The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NBA Quick Hits, Steve Levy on the XFL, and the CFB Coaching Carousel With Bruce Feldman | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Russillo shares some quick-hit NBA thoughts on the Raptors, Lakers, Russell Westbrook, Jayson Tatum, and more (2:25), before he's joined by ESPN's Steve Levy to discuss his new gig as XFL broadcaster, the first week of games, starting out in radio, and more (11:15). Then Ryen talks with Fox Sports and The Athletic's Bruce Feldman to discuss Michigan State football head coach Mark Dantonio's retirement and the team's coaching search, as well as Mike Leach taking the Mississippi State head-coaching job (38:10). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan rossillo show on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected like um i don't know that it's unexpected for We'll be right back. game. So get a teammate like Bogdanovich who can help you navigate the unexpected talk to a state farm agent today. Today's plan, a little XFL with Steve Levy. I don't know how many of you know Steve Levy's story or that he was basically this television prodigy and he had these amazing jobs right out of college that just doesn't happen. Well, he's going to tell us that story. He did do the XFL game. He's the XFL guy for ESPN. So it'd be cool to catch up with him. And then Bruce Feldman from the Athletic and Fox Sports, who we've had a couple late coaching things. And I just wanted to get his take on this because I feel like some of these are going completely off the radar because it's covered up by the Super Bowl week and everything going on and um you know i'm headed to chicago for nba all-star weekend as well so i got a thing coming up there with uh with some folks i'm doing this kind of t-mobile uh like skills competition a little three on three i don't know if they're asking me to play in it or not

i don't know how we feel about that kyle checking in with kyle i'd love to see it. I know you would. I know you would. Okay, so didn't watch the Oscars. So, I don't know. I don't really have much more to add to that. I thought there was a chance maybe meeting up with somebody for a couple of those parties. But Oscars is feeling a little bit like my Sundance. Like, oh, that's this year? That's this year? Jeez, man.

Sundance I actually want to go to. To go to the Oscars, I don't, you know, I guess Jeez, man. Uh, Sundance. I actually want to go to, to go to the Oscars. Um, I don't, you know, I guess it would be kind of a cool once, but, um,

the parties after, I imagine there are a lot like Superbowl parties, you know, maybe, maybe they're not, maybe they're not even close. I doubt Barstool has an Oscars party. That would,

that would actually be surprising. Okay. This week's open. Just some random uh nba hitters here for you there's a pattern to a couple things that i've said this year that as soon as i've said them kind of like hey what's going on here then the thing i suggest ends up becoming much better um that's not the case milwaukee bucks even though i did say that i couldn't stand their fan base about a month and a half ago remember milwaukee lost to philadelphia when philadelphia shot the ball

like better than they've ever shot it like ever um they are incredible right now they're 45 and 7 every time i watch them i just go you know i don't really know i don't really know what's um this is kind of the rule, right? The example I always make, if Golden State can be down 2-1 to Memphis and people can be like, oh, see Golden State, you're just going to hit them a little bit harder, you know, really hit them around screens, you know, contest, beat them up a little bit, you're going to beat them. People are actually doing that. And if they can do that with that team that had this epic five-year run, then you can do it with any team that is new. And that's

the rule. Those are the rules. It was Toronto last year, and I'm repetitive here, Milwaukee, but as they sit there at 45 and seven, they've lost one game since January 6th, which is that weird San Antonio loss after they played them back to back in three days. But when I, when I watched them now, I go, well, why am I waiting to pick somebody else against them? Like, why would I do that? Now, Toronto has been a really nice story. They've won 14 straight. And the thing that I don't like about national broadcast sometimes, cause I, this seems to always be a pattern is that the thing is suggested. And then the national guy will be like, well, that thing that everybody's talking about actually is inaccurate. When fact it's usually almost always accurate and the question of whether

or not you would believe in the Raptors after losing arguably what the second best player in the NBA at some point Kawhi was being talked about as the best player in the NBA and you lose him and one broadcast this week was like hey you know did you still believe in them after they lost Kawhi Leonard should this be a surprise and the analyst was like no not at all this shouldn't be a surprise I believed in him like well how could you have possibly believed in them that much after losing a guy like Kawhi Leonard none of us knew Siakam was going to be this much better Van Vliet is perfect in their setup I'd actually rather keep Van Vliet around than Lowry just based on age um Terrence Davis has been

unbelievable on top. Gasol hasn't even played this whole thing. They can go with a Baca. I feel like every single guy that comes in, Powell's been hurt, but every guy that comes in for Toronto offers you something. But they're still six and a half back in Milwaukee. Boston's won nine of their last 10.

And speaking of Boston, right when I did the Kevin O'Connor podcast with him talking about Jason Tatum, and I was like, maybe I need to come up with a brand new ceiling for Jason Tatum. He has since scored 29 a game this month. He's 47 from the floor. He's 53% from three on nine attempts per game. He always makes his free throws.

