Will Cain Country - A Veterans Day Message Of Community And Hope

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Story #1: Will wants to be an optimist, but it's hard after watching the fallout from Tuesday night's election results and the 3rd GOP Debate. Story #2: The case for optimism on Veterans Day with Green Beret Scott Mann. Story #3: Do you want your quarterback crying on his mother's shoulder? The case for and against USC QB Caleb Williams.   Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail]   Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. One. I want to be an optimist. I know I want to be an optimist. But after Tuesday night, and after the Republican primary debate, I'm feeling like a pessimist. I need you to talk me off the ledge.

I need you to help me be an optimist. Two, the case for optimism on Veterans Day, a veteran on every corner, you and I, along with veterans, rebuilding this society from the bottom up, a conversation with Green Beret, Scott Man. Three, do you want your leader? Do you want your quarterback crying on his mommy's shoulder? It's the Will Kane podcast on Fox News podcast. What's up? And welcome to the weekend. Welcome to Friday. As always, I hope you will download rate and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment, Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News Podcasts. Every time you leave a comment, every time you leave a rating, every time you leave, if you feel it is so deserved, a five-star review, you help this community grow. You help us find a new listener, a new viewer.

And we interact. I see your comments. And as always, you can watch the Will Cain podcast on Rumble or on YouTube and follow me on X at Will Cain. We have a big show here today. It's Veterans Day weekend. I'm going to be hanging out with the Navy SEAL this weekend going to a UFC fight. Seems pretty perfect for Veterans Day. But I also think this conversation today is pretty perfect.

I've gotten to know Green Beret, former Green Beret, Scott Mann over the last, I'd say year, but very well over the past several months as we work together on something called Task Force Lahaina to try to marshal A. to the people of Maui. And I learned something. I learned something from him about how he sees the world, how he saw rebuilding villages in Afghanistan, how he thinks you should organize basically every civilization from the bottom up.

Nobody's coming. You won't be saved by an institution. And as you'll see in our conversation today, maybe we shouldn't sit and hope for the right president. Maybe the hope is you. Maybe the hope is me. maybe the hope is us building a better world from the bottom up i think you're going to enjoy this conversation for veterans day but first story number one i am by my very nature an optimist

you have to be throughout my career i've been an entrepreneur you don't start a business you don't take a risk if you don't think the future is brighter if you don't feel some measure of control that you can make your future and maybe even the world around you better. But I'm having trouble this week seeing optimism when it comes to our nation, the collective, the United States of America. On Tuesday night, voters across this nation for the fourth election cycle in a row, essentially handed Republicans a loss. even if it is in some states like Virginia a tempered win or a half loss. We have to understand the nature of the rejection from voters for Republicans. And I say it's a rejection because we have to understand exactly how tilted a playing field.

It should be, it should be right now in politics. You have nationwide rising crime rates. the inner-city urban core of almost every city in this country has begun to rot. Philadelphia, New York City, San Francisco are experiments, little laboratories of democracy in progressive politics. We are teetering on, by I think most wise estimations, a serious national economic recession. Of course, we have a blood-letting war dragging on in Eastern Europe. The United States has decided to bandage with current. with our tax dollars, and now we have the threat of an explosion of violence that could

engulf the United States, and I don't think it's some big hyperbolic overstatement to say the risk of World War III in the Middle East. On top of that, you have inflation. You have a southern border that is, if not creating, metastasizing many of the problems that we've just laid out. this playing field should lend itself to overwhelming victories for Republicans, bringing sanity back to the family, bringing sanity back to the education system, understanding the very simple yet fundamental difference between a man and a woman. Having a wiser approach to economics than simply firing up the printing press

and spending federal dollars, you would think the playing field would be so tilt. that Democrats would simply slide off the map. But that's not what is happening. And it hasn't happened. After Donald Trump won the general election for president in 2016, you're basically looking at a series of four straight losses for Republicans. 2018 midterms, 2020 presidential election, 22nd midterms, and now 23 off-year election.

there's no way that the average person can wake up and look around the world and say yes give me more of that but they have they've said give me more inflation give me more high crime give me more gender insanity give me more racism though it's cloaked in the form of anti-racism give me a worsening economy give me instability give me weakness at leadership they will ask for and they will vote for all of that more give me more of that toxic soup instead of right now replacing or choosing the alternative replacement of a Republican. If you want a indictment right now of Republicans, you can boil it down to one simple truth, one simple reality. Here it is. This should be the long, hard look in the mirror. This should be it. John Federman is a senator of the United States of America.

John Federman is a United States senator. He can barely complete a sentence, has up until recently worn a hoodie, and worn threaded, tattered basketball shorts, and dirty new balances to the Capitol. John Federman was the choice of voters versus the alternative Republican. now listen on this podcast in our conversations when i go on tv my job i consider it to be almost primarily not exclusively but primarily to tell you what i think is the truth and tell you what i think is right but that doesn't it would be a disservice to you a disservice to me and a disservice to both of those goals in pursuing righteousness and the truth, if I don't ever recognize reality.

If we were on a ship headed out to sea, and that ship were severely off course and threatening this strand us in the middle of a vast desert of ocean, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific with no land in sight for thousands of miles, you would want someone to say, hey, I think we're off course. We can't be a people that simply want someone to say, nope, everything's looking good, Captain. We can't change the future. We can't make a better reality if we don't recognize reality. And the reality is the long look in the mirror has to be, hey, Republicans are losing. Now, on Wednesday night, there was the Republican primary debate for president. and candidate Vivek Ramoswamy came out swinging at the beginning of that debate. Ramoswami said, and he laid out, as I just did, the series of losses incurred by Republicans.

And he laid the blame, at least in part, on the Republican National Committee. He laid the blame on Rana McDaniel. And he used as an example of that, what is the point in having a debate hosted on a network in BC that indulged the Russia collusion lie? And I think he makes a very interesting point. And he certainly received a ton of plaudits, applause, and likes on X. But, well, I don't think Vivek is wrong. And I certainly think there are problems in our voting process. We cannot have mass mail-in-balloting.

And if we do, Republicans better learn how to play the game of mass mail-in-balloting like Democrats. We need to reform for voter integrity, for vote-intagrally. integrity. For the integrity of our democratic system, the process of voting. And again, I think that's something that Ramoswami has championed very admirably. We should probably have single day in-person voting, with only exceptions made for those who can't make their way to the ballot box. We don't need to continue down this path that in pursuit of every single person voting, we dilute the integrity of the vote. No driver's license? No problem. No ID. We'll figure it out. Signature match, eh. Mail it in.

We'll come get it from you. I agree this is not healthy for democracy, but it is also not the sole and exclusive cause of the loss for Republicans. On Tuesday night in those off-year 2023 elections, we have to understand that in Ohio, a state that has been trending increasingly red, the voters rejected restrictions on a border. abortions. They rejected. Now, did they have an alternative to pick from? That's again a statement from Ramoswami. There was no alternative referendum to say, well, what about it eight months? What about it? They rejected restrictions on abortion. In Virginia, they rejected fairly moderate Republican Glenn Yonkin's proposal to cap abortion at 15 weeks. In Kentucky, they punished the Republican candidate. Daniel Cameron, for pushing restrictions on abortion. The public is speaking very clearly that they do not want restrictions on abortion. And that's not simply in purple or blue states.

