The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Big Cat on the CFB Playoff Rankings and Fake Media Trades. Plus: the Problem With Zion.

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Russillo shares his reflections on the NBA through two weeks, including why the Miami Heat are for real; thoughts on NBA rookies Franz Wagner, Jalen Green, Josh Giddey, Evan Mobley, and more; and some concerns about Zion Williamson (0:48). Then Ryen talks to Big Cat of Barstool's 'Pardon My Take' about the most recent College Football Playoff rankings, why teams like Cincinnati have such a hard time cracking the top four, fake media trades, and more (21:40). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:08:50). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Big Cat Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Press Box is here to catch you up on the latest media stories. Hosted by Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker, these guys have the insight on the biggest stories you care about. Check out The Press Box on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Great show alert. Great show alert. We're going to do NBA early season observations, especially with some of the Brooks and how great they've been. And really more importantly,

the Zion information that's now all starting to float out. It's been out there now. It's been kept behind closed doors, I think, for a while. And I'm going to share my thoughts on it, what I've heard. And then we're going to talk college football rankings with Big Cap, part of my take. And then, of course, life advice. So we've got a fun one for you. I'm waking up this morning and I'm getting ready to do my NBA stuff and a couple other different interviews that I'm prepping here. And then I get a call from Sruti being like, what do you want to

do with this Aaron Rodgers news? Because I didn't even notice it. Honestly, I looked at Twitter for two seconds. I saw COVID debates and then I went, I'm out. And then I just was like, go back to make sure you get ready for your show. And then we hear that Ian Rappaport reported that Aaron Rodgers was not vaccinated for COVID. And then he came back with a quote where he said he was immunized, which I thought, okay, is Aaron Rodgers the guy that would say he's immunized as a way to get around saying that he's vaccinated? I'd be like, he's capable of that. I would think so. But then he was so specific and essentially leading you to believe that he was vaccinated

for COVID because he's test positive for COVID and that he also said he has teammates that are not vaccinated, but he didn't want to judge them. So when he said that, I was like, well, clearly he's vaccinated or he wouldn't have said it that way. I don't know what to do with it at this point. I will tell you, I think you know this for the last year and a half, my favorite content isn't who's vaccinated. So I'm vaccinated. I have a couple of people close to me who are not vaccinated. I wish that they were. I'm not going to change their minds and I'm not going to spend all my time

on social media and on my show talking about how mad I am that some people aren't vaccinated, you know, because I just don't think, I don't know. You're like, hey, you know what? I wasn't going to get vaccinated, but that guy around the horn fucking killed that segment. So I think I'm going to do it now. It's not I wish it were a certain way. It isn't. And it's not super interesting to me to sit here and debate whether or not Rogers was or wasn't, because if Rappaport were to get it wrong, that's pretty bad.

But then if Rogers were to say that he was immunized as a way to deflect and then distract us from the whole thing, that in itself is entirely different too. And look, it was Packers Chiefs this weekend, which is what everybody's looking forward to, but I don't know what's going to happen now. Okay. Moving on to men's tennis. The NBA, there's some early stuff happening here. I just want to get to a bunch of thoughts. there's some early stuff happening here. I just want to get to a bunch of thoughts. There's a bunch of stuff happening where the shooting is down tremendously.

The three-point shooting, it's funny how many different guys I look at and go, wait, what? Lillard can't make a shot to save his life. Other guys that I really like, the numbers are down across the board. I don't know that it's just the fouling. It'll be weird if the struggles continue. Because some people think that it will, that this will be a season-long thing

because of now hand-checking being a little bit more allowed. Look, what I was looking for was getting rid of the ridiculous non-basketball foul-inducing plays that we saw from James Harden and Trey Young specifically. This is well-established in this corner on that. I enjoyed not watching guys get those calls. And that speaks for even Chris Paul bullshit when he brings it up in transition and stops in front of a big and gets run over. That was a super simple thing to change and to never call. And if you just stop calling those things, eventually the players will adjust the same way they adjusted to benefiting from those calls. But there's some other stuff, lack of freedom of movement that I'm seeing, but I'm not ready to say this is what it is.

I just it's too early for me to do that. You know what it is, though, as far as what is real? Miami's real. That game against Dallas and Dallas is kind of a mess and Przingis isn't playing again. And I don't even know what they are with Przingis. And as much as we want to sit here and say, Hey, how different is the offense going to look? I think there can be some action and some stuff that looks different, but ultimately we know what that offense is going to be. Luca controlling every single possession and keeping them in the game because that's their best offense as he continues to be a better and

better shooter. Um, at least in the playoffs, you know, again, the early numbers yet, let's not freak out about it. But Miami is not only really good defensively, because statistically you could argue the number one defense across the board. What I love is in the non-P.J. Tucker minutes, so when it's Lowry and it's Hero, Butler, I think Duncan Robinson, Bam would be in that group. That's five guys that move well, can all hold onto the basketball, dribble because P.J. is not a guy that's going to initiate any offense on his own. And they closed with P.J. Tucker last

night against the Mavs because Duncan Robinson just had a foul fest. But that is reminiscent, speaking of Lowry, of that Raptors team that won a title. When you watch that Raptors team through the playoffs, the thing that really stood out that I always loved, which is, I think, a very hard thing to accomplish as a front office, is go, we've got five to six guys in the initiate offense on their own. And Miami has a little of that. And another great thing about Lowry is that if you bring him in, he's not just your straight point guard, which is why New Orleans wanted him to play alongside with Zion. And I'm going to get to Zion here in some of this news here in a bit. Why, you know, Doncic could have probably worked with him.

I mean, Lowry is the rare point guard who can put up these massive assist numbers, shoot the hell out of the ball, and do this all at an old age where it's not like he's exactly taking care of his body because he lets himself get beat up trying to take charges all season long. Some of them are bullshit. Yes, can't say it without saying it. But Lowry is terrific. He's an interchangeable off guard point guard. He just is. And he did it with Van Vliet and they worked perfectly together with that. And I think that that says something about the mentality of a player and how much he wants to win that he goes, yeah, you know, I'd like to have the ball in my

hands. Who wouldn't? But I'm cool playing off the ball. And he and Hero did some of that stuff and are doing that stuff. So that's a plus. Butler looks great again. I thought because they were an older team with those two guys that maybe they'd pace it a little bit. I don't know what they're going to look like throughout the entire season, but aggressive on defense and also aggressive on offense.

I don't know what the number of lob attempts at the rim is per game now for a team, but they'd have to be near the top. They're constantly looking to pin a defender close to the rim and get it to Bam immediately. They love that drive, which we saw in the playoffs a couple years ago against the Celtics where they drive away from the rim and then Bam kind of trails the play and it's just a nightmare if you're not ready for it. if you're not ready for it. You would think Powell would be athletic enough for Dallas to interfere with some of that a little bit, but that's just something that they're going to do all season long. And I also felt like that they were getting into their offense. You know how, like, often miss teams if they're not pushing immediately

to get a three on the break or a drive. They'll kind of settle and let you settle. Miami wasn't doing that last night. Miami would just be like, look, we've already got it out of the corner. We're pinging this ball around as you guys are trying to figure out when to get back. So very, very impressed with Miami. Now, what does it mean for the East? I know what Milwaukee's record is.

For those that don't know, it is three, excuse me, four and four with their win against Detroit last night. You know, the Heat and Bulls, I think when the season started, you're going, OK, it'll probably still be Brooklyn and then Milwaukee, and then we'll figure out the rest of it. Chicago's been terrific, both offensively and defensively, as much as... I mean, the point differential here for Miami is plus 17 right now. That's basically double the second best point differential in the East. So Chicago, I'll spend some more time on them. Obviously, I've watched a couple of the games and the collective group now has been better.

But I guess I just kind of looked at it going, wait, is Chicago really going to crack the top six? Because we still have Atlanta and Milwaukee who would actually be outside of the playoffs. Boston's a disaster. They're soft this year, just like they were soft last year. So it might be the players players might not be the coach. Marcus Smart saying that he can't just sit in the corner means Marcus Smart just wants

to shoot more. Cool. Um, but this is, this is really good news for Miami because, you know, do I let myself two weeks in go so far with it and saying, Hey, Miami's coming out of East? No, I'm not going to do that, but I'm just really impressed with just the way they're playing so far. And that goes for Chicago as well. Even though the schedule was so easy for Chicago in the beginning,

them beating Utah the way they did, and Utah's a good basketball team, that was a big win for them. And I'm not going to run through every single stat here with Chicago. I need to do a more intensive sit-down with Chicago again here at some point. Here's another thing that I'm going to get to, again, before I get to the Zion stuff. It must be the most amazing feeling in the world to be a front office and draft one of these lottery picks and then the exhale of we didn't fuck it up i can't tell you how happy the magic front office must be watching franz wagner let's. He's good, Cerruti.

He's so good. He's good. And as much as these guys obsess over this, and they do put the time in, and I just don't like it when people are like, oh, these guys all suck at drafting players. Oh, my quarterback thing. These guys are idiots.

I saw a media member that I liked the other day was like, maybe they just should do a better job at picking quarterbacks. maybe you should do a better job researching how fucking hard it is it's picking it's projecting human beings okay it is and even if you think you've had it right the thousands of hours all the tape all the phone calls all the numbers all the stuff the project you could do. Until he puts that uniform on in an NBA game and goes out there and starts running around with other adults, there has to be this intense anxiety

until you go, wow, we've got a guy here. We've got something here. I don't know if Franz Wagner's ceiling is going to be, but he's been awesome, and he's doing it in a bunch of different ways. And he's really aggressive and he was a good defender in Michigan. So there's, there's a bunch there going on. And I know Jalen sucks.

Isn't quite there yet with all that stuff, but you know, we'll worry about it a little bit later. I think the same goes for, you know, not just Jalen green, putting up a ton of points. Um,

Josh Giddey with Oklahoma city, which is, I don't know if this is a trend or what the hell's going on, but Giddey's 11-6-6 in the NBA, 44% overall, 32% from three. He doesn't make his free throws. You go back to Australia last year, the numbers are almost identical in the same number of minutes per game, 11 points, seven boards, seven assists. He was 29% from three, 69% from free throws.

I don't like that free throw number. He couldn't shoot in Australia, although I don't know what the hell's going on. I mean, Lomelo's the all-time case where he didn't shoot the ball well anywhere and then comes to the NBA. He's like, yeah, I'm going to make these now. But it's not just the numbers.