His rebounding numbers are always pretty good. His sister now at eight a game. He always makes his free throws. His rebounding numbers are always pretty good. And his sister now at eight a game. This was after he had those brutal shooting stretches where he two for 16, a five for 16, fourth, 13, seven for 17. That's not terrible. But there were just so many games in there that were duds. I'm like, how does he get 12 points against the Raptors? Like if this guy's really going to be somebody that's special. And I actually would have put Jalen into the all-star game over Tatum. But ever since I said that now Tatum has been absolutely on fire games of 26. He's been over 20 a game now for, uh, nine games, nine straight games. And he's absolutely torching it from outside. Uh's had only really one bad shooting night in

almost a month. And that was the win against Philadelphia, where it wasn't even that bad. It was 7-19, 3-6-3. So it wasn't even, that's the only time he's been below 50% since January 16th. So Tatum. The other guy, I don't know if people have been digging into this. Have you guys seen Westbrook's numbers? And right when I did the, hey, I got to imagine, you know, based on kind of some loose conversations, then it turned into that Daryl Morey was trying to trade Westbrook. That was an awesome aggregator game there. But Westbrook, since about that time, he has been off the charts. All right, 34 a game this

month, 32 a game last month. And here's the scary thing. Westbrook, the first month, and granted, it's October, so it's only four games. He took 16 shots a game. November, he took 20 shots a game. He took 16 shots a game. November, he took 20 shots a game. December, he took 24 shots a game. January, he took 25 shots a game. So far, just three games into February, he's shooting the ball 28 times a game. He had 39 against Utah.

He had 41 in the win against the Lakers. And here's what Houston's doing. So we know after the Covington trade and no Clint Capella that they've just decided to go all small. I thought there was somebody else that they would have to have been waiting on. And I don't think that's Tyson Chandler who is on the roster. But against Gobert, they went small and Gobert actually defended Westbrook. And as good as Gobert is defensively, that's a big ask to ask a seven footer to chase a guy like Westbrook and as good as Gobert is defensively that's that's a big ask to ask a seven footer to chase a guy like Westbrook around the whole time and he went 18 to 33 he's not taking as many threes took two a month this month two a month last month four yeah so he went from like four six and four and a half threes per game to now he's not really even taking

that shot that much anymore maybe just a couple couple times. But Houston, and here's what's funny about what Houston's doing here. Houston going small, they went small that first night against the Lakers, and it actually messed the Lakers up more than anything else. I don't love the going small thing, but I will check myself in that. There are other times teams have done things to be innovative. Whenever Daryl Morey first said, hey, I'm going to shoot threes all the time. And like in the G League, I'd like the team to shoot threes, like unlimited threes the entire time just to see what would happen. And he was right about it. And it's changed the game and honestly changed it to a point where at times I watch it and go, this is ridiculous to

watch. But against the Lakers, the Lakers almost were annoyed that Houston remained competitive in that game. And instead of just settling down and beating up on them, they were forcing awful passes all night long because they'd be like, oh, Anthony Davis mismatched. Let's get the pass in there. And it would be like, I know what I want to do, but I'm not going to do it well and execute it. And then the Rockets ended up winning that game. And after the fact, D'Antoni's like, we really needed to win this because if we got beat bad going small first night out, it would have been a tough sell in the locker room. The next night out with no Westbrook, they got smoked by Sacramento. And then again, they lost that last second shot there to the Utah Jazz. My guess would be, and I thought Charles Barkley

made a good point on this. He goes, you can win games. You can win this Lakers game like they did that night when it was a TNT game, but what you can't sell me on, and that's Barkley, and maybe he's being old school, maybe he's being wrong here, but in a playoff series with somebody who's bigger, there's going to be nights where it just looks like it's a disaster, it's not working. I don't know. That would be my inclination as well,

that just smaller players aren't conditioned to have to beat up big guys the entire night and then do it seven times against the same opponent, that that's just going to wear guys down. Eric Gordon being switched on to Anthony Davis, imagine if that was five straight games. I would imagine that would take its toll. That's what Barkley was saying. Or maybe Barkley's being an old guy, yelling a cloud. I don't know on that one. So yeah, Westbrook on a tear since I was critical Tatum since I wasn't critical as much as it was me reevaluating what my ceiling would be for him. And now I probably have to reevaluate that evaluation. And, uh, that's, that's where we're at right now

because the Lakers more concerning with them the last few weeks, maybe it's a bad stretch. Uh, we know where I'm at with Denver, Utah's playing. The Utah thing's weird because it really, you know, that game they had against Denver was a disappointing loss. And some of the stuff that they're doing here with Conley, where they're not playing Conley to close some of these games. They benched him the last four minutes to go against the Trailblazers. C.J. McCollum hit a corner three, and it was like a back screen by Swanigan, and it was just one of those screens where it's really easy to get lost

because the play is going to be set up behind you. So you're facing the ball side, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, wait, here I am. I got caught on a back screen, and then McCollum hits that shot, and then they benched him. They didn't put him in the last four minutes. And considering Jordan Clarkson went crazy in that game for Utah, I thought maybe is there a chance that they're going to not bring Conley

back into that one, but they did, and they got that win there. So just a couple things there at the top, a couple observations. We'll talk some football first, though, with Steve Levy, now the voice of the XFL for ESPN. So it's the first weekend, Steve. Everybody's promoting it, and I want to kind of get to your stuff in your transition, but what was this first weekend like for you in the XFL? your stuff in your transition, but what was this first weekend like for you in the XFL? It was a wild ride. It was the culmination of a lot of meetings and a lot of emails, a lot of conference calls, but it was great. It's cool for me. I'm an excitable guy. I get behind whatever I'm doing and how many opportunities you get to be on the ground floor to really start

something, be the first game of who knows how long this league will be around and last. It was really fun. It was really excitement and I think the biggest surprise, professional broadcast group, we got all real people on this thing using interns

and the real surprise was the football. The football itself was pretty good. And I think that was one of the boxes we can check right off the bat now. It's a matter of keeping it up after week one. So that's the thing that I think I always kind of notice, especially when somebody's trying to make their mark, right? So you've got the four games over the weekend. People are learning about these cities. know you go on espn.com you're like okay Landry Jones and we

get Cardell and like some of the names like okay that's where this guy is now what was it like you know comparing say an XFL prep week production meetings and that kind of stuff compared to like when you're doing a big college game and you've done some Monday night stuff too so I I wonder how different that was because I know they're trying to sell this, you know? Right. So I, um, I would, I would say it was comparable to a, a college week of prep for week one, but it's going to, it's going to get easier, right? Because, and there are only eight teams, so there's not that much to learn, right? And these are pro rosters, you know, 52 man squad, 46 active plus, you know, emergency quarterback kind of thing. So, you know, look right off the bat and people are always surprised by this.

