The Press Box - Jimmy Kimmel’s Return, the Fox-Barstool College Football Experiment, and Kamala’s Book Tour. Plus: Noah Eagle.

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel discuss the return of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' on Tuesday night (0:46) before reexamining the Fox-Barstool college football experiment and Kamala Harris's book tour (25:50). Finally, they are joined by NBC's Noah Eagle to discuss the highly anticipated Oregon–Penn State matchup this Saturday, capturing wacky finishes in the broadcast booth, his play-by-play strategy as the game of football evolves, and broadcasters in suits vs. quarter zips (49:30). Then Joel conducts a hard-hitting Lightning Round (1:08:20). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Guest: Noah Eagle Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Bill Simmons, and I want to tell you about my movie podcast, The Rewatchables. We're each week, I'm joined by Ringer movie lovers, Chris Ryan, Sean Vanity, Van Lathen, Kyle Brandt, Mali Rubin. We have a whole bunch of people on. We talk about movies. We can't stop rewatching. And now you can watch us cover these movies on video in the Spotify app. We have covered over 350 movies, including Heat, Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, Pulp Fiction.

We have some real heavy hitters coming up here in 2025. Make sure to follow us on Spotify, where you can, watch every new episode right now. Just head to the rewatchables on Spotify, now on video. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. You got Brian Curtis, Joel Anderson, and producer Kyle Crichton here. Coming up on the press box, we take stock of the Barstool Fox College Football Experiment.

We talk about Kamala Harris' book tour, and we welcome in Noah Eagle, who's calling Oregon versus Penn State on Saturday night. But first up, Joel, there's so much news, so much news, starting with the return of Jimmy Kimmel. Man, that's a big deal, isn't it, huh? That's the first time we've been like, man, you know, there was some big news that happened, and it involved late night TV. Now, he came back Tuesday night, and I understand you could not watch this live in Washington, D.C. Yeah, man, I literally found out at 1129.

p.m. Eastern that my local ABC affiliate, WJLA, which is based out of Arlix and Virginia, was a Sinclair station. And so they were running some sort of local programming. Like it wasn't like the normal newscast or whatever, but it was just some sort of, they were running some sort of story. And so yes, I, you know, I guess that's, I'm sure a lot of people who tuned in at that time around the country, that this was probably the first time they realized that their, their local affiliate was owned by Sinclair too. Where they thought about who their local affiliate was owned by at all.

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, because why would I ever think about that? I mean, I guess as a media person, I probably should have put a little bit more thought into it, but I just kind of, probably like a lot of people I engage with local news, you know, catch as can, like whatever. You know, if it catches my attention, fine, but I hadn't

gone on the website to figure out who owned it until until Tuesday. Despite the fact that people in Washington, Nashville, New Orleans, Portland, couldn't watch Jimmy Kimmel Live. Jimmy Kimmel Live got more than 6 million viewers on Tuesday, then. Man, that's pretty good, man. That's, I mean, just imagine, yeah, I mean, just think about how artificial those numbers are,

how they were held down by not getting all those big markets, man. That's crazy. Is this the last episode of Late Night TV we'll watch collectively as a country? I got to think so. so, man. I mean, because, I mean, they're already sort of money losers for the networks, right? And people are already looking for ways to transition away from them because the host makes so much money and they cost so much money to make and they're not getting their returns on it. So I got to think so, which is really sad.

Didn't that make you? I mean, of course it does. I'm sure we're on the same page as this. It makes you sad, right? Makes me nostalgic more than sad. Okay. Because these shows are still on and I'm not watching them. That's a great point. Yeah, but it takes me into my... Were you a Johnny Carson watcher? Because I was a Johnny Carson watching. Yeah.

It's like the first kind of adult television, I think I really remember watching. Oh, yeah. It's like watching The Simpsons. It's like an eight-year-old. It's like, I'm laughing at something. I don't quite know why, but everybody else is laughing, so it must be funny. It felt like we were celebrating at least a partial victory for free speech on Tuesday night, but also bidding goodbye to a whole genre of television.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So Jimmy comes out on stage and as our cousin Sal tweeted, our very own cousin, Sally's not actually your cousin and my cousin, there was something in that 17-minute opening segment for everybody. There really was. He comes out, he's talking about what happened, and eventually Kimmel got here.

I've been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do tonight. And the truth is, I don't think what I have to say is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me, if you don't, you don't. I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind. But I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human. And that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don't think there's anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family, and asking for compassion.

And I meant it. I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what. But it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you're upset. If the situation was reversed, there was a good chance I'd have felt the same way.

Man. So Jimmy Kimmel was not an actor, right? He's a comedian. But you couldn't even fake. he was feeling there. Like, it was just really perfectly timed sincerity, a sincerity and empathy. I mean, we always talk about people rising to meet the moment. And that certainly is what he did through that. I was moved by watching him. It made me think about, you know, when I first became aware of Jimmy Kimmel, which was the Man Show, right? And was it The Man Show? He was in a

man show. And he was, did he do Dr. Drew too? Uh, he was. Yeah. Winnstein's money. That was a very different Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah, very different Jimmy Kimmel. And so like it just, it was, I mean, this is probably a little condescending, but it was like, oh man, I've seen him grow up. Like, you is like watching him grow up before your eyes, right? It's interesting when you contrast that to those monologues. You and I talked about with Carson or Letterman back in the day when, you know, I think those were designed in a lot of ways for somebody who's had a tough day at work. You're pissed off at their boss. Maybe stuff isn't going right in their family.

And they sit down at 11.30 and they click on the TV. And they just want something to take them out of that. They want to laugh. They want to forget. But when you look at those monologues now in the world we live in, I watch them and I'm like, this isn't about anything. It's just jokes. Like there's no point of view.

There's no feeling. there's no, you know, sincerity, as you say, no real emotion behind them in a world where we have podcasts and everything else that are filled with real emotion, real ideas. And they stand out for that reason. So to hear him talk and for that monologue, for that opening segment to be about something, that was very, very striking to me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess people would probably say, well, why can't a monologue always be like that? Why can't it have emotional resonance? Maybe it does. Well, because the affiliates will get pissed off.

Right, yeah, that's what I was going to say. Like, we see right now that there's a lot of very thin line you've got to walk. But also, I don't think anybody could do that every day. Like, it seems like that would take a lot out of you to have to bury yourself in front of the, in front of millions of people like that every day. Kimball's done that before talking about health care, but you're right. That would probably be unsustainable. There's an interesting piece in New York Times by Jason Zinneman about how late night talking. shows became political.

This is a real interesting corrective because you've seen a lot of people, including JD Vance, be like, the whole thing went woke, so I stopped watching this genre. And Zinemann talks about the reasons why they got political. Number one is essentially John Stewart in the early 2000s was a thing. It was happening over on Comedy Central, but it was a thing. He's talking about George W. Bush. He's talking about the Iraq War. And everybody's like, oh, here we go.

And then, of course, John Stewart has all these acolytes, one of which is Stephen Colbert. So they trickle into the mainstream. But the other part of it is just the media world changed so much that nobody wants to watch these shows because they have so many other options. So if you're a late night host, especially Colbert, you're like, what is the thing that will put butts in the seats right now? And one of those topics that will put butts in the seats that will get people to pay attention is politics. and that to me is the most rational explanation I've heard about why these shows have a political tent besides the emergence of Donald Trump. That's probably number one. This is this is one A.

It doesn't work without Donald Trump, I think, in office. But that's the most rational explanation I've heard. Yeah. And I mean, also, I mean, you know, and, you know, far be it for me, I need to read that piece. But, I mean, Saturday Night Live has always dealt with political humor, right? Like, there's always been a piece of what we've done, but it certainly seems that, you know, over the last decade or so, or maybe, you know, I kind of wonder, and we can, you know, look at this later. I kind of felt like for me, a real inflection point was the OJ trial, right, where it was just like something out of the news that people decided this is going to be the thing that we hammer and we're going to come back to over and over again. And at least it seems to be that was when the change came to me.