It's the comfort that you see Giddy have where you go, oh, okay. The same can be said for Scottie Barnes. I could go through anyone. I i mean there's a lot of really good rookies here at this point okay davion mitchell out there fighting with people playing donovan mitchell last night and just hey by the way in that utah winning in sacramento there's a rule that we're gonna have i like devin booker but if somebody has devin booker because of playoff momentum ahead of donovan mitchell they're doing it wrong i like both players a lot

devin booker is not donovan mitchell he just not. Some of the shit Donovan Mitchell was doing, and I know his shooting numbers are down like everybody else's, some of the stuff he was doing last night when they needed him to step up because they were in a fight there with Sacramento, you're just watching it going, this guy's sick. He's so good. He's so good. All right. So maybe I just need to be reminded of that as we're into the early part of the season. So there's a giddy look. Don't feel like your rookie is being left out here if you're a rookie also, but I'm going to give

Saruti a lane here a minute because when you see it happen with Franz, it has to be one of the most comforting feelings, not only just as a fan, but as the guy, the guys that are on the hook for doing the evaluation saying, give us this guy. You know, it's funny. I've been thinking about this because a lot of

magic Twitter did not really love this pick. I would say it was split probably 50-50. They all wanted Booknight. And, you know, because they were afraid that they missed on Devin Booker the first time that they're missing on Devin Booker again the second time. And I don't know, man. And I liked, you know, I didn't know Franz would be this good but he's what 46 percent from 354 from the field he could handle a little bit the dunk he had against the Timberwolves the other night was absurd um and you know the team seems to love him too and I know Jalen's always kind of had a slow start here but I think he'll be fine he's just probably being asked to do too much right now plus Cole Anthony what's up is all of a sudden just apparently like the next coming of I don't

know Lou Williams or whoever. You know what I was thinking, though? Who could use a guy like Franz Wagner as the team that passed on him is Golden State. They took, obviously, Kaminga, who maybe has greater upside. Who knows? But I look at Franz and I go, you think Golden State would want a guy like Franz Wagner right now who could play immediately?

He's good right now. I think his ceiling is probably way higher than even maybe what we thought it was when he got drafted. So magic Twitter, magic fans all around and pumped it. Yeah. The Jalen Suggs part of this, we knew he wasn't this finished go-to product offensively. A lot of it was just aggressiveness, his strength and size, but there's stuff with Jalen Suggs where he thinks the game ahead of other people. Like, and these are very simple things, but they're also not simple. There are things when you watch enough basketball, you go, oh, wait. There was a rebound that was loose.

I think it was in the Toronto game. And before anybody had kind of decided what they were going to do pursuing the ball, he had it in his hands. And you'd have to see the play for you to truly understand. But it was like, hey, while you guys are sitting around thinking about this, I've already got the ball. I just saw it. I went, I grabbed it, and I took it away from everybody else. There was the drive where he fumbled it against Charlotte, I think, and then

he just tapped it back out to, was it Moe? Was it Moe? Or was it, I forget, whatever. I actually posted on Twitter. It's not that big of a deal, but there's just these little things. And by the way, the headliner of all of this is Evan Mobley. Watching Evan Mobley on an NBA court for the Cavs and the stuff, if you focus in on him for just a couple minutes and you see the shit that he's doing

and the way he moves around, you're looking at this with Cleveland. And I know what Jalen said. I'm not worried about Cade Cunningham. It's been 15 minutes of his career. He hasn't made a shot. We're fine. I don't know that Killian Hayes

is necessarily great for Cade Cunningham because Cade, kind of the way we. He hasn't made a shot. We're fine. I don't know that Killian Hayes is necessarily great for Cade Cunningham because Cade, kind of the way we were talking about with Lowry, can do that on-off ball thing, which makes him so appealing. And the reason why Cade went number one over Mobley, despite what Mobley looks like right now,

is that people look at this league and say, you win with wings and I'm going to win with a wing. But Mobley is special. He is. Don't just look at the stats. Do yourself a league pass favor and just key in on Mobley is special. Don't just look at the stats. Do yourself a league pass favor and just key in on the shit Mobley's doing.

And that Hornets game with him, with Mobley, there was a contest against a guard where the guard had no chance. Lamella went to throw like a half-court transition pass. Mobley picked it up, brought the ball up. He got it out on the break on the left side. He had a guy in the corner spotting up for a three with a defender on him baseline that was deciding whether or not to help on Mobley. Mobley dribbled drive to the hoop, sucked the defense in knowing he was bringing the defender away from the corner to kick it out, and then had another play where he got it on the right block catches it in the post

pivots baseline jared allen who's been terrific also for the calves shout out calves just in general uh allen was actually even a little late on the baseline cut and mobley read it all gets it to allen allen finishes with the dunk that was a quarter of basketball for evan mobley read it all, gets it to Allen. Allen finishes with the dunk. That was a quarter of basketball for Evan Mobley. And you can be dismissive of a guy in the post, not even against the double reading a cutter in the baseline. And Allen, again, was late on the cut. No, no, this is real stuff. This is really important stuff that you're talking about somebody

that's two years removed from high school already seeing the game this way. And that's where I'm so impressed very early on because it's not just points and buckets and how we've talked about even last year when I look at some of the rookies going, hey, it's never been easier to score. It's never, ever been easier to score in the league. That's not necessarily happening right now. But the way young players are seeing the game with this class has been very impressive. And I'll just say the one thing that I think Magic fans are sad about is Scotty Barnes looks like the real deal.

He went to the perfect place, though. We said this at the draft. I mean, Toronto, if he went to Orlando, he might be the next, I don't know, Isaac or Gordon where a guy doesn't fulfill his potential. Scotty Barnes is in a perfect spot in Toronto, and he looks, dude, he could play, and I've been really impressed by him, too. Yeah, so there's no grudge there. I know I wanted Jalen Suggs but I don't I don't root against Scottie Barnes final thought on all this NBA stuff and this might be the most important thing

I could have left with it the Zion Williamson story um Zion is probably my second favorite player to watch at least going back to last year behind Steph as always maybe it wasn't going to last for five years. I don't know. But last year, I enjoyed Point Zion as much as anything not named Steph. So he's out again with his foot injury. And you're starting to hear the rumblings about where Zion is at, both weight-wise, conditioning, the whole deal. They mentioned it on the broadcast last night with Stan Van Gundy. Stan was very pro-Zion, which I guess that's maybe the role of that job is to be super positive. Stan had Zion for a year. He knows that Zion doesn't work hard.

And that's the point of all of this is that Zion, we can talk and Stan was like, well, look, if you have a foot injury, there's nothing you can do to get back in shape. That's just not true. It's not true. You can get on a bike, you can get on a rowing machine. You can figure it all out. Zion, like I said, is one of my favorite players. He was one of the most dominant players in the league last year. And I think the problem is he was so dominant last year, he's never felt like he has to change up his approach to the game. And his approach to the game sucks. He is notorious for not taking all of the professional side of this stuff seriously. I'm not saying he's a bad guy. Everybody seems to like him. I'm not saying any of that stuff. I like him. I've never heard any

bad things. But when it comes to his work and his approach to being a professional basketball player, it is far behind where it needs to be. And he's never going to be the player that we want him to be, or maybe he thinks that he's going to be if this continues. He was already a red flag body to begin with. He's been hurt a bunch already. We know he's going to be if this continues. He was already a red flag body to begin with. He's been hurt a bunch already. We know he's not happy down in New Orleans. I think the front office and the staff are scared to death of challenging him on any of this stuff. I don't know who he listens to.

Gentry didn't want to babysit him. He wasn't going to listen to Van Gundy. Willie Green was brought in as a former player that was younger that maybe could connect to him. That isn't necessarily even happening. So I don't know how much of this is Zion saying, hey, I don't even really want to be here long term, whether it's a problem with the front office or I don't know. Clearly, Zion's going to want the rookie extension. Everybody does a rookie extension. I've always said I think one guy maybe will decide

against it at some point, but it won't be Zion. When your body is already an issue, you're going to want to do that rookie extension. And I think New Orleans would be scared to death of even challenging him on any of this stuff and be scared to trade him or anything because then you feel like he's the one piece of marketing that they actually have. You'd have everybody else in the building running into your office, even kicking the tires on like,

what do we do with Zion? But the question really comes down to this. There's plenty of blame to go around everywhere, but ultimately, and I don't know why we do this in society, but it's on Zion to decide how serious he wants to take this, how great he wants to be as a player. Now, if he doesn't have that in him, maybe we don't get the ending of the story that we want. I don't know. I mean, you hear kind of things, it's like, I don't know. I don't know if he's really wired that way. There's nothing know if he's really wired that way.

There's nothing to prove that he is wired that way. And if you're Zion, you're like, wait, I've been doing it this way my whole time, and I dribbled and dunked through the entire league for a season last year. What the fuck do I have to do anything differently? So last year, as great as it was, may have been the worst thing that could have happened. But he has to change up the approach. He has to trust somebody with the organization if he ever wants to be the player that I think that he can be. And right now, this isn't going to work.

Football wouldn't be the game we know and love without a few surprises. And we had a bunch of surprises, specifically the backup quarterbacks all getting wins last week. Backup quarterbacks in the season, their winning record? It's not a winning record. Eight wins, 21 losses. But don't tell that to Trevor Simeon of the New Orleans Saints or Geno Smith filling in for Russell Wilson with the Seattle Seahawks. And specifically the headliner, I think out of the entire group, with the Jets and Mike White getting it done against the Cincinnati Bengals team that came in as the number one seed in the AFC. Now, backups are always kind of interesting because usually you can't have a backup that thinks he should be the starter.

It doesn't seem to happen nearly as much as it happened when I was younger because they were just like, we can't have someone else in the QB room and on the sidelines thinking that they're going to be the starter the whole time. We know the younger guys always play earlier. So a lot of times with the younger guys to protect them even further, they'll be like, hey, can we bring in a vet backup who never thinks he's going to play and maybe isn't even that good. So the new rookie isn't threatened whatsoever. And then we'll have a bunch of teams that have two backups that have never played before because they're hoping that one of them will pop because they don't actually like their starter. So the way teams do it seems to be different, but the way teams did it this past week led to three wins.