Broadcasting college football is way harder than professional football. I mean, simply the sheer size of the roster right off the bat. You're cutting that in half. Right. You know, I do a Michigan game. You've got four different guys wearing the number four, right? You know, right away. So that's an issue. So this is, you know, the beauty of the NFL is you know all the names. Like, I never have to look down. And so I was telling people, I have to look down on the XFL just to get the name of the team right,

to make sure I've got that right. Apparently, I called the Seattle Dragons the Seattle Seahawks on one or two occasions already. So I knew that was going to happen creature habit, but in terms of preparation and look, these teams are all starting, right? We're just trying to compile the bios and where these guys are from and trying to make the names mean something or catch on with the fans, right? If I tell you this guy played, you know, as a three-year starter at Georgia, that's going to pique

your interest, right? Guys, the SEC big time player. And what I was impressed about in during the prep was honestly, no exaggeration. 95% of the players that I looked at so far have had at least a cup of coffee in the NFL. And I mean, a training camp for preseason games, you know, in the NFL, looking for bodies, practice squad for entire seasons. And some guys have, you know, have real NFL numbers. Guys have NFL touchdowns and NFL sacks. We had Matt Elam, former first round draft pick of the Baltimore Ravens, who, you know, ran into some trouble off the field,

trying to get a shot back in the league. So you uncover all that stuff and then it's a matter of making it resonate with the fans. Okay, so now I know who this guy is. Oh, Kevin Gilbride. He was Eli's OC for the two Super Bowls. Okay, well, that makes sense. Now I'm in on that. I get that.

And so that was the preparation that I could do, Ryan, going into the week. What I was not prepared for, which I couldn't prepare for, was all you know, all the voices in the headset, all the voices coming across TV. And so that that was the real juggling. Yeah, when you had mentioned, you know, getting in on the ground floor and, you know, I don't you know, I had my experiences on the radio side and maybe, hey, come by and do some of these TV things if I was just going to stop by. But like this is something where whenever I'm talking to somebody, it's been like whenever we be younger people were like, Hey, you know, advice. And it's like, we want to have ownership of something. You want to have something that you're kind of attached to. That's actually something like the company cares about. And if you can kind of have your little, your little piece of something, then you're going to be a lot happier at ESPN. You're

going to, you're going to figure out how to navigate through it a little bit more. And I, you know, look, we all know what the NFL is, but I'd imagine like this had to be really unique and a different thing to have the bosses come to you and say, Hey, do you want to be the face of this? Do you want to be one of the main guys calling these games? So can you tell me more about how that starts from like the beginning? And was it automatic for you? Was it something you had to be talked into was, you know,

because you've obviously made this transition to as anchor into play-by-play. Yeah, so prior to this, the only thing I really had ownership of was the Bahamas Bowl. And that's not exactly the high ESPN priority. It was kind of something fun and cute and a free trip to the Bahamas for me,

quite frankly, an extra day on the front and the back end. So they came to me at first and said, is this something you would be interested in? And so, you know, hey, pro football, you know, check, right? ABC every Saturday, check. Get to the championship game. So, you know, 27 years at the company, you know, I did,

I think I did one or two frozen fours before Bucci got involved with the college hockey. But other than that, I've never I think I did one or two frozen fours before Bucci got involved with the college hockey. But other than that, I've never done a championship game of anything. And so that was really cool. And then I was concerned a little bit about, you know, how is this going to be perceived, right? I want to be taken seriously as a big time football broadcaster, right? I want to be involved in the college football playoff. You know, in the NFL, the Monday night thing is, you Monday night thing was unbelievable to me to do Monday night football last year.

And so I was concerned, hey, how would this look? Are people going to look at me differently? I was just doing the XFL. Who else are they putting on this kind of thing? And then when they surrounded me with, as I mentioned, some other big-time people, rising stars at our company, I thought it was interesting to see Fox who, who Fox put on, on their two big shows, uh, Kevin Burkhart, their number two NFL voice, Kurt Menifee is still strictly associated with the NFL on Fox and their Sunday pregame show

to class their top college guy. And, you know, obviously our guys, uh, McElroy and Luka bill and Diana Rossini is running around chasing down NFL stories all week. Joey Galloway's involved. So that sort of eased some of that. And then they were like, all right, we're going to go heavily on the gambling in the XFL. Okay, here we go again. Now, is that going to be an issue? Is the NFL

or college going to, you know, how are they going to look at, you know, if one of their people may be someone they perceive to be one of their voices down the road, he's doing all this gambling talk. So you sort of manage that. But at the end of the day, this is something, Ryan, that ESPN, ABC has committed major resources to. This is a small thing and so inside that nobody cares about, but it just speaks to the resources. We got hair and makeup on this show, on the XFL. I've never had that before

college football ever and we you know we spend a ton of money on college football so i've never seen that before so that just shows you and again we're on camera for what you know 90 seconds and over the course of a football game but that shows you how much the company cares and those kinds of things are important that resonates we got an unbelievable amount of resources behind this. And my XFL show actually has more cameras on it than my college football game. And, you know, we usually get a pretty good college game. So I don't think it's getting the Monday night football treatment, but I think it's pretty close. It's at a time of the year where there's sort of a bit of a dead spot, right? Major, major sports running the week after the Super Bowl to just after the NFL Draft on that Sunday of NFL Draft weekend. It seemed like the perfect spot.

