Will Cain Country - The Texas Rangers Win The World Series

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Story #1: The Texas Rangers are World Series Champions. But was Will's celebration video cringeworthy? Story #2: A eulogy for legendary College Basketball Coach Bob Knight with his former player and Assistant Coach Dan Dakich. Story #3: What would a 12-team College Football Playoff look like if it started today? 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

One, the Texas Rangers are World Series champions. Should I be embarrassed? About what? The fact that the Texas Rangers are World Series champions? Two, a eulogy for Bob Knight with his former player and coach Dan Dockage. Three, what would a 12-team college football playoff look like if it started today? It's the Will Cain podcast on Fox News Podcast.

What's up? And welcome to the weekend. Welcome to Friday. As always, you can download rate and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News Podcast. You can watch the WillCame podcast on Rumble or on YouTube and follow me on X at Will Cain. We have done it.

We have climbed to the top of the mountain. We won the last game of the season. After 63 years, the Texas Rangers are World Series champions. I cannot tell you, I can only hope that you have experienced at some point in your life, this kind of sports joy.

It's a unique kind of sports joy. It's the kind that comes after decades of pain. The Dallas Cowboys became a dynasty when I was a teenager, and they won three Super Bowls before I turned 21. I mean, those championships were largely accompanied by a great sense of expectation. And I've said to you in the past that I believe sports joy and expectation have an inverse relationship. That first one in 92 was something wonderful.

But even then, I think every Cowboys fan can attest we knew that we were good. Not sure if we knew Super Bowl, but we knew that we were very, very good. Even when the Texas Longhorns won in 2005, it was wonderful, but it wasn't as though it came as a surprise. The closest corollary I have to where I sit today is the 2011 Mavericks. The Dallas Mavericks won the NBA championship after getting robbed in 2006 and being a sad sack organization for most of my life until they drafted Dirk Novitsky. So 2011 was the fulfillment of what we knew of as a great guy and a great player for Dirk Novitsky, but also the alleviation of a lot of pain. But I'm not sure that any pain has

exceeded the pain that not just accompanied being the oldest franchise never to have won a world series, but the way that it went down over the last several decades. Look, I first started rooting for the Texas Rangers in the 1980s. The old Arlington Stadium was even then something you knew was sad. I was talking with some of my brothers the other day about our high school football stadium back in Sherman, Texas, and we felt like it was Texas Stadium. You know, it felt iconic, sat by the highway, Highway 75, everybody playing in the end zone when you're a little kid, standing in the student section up high when you're a freshman working your way down to, well, you're a senior. And when you go back as a adult, you realize it wasn't that big,

but not to us, not at that time. It felt like AT&T. But even in the moment, the old Arlington Stadium, felt like you were looking at portable bleachers. At the time, it was described as a minor league stadium. But I remember seeing the Beach Boys after a Rangers game in concert at Arlington Stadium. I watched Ruben Sierra and Peding Cavilia. I watched Julio Franco and thought he was the greatest player in Major League Baseball. We lived through the 90s where we actually began to have some hope. Past Steve Bouchel, when we got to Juan Gonzalez and Pudge Rodriguez and Nolan Ryan and Raphael Ponce.

Marrow. This is after Jose Canseco. This is Rusty Greer. And we were perennial outs in the playoffs to the New York Yankees on their way to a dynasty. I had friends who were Yankees fans. And although it felt like a consolation prize that they would tell me every time he came to the plate, they were terrified of Juan Gonzalez. We always had the steroid area in Texas. But then we suffered through, you know, seasons where they always gave us hope. Oh, we signed A-Rod. Oh, we drafted Mark Teshera until we arrived at the late 2000s and it began to build again with Michael Young and Ian Kinsler. And then in 2010 and 2011, incredibly we ended up in the World Series, Kenny Rogers, Kevin Brown, we were building and finally we had gotten there. In the most crushing

sports loss of my lifetime, 2011, being one strike away twice from winning the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Then we had the Adrian Beltray era. What a hero to the Texas Rangers. We kept making the playoffs up until 2015, 16, and then we're one of the worst teams in baseball. Lose 100 games. Lose 90 games. But you could feel it. Something was building.

Multiple high round draft picks. It looked like they could still, to this day, work out. Signing, though. Signing Marcus Simeon and Corey Seeger. How wonderful is Corey Seeger. Signing Jacob de Grom. But even then this year, we didn't have. have any sense of expectation? No. We had surprise. It's like, wow, the Rangers are really

good. Even while they've lost Jacob de Grom, even while they've lost Nathan Avaldi, even while then they lost Max Scherzer, even while they lost Adola Garcia, even when they lost the last game of the season in Seattle and lost the A.L. West and had to go on the road incredibly winning every game on the road through the playoffs to find themselves one strike. away last night. One strike away, and this time, a Josh Spores curveball brought us a World Series Championship. Now, I recorded a video and posted to social media last night of that final strike. And I know. I know. I do have some level of self-awareness. I know I should be embarrassed, but I'm not. Here's the thing. I can't apologize for something that is really.

Real. Maybe a 48-year-old man shouldn't care about sports like that. But I do. What am I supposed to say? I do. I care about the Texas Rangers. And what you see is real joy. Not everything in life has to be serious. I saw some people say things like, so much has happening in the world that is negative. Yes. But what's the point in solving the negative? You can't ever enjoy the positive. This is joy. And if life doesn't have joy, what's the point in the fight? This is what, this is why we want. I honestly believe that. This is why we want a better country to be surrounded last night with my brother, my brother-in-law, my two sons and my wife in that moment. You know, in last week's episodes of the Will Kane podcast, we talked about the loss of communal values, the buy-in on the United States of America. And here I go. I'm going to make this deeper than it probably needs to be.

