PMS 2.0 1270 - College Football Playoff Recap, Sugar Bowl Preview, NFL Week 18 Preview/Picks, Nick Saban, Laura Rutledge LIVE From The Sugar Bowl, Chuck Pagano, & AJ Hawk

Speaker 1 Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome on the Sugar Bowl Thursday, January 2nd, 2024. This program starts now.

Speaker 1 Football!

Speaker 1 It's wonderful. We've been celebrating it obviously for the last two weeks in a big way.

Speaker 1 Fresh off the field over there in Pasadena, Rose Bowl, right here to Indianapolis, Indiana, as the Sugar Bowl will kick off down in New Orleans at 4 p.m. Eastern.

Speaker 1 Obviously, that was scheduled for last night after the heinous act, terrorist act that took place yesterday morning that was moved to today.

Speaker 1 We will be chatting with Laura Rutledge in the second hour, who has been boots on the ground throughout the entirety of this.

Speaker 1 She will actually be on the sideline down there in New Orleans at the Sugar Bowl to break down everything that we need to know that has happened over the last 24 hours. And who does this favor? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Does it favor the Georgia Bulldogs who have already had a break?

Speaker 1 Or does it favor the Notre Dame team who gets an extra day after having a tough one against Indiana in 10 degree weather up there in South Bend.

Speaker 1 Now, they are trying to punch the final ticket into the semifinals of the college football playoff. Ohio State just beat the hell out of Oregon.

Speaker 1 Arizona State gave Texas everything they could handle, and I can't wait to see Cam Scatabue in the NFL. He was a leading passer, receiver, rusher.

Speaker 1 I think he had a couple tackles too somehow. Andy Puke more than anybody, he put on an absolute show in a double overtime thriller that saw Texas inevitably get a big-time win.

Speaker 1 And then obviously Penn State beat Boise State to kick off the entire round of quarterfinals now we just wait on Notre Dame and Georgia cannot wait to see how this fares now you look at the first semifinals that's already been made down there in Texas it's the SEC taking on the Big Ten

Speaker 1 then you look down there at the Orange Bowl it's currently the Big Ten waiting who is it gonna be an SEC team or is it gonna be an independent team all the teams that have had buys got their asses kicked early.

Speaker 1 Arizona State was even down a bunch going all the way into the fourth quarter. They come back scrapping claw and show that Big 12 grit to make that a game to take it into overtime.

Speaker 1 Oregon just got gobshmacked early. It was 31-0 coming off a bye week.
You won the championship. Congrats.
You get a bye week from the first round. What do you get?

Speaker 1 Oh, Ohio State playing their best ball, fresh off an ass baiting in Tennessee, ready to roll. You kind of got to gather your thoughts.
This game's already over.

Speaker 1 And then you think about what happened with Penn State. Boise State early.
Boise State had two fumbles in the first quarter. I think there was another turnover.

Speaker 1 Penn State came out flying after their massive win at home a a week before that in a freezing cold.

Speaker 1 It's like the first round buys, I think, are going to be reallocated, re-chatted about whenever we move forward in this 12-team playoff.

Speaker 1 But nonetheless, college football playoff football is better than no football, and we're lucky to be a part of it all. Then obviously, as we forecast ahead into the weekend, massive NFL games.

Speaker 1 Big time implications. There's playoff implications on the line.
There's number one overall seed implications on the line on the NFC side. So football.
is buzzing and we're lucky to talk about it all.

Speaker 1 We'll have Coach Saban joining us in about seven to eight minutes to kind of gather his thoughts on how it's all going. The talks and tables here at Boss Connor and Natasha.

Speaker 1 We had one half of the hammer.

Speaker 1 Cowboys AP Tone is here. A man who has coached football for 36 years of his life, 18 in college, 18 in the NFL, a man that I called head coach one time.
Absolute honor of mine, not his.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Paganes.

Speaker 1 Chuck, the bye week has kind of become something here. You know, it's kind of become a talking point, as it should be.
They say, is it rest? Is it rust?

Speaker 1 Some of these teams wait like three weeks before playing ball. That's a long time while another team is kind of gearing up.

Speaker 1 You can get healthy isaiah bond comes back obviously for texas and i know they had to play in the first round but you can get healthy and get guys back for this entire thing but you can also get a little bit too comfortable you can also kind of fail on your fundamentals and techniques you can also have to get like woken up in the first quarter which all these teams have had to do thus far is georgia going to be able to handle it better than others you think because they've been in this situation before

Speaker 3 I think so. There's such a fine line.
And Kirby's done this for so long and been in these games, you know, so, so many times. He knows the right balance.

Speaker 3 It's always trying to figure out, like with the buys, and you got two and a half, three weeks, you know, how much do we practice? How much do we rest? How much is walkthrough?

Speaker 3 How much are we going to tackle? How much ball security? All those things that you listen to.

Speaker 3 Every head coach that we talk to, you guys talk to on the side of what's the biggest concern with having a couple weeks off. It's our ability, are we going to be able to tackle?

Speaker 3 Are we going to be able to take care of the ball? And you saw, you mentioned As and Jenny, and I was there for that game, you know, with in Tempe there for that game in Phoenix, the Fiesta Bowl.

Speaker 3 He fumbled, what, twice all season, right? And he's got two fumbles, you know, in the first quarter or first half of that game. So you're always worried about knocking off Rust.

Speaker 3 You're always worried about, you know, your guys. And just the, excuse me, the distractions, you know, and the period of time and listening to this, listening to that, to maintain focus.

Speaker 3 Kirby and

Speaker 1 his boys will be focused. He's had delays before, and obviously bowl games have had delays.

Speaker 1 There's been like month and a half delays for like some teams that end up playing in the semifinals or in the national championship before, alone this season.

Speaker 1 But it has become a little bit of a disparity. You talk about Russ holding on to the ball, hitting people.
It's also like game speed.

Speaker 1 You know, we saw Oregon watching Jeremiah come across and then like eye candy. And you haven't been like in a season, it's like back-to-back weeks.
Okay, so you're kind of in it.

Speaker 1 Whenever you're out of that, you can try to replicate it in practice. You can try your best to replicate it.

Speaker 1 But whenever it's all happening and then like check, that's your guy, my guy, what zone am I in? What am I doing?

Speaker 1 Having to get that all back in in the first quarter of a college football playoff game. And the other team knows that you got that shit to deal with too.
So they're coming out trying to kill.

Speaker 1 And Chip Kelly and the Ohio State Buckeys, I think their plan, their strategy and taking advantage of the break was evident. I think that was very, very evident.
And also, if you got that guy

Speaker 1 on your team, I mean, triple coverage, double coverage, behind the line of scrimmage, down the field, on a sideline, in the middle of the field. I mean, where's number four?

Speaker 1 Let's go ahead and give him the rock. And then Abuka obviously is able to eat as well.
He's a number one wide receiver on a lot of teams. Tate, a number one wide receiver on a lot of teams.

Speaker 1 But I think what I've seen from this Ohio State team with these ass these last two games,

Speaker 1 that was filthy. I was right there doing it with him on the side.
I couldn't help but get excited for the entire thing, watching him jump, almost hit his head off the crossbar.

Speaker 1 He almost hit his head off the crossbar there while he was jumping and turning and doing his thing.

Speaker 1 He's a freak show. All season, though, there is a chance.
Now, this is Chip Kelly's first season as offense coordinator over there, but Chip Kelly obviously knows the game.

Speaker 1 There's a chance that, like, the way you run your offense, you have to take care of a lot of people, you know, with the new transfer portal, with the NIL, with how people feel.

Speaker 1 Like, you can get a lot of players' pluck, especially if you're in there. So, maybe Chip Kelly was trying to make everybody happy for a long time.
Maybe.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying this what he was doing, but these last two weeks, there has been an obvious effort. We are going to, Jeremiah Smith's going to get the ball.
Yeah. And I think that.

Speaker 1 Everybody okay with that? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Hey, guys, we're going to throw to number four, Jeremiah. Everybody go with that? Yes, coach.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we'll go with that. Okay, good.
That's what we're, it was very obvious.

Speaker 1 I mean, in the Tennessee game, it was like, as soon as Will Howard saw Jeremiah one-on-one, it was like, I don't care what this play is, I'm going his way.

Speaker 1 And that happened last night a bunch of times. It was like, I don't know what the play was supposed to be, but I do know Jeremiah Smith is on the field.
So let's go ahead and try to get him the rock.

Speaker 1 There was a couple plays where he wasn't in. You know, and then as soon as he gets back on the field, it's like, we know what is going to happen here.
He's unguardable.

Speaker 3 And it don't matter.

Speaker 1 It does not matter. And also, I like the fact that this Ohio State team is just trying to do whatever they can to dominate people.
It's not like, hey, we're not going to try to prove we're tough.

Speaker 1 We are. You know how we know we're tough? We're up 31-0 on you.

Speaker 1 We're not going to try to prove that everybody else on the team is just as good, which they are. They got weapons everywhere.
We got something that's different than everybody else.

Speaker 1 And he's a 19-year-old freak show.

Speaker 1 And he's seemingly work ethic, insane. Coming out of high school, I guess he wanted to be coached.
I think you talked to Hartline. Hartline like breaks it down.

Speaker 1 He's like, hey, all these guys that come through here, the wide receiver corridor, Hartline's guys, they're all told, like, hey, we're going to work.

Speaker 1 We're going to be, this is how we're going to do it. The buy-in from that wide receiver room over there in Ohio State has created just greats through it all.
Marvin Harrison Jr. were like, this guy.

Speaker 1 How are you going to get

Speaker 1 Jackson Smith and Jake? He goes for 347 in the Rosebury. How are you going to get another one of these guys? Chris Olave, how are you going to get another one of these guys?

Speaker 1 And it's like, oh, well, here it is. The youngest one that has ever come through here.
And he might be the best one ever.

Speaker 1 It's like what Hartline's doing over there in that wide receiver room, co-offens coordinator. It's like, what a dog, what a recruiter, what a coach, and what a team understanding what they have value.

Speaker 1 This Ohio State team is by far the hottest team in football. No doubt.
Right now, in all of football.

Speaker 1 You know, I guess you could drop in like Cincinnati Bengals, what they're doing, but their defense hasn't been as hot. Ohio State's defense is saying, ah, you're not really playing either.

Speaker 3 Did you see that last night? What's that? Like every time a guy caught the ball, bam, like T-Butt said it stapled to the ground. I mean, they knocked the living shit out of this team.

Speaker 3 They were so physical and nobody, there was no run after Kevin. There was nothing.
Nobody had any room to breathe.

Speaker 1 And Chuck, you know this. If you can get to the passer with four, you got seven dudes sitting back watching.

Speaker 1 And with the way Oregon operates, which is a lot of misdirection, a lot of quick yak, we're going to go do this. They just swarmed.
They had four dudes on everything, seemingly on both sides.

Speaker 1 And then Ransom and Caleb Dones.

Speaker 1 They were, they're, hey, Ed Reed, Troy Paul and Malu type plays out of Ransom last night, down in the box, blowing people up. Then you're talking about Caleb Downs just having a vision for everything.

Speaker 1 They got high football IQ. They got all the speed in the world.
They got NFL guys at every single position.

Speaker 1 Obviously, they've spent the money to get this team to bring in Chip Kelly's offense coordinator, but everybody they're playing against has done the exact same thing. They're all buying in.

Speaker 1 And that Michigan loss. is the greatest thing that happened to this team.
Absolutely. Because we talked about this last night with AJ and D-Butts on the sideline.

Speaker 1 Whenever you look around and go, what's the worst thing that could happen to us? What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to us? Well, I guess we could lose to Michigan this year.

Speaker 1 Okay, so when that happens, that's the worst thing that could happen. You hit rock bottom.
Okay, what's the worst? Our entire state, not our entire state.

Speaker 1 I apologize for lumping all Ohio State fans in there, but it certainly felt like that for a majority. The entire state is bummed out about the team.
This is a waste of talent, waste of money.

Speaker 1 Another year of not being able to, all the things that are being said about them, they felt that too. They felt that in there.
And then all of a sudden, what? We still got an opportunity? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So let's just go ahead. We've hit rock bottom.
Let's be free and let's go hunt. And that is exactly what that team does on the offense, defense, and special teams.

Speaker 1 They're kickers hitting that ball over the net. Every single kick is going over the net pure.
We're talking right down the middle. You talk about Texas missing a couple kicks.

Speaker 1 This Jaden Fielding kids who's kicking for Ohio State.

Speaker 1 four-degree weather in Columbus. He's hitting that ball pure.
I like where they're at on all three phases.

Speaker 4 Yeah, all three phases. They are so talented, but you talked about it with Heartline and then recruiting.
So Jeremiah Smith, five-star, number one wide receiver, coming up.

Speaker 4 Ameko Obuka, five-star, number one wide receiver coming out. Carnell Tate, five-star, number three wide receiver coming out.

Speaker 4 And then Brandon Ennis or Enes, depending on how you want to pronounce it, he was also a five-star, number five wide receiver coming up.

Speaker 3 So if you're a wide receiver, right, what they've got going on anywhere in the country. The first place you're looking to go,

Speaker 3 oh, that guy, that place, I'm going to have that guy coach me and develop me because it's going to to get me a

Speaker 1 crazy too because it's cold.

Speaker 1 Like, normally you would think, like, SEC climbed. Now, joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is the greatest college football coach of all time, superstar on TV.

Speaker 3 Legend.

Speaker 1 I assume he's about to win some hardware for TV as well. You know, I assume

Speaker 3 they're going to be lined up.

Speaker 1 I think so, as they should be. Ladies and gentlemen, West Virginia man.

Speaker 1 College football goat.

Speaker 1 Guy who loves a good meal.

Speaker 1 He will love a good meal.

Speaker 1 Nick Saban. Look at this.
Yay.

Speaker 1 How you doing?

Speaker 5 How are we doing today, man?

Speaker 1 Okay. So we saw Ohio State beat the hell out of the SEC's Tennessee in freezing cold at home.
And I didn't know if that was Tennessee not showing up or Ohio State playing just unbelievable football.

Speaker 1 So I picked Oregon. to beat Ohio State.

Speaker 1 What an interesting decision that was because I actually watched the Tennessee-Ohio State game and I saw how dominant dominant they were.

Speaker 1 And then last night, what they did to Oregon was just all three phases smothering. What did you see from them? And by far the hottest team in football right now in your eyes, clearly?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, though.

Speaker 5 I think that having teams that had high expectations externally, like we sometimes did at Alabama, you know, creates an anxiety, you know, on your team that, you know, players play tight.

Speaker 5 They play not to lose.

Speaker 5 I actually think you hit the nail on the head when you said when they lost the michigan game what's the worst thing that could ever happen now these guys are just playing free and easy and going out there to play to win everybody's making plays quarterbacks playing better everybody's relaxed playing with confidence and

Speaker 5 i actually picked ohio state because you know when i saw the way they played against tennessee which was a dominating performance in all three phases i said these guys are going to be hard to stop if they continue to play that way and i thought they would gain that momentum in the playoffs.

Speaker 5 So I'm in 100% agreement with you in terms of how this team's playing right now and why.

Speaker 1 What about that guy right there, coach? Jeremiah Smith. They threw it to him in triple coverage.
They threw it to him when he had six eyes on him. They threw it whenever there was one guy.

Speaker 1 Chip Kelly clearly said over the last couple of weeks, hey, number four is on our team. Let's make sure we're utilizing him.
Will Howard's best tag team partner is Jeremiah Smith.

Speaker 1 Now, granted, they have a run game, so you can't have too much outside the box or Judkins and Henderson will kill you. But this guy's a freak coach.

Speaker 1 And we talked about all the wide receivers that have come out of this Ohio State wide receiver room. This guy might be the best of them all.
Can you ride a wide receiver to a national title?

Speaker 5 I don't think there's any question about it. You know, when you have a mismatch player like that,

Speaker 5 you know. Chuck knows this.
When you're a coach and you know you got a go-to guy and they can't guard the guy

Speaker 5 from a quarterback standpoint, I mean, who makes who better? The receiver make the quarterback better? The quarterback make the receiver better?

Speaker 5 And you know, when you've got a mismatch guy like this, that he's going to make plays in critical situations.

Speaker 5 I mean, we had Julio Jones, you know, back in, what, 2009 or whatever, and he was that kind of player.

Speaker 5 And we had lots of first-round draft pick wide receivers, but he was the one guy that you knew if you threw him the ball in a critical situation, he was going to win and he was going to make the play.

Speaker 5 And I think that's what they got in this guy, number four.

Speaker 1 Okay, he advances, obviously, to the semifinals. Cannot wait to see what Ryan Day and that Ohio State Buckeye team continue to do.
Texas also gets a massive win over Arizona State.

Speaker 1 Now, the first-round buys have proven to be a bit of a detriment for the first half of these teams that didn't play in the first round. Same thing happened with Arizona State.

Speaker 1 Texas comes out and beats their ass early. They're down big.
It was like a baseball score there for a bit with a safety and a field goal for Arizona State.

Speaker 1 And then in the second half, Arizona State and Cam Scataboo came alive. I mean, this Arizona State team showed fight, represented the Big 12 in a beautiful fashion.

Speaker 1 Scataboo even threw a 40-yard touchdown in the entirety of it all. It's just like, what happened with Texas?

Speaker 1 Are you worried about this or is this more of a celebration of Cam Scatabue and what this Arizona State team is?

Speaker 5 Well, I think Arizona State, you know, I think psychological disposition is really important in terms of playing in big games.

Speaker 5 And, you know, these guys talked a lot of smack going going into the game. So they had high expectations and they thought they were going to go out there and just dominate this game in the beginning.

Speaker 5 It didn't happen. They got frustrated.
But once they regained their poise in the game and just became who they were, they were physical team all year. They ran, scatter boost, physical guy.

Speaker 5 Quarterback took advantage of, you know, their ability to run the ball and then make plays down the field, even though they don't have great receivers.

Speaker 5 But as soon as they became who they are, they competed and really

Speaker 5 almost, you know, kind of physically kicked Texas ass a little bit, you know, in this game.

Speaker 5 So, um, and that's why I think it's so important for whoever's playing in these games to be able to stay who you are. You know, control what you can control.
You control what you do.

Speaker 5 The game's always going to be about what we do. Forget about what the other team does.
That's technical in terms of how we match the patterns or how we block their fronts.

Speaker 5 But the rest of it is you got to focus on what you got to do and quit quit worrying about all this other outside bullshit.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's talk about what you can do. Kicker for Texas is going through it.
Tone has a question for you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, coach, I feel like before Will Rikert, you kind of went through this with some kickers. And Texas's kicker, Bert Auburn, he was first team all-conference last season.

Speaker 4 So it's not like he is a bad kicker, but this year he has kind of hit a cold streak. And then there was a...

Speaker 4 a video of Sark, you know, kind of talking to him before that final miss, kind of, you know, giving him a pump-up speech.

Speaker 4 In that situation, when you've dealt like kickers in the past, I know coaches either have, well, I'm going to talk to him, or I talked to Coach Pagano this morning.

Speaker 4 He was like, I just tried to stay as far away as possible. What was your mindset dealing with kickers when they were either going through a situation like this or not?

Speaker 5 You can verify this for three save-us, but when I saw that happening,

Speaker 5 I said, I never talked to these guys when they had to do this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, amen. Doc said the same thing.

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 5 I didn't want them to think it was a different kick than every other kick they had to make, you know, and be so concerned about the outcome of making the kick that they didn't just, you know, kick with confidence and go through their normal rhythm of how they do what they do.

Speaker 5 You know, I mean, I always go back to golf, man. As soon as you think you've got to make a shot, you're going to make a bad shot.
So you got to be in a right mindset all the time.

Speaker 1 As a kicker, I didn't like, you know, I didn't mind him going to talk to him for how long it was and how focused it was. Okay, here's something.

Speaker 1 But if a coach wants to come up to a kicker and say, like, hey, we believe in you, brother, and then just as you're going out there, like, I don't think that's bad.

Speaker 1 But that was clearly not what his normal pre-kick routine is, right?

Speaker 1 Like Vinatari, if there was a timeout, he's going back to the net, he's hitting a ball into the net, and then he's jogging onto the field about the same amount of time that would be a normal kick.

Speaker 1 So like, you ice him, did you really know? He's also not staring at the upright. Like, this guy's staring at the side that he's going to kick at the entire time.

Speaker 1 So I think like the pre-kick routine, whether it's Sark talking to him or not, I think was kind of bobbled there. I think that was kind of a mismanaged situation.

Speaker 1 And normally you'll see guys just try to, okay, you're taking a timeout or whatever. Let's go ahead and get back.
And then bang, same kick. Let's go out there and do it.

Speaker 1 So if he makes that kick, I think people would obviously celebrate the shit out of Sark. But what you said to Reese Davis was the same thing that Darius Butler said as we were watching it on the side.

Speaker 1 No shot. He's talking to him way too long.

Speaker 1 Obviously Obviously, making the moment bigger, which it is. You hit this kick, we move on to college football playoff.
But I thought that was interesting. Burt's a good kicker.

