The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Danny Kanell on Michigan-Georgia and How Cincinnati Can Hang With Bama. Plus, Is Being a Pro Coach Still Worth It?

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on coaching (0:42) before talking with Danny Kanell of SiriusXM and CBS Sports about college bowl games, opt-outs, the College Football Playoff matchups of Georgia vs. Michigan and Alabama vs. Cincinnati, and more (14:15). Then Ceruti gets some Orlando Magic thoughts off his chest (1:14:17) before Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:19:20) Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Danny Kanell Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast another long one we're making it up to you this week we get danny canal for an hour we're talking college football playoff preview also deon sanders flipping a florida state guy to his new school and we do some bullshit on his SEC stuff. I also have a little open about what it means to be a coach in pro sports, a little more specific to the NBA. And, of course, long, long life advice, where I think we still only get to two, but a little bit of a going abroad.

But we don't, our passport isn't stamped, if you understand. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no.

But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Like we said at the top, we've got an hour with Connell. But in today's open, I want to start with a very simple question. It's really two questions.

Would you want to be a coach at the pro level? And is coaching at the pro level the same? And there's a couple examples that popped up. This isn't just an NBA thing, although I'm going to use some NBA audio here very shortly, but I want to talk about what being a coach is in 2021. The first question, would you want to be a coach? Any of us that care about this stuff, look, if somebody said tomorrow, hey, I have a plan for you to work in a front office, and I could never be a coach. I don't understand the game well enough, but if somebody were to say, hey, here's the the plan and we're going to start you on this plan

and eventually maybe you could be working i would i would probably still do it because i don't know i just think that working this hard for a podcast versus working really hard to compete for something are two entirely different worlds it's not going to happen i don't worry about it anymore right um the other obvious yes is that yeah those guys make millions of dollars they're on charter flights they stay in five-star hotels you're around famous people if you're an ego guy you know it's like hey cool you're the senator of attention i mean you kind of get off on that kind of stuff so there's some very simple yeses to would you even want to be a coach but we do know this the beginning of those careers they suck they're awful you know grad assistant stuff you're not making any money

if you want to start a family good luck with. You're not going to save any money. You're eating ramen all the time. If you're lucky enough to even have a girlfriend that believes in you, then that's going to be strained because you're basically like you're signing up for a decade of uncertainty and volatility and I'm going to get fired every two years. But if you do link up with the right guy and you're good at your job and you have some success and that guy brings you along and then you're in your mid-30s, you're a hot assistant, and then you get a head coaching gig, there can be a big-time reward. So the coaching profession in itself, as much as it's a struggle and the odds are not in your favor, there's an ending

where you go, wait, this is awesome. Now I'm making a ton of money. I mean, I remember people asking me about what I wanted to do when I'm sitting there going, you know, I think I'd want to get into media or something like that. And they're like, oh, that's stupid. You don't make any money. But yeah, but what if I'm awesome at it? Then maybe it'll work out. And the same is true for coaching. But it is a struggle. So if we get those easy yeses out of the way, let's break down now what it is to be a coach today.

Now, there's two stories from the NBA world that made the rounds this week. Russell Westbrook. Now, they got that win against Houston last night. But early in the week, they blew that game. Blown a couple games. I mean, they lost, I against Houston last night, but early in the week, they blew that game. Blown a couple games. I mean, they lost, I think, five in a row. And Russell Westbrook, who now is playing in a bigger market where everybody's paying attention to everything he does.

Yes, I know Houston is big, but it's not the Lakers market. And people are starting to question where his head is at with things. He had this long answer about trying to fit in, and it was pretty much like, yeah, whatever. I'm just going to kind of do me, which is probably the least surprising thing ever. Here's part of that quote. Everybody wants me to do certain things.

Fizz, Frank, everybody want me to do this, but then they don't want me to do this. Honestly, I'm over the whole situation and what everybody else want me to do and what they think I should be doing. I'm going to go out and just play and do what I know I do best.

That's compete my ass off. Compete to better win games, make my teammates better like I've done many, many years. I'll continue to do that as simple as that. We also had another story from this week where it was the Celtics losing to that Timberwolves team. It was a G League team.

I think Greg McMurray showed up. He might have been in the stands, and they were like, hey, do you want a jersey? But no, I believe he met the coach that day. And then afterwards, Al Horford, who's been around, no one's had a negative thing to say about Al Horford his entire career because he just gets it. And I mean as a person.

I know a lot of Celtics fans complained about his contract, and they didn't think he was good enough. That's fine, whatever. But you get the point. Al Horford is a guy that has it pretty figured out and kind of gave a generic soul searching. We're going to look in the mirror. And then Jalen Brown was asked about it and Tatum didn't play. Jalen Brown played and Jalen's really good. He had a terrible game against Minnesota. And Jalen was like, I have no comment on this whole soul searching, look in the

mirror thing. On its whole, I didn't think it was that bad. It wasn't that big of a deal. But you know, Doka, who came in now as the head coach, is kind of an anti-Brad Stevens, is kind of letting the Celtics have it every week. And guess what? It's the same as when Brad Stevens was the head coach, right? Brad was somebody that is, I think, a terrific coach. I think he knew those guys that kind of turned him off. He wasn't getting through to them. Maybe he knew as a roster. You know, I'm just not sure this is the right chemistry of your guys. I think that's kind of what you have in Boston. But there was a very specific personality shift from Brad Stevens, passive, worrying about everyone's feelings, to Ime Odoka coming in and being like, no, I'm going to challenge you guys a little bit more. And the problem is, is I think when you challenge guys, especially in the NBA, they're going to tune you out quicker than the guy that was being passive, especially if you don't, it doesn't have the playing career of somebody else. Like it's still why Jason kid and Steve Nash and Chauncey Billups are going to cut the line and be a coach because they still feel like if you're an owner, okay, I have somebody

here that the players will at least respect. I don't know for two years, um, because now in the NBA, I don't know how many guys want to actually be coached. Um, and I, I, the other part about coaching is the fans are never going to be on your side and whether it's the top NBA draft pick who comes in and it doesn't work out the first couple of years. And in basketball, it's kind of absurd, right? If you're, if you're a basketball player is taking fifth overall, and you're not very

good in your third year, it's not coaching. All right. It's you, but because the investment has been year. It's not coaching, all right? It's you. But because the investment has been made and there's still a little bit of hope because you were the fifth pick, that you're always going to hope that it's the coach and not the player. I mean, it's definitely true. Like, I don't think that's true in the NBA.

It probably means a player just isn't going to be that good. But with quarterbacking in the NFL, I mean, we're already seeing it. We're going to run through a couple coaches already from guys that were first-round picks this year. Trevor Lawrence hasn't looked very good. Justin Fields hasn't

looked very good. It may be completely misleading. It may mean nothing. But the odds are with the first-round draft picks, one of them actually isn't going to work out. And you are not going to blame

that quarterback in Chicago or Jacksonville until you're on, like, coach number three and coordinator number four. You're just not going to because you don't want to ever accept the fact that maybe it'll be the quarterback that isn't good because if he's not good, that means your team stinks and you have no one actually to blame except for the player himself. So the fans are never really on your side, even though we want you to yell at times because we want you as the coach to be an extension

of ourselves that are at home on the couch screaming at the guys that aren't getting it done on a Sunday afternoon or a Thursday night or whatever in the NBA. A lot of people point to Greg Popovich and the Spurs and they'll say, well, that's the way to do it, right? That's the way to do it. Greg Popovich. Greg Popovich is great. He's also really lucky. All right. David Robinson, who was with the Spurs far longer than Popovich was, you realize what you got in David Robinson? You got a guy that was

a cadet in the Navy. All right? I mean, his nickname was the Admiral. I don't know what his final designation and title was, but this is somebody that signed up for military service. And then after he was done playing, didn't come to the NBA for a couple of years until he had fulfilled the requirement that

he owed the name. So that's the personality that you're dealing with that's now going to be the face of your franchise for like a decade and a half. And by the way, the reason I bring that up is that Duncan comes in, who's different, Tim Duncan, who was like, nah, I'll stay awake another year. All right. He did that. So now you're dealing with somebody else who's a little bit different. His upbringing is a little different. Virgin Islands, maybe a little more laid back. And his mentor is a guy that was in the Navy before he played basketball. And he's kind of teaching Duncan the ways. Popovich steps into the scene and he's got like two of the best guys that you could have be the leaders because now they're setting the example for everyone else. And like, there's no bullshit. We're also talking like 20 years ago when this whole thing started. And he also lucked out that he could tell Duncan what he needed to tell him and coach him the way he needed to be coached. And there wasn't anybody else on the team that could ever call anything out because Duncan was being treated the same as everyone else.

But Duncan also came into a perfect spot because, as I mentioned, the Admiral already being there. That's rare. That doesn't happen. You don't just get the guys to be like, hey, I want to be coached tough. I want to be held accountable in film room because I don't think most guys want to do this. I mean, the NBA, think about these numbers. I was looking up the tenure stuff this morning. There are five coaches that's 10 years didn't start,

didn't start in 2018. Wait, original six Edmonton? No, you understand what I'm saying here? No, you understand what I'm saying here? That, you know, Pop, Spoh, Kerr, Malone, I don't know, I have all five off the top of my head. The next 25 coaches after all of those guys started their current job in 2018. James Borrego has the sixth longest tenure in the NBA. started their current job in 2018.

James Borrego has the sixth longest tenure in the NBA. I couldn't even believe it. I was like, wait, Borrego's got the sixth longest tenure with the Charlotte Hornets? Steve Nash, who's on year number two, is at 15th longest tenure. He's right in the middle of the pack. Actually, I think it goes this way. There are 15 coaches that are newer to their head coaching gig in the NBA than Steve Nash.

And we can sit there and keep referencing the Magic Johnson thing from 40 years ago and say, ah, it's always been like this. No, it isn't. That's what happened then. Guys do get fired. Coach of the year, as soon as you won it, almost meant you were going to be fired in 18 months.

It was a really weird stretch. This is insane. This is insane what's going on in this league because I just don't know. There's this needle that's trying to be thread at the NBA that it's like, what do I do? Do I get a coach's guy? Do I get a former player with no experience? So they're going to question him for that.

I just think that it's a personality thing that's happened more and more where the brand is. I mean, I don't know that the concept of team, which I kind of get laughed at when I bring up is somehow that's outdated and it's wrong. But look at Major League Baseball on top of that too. Major League Baseball, the manager salaries are going down. They're going down, right? In 2021, I looked this up, I think half in the Major League salaries database isn't very good for managers. So I apologize if some of this is off but like dave roberts three years ago was making a million dollars a year i think the mid-level mark the middle class for mlb managers has been destroyed from where it was 10 15 years ago i mean joe tory would get seven million dollars a year nobody even thought about

it um nobody makes that kind of money anymore i think half of baseball's managers are at a mill or below that because, you know, I don't know why, they're handed a sheet, a binder of instructions. You're like, this is the lineup today. This is where we're platooning. This is how many pitches this guy can throw. Follow it.

Don't suggest anything else. And we're good. There'll be some pushback because there's a handful of managers maybe have a little bit more autonomy, but that's the job now. So what is that? Like, that's not even, that's just like just like basically hey here's a hoodie and a notebook

i mean it really is anybody that covers baseball and understands this and really invested me like that's the entire shift so the front office has been like why do we need to pay this guy millions and millions of dollars to just execute whatever our game plan is so when i think back to like you know football still has a little bit of that mentality that again seems a little outdated in today's sensibilities of, hey, I kind of want you guys to be a little brainwashed, right? I want 53 guys rowing in the same direction. I don't need 53 Sarutis asking why on fucking Tuesday when we're doing an install, All right. I need you to listen to what I'm asking you to do and then do it because it's still, although may feel Neanderthal ish at times. Sometimes I think football coaches, if we're being honest here, are going to want a bunch of Neanderthals like, Hey, pick up rock, put it down over there. No questions asked because it's just a little bit easier, especially with all those different people. And I still think you have more influence on what an organization can be when

you're coaching at that level. But I'd ask kind of the question this way. Like how many guys in the league want, and I'm talking back to the NBA now, like how many guys actually want to be coached? Like, do you want to be coached? Do you want to be telling you, do you be doing stuff wrong? I thought that Houston story that came out last year when Harden and Westbrook were, it was kind of the end and we knew it was coming. And there was this part where Westbrook was basically mad at Harden. I mean, it was

obviously basketball porn for me, because I'm reading about the demise of, of, of partnership that we just knew wasn't going to work. Um, and Westbrook would be mad that Harden was late, which is great. But then I was like, well, what happened when you guys turned on the film and you see the 20 freelancing plays that Westbrook cost you points all the time, which people just apparently have been blinded and never been able to see this stuff until now that he's in a bigger market. And then it kind of reminds me of Steph, which is where this stuff all seems to come back to. It's like, just think about Steph, kind of like a modern day Spurs part of this, where I think he wants to be coached. I think he always wanted to be coached. I think he was always cool with it. And what it really comes down to is this, is you may not like the coach. You may not respect him

because he didn't play. He's not as big of a star as you. He doesn't make as much money as you. And we all have this in our human nature, whether we're great pro athletes or just a regular guy at the office, we're going to find ways to blame other people before we'd ever blame ourselves for our own shortcomings. But there feels like there's almost no understanding. There's no kind of accepted agreement, especially with the Stars, where it's like, I know you have a job and I have my job. Let's help each other.