Since we're talking about all the things surprisingly great, we've got to shout out the good neighbors at State Farm for offering surprisingly great rates. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Get a quote today. You may know his work from NBC's pro football talk television show. Also, the co-host of Barstool's part of my take. It's Big Cat. What's up, man? Hello. I'm excited for this. To tell the people behind the scenes, it took everything,

all the willpower that I have to not just ruin what we're about to talk about because I wanted to talk to you about it last night so badly. And I almost, we almost started texting about it. But I held back and I have some takes and I'm sure you have some takes. And there's nothing that I love more than debating college football. Yeah, this is one of the few times I miss the Daily Radio show because I loved coming in every day, you know, whether it was Van Pelt or Cannell. Although some of the Cannell days, I could have just absolutely left the studio and it wouldn't have mattered.

I love the angst around college football rankings. I do. I think it's a big part of what drives the interest of this. So we have the playoff rankings out last night. Georgia won, Bama two, Michigan State three. I was a little surprised by Oregon that we have Ohio State 5 as the first out and then Cincinnati at 6, which is pissing everybody off. I will defer to you to give you whatever space,

whatever direction you want to go in here. Let's start the conversation with kind of your initial reaction when you see it all happening last night. Okay, so, and I agree with you, yeah, the college football, debating the rankings is the best because it's really the only sport we have where they don't really always decide it on the field. It's, you know, we can go back to the BCS where it's computers and subjectiveness and, you know, strength of schedule and all these things. It's not, hey, we just play each other and we figure out who's best. Initial thoughts was not surprised whatsoever with Cincinnati. I actually had a,

I have a bet with your former colleague, Kirk curb street before the season started. He was convinced that a zero loss undefeated Cincinnati team would be able to make the playoffs over a one loss power five team. And I said, no chance, no way. The committee has told us time and time again,

that any, anything outside of the power Five does not matter. And they will have no chance of making the playoff unless you have maximum chaos with two lost teams everywhere. Cincinnati got screwed not because they were ranked sixth. I expected that. Cincinnati got screwed because SMU and Houston weren't even in the top 25. That's where they got screwed. Because if you look at the rest of Cincinnati's schedule, they have zero chance to have another good win and even give a case to get into that top four.

So that's where if you're a Cincinnati fan, I understand your frustration, but I didn't expect anything different. I, for the record, had Cincinnati in earlier this week. I also, for the record, have no problem with being outside of the top four. I know that that's not American. And it's funny because you think about Cannell and I think about his politics. His politics are one way. And the one thing he would deviate from that is his Democratic feelings towards the college football playoff.

Like he is he's basically AOC when it comes to college football. And he's not aoc and everything else so i love and it's but the thing is is that i can't ever help myself from it and then joel clatt got into it too and i love joel clatt i think joel clatt does a great job but joel clatt one time when we had him on the radio show said that espn is in bed with this massive conspiracy and they're either too blind or too stupid to realize they're part of it or they're complicit. And so we had them on. I just started, I was like, Hey, am I too stupid to know what I'm a part of, or am I part of the problem? And I go, you know, look, Klatt was also screaming like crazy for an Ohio state team to get in after they won the big 10

championship a couple of years ago. And there was no way their resume was going to hold up. So I, I guess I'd ask the question a really tough, is it okay that the group of five isn't part of it? So I, I think the committee kind of screwed themselves in the fact that, that they easily, easily could have put Cincinnati in, in these rankings, number four, and knowing that they would get leapfrogged and they would have at least appeased an entire half of the country, half of, you know, college football fans who don't root for a power five team. So they could have done that. Like, that's the part that doesn't make sense to me

because they could have just said, we'll put Cincinnati four. We know that everyone will leapfrog them. It's not a big deal. Instead. They're like, no, they're six. This is how we're doing it forever. I, so it's hard because i actually i have like two schools of thoughts and they're very conflicting but i think they actually work well together when i when i draw it all out and i'll try to do that as succinct as i can i think that cincinnati playing in a non-power five conference can never like they will never be as good as a power five conference with one loss or two losses. Like I go back, I was having this debate with people online. I think Michigan's win at Wisconsin at Nebraska is more impressive back-to-back weeks, more impressive than

Cincinnati's win at Indiana by week win at Notre Dame because I've heard you make this point before and I totally agree. It's not about like your it's not about your schedule like, oh, you will be this really good team Notre Dame. Let's put that up there. It's about the weekend week out. You have to get up for games against really

good competition. There's no really there's no break. So it's like you can't slip up when you're in one of these Power Five conferences. With that said, I don't understand why Cincinnati, they don't just throw them a bone because, yeah, they'll probably get killed in the first round of the semifinal.

But that happens every year in the semifinal. We have, I looked it up. So there's been 14 playoff semifinal games and three have been decided by one score and half half of the semi-final games have been decided by 20 plus points and then four out of the 14 have been decided by 30 plus points so there's a blowout every year so why not just let cincinnati get blown out that's okay but so that's that's where i land like i actually think that cincinnati does not have a resume good enough

knowing how hard it is to play in a Power 5 conference, but I also would have no problem with being like, let's let Cincinnati go blown out instead of watching Oklahoma get blown out for the millionth time. All right, so what you're saying actually is dumber than what people think of the rankings. You want them to manipulate. People think that the rankings are being manipulated.

You want them to actually be manipulated to give someone a chance that you don't think is actually going to be as deserving after 12 games. I think that I understand why Cincinnati is out, but I think that they should just be like, hey, listen, we can't sustain a college football season where half of the teams are eliminated before the first ball is kicked so throw in cincinnati and this will all be fixed with 12 teams but i i just don't understand why you don't like i i guess i'm more on the favor of like i'm sick of watching the same thing over and

over so yeah i guess when you when you actually like draw it all out what i said was very stupid but i think it makes sense in my head here's what here's what i would propose the people that think that there's this massive conspiracy you know clout was going off last night um you know again cannell those two guys always go off about this stuff and i do really like both of them but i just disagree a lot about like okay the the sport has been changed it's been damaged irreparably and all this different shit and you're just like what because cincinnati's sixth no. How about this exercise? What if the committee goes, hey, the middling team in the American is ECU.

Shout out to ECU, Fort Worth. Pirates. The middling team in the SEC is Mississippi State. Right. LSU on the wrong weekend. Kentucky. You know, I mean, that's clear that they liked mississippi state's win not only against a&m who this is my thing of watching every single week like i know

you do a&m a win against a&m is going to look a lot better at the end of the year than it did when mississippi state actually beat a&m because i was so down on a&m for about a two or three week stretch because they were that bad all right but now it looks like it's this great win. But they did beat number 12, Kentucky. After Kentucky, other than getting blasted by Georgia, looked like they were taking care of business. And they beat an NC State team that's been flirting with, you know, respectability all season long.

And is 19th with a 6-2 record in the committee's own ranking. So it's very clear the committee goes, all right, you guys want to get mad about Mississippi State. We see three wins there, however you feel about what the A&M win was that Saturday. That's three wins in there that we're sorry, we don't think Coastal Carolina would be able to pull off. We don't think SMU would do that.

We don't think Houston would do that. And that's why Fresno's the only team that's ranked in that group where SMU, Louisiana, and Coastal and Houston are all in the AP Top 25. The committee only has Fresno out of that group because they beat a team like UCLA. So it's very clear here. The committee is telling us when they're not clear all the time, they're vague on purpose. They are vague as a tactic so that they can't be specific and then had to held against him they're being specific here that they're like look we kind of want to see that you've beaten somebody really good and for Cincinnati the Notre Dame win is not enough

to carry the other 11 games yeah and I and so I actually understand but my whole thought process going into when they dropped the rankings was like I know what it's going to be because they are consistent. They actually, I think the pushback of when people are like the committee's not consistent every year is different. I actually think they're pretty consistent. They care about big wins. They don't care about close losses. They care about getting blown out. Like those are the three things they care about. Mississippi state is ranked in the top 25 because they have three big wins. Alabama is ranked number two because they blew out two top 25 teams and they also beat Florida on the road.

Like, so it's, I actually think the committee is super, super consistent. If you disagree with their consistency, I get it. But I think that I can pretty much expect everything like they do. I know what's coming, including the Oregon thing, which we can get to. My whole thing is like, why not just let Cincinnati have a shot at it? Because it would be fun. And I want fans from like different programs to have a shot of it. So I guess I'm different than Cannell and Klatt that I don't think there's any conspiracy. I think the committee is very, very consistent. I think their reasoning can be tracked pretty well. I'm just more like, let's just say fuck it and throw Cincinnati in. Why not? Yeah, and I'm telling you, I don't think this is as mischievous or as duplicitous. I just don't think it's these things.

I think they look at Bama and they go, hey, we think Bama's really good. And that loss against A&M that night wasn't really that bad. And there you go. I mean, A&M's got six guys I think they could go in the top 50 of the next draft. It depends on what rankings you look at, because I've seen other things where it would take you out to 100 slots in the draft to get six A&M guys even drafted. The conference championship thing, like they say, yes, it's part of it, but it's not a priority a priority right they'll say head to head so um i don't know if i want to shift into oregon ohio state already i guess i would ask should we just do a thing where it's like f2 or triple a and say hey group of five yeah like there you go should we just tell group of five we you're not part of

this so stop pretending that you are we'll stop pretending and then everybody can stop being mad about it. Or is there still enough that there's going to be that one year where you have a couple two-loss conference champions where there is a Cincinnati that not only has carryover in a competitive bowl game like a team against Georgia. I have no problem if Cincinnati would rank in the top four. I can just understand that I personally have a problem with

the week-to-week is just not the same, and at the end of it, I'm not putting in undefeated Cincinnati over a one-loss loss alabama i'm just never gonna do that if bama ends up you know it depends on what happens obviously with george in the conference championship game if i can coward it for a second colin cowell uh yeah colin um the group of five is like you're you're you're uh like in in the friend zone that's pretty much it like you can pretend that maybe you have a shot with the chick at some point we'll go to an event together yeah you don't you don't like it's just you don't like you and the thing is that's crazy to me ucf the highest they ever were ranked was was six they they went into the uh bowl season ranked 12th whatever it was three

or four years ago. Like, maybe it's because the college football playoff is relatively new, but this is historical. Like, Boise went undefeated, and they were ranked behind two lost teams. TCU went undefeated. You know what I mean? Like, this has happened. And they, at the end of the year, they say, we don't care. You went undefeated.