But I actually think it's true. We have these values. What brings us together? We've lost the buy-in. We have people who don't believe in the American project. It's inherent values. What do we share anymore? When Matthew Perry, the star of Friends, died, one of my producers said, he represents almost the end of an era. What do we share as a people? We all sat around and watched Seinfeld or friends and shared that experience. Much more than that, think about the 1970s. I think it's the highest rated television show in history. Everyone shared the finale of mash. Now what do we share? We're fractured up. Our attentions everywhere. We're on different apps and different follows, different social media, different streaming devices, different shows on Netflix. What do we share? Maybe, maybe the Super Bowl? And this is coming from a guy that doesn't want us to share a monoculture. I don't want us to share Taylor Swift. I like our

provincialism. I like our regionalism. I like our differences. And that's where sports comes back in because I think sports is what we share. As I get older, I come to the place where I believe the foundational element, one of the biggest foundational elements in life is community. Community will give you purpose and community will give you happiness. Community will make you belong to something and how do people build community? They build it through their church. They build it through their country club. They build it through their children's school. They build it through their work. But they also build it through sports. regional tribalism.

This in a way I think is what actually is one of the redeeming factors of baseball. Baseball no longer has really a Super Bowl. The ratings won't be good for the World Series. We have our team. We have our tribe. We have our locality, our region. We have our fan base.

That is our community. And I hope that sports as a platform is the thing that we can still share because that is why a guy like me stands up so much about having sports divided into all of its culture and society's other cultural battle lines, race, gender, LGBTQ, sports is for, you know, we don't have to fly a flag, we don't need to fly a flag

because you know what brought us together? You know what brings us together? Our tribe. This tribe, the Texas race. Rangers. Now, maybe that's a back-end way of me getting an excuse for, yes, giving you a cringe-worthy video of my celebration. But I can tell you in all authenticity, man, it felt joyous. World Series champion Texas Rangers. Stick around today. We have Dan Dockich from Outkick to tell us about his life with

the recently departed Bobby Knight. Plus, Chris Felica from Bear Betts will tell us what we should expect from this weekend's game through the prism of discussing a 12-team college football playoff. But first, story number one. Last night, I uploaded a video of me watching the Final Strike of the Texas Rangers

World Series Championship. You could see almost within the video. the in the moment embarrassment and cringe of my wife this morning i went to breakfast with a friend and he said yeah i saw your video and uh yeah i said okay all right i said uh it's not quite what you what you expected no i mean yeah if that was real i got texts from both the guys on the screen right now the producers of the will cane podcast patrick hatton and james laverty who both gave me very half-hearted and almost apologetic endorsements of that that video. The Maharshest coming from young James Laverty, who has sent me videos of others

that he seemingly approves coming in the third person. So, okay, so I've embarrassed the show. I've embarrassed you, Patrick. I've embarrassed you, James. Definitely embarrassed James more than me, because if the Braves did that, I would have definitely been inebriated on the floor. How much alcohol was involved in that video? not zero and not too much okay at least there's some i think i mean coming from this both of you guys have had world series in the past three years i was very young for my only world series so i wouldn't fully know what it's experience like so i think the first thing we'll say is we'll circle back once i know what that feeling is like maybe i'll do my own video and see what it looks like and

wake up in the morning and probably not like it but what's your problem james it was it was the singing it was the singing creed you could see that can you take me higher I mean I think I guess it was our version of that would be

New York New York and you probably might do the same thing but I think you see the difference of the people in the background when it first started it's like oh yeah

it's a great moment this is nice like everyone's excited and then the singing goes and you just see you see a change in facial expression and you're talking about my wife I think yes

So I'm wearing sweatpants and a dress shirt. That seemed to be a point of contention as well. I was actually, I defended that part. I like that. I will go home, I will wear this, keep this on, but have sweatpants on and go to the store, get dinner. I don't, I have no issue with that. Well, here's the truth. I knew as well that this was cringe.

I knew, and I don't think that absolves me. Maybe that should have kept me from hitting. upload, but you can't redo the final pitch of the game. You can't do it twice. And I will tell you, the most, like, the craziest celebration was in the, is in the top of the ninth. It was with Marcus Simeon's home run, and it was the go-ahead to go 3-0 and 5-0. And so there was a chance when we saw it coming where I felt comfortable enough to say, hey, Matt, my brother, you should play creed when this thing is over so so it wasn't it wasn't without some production for that i should be embarrassed maybe you had like one of those little speakers that you could play

it out so creed kind of drowns out everyone else singing it's the singing okay it's the singing patrick i'm i'm more i don't think those things should be pre-produced i think they should be organic and natural so so you're saying it wasn't i'm more disappointed now that you mentioned that. All right, yeah. If I could have a do-over, I would do it differently, but I don't get a do-over, okay? So that's the way it is. You have to, we're going to own it.

I can honestly say, I'm not sure my embarrassment level exceeds the nervousness of you two right here, Maine, making your front-facing debut on this show. You've done your hair three times, James. And Patrick, you don't, you don't want to talk. This is a bit much for me. I'm not used to so much human interaction, really. And James, this is your star turn. Just because you're an entitled and spoiled Yankees fan

doesn't give you the right to judge of us who have won for the first time in our history. I was too young to remember those. I promise I will do better on social media in the future. All right, James, Patrick, I'll let you come get me here on the show today. That's going to do it. for my own accountability bowl here for the first time on the Wilcane podcast. Here comes story number two.

We'll be right back with more of the Will Cain 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. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. Hey there, it's me, Kennedy. Make sure to check out my podcast.