Maybe that may be a historical. But that's when I kind of felt like, oh, okay, like we're really getting the rundown of the national news as part of our late-night monologues now. Yes. And that just went on so long that there was so much material there for months and months and months. Oh, yeah. I mean, the Edo jokes, you know, people make a fun of Cato Cato. The dancing Eto. J. Leno, that was an actual thing that happened.

Yeah, man, a Cato Caelin joke. I mean, and then again, we're talking about a case where two people got killed, right? And people made jokes about it. So certainly we're in a different time now, but we just, yeah, we've just decided to make comedy out of the news now. And not that that's anything new, but it certainly seems to have overwhelmed anything else that it's going on in the world. Speaking of a different time, I remembered an article existing. Have you ever had this feeling and you Google and Google and Google is trash now so you can't find anything? thing. I was like, I know this article existed. I remember where I read it. I know even who wrote it and I can't

find it. It took me forever yesterday. But I found this article, Bill Carter 2003, New York Times Magazine, but ABC's decision to pick Jimmy Kimmel to host their late night show. Did you know or remember that ABC's first choice to host late night, 2003, was John Stewart? I did not know that at all. No. And Joel, here's the kick. they looked at their schedule and said, hey, you know, we're the network of Roseanne. We're the network of home improvement. I don't know if we want coastal, topical comic as our late night guy. So they went back and forth, back and forth, Stewart wanted the job, and they picked Jimmy Kimmel for those reasons. Wow. Now here we are, Jimmy Kimmel, that the Trump administration

has marked in somebody that they want off the air or would be happy to see go off the air. Man, what a moment. I wonder how that would have turned out if John Stewart. This is funny because I'm trying to go back 20 years ago to remember what John Stewart was doing before then. And I do have a vision of him being in the movie

I really enjoyed half-baked, which would have been around that time. It's how funny to think. Like, that's the guy we wanted to hinge our, you know, one of our biggest franchise is on. I mean, Jimmy Kimmel makes sense. But I guess I don't remember what I knew John Stewart for in 2002, right? Yeah. And of course, ABC's like, yeah, it's the man show. This is a kind of comedy we probably don't want, at least in this form. But hey, it's not political. And here we are. Back to Kimmel's show, he did thank all the conservatives who have stood up for him. It was very magnanimous of him to do that. And it also, we I mean, we can talk about this in a moment. But it just, I thought it was interesting

because it just suggests something about where Kimmel's eyes, where his eyes are on the horizon to me. How do you think? How do you think? Well, I mean, you know, I kind of wonder if there's a future for him

doing something else in politics because I just kind of feel like everybody, when anybody has a moment. Remember, we were on this show, you know, a few months ago, and I was like, man, I wonder if Hunter Biden's going or run or whatever. Because there's just, there's no more barriers for entry anymore, right?

Like, it's just like anybody that can briefly sort of captivate the public and talk in a way that people think is reasonable. And then you think like, okay, like humor is going to be a big part of that. I just wondered if, you know, maybe Kimmel sees himself doing something like that. And I mean, for people that think that this is ridiculous, I mean, you know, the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, I mean, that is his story. Like, he was the Kimmel of Ukraine. and now he's the president. So it's not, you know, absurd to think that, you know, I wonder if people are in his ear about it.

And it could be something like him running for office or it could be a post-ABC thing where he's a podcaster and a media guy and he is essentially positioned as somebody who is affecting democratic politics. You know, to show that's funny, but it's a show that the candidates come on. Absolutely.

All those Democrats who are lining up to run in 2028, come on. And they passed the Kimmel test after they passed the Stephen A test and the Joe Rogan test and all the other tests, all the other tests we've set for them. That's right. That's right. Yeah, man. I mean, it's, you know, we live in sort of a different world in which you have to kind of think. I don't even think that's thinking out of the box anymore. Like, to me, that's sort of I mean, Donald Trump's the president. So what's what is out of the box? Exactly. Him mentioning Ted Cruz also led to a very funny joke comparing Cruz to Gargamel of the Smurfs.

All 80s kids appreciated that one. I mean, I love how this is funny because, I mean, they clearly hate each other so much. Did they ever play that basketball game? They were supposed to play a basketball game against each other once in a point of time.

I don't know if that ever actually happened. But open invitation to Ted Cruz to come on Jimmy Kim alive and shoot baskets. Yeah, man. Invitation to come on the press box and shoot baskets against me. We will absolutely do that anytime Ted Cruz, wants to. One thing I loved about the Kimmel monologue is that he eventually brought it around and said, look, this isn't just about muslin comedy. It's about muslin journalism. It's not just comedy. He's gunning for our journalists, too. He's suing them. He's bullying them over the weekend.

His foxy friend Pete Hegset announced a new policy that requires journalists with Pentagon press credentials to sign a pledge promising not to report information that hasn't been explicitly authorized for release. That includes unclassified information. They want to pick and choose what the news is. I know that's not as interesting as musseling a comedian, but it's so important to have a free press, and it is nuts that we aren't paying more attention to it.

Man, that's great. I mean, we don't often think about how we're all tied together in that way, right? that, you know, where his rights are infringed upon that necessarily could get to us. I mean, because Jimmy Kimmel is much more powerful, much more influential than any one journalist in this country. And so for him to have sort of extend that olive branch to journalists and people that are, you know, working, you know, upon these, under these First Amendment encroachments, man, that was really, that was really, really smart. Like I said, it just, he, they hit, he hit every single note that he could have in this monologue. I didn't think we'd get to the new rules of covering the Pentagon on the Jimmy Kimmel show or any late night show this week. So, yeah, huge credit there.

Also, since I was watching a late night show for the first time in a very, very long time, I was pleased to see the picture and picture that Kimmel had after his monologue. So they go to commercial, but there's still a picture of Kimmel standing on the set, like at a golf tournament that you're watching where they're still giving you, you know, pictures of the golfers while a Buick commercial is running. That was funny. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I only saw this.

I don't know if that was on my YouTube, because I didn't quite make it through. Yeah, we didn't get that. But yeah, but that is very, very cool for that to happen. Yeah. There's also a bit where Kimmel was interviewing Brendan Carr, chairman of the FCC. Turned out it was Robert De Niro,

reading from Q cards, but very, very funny bit. Man, I just, and I thought that was really cool because I was like, man, is, I mean, I don't know. Robert De Niro is still really famous to me. I mean, maybe because I'm, you know, a Gen X or whatever. I was like, he is still really famous. Genuinely famous person. Yeah. He was like, I will do the comedy bit. This is a big, I was that's a, ordinarily, that would be a big deal. And obviously, I mean, you know, Kimmel had great ratings last night. But I mean, I just, that seemed like, damn, he got Robert De Niro to do this. That's cool.

One thing I also liked is he did his 17 minutes of talking about what happened to him, explaining the situation, takes a commercial. does the De Niro thing. And then he comes back, Joel, and he does a monologue. So I'm going to talk about why I was muzzled. I'm going to talk about the importance of this as a principle. And you know what? Then I'm going to come back and I'm going to make fun of Donald Trump. I'm going to do the thing that this has always been about, making fun of people in power. I'm going to assert the right I just talked about. And that to me was such a smart move because really you could have done. that 17 minutes just on its own. It's the start of the show. It's what everybody wants to hear about. But him coming back and doing jokes before we got to Glenn Powell and Sarah McLaughlin, that was really, really cool.

It was really cool. And it felt cathartic in a different way. Yeah. I mean, it's like, again, we know that we're not in a time of norms, right? Like things have changed here. But for him to assert, like, you know what, I'm going to do as much as I can to, I want to do as much as I can't do the kind of work that people expect me to do, even under this sort of pressure.

