The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Tanking and Andy Staples on CFB | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Russillo talks about the difference between teams overtly tanking and covertly tanking (1:30). Then he is joined by The Athletic's Andy Staples to discuss the college football landscape, including the lack of parity with Nick Saban's unprecedented run at Alabama and Clemson's meteoric rise. They also talk Chip Kelly at UCLA, Utah, possible landing spots for Urban Meyer, paying college athletes, and more (11:18). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

it is friday we're going to talk college football just like i promised with andy staples so we move some things around so i hope you uh checked out the bill simmons podcast yesterday so technically that was my own solo podcast but with bill simmons so we got you the three this week and it's just taking a little bit longer to do college ball, but that's okay because we'll start gearing it up and we've got McShay scheduled coming up soon. Danny Cannell is going to stop by cow herd. And of course,

Van Pelt at some point as we've worked all this stuff out. So big guests come in and celebrities prizes, probably not prizes, but we should get some t-shirts made up. I'm just not sure what they're going to be yet. I don't know what the, the theme of the t-shirt would be. Maybe we'll have Belvedere make them.

Produced in one of the world's longest running distilleries, Belvedere Vodka is the world's finest all-natural vodka, part of a 600-year Polish vodka-making tradition. Belvedere is made with 100% Polska rye, pure water, and no additives. The vodka soda they made with the honey, grapefruit, we've already talked about it. Lemon soda water. It was really good.

Check it out. Order one this weekend. Um, I'm on the fence about USC, Utah. I'd like to go, but I'm just not sure. I really like my setup here.

And I have a doctor's appointment cause I've not yet hit my physical peak and I'm ready to just get my body healthy and going again and just start dominating. So we'll see. We'll see how that goes. So I want to start talking about tanking and it is a topic that is kind of ugly, scary. I don't know how you want to describe it, but right now it's definitely falling into the ugly category because it's the Miami Dolphins. And I have a theory. It's about labeling, label, label, label. When you put labels on things and anything in life, it becomes more complicated, but becomes even easier to criticize. I had a friend when I lived in Boston a long time ago, and I was like, you dating that girl? And he's like, ah, you know, he's like, well, just, uh, so, you know, translate that however you want. I go, well, what's her situation? Like she's, she looks like she could have plenty of options. You know, what, uh, how are you getting away with this? How are you getting away with the not committing thing?

like she could bounce from you tomorrow and have like five other guys after he goes well you know i did this thing where she asked me like after a while hey what are we and i said you know i'm not really into labels and it was genius it was truly java that's good well that's really good he goes yeah yeah works all the time he goes so it sounds like you're kind of committed, but clearly you're not. Cause if you were, you'd be like, you're my girlfriend and I am your boyfriend. But he was just, you know, he was pulling magic tricks. He may have had a fake birth certificate too. Like I think he may have been, he was just too wise for a guy that was apparently my age at the time. Like there were some rumors, there was a chance he was like five or six years older than me, but we couldn't quite figure it out. Maybe even 10 years. Like some guys are like, you know,

that dude is like actually crazy old. I'm like, what? He holds up well. And man, that label thing is really good. The reason I tell you that story folks is because when you label something in sports, specifically tanking, you are held to a different standard. When the 76ers, which is this long running statement that I've made is a study on not just sports, but American people in general, that when Sam Hinkie was unapologetic about it, did not talk to the media, did not massage his media relationship. He didn't talk to anybody. He was like, yeah, obviously this is what I'm doing. I'm putting out all these terrible players. Every game I win is a disappointment. This is the plan. Ownership has to be on board. And then you have all these

owners go, oh, you know, you're hurting road games. I don't even know if that was necessarily the case, but Sam Hinkie wasn't an ex-player. He wasn't an ex-coach. And then you have all these owners go, oh, you know, you're hurting road games. I don't even know if that was necessarily the case, but Sam Hickey wasn't an ex-player. He wasn't an ex-coach. He didn't have equity built up in the NBA circles other than this guy that Daryl Morey was like, this guy's so smart. Like I love him. And the NBA forces Hickey out of there. Hickey wasn't fired by the Sixers. He was fired by the NBA essentially and then replaced with Colangelo. And we all know what happened there but instead of you know one year where the lakers were clearly tanking and they signed carlos boozer to like a one-year deal we're like hey we got carlos boozer you're like do you and it just felt better and it made us all feel a little bit better because it wasn't unapologetic there was a

massaging to it it's like yeah you know we're and we'll see how it goes. We got some vets. Vets are going to bring the kids along. And different teams do different things. So they'll play people out of position to tank. They'll shut people down with fake injuries. They'll do rest against bad teams, knowing they're going to lose to the good teams. There's a way to do it where everybody knows what you're doing. But if you're so blatant about it, then it becomes nasty.

But then if it works, but if you're so blatant about it, then it becomes nasty. But then if it works, we applaud you. Hinckley has some media members in circles that think he's still one of the greatest GMs of all time. And it is funny because I'll talk to NBA people who despise him or maybe despise more what he did. But a lot of those guys are going, I've got to win in three or four years or lose my job. And this guy is trying to get an extension by proving how much you can lose. That doesn't seem right. And I understood their point, but it also felt like just general pettiness of the industry. When the Astros tanked, it was like, hey, it works in baseball, right? When the Cubs tanked, oh, they won a World Series. See, it worked. Now, I think

fundamentally tanking in baseball is completely different than tanking in basketball. And football is the same thing as baseball. When you tank in basketball, you give yourself a seat at the table to maybe get that guy in that right draft, if that's the right year, to have a generational talent who can completely change the course of your franchise because it's basketball and it's five guys. You didn't need to subscribe to the podcast to learn that, but you already know. just it's worth emphasizing because when i hear wow the astros that they tanked and look it worked the astros tanked thing is one of the most oversold i believe inaccurate stories in sports in the last decade because i went through it when they won because that's hey they won they did it

boom smart baseball guys really intelligent look how great these guys are and i feel like writers also stick up for media members writers stick up for the the genius tanking guy so if it were hinky or even what the browns are doing before dorsey we had a lot of people like hey sashi brown he's just stockpiling all he's a really smart guy he's stockpiling all these picks and look it's all paid off and it was smart like it didn't feel like anyone had a problem with the browns. I think there were a lot of media members that actually really appreciated what the Sixers were doing. It felt like that was more of an anti-NBA thing, as I said before, but with the Astros, because it's baseball. And I have this