Kennedy saves the world. It is five days a week, every week. Download and listen at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Quick addendum here to story number one. In the future, if I ever allow these guys to come on the show and attack me, provide an accountability bowl. The rule is you got to take off your gloves and quit hitting me with your purse. James, if you do not come at me with everything you've got, I'm going to knock you out in the first round and you won't get a rematch bout, okay? Here's the truth.

Accountability bowls do not spare feelings. I want the stuff you gave your buddies last night when they texted you. I don't, don't give me. Those group chats are dangerous. Those are dangerous group chats. I'm going to make Devin come in here and come and give me. I know Devin will at least give it to me hard. A punch or two.

Yeah. I need to, she will at least attack me. So she already made fun of the singing of Crete. So you'll get one more chance. Noted. Noted. All right. Addendum. Addendum.

Some point during the Cowboy season? I'm sure the Cowboys will provide you with an opportunity for me to wallow. They will probably not provide me with a chance again to share my joy. We're looking forward to the end of the college season when the long horns go down. Okay. That's the whole point. You only get these moments. I get all the other ones all the time.

I only get these every once in a while. All right. Story number two. He is the host of Don't At Me, at Outkick. You can watch him every day. He's my friend. He's an excellent broadcaster. And for four years, he was a player, 12 years a coach for Bobby Knight at Indiana University. Bobby Knight left us this week, the great college basketball coach, the great leader of men. So let's talk today about the legacy of Bob Knight with Dan Dockich. Outkicks Dan Dockich here now on the Will Kane podcast. Good to see you, my friend. I'm sorry. I, uh, I'm sorry to talk to you under these circumstances where I know you've lost a colleague,

maybe a mentor, I think a friend. Tell me about your relationship with Bobby Knight. Not great. Last 10 years, not great. Great relationship for playing with him. I love playing with him, Will, for him. And I love coaching for him. But when I went to ESPN and he was involved at ESPN, we got sideways.

He did some things that I did not appreciate with the men. management. He kind of wanted my job on Tuesday and Saturday Big Ten games. He was working to Big 12. But you know what? That's part of being a dude. But I love playing with the man or for the man. I love coaching for him. But my relationship at the end was not great. So complicated relationship like so many tend to be. But you've made a point, Dachach, of saying, look, Bobby Knight, not a complicated man. No, no. He wanted to win. He was He was not a complicated man. People view him as a complicated man.

But, Will, my version, and being with him every day, damn near for 16 years, was he didn't have a lot of interests. He liked to read. He liked to hunt. He liked to fish. He liked to golf. And he liked to coach basketball. And he liked to drive players to be better basketball players. He really studied basketball, Will.

We used to get together basically every day at 10 a.m. and sit in this little room where he had a phone, we had some couches, and we had a TV, VHS tapes, you know, and we would watch film, and we would study, and we would get ready for practice, or we would get ready for a game, and he really wasn't. I mean, yeah, okay, he didn't like officials. He didn't like the media, but, you know, whatever. I don't know if that makes you really complicated.

But he liked things done his way. He was the king here in Indiana. he made he made indiana a national program and you know uh people criticized us will but as i said in the video i put out le costa nostrom man it was our thing if people didn't like it they didn't like it if people thought coach night was too tough okay that's their thing but our thing was we all butt into coach night because we were with him every day we knew he was funny we knew he gave us his best shot every single day we knew he studied he was prepared and he cared and um We like that.

Like, I get it, man. A writer may not like that because you go to a press conference. You ask a stupid question. Knight Ripsis, so you're going to write a bad article on them. That's cool. But internally, it was the mafia. It was La Costa Nostra. Our thing, man.

And if you were a part of it, you bought in, you loved it. You overachieved. If you weren't, you weren't. And that's cool, too. I love that. I think that's, you know, I've talked about the past, and I've talked about it on this episode here today. I mean, honestly, I think in the end, that's what sports is to me.

even from the outside, even from fandom, it's just like, it's your thing, it's your small group that you draw together to be a part of a community. And it's obviously all the more intense if you're inside the bubble, if you're part of the team, if you're part of the staff, you're part of the family, as you describe. It's more intense. It's community and it's tribe. And I love that. I love that about sports. Hey, in your experience coaching, what were you 12 years with him coaching, four years playing? I'm curious, with his hard line, I think that's fair to say, with his hard line, and then you either bought in and you were part of the Kosa Nostra or you stepped, what percentage of guys bought in? I mean, like, you know, we do hear about a few malcontents

here along the way or guys that chased under the environment. But I'm curious from a percentage perspective, as you saw it over time, did most 80%, 90%, more like 50%, what was it that bought into the Kosa Nostra? I would say this, Will, I'd say probably one. one out of three or one out of four transferred. In my recruiting class, I came in, two guys transferred, three guys stayed. In college basketball at that time, transfer rate was about one-third. You know, now it's a little more than that, but it's about one-third. And, well, I'd say that probably one-third, you know, and look, again, it's kind of weird.

Like, I didn't consider, I have friends that are still friends that transferred. you know, it was just not their thing, you know. And most times guys transferred because they didn't play or they didn't see a avenue to getting more shots. And, hey, but, you know, one of the things we talk about buy-in, right? That's a big deal. We got to buy-in. I never talked about that in my 16 years at Indiana.

Like, we never talked to, well, you've got to buy-in. Honest to God, Will, it was like, you came to Indiana. there was no there was no golly gee we got I don't like this coach so I won't play for him in fact when Tom cream was a coach I was I was broadcasting a game and he had me speak to the team and I pointed at all the banners that I was a part of and I was just 16 years I don't know how many big tens we won final four national champion all that stuff and I said I got to tell you fellas you guys are all worried about we got to we got to have the coach like us or we We only are going to play for the goal.

