The Ryen Russillo Show - Joel Klatt on the Big 10 Contenders, Bama-Georgia, USC’s Unrealistic Expectations & Michigan’s Problems

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Ryen is joined by FOX’s lead college football analyst Joel Klatt to discuss whether Ohio State might still be the best team in the country, why Bryce Underwood isn’t entirely to blame for Michigan’s problems, USC’s unrealistic expectations, why Miami is still underrated, who they both like when Alabama plays Georgia this weekend, and much more. Plus, Ceruti joins for some listener-submitted Life Advice, including a wedding photo problem and getting out of yard work. JOEL KLATT (00:00) Biggest CFB Surprise (00:00) Big Ten vs. SEC (00:00) What’s Wrong With Michigan? (00:00) Jeremiah Smith the GOAT? (00:00) Worried About Indiana? (00:00) Georgia vs. Alabama (00:00) Texas Overrated? (00:00) How Good Is Miami? (00:00) Big 12 (00:00) USC’s Unrealistic Expectations (00:00) Penn State Mess (00:00) Another Hot Nebraska Start LIFE ADVICE (00:00) Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/ryen. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Trustpilot rating as of 8/1/2026.

Hey, Rasillo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. The Ryan Rissillo Show is presented by Draft Kings. All of our episodes available on Netflix. On today's show, we sit down with Joel Klatt. I'm fired up. We run through our perception of the Big Ten contenders in the summer as of now. Kind of revisit where we're at with Texas and Ohio State,

a result that prevents us from thinking Ohio State is better than them. that we get into that deep stretch of this to some of these other teams. He has a theory that he thinks like number 8 through number 30 or 40 could all be thrown in the same mix. It does get weird after 8 in the AP poll and a lot more including USC. He has a zag on USC. He's got a zag on Bryce Underwood as well. We've got some TV show recommendations for you.

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Terms at DKNG.com slash offer. Limited time offer. nationwide based on sports book predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability varies by state. Joel Clat is the voice of college football for Fox. He has the big noon kickoff game, Indiana at Nebraska, so we'll do a lot of stuff. And, of course, check out the Joel Clat show, both the podcast and YouTube page. Sub numbers are huge, buddy. Good to see that.

You know, it's getting there. Not in your hemisphere, but who is, right? You know what I mean? There's a couple guys down the hallway doing pretty well. That's a good point. Let me start with this, because I think we're aligned on this a little bit, and that usually at this point of the college football season, we're like, all right, well, nobody's beating this team or these three teams.

Right. And that's just not the way the start of this season has felt. So what surprised you to this point? I don't think anything has surprised me. Actually, you know what? It's not at the top. I think that, you know, the seven, teams that we thought were going to be really good outside of Oregon losing that weird one to

Oklahoma State. Like, those teams are good. And I don't know if there's a best one out of those. We can, we can probably talk a lot about those teams. Here's the surprising part is, is the depth of the middle of college football. Like for instance, like, Ryan, in every conference, I think we've got the top two or three and then like 12 teams that can just beat each other. any given week. And we're starting to see that play out. We're seeing that in the SEC. We're seeing that in the Big 10. We always knew that that was the case in the Big 12 with kind of one possession games. And so I'm starting to like look at things like the top 25 poll. And I know that technically speaking, you know, the committee, once they get to the playoff rankings, aren't supposed to like take into consideration the AP top 25. But there's no way you can watch the sport and not have that influence the way that you watch it, consume it.

digest it. And I think that the top 25 is antiquated. And the reason is, is because of this depth of the middle. Like, for instance, if you go from like eight in the AP poll, maybe nine in the AP poll to like 36, would we be that shocked if any of those teams beat each other on a given Saturday? And I don't think that we would. No, eight's where it gets weird because it still feels like, and I touched on this on Monday. The AP still loves BYU, which I don't quite understand. I didn't feel like they'd like Texas Tech. I mean, they beat TCU 17 to 10.

I know. I mean, thank God for that defense, but I haven't beat anybody. And, you know, look, I picked them to make it to the playoffs, so I know what the voters are doing. They're doing what I would probably do is if I were a voter, but I just look at it and go like, well, if Old

Miss has already played at Florida, LSU, and Louisville to start the season, and they have the one. lost. That's the thing that I always feared, not even with the AP, is the committee where I don't know if anybody can ever, like, remove the standings part of this, where you're just like, hey, they have a one and they have a two in the loss column. I have to kind of organize it this way. But like, BYU is getting the benefit of doubt. You could argue Texas Tech is still getting it. I argued last week, like, why are people so dismissive? Like, I get that the Houston game, but at least

it was a ranked team. I get the Oregon State game where it feels like more voters were watching it. And I was kind of surprised because Oregon State was slinging it all over the place against this team that historically, you know, you expect a lot defensively. But the larger point that you're saying here, I don't, I mean, maybe UCLA is better than a bunch of these teams. You know, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Right. Maybe. Maybe Northwestern is. Maybe, you know, how many big 10 teams would Mississippi State beat? How many, you know, SEC teams would Northwestern?

beat, even though each of those conferences fan bases would never want to say like, oh, one or the other. I think the one game, there's always one game that ends up kind of being the lynchpin to the whole season, in particular in conference supremacy. I don't think it's Texas, Ohio State. I don't even think it's Michigan, Oklahoma. I think it's going to end up being that Mississippi State win at Minnesota because of what Minnesota did to Michigan a week ago. And what might have, like if Mississippi State ends up being a good SEC team, but not a great SCC. Like, you know, let's say they just go seven and five, sake of argument. Like, hopefully they do better than that. And I think Camario is amazing.

Then the, you know, the way that the committee looks at the Big Ten is going to be different because of that result of Mississippi State going up to Minneapolis and really handling Minnesota. And then Minnesota, in consecutive weeks, goes to Washington and wins, post-Mishican, and wins. So just keep that game in the back of your mind as we go throughout the season. I think that one's going to be the most pivotal game that we think back to when we're starting to evaluate who's getting in the playoff, what conference is stronger and so on. I think that's a fair point because Minnesota, you know, it's not just a Michigan win, which I don't really know what a Michigan win means. I think, I know you guys have had it a bunch of time. Are you suggesting that

Michigan struggles with consistency? Well, like the Iowa a comeback, I'm going, man, what a nice win for them, right? And then, you know, Minnesota with the history of that rivalry and never winning there, and it's like, all right, that one was at home. But you're like, oh, wow, they took out Michigan. And then there's times where I'm like, you could argue Michigan can have one win if the ball bounces the other way. You've had them a few times. I didn't expect to start in Michigan this soon.

What do you think, Whittingham, he seems, he admitted, he goes, this is the most challenging season, which I was shocked he already said. What do you think happens with him at his quarterback position? All right. Let me start with the, I think, and I'm not suggesting that like you're doing, because you never like just take the low-hanging fruit. But I think it's too easy to just start with Bryce. He's not the only problem at Michigan.

When, when, and I went through this on my show, but let me like kind of like walk through it even more in depth. If you're struggling as a team, team, all the really good coaches will tell you that if things are going wrong or they're not playing up to their standards or there's a lack of consistency, that there's basically an order in which you have to go and evaluate things. And you've got to be very honest with yourself. See, the key is that you can't lie to yourself when you're watching the film or when you're evaluating your own team or your own coaching staff. And you've got to go, is it the scheme?

Is it the players or is it the coaches? And you have to be honest about those three. you've got to take personal, you know, relationships out of the equation and you just have to evaluate what's going on right now with our team. Why is it that we can't be consistent? Why is it so sloppy? Why are there so many penalties? Why is our quarterback, you know, playing so inconsistently? Let me start with, I think that they've got a scheme player disconnect. We talk about fit for the NFL draft a lot, and I think rightly so, which players are going to fit what systems and coaches and so on and so forth. And Kyle stepped in and he brought his offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who had done a remarkable job, both at New Mexico, two years ago with Devin

Dan Pier, then brought Dampere to Utah, and they were excellent last year. They were a top five offense in college football. That offense, just philosophically and structurally, wants to be a horizontal offense. They want to utilize athletic offensive linemen, that are generally more dominant than the defensive linemen that they're playing, which is exactly what Utah had with two first round draft picks, a tackle. And then you have to have an explosive quarterback, not just a mobile quarterback, but an explosive quarterback. And they want to stretch the defense horizontally, create seams, and then attack those seams. Okay, well, Michigan has been built very differently, and we all know it. You know, and it goes back to the way that Harbaugh built them.

