# Why the Transfer Portal is a Fire Hose of Anxiety (feat. ESPN's Max Olson) | College Football

An episode of [The Solid Verbal College Football Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/270037732), 11 Jan 2026, 1 h 09 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/21437ee1-47d9-4b16-8696-b30d011a2c26/ad068a37-bcb6-4bf8-99f3-b3cf000269c5/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=51c7e0eb-425c-4d93-b5a8-b30d011a2c46

The college football transfer portal is a year-round engine of anxiety. ESPN’s Max Olson joins the show to unpack a wild portal season, from $6 million quarterback price tags to the legal mess surrounding Demond Williams at Washington. Why are some schools like Indiana and Texas Tech winning the arms race while others remain quiet? We go deep on the mechanics, the money, and the "fire hose" of news currently reshaping the sport. Support the show!: https://www.patreon.com/solidverbal See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Welcome to the solid verbal.
[0:04] Speaker 2: I'll ah for me. I'm a man, I'm forty.
[0:08] Speaker 3: I've heard so many players say, well, I want to
[0:10] Speaker 3: be happy.
[0:10] Speaker 1: You want to be happy for day Edith State?
[0:13] Speaker 3: Is that? Whoo whoo?
[0:14] Speaker 2: And no Dan and.
[0:16] Speaker 3: Tie Dan Rubinstein, welcome back to the Good Show, my
[0:21] Speaker 3: good friend.
[0:22] Speaker 1: Thank you for having me back to the Good Show.
[0:23] Speaker 2: My friend.
[0:24] Speaker 3: How you doing today?
[0:25] Speaker 1: I'm good, very excited to have our guest on.
[0:28] Speaker 2: Uh.
[0:29] Speaker 1: There was going to be a disclaimer that we hit
[0:30] Speaker 1: about seventy three times during the show that we're recording
[0:33] Speaker 1: this Thursday morning, January eighth. So if demand Williams becomes
[0:36] Speaker 1: a Alouette New York yet, hey, I don't know, then
[0:43] Speaker 1: we this is taped in advance and we are I
[0:47] Speaker 1: think we're going to focus a lot on like, hey,
[0:49] Speaker 1: how are like the vibes in the portal this year,
[0:52] Speaker 1: rather than like, give us an exact thought on this player,
[0:59] Speaker 1: you know, at Michigan State or wherever. So very excited
[1:04] Speaker 1: to have Max Olson on, Very excited.
[1:05] Speaker 2: To be back.
[1:07] Speaker 1: Has been kind of a bummer of a portal year
[1:09] Speaker 1: with the Debaan Williams stuff, but it also an interesting
[1:12] Speaker 1: portal year all over the place. It's still a very
[1:14] Speaker 1: active quarterback market at the time of recording, So no,
[1:18] Speaker 1: it's all pretty fascinating right now. I'm excited.
[1:20] Speaker 3: We are going to be talking with Max Olson of
[1:22] Speaker 3: ESPN dot com about all things transfer portal. As Dan said,
[1:26] Speaker 3: I'm going to focus a little bit more on vibes,
[1:28] Speaker 3: on the overall structure, how it's different this year than
[1:31] Speaker 3: the last, and of course we will talk about some
[1:34] Speaker 3: of the players as well. One more disclaimer recording this
[1:38] Speaker 3: early on Thursday morning. We don't want to put it
[1:40] Speaker 3: out before the playoff because then everybody cares about the
[1:42] Speaker 3: playoff and people don't listen as much to this, and
[1:45] Speaker 3: we're really into it, so this is dropping from most
[1:48] Speaker 3: folks on Sunday. Of course, if you are out on
[1:51] Speaker 3: our Patreon, might get a little bit early and without
[1:54] Speaker 3: the ads. One more time going out to Verboalers dot
[1:57] Speaker 3: com if you're interested in support the team and getting
[2:01] Speaker 3: some of those perks. As we have mentioned here, this
[2:06] Speaker 3: is not an episode in which we are going to
[2:07] Speaker 3: talk about the college football playoff. Go back. You can
[2:11] Speaker 3: listen to some of the episodes that we did to
[2:13] Speaker 3: run back through what transpired in both of those semi
[2:15] Speaker 3: final matchups, But today's focus is very much the Transfer
[2:19] Speaker 3: Portal with our good friend Max Olsen. Dan, let's just
[2:22] Speaker 3: dive right the FN.
[2:23] Speaker 1: Let's go all right, Dan, let's do it. Let's bring
[2:25] Speaker 1: him back.
[2:26] Speaker 3: We did this episode a year ago, We're going to
[2:28] Speaker 3: do it again now. It is our good friend Max
[2:30] Speaker 3: Olsen from ESPN where he covers national college football as
[2:35] Speaker 3: well as the Transfer Portal. Max, welcome back. How is
[2:39] Speaker 3: your sleep right now? On a scale of one to ten.
[2:42] Speaker 4: Well, you know, we've we've got a seven month old too,
[2:45] Speaker 4: so that pigs into the day to day of it.
[2:49] Speaker 4: Pretty good last night, though, pretty good last Like I
[2:51] Speaker 4: don't want to say the portal is starting to settle
[2:54] Speaker 4: down because it's absolutely not.
[2:56] Speaker 2: But we got some sleep last right.
[2:58] Speaker 1: Did you see the Tash Lupoy quote by the way
[3:01] Speaker 1: I did he where I don't know if you saw
[3:03] Speaker 1: this tie. It felt very accurate where somebody asked him
[3:06] Speaker 1: about like what it's like juggling the portal and calor
[3:10] Speaker 1: responsibilities and organ responsibilities, Like, oh, it's so great that
[3:13] Speaker 1: the portals this week. It's the best. I love getting
[3:15] Speaker 1: two hours of sleep, I love doing all this work,
[3:17] Speaker 1: the timing couldn't be better. They nailed this.
[3:19] Speaker 2: It was great.
[3:20] Speaker 4: I saw I saw some pictures of my guy will
[3:23] Speaker 4: Stein and people pointing out how exhausted he looks, And
[3:28] Speaker 4: I think that's a it's a fair read of the situation.
[3:30] Speaker 4: I think for a lot of us that are mind in.
[3:32] Speaker 3: This, you know, the college football calendar has definitely been
[3:36] Speaker 3: a point of contention.
[3:37] Speaker 1: I should add before.
[3:38] Speaker 3: We go any further, we're recording this on Thursday morning,
[3:41] Speaker 3: so by the time people end up hearing this, I
[3:45] Speaker 3: think around Sunday morning or so, there are obviously going
[3:49] Speaker 3: to be some news tidbits in the portal world that
[3:52] Speaker 3: change and break between now and then, like seventy two
[3:55] Speaker 3: hours from now, right, So just give us the grace
[3:58] Speaker 3: of understanding that. Up, if you are listening to this.
[4:01] Speaker 1: Max, do you want to record it five on Sunday
[4:03] Speaker 1: morning to just as an addendum to everything we record
[4:05] Speaker 1: right now, is that I don't think I mentioned that,
[4:08] Speaker 1: but I think we should.
[4:09] Speaker 4: We should just yeah, get together and just do a
[4:12] Speaker 4: bunch of little clips that you can just sort of
[4:14] Speaker 4: drop into this file that exactly might sound completely natural.
[4:18] Speaker 1: We record some voice memos on your phone, just keep
[4:21] Speaker 1: shipping them off to tie.
[4:23] Speaker 2: That's great, that's a good idea. That's it.
[4:24] Speaker 1: That's it.
[4:26] Speaker 3: What I was going to ask though, was about the
[4:28] Speaker 3: college football calendar. Right, they made some changes, there's one
[4:31] Speaker 3: portal window as opposed to to previously. The calendar is
[4:34] Speaker 3: still very much a hot button issue among college football fans,
[4:38] Speaker 3: people who talk about college football teams, players, coaches, you
[4:43] Speaker 3: name it. How has this calendar looked from your perspective
[4:47] Speaker 3: the current setup that we have right now? The portal
[4:50] Speaker 3: opened on January the second and is still running now
[4:52] Speaker 3: until January the sixteenth. From your vantage point as somebody
[4:58] Speaker 3: who covers this, how has it impacted how has it
[5:01] Speaker 3: not impacted just the overall structure around the port First.
[5:05] Speaker 4: Of all, I think you have to talk about it
[5:06] Speaker 4: within the context of the whole schedule. My wife's birthday
[5:10] Speaker 4: is January twentieth. I don't think the college football season
[5:12] Speaker 4: should go until January twentieth, right, or eighteenth or whatever
[5:15] Speaker 4: it is? Okay, So I like, oh man, I joined
[5:19] Speaker 4: these coaches in that, like, I would love to see
[5:21] Speaker 4: this thing start week zero or earlier and for the
[5:24] Speaker 4: whole football season to end earlier than where it does now.
[5:29] Speaker 4: So that would I think that would help fix things
[5:32] Speaker 4: a little bit. But for now, what we have is
[5:35] Speaker 4: they you know, the coaches primarily wanted to move the
[5:37] Speaker 4: transfer portal from December to January and open it up
[5:40] Speaker 4: on January second, after the quarterfinals. And I think for
[5:44] Speaker 4: the coaches, really the big win in this reform was
[5:49] Speaker 4: eliminating the spring transferportal window and just saying, hey, we're
[5:52] Speaker 4: gonna do this all in one shot, and it's two weeks,
[5:55] Speaker 4: and they even in the even in going to two weeks,
[5:57] Speaker 4: that's reduced from what it was a year ago, right,
[5:59] Speaker 4: And so they I think they view that as a
[6:01] Speaker 4: win in terms of like Ross's stability and just trying
[6:04] Speaker 4: to get this all done and once, and then especially
[6:06] Speaker 4: not having to sign guys in January to deals and
[6:11] Speaker 4: then those guys come back to you in April and say, oops,
[6:14] Speaker 4: it's going to take more money for me to stay
[6:16] Speaker 4: at this school. And so that's the thing that's obviously
[6:17] Speaker 4: been going on for years, and you know, you've seen
[6:20] Speaker 4: repeat transfers and you've seen a lot of those issues,
[6:22] Speaker 4: and so the coaches wanted to eliminate that. Now did
[6:25] Speaker 4: moving the portal to January second like really move all
[6:29] Speaker 4: the transfer activity to January.
[6:31] Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
[6:32] Speaker 4: I mean I think that you've seen in talking to
[6:34] Speaker 4: personal people, like, first of all, everyone has more sophisticated operations.
[6:38] Speaker 4: Now these front offices are evaluating their opponent's rosters starting
[6:43] Speaker 4: in September. Okay, Like I I you could talk to
[6:47] Speaker 4: gms in October mid like mid season, and they'd be like, hey,
[6:49] Speaker 4: here's ten guys I want to go get Like they
[6:51] Speaker 4: already like know how they want to attack it. And
[6:54] Speaker 4: the way it's set up now where everybody has agents,
[6:56] Speaker 4: you're the GM. The agent are just talking all year
[6:59] Speaker 4: long and saying, hey, we like this guy, what would
[7:01] Speaker 4: it cost? Like those conversations are happening well before January,
[7:04] Speaker 4: and so did we really delay all this stuff? Not really,
[7:08] Speaker 4: because at the end of November you still have players
[7:10] Speaker 4: that are trying to leave their programs, and throughout December
[7:13] Speaker 4: you're having these resignings. And as you guys saw, like
[7:15] Speaker 4: everyone's just announcing they planned to end of the portal.
[7:17] Speaker 4: Throughout the month of December, all these deals are going
[7:20] Speaker 4: on behind the scenes. You can't take official visits, but
[7:22] Speaker 4: you're lining up where you're going to go when the
[7:24] Speaker 4: portal opens, and so you have all that activity before,
[7:30] Speaker 4: so it's like, yeah, the portal dint up until January,
[7:32] Speaker 4: but a lot of stuff happened in December still, and
[7:34] Speaker 4: then you have a very compressed timeline once the portal
[7:37] Speaker 4: opens on January second. There's some of these schools that
[7:39] Speaker 4: have to get these guys in within a week and
[7:42] Speaker 4: get them on campus, and so it's very fast, like
[7:45] Speaker 4: they're in, you get them on the visit, you hope
[7:47] Speaker 4: to get them just committed and signed on the first
[7:49] Speaker 4: visit and get them locked up. And so you're seeing
[7:51] Speaker 4: every day just hundreds and hundreds of commitments as these
[7:54] Speaker 4: guys fly out the board. And so it's a very
[7:56] Speaker 4: fast process. That's very I think that's challenging for coaches
[7:59] Speaker 4: and challenging for agents and families and hopefully people are
[8:02] Speaker 4: like making really good decisions that they can stand by
[8:05] Speaker 4: because again there is no spring portal to fix this.
