The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Danny Kanell on CFP Debates and the End of 'Russillo & Kanell,' Plus NBA Tales From the Couch and a QB Stock Update

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

Russillo shares some NBA thoughts on the Hawks, Bulls, 76ers, and the Nikola Jokic–Markieff Morris melee (0:40). Then, Danny Kanell hops on to debate the latest College Football Playoff rankings, why he has Oklahoma so high, what to do with Cincinnati, and whether Alabama could get in with two losses. Plus he and Ryen revisit what it was like when Danny got laid off at ESPN and the end of 'Russillo & Kanell' (17:25). Next Ryen, Ceruti, and Kyle close out Q2 of the QB stock game, and make their moves for Q3 (1:09:25), before Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:19:35). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Danny Kanell Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

okay i'm gonna do a massive tales of the couch kind of early season stuff focusing on atlanta little love for chicago also the yokich morris thing um and thinking that the heat broadcast handled that a certain way also a lot of college football with Danny Connell. And an interesting deep dive at the end of what it's like to go through the layoffs. Which we both had to experience in different ways at the end of the radio show. We didn't think we were going to do this. We just did it. And then life advice.

And a Q2 QB stocking. I am fired up. I don't know what to do with all these notes. I could probably go one straight hour solo talking about the NBA based off of the weekend Monday. Certainly not all the stuff that we saw on Tuesday because we didn't see very much.

But I don't know. I probably shouldn't do that. So I'm going to try to go as quickly as I can. Maybe we'll bring Cerruti in here a little bit. But I have so much stuff down that I want to talk about. And by the way, I watched Magic Johnson's first ever NBA game. That was the walk-off win, skyhook by Kareem against the San Diego Clippers.

They're going up against World B-Free. Brett Musburger was calling Lloyd. I think every five or ten minutes, Musburger was mentioning how hot some guy's wife was. It was actually like, oh, wow, Okay. Now we're going back 40 years. This is retroactively kind of weird. And he would just Musburger be super complimentary and be like, Oh my,

his wife is, is quite the looker. And then the other guy would be like, that's right. And so it just was, it was kind of this, um, a different approach to broadcasting an NBA game,

but then you're watching the end and magic is playing off the ball and takes like a mid range jumper that he clanks on a huge possession. And you're watching the end, and Magic is playing off the ball and takes a mid-range jumper that he clanks on a huge possession. And you're going, yeah, Magic Johnson off the ball as a 6'8", 6'9", point guard. And then Kareem just so – he didn't even have to be smooth with some of his stuff. He was just so much bigger than other guys. I think Sven Nader was trying to beat up on him. He like ripped his jersey

and his jersey was, but then that was the other thing too is you watch these older games and you're expecting somebody to have their head cut off on a drive to the hoop and you're like, oh, no, actually,

the guy just made a layup in the paint and no one killed him. Weird. And that's always one of my biggest things is whenever we're talking about eras, like, yeah, harder fouls were harder and we didn't have the flagrant one and two love affair that we have now but i'm just telling you go back and watch some of those games watch

watch games guys drive to the hoop it happens um but it was just kind of funny to see magic be like okay i'm gonna be off the ball for some of these major key positions and then it was funny too because they were like you know the scouting report says he's not great on defense. Again, I don't know that anybody ever talked about Magic defensively first, but it's just, hey, this guy's number one, the Magic man. Here he is, first game. Again, I think it was in San Diego and Wes and Buss were down there watching it and they put them on TV for a little bit, but there was a huge Lakers. And then they had Kareem's first game with Milwaukee. So that was kind of cool.

All right, so I went two and a half minutes on stuff that I didn't even think I was going to talk about here. Let's talk about a potential Rosillo curse a little bit here because I think the three teams that I'm excited about right now, I got excited about Atlanta. I'm going to do a deep dive on them right now. They were 3-1. They beat Dallas to start the season.

I thought they were crisp. I thought that you could already see guys taking a step up. The depth, the adaptability, all that stuff. Sometimes depth is a problem because guys are pissed about it, especially with younger teams. Some GMs have told me over the years, you kind of need eight or nine, ten guys

that know they're going to play, and the rest of those guys should know they're not going to play unless it's just unforeseen circumstances. You can't have 15 guys all worried about their next contract, and it's a really good point. Or Atlanta has a bunch of guys all kind of trying to figure out

where they fit in, and then Atlanta is 4-8. Before I go back to Atlanta here, who else did I really like at the beginning of the year? Miami. I watched, actually, their Dallas game. Maybe it's just something with Dallas. They've had a couple games here where they got smoked. We'll get to the Denver Yoke,

it's Morris thing here at the very end. And now I kind of love what I've seen from Chicago. Not really sure how it was all going to sort itself out. And the fact that the Rosen is like the best version we've ever seen of him. Uh, we'll do a little on Chicago as well. So let's get back to Atlanta. All right. So they were three and one. They're four and eight. Only Orlando and Detroit have worse records. DeAndre Hunter, who physically looks, I'll see him walking up and down the court next to Capella and I go, you know, Capella's thicker, but God, Hunter is enormous. It looks at times where you're like, okay, this guy's taking the next step. He's 42% from three, but then everything else isn't good. He doesn't get any rebounds anymore. He's got about three a game. He's less than an assist a game.

He takes one free throw a game, and he took four last year. So he is actually, despite some physical development and some movement development, and the issues with him not being healthy because you love the options of him defensively and a switchable wing, and then he was going to shoot it from the outside. The only thing that's great right now is that the three-point numbers

are really good, and he's just not active enough in the other areas of basketball. Herter hasn't been very good. Danilo's been bad. Cam Reddish looks like, I don't know, we saw some signs. I'm not writing off any of these guys, by the way, and I'm not even writing off the Hawks. I'm just trying to get into it. Is there a chance he's already kind of a less of a minute rotation guy?

And that's seeming to come up here now as we're a couple weeks into the season. Here's the other part of this, Trey Young and the free throw deal. The team last season, the Atlanta Hawks, were number two in free throw attempts per season. They are 13th now in the NBA. Trey Young, in that season two years ago where they stunk and he just dominated every single possession,

and I wasn't as big of a Trey Young fan, they were 20 and 47. He had 30 a game. He had nine free throws a game. Well, now he's at 24 a game, and he's averaging four less free throw attempts per game than where he was at two years ago he's also 33 percent from three which is bordering on you start getting like 31 32 it's like hey stop taking these I'm not there yet with Trey because Trey with this handle the way he's

figured things out his lob floater game is probably as good as anybody in the league one of the great things about Harden when he really had it rolling with some of the different his lob floater game is probably as good as anybody in the league. One of the great things about Harden when he really had it rolling with some of the different ways that they ran Houston's offense, they kind of do this one-five stuff, and then they just get rid of the five altogether. But Harden just killed you every single night with his lob, like lob and then with him getting fouled. So with this foul rule, we are seeing players,

and Trey got one last night on Ingles, and it was one of those bullshit going back up into him things, and I think the ref just had a bad angle at it. But it's impacting Trey. We see it with Harden. We're seeing it with some guys where they're kind of like thinking out the process of initiating the foul, and they're kind of like, well, wait, it's not really there.

So you can see the discomfort. I mean, as much as the Harden now has apparently the worst rehab timetable for a hamstring in the history of man, you can see these guys caught in between thoughts, basketball wise. And having said all these things like Trey, if he got the four extra free throws that he was getting the last couple of years, he'd be back at like 30 points a game. But the other problem is one of the other concerns we always had about Atlanta was, will they defend enough? And they defended enough and they played with an energy in the playoffs. The fearlessness of Trey, all the things that I started to like about them, they don't defend anybody anymore. They were lost against Golden State. And I mean lost. I also don't know if I heard it was chasing Steph Curry

around the entire time. They ended up bringing in DeLon Wright to defend him late, but at that point it was over and Steph had 50. They actually defended okay, I think like the first week of the season.

And now here's kind of what's happening is that, you know, there was this quote earlier this week. And just to point it out too, as bad as Atlanta looked against Golden State, it was comical how asleep they were against Utah.

And I pointed it out last night. And they're just going through the motions. They're looking around. All you have to do is cut against these guys. So Trey's getting beat up for a quote where he basically said the regular season's boring compared to the playoffs. Okay, no shit. I went back and looked at more of it. It's

not the worst thing anyone's ever said. I don't think you can really point to him and say, oh, this team already mentally, like, they have the wrong approach to all this kind of stuff. I think they got into Salt Lake at 1.30 in the morning. I think it was, let me double check here, was it the third in four nights?

Let's see, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. So there you go. Not a great setup for them. They played like it. But here's what I would say. Even if Trey is right, even if the comment isn't that damning, which some people are trying to make it out about Trey, here's who isn't bored by the regular season.

Golden State's not bored. Golden State's the best defensive team in the league. They're top five, top six offense. Last time I looked at the numbers, Golden State isn't bored. All right? Golden State's the best defensive team in the league. They're top five, top six offense. Last time I looked at the numbers, Golden State isn't bored. They cut. They care. They defend. They fight.

They box out. They constantly move. I mean, God, some of you teams, if you just kept cutting more, you would solve so many of your offensive problems. Some of you guys just don't care. You've ISO'd in the three-point shit where you've just accepted that you're just not supposed to do anything off the ball. I don't understand that. And it's the first sign of a team kind of checking out. And I'm not saying for the season, but in a game, you're like, oh, that was a terrible six-minute stretch. What happened?

You guys stopped moving. Anybody that's ever had to play defense, what sucks? Guys that don't stop moving. It's the worst. You're like, oh, this guy's going to run around all fucking day. I got Reggie Miller out here at lunch hoops. This sucks. And Atlanta can get really, I don't know what their isolation numbers are. They'd probably be a little skewed because there is so much Trey, but for the Trey Lobb floater thing we've already talked about, it's not like I want him to lose that part of his game. The Philly backups last night against Milwaukee, fighting them to the very end. They didn't have Embiid. They didn't have Tobias Harris. And I'm going to make a small admission

here. I forget Tobias Harris is on the Sixers three times a year. Now, if I was at trivia night and somebody said, hey, is Tobias Harris placed for which team? I would get it right, but I don't know what it is. Three times a year, I go, that's right. Tobias Harris is on the Sixers. Well, he wasn't last night. He's been missing a few games. So Embiid, Theibel, Seth Curry, and who's the's right, Tobias Harris is on the Sixers. Well, he wasn't last night. He's been missing a few games. So Embiid, Theibel, Seth

Curry, and who's the other guy? Tobias Harris out. And they're right in it. The last couple minutes they ran out of offense. It just wasn't enough there. But they weren't bored. Philly wasn't bored by the regular season. You know who else isn't bored? I'm moving off of Atlanta now. The Chicago Bulls. They're ninth on offense. They're seventh

defense. I love what Billy Donovan, and it's funny too, now that Billy Donovan has a team of players, like, hey, is this guy actually a good coach? Yes, he is. He's always been. It's just sometimes the personnel doesn't work out. I love what they're doing with DeMar DeRozan, who, by the way, 28% for three for his career, 39% this year. Even if that settles, it would probably counter where Levine is 42% last year. He's 32% this year, 31- 32. So, you know, even if those numbers regress or kind of go back to where they're supposed to be, get better regress, however you want to phrase it, depending on which player, that's going to help itself out.

