was not a mean thing to Herbie. This is what people said he looked like. Herbie's a good guy. I love Herbie. Unbelievable. I love Herbie like a father. However, this is what people said he looked like last year. Good sons, good boys. Good boys. You guys have good boys. a father. However, this is what people said he looked like last year. Good sons, good boys.

You guys have good boys. Good father. People have no idea. There'll be somebody giving an answer when we go to a widescreen on a one-shot and somebody's giving an answer and Ty or Connor or Tone will just have an idea that they think everybody needs to see right now. So they'll write it on that

dry erase board and then just slowly turn it up. And it's just something either despicable, toxic or very real about what's happening. And we all have to turn our heads away from microphone while this person is spilling their soul into a a full on

and that's going to be on ESPN. That's what's going to be on ESPN. Also on ESPN, I just saw this news and you know, the Miz alluded to it. Travis Kelsey has hyperextended his knee in practice today. This is obviously a big deal. Their game is on Thursday. It's just two days away. The misfortune here of the Kansas City Chiefs losing their number one weapon

potentially for opening night on a Tuesday practice just days before the kickoff is incredibly sad. He's obviously 33 years old. He's going to be turning 34 during this season. He is their best weapon. He's on track to be the greatest tight end of all time. Now we're staring down a hyperextended knee. Who knows the different degrees or variations of the hyperextension

because it can happen. Does it hurt a ligament? Does it stretch a joint? Does it do this? Is there a bone bruise now because of the hyperextension it's like we don't know any of that information but what i do know is chris jones seemingly not playing for the chiefs on thursday night and now travis kelsey potentially not playing on thursday night for the kansas city chiefs if i'm the brand new lions you're obviously pumped up about this,

but the rest of us are bummed that we're missing out on two of the greatest players in the NFL on showcase night, potentially. We hope he's okay, AJ. Yeah, so it's Tuesday. Game is Thursday. Unless it is very, very minor, I don't know how he's going to play, especially the fact that Andy Reid had to mention it as well, because was media there?

Did media see it happen, or are they just self-reported, obviously? I'm not 100% sure. If it's self-reported, then we know it's definitely something. Yeah. Right? Because. Well, it can't be. What's that?

Well, is there. Yesterday, football gods put it on you. Yeah. Well, season has started. True. Oh, shit. You know what I mean? So this is the.

One to pick once. That's probably. Did they have to put an injury report out? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, two days before the game. Probably got to do an up-down thing here. So that's why you got to, yeah.

Okay, man. Also week one. I don't know if the Super Bowl champs are too concerned. Thomas Jones right now. Yeah. Might conserve him for the push he runs if he does have to miss a few. 17 games, obviously. We don't have to remind people that know that.

And obviously, we assume missing the first one here, maybe the second one, depending upon the seriousness of this. And I don't want to say he's old, but. Yeah. Older. Older. Played a long time. Who knows how.

And he seemed to be healthy and he's in great shape and his body bounces back quicker than others, we would hope and assume. But a hyperextension of the knee could be a mountain. So many different things in there could happen. Because when my knee hyperextended, the knee could be a amount that so many different things in there could happen because when my knee hyperextended i actually dislocated my patella had a dislocated patella for like nine weeks it was terrible but with the patella kneecap bouncing around on the outside it also chipped some different stuff off i think i had a meniscus tear because of it and some other stuff so it's like obviously i don't think he hyperextended his knee so bad that he

had patella dislocation. But, like, there's so many things in there that could get fucked up from a hyperextension. I guess we just have to sit and see here about what it is and how severe. But that's not fun. No, it sucks. That sucks. Yeah.

That sucks. Yeah, one of the guys you spend money to see. Yeah. One of the guys you rob banks to go watch. Bingo. Yeah. Not just some guy here. No.

What other tight ends do they have on the roster? Blake Bell's still there. There's not another Hall of Fame on there. Yeah, I mean, there's only one Kelsey. And I think it's Jody Fortson, 88. He's a big son of a bitch, too. But, again, yeah, he's not Travis Kelsey. What was it?

It was 6-1⁄2. Now it's 6. The Chiefs were favored by 6-1⁄2. After the Kelsey injury, I saw one book at least that moved it to 6. That's it. So half a point for Travis Kelsey. Well, they don't know that he's out yet. True.

I think if he gets – I figured we were talking if it would have been like, hey, he's out, I think it would have went to four, four and a half. Travis Kelsey, Noah Gray, Blake Bell, Jody Fortson on IR. So Noah Gray is the backup. Okay. All right. Might be able to make some plays there. I think we're all kind of assuming he's not playing on Thursday.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the fact that we heard about it, yeah, that's what makes me worry, the game on Thursday. Yeah, 17 games, 16 left after this one. Travis Cousins ain't going to like that. They're doing a walkthrough tomorrow. Remember?

Then you're playing Thursday. Yeah. How did he get hurt? Did he get hurt today? Yeah. Didn't this happen two days before the game when Nance accidentally leaked that he was hurt, like his back or something was hurt before?

