The Ryen Russillo Podcast - CFB Hopes and Fears With Danny Kanell, Plus Why Russell Westbrook Really Can’t Be on the Lakers Next Season

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Russillo takes a look at what are really the only potential solutions for Russell Westbrook’s situation with the Lakers and why they really can’t go into another season with him in the mix (0:30). Then he chats with his old pal Danny Kanell about the upcoming college football season, what the next conference realignment domino will be, and why college sports would be so much better off with a commissioner (10:00). Finally, he closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (49:00). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Danny Kanell Producers: Steve Ceruti and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back with good friend Danny Cannell. We're going to talk about the college football world, some of our fears, our hopes. I'm going to start off with just kind of summarize kind of where I'm at with the Russell Westbrook future, whether or not that is with the Lakers and why it kind of can't be, and then life advice. Before we get to Danny Cannell, I want to spend a little time kind of picking up a couple of the pieces here on the rest of the NBA offseason part, which never

really feels like it ends, right? And that is the Westbrook dilemma for the Lakers. Now, a lot of topics, especially when it's the NBA thing, I can be like, okay, what's going on? All right, this is exactly how I feel and I'm unwavering. When it comes to players, however many years in, who I think they're going to be, I'm usually not that malleable with it. Not only have I changed my mind, malleable probably defined as something slightly different, but I think we're all on the same page here. I kind of know how I feel about it. I think you know, the audience that's listened to me for a while knows how I feel about it. But in a vacuum, when you talk about what this transaction would be, you know, the couple hypotheticals that are out there that apparently have been turned down, I can kind of talk myself into it and talk myself out of it. Let's talk first about the Pacers part of it, because I can make the Kyrie thing real quick.

If I'm the other 28 teams, so everyone besides the Nets and the Lakers, the other 28 teams, I can't hang up fast enough on the Kyrie thing. I don't want to be in the Kyrie business. I'm not interested in it whatsoever. The Lakers to move Westbrook out because of stuff that I'll get to here to bring in Kyrie, I think actually would be worth the gamble,

but there's another part of the Kyrie story that I think is really interesting is that from what I've heard is that he feels like, hey, I just opted into this year and then I'm waiting for that next extension that I should have gotten this year because I was going to get it anyway. Because the other part that I've heard is the Nets actually were willing to give him multiple years close to the max, but they wanted some structure in this thing. It's like, hey, you don't seem to love to play basketball a lot lately. So can we protect ourselves somewhat with a games played clause in there? And he was like, absolutely not. So he thinks the next stop will be giving him that extension. I don't know if he thinks that the Lakers are more willing to do it

as they try to phase into their post LeBron years. And that's why he wants the Lakers so badly. Or maybe it is just him as he's told us, even though he was in a hurry to leave Cleveland because of LeBron, because he thought LeBron wanted him traded out of there. Kyrie's now for years, even going back to Boston, talking about how he regrets things and man, I wish I'd known, wish I'd listened, all this different stuff. So maybe the Lakers could get in the Kyrie business because they could trust him a little bit more there with LeBron. But I also wonder if there's a motivation from Kyrie's side of things, because I've heard these numbers being floated out on what Kyrie actually thinks he's going to get next off season. So the summer of 2023, and That's pretty close to a four-year max. Let's look at the Pacers part of this.

The Heald and Turner trade rumor that we've heard about forever, they wanted to send out Heald and Turner for Westbrook, but they want unprotected picks in 2027 and 29. Remember the seven-year rule where you can't trade picks more than seven years in the future. They ask for another one uh if they could because that's what everybody's doing is just asking for a million picks laker said no and i would ask this like in a vacuum would there ever be a scenario where you would trade an unprotected first for miles turner the answer is an emphatic no now could you say hey we know we're going to be awesome next year so we'll give you an unprotected first in 2023 because all of our guys are here and we're good to go i mean then there's still even a risk if you had some kind of injury but there's plenty of teams that have

been thrown around unprotected picks all over the place being like well what does it matter because we know we're going to be good three or four years down the road that's the that's how that planet goes so an unprotected for miles turner somebody who's been on the trade uh market whatever you want to phrase it like he's been in trade rumors now going on almost three years and when i had heard about him being involved and being flipped and some other sign of trades there just wasn't a huge appetite for him he's not a bad player he's just kind of a unique player he's an inside defensive player but he's an outside offensive player and it just doesn't seem like there's a lot of teams that would like him but he would make you better uh if you were the lakers and including that buddy he'll give you some shooting doesn't

need the ball and the biggest thing is that it would be no westbrook all right westbrook coming back in any version that you think he's coming back in with the lakers is worse than him not playing that's how bad of a fit he is with the Lakers and really how bad of a fit I think he is in a million different scenarios. Apparently, too, one of the Pacers writers said it was an emphatic no that if Westbrook were to come back in this deal that he would not play for the Pacers. That would put him on a sixth team depending on where he would go after a buyout. If you're talking about two unprotecteds, 27 and 29, you'd never do an unprotected first for Buddy Heald. You wouldn't do it for Turner, and then you'd do it for two just to get off of Westbrook, which, again, makes the math a little different. Normally, I would just look at that transaction and go, no, I don't want to do that. Are you serious? Picks five and seven years from now? I don't know that I want to be doing that. There's also a fascinating look at how much the value of a player can swing, whether it's trade or free agency.

Evan Fournier is one of my favorite examples. He was available forever with the Magic. Magic couldn't get a first for him. Couldn't get one. They got Jeff Teague in two seconds from the Celtics. And then the Celtics didn't want to keep him because then they had him. And they're like, I don't know if we want to do this. And it ended up being a four-year, $73 million deal with the Knicks. So you're like,

wait, a guy, and the last year was a team option, so it's really three years and less, but you're going, wait, a guy who signs for four and 73 can't get a team a first-round pick when they're looking to trade him? And ironically, it was rumored that the Knicks actually were offering Fournier back to the Celtics in their trade exception, probably just to take on the money, and they were maybe getting a second round pick that would even convey, just to make the trade happen. So when I think about the swings of values of certain players, you're like, couldn't get a first, get 73 million, wanted to give them away for a fake second.

Like, how the fuck does that happen? But that's what happens in the NBA sometimes. And when you look and you go, hey, unprotected first, Miles Turner. Everybody says no. Unprotected first for Buddy Heald. I think everybody says no. Again, unless you thought you were giving up a pick later that year, you know, for the deadline February of 2023, thinking about the draft in June 23, being like, we are going to be really good. We can throw an unprotection on it.

It doesn't really matter. They can say it's unprotected, but the pick's going to be in the 20s, not a big deal. But when you start talking about picks five and seven years from now, then it starts getting a little dangerous. Here's where I can change my mind on it, though, because LeBron's going to be 38 in December. He's got, what, maybe at best two more really good years in him? He scored 30 a game this year.

Looked like he could have won the scoring title if he really went for it. I do think he's very good at getting his numbers. And for somebody that was always getting his numbers and winning, I don't know if that's the same guarantee, but I think I'm being nice saying two more really special years. And he has his own contract thing coming up here soon. So what are you doing? You're going to bring Westbrook back? I already said that you can't. All right. Westbrook is not going to change. I think Darvin Hamm is saying the things you have to say as a head coach. They're the right things.

I don't believe any of them. Palenka saying all the right things, even though he goes to such an absurd level sometimes where he was like, we think Westbrook has the tools to be all defensive player. We're like, oh, what are they going to kick in his mid thirties? That's a weird move. He's a terrible defensive player, right? He doesn't set screens. He can't shoot off the dribble.