But I like that Donovan has separated DeRozan and Levine because when you put them all together, some of these guys just don't get really creative with it. Hey, here's our starters and here's our bench guys. You know, Doc does a lot of that where it's when everybody's healthy, it's like, okay, here's all of our bench guys. Westbrook and Durant going back to the OKC days, they never really wanted to be split up. Golden State's doing different things with Steph now in his rotation where he was always

12 in, sit six, play six, play 12, sit six, come back six minute mark in the fourth quarter. Steph, they've totally brought him, they had him finish the third, he started the fourth as they tore it up against Atlanta back on Monday night. And what they're doing with Chicago is, even though there's not a ton of depth, it sucks they don't have Patrick Williams.

They had to go to Michael Green against Durant, who Green's actually looked better with the Bulls than he did with Boston. But still, it's not ideal. That's Patrick Williams stuff. Not saying anybody's going to shut down Durant. But I just like that they're being creative with it. And I also, as much as I worry about Vooch, I think the better part for Levine is that you don't feel like, even though he's still 20 shots per game, it's very clear.

There were Levine moments last season. It's been throughout his entire career. It did get better, where it's like, hey, I got to do this all on my own. And now that DeRozan has played this well, look at the efficiency numbers for Levine and DeRozan at this point. They're incredible. So I really like what I'm seeing with the Bulls there. All right, two other news items. The Jokic-Markeith-Morris deal. If Markeith and honestly, his brother as well, if they didn't have a history of just fucking with people all the time, I might be more open to criticism of Jokic.

Look, they're both guilty to a degree, but Markeith knew what he was doing. He knocked the shit out of Jokic, and then Jokic let him have it back. I watched the Heat broadcast, and at the time when Markeith goes down, because there's a stretcher out there, you're like, all right, what do I do here? And then he gets up, and you're like, all right, what happened? Now, I don't know.

I don't really know how hurt he was. I don't know what the deal is. If you go on the Heat broadcast, it sounded at one point like the JFK assassination. I retweeted the Heat feed that edited the video to where the point was that

they just sort of showed Markeith bump. They edited out Markeith hitting Jokic. And I just thought like, hey, this is the perfect example of NBA homerism. So I retweeted that one a little bit later. And then we had all the badass experts jumping in on everything. I don't know who I would take in the Butler Jokic thing. I know we can talk Eastern Bloc versus living in a car at times. I think they're high seeds. With those backgrounds, I think both of those guys are very high seeds. And pointing out that nobody was actually going to do anything and all that kind of stuff, we all get it because most of these guys don't want to do anything anyway. Because even with

Jokic, that's a game check. That's a ton of money. And I'm sure if he could do it over again, he wouldn't do that. But for Marquis, marcus to be calling out guys on social media saying oh when back was turned you guys fuck with everybody all the time and it's okay but you can't you can't be that inconsistent if you're going to also be that guy you can't have it happen to you when you do that same shit to other people all right last note last note it gets back to the Sixers. The depth that they have is really impressive. You just hope this is not the sign of Embiid going in a worse direction here. They're a four seed at 8-4, and that's with two losses. They were 8-2. The Ben Simmons update on all this, I could go for 30 minutes on this Ben Simmons thing.

I don't know how I want to handle it. I actually know how I want to handle it, but I'm afraid some people may think that I'm not getting it. So I guess I'm holding off on that one right now because I would say this, and I've said this consistently throughout. It's great we have more awareness for mental health issues because those times where you feel like you're alone and nobody understands it, we're learning more and more that you're not alone. The timeline for Simmons is convenient. And just because you're going through something, and this is not insensitive, it doesn't mean that you're always right. It doesn't mean that everybody has to cater to every single whim that you have as you're also basically shutting down on the franchise that's wondering what you want to do. These guys are all

much more special than us. They are valued that way because they're the greatest in the world at what they do. And when we're talking about the top group here, there's like 20 or 30 guys that are capable of doing what these guys do. So they are different than most of us, almost all of us walking around. But no matter who you are at some point, you're going to have to tell work what the plan is. at some point, you're going to have to tell work what the plan is. And now that I've said that, I think what Maury has done throughout all this, the GM for the Sixers, I just think he's been incredible that he hasn't given into the pressures that other people would probably give into in this same

situation where they go, ah, we're just going to move this guy, whatever. They haven't been healthy minus Simmons. And like I said, they're 8-4. Morey will not give in to the noise. I admire him so much for that. But the rumor this week about Jalen Brown and the Celtics is so stupid. I'd ask you this, and this is sourced. I know the Celtics would have interest,

but why would the Celtics have interest in solving Philadelphia's biggest issue right now? And if we look at the trade market, you go, I give you pieces for your problem. I don't give you equal assets back. It's just not the way the math works. We've seen it over and over and over again. So I'm not saying that that couldn't change. That's the other beauty of what Daryl's done. It's like, all right, I don't like what's out there right now. And yeah, my price is high and I don't give a shit. So guess what? Maybe your situation will be worse. And the way Boston's been playing to start this season, despite a better week, would it get so untenable for Boston, who now decides they got to figure some things out? But the second part of that, thinking it out loud, we go, okay, say Boston actually did want to split up their guys because they go Tatum and Brown.

It just doesn't work. All right. Then I'm even allowing that thought to enter my head. Now, finally, why would Boston go, all right, let's shake things up, but let's also help Philly as much as we possibly can. That's where it doesn't really make a lot of sense. All right, let's where it doesn't really make a lot of sense. All right, let's do it. Every month we got Danny Cannell, also host of the SiriusXM morning show, 7 to 10.

Channel 84 was Dusty Dvorak. All right, let's get into this. I don't know how long we're going to go here. At least Wake is behind Bama now, which was so you. That couldn't have been more on brand. All right. I was looking over the DK top eight.

Who would your four playoff teams be? And go. So here's the thing I think that's a problem, right? Is that everyone has different philosophies, right? Because there's the power ranking mindset of who do you think, like, hey, if they squared off, there's a ranking that kind of is more like standing, which is kind of what I rely on is, all right, the undefeated, like, let's rank all the undefeated in a group. And then let's put all the one loss teams in a group, because eventually it's going to take care of it. I knew you were going to hate my Wake Forest way up there. way up there. I don't know if you... See, I actually feel like I've evolved somewhat

because I used to do like the top five were going to be only the best team from the power five. So I'd have the five in some order and it was going to be which was one team from the SEC, one team from the ACC,

one team from the Big 12, Pac-12, and Big 10. And just go that order and then go the next tier. I've actually evolved past that, which I hope you would be proud of me, but I do feel like the undefeated should matter. And if this, like, I think this year kind of shows you how hard it is to do that. So like, if like, I need to know from you, are you saying, and this was, I remember the

very first reveal show, the Tuesday night show, because it was on the first one. And the big question was, because it was like, who's your four? Who's your four? And everybody wanted to know, are you asking us to predict who are going to be the four? Or are you asking us if the season ended today? That confusion, I think, messes a lot of people up because I guarantee you there are some analysts who don't want to be wrong. And so they're going to have Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama, and let's say Oklahoma. Let's just say, and just put them there because they think those are going to be the four at the end of the season. And I'm like, I don't care if I'm wrong. I'm going to have my top eight and I'm going to put in undefeated teams. And if you say like my get out of jail free card is if

you said to me, do you really believe Wake is going to get to the playoff? I would say, heck no, they have no chance to get the playoff. But from what we've seen now, like they should be given credit for running the table up to last week. And that's kind of like, I was like, no, they're going to lose. I picked them to lose to North Carolina, but I just felt like at that point they deserve to be up there. And that teams that lose should be penal felt like at that point, they deserve to be up there and that teams that lose should be penalized somewhat to that point. So what do you want to know? My four now, like my four, what do you want to know? No, no, because I think this is a good way of doing it

because philosophically, I don't know that you can ever talk this out without eventually at some point contradicting yourself. And that's the whole point. And I keep trying to say that of the committee, they're vague on purpose. And I think that it's actually smart that they're vague on purpose because they said, no, no, it's this, this and this. Then we would all jump back. I mean, we had guys last night saying, just let computers do it again. But you seriously want to do that? Remember, there was no margin of victory in some of the BCS formula stuff because they wanted to make sure everybody's feelings weren't hurt. You know, nobody's going to run up the score.

All this protective shit that we've done with college athletics over the years is completely outdated so i think that you know the cost of a loss is always kind of tough um i am with you and i i think it was you it might have been joel clatt as well like once the vegas guys get involved none of us are going to be dumb enough to pretend we have any idea what those guys are doing they are the experts they're the best but when it comes to college football playoff rankings, I don't give a shit about who's favored versus who. It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant to this.

I remember doing College Game Day years ago where they would give us the Vegas rankings, and I'd go, look, they have USC and Oklahoma 5 and 6, and they lose every other week, all right, because that's how they would see the line. I mean, what would the Michigan-Michigan state line be today? Michigan would be favored. So what are you supposed to do? And that's obviously the one that's inf they would see the line. I mean, what would the Michigan-Michigan State line be today? Michigan would be favored. So what are you supposed to do?

And that's obviously the one that's infuriated everybody, that Michigan's sixth and that Michigan State is seventh. This is what's funny about you and I about to talk about this. We all have Georgia won. I think Bama has major problems with that offensive line, but I think the same can be said about Ohio state. I keep waiting to see Oregon kind of roll for a couple of weeks here. And I don't know that it's happened the way I'd want it to.

I'd have Cincinnati in, I have Bama too. I don't feel great about it. I know you're saying it's just me and the sec thing, but you know what? I think that A&M team that they lost to is actually a very talented team, and we're seeing them turn their season around.

Oregon ahead of Ohio State, because they head-to-head, that's fine. But then I think I'd have Cincinnati in. The funny thing about all of this is that I've been saying I don't really have a, I can't find anybody with a number two that I would have a huge problem with, except for you.

You have Oklahoma second. They have zero wins against current top 25 teams. They're 91st in defense and they were losing to fucking Kansas. So I don't know how you pulled it off. I had this whole open mind about anybody's number two. I'll hear your argument and maybe I'll defer to you, except you found a number two team where I go, well, what are you doing? I just blame Dusty. My co-host is in my ear every day. No, he's not a homer either. He's harder on them than everybody.

I think you bring up the best point of all. All I can do that's the out, I think Oklahoma would beat them. I think, you know, like everybody nuts. I will give you some points though why I do think Oklahoma could or should be too. First of all, they haven't lost. So that to me, and you know where I stand with the undefeated. So I had really three teams that I was going to rank 1,

2, and 3, and they're the three power 5-ish because I do think Cincinnati deserves more credit than UTSA with a win over Illinois, with the wins over on the road against Indiana and Notre Dame, maybe one of the most impressive wins of the year for Cincinnati. So like for anybody that says,

well, why isn't UTSA in your top four? Because they're undefeated. I do think it's different to Conference USA and an American slate. But if I just am comparing those three teams, because that's, again, you have to get my mindset of where I'm thinking with these, then I would say, you know what? From what we've seen recently from Oklahoma and what we've seen recently from Cincinnati, I think Oklahoma is figuring things out, and clearly they are on the offensive side of the ball making the move to Caleb Williams.

The offense starts to look like it's opened up completely more. And then on the defensive side of the ball, they've gotten back four starters. They're going to get back another one this week coming off a bye on the defensive side of the ball against Baylor. I think Oklahoma like kind of rounding into form. So like, I know you're upset. How could you have them that much different? But if it's just one, two and three, and that's my mindset, it's these three teams compared to each other,

kind of like that pod that the committee does when they're in there. Like, I don't think it's that crazy to say, Oh, Oklahoma had a Cincinnati. Like if you watch Cincinnati play the last few weeks, they haven't exactly been impressive, including like almost blowing it in the biggest day of their programs, history with game day in town and fumbling, you know, backed up late.