So for the better part of, you know, 10, 12, 13 years, you go all the way back to 2015. And Jim built them to be a direct, downhill, patient offense. And so they were built to be off the ball, come off the ball on the offensive line, play in a phone booth, be more physical than the opponent, backs that are going to be downhill and direct, and comfortable with the two's, threes, and fours in the run game during the course of the, the game that will eventually become five, six, and sevens and control the game that way. Well, that's not the way that this offense now for Michigan. So now you have 10 players that were recruited to play that way. And then J.J. Buchanan, who comes from Utah.

And so my question would be, who needs to adjust? Is it the 10 players or is it the offensive coordinator? And my estimation is that Michigan has got to change the way. way that they tried to attack the opponent because the horizontal stretch game with the number of reeds that they're trying to make Bryce Underwood make both in the run game and the past game and the RPO game is not working. There's way too many times when he's predetermining what he wants to do with the football, both in the run game and the past game. The offensive line is sloppy. Like for instance, if you're going to run, they'll get into these sets, Ryan, and they'll run basically

like a three-way go. You've got a bubble screen to the right. You've got hitches to the left, and you've got like a run option in the middle. And that's a lot for a quarterback. You've got to come up to the line of scrimmage. You've got to understand the ratios of the structure that you're looking at. And you've got to choose where to go with the football. And then there's still a read off of the run concept. And to do that, to be able to run the football and have the option to throw it both ways, the offensive line has to take a very different run track. You can't just come off the football because you've only got three yards barrier until you're downfield.

So the offensive line has to be more of a muddled, flatter, down the line of scrimmage look and then pick a seam from the back and go. Well, they're not doing that very well. The offensive linemen are lost. They take bad tracks. They're looping on the pole. The wide receivers are good, yes, but there's inconsistency in terms of how you can get the football

to them and when you get the football to them. Then they get into the passing game if they get behind the chains, and they don't have the offensive linemen that they trust to just form a regular quality pocket. So what you get is you get what it's called fold protection, where you're blocking basically down with the offensive line, pulling either a tight end, a back, or a guard to get the defensive end on the opposite side. But that defensive end, in particular in the Minnesota case, was heavy upfield.

And he's squeezing Bryce Underwood, who feels. pressure and then doesn't read the concept down the field. I know that was a lot of technical things, but basically they have to do something different than that. It's not working. They need to take some of the decisions out of Bryce's hands, play what I would call more tank concepts where you're just coming up, you call the play, and you let the offensive line and get off the ball, take your four yards, stay on schedule, and then try to move the chains down the field that way. Staying in the Big Ten, of the three teams that we looked at, and you know, and I was talking

about this summer, I knew it likely wasn't going to happen, but I'm like, okay, of the SEC contenders, who do I feel as certain about in comparison to Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon? If we stay with those three teams, the Big Ten, because I don't want to make this about the SEC comp right now. Who is among Oregon, Ohio State, Indiana, closest to your expectation of them from this summer? I would say Ohio State, even with that loss. It's so fascinating because, and I know we'll get to the comp. but they've basically played three poor possessions of football and cost them a game and and credit Texas for doing that.

Outside of that, though, they have developed in the areas that I had questions about. And then the areas that I thought that they would be really strong, they're not only strong, but they're elite and probably the best in college football. And we all know that, like, you can start with Jeremiah Smith. What he's doing right now is bonkers. I think that Jeremiah is in the conversation for the greatest wide receiver we've seen play college football. I think he's at least in the conversation. Who else is in it? I would say Moss is in that conversation.

I think Julio is in that conversation. And then we've seen great individual seasons and production, but just from a physical dominant standpoint, I think those are the three. Maybe Calvin Johnson as well, although that offense wasn't, you know, It wasn't something that wanted to feature Calvin Johnson, right? We knew he had those skills, but I remember when the Georgia Tech coach was it Paul Johnson at the time. Johnson, yeah. Yeah, and I still, I just remember like thinking, why would anyone ever go there?

And I think I asked him that because I was younger. It was like, why would anyone like him go there? And he had said this other places, but, you know, we used to get every single coach on constantly at ESPN. And he was like, oh, tell all the guys, why wouldn't you want to come? here you're going to be single covered the whole time i'm like yeah except for the part where you don't fucking throw other than that single covers but we don't utilize it you know like we don't attack it yeah that's a good one yeah that's i mean and i know what you're doing you're kind of talking like physical presence like i always felt like andre johnson in college was like yeah he was great

he was he was he was great as well that's a that's a good one but you know jeremiah is in that realm You know, you can start bringing up who are the most dominant players at that position. He's in that realm. So that's been even exceeding expectations. His production is actually hired and I thought it would be because I thought most teams would do everything in their power to take him out of the game. And candidly, Iowa was. Iowa had brackets on him, triple covered him, and he was still making catches and producing in for over 200 yards. So that's that element of Ohio State.

And then my questions about their defense and just all the new players and pieces on their defense, what was that going to look like? and Matt Patricia has them playing. What I would say is like a very patriot style of defense where maybe you don't have the individual stars that they did a year ago, but you look up and it's like, well, they did a great job against the run against Iowa. They do have some elite back-in players, not even Texas, was able to really throw the ball effectively.

And then their run game is starting to come along. They each averaged over four yards, four and a half yards per carry against Iowa. So closest to expectations, I would say, Ohio's. state even though they have the loss. Yeah, I think that's the right answer, you know, because the expectation of Indiana, like, gearing up, like, sometimes in the NBA, I'll talk about, like, players being ahead of schedule. You know, if Wembeen Yama had pulled it off last year, you're like, that's way ahead of schedule. Totally.

You're in, you know, MVP favorite going into his fourth year coming off a title. It doesn't happen. Nicks have an incredible series. And Indiana is just way ahead of schedule, whether it's the first year and then one of the greatest single seasons and maybe the greatest story we've ever seen in the history of this sport. And so when I'm watching them, I'm expecting probably way too much. You know, a lot of us are probably expecting way too much. But is there anything personnel-wise that concerns you with the Hoosiers in kind of outpacing

Ohio State or if Oregon turns this thing around? So I think all three of those teams, along with the top end of the SEC, they can can walk onto the field and say if we play our best, we're going to have a great chance to win today. Indiana is interesting because I fall into this trap. And I can sit here and lament the fact that if they had any other logo on their helmet as the defending champ and on a 21 game winning streak, there's no way in the world they would be outside of the top five. Any other logo, right? Any other blue blood. There'd be no chance.

They dropped. They dropped. And they dropped. Yes, it was Ruckers. I mean, and their schedule. I think people are more sensitive to weak schedules. I think that's why no one wants to give Miami the benefit of the doubt. No one wants to give Notre Dame the benefit of the doubt. No one wants to give Indiana the benefit of the doubt. I'm okay with that, by the way. I am fine with that as well. But your Indiana point, if it is a different logo off the last year, there's no way there where they're at right now in the AP. No. And in particular, look at what they're doing, like on the defensive side. Their defensive front seven is still one of the best in college football. They just got deeper, by the way. They had two players that were involved in that fifth year lawsuit, including Stephen Daly. And Stephen Daly is a heck of a player. And he was not in an NFL camp, so it's not necessarily, you know, it's not, don't put it in the LSU kind of lane kiff in camp of things. This was kind of the traditional, hey, I want my fifth year, just like other guys are getting their fifth year.

and he's eligible now, and that's going to help their front seven. They had two backs go for over 100 yards. They had two wide receivers go for over 100 yards. Hoover, the biggest question for Josh Hoover coming into this season was, was he going to be able to protect the football because he was a turnover machine at TCU? And remember the back and forth between Sonny Dykes and Kurt Signetti in the offseason where Sonny kind of threw a shot about the number of turnovers Josh had in his starts at TCU, and SIG comes up to the press conference and it was like, well, I'm going to introduce him to his two best friends, a good running game and a great defense.

