The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Bill Simmons on Lakers-Heat Game 1 and Clippers Coaching Search. Plus CFB Check-in with Danny Kanell

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

Russillo is joined by Bill Simmons to discuss the Lakers shellacking of the Heat in game one of the NBA Finals, some tough injuries for Miami, the two headed monster that is LeBron and Anthony Davis, the Clippers parting ways with Doc Rivers, the upcoming NBA coaching carousel, and more (1:50). Then Ryen talks with CBS Sports and SiriusXM’s Danny Kanell about the College Football season including LSU’s (somewhat) surprising loss to Mississippi State, Texas-Texas Tech, Oklahoma-Kansas State, Miami’s hot start, the near impossible task of ranking these teams in such an unprecedented season, and more (1:09:23). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

amazing podcast for you today this thing is one of the better ones we've done just excited about the guest this guy bill simmons is going to join us first hard to get but we got him and then danny cannell our radio partner we're going to talk some college ball as well so loaded loaded podcast and because of that i'm not going to uh go past two hours and do life advice on this one. But we'll be back. We have a special guest life advisor, somebody far more qualified to do it than I am. But who knows? Maybe they won't be as incredibly witty.

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latest football watching content from Pepsi. Okay, a little reverse on this. We're going to have Bill Simmons with us for a good chunk as we recap game one. And let's face it, Miami fans, you were really fired up. You're up 23-10. Butler's four for four. There was an amazing out of timeout where they ran Butler on a cut. I even thought LeBron lost Butler a couple of times. Jay Crowder hits a three. Again, 23-10. And then it was a 45-point turnaround blowout win. I don't care what the final score was.

This was ugly. And total domination by the Lakers. First thoughts. Go. Hero had that dumb turnover. And then all of a sudden, it was like almost a tie. But, you know, Dragic goes out of the game. It's 41-40.

Lakers up by one. Never to be seen again. And by the time we see him again, it's going to be next year because I think he really screwed up his foot. I'm really bummed out. I really believed in my Miami by, you know, winning in six pick. And by the end of this game, I was like, oh, my God. Like, Dragic isn't coming back bam's probably

not playing hurt and and this is going to be a quick series it's a bummer okay i'm just gonna point out though that i felt like once you know miami's rolling and they're hitting these corner threes and i feel like the lakers are a little lazy on a couple of things that they were doing but then it was this this wake up of oh wait, what are they supposed to do with Anthony Davis? And Anthony Davis had six points that second half of the first quarter. They end up closing up in the first. And I really felt like even though the score stayed closer for a little bit, because like

the draw gets part, yes, it's important, but he can also have games where he kind of floats. And I just felt like there was this moment where L.A. said, we can kind of do whatever we want with Davis here, and they're really not going to have an answer for it. Well, they also were hitting threes at a ridiculous rate for them. Like threes that you want them to take. You want Caldwell Pope to shoot threes. You want Rhonda to shoot threes. They're just going in. So I was watching it even when they were up like six, eight, because we'd watched so much of this

Miami turn during the bubble. I'm like, as long as it's like in that six to 10 range, they're fine because they'll come in, they'll have their little runs. Robinson couldn't make anything. Hero couldn't make anything. Bam, who all playoffs was unbelievable, all of a sudden can't make his little 12-foot shot anymore. And then the game just got away from them. But I disagree with you on Dragic. I think him and Bam were the two most important guys for them in this series. I think you could even see in that first quarter when Dwight was out there, Miami was just torching him with the,

with Dragic like, cool, you're going to, we're going to switch you and Howard's going to guard Dragic. We're just going to ruin you every time you do this. And I don't really feel like the Lakers have a matchup for him. Now we'll never know because I don't think he's coming back. But him and then Bam, Bam got those two quick touch fouls,

which again, not called the Boston series, but in this series, it's like, boom, boom. Oh, you're out two fouls. And, you know, we've never seen him play with foul trouble. He's avoided that this whole playoffs. He got it in this series. That was when the series turned those two things. Okay. So you actually feel like this game in this series would have been even if those guys stayed

in. Cause I feel like right away, first two minutes into this, we see, we're seeing the series completely different. Yeah, I agree. Cause I thought I liked how it was going for Miami. The Lakers are making a lot of threes. Davis was going to kill them. It was, I knew that was going to happen. So did you, I'm fine with that. Can they get, can they make open threes? Miami was missing them, but they were getting good shots in the first half and the game kind of slipped away from them. And, you know, I, I don't know if they knew that dragage was really hurt because what that, it, that play that kept showing where he allegedly hurt his foot, he was in the game for a few more possessions after that. It was 34 30 when they, he allegedly got hurt. He He was in the game for a few more possessions after that.

It was 34-30 when he allegedly got hurt. He didn't come out until 41-40. But they showed that one shot of him on the sideline. He was really upset. And on Twitter, who knows if it's true, they were saying it might be plantar fasciitis, something like that. But I thought the totality of Miami's eight, nine-man rotation was going to be the one thing that gave them a chance in this series.

And if you start removing guys from that, they don't have a chance. The other part of this for the Lakers, the three-point shooting, I mean, they ended up at just 40%. They were on fire for a stretch there. They missed 13 in a row. Did you see that in the second half? Yeah. I mean, they stopped playing.

You know, anybody that wakes up, you could already started seeing it happen where it's like, well, they got Kendrick Nunn going a little bit. Like, I don't want to hear about Kendrick Nunn. I don't want to hear about any of that stuff. I don't want to hear about garbage a minute times when you're down 30. I don't want to hear how they may have learned something about themselves at the end. The Lakers just stopped playing, which the Lakers do. They did it against Denver.

They did it against Houston a bunch. Portland just wasn't even close enough to be overlooked never mind respected so when i i yeah i guess i just see this differently because you know then they started saying well they're not going to go small because we've seen some of those small lineups um there's no big we have right they still tried it but like what's not going small not having it would all guard anthony davis okay well that's out out the window they have no other big body besides bam. And I don't know what the bam injury is going to be. He's saying he was hurt last week.

The report was that he doesn't want to take painkillers because he's afraid of needles. Um, he actually initiated that contact on the shoulder injury there on the drive to Howard, which is the right thing to do, but it wasn't like it was something where, you know,

it wasn't, I think he even got the call on it too, but like there's actually, you know, sometimes you just have to see it build to see how real it is. And as much as you respect BAM and respect, you know, versions of depth that we can get into Miami. Cause I know you actually were kind of calling them out a little bit saying, you know, where

is all this depth? Because none's a no show. Olenek, by the way, even in garbage time looked lost. Like he just looks like a different guy now who doesn't have any confidence. So maybe the depth isn't really there, but what they don't have, which almost anybody has, even the Celtics have, are a couple big bodies and a Robert Williams and a Kanter to just go,

hey, can you guys combine? Give me 18 minutes and some fouls. They have that guy. They have Myers Leonard. If you just want to throw a big body out. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a huge Myers guy, but go ahead. They don't have the guy on the roster. I thought Olenek looked pretty good for the first part of the garbage

time he was out there. And so, look, the way it's posted to this in the Boston series, whatever they're doing in game one isn't what they're going to do the whole series. And I think they wanted to see some stuff. I don't know if they knew the small lineup was going to work, but I think they wanted

to see it. I don't think you totally know what these lineup was going to work, but I think they wanted to see it. Hey, I don't think you totally know what these things until it's out there. And they, they put a Solomon Hill out there on Davis and Butler was on Davis at one point. Crowder was on Davis a little bit and it was almost like they, they were just experimenting. And then all of a sudden the Lakers were up like 14.

It's like your experiments not working. This is this small lineup. So my guess is as this series goes along, we're going to see more of a Linux and we're going to see even Myers Leonard. I think they're going to gravitate away from the small thing with Davis, by the way, he's killed that all year. And I certainly didn't think it was going to be a great option for Miami.

This series. I think they're going to ease into a bigger lineup. And by the way, I have no problem with anybody experimenting with stuff. Certainly somebody as good as bolster, who's probably as good as any other coach in the league. We've seen, we've,

we've learned too many lessons where we've written players off who we think are terrible matchups. And then for some reason, whatever, like 12, 24 minute stretches, we've seen guys just have games where it looked like they were non playable in game one that are playable in game two. But yeah'm i'm not with you on the myers-leonard

part of it and even though i'm with you that you know i don't like myers-leonard i'm just saying they they have they have a large body who looks like a center that they could try like he's their version of robert williams basically rank all right but who would you rather have robert williams or or myers-leonard who would you rather have can Robert Williams or Myers Leonard? Who would you rather have? I mean, I think even I would take Kanter over Myers Leonard. Robert Williams or Leonard. Listen, Robert Williams for three straight playoff rounds

did not seem to understand that every shot outside the circle was worth three points. Never got the hang of that. Like, I'm going to go under the screen again. It's like, yeah, when you do that, that guy gets a wide open three. I don't know. feel like leonard i don't think he's complete trash like he was like a six and five last year in 18 minutes or something he's not like a disaster um yeah if they if they just need just any big body just to like bang day bang against davis

for three minutes like he's not awful he He's semi awful. He's not awful. I think he's kind of the best part of his game. I thought it was when he was younger and he could hit that outside jumper beyond the great. You love his bench guy stuff though. No, that's my least favorite thing. I would be a bad,

I would be like it. No, no. I, you know what I realized when I watched these things and I don't think anybody's ever going to have to worry about me being on a team, but I'd be a bad bench guy. I'd be like,

well, I gotta, I gotta get up again and high five everybody at center court. This was the rap against you in the celebrity basketball game. They felt like you weren't a good enough bench guy. Weren't supportive enough for Kevin Hart. No, Kevin Hart's not to play with. And Luke Wilson's brother.

Was it was a Wilson brother, not Luke or Owen, like the third Wilson brother? No, I did try to post up Usain Bolt. And I was like, man, this guy's really strong. He must work out. All right, we've already done way too much. I think we hit our allotment of Myers Leonard on this one. No, but can I make one semi-prediction? I'm not writing off Olenek in this series.

I know you are, but I'm not. I think the Celtics matchup, Spolstra just didn't want him out there. It was too many wings. Yeah. Well, no, it was more than that. He was the only guy they could put out there that Brad was like,

oh, cool, I can play Cantor. Because he could actually, you know, try to torch Olenek in the low post on one end and then on the other end just kind of stand near the three-point line. And I just think they didn't want them to play. They didn't want that Cantor-Olenek matchup. So he just pulled them from that series.

He's a guy who's been successful in playoff games. Like he was the key guy in game seven, bullets Celtics, wizard Celtics. Uh, what did he have? Like 30 points that game? He's not a stiff. No, he's not a step. He can't create offense. There was a couple of plays when he guarded LeBron today where it was like, it wasn't a disaster. Like he stayed in front of him. What? When they were up 30, these guys didn't care anymore oh my god all right all right i'm like kelly oh this is 10 minutes of being too nice you just like the heat too much you like the heat or you don't like the lakers enough today's it's trouble for them if dragic is out i don't think they have a chance yeah you gotta stop saying dragic they don't have a chance of dragic played is my point like i am

looking at this i almost started going like you know what i'm feeling this miami team a little bit i'm feeling them and then as i got closer and closer i'm like what the hell are you doing like why would you pick miami why are you going to do that and then before i'm like lakers and six um i feel confident because look lebron didn't even have to go nuclear at all i mean he ends up uh an assist shy of a triple double and he had some amazing moments and flashes but he didn't even have to go crazy. And I do think even though sometimes the zone stuff is tough to figure out, like, are they in a zone? I mean, it's not that hard to figure out, but when you don't cut and you don't have any movement and then it's five out and you're like, are they in a zone or are they just staying manned up and matched up the whole

time? But there was a time where LeBron came out for his rest and Vogel still took them out when they were down 13. I think we were right around their double figures when they're like, all right, LeBron's normal rest to get him out of there. And Pope hit those two threes, and then there were some free throws, and then he got the free throws in the corner. I thought those shots were huge because you could see the Lakers' offense just kind of stop, like, hey, what are we doing? LeBron's not out here.

Let's dissect this a little bit. And then Pope hits those two shots in the corner. So it may not have been a straight-up zone because there wasn't much action instead of swinging the ball around. But I guess, like, I just keep thinking, okay, what would the adjustments be? Yes. Dragic coming back and being healthy. Fine.

I think bam before he wasn't down on this. Yeah. But before you do game one, you're doing game one overreaction. I, that wasn't the Miami team. We watched in the bubble, the first three rounds say here's, here's, you're doing game one under reaction. No, but here's how I know. And I'm going to wave whatever this white thing is that plugs into my computer at you.

Here's how I know. It looks like a bait pen. That was the first playoff game I've seen from them in six weeks where they weren't getting 50, 50 balls. They weren't getting any of them. They weren't diving on the floor for loose balls. There was two different plays where the ball was right next to Butler and every other round he was diving on that thing. Like it was a grenade. And this round he's kind of staring at it.

