Las Vegas Recap, NFL Divisional Recap & Matt Rhule Is Bringing Respect Back To Nebraska Football

Boys, are we rolling ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of Us with the Boys, Episode one ninety eight, Yes, one night, which do you know what that means? We're right around the corner to two hundred.

Have you noticed the last three weeks we've had one hundred thousand views on YouTube?

I think a hundred million. Right, there's just the YouTube thing, the YouTube, what people are seeing right now, what people are saying.

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Boys.

It's a bag twenty twenty three, and we haven't really started cooking yet. Dude, we're we're getting the ingredients for this fire twenty twenty three season.

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Reviews, formula put in a little strength, strength, dependability, grit, some determination.

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Our show is progressing like your ad reading buddy, I appreciate you saying that.

Basically that changed for me on the ad reading is when I said, I'm getting better at reading and you have brother like.

You just doing it now. Yeah, you said on bat at reading.

Yeah yeah, And that's the motivation I needed, the motivation I needed, And there's motivation. This weekend, boys, the boys took ourselves on a four hour, twenty minute flight at what six am, A six to ten departure flight to Las Vegas, Nevada, Dude, where dreams are either made or broken. Now, it almost got bad quick in a hurry. The day before we do a podcast. We're not gonna say who, because that's gonna come out in about two weeks. It's gonna be amazing. You guys are all gonna enjoy it.

Got his little imagination notebook and pen and stuff. I was like, oh, I got him right where I want it? Right?

Where are you right where you wanted me?

And I didn't know.

I a's the phone and Buddy sounds out of breath like he's been running. He's just in the truck driving. Will you go how fast you're going?

Speed limit?

The speed limit plus five? Right, Yeah, you know the speed limit. So why don't you go ahead and break down what happened that evening that morning?

Yeah, so basically I set my alarm for four for whatever reason. The boy doesn't hear it, and I guess, and you know, when you're what's surprising to me is the iPhone. It's going off right, But I'm never like you got to touch the stop down at the bottom of the screen. All you got to do is grab and like touch one of the side buttons and it

In a little bit on Apple correct, yeah, in a little bit on JP and Mitch, I feel like, because you think it because if you if we're supposed to meet at five and it's five oh five, Like I'm thinking, okay, you got to call at some point, but you but you wait, you ate thirty minutes to give the boy a phone call.

Now into the absolute panic, jpek.

Ald maybe maybe Mitch.

Maybe if you guys, you.

Guys thought hypotheticals on he could be doing this, he could be doing that. Either way. Thirty minutes went by the panic. For whatever reason, JP's called me, and I hear the vibration of the phone call, wake up to that, trying to cut it, like, hey, what's up?

JP?

And he was like, Hey, do you want to just meet at the airport? Pull it back see five thirty on my phone? Oh, absolute panic flings off at six twenty. I'm like, you know, Charles starts earing, repainting, like I'm like, yeah, we get on the phone, Charles start services, So what's going on? Like flight leaves in fifty minutes. I'm not making it's over, Like I'm not making it, and kind of just stood there and like kind of put my head down, like I ain't making this.

And she's like, you can make it. You can make it. What time is it? She's like, what do you need me to help you to do?

And I'm like, you know, I'm scatterbrain, I'm fucking shit hit the fan, and I'm not responding the right way. Fortunately, everything was basically packed. I just had to throw a couple of things on and uh hit the road. I hit the road and you know, as you guys know, I'm going to speed limit. But I call Taylor and uh, Taylor's me out, what are you doing up this early? That's like the first thing he says, kind of with

I said?

I got good news and bad news, and he's like, tell me the bad news. I was like, bad news is I just woke up. The good news is I'm supposed to be on that flight at six twenty.

Which fires me up. Dude. Yeah, I'm like, oh fuck. But then it sets in like I look at my phone, I pull I'll do the pull back, and I look at him like, damn, yeah, he ain't gonna make it.

Yeah, because I'm wanting to walk up. I'm want to roll up and be the hero. You know what I mean.

I'm gonna it was reaction point the poison one. Yeah, but I'm thinking there's no fucking way, dude end up pulling the ship.

Off, naked off while the A while the A list is.

Going still make it. It's like the back half of the A list, and then see the boys. We get on the flight, but I'm I'm gonna full sweat my back to an ascid already sweat, and they sweat the entire flight for our flight. We got a mammoth two seatso rifle us just snoring their ass off.

Oh yeah in your aisle. Yeah yeah, logs like crazy. But even before that, dude.

Yeah, there's a bit of a deal on the plane.

Flight was It started off with a lot of adversity, thankfully I answered the call. Well, I don't know if we'll see we'll determine, and you guys can determine whether I answered this call or not, because I can see where I might have went wrong a little bit right.

But at first it started because I get on the plane and and the uh what are what are they called?

The airline flight attendants.

You can tell she's in a mood like, oh, we got a group of fucking dudes going to Vegas.

Got rest face on?

Yeah?

Yeah, she for her dude, it's Nashville at six am. Yeah, we're going to barely.

Yeah, we're bringing different vibes. I'm like, should I sit here? Should I sit there? I like go over to sitting next to Ben Jones and realized, like he's too big and I want to sit next to him, So I'm gonna go sit another seat. Michi's in the middle next to me, and I like lean back and I'm like talking with the boys.

I think I just say shit.

You come to find out it's like that's fucking bullshit, is what I ended up saying. I thought I thought I basically just said all like something something shit, and she literally goes, watch your mouth and I'm thinking Jesus Christ, like, what's up her ass? Come the fin out later cors like, bro, you said, like, dude, it was fucking bullshit.

Yeah he was. It was loud about it. Yeah that might.

I wish we'd do the progressive like pull the red challenge flight on that because I don't know if you said I.

Think I would love to see the tape. But if that's true, like, okay.

I get it.

You know there's probably kids around. I'm like, oh, that's fucking I'm just hype for the boys.

Yeah, and everyone plays the same game when they get on Southwest flight. If you're lucky enough to have like that A one through thirty, if you're able to sit in that beginning little section, you think, and you're with a buddy, Hey, let's sit here. We'll try to make ourselves as big as possible. Put some shit in the middle of the seat, put the head down, give yourself like you're fucking like you might be mad in the world, like you might be a bit of a loose cannon.

Right, So I'm sitting next to but you know, there are a couple of stragglers.

In the.

Flight too. You think all people are going to miss this fight. Yeah, like me.

I was sitting next to Corey. Yeah, Corey was in the window seat. I was in the aisle seat. We don't do too much, we don't get too elaborate. I take my tickets. I had a paper ticket for whatever reason. When I put my bag down, they said, do you want to take us? And no, I'm good to Hey, you get a free drink coupon, you might want to take the ticket. So I hit the ticket. I said, we both have our tickets. We put our tickets in the middle.

We're we're in the lean up. Yeah, mice comes.

I'm trying to tell the Mischigan go back there. I was like, no, notice, sit in the middle, sit in the middle next to Will.

Yeah. Yeah, and so, and this lady is sitting I'm in the exit row. She's sitting in the exit row right next to me, kind of watching all this shit go down. And obviously I wasn't realizing at the time, but was not enjoying my process of trying to save my seat. So while people are starting to come in. The flight is getting fuller, But it's really we're not

So what happens is trying to get She's trying to get one up on all the and get one up on us.

She realizes that, okay, she's identified us as the group going to Vegas, the ones that are a little too excited that early in the morning, and she wants to put out that fire right and.

There's a whole bunch of us. We're talking.

I'm leaning forward, I'm looking to the right, I'm leaning to my back like there's a whole bunch of talking.

A lot but a lot of head movement going on.

She leans over to me and says, sir, can you uh move those tickets out the way so somebody can sit there. I'm thinking, bro, these are some fucking tickets, like well, and I go, yeah, no problem. So I take the tickets and I put them in there.

What else?

I look at her and I go, I can understand why that's a huge problem. I'll make sure to move those out of the way, little fucking four little tickets, And so I have That's probably the first point in which I could have handled myself a little bit different.

Sure, ain't that yes, ma'am? No problem. Hit it with a yes, ma'am and move on.

If you're her, you're like, all right, Ben, Yeah, yeah, she.

Dialed that in. Now what happens after this? She did do a little bit more, looks can you say something else to well? We'll find out at the end of the story, Willy, We will find out the end of the story. As people are coming down, this heavy set black gentleman is walking down the aisle, she points. She goes, sir, they're starting to fillip in the back. Why don't you just go ahead and sit right here? Why don't you

You you got three big dudes, three big dudes in that row, in that.

Row, bro, And then I'll get in more of the flight because there was some shenanigans that went down later.

Well minutes in, like you know, yeah, yeah. She fucking points at me.

She goes, sir, come here, gives me the finger, puts it in my face like this, and goes, come here, come with me to the back the plane. My first thought was, bet, we're going to the back of the plate, not the front of the lane. I'm not trying to get keep off this plate. She takes me the back of the plane and basically is like, why are you being an asshole?

And I was like, oh, I was just kind of given.

What I was getting, like I I And then I fucking did what every person should in this situation.

You said, we're gonna have a problem. We gonna have a problem, We're gonna have a problem. And I tell her I was just gonna I was just giving what I was getting. Blah blah blah.

Bathrooms and I'm staying behind the bathrooms in a little whirling.

Giggling like he just got called the principal's office. Yeah exactly, Yeah.

I fucking I did what any individual should do in that situation. I took that fucking tail so far between my legs like it was it was touching my fucking belly. But I apologized to her. I said, I'm really sorry. And then she realizes that I am retracting everything. I am moving back. I have literally waved that white flag, and the game is over for me. She is now turning her personality into Hey, listen, I'm from Chicago. I have addressing to humor too. I take to myself that

Yeah, but you were.

Just you were mad at me for whatever reason from the get go. From the get go, she made a decision about us. Now the rest of the flight, sweetheart, Sweetheart, During it, she says, I haven't got my coffee yet. I see her about an hour later during the flight, I go coffee. She smiles at me and says, yes, every time she walks by, she's giving me a little extra attention.

He can to get you into the coffee.

Are you're all right? Laughs at my bad jokes, and she moves on. So we got through the flight.

Well.

The guy sitting next to me. He was chicken pecking his way through South America. Dude, he was just bobbing and weaving the whole fuck.

Up, putting his arm around on the end of like, yeah, at we.

Have a little photo. I will send you guys a photo so we can put it up on the YouTube. But I go to the bathroom. At one point, that motherfucker had all of my aisle, Like I was in that corner like this dude sitting for like an hour and a half, like it was tough. Well, we get to Vegas, and I feel like Wily should take a little bit more that because I have been talking for a long time.

Well, I'm just saying we should probably pace because we still got to cover the NFL.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we start going into the halls like, oh, we're going, details, We're going.

Was an incredible time.

We had an amazing Some guys won, some guys lost, and some guys in between. There were a couple of big losers.

Three grand Yeah yeah, welly good fucking shit. The ball to say what I lost, it's not important. What I did do is I won in friendship. I had a great weekend with my buddies.

But yes, the first day, bro, we get to the we get to the hotel probably what.

Nine o'clock, yeah, nine fifteen later at.

Fifteen we're gambling early, gambling fast often early, drinking all of it. We get in a little high limits room just because the big dogs aren't there for the weekend yet, they moved the minimum down to like one hundred dollars a hand. By the weekend, they're saying there's five million dollars buy ins and the minimums on the table like five grand. Right, But we find us ourselves a nice little corner and we get a little that we're flowing.

We'll get a cigar down at three pm? Yeah, yeah, cigar down early. What was that thing around? We're just language and terminology the high point of the weekend, but.