Speaker 1 He's missed a few now, though. There's two yesterday, and they missed one against Michigan.
I think he's a good kicker.

Speaker 1 Gonna need to make them going down, especially with how these games are going to get, I think, coach.

Speaker 5 So, if you were

Speaker 5 kicker on our team and I was the coach, I'd be scared to death to talk to you before you kicked. I'd be afraid you'd tell me to go kiss off.
So,

Speaker 1 it depends on how I feel. You know, it depends on how I feel.

Speaker 1 It depends on how I, if I just missed one, he just missed one before that, I think, right? Yeah, he had just missed one. So then you come up.

Speaker 1 If a coach was to give me like a, hey, all good ass slap, keep it moving, I think that's a-okay. But doing the full on,

Speaker 1 that's an interesting moment.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's an interesting moment. Yeah, that's a very interesting moment.
Now, speaking of interesting moments, we have one down in New Orleans taking place right now.

Speaker 1 Chuck has a question for you, Coach.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Coach.

Speaker 3 Based on the horrific and tragic events that happened down there as a coach, you know, this thing, your team's geared up, you're geared up, everybody's geared up to go play, and all of a sudden you're postponed, you know, for a day, 24 hours, whatever it's going to be.

Speaker 3 How would you handle that situation?

Speaker 5 Well, you know, it reminds me of way back when, when we got a call on March 13th, and we were in our first day of spring practice, and they said school's closed, COVID's in, season might be off.

Speaker 5 You know, we don't know when we're going to play. So in the team meeting,

Speaker 5 first thing I said to the players was, whoever handles this disruption the best is going to have the best chance to be successful.

Speaker 5 So I don't think anybody has any experience handling a situation like this that involves so much public safety and, you know, how are we going to make the play safe so that we can play and postpone a game.

Speaker 5 But I do think that that same concept works here.

Speaker 5 You know, whichever coaching staff can handle this disruption the best with their players and keep them focused on what they need to do and not be concerned about when we played, what time we play in.

Speaker 5 It's in the day, it's in the night, it's in the parking lot. I mean, I used to tell the players, you know, the field is 53 yards wide and 100 yards deep.

Speaker 5 So no matter where we play, that's the way it's going to be. And no matter when we play, that's the way it's going to be.

Speaker 5 So let's stay focused on what we're going to do when we get inside the rectangle and see what happens.

Speaker 1 Hey,

Speaker 1 when you told your team, whoever handles these distractions is going to win, did you guys win or no?

Speaker 5 Yeah, we won a national championship.

Speaker 5 But hey, we gave them all a scale. We gave them all an Apple Watch.
We knew when they were working out. I mean, we got turned in by the NCAA by 52 different teams, but

Speaker 1 Shane Gillis was out there saying, you see what this coming.

Speaker 1 The way you motivate and talk and coach and simplify everything, it makes sense whenever you like, we hear Bill Belichick talk too.

Speaker 1 It's like you and he are speaking from the same exact point of view, but you and he also win on a regular basis.

Speaker 1 Feels like you know, you got a lot of guys from your camp that are out there trying to do the exact same thing. Today's no different, and this first round has been a problem.

Speaker 1 Our first round buy has been a problem for a lot of teams. Go ahead, Con man.
Yeah, coach.

Speaker 6 After you know, the first three games of this second round, basically every team on the buy has come out slow.

Speaker 6 And aside from Arizona State, most of them have been gotten absolutely slaughtered during the game.

Speaker 6 Is there any real way to kind of keep your team hot when you do have this massive, you know, time off? Because it wasn't just, you know, a one-week buy.

Speaker 6 Obviously, most of the teams hadn't played since championship weekend.

Speaker 6 And do you think Kirby did anything different because of the fact that he has dealt with, you know, a little bit of a break before on his national championship runs?

Speaker 5 Well, I think there's two things that you worry about. First of all, is ball security because the ball handlers haven't been hit.
And then how you're going to tackle on defense.

Speaker 5 Because, you know, when you practice, you don't want to tackle and take people to the ground. So you got to do a good job of trying to thud thud up and all that type of thing.

Speaker 5 But my thing was the first years that I was a head coach at Michigan State, we lost five straight bowl games. And I tried to practice the team to the game, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 Carry the momentum of the season all the way to the game. And we got our ass kicked in every one of them.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 5 when I got to LSU and other places, you know, I said, we're going to treat this like a one-game season and we're going to back out from when we play to have 11 practices, three or four of them camp practices, the rest of them, you know, preparation for the game, and go play the game.

Speaker 5 And we had a lot more success that way because emotionally, you know, the players didn't have to worry about the game for three weeks. But this is different because

Speaker 5 it used to be in college, everybody had a long time off before they played. So we had a 14 playoff.

Speaker 5 You play December 6th in the SEC championship game, then you play January 1st in the first round of the playoffs.

Speaker 5 The other team was off too. So there didn't look to have a difference in how people played.
But now you got people that are being able to play continuously with maybe 10 days in between games.

Speaker 5 And then you got somebody that's been off for three weeks. And I do think how you manage that is really, really important.
But

Speaker 5 I'm telling you, you need to go from the wherever the game is and take it back like it's a one-game season and you're getting ready for one game and just have the players work out, condition, do seven on seven on their own.

Speaker 5 Coaches not in their face telling them what to do.

Speaker 5 I mean, not worrying about the game, not worrying about the game plan because you can practice too much for a game and you can lose a lot of fundamentals if you don't practice the right way.

Speaker 5 And that's why we always had three camp practices, just like we're in fall camp.

Speaker 1 Do you think Kirby understands that though? Like, I feel like Arizona State Dillingham, he's 31 years old. This is the first time.
His team showed up for him, too.

Speaker 1 And his speech last year, I think, at the end of the year, how close they were, he said, with everything we're doing behind the scenes, it's almost like what Coach Dan Hurley did with UConn, but obviously UConn goes on to win multiple national championships.

Speaker 1 But Coach Dillingham over there, he said, we're close. I see everything we're doing behind the scenes.
I think we're close. They come out.
They do. They put up a fight against Texas.

Speaker 1 Almost win that game. Should have won that game.
I mean, at home with the helmet. At home with the helmet.
That's game over. That's first down.
That game's over. Nonetheless, it's not called.

Speaker 1 Then you think about what happened with Boise State. They've never been in that situation.
This particular Boise State State team never been in that situation before.

Speaker 1 Oregon, you would think like, okay, Lanning's been around. He's been in it, but they haven't had to deal with it.
Kirby has had to deal with this type of thing before.

Speaker 1 You would think the Georgia team would be ready. How do you feel about this four o'clock game? And how do you think Notre Dame takes advantage of maybe Georgia not playing for a while?

Speaker 1 Are they going to try to do what Chip tried to do to Oregon?

Speaker 1 I think Chip Kelly knew, hey, if we come out and bomb them early, they're going to be in a whirlwind because they haven't played in a while.

Speaker 1 Do you think, do you think Marcus is thinking the same thing for Notre Dame or how do you think this thing goes early?

Speaker 5 I think Georgia, because of the experience they have playing in these games and they've had to play games, playoff games, lots of playoff games where they had a significant amount of time off.

Speaker 5 I think Kirby's got a lot of experience managing

Speaker 5 that situation, probably do it fairly similar to the way we did it. So

Speaker 5 you never know if time off is a good thing, just like bye weeks. People talk about bye weeks during the season as being a good thing.
Sometimes they're a good thing, sometimes they're a bad thing.

Speaker 5 You know, when your team has good momentum, you just want to keep playing and roll on. If your team's beat up and hurt and tired, you want to have time off to get them to rest and recover.

Speaker 5 But I think every one of those things is circumstantial. And I think in Georgia's case, they had a lot of guys injured, you know, toward the end of the season.
So they

Speaker 5 probably

Speaker 5 will benefit from having some time off actually.

Speaker 1 I'm excited to see what Notre Dame tries to do early because they had that 98-yard touchdown run in the first quarter against Indiana, which set the tone for it, basically.

Speaker 1 Now, Indiana was able to tighten it up.

Speaker 1 They were able to tighten it up. 27-17 is that game.
But like they're very focused on the run, on the run, on the run.

Speaker 1 You would think that physical could maybe beat down Georgia if they're trying to find their bearings yet again. But to your point,

Speaker 1 Georgia knows that they're going to run the ball. So Kirby's had a few weeks here now knowing that the run's coming.
And I think that I'm excited for this game at 4 o'clock.

Speaker 1 I think we got another really good one on our hands. And obviously, it being delayed another day helps up.
Go ahead.

Speaker 5 I think two things for Georgia. Number one, they got to do a good job up front building a fence on these runners and stop the run, which means they got to tackle well.

Speaker 5 And they can't put all the pressure on the secondary making tackles in space because that's going to be a problem.

Speaker 5 And the second thing is, is can they keep Gunner Stockton out of long-yarded situations where this guy has to make plays?

Speaker 5 If they can keep him sort of on schedule where the down of distance is in his favor, you don't know if it's a run, a pass, a bootleg, whatever, that's how he'll operate the best.

Speaker 5 But if they have a lot of self-inflicted wounds and get behind the sticks, then he's probably going to have a tough time.

Speaker 5 And that's when Notre Dame is going to dow it up on him and give him some looks that he's probably not ready for.

Speaker 5 And what happened in the Texas game when he threw that bad interception may happen again.

Speaker 1 Okay, so if you look at all these teams that have made it already, Quinn yours, and they talked about his check on fourth and 13 with the blitz coming and telling

Speaker 1 he can spin it if he has to. Drew Aller, Penn State, he can spin it if he has to.
Will Howard can spin it if he has to.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying Riley can't spin it, but he hasn't been able to prove it to be able to be a passing quarterback to win.

Speaker 1 Now, he can run better than all those guys, and what he has on the ground is certainly impeccable. Gunner also, the big conversation is like, hey, he can run in this entire thing.

Speaker 1 To win it all, are you going to have to be able to spin it in the NFL, for instance there's always you know the conversation about the drop back passer is dead the pocket passer is dead you're going to have to be able to extend players you're going to have to be able to run but at some point during your playoff run quarterback is going to have to hit a third and 12 ball that is going to have to be right here to extend a drive in the fourth quarter you're going to it's going to show up at some point you're going to have to be able to spin it riley or gunner at this point do you think is the right guy that's going to be able to do that because we don't know shit about gunner does he have that in him and then riley do you think he has that in him as well

Speaker 5 well i i don't think riley's a great sort of down-the-field passer i think he's a smart guy that'll throw the ball to the right guy and take the check down take what the defense gives i don't think he's that guy that's going to drive the ball in there in a critical situation he does have more experience so he's probably got a better chance to make the plays than gunner but um you know nobody knows what gunner's going to do no nobody knows you know how he's going to respond to this situation if he's going to be be able to go out there and play with confidence or not.

Speaker 5 But I think if Georgia wins the game, it's going to be because they're the more physical team. That's going to be the key for them.
They're going to have to run the ball.

Speaker 5 They're going to have to stop the run. They're going to have to win on the line of scrimmage.
And I agree with you 100%. It's hard to win in the NFL if you don't have a quarterback.

Speaker 5 I lived through that several times, right? In Cleveland, in Miami.

Speaker 5 I get that. I understand that part of it.
And I think that's true in college football to a larger degree, too.

Speaker 5 So hard to win if the quarterback doesn't play well. And the people around him have to play well so he can play well.
And I think that's probably more important for Georgia than ever.

Speaker 1 Okay, playing tough, you know, like nice ram truck football. Hell yeah, yeah.
Hey, there was a couple of ram trucks last yesterday. Ohio State had like three of them on one drive.
Ransom? Hey, wait,

Speaker 1 when he cleared up? I mean, they're thumping people right now that Ohio State. So playing free.
Everybody's playing. Caleb Dons, him and Ransom, they're a problem.

Speaker 1 They are an, I don't know if they're making their own checks, too, to come down and kind of play in their own ball, or if Knowles is telling them or he's giving them the freedom to do that.

Speaker 1 They're everywhere. They are everywhere, Ransom and Caleb Don.
It's old school safety play coming out of that Elasticsearch.

Speaker 3 They're obviously very, very well coached because they were on everything. To your point, there was like no rack, no yak, no nothing.
When guys caught the ball, guys

Speaker 3 took a handoff, they had...

Speaker 4 multiple bodies around them and there was no rack or yak, like I said, and they were stapled to the the ground I could tell you there was a couple times where Caleb was not happy with how quickly the defensive call was getting in because he was then looking to yes make his own checks and calls yeah Caleb obviously got hold on let's see please can we wait to see what they want to do Caleb's a genius right super genius football guy

Speaker 5 Yeah, but he's not a very patient guy.

Speaker 2 And if you don't get the call in quick,

Speaker 1 I've got a couple bad notes from him last year

Speaker 5 based on that. And I wasn't calling the defensive, so but he knew I was the guy getting on the defensive caller's ass.

Speaker 5 ass so hey can we hurry this thing up around he wants to know he wants to know what's the call what am i supposed to do what can i look at so i can anticipate what's going to happen in this formation with this motion and all that type of stuff because he's that kind of player a lot of guys aren't that kind of player but he is but the one thing they're doing a lot of which is helping these safeties is they're buzzing these safeties down inside the box a lot more than he did early in the season and i think that both those safeties are making a lot more plays because of that open field tackling out of those two Fun to watch, you know, because there's a lot of plays that could have been made last night that ended up being like three-yard gains.

Speaker 1 But you break one tackle, you're talking about rack and yak, that's an eight, nine-yard gain. Now all of a sudden you're on schedule.
You can continue to move.

Speaker 1 Instead, Caleb sets his feet outside thighboard, saws it out, gain of two. He's the one putting the four-up as opposed to James going and then ransom.
I didn't know he had it like that.

Speaker 1 I had no idea yet. We're talking about Jeremiah Smith, freshman wide receiver.
Caleb's a sophomore. Caleb's true sophomore in this entire thing.
They're young over there still playing great.

Speaker 1 Now, tonight's winner, four o'clock game winner, will take on a Penn State team that is very good. Ty has a question for you, coach.

Speaker 8 Yeah, coach, so a lot of people talking about Penn State, you know, kind of for the last couple of years here.

Speaker 8 It's been, hey, James Franklin's record against, you know, top 10 teams or top five teams.

Speaker 8 And then a lot of people were bitching about their path to the semifinals now, you know, whatever you want to say. about SMU and Boise State, but they've looked, you know, pretty solid.

Speaker 8 Do you think there's something to them maybe like exercising those demons? And now that they've won two games in a row, that it doesn't necessarily matter who the next opponent is.

Speaker 8 They have the, you know, they actually feel and believe like they can win this whole thing?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I actually think that

Speaker 5 because, and I know Penn State hadn't played the same level of competition in two games, although those teams are very good.

Speaker 5 Their offensive line, though, and those two running backs they have, these guys have been able to run the ball effectively in the last few games very impressively and then to have a quarterback that can play behind a running game like that with play action passes and staying out of long-yarded situations I think they're for real and their defense is playing really well too so if you just go on how well teams are playing right now you know Penn State and Ohio State are probably playing the best that doesn't mean they necessarily going to win or that Penn State's going to win, but I do think they're playing extremely well.

Speaker 5 The quarterback's playing well. They can run the ball well.
Look, I was worried about Oregon

Speaker 5 because you guys saw that film I showed yesterday. They gave up 15 explosive plays to Penn State in the Big Ten championship game.
Now, Oregon won, so people never paid a lot of attention to that.

Speaker 5 And I was really, really concerned if their defense was going to be able to hold up against Ohio State. And obviously, they weren't able to.
And it really, really showed.

Speaker 5 But I think Penn State is playing well on both sides of the ball and i think you know they're a very good team i'm a believer i was not a believer in penn state early on i'm a believer right now yeah and i think the more i learn about what penn state is doing behind the scenes It's like everybody's talking about, you know, Texas has a bunch of money.

Speaker 1 Oregon has a bunch of money. Ohio State has a bunch of money.

Speaker 1 Obviously, these Michigan has a bunch of money, especially now Larry Ellison became a Michigan guy because of his, like, it's like Penn State is, they're all in right now on trying to win football.

Speaker 1 They're deep, too.

Speaker 1 Nobody talks about it because Penn State has never, it's always Ohio State or Michigan in the Big Ten.

Speaker 1 So Penn State's kind of like to cast aside, like, yeah, they're going to be good, but they're never going to be able to really make it.

Speaker 1 It's like their athletic director, Pat Craft, he's a former linebacker, football guy. And he's doing business up there at Penn State, shaking hands, getting everybody to rally.
They're spending.

Speaker 1 They are trying to win it all up there. And Aller, if he was up for the draft, I think this year, with how tall he is, the moxie he has, and his arm talent that he has, and he can move.
He can move.

Speaker 1 I mean, this draft process would do him very well, I think, if he was to sit down and have these meetings. You're talking about maybe number one overall pick in this guy.
He's coming back.

Speaker 1 He's got another year. It's like Penn State's setting themselves up here for the long haul.

Speaker 1 And allegedly, Singleton and Allen, who are both juniors, they're going to be coming back too, allegedly for the better running back. It's like Penn State's setting up here.

Speaker 4 You could talk about the teams they played, but both those teams that they played were ranked very high in rushing defense.

Speaker 4 And they've been like their man meet has man-mated over the other two two teams.

Speaker 4 But they need to get Abdul Carter. He needs to make sure that he is healthy for this one because he is absurd.

Speaker 1 That was a first quarter situation, right?

Speaker 3 You ended up on the bike and being on the field for that game. Like TV doesn't give you an appreciation on just how big and physical and athletic a team is.

Speaker 3 Penn State has got a, like I walked in some stadiums. Like when we went to go play Pittsburgh one year, And coach, we were going through warm-ups.

Speaker 3 You know, sometimes you look at the other team just going through warm-ups.

Speaker 3 we're in freaking trouble today. They'd look so much bigger and better than us and more physical and more athletic.
Like,

Speaker 3 and give Boise credit, they had a hell of a season. Hell is.
But that Penn State team, I mean, that tight end, Tyler Warren,

Speaker 1 he's like 6'9,

Speaker 3 357 pounds.

Speaker 1 This guy is an athlete, man.

Speaker 3 They are a good-looking team.

Speaker 1 So what you just said, though, Coach, like, I think that's whenever you have the alumni and boosters. That's how you get those guys.

Speaker 1 You know, like Tomlin told Chase uh young he said hey i ain't never gonna lose enough games to get guys that look like you in college to get guys that look like that you're gonna have to be active in penn state certainly is they talk about behind warren there's a freshman who is

Speaker 5 the whole team look like that good he got the same hair you got great hair too you know that that that that that was kind of my argument pat about you know, the committee going to watch some games because what Chuck just said is really true.

Speaker 5 When you stand on the sidelines and you look at a team, you see how physical they are. That goes a long way in football.

Speaker 5 You know, Parcells used to say, the heavyweights don't fight the lightweights in boxing for a reason. It has nothing to do with skill.

Speaker 5 If they have equal skill, the 139-pound guy is not going to beat the 215-pound guy. All right, so that's why we always had big physical teams.
That's what we recruited. That's what we look for.

Speaker 5 Belichick's the same way.

Speaker 5 Now, they got to be players, don't get me wrong, but little guys have a hard time beating big guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and that's how football is always going to be. And that's why it's a beautiful game, beautiful sport.
Cannot wait to catch today's 4 o'clock Sugar Bowl. Coach, you've had a hell of a season.

Speaker 1 Can't wait to see you next week down in Miami.

Speaker 5 Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to it, no doubt. But if I was an Oregon fan, I have to say this because this kind of bothers me.

Speaker 5 And you're the 13-0, number one seed, and you got to play Ohio State in the first round.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I'm not an internet guy, but if I was an Oregon fan, I'd be on the internet screaming about that.

Speaker 1 Would you be in your basement, your underwear, too, doing it? Is that what you're doing? I know you love those internet people.

Speaker 5 Living in my mother's basement.

Speaker 1 Miss Derry's basement is a beautiful thing as well. Hey, we appreciate you so much, Coach.

Speaker 5 All right, man. You guys have a good one.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, happy new year. Happy New Year.
Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Nick Seed. Yeah, coach.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he, I don't know if it was on our show or on game day,

Speaker 1 he did a full speech about how this committee is always in like a conference room. Every time we see him, they're in a conference room, in a conference room.
Just go on a sideline. Go watch a game.

Speaker 1 Go see who you're actually picking to go against whoever. And obviously, Arizona State shows up in a big way for the college football playoffs as a whole.

Speaker 1 But how it has been thus far is like, hey, the teams that have been favored are favored for a reason. And the teams that have been seated higher have been seated higher for a reason.

Speaker 1 And they have won. And that might just be how college football is every single year.

Speaker 1 And I'm not saying it's the same teams that are going to be dominant, but there might be a line in the sand of like, hey, these teams are great this year and these teams not so good.

Speaker 1 There's also a situation that happened yesterday. I don't think Oregon played their best football.
And that happens in football. Sometimes you just don't show up on a certain night.

Speaker 1 Dane Lanning said it. He was like, that Ohio State team, I don't think they played their best against Michigan.
We obviously did not play our best tonight and we got taken advantage of.

