Miami HC Mario Cristobal, CFB With Tom Fornelli, Jerry From Meow Mix + Playoff Baseball, Jaguars Big Win And FAQ's

Hey, pardon my take, listeners.

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On today's part of my take presented by DraftKings, we've got a packed show for everyone.

We've got Tom Fernelli talking college football.

We've got Mario Cristobal, head coach of the Miami Hurricanes.

We have Jerry from YeowMix, the Panthers podcast that had to retire because the Panthers are so bad.

We just wanted to get to the bottom of it, hear it from him.

We don't want to have this become an epidemic where more podcasters are retiring in their prime.

We're going to talk playoff baseball.

It's been awesome.

Max and I, the Phillies and Cubs, are facing elimination.

We're going to do hot seat, cool throne.

We have listener-submitted FAQs, and we're talking about the Jaguars.

The Jaguars win a game, they never win.

And take down the Chiefs on Monday night football.

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Okay, let's go.

Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings.

The crown is yours.

Today is Wednesday, October 8th, and Aaron Judge did it.

What an absolute insane moment in the Bronx.

The Bronx is burning, PFT.

That was incredible.

The Yankees stave off elimination in an awesome, awesome scene.

Aaron Judge hits a three-run homer to tie the game.

They end up winning the game 9-6, and the Yankees have life.

as an aaron judge hater oh more specifically a yankees hater i don't like to see him win uh i even have to that that was a fucking cool ass home run that was the coolest he hit it in the coolest part of the ballpark to the coolest part of the foul pole it looked like it would have gone like 450 feet i know that stat cast said like 473 i don't believe that for a second that thing hit like 70 feet up in the air it was an awesome home run

it answered a lot of questions that people were asking about aaron judge because he hasn't been the best postseason hitter until this season, which he's been pretty good this postseason.

But that's always been the knock against the guy.

And this was like his big clutch moment that he had, even though it was earlier on in the game, but it was an important home run.

It completely changed the momentum of the game in a game that it looked like the Blue Jays were just going to continue to shit down their throats.

And yeah, credit to Aaron Judge.

That was a very, very cool home run.

I cracked a smile watching Aaron Judge hit that, which is something I would not have believed that I was capable of doing.

He's been better than a pretty good hitter.

He's been hitting 500 in these playoffs.

He hadn't hit that big moment power.

That was his first home run, but 500 in the playoffs is insane.

He's 11 for 22.

Yeah, and

I sat back and I was just like, you know what?

That was an awesome, awesome sports moment because if the Yankees somehow go on and win this series, it will be because of that moment.

Like, I know that it was earlier in the game, but the Yankees were, it felt like they were dead.

They had, you know, everyone was blaming Aaron Boone.

They left in Radon for way too long.

Like, he just kept on giving up singles.

And, and in that whole moment, it was like almost the inning starts with that error.

And

Aaron Judge stepping up in that moment to tie the game, hitting that pitch, which is insane for a guy like him.

I mean, I know he's an insane hitter.

He's the best hitter in baseball, but to hit that pitch that was 100 miles an hour, like so far inside, to get around on that at 6'7, it's just insane.

It was an insane, insane moment.

I'm happy for Aaron Judge.

The look into the camera after, he was really trying to, you know, milk that moment, but it was.

You can't deny that sports are cool when you watch a home run like that that could potentially save the Yankees season because that's really what it is.

Like, if the Yankees win this series, it's because that home run and that moment, if he strikes out in that moment, the whole air comes out of the out of the stadium.

Everything feels lost.

They're still down 6-3.

Instead, he reverses it, hits the home run, ties the game.

They win 9-6,

and they have life.

And they've actually been like, ever since I saw, they said it on the broadcast, but I think it was through the first,

the Blue Jays scored 23 out of the first 26 runs in the series.

And the Yankees are now up 14 to 6 since then.

Obviously, the Blue Jays have the lead.

By the way, I need to say Jays.

Some Canadian corrected us, PFT.

They said,

if you're talking about the Blue Jays, you just got to say Jays.

So I'll say Jays now.

I didn't know that was.

That's not true.

No, no, that's not true.

They're the Blue Jays.

They're the Toronto Blue Jays.

So that's what he said.

It's like a Shaq O'Neill thing.

If you say Toronto, you say Blue Jays.

If you're just talking about the team, you say the Jays.

I'm going to say it how I want to say it.

I'm not going to let a Canadian dictate to me the terms of America's pastime.

That's what Canadian told me to say.

The Blue Jays

Listen, I respect the Blue Jays.

I did.

Okay, Jays fan, how about this?

I ran a mental simulation last night because I was pissed off because it seems like the Dodgers were going to win the World Series.

There's nothing anybody else could do about it.

I did mental 2,000 mental simulations.

I was laying in bed envisioning a team that I could picture beating the Dodgers in the World Series.

And the only team that fits my mental criteria is the Blue Jays.

I could actually imagine that.

So I'm going to call them whatever I want.

I respect them enough on the ball field.

So let's not get greedy and start demanding that I start dropping blue to stuff.

I'm just saying, they said Chase.

I'm going to say Jays or not.

But now the Yankees have Cam Schlittler going in game four on Wednesday today.

If they win that one, who knows?

I mean, it really does.

It did feel like one of those home runs that could just change the course of the postseason.

It felt that massive.

And

it hit so far up on the pole.

It was crazy.

That thing was absolutely smashed.

Hit so far up on the pole, and the players,

when they say like 373 feet on their internal measurement system, there's no way that was only 373 feet, right?

No, I don't believe any of that.

No chance.

No, I never.

I don't believe it at all.

Yeah.

I don't care if you looked at the camera.

There's so many cameras at Yankee Stadium.

They got drones flying around.

You're going to look at some camera, no matter where you're looking.

I just care that he pissed on that ball, and it was an awesome home run.

Hit the shit out of it.

I respect the fuck out of Aaron Judge for doing that with all the pressure in the world on him because it felt like as Aaron Judge goes, so go the Yankees.

Big time.

And he needed to go out there and do it himself to get everybody else involved.

And he did it.

Congratulations to him.

That was, it was a cool moment.

I respect him.

Hank, what did you think about the moment?

He's muted.

You're muted.

He's muted.

Perfect.

I'm muted.

It was fine.

Long way to go.

I mean, when they lose this series, no one's really going to remember it.

Okay, well said.

He's right.

He's right.

And guess what?

If they make it to the ALCS and he shits down his leg in the ALCS, we're not going to remember this moment either.

Oh, I think if you win the World Series.

I think if they don't win the World Series and he sucks,

we're going to forget about this.

I think if they make it to the ALCS, we'll remember that moment.

If they come back from down 2-0, that moment will be remembered.

It won't be remembered the same as if they don't win the World Series, but absolutely that moment will be remembered if they come back down 2-0 and win this series.

Yeah, but it's worried about Schutzler.

Yeah.

I hate that I like him, but if he comes out and does that again, it's like this.

If he does that again.

He's just a fucking legend.

And I think he might be.

He might just have

that postseason stuff.

But yeah, no, I think if they win this series, that will be absolutely a remembered moment for a long time.

Well,

it'll be a footnote, though.

Like, if the Yankees make it to the ALCS and Aaron Judge has a terrible series and the Yankees lose in large part because of his performance, it's going to be a footnote.

It's an awesome moment.

Don't get me wrong, but like, we're not, we forgot about Vladdie Jr.'s grand slam from the other night already.

Like, that's already kind of in the past.

Well, that was just the nature of sports.

But that was different circumstances.

They were facing elimination and looked dead, and that could have brought him back to life.

Like, that's what I'm saying.

Like, if they win this series, that moment is the moment.

What a game.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

More baseball.

I want to see more of these two teams play.

I like watching them play at baseball in New York, too.

Yes, Hank.

I said this and you kind of got mad at me before the show, but I was watching this.

And again, I would much rather the Cubs or the Phillies win.

I didn't get mad at you.

As this was unfolding, I was like, this is bad for the Cubs or Phillies.

Because if the Yankees had got swept, it's in like MLB needs to do something territory.

Someone's, you know, someone's got to extend the series.

I wish, I wish the Yankees being the one to do it is not great.

I wish we were recording because I did not get mad at you.

We hopped on to the Zoom, and the very first thing you said was, that's bad for the Cubs and Phillies.

And I was just like, all right.

I agree with you.

That's good for the Cubs and Phillies.

Well, I'm actually not making a step.

I think the Cubs and Phillies have nothing to do with the Yankees and Blue Jays.

Sorry, I think it's Jays.

I think it's good.

I think it's good.

You think it's good?

I don't.

I think

it shows the guys that it can be done.

The Cubs are done.

That's like you can look, that you can be dead and come back.

It has nothing to do.

But the Yankees just gave the blueprint of how you get back into it.

Win at home.

And the clubhouse can see it.

Yeah, wait a home.

Bruce Harper just saw what Aaron Judge did, and he's like, that's going to be me.

Feed off the crowd.

I like how the analysis is like, well,

if every other team makes it to five,

I am not joking.

if every other team makes it to five games that means does that mean that we're going to make it to five games too or does that mean that we'll definitely not make it to five games

my logic is sound okay my logic is

a complete conspiracy like mlb is going to rig games to advance a series so yeah like it wasn't you know here's not going off statistics here if we're doing if we're doing idiot logic i have an idiot logic for you i think the cubs are screwed because i saw tom fornelli our good friend who's on later on in the show who does not like the cubs uh tweet so we're going to to get three out of four of the DS series as sweeps.

And now the Yankees won.

That means the Phillies are going to win, and the Cubs are going to be the only team to get swept.

So that's if we're doing idiot logic.

Yeah, that's kind of, it's similar.

Yeah, I want to, on the record, I am not doing idiot logic.

I'm doing real logic.

Because Bryce Harper didn't know that it was possible to hit until he saw Aaron Johnson's.

Sometimes

You just got to change your vibe, and that is something that you can build off of seeing how it can be done.

My dog didn't know that.

It's like getting a read off of a putt.

My dog didn't know that he should lift up his leg to go pee until he saw another dog do it.

That's what you're saying that Bryce Harper did with Aaron Judge.

But Hank is saying the opposite.

Hank is saying if the Yankees got swept, MLB would have stepped in and been like, we need these other series to go longer.

And how would MLB rig it?

Because I feel like baseball might be the hardest one to rig.

The baseballs.

The baseballs.

Okay,

what would they do?

He's right.

They would give the

when the Brewers and Dodgers are pitching, they'd give them the juiced ones.

Yeah, okay, got it.

I have a question

because this came up.

I saw there were Yankee fans complaining about they were like the blue

behind home plate.

The Jays must be cheating.

You can't cheat anymore with Pitchcom, right?

How would you cheat?

You can pick up on the grip of the ball.

Are you talking about the sign stealing at second base?

That's not cheating.

You're allowed to steal signs on the field.

No, I'm not talking.

Yeah, I'm not talking about that.

So, how would you cheat?

Cheating in baseball is legal, except if you use electronics.

That's my rule.

If you use electronics, then if a battery is involved, then that's against the rules.

But PitchCom has kind of eliminated all of this.

Like,

when I saw people, because someone posted the numbers of like the blue, the blue, sorry, the Jays at home versus on the road, and they're like, they must be doing something.

And then I was like, oh, yeah, they're probably cheating like the Astros.

Then I said, I took a second.

I was like, wait a second.

They're using PitchCom now.

Unless they're hacked into PitchCom, I don't understand how they'd be cheating in an illegal way.

I mean, that's possible.

A team could hack into PitchCom.

I just have to tip my hat.

Then the players would also have to have an earpiece because no way would they have someone blatantly doing signs or banging on trash band.

You know, they wouldn't be doing the same thing as the Astros anymore.

No, vibrating anal beads.

That's like in chess.

That's right.

That definitely could happen.

We should also mention the other series that was

so it was Rain Delay.

Mariners are up 2-1.

Mariners just,

they're awesome.

Cal Raleigh is the man.

The odds of that guy.

So there was a guy

in the outfield.

What it said, dump here was his jersey so i saw this guy i saw this guy on tv before the game started yeah when we were in the studio yeah he was wearing his dump here 61 custom-made shirt he had it made because uh

kyle raley is on home run he was sitting on number 60 tonight and this guy was sitting in left center field And he's the one dot of green in like a sea of dark, like navy blue Tigers fans.

Raleigh hits the home run,

one hops in the bullpen right into the guy's lap.

And then he's just standing there holding the baseball up.

Even the Tigers fans around him had to just sit there and laugh and applaud him.

They're like, hey, good job, man.

You called your shot.

And then in a tremendous sense of the moment, the guy takes off his shirt and he's wearing a Dump It Here 62 shirt.

The guy was wearing two shirts and now he's ready.

And then Big Cat, and I looked at a close-up of this guy.

I think he might have been wearing a third shirt underneath

that was Dump It Here 63.

I don't know how many shirts this guy had,

but shout out to this dude because he's awesome.

Also, he got a picture with Cal after the game.

The Mariners brought him into the clubhouse.

They brought him back there.

Yeah, they need that guy, buy that guy tickets in left center field for every game and just let him ball hawk.

He's better at his job than Foul Ball Guy is.

Well, he called his number and he called his player.

Foul ball guy has, what,

18 times the likelihood of catching his intended target than that guy did.

I, yeah.

I mean, I like the idea.

I agree.

You have to have him at every playoff game from here on out.

He's just the dump here guy.

Yeah.

Now, I saw

me and Big Cat were advised to bet on the Tigers tonight.

So we did.

I don't want to name any names.

Max did as well.

There's a guy that works at our company, and Hank did also.

You too, Hank.

We have a source.

We have a source.

he's a source i don't want to say who the source was but a source hit us up 20 hours before the game saying huge major league baseball bet coming tomorrow and so then of course like if you have 20 hours to prepare yourself for a bet you're going to take it you feel like you're launching a nuclear missile and uh it was the worst bet of all time yep the thing that pissed me off the most is like It's an off day for the Cubs.

We're going to talk about the Cubs and Phillies in a minute when we're back in studio.

It's an off day for the Cubs.

So I was just going to watch some baseball.

I was going to enjoy some baseball.

Then I got the text 20 hours beforehand and I got myself ready.

And then I basically just watched the AL Cubs compete in the Tigers, where Logan Gilbert just shoved down their throats for six innings.

I think he had like seven strikeouts.

And I was just, I was just watching the same team.

I was like, well, I didn't need to do this on my off day to watch a non-competitive baseball game.

And the Mariners shit down the Tigers' throat.

I didn't appreciate it.

I didn't need that.

But I did it.

Yeah, it was.

And then they just kind of teased you at the end.

Yeah,

the mayor has brought in that guy who just couldn't, who just got teed off on, and then they just pulled him right out.

They were just like, all right, that's enough.

I think he gave up three hits in a walk, and they're like, get the fuck out of here, dude.

And then they shut him down.

So,

good, good playoff baseball, though.

Great playoff.

Great playoff baseball.

Also, Senor Smoke is a great name for a leaf pitcher.

Yes.

Great,

absolutely.

Zach, did you enjoy the playoff baseball?

I just want to get you some some

HD camera time.

I did enjoy it.

Aaron Jordan's home runs pretty sick.

I mean, that thing was gone.

No.

Oh, so how do you feel if you're.

Go ahead.

Oh, no, nothing.

No, how do you feel if what?

Oh, how do you feel if you're that guy who kind of set it up with that drop ball before?

Oh, brutal.

I guess he just

tough day for him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, I think.

We should have asked memes.

Memes, what do you hate the Yankees?

Did you think it was a cool home run?

Hate the Yankees.

It was a cool home run.

Finally got a good baseball game.

Also, hockey started tonight, and the Rangers are 0-1, last of the Metro.

They were like minus 220 to win that game, weren't they?

Yeah, they lost 3-0.

Wow.

Yeah, hockey.

It's too early for hockey.

I can't deal with hockey right now.

Yeah.

The Blackhawks, that actually was like very offensive that they made the Panthers raise a banner at like four o'clock in the afternoon.

Yeah.

It's kind of crazy, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was stupid.

I don't know.

Okay.

Great baseball.

Let's talk some more baseball on the other side when we're back in studio.

And then we got some great interviews.

What do you got?

I got one more thing.

What did you guys, what was your reaction to the Giannis story from this morning?

Didn't care.

Nothing.

That was the biggest nothing story of all time.

Because I saw it, and I got so confused why Shams was reporting on this.

He reported that over the summer, the one team that Giannis would have agreed to a trade to that the Bucs talked to for a little bit was the Knicks, but they never really got close to a trade, but the situation remains ongoing.

Did I sum that up correctly?

Yeah.

This, to me, screams of the Knicks basically

being like, hey, make sure you mention us so that people think that we're, you know, that Giannis really wants to be here.

And like, make sure you mention us so it's like our fans would be like, oh, yeah, they're, they're close to getting Giannis.

Well, memes disagrees.

Oh, you're close.

I think the Bucs leaked this because they want to move on from Giannis so they could rebuild.

The Knicks don't have any first-round picks, so they want a team that has first-round picks to be like, oh, he is available for trade.

Let me come in.

I like it.

And get a team that has first-round picks and trade him there.

Because the Knicks have no picks to trade.

And there was also a report that his wife's moving to Greece, so he might go play in Greece.

So it's just fingers.

Fingers.

But aren't they?

Then they'd also be waiting for another team that Giannis would like.

Yeah, in theory.

But I mean, them putting out there that he would be okay with being traded to the Knicks, that's what made me think that it was leaked by James Dolan.

Yeah, but the Knicks don't have anything to trade.

I think it's just getting you conditioned, getting you prepared for an eventual trade to the Knicks.

I'd be cool with it.

Yeah.

So we think it's real.

I think the Knicks aren't going to get it done.

I don't think it's going to happen, but I think that the Knicks wanted their fans to be like, hey, we're in talks for Giannis right now.

I agree with PFT, but I kind of like Meme's new theory.

Okay.

Hank?

I don't think he's going anywhere.

Yeah.

Nothing ever happens.

No.

Unless it's Luca.

That was a pretty big thing that happened.

Yeah.

No one knew.

No one knew.

Yeah, no one knew.

No one knew.

Okay.

Let's kick it to ourselves.

We'll talk some more playoff baseball, Monday Night Football.

Tom Fernelli, Mario Cristobal, and Meow Mix Jerry.