We want to go upstairs for I guess just to take a break and wait for somebody else.

Yeah yeah, power hour. Yeah, and like, hey, let's play this game.

Lucy accy ac deocy a c deucy bro explain the p.

And quickly explain the details of the game. That's a very simple game, all.

Right, So ac ac deucy say jack, we are playing, and we put in a hundred dollar minimum. That's what the minimum was, one hundred dollars, so we're throwing it one hundred dollars. You put in you face up one card, face up another card.

Say it's a four and a jack.

You either want to hit and play the game, meaning you're thinking, the next card out of my hand is going to be in between a four and a jack. If you're like you would say pot, meaning you're betting what's in the pot, you would say pot, I flip up the card.

If you're within the jack and the four, you win the pot.

If you're outside of the jack and four, it's just outside of it, not jack or four.

Outside of those two cards, you lose. You would just you.

Would have to pay whatever you Yeah, if you bet the pot, you have to pay what's in the pot. So if it's five hundred dollars in the pot, you gotta pay five hundred dollars in the pot. If you post, meaning you hit the jack or the four, you have to double the pot. I learned very quickly that this is not gonna be the game that I want to partake in. I think after three hands, I was like, first two hands, it doesn't even get around to me.

Bro.

You could literally there was so much money on the table. At one point you could buy pay in full a twenty twenty three Honda Civic. Yeah, there was a Honda Civic on the table of money.

Now when it stopped, when there's there's stuff in between that we can hit on too. Because Taylor, there was a big one where I'm like one, I'm telling Taylor and I'm.

Like no, right, because it was I think the number was at eleven thousand and a half.

Okay, ten and a half was it ain't cash in the fucking middle of the table, and I'm getting nervous, and you can see it's one of those things where if you lose your money, you're not losing it to you're you're not losing it to the casino where it's like, fuck, I bet ten grand and I lost it, Like that's

And Taylor goes around.

Telling Taylor I go, hey, brother, I go, even if it's an ACE two, you shouldn't do it.

And as he's saying that to me, it's my turn on what pops up boys A two.

But he's kind of making this I know, but if it happens, He's like, we won't know if until it actually gets there. But I'm like, just the chances of an ACE two hitting because as high too low, like you're you're not guarante the odds are very much in your favor.

So Taylor comes around, what shows an ACE and a two? And I'm like that or ten thousan five hundred dollars four cards left?

Now that I did not know that at first, it's right away, I go pot and whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa?

Just wait? Did you say pot? Yes? I go fucking pot? Yeah, And I was like no, no, no, no, no, no, just wait.

I was like I cannot Like. I was like, Taylor, what if an ACE or two happens, you have to pay not only the pot because you can't just miss you either post. You're paying twenty one thousand dollars to the middle one twenty one grand.

I would have to twenty one extra grade in there.

Right, ten and a half times to twenty one grand. He would have to put twenty one grand if he happened to Post. I'm like, I get that the odds are really in your favor, but if for whatever fucking reason, it's an ACE or two, you gotta spend twenty one grand.

It's the afternoon on day one.

Day one, Like it's one pm. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, fucking one PM outside.

I told Taling, like, if you want to do it, like everybody's kind of like, you know you you don't have to say pot. You can say I'll bet a thousand to the towards the pot. So if you win, you only win a thousand. If you lose, you pay a thousand or.

Two thousand if you post. I Will and I are a legit.

Now Will has taken me like a parent parental figure and brought me over to the corner of the room to give me a stern conversation about what could and could not happen.

Yeah. Yeah, we the second walk. I got that. Yeah, I got taken.

For a walk by Will. Will goes Bro says the whole conversation. He just said to me, I look over, I go, hey, how many cards are left? They said four. Now, while everyone's arguing, because everyone is once the money is getting this high, everyone's arguing about what I should do

I saw one ace and one, two, so four cards.

But right when he touches, everybody's kind of like, oh, I mean, I'm like, hey, you can't do that.

I'm on Taylor's side, but I'm like, you can't. I know, and that is fair, that is that is a fair thing you did.

But I really in that position, it was like, I don't give a fuck how people view me.

I need to make sure I'm.

Bro like, but that's how high them, that's how high this game was getting.

So in like what do you have there?

And like, let's just say Taylor had like five grand, He's like, you can do half of that, just bet it. So then if you lose, you just pay what you have available. Because some people are having a start, you get to where it's like it's not even there money, the cash.

Isn't even there anymore.

You got a venmo at this point, right, you're in the digital it's in the air.

And so Taylor ends up betting it. What flips over to A two?

A fucking two, And I'm like, bro, Fortunately he had whatever he had bet at that.

Moment, so all my money was now, all this money was gone, My cash was gone.

His cash.

Yeah, I had other ways of getting getting money with the casino.

So I was like, all right, we'll be all right. And then I think it's a big one on like a King three.

Hey, let's not say too many names. Now, pot gets up to seventeen thousand dollars.

And someone pots it because it was age three, age.

Four, it was King three.

I think it was King three pots it.

It hits a you know it posts or a King thirty two or thirty four grand to the middle. That's when everybody was kind of like, all right, this has gotten out of hand. We should figure out a way to stop this.

Right.

So people ended up kind of getting some of their money. People got most of their money back, and whoever played the best game got a little bit more on top.

But I'm telling you bullshit, but that's not We're not it's not worth going into right now.

Yeah, you got your you got your kid, you got got my money back.

I got I basically got my money back, which I'm very great before.

So but that was fucking nuts. Bro.

I'm talking and I'm sitting there looking at like JP and Mitch, like I don't even know what these guys are thinking. They're thinking, they're thinking all their things that they could probably do and buy and live for like years off of ye.

At one point, Mitch goes, hey, that's a year's worth of rent just sitting there right now. Yeah, yes, crazy, were you about to say that?

Yeah?

I was like, that's five months rent. Oh God on the table and you guys are just throwing it around like it's nothing, and I'm r I was sweating for you guys, and I had nothing to do with what.

Was going on the way. It was wild, bro.

It was the most money I've ever seen in my entire life.

Yeah.

We we were down on the tables once and we asked this the dealer, like, what's the most money you've seen.

Lost in one of these casually?

She says eighty seven million dollars on one hand in blackjack one hand. And she says, also the highest I've ever seen one was the same guy in the same sitting one hundred and twenty seven million, Bro, how do you?

How do you? Fucking?

And I hope she was lying for theatrical purposes, like low key shoot that maybe the story will get out there.

I know that's nothing to them, that would be nothing. That's what's crazy about the whole thing.

Crazy dude, that night, things went really well. This gentleman named Marty in the high roller table he was leaving. We've had plenty of drinks by this point, we're hugging Marty and his juju, and that hug gave us we We got a dub night one at the Aria, we got a big dub.

All of us.

Everybody won big except for one individual who we will not name at this point. They lost pretty bad, but it was an incredible It was an incredible time.

The next two days we did pods.

It was amazing, maybe the best pods Will and I have facilitated.

I think we both did a very good job.

Yeah, I think, Yeah, it was fucking They were also hear them, They're gonna be awesome. Now I get home Sunday. Obviously the Saturday game has already played. Jacksonville lost. We I mean, we all kind of thought that could happen. They put up a good fight. They had a phenomenal season. I'm sure Jacksonville is on the up and up. A lot of people are using the phrase changing of the guard in the AFC south of the Jacksonville Jaguars. I hope that's not true, because obviously your boys a Titan

They lose who What's the night game?

Was it?

Eagles Giants?

I mean, I thought Jalen Hurts would be a little rusty coming off being injured and stuff like that, but they fucking I forgot how good.

The Eagles And without asking, Yeah, I forgot how good the Eagles were.

It's like they are dominant, they are like that in the trenches.

Juligit really did forget who they were. Like as far as how good they are across the.

Board, they didn't have it.

I don't think they really had the primetime games like that, or if they did, it was like Jalen wasn't in.

It was Gardner Minshew.

And then they had the bye week, so you kind of again kind of forget for a sake, and then you're like, are they going to seem like the Baltimore Ravens in twenty nineteen coming off the bye week? But bro, they are fucking Juggernauts. Dude, the Niners are gonna have their hands full big time, especially after the way they played the Cowboys, because I don't Cowboys didn't play that well.

No they didn't, but I would say that, like we said this before in the last part, the Eagles and the Niners are the two best put together teams in the NFL, and I think, but I think the big difference is going to be the quarterback and that's gonna be.

A big difference.

And I hate Yeah, I don't know if you want to put out who's gonna win that now, but I'm really ready to say mine.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be tough, man. I think it's gonna be hard.

I'm going back and forth just because we got bet the bus this week and I'm really, like I've said, Niners are winning the Super Bowl for the last couple of weeks now, and after watching this past weekend, it's like, fuck, the Eagles are tough.

They're tough. Bro.

That release is gonna be dicey too, with only two games on the board, right, two.

Games of the board and probably double the money then, so du.

Bro, because we went too and two I think on the if you just go by games like I was. The parlay parlays fucking just killed me, dude. I chase them all, I chase all the parlay Let me just have one more leg here. Oh that looks good.

And you're saying all conservative bets you made this weekend. Do what A couple of your parlays were very conservative, like oh, these you even put the meter down.

To the point, I like moved the line on. I just did like the Niners money line. I did the over under. I moved it down like forty and the Niners to score twenty four points, and they fucking.

They don't do it right, they don't do it.

And again I feel like they just missed out, Like dude, the situational awareness by the Dallas Cowboys.

Both teams honestly were playing really bad ball at the end of the game. Yeah, because who was Mitchell Mitchell?

Mitchell, Well get the first down and runs out of bounds, Like, bro, you have to make a hard left turn in that situation and just go down. Yeah, you don't need yards at that point. You need to suck up time.

I always wanting a touchdown because they were at nineteen points. I wanted somebody to break one and get up. Yeah.

Yeahs Derek Henry run away for me exactly, and that likely if I'm I'm Ezekiel Elliott, I am blaming Mitchell for that because if they would have done that, the game would have been over and they would have never been in that position to that dumb ass play they did before.

Bro, how about that last play of the game, Like, what were you thinking?

I was thinking, everybody has this play. Everybody has like we used to call it Cheetah when kesin Ken wiz Hunt was in where you would literally be like all the offense linemen off the field except for the center because the center would snap the ball and then it's basically just playing backyard football. Lateral pass is only hoping to God like it's it's your hail Mary attempts when you're out of a hail Mary range. Now, Guy, when I saw Zeke do that, how legit just felt bad

You know, thinking this is gonna be fucking horrendous. No, I think the the opposite.

I think when they put that play in probably week two of the season, maybe even during camp and you going over situational stuff on Saturdays. Zeke gets like, hey, Zeke, you're gonna snap and he's probably bragging the boys. Like, man, I watched this ship and he's snapping and it's hitting Dak right in the chest. He goes, man, anybody can do this, Like he's literally probably bragging the guys. Now situation comes up and my man gets his hands hands put on him.

I saw that happen. I go, this play is fucking dead.

The minute I saw a Zeke start stumbling to the ground, go, this is It's over. And then Dak throws the ball. He throws a fucking muffin to Buddy and he gets his ass fucking smelling. I'm like, what a stupid fucking play. Yes, the only worst play I've ever seen in that is Indianapolis Colts on that on that uh fake punt.

But yeah against the Patriots.

Now, Pat McAfee has come out and said they weren't supposed to snap the ball in that situation. If we're going to believe Pat in that type of situation, then that is the worst football player I've ever seen. That shit is. That shit was so embarrassingly terrible, and I can't imagine they hate right now.

I know Stephen A.