They were sloppy. They, they, they never had sloppy turnovers like that. Other than like a couple of short stretches in the Boston series, the things with them where they always won 50, 50 balls, they played their asses off and they didn't turn the ball over and they did all those things in that game. So can Miami play better than that? Fuck yeah. I'm not writing them off yet. Unless if Dragic is out, then you're relying on Kendrick Nunn, which I just think that that's not the answer. No, anybody that watched Nunn in the playoffs.

And I mean, even in the limited minutes, he gets, you got against Boston. You were like, oh, that's good. Like, did you hear the part when I love Mike brain? So I, I hesitate to criticize him in any way, shape or form. But he was like raving about Kendrick Nunn's rookie season for like a solid minute. And at one point called it sensational. And he was like a sensational rookie. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

There was no point in the year when he was sensational. He was really solid for half the year. And then he tailed off like this. And they couldn't play him anymore by the playoffs he was pretty good and I think the expectations were so low those first couple months he's putting up those kinds of numbers like 15 a game and he had some big moments

yeah he did tail off I also think that it was a blowout and he needed to fill and none was hitting all sorts of shots and that's probably what he did I think it was just announcer filling I have the most important question of this podcast for you. Kyle, mark this down.

This is a guaranteed ringer video. Breakout. Guaranteed. Break it out. I could see the headline. Rosillo. How well does Anthony Davis have to play to actually win the finals MVP?

Does he have to average 38 points a game? We give me the stat line where people would look at and go, God, we can't, we just got, we can't not give it to him. This is, he just averaged a 38 and 18 in the finals.

We, we can't not give him the finals. What is, what are the numbers versus LeBron's numbers? How big of a disparity before everyone throws their hands up and says, fuck it. We got to give it to him. 42, 24, 15, three blocks and being the head of a peace treaty in the middle East. That's that's what it would take. Yeah. Free to bet. At what point Jackson could feel LeBron's finals MVP slipping away.

So he did this whole thing about how important LeBron's been for Davis. And he's like, LeBron Davis has made Anthony or LeBron James has made Anthony Davis a better player. And there's this pause and Van Gundy goes, I don't think that's true. I think, I think Davis's situation has changed. I think he's just as good as he was in New Orleans. And then there was just dead silence, which is, by the way, the correct answer. Anthony Davis is fucking awesome. It didn't make him better

to play with LeBron James. It made him better than he's on an awesome team. And that made LeBron James better, too. I don't feel like they're bringing out these new things out of each other. They're both fucking awesome. I hate that shit. Just stop with that. Look, I don't know how much credit we. No, I, you know, look,

if I don't know how much credit we're allowed to give out over our individual lives, but Mark Jackson ran out of credit in like 06. There's just no left. There's no credit left for him to give anybody.

And it's just like this LeBron part of it. This is actually perfect. I don't know if symmetry is the right word, but we're all the LeBron stands. We're holding like the front of a Game of Thrones battle during the last dance where it's like, Hey folks, this is going to be the roughest time of your lives. These next few weeks for this Jordan doc, uh, LeBron, as I expect, pulls this off and continues to add to this resume where,

you know, a lot like politics. I don't know that there's anybody that changes their mind. Like, have you met anybody that was like, you know what? I was MJ, I don't know that there's anybody that changes their mind. Like, have you met anybody that was like, you know what, I was MJ, but man, LeBron won his fourth, 10th finals. I'm going with LeBron. Or the reverse. Like, I always thought it was LeBron, but after I watched the last dance,

like, it's just no one ever is changing their mind. But the lead up to him, if he gets this ring and with another franchise and returning the Lakers to glory it's going to be you know it's not that he doesn't get enough credit it's that it just turns people against what becomes an obsessive storyline he has been discussed broken down talked about credited discredited more than any player we've had in the history of the NBA because there's more ways to do it.

Now we have the internet. We have all these different things. He has been discussed ad nauseum year after year, after year, since 2003 and started to make, you know, go deep in the playoffs in oh seven and was discussed year after year, after year.

I have, I have to have had 30 columns of my archives talking about, you know, where he, where he, where he was at whatever point of his career. I think he gets the proper credit. And by the way, he's been incredible in the bubble. If you were going to say bubble playoffs, MVP, he's the winner. I just wonder with the finals, with the, with what Davis looked like today. And the thing

with Davis, cause people are going to look at his numbers. The defense was unbelievable by him tonight. He was the kind of ground that he was covering and i actually thought he kind of psyched the heat out a little bit did you didn't you get that sense he looked there's a play he looked like he was bill russell tonight there was a play and i wrote down and i forget where it was in the in the game log here but basically bam remember when bam had that fake handoff cut to the basket from the free throw line and he got Dwight with it. Yeah. Davis waited for it. Bam went for like the fake handoff and then to step towards it. And Anthony Davis already read it and was like,

nope, I already know. I saw you do it before. And I don't know if it was other advanced scouting. He's like, I already saw you do it before. So bam, like just stopped, turned around. He might've given it to hero. And then hero was like one-on-one. I forget. It was one of the white guys and he was one-on-one and Davis was like, come on. And the guy went to throw like a floater against him and he rejected it. And it was beautiful because he, he played the two man action perfectly. He shut off the drive, a fake drive, didn't fall for it, and then made them reset and then blocked the shot. And I just, that's what I kept getting back to.

And you're right about the whole idea that now Davis is going to, no, it's just that more people are going to watch Davis and see how amazing he is. If you want to knock him like we can knock any one of these players, LeBron included, if you want to get real negative about it, you can do it with any of these guys. But the Davis part about not having the dog in him all the time, a lot of times it's because he's reading the double and making right basketball decisions because he's just that smart but when you look at some of these numbers bill like when they swept

portland 35 and 14 22 and 12 on like amazing shooting 28 and 11 47 and 10 that's two years ago i mean if you go through his game log, which again, we've, we've pointed out can be a little misleading at times, but these numbers are insane. Like he doesn't have some of these duds that other guys do. It's just that his teams always sucked. His teams weren't healthy. And now he's playing alongside maybe the best player in the world. And I, you know, I don't think he's necessarily a different guy unless you could say that LeBron at least puts them in better positions than the motley crew of guards that he had to play with, at least when holiday was healthy and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, he's been putting up these numbers

consistently in the playoffs. It's just that now he's on the Lakers and they're not getting bounced in the first round. Well, and he's part of the best two man duo. I did this on my pod a couple of weeks ago, trying to figure out Shaq and Kobe is the last one that's been at this level. There's been some great ones over the years, and this one is historic for a bunch of reasons, most notably the whole 42 club thing I have where both of those guys are 42

club guys, which just doesn't happen. It's happened only a couple times in the history of the league. And I think what's going to be memorable about them when we think back years from now, it'd be like, you'll think about this team, you'll think about those two guys. But you also think about series by series was a better matchup for one of the two guys. And that's when it gets really tough because like last round,

it was the perfect LeBron matchup and he just ate Denver up and he was incredible. Not that Davis was doing bad, but LeBron, especially in game five, that was one of the bad that by the end of that series, that was one of the best series I think I've seen him have in this series feels like it's going to be the Davis series. And I think when you talk about this team and you compare them against other great teams, if we decide this is a great team, let's say they sweep Miami. Um, that's, that will be, I think the calling card series by series. One of those two guys could grab it. The 2001 Lakers were like that. Cause like, if you go back and you look at when they swept Sacramento and you go back

and look at the game logs, it's crazy. Like one game, Colby has 48. The next game shack has like 41 and 25 and it was just game to game. You didn't know what you're going to get. And this is, I'm going to, you know, as Miami tries to claw back,

you can be like, Oh, we shut down Davis a little bit. And then LeBron scores like 12 straight or LeBron has 15 assists. So they need the other guys in the Lakers to suck. And that didn't happen tonight. When Caldwell Pope is making threes, you're fucked.

You need, you need him to miss. You need Rondo to miss. You need Dwight to miss you need dwight to do dumb shit and get a flagrant you need the other guys on that team to undermine them not you're not you're not going to take out lebron and davis now pope actually didn't shoot it great but danny green it always felt like i just thought that that first quarter one run by pope was super important it was danny green was hitting some threes i mean rondo ended up one of five from

three but i still can't believe he's taking the first one he made the first one and it and it's funny because he even later on he took a dribble step back three I don't think I've ever seen him do that I was like what the hell was that it was like the hardened step back shuffle with Rondo they killed him on the boards they got more free throws but that's also a product of being bigger and being bigger around the boards like and Davis had some really, really intense moments there, but, um, the duo thing, I kind of enjoyed Solomon Hill. Just a quick interruption. He had an, he brought an intensity to it that I noticed that.

I noticed Crowder had this kind of two different ports of the game where he's like, I'm going to try to get LeBron's head. It's like, cool. I'm the second best player of all time. It's not working. But Crowder was trying to stare daggers at him after a hard foul. And LeBron was kind of like, what's going on? What are you doing? You're Jay Crowder?

No thanks? I interrupted you on the duos thing. The duo thing. I'm just trying to think of all the pushback that you would get if you were to say the last 20 years davis lebron because i'm not telling you you're wrong um wade shack isn't enough because first of all that team wasn't that good despite winning a title i would say over the last 20 years it's there with dallas is probably two of the worst teams to win a championship i don't know if you have something else to add to that. I mean, how do you compare the Durant-Curry combo to Davis-LeBron?

So, aesthetically, really great. They just didn't put up numbers consistently like those guys did. I think both of them, like Curry was like a 41 points, rebounds, assists. Durant was like a 39. I think the difference was the shooting efficiency was kind of historic with that combo. Remember, those two and Clay, they're making what? rebounds, assists. Durant was like a 39. I think the difference was the shooting efficiency was

kind of historic with that combo. Remember those two and clay, they're making what 10, 11 threes a game in the playoffs. And all of them were shooting like 40 plus percent and just game after game. It was, they would make 50% of their shots and doing stuff like that. I think the difference LeBron and Davis together, it's more of an old school eighties, nineties, one guy with the 27, 12, nine, and the other guy with like the 38, 18, it's more like in that Shaq Kobe kind of zone, you know? Um, w it's what we saw right before the pandemic when we did that podcast and all, and both of us came to the realization, the Lakers were going to win the title because they were big and they had that, they had this size thing and the ability to get to the free throw line.

Remember we, we talked all of this out and then the pandemic happened. And by the end of it, by the time they started basketball again, I was like, yeah, they can't, I don't know why,

why I went off it. I still don't know what happened. I guess Bradley was missing the bubble. Rondo was hurt initially. Well, they played like crap too. And on the restart, I mean,

they were, they were awful. They didn't make any shots it looked bad but i think the key thing was don't hold their flaws against them more than the flaws of these other teams because you could talk yourself in and out of all of the top teams but yeah at the end before everything got shut down well i just i'll never forget it because that was when we're like hey lebron's gonna win the mvp because of the storyline and the we thought he was gonna sneak back in yeah yeah yeah and then you know once the restart probably cost him the mvp the whole thing i'm trying to think of other pasia and dirk duo where's that top five patient dirk old pasia no i think when you're talking historic, like Bird and McHale, Pippen and Jordan,

Curry, Durant, Shaq, Kobe, Havlicek and Russell, you know, there, but, but these two, you're talking about Davis who I voted second for defensive player of the year. I'd Giannis first, I'd Davis second. And when you watch him in a game like tonight, you would think he was the best hands down. Who's better than him. Um, like tonight, you would think he was the best hands down. Who's better than him. Um, but then, you know, both of them should have been first team all NBA. And I think they were actually, it wasn't, it wasn't Davis the center. Both of them made it right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's something that doesn't happen very often. So yeah, I think this broke really nicely for the Lakers. If I could have picked which Miami Heat

players would I want to eliminate from this series if I'm the Lakers, I would have picked Bam and Dragic. So from that end, now, do they win anyway? Yeah, they were three to one favorites. They were favorite to win. But I think it helps that those are the two guys that got hurt. Well, of course, it helps. I just feel like you're downplaying this. And I know this is going to be shocking to listeners. It just feels a little like oh well draw gets went down whatever and i just feel like i saw a game where as soon as the lakers like hey you know what they're not going to have any answers for davis lebron didn't even have to do a ton but then you saw certain times they started hunting out some of the hero and duncan robinson switches and duncan robinson just has

these games as great as he can be as a cutter and off the ball and something and then there's other times you're like oh can't play him tonight he gets in foul trouble early people go to attack him i mean having hero have peak and valley games is exactly what you'd expect from a 20 year old so i'm not going to freak out about that um but it's just a lot it's a lot to ask bam and all that bam stuff on those rolls to the hoop following some other action that the celtics couldn't stop for a week you know yeah it's like oh you guys are going to let Bam roll and dunk like four possessions in a row it's not even an option on this and looking at some of the on the court off the court stuff you know with the big group because we've all been saying like one of the Lakers going to go small when are they going to go small well they

didn't need to go small unless it was against Houston even though we still felt like hey they're probably better with Anthony Davis at the five so whenever they had problems like oh Anthony Davis five Anthony Davis the five but if you looked at the five. So whenever they had problems, we're like, oh, Anthony Davis at the five. But if you looked at the on-court, off-court with the big groups, whether it was Dwight with LeBron and Davis, or even JaVale with LeBron and Davis, JaVale's not even in the mix now. Those numbers are massive. I mean, there's even a number that shows with Davis and LeBron

and Markeith Morris, who I think is pretty much lost, but he shows up great in some of the encore off court stuff in those groupings. And look, it has a lot more to do with those other guys, but they didn't play Dwight much. Dwight's passing was really good. That's a minor thing that's worth pointing out. Cause it was actually surprisingly amazing at times. I was like, my God, he's like making quick decisions around the basket, but he only played 15 minutes tonight. So they didn't even need him as a big. But Miami wants him to play though because then they can get him in pick and rolls

and try to beat him 25 feet from the basket. They can try to run with them. Denver had some success. And you could even see in that first quarter that was one of their game plans. Like, cool, you're playing Dwight. I just checked Twitter to see what the draw gets. And there's, it's, people are saying

he might be out for the whole series and it's a plan a pointer for sightest thing. Like it's starting to gain momentum. So by the time people hear this, it might be announced that, you know, it's probably looking like he's out. I don't know. I don't see them. I don't think they have any chance if he's out. Do you think there's any chance that the East was even weaker than we thought? Very possible. You think about how much trouble Boston had with that zone and LeBron picked it apart in eight minutes. You know, LeBron's like, cool, you're playing this. All right. I'm just going to, I'm going to break it every time and then get wide open threes for people. You keep doing it, please. I mean,

there's just little things that happen to like Davis got doubled and it was actually a good double and he kicks it to Markeith and he hits a three at the top of the key. And you're like, all right, well, that's the shot you want. You want him taking that shot. You doubled it perfectly. It didn't matter. I know Van Gundy pointed out some of the doubles that he didn't like they were doing, but they were doubling on isolation on LeBron and Anthony Davis. And they're both great passers.