Doesn't want to take corner threes. Needs the ball to initiate the entire thing. It's a terrible defensive player. He doesn't set screens. He can't shoot off the dribble, doesn't want to take corner threes, needs the ball to initiate the entire thing. It's a mess, and this is why he's been on this many teams here. He can only be good when the team lets him do whatever he wants, and maybe you win 40 games at this stage of his career. 40 might be a lot. If you're going to say, well, we don't want to do those picks for those players because of what the value is, it's like, okay, but that's not the full conversation. The other part of the conversation is, what are the other options? Bring Westbrook back and pretend this is going to work because of some friendly quotes from the front office and coaching staff? That doesn't seem like a very good bet. So can you really waste another one of LeBron's years here on top of that with Anthony Davis? I don't know if you could just go into this year being like, hey, Darvin Ham will figure it out. Darvin Ham will get Westbrook to unlock these things that other people have always wanted to see from him

that we haven't seen in over 10 years of him being in the NBA. I think that's a horrible, horrible assumption to make that a coach is going to just figure it out. It wasn't Vogel's fault, by the way. That roster was a mess. And luckily for the Lakers, they were bad enough that it never got as messy as it actually could have. Because if Anthony Davis had been healthy and they're winning a bunch of games, at least fighting for the five or six seed and all that, the Westbrook story would have gotten much worse because then they probably would have had to bench him instead of conveniently taking him out of some fourth quarters. The season was such a loss.

It didn't really matter. Westbrook plays a bunch of games, gets his fake numbers. So this is where I come back around going, yeah, I wouldn't want to do firsts, two firsts for these guys, but I don't know how I come back next year with the same group going, it's not like LeBron's 30. Basically, if you come back with Westbrook, you're wasting a year of LeBron, and maybe you're wasting one of his two special years left in the league there's another way you could say whatever it's Lakers it doesn't matter trade the picks they're going to be good you don't know

that because LeBron will be gone Anthony Davis is probably not a great bet to be healthy and awesome five and seven years from now even though I believe in him and think he's going to have a big year this year you could say well the Lakers were going to get somebody. Wait a minute, the same Lakers team that went six years without making the playoffs from 2013 to 2019? Well, that's just some guarantee that just magically gets to be fixed by the next guy that wants to go there. You had some real down years for a really long stretch. So you can't assume any of that stuff's going to work. So there's a bunch of ways I don't like this for the Lakers, but what I like the least of all the options is pretending you're going to bring Westbrook back for another season and that it's all going to work out.

Westbrook is in the NBA because he was stubborn, and he's going to be out of the NBA because he is stubborn. Looking forward to this. Former co-host Andy Canel, now with CBS Sports, and every morning at SiriusXM. We're just hanging out this summer. I guess we're going to talk about a bunch of different stuff. How are you?

I'm fantastic, man. It's been a minute. It's good catching up with you. We were texting a little bit last week. I've been meaning to send you some videos of Brady Buckets because she's back. You know, she had the ankle issue. She has the screw in there, but we were out in Texas and she was getting up some buckets

out there in Austin at the arena, like right in the Kevin Durant, like practice facility. It's pretty cool. So I got to send you some of those videos. Cause I was, I was meaning to send you some, get a little breakdown of her shooting technique, get a little fundamental work with her. So I need you to break it down. Yeah, there's also a really good chance you're a much better high school basketball player than I was. So I don't know that you need to. But with kids, they don't listen to their parents. So if it came from Uncle Ryan,

it would definitely mean a lot more. And she would listen. She would actually listen. Would she? I don't know. Does she even remember me? How old is she now? Oh, all the time. She'll ask me randomly. She'll be like, hey, that guy, Uncle Ryan. She kind of remembers. Would she? I don't know. Does she even remember me? How old is she? Oh, all the time. She'll ask me randomly. She'd be like, Hey, uh, that guy, uncle Ryan, like kind of, she kind of remembers. She remembers you guys wrestling around in the basement. She definitely. And then.

And the sneakers. She still has. I, in fact, there's the other video I got. I got to send you a bunch of videos for her birthday. She got some Jordans and it's hilarious because she gets them and she's pumped. That's all she wanted was a pair of Jordans. And so I got them for, and Dylan, who's my middle, you can hear her scream like, wait, that's not fair.

Like, cause you set the tone that they all get the same pair, like at the same time, like getting them all the, you got them the fours, right? That Brady just wore on our vacation. We just got back off the plane and she wore them on the trip. And she's like the hand-me-downs. I think it's, I think we're finally past where we don't have one more level down to go. But it's hilarious, man. They're hooked on it though. It's all your fault.

Well, I'm glad. Yeah. We got the cement force for them, brought them over. The good thing was that those sizes, I didn't have to go into like StockX to track them all down or anything like that. So it was a good run. All right. I guess the first thing I have here for you, cause there's a bunch of stuff that I want to get to, but are you, when we heard all the, the, the movement stuff, there's a lot of stuff here that, you know, but my favorite quote was when somebody asked Greg Sankey, the sec commissioner about the idea or possibility of an sec only playoff. How excited did you get about that? You know, I was fired up about that.

Sankey is a genius, man. He is a genius with the way he's played this game to perfection. And then I was just, anything's possible. So when I heard that, I was wondering, are we going to be arguing who is the best, you know, who's the best team? Is it the sec champion and a big 10 champion, or does that leave all the others? Um, but I don't believe he wants to go that direction. Do you like, I think I trust Sankey that he does have a portion of him. He's clearly a savvy businessman who's going to do the best for the conference, but I also think there's a portion of him that wants to do what's best for college football.

And I don't think an sec all sec, um, playoff is best for college football. So I don't think he wanted to do that. I think it was kind of a, it was kind of like a screw you to the guys that voted against them in the, in the playoff expansion vote last time. I remember it was the 12 team was on the table and you know, and they kind of hijacked that from him after Oklahoma and Texas left. So I thought that was more of a kind of a way to get back at them by even proposing that. You're totally right. That's how I read it. Because if you go through it, it's almost like, hey, maybe we'll just sort of do this.

And then he was asked about it and he wasn't really emphatic about it the second time that I saw him talk about it. It was almost like, yeah, we're just kind of looking at everything and whatever. But despite the free for all that this has become, he still kind of hints at, well, you know, maybe if we had done this, we wouldn't be here. Or maybe if we had done this before, and he's not even talking about SEC, he's talking about college football in general, where I do think that the SEC had a moment where they were like, we don't want automatic bids because we want to be able to get two of the four. We're not worried about one. We'd like to be able to get two of the four in the current format that we have. And some people could argue, you know, long-term, you'd want to be guaranteed some sort of place. So why not go five plus the sixth after the automatic qualifiers for conference champs? And it felt like the SEC was like, all right,

well, we don't really want to do that. But you're right. Then once it kind of got hijacked and turned into something else, he was like, okay, well, cool. If we're going to expand this out to 16, then we're going to start throwing out all sorts of different scenarios that we think is good for us. And I think that's what comes back to like, even when we were doing the show together, Danny, what was so frustrating and also unrealistic is you would talk about like, there just needs to be a commissioner. I don't know if there's a commissioner. I don't know that any of the major conferences would sign off to allow somebody else to then be in power of what they want to do. It's just not realistic. It's the same way we look at some of the things that happen with any corporation. Why would I want an outside

party telling me what I can or can't do? But that's what I think is so frustrating about all of this is I keep thinking deep down, there's probably more teams, more programs, more fan bases that will look at the results going, this kind of sucks actually. And, you know, you could talk about the expansion of money, but some of these schools can't help themselves. If you look at their budgets and how much they've exploded and they still talk about how much money they're losing, you're like, well, that's, that's a you problem. It's, you know, UCLA being this much in debt, you know, so that's why we have to go to the big 10. Well, that's actually

your fault then that you've gotten this place financially to begin with. No doubt. Uh, when you said about the commissioner, I totally agree. It's not realistic. It desperately needs it, but here's what I think is crazy. Don't you think they would have so like these, you know, the TV deal that the big 10 is going to ink has been, you know, a billion dollar deal, you know, between 80 and a hundred million dollars to each school, which sounds like a lot of money, but could you imagine if you had everyone together, like kind of bargaining with the networks as a,

we're not just going to give you the big 10, we're going to give you everything. You know what I mean? Like I just feel like college football leaves some money on the table because of this territorial nature that you're talking about. Cause there is, there's a rivalry between the sec and big 10. There's not a lot of trust. Um, you know, the, and there's, it's all trust has been broken with the Alliance and all the moves that have been made. And the Alliance literally was a man. It was a joke. How about George Klyovkov? Three weeks before USC and UCLA left for the Big Ten, he's on record. He was on Sirius.