And there's a controversial call, which could have been the winning game, winning touchdown or game, losing touchdown for Cincinnati. Like, controversial call, which could have been the game-winning touchdown or game-losing touchdown for Cincinnati. I don't think it's that crazy to say Oklahoma's two of those three. I do. We'll just keep moving here. Can I just tell you something? And this is the whole thing. I know you're rational, you're thoughtful, and you like to research things. Are you buying into the

philosophy at all? Maybe this is me being away from ESPN for a longer period of time. The committee, I think, is toying with people. I think they needed some drama. I think they needed to do something. And I feel like I've always felt this way. There wasn't too much excitement because Bama beat LSU, probably going to keep them there. You bounce up Oregon one spot. Cause they won. You bounce up Ohio state one spot, like you bounce everybody up and then there's not a whole lot left to do.

Oklahoma had a bi-week. So you weren't going to do much there. And there really wasn't a whole lot of drama. So you sat in that room and you're like, Hmm, what can we do? Like we have to do something with our time. Let's break down Michigan and Michigan state.

And then they flip-flopped them, which they're right next to each other. It makes zero sense that they would have, like, just said, oh, we think Michigan's a better team now because we just saw them win and we just saw Michigan State lose. Like, but we forgot what happened two weeks ago. Are you into that at all?

Like, they had to do something, so they kind of created this drama? My quickest answer is no i i know everybody believes that they do this stuff they just do it like hey let's message everybody this week um because i think that's how we react from the outside when we don't have access to what the conversation is that we always think that something nefarious is going on it's just for whatever reason that's our nature to always think that everybody's screwing with us because there are so many times in life where we are getting screwed with all the time.

In this case, if you were doing this and you're ranking 25 teams, you're doing it for whatever, almost half the season towards the end, there's always going to be something that comes up where the rest of everybody, like your line about Penn State not being ranked, like your line was great.

You basically thought that maybe they just forgot, which I know when I used to have to do it for.com, it was the worst feeling ever because then the editor would be like, hey, do you not like Mississippi State or something? And you're like, oh my God. I'm like, okay, hold on. Let me do it all over again.

Do you buy into that philosophy? Because I actually- That they forgot? Yes, because totally same exact scenario unfolded. I could actually, I should go like. I should screen grab some of these emails that are from 2014, 2015, because we used to have to submit them Sunday, and they'd have to be in by like 8 a.m. or 9 a.m., so you're kind of tired because you stayed up until 2 watching the games,

and you're going through them, and then you get to like 13 and 14 to start getting a little bit faster, so you fill them out. And it happened multiple times to me. I don't want to say it was like every time, but absolutely. It happened two or three times when the guy would, you know, the guy would say,

Hey, you had, you know what? Mississippi state at 12 last week and they won this week, but now you don't have them ranked. Did you forget? And I'm like, yeah,

like, let me give, let me correct these. And to me with Pence, with Auburn and Wisconsin coming in at 17 and 18, with six and three identical records to Penn State, and then to just leave Penn State out altogether, to me, that is the only valid explanation you could come up with is that they just forgot. And I actually, I would buy it. I'd be like, okay, it's happened to us. Thankfully, it didn't happen on the one that mattered at the end because then you go into bull seeding and things like that.

But I don't think that made much sense whatsoever by any criteria that you would pose. I get the Illinois loss was ugly, but the losses weren't horrific losing to Iowa. And who was the other loss? I mean, but... Illinois. Look, the Iowa loss, if you're in the committee, which I've said this entire time, like, look, I've even said it about Texas, who now what is four and five. I don't think there are 25 teams

that are better than Penn State. Right. But they may end up with five losses this season. Now, the Illinois loss is tough to explain, but it was one of the most absurd games we've ever seen. Iowa, when Clifford goes out, so you can point to that and go, hey, if Clifford doesn't get hurt in that game,

they probably win it. And then I left the Ohio State game feeling better about it. Penn State, to me, has been very consistent with Clifford the entire time. They're physical. They can punch with anybody. They're probably not dynamic enough to hang with the playmakers that Ohio State has. But, you know,

are they going to lose both Michigan games here? They got Michigan and then Michigan State to close the season around Rutgers. I wouldn't be shocked if they hang with them. I wouldn't be shocked

if they lose both of those games. I have a lot of respect for Penn State, and I just, even with the three losses, I would probably find a way to still get in my top 25 because you can argue away the

Clifford one, which Iowa fans like to say is 1710 when the backup came in, but Clifford got hit in the ribs when it was actually 17, three. So pick whatever side you want. My favorite part is that so everyone tries to figure out the committees like lingo or their philosophy this season, and it changes every week. Like it's impossible to figure out how 13 people are going to do it. So then what fans do is they try to like, everyone has excuses for their losses, right? Like you're talking about Penn State losing Clifford.

Everybody, Oklahoma, they have an excuse. Spencer Rattler wasn't as good. We benched them. Like every team out there has some sort of excuse that you lose. Oregon, oh, our Joe Moorhead was out for Stanford now that's our excuse like every team but that's what the committee did

when we go to this oh we have to like validate why we put teams certain places and why we dropped others everyone's trying to validate their team's record and it just it's just nonsensical like I know you I can feel you like rolling your eyes.

Like here goes Cannell again, talking about expansion. But I do feel like the pulse of everyone, including Bill Hancock for the first time said there's consensus that change needs. And as opposed to saying, well, we need,

you know, we have a 12 year contract. We're going to play out the contract instead of that line. I think the fact that they are meeting, that they do have this deadline, I think it should give college football fans hope that we are actually going to get changed. Wait, Bill Hancock initiated after having a position for years that he

may be able to pivot off of that position? That sounds weird. Kind of like you did with the BCS, right? Yeah. What did they say? We're never going to play a playoff. I'm fine with expansion. I know what's going to happen, but what I think is hilarious is that college football was like, hey, here's our expansion plan. And then they didn't have that part of it buttoned up, which is still the most comical thing that it was like such a, okay, let's just do four. Let's not be radical about this. And that not one person goes, hey, you realize we've already eliminated at least one of us from this group and potentially two. goes, hey, you realize we've already eliminated at least one of us from this group and potentially two? Like, you know, right now we just came up with a business model where we guarantee one of the five power brokers would be left out of that money. And we're all okay with this? And it was

like, yep, because we can't do eight. That's too aggressive. I just think that with eight, you'll have years of conference champions that don't deserve to be playing for a national championship. And that's always been my point. Whether it was Wake up to this point, whatever Cincinnati is these last three weeks, I would still have them in my four. I don't feel great about it, but I don't feel great about anybody two all the way down into eight. I don't. I can understand arguments for or against. I brought up the Oklahoma point with you.

But I do think what their initial mission statement was with the committee was we want to pick the four best teams. Whatever vague processing of that that was i actually think they were being very specific i think that they aren't putting as much on all the stuff that we obsess over and they just kind of go hey you know what i think bama might be better than this team right now like who if you played if bama plays oregon tomorrow who are you picking probably alabama but like i picked alabama to win by 19.5 against Texas A&M. I picked Alabama to win by 28 against LSU and they almost lost. Maybe

LSU kicked the field goal. That to me is the, who do you pick? It kind of goes back to using the Vegas lines almost because I don't want it to... I don't think there's a such thing as the four best teams in college football. I don't think that exists. Especially this season with teams that, like you're saying,

two through eight, you could pick any one of them. I'd even go a little bit further. I'd throw Notre Dame. I'd even throw Texas A&M in there with two losses, getting better with that defense who still does, by the way, have an opportunity to possibly get to the SEC championship game. That's what drives me nuts because I think

the whole system was messed up to begin with by saying, we want the four best teams because the four best teams, especially out of 130, but let's whittle it down to say 25 because that's reality of who are probably the pool is going to come from. Those four best teams could vary wildly depending on the Saturday. And I knew you and SVP used to do like, how good is your good? That to me is one of those... That's one of those ones,

where is it? And if you put every team's best foot forward, then yeah, probably Bama would beat Oregon. But what if you get the Alabama that we saw against LSU and you get the Oregon

that you saw against Ohio State? Then maybe I'd pick Oregon and maybe that could actually unfold. So I want to get it out of trying to pick who's the best four teams and just let them actually win their way in. It makes zero sense for me. It's the most messed up process to determine a champion on the globe.

There's not a worse way to determine a champion. But it's supposed to be good for us. It's supposed to be good for us. We talk about it. It's good for radio shows. We get calls. We get buzz. But I think it's actually the last few years have actually been to its detriment

that people are actually getting turned off by it. And you could argue it's really killed the PAC 12 because they have been completely irrelevant. And once again, like if Oregon loses, which I think they might to Utah, then they're going to be the last few weeks of the season being irrelevant again. So they're just a complete afterthought. Yeah, that's a major problem for the Pac-12. But, you know, it would be solved by winning more games, you know, winning more of those. And then UCLA thinks they get this kind of like, hey, look at us. We won one of these non-conference matchups.

And then you find out like, hey, LSU's mailed it in. And then you see LSU against Bama where you go, oh, wait, there's still all these NFL guys, even though they're missing six of them on defense today, which is what's absurd about that team. Where do you stand on Georgia? Are you like Georgia's? No, I'm going to tell you, the offensive part of them, it might not matter, but it's not crisp all the time. I mean, they were in a dogfight with Florida in the first 28 minutes

of the first half of that game. And I still wonder if Stetson Bennett's going to get benched at some point. But I think they like the dual threat part of him. But the defense is so loaded. And I know that you've brought up, well, hey, look at the offenses they've gone up against. There becomes a time where the numbers are so dominant after nine weeks that it's like, all right, fine. You want to point out the opposing schedule.

They are kicking the crap out of these teams, but they're not, I'm not afraid of their offense by any means. There's a bunch of offenses I would take over those guys. So I think that that part of them not being this complete team is valid. And even with Bama's offensive line, the Ohio state offensive line, like if somebody, if you said, Hey, I got Oregon too, I got Ohio state three. And then I got Bama. I'd be like, okay, the Oklahoma thing we've already established, you just disagree about that part of it. And then I think there's another part, too, where I feel like, hey, what's the cost of a loss? At one loss against a team like A&M, I'm okay with it.

They lose to Auburn, I don't want to hear about it anymore. It was kind of like Ohio State a couple years ago where it was like, hey, look how good they are to close. It's like, hey, look, they got two losses. There's other teams that don't. There's undefeated and one-loss teams. Like at two losses, that's when I'm kind of like, I don't want to hear about your NFL talent anymore. Well, see, this is with Georgia and their fans,

and it's very similar to the way it was with Alabama like when they were with Jake Coker, you know, or even before that, like a McElroy. Like it was a game manager at quarterback but the defense was so dominant that you didn't need the quarterback play to be stellar I do wonder if somebody

and you know there aren't going to be anybody in the regular I think this weekend it could be interesting against Tennessee like can Tennessee get some sort of Tennessee's actually not like I'm with you. You were tweeting about them this week. I was shocked that you were complimenting them.

But when Hooker came in for Milton in the beginning of the year, I went, oh my God, this is terrible. That was the pit loss, I believe. And now when you watch him, you go, Tennessee's at least competitive. So go ahead, take it away on them because I thought your point on them was awesome.