You're not the national champion. Tough shit. Nothing's going to change. So it's crazy to me that people think that something will push the college football playoff rankings or whoever decides these things to someday click and be like, oh, I like the group of five. It's never going to happen. Never going to happen. It could happen, but it's never gonna happen never gonna happen it could happen but it's

it's no it's never gonna happen no i like i do think like that boise team if they hadn't lost nevada and again that's the bcs era i think that that team actually is playing for a national championship but they're playing for a national championship because we had enough buy-in from the previous season i'm going to use an example here i went to when i first moved out to la and things were normal and i thought i was gonna be just just in the scene. I brought Carissa Thompson to a very fancy party in Beverly Hills and Jon Hamm, Mad Men, was at the party just lurking, hanging out. Name drop. Well, no, but I introduced them because she had interviewed him for something and I had had one passing moment with him. he did not register

with at all and and Don Draper just looked at the two of us and he looked at me and he looked at Carissa and he looked at me and he looked at Carissa and he went this fucking guy Cincinnati yeah she's the yeah she's the playoff and this guy's Cincinnati and I'm Alabama oh Carissa you're you're Ohio State oh you lost to Virginia Tech in September? That's all right. Come with me. Yeah, that's it. And by the way, that didn't happen for the record,

but I was Cincinnati the whole time being like, why does he keep looking at me like I'm Cincinnati? I have a good resume. Yeah, I make good money. I'm in shape. I have a good resume. It's like, well, you know what? You've been playing

a group of five schedule in hartford yeah so you haven't you never went on the road for a long long time all right let's do because i think we disagree on this one oregon is at four and they're in um they're clearly the best team in the pack 12 i would think they're the most talented and this is that weird deal we head-to-head, but then it's always so annoying when it's like, yeah, but your loss is better. But yeah, your loss is to us because the Stanford loss is bad.

And people, Ducks fans have turned the no-Joe Moorhead for OC at this game. They have turned, do you remember the Jake Fisher 2014 tackle? He didn't play for Oregon when they lost to Arizona. And all season long, Ducks fans were like, yeah, but we didn't have Jake Fisher, 2014 tackle. He didn't play for Oregon when they lost to Arizona and all season long ducks fans were like, yeah, but we didn't have Jake Fisher. You're like, you fucking turned Jake Fisher into Jim Thorpe here. Okay. So like, I know you didn't have Joe Moorhead, but that was a bad loss against Stanford. So it's one of those things where I actually watched both teams play all year. Oregon still has not been as good as I wanted them to be

based on who I thought they'd be at the beginning of the year. I wouldn't have a problem having Ohio State ahead. I know you hate that. Okay, so I'm happy you brought up the Jake Fisher thing and the fact that we get to do this as college football fans of like, oh, well, we had this guy out. Oregon, if you're going to do that, the no Joe Moorhead, Oregon gets extra credit because they didn't have Kavon Thibodeau against Ohio

State. Yeah, or Flo. I mean, who's the other guy that, you know, is lost in the shuffle with all this. And if you're a Ducks fan too, you're also like, hey, officiating, which I don't like going to, it didn't exactly work out for Oregon a ton in that Stanford game. No, no, no. So I,

this is another thing where I thought the committee is completely consistent, and they did this to save their own ass. They put Oregon ahead of Ohio State in the initial rankings because they know that the games actually have to mean something for at least a little bit. Like, Oregon beat Ohio State. You want to pretend like you want to say,

who's better, Oregon or Ohio State? Well, guess what? They played. Oregon was better. I know that the season changes and Ohio State you know demoted their defensive coordinators made a ton of changes looks better although the Penn State game was ugly I think they did this very very purposefully Oregon's four Ohio State's five Oregon has no one left on their schedule besides going to Utah which I think they'll probably actually lose that game. Something about playing in Utah, there's just always –

Utah always has smoke on the field like in the third quarter. Like after the fireworks in the first quarter, they just linger. It's like the trash tornado in Nevada where you turn on a Nevada game, they'll just be trash circling around on the field at all times. But Oregon is not going to have a chance to get another signature win. Ohio State plays Michigan State. Ohio State plays Michigan. Ohio State plays Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game. They will get more wins and they will jump Oregon. So the committee can then say the games matter because Oregon was

ranked higher, but then Ohio State won more games down the stretch against better opponents. They then jump. Yeah, because they love the Big Ten in this. And they love the Big Ten so much. Ryan, I'm going to throw this out there. I think there's a chance that there is people have been talking like, what if Alabama loses a close game to Georgia? I do not think Alabama would be in because that would be very atypical. No two-loss team has ever made the playoff.

I think there's a chance, though, it could be the Big Ten SEC invitational. If Alabama beats Georgia... They're both in. If that happens, they're both in. And Michigan State loses close to Ohio State and has one loss, I think that they would try to put in Ohio State and Michigan State,

Georgia, and Alabama. I think that's the more likely scenario. I didn't know if I wanted to ask you this because it might be, but do you feel like Wisconsin exposed Iowa now and that they gave the rest of the country the blueprint game? I was so confident in that game because wisconsin uh have you seen our running back yeah i'd look at the defensive rankings and even when you suck you're like number two in the country in yards play aloud yeah it's unbelievable how consistent

wisconsin if you look at that metric over however many years wisconsin even in years you're like oh what happened in wisconsin this year be like, they actually were top five again or top three even. Yeah, the one year we didn't have that defense was, of course, the year we had Russell Wilson. So that was just perfect serendipity there. The kid we have, Braylon Allen, who's 17 years old, and he squats 620 pounds. He's a freak.

He's a total freak. Yeah, what's up with Fond du Lac? Is that what it's called? Yeah, that's where he came from. Yeah, F He's a total freak. Yeah. What's up with Fondue Locke? Yeah. That's where he came from. Yeah. Yeah. So he's, he's a beast. Yeah. Wisconsin kind of exposed Iowa. I know you don't like the big 10, but I mean, I think Ohio state is still one of the top three teams in the country. I think they can on their best day can hang with Alabama or Georgia, maybe not beat them, but definitely can hang with them. What happens is like when I watch Penn State, Iowa, okay?

And all of us that were paying attention to Iowa knew eventually the game was going to be up here at some point. And if Clifford doesn't leave that game, Penn State wins that football game. I think we'd agree with that one, right? Yes. So, Penn State, I watched them Saturday night against Ohio State, and as I said, Monday,

I have a ton of respect for who Penn State is. I don't always love Clifford, but the fact that they could get out there and trade blows with Ohio State, you know, that's, that's going to be a team that might end up with five losses and there's no way there's 24 teams that are better than them. You know, whatever their record is there, they would be better. Shit. I might say they're better than all but 15 teams, but there's no way you can do that because of all the losses. But I respect how physical and how tough they are all the time. And so real quick, when I look at that Penn State-Iowa game, I couldn't help when I was watching it, I go,

man, when I watch Bama or even Ole Miss or when I watch A&M, I go, there's some playmakers running around for Georgia. And Georgia doesn't have the outside guys that you'd expect sometimes and they don't have the running back caliber I think they've had in the past, but there'll be times with a Bama matchup against another really good SEC offense where you're like, there's guys running around and then you watch back to...

Iowa's fastest guy is that white kid, which is hilarious. Casper? Yes, yes. Ari Wasserman from the Athletic, who I think is really good. He has, he's basically built an entire reputation on just the simple facts stars matter. And it's like, you just say that and it sounds very basic, but it's like, Hey, the reason why Georgia kicks the shit, kick the shit out of Florida this year. And Dan Mullen is getting dragged right now

for talking about recruiting is because Georgia has stacked up like the number two or number one recruiting class three or four years in a row and Florida is like number seven or eight and that's a big difference that's a big big difference just like when Alabama or when Ohio State plays Michigan like a recruiting class being five, six, you know, ranks apart, that makes a big difference. And I know that it sucks to like say, because everyone always wants to be like, oh man, we could coach them up. If you have the dudes at some point, it just matters more. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's why when I was watching Ohio State run through everybody for the previous four weeks and then beat Penn State, look, they beat them. They're a better football team.

Ohio State at least has enough guys running around where you think, okay, whether it's Alave, Njigba, the tight end, there's the other kid who's the first round receiver as well. You're like, okay, this is, and they might have, I would say Bijan, probably my favorite running back in the country, but Trevion, the freshman Henderson running back is as good as anybody too. And that's where it's just hard to quit Ohio state. It's hard to quit them. And even for all the Stroud stuff where I thought, I don't know if he always loves when he has to get flush out of the pocket and boy, you know, he's had some of these slow starts and yeah, they beat the hell out of all these bad teams for a month. Do you know that he's second in quarterback rating for college football players? I couldn't believe that when I looked at it. I believe it just because of what he does to the lower teams

in the big 10, because again, the stars, when they, you know, when Ohio state plays Rutgers and Maryland, it's, it's, it's two different sports being played. Uh, what did you, the only other thing I had was I thought Oklahoma was ranked properly. And one other thing, Wake Forest, if Wake Forest runs a table, they're not going to be in, which would be precedent of a Power 5 conference

going undefeated and not making it in the playoff. They might lose this week. They're an underdog at 4-4 in North Carolina, by the way. It's a nice story. Top 10 drought is over for North Carolina, by the way. I don't have a, I mean, look, it's a nice story. Top 10 drought is over for wake. Look at the schedule, check them out. Their quarterback's been really good.

They've got three running backs. They can throw at you, which has been nice, but I just, the same as a group of five team, even though wake is obviously a power five team, the same thing is like at week nine or 10, I got to see something on the resume that makes me feel really good about who you are before I start talking about you potentially playing for a national championship. And it was the same argument again about Iowa years ago when they lost to Michigan State

in the Big Ten championship game. I became the anti-Iowa guy because I was like, look, man, if we're talking about the four slots for a chance at a national championship, I need something on the resume. And had Iowa beat Michigan State that year, which they didn't, and I had more respect for them at the end of the season. Because you know what was weird is with that Wisconsin game, they should have lost that year. Wisconsin made like every mistake in the world in the red zone,

and Iowa ends up pulling it out. And I was like, man, this Iowa team. Was that in Madison? I think it was at that game. Yeah, it was in Madison. It was one of the worst games I've ever watched in my entire life. It was one of the worst games I've ever watched in my entire life. It was. It was like who can punt,

who can get the field position long enough to score a touchdown, to like eke in there. By the way, the receiver I was thinking of from Deerfield, Illinois, is Charlie Jones, number 16 for Iowa. Casper's 40. He's my age. A burner. A burner. You're right. I think that

the funniest part about college football fans is the lack of self-awareness in fan bases, and I pride myself on being somewhat self-aware as a Badger fan that I know what the Big Ten West is. I know how this stacks up. If Wisconsin ever wants to go to the college football playoff,

they have to be undefeated. Like, there's just, that's just how it is. Just like Iowa that year, you have to run the table because we do not, it might be cyclical, but I would imagine that Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State will always be pretty good. The Big Ten West is is not it's it's it's a cakewalk most years like in terms of going up against the sec west or the big 10 east and so

you just got to admit that and understand what you are okay i got another ranking for you here okay all right four six for four. Playoff. This is a new segment that Simmons and I wanted to do, but we can't do. We wanted to start doing Media Hot Stove League. Okay. Would it take, like I tweeted out one the other day, would it take a Van Pelt and a first to get you Joe Buck?