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Okay, let's, we're going to talk about it at football, but let's first

maybe Barry Max and I, our baseball team.

It was a bad Monday night.

The Phils are down 02.

The Cubs are down 02.

Do we have any hope, Max?

Do we have any hope?

Realist, no.

We have no hope.

We have no hope.

That was the meekest fight I've ever seen.

But by the time the next game comes around, you're going to convince me.

By the time game time starts tomorrow,

I'm still going to say no hope, but don't let us win tonight.

Don't let us win the night territory is coming.

Okay.

I heard a rumor

around the office

that Wednesday night, game three, Philly's Dodgers might might be an overalls game.

Something's got to change.

Something's got to change.

I mean, the stream was electric.

That's huge.

I mean, that's taking one for the team.

That's fine.

I don't want to do it.

I don't want to do it at all.

But there's a chance that I feel like

I have to.

The only thing that people keep asking me is, where's your overalls?

Where's your overalls?

And I don't want to do it.

I don't want to do it.

It's the only thing that I haven't done yet.

Oh, no.

Pigtails.

Pigtails.

Well,

I got to start overall.

Because you've got to save something in the chamber.

Yeah, right.

Pigtails game is Thursday.

That's the emergency button.

By the way.

So, like, we go down.

Yeah.

We go down looking like a clown.

Yeah.

Yeah.

By the way, the rumor was Max came up to me and goes, I think, I'm thinking overalls.

That was where I heard the scuttle butt.

Even though it might be a bad look if they lose, he's trying to give his team a spark and be a reason that they could win.

And that's admirable.

Absolutely You're such a jerk.

Yeah, I am too.

I'm going to game.

I will be attending game three.

Hank is such a jerk.

I'm worried about the Cubs finally putting together maybe some at-bats.

They stink offensively so bad.

This is the second half Cubs that we saw.

Shota was bad.

We talked about the Matthew Boyd disaster that Craig Counsel got the Cubs into on Saturday.

They can't score.

They have three runs or less in every single game in the playoffs.

They went,

the Brewers just, I don't even know if the Brewers' plan was to go all bullpen.

I think they just were like, let's start with bullpen and see where it goes.

And they just

started striking out every single guy.

We had one hit after the second inning.

We suck offensively.

Everyone strikes out.

The approach sucks.

The pitching is out of gas.

We knew that was happening, though.

Shoto's been out of gas for a while now.

Matthew Boyd, been out of gas, had a little bit of resurgence at the end of the year, but then also pitching on short rest.

The Cubs are in a bad spot.

In a very bad spot.

So, the Brewers rookie reliever that they brought in, he started for a little bit this season, Jacob Mizarowski.

We talked about him like after his first start on the show because he throws the ball harder than fuck.

Yep.

He throws like 104 miles an hour.

Apparently, he's just back to being good because Brewers fans at the end of the season were like, Yeah, I don't even know if we want this guy in the postseason roster because

he might be too young, still learning how to pitch in the big leagues.

And then he came back and he hit 104.3 miles an hour, three innings, no runs.

Yeah, he, I mean, we tuned him up in August, and that was like, hey, he's nothing special.

He can't, you know, he can't locate.

He's has a ton of walks, but then he came in on Monday night and was absolutely phenomenal.

And the entire Brewers bullpen was phenomenal.

Yeah.

They had like 10 strikeouts.

And he had one hit in the last six or seven innings, whatever.

It started out so good when Seya hit that home run.

Both games.

Both games, the top of the first have been awesome.

And then it's just completely non-competitive baseball.

That's the part that drives me insane watching non-competitive baseball, where it's like you're not trying to work counts, you're not trying to do anything different.

You're going up there, you're trying to swing, getting struck out, no one on base, just non-competitive baseball.

And it's so frustrating to watch.

And I do think Craig Counsel has done a bad job in this series, but as much as I want to be like, hey, you fucked this up with the Matthew Boyd thing, the Cubs cannot hit.

That's just plainly what it is.

Outside of Michael Bush and Seya Suzuki, they cannot hit.

So, what are you going to do?

Like, Kyle Tucker's hurt and he can't hit.

PCA strikes out.

I thought he broke out of it at game three with the Padres.

He can't hit.

He almost had.

Map can't hit.

None of these guys.

Nico's the only one who hits outside of him.

PCA almost had maybe the home run robbery of a lifetime.

Oh, my God.

Straight away.

I respect it too because I've done that before playing softball.

Yeah.

The ball was hit probably like, would you say like 100 feet past him?

It was a good 50 to 75 feet above his head.

Above his head, and he goes back to the wall, makes it just all-out effort, tries to high-point it.

It was a very funny situation in a moment where I'm sure, Big Cat, you were very upset and pissed off.

But I saw that I kept replaying it.

It's funny.

I do respect it, too.

It's like, you never know.

He's going all out.

You never know unless you try.

And credit to the Brewers, by the way, because Pat Murphy's been coaching, managing this series perfectly.

He threw off the Cubs with Ashby, the opener,

on Monday night.

Got Michael Bush out of the lineup, which I understood.

Michael Bush can't hit lefties.

It feels like the Brewers are just doing moves, and then Craig Council's on his heels trying to do counter moves.

And the Brewers are the opposite of the Cubs in the fact that they get guys up, they make contact, they don't strike out a bunch, they have productive playoff at bats, and the Cubs do not.

And that's what the series comes out to.

So I read a stat today about Ms.

Rowski in case they bring him back, because he did pitch so well.

Dorkiest, dorkiest celebration after that first

inning that he was in.

Yeah, yeah, it was.

I would agree.

That's all I have right now.

He's a rookie.

I mean, give me that.

He's a rookie.

Give me that.

He is the least masculine guy that I've ever seen.

I've never sucked.

Yeah, I'm so lame.

That was so lame.

He's the lamest dude that can throw 104 miles an hour.

Yeah.

But I have to, this is what I know that I'm in a bad spot and I'm coping and this is loser talk, but I need to at least be like, that was lame.

Yeah, no, I hear you 100%.

But the good news for you guys is that the second and third times teams see Ms.

Rowski, they get way better offensively.

Like, way better.

The stat is.

But we've seen him before.

No, but I mean, like, okay, so if it's in the, if they see him multiple times, it gets better.

You haven't seen him for a while, though, right?

We saw him in August.

Yeah, in August.

But we've seen him multiple times.

Like, it's.

But we just stink.

But it's been a long time.

Because the stat is that the OPS jumped from 600 to almost 700.

Is this in a game or second time through a lineup?

Oh, yeah,

he's not going to pitch.

No, no, no, no.

Not in the same game.

How many times has he faced?

Oh, you're saying like ever?

Yeah, so when hitters, when they face him multiple times in the regular season,

they get better against him.

Right, but the only problem is we've seen him, and we didn't get better.

All right, well, I'm just saying it should get better.

I don't even know.

Like, he doesn't, that's the thing is the Brewers have, like,

they didn't use Priester.

They can use him.

They can bring back Peralta.

Kintana, who's not very good and doesn't scare me, but he can pitch.

Like,

they have slanted this series so perfectly against the Cubs, where it's just Cubs are out of any type of answers.

And yes, it sucks not having starting pitching.

That's been a killer in this series.

You think Christian Yelich is going to give you a wink at the game?

Maybe.

Probably not.

He's probably going to be locked in.

I'm going to try to save the season on Wednesday, and then I'm going to try to save the season on Thursday.

And then, oh, don't let us get to Saturday.

Because we probably won't.

I don't know what else to say.

It sucks.

Sucks.

Max, what's your game plan?

Who are you throwing?

I think we're going to.

So you talk about how Craig County, you think Craig Counsel is doing a lot of money.

Yeah, that bunt was bad.

Every decision that he makes seems like the stupid one

all series.

He's such a good manager in the regular season, and for some reason,

the playoffs come around and he shits his pants.

He coaches scared.

Yeah, why do you bunt in that situation?

Max, it feels like in the moment, you guys need how many runs?

Three more runs?

No,

you need one run to tie, but there's no out.

For the first time all game, the stadium is actually into it.

You're actually using Red October to your advantage, and you just kill it by a bunt.

Even if you get that bunt down, it's not like the place is going to pop off.

Right.

Like,

trust your guy to pull a ground ball or pull a fly ball.

It's a left-handed hitter.

I get it's a lefty-on-lefty matchup, but the chances of winning the baseball game go up so much more if you don't just give up that out.

Getting a bunt down is not a guarantee that that man is getting over to third base, which we saw.

Trust your hitter in that situation.

Trust the crowd, the vibes of the crowd to build him up and to build up that team.

You just, You just killed it.

You just killed everything with that.

Yeah.

No, I mean, Max said it.

So I was with him because it was the switchover in the cave, and he said, I do not like bunting here.

So this is not hindsight.

This is what he said in the moment.

No, I'm a big fan of small ball.

I love it when scrappy teams just manufacture runs, just like figure out a way with duct tape and string to get one guy across the plate.

But you don't do that that late in the game.

No, that's a bunt that you

put down in the fourth inning.

It'd be great in the second second inning.

Yeah.

It'd be an awesome bunt.

Or even if it's like, I understand it even more if it's like the extra innings in the regular season because there's no, like,

that guy on second just got, just, is a ghost runner there.

That's how smart.

It's not like

you're feeding off of any momentum.

Like, it's the momentum that just really pissed me off.

Yeah.

Is that it was the first time the stadium was feeling something and just ride it.

Just ride it.

Trust your guys.

And the fact that after the game, he's like, yeah, I was playing for the tie.

I liked where our bullpen was in that spot.

Play to win the game.

Don't play scared.

And also just make plays.

The difference between the Dodgers, the difference between the Phillies is that Max Muncie made a perfect play to throw to third.

And

Trey Turner,

there's a screenshot out there right now of where Trey Turner was when he fielded that ball at short and where Tay Oscar Hernandez, one of the slowest guys on the Dodgers, was going down the base path.

And that should be an out 100 times out of 100.

If you just make that throw anywhere near the left side of the plate, he is out.

Just make the plays.

This team is just not making plays to win the game.

Rob Thompson is coaching like a loser.

We have Aaron Nola.

We have Aaron Nola pitching game three, must win, basically just because Aaron Nola has been there a long time.

It's the only thing that can make sense.

I get it.

Ranger Swords can come out of the pen.

Aaron Nola can't come out of the pen because he's never done it before.

But the stats are insane.

Aaron Nola's postseason stats in his career, he has an above four ERA in 53 innings.

Ranger Suarez has a 1-4 in 37 and 2-3rds innings.

Throw your better pitcher.

His reasoning for Aaron Nola is that he's a big-time pitcher.

Ranger Suarez is a big-time pitcher.

Pitch your best guys.

I'm sorry.

No, no, Max.

I got a question.

I feel it, Max.

Also,

credit to Freddie Freeman.

That was an awesome scoop at first base.

Right?

It was a fine scoop.

I think he put on the theatrics of it a little bit.

It was a good play.

You're a first baseman and you expect yourself to make that.

He thought too much theatrics after the scoop.

I mean, it did save the game.

I know, but that's me.

That's me

being out.

I've never heard you turn down a scoop.

It must be bad.

Max,

have you thought about...

You can call me short.

It's okay.

No, no.

That was fair.

Okay, fair.

Have you thought about what this series means for this group of guys done

that's it this is the end for this group of guys if if they go down if they go down like this they're it means it's over

the the line they're already one of the oldest like cores in baseball and

a lot of people are contract is up after this year so

you can't just go throw more money at something that isn't working so like you have to try something else well it did work it did work for a while like you guys you never won a world series never worked they never won a Werner Series.

Yeah, that's right.

Our top three hitters.

Our top three hitters since game six of 2023, NLCS, have a combined 143 batting average and 544 OPS.

There's like 200,

there's like 200 million a year between these three guys.

That's the saddest part about.

I feel like baseball is the biggest sport when it comes to that is like the end of this group playing together, especially when they played well for so long.

So, Max, you might not believe me, but I am rooting for you this series.

Yeah, no, it would be a miraculous comeback.

I wish we had our best pitcher pitching in a must-win game.

But you got overalls.

You got overalls.

We're going to try the overalls, and hopefully, Rob Thompson.

You're leading by example.

The goalies should look at young people.

The vibes of Aaron Nola are going to be right here, even though he has an above-six ERA in the regular season to Rangers 2-2.

2-2 is a lie, but

Nola is above 6.

I think

Rangers 3-2, but

I don't know.

Let's go get a win.

Let's go get a win tomorrow.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe we just, Nolah just finds it, and you just win game three.

Sanchez comes out, game four, shoves again, and then

anything can happen.

Game five.

The bank is dead.

The bank is.

See, that's why you might actually be in a better stop with the Cubs because the Cubs, I do actually think, can win game three, but then I don't know what we do when we have to go back to Boyd and back to Shota.

Shota's been cooked for a while now.

He just gives up home runs every fucking game.

Yeah, the difference is that's why, you know, in your head, it's like,

win game three, see what happens, because then you get your ace back on the mound.

We don't have an ace.

So fucking good all year.

Yeah.

Yeah, we got no ace.

Hank, what are your thoughts?

Got no ace.

The Phillies game was tough.

I think the Phillies still have a better chance to win than the Cubs.

Yeah.

But the Dodgers are so good.

The Dodgers are so good.

I think the Phillies are better than the Cubs, but the Dodgers are way better than the Brewers.

If the Phillies can blow out the Dodgers, though, then they can get some momentum.

That's the thing.

Now we see Yamamoto.

They just only

if they show them.

They got to show them.

Yeah, no, that like.

You need the Bats to come alive.

Yeah.

I need the Bats to come alive.

I need our top three of the order to hit over 143.

You need your starting pitcher to settle down, and then you need to get a bit more.

Our starting pitchers have been fantastic.

Well, you're talking about the starting pitcher pitcher for.

Oh, no, yeah.

Right.

Game three.

Nolah.

Yes, Nola needs to settle down.

Like, he gives up a couple hits in the first.

Don't panic.

Settle down.

And then you need the bats to wake up.

No, yes.

Because Ranger Suarez is

out of the pen.

If Nola gives up one run,

I want him out.

You won't give him a chance to settle down.

Zero chance.

You have to

settle out.

You have to.

I give him zero chance to settle down.

Get him out as soon as possible.

Get him out.

Short leash.

Yeah, I need.

The quickest leash.

I need the smallest of leashes.

Isn't your dog named Nola?

No.

It was.

That's kind of crazy, isn't it?

Now you had a short leash on Nola.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just need balls in play.

That's what I'm asking for.

I need balls in play.

The Cubs have struck out 19 times in the first two games of the series.

Balls in play.

19 is a lot.

We both know what we need.

Yeah.

Balls in play and what was your i don't know our stars to show up i need our top i need our top three guys to show up because i haven't okay what hank it's bad it's it's dire hank

he hates seeing you guys like well it's all hands on deck it's all hands on deck you gotta fucking do whatever you gotta do just win just be focused

yeah go ahead hank no i go ahead no i got you go ahead i'm i'm

in go ahead he'll spark what's the subtext behind all these all these little things that you've just been jabbing I don't know.

I'm just saying.

All right, I'll explain it real quick.

I was supposed to,

there was a plan for me to get my big check for winning the 50-50 on Wednesday before the Cubs game.

I said, I do not want to get the big check.

I need to have all my focus on the Cubs winning this game.

Hank is trying to set me up for failure to go back to check.

No.

The Cubs at home this postseason

are 2-0.

In games that I have nothing to do with the 50-50.

They are 0-1 when I've won the 50-50.

I am worried that if I go and accept this big check, they'll be 0-2 on games where I've gotten a check, gotten the big check, or won the 50-50.

I'm not willing to risk that.

I need to focus on the game.

It's not about a big check.

It's about the game.

The Cubs have to win the game.

I'm not getting a big check on a potential elimination day.

I feel strong about my decision.

I think there's one caveat to this.

That's destiny, though.

You can't choose that.

It's not your fault it happened to be an elimination game, but it's like, that's destiny.

Well, no, that's not destiny.

They figured out who won the 50-50, and then they invited me.

Right.

They literally were like, you can come on Thursday, too.

And I was like,

it's also elimination.

It's also elimination game.

So, what?

I think you should accept the check.

It's going to be the spark plug that turns the Cubs around.

And then it's the same thing as Max and the overall.

I don't want to get a fucking check on the day the Cubs season ends.

Yeah, but imagine if you accept the check and they come back.

I'm going to try to get them to come back by being there.

So cheering my balls off.

Hank walked into the room when Big Kid and and I were talking about the situation.

I was telling Big Kat

I wouldn't do the check either because of exactly the reasons he's saying.

And then Hank goes, you guys are two losers.

And yeah, listen, yes, that is very much operating from the losing mentality, 100%.

But then, Hank, you're not, you're also just encouraging Big Cat to do this to see the misery that follows after he gets to the channel.

Big Katzhop misery either way.

There's misery either way.

That would be Hank's weight.

People are going to be

to be laughing at you either way.

I'm going to get the big check.

Why not?

Eventually.

They said that they can get me the big check no matter what.

I just do not want to do it on an elimination game.

I think that's a very appropriate thing.

It's

a focus on the game.

Can I give you an example?

Also, they wanted me to get there at 1.30, and that's two and a half hours before first pitch, and I do actually have to work a little bit on Wednesday, and I also don't want to sit in the ballpark for two and a half hours of an elimination game just with my thoughts.

Remember when I wanted to shave my head

at the beginning of next season and Joe Missoula told me that's you can't carry on stuff from this season into next season with this loser mentality.

If you can get Craig Counsel to call me and tell me to go accept the check, I will accept the check.

Fair.

That's fair.

What you just said is fair.

Also, if you

accept the check.

But if you're sticking with your guns.

It's the exact same thing.

You can't have anything to do with the 50-50.

You're not allowed to buy any 50-50 tickets.

True.

That's not a fucking rule.

It is.

Max makes a good point.

No, that's not a rule at all.

Because what if you win?

I will not say that I won.

If we lose, then I will.

I will not say that I won.

You're not allowed to buy 50-50 tickets.

No.

That should be the compromise.

Wrong.

There's also a 0% chance that Rocket wins that 50-50.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

And that doesn't say that he won if they won't.

That's correct.

Yeah, that's like if you run a marathon, don't kill anybody.

Hey, for all everyone knows, I won the 50-50 on Wednesday because if I won it and we lose, you'll never know.