Speaker 1 That's football in a nutshell.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they'll ever be able to get it right, but he was pissed that we were going to lose out on Ohio State, Oregon in the Final Four, because if it was just four teams, if it was just a four-team playoff, Ohio State and Oregon would have both got in.

Speaker 1 Now only one of them's there. And he's like, that's, that's, is this how we want this to be?

Speaker 1 It's like, I don't know how you get it right in the future, but if you're an Oregon fan, I can see how you'd be upset about the setup.

Speaker 4 It feels like it's not going to be that way next year.

Speaker 4 They're already reporting that they're looking at that the conference winners, not an automatic buy, but an automatic bid. So that'll take away from that, hopefully.

Speaker 4 But to your point about like, you know, sometimes some teams, some programs,

Speaker 1 sorry, excuse me.

Speaker 4 There was a 10-year period there where we knew every single year it was going to be Georgia, Bama, Clemson, or Ohio State went in. And some, I mean, they get the best recruits.

Speaker 4 They have some of the best coaches.

Speaker 1 Like, that's just how it's going to work. More schools get a shot to shine, though.
Yeah, they do. Pingo.
You know what I mean? More schools get a shot to shine. No doubt.

Speaker 6 Quarterfinals. Certainly.

Speaker 3 I like that idea about if they could actually go see these teams.

Speaker 1 Well, they should.

Speaker 3 I mean, that's a whole other go spend some i mean just

Speaker 1 because you know he's coach is right i mean you just like okay this is but then arizona state would have never been considered yeah having a shot against texas you know because if you look at the size of those two like it's going to be a vastly different thing our west virginia i always think back to our west virginia team too about how i think we could have played with anybody and we did we beat like damn near everybody except for pitt on one particular night but we beat georgia down in georgia we beat uh mississippi like we beat a bunch of these big name teams, Oklahoma, out at the fiesta.

Speaker 1 Like we beat the big names.

Speaker 1 But I think if you're just a look at our roster and the amount of stars that everybody had and the size in every single position, I don't think you would put us up to have a chance against those teams.

Speaker 1 So like some teams are just built different. Like that Arizona State team, I think, had a bunch of dogs.
They do have dogs. They had a bunch of dogs that can outplay what the visual optics are.

Speaker 1 But a majority of the case in football, Bigger, stronger, faster team is going to have quite an advantage. And that's just kind of how it is.
And some of these teams have those dudes.

Speaker 1 So it certainly should be brought to the conversation. But with the way the college football season happened this year, it was like, Vandi beats Bama.
Oklahoma beats Bama. This team beats this team.

Speaker 1 This team's supposed to win. They have such a better team on paper than this team, but they didn't show up that day.
It's like, I don't know how you ever get it right.

Speaker 1 I don't know how they're ever going to, I don't think they ever are. You could open that thing up to 64 teams.
I think people would still be pissed. I think

Speaker 1 it would, because football, you never know who's going to show up. Like, matchups are a problem.
All you need is one good matchup.

Speaker 8 If you get a defensive end that has a tackles number he can wreck the entire game it doesn't matter who's on what side of the thing it's like that's that's why football is great but it's also why it's hard to project who the best teams are without seeing them actually play each other yeah and i think that's why it was like a massive feather in their cap that the arizona state texas game ended up the way it did because if it would have you know like when we went down to the field i mean like we were all gobshmacked when we heard like oh they just tied it like this is about to go into overtime like this would have been another blowout then i think it would have been a lot louder but also one of the things like we were talking about with the SEC if you do the you know just going down to the sideline and like that would skew very heavy SEC because like the games we've done you go down there and it's like SEC Penn State.

Speaker 8 Yeah Penn State Ohio.

Speaker 1 Ohio State.

Speaker 1 It would be all the teams that have once again.

Speaker 8 That are getting all the five-star recruits.

Speaker 1 The massive backing. The reason why those dudes are five-star recruits is because they're bigger, stronger, faster than everybody.

Speaker 1 You know, Cam Scatabu has been doing this since he was a toddler, but because of how tall he is, he was, you're going to San Jose State or whatever it was.

Speaker 1 Like the big-time recruits are the dudes who are gigantic. And they're the ones that are fighting for this big-time NIL money whenever it comes to signing day and everything like that.

Speaker 1 So if you were to look at just size, all the teams with the most money are going to be the ones that are going to have it. That's just how it is.
But there's a reason in football why that works.

Speaker 1 You know, that is a benefit in football. But if you don't show up every week, how can you trust it? How can you trust it? I don't know.

Speaker 6 Yeah. And even Boise, though.
Like, you think about that Boise State game, and obviously they ended up getting killed, but like it was much closer, it felt like, than the actual score kind of showed.

Speaker 6 Like that first drive, they drive down the field, they shank a field goal. Okay, obviously shanks an understatement.
Shank is an understatement.

Speaker 1 That's a bad guess.

Speaker 6 Stadium pressure was very high if we're talking about NCAA 2K28. Yeah, I mean, it was moving.
And then they threw, what, three picks? They had the fumbles that.

Speaker 6 basically never happened during the season for Ginty. Like a lot of things, basically everything went wrong for Boise State.

Speaker 6 So like they still were able to hold their own, but it's like those high pressure moments that those guys, those five-stars, those bigger schools, it feels like are used to versus like a Boise State type school.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so that game's going to be 24-21, you know, in the third quarter, and they get that penalty.

Speaker 3 They throw a touchdown penalty to number 17, striking,

Speaker 3 and they got a hands to the face, and they bring it back, and they end up getting no points on that. Otherwise, it's a three-point game.
And it's a little bit like Texas and Arizona State.

Speaker 3 Texas let them hang around.

Speaker 3 They let them hang around, hang around at 17-3, then at 17-5, they get a safety. They don't run the ball for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 I was going to ask Coach if he was surprised that Sarkin at Texas with the running backs that they have didn't commit to running the ball.

Speaker 1 Especially with the size you have.

Speaker 3 They let them hang around just long enough. And Dillingham, though, they don't care.
The way they talk and they do have dogs and they got swag and they got scataboo.

Speaker 3 And next thing you know, it's 24-8. And then that's fourth and two, and he throws a halfback pass for a touchdown.
And then you're in a dog fight.

Speaker 1 No, and also, clearly, helmet to helmet. Yeah, big time.
I mean, that was clearly helmet. That That's game over.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I think, and that's another part about it. Like, do you think the conversation is how are they going to call that if the game's on the line?

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, and once again, you got to, that's first down. You're driving in to kick a field goal, at least Arizona State's kickers.
You can be able to knock one in. He already did there.

Speaker 1 But, like, that's clearly helmet to helmet. We saw this.
We saw this down on the field because we had already left. And I'm like, ooh, what happened here? First down? They go down?

Speaker 1 They're like, no, no call. I'm like, what do you mean, no call? No flag, no nothing.
I'm like, what?

Speaker 3 How's that even happened so that may be to your point like in college football like because it's not targeting and it's not an ejection there's they don't have the 15 yards like in the nfl that's 15.

Speaker 1 well gene starator nobody out gene starator tweeted this morning yep every single part of the rule yeah uh was broken here this should have been a penalty but to this yeah here's gene starator paison legend nfl ref college basketball ref now cbs is authoritary on the rules my phone has been burning up all morning yes it should have been a flag flag for targeting in Texas ASU.

Speaker 1 It meets all the criteria of targeting. If you want to check me, it's rule 9-1-4.
You can get through it all. But they didn't call one earlier, too, on Texas, Isaiah Bond during a pick.

Speaker 1 He takes a massive shot down the middle of the field, and they didn't call this either. So I appreciate that the refs kind of state like this, bang, that gets called all the time.

Speaker 1 That gets called basically every single time in modern football. I mean, that's just kind of a call.
So they didn't call this one. They didn't call the other one.

Speaker 1 I think the refs will say we were consistent with it. But whenever you take that highlight, minute some left, Arizona State driving, and Texas goes in and goes helmet to helmet.
And they say, nah,

Speaker 1 nope, I don't know what you're talking about. That is going to, because then people say, well, what if Texas are on the other side of this?

Speaker 1 If Texas was on the offense and Arizona State did this against them, everybody just automatically assumes they would have called that. They would have called that for Texas.

Speaker 1 They don't call for Arizona State because they don't want the Big 12 team to win. And I think the refs would say, hey, there was one earlier we didn't call either.

Speaker 1 It's kind of, we're letting them play out here, which I can respect as well. I can respect the refs calling their game.
Just like Oregon, Ohio State, those refs were hands-off. Yeah.
It was awesome.

Speaker 1 Hey, we're out of this thing. Five penalties.
I love that. I think the first one came in like third floor.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 The only thing you want is a bunch of rags on the field.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And if they're going to call it consistent, though.
Like, if you're just going to beat consistently.

Speaker 3 And it's just like offense and defense and pass interference, right?

Speaker 3 Like at the end of the game, you got to believe that the moment, you know, late in that game, there's, what, a minute left, and they're going to win that thing in regulation, that you don't think that comes in the back of those officials' minds?

Speaker 3 Oh, definitely.

Speaker 1 Like, do I want to win this field?

Speaker 3 Yeah. Because it's because it's game over.

Speaker 1 I think they're going down, kicking the field. Because they'll kick the field goal.
They'll burn all the clock. Arizona State went.
Now, do they hit the field goal?

Speaker 1 That's all they're the question, Texas.

Speaker 3 Well, they had a kicker that struggled as well.

Speaker 1 26. I think here's the thing about kickers.
Yeah, they kicker's a big mental thing. Okay, kicker is a massive mental thing.

Speaker 1 That's why you talked about before Will Reichert at Alabama having a kicking issue. It's like

Speaker 1 when every game is a big game, okay, every single game is for national championship. Like on kickers, that is literally the thing is mental and can you execute in the biggest moment.

Speaker 1 So a lot of these big-time schools, people are like, well, how come they don't get the best kicker?

Speaker 1 It's like, well, this dude probably talent-wise is the best kicker, but he has to deal with the pressure every single kick that this point matters. This point matters.
This point matters.

Speaker 1 This point matters. So the guys that can withstand that through a college career, mentally ready to go to the NFL.

Speaker 1 That's why whenever you get a kicker from one of these smaller schools, and I'm not saying there's been a lot of, I mean, Adam Venteri is my guy. He comes from South Dakota State.

Speaker 1 You never know what they're going to be like whenever it matters. Like, what is it going to be like whenever every single point matters, especially in the NFL when there's money on the line?

Speaker 1 So like Auburn, I think he's going to bounce back. I think he's had a lot of massive moments for them.
But those are big kicks.

Speaker 1 And mentally, if you just get a little doubt, I mean, it's going to be hard to find that sweet spot. That's about that.

Speaker 4 He was all first team all-conference last year.

Speaker 1 Good kicker.

Speaker 4 And like he was, I just looked it up. He was 85% his entire career and now he's 65% this year.
Like that's, that's mental.

Speaker 1 That's all mental.

Speaker 3 All it takes is one little,

Speaker 3 one little smidgen of self-doubt. At all.
Just to, and you

Speaker 1 it's over. And then you're trying to find it.
And then like Sark, like, no, that ain't going to work.

Speaker 1 Well, they love that he was doing that at the time, then he missed his kick, but he missed that first one right. Go back to the first one that he misses to the right there.
Watch his stroke.

Speaker 1 He stands up tall, doesn't lean at all. Obvious push, trying to force that one in.
You know, he's trying to like force that one in, doesn't want to pull it.

Speaker 1 Then this one, watch him, he falls off of it. Go to the second one, please.
Then the second one, he falls off of it, missed to the left. Two very clearly different swings.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like it's just, those are two different. That's, and that's whenever, and mentally, it's like, he's hoping this game gets over.
Yeah, all over. Get me out of here.
Get me to a practice.

Speaker 1 Get me to a practice field so I can get back to this. Because once you start battling that, and once again, this is going to be good for Aubrey going forward, I think.

Speaker 1 Mentally having to deal with it, even though it seems like it's a nightmare. you still win the game.
So, people are going to forget about it, hopefully, soon. What have you done for me lately?

Speaker 1 You can hit a big kick, but he couldn't wait to get to the practice. I assume he's kicking today.

Speaker 1 Thank God they won.

Speaker 3 Exactly. Can you imagine?

Speaker 1 No, especially with all the money. Oh, no.
In Texas? Oh, my God.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't know how many people. Throw your phone away.

Speaker 1 Yeah, throw. And also,

Speaker 9 he's a senior, I believe.

Speaker 1 Gotten disappear, too. That's one of those ones where you try to get out of the way.
Yeah, you can't go. You can't go down and get any barbecue dinner or blacks and all stage.

Speaker 3 You can't. No.

Speaker 6 With the next game being in Texas, he could have been in that too. Cottonball.

Speaker 1 Cottonball. Which is interesting here.
Ohio State has to travel down to Texas to take on Texas.

Speaker 8 Very much so.

Speaker 1 Fascinating.

Speaker 1 Very, very fascinating. Now, with the Buckeyes travel, they're massive favorites.

Speaker 1 I think Buckeye Faithful will travel down there because they know that this is potentially Texas at home against Ohio State in the semifinal game.

Speaker 1 So I think the Buckeye, the Ohio folks, will want to show face and make it happen. But that's an interesting interesting setup for this particular game.

Speaker 8 Well, you said everyone, you know, it kind of feels like everyone's back on Ohio State after everything with Michigan.

Speaker 8 And I think if there was anyone left who was kind of just like, oh, we still got to see it, like after they beat the shit out of Oregon, now everyone's like, okay, this is a national championship team.

Speaker 8 So like, if we can go down to this game, like, let's go.

Speaker 1 Fill it up. Yeah.
We'll be doing our field pass again for both these games. I mean, we don't know why.
We don't know why we get the opportunity to do this. We are very blunt.
They were phenomenal.

Speaker 1 They're so funny. We enjoyed it.
We really do. And I realized in the moment there,

Speaker 1 and I've said this before, a lot of the things we do are for the people that watch the show. Like, we're trying to give you guys a good time.
We're trying to give people an escape.

Speaker 1 We're trying to give people comedic, informative sports stuff every single day. We're trying to have fun, trying to have some laughs, trying to formulate what's going on.

Speaker 1 That's what our show's mission is. Do we always hit the mark? No.
Do we miss? Sometimes, of course. Do we hit more than we miss? Definitely.
It's why we're fucking who we are. But

Speaker 1 those games, those field pass ones, those are for us. We have a blast out there.

Speaker 1 I have so much fun out there. I think there's, you know, people that watch it and enjoy it.
Boy, there's some people that really hate us on the sideline.

Speaker 4 Do they know it's the there's another cat? There's 12 other casts if they want.

Speaker 1 Well, we have it on the screen at the same time, but I don't think people see it. I don't think they know the Herb Street Fowler out there.
I don't think those Skycast is out there.

Speaker 1 There was a Blimp cast out there. I'll tell you what, that Blimp, I appreciate what it is in in the history of sports Americana, the Goodyear Blimp and everything.
Sure.

Speaker 1 The more I think about it, why is anybody getting on that thing? Like, Jen Lotta got on that. Yeah, he got it.
And I was watching it, and I'm like, don't, what are we doing?

Speaker 1 Why would you get in a horse and buggy right now? That was like, that was a way to travel through the sky, what, 100 years ago? We don't need to do it anymore. Did you not see the movie?

Speaker 1 Hot air balloons?

Speaker 3 Did you not see the movie?

Speaker 1 Which one? Hindenburg. Oh, okay.
See, that's what I'm talking about now. Hopefully.

Speaker 3 It's a silent film there. The Goodyear Blimps.

Speaker 1 Exactly. The Goodyear Blimp is obviously better than that, we would assume.
Yeah, and it has a success rate and it's very safe. Jen got in that thing.
That thing was pointed like this.

Speaker 1 She's taking that thing off, going straight up to the sky. It's like, she's got a lot more courage than I do.
They would have shown me that thing.

Speaker 1 You go, hey, how about you get on the iconic Goodyear Blimp? Congratulations. I go, hey, how about you go fuck yourself?

Speaker 1 I'm not getting on that channel.

Speaker 4 She talked to us about it. We were talking to her while you guys were doing game date.
She wasn't thrilled about the idea at first either, but then she said once she got on it, it was kind of nice.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's kind of cool. The way I'm doing it.
Yeah, but Jen's a dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jen Lotta is a dog. She tells phenomenal stories, man.
She'll have me crying every single week, basically. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then she got on the blimp, and I'm like, don't.

Speaker 1 Jen, we need you. We got a good playoff push going on.
We're going to be getting into something.

Speaker 1 Hard to see down there.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 From on the field?

Speaker 1 Hard to see the game? Yeah. Yeah, we have no idea.
Is that a gain of four or seven? I mean, very important.

Speaker 1 I have no idea. Or maybe 13.

Speaker 3 Can you get Greg perspective on how good looking a team is in this?

Speaker 3 But trying to follow a game?

Speaker 1 Impossible. It's tough.

Speaker 3 Blocking schemes and figuring out.

Speaker 1 See, we actually do have some good

Speaker 1 angles on that stuff.

Speaker 1 D. Buch and AJ were able to see some checks that were happening at the line because it was happening right in front of us, which is good.

Speaker 1 But once again, you have no idea if that's a sack, a loss, or a gain of four whenever a play's happened because you're looking at the end. So that's either massive win for the defense,

Speaker 1 kind of a

Speaker 1 stalemate, or a big win for the offense, and you have no idea what just happened.

Speaker 1 So you gotta look up at the Jumbotron and then you look at the Jumbotron and they're showing like a big play and you don't know who it's on. So we gotta wait for it.

Speaker 1 And then you go to the, we have a little monitor. The people that were working for us this time were awesome.
Yeah, they were great. Cameraman great.
Monitor holder great. Audio people great.

Speaker 1 That was the best. Ben Ward dish great.
That was the best we've had. That was the best we've had, I think.
Don't you think? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'm not sure.

Speaker 6 Your guys is our camera guy, Murph, was the man.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you got to get, exactly. This time, I think, was the best crew of people that we were working with.
I think everybody kind of understood what was going on.

Speaker 1 Every once in a while they'll drop a new person in, super genius. They need to figure it out.
Like just please, come on.

Speaker 1 Come on.

Speaker 1 This time was the best. I think it's going to be the same crew going forward, which is good.
And I think, I mean, it is going to be the same thing.

Speaker 1 But we have fun.

Speaker 1 At Designer Shoe Warehouse, we believe that shoes are an important part of, well, everything.

Speaker 10 From first steps to first dates, from all-nighters to all-time personal bests.

Speaker 1 From building elephants to building a life.

Speaker 10 For all the big and small moments that make up your whole world, DSWW.

Speaker 1 DSW is there.

Speaker 10 And we've got just the shoes. Find a shoe for every you from brands you love at bragworthy prices at your DSW store or dsw.com.

Speaker 1 Football! It's wonderful. We're lucky to talk about it every single day.
The talks and tables here at Boston Conner and at Ty Schmidt. One half of the hammer.

Speaker 1 Cowboys AP Tone is here. 36 years as a football coach, 18 in college, 18 in the NFL.
Chuck Bagon is here at Bank.

Speaker 1 Charming coach. Hey, your Thursday night

Speaker 1 picks against the spread this season.

Speaker 6 Thank God there's not one tonight.

Speaker 1 My bank account can't take it.

Speaker 3 Amen to that.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Tough year. Now, granted, let's go ahead and put that sugar bowl right up in there.

Speaker 1 Let's put that sugar bowl there today, right into it. We have a chance to get back.
We'll count this one as two because it's kind of out of

Speaker 1 your north. Bingo, we can get back to 500 on the year.
We go big today. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, live from Anatican, Ohio, is a man who we're all incredibly lucky to be around

Speaker 1 over the last 12 hours or so.

Speaker 1 His son ended up in a hospital yesterday in Southern California because he puked in his words all over an entire section at the Roxbull.

Speaker 1 This man had his name chanted out by half of the stadium in Pasadena. He's a national champion for the Ohio State.
Will these boys at Ohio State become national champions? He believes yes.

Speaker 1 The all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers. A man who has a tree on the Ohio State University campus.
Never seen it. Never watered it, but it's strong.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, a terrible flyer, but a man who loves to be in the sky. A.J.
Hawks. Yay, A.J.
Hawker. Good to see you, AJ.

Speaker 7 Good to see you. I'm with you.

Speaker 7 The blimp would be kind of scary. I saw that takeoff when you're going straight up and you're leaning back.
I want no part of that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and then you're looking up. It's like, is this a jet engine? What is it? Nah, it's just, you know, those balloons you get

Speaker 1 for the holidays.

Speaker 1 They have helium in it or whatever. It's just a bunch of those.
You know what I mean? It's no big deal. It's like, okay.

Speaker 1 What happens if...

Speaker 1 Do we have any other options? No, you're dead if that happens. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 All right, well, it's a good view, at least going down. We have to see all windows out there.
but I appreciate everybody that goes up there. Much more courage than me.

Speaker 1 Speaking of going up there, Chip Kelly, Ryan Day, that entire team, when they're going up in front of the squad in Chit Chad, what are they saying, H?