But also with the up-tempo, the fact that Hennon Hooker is dual threat, I wonder if they could somehow put up some points on this Georgia defense. I think the opportunity is there, but realistically, they'll probably get a little bit smacked down, kind of back to where they were. It shouldn't take away from Tennessee, but I'm curious to see what Georgia...

And the shame is that we really haven't got to see it. I don't know if we'll get to see it against Tennessee. We won't get to see them tested until the SEC championship game. Because I do think regardless of Alabama's offensive line talent, there's just so much talent on the team that they'll be able to at least keep that game competitive. And there have been a couple times that like in the first half of games, I would say the two best opponents they played are Auburn and Florida.

Like talent-wise. I know Florida's not that good, but talent-wise across the board. And you might like, there were two and a half minutes left and it's three, three nothing. And I had taken Florida getting a 14 and a half. So I'm sitting there like rooting for the Gators with all my might.

And then this is, and you can either say this is great defense or this is awful quarterback play because Anthony Richardson, he was like trying to make too much happen, fumbles it, they score, and then you get a pick six, and then you look up and all of a sudden it's 17-3. And then you're toast, especially with an Anthony Richardson or an Embry-Jones who comes in.

You can't be, oh, we have to pass every down or we have to pass to come back. You're screwed against that defense. But I do wonder if there's a team that could actually go into... And same thing with Bo Nix. I don't know if you remember. They were down, I forget, right before halftime. They were driving and there was a no call and a pass interference.

Where if Auburn had scored, it totally changes the complexion of that game. Instead, they don't. They go to halftime and then they get behind where they have to start throwing. And again, Bo Nix having to throw against that defense, good luck. Then it gets sideways. I do wonder if Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Oregon, one of these caliber teams they would have to beat in the SEC championship game or the playoffs could actually say, all right, we're not going to have a quarterback that's going to screw it up. We're going to actually, it's going to take care of the football. Maybe we hit a couple plays, and it doesn't have to be a lot, but you hit

one or two big plays, and then the script is flipped where all of a sudden you're going to have Stetson Bennett going to have to throw the ball more than he's only... That was the stat I put out yesterday, was that the most passes he's completed is 14. He is the definition of game manager.

And he hasn't had to do much more of that, but what if you need him to go out there and go 25 of 35 and throw for three touchdowns? If somebody can take away your run game and put the game on Stetson Bennett's shoulders, I think that's a question that nobody knows the answer to. If I was a Georgia fan, I would at least be a little bit mildly concerned about that. Yeah, but if you're a Georgia fan, you go, hey, October 9th, Bo Nix, you know, 21-38 with a pick

against this. Couldn't get the running game going. And Bo Nix, to his credit, you know, you go back to that Georgia State game where he was a mess. And you're like, all right, where's this going?

Like, we all know the bad version of Bo Nix, right? He has been steadier. He got, look, didn't happen against A&M because A&M's put this thing together, the talent that we thought was there before the season started. But he was good against Ole Miss.

He was good against LSU. He was good against Arkansas. But again, against Georgia, even an improved Bo Nix, which I think those of us that have watched him now for this long and know how incredibly frustrating he is as a quarterback, he's figured some things out, but he didn't figure it out against Georgia, so I don't even know.

And then if you've got Tank, who I love, the running back, and he's put up really big numbers, that part of it, you've got to get him outside. You've got to be throwing him screen. You just can't be handing it off against that front seven against Georgia. But I do agree with you on the Stetson-Bennett part of it,

but it's a very good analogy with some of those great Bama teams that had quarterbacks that were never going to play on Sunday. Whereas now they have the biggest recruits coming in. Yeah. I might be stating the completely obvious statement here. Like if there was ever any doubt, cause I know there was some even Georgia fans and you heard some analysts

say, well, when JT Daniels is a hundred percent, then the team is his, like he's going to get the other opportunity. I think this is Stetson Bennett's team. There's zero question about it. Like JT Daniels, I do Then the team is his. He's going to get the other opportunity. I think this is Stetson Bennett's team. There's zero question about it. JT Daniels, I do think, got Wally pipped.

He took forever to get back. He's had all these little issues. And I think the team has rallied around Stetson Bennett. He's not the most talented, but I actually kind of like the way he runs around. He puts his body on the line. The throw he made on the fourth down early in that Mizzou game when it wasn't in hand was absolutely beautiful.

Like, that was a perfectly thrown ball. But, like, I think this is one where the only way JT Daniels sees the field is a break the glass sort of situation when you saw Nick Saban go from Jalen Hurts to Tua at halftime of that, you know, the incredible game. Like, I think that's the only way you see JT Daniels again. Anything else left for me to do? What's going on with the ACC? What was that? Is this like a setup

question? Is that what this is? No, no, I don't mean it. Well, we've always wondered. Answer for yourself. Well, we've always wondered what happens if Clemson isn't good for a year, and now you're kind of seeing it. And then, I think there's a lot of similarities in the Pac-12 and the ACC who are just kind of flailing

here now without that kind of standard bearer. And you're seeing the result of it. There's a lot of parity. You see a lot of teams right around 500. And it's just, it is what it is. They're not very good. That's all that's going on. I will say this. I don't think Wake wins out, but I'll ask you this. And this is criticism I took of the SEC. If wake forest with their schedule, with the way everything is unfolded, if they have, they have orange and purple on and a tiger call on the,

but don't you think they're way closer and in the conversation all season long, including with a road loss, you know, by three, like, don't you think they're still in like everyone's saying, well,

they could still get in if they just went out. And yet now like Wake Forest has essentially been eliminated on the national stage. But like, if they went out, I don't think they have a chance. But if it was Clemson, I think they would because Clemson would have started higher. And there's perception of all the talent

that's on this roster. And now it's Dabo and they've won before. Like, that's the part that like the brands do help and it helps the SEC. But I also think it helps Ohio State, it helps Clemson, it helps these other teams that have always been there.

Benefit of the doubt, it's human nature. We can't get rid of it. I would say this to Wake fans that have pointed that out to me nonstop ever since I got mad at you for having Wake undefeated ahead of Alabama. If Wake was in five straight playoffs

with a couple of national championships, yeah, I have no problem with that. That's the point. That's the point. Oh, if we had Clemson's uniforms on, you guys, yeah, that's right. Fine, Wake have no problem with that. That's the point. That's the point. Oh, if we had Clemson's uniforms on, you got, yeah, that's right. Fine, wait. All you have to do is the hard shit.

You're going to make the playoffs basically every single season, win a couple of national championships, beat teams like Bama. Yeah, no problem. I'll do that, but we can't. And you can say this year is this year, but that's the point.

That's the whole point. It's why we give, I did this whole benefit of the doubt. We did it with Clemson. We gave Clemson the benefit of the doubt just because of what we saw out of Ula Unglele in the Notre Dame game last year. Them not having any offense this

year is still one of the most confusing. I can't believe it, and it sucks for them because if they were just decent offensively with that defense, they'd probably still be the favorites in this conference. Look, I just don't have a ton of sympathy for Wake when it's a three-point game with Louisville. It's a three-point game with Syracuse. Um, you gave up 56 points to army, you know, and even though it's a non-conference game technically against UNC because the way it

was scheduled, uh, they weren't favored in that one. And like, this is back to my Iowa point. And you and I arguing every week during that Iowa season was, I know what your record is, but if you're going to be one of the four to play for a national championship, I got to see something that you did at least once to be special. I got to see one thing. So if Clemson had given up those kinds of scores to those kinds of teams, but also I know who you are and who you've been, they're two completely different things. I think it's a terrible point because it's all based on some of the stuff that you have done historically,

even if that seems unfair about who the team is right now. I mean, it's just not, I've seen it nonstop. I don't think it's that insightful. Then that's why we get the same four teams every year, or the same version of four to five teams, which you're okay with because you want the four best teams.

I would rather see a team have an opportunity to maybe pull off the upset as opposed to never getting the chance like a Cincinnati who may or may not get the chance. Do you think Cincinnati gets in? Cause I keep hearing Herb street, like they're in like just they're in, they went, they're going to be in.

Are you, are you as confident that Cincinnati, I'm not, I'm not confident that went out. I mean, it's been three weeks in a row. They've been flirting with disaster. Are you, if they went out, are you there in, are you as confident that Cincinnati I'm not confident they went out it's been three weeks in a row they've been flirting with disaster are you if they went out

are you they're in and are you okay with that yeah I really want them in because I maybe it's a secondary maybe it's Ritter and the things that I like about them but yeah it's been three weeks now where you go Navy's 2-7

Tulane is 1-8 Tulsa who I said on Monday's two and seven to lane is one and eight Tulsa, who I'd said on Monday's pod, like I kind of walked away from the Tulsa Ohio state game, kind of impressed physically how Tulsa held up. And then, you know, the final score that looks like it wasn't close. I don't know for a while there, I thought they were pushing Ohio state around and that's kind of back to my BAM Ohio state offensive line issues here, but they got USF who that's your squad. line issues here, but they got USF who that's your squad. Um, I don't know. You're more of a UCF guy, but they're, they're two and seven.

Um, I'd like to see Cincinnati get in. I kind of get your point, um, on, on trying something new, but you know, I, I don't necessarily know if I want Cincinnati in there so bad. If Oregon is 12 and one, if Ohio State is 12-1. But then we'll find out what happens here with Bama. If Bama has a second loss there, I don't want to hear about the Vegas line of Bama against Cincinnati. If Bama loses to Georgia, and look, hell, Bama could lose to Auburn. The history of that game is so screwed up,

even if I don't really like the matchup that much for Auburn. It's a little old missy for me um that's when i go hey i don't want to hear about the spread of bam i don't want to hear about talent i want to hear about these different things since tonight's 13 and 0 and in this game even with some of the weird stuff and not having a great schedule the rest of the way the middle of the pack teams in those conferences it's just it's not comparable and it's not elitism it's just not the same thing but if it if it was a second loss for Bama after just losing the SEC title game again, you know, it depends on what happens here with Oklahoma. That might be what it comes down to. It's also Ohio State staying clean the rest of the way. I'm with you on the Oregon Utah game. I think Utah is a completely different team and I'm not overly impressed, but maybe I'm looking at Oregon and hoping they're going to be at this different this different level that I want to see since Ohio State the whole time. I don't know why Herbst Street would be so definitive about that. It's the longest version ever of answering that question. It just shocks me that he's that definitive as you play out all the options.

He is living in Cincinnati now, so maybe that has something to do with it. I don't know. He's not in Nashville anymore? No, I think one of his sons, I think it's his youngest son, is playing quarterback at a high school in Cincinnati. So he moved back there. And I'm just joking about that. I think he probably believes because I know him and Dusty are tight. So he listens to our show in the morning. He's been texting him saying it'll all play out. And if Cincinnati wins out, they'll get their opportunity. And I think it's more about the lack of faith in Oregon winning out, the lack of

confidence in some of these other teams winning out. Alabama maybe a two loss. I do think there's a chance, though, that the one scenario that would be the nightmare scenario for one Danny Connell is that, let's say Alabama gets it right and they do win against Auburn. And let's say they win by 14. They don't even have to blow them out,

but they win pretty comfortably. And then they go toe-to-toe with Georgia and they lose on ato-toe with Georgia, and they lose on a last-second field goal. Yeah, I love how often we've done this over the years. Like, it's a last-second field goal, but they were the better side. Well, let's just say, oh, the other day they lose by three, and Georgia runs out the clock.

