# May Q&A: Part 1 - Big 12 Contenders, SEC Hypotheticals & College Football in 2035

An episode of [The Solid Verbal College Football Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/270037732), 5 May 2026, 1 h 21 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/21437ee1-47d9-4b16-8696-b30d011a2c26/0236ad5d-9389-4576-85e7-b4400151b6a9/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=51c7e0eb-425c-4d93-b5a8-b30d011a2c46

In Part 1 of our big May Q&A, we dig into some of the biggest questions hanging over college football right now, starting with Brendan Sorsby’s uncertain status at Texas Tech and what it could mean for the Big 12 race. We also get into the new single-window transfer portal calendar, the changing value of internal player development, and how roster construction is evolving in a sport where continuity, money, scouting, and plain old luck all seem to matter at once. From there, we zoom out to the SEC’s national championship drought, Texas’s non-conference schedule, the future structure of college football, and what a more stable version of the sport might look like by 2035. And naturally, we also find time for foot massagers, suspicious domain names, street-naming philosophies, and a little competitive geography talk. Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 2:16 - Brendan Sorsby & Portal Buyers' Remorse 22:16 - Homegrown Talent 36:18 - Non-con Schedule Smoke 44:12 - SEC vs The Field 51:24 - CFB in 2035 1:07:45 - Street Naming Strategies 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 call for me.
[0:06] Speaker 2: 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 2: You want to be happy for day Edith State?
[0:13] Speaker 1: Is that woo woom? And Dan and Tie Dan Rubenstein,
[0:19] Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast.
[0:21] Speaker 2: My friend, how was your weekend? Good weekend?
[0:24] Speaker 3: We had a it was a there was a chill
[0:26] Speaker 3: in the air, but we had some kids sports pop
[0:28] Speaker 3: off successfully. It's a nice day outside in the uh
[0:33] Speaker 3: in the Chicago urbs. I uh, I get to talk
[0:36] Speaker 3: to the Internet's Ty hilden Brandt.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Everything's coming up.
[0:39] Speaker 1: Rubenstein, Dan, I have some news. I bought one of
[0:48] Speaker 1: those electronic foot massagers off the internet.
[0:51] Speaker 3: This is for Tie. This is you gotta bleep that out. Sorry,
[0:55] Speaker 3: I apologize. You gotta bleep that out the name of
[0:57] Speaker 3: our new show in under development.
[0:58] Speaker 1: Yeah I will. I'll leave it in for Patreon, but
[1:01] Speaker 1: I won't for the Okay, Kay, he's there, you know, Okay,
[1:05] Speaker 1: you have a new addition to your life.
[1:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, a foot massager? I do.
[1:12] Speaker 3: And how are your feet? This is what people have
[1:13] Speaker 3: been clamoring for. We get emails upon emails. How are
[1:16] Speaker 3: Ti his feet today?
[1:17] Speaker 1: No? Well, as you've said for gosh, like a decade plus. Now,
[1:21] Speaker 1: you're only as comfortable as your feet. And I broke
[1:23] Speaker 1: down upon the suggestion of healthcare providers and others in
[1:30] Speaker 1: my orbit. Let's say, broke down, bought it. I'm only
[1:34] Speaker 1: about forty eight hours in. It's already changed my life.
[1:37] Speaker 1: Not gonna lie.
[1:39] Speaker 2: So is this a way to broadcast too? Is it?
[1:42] Speaker 2: Sam Levitt has the foot stuff, right.
[1:44] Speaker 1: Sam Levitt has the Liz Frank injury that he is
[1:46] Speaker 1: returning from.
[1:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, so maybe this is you reaching out to mister Levitt.
[1:52] Speaker 3: You're like, if you need a wreck lsu athletic department. Yeah,
[1:57] Speaker 3: Tie has secured what I can only assume to be
[2:00] Speaker 3: Amazon's most recommended foot massage are on Ties budget.
[2:04] Speaker 1: For twenty percent off right now, Okay, not for there,
[2:08] Speaker 1: they're lable. I don't know if that's true. I've never
[2:09] Speaker 1: searched it before, but.
[2:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm glad to hear it. Ty, I'm glad.
[2:14] Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you a believer before long, let's get
[2:16] Speaker 1: into today's episode.
[2:19] Speaker 2: Congratulations, Skippy, you've got mail.
[2:21] Speaker 1: You've got mail on the solid verbal for those members
[2:27] Speaker 1: out at verballers dot com that is our Patreon. That's
[2:30] Speaker 1: where you can go to support what Dan and I do.
[2:33] Speaker 1: You get add free episodes, bonus episodes, get them dropped
[2:36] Speaker 1: a little bit early, you get access to the discord
[2:39] Speaker 1: right now. I'm working on the gaming portal that we're
[2:41] Speaker 1: gonna unveil for people as season gets a little bit closer.
[2:44] Speaker 1: There is a lot going on. If you want to
[2:47] Speaker 1: support what we do. It just so happens, though, uh
[2:52] Speaker 1: not everybody on our patreon verballers dot com is a
[2:55] Speaker 1: paying member. Be a free member if you just want
[2:58] Speaker 1: to dip your toe in, wet the.
[3:00] Speaker 2: Beak a little bit, see what's going on in our world.
[3:03] Speaker 2: I opened the.
[3:04] Speaker 1: Post up today or for today's episode, I should say
[3:07] Speaker 1: to everybody, to everybody, so if you're a free member,
[3:11] Speaker 1: if you're a paying member, we just wanted to get
[3:13] Speaker 1: the vibe of what's going on in and around the
[3:16] Speaker 1: Verballer hood. So we had questions coming from pretty much
[3:20] Speaker 1: all corners of verbolers dot com. This is part one
[3:26] Speaker 1: of a two part may Q and a episode, both
[3:28] Speaker 1: of which are going to drop this week. So I'm excited,
[3:31] Speaker 1: you're excited. We got great questions. We had a bunch
[3:34] Speaker 1: come through I put the doc together. I highlighted a
[3:37] Speaker 1: couple that I want to talk about, but for sure,
[3:40] Speaker 1: if there are any that you want to talk about,
[3:42] Speaker 1: just jump on in and let me know.
[3:44] Speaker 2: Absolutely, of course.
[3:45] Speaker 1: So we got two questions here, one from Ethan, another
[3:48] Speaker 1: from Thomas, both of which I think we can kind
[3:50] Speaker 1: of group together, both of which are obviously very important,
[3:55] Speaker 1: very in the news right now, and they deal with
[3:58] Speaker 1: Brendan Soresby now. As you know, on the episode that
[4:01] Speaker 1: we did last week, we did talk a little bit
[4:04] Speaker 1: about this. We talked a little bit more about it
[4:06] Speaker 1: when we had the episode with Bill Connolly on two
[4:09] Speaker 1: episodes last week where we did sort of go into
[4:11] Speaker 1: detail or whatever detail we had at the time about
[4:14] Speaker 1: the Brendan Soarsby news. But these are more specific questions
[4:19] Speaker 1: now from the for Baller Hood. Ethan says, if Brendan
[4:22] Speaker 1: Soorsby is ruled ineligible for Texas Tech this season, does
[4:26] Speaker 1: that open the door for other teams in the Big
[4:28] Speaker 1: twelve to win the conference? If yes, which teams? Thomas
[4:31] Speaker 1: then says, as sort of like a bigger picture but
[4:34] Speaker 1: related question, with the transfer portal now having only a
[4:38] Speaker 1: winter window, which teams do you think will benefit from
[4:42] Speaker 1: or be hurt by this change the most, it seems
[4:45] Speaker 1: Texas Tech may have some buyer's remorse, but some teams
[4:48] Speaker 1: must love the continuity. So you can see how there
[4:52] Speaker 1: is some connective tissue there, Dan, I think we addressed
[4:55] Speaker 1: Brendan's question a little bit more directly in our episode
[4:59] Speaker 1: with the Connolly last week. But why don't we start
[5:02] Speaker 1: there as you look at.
[5:04] Speaker 2: The Big Twelve.
[5:05] Speaker 1: As you're thinking about the Big Twelve, which teams are
[5:07] Speaker 1: you thinking a little bit more about now that Texas
[5:10] Speaker 1: Tech has an obvious issue at the quarterback position.
[5:15] Speaker 3: First of all, I am as guilty as anybody not guilty.
[5:19] Speaker 3: Maybe that's the wrong word, but I have echoed the
[5:21] Speaker 3: points that many have echoed that like Texas Tech is
[5:24] Speaker 3: the big dog in the Big Twelve at this moment,
[5:26] Speaker 3: both because they were dominant for the most part last
[5:30] Speaker 3: season within the conference and because they are stalking their
[5:34] Speaker 3: roster in a way that nobody else is in the conference.
[5:37] Speaker 3: So you saw the proof of concept last season and
[5:41] Speaker 3: the new coaching hires.
[5:42] Speaker 2: There were a number of reasons why.
[5:43] Speaker 3: Texas Tech was successful last year, and we mentioned this
[5:46] Speaker 3: is like the first year they finished in the top
[5:48] Speaker 3: twenty five in quite some time, and they look primed
[5:52] Speaker 3: in positioned to do so for the foreseeable future. That said,
[5:56] Speaker 3: they've been good for a year in the Big Twelve,
[6:00] Speaker 3: talking about like, oh, they've won the conference five of
[6:01] Speaker 3: the last six seasons. So there is always going to
[6:05] Speaker 3: be opportunity because the Big twelve has a new look,
[6:08] Speaker 3: and you know, the new team additions both all over
[6:11] Speaker 3: the country and from those four teams in the Pac
[6:13] Speaker 3: twelve that have had some success in the conference. I
[6:16] Speaker 3: wouldn't go as far as saying it's wide open. I
[6:18] Speaker 3: think Texas Tech, depending on where they are at quarterback,
[6:21] Speaker 3: the most important position, is still in a good position
[6:24] Speaker 3: to win this conference. Obviously, you look at BYU, you
[6:27] Speaker 3: look at a Utah perhaps in flux. Even though the
[6:31] Speaker 3: promotion of Morgan Scalley was you know, it's an internal promotion.
[6:34] Speaker 3: They're bringing back a lot of dudes, including a star quarterback.
[6:38] Speaker 3: The one team that we've talked about a little bit
[6:40] Speaker 3: in terms of okay, could they be a dark horse
[6:43] Speaker 3: for a couple of different reasons would be Houston. To me, Yeah,
[6:47] Speaker 3: the combination of defense, which was I believe ahead of
[6:50] Speaker 3: their offense last season, experience, at quarterback, a coach who
[6:54] Speaker 3: has won wherever he's been recruiting, and portal savvy.
[6:59] Speaker 1: Good returning production like good returning production. I think Bill
[7:02] Speaker 1: had them seventeenth overall national.
[7:04] Speaker 3: They have not been a program these past few years
[7:07] Speaker 3: that you point to as like they can control the
[7:09] Speaker 3: game when they need to, especially on the ground. That
[7:12] Speaker 3: is probably a step forward they need to take, especially
[7:15] Speaker 3: in this conference. If they're gonna sort of be able
[7:17] Speaker 3: to dictate line of scrimmage stuff against programs like Utah
[7:20] Speaker 3: BYU Texas Tech, eventually, that would be a program that
[7:25] Speaker 3: I would look to as like they've got a number
[7:28] Speaker 3: of things going for them that if there is that crease,
[7:33] Speaker 3: that crack, that they would be able to take advantage.
[7:37] Speaker 1: Houston's a really interesting team to chart, if only because
[7:42] Speaker 1: we've talked so much about Willie Fritz here.
[7:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's in addition to the obvious BYU Utah conversation. Obviously,
[7:48] Speaker 3: the Arizona schools have been very successful. But in terms
[7:52] Speaker 3: of if there is an interesting crack, do we have
[7:54] Speaker 3: interesting crack dot org? No?
[7:57] Speaker 1: Oh no, is that not a dare I search this?
[8:01] Speaker 1: Go ahead? You keep talking, I'm going to I'm gonna
[8:04] Speaker 1: venture into this to see.
[8:06] Speaker 2: Well we have mysterious squirt through dot edu, Right we do.
[8:10] Speaker 1: I don't think we have that. No, Okay, and this
[8:13] Speaker 1: may happen by any tou. I think somebody has this.
[8:17] Speaker 1: This may have just tried to run a phishing attack
[8:19] Speaker 1: or some sort of some sort of attack on my
[8:23] Speaker 1: computer when I went to interesting crack dot com does
[8:25] Speaker 1: not appear to be.
[8:26] Speaker 3: I said, org tie because that is like an institution
[8:29] Speaker 3: we're talking about in Houston.
[8:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, continue, that would.
[8:33] Speaker 3: Be my team that could have a slingshot effect in
[8:36] Speaker 3: a more wide open conference. To me, after again the
[8:40] Speaker 3: Arizona schools BYU and Utah and the success that they've
[8:43] Speaker 3: had recently because of their schedule, which I remember as
[8:46] Speaker 3: being fairly ideal all things considered, Houston would be that
[8:50] Speaker 3: new leap team.
[8:52] Speaker 1: Interesting crack dot org is now on sale for just
[8:55] Speaker 1: nine nine nine D.