Yeah, I might have done that marathon.

You don't know.

What if they wanted you to do double big check?

Zach just brought up this point.

If I win on Wednesday, I'll make the deal.

If I win on Wednesday and they want to do double big check on Thursday, which would also be an elimination game, I will be there for the double big check.

Okay, what about this?

What if they said Wednesday night or Wednesday afternoon, we want to do the big check, but we're going to make the check even bigger than we told you?

Like mega check.

How big do you just got mega check and mega ticket in your brain.

How big does how big does no get this guy a big cardboard something?

How big would the check need to be?

Like as big as the American flag that they do in the entire outfield.

If that was the size of the check, you'd say yes.

If they covered the, if the tarp

was the check.

Yes.

Okay.

I need like I need an entire elementary school having to carry out the check.

Yeah.

Would you feel bad if you won the 50-50 again in anxiety?

At that point, it becomes a jinx.

Yeah, no, at that point, actually, no, I will say this.

If the Cubs lose tomorrow and I win the 50-50, I will 100% retire from 50-50 for the rest of my life.

That's a fact.

Because then it would just be like you literally only won on losses, on big playoff losses.

So that is a fact.

But what a way to go out it would be.

It would.

You were too auto-winner.

You were too good.

You had to pay my time winner.

I had to pay it myself.

I was bad for the league.

All right.

We should talk some football real quick.

Monday night football was phenomenal.

Incredible Monday Night Football game.

I wish we had saved this game for when we didn't also have playoff baseball.

But Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars win a game that the Jacksonville Jaguars never win.

And it feels like something's shifting because that last drive.

Trevor Lawrence, on that last drive, he went from picking his nose, the most blatant picking of a nose on national television, to that last drive where he started it with a, what was it, like a 40-second run for three yards that when they needed time,

uh, made an incredible play, Travis Hunter made an incredible play.

Brian Thomas, that was a great pass.

Delay a game on the goal line, then falls down and somehow gets up and scores a touchdown.

And you're like, holy shit, the Jaguars actually did it.

Yeah, that is a game that the Jaguars lose, and that's a game that the Chiefs win all the time.

It was kind of crazy to see the Chiefs because, like, we've all, we've all seen these games from the chiefs where the other team ends up being like what the just happened yep that only but what we're seeing with the chiefs i don't think it's like a loss of their weird black magic voodoo or whatever i think it's that the chiefs they're starting to lose games in ways that are familiar to every other team out there to every other fan base it's they they look like all of us now yeah so like when people talk about is this the end of the road for the chiefs i'm actually i'm starting to think that it it might kind of be their their regression back to being just like kind of a normal, good football team.

Well, which is still a good place to be.

Like, talk to a Cardinals fan and be like,

can you believe that a team lost because their defensive lineman just didn't move on a goal line stand and the guy fell down and then walked in?

They'd be like, oh, yeah, that's not that bad.

Like these types of losses that the Chiefs are experiencing now,

they're super familiar to all.

We've seen our own teams do this.

And so for me, it's more about seeing the Chiefs and being like, oh, I can see some of myself in the Chiefs now, which i've never been able to do with the patrick mahomes andy reed combination yeah the devin loyd 99 yard pick return which was electric uh but yeah to to to your to back up your point even with stats a lot of the nfl the teams are so close to each other obviously the chiefs are very very good they were very very good last year year before they won the super bowl two years in a row whatever

It is a lot of times that the margins are the bounce of the ball and like a little bit here, a little bit there in these close games.

Last year, the Chiefs were 10-0 in seven point games decided by seven points or less.

This year, they're 0-3.

Yeah, that's that's it.

It's not like they're getting blown out, they're just not winning the close games that they won literally all of last year.

And that was the Chiefs now have their third loss.

Last year, their third loss was in the Super Bowl.

Damn, pretty crazy.

I still think the Chiefs will be in the playoffs.

They do have to play the Lions on Sunday night.

That was

not going to be easy, but I was more like walking away from that impressed with the Jaguars because it feels like

not

the Jaguars are set and going to be a Super Bowl, but that is a game they always lose.

It's a game they always, always lose.

It should also be 5-0.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very good.

Jake Browning, that Travis Hunter

defensive pass interference call away from being 5-0.

And when Trevor Lawrence jumped over the offensive line on the goal line, that was in the first half, I think, right?

And it got knocked out of his hand like maybe a centimeter before it crossed the bottom of the ball.

I think he might have scored.

It was close enough where it was like, I don't, I don't.

I saw a screenshot that looked like he scored.

Yeah, you can get screenshots.

Yeah, you can have some copium screenshot and be like, look, we should have blown the Chiefs out.

That was, that to me, at that moment, I was like, oh, the Jaguars are fucked.

Yeah.

It's going to be one of those nights for them.

But then things kind of started to turn the other way.

And

kickers absolutely love.

illegal procedure penalties when it's late in the fourth quarter and it's like a close game.

Yep.

They love kicking the ball out of bounds and then the announcer's going, oh, that's the one thing you can't do there.

Do it.

You got to be better than that.

But yet, Trevor Lawrence looked good.

For the most part, Trevor Lawrence looked really good.

He ran a good amount.

He looked erratic, but erratic work.

Yeah, erratic, but like...

Travis Hunter.

Travis Hunter, awesome.

Showed out a little.

Yeah, there were some moments, and I think Trevor described his game-winning touchdown run as just panic.

Yeah.

Like he was on the ground, tried to get up, panicked, fell down again, tried to get up again, and then he just had to scoot his ass in the end zone.

But yeah, Chris Jones on that last play,

not great.

No.

Not a great visual for Chris Jones to be putting on tape.

He just kind of like stood up, and to his credit, it was late.

He was probably tired.

Yeah.

It was the fourth quarter of a game.

He'd been exercising for like an hour and a half, so he was tired.

Tired.

And he just stood up and just didn't really seem like he wanted to move at all.

And it was like kind of Albert Hainsworth-like.

Yeah, it was.

It was.

It was a tough look.

Also, great block by the guard on that play where the tackle of the Jaguars got him held up and then just the guard finished him, and that was basically what sprung him.

Do you guys want a crazy stat?

This was the first time that the Chiefs, Bills, and Ravens all lost in the same week since

2015.

2000, no,

no, Josh, 2000.

2019.

Week nine of 2017.

Oh, shit.

Crazy.

Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were still in college, and Patrick Romans hadn't taken a single snap.

It's a new era.

Fuck them.

Fuck them.

Also, we had this idea on Wake Up Barcelona this morning, but there really should be commissioners for each division in the NFL because the AFC South needs some better PR.

They're really good now.

Colts are 4-1.

Jaguars are 4-1.

Texans are kind of turning it around with, you know, they're 2-3.

Even the Titans won.

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a commissioner for each division?

Yeah.

Just had like commercials and stuff, and you're like, yeah, hey, here at the AFC South, we actually play winning football now.

It would be great if they all had commissioners and all the commissioners lobbied to get them into the playoff at the end of the year.

Yeah, that's right.

But they still use the same criteria to get into the playoffs at the end of the year.

But you still have guys out there shilling be like, this is why ours, we actually deserve four teams in the playoffs this year.

Right.

Hey, welcome on the commissioner of the AFC West this week.

And like, the negative ads would be very funny, too, if the AFC South was like, hey, everyone thinks we suck.

Hey, but how do you get an unbiased commissioner?

No, you need the most bias.

Yeah, no, that's the thing.

But like, how do you get out?

No, I'm saying like an unbiased commissioner that's not biased towards any of the teams in the.

They're just, no, they're just, they're rooting for the division.

Right.

Yeah.

Who, who would qualify for that?

I mean, I was, I was kind of the one.

The NFC Beast commissioner for a little bit biased.

I could do the AFC South right now.

I got no ties to any of these teams.

I'd just be like, hey, did you know the AFC South has two teams that are four and one?

Did you know that...

The Texans is your pinky team.

Yeah, I know.

And then I would just do some negative campaigning, too.

I'd be like, hey, do you know the AFC North, the best quarterback in the AFC North starting this week is a 41-year-old?

Then I'd be like, hey, the AFC North, actually, that's a system conference.

Yeah.

Because they just all have Joe Flacco.

Are we sure the NFC West is good?

Ask yourself that.

AFC South should be like, hey, did you know that Jacksonville is actually the largest market by square miles in the United States?

Yes, this is what I'm saying.

It's the biggest city in the country.

You know, in the AFC South, people don't talk about three-fourths of the teams not having Mark Sanchez get stabbed in their city.

Did you know that in the AFC South, we don't pay state income tax except for Indy?

Yeah, this is the type of shit we need.

Yeah.

It's good.

It'd be good.

I want this.

I just want to watch.

I want to watch a football game and see just an attack ad on a certain division.

Right.

Like, yeah,

the NFC South sucks.

Yeah, they have the bucks, but what else?

The one city where Mark Sanchez does get stabbed, it sounds like it's really easy to have a huge party night.

Yeah.

In that city.

It was actually his fault.

It sounds like there's some great, great things, great party favors in Indy.

Oh, is there more to the story that came out?

I said sounds like it.

It sounds like it.

I said, sounds like.

Sounds alleged.

Yeah.

Speaking of divisions, we do have Joe Flacco now on the Cincinnati Bengals.

Thank you, Bengals.

A huge, I don't know how you guys took the news, but I had just a huge sigh of relief because I'm excited to watch Joe Flacco in primetime.

I had a huge sigh of relief, and then I had a huge gasp of panic when I remembered the state of the offensive line for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Yeah.

And then I remembered that Joe Flacco is 41 years old.

But guess what?

He can just throw it up to Jamar.

He could.

He could just throw it to Jamar.

He could throw it to anyone.

He could throw it to anyone, but especially Jamar.

Especially Jamar.

But will he have enough time to take one step and throw a pass to Jamar?

Yes.

I hope he will.

Yes.

My biggest takeaway is that Thanksgiving is now safe.

Yes.

Like at least Joe Flacco saved Thanksgiving.

We didn't want Jameis.

Nope.

We never wanted that.

We wanted Joe this whole time.

It's going to be great.

That's exactly what we wanted.

No, it's like we have Jameis at home.

Yeah.

And Joe's Jameis at home.

Yeah.

Also, why did Brett Rippin get cut?

I don't know.

Because they cut one.

So I don't understand.

Aaron, pardon my take.

We're asking the real question.

No, everyone's wondering.

I don't understand that part of it.

It's like, how is Brett Rippon the scapegoat for Jake Browning?

Well, did,

like, how many quarterbacks they have?

If Jake Browning beats Brett Rippin in a competition, and that's how bad Brett Rippon is.

So just cut him.

I don't know how much worse that could be.

Yeah, but how many...

Exactly.

Do they have another backup quarterback?

Sean Clifford, is he still there?

I don't know.

I mean, they're probably going to just bring him back to practice squad, right?

That's got to be what's going to happen.

Yeah, I just didn't know why he had to take the fall for that.

That's the real story.

Brett Rippon didn't do anything wrong.

That's the real thing people aren't talking about.

Wait, was he named the starter, Joe Flacco?

Yeah, so from what I read, they're like, Joe, he's a quick learner, so we hope that he can make an impact against the Packers.

Oh, so Joe just got done playing against Michael Parsons.

He beat the Packers, actually.

Yeah, he beat the Packers.

So

maybe they just sign him for a week?

Be like, this is our Packers specialist.

Yeah.

Teach our defense how to be good against the Packers, please.

Go beat the Packers.

All right, let's do Hot C Cool Trump.

And then we got a great trio of interviews.

We got Tom Fernelli talking college football.

We got Mario Cristobal, head coach of the Miami Miami Hurricanes.

And interview I love doing, we got Jerry from the Meow Mix podcast that is now defunct, talking to him about what happened when a football team is so bad it makes you stop doing a podcast about that team.

Hank, hot seat cool thrown.

My hot seat is the NCAA tournament.

This is happening, isn't it?

It seems like it's happening.

Not this year, but next year.

It was always going to happen.

This is how I feel like

back when when people invented the printing press and the Luddites burned the barns that they were in.

Like, fuck you, technology.

I'm going to stand here screaming about how I hate this, but there's really nothing I can do about it.

And I just know that expansion is going to continue to happen.

Do they not realize that, like,

a lot of the fun of the March Madness is the lead-up and the bubble watch, and now the bubble watch is basically done?

Like,

the bubble watch is over.

They're taking away one of our favorite things, which is to spend exactly 24 hours being pissed off about a team that didn't get in.

What do you think Joe Lenardi's thinking, or do you think he's probably sleeping?

Oh, no, this is good for Joe Lennarti.

More teams being in the bubble.

No, but more teams being talked about for the bubble.

This is, I feel like Big Joe is behind this.

It'll be the same amount of teams talked about.

It's like basketball, though, where it's like all the teams that are

going to suck.

Yeah, it's basically just teams above 500 are going to go.

No, but there are going to be so many more average teams that think maybe we'll get in, and they'll click on Joe's articles to see if they're first four in, first four out, next four out.

If you're on the bubble in a 70s,

you don't deserve to be on the bubble.

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying.

We're not going to be able to be as mad about teams getting left out.

Right.

Right.

But

I love getting mad about that.

And there's also just going to be so many teams that are, I don't want to see play more basketball.

This is great news for Villanova.

Great news.

We suck.

I have a question.

Yeah.

Does this mean

that

all conference

or all conference champions will not play in the first round?

I don't know.

You know what I'm asking?

No.

Yeah.

I don't.

I think it's bullshit that

they do play-in games for conference.

Oh, the play-in games.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The first four.

Got it.

I agree with that.

Oh, like the 16 seeds?

Like, it sucks that the 16 seeds don't even get to actually make the turnout.

I agree with that.

So I'm hoping that this will at least eliminate that.

All-at-large teams.

I don't know the rule.

I thought maybe.

When is the extra games going to be played?

Is it going to be the Tuesday, Wednesday?

Probably that.

Yeah, Monday.

I mean, listen, when they give me more basketball, I'm going to watch some more basketball, but I am not happy about it.

Yeah.

Okay, your cool throw?

My cool throw is Amazon Prime, Prime Day.

Yes.

Stella Blue Coffee.

30% up to 30% off stella blue coffee go buy save some dogs i also wrote this down last night when i thought the lebron decision was going to be a ad for amazon prime turned out it was just an ad for uh hennessy yeah that was so lame by lebron i thought that it was going to be a major announcement yeah i thought he was really going to do yeah i can't believe i can't believe lebron lied to us i didn't realize this but i was talking to titus about it and uh Because I was like, yeah, I think LeBron's going to retire within the next year or two.

He was saying that he doesn't think LeBron's going to retire until 2028 when the Olympics are in L.A.

That's so much more LeBron.

I don't, I think.

That's so much more LeBron.

I think one more year.

I think one more year, then he starts his own league.

But the Olympics makes sense.

That will be the last basketball he plays is the Olympics in 2028.

I thought Hank was saying he starts his own league, then he starts his own Olympics.

No, but he starts his own league, stays in shape, and then Olympics.

Yeah.

I do think that he's going to do the thing where he creates a rival league to the NBA and just tries to take them down.

Yeah.

Okay, PFT, your hot seat, Cool Train.

My hot seat is fake news media that clamors on to people making obscene gestures when that's not actually what they were doing.

So if you consider yourself a member of that fake news media, you're on the hot seat because the video of Jerry Jones where he appeared to flip off fans.

Okay.

Memes, did you see that?

Jets fans?

It turns out that was a big misunderstanding.

Jerry said that was unfortunate.

There was a swarm of Cowboys fans out front.

It was right after we made our last touchdown.

I put up the wrong show of hand.

The intention was thumbs up.

So he accidentally flipped him off instead of giving a thumbs up.

Class act.

It's a class act.

All the time, yeah.

Class act.

Very class act.

It happens.

I don't know why people got upset about it.

The league fined him $250,000, which feels like a lot of money for a simple mistake.

He's an old man.

His hands don't work right all the time.

He tried to give you a thumbs up memes.

I loved it.

Yeah.

That's just a New York hello.

More owners should do it.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

What did David Tepper do?

He stole a man's hat.

Yeah.

Yeah, don't do that.

Just flip him off.

David Tepper should have said, Little Mr., I meant to tip my hat to the guy, not take his hat.

My hands got confused.

It was a perfect middle finger and then point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I liked a middle finger point.

You.

Yeah.

Flipped you off.

Yeah.

But I just

love Jerry being like yeah that was uh my hand my hand messed up yeah it was unfortunate uh then my cool throne is connor mcdavid

connor mcdavid's on the cool throne he just signed a uh contract

going back to the oilers and uh it's a pretty team-friendly deal i'd say it's like a very steep hometown discount 12 and a half mil for mcdavid that sounds right years yeah so people are excited to have him back in edman see if he can win the big one um

to me when I saw this,

this

one of two things.

I think you're about to say the same thing that I said to Jans earlier.

Okay, all right.

So,

one of two things popped in my head when I saw the hometown discount.

One, does he have some sort of tree planting deal on the side?

Or, like, I don't know what they do up in Edmonton, like icicle planting.

I didn't think that.

And then, two,

this seems like it would be

very easily tradable.

Bingo.

Very, very

to a team that is contending.

Very, very easily tradable contract.

Yeah.

He basically, I mean, it's smart by him.

Yeah.

He's like, hey,

if I take a shitload of money and I want to go try to play for a cup.

Now, obviously, you could also say he took less money so that the team could get better.

You got to hope the Oilers do that.

But if in a year and a half the Oilers aren't competing

and he can go somewhere for a year and a half and it doesn't fuck up some team's cap, interesting.

Like, if you were a GM, maybe like a brand new GM in hockey, new to the league, would you just make a call today?

Yeah.

And be like, hey, can we trade you for Conor McDavid?

Yeah, that's a good deal.

Like, we'll take him.

We'll throw in a lot of stuff.

I'm happy for Oilers fans, though, because

I hope Conor McDavid stays in Edmonton.

That would suck if he leaves.

I agree.

I hope he wins a cup.

I'm going to start rooting for him to win a cup this year.

We put a future on him.

I think it would be.

I think it would be great.

And

I'm rooting for him in theory.

It is a lot of fun to make fun of our friends friends that love him.

Friend.

Friend.

We have one friend who's in love with him.

I'm going to root for Conor McDavid this year.

I'm going to say it right now.