Like, that's not as exciting, but it's a close game, and there's a four-minute drill at the end of the game. Well, let's say that happens, but it's competitive. Like could, I could just hear Gary Bart up there. Well, you know, we saw Georgia, they blew out every,

the game control against every other opponent all year long was pretty convincing. And they played some really good opponents and no one gave them a test. Alabama did. So we, you know, Bama is one of the best four teams because they showed us they can go toe to toe with our number one team. And they clearly like Alabama already by putting them at two and last week they

showed you that I just don't think it's that crazy to say that they would go ahead and say yep here you go especially with all these other teams with all these blemishes it's Bama benefit of the doubt dynasty like you got Bryce Young, Will Anderson. You could start coming up with these theories of why they could justify putting them in over one loss team, one loss Notre Dame. They don't want to see. That would be the dynamic that would be fascinating. A one loss Notre Dame team that's not a conference champ

against Bama, who was one loss and then lost barely to Georgia. Who would you rather have? I don't know. That's rather have? I don't know. That's one loss. I don't know. Well, the other thing, too, is you would have to basically put Bama four so you get a rematch of the SEC title game in the first round of the playoff.

And there have been plenty of times. Right. And there's plenty of times where I've heard, like, oh, they're going to do this with the seeding to avoid this. And I would keep track of when guys said it, and then it wouldn't happen. And it was mapped out perfectly. Like, oh, they're going to put this team here because they're going to want this. And so they're going to move three to four, four to three. And then it didn't happen. It's like, no, they actually just did what they thought were the four best teams, one through

four. But that would be where I would come more of the canal clap part of it. This does not enrage me. I do not think that this has done decades worth of damage to the brand. I think they just try to pick the four best teams and people get pissed about any system that we've ever had. And if there are people that are in charge of the system, you can get super mad at them. People got mad at the computers. There's no version of this where everybody's going to be happy with it. And when we go to eight or 12, it's going to be hilarious because you're going to have these three lost teams where Penn State fans are going to be irate that they're not in the top 25 because they're wondering if they could move up with two wins against Michigan and Michigan State and Rutgers to get into that 12th spot.

And it would be like, look, I just don't care that enough about you right now for national championship, which is what I can't wait for when that conversation happens. But a two-loss Bama being in over, say, undefeated Cincinnati, that's where I would be, okay, this is kind of fucked. But a one-loss Cincinnati, then it kind of opens that door up um one loss cincinnati yeah that's different cincinnati to me has to be clean uh they have to be clean and if they're not i don't want to hear about it i will say this i do think the 12

team format they came up with that no that one came out of nowhere and i love that it did like everyone assumed it was going to be eight you know and like that was going to be the model five conference champs three wild cards that everyone and their brother came up with because it was going to be eight, you know, and like, that was going to be the model five conference champs, three wild cards that everyone and their brother came up with. Cause it was super easy. By the way, can I jump in right there? Everybody that keeps offering up some new version of their playoff, we've already done all of them. We've already done all of them. You haven't done anything new. Like when somebody goes, Oh, five conference champs, automatic bid, three wild cards, get a group of five in there. Like, what problem you're like hey nobody thought of this man incredible but but i think i know which one you're referring to too um the 12 team model though that they came up with with this you know they had 63 different

models that were presented to them and they were like this one is the best i don't know about you i loved it like the fact the home team or the top two seeds get a buy, the six automatic qualifiers, and then you have to rank those. The committee has a job because for some reason, we have to keep those people feeling important. Then you get to select the next six, keep people feeling important. But then the home field matchups, I thought all of it was awesome. And I will say this, I do think what completely derailed it, because it felt like it was inevitable, was Oklahoma, Texas to the SEC. Then you got feelings hurt, and now it's like, well, what are the conferences going to look like? I do think we get changed, but this is what scares me at this massive shift we're seeing, which happens every seven or eight years, where we're still figuring out the American, we're figuring out the new Big 12, we're figuring out how many pieces of the puzzle are going to this conference and that conference. Once that settles, I do think that that 12-team model was really attractive because I think one of the coolest things we could see is a first-round playoff game on a campus. Instead of playing Oklahoma, Florida at the

Sugar Bowl, and then Dan Mullin calls it an exhibition game like how cool would that game be in Gainesville or Norman that would be insanity that would be awesome yeah I do like the home sites for the first ones just to try to make it easier to on these fan bases they're going all right I'm going to go to three other ones because the other thing that will happen too is that you see this with some of the

more established programs is they don't want to go to the first playoff game already when Clemson and Bama more established programs is they don't want to go to the first playoff game. All right. We'll save our money. When Clemson and Bama get so spoiled, we're like, I would just buy the national championship game. Hey, by the way, I'm looking at your home studio office. Oh, yeah.

You like that helmet? Yeah. Did you steal the LSU helmet from the show helmet deal? I was wondering if you'd notice that. It was up there. This one wasn't but here in my defense somebody took my eye one one hashtag anf so like when i went back in there at 4 a.m in the dark of the night okay wait a minute wait can we do this now can we do this

now because when you get laid off the thing that sucks beyond getting laid off is that you show up oh yeah so that was the thing out because i the moment i got called i remember it was one of those like moments you never forget because it's kind of like what just happened it was such a shock and for those who don't know these are the mass layoffs for all the on-air people and it was a wednesday i think was it was it a wednesday or tuesday i don't remember that i don't remember what day of the week it was it probably I think was it was it a Wednesday or Tuesday I don't remember the I don't remember what day of the week it was it probably I think it might have been a Wednesday it was you know just like another day okay now hold on just to give everybody the backstory for six weeks I was supposedly losing my job um so Danny and I three I was was it three months or

like six months that there were these rumors of these big layoffs and every industry insider that covers broadcast journalism was saying, expect X amount of cuts. And here, is it going to be big names? Is it going to be who? And all this speculation and people walking around the halls of Bristol, who's safe, who's not. That was a very real scenario that was unfolding. And you and I had spoken and garnered some information that came from some agents that will remain nameless but like yeah your information hey man i had some bad news for you you know well i had i had gone in to meet with skipper and we usually got together every six months and he was he was good to me in that way. Um, it was just kind of like, Hey, look, I was like, this isn't working out for me in

radio. Like I know what's going to happen. All the signs point to this. They don't like to show with Danny and I, and I don't want to leave. I think there's going to be value for me somewhere else. Like, can we figure out something else? And that was the whole plan. And the meeting with Skipper was Tuesday.

The Monday there was a leak that all of these people on air were going to get let go. And so we spent the entire meeting. I listened to him complain about leaks. And I was like, okay, so we didn't get anywhere. Selfishly, I needed some Ryan time and we didn't get anywhere with it. I was just kind of like being his therapist for an hour

while he was like, I can't believe these leaks, Ryan. I can't believe it you know and i was like i don't know some of these guys just do it like it's so obvious when random media blogs would talk about how some producer was at the forefront of television you were like oh and by the way espn will be doing this you're just like dude you just gave up your source in the same piece so i'm just trying to give more of a sentence then as i said goodbye to skipper, he was like, and I will, I will listen to my, I will delegate the authority to my decision makers on what they suggest to recommend for your future. And I was like, holy shit. I was like, I'm out. And so I went out of the talent department. I go, Hey, I just had to like, uh, I go, I know everything's happening. And the guy was kind of like, yeah, you know, he's like, you make a decent

amount of money and it's just, we got to figure out a way to cut. So Danny and I did almost six to two months worth of shows where every commercial break I was shopping for a house in Los Angeles. And I was like, that's fine. I was like, if they don't like me enough, then I I'll bounce. And this is where the part of it that's really fucked is that on Monday I was out and on Tuesday I was back in and I had already planned a trip Wednesday to go to Los Angeles and then I get a phone call and it's from

the head of the department and they're like hey just so you know you're good I go I don't know what the fuck just happened here for six weeks and Danny and I talked about like how he was going to be doing this and what I was going to do and I at that point I didn't really care because I was so mad about it and then Danny was gone and it sucked because then Danny and I didn't talk for a long time about it. So I just wanted to give all kind of the backstory because that moment, yeah, I'll never forget it middle of the week. And then go ahead. Now it's your turn. Yeah. So, and I had been trying, because everyone's trying to find out who's on the chopping block. And so I had talked to my agent and he was like, oh, you're good. You're're good to go. You know, college football, that's one of the biggest priorities of the company.

You're one of the bigger voices. You're good. And like a couple of weeks would go by and you kind of get a little bit more nervous. I'd call him. No, everything we're hearing is you're good. You're good. So like a lot of people were holding meetings. Like, you know, you were saying meet my skipper, like trying to make sure they're in good standing.

And I'm just like, I'll go play golf on the off day or I'm out of here as soon as work's done. I'm like, see, I'm good. I'm all good. We're good to go. And my wife and I had talked about it. She was kind of nervous. I'm like, no, I'm good. And then comes the day.

And I remember because there was the first couple... Because no one knew when the day was going to be. It was like a Black Friday without knowing it's a Black Friday. So everyone was anticipating, but you didn't know what day it was going to be. So all of a sudden, social media, it's like so-and-so is gone. And then there's the, I've been let go by ESPN post on social media. And then there's this list that starts growing. So it was probably like 9.30 in the morning. And I'm working out my basement like, oh, this sucks. What a bad day for so many people. This is going to be really brutal. We'll still go out to work. And Ryan and I talk about this on air. But we'll probably just give it a voice of support and then we'll move on.

And then I get a phone call. And it was the number from ESPN. And I was like, and it was the number from ESPN. And I was like, wait a second, what's going on? So I didn't answer the first time. And then it calls back. I was like, oh boy. And then it was a call from one of our higher ups in radio who said, hey, can you come in? And it was eerily similar

to the can you bring your playbook conversation? Because that was the line that you get in the NFL when you get cut is, hey, coach wants to see you bring your playbook conversation? Because that was the line that you get in the NFL when you get cut is, hey, coach wants to see you bring your playbook. That's when you know you're getting axed. And so I didn't ask on the phone. I was like, sure. I wish I would have just said,

just tell me over the phone because then I wouldn't have wasted time to go in. And so it's like 11 a.m. So when the time when I hang up the phone, I'm like, sure, I'll be in. I call my agent. I'm like, what is happening? He's like, I don't know. And I'm like, it sure feels like I'm going in for something.

I don't know. And he's kind of like... Then my agent preps me. He's like, well, just in case if something happens, don't do anything irrational. Don't tweet anything. Just be calm. Go in. And then sure enough, go in. And they've got the two higher ups there because they want the witness. Make sure nothing goes out of hand. And it's thank you for your time. And this is like, mind you, this is 1130. We're supposed to do a show at one, you know, like, so it's not that far away. So then I'm like coming over to the studio and you were on, you were out, you were on vacation.

You had already left. Well, I was in Los Angeles because I had already planned on taking meetings and buying a house. Yes. And so on Monday, because I was like, I'm not sticking around for this. I'm not coming in to prep for a show and then being told I'm done. And Adnan was in. He was

supposed to fill in with me. So I go like 1130 before a one o'clock show and I find Saruti and Michelle and I'm like, yeah, I'm out. And they were like blown away and Adnan. And then the last thing you want to do is linger, right? Like I just want to get the heck out of Dodge.

I don't want to let you say goodbye. Cause I know that other times it's like, Hey, here's your box, get your stuff. And then we're going to have security stand with you and walk you out. Is that what happened? They were cool. They said, we'll have time. You'll have a week to get your things out. You know, just, you know, so it was like from that aspect, it that aspect, it wasn't contentious at all.