I think the disconnect is as wide as it's ever been in the NBA. And I thought this week we had a couple more examples of it. Danny Cannell joins us my guy we're going to talk some college ball here as well alright let's get it out of the way when you hit send on the tweet that was 0-4 did it move did it move a little

there might have been a little movement here's the thing I mean you couldn't resist, but it is dumb. I don't even know what to do with it because I watch these games as well. Auburn was 6-6. Houston was their Super Bowl. I don't know. The Mississippi State one, I think, was ugly because of all the stuff Mike Leach was saying leading into it. They were a 10-point favorite.

Bama and Georgia still have a really good chance of playing in Indianapolis, and then we'll forget about the 0-4 start. So does it really matter? But I couldn't resist. I could not resist the 0-4 tweet. I left vague. A lot of people said, oh, what was that Florida State start to the season? Because that is what FSU started. But it was too tempting. And it is a rough start but i don't know how you feel we're gonna stop we're gonna stop because you hit send on the oh and four tweet when mississippi state gets blown out by tech which was kind of horrifying you're like wait what happened here yeah um and yet the first thing you're saying

is you're admitting that it's all bullshit and that basically it was your brand your brand was owing for but as i try to explain to people and they're like what's cannell's deal and i go look i sat in a room with a guy for two years i like him you would like him if we all hung out together you would really like him okay but and you admitting, I actually think this is a lot of growth is that you're admitting that it's basically bullshit as we wait to see if we're going to have another championship with two teams from the South. I, so I've always kind of positioned it. Like if you know me, whatever setting it is, I'm probably going to talk some like I'm just like on a golf course. I'm the worst. But hopefully, like you understand, it's part of just it's kind of like we're in a locker room. Like I was constantly crushing dudes for what they were wearing or what they were, you know, who they were dating or whatever it was. Everything's, you know, everything's out there. Like you just and if you see a weakness, you're going to take it.

But then hopefully, it's all in good fun. It's kind of like when you're a kid and there's somebody that makes fun of you and it's a girl and they say, oh, that's probably because the girl likes you or whatever, or you talk to the girl. I like SEC fans. They're the greatest,

but they're also the most fun to poke and prod and talk trash with because they take it so sensitively. So I do like it, but I would say most of the tweets about the ACC are in jest, are fun, are the same things I would say to these people. Like if I was at a golf tournament and I was in a foursome. You just said ACC. Oh, I'm in ACC.

Okay. All right. All right. ACC fans are just not that many of them to troll. So they don't have as much to get upset about. But it is. I like to talk trash. I like to talk smack with people. And even if it's a Florida or a Miami fan or something, I'm going to remind them what... And I don't care that we just got smoked or we just got beat and our kicker whiffed on the last onside kick. I'm still going to remind

them of something I can talk smack about. But it's always good. It's supposed to be fun. I thought getting into this and on Twitter, this is probably where I misplayed it just a little bit. Man, people take it seriously. Way too seriously. I'm usually always like, you've noticed this.

I'm usually got this Eddie Haskell grin on my face when I'm sitting there tweeting. It's meant to be fun and playful. If you're 0-4, you're 0-4. You kind of got to let it out there. This feels like a slight shift though. I think it was a little bit more personal

because I also thought it was always rooted in just a competitiveness that you were at a big-time ACC school. I think that you guys in the ACC were pissed off when I always felt like, hey, if another team or another conference does what the SEC has done, do you think I would be on the air still arguing that another conference

was better than the Big Ten if Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio State, and say, I don't know, Iowa, all four of them won a title and a fifth played for a title? Like, do you think I would actually say, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. The recruiting rankings are still pretty high down south. Because I'm with you. When the FBI stuff came out, just to share with our audience,

Cannell was beside himself. And you were like, they're including recruiting rankings in the FBI part of it? And then I agreed with you. I go, you know, that one. Because then you'd be looking at the FBI and you go, how the hell is Arkansas the 18th best team in the country in the fbi part of it and then i agreed with you i go you know that one because then you'd be looking at the fbi and you go how the hell is arkansas the 18th best team in the country and the fbi like what happened like well because they play in the west the schedule i guess they get a couple four stars that are homegrown so um i'm with you on the oh and four thing i don't really know what it means um i thought the sec west was still the best division because lsu came in last

and i go this is an lsu team that was missing a bunch of guys that still had Bama on the ropes in Tuscaloosa. Like, that's not an easy thing to do. And that was kind of my argument, you know, about some of the other divisions. But the weird thing that's going to happen with some of these bowl records, and this isn't to speak of the teams that have lost here, but it's going to be harder to know what to do with them as the opt-outs continue to happen. And the opt-outs, this is just a growing thing. It's just going to keep happening. That's the thing to me that's the bigger bummer

because I thought this season was awesome. We got back to normal. We had an incredibly entertaining season. You had great atmospheres, fans back in the stands. You had great championship games. You have upsets. You got Cincinnati, first-time group of five, Michigan new player. All of this great regular season set up for a great playoff.

And then I know some of it's COVID impact, but a lot of this, even with the teams backing out, I mean, you'd be foolish to think that, oh, this is all just about COVID-19 and protocols. There are a team, and Texas A&M is a team that said, oh, we only have 33 or 38 scholarship players available for their bowl game. And they actually did list. They said due to COVID-19 and opt-outs and transfers that they had to back out. 119 and opt-outs and transfers that they had to back out. It's in UCLA.

Like that one was pretty shady a few hours before the game. If they're key players, you're probably like, do we really want to go out there and have happened to what Mississippi State happened to them? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. From what I don't know. I think that was that was a tough day for UCLA. Maybe it was. I don't think it was the last minute like hey let's not play right um the crazy thing about the ucla opt out is that you know when you're at these bowl games you get to do all

this it's an unbelievable week it's you know you talked to like you guys you know the lucky part of the role that i had is i get to know all you guys and every one of you to a man would tell me dude bowl week is the greatest thing ever it's's the greatest thing ever. It's so much fun. You're screwing around the whole time. And then in this case, you may have gotten COVID at SeaWorld if you UCLA. So it's just, I don't know. All of it sucks

though, but I do agree. So let's just leave COVID out of it. We've seen more opt-outs. We've seen more transfers like there is a problem that you know, the powers that be, and I would say ESPN, they own most of the bowls. They have to look at and look at solutions because it's only going to get worse.

Now there is definitely, there's a cool factor to it. Like, hey, I'm an opt-out guy. I got to get ready for the NFL draft because some of these dudes, they're crazy. If they think they're getting in the first three rounds, they're getting drafted. You know, there's way more opt-outs that are fourth, fifth, you know, fifth round picks that I think could do themselves a lot of help by playing in the bowl game. And while, yes, if you're a Christian McCaffrey or Leonard Fournette or even a Kenny Pickett,

you're going to get drafted probably the same way or not. But if you're a fourth or fifth round pick and you decided to opt out, I think it does way more damage to your draft stock than if you actually played and you could boost up your draft stock, maybe with an impressive performance, but also to a scout or a GM says, oh, that guy wanted to finish the season. Like he didn't quit on his teammates. And I know that's like a controversial statement, but I'm telling you in the back of the minds, if you have a player or let's say you have two players and you're looking for a DB and

they're about similar comps, you know, they both play in the SEC, both played on teams that were seven and fives. They're playing in weaker bowls. One of them plays, one of them doesn't. I'm telling you that the team is probably going to select the player that actually finished the season, and they would look at that as a deciding factor if it comes down to that. It would have to be razor thin for it to be a tiebreaker.

But yeah, I mean, the football mentality at both levels is going to be, hey, this guy opted in, and I would agree with that. I think, look, I love college football. I think the bowl experience is a great experience. I think the system is so fucked up that I don't have a problem with people opting out. But I do think there is some accuracy on the coolness factor because I saw it with the NBA combine that I hosted for five years. And obviously, I'm part of the draft process in that it's something I care a lot about and where the combine had to shift from games because no one wanted to play in them to like workouts and then some games after. And it was like the number one guy wouldn't show up, like he wouldn't even show up to

get measured. So that if the other guy thought at number two that he was supposed to go to number one, he's like, well then I'm not going. And then it's trickled down where now if you're a lottery projection, you're like, I can't show up with these losers. And so there's definitely, I remember a bunch of you guys as quarterbacks were sitting around and talking to us about the free draft process of the NFL. And there was like one guy, this was a a while ago but he had put his papers in and all of you were in a room be like that guy put his papers into the nfl to like to come back and he just did it he clearly did it and yet again you're a kid you're a college kid it sounds cool like i'm

gonna put my papers in and then you get the feedback of where you potentially go and guys are like why like it's way more embarrassing than you put your papers in. All right, let me, I think we need to bring in Cerruti here a little bit to kind of circle back. Because when you sent out the 0-4 tweet, I looked at some of the responses. And trust me, we're going to get to all the playoff stuff here

that matters here in a second. And then, you know, the infamous Rainbow Bars tweet came up about SEC network programming after you had a great run that one year, about like six years ago where the bowl season went haywire for the SEC. And that was probably one of your proudest moments. And you put out the tweet. We've talked

about the tweet and that it wasn't the greatest career thing. I actually can't believe it wasn't ever deleted. It still exists. It's still there. It's not deleted. And then it looked like Maria Taylor, did she go at you because she was part of the SEC network? Like they took a picture and kind of went back at you? And answer that.

And then I want Cerruti to kind of just jump in and feel like, are we giving an accurate depiction of just messing around and horseplay here? Because I don't know if Cerruti is going to agree with that. That year was more personal because that was the year. That year was absolutely more personal. And not to tweet with the bars, the SEC is overrated was the more personal because that was the year that year was absolutely more personal and not the tweet with the bars the sec is overrated was the more personal like this one no one's going to argue with me that auburn wasn't that great like no one's going to argue that florida wasn't that great like that was the year uh old miss mississippi state were top five and i was like hold on a

second they haven't played anybody yet and And, you know, the overwhelming opinion was the SEC was hands down better than everybody else. And then in the bowl season, and that was at a time where I do think those teams were playing for more. Like Mississippi State, I think they got beaten in the Orange Bowl by Georgia Tech, maybe?

Didn't their quarterback get killed in like the first quarter? Wasn't that that that wasn't dac was that there was one no oh miss oh miss i'm gonna go back and look it up remember the white kid that was like projected to be a first rounder and then it just completely fell apart for him and then people got mad at mcshay for his mock draft having him so high and it was like well i don't know i'm gonna go look it up i can't remember but that season was absolutely was more like i felt vindicated on

yes you know the sec was overhyped going to that one this one again like and it hasn't even happened like if they went over in the bowls you might see a retweet of the bars but i don't think like that's going to happen and these it has been weird and there is i think everyone's kind of embraced it that they are really exhibition games where a lot of teams approach it. Let's get some guys, some reps for next year. I mean, Bo Nix wasn't even there. He'd already transferred out. He was their starting quarterback most of the year.

So I get it. The Maria Taylor thing, that was where I did feel bad. And I remember, I think I texted Maria. I was like, hey, you know, this wasn't a shot at you or anybody else because they were kind of like, hey, not cool. We might have been able to work that day. Now we're not able to. So I think McElroy might have sent me one too. I think that's who I felt bad for was those people that were supposed to work that day and maybe didn't. Yeah. But I'm not one to delete the tweets though. I hate deleting tweets. So I'll kind of look back. I'll apologize for it. But then what's, it's already screen grabbed

like other people have it out there. So what's the purpose in like deleting it? I actually respect that. If you delete a tweet after everyone's seen it and there are a million screen grabs, like what's the point?