That's in red states, like Kansas. Now, again, I'm not telling you what I want. I am pro-life. It's a philosophical, and religious proposition for me, that both morally, religiously, and logically, logically, I believe that life begins at conception. And I think technology over time will validate that logic and that belief. I think we will look back on this moment in time and say, when technology allows it to be

obvious, what a moral stain on the U.S. say. However, because I want that to be the case, because it is what I believe, it doesn't mean I think that's where the country is, and I am listening to the country, and I'm reading the playing field, and the country wants nothing to do right now with restrictions on abortion. I think Ann Coulter laid this out really well. She said, we can't simply continue to run Republicans out there to lose on the sword of abortion, to fall on the sword of abortion. She said, conservatives, you won. You won. You fought it at the level of the Constitution because it was an absolute farce, Roe v. Wade, that there was anything in the Constitution protecting

some personal right to an abortion. She's right. We were right. It was right the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade from the Supreme Court of the United States. But from there, it goes to federalism. It goes to democracy. It goes to the people to vote. And that's what we're hearing today. It's what we're watching. It's what we're seeing. the voice of the people. And if you are pro-life, the answer, I think, is less about laws that are not being embraced by the public, again, even in red states like Kansas. And more about winning over hearts and minds, more about making an argument that persuades.

And that, I think, is what we've lost. I do. And I think this is part of what's happening in the Republican Party. We have, we have, I don't think just lost. the ability, but lost the desire to persuade. And I will indict people like me, people who are in my industry as well as politicians. The game has turned into bring along, cultivate a very passionate minority that believes everything you believe and wants to hear you echo back to them what they believe.

Affirmation is fun. It feels good. But what we have to be learning after four or five election cycles is affirmation exclusively also is a recipe for loss. Along with that affirmation, when you look at people like me and what many do, think about how much negativity is accompanied. Oh, the country is going to hell in a handbasket. Oh, this person is evil. Oh, this idea is wrong. And we need negativity when it reflects reality.

but people also, once the acknowledgement of reality, I think need inspiration. They need a positive direction. They need to be told not just that the boat is off course and you're headed to thousands of miles of ocean with no land in sight, but they need you to say, and I think we should turn the ship this way. 20 degrees starboard. Whatever it may be, we need a positive direction. And when I look at that debate stage, when I look at that.

When I look at that debate stage on Wednesday night in the primary, I, for one, don't see inspiration. I think there's a lot of talent. I think Ramoswami is actually brilliant. I think DeSantis is a phenomenal governor. I think Tim Scott looks like an incredible guy. But I don't see inspiration in the form of a leader. I don't see the positive message. of course that always lead you back to Donald Trump and I've made no bones about this in the same way I compliment DeSantis or Ramos so I mean I have compliments for Donald Trump I love the way he redrew the map for Republicans he brought in working class Democrats he's actually expanded people will never tell you this it's like the hidden truth expanded the racial

constituency of his support and Republicans, more blacks, more Latinos, supporting Donald Trump. But I also recognize that there is a very animated base opposed to Donald Trump, like, very animated. And I don't just think they're all leftists. I think there are many caught up in the personality. I had breakfast with some friends, and I said, if you would, just set aside. his personality and you can almost see the faces at the table in their not just incapability but lack of desire in setting aside the man Donald Trump and there are so many independence even conservatives soccer moms but also businessmen that can't get past his personality

and it animates them it motivates them I think it motivates them so much they're willing to vote in Senator John Fetterman, it animates them to the extent they allow for President Joe Biden. These are not inspirational figures either. I don't think people are actually voting for Fetterman or Biden. I think they are voting against Donald Trump. And so I sit here today against my very nature, which is an optimist, which is that of an optimist, Feeling today somewhat pessimist because I don't know the path. I don't see the inspirational figure that can bring this positive message in a way that is adhered to and faithful to the values of the United States of America and can persuade the American people to a win.

Because to continue to rack up losses is to turn the country over. to leftists. And within leftists, a growing and obvious strain of Marxists, we're not talking about electing John F. Kennedy. We're not even talking about Michael Dukakis here. We're talking about modern-day Democrats and leftism has lurched in an undeniable way toward the philosophies of communism. That's the price, I think.

That's the stake. That's the stakes of the game. Should we continue to rack up losses? And I want you to help me. I do. Will cane podcast at fox.com. And I will because it's my nature too. You can't wallow in pessimism.

You can't play woes me. You can't just sit around saying the world's going to hell in a handbasket. You've got to do something. You've got to take action. You know, so I won't wallow, but I'm searching for that action. I'm searching for that optimism. I'm searching for the answer for the United States of America. We'll be right back with more of the Will Kane podcast.

This is Jimmy Phala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at Fox Across America.com. This is Jason Chaffetz from the James. Jason and the House podcast. Join me every Monday to dive deeper into the latest political headlines and chat with remarkable guests. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts.

Story number two, part of that action in search of a positive message, I thoroughly believe is you. I thoroughly believe is me. And I thoroughly believe is found in the doing in the last couple of months. You know, when I was fortunate enough to dive in, on what happened in Maui. I got to know former Green Beret Special Forces scout man. It's just an incredible dude, served in Afghanistan and Iraq. And after his retirement, he has taken to the doing, along with other vets, long after their military career requires.

Somewhere where an institution has failed, somewhere something needs to be done, need to evacuate people out of Afghanistan, need to supplies to Lahaina, need to get people out of Israel. Well, this coalition of veterans and civilians who just do think they found the, if not solution, the act for positivity in building a civilization, plugging gaps, rebuilding our country from the bottom up. It's Veterans Day. It's time to think about our veterans. But I think it's also time to think about modeling what we can do based upon these veterans. here is Scott man Scott man great to see you again

so glad to have you on this day leading into Veterans Day you and I spoke a little bit earlier this week we have been speaking a lot over the last couple of months and we spoke a little bit earlier this week and you said listen I'd love to talk about Veterans Day

and you know what what you see and not just what you see and think about but what you've done as far as an ongoing role for veterans you know, after the military. And I think it's really important to talk about that here on Veterans Day. Yeah, I agree. And thanks for having me on, pal. And, you know, we have. You and I've talked a lot lately. And I think you've had the opportunity to see some of the amazing things our

veterans and military families can do. You know, for me being out of the Army for almost 11 years now after the longest war in our history, I find myself more and more convinced, as our country becomes more disconnected, more divided, more polarized, that our veteran community, and I include military families in this, represent the true moral compass and probably last shot we have at coming together as a nation. And I know that's a pretty stark statement, but I believe it. Tell me why. Why is it our last shot as a country? Well, the levels, you know, I spent most of my life is a green beret working in trust depleted societies, you know, that are tearing each other apart along tribal lines, factioning, that kind of thing. And it doesn't end well, you know,

and when you look at what I call shadow tribalism that's happening in this country today, the levels of division that are happening are to me very, very similar to the levels of division organizational collapse and just civil society chaos that I've seen in so many other countries. And we're not immune to it. You know, we're not immune to it. A stability as a first world nation of abundance is not an entitlement. It is maintained through the stewardship of leadership. And what I see is that our institutional leaders who we once relied upon to maintain that stability and that liberal democracy, civil society that values the individual over the group that allows abundance to happen, those leaders are failing us, and they're failing us in

large numbers. And what I've seen since getting out of the military is it's veterans and a handful of civilian volunteers that are trying to fill those gaps. So I want to talk about that in just a moment, but you make me think about so much that I've been reading about lately. Scott, so I want to share with you some of the thoughts that I've sort of been focused on. My attention has been centered on these thoughts for the last couple of weeks and months. And that is, tribalism is the nature of man. It is our fundamental survival tool to create tribes of commonality in order to share responsibility and increase the opportunity for survival. And so that's sort of the base core foundation of man.