And he's like, well, all I know is our conference. We're all in the same boat. We're rowing in the same direction. It's a great quote, like if it held true. But now that it's not, it's totally thrown in his face. But like all this competition and lack of trust, I think hurts college football clearly. But I also think it leaves some money on the table.

I think there would be so much value if you could have one commissioner, which really is stupid. The NCAA could have been this, but they dropped the ball 30 years ago. But if you had one person that could get everybody to the table together, I think you could have a product that would rival the NFL as far as valuations and revenues and the types of products you could bring to the table. I mean, the NFL, I think I saw all told with their TV deals combined. I think it's around 11 billion. There's only 32 teams in college football.

It's going to sound like a lot. It's probably closer to three or four with the deals that'll finally be done probably closer to three when all the conferences negotiate their deals. And I think if they all got together with some commissioner, you know, bargained on their behalf and met with the networks and negotiated these TV deals, I think it would be, I think it would be exponentially higher than what they get now, which feels like a lot, but I don't think it is compared to the NFL.

And the product is really close to the NFL. It's turning, it's morphing into the NFL. The coaches salaries are like the NFL coaches. We're starting to see the player salaries get higher. The college coaches are higher right now. Yeah. It's nuts with a Kirby's new deal without question. And I think the, I think college, and here's where I think this would be valuable and why they should consider it. They're going to have to pay the players. I mean, it's very clear that the Supreme Court, that the court system is going to rule that you cannot have free labor. They're going to need to maximize all those dollars that they're getting from these TV deals to start paying the players. And I don't know when it comes. I don't know if it's in three

years, five years or 10 years, but when they get to that point, some of these deals that feel like, oh, 80 and a hundred, between 80 and a hundred million dollars a team, a school, you start having to pay the players. And all of a sudden that doesn't, you know, that doesn't spread around the university as much and fund some of the other sports and go into the facilities and the types of deals you're going to have to do. So I think, I think college football does itself a disservice by not getting on the same table and having one commissioner. And by the way, I do think Greg Sankey would probably be the perfect guy to do that. But to your point,

there's no way Kevin Warren's going to sign off and say, yeah, sure. We'll let, we'll let my, my arch nemesis, the guy that, you know, I've been trying to keep up with and they take shots at each other and, you know, I'm to break alliances and all these things. If like, if they could, he'll, he'll never sign off on that. Neither would Klyovkov or neither would anybody else. And then there's the little old ACC with their TV deal until 2036. They can, they're just hanging on for dear life. They might be the one that would sign off on a commissioner if they could break this whole thing up and say, yeah, we can rip up our TV contract. Sure, we'll do it. Right. And they have things in place,

supposedly, too, you know, where it's like you can't leave the ACC because once everything went sideways, they're like, well, let's try to keep this thing together. You know, as I've said numerous times here, I mean, there's a couple of different things that I touch on from there. The NIL deal is great for the players, but it was such a disingenuous thing by the NCAA to be like, well, you guys can do this because really that means we don't have to give you any of the money that we make, but we can make it look like we're doing this awesome thing by allowing you to do something we should have always allowed you to do. Okay. So there's that part of it. I would imagine if you pulled the fan bases of the teams that are moving or on the move or

something and you go well this sucks like this this sucks i think there's more people that would say that they don't like it than do like it uh unless you're one of the halves and then i think those fan bases get kind of selfish in the idea of like well at least i know my shit straight you know like at least i know i'm okay and i'm going to be in one of the cool conferences and that tv money is going to be all right um so i think a lot of that is selfishly motivated when you come to that conclusion the The other part of it is too, when you look at the escalation of how much these teams are getting and the new TV deals, like used to be psyched to be getting like 30 million a year and be like, this is awesome. So then once the players are actually going to have to be

compensated by the schools, not just through NIL deals that they have nothing to do with, which is right, you're right. It's going to happen. Like this is long overdue. It's going to happen. And then the same schools that are going to jump like $70 million in television revenue in one year. Well, again, I shouldn't say one year, but from a very short time period. Then they're going to start complaining about, well, we had to pay these guys. It's like, no, you paid all the coaches a ton. You all are in this facilities arms race that's a joke like some of these cities that pay for these stadiums and 18 years later the baseball owner wants another stadium and you're like how does that happen like why is it that it's 500 million for the stadium in 2020 or 20 2004 and

then like it's completely outdated again we'll do it right the first time when the taxpayers gave you 500 million and now you're asking for a billion so then the usc is going to be talking about sending their volleyball team out to fucking maryland although i did hear that they were going to keep volleyball specific to the west coast all right um the travel expenses alone once the schools have to pay the players from i believe the revenue generating things which opens up a whole other can of worms. It's just going to be funny to see all of these schools that spent like crazy and then reaching for every last dollar to make up for their spending, then have another expense on the books complaining that they're still not making enough money when this has been an absolute gold rush of television rights.

You know, I was always against paying the players outright, like as employees, the way they're going to be paid. Right now, I want to speed it up. I want it to happen tomorrow because I hate, I think all this uncertainty and this, I hate,

we need to find a new term at the wild, wild west is very true. Like it's so annoying, but it's so true. The wild, wild Southeast. Yeah. You could call it that, I guess. But it's, but it's, there needs to be some structure and every coach has said this, every, you know, everybody that covers college football has said this,

but until we get this new system in place, you're still going to have a Jordan Addison situation who, you know, is that Pitt, Pitt tries to do everything they can. He bounces. I mean, it's just, you have this unrestricted movement across college football that I don't think does anybody any good. You still have these teams that, and it's, I guess it's not that different than baseball where you can try to buy championships and have NIL deals and buy the number one class. And, and the names are still there, but I kind of, cause I think the problem with college football and it's been talked about, it's kind of been pushed to the back burner is the lack of parity.

It's the same four to five teams, maybe six that can win the championship every year. If we go to this new system where payers are played, is there a salary cap? Is there like, how are we getting players? Is it still going to be recruiting? Is it,

is there a draft? Is it professional? Who's going to negotiate on behalf of the players? But I hope that we get, so two things, I hope we get some sort of structure towards dispersing some of the money. So there's, you know, it's even it's a level playing field, something that Saban talked about and got mocked for it. But again, I think he, I think he does think that's best for college football. And I think we get a true playoff. Like that's the next step too, because that will be a part of this new

college football world that everybody knows is coming, but it's like, when's it going to happen or who's going to take the first move. And you know, when's the next big, you know, landslide move that's going to happen like a USC UCLA, UCLA, which I'll ask you, everything's quiet. Feels like it's quieted down. Notre Dame, you know, feels like they're going to try to stay independent, you know, broker some huge deal with the TV network. When do you think the next domino falls? Like, do you think it takes a while to think we're another year?

Do you think somebody like a surprise move? Cause the UC, USC, UCLA came out of nowhere. The big 12 added their four teams, the BYU, UCF, Houston, Cincinnati. They added them. I looked, it was like in December. So it was kind of like, it was in the middle of the football season. So it doesn't prohibit it, but I'm wondering what the next move is. I guess the Oregon thing, um, than Notre Dame, because Notre Dame's in its own class, and people can hate Notre Dame all you want. But if you look at all the rating stuff, I would look at all the stuff that Andy Staples would do on The Athletic, and he started just looking at averages.