other theory that I think smart baseball media people enjoy the idea of a smart baseball person running a baseball team and being successful because that seems like a direct path where it's like, hey, if he did it, maybe I could do it. It maybe means I'm smart about baseball as opposed to decades ago when all of the GMs were former players. So if you look at that Stroh's roster, the year they won the World Series, like four or five of the regular players out of 25 guys were actually drafted there. Okay. Bregman was a top pick in 15. drafted there. Bregman was a top pick in 15. Correa was the number one pick in 12. Springer was actually drafted before 2011. McCullers was a first round pick in 12. Keiko was a ninth round pick in 2009. So then you start doing this thing, but wait a minute, some of these guys were on the team before the GM and this new front office even had taken over. Altuve, who I hear about as part

of the core, was signed as an international free agent 12 years ago. Yuli Gurriel was an amateur free agent. Marvin Gonzalez was in a trade. Ken Giles was in a trade for a top prospect who had blown out. They actually had way more guys that were either already on the roster that contributed to that World Series team

before they were technically tanking, or were just international guys that were available to everybody that has nothing to do with draft position. I'm serious. If you go through it, you're like, wait a minute, I thought this team tanked and that's why they won. Now, if you're telling me that those four or five core guys are the main reason they won the World Series, all right, that's a bit of a stretch with the way baseball is played. It's kind of the same as, well, look at the Cubs. They got Chris Bryant and a couple of the other guys, and that's what led them to the World Series. Maybe, and maybe we're agreeing on what it is, and I'm simply pushing back on what the actual impact of tanking is. Because if a

baseball team won 58 games versus 70 games, could you actually tell the difference? Of course you couldn't. But when we can hit you with that label of, oh, this team is tanking, then we treat it completely differently. And that's what's happened with the Dolphins. Let me ask you a question about the Miami Dolphins. It's really ugly these first two weeks. But did you think before the Minka Fitzpatrick and Tunsil trade, they're going to be good? Of course not. So were they going to go six and 10? That's the NFL, maybe. Would they've gone four and 12?12 if they hadn't traded a couple guys? Would you even notice? Would we be having these long-form segments talking about how just inhumane it is to 53 men on a roster that you're not trying to compete every single Sunday? Because that's an interesting pivot. franchise does it, it's sometimes, I would say more often than not, applauded in the media. In the NFL, now that it's happening with the Dolphins and they don't have the Harvard grad

running the organization, it's this atrocity. Now, I can't keep track of every single person's opinion on the internet, but that is a very clear shift in how something can be defended if we like the person who's making those decisions. But yet another team could be kind of doing the same thing and then gets hit with that label before the season even kicks off. And what they're doing is something different. And let's face it, none of you guys thought the Dolphins were going to be any good this year anyway.

I want to thank everyone who has subscribed to this podcast. The numbers are great, and I know I say that from time to time, but it's just really me more thanking you because it just means a lot, especially two weeks in, removed from ESPN for the first time in a decade and a half. I can't thank you guys enough, and everybody that came out to AC and sends the notes and all the stuff on Twitter. I'm lucky, man. I'm really lucky because the internet can be so nasty sometimes, but when you're doing stuff people like and to have you guys.

So I do see that stuff. So I just want to make sure everybody knew that I appreciated it. Before we get to Andy Staples talking college ball, this episode of Dual Threat is brought to you by CBS Sports HQ. If you watch much football coverage on TV, you know it's full of a bunch of dudes yelling at each other and throwing out hot takes they probably don't even believe themselves. Tearing players down and throwing out massive overreactions are par for the course. Well, CBS Sports HQ is here to change that. They're a 24-hour streaming sports network that's just focused on the game with highlights, news, stats, game previews, game reactions, fantasy advice. My gosh, what don't they have?

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or if you already have some special cable package. It's completely free for everybody. You don't even need a login. Just open the CBS Sports app and watch anytime, anywhere on your phone or at home on your Apple TV, Roku, or Fire TV. It couldn't be easier. So download the CBS Sports app and watch CBS Sports HQ today. Andy, one of the things that has college football fans really worried about, that's the lack of parity and turnover. And, you know, I always feel like we lose our minds in the moment and things are very cyclical

i remember you know eastern western conference nba stuff where they go yeah we should reseed you know the entire league i'm like that's ridiculous it'll be fine then it was like 15 years or the western conference is better so i was like all right maybe uh but when you look at alabama and clemson and then being in this group georgia talent wise ohio state needs to be mentioned oklahoma lsu is right up there and recruiting all this stuff but you had the numbers and them being in this group, Georgia, talent-wise, Ohio State needs to be mentioned, Oklahoma, LSU's right up there and recruiting and all this stuff. But you had the numbers, and I went through it again, so I got this from you.

But in the last 10 years, we've had five teams win championships. The previous 11 years, we had nine teams win championships. I think we're probably both still aligned that we can't freak out about how this will correct itself at some point. But how has it gotten to this point and how bad do you think this will continue to be for the rest of college football well you got a historic run by nick saban in alabama and there's not been anything like this in the 85 scholarship era and you had bud wilkinson back in the 50s at oklahoma but nothing like this, which is sustained dominance in spite of the fact that you can only have 85 scholarship players.

And I don't think we're going to see anything like this again. What has made it, I guess, doubled up on is Clemson's rise and them becoming so good so fast. And now you've got kind of two of these things happening simultaneously. And I don't think we'll ever see anything like this again. So it's probably an isolated incident. And it'll resolve itself in a few years. Either Saban will retire or some other program will surpass one of the two or both the two. And it'll get to more like it was at the turn of the,

this, this century and in the nineties. But you're right. It is all sickled. I was thinking back to, to the NFL when the NFC won so many Superbowls in a row, and it really felt like it was going to be the 49ers and Cowboys every year.

It just, this happens in sports and we always act like it's the first time it ever happened. How do you think it'll end for Nick Saban? He has mentioned this to me in an interview, and I didn't ask the question this way. He took it this direction in the answer, and he said, I will retire before I watch it go down.