You know, I was reading a lot about when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict about Arab culture, and you were in Afghanistan, and I think you were in Iraq as well. So, you know, that's interaction with Arab culture. And so many of those countries did not have, as you pointed out, a developed civil society. So they were resting on that foundation. They were resting on tribalism. And when you get that, you get a lot of something called honor culture. When you can't turn to some outside source that you trust to resolve your issues, everything comes down to honor. And And that's where you get, and honor is virtuous, but honor as a code can also take you in directions of like vengeance and revenge and these types of things to defend one's honor. And the idea, Scott, of a nation state, of moving beyond the tribe requires a man to say, I will buy into a set of values that I see as more advantageous to me, my family, and my tribe than my natural gravitational pull. of race or religion or geography, that is my foundational survival tool, that is my tribe. So what I've been talking about here, Scott, is what we've lost as a country in America is the buy-in that's necessary for a nation state. That's the buy-in of our common values. Yeah, I love it. And I'm just going to build on what you said. There's a guy named Robert Putnam. He's a social scientist. He's written a couple of books. One of them's bowling alone. The other one is

the upswing and the rub of his books and that I've built a lot of my leadership stuff around is what Putnam says is that, you know, all of us come from these honor-based societies or another term of it is status societies. We all originate from that. In fact, you know, mammals are status societies. I mean, it is, and it's built really around resource scarcity, not having enough, you have to group together to obtain and acquire enough resources to live. And so one's status within that group is essential to have enough to survive. And the collective, the group, the in-group is the end-all be-all to how you navigate your civil society. We teach this in the Green Beret qualification course because you have to understand fundamentally that this is the origin of trust.

and what Putnam called it was bonding trust, Will, this trust that you have in your kin, your cousins, your neighbor, your in-group. And it's a deep trust, but it's not wide. And so when you have this bonding trust environment, it's helpful when you're trying to acquire enough resources to survive. But when you start getting into the realm of wanting to thrive, to get beyond just scarcity,

then you need a different kind of trust. And what Putnam calls this is bridging social capital or what I call it bridging trust, the ability to bridge beyond one's end group, where the emphasis is no longer on the group or the clan, it's on the individual. And the ability to bridge beyond your end group and start a business working with people from a different ethnicity or religion. It's really so fundamental to what this country has founded on. but the only way it holds will it's not a natural state for humanity bridging trust is not natural

um it it has to be preserved and stewarded by leaders uh in the constitution rule of law and when leaders and when institutional leaders abandon that you don't lose trust altogether what happens is you go back to where you came from you go back to bonding trust you go back to in groups that you feel safer with because everything's falling apart. And if you look around the country right now, that's what's happening. Everyone is reverting back to their end groups because they've lost faith in the institutions, the social capital with their neighbors, and in the common stories that we tell the world. You know, you know, I've talked about the role of Green Berets and you're sort of this philosopher warrior. And I know that you were so integral in the village stability efforts in

Afghanistan, knowing that, do you feel like looking back on that, Scott, that that was, and I don't mean any offense, I only mean this as an exercise in thoughtfulness, but do you feel like that was an effort, all of the efforts in Afghanistan, were ultimately efforts doomed to fail because Afghanistan is so stuck back literally, maybe more than centuries, could be stuck back thousands of years in that honor-bound society where you were never going to get them to trust some outside institution like a national government. You know, it's a great question. And I really don't. And I'll tell you why. And I talked about this in game changers before the country ever fell. You know, I was saying that we were trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

What we didn't do after 2001 will was we didn't recognize the nature of the civil society that we were trying to stabilize. And if you want to go a step further, what was it that we were really trying to do in Afghanistan? Well, we had been hit with the worst terror attack in our nation's history and it emanated from a strategic safe haven, where a violent extremist group with global power projection capability, established their safe haven, set up shop in an undergoverned, at-risk area that was honor-based and that was distanced from a top-down central government, right? And so they went in and they set up shop there and they filled all of the gaps and needs of the local people from dispute resolution to food security. And by doing that, they established a level of autonomy that

they could operate, plan, project, and launch attacks against the West. That is the MO for global violent extremist groups. They are going to set up shop in hard to reach, at risk, under governed areas. So we don't retain the isolationist option to just leave them be because this country's tribal. What I believe is that that approach should have been done in 2002 when 5th Special Forces Group and the horse soldiers dislodged al-Qaeda and the Taliban in less than 90 days. And you had a whole range of locals in Afghanistan wanting to reclaim their local autonomy me that they hadn't had in 40 years, but we were so adamant about projecting the Western way of war and putting 100,000 troops in the country versus that helping communities stand up

from the bottom up. And so I think I've doubled down on this. And I believe that if we're going to create true antibodies to global terrorism in at-risk, hard-to-reach areas, we are going to have to get better at connecting at a local level community engagement and quit abandoning our damn allies. Okay, I want to, I want to definitely follow up on that. I also want to say a couple of things here because I think, you know, somebody listening might be, might be forgiven for a little bit of confusion when you and I bring up honor so many times because honor is such a virtue. I mean, it is, it is what, it is what holds the individual to a code of conduct that is virtuous, the idea of honor. But what we're talking about here is, when honor isn't

just your code of conduct, but honor is your societal organizing mechanism, because there's nothing else, right? And so what that leads to, like anything, I mean, everything, there are two sides to every coin. You have too much of any one thing. You'll see the downside of that very thing. And so when we're talking about a society organized around honor, this is where you get, you know, honor killings in Islam, right? If someone insults you, you have to then kill, if somebody hurts you, you got to hurt their family and on and on. And so that's what we mean by like, that's a fair characterization about this, right? Scott, when I talk about honor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I want to just clarify a little bit more.

So when you think about honor-based societies, what we're actually talking about is a society that puts its emphasis on the group above the individual, right? So the group is the end-all be-all. And so when you talk about, you know, honor and shame, that is the currency of behavior in these groups. So it is not honor unto oneself, right? So if, for example, if something is happening around you and you know it to be wrong internally, right, and you take a stand against that, that is in a collective honor-based society, that is not honorable because your honor is an obligation to the group. It is how you preserve honor of the group. And so it has very little to do in many cases with right and wrong, moral, immoral. It has to do with the preservation of status.