Was it a playoff game? It might have been a playoff game. But now, obviously, the playoff game is different than week one of the year. What are they doing, though? He can hyperextend his knee. Fluke thing. You get stuck in a hole and your foot's stuck and it pops back. One of those.

Where it's just like a quick pop. I'm sure they did some kind of practice on Monday. Today was probably a walkthrough. Yeah, but today he got dirty. They probably did like a light jog through. Today may be Fast Friday, right? Fast Friday, right. And then tomorrow they're off.

The Kansas City Chiefs superstar tight end Travis Kelsey injured his knee during the team's Tuesday session at the team's practice facility at the Truman Sports Complex. So far, little is known about it. Speaking to reporters immediately after practice, head coach Andy Reid was reluctant to give detail. They're looking at it now, explained. We'll see how it goes.

Reid did, however, say Kelsey's injury happened right in front of him. He hyperextended his knee, said the coach. Damn. All right. That sucks. Scott Moore said he saw Travis Kelsey limp off the field on his own power. Son Moore believes the injury is not too serious. We won't get official injuries.

Well, statuses. I mean, if he's limping, why would they even risk it? It's one game. We want to see it because it's the first NFL game of the year, but why the fuck would they put it? Damn it. The next guy steps in and we roll. Says Andy Reid. That's what you do if that's the case.

Reid said that if it turned out that Kelsey would not be available for Thursday night's season opener against Detroit Lions, at Arrowhead, the team would do what it always does. Next guy step in. So. Sound like somebody's not playing. Yeah, feels like he's probably not playing. And that sucks, dude. But why would they try to push him through

if he has anything lingering like that? You're not going to do that week one. They get it. It does set up, too, for just a Mahomes master class. Yes, it does. They might roll out there and just go four wide the entire game and you might just pick Mahomes master class. Yes, it does. They might roll out there and just go four wide the entire game and he might just pick them apart. Us on Friday,

you see what he was doing with guys we never even heard of? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we never even heard. This is an Aaron Rodgers type thing. This is a Tom Brady type thing. Obviously, Travis Kelsey, whenever he gets back in the lineup, is going to be able to go crazy. But last night, what was that guy's name? Rasheen Rice. That's the guy who won for $185. Yeah, we can certainly see that happening. But hopefully, Travis Kelsey gets healthy. Hey, pulling last night, what was that guy's name? Rasheen Rice. That's the guy who won for $185. Yeah, we can certainly see that.

But hopefully, Travis Kelsey gets healthy. Hey, pulling for you, buddy. Good luck, Travis. Or they put a tackle at tight end, and they run the ball 65 times. That'd be awesome if that's what Andy Reid wanted to do. I'd be so bummed. I do like that the West Virginia team did the Andy Reid ring around, right? Yeah, that was cool.

That was fun. One guy almost kicked the ball. That was the time to do it. I'm happy we wasted it, yeah. Put it on film. Make them worry about it. No, Neil Brown's got more. Do you think that's the last one Neil's got? A bag full

of tricks. Saving it for the Duquesne game. Exactly. When they'll really need him. Down three on that last drive. Stop it. Stop it. Please stop it. Possibility.

You know what they say, though? If Garrett Green's got the ball in his hands on the last drive, they're going to win that ball. Yeah, don't let Garrett Green have the ball in his hands on that last drive. Thanks, Connor. That's what they say. Thanks for reiterating the fact. I don't know.

That's what they say. It doesn't sound like you believed it at all. Well, after the fucking clinic, God damn it. After the clinic he put on. Well, God damn it. Yeah, I can't say God damn it. What?

No, you can't say it, but you're going to just piss people off. I know. You need to know that every GD you... That one, yeah, that one I can live with. Yeah, but like also, yeah, me too, actually. Yeah, sure, but I'm not,

yeah, that's one, that's not negotiable, my friends. God damn is fine. How about that? How about that? Shout out, God. You got any ability left? He's with us.

Thank you, buddy. I should have played quarterback back in the day, but I didn't take life serious enough to be a leader of any teams. That happens. Being quarterback gets a lot of power. Yeah. It's a privilege to have that type of responsibility. That's right.

Just like the one we're given on Thursday. Hell yeah. Can't wait. Goddamn right. We're given a lot of power on Thursday. We're the first people, I think, in a long time. This is a real deal. First people in a long time who have been given full creative control for 10 hours on ESPN each week.

Okay? This is a real deal. Let's enjoy the hell out of it. Yes, sir. Let's have a blast. Let's have a great football season. And we will see you all on Thursday when we're back. We'll be live on this YouTube.

We'll be live on ESPN. We'll be live on ESPN+. What? And we'll be having a great time talking about an NFL game happening ahead of us. A live show in Tuscaloosa happening the next day. And then full reactions to all football shit all year

long. You are the greatest humans on Earth for allowing us to do this for a living. We can't thank you enough. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. We'll see you Thursday with the brand new era of the Pat McAfee show. Same old stoogey. Goodbye.