The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Joel Klatt on Picking the Playoff, and Can the Big Ten Surpass the SEC? Plus, Tales From the Couch: Denver's Big Night.

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

Russillo shares his NBA thoughts in Tales from the Couch, including: Trail Blazers-Nuggets, Clippers-Heat, and Rockets-Spurs (1:15). Then Ryen talks with Joel Klatt about the College Football Playoff, Michigan’s improvement from last season, how Ohio State matches up with Georgia, the Pac-12 raising its profile this season, playoff expansion disagreements, and Deion Sanders’s impact on Colorado football (19:25). Finally, Ryen and Kyle give out their favorite bets for NFL Week 14 (1:02:09), before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:04:12). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Joel Klatt Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ryen Russillo Podcast will be LIVE in Salt Lake City, Utah, for NBA All-Star Weekend on Saturday, February 18th at 2 p.m. MT at Wise Guys Comedy Club at the Gateway! Get tickets at wiseguyscomedy.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

big announcement before we get to the podcast do a little tales from the couch joel klatt's going to talk college ball we're going to pick the playoff stuff scenarios and then i'll bring up all the sec stuff as well uh looking forward to that life advice and our fan dual football picks for the NFL this weekend. Okay, but before we do that, the big announcement is that we are going to have a live show in Salt Lake City. It'll be February 18th,

NBA All-Star Weekend. We'll be live from Wise Guys Comedy Club at the Gateway, and you can get your tickets at wiseguyscomedy.com under the Salt Lake City tab. Again, that's wiseguyscomedy.com under the Salt Lake City tab. Again, that's wiseguyscomedy.com on the Salt Lake City page. Doors are open at 1, show is at 2. So come out early, grab some food, drinks, and get a good seat.

The Ryan Rosillo Podcast, again, live from Salt Lake City on Saturday, February 18th at 2 Mountain Time. It's 21 and older. Venue and space is limited, so grab your tickets while they last at wiseguyscomedy.com. See you in Salt Lake. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost anything delivered

with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. We'll start today's podcast with Tales from the Couch. We did it on Wednesday because we did the QB NFL stuff with the NBA player comp, which honestly I could do a whole nother segment on it. We got some other great ones.

Maybe I'll share some of those with you. Last night was a light, light slate, light slate, but we had a great game in Denver, Portland. So let me start there and there's a couple other things

that I'll get to. We'll keep it moving here. 15 lead changes in the last 6.33 of a Denver win at Portland. So it's 15 lead changes in the last second half of the fourth quarter. Dame's been back for two games. He looked like prime Dame last night. 40-12, 12 assists, 9-17 from three, and big Dame threes. Like that three where you think you have it covered on the high

screen it's not really even a hot it's like a little side screen action and you're like okay I don't have to close out to 30 feet up the shots up in the air and it went in again that's the lethal Dame where there's just you get so annoyed because you go I have to work this hard this far away from the basket I have to anticipate around the screen this far away, seriously. And then if you start really cheating up like that, then you're going to get burned off something else. But Dane would just be like, oh, you waited. Oh, you were late.

A little hesitation. I'm going to dial it back up from here. So it looked like he hit the game winner with 9.1 seconds left. And then back the other way, Jamal Murray hits one with 0.9 seconds left. Game, blouses. So a couple things on Jamal Murray. Watching him, different points. You know,

the numbers are pretty good in November, not deep enough, nearly in December here, coming back from a significant injury. I just liked the way he's been moving. And I thought last night was like, Hey, you know what?

This is happening. And I know he's been putting up some numbers that look pretty good, but I think the growth towards him running around and looking like a good player again, like we're going to be there. It's going to work out. It's going to be fine. There was also a moment last night too, where I was watching the 10 guys on the floor. It was Pope, Murray, Gordon, Jokic, Bones. That's without Michael Porter Jr. out there. And then the other side, it's Nurk, it's Grant, it's Hart, it's Simons, it's Dame. And I'm going, these are two teams that you wouldn't exactly put

in the absolute contender level. And I know some Denver fans would say, yes, we are. I think it's still a little fringy. But think about those 10 guys to close out a game. We're not talking about two of the best teams in the West, just the amount of talent that we have in this league. It's just something I was thinking about. There was one play here in particular that was my favorite

because I had mentioned before it was that Detroit-Denver game, and there's one person specifically that hit me up about what was so great about the thing you were talking about, and I feel like I let him down. I don't even know why I'm telling the story. But there was this pre-switching that Denver was doing on one side because Detroit had changed who was defending Jamal Murray they put Knox on Murray because they were like if we're going to do these Murray Jokic switches let's have more size going into

the switch for Jokic so then Denver was trying to do something to kind of get out of that and then sometimes I don't even care because it's Jokic who by the way no one is better at the I guess I'll just fucking shoot at play than Nikola Jokic he is I've never seen I don't know that I've ever seen anything like it where he'll just be like I'm dangling dangling

all right whatever I guess I'll just shoot a three goes in all that stuff around the baseline cutter cutter where are you fake pass up fake up fake, spin, turn around. I guess I'll just take this 14-foot jumper and then it goes in. He leads the league and I guess I'll just shoot at shots

or his efficiency. And so last night, they were running a very simple switch where they were trying to get Jokic switched with Murray's guy and then Murray could go at Nurkic and Murray's going to have moments even if it feels like the ball should always be with Jokic. He's just that special.

God, he is so much fun to watch. But Murray was like, no, I want to turn. And that's how basketball works, especially when you're really good. You're like, I want to turn at all this. And Nurkic got switched on to Murray, then it wasn't like any kind of definitive move they didn't attack it right away so Nurkic is like you know what let me just go back so he goes back to Jokic Jokic ends up with the basketball Nurkic blocks the shot it doesn't happen enough in the NBA where somebody tries to just look at the scenario and goes wait a minute if they're not

completely like pushing the pace here and they're bringing it back out why don't I just go back to the original guy even though you got the switch and sometimes I swear to god some of these NBA switches like I'll be like why did you want that switch or then you got the switch that you wanted and then you didn't do anything with it it's just very weird it happens and granted it's basically what basketball is so there's going to be plenty of possessions that don't make a ton of sense why am I a little hesitant on Denver as the full-blown real West contender that could get out? I always ask this question, right? If Denver won the West, would I be surprised? Right now, the answer is yes. And I know Porter Jr. coming back adds to their depth and their offense. And

Gordon's been better for them again this year. He's somebody who I always feel like the new fan base that would get him. And granted, he's only left one team in Orlando, but you're always like, I just wish it was a little bit more. I've liked what he's done this year. However, their defense, their fourth on offense, their 26th on defense. That's down there with Utah 24th and then teams like Orlando, Houston, Detroit, and San Antonio. That's not good.

Let's look back historically. They just don't play defense well enough. 21st, or excuse me. 21-22, 15th in defense. 2021-11, 19-20, 16th, 18-19. We're going back a ways here. They were 10th in defensive efficiency. It's actually getting worse. Denver is the

4th seed today since a 4-3 start. Now 11-7. Denver, the 8th seed as of this morning, started 10-4, 3-8 the rest of the way, but they did go 2-6 without Dame. He's been back two games. Miami, they're a 10 seed. They beat the Clippers last night. This is going to be a lot quicker.

There feels like 12 teams in the East that are battling for the top 10. Washington's lost four in a row. They're in that group. Beals hamstring could be out. Hoping to get him back during this next road trip. Could be next week. And then you've got Chicago who I have this note too Chicago started last year 39 and 21 and since then with the playoffs and this note is from a couple days ago so I could be off the game 17 and

33 that's with the playoffs it just seems crazy that Chicago team where I think we all kind of like a couple of those pieces, that they could be out of this whole thing. And it's kind of how they've been trending now for a good chunk of the second half of last year and then into this year. My hesitation on Miami and one of the most impressive coaching jobs

I've seen in recent history with them being a one seed last year is I still feel like the talent standpoint, there's kind of a drop off. We know their big three guys are. Bam has been even better. Butler's missed 10 games, but God, when he closes out,

what he did to Boston last week, what he did last night against the Clippers, he just feels like, and maybe he just hasn't played enough because he's missed the games, but maybe the stats are misleading. But Butler finds a way to close. So even though we don't put him

in that tier one group when he's closing, and I pushed back on it, even when they were in the NBA finals, because it turns into who's the best player on the other team is playing in it. Hey, is Butler this, is he that now he's not top five.

He's none of those things, but damn, can he close a game out? He just can. And he's got the personality for it too. And his shooting numbers have been incredible. We're talking like career high shooting numbers, career high assist stuff.

But I feel after Lowry, who's held up better as far as playing games this year, Bam, who's held up, and we've already talked about Butler missing those, you know, a lot falls onto Hero a little bit. Hero's numbers still look pretty good, and I love the development of some of these other pieces around him,

but when you're starting to compare Miami's roster with the other rosters that you're talking about coming out of the East, not a 10 seed, I don't know that it holds up. I just don't. That's why I was so fascinated and impressed with what they actually did last year with that roster. Speaking of Austin, that beat down of Phoenix,

if you didn't know, now you know, right? At one point, I was like, is this going to be 100-50? Against Phoenix, now you know, right? I got one point, I was like, is this going to be 100-50? Like, against Phoenix. Okay? Against Phoenix. Spare me the

Chris Paul just came back jokes. I get it. Not true, by the way. The best thing about Boston is they've got two of these top 11 scores Bill did a good job going back to the podcast we did together on Tuesday the combined scoring like the history that we're seeing right now with Jalen Brown and Tatum and that they can play together they can play without each other and the defensive concerns for them that they had not even going

back that far like they felt like a middle of the pack team defensively, which was crazy because of the record. Well, they're now ninth, and they're fourth in defense in their last 10 games. And we'll keep noticing this as I think we'll see a continuation of some of the top players sitting out more games. It's been pretty good so far.