Smith, him and his hairline were fucking laughing their ass off at Dak Prescott because they hate the cowboys, him and his hair.

It's like, basically like people are saying like a legacy game, like yeah, you know, how's that gonna?

I kept saying it on.

The broadcast, so like, hey, things are shaping up exactly like last year's game. Things are shaping up for Dak Prescott to have his statement game that he's gonna do X, Y and Z, and he just couldn't put together. I can't play quarterbacks. I have no room to throw shade. But the ship looked bad. And also another person to blame is that fucking tight end casually catching the ball

You try to make sure you get four steps in, like you don't just think, oh.

Yeah, just go to the ground, put them bitches in and fucking fall in the pocket.

Running because he look he was casually going out of bounds and then just kind of walked versus like fighting forward to get.

Out of them and brock Perty had another bad play too at the end of half was it the end half of the uh? Was it? I can't really remember, but I remember it was like it was the end of a half and there was like eight seconds left and he looks and look and goes to his like third third or fourth read.

It's like bro out of the Yeah, before the you have enough time. They almost they almost lost that.

I mean, big work day for Madden ratings people. Yeah, the awareness and bring those awareness ratings down on some of those guys.

That ship is bad.

Bro the Shultz that was that's just really bad ball of Mitchell. It was a mistake that a lot of people have made in the past, but you would think Kyle Shanahan goes over that ship every single week. And you got to know four minute like no penalties if you there's no holding in four minute like if you hold, you get beat for a TfL.

That's better than a hold.

There's no penalties, stay in bounds and if you're injured unless it's like broken, you have to get.

Off the field, like unless you're dying.

And that happened in two minutes for the Cowboys as well. They're going into half and they were throwing the ball and Paulard gets a high ankle. Spring hinkle, Spring's hurt. I've had them.

That shit sucks.

But you gotta hobble your way off that field to keep that the clock running or I'm sorry, you have to hobl off the field so they can either clock it or go because they had to burn a time out in that situation. Yeah, that's just that's just tough. That is a tough, tough deal.

What then you go to the What's up? No go ahead?

I was gonna say, then you go to the AFC, the Bill's Bengals. Yeah, Joe Burrow's fucking I don't know why. I always feel like I end up just not thinking about the Bengals. But the last couple of years now, like Joe Burrow is the fucking man bro.

And it's it's it's sad if you're a Josh Allen fan, because before this season, in the middle of the season, it was Patrick Mahomes Josh Allen one A one B, Like those are the two dudes in the AFC, and everyone's kind of like, hey, Joe Burrow is a fucking stud, Like, don't get a twisted my man can sing that thing, he can rip that thing. He can rip that thing all over the yard. The only situation is is like these are these these are the two studs. That is

My question is, do you think Joe Burrow becomes number one if.

He gets a Super Bowl this year? It's hard to say. I mean, yes, right, Mahomes is only on one.

I would think, so he went to the Super Bowl last two years and if he wins it this.

Year, yeah, But the argument is, Mahomes has been in the Super Bowl it seems like every year. And I know that's a skewed number, right, They've lost the AFC Championship, they've lost in the Super Bowl.

But I feel like, but if jot that.

Joe wins this weekend. He will have beat the Chiefs the last four games in.

A row, four games in a row, And I honestly believe with a with a Patrick Mahomes ankle, you got to lean towards the Bengals.

I think the Bengals are winning it. I think the Bengals are winning this weekend because I really think, like, I know, Pat's going to be a badass and be out there and player do everything possible to play up. But I just think coming off of a high angle spring, I mean you you know how high englesprings are.

Some guys might miss up to six weeks with a high.

Offering, Dude, High gol springs suck, and you can only like you legit make it worse for you playoff it.

Yeah, like he played on it because you got the only going. You know, he took a tourd all shot in the locker room like you're doing all these things. Yeah, the next two days, bro, you probably feel like your leg is broken with the hankles brings.

He's probably in a boot right now.

Yeah, he's probably in a boot right now, and he still grimaces when he walks in a boot.

Thinking to myself, how in the fuck Am I about to make this happen this week?

Right now? You know he's going to do anything possible to shoot that shit out. That thing's going to be taped to the nines. He is going to do whatever it takes.

Now, on the flip side of saying, Joe Burrow, if he wins, he's like the number one quarterback. If Pat Mahomes takes this team with the Super Bowl and wins the super Bowl with.

That ankle, go go, this generation's j You just that they'll win real fast, buddy.

But this generation's quarterbacks, which are an incredible group of quarterbacks right the three we've already mentioned. Lamar Jackson's in there for Lawrence is now coming along like there is a crazy amount of talent at the quarterback position in the NFL right now at a very young age. He goes and takes them boys to the super Bowl and wins the super.

Bowl on that ankle.

Yeah, he is go to to that generation. Generation of that generation, dude, Yeah, agree with that. It is fucking cool. Now.

I do think the I think the Bengals are gonna I think the Bengals are winning fairly easy.

Oh, it seems like the Bengals do a great job on defense.

That's what I'm saying.

And I feel like they'll get after I feel they'll get after Pad a little bit.

Kansas City is like the Big twelve.

Dude.

They air rate that thing out, but for whatever reason, like they'll go shot for shot in games with other teamscuse their defense. I can't get it done. And I don't know that that probably hurt to hear from camp.

Yeah, and I don't feel like they got an O line like that that's gonna protect him because also the high angles praying and it is right ankle, that's.

His back foot. Yeah, I think I think it's his right ankle. It is all right.

I think the Bengals see blood in the water and it's going to be a long day for the Kanca Chiefs.

That's what I think. Wow, that's what That's what I think.

What's the funny You're undecided on on uh San Francisco and Eagles, which is fair, I am right now you're willing to stamp it well.

You and the Chiefs have got a weird fucking deal going bro.

And I know that's that's what peop might think. But also if you look at what's what just unfolded over the weekend.

I think that's a fair thing to say, right, but you can't cannot Pat Mahomes.

That dude was literally jumping in the air just to throw a little little toss over to Travis Kelcey.

He was doing some things even then. Now I'm counting Chad.

Is it Chad Henny Michigan legend takes him on a ninety eight yard fucking drive, does an incredible job. Dice is the boys up like it's no big deal at all. Was literally out there being a field general, crushing it for the boys. You put him in the game. He's a stud too. Now they have fucking they have an elite offense. I don't know what their defense is statistically, but it really seems to me like they're obviously the

But Joe Burr's about to get nasty on them. Boy, he was about to get nasty. Joe is Joe cool?

Dude? The fucking we were talking about this when we were working out this morning. That slow mo video in the snow where Joe fucking rips that thing and it hits us spinny hits a three sixty piece and then the receiver is not even in the fucking screen at that point. So he's like, Yo, where's where's he shipping off this rocket to He shifts that rocket off to

He's just so fucking that is just like cool, that is cool.

Before Joe Burrow got to the Bengals, I don't care who you are, don't even care if you're a Bengals fan. You look at those helmets of that uniform and that team, he'd be like, man, they fucking suck. Joe Burrow makes that shit cool as hell.

I don't know shot Shadow Josko. Back when he was playing the they had a couple of twelve and four seasons.

They was nice Adie Dollond Dude, the red rocket was this Palmer, Yeah, Carson Palmer, I mean, but still like they would never like a team. He'd be like, Oh, we got to watch out for them. Joe Burrow is legit making them super Bowl contenders a year like he said, his year and a year out now right.

He said, as long as he's there, they will always have a shot out.

What they were talking about the AFC Championship game in Atlanta, say go ahead and get those refunds Boston.

Yeah, I think they win by double digits.

Oh, it's getting stronger. I don't know about double Diggi's on me. I don't know about double duty's, but I do. I think right now, if you're just looking at the game, this is a Monday, this comes out on Tuesday. You gotta look at and say, you have no idea how pass feeling. He can shoot up all the things in the world, all the turtle in the world.

He can literally numb the ankle. It's still gonna fucking hurt, dude.

I'm picking the Bengals, not by double digits, but I'm picking the Bengals in that game.

What do you think, Jack, You're back there like laughing.

No, I was laughing just because you have a vendetta against He really does bro.

Which is tough, which is tough too, because you know, obviously Nebraska fans are tuned into listening to Matt Rupot and Nebraska loves their chiefs too, because that's like the closest pro team.

No, I think I think the Bengals are gonna win.

I think they're going.

Back to Super Bowl. It's the Eagles forty nine Ers game is the toss up to me.

But I I want to see the forty nine ers in it, especially for our benefit once we're out in AZ for the Super Bowl, because like we have a lot more connections with the forty nine ers. But I don't see the Eagles letting up after this past game. It's tough to say that the forty nine ers gonna be able to handle them. But that's the game I'm looking forward to.

I think most yeah, that one O. That game is going to be elite. Dude, it really is. Both games.

I'm legitimately excited to watch football this weekend.

It's gonna be incredible.

One thing to mention on the Buffalo Bill side, man, is what a fucking story that would have been if they were able to pull it out against the Bengals and go win the Super Bowl.

The Damar Hamlin University. He was there. There was a hilarious picture by the way that.

The guys seen, though the conspiracy theories going around that that wasn't even Damar Hamlin at the game because they didn't. They don't show his face one time on the broadcast too, So there's something there. I'm not saying that's my conspiracy.

You are the one saying it right now.

The internet is go look it up.

There's a lot of people out there bugging about the DeMar Hamlin was not actually at that game and they had someone just dressed up as him as a way to get the fans ready, because you they had him on the broadcast the whole time and he's complete letely put it up, covered face toe, like you don't see hands, you don't see anything.

Just something to think about. I think I want to buy that stock too, Do you really? I think?

So?

What do you think tomorrow is?

Then?

I don't know. The rabbit hole goes deep and.

We all know, like before the game they were talking about announcing him walking out of the tunnel, and the person we were seeing tomorrow or not, he seemed like he had some you know, well, it seems like you're there like moving well, like when he got off the golf cart. It was almost like get a little jug into the locker room.

Some some person stitched it on TikTok and they were talking about their mom is a cardiovascular surgeon, and they're saying, with what he went through that you shouldn't be able to put your hands above your head this far out of what was.

Happening to him.

And they show closer with him in the box and he's doing this and he's like cheering, Well, I don't know. I I have no stance on this.

I just like to present it.

Yes, yes, and and that's a great job going through those rocky waters, right, because we don't be disrespectful to tomorrow in his situation, he might be an absolute alien and having amaze like doing what he's doing is according

A fucking head coach.

Boys, Hey, they got themselves a fucking stud. This man that rule came and sat on this on this little bitty couch and was out there putting out fucking He was like a modern da philosopher.

The way he was talking to us.

He was talking about how his foundation goes to the team, what he does the president, he's going to set what he does and does not want in the building, the types of guys that are going to take Nebraska back to those that nineties prevalence.

I believe the word is he was. I got fired up.

Even as a Michigan fan, You're like, damn, this is gonna be great for the Big ten. A guy like him, his attitude, his mindset can only imagine how you feel willy.

Everybody knows where I'm at. I think Nebraska will be back sooner than we all like to speculate on. How I say we all, I mean the haters. Yeah, yeah, Well no, I think we're you know, I think we're we're gonna we're going bowling this year.

Well you're going bowling no matter what.

We're going bowling, no matter what. But I think we're gonna have a winning record. I think we hit at least seven wins this year.

Beat Michigan.

I'm sure.

I'm sure I'll find a way to figure that out by the time and that game comes.

A win or lose.

Though we can all agree Matt Rule is a guy that you want leading your team, right he is all the time.

Yeah, he's the real deal. And I love his transparracy.