And when I got a chance, I said, you could be the lead guy, you know, ABC Championship. I'm like, yep, I'm all in. Let's do this. It's pro football. It's where I want to be. And I'm really thrilled to be doing it. I'm all in, man.

I hope my excitement comes across, you know, on the broadcast every week. No, I there's, there's no doubt. And, you know, I really felt like you greasy and McShay and I know Molly McGrath, part of that crew. Um, I don't know if it was every single Saturday, but I, you know, it just started dawning on me and yeah, I'm biased cause I've, I've known all you guys, but I go, this is, this is such a cool broadcast. Cause you can tell how much everybody gets along. Like, that's not always the case. Where, you know, how many times are you guys on the road? You know, those hours and hours of spending with each other where I think that relationship sort of resonates

through the call of the game. And that's something I think people would love to do, but it's very, very rare to execute it. So your play-by-play, though, like, had you gone decades without doing any play-by-play? Were you just anchoring and now here we go? I think it was actually one decade. It really was like a full decade.

It's kind of an interesting story. So back in those days, I did the first Friday night package of college football with Rod Gilmore. And that was at a time where people were angry with us. People were upset. We were stepping we were stepping into high school land, you know, you know, Fridays are for high school football and Saturdays are college and Sundays are the pros. And it was Rod Gilmore and myself, Alex Flanagan was with us on the sideline for a while. We had a bunch of other people, but we had a

great crew and we ran up at at Fresno every week because Pat Hill wanted to be on national TV and wanted to play. He didn't care who we played or where we played, but it seemed like Fresno was half our schedule because they were willing to buy in. And it was a huge win for them. I mean, that's just national exposure.

You want to talk about the only game in town, the only college football game in the country. So everybody who loves about the sport, I mean, you know, professionally speaking, not just the fans, uh, they were watching that game. And so that went pretty well for a couple of years. And, uh, and then I got to the noon game, uh, mostly the big 10 with, um, Todd Christensen, uh, the late Todd Christensen, the former great tight end of the Raiders probably should be in the hall of fame the Hall of Fame. And that was cool for me because we were coming out of game day. So that was sort of Fowler throwing a knee. That was always a big start. And that was

fun. And then the bosses in Bristol made the decision, hey, we are splitting. It was almost like the Senate and the House. You were either remote or studio. And I was sort of given the choice. Do you want to stay on remote or do you want to be a studio guy? And I said, well, okay, well, if I stay on remote, like, cause I'd love, I'd love doing the football. I'm like, well, you know, what do I do then? And when it's not football season and it was like, you know, uh, there are WNB, WNBA raps, uh, you know, other stuff that, that wasn't at the top of my list, let's say, at that time.

And so I went back to SportsCenter. And look, you know, SportsCenter has been the best seat in the house for all these years. It's been my home. It's been the way I've made my living. And then some crazy stuff happened. Stuff, Ryan, that you never think will happen, right? So Mike Tirico, you never see him leaving Monday Night Football in that spot. He leaves, right?

And so they got to replace Tirico. And, you know, here's Sean McDonough. So Sean McDonough goes over. And then, bam, there's a prime college football spot that was really open. And they allowed me to sort of jump right back into that. And the other funny story is, and this is my lesson, you talked about when you talk to younger people in the business, right? They're looking for advice.

So I was doing the Bahamas Bowl. We sort of joked about that, some ownership. John Skipper, our president at the time, was laid up. He had an ankle injury, a foot injury. He was on his couch. It was Christmas Eve day and he was watching the Bahamas ball and he must've fired off some kind of email. So, Hey, you know, leave he's not terrible at this, you know?

And he wasn't there the first time my first go around with a play by play. So that started circulating and then Tariko moves and McDonnell moves over and there's a spot open. And that's really how I got back into college football. And, uh, it's been great. There is nothing better. Look, you know, I'm a hockey guy and all that stuff, uh, of all, uh, starts of any sporting event. There is nothing better professional or college than a college kickoff, uh, on a major, you know, big time atmosphere and a big time game of everything else I've seen and done.

That's number one on the list. So it's truly been a blessing. You know, I'm the luckiest guy in the building. I've always felt that way. And that's, that's legit, man. Yeah. So 27 years at ESPN. Yeah, man.

So, okay. When, when you, your start is actually probably crazier though, right? Like you were out of school. How long before you were on the air in New York? So, yeah, no, man, I tell people this. I tell people all the time, you know, don't look at my backstory. It's kind of a one in a million. I was prepared to go.

I was prepared to, you know, go to some small town and carry all the equipment and lug it around and the minor league sports. I was prepared to do league sports. I was, I was prepared to do all that. I just got a break. I, I got a two minute stint doing the jets report, the New York jets report on WNBC radio.