I skipped right over the Clippers. Yes, I did. Sorry. I don't know what to do with that team. I don't know what to do with them. I watched the game against Charlotte. It's great Kawhi hit the Clippers. Yes, I did. Sorry. I don't know what to do with that team. I don't know what to do with them. I watched the game against Charlotte. It's great Kawhi hit the game winner. He got cooked by Terry Rozier like three times in a row in the fourth quarter. Not in a row, but three during those closing moments.

I don't know what to do with that team. I'm not going to write them off. I'm also not going to tell you they're awesome and that that's still the team to beat. And I think that's fair. But yeah, I did skip over them a little bit. Back to Boston, the anti-Paul George-Kawhi pairing will look at Boston and how often their two

top guys are playing because I think these guys are on a mission this season and it's going to be something that keeps building their record in some of those numbers. The last game here, I did watch start to finish Houston-San Antonio. I'm just interested in what Houston might be.

San Antonio won this one. Kelton Johnson, there's some numbers out there. I try to warn people about this all the time, like the fake numbers. Like, all right, yeah. Like, okay, this guy's scoring went up. All right, well, he just took more shots. He's not better. all right, yeah, like, okay, this guy's scoring went up.

All right, well, he just took more shots. He's not better. The worst team has to have a leading scorer rule. Devin Vassell is actually technically the leading scorer, I think, going into last night. I didn't check it again this morning because he was right there with Kelton Johnson the last week. I just really like Kelton Johnson. I think he's terrific.

Is he a one? No. I don't think he is. Although some of these developmental stories over the past few years, like even Jokic, I'm like, man, what a nice little player that guy is. Or a big player. It's like, no, now he's going to win back-to-back MVPs. Did not see that happening.

So who knows? Ceilings for no one is what I should say. I like Keldon. Sohan was out last night. And then there's the Houston part of this. All right. I have noticed at times where, I mean, this is the Jalen Green show. And that's fine.

He's 20 years old. You took him where you took him in the draft. It's a lot of bad offense. That's okay. They're a young team. But young teams, when you have like seven guys that are worried about who they're going to be in the NBA at the same time, does not exactly translate to team ball that often. And I don't really blame them. I mean, that's the psychology of the NBA player. If there was some sort of story arc, you would go young guy, top pick,

worried about shoe deal, cash, and extension, and buckets. Then it's like year seven. It's like, hey, wait. I've got a ton of money and a bunch of buckets. I'm tired of being a seven seed. Houston takes Jabari Smith. Now you've got Jabari, you've got

Jalen, you've got Shingun, Alpi. You've got Porter Jr. who's going to get his buckets. You've got Kenny Martin Jr., who wants his shine. Tari Eason, who you don't have to run any plays for, and he comes right in and just impacts the game. Where I've been impressed with Tari, I like him, even though out of LSU, I couldn't believe he got some of the calls. It was a little bit of my Al Thornton rule there

where I'd watch a player and go, I don't know if any of this stuff's really going to work in the NBA, but his physical part, it's almost just like send him into the scorer's table and then let him go in and see what happens. So I think that's been a positive. So there's a lot of things going on here with Houston, but the thing that I think is most concerning, because all the mistakes that they make as a young team, you're just like, okay, whatever. This isn't that big of a deal. It's to be expected. But I'd mentioned during a Toronto game where I was watching Jabari Smith set screens, and then he would roll or he'd move or he'd pop, and then nobody would give him the ball.

And I was like, all right, that's not great. You've got to reward guys at some point. Everybody wants to touch the basketball. So let's dig into some numbers because I've noticed it a few other times too. And it's just, again, this isn't some huge flaw, some massive problem. Jabari had a nice night last night. And I wonder if they're going to try to maybe separate him and Jalen

a little bit because there was a possession against the Sixers where Jabari was wide open in the corner to the left and Jalen gave it to him. Jabari misses. Same thing happened again. Jabari's wide open. He's a terrific shooter.

And Jalen Green was almost like, no, you already had your turn. I'm going to go and do something. So that was the Sixers game. I noticed some ignored roles in other games where you're like, you guys just don't even look for him. And then last night, there was a play where Jalen was kind of coming from the baseline, and he was curling around. Jabari was the break of the left side, three-point line break. And you're going, oh, okay, well, he could get it to Jabari.

And then Jalen reset and then decided to take a long two against two defenders. Jalen Green at this point is the quarterback who, when he's freaked out, runs. And for him, running is, I'm just going to drive on everybody because he's also really good at it. I don't know how many guys get off the floor as quickly and as powerful as Jalen Green does. So all of that stuff is still good. I'm not off of Jalen Green. It's just not a lot of fun if you're one of the other guys watching one of the other guys go for hits. Now, Shingun, nobody's going to be running in the post here, but he might have more offensive moves than anyone on this basketball team,

but he's an afterthought. He might be like the fourth or fifth option. I mean, Eric Gordon's not going to not score anymore, and you can see him trying to do grown-up things, but he's also like, I'm not going to get zero points tonight. So when I looked at it, I was like, does anything back up what I'm seeing here? The numbers do.

Houston runs the fourth most pick and rolls. They have the fourth worst points per possession on those pick and rolls. They have the second lowest number of total passes in each game. Only Oklahoma City has less. They're the fourth worst in assist points

created. It gets worse. Touches. Just touches. How many times the ball touched by the next guy? They're last. And it's not just bad. It's like 90 less than the top teams. The seconds per touch is like three and a half seconds per touch, which is way beyond every other team in the NBA. They have the most dribbles per possession of any of the players.

They have the least amount of front court touches. Just everything that you see, all the numbers back up, it's just, I'm going to do my thing. And again, it's a young team. If I were doing a Houston-San Antonio draft, I might still take Jalen Green too.

You might just based on the prospect of who Jabari Smith is, you might go 1-2 right there with those two guys. Maybe Kelton's three. Maybe you like him more. Maybe he's two. Maybe you think he's one. I'm not sure that I'm there, even though starting this whole thing with really liking him.

Houston would probably have four of the five guys that you would take between these two teams if you just drafted the rosters. So it's not some, I can't believe this is happening. I can totally believe it's happening, but it is happening. And at times, if you're the guy in the Rockets without the basketball, it's not a great hang. We'll do a little stats to impress other people. We've rebranded that.

I'd like to keep track of this, and this is a little bit into the Shingun post-touch thing because it's kind of funny. Yusuf Nurkic leads the NBA, and this number was going into Tuesday, so I looked these up a couple days ago, so don't freak out if it's off by a tenth. Yusuf leads the NBA in post-ups 5.4 per game

in 2014 Al Jefferson led the NBA in post-up per game with 20 29 players in the 13-14 season posted up more times per game than Yusuf does this year again as the NBA league leader in post-ups. Here's one for you. 47 players. This is going back a couple days again. 47 players are shooting 40% from three. Last year it was 30. I do keep track of field goal attempts per game, thinking more and more

guys are taking 20 or more shots per game. It's the same as last year. 12. 12 guys are shooting it 20 times. 20 is a lot of shots. That used to be that number. It's like, man, that guy takes 20 shots a game. And that number has grown, but it's the same as last year. Phoenix's offense, the most efficient offensive team from that Phoenix seven seconds or less era.

2007 Suns, 112.9 points per possession. Per 100 possessions, excuse me, per possession would be a lot. That is the average offensive rating of the NBA today, which is number one all time.

This is the most efficient offensive season we've seen in NBA history. This is a trend that's been going on now for a while. Basically, the entire league's average is playing to the same offensive efficiency number as the prime 2007 Phoenix Suns. The Suns' pace that year in 2007 would rank 28th in Pace today. So there you go. Share those with your friends this weekend.

Joel Klatt is the voice of college football for Fox. He's also the host of the Joel Klatt College Football Show. And he joins us now. Thanks for doing this, man. Good to catch up. How are you? Yeah, good to catch up. How have you been, man?

I'm great. I'm great. I season that you know a couple weeks in everybody's going out it's going to be the same old thing all over again where i feel like the lack of parody is a bit of an anomaly and we finally got some sort of i guess i don't know like i just i didn't like that everybody felt like it was ridiculous to pencil in anyone other than just say clemson, Georgia, Bama, Ohio State. So, you know, we still got, we still got two of those, but I just liked it. It was a little different. Well, and in particular, when you had, you know, a couple of those that we would pencil in prior, Bama and Ohio State, and they're the ones that are having to like duke it out without great arguments in the end. And there are others that are kind of clearly playing themselves in. It is interesting to me that for the first time in a while,

maybe since Clemson kind of entered the fray, if you look at the last 18 months, it's actually Michigan with the second best record in college football. Georgia, the number one record, and they've been dominant, obviously defending champ. And then Michigan kind of put themselves in that position where it's like, okay, they may not have recruited

on the level that the others have, but I do just find it fascinating that over the last 18 months, they've been the second best program in the country. And I don't think people saw that coming after the COVID year. So to your point, you know, there has been a little bit of movement in college football. I'm really glad you brought up Michigan because that's where I want to start. You did a ton of their games.

Did you do five of their games? Oh, I think seven, actually. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you know them well. And there are certain times where the season like the Penn State game was not a close game at halftime, it wasn't score, that was domination

Maryland to me is a tough out, like I actually think Maryland's a good football team this year, we saw that a little bit in the Ohio State game and then it was Iowa and it was Illinois and I'm kind of like, alright, maybe if I'm taking you seriously as a national champion contender, I need to see more. And then we saw that at Ohio state. Yeah. What, what did you learn about Michigan in a year where it wasn't supposed to be what it was last year? Yeah. I'm glad you put that in there at the, at the end, because it wasn't supposed to be this good for them this year. You know, they were losing their top-end defensive players. And I knew that their offense would be good coming into this season.