[8:09] Speaker 1: What is the organizational structure behind the scenes, obviously, you
[8:13] Speaker 1: know you mentioned the playoff teams that you know, coaches
[8:16] Speaker 1: have new jobs or whatever that are. You know, Kurt
[8:18] Speaker 1: Signetti's hosting and getting commitments while prepping for Oregon and
[8:21] Speaker 1: vice versa. But of the most stable teams or even
[8:26] Speaker 1: the playoff teams. The organizational structure of okay, we want
[8:31] Speaker 1: these guys, let's talk behind the scenes to representatives to
[8:34] Speaker 1: get a feel for how likely they are to stay
[8:37] Speaker 1: or go? Is it literally? Are there are there walls
[8:41] Speaker 1: in recruiting offices that are like like a temperature gauge
[8:46] Speaker 1: of players they want like hot, warm, tepid cold in
[8:50] Speaker 1: terms of the likelihood and you know, perceived interest. Is
[8:54] Speaker 1: that how we're like actually categorizing the potential transfers around
[8:58] Speaker 1: this sport.
[8:59] Speaker 4: Well as we've seen in the last decade, Like if
[9:01] Speaker 4: you're going to build out an army of a recruiting
[9:04] Speaker 4: staff behind the scenes, then like, yeah, of course that's
[9:06] Speaker 4: what they're going to do. Over the course of the
[9:07] Speaker 4: year with the with their all their Google docs that
[9:09] Speaker 4: they're sharing with each other, they're going to go through
[9:11] Speaker 4: and and really make their board. And it's not just
[9:14] Speaker 4: high school now, it's it's everybody. And I think that's
[9:16] Speaker 4: the thing that's challenging for recruiting and is challenging to cover.
[9:19] Speaker 4: The stuff is just the NFL obviously, you know every
[9:22] Speaker 4: year whose contract is up, and in college football, anybody
[9:25] Speaker 4: is attainable. It seems like right now for the right price,
[9:28] Speaker 4: right and so you know, you are evaluating everybody and
[9:31] Speaker 4: trying to you know, when you have more than five
[9:35] Speaker 4: thousand Division one players in the portal right now, and
[9:37] Speaker 4: that number is going to keep growing, like, yeah, there's
[9:40] Speaker 4: a lot of good ones that could fit you, and
[9:42] Speaker 4: so you have to you have.
[9:43] Speaker 2: To be great evaluating.
[9:44] Speaker 4: I know everyone focus on the money right now, but
[9:46] Speaker 4: you still have to be great at the evaluation and
[9:48] Speaker 4: the actual execution of the recruitment. And so yeah, I
[9:51] Speaker 4: think the front offices, I think you're seeing the structure
[9:53] Speaker 4: now a little bit more. There's always been you know,
[9:55] Speaker 4: the directive player personnel and the folks below them who
[9:58] Speaker 4: evaluate the players, who do the recruiting, But now I
[10:02] Speaker 4: think you've seen the GM title has become obviously very
[10:04] Speaker 4: popular over the last year, and I think a big
[10:06] Speaker 4: part of that is having the person who is the contact,
[10:11] Speaker 4: the go between on working with the agents and on
[10:14] Speaker 4: you know, many of these gms, that's they're highly involved
[10:17] Speaker 4: in the actual contract negotiation. Some schools have someone that
[10:20] Speaker 4: handles contracts and the legal piece of it, but really
[10:23] Speaker 4: it is the GM role right now is you are
[10:25] Speaker 4: working the phones every day and trying to you know,
[10:28] Speaker 4: line up these deals, line up these visits, and so
[10:31] Speaker 4: they're working in collaboration with their recruiting department in terms
[10:34] Speaker 4: of who they want to go after. Obviously you're working
[10:36] Speaker 4: with the coaches too, but you're seeing just these front
[10:39] Speaker 4: offices get more influence in terms of who they want
[10:41] Speaker 4: to go after. I talked to a GM at a
[10:43] Speaker 4: big twelve school last week who said his record so
[10:46] Speaker 4: far this was a few days ago, so maybe it's changed,
[10:49] Speaker 4: but his record so far was one hundred and seventy
[10:51] Speaker 4: three phone calls in one day, So.
[10:53] Speaker 2: That's that's it sounds also does and.
[10:59] Speaker 4: Again some of these folks look at this as like, well,
[11:02] Speaker 4: at least it's only fourteen days this time. There's also
[11:04] Speaker 4: an element of this that I think it's part of
[11:06] Speaker 4: like why people enjoy following this now more than used to.
[11:08] Speaker 4: It's like there's just the instant gratification of it, right,
[11:11] Speaker 4: Like you can go offer a guy and he can
[11:13] Speaker 4: be on your campus tomorrow and he can be signed tomorrow,
[11:15] Speaker 4: and so there is this happens very quickly, and for
[11:18] Speaker 4: these people who've been in personnel forever, you're used to
[11:21] Speaker 4: the two year high school recruitment where you get all
[11:23] Speaker 4: the way to the end and then they pick somebody else, right,
[11:25] Speaker 4: and so to be able to at least go flip
[11:28] Speaker 4: your roster tomorrow. It's exciting, but it is it's a
[11:32] Speaker 4: pretty intense process right now.
[11:34] Speaker 1: Who has done it particularly? I mean we're still you know,
[11:37] Speaker 1: in a few days in or whatever, who has done
[11:39] Speaker 1: a particularly good job that not as unexpected but came
[11:45] Speaker 1: out of you know, a weird situation. Whatever. It is, Like,
[11:49] Speaker 1: we know Texas Tech, we know Indiana, right this is
[11:51] Speaker 1: these are welled oiled machine, well oiled machines. Who has
[11:55] Speaker 1: been new savvy this year in terms of GM, in
[11:58] Speaker 1: terms of school, in terms of new coach. We were like, Wow,
[12:01] Speaker 1: they had a plan and they're executing really impressively.
[12:04] Speaker 2: Well, let's start with the guys we already mentioned.
[12:07] Speaker 4: I'm really impressed by Cal and I'm really impressed by
[12:09] Speaker 4: Kentucky and part of especially when you factor in what's
[12:13] Speaker 4: going on in those guys' lives right now and what
[12:14] Speaker 4: they're juggling, and they are, you know, legitimately trying to
[12:17] Speaker 4: go finish the job here and win a national championship.
[12:20] Speaker 4: You know, I think it's very impressive. What will Stein's
[12:23] Speaker 4: doing at Kentucky. You know, he gets Sam Levitt in
[12:25] Speaker 4: on the visit and they ultimately flip Kenny Minshey away
[12:28] Speaker 4: from Nebraska is their guy at QB when.
[12:31] Speaker 2: Levy goes and takes more visits.
[12:32] Speaker 4: But they've done a really good job of picking up
[12:34] Speaker 4: like pieces to get that thing flipped very quickly with
[12:38] Speaker 4: his GM Pat Bionda, who he brought with him from Oregon.
[12:40] Speaker 4: You know, I think tosh Leypoy like you are seeing
[12:44] Speaker 4: him give like some pretty real legitimacy to cal right now.
[12:47] Speaker 4: And part of that is Jaron, right, Obviously having Jaron
[12:49] Speaker 4: back for year two, they always view that as like
[12:53] Speaker 4: pay that guy what it costs, because if you have him,
[12:56] Speaker 4: that is that attracts other players who want to play here, right,
[13:00] Speaker 4: And so I've been impressed by the class that callus
[13:03] Speaker 4: put together again under the circumstances of doing this on
[13:06] Speaker 4: the fly, You've barely even probably been on the campus,
[13:09] Speaker 4: and yet you're you're hosting visits and you're trying to
[13:11] Speaker 4: put this all together.
[13:13] Speaker 2: You know, I think we're in a time right.
[13:14] Speaker 4: I obviously you can touch on it too, like you know,
[13:17] Speaker 4: the whole like we're putting all of our players on
[13:20] Speaker 4: a moving truck and we're going over here. That's a thing.
[13:23] Speaker 4: It's a thing this offseason. And I'm fascinated to see
[13:26] Speaker 4: what the ROI and the payoff is on that. But
[13:29] Speaker 4: you're seeing a lot of programs right now that look
[13:31] Speaker 4: at Indiana. Truthfully, they look at Indiana and Kurt Signetti
[13:34] Speaker 4: and the thirteen players he brought from James Madison and
[13:37] Speaker 4: I think you talk to agents in November December like
[13:40] Speaker 4: that was a factor in this stuff. Now it's like, Hey,
[13:42] Speaker 4: we're interviewing these guys. We're trying to narrow this down.
[13:45] Speaker 4: And one of the questions is like who are you bringing,
[13:47] Speaker 4: Like who can you get here to make us good
[13:49] Speaker 4: next year? And so at Penn State and at Oklahoma State,
[13:52] Speaker 4: and at Auburn and Arkansas as some extent, all these
[13:55] Speaker 4: these first year coaches, they are loading up with very
[13:59] Speaker 4: familiar guys and I am curious how that hits you,
[14:03] Speaker 4: Tie as that's been unfolding.
[14:06] Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's and I've kind of gone back
[14:09] Speaker 3: and forth the.
[14:10] Speaker 2: Nittny clones or whatever you want to call it.
[14:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, I've gone back and forth with some other Penn
[14:15] Speaker 3: Staters about this and I mean, I'm encouraged by the
[14:17] Speaker 3: fact that he seems to be bringing the better players
[14:20] Speaker 3: from Iowa State, and so it'll be sort of a
[14:22] Speaker 3: hy rid of the talent that he's been able to
[14:25] Speaker 3: retain off the Penn State roster, the former Penn State
[14:28] Speaker 3: roster from last year, and what he's going to bring
[14:31] Speaker 3: over from Iowa State. If it were just sort of
[14:33] Speaker 3: like all encompassing, we're bringing all of Iowa State with
[14:37] Speaker 3: I don't know how i'd feel about that, but I
[14:39] Speaker 3: kind of like the combination of the best of what
[14:42] Speaker 3: Matt Campbell had before and the best of what I
[14:45] Speaker 3: think are most of the best of what is remaining
[14:48] Speaker 3: a Penn State right now. So I hope that that works,
[14:50] Speaker 3: but it'll be an interesting experiment because certainly it was
[14:54] Speaker 3: going to be this way one way or another. I'm
[14:57] Speaker 3: pretty familiar with Iowa State because I was a big
[15:00] Speaker 3: fan of Iowa's state coming into last year. So I
[15:04] Speaker 3: think in theory it works. I'm probably a little bit
[15:06] Speaker 3: mixed in terms of what it looks like on the
[15:09] Speaker 3: field next year, but it's at least a starting point,
[15:12] Speaker 3: given where they were on the high school recruiting trail
[15:15] Speaker 3: that they had what to commits out after signing day.
[15:19] Speaker 1: You will take what.
[15:21] Speaker 3: We have seen recently in the portal. I'm okay with that.
[15:24] Speaker 1: It's an interesting conversation. I'm wondering supply and demand wise,
[15:29] Speaker 1: when you look at who has entered the portal, where
[15:31] Speaker 1: the money has gone, where the players have gone, where
[15:35] Speaker 1: schools have looked, Which players and positions seem to have
[15:40] Speaker 1: noticeable leverage this cycle. And I guess which players and
[15:43] Speaker 1: positions may have I don't know, maybe overestimated.
[15:47] Speaker 4: I think a year ago you could go out and
[15:50] Speaker 4: get a good quarterback in the portal, like a guy
[15:54] Speaker 4: who started some games, where you could resign your quarterback
[15:56] Speaker 4: and bring them back as for you know, maybe a
[15:58] Speaker 4: guy who's been a starter for a year. You could
[16:00] Speaker 4: go and get that guy for about one and a
[16:03] Speaker 4: half million dollars, okay, And and that was viewed as like, man,
[16:05] Speaker 4: it's a lot of money, but like we feel good
[16:07] Speaker 4: about it this offseason talking to personnel people. That conversation
[16:13] Speaker 4: started at like three and that it just it jumped up.
[16:16] Speaker 4: And if you've got a multi year starter, it costs
[16:20] Speaker 4: what it costs like that that that and and that's
[16:22] Speaker 4: not even if you love your quarterback. That puts some
[16:26] Speaker 4: of these schools in a difficult position because yeah, we've
[16:30] Speaker 4: got the money. Yeah we want to resign and we
[16:31] Speaker 4: want to be back. But as you're going through this
[16:34] Speaker 4: in December and you're getting ready for the portal, it's like, well,
[16:36] Speaker 4: we need to go get a dozen other players.
[16:37] Speaker 2: Like you can get a lot of players.
[16:39] Speaker 4: With three million dollars, right, I mean, maybe not that
[16:41] Speaker 4: many anymore, But like I put some of these schools
[16:44] Speaker 4: in a tough spot of like, Okay, maybe it's not
[16:47] Speaker 4: the worst thing of some of these guys walk because
[16:50] Speaker 4: we can we you know, we can get a cheaper replacement,
[16:53] Speaker 4: and we need so that that jump for like the
[16:56] Speaker 4: middle class program was tough. And then at the top
[16:58] Speaker 4: of the market, I mean the reality is that, yeah,
[17:00] Speaker 4: Brendon Soorsby was worth five to six million dollars. And
[17:04] Speaker 4: that's not just because it's Texas Tech. He was worth
[17:06] Speaker 4: that to the rest of the schools that were recruiting him.