And I thought that was really interesting because he's always felt like he was a little bit ahead of the curve on everything. So my guess is when he does retire, Alabama will still be winning a bunch of games, but he will know that it's about to stop and he'll go instead of watching it, you know, deteriorate. That's an awesome answer. And it always, you know, feels good when you, when you get that kind of answer. And I've always said, you know,

over the years of, of getting to spend time with Saban, he really is one of my favorite guys I've ever talked to. And if you do a good job of, you know, if you do a good job on your end as the reporter, as the interviewer, all that stuff, he will reward you. You know, when people compare him to Belichick, I'm like, you're so wrong. You're so wrong about that comp. He rewards guys that put some effort into what they're asking. And he's one of my favorite, um, I don't know if it's storyteller or whatever, but he's just, he's unbelievable when he wants to

give you a good answer. So it sounded like you wanted to jump in there, but I do have another thought. So go ahead. Oh, no, I was just going to say that that is him. And if you ever want to hear him, when he really wants to give good answers, listen to his radio show that he does on Thursday night during the season. He gives these unbelievable answers about how the game is changing, uh, schematic stuff that he'd probably never given a press conference and then tells these unbelievable stories about like the time he burned out the clutch on a truck delivering Coca-Cola when he was a kid in West Virginia. And his boss nearly fired him because he kept burning out the clutch. I think he just and then he'll make that an analogy for something in football. And it's incredible.

So I am eagerly awaiting his move to TV when he does retire because I think it's going to be awesome. Yeah, I read that Saban book, The Making of a Coach, that came out, and it helps you completely understand the way he's wired. You know, he's a kid from West Virginia, and he's the son of a football guy, and yet he's doing this thing. And I think a lot of us can relate to, depending on what your relationship is with your father, where you feel like your whole life,

you're kind of just trying to, you're trying to make him proud. And even if you have made him proud, he just doesn't tell you. And you're driven by this thing. Like it helped me completely understand Saban, but it was funny because after I'd asked him a couple of questions about it,

then we went to commercial break and I was like, hey, did you check this thing out? He goes, no. He goes, he asked me to do the book. I wait and he goes and i would have done something i don't know if he was telling me the truth or nobody but basically it was one of those things where saban's like i didn't want to do it yet i wasn't ready to do the book and then he went ahead and did it anyway and you could just see how annoyed he was but i actually thought it did a great job explaining saban um you know one of my favorite Saban things is? Because that answer about, I'll be gone before it's done. Okay, that's great in theory, but I've heard about guys in our business that are going to retire 10 years ago, and they don't. When you're 30, 50 seems like a million. And then when you're 50, you're like, wait a minute, this isn't old. And then when you're six, like everybody says this. And one of my favorite parts of the

Saban age thing is that when Mac was working with us at ESPN, Mac would say, you know, everybody thinks I'm so old and I'm the exact same age as Saban. Like Mac is 68 right now and Saban is 67. And it can come down to not the number, but just the perception of who you are. And Mac basically felt like he was running out of Texas because he was old. Now it had more to do with recruiting. It's where you're at. It's where you're at. It's where your program's at. Steve Spurrier was one of those guys who said, I'm never going to do it into my 60s.

And he stayed too long. And he'll tell you he stayed too long. Bob Stoops was one of those guys who said, I'm never going to do it into my 60s. And he's gone. Now, we'll see if he comes back, but I'm not sure he ever comes back to college football. Yeah, I don't know. And that's something that I know I want to touch on with you there

because I put out a poll on coaches this past weekend where I said, okay, if you could start your program with anybody other than Davo, other than Nick, here are your four choices. And I went Lincoln Riley, Herman, Shaw, And I went Kirby at Georgia and Lincoln was, was the runaway choice. Uh, people thought I was insane for even putting Shaw in the mix, but I feel like that's so disrespectful to who Shaw is as a guy.

And I would, if he were available tomorrow, I would hire him in a second as an AD and have zero, zero reservations about it just because they've had a bad start to this whole thing. Is Lincoln your answer? It depends on what part of the country we're in. If we're in the Southeast, I want Kirby.

Anywhere else, I want Lincoln. Wow. You have to understand how to recruit in the Southeast to win in the Southeast. And you don't have to be from the Southeast. I mean, Urban Meyer came in and did it fine. Nick Saban's from West Virginia, which is not exactly the Southeast.

And he's done fine. But you have's from West Virginia, which is not exactly the Southeast. And he's done fine. But you have to have that mentality. And I don't know about Lincoln yet. I haven't seen it enough from him to know if that's how he'd operate. If I'm starting an SEC or ACC football team in the South, I want Kirby because he knows exactly what you need and exactly how to put it all together. But anywhere else, I want Lincoln Riley because he'll dominate those conferences. Do you feel like Lincoln is the kind of guy because he did turn down other stuff and clearly him trusting Stoops was a big part of him? Because this is this thing that's happened in college football for years where it's like okay you're the coach in waiting and the coach in waiting like once somebody did it was like everybody felt like they had to do it you know texas is like hey don't worry about it musk

champ isn't going anywhere like actually no he's not gonna wait around he's going to take the floor yeah right yeah it's it's it's very interesting because you know we talk about those those coach in waiting things the first one of those of that kind of era actually worked. It was a Bobby Bowden to Jimbo Fisher. Now it didn't go smoothly because Bowden didn't want to leave. He wanted to coach in 2010, but it did work. I mean, they got a national title out of it, but then you got the Joe Tiller to Danny Hope, the Rich Brooks to Joker Phillips at Kentucky,

and those are... But now I think you're seeing it again because Lincoln Riley has done so well replacing Bob Stoops, and then you look at Ohio State where Ryan Day seems to be replacing Urban Meyer with no drop-off whatsoever, and I do

wonder if that will cause people to try to do this again, or I don't know that these are unique situations, but I think you're right about Lincoln Riley. Can you imagine South Carolina coach Lincoln Riley right now? Because that, that was, you know,

a possibility, a Houston coach, Lincoln Riley, that, that was a possibility. But I do think Bob Stoops went to him and said, listen, we,

me and Joe Castiglione on the AD, have identified you as the next guy. I'm going to be done soon. I don't know exactly when. I can't make a promise. But if you just hold out, I think you're going to be the Oklahoma coach. And look how well that's worked out. Yeah, Castiglione being there is another big part of it, too. The respect he has in college football is through the roof.

