The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Happy for Harbaugh, Lincoln Riley to USC, and Trent Dilfer on Whether the Pats Can Win the Super Bowl

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on Michigan’s unprecedented win over Ohio State, predicts the CFP rankings, and explores the arguments around playoff expansion (0:34). Then Ryen addresses the news that Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley is heading to USC (18:49). Next, Ryen talks with Super Bowl champion Trent Dilfer about Mac Jones and the rolling Patriots, the Ravens’ ugly win against the Browns, how the Rams and Matt Stafford can get back on track, and more (25:18). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitter Life Advice questions (1:10:13). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Trent Dilfer Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We'll be right back. Stafford and then just a bunch of just nerdy football stuff which I love and even a little on Lincoln Riley which I will touch on but I'm going to open up with the college football chaos this past weekend who's good who's great and trying to project all the different scenarios of what the playoff could be I have a lot of college football that I want to get to as I was kind of going over stuff from the weekend and writing out notes this morning I go you know this could turn into one of the old dual threats where I would just go 40 something minutes on my own and so we're not going to do that. But I may break it up into two open segments because we have Michigan beating Ohio State. We have projecting the rankings to get me riffing on a bunch of other different things.

And then you have Lincoln Riley going to USC after there was a couple of people trying to say he was going to LSU. But, you know, we had Bruce Feldman on and he was pretty clear about that. And Bruce is really plugged in, especially when it comes to the coach stuff. Where he's like, yeah, if Lincoln goes somewhere, I don't think it's going to be LSU. So maybe we'll find out more about what that story is. And LSU still needs a coach. Florida got their guy, Billy Napier. But let's focus on really what the headline was.

Is Michigan finally beating Ohio State? It finally happened for Jim Harbaugh. 42-27. If you look at the yardage on this one, it's actually close. 47-458. And aside, I came away really impressed with C.J. Stroud, quarterback for Ohio State. He was

fantastic in the face of all-day chaos. Aidan Hutchinson, defensive end, and now people are talking about him potentially being number one overall pick if it's not Kayvon Thibodeau. Don't know if Hutchinson plays chess. We'll see. That could be a deciding factor. Hutchinson also had a bit of that.

I've always said with Tim Tebow that he sounds like he just came back in from recess, the way he talks. I don't know what Hutchinson was doing. Maybe it was the hype. Maybe it was him being tired. But it looked like he was hyperventilating at some points out there. And then on the other side, David Ojabo, who if you've watched the Ravens at all, and we'll get to that with Trent Dilfer after that debacle late on Sunday night,

Odefi Owe, the outside guy for the Ravens, who's incredible. In New Jersey, Owe and Ajabo were actually teammates. So Ajabo was stuck overseas for a couple of years. He said he didn't even know the rules. He said he was in a game at Michigan, and he didn't know why they spiked the football. And these two guys were in the backfield.

So this game was about Michigan winning the line of scrimmage the entire time. You want a stat that proves that? Michigan allowed zero tackles for loss in the entire game. It's the first time Ohio State hasn't had at least one tackle for loss in 16 years. So you storm the field, you should. You're playing for a Big Ten championship. Something Michigan, you know the last time Michigan won the Big Ten was 2004. All right?

And it gets back to kind of the Harbaugh point because leading up to it, people were doubting him, and that's fine. Because if you're Harbaugh saying, who's got it better than us, and look at us, look at us, and all the stuff, and you ask for attention, and you get it it and then you don't deliver based on those expectations because of all your attention, you're going to get trashed. But as I've said throughout the entire time, I still feel like now for Michigan to be positioned for the third time in Harbaugh's run to at least be in the playoff mix, that's

pretty good. It doesn't feel good enough, right? It doesn't feel good enough if you're from Michigan because if you're Michigan, you look in the mirror and you see somebody a little bit different than the rest of us see. But I'm happy for Harbaugh. It's not because I root for him. I've just refused to ever believe this guy's a bad coach. And so if you're going to be a content person that's just like, hey, what's going on? I don't know. Fire him. If Michigan was cool with Harbaugh, if Harbaugh was cool with Michigan, the guy takes a pay cut to almost half of his average salary on the previous deal, where it's like 4 million plus incentives that are real

incentives. Win the Big Ten, win a game in the playoff. Those are real things that are deserving of those bonuses. And maybe he makes that money back if he lives up to the standard that he and everyone in Michigan had. That's why I just was like, hey, look, if they're cool with each other, why does this guy have to get fired? And as I've always said, nobody beats Ohio State at Michigan. They don't beat them. They don't. Go back and look at recent history here. It doesn't really happen to say, hey, Harbaugh can't beat him. Well, the guys before him didn't do it either. So if you're just supposed to fire him and start all over again, I guess you could, but they're bringing in talent. The quarterback this year, McNamara, is really good. They lost their best receiver. They've developed other weapons throughout all of this. So when I look, when I look at the whole Michigan thing, again, like what I don't understand

with people in my business is, hey, I'm going to say that terrible things are terrible. Fucking sweet, sweet lane to live in. Like, I guess there's, I guess there's money in it. Actually, I know there is. I know there is leaning all the way without any like, hey, you know what? I know that he hasn't lived up to expectations, but it doesn't mean that I think he should be fired. So anyway, Michigan gets this done and they have a very good chance to beat Iowa. I would think we'll get to Iowa a little bit later in the second half of this because I'm going to do two college football opens here. And now, you know, who knows? Michigan will be playing for a national championship, which seems kind of weird, but not really. Because after Georgia, nobody else is in that group. And that's why after Ohio State beat up on Michigan State, which is a horrible, horrible matchup with the defensive backs from Michigan State, all the passing yards they'd allowed, worst team defensively arguably in the country on that side of the football when it came to passing defense.

on that side of the football when it came to passing defense. And then it turns into, well, wait a minute. No problem with Ohio State ahead of Alabama. Said it last week. No problem whatsoever. I've seen enough of Alabama throughout this season just go, hey, it's not really what it's supposed to be, even with an 11-1 record.

All right, we'll get to them. But then to say that Ohio State and Georgia were in the same group and then it was everybody else, it's like, no. Georgia's been doing this all season long. In a weird way, I feel like Georgia is basically overlooked here. They're 12-0. Here's the amount of points they've allowed. 3-7-13-0-0-10-13-7-6-17-7-0

against Georgia Tech to close out the regular season this past weekend. They've allowed 80-something points as a team defensively. The defense themselves have only allowed 69 points on the field. No one scored more than 17 against them, and that was Tennessee. And after that, it's 13 points. I'll admit, I've said it all season long. Like, oh, I'm not sure.

Is the offense really as good? And that comes down to Stetson Bennett and not accepting that Bowers at tight end is basically a wide receiver and that they don't have the traditional running back that you always think at Georgia is going to light it up, but they've been pretty good. They're third in yards per play offensively in the country. You want to tell me the schedule isn't that great?

I'll agree with you. But when you are destroying teams to the tune of a point differential of 32.4 points per game, that's real. When you are doing it every week and you are just beating up on these teams, and that's why when the Ohio State-Georgia tier conversation started last week and then everyone else, I go, I don't think Ohio State wants to see Georgia in the playoff because imagine them trying to block Georgia after what just happened against Hutchinson and Ajabo.

Good luck. It'd be even worse. And by the way, I think that's kind of a little bit of a preview of what we have for Bama in Georgia because Bama couldn't run it against LSU, although clearly LSU turned it around with their depth of talent, their win against Texas A&M, close out the season, and Coach O's tenure in Baton Rouge. Bama couldn't slow down Arkansas.

And against Auburn, if you've watched any T.J. Finley, whether last year at LSU or this year with Auburn, because Bo Nix is out, you're like, wait, you're going to lose to Auburn? Now, granted, the Iron Bowl, historically, even with Saban, all the times you've looked at the numbers and gone, wait, they lost to Auburn? Yeah, they lost to Auburn usually when they were ranked, man. They didn't lose to Auburn when it was 6-5 Auburn with T.J. Finley, who, by the way, was so hurt towards the end. You're still watching a game being in complete disbelief.

And it would have been the worst loss for Alabama since 2007, Saban's first year, when they lost to Louisiana Monroe. Which, by the way, a side note of that, I don't know if we can ever get in touch with one of the seniors that was on that 07 team or somebody who left and went. Because these stories exist. They're like, this Saban guy, good luck with that. I'm out.

Because there are guys, I imagine maybe a few are still went because these stories exist they're like this Saban guy good luck with that I'm out because there are guys I imagine maybe a few are still in the Tuscaloosa community that played there and were just like Saban can do it his way we've been doing it our way and I don't know how well this is going to work you're like except it's the best run ever so kind of swinging it back to Michigan Michigan's watching Ohio State with Urban and then Ryan Day put together what is one of the great runs in the history of the Big Ten what we've seen with Clemson and Dabo up until this year, and maybe they'll probably get it right back. By the way, Clemson is having a decent season and their defense is terrific this year, but certainly not by Clemson standards. Clemson and Ohio State, what they've done the

last almost decade here, that has been the Frazier to Bama and Saban's Muhammad Ali. So Michigan's competing with this all-time run. The rest of the ACC can't even hang with Clemson, and yet Bama's still doing bigger things than both of those teams. So back to Bama and what happens with Georgia this weekend. This is where it could start getting really scary if you're worried about where your team is in the playoffs. I can't...

One game, I always thought that you could kind of figure some things out when your offensive line couldn't block. Maybe that's the Dante Skarnecchia years and me watching New England even without personnel that you would love at the offensive line that Skarnecchia would constantly figure out a way to coach him up. And of course, Brady also helps too, making sure he's getting rid of the football. But I always felt like offensive line was something if you didn't have the talent, you didn't like the unit,

you could fix in a very short amount of time by just scheming it a little differently. That doesn't seem to be the case for Bam at all. At all. Again, the one game deal, it's hard to doubt Bam. I've watched him almost the entire season because I just like watching young and I like watching the program. It's hard to doubt, Bam. I've watched them almost the entire season because I just like watching Young and I like watching the program. It's every week where you're like, what is wrong with this team? And it took them to overtime here and whatever version of overtime we have now in college football to beat an Auburn team.

That's not any good. So here's what gets scary. Because if Georgia wins, Michigan wins, Cincinnati wins, Oklahoma State wins sound like an anti-Cincinnati guy, I've been consistent on this since the beginning. I want, this is very important. It's a chance to play for a national championship. I'm going to have a hard time looking at it. We want to talk about fair. Well, what's more fair than saying your schedule wasn't that tough because you play in a non-Power 5 conference? I know people don't like that because really what you're doing is you're not arguing with me. You're rooting for whatever it is that you believe in because one of the rules on this podcast, I think, is that we are all sort of inherently selfish even if we don't think that we are.