It's just really smart. And yeah, I mean, I guess the thing is for Jimmy Kimmel, he's made enough money that he can do that sort of thing, right? Like, he doesn't have to be scared. And it's good for other people to take note of that. It's like, you know what? Like, this guy's not all that worried about it. Clearly, it affected him. But he showed that, like, I'm going to do the best I can do what I've always been doing

in spite of the pressure on me. And hopefully that's like a lesson for a lot of other people. How much of a victory for free speech is this when Nexstar and Sinclair are still out on the Kimmel Show? Well, you know, I mean, that's sort of the reality of the situation, right? That, you know, I still, I mean, it's not even just that. Like, I mean, you know, I do a college football podcast and there's, you know, reported that there's a chance that, Disney and ABC might punish these affiliates by not showing their college games on Saturday. You're going to really complicate your life.

Yeah, it's really making my life complicated. And I want somebody to figure it out. But yeah, I mean, like the reality of the situation is that some people can afford to take a stand when they can. And I'm glad that Jimmy's doing, even if it means the rest of us are going to be inconvenienced. Because, yeah, I mean, like this is still a fight that is playing out. Brendan Carr is still in charge of the FCC. Trump is still talking about putting his thumb on this sort of stuff. so it's not going to go away. But it's good to see that there are some people that are not willing to just kind of buckle

and settle with the administration. This is a related story, but J.D. Vance came out this week, and he was talking about Brendan Carr. And, of course, a lot of conservatives are being like, you know, what you interpreted as a threat from the FCC, it was not really a threat.

And J.D. Vance called it a joke. A joke that was being made. man i mean if we take what van said at face value which is like why would you do that anyway um and i've heard somebody you'll say this before can y'all tell us when y'all are going to make jokes right like wouldn't it be cool like i would just like to know at what point you guys are making jokes because like we don't like this is all really serious business right like all this stuff and like we've actually seen fallout from it like people have had to pay tens of millions of dollars.

I don't have the Kimmel show on my local affiliate. So to the extent that this is a joke, it does have real world implications. So if it's going to be a joke, like, please just let us know in advance because you all are not good at telling jokes then. And usually you don't have to come back and tell people, oh, yeah, that was a joke, man. Like people usually sort of know in the moment if you're good at telling jokes. And obviously, that's something that you all are failing at, you know, J.D. Vanson and the like, like, you're not doing a good job of letting us know that you're trying to be funny. But because it doesn't seem funny, like the consequences aren't funny, at least.

It brings up a bigger topic, which is that you have an administration here. And obviously, Brandon Carr was not joking. So we can just push that aside. But you have an administration here that communicates a lot of the time by trolling. Yeah. by, you know, tweeting, right, by attacking people on Twitter. And that to me is something that I think we're still getting our minds around as a country. We had Donald Trump's Twitter account back when he was fully on Twitter during his first administration.

And now in his second administration, we have not only Trump on true social, but J.D. Vance on Twitter. We have Brendan Carr sending memes to reporters, you know, which we saw the other day when Kimmel was taken off the air. Like, what do we do when an administration is communicating like your friends communicate on Twitter? You know, I guess that's sort of the problem, right? Like, we don't, I don't know what the answer is. The hope is that they take this all serious. seriously. That, right? That like this is, because I mean, again, this all used to be really serious business, right? Like, I mean, you left the jokes to the comedians, but they were handling really serious business that had real world impacts. And so it's just like, it's all part of sort of a degradation of political norms. And it goes, again, I know people are just going to call me a lib or whatever else. But like, if Kamala had done something like this, she'd have had to apologize. And it would have been an outrage. or whatever. But like it's, I mean, pointing out hypocrisy is so 2017. Like I don't, I don't need

to get into that. Like we all know what it is. And if you don't agree, you don't agree. But we're just way beyond that now. We're through the looking glass. And so, you know, here we are. But I just kind of, the expectation that should have been set was that they would be serious about this. Yeah. And I think the lesson's going to be taken away by the opposing party is that we should talk like that now. Right. Right. Right. It's not this Joe Biden sweet dream of, you know what, we're going to get somebody else in office and everything's going to calm down. No, you look at Gavin Newsom. And even if it's a parody or kind of sort of sort of parody, it's like, actually, we need to talk like this online now. This needs to be our kind of official mode of communication. I'm just like, dude, that just feels like a strange, strange world that we are only seeing a little bit of, right? Because again, it's Trump and it's Trump's allies. But just imagine when everyone, talks like that on Twitter. When everybody's just trying to own somebody,

you're like, dude, like, what's the official statement? What does you say is to be believed? What comes with a preamble? Like, just kidding. Not really. Yeah, right. They say, like, don't take him,

don't take him literally. Don't take him seriously. Don't take him literally. It was like, oh, okay, well, that's not kind of the expectation that I have of people that are in charge of our government. Like, I just, that's not a standard that I'm familiar with. And pardon us if we all have to adjust to that.

But yeah, like, it's not good. Like, I don't have a problem with Gavin Newsom and the West Moors are doing. But also, it's just, it's ominous. Like, it's just not good. It's just not good for the government or our political norms. Here's another topic I've been wanting to talk to you about for a while. Okay. The Barstool College Football Experiment.

Oh, man. Speaking of things I don't watch, but yeah, okay. So here's the background here. Okay. Big noon kickoff is Fox's Saturday college football pregame show. Yeah. They are locked in a battle with ESPN's College Game Day, which is the Kleenex or X-Rox of college football pregame shows. I like that.

Fox has tried to chip away at Game Day's lead. They got Chris Felica away from Game Day. Tom Rinaldi before that. And then before this season, they brought in Dave Portnoy and Barstool. They also got a daily show on FS1. The Big Noon part of it, trust me, way more important to Fox. Because they've always been a network that cares more about games, pregame shows on what they call Big Fox than they do about the cable affiliate over there.

So, first of all, it is really, really something. since we just talked about Jimmy Kimmel to see people wrapping their arms around Barstool personalities while we see local television affiliates distancing themselves from Jimmy Kimmel. That is part of the upside down world we are living in right now. I mean, there's a thing, I don't, because I want to be fair, right? And it's possible, and I know people that work at Barstool

and have worked at Barstool that are doing work that I've consumed before, right? And there are people that I'm cool with and, you know, whatever. But so I wonder if this is just part of a broader evolution, right? The Barstool has more ambition

in different aims than it did when Portnoy was the only guy. You're right, like he was the main guy that you were hearing from. So it is that. But the thing is, that when you foreground Dave Portnoy, then people, it's hard to sort of move past him in that past, right? It's like, oh, okay, well, you know, this, I mean, this guy, like, he's desirous

of being out front. And so then often you're going to be judged by that, which is, I mean, if people want to judge the ringer by Bill Simmons, right? Like, he is the face of our, you know, the face of our organization. And so people are going to assume things about us and to work that we do based on the guy that is the face of this organization. And so what they're saying is, you know, Dave Portnoy is the guy we're, we're hitching our wagon to. And, you know, I just, I don't have a lot of, I don't have a, I, there's a lot of TV on. You don't have to watch Dave Portnoy.

So I watched it for you. Okay. The episode from last Saturday, which was in Salt Lake City, Fox at Utah, Texas Tech. Yeah, it turned out to be a really interesting game. Who knew? Yeah, man. They spent the money, man. One interesting thing is that we wondered how much would Portnoy be on that show.

He's on that show a lot. Oh, yeah. This is not like the David Pollock next man up on Game Day a few years ago. He's on the panels. He's doing bits. He's doing stuff with Felica. He's on the show a lot. some of it is you know the crowd's amazing the traditions here are amazing which you and i think of

it's pretty familiar on the scene college football content there's obviously a lot of gambling picks but here's the thing that really struck me which is that he is talking about college football in the same way that people on message boards talk about college football what do you mean can you say more about that that's really interesting to me because message boards is sort of a culture that I, well, I just don't want to pay the money to do that, but you just played college football

you didn't want to buy a message board subscription to? I didn't want to buy message board subscriptions. You know, I've done the techs ag thing every night again or whatever, but you know, I haven't. That's just eavesdropping. That's not going to be able to embracing it. You know what I'm saying? I know a little bit about that culture, but yeah, what do you mean when you say that?