I mean, it's whatever tier one is of ADs. Castiglione is definitely there. And you mentioned Day, which is obviously connected to Chip, which is another one of these weird coaching weightings where it was like, hey, this is more of a coach we're not going to weight deal, where Belotti's there who had done a really good job for Oregon. And then you were like, hey, let's bring in this New Hampshire guy

and we'll see. And at that point, it's still kind of this proving thing. Like really, we're going to do this thing with this guy from New Hampshire. And then, you know, my argument for chip, which is always something that people like to throw in my face because

everybody knows how much I like chip. Um, I'm, I'm just a chip guy. And the NFL thing was a disaster at the end. But when he was at Oregon, he didn't have one loss where you go, what the hell happened that week?

He doesn't have one loss. The only one that's even remotely arguing this, to me, was terrible. First game. Yeah, Boise State. Yep. It's interesting to me. Chip's an interesting figure to me.

I think he's a very smart guy. I do wonder, because he changed the paradigm in college football using a rule change. You know, they changed the paradigm in college football using a rule change. You know, they changed the clock rules in 2008. It went from the official sets the ball, calls the ready for play, 25-second clock starts, to you have 40 seconds after the last play ends to snap the next play. And the official can't control the tempo anymore.

Now the offense is in control of the tempo. And he created something that no one had ever seen. No one knew how to deal with it. And it took a while to catch up. But by the time he got back at UCLA, everybody's caught up. So I'm waiting with Chip to see what is the next thing. What's the next innovation he comes up with? Because what he's doing now, trying to do,

he's not really even trying to do the same things he did at Oregon. He's trying to work with the players he has, which is not that great. But what's the next thing going to be? And I think he's got it in him. I just don't know when we're going to see it. You know, I went back and looked at it because I always use that

Arizona loss as the one where Chip, you go, okay, what happened there? But when they played Boise, I mean, Boise was ranked actually higher than them. The Boise game was the first one, though. That's the one where the guy complained and Chip sent the check to cover his trip to Boise. And we also didn't truly respect how good Boise State was at the time. truly respect how good Boise State was at the time. And Oregon was still working a couple kinks out,

but if you remember, they destroyed the Pac-10 that year. Just destroyed. Nobody knew what to do. So they got that out of their system against Boise State and then just mauled everybody after that. But by the time he'd left and come back, every offense had copied him in some way, shape, or form. And every defense had had to figure out how to deal with it. And had they had ways to deal with it.

So day who people were mad, I left off the list and I had this weird stipulation that I wanted to see more than six games as a head coach. I know I'm so stern on these rules here, but you know, how, how is day, how is day to you different than the guy that looks pretty good the first year removed from a legend and keeps this thing? Like, I'm not saying I'm doubting him. I'm just always like, I just got to see more before I'm ready to say, Hey, they're not going to skip a beat post urban, because that just seems like a ridiculous sentence.

I'm right there with you. I just, I don't know. I don't know what he's going to do. Cause I, the sample size is too small, but I, I agree with the tack they took. I thought the tack they took was really smart. Dean Smith, the AD, and obviously urban Meyer had something to do with this too. smart. Dean Smith, the AD, and obviously Urban Meyer had something to do with this too. The way they decided to do it, they did it for all the right reasons. They could have gone outside. I think you'd see Matt Campbell as the coach right now at Ohio State had they gone outside, but they looked at it and said, the infrastructure that Urban Meyer has put in place is so good. And some of those people, the strength coach, Mickey Marotti, is so good.

And some of those people, the strength coach, Mickey Mirati, Mark Pantone, who runs their recruiting operation, those people are so good at what they do. If we hire somebody else, there's a chance that none of those people work at Ohio State anymore. So why don't we replace Urban Meyer with a guy who's already on his staff,

who has worked with these people and appreciates them, and the infrastructure stays the same because that's the more than half the battle is that infrastructure. And so when you already know you've got a perfect one, why would you want to change that? And so I thought, I thought it was brilliant. And if you look at the way they've been recruiting, I thought it was brilliant. And if you look at the way they've been recruiting, nothing has changed.

And I think it's going to work. I'm pretty sure. The only thing that would change it is if somehow Ryan Day falls off in recruiting down the road or proves to not be as good of a game day coach. But so far, what we've seen, he seems to be checking all his boxes. I remember when I was younger, and I would look at Duke basketball and I thought, oh, Duke's never going to be bad

because now this generation is going to just think that it's only Duke, it's only Kentucky, all the standards that we have. But that's just not the way it works. We do have these blip teams that show up, but there's so many fan bases that are expecting to kind of get back to what they were and it feels like that door is closed right now and again none of this stuff is permanent but which teams that are still kind of looking at the 90s and nebraska is the headliner this one we already know where we're going they bring in frost There's always this extra motivation when it's one of your guys, which I think at times can be really overplayed.

Very misleading. Right. It's not as relevant. Basically, it feels like you get one extra year of being bad if it's not going to work out because we feel bad if we want to fire you because you were one of our own. But I would look at Nebraska and be like, if your goal is to be who you were in the 90s, that's never happening again. I don't know if Tennessee is ever going to be this team that feels like it can win 10 games and challenge for the SEC East. And maybe it's too much in the moment, but do you have, and I'm not trying to do some Vox Media who's canceled tweet here,

but are there teams that you look at and go, that's never happening again? So Nebraska, I think most of the fan base understands that it's never going to happen again. What they should look at as a model for the kind of success they want to have

should be Wisconsin. And that is, you dominate in that division, you are in the mix for that division title every single year. There are some years where you've cycled up and have some good veteran leadership and you can win the big 10. And if you can win the big 10, you can make the playoff, but that's not going to happen every single year. You're not going to be a year in year out national title contender. Like you were in the Tom Osborne era. I think most Nebraska people understand that. I'm not sure most Tennessee people understand that they're

probably not going to be back to what they were during the Philip Fulmer era when they were at the top of the SEC with Florida and that Florida Tennessee game was the de facto SEC championship game most years. I just don't think they're going to be able to do that. The recruiting has changed. Back then, they were great recruiting in Atlanta. They could recruit the hell out of the Carolinas. They would go to California and get people. They would go to New Orleans and get Raynard Thompson.