[8:58] Speaker 3: We just forwarded to the Houston in whatever page the
[9:01] Speaker 3: Houston FBS schedule page Interesting crack dot org, and.
[9:05] Speaker 2: It is available.
[9:06] Speaker 1: Dot COM's available, but it's about ten bucks more.
[9:10] Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know if we have the budget for
[9:12] Speaker 2: that time. All right, I've added this to the card.
[9:14] Speaker 1: If there are any other ones that arise through this conversation.
[9:18] Speaker 1: All we continue now, Houston's interesting. I was saying, you know,
[9:23] Speaker 1: because of the Holy Fritz angle and because it feels
[9:26] Speaker 1: like they're building the program in a really smart way.
[9:28] Speaker 1: The other thing that I would add, and this is
[9:29] Speaker 1: something that popped up. I don't know if I realized
[9:31] Speaker 1: this throughout the course of last season, but six and
[9:35] Speaker 1: zero on the road last year, so played well on
[9:37] Speaker 1: the road. I'm not going to act like they were
[9:39] Speaker 1: playing a bunch of killers, but did go on the
[9:41] Speaker 1: road and beat Arizona State, did go on the road
[9:44] Speaker 1: and beat Baylor a good Baylor offense down the stretch
[9:47] Speaker 1: last year, did go up to Corvallis and knockoff Oregon
[9:51] Speaker 1: State in overtime. Make whatever you want of that, but
[9:55] Speaker 1: winning on the road is not an accident. It is
[9:57] Speaker 1: tough to do in college football. And I think that
[9:59] Speaker 1: is me for a Houston team that is still building.
[10:02] Speaker 1: Some other teams that I would throw out there, just
[10:04] Speaker 1: because I've talked about them before, but I'm not really
[10:08] Speaker 1: sure what to make of Arizona this year. But I
[10:11] Speaker 1: like where Arizona ended up last season. Played pretty well
[10:14] Speaker 1: on defense, fixed a lot returning quarterback in fourth season,
[10:21] Speaker 1: which which I think is meaningful. I'm not going to
[10:25] Speaker 1: put case state in there yet, although I think there's
[10:29] Speaker 1: a case to be made there, even Oklahoma State. I've
[10:32] Speaker 1: said this about five times now on the show, and
[10:36] Speaker 1: it's certainly going to come back to bite me. But
[10:38] Speaker 1: if we're talking about the field widening, which is I
[10:41] Speaker 1: think is how CBS characterized it in one of their
[10:45] Speaker 1: ride ups, that it's not it's the field has widened
[10:49] Speaker 1: a little bit as a result of this news.
[10:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was that the write up where they were,
[10:53] Speaker 3: like Brendan Sorosby is seeking counseling for a gambling addiction.
[10:57] Speaker 3: There's now a the win totals are down from eleven
[11:00] Speaker 3: and a half to ten and a half per bet MGM.
[11:03] Speaker 2: And it was in the next paragraph. Yeah, yeah, right there,
[11:06] Speaker 2: love it good. Do we think a human wrote that?
[11:11] Speaker 3: I'm gonna say bet MGM has the odds of a
[11:13] Speaker 3: human righting that at plus three twenty yeah.
[11:18] Speaker 1: Plus three twenty Yeah, it's more like plus thirty two hundred.
[11:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
[11:25] Speaker 1: The other question here from Thomas was specifically with regard
[11:30] Speaker 1: to the single portal window now and how this cat right,
[11:36] Speaker 1: because things keep changing. Things keep changing, and a year
[11:40] Speaker 1: ago there wasn't really a rule against shadow transfers, which
[11:43] Speaker 1: is like a whole new term that many people didn't realize.
[11:45] Speaker 2: I didn't even realize it.
[11:46] Speaker 1: But now there are very stiff penalties against this, which
[11:49] Speaker 1: in effect is player doesn't want to be at the program.
[11:53] Speaker 1: Players probably behind somebody else who is going to play
[11:56] Speaker 1: in front of him, doesn't want to wait his turn.
[11:58] Speaker 1: Maybe there are other extenuatings circumstances. Screw it, we're not
[12:02] Speaker 1: joining the portal, We're not doing anything. We're just gonna
[12:06] Speaker 1: remove ourselves. We're gonna disenroll is that a word? Unenroll
[12:10] Speaker 1: and we're going to re enroll somewhere else. That's what's
[12:13] Speaker 1: considered a shadow transfer. And they've got rules in place
[12:16] Speaker 1: now that that forbid this. They have change as of
[12:23] Speaker 1: just this most recent portal cycle, what the calendar looks like,
[12:26] Speaker 1: So you don't have the situation now where you can
[12:29] Speaker 1: go through a spring practice, you can see what your
[12:31] Speaker 1: standing is, and then you can determine at that point
[12:33] Speaker 1: if you want to go elsewhere.
[12:35] Speaker 2: We had that last year.
[12:36] Speaker 1: That's why some schools like Nebraska decided they didn't. They
[12:40] Speaker 1: don't want to have the spring game. Why put our
[12:41] Speaker 1: guys on display? Now they changed that. Now that you've
[12:45] Speaker 1: got the single winter transfer portal window, which is what
[12:49] Speaker 1: Thomas was speaking to, I think it rewards teams that
[12:54] Speaker 1: know what they are or what they want to be.
[12:58] Speaker 1: It rewards teams that are aggressive as soon as the
[13:01] Speaker 1: transfer portal opens up. It probably doesn't do a whole
[13:04] Speaker 1: lot for the tampering discussion, but I think if you
[13:07] Speaker 1: have a strong vision for what you want your program
[13:09] Speaker 1: to be, for what you know you need, this benefits you. Obviously,
[13:15] Speaker 1: if you are a Texas Tech, if you go all
[13:17] Speaker 1: in on a big transfer quarterback, it doesn't work out.
[13:21] Speaker 1: You don't have a ton of depth behind him in
[13:23] Speaker 1: their case, will him and still coming back from an
[13:25] Speaker 1: ECL some other guys who don't have nearly as much experience. Yeah,
[13:29] Speaker 1: these are extenuating circumstances. I don't think that's the norm.
[13:32] Speaker 1: But clearly, as Thomas put a buyer's remorse, I don't
[13:36] Speaker 1: think this is buyer's remorse. I think this is really
[13:37] Speaker 1: bad luck, right, or maybe not doing your due diligence,
[13:40] Speaker 1: whatever it is, that is what tech is dealing with now.
[13:43] Speaker 1: But how do you stand on this question again, if
[13:46] Speaker 1: I want to go back to it. It's well, the
[13:49] Speaker 1: transfer portal now have having only a winter window. Which
[13:53] Speaker 1: teams do you think benefit from that? Which teams are
[13:55] Speaker 1: hurt by the change?
[13:56] Speaker 3: So the teams that are benefiting are obvious, right, It's
[13:59] Speaker 3: the teams that are investing in retention, investing in culture,
[14:03] Speaker 3: investing and being a place where somebody is willing to
[14:07] Speaker 3: be a backup for a couple years because they like
[14:10] Speaker 3: being there. They feel taken care of from a financial standpoint,
[14:13] Speaker 3: they feel taken care of from like a cultural standpoint
[14:15] Speaker 3: and developmental standpoint, and so they are not itching to
[14:18] Speaker 3: leave as soon as possible because they feel like they
[14:21] Speaker 3: have a place in that program. And so now that
[14:24] Speaker 3: there's no spring transfer window, you're not going to get
[14:26] Speaker 3: those people itchy after the season to take off because
[14:29] Speaker 3: they feel like they can develop and potentially play a
[14:32] Speaker 3: bigger role as they return to that school wherever that
[14:36] Speaker 3: school is. It rewards teams who evaluate really well in
[14:40] Speaker 3: the portal. It rewards teams who get plain old lucky.
[14:44] Speaker 3: You know who's an unlucky team right now? South Carolina.
[14:47] Speaker 3: I think that they're down two offensive linemen for spring
[14:49] Speaker 3: and off season workout injury type stuff. That's just plain
[14:53] Speaker 3: bad luck. If there were a spring portal and you
[14:56] Speaker 3: saw that yes, there might be a starting offensive line
[15:00] Speaker 3: job or too available at a major SEC place, there
[15:04] Speaker 3: would potentially be some interest from a smaller school offensive
[15:07] Speaker 3: lineman to come in and compete for a job like that.
[15:10] Speaker 3: So that is a school that is not necessarily thrilled
[15:13] Speaker 3: with their not being a spring window. Think about last
[15:16] Speaker 3: season with Syracuse and going through spring with was it
[15:19] Speaker 3: Ricky Collins at starting quarterback?
[15:20] Speaker 2: Right?
[15:21] Speaker 3: And then Syracuse looked at the spring footage and what
[15:25] Speaker 3: happened during spring and they're like, or we could see
[15:28] Speaker 3: what Steve Ageli's up to and how he's feeling about
[15:31] Speaker 3: potentially moving to whatever it is central western New York.
[15:35] Speaker 3: So those are the unlucky teams that could potentially have
[15:39] Speaker 3: filled a role, a position, a spot on the roster
[15:42] Speaker 3: that is not as strong as they anticipated or as
[15:44] Speaker 3: thinner than they anticipated. Those are obviously going to be
[15:49] Speaker 3: the big losers. Or it's the guys who are maybe
[15:52] Speaker 3: sold a bill of goods and were told that they
[15:54] Speaker 3: were going to be the number three running back and
[15:56] Speaker 3: then they go through spring, and it's clear that they're
[15:58] Speaker 3: number five or six, and there were opportunities elsewhere, and
[16:01] Speaker 3: now they are, you know, in a log jam at
[16:04] Speaker 3: a certain position. Group, those guys are losers that they're
[16:07] Speaker 3: not able to, you know, take advantage of an opportunity elsewhere.
[16:11] Speaker 3: But yeah, I think by and large, the big winners
[16:14] Speaker 3: of there being only one portal window are the teams
[16:17] Speaker 3: that are able to afford to invest in retention and
[16:21] Speaker 3: culture and development and making their place an attractive place
[16:26] Speaker 3: to spend three, four or five years.
[16:29] Speaker 2: Whatever.
[16:29] Speaker 1: We got a question that is I would say tangentially
[16:32] Speaker 1: related to that, which I will get to next. But
[16:34] Speaker 1: I just want to go back to the Texas Tech
[16:36] Speaker 1: thing for a second. Texas Tech did everything sort of
[16:44] Speaker 1: by the letter of the law here. I understand that
[16:49] Speaker 1: their new public faces, a team that spends a lot
[16:53] Speaker 1: makes them an easy target for criticism, But they did
[17:01] Speaker 1: what they were supposed to do here, right, they were
[17:04] Speaker 1: supposed to do. Yeah, they did what they were supposed
[17:07] Speaker 1: to do. They did the modern thing correctly, Dan, They
[17:09] Speaker 1: spent big, they got the portal quarterback. They built up
[17:13] Speaker 1: expectations to an extent. I mean, maybe not directly, but
[17:16] Speaker 1: I think fans were right to build up expectations. This
[17:19] Speaker 1: was sure going to be the missing link, and in
[17:23] Speaker 1: this case, they got hit with a risk that had
[17:25] Speaker 1: nothing to do with how they went about it, the
[17:29] Speaker 1: play calling, recruiting rankings, roster talent, anything like that. This
[17:33] Speaker 1: is just sort of a one off, hopefully a one
[17:37] Speaker 1: off that we don't have to deal a whole lot
[17:38] Speaker 1: more with.
[17:39] Speaker 3: I think the only pushback I would give to that is,
[17:42] Speaker 3: and it's not necessarily only with regard to Brendon Soorsby,
[17:48] Speaker 3: is if you're going to make the whatever how many
[17:50] Speaker 3: millions investment you are going to make in a quarterback
[17:54] Speaker 3: more starting left tackle of say, and this is just
[17:58] Speaker 3: an example like Jordan's Seaton, I'm sure is not going
[18:01] Speaker 3: to be cash poor starting at left tackle for LSU
[18:03] Speaker 3: this upcoming season. Right, If you're going to make an
[18:06] Speaker 3: investment on that level, what type of due diligence, what
[18:10] Speaker 3: type of background, what type of searches for potential red
[18:14] Speaker 3: flags are you responsible for. It's a weird different world
[18:18] Speaker 3: that we're doing this in college and not necessarily first
[18:21] Speaker 3: round picks or free agents or something like that. I
[18:25] Speaker 3: have no idea to the to what extent the people
[18:28] Speaker 3: at Texas Tech in their personnel department talk to Cincinnati
[18:32] Speaker 3: people talk to people in Soresby's life, and we're just like, hey,
[18:36] Speaker 3: we're really interested, or is it the case that you know,
[18:40] Speaker 3: is it a supply and demand situation? We're like, hey, man,
[18:42] Speaker 3: there's like going to be four really good quarterbacks in
[18:45] Speaker 3: the portal, and we need to take swings and take
[18:48] Speaker 3: risks no matter what, because it's just you're going to
[18:51] Speaker 3: get either like Drew Mestamaker or and injured Sam Levitt,
[18:53] Speaker 3: Brendan sores like you. There's just like not going to
[18:56] Speaker 3: be a number of huge names that are instantly going
[18:58] Speaker 3: to be of layoff caliber like Texas Tech seems to be.