Just let it live on. I would actually give you points for that, Danny. By the way, let me just say real quick, you guys are both idiots on the deleting tweets somehow, like lack of manhood.

If your work tells you to delete a tweet, you delete. Well, that's a different story. That's a different story. But like just out of like personal preference, like if Danny sends out a bad tweet and like people like, hey, Dan, delete the own for tweet after like the SEC wins the rest of their. Oh, yeah. Something like that. Like I wouldn't delete that tweet. You keep that tweet up.

You got to own it. You tweeted it out. But yes, if there's a man, you get rid of the worst tweet I did. got to own it you tweeted it out but yes if there's a man you get rid of the worst tweet i did maybe all year was i want and it actually got a it was a very popular tweet was imagine the 12 team playoff and i had the brackets in there but i only had two teams getting a buy and they're supposed to be four with the proposal so there would be an extra bracket with nobody to play and so i like put out this great bracket of, oh man, how great would a 12-team playoff be?

Except it was like a totally botched bracket that would not work. It was ridiculously dumb. And then as opposed to deleting it, kind of like Sruti said, I'm like, should I delete this or just let people roast me? And I just left it up there because it didn't make any sense.

But I think people got what I was intending was, look at these 12 teams. If they could play in a playoff, it'd be a lot of fun. Can I hit on something? So Rudy, do you want to get some of these replies in here? No, just real quick. My antenna went up when you were like, oh, I'm just having fun.

We're all having fun here when you're making fun of people. And Danny, I love you. You know this. But you are a perpetual line stepper. Like you, you like to push the boundaries on everything. And like, you're like, you're kind of like the friend who, you know, he'll make fun of some guy's new beer belly, or you'll be at the kid in school making fun of somebody's shoes. And it like, it can be like, all right, like that's kind of a dick move.

But you're, but I don't, I don't think you're trying to be a dick all the time. It just kind of comes off that way. That's your personality. So I think people that don't know you are like wow canel sucks but actually ryan you're right like he's a great dude i i love dan i do but like the way that you do it it comes off i think a different way than you're intending it to like you think everybody's having fun everything's great but people are like actually danny's kind of a dick yeah and i trust me i get that from a lot of SEC fans who don't listen to interviews like this because I think once you

put it in context, you can kind of be like, oh, he's just messing with you, but if you never heard that side, you'd be like, oh, this guy is the worst. Fully understand that. Did I tell you, Ryan, I don't know if you saw it, I've totally flipped

on paying the players. And in a large part, it was because of you. Because I was on with you probably in the off season, maybe six months ago. And you said to me, when is enough money enough? I think that was the question you said. Because I've always- Yeah, because that was always the argument. We're like, oh, our facilities and administrative costs.

Like, hey, we're carrying the cost of all these other sports. Like, okay, fine, fine. If there isn't enough money today, then give me the imaginary number that doesn't exist in your head. That's unobtainable. That would actually allow you to be able to pay the revenue generating players. And I would get uncomfortable. I'd be like, well, they're still spending the money out there and there's still value in an education. Like you're getting, you know, $250,000 in a degree. That was my old school take. And then this season happened when you saw $100 million. And it wasn't even a new TV deal, which is still coming. It was the $100 million in buyouts. And when I saw that number,

and you saw $17 million go to Ed Ogeron, and you saw saw 12 million going to Dan Mullen for coaches not to coach. 100 million was spent. That to me was like the wake-up call that maybe should have happened five years, a decade ago. And your question resonated with me. I was like, oh, there is way too much money around. There is plenty of money to go around for the players to get something. And the NIL, I think, has been great, but I'm way more willing to evolve and say, well, what can we do so that the coaches aren't getting everything and the administrations and the coaching staffs? And since we're going down this road of we're getting endorsements, we're having free agency, why not get it all above board? I mean, I don't know. Do you see what's happening with Tom Herman?

So I guess he was asked during one of the coaching searches, hey, would you be interested in coming back to college football? And it was, no. He's like, I'm perfectly happy where I'm at. And then there was somebody had a really snarky line. It was like, no, of course not. He's making $6.5 million this year to be an analyst on the Chicago Bears staff where he gets weekends off. And the next season, he makes $7 million a year to be an offensive analyst.

You start seeing some of those numbers of what coaches are being paid that aren't coaching. And it was a smack me upside the head type of moment when I realized that. So now I'm way more open to what are we going to do? And if you saw what Brett Kavanaugh said in the Supreme Court and the Alston ruling, he's basically said, you guys need to wake up. And it sounds like Jay Billis wrote it for him because it's like, you guys have a monopoly, no other workforce works for free. And while I do think there is absolutely a lot of good that you get being on scholarships a great existence they are they're going to get a piece of the pie and i

think the sooner we get there the better we'll all be instead of having you know the sham of a system which is essentially minor league football well yeah i think you had touched on it before i did this big buyout video like two years ago and you And the only pushback I got from some of that was like, hey, the buyouts, a lot of times it's because of boosters passing the hat. And I go, okay, but you're missing the entire point. As the salaries escalate to match the TV money and revenue coming in, that puts the school on the hook for these things to begin with, which then is another excuse as to why we don't have enough money because college coaching salaries. I don't think there was anyone over $7 million five years ago.

In this new cycle, we're going to have, I think, is it 10 guys that are going to be over $7 million in just five years? That's nuts. You'll go through that USA Today coaching database and look at some of the salaries. You're going to be to be kidding me i mean nebraska alone the amount of money and i did all this in the video and it's true like look at administrative costs with schools and schools did it both on tuition where they're screwing people over and then you know just making sure that they have slides in a barbershop on site for for kids but i mean

they got done some of the arguments used to be. Remember in some of the first dealings when the NCAA is constantly challenged on this? And I'm with you, too. To act like the entire student-athlete, however you want to phrase it, experience is this exploitive thing. Well, not for everybody, but it is for the guys that are bringing in

the eyeballs. For some people, it is a great, hey, look at this. I got a full ride. I went to a great school. I don't have any student loans. Like it's not a horrible deal for everybody. I don't like when people argue that it's, it's awful for everyone. Um, but you know, some of the arguments in the past, remember there was the one where it was okay. It was like actually consumed publicly. And it was like, well, you know, kids, they spend money on tattoos and cars and you just go, wait, I know, I know people my age that spend money on tattoos and cars and you just go wait i know i know people my age that spend money as dumb as anybody else would in college like that's so fucked up that you would

think that that's a good argument that i'm gonna give these 18 year olds money on campus that they're not gonna know how to spend it who gives a shit it gets their money it's their money so i'm glad you've come around on it oh but are but are they going to pay taxes on it? Who cares? Right, right. Some of the arguments against it are so dumb and antiquated, and yet they're still being made out there. Are you going to pay your scholarship back? Who cares?

I love the taxes one because it's like the guy, a new car, and then some guy's nudging somebody in a seat that the price is right going, sales tax on that's gonna be a bitch i mean you and i both have made some bad purchases that's for sure no doubt by the way i need to do a massive old miss cleanup um the tcu game was the chick-fil-a bowl where they got smashed 42 to 3 i knew that that was bull wallace but he actually played more of that game than I thought. The draft guy was years prior to that. That was Jevin Sneed, who flamed out a bit there as

a pro prospect. Okay, I can't believe we did 20 minutes before we got to the playoffs. The weirdest thing about all these bowl games and going, oh, alright, this one's not happening. Here's an opt-out. For whatever reason in my head, which is really stupid, and we're 48 hours away from this by the time we tape this and when the games happen, it hasn't even crept in my mind that we could have had one of the four teams go, hey, we can't do it. Or maybe they'd be like, actually, there's no

COVID version of this where we're not going to be showing up and playing in the playoff. Let's start with clearly the more interesting of the two, Michigan and Georgia, who you got and why. clearly the more interesting of the two, Michigan and Georgia, who you got and why. So I was doing some stuff with CBS like right when they selected on Sunday and it's set up there. They want you to make a pick like as soon as the announcement's made

and they come out with the lines right away. And I was like, Michigan, give me Michigan as long as it's over a touchdown. Like I think this game is going to be close. It is becoming more trendy where it's starting to make me a little bit nervous, but I'll stick with Michigan seven and a half, but I like the under even better as far as a play on the game. And I like Michigan so much, if you're going to play Michigan, I like them also just to win outright. I do think Georgia,

mentally, I'm very curious to know where they are. They just come off another loss to Alabama, except this one wasn't even close. Their defense, which I don't want to say exposed because they were great all season long. They just hadn't faced a Bryce Young quarterback. And Cade McNamara is not Bryce Young, so I don't think you have to worry about that happening again. But I do think the bigger issue for me is on the offensive side of the ball. Are they going to be able to put up enough points against Michigan's defense? Who is great and maybe just as good, not NFL talent wise, but they've been outstanding all season long.

They've shut down better offenses than what they're going to face in Georgia. And I mean, when you're hearing that JT Daniels was, you know, maybe he's been out for COVID, which I actually think probably helps them because maybe it took some of that off the table of him actually getting significant playing time. But it does, it should like give you a look at where they are with Stetson Bennett, which is, think they've had two games against the better opponents they've played. Against Florida, he didn't play great. And now against Alabama, didn't play great. I thought he played well enough to win, but their defense didn't.

And I think they're going to be extremely conservative. And I think the biggest question mark for me is can Harbaugh and can Michigan, can they create enough points, which I think would be like 24, like enough for them to win? And then their defense, can they hold Stetson Bennett a company under three touchdowns or do some field goals get the stops? And I think they can. So I don't like it, the fact that Michigan's getting trendier,

but I'm just sort of going all in and saying, all right, well, if I like Michigan, I like them to win outright. Because Michigan, total flip side, they've got all the confidence in the world. They slayed their giant in Ohio State. Then they back it up in a game that a lot of people thought, oh, man, maybe there's going to be a hangover emotionally. Where are they? They destroy an Iowa team that's not very good. But still, that was still an impressive performance. And I think Carbaugh, got to give him a ton of credit. He's got this team believing he made the changes on the defensive side of the staff. And then even more so,

he kind of went back on the offensive side and said, no, we're getting back to what got me here. We're going to be physical. We're not going to try to spread people out. We're not going to try to RPO. We're not going to try to do the latest trend. We're just going to go back and we're going to cram the ball down your throat. We're going to take our shots and it's worked. So I think Jim Harbaugh deserves a ton of credit. I think his team is playing with a lot of confidence right now. I see. I think you're even nicer about Georgia here than you are on social media because I would agree with you as you kept kind of questioning Georgia because of the schedule. But then I would be like, look, when you're giving up

seven points a game through 12 games, that's a big deal, okay? I don't care what your schedule is. That's impressive. When you're smashing teams by 30, you know what I mean? Like even really good teams will have that week. And even though I would agree with you and getting Clemson, who actually kind of turned things around a little bit,

certainly not to Clemson standards, but I'm not going to play the retroactive game, which I just think we do a really bad job with in college football, is that like all of a sudden that Clemson standards, but I'm not going to play the retroactive game, which I just think we do a really bad job with college football. Is that like all of a sudden that Clemson win is better because Clemson figured some things out later. Clemson was a mess. The first half of the season, it's kind of like the Notre Dame lost to Cincy.

Did Cincy get Notre Dame at the right time? Because after Notre Dame, Wisconsin, I was over both of those schools. And I think Notre Dame started to figure some things out. And clearly Wisconsin did after a stretch where it didn't look like Wisconsin could crack a hundred yards throwing the football. So when I look at Georgia and the Clemson thing,

we were tricked into thinking that was going to be unbelievable because Clemson was stuck. And maybe it exposed what we think of Georgia's offense against somebody really good. I think Michigan, I was leaning Michigan, but I think it actually is kind of like a bad matchup for them because, you know, they've run the hell out of the football the last couple of weeks, or excuse me, the last couple of games.

I shouldn't say the last couple of weeks. Iowa, that doesn't impress me. Ohio State, personnel-wise, been saying it all year long. The front seven's not loaded with the NFL guys that they normally have, but they still have it running. I mean, between Corum, Haskins, Edwards, I actually kind of like the skill guys better for Michigan. but they still have it running. I mean, between Corum, Haskins, Edwards, I actually kind of like the skill guys better for Michigan.