Status could almost be interchangeable, really, is the status of the individual within the group and the status of the group within other groups. And honor is the currency by which you achieve that. But honor is your obligations to your collective. It's not to yourself. And that's where it can get really ugly because each group is trying to preserve its own honor. And so anything goes when you're trying to do that. All right. And the other thing I wanted to discuss is that you and I've gone to know each other over time in that I became aware and have helped talk about Operation Pineapple Express, your veteran-led from the bottom-up efforts to get people out of Afghanistan.

We worked together on Task Force Lahaina to marshal aid to the people of Maui. We have been in contact regarding stuff when it comes to veteran-led efforts. bottom up when it comes to Israel. So, so one thing I know that you, you, you, you keep coming back to and you've come back to it in our conversation is your like philosophical belief in bottom up, that you see failure from the top, which may or may not be inevitable, Scott. And I don't think you think it's inevitable because you've talked about the role of leadership here today. But I do know that you believe deeply in this idea of not just aid and effort, but building societies from the bottom up. Yeah, I mean, my, my kind of battle cry to people today and not just veterans is

nobody's coming. You know, nobody's coming. When we see what's going on in our, in our own civil society, whether it's at the community level, regional, national, international, you know, we have this, we've been conditioned to think that, okay, if there's a problem, just sit tight and somebody's going to come handle it, right? And we've been conditioned to expect that. And we've been conditioned to expect that from local, state, federal government, and other institutional leaders. And my premise is that for whatever reason, and I think there's a range of reasons, today, I don't think that's a safe assumption. I don't think that just because something is broken in your life, that someone's going to come along with institutional authority and fix

it, you know, and I, and that's okay. I mean, there's a large part of me that says, That's okay because what I believe is actually at play here is what Putnam talks about with the upswing in that in the early 1900s, we were in a very similar place in the United States. There was a lot of division. There was a lot of halves and have nods. Agricultural was going giving way to industry. Borders were out of control. And you saw a lot of bottom up movement will.

That's when Alcoholics Anonymous got started, the Rotary Club, the Junior League. NAACP, future farmers of America, pretty much every social organization that you and I knew as kids that our parents participated in, it started between like 1900 and 1910, and it ran all the way to 1972, this upswing of bottom-up social capital. And, you know, there's a lot of folks looking at this saying, you know, I think we're due. I think we're due for another upswing. And I personally believe that what happened with pineapple and these other volunteer groups in the in the in the aftermath of the afghanistan withdrawal might just be the first shots across the bow on that and because i'm seeing a lot of this and you and i've both seen it we've seen

we've seen very responsible citizens stepping into the breach doing amazing things that we're heretofore reserve for institutional leaders now i'm not saying that we're not saying that don't need institutional leaders. Obviously we do. But I do believe that bottom up leaders can model what it's supposed to look like and vote the mouth breathers out. Okay. I'm going to put a pin on that and I'm going to come back and I'll keep track of every pin I put into this conversation. But now I want to pick up on something you said a minute ago. And I heard the passion in your voice, okay, when you said don't abandon our damn allies and you talk about this world of being not isolated but engaged at the bottom.

level up. So let me, um, so you and I've become good enough friends that I think that I can, I can tell you everything I think without it being insult, because you'll have a thoughtful response where I may or may not be right or wrong. I have noticed that guys who have served and served especially high levels, whether or not that be green berets and who are now serving in Congress or Navy SEALs, there's a greater willingness to be involved in affairs that the average American doesn't understand or see the interest of America. So, for example, Ukraine, Scott, or I think it's a very legitimate question even when it comes to the ongoing and never-ending fight in the Middle East for Israel, that it's a very

legitimate question for the American public to ask, but what is the America first interest? And here's why, Scott, it's because I believe in bottom-up. Like, we have problems at home, and I want to solve stuff on our street corners and at our border. And I don't know why it feels like those problems go neglected while we put so much emphasis and effort into sending guys like you over to Afghanistan or if it ends up being Israel or if it's Ukraine. I don't, I have a skepticism towards it, Scott, that I feel like a lot of guys who've been on the ground like yourself have a bigger passion. Yeah, I think that's a fair statement. And I don't disagree with the need to take care of things at home and deal with local issues. I guess maybe the way I choose to think of that is, first of all, guys like me who are green berets and who are green berets, you know, we comprise 6,500 out of 1.4 million in the military.

So you're talking about a very specialized group of folks who are supposed to go do that. Yes. That's what they're supposed to do. And right now, as we speak, Green Berets are operating in something like 65 countries around the world as a force multiplier to work by with and through indigenous people to help them stand up on their up and do their own work. You know, so I, that's usually what I go back to when I get the America First response is I agree. However, we do have within our inventory a very, and it's not just Green Berets either. We have this with expeditionary diplomats, with aid work. workers, we have this capability. The problem is, the larger problem, I think, is a lot of civilian policymakers and politicians and even senior elite military leaders don't understand that capability. We want to solve everything with a seal platoon or a Marine battalion. And that's not a slight on those guys. But there's a lot of these problems that can be addressed abroad that are long-term issues that are going to require persistent sustainment over 20 years. I always said Afghanistan then was a 75-year engagement, and I stand by that, you know, but we've been in Columbia

for 40 years with up to 200 Green Berets, 365, 24-7, no one even knows. So, you know, that's one side of it. And then on the local side, as far as like what we should be doing at home, I think that's almost a different conversation in that I look at our citizenry and I look at the way that we are behaving towards each other. And the way that we have our heads down and these devices like we're asleep at the switch. And I think there's a whole host of issues in terms of just self-actualization and awareness and willingness to lead at a local level. I saw a study not too long ago where they called 70% of the American people the exhausted majority that are just worn the heck out and they just, what's the point? That concerns me

actually more than, you know, should we be in Ukraine, not Ukraine? I mean, I just feel like there's a, there's an inaction at home that really worries me. And that's the bottom up that gets me passionate, Scott. Like, you know, of all the efforts, obviously, that we were involved with together, Lahaina was the one that I was most involved with. But I want to see that bottom up here in America. Like when you talk about is there a new swing and you talk about the role of leadership. And I think this comes back to vets. You know, you guys are doing amazing things with the vets. I would love to see that applied like it was applied in Lahaina.

Like I, but not just Lahaina. Like every state right now has a problem that is ignored by American leaders, right? And big problems. And I want, you know, you talked about AA and future farmers of America. You know, I would even go more, more ground. level. Like, what are you doing with your neighbor? How's your neighbor? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How's your church? How's your community? But then from there, grow, grow something. And, you know, that's what I think of when I think of bottom up right here at home in America. There's a guy, you know him, Ben Owen. I introduced you to Ben.