We end up rooting for things subconsciously because it's really what we want. It gives ourselves the best chance. We're not even talking about college football here all the time. So that's the easy one. Georgia wins and don't want to hear about a two loss Bama. Michigan's in at 12 and one, obviously winning a really good conference this year in the big 10, um, Cincinnati at 13 and O and then Oklahoma state. If they beat Baylor, I think that's pretty much it. Unless the committee would want to put Notre Dame and jump them ahead of Oklahoma state. I don't know that that would happen. All right.

Notre Dame and jump them ahead of Oklahoma State, I don't know that that would happen. Here's where it gets a little weird. If Bama were to pull this off, again, if we were to break down the film, I don't know that anybody would say, hey, here's something that they could do here. It's not like a fluke here or there.

Bama's just had some weird games. If Bama were to beat Georgia, Georgia's in. I don't care what the score is. Georgia, with what they've done to this point, losing to Alabama because the committee still does like Alabama, those two teams are in. If Michigan wins, they're in. Now it comes down to Cincinnati and Oklahoma State if they both win because the committee will also tell us we start this thing over

every single week, right? Oklahoma State would have a win against Baylor. Cincinnati would have a win against Houston, which is a top 20 team, top 16, depending on what you're looking at. If you look at the strength of schedule, which depends on what number you want to pull, I've seen Cincinnati be anywhere from 96th to 49th. I've seen Oklahoma State as low as 38th. I've seen it as high as 17th. Both are going to go up because they're playing similarly ranked opponents separated by just a few spots in the rankings.

But I don't think I'd be shocked to see Oklahoma State, after winning an absolute disaster-type game, where it looked like Oklahoma and Oklahoma State both wanted to hand that one to each other a million different times, and a great win for Gundy, whose overall record as a player and as an assistant, as a head coach, it's like 20 losses with a handful of wins against the Sooners. That game was terrific. Sanders, big play.

Caleb Williams almost brought him back, although I would say at times he looked a little uncomfortable. And it wasn't this free-for-all offensive shootout. It was just so many mistakes that happened that led to some easy scores. You just didn't know what to make of that game. But I'm not going to be shocked if Oklahoma State were to jump Cincinnati. And that's why I never quite understood why people were saying, well, if Cincinnati takes care of business, they're fine. I don't think they're fine. I think they're in some trouble here if Alabama wins. If Alabama loses, the difference between non-Power 5 and Power 5, once you're at two losses and generally underwhelming,

maybe it's underwhelming by Bama standards, which isn't fair to them, but hey, I'm sorry. Sorry, you guys down at Tuscaloosa. Maybe you'll get a break one of these days. That's something that I'm not going to engage in. Now, the other part of this could be, what if Georgia wins, Michigan loses, Iowa I don't think would be in. What if Cincinnati were to lose to Houston?

Bama's out. What if Oklahoma State loses to Baylor? Could Oregon jump back in with a game against Utah? And then, of course, Notre Dame, just hanging out in the weeds. So I just, whatever happens with the rankings going into conference championship weekend, I'm not of the belief that you could just pencil Cincinnati in

because I still think there's some work to do around them if they get screwed. But I just, on paper, I just don't see how Bama blocks Georgia. I just don't. I don't see it. Okay, one final thing. I need to clean up a bit on a tweet from this past weekend because as you know, it's not that I'm anti-expansion. I'm anti some of the conversations around expansion. Iowa's 10-2. And the people that want automatic bids,

remember, you want automatic bids not because you think it's the right system, because you kind of want to make sure that your area geographically is taken care of. And there's nothing more college football than college football telling us they're never going to have a playoff than having a playoff and going, all right, is there any way when we design this playoff, we can make sure we fuck over one to two conferences every single year. So you are guaranteed to not have a slice of the pie. Yeah, let's do it that way. Because it's like, we want to expand, but we don't. And then look at, if you don't believe that, look at the way they presented the new playoff. None of them were on the same page. We haven't even heard about it. It was like a president going, hey, do you like trains? Switzerland has trains. You want to make more trains?

And everybody's like, you know what? I think I like trains too. Does anybody not like trains? Let's do trains. Yeah, let's have trains all over the place. Safer, less traffic, less emissions. Let's do trains. Yeah, let's have trains all over the place. Safer, less traffic, less emissions. Let's do it this way. And then a year goes by and you're like, hey, what's up

with the train thing? And then college football just goes, yeah, we're not quite sure what we're doing because we're on the same page with this. If it's 12 teams and we're expanding to that with fives or whatever, fine. Throw all the automatic bids in. Give out bids like that bad fraternity that's like, how many guys signed up? All right, tandem bids. I'm fine with that.

But if you're at eight teams, my argument has always been, I think you'll have years where the conference champ is like, wait, should they really be in the mix for this? And that would be maybe the winner of the ACC this year. Do you know who's in the ACC championship game? In Iowa, who, and for those who think I'm anti-Iowa, you know that's not the ACC championship game in Iowa who and for those who think I'm anti

Iowa you know that's not the case check me out Waterloo strong numbers to quite strong there you can ask the Courtright family one of the great families modern times but Iowa is 10-2 they beat Penn State Iowa fans are clinging to that it was 17-10 and not 17-3 when Clifford went out. Who cares? They didn't play Ohio State, Michigan, or Michigan State. They beat Iowa State with 173 total yards and plus five in the turnover margin.

Then they got smoked by Purdue when they were number two in the country. They scored 14 total points in back-to-back weeks. They changed quarterbacks and went back to Petras. And I just think that this is kind of like some of those old Bo Pelini Nebraska teams, where if you look at Bo Pelini's record at Nebraska, now years removed, you're like, wait, he was bad there? Look how great that record is. It was. But there are times when the scheduling in a conference is so imbalanced, and there's a time where a division can be

really weak. I mean, the SEC East had years where you're like, I don't know. I mean, I was kind of kidding when I said Iowa might come in last in the SEC West, but do you realize LSU just came in last in the SEC West? I don't think Iowa, at the very least, they wouldn't be in the top four in the

SEC West. So that, to my point, isn't anti-Iowa. It is anti the auto bid where somebody kind of backs into it. Now, granted, being Michigan is a completely different thing, but that's just something that I'm never going to be down with because I think it's really important. I think these 12 weeks or these 12 games, this should mean something. And if you tell me the NFL has done it this way, I don't like that either. I think it's kind of lame that you can be 9-7

and win a single elimination tournament, and you're like, wait, that team was basically 500. They won the Super Bowl. But I think people do like it because it gives more teams and more fan bases the chance to go, hey, we can kind of mail it in and be a 500 team in the regular season. But guess what? Now we have as good of a chance as any. And maybe that's the right system. Maybe I am entirely wrong. I'm willing to admit this is how I feel, but I'm also willing to admit on this one, others I'm not, that I might be wrong with all of this. I'm willing to admit this is how I feel, but I'm also willing to admit on this one, others I'm not, that I might be wrong with all of this.

I know a lot of people are going to disagree with it, but it's just kind of back to the original point. If we're putting four, maybe eight teams in this, I want to know that these are the best teams and not somebody that had a really convenient scheduling season. One other piece of college football stuff that I want to touch on here before we get to Week 12 in the NFL with Trent Doe

for Lincoln Riley leaving Oklahoma and heading out west to USC. So a little intel on this one, and I think it's also common sense, although some people, I don't know, it just kind of turns into this weird thing. Let's face it. Some of you Oklahoma fans have been kind of like underwhelmed with Lincoln Riley. The guy went 55-10 there since 2017. He's 37-7 in Big 12 play. I think the Big 12 is actually a little deeper than it gets credit for, by the way.

Oklahoma always plays somebody out of conference. So they schedule it up. He's put guys in the NFL. He's done a great job with quarterbacks, the last three, and probably whoever is next or would have been next if he had stayed there. The Heisman, the whole deal. He's pretty much everything you want. You know he's also only 38 years old,

by the way, because there had always been this thought that if Lincoln were going to move on from Oklahoma, which is what people kind of do, even though this is weird because I was reading Feldman's piece this morning. This is Oklahoma's first coaching search since 1999, I think. Like to their first, like, hey, what are we going to do? And by the way, this is also what happens, the domino effect of all of this, because

Oklahoma is not just going to settle for some random as they head to the SEC. But Lincoln, it had been thought that because this stuff translates, when you talk to people in the front offices or decision makers in the NFL, you'd ask, okay, what translates? What doesn't translate? And it used to always come back to it. McShay even shared this with us too, I remember, that Oklahoma was always thought to be a system.

A lot of that stuff they thought conceptually could work on Sundays and that Lincoln, if he wanted to, there's always the Dallas thing. But hell, how long have we all heard the Sean Payton of the Dallas Cowboys rumors? I don't know. We're on year 15 of that one or probably actually at this point has died for the last couple years. So you get the point. So the question becomes this. Did Lincoln Riley leave Oklahoma because he didn't want to

go to the SEC? And it's a lot easier out of Pac-12 with USC. I think there's some truth to that. And I also don't think it's a stupid reason. I don't. As great as the TV deal and the value of the SEC

is going to be by adding Oklahoma and Texas brands, it's also like there are going to be a couple programs that after a couple years of that are like, geez, this sucks. This is ridiculous that we added these two teams to this conference that's basically been the best conference now in football for almost 15 years. So I can't, I don't know, man. I mean,

so if you're looking at SC as a job that has a better natural recruiting base, and if SC can finally stop letting all these quarterbacks go to other programs go down south or go to the midwest is basically what's happened i think those of us that know what's been going on the last few years would also admit that the other schools were let's say a bit more aggressive in the recruiting um than usc was but now that cheating is essentially legal and you can find ways around now paying guys and being like hey here's this new sponsorship like you shouldn't be losing anybody now with the way that the rules have changed with the nil i also saw another take that was somewhat popular in that

you know everybody wants every coach's personality to like fit perfectly um with with the area that they're going to be coaching. And that's nice, but it's also not really the point. You know, Scott Frost in Nebraska, awesome. Saban isn't from Alabama. He's from West Virginia. But he's got that folksy kind of, well, actually, he seems pretty pissed off a lot of the time, but you get the point. Like, he seems to kind of fit Alabama, but it's like, does he fit Alabama or does he just win all the time?

I mean, Harbaugh went to Michigan, so it makes sense. Pete Carroll, was he an LA guy? No, he wasn't, but then it fit because he was winning. So you get the point. Mac Brown isn't even from Texas, but it feels like we kind of retrofit them after the fact if they win. But to make that a major priority and be like, oh, Lincoln Riley, like, look, I've met Lincoln. I've sat in a room with him a couple different times.