[19:04] Speaker 2: And so they're like.
[19:06] Speaker 3: Did they know and say like we think we can
[19:09] Speaker 3: figure this out or were they completely in the dark.
[19:12] Speaker 3: That's the only thing I would push back on in
[19:14] Speaker 3: terms of like did they do everything.
[19:16] Speaker 2: Rese or rec right, did they do did they vote properly?
[19:20] Speaker 1: Yeah, there's probably gonna be a cottage industry for vetting
[19:23] Speaker 1: these players now moving forward, certainly at Texas Tech if
[19:27] Speaker 1: not other places as well, because of the risk that
[19:30] Speaker 1: is associated with it. We talked on you know, one
[19:32] Speaker 1: of our recent episodes about how Nil and the Portal
[19:35] Speaker 1: has affected depth across the board. This would be a
[19:38] Speaker 1: pretty good instance of the depth maybe coming back to
[19:42] Speaker 1: Bite Texas Tech. By the way, we don't know what's
[19:43] Speaker 1: going to happen with Brennan Soarsby. I will admit my
[19:46] Speaker 1: first reaction upon reading all this was he's toast. There's
[19:49] Speaker 1: no way, given precedent, that he's going to come back
[19:52] Speaker 1: and play any meaningful snaps. But I know he's retained
[19:55] Speaker 1: some legal counsel. They're going to try and work this through.
[19:57] Speaker 1: So we're just kind of waiting, like everybody else, to
[20:00] Speaker 1: figure out where the story goes next.
[20:02] Speaker 3: But like, look at the again, look at the actual
[20:04] Speaker 3: names of Like if Texas Tech is saying we need
[20:07] Speaker 3: a quarterback who is of playoff caliber, right that we
[20:10] Speaker 3: feel like we have a playoff roster, we are building
[20:13] Speaker 3: our roster and competing with the expectation that we are
[20:15] Speaker 3: either winning the Big Twelve or are right there and
[20:17] Speaker 3: are getting an at large. Bit you look at the
[20:20] Speaker 3: names available and there is a very very quick fall off.
[20:23] Speaker 3: And I'm not even counting Darien Mensa because he was
[20:25] Speaker 3: not in the Portal in that way, right, right right,
[20:28] Speaker 3: So you're talking about an injured Sam Levitt, Brendan sorosby
[20:32] Speaker 3: Drew mess to Maker, and then the number four, according
[20:36] Speaker 3: to two four seven is DJ Lagway. I don't believe
[20:40] Speaker 3: that you can assume that DJ Lagway is, Like, yes
[20:44] Speaker 3: he is. He has shown the efficiency and high end
[20:47] Speaker 3: consistency to be considered like a power for conference winning quarterback.
[20:52] Speaker 3: And so after that, you know, it's some long straight
[20:55] Speaker 3: in Deuce Night and Byron Brown and rock go Beck,
[20:57] Speaker 3: like none of those guys are like, oh yeah, plug
[21:00] Speaker 3: and plug playoff guy.
[21:02] Speaker 1: I don't believe on Duce Night. But that's fine conversation.
[21:06] Speaker 3: You can be in on Deuce Night. But Duce Night
[21:09] Speaker 3: is a backup quarterback for a playoff team, and they
[21:12] Speaker 3: didn't know that at the time. They didn't know how
[21:14] Speaker 3: Trunidd Chambliss's you know, court stuff was going to work out.
[21:17] Speaker 3: But you're talking about a very limited number of dudes.
[21:21] Speaker 3: So it's a beggar's camp be chooser situation as well.
[21:25] Speaker 3: So like, is Texas Tech going to say, now that
[21:27] Speaker 3: we know that he might have these red flags, we're
[21:30] Speaker 3: not going to go after him. I don't know, man,
[21:33] Speaker 3: But then are you positive Will Hammond is that guy
[21:36] Speaker 3: coming off of injury? Who are you tampering with that
[21:39] Speaker 3: you are positive you can get I don't know.
[21:42] Speaker 2: I don't like to be.
[21:44] Speaker 1: For a half, I thought Will Hammond was the dude,
[21:46] Speaker 1: but then he got hurt and now he's coming back
[21:48] Speaker 1: from this and who the hell knows.
[21:50] Speaker 3: These are backups with upside, guys who weren't in power conferences,
[21:53] Speaker 3: guys with like clear you look at Josh Hoover, the
[21:56] Speaker 3: best of Josh. Josh Hoover sure was a little bit
[21:59] Speaker 3: sloppy with the ball last year, Like Sonny Dike's will
[22:01] Speaker 3: tell you, Sonny Dikes'll Sonny Dikes will tell you. But like,
[22:04] Speaker 3: look at these names Bo Prabulah, Aidan Chiles, Kenny Minchie.
[22:08] Speaker 3: Maybe have not seen him as a starting quarterback. So yeah,
[22:12] Speaker 3: all right, that's the problem, living this living this way.
[22:15] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[22:17] Speaker 1: Kyle asks a question that I think is sort of
[22:19] Speaker 1: related to what we've been discussing. Do y'all feel like
[22:24] Speaker 1: internal development of players out of high school has kind
[22:26] Speaker 1: of gone by the wayside A and M has recruited
[22:29] Speaker 1: defensive end, but our starter for the last three years,
[22:32] Speaker 1: including the upcoming year, has been out of the transfer portal.
[22:37] Speaker 1: I'm also looking at quarterbacks at Miami as more.
[22:41] Speaker 2: Examples of this. Thank you for the question, Kyle.
[22:44] Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, this is not necessarily a new question. What
[22:53] Speaker 1: I would say is that it's not fallen by the
[22:57] Speaker 1: wayside per se, at least not in the way that
[22:59] Speaker 1: I think Kile means in this question.
[23:02] Speaker 2: But it's no longer the end all be all. It
[23:05] Speaker 2: just isn't.
[23:06] Speaker 1: Homegrown talent used to be the only way you could
[23:09] Speaker 1: build a winner. You got to be good at it,
[23:11] Speaker 1: you gotta recruit. You got to have your recruits recruit.
[23:14] Speaker 1: That's the way you build the thing. I think the
[23:17] Speaker 1: best approach now is to be more of a hybrid
[23:20] Speaker 1: when it comes to your roster construction. Develop enough of
[23:23] Speaker 1: your own guys so to your point you have culture,
[23:27] Speaker 1: you have an identity, but also give yourself enough flexibility
[23:30] Speaker 1: that if you need to add pieces, you have this
[23:33] Speaker 1: way to do so. Sure, not everybody can be Kurt Signetti.
[23:38] Speaker 1: Not everybody should want to be coach Prime At Colorado,
[23:41] Speaker 1: we have obviously seen a great number of differing opinions
[23:46] Speaker 1: on how this whole thing should be put together. There's
[23:49] Speaker 1: Clemson on one side of the spectrum. There's probably Colorado
[23:52] Speaker 1: on the other Sure, like most things, the winner is
[23:55] Speaker 1: probably somewhere in the middle, and there is only one
[23:59] Speaker 1: Kurt Signetti, who probably skewed a little bit more towards
[24:02] Speaker 1: the Colorado end of that spectrum. But I think if
[24:05] Speaker 1: you're doing it right in You're of a Lord twenty
[24:07] Speaker 1: twenty six, you got to be somewhere on that spectrum,
[24:10] Speaker 1: in the middle, more of a hybrid than not.
[24:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it's position dependent, it's coach dependent, it's scheme dependent.
[24:19] Speaker 2: Quarterback.
[24:19] Speaker 3: I understand why we are kind of devaluing prep quarterbacks
[24:24] Speaker 3: just because there are so many variables on the road
[24:28] Speaker 3: from you know, being a high school senior to star
[24:31] Speaker 3: college quarterback, especially at a big place. Right, it's system fit,
[24:36] Speaker 3: it's injury luck, it's receivers, it's offensive line. It's the
[24:40] Speaker 3: same thing that affects everybody, homesickness. And you know, if
[24:43] Speaker 3: you feel like you are a fit on that campus,
[24:46] Speaker 3: in that program, and just sometimes it's bad luck in
[24:50] Speaker 3: terms of what that depth chart looks like. You come
[24:52] Speaker 3: in as a well regarded, you know, four star, five
[24:54] Speaker 3: star guy, but the coach doesn't fully see you as
[24:58] Speaker 3: ready and recruits over you in the portal and then
[25:00] Speaker 3: you just sort of get lost and you're not getting
[25:02] Speaker 3: the reps with the higher level teams. And I don't know,
[25:05] Speaker 3: there are different factors involved at different places, at different positions,
[25:10] Speaker 3: though it's different. So like if you take defensive end,
[25:13] Speaker 3: for example, if you're looking at the portal and there's
[25:17] Speaker 3: just production there and you're not positive that the guys
[25:20] Speaker 3: you've recruited and are in the middle of developing or
[25:23] Speaker 3: maybe they're still a little bit raw because you have
[25:25] Speaker 3: a bunch of freshmen and sophomores and you're too deep.
[25:27] Speaker 3: And you see who has a Nick Scurton for instance,
[25:29] Speaker 3: at Texas A and M. And you see how productive
[25:32] Speaker 3: he is at Purdue. Not that defensive end is easier
[25:37] Speaker 3: to play, but it's a little bit more straightforward to
[25:40] Speaker 3: watch a table like he beats every single tackle in
[25:43] Speaker 3: front of him, so we feel pretty good that he
[25:46] Speaker 3: can continue doing that. Whereas when you're talking about preps
[25:49] Speaker 3: or younger quarterbacks, you're like, well, he looks pretty good
[25:52] Speaker 3: in practice against the scout team, but when he plays
[25:54] Speaker 3: against the you know, the twos, he's not as strong.
[25:56] Speaker 3: And so like, I think there's so much tied to
[25:59] Speaker 3: quarterback with success that you can talk yourself out of
[26:02] Speaker 3: taking that chance with a true sophomore when you can
[26:05] Speaker 3: go in and get a reasonably successful, proven guy from
[26:09] Speaker 3: either a slightly smaller school or a place that for
[26:13] Speaker 3: whatever reason is pushing him out, like we saw with
[26:15] Speaker 3: Will Howard and Kansas State. Sure, it's safer, and I
[26:19] Speaker 3: think a lot of these coaches and coordinators are in
[26:21] Speaker 3: the business of take as few risks as possible.
[26:25] Speaker 2: So I get it.
[26:27] Speaker 3: I don't know if I fully understand why Texas A
[26:30] Speaker 3: and M can't find and develop a defensive end in
[26:33] Speaker 3: this specific instance, but I understand when you're looking at
[26:36] Speaker 3: the portal and you're seeing production that Rashem Biles at
[26:40] Speaker 3: Pitt seems more promising than what we have in the
[26:42] Speaker 3: pipeline here at Texas, we're going to go after him
[26:45] Speaker 3: or can contribute quicker, or can contribute quicker right right,
[26:49] Speaker 3: or can contribute quicker if we feel maybe we're an
[26:52] Speaker 3: edge rusher away and we have some developmental pieces that
[26:57] Speaker 3: are a little bit buried in the depth chart that
[26:59] Speaker 3: we're not oftening can give us the production we need.
[27:01] Speaker 1: That's when you go out and you get that guy.
[27:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, did you see Sark talking about offensive lineman made
[27:07] Speaker 3: a couple good points.
[27:08] Speaker 2: I don't know if you saw that. I didn't see it.
[27:09] Speaker 3: On a podcast interview, Sark was talking about how difficult
[27:14] Speaker 3: roster construction around offensive lineman is because it's it's such
[27:17] Speaker 3: a developmental position, right.
[27:18] Speaker 2: You got to get to the size, you.
[27:20] Speaker 3: Got to get used to the speed and the intricacies
[27:23] Speaker 3: of high level defensive line play, and you end up
[27:25] Speaker 3: paying top level offensive lineman out of high school like
[27:29] Speaker 3: teams like Texas can do, and then you have to
[27:32] Speaker 3: stash them while they develop. So you're paying these guys
[27:35] Speaker 3: a huge number. You're not sure if they're going to
[27:37] Speaker 3: develop into something. And then when it comes for you know,
[27:40] Speaker 3: time for them to perform and they're not that good,
[27:43] Speaker 3: you can either keep paying them that number or you
[27:46] Speaker 3: let them loose and you have to go after a
[27:47] Speaker 3: very limited number of quality offensive linemen in the portal.
[27:51] Speaker 3: And it's a sort of a difficult Again, nobody's crying
[27:53] Speaker 3: for Texas from a financial perspective, but that that you
[27:58] Speaker 3: are paying offensive linemen to be not contributors for the
[28:01] Speaker 3: most part early on in their careers like their stars.
[28:04] Speaker 3: If you're recruiting on a high level, which is sort
[28:07] Speaker 3: of an interesting dynamic. But yeah, I think it depends
[28:11] Speaker 3: on the place. I think development is still very much
[28:14] Speaker 3: alive if you are not at a huge place that
[28:17] Speaker 3: you need to develop, because you're not going to be
[28:19] Speaker 3: able to afford big recruits or big portal dudes, and
[28:22] Speaker 3: so the name of the game is finding the best
[28:24] Speaker 3: possible assistance and guys who fit your program. But yeah,
[28:29] Speaker 3: there are just going to be certain places that they
[28:31] Speaker 3: can lose a slot receiver and say, why don't we
[28:34] Speaker 3: just go get a dude from XYZ school and the
[28:37] Speaker 3: American who is productive, rather than taking a chance with
[28:41] Speaker 3: a true freshman. And so yeah, I think development is
[28:45] Speaker 3: all relative at this point to where you are and
[28:47] Speaker 3: what position we're talking about.