And Oregon is an incredible asset from a viewership standpoint. I think you can make the argument that they're as watched, if not even a little bit more watched than even USC is, and certainly UCLA. If you go to a UCLA game on the wrong Saturday, you're like, are you kidding me? Oregon is never like that. Oregon is always like, now it can feel a little newer than some of those other ones, but they've been through how many coaches now since Kelly, another four coaches. So they've maintained this coolness factor, even though more teams have clearly done what they've done, whether it's the style of offense and all the uniforms, like the stuff that they did before everybody else that was cool. Everybody's caught up to that, but yet people are still watching it.

And then they get that quarterback more coming in who I saw at the Elite 11 stuff. And he looks like he's the real deal too on top of everything else. So they're still getting recruits like even when crystal ball was up there and they're like all right this is going to be over um you know la is going to start keeping their guys california's going to start keeping more and more of their guys the oregon's and then it was like actually crystal ball cranked it up another level so i think anybody that knew crystal ball too knew that he wasn't exactly going to lose out on recruits and then he goes back to miami and so we're on another coach for oregon but i you know this is the part where i just i feel bad for all the fan bases like we can make fun of the civil

war but you know i don't i think it sucks i mean hell we even we even missed the holy war there for a couple years which seems unfathomable that that could even happen um and granted in 20 you know a bunch of games a bunch of guys got messed up because the Pac-12, what, they played like seven games, six games. Because this is the part of it. I don't have a great answer for you because I don't know how scared everybody is. Like UCLA, after the fact, okay, I got it. And if SC's gone, then they're even more scared. And then they're like, hey, we can fix our financial problems by hopping into this new Big Ten deal.

Like, done and done. I just wonder if the immediate decisions for the immediate positive impact, if that math means that that decision long-term is more positive than trying to find a way to geographically still be connected. I feel like a hundred-year-old when I go, I still like the culture of the different conferences. I like when I know I'm watching a Pac-12 game, it looks a certain way. I know when I'm watching a Big 12 game, it looks a certain way. Big 10, on and on and on. And I think if you ruin all of those things, could you be setting yourself up for short-term games, but long-term losses because you've devalued what it was supposed to be? I think there's very much a chance that happens. So it's interesting.

So I have my show on Sirius in the morning. It's all college. It's all college football. 90% of the time, there's 10% basketball. It's all college football. It's supposed to be college ball though, right? Because yeah, that's our worry. SBN you like the U is for universe. You know, it's all that's what that's by design.

So we have our listeners are very, you know, rabid college football fans and they have all pushback. I hate this. I hate NIL. I hate conference realignment. I don't know why somebody hates NIL. It doesn't make sense to me. Usually you can tell the person is in their seventies that calls in and says, I don't like, you know, it's just, it's kind of, I think most people are okay with it. I think the lack, like the lack of structure, people that are reasonable can say, I don't like that, but I don't have a problem with the player. Like no one's mad at Jordan Addison. They're mad that, you know, Pitt didn't have a chance to keep him, but that's a separate one.

But then I, so then I also fill in for a mad dog on, on Chris Russo show and he's mostly professional fan. They hardly watch college football at all. And I've done the same exact topic on both shows. The college fans that are traditional, like you and I that are passionate about it. Don't like it. The casual sports fan is like, nah, what's the big deal? Like, am I still going to watch Alabama play Georgia? Am I still going to see Ohio state play Michigan? I'm good. Like they're like, I don't see what the big deal is. Like it's, it's interesting that I think the protectors of the game that likes what

make it special. Like if you've been on a college campus and you know, you lived in the North and New England, I don't think those fans even have any idea what the culture is about, what the religion of college football is all about. So they can't fully appreciate it. Um, and that's what I, cause I, there is such a difference and I, you and I have talked about this over the years. There is a difference as a player and a fan, when you go to a college game and when you go to an NFL game, college, you lose a game. I don't care.

Even if you're a team that's eight and four, you know, or trying to get to a bowl when you lose, there are guys crying at their lockers, devastated, just upset, can't believe we lost this game. And I remember the culture shock of going into the NFL. It's kind of quiet in the locker room for about five minutes. And the media comes in, guys start talking to the media. And then 20 minutes after the game, it's like, where are we going tonight?

What's the plan? Are we going to run down to Atlantic city on our off day? Like, it's just, no one cares to say, Hey, when do I get my check? And I were like, that's seriously, like it's, it's the job it's punch in punch out. There's no passion. And I would say the fan bases are the same too. Fans in NFL are great. They're not the same. And I think you see that on display. And I worry that the more we become, we morph into this minor league NFL, we're going to lose some of those things. And I think we're already seeing some of that, that mindset creep in where players are skipping, you know, leaving, you know, shutting it down with three or four weeks ago, if they're not in the championship game, skipping out on bowls. I think that more of that mindset where, and it's nobody's fault. It's the money. I get why

they're making these decisions, but it's becoming more business-like than players playing for the love of the game. And it might sound corny and cheesy and idealistic, but that really was the way it was when I was playing. And I think it's, it's changing rapidly and really over the last five to six years, it's just hit hyperspeed into this direction where it's all because the money is, is, has gone out, out of control too. I could see though, with the different shows, like if you're doing mad dog show, that's a Northeast show. It's an older show. It's a baseball show. It's a professional show. Cause he's just not doing, I mean, I grew up listening to Mike and the dog. They weren't doing college college football right and and they're not the place i

would go for college football but i would say it's like what if the lakers just said hey we're gonna go play in china way more money china's growing might have the reserve currency at some point you know and you're just like wait what like well you know you can't do that and again it's different because it's one league being representative with all the television stuff. But there's bad comparisons that I can make to make a point where you'd be like, well, you can't ever do that. And I'd think, well, what if the Lakers just said, hey, China's way more growth market. We're just going to play in China. Then we're going to make four times as much TV. Would anybody go, well, hey, you got to get what you can get.

Right. Or would they go, that's ridiculous. I don't know if it's a terrible comp or a great comp. So there you go. Well, isn't it the same as live golf? Isn't that happening right now in golf? Aren't the guys, and they're getting crushed for it because of where, I mean, China's the same example.

Yeah, that has something to do with it. Don't you think it's comparable? I mean, don't you think it's kind of similar though? Like those players are getting crushed and yet they're taking the money. That's guaranteed. That's four or five times what they could make. And that's, and everyone's crushing them for it,

calling them selfish. And what about your legacy? And what about, you know, playing for majors? I mean, in college football, are we,

is it that different? But they're just chasing. I get the money. I guess not a good example. No, I'm not. I actually, I don't think this is bad. college football are we is it that different but they're just chasing i get the money i get i guess not a good example no i'm not i actually i don't think this is bad i'm just thinking of how i want to answer because i had done this rant a couple weeks ago that was kind of funny because it looked like the reaction was either hey that was great or that was terrible one where you said you hated all this you said this sucks like is that that was the breakout video that was in there but

basically i was like we are at the cusp of a new run of sports where all the motivation is like, it's a free-for-all right now. Whether it was the live golf stuff. I just felt like more and more things were changing. And we're just kind of at the beginning of what all of this could be. And I know at times I can feel a little outdated. But I'm not going to apologize for wanting the geographic connection of the five conferences, okay? Right.

Hell, I'm still mad about the Big East, all right? So I'm not going to apologize for thinking that that was cool instead of like the average college football fan probably not knowing. Well, I shouldn't say average, but I would say casual college football fan would be like, do you know which conferences West Virginia has been in in the last decade plus? Right. You're like, wait, what? Right.