So Ben is an Army veteran and exactly to your point. Ben and his wife, Jess, are hardcore drug addicts in their younger years. They almost died on the streets of South Memphis. Their story is insane. The level of addiction and just deprivation that they went through. They got clean. And then Ben was very involved with the Afghanistan withdrawal. But what he has. since done is he is putting his efforts towards an nonprofit called We Fight Monsters. And he's basically mobilizing veterans and volunteers to go into the very trap houses where he had just used. They are raising money, buying back the trap houses, employing alcoholics and addicts who have carpentry skills, electrical skills, and they are turning those trap houses into Halfway Houses. And it's, it's so far, it's been very successful. Crime has really dropped there. But to your point, I mean, that's about as local as you can get, man. And this is a dude who has every reason to kind of say, what's the point? But he's in there taking what he

learned in the military, but he's applying it at a grassroots local level. And people are getting excited about it. People are starting, there's veterans that I've been there, Monty and I've been there like three times. Veterans are coming from all over the country to be part of this. And he's got him connected on LinkedIn. And I think it's just one of many opportunities like that, to your point of a very, very, very, very grassroots local approach. I'm a country boy. And I believe that that's exactly how it goes. So talk to him about then, here we are, Veterans Day, and the role you, I mean, you want to see for veterans in, like, how does this work? Like, we can talk esoterically and not that that's worthless. That's how that's my nature.

often, but at the end, like, what can we do? How can we serve both veterans and America from the bottom up? Well, I would say first to, let me just address two different levels here as we celebrate Veterans Day. One is to civilians like yourself. You know, when it comes, I believe our veteran population represents a tremendous national asset base because of the ways that they've had to lead and the environments of ambiguity, volatility, uncertainty that they've had to navigate. So they've got this innate skill set that they bring home, but the world is so different, like you talked about, that, you know, they live in an honor-based society. The military is an honor-based society, and all of a sudden you come home to a very, very

individualized society, and it's hard to know where you fit. And what I would say to civilians is we need deep connections with our neighbors. We need to have our stories heard without judgment. And then we need to be able to kind of walk that path into reintegration with civilians at our side. I mean, I look at like what you and I did with Task Force Lahaina. You had a very, very explicit skill set and asset base that you brought. I did as well. We connected around that and we got to know what each other was capable of and, you know, did some cool things.

And I think that is something that civilians all over the country can do is know this. We're way past thank you for your service. service, we need civilians to help us transition. You guys know the ropes. You understand the arena. And with just a little bit of like local eyeballed eyeball, belly kind of connection, we can pull off some amazing things. Now, flipping that to the veteran side, I believe that what we have to do is veterans is we have to look in these places where we see things that are broken or laying on the floor and starting to stink. And we just have to say, okay, nobody's coming. I'll lead. What can I do here? And get in there and start building a community of practice or an influence around the problem. Get people talking about it.

Diverse groups. Bring them together. Frame the problem. Talk about solutions. Use technology and platforms to build these communities of interest that move fast and agile. And they typically will bring others to bear. So that's kind of my formula for the veteran approach is to look for it's broken, know that nobody's come and jump in there and bring those leadership

connection skills and organization skills that you knew in the military to bear around wicked problems. That's what I was going to ask you, Scott, because I was going to ask you what unique skills of a veteran enables them to take on that role. Because look, and this is a crude, this is a crude characterization, not one that applies very well to Green Berets. But, you know, the military at its essence is a destruction machine. more than a creation machine, right? It is destroy your enemy. Now, you develop skills in that pursuit, as you said, organization and leadership. So is that the skills that transfer back to the streets of Memphis, you know, in helping, I see you making a face. What is it?

To some degree it is. But I think that, you know, when you think about, what is it we asked our military to do for the last 20 years? I mean, we put them in these situations where even a low-ranking sergeant had to solve civil society disagreements that would make a diplomat spit up a hairball, you know, and they had to solve these things. And they were really wicked ill-structured problems. I'll just give you, if I could, I'll just give you one from my own life, you know, is I spent most of my time doing village stability and tribal engagement. But it became obvious to me about six years ago that we were, our civilians did not understand at all the impact of modern war. They thought of it more as a Fortnite game. And most of our veteran population was

really starting to question whether any of this was even worth it. And we needed a way to bring communities together and in type of conversations about war. I wrote a play. I wrote a play about the war. Never written anything like that in my life. And then to complete my midlife crisis, I studied theater at age 50 in New York City under Carl Bury and Larry Larry Moss and I studied for a year and then I brought other veteran actors. Half of them not actors brought them together. We did this play 16 cities in a year. We put a low budget film up during COVID. Gary Sinise saw it during Pineapple Express. Contacted me and put us on tour for another year. We just wrapped up a tour with him with an all veteran military family member cast and we

performed for thousands and thousands of people around the country. We did over 250,000, PTS interventions in the lobbies with our volunteer therapist that traveled with us, 75 Gold Star families, and it's still going. None of us had any, even our touring company had never done a play. They were, you know, like our tour manager lost her husband to suicide as an Air Force veteran. But I wanted to show that it doesn't matter if it's what's innate. It's what's in you. Do you see the problem and are you willing to step into the arena?

and say, okay, what? I'll give it my best shot. And that's, people are drawn to that, Will, and you know this. I mean, people are drawn. You're going to be afraid. I'm terrified every time I take something on. But one of the things my acting coach, Carl, taught me, was the definition of vulnerability is not knowing what's going to happen next and taking action anyway. And I think that's what people are hungry for today. I would love to see, you know, I don't even know, you know, veteran post-military career, you know, platoons, I mean, organizations where they're going out into communities like Ben's doing in Memphis, but, you know, with a real driven purpose for both sides of the equation, accomplishing a goal and giving those individuals, you know,

an ongoing purpose with their built skills. I agree with you 100%. This is something that serves both veteran community and America. And I would love to see that be something that flowered. Yeah, 100%. And I think it's happening. I think it's I, here's the danger that we're at right now. And this is where leaders like you who have these great platforms, I think can make a difference is I think that we have to communicate to our veteran population and to our military families that the way we turned the page on the Afghan war, the Iraq war was not, you know, was not the end game. You know, a lot of our men and women are kind of checking out right now because they they say, well, that was my adult life. And it was for nothing. And that's tough, man. I mean, that is not good. And I think what we need to focus on right now, particularly as we look at this Israeli-Palestinian thing, that could go high order any day, is that what our veterans did for 20 years was magnificent, honestly. And they have so much more to offer.

They have so much more to offer here at home. And we need them. We need this leadership at home. With the book, Pineapple Express, the last. words in the book are something to the effect of when we looked around and our allies were abandoned we saw that nobody else was coming that was our pineapple express what's yours because that's what the question that needs to be asked and that's my takeaway Scott of getting to know you of working with you and when we say what the skills are right um it's action it's just doing it's it's a

when I was you know on a day-to-day uh level involved with with Lahaina, Task Force, Lahaina, in particular, not the other things I've done, but it, well, even that, even the other things I did outside of Task Force Line, it's just doing, it's just action. It's the difference between those who do and those that don't is simply the doing. And I do think that's a skill that veterans have developed, do something, act. Yeah. Well, the other thing, too, is like watching you operate with that and Amy and the others that were

involved and I saw your piece that you did on and it was really well done and I saw your podcast where you clarified a lot of the myths and things one of the other things that I would just add to that relentless execution that you talked about is the ability to connect people around a wicked problem right and and and this is something man that's you well but you know what a lot of people have that skill they they they know how to connect people and it's almost instinctive, it's they see the problem and they're able to grasp the magnitude of the problem, but rather than try to fix it themselves, they're like, you know what, you absolutely must meet this person. I'm going to connect you to them immediately. And you can't sleep until they're connected.