Bowers is a stud. We know with Georgia. I've been reading about George Pickens now, I feel like, for 10 fucking years. He had a couple catches in that Bama game after only playing in two, but he's super, super talented. So that maybe gives you something. But I want to stay on the quarterback thing here because, you know, Cade McNamara's stats are not going to scream.

If you look at them and you're like, whoa, they actually aren't that great. I think he has something to him though. He's got some real juice in his arm. They let him take shots. They have the run game to support him along the way. And he's a Harbaugh clone. I don't know if you know the story, but he went to visit Saban, visit Alabama with his family, and then they drove up to Michigan.

And then he sat with Harbaugh and they just nerded out. And then Cade told his parents in the car, he's like, I'm coming here. Because the feeling, the story goes that Harbaugh found himself in Cade. And I do think when you watch Cade over the course of the season, like we have, I actually think he's completely overlooked and I don't know if it's the stats or what, like I like him better than Stetson Bennett, even though Bennett stats and efficiency stuff are off the charts. I think you see the difference when Stetson has to carry a team, not that Cade has had to as much, but I think Cade is completely overlooked out of the four guys that are in the playoffs. Totally agree.

You know, he didn't have to do a lot. You know, like early in the season, they were throwing it 15 times a game, the first four games, because they were playing against Western Michigan, Washington, you know, Rutgers. And by the way, too, losing Ronnie Bell, who would have been the best receiver in this entire game, you know, this is a problem. This is a problem now for him. but i also think that maybe that was part of like hey we lost like ronnie bell's nasty and not having him we forget about it but that might have been part of what you're

saying and i want you to keep going because it's a great point like the first month hey do we trust him do we even have our deep threat that we have so go ahead and they had a great luxury of not having to use them and not having to worry about anything except winning football games like you know there might be a temptation for some teams and not either one of georgia or michigan like hey let's get our guys some stats for the heisman conversation you know the davy o'brien award none of that and i don't think that goes to your point like i don't think a hardball guy cares about that at all you know how state didn't have to do much because they didn't have to do much um i do think it'll come down to, and I think it's really interesting that they still use J.J. McCarthy to come in there as a wrinkle just to kind of keep you honest.

And it goes to... You know what that is, though? What's that? Hey, you're a huge recruit. We kind of thought you were going to beat out Cade. So let's pretend you're actually still in the mix here a little bit. But they have used him pretty effectively. When they put him in for spots, he's been pretty effective there.

I worry about... So you brought up the Michigan State game. The only thing I worry about is a little bit of... Michigan, I think, will be able to pressure Stetson Bennett. They did get run all over by Kenneth Walker III. That was Kenneth Walker's Heisman moment before he had Ohio State. That is a position of concern for me. And then Dax Hill, I don't know if you saw that,

one of their defensive guys, it's very unclear if he's there at the Orange Bowl, or if he's been practicing with the team. Cade McNamara was like, we're not commenting on anybody's status, referred it to Jim Harbaugh. The center said the same thing. I think he could be big and run support coming down.

So something to keep an eye on. By the way, let me, let me just jump in there. Did anyone ever during your Florida state days go missing at a bowl week? No, not that I can recall. And I missed the, uh, I missed the Falcons by one year when, what was it, Eugene Robinson went AWOL the night before the game. Remember, there's always like a Super Bowl guy. But this is, I think this is COVID.

Like, this is COVID. Then the media is not allowed at practice because they're so careful. But media can also like track them in the hotel from the bus. Like, all right, checking off players. Why isn't this player here? And no one's getting an answer so far. I guess Harbaugh talks tomorrow maybe. And so he'll have to address it.

You'll get an answer on that one. And there's a chance maybe they're just being cautious. He's been under the weather and they're going to get him back. Like you just don't know. But that could be a critical one. And you said, you know,

before we started this playoff conversation, you're just assuming these teams. I'm still a little bit nervous about what happens game day. Like UCLA was the day before the game. Cincinnati's players went to a Cowboys game the other night. Like they were in a stadium with 60,000, 70,000 people in it. I get a little bit nervous about just the impact it could have.

And it gets me upset that the playoff came out with their policy, which is we're not even going to think about delaying the game a few days. We're just going to forfeit if you can't play. So I'm still a little bit nervous about that, but we'll have to see that. Dax Hill is just one player that, and I guess Bill O'Brien's back with the team after he was in COVID protocols.

So we'll see. Yeah, I probably shouldn't say missing. I think I was teething up trying to get- So you like Georgia. I'm with you. I think this is trying to run against a brick wall. But I look back, if Cade McNamara doesn't panic, I think this game will be similar to the Clemson game.

And that game was a defensive slugfest, and there was one massive mistake by DJ Uyungle that was a pick six, and that was the difference in the game. And I think this... And I go back, I look at Florida, which was 3-0 with three minutes in the half, and then AR-15, you know, throws a, fumbles the ball, throws a pick six,

and gives them short field, and then you look up, it's 24-0. That was a game. I mean, that was a game with a couple minutes to go in the first half. Florida's in it, and then they gave up, what, 21 points in less than two minutes or something like that. Yeah.

And, you know, AR was trying, you know what I mean? Like, I kind of felt like this was a young kid going, hey, let's do something here. So I don't think it's as egregious as, you know, some of the other stuff we've seen, especially, you know, younger players. I mean, NFL guys throwing pick six, backed up in their own 20 and just like, all right.

But it happens. I want to pick Michigan. I want to pick Michigan because of Cade. I don't think Cade's going to freak at all. No, I don't either. I think he's fine with it. I love how they've kind of gotten more creative, getting a bunch of guys the ball in their hands.

I know Anthony's more of a special team guy, number one. But there's just a lot of guys on this team. When I've watched them as they close the course of the season, I go, you know, they have some options here. And, of course, their edge guys, both of them, just putting on an absolute show. So they're going to mess up Stetson at some point. You're not going to keep your quarterback clean

against those DNs from Michigan. I just think of Michigan going, they've really expanded this rushing attack. They've rolled it up against Ohio State and Iowa, as you mentioned at the top. And you're going to have to get something going there because if you look at Georgia, I mean, they were allowing 80 yards a game on the ground before Alabama. And I think we're more aligned on Georgia in that, okay, maybe the schedule was easier.

And I think you call them overhyped at times. I just am like, okay, but if you're destroying everybody, it doesn't mean you also sort of sneaky suck where some of these teams can get to like 6-0, 7-0 if they're on the right side of the division in a conference where their division is down and they're out in their non-conference as three or four joke teams, which can definitely happen. We'll have some 7-0 frauds, and I

never felt like Georgia was that, and maybe that's buying into the pedigree of it all. I just get upset. Not upset. It just raises my antennas up when everybody's like, this is the best defense of all time. I'm like, well, let's slow down a little bit. Like to be considered the best defense of all time,

I just felt like we were getting out of our skis a little bit and saying, well, let's stop somebody that's great first before you call yourself that. Because there's no doubt they were the best defense in college football this year.

But you look at the competition, they needed to be tested and then they didn't do it like it reminded me of lsu bama going into the rematch when people were saying is this lsu team the best team of all time i was like wait a second you're telling me that a team with jordan jefferson at quarterback is going to be considered the best of all time like let's slow down a little bit i just it bothers me when we start just making blanket statements. Not to take away from what Georgia's done, and they might. Maybe they get revenge.

Maybe they come back and their defense, that wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't shock me if they come out and they get a pick six and they shut down Michigan and they get their revenge. But I need to see it first. Okay, so that's a perfect transition because the other reason that Georgia looked exposed for the first time in 13 games is because bryce young has proven now as he closed out this season like if you had any hesitation about bryce young i mean look that auburn game was not easy that

sounds ridiculous i almost look at auburn and go hey when it's auburn bama it's happened enough where it doesn't make any sense and then you're sitting there with five minutes left going how did this game happen and it's a big reason why we thought, hey, Georgia has to figure it out this year because Bama had five or six weeks where there were examples of what the hell's wrong with this team, but Bryce Young fixed it all. We know the offensive line, other than the left tackles, not what we're used to. Jamison, but with Mechie out, this is a problem

because we saw when Jamison was out after the targeting hit in the Auburn game that when it's one receiver that you're really freaked out about. But who knows with Bama, they may be working one of the younger guys in the last three weeks and we're going to learn about him this week. And I like Cincy Secondary with Sauce back there. Those guys are good. But this one's tough. I mean, there's no way I'm picking Cincinnati. With the points either?

So I like Cincinnati with a 13.5. I don't like Cincinnati to win. I think Bama's just too much. But I do think their secondary, I think their secondary is better than Georgia's. Sauce Gardner's long, like he's 6'3", he's pretty tall,

which can provide a problem. And I think the loss of Mechie is a big, I think that's significant to Alabama. Now, here's what I think. You're right, because I mean, with those two guys, it's safety help on outside of both. You can't leave them. And so now it changes everything.

And that's exactly why I thought Auburn, who does have some guys in the secondary who i do really like like let's say oh hey jamison isn't jamison is gone as i struggle to say his name throughout the podcast here today so go ahead i jumped you so when i look at cincinnati like if you're gonna say all right you can't let bryce young do what he did uh against georgia to you guys uh but i think their personnel is better suited to slow him down because Mike Trestle, the defensive coordinator at Cincinnati, he like,

you've got to, you got it. You can't just sit back in a zone. You can't do one thing. You got to throw multiple looks at them. That's what Cincinnati does. They're outstanding with that. So they're going to give them multiple looks,

but then you have to have the personnel to trust on the outside to be able to say, you know, cause typically if you bring some blitz, you're going to be in man. And then you get a little bit nervous, especially in college, that you get burned on a big place.

Maybe you play soft. And if you do that, Bryce Young will pick you apart. He'll say, all right, I'll take that quick, quick hitch, that quick slant, whatever it is. I'll take advantage of that all day long. But if you can bring pressures where Bryce Young has to throw it quickly and you can jam, you can get up in their face

and get a little bit more aggressive, which Cincinnati will do, then it throws off the timing and rhythm. Because I think one of the more under-discussed aspects of the SEC championship game was maybe all season long when Alabama was struggling to protect Bryce Young and the line was, you know, because against Auburn, it wasn't great. A lot of sacks. LSU wasn because against Auburn, it wasn't great. A lot of sacks. LSU wasn't great.

A&M wasn't great. I think there probably was somewhere, you know, they're like, hey, why isn't this working? We're Bama. We're supposed to be able to block these guys up. But against Georgia,

I think there was a different type of respect and a different type of game plan where if you looked at the release time of Bryce Young, he was getting the ball out like every single read. Maybe it wasn't a hot read, but the ball was coming out of his hands.

And for a defense that thrives off pressures, getting after the quarterback, he didn't even get hit that many times. The ball was coming out. That can be incredibly frustrating. So I think Bill O'Brien deserves a ton of credit for coming up with that game plan against Georgia's defense.

Now, what I don't know, if you try to do the same thing, can you have that quick-hitting success against Cincinnati where I feel like the area that I would be concerned about the most is stopping the run. It's just, Bama's going to be bigger

than anything you've seen since last year's Sugar Bowl. Or no, Peach Bowl, when they faced Georgia. Georgia, right. And they played them pretty well. But I just wonder if this is going to be a game where you don't see Bryce Young throw it for 400 yards, but you see him, because he's, the dude is one of the coolest quarterbacks I've

seen in a long time. I mean, he makes it look effortless. I think his style, like he does not panic, whether he's getting sacked six times, whether the game is on the line and it's against Georgia, he just looks the same. Like his heart rate is, you know, like 85 and it's just cruising the whole game.

I don't think, like, I don't think you're going to see a game where he goes out for 40 yards, but I could see a game where they lean on Cincinnati a little bit because they can. And that, to me, gets a little bit concerning. Does Cincinnati have the personnel

to stand up up front against Alabama's offensive line? Which, it sounds kind of crazy because Alabama hasn't, you know, haven't ran the ball great at times. It's been one of their weaknesses, but I do think there's going to be, that'll be probably be to me a bigger challenge for Cincinnati. I love what you said about Bryce getting the ball out too. Cause I mean, I think that's what's always so frustrating and maybe it's, it's growing up in new England and seeing Dante

Skarniecki affix everything as an offensive line coach. And he should be in the Hall of Fame. I just think the world of that guy, because I've never seen anything like it. You know, I saw it every, oh, hey, here's an issue. Or, hey, this guy's down. All right, we're going to shuffle these guys. Is everybody on the same page? I mean, it's just unbelievable.