[28:49] Speaker 1: We get questions a lot about the roster construction thing
[28:52] Speaker 1: now because of where we're at in college football, and
[28:56] Speaker 1: I think we got another one here a little bit
[28:58] Speaker 1: later on. I don't know if we'll get to them
[29:00] Speaker 1: Art one or part two or maybe our bonus episode,
[29:02] Speaker 1: but we always get these questions about how would you
[29:05] Speaker 1: build it if you were in charge?
[29:07] Speaker 2: First off, we would ever be in charge. We're good
[29:09] Speaker 2: at this, but.
[29:09] Speaker 1: It's a great continue I am almost fixated on the
[29:15] Speaker 1: idea of spending a ton of money in the scouting
[29:20] Speaker 1: department and bring people in, bring quarterback whispers in who
[29:25] Speaker 1: can track FCS quarterbacks from the moment they get on
[29:27] Speaker 1: their FCS campus. I'm sure somebody's doing it. Yeah, Lord knows,
[29:33] Speaker 1: there's plenty of money in this now. But to the
[29:37] Speaker 1: point of like getting Jaden Craig at TCU the way
[29:41] Speaker 1: Sunny Dykes went out and got him, you know, I
[29:43] Speaker 1: don't know if he's the guy or not. I guess
[29:44] Speaker 1: we'll find out how his skills translate, right, But having
[29:48] Speaker 1: people on staff give me like a team of four
[29:51] Speaker 1: people and all they do is watch FCS tape, high
[29:55] Speaker 1: school tape, but then FCS tape and find me diamonds
[29:58] Speaker 1: in the rough. Because if you hit with any consistency
[30:02] Speaker 1: on guys coming up from FCS to FBS, that pays
[30:07] Speaker 1: for itself a thousand times over. If they're any good,
[30:10] Speaker 1: you just got to make sure you get the right
[30:12] Speaker 1: scouting department.
[30:13] Speaker 3: I disagree, but I appreciate that is that is a strategy.
[30:18] Speaker 1: Find an angle. You need the angle.
[30:20] Speaker 2: It's like poker man, find the cop.
[30:23] Speaker 3: The arguably top returning college quarterback played at Farris State
[30:28] Speaker 3: two years ago.
[30:29] Speaker 1: Right, that's what I'm saying.
[30:30] Speaker 2: That's not even FCS, that's D two.
[30:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, find find guys that can pick out the diamonds
[30:35] Speaker 1: in the rough.
[30:36] Speaker 3: But but here's here's the only thing. It has happened
[30:39] Speaker 3: so infrequently, likely for a reason that you know a
[30:44] Speaker 3: guy makes a move at quarterback from FCS to a
[30:46] Speaker 3: power conference or D two to a power conference, that
[30:49] Speaker 3: you're probably looking at quarterbacks. No, no, you are looking
[30:52] Speaker 3: at quarterbacks in your specific example, who are throwing into
[30:56] Speaker 3: FCS secondaries who are protected by FCS offensive line.
[30:59] Speaker 1: I get it. I'm not saying the production is apples
[31:02] Speaker 1: to apples. I get that.
[31:03] Speaker 2: Oh I know.
[31:04] Speaker 3: But I'm saying it's it's such a crapshoot to know
[31:06] Speaker 3: whether or not this big armed dude from Southeast Louisiana
[31:10] Speaker 3: is actually gonna pop when he gets to Arkansas when
[31:14] Speaker 3: he does not have that speed and size experience. I
[31:18] Speaker 3: get it, he is picking a part of defense. I'm
[31:20] Speaker 3: not saying it's easy, it's just a crap Well, I'm
[31:22] Speaker 3: just saying it's a crap shit. I don't think you can.
[31:23] Speaker 3: I don't think you can successfully scout that where was Trinidad.
[31:26] Speaker 3: Chamblis's gonna go right until he got the last second offer.
[31:29] Speaker 3: He was going to Temple, So it's not like he
[31:31] Speaker 3: was between Ole Miss and Georgia and Oregon saw something,
[31:35] Speaker 3: is my point, right, Temple sample saw something. A team,
[31:40] Speaker 3: a program that has won three games in five years,
[31:43] Speaker 3: they saw something. If they got him, maybe they would
[31:45] Speaker 3: want a bunch more.
[31:46] Speaker 2: But that's my point.
[31:47] Speaker 1: My point is investing guys that know who are whisperers
[31:51] Speaker 1: at a position. It doesn't have to be quarterback quarterbacks
[31:53] Speaker 1: the most prominent. But I think a guy's like Eric Morris,
[31:57] Speaker 1: who is a noted quarterback whisper, totally very good at
[32:01] Speaker 1: identifying under recruited quarterback talent. He's got one now with
[32:05] Speaker 1: Drew Messa Maker, right, that's a pretty big success story.
[32:08] Speaker 1: I think a guys like Mike Mickens who is now
[32:10] Speaker 1: at the Baltimore Ravens, but recruited Leonard.
[32:12] Speaker 2: Moore Cincinnati Notre Dame. Yeah, was very very.
[32:15] Speaker 1: Good at identifying defensive back talent out of high school
[32:19] Speaker 1: in this case that went underrecruited.
[32:21] Speaker 2: Leonard Moore was like a three star sure.
[32:23] Speaker 1: So my point is find the guys that can do
[32:25] Speaker 1: that on the quarterback at the quarterback position on the
[32:30] Speaker 1: FCS level. Put him on staff. Well, we'll make sure
[32:34] Speaker 1: they don't have to pay for a meal, because if
[32:36] Speaker 1: you can go out there and get the next big thing,
[32:38] Speaker 1: it's going to pay for itself a million times over.
[32:40] Speaker 3: Well, yes, but if you are at a non huge place,
[32:43] Speaker 3: you're going to lose that guy after two years.
[32:45] Speaker 2: Maybe every time. Maybe.
[32:46] Speaker 3: No, I mean, unless you're like Toledo's DB's coach, you're
[32:49] Speaker 3: going to.
[32:50] Speaker 2: Lose that guy. Let's move on, Dan, shall we go on? Please?
[32:55] Speaker 1: We've been talking a lot about Texas here. Yeah, got
[32:59] Speaker 1: a question here our friend Alex. Okay, Alex takes a
[33:02] Speaker 1: little bit of issue with you.
[33:03] Speaker 3: Dan, Oh same though, I take you can't imagine the
[33:08] Speaker 3: issues I have with myself. Continue, Okay, let me let
[33:15] Speaker 3: me try to Oh is this the guy he's calling
[33:17] Speaker 3: me a Texas hater?
[33:18] Speaker 2: Well, a little bit of a Texas hater. Okay, continue.
[33:21] Speaker 2: This is how we know texar back.
[33:22] Speaker 1: By the way, this is how we know Texas is
[33:25] Speaker 1: back because and this is this is sort of like
[33:27] Speaker 1: my my measure of is ex whatever. Okay, you can
[33:32] Speaker 1: insert your own adjectives or insert your own adverbs there.
[33:37] Speaker 1: Whenever you get to a point with a team, we're
[33:41] Speaker 1: saying anything remotely true but slightly derogatory or slightly critical
[33:49] Speaker 1: is frowned upon, is reacted to. That is how you know.
[33:53] Speaker 2: That that team has accomplished this.
[33:55] Speaker 1: So in case of in case of in the case
[33:58] Speaker 1: of Texas, right, saying anything remotely true, but I'm flattering
[34:01] Speaker 1: about Texas is always now met with a pretty stiff
[34:05] Speaker 1: response from the roarhood, which is fine. It's fine, which
[34:08] Speaker 1: is fine. Have you do you feel like you've been
[34:11] Speaker 1: unfair to Texas?
[34:13] Speaker 2: I don't remember what I did yesterday.
[34:15] Speaker 3: Ty I that it gives me so much credit to
[34:21] Speaker 3: think that I am calculated with how I feel about
[34:24] Speaker 3: a team. I like making fun of Notre Dame because
[34:27] Speaker 3: you're a Notre Dame person. That's about as evil as
[34:31] Speaker 3: I get. With how calculated about negative things I say
[34:34] Speaker 3: about a team. I just I have two small children.
[34:38] Speaker 3: I can't sit and plot against a college football team
[34:43] Speaker 3: giving bad thoughts. So no, I have nothing calculated in
[34:46] Speaker 3: a negative way about Texas. There are I think it's
[34:51] Speaker 3: fair to hold certain programs to a specific standard if
[34:57] Speaker 3: they are recruiting and spending and hold their selves to
[35:01] Speaker 3: that standard, right as. I think it's fair in this
[35:03] Speaker 3: instance Texas, but you know, Georgia, Ohio State, Notre Dame,
[35:07] Speaker 3: take your pick, Miami, Oregon, USC teams that are spending,
[35:11] Speaker 3: teams that are trying to position themselves to be high
[35:14] Speaker 3: level playoff teams. So I think it has to be
[35:18] Speaker 3: viewed through the lens of that, like we are not
[35:20] Speaker 3: holding Texas and Missouri to the same standard, and I
[35:24] Speaker 3: think that's reasonable. So I think you have to look
[35:28] Speaker 3: at conversations through that lens. Can you look at a conversation,
[35:33] Speaker 3: maybe listen to a conversation through that filter?
[35:36] Speaker 2: The filter?
[35:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, here here's the question now that I want.
[35:39] Speaker 1: Okay up, Thank you Alex for listening. We love you
[35:41] Speaker 1: and it's cool if you disagree. We're all friends here.
[35:44] Speaker 3: We don't make more money speaking ill of Texas.
[35:48] Speaker 1: Now.
[35:48] Speaker 3: I wish it were true, because then we would really listen.
[35:52] Speaker 3: I've got a lot of expenses time. If I could,
[35:56] Speaker 3: if I could like sit here and very specifically doubt
[36:00] Speaker 3: with Trevor Goosby Goosby, like if I could say, like
[36:04] Speaker 3: I don't believe in Will Musschamp having a more open,
[36:08] Speaker 3: aggressive defense than Pete Kwakowski. And then all of a sudden,
[36:12] Speaker 3: somebody hands me eighty three dollars.
[36:15] Speaker 2: Now we're talking.
[36:15] Speaker 1: Now, we're talking here, Okay, Alex says, And the question
[36:21] Speaker 1: that I did want to address, okay, he says, there's
[36:24] Speaker 1: something missing from the Gauntlet, you know, the Gauntlet, the
[36:27] Speaker 1: SEC Gauntlet schedule. Sure, he says, the Gauntlet is focused
[36:31] Speaker 1: on conference games. Have you checked out Texas's non conference
[36:34] Speaker 1: gauntlet Texas State, Ohio State, and UTSA. Okay, yeah, he says,
[36:40] Speaker 1: I hear you scribes. Yes, I am an older listener
[36:43] Speaker 1: telling me every year about how good GJ. Kinney and
[36:46] Speaker 1: Jeff trailor are. This has to be looked on favorably
[36:49] Speaker 1: by you and your ILK in November and early December, right,
[36:53] Speaker 1: otherwise we need to go full tech when scheduling. So
[36:56] Speaker 1: this is a broader conversation about non conference scheduling. Which
[37:00] Speaker 1: teams should you schedule? Should Texas get credit for scheduling
[37:04] Speaker 1: these teams? For what it's worth?
[37:05] Speaker 2: I like GJ.
[37:06] Speaker 1: Kinney, I do like UTSA and Jeff Trailer. I don't
[37:09] Speaker 1: know if they're going to rise to the level of
[37:11] Speaker 1: some other non conference opponents center around college football, and
[37:15] Speaker 1: as we get a little bit closer, I think we'll
[37:17] Speaker 1: probably dissect which teams have the toughest non conference slates.
[37:20] Speaker 1: I look at teams like USSE, They're pretty tough. We
[37:24] Speaker 1: can go into that conversation later, but I think this
[37:27] Speaker 1: is part of a broader, ongoing discussion right now about
[37:32] Speaker 1: how non conference games fit into the equation at all. Because,
[37:37] Speaker 1: as we have joked about here and talked about countless
[37:40] Speaker 1: times now, the SEC has gone to a nine game
[37:43] Speaker 1: conference slate. Many other conferences nine game conference slate. The
[37:48] Speaker 1: role of the non conference game is one that I
[37:51] Speaker 1: think is somewhat debated, especially now in this playoff era.
[37:54] Speaker 1: Does it benefit you to play the likes of an
[37:57] Speaker 1: Ohio State if you're Texas. It's great for US Week two.
[38:01] Speaker 1: I'd love to see that. I'd love to see.
[38:02] Speaker 2: More games like that.
[38:03] Speaker 1: But does it actually have real benefit to you if
[38:08] Speaker 1: you go into a game like that, even if it's
[38:09] Speaker 1: early and you lose.
[38:11] Speaker 2: It didn't for Notre Dame last year, not.