He's a little stiff. He is. Oh, that's not going to play. It doesn't matter. That shit is so not important in comparison to the rest of the stuff. Are you still motivated to recruit? Not do you recruit well? Are you still motivated to recruit? Not do you recruit well, are you still motivated to recruit well? And there's no question that he's

going to be motivated and brings in a really good staff and his offense has an amazing track record to tell every quarterback that's in the Southern California area, like, hey, don't go anywhere because I'm going to get you into the NFL and maybe win you a Heisman. I mean, that's really what matters more than anything else. But I saw some people kind of going like, hey, you know, Norman to LA, that doesn't matter. Move to Manhattan Beach. Like that's really what matters more than anything else. But I saw some people kind of going like, hey, you know, Norman to L.A. That doesn't matter. Move to Manhattan Beach. That's not Los Angeles. You know who people you know who likes the water? Almost fucking everybody. All right. You know who likes the beach? Most people, except for maybe the hardest of core Irish people that just are like, look, the sun, I can't do it. All right? And I don't think he's from Dublin. All right? Let's check. He is from Lubbock.

Right. Not Dublin. He's from Lubbock. So if he went to USC because he goes, I'm going to have a chance to run the Pac-12 again, like SC was doing during the Carroll years, I don't have to deal with all the SEC stuff. I think it's a no-brainer. And just because Lincoln Riley is in an Instagram post

with Laird Hamilton, I mean, it doesn't mean that he can't figure out a way to fit in to LA and USC. And by the way, LA, when you move here, you realize that it isn't LA. There's 20 different versions of this city. It's massive. I would tell you, anyone that ever moves here, you will find a part of LA that you like. You would find something. I was an idiot before I ever came here. I was like, that place sucks. No thanks. There are places that absolutely suck. You know what? They're the places the head coach of USC won't be living.

Just fitting, you'll be like, hey, does this guy surf? I don't know. He's an assistant at ECU. 2013, I'm not quite sure. No. He's an assistant at ECU. 2013. I'm not quite sure. You know? Like if you coach at Gainesville, you're supposed to wear jorts or something. Like, oh, this guy's a good fit.

Although, Muschamp, jorts. You think he owns zero pairs? I wouldn't take that bet. Yeah. He definitely, yeah. So there are some guys that do fit perfectly. And if Lincoln Riley doesn't, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because he's run one of, I would say, the five best programs

since he took over Oklahoma in 2017. Always happy when we get a little Trent Dilfer on a Monday. Okay, the pats are rolling. I want to spend a little time on this. The obvious comp is early Brady because for those that I try to remind, those first couple years, there was a very, very tight leash on Brady

on what they allowed him to do offensively. So I would argue, especially with the 20-year evolution of the game, they let Mack do a little bit more. Is there anything you're seeing with early Mack, early Bray, any of this kind of stuff that you see that maybe the rest of us don't have the experience to recognize?

Yeah, I think there's a ton of comparables. I think from an offensive format standpoint, two back, 21 personnel, a little 11, action pass, making sure protection is sound. One of the evolutions of the Patriots, Brady was going from a lot of people in protection to less people in protection.

Tom, about four or five years in, once he'd kind of mastered NFL protection schemes and defenses, they started getting six out more often. I mean, sorry, six-man protections more often, five-man protections more often, putting the burden on him. They're not doing that with Mac yet. That's natural. Herbert's the same way in LA. A lot of his success last year was with multiple protection packages, a lot of people in there.

This year, they're starting to allow him to do a little bit more and it's not going well it's probably a little too soon um so i see that from an offensive format standpoint a lot of completion passes you know high efficient calls high efficiency calls uh when he does push the ball down the field there's not a lot of defenders most but most of the time the ball is pushed down the field versus man, not zone, not having him throw the ball deep into flooded zones. Very similar to Brady early on. I would argue that Mack is cleaner than Tom at this point of his career.

I think this thing I'm most impressed with, not better. People are going to interpret that wrong. But, I mean, you can maybe make the argument that at this point, he's better than Tom was. Doesn't mean he's going to be better. I don't think he is. Which, by the way, those first year is not saying a ton. No, no. First couple years.

First couple years. What Mac does, and maybe it's easier to talk about pro Mac and the things that are so impressive. He plays the game as professionally as I've seen a young person play it. Not better as professionally. Clean's another word. What is a professional? What is a great professional? Somebody that has an incredible amount of attention to detail. It's somebody that every small thing is as big as all things. It's somebody that has been trained all week and he's taken on the burden of training to do little nuance things that very few people see. I work matching his feet to his eyes,

subtle little pump fakes working deep through progressions or making you feel like he's working deep through a progression. So there's a really good job in the quick game is keeping his eyes one way, keeping the defense going back and then getting immediately to the other side of the field, his action fakes. If you look at his action fakes, it looks like Tom and Peyton, two of the best action guys of all time. And he's doing this in his first year. So he's incredibly professional, how he plays the position.

I love what they've done with him. I've never been a believer, hey, give him a little, then give him a little more, then give him a little more after that. I've been more of a believer is give him as much as he's earned. Right? And it could be the same thing, but he's earned a lot of rope at a short amount of time. And even the last few weeks, you've seen even some of the stuff I mentioned already

grow rapidly, and they're giving him more stuff. That's just not more plays. That's more responsibility. I think he's one of the funnest guys to watch in the league because you admire the level of professionalism he's playing the quarterback position with.

When I've talked to my buddies because I'm obviously from the level of professionalism he's playing the quarterback position with. You know, when I've talked to my buddies, cause I'm, you know, obviously from the area of like, Hey, this team's winning it. I mean, their arrogance is, is earned. Um, and I'll be like, all right, I still think you're going to have to win a shootout in the AFC. At some point, you're going to have to win a shootout to get to a Superbowl or win a Superbowl. And what I've always been, I think of all the things that I could say are the most impressive of Belichick, and the list is very long, is that they're the most adaptable football team

I've ever seen, ever, ever. That they can trust their guys to game plan it at more extremes than any other team that I've ever seen. But I mean, there's game planning for a shootout. I don't know if they have the personnel. I don't know if they would ask. I'm not saying Mack's incapable of it, but that'd be a lot to ask of them to go.

You're going to have to figure out how to put a 40 in a back-and-forth game here at some point because that's what the league kind of is. Is it, though, if you're clean offensively and if you're a ball-control offense? And I don't know. I'm not arguing with you. Yeah, maybe you're right.

Maybe the defense and the ball control is enough and the person on the groups that are running that they're going to hey we're limiting possessions we don't have to score 40 in one of these maybe maybe it just it just feels like that's kind of what this league has been the last couple years and maybe that's just the kansas city part of it and i agree with you i maybe it's easier to say are they going to have to score at the end of the first half are they going to have to score on the final possession i don't know if it's in the 40s but i do agree with you they're going to have to match a score at the end of the first half? Are they going to have to score on the final possession? I don't know if it's in the 40s, but I do agree with you. They're going to have to match

a score at the end of the first half, and then they're going to have to either answer, go down late in the game and have to go win it, or finish off a drive with a two-point lead or a three-point lead and finish the game. That's the hardest thing for quarterbacks to do. Young quarterbacks to do

in the NFL, all quarterbacks. And it's hard for me in my 14th year or so. It's hard. That would be where I would see the shootout mentality. Can you be in a must-pass situation at the end of the first half, at the end of the game, and execute a high level? I do think Bourne, and I said this, I think, early in the year, I think Bourne is a kid that is way better than people thought. I think Bill did two really, as he usually does, two incredible off-season acquisitions.

The Henry acquisition, who was one of the best tight ends in football before the injury, and then the Bourne kid to identify that type of talent. He's a unique player. I mean, you could put him in this top 15 of talented guys in the league. So they found something there. They have multiple backs they use. They do as good a job as anybody getting their backs involved in the passing game, the screen game. So, yes, I could see your argument there that they're going to eventually have to have some must-pass situations

where Mack's got to carry the load. Based on what I've seen, I think he can do it. Mac's got to carry the load. Based on what I've seen, I think he can do it. He just does so many things that are beyond his years. It's pretty impressive. And then to go to your adaptability thing, he's the greatest coach of all time.

I mean, I just, and I listen, I got to know Bill Walsh. I think he's probably the second greatest. But what Bill's done is incredible. Here's why, and one of the reasons why. He coaches and you're like well no no crap trent but i mean he coaches everybody better his coaches are coached harder um their attention to the little things they coach technique and that's one of the biggest things i'm watching the raiders cowboys game today and i'm getting back to the patriots here and the Cowboys are getting beat by split zone. And when I say basic split zone, I'm talking like high school split zone.

I would argue that we here at Lipscomb run split zone as well as you saw the Raiders. Can you just give us a really quick definition of split zone? It's a basic zone play with a player from the side you're starting the run at coming across and digging out the backside. And it could be a bunch of different ways you dig it out. And it's six guys are married together, right? Five are going one way and comboing their blocks up to where the linebacker profiles are. And then the split guy is kind of reading that on the run and kicking out, cutting, climbing to the next level.

And like, right. It's the kid will play. Yes. For everybodyittle, right? It's the Kittle play. Yes, for everybody that's thinking about it, it's the Kittle play. Everybody runs it. You don't expect to get 8, 12 yards of carry. And how you fit it defensively, you can take it away. You can backfill it. You can wrong arm.

You can spill. You can do a bunch of different things to it backside. That's why you don't just see it every single play. Because when teams know you're running it, you can play behind it, right? The Cowboys can't make an adjustment. They can't wrong arm it on the backside. They can't backfill it. And it happens all day long. That never happens to the Patriots. Why? Not because their scheme's better, but because they know they've been trained every technique at defeating split zone. And they do stuff that high school coaches teach and that college coaches teach. They teach little tiny things as if you've never been coached before. And that's how you're going to get coached all week long. It's not just the scheme. It's not just

the chalkboard stuff. It's the details within the scheme that allows an average player to play well, a good player to play great, a great player to be a Hall of Famer. They just continue to get the most from the least and the best from the best because the way Bill's built it. He's built it that every single moment of every single day is equally important. And every technique is equally important. And it's never just throw out the balls and play football. It's never just take something from the chalkboard and put it between the lines. There's more steps to it.

And I've had this discussion with NFL coaches that think they do it. I've had them that think they do it and they don't. They don't do it to the level that the Patri they do it. I've had them that think they do it and they don't. They don't do it to the level that the Patriots do it. So this is where I always get caught up with, do they have enough talent? Maybe you don't think they have enough talent because you don't know their names because they weren't college stars

and they weren't drafted high enough. And that's how all the media does their strength of roster. There are rosters better than that roster. How in the hell do you know? You don't know. I don't know. Colin doesn't know, right? It's the rosters as good as they're playing. And Bill gets his roster to play better football than other rosters that may have more flash and sizzle or higher draft picks for better college players or more renowned college players. And that's the frustrating thing when you played them, when you studied them, is you can't understand it until you get deep in the weeds of the why. And the why is very simple. Talk to Ted, talk to any Patriot about this.