[17:08] Speaker 4: And I think that that is the case right now
[17:10] Speaker 4: for the top of the market, right that you can
[17:13] Speaker 4: get four or five million bucks and maybe more, you know,
[17:16] Speaker 4: I think so you expect that you expect the franchise
[17:19] Speaker 4: quarterback in the sport that the guy who's returning, you know,
[17:21] Speaker 4: Brandon s Soorsby is a guy who was debating going
[17:24] Speaker 4: pro and I think could have been a Day two
[17:25] Speaker 4: pick and now has a chance to Texas Tech to
[17:28] Speaker 4: play away maybe into being a first round pick next year.
[17:30] Speaker 4: As far as the other positions, I mean, offensive tackles,
[17:33] Speaker 4: I can't tell you how many times, you know, an
[17:35] Speaker 4: agent told me, like, this offensive tackle is going to
[17:37] Speaker 4: go in because he's getting promised a million bucks from
[17:39] Speaker 4: somebody like you.
[17:41] Speaker 2: I assume hopefully most of them did get that.
[17:44] Speaker 4: You know, edge rushers obviously, you hear a bunch of
[17:46] Speaker 4: ed rushers, you know, pass rushers who can get one
[17:48] Speaker 4: to two million dollars. I think that's that's pretty commonplace,
[17:51] Speaker 4: as you expect with just the way people break this
[17:53] Speaker 4: stuff up. It's been interesting to watch running back though lately,
[17:58] Speaker 4: and I think part of that is you've just got
[18:00] Speaker 4: some very high profile players that people are fighting over.
[18:02] Speaker 4: So you had the key one Lacy resigning with ole
[18:05] Speaker 4: Miss and resigning with ole Miss for a lot of
[18:08] Speaker 4: money because he had a big offer on the table
[18:10] Speaker 4: from LSU. It is what it is that he wasn't
[18:12] Speaker 4: in the portal. But obviously the plan for lan Kiff
[18:15] Speaker 4: and Kevin Smith was for Keon Lacy to go with
[18:17] Speaker 4: them to LSU, and so it costs money to win
[18:19] Speaker 4: those battles. Same with Isaac Brown. Louisville kept him out
[18:22] Speaker 4: of the transfer portal after he declared he was going
[18:23] Speaker 4: to go in the portal. You know, he had schools
[18:26] Speaker 4: like Texas and Notre Dame on him, and they paid
[18:30] Speaker 4: what they had to pay to keep him Jade and
[18:32] Speaker 4: bought Florida a lot of schools. So you know, LSU
[18:34] Speaker 4: and Texas, all the schools fighting for me even though
[18:35] Speaker 4: he wasn't in the portal. So I remember a few
[18:38] Speaker 4: years ago, Quinchhn Jents goes in the portal from Ole
[18:41] Speaker 4: Miss and it's a very premium player. We don't see
[18:43] Speaker 4: that very often for like just a All America caliber
[18:46] Speaker 4: running back to go in the portal. And I remember
[18:47] Speaker 4: people kind of being like a million dollars for quich
[18:49] Speaker 4: On Jensing is like that, I don't know about that,
[18:51] Speaker 4: Like that's not what they would do in the NFL,
[18:53] Speaker 4: Like it doesn't make sense.
[18:53] Speaker 2: He goes to high A state and wins national championship.
[18:55] Speaker 4: This year, there's running backs where it's just like, I mean,
[18:58] Speaker 4: we'll pay him two million bucks if we have to.
[19:00] Speaker 4: We're paying three million bucks if we have to. Like,
[19:01] Speaker 4: I think that is that is a jump. It takes it,
[19:04] Speaker 4: you know, only for the superstars, right, only for the
[19:05] Speaker 4: top of the top of the list. But you notice
[19:09] Speaker 4: that a little bit, and that's challenging for some schools
[19:11] Speaker 4: here again in a position where you don't want to
[19:13] Speaker 4: spend a ton of money.
[19:15] Speaker 3: You mentioned Lane Kiffin. How do we grade out what
[19:18] Speaker 3: the portal king is doing at LSU. You know, there
[19:22] Speaker 3: was a gigantic circus that preceded him actually signing on
[19:28] Speaker 3: the dotted line. Now he's there, he's been hosting Sam
[19:31] Speaker 3: Levitt court side. I mean, we've we've heard pretty much
[19:34] Speaker 3: LSU in the mix for most of these big name
[19:36] Speaker 3: guys that we've been tracking. How would you grade out
[19:38] Speaker 3: the job that he has done in very short order
[19:41] Speaker 3: in Baton.
[19:42] Speaker 4: Rouge they've done in terms of the commit list so far. Again,
[19:45] Speaker 4: we're taking this Thursday morning. Looks really good on paper,
[19:49] Speaker 4: I think certainly for Lane Kiffin. Man, you would have
[19:51] Speaker 4: loved it if Ole Miss Season had in it a
[19:53] Speaker 4: few weeks ago, right, and you'd have it. Those guys
[19:56] Speaker 4: would all, you know, be making moves. A lot of
[19:59] Speaker 4: those guys would be you know, strongly considering making moves
[20:01] Speaker 4: and potentially going with him to LSU. And I think
[20:03] Speaker 4: the fact that this season has extended for ole Miss
[20:06] Speaker 4: has really made it, I think easier for this to
[20:09] Speaker 4: have this positive momentum and for everybody rallying around Pete Golden,
[20:13] Speaker 4: for you know, Walker Jones, and for the leadership at
[20:16] Speaker 4: ole Miss to be able to go to these guys
[20:17] Speaker 4: and say like, hey, let's run it back, like we'll
[20:20] Speaker 4: pay you what we got to pay you, but let's resign.
[20:22] Speaker 4: And a lot of big name players have resigned to
[20:24] Speaker 4: stay at ole Miss. And so I obviously that's a
[20:27] Speaker 4: factor that you have to include in terms of what
[20:29] Speaker 4: else he's putting together. I like what they've done at
[20:31] Speaker 4: wide receiver. I think they've done a nice job reloading
[20:34] Speaker 4: there with getting jas Brown in from k State, who
[20:36] Speaker 4: I think has a chance to be really productive there. Also,
[20:40] Speaker 4: you know, I tie Ben Afield, the safety from Boise State,
[20:43] Speaker 4: I viewed as really one of the best safeties in
[20:45] Speaker 4: the portal, a guy that had a bunch of visits
[20:47] Speaker 4: lined up, but else he was able to get him
[20:49] Speaker 4: locked in. You know, I think interesting to see where
[20:52] Speaker 4: quarterback ends up. And obviously they've they've had some big
[20:55] Speaker 4: name players move on. They've had a lot offensive linemen
[20:57] Speaker 4: move on, They've had Kaden Durham move on, So they
[21:00] Speaker 4: got a lot of a lot of players to replace here.
[21:03] Speaker 4: I'm sure part of that is you wanting to get
[21:05] Speaker 4: gas role miss and part of it is wanting to
[21:06] Speaker 4: be competitive for the best players in the portal. So yeah,
[21:09] Speaker 4: it's going to be a pretty interesting roster construction I
[21:11] Speaker 4: think for LSU and year one you.
[21:13] Speaker 1: Talked about Brendan Soresby's market, who also I think was
[21:16] Speaker 1: maybe in conversations or representatives and conversations with LSU. Sam
[21:20] Speaker 1: Levitt has been all around taking a few visits. What
[21:25] Speaker 1: does the quarterback market now mean for quarterbacks who are
[21:29] Speaker 1: not leaving their schools for you know, the portal, who
[21:34] Speaker 1: are better than all of these guys making four or five,
[21:38] Speaker 1: six million dollars whatever, like is the number? Like you
[21:41] Speaker 1: obviously are not in these conversations, you know, these negotiations,
[21:44] Speaker 1: But like Dante More and Fernando mendoz I have eligibility left,
[21:48] Speaker 1: they have not declared Julian saying has eligibility left? Are
[21:52] Speaker 1: they going to ask for seven eight million dollars?
[21:55] Speaker 2: Like?
[21:55] Speaker 1: What what is the like it sounds like a comical number,
[21:58] Speaker 1: but like, if we're hitting the market, the market is
[22:01] Speaker 1: the market, Like what are the numbers for guys who
[22:04] Speaker 1: are better and playing for rich programs who have money and.
[22:08] Speaker 4: Would love to keep them happy? It's a great question.
[22:12] Speaker 4: And like I'll give you an example. If you're Malachi Tony,
[22:15] Speaker 4: how much money are you asking for this offseason? Yeah,
[22:17] Speaker 4: you're asking for the moon? Right, Yeah, of course you're
[22:20] Speaker 4: better than all these.
[22:21] Speaker 1: Guys, Marcel read, you're better than Brandon Sorosby like he is.
[22:25] Speaker 4: So if you're you have if you have no intention
[22:27] Speaker 4: of transferring, your agent is still going to them and
[22:30] Speaker 4: saying we want four million dollars, right if you're If
[22:33] Speaker 4: you're right, And some schools might say like tough, Yeah,
[22:37] Speaker 4: you know, if man, if you got that offer, you
[22:39] Speaker 4: got to hit the portal. You can't turn that down.
[22:42] Speaker 4: Some of those you mentioned are in tough spots right now. Again,
[22:44] Speaker 4: it's Thursday, so things have probably changed since this is published.
[22:47] Speaker 4: But you know that is part of this is like
[22:50] Speaker 4: and that's the thing that is a frustration, I'm sure
[22:53] Speaker 4: for fans and certainly for coaches, is you don't have
[22:57] Speaker 4: to enter the transfer portal to get offers, you know,
[23:01] Speaker 4: at the ternet transporportal, to get a raise like you could.
[23:03] Speaker 4: You know, there's just always the ominous threat of it,
[23:07] Speaker 4: and so and and then if you know, we saw
[23:10] Speaker 4: this last year with with the Nico deal to some
[23:12] Speaker 4: extent of like when you see, oh man, Bryce Underwood
[23:16] Speaker 4: got this, John Mattier got this, all these other guys
[23:18] Speaker 4: made these moves. At some point, then someone in your
[23:20] Speaker 4: camp is gonna be like, wait a minute, like, shouldn't
[23:22] Speaker 4: we be making three four million bucks? Then, like, what's
[23:24] Speaker 4: what's going on here? So, yeah, that's that's even that
[23:26] Speaker 4: the guy for the guys who have zero intention of
[23:28] Speaker 4: playing anywhere else next year, Yeah, the reps are gonna
[23:31] Speaker 4: say like, come on now, we gotta just like just
[23:33] Speaker 4: like with coaches, right like you're gonna go and say, hey,
[23:36] Speaker 4: we should be getting paid like these other guys.
[23:38] Speaker 3: All right, Max, what happened with Demand Williams and what
[23:43] Speaker 3: is the reaction behind the scenes with respect to the
[23:46] Speaker 3: power brokers, the agents, other players to the Demand Williams News.
[23:53] Speaker 4: Now see I think this segment might age poorly. Yes, okay,
[23:57] Speaker 4: well let's tread lightly on this.
[23:58] Speaker 1: What do we go so far? That's informing what right?
[24:02] Speaker 2: Ye seen?
[24:02] Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say, you know you've seen since the
[24:06] Speaker 4: portal's open on January second, there's been names that have
[24:09] Speaker 4: popped up in the portal that you say, like, oh wow,
[24:11] Speaker 4: that's I didn't maybe totally see that come in that
[24:13] Speaker 4: wasn't announced yet or whatever. Demon Williams was like a
[24:16] Speaker 4: whoe to me, Like that was like a that there
[24:18] Speaker 4: was not rumors, there was not speculation, And yeah, I
[24:21] Speaker 4: did a piece a week or two ago, like on
[24:24] Speaker 4: the twenty six Quarterbacks to watch ahead of the portal opening.
[24:27] Speaker 4: Demant Williams like never crossed my mind as a guy
[24:29] Speaker 4: that you know would be on the move, partially because
[24:32] Speaker 4: he signed a new deal with Washington and that deal
[24:35] Speaker 4: was for over four million dollars, like top of the
[24:37] Speaker 4: market in the Big ten for sure. Yeah, it's it's
[24:41] Speaker 4: it's a good offer. He did not get low balled
[24:42] Speaker 4: by Washington. We saw this a year ago with Xavier Lucas,
[24:46] Speaker 4: the defensive back at Wisconsin who re signed with Wisconsin.
[24:51] Speaker 4: And then I believe he like went on winter break,
[24:53] Speaker 4: went home for the holidays, came back and was like, actually,
[24:56] Speaker 4: I'm going to go to Miami and they were like, no,
[24:59] Speaker 4: you're not. And they refuse to put his name in
[25:01] Speaker 4: the transfer portal. And you know, his his uh, his lawyer,
[25:05] Speaker 4: Darren Heightner, was able to maneuver it where it's like, okay, well,
[25:08] Speaker 4: we're just going to treat this like a student and
[25:10] Speaker 4: we're going to withdraw from the university and we're going
[25:13] Speaker 4: to go enroll at the University of Miami. And and
[25:15] Speaker 4: that's the way you can because you can operate outside
[25:16] Speaker 4: of the portal. And that's you know, this is an issue.
