The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The NFL’s Backup Quarterback Carousel, Plus the Long-Term College Football Realignment Problems With Chris Vannini

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Russillo kicks off the show with the annual look at the quarterback depth charts before cutdown day (0:42). Then he is joined by The Athletic’s Chris Vannini, who discusses the long-term effects of college football conference realignment (13:28). Last, the guys close it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (47:23). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Chris Vannini Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the pod, our annual look at the quarterback depth charts before cut down day. So it will change. The lack of experience continues to be staggering. And why, when I look at this group of players, the quarterbacks, I'll never listen to the running back arguments. Chris Venini has been terrific on conference realignment in college football. How did we get here? And where is this going?

Because we might not even be close to the end product of this. And of course, life advice, Kyle Frolic Room Swindler. I don't want to get sued. So Frolic Room guy in the news. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping? Total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.

Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Okay, NFL season's coming up here soon. Cut day is today. I love talking about the backup quarterbacks. We do it every single year on the podcast to remind you where some of these dudes are out and also to remind you of how inexperienced the backups are.

As of this morning, there were 90 quarterbacks on the depth charts. I looked at our lads and I went off of that. 92 quarterbacks taking up roster spots. Now granted, some of those guys are going to be cut. Teams are going to carry four guys. Teams aren't going to even carry three guys. I remember our good friend Danny Cannell, who we just had on last week. He was desperate for a paycheck

to hang on. He wanted to be a third stringer more than anything, more than any guy I've ever met in my entire life. That guy wanted to be the third string quarterback. He's admitted all these things. He'd be looking at teams, who are you going to pick up, or whatever. I think Mike Shanahan with the Broncos, when he cut him, explained to him, he's like, look, we've done all the numbers. The third quarterback never

plays. In the rare instance where the starter and then the backup gets hurt, and everybody's like, I can't believe they only carry two quarterbacks. Well, there's a reason they carry only two quarterbacks. Because they want to save the roster spot for an extra O-lineman, extra defensive back, because the third guy almost never plays in games. And yes, I watched the Niners playoff game last year, but that's the point. Like we bitch about the rare exception when in reality, that's why some of these teams aren't even going to carry three guys.

So that number of 92 will obviously dip down, but usually not with the rookies. If the rookies are on right now, you used a draft pick on them or you went after them as an unsigned free agent, the teams are more likely to hang on to that guy. So let's run through some of the numbers and just emphasize the lack of experience at the most important position in all of sports. So if we're talking 92 total, that means 32 starters and 60 backup QBs as of this morning. 13 of those guys in total of the 92 are rookies, right? 13 rookies already in one class. If you add the rookies to all of the backups that I've gone through here and classified them as less than 10 starts,

the less than 10 career starts is 30 guys. So I'm not going to count the rookies as less than 10 starts because it'd be stupid. They're rookies. But if you add the rookies to the other group, guys that have been in the league more than a year, gone through all the different transactions, practice squads, all this stuff, you go through the history in our lives, you're like, man, that guy's been around. I don't even think he's ever thrown a pass. That's 43 quarterbacks taking up almost half of the

roster spots right now that have started less than 10 games or have never played because of rookies. That's still crazy. I know I bring it up, but I don't know how you'd ever develop depth at this position when you never develop depth at the position. And in life, new is always more valuable than the same, right? I'm not even talking about new being more valuable than old. New is more valuable than the same. Think about what some of these young dudes go through at this position. They get drafted late.

They make the team. Like, hey, we're going to give that rook a look. He never takes any snaps with the first team, never plays in a game, and two years later he gets replaced by the kid from Western Kentucky that's like the same guy as him. So to defer to the teams that make the decision, because I don't like when guys sitting in my chair think everybody that's making roster

decisions is a fucking idiot because it's just not true. You know, whenever a team is bad with draft picks, like, man, those guys are also stupid. I'm like, all right, look, let's defer to them a little bit. They're the one with the quarterback who's in the room for maybe two years. He's in all the meetings. They see him around the team. There's a chance they also know, hey, it's not going to work out. Now, granted, he may never have gotten a chance to have it work out, but I'll allow it, right? I'll defer to the guys that are walking around with him, prepping with him for two straight years. But the problem, the whole point that I've always tried to make is that they may not really even know either. I know I don't, but they might not. And they might just say, you know what? We used the pick on him. There wasn't anything that wowed

us. No one got hurt enough where he ever got a real opportunity. I was just bringing another guy because if, even if we're not sure, we may think we know this guy will never be a guy, but the guy we haven't had in here that hasn't been in the meetings, that hasn't run through any of the practice stuff, we don't know anything about him because we just don't know. We've never had him around, so he now is more valuable. Again, new is more valuable than the same. I added in the over 50 club. There are seven quarterbacks that are backups as of right now that have over 50 starts. Seven seems low. Who are they? Tyrod Taylor, Mitch Trubisky, Case Keenum, Andy Dalton, Jameis Winston, Sam Darnold, I feel like... And Marcus Mariota.

Dalton is the OG. 162 starts. Jameis has got 80. Darnold's got 55. Tyrod's got 53. Mariota's got 74. And Trubisky's got 55. And we know their stories.

For the most part, Mitch, a high pick. Mariota, a high pick. Tyrod, really nice college career. Dalton's a first rounder. Jameis is number one overall. Darnold was going to fix the Jets. They've had two guys in that were going to fix the Jets that did not fix the Jets. So maybe they're good enough. Keenum, I was looking at it. I was like, as I did each of these, I was trying to guess how many starts a guy would have and Keenum at 64 felt low and then you think

about it you're like well he had the Vikings year and then Denver brought him in because they thought he was going to at least be average because if Denver had had somebody who was just slightly below average they would have been a much better football team because how good that defense was for multiple years but they just had disastrous play and they tried to do a bunch of different things speaking of Trevor Simeon backing it up, 30 career starts behind Joe Burrow. Some of these teams, I don't know what Cleveland was doing at the position. I expect Deshaun, there's no way he's going to be this bad again. Deshaun's there.

They move on from Josh Dobbs, who sends him to Arizona, who Arizona doesn't want any experience there at all. They've got Dobbs, who's never really played, Clayton Toon, who's a rookie, Driscoll, and Blau, who's combined for 18 career starts because, again, they're all waiting on Murray. Maybe they're tanking. But Dorian Thomas Robinson, the UCLA quarterback, who's a really good college quarterback,

I'd be shocked if he's a long-term starter. I don't know if he'll ever get the opportunity, especially with the amount of money that they paid Watson. But now he's already penciled in as the backup. And behind him is Kellen Mond, who I never quite figured out either, who has zero career starts as well. I mean, some of these teams are ridiculous. Tua, we don't even know if he's going to make it through the season. Career combined starts behind him. Mike White, who maybe we all kind of like, and then playoff hero, even though in a loss, Skyler Thompson, that's nine. New England's got Mac Jones, who, you know, I don't know.

They haven't done him any favors, but I just have a hard time believing Mac Jones is still the starter for the Pats in five years, maybe two. But behind him, Bailey Zappi and then Malik Cunningham, who's wowing everybody in the preseason. That's two combined career starts. I mean, some of these teams just don't care about the lack of experience behind them everywhere. Granted, if you look at what Houston was doing with C.J. Stroud, naming him the week one starter, Davis Mills behind him with 26 starts, who looked like maybe an emergency starter than Keenum, as we mentioned as well. But this entire sheet of all these backups is littered, littered with guys that have never played and they're hanging out of a roster spot, which leads to another point. It's why I'm never going to be sympathetic about the running back argument.

All right. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it from them. And I don't really want to hear it for like, hey, all my content, super pro player. And I think everybody should get paid and just ignore the fact that there are negotiations that take place in the real world. The running back argument is flawed.

It's borderline fraudulent at times because nobody gives a shit about the 13 quarterbacks who just lost their jobs that maybe never even got to throw a football in a game. At least the running backs get carries, even with the first team. There's a good chance if you're a running back, you get to play special teams and prove your worth. If you're a running back, there's a good chance you get a handful of carries in an actual game. Most of these quarterbacks you're talking about, they don't even get to throw a real

pass, and then they're told they can't do the job anymore at 24 years old. Nobody cares about those guys. The running back argument was about one thing and one thing only. A handful of the guys at the very top weren't getting paid anymore because the position is not as valuable as it used to be. The receiver lifespan is the same as the running back. And the reason you never hear about that number anymore and people falling for it is because the receivers at the top end are still getting paid premier money. The running back argument, again, is about a handful of guys. still getting paid premier money. The running back argument, again, is about a handful of guys. These quarterbacks get tossed aside when none of us have any idea if they could ever actually start, and they get replaced by the next guys that are all going to be cut over and over and over again.