It's because when I'm in my 10th year and I've been coached on something 150 times and I mess up in practice, guess what? I get coached on it again. And it's as easy as where's my right hand? Is my elbow attached to my ribs? Or where's my left foot? What direction is my toe pointing? Where are my eyes? Do I get to extension when I'm blocking? It's all this boring stuff that the fan doesn't want to know, but it's the difference between good and great. It's what takes you from good to great, and it's the same formula when you see a team win a Super Bowl. The Chiefs, oh man, they've fallen apart. What's fallen apart?

Their technique, their basic boring stuff. They get caught up in the flash and sizzle. And Andy went, wait a second. Let's reel this thing back. Cause I'm a good coach. Let's get back to the basics. That's what you hear, right? Well, guess what? The basics are boring stuff. That is monotonous. That's hard. That's brutal. The Patriots do it every second of every day. And if you don't, you're gone. hard, that's brutal. The Patriots do it every second of every day. And if you don't, you're gone. Stafford's had a rough run. If you look at the EPA numbers, this is a worse three-game stretch than any three-game stretch that Goff actually had with McVay. But I'm not going to be crazy here and now say that this is somehow a mistake, not having Goff and having Stafford,

although I know how many detractors Stafford has. Diana Rossini had a really good point yesterday, a report. She was like, look, he's really hurt, and here's what he's going through. Again, a lot of these – Baker looked like he shouldn't even be out there last night. So guys are playing hurt. What are you seeing right now? What are they doing?

What's going wrong? Well, when I like the guys that are playing hurt, you know me well enough to know I think the league's gotten soft. I think too many guys take weeks off because they're banged up. There's a difference between being banged up and injured. Guys are banged up. It's the nature of the league. You should play banged up. There's a difference between being banged up and injured. Guys are banged up. It's the nature of the league. You should play banged up.

It's not an excuse to play poorly. Tom was banged up for years. Never uses an excuse. Everybody's banged up. Some guys are banged up to a higher extent. I'd put Stafford and Baker in that category, but it is what it is. I mean, you're a professional football player.

You're making more money than you know what to do with. You have a fan base that's depending on you to play and you're better than the backup options to play. So I'll put that to bed. I was concerned with this move. I was one of the few people that when the the Goff-Stadford thing happened, I agreed that it was a talent upgrade.

I was concerned that it would change the identity of the Rams. And then when Odell came there, before Woods got hurt, right? Now he's a little more necessary, but before Woods got hurt, it kind of confirmed what my fears were with the Stadford move, and that's Sean's moving away from what has made Sean so great as an offensive coach, Ron run action.

Stafford's not a run, run action guy. He's a shotgun guy. He's a spread guy. He's a three wide receiver, five man out, four man out guy has been his whole career. He can do the play action stuff.

And everybody said, Oh, these pocket movements are going to be so much better. And they are with Stafford. He's more athletic. He has more arm talent. He can throw off platform better, but are you going to be so much better. And they are with Stafford. He's more athletic. He has more arm talent. He can throw off platform better. But are you going to call him?

And are you going to rep him? And if truly Stafford and McBear are two-headed monsters during the week, because Matthew is a football savant. I mean, he's played long enough. He knows a ton of football. He could coach tomorrow. He could be a coordinator in the NFL. football he could coach tomorrow he could be a coordinator in the nfl you fall in love with the stuff that you that you've had success with in the past and you start pushing for those things

if you watch the rams right now they've become a drop back past team um and there's only a handful of people listening they're going to watch this and be like, oh, I know what he's talking about. You don't need to drop back that much in the NFL. You need to drop back to get people out when against flooded zones. You need to drop back on third down, must pass situations. But if you're really good, if you're really, really good, you run, run action. I mean, that is the bulk of your game plan. You add some RPOs, and I'd put now the RPO game into the run action. But they've fallen in love with the drop-back pass. As soon as you fall in love with the drop-back pass, and you'll justify it

because your yards per attempt will go up, your yards per completion will go up, you'll probably be more explosive. So they justify it with all these metrics. Here's what happens, though. More sacks, more negative plays, offensive lines going backwards instead of forward. Time of possession goes down. A bunch of these core values that equal winning football go down. And that was my biggest fear and it's happening.

Now, I think they can get back. I'm not writing them off. I bet you they're having some real hard discussions in the building right now. I bet you they had them over the bye week and then they abandoned them because they got down. That's the other thing too. You get down to a Green Bay team and you are going to throw up more. I know it's another long till for a boring football answer, but I was really concerned they would become drop back pass happy and they have. They need to get back to their roots, which is run, run action.

Big plays will come off of that. Trust Stafford on third down. Trust the talent. As OBJ gets back into the mix and starts knowing more about the offense, he'll be a valuable weapon in those must-pass situations. But this is the danger. This is absolutely the danger. That's why boring sometimes is

better than flashy when you're trying to win games. Not necessarily put up numbers, but win games. We had just started talking about how Lamar had been adapting to taking away those intermediate throws. Two weeks! Right. We were like, man, he's really starting to figure some things out. And look,

two bad games for somebody with his resume. I'm not going to freak out about this, but it's very clear teams are blitzing him more. He had four picks last night. By the way, teams had lost 41 consecutive games when their quarterback had thrown in four interceptions. And then the Ravens defense, which shows up every now and then, completely shut down the run part of what Cleveland was doing because they were daring Baker to beat him, and that couldn't happen either. So they get the win throughout all this. But I was looking at some blitz rates, and I think this number will be updated once we cycle through everything because I know that that stuff can be kind of jumbled on a Monday. But going into it, Lamar is basically the third most blitzed quarterback. And then they made a mention of the broadcast last night, like, you're seeing this happen now.

This has been the new thing. He's had two really bad games, the two worst games of his season and it it seems a little blitz happier now but you're also talking about maybe zero fear of the running back personnel because of what's happened and maybe that's catching up to him so again these are just things i'm throwing out there collectively to have you sort through and tell us what you're seeing i'll try to sort it quickly. The greatest thing about having a dynamic quarterback-driven run game is you get to find looks in the secondary. So it's as much when you have a quarterback-driven run game, it's as much about getting yards from

the quarterback running as it is to define the look in the secondary. So let's use college football, for example. College football is pretty simple when you have a quarterback run-driven run game because all of a sudden you get training camp coverage. You get four looks. So you don't have to spend a ton of time with your quarterback going through all these different looks that you may get. You're going to get the same looks because they have to incorporate an extra player

for an extra defensive player for the quarterback in the run game. So you're going to get one high, zero basic zones where they can get safeties involved. And that's all you're going to get. And that's why college coaches love them. In the NFL,

the reason I said when I was ESPN that this will stay forever, everybody said, oh, this is a fad. I'm like, no, it's not. This will be in the NFL, the reason I said when I was at ESPN that this will stay forever, everybody said, oh, this is a fad. I'm like, no, it's not. This will be in the NFL forever is because you can simplify it for quarterbacks. And you can simplify it for really talented wide receivers that can beat one-on-one coverage. The NFL wasn't full of a lot of cover zero for a long time.

And then it became a cover zero league because of the quarterback-driven run game. Cover zero means every cat versus cat, right? You're just covering everybody. Everybody else is the line of scrimmage. Uh, we call it casino, right? Casino, all your dice and all your cards are in your, your rolling the dice. Here we go. Casino blitz.

Uh, what you're seeing now, and this is what I'm seeing even on the TV copy, is teams are like, okay, wait a second. If we do that, Lamar is good enough to shred us in the passing game. So what we have to do is we still have to incorporate an extra guy around the line of scrimmage, but we have to do it creatively. And that will be fire zones. That'll be man blitzes, the Dolphins, a bunch of man blitzes. But what we're going to

make him do is one we're not going to let him run as much as he normally would and if he is going to pass then we're going to change that look from okay he's used to one look and then we're going to change that look it's still a pressure it's still a blitz or a dog but it's not the same shell on the back end and it might be as, well, we played it off last week, we played hard inside technique this week. It might be we're going to jump the quick stuff one week and now we're going to play off on the quick stuff the next week and flood it with a drop end or something.

A lot of creative ways of doing it. Nobody really cares. But really what you're doing is you're taking the defined looks away from him. You see this in college football all the time when a kid throws for 400 yards, rushes for 150, Malik Cunningham at Louisville, and then the next week it's not very good. Well, you change the look. He was really good at one thing one week,

but then he goes in the next week and it's totally different. But he's used to seeing the same look because you have 20 hours during the week and you're practicing only so much and you're like, well, this team played it this way, so the next team's going to play it this way. Well, not and you're practicing only so much. And you're like, well, this team played it this way. So the next team is going to play it this way. Well, not if you're a good defensive staff, you're going to change those defined looks and make them think a little bit longer and take away what they do best.

So it's that, this is this chess match that's going on and every defense coordinator is evolving around the country because the offenses are evolving. And I enjoy talking about this stuff because during the week of a game, everybody just thinks what happened the last game is going to happen the next game. And what you learn if you're in this game long enough is there's very little carryover week to week.

You have to recreate yourself every week and you have to make your team understand that they're recreating themselves because if you go in doing the same thing you did the week before and you're facing a good defensive staff, you're done. They're going to out-coach you and your players are going to be crippled

because they got prepared for one thing and they're going to see a different thing. I'd like to dig in a little deeper on that because I understand some of the basic stuff. Look, man against a guy like Lamar all day is a disaster. It's tough, yeah, because he's going to rush for 180 yards. You're going to be turned, Especially if you start sending people on deep routes, you're going to have the personnel that you respect enough depth-wise. I know that there are certain times against

zone, and this is what I think is so tough about this position, is you're never open in zone the way you think somebody's open because they're passing them off. It's almost the depth. You have to get depth behind or in front of the zones. Those times where you think you have some throwing lane at this level with how athletic everybody is, it's like just because somebody stops

in between two defensive backs, they want you to make that throw because it's actually not there. Are there quarterbacks that you think, other than the physical gifts of somebody like Lamar who can run, but from a passing standpoint, are there quarterbacks you you think, other than the physical gifts of somebody like Lamar who can run, but from a passing standpoint, are there quarterbacks you're like, this guy sucks with zone, this guy's great with zone? Like, were you more comfortable with zone or man? Because I think it's always one of those funny debates to have, to think that you can kind of attack one guy specifically defensively.

Yeah, so the best answer, and I don't want to call out quarterbacks. I'll use some examples. What about you? Let's start with you. If you knew you had a heavy zone team versus a heavy man team, what was your week like? Well, it changes based on pass rush. If you have a great pass rush that you're going against,

you want man because you can pick and stick. You can find your matchup and get the ball out. If you have zones and you have a great pass rush, all of the bucks back in the day where they're going to rush for and play Tampa 2 or a flooded one high three deep. Now you having to get the ball quick and all these eyeballs are looking at you.