Well, if we think about the way the NFL's covered, yeah, you could argue that X's and O's film breakdown culture is one of the most dominant forms of NFL coverage. Mina Kimes has been so lack, I'm teaching you about football and how it works. Some of that in college football, but it's not nearly as dominant. The coverage is more partisan. There's more trash talk.

There's more trolling. Part of this is because the way people feel about their alma maters, part of this is because local newspapers have shrunk and gotten replaced by team-centric sites and message boards. Right. But the thing is, very little of that culture trickles up to television. Yeah. Right. So here's Barstole, which is or was a message board.

And here's Portnoy on Fox. And I'm watching, and UNC versus Central Florida comes up. Now, what would the game day UNC Central Florida segment have been like? Can Bill, God, get this thing turned around? Does he need a new, you know, does he have a quarterback? Right. you know the drill. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

They're talking about Jordan Hudson, like, right off the back. Man, yeah. Which is how people online would talk about any UNC football game right now. We would talk about that at ring or tailgate. You know what I mean? Like, that's within our purview as well. Exactly. I'm not saying we're above it, you know, we do it.

But, yeah. No. He reads a tweet asking whether Hudson would leave Belichick for Scott Frost if UNC lost to Central Florida. Right? That's on the pregame show. Then you have like this segment they were doing where they had a bunch of helmets out there and which of these teams are going to be good and which are not. And you have Mark Ingram, former Alabama and Saints running back, picking up the helmet

of Michigan, which is Portnoy's alma mater and throwing it in a garbage game. That's a college football message board thing to me, right? That's that kind of discourse that is now infusing a television pregame show. what if you made the Lee Corso helmet reveal, you know, like antagonistic, right? Like really antagonistic. 100% is what it is. The whole segment out of it, right? And it's an interesting approach because I do think that that is a lot of why people

like college football, right, the trash talk. I mean, if you remember the 30 for 30 about SMU, and they say that the reason SMU started getting into this game is that these SMU alums were in Dallas and, you know, UT alums, A&M alums, whatever, talking shit to them. They're like, I don't want to deal with that.

Let's get serious about football. So that has been the fuel for so much of the business of college football. I get it. It makes a lot of sense. And I should also say, I do watch some of, you know,

the big noon stuff or whatever, the Fox pregame. I don't watch it all because I'm going back and forth. And, you know, to be frank, I have kids. So usually in the morning, I'm putting them together before I get my,

you know, before I start watching games. but I think that is an interesting approach. I guess the issue is like, and I might ask, you could probably do that without Dave Portnoy. And that, so it's just, again, it's like the Rush Limbaugh thing, right? Like, is that, is this who you want to, to hinge this, this shift on? And I guess time will tell if it works or if they like how it turns out.

Right. You picked him. You could have picked, you picked other people. Now we could probably go through and it'd be hard for us to find somebody who was that famous to essentially play that role. That might be, we might be able to think of it, but it might take us a bit. But it's interesting, right? Because Game Day gets so much credit for trying to harness that unruly weird fan energy by putting the fans behind the set by going to the campuses. Fox is essentially doing is taking a couple of the fans out of the crowd, just putting them on the set itself, saying, no, no, these are our.

commentators, these people doing this. Like, that's, and again, don't want to, don't want to lessen the Portnoy of it all, the barstool of it all. But that to me is a subtle thing that's happening on that show. Yeah, it's funny because I mean, I mean, ESPN has, has a Michigan guy. Like, Carlos Game Day has Desmond Howard, like the Michigan guy, like, Hizman guy, you know, one of the greatest players of Michigan history. And he's not his Michigan on game day is Dave Portnoy is.

all very suppressed. It's seen as unprofessional, right? Herbie is Ohio State guy, right? Like, if he were up there talking like, you know, Ohio State's going to win, let me throw the Michigan helmet in the trash can. I think people would faint in the game day truck. That would just not be seen as real. I mean,

McAfee can do a little bit because it's like, it doesn't matter as much, right? It's just not as important to the thing. But yeah, that's just it's a totally different idea. Yeah. I think that, you know, in our whole lives, Fox has been a lot less precious about the norms of TV, right? Like, we go all the way back to the Simpsons

or Herman's head or whatever else, right? Like, they've always just been like, well, let's, you know, married with children, let's mix it up. Let's make this a little bit more of a combat sport. And so this is firmly within that tradition. And I can see the value in it. I can see that, you know, why you might want to do that because you got to give people a reason to turn off game Day, right? Like, you can't, you can't beat Game Day by trying to be Game Day. So it makes sense. But yeah, like, I don't know. I don't find Port in order to be funny, but that's me. So Fox is reaching somebody that is not me. I'm a Game Day partisan. So, you know, maybe they're going to find a whole bunch of other people that can't wait to watch him, you know, or Mark

Ingram throw a Michigan helmet in the trash. So. And what a strange golden corral buffet of content. have an emotional Tom Rinaldi piece and then that stuff existing side by side on the same show. Oh, yeah, man. That's so hilarious. Yeah, the Rinaldi stuff, man. Yeah, it's just kind of I mean, they're trying something and I give them credit for that. Like, I mean, you got to, you got to have a malange, right? There's a, that's a, they can be a lot of things to a lot of different people, I guess, and maybe it'll work. Now, two to be sure's as part of this discussion. one, Big Noon is still mostly going to the sites of games that are on Fox, unlike Game Day, which just goes to the best game of the week.

Yeah. So this week, Big Noon's going to go to Champaign, Illinois, home of the fighting Aligni, who lost by 53 points last week to Indiana. What a bad time. Yeah. It's nobody's idea of interesting. Yeah. And then number two, I don't know if you watched Game Day all the way of the end last time,

but Pat McAfee going up on that high dive and jumping down. down in Miami. That felt like, oh, you want rabble rousing? Yeah. Yeah, I did see that. Yeah. You want unpredictability? Hey, guys. Let me show you how this is done. That was, it was interesting. Yeah, I mean, you know, Pat McAfee is like, um, it'd be like, uh, maybe this is not going to be the right analogy, but I feel like Dave Portnoy is like his unlikable brother, you know, like maybe that's what it is. You're like, you know, he's like trying to poke at people and fight at people. And Pat's like, come on.

guys, no, let's just party. Like, let's just have a good time. And Portnoy's like, no, man, you know, F those guys. Let's get into it, you know. And yeah, I don't know. I kind of know the kind of party I would want to be at, I guess. Before we bring on Noah Eagle, should we talk about Kamala Harris' book tour? We should, man, because I thought this was really interesting.

And it's part of the rollout for her new memoir, 107 days, which if you've not been living under Iraq, it refers to the number of days of her doomed presidential. campaign. And so this, she set down for her first news interview since losing the 2024 election. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow got that and it ran for most of the show with time for the day before the book released Tuesday. And it's like, I'm going to borrow one of the Brian Curtisisms. It's one of those bestselling Nalya Tell Us memoirs that politicians are still find a dropping on us. And so she's been making other media appearances to pitch the book. I saw that she was on with Aaron Haynes of the 19th in New York last night.

Brian, did you have any plans to read this book? Nope. Man, you were so excited about the Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper book. Why do you think you feel so differently about this? Well, this two things.

One, time is finite, kids, etc., etc. But two, this feels like one of those books that's meant to be consumed in Twitter screenshots.

rather than actually read? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's that's about right because it covers, you're probably going to see a lot of the screenshots already, right? Because it covers all the ground you'd expect about her misgivings, about Biden running for office again, how she ended up picking Tim Walls as a running mate, about how she didn't have time to pull it all off, so on and so forth.