The league, and maybe, look, I don't know if they're doing it wrong. It just feels wrong, because we're entering a season where I could argue there's 11 or 12 teams that are going to be changing their quarterbacks at the position. We know how hard that position is to play. We know once you go from college to the pros, it's completely different. The pros have done a better job of trying to make that transition a little easier, but usually that's only for the top guy that they've invested big resources into. But I can't help, especially, look, I didn't play it. I don't know it as well as the guys that did. But I can't think that this is the way to build any kind of chance at a position when it looks like the teams are just like, hey, as long as he's new, that's better than the alternative. And then they never get developed. than the alternative, and then they never get developed. So enjoy it, folks,

that have a starter that you can pencil in for 10 years, and you're never going to have to worry about who these guys are at number two and number three. Get ready for NFL season with incredible offers from FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers can bet $5

and get 200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Plus, all customers can bet $5 and get 200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Plus, all customers who bet $5 will get $100 off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Okay, I've been looking at some of the early numbers here. We were talking about Kansas City and Detroit, knowing that everybody's kind of loving Detroit here to begin. Super Bowl odds as we get close to the start of the season. Top three, Chiefs, Eagles, Bills, then Cincinnati, San Francisco, Dallas, Baltimore, the Jets.

The Jets have the eighth best Super Bowl odds right now to win the entire thing, which then speaks to the rest of the AFC East because after that, you have Miami in the 11th spot. So the Bills are third, Jets eighth, Miami 11th. The New England Patriots are plus 6, third, Jets eighth, Miami 11th. The New England Patriots are plus 6,000 to win the Super Bowl, 25th out of 32 teams.

You don't see that a lot. Not used to seeing that very often. Speaking of the Pats, the reason I bring this up, not because I like the Pats, but looking at the odds, that Eagles line is such a sucker, but it has to be, right? All the public money is going to be on the Eagles laying four and a half at New England. Later Sunday window,

is New England really going to hang with Philadelphia week one? Especially Belichick too, who usually will tell you September is kind of when you're still figuring out who you are. Philly has a pretty good idea of who they are. And if anything, you look at last year and feel like Hertz is going to be even better, right? So New England feels like it should be plus seven. And then as soon as you see plus four and a half, you're like, okay, instead of going, yeah, give me the Eagles minus four and a half. You just feel like an idiot as soon as you do it. Cause you know that your brother-in-law who doesn't want to stay with you in

the hotel is going to be laying the four and a half. So a couple of different things there to track and we'll see how it goes. If we get closer to week one, back to the read now is the best time to join FanDuel. The app is easy to use and you can bet on everything from spreads to player props and more. So visit FanDuel.com slash Ryan and kick off the NFL season with an offer you won't want to miss. FanDuel, official partner of the NFL.

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embargoes apply. $100 off NFL Sunday ticket, not YouTube TV. YouTube TV base plan required to watch YouTube TV. Redemption requires a Google account and current form of payment. Commercial use excluded. As you get ramped up for the start of the college football season and trying to figure out where your favorite school is going to be

playing, it's my least favorite topic. It's my least favorite topic. It's conference realignment. And Chris Bonini, the athletic, has been terrific on this story for a while. Senior writer, college football. He joins us now. Let's start with, you know, despite everything that's gone on, whether it's Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC, USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, the real domino of dismantling this and leading to the current level of chaos

that we're at right now is the Oregon kind of Washington piece. What can you tell us, just to remind everybody of like, new commissioner for the Pac-12, feels like he's close in a couple television options. We know the TV part of it for the Pac-12 has been a disaster for many years. What happened? What did they do wrong to now look like a conference that has an endangered species attachment to it? Yeah, it really starts, I think, back in 2021, summer after the Texas, Oklahoma news drops, because at that point, the Big 12 was the conference in about to blow up, could be torn apart, didn't know what was going to happen to it. And the PAC-12 had the option to grab some of those Big 12 schools. They could have grabbed TCU, Texas Tech, some schools like that. Conference opted not to do it. The presidents didn't want to do it. It was

later reported that USC was one of the schools leading the charge against PAC-12 expansion in 2021. 2022 comes around and USC and UCLA decide they're going to jump to the Big Ten. And so now the Pac-12 is in a weird spot where they have to get going on their new TV deal with only 10 teams, and they don't want to add anybody until they do that TV deal first. So about a year ago this time, or last fall, they start their negotiations. And ESPN comes with a deal that offers them about $30 million per school in general. And the conference says, no, we think we're more like the Big 10. The SEC should be up in that $40, $50 million per school range. And ESPN just kind of was like, absolutely not. You're not that. And so the Big 12 decides, hey, we'll take $30 million per school.

We'll jump in and do that. And they jump in line. They get ESPN and Fox on board. And then the Pac-12 spends the next almost year trying to figure something out. They're Apple, Amazon, Fox, CW, Ion TV, all these different things that are thrown out there. And ultimately, the best deal that they can put forward to the teams after Colorado leaves a couple weeks ago is an all Apple deal. And for everybody else, for eight of the 10 schools, it was good enough.

But it wasn't good enough for Oregon and Washington. They go back to the Big 10. Is there anything you guys can do to get us in there? We'll take a discount. We'll do anything. Fox eventually ponies up enough money for the Big Ten to take Oregon and Washington. And then the whole thing falls apart. The Big 12 takes a bunch of schools. And now the conference is about to die. Right. And part of the understanding there, too, is the newer members joining some of these conferences that are far more established with it. And we're really talking about two here in the SEC and the Big Ten is that they're willing. It's almost like expansion in the NBA where you're not getting a full tv rights cut your first couple years in you know it's all depending on what their expansion fees i mean

it's just moving numbers around right basically yeah go ahead usc and ucla will be full members when they join the big 10 oregon and washington will not the four pac-12 schools joining the big 12 they will be full members. But the schools that joined this year, Cincinnati, UCF, BYU, Houston, are not. So it's happening in every conference now where not everybody's getting the same amount of money just because they were so desperate to get in. It reminds me a bit, and I was still at ESPN, and look, just because I worked there, it wasn't like I was a part of understanding what was going on. Burke Magnus is one of my favorite guys I've ever interacted with there.

I remember I'm like, hey, look, I'm on the air 15 hours a week. Can you give me a heads up of like, just so I don't sound like an idiot? Because we had some reporters going on TV, just getting it totally wrong when the people who actually knew what was going on with the big 12. I mean, you could argue back then ESPN saved that version of the big 12. And we had reporters going on getting stuff wrong because let's face it, there was far more on the line of getting these TV deals done than it was making sure that your five minute hit on sports center was accurate. And I reached out to Burke, and Burke was like,

you know, I appreciate the inquiry. And he was really nice about it. I think he even respected the question, but at the same time, I was like, dude, good luck on your B block. But, you know, I'm dealing with every one of these schools and trying to figure out a package that makes sense for us financially and, you know, helps another conference survive. And, you know, prior to that, the Big East, it felt a lot like that's what the Pac-12 did. Years ago, the Big East was like,

that's not good enough for us. ESPN's like, it kind of is. And they're like, we can do better. It's like, no, you can't. And it's tough if you're some of these amazing programs that have had a really good run. Oregon, certainly one of them. Washington has flirted with some big time stuff as well. And you're like, we shouldn't be making that much less than these other programs that are located geographically differently. And, you know, that's the scary thing.

And I'm trying not to cowherd this analogy, but it's a bit like real estate in certain markets the last three years that have blown up post and during the pandemic, like all these retreats in these mountain areas where it's like they couldn't list the property high enough. They just couldn't. And if you look at it now, it finally got to a point where it's like, okay, that's too high. You've listed it too high. And I think these schools felt like for the longest time, there was never a price that was too high for the television

companies. And clearly we've been in a reset of what that market is for a couple of years. And the PAC-12 was the one that completely misjudged it again. Yeah. And that's a conference that has a group of presidents who are not keen on athletics the same way that everybody else is. They don't treat it like a business, like the SEC, like the Big Ten do. It's not as cutthroat. The academic standards are extremely high there.

They didn't want to expand for the longest time because they didn't want to bring in schools with lesser academics, your Boise States, your BYUs for religious reasons and stuff like that. But the PAC 12 didn't realize you need bodies at this point because you are going to lose members. When the Big 12 lost Texas and Oklahoma, Big 12 lost Texas and Oklahoma, it immediately backfilled with UCF, Houston, BYU, Cincinnati. The Pac-12 loses USC and UCLA. They don't do that. They could have added SMU and San Diego State if they wanted to, but the conference didn't want to do it like that. They wanted to do the TV deal first, much to the confusion of all sorts of media consultants I talked to. You want to have those bodies in case you lose a couple more schools.