And sure enough, you look up, I believe, I don't have it in front of me, 15 touchdowns, no interceptions right now for Hoover. Hoover's stat line is like better than people realize. Yes, it is. I went through and compared to the Mendoza and I went, oh my God, it's almost like line for line as good, if not better than the full Mendoza season that he had. but I'm sorry to interrupt. When I've watched them, I still feel like there's too many quarters where it doesn't feel like it's synced up.

Sure. Sure. And I think what's fascinating is that last year at this point, they were barely on the radar. And so they were playing, I think they're actually, and this is what's crazy,

Indiana is actually playing better earlier than they did a year ago. No one was paying attention. mentioned Indiana last year at this point. They blew out Illinois. Remember, Illinois was ranked in the top 10 and they blew them out. And everyone's like, oh, wow, you know, like here comes Indiana. And it was a late season run that really got them all of their, all of their run. So they're probably exceeding expectations and none of us want to look at them. You know, it's like we just, I think it's brand, honestly, I think it's brand bias. Again, any other logo, 21, 21 game winning.

streak. I don't think people understand how hard that is to pull off. There's seventh in the AP. The coaches, I'm not surprised there. I usually complain more about the coaches poll, but I think the coaches on this one are more respectful of what's happened. And there's eight coaches votes for them still to be number one. Their fifth in the coaches poll, again, none of it's all that relevant. But it is interesting. And I would agree with a grander point on that. Let's go to the SEC. Contenders. Who are you picking this weekend, Georgia at Bama. Gosh, I can't wait

to watch that game, first and foremost. I think that the game, let me start with Bama. I think Keelan Russell is spectacular. He is a superstar. If I was an NFL GM, I would be chomping at the bit for whenever he

comes out. And obviously, he's not going to be available in this draft, but he is playing at a Michael Pinnock's Washington level. with the ability to be mobile and explosive with his legs, which Pinnix at that time in his career didn't really have that, because remember all the knee injuries that he had dealt with going all the way back to his time at Indiana.

Russell is throwing the ball with leverage down the field, and they provide a ton of time for him in the pocket to attack, and it's a deep downfield passing attack. They've got explosive wide receivers. If Georgia doesn't put pressure on Keelan Russell, Bamba will win the game. There's no doubt. The only way, and again, this goes back to the Washington days with DeBoer, even last year, with Ty Simpson. And when did Bama struggle?

It was when a defensive front seven could own their offensive line, put pressure on the quarterback, in particular with three or four in the rush, and drop other people out. Like if you watch the film of the Rose Bowl with Indiana, Indiana dominated them. They dominated them. But what they were able to do is play very safe coverage against the downfield passing attack. They were able to bracket into the boundary. They had numbers to the field, the wide side of the field, and then they were able to put pressure on Ty Simpson. So you go back to Washington, who did they struggle with? Well, they struggled at times when a defense could put pressure on.

Remember that great Michigan defense that ended up beating them in the national championship game. They could get after the quarterback. And Pinnick's was under duress the entire. night in that national championship game. So Ryan, Georgia, if Georgia doesn't put pressure on Russell, I think Bama wins the game. That's where the entire game is going to be won and a loss. And then it gets back to the Georgia perspective of one, their defense, their secondary, and two, Gunnerstockton.

And you talk about the guy that I think has been lost in this college football season. And the reason is, is because he has not been put into a situation where he has to utilize his superpower. I believe Gunner Stockton's superpower is his ability to play great when his best football is needed in the fourth quarter. If you take a look at him in his career as a starter, in fourth quarters, he's thrown for 77 percent, you know, eight touchdowns, no interceptions. So you get into those one possession games late. And he's a guy that I really trust. So I'm going to lean Georgia, because I think that they can put pressure on Russell. But, man, it's tough for me to do that because this Bama team is very good.

I don't know if I trust their defense quite yet, but that's kind of the same with every top team in the country, whereas I think that there's a flaw or a question about every one of these top teams. Russell's really turned it on big time the last few weeks. I was probably a little too harsh on somebody making his first few starts. I was very concerned with the offensive line with Bama. but these things are starting to work themselves out. Running game is improved here.

That wide receiver room, you know, I guess Jeremiah Smith is like the room you can't pick. Right. Just because how much this, you know, you're just like, it's like having Shaq and fantasy basketball back in the day. So I, you know, this Ryan Coleman Williams thing has been a lot nicer here.

But I'm going with Georgia. I'm just going with the belief that I'm just, I feel like their defense is certainty in Alabama's. In the Kentucky game, I was like, all right, Alabama's defense is going to be fine. And then there's a Florida State game, you know. Look, Mississippi State game was one-sided enough. South Carolina is such a mess. I'm not even sure what it went against them means right now.

But it is a tough one to pick. I'm with you. I think it's a really tough game to pick there. All right, Texas, I already know what you're doing, and I think I'm doing it too. It's like Texas has to be ranked higher than Ohio State. It doesn't feel like you think Texas is better than Ohio State. And I know that frustrates a lot of people, but it's the same feeling I had kind of after the Rams losing to the Denver Broncos,

where I went, well, okay, I know the Broncos has won the game, but I feel like the Rams are the better football team. And I'll have to remember this later on, although the only chance they're going to have meeting up with being the Super Bowl. And I don't know if that's going to happen with your Broncos offense right now, Jill. I don't know about that. We'll stay off of that. State. We don't need to do Michigan's offense. We don't need to do Denver's offense, too.

Texas, there's no way. There is no way the offense will be this average. Will it with this personnel the rest of the way? This is what I find so fascinating is, like, you could say Ohio State has been really good outside of three drives this season. And for Texas, I feel like it's the exact opposite. They have been really average outside of three drives this season. And they get the win, and then they get the win against Tennessee, which I don't exactly know what that means yet, you know, to be honest with you. By the way, they benched the quarterback from that game in the Auburn game, which almost no one will remember except for Tennessee fans. Like that, I'm with you on the, hey, big rank game, Knoxville, game day,

the whole deal, and you go, the rank now. So like, what is, you know, again, So keep going because I just want to tell you, like I'll look at that and go, remember when we thought that was a big deal? And they let Tennessee back into it, a game they were accommodating. I mean, what was it, 11 penalties, special teams was poor. Arch has been average this year. And that draws headlines. Anytime you say his name, either direction.

You could say he plays great, it's a headline. You say he plays average, it's a headline. It's because he's a manning. But they are better on paper. Their resume is impressive. Best resume in college football, best overall win in college football. And their film suggests that they're imminently beatable.

So I believe Georgia and Alabama are better teams than Texas. But you have to honor the scoreboard and put Texas up there, you know, ahead of Ohio State. I have them just behind Georgia. I have Georgia as the number one team in the country right now. I have Texas number two and Ohio State number three. But if Ohio State and Texas played this week, I would pick Ohio State. I would pick Georgia.

I would pick Alabama. And a lot of that comes from that lack of consistency. I think Texas might have their hands absolutely full with Oklahoma, because we've just discarded Oklahoma. Now they get a buy week. They get to try to fix some of their issues. And yeah, they might come out and totally lay an egg. But I've done that game before.

And I remember when it was Oklahoma that was always the favorite and the better team and like the scrappy Sam Ellinger, you know, Texas team would play really well in the Red River game. I think Texas is going to have their hands full this weekend. If they don't, you know, good on them and more power to them. But they have far too much talent on that offense to be playing this average. Their offensive line is better than they're playing. The backs are better than they're playing. The wide receivers are more talented than their arch should be better. Arch has been very average, very inconsistent.