I'm rooting for Conor McDavid.

100%.

Not as a troll.

Not as a troll.

I'm going to put real money on it.

Until the Olympics.

Yeah, then I hope he fucking gets smushed.

Yeah.

Hope we kick his ass.

What's the Canadian, like the Canadian exchange rate?

Does that make it even more of a team-friendly deal?

Loonies?

Yeah.

How many loonies is $12 million United States dollars?

I don't know.

Or is he getting paid 12.5 million loonies a year?

Probably throwing out Tim Bits.

This is great having Max look up currency exchange.

We're going to be here a while.

This is going to be good.

Oh, no.

Max, when it says pounds, that's actually.

One dollar was worth approximately 72 U.S.

dollars.

One loony.

No.

One loony is worth $20.

$0.72

of a U.S.

dollar.

Okay, so that's a super team-friendly deal.

I was trying to talk over you calling me fat.

That's, yeah.

Good call.

All right.

That was your cool throne, right?

Yeah.

My other cool throne is Baton Rouge.

Go to Baton Rouge on Friday.

Pup Punk is playing at Fred's.

It's one of my favorite bars in the entire world.

Best college bar in America.

At Fred's, we do the fucking, right?

Yep.

The good people at Fred's took care of our dear, sweet boy, Hank, when he was on the Dixie tour, brought you in, clothed you, bathed you.

Took you in off the street.

It's an awesome bar.

We're going to have a lot of fun.

Me, Roan, Caroline, Robbie

Frankie, and Nick are going to be playing there in Pup Punk on Friday.

And so come out, see us.

I think it's free.

So just come get drunk with us, have a good time.

And we have, can we put the new song at the end of the show?

Peaked in High School?

Yeah.

That's the one that we got hot.

Don't copyright us.

Mark Hoppis.

I won't strike you.

Mark Hoppis in the interview gave us a sample to use on Peaked in High School.

So it's featuring Mark Hoppis, technically.

That would be funny if you copyrighted us.

I might do it.

All right, my hot seat is the human brain because the wall street journal had an article today that the human brain uh can hold how many meaningful relationships in their life anyone want to take a guess one the lord how many meaningful relationships can the human brain hold at one time four

hmm i think how many friends can you have

does it count like parents family i don't know maybe i didn't read the article okay what if it's zero it's 150.

Oh, shit.

Which is way too many.

Yeah.

No, that's just not true.

Who has 150 friends?

It's not true.

It's insane.

Max says he's got to go to a wedding every week.

I'm not using any of my people.

Yeah, no.

150 friends is actually pretty easy once you get into wedding.

Wedding season, Vulture, yeah.

Yeah.

I was shocked by that.

People are going to get cut.

I thought the answer was going to be like 12.

Yeah, I was thinking even less than that.

Like this room.

Now I feel like a loser can't do it.

And like five other people.

Yeah, I'm like, okay, this room, family, Jaden.

That's about it.

Yeah.

That's about it.

Yeah, that's it.

That's it.

That's it right there.

And then my cool throne is Jalen Hurts.

Because

what?

You're going to say some bullshit.

No, I'm not.

It's on the cool throne off the hot seat.

It's the cool throne, dude.

I don't mean to be this negative, Max.

The wide angle of the Hail Mary came out, and Jalen Hurts tried to get his own rebound.

And I will say this: if people didn't see it, he literally threw the Hail Mary and then sprinted to the end zone to try to get it if it bobbled and somehow landed back at him.

I'll say this right now.

If that ever happens, that will be the coolest play in all of sports.

Yeah, I thought it was fake at first.

Sports history.

He was flying.

That was sports history.

The fact that he got as far down as he did was.

If there was two bobbles, he would have been there.

Follow your shot.

Incredible.

Yeah, it would have been awesome.

A.J.

Brown would have been pissed.

Yeah.

That would have been very funny, actually.

But yeah, look at him go.

It's incredible.

He went to try to get it.

I've never seen a quarterback do that before.

I really liked this play, Max.

Yeah.

That was good.

Really, really like this play.

Thank you for no slander.

Did you guys think that Patrick Mahomes kind of didn't throw it as far as I thought he would?

His arm is dead.

I'm not saying that it wasn't far, but it wasn't.

It wasn't far at all.

It looked like Jalen Hurts in the Super Bowl.

Remember that?

It's not Baker's arm.

It's It's not Josh Allen.

He threw it from like the 40-yard line and didn't make it to the end zone.

Except on a foot.

And then Max said any quarterback can throw Hale in there.

How far was the Mahomes throw?

We need to look at the air yards on that.

I don't think it was like Josh Allen and Baker can definitely throw Haley.

It was from the 20 to the 20.

So 60 yards.

60 yards.

But the way that he wound up for it, I thought maybe there's a chance he gets to the goal line.

I did too.

I was like, holy shit, this one's actually going to go from the 20

to the 20.

It's like 63 yards.

But still,

I always assumed that he could throw it as far as he wanted to.

Right.

There's no limit.

It says

68 yards, and Baker Mayfield threw a post-route 64 yards.

That's what this guy, Joe A NFL, says.

Joe Milton would have made it from the goal line.

Joe Milton.

You can't say that, Max.

You can't say that.

You said you wouldn't talk about him like that anymore after he fucked her over.

Thank you.

Yeah, you know that he could he could throw it yeah he definitely could the man threw an orange don't even smile max 100 max you remember when he threw that orange and then he said that he threw the ball out of top golf

you know i love jokes shut up cut that delete delete no no don't don't keep we're keeping that freedom of speech free of speech that law that over loss started uh that was a domino of just losses also in that monday night game trevor lawrence just does not know where the line of scrimmage is nope ever he's never gonna learn troy number one run past the line of scrimmage and throw it guys.

Does you guys have the sound on?

I did not.

Troy Aikman kind of roasted him.

He was like, yeah, you know, sometimes Trevor doesn't really know where he is on the field.

And this is him making another one of those plays again.

He just has no idea where the stick is.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, he played well.

It was just erratic.

It was just, it's just chaotic sometimes with

Trevor Lawrence, which I like.

He actually might be like our new

like Jameis Philip Rivers hybrid.

I'd say more of more along the lines of Phil.

Yeah, but a hybrid.

All right, Zach, finish us off.

My hot seat this week is Drake.

Are you guys familiar with Travis Scott and Kendrick Gamar?

The McDonald's guy?

Oh, no, not the McDonald's guy.

Travis Scott, musician.

Kendrick Kamar, also musician.

Didn't Travis Scott have a McDonald's guy?

Yeah, he's a McDonald's guy.

I take it back.

Definitely a McDonald's guy.

Definitely had McDonald's order.

That's on me, Big Cat.

He's the golf shoes guy.

Travis Scott.

Also, the golf shoes guy from the coin flip.

Yeah.

Great golf.

Kardashian lover?

Also,

Jenner, baby daddy.

Jenner, baby daddy.

Kardashian adjacent baby father.

We know Travis Scott.

Travis Scott did surpass Drake's God's Plan

Goosebumps featuring Kensington Gamar 17 times platinum.

One time Platinum is

1.5 billion or billion listens.

He did it 17 times.

Holy shit.

So Drake's in the hot seat because the guy that he also was beefing with just passed him up.

Is that the most listened to?

Most,

I believe so.

That's That's crazy.

So 1.5 billion times 17.

That's a lot of billion.

You got to get a special calc for one of those.

That's like a Texas instrument situation.

Are you saying that it's like

1.7 billion times 17?

That's the amount of listens that he has?

1 billion times 17.5.

So 1.5 billion streams is one times platinum, and it's 17 times platinum.

17 times 1.5.

Oh, so he's, yeah, it's like 20-something billion.

Way

tons of billions.

So many billions.

And Drake had an issue with the guy that's featured on the song.

So just a bad look.

So he's definitely his seat's super hot.

Okay.

And then my cool throne this week is Julian Brown.

He's an inventor out of Atlanta.

He found a way to turn plastic waste into fuel, 110 octane gasoline, 22 years old.

I just think that's the coolest throne ever because

he might leave something after life that affects the world for the rest of time.

Now, did he actually do it, or is this like an Elizabeth Holmes situation where he's got a company that everyone's going to invest in?

And then he's like, ha, just kidding.

I was burning, I was burning the Tupperware in the back of my house.

There's tons of videos of him.

Like, he's posted step-by-step on Instagram and TikTok of him building the machine at his home that can turn the plastic waste into fuel.

That's badass.

And he's finally figured a way to do it.

Yeah, yeah, I like this.

And he's,

dude, that is badass.

What a G.

And he calls it Plastoline.

Plastoline, yes, sir.

That's a great name.

So they started up a 2023 Dodge Charger wide body

off of Plastoline.

That's very good.

Good for him.

What is plastic made of?

Is that also made of oil?

The composition of plastic, I'm not 100% sure on.

I'd be lying to you if I said I was.

I can find out for you.

Regardless, this guy's a genius if that's what he did.

Yeah, 22, which is crazy.

That is crazy.

That's nuts.

Plastoline.

Plastic is made of cellulose and coal, salt, and crude oil.

Okay.

But he's he's converting like your milk.

He's recycling.

He's recycling.

Yeah.

Shout out to Julian.

Shout out to Julian.

That's sick.

Okay.

Let's get to our interviews.

We got college football talk with Tom Fernelli, then Mario Cristobal, then Jerry from Meow Mix.

And we're going to finish up with FAQs.

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Okay, here he is, our good friend, Tom Fernelli.

All right, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest.

It is Tom Fernelli talking college football.

We are in week seven.

It has been an awesome football season so far.

A lot of teams that we thought were going to be good are not good.

A lot of teams we didn't think were going to be good are good.

Let's start, Tom, because I want to do a little look back on week six, but also look forward to week seven.

But let's start with the biggest story: Penn State, James Franklin.

Is there any chance they buy out Ben or James Franklin and move on from him?

I mean, I can't say there's not any chance.

I don't know if I'd consider it likely, but you see, like this week after the UCLA lost, like there are columnists from every single outlet, it feels like writing the, is it time for James Franklin and Penn State to go opposite directions, you know, to finally part ways.

So it's the first time you've kind of seen that, which is typically a sign that it might be coming.

But I don't know because

I think it's a dangerous proposition because there's no excuse for what happened last week at UCLA.

Like losing in double overtime to Oregon, fine.

Like we all typically thought that was going to happen.

That's been Penn State's problem all along.

But like these games against UCLA are just the games that Penn State has always won under James Franklin.

So it's going to lead to this kind of discussion, but it's also a situation where

Like, I don't know what your goal would be if you fire James Franklin.

Like, who are you going to replace him with who can realistically do a better job than James Franklin has been doing?

Yeah.

Because it reminds me kind of like a situation that we saw, you know, like when Nebraska fired Bo Polini, like they thought that they could do better.

And we know how that's gone for them since.

They have not done better.

And you look at Penn State as a program,

like it's one of the best programs in the country.

It has been for a long time.

But even with that being said, they've won two national titles in their history.

Like, the last one was over 40 years ago in 1986, or just under 40 years ago.

If you want to count 1994, it was over 30 years ago.

So it's not like this was a program that was winning national titles constantly or competing for them.

Like Joe Paterno has got the only ones to the program's name.

And even Joe Paterno, it took him 16 years before he finally won his first national title, which is not to say I think Penn State just needs to give James Franklin five more years and he'll break through.

But I don't really put this on him as much as I put it on everybody hyping this team up a little too much because of everything that they had coming back and we were just looking around it's like there are so many questions at all these other programs but Penn State's got all these dudes coming back maybe this is the year and I mentioned it when I was on before the season started yeah they did have a lot coming back but they also did not have their best player on offense and their best player on defense and the guys who did come back from last year didn't really win a national title they won playoff games against SMU and Boise State and then they lost to Notre Dame as soon as they ran into another real team in the playoffs.

So I think the expectations were probably too high, which I don't think is fair to James Franklin if he's going to lose his job now, but I could see it happening.

I just, I don't think it's likely because of the available coaches, like, who are you bringing in to replace him?

Kurt's the guy that he says, oh, yeah.

But is Kurt Signal?

He could leave Indiana for Penn State.

Yeah.

I mean,

I spent years hearing that he was going to go to West Virginia.

In my mind, I was like, he's only going to end up at West Virginia.

That's the only school.

And then he made statements kind of not necessarily saying that, but to that effect and then he goes to Indiana major pay bump I understand why he takes that job he's winning there if Penn State offers him just an incredible amount of money I don't think that there's anything that's tying Kurt Signetti to Bloomington I yeah I think Penn State is one of the jobs he would definitely leave Indiana for I think there are a lot of jobs that have come open or are likely to come open that he's been mentioned for that I don't really see as upgrades over Indiana which I know it's weird but we're in a very new situation now where Indiana has money and they're spending it on their football program and you might be in a better spot.

But the problem is, if you're Penn State and you're hiring Kurt Sagdetti, he's 64, so it's not like he's a long-term answer.

So it's like, I feel like if you're going to replace James Franklin, you'd need to find your own Dan Lanning kind of hire.

But Dan Lanning obviously isn't going to leave Oregon for Penn State.

And it's just, I don't know that that guy's available.

All right.

So would you get Matt Rule from Nebraska, bring him home?

Is he the answer?

Yeah, that doesn't really fix it.

So the last thing about Penn State.

Penn State, obviously, two losses, haven't beaten the power four program yet.

If Penn State were to somehow run the table, is Penn State going to be in the playoffs?

Do they still have that in front of them?

Yeah, if they run the table, they're in, because if they run the table, they pick up wins at Ohio State and Indiana along the way.

And you might also be in the Big Ten championship if you're 7-2 in conference play, especially if you beat Ohio State.

So I would think that 10-2 with a win over Ohio State along the way would be enough to get you in as an at-large, even with the UCLA kind of anchor around your neck.

But the reality of the situation is the odds of Penn State running through the rest of their schedule winning out are very low.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, like they have to play at Ohio State, and then the very next week they're playing Indiana.

And it's like they'll probably lose the Ohio State game and maybe they beat Indiana.

But if you're 9-3 with a win over Indiana, that's probably going to knock you out of the at-large discussion pretty quick.

Yeah, I'm glad Peggy Kat asked that because I was going to ask you a similar thing about the SEC.

What is the most surprising SEC team that you think could run the table and make the playoff?

That could run the table from here on out.

I would say Texas AM.

I do think that they are legitimately good.

I was skeptical of them early in the year.

I thought the offense was fine.

They really hit on the portal at receiver with Concepcion and Craver.

The defense looked like ass, though, for the first three weeks of the season, but they've kind of figured things out and gotten their act together the last few weeks.

And I think that this is suddenly a team that is exceeding expectations, who has a ton of talent on offense at the skill positions, is strong along the lines of scrimmage, and the back end of that defense, which was struggling earlier in the year, is starting to look a lot better.

So, I'm not saying that they will.

I'm just saying they strike me as a team that is much better than anybody truly expected, which is not something you can say about most programs in the SEC or the Big Ten.

It feels like almost everybody, except for like Ohio State and Oregon, have been somewhat of a disappointment.

Yeah, all right.

So, the next big question I had for you:

how happy do you think Steve Sarkeesian is that James Franklin and Penn State exist?

Because it really does feel like the majority of the discussion online has been James Franklin and Penn State.

Meanwhile, Steve Sarkeesian, Texas is in utter disappointment.

Arch Manning does not look ready.

They put, you know, they were, this was a whole thing, like, this is Arch's year.

Listen, I bought it.

I'm an idiot.

I believed in it.

Like, what is going on?

Are they going to to potentially bench Arch at some point?

Like, Oklahoma's defense this weekend is legit, legit.

And now you got to go play them at the Red River.

It could get even worse than it's been, and it's been bad.

Yeah, I don't know if they'll bench him because honestly, I don't know that they have an option behind him that they feel is truly an upgrade.

I do think you're right, though, about Sark, because a lot of the narratives that James Franklin gets hammered with, you can kind of hit Steve Sarkesian with the same ones.

And Texas has been very disappointing.

Like that was a team that had to replace nearly its entire offensive line.

It replaced a whole bunch of guys and defensively they're still right there.

I think on the defensive side of the ball, Texas is still one of the best teams in the country.

But offensively, they just haven't been there.

Arch has been a huge problem with it, but I don't think he's the only problem.

I think he garners most of the attention flow because of all the hype that was surrounding him heading into the season.

And I am surprised.

Like I knew when Arch came out of high school that he wasn't really ready to be a starter in the SEC or at that level, But I would have, I thought like the last few years sitting on the bench developing behind Quinn Ewers, like we were going to see a much more polished player than what we have seen to this point.

He just looks like a freshman, even though he's now in his third year on campus.

So I think that is very alarming.

I think the fact that they can't run the ball because the offensive line can't block anybody is also very alarming and not helping the situation.

And you look at them like with that schedule,

Everybody was talking before the season that in the context of the SEC, Texas is actually catching some breaks.

The schedule is not that difficult.

Well, it looks a whole hell of a lot more difficult now with the way that they've been playing.

And it's really hard to imagine that they're going to get to the playoff.

I really don't think they've got a shot of getting to Atlanta.

So it's like at large or best, but the way that they're going, unless Arch, like the light flips on, and he's able to recognize what a defense is doing before the snap and get the protections right, which I think he's really struggling to do right now.

I just don't see Texas being able to pull this off.

Like, they're not going to fall off a cliff, but seven and five, that's kind of within the realm of possibility.

Yeah, it is, but yeah, but they'd still get to a bowl game, though.

You know, I mean, they're not going to finish five and seven or four and eight.

But that's not like Texas has fired coaches for reaching bowl games.

Like that's not, that's not what they're looking to do.

And if the name on the back of your jersey says Manning and you're the quarterback at Texas, the expectations are so high that, yeah, that would be seven and five would be a big disappointment in Austin.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

It's just, I don't think that, like, for me, wheels falling off is not getting to a bowl game.

And I think that if you're a Texas fan, like you can look at the the schedule and you can say, well, yeah, well, look, we lost to five really good teams, man.

You know, Ohio State and Oklahoma, and all these teams made the playoff, and you can kind of feel good about it.

Florida, they need Florida to win some more games so that they can say, hey, Florida, actually, not that bad of a team that we lost to.

They aren't.

Billy Napier, with his back against the wall, might be the best coach ever.

He literally just

get him almost fired and he'll start performing.