I didn't know if they were going to be better. They have turned out to be that way. And I think that the most shocking part is that statistically, at least, they're a better defense, which that kind of like blows everyone's mind, right? It's because you don't have Hutchinson and Dojabo, who should have been a first-round pick, save for the Achilles injury. You have Daxton Hill, first-rounder, and it's like,

okay, you're not supposed to just replace those guys with a former wide receiver and a rotation of ends and be better statistically, and they were. I think that it speaks to the overall philosophy. And I talked about this on a couple of games, and I'm sure that you may have heard me say it, but it's like, Jim, when he faced adversity, really for the first time in his coaching career, because he had had success and an upward trajectory everywhere he had been. Went south at San Francisco. I think it was more personal than it was on the field play. I think we would all probably admit that. And so this was the first time when it's like, hey,

are you good enough coach after the COVID year, two and four? you know, hadn't beaten Ohio state. And it's like, ah, we should move on. You know, there were some calls for that. Um, he takes a pay cut, a significant pay cut, which is just unheard of in college football. And I think that, that what happened was he went back to his roots and he built what is, and there's no other way to describe it, at least I haven't found another way to describe it, is like the Harbaugh family football team. He went back to his roots offensively and his brother's roots defensively. a personal side and the chemistry side of his team has been, gosh, I mean, it's been really perfect for them. The defense is very good. The structure of the defense is very good.

And it's not lost on me, by the way, that the most successful defenses of the last few years in this modern style of college football are defenses that are more modeled after the NFL. You have really good defensive tackles. You build a run wall. Georgia last year had them. I think Michigan this year has them. You create hard edges on the exterior with good pass rushers that are stood up, hard to get outside of them. Then you have hybrid style players in the second and third level with good cover corners. That's what Georgia has been doing. That's what Alabama has been doing. Now that's what Michigan is doing.

And those are the most successful teams, at least defensively, over the last few years. We completely agree on Harbaugh. And I think there's a bunch of factors, and I'm sure you agree. But when I look back at the criticism, I'm going, OK, wait a minute. He's 10-3, 10-3, okay, 8 and 5, 10 and 3, 9 and 4. People were acting like it was if he was going 6 and 6. Granted, he brings that on himself. There's a lot of look at me attention, which he's definitely toned that down. Then you don't beat Ohio State, but then when you looked at it historically, I'd be like, I don't know. They

haven't really been beating Ohio State much the last two decades. It's not that much different. My position was always that the media was definitely on him in a way because of him. But I always felt like, hey, if he's cool with being there and they're cool with him, you don't need to change this. You don't need to change this. So I am personally actually happy for him. I don't have a relationship with Jim Harbaugh.

Few do. But I'm happy for him that he's reached these last two seasons because I think it's an argument for everyone wanting to fire everybody with less than a three- or four-year recruiting cycle. And if you're a big name and the money, you're under even more pressure, which I get. That's what the money is for. But it just doesn't make that much sense that some of these higher profile programs

just rip guys out of there every three years. If Harbaugh wasn't an alum, he would have probably already been gone. Yeah. No, I completely agree with that. And I think it's only going to get worse, by the way, now that we have moved into this era of, I would call it like new precedent

of immediate success for head coaches. You know, like what Sonny Dykes and Lincoln Riley have done this year. And by the way, Brian Kelly and Dan Lanning and Kalen DeBoer at Washington, what these guys have done now is ruined coaching for every first year coach throughout the country. You know, if you don't turn it around to the tune of plus five, plus six victories, people are going to be like, well, this isn't working. And I think that the trigger is actually going to get quicker in what was already a very quick trigger industry, which the case study is actually Michigan. You know, stick with it. See what you can do.

Build a culture. And the culture at Michigan is really strong. what you can do, build a culture. And the culture at Michigan is really strong. I would say that, um, just quickly on Michigan again, Michigan has a very specific identity. And I feel like when, when Jim finally was comfortable with, with not chasing what others thought he should be is when they really took off. Right. So instance, you know the Josh Gattis? I would call it an experiment at Michigan because Jim thought he needed to become more like Ohio State. Okay, I need to spread it out.

I need to change and evolve offensively. He had a defense that was Don Brown's defense that was very successful so long as he had better players on the field than the opposition because he would just bully them really to death with man coverage. And then as soon as they got into a situation where they had like players or they were in a deficit from a talent perspective, they would get beaten up badly. badly, those bowl games late in the season against Ohio State. And so he went back to an identity that he was more comfortable with, both on the field and off the field. And it's really paid off to him, for him and the program. To your point, though, about like coaching, I hope that this is ushering in an era of let's let this guy develop. My concern is that that's clearly not going to be the case because of the precedent now being set through NIL, through Transfer Portal, of immediate success. And I think that we're going to have programs, you know, Texas is already

grumbling about, you know, the second year with SARC. And I think that you're going to see some of these programs like, oh, hot seat, because we think that we can just go spend a bunch of money, bring in a guy, you know, give him $100 million, and he's going to flip our team around and our roster around immediately. And so that's, I fear, what's coming in the next couple of years. Okay, last thing on Michigan, because I want to talk playoffs. You very simply say, well, it's different this year because the first opponent is TCU. Why do you think the playoff will play out differently if you do for Michigan than it did last year in the Georgia matchup? Well, TCU, first of all, you told me I couldn't answer that, but that's number one. Say it were Michigan-Georgia in the final or the semi-final.

There you go. I do feel it's different. Now, how much different? I'm not sure. I'm not going to sit here and say like, oh, Michigan's going to win the national championship. They would be at a deficit. And by the way, a fairly substantial deficit as far as talent goes to Georgia, period.

Georgia's the best team in the country. I have them number one. I've had them number one for a long time. And it'll be an upset if they don't win the national championship. Having said that, it is a little different this year in the Michigan potential matchup with Georgia because they're better in two areas, quarterback and defensive tackle. And so those two areas are important. Their defensive tackles allow their defense to play base defense more often

than what they would have a year ago because they can build that run wall. So I'm talking about guys like Mozzie Smith and Mason Graham and Chris Jenkins. They make that defense stout up front. It allows those pass rushers to get going. They don't have to dominate the game with their pass rushers like they did with Hutchinson and Ajabo, which means that if they fall behind by a score or are playing a close game where they're not forcing you to be one-dimensional offensively, they're still okay. So that's number one. And then number two is just their quarterback. We know what they are running the football, regardless of if it's Blake Corum or Donovan Edwards. But there's now this element where J.J. McCarthy has just this extra gear

where he can create if he breaks down and if the play breaks down and he's outside of the pocket, he can create down the field. And I don't think that they had that a year ago. Put very simply, that they had that a year ago. Put very simply, Ryan, they were being outplayed against Ohio State. And by the way, somewhat severely in the first half, but they had a quarterback that could raise his level and the offense's level to a point where they weren't being blown out. They didn't have a two-score deficit. And he was really the factor in that. So as well as Ohio State played in the first half, you're sitting there and it's still a close game because of the quarterback. So those are the two reasons why I think it's a little bit different. Now, is that going to pay off to a win or a national championship? I'm not sure. But I do think that they're more suited or better suited for the playoff this year than last. for the playoff this year than last. Yeah. I mean, look, I couldn't agree with you more.

I'm still in disbelief about how the second half against Ohio State went because I'm like, okay, this is playing out the way I thought. They're going to push them around a little bit. Ohio State's a more talented football team. And then JJ, hopefully for him, it's not his Calzada moment. And I think we saw that he had a hell of a throw against Purdue, that back of the end zone throw, where you guys did a really good job of breaking

that throw down too on the telecast. I was like, man, that is a nice throw for him. And maybe that's the confidence boost he needs to go up against. A TCU team, I think any of us that were watching every week, you had to fall in love with them. You had to fall in love with the Max Duggan story, Johnson development on the outside. And I wasn't shocked that they lost to Kansas State because I thought Kansas State was a really good team too, once especially their quarterback at Howard felt a little more settled so I want to give TCU some love here but it sounds like we both are kind of leaning toward the Michigan part of this being more established well the the problem I see for TCU is as much as I love some of those individual

stories and more so on the on the offensive side I just don't see they just remind me of a lot of the other defenses that will eventually break, you know, against Michigan's offensive line. Michigan's offensive line is very good. Their commitment to run on the football is as good as anybody's out there and they will eventually break you down. They're the best second half team in the country. They're the best fourth quarter team in the country. They believe a great deal in Ben Herbert, their strength and conditioning coach. You'd be shocked at how much they talk about Ben Herbert. They actually tried to nominate Ben Herbert for the Broyles Award, the top assistant coach in the country. And the Broyles Award had to come back to them and say, you can't do that.