I love the way he was talking about the adversities he's went through, even in the instance where we were like, okay, you get fired, but obviously people, you know, being a fired head coach these days, you get the what is it called the money that they get, what's that called the buyout? The buyout money.

That they get.

It's like, okay, what kind of adversity were you really in and then he goes in and talk about it.

I think people will enjoy hearing that.

They're enjoyed a lot. And there is a very important document that is discussed on this on this bus that you will have to turn in tune into, and I hope you guys really enjoys we get through the episode.

Yeah, before we do busting one and a half week, so I guess it'd be like a week left of the Budweiser merch.

Yes, the Budweiser bow tie merch.

If you zoom in on Jack's beanie, all of our merch with that logo will not be sold anymore on our site by the end of this month.

So the pocket teas are best seller.

Are hoodies. I'm not wearing one any of that stuff. The beanies, all that it's gonna be gone by the end of the month. Get that stuff. Thank you guys for making that number one throughout basically our entire existence. Unfortunately, we got a little C and D and we will no longer be able to sell it.

Yeah, with that being said, let's get to the episode right after. Wait, do we do shout out? No free shoutout on this pod show?

Shout out goes to the vibe, the day one take off, going to Vegas with the boys, the hype, the energy, the vibes.

They cannot be killed. That's my shot out.

No free shut out, My shoutout, no free shodout is going to when you're in college and you have a hard fought grind Monday through Friday, and you have that early Friday workout and you get done, take that deep exhale, and you know, hey, we worked hard. Now it's not to play hard with the boys.

Yeah, yeah, I got the world a little deal.

All right, let's get to this episode, but before that, let's talk about sport Clips. Consider this, not every hairstyle is created equal. Many stylists don't have much experience cutting men's hair, but you do not know until it's too late. At sport Clips, all stylists undergoes specialized trading, specifically in how to cut and style men's hair, making them not just stylists but scissor cutting scholars.

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Wow.

And I thought you might want to hang that up in your so much. Yeah. Will really, when we went to Michigan, Will really wanted that. He thought, I want to be a part of something special. So we got that for him. We were up there in ann.

Arbor, Michigan.

They saw how well it went in Nebraska and they're like, oh, we gotta we gotta do some jerseys for the boys too, because Nebraska.

You know how they take care of you in Nebraska.

Now they really do. I was wildly surprised when we went their last spring how they were literally for the boys the whole way so much showed that the next week we were going to Michigan, and I was like sending text to people like, hey, I need you guys to be straight. I need you guys to handle my boy. And they hooked the boys up and everything. Both outstanding schools. So let's get right into it, dude, how do you defeat Michigan?

They are they're rolling, they roll until they get to the playoffs.

Well, I mean it's a great game that game.

I was actually in Mexico and my wife she uh, she set up whale watching and.

Like during the game, during the game, a great.

Picture of my son on the phone, like there's a literally a whale jumping out of the water and my son's over there watching the game. Oh no, it looked like it was gonna be a blowout. But credit to coach Harball, the boys fought back. I mean, you know, big ten, you know Big ten.

There you go, that's what we need to do because as the Big ten, we had guys in the back of her SEC fans. Garrett and Jack are SEC fans, and they're like No, it's every man for himself out there. That's the wild West and the Big Ten. We have to come together, There's no doubt.

Yeah, because because I think, I personally think like the future of the Big Ten.

We get SC, we get u c l A In.

I think it's going to be like the Premiere Conference and so but that boys, when when the playoff expands, I'm excited to see what happens. I think our league will, you know, especially when they start playing some home games. You know, if that if that ends up being the deal. It's imagine that game being played in ann Arbor with what the difference would have been.

To stand a chance.

So I as I walk across f Nebraskas Campus sometimes and feel that wind whip through you, I want to play games at home.

And just.

When you get to the side of the Hawks, you're going to get some food. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, that wind just eats you up. Bro, it's in Yeah, yeah.

Let's play football in that. But let's play football in those conditions. If you want to win the championship, you have to go on the road and play against somebody. So as they put together the College Football Playoff, I really hope that the home component is a big part of it. How what's been your first impression in Nebraska.

I've been blown away. I've been blown you know, in this in this world.

Like I took the job at Baylor, Like I show up, there's a camera in my face, and it's like, this is Baylor.

Oh okay, pretty cool. Like get to Carolina, know this is Carolina.

I actually I actually got to go out and check out Lincoln and I really thought, like I thought it was going to be like the small little town like still Water, Oklahoma or something. I got there and the downtown, the haymarket, the campus community. Like I've been blown away. I had no idea though. I mean, I'm in Mexico, I'm at wherever I am. Someone comes up, go Big Red, like just.

The the really.

Like that, no doubt.

I went to we were in Arizona and I literally had to go to like a bank to sign like a document for a loan. And I just brought Will with me because we're going somewhere right after. And the guy was like at first excited to meet me and then saw Will and moved him out of the way just to say go Big Red. And it was the Will Compton Show for the next twenty five minutes.

I love it.

Got me a couple of percentages down on that interest right after guy brother, that's my fucking boy right there everywhere.

Bro, the Nebraska fan base is like second to none. That much sounds like a game.

Obviously I'm biased, but I do think Nebraska's fan base is second to none out there.

No I that that much I've seen, and but I just I like the place, you know what I mean, And I you know, you need to take over a new team, you never know what they're gonna be.

Like.

This is a really good group of guys too, Like they they want to win. And I look back at this season, you know it could have gone any which way. You guys have been in teams where you know things don't go the way you want them. They battled, you know, and to beat Iowa at the end of the year, they showed some grit and some toughness. And there's a lot of guys there that really really love Nebraska. So I'm anxious to get started for them, do the best I can for them.

What do you feel like, did it for you?

Like if you take out the the fluff of saying like all the right things, like you got leaving Carolina, getting fired in Carolina, getting fired because it's good because I was sitting there like, should I say got fired from Carolina?

That's You've opened up a whole lot of doors for us in this interview.

Oh, I mean I got fired, like it is what it is like, especially in that league. But it's been so I'll say this, it's been so good for me. When I'm talking, I'm talking to recruits and I me even talking to the guys in this team. They're like, Coach, I've been through this, or you know, I just transferred because of this. I'm like, bro, I was just the

I felt that was really cool.

But to get fired and to be made fun of and to be a meme and all that stuff like that that either breaks you or turns you into something like supernatural.

Like I'm not saying I'm supernatural, but I'm.

Working hard Internet right now. It fires me up.

Oh, it's just it's been really good for me to go through that.

When you say elite adversity, and people would sit back and in the comments or anything else, talk about relate to. Okay, I'm sure it's real tough going through that adversity with a buyout that you have a lot of coaches when they get fired, they get bought out Scott for literally everybody when.

Bo got fired. But big Bio, there's big buyouts for coaches when they get fired.

Explain the adversity you're talking about a little bit more because a lot of a lot of people do. It's like you do get fired, but there's a nice bag still sitting there for you.

That does happen.

No, I just mean more like, yeah, you know it's it's it's the money's the money, right, and the money's ridiculus. Shouldn't shouldn't be this much money to coach. But the market's the market, and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say no, right right. I just think it's you know, it's your kids, it's your family, Like, uh, you know, people have a tendency. I think we all kind of look at athletes as like even me as a coach, like you look at athletes as you know, just this entity.

To get fired.

Like that ain't fun. They had every right to do it. I got no issue with it.

You try to teach lessons, but like you go through all that, your daughters come home and she's like we have to move again, Like that's real. And I'll never forget brad children. He has no coach. Childress was a vikings. He called me, texted me, didn't even I don't even know him. Yeah, he said, Matt, You'll be so much better of a coach for having gone through this, cause, you know, part of my job I have to fire coaches.

I have to. I've had to fire players if it had to cut players.

And when you go through it and you see what it feels like, the empathy, the how public it is, I just think that's that part of the probly, the public part of it. We're like you walk into the grocery storeft doors and people look like you like you're dead man walking, and it's like they didn't kill me. You know, I'm still here. I'm still alive. So that part, maybe just as a dad, is hard. But now to your point, you make great money. It's all part of it,

Smith is going in on you.

And I'm like, oh, no, it is what it is, buddy.

But but nine and seven year old daughters, and they're the ones, you know, my son kind of knows that my daughter's I kind of when my son was I don't know, maybe nine or ten, I was coaching at Temple. I was an assistant coach at the time, and Andy Reid was kind of coming to the end in Philly. We went to a game and the Patriots got up on the Eagles, and the whole crowd started chanting fire Andy. And so my son sitting there, he's eight or nine, he's going fire.

I'm like, no, no.

When I started channing to fire me, I'm like, pretty good company, buddy, And hey reads he's the goat. So yeah, but I got a cool family. Eighteen nine and seven. Yeah, that's awesome, dude.

As a very new parent, Taylor, obviously he's a he's a dad of two five.

And five and two five and two. Yeah.

Hearing you talk about your son being eighteen and seeing absolutely everything, I'm more so asking like, what is that mindset for you? When you know he's reading and seeing all this stuff, and he's either approaching you like, oh, I wonder how my dad's gonna respond. How important for you is it to like respond in the correct way, to show a lesson in those moments, because I feel like, even though he's seen any he's probably feeling like.

Fuck, man, I wish he wasn't blah blah blah.

But then he goes in and sees the way you respond and it kind of rubs off on him, like, man, he's kinda he's responding this a way I probably wouldn't respond that way.

Yeah, well, I mean at some point in his life. And I think as parents, the mistake we sometimes make is we try to protect our kids for everything. No, we can't protect them because it's coming no matter what. Like if you protect them till they're eighteen, the adversity or the crack that they have in their lives comes when they're thirty, when they're forty, So it's about just

Great father.

So if I say that, I got to live up to that, and I have to live up to it in the hardest of moments, like the day after I got fired, Like did I, you know, did I take my kids to school or did I sit home and feel sorry for myself? Like let them see what it means to truly be a man, to truly be the person you say you are in the hardest of times.

And so that's that's what I try to do.

And I tried to lean into it, and I try to have the conversations with my son because you know, when I was at tempolet I remember we beat Penn State, we ranked walking down the street, he was younger and someone was like, coach, Rul, I love you, and I'd always say to him is that real, and say, wow, didn't you love that?

So it's not real. Is that real? It's not real.

What's real to me is that my players say, you know, coach did the best he could for me. My coaches say that, and my family says that. And if I teach that to my kids, you know, I don't want my kids growing up thinking the world, you know, how the world sees them as who they really are. Who they really are is what they do when no one's watching, you know, Like I got my Twitter game. I'm trying to perfect my Twitter game. It's not very good, but I'm trying right now. That's but that's not who I am.

And then who? Who are the people in your lives or show up in those moments?

There was you know, think about this in the NFL there were there were players on the Panthers who drove to my house just to check in on me and my family. That's all like like, that's like it's so like it didn't work out for me, but I know I had some sort of an impact at least on somebody. It wasn't perfect, but if they see that, if my kids see that, then hopefully they live a life and your kids live a life where it's like, you know what, we're gonna have adversity.

How do we handle it?

Yeah, when you're when you're a head coach of a team. Now on the other side, you have to actually go on fire these guys and your son being eighteen years old. Has your son ever stepped in and been like, hey, I love this person or I love or why would.

You do that player?

Like a player, Like if you had if you had to cut a player, and like your son was like a big fan of was I'm sure he would come to the practices and meet these guys, and as all kids are, they kind of get drawn to one or two players and sometimes you have this ta goodbye to those one or two players, Like how do you handle that with your son?