And they didn't. And now they're down to four, possibly two. It's pretty much done at this point. Okay, here's something else that you've been on now. And I looked at it and I was like, I don't know. But if we look at realignment in the present version of it, you don't even think we're close to being done.

If it's a four-phase plan, are we just in phase two? Are we getting even closer to the idea that it's going to be two versions of the Big Ten and the SEC, and they may take Florida State and Clemson down south and drop some of the... I was reading a Vandy article the other day. It's like, hey, we're a charter member. We're a charter member. It's like none of it matters anymore. None of the rules seem to matter anymore, other than a couple of the geographical states like arizona saying we have to stay together uh which is nice in theory but i just wonder how

ugly this is going to get because i hate it yeah if the acc adds stanford and cal this week depending on when you're listening to it, it may or may not have happened by now. It should, I think, die down for like five years. Because when 2030 comes around, the Big Ten deal is up again. The SEC deal is up again a little bit after that. The ACC will be closer to its 2036 time when it comes up. And that's when you could see the next big explosion of something going on. I mean, we've got Florida State right now publicly saying like,

we don't make enough money in this conference, in the ACC, and we need to get out. That is, they're not being coy about what they want to do because they're thinking we can't be 20, 30, $40 million behind the Big Ten and the SEC if we want to compete for national championships. And that's the spot that the ACC finds itself in. You have Florida State and Clemson, maybe Miami, North Carolina, some of these schools that feel like they need to be in that top tier.

And so if the funny the weird thing about the backfield's demise is that we kept hearing in the days leading up to it, the Big Ten doesn't want to be the one to deliver the death blow. The Big Ten really doesn't want to look like it tore apart the Pac-12 conference. And then Fox comes in with enough money for Oregon and Washington, and the Big Ten does exactly that. It is ruthless now. A couple of years ago, the Big Ten, the ACC and the Pac-12 created what was called the Alliance. An agreement that was not in writing that they were going to basically work together and not poach each other. And then a year later, USC and UCLA go to the Big Ten. It's turned into a rootless business, and I am worried very much about consolidation at some point.

That's what conference realignment is. It's consolidation. The SEC and the Big Ten now have more than half of the Power Five schools. And so at some point in the future, at what point does Ohio State say, you know what, Indiana doesn't deserve to make as much money from the conference as we do? When does Alabama say, you know, Vandy doesn't deserve to make the same amount of money we do from this television deal? And that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to be kicked out because you have to get a certain number of votes and that's a whole thing. But the idea of breaking away either from a conference or from the NCAA or something could be more on the table. I think about the Premier League.

When you had those top soccer teams in England, they were tired of having to follow the same rules as the fifth tier team, you know? And so they broke off, created the Premier League, became a new top tier type of thing. And so it could be SEC and Big Ten schools leaving the conference to do something else on their own. And when and if, I guess, college football players need to be paid or become employees if one of the courts rules on this, then the money is going to become even more important

and you're going to have schools that can pay players and schools that can't. And that's when you start to get more and more of a divide in this stuff. So it's possible it could stay cool for a bit because the TV deals were just signed. But the next time they come around in five, six, seven years, there could be another monumental change. Yeah. Like, look, I'm all for free market. I'm all for, you know, the, obviously there's, there's downsides to any structure that you'd want to have in your government, uh, economically. But I also think there becomes a line where it's, you know, the sport that I love as much as any of them. I like it as much as the NBA. And I've said this before, but maybe I'm a little too romantic about it, but I liked that PAC 12 games look like PAC 12 games. I like the big 12 games look like big 12

games and every conference you could turn it on. And granted, if you know the teams, you know the teams, but like you just knew. And, um, it feels a little recency bias with some of the stuff. Like I think Stanford five years ago, people were fired up to Adam. Yeah. And now they have a bad run. The David Shaw exit happens. And now all of a sudden it's like Stanford. Stanford can't find a home.

Now, granted, you're right. On the school side, between Stanford and Cal, we're not talking about people that are prioritizing football the same way they are at Mississippi State and Alabama. And look, if you're going to compete in this world, you can't start prioritizing the wrong things because ultimately this is the cash cow. So when I think about the consolidation of all of it, yeah, I don't think Vandy should make as much as Alabama. I don't think Rutgers should make as much as some of these other Big Ten schools. It's a joke. But I don't think the Hornets should make as much as the Lakers in the national TV deal.

But if you don't have these other pieces in play, then you start to destroy the product. What if you applied the same free market principles that you're applying in college football that people argue that this is just the way of the world? What if you did it to the pro leagues? What if you say? You know what? The Yankees and Red Sox, they're way too popular. They shouldn't be in a division with Tampa, so they should be able to go somewhere else.

I mean, maybe some people would still agree with that, right? Whatever that line is where you're like, Hey, this doesn't make any fucking sense anymore. We're we we've smashed through it. And the other part that I fear too is,

and they'll have to figure this all out with the playoff expansion and everything else, is there's going to be really good teams that have four losses. And then there's going to be some other leftover conference that's arguing about their 11-1 team that somehow we're supposed to take seriously. And I'm not trying to dump on Boise State retroactively.

They proved they could play with anybody in one game, but they never proved to me that they could play that kind of schedule for 12 straight weeks because the bottom half of the conferences that they were in, you're like, give me a break. So now we're going to open up this whole other part of this argument where you've got these other schools going, well, look at our record and we're still like a power four or whatever this, this ultimate, like it actually is going to be really shitty for the fans when you have a really good team, if in the former structure where you might be playing for a national championship,

and instead you have four losses because you're in the same conference as Florida State, Clemson, LSU, and Alabama, and Texas and Oklahoma. To your first point about the NBA and sharing revenue among these teams, the leaders in college sports need to at some point realize that they are business partners and not just competitors. The problem is college sports has never had a single entity for everyone. You know, each conference does its own thing. Basically, since the 1984 Supreme Court case, NCAA versus Board of Regents, which said that the NCAA can't limit the TV deals, that conferences and teams can make their own TV deals. And the lawyer who was for that

and led it to happen, the guy who led the case, told NBC recently, I may have screwed up college football. And I didn't know it at the time because that's what led to the conferences getting all this power, all this money,

and making their own decisions separate from other conferences. And to the last point about the playoff, it's not the Boise States that I wonder about. It's what happens when you have a second-place team in the ACC compared to a fourth- or fifth-place team in the SEC or Big Ten. Because the SEC and the Big Ten are now getting so big,

you've taken a conference championship off the board. 12 of those schools that were in the Pac-12, that's one less conference championship for them to go to now. Now you're going to have more schools that are disappointed if they don't win their conference championship and when they have a playoff spot coming up. It has not been thrown out there at all. This is just completely me speculating, but I thought about it this week that

realignment and the consolidation of schools in the SEC and the Big Ten is going to lead to more disappointed schools in those conferences that perhaps the playoff does expand again to 16 or to something more. Because what happens when the SEC gets four teams in and it felt like it should have had

six. That's the kind of thing that I'm starting to wonder about more down the road. Yeah, right, because you eliminate the geographical balance that we all grew up with where you're like, hey, I wonder if Bradford and Oklahoma can hang with Tebow in Florida. That was something you get really excited about.

Now they're going to play each other before then and then maybe play each other in a conference championship game. And then they get matched up in the playoff and you're kind of like, all right, I don't really know what it means anymore because they're supposedly identifying as the same conference.

And then it eliminates, you know, when Mississippi State's number one in the country and Dak rolls in and granted, you know, Alabama put it on him. But those special years that don't happen very often for the lesser programs where you're hanging in at the very end, wondering if you're going to win your division. And now you may not even be in that conference anymore. And so there's there's all of these things as a fan. Go ahead. Yeah.