They had an operation where you could go anywhere and that tee carried enough weight and you could say, listen, we're going to be on national TV. Maybe the teams around you aren't. They go to Albert Hainsworth's living room in South Carolina.

You could tell Albert Hainsworth and his family, hey, Albert's going to be on national TV pretty much every game coming to Tennessee. Can South Carolina or Clemson promise you that? No, they cannot. Well, now they can. Now everybody's on national TV. So Albert Hainsworth would never leave the state of South Carolina to go to Tennessee. Now he would

go to Clemson. So that's the thing that Tennessee has run into. And I worry because the philosophy right now with Jeremy Pruitt seems to be, we're going to do the same things that Georgia and Alabama are doing. Well, that's great. Georgia and Alabama are really successful. Problem is, if you're a recruit and Georgia's recruiting you and Alabama's recruiting you and Tennessee's recruiting you, which one are you crossing off the list immediately? So doing the same thing as them with worse players is probably not a long-term model for success.

So then how does UCF do it? So UCF has a really interesting philosophy, very similar but on a little bit grander scale than what Appalachian State did. So what Appalachian State used to do when they were dominating in the FCS was they would go out and recruit, and they would say,

who is as fast as his SEC or ACC counterpart at this position, but either is either too short or 20 pounds too light. And they just take that guy. They would, they would look at least from a speed perspective, like an SEC team, they'd just be way smaller. But guess what? Faster is more important than bigger. So that's what UCF has done. Adrian Killens is a tiny guy. He is also the fastest player in college football. So UCF has been really smart.

And this goes back to George O'Leary. I tell people the job Scott Frost has at Nebraska is actually harder than the job he took over at UCF. Because, yes, he did take over a team that had gone 0-12 at UCF. But that was because the players had mutinied on O'Leary. They just didn't like him. It wasn't like they had bad players. He always recruited really good players. And so you take that, and then Frost is a good recruiter. So he goes on top of that.

Turns out Hypel knows what he's doing. He recruits on top of that. And all of a sudden you've got guys that, that speed wise match up very well with all their SEC counterparts. They're maybe a little bit smaller, a little bit shorter, a little bit lighter, something slightly off measurable wise, but the core thing they need, they have. And then the cherry on top is they're really good at evaluating quarterbacks. Scott Frost loved McKenzie Milton. He made sure he got McKenzie Milton, McKenzie Milton bugs, Josh Hypel over and over again last year about this kid, Dylan Gabriel, who was Milton's replacement at his high school in Hawaii. And Dylan Gabriel is this lefty. He breaks Tua and Timmy Chang's yardage records

in Hawaii. But he's only being recruited by Hawaii Air Force and Army. He's committed to Army. So he's not even committed to throw. He's committed to run. He's broken all of Tua's records. So he's not even committed to throw. He's committed to run. You know, he's broken all of Tua's records. So UCF gets on it. And then after that, Georgia gets on it. USC gets on it.

He ends up going to UCF because they believed in him first. And so you've got him, and they've got, you know, Daryl Mack sitting on the bench who won the American Conference Championship game for them last year. They've got a kid from Orlando who's a freshman who's pretty good who may never see the field because they got this magic dude from Hawaii. But they understand you got to keep stockpiling good quarterbacks because eventually you're going to probably need them all. Okay, then what is Utah doing?

And before you jump into the answer there, I really enjoyed kind of in the beginning because we can all figure out the roadmaps on all this stuff, right? When the Big Ten is down, then they say the SEC lets everybody into school and that all the bowl games are down there. When the SEC has bad defenses,

other schools are like, see, the defenses aren't that good, and then the SEC makes fun of the Big 12 defenses. The Big 12 says, well, our quarterbacks are way better than yours. I mean, all these different, like, I already know, and you know it better than anybody, everybody's counter arguments to every single thing that's going to happen. But when Missouri first plays in an SEC title game, it's like, see, look how easy this is. And I'm like, well, okay, let's just see.

Let's take a, you know, not a screen grab, which is what I always say. Like, let's see the full body of work here. And it's very clear, like Missouri fans would probably rather be back in the Big 12 because it's just not happening. That's coaching turnover. Utah shows up to the Pac-12. You're like, how long is this going to take? Now, they look like they're clearly the

best team in that conference. Maybe Oregon's still pretty good. I think they're good after the Auburn game. I'm not off of them by any means. How does Utah do the thing that now we're kind of crossing off some of these traditional powers? Not a great recruiting base, not even close to a great recruiting base. You know, the airport situation.

You know, we can talk about TV packages. Good in one particular aspect, Ryan, and I'll explain why. So the Pac-12, as a league, has done a lousy job of developing players at the line of scrimmage. USC should always have good offensive and defensive linemen. What is the last dominant defensive lineman USC produced? It's Leonard Williams. That's how long ago it was, and he's from Florida.

So they've been bad at this. They've just not been good at it. All of those programs, they're all at fault. Kyle Whittingham at Utah understands that games are one at the line of scrimmage. He happens to live in a very unique place. Salt Lake City is home to the Mormon church. Where has the Mormon church done some of its most effective mission work? Polynesia. That means there are Polynesian players who live out there, who want to come to Salt Lake City because it is the home of their religion, or there are Polynesian players who have relocated,

whose families live in Salt Lake City, and they grew up in Salt Lake City. So you've got a unique population of big, strong people. So you actually have a nice little pocket of offensive and defensive linemen that you can recruit within 50 miles of your campus that only schools in the deep South can do otherwise. So you've got that part of it. And they've done a great job developing those guys. Meanwhile, no one else in the Pac-12 has bothered to develop them. And that's where Utah has really improved by leaps and bounds.

They've developed the depth, you know, the quarterback and the skill guys, they've gotten better ones as they've gotten better. And the thing is, they just go beat you up now. Now, will that change? Yes, because Mario Cristobal went to Oregon and was like, huh, look at this. None of these guys know how to play on the line of scrimmage, except Utah.

Guess what? I'm going to start recruiting really good offensive needs in the linemen. And sure enough, look at what Oregon's doing now. So Washington, Chris Peterson I think understood that as well. But that's where Utah has really developed an advantage. Ryan, I did a study, gosh, it was nine years ago now.