So I always felt like, and again, maybe it's skewed. You tell me. You play the position. But I always felt like you could adjust to your own offensive line's shortcomings. And that's what was so weird about this Bama season is like, Hey, after the NAM game, you knew you guys had some problems.

Like you just knew it. And I don't think anybody, I always hate when it's like, Hey, you got to get pressure on the quarterback. And then you force it. Well, it could no shit.

Like there's never been a quarterback. You're like, you know, who's great is this guy loves getting hit and off of his throwing plane. He loves a bad pocket. He loves running for his life and trying to get the ball back down the middle. He loves it. He thrives in those situations.

But I don't know. Like, there you go. Boom. Hey, we'll save it for the SEC title game to have these adjustments. And it's not like the front for Cincinnati is going to be the front for what they faced in Georgia. But, you know, you look back at that game and not only did Bryce throw it for 420. I don't I'm trying to double check the sack numbers here. Yeah, zero, zero.

And he didn't get hit much either, which is probably the more impressive thing because, you know, sacks are a good indicator. But how many times you're pressured or hurried is probably more concerning. And he just wasn't that much. So Cincinnati, I think and I much. So Cincinnati, I think and I don't think Cincinnati I think they realize this too. They're not going to try to pressure with four

and play some tricky zones behind. I think they're going to bring different looks and try to confuse Bryce Young and get a free rusher on him as much as they can. But the thing is he's been patient. I don't think and I think was it LSU or Auburn where he was sacked him as much as they can. But the thing is, he's been patient. I don't think... Was it LSU or Auburn where he

was sacked five or six times? I think it was Auburn. They were getting pressure on him, and he just never forced a ball. It didn't matter what time was left on the clock. Just trusted, hey, I'm going to get at the next possession. I'm going to come back. And that is a rare trait in a quarterback because

at some point, you start pressing and starting to try to do too much on your own. The dude just doesn't do it. He is special. Yeah, he was sacked seven times against Auburn. LSU games where they couldn't run the football that saved their lives. Yeah, and sacked seven times and then goes 97 yards in the game

when it matters. And a couple of those third and fourth down plays when he's scrambling around at the end and just dealing dimes were, were filthy. Can you give me just a minute on Ritter then? Cause out of, out of this,

look, Bryce Young's going to be, we'll see where he's picked two years from now, but Ritter's kind of hovering between first round and, and second round. Um, we had McShay on, and I think even Breer. And they just said the variance on him from NFL teams

is far greater than, say, Pickett or Corral even in front of him. So the one word I think you would describe him as a winner, like the guys won a lot of games. You've seen improvement every single year. I don't think the, and you and I probably talked about this because it was a formula that I think worked, you know, six or seven years ago was in order to beat Bama,

you had to have a dual threat quarterback, like somebody who could beat you with his legs because you're not going to be able to protect him. And that was Deshaun Watson who was beating him. Trevor Lawrence beat Bama, like quarterbacks that could really hurt you with their legs. And of course their arm.

I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore, Trevor Lawrence beat Bama, like quarterbacks that could really hurt you with their legs. And of course, their arm. I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore. But I do think Desmond Ritter is going to have to make some plays that are off schedule. And he's good at it. Like he can do it. And he's also a quarterback that did. What I'm struggling with is what do you do with Notre Dame? Like, is that considered a great win?

Like, is that as impressive? It's a good win. No doubt. Notre Dame was on the cusp of making the playoff. And Ritter went in, threw two touchdowns, threw 297, had one rushing touchdown. He's going to have to have a similar game as that.

When I look at Notre Dame, they're not the same personnel. They're good, and Kyle Hamilton was on that defense before he was hurt. He was out there. But I just don't know if it's going to be the same type of challenge. But I think Ritter would have to be. I do think for Alabama, I don't think Bryce Young has to be the MVP to win this game.

I think Cincinnati wins the game, which I don't think you or I, neither one of us think it happens. I think they keep it close enough within the spread. But in order for Cincinnati to win the game, I think Desmond Ritter would have to have a MVP performance. I don't think Jerome Ford is going to rush for 140

or even 120, whatever number. I think you'll see Ritter making some plays with his legs, kind of hurting this Alabama defense for them to win. I still think it's crazy for a couple different reasons.

Brian Kelly leaving, where if Cincinnati had lost to Houston, which isn't absurd to suggest that we'd be talking about Notre Dame in the playoff. And who knows, if DJ doesn't throw that pick six, and Clemson pulls that one out, 6-3 against Georgia week one. And again, you never know. The results maybe lead to different results here. But there's like two versions, very realistic versions where Georgia would have had the second loss and Notre Dame would be in the playoff again. Um, and as you're talking about Notre Dame, I thought Cincinnati was going to beat them. They were the favorites in that game. Anybody

that watched the two teams prior to that point, it was not a surprise to see Cincinnati beat them. Uh, I think Notre Dame kind of got better towards the end. And I'm happy that Cincinnati's in there, so people think the group of fives are eliminated, but I still think that it's two different worlds, power five and group of five, and that's why I don't have a hard time with it. All right, before we let you go, let's talk about your knolls, Danny.

Deion Sanders, your guy, flipping the number one recruit in college from Florida State to Jackson State. All right, I'll give you my answer. You got to give me your answer on Brian Kelly at LSU. I'm sure you already have him on speed dial. You're getting your sideline passes all ready to go. I would get those no matter who's coaching. Yeah, that's true. I was in Tallahassee Tuesday to speak to the Tallahassee quarterback club. Signing day was Wednesday, the early signing day.

So before I went by, I saw Coach Norvell, talked to several of the coaches, and there was an excitement and optimism around signing day. And I was like, hey, everything... At that point, you're like, hey, it's in the barn because they're not out in the road anymore. Everyone's back. And you're just solid hey, it's in the barn because they're not out in the road anymore. Everyone's back. And you're just solidifying to make sure everybody's got their... I guess now they don't do fax anymore. They can take a picture of it and text it to you. So they're making sure everybody has the paperwork for the NLI, the National Letter of Intent.

But I was like, hey, is everybody good? And they're like, yeah. And I don't follow recruiting, but I was aware that Travis Hunter was the number one recruit in the country. I said, are you guys... Travis Hunter good? Yep. He's good.

And they were like, yeah. Don't even... Not even a care in the world. Yeah, he's good. So then these guys... I get picked up to take to the airport Wednesday morning. And they had started signing guys at 7 a.m. And my flight was at like 10 a.m.

So it's like 9 o'clock. I'm like, hey, what's going on? They're like, oh, I'm like, well, what about Hunter? Has he got his stuff in? Because I would have pictured he's one of the biggest. He had been a guy for two years, was committed to Florida State. Two years. He was a null for life.

After they started 0-4 this year, some of the recruiting people were like, hey, you know, thinking about bailing on FSU? They're not very good? No, knoll for life. I'm good. And then, so then all of a sudden, like you see these rumblings. I'm like, all right.

Uh-oh, what's happening? And it was, there's no letter of intent yet from Travis Hunter. And so I was like, because I knew Texas A&M, Georgia, Bama, like there were big hitters in there. And we know how those deals switched last minute. And I was like, uh-oh, we might be in trouble. Like maybe there's a big offer that's coming in.

And then you find out that it's Dion and Jackson State. I'm like, wait, what? Like what is happening right now? And I give Dion a ton of credit. He orchestrated this thing. And then I just started trying to talk Seminole fans off the ledge. Like, all right, stay off of Twitter. Don't crush the kid. Let him do his thing. Not that it stopped anybody from tweeting their discontent at him, but I still think now I'm sure you've probably talked to them too. I talked to big cat and was like, bro, I'm like, what did barstool back up? Like there's gotta be, because I think there's, and then there's this, there's these two positions that are like, Oh, he's going to

change the game. And he wants to go to an HBCU and be a trendsetter. And I'm more of the mindset that there must have been some sort of incentive to get him to go there. And he's going to play for the best that's ever played his position in Deion. So I don't think this is the start of some movement to HBCUs.

I do think there's a chance that both Deion and Travis Hunter aren't at Jackson State in a year or two years. And for Florida State, the fire Mike Norvell Twitter spaces was kind of comical that it started instantly on that day. And I was trying to, what's happening here? That is a ridiculous take. I don't think there's anything Mike Norvell could have done differently. that is a ridiculous take.

I don't think there's anything Mike Norvell could have done differently. He just got burned, and an 18-year-old changed his mind to go play for somebody that is still one of the more, maybe most relevant football player from his era that's maintained his relevance in Deion. So I get it.

I don't think it's... And Florida State still had a top 15 class with losing the number one overall guy. So maybe everybody wins here. It's definitely a blow to Mike Norvell and his staff, though. And I love Mike Norvell.

Got a really good relationship with him. I think he's the right guy. But he better win because they're... Deion is out there. And if he has another good season, which he did this year, there will be a strong contingent that will say, bring Deion to Tallah, and if he has another good season, which he did this year, there will be a strong contingent

that will say, bring Deion to Tallahassee. I heard they gave him a thousand Caller Daddy crop tops that were still left over. But I can't confirm that. Can't confirm it? I can't. I've been working. Those guys have been tight about it. There's a million different directions that you can go here.

I think the Deion part of it, can you imagine how impressionable you would be with Deion being like, hey, let's do something, let's do something historic, and you're Travis Hunter. I think that'd be a really hard thing to say no to, and I think that that's a part of the future of college football that we'll see, because anybody that ever studied this would be like, I'd rather be a great recruiter and a good coach and a great coach and a good recruiter. And I think you're going to have to have a more of an open mind about who's running your program. And maybe it's just the CEO with the, with the coordinators doing everything anyway, which is what a lot of the top guys are doing now. You know, Hey, what are we doing this week? All right. This is what I'd like to do. You work in your room and you work in your room and then

we'll get together and we'll game plan it out and then I'll make the big decisions on Saturday. So if you can have somebody like Dion, when that personality is absurd as it may have felt like five years ago. I mean, I remember I think even like more than five years ago, he was on the pregame shows being like, I should be the Atlanta Falcons head coach. And people were just like, what? But Dion deserves a ton of credit because he's like, if I want to be a coach I'm going to go. I'll go to Jackson State and I'll do it and I'll show you and I'll flip this guy. But I do think that it's a real like this is a grown up conversation of like, OK, but what would Deion do if he got a better opportunity? Is he going to go to a power five? He probably would because he's Deion Sanders. And then that where does that leave Travis? Would he decide to transfer? OK, well, he just flipped from Florida State. And after that and then it turns into especially if it's two white guys like us talking about HBCUs, it's like, well, you guys

don't get it. It's like, I will admit that I don't get it. But I also know that the reality of college sports is such that if you could play at a Bama, an LSU, a Florida State, an Ohio State, pick the top 10 blue blood programs, that there's just a different level that is hard to reach. And it's not even an anti-HBCU. I would say the same thing about the group of five. I would say that about the Sun Belt. I would say it about all sorts of different conferences where it'd be like that experience is not going to be the same experience. And then I'd see the counter to that and be like, well, look at all these great graduates from HBCUs. I'd be like, that's not the fucking point. I didn't

say there were zero famous people that graduated from HBCUs. It would just be that this is a pioneer move, but what does it mean? And we don't have the answer to that yet. And I think by simply asking the question, that's part of the conversation. It is a nuanced conversation that we should be able to have. You and I both, we've been to a lot of different facilities around the landscape of college football. There is a massive, massive difference in your experience playing in the SEC or the SWAC or the HBCU. Pick your HBCU league. There's a massive difference in resources, in access to all those things.