Really hard And honestly, if you have a if there was a drawback for me as a pro coach, is that I really struggled with that, Like after being a college coach for a long time, like I was used to like, you know, when you're a coach, you can you're kind of you're kind of taking this path, but you see where the end could be you see the potential in somebody, like, hey, in three or four years, so I'm gonna pour into that person.

Knowing I get in the NFL.

Man, I was like, it's Saturday after a walkthrough and they want GM walks down like, hey, we got to make a roster move.

Who do you want to get rid of? And it's like, oh my gosh.

Well they phrased it to you like that.

They usually don't is it sorry, I hate to cut you off, But if a GM walks down, he's like, we had to cut a guy.

Who do you want to who do you want to cut?

Yeah, sometimes it's like, hey, we need to make a move here is it this guy or this guy?

How do you see it?

Or we got to you know, sometimes they're like hey, let's get you know, every place is probably different, but you know, I work for some great gms and they always wanted to like, hey, Matt, how do I work? You know, let's work together. But I I just had a hard time with that relationship part of it, cause it's like there's always this wallet between you and the player because when you walk down the hallway, they're like, hey, that's the guy that's eventually gonna cut me, and it's

To me about what it felt like perspective.

He's awesome, and he said things to me that changed my coaching style. Like I didn't.

I didn't take into account because I can just not look at my Twitter. I don't take into account what it's like for a twenty four year old guy. Like one of the things I think's wrong with the NFL is every play is graded, like every play is greated by someone else, and so like you know, oh my

Bad, and no one really knows.

Like maybe when I could grade the film, we're two coaches, we might disagree. So the amount of pressure, the amount of stress and anxiety on these guys is overwhelming. And you know, the locker room and the coaching staff, it has to be a safe player. You have to come in and you know we can coach you. But you know, Matt, Matt would Matt did a great job of teaching me, Like, hey, Matt, Matt, these guys are these guys.

Are a lot of pressure.

They're under a lot of pressure social media wise, a lot of pressure like with their families. Like let's let's let's build a space where we can coach them hard, but we can also we can also coach them the right way, you know. And so I think, as I come back to college, I'm seeing the same thing, man, Like everything these guys do, it's it's especially you know

Yeah, besides the cutting part, it seems like college is much more ruthless. The fan base is go way harder, Like I don't know how it is at Nebraska, but Michigan will skin you alive if you they think you had a bad game or something like that. And that is that is tough when you're a college player. And I feel like the coaching staffs too well, Like in the wintertime that you start doing those six am morning workouts,

He's around them all the time.

I don't know how it changes now because and I I had guys from Michigan say, hey, I'm off the whole month of March. I'm thinking to myself, we never had a month off. Did you ever a month off?

I think it was like May, not like a month. We'd have three weeks off. Oh shit, I never had that what they call like fifth semester in between like the end of the spring and.

Yeah, yah, yeah, Oh I never had anything like that in the spring ball until you start summer workouts, there's always like a three week thinkuse. So some guys can go back to class and they got to take like three or four hours of one class per day just to get that credit. Some guys wouldn't have to do it. Oh they from your home with a workout program for like three weeks.

You missed out.

I missed out big time.

I was in school always stooped you bro, Hey, you were in school always you know? Yeah, them grades weren't the best. I was the king of two point zero. I made a very a plan, a choice, and that is it when I got to college. But it is I feel like you're dealing with with different maturity levels as well.

I mean, the kids are eighteen years old.

You're basically like you have to do a gudget of a good job of implementing the offense defens of special teams. But you're also your job is on the line with eighteen and twenty two year olds. Like does that add a level of stress to you or is it more of like, hey, we get to mold in a certain way as well.

Yeah.

I think I think for me like being in the NFL and seeing guys every week that I had coached playing on other teams. I think having a chance to coach some of them, and then after you get fired, like those guys reaching out to you, like you know, I've always said, you know, my sort of my core philosophy is I want every player that plays for us to look back and say, like, you know what, playing for them made my life a little bit better, whether it's you know what, I've got to play in the NFL,

I want to get back to that.

I think the good thing for me coming to Nebraska is it's my fourth head coaching job in eleven years. Like the mistake I made early on, I'm almost embarrassed about things I did at Temple, but I've learned. I've I've mastered kind of that craft of working with those guys over time, I hope, and so like I want to go there, I want to push them, I want to coach them. I'm old school, like we're gonna we're

I don't have to.

If I look back, even in my time in Carolina, I feel like there's only one time that I truly regret. But really, I don't think I've ever ever threw anybody under the bus. Like I don't think I ever said like, well, we just don't have this, or we don't have that, or it's this guy's fault. I tried to always made for some awkward moments because sometimes I was probably trying to overprotect the guys.

But I always feel like that's my job.

Is that, Like you want to be a leader, get out front man, like take the bullets for your guys, and we'll hope that your guys respond for you. And so I think if I do that, I'll have a chance to affect some of those guys' lives. And as I built my staff, I built a staff that I trust, like I have fourteen former players working for me in some way. I got three guys from the play for me at the Panthers, even like working in different areas. I got guys from Carol, from Carolin, I got guys

That one time he regret in Carolina. Are you free to talk about that?

Yeah?

No, absolutely. You know, Cam Newton's one of my favorite favorite players I've ever been around, Like the brutal honesty that he would share with me, the conversations.

Every Tuesday, him and I would meet for an hour.

We played Buffalo and we called a play and it was four fourth and one. We went for it and Cam threw the bubble out. There was incomplete and after the game they asked me, like what happened? And I wasn't even thinking about it with Cam, you know what I'm saying. I was thinking about it more like frustrated with us as coaches that we had that, you know, and so we're thinking that's going to be a quarterback run, get a yard.

You know.

They rotated the safeties, which changed the mic point. So Cam knew he was in trouble. So Cam's such a high level thinker, he knew it. So he threw the bubble out. So when they asked me afterwards, I said, we didn't call that to throw the bubble, Like I didn't want to throw a bubble there. Right next time, I'm like, oh my gosh. You know, sometimes they beat up coaches, you know, they beat up Zach Wilson after

He was great, I mean, ultimate professional's coach.

I got it, but I just hated it, you know, because it came across like I was saying that about him, and there's no guy like that guy was there at eleven o'clock at night, and that guy was there at five o'clock in the morning, like Cam Newton was a grinder. And so that's the last thing I wanted to do was put him on the spot. And it just came out that way. And you know, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in, yeah, and the bottle after that.

Call probably damn dud. Why don't you think it worked out in Carolina for me? Yeah?

You know, I think I think I took over kind of a tough situation. Like you know, there's a lot of Hall of famers on that team that were that were leaving, and you know, right off the bat, you know, you know, they end up letting Cam go and then Luke retired, and so I think if I look back, I would have just tried to do it faster. You know, I would have tried to. I was trying to be a little more aggressive in free agency. I had tried a big trade, but that wasn't really the plan. I'm

But I knew that team.

Like if you go back to my press conferences earlier, I said, guys, we just signed Baker, like just give him a chance that we have to play, Like you know, a lot of teams start off one and three, one and four and they kind of make a run. You saw that this year with some teams. So I just thought once they won a couple games, the pressure would come off. I thought we got past the forty nine ers,

You was drafted Dicky last year.

You know, of course the Corbett towards ACL, but Taylor Moten's on a long term contract. I think like twenty to twenty two starters are under contract next year. So I think it's a job that people should take because they'll they'll have they have a pretty good roster there and a good culture in that locker room.

When you when you first get in there and you said be more aggressive in free agency, bigger trade, Like how much of influence did you have in those things with the GM, Like like, I don't know how things work outside of the Titans. I was only with the Titans, but it seemed like John Robinson like he was running the show and that's and that's what it was.

And I don't I don't know how it usually worked with a head coach at a GM.

I think, you know, so I had I was the head coach basically was there a head coach for two years in five games? I had two GMS in two years, so you know, obviously you have one and then you're trying to work with another one. I had Barty Hernie, who's awesome, and the Scott Fitters as classy a dude as there is. There's not one like major trade we could have had that we didn't do, Like, oh, we

Let's go shoot our shit up. Yeah, you could have been under the influence that you had time.

Yeah, Like well yeah, so like for me, if you say, like, hey, let's I just want this kind of built over three or four years.

We'll build over three or four years. If it's two years, it's two years.

And so I would have probably just probably maybe made a trade, maybe traded up for a quarterback.

Or something like that.

You go back over. We tried a lot of things at quarterback. You know, we traded for Sam. I was happy to see the way Sam played down the stretch, you know. We traded for Baker. We we brought Cam back, you know. So we tried a bunch of different things. So you know, it just it just wasn't Maybe it wasn't meant to be. Wasn't the right time, maybe the right place. But I like the players there, I mean I really do. Like I I turned on the forty

Was It like seeing Christian McCaffrey go to the Niners.

So so you know, it's funny. He he got trade. I texted him right away, like because I got fired. And also in a week later he gets traded and yeah, and he was like, hey, he said, he said, he said, hey, he called me.

He's like, I'll call you right back, So don't call me. You got enough going on.

So just if you ever need me, call me. And he's like, you know, he's such a great tude man. So the next day, my wife and son are at the airport. They're gett ready to fly up to Penn State. It's my alma mater and there's a white out and the ad there's a good friend of mine. So we just wanted to my son, you know, we wanted to go to college, visit, just get them away. So they're at the airport. I'm gonna babysit the nine and seven

You have to leave. It's time to go.

Like those guys would come over, we would kick it and hang out. So she felt part of the team. And so I get fired. She doesn't get to see anyone, Like there's no closure for her either.

Yeah.

So so Christian walks up, hugs her, hugs Bryant and says something I'll keep you know, just said some really positive things to them. They kind of needed that, and that's that's that's who he is.

Man. So like when I see what he's.

Doing right now, I'm fired up. I'm fired up for him because he deserves this opportunity. You know, he got run a lot last year at Stanford, his first couple of years in the NFL, Like his percentage of carries, I mean was elite. So unfortunately during my time, you know, he had some injuries. I feel like though his body rested, and you know, he didn't make all he didn't make the Pro Bowl this year.

I told himself, well, just settle for being this Super Bowl MVP. How about that? I think he could.

Yeah, and my first overall draft pick in the Fantasy nice. Yeah, I was still late.

When we played the Panthers, it was always like that's you stop him, you win the game. Like he was like a ridiculous percentage of touches like running and catching the ball.

Guy's elite, truly elite. He is what.

Being the head coach there and then seeing him get traded is it kind of like what are what?

Why would the Panthers trade him away? He's the best player. Yeah, I'm afraid to touch.

But I think I just think that all the question because he is. Yeah, because once they fired you and they got rid of him, with everyone's like, yo, what are the Panthers doing?

And I think that's a lot of credit to the guys in the lock him because they made a run. Like I told him that. When I got fired, I went to you know, I went and talked to the team after I got fired.

And it's just not happened.

Yeah, but I you know, and mister Tepper gave me the opportunity, which I appreciate, and I told and I and I went in. I talked about the game first, like I went in like like they didn't know I was fired yet. I went and I said, here, here's what I see from the game, Here's how I think it affects us. And then I said, hey, I'm not gonna be your coach anymore. I said, but you know, all I ask every guy every year is like, hey, in the offseason, handle your free agency, handle your business,

Steve took over his intermhead coach at the time. Yeah, and so they're still trying to find a head coach now. They are him, Yeah, he is he a candidate or no.

I don't They don't, They don't know.

And I'm sure he Usually they say like hey, this Internet, he's not gonna be blah blah ball. We're gonna start interviewing these guys and.

Stuff like that.