[38:13] Speaker 1: Exactly a traditional non conference opponent, right all their games
[38:17] Speaker 1: are non conference games. Technically, if you're a Notre Dame fan,
[38:20] Speaker 1: but if it were the shoe being on the other
[38:23] Speaker 1: foot Miami loses that game, then you could probably make
[38:25] Speaker 1: the case like, hey, if they lose that game, they're
[38:27] Speaker 1: not getting in the playoff at all. They're not playing
[38:29] Speaker 1: for the national championship. So I'm going to maybe reframe
[38:33] Speaker 1: this question a bit and speak to this broader discussion
[38:37] Speaker 1: of non conference games, Dan, Yeah, how do you look
[38:40] Speaker 1: at it in terms of Texas?
[38:42] Speaker 2: How do you look at it more broadly?
[38:43] Speaker 3: Okay, so after our subscriber only Patreon show last week
[38:48] Speaker 3: when I'm talking about retired General David Petraeus, that's right.
[38:51] Speaker 3: You know, I'm a credit where credits do?
[38:53] Speaker 1: Guy? Of course?
[38:54] Speaker 2: Okay, I'm a credit where credits do? Guy?
[38:56] Speaker 3: Credit the SEC for going to nine conference games to
[38:59] Speaker 3: even the con with other conferences about you know how
[39:02] Speaker 3: many you know, quote unquote power conference teams these teams play.
[39:06] Speaker 3: Credit Texas for scheduling a home and home and not
[39:08] Speaker 3: a neutral site game against Ohio State and going up
[39:11] Speaker 3: to Columbus and losing last year, having the opportunity to
[39:14] Speaker 3: win at home this season. When you know Texas people specifically,
[39:18] Speaker 3: I said, you know, all all arrows and signs have
[39:20] Speaker 3: been pointing to twenty twenty.
[39:21] Speaker 2: Six as the year.
[39:22] Speaker 3: So Texas has positioned themselves in a nice way to
[39:27] Speaker 3: get credit for scheduling Ohio State having, you know, perhaps
[39:31] Speaker 3: the most high level home and home of these past
[39:34] Speaker 3: couple seasons on their schedule and on their potential playoff resume.
[39:39] Speaker 3: I think UTSA and Texas State have been good programs.
[39:42] Speaker 3: I don't think anybody's going to confuse recent Texas State
[39:44] Speaker 3: defenses of being incredible.
[39:46] Speaker 1: But they can score, they can usually.
[39:48] Speaker 3: They can score. They are they have been of quality,
[39:51] Speaker 3: and UTSA for the most part, has been of quality.
[39:55] Speaker 3: So that's a quality schedule. I don't have Texas's SEC
[40:00] Speaker 3: the schedule memorized, but if memory serves, I don't think
[40:03] Speaker 3: they have like six of the best seven SEC quarterbacks
[40:08] Speaker 3: on their schedule. I think it's a tough schedule, but
[40:10] Speaker 3: it's fine. I think teams should be credited for strong
[40:15] Speaker 3: non conference schedules, especially as their conference schedule goes to
[40:18] Speaker 3: nine games. I think schedules should be taken holistically, but
[40:22] Speaker 3: I also am of the mind that who you are
[40:26] Speaker 3: in early September is not who you are in late November,
[40:29] Speaker 3: and so I tend to weigh non conference a little
[40:32] Speaker 3: bit less because I want to give teams credit for
[40:35] Speaker 3: evolving into their final form come Thanksgiving time. So yes,
[40:40] Speaker 3: it is part of the equation. It is a slice
[40:43] Speaker 3: of the pie. I just think it should be used
[40:47] Speaker 3: on the margins instead of a major talking point when
[40:50] Speaker 3: we're talking resumes come November twenty third or something.
[40:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, in Texas State and UTSA aren't like like.
[40:58] Speaker 2: Body, They're not chumps. They're definitely not jumps.
[41:00] Speaker 1: They're not They're not. And there are plenty of other
[41:03] Speaker 1: teams out there that you know, have taken a different approach,
[41:06] Speaker 1: and I do credit Texas for this. To your point, though,
[41:10] Speaker 1: here are the teams in conference that are on the schedule.
[41:15] Speaker 1: They're on the road at Tennessee. Quarterback questions, Yeah, tough
[41:18] Speaker 1: place to play a quarterback questions. Definitely quarterback question home
[41:21] Speaker 1: against both Oklahoma and Florida as well as I was
[41:25] Speaker 1: as well as Old Miss, I would go as far
[41:27] Speaker 1: as saying quarterback questions both in terms of what Florida
[41:30] Speaker 1: starter looks like, but also like, is Oklahoma's starter somebody
[41:34] Speaker 1: who is going to be a top half of the
[41:36] Speaker 1: SEC starter seventy five percent I believe is returning in
[41:40] Speaker 1: terms of offensive production for Oklahoma. By the way, I
[41:43] Speaker 1: also know that that game is a neutral cighter I
[41:45] Speaker 1: miss hard. Who else do we got here? Mississippi State?
[41:49] Speaker 3: Okay, new quarterback a question at MISSOO, new quarterback a
[41:55] Speaker 3: question at LSU, new quarterback injury question more so than
[42:01] Speaker 3: quality question. Yeah, home against Arkansas, knew everything, knew everything.
[42:06] Speaker 3: Close out the year on the road at Texas A
[42:08] Speaker 3: and M. Tough game, not a quarterback question, tough emotional spot.
[42:13] Speaker 3: A and M has not been able to succeed in
[42:15] Speaker 3: this renewed rivalry. Did you mention do they have Old Miss?
[42:17] Speaker 3: Don't they?
[42:18] Speaker 2: I forgot Old Miss? Yeah?
[42:19] Speaker 1: No, no, I call yeah. I called them out very briefly. Yeah,
[42:22] Speaker 1: that's all home.
[42:22] Speaker 2: So they have old Miss. H not a quarterback question? No, no, no,
[42:26] Speaker 2: no no.
[42:26] Speaker 1: So there are a handful of games on here against
[42:29] Speaker 1: teams that have legitimate quarterback stability in Ohio State, in Oklahoma,
[42:39] Speaker 1: in Old Miss. Yeah, I mean, ellis you knows who
[42:43] Speaker 1: their quarterback is going to be. We'll see if he's healthy,
[42:45] Speaker 1: and then close out the year against Texas A and M.
[42:48] Speaker 2: So there's there's some good ones on here, but we'll see.
[42:52] Speaker 3: I don't know, but I to to our earlier conversational point,
[42:56] Speaker 3: I think Texas should be held to the standard of
[42:59] Speaker 3: they are team that can afford to get Pitt's best
[43:02] Speaker 3: linebacker and star running backs for ASU and NC State
[43:08] Speaker 3: and a star offensive lineman from Wake Forest. Right, they
[43:10] Speaker 3: are of that quality and that financial flexibility. So if
[43:15] Speaker 3: they're able to build this roster, add an expensive defensive coordinator, right,
[43:20] Speaker 3: and make a vanity switch, right, it was not an
[43:23] Speaker 3: emergency that they needed to get rid of Pitt Kwikowski.
[43:26] Speaker 3: They thought they could do better Pete Kwickowski. So now
[43:29] Speaker 3: we're saying, Okay, they're able to do this, They are
[43:31] Speaker 3: able to raise the bar to this extent, and then
[43:34] Speaker 3: they beat Mississippi State again by four. Right, who let's
[43:37] Speaker 3: in this instance, let's say Mississippi State is not of
[43:39] Speaker 3: huge quality, right, that they go through this schedule and
[43:42] Speaker 3: they're not great against an average Florida team and they
[43:45] Speaker 3: sort of exhibit the same deficiencies as they showed last year.
[43:48] Speaker 3: I think it's fair to say, like, hey, Texas is
[43:51] Speaker 3: investing all around to be a top four type playoff
[43:54] Speaker 3: team and they're still struggling to distance themselves from what
[43:58] Speaker 3: seems to be average competition. What's going on on the
[44:01] Speaker 3: flip side. If all these guys work out and they're
[44:04] Speaker 3: beating everybody by seventeen, You're like, great, they did an
[44:08] Speaker 3: awesome job. They deserve to be considered to be upper
[44:11] Speaker 3: crust in this sport.
[44:12] Speaker 1: So look, we had another Sark and a few other
[44:15] Speaker 1: Texas related questions, but I want to veer off course
[44:19] Speaker 1: a little bit, okay and broad in the I can
[44:22] Speaker 1: make seventy one more dollars, ty, I know, I know
[44:25] Speaker 1: we will get to part two, Okay, Okay on Thursday.
[44:28] Speaker 1: I will bring the Sark questions for that discussion. Bob, though,
[44:34] Speaker 1: wants to know a fabulous hypothetical which, okay, which SEC
[44:41] Speaker 1: team will be the next to win a national championship.
[44:44] Speaker 1: Would you bet on Georgia, LSU, Alabama or Texas to
[44:51] Speaker 1: be the next national championship winner from the SEC?
[44:55] Speaker 2: Or would you bet the field.
[44:59] Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you straight up, and I've said
[45:02] Speaker 1: it on this show before, I am a sucker for
[45:05] Speaker 1: a SO and so versus the field.
[45:07] Speaker 2: Bet Yeah, I love a field.
[45:10] Speaker 1: I love me a good field, and I've gotten burnt
[45:14] Speaker 1: on that many times before.
[45:18] Speaker 3: So who is the field in this question, the field
[45:21] Speaker 3: in South Carolina, Oklahoma.
[45:23] Speaker 1: The field is the other twelve teams. So the four
[45:25] Speaker 1: that he called out are Georgia, LSU, Alabama, and Texas.
[45:30] Speaker 1: Would you bet on one of those teams to win
[45:33] Speaker 1: the next national championship out of the SEC or would
[45:37] Speaker 1: you take the field.
[45:39] Speaker 2: And I bet one on one of those four? So
[45:42] Speaker 2: I think your field is a suckers bet. Here are
[45:45] Speaker 2: the other ones.
[45:45] Speaker 1: You've got Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi State, MISSOI, Oklahoma,
[45:54] Speaker 1: Old Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, say and and Vandy.
[46:01] Speaker 2: Okay, So Texas, A and M is in that.
[46:03] Speaker 1: Okay, Ole Miss is in there, Florida's in there.
[46:08] Speaker 2: Well, I don't. I don't think anybody's looking at Florida
[46:10] Speaker 2: in the next year or two to be that level.
[46:14] Speaker 2: I think.
[46:16] Speaker 3: Ole, Miss, Georgia, Alabama probably have the best in Texas obviously,
[46:21] Speaker 3: So I just I don't know if you're gonna be
[46:23] Speaker 3: those four those odds of those four, those are the
[46:25] Speaker 3: four that he gave us. Yeah, I'm I'm I look
[46:28] Speaker 3: Kirby smart, like the the trophy still has his fingerprints
[46:32] Speaker 3: on it.
[46:34] Speaker 2: I know they get their each trophy this year.
[46:36] Speaker 3: But you know what I'm saying, right, you can still
[46:38] Speaker 3: smell Kirby smart on the fields of these games, Like,
[46:43] Speaker 3: I'm happy to take one of those fours.
[46:45] Speaker 2: Okay.
[46:45] Speaker 1: So in terms of odds, and I don't mean to
[46:48] Speaker 1: make this goofy because we had the whole conversation earlier
[46:50] Speaker 1: about you know, the Brandan Soursby thing and the next
[46:53] Speaker 1: paragraph this is the question.
[46:55] Speaker 2: But this is the question. Okay.
[46:56] Speaker 1: So in terms of current odds, uh, Texas is in
[47:01] Speaker 1: that lead pack. They're at about seven to one. Georgia's
[47:05] Speaker 1: eleven to one, LSU is thirteen to one, Alabama is
[47:09] Speaker 1: I think.
[47:09] Speaker 2: Twenty five to one.
[47:10] Speaker 1: There a little bit further back here, Yeah, A and
[47:14] Speaker 1: M would be the next highest, and I think they're
[47:17] Speaker 1: at eighteen right now. So A and M would be
[47:20] Speaker 1: the one that you would bet on. But this is
[47:21] Speaker 1: just this year. Bear in mind that the SEC hasn't
[47:25] Speaker 1: played for or won a national championship the last three cycles.
[47:28] Speaker 1: Now they're due, they're due. This is coming off a
[47:32] Speaker 1: decade plus of just incredible consistency with Alabama or Georgia
[47:38] Speaker 1: basically playing for a title every year. You got a
[47:40] Speaker 1: couple others that peak their head in every now and again.
[47:43] Speaker 1: But we had an incredible run during the Sabing era
[47:45] Speaker 1: of the SEC always being in the mix. That has
[47:49] Speaker 1: not been the case last three years. They've been in
[47:51] Speaker 1: the mix, that just haven't played for it well.
[47:54] Speaker 3: Also, Calin de Boor has led a team to a
[47:56] Speaker 3: national championship game in recent memory and is now out
[48:00] Speaker 3: Labama's coach, so it's not like they don't have that
[48:02] Speaker 3: caliber coach. So yeah, I have no problem putting Alabama
[48:08] Speaker 3: in that top group.