Does it mean that Travis Hunter made a mistake? No, it doesn't mean he can't make the NFL. No, like I was trying to put myself in his shoes because I was, you know, again, trying to defend the Florida State. People were like, oh, Dion betrayed us. No, Dion, he wants to be a head coach. And he told me at the Super Bowl in Miami, probably three years ago, he's like, oh, Dion betrayed us. No, Dion, he wants to be a head coach. And he told me at the Super Bowl in Miami

probably three years ago, he's like, I'm going to be a Power Five head football coach. And all I know about Dion, he's a competitor. He works his tail off. He's going to try to do everything he can. He's well on his way there. But if I was in high school and I couldn't be recruited by an HBCU,

but let's say Dan Marino, who was my childhood idol, who I looked up to, had taken a job at FIU, you let's say Dan Marino, who was my childhood idol, who I looked up to, had taken a job at FIU, down at Florida International. Small school facilities aren't great. And he would have been trying to tell me to come play with him. I would not be surprised at all if I would have looked back and said, all right, I'm going to go. I'll stay close to home and I'll go play for my childhood idol. He's telling me he can groom me to be the next best thing. I might've done the same thing. So you have to look at it from everybody's individual perspective. And I would like, if I set,

if I set the over under at two and a half years of how long are both Dion and Travis Hunter at Jackson State, I would say under. Like, I think Dion probably brings them with him and that's probably a part of the conversation, which is okay to have. Because if I was Travis Hunter, I'd be like, hey, are you in this for the long haul? And I would think Deion would be pretty open and honest. Hey, I'm in it for the long haul, but if I get a great offer, I'm probably going to take it. And guess what? You can transfer with me free of penalty, and we'll bring my son,

we'll bring everybody else with us, and we'll make that place great. So I think it's a nuanced situation, but it does show you that more schools are going to have to be open in this NIL, you know, new territory that we're in that. And it always has been about talent acquisition. If Dion's one of the best guys at acquiring talent, and if he can pull these, this type of talent to Jackson state, imagine what he could do at some of the top tier where he does have great facilities. Yeah. I mean, it's great for Deion's resume.

And that's part of the conversation again. So you're going to be in Miami for the bowl game? Or what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah, I'll be down here. Then headed up to Indy for that, which will be fun. Indy, one of the best spots to host a championship game. Nice and cold. What and cold. Super convenient.

What's that? Super convenient. You know what I should do? Say hi to Kelly. You know what? This should be a great idea. I should go get the St. Elmo's cocktail sauce and take it on air and see if everybody get a reaction. You know what? Has anyone done that yet? I don't know. Have they?

What did you think of Brian Kelly? It was funny because I thought perfect hire, great that yet i don't know have they uh what'd you think of brian kelly like i because i you know it's funny because i taught like i thought perfect hire like great resume but man the landing has been rough because yeah but it's all irrelevant the landing stuff is all irrelevant the accent thing is is insane town i don't know what the hell is going on there um the tiktok videos you know you're kind of you kind of have to do these i'd be a bad recruiter because i'd be like my recruiting staff would come in and say hey can you do a little dancing tiktok thing to call them baton rouge and i go no right you would but you'd

lose out on that five-star quarterback you thought you think i would do that dance well no i said you wouldn't i said you wouldn't that's why you'd lose the top recruits you wouldn't do it i'd be like hey do you want it'd be like when suge took the stage at the source awards you'd be like if you want to coach dancing your fucking videos that's right i actually but i do think like the the the accent thing maybe give them the benefit of the doubt you're in an arena and there's an echo there's a reverb maybe that was it and it was only the one it was really on family like my family that was the only word i thought there was a second word that was questionable as well i just think all of this stuff is irrelevant because he's a really good coach and he is someone that like he shows up and there's no doubt you know what i mean? You show up and it's Brian Kelly

and he's running your organization. He knows exactly what he wants to do. I just think the only thing is you've got to make sure that the people, as I've said throughout it all, the boots on the ground people are taking care of the in-state thing. And that's why LSU is a better job than a lot of jobs because you don't have,

I mean, even though I wouldn't call Georgia Tech a real threat to Georgia right now, there's no reason why you should be losing anyone in Louisiana. And as long as you can do that, pick off a few people in Texas, pick off a few kids in Florida, you don't really have to do much else, but you've got to make sure you take care of the in-state stuff. And so if you're not of the South, you better be armed with people that get how it works and has all, you know, and that's what Saban did and started and why LSU is even what it is 20 years later because of what Saban did and some of those changes with the recruiting. So I just think that he gets it in a way that very few hires would have gotten it.

But yeah, if you were from Hammond on top of everything else, it would be an even better fit. So we'll see. Yeah, I do think his start will be interesting. I mean, they play Florida State, I think, in week two. I think, is it this year? I think it's coming up because I just saw it on one of the boards up there.

He needs to win early because for whatever reason, he is enemy number one of the football media because of the way he left Notre Dame. But that's an opportunity. You get paid a boatload of money. And I think Brian Kelly was like, you know what? I'm tired of coaching with one arm behind my back. Like I want to go have access to the same players, the Kirby smart, the Nick Saban, that Lincoln

Raleigh, that everybody else has access to. I'm tired. And he's maxed out pretty much everything he could have done at Notre Dame. I hate it for the players, um, you know, at Notre Dame, but I think even they understand, I haven't exactly seen them trashing Brian Kelly. I hate it for the players at Notre Dame, but I think even they understand. I haven't exactly seen them trashing Brian Kelly. I think his players like him. We'll see. I think it works. Florida State, LSU September 2022.

Let's go. Me and you. Nine months. Let's do it. You're going to have me on the pod that week? Let's go. I'll be retired by then. There you go. One hour with Danny. Where can we see you this week? Give us a promo, all your stuff.

You can catch me every morning. Sirius XM, Channel 84 with Dusty Dvorak in the mornings, Cover 3 podcast, and then all over CBS Sports HQ for your college football playoff coverage. We did not expect this. This was not on the syllabus, but apparently we have a surprise going abroad.

So let's do it. Yeah. Everyone's favorite guy, Franz Wagner, aka Only Friends, which probably is the best nickname going to the NBA right now, I would say. I don't know what beats that, but my guy's backing it up.

And last night, 38 points against the Bucs against the Bucs, by the way, team that was not depleted. I mean, it was a Giannis. It was drew holiday carving up one of the better defenses in the league as a rookie, 38 points, three of the top five rookie scoring performances are from Franz. He's number one in points. He's top five in just about every statistic from a rookie. And I don't understand,

Ryan, and this is where I want you to come in on this. I feel like, and I hate doing this because it's like the media thing of like, why isn't this a bigger deal? But it's almost like he's doing a lot of the things for Magic fans, what we thought Jalen Suggs was going to be doing. And if Jalen Suggs was doing these things, I think the media would be losing their minds. People would be like,

this is unbelievable. There's a future star in the making. And I feel like, despite the fact that Franz continues to ball out night in and night out, he's a great three-point shooter, good passer, good defender. I don't know. They're still not the rookie of the year, Buzz. He's still behind Mobley, and I'll give that. He's still behind Scottie. And I'm just confused as to why we aren't making a bigger deal of Franz Wagner absolutely

balling out in his rookie year. And I think it has to do with going back to his draft evaluation and people were kind of like, is this guy just kind of a 3 and D guy? You know, kind of a glue guy. They thought Magic overdrafted him when they took him at 8. And I don't know. I want to know from you, from like a draft perspective,

am I as a Magic fan just being like fanboy and saying, oh, nobody's talking about my favorite player? Or is there actually something here? Dude, are you hyperventilating did you watch the game last night the guy's unbelievable i didn't have that one in the queue i did look it wasn't a great game i'll give you that because when i saw the score i mean it was early one it was a it was a blowout i focused on um what did i watch i watched all of philly toronto i watched all of la houston i caught I watched all of LA, Houston.

I caught the ends of Pelican, Cleveland, and then the other close one. Memphis Phoenix was two nights ago. That game was awesome. And then honestly, Denver Golden State was fun as hell. What Jokic does for that team is unbelievable. I mean, every single possession has a touch. All right, look, we're not talking about that tall, foreign, weird white guy.

We're talking about a different one. Look, if Jalen Green had 38 against the Bucs, it would be a huge deal. It would be a bigger deal than the reaction was to it last night. I think that's not being drafted number two. I think it's the Orlando market versus the Houston market. But yeah, I think there's some truth in that because there is a lot of just the, hey, what about my team stuff? That happens. It's stupid. I try to stay

out of that. I really do because I hate the guy that knows how to write a chat board. I would say yes, that this should be a bigger deal and we're going to do our part here on Going Abroad, even though it's in Orlando. Do you think the liberal media's bias towards the infrastructure at the head of the Orlando Magic organization, do you think

that has something to do with it? I think it's big tech. Orlando's not one of the big coastal cities, so there's not a lot of buzz there. In all seriousness, though, I think if Scottie Barnes had done this, if Jalen Suggs had done this, if other guys... I just think it's where he was drafted. I think people

are still falling back to their pre-draft evals of him. And he is blowing all of that out of the water on a team that, by the way, is terrible. I mean, he is the only guy. So maybe there's some of that in there. But it's not like he's just pumping shots and he's incredibly inefficient. I think he had 38 on like 20 shots last night.

It's absurd. He's shooting 50% from three in the game. Again, good defender. The guy... Good defender. Good defender. I mean, he can do way more with the basketball. When I started seeing him put it on the floor third shooting 50 from three in the game again good defender the guy good defender good defender i mean he can do way more with the basketball when i started seeing him put it on the floor and dribbling through guys like good players and then can also defend i mean he was a good

defender at michigan he also was was good as a help defender which i think being good to help defenders easier um unless you're just an idiot um than just straight up but a lot of times you know you're it's it's not like you're just down an island going iso against these guys but he holds up really well and the size i mean these numbers this month sir rudy i mean he's at 20 a game five boards three assists he's 47 and almost 40 from three he makes all of his free throws he's had i mean he's what 38 20 25 27 20 20 those are all games this month in December. And I think the problem is they've won three games this month. Correct, because they're terrible.

And this will be the last thing I say, because I know this is an abbreviated going abroad. But every time I watch him, I have to rethink what I think his ceiling could be. And I don't know what his comp is. There's a guy on Twitter who's in magic Twitter land. I like his team 11, really good dude. He called him Big Manu,

which I think is actually pretty good. I know we're doing the white guy white guy thing but he's a legit 6'10 guy who can get to the hoop shoot does everything playmaker whatever I think his ceiling can really be anything I think all stars 100% on the table I think could he be the franchise cornerstone I don't know I don't know what this guy cannot

do and that's why I think it deserves a bigger deal and that's going abroad all right that's why I think it deserves a bigger deal. And that's going abroad. All right. That was good. I think, I think we'll help with the awareness. You want details?

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

Life advice is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. By the way, New Year's Eve plans. What do you guys get going on? Making out a ton, I bet. I don't know. I'm kind of thinking nothing. I don't really know. I know frolic rooms open.

They're open at Christmas. Actually, this was the first year they were closed on Christmas, and it was actually caused some rumbles. I wasn't the frolic room on Christmas guy, but I was just – it was a topic of discussion on the 27th. There were some regulars that are upset the frolic room was not open on Christmas. They were like, first time in 30 fucking years. It was like, oh, wow.

All right. So it's a home for a lot of people who don't have families uh but does the frolic does the frolic room know that it gets this much pub on this podcast definitely not on this podcast i mean you know you look and you see the people on the walls in there it's like they don't need this podcast but um yeah it's uh they don't they don't know and they don't wait back up back what did you just say i'd say like if you go in there and you see all the pictures of the people that like were in there and have been in there it's like they don't need this podcast that's what i'm saying yeah that's what i thought you said i just want to make sure i heard you

repeat it okay because it sounded a bit like a diss but um go ahead keep going no i was just gonna say um i don't even know what i was gonna say because you made me defend my uh stanza the frolic room oh new year's i think i might go's. I think I might go to New Year's. I think I might go to New Year's there. I was going to do nothing, but I might go there. So you definitely go in there. What about you, Cerruti?

I was going to go out to dinner. I'm like a big late night New Year's dinner guy. I get like a 10 p.m. steak situation, you know, bringing a New Year with a good base and old fashioned. But now I'm kind of like, do I really want to go out?

I think it's like safety or whatever. I don't know. I'm just kind of feeling lazy. So we might just hang out and get takeout. Watch a movie. Maybe watch a new Bond movie. Yeah, I just watched it.

Good. It's good. They do a good job. Okay. Like one of the, what does it rank among the Daniel Craig ones? Like top, bottom, middle. Nothing's better than Casino Royale. This one was pretty good.