They have no idea. There's no way they'd be able to do it. No. So, uh, it's when, like, how about the Rose Bowl? I mean, how about the Rose Bowl always being Pac-12, Pac-10 versus Big Ten? Like, are we going to lose that? And, like, is it not going to feel the same you know

without usc being able i mean i guess that could be you know but it's just i don't know there's a lot of traditions and i'm i'm with you on the historical stuff and the regional aspect to it and it's it's just it's changing right before eyes it's and it's crazy how fast it's happening and no one knows exactly the direction it's going to go in, which to me, that's, what's frustrating. I want to know, cause I get exhausted of all this talk. I want to get to actually like, all right, let's get back to who's going to win. Who's going to do this, who has a chance to win, which I think that to me, again, goes back to, I think that is the biggest potential that I see is we could get more parody in college football, which I think we need. And maybe we get multiple. I think the biggest thing I think would happen,

I think it would be huge, is instead of having a Power Five, Group of Five, all play for one playoff, like let's have a Group of Five championship, national championship. I think that would be so compelling and to see these teams be able to play for a true championship, I think it would be fantastic.

So you're talking Group of Five outside of the Power Five, just have them have their own championship without being like part of the power five. Yeah. Unless there was some tie-in where maybe the winner of the group of five got one of those 12 spots in the playoff. I think that'd be fun.

Like there are so many things you can come up with like 16 games for a group of five team. Yeah. And just crown them a national champion. Say congrats. But it's a true championship as opposed to, Hey, you can go to a New Year's Six Bowl. Like, okay, and we're going to get waxed by whatever Big Ten or SEC team we're going to play. And I know they've won those games and yay, we can claim a Sugar Bowl victory.

But don't you think it would be better? As a player, you want to play for championships like in a national championship i think that would mean more and i think it would be more compelling from a tv standpoint rather rather than watching these bowl games that we've all called meaningless forever to actually have a playoff where you have you know i think you could even do it pretty short form and just have a 16 playoff and just have the conferences automatic you know qualify and the top two couple get a buy or something. You could figure it out with a group of five champion. And I think,

I mean, the FCS is fun to watch the playoffs, but could you, no one really gets into them because you don't have the brands, but if you had the brands of the group of five playing, I think it'd be, I think it'd be pretty compelling. I'm all for the group of five,

just ending the charade of like, you're a part of this. Cause I'm always going to have a hard time with the 12 games that a group of five school plays uh versus 12 games the power five school plays what do you think because i'm curious to know what you think is when you said i thought you were setting me up with that great thank you question i thought you were going to say how are you going to feel when fsu is a part of the sec i thought you were going to go there um how concerned are you with the teams that are left out? And you mentioned that Oregon is wanting to stay in the halves,

and I think they will. But like Oklahoma State, I think they're right on the border. Because it depends on how many teams. It's a good program, right? It's a great program. If you go over the yearly of it, you're like, that's a team. Unfortunately, their closest was being left out of the national championship game, which I didn't have a problem with at the time, whatever. I thought their loss was worse.

We're going back 10 years ago for that one. When you spend the full season into college football, you're like, hey, there's Oklahoma State again. It sucks because now it's like, so what are they left with? Right. Or a Utah who's been knocking on the door and getting closer and closer. What if they're left behind out of these two super leagues? And we'll have to see what happens. But that's what worries. I'm worried about Florida State. I mean, Florida State is... I think they'll be okay. I think they'll be a part of the future of college football. But the ACC TV deal is a killer. It is brutal, which is

why every ACC team has been trying to figure out, Hey, what can we do? What are our options? But it looks like it would have to be some sort of legal situation where they'd have to sue to get their way out. I don't, I don't think that's, I don't know what the appetite for that is. I know Florida state's interested in leaving the ACC, which I think they should. I think it's, I think it's foolish not to at least try. But I worry if they're stuck, if these teams are stuck in the ACC till 2036, and the Big Ten and SEC schools are getting double the payouts from the TV deals, good luck. You can't compete. No, and I think that even going into this year, you mentioned the parity thing.

I was looking at the FanDuel odds, so the future's for a title here, and it's Bama, it's Ohio State, and it's Georgia. And then there's a huge drop-off to Clemson fourth there. And it depends on where. I've seen them plus 800. I've seen them plus 1,000. They're plus 800 right now in FanDuel. Clemson, after the Notre Dame game two years ago, I was like, man, I fucking love that kid. Uh, even though I've been out of practice, all the NBA stuff saying his name. Um, and then, you know, here they are, like you could say, Hey, we're the fourth best odds, but it's just, it's this weird

kind of uncertainty. And then they got a kid coming in that I watched work out. But some people think they're going to, he's going to take DJ started job, um, which is a, which is a completely other, you know, different topic here. So Clemson, you know, in a way it different topic here. So Clemson, in a way, it's like, hey, Clemson's in there again. But I can't believe the lack of parity has consistently been this bad. Usually, I think, hey, it's a cycle. Forget it. Don't worry about it. And now we're on year almost 10 of this stuff where it's shockingly like the same handful of teams. And then if there's one other that flirts with them, it's a Notre Dame,

it's an LSU. Um, and certainly teams that have been in the mix before. It's astonishing how these teams have just a stranglehold on the top. Have you seen, uh, my guy, but Elliot,

I do the cover three podcasts with him. He does the blue chip ratio. So it's, it's Alabama's at 89% of their roster is four and five stars. And it's Georgia's right there in Ohio state. They're like the top three and their whole roster essentially is four and five stars. And the game has always been about talent acquisition. And these teams are just hogging all the talent. There's teams that are getting close, you know, Texas A&M is trying to close that gap, which is why they're in that conversation. Clemson is close too.

But I don't think you, I think I would not take a team outside of those three to win the national championship outside of Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State. Now, I think a bet, an interesting bet would be teams to make the playoffs. But we saw what happened last year. Like we were like, yay, we got new teams. We got Michigan. They, this team, nobody saw this coming. And then they get absolutely housed at the orange bowl against Georgia. And you could see on display

that they just were not on the same level talent wise. I mean, it was the, and it's all along the defensive line and the, and the offensive line. You just saw a speed that just jumped off the table at you. And when you watch those teams play, it's almost unfair. So I would not take a national, I would not put any money on a team to win a national championship. Other than those three, I might take a team to make the playoff. I think that could be fun and something interesting that you could do if you wanted to find something different, but I think that's a problem. And I think that's, that's the massive difference in the NFL, 28 fan bases right now, where their teams are, you know, uh, reporting to training camp.

They feel like, man, we can get hot. We could be the Bengals last year. We could get to the, we could get to the super bowl. And the majority of college football fans are like, I just, maybe we'll get to a bowl. You know, I don't think that's good. I think you'd see, um, we need to kind of figure out how to break this up. The Clemson thing, I think is interesting. Did you see Dabo at the ACC media days when he kind of went off on everybody's like, man, because you guys all act like DJ is some slap dick from, you know, he said slap dick. And it was like made the rounds. It went viral. Cause I was like, Whoa, Dabo

was like, you know, really pushing that envelope. But, uh, he went off and was like, DJ is a good quarterback. And he was like, you know, really pushing that envelope. But he went off and was like, DJ is a good quarterback. And he's like, he was great in high school and he was great against Notre Dame. And he's like, and he's going to be great this year. He's like, he wasn't the only fault last year. And he kind of, he laid it all out like Dabo does and made the case for DJ. And he clearly, because I think what happened to DJ, the expectations got off the chart because he threw for 400 plus against Notre Dame.

And he looked incredible. He looked amazing. And then I just figured it's the next Clemson guy. And it wasn't like he wasn't some major recruit. He was a huge recruit that a lot of people like, how the hell did he end up at Clemson? Top of everything else. You've heard me say this before.

I like to evaluate quarterbacks after they've had a bad game because it's easy to be, it's easy to go out there and be on a good team. Absolutely. But it's easy to be on a good team when you just throw it to everybody and everything's clean and everything's working. Everybody loves you. What do you do at the first time you throw three picks and people are asking you to be benched? Like how do you respond to that? And I'm not saying he was asked to be benched, but when he threw the pick six against Georgia, it was a bad game.

His interception was the difference in the game. I thought he was a shell of himself because of that. And you saw his confidence deteriorate slowly over the season. And Clemson got into a bind because they didn't have a cave club Nick behind him that they could have put him in. So he was kind of stuck. And sometimes as a quarterback, like it can be good to get benched because you'll come off the field. You can see things differently. And then sometimes the best thing that can happen, they put another quarterback and guess what?