Now, some people thought that I was dogging Van Pelt, that you'd have to throw in a first or a second to get Joe Buck, but I think Joe Buck would immediately solve all your big announcer things. And ESPN's more live rights than anything else. I mean, look, nobody can read a highlight like my man Van Pelt, except for maybe Berman. And Van Pelt can also carry a radio show. So there's some depth there. There's some adaptability. But then you're like, yeah, but if you want Joe Buck, who's doing World Series and Super Bowls, those are big-ticket items, and those aren't easy guys to find. And we only have to look at Monday Night Football to see how to –

so you might have to actually add Sweetener to the deal with Van Pelt to get a Joe Buck. So having said – do you agree with that? I agree with that. I think Joe Buck fixes Monday Night Football right away. Although Levy – I like that group. I like Levy, Greasy, and Riddick. I do too, but Joe Buck is Joe Buck.

So he gets you Sunday Night Baseball, Monday Night Football, probably whatever golf you want to do. Would he work with A-Rod though? I mean, A-Rod's the easiest to work with. Come on, you know the answer to that. Macro and micro, bro. Hey, how happy are you though for a rod navigating through these tough times personally um well i don't really know what you're referring

to other than the fact that ben affleck and j-lo is like could you imagine like let's just let's just play a hypothetical game real quick could you imagine having a relationship with another celebrity that's like purely for the tabloids and purely so that your name stays out there? It's disgusting. Like, it's disgusting. I've wanted I've wanted to do it. But yeah, it's gross. It's it's it's a slap in the face to real love.

through what Ben Affleck and J-Lo are doing uh I don't trust you as a human being because it's so clear that they're doing this to stay in the limelight and have everyone talk about them and uh you know I'll defend my guy A-Rod forever but it's just like he would never do anything like that yeah that is now that you say it that way I I hadn't, believe it or not, I hadn't really seen it happen that way. I don't know. I just, I'd like to think that they were, they found their person. No, they're just doing it so they can stay on page, what is it, page six? Page, yeah. It's gross.

It makes me want to puke every single time. And J-Lo Stans, if you're listening to this, because I know you ryan rossillo uh dual threat podcast listeners uh bring it on bring it on all right ouch ouch i don't even want to look at the mentions bro after this thing posts okay all right so we've we've set the template for this hot stove thing that i want that i've always wanted to do but there's no way you could do it. Cause it would be hilarious if somebody, let me try to pick somebody who I am friends with and who like, all right, we'll do,

we'll say Randy Scott. So like, if you ever said something like, Hey, so-and-so for someone, and then we're like, you got to throw in a Randy Scott. Yup.

And then Randy Scott goes, you got to throw in a Randy Scott. Like that doesn't feel great. And be like, well, it's kind of what the market is right now. You know, you're you know, people just don't draft running backs that high anymore. All right.

So there you go. Fourth round compensatory pick that kind of thing. So six for four for the playoff. Stephen A. Van Pelt. Cowherd. Greeny. Romo.

Whoa. And I'm going to throw Herbstreet in there. We don't discuss Skip on this pod unless we're making fun of him. So I'm not putting him in there. Stephen A., Greeny, SVP, Romo. Who was the other? Cowherd? Yep. And what was the last one? Herbstreet. Herbstreet. So I got to pick

four in the playoff. Yeah, you got to argue. You got to argue for whatever resume you want to put together. What emphasis on the resume should we do? Like, who's the standard? Who's the one that it's like, it's not debatable? Like, this guy can play for a championship. The stuff he's done this last year,

he deserves a shot. Yeah, I'm going to rank them accordingly. I'm going to say Stephen A is my one. Stephen A is my one seed. He's your Bama? He's my Georgia right now. Oh, yeah, fair. Yeah, smart.

He's my Georgia. He's doing things on a different level than everyone else consistently. Any, you know, kind of an old pat hill anywhere any place any time that doesn't that feel like steven hey he'll just go he'll be on nba countdown oh you need a baseball take he hasn't watched baseball season he'll throw one out there though like he'll just give it to you which sometimes that's the job just give me a take any take that's when you think of it that way it's like hey have you watched any baseball nope do you want to talk about itani in a way that probably will be criticized yep

yep sign me up yeah you want me to get some headlines i'm in so he he is one easily okay uh oh this is where it gets tough i'm gonna go with hmm i'll go with damn this is tough this is gonna be tough I'm gonna go with I'll go coward 2 similar to the Stephen A where it's like you need a take he's got a take you need an analogy

about your third wife he's got that for you you bought a Corvette how does that apply to Baker Mayfield we got that for you so I think he's got that for you you bought a corvette how does that apply to baker mayfield we got that for you so i think he's number two um if you're only growing green peppers you're you're doing it wrong yeah right right i'm gonna go so i'm gonna go three herb street and four svp so herb street you get the live games i do think like this isn't because he owes me a steak dinner because i schooled him on college football uh before the season started and said cincinnati cincinnati has no chance but i do think he uh brings the the versatility of being great in

the booth also great on a show you know he does the draft coverage all that stuff also uh i ran into him in knoxville tennessee this is going to be a humble brag we got off our jet uh the game day guys got off their jet they were fueling a couple guys just stopping in the private area. All right. Yeah. So I saw Bear. I know Bear well. Herb Street's eyes are breathtaking. Like, I almost kissed the guy. I almost kissed the guy. His eyes were so incredible. I was, like, lost in those things. Caribbean Blue doesn't even begin to explain how blue his eyes are.

So that's a little extra bonus there. All right. No greenie there right no greenies yeah for svp because i think svp brings versatility i think he's your uh wild card he's going to he deserves to be in he's going to probably get blown out by 30 points by steven a in the first round but that's okay i'm happy he made it. All right. Really good. Really good. There's no way Romo was going to be in your top four. I think that's where the bias,

I think the committee bias of one, committee of one started to shine through there a little bit. If this were the real committee, I would have not even ranked Romo in my top 25, and then I would have gone on ESPN and been like, the committee respects Tony Romo, and watch everyone just flip I would have gone on ESPN and been like the committee respects Tony Romo and watch everyone just flip out about it okay all right I am gonna go Herb Street one not just because of the eyes but because he is entered into that big moment thing when he is on

the call you know it's a big deal and that is a really hard thing to pull off it doesn't happen overnight even if you have all the presence and charisma. You have to be attached to the brand. He's been attached to the brand of college football for two and a half decades. I think he is an all-time lock. They're going to go 13-0. They're going to be favored in every game they play.

And he still has given you the studio stuff. And I'm telling you, too, there's a stretch there where Herbstreet not only can be the leader he can carry people you know what he does for the rest of the group um i think he deserves a lot of credit for that and so there's i just i don't i don't really know that i can argue anybody else in that number one spot for then i understand your steven a arguments but i'm going to upstreet one i love it i love it i'm a big believer in the big game voice it's not something that you can just have. It's not something that you can be like,

oh, he's calling the big game, so he has a big game voice. It is total feel. It's like when you watch someone and you're like, okay, this means something. Sneaky, you know who I love? Big game voice guy, Brad Nessler. Oh, are you kidding me?

Big game voice. Grab a plate, Weasel. Yeah, big game voice guy brad nessler oh are you kidding me big game voice grab a plate weasel yeah big game voice and there's other guys i won't name names gus johnson they might force the big game voice and it's like relax dude it's fucking nebraska northwestern at at 12 o'clock okay it's not a big game uh there there was a chance right through that i like that i like i like coming on because i can say the stuff you want to say and you can just sit there and no comment and everyone be like yeah he actually agrees with that there's the only thing that could ding herb street in the room would be some of the tweets they'd be like wait isn't this guy like arguably the one of the most successful people in the industry

who's only going to be attached to it for another 20 years if he wants to? Why is he arguing with 614? You know, I don't, that one, I would move past it. But sometimes you got to let it out. Sometimes you got to let it out. I get it. I totally disagree with you on that one. I think that anyone who doesn't get in the mud on Twitter and debate things on Twitter

loses touch. I swear to God. I swear to God. mud on Twitter and debate things on Twitter loses touch. I swear to God. So I've lost touch because I never do it. Listen, every week I debate the college football playoff with people on Twitter and people be like, why are you responding to this guy? It's like because I fucking I'm having fun. Like, I want to talk sports online. You're having fun. Honestly, you're having fun.

It's fun. I'm having a lot of fun. Okay. All right. Herbstreet won. I got Van Pelt second. All right. We talked versatility. Have you heard him on golf? Done. They should be having him doing a couple Big East hoops

games or maybe ACC. Probably rather have... Oh, no. He's in the Big Ten now. Never mind. You could have him back. I don't think he's ever going to do radio again because it was such a grind, but he can do a million different things. You know what think he's ever going to do radio again because it was such a grind, but he can do a million different things. You know what else he's done? Like Alabama when they said, all right, this is what you want to do.

This is what you want football to be. You want to spread them out. You want to run tempo. You want to run pace. Nobody has updated their youth more consistently than Van Pelt. Van Pelt's 61. People don't know that. When's his birthday? It's today.

Today. Happy birthday, Scott. people don't know that when's his birthday it's today today happy birthday scott um i thought he was 65 he is a bit like don draper huge man didn't kick for me lately no one's no one's quite sure but he's he's my other sec school i agree with you on van pelt the only knock i would say is uh how many bi-week weeks does he take a season? Well, look, if he wants to take a bye week and then schedule Georgia Southern, and you're allowed to right before he play Auburn, you should be allowed to, you know? I mean, if you're playing a third of your schedule at Dewey Beach, I don't know.