He's not an on-field coach. And they had a big back and forth in terms of argument. So why am I nervous for TCU or picking Michigan in that game? It would be because of the sustained onslaught of the physical run game. And eventually, it just wears you down. It eventually wear down Ohio State. It eventually got to Purdue. It eventually got to Maryland. It eventually got to Penn State. It eventually gets to Purdue. It eventually got to Maryland. It eventually got to Penn State. It eventually gets to everybody. And the only team that can probably stand there eye to eye and just be like,

all right, we're just going to trade blows with you for the 60 minutes is Georgia. So I think that's a fascinating part of this playoff. Okay, let's pivot that then into Ohio State. We would both agree that we think Ohio State, talent-wise, is of the other three teams, the one that matches up with Georgia the best, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Bruce Feldman, who's a good friend, who I know was on that broadcast at the Horseshoe

that day, you know, he came on and told me this story about the sideline. He goes, man, I'm telling you these Michigan guys were, like, buying into the idea that we're going to break them. We're going to break them. We always hear about the speeches after wins. We don't hear about it after losses all that often. Do you feel that Ohio State showed you some sort of lack of physicality, some sort of lack of toughness, like there's some weakness there for them? That's a real thing that you're so you know, I'm saying I for sure don't know, but that's kind of how he was presenting it in the next 30 minutes of that game. See, and I fell into this trap.

So let me first rip on myself. When you looked at the numbers and you just kind of like saw the game play out, I think it was easy to say it happened again. Michigan beat up Ohio State again. And then I watched the film back and I was like, nope, this is totally different than a year ago. A year ago, they methodically, you know, stole their chain, if you will, in the fourth quarter. Just ripped it out of their pocket. And Ohio State had no answer.

It was 4, 6, 8, 4, 6, 7. I mean, in terms of gains running the football. They only had to throw the ball one time in the fourth quarter. Ohio State was doing a much better job against the run this year. Michigan had about, I think it was 86, 82 or 86 yards total run on the football with seven minutes and 23 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Joel, at the half, it was 0.9 yards a carry. Correct, correct.

nine yards a carry. Correct. Correct. So Michigan did not, in hindsight, just bully Ohio State. Okay. So now let's back into like, what was the issue then? What happened? What happened was, is that I believe that last year's game left such a scar on the psyche of the Ohio State program that their main goal ended up hindering their

ultimate goal. I'm going to try to work all through that. Okay, so giving up the 200 and I think it was 97 rushing yards, having 15 rushes and one pass in the fourth quarter a year ago, having Michigan basically just steal their chain, that left a giant scar. And so they went into this game with this main goal of like, we will not let them do that again. And that main goal ended up hindering the ultimate goal of winning the game because they committed so many resources to stopping the run and to proving that they wouldn't be pushed around,

that they put guys that shouldn't be on an island on an island in the secondary. They hadn't done that all year long. If anyone tries to tell you that they played that exact style of defense for the entirety of the season, they're lying to you. I watched every snap that they played defensively. Their system looked different, felt different throughout the year. There was more caution. There was more safety from the back end, in particular, the three-safety defense that Jim Knowles ran.

And they were up at the line of scrimmage. I can't tell you how many snaps. I wish I could screenshot them and send them to you. There were between six and eight snaps where all 11 guys were within two yards of the line of scrimmage. I mean, just like they were down there. Okay. So it was working.

They were stopping the run. But because of that, it allowed JJ McCarthy to make big plays. It left guys in coverage that they shouldn't have been in one-on-one coverage and that were not used to those situations. And they got beat. A missed tackle here, gone. A missed coverage here, gone. And all of a sudden, those big plays started ramping up. Then you get to the 720 mark of the fourth quarter. And what happens is, I believe it's an eight-point game at that point. Ohio State kicks a field goal. And I even said it on the broadcast. I'm like, hey, this is it. Jim Knowles, you're brought in for this moment. And in his mind, he's like, I've got to do it again. Here it goes. Everybody is up near the line of scrimmage. Well, when that happens, you need

one crease and it's gone. And so the next four snaps of the football for Michigan resulted in two touchdowns and over, I think it was 180 yards or 140 yards or something along those lines. And they ended up winning the game. So again, I just go back to this. Michigan scarred Ohio State so badly last year that their game plan was more about proving that they could stop the run and be tough than it was about winning the game. And ultimately, you know, that ended up biting them in the end. So long-winded answer to tell you, are they talented enough to beat Georgia? Yes. Do I think it happens? Maybe. Let's just say out of 10 times if they played, Ohio State probably wins somewhere between three or four times. So would it

be an upset? Absolutely. Can they do it? Yeah. And if I'm Georgia, I would be sitting there, and I think you probably agree with this, of the possible outcome and semifinal matchups, this was the worst one for them by far. Yeah, totally. Because, you know, it'd just be so dismissive to not think from an offensive skill thing, and especially how much healthy

you'd expect the Buckeyes to be with this break. This is the worst draw. Bama's a better draw, I think, than Ohio State. I agree, because what does Bama not have this year? Wide receivers. What's the only way? And you've played them.

There's a familiarity there. That's right. That's a great point. But I was just going to say, in the last 27 games, the only team to beat Georgia was Alabama. How'd they do that? Great wide receiver play. They were getting after them again, by the way, in the national championship game until Jameson Williams went down.

You know, what's the only who's the only team in the country, at least in Tennessee? Fans are going to get all over me on this. But Tennessee's passing game is just not intricate enough to really threaten Georgia. They rely too much on the simplicity of that little option route, the second level option route. option route, the second level option route. And because of that, it's a half field read and Kirby Smart can do things that make it difficult for Tennessee to throw the ball. The only passing game in the country, I firmly believe this, that is intricate enough schematically and good enough from a personnel standpoint to threaten Georgia is Ohio State.

So from that standpoint, it's easily the worst matchup they could hope for in the semifinal. Yeah, look, I'm with you. And I think, you know, if I'm an Ohio State fan, I'm going, look, the second half sucked. Cornelius Johnson bust that on a broken tack on the sideline. Loveland's play was somebody fell down, busted coverage on the other side. Like, there's three distinct things where you're going, what the hell are you guys doing in the secondary? And look, if it holds up, Bowers, because they move them around all over the place, Bowers is going to have a field day too.

I imagine you are hammering that film if you're Knowles in your defensive backfield, just going, we're not doing this again. Totally. Let's ask this hypothetical, because this is where it's going to get fun. Let's ask this hypothetical because this is where it's going to get fun. If it's Ohio State versus Michigan, does that mean the Big Ten can claim conference supremacy, the belt? Oh, gosh. I knew you would go here.

Oh, we're going there. No, no. No. And the reason is, it's just, it's been, the SEC has owned the sport at the top end for too long. You know, so if you're asking me in a micro climate, like this year, well, then yeah, then you could say like, okay, this year, the Big Ten was the best conference. But no, you can't say that overall. The draft is going to say otherwise. We'll see what the overall bowl record is, obviously. But then obviously, just this run of history that that conference has been on winning national championships,

it would take multiple years of the Big Ten winning national championships to try to go back to equal footing. And I've said this for a long time. The SEC is the best conference. I do have a strong dislike for the narrative that comes from the middle and bottom of that conference that just rides the coattails of the top two. That doesn't happen in other conferences.

Teams don't jump on the coattails of, like in the Big Ten, Penn State fans never jump on the coattails of, like in the Big Ten, Penn State fans never jump on the coattails of Ohio State. Michigan State fans never jump on the coattails of Michigan. But in the SEC, there's this constant coattail riding from the middle and bottom of that conference that kind of feeds this narrative. And that's generally what I dislike. But they are the best conference because they've been the best at the top end. If you wanted to say, like,

if Michigan or Ohio State play in a national championship, then you could say, yeah, in 2022, then the Big Ten was the best conference. But until that happens, I wouldn't go there. Yeah, I think it'll happen if that's the final. You know, it'll be a talk show thing. It'll be a Monday thing. And if I were on the show, I'd say, yeah, now two other teams from that conference just have to do with the next two years. And that's kind of what we're talking about here because it's like an NBA player. Hey, is this guy the best player? Well, what's he been doing for like two years in comparison to everybody else. Like the best player tonight, this week, this month, this year for 10 years, you know, like, like what, you know, what's where, where are we going? Where are we going?

And I know, listen, by the way, I know like my buddies, you're very popular and my buddies all listen to you. And every time you throw a jab at me, they all text me, Oh, did you listen to, to Rosillo? And I'm like, uh, uh i did i didn't this week not yet and they're like oh he took a shot at you and i'm like why what why am i taking shots i don't get it okay i think it always goes back to when you were suggesting there was this conspiracy theory that we were complicit out of the espn and we had you on and to your credit and i think i asked you like which one am i part of the conspiracy or too dumb to know that it's happening but you know that i'm a huge fan so if i don't make fun of you

that's what it means like i don't like you right it's better to be you're exactly right it's better to be to be yeah thought of than not thought of at all so i'll take it i think there were just a couple times this year because i'm watching every sat Saturday and one of my favorite ones was the Purdue Michigan Big Ten title game where Gus is like looks like Nick Saban's coming on at halftime Joel and you were like good for him which was painfully obvious there was also an FCS rant which I agree with you I don't like the FCS games at the end but I don't know that anybody that ever bitches about the FCS part goes like wait they schedule five out of conference p5 games the last week nobody ever but i think the one that bummed me out this year was after bama tennessee which was arguably one of the best games of the regular season especially when you consider what it means

for tennessee and who that program has been and you know this these some this, these, some of these programs, I think you and I would agree with like, I don't know if you're ever getting back to that, but for a night in Knoxville, it felt real again. Sure. That I think you tweeted out like, and unfortunately you fell into the canal trap because canal did it too, where it was like, Hey, how about those sec defenses? And you had suggested it was like, I remember when people made fun of the big 12. So I personally was like, man, the body isn't even cold yet and you're bringing up history about people were mad about the Big 12

defenses after one of the best games so yes those there were little blips this season where I felt like they had to be addressed so to be completely transparent understandable I you know I'm a human and I've said this about the the uh the saban by the way they they were not happy with me i had a few conversations with the the bama folks um my dismissive tone about saban joining us at halftime right wouldn't you i mean is that a good way to put it it was dismissive it was it was uh an aggressive dismissal yes i'm here for it i'll be very honest it wasn't about saban or alabama or conference affiliation it was it was a it was kind of my mayock moment if you if Like, I was just like, are we really going to lobby for teams at halftime?