Same problems, bad offensive line. They're not moving the ball, you know, and it's, it's, you can come back and say, Oh wait, this isn't my fault. This is a team line. They're not moving the ball, you know, and it's, it's, you can come back and say, Oh wait, this isn't my fault. This is a team thing. We're not that good as we were in years past. And I think that's where Dabo's right. That they are offensive line did have issues. They didn't figure out the running back until later.

It was the offense was getting a little bit stale. I think a lot of those things were happening, but DJ got all the criticism because we had seen the string of quarterbacks just go, bam, bam, bam. They're playing great. And I thought that DJ got a little bit hung out to dry and it wrecked his confidence, which is why Dabo was pounding the table for everybody saying, DJ is good. He's our guy. And I'm a little bit surprised they haven't made it open competition. DJ was awful last year. And I bad. Nine touchdowns, ten interceptions. It held back Clemson. It's pretty remarkable they still finished 10-3. It's an unbelievable

accomplishment. And then they started having the injuries. Look, that Georgia game, they very well could have won that thing to start it if it wasn't for the bad turnover. Clemson, you just kind of go, pencil them in by default. And yet there's still a pretty far distance behind those other three teams. So let me ask you this, who would you rather have a quarterback next year? You can't say specific to their system. You can't say with or without the talent they have. You can have CJ, Caleb Williams, or Bryce Young. Bryce Young. I've already seen it. CJ had his moments, and he's going to be incredible physically. He's more impressive than Bryce.

Caleb's the most physically impressive guy of the three, but I'm talking just this season, college ball. Yeah, just this season, give me Bryce Young again. Just give me Bryce Young. I mean, what he did to keep his team. I mean, if a guy, Hall, makes that catch and he doesn't have it. If Jamison doesn't get hurt, I think they win it. I mean, what he did to keep his team. I mean, if a guy Hall makes that catch and he doesn't have... If Jamison doesn't get hurt, I think they win it. I do too.

And Georgia fans hate when you say that. Well, whatever. But it's a reality. First round pick. And no one wants to take... The other first round pick went down. Right, right. They had two 1,000-yard receivers who were unbelievable NFL-talented guys

that they did not have for that second half. And it absolutely helped Georgia. That's part of the game. Like no one's trying to take away your championship. You're just saying the facts of what it was. And we saw what happened when they were both healthy in the sec championship game. But the fact what those throws that he was making,

it felt kind of like my homes at the super bowl against Tampa. Remember he was getting killed and he was like laying sideways, but still delivering balls that were getting dropped. He's a freakish talent. I do worry about him at the next level. He's got to bulk up a little bit. I mean, I was in India at the championship game and on the field,

I was like, man, he's really small, like slight, not, you know, some shorter guys are a little bit thicker. He is small,

but it hasn't impacted him at all yet. And I don't think it will. Um, but I would take him there and then I would go CJ Stroud and Caleb with me. I'm still let's see how this year goes. Like I don't know if it's an automatic slam dunk that he's just it's going to work.

I think he's really talented, but we kind of he almost got benched again for Spencer Ratham. The Kansas game wasn't great. There was a couple of games where like, all right, the Superman guy, where was he from the Texas game? So I, and that's normal for a freshman who hasn't played much. We've seen some ups and downs, but kind of going back to what I was saying,

what happens at USC, if he has a, you know, two or three interception game and it costs him a win and he starts getting heat, how does he respond to that? No, it's a great point. It's a great point. And Bryce, of any of the guys you're going to watch next year play college football at quarterback position, you can't match his composure. His composure was special last year. I mean, that Auburn game where you're like, wait, they're going to lose to Auburn. And, you know, things are changing.

And it's like, all right, I got to do something here. I think that's what makes Bryce just a little bit better bet than the other two guys right now. But I think physically Caleb is the most impressive. And Stroud, maybe, I don't know, it's weird. Maybe, I don't know. Have you been impacted by the LA, uh, bias out there with cow herd? And like, are you all, did you see the stat that USC has the most money

wagered on it to win the national championship? Like more than Bama, more than George, I guess maybe it's new money. That's coming back, I guess. But I was blown away. I was like, I need to start a sports book and start taking some of those bets. I don't even know if they win the PAC 12 this year. I do think Lincoln Riley is going to be good. And I think the defense is a concern. The roster, I think is still a concern going back to like the bodies that they need on

the defensive front in order to win a national championship. Um, so I'm, I'm, I like where they're headed, but I think it's going to be a little bit of a letdown to some USC fans are thinking they're going to the playoff. Yeah. don't have jackson dart anymore right so yeah i love watching that kid get out there he's just like he had my ass right yeah the one eye black i'm not you know not the biggest fan of it because it's kind of like are you really worried about glare yeah but you're just your boy did wear one sleeve and one sock up and one sock down against virginia when we lost actually what was the one sock up one sock down just you packing heat letting people know i don't know just to be different i was worried about what i looked like apparently not

enough exactly the one sock up one sock down hell i don know. I think I bartended with a visor once, like upside down and backwards. You know, it's 22. Just let it fly. What do you got? I can't. I mean, I feel bad about making the NFL game joke. So, you know, I'm over here fucking working out.

Got nothing to show for it, you know? So I don't like talking to the former athletes and saying stuff about that because honestly, you know, what the fuck am I doing? All right. That's Danny Cannell. It was good to catch up. Every morning, SiriusXM.

And of course, you can check him out on the CBS stuff as well, Sports HQ, with a bunch of those other guys. So he's still getting the hours in, man. So it's good to catch up. And I got miles to feed on the home front. Got school, weddings to pay for, coming down the road, college. Everywhere I can get it, man. You want details? Fine.

I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

Life advice. Email here is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Kyle is away. We have Cerruti. So, here we go. 6-1. 6-2 after the chiropractor. I need to see that chiropractor.

What? One of those inverted things where your feet hang from... Have you ever been on one of those like inverted things where your you know your feet hang from have you ever been on one of those? What are they called? Like where you hang upside down like a bat supposed to help your back make it a little taller. I know what you're talking about. I've not been inverse something. I don't know. Yeah, they're pretty fun. And then you buy one and you're like, well, I never use this.

So why do I even what did I do? Yeah, bad purchase. Yeah, I know somebody bought it sat outside the back porch rusted. This guy's 220 but did bench press 335 jeez all right he's growing both you know muscle wise and height wise yeah this guy's fucking who knows you check in next month let us know how tall you are all right met a girl there in covid 2020 let's call her amber is the color of your energy um your 311 love is, it's so random. Like I just,

you just don't strike me as a 311 guy. But then I remember that like that was your college years. Cause 311 is like kind of a, for me, they're like kind of a corny band. I don't know. I get it. You know,

but that's because I, I kind of caught the tail end, but to you, I know like that was your youth movement. I respect it. Yeah. No. Anyway,

I mean, I don't have to tell you, man, we're still over Vermont, Burlington, just vibing. You and Dave Matthews, 311. Look, my Dave Matthews stuff is very, very early. But that was kind of like...

Well, anyway, back to the email. Anyway. Talk about 311 another time. Yeah, yeah. So we get quickly serious here with Amber. Whoa. I spent a lot of time getting to know each other and making the most of the lockdown in Los Angeles. A few months later, we found out she was pregnant.