It was like, we appreciate you. This isn't a product of your work. It's strictly financial and we have to make some cuts. And by the way, I was like... Because a lot of people had negotiated lower salaries. And so I would have listened to that. I possibly would have done that. Wasn't even an option. So then I go and I'm like, Alright, we'll see you guys. And then I just didn't want to talk about it. So I was like, bad man, have fun on the show. And he's like, stunned about what they're going to do. So I bolt out of there. But meanwhile, I've got some pretty nice memorabilia in my office. So I know I have to clean out my office at some point. So then you're kind of in this moment where you're like, oh, I got to go back into work. So I wasn't going to sleep because I was just restless. You're

like, what the heck just happened? This is a big pivotal moment in your life. So I woke up at 3.30 in the morning, kind of awake. I'm like, I'm going to go in now. So I went at 4 a.m., go in there, and somewhere on an ESPN security cam is me. Because you can kind of wrap your... I'll show you. Yeah, your arms through the face masks. You can go like this and carry multiple. So picture three helmets on an arm. I'm waddling out to the car, getting as much as I could out of ESPN.

So somewhere on some security cam footage is me on there. I think this might have been one they gifted to me though, right? Since they love me so much. If LSU knew you had that helmet through the show, they would probably ask for me to get it sent back. Because I remember I offered

some of the LSU staff, I was like, do you guys want any Rosillo and Canel shirts? And they were like, does it say Canel on them? And I was like, yeah. And they were dead serious. We were at dinner and they're like,

we don't want them. So which helmet did you take? Because the helmet thing became a bit of a fiasco. Guys started claiming which ones they were supposed to be when originally Scott and I were the ones that we had. I personally grabbed a couple that I thought were ones that I deserved. And after a little while, I just let it become a free-for-all.

Now, you're going to hold up one now that I probably never knew that you had, but this isn't very surprising. Oh, my God. He's got the Maryland Under Armour one. That is fucked up. Don't let Van Pelt see that. He'll be so mad. Well, it's too late. It's too late now.

I can't believe you took the Maryland. This might be one of my favorites. This is like an all-timer, and it even has the face shield on it. Like, this is one of the coolest ones. And this was the one they opened up. Wasn't it Monday Night vs. Miami? And everybody was freaking out because they had never seen it like this is one of the coolest ones and this was the one they opened up wasn't it monday night versus miami and everybody was freaking out because they had never seen anything like this this is one of the cooler ones out there it's the maryland flag helmet i think

lebron even tweeted about it and then esp just lost their mind so appreciate you svp oh he's gonna not like that at all do you grab the north carolina one because you went to their camp so i felt that that one was fair. You still have it already? No, I already knew about that one. We all knew there were certain ones missing and people were lying about it. And I just kind of went like, hey, look, we've got like a cabinet of 100 helmets. It's awesome the school sent them to us. I'm going to take a couple of the LSU ones. I took the Wyoming one and I took, I think, an Oregon one.

miami one and i took i think in oregon one but i already have a michael james one that he wore i think in either the rose bowl or one of the other games i don't know and i mentioned it to him that i had it he was like how do you have it and i was like maybe i should stop talking about this so um there you go i think i'd have a key to the cage i would i would i would have my truck like stocked to the brim i just kind of knew like hey here's here's the couple that i have and i'll but i don't even know like as you get as a grown-up see in the office it looks good i don't really have the office i've got this the spare bedroom all right final thought here um do you think if you didn't send out the sec network programming tweet you would still be working there possibly because the person who had upset the most, like was asking for me to be suspended

for a tweet that was just trolling the sec, which I thought was really funny. And it was one of the, it was the rainbow bars. It was signature canal. It was Pete canal during that. It was great, but it did tick off somebody. And even though I apologized, I don't know if that person ever got over it. I still think they don't like me deep down inside. And then that person, since that time, rose up the ranks where they were really powerful and had some influence over whether I was there. The other thing I don't know if it helped, even though it was a joke, was wearing the Make Radio Great Again hat.

Just because it was red and it appeared like a MAGA hat, even though it wasn't, I'm sure there were people that might have walked by a TV and they're like, double take, and like, oh, Canel, what's he doing, that MAGA dude? I'm sure that didn't help. So one of those two things, I'm sure, probably put the final nail in the coffin.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they could use you now on first take talking about COVID. They would have loved to have you on right now with some of your vaccination stuff. Well, that's what it's like, kids, to get let go and to think that your co-host is the one that's going to be gone the whole time because that was pretty weird.

I thought I handled it the right way because it was very weird that you and I would, for, I don't know, six weeks, every commercial break, we would just talk about, like, what are you going to do? Like, I don't know. What are you going to do? And the funniest part about the whole agent thing is that your agent was getting information from me telling you what was happening. And then when it came down to it, he was as wrong as anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Which, which is kind of funny. Whose commercial breaks do you think were more entertaining? Ours or Mike and Mike's at the end? are pretty good yeah oh wait wait those guys didn't

talk to each other no yeah that's right that's we have way more radio silence i remember i'd go in there and do a hit and it was like what's up you know it's just it was really awkward so at least ours was like cordial and we were at least having an open dialogue about things yeah we were totally i was just like all right you know and then you would say like hey where's that where's that house i go well i don't know if i can i just had mentally packed out i was like all right since we're uh since we're reliving the glory days you want to go to the week i got one for you to finish out please is it ben no it should be my nephew ben Ben Middlebrooks, crushing it at Clemson.

I don't say crushing. I think he got in for like one minute, seven seconds. His rebound rate per 40 is 40 rebounds. Yeah, right. His plus minus has got to be off the charts. Do you even get that without a point? Can you register a plus minus without scoring? Yeah.

I don't know how it works. Yeah. It's very, it's not just up to you. All right. Good. You had a plus 20 in my mind. All right. So mine, I had one, then I'm going to go in a different direction

because I wanted it to be Jeff Banks as my go-to-the-week special teams coach at Texas who was at the center of a firestorm around the pole assassin monkey gate issue. But there was a new issue that unfolded at Texas. I don't know, did you see the video of Bo Davis, their defensive coach who caught the players on the bus kind of goofing around after they had just gotten blown out? And he comes on the bus and he's absolutely laying into them. Every other

word is the F-bomb. And he's like, enter the MF and transfer portal if you don't want to be here. And he's animated. He's yelling. He's going nuts. He is not the go to the week. Go to the week is the player who's recording it. And that to me speaks volumes about the culture that is happening at Texas right now. I think it's a big problem for Sark is trying to turn this thing around. But then this is just the latest example. We've seen this happen before. But what type of player, what type of teammate are you that a coach is reaming you out for goofing around on the bus after a loss and you're going to have the mindset to say this dude sounded like he was ready to just tear into somebody and you're going to go on the down low and just sneak there and record it all so whoever the player was

and i hope he gets outed i hope he does enter the transfer transfer portal that player at texas who decided to film that is my goat of the week. Usually go to the week as a compliment, but I'm with you. Like if, Hey, we lost, we're screwing around. We're getting yelled at by a coach. I'm going to post a video of this right now. That's like the first thought that I had. Um, I don't know if it's specific to Texas. I don't think it's specific to Sark. I think it's a generational thing. And there's probably younger people listening and be like, why wouldn't you video it? You know, these fights at SoFi, there's just hundreds of people like, there's a guy bleeding down a staircase

and the guy's like making sure he can get a horizontal angle on it to like close the shot. Hey man, I know we went long here, but I appreciate it. So we'll talk again next month. Got it, man. It's always fun.

Okay, it is now time the quarterlies are in q2 is over qb stock game updates uh i gotta tell you right now saruti is the hero on this one um i don't know that it was ever planned this way but now once you got spreadsheets that we can work with involved he's taking this thing over which sucks for him because this isn't that fun i had to do it for years i figured i would do it again this year but since you've just stepped it up i'm doing kind of a manager thing i'm like you're so good at it though so now so rudy's stuck uh here are the current positions so rudy's value right now his portfolio starting is starting at $1,000. He's at $3,100 plus, so $3,144. I'm at about $2,300, $2,400 actually, because I still have some cash reserves. Always a little bit, 10% gold, you never know. And Kyle in third place, he's got a profit. He's up $600 on his $1,000 opening position, but he is in third as of right now. Kyle had Mac Jones, Herbert, Mahomes,

who we all lost money on, and Stafford, which is his biggest gainer. I lost money in Mahomes. I made a little bit of money on Rodgers. I absolutely crushed it on Zach Wilson. You're asking, how the hell did that happen? The stock was, it just, it was, it was price strong.

It was price strong. I took advantage of it, which is why I really hesitate to wonder if this thing could ever work out on a website for a company for real. I went with Fields as well, and I lost money. That actually wiped out some of my earnings. Mahomes, also a loser for Cerruti, crushed by his Mahomes position. He also lost out on Josh Allen, but he cleaned up with Tannehill, and he made some money on Carson Wentz as well.

So Cerruti right now, the leader in the clubhouse after half a season. I was the only one that took a loss this week. I should say quarter over quarter, though. I lost $75 this quarter just because Mahomes and Allen absolutely killed me. You guys are both up quarter over quarter, but I do lead the race here. But I'm kind of ready to double down. How do we want to start this thing? Want me to go? Let's go Kyle first, I guess. Yeah, no, that's a good point. I'm the Q2 winner, but Cerruti made

$2,200 after the first quarter. Shout out Sam Darnold. I mean, the Darnold, he invested $290 in 225 shares, and he profited $1,600 on that position alone. So the Darnold you're going to be Darnold and Sons

if you open up a firm here. All right. Yeah, you can go first and let's run through our new positions and what we're doing here. All right. This is really hard. Everybody that I wanted to, I looked at their next four games and I'm like, I'm not really sure they're going to win more than two of them for everyone. But

I do want to stay at the same and I don't want to shock you, but I'm selling all my Mac Jones stock. It's 73 shares, but I'm coming back to him because his last four games is where I'm really going to clean up because I think he's going to lose two games in the next four weeks. So you know what? I love what you're doing here, Kyle, because I too was a big Mac Jones. I was prospecting it. We asked our guy who covered it. I was at his desk. And then he goes, look at their next four. You're very, I love how in tune you are right now with the third quarter. So take it away. I'm getting out before the Browns defense really tries to hurt him for what he did last week.

And who knows? There was a lot of different angles on that angle twist. So who knows? But I'm going to sell all my 73. And I didn't know who I was going to do it. But I looked at Cerruti in the dock and he was hovering over Joe Burrow. So I'm taking 73 shares of Joe Burrow at 537. Great call.

All right. I'm keeping the rest. I can't take a loss on Mahomes yet. Oh, wow. So you're out on Mac Jones. For now. You made 194 bucks. You're taking that money

and you're going with Burrow. Okay. All right. I'll go quick then. I'm staying with my Mahomes shares as well. The Mahomes shares price right now is $593. $593. Just to compare that with his $1106 a share price at the preseason.

And then we thought like, oh, Mahomes, there's no way it's going to be that bad. at the preseason. And then we thought, like, oh, Mahomes, there's no way it's going to be that bad. And honestly, he lost, like, I don't know, 30% of his value,

more than 30% of his value. He's the 12th highest value quarterback right now, which is wild. Rodgers is number one currently. Yeah, I have him 13th on the list here. It's your list. Well, the spreadsheet, don't worry about that. It's number one is actually not.