This was a Don. Dave Sims was hosting the voice of the Mariners. Now Mike Breen was the second guy behind Dave Sims, and they would do this two minute spot tape spot from every professional teams, all seven or nine New York professional teams every day. And so I sort of lived at Hofstra, you know, and they, they paid me 50 bucks, I think to put down two minutes on tape every single day from whatever was going on regarding the jets. I was living on Long Island and my folks and, uh, you know, it was 15 minutes away and I made that my full eight hour day, but

I was on the air, you know, on that flamethrower, you know, um, a hundred thousand watts or however many, it's a lot of watts, uh, WABC, uh, radio, you know, really fresh out of college out of Oswego state. So, uh, that was really my first big break. And it sort of went from there. Right. Because that's the thing is, is what's the first thing that you're doing that's on the air. And most people aren't starting in market number one, right. Which is crazy. I got the break cause it was, it was radio, right?

Like nobody's put me on TV there. It was, it was radio. And then look, and then somebody would call out sick. And then I got Marv Albert throwing to me doing halftime of the Knicks game on the radio or in between periods of the Rangers

so look hey man I admit it you know what I've said it to you I've said it to everybody I stepped in it man I'm the luckiest guy in the industry

and you know I'm just trying to keep the roll going So how old were you when you were doing stuff at the fan then with Imus? The Imus stuff

let's see so you know that could have been 22 23 yeah it's ridiculous i get it it's ridiculous did he uh did he hate you or did he did he like you right because we all know the story yeah it's hard it's hard to tell so uh i really only lasted three weeks. Okay. I was there before Breen and, and Breen, you know, Breen kept it for a long time.

And I just, I wasn't funny, man. I was in over my head. I was way out of my league. I was nervous. I started drinking coffee. It was the first time I ever had a cup of coffee.

I've never been a morning guy. I've always been a late night guy. So now I got to get up at four in the morning. Charles McCord was just great. And I thought I was doing okay. And then I got called into the office, Mark Mason, who actually gave me like my first internship was now at WFAN with the Imus thing and called me and say, Hey, we're going to, we're going to make a move on this. I was disappointed. I'd never heard from Imus. And then back in those days, we had the computers where there's a top line message

where you logged in on pop-up and in parentheses was the name of whoever was sending you the message. And I logged in the next day and it came up. I miss the parentheses. And it just said, you don't suck. And to me, I thought that was like a huge compliment. And to this day, really, Ryan, to this day, that is just about the only thing that hasn't gone my way in terms of the industry. You know, uh, I've really gotten just about every single break. And, and, you know, so, so I did, you know, so I went from there and I was doing updates from

Mike and the man dog, not terrible, right. So pretty great. And we did the, uh, the NFL on radio. And that was the first time ever with stringers. Now everybody does it, right? But we were a local radio show. Every Sunday I do one at 7. And we had a stringer in every city. And a stringer, for those who might not know, is just a person who gets a credential and sits there. And they probably string for 8 to 10 radio stations.

As soon as somebody scores, they call in. And we put them up on the air. So it's really very little of me. It's more like being a traffic cop on the radio. Uh, but it was a really cool show, really well received. And like I said, every, every, every radio station in the country does it now. So, but we were the first, I'm pretty proud of that. And then the next thing comes. So ESPN, I get a call or my agent at the time gets a call. Hey, ESPN's interested in you. And I turned it down, man. I did not want to go to Bristol, Connecticut. I was, you know, I was 25 years old or something at this point.

And I was living the life in a, you know, in a building in Manhattan and all my friends and family could hear. And I was doing a little weekend TV stuff and I really didn't want to go. I was, I was very happy. I was a big city guy. I loved all the New York teams. I loved being able to go to the Garden for the first half and then go back to work and do the 11 o'clock sportscast

and Channel 2. But the best move I ever made, obviously, was going to Bristol, man. So you ended up going to Bristol, but the thing that's always kind of funny is that some people think you're a Boston guy when you couldn't be more opposite of that, but you actually lived in Boston. And I remember when I first started, my first year was 06, you know, and I had known you from

the fan because even though I grew up a Boston fan, I liked Mike and the Mad Dog so much more than anything that was on EI. Um, I, I like the lineup, but I like the fan lineup better talking about the teams I hated. So clearly I, you know, I'd heard you and then, you know, I knew of you a little bit from some of the Boston stuff. And then, oh, six, I would stay in that hotel. And I'm like, why the hell is Levy staying in this hotel? And I'd be like, no, they're like, dude, he won't move there. Like he's not. So how long did you not live in Bristol? However, that had to have been years, years. So here's the truth. So I make the move in 93. ESPN comes back a second time. And again, I really don't want to go. And they offered a pretty good size raise from the first offer.

And my agent at the time said, hey, look, ESPN, they're not going to come back a third time. And I went back to the TV station in New York. It was WCBS TV, which is also ridiculous. I get it. I'm 26 or something like that. And I said, look, I want to do some more TV. I was just doing Fridays and Saturdays. And they're like, Steve, you're too young.

You can't be the number one guy in New York on television. And I get it. I get it. I understand. But I would have never left, by the way. I would have never left New York if they'd give me that opportunity. And I swear they have recycled, you know, 30 sports anchors in the last 27 years or whatever, you know,

you're doing two or three minutes of sports on TV in New York, you know, 15 second Nick highlight, you know, wipe the Ranger highlight, wipe, wipe, wipe and throw the weather, that kind of thing. So I go to ESPN, Ryan, I did live in Bloomfield, Connecticut, which is outside of Bristol. I lived there for about five years. So I really did live near ESPN for five years. And then I realized I was traveling for hockey and college football. I was doing like one sports center a week.