[48:09] Speaker 1: So if you look at this, I mean Texas because
[48:13] Speaker 1: of the quarterback ceiling, because of how they spent, because
[48:16] Speaker 1: of I would say in general roster momentum, you can
[48:21] Speaker 1: look at the confidence of the betting market right now
[48:24] Speaker 1: and say that Texas is probably the best single answer
[48:27] Speaker 1: for this year. The best institutional answer.
[48:32] Speaker 2: I'd still rather have Georgia, by the way, than Texas.
[48:34] Speaker 1: Is probably Georgia. Yeah, all right, just because the floor
[48:37] Speaker 1: is always going to be high with Kirby Smart, the
[48:40] Speaker 1: most volatile upside is probably LSU because if it all hits,
[48:45] Speaker 1: the ceiling is pretty obvious.
[48:47] Speaker 2: Right.
[48:47] Speaker 1: They've got a lot of high priced talent on that
[48:50] Speaker 1: roster and the weirdest answer, at least of the four
[48:53] Speaker 1: that he gave us is Alabama.
[48:56] Speaker 2: Alabama's still that weird.
[48:58] Speaker 1: Well, it emotion weird, Okay, Okay, it's emotionally weird because
[49:03] Speaker 1: Alabama is still Alabama. The roster is still incredible. There
[49:08] Speaker 1: are obvious questions, there are a bunch of narratives that
[49:11] Speaker 1: center around quarterback, that sent around Kalin de boor the
[49:14] Speaker 1: running game, if you really want to go into it.
[49:18] Speaker 1: It's just interesting to me that the market, and I
[49:21] Speaker 1: would say the fan conversation is no longer treating Alabama
[49:24] Speaker 1: as inevitable, right, And that's the biggest difference. That's why
[49:28] Speaker 1: I say emotionally weird. That's true to an extent for
[49:30] Speaker 1: Georgia as well, and more broadly, the SEC. The fact
[49:34] Speaker 1: that the SEC is not inevitable the way they were
[49:37] Speaker 1: five years ago. That's a change in our universe. And
[49:41] Speaker 1: that's part of why this I think is a really
[49:43] Speaker 1: interesting discussion point right for the first time in forever,
[49:48] Speaker 1: even if you wouldn't bet on the field, you could
[49:50] Speaker 1: look at this and you could say I could probably
[49:53] Speaker 1: make a case for the field, and that I think
[49:55] Speaker 1: makes this a little bit different.
[49:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean look, three of those four teams every
[49:59] Speaker 3: turning cour quarterbacks. Georgia won the conference last year and look,
[50:05] Speaker 3: interestingly enough, the two would ended up being the two
[50:07] Speaker 3: best teams in the conference last season started their quarterback
[50:11] Speaker 3: for they for the full time for the first time
[50:13] Speaker 3: as a full time starter last year in Georgia and
[50:16] Speaker 3: Gunner Stockton and Trinidad Chambliss with Ole Miss, they had
[50:19] Speaker 3: experienced playing games. Obviously Trinidad Chambla's more, but it's never
[50:24] Speaker 3: been more wide open. And you know, we saw the
[50:27] Speaker 3: interview with Kirby Smart talking about how his Alabama teams,
[50:30] Speaker 3: Alabama defenses and teams he was involved with from you know,
[50:33] Speaker 3: a decade plus ago would fare so much better because
[50:36] Speaker 3: of the depth that they had. And you're right that
[50:39] Speaker 3: it's a different world. But I think the teams that
[50:42] Speaker 3: are mentioned at the top of this have done at
[50:44] Speaker 3: least a pretty good job of adapting to it what
[50:48] Speaker 3: it means to be successful. And look, the Big Ten
[50:50] Speaker 3: has gotten to be more successful. A team like Texas
[50:53] Speaker 3: Tech Miami obviously has thrived in this era, and you know,
[50:56] Speaker 3: exhibited by what they did last year in the playoff.
[50:58] Speaker 3: So it's just more difficult to dominate as a conference
[51:04] Speaker 3: when there are going to be in any given season
[51:07] Speaker 3: maybe a half dozen teams outside of the conference that
[51:10] Speaker 3: seem to be of that caliber. Also with that good
[51:13] Speaker 3: coaching or great coaching, also with great recruiting, also with
[51:16] Speaker 3: great portaling, also you know, building up their line talent
[51:20] Speaker 3: in a way that can beat SEC teams.
[51:24] Speaker 1: All right, let's go to this question.
[51:28] Speaker 2: Where do we want to go?
[51:29] Speaker 1: Let's go to this one from LORII. Okay, Laurie sent
[51:33] Speaker 1: us an email your listener. Thank you, Laurie, appreciate your support.
[51:36] Speaker 1: Love It just says you. Guys and everyone who talks
[51:39] Speaker 1: into a microphone about college football have alluded to things being.
[51:43] Speaker 2: In a weird and lawless place right now.
[51:46] Speaker 1: And while I myself am having a great time.
[51:49] Speaker 2: Thing's good.
[51:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like most people involved, from players to coaches,
[51:54] Speaker 1: athletic directors, some fans, don't really love the way things are.
[51:59] Speaker 1: Is there anyone with skin in the game who thinks
[52:02] Speaker 1: things should stay the way they are right now? That
[52:06] Speaker 1: was a rhetorical question. The only people who really like
[52:10] Speaker 1: this are the ones who are gaining the most. Because
[52:11] Speaker 1: college football is a microcosm of everything, right, it can't
[52:15] Speaker 1: stay this way, it feels too unstable to me. Here
[52:17] Speaker 1: is my question, what is the most reasonable best case
[52:21] Speaker 1: scenario for college football in the years to come? What
[52:23] Speaker 1: is your most optimistic but also realistic prediction for how
[52:27] Speaker 1: all of this looks in twenty thirty five? Is there
[52:31] Speaker 1: a super conference? Do the players and schools have a CBA?
[52:36] Speaker 1: How did our current CFB problems get solved? Again, let's
[52:41] Speaker 1: travel ahead in time, Dan to twenty thirty five. Yeah,
[52:45] Speaker 1: what's it?
[52:45] Speaker 2: Look click? I don't think it'll ever be solved.
[52:49] Speaker 3: I just think new problems will be introduced that make
[52:51] Speaker 3: you forget about the severity of the older problems. Look,
[52:57] Speaker 3: when the TV deals are all up and everything is
[52:59] Speaker 3: rina go siated, maybe we'll see a different landscape. But honestly,
[53:06] Speaker 3: I think it is reasonable to say that there are
[53:11] Speaker 3: certain aspects of modern college football that are good, that
[53:17] Speaker 3: are positive, that like, you know, I don't think we
[53:22] Speaker 3: are in this like dramatically awful place in every regard
[53:27] Speaker 3: there there is something about as much as I hate
[53:31] Speaker 3: not having a West Coast conference in the way that
[53:33] Speaker 3: we did a few years ago in the PAC twelve,
[53:35] Speaker 3: I know there's a new PAC twelve. I guess what
[53:38] Speaker 3: Texas State is a PAC twelve team allegedly. Yeah, there
[53:43] Speaker 3: is something to the schools who have jumped up to
[53:47] Speaker 3: power conference levels like you know, Cincinnati, UCFBYU whoever, that
[53:52] Speaker 3: there are more players and coaches and programs that are
[53:56] Speaker 3: on larger platforms that have brighter spotlight on them. So,
[54:00] Speaker 3: whether that's players showcasing their skills for the draft or
[54:04] Speaker 3: for the portal, or coaches for other jobs, or you know,
[54:09] Speaker 3: programs showcasing themselves as schools to better enrollment and whatever
[54:13] Speaker 3: it is, there's all sorts of advantages to more places
[54:16] Speaker 3: and more people getting shine. It seems like a positive thing.
[54:22] Speaker 3: It seems like a positive thing that the potential for
[54:26] Speaker 3: hypothetically more Indianas more often, or more Vanderbilts more often,
[54:32] Speaker 3: take your pick. For schools who are able to better
[54:36] Speaker 3: their place and better their reputations and better their ability
[54:39] Speaker 3: to shine nationally. That could be a great thing for
[54:45] Speaker 3: the sport, just because you're going to bring in more
[54:48] Speaker 3: eyeballs like Indiana fans who are resigned to another crappy
[54:53] Speaker 3: three to nine season all of a sudden getting to
[54:56] Speaker 3: feel the frenzy of an Alabama or in Ohio state.
[54:59] Speaker 3: Even if it's for a year or three or seven
[55:01] Speaker 3: or something. So that's a positive thing to get more
[55:05] Speaker 3: people engaged with the sport because there is a better
[55:07] Speaker 3: shot for their team even to just make a bowl game,
[55:10] Speaker 3: even to go from going too and ten every year
[55:12] Speaker 3: to seven and five sometimes, like you're just engaging more
[55:16] Speaker 3: people with positive vibes around college football. So what do
[55:20] Speaker 3: I think the sport's going to look like in a
[55:21] Speaker 3: few years.
[55:22] Speaker 2: I have no idea.
[55:23] Speaker 3: There's going to be restrictions put on, you know, transfers
[55:27] Speaker 3: and five years to play five seasons or something. There
[55:30] Speaker 3: are going to be those attempts, but college football is
[55:34] Speaker 3: an unkillable amiba that is just going to find new
[55:39] Speaker 3: ways to exploit the rules, and I think we just
[55:42] Speaker 3: need to kind of make.
[55:43] Speaker 2: Peace with that.
[55:45] Speaker 1: So you and I have had the discussion time and
[55:49] Speaker 1: again on the public shows and the Bonus shows about
[55:51] Speaker 1: how you and I interact with people who aren't as
[55:59] Speaker 1: degenerate when it comes to college football. And once people
[56:02] Speaker 1: find out what we do, they want they have questions
[56:04] Speaker 1: and a lot of them sound the same.
[56:07] Speaker 2: You know, what do you think why do you hate Texas?
[56:09] Speaker 1: Well? Why do you hate Texas?
[56:10] Speaker 2: Of course?
[56:10] Speaker 1: But what do you think of this nil or what
[56:12] Speaker 1: do you think of the transfer portal? What do you
[56:14] Speaker 1: think of this playoff? Things like that, really generic questions.
[56:19] Speaker 1: The popular trend also that I have noticed, and it's
[56:24] Speaker 1: among people who maybe just want to start a conversation,
[56:28] Speaker 1: It is definitely prevalent among the class of college football
[56:31] Speaker 1: fans that I would call traditionalists, is they say, ah, well,
[56:36] Speaker 1: you know, you can sue for anything these days. Yeah,
[56:42] Speaker 1: and sue for anything. That's how we got where we
[56:44] Speaker 1: are in college football, you know.
[56:46] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[56:47] Speaker 1: And I'm not even excluding myself in that. You know,
[56:49] Speaker 1: I've done that, We've done that here. But I think
[56:52] Speaker 1: saying that, as I've heard countless times now, implies that
[56:58] Speaker 1: this is the fault of the players, which it very
[57:02] Speaker 1: much is not. Right. This was not just a series
[57:05] Speaker 1: of frivolous lawsuits that brought about all this change in
[57:08] Speaker 1: college football. This is very much the powers that be
[57:13] Speaker 1: seeing the riding on the wall and deciding to fight
[57:15] Speaker 1: it instead of adapt. Right, And this is a tale
[57:19] Speaker 1: as old as time. This is not a new thing.
[57:20] Speaker 1: It's not specific to college football. We see this all
[57:23] Speaker 1: over the place. The old power structure does everything it
[57:27] Speaker 1: can to kind of keep things in place, and then
[57:30] Speaker 1: when the world collapses, they are not in any position
[57:35] Speaker 1: to adapt. And that's where why we are where we are.
[57:40] Speaker 1: That's why it feels like we're in this constant scramble
[57:43] Speaker 1: drow right now to figure out the sport. It's been
[57:46] Speaker 1: a lot of change all once, and so I understand
[57:49] Speaker 1: the reaction of people to feel like it is all
[57:52] Speaker 1: sort of collapsing. And for sure, there are parts of
[57:56] Speaker 1: the sport, and parts of at least are older, more
[57:59] Speaker 1: traditional view of the sport that have collapsed partially entirely.
[58:03] Speaker 2: You name it. But I tend to agree with you.
[58:06] Speaker 1: It's not all bad. It's not all bad, but it
[58:10] Speaker 1: is very much up in the air.
[58:11] Speaker 2: And so the way, yeah continue.
[58:13] Speaker 1: And I was just going to say, so, the question
[58:14] Speaker 1: of what it looks like in ten years time whatever
[58:18] Speaker 1: is very much an open question. I can give you,
[58:21] Speaker 1: LORI optimistically, perhaps somewhat realistically, what I would like to
[58:28] Speaker 1: see and what that could look like. This is not
[58:33] Speaker 1: a prediction, though. Did you have something you wanted to
[58:36] Speaker 1: say before I go further in my dietripped in?
[58:38] Speaker 3: No, I just in terms of like the things that
[58:42] Speaker 3: people point to as being like these huge problems, right,
[58:45] Speaker 3: having twenty four to twenty five year olds, and part
[58:47] Speaker 3: of that is you have the COVID year. Part of
[58:49] Speaker 3: that is changes to what counts as eligibility.
[58:52] Speaker 1: Right.