Whether it was Ryan Day that came on or whomever, Josh Heupel that came on. And I'm just sitting here. I'm like, here we are trying to do the Big Ten championship game, which for Purdue means everything. And, you know, Michigan, this is big for them as well. And we're going to give time for someone to lobby. And so equal, like, disdain for the system that it puts us into this position. And then, you know, again, it was my Mayock combine moment, like, we're going to take away

from the kids on the field. That's what was brewing inside of me. You know, if you know, like, why did I say what I said, the way I said it, those were the reasons. Those are the reasons that I felt that way.

And I said, you know, Nick Sam is going to come on at halftime and I guess lobby for his team. Good for him. It was funny. I, I was dying laughing at home. Um,

there's, there's a lot of times, though, where when – I don't know if it's that we're on opposite sides as much as maybe it feels at times because it probably isn't. But one of my biggest gripes about people say, okay, well, the committee's doing this, the committee's doing this. And I agree with you. The committee liked – well, the AP liked Kentucky,

which meant then people liked Ole Miss for beating Kentucky, and then the committee liked well the ap liked kentucky which meant then people liked old miss for beating kentucky and then the committee liked old miss and then even though i thought lsu clearly was figuring some things out from the beginning of the season maybe the florida game nobody cares about whatever um i liked i liked lsu and that old miss matchup because i didn't really like well miss that much and then all of a sudden that means you like LSU and look they beat BAM so I don't know there's a ton of teams out there even at a down BAM a year where they're beating them where it just then becomes

connected and it's very easy to point to that and say hey look at this flaw and I would agree with you but I don't know that it's geographically based as the arguments have been made in the past I think it's human nature to buy in to the thing that's been good and you have to rank teams it's why clemson was fourth you know i think a lot of the football people like guys like you that are really breaking it

down are going hey this clemson team's kind of average this year right and it takes a while to kind of be exposed and the committee's defaulting to the benefit of the doubt. And the benefit of the doubt is for anyone that's been successful in the past, not just from one conference. And I feel like the criticism, it becomes about just one conference when it's like, look, Ohio State can go two months and not play anybody. I still think they're good too, just like everybody else did. Guess what? They get the benefit of the doubt because it's impossible to remove it all from the

process. I do not disagree with that. Anything that you're saying. Um, I think my frustration is that if you are going to have this committee and you're going to stake its reputation on the people really knowing, and these are the ones, right, that are going to look beyond everything, then you should. Does that make sense? So, like, those sentiments shouldn't enter the room.

And they do. And that's fine. That's fine. But, like, Clemson is overranked still to this moment. They're overranked. That team is not nearly what they have been. Alabama this year, there's always a team that's kind of like patient X in college football that is a touch overrated.

And then everyone that touches them gets a huge bump. That's Alabama this year. Like LSU is not great. The outlier was them beating Alabama. But this Alabama team has, I think, played a little below what their standard has been. I don't think that that's an argument. The one possession games, the games that they've lost,

the fact that they don't have the wide receiver core that they've had in the past, all of those things have made them fall below their standard. And yet these teams that were beating them are getting just massive.

It happened with Texas. I fell into that. Oh my gosh, Texas must be great. Tennessee must be great. LSU must be great. And then you look at what LSU did outside of that Bama game, which was then the outlier. It's like, hold on. They're beating Arkansas by three?

Wait, Liberty just beat Arkansas. And they get smoked by Tennessee at home. They lose to Texas A&M by 15. By the way, Texas A&M scored 30 plus points on two teams. Two. I believe it was like Sam Houston State and LSU. So those types of things, if you're going to tout yourself as a playoff committee, as these 12 people that are going to be so dialed in that we look past all the frivolous things

and we're going to get down to the nitty gritty, then do it. That's always kind of been my take. And if you're not going to do it, which I don't believe that they can, why? Because most of them have other jobs. I know some of the ADs on that. And it's like, they are so busy and they like fly down there and they sit in a committee room and they're supposed to know everything about college football. It's like like I'd rather give them a report because I actually live, eat, sleep, breathe this stuff every day. This is my job. They swoop in and tell me that I'm wrong.

Sorry. I don't have much time for that. Okay, two things before we go. I loved the Pac-12 this year. It was really good, wasn't it? Yeah, and if you're going to kill me for the bottom four, I can't tell you you're wrong. I'm not saying you, but I'm talking like the college football collective.

But I also know those games are on late. Sometimes when I'm on the West Coast going, all right, I don't know if I have Washington in me tonight. Maybe I'll take a break before the NFL tomorrow. But when you watch those top six teams, I'm like, these are really good football teams. Yeah. Like who could beat a lot of teams around the country.

So I think that part from like a depth standpoint is a huge win. It bums me out what happened with SC because I wanted to see that conference represented. And at the same time, like I'm thrilled that Utah gets that recognition off of two years of really liking what that team was. Can we at least, even though being out of the playoff feels like another failure, can we say from a college football standpoint, from a depth standpoint, talent standpoint, that this feels like a big win for the conference, even if it can't be recognized?

Totally, totally. And I agree with you. It is a massive kick in the teeth that they're not in the playoff because the conference deserves it. Maybe they didn't have the one team that could elevate themselves in the right moments to get to that four-team subjective invitational. But they are vastly better than five years ago. You and I both know it. That conference was not deep and it was not great. When Colorado's playing Washington in the Pac-12 championship game, I think in 2016, not a very deep conference.

Wasn't very good. This year, they were very good. That UCLA team was a very good team. Utah was a very good team. USC with Williams healthy, who knows? That's a coin flip with anybody in the country. Oregon was playing so much better. And there was two games that hurt that conference a great deal. And they both happened the first week. You know, Georgia dismantling Oregon and Florida beating Utah put them behind the eight ball. They just, and it's hard to recover from that when you're looking at a four-team invitational. I know none of those involved USC, but then you get involved into a conference schedule,

so the sentiment's not on your side, and then you get involved in a conference schedule where you're going to play nine conference games in a league in which has five or six really good teams, and there's not a huge gap in talent, no one's going through that unscathed enough to get to the playoff. I just firmly believed that the entire time about the Pac-12. They don't have the team that is substantially better than the other.

They had about five or six teams that could all win on any given day. And because of that, they were never going to be in the playoff, even though they got close. And man, they got closer than I actually thought they would. But that's why the way that that league is built right now, it's not built to compete for national championships.

It's built for parity. And in college football, we don't reward parity like they do in the National Football League. So from that standpoint, it's a bit of a bummer that they're not going to be represented. It's one of the things that I've argued. The toothpaste is out of the tube as far as creating a playoff.

It's four teams. Four is not enough. Four has hurt the sport overall. I think the Pac-12 this year is a case study. And Ryan, that's why I've argued that we need to expand to 12. We need to fix the system in order to make college football better because you're not putting the toothpaste back in the tube as it relates to the postseason. So you might as well try to create a postseason

that is most conducive to the success overall of the sport. I would do my 12 team rant, but I've done it so many times, I've banned myself from doing it. So I'm not going to. But let's just say I feel bad for Oregon. They scheduled Georgia, which is basically a road game. BYU, I think, was 12th when they played them. I know they ended up 7-5. So that's 11 games on top of your nine conference games.

And honestly, the fact you watch Washington, you watch Oregon State, and there's a part – and I'm not guaranteeing they beat SC, but there's a part of me, if I'm a Ducks fan, I'm going, wait, we could be in this thing. Sure. It might have been a rematch with Georgia, which nobody would have picked you in. But it's just, it was a tough conference.

It was a tough conference for those teams. There's no incentive to do those tough out-of-conference games. Zero. Zero. Especially in a four-of-conference games. Zero. Zero. Especially in a four-team playoff situation. And by the way, the schedule makeup across college football is asinine. Like, for instance, Michigan played four true road games. Four.

Utah and Oregon both played six. Because I count the neutral in Atlanta as a road game. That's a road game. Yeah, that's a road game. Utah played legitimately in six other buildings. And Michigan plays in four? Can you imagine if the Cowboys just played two less road games than the Giants? What are we doing?

No, the scheduling thing's nuts and i remember you know again it took me like being at espn to understand how the challenge of being on top of all of the conferences right you know still keeping track of the big east back then uh and you're looking at all the differences you're going oh wait look what this conference does or like look what this program and that's why I give Ohio State, Oklahoma, Bama, people get mad about the neutral sites. I'm like, look, if you go up against one of

the good programs in a non-conference, I have all the respect in the world for you. However, when you're on the losing end of that, it's not worth it. Just schedule somebody else again, because whether it was the AP back then or the BCS, they like that number to be a lot lower in the right-hand column, and they don't give you credit. They just don't give you enough credit for it.

All right, last thing here. Dion at CU. Yes. I was hoping you would bring up Dion. Of course. I am ecstatic with this. This program has been, let's just call it dormant for 15, 16 years. And they needed something really big. I can tell you that I helped as much as I could. I didn't

want to get too involved. But one of the things that I said is, hey, let's not look at a four or a five, like zero or 10. Swing big. Like, let's try to actually be relevant. And one of my things was like the only way to become nationally relevant was hire Deion Sanders, to be honest with you. There's no other, save for like stealing Lincoln Riley or Nick Saban, which is obviously totally out of the realm of possibility. I would argue that in the last 72 hours, Ryan and Colorado has been the most relevant program

in the country. Everybody is talking about Deion Sanders. Every time he does anything, shows up to a basketball game, tweets, says anything to his team, says anything to a recruit. It's national news. Everybody's talking it. Shows like this. You know how many times shows like this have brought up my alma mater?