I'm like, you know what? I'm single. I can live anywhere I want as long as I can drive to Bristol. And I wound up going to Boston, a producer by the name Bill Fairweather, who produced my first ever show. You know him. He's you know, he was a Boston guy. I feel like I had worn out New York my entire life. Let me try something there. And then I went to Boston. I lived in Boston in the financial district and in Chinatown and Boston for like 13 years and commuted. I really did. I commute, you know, I get a hotel room once, twice a week on my own dime. And I didn't care what the weather condition was. I was driving back to, uh, to Boston,

even if I got back at five in the morning and I loved my time there, I would have, would have never left, but then life takes over and things change, you know? Yeah, no, no, I hear you. Because my first three years, I went back and forth. I'm like, nope. I didn't even have a car, man. I didn't have a car. I rented a car.

It was easier to rent a car, no insurance, no parking. And then I'd get back home at five in the morning. I would dump it in the rental lot in Boston. Nobody's there in government center. And then I'd have to wake up in the morning to go back to the lot, to take it out of the lot and bring it to the, you know, two spots over to, to actually return the rental car. But all that hassle was, it was a nice light way to live and no stress. Yeah. I would've thought you'd want a car at some point, but then I remember, you know, my whole deal, I lived on ComAv and, you know,

I get home from those radio shifts three, four in the morning on a Sunday. And then I'm like, I might as well just put my own boot on this car because there's just, there's never going to be a spot. And when I bought the condo, the guy who I bought it from, total liar. He's like, oh yeah, yeah. He goes, you're on the list. You're, you know, that spot you pay 180 bucks a month for it. I was like, okay, that's great. I start parking there.

And the people were like, that wasn't his spot to hand to you. There's a waiting list. And I was like, oh, and she's like, and you're not even in our building. So I never had a parking spot for all these years I lived in this place. And when I would get back from those Bristol thing, I would just be like, there's no way. Like I just, you know, part, I just basically factored in parking tickets and boots as part of my car. So the rental car then sounds like a little better option at that point then, right? Yeah. I still can't imagine having to drop off a rental car every time you're coming back from work, but. Every, every time. Yeah.

That's, you know, look, you were, you were probably making a little bit more and a little bit smarter because I was just, I was just happy somebody, somebody was calling back. all right so almost 30 years now and doing this what how would you describe the industry and i don't even know if it's specific to espn because i mean i have my thoughts about you know how things were when i first got there and then then what it was like towards the end and honestly more removed from it i feel like i'm more positive about it um maybe some people because i just really love the idea that I ever get to work there. Um, what would you, how would you kind of describe what it, what it seems like and how it's evolved around you? Because it's definitely changed. Oh, it's definitely changed. And, uh, it's changed in so many different ways. So when I first got there, the sports center, it wasn't really an ESPN two, uh, theCenter I did was 2 a.m. Eastern time. And it might have been 2.30 even.

2.30 a.m. Eastern live for 30 minutes, right? There was no LA or anything like that. And the amazing thing about that show was we got every single score in. I mean, we got every bad baseball game in the summer in. Highlight full score panel in 30 minutes. And now, you know, I'll do a 90 minute Sunday night show and we get like half the games, right? Yeah. We weren't doing the, we weren't breaking stories.

We weren't doing features obviously, but so that, you know, that was a big transition. Listen, we are definitely, it's, it's always been, you know, I touched on this in college about broadcasting, entertain and inform. We have definitely shifted way over. The meter has gone so much more to entertain. And quite frankly, it's hurt a lot of the real cerebral people, right? We have a lot of smart people in a lot of sports.

And, you know, people still want smart TV. I get it, but I think people want to be entertained more. We were way more over on the fun and games as opposed to the X's nose. And that kind of brings us right back to the XFL sort of, right? I mean, that's, you know, that's really where we're going here. But you look at the radio, certainly social media, where we're going here. But you look at the radio, certainly social media, television, SportsCenter is way different,

you know, than when I was doing it five nights a week. We were scripted. We were tight, you know. And now, you know, if I write one, if I write one lead in one page in a show,

that's a lot. The show just does not call for it. Everything is much more off the cuff, loose, more fun, good time. And, and you sort of have to be more knowledgeable because you never know what's coming. Uh, so it's more fun. It's actually, it's actually more fun to do the show now and be at work because everything is so loose now. Um, and that seems to be what everybody wants and demands. And listen, when I'm watching TV and I'm at home, I want to laugh too.

I want to have a good time. And I think you can X and O people to death. You can, you can hit people over the heads with the rules and these kinds of things. It's too much. I think people get most of the stuff and really, they just want to be entertained and be happy and have a good time, right? There's so much bad stuff out there, man. Let's, let's everybody relax and loosen up.

And look, and you see that from top to bottom. I mean, even the dress code how people are dressing down and on television these days, big time people, every people wearing jeans, there's, you know, a fancy restaurant and people in jeans and flip-flops these days. So, you know, everybody's sort of chilled out. You see the way people dress when they're traveling on an airplane. It's just, you know,

everybody's relaxing and that's certainly carried over to the industry. And I think I'm really enjoying it. It really slowed down for me, Ryan. The industry, I mean, slowed down. Like, you know, you hear about the hitter in baseball is locked in, right? Or the player in football. The game slows down in front of you. So I'm able to, you know, react much better.

And obviously, I'm confident in my spot. So it's really enjoyable right now. You guys have two more games. There's four more games for the XFL coming up this weekend. The ABC game, you get New York at DC. That one's going to be two Eastern. Don't gloss over that. That is an Eastern Conference showdown for supremacy.

I don't think I was. Why don't you gloss right over that a little too fast? We're not talking like 0-1 versus 0-1. This is 1-0 versus 1-0. These two teams get together. Who knows what's going to happen, really. Throw the records out. Yeah.