Speaker 1 They're saying we're the best team in football right now? They have to be.

Speaker 7 I mean, no, I mean, I think they are definitely not satisfied.

Speaker 7 I guess they're happy that they, you know, the plan that they felt like they were going to, you know, going into this playoffs, they're starting to execute.

Speaker 7 And I think they probably even think that they can play much better. So I think they know they have two more games left.

Speaker 1 Have you talked to anybody in that building since the game?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I talked to some guys because I, you know, pregame, I like to go and see my guys.

Speaker 7 I see James Laronitis, linebacker coach, different guys, Mark Pantoni, the guy that's crafting a lot of things behind the scenes when it comes to recruits.

Speaker 7 I get to chat with them before the game, then after the game, let them know, you know, here we go, two more. And they seem to all kind of be on the same track.

Speaker 7 Yeah, excited, happy with how they're playing, but they know they can get much better.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think we heard something out of the Ohio State team. They had like a senior or something, and all they kept saying was four more games.

Speaker 1 We got a four-game season, four-game season, four-game season, four-game season. Now they're at two-game season, two-game season.
Everybody seemed to be focused on the task at hand.

Speaker 1 Everybody in Ohio understands, too, we can win this thing right now, right? Everybody in Ohio understands this is a national championship team.

Speaker 7 Oh, yeah, a lot of optimism, no question. But we know, like, look at Oregon, they're undefeated and everything, everything is going great.
And then, boom, the season just ends so quickly.

Speaker 7 It's just like the NFL playoffs, where you have all this buildup, all these expectations. And you know, in these winner-go-home games, like it ends so quickly.

Speaker 7 And I think Ohio State's very aware of that. And they know that they don't want that to happen.

Speaker 1 And shout out to Oregon, hell of a year. Yeah.
It's been a hell of a year.

Speaker 1 It really was. And I had some Oregon people that weren't happy in the mentions of DM saying we were being disrespectful.
It's like, well, Ohio State is being disrespectful to you. Okay.

Speaker 1 We had to call what we had to call what was happening out there. I love Dan Lanning.
I love the Oregon Ducks.

Speaker 1 I picked them to win this game because I thought they were going to be able, you know, to maybe slow down this Buckeyes team.

Speaker 1 But I think what my eyes are telling me now is like, we ain't picking against Ohio State ever again. Nope.
That is not. This team is more motivated.
This team seems to be locked in.

Speaker 1 Chip Kelly's doing his shit. And then Justin Fry, that offensive line coach,

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 I don't necessarily.

Speaker 7 He's pretty jacked up on the sidelines. We got a great glimpse of him instantly as he is doing this towards you, telling you, keep talking, all this stuff, fist pumping.

Speaker 7 Like he was trying to find you every single time that they even had, not even a scored, an explosive gain. He's looking for you to, you know, let you know what's going on.

Speaker 1 I think some of those Ohio State Buckeye coaches were like, I thought we were, okay.

Speaker 1 Hospitality. I thought we were very nice to you.

Speaker 1 We were very nice to you. We watch your show.
You know, AJ's on the show. Feels like we are a part of it.
And then you just go out there and say, yeah, little Oregon Ducks. I felt it.

Speaker 1 Chip Kelly, pregame. I mean, that was an immediate saw.
Saw what you did. Oh, no.
Justin Fryo, the line coach. Oh, okay.
Is that how it? Okay. Laura Nightis even.
Huh.

Speaker 1 You all right? Okay. Heartline?

Speaker 1 Ducks. Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. And everybody.
And then as soon as that thing started rolling, just accidentally glimpsing over to the Ohio State Buckeye thing. And they're all basically

Speaker 1 to me. As they should.
To me. I mean, I'm like, okay, all right, let's get to a break here.

Speaker 1 All right, this isn't about this entire thing, but I love, they're finding everything, obviously, to stay motivated. And I do appreciate the fact that they felt like I betrayed them.

Speaker 1 Like I betrayed them with my pick of the ducks. I just thought, you know, that Dan Lanning and their team was cut from the same gym.

Speaker 1 Like I thought this was going to be a fist fight in this entire thing. I think that first round buy, man.
I think that that needs to be chatted about a lot.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying that Ohio State wasn't clearly the better team. I mean, clearly the better team.
It wasn't even no questions asked. But did they face the best Oregon that we've seen all year?

Speaker 1 I don't think so, you know, but we definitely have seen the best Ohio State. And

Speaker 1 that's all that can matter is who shows up on that particular day. Ohio State definitely did.

Speaker 6 Yeah, still love Dan Lanning. Like, he is the man, you know, throughout the entire game.
I think we all thought like, hey, Dan Lanning is going to figure this out and get these boys back in it.

Speaker 6 But that even, you know, all the coaches doing that to you, that just adds to the fact that like they're the most skilled team and now they have the most chips on their shoulder.

Speaker 6 Like they are continuing to stack them. Like it's impossible to think of a different team coming in and beating them somehow.

Speaker 3 God, I would have been chopping them too.

Speaker 3 So we owe you too.

Speaker 1 it was

Speaker 3 part of that victory for doing.

Speaker 1 I was literally, we're literally standing there, and uh, Trayvion Henderson has a what a 66-yard touchdown. So, we're just kind of watching him just cruise over there.

Speaker 1 And then the first thing we see is that O-line coach just being like, On your mouth, you. And I'm like, He ain't talking to me.

Speaker 1 You, yeah, and it's like, Damn, AJ, you, you keep talking, Doc's hot, okay. And then, basically, just like a full-on, bang, boom, boom, boom.

Speaker 1 And the thought of Chip Kelly right now, it's a masterclass. Yeah.
What Chip is doing. This is why Chip Kelly was Chip Kelly to Oregon.
This is why Chip Kelly got like the Philly job.

Speaker 1 This is why Chip Kelly was the future. He has all these pieces that are more talented than you have.
And he's using it. He's dialing up all the shit.
This G. Scott Jr.
guy. This is the first play.

Speaker 1 This is the first play. He was lined up in running back.
Everybody talks about Henderson, obviously. Judkins, who's going to be the starting running back.
Oh, we got our tight end out here.

Speaker 1 Let's put him out in a wheel. Oregon hasn't played a real snap in forever.
I candy this way. Nobody even thinks about G.
Scott Jr. wheel bang.
That's a gain of 25 to start the thing.

Speaker 1 I mean, it was from jump. Chip Kelly just had them on their heels, and the boys executed.
The boys executed everything they possibly could.

Speaker 8 And maybe has his best weapon ever. Like, I know we've talked about it ad nauseum, but, like, seeing Smith in warm-ups and looking back at him and like, listen, Oregon's defense has been

Speaker 8 very good all year, but, like, seeing their cornerbacks, it's like, no one's going to be able to stop this guy.

Speaker 8 This guy, I mean, it's just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 Who is the tight end? Moxirock?

Speaker 1 What was his name? What's his name? Kazmerick? Kazmerick. There it is.

Speaker 1 No, Ohio State. I didn't even know who this guy.
I should have, obviously. And I'm sure he's made a lot of plays.
Kazmerick is his name.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I believe that's how you pronounce it.

Speaker 1 They had him flanked out to the right. He's 6'6 ⁇ , 6'7.

Speaker 1 He's tight end for this team. They had him flanked out to the right.
They got corner 5'9

Speaker 1 on this guy. And then you got Jeremiah on the other side, 6'4, whatever he is, 6'2.
5'20.

Speaker 1 And they got a 5'10 guy on him. Then they got G.
Scott Jr., that guy's a freight train right there. He's lined up out here.

Speaker 1 And then you got, I think they had, I think Ibuka and Tate like stacked on his, and it's like, how? Good luck, good luck. How do you, I don't know how you're doing.

Speaker 7 Yeah, you're going to win some of those matchups, you feel like. If you're Ohio State, you're like, hey, we're going to win a couple of these matchups.

Speaker 7 If we just put a good ball in the air, we're going to be okay.

Speaker 1 And they even had Will Howard go on their center a couple of times. You know, everything's like kind of shotgun.
They did a couple pop passes, too. Classic Chip Kelly, classic old school.

Speaker 1 Let's just get the ball into guys' hands as fast as we possibly can. But then at the end of that game, they even went under center.
23 different offensive line combinations.

Speaker 1 They're going under center. We're running power to get this thing out.
Easy. Just hand off to Henderson.
Bang, they're hitting it for four or five.

Speaker 1 Like if they needed to do that all game, they could have done that. They could have just done that.

Speaker 1 They got four different game plans that worked yesterday all at the same time. They're humming, man, and they feel good.
All right, let's pivot away from college ball.

Speaker 1 Obviously, we've got a big one at four o'clock. We'll be joined by Laura Rutledge in about five, ten minutes down there.
Let's talk about the NFL. Huge weekend.

Speaker 1 Obviously, it is, you know, the topic of conversation is the number one overall seed for the NFC coming out of the NFC North. Lions, Vikings in Detroit.
How do we think that one's going to go?

Speaker 1 Age, obviously, the NFC North is stacked. We all know that.
Chicago Bears trying to figure it out. Of course.
Chicago Bears trying to figure that out.

Speaker 1 But we have two 14 and two teams out of the NFC North right now, and they're battling on Sunday night, and we're going to be waiting all day, aren't we?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I will be waiting all day for Sunday night this week.

Speaker 1 Normally we're not, but this week,

Speaker 6 to be honest, I'm going to be waiting the rest of the week for Sunday night.

Speaker 1 Okay, me too. I think this is a huge one.
How do you see this one kind of faring, AJ, as we look out at this and try to project a little bit?

Speaker 7 I mean,

Speaker 7 my early thoughts on this game, I feel pretty good about the Lions at home. I love what the Vikings are doing.
Obviously, Sam Dorn, I think they're awesome.

Speaker 7 But for this one, I feel like Dan Campbell and the Lions, this feels like a game at home, like a it's like a defining game in the Dan Campbell era, I think we could see happening on Sunday.

Speaker 1 The first playoff game of the year, we'll call this, you know, obviously it's a big deal. Loser goes down to five,

Speaker 1 five seat in the NFC, and that's a different road than having home field advantage throughout the entirety.

Speaker 1 Both of them dome teams, so obviously it's good for the entire NFC that you get a chance to go in no matter what and experience 70 and sunny, no matter how it ends up shaping up.

Speaker 1 What do you think both these coaches are saying? Obviously, Kevin O'Connell is a young wizard, and watching that locker room with Sam Darnold last week was so cool.

Speaker 1 And Kevin O'Connell taking it all in, we know he can drop a play for anybody. Ben Johnson can do the same up there.
MCDC has been singing the same exact tune since the very beginning.

Speaker 1 We're tougher, we're all bought in. If you're a coach, which team would you rather be coaching right now? And what do you think the messages are?

Speaker 3 I would rather be the home team. I'd rather be Detroit.

Speaker 3 I love KOC. I think he's by far head and shoulders above everybody else, Coach of the Year this year.
I know AP's got a vote on that, but I would pick KOC as Coach of the Year.

Speaker 3 What they've done with this offense, Sam Darnold,

Speaker 3 you know, this defense be flow, they're cooking, but there's just something about this Detroit Lions team.

Speaker 3 Like, I didn't think there's no way in hell they'd even go to San Fran, and San Fran's got nothing to play for that they'd end up winning that game. But they'll find a way to score one.

Speaker 3 Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten more points than you. The defense is totally depleted.
They've got a massive chip on their shoulder.

Speaker 3 They play that way because everybody's saying, you got no defense, you got no players, you've lost everybody on that side. There's no way that you can win.
And all they do is they keep winning.

Speaker 3 So, and

Speaker 3 Sam Darnold's had a great year, but he's also thrown, I think, 12 interceptions on the season. And this Kirby Joseph.

Speaker 3 For freaking, I mean, he's got nine interceptions on the year. He'll find a way to come up with one.
Branch may come up with one. They'll make a play, make a play here or there, trick play.

Speaker 3 Ben will get in his bag.

Speaker 3 You know, I wouldn't bet against the Lions for nothing.

Speaker 1 Anzalone's back for the Lions, or what's the story there?

Speaker 12 Yeah, he practiced yesterday. It looks like he'll be a game-time decision, but yeah, they're expecting hopefully he can be back for this one.

Speaker 1 And then Aiden Hutchinson's back for the Super Bowl. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 Potentially Carlton Davis in the playoffs sometimes, potentially Montgomery at some point.

Speaker 12 So, yeah, things are starting to align a little bit here.

Speaker 1 But there's obviously some other games that have playoff implications in the AFC involving Denver, Cincinnati, and Miami for the number seven overall seed in the wild card.

Speaker 1 Denver wins, and they're in. Miami wins and Denver loses, they're in.
Cincinnati wins and Denver and Miami both lose.

Speaker 1 Cincinnati is in, which is obviously a phenomenal thing for this Bengals team that was what, one in five? Yeah. Yeah.
One and five to start the season.

Speaker 1 Joe Burrow having a potential MVP-like year, especially if they find a way to make it into the playoffs with this whole thing. Broncos will be taking on Carl Wentz

Speaker 1 in the Kansas City Chiefs as Patrick Mahomes gets healthy for a playoff run as the number one overall seed.

Speaker 1 The Dolphins without Tua will take on the New York Jets who just had their worst performance of the season last week somehow.

Speaker 1 And then the Bengals take on a Pittsburgh Steelers team who are very much still trying to figure out what team they are fresh off of a few losses.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and that game is also huge because if the Steelers lose, then the Chargers can jump you, right?

Speaker 1 The Steelers need to win.

Speaker 4 Yeah, because they want the five seed. They want to go down to Houston, I would assume.
Because if they lose, they go to Baltimore.

Speaker 1 And what are the Chargers? The Chargers play the Raiders. They're either five or six seeds.
Correct.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So if if the steelers lose and chargers wins they they jump up to five and i i when we went to the chargers facility a beautiful facility made sure i told everyone in there hey you're going to baltimore okay steelers aren't losing oh you said hardball bowl back again yeah in the playoffs congrats to you guys nfl wants that yeah and so chargers do too you got a big facility that's with the height i love that chargers team even more now awesome happy mission aj We're on a happy mission.

Speaker 1 Everybody in that building was happy.

Speaker 7 Everybody. Yeah, I mean, look at the, just look at the facility.
First off, it looks beautiful. I wasn't able to go there with you guys, but it looks awesome.

Speaker 7 I mean, what Harbaugh has been able to do?

Speaker 1 You were invited.

Speaker 1 Your name was on your name was on your name.

Speaker 2 I appreciate it.

Speaker 7 Your name was cleared.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah, that's Kyle Cart.

Speaker 13 Yeah, because I was there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and also Jose.

Speaker 1 Full names. Yeah, full names up.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you were invited. You were a part of the...

Speaker 1 I saw some people, they were coming after me a little bit.

Speaker 1 AJ couldn't come. They get the invite.
Yeah, this is just like when Rapsheet wasn't able to come on the show. I talked to Eat for this entire thing.

Speaker 1 Just would like to let everybody know, AJ was clearly invited. AJ's name was cleared by the Los Angeles Chargers,

Speaker 1 but that would have been 12 people instead of 11.

Speaker 1 And Harbaugh would not have liked it. He would have to roll around with only 11.
He said 11. That's a perfect number.
That's the way it should be.

Speaker 1 You got to start offense, starting defense, starting special teams walking around with you. That's how it should be.
That was his first reaction. He was like, wow, you guys are rolling deep.

Speaker 1 Like, nice little on thrush. I was like, yeah, you guys had to clear 11 of us to get in here.
That was awesome. He's 11th.
Perfect number.

Speaker 1 Perfect number.

Speaker 1 That was his first. That was his first.
That was literally his first react. Everything he did was just,

Speaker 1 I don't want to say beautiful, but it was. It was.
As advertised. Everything he did was awesome.
That entire facility, he tried to give a handshake to that particular high-five trophy.

Speaker 1 Did break the hand off. We had to put it back on.
He said, I want to shake the hand. I want to shake the hand.
It's a high-fiver. It's on a handshaker.
He goes, let me try and takes it off.

Speaker 1 I think that's going to live in his office. I hope so.
He seemed to be pretty pumped up about it. They were very kind to us.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the ice cream in that place they got cinnamon toast crunch soft serve yogurt holy shit all

Speaker 1 coffee sauce two new flavors every single day god i'd be 260 yeah they also had pizza oven yeah which was just a smidge below so good it wasn't pizza but it was it was phenomenal very good pizza a very good pizza then they had um i think there was some tacos and shit tacos

Speaker 3 it was all different bars sun chips oh they did have

Speaker 6 garden salsa and harvest cheddar. You're right.

Speaker 1 They did have all that. This building.

Speaker 12 Golf simulator.

Speaker 3 Did you see Ortiz? Did Joey or?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. We saw Joey.
He came in,

Speaker 1 and obviously, I thanked him for everything.

Speaker 6 Matlock is huge.

Speaker 1 Matlock's head is gigantic. I mean, that thing is really.

Speaker 7 Anybody get a workout in? Go in that weight room?

Speaker 1 We were in the weight room.

Speaker 1 Not the VIP club. Silver Bells Club.
Excuse me. Yeah, we're not in the Silver Bells Club, which is, they got these old school dumbbells that are just metal.

Speaker 1 You know, not, they're old school, they're huge.

Speaker 1 And I think the way the story went is one of their offensive linemen during the holiday season or at the beginning of December was over there lifting in their silver. So he was saying,

Speaker 1 silver bells, and then he was back.

Speaker 1 And then he was doing a silver bells, doing the entire thing. So then Coach Herbert, who is Pittsburgh guy, who was at Wisconsin, then I think he was at Baylor.

Speaker 1 Then he went to Michigan, and that's where he met Harbaugh. Now he's over there.
Great. He's a strength coach.

Speaker 1 Great energy. Pittsburgh guy.
As soon as you heard the silver bells thing, he was like, wait a minute, I think we can do something with this. They made a VIP club.
They put red

Speaker 1 velvet ropes around

Speaker 1 two of the benches or whatever. And then it's all the silver belts.
And then if you get in the club, obviously they open you up to come on in and then put you in there. Khalil Mack, 200-pound

Speaker 1 single-arm.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Yeah, dumbbell.

Speaker 1 Silver belts, 200 pounds. 200 pounds.
He's the biggest one. It's the biggest one in there.
Justin Herbert, I think he's has a 150.

Speaker 1 The 150 pounder. It's for a one arm bench over there.
It's like they all commit and love what's going on in that weight room. They all commit and love what Jim Harbaugh is preaching.

Speaker 1 And everybody in the building's happy. Everybody's like excited to be there.
It is infectious over there, what they got going on. And how many owners are spending 300 million?

Speaker 1 on a new facility just for a practice facility, especially in LA, the placement in that, the location itself had to be so expensive.

Speaker 1 But then for them to do it upright for the last couple, it's like, look out for the Chargers, dude. Look out for the Chargers.
Talk about getting a hiring, right?

Speaker 1 And we've chatted about this a little bit.

Speaker 1 For a while, it was, we need the new offensive guru. Okay, Sean McVay comes in.
We need a new offensive guru. We need a new offensive guru.

Speaker 1 Then you see guys like Harbaugh, MCDC having the success that they're having. And it's like, are we getting back to a time? where it's like, hey, we need somebody that's able to build a culture.

Speaker 1 We need somebody that's able to lead people.

Speaker 3 We need somebody that's able to bring people together i think so and that's good for football i think chuck don't you agree as a man that was that type of guy 100 can you imagine you're talking just talking about the because a great culture you guys walked in that building you could see it feel you could feel it you could taste it right and then you could walk into another building some we know like

Speaker 1 This stinks.

Speaker 3 This is nasty. This ain't got no feeling like that.
Like it matters. And so bringing a guy like Jim Harbaugh, think about these coaches, like Dan Quinn, what he's done in Washington, right?

Speaker 3 Second time around. Jim Harbaugh, like second time in national, and he won big in San Francisco, right? He's having great success.
So these guys, Raheem, he's still eight and eight.

Speaker 3 He's better second time around.

Speaker 1 MCDC, second time around.

Speaker 3 MCDC, you know, at Miami, I think he was the interim, whatever.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 if I was to go back, like what I know now compared to what I thought I knew.

Speaker 3 back in 2000 because there's no manual for this for this job but the one thing we all do know is like culture matters and so what you're talking about, that building and that infectious, like the energy that he brings, like wouldn't, why wouldn't you want that?

Speaker 3 You know, and everybody in that building, and then a guy that they actually come in, you can feel him and like, okay, this is a guy I want to follow. I'm and you get everybody to buy in like that.

Speaker 3 I'm talking front office, ownership room, ownership.

Speaker 3 Ownership. Because you just sit around and watch after those games and you watch everybody standing there waking the call up in the locker room and in Spanos.

Speaker 1 Fully.

Speaker 1 Now, granted, winning helps. Yes.
But do you win because of the culture?

Speaker 3 But think about MCDC, right? How he started out, oh, and whatever, and then the next season, oh, and whatever. And then finally, it clicks in, and you start to get a taste of winning and how to win.