He's got to get to a point where he is anticipating windows down the field because he does not anticipate very well. And what it produces is an offense in which you're going to have negative plays. You're going to take the sack. He's going to have to scramble around. Then if you look at those three series against Ohio State, Brian, I think you would agree with me. It was kind of school yard. And it was two fourth downs. and running around and making crazy throws.

And it was a gritty, outstanding performance in those three drives. And outside of that, Texas has just been kind of okay. It was an unbelievable night. And you knew what it meant to Arch. And you knew Sark was like real fired up because, you know, sometimes, like, I feel like this happens in Notre Dame a lot because they haven't won a title. But it's like, you know, how many programs would trade the last 15 years with Notre Dame of just being around it, you know?

and being in multiple playoffs. And obviously last year was a brutal set of circumstances. And here's Texas has been to the playoffs. And it's like, all right, so we have it won. So, like, starts going on. So I'm a loser. So you could almost feel that when they get that comeback against Ohio State with the way the game went the year prior, where it's kind of like a turnover that decides a very

middling offensive game. I mean, middling is being nice to that matchup in 25. And it felt like can this be some kind of turning point? And offensively, like, even they both have. the week off, we're dismissive of Oklahoma because the offense looks exactly like it did last year, but of all the teams that you have to go up against defensively to have this second part of the season being like, when are you guys going to start having the explosives? Like, when are we going to start looking at you? Because that's what we're doing. And I know it's frustrating, but we are

looking for the 40 to 7 wins. We're looking for those 40 to 10 wins against Power 4 competition, because that's usually the indicator that you're going to do some damage in the playoffs. That's right. And we haven't seen that. And again, like, OU's defense is not the problem. No, they're filthy again. Yeah. I mean, even Georgia, they barely had 300 yards in that game. You know, it was all mature turnovers in that second quarter,

and it was kind of an avalanche of short fields and defensive dominance that allowed Georgia to just kind of blow Oklahoma out. But the Oklahoma defense is fine, and this will be a very difficult test for Texas's offense. I don't expect them to come out and, and, and blow them out by any stretch of the imagination. It might be a score of Mateer has the turnover issues that he had against Georgia. But, I mean, that was so bad. I don't exactly expect to pencil that one in again from Mattier and the offense.

Okay, so let's get to the non-Big Ten schools, the non-SCC schools here with Miami. I'm probably a little guilty of it because I know Clemson's a mess, but that domination that we're looking for, like Miami on that night, and, you know, maybe I'm putting too much into the atmosphere. and it's a Saturday night game and all that kind of stuff because we know Clemson isn't any good. But I just don't want to be dismissive of Miami. I don't want to be dismissive of Notre Dame. Right now I feel very dismissive of the Big 12 and I'm okay with that position.

We'll get there in a second. But do you see the Keynes right there with all these other teams that we're talking about? 100%. 100%. I think Miami, I think Miami will beat Notre Dame. I think Miami is going to play for the national championship. championship. I think they've upgraded a quarterback from a year ago. They might not be quite as dominant on the defensive line, which, like, let's give them some grace there. Like, they were,

they were incredible on the, it looked pretty good Saturday. I mean, they did, but, but the level of dominance, you know, with, with Bain and Mezador was was, was a different level. Like the film against Ohio State in, in the quarterfinal last year was Julian Sane had no shot, because they were just running rough shot over that. They did do that to Clemson, but we saw LSU also do that to Clemson. So again, like, what does that tell us? I think Malachi Tony, if Jeremiah Smith, you know, is in his own hemisphere, let's put him aside for a moment. Malachi Tony is the best player in college football not named Jeremiah Smith. His short area quickness, his explosiveness, and Minsa is playing so well. is what I don't know. I think people are have disregarded Miami maybe because of the

ACC maybe because of their schedule. But man, when you when you really look at the way that Minza is playing man, he is he is playing at an elite level. One of the two or three best quarterbacks in the country up to this point. Their defense flies around. And the thing that I've been actually not not surprised, but I think excited about for Miami is you don't have those the silliness that we saw for years. Remember in those games on the road where it's like, what are you doing? Or even in the national championship last year when Indiana is not even trying to block the punt. And they block the punt. And you're like, what, you know, what are we doing? And we haven't really seen that from Miami. They look more buttoned up so

far this year. And I, you know, that that team will absolutely do damage in the playoff. I think that's going to be one of the hardest outs in a matchup versus all the other really good teams in the country, you could see that Miami matches up probably as good or better than anybody else against the rest of the top seven in the country. Big 12, are we missing the point here? Because of the preseason part of this, I'm like, look at tech schedule. They're going to load up. I was going through the comps of 25 and 26, and their profile is that of a completely different

team. You know, the opponent's yards per play, 58th in college football right now, it was number one last year. They were the six best team against third down. Right now, people are converting third downs left and right against the squad. Are we looking in the wrong places to try to figure out who's going to be standing at the Big 12 when it's all said and done? Yes. The team that if you... This is the Utah conversation.

This is Utah. This is Utah. because, and again, it can be difficult, but if you really dig into metrics, like you're talking about, yards per play, you know, some of these ranks, Utah's the best team in the Big 12. And it's not tech, and it's probably not BYU.

And BYU is going to have to now fight through a stretch where LJ Martin is banged up, their quality running back, and Bear Bokmire is going to have to shoulder the burden of that offense. and we saw what that did to them last week, only scoring 17 against the TCU. I think that they're good defensively.

There's no doubt. But I, Utah. 40 points, I think, this year. Granted, they played four games, but still. Right. You know, and again, you know, like you get into that, these schedules are so different. Their schedule's not been, you know, right, yeah.

I like Utah. They host BYU. Morgan Scali is a guy that gets to come in like we've seen with Lincoln Riley after Bob Stoops, like we saw with Ryan after Urban Meyer. And yes, Kyle took some of their best players, but the culture remains. So he doesn't have to go in and instill something brand new. He doesn't have to have a mixture of, is this scheme going to fit our players? Like all those kids are still Utah kids.

he understands it there. He played there. He knows what he's doing. I think Utah is the best team in the Big 12. I don't think it's BYU and I don't think it's tech at this point. Should USC fans be the most disappointed fan group in the country? No. No. I think USC fans, they get all over me for this. But they're in Southern California. I'm around all of them, by the way.

I live around all these people. And I think that they have unrealistic expectations. They're prisoners of the moment. They're more transactional. LA in general, Southern California in general, is a more transactional place than it is relational in the sense that if you would have told a USC fan in the middle of the summer, would you take what would it be, seven and one facing,

Ohio State at home. They would say, yeah, we would take that. That means we beat Washington, probably lose to Oregon. But then you get into the moment, and they want it now. And they don't love the Desmond Stevens stuff. And now we're after Lincoln Riley because of the culture and so on and so forth. I think USC is better than they were a year ago. They were closer to Oregon.

There was a tie ball game when they got that roughing the passer penalty. They got the stop that they desperately wanted forever and ever, right? they got the stop and then the penalty extends the drive and Oregon ends up one of the game, but they're closer to Oregon than they were a year ago than they were two years ago. This is still a good football team and everyone wants to just kill their defense all the time. But I actually went and did kind of a study of what are defenses doing against conference opponents? I know we don't have a huge sample size of that yet, but their defense against conference opponents is far better than like, let's say, Florida or Ole Miss. or, you know, and I know that we're not saying.

Yeah, but Florida played Mazoo and Rutgers played Oregon and USC played Rutgers on top of the Oregon one. I mean, that Rutgers game scared the shit out of me for you. Totally. And sorry. And that would be my next point is I think their bigger challenge is not necessarily what happened against Oregon. It's in their next two ball games.