Yeah. Like right there. Like if you're a Purdue fan, you just won the Big Ten West last year. and so there's there's all of these things as a fan go ahead yeah yeah like right there like if you're a purdue fan you just won the big 10 west last year now next year divisions are gone and you've added usc ucla oregon washington all above you like you've just gone down several pegs and you're probably not going to play for the big 10 championship i don't think that's good for fans in the long term no it isn't good and it makes me honestly chris it's making me root against something that i love dearly which doesn't i don't know how often i can go back in my life and say when did you want something to fail that you cared about so much and that's kind of where

i'm at with it like i get it it. It's all about the money. I don't need to hear it. I understand it. I have the internet too, but I really think this is the first part of like a breaking point of, of basically telling all of the customers that, you know, we don't really give a shit about you. And long term, I don't know how anyone could argue that that's a good business practice. What it is, is going for the casual fan. This is the big bet on the networks. The reason they're going all big on the big conferences

and realignment in Oregon State and Washington State are getting left behind, and more schools could get like get left behind for they're aiming for that NFL fan in New York City who when Ohio State USC is on they go oh I'll watch that I'll catch a little bit of that as opposed to the Washington State fan who grew up in in the eastern side of the state and they've been going to the games for a long time because there's just more of those casual fans. This is a push toward casual fans, consolidation of the big brands,

and the diehards who love the second-tier, third-tier, fourth-tier schools are going to get left behind. Washington State put a ton of money into a lot of facilities in recent years, and now they're about to make like $20, $30 million less per year as a department because of that. And they have to figure out some way to help pay that off now

because everybody thought we were going in it together. And now you've got everybody just dumping people off to the side all for a general fan. You want more Ohio State-Oregon games? We'll give you that. You want more Florida-Oklahoma games? We'll give you that. You want more Florida-Oklahoma games? We'll give you that. But at what cost?

You know, at what cost does that mean to the fans? What cost does that mean to, if you're not a fan of those top 20 schools? Like, where do you, are you worried about your future? I think you are. I think every, administrators at all these schools are, because they don't want to be the next Washington State now. Well, you're absolutely right about the casual, you know, the secondary, the tertiary fan that you're just going, OK, how do we get them to pay attention?

And maybe it's with more of these marquee matchups. And look, hockey fans can tell you like straight up, like they know they have the tier one fan no matter what they do. You know, no matter what they do, they're going to stick around. And maybe that's the bet. So I'm not pretending that I know that I'm right. No matter what they do, they're going to stick around. And maybe that's the bet.

So I'm not pretending that I know that I'm right. But I've always felt like as somebody that had to talk about it every single week for 20 years, the NFL fan looks down on college football. The guy that's chanting J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets. A lot of those guys think college football sucks. And they root against any college coach that comes into the NFL. They get way more down on the college guy that comes in and fails than just the coordinator that fails in the next step. There's like this weird pride that the NFL,

the NFL only fan has where I don't know if you're convincing him to completely change his viewing habits because you have these marquee matchups. And by the way, if you weren't watching some version of Ohio State, USC, or Texas and Alabama now, why are you going to watch it when it's repackaged and they're all in the same conferences? Because the other thing that you're taking away from it is you're not. And granted, most of these games happen at the beginning of the year. But you liked this team coming from a different part of the country to face the other one to see whose style of football held up. And now the style differential, like it just does.

It's not going to be the same thing. So if that's the bet, maybe they're right. it's not going to be the same thing. So if that's the bet, maybe they're right. Again, I'm not saying I know for a fact, but I think I have a pretty good gauge on how hardcore NFL fan feels about Saturdays because they kind of shit on it all the time.

Right. Look, the NFL is the most brilliant set up sports league in maybe the world. I mean, the way they set up the calendar, the drama, the characters, it's got it all. We don't, in college football, we don't talk about spring football very much anymore because that's now NFL draft season.

Because the calendar has changed. Yeah, not nationally. I mean, there's local people listening to this right now, but for the most part, nationally, people are not paying attention. And like the weekly college football show on ESPN, that's often delegated to ESPN too now because there's a weekly a daily nba show nfl show and college football on the national landscape has kind of taken a back seat i do think if you look at the numbers it's still the second most popular sport in the country right it's just so regionalized and it always has

been and so it's hard for it to become national. I was thinking, like, the Johnny Manziel Netflix documentary comes out. That dude was everywhere. And college football has not had that, really, since then. Baker Mayfield a little bit, but like a star who breaks through, who's in college that the casual fan is going to want to see. Caleb Williams should be everywhere. This dude's going to be the number one pick. He just won the Heism fan is going to want to see. Caleb Williams should be everywhere. This dude's going to be the number one pick. He just won the Heisman. He's incredible to

watch. We should be seeing him everywhere. And instead, their first game of the season is on Pac-12 Network, which I don't even get. So college football does have this problem where it needs to create characters and storylines and interest for casual fans. The problem is the coaches kind of take up all that attention and not the players. That's why I think Deion Sanders in college football is ultimately a good thing

because a lot more people are going to be paying attention to it because of that. But it is a spot where like, look, you'll get more viewers if you have more Oregon State, I'm sorry, Oregon-Ohio State games. And that's ultimately what they're trying to get,

an NFL junior, an NFL-like type of thing. I just don't know if NFL fans are really going to care that much. I'm actually glad you said Oregon State because I feel terrible for them. Yes. I've been to Corvallis, probably won't go again,

and now you're just being told this school or that stadium is in the middle of it. And it's a rough town. And all the transfers over the years that came in. And then every few years they'd have this run. And you're like, this is awesome. And the Civil War against Oregon,

you're telling that entire fan base like, nah, fuck it. Sorry. They could be good this year. Yeah, that's the other thing too right they're ranked i mean washington state's another one where you know the ryan leaf year run to the rose bowl like that's the stuff that i'm going to miss and i don't even care like there's no emotional i've never rooted for any of those teams right and i cannot help and i could

be totally wrong here i could be totally wrong but i can't help but think all the short-term gains are going to cause some real long-term damage to this product. I think so too. I think about, and a lot of these things are going to be decisions made by people who are not in charge right now. But I just think there's probably some executive who says, hey, that Iowa State fan, we need to turn his kid into an Alabama fan. Or that Washington State fan, we need to turn the next generation. He needs to be an Oregon fan or a Washington fan. And just to consolidate those fans, because brands go beyond borders. They go beyond state borders, beyond country borders. You want to be like the NFL where it doesn't matter what the team is.

If it's an NFL team, people are into it. The NFL is such a juggernaut now. But college football has always been different. It's always been regional. There's quirks. There's unique things about it. We don't like the homogenization of college football.

We like that everybody has a unique atmosphere, tradition, college town, all these types of things. I don't think we want it to feel like every school is the same and you can interchange them and we'll watch it or whatever. And look, my perspective is different because I was lucky enough. I think the final count was 60 something campuses that I've been to. And I'd explain it to other people and it'd be like, you roll in and granted, you know, some people take it more serious than other areas of the country, but you roll in and all that matters in this town that doesn't have any other major attraction is that Saturday night. And even though I'm all for the players getting as much money as they can,

the NIL thing is all distraction because as long as it's not the school's money, just let somebody else pay these guys and we'll keep trying to keep it. The other problem that I have with, oh, we can't run the program on this much money. It's like, well, cause you fucking spend it all. Cause you spend it all as soon as you get it. I mean, I remember one time, like another cow herd for you, but it was like the first time I was going to make a hundred thousand dollars in my life. And I told my dad, like, I can't believe it. This is amazing. I'm going to save all this money. He's like, no, you're not. You're going to get a new car. You're going to go on two nice vacations. You're going to upgrade your furniture and you're going to have no savings

because it's going to be the first time you finally felt like you could pay your bills and treat yourself. And I was like, Whoa, stung a little bit. And guess what? He was a hundred percent right. And I think, you know, football programs, universities are just versions of the, of the guy that's finally making a little bit money, a little bit of money. So when they cry about how they can't keep up with these other programs and it's this massive arm race, yes, it's true, but it's also they're incredibly inefficient with how much they spend. They update these practice facilities every couple of years because they're afraid that the rival down the street just added fucking bigger TV screens. I mean, all of it is stupid because they're finding a way to spend

all of this extra money that blew up during what is, you know, I don't know if it's any kind of bubble for TV rights, but it's getting closer to like the point that I made earlier. Whatever you thought the limitless number was like, we've realized there's no longer a limitless part of this because the TV part of the equation is all over the place. And these people are trying to survive. So they spend the money because they have to spend the money because they're non-profits, most of these places. They can't hoard the money, so you've got to spend it somewhere. So you expand the coaching staff, you expand the nutrition staff, the recruiting staff, the administration. You've got Olympic sports coaches making $300,000, $400,000

on a sport that loses money, so to speak. The model is all effed up, And it's only a relatively new problem. There was a poll, Washington Post, I want to say like 10 years ago. It was something like only a third of Americans believed that players should be able to be paid. 10 years later, Sportico and Harris Poll did one. It's like two thirds of people believe

players should be paid now. Because you go through enough years of seeing a new building pop up, of seeing a coach get $10 million to go away away and you realize there's kind of a lot of money around these places now maybe the players should probably get part of it it's just that's the foundation of how everything has changed is because the money is blown up and they can't give it to the players i imagine there's some people listening it's just gonna hey you know especially to me being like you know you're showing your age here a bit.