Speaker 3 And that team learned how to win, and they drafted like crazy, and they got really good players, but they stayed with it. And there was continuity.

Speaker 3 It wasn't one of these owners like Tepper down in Carolina, like, oh, out,

Speaker 3 out. You just can't buy that.

Speaker 3 You got to to be able to figure that out. You got to be able to get a guy in front of you, like,

Speaker 3 okay,

Speaker 3 this guy's the real freaking deal. And whatever that is, however you're going to go about that selection process,

Speaker 3 like they haven't figured it out down there.

Speaker 1 But you've got to get

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 3 Because nobody, I think Coach Belichick talked about patience. Like there isn't patience anymore.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but what if you're patient with the wrong guy?

Speaker 1 Like that, that's like the biggest issue, which is what ownership kind of fears is you see red flags potentially, and it's like, is this guy ever going to be a leader or is he not?

Speaker 1 And then waiting and waiting and waiting. What if you wait three, four, eight years to find out if the culture that you were hoping was going to settle in never settles in?

Speaker 1 Then you just completely wasted an era, which is, I'm just saying that's a counter argument. I'm not saying it's right.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying that is what the counter argument is to all these things about patience, patience, patience. What if you're patient with the wrong guy? Then you're in a bad spot.

Speaker 1 Then you're in a, then you've set an entire fan base, a generation of a fan base back.

Speaker 6 Well, and that's why like we love Ben Johnson and like we all have faith in Ben Johnson being a head coach, I assume. But like this far out and, you know, what is it? It's January 2nd.

Speaker 6 The head coaching cycle hasn't started yet. But it feels like Pete Carroll and Mike Vrabel are both like locks to be guys like this who can turn it around.

Speaker 6 And this wouldn't be Pete Carroll's second time. He's been, you know, Seattle was his second time because New England, he was the head coach, but like Vrabel.
Vrabel was in Tennessee.

Speaker 6 That was his first head coaching job. I assume what he's learned

Speaker 6 over this past year, being in a place like Cleveland and what he can bring to a team now would be be exponential compared to some of these places.

Speaker 8 Well, that's what I was going to say. Do you think now, and

Speaker 8 it's not the case everywhere, but if you want a guy who needs to completely change the culture of a place, like look at all the guys we just mentioned, MCDC, Harbaugh, Vrabel.

Speaker 8 Do you think it needs to be a guy who played in the league for a while? Because it seems like all these new guys that are getting, like, they are the gurus. They're the X and O's guys.

Speaker 8 Like, they don't necessarily, and it, you know, I assume, like, I look at a guy like Matt LaFleur, who, like, now,

Speaker 8 however many years into this, like, he's starting to get his culture in place. But the first couple of years, that was always the knock.
It's like, this guy's a play caller. Like,

Speaker 1 he can't necessarily. He was up against it too with like an old generation of a team.
I think. Like, I feel like LaFleur probably feels like he has his guys.
Goots for sure.

Speaker 1 He feels like he has his guys. For sure.
And I agree. He was just a play caller, I think, as opposed to being a leader.
But you don't continue to win like that without having some good leaders.

Speaker 8 Definitely not. Definitely not.

Speaker 1 Behind closed doors for him. It's like the culture people are starting to come back, I think, into fashion.
Like, I think it's starting to become a good thing, and that's good for ball.

Speaker 1 I think that's good for ball, AJ. Do you agree with that?

Speaker 7 It's great for ball. I don't think you have to be a former player to like have that command of the room or have control, but it sure as hell doesn't hurt.

Speaker 7 Like, especially early on, I think if you can have success early on, it just kind of springboards you and you.

Speaker 7 It gives you a jumpstart where you might not have to have those one or two, you know, kind of terrible seasons while you turn over the roster and try to figure out who's the right person to be here.

Speaker 1 Zach Kiefer, who we all have immense respect for, used to write for the Indy Star.

Speaker 1 Now he's at the Athletic, which is obviously owned by the new york times he wrote an article today i was like yeah cultures have no culture pretty much and uh we're eight years into chris ballard's uh tenure as the general manager and i think he's a great man i think he's been great for the city of indianapolis and everything like that but some of the things that are being said in that article by zach kefer who you know did his

Speaker 1 sourcing and getting inside of it more than I know even he's like there's no vision in this building it's like what how what do you mean there's no vision what's that mean and then you start watching It's like, that makes sense that there's no vision.

Speaker 1 And then there's no accountability. And there's no this, there's no that.
But Shane can drop a hell of a play. And was he cut off at the knees whenever he got here already?

Speaker 1 It's like, there's so many questions about just what's happening at the Colts. And they're not the only one.
There's a lot of NFL teams that are trying to figure out what the hell went wrong.

Speaker 1 This coaching cycle should get electrifying. And you said, if I went back, is Chuck thinking about going back? Are you thinking about going back into coaching?

Speaker 3 No, unless you're firing me.

Speaker 1 If that means you're going to go back and coach, you're fired.

Speaker 1 You're fired.

Speaker 3 I got a a pretty good gig.

Speaker 1 All right, let's pivot away from the NFL a bit and do some journalism.

Speaker 1 Joining us now is a sideline reporter for this afternoon's Sugar Bowl. She's also the host of NFL Live.
She's one of the prominent faces around ES Band, both for college ball and the NFL.

Speaker 1 Friend of the program, ladies and gentlemen, Laura Rutley. Hey, Laura.

Speaker 1 How you doing, Laura?

Speaker 10 Hi, guys. It's good to be with you.

Speaker 1 Hey, it's an honor to be with you as well. I think there's a bit of a delay on the video, so we will certainly figure that out on our end.

Speaker 1 It's definitely not you, but let's talk about the last 24 hours down there, Laura. Obviously, you've been down there.

Speaker 1 You've been the one that has been breaking the news to the entire world about what's taking place in the Sugar Bowl. When this is about to get delayed, what was the conversation like?

Speaker 1 Were they worried about potential bombs

Speaker 1 at the Mercedes-Benz stadium down Superdome down there? What was the kind of the,

Speaker 1 how did we get here? Is the right question, Laura?

Speaker 10 Yeah, I mean, Pat, it's been really wild, and there's just a heavy feeling for everybody here, certainly, as we all think about these victims, their families.

Speaker 10 That's been a sentiment echoed by the teams as well in Georgia and Notre Dame.

Speaker 10 And yet, here we are, you know, preparing to play a football game, which certainly pales in comparison to everything that's happened here with these terrorist attacks here in New Orleans.

Speaker 10 But when it came to the actual decision-making process, there was a meeting that happened yesterday, midday, between the FBI, between the college football playoff officials, Sugar Bowl officials, the teams, many other people, government officials here in New Orleans.

Speaker 10 And they said it was a really difficult decision to make to postpone the game. Initially, they said it would be 24 hours.

Speaker 10 And, you know, as we were finding this information out, Pat, I was over at the hotel. Like, I was getting ready to come over, do the game.
We had just done our game production meeting.

Speaker 10 And then all of a sudden, I'm starting to kind of hear some rumors like, hey, this game might be postponed.

Speaker 10 We start reporting, we start calling sources, we start figuring things out and realize that that was in fact true.

Speaker 10 And I think it's important, you know, as you do look at the football side of this for both these teams, the coaches and people involved, we're pushing for an earlier start than 24 hours, just gaining even a few extra hours when it comes to what will be a really quick turnaround for the winner of this game for that Orange Bowl against Penn State.

Speaker 1 Okay, so obviously RTs, Ps, positive thoughts for everybody in New Orleans. What a phenomenal gift to the world the city of New Orleans is.
And obviously, we've all had time down there.

Speaker 1 We've all spent time down there. It was hard yesterday not to be like, man, I could have been, that's something I could have very easily been.
So a terrible act.

Speaker 1 Obviously, football is a good thing to get back. Sports are a good thing to let them know, hey, you might take it to shop and you didn't beat us.
I'm happy this game is happening.

Speaker 1 You talked about hotels and having meeting. What do we think is happening with the fans here? Because obviously, a lot of travel, ticket, everything.

Speaker 1 What do we think the stadium looks like today for this game, Laura?

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's interesting. In fact, we were told by the mayor here that that they're reopening Bourbon Street around 2.30 local, so 3.30 Eastern.
And we've seen a lot of fans milling about.

Speaker 10 I mean, there were even fans yesterday that had planned to fly in the day of the game because the game was supposed to be later. That still got on those flights, still came in.

Speaker 10 And there has been major security advancements here at the stadium. Now, they already have security planned, right? But they're doubling that essentially.

Speaker 10 And we were told that basically it's the same amount of security that you would see for the Super Bowl, which of course is going to be here in February.

Speaker 10 So all of those precautions that they would take, they're doing that. You've got to go through a secondary level of security to get into this stadium.

Speaker 10 They did have the police dogs come in here yesterday. They were looking for explosives.
They didn't find any. I have seen some of those police dogs here today.

Speaker 10 So that security presence, you see the law enforcement here, and I would just shout them out because they have had to go through so much here, many of them that were responding to what happened on Bourbon Street.

Speaker 10 But then in the aftermath of that as well, they've all come. They probably haven't slept.
They've been putting so much into making sure that people are safe here.

Speaker 10 And somebody, a law enforcement official, told me that the Superdome is actually probably the safest place in New Orleans right now.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah. Hey, shout out to law enforcement.

Speaker 1 Heroes walking amongst us, obviously, in the middle of a

Speaker 1 lot of devastating chaos that took place yesterday in New Orleans. Got a football game at 4 o'clock.
Go ahead, AJ.

Speaker 7 Laura, how do you feel this is going to affect the gameplay at all? We know these are young kids and they can kind of handle whatever is thrown at them, different schedule changes, things like this.

Speaker 7 But do you think the game is going to feel normal like the rest of these college football playoff games at kickoff? Like, do people feel safe? Like, what's the vibe, I guess, around that stadium?

Speaker 10 Yeah, it's a great question. I'm honestly not sure.
It does feel a lot different being in here today than it did yesterday. Yesterday was certainly eerie and extremely sad.

Speaker 10 And obviously, we still feel that sadness today, but there has been more out here. We've seen the bands out on the field.
The teams are heading over here shortly.

Speaker 10 Georgia is supposed to get here around 1245 local. And I do do think that you'll see a sadness around it, but then hopefully some hope about college football.

Speaker 10 I mean, as Pat said so well, certainly football can be something we can point to as something joyful and something to give us a little bit of hope.

Speaker 10 They are going to do a moment of silence before the game. I just saw them kind of rehearsing through some of that in and around the national anthem.
And of course, we'll cover that on ESPN.

Speaker 10 You can see it as it's happening. So you sort of feel what the vibes are going to be.

Speaker 10 And when it comes to the players, you guys, Marcus Freeman said yesterday that they actually mourned the victims as a team.

Speaker 10 They spent some time on that and really did also then turn their attention to planning for the game, but they wanted to talk through a lot of it.

Speaker 10 And Georgia did actually come over here yesterday around 6 p.m. and practiced on this field, just a light run-through.

Speaker 10 But I think it is about trying to keep it as normal as possible for these players while also being aware of the tragedy that happened here.

Speaker 1 On that note, Coach McGano has a question for you. Last one here, Laura, we appreciate your time.

Speaker 3 So same thing, Laura. You just mentioned that Kirby and Georgia went over and did a little walkthrough.

Speaker 3 Were these guys sequestered into their hotels and weren't able to get out because of security issues? And what have you heard how they

Speaker 3 spent these extra time, you know,

Speaker 3 at the hotels? And did Notre Dame get out and do a walkthrough themselves?

Speaker 10 Yeah, so Georgia told me around 11 local that they had a shelter in place that basically happened as soon as they figured out something had happened.

Speaker 10 The places that the teams are staying are less than a mile from Bourbon Street, very close to where these attacks occurred. So they were sheltering in place.

Speaker 10 Notre Dame was sheltering in place for much of the day. Probably around 4 p.m.

Speaker 10 yesterday, they started to loosen some of those restrictions where people could come into those team hotels who were staying there, some fans, some family members, but they didn't let the players leave.

Speaker 10 Notre Dame never left. They stayed in their hotel, did some practices and meetings in ballrooms there.

Speaker 10 And Georgia did, of course, come over here and do that light practice, but it was a very brief time that they left their hotel.

Speaker 10 Otherwise, the players were just there i talked to some who said they were just kind of going over film and doing everything they could to use that additional time to prepare for the opportunity that now they have today how do you feel preparing for the opportunity obviously chaos comes in in the last 24 hours you've had to be a a Shout out to you.

Speaker 1 Like, we're talking real journalism out here, Laura. Real world stuff.
We do sports stuff. We're lucky to do it.
But there's some really real world stuff that's been taking place.

Speaker 1 How do you feel going into the game? And

Speaker 1 what do your commentating team feel about the energy from both these squads?

Speaker 10 Yeah, you know, it's about trying to strike the right tone, right? We want this to be about the players who have earned this opportunity to be here and we want to celebrate them.

Speaker 10 And yet, you're thinking about families that are never going to be able to forget what's happened to them and what they saw. And, you know, the pain of losing somebody that you love never goes away.

Speaker 10 It's not like something that all of a sudden you wake up the next day and you feel better about. So just our hearts are with them.
My heart is with all of them.

Speaker 10 I can't shake what it must feel like for them to be dealing with all of this.

Speaker 10 And yet it's our job to celebrate football and to bring the product that we always bring to the table on ESPN, which will be great today. And we have so many great stories in this game.

Speaker 10 Gunner Stockton getting his first start ever in this environment on this stage. He's waited so long for that.

Speaker 10 Notre Dame has so much to prove on this stage and we'll celebrate that while also doing our best to just be sensitive to what's happened here.

Speaker 1 We can't wait to watch. We appreciate you joining us and we know college ball is something that you cook on for the entire year but the NFL as well.

Speaker 1 Minnesota or Detroit Sunday night Laura, Minnesota or Detroit?

Speaker 10 You know what? I'm going to go with Minnesota.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 10 Don't tell Orlofsky I did that. Orlofsky's going to kill me over that.
But I just think the Vikings have something super special going.

Speaker 10 They're They're maybe a slight bit healthier, and that game is gonna be one that I can't wait to watch. We'll also be on that Ravens-Browns game.

Speaker 10 That's where I'm going next, and I got Danny in the booth for that one. So, prayers up for me getting through it.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 a lot of prayers. Yeah, that sucks.
Yeah, that is certainly something you'll have to deal with. Great work on Christmas.
Great work down here.

Speaker 1 We can't wait to watch you finish the season incredibly strong. Thank you for joining us and great work.

Speaker 10 Thanks, guys. Appreciate y'all.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, Laura Revolt.

Speaker 1 So, what happened at the beginning there? We just, her mouth, what

Speaker 1 was the

Speaker 1 way? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Two different feeds. Okay, crossfeed.
We got two feeds, cross feeding. Cross feeders.
Cross feeding. It's like Ghostbusters.
Good information.

Speaker 1 She was, we were, we were lucky to be in a trailer yesterday that had just like a feed TV into it, just what was being filmed. Laura was like on the beat.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Like she, she was, all of a sudden, we're doing NBC nightly news. Laura's like in these meetings with the FBI, and then she's coming out basically saying, this is what I'm hearing.

Speaker 1 And then obviously, there's a terrorist attack that just happened. And so it's like, for being a sports person to be able to have to jump into that and then get back, it's like, that was.

Speaker 8 Biggest story in America.

Speaker 1 World. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Especially with the college football playoff thing taking place. And then everything else that happened yesterday, too.
Yeah. There was some other

Speaker 1 stuff.

Speaker 1 Day one of 2020.

Speaker 3 Cybertruck explodes in front of Trump Town.

Speaker 1 And then there was fireworks in that? That was part of what he used to blow up the and then there is New York right when there's something that happened in New York nightclub

Speaker 1 They ain't gonna beat us. Okay no

Speaker 1 they ain't gonna beat us

Speaker 1 So sad all those things whenever they happen it's hard not to just be like completely devastated when we should be you know and you should have those moments of thinking like that but inevitably I believe the same thing that I believe for a long time.

Speaker 1 There's a lot more good, way more good, than there is bad. And I think we're at a time where the way more good good people are starting to be like, nah, we're done with it.
We're done with it.

Speaker 1 We're done with it. We're done with it.
And I think that's a good thing. I think football will be something that's celebrated, especially down there in New Orleans.
Louisiana loves ball. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Louisiana loves having a good time. New Orleans likes hosting people too.
So it's like, you might be able to sneak by, you know, and do something terrible, but in the end, we got you.

Speaker 1 And I firmly believe that forever. Shout out to the United States of America.
Let's fucking

Speaker 1 shout to football. Yeah.
Georgia and Air Dame is going to be a good game, too. Two and a half hours until kickoff there.

Speaker 1 I believe after we get done here on ESPN, Sports Center with Matt Berry will be a kickoff show to kind of lead into that. I don't know if Matt Berry knew he was doing that as of yesterday.
Really?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I think he's prepared. He's always ready.
Matt Berry is always ready.

Speaker 1 He is always ready. Golf, football,

Speaker 1 anything you need. He is a teamer.
He put his left hand up. Yeah.
You say, you need somebody? Sure, I'm a little boozed up right now. I resent the stage.

Speaker 1 Who is it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, sure. I'm having a good time.
Yeah, I'm nowhere near the set where you need me to be. I'll find a flight, I guess.
Yeah, I'll get in there. So shout out to Matt Berry.

Speaker 1 You need more Matt Berrys in this entire world. He doesn't give a shite

Speaker 1 about anything but his job. Mingo.
Which we appreciate. A lot of shits on that program.
So many shits.

Speaker 4 Well, the game got away from the game, and then shite happened.

Speaker 1 Shite happened all over the place.

Speaker 1 Speaking of shite happening,

Speaker 1 Out of the mouth, how's Axel? Are we okay? What's going on with the kid? Yeah,

Speaker 7 he's doing better. He's not as pale as he was, and he has stopped puking, so he's en route back to Ohio.

Speaker 1 For those that don't know what happened, here's literally from last night's watch-along field bass. Ladies and gentlemen,

Speaker 11 being serenaded by the

Speaker 11 AJ

Speaker 11 Chance.

Speaker 14 I see you at the 47.

Speaker 14 Unfortunately, my youngest son puked all over himself and went to the hospital, so my whole family's not here anymore to hear that.

Speaker 11 Oh, no.

Speaker 14 But I'm getting some updates every once in a while. He seems to be doing not much better.

Speaker 14 he puked over the whole section

Speaker 11 instant urgent care instant hospital oh no what type of shite was he eating

Speaker 7 someone making salmon down here we can't hear it

Speaker 1 look at this i'm not gonna lie

Speaker 11 oh the duck

Speaker 11 kid oh no i am so sorry to hear that's a real story very anxiety riddled that yeah hopefully i think we're doing better

Speaker 1 i would immediately ask the duck what happened but That was the first we had heard about any of that.

Speaker 1 What he said right there. And you just, the way you delivered it,

Speaker 1 I couldn't hold it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it'd be cool if my family was here to hear this.

Speaker 1 Man, it'd be good for the boys to be able to hear this, but it turns out they're actually in a hospital down the street

Speaker 1 because my youngest lad just puked all over everybody. He's and then he said, I'm getting updates.
Turns out he's not much better.

Speaker 1 Just kept going.

Speaker 3 Said that so nonchalant. Kids in the hospital, I'd be out of there.

Speaker 1 Dude, and that's why I wanted to apologize because obviously I think you did it to make us laugh.

Speaker 1 But then as I was laughing, I was just thinking about like, if my wife had Mackenzie and we're in Southern California at a game and she has to go to a hospital while I'm on a side, it would be the amount of anxiety that would be felt inside of like, what's wrong?

Speaker 1 How do we get there? How do we get out of here? Rose Bowl's impossible to get in and out of. Oh, yeah.
Couldn't even imagine the amount of stress that was happening in your phone.

Speaker 1 So that's why I wanted to apologize before we dealt with the salmon situation. I never smelled the salmon.

Speaker 7 No. As soon as we got down towards that end, it smelled like fish.
I'm not joking. I didn't know the duck was behind me.
I had no idea. It wasn't about the duck.
It smelled like fish from the jump.

Speaker 7 I just had to mention that.

Speaker 1 You almost started puking just like Axel.

Speaker 1 He continued to follow up, sprayed an entire section.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I need to apologize. Section 3C, I believe.
Shout out Foss for helping out with the tickets, but I believe he got a lot of people in that area.

Speaker 7 But some people ran and got towels, my wife said, and helped out. A couple Oregon fans in the section, she believed, were not very excited about Axel puking all over the place.

Speaker 7 But everything is good right now.

Speaker 7 We're on the mend.

Speaker 3 Didn't this kid

Speaker 3 on one of your road trips to see these guys somewhere in the Winnipego or something, wasn't he sick in that one too, AJ? Sprinter van.

Speaker 1 Run the Sprinter Van.

Speaker 7 The window got blasted out. But yes, on the ride down, he puked all over that.

Speaker 1 Axel's a problem.

Speaker 1 Axel's a dog, dude. I'm very excited to watch what Axel becomes.