[25:19] Speaker 4: It was an issue last year, and now it's a
[25:22] Speaker 4: it's a way more high profile player where the Big
[25:25] Speaker 4: ten and the NCBLA and everybody, you know, the powers
[25:28] Speaker 4: are like, whoa, we have we have to like actually
[25:30] Speaker 4: stand up to this one, like we actually have to
[25:32] Speaker 4: back the school on this and say and treat these
[25:35] Speaker 4: things as enforceable and and you know, players can't just
[25:38] Speaker 4: rip those up. And so you know, the terms of
[25:41] Speaker 4: the deal that he signed is that he can't enter
[25:44] Speaker 4: the portal and that they retain his n NIL rights
[25:47] Speaker 4: and all that and so it's it's going to be messy,
[25:48] Speaker 4: and I think it's hopefully demnt Williams knew this when
[25:52] Speaker 4: he posted this on Instagram, but like, yeah, that that
[25:54] Speaker 4: one is is is messy.
[25:56] Speaker 3: What what are like other players thinking seeing this? Do
[26:01] Speaker 3: you think that this prompts any other guys who maybe
[26:03] Speaker 3: re up with their current school to think outside the
[26:08] Speaker 3: box a little bit and wonder if the market is
[26:10] Speaker 3: still out there for them even though maybe they're supposedly
[26:15] Speaker 3: signed on with their current school for another year.
[26:19] Speaker 4: This is the thing that I'm a little bit fearful
[26:22] Speaker 4: of is a few months from now, because the reality
[26:26] Speaker 4: is coaches wanted to eliminate the spring transfer portal, but
[26:28] Speaker 4: at the end of the day, they also really enjoyed
[26:30] Speaker 4: the benefit of going through spring practice and saying, Okay,
[26:33] Speaker 4: we need a few more.
[26:33] Speaker 2: Pieces right that we are not getting to this in April.
[26:38] Speaker 4: Where and if you had a guest today, I think
[26:42] Speaker 4: it'll probably happen in somewhere of someone saying, Okay, well
[26:47] Speaker 4: I want to transfer in April. I just do I
[26:50] Speaker 4: have to transfer? Here's my reasons, probably getting offered more
[26:53] Speaker 4: money from somebody else. So let's follow aawsuit and let's say, like,
[26:57] Speaker 4: you know, they shouldn't have taken away the spring portal
[26:59] Speaker 4: from us, and let's get you know, like, I think
[27:01] Speaker 4: that's the thing that you kind of worry about down
[27:03] Speaker 4: the road here is like, yeah, we're moving to one
[27:05] Speaker 4: portal and it's fourteen dayss Like, okay, sure that's the plan.
[27:08] Speaker 4: But you know, obviously the track record here on you know,
[27:12] Speaker 4: these court cases is not going great in terms of
[27:15] Speaker 4: stabilizing things, and so you wonder about that a little bit.
[27:18] Speaker 4: And you know part of that is going to be
[27:20] Speaker 4: because things are set up this way, there's going to
[27:23] Speaker 4: be guys who are brought into a program and go
[27:25] Speaker 4: through spring practice and it's like, well, wait, I'm you
[27:28] Speaker 4: told me I was going to come in and be
[27:30] Speaker 4: the starter, and then now I'm not the starter, So
[27:34] Speaker 4: why would I stay here this year?
[27:36] Speaker 2: Right?
[27:36] Speaker 4: Like, I think you're just going to have those situations,
[27:38] Speaker 4: And it's the way it's set up right now is
[27:39] Speaker 4: very beneficial to the coaches, and it will be in
[27:41] Speaker 4: the off season and through spring practice, and so then
[27:43] Speaker 4: I think inevitably you're just going to have those issues.
[27:46] Speaker 4: And the spring portal has been eliminated, but some people
[27:50] Speaker 4: are going to want to make moves and maybe make
[27:51] Speaker 4: moves outside of.
[27:52] Speaker 3: The portal max something that our friend Pete Sampson tweeted out,
[27:57] Speaker 3: and again we are recording this full disclaim or on
[28:01] Speaker 3: Thursday morning, but as of Wednesday evening, he noted that
[28:06] Speaker 3: Ohio State, Georgia, and Oregon all had one transfer a piece,
[28:10] Speaker 3: Notre Dame BYU and Miami all had a big old
[28:13] Speaker 3: goose egg none. Does it surprise you at all to
[28:16] Speaker 3: see what those programs? Just using those as an example,
[28:21] Speaker 3: maybe they're not the only ones, but does it surprise
[28:24] Speaker 3: you to see relative inactivity from any of those schools?
[28:28] Speaker 3: And how would you grade what they are doing?
[28:30] Speaker 2: Now?
[28:31] Speaker 1: Public in activity to be public inactivity?
[28:34] Speaker 2: Correct?
[28:34] Speaker 3: Important disclaimer? How would you grade what we have seen
[28:38] Speaker 3: publicly from them? How would you add in maybe any
[28:41] Speaker 3: context from what you've heard privately about what those schools
[28:44] Speaker 3: are working towards?
[28:46] Speaker 4: You know, part of that is, you know you are
[28:49] Speaker 4: hosting guys on visits and the going elsewhere.
[28:51] Speaker 2: I mean that that plays into this, right.
[28:52] Speaker 4: I mean, everybody's trying to get these players on campus
[28:54] Speaker 4: as fast as humanly possible.
[28:57] Speaker 2: You know.
[28:58] Speaker 4: The thing that's interesting is we go through this cycle
[29:02] Speaker 4: is I think a year or two ago you would
[29:04] Speaker 4: still talk to gms at certain schools and they say, like, man,
[29:08] Speaker 4: we're not trying to live in the portal. We're only
[29:10] Speaker 4: going to try and take five to ten players, right.
[29:13] Speaker 4: And I think one thing that's just really changed throughout
[29:17] Speaker 4: the sport now is that, especially last year, we have
[29:20] Speaker 4: normalized that you're going to take twenty to twenty five
[29:23] Speaker 4: to thirty two in the case of Oklahoma State, you know,
[29:26] Speaker 4: and you know some of these schools fifty or sixty transfers, right,
[29:29] Speaker 4: And so I think part of that is you can
[29:31] Speaker 4: philosophically say like, well, you know, we don't need that much.
[29:35] Speaker 4: We don't want to live in the portal. We love
[29:36] Speaker 4: our high school recruits. Next man up, we're developmental program.
[29:39] Speaker 4: I think that's where you're going to You're gonna have
[29:41] Speaker 4: a little bit of that tension because fans want to
[29:44] Speaker 4: see fireworks, and some of these programs it's like, well,
[29:48] Speaker 4: you know, we got like maybe two positional needs, and
[29:50] Speaker 4: I guess we'll replace guys if we lose guys, but
[29:52] Speaker 4: maybe we're not going to lose a lot of guys.
[29:54] Speaker 4: Part of this is based on draft decisions, right, and
[29:56] Speaker 4: so you have to get past the draft deadline to
[29:58] Speaker 4: kind of know what you still need to some degree.
[30:00] Speaker 4: So I get that that is, uh, you know, there's
[30:02] Speaker 4: gonna be some programs that are like proud of that,
[30:04] Speaker 4: and they're like, we're not We're not gonna do the
[30:05] Speaker 4: portal that much. But again, no spring portal means you
[30:09] Speaker 4: have to do it all now and you have to
[30:11] Speaker 4: get your rosters right for twenty six. And so if
[30:14] Speaker 4: you're inactive right now or if you're having a lot
[30:17] Speaker 4: of attrition, yeah, I think you have to you have
[30:21] Speaker 4: to be pretty responsive right now and go get the
[30:23] Speaker 4: guys like I don't know how much you guys do,
[30:26] Speaker 4: like you know, like fantasy football draft stuff like that,
[30:29] Speaker 4: but like I've done auction drafts.
[30:30] Speaker 2: I'm not very good at auction drafts.
[30:32] Speaker 4: I do think there's a little bit of a thing
[30:33] Speaker 4: of like if your strategy is to sort of like
[30:36] Speaker 4: sit out and wait for good value and stuff, you're
[30:40] Speaker 4: you're gonna like get a pretty bad team, you know
[30:42] Speaker 4: what I mean, Like you right before and you're like,
[30:47] Speaker 4: I'm oh man, I have so much money left. It's
[30:49] Speaker 4: like you don't have any players though, So that's gonna
[30:52] Speaker 4: be a problem. When it's time to go get the players,
[30:54] Speaker 4: you think that you're gonna go get And so I
[30:56] Speaker 4: wonder about that a little bit. Especially there's some of
[30:58] Speaker 4: these programs that, again, this is where where we're seeing
[31:00] Speaker 4: things love a lot a little bit across the country
[31:02] Speaker 4: in terms of the spread of where players are going,
[31:05] Speaker 4: the distribution of talent. There's some of these programs like
[31:08] Speaker 4: Texas for Sure and Georgia and a few of them
[31:10] Speaker 4: were at Alabama where it's like, this is what we're
[31:13] Speaker 4: willing to pay you if you're asking for more than
[31:15] Speaker 4: that than peace and good players are leaving those programs
[31:20] Speaker 4: and you say, well, wait, they have all these resources,
[31:22] Speaker 4: all this money, and they can afford everybody and they
[31:23] Speaker 4: can get anybody they want. It's like, yeah, but everybody
[31:26] Speaker 4: is having to make these decisions within a budget and
[31:28] Speaker 4: within a cap, even if you don't believe in the
[31:30] Speaker 4: cap of what you're willing to pay for someone versus
[31:33] Speaker 4: going to get somebody else. And so you know, if
[31:36] Speaker 4: you're like the program that is like kind of having
[31:39] Speaker 4: a lot of attrition because you're not willing to pay
[31:40] Speaker 4: your backups or pay your returning guys. It's going to
[31:43] Speaker 4: be expensive to go get replacements, and you have to
[31:46] Speaker 4: go get them right now. You can't really sit back
[31:48] Speaker 4: and kind of see how things play out.
[31:50] Speaker 1: It's also and I don't know if this is more
[31:52] Speaker 1: of a comment than a question, but like tie list
[31:54] Speaker 1: it off. I guess it was Pete's teams that he listed,
[31:57] Speaker 1: but he listed off teams that have been super successful,
[32:00] Speaker 1: so Ohio State, Miami, Oregon, BYU, Notre Dame schools like that.
[32:04] Speaker 1: And so when you are as successful as those teams are,
[32:07] Speaker 1: either playoff or playoff ish, you probably have a lot
[32:10] Speaker 1: of good players, and you probably have a lot of
[32:12] Speaker 1: players who improve this year, and you probably have a
[32:14] Speaker 1: lot of players who have agents that said yesterday's price
[32:17] Speaker 1: is not today's price. And so the retention involved in
[32:21] Speaker 1: a lot of those programs if they're not losing a bunch,
[32:23] Speaker 1: you know, to the NFL or graduation like Indiana, and
[32:26] Speaker 1: you know Indiana's obviously and Texas Tech obviously has made
[32:29] Speaker 1: a decision that they're going to be very portal heavy,
[32:31] Speaker 1: and so there's just going to be a lot of turnover.
[32:34] Speaker 1: I imagine that has to play a role that these
[32:37] Speaker 1: schools and you've sort of talked about this already, they're
[32:41] Speaker 1: spending on retention. They don't necessarily want to bring in
[32:44] Speaker 1: players via the portal who are going to piss off
[32:47] Speaker 1: active contributing players that they're being recruited over via the portal.
[32:53] Speaker 1: And they can, I think, in some of these instances,
[32:55] Speaker 1: and this was highlighted by Ohio State last year, can
[32:58] Speaker 1: afford to be choosy, Like sure, if Caleb Odam enters
[33:02] Speaker 1: or Caleb downs enders, excuse me, yeah, we'll make a move.
[33:05] Speaker 1: But otherwise, like we're pretty happy with where we are.
[33:09] Speaker 1: Does that sound reasonable?
[33:11] Speaker 2: Yes?
[33:11] Speaker 4: I And and to your point, retention is very expensive,
[33:15] Speaker 4: and it's more expensive this offseason last year. And I think,
[33:18] Speaker 4: you know, even last year, I would talk to gms
[33:20] Speaker 4: who were like, we would offer a guy one hundred
[33:22] Speaker 4: thousand dollars and they'd be like offended, right, Like you know,
[33:25] Speaker 4: the just the bar of like you're returning, we like you,
[33:30] Speaker 4: just the the you know, baseline price of that keeps
[33:33] Speaker 4: going up, right, And so I think that is that
[33:35] Speaker 4: is that is a challenge everyone's dealing with. I remember
[33:37] Speaker 4: last year, Florida keeps billing Apier and the spin at
[33:42] Speaker 4: the time is like, well, we're not going to pay
[33:44] Speaker 4: the buyout, we're going to invest in you know, we're
[33:47] Speaker 4: invest in the roster. Right Florida went out and got
[33:50] Speaker 4: five or six trainsfers out of the portal, and that's
[33:53] Speaker 4: because the freshman class was really expensive, and because Caleb
[33:56] Speaker 4: Banks is really expensive, and because you know, taking care
[33:59] Speaker 4: of the guys that are on your roster costs you
[34:01] Speaker 4: a lot of money. And then you're sort of like, wait,
[34:02] Speaker 4: what do we have left? We can't get that much
[34:04] Speaker 4: and so you know, that's part of that. I think
[34:06] Speaker 4: that's going to be one of the challenges now. As
[34:09] Speaker 4: much as it's great to be at a spot where
[34:10] Speaker 4: you know you're recruiting blue chip, top ten recruiting classes
[34:13] Speaker 4: every single year, those guys are expensive to come in
[34:17] Speaker 4: the door, and then you have to keep paying them
[34:19] Speaker 4: more every year, whether.