And actually, Chip Kelly was the genesis of it. Because I asked Chip Kelly when he was at Oregon, what is the hardest recruit to find? And he said the ready-made defensive lineman. Ready-made, three-technique defensive tackle who can come in and play right away. He said, they just don't exist on this side of the country. And so I took all the defensive linemen who played, who were playing in the NFL at the time and figured out where they went to high school. And I mapped it. And of course, huge concentration in the deep South, but there was that nice pocket in Salt Lake city. And it, and it's something the Utah coach should always take advantage of.

And Kyle Whittingham's done a great job of that. I remember being up at Provo a couple times, and we would sit there when Bronco was still head coach. It was a really unique experience because you go in and talk to Bronco, and you're there with Trevor Maddich, who was an offensive lineman on that great team in the 80s. Because I would put the time in time and I'd be like, well, yeah, Hey, there's an argument Bronco that, you know, your players are older and, you know, they, they go on missions and whatever. And then there is, you know, kind of off of what you said,

there's this pocket of people that don't even want to look at other schools between you and Utah. And he just looked at me. He's like, yeah, great. Yeah. We have this massive advantage being here in Utah and, and having kids go away and leave football and then come back he's like you know what he goes he goes he goes you really are you really trying to tell me that it's this massive advantage ryan and i went well no i'm just i'm like trying to make the point he was he was incredibly dismissive of it even though you're absolutely right the d-line utah looks like an nfl D-line versus some of these Pac-12 teams where I go, where's your size in the defensive front? And I'm still amazed at how small some of these teams are.

USC has no excuse. None. No excuse. They should have a great D-line every year, a great O-line every year, and they don't. And that's on the coaching. Okay, so off of that, do you think Urban's going to coach USC?

I don't know. I'm one who leans toward I don't know that he coaches again because I look at what happened at the end of last year. That medical stuff was real. He has what's called an arachnoid cyst, and when things get stressful, it flares up and produces these just crippling headaches. And it happened at Florida. It happened at Ohio State.

If he takes another job anywhere close to those jobs, and USC has all the same stressors as Florida and Ohio State, that will happen again. I don't think I would sign up for something like that if I had enough money to never work again. And Urban Meyer has enough money to never work again and urban Meyer has enough money to never work in, if he doesn't want to. So I wouldn't personally sign up for that, but I do understand that coaching can be addictions, probably the wrong word, but you feel a need to do it.

If you are a coach, you feel a need to coach a team and you're not, you don't feel complete if you're not doing that. So will he get that tug will he feel that pull i don't know i ain't he's felt it every time before so my guess is he will be interested and the question is will he or someone he loves talk him out of it. That's the question because if he does it, history says what happened at Florida and what happened at Ohio State

is going to happen again. And that would be a hard thing to knowingly sign up for. Yeah, but we all, you know, we've been around these guys enough. In a couple years you feel good. Now you trick yourself into like, hey, I've never felt better. It better it's like well because you haven't been coaching um and it'll be it'll be interesting to see what happens here with usc because with harrell running the offense the

offense looking good i mean the byu game wasn't great slovis is in there now um you know helton the whole city the whole thing is already against him i mean you know swans out helton helton has to have like a really nice run here. And I'm not sure, I'm not sure they have the depth that everybody expects them to always have. And it's going to be weird. I think it's going to be a really weird scene for the Friday night game when Urban's there in the Coliseum doing, doing Fox pregame. It is going to be strange and it's awkward for everybody.

And I'm sure USC is not thrilled about the and it's awkward for everybody and i'm sure usc is not thrilled about the way it's all playing out but you know like they've not handled things very well at all whether it's you know not hiring athletic directors who actually know how to direct athletics and uh dealing with scandals letting aunt becky fire kids way into school through the athletic department. They've just not handled things well. And so this is what you get. And they're playing Utah.

The supposition is Utah is going to go in there and beat them up physically and win the game. Then they've got to go play Washington. You sort of think the same thing happens there. And then they've got to play Notre Dame, where you think the same thing is going to happen there. And if it does happen three times, then they'll make the decision. They'll make the call. And then the Urban sweepstakes will be on and he'll have to tell them no.

I guess they probably have to hire an athletic director first. And if you really want Urban, then maybe you go after Pat Chun at Washington State because Pat Chun, before he went to Florida Atlantic and hired Lane Kiffin, he was the lieutenant to Gene Smith at Ohio State. So very familiar with Urban Meyer. So perhaps that's it. Desiree Reid-Francois, you know, he was a

person who had come up, and her name had come up for USC, but Dan Guerrero at UCLA just announced his retirement. Desiree Reid-Francois was a rower at UCLA. My guess is that's the job she'd rather have. So I think a lot of it, who they hire as an AD will probably give you an idea of where they're going if they wind up deciding Clay Helton's not the guy. Whenever I look at a head coach and people say, okay, this isn't working out

and I, for a long time, would look at media members and be like, you guys are acting like Harbaugh's going six and six. Now, if you want to talk about an outdated offense, Mark D'Antonio's dealing with that now at Michigan State, where, hey, you just shuffled everything around with your staff. You didn't want to fire anybody. I totally understand that. You're D'Antonio.

You're in East Lansing. Going out there and then seeing how well they've competed with these other schools and visiting them, it's remarkable that Michigan State has there and then seeing how well they've competed with these other schools and visiting them. Like it's remarkable that Michigan State has had some of the years that they've had. And now they look like they can't move the football again. So everybody's mad at D'Antonio, but he's probably looking at being like,

this is the way we've done it. This is the way we've always done it. But it just is scary as a fan when you think, is this the way we're always going to do it, man? Because it looks like it's passing us by. And the same argument can be made for Wisconsin at times and with Harbaugh. But when I look at Harbaugh, I go, hey, he's a spot away, even though it was the right spot against Ohio State of being in the playoff, you know, before they get smoked by Ohio State, like they're in the mix. So if you want to jump onto Harbaugh at any point, feel free. But I also think that Brian Kelly falls in that category, too, where, you know, they have that bad year and everybody wants them fired and fine mom goes on

every tv show like i'm gonna get through this guy i'm like wait wait a minute you know whether they get smoked in the playoff they were in the playoff last year they play for a national championship yes they've got smoke but i always look at the program be like are you flirting with being in this thing for for making a run at it even if you feel like the rating or excuse me the ranking is a little overrated are you at least flirting with being in the mix and if you and I'm an AD, I don't want to hear from anybody after a bad season that I'm supposed to get rid of my head coach. Well, the Brian Kelly thing is amazing to me. I love when people say, oh, well, look at Notre Dame against Clemson last year.