So, yeah, it gets into all the stuff that you'd expect and people are accordingly upset or, you know, looking to cop pleas for her by sharing those screenshots on Twitter. And her interview with Maddo included the least rousing endorsement of Zoran Mamdani that one could possibly give. Oh, man. I mean, I, again, I'm just always kind of surprised at people in this situation who were not prepared. Because I felt like you had to know that was going to happen. And I would think you'd have a better response that I support the Democrat in the race. And then she pivots to, hey, we've got other stars and mentions somebody that's running for office in Mobile, Alabama.

You know, it was like so clear she could she could not wait to not talk about that. Like, please don't bring that up again on here. Pivot to Mobile Alabama. Pivot to Mobile. But yeah. But anyway, she talked about some of this with Maddow on Monday. And so let's run a clip here of talking about how she chose to engage with Trump. as part of the campaign.

I know his type. And so the character that I knew I was running against is someone, because he has shown it also. I mean, he did it with President Obama. He did it with Secretary Clinton. He throws this stuff out that he thinks will be an individual's weakness

or Achilles heel with the intent to distract from the fact that as it was in this campaign, he had no plan for actually bringing down costs and prices for the American people. He had very few plans for what he would actually do that was about the American people and not about an execution of his vengeance on his enemies. And I wasn't about to fall for that bait. That's all correct on the merits.

First part of that soundbite sounds exactly what she said during the campaign. I know his type. I mean, what's funny about this book is that she has a very interesting story to tell. But it seems that a lot of Democrats have no interest in hearing it. You think so? Yeah. I mean, I have been thinking about it just seems really low wattage, right? Like there's a very just low, there's not a lot of energy behind this, right?

And it's certainly not getting pushed again, like that Tapper and Alex Thompson book was. Yeah. And I wonder if that's because when somebody loses a presidential election, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, the party sweeps them off to the side because they're always looking ahead. Okay, you lost. Now who's going to win the next round? How can we get back in power? But I also wonder if part of it is just that Democrats, broadly speaking, have rejected her kind of politics. or her kind of political calculation.

Go back to that Mom Donnie endorsement. So you think people have sort of moved on beyond that at this point, that they want to pivot. Because there's a group of people that don't want to talk about losing, right? Like, they don't want to talk about the loss, or they don't want to relitigate the Biden stuff again. Or they also are like, there's some people that are bringing legitimate enthusiasm to the party right now.

I'd rather focus on them and not talk about Kamala. You think it's like that three-pronged, Yeah. I just don't think it's or. I think it's and. And the way the Democrats are going to win the White House in 2028 is not the way Kamala Harris tried to win the White House. That's right. That's the message. I mean, I don't know if you have the Pete Buttigieg clip queued up here. We do. We do. Yeah. Let's run that bit about her not choosing Pete Buttigieg. So it wasn't about any prejudice on my part, but that calculation. We had such a short period of time. And the stakes were so high. high. I think Pete is a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant. And I think America is and would be ready for that. But when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go, you know, and maybe I was being too cautious, you know, I'll let our friends, we should all talk about that. Maybe I was. But that's the decision I made. Right. What do you make? I just kind of felt, again, she should have had a better response to this if she was going to be the one to bring it up, right?

Well, she wrote about the book. I mean, that's the thing, right? Part of me wanted to say, screw it, let's just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And that to me is a shocking thing for a Democrat to write in a book, somebody like Kamala Harris to admit in a book. So, you know, we can look at, a politician's book, any politician's book, and big old grain of salt for a lot of that, because you're like, okay, okay. You really wanted to do this, but you didn't, you didn't do it. Okay. And here's what. I understand all those kind of things are part of any book like this. But I don't know why she would write that if that was not the truth. Right. As she saw it, like, that's how, that's, that was her calculation. Right. And so that brings us back around to that kind of calculated, risk-averse type of politics.

Right. You're not doing what you actually believe. You're doing what you think will appeal to people, which, you know, the Republicans, for better or worse, it's sort of untethered from. Like, they don't have to, and don't seem to be worried about how will this test with other people? My thought about it, though, too, is that I just, if you're going to say that, say, it's like say the next thing, right? Like, what you're saying? Well, I don't know that America would have been necessarily ready for this. And there's just too much to ask. What you mean to say is that you think the American voting public is either too homophobic or too racist to have both of you on the ticket. You didn't think that people would vote for a gay man, an openly gay man. Or you've already sort of fragmented your base by being black and South Asian and a woman, right? And then you say, oh, we're going to have a gay candidate too. So I feel like you should just say that if that's what you're going to say here, right? Because it makes you look weak. It's just like, well, I just, I don't know if I'm going to, I didn't want to, you know, put that on the American people.

No, like what you're saying is like you just didn't think that they would do it. Like you thought there's a strain of isms out there. And it wouldn't, it wouldn't have worked out to your benefit. If that was your calculation, why did you make that calculation? Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the obvious. Next question. And I will say this to come back around to another idea. We live or exist in a media that is very, very partisan. Like this is, you know, being consumed by Twitter. It's being consumed by liberal podcasts, all those kinds of things. Who will again, they're making certain judgments about Kamala Harris because she was 2024 and they're thinking about 2026 and 2028. These books are very, very value. It is good to have these things for the historical record. is if we're going to be asking ourselves a long time, how did we get to Donald Trump, too?

And this is part of the answer to that question. By the way, Joe Biden's going to write a memoir too. And can you imagine the reaction to that, whatever we're talking about now? Ooh. We're talking about something with less heat on it than, you know, original sin. I mean, the Joe Biden memoir about his thinking, you know, like there's, you know, Harris still has a constituency. There are people wanting her to run for governor of California, if not for president again. I mean, nobody wants Joe Biden run for anything again,

really even see Joe Biden anymore. He's totally unencumbered. And, yeah, I mean, I hope that, you know, I mean, obviously he's having health issues or whatever and, you know, hope he's going to be okay. But yeah, man, I mean, he really doesn't have a lot to hold back at this point, right? And so that is, now that is going to be, that is going to be a tremendous media event when that book comes out.

But see, I don't think, I don't know. I mean, I think it's, is it, it's interesting. what he has to say is interesting. I think it'll be aggregated in the same way, but again, it's the same, like, flawed messenger issue of the Harris book. The thing is, I guess,

now that he's having a chance to respond to everybody, that's why I kind of think that you get that chance to respond to what she said, what all these other people have said, and he doesn't have to talk it. Like, that's the thing, like, it'll be written. We don't have to hear him say it. And so it'll be a lot more clear and direct

than it would be if we had to hear him talk about it, I would think. So, yeah. But he's going to do an hour with Matt out when the book comes out? Oh, man. I mean, hour, not no more. Not no more than the days over. Will it be more or less interesting than Hunter Biden with Andrew Callahan?

Nothing is more interesting than that. That was amazing. That was good. That was good content. I did not know that Hunter Biden had it in. So, yeah, no. They need to get Hunter Biden out there more, maybe. So somebody interview Hunter Biden about what Kamala is saying about.

Oh, there we go. We need that comment. Aggregate that, please. Because people always talk about the Biden sources, you know, in the White House and all the kind of pressure they were putting on journals. Let's just have a Hunter Biden, actually, is the forward-facing, you know, representative of Team Biden. Yeah. Step four, please. Jill's not going to be able to do it justice.