That was never an issue. Why would you worry about playing for a coach or liking a coach? Why would you care? You're here because you got recruited and you thought this was the best spot? Just shut up and do what everybody does and you'll put banners up. We never, I just thought of this. Actually, I've done a lot of interviews today, Will, but I haven't thought of it. We never, ever one time, in my 16 years, four as a player, 12 on the staff, worried about players,

buying in or not buying in. It was whether they were going to play well enough, whether they were happy maybe with their role, but never buying in. That's kind of interesting to me now I think about it. Why do you think you never had to talk about it? Because it was implied if you came to Indiana? Yeah. Yeah. If you went, look, I think in those days, I think if you went to North Carolina, it was automatic. If you went to Kentucky, it was automatic. If you went to Indiana, it was automatic. Maybe a little bit before that UCLA with John Wood, it was automatic. I think that those teams were very much, Duke probably was in the middle. When I was first at Indiana, they were, you know, they got Johnny Dawkins and Billis

and all these guys and were developing it. But I think at those major programs at that time, well, I just think it was implied. Now, you know, as players have more in power and maybe play, maybe that's good. I don't know, players have more options. maybe you've got to work on buy-in. But, you know, when I went there in 1981, man, a coach Knight could have told me, go hold up the liquor store down the street with a sawed-off shotgun

and don't wear a mask, and I'd have held up the liquor store down the street with a saw-up shotgun. It's a cult. That's a cult, man. That's not a team. Yeah, it's a cult. Well, I told people, the stories you see about the craziness of grab and read or headbuck,

They're true. They're true. I mean, look, I went into the locker room. I screamed at Coach Knight when he grabbed Neil Reed. I mean, I MFed him. I was on the staff because I was a player and I always said, man, don't touch a player. Well, I went into the locker room and this is going to sound crazy to you. But nobody had a problem with it, even Reed.

And I remember thinking, man, we're a crazy cult like you just said, man. We're just like, Sean Wilkerson, there's a thing going, Coach Knight Head, buddy. him and I got Sharon in the room. I said, well, you know, he goes, Coach, coach, coach. He goes, look, you know Coach Knight had buddyed me. I know Coach Knight had buddyed me. And it's cool, man. I go, okay. We're good? Yeah, we're good. So, you know, it's crazy. It was ours. You know, Doc, you say he's not complicated. Now, I've seen your videos that you've put out in the last day or so as tributes to Bobby Knight. Here's where I would have thought he's complicated from the outside. Two-fold. Number one,

As a member of the media, he may have gone into an interview with me already, having had his mind made up. But I feel like I can't get a sense. I never met the man, by the way. I feel like I can't get a sense watching all of his old stuff. What sets him off? Like, I can never predict when he'll be set off. He is a grenade with an inconsistent timer. And because of that, I feel like he's complicated.

Well, it wasn't that complicated. what would set him off. Losing set him off for until the next win. Like one of our proudest moments at Indiana was when I was a player, nobody was ever going to lose the game before Christmas

because you just assumed you weren't going to have a Christmas, right? You weren't going to get to go home. Losing would set him off. I'll give you a story, Will. He and I used to play golf about 6, 37 o'clock every, you know, not every morning, but a lot of mornings. When he was in town, we would play golf at the

IU golf course. And this is right when these drivers were coming out, you know, bigger drivers, that kind of thing. And he had one, and he was showing it to me. And he hit one, it was wooded, par five was the first hole, and he hit two of them right into the right woods. He hit one left. He really

hooked another one left, four in a row, one right, one left. He looked at me. He broke the driver in half, threw it on the ground, stormed up the hill back to the clubhouse. I mean, that's not complicated. That's just pissed off. Well, he would do this. About a press conference,

he would have a plan of something, and it would be like, all right, if this guy asked me a question, I'm going to go off on this. He wrote something about us a month ago, and I'm going to go off on that. That might be complicated. I don't know.

Maybe my sense of normal with him was actually complicated for normal human beings, right? Maybe I'm so war. Well, Sabin, I feel like that's Sabin as well. Like they say, I think it's not complicated. It's calculated in a way. Yes. And that's Sabin and Knight. Yeah.

One of the things that I did this as a coach. And I learned from him is when you do a press conference, it's your opportunity. You know, there wasn't Twitter, there wasn't platforms, it wasn't podcasts. You know, he had a show, but it was different. But one of the things that he would do, and I did, was to get things across to my players in my press conferences. So I'll never forget. This is like the year we won national championship, I think, Alford, who was all-time

leading score at Indiana, maybe he breaks the Big Ten scoring record or the – or the Indiana scoring record, and we beat Northwestern at Northwestern. Northwestern was no good, and we didn't play good at night. It's a great video if you ever want to see it and imagine what it would happen now. He goes off on Alford.

Now, this is the guy just broke some record. I think it was the big, the Indiana scoring record or something, right? And he's going off on him about, he don't play any defense. He didn't, you know, so he was very calculated because he wanted us ready for the next game immediately because the next game was probably somebody really good.