You speak on coach Wolkes for a second, just because I know, back when I was in Washington, I feel like he's been a name that's been in the circuit for years now.

On being a head coaching candidate.

Well, he went out to Arizona, it was the head coach in Arizona and just kind of in that transition, right, and like the same thing I talk about sometimes you just kind of get caught up you're you're a great head coach. It's just the right the wrong place at

Like like it's completely different.

Like the things you deal with as a head coach, especially in the NFL, you're dealing with the GM, you're dealing with the owner, you're dealing with you know, player issues, you're dealing you're dealing with all these things. You're dealing with game management, you're dealing with situational football. Steve, I think is great at all those things. I think he's an elite head coach. He has experience. You know a lot of times you get fired as head coach and

Those are the first guys. That's awesome.

I mean, like they're classiest, but like they went somewhere.

They were head coaches, they went through what I went through, and they're better at best days were ahead of them.

So that's why when I came to Nebraska, I was like, can we do it here?

I walked around, I looked around, saw the fan base, saw the support, so all everything. I said, I'm gonna come here, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to make sure my best days are ahead of me, not behind me.

Yeah, buddy, can I do it here?

Yeah?

I believe he can.

But if you look at your history as a head coach, it's it's a slow burn. And then all of a sudden, I were at Temple, Were you guys three and nine first year. First you were two and ten, two and ten. Yeah, but then after after a while you said, you guys be Penn State. You guys were ranked right and stuff like that. So how do you see it going in

People still like to argue it, yeah, because people like to punch up.

Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah, it's factual. And so then last year it just didn't go as well as possible. There's a lot of turmoil. Obviously, Scott Frosketty fired earlier in the year. You guys lose off American soil, it does not count. But that's maybe put you in a little bit of a spin, right, So now, like you're

That's you know what I'll say this.

I always look like I always said to myself, when you go to a place, the first thing you have to do is established, like the foundations of how do we work? So I went to Temple had been I had been an assistant coach the year before. I left and went one year of the Giants and came right back to be the head coach. But we were moving up in conference. They were going from the Mac to the kind of the biggie slash American as it was for me. So there was a there was like a

I played.

I just played all the freshmen. I said, I'm gonna play these guys, and then four years were gonna win a championship, and we did right. I played the seat saying I played the seniors that wanted to do it my way, and some of them were awesome. I just inserted a lot of the young guys as well. When I went to Baylor, there was I think forty five scholarship players. We had three offensive linemen. I moved the two tight ends. I moved one to center and I

Experil was more of like a welcome mat in the Big twelve. Yeah.

Well time well, and so it's just I was taking over a hard place at a hard time. I was just so I don't want this to be a slow burn. I want to start off because I feel like that year for them was last year. And the thing that I respect about the team because because this opportunity was around for a while and I was just watching games and what I respected about Nebraska was the players. They had just lost their coach, They had some tough losses along the way, but they just kept battling, And like,

Room so solid. It was both that.

Yeah, So I don't know, I don't know how good we are. I don't only think, but like I just know this. I know that we're starting from a place of like a big, physical looking group, and I think we've done a good job recruiting so far. And you know, they change football on me and during my time away. Now, like we're already up to like thirty two players that we can sign. Like when I got to Bailer, I

Guys, Yeah, go to go eat cause I'll be handling that. No matter what, you guys are going to a bowl next year. No matter what, you guys will be in a ball. You're the bust and bawl. Bust and Bawl. We trained a bowl so we could be balls.

So no matter what, you guys will be in a bowl. So you talk about bail, you're walking into a situation. But if a scandal going on, it was an empty roster to say the did your mindset change when you walked into Nebraska and you're like, could we do this here? Because when you walk into Baylor, I'm sure there's a piece of you that's like this is a lot to work with Yeah, this is a lot like how am I going.

To make this work?

Yeah, because I'm curious to why Nebraska? Like, again, you come off a head coaching job in the NFL. I'm sure you got your once you got fired. It was like your name was everywhere for a lot of big college jobs, and I'm just curious, like, yeah, why Nebraska?

What was so enticing about it? Yeah?

So to go there, I think for me, it's one thing to go somewhere and try to take a program to someplace they've never been. You know that this is getting some a program back to where it has been, and that's completely different because you know they have the resources. You know, they've been there before, they've seen that rare air. And so for me, it's like, Okay, they've done it, so we know that. So what are my questions? Well,

Trust me.

Like He's like, no, Matt, I see exactly what you how you feel. Ted Carter, who's the president of the university, Like when I talked to him, he was the admiral at Navy when they were running, when they were rolling in the triple option, and we went down there and beat them, so he knew what my teams look like at Temple. He was like, Matt, just build that team here like that physical. Like I want to run the ball and I want to play defense, and that's not

Really?

Oh yeah, I've been married for twenty twenty four years, twenty going on twenty fi Like, I've learned to listen to her.

She said, this is the place for you.

This, this is where you fit because she knows the way I want to play football. I want to go out there and just make it a battle of physical wills. And I think that resonates with people in Nebraska.

Yeah, well you got to go hear voice Nebraska doing well. So if you're trying to sit down a foundation you wanted, this is the way you want to play football. You go up in the locker room right, and the old line locker room in the Tenesseee Tians. That's speed off the ball, physical toughness, like those are foundational pieces. What do you what is day one implementation of making sure your foundation is set?

At Nebraska?

So I I have about four things I believe and then I'll talk about I had my first team meeting last night, and I'm almos, guys, I don't want cameras in be a camera follow me around. I wanted always to be the players. But there's there's a there's a book called The Greatest Salesman in the World biog Mandino. In it, they have ten scrolls and there's one called the Scroll mark three. It's I will persist until I succeed. And at one point it says, it's just long. You

Like reading that out loud to me, I want to keep hearing this.

Like I can't.

I can't do it. I have it on my phone.

But but that's like my life first, like, and that goes back to I said what happened to me?

When I said happened, I got fired.

It was like all these things I've been saying to players forever, Hey, control what you can control. I have this little saying like what's next, Like, Hey, what's whatever happened?

Good Bye? What's next?

One.

I literally had to wake up every morning and.

Go what's next? Control?

So I I am so clear minded now, like hey, guys, like all we're gonna ask you guys to do not be perfect. I'm gonna be perfect. I'm just be a lion every day, attack everything in your life. And that's really how I see it. So you know our core values that we want to be tough, we want to be hard working, we want to be competitive. I mean I want them to compete at everything they do. I want them to work hard, and I want them to

And so if they are.

Those three things, tough, are working, competitive, then we'll be well, we'll build a big physical team that's that sound and smart and accountable.

I'm just so, hey, hey, that was some fire ship. Yeah, Like that was from a book though with energy. Like some people can just read a book and be like, oh that's cool. But the way you said it, Hey, the boys are gonna play next year.

What were when you did come into Nebraska.

What were some things that you're like, all right, I'm gonna have to, you know, address these things, Like what were some issues coming into Nebraska that you identified that you you want to hit head on.

Yeah, And I think the biggest thing for me is making sure that all the all the most up to date training and recovery modalities are part of our process, you know, like everything from massage work bodywork to cupping to scraping to sensory deprivation tanks.

I really believe in all this stuff.

I believe that one of the most important jobs for me is to make sure my players are as healthy as possible and the culture of recovery and regeneration all that, like either A, schools have a bunch of stuff but guys don't use it, or b they don't have it, And so I think, you know, one of the things I can do for these guys is really help them

To the NFL that were ready to be pros.

And you know, anybody can get you to the NFL, but who can teach you how to be a pro. Like, who can get it to where you get a second contract.

One of my.

Goals for my guys is to always make five million dollars after the rookie contract. Like that to me is a goal, like get through your rookie contract, let's make five million more with your second contract, and then then after that it's all gravy.

So I look at it like, how do I invest that into them?

Well, I put all those we have all these resources, Let's not spend them on waterfalls for recruiting. Let's spend them on things that can help our guys train, let's recover, be as healthy as possible. And so that to me is something that if we do that at a high level, will really help our players because healthy team wins a lot more games.

And so.

That was one of the biggest things. And I just think, you know what, just be in there for the guys, you know what I'm saying. Like at the end of the day, Like, at the end of the day, I didn't I don't have to coach.

Like I had four years left in my contract.

I could have gone and done like a TV show maybe, or play golf or something.

I'm only coaching because Thailand.

Whatever you want, Yeah, live your life. That's exactly right.

So like I'm doing this because I truly feel like passionate about Hey, I want to work with young people, and I want to do it at a place that that that jibes with me, and that's why I found it Nebraska. So I think the best thing I can do, man, is just really lock in with these guys. Because the hardest thing I said it to my the first time when I got hired, I say, hey, guys, listen, I know you guys. I know you guys didn't choose me, because I get that, so but just remember us, I

I'm not one of those.

I didn't walk in say, y'all need to get in the portal or changing all this those.

Yeah, I'm not bringing my own baggage, Louis. Those guys welcome. I care about them.

Those guys care about Nebraska, right, and they're good kids. Like my son's eighteen, he's going. All I want for my son at eighteen is for him to go off and be around good people who care about him. All I went, So, shouldn't I do the same thing for the guys I'm coaching and recruit and I should be a good guy for them.

If you do that, you win games.

Like everyone thinks, well, if I get this may stuff, If you treat young people right and and give them what they need to be successful, you'll be successful as a team.

I believe that.

I don't mean to put you on the spot with this, but ultimately that's what this question is. But a lot of recruits and you know it like you sit in houses, you sit in these uh you know, you sit in living rooms, talk to parents and talk about.

I chose you.

What does that mean when you could easily have you know, maybe you get another opportunity to go back in the NFL after a couple of years. Yeah, or to Penn State your alm like, yeah, sure, yeah, Penn State your alma monitor. After like a couple of years of dominating and winning to big the championships and natties at Nebraska, what if those shiny new toys come into your life to want to pluck you out and go back to the NFL.

You know what I mean.

I feel like a lot of guys like that's the whole big thing around the portal, right, It's it's a reason why players argue about all the nil stuff and everything else. Coaches get these opportunities to come in they establish themselves in the seat as a head coach. I know for me, you know, I like chose Nebraska because of the staff and like hindsight, like I've listened to Verbele talk about and everything else. You want to choose a school based on the school because you never know

I think it's really hard because you know, I don't want to be a hypocrite because I've left twice. Yeah, okay, so I'll just say this, like, even after I left Temple, I went back like the next day and watch practice. I get rid of the ball game, and I got most of the guys were good with it. They understood like I came there. We built up from two to ten. We went to the championship game, we lost. I had a chance to take a bunch of jobs. I did,

I've done it a couple of times.

And you know, I don't I don't know that. I don't know that I'm you know, I don't know that I'll ever go back to the NFL. I don't know that that's in my heart, Like I don't. I don't know if I'll ever reconcile the business part of it for me, Like it's just it just was really hard for me to cut players and to be involved in that, Like it just it just didn't connect with me like

I did not.

The role that I was in was really hard for me. At Nebraska, I I am.

I am.

I get to make the decisions you know that I can make along with it those and I get to develop those guys and watch them grow. I think it's more who I was. I I believe in transfer portal. I believe guys should have a chance to go where they want to go. I believe in and I believe.

Fine, all's fair in love and war though, well, meantimes you gotta do businesses.

Business is being done.

Yeah, I'm with you, but like at the end of the day, like someone's gonna come recruit your guys' kids some day. Let's say they say the first thing I say is hey, I want to help you be the best man you can be to But then they start that off by the first thing they do is cheap.

You know what I'm saying.

I'm almost like like the money the wins that will come and go. When we're all old, we'll look back and say, like, you know, who was I? Not what did I do?