Brian Urlacher is a great example. They'd rush for Brian Urlacher 6'4", 245 and runs runs for six. And he's in the middle of the field staring at you and wherever you look, he's drifting that way. So now you're rushed, but you're also got, but you also have all these eyes looking at you. And as soon as that ball's in the air, they're running to where that ball is. So it gets tough. The best answers when when teams mix so i get asked all the time around the country high school college like what's the hardest thing um to play against uh from a coach from a quarterback and it's mixed coverages you know the hardest thing is when one one not one down it is a man pressure the next down it's a fire zone then it's a fire zone. Then it's a drop seven. And then it's a all out blitz. And then it's a match coverage. And because as a quarterback, you never, your, your looks are changing all the time.

As a play caller, you're not sure what to anticipate. Um, so that, that would be the, as the hardest thing, I think quarterbacks, this is how I'd say it. quarterbacks, this is how I'd say it. Guys that don't know what they're looking at want man because they don't have to decipher a bunch after the ball is snapped. They know it's man. They're going to pick a guy or a side or a combo and work it. And it's not going to change zone. You can get tricked and a zone can start looking like this and the ball snapped and it goes like that. It rotates down and now you have to go, okay, it shifted. I got to get my eyes to the other side and I'm working a different combination. So guys that don't have high football IQs, you want to change up your zones because they're

going to, he's going to throw you the ball. Guys that know what they're looking at, they kind of like zones because there's easy completions in zones. So completion junkies, Drew Brees is out of the world, guys that want to throw for 80%. They love zone because there's going to be a soft spot on that zone. And not only is there going to be a soft spot, I can manipulate it. I was just talking to somebody the other day about the next level of this really good quarterback's progression. And I'm like the next level for his progression is I manipulation. He has, I discipline, I knows who he's looking at, but he hasn't manipulated anybody with his eyes. So you start manipulating defenses with your eyes because they're going to flow with your eyes. Um, Now those soft spots for six yard gains become soft spots for 12, 14 yard gains.

So it's really, it's different. Now I'd say this, the hardest of all of it and what's really becoming Vogue and it's hard to teach, but it's probably the best of these match zones where they're man for a little while and then they trade them off. And that's, that's a you really have to know

how to play the game against the matt jones because you can have hard man technique outside to take away a lot of your gimmies and as those guys now you start putting man plays in but you're running man concepts into zones uh in the middle of the field and that becomes really hard uh into zones in the middle of the field. And that becomes really hard for quarterbacks, hard to call plays against. And that's where run games really help because run games can destroy match zones because now those guys are so concerned

in coverage trade-offs that they lose their gap fills in the run game, their soft edges, there's misdirection runs you can run against them. And then play action becomes huge because now you have them guessing in the run fits and they're also trying to start the play matching in coverage. And now they go, oh, it's run. I come off my run fit. Oh my gosh, I got to get back in the past and remember my past responsibility because it's

late into the play. That's why the best play callers, I know we're going to take them with Lincoln Riley eventually, the best ones are still running the football and play action because that is the hardest thing for defenses ultimately to game plan against as well. We can do all this tricky crap we want, but if they shove the ball down our throat, none of it's any good. And oh, by God, oh, by the way, they might just stick it in the belly of the back and make us think we're running down their throat and then pull it back out and they're gonna have dudes running down the field across the field they're gonna be wide open because we're worried about run fits yeah and i think this also speaks to and i i've said this a thousand times and i'll repeat myself again i'm not anti-analytics i think analytics is is for football to look at itself say some of the shit we're doing run run

third and seven punt like it doesn't make any sense no doubt where it's misleading is based on everything you just said like hey win rate on pass attempts on first down equates to this this and this that completely removes all of the the eye candy you're you know what i mean like this is this is like a boxer who goes, look, this is what I'm doing here because later on I'm doing this. And I think some of those things, the first down win rate and, oh,

you guys do this wrong and you do this wrong. It's like, yeah, but these are like single events. Can I get my soapbox? Can I get my soapbox for a little bit? Here's for all you analytic geeks. Okay, see, but that's where we need to be nicer when you dispute something. Cause I use them. Right.

Well, I know you got, I just got done reading seven pages of them. So I use them, but here's what they don't take to account. We use those against the defense. We know they're studying our analytics. So we are going to use that to give them a false picture. So I've thrown it 317 times this year, run it 300 times as the play caller here. Um, I throw it a lot in the first half to mess with those metrics. I don't care if my state opponent hears this, right? Like he'll see this before. And where are you guys right now? Are playing for state title state title on thursday all right so here if you think that we're not manipulating the metrics

you're crazy because you're you want the defensive coordinator you want their analytics guy to sit down and repeat all this stuff right here's what they're gonna. But none of it's contextually sound. Unless you're getting the time of game, score, three plays prior for patterns, personnel, all of it in your first down pass, first down run, second and four to seven pass run inside the tackles, outside the tackles, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're going to give me all this stuff, but you better give me context, all this stuff, because I can manipulate it by in a series that we're rolling and we're up 14, all throw it eight straight times.

Right. Because at that point I have the game one, I want to make sure that my analytics show differently to the team that we're going to play next. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, it makes all this. So you can't just lean on these win ratios on first down and drive finishes based on pass run differential because every drive has its own story. Right. on differential because every drive has its own story, right?

And you got to make sure that your eye, the eye in the sky still doesn't lie. You still have to watch the tape and study the play callers on both sides and say, what do they really want to do? What truly is their DNA, right? It's the same when I talk to people about, you better start studying the quarterback. Like you get so caught up in the scheme, study the quarterback because the quarterback has a DNA to him and he is going to default to that in pressure moments. So no one pressure moments, what he's going to default to, and you'll know how to defend it. Um, so there's a lot that goes

in. And by the way, i do love the analytics has helped me a ton it helped me as an analyst and it really has helped me as a coach so i'm really not knocking you analytics geeks you you've actually been a massive um value add to the game but to think we don't manipulate it the good play callers is crazy i have an entire call sheet. I think I've done this before, but just to show you, and I'm not, it does nothing to do with me. I'm just saying this is how the ones that are really prepared do it.

This column, where is it? Right here is kind of my dummy calls. So when I have a game one, I'm going to start. We got like 10 calls down there? Yeah, they're purpose plays is what I call them. And I'm going to go like 10 calls down there yeah their purpose plays is what I call them and you're going to run purpose plays

when a game is in hand because the other team is studying every play and the analytics guys are studying every analytic and I want to throw all that off when a game is in hand now when a game is still debatable you're

going to what we do best we're going to what our guys do best we're going to what our quarterback's dna is what he's comfortable with but that's what you need to study so i've always said this to analytics guys like you need to take about four to six critical moments in a game. Study that. Give me feedback on that. And then pile that up over years. That's what our analyst guy does. I get these sheets. I don't go through all the minutia.

But what I really want are these six to eight situations in a game. And show me that over an eight-week period of time. Because then I think I'm smart enough to figure out their tendencies from there. Yeah. And that's what I like about the first 28 minutes score within 14 points stuff that we've seen in the NFL a lot where it's like, okay,

yeah, that's not telling me the story. Cause I'll always look like I'll track like third and seven, second half one possession game. Cause that tells me, okay, this is what you are most comfortable with. This is your most comfortable defensive college,

your most comfortable offensive call. Again, the defensive college, as you know, is going to be based on the personnel more so that it's going to be dictated to them. But that first 28 minutes when the score is neutral, I love that stuff because that really defines who you want to be as a team.

This is what we were doing when there is no other factor determining our play calling. Things are neutral, we're good, and that's why I think some of this stuff has been great because I've dug into that for a lot of different teams. Alright, I want to ask you one more thing because I don't want to keep going on that too much even though it's been awesome. Lincoln Riley to USC.

The thing with Lincoln was that, and I reminded somebody about this the other day, I was like, look, the NFL is going to be there for him win or lose at USC because he's 38 and I think that he's one of the guys running probably, say, one of the five best programs as far as this run. The last, you know, they're not that long ago. All right. One of the five best programs, despite the frustration by Sooners fans with the lack of playoff success.

Whatever. At least they're in it. Who is Lincoln from a from a play calling standpoint? Because so far, the results have been really good. I can't imagine that USC, like I don't know how anybody would argue against this hire. The best thing Lincoln did at Oklahoma was combine these really solid air raid principles, which was some of his roots with a really sound run,

run action game. And that's what gave people fits obviously talent. And I want to stop by saying, start by saying, yes, he's one of the great program guys there are. And the USC is getting a great program guy. To think he is still an offensive guru, I think he needs to evolve. And I think that is true with, I say this often with offensive guys is just because you were really good four years ago doesn't mean you're really good now. You have to continually evolve as an offensive guy, and I haven't seen them evolve as much in the last couple years as some of the other great offensive coaches in football.

If you notice the other night against Oklahoma State, when they had to come back, their passing game was archaic. It was sterile. It didn't have a lot of creativity. And they had nobody open. And I said this to you before the show started. You can judge your passing game by how many people the play gets open. You should be able to get one guy open just to play a call if you're really, really creative.

If you're great, you're going to get two. And if you're just more talented, if you're really, really creative. If you're great, you're going to get two. And if you're just more talented, if you're playing Johnnies of the world, you're going to have everybody open. I'm saying against the teams that match you from a personnel standpoint. You should be able to get one all the time. Your play call should be able to get one,

and then two is good. They're getting none, and they have talented players. And that scares me. I think the run game, he's still trying, and they've done a better job this year trying to get the run game going. And everybody will blame, we'll have a young offensive line, or we do this, or we do that. I mean, that's the coach's excuse, right? I would probably use the same excuses if it's not going well. But you have to be creative in your run game too. There's a lot of fun stuff in the run game these days where you can get very talented

backs open space. You're not seeing a ton of that. You're seeing GT. You're seeing weak side kick. You're seeing some split zone. They used to be super creative with how they did that stuff, and now they've recycled what they've done before. I think Lincoln Riley is one of the best

football coaches there is, but if you're at USC right now and you're saying, Hey, we're getting the greatest offensive mind in football. That's if he continues to work at it, or if he hires somebody that works at it all the time. And that that's something is this coaching cycles going on right now. And, you know,

you're going to start seeing all this coaching change over. The big question you have to ask yourself is, and I would look at how staffs are broken down. And this is why Nick has such a huge advantage at Alabama. The SEC schools have huge advantages here because they have analysts, right? That they pay a ton of money to do this exact thing I'm going to say.