So I would say, as opposed to complicated, I would say he was very, very calculated in most of the stuff that he did. I was sitting next to him when he threw the chairwell. That wasn't calculated. That was, he didn't wear a sport coat that day. It was the first day he ever didn't wear a sport coat. and we're running on to the court, and my roommate, Ube Blop is a big severed footer. He's like, hey, Danny, coach going to get thrown out today because he's not wearing a sport coat,

and he wants to get out of here. So he threw a chair, which Will, we had seen him do in practice. Randy Whitman and I counted one time. He threw 52 of these plastic chairs in practice one day. So again, this is how crazy we were. To us, it wasn't a big deal. and to the rest of the world him throwing a chair was crazy i remember they asked me in the press comments what did you think i go i don't know i've seen him throw a million chairs i mean hell

no you know so but that was in the but but even though he didn't wear a sport coat it was it was um spontaneous that wasn't calculated that day yeah no it no it wasn't i forgot about this it was a it was like a 70 degree day in february and it was hot as hell in a Assembly Hall. So I asked him later, because I told him that, I said, Coach, I knew you, or Uve, knew you were going to get thrown out. He goes, what? I go, you didn't wear a sport coat. He goes, Dan, it was a thousand degrees outside. It was a thousand degrees in Assembly Hall. I'm like, yeah, you know, I didn't think about that. But I don't think that was calculated. So, Dan, I mean, you spent, you've spent 16 years with the man. And as you said, your relationship

had a lot of different forms, player, you know, coach. and even contentious, what would you say, I'm going to ask you two questions, and you've done a lot of interviews about him, so you probably already heard these kind of questions. So first, I would ask you this. Like, what would you say to somebody like me who never met Knight, who only ever saw, you know, highlights and low lights, quite honestly, of night, and saw the most public parts of his life? What would be the most surprising thing for me to know about him that you got to know with so much, you know, exposure to Bob Knight? he's hilarious

absolutely drop dead so freaking funny and people don't see that same thing with Gene Cady just hilarious like when he wanted to be now that wasn't all the time

but you know and he could take it like if you gave him a jab back he could take it now again not if you lost you know nobody said nothing but he was a funny

Dude, I mean a funny, funny, funny man that could take being cracked on. And people think that that wasn't the way it was. I'll tell you something else, Will. And I learned this. Everybody wants to be led. You know, and he was a leader. But I remember telling him, and I don't say this right, because it sounds like that I was too involved.

But I remember telling him when I left in 97, to go to Bowling Green. As a coach, you better replace me with somebody smarter than me, a better recruiter than me. But you better replace me with somebody that's going to do what I did with you, and that's tell you when you screwed up. And he looked at me, and it's not like I told him every time,

but when he would do something against a player, I'd say, coach, you know, or he would think he didn't like the AD, so he would be an ass to the AD. And I'd say, coach, man, it was my line to him all the time. you know that AD's got an ego too man and the president's got an ego too because i really believe that everybody needs somebody in their life and he did this he did this to me like he was the greatest that telling me when i was being an idiot or even in personal stuff but you you need somebody that you that tells you when you're doing wrong and and i remember telling

him, I said, coach, you're going to get fired the next five years if you don't get that done. And he got fired two, two, three years later because he didn't. He didn't. You know, well, you know this. You're a star. Like, you're an international superstar, but you got a boss. And if you blank that boss off, man, it ain't going to work out so well for you or anybody around you. No.

So don't. Yeah, that's exactly. That's, all of that's true, including my international superstardom. The, yeah. So here's the last question for you then. So what did you learn? Like all of that, you know, he is considered, I think, unassailably, a great leader, one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time.

So what did you learn? Well, take the basketball out of it because when I came out of high school, we went to the state finals in one class system in Indiana, and we didn't prepare. Okay, so the basketball, what I learned about motion offense, what I learned about defense preparator, But I will tell you what I learned and what I talked to. When people ask me, I learned two things. Well, first thing, and these aren't in no particular order, I learned to be fair.

I learned to be fair to people. I learned to, because he was very fair. Like, he was very, very fair as a coach. And that's what I loved playing for him. Like, I tell the story all the time when I was a freshman, well, we played at Kentucky. And we're getting crushed. It's at Rupp Arena. last guy on the bench. Like, everybody's getting in but me. Finally, he puts me in with about

six minutes to go. And I really don't do anything. I don't even know if I scored. But I started handling the ball, made a couple steals. We cut the lead from 20 to six, you know. And I went from not playing to starting basically half the games the rest of the year. He wasn't a guy that puts you in a position of I'm only coaching eight guys. John Wooden did that. A lot of really successful coaches did that well, but you knew, just keep working in practice. And this is part of it. If you work hard, you're going to get an opportunity. And I've always had an affinity for that, whether it's in business or whether it's in basketball for that. The other thing I learned, and again, I'm going back, I did not know about this in high school. I did not know about this

until I came to Indiana. Preparation. You know, well, when I was in high school, I think I said, My high school coach, we played in a state final. My high school coach didn't even swap films. He didn't care. He's like, yeah, we're not worried about what others do. I didn't know what a walkthrough was. I didn't know what a scout team was. I had no idea.

And I learned that if you're going to do something and you're going to do it well, basically it's determined before you even do it by how hard you prepare. And your job, you've got to prepare. My job, I've got to prepare, whether it's coaching, whether it's business, whether it's broadcasting. I don't care. You don't show up and broadcast the Indiana-Purdue game two minutes before the game and say, hey, all right, let's go.