[58:53] Speaker 3: We saw the junior college stuff that Diego Pavia brought up, like,
[58:56] Speaker 3: but the NCAA doesn't govern junior college football, but somehow
[59:00] Speaker 3: playing junior college football count stores your NCAA eligibility.
[59:03] Speaker 1: Right.
[59:03] Speaker 3: There's stuff like that that hasn't always made sense. It's
[59:08] Speaker 3: not necessarily that we love the idea of lawsuits or
[59:11] Speaker 3: we love the idea of finding loopholes, but two things
[59:16] Speaker 3: being true at the same time. Look at the number
[59:18] Speaker 3: of familiar quarterback names we have because of the NIL
[59:22] Speaker 3: era coming back this season. I think that's a great
[59:26] Speaker 3: thing for the sport. Now some of them have changed
[59:28] Speaker 3: schools obviously, But one of the problems that college football
[59:32] Speaker 3: has had traditionally is you know, again, a quarterback specifically
[59:37] Speaker 3: only starts for a year or two and then is
[59:38] Speaker 3: off to the NFL. Right that he comes in, he
[59:41] Speaker 3: starts for UCLA or Minnesota or something for a year
[59:44] Speaker 3: or two years and is not there. It's like it's
[59:47] Speaker 3: easier to have household names at quarterback because sometimes it's
[59:53] Speaker 3: more attractive to these guys to come back for a
[59:55] Speaker 3: fourth or fifth season rather than take fourth round of
[59:57] Speaker 3: the NFL money. So when you look at having Dante
[1:00:01] Speaker 3: Moore and Julian Saying, and Jayden Mayava and Brendan Soresby
[1:00:04] Speaker 3: hopefully Drew mess to maker and take your pick Bryce Underwood,
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: all these guys that like across major places, across semi
[1:00:13] Speaker 3: major places, whatever that like, oh, yeah, we know thirty
[1:00:17] Speaker 3: five forty quarterbacks well because they've been producing and have succeeded,
[1:00:23] Speaker 3: and that is in no small part due to the
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: fact that there is money in the sport to stay
[1:00:27] Speaker 3: in the sport. I think that's a great thing on
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: a certain level in terms of getting people interested in
[1:00:33] Speaker 3: a random college football game on September twenty fourth or something.
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, and also in terms of being invested in the names. Yeah,
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: it wasn't all that long ago that we had games
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: between two powerhouse programs that were basically shells of themselves
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: because of opt outs. Yes, and now because there's been
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: this combination of added stakes for more teams with the
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: playoff and ANIL money that can be funneled back into
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: the program to keep guys around and maybe not necessarily
[1:01:10] Speaker 1: put them on the NFL radar in a way they
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: would have been again five years ago. I think that
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: has made on some level. It's not across the board,
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: but on some level it's made for better postseason. Right
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: here is what I think is maybe realistic, probably more optimistic, Okay,
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: Number one, LORI I want some sort of top tier
[1:01:36] Speaker 1: football structure with somebody actually in charge in ten years.
[1:01:42] Speaker 1: Somebody actually in charge is important. Right now, we got
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: a bunch of satellites with influence in their own little bubbles,
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: mostly the SEC and the Big ten of the ones
[1:01:51] Speaker 1: running this thing. But I want some sort of structure
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: to all of this with somebody in charge. If it's
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: a little bit more professionalized, so be it. It can
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: still use university brands. It's not exactly the NFL light.
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: It's some version of a professionalized college setup that I
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: think needs to happen if this is going to have
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: any kind of real sustainable future.
[1:02:15] Speaker 2: That's number one. Yeah.
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: Secondly, we need some form of collective bargaining or quasi
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: collective bargaining. I don't know what that looks like right
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: but the current system right now is trying to regulate
[1:02:28] Speaker 1: labor without fully admitting that it's kind of labor.
[1:02:32] Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
[1:02:32] Speaker 1: They got to get past that whenever side of the fence, right,
[1:02:35] Speaker 1: you gotta get past that.
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: That's a problem.
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: Three, revenue sharing is now a baseline with NIL and
[1:02:47] Speaker 1: or no excuse me, let me let me phrase. I
[1:02:50] Speaker 1: want to get to a point where revenue sharing is
[1:02:52] Speaker 1: the baseline and NIL sort of returns closer to what
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: I think it was originally intended as, which is they're
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: like actual.
[1:03:01] Speaker 2: Endorsement and marketing value. Mm hmm.
[1:03:04] Speaker 1: Okay, because right now it's like the two things are
[1:03:07] Speaker 1: kind of the same, and NIL probably has a little
[1:03:09] Speaker 1: bit more sway. But NIL, the way that naal came
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: about was as a means of endorsement, being able to
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: take endorsement dollars.
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: Right, good luck. Yeah, Yeah, I don't I don't know
[1:03:20] Speaker 2: how you do. Yeah.
[1:03:21] Speaker 1: But if we can get to a point where the
[1:03:23] Speaker 1: revenue sharing a little bit more of a baseline across
[1:03:25] Speaker 1: the board in NIL is maybe this is partially because
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: some NIL investments go astray or go amiss and aren't
[1:03:34] Speaker 1: worth the investment, and it sort of resets the market.
[1:03:36] Speaker 1: I don't know, but optimistically, and the other thing that
[1:03:41] Speaker 1: I would say is.
[1:03:47] Speaker 2: I would just like to.
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: Get to a point where we had a little bit
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: more balance in terms of what schools are spending on football,
[1:03:59] Speaker 1: because right now you've got and I don't know how
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: you do this. Okay, this is probably kind of a
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: salary cap discussion. As I read the news this offseason,
[1:04:10] Speaker 1: I see all sorts of crazy numbers being thrown out.
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: You know, fifty million dollars, sixty million dollars roster. Someone's
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: going to have one hundred million dollars roster at some point. Yeah,
[1:04:20] Speaker 1: that that is not necessarily encouraging to me. Being able
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: to spend the most to get the best players to
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: win is not not my version of this that that
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: I look at optimistically. So I don't know how realistic
[1:04:37] Speaker 1: that is. That's why I mentioned it last, but I
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: would like to see optimistically, I would like to see
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: something like that that could bring up doesn't have to
[1:04:45] Speaker 1: be perfectly imbalanced, doesn't need to be the NFL. Right
[1:04:47] Speaker 1: We're going to be the NFL, which is something that
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: could keep it a little bit more in check, I
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: think would be beneficial.
[1:04:52] Speaker 3: Well, okay, I agree, but we're also watching a sport
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: where just spending the most doesn't guarant to you.
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: I know, look, right, Dan, That's been the case in
[1:05:03] Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. Remember when the yeah, he's we're spending
[1:05:05] Speaker 1: all that money, I don't want a damn thing, right.
[1:05:07] Speaker 1: So it it's not exactly like the money equals the wins, right,
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: But it's also not just about the wins all the time,
[1:05:17] Speaker 1: because schools that can afford to pumpt just insane amounts
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: of money into the infrastructure behind the football program almost
[1:05:25] Speaker 1: guarantees a level of success that some of their peers
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: will never have because they don't have that as a
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: starting point.
[1:05:32] Speaker 2: Right.
[1:05:32] Speaker 3: So I still think, yeah, just a little bit more
[1:05:36] Speaker 3: in check. I still think the baked in advantages either
[1:05:40] Speaker 3: geography or cultural whatever, as well as the ability to
[1:05:44] Speaker 3: hire and empower the right guy and the right group
[1:05:48] Speaker 3: of coaches, I still think it's going to go further
[1:05:53] Speaker 3: than simply trying to spend your way to success. I
[1:05:56] Speaker 3: understand why there should be guardrails. I understand the concerns
[1:05:59] Speaker 3: involved as we see these inflating you know, numbers, But
[1:06:06] Speaker 3: everybody seemed to be reasonably okay with coaching salaries getting
[1:06:11] Speaker 3: inflated like crazy amounts, and then as soon as it
[1:06:15] Speaker 3: happens with like, oh, this roster is fifty million dollars,
[1:06:17] Speaker 3: sixty million dollars. People are like, oh, somebody must be
[1:06:20] Speaker 3: done to curtail this.
[1:06:22] Speaker 2: And we're just like man.
[1:06:23] Speaker 3: Texas Tech spent whatever they spent last year and didn't
[1:06:26] Speaker 3: score a point in the playoff. The year before that,
[1:06:28] Speaker 3: Ohio State reportedly spent a ton and won the national championship.
[1:06:33] Speaker 3: What's the difference. Ohio State had been recruiting on a
[1:06:36] Speaker 3: championship level for years upon years upon years going into
[1:06:40] Speaker 3: that season and was able to retain players. They weren't
[1:06:43] Speaker 3: simply buying players. They were retaining players that they developed
[1:06:46] Speaker 3: inside the program. Did they add Jeremiah Smith and probably
[1:06:50] Speaker 3: pay him a ton of money out of high school?
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: Sure they need.
[1:06:53] Speaker 3: They needed him to choose Ohio State over other places
[1:06:56] Speaker 3: Willingham to spend that much money. Did they get Caleb
[1:06:59] Speaker 3: Don't Caleb out of the portal? Absolutely they did. He
[1:07:03] Speaker 3: didn't win that championship alone, So there is still something
[1:07:07] Speaker 3: to look. What did Oregon spend last year? Were they
[1:07:10] Speaker 3: three seconds away from losing to Iowa, who probably paid
[1:07:12] Speaker 3: a fraction for their roster that Oregon spent for. Yeah,
[1:07:16] Speaker 3: they were Oregon was. They were not crazy competitive the
[1:07:20] Speaker 3: year before that against Boise State and Idaho, so there's
[1:07:24] Speaker 3: still room for excellent coaching. Indiana spent far less, I'm positive,
[1:07:29] Speaker 3: than Miami and Ole Miss and Ohio State and all
[1:07:32] Speaker 3: the other teams Oregon that they were able to beat
[1:07:34] Speaker 3: or get further than. So I don't mind hearing those
[1:07:40] Speaker 3: numbers because it kind of just means players are getting
[1:07:43] Speaker 3: paid their market value.
[1:07:44] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: We got one more question here, Dan that We're gonna
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: let the fine people go. Please, We're going to make
[1:07:53] Speaker 1: this a non football question, though there can be football answers.
[1:07:56] Speaker 2: Okay, so if you just wanted football, this is the
[1:07:59] Speaker 2: time to.
[1:08:00] Speaker 1: This would be the time go go and through the wash.
[1:08:03] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:08:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, this might be one of my favorite off topic
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: questions we've ever gotten.
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah, I know
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: where you're going. That's what it comes to us from.
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: Don. If you are hanging around for this portion of
[1:08:19] Speaker 1: the episode, I want you to think about this, and
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: I want emails about this. Actually, this is what I
[1:08:23] Speaker 1: want people to email about. Yeah, or the Texas Paranoid
[1:08:26] Speaker 1: if you want to, Alex, that's cool too. We love you,
[1:08:30] Speaker 1: but please this one here. You have a job planning
[1:08:35] Speaker 1: new housing developments. For the newest development, you also get
[1:08:41] Speaker 1: the task of naming the streets. What will be the
[1:08:45] Speaker 1: theme of your streets? Birds Flowers, Don who asked this
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: marvelous question, says he's going with former baseball grades.
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: Okay, which is a great answer. I know you well,
[1:09:01] Speaker 2: m M.
[1:09:02] Speaker 1: My hunch is that you spent more time thinking about
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: this question than pretty much any of the other ones
[1:09:05] Speaker 1: that we asked. Where are you at in terms of
[1:09:09] Speaker 1: street naming philosophies, themes, and just overall approaches?
[1:09:15] Speaker 3: Okay, So essentially my number one rule for street naming
[1:09:19] Speaker 3: is it has to be somewhat recognizable as a word
[1:09:24] Speaker 3: or a name. Like I'd much rather be told that
[1:09:28] Speaker 3: the sandwich shop is on Acorn Lane or something like that, because, Okay,
[1:09:33] Speaker 3: I know what you're saying. I know how to spell acorn,
[1:09:35] Speaker 3: and I've seen that word written out. It's when you
[1:09:38] Speaker 3: get into the street names that audibly you're like, I
[1:09:43] Speaker 3: don't know what you're saying right now, right, I don't know.
[1:09:45] Speaker 3: It's it's too many letters, or there's silent pronunciation in there, whatever,
[1:09:50] Speaker 3: Like I want instantly recognizable thematically. I would love to
[1:09:56] Speaker 3: go with something that is important locally. So if you're
[1:10:00] Speaker 3: in the desert, I don't hate there being like sidewinder Lane, right,
[1:10:05] Speaker 3: something like something that honors cacti or local animals or
[1:10:11] Speaker 3: something that's something that's meaningful to the area.
[1:10:15] Speaker 2: Right.
[1:10:15] Speaker 3: If you live in the mountains, you're dealing with different
[1:10:17] Speaker 3: tree names, but like nothing crazy complicated to say or spell.
[1:10:21] Speaker 3: Somebody that's instantly recognizable driving from you know, three hundred
[1:10:26] Speaker 3: yards away, they're like, oh, this is where I am.