That proved Notre Dame didn't belong in the playoff. The next question I always ask those people is, who lost by more to Clemson last year in the playoff, Notre Dame or Alabama? And then they think back and they're like, Oh wait, it was Alabama. I know. I did Alabama not deserve to be in the playoff last year. Okay. Now Brian Kelly has done all this with essentially one arm tied behind his back. It's harder to coach at Notre Dame than it is to coach at a big public school. That's just the truth.

And I know the Michigan people want to act like they have the same, you know, academic standards, uh, issues that, that come up in terms of discipline and all that. No, you don't. You may have similar academic standards in terms of who you can get in, but at Notre Dame, they suspend people for a year for things that in the sec, they would spend them for a quarter. You know, in the big 10, they might suspend them for a half or a game. So Brian Kelly has a harder job than all of these people and still makes the

playoff, makes the BCS championship game, wins double digit game. So I think he's done a fantastic job there. And I know Jack Swarbrick, the AD, feels that way. And that's why he just tunes all that stuff out. The Michigan administration feels the same way about Harbaugh. They love him. Because they understand. They went through Brady Hoke.

They went through Rich Rodriguez. They know this is better. It's not what they want yet. It's not winning Big Ten titles. It's not beating Ohio State. But it's still better. And the thing I wonder with Harbaugh is he's going to

have the support of the administration. And that's good. But is he going to get sick of fan bases like, what's wrong with you? Why can't you beat Ohio State? What's going on? Somebody asked me in my mailbag column this week at The Athletic, will the fan base check out on Harbaugh

if they lose to Wisconsin this weekend? And I'm like, losing on the road to this Wisconsin team? There's no shame in that. They're really good. So no, you shouldn't check out on him if they lose to Wisconsin this weekend. They still could meet all their goals this season, even if that happens.

So it is amazing to me how different the view of the fan versus the view of the administration is. Final thought here, because Tebow made some headlines with his commentary on first take about playing for the love of the school. And if I didn't think it were 100% genuine from Tebow, I would have a bigger issue with it. But I know, I'm not going to say I know him really well, but I've hung out with him enough. I mean, he's just wired differently.

He's a different guy. When you go on spring break to help third world countries with medical procedures, you're a wired dude where other guys are on spring break and you're with your family doing this kind of stuff. So he gets crushed for it. And yeah, I think the money's getting to the point where you got to figure out a way to help these kids be compensated in a different way. Now, I don't know if that means paying everybody. Like sometimes I'll see some of these breakdowns

that are so ridiculous where it's like, hey, Texas made this much money in their athletic department. So pay every single player on the team $400,000 a year. And you're like, okay, well, this is idiotic. Like, well, I can't even believe I regret. I wish there was a way to take my click back on articles like that. Right. But I remember years ago, 10 years ago, I just did a segment where I was with, um, Scott and I go, you know what, if we were really trying to figure out something, some way to do this, cause the NCAA never wants to admit anything, right. They never, they're going to deny right deny deny deny until they absolutely where people are you know coming over the walls

with the pitchforks and they have to concede something and they're always going to say there's not enough money and then i go to some of these facilities andy and i go wait a minute i was at texas and i was with a friend who'd never seen any big time college football and we're walking around he's like this place is amazing and then one of the guys that was talking was like yeah we're redoing this whole thing next year. He's like, wait a minute. It's brand new. The Texas ones are the ones that they say stink. So it's crazy. And I'll have been at a program two years ago thinking it was like a spaceship. And then I see pictures on Twitter of the new part of the facility and I go, wait a minute, they already redid that so clearly the schools whether it's salaries on the staff whether it's all of the stuff that they can you know put into the facilities and all these different things it's

this massive arm arms race but it's also another way to try to spend all the tv money that they're getting to say that they don't have any money to give anybody so if the ncaa is never going to give which they should to some degree but even though i think some of the arguments that are pro player are a little ridiculous um i always thought it'd be kind of funny to just be like, put it on the agent. Like if the agent wants to give some kid out of high school 60 grand in cash, we could talk about tax laws and all that kind of stuff and just go ahead and do it. And then people will be like, well, what about the agents are going to get burned? Like, well, they're already getting burned anyway, left and right. So let this open up to the free market a little bit more. And I don't know that it would really be all that

different because in a way, I think that's kind of already happening instead of an agent. It's just somebody else. I wrote this 11 years or I'm sorry, in 2011, it was eight years ago. And I said, don't have the schools pay a single dime extra. Let them just give scholarships the way they have been. And in fact, they have wound up paying more because they lost the O'Bannon case in federal court and had to go up to the full cost of attendance that they turn into the federal government. They had to make the scholarships equal that. So, or they were allowed to make the scholarships equal that. And lo and behold, they all found the money to do it. So my thing is, let anyone who wants to pay these guys from outside pay them. And I know people, that means boosters will bid on them.

Yes, they will. They already do. That means agents will pay them. Yes, they will. They already do. It would just bring what is in the dark into the light. And everybody's like, there'd be bidding wars and millions of dollars going to high school kids.

No, there wouldn't. Where are these money trees that all this additional money for the high school kid would come from? Like 17 year olds are a bad investment. The people who have the kind of money to pay that kind of money know that 17 year olds are a bad investment. Like the agents who pay players now, they don't pay freshmen unless it's a guy who is, you know, obviously skilled position guy starts right away, that sort of thing. who is obviously a skilled position guy, starts right away, that sort of thing. They don't really start paying guys until they've had at least one good year. They're not stupid.

You don't want to spread it out to a guy that's never going to give you any ROI. So, yes, boosters would pay kids. Yes, there would be players who made more money than their teammates. Guess what? Every job you work on Earth, someone will make more or less money than you. That is how life works. And it's fine. Yes, they will have to pay taxes.

Everybody who works at Chili's in college pays taxes, too. The world has not fallen apart. So it is funny to me that everybody acts like this is impossible and it would destroy everything. And my favorite argument, of course, is, well, then only four teams will get all the best players. Well, what do you think happens now? What would that change? I actually think there would be some schools that could get back into it.