So are you doing the East Coast games? Are you doing any of the LA ones? No, it's not broken up like that, man. We are 2 o'clock ABC every Saturday, regardless of who plays. Okay, all right. So we got a Seattle game coming up, and they're going to kick that at 11 a.m.

So they're staying true to that. So we'll be bouncing around. I got some Houston, got some Tampa, get some warm weather, but mostly northeast, yep. All right. Well, hey, I really appreciate it. You've always been somebody that I look up to, and hopefully we'll get you out here in L.A. for one of these games and catch up, all right?

Cool. Let's get together soon, man. See you, pal. All right, Bruce Feldman, Fox Sports, The Athletic. Mark D'Antonio out at Michigan State. I saw the way the contract was structured, where basically it would be him stepping down as a later date in January. I think it still surprised some people. How did this happen? Well, I think it's been in the works for a little bit of time.

I mean, it's something we had talked about actually on our podcast this summer that it was something a lot of people or a handful of people I've talked to thought this was the scenario. He was kind of running out of gas. The program had really lost momentum. There were some off-field issues. There's a lawsuit in the pipeline there. He's had a lot of really ugly issues that had kind of been brewing for a while. Also, he really kind of juggled his staff, but he didn't make really significant staff changes. And I think that

probably didn't help either. And so as this division has gotten tougher, remember, it's not to say that he didn't do a great job there and winning a lot of games, but over the last few years, once the divisions got sorted out the way it is now with that, you have Ohio state super heavyweight in there, Michigan with horrible. Now they're not great, but they're really good. And you see what James Franklin has now done at Penn State, all in the same division. That's made it so much harder.

So a lot of these factors, and I just think Mark D'Antonio looked at it and goes, you know what, it's time. As he said, if you're 50-50, you can't do this job 50-50. And he knew he needed to give it to somebody else. Right, but the contract thing I thought was like, why would the AD allow something like this where, you have your signing class coming up you have basically every other coach has been hired and then you're left like way later in the process than everybody else like they can't really get on dantonio for taking the extra money i wouldn't be critical of

them for that but i don't know why you'd structure structure the bonus so that it's already like February when he has to make the decision. It is curious timing. And again, Michigan State has had some really dubious leadership there in the athletic department, in the university. athletic department in the university. And so I think this is just seems to be another example of it. And the timing of it is such where he had left right after this. I'm not sure it would have been perceived much differently. And it probably would have given them, being the Spartans, maybe a little more flexibility in how their coaching search has played out. But now you have people, coaches who have looked at this job who are genuinely concerned about

potentially NCAA sanctions that the program recruiting had really tailed off. I think a lot of people are a little skittish at this job. As I mentioned, there's three powerhouse programs in your division. You've got a bigger uphill climb now than you did a couple of years ago. Yeah, when I first went there for a game and spent some time in town and looked at the facilities,

like where I feel like Wisconsin has this thing that's older and endearing, Michigan State just feels outdated. And part of that, I guess, is kind of cool. Like you think this old school Big Ten thing, the fact that he won there to the level he won might be as impressive as like anybody. Like I'm not talking Bama, Saban, that kind of thing, but like that Michigan State was in the mix for as long as they were with him. And then we know last year was disappointing

and he just moves all the coordinators around and doesn't want to new, new guys. I mean, look, he was, he's always going to be that way. Like he doesn't want to be told what to do. And then he decides to bounce from this whole thing. And now Luke Fickle says he's not leaving for Cincinnati. Like what's a realistic kind of guy that can come in here and try to keep this thing going. I don't know if you can keep it at his level, but at least remain competitive. Yeah. I mean, I think at this point you look at it, I mean, he went head to head and beat urban Meyer before that's something Jim Harbaugh hasn't been able to do. They didn't do it consistently,

but he did get it done. He got them in the playoff. That's not insignificant too. I don't know. As the search kind of unfolds and looking at it going, well, Brett Bielma is out there. We know he can win in the big 10. He won 40 games the last four years there at Wisconsin. Now it didn't go well at Arkansas, but he seems to be a good fit in the big 10 and he gives them a big presence. And I think that's, that's something that I think could help them a lot.

Do they make another run at somebody else who turned them down? I knew there was a lot of interest they had in the key MSU decision makers, really like Mel Tucker. If you're Michigan State, you have more resources than probably CU does. But the whole thing is just kind of, it's gotten really's gotten really messy because again, I could go back to it. They don't have great leadership there. And I think that's, that's undermined it. Yeah, that one, uh, that one. And then with the kids and this is where like, there's still some stuff where I go, Hey,

sometimes it's not going to be as great for you as the student, as it is going to be for the coach. But when it comes to this like it's it's just hard to argue that you know the kids shouldn't have the releases um especially with this kind of setup not realizing that d'antonio was going to bounce this much later um and it just looks bad i mean i don't know that the ncaa has cared about optics for a long time uh if ever but that that part of this deal like to me more and, it isn't even having sympathy for it. It's hard to even argue what the point is of making a kid stay to the commitment when

the coach left this late in the process. Oh, it's a terrible look. I mean, I don't know how the NCAA would hold anybody to that given the circumstances here. I mean, you know, the reality is you got to play for the system you recruited into that, that matters as much as anything. And so, um, you know, it's, it's a bad look and hopefully for the kids involved that they would go in that, you know, be willing to go in that direction if they can. Okay. How did Leach end up in Starkville? Well, he's a guy, as we all know, had been looking at these, you know, at these jobs. He basically accepted the Tennessee job two years ago before, before Phil Fulmer came in and blew everything up.