[1:10:31] Speaker 3: I would love to use I think almost first names
[1:10:36] Speaker 3: rather than last names of local civic heroes who have
[1:10:40] Speaker 3: past background checks, so that we're not necessarily naming something
[1:10:44] Speaker 3: Lori Lane after this incredible nurse who you know, was
[1:10:49] Speaker 3: honored by you know, the local maternity ward for working
[1:10:52] Speaker 3: there for fifty years.
[1:10:53] Speaker 2: But something a.
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: Scheme, right, you don't to name the street, right, But.
[1:10:59] Speaker 3: First of all, if you've ever been to a hospital
[1:11:02] Speaker 3: for an extended amount of time, I would just name
[1:11:03] Speaker 3: every single street after nurses, like amazing, No, those are
[1:11:06] Speaker 3: the best people among us, teachers, nurses, that whole thing.
[1:11:09] Speaker 3: So I would take a lot of their first Stephanie
[1:11:11] Speaker 3: Avenue sure, great, Uh Marcus drive great. I would just
[1:11:17] Speaker 3: do that with recognizable first names or last names, whatever
[1:11:20] Speaker 3: is easier to spell and say. Of civic heroes and
[1:11:24] Speaker 3: local flora fauna, again, I don't want to get I would.
[1:11:28] Speaker 2: I would make it all local.
[1:11:29] Speaker 3: Like where I come from in the San Fernando Valley,
[1:11:32] Speaker 3: they just they they came up with they like combined
[1:11:36] Speaker 3: certain things that aren't words, but people slowly got used
[1:11:38] Speaker 3: to it. Like there's a major street called Van Owen.
[1:11:41] Speaker 3: It combines Van eyes and Owen's mouth. Like, Okay, you
[1:11:47] Speaker 3: get used to it if you live there, but it's
[1:11:49] Speaker 3: a little complicated. I would go as simple as humanly
[1:11:52] Speaker 3: possible with local civic heroes. I wouldn't thematic for like
[1:11:57] Speaker 3: theme it for you know, like birds know you're a
[1:12:00] Speaker 3: bird human tie. Yeah, but that can get a little
[1:12:03] Speaker 3: bit complicated once you get out of like the cardinal
[1:12:05] Speaker 3: and bluebird kind of stuff. So local civic heroes and
[1:12:12] Speaker 3: local flora fauna.
[1:12:14] Speaker 1: I'm actually taking this a much different direction. Okay, what
[1:12:21] Speaker 1: Don is referring to, I believe is the name.
[1:12:24] Speaker 2: Of a street.
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: Yes, So, by the way, the most popular name of
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: any street is second, like Second Avenue, three bunch of
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: numbers in there, so like second, first, third, and fourth.
[1:12:41] Speaker 1: I believe Oak is the most popular tree street. Main
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: Street is obviously one of the top ten as well.
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: I am thinking of it from a different perspective though, Okay,
[1:12:55] Speaker 1: I'm thinking of it in terms of, like, don't call
[1:12:59] Speaker 1: it a street or an avenue. Don't call it a corridor,
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: a lane.
[1:13:04] Speaker 2: A place.
[1:13:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's talk some places. Let's talk parkways. Okay,
[1:13:11] Speaker 1: let's talk row or loop or crescent or alley. I'm
[1:13:17] Speaker 1: thinking I would want all of my streets to have
[1:13:20] Speaker 1: sort of a different type of street name to them.
[1:13:22] Speaker 1: I don't care what you call them. But I like pikes,
[1:13:28] Speaker 1: I like rows, I like trails, and I like alleys.
[1:13:33] Speaker 3: Okay, so you would think you would like it would
[1:13:36] Speaker 3: be something like Douglas fir Alley.
[1:13:40] Speaker 2: That's right, something like that.
[1:13:42] Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, make the street feel a little bit different.
[1:13:45] Speaker 1: You can name street whatever you want.
[1:13:47] Speaker 2: See that sounds a little pretentious to me.
[1:13:50] Speaker 3: Does crescent a crescent? I don't know what street do
[1:13:54] Speaker 3: you live on? Oh yeah, mail that to uh promenade?
[1:13:59] Speaker 2: I don't know, man, it all sounds like malls.
[1:14:01] Speaker 1: Oh so what it's a development kind is all.
[1:14:05] Speaker 2: I'll give you.
[1:14:06] Speaker 3: Here, I'll give you my actually the first place I
[1:14:09] Speaker 3: went to with this. But continue, I know you want
[1:14:11] Speaker 3: to change what the some mill streets are called.
[1:14:14] Speaker 2: Can we call it a cove a walk?
[1:14:17] Speaker 1: There you go, let's call it. Let's call it Rubinstein Walk.
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: But it's a street plaza. Come on, get creative with
[1:14:26] Speaker 1: me here.
[1:14:27] Speaker 3: These these all sound like names for outdoor malls that
[1:14:32] Speaker 3: you go to. One son, You're just like, I don't.
[1:14:34] Speaker 3: I don't need to go.
[1:14:35] Speaker 1: Don Ridge a bend.
[1:14:38] Speaker 3: First of all, Don Ridge was an extraordinary seventh inning
[1:14:41] Speaker 3: reliever for the Pirates in the eighties. Okay, so I'm
[1:14:44] Speaker 3: with him there, Yeah.
[1:14:47] Speaker 2: You got options.
[1:14:47] Speaker 1: There is what I'm saying. Just think of it a
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: little bit different, think of it, think of the backside.
[1:14:52] Speaker 3: I would. Okay, So in different parts of Los Angeles
[1:14:55] Speaker 3: there are different naming conventions. In Santa Monica, for instance,
[1:14:58] Speaker 3: there are IVY Leagues schools like there's a row of
[1:15:01] Speaker 3: like Princeton, Harvard, Yale, et cetera. I would do something
[1:15:05] Speaker 3: that forces drivers, commuters, whatever, to all of the sudden
[1:15:11] Speaker 3: sense a pattern without it being immediately obvious. And just
[1:15:15] Speaker 3: because I grew up and I don't know. Maybe other
[1:15:17] Speaker 3: people grew up in this way too. Loved a good
[1:15:20] Speaker 3: educational place Matt at the dinner table. Yeah yeah, a
[1:15:24] Speaker 3: little area with state capitals.
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay.
[1:15:28] Speaker 3: So you're just driving through and some of them say
[1:15:30] Speaker 3: Jefferson City or something like that. That's confusing if you're in
[1:15:33] Speaker 3: a different place other than Jefferson City.
[1:15:35] Speaker 2: But if you, like, I don't.
[1:15:36] Speaker 3: Know, it doesn't make it the easiest to pronounce or recognize.
[1:15:39] Speaker 3: Like if you Montpelier, Montpelier, whatever, But I don't know
[1:15:44] Speaker 3: if you're just driving and you're going past a Salem
[1:15:48] Speaker 3: and then an Olympia and then a Sacramento and.
[1:15:51] Speaker 2: You're like, wait a minute, I see what's going on.
[1:15:52] Speaker 3: Here, right, I would just give a little wink to
[1:15:55] Speaker 3: those that had educational place matts growing up as kids,
[1:15:59] Speaker 3: or just are into state capitals.
[1:16:01] Speaker 2: You want to do world capitals.
[1:16:02] Speaker 3: Great, but that's that's something that I would little like,
[1:16:07] Speaker 3: not obvious on the surface, but there you are Springfield,
[1:16:12] Speaker 3: Springfield Lane, Springfield drive whatever. And that's followed by isn't Springfield.
[1:16:17] Speaker 2: Illinois a capital Illinois? Yeah?
[1:16:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, just making sure and then you're just like
[1:16:23] Speaker 3: if you've hit Pierre, you've gone too far right.
[1:16:27] Speaker 1: Speaking of speaking of geography, Dan, yeah, nine two for
[1:16:31] Speaker 1: me today in map tap.
[1:16:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, you're any any day over nine hundred's a good day.
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: I'm a frequent visitor to the nine hundred club.
[1:16:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, I I am generally above eight point fifty. And
[1:16:46] Speaker 3: the problem with map tap specifically, it's not that you're
[1:16:50] Speaker 3: weak in any specific continent or something. You don't know
[1:16:53] Speaker 3: where Algeria is or you don't know where Ecuador is.
[1:16:57] Speaker 3: It's when they say, yeah, where is this tiny a
[1:17:02] Speaker 3: toll in the middle of the Pacific. Man, If you're wrong,
[1:17:06] Speaker 3: you're very wrong. I whiffed hard on the Marshall Islands yesterday.
[1:17:10] Speaker 3: Australia is also secretly very difficult because if you're wrong
[1:17:13] Speaker 3: in Australia, you're also extremely wrong.
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: You just got to know which cities are on which
[1:17:19] Speaker 1: coasts because they're all on the coast. There's nothing in
[1:17:21] Speaker 1: the middle. But you just needed you need to know
[1:17:23] Speaker 1: which ones are are where. And that's sort of how
[1:17:26] Speaker 1: the name of the game. But I've been I've been
[1:17:28] Speaker 1: studying up on Africa good. I've been trying to My
[1:17:32] Speaker 1: new thing is that nothing with a Z in it
[1:17:35] Speaker 1: is above the equator, it's all sort of south of that.
[1:17:39] Speaker 1: That was That was a tie special there, good tip.
[1:17:41] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:17:41] Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't mean I know where Tanzania is, but
[1:17:45] Speaker 1: it's at least a guide. Okay, I'm having trouble with
[1:17:50] Speaker 1: with Africa. I've been having a lot of trouble with
[1:17:53] Speaker 1: like I would say, Eastern Europe in that section when
[1:17:57] Speaker 1: there's no borders on the maps and they ask you
[1:17:59] Speaker 1: to like tap on Azerbaijan.
[1:18:01] Speaker 2: That's hard.
[1:18:01] Speaker 3: Is that a north south thing? You don't know how
[1:18:03] Speaker 3: far north or how far south.
[1:18:04] Speaker 1: I've been struggling with that, and I'm gonna be honest
[1:18:07] Speaker 1: with you. I have also struggled with the Midwest. Not
[1:18:10] Speaker 1: that I don't not that I don't know where things are,
[1:18:12] Speaker 1: but I find that I am constantly just like a
[1:18:17] Speaker 1: little bit more off than I expected. Put a pin
[1:18:20] Speaker 1: in Cincinnati. I know where Cincinnati is, I live one
[1:18:25] Speaker 1: stayed over, but I'm just a little bit too far
[1:18:28] Speaker 1: off that I if I, if I could just get
[1:18:30] Speaker 1: a couple more points that might help me here against well, let.
[1:18:32] Speaker 2: Me let me throw that Cincinnati's on the Kentucky border.
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: Now I know I'm just saying, but without the borders.
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: I'm I'm not as close as I would want to be.
[1:18:42] Speaker 3: Are you affected because the globe has terrain indicators, So
[1:18:48] Speaker 3: because you have issues with green, no helps that had
[1:18:52] Speaker 3: helps greens pop against the browns.
[1:18:55] Speaker 2: Well they pop.
[1:18:55] Speaker 1: And also like the mountains, the mountains are helpful. Like
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: when they ask where it's Switzerland, I know that there
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: are mountains. Is the snow Cap to the north of
[1:19:03] Speaker 1: Italy and that is where Switzerland is. So the mountains
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: are a bit of a tell.
[1:19:08] Speaker 2: That's good.
[1:19:09] Speaker 3: Well, I'm just saying the greens, specifically the green in Africa.
[1:19:12] Speaker 3: Obviously you have the Sahara and so sub Saharan Saharans.
[1:19:16] Speaker 3: I didn't know if that was an issue for you,
[1:19:18] Speaker 3: because watching football games with weird green on green action
[1:19:21] Speaker 3: affects you.
[1:19:22] Speaker 2: It does affect me. Okay.
[1:19:25] Speaker 1: I don't know how we ended up here. I guess
[1:19:27] Speaker 1: I took it here. But thank you to one and
[1:19:29] Speaker 1: all for dog. Is that what it is? Map tap
[1:19:33] Speaker 1: dot gg Yeah, not a sponsor could be.
[1:19:35] Speaker 2: Yeah. Found out about it from Spencer Hall's newsletter. You
[1:19:38] Speaker 2: and I play it every day. Yeah, it's the best.
[1:19:42] Speaker 1: Thank you to everybody for their ongoing support. We appreciate
[1:19:45] Speaker 1: the questions. We're going to do more questions on our
[1:19:48] Speaker 1: next episode. Of course, if you have any thoughts on
[1:19:50] Speaker 1: what we discussed here today, you can reach out soliverbleatgmail
[1:19:54] Speaker 1: dot com or across any of our social media feeds,
[1:19:58] Speaker 1: or you can join up with our Patreon arabowlers dot com.
[1:20:02] Speaker 1: If you sign up as a free member, you actually
[1:20:04] Speaker 1: could probably go out there and comment on some of
[1:20:06] Speaker 1: these questions or submit more in time for our episode.
[1:20:10] Speaker 2: That drops on Thursday. I encourage it. I do as well.
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: All right, why don't we leave it there, Dan, pleasure
[1:20:16] Speaker 1: as always to be here with you. We'll do it
[1:20:18] Speaker 1: again in one day's time. In the meantime, you know,
[1:20:22] Speaker 1: the drill folks as per usual, Stay
[1:20:24] Speaker 2: Soft, peace, good luck with your feet

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