Ah, you're right. You're right. Yeah, okay. See, it is your spreadsheet um okay so staying with my home's position i'm going to sell my rogers i'm going to i thought about keeping my zach wilson i just don't know what the hell they're going to do and how many games he's going to play um so i'm going to go with burrow as well i've watched a bunch of those games i think a lot of those interceptions are kind of just fluky at this point probably because he he gets his ass handed to him a few times. So give me 100 shares of that at 537 a share.

Give me 100 shares of Russell Wilson at 583 a share, which is, I mean, he was at 871 pricing in the preseason. Burrow was 751 in the first quarter. So this is a no-brainer. And then I'm going to keep um my field shares and i'm going to add to it to 522 now um i'll give you the final math on this but if he's 124 or excuse me 1.24 cents a share i'm going to i'm going to reload on that so he's my biggest position now where i own over 500 shares of him so that takes me out spends I got to ask you this too.

I think that CNN might've been nicer to Trump than get up is to Matt Nagy. That guy, his family must just be like, no one watched the show. You would think that Matt Nagy, and I'm not telling you this has been a great time and he's, and he's done a really good job and he's awesome when he speaks publicly, but get up like blood on the fangs on

those matt and aggie segments all right surity take it away uh i guess we're gonna all buy joe burrow but i guess i'll do my selling first i'm gonna cash out on tannahill because he's where is he right now he is the fifth highest rated quarterback so fifth highest price i don't see it getting higher than that i made a couple hundred bucks we'll sell that i'll sell my 104 shares there i'm also going to sell my 50 shares of carson wench which i took a loss on last quarter but i actually have basically doubled now um i don't think he's going to get any higher he's kind of like middle of the road right now so that leaves me i have a 1171 roughly dollars to play with um i already have my homes and i already have alan so i'm going to keep those because i just kind of feel like you have to ride that out I'm actually going to double

down and buy more Josh Allen stock I think they have a favorable schedule coming up I think that they're going to be pissed off about the Jacksonville loss and his QBR is way lower than it should be so give me a hundred shares of Josh Allen on top of the 160 that I already have so what's up Josh Allen

give me 50 shares of Joe Burrow because you guys are right. I think he bounces back. They actually have a really favorable schedule the rest of the season. And then this is my wildcard one. I don't know. This could blow up in my face. It's not a huge investment. And honestly, if he doesn't play this Thursday against Baltimore, it actually might help me.

Give me 57 shares of Tua. Miami kind of has a favorable schedule the rest of the way. They also don't own their first round pick, so they're not going to be tanking. They're going to try to win games. And Tua has a pretty bad, I think, middle of the road sort of QBR. So I think they could actually win some more games. He has a bad win-loss ratio right now.

So 57 shares of Tua might blow up in my face, but if he doesn't play, I probably don't lose any money on that anyway. Yeah, no, that's a good one. I looked at Tua, but the finger deal in a short week this one so i don't know how many starts you're gonna i hope he doesn't play this week because if he doesn't they're gonna probably lose the baltimore anyway it actually helps me out if they don't play baltimore's defense though that's kind of when i looked at fields next four baltimore's defense is ranked 25th detroit's is 29th they have arizona there who's stats like every single

arizona stat here if they were they're kind of like this college football team that has an amazing record but isn't a brand name. You go, wait, are they actually way better than everybody else? Look, Murray's still dealing with the ankle injury. Then Green Bay is the last part of that Fields run. Fields' price is actually lower now than it was when I bought it before. I thought about buying Justin

Bales, actually. Did either of you guys think about Baker Mayfield? I looked at Baker because I feel like the Odell thing, like he was obviously much better last week, but they have a rough schedule down the stretch. So it kind of like turned me off. But I almost bought some Baker stock because he's only at what 439-ish? What is he? Hold on. I got it right here.

493. Yeah. He's 20th right now in pricing. I hadn't written down. I was actually going to do it. And then I thought, okay, wait a minute. Let's get out of the AFC North. I wanted to just double down on the field stuff. I might be just chasing, who knows?

You know what I mean? It might be one of those pharmaceutical companies I was invested in. They were like, oh, we took out a new loan, so we're going to pay each other a bunch of shit, and then we're going to shut this all down. You guys are going to lose your money, but it was fake good news there for a week.

I'll never forget this one company I was invested in they had some new technology about how they're going to cure um some digestive thing and it was like all right whatever and then which really sucked i didn't get the info from my other buddies that were in on it they're like oh you're still in that yeah we're out and then they had this huge unveiling of this thing that they were going to do but like wait until our social until our social media happens. And then they released it. I go, oh my God, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. There's no way this company is going to work out. But I did the stupid young thing where I couldn't take the loss because I was like, it'll come back. One of the worst decisions investment-wise I've ever made. But I'm glad that happened because I got my ass kicked so bad on that one that I was like, all right,

happened because I got my ass kicked so bad on that one that I was like, all right, let's not do that again. Let's not do that again, guys. You're trying to get boats. That doesn't help with the boat plan. All right. Do we have anything else? I think that's it. At least you didn't invest in Theranos. Nope. You had to have a place at the table to even get in on that. That's before any of us get any shares. But a lot of the pharmaceutical stuff did rebound, but the pharma bro fucked it for the entire sector there for a while. And you're like, hey, can you stop being the biggest asshole in the country right now while some of these companies actually are doing different things

and it's not based on your fucked up pricing model? All right, pharma rant over. Okay, I got to stop myself because I'll just go forever on that one. Let's do life advice, which we already sort of did. 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 can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Lifeadvicerratgmail.com We may be taking a break from guys that don't know how to ask girls out.

Feel free to keep sending them in but there's a lot and i i don't pretend to have it you know mapped out perfectly either you know so uh like i said though a lot of times the decisions are even made for you and it doesn't have a ton to do with what you're going to say. So there you go. Sorry, that bums you out. Okay, here we go. Don't use any real names, even name drop the schools. All right.

So, okay, there's a nickname here. Here we go. Love the podcast. 33, 63, 225. Down from 275 in January. How about that? The issue I'm seeking advice for is a perpetual problem going all the way back to high school. There are about six of us from our friends group that have stayed friends and in contact with one another since high school. As it happens, most of us have moved away to various parts of the state and country. So hangouts are few and far between, but we still talk on the phone, play fantasy now refer to as Bigfoot when he's not part of the communication, is a compulsive liar and has been for over 15 years now. All right, so if they're 33, 15 years, you're talking half your life here. So we're going back to high school days. One guy in the group is a compulsive

liar. The first occasion that any of us can remember was the summer between our junior and senior year high school. Bigfoot seemingly disappeared that summer. No one saw or heard from him until we all showed up for two-a into the football season this is before the days of smartphones and match social media when asked where he was all summer he told us he'd been recruited by the marines and spent the summer at the pentagon nice i love fucking bigfoot man i love this kid uh because we had it we had a close friend in college that was like, yeah, I'm thinking about being a fighter pilot. They're like, what are you talking about?

We're at Vermont. And then he actually said he was fucking flying top gun planes and stuff. And then, you know, we were all getting hazed as pledges and he brought it up. And the older guys, again, as I pointed out numerous times in this podcast, i'll never stop saying it the difference between when you're 18 and a guy's 21 or 22 and you're a freshman and

he's a senior that's like being 25 or 45 okay it really is the age gap numbers isn't that big but it just is and when the guys found out that he was basically saying i'm a fighter pilot in training and they're like what are you doing here pledging at Vermont? Shouldn't you be doing something else? He's like, oh, it's a tough decision, sir. They were like, one guy goes, what's your call sign? And he had one. He was like, Pigpen Brothers, sir.

So he actually was, he said his call sign was the grateful dead's keyboardist a piano player whatever and then they were like wait what and they were like what's on your helmet and he was like a steal your face brother sir and they were like so you're the deadhead fighter pilot and you're just hanging out here on campus in vermont. So we still laugh about this story quite often. All right. So back to the email. We're all kind of taken back. Summer at the Pentagon.

Got it. When questioned about it, he said the rest was classified. After asking around for a few days, I found out Bigfoot had really been working at a typical high school summer job in a warehouse. Nobody ever pressed him about it because it didn't directly affect any of us.

It did become a running joke for the rest of the group. As years have gone on, the lies have become stranger and stranger. Bigfoot is a high school football coach, wide receiver coach. We're going to leave out some of the details here, but he'll text the group about getting calls in the middle of the night from Tom Herman and Nick

Saban asking for advice about upcoming game plans. This is the guy. This is the guy behind the guy. I hope Nick Saban gets asked about this in a press conference. There's a guy it's like early 30s

high school coach. What does he help you guys do? What would he say about the offensive line right now? He's told us that he's even been asked to speak to, I will say, a major what does he help you guys do? What would he say about the offensive line right now? All right. He's told us that he's even been asked to speak to, I will say a major Power 5 program, to the team in the locker room before a game to pump them up.

Obviously, we have no way to verify that this is false. I'm going to go ahead and verify for you that it's false. But context clues tell us that if Bigfoot had these kinds of connections, he wouldn't be a position coach in high school. Finally, I received a call the other day from Bigfoot. We began talking about sports that we played together in high school. He made several false claims about how he was called up to the varsity track team as a freshman to run the two-mile and several of the relays.

Wait, he was a freshman called up to varsity to run two-mile and also the 4x100 and 4x200? That doesn't make any sense at all nobody who runs the two mile runs the 100 uh i ran track for a year hated it and i ran the two mile and the only thing that made it better was i was like can i just switch to the mile um this was striking for two reasons one bigfoot was an average athlete at best, never even sniffed varsity track throughout all of high school, much less a freshman. And two, all caps, I was there.

I obviously know that's not true. This was the first lie that Bigfoot had ever told me that was verifiably untrue. I called the rest of the group to report, disclaim, and it was met with the collective, what the fuck, but comical. Throughout the years, there have been plenty more instances of half-truths and whole lies,

but now I think you get the point. So what should the rest of the group do? If anything, if we call them. Throughout the years, there have been plenty more instances of half-truths and whole lies, but now I think you get the point. So what should the rest of the group do, if anything? If we call him out on the bullshit, we will feel a few minutes of gotcha justice, but he'll probably disconnect himself from the group. On the other hand, the lies aren't hurting anybody and are good for an occasional laugh. Any perspective? Keep up the good work.

I love the tone of this email. I love where our emailer is coming from because I think you answered your own question here. I would continue to use Bigfoot's lies as a source of entertainment for everybody else for the rest of your lives. Don't stop this.

Encourage it. And all be entertained by it. And you could say, well, that's kind of fucked up. Yeah, it is. But you know what's fucked up? Telling people you were at the Pentagon all summer when you're in high school. All right?

And then not getting whatever that is out of your system. Certainly people that listen to this podcast that are doctors, I'm sure, feel free to fire off a few.