You've got to prepare. You've got to watch film. And that is the thing I really took, Will, I swear to God, one of the things, I may be a good guy, I may be a bad guy, I don't, whatever, but I'm a prepared guy when I'm asked to do something. And that is really, really, the basketball stuff, what I learned was off the charts. Like, he and I would watch basketball games. this day, Will, I don't even watch it with the sound up. People ask me who my favorite

announcers, I don't watch it with the sound up because that's how he and I would watch games. We would click off the film. The game would be on. The sound wouldn't be on the film. And so, but the basketball that I learned, but the preparation and to be fair, can be mean. You might be mean to somebody. You might go crazy on somebody. But then you got to come back and you got to be fair. And those are two things that last week. Was he positive as well, Doc? Would he put his arm? around you and say good job what he says proud of you he would give you the positive not just the harsh criticism yeah oh yeah yeah well i tell people all the time i get it you know somebody 40 years old

or younger all they see is him you know throwing a chair or talking about that clip that it was going around last night about my critics can kiss my ass and all you know that you know but on a daily basis well on a daily basis every day being there for 16 years the positives outweighs the negatives that he said 10, 15, 20 to 1. But as a player will, and I used to do this with my players, I want you to pay attention how many times I say something negative as opposed to how many times I say something positive. What do people listen to?

They listen to the negative. What do they hold on to? They hold on to the negative. Doc Hitch, what do you and I do? We scroll through our mentions until we find the negative. I'm guilty of that. I'll scroll past 10 compliments to the one negative and then let that bang around in my ears for a minute.

So you're absolutely right. We dwell on negative. Yeah. And that's one of the things that, you know, we never really, with Coach Knight, never had parental problems. Like, you know, some guys got parent problems. We didn't have any of that. And I remember one time we did, well, you're always negative, my son.

And when you said a word like negative, now that would trigger the man. Negative always. So you're, you know, and he said, okay, I'm going to have a manager at the next practice. I remember he did this, write down, and it's not going to be your son. Because every time I say a positive thing, every time I say a negative thing, and I'm not going to tell the manager what day to do it. So he did that one day, and I don't know, whatever. The manager probably embellished it because he was scared to death, right?

But, you know, he came back and it was like 100 positive, let's just say for saying of argument, negative. So we do. We dwell on those things. And, you know, here's the other thing. And this is something, I swear to God, we did have to deal with. And this was of issue. Players would say, well, you know, you took the joy out of the game for me. You know, I was used to getting 20 shots in high school and I only get five or six. Well, you know, Coach Knight always said, this ain't a democracy, man. I don't give a damn how many shots. Make them. If you're work to get them fine, but we're here to win. I'm not, we're not here to, and it was, well, and this is my frustration with Indiana now.

Indiana has become irrelevant because the idea of sacrifice, like Indiana had a player this past year named Miller Cop, Miller Cop for the NCAA Tournament. He's a big TikTok Instagram guy for the NCAA tournament wants to put a headband on. and you know that's a little thing right but i must have had 20 former players you got to rip this guy what the hell is he putting a headband out for the first time in an NCAA tournament for his brand blah blah blah dudes were pissed because that's not who we were or not who we should be um and i hope that the players in indiana now are seeing all these testimonies and people saying well, you know, Bob Knight and Indiana had a special niche because they were tough, they were

aggressive, they were physical, Knight crushed these kids and they kept walling. I hope at least Indiana players see some of this and say, you know what, screw TikTok videos. Let's sacrifice and let's win because that's what Knight was really all about. Sacrifice, identity, and having your thing. Pretty good legacy for Bob Knight. Man, and for you, it's not your legacy yet, Doc. It's just much more to build. You can check him out at Don't At Me on Outkick.

Always appreciate you, buddy. Thanks, Dan. You're my friend and my buddy. Thanks, Will. Thank you. See you, buddy. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dan Dogg.

Again, check him out at Don't At Me at the Outkick Network. We'll be right back with more of the Will Kane podcast. It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at the quiz. Quiz. Fox, then come back here to see how you did.

Thank you for taking the quiz. Story number three. What would a college football playoff look like today? We now have the college football playoff rankings. We have a top 12, so we know what it would look like to have a 12-team playoff. Of course, we're a year and a half away. But let's use that format, a college football playoff, to look at this weekend's game, Texas, Kansas State, and many others, to decide who would be a worthy playoff tournament.

Here is the host of Bear Betts at the Fox Sports Podcast Network, Chris Felica. Chris Felica of Bear Betts, what's up, man? Glad to have you back on the show again this week. So, something fun. We've got the first college football playoff rankings, which gives us the framework to project what it would be like one year from now with a 12-team college football playoff. Let's go through those match-up.

but we'll use that as a way to discuss the big games this weekend in college football. I'm going to lay out the 12-team playoff with this. First of all, the top four conference champions get a buy. That would be, according to the rankings right now, Ohio State, Georgia, Florida State, and Washington. So they're exempted from the first round. So here's where we would go, Bear. We'd start with the Big 12 champion, Texas Longhorns, who would be a seventh seed against Ole Miss. With that, I would ask you, does Texas have, I'm really pessimistic bear against Kansas State?

I don't feel good. I've got Malik Murphy, Kansas State's hot. So this year, while the matchup would be Ole Miss in the first round of the playoffs, I'm nervous that Texas isn't going to make the Big 12 championship game because they can't get past Kansas State. I don't think your concerns are warranted. Well, if you look at this Kansas State team, the last couple of weeks, they've gone, since that loss to Oakland, Oklahoma State a couple weeks back. They've kind of went to this dual quarterback situation with Avery Johnson and Will Howard, and it's worked really, really well. Johnson, Moore, the runner,

and Howard obviously the passer. So they've kind of really complimented each other really well. And Kansas State has got a very good physical offensive line. So we'll see how they match up on the road here against the Longhorns and that really good defensive front. But K State has taken a lot of money. This number is a lot shorter than people. would have expected down near four, four and a half, five points or so. And this has not been a situation. We're getting company here. Hello, Axel.

How are you? Just walk right in front of them. It's cat in the screen. Cat walking across the show. He's just looking for attention. But if you look, and you know this as a Texas fan, they've been favored against ranked teams. They have struggled. They've lost 11 of the last 17 games against ranked opponents that they've been favored in.