I think I'm just showing my passion for it. You know, I'm showing my passion of what it meant to look at different conferences and know what to expect. And then the unknown of like, oh, boy, we've got this, you know, late season bowl game. These two things. And I'm not even going to bowl games anymore because that would be a pointless argument. But what you're doing is you're telling the people in Ames, potentially, you're telling the people, maybe at one point, you know,

Nashville isn't exactly the hotbed, but like whatever the next phase of this is where we realistically could be seeing these other schools where it's like, you know what? You're just not a big enough of a market. It doesn't matter. And your point was the right one out of all that we've talked about

is that the reason it's not a free-for for all in the sports league is you need the league. The league needs to exist and you're all partners. And it does mean if you have a better brand that you're going to make the same on a split with a brand that's much lesser than you, but that's the deal. And I actually think it's okay. And I hope, I hope we have in five to ten years a moment where a bunch of the schools go this was fucking stupid and let's let's get back to something that made some sense and maybe it's maybe i'm foolish to even think that that's going to happen but you know what it'll take it'll take like an ohio state or an alabama to come in third place for five or six years. If there's some super conference, say 2030 or whatever,

there's some super conference and they have a run being like, hey, we're really good and now we're not even getting into our conference championship game. This is stupid. And maybe it goes back to some version of what it was. I don't know if it goes back, but I do think about Oklahoma fans who are used to winning 10, 11 games every single year. What happens when they're winning eight games every year, nine games every year? Like, does that change? Like so much of the tradition, the brand

of a lot of these programs is winning a lot. And that's going to take years for fans to understand that, that they don't, uh, it's, it's not the way it was before. That you're not going to win 10-11 games every year when you're in this super conference. Oklahoma, real quick, let me just jump in because Oklahoma is a perfect example of something that we haven't touched on. That Oklahoma stuff in the Big 12, that's over. It's not happening.

It's not happening for that program. Even when Oklahoma was down and you look up at the end of the year and be like, oh, they won 11-1. They won the conference again. That's just, that's over for them. So have fun. You're going to have an extra big practice facility now with the extra money,

but you're going to come in third more often than you come in first. Yeah. And in fairness, like the flip side of that, like I talked to Bob Stoops last year, earlier this year when he was with the XFL team and asked him about the scc move and everything and he says look we need better games in norman you know like we don't play the texas game there we don't get that many great home games we're gonna have a lot more we're gonna sell out more seats and stuff like that so like

there's reasons for that but at the same time like we're not getting oklahoma oklahoma state anymore after this year that bedlam game that's in Stillwater this year which is going to be a crazy environment like it sucks it sucks that we went like a decade without Texas Texas A&M until we get them back again now like these are the things we're losing Kansas Missouri Nebraska Oklahoma like just all these rivalry games that are going by the wayside that means something like you could lose every game but you win that one game and you're happy. You can talk trash to the fans. The regional point of this, the thing I always come back to

when it comes to the regional side of college football, when USC and UCLA go to the Big Ten, I went to Michigan State from Big Ten country. I asked a bunch of my friends, like, hey, what do you think about USC and the Big Ten? They're like, all right, cool. I've never talked to a USC fan in my life. I go to work with Michigan fans, Ohio State fans, Purdue fans,

and we kind of have that connection of a group of people in the same area. Now when you're going cross-country, you've got fans that are never going to interact with each other, and you just have less of a connection to games when that happens or just a thing that happens on TV as opposed to something that means something more to that community. I think that's something that has made college far different than anything like in the NFL. Like Browns Bengals is not that, you know,

but Michigan, Ohio state is that, and if you're in that game's not going away, but you want to have these things, these connections that matter. Yeah. Look, just cause of the ratings, but like, to me, that's the biggest mistake ever. It it's like, oh man, Titans Jags was fucking awesome last night. You're like, no, it wasn't. It was close. Yeah. It was close. Like it wasn't awesome. That wasn't an awesome game. I mean, it was funny last year. Like, what was that Denver game? Was it a Thursday night game? I don't know if it was Denver indie. It was like the first time I've ever gone, Hey, I'm not going to watch any more of this. Like this game sucks.

I'm going to turn it off and watch something else. I never, ever, ever do that. And I think sometimes, because then the next day I'd be like, oh, look at the number. Like I get it. I get it. But it wasn't better.

It wasn't better than something I saw when it's late in the season. And to your point, Purdue, that mess of a Big Ten West tiebreak at the end, and you're like, wait, what are all the scenarios? And all those schools now, you're right. They've dropped down a tier. They've gotten bumped down four or five slots by all the other teams coming in. And I think you're just telling millions of fans around the country like, hey, it's going to be different. You're really not going to have any chance if you're even lucky enough

to be in this conference in five years. All right, I think we covered it. Go ahead. Go ahead. And look, I guess I'll end this in fairness to all that stuff. Attendance was up last year in college football for the first time in a very long time. I think that was part of COVID and coming back and everything. TV ratings were up. TV ratings are probably going to be up again.

Ultimately, if the numbers are there, if the money's there, that's where these places are going to go. But I think it's, I think college is supposed to, college sports, college football is always supposed to be about more than about money,

more than about a TV rating. It's about a connection between a group of people. And I just, I don't want the sport to lose that. Yeah, we agree, man. Keep up the great work and I don't look the sport to lose that. Yeah, we agree, man. Keep up the great work, and I don't look forward to your next article. Yeah, thanks for having me. They say money can't buy happiness.

Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. The email address is lifeadvice at gmail.com. Back in the States, i'd say i feel refreshed but i don't i

just don't know if the culture's for me here anymore man we have about a two and a half hour travel pod that we're working on we don't know if it eventually will be that long it's fucking long it's a little repetitive at times do you know the final count on that pal i think uh 147 minutes is where i was at when i was i was bouncing it before the pod today and then i didn't actually have enough time i thought like 15 minutes worth of exporting time was enough it wasn't so maybe there will be a cut or two i don't know i think you're a final cut on that but have you yeah then we were we went oppenheimer on this one a saruti did you give any of it a listen yet I've caught the first uh I think the first file you sent to me you know I've got some catching

up to do it seems like he said it in like five installments and by halfway through he's like I don't know I don't know if I want to do this anymore and I was like this might suck yeah and then the next day he was like here's day seven I was like okay all right we're back on yeah I had a day I was like I don't know if this is good enough. It's kind of long and, you know, oh, hey, you went to another place. Got it. And this is old. But then I felt like I finished really strong.

So then I liked it again. So Rudy, we did all this on the phone yesterday. I've caught up for lost time, fucking the amount of times I've called Rudy since I've been back. So I think before we get to the life advice, we got to man frolic room scammer all over the news yeah yep uh it's been uh he's he's got five hundred dollar or five hundred thousand dollars bail uh he's i think there's been a couple more charges on him again you know since we last spoke about him uh and the really hard part is frolic room has been is attached to the pantages theater and their power has been out since like friday last week so i mean people are reeling we got to get this stuff you know that's kind of the town square we have to exchange ideas about this

thoughts and i think today is the first day that it's opening uh since wait so it's not even their clothes you guys haven't had power so you haven't been able to go when's the last time you didn't go to the frolic Room for five straight days? Probably since I was in New York. I don't know. I mean, and we've started going other places. We sit down and we're like, this doesn't feel right. You know, we've, you know, we've like connected at some other places.

I feel like we're like the Sons of Liberty, like trying to find a new like headquarters or something. It's just not right. Everything, everything doesn't feel right. So today I think is the last day. And they kept saying they like their Instagram has been sending updates, and they're trying to send the positive update like, oh, I think we're going to have power tomorrow. We're good. And then twice now, they've said the Frolic Room will be open tomorrow. And then the next day, they'll be like, sorry, Frolic Room's closed again. So it's a rollercoaster of emotions. And I'm going to try to get in there today. Wow. I love the town square analogy, you know, just yield fryer and, you know, just. It's a cultural exchange, you know?

Right. I mean, that's really how we're different than the animals, exchanging ideas and believing gossip. Think about it. The root of everything. Yeah, it wasn't mentioned in the next uh in this latest article the la times too also wasn't mentioned but that's okay wait the frolic room was not mentioned do they not mention i just wasn't mentioned and you know i don't know i'm not i'm not saying like i cracked the case here but i don't know i was definitely if they made a documentary about it i think there would be at least a clip of this podcast but whatever yeah it feels like you're

working on mike and mike because that was the thing if you didn't work on mike and mike you weren't gonna be in the documentary wow okay okay okay when we used to do some of the espn docs and be like what'd you guys do like oh we made a doc about vineyard high school football like could you use like oh we used all the guys from mike and mike like oh okay um so yeah if there's a frolic room scammer that's made for netflix everybody loves that scam stuff it's easy to make just fucking keep showing like money next to a bar with like a wet glass stain and just keep going back to that shot over and over again it's like the world war ii and color thing i've seen that same plane go down 1,000 times. Pitch it to Bill.