I mean, when there's when there are plays where LeBron decides to go into the post and turns a shoulder to see if a doubles coming. And then Anthony Davis runs around and catches it. Like when LeBron has doubled in the post and he's kicking it out to Anthony Davis to make a three, it's like, I fucking give up. What are you supposed to do with that? Yeah. When Davis is making 25 foot contested threes, it hits that unfair zone. Zach Lois says it's one of those unfair things. Like, no, you can't have that shot. Come on. That's not fair. Can we talk about DACA on a Philly?

I only, I have one last question though on this game. Are you surprised that Miami Heat did not use the heat culture more in game one? Well, I wonder, it makes me wonder about the heat culture a little bit. Because heat culture, I thought, you know, they interviewed Jimmy Butler before and he's like, heat culture is about never wanting to lose. I'm like, oh, cool. As opposed to the other cultures.

Yeah. What is the Sacramento Kings culture? The Sacramento Kings culture. Do we have mine losing? Yeah. We're just, let's get a sweat. Yeah.

The, I will say this. This is that my only, my only positive thing about this maybe being a decent series. I really don't feel like that was the real heat tonight. I watched them this whole bubble. They are way tougher than that, especially with the 50-50 balls.

And when you watch them, the 50-50 balls, they usually get. And if they're not getting them, that's not the heat team I watched for the first three rounds. So I don't know what happened. Maybe they had deer in the headlights. It's the finals. It's LeBron. You know, who knows?

Duncan Robinson certainly looked nervous. He was off. I looked it up to see game one winners and see how it plays out. Yeah, I'm out. I'm sorry. I'm out. I see it going in differently and I see game one differently than you do. It's fair.

We disagreed. No, that's fine. I might be optimistic just because I want a good finals. You just want this thing to be over. Why? Why would you say that? Well, then we could just move to football. Start thinking about

the Lions making a run. NFC North. Of all the things you could have done. The Raiders. Is Baker Mayfield for real? Has he turned the corner? of all the things you could have done. I think you picked, if you had 32 teams. Is Baker Mayfield for real? Yeah, has he turned the corner? Odell Beckham,

what's going on with him? Yeah. We could just do four months of that. I love Odell. The finals is over. You know why, though? You know why I don't want it to be over anytime soon?

It's because the original projection of the NBA, and look, we're done with game one. We got it. The original projection of Christmas Day or maybe it's in January. I don't know if you're hearing what I'm hearing. I think it might be March. nba and look we're done with game one we got it um the original projection of christmas day or maybe it's in january i don't know if you're hearing what i'm hearing i think it might be march they how about this they have no fucking idea it's it's that much it's that's fine

okay but that's fine but what i'm hearing no it's martin luther king day minimum right and the proposal essentially is as owners go all right what are we doing how are we going to do this it's like so wait if we rush back we have no fans but if we wait two more months we could have fans so i'm just i just think it's important for us to point it out there with the people that we talk to that it's it's far more likely to be a later start because that gives them more of a window to actually get people back in there because they certainly don't want another season with no fans. Look, there's a habit of when we do podcasts, we say something and then three days later,

it becomes like, oh, this. And we're like, yeah, we talked about that three days ago. Like Disney. Well, like me, Doc Rivers going to Philly. I talked about that on my podcast yesterday. If they agree to a deal, he's going to Philly. And that was done from the moment he got fired. But this,

with the start of the season next year, they're not starting the season without fans. They want fans because guess what fans bring? Money. Guess what money brings?

And passion. They're not losing money. Yeah. So they're going to try to figure out every possible scenario to start with fans. And worst case scenario,

they'll do like some 18, 20 game bubble thing just for like a 20 game stretch, take a break and then hope they have fans. But it's like so far away from being figured out. They know they're not getting a vaccine. Silver admitted that in the commissioner interview today, they, what they care about is this quick testing that they can do where you could basically, you know, test the players every day. You can test fans coming into the game. Like if there's like a saliva test where instantly, you know, you're clear, you let you in. Um, they're looking at variables where it's like, it's done by seniority with season ticket holders and somebody like my dad, he gets to go because he's has longevity,

but nobody can be in the two seats next to him. Like that's all the shit they're talking about. They don't have any answers yet. I think it's, I think it's minimum March. Yeah, no, we're in agreement. That's, and remember, as this lead up, we were trying to always figure everything out. Every time you talk to somebody to be like, Hey, we don't know. We don't know. We don't know. But what I feel really comfortable in saying is that there's no way this thing's happening. Uh, well, I shouldn't say no way. Cause maybe something changes, but it feels more and more delayed than I think is at least out there publicly. Okay. Well, it's too much. It's too much money. And there's a big difference between regular season money and playoff money. Cause you don't get a team like the warriors and it's like $5 million a home game basically for them. Plus all the stuff they own around the

arena and things like that and the parking and everything. Like they, so they're looking at it just like every regular season game. We don't have fans. I lose 5 million a game. How long can we stretch this out to maybe get to a world where there are fans? And at some point they're going to have a come to Jesus moment where they just have to decide. Okay. More of Bill Simmons, including more stuff in the aftermath of doc being out with the Clippers and trying to figure out the rest of this coaching stuff. But you know about Square. You might know Square as that little white reader, but Square has a lot more tools that can help your business. You know, that little thing that the guy will run your credit card through on the top of your phone.

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by visiting square.com slash go slash Ryan. That's square.com slash go slash Ryan. And of course, R-Y-E-N. All right, you made a good point because by the time this comes out and trying to keep up with all the coaching stuff, which I think is kind of low key, ridiculous, like how much stuff has gone on in a very short amount of time. And I think it depends on who you're talking to because there's just so much stuff, but

yet it's happening at the same time that we have the NBA finals here. So I don't think it's necessarily getting all that attention. Okay. So Balmer fires doc. I know what I've read. I'll add to it what I've heard and that it was a surprise to Doc. Doc didn't leave the bubble

blowing the 3-1 lead thinking he was going to get fired. And I know it was reported that they kind of talked it out and then there's sort of a mutual understanding. I don't know that I buy that. I think at one point,

Doc definitely thought he was going to be able to get the chance to come back. They're going to run it back with this group. It was only one year. Yes, it was disastrous end, but hey, chances are teams are usually stay the course and see if they can't figure out the next year because it's still on paper a good team. But the part that I learned

more about was that when they did get bounced by Denver, blowing that 3-1 lead, blowing all those double-digit leads, that Ballmer went crazy. Ballmer, who is super passionate, and we know he is worth more than I think the next seven ownership groups combined. He's worth 70 billion as of today. And the next seven owners are worth like around that, depending on the paper in the day. And just because he's worth more, it doesn't mean he gets to be more rational. But I always remind people that owners are just like fans.

They just have the checkbook. And Ballmer was great is it is introductory press conference. He's like, look, I don't really know how this works. So guess what Ballmer does? He pays Doc a ton of money to be the coach and the gm and then they take the gm stuff away from him they bring in lawrence frank who i like i think is really good he pulls off this great off season last year we get to that a little bit later maybe you disagree he pays frank a lot of money uh there's a number two guy that makes a lot of money i think the number three guy like makes a lot of money and when i started asking around about it there's a lot of people

in the league like man the clippers like ballmer cut some checks for this group so there is this group say hey what's assistant coaches yeah like the most expensive assistant coaches too and doc is known for that i remember when the celtics like after a while i would say there was times maybe they're frustrated with doc and they're like why are we paying a thousand assistants all this money and we probably don't even have that great of a team but you know look whatever ballmer says yes he says yes to the trade for george and all the first round picks he says yes because it gets him kawaii and they lose this series to denver and then he's thinking like wait a minute like we got kawaii and george on two plus ones so in a year from now these guys could actually in theory leave you sold me on all of this stuff. And that Ballmer actually, instead of settling down where I heard at first, he was like ready

to hit the restart button on all of it. And I don't even necessarily mean with the players, but he calmed down, but he didn't calm down enough to the idea where he could be talked back into keeping doc for another year. And that's at least the, the pre wherever we're at right now. There's some other things I want to throw in. I just don't want to go too long, but I don't know how much you agree, disagree with that, but that's basically what I'd heard in the last couple of days. Yeah, the timing is the key sign with it, that it didn't happen within the 48 hours, 72 hours after,

because that's usually what happens after a disappointing, you know, a crushing playoff thing like that, that was so bitterly disappointing. And then you throw in three playoff series wins in seven years for Doc, you would have thought, all right, it's time for him to go. like that, that was so bitterly disappointing. And then you throw in three playoff series wins in seven years for doc, you would have thought, all right, it's time for him to go. Well, that didn't happen. And I heard all the same stuff you did that, you know, initially it's like, we got to do this. They're talking them out of it. And, you know, I, I think there was some

real stuff that went on in that Denver series too. Jackie and I talked about a little bit where, you know, they have one of the most expensive advanced metrics teams in the league, maybe even the number one, most expensive. All of their stats in that series are the same stats that, um, you know, that we're seeing from, if you look up spectrum or the on-camera stuff, all that stuff, it's like when Harold plays, it's a disaster. When Jermichael Green plays, it's a disaster. When Lou Williams plays, it's a disaster. And they're telling Doc this. And this was in the Ramona Shelburne, but both of us have heard it too. They're telling Doc like, look, this isn't the series for Harold. He can't play. Can't play him in this series. And Doc was doing the whole, look, he's my guy. If we're going to go down,

we're going down with my guys. He's doing that whole thing. And the whole, look, he's my guy. If we're going to go down, we're going down with my guys. He's doing that whole thing. And the numbers, which we talked about on podcasts that we did during that series, are just begging you not to play these certain matchups. He just wouldn't do it. So if you're Balmer, you're like, why am I paying all this money for coaches

and then a front office and the coaches don't listen to the front office? And then the front office told me to spend all of these picks and all of this capital to get these two guys telling me that we're going to win the title if we get them.

We're out in the second round. And on top of it, we don't even have them for four years. We have them for two. What the fuck is going on? And he probably like flipped out. Yeah. And there's another part

that may not seem as significant, but I think a lot of fans can relate to it. And it has to do with Michael Porter jr. Now, Michael Porter jr. Is not the reason why doc rivers isn't the Clippers coach anymore, but I think just like fans who, you know,

one of my least favorite ones is for years of the fan bases. It'd be like, Oh, we could have had Tony Parker. And I want to be like, right. Because when Tony Parker was drafted, the 19 year old little French kid,

you were super mad that your team passed on him on the time like you definitely didn't watch him and then he turns into a hall of famer and then you say after like i don't always think that that's fair but if you look at the clippers in the year they had michael porter jr in the draft they take shay gilgers alexander who turns out to be terrific even if i had to maybe reassess what i thought of him during the playoffs in that houston series and then jerome robinson which i'm telling you right now i never understood that pick. They had two shots at it. Made no sense. And then Michael Porter Jr. of all people is on the nuggets

getting buckets. We know he's not a perfect player here, but there's a chance he could be really, really good. And Ballmer's thinking, okay, so I'm paying all this money on these different people and we blow a 3-1 lead and we blow it away where it's like we're blowing the leads in it. And yes, Kawhi stunk in game seven, but I'm sorry, folks. I'm going to look at him differently than I look

at Paul George, who continues to be atrocious in so many of these high pressure moments. And then you're thinking, and what will happen with Michael Porter Jr. Again? Like what's going on? It's like, what happened? And I talked to somebody that said to me, cause I was like, I wanted to ask teams that didn't have a chance to draft Michael Porter Jr. Cause sometimes teams will say to you like, oh, well, it was this, this and this because they're in the survival mode of spinning exactly what happened. I want to talk to teams that couldn't take them because of where they were in the draft or didn't have a pick.