They've lost outright. So, like, this is a big hurdle game for Sark and this team because the path is there. I mean, Oklahoma lost last week. You kind of felt that Texas was better than Oklahoma even coming out of that game. If they would have rematched in the Big 12 title game, you would have liked them. But their offense has been so limited, like 40 or 50 percent of their passes last week, we're at or behind. So let's see if they let Malik Murphy throw it air it out here a little bit

and show everybody that arm strength that everybody kind of is a bit they're going to need to because the one thing Texas has is they have Jonathan Brooks and I think Kansas State's defensive line is kind of small so there should be a recipe for success

unless they load the box in which case you've got to have Malik Murphy throw it down the field all right you brought them up so if the playoff started today 12 team again your 8-9 match up would be really interesting it would be Oklahoma against Alabama

now Oklahoma as you pointed out has a big game this weekend as well. They have Oklahoma State. And now all of a sudden you don't feel as confident about Oklahoma, having lost to Kansas, as you point out. And Alabama's got LSU this weekend. So both sides of that matchup have tough games in the real world this weekend.

They do. I think both of these teams kind of are better sounding than actually their statistics might be leading on. If you look at Oklahoma in terms of like yards per yard per play differential against power five teams, Like, they're down there, like behind Kansas and some of the other big 12 teams. Like, their record is better than their statistics kind of lead them on to be. I think we saw that last week.

They really struggled at times struggling that Kansas offense last week, committed some turnovers. And every year, it seems like Oklahoma State just continued, Mike Gundy just continues to make chicken salad out of. You know what? Like, oh, he loses this guy. Oh, they're going to be down this year. Oh, they lose that guy. There's no chance they can can.

win eight or nine games. And here they are again. You would have thought after that South Alabama loss and losing to Iowa State, like playing three quarterbacks season kind of going downhill. No, they ripped off four straight wins, three is an underdog. And now I get a strange feeling that the Oklahoma kind of seasons a little bit at a crossroads here. And maybe the quick start might have been a little bit of fools gold. Would not surprise me at all with the way Oklahoma State is playing right now, final scheduled bedlam game at home. I think this, game means a lot more to Oklahoma State from that standpoint than it does. Oh, you, clearly oh, you wants to get to the Big Tolta game, but it would not surprise me at all to see Oklahoma

State pull the outright upset. And Alabama as well, you have to go back to 2010 to find the last time Alabama was this short of a home favorite. Remember that Auburn team with Cam and that second have comeback that wound in the national title. Tide only a three-point favorite hearing. I think there, we saw how Texas and U.ers and their wide receivers had a lot of success against Alabama's secondary. What's neighbors and Jaden Daniels and those guys going to do to this Alabama secondary? This is a very low number. And usually I would err on the side of in Nick Sabin and Alabama at home we trust, but only favored by a field goal of Bryant Denny. That has me eerily worried that that number is a little too short.

And it's almost like the odds makers are trying to attract money on Alabama because I think they feel that LSU might be the right side of Aaron. And I don't disagree. So in our, I know it's awkward, we're running through hypothetical matchups of a 12-team playoff while we're analyzing real matchups this weekend in college football. We're going to skip the 8 versus 11, which is Oregon versus Penn State. I'm going to go straight to the 5 versus 12. I love Oregon in that matchup. Lay the points with the ducks there. Okay.

Is Michigan versus Tulane? That would be your 5-12. And the only reason I want to talk about that is I started out, Bear, pretty okay. Everybody steals signs in college. college football. This Michigan story is getting juicier and more spy story ridiculous as we go if it's true. And I don't think if we know whether or not it's true, the Michigan guy on the Central Michigan sidelines in disguise, wearing Central Michigan gear. But here's what I found fascinating bear. A poll, I believe, I think it was 50 college football coaches by the athletic,

the poll. And those coaches overwhelmingly were like, this is a big deal in Michigan should be punished severely, which was surprising to me because it contradicts the idea everybody's doing this. You and I are sympathetic on this. When it first came out and we really didn't know all the details, I was the same way. Yeah, sign stealing goes on. That's like someone's job. I mean, I remember playing in baseball.

Like it was someone's job to try and sit there and interpret the signs and write it down and figure things out. And I'm like, yeah, as long as if that's what's going on there, they have an observer and they're writing things down or they're looking at the. the big signs, but like as long as they're not like recording and doing things like that, that's crossing the line. And then it comes out, that's apparently what they're doing. But you referenced that article in The Athletic that I think was Bruce, Bruce Feld and Max Olson, I think, at the athletic wrote. And I read that this morning. And that's when I really started to kind

of go. Yeah, me too. I don't want to go all the way to the other extreme. Like at first I was like, it's nothing. Now it's like death penalty, forced them to vacate all wings. But it's apparent that it's a big deal on. I think the biggest thing in there that I took out of there was just that you bring up where Michigan was as a program after 2020 and what their record was the previous couple of years and then what they've done since then, which kind of coincides with how long this scheme has kind of been going on. It's clear it matters. Now, I don't want to say fortunate or unfortunate, but the reality is nothing's going to happen this year. from the NCAA or the Big Ten. And I just hate that whatever justice or penalties or whatever is going to come down the road will happen next year or the year after when these players... Yeah, we'll end up vacating something. If Michigan wins, we'll have to vacate something.

I know it's harsh to do, but shouldn't whatever penalty of punishment happen, shouldn't that come now to the people that are actually doing it? Yeah, I totally agree, but I'm a big believer in due process. so you do have to go through your investigation and find out if it's actually happening. So that hurts in the real time. I always feel that way about players. And I'm real conflicted, Bear, on the whole – like I saw an interview other day with Charles Barkley pressing Adam Silver in the NBA.