Speaker 1 You know, because he's puked all over the Rose Bowl. He's puked all over the Peach Bowl.
Yeah. He is.
puked all over everything. And guess what? Comes out the other side stronger.
Yeah, he does.

Speaker 1 That's the type of adversity that Ohioans and Hawks love, right? Age?

Speaker 7 Oh, yeah. That's going back to what we're talking about.
You cannot defeat us.

Speaker 7 The doctors, they hooked him up to make sure he had nothing wrong early on. And they said, where are you from? And he said, America.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 1 That's what my wife wanted to make sure that I knew because she was proud of him.

Speaker 1 She was proud of him. How old is he? How old is he?

Speaker 7 He's seven years old right now.

Speaker 1 Seven years old. Just got done puking everywhere.
White as a ghost, just like body, just kind of like straining. Doctor comes in.
Hey, listen, we're going to take care of you. All right.

Speaker 1 Where Where are you from? Just so I know that you have your bearings.

Speaker 1 Fucking America.

Speaker 1 He's going to be just fine.

Speaker 1 Doctor said over there. Didn't he give him IV? Seven-year-old? You don't get an IV, right?

Speaker 7 Seven? I don't think he got IVs. No, they're trying to figure it out.
Yeah, but

Speaker 7 he's all right. He's doing okay.
My wife carried him up like a mile up the hill to a rickshaw, rickshaw to an Uber with the other four or five kids.

Speaker 7 My daughter's friend was with them. Yeah, they figured it out, man.

Speaker 1 Like I said,

Speaker 7 it's all part of the story. It's all part of the project, the process.

Speaker 1 The Hawks love adversity. That's AJ's first response always.
Yeah, Sprinter van got the windows busted out last night. Don't know how we're going to drive home.
Man, that sucks.

Speaker 1 No, Hawks love adversity. That's what we love.

Speaker 1 Hey, kid puked all over an entire section, had to get carried up a hill to a bike rickshaw to a hospital. Oh my God, I'm so sorry.
You need to go anywhere. Hawks love adversity.

Speaker 1 That's just what we do. And that Ohio State team feels like their adversity has led them to where they need to be.
Excited to watch college football playoffs. Wrap up.

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Speaker 1 And then, for us, since we're going to be off tomorrow, we need to make our picks. Yeah, yeah, AJ, let's look at the slate for the NFL and let's go ahead and do this thing.

Speaker 1 And Chuck will obviously join us during the picks, but let's remember this guy can't pick shite in the NFL right now. True, true.
So, we will take that into account. Saturday, double header.

Speaker 1 Shout out to the NFL, both on ESPN. Browns at Ravens, Laura Rutledge, Dan Orlovsky on the call in Baltimore.
I don't believe anything is on the line here for the Ravens or the Browns.

Speaker 1 Browns, go ahead.

Speaker 4 Ravens have to win to win the division.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Ravens could win the division. They're favored by 18.
What? At home.

Speaker 1 18? Yeah, and his Browns team actually just reworked Deshaun Watson's contract, so he'll be there for at least another two years.

Speaker 1 Shout out to Mulagetta having a locked-in deal that just like we thought it was while people were trying to tell us, no, it is navigatable. It is not because Mulligetta negotiated it.

Speaker 1 With that being said, 18-point favorites at home. Who do you like, Chuck?

Speaker 3 I love the Ravens, but 18 points?

Speaker 1 That's a lot.

Speaker 1 My God.

Speaker 3 It'll be 35-10. Give me the Ravens.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's a 25-point win, obviously. Go ahead, AJ.

Speaker 7 Yeah, 18 feels like a bunch, but give me the Ravens.

Speaker 1 I would take the Ravens as well. Bengals, Steelers.
Now, this is a massive one. Bengals obviously need to win.
Steelers need to win because they could still potentially win the division.

Speaker 4 Yes. Well,

Speaker 4 they'll know if they can win the division based on the Ravens came before them, but they want to win so they go to Texas and probably not Baltimore. I would assume.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Bengals favored by two in Pittsburgh. Whoa.
That's wild. Steelers can win the division that the Cincinnati Bengals are in.
Steelers can decide whether or not they're a five or a six seed.

Speaker 1 The Bengals are still hoping and praying to get in. Steelers are at home in Pittsburgh.
Oh, mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long

Speaker 1 arm of the.

Speaker 1 Boom, boom. Bengals favored by two.
Tone, how do you feel about that?

Speaker 4 I assume it has some to do with the books, assuming that the Ravens are going to win.

Speaker 4 And then there is some speculation, which I doubt Tomlin would do this, that they rest some guys because they know they can't win the division.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 they were two-point dogs, I believe, going into Cincinnati when they won that game.

Speaker 4 So I think it has something to do with the Ravens maybe potentially win the division in the game before that, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 Okay, AJ, who do you like?

Speaker 7 I like the Bengals here, man. I just love what Joey B and this offense is doing.
I think the defense is getting better as well.

Speaker 1 The Steelers have been absolutely shite. They've been shite.
Truly. But they've taken on some very good teams.
Well, here's another one.

Speaker 1 Here's another one. Can Tama put the fire out, you think, Chuck?

Speaker 3 I don't know if you can figure it out. 10 days they've had to figure it out.
And Cincinnati, like Joey B, 42 tuds, only eight interceptions.

Speaker 3 And Jamar Chase is going to, you know, they're trying to get him to triple crown. He's got 117 catches, 1,617 yards, and 16 tuddies.

Speaker 6 He has more yards and receiving tight ends, I believe, than the entire New England Patriots do.

Speaker 1 Okay, probably other teams as well, if I I had to guess.

Speaker 3 Bengals and T. Higgins and Jamar Chase, Joe Mix, yep.

Speaker 1 All right, I'll take the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 1 Plus two at home. Respect that, thank you.
Lose four straight? We think Tomlin's going to lose four straight games.

Speaker 3 But here's the thing.

Speaker 1 We think Mike Tomlin's going to lose four straight games. Just as a thought.
I know the Bengals have a lot to play for.

Speaker 1 They need to do that entire thing. Mike Tomlin's going to lose four straight?

Speaker 3 They're in the playoffs, so Baltimore plays first, right? So Baltimore is going to win. So they know they got no shot.
so they're going to rest guys.

Speaker 1 They ain't going to even try. Mike Tomlin is just going to arrest guys, you think?

Speaker 6 Even if it's between playing Houston and Baltimore?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't think now us as fans don't want to go to Baltimore. I don't think they care about going to Baltimore.

Speaker 8 I think you'd rather play the Texans.

Speaker 13 And I don't think you want to go into the playoffs.

Speaker 4 I agree they'd rather play the Texans, but they just won eight out of 10 against the Ravens.

Speaker 4 I'm saying, as a team, like when you were in the NFL, did you care about who you were going to play the next week? Me.

Speaker 1 I was trying to put him inside 10 every single time. Bingo.
Chuck, though.

Speaker 3 Small rectangle.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what we're trying to play. Come on.
We're trying to play full-court defense, half-court offense. That's what we're trying to do.
For me, that is what I'm saying. Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 That is how I'm being jumped. Thank you.

Speaker 4 Thank you for that. Chuck, did you think about that? Did you care who you're going to play next week?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 I should have thought about that maybe a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It might be still working.

Speaker 1 I think we should have thought about that a little bit. I'll take the Steelers.
Okay, I'm there.

Speaker 1 Four straight losses? I don't know, man. That would be crazy if that happened.
It It would get loud in Pittsburgh. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Four straight losses and then losing the first round of the wild card. They would get very, very, very loud.
Not saying not

Speaker 1 for a reason. I'm just saying, yeah, it would get very loud in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 Did you see the latest TikTok that Sierra and one of Russ's songs put out?

Speaker 1 No, what was it? Reenacted. Are you on TikTok?

Speaker 3 Something in a hotel. Just make sure you...
You might want to hold out on your pick for you.

Speaker 1 What? Whoa, wow. Whoa, whoa.

Speaker 3 No, it's pretty good. I mean, they know what's going on.

Speaker 7 Can you show us a little bit, Chuck?

Speaker 1 What is it? I can. You were starting.
He looked like they're

Speaker 1 doing this. Was he doing that? Yeah, it's Russell.

Speaker 1 Hold on.

Speaker 1 That's winning.

Speaker 1 That's been winning as of late, if that's what you're talking about.

Speaker 1 All right, Steelers plus two. All right, let's roll to Sunday now.

Speaker 1 Panthers, Falcons, Falcons can still, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, Falcons have to win because if Tampa loses and Falcons win, they are in.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Falcons favored by seven and a half at home against a Carolina Carolina Panthers team that we think is going to be much better next year than they were at the beginning of this year.

Speaker 1 Chuck Pagano, who do you like?

Speaker 3 Atlanta.

Speaker 1 AJ.

Speaker 1 Carolina Panthers. Plus seven and a half B as well.
Buffalo Bills playing. Mitchell Trubisky is the conversation other than Josh getting a start, right? Yep, yep.
Bingo.

Speaker 1 Josh getting a start, but everybody's assuming Trubisky is going to get a lot of playing time. He's favored by two and a half, taking on Coach Mayo in the New England Patriots.

Speaker 1 Conman, how do you feel about this matchup?

Speaker 6 I mean, it's a most must-win for New England. I don't see why you wouldn't take the two and a half, and the team is still bought in on Gerard Mayo.

Speaker 1 Chuck, who you like? Why do you say that?

Speaker 6 Just, you know, a couple videos, stuff that the players are saying. They're definitely,

Speaker 6 there's none of that. Maybe we need some of that, but no, the team, the boys still seem to be believing in the direction that they're going.

Speaker 1 Okay, and do the fans? No.

Speaker 4 How upset will you be if they win?

Speaker 1 Half the number one overall pick right now, the New England Patriots.

Speaker 6 I'll be pretty upset if they win. But again, we need to, you know, it wouldn't be terrible to show the world and possible free agents like, hey, Drake May is still a guy.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you got the bills?

Speaker 3 Well, do we know how many players are resting? The bills?

Speaker 6 Yeah, I believe a majority. The whole conversation with Josh Allen starting is because of like.
Start streak. Yeah, start streak and percentage.

Speaker 3 Give me New England a home and a point so.

Speaker 1 Age?

Speaker 7 Give me the bills. Mine is two and a half

Speaker 7 thank you mitch can play bro mitch can play well yeah at a 69 yard touchdown

Speaker 6 i mean look i'm i'm getting a trubisky jersey if they win so

Speaker 1 i'm just gonna i'm just gonna say it i'll take the bills give me the bills minus two and a half

Speaker 1 tough week to pick apes i mean redeeming

Speaker 1 redeeming quality drake may and you think to yourself while you're watching the game wow drake's pretty good and then you look at the score they're down 30. yeah and it's like what yeah i mean

Speaker 1 they are. It does look good, though.
He does look good.

Speaker 3 They did lose 40 to 7, right? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Receivers are last in separation, and the O-line is last in protecting the quarterback.

Speaker 1 All right, give me a Buffalo Beans. Give me the Beavers.
Yeah, give me the Buffalo Beans.

Speaker 1 That was a real stat. Jacksonville Jaguars taking on the Indianapolis Colts.
The Colts, I mean, what is, you know. The Colts are a lot of things right now.

Speaker 1 Everybody's saying it sucks, including the people that are there. So that's not great news.
Who knows what the future looks like? But know this.

Speaker 1 The Colts are going to be back in a relevancy conversation. You know, there's playoff chatter with a few teams in the AFC.

Speaker 1 The Colts could have been that, you know, but instead they tricked off a loss to the Giants, which then led to everybody exposing everything going on in that building. That's good news for the future.

Speaker 1 Sometimes you got to have those uncomfortable conversations to get to a better place. Now, what do those uncomfortable conversations lead to for this particular week?

Speaker 1 I think a loss at home to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Give me the Jags plus five.

Speaker 1 AJ?

Speaker 7 AR's back injury does worry me a bit, so give me Jacksonville plus five.

Speaker 1 Chuck?

Speaker 3 He's not starting.

Speaker 1 Well, he's had back spasm since eighth grade. Okay,

Speaker 1 that's what he said. I don't know if anybody's better.

Speaker 3 He's not crawling around.

Speaker 1 Mac Jones is hot.

Speaker 1 Jacksonville has the Colts number.

Speaker 3 So here's what I researched. Joe Flacco is going to start.
Jacksonville's 32nd and pass defense. We got a quarterback that can sling it and Joey Flacco, and we got some receivers that can catch it.

Speaker 3 Pittman and Pierce and JT can run.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'll take the Colts. I'll take the Colts minus five.
Oh, come come on. They're going to take the tractor another round.
I think they have a chance.

Speaker 1 Flakers last game, possibly. And a lot of people on that Colts team, hopefully.
Last game. As Indianapolis Colts.
That's kind of my hope. I wish we could transfer portal the whole fucking team.

Speaker 1 Just take Ohio State. We had like 70 guys to hit the portal.
Can't do it, though, in the NFL, I guess. I've been trying to research it.

Speaker 3 Thank you for your services.

Speaker 1 Just in case I wanted to go pitch myself as president of the Indianapolis Colts. Not that I ever would, but I put a plan together.
How to get rid of this entire fucking roster? Except for Pittman.

Speaker 1 I want Pittman here. I want Pierce here.
Debuck. Let's keep Quentin Nelson.
Let's keep DeForest Buckner. Let's keep Kenny Moore.
I like Kenny Moore. Other than that, see ya.
Every one of them.

Speaker 1 Goodbye. Take a hike.
Thanks for coming. Jonathan Taylor, trade his fucking ass out of town.
How do we go about doing it? You got a second round pick? Sweet. Well, first would be better.

Speaker 1 We'll do this for the good of the program. Anthony Richards was a good project.
Get him out of town. Fourth round or whatever the hell you got.
See ya.

Speaker 1 That's what I would do if I was going into this place. Need a full reset of this.
The more that comes out, the more I feel like. Podcast.

Speaker 1 Guys, great tackling. What are we saying?

Speaker 3 Guys, great tackling.

Speaker 1 I think he made a Pro Bowl. He did.
You guys want him? Third, second round. That's what I would.
I mean, I would do. That's what I would do.
That's why I would never be a president of the team.

Speaker 3 Do you think the Giants played that?

Speaker 1 Obviously.

Speaker 1 I want to play a terrible team in a big market. Okay, thanks for being a champion.
Okay, that's what, you know,

Speaker 1 that's what playoffs are, you know, just terrible teams in big markets.

Speaker 1 I'm so sick. Just a whole, get them the fuck out of the city.
I can't, I can't do it. Legit.
But that's also why I went. I'm a president of GM.
I think there's a couple moves you make.

Speaker 1 You can get your culture back. I think it's going to involve trading some big names, though, and saying, hey, that ain't how we're doing it anymore.
Now, will they do that? I have no idea.

Speaker 1 We'll continue to make these picks on YouTube, ESPN Plus, Disney Plus, and

Speaker 1 TikTok Live.

Speaker 1 Okay. We're off tomorrow.
We're back on Overreaction Monday. Should be electrifying next week.
We'll be down in Miami. We'll also be in Dallas for the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl.

Speaker 1 And then, obviously, the playoffs ramp up in the NFL. Black Monday's right around a corner.
Who's going to have a job? Who's not? There's a lot to be thankful for.

Speaker 1 We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice.
It might change their life. We'll see you on Monday.
Goodbye. I think we got it.

Speaker 1 I think we get it.

Speaker 1 30 seconds earlier because Mike Foss sold a 30-second ad clip at the end of the show. Out of baby, Mike.

Speaker 1 Hey, 24 bucks. Okay.

Speaker 1 Those 30-second ads are really the ones that are doing damage in 2024, 2025.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to get into it.

Speaker 8 Buy you seven gallons a gas. What do they cost?

Speaker 1 I assume people are paying upwards $36 for those.

Speaker 1 At least $37.

Speaker 3 Who's negotiating these deals?

Speaker 1 Mike Foss. I think it's actually Mike Foss.
Mickey Mouse. I think it's Mike Foss.
Mike Foss and Mickey Mouse saying, hey, remember these 30-second ad reads?

Speaker 1 They work

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 right

Speaker 1 always have

Speaker 1 last 60 years these ones are the ones yeah people don't just immediately go to their phones or a different channel or something else whenever these come on they still matter yeah

Speaker 1 they don't

Speaker 1 most of them stink shite

Speaker 1 there's some shite though you put a little pizza though on the screen and it's got a little smoke on it yeah it's like oh wait a minute is that pizza wait wait.

Speaker 1 I forgot. I do like pizza.
30-second ad reworks. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 You put a couple of these. You put a couple of these.

Speaker 1 I don't love. No, I'm not getting into it.

Speaker 6 No. No, it's still delicious.

Speaker 1 It's been a whole season of these boneless wings. Can we get an actual wing deal with pizza? We've been trying our best, have we not? What do we have to do here?

Speaker 1 Well, the boneless ones are able to bundle and they can do this entire money. This is a great deal.
This is not a 2024. This is a 2003 deal, this deal right here.
It's not an inflation 2025-2024 deal.

Speaker 1 So I like that the pizza people are like, we got to peacock this thing a little bit.

Speaker 1 But with that being said, the bone and wings are phenomenal. So good.
The pizza, so damn good. So fucking good.
They tried at that Charger's Bolt facility.

Speaker 8 They tried real hard.

Speaker 1 Valiantly. Had a paison outside of a pizza oven thing with the stick.

Speaker 4 Didn't they say that was... And I'm not being sarcastic here because it'll come off like that.
Didn't they say it was Emerald's pizza oven? They had it shipped from Italy.

Speaker 4 No, I think you guys said that.

Speaker 3 Wolfgang Puck, I believe.

Speaker 1 Wolfgang Puck.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, I was not being.

Speaker 1 That was Batali. No, no, for sure.
That's it right there. Oh, we missed it.
Yeah, that's it. That went right there.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's sweet. Yeah.
Super Italian. Super technique.
Yeah, there were super Italians cooking it. And I would say the pepperon was crisp.
Oh, delicious.

Speaker 1 It was some solid pizza, but once again, no one.

Speaker 6 And we mean no one.

Speaker 1 Out pizza's the hut. I don't care if it's coming out of a helmet oven.
No. I don't care if it's coming out of Los Angeles.
I don't care how Paisano Seguido is. It's cooking the pizza.

Speaker 1 No one.

Speaker 1 There's been a couple places I've been to, but it's hard to get, you know, they're not national. Sure.

Speaker 1 You walk into some of those little places and get that thing that's just properly.

Speaker 4 We're talking national. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 8 Blind taste test, though. You put both those behind.

Speaker 1 Boom.

Speaker 1 Holy shit.

Speaker 1 This is fucking divine.

Speaker 8 This is a slice of heaven.

Speaker 1 And then you go. That was Pizza Hut.
And that's why no one.

Speaker 6 And we mean no one.

Speaker 1 Now Pizza's the Hut. I think there are some people that are close in the boneless wings department to Pizza Hut.
You know, know, because chicken nuggets with flavor, certainly done by a lot of people.

Speaker 1 The difference with Pizza Hut is they have actual fryers in there.

Speaker 1 So they're making their chicken nuggets with flavor. Yeah, the bone and wings are, I mean, unbeatable.
So good. Yeah, just do it.

Speaker 8 Top flight.

Speaker 1 Why don't you get you some bone and wings and some pizza for the Sugar Bowl kicking off in two hours? Good idea. Smart move.

Speaker 1 Imagine. Smart move.

Speaker 6 What a time. You want to have a great year.

Speaker 1 Start it right. Spanna.
Hello.

Speaker 1 Let's call Parker.

Speaker 1 He's didn't have good service when we talked to him the other night, did he?

Speaker 6 He might still be on TV.

Speaker 4 You got to start your resolutions.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I worked out this morning. I did 14 push-ups.

Speaker 1 Thank you. I'm on it.
Parker, we're live. We're live.
We're live.

Speaker 4 We're live right now on the Pat McAfee show.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes, we are live.

Speaker 1 You're eating chips. Let's put the chips away for a second, please.

Speaker 17 Please.

Speaker 17 No more chips just for now.

Speaker 4 Just for you.

Speaker 1 Can you tell everybody what 2024 was like? Was it a hell of a year or no?

Speaker 17 2024 was a hell of a year, man. very blessed a lot of good things got to go on the pat mcfee show

Speaker 1 we need to hear it we need to hear it we need to hear it

Speaker 17 2024 was great for me man and

Speaker 17 you know i'm the only person that can make 2025 great for myself and even better than 2024 so

Speaker 1 i like that i like that i like that but 2025 whenever it's all said and done because you're taking accountability for yourself and only you can control your happiness i like that mindset that is a good one for the world to hear but on new year's Eve, going in 2026, we're going to say 2025, man, that was

Speaker 1 better.

Speaker 1 No, no.

Speaker 1 We're still doing it wrong. You know what we want.
You know what we want. What type of year was it, Parker? What type of fucking year was it?

Speaker 17 It was that kind of year.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Play the hits, Dad.
Please.

Speaker 1 You can describe the year perfectly.

Speaker 6 Piece of shite. This is shite.