We decided to move back to her hometown area to be closer to her family, which I did not have a problem with, as I really like her family, and my family is now within driving distance. We are now settled in the area and have a beautiful daughter that is the light of our lives, Amber. Whoa. And I are doing great and talk about tying the knot and trying for another kid. Now the problem. Amber has a best friend. Let's call her Kathy. Oh, no. And a boyfriend. Let's call him Dan. The four of us recently spent a weekend together in a nearby vacation town. And after dinner,

Dan invited me to go out for a nightcap, just the two of us. As soon as we got to the bar, Dan had a girl waiting for him and he introduced his friend. We got a table. She was nice. They were all having a good time until I got up to go to the bar and as I was walking back, I caught them kissing. I quickly turned around, went back to the bar to give him a minute and texted him we should leave. It was a quiet walk back and I didn't say anything about it as I was the new guy and didn't want to make waves. The next day, the four of us went out to breakfast and Dan literally ran out of the restaurant with stomach issues as the girl from the night before walked in. Later that same day, Kathy grabbed Dan's phone to take a picture and a Bumble notification popped up. She clicked on it and realized Dan had been messaging with girls, including the one from the night before for a while.

They got into a fight but quickly moved on as Dan has always managed to get himself out of these situations during the five years he and Kathy have been together. I guess he just knows he's got some magic powers. After Amber caught wind of the Bumble chat, she confronted me and asked if anything happened the night Dan and I went out. After initially denying, I thought to myself that I should be transparent with the mother of my child and told her what happened on the condition. She would not tell Kathy. I thought that she would hold onto this information until Dan and Kathy got into another big fight at the bar incident would ultimately break them up for good. Boy, was I wrong. Amber proceeded to immediately tell Kathy what happened. And when Kathy confronted Dan, he pulled out a ring and proposed. What? What a chess move by Dan. They're now planning a wedding for next year.

So this guy's just bumble firing on everybody. And then he had a wedding ring ready to go just in case he needed to get out of a really bad argument yeah it's like breaking case of emergency this guy just had a wedding ring an engagement ring ready to go in case he gets into serious trouble man the fact that he would wait until he was in just painted into a corner then shouldn't the the girlfriend be like wait you're doing this now when you're so fucked and you've I mean, this is only a five dayer. Imagine all the other shit this guy's doing. Yeah, this is this is a bad scene. But all right. A couple of days later, I ran into Dan and he obviously had a few choice words for me. But instead of having to show my bench press strength

and action, I apologize for getting us into the situation. We agree that you should try our best to be cordial moving forward. It's still pretty awkward when the friends get together as everyone has found out about the situation. And I can't shake the thought from the back of my mind that the guys in the group won't trust me. Even though I feel burned by Amber, we moved on for the sake of our family. And this is hopefully just a small bump in the road for us in the friend group have some resentment towards me? Well, they're going to have resentment towards you if they're better friends with Dan than they are with you. All right. So he's going to say that you're a fucking asshole. He's going to tell his version of events the entire time. He's just going to straight up say that you told on him. And so, yes, if the group is friendlier with him than they are you, which is what it sounds like from this, they're not going to take your side. And so, look, I kind of get where you were coming from in this one. I think you could have

been a little bit smarter about this saying, I am not like, I don't know what happened with him. Okay. Now you could say, well, you're just lying to the mother of your child. Like, especially when you frame it, like, Hey, this is the mother of my child, all this stuff. It doesn't mean that you're going to be like, you're never going to have any little white lie whatsoever with anybody you reproduce with. I mean, give me a fucking break. So when you frame it that way, it's creative writing, but I don't think it's all that realistic to the whole thing. I understand why you felt like, hey, I got to give in. I don't want to lie to her.

The thing that sucks is the mother of your child immediately could give a fuck about your feelings and the situation she was putting you in by immediately confronting the boyfriend of the girlfriend. Look, ultimately this comes down to the other girlfriend brings this joker into the mix and he's just a fucking wild card. Like he's, you know, in the movie sideways, just firing on everybody and putting everybody else in this situation. And that's what kind of sucks about this. I don't love that you told on him. I really don't like that your girlfriend then confronted him about this whole thing, but ultimately, all the shrapnels flying around, all this emotional bullshit that everybody else has to deal with is because this fucking guy can't be mature enough to either figure out how to be alone and be on Bumble all the fucking time or get off of all

the dating apps and commit to the person that you want to commit to. And I don't like those guys. I don't like the guys that constantly always want both things because they can't figure out the fucking one thing. Be by yourself and be fucking miserable or get in a relationship and be fucking miserable. Pick one. I mean, you made your choice there. Yeah. I respect it. Yeah. Fucking suck it up and do one of those. Yeah. Grow up and be miserable by yourself yes right so um you know i all of this kind of sucks and so i don't want to like beat up on you here

because really what i'd be saying is figure out in the future how to be quicker with lying to your future wife which is what this sounds like yeah But I'm just telling you, like, I wouldn't be like, you didn't do anything really wrong here and you barely know this guy, but yes, friends aren't going to like you because they're going to get a version of events that doesn't do you any favors. Cause this guy is on a one man fucking wrecking ball through life. And, you know, like I've said, there's just, there's just not many people that would ever go like, yeah, you know what? I kind of put that dude in a really bad spot. So I know he had really no choice other than to come clean to his girlfriend. He's like, no, fuck that guy.

You know, I asked him to come hang out with me. Nobody even knows him. He's new to the scene and whatever. So I'm just being realistic about what's going to happen around these other guys. And, you know, unfortunately maybe, you know, it'll take some time. But I wouldn't beat yourself up about this too much because ultimately this this fucking wild card is out there screwing it all up. I think this is actually a situation that you could turn into a win for yourself. And that is because, one, you clearly don't really like this guy or any of his friends, and you probably don't want to hang out with them anyway. So you could basically use that as used to be like i i don't want to do things like i don't

want to go if there's like a dinner or something like you have actually kind of like a built-in excuse with your girl step ahead so rudy yeah you could just say hey i'm actually gonna step out of this one and she also kind of has to have your back because you told her in confidence not to tell anyone and she fucked you over so not only do you have the out because nobody likes you there you don't want to hang out with them anyway but your girl almost has to agree with you because she was the one that spilled the beans and broke your trust so i think this is a i think this is a win-win here i i kind of love this for you you could avoid all the awkward friend encounters that most i'm kind of lucky because like i i am friendly with a lot of the a lot of the guys that

my wife's you know husbands and boyfriends are actually cool dudes. I like hanging out with them. But there are the occasional ones where it's like, oh, this freaking blows. I have to make small talk with this guy. You can kind of avoid that most of the time here. So I think you just use that as an excuse going forward. The other thing too is, how can anyone in that room look at...

I mean, I know why it happens, but imagine looking at you as the bad guy in any room with that guy who, as you mentioned, is a serial cheater. And then also with his girl who said yes to a proposal seconds after finding out he was a serial cheater. Imagine you being the bad guy in the room in that situation. It's insane. So I think you actually have this. This is a win-win situation for you. And I think it'll probably bring you and your girl closer because you'll probably have like kind of one over her head going forward and uh i know it's gonna suck at the few times you hang out with them but it's gonna i mean it is what it is like it's not like

you're gonna try to make the relationship better as you said just be cordial you don't have to be friendly make some small talk and then try to get out of as many situations as you can i also have to come clean a little bit because the first time i ever told a girl that i loved her it was just to end an argument wow okay because you were like you were just i just said no i was like all right we're just getting yelled at i mean it was i think i was like 20 23 24 something like that maybe 25 and uh we i you know i was constantly just letting her down um because i think i got done with my shift and then i was like hey there's a late night i want to go to with these dudes and she was like i was out all night waiting to go back with you because we're dating and like you counted out your tips and you had a couple beers

and now there's a late night and like i just want to go home with you and then wake up and have breakfast tomorrow and i was like yeah but this these dudes are awesome like let's go do this and she went she's a trooper she went and then we all of course stayed up way too late beers stories bullshitting and she's like dying in the corner just so tired and then i was like we couldn't get a cab so we had to like walk again it wasn't that bad of a walk but it wasn't something you wanted to do at like four in the morning and then we walked back and i was just getting worked just verbally worked and she'd just be like why would you not want to immediately be home with me after work and then you want to go do this other stuff instead and i was just like you know again when i was that young i was like because this well that was fucking awesome but we just did like you didn't have a good time but i

had a blast with those dudes and uh just went on and on and on i was getting worn out and then i think she said something like do you even care and i was like yeah i did i you know i looked did you have you kind of liking her you know yeah it wasn't it wasn't you may have not loved her but you know it's all right and that and that solved all the problems she was like oh this is amazing thank you i'm sorry yeah she was super pumped up she's like how much longer how much longer were you with her? No, that was, that one. A couple weeks? No, no, no. That was pretty long-term, pretty disastrous.