He might get off of the Penn State job.

Yeah.

The thing about Florida is

all the promise pinned on that team in the preseason, because everybody knew the schedule was just incredible.

Like they had, like they were going through the gauntlet every single week.

But it was always like, yeah, but if DJ Lagway starts to live up to his potential, man, they're going to be so good.

And last week was the first time DJ Lagway looked like the guy everybody thought he could be.

And he was dealing with injuries all offseason.

He looked kind of, you know, not 100% to start the year.

You could tell that the lack of practice time in the offseason had impacted him.

But last week, he looked like a guy who was finally starting to get comfortable.

And if the DJ Lagway we saw last week is the guy they have for the rest of the year, Florida's going to beat some teams, they're not going to get to the playoff, but they're going to pick up a couple more wins that leave people kind of surprised.

Yeah, uh, Tom, there was a rumor that was floating around the internet this week.

I wanted to go to you because I feel like you'd be more plugged in than anybody else.

Um, are you familiar with the sources that have Matir coming back for the Red River shootout?

We still call it the shootout.

Are you familiar with that?

I am, yes.

So the story is that somebody was standing next to him in a Chipotle

and then overheard him say, like, I feel good.

Is that it?

He said the person that posted this said that Matir told the Chipotle employee he is 100% going to play versus Texas.

And they've been like a little bit cagey about the injury, which you would expect them to be.

And I know that like the local hand surgeon or whatever has turned into a celebrity and all the Sooner fans, they're like gassing him up, leaving good reviews.

Dr.

Shin.

Yeah.

So Dr.

Shin,

what are you hearing?

Do you have an update on the Chipotle story?

I feel like, you know, John Matier is probably already getting his burrito for free, so he has no reason to lie to try to get like double meat for free from the guy behind the counter.

So I don't think you can't not trust him when he says he's 100% going to play.

My skepticism is the point spread hasn't moved.

And these rumors have been out there, but nobody's budging on that.

Texas is still favored by two and a half last I checked.

And I also feel like you saw

the volume of reports on Tuesday morning about John Matier might play this week against Texas.

I feel like if Oklahoma really thought he was going to play, they'd be keeping that under wraps.

They wouldn't be floating out that possibility.

But there was a picture of John Matier in a Chipotle with a Chipotle employee.

And

people are speculating that this is potentially the very same employee that he shared the news with.

I mean, this is all,

what's the word in court?

Like when the evidence is...

Circumstantial?

There we go.

This is all circumstantial evidence, but the circumstances speak pretty loudly.

Yeah, sometimes that can be enough.

I mean, would you lie in a Chipotle?

It feels like it's wrong.

Yeah, I'd be like, no, I don't need to use the restroom.

It's like being in church.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can't do it.

I'm going to say something.

You tell me if it's crazy.

Okay.

Ohio State this year is better than Ohio State last year.

I don't think it's crazy.

I think it's certainly possible, but this is, you know, when I was on the show a couple months ago, I got yelled at by you and Brandon because I was saying that Ohio State was doing like load management last year.

And what I did not get across correctly when I was making that statement was

I didn't mean to say they were going half speed in games against Oregon and Michigan.

What Ohio State was doing last year was in those other games that weren't Ohio State or Michigan, they were going half speed.

They were just doing whatever they had to to get by.

Kind of like what I thought Penn State was doing in non-conference before they started playing real teams and looked just as bad.

So like Ohio State was was flipping a switch in its big games and they came up short against Oregon by a point on the road in the regular season.

And then Michigan did the thing where Michigan just beats them because Ohio State can't beat Michigan anymore.

But then we saw once they got to the playoffs and flipped the switch again, absolute juggernaut.

Right.

This year, my argument was Ohio State couldn't really afford to do that because they had too many new guys coming in and they have to work Julian Sayyan in.

So I think that the effort level you're seeing so far from the Buckeyes is higher than the effort level you saw from last year, which was a very veteran team that already knew who it was and just knew that it had to survive to get to the playoffs and then things would take care of themselves from there.

So I don't think Ohio State is

really going like,

I still think last year's team was better.

I think that by the end of this year, this team could be better because I do think there is an argument to be made that the defense is better than last year's defense.

I think Patricia is just confusing the ever-living crap out of all the quarterbacks that he has faced so far.

Like these kids do not know what they're looking at before the snap and it's really showing up.

And once they get to the red zone, they're just absolutely clamping down and not giving up anything.

So I think the defense is very, very, very good.

The offense to me is not quite to where last year's was.

And I think that that could change as the year goes on just simply because we're seeing week by week.

They're giving Julian Sand a little bit more responsibility.

They're lengthening the leash.

They're letting him move the ball downfield more often.

And I think that he's very, very talented and he's shown excellent poise and excellent accuracy.

He's like showing you everything you want to see from a young quarterback as far as growth is concerned.

So I think by the end of the year, it could a thousand percent be true.

Right now, I don't agree with you, but I don't think it's crazy.

Well, I'm happy I'm early on the take because I part of the take is the defense is phenomenal.

I think Julian Saiyan's ceiling as a passer is way higher than Will Howard's.

So that's where I'm going for is like if Julian Saiyan keeps on this path, this offense is going to be like you even saw it in the Washington game where they kind of were like, hey, Washington's not going to score on us.

We're going to play defense.

We'll be fine.

But then there was moments where they're like, you know what, let's do the Jeremiah Smith thing and let's just fuck him up for like a series.

And you could see it there.

I think it's coming.

I think Ohio State this year better than last year.

The difference to me, though, is like, and this is no disrespect to Carnell Tate or C.J.

Donaldson or even the great Bo Jackson who has been brought back to life to play running back for Ohio State.

It's just last year's offense also had a Mecca Zuga, Trevion Henderson, and Quinshaw Judkins.

And I don't think they have those guys.

They still have Jeremiah, obviously, though.

Yeah.

I do like that take, though.

That also sets Ohio State up for, like, that would be the biggest disappointment of all time if they didn't win a back-to-back national champion.

Or if they don't beat Michigan again.

Or if they don't beat Michigan.

Yeah.

Are you feeling like there's any chance for Luke Altmeyer

and your Illini on Saturday?

I always feel like there's a chance, which is a lie I tell myself.

I do.

Yeah,

it's tough.

Like, Illinois' defense has been beaten up the last few weeks, and going up up against Ohio State when your secondary is banged up is probably not the best spot to be in.

But I will say, offensively, I think Illinois is legit.

The concern is that we saw against Indiana, not just forget the final score, which was a 53-point, just complete ass whooping by the Indiana Hoosiers and Bloomington.

But like, offensively, they got completely stonewalled by Indiana in that game.

And it was a lot of the offensive line had issues picking up blitzes and all that kind of stuff.

And I think that Ohio State, as I just mentioned with Matt Patricia, has done an incredible job of confusing quarterbacks.

But the one thing Illinois has going for it is Luke Altmyers is a third-year starter who's also in his third year with the same offensive coordinator.

So like they have answers to the tests more than a lot of the other quarterbacks that Ohio State has faced to this point.

Whether or not they can execute it and do it well enough to overcome a defense that's probably going to have a really difficult time stopping the Buckeyes, that remains to be seen.

Yeah.

I want to talk a little Texas Tech with you.

People are like, talk about our football program.

Texas Tech, I think they're finally being respected.

What are they?

They're top 10 now in the country.

Should Texas Tech start to prepare themselves for a world in which they win their conference and then do not get a buy?

We had this conversation just on the show the other day.

Yeah, I think that's very possible.

I think that if you look at the Big 12, the problem Texas Tech faces right now is like before the season started, it was like the Big 12's great.

Nobody's really good enough to pull away.

Every game is going to be super fun.

It feels like Texas Tech has pulled away.

Yeah, it does.

They spent a ton in the portal, and they've hit on most of the guys that they got in the portal.

They have a good starting quarterback, and as we saw in the Utah game, they have a very good backup quarterback in case Baron Morton goes down again.

And on the defensive line, they're just in a completely different planet than the other teams that they're facing in the Big 12 week by week.

The problem that they face is by the end of the year, there's no guarantee that they'll have a ranked win yet.

And we know, like, the SEC campaigned to get the SOS metrics changed in the college football playoff formula.

So there's a very real chance that like Texas Tech could be 13-0 come the end of the season.

And like Ohio State and Oregon could both get buys if they reach the Big Ten championship game.

Miami could be undefeated.

So they're probably going to get a buy in that case.

And like the SEC champion at 10-2 will have the much higher SOS metric than Texas Tech, and they will get put ahead of the Red Raiders who were forced to play in the first round.

I think that, yes, it's a very real spot because just look back the last year.

Arizona State won the Big 12.

Obviously, they lost two games, but they were ranked behind Alabama, who did not make the college football playoff and had three losses.

So the committee doesn't really have a ton of respect for that league.

Yeah.

When it comes to Miami, do they have it.

What's the biggest speed bump that you could see on their schedule?

Because it feels like they've beaten some teams that everybody had circled at the start of the year.

The ACC, not exactly super strong.

There are some good teams, like UVA is pretty good.

Georgia Tech.

Georgia Tech's pretty good.

But what's the biggest speed bump that you see in Miami's way between here and the playoff?

I think Miami's biggest speed bump is always Miami.

I think that, you know, like a lot of times you've seen that.

It's a very Miami thing.

Yeah, taking those.

I mean, like last year, their defense was terrible.

So it's like that's why they were always stuck in these shootouts with inferior opposition is because their defense couldn't get any stops.

I think the biggest difference this year is their defense is legitimately good.

It's like it's the defensive line, Ruben Bain and those guys are getting all the attention.

Ruben Bain's being mentioned as a Heisman candidate.

He is, but it's

Tom.

You're right.

I'm glad you brought that up because he is being mentioned.

I've heard it everywhere.

Ruben Bain, possible.

I mean, if you look at the odds, extremely long shot, but yes, he should be talked about, Tom.

Thank you.

I agree.

And I think that you should definitely hold on to that ticket until he's announced as a finalist and then cash out at the earliest opportunity once that happens because there's no way in hell he'll win.

But I also think that when you look at the rest of that defense, like the secondary, they went to the portal.

They replaced a lot of guys.

They've hit on them.

Their defensive philosophy has changed.

I think that they are a legitimately good football team.

And you look at the rest of the ACC.

Florida State should have been its most difficult opposition in conference play, and it was, but they kind of made it look easy.

Florida State had that comeback late to make the game look a lot closer than it was.

But you look at the rest of their schedule, their only road games are at SMU, and I don't think SMU is nearly as good as it was last year.

Then they finished the year with road trips to Virginia Tech, who will probably be dead and buried by then.

They're already on an interim coach.

So by the end of the season, who knows how much that team's even going to care?

And then I think the trickiest spot

is the final game of the season at Pitt because that's just the kind of thing Pat Narduzzi would do.

But if Miami's undefeated by then and they lose that game to Pitt, they're still going to be in the ACC championship and they'll probably still win that game and they'll probably still get a buy.

Yeah.

All right.

SEC.

Who's going to win the SEC and is it Alabama because they're back?

I do think it's Alabama.

I love Ty Simpson, by the way.

He's awesome.

Ty Simpson.

Yeah, Ty Simpson might be the best quarterback in the country, right?

Yeah.

And it's funny because I think back to like two or three years ago, whenever it was, when they were playing South Florida in that monsoon and they were playing the games with like Jalen Millro, where they benched him and they went and Ty Simpson got into that game and he looked terrible.

And then they come back and you're like, Ty Simpson's going to be the starter.

That dude from the South Florida game?

Oh my God, sell your Alabama stock.

But he's one of those few instances we're seeing these days where, oh my God, sitting on the bench and learning has actually helped him get better because even in the Florida State game, like he was making really nice throws.

He was just a little late on a lot of them.

He had open receivers and he was missing.

And it was just like, okay, this is a kid in a tough spot, not seeing it quick enough.

Ever since then, he's seeing it.

He can make every single throw.

He can do it from the pocket.

We saw last week, he's able to do it while on the move, both going to his right and to his left.

He's able to, you know, come back across his body and put zip on a throw back across the field.

I think he's legitimately like Fernando Mendoza, Dante Moore, you're seeing them in the mock drafts as first-rounders.

I think Ty Simpson, by the time this season will end, will be like a top half of the first round kind of draft pick in all the mocks.

And I look at Alabama, you know, the game against Florida State to me.

felt like the result, especially based on what we've seen in the weeks since, is Alabama defensively took the wrong approach and Florida State and Tommy Castellanos torched them.

And we have seen defenses adjust and approach Florida State in different ways since then.

And it worked for Virginia.

It worked for Miami.

It worked for Alabama last week against Vanderbilt, although Vanderbilt did shoot itself in the foot a few times there.

But overall, I think Alabama is the team I trust the most in the SEC.

I don't think that, like, well, I look at Texas Tech as a heavy favorite to win the Big 12.

I look at Miami as a heavy favorite to win the ACC.

I don't think Alabama is a heavy favorite to win the SEC simply because I still think that, you know, I mentioned Texas A ⁇ M earlier, they're good.

I think Oklahoma is good if Mater is healthy.

I think Mizzou might be better than most people realize.

And I think that Georgia still has a chance to be awesome.

And Ole Miss, I'm not huge on Ole Miss, but damn it, they don't lose.

So it's like at some point, I just have to tip my cap to him and say, I don't really like the way you're going about it, but damn it, you keep proving me wrong every single week.

So yeah, it's really tough.

Like there's a chance.

I think there's a much better chance than people think that the SEC is going to get five teams into the playoffs yeah, the SEC is the new Big 12 outside of the fact that they're going to get five teams, but it's the new Big 12 and the fact that I feel like any team can beat any team any weekend because there's just not that superpower.

Like outside of like two and a half point favorite against Mizzou.

Yeah, I know.

It's kind of surprising when you see that, right?

That's just a testament to how good Mizzou is.

Like they've, they haven't played in any big games, so they haven't really gotten a lot of attention.

But if you've watched them, you're like, holy shit, this team's pretty damn good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about Tennessee?

I think Tennessee is good.

I don't think Tennessee is great.

And I feel like they kind of

missed their opportunity because they outplayed Georgia in that game.

Yep.

Like if you, from start to finish, Tennessee was a better team for most of that game.

And they came up short and they lost by three points.

I think that Joey Aguilar is

good, but I don't think he has the kind of arm strength that, you know, like a Joe Milton can bring back to the Tennessee days.

But it just, like, he's thrown a lot of pretty deep balls, but there's some rainbows to him.

And if you go back to that Georgia game, there were a couple touchdowns he threw that probably should have been intercepted more than they should have been touched downs.

They just, the ball bounced their way and they took advantage of it.

It's just defensively, I think they've slipped a little bit, and offensively, I don't think that they're outstanding.

I think that they are a team that can compete for one of the SEC's playoff bids, but they strike me as the team that if they get to the college football playoff, they're probably going to lose their first round game.

I would feel a lot better about Tennessee if they had Bam at home.

That's the thing.

It's like I could see them beating Alabama at home.

I can't really picture them going down there and doing that again based on what I've seen from so far.

But the nice thing about Aguilar is he's usually very accurate.

He knows where to go with the football.

He's played enough ball where he can get through his progressions.

And I think in that offense, that's really what you're looking for.

You don't need a guy like Joe Milton, who's obviously super fun to watch when he throws the ball to the moon.

But I feel like that's the prototypical guy that you need in that offense.

Oh, yeah.

He's a clear upgrade over what Nico was for them last year.

It's just, I don't think that as a team, this team is as good as last year.

I think they have a better quarterback, and I don't think they're as good at other spots.

Are we back in on Nico?

That was a great performance by Nico.

I feel like a lot of people sold their Nico stock at rock bottom, and maybe we get a little bounce back.

I think I said he should be a wide receiver, a tight end.

Like put some weight on.

I like that.

I've never sold all my Nico stock, but I do feel like last week might be a bit of fool's gold.

I think that Penn State was just still kind of in shock over what had happened to them against Oregon.

Yeah, but I mean, he looked good.

He looked really good.

And also, New Heisel's getting all the credit for that victory.

He is, and I don't know that, I mean, credit to him.

I think, honestly, this is a little too in the weeds, but I think a big part of what happened last week is: A, the Penn State was still in shock over the Oregon game.

But B, with New Heisel now as the new offensive coordinator, like Penn State had absolutely no idea what UCLA's offense was going to look like.

They hadn't seen it.

Nobody had.

So it's really hard to prepare for.

So like in the first half, UCLA is moving the ball on them.

Penn State's like, what the hell?

What are they doing?

UCLA gets whatever, 20-something points.

Then the second half, Penn State's defense locked them down.

The problem Penn State had was their offense was just way, like there was no excuse for their offense to perform the way that they did.

Well, and you're forgetting the biggest reason.

The tarmac's not big enough in Happy Valley, so they had to drive an hour and a half to fly.

It's crazy.

It's fucking insane.

It's Franklin's right.

Like, that was,

they basically stacked the deck against them last week.

They decided they just took like a three-hour Uber drive to a different airport.

I also don't know why Penn State, like, if you have all this money, why not just build a bigger tarmac?

I mean, that's what we're doing, right?

Like, that's what the TV money's for.

Yeah, I'm right.

Build it.

If you're Penn State, you should be able to understand how to bounce back from really crushing losses.

That's kind of what you do.

I put the blame on us because we convinced them that this was their year.

I blame Brandon.

That's who I am.

Yeah, I agree.

I would blame Brandon blame.

You have sources.

You have inside information.

How, just how bad is it at UNC?

Oh, it's awful.

I mean,

it's a dumpster fire.

It's like the stuff you're hearing that's coming out now.

You've kind of been hearing it for a few weeks from people, but it's you just have to look at the team on the field to kind of understand that, yeah, it's nobody really understand.

The players are completely like the players, you watch them on the field, they don't know what's coming.

They look like they're completely unprepared.

And now you've got like Mike Lombardi releasing this long-winded trust the process kind of letter to the public, like saying, hey, come on, this was the plan all along, right?

We were going to suck on purpose.

You just have to trust the process.

Like, Mike, there are no draft picks.

Like, you have to recruit these dudes.

And it's a staff that thought, you know, Bill Belichick thinks he's the greatest football coach ever, and he might be.

Like, he won a lot of Super Bowls.

But the NFL is very different from college.

Like, at the NFL, everybody's super talented.