Okay, Stephen A., he'd be higher if he didn't get my radio show, which I said, hey hey are you guys going to give my radio show to Stephen A for a year and a half and they're like we would never do that to you don't worry about it well they did it and then he got Max moved off a show and then told everybody I wanted Max off the show and then he got his own version of NBA countdown and then it was like we'll let Greeny pretend he's hosting this but he isn't um these are major major power moves and people in the room clearly could win a lot of arguments because of his deserving of

being number one because when he walks in the stadium it feels different yes uh the good news is you're totally over all those things happening to you yes i've completely never bring them up i've completely moved on because i don't hold grudges because people that forgive are healthier people again i just have never understood i've never understood why it's like why am i supposed to be pumped about those things like oh like bye guys that was fun and honestly had nothing to do with him it had nothing to do with him. It had nothing to do with him. It was, well, it had probably something to do with him. But all right. All right.

My last slot. My last slot. I got Greeny, Romo, or Cowherd. I would probably put Cowherd in if he wasn't such a real estate guy now. So he's out. He's playing the market? Yeah. A little dabble.

A little dabble. I love, by the way, just a sidebar on life advice. Did you see that gazebo life advice when someone asks for real estate advice you're like i don't really know the market in like spokane but and then you go off on like expert analysis you know what that's actually one of the things you pointed out about me i think the last time i came on with you guys it's like there was a shorter way to answer this but but you didn't want to do that, did you? And I was like, I don't know. I thought we were doing a podcast here, but it's a fair point.

There's other times I could be a little bit more efficient. You're Romo. You're just in the room standing on the table screaming that Romo shouldn't even be taken seriously. Not that, but I have been consistent since day one so this isn't like a new thing because i think the tide is maybe turning in my favor a little bit i think romo is very good i think he's obviously very smart i think he does not let a broadcast breathe at all and if you have to listen to four hours of it it gets grating at times now i also am a little biased because the most recent romo broadcast was uh the bears losing 38 to 3 to the bucks and he and jim nance it was like you know two drink minimum night at the chuckle hut between the two of them for the

whole fucking what if they just like each other yeah what if they just like each other but yeah i listen i'm not gonna tell you you you can't like romo i think that there's times where it's like hey romo maybe don't try to predict every play hey romo don't make sounds like in my ear all the time hey romo let jim nance and the crowd do a little work here because joe buck lets the crowd speak like he does and you might hate joe buck i know you personally do hate him but um he lets the crowd speak in in the big moments and as a sports fan that's what i want uh i really like joe buck but i love i love what you said last night the best is how many people are going to think that some of this stuff is true who else who else can we kind of side compliment

that maybe somebody we don't like and then flip that all right you know i'm going to think that some of this stuff is true who else who else can we kind of side compliment that maybe somebody we don't like and then flip that all right you know i'm going to give that four spot to greeny because you know why he shows up every single day and to get up at 4 a.m for two plus decades tells me you can grind and you what? He says yes to everything. He hosted a game show at one point. He's got a betting show. You didn't know that? No, I knew he had a betting show, which was by sidebar.

Again, I'm saying that too much. I apologize to people. When I saw that Greeny had a betting show, I was like, well, we're going to win this war. Like that was like like he's not a better svp is a better he bets you can't oh we're talking about barstool stuff oh yeah but you can't have greenie doing a betting show like he's not a better he isn't that's him saying yes too much that would be my counterpoint well okay but you know what you guys have never done? You've never hosted Duel on ABC.

Ran from 2007 to 2007. No, 2007 to 2008. And let me see. How many episodes? 16 episodes. Did he host them all? He sure did. Executive producer Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun,

if you don't remember that from seinfeld so um most seasons were sponsored by pepsi max and there you go do it i i like greeny i uh i met him i met him twice i think once was at the starbucks by our office because he lives kind of close to to where our office is and uh he was like i like your guys parody songs and i just texted pft right away i was like so we got to stop doing those like what when's the last time you go wait i can't remember the last time you did a parody song yeah i was like did one color rush thursday yeah like if greeny's like those are fucking awesome we would for sure be doing those if i was still on radio it's like well we gotta sometimes you gotta realize that maybe

you're making fun of yourself you're you're you've become the joke yeah you've done a couple i don't like but i didn't i didn't say a couple haven't hit i say every now and then i have a monologue that i'd want to have back so you know you never know uh do we need to cover anything else i think we got it i don't think so i'm sorry for going so long um oh do we want to talk a little fish tour yeah let's check some dates so ryan and i had an idea and we still might do this idea of doing a jam band podcast. So everyone just keep your eyes out. Ryan and I were going to do a jam band podcast. We were going to release it on like SoundCloud, not tell anyone and see if anyone would go and like listen to it.

And we were going to release one, like four hour episode every like six months and just talk about jam, talk about fishing and the dead and just leave it out there. And if people found it and they're like, wait, this sounds familiar. And we would just be like completely unreliable on it. And it would be like one day you'd get an episode.

Maybe you'd get two episodes in one week and then you wouldn't get another one for 18 months, which we still might do. But yeah, we should do that. Actually, it would be very funny. I want to do it, but I don't know that our bosses would be thrilled if we just threw out four hour podcasts and not have it on the umbrella of one of the companies that pays us. But I would love to. I would love to see how long it would take before people feel like these guys are actually doing this. I don't know what the topic should be.

I was thinking about going to see... Yeah, go ahead. Do we start naming it? Because every now and then if we get really bored, I'm horrified at what I thought was funny in the moment and what would be funny a year later. They're two distinctly different categories. Because widespread's in Chicago for four nights.

Ooh. Coming up here soon. Little porch song. Yeah. Love that. Dead & Company was very good when I saw them in New York this summer. I didn't go because I didn't want to go to dead by myself on Halloween. I thought that was the right move.

I mean. What the hell? What's going to happen? You think people are going to be like, hey, there's Rosillo. He has no friends. We listen to your podcast, dude. No dude not at a debt and company deal i just think being surrounded by people yeah although john mayer just stops the beginning like hey that life advice about that guy that wanted to buy that house in idaho you really set him down the right path i i don't think people appreciate i'm gonna i'm gonna compliment you here a second i don't think people appreciate. I'm going to compliment you here a second. I don't think people really appreciate Ryan,

what he does for the audience by living by himself and living in solitude so that you get these like pent up thoughts and anger three times a week. It would be totally different if he had to go in an office and he was like conversing with people and talking about things. No, no, you get like, it's almost like a, what was it? The Stanford experiment when they put all those people in a fake prison. Yeah. That's what we have going on here.

That makes me feel way better. Thank you. I said, I was going to compliment you. Yeah. You nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. I don't think it's, I don't think there's that much anger in the advice. I think I've mellowed. I think I've mellowed for anger in the advice. I think I've mellowed.

I think I've mellowed. For me? I think you've mellowed, too. There's not actually anger. Yeah, I got to find. Oh, here we go. I found something. Keep scrolling, though.

This is a good segment. I found something. Yeah, sorry. We cut all this. Episode one prep. Topic one, ideas for the show. Topic two, favorite Wic wikipod groove that's what we had written down that's the whole episode that's it that's all we did on prep that's it

yeah that's that's it that's it we just oh another segment summer tour essentials cooler grilled cheese maker goo balls ecstasy uh awful t-shirts you threw that out there so yeah i think or no wookie these are all really good yeah i think we had one in there it was like it better teammates steph or jimmy herring it was also i think we had uh like caught like narc or no narc and it was my idea was that it was just going to be all all cops because it was alpine valley it was a trick question where it's just all cops so um yeah that's uh then we got that in the works that people are like what the fuck we stopped listening 10 minutes ago but then we got that in the works

it's in the works It's in the works. It's in the works. Perfect. All right. Thanks, man. Say hi to Eric for me. You want details? Bye.

I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Okay, we got a couple things here. By the way, there was an email in,

and you're going to hit us up with a life advice question comment. We prefer questions. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. We had somebody checking in thinking they saw you on Newberry Street, Sir Rudy, when you were celebrating with your buddies. Is that fair? Is that an accurate geographical pinning of you? For the amount of times I've been to Boston, I should know Boston better. But what the heck was the place we were at?

Now I'm blanking on it. But yeah, I mean, listen, we were walking around. We went to a couple different places, so you could see me on the streets. Wait, you don't know where Newberry Street is? Is that like the main drag by the Commons? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I think I was around there. Okay. There you go. Shops, restaurants, pretty popular. Yeah. I mean, it was dark out, so I don't know. I wasn't really looking around.

I also had a few drinks, but yeah, I don't know. I think it's probably accurate. Somebody said they saw you out and about. Maybe it was in Boylston. I'm not sure. I mean, I don't think, nobody would say Newberry is the main street of Boston, although arguing what the main street of Boston,

maybe people would say Boylston over Newberry. I don't, you know what, my level of interest in debating that is pretty low. So we'll just keep it moving here. This one's for Kyle, though. 6129-226 226 to the dot on a six-month weight loss bet. the dot on a six month weight loss bet

so working on getting down in response to Kyle drunkenly wanted to fight a Chargers fan after the Pats game on Halloween I am down and will fight him I've never been in a fight but I've always wanted to just see what I've got and much like Kyle when I'm drunk sometimes I just would someone would start something

so I can more than likely get my ass beat I have absolutely no training in fighting I'm fairly out of shape I'm pretty positive Kyle could take me easily I'm a Chargers fan so on the off chance I land a lucky shot it will be worth the beat down given what the Pats just did to my Chargers Kyle I live in San Diego but we'll come meet you somewhere up there and I'll buy you a beer after given we both can still walk to make it more interesting let's put our respective team titles on the line. The Patriots have a few championships to offer and the Chargers have an exciting 94

AFC championship title in which I can't even name the quarterback from that team, Stan Humphreys. I'll take my answer off the air if you want, Kyle. Love the show and if you guys decide not to fight me, no hard feelings. Kyle? I would say I don't think this guy understands how fights work,

but that's all right. I don't think we could give up championships or anything like that. And the other thing I would say is I really just kind of need to recreate that moment. Like I'm not really gonna be like, yeah, drive up and fight me. And that's just not how fights work either. Usually. I mean, unless it's a duel, I think. And I don't think we have a reason to duel. All I would say is I wish you were at that gas station on Sunday, dude. That's all I can say about that. Yeah, there's a lot that doesn't make a ton of sense about this. Do the teams, if you guys were to fight each other and somebody loses,

does that mean the Patriots pull a banner down? That doesn't seem to be. It reminds me of the King, Shruti. I know you said you liked the King. It sounds like when Henry wanted to fight that dude Hotspur to just send the armies home, and he was like, it's just me on you. I don't think it works like that, though.