Who is waking up in the morning and the first thing they're thinking about is how do we run the ball better? How do we action better? How do we're thinking about is how do we run the ball better? How do we action better? How do we RPO better? How do we throw the ball better? How do we protect better? How do we change the launch point better?

How do we handle our situational plays better? How do we score inside the three? What's our four-minute plan? Yada, yada, yada. And then when they go to bed at midnight, they're still thinking about it. So the staffs that have that are going to win. The staffs that have, I'm recruiting, I'm going to a luncheon, I got to schmooze this person, I got to do that.

Oh, and I'm the offensive guy? Now you got a problem because you're going to stop evolving as an offense. And I think it's something that's really, it's really important this time of year to understand this, why AD and presidents miss it so often. They fall in love with the charismatic figure that's been there, done it, that can have a lot of flash and sizzle. I know I use that term a lot, but they forget to ask the question that I just asked. Okay, so who's going to wake up at 4.30 in the morning and go to bed at. And all they're doing is thinking about the best way to get number 20, the ball and create space. Yeah. Cause that happens. And by the way, it happens at every level. I haven't slept in two

weeks. Um, because I wake up and the first thing I'm thinking about is how do I get my back to ball? How do I protect? How do I do this? And guess what? My wife's mad at me because I toss and turn in bed and I have a notebook by my bed because that's the same thing I'm thinking. And then it's like, how do I teach them it? Because you got to get your staff and make sure that the entire staff is on the same page, that you're teaching every little detail the same.

And then if you're really anal retentive, it's like not just what's the scheme, how are we going to teach it, but how do we isolate every technique within this scheme so that we're like Bill Belichick, because we're all trying to copy Bill Belichick. How do I make sure that my outside backer sometimes reduces his defensive end and sometimes he boxes and sometimes he spills and sometimes he wrong arms. Sometimes he's blitzing the high shoulder of the tailback. Sometimes he's blowing up the mesh. How do we make sure we structure our practice in the time allotted that he works enough

reps at each one of those skills? As well as have enough walkthroughs so he learns the scheme, enough film time so he can see it, enough evaluation time so he can see the mistakes he made in practice. Oh, and by the way, how's our culture going during all of it? How are the relationships how's everybody getting together so all to say Lincoln Riley you just hired him at USC thinking you're getting everything you got two years ago at Oklahoma well guess what he has to start all over again and that's a big task and by the way I'll side note for USC I'm shocked they went college I

thought for sure they'd go NFL and I thought for sure they'd go NFL defense because by the way, I'll side note for USC, I'm shocked they went college. I thought for sure they'd go NFL and I thought for sure they'd go NFL defense because by the way, USC hasn't been good in a long time unless they play good defense. When was the last time Lincoln Riley had a good defense? So how are you going to get the four or five star defensive ends not to leave you and go to the SEC, right? I saw all these decommits, guess who they are? Wide receivers, quarterbacks, right I saw all these decommits guess who they are wide receivers quarterbacks running backs right until I see the best Polynesian kid from LA staying at USC instead of going to Utah who's getting a lot of them instead of going to the SEC who's getting a lot of them or Oregon or Oregon thank you so until you start beating them on the big guys, great. Bring your cool offense. The kind of people know what it is now.

You'll score points. They're not going to be losing Tunga Bailoa. They're not going to lose DJ to Clemson. They're not going to lose Stratton. They're not going to be losing these guys in California anymore, a quarterback. So you're right. The defensive line, the size part of the Pac-12,

has been an issue league-wide. I'm not saying that all of a sudden all these guys are going to start coming south to USC the way Carroll did when it started rolling. And I'm not even saying that that number was huge, but anytime like losing a five-star to Louisiana to USC, it was like, wait a minute, what the hell is happening? I'm not saying that's happening with Lincoln,

but if you start keeping the quarterbacks there, which you're going to be able to if you're Lincoln with his resume, that's the first step of turning USC around. I agree on the defensive side. One quarterback plays. Who cares if you recruit three great quarterbacks? One plays. All of those kids have been like, I'm out of here.

The kid that's at USC right now that played the other night with the eye black. Grayfarm? Yeah. You can make him good. I like him. The kid that's at USC right now that played the other night. With the eye black. Ray Farns? Yeah. You can make him good. I like him. You can make him great. Yeah. He looks like he's got all the right stuff.

The quarterback thing is overblown. I take Jake Hayner right now, the kid at Fresno, over half these five-star kids that are getting all the pub right now. You can find a quarterback. You can develop a quarterback. Football is won and lost, the highest levels. And this is why us, the sec dominates is by far the best. Anybody that argues that just doesn't know football because they get all the big guys. Yeah. All the guys, they get endless ones and they have depth. And guess what? So they can

practice. Here's another thing that never gets talked about. It's not just your starting big guys, your rotational big guys, it's the guys you're practicing against. So you get a great look in practice in the SEC because your four scout team odd front is probably as good as the USC odd front that you're getting to practice against. I mean, look, just to back you up here, people are going to be like, whatever, but I just know their roster better than anybody else's.

But when you look at what LSU's done with guys that weren't even going to play because of all the people that stopped playing this year, a second year for Coach O, then you're watching the A&M game and you're going, wait, this, who, who's this guy? And you're like, well, he wouldn't even have played if it weren't for a bunch of other guys opting out. And that's why Ohio state, usually not this year with the NFL talent on that side of the football. That's why I stay, it's been able to run through the big 10 because they've been the one program that consistently loads up

that part of the game. Let me give you one more, too, and I'm not going to take a stand. This is a reality of recruiting, this recruiting cycle. There are a lot of families in the country right now that won't let their kid go to L.A. County because of the politics. kid go to LA County because the politics, they don't want, um, they don't want their kids to be, uh, in that environment, uh, where you still have to show a vax card to go to a restaurant. And again, I'm not taking a side. I'm just telling you what I'm not that big of a deal. I know, but what I'm hearing again, and I've talked to a lot of kids. And you're down in Nashville.

You know what I mean? It's a different approach of seeing things. Exactly. Why don't somebody ask Stanford how their recruiting is going this year? How many people have they been able to have on campus? What's their recruiting look like for campus visits and all these different things? What's their end time? How are they meeting as a team? A lot of these California schools, big city schools have such restrictions on them right now

that it's really hurting recruiting. It's hurting them in season. And parents are starting, the concerns I'm hearing is I don't necessarily want to send my kid to where that's going to be an issue. Right or wrong, you can have your opinion. I'm not going to give mine. I'm just telling you what I'm hearing. So I think it's interesting when you see this coaching carousel happen here in the next few weeks. What's the motivation? It's really easy to get kids on campus in Oklahoma. Here in Nashville, it's pretty easy to recruit. And University of Tennessee in Knoxville and the SEC, you're not having nearly the restrictions that you're going to have in L.A.

or the Bay Area or other places around the country. And that might be a good thing. I don't know. But I'm just telling you what parents are telling me is that they're very concerned about that. Interesting. And you would know because you're talking to all the top quarterbacks in the country every year. That's Trent Dilford. That was awesome. Hey,

go get a state title this week. All right. Thanks, brother. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required before we get to life advice i need to make an announcement content related i might be done with f1 um yeah i don't want to be done with that, but I'm a race and a half behind. I watched Cutter at the hotel, but I was sitting there when I was still in New York City. And I go, hey, if you sit and watch this entire F1 race and then three football games and you're in a hotel room where I could either sit at a little side table or lay in bed and take notes, which is a disastrous idea because your eyes start closing. I don't care who you are well you get older whatever and um i was really excited when i came back i go i'm gonna i'm gonna go and you know get get caught up on f1 i love it because i still don't really know what the

hell's going on with some of the stuff um and that's what i like about it you know as opposed to all the other sports i've been watching now for 20 years of doing this where where all I'm thinking about is how will I talk about this outcome or what does this mean? Or am I right? Or am I wrong? Or all this different shit. Um, I just sit back and enjoy the race. It's awesome.

It's like UFC for me a little bit. So whatever's going on, my ESPN plus app is just in an absolute land war with direct TV. And I know there's no way I'm going to call DirecTV customer service because that's just going to make me want to put my head through a wall. Because what's happening is the ESPN Plus thing is kicking it to my DirecTV thing, which then kicks it to AT&T. And then there's some DirecTV email that none of us are ever going to know what the hell any of those are.

So nothing's working. Nothing's working. I spent an hour and a half on it the other night and I was actually proud of myself for not being madder. And I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. We wanted to do going abroad with Kevin this Wednesday, get caught up on all the races.

One of them was really boring. Two weren't. Um, but I don't know what to do. It's just not working. It's just not working. So I bet those Yeti guys wish they'd ever sent all that stuff now that they're hearing this

I know, I think McLaren unfollowed me I remember that did we mention that already in the pod or no? I don't know if you did or didn't but it's out there now and I think you should just pledge your allegiance by who's got the best branding and who's willing to send the most stuff to all three of us by the way I think I should get in on the by who's got the best branding and who's willing to send the most stuff to all three of us, by the way.

I think I should get in on the Haas thing. Just get in on it early. But that might be kind of frustrating. How long will that be like, all right, you know what? This was kind of a cool concept, but... Don't they suck? They're not good, Steve. Damn it, Steve.

Well, we're out. Now we're out. We can't do that. Oh, no. Get in low. Get on the ground floor. They don't even, like. Damn it, Steve. Well, we're out. Now we're out. We can't do that. Oh, no. Get in low. Get on the ground floor. They don't even like it. They're always in last.

Both cars. If they're not, it's because one of the other cars crashed. Haas is not. But as Kevin has told us, the whole reason Haas is so bad is they basically, you would love Haas to Rudy. They're trying to tank this season for next season because all their development and research is going into some of the changes that are going to happen for the 2022 season.

And so Hossaruti is like, look, we don't have a chance now. The only way is we can go all in with the new stuff. That's at least the word. Okay. Are they drafting new engines? I don't get how you tank an F1. Nice. Well, again, I'm pretty limited on my education on this, but my understanding

is that instead of trying to develop a car for this year and hang with everybody week to week or however the schedule plays out, it's like, let's not even worry about this season. Everything, all of our resources are about development for 2022. Surprise attack 2022. Okay. All right. Henke, if he were running Haas, he'd just start driving in reverse. And then F1 would be like, can you not do this? And you'd be like, sorry.

I only have one style of blazer to reduce decision fatigue. Make sure you put that in the profile of me so that people will know that I'm so efficient in blazer choice. Alright.