And it, look, it comes back to, you know, Andy Staples and I did this story for The Athletic a couple of weeks ago on the resources you have in the SEC versus pretty much everywhere else other than the Big Ten, but certainly as it relates to the Pac-12. I mean, he has a way better recruiting base in Mississippi, at Mississippi State, than he would in the Pacific Northwest. Now, the challenge here for him is, yeah, Oregon's recruiting well and Washington's recruited pretty well. And Stanford's down and look at the rest of their division.

USC's kind of spinning their wheels. But now Leach jumps into a division where they've been still at Alabama. They're still really strong. LSU just won a national title. They're the hottest thing, basically, in college football. You got Jimbo Fisher, who's recruiting well, and you still got Auburn. And now you got Lane Kiffin in your state. You know, he's going to get after it recruiting.

So it's going to be a really interesting, uh, go for Mike Leach and plus, you know, Mike's approach on things. I mean, how, you know, I mean, these are some cut recruiters. I mean, this is, as somebody else put it to me, he's in the deep end of the pool now. And, uh, you know, he's obviously a brilliant offensive mind and his reputation will help him. I'm sure he had receivers and quarterbacks,backs. But, you know, it's hard. Dan Mullen's a really good coach. Dan Mullen, I think, was 33 and 39 in the SEC as a head coach at Mississippi State.

So I'm very interested to see how Mike Leach is going to do there. But he'd been in Pullman a long, long time. And I just think he got tired and wanted to see how would this work at the FCC? All I've heard about is the FCC and, and let me make a run at it. Cause, you know, I, I think he just was very interested on what's, what's on the other side of the fence. Hey, before I let you go with the athletic, you've got a piece out on that 2013 class.

How, how ridiculous going back now, because you've spoken with these guys, the talent that we thought was coming out of this class and how little of this actually worked out. Yeah, it's crazy because I went into this story. You take the first nine guys ranked, the top nine rated quarterbacks. There were two five-star guys, Max Brown and then Christian Hackenberg. But Christian Hackenberg is the only one who really had a sniff in the NFL. And he never even played.

He was just on rosters for a couple of years. And he was out last year working to get his college degree. The first nine guys, none of them made it. You go further down, you get to number 19, Mitch Trubisky, second pick in the draft. You get to number 21, Jared Goff, first pick in the draft. You go all the way down to number 71, the 71st ranked quarterback in the class was Baker Mayfield, one of Heisman, you know, first pick of the draft for the Browns. And so what I ended up doing was I talked to a lot of people who were in the recruiting process, but also a lot of these quarterbacks who, quite honestly, it didn't go so well for.

I talked to Daniel Jeremiah, talked to our buddy Mick Shea, and talked to guys who coach Christian Hackenberg. And it's fascinating to see, you know, because I think that the reality in some of this is the evaluation on Christian Hackenberg, when you talk to a lot of people, especially the ones who look back and said he was a five-star, like, you know what? The evaluation was not wrong. He had a big arm. He, he was pretty good. He was really good his first year under Bill O'Brien.

Then the talent around him really, really dried up because of the sanctions and everything else, changing systems. He got kind of lost. He took a ton of sacks and he picked up some bad habits. And you can talk to a lot of people about it. Now, would Christian Hackenberg have been Pat Mahomes in the NFL if everything else played differently? Probably not. But would he be probably in the NFL still if things were different? With Max Brown, could he have been Matt Barkley and be somebody's backup for a while

if his circumstances? I mean, those are two guys who actually stayed loyal to their situation. Brown, I think, waited at USC four years before he got a shot. And then once he did, he got Alabama. And then within three games, it was Sam Darnold's turn. And he was behind the guy who's obviously more physically talented. But so this story was

kind of a window into that. And I hope for people that they look at the story on the athletic, because just there's a lot of really interesting stuff from the people who are directly involved that I honestly hadn't heard before. What was the most interesting story? The most interesting story came down to Shane Morris, who was the number three-ranked quarterback, went to Michigan, got sucked into social media. This was like 2013, so it was really the first wave when kids were getting caught up in Twitter and all their big followings.

And it really messed with his head. And from talking to him about it, and then when you get to ask, and I asked Morris Hackenberg and Max Brown, I was like, you know, did you lose your confidence in what happens when you do that? And so you got to remember quarterback more so than any other position is like the don't blink position of all in sports. And once you do that, all bets are off. And so, you know, hearing how they talk about it and hearing Max Brown talk about how, you know,

before social media, maybe if you're getting an offer, you get brought up to like the second story high. And if you fall, maybe you sprain an ankle. Well, now with social media, you get up 30 floors and if you fall, it's a big problem. And he's like, guys, battle depression and all these other issues. Because as he put it, he goes, you know, a lot of these guys, I see 16 year olds getting sucked into the hype. He's like, the reality is you probably have a more realistic chance of ending up like me than you will be in Jared Goff. And just to see that is pretty sobering. Yeah, check it out. Again, that 2013 high school class in the athletic from Bruce Feldman.

Thanks for the time, man. Thanks for letting me catch up with you. Always a pleasure. Thanks. All right, cool. Headed to Chicago, as I said, so we've got another podcast coming Wednesday and then trying to figure it out. Then Bill and I start up on Sunday,

so I'll be flying back from Chicago Sunday and then I'm just going to head to the big boss man's house and watch the all-star game. Cause I'm not going to stay in Chicago for it because I don't know. It's not my favorite game. So we'll get that first hoops podcast. So please rate review and subscribe to the Ryan Russell show here on the

ring. Talk to you Wednesday. you