And it was like, you know what? One guy I talked to said, I've been doing this decades. Michael Porter Jr. Had the worst medical we've ever reviewed. The worst medical ever. I checked with another team. They said red flag, red flag, red flag. I heard that from the team too. It was atrocious. And so the thing is, is Balmer's probably wrong to be pissed at the

front office. If the Clippers medical people were saying Michael Porter jr. Is a do not draft, but if you're Balmer and you've been writing these checks and now you feel like, I don't know, betrayal is not the right word, but you're emotional. You're mad. You're worth all this money. Your team just pissed away this lead. You thought you had a chance or championship. You didn't even make it to the Lakers in the Western conference finals. And Oh, by the way, this six 11 freak is hitting shot after shot. It looks like he might be awesome.

And I was told that we can't draft them. And then it's like, what? And it just turns into one of those things where it's almost like your own little pity party. Some of it justified, not justified. But when I was told that story, I was like, oh, that's pretty interesting. Because then you find, like, when you're mad, you start finding even more reasons to be mad to justify your anger. Well, it's even worse than that.

You mentioned how they had two picks. They were right in a row. They were also at a point. I thought they were taking them because, you know, you spend the one pick on the guy know, could help you right away. And then you kind of take the roll the dice pick. And it was the perfect range to roll the dice with them. I think Denver took them next, but they were at a point as a franchise, you know, it was pre Kawhi, pre Paul George. I think they had traded, they traded Chris Paul at that point. And they were kind of in that no man's land. We're kind of frisky.

We're kind of fun. But they really needed to take some swings. And it was, I thought, weird when they took Jerome Robinson at the time. I couldn't believe it. It's such a strange pick. And it wasn't like, oh, you know what? The Jerome Robinson ceiling here. Like he was kind of a, you know, if you want to, hey, it was a bigger guard.

And maybe you could have played both positions. Well, you just took that with Shay. You just took it. But you also, you had Lou Williams and you had Patrick Beverly. It's like, what do you need Jerome Robinson for you?

You know, I think they lucked out with the zoo bots trade because the Lakers were just idiots with that. But, um, but for the most part, if you're looking at, all right,

how do you assess the Balmer front office post doc? When they, they took the car keys from doc, the Chris Paul trade was pretty good. I think that that was a win for them. They got some picks, they got to rebuild. They sold on Blake at the absolute perfect time, even if it was completely cutthroat and you know, the, the Kawhi Paul George thing, when they did it, we both thought it was a great move. I still think it's a great move, by the way. I'm not going to do any exercise where all of a sudden I think like, oh, you know what?

You shouldn't have done that. And if those guys leave, but every single team given the same opportunity, hey, you're going to have to trade these picks, but you're going to get Kawhi and Paul George. Even if I don't like Paul George as much as other people do, you do it every single time. With that said, neither of us liked it as much when we found out it was two years instead of four. And that was a detail that came out a few days later. And I was really surprised because- I think you're scared of Kawhi though. I think you're so scared of Kawhi that you do everything you can. For the amount of stuff you give up, you have to get more than two years. The players don't care.

I guess. Look, you're right in theory, but the players don't care. Get me three years at least. Right. Okay, but if you're... Three in a walkout. If you're the GM, Bill, and you're dealing with whoever you're dealing with Kawhi, and you're on the phone with Presti, and you're trying to make this simultaneous move here

where you're adding these kinds of players players and now you're a completely different franchise and everybody's excited about it. And it still seems like for all of their problems, I'm like, they still were up 3-1 on Denver. They still were up 3-1 on Denver. Like, this is ridiculous. Like, sometimes I think we'll look at college football coaches and be like, oh man, this is a disaster. And you're like, yeah, he's 10-2. He's going to an awesome bowl game. Like disaster is five and seven folks. This was a disaster in the end, but I don't know. Would you have the guts as a GM to, to call, like to stare down Kawhi and say, Hey, this is not happening. If you don't give me the third year guarantee, because I don't think most people would do it. I wouldn't have done it if it was

just for two years. I think it's too much. Really? Yeah. I think it's too much. I think it's easy to say from the outside. I said it when it happened. I really made me nervous. No, I'm not saying like timeline. I'm saying to be the man in the seat that actually has to make that call. It's different than us talking about it. Can't you at least make conditions with the OKC trade? Like if he leaves after two years, our 2025 pick goes back to us or I don't know, something. I thought it was really risky. But you know, that's how desperate they were.

They were so desperate. He was so afraid of losing LA to the Lakers, even though the Lakers own LA. And he was like, well, they have LeBron and Davis. I got to do something. Which one happened first? Actually, Davis happened first, right? No, Davis happened after, but everybody thought they were getting Davis. Well, the Davis thing went on for six months. Right. So, but I think he was, he just felt like he had the short window and they went all in. I don't know. Like if they beat Denver, would they have beaten the Clippers or beaten the Lakers?

Probably not considering all the stuff we're finding out about how, uh, how dysfunctional their locker room was. But I think if you're going to criticize doc for anything during the year, it was, you know, the load management thing, it just didn't work.

And I didn't say that at the time. And it's hindsight, it's 2020, all that stuff. But it never allowed that team to find a rhythm and to find any chemistry. And I understand why they did it. But now you look back and you go, eh, it just didn't work because they never found that chemistry.

Yeah. Because it was, um, they never had that. They never had that two week run where it was like, oh, this is the Clippers. Yeah.

Davis happened four days before the Davis trade happened four days of July 6th. And then Paul George, July 10th. So I think that, that, that built into the pressure of it. There's no question. Okay. I have two things that are quick and then I want to get to the doc and some of the coaching things here and we'll, we'll finish up. But this I thought of on my own, but you look at kawaii and you go

okay san antonio it doesn't have to be a leader because there's a million leaders there he goes to toronto they win which he deserves all the credit in the world for but it was still lowry's team and then well you have lowry you have gasol you have abaca you have nick nurse you have a lot of leadership on that team you You get to the Clippers. Basically doc had to be the leader because Kawhi wasn't. And then yes, if you're Paul George, you keep playing this bad and playoff games. I don't care if you're a max guy or not. I don't care what your skillset is.

You're self-appointed nickname, the most talented Jeff green I've ever seen, which I don't think he uses, uh, you know, those guys, I got, you know, I don't love the idea of, Hey, we get a trade for chemistry because then you end up usually used losing the trade. And there's all these deals out there that could be a surprise to any of us. It feels a little quiet right now with some of the stuff. Um, but we're always surprised constantly. Yeah. There's this league offers us surprises all the time about what the transactions could be. But I would say as far as like your one and two, it's tough when you're asking them to be voices

and then like Beverly's the most vocal guy and then he can't get right in the entire playoffs because he's hurt. And I think even more of that fell on Doc. Fair or unfair, that's where you expect Doc to kind of step up and it just was impossible towards the end. I wouldn't pay Montrezl Harrell 15, 16 million a year,

especially when I don't know what's going on with the cap. Because I can't play him against the two teams I need to beat in the West. I can't play him against Denver and I can't play him against the Lakers. So why am I paying him 15 million a year? So I could beat Sacramento in February. I just wouldn't pay him. I think they have to sign and trade him. The Beverly thing he's heard every year. There's always something

wrong with him. He's never healthy. Uh, it's always this, it's that it's something else. And you know, he is what he is. He's a poor man's market smart. So, you know, Lou Williams, who's been on a million teams, who's one of the worst playoff players of all time. Lou Williams, who's been on a million teams, who's one of the worst playoff players of all time. Honestly, if you look at alleged scorers who played 25 minutes or more in the playoffs, whatever, his stats are historically bad. He completely falls apart every postseason. I don't know why you would think that's somebody you want to build around again for this year. I think they have tradable contracts. I think they have moves to make. Everybody is going to want, you know, you can always trade for somebody's semi mistake somewhere else, but you know, Lou Williams has value because he's like Jamal Crawford

was the second half of Jamal Crawford's career where people like Jamal, he's great. He's a huge playoff guy. Big shit makes big shots. It's like, not really. What's the evidence of that in the playoff? So I think they can clean house and build a team that makes a little more sense. And the keepers for me, Kawhi, Paul George, unless you can trade him for Bradley Beal, Zubats, Shamit. I think everybody else is available.

I would not pay. Look, I'm with you on Montrez. There's parts of him that I absolutely like. But when you start paying those kinds of guys north of $15 15, 16 million a year, you immediately regret the ink. It's a Tristan Thompson, 18 million a year thing. It's great when you have for eight, but when it's 18, all of a sudden it's like, yikes. Yeah. Right. And it's like, Hey, I hope you enjoy it because nobody's going to want to touch this deal until it's like two years are expiring. Okay. Like Tice is like that too, right? Tice for 5 million, great. Tice for 60 million for four years, not great.

No. No, and I think you watch Tice all the time. You like Tice a lot, but he's not that kind of guy. All right, so now this is the funniest part about the coaching thing. Like just go through it in itself because Ty Lue plays into a bunch of different factors. Doc certainly does as well. But Ty Lue, at one point, people thought around the league it was locked up.

There was somebody even from Philly reporting Lue to the Sixers. And then Lue, I don't know if it was the Dan Toney leaving Houston thing that got in his way. That's part of it. Lue gets rid of Clutch. And then, when we think maybe Dan Toney's getting the Sixers job. I heard the dollar signs with Lou were pretty out of whack. I think he wanted to be paid

like a coach who won a title. And, you know, if you're looking at if I'm an owner, I'm like, well, you coach LeBron. LeBron's the second best player of all time. I don't know if you're worth like Greg Popovich money. So I think that was,

I think that was part of it with Lou. I would say that's totally fair. Very accurate. Right. Because if you're going to pay doc like eight or nine, I mean, do you have to pay doc 10? He just,

what made 11? You know, I don't know. You also got to, you know, every now and then it's not terrible to go, Hey, who are we bidding against again?

Like so many deals where you go, who exactly are we blocking from this transaction with this kind of money? Because what are we doing here? But Lou could go from thinking he had the Philly deal to maybe not getting the money he wanted. I still think he should have been in play in New Orleans in some way. But if it were the price tag thing, maybe that's the case. Because I wouldn't imagine New Orleans would want to start start paying like eight million a year for ty loo um and i don't know if that's true you know what i mean we're just throwing numbers around here but then now doc may block dantoni and again it's price um i actually look despite all the people beating up on doc right now i actually think it's probably exactly

what like simmons and mb would need because if they can't figure out what those two guys um then i don't know if anybody can necessarily i never thought d'antoni was a fit with that roster unless you're going to change things around which then circles back to lou maybe in play for the clippers because he's really close with jerry west but then there's always the element of all this balmer stuff we're saying where balmer might just say say, you know what? Go get me Jeff Van Gunny. If Jeff Van Gunny really wants to coach again, then give me Jeff. He's a name. I have no problem paying Jeff Van Gunny this kind of money.

He's got a better resume than Ty Lue. I know maybe people would debate. No, Lue's got the championship, all this different stuff. But all of this stuff has been really, really connected. So it feels like it changes all the time. The weirdest thing about the Clippers situation to me is that they had no idea what they were going to do about their coach when they fired Doc. Because when they did it, I was like, oh, they're promoting Ty Lue or, oh, they have, you know, this other person coming.

It was like when, when the Celtics let Doc, the Celtics extended Doc. And then a year later, Doc's like, eh, I want to go. I, he knew he had a chance to get the Clippers job. And I called him out on this on TV and everyone got mad at me, but he quit on the Celtics. He, he wanted to coach the Clippers. The Celtics didn't quit on him. They just given him a huge contract. They ended up trading him. But the reason that they were okay with him leaving was because Danny was infatuated with Brad Stevens. And he's like, we can get, get rid of doc and we get a pick for him and I'll hire Brad Stevens. So they went, they made the splash. The Clippers got rid of, by the way, the Celtics are pissed about it. Okay. So this isn't a secret and you're not, they were really, they were like,

they're still pissed about it. Yeah. They're still pissed about it. I think with the Clippers, to get rid of Doc, who makes so much money, I don't know what the buyout was, but the guy was the most expensive coach in the league, but not have a plan of who's going to replace him, I thought spoke to how impetuous the decision was by Ballmer. Not impetuous, but how passionate he was that,

I need a fresh start. I got to get rid of it. I got, somebody has to pay for what happened. And that's what you, you know, whether that was a smart decision or not, we'll see. But if they got rid of doc and replaced them with somebody who's not as good of a coach, that's not great. Yeah. Uh, I look, the way it played out, it, it just, I feel great about sharing that I don't think doc thought he was losing his

job when he left orlando oh you you are a hundred percent right on that this was not this i know this was not a mutual thing no it wasn't a mutual thing it was bombers like you know it was your it was your girlfriend in college calling and be like hey can you come over i just want to talk for a second okay come over it's like yeah this isn't working out i want to talk for a second. Okay. Come over. It's like, yeah, this isn't working out. I want to see other people. What? That was doc. Doc was, doc was, had no idea. I don't think, I think he probably knew Palmer was pissed. I'm sure they had discussions that. Yeah. Zero percent's probably low to put. Cause you know, I'd, I'd heard, but I, you know, however I played out on how it was reported, where it kind of felt like, Hey, we're going to meet, we're going to talk again. We're going to talk again. I think Ballmer was just furious.