That is a lot of veterans have that skill. A lot of civilians have that skill. We need those catalyst, those connectors who can build communities around problems. I think that's at the heart of what we're talking about here is yes there are a range of complex problems that we face but rather than waiting for institutional leaders to come and solve them let's build communities of interest communities of practice around these problems start taking them apart and swarming on them and model what it looks like so that the institutional leaders are so ashamed they have to come in and do something and that's exactly what happened in the early 1900s i think that's a lot of lot of what happened in Hawaii with your work and the team's work to some degree Afghanistan

is it's not that we don't need institutional leaders we do but rather than wait on ones who are frankly more focused on dividing us than mobilizing us let's let's connect ourselves which we have a lot more autonomy than we think and then make it so compelling that they have no choice but to get in there and do the right thing I love it man I do I do you know people said to me before will you ever going to run for office I'm not interested in politics And it's not, and it's not just because I don't want to campaign. It's like, what can I actually do in there? I don't know, man, this is just way more motivating for me, you know, to say you don't need to be a politician to effectuate positive change, you know, and to just do.

You don't even need a title. I mean, honestly, again, I keep going back to what you did with the aircraft, right? And I know there were a lot of people involved in that and a lot of people behind the scenes. But do you know what they all had in common? No one had a friggin title. No one had an institutional title that mandated they do this or they do that. In fact, many of them, including the nonprofits that got the stuff on that plane, they live everyday lives and they step up in a crisis and they make things happen.

But they don't have a title. And I think that's the other thing to me with veterans around Veterans Day and our military families that's so exciting is that you don't need a title to achieve a strategic. impact. It's just simply not true. And there are so many examples of it that if we just open our eyes to them, they lead us down a path where we can just do more and more of that. And I think that's the best news for this nation right now. And you've got a nation full of problems and you've got a nation full of people seeking a purpose who are looking for purpose. And you know, you can speak to the veteran side of that. I think I can speak pretty well to the civilian side of that. People are

starving for purpose. Here are problems. Here's a starvation of. purpose. It's, it's, this is, this is the future right here. It is, man. It is. And, and, you know, the biology of it is, you know, humans are meaning seeking, meaning assigning creatures. We don't take action unless we can assign meaning to it. And right now, if you look at the disengagement of the average American, it's like 85%. They're starving for purpose. That's a leadership problem. That's not a, that's not a citizen problem. That's a leadership problem. When you have 85% of your population disengaged, it means they lack purpose. And a leader's job is to ignite purpose in the people they serve. And when you do, they respond magnificently to it. At least Americans do,

I think. And I still believe that. I have to believe that because I have a lot of friends that aren't alive right now that believe that and they died for that. You know, and so I still very much believe that's alive in all of us, but it's going to be terrifying. It's going to be terrifying. It's going to be scary, and that's okay, right? That's what I've learned is that that's all right when that happens. But we've got to be willing to step into the breach and lead when people are scared. And then they'll find the, as you said, the purpose and meaning in themselves. And with shaking hands and wobbly knees, they'll step in, you know, but that's what it's going to take, I think.

Well, listen, man, I can hear the emotion in your voice when you talk about what not just you, when you sacrifice. and friendship and what other sacrificed in their life for the belief in those values, that belief in this community. And it's, I can hear your emotion. And it's, it's appreciated because for a lot of people like me that did not serve, it's as close as I will get to understanding that sacrifice. But what I can speak to firsthand is, to some extent, the man and the purpose that you've filled after your military career and what we're talking about here today. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate that part of your life, Scott, and I hope it's something that can serve as inspiration, not just for me, which it has. That's how you and I got

started, by the way. I just texted you one day and said, hey, man, I've been thinking about you and you inspired me on this. And then before you know it, you've got me on a group chat doing doing all kinds of stuff I'm unqualified for. But I hope everybody listening as well, because there's no difference between Scott or me or you listening when it comes to just doing and finding that purpose. Yeah, it's just so true, man. All right, buddy. I appreciate you. Happy Veterans Day. Thank you, man. It is a day of celebration. They are a national treasure. And let's don't forget, November is the military family month as well. And they are so worthy of our love and praise as well. All right. Scott Mann. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Scott, man. I hope there's some positivity. I hope there's some inspiration. Don't go anywhere. More of the Will Kane podcast right after this.

podcast featuring common ground in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle along with all your brett bear favorites like his all-star panel and much more available now at foxnewspodcasts dot com or wherever you get your podcasts story number three do you want your quarterback do you want your leader to cry on the shoulder of his mommy that is caleb williams quarterback of usc today here with us on the will cane podcast is the co- host of the Bear Betts podcast on Fox Sports podcast. His name is Jeff Schwartz. He played in the NFL. He played for the University of Oregon. He and I need to have a debate about Oregon versus Texas and the college football playoff rankings. We need to look at some of the big games of the weekend, and I want to ask him what he thinks of Caleb Williams. Here's my old friend, former colleague at ESPN, Jeff Schwartz. Jeff Schwartz of the Bear Betts podcast. My old colleague and friend at ESPN, now over here at Fox along with me. Really good to see you, man. It's been a long time. Glad to catch up with you. We both big football fans like this.

And you were just telling me that you think for sure, since my nephew plays at Clemson, that the whole Tyler from Spartanburg call in that set off Davo was 100% a plant? I think it's a plant, man. Yeah. Look, I listen to the whole thing. We've done a radio long enough. How long they let a car like that stay on for the whole, like she gets to talk that long to a coach like that? There's no way, right? And then Jimbo his answer, like, I just, it feels like someone that just, you know, you set up. Just call in, berate me, let me fire my team up and go back at you. And look at work.

Look at what comes in point this week. It works. Not Jimbo, but Davo. I used to let, I'd let people call into my show and ream me out as long as they wanted, but they just had to take it back, just like Tyler took it back from Davo. I don't know. I don't know. What does that mean?

You mean like an assistant coach called in? I don't know. I don't know. It's more fun to think of it as a plan than someone who really called it was like questioning the money that the coach makes. Like I, it just feels like a better cultural law story. Sort of like that's happened now. This Michigan stuff, it feels like fake, right? You're like, there's no way this is real. I keep getting real and real or realer. And it's just incredible. Cultural provides us with just so much drama. It's the best, man. It's absolutely best. Do you think, I mean, you think the Michigan scandal is real, right? I mean, what? What is your takeaway from this? Yeah. And do you think Michigan should have the book thrown out of them? Okay, so here's my take on this. There's obviously many things happening right now, right?

There's Michigan which clearly broke the rules, right? They went ahead and they had a coach or recruiting analyst or whatever you want to call him. Whether he did it with the permission in Michigan or not, he went to games, him or someone he paid for, and they illegally recorded signs from the field and quite possibly from the actual sidelines of such a Michigan game, right?