You can gain an edge by out-scheming your opponent.

You also gain an edge by having a superior quarterback.

At the college level, the scheme only matters so much if

you're not as talented as the team you're playing.

Like a zone pattern matching scheme on your defense and zone isn't really going to mean shit if that other team's just playing better than you and kicking your ass along the lines of scrimmage.

And they went to put together a team in the portal and they really just kind of took guys.

It wasn't taking top guys.

They were taking guys that they could get and they weren't able to get a ton of really good guys and it's showing every single week.

Yeah, the tone from Lombardy in that in the letter was like, I really respected the 76ers for how they messaged the process.

I emulate being able to being able to,

I would love to be able to.

I really love the way that the 76ers were able to get you to buy their bullshit about not trying to win.

Yes, that's exactly right.

He's like, I wish I could convince people to let me do my job when I'm not winning and I'm not getting results because they did an awesome job of that.

That didn't

match my checks.

It did not inspire confidence that they're actually doing things to try to win.

It was just like, hey, just get off my back for a little bit.

Yeah.

There was that report that came out today.

I think it was WRAL.

Yeah, I read that.

The long story about just how bad things are getting there.

And it seems like

none of the parents like Lombardi.

No.

Or at least none of the parents that spoke to this article.

They called him rude and nasty.

They say that Belichick is okay in terms of how he interacts with players, but there's no communication with their families going on here.

And now they just canceled Tard Knocks, the documentary that was going to be on Hulu.

First, it was going to be on TV, then they canceled it over the summer, then they redid it again.

Now they're canceling it again.

We need that footage, by the way, because there is footage out there.

We need that footage.

We will air Tard Knox in its entirety on Barstow Sports.

Someone drop boxes.

It's a PM TV episode.

Yeah, if you can send it over to us.

It does feel like this is just, there's a lot of things happening that would point to Belichick not sticking around too much longer.

Is that something that you think is on the table?

Oh, I definitely think it's on the table.

I don't know.

I don't, like the details of the buyout on North Carolina's end, like I know that Belichick could leave and he only has to pay like a million at the end of the season, right?

I don't know if it's the same kind of sweet deal for North Carolina on their end.

Like they might still have to pay him a significant chunk of money to move on.

And I don't know if they have the stomach for doing it.

But I also feel like at a certain point, you kind of can't just think about the money.

You have to think about the state of the program.

And we've seen it.

Like the stadium's empty.

Fans aren't sticking around for this shit.

Like they've seen through it.

They understand that it was a joke all along now and they're just going to move on and they're not going to care.

And I think that right now with the current state of college football and just the way things are working, like the settlement of the lawsuit from Florida State and Clemson against the ACC basically bought the league five more years because Florida State and Clemson, once that deal is up, are leaving.

They're going to go to the Big Ten or the SEC wherever they can get a home.

North Carolina is going to have to follow them.

And I think that the thing that they need to worry about is you can't become an afterthought in football right now because in five years, you still need to be an attractive property or a program for the Big Ten or for the SEC.

And if your program goes completely in the tank because of this and you don't move on and you don't, you know, just try to buy your way out of it essentially and bring in an actual football coach, you could find yourself without a life raft.

You could be Washington State.

You could be Oregon State.

You could just be sitting in the jungle by yourself.

And it's important to remind people, in case they didn't know, the athletic director at North Carolina did not want to hire Bill Belichick.

He wanted to go after a traditional coach like a Matt Campbell or a John Somerall, just going after somebody to bring in the job.

It was boosters and members of the board of trustees that pushed Bill Belichick on Bubba Cunningham.

So I think that if this were Bubba's decision, I think Bill would be gone already.

Yeah.

Yeah.

By the way, the Mike Lombardi, I always, I just looked it up because I remember reading this a while ago.

Chuck Kloserman once wrote, it's such a mean quote, but it's probably apropos for Mike Lombardi.

He called Mike Lombardi a detail freak and a polymath, or at least a person successfully attempting to impersonate one.

That's so mean.

That's so mean.

And it feels like right now we're on the impersonation part.

Successfully.

Now he's unsuccessfully, yeah.

But now he's unsuccessfully.

Unsuccessfully impersonated.

He needs to get better at his impersonation of Sam Hankey.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Imagine reading that and just be like, wait a second.

Fuck.

Yeah.

What percentage of your listeners do you think know what polymath means?

I don't.

Yeah, I think it's.

What is it?

I were were to guess it's someone that can do addition and subtraction.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, someone who just sees numbers everywhere, like Russell Crowe.

It's like a Renaissance, man.

It's like you're really smart at a lot of things.

Okay, yeah.

It's a polymath is a person with expert knowledge in several diverse fields driven by a deep curiosity and lifelong love of learning.

That's not what I thought it was.

Someone would call that a jack of all trades, master of none.

Yeah.

I thought it was a guy who'd like to fuck both algebra and geography.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm a polymath.

I like watching Big Ten football and Mac football.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah, I'm a polymath.

Sometimes I bet the under, too.

Yeah.

Holy shit.

I go both ways.

What about elsewhere in the Carolinas, Dabo?

Good friend Dabo Swinney.

Just a fun name to say.

We've been talking about him a lot.

He did get him and Bill Belichick combined to get the Ludacris concert moved to 9.30 a.m., which is that is that's just the biggest insult.

That's a sad state of affairs with those programs.

But we've been talking about Dabo and whether or not he would get another big-time coaching offer if it didn't work out at Clemson.

So I guess I got a two-part question.

One,

how much longer would you see Dabo sticking around at Clemson?

Like, is this where you think he's still going to remain, even if things don't go his way?

And then two, if he does leave, is there a big time, like a big-time college football team that would want him as their head coach?

I don't think Dabo is going anywhere this year.

I think he will finish the season at Clemson.

And I also, I think they're, what, they're they're two and three now.

They'll probably end up seven and five, eight and four.

So, like, as the schedule gets easier, I think they're going to rack up some wins and they'll look a lot better come the end of the season.

I still think, though, that he's going to have to like have a come to Jesus moment and be like, all right, I really need to start using the portal.

If I can't keep winning my way, I'm doing it the quote-unquote right way that worked for him in the past, because it's clearly not working for him in the present.

And whether he wants to say it out loud or not, like the he raised the expectation level for the program.

He has to, he deserves credit for it.

But now that you've done that, your fan base has grown accustomed to a certain level of success that they now expect.

And if you're not competing for national titles, well, they're going to turn on you at some point.

And I think Dabbo needs to decide for himself, do I want to keep doing it my way and just eventually get kicked out of here and lose the job?

Or do I want to keep this job and adapt and try to win the way that you have to win in the modern era?

I don't know what decision he makes there.

If he did get fired at Clemson, as for the idea that another top program would come along, I would bet at least one would.

I don't know who it would be, but we're just talking about North Carolina hiring Bill Belichick.

So, like, for Dabo Swinney, one of the few coaches out there who actually has national titles to his name, if there is a big-time program that has maybe fallen on hard times, Florida, and is just sitting there trying to do something to kind of revitalize their program, I could see somebody reaching out to Dabo and trying to bring him in, hoping that he could rekindle that magic for them.

And Dabo might be like, all right, well, you know, maybe I'll go somewhere where they appreciate what I've done because they're not tired of it.

Now, I still think that unless he changes his approach, he's not going to have the same kind of success no matter where he goes.

Yeah, I mean, I just don't know why a big-time program like Florida would bring him in if he said, hey, listen, I'm going to do it my way.

I'm not going to change.

You're getting Dabo.

You're not getting like the new age Dabo, the next evolution.

I don't see why a big-time program would think that that was a good idea.

Because Florida could convince itself that we'll have better players than what he was getting at Clemson.

And we just need him to be Dabbo.

Okay.

Or he's a big God guy.

What if he sets an example for his team and he cuts his son?

Right?

That's in the Bible.

Like, I'll do it.

I'll cut Clay.

I'm taking away your scholarship, Clay, in front of the team.

Now we got a new one up for grabs.

That's what he should do.

I mean, yeah, he should try that.

And if that doesn't work, maybe go to the transfer portal and find a quarterback and a wide receiver.

That's also a good idea, yes.

Tom, this has been great.

I got one last question for you.

It's a Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C K.com, promo code take, 20% off your first purchase, Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code TAKE.

Saturday's slate is lated.

It's loaded.

It is awesome.

Awesome.

Awesome.

I feel like

this is why I know that people don't.

I think you don't like the college football playoff expanding to 12.

I do, because I love that a lot of these games feel like they mean more.

Penn State State still can play.

They can still get in.

But give us your favorite game and bet on Saturday.

Can be two different things.

My favorite game is obviously Illinois, Ohio State because Illinois is going to shock the world and knock the Buckeyes off.

But if I wasn't picking that game,

I mean, I think

I love the Red River shootout or whatever.

Yeah.

Oklahoma, Texas.

I mean, I hope Matir plays because I would like them to be at full strength for that game.

But regardless, like both of those, they could be like, there's so many times in the Big 12 in recent years where they were like seven and five teams.

I didn't care.

I was still watching the hell out of that game because I thought it was really fun and entertaining.

So that's the one I'm most looking forward to.

As far as my favorite bet right now,

I think the wrong team is favored in Los Angeles.

I think Michigan's a better football team than USC.

If you want to take the points, go for it.

I'm probably just going to be on the Michigan money line.

Bryce Underwood's really good.

He's getting better every week.

And, you know, Jaden Maev is really good too, but USC is kind of banged up.

And I think Michigan's just much better than they are along the lines of scrimmage.

And I think if Underwood continues his progression, he's just going to get better and better and better.

And he's got so much talent that by the end of the year, like if Michigan sneaks into the playoff as an at-large, and I think that's a certain possibility at this point, and Underwood's kind of peaking, they become a really dangerous team come playoff time.

That's going to be really fun for us here at Barcelona Sports.

It's going to be great.

Yeah, it'd be great.

I'm going to have a lot of fun.

Why?

Is there somebody there who cares about Michigan a lot?

No, I mean,

basically, the guy that bought Bryce.

Yeah.

Well, Larry Ellison doesn't work here.

Yeah.

Yet.

Yet.

Yes.

All right, Tom.

You're the best.

Thanks so much.

We love talking to you, and hopefully, see you soon.

Look forward to it.

Thanks for having me.

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And now here is Mario Cristobal.

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, very, very, very special guest.

It is Miami Hurricanes head coach, Mario Cristobal, the number two ranked Miami Hurricanes.

Coach,

great to see you.

First of all, congrats on winning the state title.

I saw that.

You finished it off this weekend with the Florida State win.

I want to talk big picture, though, to start, though.

You are known for being really great at inheriting programs that maybe are in hard times and turning them into what you got right now with Miami.

You did it at Oregon.

You did it at FIU.

What's the secret sauce to be able to do that?

Because it's such a difficult thing to do, and you've proven it time and time and again that you're able to change a culture and turn a program around.

Oh, well, first of all, thanks for having me on the show.

It's an honor to be here.

Secondly, it's really, it's not me.

It's everybody that's tied into our organization.

It's a, you know, it's almost like real estate, right?

You, um, when you see a place that's got a ton of potential, but just hasn't been taken care of or done the right way, you go all in and it starts with just changing the DNA of the place with the right people and just littering the place from top to bottom with hardworking, driven self-starters

that are all about just team and getting better.

And that's hard to find nowadays.

So

it's a relentless process.

We've been very fortunate to bring in the right kind of people that are high achievers and hardworking sons of guns and that happen to be really, really talented too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're known as a relentless recruiter.

How is that working for you if your expectation is so high to recruit?

Would you say that you're a driven guy?

Like, do you push your guys as hard as possible?

Yeah, I mean,

the only thing our parents are probably the most important thing our parents taught us.

I mean, again, two parents that couldn't even speak the language and got here from another country and raised, really didn't have a chance to raise us.

They were working two jobs and won a night score.

Our high school coach was responsible for that.

But it was all about the work.

And then I played for some coaches, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Everton, that were all about the work and coaching for Butch Davis and Nick Saban.

Work, work, work.

So I learned a really hard lesson as a graduate assistant when I came here in 97, 98, and Miami was awful.

I mean, after being part of those championship teams as a player, Miami was awful.

And we went on a tear in recruiting.

I believe we had nine scholarships to give because Miami was on probation.

And of those nine, seven end up being first rounders.

The eighth was a second rounder.

The ninth was still a good player.

And that turned into that 2001 team.

And so I learned the value of recruiting very quickly and how the magic is in the players.

Yeah.

I read a story.

about your past when you were at Miami back in the late 90s that you were getting ready, you were prepping for a bowl game and you got a message on your pager saying that you had a job offer for the United States Secret Service.

And that's a job that you had wanted.

And you decided to say, no, I'm not going to be a Secret Service agent.

I'm going to turn that down and stick with coaching football.

I guess my first question would be like, how serious were you about becoming a Secret Service agent?

I mean, I was gone.

That was what I wanted to do.

I became a GA by accident.

I was working at some public relations firms right down the street, just losing my mind on a daily basis.

So, and I kept, remember back then there were no cell phones.

I would fax like

the run game protections to my friend Rob Chaczynski, who was the tight ends coacher at the time.

And I'm like, brother, you can't block things like that.

You got to do this and that.

And finally, he picked up the phone and said, just stop faxing me stuff.

Come over and be a GA.

And I'm like, I'm going to be a GA.

Those guys, like, you do laundry and you do all the crappy tasks or whatnot.

But I came over, talked to Butch Davis, and he gave me a shot.

And I was, I told him, I go, I'm leaving.

And whenever I get hired, it's probably going to take 18 months, two years.

And when they called, I accepted the job,

was on, I think it was the Gator Bull, if I'm not mistaken.

We were on a, it was awesome, man.

Fishing on one of those, you know, bull excursions that they put you on with guys like Reggie Wayne and Santana Maz.

They were puppies.

They were babies.

And I was gone.

And then I woke up in the middle of the night and I said, hell no, I want to coach football.

And that was it.

Yeah.

Has there ever been a what-if moment where you're like, what if I did join the Secret Service?

How good would I be at that job?

Yeah,

I mean, I, you know, I had a chance to visit the White House, you know, when I was at Alabama.

And, you know, you look around like, okay,

what if?

But I'm.

I'm good with the decision.

And certainly I was honored to have that opportunity and honored to have the opportunity I have now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You, you, you mentioned Alabama.

You, Nick Sabin always has so much praise for you, and it feels like he's, you know, been a mentor from you.

What, what, what have you learned from him?

Because it does feel like every time he talks about you, he's like, you know, he, you, you're one of his guys, so to speak.

Yeah, I thought, you know, besides

the way he managed all those resources, I thought the best thing he did, besides the regimentation, I mean, the offseason, the fourth quarter program, that's running the conditioning department.

He has his hand on everything.

He was unbelievable.

But I thought what he did best was the the the most underrated and the least talked about thing was his daily fight with complacency how he refused to allow any type of complacency to seep into the program and so he was just on it and and i loved it because that's how my high school coach was that's how my dad was may he rest in peace that's how that's what i was always used to and that's why i was i was so drawn to that opportunity and working there.

So I learned a ton and it was awesome, man.

He's been a great mentor.

So, what are you doing with this team?

Because this team, obviously, incredible start to the season.

You guys are number two team in the country.

You have everything in front of you.

What are you doing to actively make sure that your players aren't getting their, I think it's to quote you, their ass cracks kissed?

That's what you say.

They always have, you know, we don't want to get their ass cracks kissed too much.

So what do you do actively?

Because it's obviously, it happens, right?

It's every football team goes through it.

Yeah,

it starts with the work, right?

I mean, we work at a level, at an intensity level that's

pretty insane in a good way, in a smart way.

But we're very honest and open about everything we do.

We go direct, man.

I mean, if you watch our film, to us, we acknowledge very simply that we have a long ways to go.

We've gotten better.

We've come so far in the trenches.

The perimeter players for us on defense are now playing at a much higher level.

Our skilled guys are making plays.

Our young guys and our transfers have blended well together.

But brother, we've got a long way to go.

We have massive improvement to be made to accomplish what we want to.

I mean, it's just what we want to do requires us to get a hell of a lot better.

There's only one way to do it, man.

That's work our butts off.

And they've accepted and allowed myself and our staff to push these guys.

as hard as they can be pushed.

Yeah.

What was it about about Carson Beck that you saw and you said, okay, this guy is, I'm going to target this guy.

He can make a difference in our program.

He is exactly what we need.

And there's a big price tag that goes along with him.

But there's something about this guy that I feel like could take us to the next level.

Yeah, I mean, watching his film in 23, he was off the charts.

And if you go backwards in time, at the beginning of 24, he was the projected number one quarterback, right, to be taken.

And Cam Ward was a projected fifth, sixth, seventh rounder at that time.

So a year later, honestly, you know, obviously what Cam does, what he does, and he goes on and moves on.

But watching Carson's film, there's a lot of really good film there.

I just thought that schematically, they were very different.

The supporting cast was a little bit different.

And I thought our offensive line, we thought our offensive line and our

supporting cast suited him really, really well.

I thought he was a strong arm, accurate arm, extremely intelligent, understood protections really well, put them in the right kind of runs.

He understands numbers, leverage, angles in the run game, the screen game.

And he's a grinder.

Like he understands football and he takes takes in new concepts really, really quickly.

He's a really quick study with a super high football IQ.

So, um, we thought he was a perfect fit.

Yeah, he's been great this season.

And big guy was talking about like the complacency stuff.

How do you, how do you guard against your own?

Like, do you notice small moments in the day where you're like, hey, Mario, you're being complacent right now?

Snap out of it.

Like, how do you recognize that when it comes to yourself?

To myself,

man,

I'm out the door way, way early and don't get back till very late.

And knowing that, look, I mean,

I'm a nobody from right down the street.

And I had an opportunity given to me by some awesome people starting with Jimmy Johnson and going all the way to Butch Davis and whatnot.

So I value opportunity and chances.

Like,

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know anyone else that values as much as I do.

So that's my daily.

I refuse to allow any of that, like, what do they call it?

The relax mode, right?

Leaf syndrome to get and creep into myself.

And so it's my job and our assistant coaches jobs, because this starts with them.

People are always saying, well, players nowadays are bullshit, right?

It's the adults.

The adults set the tone, right?

And the players will follow.

And we have the right kind of players with the right kind of mentality.