We've been over that one, though. That's not terrible. You know, I would just say to the young guys out there, if you're going to sell somebody you love them, find better motivation for it. And much like this guy, fucking sitting out here with a sneaky like this is like inspector gadget type shit like let me let me find the get out of massive argument that's insane busted in park city i don't know if it was park city but just like imagine a two couples going to some ski resort town for a for a five-day thing and this guy's on like a bender but he's packed the engagement ring we're not spending enough time on how psychotic this guy's moves are.

And yeah, you're right. She says yes. She's caught him doing this stuff. Clearly, it wasn't the first time. He didn't even care enough to erase the stuff off of his phone. Hey, let me take a picture. Oh, cool.

Look at all these DMs and messages with all these girls in this area. That's why you sent us to bed and then took him out. And then somehow the emailer here feels like the worst out of the entire group. So that sucks. Yeah, you know you're an especially shitty dude when you blatantly make out with somebody with almost a complete stranger who is dating you who you're dating their bed like the best friend of your girlfriend that's insane that's like that

guy clearly just does not give a fuck and no one has had a conversation with this girl about why that was a terrible idea to say yes anyway i want to do a whole life advice on her separately but maybe another day we just need to say it one more time the guy packed a ring just in case it got too dark yeah couldn't have been a nice one right i had to be like i don't know i'm sure sure there's probably a couple hundred bucks anyway a couple hundred he stole it yeah he stole it it was a family heirloom that would call back to another one. It was her family's. He stole it at a barbecue. Yeah. All right. Here we go. Six foot 170s have always had a problem with authority. All right. Fun. I recently started a new job about five weeks ago in a junior position and I'm still getting to know everyone, albeit everything has gone smoothly so

far. When I arrived at work this morning, there were six cases of bottled water in the kitchen. And one of the higher-ups went around telling everyone that the water was out in our building, so please use the other building's bathrooms as multiple people have already made mistakes in the bathroom. A few hours later, after my mind, I guess they're mentioning the cases of water here because there would be no water to drink

around the old water cooler as the corporate world. It's where you you catch up asking me if you saw the game and what do you think of china uh now around the old water cooler so a few hours later after my mind had been deeply my work i had to use the bathroom went in i noticed that both toilets were clogged i marked it down as odd and funny but it didn't raise any alarm bells i proceeded to the upstairs bathroom one of the two stalls was clogged with uh well you got it that's always tough you still know alarm bells had gone off and i was just happy and grateful to find a clean toilet to do my business i did a quicker than normal execution due to the smell in the other stall and when i went to flush it didn't work still i hadn't connected the dots

that this was related to the earlier declarations from my boss after the faucet didn't work i deduced that the water was out, at which point it hit me. I chuckled at the situation as I walked out, but didn't necessarily feel bad about my actions, as it was an honest mistake and three others had done the same. As I walked out of the restroom, the president of the company was walking by. He asked me if I had just used the bathroom, to which I said yes, frozen in fear at the sight of him. Come on! There were several warnings today about the water being out, he half shouted, not waiting for me to respond before pacing off and shutting the door forcefully.

I basically want to know if you think I should apologize to him and explain how it was an honest accident at more length or just let it pass. This is basically the extent of what I've thought about for the past three hours. So I figured I'd put it in writing and send it off. If it weren't the president, I would be much less conflicted. Also, the nature of the subject, I'm not sure it's the right move to discuss any further. Thanks for the help. When you started the problems with authority, I need more from you. This doesn't read like a problem with authority. Honestly, when I hear about people, I'm like, oh, I kind of have a problem with authority. It's like what you kind

of don't like when you do something wrong and someone tells you, you did something wrong. You know, that's really what you're saying. Cause most of the time I understand there's another level of authority dynamic where you could just, you don't want anyone ever telling you anything. Uh, I would have issues. I know my own with authority, but it had to be authority. I didn't respect. Like once you proved to me, I didn't like, okay, you're not somebody who's backable. You're going to get my fucking way. I didn't really think of it as authority as much as you're a waste of my time and you just make my day harder.

So we're not going to have a real dynamic relationship here. So I think there's different versions of that. But yeah, whenever I hear somebody saying I have a problem with authority, it's just like, no, you just don't like when you screw up and you did something wrong. You screwed up. You did something wrong. It's not really the end of the world. And it sounds like everybody screwed it up.

And who knows? Like the president could have noticed that somebody else screwed it up in the other bathroom. And you're like the one person he saw. So he was even more mad about it. I don't know how to play this one because it's a weird topic. And bringing more attention to yourself might make it worse. Everybody's screwed up. It bringing this up again, because if he is the president of the company, there's going to be other shit that he's way more worried about moving forward. No pun intended.

Yeah. Then feeling like, hey, there you go. Then feeling like, hey, can we get a lunch and talk about this? Or can you set aside some time next Thursday? Can we talk about my shitting incident? Yeah. Well, it wasn't, from the sounds of it, it was a one, right? Yeah, all right. Whatever. Either way. I think that changes it.

It definitely, yeah, you're right. It definitely does. It definitely does. All right. Well. What are you going to do? Yeah, I don't think I'd be in a hurry to revisit this anytime with the owner of the company or the president of the company with this, because I still think there's going to be,

his day is filled with more important stuff, like we said. He'll probably move on from this. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know if he's going to look at you differently now for the rest of your employment. And if he's that way, could you actually fix it with some sort of conversation? So I would lean towards just trying to get past this. I wouldn't set up any sort of formal meeting. HR. Yeah. I wouldn't be like, Hey, do you have 30 minutes in your calendar next week to chat about this incident? But like, you know,

if you like walk by or you're in line or you're just outside of his office or something, you say, Hey, like I just want to swing by. Like I'm not, I'm not a huge asshole. This is what happened.

I totally fucked up. And then honestly, if you're talking for a minute, that's too long. Just do it very quickly. Just so he knows that, you know, your head's in your intentions in the right place.

And you're like kind of a good dude. Cause I'm a little bit afraid that if you don't ever acknowledge it, that he's just going to think you don't care and that you suck. And then that could affect you long term. Like, not that like you wouldn't get a promotion or whatever, but like, you might just be like, oh, there's that guy who doesn't, you know, who doesn't follow orders correctly. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't make it a big thing, but try to, I would try to find 30 seconds to a minute to just quickly explain yourself, get in, get out,

just apologize. He doesn't even... Just say, I don't need a rebuttal from you. I just want to let you know where my head was at and I'm not this kind of person and then move on. But if you make a big deal about it, then you're wasting more of his time. And it's really a no-win for anybody. So I think there's a way you could do it, but it has to be in a very specific circumstance. Yeah. I think there could be some need for closure on your end too. Who knows? Yeah. You know,

you sent us the email. So I wouldn't send an email. I wouldn't, I would do it in face to face. I wouldn't shoot this guy off an email being like, let me just do a couple of paragraphs on explaining the bathroom situation. It has to be in person and it has to be quick. Yeah.

Well, it's good that you didn't do it there and try to shake his hand after the water doesn't work on top of everything else. So it could have been, it could have been way worse. There's, there's ways this goes down where it's even worse than what you presented us. So good luck with all that. That is life advice. Thank you to Saruti for

jumping on today. And we have a couple of special episodes planned for you moving forward. We have the Icelandic six-parter. We've got a recruiting story. And so we have a couple of cool things coming up in the next week or so. Please subscribe. Ryan Rosillo, podcast, bring your Spotify. Outro Music