They go play in the white out, Penn State, who's reeling right now. Then they go to Wisconsin. They have to win those. Those are the games that will tell me more about. USC rather than the Oregon game. I know they would love to beat Oregon, but these next two ball games that they have, and they have an off week in between. But playing at Penn State, with Penn State playing the way that they are in the white out, then going to Wisconsin, who's resurgent, by the way, under Luke Fickle and playing a lot better. These are the games that'll tell me everything I need to

know about USC. And I did this thing on Big Noon last week. Everyone's just like, well, man, we got to move on from Lincoln Riley. Like, do people really understand what that means, the cost, money-wise, what it means to their roster? Just, you know, quick bullet points. It's not just the $70 million to get rid of Lincoln Riley. You have to buy out the staff. Then you got to buy out your next coach.

You've got to hire him to a large deal. Then you're going to have to build a brand new roster because a lot of those players will likely leave. So we're talking more like $120 million versus $70 million. which is wild. That's just a wild amount of money. Then you have to deal with the fact that every good coach in America is going to park his GM in Los Angeles and they're going to try to go get Luke Waifle and Trent Mosley and Caden Dixon Wyatt and all

these young players that have played really well for USC, Dan Langing and Kirby Smart and Lane Kiffin and Kalin DeBore and Ryan Day. They're going to be in there trying to poach these guys because these guys are elite players, elite players. So I'm more cautious with USC than most. Yeah, I think you are, right? Because it's, it, you're right about all, like, hey, do you know what this means? Okay. And then do you realize he's going to have a job at a big time program, the next time a big time program opens up? So the cost of this, but I feel like when you go through the five years, you're like, I'd kind of like to see a signature win in there at some point.

Sure. I think that's fair as well. I think that's, totally fair. I think the the last caution flag I would wave is Penn State. Do you want to go down that road? It wasn't, James Franklin wasn't good enough. And they want that, you know, they want the tipping point. They want the, you know, the Gladwellian tipping point. Come on. We've got to, you know, we got to beat that team way up there. We need that one extra roll of the rock to get it to the top of the mountain so that it'll roll downhill. And look at where Penn State's at. Penn State is an absolute mess right now. Is this going to be a wake-up call for Nebraska this weekend? This is the game you have. And it was just, it was worse. At least me, you know, it's hard to keep up on everything. And you're

going, how many points Nebraska scoring? Like, all right, let's take a peek at this schedule. Like, all right, this is why there are five and no unranked big 10 team, which is pretty rare. But I think we have that with Kentucky, too, now is it not kentucky i have kentucky fell out of the ap even after um winning last week on that two point conversion right but they've had they have the loss so they're five and oh they would be in there so so here we go nebraska can can can we also credit some of our caution with nebraska with PTSD from all of their quality starts from the last you know six seven eight years six seven we do we can go back 15 years yeah i mean even the frost year and, you know, they always kind of give you like this, this small glimmer of like, well, you know, is it better?

And then, you know, their October and November's have just been a disaster for the most part. Yes. I mean, the answer is yes. This is a wake up call without getting into. Now, I do think, and this is going to tie back into our first conversation, Nebraska made a really hard decision. I think mutually, and people will say it was just Dylan Raola, you know, moved off of Nebraska and went to Oregon to be the backup quarterback. But it was a mutual thing. And the reason is, is that there wasn't a great fit there, you know, like what Dylan was going to excel in wasn't necessarily what their players could do and what their system needed.

And they need a mobile quarterback because they're not going to be dominant on the offensive line, at least as of yet. they need to be able to run the football and stay on schedule and do these things. And that wasn't really what Dylan. And so is that like tied back into the Michigan thing of just like this scheme fit, philosophy fit with their quarterback Bryce Underwood and you've got that history with Nebraska and Dylan Rayola? Indiana is as well coached and they are as good as they were a year ago. Maybe they won't win it. I don't know if they're going to go 16 and 0.

the man like you better buckle it up when you play indiana their defense is excellent their front seven is fantastic they're as well coached as anybody the mark of to me when i watch film right and i watch a team the one area that i look to see are you disciplined and are you well coached is do your wide receivers block yeah that's that'll usually tell you like what the culture of an organization is indiana's wide receivers block better than anybody else in the country on the outside Marsh, Charlie Becker, all of these guys, they get after it, which is why they're able to run the football so successfully and gain explosive runs. 50% of their run production are because of their wide receivers on the outside. So Nebraska has a great opportunity in front of them, but they're

going to have to play significantly better than what they have to this point being an undefeated team in order to beat Indiana. Going through Nebraska's, you know, starts. And you just go, oh, look at this, five and one. Like, do we have a chance? And then they sign up for one of the big boy games. And it, it's alarming. But Joel will be on the call of that game. That's right.

By the way, I did this Nebraska Indiana game in Cignetti's first year. And it was the same thing. Nebraska was undefeated. Raola is a freshman. They go to Bloomington and just got their doors blown off. And it was like, oh, no. You know, so like, I feel like we've been here before. And this is another opportunity for Matt to level up.

Yeah, at that point, Indiana had beaten Illinois. They stomped them. That Iowa game was terrific, and it felt like a nice one. I think they had already had. No, no, not last year. I'm talking about two years. Sigs first year with Curtis Rourke. No, no, I'm going through this.

Oh, that's right. They didn't play anybody in 24. They hadn't played anybody. They were a total unknown. Curtis Rourke is their quarterback. And, you know, everyone's like, like, oh, yeah, this JMU guy, he's done well. They hadn't played anybody in the non-conference. It was Florida International, Western Illinois,

Charlotte, as the non-conference, and then 58-7. Nebraska. And then, yeah, and it was the game that kind of announced everyone like, this might be different. Yeah, no, it's a good point. You're the man. Love catching you every Saturday. I love starting my West Coast Saturdays with you and Gus,

and hopefully we get you on again before the playoffs or something. All right. Yeah, I appreciate the time. Love coming on. depth with which you like allow us to to chat during these conversations. So I appreciate it, man. I remember when my brother told me that he was going to have a kid and it was a big deal. He was the first of any of the siblings to have a child. And the first thing he said to me, because he was not always programmed this way, is he was like, I need help finding life insurance.

And he called me. He called me about the announcement and then said, I need to get serious about all the grown-up stuff. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. 100% online. You can get a quote in second supply in minutes and get same day coverage. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions. You can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some policies are as low as $30 a month and you'll get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers. Ethos has 4.9 out of five stars on Trust Pilot with over 5,500 reviews. Takes 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash Ryan.

That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash Ryan, R-Y-E-N. Application times may vary, rates may vary, trust pilot rating as of August 1st, 2026. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari, 355 cabriole. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all kids. I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice. Life advice, R.R. at gmail.com. We have some emails to read for you. We might have some show wrecks as well.

Okay. I'm always hoping. We're down to Kyle. Yep. But we're going to be okay day. Yeah. All right. He'll be back.

No worries. Last scene on HBO. No, excuse me. seen on Apple. Australian. I thought it was like, where is this filmed? Like, oh, it's Australia. I didn't know it. I love a good Australian story. But it's, um, it's pretty straightforward. Anybody we know? Um, these guys have all been in stuff, but I don't know that it would be anything if you'd be like, oh, there's that guy from this. Basically, a family loses a three-year-old daughter. And I know that's super uplifting. A lot of young parents out there, like maybe I don't want to

watch that. Every parent's nightmare. But it is incredibly well done. It's based on a book. That is great. And then what was it? Killer Story on HBO? You watched it? I just watched that. I did. Because you had recommended it. I saw it up there. And like, I'm not like a true crime guy necessarily.