Pitch it to Bill. Ring our films. Bill will just say no. He's not going to say yes to that. I just don't think he would do it for you. All right. Let's get to some emails here. You guys ready to get some awesome to standard advice here?

Bachelor Party Etiquette is the older dude in the group, 31 years old. to standard advice here. Bachelor party etiquette is the older dude in the group, 31 years old. All right, so that means you're going with the young guys. 6'1", 185. Gym stats are unremarkable

and no basketball comp. Hey, just like me, coming back from Spain, fucking wondering, hey, am I going to have to ask for a spot today? I hear you, buddy. No basketball comp,

but I keep myself in pretty good shape and was a very good high school lacrosse player. Awesome. And I have a frame that would make you think I was a pretty good midfielder when in reality I'm slow as hell and play goalie. Alright, so not the basketball comp we normally get, but a

full, full-blown 24-7 breakdown of lats. My brother-in-law, my wife's brother, recently got engaged and plans for his bachelor party are in the works, planning on Charleston. Good call. Of note, he is 24 and all of the other guys that will be on the trip are 23 to 24 years old. I'm very close to my brother-in-law. I've known him since he was a kid and we hang out pretty frequently and get along really well.

I've met a few of the other guys along the way, but we don't know any of them that well. Current plan is an Airbnb for a condo or house in the area. There'll be around eight to 10 guys in total. Good size group. Good size group. My question, should I be a good soldier and stay at the Airbnb or should I spring from my own hotel room nearby? I'm looking forward to the weekend and I'm obviously planning on partaking in all the plans for the weekend, but at the same time, coming back to my own quiet king size bed around midnight or 1 a.m. sounds much more appealing than combating the spins and reflux

in a bunk bed with music still playing at three in the morning. This will be the first bachelor party for all the guys except for the groom when he went to mine. Myself, oh, wow. So this is their first one. The first ones for us were shit shows.

Shit shows. Like a guy came out of a strip club bleeding once we were like i don't just get in the bus we didn't know what was going on um myself and one other guy so i imagine they'll be coming in hot i think that's fair to say especially friday night as we all tend to do uh in these sorts of scenarios right when you're younger and actually when you're older too you usually fucking light the candle a little too hard on the first night it's very rare unless it's a college football saturday where you just look around and be like, hey, you know what? Let's not have tomorrow be the living dead.

I'm like, hey, great call. A hotel will probably be a little more expensive. Yes. But I'd be willing to spend the extra money. Another piece of information that factors into my preference for a hotel. My wife and I have an infant at home. So if I'm going to be spending a weekend away, I figure I might as well take advantage of the time apart and be able to enjoy some peace and quiet at night. So what would you guys do in my situation? As a secondary question, if I were to stay in a hotel on my own for the

weekend, how do I tactfully bring it up my brother-in-law and how much should I chip in for the Airbnb? My rationale should be to pay one third, one half of what the other guys are paying, excluding food and alcohol. Nope. Yeah. I was with you for such a long time. Although there may be a zero number too. So we'll get to this. Since I've been using the house for other portions of the weekend besides sleeping,

pretty much all the other guys are just getting started in their post-grad jobs. Whereas I am more established in my career and I want to be hanging these guys out to drive by not staying and not paying my share. Does that seem too generous, too cheap or about right? Was thinking I would come by in the morning at least one of the days with bagels, breakfast burritos or something of that nature. Lastly, any general advice you all may have about how to approach a bachelor party weekend being the older guy by a pretty good margin with a group that you don't know that well? By no means am I trying to fully integrate like the core to become a core guy here into the group, but it would be nice for us all to have a fun time.

It would make the wedding itself more fun if we had a good base for the bachelor party to build upon. I'm going to tell you right now, this is a really tough one. I know it can seem easy. Maybe you guys will think it's easy. Okay, fine. Because here's what I wouldn't want to happen. First of all, 31 to 24 isn't that big of a difference.

I would treat a bachelor party at 31 like I was 30 or like I was 24. All right. So with my group of friends, 31 at a bachelor party, nobody, you know, elder state's been rolling through. Okay. Um, so you may be more mature. There's a pretty much a hundred percent chance you were more mature at 31 than I was at 31. All right. So the thing you don't want to do though, even though I think the age gap isn't as extreme as you may think it is, but I'm kind of focusing on the 31 part on your end. But the first party, great tidbit there. They are going to be coming in red hot. The first couple of weddings, the first couple of bachelor parties for all of our guys when it was like mid 20s.

Those were fucking free for all. Certain guys weren't getting invited to the next one because of something they did the one before. Time out. There was there was one groom that like absolutely lost and fucking everybody because there was a golf cart that was crashed and we're like dude this is a massive overreaction he's like no this is you guys knew you were doing it and we're like no shit we're gonna do it um but the point is i don't think the 31 to 24 thing is that big of a difference what i would as a 24 year old who doesn't know you know what i wouldn't want you to do be absolutely human torch the whole weekend either because sometimes you'll have that

you'll have the older guy that's so fired up to relive it all that he's such a fucking mess the whole weekend that it actually is kind of like whatever i mean you're already dealing at a deficit you're talking about eight nine core guys at this age. And so I don't think they're going to care if you're not at the Airbnb. They're not going to understand the kid thing. The parents that are listening right now, especially first time parents, the idea of waking up in your own hotel room, being able to sleep in a little bit on your own and not have to do a parent duty for 48 hours. That's like, that's the best vacation you could ever fucking go on for the new parents that are listening right now. The finances is about the

group. There's not a rule that works here perfectly. I think it's actually great that you're saying, hey, let me kick in a little. And by the way, you need to sell your brother-in-law on it first. So your brother-in-law is selling it to anyone who could have a potential problem with it. If there's eight to 10 guys that are getting into the Airbnb, your sliver for the bunk bed isn't going to completely change their cost model. Okay. So that's the other thing. So it's, I don't feel like this is you letting anybody down financially. You clearly want to stay in the hotel. And I think the most important part is if you're not down for the 3am Taylor Swift party and you're going to be fucking miserable, definitely don't stay there.

And they may prefer you not being there. So I think you've got it mapped out. I think your instincts are really good here. Get your brother-in-law to sell it. Figure out the price ahead of time. Make sure he knows because there's always going to be one fucking guy that's like, oh, he was here like three days and he drank at the pool and he's not going to pay anything. And now I got to pay 112 instead of fucking 104. There's always going to be one of those fucking guys

that fucks it up for everybody else. Just make sure your brother-in-law sells it on everybody. Um, because I think your head space is clearly mature and in the right spot here because there's going to be some late night shit that you don't want to do, but I'm telling you, they probably don't want you there either. Even if you're the greatest fucking guy of all time but the non-core guy with the bachelor party deal it's usually a recipe for disaster me i love hanging out with older guys so i would have loved you to be at my 24 year old bachelor party i just love hanging out with older guys that's what i like yeah um is that did i say something weird i said i love hanging out with older guys did i not say that i said i love older guys. Totally normal.

Yeah, whatever. I'm excited to see my, you know, 80 year old Vietnam vet. I haven't caught up with him in a couple of weeks. So, uh, I'm just ready for a new story. You're better than I am. We've already established this. Okay. Um, I think though what you do, you still want it to seem like you're all in, even if you're not.

So, I mean, if, like I said, if the price is $125 for you to have one eighth of that or one 10th of that Airbnb, I still think you pay that unless like, if it's, if it's like under $200, I still think you pay that because it's, you want it to seem like it's all cohesive, even if it's not like my brother did that when we had my bachelor party, because he went and picked up his Russian girlfriend from like Texas and then drove from Florida to Texas and then drove up to my bachelor party in Ocean City, Maryland. And like, I mean, that was insane already, but he like they stayed together. So he got like, wait, what did he do? My brother goes to Florida State.