Here we go. LifeAdviceRR at gmail.com i don't want to quit on f1 but i will tell you these these apps and direct tv's customer service are are forcing a guy to make some big big boy decisions all right this is better this is better than calling them anyway it'll get back to the direct tv or one of those companies direct tv doesn't care direct tv this is not bill's been shitting on them forever and nothing happens yeah direct tv doesn't care uh and it's not an anti-espn app thing the app is i was always able to log out and log back in and then it would be fine and it was but now once direct tv was involved with the whole thing it's kind of like a client with a really good bank but there's a mortgage broker in the

middle of it that's just like shady as hell it doesn good bank, but there's a mortgage broker in the middle of it. It's just like shady as hell. It doesn't call you back. And you just don't even know the rate changes at the last minute. You ask him for more of a deposit. He says, Hey, we don't have enough paperwork.

You're like, what's this? I remember one guy was like, Hey, what the hell is this deposit? This is, this is bad. You shouldn't have done this.

I'm like, it's a, it's a paycheck. It's been the same deposit every two weeks for like a few years now. go back and look at it if you want oh oh okay got it all right anyway here we go um life advice am i wrong for arguing with my fiance's uncle and 14 year old cousin about kevin durant being better than janice the resume speaks for itself but i did drunkenly tell the kid what the fuck do you know about the nba you're 12 i would say no we got a phone number here too here's i looked at when he wrote the email in i can't tell if he's on east coast time

because it may have been 1 a.m because he says 14 year old 14 year old and then when he said what the fuck do you know you're 12 so was he mad at the kid and he just said 12 instead of 14? Or was he drunk when he sent the email in? I don't know. I feel like that's a tactic. Especially a 14-year-old boy like that dude, if you call him a 12-year-old, he's probably going to be pissed off. So that to me is calculated.

He's going to get so mad. And I actually think that's a great insult. And the reason it's great is because if he's 12 or 14, he's cursing exactly that at least that much per day no matter what they look like they're cursing so much more than you think so that's totally fine i think so far yeah absolutely i mean that kid that kid's been saying fuck for a couple years writing it on the windows in the bathroom when they get foggy like you know that's what happens right did i ever tell you about my roommate from college at the

dive bar that we worked at that he went into the women's bathroom and wrote that he had a huge you can figure it out on the wall and he did it because he wanted girls we wanted calls he wanted he wanted he wanted to word out on the street he wanted to let them know that he's back up did he do it in girly handwriting because it's really hard for some guys yeah it's really hard for some guys to pull that off i could never pull off he did big looping letters that's an incredible one of the stalls and he did it like eight o'clock cutting limes i was like what are you doing he goes oh he's like because i had a somebody told me this is a good idea i was like honestly it's not a terrible idea anyway i don't know maybe people won't like that story now never know anymore okay so back to this guy here's what I had a, somebody told me this is a good idea. I was like, honestly, it's not a terrible idea. Anyway, I don't know.

Maybe people won't like that story now. Never know anymore. Okay. So back to this guy. Here's what, here's what I would ask. Were you telling him Giannis was better or Durant is better? Because one of you doesn't know what you're talking about. If the kid was saying Giannis was better, I think you're fine.

I think you're fine. Now, if he was saying Durant was better and you're arguing with him again, I think Durant's better than Giannis. Um, I don't think it's by a massive margin, but I just think he's better. Uh, I think there's a kind of a basic NBA. If you remove all emotion from it, if you just looked at like skillset and what one is capable of versus the other one, I think it's kind of like, wow. Yeah. Why would I argue that that guy's better at playing basketball than this guy is? But whatever. Some are going to disagree with that one. What the fuck?

It depends on the family. It depends on the family. But if he was arguing, I don't have much of a problem with it. I don't. I also think that 14 is when you can start fucking with kids. 12, no. I think 12 is a tough age. I think 14,

you're either an eighth grader or that stayed back. You've stayed back. Kyle, did you stay back? No. All right. It came down to the wire. It came down to the wire,

but never even went to summer school. That's like a pointed question. I lost an entire year in college, but in regular primary public school, never fell behind. That's great. That's like a pointed question. I mean, I lost an entire year in college, but in regular primary public school, never, never fell behind. That's great. That's great news. I actually wanted to stay back because of sports. It wouldn't matter. I didn't fill out until I was 26. I was like, can I stay back? They were like, no. So, um, all right. So back, back to our, do you guys like that that 14 12 divider? Because I think 12 is too young. I think 14 is that sweet spot. Yeah, I mean, chances are this kid is like arguing about hoops with you that he's probably playing video games online. He's heard way worse things. So the parents probably aren't going to love that you're doing that. But it's not it's not the end

of the world. The kid's not going to be any better or worse as a human because you told him the fuck off because of his Kevin Durant take. And not only has he heard worse things, if he's playing online, he's most certainly said worse things. Let's just be honest. I just think back to that, but you know, the,

the famous one that, that you, it's like the squeaky kid with a little voice. He's like one V one me, you pussy. And he's screaming like, yeah, I think a lot of parents would be,

so I'm not saying this is one of those kids, but I think there's some sort of spectrum there where it's just like you might be surprised where that kid lands on the asshole online spectrum. I'm just assuming because most people have some sort of online gaming and talk to strangers. Crazy. I just think it's fine. I think 12 is probably

the new 14 anyway. Oh, okay. Alright. I think once you're kind of flirting in that high school range, it's on. That's okay. But different families, they may not like that. They may not like you swearing at their 14-year-old. Especially if you're drunk.

Here's what I would not do. Make a habit of getting shit-faced at their house and swearing at their kid. You know, one-off. It could be a bonding sign. If you're doing it a lot, they're going to start talking about you. Alright, here's let's do a deposit one on this one.

58140, endurance athlete, 245 marathon, lots of cardio, no shit, running and biking, push-ups, pull--ups not the crossfit kind pretty lean i probably give myself a healthy 7.5 but up to an 8.5 when i have my shirt off fuck yeah okay that's great all right uh i can't zoom in on this he does have a pickup not with his shirt on or off well his shirt's on in this one so it's no point even looking right here's the situation i dated girl on and off during college typical

freshman junior year immature bullshit and suit hey been there totally understand it fucking suck all right uh pretty rocky for a while senior year i really got my shit together and she and i settled into a more serious and stable relationship we both graduated in 2019 and i was placed in mem, Tennessee with Teach for America. This is getting a little specific, man. She decided to come with me because her dad happened to be living there. We moved in together because that was the easiest. And we had talked about getting married down the line.

So it seemed like a logical next step in the relationship. Things started to go downhill as soon as we moved in together. That's why everyone should live together before you get a ring. That's not what he said that's what i'm saying she has a lot of anger issues and i don't handle people being mad at me well although i think that's a convenient way to write that you likely got just as mad at her but you can't deal with it yeah although i don't know you know what i'm really good at is when people are furious at me i'm great at it although I think I do have one friend that's great when everybody hates him.

All right. At first, she would blow up at me and yell every couple of weeks, but it started to happen more often in smaller and smaller things. I forget to unload the dishwasher, go on a run without asking her. At first, it would fit in her verbally. Wait. She would verbally berate me for an hour if I didn't ask her about going on a run. All right.

That's a non-starter. I didn't really realize how badly things were going because I was so overwhelmed with being a brand new teacher placed in an inner city Memphis high school. As I became better equipped to handle the stressors of teaching, the patterns of emotional abuse and general poor treatment of me became clear. She didn't like me hanging out with friends and expected me to do everything around the house. She cited the fact that she was tired from working at her job. At first, I had some sympathy, but it quickly wore out. Near the end of our second year of living together, I decided I couldn't do it anymore and didn't want to put myself through such an awful relationship anymore. While she was gone for a long weekend,

I moved all my stuff out and left her a note. Okay. Kyle, this guy's like your hero right now. I know it sounds harsh, but even now, it's hard for me to fully articulate how much he emotionally abused me and how trapped I felt and moving out of my own terms without her there felt like my only avenue to escape. I actually, uh, I get it. Even though I've never been in a situation like that, I think most of us, uh, reasonable people could get to that conclusion. It's not the best way to handle it, but at that point it's self-preservation.

It's you kind of protecting your feelings. It's not the best way to handle it, but at that point, it's self-preservation. It's you kind of protecting your feelings. And we do things consciously and subconsciously throughout our lives where it took me sometimes years removed from something where I was like, oh, I'm doing this because of this. And you in the moment were like the best way for me to process all of this. Although I can understand when she tells her side of the story, like the fucking guy just left a long weekend. But you couldn't deal man so you decided this is the easiest way to protect how i feel right now so i totally get why you did it if everything you're telling us true i know this sounds harsh okay we got to that point i let the landlord know i was moving out and

he said he'd send me the security deposit when the lease ended when she moved out well that didn't happen i reached out to him and he said i sent it all to his girlfriend hope that's not a problem um yeah dude it's a fucking problem i texted her below in the photos response i got oh here we go we get text evidence my question is what do i do do i leave it be do i respond and fight for my half of the deposit which is 575 i know she doesn't comprehend or refuses to acknowledge how poorly she treated me and i didn't want to spend much time arguing over it but i also feel i deserve the money maybe i'm off base and feeling deserved of it curious to hear you kyle steve's advice thanks for doing this okay um we all know where this one's going this isn't even about the 575 bucks uh you know you want the 575 for you

it's 575 but if you dump somebody and then also think that you're going to get the deposit back for not fulfilling the terms of the lease, like I don't know, has anyone ever gotten their money back in this situation? Because the money represents some sort of control that they can have over a situation they have no control over. You left her. You moved out when she wasn't home. She came back to a fucking note, man. You've been on and off with this girl for what five six years yeah so if you graduated 19 that means we're yeah you've you've been with this person pretty much you know for a good chunk of your life now for six years and she comes home to a note so she's going to be losing it and she's also probably not because you guys are kind of younger and most of us even if you're older we are not very accountable, we are not very accountable, right? We are not

as accountable as we think we are. Um, whenever you think about, think of this exercise, whenever it's a relationship and something goes wrong, does anyone ever say it was me? They don't, which I know we've touched on before here. So the 575 for her is some sort of control, some way of getting back at you for doing what she thinks is completely uncalled for. Even though based on everything you've explained in this email it makes a ton of sense that you just were like all right i can't fucking do this anymore i'm out of here so here's the text uh hey i think it's fair that i keep the remainder of the deposit based on a couple things you vacated the apartment with no notice or prior discussion with me left me to get rid of our and your remaining possessions

prepare clean the apartment for move out final walkthrough to pay discontinue utilities and Wi-Fi in our names. These shared things, these should have been shared responsibilities given the lease was in both of our names and we were responsible together for filling the terms of the lease in order to receive the deposit back. You chose not to do that, did not want to find another solution with me. Wow, very stern. Well written text.