But I, you know, if there's like something going on, I'm interested in seeing what's happening. And as soon as I turned it on as three episodes, there's this guy who is like the, he's a report. With it the New York Times? I don't know where he's at. Well, some newspaper, but he's like the main guy. He won all these awards. Yeah. like he's he's the guy and he steals the show and i don't know where he's from but he seems like a

northeast guy like i don't know like right and like i was like iran's gonna love this dude he's just got he's he's got gray hair flowy and he just he's wearing like a north face blow the entire time he's going the whole time yeah and he drops an f-bomb two sentences into the entire thing where basically this woman is harassing him to investigate this double murder in kansas and he starts the whole dock and it's only three parts so I think you can fly through it. I did yeah I watched it all one night and he just goes so this fucking lady wouldn't leave me alone

it's like 2,000 emails yeah and it was perfect as you just go all right I'm completely on this guy's side now and it takes a bunch of twists and turns and all the stuff because the true crime thing every we're this country is addicted to it okay yeah to the point where like everything

has to be a conspiracy conspiracy theory now like because we've watched too many things like this just can't be straightforward like something else has to be going on, which I think is kind of annoying. But listen, if there's like a good, like, what the heck is going on here thing, I'm interested. So this is really interesting as we stay in this kind of lane here before we read the emails. I was hanging out with this guy and he was telling me how he's dating this woman from Spain. Okay.

And she was pretty independent and he loves sports because he was asking me about like, how bad is it when you're in a relationship and you watch all of these games? I'm like, everybody thinks it's not going to be that bad. and it's just horrifying to them. And I'll be like, I think, you know, if we can plan out a day, five days in advance, like I will promise I'll not watch anything that night. But that means first thing in the morning, like, I've got to get caught back up on some stuff on a non-tapping day because I just, whatever. All right.

So he goes, this woman from Spain, who, you know, it's very casual, but she was staying with me. And the weather wasn't that good that day. And he's like, I was so happy the weather wasn't good. and he says, look, look, I want to watch football, you know, American football all day on Sunday. And she goes, that's great. I love sports. You know, no problem. And her takeaway, first of all, the seven hours is done.

And he's like, okay, but the late game is like a really good one. Wait, wait all day for Sunday night. Yeah, this was this was the appetizer. And she goes, there's another one, you know, and this speaks to why I started really getting into F1 because the product as a consumer, it's so much more efficient. and it's fun. Soccer man, I'm telling you, I could see myself as an older man becoming a fan of just the efficiency

of the broadcast. Fuck your hydration breaks. And she sat there and she couldn't believe. She's like, well, how come it's another commercial? Like, why you sit here and you watch all of these commercials and you do this the entire day? And then she goes, how come all the commercials are about depression or being fat?

Prescription drugs. And he was like, what do you, what do he mean? She goes, we don't have, like, we would never, we don't have ads in Europe. Yeah. About, I maybe I don't know if the UK is different. I don't know. I haven't sat around on an NFL Sunday in France. I don't know if the UK is different because I did do that one time.

But she was from Spain and who knows which part of Spain, but she was blown away by how many of the ads were just, are you sad or are you fat? Yeah. Here's a number. Here's something to fix it. Yeah. Well, what's crazy is I know in the UK, you can watch more Premier League games in America than you can in the UK. They don't show all the games. Like, could you imagine?

Like, there's like, hey, actually, like, there's a couple games. You just don't have access to. Like, we would lose our minds. Like, tape Twitter would be like, we'd be like, you know, going on, you know, different website trying to find different illegal streams. Like that, like that just. There's a time square handing you week three, Jets, Jags. Yeah. The other thing that she has said apparently,

and now I should have just had this dude's friends with benefits on the show because I find her observations fascinating. She was like, why do you love true crime so much? Why? What is the fascination with Americans and true crime? But I don't think that that's just Americans. I think the Aussies like it. I think, I don't know if New Zealanders do.

I think the UK does. But maybe some of the Mediterranean places go, we're just, we're good. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Do you think she did it in the show? No, we can't give. We can't get away. That's not a spoiler.

It's subjective. I don't do you. All right, fine. We'll talk off air. The gas cans. I couldn't get past that. Not great. A couple of different stories that she gave.

Yeah. Yeah. She will the best, the best, she represents herself at the end. And I was like, oh, this is actually awesome. And then once she got through it, I'm like, this was the worst idea of all time. Yeah. Anyway,

good show. Really good show. Maybe we should get the guy, the reporter of the show. All right. So put him down. Let's get the main character from last scene on. I don't know. Joe,

look them up. You get IT on it. I'm on the wrong file. All right. Let's read some emails. You ready? Joe Sexton. Joe Sexton.

It's a badass. Shout out to Joe Sexton. All right. This guy sent us in Why am I not finding what I need? Okay, I lied about going to a Cameroonian wedding ceremony. 24 years old, 6, 5, 215, 15. This guy can get away with anything.

Played basketball for a semester at a decent Canadian university before realizing I was never going to get minutes, considering there was a 26-year-old man with a child on the team. This was the COVID eligibility gray area time. I now hit the gym two, three times a week. I'm generally always in a men's league depending on the season and took up cycling this summer, ended up doing a 160 kilometer ride. I've got a steady but pretty depressing job in marketing at a big Canadian bank.

It's not exactly what I want to do with my life, but it pays a rent. Luckily, I have a great group of coworkers who all are around my age. We usually eat lunch together, grab drinks every now and then, and have some decent office banter. Here's my problem. I lied to all of them about going to a wedding. months ago, my girlfriend told me there were going to be two weddings this summer for her cousin,

one where I'd just need a tux, and another where I'd have to wear this very colorful ethnic gown. I thought this would be funny to bring up at lunch one day. Little did we know I actually wasn't invited to the second wedding. It was more of a family wedding on her side, which, honestly, I was pretty happy about.

I wasn't exactly devastated to miss a weekend of golf and getting stuff done around my apartment. I don't know, man. He missed out on a little culture, sounds like to me. We may regret that later on. Their apartment's still going to be there. You get back.

Anyway, the problem is that I'd already taken the days off for work for the wedding. So I just, dot, dot, dot, never told my coworkers I wasn't going. Instead, I let them believe I was going to this wedding and needed the time off. And then somehow this became an ongoing lie that I've now maintained for weeks. There's one particular girl in the office that has asked me basically every day since I got back to see a picture of me in these, in this outfit. At first I said I didn't have any pictures. No one's going to believe that.

Yeah. Yeah. Wedding is a notable place where people don't take pictures. Yeah. Yeah, dressed up in a completely different outfit. The only time my entire life out of wedding. No one has any. Let me see. They were using Polaroids.

Then I said the pictures were being developed. All right. So we're just taking a hole here. There's an easy solution to this. Then I said my girlfriend had them and I would send them, she would send them to me once she got around to it. I've now exhausted the entire technological history of photography. It's been weeks and she keeps asking.

She is persistent at this point. I don't even know what do or say or why she cares so much. Here's a pick of me hiding in the bathroom while I write you this email. All right. Well, he sent us a picture of him. Tall guy. Good locks. This is a tough one, man.

Here's the question. Is she just annoying because she wants to see you in this outfit? Or does she keep following you up because she doesn't believe your story? I Exasperated serrity Well that's that is a good question Like is she Did she think there's like some stolen valor here

Where she's like I actually don't believe you Or is she like I'm never gonna let it go She's telling co-workers I'm never going to get away with this What would uh she just want to see if you cross the line What I mean Because what other interest would she if she likes you Or she's not like your enemy like why would she be trying to do a gotcha thing

Maybe she's just genuinely interested in if that's the case like this is like a dude This feels like a little chatchy PT situation where you just plug in a phone photo and do a little face swap and just all you do is have to show her it's not like you have to show it you don't have to post it anywhere you just say this was it you know it's me and the me and the girl blah blah blah blah everybody moves on like why i don't think that's a huge issue you have to you might have to have some kind of story like i'm really hammered in all the pictures i don't want to show anyone i don't know because no one's gonna care you work in a bank i mean it was your appeals pub all the time yeah but like do you like you're not in the wedding so it's not like you're going to be need pictures next to the bride and groom like you just need a picture of you in the garb like just that seems not that do you rent the outfit no i think you just this is a photoshop situation i think it's i think it's as straightforward as that again if like everyone you're not you don't have to post you would photoshop at this point you were so deep in i probably would i don't think i would buy the actual outfit that would feel even rent it strange yeah certainly yeah i don't

know maybe you could do that but then like you have to find a wedding where do you go to even take that picture just like go to a chapel somewhere and just take a picture and also is it just you solo standing on like steps, that feels like a little bit strange too. So I think you just got to, I don't know, find a stock photo somewhere and throw your face on that. It's been done before. I do want more background on this girl, though. Like, does she not like you?