And all you have to watch is the developers, developers, developers, developers, developers video. And no, this guy's a super passionate guy. Watch him at a Clipper game. He's a maniac. Yeah. So if that guy's leaving Orlando, go, we just blew a 3-1 lead. And now I'm pissed and I'm paying all this money. Like, what are we doing here?

I mean, as much as people hate the people that are in charge that make all this money. Like, what are we doing here? I mean, as much as people hate the people that are in charge that make all the money, well, a lot of the reason you make all that money is because even if it's not your fault, you're the one that loses his job because of something else that happened. And maybe, you know, look, some of this is on Doc. So I don't want to make it sound like

I'm covering for Doc the entire time because I am not. I do like him as a coach. He ran his course seven years at his time. Yeah. I have a question for you because I think we at least have to acknowledge it. Neither of us

think they had another coach in their pocket when they got rid of Doc. Is it possible they did? Is there possible there's somebody that they're trying to get or that they think they can get and they're sending out the smoke signals of, yeah, we don't know who the next coach is. Who do you think we should get? Meanwhile, they they can get. And they're sending out the smoke signals of, yeah, we don't know who the next coach.

What do you, who do you think we should? And meanwhile, they have the guy. And if they, and if they do, who is it? Cause I, the only guy I was thinking was Calipari. I've by the way, don't aggregate this. Don't put it in a blog. Too late. Too late.

Um, that's going to be the title coach, but it could be the Clippers. Cause Balmer pays top dollar. Everyone knows he, everybody who has a good job with the Clippers is at the high end of whatever the salary is for that job. If anyone was going to look at Calipari and say,

yo, what about $12 million a year? And if you're Calipari, is there college basketball this year? Are you even going to have a season? You just had the last one get canceled. Like at some point, you're a competitive guy that wants to do stuff.

Yeah. But who knows? We, we think maybe. Okay. So let me answer the beginning of it first. Is there another Calipari version? Like,

is it just Calipari? Is there another coach that's on that level? Okay. I'm kidding. McKernan. I mean, he is an LA guy. So culturally he would fit in easy moves

yeah super easy probably didn't have to call anybody to help him move out uh phil jackson phil jackson with like a cane what is he like 80 now the phil jackson stuff nobody was doing seriously. I think people were just saying like whatever. But at this point with Phil, and you had a great line. I remember I was in Alabama. I was at the courtyard and we got you on on that Friday before like a Bama game.

So this is a really long time ago when Phil was, what was it? Was it the Knicks job? Yeah. I was like going to die in that hill that the Knicks thing was going to be a disaster. There's no way he's going to work hard. He didn't move to New York.

He's still here from Redondo Beach or wherever it lives. The line that you had is you go, because we weren't that close. And it was like, hey, do you want to come on and talk about this Phil thing? And you're like, yeah, absolutely. You're like, where are you? I was like, I'm solo in Alabama. You're like, all right, great, great. And you go, Rosillo, do you even realize the major problem, like the first problem with

this? And I go, you know, I already knew I didn't know the answer. And I go, what, what? And you go, when they call them, he was asleep. That's a problem. And he's going to scout. He's going to run an organization. I forgot about that.

You were like, it wasn't even that late. And there were games on. And he was asleep. It's true. He just turned it in for the night at like 745. Yeah. There are so many red flags. He didn't want to move.

He didn't want the job. Like, what if I told you, hey, I don't want to work there, man. I don't want to work at the ringer. And then you guys just made me offers for 10 days in a row. And then I was like, all right, fine. Would you feel good about it? Stay where you are. You were like, cause Phil Jackson, he told them like, I don't, I'm not going to be one of those guys who's scouting college players. I'm not going to be on the road, but going to different games and they're like, cool. Sounds great. What was the job? I still don't know why they gave it to him. That was just really strange.

But hey, good for him. He cashed in one last time. Guy had a great career. I don't think the Lakers, or excuse me, I don't think the Clippers know. I know what you're asking. So I don't know.

My easiest answer is I don't know. Maybe, but my guess is that when they did the Doc thing, they didn't already know who they were going to hire. Well, my question is, who are the biggest names available that we're not thinking of other than Calipari?

Like Popovich? He's under contract with the Spurs. Carlisle? I don't know. I'm just trying to think of like iconic coaches, either pro or college. Alvin Gentry? Get him a sixth job?

Well, he already coached the Clippers. He can't hire somebody he already had. But if Gentry got a sixth shot at being a head coach, then maybe... Gentry, Western Conference Finals, Game 6, 2010. It's better than a lot of these people.

I'm just... When I looked up Gentry the other day, he was i think an intern once and straight up hired four times i was like yeah i don't think he's gonna get that sixth job you know the track record of the fourth job is not great much less the fifth job that's a column right there you may get back behind the old keyboard well i was thinking like with time track. I was thinking like with Dan Toney. You know,

it would be his fourth... How many teams? He's five teams? Phoenix, Knicks. Rockets. Lakers. Lakers, that's right. So that turned out well. That turned out well four times for him. I guess maybe the fifth time is the funny one then.

The fifth time is not the charm. Byron Scott's got Lakers, Nets, Pelicans, but they might have been the Hornets. Byron Scott was bad. Nice guy. Not a great coach. Yeah. All right. New Orleans,

the Nets. I'm trying to think. Oh, wait. Cleveland. He was the head coach of Cleveland. Byron Scott's had four jobs. I remember when he got the Lakers job and Magic Johnson tweeted out, happy days are here again. And they went 21 and 61 and then 17 and 65. They were not happy days indeed. How do you think they're keeping Magic

out of this whole Lakers finals, this whole thing when he's, you know, Polinka wants no part of him. I don't think him and LeBron are like airtight. Who knows what's going on with him and Genie. But he hasn't inserted himself in the proceedings, which is a magic, especially, let's be honest. We love magic, but he's not a sit on the sidelines,

not be heard from guy. Like, do you think, does he pop on first take in the next five days? Oh. Is Matt, I give you over under wednesday is he he's the on first take over under wednesday before would you go under or over under yeah this pot alone first take yeah this pot alone somebody's gonna reach out after the fact they're like we need magic on right now if they're up 3-0 in the series. He's got to come in. He's got to come in with one of his over-the-top Laker takes.

Anthony Davis is the best Laker ever. Just some crazy there's no way to prove it and it will get headlines and then he'll do two other things that will make news and he'll claim that him and Plink are great now. The Lakers got to

four wins before the Heat. Congrats to the Lakers. That'd be a good one, trying to guess the Magic tweet. He might just be locked in a baseball right now. Maybe. Maybe. Remember, though, he did the whole, when he left, and he's like, I'm not going to undermine what we had.

He did that crazy one-hour press conference, and it just kept going. And people, reporters were like, okay, cool. Thanks, magic. And he was like, and then he's like, look, I'm not going to undermine this, but whatever. I have too much respect. And then like a week later he was on first take trashing Palenka. It's calling him like a double agent or all that crazy shit. He said like, he's, we will definitely hear from magic over the next week. It's how that's, that's the best info in the entire podcast right there. Because I hadn't even, I hadn't even thought about it.

And I'm, I already can see him up there and it will be, Hey, look, if it wasn't for me, LeBron doesn't come there. Um, he's trying to find out if he can do the Bristol car wash. They're like, uh, Bristol's closed. It's a pandemic. Well, he's like, what about, what about a Hudson park? Where do they film? First take Hudson, Hudson yards.

How about a Hudson yards car? It's a, the seaport, isn't it? What if I was wearing a hazmat suit? Could I come up first take that? Can I do first take a Jalen and Jacoby and a hazmat suit? Dustin Johnson could be running the Lakers and LeBron was going to go there. So yeah. What's LeBron bought the second house in Brentwood, that was next to the first house. Both of them were like $40 million combined. He was going to the Lakers. He just got a new place

in your neighborhood, didn't he? Which one? I saw that LeBron just bought that $36 million place. That's that's that's down. That's like a left past your place no i know what you're trying to do i know what you're trying to do here i'm just glad you caught on some half the times i miss your sneaky little like one line under your breath by the way it's everyone's favorite game i know i know right so don't worry and by the way folks i don't think you have to worry about him picking up on it at any point because they're very subtle. I pick on him a couple of times.

No, and I'm not saying it's like you, when I'm trying to make a point, I'm not locked into everything you're doing. I just, you know, little, they were Van Pelt's probably least favorite part of doing the show together. Although I haven't talked to him since we talked gambling.

So now I'm afraid. Jesus. All right. Your next podcast is when? Tomorrow night. All right. I'm trying to when? Tomorrow night. All right. I'm trying to time it for, you know, I want to react to Colts Jets. Smart.

Smart. So see how that plays out and, you know, try to come up with a great angle. Hit that and some other things. Looking forward to it. All right. Sounds good, man. Thank you. I'll see you on mine next week.

That's right. Tuesday. Let's talk some college ball with danny canal but first this football season will be different pepsi is here to get you ready for game day no matter how much you watch this season i gotta tell you really happy about a couple different things i'm just happy to see the chiefs i can't imagine i know that sounds lame, but I should do this. Sports jealousy rankings. Which fan bases are most jealous of another fan base's current situation? The Warriors would be way up there, although everybody hated them, but that's

not really the point as long as you're winning. I think Mahomes would have to do it a little bit longer to surpass the Warriors part of it, but again, football is more popular. I would say the Mahomes jealousy fan base ranking is as high as i don't know the last 20 years man it's up there all right it's definitely up there i don't know you uh premier soccer league guy kyle anything you want to add to this no but the way that i feel

about the chiefs and how excited they must be was like 2012 when i was gearing up for patriots football scene it's like man i think they could do anything so good for them yeah even even the excited day must be was like 2012 when I was gearing up for Patriots football season. It's like, man, I think they could do anything. So good for them. Yeah. Even,

even the Patriots thing. And it went that long. So there should be massive jealousy there, but the chiefs part of this, like this is another level of confidence I have in a team. And it feels exactly like my level of confidence that I have with the Warriors. Anyway,

Pepsi is the refreshment you need to power through game day. Pepsi isn't made for those who play the game. It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi, made for football watching. Go to madeforfootballwatching.com to check out the latest football watching content from Pepsi. I got to do that. Fan base jealousy rankings. Which fan bases are you the most jealous of? Note that, Kyle, and we will put that in the file of to do later. It's early in the season, but I don't want to wait any longer my former co-host danny cannell now with cbs sports and of course sirius xm with greg mcelroy 7 to 10 a.m uh out there that must be kind of fun with you and mcelroy does he who i can't figure out who would

be more turned off by the other guy sooner well what are you talking about man we have our chemistry is electric right there it is funny though because i feel like i am significantly older like he is young he's 31 he's 31 he's a baby and yet he's kind of like the older more mature serious cerebral let's break down the game and i'm like goofing around talking trash to sec fans type of guy so it's like there's a little bit of a role reversal going on there but it works and i it's fun man we have a good time together he's a good dude he's i mean he's gonna be a star like i don't know how long we're gonna be able to do the radio show together because he's and this isn't i don't think this is private intel like when the sec goes to espn he's probably gonna be the guy on the sec game of the

week and like i don't know if he's gonna be down for doing five days of morning radio at the time so i'm just enjoying what it lasts everybody wants to do radio until they have to do it five days exactly he's been doing i think this is his seventh year like he started you talk about a baby when he started he's been doing the show forever so yeah and you also have the distinction of two backup new york quarterbacks exactly that's the thing that doesn't happen over it's like whose career was less illustrious that's what we that's what we fight about based on expectations because i mean look you played i mean he barely he barely even played but he i remember when I met him, I met him. I was in New York City for the draft.

I don't know why. I think I was doing something with Madden. I had to have been doing something with Madden. And I ended up going out to some thing, and all the draft picks were there, and McElroy was there, and he already was carrying himself. I think people nicknamed him the Senator. He's got, like, that Kirk Cousins thing in him, even though I like Greg. And he'll tell you, he'll be the first one to tell you

he wanted to be a politician. That was his goal. As he graduated college, like, I'm going to play football and then I'm going to be a politician. And instead he got into broadcasting. All right. Well, somebody who would never get the Southern vote, Danny. Let's start with LSU.