Zero in the last 15 years. It just doesn't just never happen. And now it is a topic. And I can tell you this. If you're a recruit out there, whether it's in the transfer portal or a high school recruit, and you start getting text messages and Deion Sanders shows up, I'm returning that text. I'm returning that DM. And there's likely enough of a curiosity for me to at least go to Boulder just to visit. And that's Boulder's superpower. least go to Boulder just to visit. And that's Boulder superpower. I'm sure you've been there. Maybe I'm not sure, but like once you're there, you're like, oh man, this is, this is pretty awesome. And it was what Bill McCartney always said about getting kids. I just have to get them here and I will win the argument over Nebraska at the time, which was their main recruiting rival

in the big eight. And, and I think, I Deion's going to have a chance to do really well. I really do. I'm going to be really surprised if Colorado is not a bowl team next year. I'm going to be really surprised in a couple of years if they're not competing for, in particular once USC leaves the conference, a Pac-12 title. Because that roster is going to get so significantly better because of him that I think, you know, Colorado did a really smart thing by bringing him in. Uh, I'm, I'm over the moon about it as an alum. Yeah. Why not at this point? Like, I don't know what it means, but what's the downside?

Right. Like any worse, like I'm not not guaranteeing it but i'm also not telling you i don't think it works i don't know and so go for it like why do the same thing all over again and yes i've been to boulder one of the great nights ever at the walrus the walrus the walrus you bet your buddy do you know how many times anyone ever knows about the wall this is amazing my respect for you actually just went way up well i thought it was probably pretty normally everyone's like oh the sink yeah you go to the sink it's like yes i've been to the sink and i've seen you know x number of bands there or whatever but when you bring up the walrus it tells me everything i need to know about you well done sir it was a halloween weekend

and it's lived in infamy for years so uh boulder boulder is a great great spot hey thanks for doing this joel again um host host of the Joel Klatt Show, college football and fired up for the bowl games, man. Talk to you again. Yeah, have a good one, man. I appreciate it. Before we get to life advice, we'll check in on our weekly FanDuel contest.

The rules have evolved. So I'm going to get three picks for you. Kyle, why don't you go ahead and take the lead here. What do you got? I want to just start off by saying I pushed, so that is not a loss, but it's not a win. It's a push from the commanders over that decided to tie at 20 apiece.

It's just hanging out. It's like paying for the admission fee to an amusement park. Yes. Buy one, get one free. So I'm going to do another over because it still hasn't lost on doing the overs. I'm going Pats Cardinals.

I wouldn't dare decide to determine who wins this game, but I do think it's going to go over 43.5. I think that's well within the realm of possibility for both teams. So over 43.5. I think that's well within the realm of possibility for both teams. So over 43.5, that's minus 110. Just a vanilla bet for you one more time. All right.

We've got three for you. Fandle Sportsbook. Looking at the odds here. Now, normally there's something that's in the 70s, if not 80s, for the public percentage of bets. This week is not the case so far. Who knows? That could change over the next 48 hours.

But right now, the most heavily favored side by the public, the Chiefs minus nine at Denver. So we'll give you Denver plus nine. The Monday nighter, New England travels to Arizona. Chance I might be at that game. I'm going to say Arizona plus two. More people like New England travels to Arizona. Chance I might be at that game. I'm going to say Arizona plus two. More people like New England. And the Jets are actually getting more play, a lot more play, plus 10 at Buffalo.

So that means give me the Bills minus the double-digit number here, minus 10, which is the second largest spread on the board. Dallas favored by 17, 17.5, depending on where it is. It opened way lower than that. But Dallas still more favored by the public, but it's a 56-44 split. So there you go. Three plays, the least popular for week 14. You want details?

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

Life advice. The email is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Today's life advice is presented by Snickers. Sometimes you're out of sorts and make a mistake that could have been avoided if you just had a Snickers. Okay, so we're going to do three for you today. And this one feels like a rookie mistake. Here we go. Forgotten birthday of a significant other. Hey, Kyle.

Makes sense. Love the pod. This just happened today. My wife and I have friends. We'll call Phil and Suzanne. I don't know if that's going to work out. Phil the pod. This just happened today. My wife and I have friends. We'll call Phil and Suzanne. I don't know if that's going to work out. Phil and Suzanne. Does this feel like a match, Kyle, to you? Suzanne, probably the one that's putting in more work in that relationship. Yeah, it feels like it. All right. They're married. Three kids. Our kids, similar ages,

that go to school together. We're all friends and hang out occasionally. Suzanne and my wife, Jessica, hang out frequently and talk every day. Myself and Phil are friends because of our work schedules and our young kids. But we don't have chances to go out for beers much and have some laughs. It sucks when you can't have beers and laughs. Today was Suzanne's birthday. Yeah, I knew. I'm sorry.

I should have given you the floor there a little bit, but I figured it was assumed. Suzanne's birthday was today. Her husband tends to forget important dates such as birthdays and times he needs to be in certain places a real artist this guy phil he doesn't um practically enjoy birthdays at least his own which who does once you become an adult i kind of waver between respecting when somebody is an adult still tries to put together like a birthday thing now again 40 50 100 those are big ones so that i think it's great especially if you have like a wife or somebody who cares about you that's like hey i'm gonna invite in all your friends and like do something because most guys

are going to do that on their own a guy that just hey i'm turning 47 full-on bender. I kind of like vacillate between a ton of respect, jealousy, and hatred. I'm not quite sure which emotion is the accurate one there. So that was just an aside. I guess maybe the best way to summarize it would be that I could be judgmental while also being non-judgmental at all. Being like, hey, you know what? Good for him. Good for that person. The younger female birthday week thing is kind of its own phenomenon, but we'll just ride with it. I think there's a certain age when you're female, you'll be like, hey, you don't get

the whole week. All right? You get one day. But a lot of dudes, a lot of dudes out there with other stuff, they're not. Like, I had a birthday I forgot one year. I just straight up was like oh that's right today's my birthday all right so um our guy emailing said his wife baked suzanne a cake for her birthday because she knew that phil wasn't gonna buy a cake for her because he doesn't

care much for birthdays this morning phil walked into the kitchen noticed the cake sitting there and said quote oh it's your birthday, right? Messed that one up, buddy. Yeah, that's kind of detached. I really nailed it with Phil being the slacker in this relationship. You did. I really nailed it. You just knew.

So my question is, should I have texted Phil the day before her birthday or even super early in the morning and sent him a general reminder so that he would have remembered and thus not hurting her feelings. Okay, let's finish the rest of the email. I didn't text him because I didn't want to overstep in how Phil pissed at me. Parentheses, he's also a contractor who was pricing a drywall job for me a few days prior.

Yeah, I mean, this guy's doing your drywall. You don't want to piss him off. Although, had you reminded him of the birthday and he avoids this awkward situation, maybe that helps on the pricing of the drywall. Who knows? Could have gone either way. I need him to do the job, though, and if I text him, maybe he will choose not to do it. God, this Phil guy's a really hard liner here. So, I sent a text to Phil so Suzanne wouldn't be hurt. My first instinct, Kyle, is, well, there's two first instincts. Suzanne is kind of aware after three kids of what she has signed up for.

This is not new. It's not great. It's a simple fix, but he's incapable. We all have friends like this where you're just like, you are the worst at this stuff. We all have a fill. The other part where I'm saying you didn't do anything wrong. So like my initial reaction here is no, you didn't do anything wrong. The fact that you even thought about potentially doing it. I'm not really a hundred percent sure how the drywall plays into this, but again, you know him, we don't, if he were to be, Hey, don't step into my family's deal.

And now I'm not doing your drywall job. Like that seems weird. And that would be like a bigger friend question. But you have your kids. You have your own thing that you signed up for. You've got shit you've got to worry about. Like just because a guy's an airhead, you're supposed to stay on top of it for him. I don't really think that's any, I would imagine most married guys listening to this right now are like, I got enough shit I got to deal with. I don't need to be reminding dudes, even if they're doing my drywall, that their wife's birthday is that day. However, I imagine the wife is very used to this and it's

just one of those things, which we will all have or have when you're very serious relationship, engaged, married, whatever, or there's going to be something about the other person. You're like, oh, you know what they suck at? Is this. And you learn to accept those things or you get forced. But no, I don't think it's even remotely on you to do it. It's nice you even thought about it. I don't know why he would get that mad.

That seems sort of weird. But you're just kind of throwing out theories. But yeah, the quick answer, the right answer is the quick, simple one in that no one is expecting you to do this and you should not feel guilty for not doing this. Yeah, my parents have been separated since I was like two. Just that's normal to me. They don't really talk to each other at all unless somebody dies or something. And they're like, hey, sorry, your person died.

But they both, they know, they got easy birthdays. My dad is December 1st. My mom is September 1st. I've forgotten them both once separately in my adult life. So they both check in with me. You know, hey, you know,

your dad's birthday's tomorrow. Hey, you know, your mom's birthday's today. I hope you didn't mess that up. Like you still have time. So I think it's fine. Like, I think that's, it's all right, your dad's birthday is tomorrow. Hey, you know, your mom's birthday is today. I hope you didn't mess that up. Like, you still have time. So I think it's fine. Like, I think it's all right to have somebody checking up on you. I've got a friend who reminds me that his girlfriend's birthday, who her and I are close.