Speaker 17 I have to do that in the grocery store all the time, man. It's been a hell of a year.
I'll say it just for you.

Speaker 1 Damn!

Speaker 1 Sing it! Hold on, let us say it for it. Let us say it because we've been working on this.

Speaker 1 It's been a hell of a year.

Speaker 1 Okay, now, is that good?

Speaker 17 I remember from the last time you guys could sing. Y'all got a little something going on there.
It's special over there.

Speaker 1 Listen, we'll turn the auto-tune on if you want us to. No, we will.

Speaker 17 I would say 2025 has already been a hell of a year. I don't speak too soon, but it's been good.

Speaker 1 Chips is easy.

Speaker 1 It looks like it's Pringles right now. I think it looks like you're eating a Pringle.

Speaker 17 Regular Pringles.

Speaker 1 Wow. Nice.
OG.

Speaker 1 Is that your favorite, or is that the only one available at this moment?

Speaker 17 We got a lot of chips here. We had a great 2024.

Speaker 1 We got some good chips.

Speaker 1 What you have? What you had? You had

Speaker 17 all the good stuff.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 17 these are regular Pringles, though. These are the OGs.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 17 that's it. That's it.

Speaker 1 You had a hell of a year, man. We're proud of you.
And it was a hell of a year.

Speaker 1 That was a hell of a year.

Speaker 1 Hey, I don't like those people saying he used audit to him, by the way. We weren't happy about that because we saw your ass stand right here.
No, he was terrible.

Speaker 4 He cut his teeth. He cut his teeth in Nashville.
He wouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 He did cut his teeth in Nashville. His since moved back to the ranch, though.
He's on a horse, this motherfucker. You know, we see the whole entire thing.
You had a hell of a year, Parker.

Speaker 1 We're proud of you, buddy.

Speaker 17 Thank you. Love you guys.
Appreciate y'all calling me and seeing what I was doing. It's been a hell of a year.

Speaker 1 Boom. Thank you, Parker.
Don't got it. Thank you, Parker.
Thank you, Parker.

Speaker 1 That was kind of shite.

Speaker 6 It was a bit shitey.

Speaker 1 It was kind of shite. To be fair, that was probably partner cool.

Speaker 6 Probably had to do the hell of a year gimmick for

Speaker 3 100 times the last 24 hours.

Speaker 1 I mean, these are the worst three days for him.

Speaker 1 Hey, hey, make a great, like, New Year's song. You know, they said what they didn't say was, everybody now is going to ask you.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Just keep your schedule open the first fucking three days of the year, okay?

Speaker 1 Just like saying that a lot. Shaboozy.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Sing the tipsy song. I got five other heaters.

Speaker 6 Shut up.

Speaker 1 Nobody cares, Tipsy. Yeah.
Parker, what type of year has it been? It's been a good year for my family.

Speaker 1 Don't care. Don't be a fool.

Speaker 1 I had a baby.

Speaker 1 I caught him on New Year's while we were pretty boozed up at dinner and him just getting off a stage, sweating.

Speaker 1 Mark, it's been a hell of a year.

Speaker 1 All right, okay. There you go.
A bunch of drunk guys at a restaurant right now singing to me. Parker, can we hear a little bit? Then he lost service, couldn't see him.
Yep.

Speaker 1 And like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't know if you just sang or not.
I did not. Okay.

Speaker 1 Do it now.

Speaker 1 Why aren't you singing right now? I've been on TV since 7 p.m. Oh, okay.
Yeah, we missed it. No TVs there, as you can see.
No TVs. Hey, Parker, it's been

Speaker 1 assholes, all of us. All right, let's get back to picking a game, shall we?

Speaker 1 So, who's on the Colts?

Speaker 6 You and Chuck. Yep.

Speaker 1 Age, you're on the Jags?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I like what Mac Jones is doing. Give me the Jags.

Speaker 1 I'll be excited to see what the turnout is for that game. It feels like a lot of Colts fans have gotten to the point where we're done with this.
You know, kind of done with this.

Speaker 7 Colts need to get to a hot start, I think, in that one.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it'll be good. Momentum.

Speaker 1 Take tractor another round, boys. I don't know if the transfer portal is available for all of you, but you should give it a shot.
They should give it a shot this offseason.

Speaker 3 They got a show. After getting embarrassed like that, they don't care.

Speaker 1 That's the thing that's the problem, is this group doesn't care.

Speaker 3 This will be very, like,

Speaker 1 we know a lot right now, but this will be very very telling then they didn't show up with the playoffs were on the line coach you think they're showing up for this what he's saying they don't give a this team does not care they they they get a check to be in the nfl they get to say they're nfl players

Speaker 1 and if you have a couple of those guys on your team you can hope that like hey it's not just about being on team it's about like being a part of the team and like being a good team and like being a good pro it feels like 87% of their team is just like the guys that you don't want on your team.

Speaker 1 And that's not good. Talent everywhere.
They've talent damn near everywhere. They've paid guys everywhere.
And now it's just,

Speaker 1 we're lucky that they're wearing the uniform in the city. You're wrong.
And I can't wait for you all to be gone. And I don't know if that's even possible, but I'm hoping for it legitimately.

Speaker 1 And the more I read, Zach Kiefer,

Speaker 1 the more I read, the more I hate. Because there's a lot of good people in that building, Chuck.
You know them.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. A lot of great people in that building.
They've been in their situation.

Speaker 3 They've sacrificed a lot.

Speaker 1 Long time.

Speaker 1 Long hours hours building stuff, doing all the shit you don't want to do, like just to, you know, put a left hand up selfless for the Colts since they got here from Baltimore in 1980 something.

Speaker 1 So like seeing all the different iterations of the Colts, they kind of have a good feel on what's going to work, what's not going to work.

Speaker 1 And then you talk to them and it's like, they're wondering, what the f.

Speaker 1 And then you hear these stuff going on. It's like, what the, what are we doing here? Is this even a fucking professional outfit?

Speaker 1 Or what are we just, we're lining up 11 guys to go play football for a movie every single week that's what it feels like i don't like it age i don't like it one bit age you know mr ursay and you know how much he loves and cares and what he'll

Speaker 3 what he'll do for his players right

Speaker 3 and for for that to give back to like

Speaker 3 that's a slap yeah not to mention like there's no better owner to me i like the way he loves and cares about these dudes

Speaker 6 come on yeah we'll see if he loves and cares about the city because clock's ticking what

Speaker 1 What do you mean?

Speaker 6 We need two Super Bowls by 2030. So he better get this thing going.
He better trade for Josh Allen or something.

Speaker 1 What are you saying? Two Super Bowls in a decade?

Speaker 6 That's what he said. And guess what? If it doesn't happen, I want a piece of the fucking team then.

Speaker 1 Because he guaranteed that to be happening. Your taxes are going towards that, aren't you? My taxes are going down the shiter because nobody is playing ball in this city right now.

Speaker 4 Well, it was a counter two Super Bowls in the last decade, but you know, every other team in the division has at at least two division championships and the Colts don't have one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so fuck, fuck that. It feels like a lot of you are piling on right now.

Speaker 8 Sometimes.

Speaker 3 Jesus. The price are coming off the top turnbuckle.

Speaker 1 It's all there.

Speaker 1 It's always there. Yeah.

Speaker 8 I mean, if it looks like shite and it smells like shite, guess what? It might be shite.

Speaker 1 I thought about like running into an event to one of these guys on the Colts, but they don't do community stuff. So they wouldn't be at any event.
Yeah, and if we see blue...

Speaker 1 Yeah, and if we see him, we're going to fuck his shite up. Did you see that? No, no, we like blue.
No, did we like blue? I'm done with blue. Did you see what was in that keeper article?

Speaker 1 What do you mean you're done with blue? What's that? Done with it all.

Speaker 4 They're calling him Schite Stank instead of Shane Stike.

Speaker 1 No, they're not. I know that's not true.

Speaker 1 I know that's not true.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of smoke coming out of that team, though, about who's doing what, what's going to be. Nobody knows except for one man.
His name is Jim Mercy. That's a nice piece of information to have.

Speaker 1 I didn't know he was still making like end decision because I don't think he's in there every single day. I think the daughters are in there every single day.

Speaker 1 So I thought maybe they're the ones that were going to have to make the decision. But from what we've been told, right, still Jim making all the decisions for the program.

Speaker 1 Hopefully he takes a nice hit of that vape and thinks to himself,

Speaker 1 this place is shite, brother.

Speaker 1 Decides to make a change. That's what I'm hoping.
Legitimately. Because it's like, you know, in a lot of these cities,

Speaker 1 the football team is like what you do during the fall. Yes.
Like, that is what. to do.
But everyone cares about it. People talk about like you're in L.A.
or Miami. There's a lot of distractions.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of other shit to do.

Speaker 1 It's like in the fall, in a lot of places, football towns, it's like the football team is it so whenever you watch shite and you can clearly see it and then they're not a likable bunch it's like

Speaker 1 so we're just going to have another miserable fall with this group of people i don't know i don't know and whose fault is it i don't know seemingly everybody top down

Speaker 8 I mean, no disrespect to Indiana or Notre Dame or whoever else, but like you can't have the NFL team in your city be like the third most talked about or third most important team or third most exciting team.

Speaker 1 Like that just can't happen especially when you're not an also ran franchise and you had peyton manning and you know what i mean like a lot of history a lot of football here yeah exactly a lot of football people here in indiana a lot of football people here they also a lot of like old school people here you know a lot of old school that's why signetti comes in here and it's like we're gonna work hard i don't think they loved him talking shit to notre dame because a lot of indiana people also notre dame fans i think that was a miscalculation potentially by sig but the way he operates old school work hard you know,

Speaker 1 like chip on shoulder, like that's Indiana people is a very, like, very military place too. So, like, they, so whenever you got these,

Speaker 1 if you're winning, it's fine, but like, if you don't represent the state, the city, in the fashion in which they would like it to be, it's like, and then you also suck and continue to suck. It's like.

Speaker 1 Where are you? Why do you get off thinking you can be the in some way?

Speaker 3 I think what you'll get a little bit of a pass. Like, everybody knows you're going to have a bad, a bad day here and there.

Speaker 3 And if they know you are dying and killing yourself to do everything possible to make sure that you show up for these people week in and week out,

Speaker 3 then it's like, okay, we'll get it next week. But they got to know that, that you're freaking going to die on that treadmill before you let somebody else beat you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and that's the thing. I don't know if these guys even know how to turn a treadmill on.
You know, and that's seemingly the problem. Just from my outside looking in, just from outside looking in.

Speaker 1 Thank God I'm not on that team. But also, if I was on that team, it's like the locker room can police themselves.
It feels like

Speaker 1 none of that there.

Speaker 1 And blue winning the salute to service award. I mean, I don't even know.
Congrats. Congrats.

Speaker 6 That's what's saving his ass right now.

Speaker 1 Blue's a good mascot. Sebastian.

Speaker 7 Is blue the one that ate Foxy?

Speaker 1 That's Air Blue. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't think Air Blue won the Salute to Service Award.

Speaker 7 There's multiple mascots, though, for the Colts.

Speaker 1 There's Junior Blue, Air Blue, then there's Actual Blue. Marvel Superheroes.
Yep.

Speaker 1 That was potentially...

Speaker 8 That's when you should have known.

Speaker 4 That was kind of the turner, but wasn't it?

Speaker 1 Remember when we had New York Times Square Spider-Man fighting off against Captain Americana? Yeah.

Speaker 1 In the middle of the thing, and the Spider-Man couldn't fit in the fucking...

Speaker 1 And they were running across the field.

Speaker 7 I just saw that guy, actually. We took my kids to Madame Tussaud's the day before the game out in L.A.

Speaker 1 We saw the slightly overweight spider-man jammed into a spider-man costume trying to get pictures with my kids well he was a halftime show for the colts last year yeah and i should have told him hey good work last year needs you back bro yeah great he brought the house down he brought the house that hand himself when he passed out almost had a heart attack at the 50 yard line because he ran 20 yards come on trying to catch him because he was doing this one it wasn't working either because i think you got to be have a little bit of energy to get out

Speaker 6 of these numbers

Speaker 1 oh fuck it i'll run and catch him and then he

Speaker 1 didn't know he hadn't run in a while. We could tell by looking at him, but he didn't know.

Speaker 8 Yeah, Captain America had to give him CPR on 50.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. What's the name of Spider-Man in real life? Pete Parker.
So embarrassed by the Pete Parker that they chose to put out there in the afternoon show.

Speaker 1 They'll figure it out. It's Colts.
They'll get it all figured out. Transfer Portal.
Need it.

Speaker 6 Just fall to the island of irrelevancy.

Speaker 1 Neither while. Been there for a while.
Yeah, what we're still talking about. I mean, like, hey.

Speaker 1 Only reason we're talking about him, though, is because this show happens to be from Indianapolis.

Speaker 1 Which isn't forever.

Speaker 1 Although I love this place. I do love this place.
I enjoy this city.

Speaker 1 I do love this city.

Speaker 1 I don't like the rich class here in this city. Sure.
I don't get along with any of the suits of the city. But the people.
I like the actual people. You know?

Speaker 1 I like Tyrese. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4 He's the best.

Speaker 1 I like Tyrese Halliburton a lot. I like the Pacers a lot.

Speaker 1 I think the Fever are going to be able to continue to do their thing if the WNBA remains a league, even though they're trying their fucking best.

Speaker 1 You know, how do we get everybody to fucking hate us so we don't have a league? You know, they're trying their best every day, it seems like. Let me open my phone.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 They're still trying to ruin their league. That's good.
That'll get figured out. I think they'll figure that out.
And the FIFA are going to go and win that. That's good news.

Speaker 1 The people here, local business owners, the people that call this place home, phenomenal people.

Speaker 1 But the Colts are the biggest representation of this city and this state.

Speaker 1 And they got a lot of bum tendencies all over the place. They'll figure it out, though.
Good luck, boys.

Speaker 1 Tough Jags team.

Speaker 4 Tough Jags team. Tough Jags team.

Speaker 1 Tough Jags team.

Speaker 1 You saw on the Colts after everything what you said?

Speaker 3 Colts got to beat the shite out of the Jags.

Speaker 8 Well said.

Speaker 1 I'll take the Colts as well.

Speaker 1 Last game. This is something they would do.
Let's fuck up the draft pick at least. You know, let's do one last.
How can we say fuck you to the city? That's what this Colts team's going to do.

Speaker 1 And we're thankful for it. Bears, Packers.

Speaker 1 Packers favored by 10.

Speaker 1 Ty, anything to think about for this game?

Speaker 8 Not a whole lot to play for. I think it's kind of out of their hands.
Obviously, they need to win.

Speaker 8 They could still be the fifth seed, but or excuse me, the sixth seed, but that's as high as they could go. Right now, they are currently slotted as the seventh seed.

Speaker 1 Okay, awesome.

Speaker 1 Love that. Jordan loves a dog.

Speaker 8 Yeah, he didn't play great last week, but I I don't know if that's necessarily all on him.

Speaker 8 So we'll see. He's still been good.
They need to start fast.

Speaker 1 Bears stink.

Speaker 8 They do. But the Bears played the Packers very tough last.
I mean, Packers blocked a last-second field goal to beat them.

Speaker 4 Packers can go up to six if the Commanders lose to the Cowboys.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Z, you wore that Chicago Bears hat into the Chargers facility. I noticed that after we left.
Yes, sir. You've been riding alongside of them.

Speaker 1 You have no idea who the coach is going to be or the GM or what the future is. How do you feel about this particular game against the Packers to wrap up this horrendous 2024 NFL season for the Bears?

Speaker 1 I think we would in Lambeau. Okay.
I'll take the Green Bay Packers favored by 10.

Speaker 3 Jair's out, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. For the rest of the season.
What's that mean, Ty?

Speaker 8 Nothing because he hasn't really played at all the last two years.

Speaker 1 So, you know. Love Jair, though.

Speaker 3 Love everything. Give me the points.

Speaker 1 You like the Bears personally?

Speaker 1 AJ? Fucking Homer.

Speaker 7 Give me the Packers minus 10.

Speaker 7 Zito's enthusiasm did not sway me over to the Bears.

Speaker 1 I'll take the Packers, favored by 10. Big win going into the playoffs to get that mojo back.
I feel like Jordan Love is a swagger guy. It feels like a good one.

Speaker 1 Speaking of what you just mentioned, Commanders taking on the Dallas Cowboys. Commanders, favored by five, going into Cooper Cush's town.

Speaker 1 Cooper Cush is sitting at 52.5% of the snaps played this particular season. If they get to 55%, he hits a $500,000 incentive.
Congrats to Cooper Cup or Cooper Rush potentially getting to that.

Speaker 1 We assume he will. With that being said, I like like the Commanders

Speaker 1 by at least a touchdown. AJ, your thoughts?

Speaker 7 Yes, with all that being said, I like the Commanders as well. I've been a big fan of what Dan Quinn has been doing, and

Speaker 7 I think they might make a little run in the playoffs.

Speaker 3 Chuck? You're riding high. Give me the Commander.

Speaker 1 Saints getting 13 and a half against Tampa who needs the win. Tampa needs a win for the NFC South.
I like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to get the job done here and cover.

Speaker 1 Don't love what has happened with this New Orleans Saints team. Ooh, should we think about what just happened in New Orleans? That's what I was going to say.

Speaker 8 I feel like that kind of thing can really galvanize a team, like, especially when their season has kind of largely been shite. Like, this could be like a nice little send-off.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I'll take the Saints plus 13 and a half.

Speaker 1 I'm going to take the Saints plus 13 and a half, just because that is bigger than the game there and a lot to pull from, especially if you're a citizen and a member of that community.

Speaker 1 How about you, AJ?

Speaker 7 Who's playing quarterback for the Saints?

Speaker 1 Spencer.

Speaker 7 Oh, Rapper. Okay.
You know, 13 and a half. Yeah, I think the Bucs Bucs probably win, but give me the Saints plus 13.

Speaker 1 Chuck?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I love Darren Rizzy when he came on and talked about this

Speaker 3 tragedy that happened down there. They got so many injuries, though.
They will galvanize and they'll fight for a minute. I just don't think they have enough.

Speaker 3 And Tampa Bay is riding high, and this is for the NFC South title.

Speaker 3 you know, get a home playoff game, all that stuff. Give me Tampa.

Speaker 1 I'll take the Bucs as well. Houston favored.
No.

Speaker 1 Houston going into Tennessee is a dog.

Speaker 6 Believe they're arresting everybody.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because they're locked in. Yeah, they can't.

Speaker 3 Tennessee's got the number two ranked defense in the league, too.

Speaker 1 Nobody talks about it.

Speaker 1 Everybody thinks Tennessee stinks. They do.
They do. They need a quarterback this offseason.

Speaker 1 They're going to continue to build in that Callahan system, you would assume. Tennessee fans, I think, are, you know, kind of

Speaker 1 distracted by the country music scene, what's going on. But if that Titans scene gets good, they rally behind that team.
I mean, that's a good football city if they are worth a damn.

Speaker 8 New stadium on the way, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so hopefully next year they will be worth a damn in this entirety.

Speaker 1 CJ Stroud not playing.

Speaker 12 Is that what you said?

Speaker 5 I believe he is not.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I think it's like a defense as well.

Speaker 7 Kind of rest in, hey, we're so they rest in some offensive linemen, too. You only rest your quarterback.

Speaker 7 Like, you know, if your starting quarterback's playing, you're starting offensive line is playing. Are they going to pull a couple of linemen out?

Speaker 1 What's that? That's dumb. What?

Speaker 3 As bad as they've been playing, they need to play to get some mojo back. I think so.
Give me Tennessee, but that's dumb.

Speaker 1 You don't like that we're resting, not risking any injuries?

Speaker 3 That's like they've been resting for the last five weeks.

Speaker 1 That's like the Steelers, too. Like the Steelers cannot have a four-game schneid going into the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Like they need to win a game, no matter what's on the line, whether they're looking at the next week or not. It's like the Texans saying exact thing.

Speaker 1 You need to figure out how to play good ball again. I think you would want to go do that.
What are you saying, Tone?

Speaker 4 I haven't seen anything yet that he's officially out, but I think we're just judging based off the line.

Speaker 1 I'll take the Texans. I'll take the Texans who need one down here in Tennessee, beautiful city of Nashville.
Who do you like, AJ?

Speaker 7 I like the Texans as well.

Speaker 1 Giants, Eagles, everybody's resting in Philadelphia, including Saquon, who is 101 yards away, or what is the number? 100.

Speaker 1 101 yards away from the all-time leading rushing record. Here's what Saquon had to say about the decision.

Speaker 18 Coach asked me,

Speaker 18 you know, what I like to do. We had a conversation

Speaker 5 and

Speaker 18 called me back,

Speaker 18 let me know that we were probably going to be wrestling.

Speaker 18 My reaction was kind of like I told my family, obviously my family

Speaker 18 probably wanted a little bit more than me.

Speaker 18 But at the end of the day, the most important thing is

Speaker 18 winning football games and winning the playoffs. So

Speaker 18 I got a bigger goal in mind anyway.

Speaker 8 What was your message to Mega and when you did it?