Going into that game and watching him struggle against kj costello and mike leach and this air raid and 600 plus yards of offense you're like oh my god and then part of me is like you know what maybe only having three guys back from a team that won the title and no pre-season really maybe that is going to be challenging now granted they're at home but home with no one there is different um But what did you see? Let's start at least from Mississippi State's side because maybe they're actually good, and this isn't a terrible loss to an unranked team at home. And then we'll do the LSU side.

So start with Leach and that offense first. So with Leach, I don't know why we should be surprised with Mike Leach having success, right? I mean, everywhere he's been, he's had a tremendous amount of success on the offensive side of the ball. He's been at programs that are very similar to what Mississippi State is in the SEC. This shouldn't be, you know, no Mississippi State fan should take offense. It's just, it's not a traditional powerhouse, right? And when he was in the Big 12, he wasn't at a

traditional powerhouse in Texas Tech. When goes to Washington State not a traditional powerhouse there but at each one of those schools he built them into winners where they were competing with powerhouses the only thing that I think is still kind of out there is all right well what is um how quickly this happened like I mean 623 yards come on like that is insanity that that was his first game. And it was sort of the perfect storm. You mentioned LSU's issues, and we'll get to those. But, like, I'll give you an example. So, Kylan Hill, the running back, who had, you know,

1,300 rushing yards last year. This is where I think the genius is. He's awesome, by the way. Like, this is not a fluke. That guy's unbelievable in the way he's getting passes. And this is where I think the genius of Mike Leach comes in. Good coaches find ways to utilize their best athletes. It doesn't matter what position you play.

And I think the game of football is evolving that way anyway. It's becoming more position-less. Like, look at Kyle Pitts. Tight end, but what he was doing for Florida was remarkable. They're just finding ways to get him the ball. He's running routes. So you've got a running back like Kylan Hill. I saw a stat before the game because I was curious, like, what is he going to do with a workhorse running back

like Kylan Hill? So Kylan Hill last year had eight games where he went over a hundred yards rushing. Mike Leach and his entire time at Washington state, which is eight years, I believe maybe nine years. He only had eight running backs in a game go over on her a hundred yards. So like, it's just like those two together was like, oh, and I guarantee you that other coaches across the country were semi-recruiting, right? Not like, you know, you're not allowed to, but probably saying, hey, are you sure you don't want to transfer? You want to play on that air raid? Like where you're not going to get to run the ball. And I'm sure they referenced some of these stats, like, oh, Mike Leach doesn't run the ball

at all. And I guarantee you that Mike Leach's response to Kylan Hill was, I'm going to get you the football. And that's exactly what you saw. Eight catches for 158 yards. Like it was phenomenal. It was a phenomenal performance. And one of the best parts about it is Kylan Hill, who already would have probably been an NFL draft pick, is probably watching his draft stock exponentially increase every time he has a game out like that. The same way that Clyde Edwards-Hilaire last year at LSU sneaks into the first round. That doesn't happen if they don't have Joe Brady and Joe Burrow finding ways to make him creative and make him more versatile as a back. So I just thought that was an incredible fun aspect of that game to see a,

a true sec running back all of a sudden get into this offense and become this, you know, receiving threat. And then there was some other weapons that were out there and KJ Costello. I know this isn't, this isn't any news to anybody. That's kind of been the conversation over the last three or four days since that game transpired this legitimately might be the best quarterback the most talented physically gifted quarterback that might mike leach has ever had unless you consider tim couch who was back in kentucky when mike leach was a coach there like but as far as a head coach i don't think it's close

and so well no it's been brought up i mean mean, as far as like highly recruited in recent memory, and it's a great call on Washington State, by the way, because I think people lose track of stuff. I know we do all the time, but to think that he started at Washington State 2012, like that was, I mean, he was there a lot longer than maybe you think. It's just that, and he won nine games, two years.

He won 11 games another year. But this is as far as like the recruiting classes coming in, you say, look, Mississippi State's never going to hang with Bama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, but it's still better recruiting or better recruits, I should say, than he's ever had before, because I'd rather be the fifth or sixth best recruiting spot in the SEC than Washington State. I mean, that's just normal. And it's the same thing going back to Lubbock. But when I watched what LSU did on defense, where I still think they have talent, especially with Stingley's out, that's a huge problem. We're talking about one of the top corners in the country, even as a freshman.

The kid who made the pick is one of the top recruits overall, and not just at his position. And then there's a handful of edge guys. But then when you're running crossing routes and Bo Pelini never adjusts the entire time at least i know my people on the ground in baton rouge were like are you like is this what we're gonna do all year just let somebody beat us with the same play every single time so i think on that side of it miles brennan we could talk a million different lsu part but i think the scary part is like wait is what's Bo Pelini's plan here long term? Right. And I mean, I guess it shouldn't be that much of a shock. I think Bo Pelini was a great coach at Nebraska, but great is exaggerating.

No, no. Good coach. Well, look, I've been through the Nebraska thing with, okay, that's fine. But like when he was there, if you go through the wins and you go through the losses, like they're almost guaranteed to have six wins every single season great is not a good word i shouldn't have used great um that's why i challenged you despite our separation thank you thank you for doing that that was a lazy kind of throwaway word and you caught me on it so thank you for that um but i do think he's a good defensive mind but i think what i was getting to is i think what we can all agree on is even at nebraska when you saw the way he dealt with the media i mean stubborn

would have been the perfect word to describe him and i think that's can all agree on is even at Nebraska, when you saw the way he dealt with the media, I mean, stubborn would have been the perfect word to describe him. And I think that's what you saw on display to a fault when he didn't make any adjustments. Like, how about just run a straight cover for umbrella, like make them drive the length of the field because, you know, eventually maybe you get a drop ball, maybe you get a sack, maybe you can just make some tackles and you get a breather. Like it just like instead of sticking with the exact same thing with all these crossing

routes, which puts a tremendous amount of pressure on your DBs where they're trying to catch up. They're getting picked across the middle. I mean, it's working to perfection. Mike Leach is out there. I bet in his mind and with his little single sheet of play calls, because he's not real complex, it's really easy. And, you know, most guys have the big big you know uh 11 by 17 play call sheet mike leach just has this little

kind of three by five card because that's all he needs and he knows in the back of his mind like the back of his hand and he's probably thinking wait they're still giving this to us like this is remarkable and i do think like this because i've been trying to figure out all right is this what we're going to see the entire season I don't think so this might be the 623 yards passing I don't think he surpasses that like how can he that's insane because I don't but like I hope not either but they do have better athletes but I think it was the it was the stubbornness on display and like how can how can you be that blind to what is happening while you're in the game that's beyond me like how can how can you be that blind to what is happening while you're in the game that's

beyond me like how any coach would say i have to try something different that's why it's completely perplexing and why your boys in baton rouge are probably saying the same exact thing like this is incredibly frustrating i'm mad at myself for because i i actually i did some picks before the game and i was like lsu will figure it out they have better athletes you know we'll just figure out who they are. Like you mentioned, a four- or five-star making a pick. Yeah, Eli Ricks, I mean, he was a top-five player overall in the country. Cox, Stevens, Ali Gay.

When I watched them play and make plays, I'm like, they actually still have some guys here. But I don't know. I mean, it fell apart, and obviously the offense didn't instill a ton of confidence in anybody at the beginning of the game either. Right. But, but I think your point. And so AF right after the immediate aftermath of the 15 or no perfect

season, which Joe burrow, perfect season, like the incredible nature of that season. And then that picture that was going around of the depth chart at the national championship game. And there's almost, you know, 70% of the names from this, you know, the, the, the two deep are crossed out and you're thinking, man. And so I was like, Hey, this is going to be a rough year for LSU fans. Like this is going to be rough. And then like, I was thinking in a regular season, seven and five, you know, this year, probably six and four with the 10 game season. But then like leading up to the game, I got kind

of caught up in the, well, Coach O is a great coach. You know, they have all this talent. We just don't know who they are yet. They'll figure it out. Miles Brennan had an illustrious high school career. Like he'll be fine. And then I'm like, and then after the game, I'm kicking myself thinking, how could I have laid 16 and a half points in that matchup, picking them to cover when it is going to be a massive kind of learning curve process and then on top of that you put Bo Pelini's defensive scheme which was completely exposed in that game uh in the lack of adjustments and it makes perfect sense okay what would you do looking around the rest of the country because I've read

a bunch of different people talking about how they vote or how they would vote and some teams are like I'm not voting until a team actually plays so the ap stuff if you track it it's all over the place but actually this is one of the few times where i'm like i'm okay with it i'm actually okay with everybody having their own different rules because eventually everybody is going to play and it is kind of funny how college football is like we can't do this we can't do this and then once everybody did it i think we're down to only three teams that aren't playing football yukon was like can we still not play because we're broke like all right it's still it's still okay if we don't play because it's gonna cost us so much money actually put the team out there cool we're down to only three teams that aren't playing football. UConn was like, can we still not play because we're broke? We're like, all right, it's still okay if we don't play because it's going to cost us so much money to actually put a team out there.

Cool. We're not going to play. What would you do and how have you looked at trying to figure out what you would do with Ohio State? How do you look at Miami, which I think we should get to at some point because we'll give you a couple minutes on your Florida State Seminoles. But I'm actually okay now with anybody kind of making it up because I imagine it, like it always does it takes care of itself this year is going to be far more challenging i wouldn't make any predictions

but i'm kind of open at least at this point where people kind of making up their own rules which they generally do a lot of times the voting but even more so open to it because of what's going on right now so i've been told that one of the good things about college football is the chaos right like that's good for us. We get to talk about it, the controversy. That's all I see with the AP Top 25 is just chaos. Like there's no consistency to what they've attempted to do. Like I was kind of annoyed when before the season and the Big Ten was not playing.

Like they were not playing until the spring. And then they've got them in the Top 25. I'm like, what? Why? Like if they're not playing, why spring and then they've got them in the top 25 i'm like what why like if they're not playing why are we having them in there and then of course they pulled them out when the game started but then they put them back in this week like i and they're still not playing for another four weeks like it just there doesn't make much sense but i'm kind of over it now where it doesn't bother me but at the same time I'm going back to being bothered when I see Ohio State at six like okay yeah they were two they were two in the preseason with 21 first place votes and they didn't do anything they haven't played they

still have the same talent nobody's hurt they've actually added guys back yeah I'm Wade Wyatt Davis like what are we doing so I understand that and that would be frustrating if I was an Ohio State fan but go ahead I'll take all the callers from Ohio State and we'll have fun with it like doing. So I understand that. And that would be frustrating if I was an Ohio state fan, but go ahead. I'll take all the colors from Ohio state and we'll have fun with it. Like, you know, I guess that's what we're supposed to do in this business. Cause the chaos is supposed to be good. I just think this year is going to be wild. I mean, I think it's going to be crazy. And yet when I say that back of my mind, I'm like, we're just going to get Clemson and Bama in the end anyway, but I do think, and possibly Ohio state, um, which is all the same teams anyway anyway but I do think and possibly Ohio State which is all the same teams anyway but I

think the biggest winners from all this from shortened season from conference games only yes we lost some incredible matchups I would have loved to see an Ohio State go to Eugene and play Oregon I would have loved to see some of these other matchups that we lost out on but on a week to week basis when we don't have to watch cupcake games, we don't have to watch the FCS, you know, versus power five top 10 team. And it's a 54 point spread. Like we don't have to see those every single week. We're gonna get compelling matchups. That's what we're going to get this past weekend, which was awesome. Like, you know, this past weekend, I think we're going to get a whole bunch more of those instead of

those sleepy weekends when you and I, be there looking at the weekend being like man well what's the game that we're most excited about and the primetime game on ABC is you know some 28 point it's not that much different well sometimes it would happen with Clemson Clemson's rolling and you would be like okay we have a bad acc matchup on abc for the abc but usually even on those days there were other or some of those days you would get kind of a whole slate of games and you're like oh this might not be that great of a weekend this like every single weekend we're going to get maybe the brands will be there you'll get conference versus conference matchups where i just think from noon until 11 or midnight, you'll get really compelling, entertaining games.

And in the mix, you're going to get some wild finishes like Oklahoma, Kansas State this weekend and Texas, Texas Tech. All right, before we finish up with a little game, I want to play with Danny Connell called Did You Tweet This? I want to remind everybody that the Rosillo podcast, the Bringer Podcast Network, Spotify, please subscribe, rate, and review as much as possible.