And he's like, hey, just so you know, my birthday is a couple days before hers. So when they wish me happy birthday, he sends me a text like, you know, you're going to have to do this in four days. And I appreciate it. I don't see it going south for you reminding somebody. It's never a bad thing. Especially if you're going to bake a cake for her birthday. You could definitely remind him that her birthday is coming up. It's not like you're being weird. It's like, why do you care so much about her birthday? Because you're already baking cakes. You guys are close, right? So it's not weird. And I think it would be you'd be overthinking it to think I could have, but I shouldn't. But I didn't. You definitely should, and I think you would appreciate it. If you can remember it.

If not, who cares? It's not your problem anyway. So I wouldn't overthink it. Just next time, remind him if you have the thought. Okay, there you go. Rookie mistake? Maybe you just need a Snickers. Snickers, official chocolate bar sponsor of the NFL. Check out Snickers.com slash rookie mistake.

Let's jump to a couple more life advice. Let's close out on a Friday. What say you, Kyle? You like that idea? I love that. I really love that. Let's go. Curious, sorry your person died t-shirts.

Would they sell? I don't think so. I think we've got a lot of t-shirts in the hopper here. I don't think that's going to make the cut. We had a bunch of follow-ups to the Bill Callahan writing thing. Some of you guys are asking me to answer more of the stuff about my experience. I don't know. I don't really know that I want to do that.

I might. Probably will at some point. But I just don't feel like I'm't know. I don't really know that I want to do that. I might. Probably will at some point. But I just don't feel like I'm accomplished enough. I wish honestly I'd never said anything about it. But I want to put pressure on myself. And yeah, summaries haven't gone that great. There you go.

But there's one email I think I will read. I don't think I'm going to read it today because we did a bunch of that on Wednesday. Let's just get back to our heat zone. Did you ever read The Science of Hitting by Ted Williams? No, but I think I've heard you reference it at least once or twice.

Probably have. We had some people asking about stingray bites. It's one of those things that you always hear about, but you don't really know any facts about. So it's like if somebody's been there, you're like, well, tell me more about it. Did you pee on it? What did you have to do? And I think that's jellyfish.

But it's not all jellyfish, right? It's another one of those things you're not too sure about. Yeah, I think the rule would be to not just whip it out and start peeing on anybody with any aquatic injury. Yeah, obviously, yeah. But you wonder if you should be doing it, and you're like, oh, there's no caves on this beach. I kind of have to do this right now.

Can you guys turn around? You know, it's just one of those things where you think you're better safe than sorry. I don't know. I never thought about pissing on my leg after the stingray thing. Yeah, but because it's jellyfish. But I mean, if it was a strange jellyfish,

you're like, oh, that one's not dead. That one actually stung me. I just think it would cross your mind. That's all. And you'd like to know which ones you'd be expected to do that for. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.

Okay, market price dinner parties. Sounds good. I like it. 511-195. Certainly a stranger to the weight room. More of a glue guy. Pick up. Hoops guy. I live in a 5'11", 195. Certainly a stranger to the weight room. More of a glue guy. Pick up. Hoops guy.

I live in a mid-sized city in the northeast with my fiance and have a good group of friends from high school that live close proximity as well. Usually get together with those guys once a week on average for NFL games, bars, etc. One of the guys, we call him Jeff. He changed his name. Great. Thank you. Likes to cook a lot.

He's pretty good at it. The issue is this. Every so often, with no prompting from us, Jeff will invite some of the guys over and there's significant others for dinner. After dinner, he'll ask the group, hey, can you Venmo me like 20 bucks for dinner? Okay. So he invites

everyone to dinner, cooks dinner, and then you get a bill. That's a quirk, maybe. A little quirk there. Or he'll simply Venmo request those in attendance his market price for dinner that night. It started off with asking

10 bucks for dinners. 10 bucks for homemade pizza, more basic stuff, all the way up to one night last winter it was $37 per prime rib. It's gotten to the point where I personally make excuses as to why my fiance and I

can't attend these dinners, but have declined so many in a row that Jeff is getting suspicious. Would I like to get an age on this? Let's conclude ages more often because I think age matters here. Now he's planning another one around the holidays. All of my friends agree that charging for choosing to make us dinner

is ridiculous, but we've never brought it up to him. Most of my friends say yes to the invites to be polite, but I personally can't stomach it any long. So I guess my questions are one, fair or foul to charge his friends for dinner when it was his idea? If it's foul, should we call him? Should we tell him that this is crazy or I

need to generate a more comprehensive future list of excuses? All right. Well, look, I'm on your side on this one because I think if you're inviting people over and you want to make them dinner, but if it's becoming like a natural routine, I'm not sure this guy's supposed to be out like $200 in groceries

when he's going high-end dinners, right? Like if he's good at it and everybody likes hanging out, it just depends on how often you're doing this if it's a regular thing i don't know that he's supposed to just be cooking dinner for everybody for free now if he's loaded no one's going to have any sympathy for him so that kind of should have been brought up we don't know we don't know that if you're younger and nobody's rich i guess there's a part of me like again I think that if you're going to make dinner

for your friends and invite them over, nobody should be charged. But it feels like this is falling into a category. You said like every week. Let me double check. Well, he said they get together every week. It feels like if this is a more regular thing, like what do you want his grocery bill to be, right? So I'm kind of conflicted here without more information of what's the understanding.

Do you and all of your friends think, hey, he's just supposed to make us dinner and pay for it all the time? If it was random, if it was once every few months, he should never be charging anybody. But if this is a normal routine that you're doing all the time, eventually that bill would kind of suck for Jeff. like that bill would kind of suck for Jeff. Even though, I don't know, like you guys obviously have never talked about this. You're not even going. You think it's so fucked up.

I need to know about frequency. I need to know more dynamics to make an official ruling here on this one. So while I think about it, Kyle, what do you think? Yeah, I think it's more of like a if A then B situation. If this is, if it's once a month, you guys get together every week and it's once a month and it's this guy's idea. I guess that you're within your rights to be feeling weird about it. And I wonder, like, has it been like it's if it has been his idea. And then now you're right. If the frequency is is like this is just what we do. This is the normal thing. is is like this is just what we do this is the normal thing you know i'm going out on a special shopping trip and i'm going to drop my 200 for the you know for the six of you for the six of us and i just you know your 20 bucks will take the edge off i'm not making money it's not like a rent party or something you know that would be funny if you find out that he's he's like getting the

day olds from uh from super saver and he's like making 50 bucks on the dinner that obviously that's not true but i think if like you said it was a holidays. I wonder if it's, I don't know if this would be mean, but I do think it'd be funny. You could give people like your friends, your close friend group, you could give them like Jeff dinner gift cards to be like, just like, it's like a, like, you know, you used to give like, here's like, this is good for one back rub. You'd give to your mom or something when you were a kid. It's like, this is good for one Jeff, just Venmo me when you go to a Jeff dinner and I'll give you a, that's like a, it's like a Jeff restaurant gift card. That'd be kind of funny. That would get back to Jeff. And that's sort of a way that you're not confronting him, but it's like, oh, all right. Everybody's aware of this

little thing that's been going on. I think that's kind of funny. Or you could even bring something to the thing. It's like, well, you know, I made poppers. So, you know, that I figured that's about $15 worth of materials. So I think I might be good on the Venmo this time if it bothers you. I'm just giving solutions here. But without knowing the full scope of things, it's hard for me to say whether this is weird or whether you're just being weird about a normal thing. So you're saying maybe bring your own tray of pre-made poppers.

And that way you're like, well, i brought poppers and i'm clear yeah well it'd be like well i mean yeah exactly it maybe maybe he won't it's just a little thing to shake things up you know if everyone's clearly aware of it jeff seems to be oblivious of it just let something to shake things up without being like jeff we've really been talking about this and we don't really you know because that doesn't sound like it'd be good but if you just if you just shake things up a little bit and then you know worst comes to worst if he still asks you you know break out your venmo and just feel weird but uh just maybe this one i'm just for this one specific guy who said he's having trouble grappling with what's been going on just shake it up a little

bit all right so you're looking at me right now like when the poppers thing you had this look being like i kind of wish I hadn't said that. And now we're still, is going to lean into this. And, and is that like a fair assessment of kind of what was going on? Maybe. Yeah.

Well, I go to a thing and, and, you know, people are expected to do things or maybe chip in with ingredients. So I just, without like asking what I need to get or how much I just make my awesome poppers.

And they're not pre they're not like, they're not, they're not, you know, the frozen poppers. They're like, you know, I hollow out some jalapenos and I throw some chives and cream cheese in there and I wrap them in bacon and I, I do the work, you know, and that's me. That's what, don't ask me to bring wine. I brought poppers. Don't ask me to bring wine. I brought pop i love it you know you want them and you know you want them here's the thing i'm agreeing with you and i'm telling you that you're onto something and it speaks to a bigger dilemma that we have it's like okay i need to know the full dynamic does every friend think hey this sucks okay now if you guys are going all the time and eating for free i'd say is it really the end of the world to send the guy 20

bucks if he's doing this all the time just to keep the lights on right yeah right if he's not doing it all the time and this guy jeff kind of like this is a thing he would do invite everybody over and then also hit up like if he's really fucking cheap then all you and all of your friends probably have enough history with this to answer all of these questions but I think it comes down to this if you're totally in the right and this guy's wrong for the way he's handling this I can't imagine the follow-up

emails to this one you need to do stuff like that you need to do stuff like I'm bringing poppers to fuck with it so everybody on the next dinner if this truly is that big of a problem maybe post holidays you know because we try to vibe it out here a little bit uh everybody just decide they're bringing something don't tell jeff bring all the food and then everybody venmo request jeff for 15 bucks for the app that they brought

and then i think the message would be clear it feels a little gang up with she which it definitely is but if it's this big of a problem and you and all the other guys have agreed let's make sure now this is some you know mafioso deal where all the other guys actually disagree with you, but they're just agreeing with you. Like, what if you're the Jeff? What if you're the guy? What if the rest of the guys in your chain have been like, dude, email guy. He's always pissed about getting billed 20 bucks. It was a really big deal for Mark.