Like SMU. We know they were pretty good when they were slipping guys stuff under the table. I know there's some dudes in Dallas sitting there eating their spaghetti and meatballs at Campisi's going hot damn. If this California law passes and the other states pass it, we're back in the game, boys. That would be huge. SMU. that would be a great SMU is back forget Texas is back or Miami is back like SMU is back uh that that's part of the argument though where you know there was a couple other things in Jamel Hill wrote about you know a bunch of the the younger athletes black athletes should just decide collectively to start going back to historically black colleges and that would hurt the major programs and let's go do that and i'm thinking okay um maybe but if i'm one of those

athletes who's a really big time recruit in football or basketball and i'm saying okay i'm open to this idea but who's got that bag of 100 grand for me and right i don't know i don't think it's for a&m or grandpa yeah well because it isn't because we both know the answer and you know of all the travels where i don't think we're giving away secrets here uh but you know one of my favorite things is you'll see a good player and then you'll you'll talk to somebody on another staff and like you know we don't we don't do this but we we kick the tires on what the price was for that kid. And I remember it was an offensive lineman. It was like a guard at a school.

And it was like, yeah, he was 100 grand. And I'm like, what? Well, that's the thing. I mean, we talk about the numbers. Compared to what the coaches make, all the numbers, even for really good players, are relatively low. They're high five figures, low six figures usually. And the value they bring is considerably more yeah but there's there's an argument too to be said of like okay what was the cam newton rumor 180 grand 180 right 180 okay we don't know allegations right want to do that although still one of the most amazing timelines in the history

of college football where he was suspended and then reinstated before anyone knew he was suspended for the sec title game um because i just remember working that night and getting that press release i'm like hey cam newton's reinstated i'm like when was he suspended and it was like the five minutes yeah right right uh you hear these numbers and you go okay okay, well, Cam's worth way more than that. It's Auburn. There's, there's no counter to that argument. I don't, I don't know how that would work. I'm with you. If you were just to open it up and make it be the free market. That's the thing. And, and, and remember, because I don't want the Auburn fans to yell at me. The accusation was, this is what the dad asked for at Mississippi state.

That's right. That's right. But the thing, nobody knew what Cam was worth at that point. He was a guy who'd been on Florida's roster, who had some considerable physical tools, and then had gone to Blinn Junior College in Texas. So nobody knew. And that's the part that I don't think people understand. There are so few sure things going from high school to college or juco to the major college ranks people would not spend as much as you think because these are very risky

investments like giving your money to the to create the building is probably still a safer investment or giving your money to pay nick saban is probably still a safer investment, or giving your money to pay Nick Saban is probably still a safer investment than giving your money to the player. Yeah, because what would happen is, say we just said, okay, it's on. Get the checkbooks out. Let's do this.

There'd be a wave of like the first couple years where it would be ridiculous. I actually believe this. Terrell Pryor was such a huge deal out of high school that yeah if you want to say that this version the 2019 version of terrell prior what would he end up getting and then once the boosters start figuring out like what the bidding war was and then you get like a local car dealership to get involved and be like hey we're going to bring you down you're going to be doing signings and let guys use their likeness and marketing themselves which i'm totally okay with i think you'd have this free-for-all where the

numbers would spike. And then some of those be like, Hey, this has been a massive waste of money. Like there might be some sort of thing. You still have to be able to recruit better. You still have to be able to evaluate better. Like if you can't evaluate and you want to spend money on these guys, you are going to get yourself fired. And look, the coaches wouldn't be spending the money, but you know,

there would be some sort of loose organization to make that happen. And if you want to say, well, that would be terrible, well, it's going to happen. It happens now. Get over it. But I do think 17-year-olds going to college, puberty is a weird deal, man. You don't know who's going to be good.

You can be reasonably sure based on recruiting rankings, but you can really get burned on some of those investments. So you have to be pretty careful with how you spend your money. And whenever I hear, you know, Hey, you know, we, we went to bed hungry and everything. It's like, well, is it because of the scholarship and the lack of funds and you being wrong? Or is it because you used your meal point plan on like a hundred cases of of you know snapple i'm out there i'm dating myself now there's enough food for any scholarship

athlete at the fbs level you should not be hungry especially when i hear a story about it still gonna be hungry yes yeah that's true yeah and then that's becomes another thing it's like wait a minute so if you're really good at football or basketball, does that mean that everybody in the family is supposed to now have a better living situation? Sometimes I think these arguments get stretched to the point. And then when I know specifically, like there'll be a kid who's complaining about something or he declares early, and I'm more connected to the NBA stuff than I am the NFL draft, and I'll go, this dude isn't even an NBAba roster and he's he's a guy who got like 200 grand

and again you're complaining about the system and that's why i always think it's kind of funny is that there's there's guys that like the attention of complaining about the system and then i'll know or at least i'll think i know based on all the rumors that go around recruiting stuff where you go this dude he you cleaned up and you're not even going to play in the pros. So, you know, are you really being accurate in your complaints about the system? So, I don't know. It's a fascinating conversation, and it's one that makes people really uncomfortable, and it feels like I actually like what we just did because we had a real version of it. But I don't know why you make people so uncomfortable.

You know what I just always ask people? Tell me why it's morally wrong to pay someone for being good at sports. If you give me a good argument, then I'll change my mind. But I've yet to hear a good argument for that. People have a really hard time with kids being successful, being better than them at stuff. I know. I'm always... I know, but guess what?

This is something that I've learned, especially as I've gotten older. There are a lot of people in this world who are more special than me, who the market values more than me, who are more talented at something than me. And don't begrudge them that. Let the market reward

those people. It's cool. And I'll work harder and try to get my rewards. You're the best, Andy. I really appreciate it, man. You can check out Andy Staples on The Athletic.

He and a bunch of the guys who are some of my favorites are killing it on the college football coverage. So, again, check him out at The Athletic. Enjoy the weekend, Andy. All right. Thank you, Ryan. Man, that was really good with Andy. I love talking about that college stuff. I'll probably do a longer open rant on some of that college stuff.

I mean, some of the college basketball stuff is already out there. Like dudes that get paid and wreck stuff. You know, like, wait a minute. This guy's not even going to get drafted. So enjoy the weekend. And we'll be back with Chris Long on Monday. Can't wait. Outro Music