I think you're right. All right, so we're not going to... I appreciate the offer. Really, where were you on Sunday, dude? San Diego, I guess. I don't think he wanted to see you on Sunday. I think that would have been bad news for him. Sounds like...

I don't know, Kyle, what your fighting experience is like, but I don't think I would want see you on Sunday. I think that would have been bad news for him. Sounds like, I don't know, Kyle, what your fighting experience is like, but I don't think I would want to run into Kyle on Sunday. No, and I'm still pretty embarrassed about how I was on Sunday. So I'm glad we're continuing to talk about it. That's great. Yeah, you know what? This isn't fair. Let's stop doing this to our good friend, Kyle.

Kyle, what is your go-to move, though, in a fight? I mean, no, no. I mean, it's really like I'll try to keep it, you know, stand up. But, you know, if it seems like the guy's kind of fast and wiry, it's like, let's just go to the ground. Let's just, you know, I'm pretty good with the old chokeout. So, you know, once I get it locked in, I feel like it's going to be over pretty quickly. So, you know, I gauge it. And then if it's just like this is going to be too much work,

it's just let's just make this a mess on the ground. See what happens. So you'll adapt to the opponent. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Some guys are just really good at punching, and I wouldn't consider myself really good at punching. So, you know, if it's like this is going to be better in a mess, then we'll just make it a mess.

Wow. He's like a great MMA fighter. He's not just boxing. It's not just grappling. It's not just whatever taekwondo, jiu-jitsu. He adapts to whatever is necessary to win in that situation. Yeah, I think we'll leave it at that. I think Kyle's one of the most adaptable fighters that we know.

I like it. I like it. I thinkyle's got a little mean streak in him too because i think it's those days of raking with people and stuff i think there's a little mean streak in there and you weren't afraid to sell a guy a broken xbox for weed and you had a baseball bat in your house and there's and you embezzled from a mexican fraternity i don't. The more we learn about you, the more I think it's go time if it has to be go time with you. Also, it was Latino. So there's a lot of like Dominican Puerto Ricans, too. So all that stuff. Whatever that means.

Yes. Yes. All right. So we had somebody email in about how to better decorate your house. Fine. Ask somebody else. I can to better decorate your house. Fine. Ask somebody else. I can't help you with that. Should we have a design person on?

It's a very visual thing. I don't think this is going to work over a hot day. It's a conscious choice at this point. Come on. It's not like you need help. It's just a conscious decision, right? Who, me? Oh, is this for Cerruti? No. Is this for the holidays? What are we talking? Oh, I think in general

oh I thought he was talking about your hostage situation room oh no no safe house the decoration thing is simple just go to at home

or like home goods buy a couple of things that look decorative hang them up it's not that hard you know Christmas you buy some you know what's that

the garland green stuff the garland yeah maybe a couple lights, some candles. It's not that hard. A wreath. Darius. Yeah, wreaths.

No, I don't think it was about Christmas. I just think it was about in general. So whatever. We're going to keep it moving. This one's simple but difficult. 23, 6 feet, 178, skinny fat. We're figuring it out. Skinny fat's the worst. Just be skinny figuring it out. Skinny fat's the worst.

Just be skinny or be fat. Skinny fat's the worst of the three options. And it's actually easier to fix but worse to look at. I did it. I had it going on for a little while. Anyway, I'm terrible at initiating conversations with people. I describe myself as very introverted. Meeting new people is not something that comes natural to me. I often find myself on the periphery of conversations rather than in them

and usually rely on friends or others to initiate a conversation. This has greatly affected my dating life. No shit. And I fear it may affect my professional life as I begin to attend more industry and networking type events. Dating apps have helped my confidence somewhat. However, I'm still terrible at approaching people in person. Do I just have to dive in, make myself uncomfortable and figure it out? Is there some way to slowly build up my confidence and ease my fear of having awkward interactions? Interested to see what you guys think or if any of you have dealt with something similar. Look, I have that sometimes still too. I think what mine would be described as though is I'll go and this is what's going to help you is it'll be a, I don't care about this. Why am I sitting here talking about this?

Like, why am I asking this person questions? I don't care about any of these answers. I don't. You have to figure out a way to pretend you care about those answers. That's kind of it. I think that's the easiest way of doing it. Now we're all wired differently, right? Our personalities are all very different. I envy the guys that are great starters. I think it's harder to be a great closer. I would say opening is oddly... I don't know. Starter, closer,

you get the point. Everybody needs a great starter in their group to set up the closers. I would say the starter doesn't get in his own head. The starter isn't thinking it all out in your head the way you are. I'm a big thinker. Okay. And so once you realize like, hey, if I'm just going to talk to somebody and this is look, dating and then work things are

different. You know, the work things, everybody kind of has to talk to each other. They already get it. There's, there's less of this barrier up where, you know, if you walk over to a woman and you go to try to open up conversation, she's probably already decided how receptive she's going to be before you even open your fucking mouth. All right. Shout out to Hitch. And if you can get through the time where she decided she didn't really want

to talk to you and be funny enough, quick enough in the conversation that now she's going to be more engaging and start talking to you to continue to ask questions of a woman and pretend or actually, honestly be really interested in the answers is the first step of figuring out the rest of that stuff. So I would ask questions. I would, if you're not interested, pretend you're interested. It'd be really nice if you were interested, right? Follow-ups. Don't always talk about yourself. I talk about myself too much. If you have a killer story, don't use it second. Don't be like, hey, that's a great dress. So I was in Jamaica. You know what I mean? Don't do that because then it's like, all right,

you had this killer story, but you used it too quickly. Build to it. Maybe once everybody's sitting down and she's introducing some of your friends. Sometimes one of the best things to do is to talk to the friend and then get introduced to the rest of the women. And then the friend brings you over. Now, it could get a little weird if you, we're all adults here. You talk to the one friend that's maybe more receptive to you, but you actually wanted to talk to her friend, and then everybody's trying to sort it all out by the end of the night. That could be a little bit more difficult. But when you're at these work networking things, all of you are stuck there. All of you are supposed to be there, and you're supposed to be talking to each other.

So the chances are if this is this in your head already and it's just not how you're wired, and that's not your fault. Like, again, we're all very different. You're going to have to kind of like whatever your fears are if we're jumping out of a plane if it's you know i don't know whatever pick pick any kind of a thing that you're like oh that i'd never want to do that you're going to have to force yourself to kind of do some of that stuff and i would sidle a bit with the group i'd ask somebody a follow-up you know most people do want to talk uh most people want to be the center of attention so play off of your lack of desire of wanting to be the center of attention by letting other people be the center of attention

and letting them go and then asking little follow-ups and then you can also do the efficiency move right what is per where's where are pers flaws big men that don't shoot a lot that are and then asking little follow-ups. And then you can also do the efficiency move, right? What is PER? Where are PER's flaws? Big men that don't shoot a lot, that are always around the rim, that have a lot of rebound rate. Show up to the group, sidle,

couple follow-ups, shake a couple hands, move on to the next group. Keep your minutes at 12 a game because if you get 30 minutes a game, your rebound rate goes down. You're taking a few more shots that are outside your comfort zone.

And then we got problems with your PER dips dips so you can be efficient about this stuff now it'd be great if it all came natural to all of us that we were all great in all these different things uh sometimes i have to kick my own ass to be like hey look you're a little bit older you're sort of over everything um how about you be engaging for an afternoon how about you because I don't know if it's a northeast thing where it's this prove yourself to me for the first five minutes and then at minute six I'm like all right I'm in I I like this guy because those first five minutes are when everything's kind of decided anyway hell I'm telling you in the dating part of it they have decided as you walk over to the group okay they have and if it was a hard the group, okay? They have.

And if it was a hard no and you turn it into a soft yes, then you're a lot better at this than a lot of other people are. So the simplest thing would be let them be the center of attention. Ask some follow-ups. Keep it moving. Yes. As a guy who's turned a lot of maybes into sure why not uh i say yes wow yeah so what i yeah so what i would say is uh you gotta be you gotta like it's it's a fine line to walk and also sometimes i find myself it's like i've been in the situation before and all of a sudden i just

got nothing to say nothing's coming out take your whatever. It just happens to the best of us. But what I would say is like you want to understand them and you want to be relating to what they're telling you without making it about yourself. And as like a guy who took Psych 101, I know that what's important is these inside jokes. And they're not necessarily like the definition of like an actual inside joke. But like an inside joke would be like, wow, that guy just fucking tripped over that thing. Like now it's an inside joke. You guys both get, you guys both get the same thing. So it's not about like you telling her something, but it is important that you, if we're talking about girls or just people, I think we're talking about girls, right? Well, I think we're talking about,

I think it sort of pivoted that way but i think he also said like at work so i try to cover both bases that's fair so and so i think i think inside jokes works for both and it's like it's like it'd be a low stakes inside joke it's just like it's just kind of the technical term in the psych community i don't know if you guys are aware but like inside jokes is basically something that you guys are both in on and it could be something that you come across after you know a couple exchanges in a. And it could be something that you come across after a couple exchanges in a conversation. So it's just like, it's about being relatable without, like you said, telling your story about, wow, yeah, that's so funny. Because for me, this, this, and that,

it's just like, I don't know. I guess it's just, it's a fine line to walk, but just be interested, relate to what's being said, but you don't necessarily have to make it about you. And funny is always good. So I think just try to remember those four pillars and you're good create a couple inside jokes okay wait i gotta follow up here how do you create inside jokes with strangers uh well what's around you where are you are you at a restaurant is there a fucking asshole wearing a hat like in the sopranos thing you're talking really loud like that's your inside joke it's like make up oh all right okay make up a name for that guy or Make up a name for that guy. Or, you know, wow, it's really loud in here.