He's married, married. He thank God he's dating this woman that he met in mexico she's a russian she's 32 so we've been over this right so uh we love she went picked her up in texas i imagine at the border and then uh drove he went drove from uh tallahassee to texas and then drove from texas to my bachelor party because this was like when college was so he on his way to your bachelor party he just made a quick stop in texas from florida then drove up to the northeast insane stuff the atlantic as a 20 year old kid i was like i can't believe he did that i wouldn't even i wouldn't i wouldn't even have known how to start that whole thing there has to be a better way to have done that

there has to be a better way but there just wasn't i don't know maybe flights were not an option for who knows we're just not asking questions at this point so uh i think i think um so what he but he was with us the whole time although he he was the youngest guy in the group versus the oldest but he like got a hotel or he has to be accepted right it was accepted but like but he made sure that he was always there but also it wasn't like well i shouldn't pay for the you know because like like you're right it was was like $112. And he had a thing where he didn't want to be a part of this. So he just made it work for him, but still, you know, was exactly like everyone else in the party, which means he paid for stuff. I think he brought over like eight pounds of fucking bacon, like to throw in the fridge, like that nobody cooked.

And then they left in the Airbnb. And I think they charged us for leaving like great, like good quality bacon in the freezer whatever fuck you guys but i just think i'm not even laughing about that anymore i by the way so did your brother bring his girlfriend to your bachelor party and then not stay with you guys stashed her yeah she she was like stashed like i don't know 15 minutes away in some other like apartment and i only saw her because he drove me up uh to go get catch a flight in philly to get back uh when it was all done i the first time i met her was when everyone was clearing out of the airbnb and he was just like oh so i was like so you've been here the whole time huh she's like yes i was like okay all right well nice to meet you um but i guess

it was it was strange and then we were in the car for a couple hours on the way to Philly, and not much was said. But she was there. She was at the wedding, and she was staying at my parents' house with him all summer. So we had a few conversations while I was back. But I guess my whole point was that he made sure that the shit that was different for him was for him. He made sure everything. He was like one of the guys.

Right. But he's younger, and he's your brother, and and he's that young and everybody kind of has to look. I always feel like there's one guy that's going to be mad about the math and all of this. Um, I think it to the email or offering it up, figure out something that's fair, make the offer, you know, honestly, though, if it's 10 guys in an Airbnb, they should be able to be able to handle the, the extra money that it's going to be for one guy deciding it isn't want to be a full share. I mean, you could become a full share if you want. Some people would say, Hey, that's the right thing to do. Other people just like, Hey, that's ridiculous. If you get in this hotel room and he's not staying there,

he shouldn't have to be a full share guy. Uh, but I think the most important thing is that you don't want to be there for the late night stuff and my guess is the core guys won't care that you're not there so that's the foundation of your answer so there's probably a minute where he's like somebody is that like one in the morning like where the fuck is todd and they're like oh yeah he's got the hotel and that'll be it that'll be it and then maybe you'll you'll get like a comment the next day but it's not going to ruin anything for sure i gotta be honest i don't i don't love it. I was in this exact same scenario. Any of it. Any of it. I was in this exact same scenario. My brother-in-law

got married. This was two summers ago. Two summers ago? Yeah. Or maybe last summer. Either way, I was in my... March has been so long this year. Who knows? I don't even know what year it is. I was 33 I think at the time. They were all in their mid to late 20s. So kind of similar age gap. Not the same quite range, but the same number of years. I knew some of them

didn't really know any others. I just kind of feel like it's a weird move to be the loner guy, even if you are the old, because I was the oldest guy there. I was kind of bummed too, because his brother-in-law that, you know, on the other side was supposed to come and didn't come and he's older than me. So I was like, great. Now I'm the old guy at this bachelor party. I think you just suck it up, dude. Like, I mean, you're just kind of I just feel like it's a buzzkill. If you are going to be like the guy that's doing his own thing for the whole weekend. And I'm going to be a much bigger buzzkill one night, too. He's fucking so sick of everybody and he can't fall asleep.

Let me tell you, dudes are. But it's only two. I would say exactly. I went to sleep at 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. the first night because we woke up at 4 a.m., got a flight, went down to Charleston. We were on Isle of Palms. It was beautiful. We got a big house, you know, right kind of on not on the beach, but like the street back from the beach. And, you know, the other thing, too, is like, can you just tell your your brother in law like, hey, like, is there any situation where I can get my own room? Because I got my own room. And obviously that's kind of a game changer. But like we're talking houses in Charleston, like they're going to be big you've got a bunch of dudes there's a good chance that there's going

to be a room with a bunch of bunk beds there's going to be you know probably the master that the that the groom is going to sleep in there's like a decent chance you can get your own room and i don't remember i mean listen i've been drinking all day so i went to sleep pretty easily uh both nights we were there but like i don't ever remember like being woken up by dudes raging and they were having a good time late at night and I even partook in one of the nights not all the nights but I don't know I just kind of feel like it's a weird buzz you're already putting off a bad vibe by showing

up in the morning with bait like you're just not a part of the crew and I don't know maybe I would just rather have the camaraderie yeah you're not gonna not everyone's gonna be buddy buddy but like the whole point is like you're there in this house everybody's hanging out and like the point of a bachelor party isn't so you can get some sleep because you have an infant i just i don't like the vibes all around i really don't i think you gotta just suck it up and go

and see if you can get your own room i think you're right i think you guys might be right throw a little extra because you're gonna spend way less on paying a little extra for the room than you would it's not even about the money i know but it sounds like it kind of is for this guy because he's asking about it i just i just you don't want to be like, you're already the older guy outcast. You don't want to be the guy that isn't in the house. I don't know. I wouldn't do what this guy's, like what he's suggesting he might do. But I like what you're saying, bud.

I think my friends are just meaner because I cannot imagine a scenario where we were all 24 and there'd be a 31-year-old guy staying there and then being like, oh, it's a little loud. Like the second he would do that, it would be over. I mean, he would be like, how'd you get it? He just doesn't want to deal with that, right? That's what he's saying. I don't think he'd be like, could you guys maybe fucking not? I think he would just be like, this sucks. This is hell.

I can't wait to go home. We wouldn't want him there. We wouldn't. I don't know. 31 is not 41, though. I don't know. is not 41 though I don't know you guys are still fun at 30 I had a great time I'm applying 24 year old us

to it so maybe alright you definitely gotta ask the groom by the way ask cause you know first off run it by him if he's like hey man like I was hoping we'd all be in the same house together then you have to stay in the same house um okay we'd all be in the same house together. Then, then you have to stay in the same house. Um, okay. Let's get to this one.

It's quicker. Uh, let's see. All right. Our man's checking in six, one, one 60, 39 years old.

No basketball comp because I suck. I put two 25 up six times the other day in my basement. That's about all I've got going for me. That's the only thing. If that's the only thing you're fucking winning at life, dude. Good for you. My friends are thinking of a guy's trip in the next few years. We've all known each other since college and starting to turn 40.

Almost all married with kids. The two options thrown out are an Alabama game or a waste management open. I like the idea of the football game, but we'd be terribly out of place when it becomes abundantly clear we're neither college-aged nor in any way affiliated with Alabama. That's completely irrelevant. I'm just telling you right now. Waste management looks fun, but also hectic. I'm not sure I'm trying to get in line at 4 a.m. just to watch people throw beer at the greens.

Look, I've been to both. I've been to Bama multiple times, quite a few. And I've been to waste management two or three times. Depends on what you want at waste management. Because there's like that group, and then there's like another group above that. And then you learn it's like these secret quests where there's an even better tier somewhere else. I've been lucky enough to be, I think, at the second best tier. And it's awesome. but we're also not running in at 4 a.m with everybody else but i would tell you that if you go on a non-saturday sunday the

move would be to maybe do the thursday or do the friday and then get the out of there that was the thing van pelt always told me he's like whenever you go to the golf tournament one of the bigger ones he's like the very latest, go Saturday, then leave Saturday. Don't stay Sunday and then leave with everybody else because it's mayhem. So the scattering report would be to go, it sounds like one day or maybe the Thursday into Friday or maybe Friday into Saturday. And then the good thing about waste management is you're leaving Phoenix. So you're going to get many more options for direct flights in and out of there.