It's full throttle every day, man.

And you're honest.

We don't sugarcoat anything.

We don't try to be anybody's friend.

We try to be their best mentor, their best truth teller.

And everyone must recognize we only have them here from at the least one year, maybe six months with the portal or up to four years, some five.

That's not a long period of time.

So bust your ass.

This is a vocation.

This is not a part-time job.

It's not a check the box job.

So we just flat out go, but we go all out for our players.

That's number one always.

Players first, as if it's your very own son.

What time do you wake up in the morning?

You said that you get in really early.

Yeah, you know, I don't, I don't like put the times out there because I think when people do that, it's like patting themselves in the back.

Hey, I'm a hard worker.

I'm a tough guy.

I don't, it's, it's pretty insane, but it's, it's what needs to be done.

It is not, uh, I'm not doing anything extraordinary.

I'm doing what has to be done, whatever is required of me.

You know, I can't tell our players and our staff to bust their butts and go above and beyond and me not go above and beyond that.

So, and that's what's supposed to happen.

That's not something extraordinary or something super cool.

I, that was, that's your old secret service coming out right there.

You just made sure that no one could know your schedule.

That was smart.

Competitive advantage.

Stay ahead of it.

I got a question about your Phenom freshman, Malachi Tony.

His nickname in high school was Baby Jesus.

Did you watch his tape, or were you just like, when someone told you the nickname, you're like, all right, we want him?

Because that's hard to do to get Baby Jesus as a nickname.

Yeah, I'm Catholic, but I'm still going to watch tape.

But

my son, who's now in high school, was like,

Papa, I want to, can I skip school?

I'm like, what do you want to skip school for?

He goes, I want to go watch Baby Jesus play.

What are you talking about, man?

And we watched him in high school.

Have you seen his high school tape?

I haven't, but I would imagine, I mean,

Florida speed is just different.

And like, he's almost got different speed where like in that Florida State game even, there's moments where you're watching and it doesn't look like he's running that hard, but he's running so much faster than everyone else on the field.

It's crazy to watch.

Well, in high school, their quarterback got hurt, and they were, I think they were four and two.

They were kind of questionably making the playoffs and making a run.

They put him at quarterback.

They win the state title in the state title game.

I think he was 15 of 15 for I don't know 200

points.

Yeah, he's he's a this is the best part about the guy.

The guy's an ultimate professional.

He is in here as early as anybody or earlier.

He stays late.

His work ethic is is just, it's insane.

He does the things of a six-year NFL pro, and he never like strays from that.

He is on it every single day.

He impacts other people.

He doesn't, he loves ball, man.

You know, his dad was in that legendary

street race, you know, against Devin Hester back in the day.

His dad actually won that race.

So the bloodlines are real down here in South Florida and from a football standpoint.

Yeah.

How hands-on do you get to be as a head coach when it comes to like working on technique with the guys?

Do you ever find yourself wanting to get in there?

And then maybe like every head coach.

Yeah, there's no question.

I mean, obviously,

my background is the trenches.

I mean, so wherever the offensive line and D-line is and the tight ends and special teams, that's where I'll be for almost all of practice.

You know, if I feel the skilled guys are getting a little bit sensitive, I'll go and watch them and, you know, for a minute and a half and then I'll get back to the trenches.

We were talking to Coach O a few weeks ago.

He came through our office.

Great guy.

We love Coach O, and he said that he stopped by Miami practice over the summer and that it was the trenches are going to be a strong suit for you guys.

Was he, did he like share anything with the players or was he just there as an impartial observer just watching ball?

Coach O is awesome.

Both his sons, you know, Parker and Cody, they work for us.

They're both analysts on the offense and defensive side of the ball, respectively.

And Coach O, I always bend his ear for stuff now.

Coach O has seen a lot of ball.

Coach O was a graduate assistant and then the D-line coach when I was a player here.

So he was on my ass all the time.

I've known him forever.

You know, yeah, he's the one that, you know, if

you miss English class because you decided to go fishing the lake on campus, he's the one that's going to run you at 5 a.m.

So we all became really acquainted with Coach O.

And

his background in trench play is awesome.

And he's got a really good eye for the simplicity of technique and fundamentals, as well as practice regimentation, overall, just conceptual teaching.

And he's been a really good guy to lean on.

Yeah.

All right.

I got a question about your career that's fascinating to me.

So you're a GA, like you said,

at Miami, and you're maybe looking for a good first break.

And tell me if this is right, but you are tasked with going to pick up a potential defensive coordinator from the airport.

His name is Greg Schiano.

You talk with him on the drive back from the airport.

He ends up hiring you at Rutgers.

Greg Chiano, Coachiano does not strike me as like a super amicable guy.

How did you do that in like one car ride where you're just, you guys hit it off?

Well, we hired him here at Miami.

Okay.

That's what happened.

So he was a new defensive coordinator.

He was at that time the Nichols coach for the Chicago Bears.

Comes to Miami.

Remember, back then, you didn't have all these analysts, man.

Like, this is crazy now.

We got like 400 people in the building.

Back then, there was one GA on offense and one on defense.

And your butt was working all day, all night.

But Chiano, he's by nature a grinder.

So deep into the night, midnight and beyond one, two, like he was always around, always working.

So I'd go in there and he'd just throw stuff up on the board and we talked pressures, right?

He had those unique third-down pressures back in the day, really exotic looks.

And I'd learn a bunch about protections versus those pressures.

And we just developed a relationship, worked together for that year and the next year.

And then when he got the call at Rutgers, he asked me to go up there with him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

I love to look back at the 2000 Miami Hurricanes roster.

It's like that span.

I know that you were there for the very start of it, but how good was that team?

Like even just watching them practice, the 2000 roster had just, it feels like every awesome college football player that then became a great NFL football player was on that team.

I feel like that had to be so much fun to watch them practice.

It was awesome.

But you know what?

When I got here as a GA, I remember they asked me,

how do you feel about the quality of or the Caliber talent on the team?

And it was like, man, this is bad.

You know, Miami was five and seven, five and six at the time.

I think there were 11 games back then.

And then those two, three recruiting classes stacked up.

Man, that was a different looking roster.

I remember, you know, when you're a GA, you manage a scout team.

So you're running the looks for, you know, and I was, I was managing the scout team for our offense.

So my scout team players are Vince Wolfrick and Henry John Dilma.

And we're kicking the dog out of the offense.

So Butch Davis is MFing me, the coordinator, all the coaches are just dropping all kinds of F-bombs on me.

I'm like, dude, these guys are creatures.

These guys are going to absolutely be super studs here in a very short amount of time.

So

it was awesome to see that transformation and Miami get to that level again pretty quickly.

Yeah.

I mean, that's incredible.

Vince Wilfrid on the scout team had to be a problem.

That's

Jerome McDougal.

I mean, these are like first rounder after first rounder.

It was,

you know, the battles out there on Green Tree.

When I was a kid, when I was growing up, I used to come out here and watch Michael Urban, Benny Blades, Jerome Brown, Dan Silio, I mean, Paul O'Connor, Jeff, or Greg Ricozzi, all those first-rounders.

And I wanted to be a Miami Hurricane, but I was terrified to even think about competing with those guys.

And so it was...

It was kind of neat to see that thing come full circle again as a GA.

I loved watching Michael Irvin on the sidelines.

That guy was fired up.

It felt like

he wanted to get in the game.

He was itching to come off the sidelines.

Is he going to be back on the sidelines for more games?

He's around all the time, man.

He's one of the most most grateful guys to the University of Miami that you'll ever see.

And we talk about it all the time.

It's really important, in our opinion, that players come back and show that type of gratitude.

I mean, we were

all knuckleheads, man.

Back in the day, we had great coaches, great mentors.

We learned a ton.

We got our diplomas, had got opportunities, and now we have a chance to impact the next generation.

Mike and a lot of those guys come around all the time.

Andre Johnson, Devin Hester.

I could go on and on, John Vilma, talk to the team.

He was incredible.

I mean, John Vilma, I mean,

I could go on and on about the number of guys that come.

Randall Hill, you know, remember his deal back in the tunnel and the Cotton Bull.

I mean, these guys are incredible teammates, friends, and certainly mentors.

I feel like Mike Irving might need a get-back coach at some point.

You might have to delegate one of the GAs to just be like, well, he got whacked this last game.

He got,

I think him and Holly Rowe got...

you know, trampled and rolled up on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know you you obviously probably avoid the media, but people love to talk about the you being back.

Is that only when you lift a trophy and win a national championship?

Is that the standard?

Or

do you give yourself every now and then a moment?

I know you don't like complacency, but to look back and be like, hey, this is my dream school.

Went here.

History here was, you know, came to practice, and I've got things going in the right direction.

I can, you know, this is pretty damn cool what we're doing right now.

We never,

I've thrown that Miami's back thing.

I've thrown that out from everything, the term itself.

We don't talk like that around.

And I'll tell you why.

It's like, look, my time here as a player, I mean,

uncomparable.

It's a time and a place that I don't think will ever be duplicated.

And the principles and values of that time, absolutely, we're carrying that and bringing it forward.

But everything we're doing is going that way, going straight ahead.

And

I'm not, like, I don't spend a single second thinking about myself and my, I came back to Miami and left to a really good situation because I've been watching it from afar for 20 years.

And I was, I was really, I got, I was pissed.

I was angry that for 20 years watching my alma mater just decline and everyone taking shots at it, the whole world.

And that happens, right?

When you're, you do good things and then all of a sudden you, you slide and everybody just wants to keep kicking a dog when it's down.

And I was just pissed.

And I knew it was going to be, you know, butt kicking when we got here early because a lot had to be done.

But that's what finally did it.

And I was just tired of Miami being down.

And I was tired of our own people kicking Miami while it was down.

I was just sick of it.

And

instead of being sick about it and talking about it or making noise, go do something about it.

So that's why we're here.

And we have a long ways to go.

We've made a lot of progress, but brother, we have a long, long way to go.

And we're at it.

We had a great practice today and we need to have an even better one tomorrow.

Yeah.

do you worry at all about style points when you're in in the middle of a game like when we say that it's like okay the the voters out there which ultimately like they don't play football they don't really know everything that goes on but they are the ones that are making the decisions of where you end up being ranked at the end of the week like do you worry during games like hey we need to put our foot on the gas here because we need to make sure that everybody knows how good we can be Well, we always want to keep our foot on the gas.

You know, obviously we didn't play a really good fourth quarter the other night, and that's got to to change and that will change.

But I think that your style points come in your style of play as well.

And if your style of play is that of substance, where it's about legitimate blocking, tackling, great pad level, physicality, and violence, that'll show.

But we lean a little bit more, I would say a lot more on roster development as opposed to style points.

And by that, I mean, if you can get

your twos and threes, another 30, 35 snaps of live football, and I don't know, score once or twice, and maybe they score once as opposed to another 35 points with your ones.

We'll take roster development all day because you're going to need those guys.

At some point in time, they're going to have to play.

And there's nothing like game experience.

So we'll take development of the roster throughout what could be a very long season as opposed to stop points.

Yeah.

Have you noticed your, like...

your

evolution as a coach, maybe being a little more aggressive at times?

Like the Florida State game, you had a fourth and two where you could maybe kick a field goal and you go for it and you score a touchdown on that play, and it goes from, you know, a game that was not close, but you guys were up 14-3, whatever it was, and then you kind of blow it up open with a 21-3 lead off that touchdown.

Have you noticed that you've, as a coach, gotten a little more aggressive, a little more, hey, we got to step on their throats when we get it, the more go for it on the fourth down that you see a lot of teams doing?

Yeah, I mean, we always try to be aggressive.

I mean, that's part of our deal.

We throw caution to the wind and go play ball as best we can.

And, you know, we, we do look at analytics and it, I'd say 99% of the time is in line with what we're thinking and our gut feel for the game and the situation, circumstances.

But we do, we'd like to be aggressive as best we can because we do have a lot of trust and confidence in our players.

Like,

you know, we had a fourth and eight the other day that was, that's like right on the line analytically.

Yeah, you, you do, you go for it.

If it's more than that, you're probably better off kicking it.

And

even before that, like, we felt really good about the play call.

We felt really good about the matchup.

We didn't execute it.

So,

but it doesn't take away from the fact that we would still stay aggressive in that situation.

So

we want to stay along the lines of that.

Yeah.

Coach, in your unbiased opinion, who do you think the Heisman Trophy frontrunner should be right now?

I have no opinion on that whatsoever.

And I can honestly say our guys really don't care.

They really don't.

Like, it's not,

it's never part of a topic.

I've never, you know, our, obviously our, our guy, Cam Gorby, is the best of the best.

And man, he publicizes our guys like there's no tomorrow.

But I, I watch a lot of football, like, like, I'm a manic about it.

Um, so I see a lot of crossover table.

There's a lot of great college football players out there.

The only thing I would wish for the Heisman Trophy, that it was awarded when all the games are done.

Agreed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That, that whole award before these, you know, postseason games are played is, is absolutely bizarre to me like i don't i can't comprehend it never will but um the most important thing for us brother i just got to make sure our guys are taking care of business and getting ready for a great practice tomorrow i'd like to play for you i'm just going to say it i feel like well you wouldn't want me to play you you would see that we'd be in pads you'd be bitching and moaning oh yeah you wouldn't want me to play for you but i feel right now you're not you're like not putting the recruiting pitch on but i feel like I would want to play for you and then I'd be like, I've made a terrible decision.

I can't hang with this guy.

And so you would de-recruit me pretty quickly.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, like, just be honest, like, a little bit of complacency, because I would like to do a little bit of complacency every now and then.

Yeah,

you wouldn't like it here.

Just a tiny, just like a little pinch of complacency every now and then.

Just chill out.

This would be hell for you.

All right, I got one last question.

This has been an awesome coach.

Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com.

Promo code take 20% off your first purchase, Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code take.

Are you ready for the dumbest question you've probably ever gotten?

Well, as long as it doesn't ask me to predict something or get involved in a hypothetical, I could probably handle it.

I'm probably going to give a really boring answer.

I will for sure qualify as your top three, top five most boring interviews, but if I'll do my best to try to answer it.

Okay, all right, here it is.

The year's 1985.

You are 15 years old.

A video game comes out called Super Mario.

What's going through your head?

I didn't play it much.

Damn.

Yeah, I know.

Are you a fan of

Mario and Luigi?

I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler diehard fan.

Okay.

Always was.

And I learned to play football that year in 85.

My first time I ever, it was when I got to high school.

And

after that, like, all I know is, you know, that's it.

i told you it was going to be a boring answer yeah it's a football guy answer though do you do you remember when

he com was around so you know but uh

yeah i sorry man that's okay do you remember when you fell in love with football when you said to yourself this is what i'm going to be doing um

yeah it was when we got finally got the chance to put on pads.

I never put on pads.

We were baseball players.

I mean, we're Cuban kids, you know, we

learned to speak the the language i don't know what age and had a strong action like scarface you know i'm sure you saw that movie yeah and our high school coach was an absolute badass i swear to god he's the best mentor best human being that guy i love that guy more than anything he changed the lives of my brother and myself um and that changed everything and then with that came opportunity so we're just uh you know We're just hardworking dudes, man.

You know, we're full of gratitude and just ready to get on to the next thing.

Yeah.

Listen,

I'm bought in right now on your program.

Absolutely.

I feel like

this is a good sign of things to come for the youth.

So I'm happy that you're there.

And thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

Appreciate you guys having me, man.

Have you ever been, bro?

Yeah.

Thanks so much, Coach.

Best of luck for the rest of the year.

Thanks, guys.

Appreciate you.

Coach Mario Crystal Ball was brought to you by Hey Dude.

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And now, here is MeowMix Jerry.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest.

It is Jerry from the now defunct Meow Mix podcast, a Carolina Panthers podcast.

Jerry, we wanted to have you on real quick because we were fascinated with the story.

You don't see often that

a team podcast retires mid-season.

Talk us through.

Let's start there with the retirement.

Did you bring it up to your co-host or did he bring it up to you?

What was the breaking point?

What was the moment you're like, I can't do this anymore because my football team is just driving me insane?

Well, first of all, we didn't retire.

A, that signifies we actually got paid.

But B, is we kind of went on hiatus and we're going to reassess the way we are sitting up because we're doing two shows a week, almost three, and we were just burnt out.

And then

basically

a couple times last year, we didn't record after the game because we were just so heartbroken.

And then they started doing well towards the end of last season.

We were like, okay, okay, here we go.

And then this year happened.

And I thought the New England Patriots were going to be the same, same sphere as the Carolina Panthers, you know, an eight-win, six to eight-win type of team.

And they just manhandled us on last Sunday.

And it was just so heartbreaking that I texted him and was like, I can't record tonight.

I just, I,

you know, midway through the third quarter, I turned the game off, first time in 10 years or so that I actually stopped mid-game.

And I was like, I can't do this.

And then the next day he's like, you know what?

Do you want to do it?

I was like, not really.

And he was like, yeah, me neither.

It's becoming more of a chore than a fun hobby that it started out to be.

So then we kind of talked back and forth.

And, you know, we decided to put the show on hiatus until we kind of could figure out what we wanted to do.

Yeah.

It's called a catnap.

Yeah.

So you might be back.

A catnap.

I like that idea.

Yeah.

What about, so we, we talked about this on the show because we, we appreciate the ecosystem of sports podcasters.

I think it's very important, I think, to the sports community that we do have podcasters that are laser-focused on their specific teams because we can't cover everything when it comes to the Carolina Panthers.

Like, we'll say, we'll talk about it.

Or anything.

Or anything.

Yeah.

So have you thought about maybe, I think we suggested that you bring the podcast back over only after wins when you feel good.

See, I feel like that's almost a disservice because you're also not getting the lows too.

As a fan, fan, you want the highs and lows.

Now, I have seen quite a few people come out and say, why don't you do it less, like once a month or once a week?

And, you know, we've brought that up to each other.

We're kind of still working on this.

Again, we decided this one week ago.

We posted on Twitter just to let our fans know, hey, we're not completely gone, but we need some time to think about what we're doing.

Then somehow it blew up.

you know just our small little podcast got picked up by national media we're like how how did this happen?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's cool.

We just love anyone who's dedicated to the game, anyone who's grinding out there.

And we were kind of heartbroken to see it.

And I looked it up.

You guys, since you started, you're 30 and 74, that's a lot of losses.