But who?

I really believe that who was I? And maybe it's good for me because, as I said, I've been I've won some coaching a Coach of the Year awards, I've been fired. I've seen both sides of it, and it's like there has to be something more other than just this. Now I'm gonna compete at the bighest level. I'm gonna do everything I can. I just think, you know, sometimes when we do this, does we tamper with a kid

Are we really doing that or not? Like, especially at a place like Nebraska.

If you do that, the players, I believe they will, they will lay everything down for the corn Huskers.

To win if we do that. Amen.

So how do you navigate such as such a gray area? Right now?

With nil deals?

Guys are getting money now and I don't believe coaches can promise money, right, we can't promise money.

But to get in.

Nebraska, We've talked about this in the podcast. To get in Nebraska to where it used to be, there's got to be more of a selling point than Lincoln. Because it's the Internet lives. You can see Miami and these really nice climate areas, and guys, look at Nebraska in the winter time. I've been there seven degrees it's freezing. So how do you sell these kids in a legal way to come to Nebraska to be great?

You do think I'm giving you coaching answers, but I really.

Think, first off, I think you're doing a phenomenal like this. This podcast has truly fired me.

Up, so I don't I don't try to convince anybody any more to come, because no one's gonna convince me to come, right. I just try to tell people, like what our plan is for them and what we have, Like here's what we have, here's our plan for you, like I think we do. I'll just say this, like I talked to recruit, especially guys are think about transferred. I'm like, if you want to be a lawyer, do you go to medical school? No, if you want to be a doctor, a doctor, do you go to law schoo.

Academic, here's our plan for you. Socially, here's our plan for you.

And then the great recruiting has not changed in that when the current players and the team tell you, hey, they mean what they say.

You're gonna win.

Yeah.

You see a lot of schools having mass exoduses because they got promised, maybe a lot, and the coach players are like, hey, don't come here. They're not doing what they said. I don't mind if a player doesn't like what I say, but I can't live in a world where they say we coach lied to me. You can be disappointed with what I said. I might be wrong, but I'm not gonna lie to you. And I think that's again when you get to year eleven and you have sort of the stability that I have, Like why

I'm bringing guys in. I got guys on visits right now.

It's actually fifty today, by the way, but it was cold the last couple of days, and like, hey, this is what it is man like can you do it or not?

Like what happens when you get drafted by Cleveland? What are you gonna do then?

Like if you can't handle.

This, then you probably not right for us, because going back to what I said before, I want guys who are lions, Like if you're worried about this, that and the third, and you're probably not right for me because I'm worried about I want to win, and I want to see you get a degree, and I want to see us win a championship like you'll see sometimes my emoji game is a degree, a ring, and you know, I try to find a shield one time, saying like, those are three things I want for you, Like have

Let's talk about your emoji game. Well, got you in the emoji game? The secret emojis? Because Dave Portnoy would hit me up and be like, hey, I think.

It could be.

It could be a tough look for coach rule not not knowing what your age is. But he's out there tweeting emojis. I don't know if he'll be able to compete with Michigan. Michigan ain't out there tweeting emojis. So this is your opportunity to talk about your emoji game because you got a little.

Subtle Yeah, I just say, uh, I got recruits asking me to at them, like like I I will. I can say people's names now, right, So Malci Coleman goes on his visit to another school.

He comes back the last night. You can come see as he comes in.

With the Colorado. Okay, I'm trying not to say too much.

Got my bag.

I don't want anybody I want.

I don't want any smoke, any problems. But but now he comes in any play ping pong r. I'm a big believer in Ping pong. I think like you have to put your phone down when you play it right. You can't have your earphones in when you play it right.

So like I love the game.

So I play him, I beat him, and he's like coaching, Hey, tweet tweet that out, but tweet it and emoji, So you know what, I got.

A lot of people, a lot of people have been kind of fired up about it. I'm kind of that's how it started.

Yeah, well, and if you go back to Baylor, I would do it every once in a while, like when I had a subtle hint for maybe another coach something like, you know, I'm never gonna talk trash about but sometimes I have to. Like I'm not a sheep either, right, so I can't if I feel like you're coming at me in the wrong way and recruiting, I would maybe do something that they could kind of get. But uh so I've been trying to do I'm trying to just do it a little bit here and there. But haters

So what happens when you're fucking popping?

The emojis are the modern day morse code. Yeah, you descriptions they're trying to decipher. Ay you hear him talking about the ping pong tables.

Yeah, there's always headlines each year where there's a new coaching staff or something where there could be ping pong tables in a locker room. They get taken out, YadA, YadA, YadA, and so on. You're kind of the first coach. I mean, we had them in Washington, but you're kind of the first coach I've heard be like, oh, I'm pro I get a ping punk table And.

What are we talking about?

Like you know what you'll lose because someone jumps off sides or someone drops the ball. The coach tries to be clever and comes up with ten new plays like like don't we want guys, Like don't we want guys to be around each other? Like and that's hard now in the era of phone sometimes so like everyone looking at their phone. So anything I can do, whether it's food, whether it's golf, whether it's My.

First two years in the NFL was COVID. Like this past year I was.

Able to like go out and play golf with Shaq Thompson and Christian and Corbett Johnny Hecker, who might be the one of the coolest dudes ever to hang out with. Like how much fun that was just to get to know them as people After the craziness of COVID. So why I missed that so much? You know, you go to the NFL and COVID it was so hard, Like I want, I want to come to I want to spend time with the guys. I don't want to sit in my office all day like looking at a computer.

But I'm not gonna try to relate on things I can't relate on.

But yeah, let's go compete. I'll fight you to the death on the ping pong table. If we won't play racketball, fight you to the death, like I want you to compete. I'm gonna compete with you and that to me build some relationships.

I'll tell you what you want to see some cast in the locker room, get a kids basketball hoop and so many basketball will go off.

No doubt.

We put u.

We also down. We made like four square.

All started using the basketballs lines out the door during camp out the door.

Yeah, dude, dudes love the ping pong. They love the ping pong. Tressway is the best ping pong player.

I've ever seen play really ever ever seen really Yeah, Tressway the punter, sound like you're kind of good though.

Yeah, are you pretty good? I'm when we're in Carolina, like Christian was better than me. Andre Roberts, oh, Andre Rogers scratch golfer, and then elite ping pong player then like the specialist.

But don't you know J J. Jansen?

But I don't know if they count because they're not going to meetings really right, Yeah, they're playing all day.

I mean JJ's in elite. You hate those guys the most during camp?

Well they just yeah, I mean yeah, you know, Johnny, guys, I missed you.

Like go to the movies. I'm like dying at a two thirty meeting, like, fucked, dude, it's awful.

Johnny Hecker's over there putting, you know. I mean he's an elite golfer. So but I'm I'm pretty good, not great. I'm pretty good playing that case. There's a table over here and on a tre No, no, no, no, no, I'm pretty good.

You wold my ass. I'm not like that on the ping pongk I wish it was.

No.

I can't play pool. I can't I can't billiards or anything. I just can't make it go with a nice little player's lounge in the breath. That is a nice little Papa shot thing too. Yeah. Yeah, it's got all the bells and whistles.

And we'd circle around the big uh what's it called big TV?

What's it called it? Pulls down projector nice?

We'd circle around the projector on those couches and we'd be playing back when it was like Percy Harvin on the Gators. Percy Harvin on the Gators. You play that part return mode on n C double A. I think it was fourteen, right, I don't, I mean, personally, might have been sooner than that.

But players lounge man, some good old times there. He gets old xboxes and then ever be fun. You should NCAA fourteen for all the guys. They would love that. That's so much fun. I'm back at some point here sooner or no. I think it's point twenty four, right. I just Bill.

Walsh's college football me at Penn State nineteen ninety seven. I played with eighty three Auburn Bo Jackson, unstoppable. I was about his game a long time all the time.

How has you were in college before you went to the NFL. Obviously, now you're back in college, the world's completely changed with the NIL How how eye opening? How have you been navigating those waters?

Being like, Holy fuck?

This is it seems to me like it's a free agency twenty four to seven at the college level, Like it's not even it's not even NFL world where you have three year contracts that you can't break whether you overperform or not.

Yeah.

Yes, the wild West of college football right now.

Yeah, I think you know, it's hard for me to say because I'm just getting started with it. I think as I go through a couple of years will be I'll probably have a better feel for you know exactly what I think about everything. At his core, I believe in it right, Like it's funny. I was talking to RG three like a couple of weeks ago. I was like, can you imagine they would have had this when you

Know, I know this, I know how hard I'm gonna work.

I expect my staff to work for each guy, like as a person, like to give them what they need. And so I want them to want that. They got to want the football, they gotta want the academic. If they want all that, then if they get taken care of, you know, over here, then great, I'm all for it. You know, I'm also a guy that kind of wants everyone to get taken care of, like I watch for you know, I walked on at Penn State. I was never a great player, so probably have a soft spot in my heart for.

Guys who walk on.

But I always see those dudes out there doing everything everyone else is doing, and they're paying to go to school, and I'm like, man, I wish, you know, I like, I've see some schools, are you know, do using some of that ni Ol money to help those guys, which I think is beautiful for a locker room. Because you guys know this, but I say this to recruits all

Can you guys put things in place to help with financial stuff or does that have to be from a third party. We can do all that.

We can do education, we can do a ton of it, and our people have done it. You know, our people at Nebraska are working really hard to have a really good you know, for me, Like I didn't know much about finances, you know, in college, I kind of just got a credit card and all of a sudden, I was like, oh wow, this is the piles so quickly, you know.

So I wish I would have done a better job.

But general studies major, I know, I still don't know what's going on.

I'm doing the best I can. But yeah, and I'm with you, you.

Know, so I think we can do all that stuff. You can provide all that education, and then you don't. I like it when guys learn how to go out and be entrepreneurs and market themselves. A true meaning of it I like, go go go start something, you know, go go build your brand so that you have something after football.

Did you always have this mindset or is this like a because you're changing with the times, because it's a very new age coach mindset. You said, you're an old school guy. You want to run the ball, play good defense. But for a coach, the head coach to hear and like, I want guys to market themselves. I want when we were in college, it was what are you guys doing on Twitter? You don't need to you don't need to be on that.

It almost took it for almost like a couple of times.

Yeah, and so now it's become like you guys need to be on this and do it, just do it smart. And like has that been a thing for you that you're like, guys should market themselves or has that changed over time?

It's probably changed a little bit. I think there's something to it.

Like I'll still see I'll.

See like a player who keeps retweeting every fan that says something good about them, like, you know, here's what I'm ranked. I'm like, but what are you doing, like just worry about playing football? Like I don't necessarily mean that like where you're just because kind of what I talked about before, like if you only see your value based upon what other people say about you, I just mean, like,

So let's build that.

But on the side, I think it's awesome when guys learn these things, and you know, part of it is like the minute you know, as you guys know, the minute you start getting paid in the NFL, then then when the time comes, are gonna try to take the.

Money away from you. You know what I'm saying, Like you're good.

I've seen guys making eight million dollars all a sudden they're cut, they're signing a minimum deal.

You have to learn how you have to learn all that now.

And I probably didn't understand this probably as much before I went to the NFL, and I'm so glad we can't get involved in an IL because I think, you know, a guy has a contract, he doesn't like walking in the locker room. A guy you pay someone else instead of him. I was really glad that I wasn't handling all that. So when guys walk in the locker room, I'm like with me, bro, it's these guys over here. And I also going back to me and my ability

You said something you've said some before, but it's like, you know, guy's retweeting what people say about them, your perception and everything else.

You live for the cheers, you die by the booze.