But the thing is, is it is a free for all, but it's also not like not everybody is walking around throwing up on each other. The fact that it's at a golf tournament on the PGA tour and you will see it every five to 10 minutes is kind of like still like, whoa, all right, that guy's out of his fucking mind. But because there's so much wandering and meandering, if you run for an awesome spot, like those people that do that are going to be so drunk later on they're walking around getting beers concession the whole thing so like nothing's better than the masters because the masters you can show up in their seats that people run in and put their chair down at like amen corner and fucking have it perfect but if they're not in

their chairs you can go sit in their chairs and if they come back and you're in their chairs everybody's very cordial about it they tap you you and go, Hey, those are our chairs. And you're like, okay, cool. No problem. See you later. Thanks for letting us sit in them. And you're supposed to let people sit in your chairs when you're not there. Um, waste management, obviously it's not that, but because there's so much movement of all the different people, you're going to just be able to walk and find spots. You're not going to be so far. You're not going to be a thousand people deep because nobody ever moves. That crowd moves, baby. They move around. They want to see what's going on over there. They want to start talking to other people and meeting up with all these different

people. So flights in no problem, depending on what you want to spend. But even if you're just walking the grounds the whole time, I wouldn't worry about it being so chaotic. And I would go a little bit earlier. I, despite my love for LSU would tell you that when they play sweet home, Alabama, the beginning Brian Denny Stadium, it is one of my favorite fucking moments in sports. It is incredible. But if you go to Bama on a not marquee game, which means it's

harder tickets to get the marquee ones, when you go, they're so spoiled. When game day was there towards the end, when I was still at ESPN, game day showing up to other campuses, they'd lose their minds. Bama was like oh there's game day and then just keep moving so there's a very like this they block off this whole area when the game day comes right there's a like they deserve to be they like they're they're right to

be spoiled but they're fucking spoiled so if it is not LSU if it is not like you know again depending on the cross match with Tennessee and then whoever's they get slotted with if it is not like, you know, again, depending on the cross match with Tennessee and then whoever's they get slotted with, if you're not picking a game that looks like it's going to be special, which also means the tickets are going to be brutal. Um, you can, you can roll into that place and it's dead by the end of the second quarter because they're smashing somebody and the kids are like, now we want to go drink. Saban's even bitched about it in the past. The in-game stadium setup is on the higher end. I wouldn't put it up against LSU. I wouldn't put anything up against LSU, but it's still really,

really good. And they've done this late light show. And look, I don't know, I think the last time I was there, I'm trying to think, it might've been three years ago. And if you're not from the area, experiencing the culture will be something that you'll get there that you don't get at waste management because the culture part of Phoenix is like, hey, it's fucking hot. And like guys wear aggressively stitched jeans and seem to have super hot older women with them all the time. Like think about Miami Heat courtside guy. If he could invent town, he would invent Scottsdale. So Scottsdale has its own thing, you know, and if some of the guys aren't married, like you're never going to do better in your life as a single guy than being in Scottsdale.

I don't know what the fuck they put in the water there. You know, Mastro's the next thing you know, you're like, who am I talking to? This is nuts. Uh, that's probably not going to happen for you at Gillette's, um, in Tuscaloosa. Um, so I think there's a cultural thing of Southern football. If you don't have, like, if you get it, you get it. And it's one of my favorite things is learning about it and understanding it and identifying the different areas and how they're different, how they're the same and how they all think they're different from each other. And then me be not being from there. I'm almost like, yeah, I don't know if you guys are as different as you think you are, but they do. Maybe they are. are maybe i'm wrong but there'll be a moment of being in the south for alabama football on a saturday night that is tough to replicate

anywhere else uh so if that's what you're going for an experience you've never experienced before fine if you're looking for efficiency and a better hit rate on it working out for you i'd go waste management that was a long answer jesus i would choose i would choose the golf tournament efficiency, and a better hit rate on it working out for you, I'd go waste management. That was a long fucking answer. Jesus. I would choose the golf tournament, I think. As a guy, I mean, it might be easier to get to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. As a guy who just booked a flight to a college town, that sucks. What did you book?

I don't think I could say because it's not announced. But I just booked it. I thought we already announced this on Spotify. But I just booked. Oh, we haven't. I thought we already announced this on. No, next week. Next week. Oh, next week I can announce where we're doing a show. Yes.

Yeah. And anyway. Well, where you try to where we're going for the show, booking that travel is off the charts. Terrible. Yeah. Okay. Like some of the some of the stuff is more. No, I'm not even saying the city. Yeah. Okay. All right, cool. Glad we made that one. We're not even staying in the city.

Yeah. Yeah. You kind of end up having... Wait, so I'm not staying in the city? I don't know what your deal is. Well, yeah. We're on a different email. Like you said, there's different tiers to this shit.

I think we're in the tier where we're not staying in the city. I'm not sure what you're saying. We're staying in a city, but not the city. No, the place we're going, you more often than not have to go to another state. Correct. Yeah, that's where another state. But I was expecting that as the host of the show that I would get to stay in the city where the game was that night. It'd be all right.

Yeah, I'd make a call though because I heard it's pretty booked up already. No, they booked that stuff out years in advance. But this one, this one is one of the all time complicated places to get to. Yeah. Okay, great. So I don't know, like I said,

haven't done way too many college. I'll tell you why. When you go, then you'll know why we booked it there. All right. Okay. Sorry. It wasn't a direct flight.

So, but I'm just, I think as far as like where you're trying to get guys on the same page or something like that, I think you're right. A Phoenix would be way easier to fly into. Um, I mean, I just, I think, uh, I think there's more kind of even just more to do, right. If you're like walking around a golf course for a couple of days. And what I'd like to say is, you know, as being in like a tier seven master's guy, where

I've really only go to the, um, to the beginning stuff, Wednesday and Thursday, which we've already established is actually going to the masters. So Rudy and, um, I think that that was super fun. And I think you're, I think the range of stuff that you can do outside of sitting in a seat and going to the, you know, concession stand and walking around a stadium. I think there's just more stuff to be done and I, you know, guys like to move around. So I would, I would choose that. Um, I would definitely choose waste management.

I think I would too. And only because, you know, Ryan, remember the only time I've been to LSU, I think was when we went to LSU, Alabama in Baton Rouge. Uh,

I forget what year that was. 20. It was seen. It was Jalen Hurst. I believe it's Bamba's quarterback. And it was, and here's the thing. The LSU scene was incredible. And I it's Bama's quarterback. And it was. And here's the thing. The LSU scene was incredible.

And I'm sure the same thing with Tuscaloosa. So that's what just why I'm comparing them. It was incredible. The pregame was incredible. The stadiums incredible night game. It was awesome. But the game sucked. I think it was like 17, nothing Alabama LSU couldn't move the ball.

That was an awful game. It was just a terrible game. And like you risk that going to a Bama game, depending on who they're playing. And when you go to the Waste Management Tour, I feel like you would know, I guess, Ryan, it's less about the golf. Are people that into the actual tournament? Are they more than just walking around,

seeing people, checking out different holes? They're not that concerned about the leaderboard, correct? I assume it's just day experience, whereas I feel like the Bama game is a little bit more game-dependent, sport-dependent, whereas I feel like individually you could have more fun at bit more like, you know, game dependent, a sport dependent. Whereas I feel like individually you can have more fun at the golf tournament. Yeah.

That was the 17 game. It was awful. It was, that was a bad game. Um, I, I would imagine if you pulled every person that's at waste management and ask them who was winning,

I don't know. I 10% might be too high. So like, yeah, if, so if you're going to a great Bama game, and it might not end up being great, but if it's Tennessee, if it's LSU, or whoever they're playing this year, sure. But there's a good chance that Bama's going to blow out this team and it's going to be boring by halftime.

Right, but when it's awesome, like it was in the overtime game against LSU, that wasn't great for Bama fans. But that's one of my favorite games I'll ever go to because it was just, you knew it was on the line. Then you end up getting the rematch in the national championship game. I'll never forget leaving the stadium and be like, do not pick LSU in the national title game.

They're not better than Alabama. Then I was in New Orleans for a few days and as Chris Fowler put it, he's like, the voodoo just starts going because he's like, I picked them too. I was like, I can't believe I fucking picked them. I left the stadium that night walking out of the tunnel like, do not pick them if they play each other again. Do not pick them. He's like, man picked them too. I was like, I can't believe I fucking picked them. I left the stadium that night walking out of the tunnel. Like, do not pick them if they play each other again. Do not pick them.

He's like, man, the voodoo. The voodoo will get you. They did some tricep extensions with a McUltra. All right. I think that covers it. It sounds like waste management around. It's more efficient. It's a better hit rate, but it is not peak Alabama on a Saturday night in SEC college football.

If you've never done it, that to me would be the better experience, but it also depends like how much do you care about drinking? I mean, you can go to Alabama and not be drunk and have a blast. I don't know that you can walk around Scottsdale and not be shit-faced. Maybe. I mean, if you're super, super into golf, you might not even like it, but if there's a single guy in your group, story, divorce, trying to figure it out,

he thinks he's DMing with somebody from OnlyFans right now, send that guy to Scottsdale and look for an efficiency for him. Alright, there you go. Thanks to Kyle, as always, in the mix, Saruti, and Brian Waters for helping out with the show. Brian Russell Podcast, please subscribe.

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