That's a hard thing to do.

When you decided to step away, and then the Panthers have an incredible comeback win against the Dolphins.

Did you text Steven and you were like, hey, should we do it?

Should we do it again?

Should we get back on the mics?

First of all, we're in a group chat with a bunch of our friends.

So we were talking throughout the game and I was tweeting throughout the game just because no matter what, I'm still going to watch.

Right.

Yeah.

That's what a lot of people didn't understand about that tweet was, you know, we're still watching.

We're still fans.

So we were tweeting back and forth and

he wasn't in the mode.

to record i kind of wasn't in the mode still i didn't want to just oh we're going on hiatus oh he won so i'm coming back right now but

so

we didn't but our friend said you should really just put up a video of cats you know the sweet caroline song that plays after every game and i was like you know what that's gonna be hilarious and i had to do it yeah i saw that you got me i was like oh man the boys are back and then i i watched the videos like oh they're not talking about anything it's just a picture with sweet caroline playing Yeah, and that's a Panthers Eddie Home victory or anything.

They play Sweet Caroline.

So that was kind of why that happened.

Did you find that the negativity around the Panthers after losses, was that affecting your personal life?

And did that have something to do with it?

My personal life,

not personally, like I like, it wouldn't like, it didn't hurt my marriage, didn't hurt me with my kids, but it just put me in a bad mood.

Like,

like, I know everybody, every fan loses and is defunct, but it's like, God, we just got our ass whooped by like 30, 40 points.

And now I've got to go talk about this for two hours.

And then next, then in a couple of days, do research on the team to say, what could we do better?

There's only so many times I could say, hey, Dave Canalis, you got a big O-line.

Run the ball with 2,000-yard backs last year.

And they don't do it.

It's like, what can I tell them more?

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Was it you or Steven who said that his kids don't even like the Panthers because it makes daddy like sad?

Yeah, that's Stephen.

And I feel for him him because he said that.

And I knew his son was into the Philadelphia Eagles.

I didn't realize that that was the case.

And it's heartbreaking to hear.

Yeah.

He's experimenting with the Eagles at such a young age.

Yeah, and you gotta, yeah,

this is something you got to change up.

Hopefully.

You find like a, yeah, you find a, like, a Kelly Green ball cap under his pillow.

Son, what's this?

Yeah.

Thank you.

What are you doing here?

Luckily, my daughter, she knows.

We chair for the blue team.

Yes.

I love that.

I love that.

Okay.

so, all right, so the future, like, let's say, so we're just, we're out for right now.

Is there any chance we can get the boys back together?

Because I know you didn't, the thing I like about this,

how everything unfolded, a lot of people are skeptical and cynical online these days.

They would be like, oh, they're doing this to get drum up support.

I watched the whole episode.

You guys were doing that completely as honest and like, this is where we're at.

But it probably has gotten good enough attention where you're like, maybe we should do it again.

So, is there any chance that you guys get back on and get the band back together?

I want to see Steven and Jerry talking some talking some Panthers football.

Right now, I'm not sure.

I would, I think that something could happen.

I'm not sure.

Like, it depends on the team and where Steven's at.

I said that I really liked doing the draft profiles for the team as it was a fun way for me to learn like the draft prospects and stuff.

So, I don't know.

Right now, I would say maybe

just because I don't know where his headspace is at with coming back.

I know right now he's really on a no side, but yeah.

Okay.

I remain hopeful.

Yeah.

I am too.

And I, and especially if the team starts doing a little bit better, or even if we do, like I said, the once a month or once a week or every other week, I think that would be fun because when we're doing it, he has fun.

I have fun.

It's just there's only so much of demoralizing, being demoralized, you can take.

Yeah.

I mean, a three-year span that the Panthers have given me.

Yeah.

I hear you.

I would like to see you guys make some sort of return.

I don't, if it's not, you know, three times a week, I understand that.

If it's not twice a week, I understand that.

But I feel like the

world is a slightly brighter place when we've got guys like you doing the stuff that you love to do.

Yeah.

And even after our fans sent us, because we had a segment called Gambling for the Children, where we bet on the Panthers game, we put in $100

and we bet on the Panthers game throughout the season.

At the end of the year, whatever's in the pot, if it's above $100, goes straight to St.

Jude's.

Oh, no.

If you know, if it was under, we put it back the $100 and make it to St.

Jude's.

So we got questions about what's going on with that money.

And we're like, well, we're still going to be doing that.

Yeah.

But I love that.

That's not a lot of money that what was the lowest amount of money that got like what year was it?

Is it money line or are you betting spread?

We're betting finding the best bet that we can because we used to do beer bets to each other, but then we just quit caring.

We're like, we're just going to get drunk anyways because this team sucks so bad.

So

like, let's actually try to get it.

So like last year, we made a lot of money on Chuba Hubbard.

Oh, yeah.

Breaking the yardage every week and stuff like that.

So we did win last week with the Miami.

We took the money line.

I thought we were actually going to beat the Dolphins and we did.

So we took the money line.

Yeah, because when you first explained that, I thought you were just taking Panthers' money line every week.

And it's like, that would be a, that would get into depressing territory of like, you know, a one in 15 season being like, oh, shit, this is not going well.

No, that's why we went to gambling for the children.

So we wanted to win instead of just

losing bets to each other for beers.

We were like, yeah.

I love it.

I love it.

If you want to send us best bet on the Panthers every week, I'll put in a bet on it.

Yeah, we'll shout it out.

And then I'll give everything that I earned from that bet to the kids for the children.

Yeah, yeah, we're in.

We'll get on.

Awesome.

That's great.

Yeah.

Last, last question for you.

Did Squeaky Cheeks reach out at all?

Because I saw you guys give a shout.

That was my favorite part of the video when you're like, you know, Blood Nugget and Squeaky Cheeks, some of the people that are.

Did Squeaky Cheeks reach out?

Oh, Squeaky Cheeks messages us on our YouTube channel all the time uh say with blood nugget you know rj andrew we had some great fans we really have some great fans and you know we got one from switzerland today it that was what kept us going mostly was just the simple fact it was a small community because again we're a little podcast but our community was good you know always talking always you know going back and forth about what to improve this game.

Yeah, I love it.

Well,

appreciate you you hopping on, Jerry, and you let us know if you're ever, you know,

when you do feel the itch and you maybe bring it back, let us know because we want to boost it and get everyone to subscribe.

Okay, we'll do.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right.

Thanks so much, Jerry.

All right.

Thank you.

Meow Mix Cherry is brought to you by Twisted Tea.

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Twisted Tea is the perfect alcohol beverage to keep the good times going all season long, whether you're hanging out at a friend's house, catching a game at the stadium or at the bar, or just seeing where the day takes you, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time.

We were out on the course on Monday playing some golf, and Twisted Tea was with us.

I don't think that there's a better outdoor drink in the world than Twisted Tea.

It's perfect for a nice sunny day, perfect when you're hanging outside.

Keep it twisted.

Grab a tea.

It's game time.

Stock up on ice-cold Twisted Tea today.

Okay, let's wrap up the show.

We got FAQs from our one and only Henry Lockwood.

Hank, I like that.

That was like an old-school morning DJ voice.

Yeah.

Let's gig it over to Henry Lockwood on a waggy Wednesday, boarded by T.

Hank.

And he's not ready.

After that intro,

not even ready.

No, nothing.

What?

Nothing what?

As a St.

Louis Cardinals fan, I've never experienced a full rebuild in my entire life.

How do you handle it?

How do you approach a season knowing you're not a contender?

Where's a small winds you can feel?

This is such a good thing.

Listen,

I can speak from experience.

It's one of those things where it's going to be dark.

You're going to have games where you know you're not going to win.

It's going to be ugly, but the sunshine will rise again.

It will be good again.

You just got to trust the process and understand that it's not forever.

Actually,

Hank did handle the rebuild correctly.

He just ignored his team for like four years.

And now they're back.

And he's like, oh.

Well, that's the thing is if you come from a winning background, you can then have an easier time ignoring the rebuild.

Yeah.

But if you come from a losing background, then the rebuild is all you have.

And you put your hopes and dreams in the rebuild, and you check up on the rebuild every day.

You might hypothetically look to see how your minor league teams are doing and then refresh the batting averages and look at the prospects and be like, oh, this rebuild is not going well right now.

But what I like to do is I like to just, I bet on the season win total over at the start of the year, and then I just kind of forget that I bet on that around like mid-July.

And then I check again in late September and I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe.

Nope, it's not going to hit.

That's how I handle it.

I got to say it.

Rebuilds are fun.

Failed rebuilds are not fun.

But like the idea, if your team actually says, like, hey, we're going to try to rebuild because the worst part, the worst place to be in any sport at any point is to have a team that you know cannot win a championship.

But the owners being like, no, it's fine.

We're going to keep doing the same thing and it will work.

When you actually hit the rebuild button, and if you have the right people in charge to be like, hey, guys, rebuild, they can be kind of fun.

Yeah, because you're like, hey, this is a process.

We know it's a process, but at least we have a direction now.

What I've never been able to do is to become like a fan of the rebuild.

There are fans of your team that will become fans of the rebuild and fans of the process, and you need to use them as a resource to check in on and be like, hey, how's the rebuild going?

But you know what the kind of guys I'm talking about that are like, okay, well, we got this draft pick, we got this asset, and then they plan out how to use the rebuild, yeah.

So they become fans of the process and they don't care at all about the results.

They're just like, the process is good right now.

Baseball rebuilds are also the most fun team or sport you can rebuild in because unlike all the other sports, you can actually watch your players still play.

Like, you know, getting excited about a guy in AAA like mashing is kind of fun.

It is.

And then the call-up is so exciting.

You're like, oh my god this is a big day i remember like chris bryant day at wrigley was like one of the most excited i've ever been i was there for that day yeah that's right yeah it was it was a cold day that they brought him up and everybody struck out i think four times yeah everybody in the stadium was like okay this is it we got her

but yeah there it's it's a lot of fun like latching on to tiny stats of your high tattered prospect you're like oh his chase rate is incredible x

they've never seen the guy

this guy has the best eyes in the history of baseball he never never strikes out looking he takes a lot of walks.

I love this dude.

But yeah, he adds another pitch.

Once he adds a third pitch.

Third pitch is going to be fucking electric.

He's working on a slurve.

Yeah.

So that's going.

I'm looking at the spin rate on that.

It's way higher than it was last year.

Yeah, rebuilds.

Yeah.

But also

rebuilds.

It kind of sucked, too, in baseball because the draft is so weird in baseball.

It's like it's such a complete crapshoot.

And sometimes you even draft guys that are not even slotted in that position based on talent, but they're slotted in that position based on money and what you have left to spend.

It's a challenge to get through, but I'm sure that the Cardinals will find some way to be good in like one year and it'll piss everybody off.

So congratulations.

Hey, it's Jake from Toronto.

Hey, Jake.

My question is: what is your favorite PMT road trip moment?

Love the show?

Oh, favorite road trip moment?

I like the

I think on the first Grit Reek, remember we had a fan drive up and throw a beer to us in the bus on the road while we were driving?

That was electric.

That was electric.

I mean, also, just being nostalgic, the first grit week when we were in the Buffalo Bills stadium parking lot, just trying to scrounge up interviews.

Basically, like the guy that hangs out outside training camp being like, can I get a tryout for the team?

Yeah.

And we had Richie Incognito on the bus and then we were like, or on the van.

And

then we were just waiting.

And Rob Ryan walked out and he walked onto the RV and was like, oh, boys, I could live on this thing.

We paid Rob Ryan with a case of beer and he had a great time on the RV.

Just like the nostalgic moments hit sometimes.

I think my favorite moments are always when we're like at the tail end of a long week of work and we have like a night where we can go out to dinner or get drunk or something.

And it's just like, actually, all right, I got one.

I don't know if you guys have this one in your head as well.

Grit week, Colorado, climbing Everest, doing mushrooms, going to one of my favorite dive bars I've ever been into at Boulder, the Sunset Room.

We were high on mushrooms, and we played maybe the worst game of darts that has ever been played in the history of darts.

No one could hit anything because we were fucked up.

But that was like, I just remember looking around being like, man, this is fucking sick.

Yeah.

The jukebox.

Those type of moments.

Yeah.

There's good vibes that night.

We were so bad at darts.

Very bad.

We were so high on mushrooms.

You want.

You were actually good.

Was I?

Yeah, I remember.

I just remember being like, I don't really know.

Like, I'm not in a mind space to play darts right now but we're gonna play darts yeah the uh the there's actually like a lot of dive bars that I remember now the dive bar in Atlanta yeah

we went got pretty drunk watched some blues band play with like Chris Long that was great that was a great night I heard that place might have closed down no I hope it didn't I hope I hope that's fake news no wing nuts first wing nuts yeah walking into the nights of Columbus That was pretty awesome.

Meeting Ed and Alicia.

Yeah.

I wasn't at this one, but the one that

I always wanted to be at was the storm chasing.

Oh, yeah, with Budaped.

I mean, that was electric.

I would go storm chasing again.

I would love to go storm chasing.

Absolutely.

We should do that.

We should.

We have two Vannies.

We could hit them from both sides.

Yeah.

Meet in the middle of the storm.

It's like Twister.

Hey, guys, long time listener, first time texter.

How do you come up with your material for fastest two minutes?

Are you doing it as you're watching the games or do you have jokes saved?

No, we do it after the games.

Occasionally, I'll jot down something during a game.

Yeah.

But what I found that this year, every single time I've done that, it's been about the Giants.

And then the Giants are the Jameis Winston.

We don't get to use it.

I did that the other week.

Remember when we split it?

Because sometimes, depending on the schedule, like

if the Commanders or Bears play the afternoon game, we'll split it up and do it separately.

But when we can do it together, it's more fun.

So yeah, it's kind of just around 6 o'clock every Sunday just being like, oh, shit, we got to do this.

Yeah, and then I'll.

Not like in a bad way, but just like, oh, yeah, I forgot.

We got to do this.

So right now I have a completely empty Google Doc, except it still says from like week two, Scataboo, busy, busy, scattered bow.

And I'll just be looking at that every day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was like a Yogi Bear.

I don't know where that came from.

Just have a couple in the hopper.

All right, last one.

What does the booth smell like?

Bad.

That's a great question because I feel like it varies.

Bad.

How is it right now?

Although, in the future.

We don't really know because it's like you're in it, yeah.

Individually, they're not bad-smelling guys.

Yeah, yeah,

the three of you do not smell bad individually.

I think when you put them together, and then Max, Max, I mean,

the other night he cleared the booth.

He just stood up.

He goes, I got to open the door because I just farted.

It's so bad.

That's got to stick in there.

Well, yeah,

there's no circulation, and it's a small room.

So, like, if we fart, I mean, our Sunday, we've talked about it.

Weight loss challenge going bad.

Sometimes we eat a lot of gross food and we fart.

Yeah, that's what guys do.

Zach, gross food equals farts.

What would you say, Zach?

I would have to piggyback on the.

We're in it, so we wouldn't, I wouldn't, I don't have a great read on how it smells.

It would have to be someone third-party coming in, like, wow, this is a little funky, probably is what they say.

Yeah.

All you know is what you know.

Sometimes the guys who come in for the lottery ball, they'll say it.

They'll say it smells bad.

That's a good point.

Sometimes they're quick to be like, whoa.

Should we get you guys an air filter?

Yeah, or something?

Air freshener?

Hang a big, like,

make it oversized Christmas tree one that they have in the cars.

Just hang it in the middle of

the booth.

They come out smelling like pine.

Sunday's definitely the worst smelling day, right?

Oh, yeah.

In that booth?

Gotta be.

Gotta be.

Sundays just get.

It's too much.

Football season low-key kind of kills all of us.

Yeah.

We joke about like the whole, it's harder to do what we do than playing in the NFL, but I don't think it is week to week, but I think when all said and done, if we do this show for another 10, 15 years, if you add up all the years, it's going to be like that.

We put some stress on the body.

Oh, yeah.

The late nights that turn into early morning, especially for the guys in the booth.

And like Pug, Jack behind the, like those guys,

that is tough.

It's a quick turnaround.

But guess what?

We're young.

Yeah, we're young.

We're still young.

We're very vibrant.

Yeah.

All right.

Speaking of the guys in the booth, do you want to get them in here for the numbers?

Three.

Oh.

Memes?

My mic wasn't on.

That was rude.

Yo, number two.

22.

Memes, do you want three?

I mean, they all got it.

They don't have to be in here.

We'll go 29.

Do you want three memes?

No, it's okay.

I'll go 6'7.

I have a bad update about that, by the way.

My son knows what that is.

He said the kids say it at school.

So So, word that means that I am dangerously close to getting

learning things from him before I learn them myself.

6'7 is one of those mass hysteria things.

Like when everybody in a town catches the giggles at the same time, yeah.

That's what it's become like that on a national, it's a virus.

But I've I learned about 6'7 like maybe two months ago, so it's got it's very close.

That's too close that I got that in.

All right.

Anyone pick 33?

Nope.

Five.

Five.

99.

22.

8.

What was yours, Memes?

Yeah, 29.

29.

Hank, where were you?

22.

84.

84.

Notice I didn't ask memes if you've gotten it before?

No.

I ignore that part.

Oh, okay.

Well, I didn't.

If you go back and listen, I didn't ask.

Good for you.

I know the answer to it.

You have not, and you never will.

We're gonna walk in here.

This machine's gonna be smashed one day

on fire.

Love you guys.

I still live with my mother.

Cause I peeked in high school.

Yeah, I'm roommates with my brother.

My mom's basement's my room.

I peeked in high school, I ran the world.

I peeked in high school.

If you did it, you're a fucking nerd.

I peeked in high school,

I was the man.

But now I'm not cool, so I started this fucking band.

I've got this leather jacket.

Those geeks wish that they had it.

I still like Letty Kravitz.

And I work at barstool.

I kicked all the asses.

I skipped all the classes.

I made fun of kids with glasses.

And my dick's been escal.

I peeked in high school.

I ran the world.

I peeked in high school.

If you didn't, didn't, you're a fucking nerd.

I peeped in high school.

I was the man.

But now I'm not cool.

So I started this fucking band.

I peeked in high school, I ran the world.

I peeked in high school, did it, you're a fucking nerd.

I peeked in high school, I was the man.

But now I'm not cool, So I started this fucking band.

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