Yeah. So there's nothing, nothing's gonna be better than that. Royale this one was pretty good yeah so there's nothing going to be better than that a couple things they did I don't love but I'm not going to no spoiler alerts so we're not going to do that let's see here we had a lot of follow up on the 100

pound dumbbell curl for Steph Curry tons people gave us the audio and I thought I had this right We had a lot of follow-up on the 100-pound dumbbell curl for Steph Curry. Tons. People gave us the audio. And I thought I had this right. Doris Burke said that he could lift a 100-pound dumbbell. So Draymond Green told her he can lift a 100-pound dumbbell, which, you know, rows, that's a lot of weight. Deadlifts, 200-pound dumbbells, you know, it's a lot of weight. But you would think personal trainer,

pro athlete, Steph's still bigger than you realize because he's on a basketball court. And he's a lot thicker now. Steph is thicker now. Thicked up the last couple seasons. So, a little different than a 100-pound dumbbell curl, which I'm still not sure. I mean, I'm sure there's somebody, some of these fucking

freaks, there's somebody that could probably pull it off. I would be, I'd be so scared to see somebody do it. That's not, you know, neat, you know, like,

like the mountain, he could probably do it. Well, I have the, I have the quote here. It's that Steph is jacked at six to one 85. Steph Curry can lift a 100 pound dumbbell with one arm for Draymond green. So one arm.

Yeah. So it's probably like above above the like this kind of thing. It sounded like a curl situation, but who knows? It did. It sounded like a curl situation, but my guess would be that it's a row. Maybe we'll have Draymond Green on. Just have him on ask him one question and say thanks. Thanks

Draymond. Appreciate you. Thanks a lot dude. Have a good new year. A million plane story follow ups. We're just not going to go there. We had some confirmation on my conference that I ran into at Disney for a while. Then we had a guy chime in about Disney and why it's actually awesome for he and 10 of his buddies. Look, these guys all look like they

got it figured out. They look like they're successful. They're doing alright. They said it's awesome because you can go to Disney World. You can experience all these different things like a Labatt in Canada, Grand Marnier Grey Goose Slush, Limoncello in Italy.

Oh, is this the drinking around the world bullshit? Yeah. Oh, come on. Give me a fucking? Bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Give me a fucking break. All right. That's kind of. I don't think we need to add much to that. Kyle, do we?

Okay. I mean, there is a business out there for guys trying to meet other guys. I joked about the website named Gaia. I fucking 30% of our emails are. How do I make guy friends? By the way, you're asking the wrong guy. That's funny.

I'm not the person maybe to answer half of the topics that we touch on here, but that's the segment. But when it comes to meeting other guys as you get older and becoming friends with new people,

I'm better on parenting than that. And there we go. That was a good joke. Kyle liked that one. A little slow today, sorry. He liked that one. Okay, let's go back to our lane. We got a Jim one.

5'10", 2'10", can throw up 315 on the bench. Shout out to Kyle on enjoying the word asshat. Oh, he called the guy Jim Asshat. So that's why he thinks Kyle sent it to me. All right, anyway, I dealt with a serious case of Jim etiquette gone wrong recently. Would love to hear your opinion. All right, so we just need a ruling, simple ruling right before the new year. We can handle this. Wife and I recently moved States jobs the

past year. And as soon as you moved, I want to find a gym to continue my workout routine, even with a move to a new state job. That's the end of the sentence. Do you want to find a new gym to keep working out? We should get this guy on. Has anyone ever done that before? All right. Um, I kind of panicked and picked a mediocre national chain. However, one thing I found out about my decision, though, is the etiquette at this particular planet fitness. I guess we're just going to say it. Oh, it's great.

Oh, okay. Actually, he's saying that his etiquette at this, the etiquette of the planet fitness is great. I've never dealt with any dickheads, probably because it's a planet fitness until recently. All right. So shout out to planet fitness. We're giving them a positive Yelp review here.

Fast forward to my issue. It's Christmas Eve. I want to get a nice back-bys workout session in before the evening festivities with the fam. It should be slated that I like to do supersets from time to time. Uh-oh. And I chose today to do some bicep supersets with my back routine. Need to give you a layout of the gym real quick. At this gym, they have the two main cable stations that are connected with three lat pull-downs off to the side.

On the other side, they have three single cable stations and then one cable row station on each side of this layout. So two total. All right. So yeah, this is pretty standard. The two, yeah, I can picture it. So essentially in the middle, they have four single cable stations. So, all right, a lot of cables here. So I'm near at the end of my routine

and I'm hitting the wide grip rows. Nice, dude. While supersitting with bicep cable curls, which is located on the other side of the row station, I get one full set done and I'm resting about to hit my second set. This moron walks over and starts messing with the cable I'm working on.

So I politely walked over to him and said, hey man, I'm using this cable. I have a couple sets left. Thanks. We both have headphones in, but he clearly acts like he doesn't know. I just told him the situation is taken. Mind you, the cable station across from him on the other side, two of the other side that are open. All right.

So we have basically he went to use your cable station that you were superseding with, and there was a million other cable setups. All right. We get that. He looks at me in disgust after I say it again and begins to walk off. As he does, I point out, literally pointed at the open cable station. That one is open. I walk back over to my sets and look over

and he's shaking his head and throwing a fit. Well, he goes to take off the grips that are on there and walks by me on the row station. Oh, so he did a little bit of the drive-by. I decided, fuck this guy and stare him down to see what would happen. And as one habit, the guy broke eye contact so I won, of course.

Nice, dude. Yep, this asshole did all this so he could do tricep pull-downs and pull-down crunches, which is probably the same exercise if he's using a rope. I digress. In reality, I'm probably the jerk for doing supersets but also fuck this guy. Boy,

this guy's worked up about it. With this, so there's no confrontation. I'm hoping you're on my side. He loves Kyle. Supersets always makes it a little dicey. You know, like that guy saw you on a machine and thought that other machine was open. So he went to that machine to go ahead and use it. So the superset thing, you know, it's always, if you're going to try to pull it off, I think you've got to understand that you have to be open to somebody messing with your

routine as opposed to just being on a set. I mean, the other day, I don't know what the hell this guy was thinking. I was doing a rope pull downs and I set my timer. I was doing 60 second rest. I was resetting the timer for the lap to make sure I had it timed out right, which again, you know, whatever. It's just something to keep me focused without wandering mentally. Guy walked over to grab the rope and I was like, hey, what are you doing? He's like, are you done? And I was like, no, I'm not done.

I just got started. And he kind of like gave me a look like, well, you're on your phone. And I actually, because I had the timer on, I was like, it's been 40 seconds. It's been 40 seconds. And then he kind of walked away. Meanwhile, there's like four other ropes to pull from. Um, some people just don't get it. You know, then it's kind of speaks to the selfishness of all of us. Again, they just look and see something, but when you're super setting, I think you just got to relax a little, you know,

you could have used the other ones. He's not looking at, he sees you on one machine. He doesn't see you on the one you're using. Sometimes guys will be like, Hey, I get it. Totally cool. I'll go to a different one. But in a way he's looking at it as, Oh, this guy has to have two machines. You know what I'm saying? Like if this had been reversed, your email would have been like, this guy was super setting, but I wanted to use this one part of it. Like you're kind of right. But I think whenever you're doing back to back again, for people that understand it, it's, you do one set and then no rest and you run over and do a completely different exercise at another station without any rest.

But it also means that it looks like you're not using it when you're using something else. So that always gets screwed up and you have to have a higher tolerance to somebody messing up your routine when you're doing supersets. I think that's pretty standard. Do you guys want to add anything to that?

I doubt it. I would, yeah, and I don't have too much. I mean, when I do go to the gym, it's been a while. When I do go- How long? Well, it was once they started putting the mask back on during the pandemic. I was like, well, let me know when that's over. I'll be back.

So once the gyms opened back up and for a while there were no masks if you're vaccinated, people were coming in with their masks on. They were like, hey, guys, just so you know, if you have your vaccination, you could totally take those off. I was like, wow, okay. So that was great. And then once that came back, I was like, well, I just won't be doing anything exhilarating in here because I hate breathing with those masks on, especially breathing heavy. So it's been since then, whenever that happened. gym but um if i was this guy i probably would have did what he did in the first part be like hey guy there's a fucking thing right there and that would have been it i probably would have not

stared him down for no reason unless we were leaving the chargers game you know what i mean like i there's just let there's less situations where i'm thinking about like all right let's let's see if he actually wants to do something but i definitely would have said i would have said something always stand up for yourself dude people don't fight at the gym though do they like i feel like it's just like testosterone. Nobody actually it's like, you know, stuff in the NBA. Nobody actually fights. Nobody does this stuff.

I haven't been there enough recently to know. Yeah, I know. No, nobody. Nobody fights at the gym. I mean, look, we're going to get an email about a guy being like, oh, there's actually a fight at my place in Texas. Like, are you in? You won the contest.

You won the contest at the time that it did happen. That's awesome. You know, it's your medal. Yeah. I'll just say this stuff doesn't happen on the peloton so i wouldn't know about it uh no people now that i'm thinking about it i mean there's probably one confrontation that got a little weird but the people don't fight at the gym they don't they don't fight at the gym even even like you know dudes walking around that are all that's your. Unless your gym has a basketball court.

Then the chances get a little higher. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point, Kyle. Good point. The guys who listen to this podcast, there's some guys I was playing pickup basketball with not that long ago. I don't think they're going to mind that I share this story. I don't think they are at all. Because I said, I think I might tell this on the podcast.

Speaking about basketball fights, I guess there was a guy that um because the other day i went to the court and these two dudes played one-on-one full court and i was like you know and then after a while you know i kind of they were younger so i like let it go and then i was like hey what's the score i'm like we're not keeping score. I was like, now you are like next basket wins, man. You know, uh, yeah, like that. You actually, you're going to start keeping score now. All right. Well, that last basket won nothing. And cause I mean, I remember I got, I got, people couldn't believe that I showed up one day to shoot Hartford and some old guy was on a bike. I mean, you know, you'd looked a little, little out there.

He's like, Hey, mind if I shoot around with you? And I was like, yeah, kind of. It's like, I didn't fucking, I didn't come here to meet, you know, people ask me like, Hey, how do you make friends? Don't do that. It could have been my old bike buddy. You know, who knows what his name was?f or something so you missed an opportunity to make a friend for most of our emails and i'll tell you he didn't want to be my friend after i said he looked at me like what did you say no i'm like wait you want to take a jump nobody says no you want to take a jumper take a jumper but like you think we start remounting for each other and talking to you nice nice one no that's someone you're coming off that pretend flare screen hot look at you oh keep feeding them you know

i'm not this isn't a positive thinking exercise so um i guess after we got done playing some of these other guys came up and said hello. And they had, they, I don't know. They were like, Hey, what was that story? And we started kind of telling the story.

And then they go, we had a situation where we were shooting around and this guy asked to play with us. And we were like, no, we came here with a specific number of guys. We're all friends. We don't actually want to play with anyone else. And this is kind of how it's going to work.

And then if you want it again, I don't like when people do that kind of shit where it's like all right well then i got next i've had people be like well actually there is no next like yeah actually there is there is like whoever the five guys are that lose i'm playing with four of them and that's the way it's worked through time okay um but in this case there was something where the guys were just like playing half court and they didn't want to play they're like go shoot around at the other end. Like, we just kind of want to do our little thing. And then I guess the guy wrote down on a note. He goes, if any of you want to cage fight me, here's my email address. And he left it in the middle of the court.

And he, so he writes the note out. Imagine how much this guy was seething on the inside he writes the note out puts the piece of paper down and said it doesn't say anything to the guys this is their story that they told me and then he leaves the park and just goes and then the guys were like he'd leave a note at center court and it was like if any of you want to cage fight me here is my email address and i was like that, that guy's, I wish I knew. I wish we could book him as a guest. I don't want to fight him. Did he build his own cage?

I was going to say, does that guy own a dojo or something? I'll tell you what, if guys that own their own dojos, that would be something they would do. Yeah, totally. Like it's the new duel. It's the cage fight. I challenge you to a cage fight at my facility yeah I tell you

every time I read about duels I'm like I don't know if those things should have do you watch the last duel no it's on the list I'm like dude for a guy who loved the king you would watch the last duel I think I know I would love it I just watched the green knight which I actually liked a lot, too.

That was cool, too. It was weird, but it wasn't okay, but I liked it. Alright, let's do one more. We're putting together the one. We're making up for the No Friday, by the way. No Friday pod. Exactly what we're doing here, by the way. This is unbelievable how fucking long this week has been with the pod, so I hope people like it.