That's illegal. we get that. The other stuff here is like, do coaches share information between coaches? That absolutely happens, right? That's not illegal though. And stealing signs in the sense of like I watch a TV copy or I watch all 22 and I see you give your signs and we match them up to singles. That happens everywhere. It's happened for years. And so those are different things, right? Like Michigan is going to get in trouble. They broke the rules. Now, the question I have is how much did it help them win and lose football games? Because Michigan is very good at football, right? So like did it help us? them beat Ohio State? I don't know. They don't need this for when they play, you know,

Michigan State, when they play Purdue or Wisconsin or anything in Vienna, it seems they smash, but, you know, didn't give them that little bit of edge against Ohio State to help a win. We don't have answers for that, right? So I don't know what the proper punishment is going to be, but they broke the rules. Well, I think that the argument, and the argument to go like this, Michigan's rise from okay, pretty good, to college football playoff over the last two to three years does seem to correlate with this scandal. And then the argument would also go the minute they ran into a team that knew they were stealing signals, which would be TCU. TCU was warned ahead of time. And so TCU knew to switch up their signals, they got,

they got beat by TCU. So, I mean, again, it's all correlation, but it does seem to be that they were aided by, by this whole scheme. Yeah. So the only pushback I have on that is two things. One is that Michigan has better football players now, too. Like Jim Harbaugh got better football players. So like they were losing Ohio State because they were slow and now they have better football players. So whether that, because of something similar or not, they just have better players. And the TCU thing is interesting, right? Because Michigan now, Henry has lost six or seven straight games in January. Like they don't win these games. And to me, I didn't look at that game and think, oh, they lost that game because TCU changed their singles. They threw two pick sixes. and had two drives and inside the two yard line or at the two yard line with no points. Like, to me, I don't like that game and think, well, TCU had them

because, you know, it just, Michigan lost that game because they lost again. Science feeling, to me is, I don't know how important it is to winning and losing. Are the pick sixes that the McCarthy throwing at TCU,

a product of him, not knowing the defense in this game versus knowing the defense of other games? You know, they read that feeling special player in fourth down. Is that because they try to trick TCU because they didn't know what TCU was going to do this time.

I don't know, but I think it's fair for the timeline to be laid out the way you have. It's certainly true in that way, but I mean, there is some pushback that Michigan got better football players, and maybe TCU just is good last year and beat them. All right, let's go to our debate, the Wilcane versus Jeff Schwartz debate today, and that is the college football playoff. No, and I think I can be fairly objective, fairly objective about this. The debate is Texas versus Oregon. We have our latest college football playoff ranking,

and Oregon came in at number six. and Texas came in at number seven. It's going to change. It's all going to change before the season is over. But, Jeff, I think this comes down to resume,

which I don't know how you would look at me in the straight face today and make an argument that Oregon's resume is better than Texas. Versus gut. And I don't want to diminish it

by just saying gut. What I would say to you in all objectivity is if those teams played today, I think Oregon would beat Texas. if quinewers were healthy and Texas were playing the way it did two or three weeks ago, I think

I would take Texas. So I don't know what I'm supposed to value here. Resume, the temporary status of Texas with the backup quarterback. Yeah. I mean, who do you think should be ranked higher? And let's just acknowledge for the audience you went to Oregon. Yeah. I actually thought Alabama might be

six and Texas seven, Oregon, eight this week. That's what I sort of thought was going to happen. I actually thought Washington would be head of Florida State, too, because of Washington win over USC. But the best part about all of this, and you acknowledge it, is that if they're all going to work itself out, right? If Tetris wins out and Oregon wins out,

then we'll have that debate, obviously, when they're both 12 and 1, figuring out, where they're in now, if a shoot in Alabama wins out too. I mean, Texas feels like they'd be in over Alabama. So, no, Texas has the better win. They have Alabama as a win, and Alabama is much better now,

I'd say that when they play Texas, but that's still a quality win to get a really good opponent, right? On the road, you went to Alabama won that game. So if Texas was ahead of Oregon, I'd be fine with me because, again, if Oregon beats USC this weekend, they're not obviously not as good as they are, Oregon State is 12, they play them in two weeks, and Washington, if they win those three games and they're 12 and 1, they would have just as good of a case as Texas or Alabama to be in the playoff at 12 and 1. And it's all going to play itself out.

Texas has to, obviously, it's TCU this weekend, I feel like the Iowa State game's going to be hard. You beat Iowa State, you play whoever in the Big 12 championship, and you're in. And so to me, I think Texas resume is better. I think Alabama's is probably slightly better too. I asked a friend in Vegas, they would both have Oregon on a neutral field favorite against Alabama and Texas. But that doesn't really matter to the distant debate. Oregon's really good.

But Texas has a better win. I can say that. That's fine with me. But again, if Oregon wins out, we'll be the playoff, and that's that. It does seem like there's going to be a big debate. I mean, Georgia, and I hate to count guys. because there's still enough of a season to go. But it does look like you're going to have Georgia, a big 10 team, one of them, I would think.

You're going to have Florida State, Washington, who am I forgetting? I'm forgetting somebody that also is sort of sitting in a pretty seat right now. I guess Michigan's sitting at three. Yeah, I mean, I almost feel like I see this debate down the road, and it's going to be Washington versus Florida State, you know, We're going to have somebody this year, I feel like, that has a really good case who's not going to be in the college football playoff. So the doomsay scenario is quite simply this, right? It's Alabama, Texas, and Oregon all went out.

Florida State wins out. And the Big Ten Champions are undefeated, right? So the Big Ten champion is in. Florida State, if you win all 13 of your power five games, you're in the playoff. That's just the way it's going to work. And so they're in. And then it's debating the Alabama, Texas, Oregon one loss. They all be 12 and one.

And then again, Georgia will be 12 and 1, Washaway 12 and 1. And those are the seven teams you'd basically be debating to make the playoff. The two undefeated teams are in and the Big Ten champion and the ACC champion. And then you'd figure out, again, Alabama, I think, would be in as an SEC champion. If they were in, then Texas has to be in, I would imagine. They beat Alabama. Then Oregon has left out. I mean, that's just sort of where we're at with this right now.

If you're a fan of Texas or Alabama or Oregon, you just hope the other team loses. You hope Alabama drops a game of Georgia, essentially. You hope Texas, I hope I'm rooting for no offense, but like Iowa State to be Texas in two weeks because I feel like that would help working out in the end. That's just the truth of where you're rooting. Allegiance is lie right now if you have a team that's trying to get into the playoff.

You have to hope everyone else around you loses to help you out. So let's use this weekend now to see if you think anything is going to shake out. I have three games I'm interested in. Do you think there's an upset anywhere in Washington versus Utah? Utah is getting I think nine and a half or Georgia versus Old Miss Ole Miss is getting nine just straight up though without the points

do you see any upsets this weekend Georgia one no because Old Miss Lane Kippa just hasn't sort of gone over in that hurdle in these games right he's been close but just can't sort of seem to beat the teams there are just better than him right and there's not upset a year

a couple years and but like this I think about Georgia is I feel like in a game they care about which we've seen now, whether it's Florida, Kentucky, or Missouri, they win that game, Will. Like, they just win. Like, they just do. They're better than everyone else, and they win those games. They're going to beat Old Miss, in my opinion.

The Washington, Utah game is interesting. Utah's offense just isn't very good. They're down their third-string quarterback. They're down five running backs. They just aren't very good. They're good on defense, but is that enough to beat Washington? You know, Washington's probably going to score in the 30s? Can Utah scoring the 30s?