Hunter, Hunter's got that gift. Just this week, our guest, Noah Eagle was called the most impressive young broadcaster to come along since Joe Buck. That was by Bob Costas, who ought to know. know about such things. Eagle and his NBC partner, Todd Blackledge, have a big one on Saturday night, number three Penn State versus number six Oregon from Happy Valley, where Noah is hoping to become the first broadcast professional to participate in the whiteout. Noah, welcome back to the press box. Yeah, I was looking for suits that were similar to LeBron 2003 NBA draft, both in fit and in color, but I couldn't find anything that matched. So I elected, I elected for. I was looking for

for a different one. But man, I'm excited. It's going to be a blast and appreciate you guys having me on. Oh, of course. Did that suit have pinstripes on it too? Am I? I want to say that was white all the way down, but I'd have to go to this video out there of David Stern trying on the jacket, which is an all-timer because he just looks like a son that got to try on his dad's coat for home. Basically, that's what it turned into. Oh, I know that thing swallowed him up. But yeah. Well, so, no, just to get started, so there's this clip currently circulating on social media of a whiteout game against Michigan from 2019. And the crowd is so loud that Michigan actually has to call timeout before the first snap of the game,

right? And so I know that you've covered the Big Ten Saturday night opener at Penn State before. I think it was against West Virginia in 2023. For someone who hasn't been there before, what is the environment like at Happy Valley on a whiteout night? No, it's special. It's different. And I think there's a reason that it's become a bucket list item for fans, not just college football fans, but sports fans. If you're a sports fan, you hear Penn State Whiteout game. You want to go. You want to experience it for yourself. I think that video that you're referencing that's gone viral now, it feels like several times over, is probably the best example of what it is. It's unique because all these great programs, Michigan is one of the most historic programs. in the history of the sport. Ohio State was there the year before that, before the song Mo Bamba really caught on

to kind of solidify what it's become. But all these historically great programs, Auburn went a couple of years after that. Iowa was a great program within the Big Ten. They go in there and they struggle against it. It is a legitimate advantage for a team. And you can talk about home field, home court advantages. This one feels different.

You feel the essence of what the Nittany Lion fan base is, how passionate they are. how educated they are. And I think that's what all comes together before that first snap. And I always talk about this with games in general, where the first five minutes or so of a huge game, it feels different energy-wise than maybe your general run-of-the-mill, February, whatever it might be. That's the case here.

And then I think you settle into a game. And then those last five minutes become even more high stakes, high energy, and it's this balance. And so watching these road teams have to navigate that, and especially as we're going to see this weekend with a first time, full-time starter. I think that's what makes this game fun because it is a factor. And you play the games on the field and you talk about the jimmies and Joe, so to speak. But this is one of those things that one of those X factors exist. And so you have to fight through it.

And it's fun to watch guys have to do it. Every year in college football, Noah, it feels like we have a Penn State Prove-It game. Last season, they lost one-score games to both. both Oregon and Ohio State. What's the case that this year's Penn State team can win a game like this? Well, I think this is the first one, right? You mentioned there were a couple of them last year, I think, in the new iteration of the Big Ten,

and really the new iteration of college sports, we're getting more and more of these through seasons, which is good for the sport. It changes what the criteria was to get into the playoff now with 12 teams and with the bigger conferences and more of these matchups. but I do think it's better for the sports because we get to see these litmus tests early in a season. And the funny thing is Todd and I and Catherine and our whole team did

the Ohio State Oregon game last year. Similar time. I think that one was week seven. This is week five. So a couple weeks earlier this year. But around the same time, and if you remember going into that game, a lot of the storyline was, well,

Dan Lannin can't win the big game. And Oregon has struggled against Washington and they can't get that monkey off their back or some of the bigger opponents that they had had. in his previous seasons, his two first seasons there. And then, of course, they beat Ohio State. They go on defeat in the regular season. They win the Big Ten championship game against Penn State.

And those questions have somewhat subsided for now. They get really run off the field against Ohio State in the college football playoff, and now that's where the questions will be for them. And so it feels like Penn State's in a similar to a certain degree vibe right now. Now it's different because James Franklin's been here for over a decade. They've had a lot of opportunities. He's four and 20 against top 10 teams.

Drew Aller has thrown last year in the three games they lost, which were to Ohio State, as mentioned, Oregon, and then Notre Dame. He threw four of his eight interceptions in those three games on the season. So those are all real things. The real numbers, real stats, and the vibe is very real. And so the question mark is there. The reason that they can win is because of the experience they have coming back on the field. Start there with a three-time starter now, a third-year starter.

Orrall, not just started of, hey, he started a season over in the SEC, then one in the big 12. Now he's in the big, no, no, he's one plays three years. And now second year with Andy Kodlnicki as his offensive coordinator. And then the second part of it, because I'm not even mentioning the rest of the guys who came back, somewhat or what we saw with Ohio State and Michigan the last two years. But the other part of it to me is getting Jim Knowles as your defensive coordinator. You didn't have a guy like that on that side. Mani Diaz two years ago, excellent.

and he's an excellent head coach at Duke. Tom Allen, a former head coach, and their defense was really outstanding last year. But Jim Knowles is a different beast. And we saw that the last couple seasons at Ohio State. That defense was suffocating. They completely turn the water off on an Oregon offense that all regular season and the Big Ten championship

put up points and points and points and points. And they could not move the ball down the field. And so you've got the horses, and now you've got the guy to lead them. I think that's probably the difference for Penn State and why they feel a little bit more confident going to this one. On the other side is the reigning Big Ten champ, as you mentioned, the top seed from last year's CFP. They had 10 players drafted off that team, including a pair of first rounders, and yet, here they are again, undefeated, just outside the top five.

How have they been able to reload? And what do you think of their chances going in there again and doing what people didn't think Dan Lennon could do before last year, which is win a game like this? Yeah, I think Dan Lending was such a hot name in coaching for years. And what he did at Georgia as the defensive coordinator, I remember doing one of their games. And at that time, I think he was probably only 34 years old. And you met with him and you looked him in the eye and you just go, oh, no, this is a leader, not just a great football mind.

He is a leader of men. And that's what he's done at Oregon. He galvanizes groups. And you talk to any of the guys they had last year. And we met with Dylan Gabriel several times. I think we had them three or four times in the season. and we met with Dylan every time. And Dylan is as impressive a young man as you're going to find.

And the way he glowingly spoke about Dan Lannig and how he could bring a team together. And I think that's the difference now in college football is the word culture got thrown around forever. You know, how do you build a culture? And we saw that. Davos Sweeney probably a great example right now. Somebody who had a culture at Clemson

that for year after year after year, you just pushed more people into the culture and eventually they grew into it after four years. It's different now in college football. To me, it's now more about team. How do you build a team year to year to year? Because if you're a program like Oregon, you can retain some, but you mention it, a record 10 NFL draft picks,

and then a couple more who were undrafted that are on rosters, like a Nico Reed with the Chargers. And how do you reload that quickly? How do you go from, okay, we had this last year, we lost all of that talent, how do we make sure we have the same vibe of team, this year with new transfers coming in and they have a couple of them for a really high impact. And I think Dan Lannning does that as well as anybody in the country.

He understands that every team has a unique vibe. Every team requires a unique approach and he tailors his season to that. And so I think we're seeing that. And then the second part of this specific year's team is Dante Moore, their quarterback. Dante Moore was a five-star recruit. He was in that same class with Arch Manning and so many of these other high-level names. Nico EMI, I try to say it every time. I amaleava.

I have to stop it down. But I get there. Nico and Archmanning and Sam Levitt and a lot of these other guys who have risen to now being starring level or first round caliber guys. And Dante decides to eventually go to UCLA and he starts five games as a freshman and it doesn't go well. And I think a lot of people just rode him off.

But the reason he was so highly touted is starting to come out. And the best thing that I think he did last year, not just going to Oregon and sitting, is rooming with Dylan Gabriel. He was around him day in and day out. He woke up. He saw his habits in the morning. And we're seeing Oregon reap those rewards right now.

This is a guy that's poised. This is the guy who can make every throw in the book. Now, he hasn't faced an environment like the Penn State Whiteout. This is a different level environment for him. And so we're going to see what he can do in something like this. But man, he just looks cool as a cool customer right now. And he continues to get better. He continues to get more comfortable with each game.

And if he's playing at the level, he's capable of. They have more than enough weapons. And let's not forget, you mentioned all the draft picks. They also lost Evan Stewart during the offseason to an injury and likely out for the year, who is going to be their number one receiver. But Decorian Moore on the outside is so legit as a five-star wide receiver. They're starting a number of true and redshirt freshmen on both sides of the ball. So you're banking on some youth. But I think with the group of consistency they do bring back, having that blend has been really impressive through a month of the season. Noah, since you've been at NBC, you've presided over some chaotic finishes.