[34:20] Speaker 2: They're contributing or not.
[34:21] Speaker 4: And some of these places you're sort of like, wait,
[34:24] Speaker 4: if you step back and think about it, how much
[34:25] Speaker 4: am I paying this kid? How much have I invested
[34:27] Speaker 4: in this kid before he has started a game for us? Like,
[34:30] Speaker 4: that's a tough proposition, and it's part of it is
[34:33] Speaker 4: why you're willing to let backups walk, you know, let
[34:36] Speaker 4: them move on and go get paid more by somebody
[34:38] Speaker 4: else and go get you know, a G five player
[34:42] Speaker 4: who maybe cost less or maybe go just go find
[34:44] Speaker 4: a replacement in the portal, because there are endless replacements
[34:47] Speaker 4: in the portal.
[34:48] Speaker 1: What has the market been like for Sam Levitt and
[34:50] Speaker 1: Dylan Royola? These guys are big names with big public
[34:55] Speaker 1: injuries that they suffered this season, and you know they
[34:59] Speaker 1: have I think both of these kids, but kids. Both
[35:02] Speaker 1: of these guys played I think two three four high
[35:05] Speaker 1: schools each, Right, what what is the market like they
[35:08] Speaker 1: keep making visits or they keep not committing, Like, what
[35:12] Speaker 1: what is the view in the market for these two
[35:15] Speaker 1: like very high profile guys.
[35:18] Speaker 4: I'm really glad that you asked that question, Dan, because
[35:20] Speaker 4: since since this is, as we've joked, is maybe not
[35:23] Speaker 4: going to age, well, I want to just put this.
[35:25] Speaker 4: I want to I want to ask this poses to
[35:27] Speaker 4: you now, Okay, you've got to make the decision now.
[35:29] Speaker 2: Okay, So we're almost like putting this in the vault here.
[35:33] Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a this is a no crying from
[35:37] Speaker 4: the yacht situation.
[35:38] Speaker 2: Right, But if your Oregon, Dan.
[35:42] Speaker 4: Uh huh, would you take Sam Levitt or Dylan Royola?
[35:47] Speaker 1: I I would be interested in Sam Levitt. He's local,
[35:51] Speaker 1: He's led a team to a playoff, and most importantly
[35:54] Speaker 1: in terms of his connection to Oregon, he played for
[35:56] Speaker 1: Kenny Dillingham, and there are still Kenny Dillingham fingerprints on
[36:00] Speaker 1: the Oregon offense, which is why I think his name
[36:01] Speaker 1: has come up with Oregon. I think his injury was
[36:04] Speaker 1: pretty serious. I don't even know if he's gonna be
[36:06] Speaker 1: playing springball.
[36:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, yep.
[36:09] Speaker 1: I don't think I would love Oregon quarterback Dylan Royola.
[36:14] Speaker 1: I just have not been a fan of Why. I know,
[36:16] Speaker 1: you're much more local to his situation or former situation.
[36:21] Speaker 1: And I felt that way about bo Nicks, and so,
[36:23] Speaker 1: you know, raise my hand. I've been wrong before about
[36:25] Speaker 1: guys that I didn't think we're gonna pan out for Oregon.
[36:27] Speaker 1: But sam Levitt feels like more of a fit though.
[36:31] Speaker 1: You know, you hear reports about like their personalities and
[36:35] Speaker 1: the sort of cloud around them, and you're just like, yeah,
[36:39] Speaker 1: I don't know about that. So I don't know. That's
[36:40] Speaker 1: why I was asking you, because I know both of them,
[36:42] Speaker 1: you know, Like it seemed the reports that Roola's camp
[36:45] Speaker 1: is interested in Oregon not clear if the feeling was mutual.
[36:49] Speaker 1: And then Sam Levitt obviously being from the state and
[36:52] Speaker 1: having the connection via Kenny Dillingham is interesting to me.
[36:55] Speaker 2: But I don't know.
[36:56] Speaker 1: He's taking a bunch of visits and not committing.
[36:58] Speaker 2: That's right.
[37:00] Speaker 4: It's been it's been interesting to see. It's been very
[37:04] Speaker 4: quiet on the Dylan Rayl upfront. I think certainly his
[37:07] Speaker 4: dream scenarios is getting to be the next quarterback in Oregon,
[37:10] Speaker 4: and obviously the track record they've had there under Dan Lanning.
[37:13] Speaker 2: Speaks for itself.
[37:14] Speaker 4: It's you know, it's obvious why he would want to be
[37:16] Speaker 4: the quarterback at Oregon. And I think for Sam Levitt.
[37:21] Speaker 4: You know, the reason I asked you the question is
[37:26] Speaker 4: because you talk talking to personal people, talking to agents,
[37:30] Speaker 4: a lot of people say like, I think Dylan Rayl
[37:32] Speaker 4: is going there, and some people say like, I think
[37:33] Speaker 4: sant Love will end up there. And so it feels
[37:35] Speaker 4: like it's a little I don't think it's fifty to fifty,
[37:37] Speaker 4: but it feels very unclear at the moment, and as
[37:42] Speaker 4: of taking this right now, the big mystery is still Miami.
[37:46] Speaker 2: I just we don't know what right he's totally.
[37:47] Speaker 4: There was a lot of rumors about Leonora Sellers being
[37:50] Speaker 4: the guy from Miami. There was rumors about CJ. Bailey
[37:53] Speaker 4: being the guy for Miami. Maybe they'll circle back on CJ.
[37:56] Speaker 4: Bailey or one of these guys. Maybe Miami has a
[37:59] Speaker 4: guy lined up who's not even in the portal and
[38:01] Speaker 4: we're all gonna be blown away. Maybe Miami goes after
[38:03] Speaker 4: Tys Simpson who already declared for the draft, Like we
[38:05] Speaker 4: just don't know what the move is there. Again, part
[38:08] Speaker 4: of it is like their season's not over and they're
[38:09] Speaker 4: working through this. I think that factors in a little bit.
[38:13] Speaker 4: If you told me Sam Levit's gonna be the guy
[38:14] Speaker 4: at Miami, I'd be like, Okay, I could totally say
[38:16] Speaker 4: that like that that would make sense for them. I
[38:20] Speaker 4: think for for Riola, you're not seeing him take a
[38:23] Speaker 4: bunch of other visits, so I don't know if he
[38:26] Speaker 4: feels like very confident that he is going to be
[38:28] Speaker 4: the guy at organ or maybe the words just not
[38:30] Speaker 4: getting out about where he's going. But you know, I
[38:33] Speaker 4: think that it was an interesting year for hear for him.
[38:39] Speaker 4: You talk to some people there who feel like, you know,
[38:40] Speaker 4: we think he can still be a first round guy,
[38:42] Speaker 4: like the natural talent is all there. You know, the
[38:46] Speaker 4: way he can handle stuff pre snap is like pretty
[38:49] Speaker 4: high level for a college kid. For a college sophomore,
[38:51] Speaker 4: you know, you've got two years of starting experience. Yes,
[38:54] Speaker 4: the you know, the injury set him back there, but
[38:57] Speaker 4: I think like a very motivated don't rollo, who's like
[39:00] Speaker 4: in great shape and who's healthy, and he's like really
[39:03] Speaker 4: confident and he's got a great supporting cast. I think
[39:05] Speaker 4: he'd be really productive. Yeah, I remember, Yeah, bo Nix
[39:07] Speaker 4: was a questionable take at the time, and Dante Moore
[39:09] Speaker 4: did not have a good year at UCLA. He did
[39:11] Speaker 4: this freshman year and got benched, and so you know,
[39:14] Speaker 4: they're not afraid to like take the guy where like
[39:16] Speaker 4: we see the talent regardless of you know, the the
[39:19] Speaker 4: resume so far.
[39:22] Speaker 2: Love it would be a lot of fun to watch
[39:23] Speaker 2: and or guys.
[39:24] Speaker 4: I covered that Texas Arizona state game the Peach Bowl
[39:28] Speaker 4: last year, and as much as this scataboo was insane,
[39:33] Speaker 4: right watching Levitt run away from Texas players, I was like,
[39:36] Speaker 4: this guy's different, Like, this guy is pretty special and
[39:38] Speaker 4: he was only a red shirt freshman and he get
[39:40] Speaker 4: you know, he wins a Big Twelve title as a
[39:42] Speaker 4: red shirt freshman. Two guys like I would, I'd be
[39:45] Speaker 4: very comfortable betting on and yes it's very expensive bet
[39:48] Speaker 4: but like, yeah, those two and then you left one
[39:51] Speaker 4: out there that and we'll see what the movie is.
[39:53] Speaker 2: This guy is taking a ton of visits. Is is
[39:56] Speaker 2: DJ Lagway? A year ago?
[39:58] Speaker 4: We would We were like, you know, in August, We're like,
[40:01] Speaker 4: he could be a top ten quarterback in the country.
[40:03] Speaker 3: Let me ask you this, Okay, And maybe I am
[40:06] Speaker 3: showing my age a little bit and asking this question.
[40:09] Speaker 3: But we talk about it all the time with coaches
[40:12] Speaker 3: who jump around a lot. One year here, one year there.
[40:15] Speaker 3: My favorite joke is Ted Rufe, who's been one year
[40:18] Speaker 3: everywhere before moving on. But we were starting to see
[40:21] Speaker 3: this now hired again he did, I just thought, oh yeah.
[40:24] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I want to say Boston College.
[40:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, so right off BC for next year on defense.
[40:29] Speaker 3: But we're now starting to have this same conversation about
[40:33] Speaker 3: players who jump around one year here, portal, one year there, portal.
[40:38] Speaker 2: Right.
[40:38] Speaker 1: TJ.
[40:39] Speaker 3: Finley, I think is still in the portal. He's going
[40:40] Speaker 3: to be in the portal in perpetuity. But is there
[40:43] Speaker 3: any trepidation from any of the GMS any of the
[40:47] Speaker 3: agencies that you speak with about the players that are
[40:50] Speaker 3: one and done seemingly every year. Are they viewing that
[40:53] Speaker 3: as any kind of judge of character for those guys
[40:56] Speaker 3: that they're just kind of jumping from place to place
[40:58] Speaker 3: to get more money, or is it just sort of
[41:00] Speaker 3: written off as a sign of the times and this
[41:02] Speaker 3: is where we're at in college football.
[41:05] Speaker 4: Yeah, things are flying like so fast every day in
[41:07] Speaker 4: terms of commitments, in terms of new entries and stuff that.
[41:09] Speaker 4: Like sometimes you just see these things on Twitter and
[41:11] Speaker 4: you're just like, I miss that. Okay, Wow, So Malachi
[41:15] Speaker 4: Nelson from UTAP is back in the transfer portal. You
[41:19] Speaker 4: know that's that's another one. Jane Rashot is back in
[41:21] Speaker 4: the transfer portal, and we've all, you know, we all
[41:23] Speaker 4: remember the Jane shot of Saga at his various schools.
[41:26] Speaker 4: It happens a lot at the quarterback position, for sure.
[41:29] Speaker 4: But that's something that has been striking to me when
[41:32] Speaker 4: you look at the names that are popping up in
[41:34] Speaker 4: the portal every day, is like, I'm seeing names of
[41:36] Speaker 4: guys that are absolutely going to their fourth school in
[41:40] Speaker 4: four or five years. And I think that is something
[41:42] Speaker 4: that has changed considerably past couple. You know, a few
[41:47] Speaker 4: years ago, you guys remember like they were trying to
[41:50] Speaker 4: uphold a one time transfer rule where you can you
[41:53] Speaker 4: can make them move one time, and you can make
[41:55] Speaker 4: that move whenever you want, but then you have to
[41:57] Speaker 4: be a grad transfer to transfer again. And you watch
[42:01] Speaker 4: the entries just pop up every day and populate in
[42:04] Speaker 4: the portal. Right now, I'm not seeing a lot of
[42:07] Speaker 4: grad transfers like that. I think that the percentage of
[42:09] Speaker 4: players entering the portal who are grad transfers who had
[42:11] Speaker 4: their degree so far, it looks like it's down to me,
[42:14] Speaker 4: I think. I think the first couple of days it
[42:16] Speaker 4: was like sixteen percent, and that was a big cut
[42:18] Speaker 4: from a year ago. That's concerning. Like I think if
[42:20] Speaker 4: you're administrator or a coach, like you don't love seeing
[42:22] Speaker 4: that trend. And yeah, like I said, I'm seeing guys
[42:26] Speaker 4: pop up in the portal for a third or a
[42:28] Speaker 4: fourth time. And is that because it's not all about money.