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Big 12, because the Big 12, three Sun Belt losses, and you go, how does Kansas State lose and then beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma? For whatever reason, Kansas State lose and then beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma, whatever reason Kansas state's figured out against Oklahoma. I mean, sometimes that stuff just sort of happens, but they've beaten them more often than anybody else. You have Texas and Texas tech where it looks like Texas tech after struggling with Houston Baptist and then is up 15 on Texas. And by the way, I'd put Herman in like the top three of the lowest approval rating from other college football

people. As far as like people just root against him i like him i know it's not what people wanted maybe the georgia sugar bowl win is is a little misleading going back to over a year and a half ago i mean hell now it's almost two years ago actually you think about it um but uh when i you know when texas is struggling social media opens up being like oh here we go again herman gets rid of the corners all these different things so i'm trying not to do the well the big 12 sucks and all that, because I do think there have been years where the big 12 is undervalued for the depth at the top. Like you look at five or six teams ago, man, I kind of liked the way all those teams play, but you know, a couple of those teams are going to end up maybe with three or four losses, but I don't think they're an easy

out, but Oklahoma, like the thing that jumped out, it wasn't, oh, this is by the way, Danny, this is the earliest I've ever going to give up on the Oklahoma. Because I feel like every year, I make it to about week six or seven where I go, you know who's rolling right now are the Sooners. They're loaded. Look at their offensive line. Look at all their playmakers. Look at this offense.

Lincoln Riley gets everybody open. This is incredible. And Spencer Rattler, who was a big time recruit and was a Heisman favorite just because of the Oklahoma lineage. And because of the numbers, you know, you're going to put up, he put up numbers, but he also had a lot of picks and I felt like showed. And again, it's so early for him. So I try not to be too difficult here, but I saw some things from him that scared me a little bit that he couldn't get the ball down the field in some big spots. And then it looked like he really didn't like getting pressured where he felt like a seven

on seven guy who was just like, normally I just have all the time in the world back here so give me oklahoma what you see rattler and then kind of take it into any big 12 thing because i don't want to sit here and write off an entire conference after a couple weeks of play because it's just not fair right and it was a very um popular narrative that was going around there was all what a disastrous start for the big 12 it's not good no no when i. When Iowa State gets beat by Louisiana, and this was that year for Iowa State where they were going to potentially be that dark horse of Matt Campbell and Brock Purdy

supposed to be this awesome quarterback, and then they lose to Louisiana, who, by the way, is a pretty good team. They were an 11-1 team last year. But Oklahoma specifically, so I feel like I'm with you. I think you need to slow the roll on oklahoma's done like it kind of feels like the 2014 year when i uh how state lost to virginia tech early everybody kind of wrote them off i don't know if that's going to happen because man i look at this team

and i do look at the defenses specifically and and I've fought against that. I've fought against that saying, you know what? It's really tough to stop those passing offenses, right? And you're seeing that creep into the SEC. When you see a Bama-Auburn game, the Iron Bowl, that's in the 40s, high 40s, it's like, okay, this is innovative football. These are offenses. It's tough to stop those. But then when you watch it specifically and you just see some of the arm tackling and soft play and you see the defensive line play and it's not as good.

And then even when you go back to watch them play in the playoffs with the teams like LSU and with the teams that they play against that do have stellar defensive line play. And you're like, oh, OK, what I think would be frustrating and it's hard to be frustrated with lincoln riley it's hard to be frustrated with oklahoma they have dominated the big 12 for almost 20 years like they have owned that conference but yeah even when they're supposed to be bad it's like oh oklahoma won the big 12 again yeah i mean bad for oklahoma's right yeah 10 games like 10 wins that's a bad year for them they gotta win 12 it's a it's remarkable string of success i think would be frustrating if I'm an Oklahoma fan, and even if I'm Lincoln Riley, is we know what our weakness is, right?

We need to get better along the defensive line. We need to get more physical. We need to play better defense. And to continually have this problem, like is it that hard to recruit out of the South? Is it that hard to pull guys out of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida? Kind of like the guys that dominate, the dominant defensive defender. And they've had a couple here and there, but it's not happening.

And I guarantee you, Lincoln Riley knows it's happening. I mean, he fired his defensive coordinator a couple years, brings in Alex Grinch to try to change things up. But I do think it's a personnel issue. And I looked this up the other day. I was just kind of like, let me look at Sooners in the NFL. And it's mostly, I would say, 80% is offensive linemen, quarterbacks, quarterbacks, wide receivers, there's a couple of DBs and there's a couple of linebackers in the other, like last year we had, um, what's his name? Linebacker, uh, for the, yeah. So Kenneth Murray, you've got a couple in there. There's been historically, there's been a couple, but it is pretty much, I would say close to 80% offensive players have come out of Oklahoma that are currently playing in the NFL. I'm like, Oh, okay. That, that kind of makes sense. But I think it's a personnel issue.

I think that should be their number one priority is we've got to match talent with not teams in the, in the big 12, but in the sec and the eight and Clemson specifically because that's their weakness and they can still probably roll through the big 12 the way they're doing it, but that's not the goal. You're getting frustrated from just winning Big 12 championship, which is a great problem to have, but I still look at them and I say, man, they're not a physical team and that can get it done in the Big 12. It just can't get it done when they get to the playoffs and that's been proven.

Okay. There's a bunch of things here that I can't wait to talk about on this because look it's well established you think a lot of the stuff is bullshit in the way that the big 12 and the SEC has talked about over the years and when Lincoln Riley kind of chests out a little bit saying hey you can't play against these offenses but I don't blame Lincoln Riley for doing that because you know what Lincoln Riley can't do as the number one guy in the big 12 go you know what a lot of that a lot of those that's right you can't really cover you know he guy in the big 12 go, you know what? A lot of that, a lot of those, that's right. We can't really cover. He's never going to say that.

And I know that you, like you just kind of, I actually find this a little frustrating because over the years, a lot of our arguments about conference superiority, you know, I would point to the draft classes and you'd be like, whatever, whatever. But the big 12 really doesn't have a lot.

They're not putting a ton of NFL players on that side of the ball in there. They're just not. So like when you sit there and go, when it's all these playmakers from the ACC and the SEC going in and really more of the SEC, like I think it is an issue. And when I watch Texas, Texas Tech, I'm looking at Thompson number four for Tech,

that running back, that sophomore Thompson, who I'm like this guy, every time he has the ball. And I know the numbers weren't like incredible, but I was like, I just seen something. There's also running it to the edge and there's three guys in position to make a play on them. And you're going, what? And I'm not saying the SEC doesn't miss tackles. I'm not saying the SEC doesn't have total shootouts. I mean, look what just happened with LSU.

But I think over the long haul, when you start looking at defenses by yards per play and yards per possession and some of this stuff, like the big 12 just scores lower across the board. So it's not a, Hey, that conference sucks, but I just don't really understand. Like basically it's very typical of anything. If the national media is ripping your team or your part of the country and all these different things, like you just want to push back, even if it might deep down be true. So this is not writing off the big 12, but I do think that some of those problems, and I saw him again, the beginning of this week, we're like, wait, a lot of this stuff is the same, but it doesn't mean every time the SEC position of advantage. When you start at the top of the polls that you're going to have chances. If your conference is good enough to get other chances and knock some other people off. Now you have to open your

mind up to keeping your, to keeping the options up even more so, because if everybody's just playing everybody in conference schedules, like we could have a two loss team and a four team playoff. So you can't sit here and go oh oklahoma lost to kansas state they're done huge mistake if there's ever a year to not do it it's this year 100% agreed just the big 12 in general do you think we would still be having this narrative if oklahoma i hate the word narrative by the way okay i'll stop using it because it is well no, no, you can use it, but I just, a lot of times, narrative B has become, what, the thing that's true that everybody says? Yeah, that's all right. You know, like the definition.

Do you think the Big 12 could have changed their reputation if they would have beat Georgia in the Rose Bowl? Because that was their closest chance when Oklahoma was there and Baker Mayfield, and they had Georgia on the ropes, and they went to overtime, and they were right there to getting their first playoff. Oh, you're talking to the playoff. Oh, big time. Yeah. You know, which, which is crazy. Cause maybe we're not even sitting here having this discussion. They had changed that, but I think that shows. So here's where I'm kind of, I'm going to contradict myself a little bit. Yes, they play different and they

don't play as physical defensively. It just leaves that little margin. There's so much less margin for error on the offensive side of the ball. And that's what revealed itself on Saturday with Spencer Rattler. They played okay offensively, but he had three picks. You can't do that in that situation. Three picks and late, he looked like a different guy. And that's to be, if you want to go, hey, he's young and all this. I'm not going to sit here and beat up on a guy that's just playing football now for the first time after you know hearing about him

for a couple years but it was it was real did you watch qb1 with him on netflix i did not do yourself a favor just watch a couple episodes so you didn't like him no there are two guys that i did not like like i love jake from on qb1 so i was like rooting for him like this kid's gonna be a him. I'm like, this kid's going to be a leader. You know, I'm like, this kid's going to be a, and then he left early. Um, but you could see like leadership. You could see somebody who's like, kind of like, I'm going to have to go earn it. Tate Martell and Spencer Rattler were the two most unlikable characters in the history of that show. And there's a couple, there's a bunch of like random

quarterbacks that really didn't make it in college. And they're just kind of there. They're like, you know, they're like, they're okay. Like, it's kind of like a fast forward through those. Cause I don't know if you've watched any of them. They're really entertaining. Like they're fascinating, but Spencer Rattler came across as kind of a punk. Like, and I thought he needed to be humbled. And I think he got humbled. Like, you can see it just kind of the way he carries himself. And maybe that's a good thing. Like maybe a loss for him is a, okay, I haven't done anything yet. And I can only imagine I would have been a punk.

Like you're in high school and you have a camera crew. No way, you. You have a camera crew following you around 24-7. Like that would be incredible. And it probably is really tough to look good in that situation. But I do think you can start to believe it and you can start to kind of, you can get an arrogance about you that you haven't done anything yet. And I think, I don't know, I have no idea what's going on in the locker room,

but I guarantee you a lot of players that he played against look at him and be like, this kid hasn't completed a pass yet in college. And he's, and that's the way he's going to carry himself. But I also think that that could possibly humble him get him to go back to work to focus more to not worry about some of that ancillary stuff and become a better quarterback so that's where I think he can improve and that was one of the biggest reasons I didn't pick Oklahoma to win the big 12 this year was because there is such a massive advantage to having playing experience. And when it's going back to Baker Mayfield,

who played a lot at Texas Tech, you go to Jalen Hurts, who played a lot at Alabama, and you plug those guys in, that's a massive advantage. You've played a lot. You've seen a lot of those defenses. You've been out there in the fourth quarter. You know the speed difference. You know all those things.

So I thought that was going to be a massive learning curve for Spencer Rattler, and I think you saw that on display. Not to say he can't rebound from that, but I still think he's got a long way to go to kind of settle in and prove that he can do it in the fourth quarter, like you mentioned, because that's the difference. That margin of error, look what happened with Sam Ellinger at Texas, who's been around forever and actually could play again next year,

which is kind of crazy because of the COVID rules. Like how nuts would that be if he went back to Texas with an extra year of eligibility? But I thought you saw that on display. They were down 15 with three minutes, and he's like, we got this. He's been there a million times. By the way, I can't imagine what Texas would be like without him.

No, I know. Because he's literally everything to the entire team. You make a good point on the experience, but then at the same time, what we've seen in recent history is counter to that, though. Like, Jalen Hurts plugs right in, playing in a national championship game, goes in for the go-ahead touchdown,

you know, and then... Look at his defense he had. Yeah, right, right. But, I mean, who else? Trevor Lawrence, granted, again, defense. James Winston won as a freshman. We're seeing freshmen do things in the last half decade or so,

things that we never really thought in old-school coaches. I'll never forget um hanging out with uh kajana carter at the heisman house deal and i was researching because i do these like 15 minute interviews right so i do a 15 minute one with lavar i do a 15 minute one with kajana i'm sitting in my hotel room you know my buddies are like man you're at penn state are you killing it i'm like no i'm actually researching kajana carter's recruiting stories right now so don't don't get too excited get an early start start the morning. And I go, Hey, you almost transferred. And he's like, yeah, but turn it off. Said freshmen,

like can't play. And it's Kajana Carter who ends up being the number one pick ever. And you're like, you know what? For all of the pressure we put on young players now, we were stupid. And I don't mean like you and I specifically, but the college football world was incredibly stupid with the way they handled special talent. And I'd rather see what they're doing're doing now all right i still have god where time is flying by here because i have all these other things i want to ask you about we got a hit on the canes your canes um they smoked florida state so i want a little on florida state but we'll start good first because miami's got clemson a couple weeks and Derek now at QB. And look, how many times has Miami pulled the rug out from us

where times it's like, here we go, here we go. I mean, no one has been back more than Miami, including Texas. So what's real and what do you expect out of them the rest of the way? By the way, I'm more of a Gator guy than a Cane guy this year specifically too, which sucks for me. What? Because of Trask? Yeah, I do think Florida is a better team. Did you like Florida over Georgia in the

East? I did. I did. I think this team looks legit, but it's hard because you're looking at them and you're like, all right, UAB, Louisville, Florida State. Louisville, by the way, is not as good as maybe we thought they could be in Scott Satterfield year two.