I don't think so. take them to cover the spread, but to win that game, probably not. And then I don't even see Michigan losing to Penn State. So I don't think we even have any craziness. The one game I will tell you to watch out for, I think this is the one. I think Miami can beat Florida State. It won't be pretty, but Meyer Cristobal tends to win some of these bigger games just over the career of Washington, Oregon, and Miami now. I'm like, out of nowhere, it's like we pop up to win this game. But I don't think Michigan or Georgia or Washington's going down this weekend.

what about what am i supposed to make of the big ten i kind of thought that between ohio state michigan and penn state we might see them cancel each other out or at least cancel two playoff teams out of the potential but pin state's always a fraud and i don't mean that look if you're a pin state fan you're listening i've bet on pin state so many times and lost i really have because they just it doesn't matter how good their record is when they go up against the big dogs they're just not there so what about penn state versus michigan this weekend yeah this was interesting. The interesting part about this one is Michigan has played nobody. Like they've played a bad schedule so far. Now they've dominated that bad schedule, but this is the first real team

they're playing. And Penn's a real football team. Now, your point, like they've struggled with these top ten matchups, you know, for what Jim Singh has been there, but they're a real football team. They're really good on defense. They're getting offense. And this is Michigan's first big road game. You know, they're at Penn State. It's not a nighttime game, but it's a big new kickoff game. It's a big deal. And so has Michigan handled that initial? show first quarter, first half of sort of playing a better team on the road. I think this game is very close at halftime, three points tied a half time, and then Michigan sort of takes over in the second half in this game as they sort of get used to playing a better team. The thing

about college football a lot of times, it comes down to a couple of things. Can you generate explosive plays on offense? Can you stop explosive plays on defense? Penn State does not get explosive plays on offense. When you play a team like Michigan or any good defense, you can't they can dunk down the field. Like, you have to get those chunk plays because it's just, it's hard to get 10 or 12 play drive to score points in college football. So, end state can't do that. Like, they're not, they're not a big play off it.

And so eventually, you know, early on, you play them close and whatnot. And then by the time you get to third and fourth quarter, Michigan sort of wears you down enough. So this game to me is like, you know, 2413 type of game for Michigan. But at halftime, it very well could be 10 to 10. All right. So you're a Pac-10 guy. you pay attention pack 12 whatever we are now pack two pack two guy um what what what uh what do you think of

kaleb williams what this is when everybody's talking about it i don't know if you guys have talked about it caleb williams at the end of the game losing effort once again goes into the stands and uh cries on his mother's shoulder i'm not over exaggerating it that's what happened he laid on her shoulder she covered up his head with a piece of paper and he cried on her shoulder. What do you think? I'm glad that he cares because I think USC sometimes, it seems like, especially on one side of the ball, they don't care as much, right? And I'm glad he cares. Like, I like when my athletes care. Kidman Williams is playing his ass off, man. He's playing as hard as he can to win each every game,

and he scored 42 points and lost. You know, how hard it is each week to score 42 points and lose in the game? He's exhausted from trying to carry this team now. Offensively, there's some rhythm, using the offense where it just doesn't look quite like it shouldn't even though they're scoring a lot of points. I'm not sure that's in Williams problem or a like in a Riley problem or an offensive line problem there. But he's probably just tired of scoring a bunch of points each weekend losing. And I'm fine with the emotion. Like it's he played as hard as he can and he's just exhausted, man. And he's exhausted from trying to carry this team out for two straight years. To score 40 points, he lost to Utah last year scoring 40 points, to Lane last year, scoring 40 points.

he lost the Washington scoring 40 points. The old hard that is to score 40 points and lose three times over two years, he's probably exhausted of trying to carry this team. Okay, okay, I heard you out. You said all the nice things. Now, let me say the real things. Okay, first of all,

Caleb Williams apparently made fun of Max Duggan last year when Duggan played his last game of the year, lost, and made fun of Duggan for crying. And now here's Caleb Williams. crying on his mom's shoulder that i mean that's right there that's that's hypocrisy that's enough right there to lose any sort of credibility on this and okay but here's the here's the real part as well no one wants to judge everyone wants to be non-judgmental everyone wants to be appreciative of the athlete that puts it all in the field and cares as you point out but to be real you do not want to

see your leader crying on his mother's shoulder and jeff i would be shocked if you felt differently I would be shocked if you told your son if he did that, hey man, you got to pick your head up and you got to go back out there with your teammates and you've got to lead and you've got to take a loss like a man and to be crying at the age of what is Caleb Williams,

20, 21 years old on your mom's shoulder. It's not, that's not going to work, man. You got to grow beyond that. Yeah, so, you got to grow into a leader. I don't know if he planned to cry. I think that's part of it too

I mean he just went to go side to his parents and then he ended up obviously showing a lot of emotion and his mom cover his fate he's 21 by the way he just turned he turns out 22 in a couple of weeks so and I think the question is like

how do NFL teams take this not how we take this right because I'm curious how NFL teams views I think there'd be NFL teams view it like you do the view like you do right who view it and by the Max Dugger thing didn't Max Duggan tweet back at him like LOL so

a tit for Tad right like he makes fun of him he makes I'm fine with them going back and forth on that The question is NFL teams. Do NFL teams downgrade him for this is the question I have? I don't think so, but I do that there's going to be questions about his play this year versus like Drake Maylew, say, and whether or not Caleb Williams goes one or not will be a hurry debate this offseason. Caleb Williams is a great quarterback, and it would not, if I were an NFL GM, I would not,

I mean, he's not undraftable. He's still a first round quarterback. He's still the number one quarterback, I think. It would make me, you know, there's talk out there that Caleb Williams wants to dictate which team he goes to and he wants unprecedented contract levels. Now I've got some red flags and you can't be the next coming of Patrick Mahomes

if I've got these red flags. You know what? Some of those reports about what he wants, man, I don't know if I believe having what that's been said. I mean, his dad said supposedly, he's never from Caleb Williams' mouth, from someone associated with Caleb Williams. You can't choose where you go anymore.

Like, if you can try the Eli Manning thing, I guess, good luck to do that. But he knows he's going number one in the draft, going to a bad team. If you wait to come back next year, guess what? Go to a bad team again. Number one thing is normally a bad football team.

I don't believe half of what they've said about. He wants to dictate so on so. It's never coming from him. It's coming from people associated with him. And so I don't really think that he feels that way. I'm sure he doesn't want to go to a bad team, but that's sort of what the draft is, right? You go to a bad team.

and, you know, like, you know, Joe Burrow went to the Bengals and look what he's done with the Bengals, right? Like, you go and you change your organization. That's your job. Yeah, I mean, look, I can judge and tell the truth, but I can also tell you I wouldn't, I mean, I'd still be interested in Caleb Williams. All right, we've got to leave it there, Jeff. It's great to have you on the program. Let's get you back on here a little bit more. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Jeff Schwartz. Again, check out their podcast, Bear Betts at the Fox Sports Podcast Network. That's going to do it for me today.

As always, I love to hear from you. Will Kane podcast. at Fox.com, and I'll see you again next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music Act. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gowdy Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side.

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