Does she like you? That kind of changes a lot of what this is. Like if she's like trying to get you in a gotcha moment, then like, all right, this makes more sense. If it's just like, hey, I want to see what you look like, then yeah, whatever. I don't think she's going to let this go. Or do you say you felt so embarrassed because you forgot or you didn't

get the outfit that you that you actually didn't take any pictures they didn't want you to be a part of it's too late okay no you can speak okay I'm embarrassed like the reason there's the thing there are no pictures I oversold the whole ethnic garb I wore a suit and I feel stupid right I looked out of place and they didn't want to take pictures of me done

until she says I saw you as a Canadians came that's why I've been on you the whole time yeah all right uh landscape or father-in-law 33 years old male Okay. 5-5-145. No gym stats. Just some at-home pull-ups. No weighted reps of the pecks are fully intact. Basketball comp. White Church League, Tray Young, mostly the bad version, but with better hair. Here's my situation. Me and my wife. Married 13 years. I've been living at our current home for two and a half years. The house was owned by an old lady who eventually died in the house. Would you buy a house for somebody died in it? I did. My first house, yeah. Well, they didn't tell us that, but there was some sons. like bones what do you mean

yeah it was like grave in the back no there was like a separate thermostat for this one room and you could just tell like she was probably on hospice not hospice but whatever like she probably had people come over daily to care for her and it was zoned differently you're like okay this feels and the kids sold the house to us like it's just there were a lot of there were a lot of tells I don't know if you have to disclose that do you have to disclose this woman died in the house I guess my wife should know that

I should ask her yeah you should ask her text her I read through the rest of this. I have a feeling there's a lot of realtors like, don't ask, don't tell. Right. I'm not going to be like, and Maude died here a month ago, but she was always a kind person,

so we don't think there's going to be any demons lingering around. Pretty straightforward, like, don't worry about it. This says does not have, in Connecticut, do not have to volunteer information. So that means nobody's telling anybody anything. Yeah, I actually don't care either. Like, I don't know. Unless it was like an axe murder situation,

Like if an old person died in a house, like, I don't know, man. Like, you know how many houses that's probably happened in? I'm also not afraid of ghosts. Like, it's fine. Yeah, I can tell right now you're not afraid of any of this stuff. I don't know. I didn't know this about you. And I'm impressed.

Maybe we covered it before, but pro ghost, come on over. So Rudy's home. So, um, that being said, the yard wasn't kept up very well since he moved in my father-law, who is retired, who is retired, but used to own his own landscaping company, has been borderline obsessed with my yard. and the upkeep. The grass is very weedy and the brushes are all dying, but here's the thing. I couldn't care less. I'm a teacher. I don't make a lot of money. And the last thing I want to spend my

money on is my yard. I mow and keep the grass weeds at bay, but that's not satisfactory for him or my wife. He's always talking to my wife about the yard and what I should be doing to it. They live close by, and on several occasions, just come by and done things in my yard when I'm not there. I don't mind him doing that, but it's become this issue between me and my wife. She wants me to be more like her dad and care about the yard, and I have zero room in my heart head for yard work. How do I navigate this and get my father a lot of chill out and my wife to stop caring about the yard? I'll hang up and listen.

I miss origami's Jordan, Jared, sound bite at the end of the pods. Shout out, Bufasa. Yeah. I wonder what Broadway shows Oregon's seen since we last talked to him. I got to call him actually because I was thinking about getting the wife, like some Broadway tickets for a anniversary situation. He would know. Yeah, he's like the guy.

So, you know, I'll call them. What year is this for you? This will be eight. Yeah, eight years. All growing up. Pretty wild. Yeah. Here's the problem.

It sounds like you don't care if your place looks like shit. And if your wife came from a family where the father's priority was this kind of thing, then she's kind of used to it. For whatever reason, I grew up with dirt roads. we always had dirt roads to our house. There's something nice about it, but it also kind of sucks. And there would be arguments about it a lot because if you were pitched on any sort of rise on the property, any kind of water would then find its way to your dirt driveway because that part of it is plowed.

And then you'd have these washouts where it was like impossible. if you got a lot of snow or if you get a lot of water and then you'd have to have somebody come by and like do it all over again. So that's the little issue that I know is like personal to me. So my point would be like if I were married with somebody and they said, hey, I really want to have a dirt road, like a quaint old dirt road navigating, winding through the woods around this big tree or whatever. And I'm like, I get what you are visualizing. I know what you're thinking is going to be incredible. And some of these Dirt roads are terrific, man. A dirt road on a good day? Yeah, it's great.

But that's how many days is that a year? Yeah, and is it level? And is it not your dirt road? And you just get to drive on it for a little bit and it's fine. But when it's your driveway and you're up and down it multiple times during the day and you live in New England weather. So what I'm saying is if my wife was adamant about a dirt road, I would be like, well, I grew up a different way. I grew up with a dirt road. And it sucks. So she may be like her version of the dirt road. I know I'm not like apples and apples to this because we're talking about like something that's good. But I'm using something very specific and going, I know this firsthand. She knows lawn maintenance shrubbery. She knows things being pristine firsthand.

That was a priority in her family. And you're saying you don't want to spend any money on it. I think the solution is let this guy run wild because if there's anything you know about landscapers is they actually wouldn't mind, especially if he's retired, like let him hand him the keys, man, hand him the keys, this project. Maybe even pull him aside and be like, look, I'm a teacher. I can't spend a ton of money in all these different things. Okay. So I'm not asking for hand out. I'm not doing any of these things. It's clearly very important to your daughter. I want to make her happy. You don't seem to have a lot going on. So, you know, my quarter acre is your palate, man.

Go for it. I trust you. Yeah. You're my lawn advisor. Yeah, I grew up with a dad who was who took a lot of this stuff very seriously he did most of the work around the house himself and i you know he'd be like yeah it's you know five a m on a saturday's like hey wake up we're weeding today that's like god great um you know you just trying to sleep in until noon and then play pickup basketball but i guess not uh made you a better person it did no it actually definitely did and to the point where like i felt bad initially say no to weeding say say say no to weed, say yes to weeding. I also didn't realize, and this is just me being stupid,

you know, because you buy those like the roundup or whatever, and they're like a pain in the ass to spray, and they're like, they kind of hurt your wrist or whatever. You could just buy one of those pump sprayers, man, and this is done. Like, you could do this in like an hour. Are you talking about your dad? Because I had the same situation.

I'd be like, hey, dad, if we could just grab this thing, I'm out of here in an hour. Yeah, like this is, I don't have to come up with some sort of jig here. Like, this is the jig. And now I could get done real quick. And then it's, that's the thing about dads that can suck point kids is that sometimes the dad would be like, I'd rather you do it the less efficient, more difficult way to prove some sort of fucking point.

Yeah. Yeah. No, my, uh, my, yeah, my dad was definitely the like, we're going to do it the right way thing. And this shouldn't surprise anyone. It won't surprise you. But I had a lot of questions when we were doing things like this. Like, why do we do it?

Like, why this can't be the most efficient way to do it? And my dad would be like, all right, dude, like, whatever. Sweeping up the job. job psych was a bait in my existence because I get so mad. I'd be like it's just going to be so much more dust tomorrow. Why the fuck are we doing it this way? Once a week. Because when the homeowner surprises and stops by to check out how the frame out of their brand new house is they're going to feel way better about me and everyone here when the place is cleaned up when it takes you, he's like, I don't give a shit. I'm paying you. It takes you what, 30 minutes. So guess what you get to do for 30

minutes tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. But when the homeowner who's so thrilled to be building this home, they love it. They love when there's a swept floor, even on a construction site. Yeah, and I will say there is like a, I personally feel better when my lawn looks good, right? You know, obviously it depends on like the neighborhood you live in. And I'm not a long guy, wasn't a long guy at the first house. I become kind of like a guy who is like, all right, let's like, I trim my own hedges now. I got to get the wheelbarrow out, throw it in the back. Like it's like, you know, if I do it a couple of times a year, it's kind of fun. But I grew into that.