They've looked okay, but that defense has been shredded by a lot of teams. Florida State lost to Georgia Tech. And that's the other thing. You talk about annoying. The transitive property wins this season are going to be off the charts annoying because we're going to have to. But it is true. Georgia Tech is not very good, and they beat Florida State.

So Florida State's a dumpster fire right now, but they, but it wasn't like they just beat them a little bit. They housed Florida state. So for that reason, I'm like, okay, that was different.

Um, I mean, and they're getting the bi-week and then they have Clemson. I'll be really curious to see what that line is. It's probably going to be two touchdowns, you know, and it'll be begging you to take the hurricanes. And you know what?

Clemson probably still has another stratosphere. But I do think what Rhett Lashley has brought there and with De'Aaron King getting more and more comfortable, because if you watched UAB and if you watched Louisville, UAB specifically, he missed a couple wide-open touchdown throws. And I was thinking, okay, this isn't the De'Aaron King that we saw two years ago. You know, he's a credible athlete, but he's not going to –

if he misses these throws, they're going to struggle. Then he hits a couple more of them against Louisville and he starts getting even more comfortable and he does have electric ability to make plays. So, and now he's got some talent around him. Then you've got a defense by the way, without Gregory Russo, who's going to be a top five pick in the NFL draft. Like that's the thing I think of if I'm a Hurricane player or coach. I'm like, gosh, can we get him back?

Like can we get him to opt back in as the trend we've seen around college football? I don't think it's happening. But could you imagine how good they would be if they had him? But they got Quincy Roche, who all of a sudden is showing up. And they've been recruiting. Like and they're playing with a tremendous amount of confidence. And that can be a very real thing, a belief. And the turnover chain, as annoying as it is, like those players feed off of it. But I still don't know if they're in the same class as

Clemson. They might be in the same class as Notre Dame. Like they might be the second best team in the ACC, but I still just feel like Clemson's got that, you know, they have five-star dudes lined up all over the place. And I don't know if Miami's there yet, but I'll trade places with them in a heartbeat. Yeah. I know leading up to it. And I was reading the athletic where they were talking about this reminds them of that Lamar Clemson game four years ago. It's probably one of my favorite college football games the last 10 years because Lamar was just that much fun. And you've taken on Clemson with just dudes all over the place. And it comes down to that. It was that final drive, I believe.

And I don't know. I don't know that this necessarily feels the same way. But I also feel like I'm a little, I'm just behind personally in a way that I've never been before because I kind of was like, well, what am I supposed to keep track of? Like, how is this all going to work? And then even the first week, I was like, wait a minute, am I building my weekend around 12 hours of Saturday football? And then you look at the schedule and you're like, I'm not really sure.

And like, I know I'll check in with Clemson, some other point. And it's not like I'm going to be sitting at home picking out Clemson, like, Oh, I don't like the way their corners line up at the line of scrimmage. So now I'm off of them. Um, do you want to take 60 seconds to address Florida state? Sure. I don't think you need that much time though.

I mean, it's, it's just take less. Here's, here's the hope. Here's the hope. Cause I said this a couple of times. Cause I got about, I got, I I said this feels like the darkest moment in Florida State history since Bobby Bowden took over. And Manny Diaz actually said the same exact thing at the end of last season with Miami,

who had a two grand... They were one and two versus Conference USA. That was only last year that they lost to Louisiana Tech and FIU. And FIU is even more insulting because it's right in their backyard. And yet they've turned that corner really fast. So that's like, okay, it's really bad with Florida State right now. I don't think it's going to change anytime soon, but maybe we can turn it in a year. I think Mike Norvell has some really tough decisions to make.

I can't stand benching quarterbacks. I know James Blackman personally. He is an outstanding young man. He works his tail off. He's an emotional leader. He's a great dude. But man, is he struggling to play the quarterback position right now. And their offensive line is not playing great.

I was actually talking about this on the radio show, and Charlie Ward texted me. He's like, you know, I watched a lot of this. He's like, the quarterback has to know where to go with the football quickly if the offensive line has breakdowns and Blackman just isn't there. And yet it's totally understandable because he's played in like four different offensive schemes. Like it's hard to get comfortable in a system, but I think he's got a confidence issue right now and it's understandable.

Chubba Purdy, Brock Purdy's younger brother showed up on the depth chart. He had hurt his collarbone early in camp. Now he's back. I think Mike Norvell is going to have to play some younger dudes. I do. Tamari and Terry I think his second team now, that's one of those oh, okay, you're going to start rattling some cages. I think he's got to start building for the future. I think this year is a write-off

for Florida State and it's going to be a rebuild process and I would be collecting quarterbacks if I could. I would be recruiting every transfer quarterback, recruiting every four- and five-star quarterback you can until you hit on one. Because if you don't have a quarterback, you don't have a chance.

And they haven't had one for a couple years now. Who did you pick for your playoff? I imagine you've had to change it a few times. So do you have an updated thing you're keeping track of on the radio show? So we didn't really do do because it's so weird. But if I had to do it, I'm with you. I mean, usually normally you and I would have done it.

We would have argued about it like crazy. We would have been updating it every single week or maybe we would have done a preseason thing and probably start picking it up again week four. I'll be honest. Like, as I ask you, I go, what am I going to do? Just say Clemson, Bama, Ohio State, and then whatever. I mean, it feels stupid to do it right now. And I think at this point.

Right. I think, but I think what's interesting is I do think, I think Bama plays Florida, and I think Florida could present some problems, but their defense has to go a long way. Can I jump in on that, by the way? Yeah. Because watching that Ole Miss game,

I watching that Ole Miss game, like I would be way more worried about Georgia and Arkansas, even though Georgia put them on them in the second half, than I am about Florida's defense at Ole Miss. I don't even know why that's a debate. I mean, Georgia is trying to figure out the quarterback situation. And Arkansas, by the way, I think was the worst in SEC play as far as points allowed of any of the SEC teams.

And you can't get it done against them in the week one. You know, look, new staff, whatever you want to talk about it. But Florida, like the Ole Miss game, and it's not the exact same thing, like, cause you and I fought about this last year and you wouldn't listen to me, but I tried to help is everybody that complained about the LSU defense. And I go, don't get bogged down in some of these performances because so much of it is second half stuff. And the Ole Miss game was a perfect example of that. They got run over by a really weird hybrid offense that Ole Miss was running. And that wasn't even the Kiffin offense. And I'm like, but if you watch that game,

it was like a lot of chunk yardage after the game was kind of decided. And it speaks to LSU's immaturity, but they are not some sieve on defense. They just are not. And I would yell and scream and nobody wanted to believe me. And look, it's one of the things get plenty wrong. I ended up getting that right. Watching Ole Miss and all the stuff Kiffin was doing. I felt like six teams were throwing to their quarterbacks. Like, I don't have like, Hey, you get extra time off and now you're putting in all these plays where you can throw to the quarterbacks all the time. Matt Corral is a good QB. He's going to put a big numbers and then Plumlee and all these different things that they were trying to do. So Florida had moments where they were clearly the better team there. So I'd

have to see more from Florida's defense. But some of the stats are going to be skewed because of some of these ridiculous performances. So I guess I gave you the answer before I asked you, but who cares? It's just that I see a difference of, oh, what about Georgia? What about Florida? What about Georgia? I feel way better after just a week being a Gator fan than I would being a Bulldog fan. Without question.

I think there are a lot of similarities, or possibly could be, and this should excite Florida Gators fans. You'd be proud of me, too, because I reference this throughout the week. I'm always proud of you, Danny. There you go. LSU's defense, there also is room for improvement, too. Like Florida and LSU the previous year, they lose guys to the NFL. So they're getting guys that are newer, that have to get better, and LSU consistently got better throughout the year. So they're getting guys that are newer that have to get better.

And LSU consistently got better throughout the year. And you're right. You are 100% right. A lot of those yardage did come in late games. And the Ole Miss game is something I referenced earlier this week on the radio show saying the exact same thing happened to LSU last year. Here's the Cannell Hot Take of the Week award. Oh, I like this.

We should have started here. I think Kyle Trask. Now, how far do you want to go with this to stand out? Kyle Trask is this year's Joe Burrow. He's going to be the number one overall pick. I'm not willing to go that far, but I am telling you from what I've seen in just one game from Kyle Trask, the confidence level with where he's placing the football.

I don't know if you saw Jordan Rodgers at SEC Network did a little video where he played. They had the same play. They ran 10 different times. You're not blocked from that channel? What's that? You're not blocked from that channel? Oh, I am. I can still get it at my house.

I can't go on there, but I can watch it at the house. And actually, he put it on YouTube. Do you have a better chance of starting an NFL game or being on SEC Network as an analyst? Well, it is COVID this year, so without question. I could be that emergency COVID quarterback, so it's definitely more of a chance of that happening. But back to the point, they ran this one play, and every single time he went through his progressions, and it was like five deep, and it was a middle safety.

If the field is open, if the field is closed, he's going to read it a certain way. And just you could see the confidence. He knew exactly where he wanted to go with the football, where he was going to go with it. And then, by the way, when he delivered it, it was with accuracy. I don't think he's athletic as Joe Burrow is, but he's got some mobility where he can get around.

He's a massive kid. He's like 6'5", 240 pounds. He's got some mobility where he can make, he can get around. He's a massive kid. He's like six, five, 240 pounds. He's got a strong arm. I think he is going to all of a sudden, and of course not one game is not going to make him. He's got to do it for a few more,

but I think he's going to be a guy that continually rises up the depth, you know, uh, draft boards throughout this season. And I think he could be that difference maker potentially that florida has lacked since tebow has been there and it's just it's a great story too i mean the kid backed up derek king in high school didn't even play in high school goes to florida waits forever gets his opportunity and here he is and i i still i don't think dan mullen

gets enough credit still for being a quarterback guru. You look at the quarterbacks he's been through, and not the most athletic, not the five-star guys where it's the best quarterback in high school. We're talking about guys that are pretty good, that have some talent, and he maximizes it. That's the best compliment you can play to an offensive mind, and Dan Mullen's doing that with Kyle Trask. Okay, we have a new game that we play on the show here. It's called Did you tweet this all right so did you tweet this with danny cannell um and his handle is at

danny cannell that's one and two l's okay um you have to tell me whether or not you tweeted this okay better by the way i noticed lsu will win the sec but their defense is a liability against the big boys i I probably did. It sounds like something I would have said last year. You did. It got 823 likes though. I tried. I think I left Alabama. I was like waiting for an Uber

in the middle of Tuscaloosa and I saw your tweet and I just couldn't take it anymore. He was back. He was back, but he was in the LSU game. He was injured. It's all good. Or he was back. He was back, but he was... In the LSU game? He was injured. It's all good. No, I loved LSU last year. No, you didn't.

No, you didn't. I did too. There's too much evidence. All right. Keep coming with the evidence. What else you got? Okay. Did you tweet this?

The funniest part of all these Ohio State and LSU fans arguing desperately over who should be number one. And then there was a picture of Trevor Lawrence that says none of them want that ACC smoke. Oh, I definitely do. That is a Cannell tweet all the way. That was pretty clever. I sound like a young kid on that one. Did you tweet this last year? Joe Burrow would have been my backup in Tallahassee.

No, I don't think I don't recall that one i don't i don't think i hit send on that one i took harm's advice that's in the drafts yeah it was almost it was close how did you get access to those okay here we go one more did you tweet this wow what a performance from lsu so impressed with every player and coach on this team absolutely in the conversation for greatest team of all time too bad they didn't get a chance to play ohio state congrats yes but i don't think i put the i put too bad they didn't get a chance to play oh i added you added that right i was gonna say i think i had everything but that one oh i love it that's fantastic i love it i do i do think they're in there for the greatest team of all time it was incredible what they did at the end? Yeah, I mean, all time,

I don't know that I would need more time. I need more time. I'm still too emotional about it. I need more time away from it. Thanks for hitting me up in New Orleans too, by the way. Appreciate that. You were out with all your boys. I didn't get the text chain.

Jay Cutler was in the mix through Chris Long, and Jay doesn't like anyone, and we knew he wasn't going to like you. I was at a blackjack table with him, and trust me, he was not feeling the Cannell vibe at all. He doesn't feel anyone's vibe. His buddies were sitting there with him, and they kind of recognized.

His buddies are amazing. His buddies are the happiest guys in the world. Yeah, we're talking a little bit, and then I just get the look of death, like I was the cooler or something i'm like what and so i was like all right see i don't want to hang with this i mean i was kind of i don't know separate story we'll talk again soon thanks danny yeah see ya here's an outro and here's a madden code for you as well all right here we go unless kyle's been using these without telling me xbox one m h w w four dot or slash v

seven two seven f slash tt v two two slash six jvj seven slash three q u f seven z enjoy your free madden it's in the game madden 21 all right we will uh talk to you monday got mike vick on show. Vick is going to be joining us once a month. Trent Dilfer is going to be joining us once a month. I got Matt Leinert next week as well. Talking college football. So we are killing it with the guests. And, you know, if we're going to be the number one podcast in the world, I need to step up my game. So there you go. Thanks. Thank you.