Hit us up. Let us know. Sound off in the comments. Okay. Do you think we should get back to the one tweet that pissed me off this week segment i think we should bring it back just one and by the way the funny thing is when i see something i'm like oh that's so stupid why that and then 10 minutes later i never care it's a fascinating exercise be like oh yeah you cared about that 10 minutes ago what's wrong with you um i think i think is this randos only or is it like well-known people what are the rules i don't know i feel like there's a lot of crossing over because saruti and i've been talking about well i don't want to expose all of our pre-show

meetings but um we used to do it i think back on dual threat and it would just be some you know what maybe we should just do it with randos no offense to the randos they're people too but um maybe we just do it with randos like when anytime we post something and be like this was a this was a position that somebody took although that might just breed you know gremlin style more and more of it all right let's back like the tosh.0 web redemption thing and have the guy on and be like you still feel this way no but all i did i did do it with a guy that was just out of control with the dms he was just saying the dumbest shit to me over and over and over and over and over again like nasty really mean and whatever oh yeah didn't he like love you after that he was like i'm just

kidding dude yeah i wasn't sad about it but then that? He was like, I'm just kidding, dude. Yeah. I wasn't sad about it, but then I was like, Hey, I go, we should have you on just cause I knew it was going to happen. I never do that. I never do it.

And I was like, Hey, we should, you want to come on? You're great at this. And the guy was like, Oh, okay.

Yeah. Fridays are my best days. And then he DM me for like two months after that. And by the way, you're probably listening to this right now, you dick. And by the way, you're probably listening to this right now, you dick. Um, and he was like,

great job on, on that thing with Danny Connell or whatever. And you're just like, you're, I have way more respect for you when you just thought I sucked. So, um, that guy's now going,

Oh wait, is this me? That's why I wasn't, that's why I wasn't on like yep that's what i did one day i just randomly said hey do you want to come on to see you crumble and have you 180 to be like oh this is my chance nope no it wasn't it wasn't i just got sick of your dms all right uh was that mean out loud i don't think i know that was awesome and there's a lot of you fuck all of you who are this guy wow kyle's kyle's kyle's heated good thing he's not at the gym well kyle

got some you got some blowback for a tweet recently didn't you like you i saw you like you know you tweeted at the haters uh was it a music was the music choice situation i almost meant to text you about it oh dude i don't know you know what honestly that i think that was late i think that was late when that one came out. Honestly, I'm not I'm not one of those guys. I'm not one of those guys. But honestly, when you guys were like, I got some text from you the other day. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, I know. That makes me a little nervous. I don't have too many of those, but I think it was. No, you were talking about nerd stuff. You were talking about like stuff that was movies that were coming out. And people were giving you shit for like liking Boba Fett and all that. And you're like, well, why are you guys coming at me i mean the witcher like a fucking nerdiest of nerd games like star wars was like one of the nerdiest shit in the 70s like

you know i don't know like then now they're like it's all basic it's like what's what should i be doing dude should i be like reading manga and fucking uh watching shit with subtitles from 1992 like what do you want me to do fuck you if you think that's basic there's still a lot of people that are like i don't know what this whole star wars thing's about anyway so whatever fuck you if you're a hater honestly wow imagine being a hater is what i said i almost feel like in the year yeah we should have like kyle's picture on the release of this podcast Kyle's just letting it fly you want to know why I'm so tired?

because I stayed up until 3am playing Age of Empires 4 last night I'm a fucking nerd guy you don't get to tell me so you were up until 3am building an empire yeah I was playing I'm playing online now I was out of the game for a while no no no

I like the so it's um i'm uh i like that i like the english it's good but then i also i rock with the chinese they got a lot of gunpowder stuff good uh and then the uh chinese have always been great with minerals yeah and then india i'm so lost right now i have no idea all right so let's uh i'm sorry let's keep that i was pointing out how much this drip the pot was dragging on and I was like hey why don't we just do another 10 minutes that don't make any sense alright dating as a short dude hi guys 22 55 140

squat 315 though my first year out of school living in the Midwest as you can tell from my numbers I'm not the biggest dude in the world we were able to pick that up the 55 part 140 tipped us off and I let this affect how much confidence i have in different aspects of my life when it comes to dating and finding someone to

date is always hard because i i want to find someone who's shorter than me but being five five kind of limits a lot of girls lol hey man we got an lol out of it like i'm serious you know what i mean like yeah okay the preference would not be five five it's not going to change and um mean like yeah okay the preference would not be five five it's not going to change and um you're just going to have all right so let's let's keep going here within my friend group one of the girls uh is probably one of the coolest girls i've ever met she's pretty she's kind smart even expressed her feelings of liking me back when we were still in school up to that point i didn't really think of her as someone other than a friend but ever since then it kind of has me thinking the thing is she's like six feet tall damn kyle's losing his mind no you said the thing is she's like six feet tall that's just funny okay sometimes the way they're written is great no this guy's good he's really good i

want to i want to make this work and i don't i don't know that i have any answers but we'll see that we'll see where this keeps going. The fact that she expressed her feelings tells me the height difference clearly doesn't bother her and it seems stupid for that to be the only reason I don't just go for it. It has been a couple months since she told me this so I don't even know if she still feels this way. Plus, we live in different areas of the country

so it'd be hard to start something now. There's also the fact that we were in the same friend group and I don't want to lose her as a friend and I don't want to make things awkward within the friend group if things don't work out. I know I'm an overthinker and I realize I'm still way too young to get caught up in this, but I just don't know what I should do about the height thing and the fact that she's in my friend group. I also realize most people would probably say just go for it, but it's easier to say when you aren't really short for a guy. Thanks in advance for your help and love

the show. Also, always love when interviewees are so surprised how knowledgeable Ryan is about what they do. Okay, cool. Thank you for the call. Alright, you left something out here. Are you into taller women? You know? If I were 5'1",

I think I'd want all volleyball players all i would want to go out and just be like yep what's up five foot two she's six two what's up now yeah yeah yeah hey you guys gonna make jokes no shit hurt them. I'll get this round. And hold their hand and make out. And that's when PDA is totally cool. And just say, screw it. You know, like, look, the 5-5 thing's never going to change. So I think you're opening the door to the mindset of, all right, fuck it. You know, like I was watching the Jim Carrey Man on the Moon doc on Netflix the other day.

When it first came out, it blew me away. I watched it again. It's even better. It's fucking awesome. Jim Carrey is fucking awesome in that. It's just a wealth of information. He should be doing life advice. But he said something about his father losing his job as an accountant at 52 when Jim Carrey was trying to figure out, like, hey, a lot of manifest stuff with Jim Carrey.

I don't really do that stuff that much. I did it once. I put a Beach House picture on my fridge in Manhattan Beach years and years ago, and then boom, what's up? So maybe it does work. I don't know. Hard work also works too. But the point is that Jim Carrey was sitting there when he was trying to decide whether

or not to pursue this really difficult career path. He was basically like, look, my father proved to me that you can fail by not chasing your dreams. So there's really no decision. Yeah, you can fail by chasing your dreams. You can also fail by not chasing your dreams. So there's really no decision. Yeah, you can fail by chasing your dreams. You can also fail by not chasing your dreams. And when his father lost his job as an accountant, I think it wrecked the family quite a bit. And so that was it. That planted the seed for Jim Carrey to say, fuck it. This is the only way to go about it. Again, it doesn't work for everybody. The math does not allow all of us to win.

But the reason I bring that up is that there's nothing is good. Like, yes, women are going to turn you down at five, five. You found one that's six foot that likes you. You like her. She checks every box.

You just brought that up. I don't know if the six foot thing is a turnoff to you. Cause again, that might be the case. Cause I have another short buddy who again did a ton of steroids to compensate for the shortness. He would only date girls that were five feet tall. Like he hated tall girls just right by him, had just zero interest.

But he found a cute one at like 4'11", five feet and made him look taller at 5'4", 5'5". He was like the happiest guy in the world about it. So it sounds like that's not even you. It sounds like you're just worried kind of how everybody feels. Friend group, about it. So it sounds like that's not even you. It sounds like you're just worried to kind of how everybody feels. Friend group, screw it. Here's what we don't need to start doing because as you admitted to yourself and yeah, we'll get some pushback. This is grown up life advice. All right. When a six foot four guy walks in and a five foot five guy walks in and there's girls checking you out, most of them are going to look at the six and four guy

they just are all right now i have to deal with the same shit when i walk in with a bunch of younger dudes because i'm still cool with all these young guys and then we roll in and i'm fucking bald and they all have awesome hair with pomade in it guess who they're looking at pomade you know you cannot get that word are you doing that on purpose? I did it on purpose. Okay, all right. I did it on purpose this way. So if we can all agree that that's kind of the way life works and that you know this firsthand and it's in your head a little, being in your head is not going to make you taller. So don't be in your head anymore about it. It not going to change and if you found somebody that you think

you really like and again if you're attracted to taller women there you go great if you're not then okay that's a different issue but i don't know the answer to that part of it but if it's simply that i do think it's going to look weird or people are going to talk or whatever think it's going to look weird or people are going to talk or whatever. Here is the biggest thing from all of this. There are some limitations on the available group for you, the way there are limitations that we have. Some people's group is wide open, real wide net. Most of us have a more narrow net.

Your net is a little bit narrow. So why would you create more limitations beyond the one that you've already admitted to us that's in your head and let that get in the way of maybe meeting somebody that you could have a great relationship with? And you know what? I think it's fucking awesome when a short guy has a tall girlfriend or tall wife and he's like nothing nothing screams confidence like that where that guy's just short as hell and he's looking at she's like what that now great a lot of times i'll be like he must be loaded but anyway good luck on that part of it as well yeah um i'll keep this short because i'm looking at the timer we're coming up on two hours

is that a joke oh no, it wasn't. Oh, no. But see, again, there's three of us. That's why there's three of us. I'll keep this brief. The first thing I would say is he said he's like too young to be overthinking this, which means that you should just be your mindset should be just getting where you fit in, dude. So it's fine.

And even if you are your friends, you ruin it. You could be like a Jerry and Elaine situation. Like there's so many friend groups that it's like, oh yeah, one time we watched those two get in a cab together. Don't know what happened, but we can pretty much figure it out. Like that stuff's fine at your age.

So I would say, yeah, just try it out. And two- Totally fine at your age. Great point. Great point. And like, what do you really have to lose? And two, especially if you're a cool guy, you can just talk it out and be like,

hey, you know, whatever. You want to catch a movie or something but then the second thing is my dad 510 my mom 6-2 it happens they were divorced immediately but but it happens they got together and made something beautiful and look at you 6-3 i'm thinking if you're this guy and you're thinking long-term big picture like if you date and marry and have kids with a taller girl, there's a good chance that your kids are going to be taller too. And they're not going to be in the same situation as you're helping out your future offspring here. So I think I'm all for on top of everything you all said.

I think that like the long-term play here is you're just going to have taller kids. Yeah. G-League is getting shine now. COVID. Exactly. Anybody can do it. Yeah.

23 years from now, you may have a kid that gets called up. And all because of your decision to be more open. Exactly. Anybody can do it. Yeah, 23 years from now, you may have a kid that gets called up. And all because of your decision to be more open. Yeah. Final thought, stay in the Midwest. You're right. You're right, man. Stay in the Midwest.

Okay, everybody have a safe and happy new year. And we will be back Monday, recapping week 17 and the college football playoffs. So I can't wait. I can't wait to come back to work on Monday. So thank you for a great year, by the way. That's another thing. This is one of three podcasts that ends up with at least two episodes ranked, I think, in the top seven, top eight in the sports category.

This podcast has finished regularly in top 20 in all categories. It has grown tremendously over the last year. I don't say it enough. I'm a terrible, terrible self-promoter. This podcast does really well. And it's because of the awesome audience and you guys spreading the word. So thank you. And I'm glad I remembered to say that because it's just

a reminder of how many people are listening to you and that maybe you're doing the right thing and doing something that the audience is going to be excited about. So thank you to Steve for that. And then Kyle being the absolute fucking backbone. Basically the guy that's produced all the stuff that I've

done here for like, I don't know, three years. I've been away from ESPN two plus years and with the ringer for like three. So, uh, thanks again. Thanks everybody. And please subscribe. Thank you.