LifeAdvice.org, Gmail. The root of why somebody becomes a compulsive liar like this this making up completely ridiculous stories there's one things that have you know if you have a few pops you start veering off to exaggeration street as you're holding court you're the alpha in the group you're telling these stories all that stuff look that shit happens but when you start saying i'm in the pentagon can't tell you about it though rest is classified and you still have that not in your

teens but in your 30s there's something else going on there and i don't know what triggers it i don't know what insecurity it is i don't know what it is about parenting i don't know if it's a trauma-based thing i'm sure there's a million different ways that people could all dispute or agree on what the root cause of all this is but if he's totally comfortable telling you that nick savin calls him in the middle of the night you are totally comfortable talking shit about him behind his back to the rest of your friends for the foreseeable future because it's funny as hell i was entertained by the email just the same way when i tell you about a guy that we pledged with who was arguing that he was

actually a fighter pilot in his spare time but had a very difficult decision to make at uvm whether or not to become a sophomore or defend our borders, we are still allowed to laugh about it 20 plus years later. Yeah, I agree. I think there's a part of it that's a little disgusting where you're just like, ah, God, he's like in our circle and, you know, he's just he's doing this thing that we all we all know about. And it sounds like, yeah, if the decision isn't that anybody's really upset enough by

this to bring it up and then potentially lose the guy or then have a weird thing, I would just say maybe you guys should start taking turns making up some wild shit that everybody else in the non-Bigfoot group chat knows about and see what he does. Like, is he going to, you know, maybe you went base jumping with Tom Cruise. I don't know. But like, just, I'm just, I think that's probably the best way to just look at his, everyone looks at his face while you're telling, while you guys come up with the best ridiculous lie

and see if he's like going to call anyone out because that would just be hilarious too. But yeah, it's just that, yeah, have fun with it at this point. You know, there's a little bit of it as like, damn it, why is one of our good friends lying to us with regularity? But it seems like everyone's OK with it.

You guys probably have your own lives at this point. So it's not like you're hanging out every minute of the day anyway. Well, what I'd like to know is like how how successful are the other guys in the friend group? Because maybe he's, you know, trying to overcompensate because he's not super pumped about being a wide receiver coach in high school, which there's nothing wrong with that. But maybe he's just like, hey, I'm just trying to make myself look more impressive to my friends. I completely agree with you guys. I think it is, you guys are actually lucky

that he's in your friend group because you have this source of entertainment. I would not do anything to mess with that. I mean, and here's the thing, it's not hurting anybody, right? It's probably, he's probably not impacting your life, you know, negatively

because he's telling these lies. He's probably just making, you know, trying to make himself feel better. So I don't think there's any point in calling him out for it unless he's doing something shitty to you or one of your friends. So I think you just sit back, enjoy it, and let him kind of feel the way he wants to feel. You know what else I like about this?

There's another lesson in this email, and that is the stuff that you can spend time letting it bother you. And for all of us, we could all do a much better job of going, hey, this thing that's bothering you, does it really matter? Does it really matter? Is it going to change anything? And if it isn't, even if the person's wrong in what they're doing, if it really isn't going to directly affect you all that much, because there's other people that would send in this email being like, hey, it's driving me crazy. I want to call this guy out. It's totally bullshit. And I would also understand that person having that perspective. But what I

like about this emailer is that he's pointing it out as a story, but he's not pointing it out in this way. That's like, I've spent all this time thinking about it and letting it bother me and all this different shit. When you're like, at the end of the day, why would you actually let the, you can not like it. You can be right. He can be wrong.

But let's all try to identify those things that bother us, that take up our energy, that really mean nothing. Cause there's a long list of stuff like that. It'd be one thing too. If it was like your situation, Ryan, where you're in college and this kid is saying that he's like a fighter pilot. And all of a sudden he's getting all these girls and he's like kind of

screwing your, your, your guy's situation up. And you guys are like, well, fuck this dude. I know this is all a lie, but it doesn't seem like that's the case.

Like he's just doing this in his, what seems like probably his hometown. He said all these guys don't really live around each other anymore. So it probably doesn't impact you other than your group chat. And it's a source of entertainment. There's no reason to worry about it. Yeah. That call,

that call signal stuff, um, was, was all timer. Um, cause we were like, we wouldn't believe it did anyone buy it because otherwise i mean man no the thing is you're so naive and gullible honestly at 18 so your capacity for believing things is is greater because you just haven't been around as much

and for me too like i'd even have moments as the oldest of five. Like I still would always rather have been the oldest for whatever lessons I learned being the oldest and being protective and maybe a little bit more caring. Cause you had to care about, you know, younger siblings. But I also at times be like, man, it would have been great to have an older brother who'd been like through the wars five years ahead of me, who was like, Hey, look, this is, this is kind of how life works. And so I think when I was 18, I was kind of a young 18 for some things, but I also could be mature in others, which again, doesn't make a ton of sense. But the point of it all is that even all of us at 18, you've been on campus a couple of weeks. Now all of a sudden you're in Vermont and you're freezing your ass

off and you're in a basement and all these dudes with real facial hair are yelling at at you even though you're not quite sure what the hell's going on and then we had to say something about ourselves during this first night of being pledges or it was like the second night it's the first night something super fucked up happened but um the second night and you know i'm like i'm writing hey from martha's vineyard like basketball you know like whatever you don't know because you know, like whatever. You don't know. Because you know no matter what you write, it's going to be the wrong thing, which is the whole point. It doesn't matter.

Nobody's going to write anything. Those guys would be like, hey, yell at him less. I really like how he described himself in a paragraph or less. And this guy actually was in. We're all like facing a wall. We're all getting yelled at. And you're sitting there and the rest of us at 18 as pledges are looking at each other kind of side-eye cringing

every time he had answered something about being a fighter pilot. Like we couldn't fucking believe it. And then we would be at lunch the next day and guys would be like, what do you think was going on with that? With the fighter pilot thing? And there was not like one guy and the thing is people actually kind of like the guy too at first he had a lot of russell wilson i'll tell you that and uh now maybe that's why i don't like

russell wilson's personality maybe i just figured it out connected it all together and guys are like yeah what what's he doing there and just all all these older guys, they weren't even mad. It was so preposterous. They were laughing at a sower. They were laughing at him so hard, and then other guys were trying to not laugh at him. Even though you're scared, you don't really know what's going on because you're so young, and there's this massive shift of like,

hey, I was on the vineyard on a beach three weeks ago. Like, what the hell is this? To have this moment where you're that young and you don't believe the other guy that's your peer and then all these older dudes are screaming at him making fun of him and again they weren't even mad because it was so stupid it was such a ridiculous lie they weren't even mad but they couldn't stop talking about it and we still talk about it now and that was in the fall of 1993 all right okay last life advice here what's up 55 176 pack yeah 1993. All right. Okay, last life advice here.

What's up? 5'5", 176 pack. Yeah. So last Sunday, my wife and I were at one of her friends' houses to watch football. There's about five girls in the group, and all their husbands' boyfriends are all chill dudes. So we're looking at, what, party of 12 here? Except this new guy, apparently. We all drank, had a good time. Then two days later, I'm told I need to apologize to this dude because I said something that hurt his feelings. I had to be reminded of what I said because it wasn't really a memorable conversation, maybe three minutes of a five-hour party. So what happened was he said, Rogers, all athletes are all overpaid. I said, he's top five in the world at what he does, meaning Rogers, the world. You're not even a top five nurse. He's a nurse, Greg RN.

a top five nurse. He's a nurse. Greg RN. So our guy here emailing told this guy after he said Rogers was overpaid that he's like, hey, you're not even a top five nurse at your hospital. There are three hospitals in our town alone. So if anything, you might be the one overpaid.

That's pretty harsh if you don't know this guy. Other people chimed in talking shit to each other and the conversation went on to something else. Cut to last Tuesdayuesday i apparently hurt this clown's feelings this guy's pretty super remorseful yeah this guy's really really wants to apologize apparently i hurt this clown's feelings should i a chris trager to ann style my fondness of nurses and uh say they all deserve a million dollars apology style. B, dig in and half apologize while talking shit. C, tell the dude to fuck off. D, just ignore it. I would

usually just ignore it and hope the next time we see each other it's in the past, but we have a birthday dinner thing next Saturday with that group. And a side note, my wife thinks it's funny and I think secretly wants me to apologize for her own amusement. This guy doesn't sound like he's much on apologies to begin with. Now's not the time to be saying that nurses are overpaid. So nobody wants to hear that right now. Now, look, I will admit, I don't know how popular this is going to be with some of our educational listeners, but whether it's the duty, the task itself can be incredibly hard. It can be incredibly

important. But market sets market. And if you are doing something that separates you from someone else, then you're just going to be worth more. All right. We already understand that stuff. So I would say like in my twenties, you know, pursuing a teacher, I don't know what grade it was, whatever. And she was, you know,

talking and I'm like, Oh, you're a teacher. That's great. You're like, Oh, you're so underpaid. You know,

just what you do, you're molding like the next generation. You know, I could have also said, and be like, I don't know if you guys are underpaid. Like you take three, four months off, you know, it's not like, you you know you have to go to school and you have to get

certified but like there's still a lot of teachers and again right now selfishly a teacher is listening to this getting mad at me about saying this but that's not the point it's not even specific to teachers it's not specific to nurses it is the the starting point of number of people that are eligible to do something like this. And it's no different. Like, yes, there's harder work than what most of us all do and what laborers do. But you get it. All right. So I shouldn't have to explain this to anybody.

So my point is, is pointing that shit out isn't ever a good idea. I wouldn't sit there and pursue a teacher and go, yeah, you get a huge vacation, though. Because you imagine how tough it is to be a teacher. Okay. Now the problem is for teachers that there are a lot of them. But if you were to talk to a teacher at a social gathering, you don't tell them, yeah, I don't really have any sympathy. You know?

Yeah, what do you get? You guys get spring break too? And then there's a March one. And then, you know, June, snow days. Like, come on. So don't say that to the nurse um i don't know though the apology part i i don't think you're gonna be you might be better off not apologizing considering the way you mapped out your options i think you're gonna do more damage to the relationship just based on your mindset here than you would by just fake apologizing here so um when you said dig in half apologize while talking shit i would just not talk to him if you

actually presented that as an option for you i don't think you're really wired to even pretend you're sorry for this one kyle yeah that's that's good it felt like it was leaning towards like a curb episode thing where like larry's right but he said it in the wrong way but also i mean i've been there and what i would say is maybe it was your tone this guy say he was drunk or no he didn't he didn't ever say well i think they were having a good time i didn't feel i was drunk when i've offended people either and it was just sort of like and and I've just been told like, hey, like, you know, that guy wasn't really happy about that. I was like, what are you talking about? We were just talking.

He's like, yeah, but Kyle, the way you said it, like you sounded like an asshole. And I was like, really? I didn't feel I thought we were just talking. But yeah, I wouldn't say I wouldn't apologize. I would just say nothing. If your heart's not in it, you know, and then because you're gonna have to bring it up. It doesn't seem like anyone's forcing you to do it right it doesn't seem like if the wife is not making you do it who is making you do it um like peer pressure i don't know if it doesn't feel like you the two

of those guys are going to be friendly so who cares like just you know unless unless like if your wife or girlfriend was saying oh you know you need to do this because it's you embarrass me or something all right you take one for the team right do it. If she thinks it's a joke, who cares? I'm not sitting here saying I don't think either party is right in the situation. The guy kind of sounded like he was too aggressive and the nurse guy was probably too easily offended, but it doesn't sound like you guys are going to get along even if there's an apology

or not. I would just let it rock. Unless it turns out that you were actually a little bit of a drunk asshole in a couple other facets of the night and then it sort of just came out there in like an aggressive way. But yeah, if that's not the case and you can't take a long, hard look at yourself and just said I had a few too many and maybe I was getting a little salty. Then, yeah, I would just let it go. Yep.

I think that nails it. All right. That'll do it for today's podcast. We'll be back on Friday. Thanks to Kyle and Steve. And please subscribe. Ring the bell. all right that'll do it for today's podcast we'll be back on friday thanks to kyle and steve and please subscribe bring it on Thank you.