[42:31] Speaker 4: Part of that is just like you keep going places
[42:33] Speaker 4: and you can't get on the field, or you're not
[42:35] Speaker 4: or you are getting on the field and you are
[42:37] Speaker 4: not getting what you think you deserve. And so I
[42:40] Speaker 4: think that that's like an overarching thing. That is, it's
[42:44] Speaker 4: just I don't want to do the whole like it's
[42:46] Speaker 4: a generational thing or whatever like that. The rules create
[42:49] Speaker 4: the opportunity, right, and so the rules are they couldn't
[42:51] Speaker 4: enforce a one time transfer rule, so now there's unlimited transfers.
[42:54] Speaker 4: And so a guy who you know might show up
[42:59] Speaker 4: at a place here. You could have freshmen who are
[43:01] Speaker 4: who are you know out of school for a week,
[43:03] Speaker 4: like Julian sayin was I like go back in the portal,
[43:06] Speaker 4: like okay, whoops? You know, pick a new school. That
[43:10] Speaker 4: can happen as soon as you get to college, and
[43:12] Speaker 4: especially the quarterback position. In the past, you would say
[43:14] Speaker 4: after two years, they're either playing or they're leaving. Now
[43:17] Speaker 4: it's we're seeing a ton of freshmen in this cycle
[43:20] Speaker 4: leave after one year as a backup, one year, one
[43:22] Speaker 4: year of red shirting. Again, it's not just money making
[43:24] Speaker 4: them do that. It's just everybody wants to play. They
[43:27] Speaker 4: want to get theirs, and if they don't see the
[43:29] Speaker 4: paths playing time, there's really nothing stopping anyone from entering
[43:33] Speaker 4: the portal.
[43:33] Speaker 3: I have sort of another follow on question to that,
[43:36] Speaker 3: and obviously the tone of these types of questions. It
[43:40] Speaker 3: stems from both Dan and I being almost exasperated at
[43:44] Speaker 3: how the portal has exploded, how college football has changed
[43:48] Speaker 3: in such a very short period of time. For those
[43:50] Speaker 3: of us who have watched this sport our entire lives
[43:52] Speaker 3: is obviously very new. We cover it, we have to,
[43:55] Speaker 3: but it's it's different, right, we have to digest it ourselves.
[43:59] Speaker 3: How many of the guys that you talked to on
[44:01] Speaker 3: the personnel side of this are just maniacally happy, maniacally
[44:06] Speaker 3: looking at the portal sort of you know, writing out checks,
[44:13] Speaker 3: putting them in Manila envelopes, meeting in dark alleys, those
[44:16] Speaker 3: types of things. How many guys on a percentage basis
[44:19] Speaker 3: are just looking at this and salivating at the pure
[44:23] Speaker 3: opportunity that this transfer portal presents their program.
[44:29] Speaker 4: Gosh, the only one that comes to mind is James
[44:33] Speaker 4: Blatter at Texas.
[44:34] Speaker 2: That's the only one that comes to mind that is like, Okay,
[44:38] Speaker 2: here we go to Sleeves.
[44:39] Speaker 3: He's ready to go.
[44:41] Speaker 4: Time to and everybody, you know, you just everybody else
[44:44] Speaker 4: is just getting getting killed out here.
[44:46] Speaker 2: Everyone else is just like they're they're exhausted.
[44:50] Speaker 4: And you know, I was talking to one last night
[44:53] Speaker 4: who was at a you know who had just made
[44:55] Speaker 4: a move to a new school, and they said, you know,
[44:57] Speaker 4: we've dealt with volume before, We've dealt with having to
[44:59] Speaker 4: take a.
[44:59] Speaker 2: Lot, lot of transfers at one time.
[45:01] Speaker 4: Never dealt with the combination of volume and the money
[45:04] Speaker 4: before and a lot of money, And so that is
[45:06] Speaker 4: the thing that is. You know, man, there's a ton
[45:08] Speaker 4: of great players out here. We can go upgrade our
[45:10] Speaker 4: roster that no one's like, no one's sitting here being like, man,
[45:14] Speaker 4: I don't know if the portal is as good as
[45:15] Speaker 4: I thought it would be. Like, no, there's a ton
[45:17] Speaker 4: of good players out there, right. It is the pace
[45:19] Speaker 4: of this, it is the cost of this. It is
[45:21] Speaker 4: the execution of offer to visit, to signing to sign,
[45:26] Speaker 4: you know, sign contract, getting the actual deal done. It's
[45:30] Speaker 4: it's a it's it's uh, it's pretty challenging right now.
[45:33] Speaker 4: It's exciting, it's exciting to follow, but behind the scenes
[45:36] Speaker 4: in terms of like pulling it off, it's tough. And
[45:38] Speaker 4: I want to say, like, I I'm glad you mentioned
[45:41] Speaker 4: it because I think when you're in the in the
[45:43] Speaker 4: daily coverage of it and you're just trying to keep
[45:45] Speaker 4: up with what's next all this stuff.
[45:47] Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit of when I was
[45:48] Speaker 2: covering conference re.
[45:49] Speaker 4: Alignment, where you you, you'd be so caught up in
[45:52] Speaker 4: the next update and the next thing that was happening,
[45:55] Speaker 4: and and it's tough to step back and be like, yeah,
[45:57] Speaker 4: but this is bad though, right, you know what I mean?
[45:59] Speaker 2: Like when you're in it and.
[46:00] Speaker 4: You're covering it, you know, and you know, I'm not
[46:03] Speaker 4: a column writer, right, like you're you're sticking to the
[46:05] Speaker 4: news and the facts. It's tough when you're in in
[46:08] Speaker 4: the ship like this to be like hold on, like, man,
[46:11] Speaker 4: this is I don't I don't know if all this
[46:13] Speaker 4: these are good developments, some of these things that are happening.
[46:15] Speaker 4: So I appreciate you mentioning that because I as much
[46:17] Speaker 4: as that's like my my role and my passion and
[46:20] Speaker 4: I like covering this stuff, there are definitely things going on,
[46:23] Speaker 4: and you talk to people who are very exasperated by
[46:25] Speaker 4: all of this and who are asking like, what is
[46:27] Speaker 4: this going to be next? Well, it's that's part of
[46:28] Speaker 4: the like you just don't know how is this even
[46:31] Speaker 4: going to work next year? Like it's it's the rules
[46:33] Speaker 4: change every year. The setup change every year, and the
[46:36] Speaker 4: more the rules change, it almost feels like the worse
[46:40] Speaker 4: it gets. It's not or maybe rules don't change, but
[46:43] Speaker 4: the the trajectory of this is getting worse, not getting
[46:48] Speaker 4: like better and more.
[46:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the Jeff Goldbloom in Jurassic Park thing, like
[46:51] Speaker 3: you just because you can, does that mean that you should?
[46:55] Speaker 1: And scientists yeah, yeah.
[46:57] Speaker 3: Right, So it's it's certinly have this conversation and even
[47:02] Speaker 3: if we're not talking about it on the show, we're
[47:04] Speaker 3: talking about it amongst ourselves, just wondering what does this
[47:07] Speaker 3: all mean? You know, not necessarily saying that the players
[47:11] Speaker 3: shouldn't have the right to earn from their likeness or
[47:14] Speaker 3: to go to a new school or anything. I think
[47:16] Speaker 3: fundamentally we probably all agree on those points, but on
[47:20] Speaker 3: some level they got to brain this thing in. I
[47:22] Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't seem sustainable long term, and.
[47:25] Speaker 4: There's just again from like I can totally appreciate from
[47:29] Speaker 4: the fans standpoint of this. While it's exciting to follow
[47:31] Speaker 4: who your your team might be picking up this week
[47:33] Speaker 4: and next week, I totally also understand the standpoint of
[47:37] Speaker 4: like Coy Parritch is leaving like this freaking sucks, Like
[47:40] Speaker 4: this is this is I want to I bought my
[47:41] Speaker 4: kid the jersey, Like what what is you know, Like
[47:44] Speaker 4: how can we not keep a guy at a school
[47:46] Speaker 4: for three or four years?
[47:47] Speaker 2: Right? Like there's you can go down.
[47:49] Speaker 4: I mean obviously the group of five level, there's just
[47:51] Speaker 4: no stability year to year. If anybody who gets good
[47:54] Speaker 4: is gone, right And I think that is a thing
[47:56] Speaker 4: that is just very frustrating. If you're an Iowa State
[47:58] Speaker 4: fan right now, if you're in North tex fan right now,
[48:00] Speaker 4: you're like, man, this is it is. This is the
[48:03] Speaker 4: reality of the sport. It's not surprising that it's happening.
[48:07] Speaker 4: It's you know, it's completely logical. Doesn't mean I had
[48:12] Speaker 4: to sit here and be like this is good right now.
[48:15] Speaker 1: It's one of the interesting things is the portal and
[48:21] Speaker 1: recruiting and I guess to a certain extent coaching higher season,
[48:25] Speaker 1: it's an interesting like tea leaf thermometer of a program's health,
[48:29] Speaker 1: right that, like this program is losing a lot of
[48:31] Speaker 1: like key dudes. I don't know if this is like
[48:33] Speaker 1: a long term healthy situation for so and so coach
[48:37] Speaker 1: so and so program or they seem to be attracting
[48:40] Speaker 1: a lot of like quality guys. This team might win
[48:42] Speaker 1: for the next two or three years. When you look
[48:44] Speaker 1: at what's happened early on in this portal cycle. Again
[48:48] Speaker 1: recording Thursday morning, we got another what nine seven days?
[48:52] Speaker 2: Something? I don't know. Should I check my phone? Should
[48:55] Speaker 2: I see?
[48:55] Speaker 1: Check your phone? We got eight days left. It's through
[48:58] Speaker 1: the sixteenth I believe. As we're recording this.
[49:01] Speaker 4: Okay, Malik blocked into L s U. Good one for
[49:04] Speaker 4: L s U. Really brown to Texas nice running back
[49:08] Speaker 4: their back. I like this live right, Okay, I probably
[49:13] Speaker 4: I probably missed a lot. Probably there's probably a lot more.
[49:15] Speaker 1: Okay, who what what do you remember those scientists that
[49:19] Speaker 1: would look at like the waste product and septic tanks
[49:21] Speaker 1: to see like how diseases have spread and dorm rooms
[49:24] Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So if you're that scientist putting
[49:28] Speaker 1: the Petri dish of the transfer portal season under the
[49:31] Speaker 1: micro microscope, like where are things looking up for, you know, programs,
[49:36] Speaker 1: and who are you kind of like, Oh, I'm kind
[49:37] Speaker 1: of worried that, like things aren't going super well based
[49:40] Speaker 1: on the ins and outs of players in this season.
[49:43] Speaker 4: That's one element of this that's always been curious to
[49:48] Speaker 4: me is like in the past, there was a limit
[49:50] Speaker 4: to how many guys you could sign in a you know,
[49:53] Speaker 4: a whole year, and there's obviously a roster limit. There
[49:56] Speaker 4: is no limit to how many players you could lose.
[49:58] Speaker 4: There's no like, Okay, we've crossed this threshold and so
[50:01] Speaker 4: nobody else is gonna leave. And so you see some
[50:04] Speaker 4: of these things play out where like, for example, like
[50:07] Speaker 4: not to single them out, like, well, okay, Texas has
[50:10] Speaker 4: had a bunch of good players leave the program, right
[50:13] Speaker 4: and and Parker Livingston's going to Oklahoma, which you would
[50:16] Speaker 4: say during the season, you'd be like, that's insane, right, No,
[50:18] Speaker 4: they would never let that happen, or you you have
[50:21] Speaker 4: you know, Trey Wisner's going to Florida State, and Trey
[50:23] Speaker 4: Wisner freaking won them the A and M game, right, Like,
[50:26] Speaker 4: there's good players walking out, and part of it is
[50:28] Speaker 4: just the economics of it and stuff it does. And
[50:30] Speaker 4: at a certain point, from from a fan side, I
[50:33] Speaker 4: need to see someone else coming in and replace them.
[50:35] Speaker 4: I need to see stars coming in. Otherwise I'm like,
[50:37] Speaker 4: what are we doing? And so you see, like Colorado's
[50:40] Speaker 4: freshman class, like a lot of really like good players
[50:43] Speaker 4: leaving and having great opportunities to go somewhere else. It
[50:46] Speaker 4: doesn't necessarily mean like okay in the in the past,
[50:48] Speaker 4: I would say it's a little bit more damning of like,
[50:50] Speaker 4: oh man, they got some cultural problems, like what's going
[50:52] Speaker 4: on here. It's not quite that anymore because there's just
[50:56] Speaker 4: it's part of it is just the money, and it's
[50:58] Speaker 4: just the like you didn't play this year, Like we're
[51:01] Speaker 4: not gonna pay you that much money, right, if you
[51:02] Speaker 4: gotta go, you gotta go. But like we'll get somebody else,
[51:05] Speaker 4: but like we cannot do this. That's a lot of it, right,
[51:08] Speaker 4: That that is just that's like, let's not pretend it's
[51:10] Speaker 4: anything else.