Speaker 18 I mean, he asked me if I wanted to play, if I wanted to go for it. I said on Sunday, you know, I probably didn't care too much for it.
When I slept on it, it was like it was an opportunity to implant

Speaker 18 my name in football history. May never get another opportunity like that again.

Speaker 18 So I'm down, but at the end of the day, I don't care for putting the team at risk.

Speaker 18 He's the head coach for a reason. He makes those decisions, and whatever decision he wanted to make, I let him know if you want me to play it.
I'm going to go out there and make sure I get it.

Speaker 18 And if we don't, I'm okay with that, too.

Speaker 1 Isn't it crazy that if that's 50 yards, they're going for it, right? Because they can get that in the first quarter. 101 yards, that's like, that's a full game going for 101 yards.

Speaker 1 So Siriani literally has to sit there and just be like, if I play him

Speaker 1 and he gets hurt, let's say it's 30 yards into this thing, somehow, rolls an ankle. I'm not saying that Saquon isn't built.
Ram truck tough. Okay.
I'm not saying that that isn't the case.

Speaker 1 But I'm saying if you play him and he gets it and nothing happens to him, huge success. Way to go.
We did it.

Speaker 1 We're in the history books forever. This is going to be one that's going to be tough to ever get, especially with the way football has kind of changed.

Speaker 1 But if he plays him and he gets hurt, he's fucking fired. Sirianni's fired.
Gone. Gone.
No questions asked. Gone.
See ya. Get this goofball the hell out of the city.

Speaker 1 We said this John was going to make a decision that was going to ruin our season. Oh, for a running back record.
Okay, well, he did it in 17 games anyways. He wasn't in 16 games.

Speaker 1 That's how people would react. Now, granted, he doesn't play him, doesn't give give him an opportunity.
This guy doesn't like his players. This guy, this is a.

Speaker 1 I know we've talked about Siriani a lot this year because everybody else has talked about him. They're on a winning team.

Speaker 1 And the reason why they're not playing is because they've already figured out what their playoffs look like and everything. They're in there.
They're a very good team.

Speaker 1 But this is not a decision I'm happy that I would ever have to make.

Speaker 3 I am very thankful. No, you don't want any part of it.
It's a no-win deal.

Speaker 3 But you remember earlier in the year when Sirianni went down to Saquon, they're sitting on the bench and he had that monster game. I forget.

Speaker 1 The Giants.

Speaker 1 I met life.

Speaker 3 Okay, so he's at 170, 180 yards, right, against the Giants, and he said, no, let them other guys eat. Saquon did.

Speaker 3 So he's very selfless in this, and it's a huge, you know, it's a really, really tough decision for the head coach, but he's doing the best thing.

Speaker 1 I like that his family, Saquon's family, was like, yeah, you were real nice, what you were saying. It doesn't matter.
You know how long Dickerson's had this fucking record?

Speaker 1 There's a reason this one is a long one. Who knows if you're ever going to get back into this situation to go get this thing?

Speaker 1 And I am speaking as a person that was a very small part of a member of a team that was undefeated and then chose to lose the final two games, basically, by arresting all the players, going into the playoffs, and we lose in the Super Bowl to the New Orleans Saints and Reggie Bush, who was great on the field pass yesterday.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was, yeah. Congrats to him.
High fashion had to figure it out because they gave him a jacket too big.

Speaker 1 But the older players, I think as they look back, obviously regret losing to the Saints, but obviously didn't like that they weren't given the opportunity to maybe have a perfect season.

Speaker 1 But if they play in those last two games and somebody gets hurt, we lose, because we're a very not deep team, we're a very high-end high-end team. You lose Dallas Clark.
You lose Reggie Wayne.

Speaker 1 You lose one of the offensive linemen. God forbid fucking Peyton Payton gets hurt.
Any of those situations, it's like you're in massive jeopardy.

Speaker 1 And Bill Pullian made that decision, I think, for everybody. Jim Caldwell didn't make decisions.
I think it was Bill Pulling was like, nope, we are looking forward to the playoffs.

Speaker 1 That's not a fun position to be. Saquon, we assume you'll get it next year.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 Do you think if he wins a Super Bowl, gets a ring this year,

Speaker 3 if he didn't, like if he got the rushing record Hall of Fame, one way or another affects his resume saquan like so if he doesn't win the got the record but didn't win a ring or vice versa record automatic into the yeah record automatic off him so i think saquan's at the point now where he's gonna end up he's only the ninth guy right only the ninth guy to get 2 000 plus yeah

Speaker 1 we just put up the list over here about um it's a huge deal yes huge deal obviously adrian jamal you're talking about the who's who of this entire thing mile high salutes you think he's in already regardless then i think yeah he was also, what, what pick was he?

Speaker 1 Two. Yeah.
I think if you're that highly touted, and then what he's going to do in Philly, I think in Philly, he's going to have to go here.

Speaker 1 I think he's going to have to have multiple years like this because of how bad the Giants were. But I think he is on a path to all of fame.
I think everybody kind of can see it.

Speaker 1 The reverse jump over backwards guy. It's just like, this thing is different.
But you get the rushing record, you're automatically in if you're a running back, I think. What would you do?

Speaker 3 I'd do it. Siriane wouldn't play him.

Speaker 3 And you're going against the Giants, too. And last thing they're going to allow him, they'll put 10 guys in that box and let you throw touchdown passes before they're going to let this guy.

Speaker 1 Who says that that's what the Giants would do? Or that that would work. Guarantee you.
Or not. Mr.
Mara. It doesn't matter what Mr.
Mara said.

Speaker 1 We've already seen him say a lot of things and just completely backfires.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I wouldn't throw him out there.

Speaker 1 101 is a lot of yours.

Speaker 7 I wish he was playing. No,

Speaker 7 I thought it was going to be much. I thought it was going to be 150, 160.
And then I still thought maybe they'll give him a shot.

Speaker 7 When I saw 101, I'm thinking Saquon might do that in a quarter and a half and then get him out of there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm okay either way. I would like to let everybody know I'm okay either way.
If he goes for it and gets it, legendary. If he goes for it and gets hurt.

Speaker 4 But then you got to play all those great offensive linemen you have as well, too, right? If he's going for it, they're going.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they all have.

Speaker 7 If they want the record, too, as Debut said, that's not just a running back.

Speaker 7 If he breaks it, I mean, the 2000 is already a testament to the O-line, the O-line coach, everything offensive coordinator, but that is kind of an offensive team award when a guy like that breaks that rip.

Speaker 1 You can't live in your fears either, right?

Speaker 1 Nope. But what if your fear becomes your reality? And then all of a sudden, it's oh no, this guy's a big dumb dip shit.
He's yelling at the fans.

Speaker 1 Why'd you pull him out? Oh, that's cute. Oh, that's real cute.
Put him out. There's somebody gotta be an adult in the room, Siriani.
Answer away from me. Can you?

Speaker 3 How would you like to go up to that podium?

Speaker 1 Oh, after if he gets hurt? Oh,

Speaker 1 I always go for my guys.

Speaker 1 I fucked up, okay?

Speaker 8 Just like... What do you want me to say?

Speaker 1 Why'd you do it?

Speaker 1 Are we not trying to break records? We're trying to win Super Bowls, right?

Speaker 8 We're trying to win Super Bowls, too.

Speaker 1 Breaking records is nice, isn't it? Well, is it? I don't know. Is it nice whenever you lose a guy?

Speaker 8 Well, yeah, and I guess now that Saquon's out for the rest of the season, it's maybe not so nice, but

Speaker 1 we'll be okay. We'll be just fine.
I don't think he has to be okay.

Speaker 1 We looked at the percentage of the offense that runs through one guy versus everybody else, and now you got to go to your most important game and you're without your ace because you played.

Speaker 8 Well, at this point, it doesn't matter because I'm going to get fucking fire after your season anyway.

Speaker 1 Okay, coach.

Speaker 1 And that's the reality of the situation that Siriani has to figure out. All right, let's go to the next game here.
Do we like the Philadelphia Eagles?

Speaker 1 Favored by two and a half? Giants are kind of hot. They are very hot.
Look now. Drew Locke.
Yeah. I'll take Drew Locke.
Got that thing on. I'm going to take Drew Locke in the New York.

Speaker 1 What a fucking horrible thing to come out of your mouth. I like the New York Giants against the Philadelphia Games.

Speaker 1 Bruce, how do you feel?

Speaker 1 It doesn't sound good coming out, but what you guys did to the Colts makes me believe you guys maybe got a shot.

Speaker 19 I mean, we win and we fall to ninth looking for our franchise quarterback of the future. So I'm hoping Malik Neighbors goes out there.
I think he needs like probably three, four, or five catches.

Speaker 19 I forget the number to break Puka Nakua's record and then, you know, yank him and hopefully lose this game on purpose.

Speaker 1 Okay, okay, so they're trying to lose.

Speaker 1 Eagles aren't trying to win.

Speaker 1 Who do you like? Who do you like, Chuck?

Speaker 3 I'll take Philly.

Speaker 1 Okay, just because of the the amount of talent, AJ?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I'm going to take Philly here.

Speaker 1 I will as well, just because it's impossible for me to even, I tried to say it. I tried to say Giants plus two.
Almost had it. I just couldn't do it.
Chiefs, Broncos.

Speaker 1 Broncos favored by 10.5 with the Kansas City Chiefs resting everybody. Similar situation to when Patrick Mahomes actually got his first time playing in the NFL.

Speaker 1 Kansas City Chiefs with Alex Smith has already secured whatever their playoff spot was going to be. Last week of the year, they're playing the Denver Broncos in Denver.

Speaker 1 Patrick Mahomes comes out and and wins for the Kansas City Chiefs. Didn't need to win, did win.
They would then trade Alex Smith to Washington.

Speaker 1 Patrick Mahomes would become the new quarterback, new franchise quarterback for Kansas City. And then that's all she wrote.
Then it became a whole new era of NFL dynasty football.

Speaker 1 Will Carson Wentz be able to do the same thing and keep it within 10 and a half? How many people are not playing? Patrick Mahomes not playing? That means Travis probably not playing.

Speaker 1 Chris Jones is not playing on defensive side. How many more people do we know?

Speaker 4 You would think Hollywood, because he's been banged up all year.

Speaker 6 Pacheco.

Speaker 4 Pacheco, definitely not playing.

Speaker 1 Is Taney playing out there? I

Speaker 8 can't afford to let him get hurt.

Speaker 1 Where's Joe Tooney from?

Speaker 7 I believe he's from Centerville, Ohio, Pat.

Speaker 1 Did you know that?

Speaker 8 Joe Tunley's from Centerville?

Speaker 1 He's an elk. Did not know that.

Speaker 7 No, he's not. He didn't go to Centerville.
He went to the Catholic school. He went to altar where Nick Mangold went, but yes, he is from Centerville.

Speaker 1 Okay, so he's got Centerville water pumping through his body.

Speaker 1 He doesn't have elk pride, though. Legend.
He doesn't have elk pride. He could have, though.
We could have.

Speaker 7 He could have been an elk, for sure.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Putting that elk home and on, you're going to have to earn that.

Speaker 1 I don't know if Joe Taney would have been able to crack the starting lineup over there, which is probably why I want to hang out with the Catholics out there. I did not know he was in Ohio.
Fuck.

Speaker 1 Makes sense, though, if he just says, put me a tackle. He needs to put me a tackle.
He's not going to give up anything. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 He's not playing, I assume, right? Doubt it. Patrick Mahomes isn't playing.

Speaker 3 You only got 45 guys on the roster now, guys. Remember that.
That's not true. It's not like you can buy any more.
You got 53 and then you got to sit.

Speaker 4 No, now with a... They got 18 on the practice squad, squad, right?

Speaker 3 COVID. Yeah, but you can't just sign all those and cut everybody and bring those guys up, Tony.
You got to play people.

Speaker 1 So who do you like?

Speaker 3 10 and a half? Carl Wentz and the Chiefs. Give me 10 and a half.

Speaker 1 Wow. Andy Reid's still coaching? That's what Chuck just said.
Is Smag still coaching? Is Tob still coaching? Are the coaches taking the game off or are they still... They get to rest, bad.
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 They wouldn't want it any other way. That's like fourth quarter of those preseason games.
They get shot on those head coaches and they're still like dialed in.

Speaker 3 Imagine this. The young players that are getting an opportunity, you know how big this is for them?

Speaker 1 Huge. They freaking go off.
What do you think, AJ? You like the Broncos who are in a must-win situation? Or do you like the Kansas City Chiefs who are kind of saying, you know, let's mail it in?

Speaker 7 Obviously, I love what the Broncos defense does. I like Bo Nicks, but I'm taking the Chiefs here.
This is Carson Wentz, like another coming out party.

Speaker 7 He gets to reintroduce himself to the nation as a great quarterback.

Speaker 1 Allow me to reintroduce myself my name's carl

Speaker 1 i'll take the chiefs plus 10 and a half wow seahawks rams seahawks favored by six and a half going into los angeles james garoppolo at quarterback for the rams

Speaker 1 i'll take the seahawks

Speaker 9 same

Speaker 7 i'll take the rams

Speaker 3 they're resting

Speaker 3 jimmy g they're not playing anybody

Speaker 1 i don't remember jimmy g enough you know that was just a few years ago he wasn't

Speaker 1 went to a Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 He was shite in Vegas.

Speaker 3 Good looking, somebody.

Speaker 13 Geno Smith needs 185 passing yards for a $2 million incentive.

Speaker 1 Okay, give me the Seattle Seahawks.

Speaker 3 That means they're going to hand it off to his Walker back.

Speaker 1 Do you think the Seahawks are going to just F him? You think so? No. They're going to run the ball 45 times.

Speaker 1 They're going to have a jet sweep to DK Metcalf. They're going to have a jet sweep to Todd.

Speaker 1 A lot of these, a lot of these, a lot of these. Let's go, boys.
$2 million. that's a big

Speaker 1 that is a massive payday what's another incentive that's huge mike evans needs 85 yards and a touchdown for three million dollars is that what i saw

Speaker 1 yes 85 yards five receptions 85 yards no touchdowns needed three

Speaker 1 million dollars that is a gigantic A gigantic incentive. Normally it's like 250,000, what you're seeing down here.
500,000 is a big one. $3 million

Speaker 1 for a five-reception, 85-yard game for Mike Evans. Congrats to him on picking up a quick 3-mil.
I mean, that's fantastic. Geno Smith, $2 million incentives.
These are huge.

Speaker 1 This is when you sign a deal, though, and you give a team a friendly discount. And then everything's like incentive laden.
$3 million incentive laden is being nice to the Tampa Buccaneers.

Speaker 1 But now that you're on the precipice of it, I believe Biker's probably going to be looking for Mike Evans a lot.

Speaker 4 Go ahead. That $3 million is also, I believe, for him to get 1,000 yards, which I think is his 12th straight season getting 1,000 yards.

Speaker 1 First ballot, obviously, another 3-mil in the books. Dustin D-Hop, DeAndre Hopkins, not Dustin Hopkins, kicker for the Browns.

Speaker 1 D-Hop, a touchdown, six receptions, 140 yards, which could happen with Carl Wentz, 750,000. Kyler Murray, a rushing touchdown, plus 50 rush yards, 750 grand.
Derrick Henry, Cortland Sutton.

Speaker 1 Tony Pollard, Joe Mitchin, Valtez Scantling, and Dobbins all playing for a little bit of cashola. Good luck to all you guys.
We hope you secure it. Carl Wentz, we like him.

Speaker 1 Seattle Seahawks, minus six and a half. I like him.
AJ, who'd you take?

Speaker 7 I'm taking Jimmy G and the Rams here.

Speaker 1 Okay, Niners, cards. We just talked about Kyler Murray has the ability to win some stuff.
Favored by four at home against his Niners team that fought valiantly against the Lions.

Speaker 1 That was a hell of a Monday night football game. Great game.
We were just catching it in clips because the Wi-Fi on the plane obviously not as great as you could imagine. Quarterback.
For who?

Speaker 3 Sam Fran. Who is it?

Speaker 1 Brock's out.

Speaker 13 The Astronaut.

Speaker 1 I would take the Arizona Cardinals, favored by four at home. Me too.
Chuck Will as well. AJ?

Speaker 7 Give me the Cardinals.

Speaker 1 Dolphins, Jets.

Speaker 1 Dolphins are

Speaker 1 Huntley played his best game that he's ever played as a Miami Dolphin last week. To his injury, he pops up out of nowhere and now he's missing again.
So that sounds very, that feels serious.

Speaker 1 Yes, definitely. This one feels very serious.
Don't know what it is. It's the same hip they said, but they haven't really...
Right? They haven't fully put it out what it is. No, yep.

Speaker 1 Jets fresh off their worst game of all time. Now, what does Aaron's future look like? Nobody knows.
He said, open everything, attached to nothing. That includes playing again.

Speaker 1 That includes playing for the Jets if they want to keep him there in the new regime, which we all assume not going to be the case.

Speaker 1 But there's going to be a lot of teams that potentially need a quarterback. Will Aaron Rodgers test the waters to go elsewhere?

Speaker 1 Will he be a Jet or will he just not play football and sail off into the sunset?

Speaker 1 So are we looking at potentially last hoorah here for Aaron Rodgers, who's a Mount Rushmore football player of all time? AJ, who do you like? How do you like it here in Met Life?

Speaker 1 Are they going to put Fireman Ed up on the Jumbotron?

Speaker 7 I don't know if that will happen or not, but man, Dolphins traveling to New York, not sure what the weather will be like. Tua being out.
Give me the Jets here.

Speaker 1 I think so. I think Aaron understands, and this is not from information he's told me, but Aaron understands what's going on around him.
There's a chance, this is his last time here. There was

Speaker 8 like an article or something that came out that said he is very aware that this could possibly be his last time.

Speaker 4 Devontae's going to have 48 targets.

Speaker 1 How about Gary Wilson? You're going to get in the wall or not?

Speaker 4 I don't think so.

Speaker 1 Jeez. Maybe.
There's a chance. Sure.
I like the Jets as well.

Speaker 1 How about that? That's just as hard to say. And the Giants, that's just as hard to say.

Speaker 1 I'll take the Jets plus one, take it on the Miami Dolphins coming into the Colts.

Speaker 4 First must-win team you guys didn't take, I don't think.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, listen, we watched what the Colts did last week.

Speaker 6 No, Broncos.

Speaker 1 They all took the Chiefs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's 10.5, though.

Speaker 1 The Chargers are 10 and a half.

Speaker 6 That was like a money line spread.

Speaker 1 Chargers, Raiders. Raiders getting five at home.
I'll tell you what. We all know which way we're going here.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 3 I wasn't even with you, and I know which way.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And I kind of got a glimpse into what Harbaugh is telling the team this week.
I think he's going to have the boys ready to go.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I like the Chargers favored by five here in week 18. Go ahead, Age.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Justin Herbert, Jim Harbaugh. Give me the Chargers here.

Speaker 1 There is some playoff implications seeding here in this particular week.

Speaker 4 They will know.

Speaker 1 Like, they'll know if the Steelers lose, then they can have something to play for but if the steelers win on saturday they will have nothing to play for and then it all comes down to this Vikings Lions for the number one seed in the NFC two NFC north teams battling at 14 and two for home field advantage for the rest of the way what a phenomenal season by both of these teams congrats to the vikings rebuilding becoming who they are congrats to the lions getting out of the depths of hell from professional sports franchises to get to this point that they're in so many injuries all season long they've been able to continue to stack dubs because the pillars of that team team are all in on being tough a high football iq team having fun while doing it and winning games aj who do you like how do you like it so i told you earlier in the program i was leaning towards the lions here on this one and i uh i i stand strong with that i love the vikings what they do but give me the detroit lions at home i think they find a way to get it make it happen i guess chuck pagano Shootout.

Speaker 3 Shit ton of points. About the over.
I'll take the Lions too.

Speaker 1 I would take the Lions as as well. Congrats to the Vikings having to go on the road.
You know, take the long way home, at least for one round of the playoffs. I think they'll do that.

Speaker 1 Let's enjoy the hell out of this weekend of football. Let's know the college football playoffs will continue next week.

Speaker 1 And also in an hour and 25 minutes, let's know that Pizza Hut is always there for you. Okay.
And no one, and we mean no one.

Speaker 1 How pizza's the hut. We'll see.
Hop in your ram truck. Utilize DoorDash.
Okay. Shout out to Seeky, getting us tickets, everything we need.
And let's enjoy the hell out of Pizza Hut.

Speaker 1 Let's have a great weekend. We can't thank you enough for being

Speaker 1 such a dedicated crew of people that follow us.

Speaker 1 You know, I know there's a lot of people watching that thing on ESPN2 last night, even though it was a completely cropped game, because people, for some reason, really enjoy spending time with us.

Speaker 1 Well, we want to let you know, we enjoy spending time with you. Thank you for allowing us to do this for a living.
We hope you have a great weekend.

Speaker 1 From AJ Hawk, all the boys, Chuck, we got a great work this week.

Speaker 1 Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change your life.
We're in this thing together. Team on me, happy 2025.
Team on me, team on three. One, two, three.

Speaker 1 Goodbye.

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