What the hell, man? I just say, yeah say yes we'll stop but god he did it again this friday he did it again yeah it's like what does he think this food's free so if you're asking for a hit on jeff just make sure that you get the okay because it could come back goodfellas on you and again we again, we're playing out multiple scenarios here. But my first instinct is that for you to send the email, one of you is cheap. And if this guy's doing dinner parties infrequently,

I would say just be fired up. You have your friends coming over to make that. Or if you can't afford it, don't have the dinner parties. Because more often than not, dinner parties are free for guests. Yes. I just need to know a frequency number to make a fair judgment on this. That was good. That felt like a good old school life advice email.

Let's do another one then. This is good. This is good. This is good. All right, Kyle. Buckle up. Friends set me up with a girl I've dumped twice, but I got revenge. Six foot in shoes, 160, not athletic,

but I'm good with numbers. Okay. So is Dustin Hoffman. Life in a major city, but won't disclose as it could give me away my aforementioned friend is way more into sports than me so he listens to the pod a lot names have been changed alright but if this is specific enough he's going to figure

it out whatever we don't need to guess an age on this one we're talking low 20s on this okay Okay, here we go. My buddy Matthew's been trying to go out with this girl Nancy for a while. The name generators that we have. Who's

doing these? Dorothy meant Harold at the train station. Pottersville. All right. So Matthew's been trying to go out with Nancy for a while. They finally settled on a date night for last Friday. She said that he needed to bring a friend, though,

because her best friend had just been dumped and wanted to tag along. Nancy's a 10 out of 10 in Matt's dream girl. And so I offered to go, trying to be a good wingman. When we show up to the restaurant, I see Nancy's friend, and it's dream girl. And so I offered to go trying to be a good wingman. When we show up to the restaurant, I see Nancy's friend and it's Maggie. For clarification, Maggie and I had dated for a few months last year and I broke it off when work got busy. Then we tried again earlier this year, but I broke up with her again because she was getting clingy. Parentheses, I should mention the second dumping happened on Maggie's birthday,

which makes it worse, but I didn't intend to dump her then. I just didn't know her birthday. Which makes me awful, he says. He admits to it. We all need help with birthdays sometimes. This guy's six foot, great with numbers, apparently in Maggie's

head, like brain fluid. So, anyway, dumps her on her birthday because he didn't know it was her birthday. So the date is terrible for me and Maggie. No shit. I'm trying to avoid eye contact while inhaling kamikazes. All right. I don't even know if these people are 20. Yeah, that's right.

Who fucking drinks kamikazes? That aren't free, dude. And by the way, you're getting killed on the kamikaze ratio. It's all sour mix, a little water in there, and the worst vodka ever. And you're paying two bucks for sour mix.

It tastes like a headache. Yeah, it doesn't do... I don't know. Unless you're doing, like, guys doing the pre-made kamikazes biggest scam in bar history. Every time I look up, Maggie's just staring daggers at me.

Matthew and Nancy are clearly into each other and oblivious to the Cold War two feet from them. Good description. Good job writing that sentence. They ended up leaving early and head back to his place. Guess Matt's got some moves. Hopeancy's dad isn't listening to this um i'm absolutely livid because he's ditching me with this girl who wants to kill me but he gives me his credit card and says the meal is on him before they leave i'm still pissed but i've realized that i can run up the charge for

the meal to get him back after the smoke smoke clears, the meal costed $400 and I blacked out half the night and woke up naked next to Maggie. Of course she did. Third time's a charm. I got Matthew's card back before he saw the charge, but he saw it yesterday and he's been calling and texting

nonstop. I'm scared to look at the messages or pick up the phone. I know I messed up. I don't know what to do. Please help. This guy's a wild card, huh? Well, the Maggie thing, we all knew that was happening. How could you be best friends or be this close

that you would be the wingman on this date and no one had made the Nancy emailer connection before? How could that happen, right? That seems really weird. Nobody made that connection? All right, so I guess they didn't. Is that really anyone's fault? You know, they're supposed to check,

hey, can you come and show up on this blind date? You'd really be helping me out. Clearly, you want to do this. You like your friend. That's cool. And then, you know, he're supposed to check, hey, can you come and show up on this blind date? You'd really be helping me out. Clearly, you want to do this. You like your friend. That's cool. And then, you know, he'd be like, hey, who have you dumped recently? Just as a heads up to clear this potential blind date of Nancy's friend. So it's just one of those things that happens in life.

You're like, oh, geez, this sucks. Like, oh, this. Okay. I mean, it does happen. It does seem a little weird if you're this close that none of this would have been vetted ahead of time, but it didn't. And then you got hammered. The meals on me is the $400 charge, the entire dinner, the four person dinner and the drinks. Or did you take the card and go?

take the card and go. I don't even know how you spend $400 at like a bar serving kamikazes. Right. Right. I mean, you spend $400 a bar, but like if you're younger and it's just you and the other girl and you're hammered and all that stuff, like unless you're buying bottles,

like 400 is kind of a big tab to get to for just two people post dinner. Again, not impossible, but it's a lot. So is he mad about the $400 total charge, which I think he should be able to eat because you hung in there with him, or if it's $400 independent of the dinner, then you're the one who fucked up. Okay? So I don't know. I don't know what the answer

is there. It sounds like you feel like you wanted to get revenge as you put it in the email, but what really happened to you? You were inconvenienced, didn't have a great dinner, and then you still hooked up with her.

So that's not the worst night i've ever heard of and now you have to deal with all the other stuff which is still your fault not your friends if you really are that good of friends just explain it to them the way you explain it to us blame the booze blame the emotions say i was angry then i was lonely you know guys have been through the battles before. They should understand this. And it's not that big of a deal.

But I think you're probably going to have to kick in a little bit of money here. And that should solve it. Right. And if this really is your boy, this will become a funny story that you tell probably way too often once you get over 40. Remember that time? It's like, what do you mean, remember that time? We told this fucking story six weeks ago. We were all hanging out out again and that's what you do when you're 40 just tell the

same fucking stories over and over and over again sometimes on a podcast and so it depends on the relationship but the best way to fix it is to fix it now all right because now there can be a whole extra layer of fucking up this whole transaction by blowing him off answers calls answers texts be like dude let's work it out figure it out and again if your boys will be fine and he can be at the wedding for you and maggie um yeah i think uh i was thinking about how this could have happened. And, you know, I think it's probably a little awkward. My buddy used to try to like get get this girl that he was talking about to like bring her friend over all the time. I was like, man, it's all right. Like, you don't have to do that. Because it would be he would be so like, I don't know what the word is. Callous isn't the word, but just like, like, kind of deliberate. He'd be like, well, what are yours? What does your friend look like? Send me a picture. And I'd be like embarrassed for him, but he wasn't, he was just one of those guys that wasn't embarrassed, but I can't see me like going, like setting up a date with a friend or not with a friend, setting up a date with a girl,

like almost a blind date. And then being like, well, send me a picture of your friend. Like, it would be just like, Hey, I'm bringing my friend. You know, you bring a friend. I wouldn't be like, it would, it would make me cringe to be like, all right, well, what's her name? Do you like, let me see a picture. Like I have a friend that was, that's totally okay doing that. And I used to cringe when I would watch that happen, you know? Uh, but I, I, I could see how, if that's, if the, if the friend who dropped the credit card is like me, he wouldn't have, he wouldn't be like, all right, well, who is she? What does she look like? I just want to make sure like she's on par with who my friend is. You know, it's the sort of like, all right, you bring a friend, I'll bring a friend.

So I can see how that happens. And then you're right. This doesn't sound like it was a place where they were like splitting a bottle of wine at dinner. And then they, you know, but I, my guess is they had the dinner. They probably all ordered appetizers and entrees, which could, you know, even at a bar, could end up in the $120 area, I think. If there's cocktails and stuff, $200. And then they probably just kept the tab open. Yeah, if you did close the tab,

if he closed the tab and left the thing for you and you went and did $400, yeah, you might want to talk about a payment plan or something. But the greatest news is that you're going to have a story. That was the first thing I said. And when you said it, I had to think of something else to say. The best part is you're going to have a semi-funny story that you probably will tell too often. So this is all good. And you'll either tell it together years from now, or you'll be like,

how come you don't talk to him anymore? And you'll tell it again. I'm actually shocked that you had this cold war with the friend and not like, I think I would have attacked that totally differently. Like the stakes are kind of low. That's kind of a cool story. Like that you and this person that maybe hates you will have together. But obviously you'll play nice because there are these other people watching you. I would have attacked that totally differently, I think.

But what would you have done if you were, you're the emailer? I think I would have pretend, I would have pretended I didn't know Maggie and like try to get to know her but like obviously we would know but I think I would, I just would have had a little fun with it rather than what he called a cold war. I mean what the hell Play a character. Yeah, this is the second time you guys have broken up already like

what are the chances this would happen? This is perfect. I don't know. I think you should have changed your attitude on the whole thing. Then you wouldn't even have been feeling revenge-y. Whatever. And one final addition to this. If you thought Maggie hated you before when you blow her off a third time,

you know, just be prepared. Imagine how bad she's going to hate you when you Venmo her for her portion of the dinner. See what I did there? You maligned it. Great job. Like a globe. That is Kyle on Fire on a Friday. Thanks to Kyle, as always, for the podcast.

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