[51:11] Speaker 2: That is what is dominating it now.
[51:13] Speaker 4: On the flip side of it, though, Dan I would say,
[51:17] Speaker 4: as we are watching Indiana right now and Ole Miss
[51:21] Speaker 4: and Texas Tech do what they're doing in the transfer portal,
[51:26] Speaker 4: I think you see that Indiana is a perfect example
[51:28] Speaker 4: where year one it was like man, they brought all
[51:30] Speaker 4: these jam you guys, they kept like some good players
[51:33] Speaker 4: from the Tom Allen there. They really got it right.
[51:35] Speaker 4: Then they go build a great portal class they go
[51:38] Speaker 4: out and get exactly what they need not just the
[51:40] Speaker 4: Heisman winner, but players all over the field who are
[51:42] Speaker 4: making them better, who are upgrading their you know, they're
[51:45] Speaker 4: they're starting lineup this year. You're gonna go win a
[51:48] Speaker 4: battle for Nick Marsh. You're gonna go get Josh Hoover
[51:51] Speaker 4: lined up, Like Josh Hoaver's not taking any other visits.
[51:53] Speaker 4: Josh Hoover wants to go to to Indiana. You know,
[51:56] Speaker 4: you're going to get one of the best pass rushers
[51:58] Speaker 4: in the portal from k State. You are going out
[52:01] Speaker 4: and getting you know, Turbo Richard from from Boston College.
[52:03] Speaker 2: And the list is growing.
[52:05] Speaker 4: I look at some of those, Dan, and I wonder,
[52:08] Speaker 4: can some of these programs have build on this momentum
[52:12] Speaker 4: stack enough portal classes that like, can one of them
[52:15] Speaker 4: actually like be a Clemson and actually be around for
[52:18] Speaker 4: five years like that or ten years? And actually that's
[52:21] Speaker 4: the one where that's the thing you're watching play out
[52:24] Speaker 4: live that is really interesting to me. Like obviously Texas
[52:26] Speaker 4: Tech is invested in being one of those programs and
[52:29] Speaker 4: being competing at the highest level for as long as
[52:31] Speaker 4: they can, you know, for an indefinite period of time.
[52:34] Speaker 4: Like text Tech is fully all in on this stuff.
[52:37] Speaker 4: Indiana is too Ole Miss the way that that you know,
[52:40] Speaker 4: Pete Golden has always been a great recruiter at Old Miss,
[52:42] Speaker 4: and they're doing a killer job in the portal. They're
[52:44] Speaker 4: doing a killer job with retention. I'm fascinating to see
[52:47] Speaker 4: as we move in next year and we you know, yeah,
[52:50] Speaker 4: the portal changes every year and the money goes up
[52:52] Speaker 4: and all that kind of stuff. Can some of these
[52:55] Speaker 4: programs sustain it? And yes, they're not going to win
[52:57] Speaker 4: national championships every year obviously, and you know, blue chip
[53:00] Speaker 4: ratio still matters, and the great you know, the great
[53:02] Speaker 4: programs will still be the great programs. But I'm I
[53:06] Speaker 4: think it's possible that some of these can really sustain
[53:08] Speaker 4: this that as long as Signette's in Indiana, I think
[53:11] Speaker 4: Indiana can stay here.
[53:13] Speaker 1: That makes sense if you don't have a terrible scene
[53:16] Speaker 1: this is do.
[53:17] Speaker 4: You think this is just kind of fleeting and like
[53:19] Speaker 4: it just the rosters are so year to year that
[53:21] Speaker 4: it's hard to stay at this level.
[53:24] Speaker 1: It's it is hard to stay at this level. I
[53:26] Speaker 1: think a lot of people, uh fullheartedly believe Kurt Signetti
[53:30] Speaker 1: is an excellent coach and so he and his staff
[53:32] Speaker 1: will get the most out of players who come in.
[53:35] Speaker 1: But as we've seen with you know, Florida State, it's
[53:37] Speaker 1: an example, and maybe Mike Norvell is not a great coach.
[53:40] Speaker 1: I don't think that's a controversial statement to make. If
[53:43] Speaker 1: you miss on a class and you are recruiting over
[53:47] Speaker 1: the high school recruits, you're going to lose your high
[53:50] Speaker 1: school recruited players and have a bad portal class and
[53:54] Speaker 1: then suddenly you're left with a super thin roster of quality.
[53:58] Speaker 1: And so that that sort of strategy is banking on
[54:02] Speaker 1: continued coaching excellence and absolutely nailing every portal class and
[54:07] Speaker 1: being lucky with injuries, which is not necessarily an every
[54:11] Speaker 1: year thing to me.
[54:13] Speaker 4: And then as Lanning is going through now, then okay,
[54:15] Speaker 4: you're if you're gonna have the same success, then your
[54:18] Speaker 4: coordinators are gonna be head coaches, and your your coaches
[54:20] Speaker 4: are going.
[54:20] Speaker 2: To move up in the world.
[54:21] Speaker 4: And so how do you take the magic of this
[54:24] Speaker 4: and keep it going with different people? And I think
[54:26] Speaker 4: that's a really hard thing too, and that hasn't hasn't
[54:29] Speaker 4: really happened yet for for Kurtzy and Netty. As good
[54:32] Speaker 4: as his coordinators are, and they're some of the best
[54:34] Speaker 4: in the country. So yeah, but I think that that
[54:36] Speaker 4: certainly plays into it too. But yeah, I don't know.
[54:38] Speaker 2: I'm like back in November, it's sort.
[54:42] Speaker 4: Of like, Okay, well, yeah, let's use a way better
[54:43] Speaker 4: job than ole miss, Like who could blame him and
[54:45] Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff.
[54:47] Speaker 2: I think.
[54:48] Speaker 4: I think this, this whole ordeal has galvanized everybody in
[54:52] Speaker 4: Oxford of like, Okay, we need to go out and
[54:55] Speaker 4: show like we are all in. We need to bring
[54:57] Speaker 4: all these players back. We need to put together a
[54:59] Speaker 4: killer portal class. Yeah, some of these like you got
[55:03] Speaker 4: you gotta seize the moment here and and go get
[55:05] Speaker 4: a great class, and you're right down that. There's also
[55:07] Speaker 4: as this is going on right now, and it's it's
[55:09] Speaker 4: very fast and furious, and like I keep a spreadsheet
[55:11] Speaker 4: of like where every FBA scholarship player is transfering to.
[55:14] Speaker 2: My spreadsheet is in shambles, like it would take me days.
[55:17] Speaker 4: To update it with who's in the portal and who's
[55:19] Speaker 4: going where, Like, well, hopefully we'll catch up at some point.
[55:22] Speaker 4: But there are definitely going to be some programs right
[55:24] Speaker 4: now who are either going to put together portal classes
[55:28] Speaker 4: with the wrong players or they're going to miss on
[55:29] Speaker 4: the right players and like it's going to get them
[55:32] Speaker 4: fired here a year from now because they didn't. Because
[55:34] Speaker 4: that's just how it's just like college basketball, right, Like
[55:36] Speaker 4: it's just it's a different team every year. And if
[55:38] Speaker 4: you get it wrong, like we saw you know, at
[55:40] Speaker 4: Oklahoma State and a few other programs this year, Like
[55:42] Speaker 4: if you get it wrong, like you could be cooked and.
[55:45] Speaker 1: Right, and is the money going to double down? Right
[55:47] Speaker 1: that if you screw up a portal class as all
[55:49] Speaker 1: of a sudden, the money going to get a little
[55:51] Speaker 1: bit shy about giving you the same number that you
[55:54] Speaker 1: were getting.
[55:54] Speaker 4: The passage completely held against you, if it's like totally
[55:57] Speaker 4: and the important people who willultimately end up having to
[56:01] Speaker 4: say and if you get hired or fired are like, man,
[56:04] Speaker 4: I spent a lot of money on this team, you know,
[56:06] Speaker 4: why are we terrible?
[56:08] Speaker 2: I think that's yeah, there's.
[56:09] Speaker 4: Absolutely going to be especially as we go, you know,
[56:12] Speaker 4: as we raise up the you know, the profile of
[56:14] Speaker 4: these gms and we raise their pain and stuff, that's
[56:16] Speaker 4: that's going to come with us. Just like an NFL,
[56:18] Speaker 4: there's going to be accountability to you went out and
[56:20] Speaker 4: did all this and spend all this money, and we
[56:22] Speaker 4: went six and six, like we got to make some
[56:25] Speaker 4: changes here.
[56:26] Speaker 3: It's also really upset the balance of the coaching carousel,
[56:31] Speaker 3: just from the standpoint of in the Year of Our
[56:35] Speaker 3: Lord two thousand and eight. If the conversation were a
[56:39] Speaker 3: really successful coach at Indiana potentially being in the mix
[56:43] Speaker 3: for a job at Penn State, potentially being in the
[56:46] Speaker 3: mix for a job let's say it, Michigan, you name it,
[56:49] Speaker 3: Nobody on earth would have assumed that that guy would
[56:53] Speaker 3: have stayed at Indiana. But now, given the state of
[56:56] Speaker 3: affairs here, proof of concept, Kurt Signetti has done it.
[57:00] Speaker 3: We have seen other coaches at smaller places do it
[57:03] Speaker 3: as well. Texas Tech. I mean, I don't say smaller
[57:06] Speaker 3: place in any derogatory sense, but they've got the money.
[57:10] Speaker 3: They are obviously proving that they can do it quickly.
[57:13] Speaker 3: They can turn things around quickly. Given the state of
[57:15] Speaker 3: affairs again around the sport, that conversation has changed now.
[57:19] Speaker 3: And I know Dan and I had that conversation when
[57:22] Speaker 3: we were talking about this most recent coaching cycle. Guys
[57:26] Speaker 3: are more apt to stay where they're at if they've
[57:28] Speaker 3: got the money, if they've proven they can do it,
[57:30] Speaker 3: why go elsewhere.
[57:31] Speaker 1: What's the point.
[57:32] Speaker 3: You can just build it where you're at if you've
[57:34] Speaker 3: got the money to support it.
[57:36] Speaker 4: So I went and visited Texas Tech when they were
[57:38] Speaker 4: six and zero and went to Love for a few
[57:40] Speaker 4: days and sccing with Joe McGuire's as a lot of
[57:42] Speaker 4: these things. I think right as I was going there
[57:45] Speaker 4: to visit them, I think James Franklin had just been
[57:47] Speaker 4: fired like the day before, and so of course those
[57:49] Speaker 4: guys were close to that role and they're like, man,
[57:51] Speaker 4: what's going to happen with that job and all that,
[57:53] Speaker 4: and JOm maguire is like, hey, just remember, do not
[57:56] Speaker 4: put my name on any of these lists.
[57:58] Speaker 2: I'm gonna die here. This is the job.
[58:01] Speaker 4: This is the job I always wanted. And you know,
[58:05] Speaker 4: if Texas or a and M or Oklahoma opens up, like,
[58:08] Speaker 4: I'm freaking not going there. And I think that's something
[58:10] Speaker 4: that one hundred percent ten years ago, you'd be like,
[58:14] Speaker 4: you'd be crazy not to and now it's it's every
[58:16] Speaker 4: campus is a little bit different in terms of how
[58:18] Speaker 4: they're attacking this stuff. And if you feel like the
[58:20] Speaker 4: coaches that feel like they have the alignment right, and
[58:23] Speaker 4: I know that's how Signetti views it in Indiana where
[58:26] Speaker 4: you the president, the ad on down the donor class.
[58:29] Speaker 4: If you get this all lined up, not only can
[58:31] Speaker 4: you be very successful today and tomorrow, but you don't
[58:35] Speaker 4: want to leave. Those guys want to leave, and they
[58:37] Speaker 4: you know, everybody gets taken care of and everyone's happy.
[58:40] Speaker 4: And you know, I was talking to a coaching agent
[58:42] Speaker 4: from that time who said, as they were looking at
[58:44] Speaker 4: these jobs that were opening, it used to be like, yeah,
[58:48] Speaker 4: what are the facilities, Like what's the staff pool? You know,
[58:51] Speaker 4: how nice are the how nice are the waterfalls in
[58:54] Speaker 4: the building and all that type of stuff?
[58:55] Speaker 2: Right, and like it, you know, what's the you know,
[58:57] Speaker 2: what are the recruiting advantages? All kind of stuff. They said.
[58:59] Speaker 4: Now it's just cut and dry. It's like how much
[59:02] Speaker 4: cap room do you have? How are you going to
[59:04] Speaker 4: go over the cap? And that's what everybody's trying to
[59:06] Speaker 4: deal right now is how much room do we have?
[59:07] Speaker 4: How are we going to circumvent the rules here and
[59:09] Speaker 4: spend more on this team? Who's going to fund that
[59:13] Speaker 4: circumvention of going over the cap with with who's going
[59:16] Speaker 4: to fund the you know, true nil or whatever we
[59:17] Speaker 4: want to call it.