Like, you know, I think like maybe being a dad just kind of like made me more interested in this stuff. I said, hey, I should, I should do more stuff. I feel like I've taught myself a million things just like going on YouTube being like electric like electric work. Sure. Like I'll just throw it up on YouTube. I'll change a light. No problem at all.

But that, that was probably like my mid 30s that I grew into that. I don't know how old this guy is, but like maybe you will at some point have that like spark in your life. You're like, hey, I'm kind of interested in this stuff. You sound like you don't have obviously. of time right now. But like, yeah, if you got a, if you got a father-in-law, I mean, you know, it kind of feels awkward because he's like, cool, I'm going to have this old man do like manual labor at my house for me. Like, that does kind of feel like a shitty situation. Like, I'm just sitting

in the house while you're doing stuff outside. I'd probably help him a little bit, maybe buy him some gifts, like take him out for beers or once in a while. But like, yeah, if he's enthusiastic and is cool with doing it, then like, yeah, go ahead. Like, seems like a get out of jail free card for you. I've just had a lot of landscapers in my life. And they are very helpful. you know, then they see a yard setup that's been ignored, you know, a lack of attention. They're usually willing to offer up a helping hand. So you might have like a solution to the wife part of it and what your place looks like. And as Surrudi said, you might pull up in the driveway one day and like what you see.

Mm-hmm. Who knows? I currently have a mole problem out back and, uh... You're not talking about your body, right? No. No, no, mole-free. I'm the body. in the yard in the back and it's

I don't like looking out there. I don't like it looks it looks like shit if I'm being honest. It's only in one part of the backyard but it does piss me off a little bit when I'm like you know the front looks so bad. Are you going to poison it? See that I want to kill him. I don't want to set up, yeah,

I set up traps and it's like I don't want to do that. I'm not trying to kill like they're just trying to live, you know, but like there's kind of no other way to do it I think as far as what I've read is you just got to set up traps and let them go to town which is kind of a bummer. Mall traps. Yeah. Keep us posted on that.

All right. last one what to call doctors outside of the hospital hey guys six foot two 15 NBA comp Mike Conley my wife is a resident doctor at a hospital last night we were at a concert we saw one of her attendings that she likes name has changed I'll call him dr. Brad Smith she told me sounds like that guy going to hoop yeah she told me that she heard he would be at the concert but it was a surprise that we spoke to him I had not met this man before so when he said hello to my wife. I said, oh, is this Brad? And I'm, hey, I'm my name because she likes him. I was extra chatty and tried to give a good first impression. Our guy's trying. After the interaction, my wife

died at what I had said and texted her other resident friends that I called him by his first name instead of, oh, is this Dr. Smith? I don't like that text. No, I don't either. I realize the correct stand last night is to have said Dr. Smith and let him correct me to say, first name, but what are your thoughts on job titles outside of the workplace, doctors, judges, etc. I don't call my wife's resident friends Dr. So-and-so, so when we were at dinner together, even though they all graduated from medical school, just like Dr. Brad Smith, where's the line? Possible, important to note, we're age 29 and Dr. Brad Smith is in his late 30s, early 40s. I've never once called, like in casual acquaintances, someone who's a doctor, Dr. So-and-so.

that feels insane to me. And if you are up the person that, like, wants that to be a thing and you're like, hey, no, I'm actually doctor, whatever. I don't know. A lot of student loans, Surrudi. A lot of textbooks, a lot of lonely hours. That's great. You chose that path.

I don't know. I didn't. No one forced you to be a doctor. Like, I get it you want to be called that. It doesn't mean you're not a doctor. I don't think you're a doctor. But does it have to call you that every time I talk to you? I don't, I feel like that's unfair.

What about Dr. Jay? Well, it's a different kind of doctor. That's his name, though. Like no one like, you know what I mean? That's his entire persona. I guess maybe this Dr. Smith thinks that's this entire persona too. But like that's, it's just a hard. Doesn't it just feel like a hard.

Brad Smith is like, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I just, I, it just feels, something feels weird about it to me. It gives me the ick. I'm with you. I'm with.

I can't believe your wife made it a thing. Yeah. And then decides to kind of take this embarrassment lap with their people on the inside. It's like, okay, that's not what we do. You mean when you're in. your scrubs about to enter the OR. Yeah, I get it. We were at Gavin de Grau.

I can't call him Brad. I think there is an age component to this, though, too. Like, if it's an older doctor, it's like, oh, this is doctor so-and-so and you're younger. Like, it's just kind of like whatever. But if you are of similar ages, like, there's absolutely no way. I'm doing that, you know? I wouldn't have done it. I mean, maybe if there's just some prep work, like, hey, make sure you do this.

I think dentists, like dentists. A couple guys, remember old pickup hoops guy. This guy wanted me thrown out of the league because I didn't pay. It was basically just him being super mad that he was old and I wasn't. And, you know, he wanted to be known as doctor, whatever. You're like, I don't know. And again, somebody, some bunch of dentists are going to email the show saying, fuck you guys, like you're supposed to say doctor, whatever.

But I think we know, I think we already know the answer to this. Doctors are going to email us and go, this is wrong because most sane people, even those that have achieved a doctorate, are not going to want to be introduced that way or expect everybody else to like, I mean, it's just a couple extra years of the diploma. And now we're supposed to act like your fucking sir Paul McCartney. Two things. I think there's a big, so my brother-in-law is a dentist. and Does he go by doctor? No.

The only person that calls him Dr. Matt, which is his first name, is my mom. Like, and I think it's like a loving thing, you know, like,

oh, Dr. Matt. Parents love doctors. I think parents should be allowed to do it north of certain age. My sister's also a doctor, too, but different kind of doctor. And no one calls them doctors.

And I don't think anyone would want. Your sister's a doctor? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she does, like, um, O. kind of thing.

Damn. Yeah. But none of them would, you know, it was like, hey, they're, you know, doctor this, doctor that, like maybe when they first graduated, it was like kind of funny and then it just sort faded out. And I don't think either of them would want any of the family members to call them doctor. I don't, I mean, I can't imagine they want their friends other than like ironically to call them doctor.

And my mom just kind of does it because that's what my mom does. But there's also a big difference. If I'm a doctor, even, you know, medical doctor, dentist, whatever, if I am like working on the human body. And somebody else who's just like, God. a PhD in, you know, whatever, got their doctorate, that would piss me off. So, so I would defend the medical and the general. So it's like somebody who's stationed in Afghanistan versus a recruiter at a strip mall in Charlotte, North Carolina. No, somebody who has their doctorate

in like, you know, whatever studies. You're just like, okay, like you're, you, you, I know you're a doctor. I'm not going to call you a doctor. And that to me is, do you not, do you not agree with that? Uh, I'm with you. I get that. I get that. Like that one, I would never call them doctor. Unless it was like a formal,

unless they were like making a speech and like they had to be labeled on a show. You're introducing them. Yeah, you know, like, but in casual conversation, zero chance. Yeah,

imagine like playing golf and it's your buddy who has his doctorate in philosophy. And then you're with paired up with two other people. I'm like, oh, this is Dr. Phil. I don't know. I picked Phil.

It didn't really work. Didn't land as well because there is a real doctor, Phil. And he's super established. and he has all sorts of degrees. Is he real? I have no idea. What's his doctorate?

Is he a doctor? He's a medical doctor. He's a medical doctor. I'll tell you right now. That'll do it for the show today. Thanks to Tom and Kevin. Serrudi. Thanks to everybody here at Peyton as well

here in the Chicago office. They're helping us get set up today. That'll do it for the show. Ryan Rissilla Show, Barstool Sports. Chew.