Notre Dame Ohio State two years ago, the Oregon, Ohio State game you mentioned last year where Will Howard ran out of time, A&M Notre Dame just a few weeks ago. As an announcer, what happens in your mind when things start moving very quickly at the end of a game? Yeah, so as we've talked about before, I've been really fortunate to be in some incredible positions to do some incredible events. and a number of those were crazy events. And I go back to my time with the Clippers as the best training for me of learning how to deal with that. Because basketball is so frenetic

and so much can happen over the course of an 82 game season that I had so many of those wacky finishes, especially my first year doing it, that I think, especially when you're doing it on radio, it teaches you to compartmentalize and really focus because I made some mistakes. I made some clear mistakes that first year. And I knew it right away.

And I knew it then listening back. during that off season where I tried to figure out where I could be better. That was one of the main focal points for me. And then you fast forward a couple years and I get the Vikings and Colts crazy comeback. And the first thing I think it taught me was you never give up on a game, no matter what's happening in the game, because so many times it feels like, man, this thing's over, and then some miracle occurs on the field or on the court. And so that was a great first lesson.

I think the second lesson becomes, and this is one I really learned that first Ohio State Notre Dame game that you mentioned. 2023, it's my first year with this crew, first year with Todd. And I had done college football the year before, and I had a couple wacky finishes that year. We had Scott Frost last game at Nebraska. They lose to Georgia Southern.

I think the final was maybe 41, 38. It was a shootout. And one of my favorite nicknames ever, it was a shame that he didn't get more pub, was the quarterback at Georgia Southern named Kyle Van Trees. It was a red-haired quarterback named the Ginger General, one of the all-time breaks. And it was BS to me that that didn't get more shine. But that one, I think, was a great kind of first step. And then we had a game, UCLA was 12 in the country.

And if they won this game, they would have played USC with basically a right to the PAC 12. And they end up losing at the end to Arizona. They made a furious comeback at home. And Dorian Thompson-Robinson threw in the end zone for Jake Bobo. And it went through his hands on fourth down and the game with time expiring. So those two were kind of the first steps. but that Notre Dame Ohio staking was different because of the stakes, because of the environment, because of how tight it felt in the moment. And it was a rock fight. And so points were so hard to come by.

And I think what I learned in the moment is just focus on making sure that you're staying on top of the action. And remember, you're on TV. You can allow the pictures. You can allow the story to be told for you a lot of times. You just need to get the who and what. The why and the how is going to tell itself a lot of times, the replays, or the shots after a crazy play. And we saw that, obviously, this year with the Notre Dame A&M game with Tyler Buckner dropping the snap, and there were a lot of opinions on that. Tyler Buckner's face told a lot of that story.

I could tell you that much and told the heartbreak of that Notre Dame sideline. And I feel terrible for the kid. He's a great kid. He's been there a long time. But that was one of the main stories of that game. And so I think remembering, one, what's at stake, what people at home are thinking, and two, just keeping in the back of your mind that you can pull back a little bit more because the moments are allowing for it.

Brian, I haven't even told you this. So I've reached out to Deonté Lee. Deante Lee is one of our NFL writers because even though, you know, I used to play football once in a time, I felt like the game has so far surpassed, like, my knowledge of it that I was like, hey, is there some sort of like remedial school that I can go to or some sort of remedial class I could take to get caught up on this stuff? And so I was kind of wondering for you, Noah, like, as the game itself gets increasingly more complicated, and there seems to be more interest in strategy from fans, or at least there's an expectation that you're going to know, cover two shell, all that kind of stuff, you know, mesh, all that stuff. How much football do you know or think you need to know to call a game?

Like, how are you teaching yourself about the game? No, so it's actually a great question, and it's probably one that doesn't get asked enough because I talk to younger kids that are trying to get into football and, and try to. trying to figure that same deal out of, okay, I don't really know the specifics now of what goes into play calling or defenses that are being played. And I always say, look, it's probably better off if you don't necessarily know the intricate details. You want to know, you want to have a base knowledge of what's going on.

So you want to know probably the most important things within packages or within formations. And then the most important thing you want to know is the rules. And so the best thing that I get every week is Terry McCauley, our rules analysts will send us a video that the head of NCAA officiating puts together for their officials. So they send it out to all the officials and the rules analysts, and it's plays from the previous week that were challenging or interesting. And so I want to say, look, I want to watch those and hear their explanation because I want to know why something has happened. Why did they throw a flag on the field? Or if we're going in a replay and I see something, I can think back to, oh yeah, week two, that happened in the Colorado game.

Let me bring that up. that's more important to me because I know that the analyst I'm working with is going to have the more detailed stuff covered. And I don't want to step on their toes. It's not my job. Again, my job is to tell you what and my job is to tell you who. Their job is to tell you why and how things are happening. And so making sure that I still am just doing my part of it and then giving it.

And that's why I'm so lucky to have Todd is because he sees everything so quickly. He diagnoses things immediately on the field. And I'm watching his brain move throughout the game. And so a lot of times the best course of action for me is to just just stop talking all together, say what happened, and then look at him because I know he's ready with something, and he'll just take it and run, and he's going to make it sound good. And so my life gets made easy like that. And I think a lot of the analysts who are calling football now have that level of knowledge and that level of seeing the game that if you're a play-by-play person, your job should just be making sure you get the names right, making sure you're on top of there's a fumble, an interception, a deflected pass, a block kick, anything of that nature. you need to make sure that you're on top of it. Other than that, I'm not talking about Shell or cover three.

I'm not talking about any sort of concept that they're going with, a mesh, any of that stuff is avoiding. I would just leave it for my analyst. A couple more before we get to Joel's patented lightning round, Noah. There was a Wall Street Journal story recently arguing that sports announcers are some of the last American men who insist on wearing suits. Where do you fall on the sportscaster suit,

versus quarter zip continuum? I'm pro suit, I would say. I'm pro suit, probably because I just bought about 10 new ones. So now I need to wear them because I need to justify the cost. But more than anything, I think I look at the players on the field or on the court. They're in uniform. And that's our uniform. That's how I've always viewed it is I want to feel like I'm getting dressed for the game.

I want to feel like I'm getting prepared for the game. So I get it. And look, I think that there's certain events that call probably for a little bit more of that than others. If you're calling a Super Bowl, I want to see who's calling the Super Bowl in a shirt and tie. I don't want to see them wearing a quarter zip or I don't want to see them wearing a polo shirt. But I do think that, and it could also be based on region, you know, if it's a local broadcast, then that's the vibe you're going for in a local broadcast. I completely understand that.

And I'm completely going to agree with that if that's what you want to do. It's not my preference. Again, I want to make sure that I'm buttoned up and looking the right way. But even I am not going full suit anymore. You know, I'd say I'm going jacket tie shirt and then some kind of a pants that's not with the suit pant, you know, and then sneakers. That's how I'm going with it. And so it's somewhere in between. And I think that's probably more accepted.

But it's definitely getting more and more casual with each day. And I know that. And I've come to terms with that. But no, I'm pro suit for sure. Man, I just would not have expected the young guy to want the suits, man. That is. I look good, man. I just know I look crispy in the suit.

So I got to keep it that way. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Okay. So, Brian, I have your permission to start the Lightning Round? I think you do. Let's do it. Welcome to the Lightning Round, a Jill Anderson special. If we could make you commissioner of college sports, I want you to pick a good East Coast or Northeastern College Athletic Conference for Syracuse.