Now I get what you're saying. Right. So you're setting up somebody else. That's like the wire where they would bunk and McNulty when they were at the dive bars, they would make the other guy do something so that the other guy could say like, oh, this guy, you know? Yeah. It doesn't have to be an inside joke like you and your friends have had a running joke

since college. It's just a little thing that we're now both in on and we're you know maybe we're fake laughing at it maybe we're not but we're laughing somebody's laughing so maybe that maybe is going to turn into a sure why not so just keep that in mind all good points kyle i would say that you know whether it's guys or girls i am ryan to your point like a big ask a question, ask questions until you find something that you both have a connection on. That's what I do. You know, if it's like a dude

and it's like a significant other of like one of Maddie's friends or something, I'll be like, oh, you know, I'll ask him some questions. I'll see if he's into sports. If that's a hit, that's great. Or like, I don't know, maybe he's into investing.

Find something that you can both connect on and then the conversation can actually have some meaning beyond that. And the same thing with a girl. You find like she's really into PER, like you said. There you go. And you can talk about Darrell Wright or whoever you want or guys that are overrated.

I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do it. Probably not. But just fine. You have to ask questions. Then once you kind of find, oh, she's into this or he's into this, then you can actually have a deeper conversation. That's what I'm saying.

Hey, you know what? Why doesn't the single guy stop asking or answering these things? What was your go-to with your wife, Saruti? How did it happen? Well, we met at work. So it was kind of different. And we met. stop asking or answering these things. What was your go-to with your wife, Saruti? How did it happen? We met at work, so it was kind of different. Did you report it to HR? I hope so. It's funny. I never really saw her. I shouldn't say it.

We both worked at ESPN, but we would have never seen each other. We met at a party in West Hartford. We just met through friends, so it was kind of easy. We all kind of knew each other. Actually, remember that you were actually there. I do remember that. It was the World Cup of Beer Pong party.

Team England, shouts out. Yeah, that's where I met her. And so it was a bunch of people. Wait, you met your wife at that party? The only party I think I ever went to? So she needed to be on a team. And my cousin who worked at ESPN at the time was like, hey, I have a friend and she's looking to be on the team. And we had three worked at ESPN at the time was like, hey, I have a friend and she needs

to be she's she's looking to be on the team. And we had three guys and like, yeah, we need a fourth. Sure. So I gave her a Manchester United T-shirt and then there you go. How about that, Kyle? Kyle, how did you meet your significant other? What did you say? What was what was your go to?

Uh, fuck. I don't know. I was drinking a lot in those days, right? No, I think um actually i think she was like there with my friend and then he kind of left to go like pursue somebody and we were just kind of sitting there at happy hour um and then we ended up going somewhere else it was like a really packed bar that seemed like a house party and we were like walking through and she just grabbed my fucking hand and i was like whoa all right she grabbed my hand as we're watching

the party yeah but i mean it was really suffocating in there so i think she was just afraid she was gonna get like lost in the shuffle but yeah she just grabbed my hand and then i was like all right well then let's i guess you're interested i'm definitely interested so that's great um you know what'd your buddy say when he found out that you hung out with her that night uh i think he had actually lied about having sex with her in the past. And it was like, oh, so this is one of those weird things. We just won't discuss it with him because he's like, you know. She was kind of one of the groups that was.

She was hanging around a bunch of the guys from Darkroom. She just liked dark room. Who doesn't honestly, that's kind of why we're perfect for each other. And there was just a lot of guys who like tried, I guess. And, um,

I don't know. It just seems, it just seemed like he had a weird thing about, um, like making it known because he hung out with her a lot, like as friends that like, they were like doing stuff. So I was just like,

you know what, this is going to be weird. I'll just leave this alone. Uh, and, uh, you know, he can just going to be weird. I'll just leave this alone. And he can just go on with living his life. Is he still in the mix? Yeah, yeah, totally. And it's just never talked about that he potentially lied about sleeping

with your long-term girlfriend prior to you. But then you may have stole her from him. So that's why I'm totally good saying nothing about it because it was before when I wasn't even a factor. So it was like, listen, if that's how even a factor so it's like listen if that's how you feel and want to go even if you did I really wouldn't bother me that much I'm not one of those guys so I was

just like I'll leave this alone and so yeah that's how he felt about it Wow I don't Wow wow all right that's good you're the you know who the big winner is? Kyle's the big winner. Yeah.

I try to make it that way. Try to make it that way. All right. We got another one here. By the way, we had a lot of people chiming in on pizza. The vegan pizza thing was up there. I still don't think it's the wine stain. I don't think anything will.

Well, something will. But to the point right now, most feedback was wine stain. Japan guy was really cool. We had a lot of people that were anti our Japan advice being like, hey, I live somewhere far and someone came to visit me. That's not winning the argument. That is something that happened to you. That blows my mind how often we will argue that something is something because it happened to us. You know what I mean?

Like, it doesn't make any sense it'd be like me getting mad at people that aren't better at broadcasting being like hey i bartended and work construction how come you're not a better talk show host you know like it doesn't i wouldn't ever argue that i would be like hey my path is my path again this is different and so i sort of made it about myself but i didn't mean to do it that way it just that we had a lot of people being like hey i live far away and someone visited me fucking congrats all right but japan guy said that since the email which he completely agreed with everything he said he said he didn't realize that some people just are not conditioned to want to travel far and that when he heard kyle's mother didn't want to come visit him uh which we hope is because of geography that it was

something that was it like opened up his eyes and since all this happened our life advice community here he said that his brothers actually reached out and said he's thinking about coming out to finally do it and visit them in Japan we had a lot of feedback to y'all

people in the corporate setting, schools as well, y'all is gender neutral so if you say Y'all is gender neutral. So if you say you guys that is gender specific, that is frowned upon. I say guys all the time. I'm also not a school teacher, so I don't know what that makes me. But I'm not going to use y'all because I'm from New England. And if you're going to use it now as a gender neutral identifier, then that's great.

I totally get it. I don't think that's exactly why though it's taken off on social media. I still think people think, I fancy like Applebee's on a date. I still think people are so enamored with Southern culture that when you've never had it and you get a little taste of it, you're like, I want to do this way more because there's parts of the South and the vibe and everything that's awesome. And I kind of wish I knew about it when I was younger. So I think there's a corporate side of it where I'm not, I'm agreeing with all of you that send in so many emails about why y'all is used more, but I still think on social media, there's a lot of people that just want to identify as like budget Southerners.

Kind of like man's. Chris Long called somebody out for saying man's the other day. It was great. Great on Twitter. Man's. Like my man's? No, like man's said. M-A-N-S, the plural of man.

Man's said this. Yeah. Yeah. Chris was like, wait, who's mans? Yeah, but Chris was like, who's the mans in this thing? And he like, the guy had to like fumble to explain his use of vernacular on Twitter. So I like that.

It's kind of the same thing, I think. It kind of is. I think that's enough. I think that's enough. Really quick. The Applebee's song, it's a real song, correct? Fancy like Applebee's. That's a song that someone

wrote. It's not just a TikTok thing. That's an actual song. It has to be. Yeah, dude. We researched this. I'm pretty sure it is. Yeah, we already looked it up. His name was Chet Bonanza. No, Walker Hayes. Walker Hayes. There we go. All right. Hey.

It's brilliant bourbon steak night. I get it. That was a great improv. Don't need no Tesla to impress her. To impress her. My girl is happy rolling on a Vespa. There she go. When I think the South, I don't think Vespa.

I'll tell you that right now. I think of Florence. i think of cigarettes i think of unbuttoned shirts i've actually thought about getting the best but true story yeah well i can't believe you don't have yeah my lease is up next month and i don't want your current scooter situation no no no no i'm thinking about being a new scooter guy no i got a jeep Jeep. Lease is up. I don't drive anywhere. My wife's got a car. I'm like, why don't I just get a Vespa? I can't justify having a car that I pay for in my garage that I never use. Because when you hit something and you're in a Vespa, you lose.

Yeah, we would just be around town. I'm not going on the highway on a Vespa. It would just be like the Whole Foods and back, you know? Where do you put the Whole Foods stuff? Will you please start smoking for a year? Sure. Yeah, why not? Smoking's you is back now smoking's kind of cool yeah you in a soccer jersey smoking a skinny cigarette on a vespa parking it on the sidewalk or better yet taking up a full parking space with it that's perfect yeah parking sideways um yeah cigarette sales are up for the first time in like 20 years right in 2020 and i was like gee no way no way like i love when people are like the reason why like i can think of one

pretty significant one where people were like fuck it i'm gonna start smoking all right uh that's about it for us today we have um some more great stuff coming the number of heavy hitters we have scheduled coming up for the pod and some of heavy hitters we have scheduled coming up for the pod and some of the cool stuff we're going to keep doing here. I don't know if I want to do life advice this way. All right, let's do this. If you've ever been interested

in fashion and what it takes to get into it, I don't know how many people we have listening to this podcast that are on the cusp of like, do I pursue my dreams and pursue fashion and designing my own line? If you do, that's what we're going to do for the next Life Advice. I'm not going to tell you who it is until we actually do it, but it's a very significant designer. His stuff is terrific. I wouldn't say we're friends,

but he listens to the podcast. We hit each other up. I reached out to him first, and then I had no idea that he listened to the pod. So we're going to have tape with him and then for Friday. So maybe we'll just try this. And if not, then we'll tape it. We'll save it for another week. But hit us up at LifeAdvice if you have questions about getting into the fashion industry or anything. Or just like if you want to step your game up. I would ask him.

Perfect. My style has slipped for the last couple of years. What do I need to do to get in with the youths? step your game up. I would ask, you know, ask him my style has slipped for the last couple years. Like, what do I need to do to get in with the youths? Because I've kind of reached that stretch where I thought I used to be stylish and now I'm like, I kind of feel like I'm old. Like, I got to, you know, refresh the wardrobe a little bit. So if you're in the same boat as me,

ask those questions. Yeah, way better. Way better than what I was doing, Serti. So thank you. Yeah. If you hate the way you dress, maybe you can ask some questions about that. So there you go. All right.

We good, Kyle? Yeah, just put it in the subject line, by the way. Put it in the subject line. Fashion life advice. Yes, that's right. Put in fashion life advice.

Yeah, like, can I pull off a Chelsea boot? Perfect question. Thought about it for years. Don't even know what it is? That would be a great question we can ask the guy. All right. We'll talk to you on... Oh, Oh, we have, we have Scott Galloway coming

up too. So I can't wait to talk to professor G about, I don't even know where I'm going to start with that guy. He's, he's fascinating. He's a lot of fun to listen to. So, um, we get a lot of good stuff and we'll get you ready for the football weekend as well. So that'll be on Friday. Please subscribe to Ryan Russo podcast. We're in for Spotify. Thank you.