[59:18] Speaker 2: And so that that is the name of the game now.
[59:20] Speaker 4: And so if you're at a place that has it
[59:22] Speaker 4: figured out, then you're really happy and you're really advantaged,
[59:26] Speaker 4: and you're getting great players and you can sustain success.
[59:29] Speaker 4: And if you're at a place where it's like a
[59:31] Speaker 4: little bit messy, or you don't have as much money
[59:32] Speaker 4: as you should, or it's you know, like, you want
[59:36] Speaker 4: to get out of that place too, and you want
[59:38] Speaker 4: to see you got to you like you're very envious.
[59:41] Speaker 2: I hear that from a lot of people.
[59:42] Speaker 4: There's a lot of envy when you look at like
[59:44] Speaker 4: Texas Tech and just like, oh man.
[59:46] Speaker 2: It's not just like, oh man, I'd love to have
[59:47] Speaker 2: a billionaire as my best friend. It's not just that.
[59:50] Speaker 4: It's having it all lined up and having it figured
[59:52] Speaker 4: out in terms of how to actually pull this off.
[59:54] Speaker 3: Alrighty Max, why don't we leave it there. I've got
[59:56] Speaker 3: one final question for you. I love to ask this
[59:59] Speaker 3: question because it makes people uncomfortable, So don't share too much.
[1:00:02] Speaker 3: I don't want to put you in a bad spot.
[1:00:04] Speaker 3: But how many rumors are you sitting on right now
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: that we'll never see the light of day with regard
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: to the portal?
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: Oh Man?
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: And give us seventeen of them.
[1:00:15] Speaker 4: Oh my god, I heard a really bad one yesterday, Like,
[1:00:23] Speaker 4: and by a bad one, I mean somebody told me
[1:00:27] Speaker 4: about a quarterback who was making a move and I
[1:00:33] Speaker 4: was floored, floored, and I called I called Pete Theamela.
[1:00:40] Speaker 4: I said, hey, can you talk to their rep can
[1:00:42] Speaker 4: you look into this? And he reached out to their
[1:00:47] Speaker 4: representation and they said, yeah, you know, the reason that
[1:00:53] Speaker 4: he just moved out of his house is because he's
[1:00:55] Speaker 4: moving to a house closer to the facility.
[1:00:58] Speaker 2: He's not any of the transport.
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: So it was a moving situation. Yeah.
[1:01:03] Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd heard he's moving out of his house. What's
[1:01:05] Speaker 4: that mean? It sounds like he's going in the portal.
[1:01:07] Speaker 4: Sounds like maybe they're going to replace him. Uh No,
[1:01:09] Speaker 4: he was just trying to get a house closer to
[1:01:11] Speaker 4: to to you know, off season workouts and all that.
[1:01:15] Speaker 2: Now we'll see maybe that.
[1:01:16] Speaker 4: I'll let you guys know if that player enters the
[1:01:18] Speaker 4: portal here in the next Yeah. Yeah, who's right, But
[1:01:23] Speaker 4: there's a yeah, there's even even as like the quarterback
[1:01:26] Speaker 4: market is so well established and we like we know
[1:01:28] Speaker 4: who's out there, and we know who everybody's fighting over
[1:01:31] Speaker 4: who knows. There's always the possibility that, you know, some
[1:01:34] Speaker 4: quarterback on a playoff team is like, Oh, I guess
[1:01:37] Speaker 4: I could go make six million bucks at Miami.
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: I'm I mean, maybe I'll go do that, you know
[1:01:41] Speaker 2: what I mean?
[1:01:41] Speaker 4: I think that's I'd also say, like right now, like
[1:01:45] Speaker 4: if if I tweeted every dollar figure that was like
[1:01:48] Speaker 4: texted to me by somebody, man, my batting average would
[1:01:52] Speaker 4: be horrible, honestly, because it's just it's so all this
[1:01:54] Speaker 4: stuff is just so hard to prove.
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: It really is, like it's it's so hard even nobody.
[1:01:59] Speaker 4: I wish to those listening, please send me your pds,
[1:02:03] Speaker 4: send me your contracts, show me, show me these dollar figures.
[1:02:06] Speaker 4: Please nobody send nobody dms, me contracts and PDFs. I
[1:02:09] Speaker 4: would love to see the real numbers on these things,
[1:02:12] Speaker 4: for you know sometime she you just you talk to
[1:02:14] Speaker 4: gms and agents and it's all speculation and it's inflated or.
[1:02:17] Speaker 2: It's too high or its too low.
[1:02:20] Speaker 4: Yeah, that that's a hard thing to really nail down,
[1:02:24] Speaker 4: uh at this time of year.
[1:02:26] Speaker 2: But you hear a lot.
[1:02:27] Speaker 3: Why don't we leave it there again? His name is
[1:02:30] Speaker 3: Max Olsen. You could find his fine work over at
[1:02:32] Speaker 3: ESPA dot com.
[1:02:33] Speaker 1: Max, best of luck.
[1:02:35] Speaker 3: To you, not just with your newborn, but with your
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: sleeping cycle right now amid all of this portal madness.
[1:02:41] Speaker 3: We will definitely catch up with you at some point
[1:02:44] Speaker 3: soon on the flip side.
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: Take care, thanks for having me guys.
[1:02:46] Speaker 3: All right there you go, Max Olson, the best ESPN
[1:02:50] Speaker 3: dot Com. Very much in the weeds with all things
[1:02:54] Speaker 3: transfer Portal. I do not envy the position he is in.
[1:02:59] Speaker 3: I say that not because there's not enough content, but
[1:03:03] Speaker 3: just because there is so much content. It is a
[1:03:05] Speaker 3: fire hose that Max is drinking out of right now.
[1:03:08] Speaker 3: And it's not just Max, it's everybody who covers the
[1:03:10] Speaker 3: Transfer Portal. That is a really, really tough spot to
[1:03:13] Speaker 3: be in right now. So he's doing marvelous work. Go
[1:03:16] Speaker 3: and follow him, Go and check him out. More to come.
[1:03:20] Speaker 3: Right This is only a Sunday episode for us. There's
[1:03:23] Speaker 3: like a whole other week left in this Transfer Portal business.
[1:03:28] Speaker 3: Lord knows there will be further high jinks as some
[1:03:31] Speaker 3: teams get eliminated as we get a little bit deeper
[1:03:34] Speaker 3: into the month of January. But in terms of the
[1:03:38] Speaker 3: lay of the land right now, that's where things stand.
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: It's so nice that college football forget the calendar. Tie,
[1:03:44] Speaker 1: It's so nice that college football. We talk about the
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: sport's biggest product that they sell as hope, But the
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: second most successful product that this sport sells to me
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: is anxiety. And so think about whether you root for
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: a team that's still playing at the time recording. Maybe
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: I can be like, Wow, what an Oregon win, or
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: like oh god that Oregon lost. Stung man. You can
[1:04:09] Speaker 1: get all my reactions and now, but you think about
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: all the ways in which you can build out hope
[1:04:14] Speaker 1: in your brain for your college football team. Think about
[1:04:18] Speaker 1: what now that transfer portal on top of the coaching
[1:04:21] Speaker 1: carousel season, on top of year round recruiting, on top
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: of the games itself, on top of hearing about a
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: spring practice or fall camp injury and hoping it's not serious,
[1:04:33] Speaker 1: on top of every single moment in a game, every
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: major third down moment, every field goal before the end
[1:04:39] Speaker 1: of a game, whatever, all the clock decisions, all the
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: fourth down decisions. We now have the anxiety that Tie
[1:04:45] Speaker 1: gets to feel. I get to feel as people who
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: root for excellent teams, excellent programs, why isn't my excellent program?
[1:04:55] Speaker 1: Doing more right now to be more excellent.
[1:04:58] Speaker 3: I'm feeling it right now again Thursday recording, But notre dame.
[1:05:02] Speaker 3: As I said on the episode Big Old Goose Egg.
[1:05:05] Speaker 3: Not a whole lot of transfer portal movement. I like
[1:05:07] Speaker 3: the players on the roster. I feel good about what
[1:05:10] Speaker 3: Marcus Freeman has assembled already. They'll be fine. They're going
[1:05:14] Speaker 3: to be one of the top teams in the country
[1:05:15] Speaker 3: again next year. Would have like to see a number
[1:05:19] Speaker 3: one receiver by now? What if I would have felt
[1:05:21] Speaker 3: better about.
[1:05:22] Speaker 1: Nick marsh right, the most spoiled fans to be just
[1:05:28] Speaker 1: a little moral spoiled.
[1:05:31] Speaker 3: That's that's exactly what a great Anyway, Look, Max does
[1:05:35] Speaker 3: a good job. Please go out there and follow and
[1:05:37] Speaker 3: support his work at ESPN dot com. We will be
[1:05:41] Speaker 3: back in very short order with another episode, obviously going
[1:05:44] Speaker 3: to be talking through the college football Playoff national Championship,
[1:05:48] Speaker 3: any news that arises between now and then. There is
[1:05:50] Speaker 3: much more to discuss on the college football front here,
[1:05:53] Speaker 3: so do not tune out quite yet.
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: In fact, if you made.
[1:05:56] Speaker 3: It this far, hit follow or subscribe, we'd appreciate it.
[1:05:58] Speaker 1: Yes, Can I ask you a portal related question to
[1:06:01] Speaker 1: close this out? Oh?
[1:06:03] Speaker 3: Uh?
[1:06:04] Speaker 1: Sure, Okay, yeah, you guess, come on, thanks for the
[1:06:08] Speaker 1: show too. So yeah, let's say you're out in your
[1:06:10] Speaker 1: backyard playing with your dogs, throwing the ball underhand because
[1:06:13] Speaker 1: you still have a bum shoulder, and one of your dogs,
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: you know, skids after a ball, and all of a sudden,
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: oil shoots out of the ground. Okay, oil oil, right
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: as Eastern Pa is known to be the hotbed of
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: crude oil and all around. Yeah, yeah, of course. So
[1:06:32] Speaker 1: let's say you come into hundreds of millions of dollars.
[1:06:35] Speaker 1: Where are you donating that money if you feel passionately
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: about the portal? Are you donating to Notre Dame or
[1:06:40] Speaker 1: Penn State.
[1:06:42] Speaker 3: I would donate to Penn State.
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: I think that's the right answer.
[1:06:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't. I bet Notre Dame didn't let me in.
[1:06:48] Speaker 1: Notre Dame didn't let you in.
[1:06:49] Speaker 3: Notre Dame wait listed me. I can root for Notre Dame.
[1:06:52] Speaker 3: But I'm giving my money to Penn State.
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: I think that's the right answer. I'm glad how quickly
[1:06:56] Speaker 1: you answered that question. Also, because like occasionally you'll go
[1:06:58] Speaker 1: to a game, you'll go with your friends, it would
[1:06:59] Speaker 1: be to like sit in a suite, right the Ty
[1:07:01] Speaker 1: hilden brand Sweet on the fifty yard line.
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: Listen to me.
[1:07:04] Speaker 3: There have been plenty of moments throughout the course of
[1:07:07] Speaker 3: my younger life when I was like f notre dame. Sure,
[1:07:11] Speaker 3: I still root for the team. I want them to
[1:07:13] Speaker 3: do well, but no, I as I carry that with me,
[1:07:17] Speaker 3: I carry that with me, that rejection Letter's all right, Okay, sorry,
[1:07:21] Speaker 3: We're allowed to be petty here. I will say this too,
[1:07:24] Speaker 3: regardless of how passionate I am about the transfer portal,
[1:07:28] Speaker 3: there are plenty of other better charities to give your money.
[1:07:30] Speaker 1: To disagree, I couldn't couldn't disagree more Ti.
[1:07:37] Speaker 3: It would be probably a war of words here in
[1:07:40] Speaker 3: the hilden Brandt residence, with me trying to convince my
[1:07:44] Speaker 3: very kind and very charity charity minded wife that no, no,
[1:07:48] Speaker 3: we actually should be giving this money to department Nick Mark.
[1:07:54] Speaker 3: That would be a very difficult conversation for me to
[1:07:56] Speaker 3: have personally.
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: Well, look, if you're coming into that kind of money,
[1:07:59] Speaker 1: you can you both right, you can be your own coasin.
[1:08:01] Speaker 3: I'm just saying I'm not sure I would be able.
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: To Okay, fair enough, Okay, I appreciate the honesty. I
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: think that is the right answer. By the way, you
[1:08:09] Speaker 1: went to Penn State. You're from Pennsylvania. Oh yeah, you
[1:08:11] Speaker 1: gotta have in state see Penn State.
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: Agree, Okay, that's it.
[1:08:17] Speaker 3: Why don't we leave it there for that guy over there,
[1:08:19] Speaker 3: my good friend Dan rubens Sein for our honored guest today,
[1:08:21] Speaker 3: Max Olson and ESPN. Thank you as always for downloading,
[1:08:25] Speaker 3: for listening, for supporting, for tuning in. Until next time,
[1:08:29] Speaker 3: Stay Sawid peace,

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