Right? Yeah. $575 is a lot of money for certainly you know you're in the education field I think it's a $575 investment never having to deal with this person I know that

I tend to lean towards fuck it on the money thing which is not about where I'm at it's just do you want to keep fighting with, do you want to keep fighting with her? Do you want to keep talking with her? Because she does make a decent point. You did bail on the lease and she's going to exaggerate things like, oh, I had to move. I don't know what's true or not. Was there a bunch of stuff left over? I remember I kept my house our senior year, six of us, and everybody graduated. I still had a couple credits to check off the old to-do list.

So I go, I'm just going to carry the lease over and move a couple credits to check off the old to-do list. So I go, I'm just going to carry the lease over and move a couple other buddies in this place, which also was a disaster, which maybe I'll tell that story one day. And guess what happened? My five roommates left with the stuff they needed and left every other piece of shit in that house, three floors, six bedrooms for me to deal with. They just left it because they're like, oh, we're still taking over the lease. Fine. Cool. And there was no conversation about it. Guys just, you know, packed up their clothes

and took their mattress and whatever TV and all our awesome printers back then. But they also left the house absolutely fucking trash with garbage and stuff they didn't want. And it was then for me to deal with and everybody else.

It was a totally bullshit move. But in the moment, you know, I was so young and immature about things. I was like, wait, am I getting screwed over here? But again, here's the point. I don't know how much work she had to put into this. I don't know what the cleaning the apartment thing, although a lot of times when you do a lease, there can be a cleaning fee in there. I mean, do you want a fighter on this? Do you want to say, okay, fine. Some of those things are fair, but I don't think it should be

zero. I mean, you could take one swing at it that way and say, hey, look, you're right, but I did what I did, but I don't think the negotiating is based on two numbers, zero and $575. I think I deserve some of this money back. And if she says no, do you want to keep talking to this person? says no do you want to keep talking to this person i don't think you do i mean you left and leaving when you did and thinking you get the full deposit back even if you were justified in leaving which it seems like you are i still think that that was a little unrealistic that you were going to get all 575 back especially now from her because she probably fucking hates you and she's not going to do you any favors. And like I said before, the money that total there allows her to feel like she got back

at someone who she felt like did her wrong. Kyle? I mean, this is a classic Judge Judy case right up my alley. But I mean, a couple of things. Like you said said once you once you know that somebody else is going to be the one that has to stress over the leaving and uh dusting the moldings and just doing all the stuff and cleaning out that shit behind the oven you're just not going to do it to the like you could say even though he didn't even he didn't even say that he was like yeah you know I prepped it for for leaving or whatever you just got your shit and you got out of there and there's no way that you um took all of your shit and like all that stuff would be a lot more expensive like to have some another party do it would be a lot more expensive than if you know however much time she had to put into doing that stuff um and

honestly i don't think i've ever gotten more than like 10 of a security deposit on my move out ever not even like not even like getting fucked over. Like just, I don't think I've ever, ever. This, this right here will probably be the most of a portion of a security deposit I'll ever get back. And that's, you know, who knows? What's your worst security deposit story? I mean, they were like, do you have any more money?

What did you do to your place? It was the college. There was like a man-sized hole like in the wall there was like two guys fell through a wall and um you know there's just windows i mean we had a our toilet got um clogged for honestly it was like 30 days and we had we had a duct taped and they were like we you know we had all taken our turns with the plungers and you know coat hangers just trying to do anything really coat hanging Coat hanging like the toilet, huh? Just, I mean, literally anything

because it wouldn't work. We had five guys, one bathroom, one toilet, one shower. And it's Potsdam, New York. I mean, it's not for everybody. Nobody knew a plumber. We got one plumber. We got the best plumber in the North Country.

Unfortunately, he's tied up for a couple weeks. You know, we did our best, but we ended up duct taping the toilet guys were pissing in the sink and the shower was awful it was absolutely taking shits at the library and friends houses but i'm just saying like that house we got no money back and um you know i even saw an email like hey we need to talk about some things but i mean good luck good luck i'm gone guys um i guess i guess what I'm saying in the whole thing is, I'm sure that your move out life advice guy wasn't as perfect. And honestly, I just got fucked over going out

a year ago. I mean, I lost about two grand and stuff where I could try to track him down. I could try to sue him. I mean, I don't have the idea of suing anyone. Yeah, I could try it. But also the time and money that I probably have to spend, I'm not a lawyer. I mean, I don't have the idea of suing anyone. Yeah, I could try it. But also the time and money that I probably have to spend. I'm not a lawyer. I probably need one, right? Or, you know, see if he'd agree to go on Judge Judy, which would be my absolute dream. Did he take your stuff? What happened? No, I mean, he just didn't pay his rent until, you know, was bleeding me dry until I had to just move out. So I basically moved out and had to pay the difference two plus thousand

dollars in rent that I just never received because it was a subtenant situation. All I'm saying is, is like for you to be fucked over a $500 in a deposit, really just move on. The stuff that you would have to do to get it back is not worth $500 to me at least. And I'm not somebody who's running around with wads of cash, but, um, I just think whether it's going to be the money, time and money, all that stuff that you'd have to do, don't do it. But if you are going to do that route and get shitty, just do everything over text because I'm pretty sure that helps nowadays. Yeah. By the way, like the lease terms, it's not a lease on a relationship. All right. This is the security deposit doesn't care about

her yelling at you all the time. And if she is in charge of it, you know, I, this, this one's pretty much open and shut. I don't really think there's, I would rather like, think of it this way.

Would you rather stay in the relationship for a chance at the full 575? That's what I was going to ask. If he had a redo, would he have, would he have not left and like, you know, had to talk with her and then try to split everything because then that would probably be a huge hassle she'd probably

give you more shit and you'd have to deal with her more than you did now so i mean yeah i don't want to i don't like saying hey forget about 500 something bucks because you know that's a lot to a lot of people but i just feel like you saved yourself a headache if you guys want to go i just judy just reach out because i'd love to see you guys on judy justice now so this guy that milked you for a couple grand what's the status now i mean is he not 10 plus years 10 plus years i just can't get over it so you know oh it's 10 years ago no no i'm saying we've been friends 10 plus years uh you know this happened about a year ago i just can't really get over it but know, it's a charger to the game situation. I'm even a little getting upset as I'm thinking about it right now,

but you know, no, we don't really talk anymore. Well, he doesn't want to talk to you because he owes you two grand. Do you, do you ever reach out and say, Hey,

look, I don't want to, I did it already. I tried it already. And it's like, what's he say? I don't owe you anything. Yeah, basically.

Because then I tried to kick him out. It was like a whole pandemic thing. But you know, this was, this was like one of those. Yeah, I know it's a pandemic. That's not why I'm kicking you out.

It's because you're driving me fucking nuts. But I mean, either way, either way, it's like, we probably should have just had a fight and whoever won got to got their way. You know, that's what we probably should have had.

He's coming back from a wave rent protest with a sign he sets it down sets it down in the living room and you're like hey what did you do today be like i was out there protesting fucking get a wave rent for these six months well you know what no well wait oh well let me just say this here's what i would say he'd be like it's covid bro it's a pandemic and then i come home and there's like seven strangers smoking blunts in my fucking living room it's like oh is it covid bro is it covid so all right i'm done that's all i'm saying it was uh it was a nightmare i read i rented a house in the vineyard with like four or five buddies and we were older at that point and it was spotless i think i told the story once before but it was spotless and then i get a call from the

realtor being like the homeowner is in tears. It's absolute trash. You're not getting a deposit back. And then we'd heard that there was some stunt couch that they would always show as the frame was broken and the realtor would just believe it or the realtor was in on it. And that was bullshit. Cause I was like, we're getting this deposit back. And then I ended up losing the deposit and had to pay everybody else back. Cause I set up the rental. Cause other guys were like in and out. They're like, I didn didn't do anything so the only way for me to handle it was like all right fine fuck it and at that point eating the deposit on that was a lot it sucked for me um the house there was one house in college this is kind of a fucked up story but it was

agreed upon that i would it wasn't it was like a different house than the one I talked about before, but I was kind of the point man for the whole thing. Got us the house, and then two guys bailed, and then the other guy just didn't pay rent. So I paid rent for three months by myself. I paid my rent, and then the handler for the house was like, look, you need to get everybody else's rent and then get your check and not four separate checks because there's only one check coming and it's from you. And I was like, all right. And then it turned into 90 days.

And the guy who owned the house broke into it while we were asleep. He broke into it because it was his house, but you're still not supposed to do that. But at that point, he jumped through the kitchen window and was stepping in the sink and he was wearing jorts. And he was like, what's going on? He started yelling at me. And I was like, look, the other guys said they're coming in September and they bailed. And he's like, well, I'm going to have to sue you. And I was like, look, the other guys said they're coming in September and they bailed. And he's like, well, I'm going to have to sue you. And I was like, look, I kind of get it, but I'm stuck in between this. He goes, you know, I know you've been sending in your rent every month, but that's not the point. He's like, I'm getting a quarter of what I was promised. And he's like, it's been three months. He's like, I'm listing this house this week,

unless you can pay all the back rent and then deposit in first month for the next, which wasn't going to happen. And he's like, and can i'm going to sue you and he's like i'm sorry but i'm going to have to sue you thanks for paying your rent but i'm gonna have to see you no well he was right though he was right you know i'm 21 22 trying to handle it going yep nope i get it i get it and you know then i go upstairs and i remember being pissed at my other roommate who hadn't paid a dime the whole summer and was buying shit too. And he just milked the situation. He could live there for free and not pay anything because I was at least sending in a check where they weren't ready to send the National Guard in.

If they hadn't gotten a dollar the first 60 days, then it would have been a bigger issue. But they were kind of like holding out hope. They're like, well, Ryan's sending in his check, whatever, whatever. So the point of the whole story is i ended here is he's like what i'm gonna have to see you i'm gonna have to see you i was like all right whatever i'm like great add it to the list of other awful shit i'm dealing with um and we were cleaning out the house being like we gotta get out of here because it's gonna get ugly let's get out of here and i found the lease that we never handed in.

So you were good to bounce. You're about to leave a note like this guy in the night, right? Well, that was going to be my question. Were you the only name on the lease? Well, the lease in a sense. And if so, the lesson was no lease. Yeah, the lease, because it was never handed in, it was like the lease never existed.

So as we were cleaning up, I remember like holy shit i'm like we never handed this in so the lesson is sometimes you don't handle your business you never know and we knew immediately we knew immediately we saw we saw the lease we're like oh i go wait let me leave and i was like there's my signature there's's his, there's the date. I was like, this is, this is amazing. We moved out and found a real life. Get out of jail free card. There you go.

There you go. That was a fun one. We went, uh, we went deep on that. I hope you enjoy Dilfer. I love that stuff. And I try to give you a little bit, something different, um, as opposed to why did this team kick it on fourth down? So please subscribe and always check out the Ryan Russillo podcast,

spread the word, bring them Spotify. Thank you to Kyle and Steve. Outro Music