Like, what are you going to do about domestic violence? Well, the hard thing about doing something about domestic violence isn't what do you do with somebody who's convicted. There's nobody out there defending, you know, women beaters. The hard thing to do is figure out what you do when somebody's alleged to have done something. That's the whole point. Like, do you punish people based upon unproven allegations? Same thing with Michigan.

And I think you're right. You got to punish the people doing it, but you also have to prove that they did it. And that takes time. Yeah, it does. And it's weird because it seemed like this whole thing has kind of been fast-track. But again, we're not getting, the way the NCAA wheels of justice crank, I mean, you're not going to get a resolution for a while. And it would seem like the only recourse would be if you're looking for some type of

of immediate resolution or immediate penalty would be the Big Ten stepping in and say, oh, no, no, Big Michigan now was ineligible for the Big Ten title and the playoff, and they're not going to do that with the national title contender team that's number two or number three in the country right now when a chance to win three straight

big ten titles and get to the playoff for three straight years. There's no way that they're going to deem Michigan ineligible to play in the postseason. So the whole situation just really sucks for the lack of a better word. It just leaves you feeling kind of hollow because there was a good part of me that was happy to see Michigan and Jim Harba finally get over the hump and you beat Ohio State and you get to the playoff and it was a great story staying in school and all the things and now with this it's like any good role that you feel about it's like really I just hate when that happens at this sport so in your in the hypothetical 12 team playoff your top four seats I mentioned would be Ohio State Georgia Florida State and Washington again, if the season ended today, and we had the 12-team playoff.

So on that one, what I want to ask you is, you know, of course it's going to change between now and one year from now. And of course it's going to change between now and the end of this season. We're not going to end up, and this applies not just hypothetically because this year we'll have our four-team playoff. Do you think, by the way, I mean, I'm pretty certain it won't be those four teams. Do you think, how much turnover? I give you those four teams.

How many of them do you feel safe by the end of the year will be in the college football playoff? Two at most. Two. I would be surprised if Ohio State went to Ann Arbor in one based on that offensive line and just kind of a feeling of lack of trust that they have in Kyle McCourt or quarterback. And I think Oregon is the best team in the Pac-12. I think Oregon would win a rematch with Washington if they do play in the Pack-12 title

game. And that's not a given with how poor we've seen Washington's defense play the last couple of weeks. USC has a very good chance to put up a big number on them. Now, we'll see if SC's defense can stop Udub, but Udub still has an Oregon State game to play, a Washington State game left to play. Like, it's not a lot that Udub escapes the end of the regular season here with fewer than two losses and gets to Vegas for that Pact 12th. So I take it, I take it your two that would stay, then that's Georgia and Florida State, that you see a path for them to get through. Yeah, Florida State has the easiest road of any

these teams to get to the playoff with how weak the ACC is, and then obviously they have the rival game with Florida on the road, which could be interesting. But I think we saw last week when Georgia decides to play and they're motivated and focused and feel a little threatened, Georgia is still the best team. So I think Georgia would beat Alabama in the SEC championship game. If Alabama survives a game this week, you can tell us you. So I'm just doing my math in order for my Texas Longhorns to get back into the college football playoff. They I obviously have to win out and win the Big 12. I also, I need Oregon and Washington and Washington State.

I'll beat each other up. And I need Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State to beat each other up with more losses. Because I've got to beat out Michigan and Oregon as the replacements for these two you're pushing out of the playoff. It's going to be interesting because people have talked about all year where the Pac-12 is the best league. I don't know how you leave A-up. I don't know how you leave the Pac-12 champion of the conference that allegedly is the best team out, but then again, you have Texas as a big drill champion with the win at Alabama and maybe you beat Oklahoma again in the Big 12 title game.

Like, it's going to be something, you and I have been following this long enough. You know something crazy along the way is going to happen. But wow, there could be a very good one-loss team left out this year. That would kind of, it would be unfortunate, but at the same time, it would kind of give people who have been arguing for an expanded playoff a little bit more rope to, to hang their argument upon in the coming years. All right, so you and I recording this before we know the outcome, but I believe your prediction was Texas Rangers over Arizona Diamondbacks.

I think that was your prediction. I can't remember. No, no, no. You took the Diamondbacks? You took Arizona? I took the Diamondbacks. Yeah, I thought the Cinderella story would continue. And, boy, the Rangers have just done everything right.

It's amazing how in game four there, twice five-run round. rallies with two outs, getting great pitching out of the out of the bullpen. And even in game three, when Chapman came in and got the big outs, getting that double play ball on a great play there by Seeger. Like, it's not over yet. At the time we're recording this, Bear, it's not over yet. It may be by the time this is uploaded that I'm celebrating a World Series championship, but I don't, I will not celebrate that.

And I've learned, I lived through 2011. I will not celebrate until the final strike. Yeah, twice. Twice one strike. I mean, I know it was an ultimately the way you wanted the series to end, but that was one of the best baseball games I've ever seen. So hopefully when we talk next week,

the Rangers will be celebrating a World Series title, and Bruce Bochie can get all the credit that he deserves for winning another World Series title being the great battle. At that point, we'll rank him on best managers of all time. All right, bare bets, man. Check it out at Fox Sports Podcast. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, well.

There you go. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Chris Fleeca. Remember, check out Bear Betts at the Fox Sports Podcast Network. All right, that's going to do it for me today. I'm still going to bask in the glow of the World Series champion, Texas Rangers. I'll see you next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members. You can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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