Many schools you need to have. Okay. Okay. So I think that I would want to go some level of biggie. So let's start with Pitt. Pit has to be in there. Gary. I think Pitt is a, pit is a guarantee because just going back to rivalry, everything like that. I think that you kind of stay in that area. So if we're staying Pitt and State, for sure, going back to the old days and the 80s when they were duking it out in the 90s, I think probably you're going to have to keep it regional to a certain degree. So West Virginia probably makes the cut. because they're in there, and you're trying to keep it so that there's schools that are going to be legitimately good every year or close to being good every year. So that's a good start. I feel like that's a good four-team start. I'm missing some big ones in particular, but I'm trying to avoid all the basketball schools from the big East because they're not football schools.

So no Yukon, no Rutgers. Well, and that's the problem. Rutgers probably makes the cut. I think they've done enough, and Shiano has done enough that they're a seven, eight-win team almost every year at this point. So they can get in there. But the way that Fran Brown's got that thing rolling right now, they're starting to trend upward to a certain degree of recruiting. And there's a vibe.

Cam Newton's giving them love. So there things are happening in Central New York. Cornell does not make the cut, unfortunately. I apologize to Cornell. Seaton Hall, unfortunate. You're out. Yeah, it's a tough one, though. The Northeast, and as somebody who grew up in the Northeast,

now going and doing all this college football, you have a lot of pride-free area. And then you travel around to the Midwest and when I was doing SEC stuff back in the day or even on the West Coast and you're like, oh, yeah, we're behind on this. We really basically have Penn State. And that's just about it. So I'd say that's a tough one. Okay, okay. You've covered, you've been in a few of these Big Ten stadiums through your career so far.

So I would just, you know, this is probably, it just probably isn't fair, but I'm going to have to ask you to do it. rank your top three Big Ten stadiums. All right. All right. Please. Okay. So I will say, and it's controversial because they are one of the new teams, but I love Austin Stadium. I love Oregon.

I love the fact that they have half the amount of fans in that stadium as some of these others, and they make just as much if not more noise, is thoroughly impressive to me. And I think when Shout gets played in the fourth quarter and everybody's jumping and, and going nuts, I think that's huge. I'd put Penn State in there, and it works out that we've got both of these two teams playing this weekend, but 110,000 fans, and they are, as mentioned, educated into it from the start, and it's full. Every single game is legit.

And so then you just got to decide between a couple of them. Now, I'm going to put one in, and I apologize again to some of the others I'm going to leave out. I'm going to put one in that we haven't been to with Big Ten Saturday night, but I mentioned I did the game years ago, and that's Nebraska. I think Nebraska is going to go number three. And I think it's just barely beating out Camp Randall in Wisconsin, the shoe, and the big house are all in that discussion. And they're probably all three ABCD. But if you're making me choose one, I'm going Nebraska.

Nice. Syracuse versus Yukon at the Garden or Michigan versus Ohio State. Come on. I'm going Syracuse Cuts at the Garden. Wow. Really? Okay. Syracuse, Yukon.

That's picked over times. That's history right. there. You can't make the choose against my childhood. That's the thing. At the end of the day, it's still, and we got Biggie's hoops on Peacock. So we still have that vibe. You know, we got the Biggie's tournament. We make it feel big.

And so, yes, that will never go away to me. Brian, do you want me to ask this one or do you want to get that? No, you go for it. This is your lightning round. This is my lightning round. Okay, you put it in here. I didn't want to steal it from you. What compliment would you give Bob Costas?

The compliment for Bob Costas is pretty simple to me. He is the most eloquent broadcaster in the history of broadcasting. Forget sports. I think he's the most eloquent man who has ever touched a microphone as far as I'm concerned. And my dad told me the story when Bob went to visit Syracuse, when my dad was still a student. And Bob starts talking to the students. And what he recognized is that he never paused. He never said, like, um, you know, there was no filler. It was just to the point, only meat on the bone and it was smooth. Everything he said felt thought out and it felt necessary.

And he was sitting there and he said to himself, I want to be like this. I need to be better in my everyday life so that I can be better on the air. I think that's what Bob did for all of us. You watch him and you hear the velvety voice, but you hear the way he would weave words together, different, special, unique. And so makes us strive to want to be a better version of ourselves every day.

A couple more. College football game or stadium that you haven't covered yet that's on your bucket list. Well, you mentioned Michigan, Ohio State. Fox has that one, and they're going to have it every year for the foreseeable future. But that's certainly at the very high point of the list. Stadium-wise, LSU, I've heard, is just off the charts. And Tennessee, I've heard it's off the charts. I did a game at Auburn, and so it would feel wrong.

long not to say then Alabama to try to couple that together. But I am excited for some of these rivalries in the big tent to continue to grow. And my hope is there's one that I'm really hopeful in terms of teams, building back up a fan base and an environment. And that's USC because I think back to the Pete Carroll USC. And that's, again, right in my wheelhouse of growing up an impressionable sports fan. And I just think back to Reggie Bush making guys miss and Matt Leinert firing the ball all around the field and Pete Carroll's exuberance jumping up and down,

who by the way, I found out during Chargers preseason this year, was pee-wee football teammates with Dan Fouts. That was crazy to me. What? Think about that pee-wee football team all these years later. Dan Scott and St. Carol together is pretty wild. All that to say, I think back to those environments, and I still think the greatest college football game in history

is that 2005 Rose Bowl with Texas and USC and Vince Young going for the corner. he's got it. And Dan Fouts on the call for that one. And I just, I hope that, and it feels like Lincoln Riley's got some momentum again this year and we'll see how they finish the season. If they can build that properly, that becomes another power. And it becomes another one of these bucket list places because the Coliseum is awesome. It's historic. And if they can get it rocking to the way it was, I think that could be really cool. So I hope for that. I look forward to the day of that. I'm hoping this is going to be your hardest one. I'm sorry for asking you this in advance.

I'm ready. Who do you believe the most? Steve Balmer, Uncle Dennis, a Pablo Torre. Oh, man. Yeah, listen, I was there when Aspiration was welcomed in to Clipper World and Joe Sandberg was there and I was there for the press conference. I do know Steve and I do believe that Steve is a genuinely good person and does do genuine good things for the world and is selfless. You know, Steve is not the type of person that is going to hoard his wealth and is going to do what needs to be done for him. He wants to make sure that he's sharing.

They're incredibly profitable and yet they're incredibly charitable. And so that's them as him and his wife and his whole group. as it's called. But Pablo's legit. I will say Pablo, Pablo knows what he's doing and he is definitely going all in and digging very deep.

And so I would say it would be a decision between Steve and Pablo. That would be the decision of who I believe the most between those two. Steve was great to me and so I would never go against him and so for that matter,

I will go with Steve. But that is not to say that I do not believe in Pablo and his reporting. I think his investigative, abilities have been proven as elite. And so I very much understand where all of it is coming from. But I am excited to see how it all resolves itself.

And Adam Silver has quite the decisions to make. And I know he will make the right ones. The headline here is that we eliminated Uncle Dennis in round one. If this was, what was the game? Guess who? Yeah, he's right now. All right, NBC's 730 Eastern on Saturday, Oregon, Penn State. Noah Eagle will be wearing a suit. You can bank on that.

Noah, thanks for coming on the press box. The suit is not white, but it will be worn. Appreciate it, guys. That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. He's Joel Anderson. Productions magic by Kyle Crichton. Coming up Monday, shoemakers back at this place next Thursday.

Joel, you and I will have more lukewarm takes about the media. Should I have this? And I'm going to Packers Cowboys this weekend. Are you ready? I am going to be in the press box up there. Good for you, man. You're going to get some good food back home, too. I know.

There's that, and I just wanted to see Michael Parsons have 16 sacks in one game in person. I don't know why you're doing it to yourself. At least stop by Cracker Barrel since you're going to be in town. You know what? My mom heard us talking about Cracker Barrel, and she has threatened to take me to Cracker Barrel this weekend. So if that gets done, you're going to get a full report. Go to breakfast. It's not a lunch thing.

It's a breakfast thing. Not lunch dinner. I'm a breakfast Cracker Barrel guy, so yeah. All right. breakfast to crack or barrel, plus more lukewarm takes about the media. See you soon, Joel. See you, man.