It's like the moment you do have a bad game and you are feeling feeding into that stuff, it's gonna affect your psyche, which is something that you were alluding to earlier when sitting and have a conversation with Matt on guys like feeling like they're under a lot of pressure and everything else.

But are you surprised.

By some of the I guess how naive guys can be.

Like high school recruits.

I'm thinking, like you're gonna go in thinking you're gonna go in and meet somebody, set out and talk a little bit of shot.

But how quickly it gets to money?

You know.

I think I think a lot of the high school kids have been really good, you know what I mean, Like I mean some you know, I guess it's some guys, some people get involved with some most people. I just think, you know, if I tell you I'm not gonna talk money with you, I'm not gonna talk I'm your coach, I'm not gonna talk money with you, you know what I mean. So I just think I have to have that discipline.

I was.

I was fired up for Garrett about his decision. You know, I was happy for him. He was first class and did everything the right way. But you know there's times or if you have a draftable grade and you're thinking about coming back, if the NIL people or some people want to take care of you, I think that makes total sense to me. But you know how recruiting is, like one guy's completely different from the next, and just trying to find people who really want to come for you know what it used to.

Be, you know what I mean, maybe maybe I phrased that wrong, but have you come across those situations you're like, Okay, it seems like his head's kind of a one where you're going to hit somebody up, Like, hey, he's you hit up? You know, t night you were seeing a d Lineman You're like, hey, he's not a type of guy.

Yeah, we we say, oh, you'll see I say, oh, it's like one of us, like like, you know, I don't I tell you guys all, I don't care what I don't think. Brother, I don't care. I don't care how you carry your hair. I don't care you know what music you listen to. I don't care how you dress, care about how you do your football, how you treat people, and full So if I come across some way that's not about that, they're just not going to be a

Like an incoming freshman's talking to me about.

All this other stuff, like we should be talking about our study hall structure, like like, you know, you got to prove some things before, you know, I want to And again we stay out of that, but I do. I do think that, yes, there's a lot of people that they want to know what's in it for them, and they want to know what it is, and that's only natural. I just think as a coach, you have to say this is how we're gonna do it. I don't talk about this, you know, I talk about the school.

Then great.

You know.

I think it's gonna be fucking crazy in a couple of years. Yeah, I think the way it's.

Gonna be wild.

Yeah, But the next couple of years are going to be crazy because it seems like the Big Ten and the SEC especially are like kind of just taking as many colleges as possible, as the thought of the UCLA and USC being in the Big Ten five ten years ago would be just blasphemed as to be ridiculous. How do you think the college landscape is going to change? If you really are going to be at Nebraska for eight years, you're probably gonna see it.

Do you see?

Do you think there's an opportunity that the Big Ten and the SEC and maybe one other big conference and splits away from the NC DOUBLEA with all this new and ile stuff and il stuff going on and making their own like league.

Almost you know, that's a great question. I've heard people say that I don't. I don't know that.

I do think.

I do think to your point, I think the Big Ten has kind of become like this coast to coast almost like yeah, college's NFL, you know. I mean we've from four will because Yah had a way to use to La like we got everything in between. So it becomes a really national brand, and that's I think that's actually kind of good for us. Like when I look at like when I look at like Texas, I went to Nebraska to be Texas as a Big Ten team.

To defeat them. Yeah, we got to beat them.

I think something like that that helps Nebraska because I in my opinion, I loved like I got to play two years in the Big twelve, two years in the Big Ten.

I loved when we got to go to the Big Ten.

But now hindsight, I almost feel like it hurt us to go to the Big Ten because we became We recruited so much California, especially Texas, and I know coaches now think thinking about from the coach's perspective, you're sitting in these living rooms in Texas and being able to at least tell families you'll be able to see these guys play a couple times a ye're at Baylor, at Texas, tech A, and m at the time, you'll be able to see him. And then you know you can still

And plus, like when I was at Baylor, I could tell people like, hey, nine out of our nine of our twelve games or ten of our twelve games this year are in the state of Texas. Well, that's gonna change, you know, the Big Twelve is changing now. They're bringing in Cincinnati and some other teams. So now you are leaving the state every year. And now even you know Texas and Texa, A and M. Now as they go to the SEC, they're playing in Alabama, they're playing and George.

Yeah, let's start it with some you know, early little bit of fun. You brought up Nebraska Colorado. That rivalry gets to kind of reignite itself this year. Dionna is now at Colorado. There's a lot of fluff. There wasn't an amusing scene the ad bag for Colorado fans like please, let's.

Not they're red travels now yeah, back and seeing him like I tell you what I I.

There's a picture, there's a thing in our media guy of all the different pictures of us taking over stadiums and the sea of red and traveling and I just you know, you know, I've worked with some great places, but I've never had that, like I've never had that home field advantage, that road advantage. So I can't wait for it, you know, I can't wait to have that chance.

Have to and it's like it's it's it's it's it's his prime on there.

And I'm like, guys, take off the we're trying to beat Colorado on recruits.

They're like, it's Madden. What are we gonna do. He's he's on the cover of Madden.

As it scrolls through the thing, I'm like, it's kind of hard to be with one of the greatest football players of all time.

So but but you know what, I'm sure players though, might not be best coach of all times.

Well, and you know, I'm sure he's done a great job. I just now I will see that. I but I believe in our staff. I believe what we're doing, and we're gonna, you know, we're gonna put it together and go out there and play. It'd be a great game. I think it'll be a great thing for I think it's a great thing for college football though, like Nebraska Colorado.

That's that's gonna be fun. That's gonna be just a little warm up with Minnesota the Gophers.

Dude.

Yeah, it was funny though about that ad begging, right, it was.

It was funny trying to get me in trial, bro, trying to.

You don't have to.

Yeah, I'll ask you your question.

Do you fully expect Nebraska to go into Colorado and totally have a sea of red and boulder.

I expect our fans to show up. Let's go. Yeah, it would be there. I'll be there and let's go. I expect our fans to show up.

I as I've gotten out to the western part of the state and seeing all the like the die hard, die hard, Like I'm in I'm in Scott's Bluff and we're a little group pub downtown and there's people figured out that we were there, me and the OC, and all of a sudden, there's just people there like shaking our hand.

Like those people, those people out there, they're excited about Nebraska football.

So I think it's I'm hoping that people come from everywhere, and then I'll be honest with you, I can't wait for our first home game, you know, uh, the Northern Illinois, Like I like, I just can't wait to walk I walk by that field in the mornings.

You know.

I get into work whatever time and walk out there.

Man, it's like I'm gonna coach here like and it's kind of like humbling like and also like, hey, you better get your aub I mean, like make sure we're ready to go, because I want those people to see a team that they that they really like.

Mm hmm.

You talked about good football players in Arizona. There's some studs out there right now. There's some really good players, you know.

Would you say Arizona is probably a top five state in recruiting.

I say it's it's pretty important.

Pretty there's a lot about where the best players come from.

It's pretty important for us right now.

Yeah, Arizona's pretty important for Nebraska.

Arizona's a really good place for us. You know a lot of people from Nebraska have second homes there or vacation that when Will came into town, there's damn parade going.

So it's it's it's a it's a it's an easy trip.

And so it's, uh, it's got some good quarterbacks in Arizona.

Yeah, you know, big Kyler, Murray Finn Yeah player. Yeah, and you know at all levels, you know, college.

High school, absolutely, all levels.

Yeah, at all levels.

Hypothetically, I think we got to go all in on whoever the number one recruit is, like the best.

I think, I think I think Nebraska should. I think Nebraska should recruit the best of the best. And also, let guys know that what an unbeieble opportunity to come be, you know, like I want to be one of the people that you know, brings us to glory. And so the players that choose to come here in this class and maybe like next year's class, they're the ones who who I think people remember for a long time. Like, Hey, the state wants us, you want us, everyone that loves

Yeah the Nebraska good answer, Hey, you are playing an excellent game of chests.

Right, We'll say this one thing.

Yeah, because Jalen Petree just I think it's just at the NFL record for Jen for Uh play second round draftter for the Texans, played for me at Bayol, then played for coach Randa Uh. He was the only player that stayed committed in the recruiting class after the scandal had happened at Baylor and I got there, I didn't

He's the one.

And now he said an NFL record this year as a rookie. He's a special, special person. So that sense of legacy, it's you go to a place like Nebraska and you walk by the All Americans, you walk by the Heisman.

I mean it's pretty hard.

Like I used to walk through the halls of Penn State, Like we I'll never be the first to do anything here. We've done it all. But when your your program hits a little bit of adverse here, the people who show up now, kind of like Jalen did at Baylor, they'll they'll remember you for a long.

Long time, right, like a quarterback who could be sitting out there somewhere in any state on the west.

Yeah, Soona, there's none as a top five recruiting school.

Or with the recruiting state, you'd be part of some legacy type shit. Legacy stuff. Do you understand? I think you're like you're obviously going to say yes, But do you truly understand how rabid these fans are in Nebraska? Not go back and watch some old pressers from bo Pliny, just some old school ship like you gotta you gotta buckle in around linked Nebraska, keep.

Your hands in the card at all times during the ride type stuff.

Yeah, I think I think I do believe this.

I believe, like I said, after everything I've gone through, the good and the bad, I think that's got me this point where I'm like as stoic and as zen as possible, Like I was on the plane the other day flying you know, I flew back from Charlotte from the Coaches convention and commercial commercial yeah, and I was was fortunate that was able to sit up for They started chanting go Big Red as we were landing in Omaha,

I'm trying to stay in the moment, like did everyone go to community service today?

You know?

Did everyone go to practically everyone showed up lifting this morning. That's great, stay in that that kind of that space. But I'm excited about what maybe we can do.

You know.

It's like.

It's almost like that's what Nebraska just wants to do again. You thought everybody thought we had it with Scott with like him playing in the nineties him being a successful coordinator, head coach coming to Nebraska. We got our fucking guy, and for it to not happen, it's kind of like, fuck, man, Like, what is even the expectation anymore?

You know what I mean? No, I thought you were going to cry for a second. You almost do.

It's like you come into this job and it's like somebody takes on this responsiblity because a lot of people argue that it's a fucking hard job to want to go into because the expectation is so high, and you already alluded to it the little apathy quote you had Passion over apathy. It's like the expectation is so high and recruiting can be a little dicey because you're trying to get these kids to Middle America again when you can play anywhere.

It's it's like I'm excited. I'm excited. And you texted your boy like on day one, like coach rule text on all like Will texted me at the minute he texted you texted him brother.

It's like the president gets he becomes the president of the first one hundred days, it's like on your list.

Get in with the boy. You know what I mean, was that on the list.

On the list, probably number one on the list, calling my wife and making sure she was but it was in the top five.

Oh shit.

But no, In all seriousness, like, as we went through this process, we had so much time.

Like I watched all these things.

I watched all the tunnel walks, I watched Coach Pollini, I watched Coach Osborne, I watched Coach So I watched all these different things.

But I watched you guys.

I watched, I went I went back and watched when you guys had Coach Pollini on here, Like I watched, I had a chance to really immerse myself and say, okay, Matt is you know because I'm when I go in, I go in, I go all in, like all in.

I was like, are you ready to go all in on this? And but you guys were part of that process from me.

That's why being here, honestly, it's unbelievably cool because I get to talk about Nebraska. I got to do it in a way that's fun, and I get to talk about football, and I get to kind of laugh at myself a little bit, you know what I'm saying. And I got to see that from you guys, And that's

Yeah. I feel like from a first impression standpoint, like I have never met you. Today's the first day with you and I have talked. I liked you, and I feel like if I'm a recruit, I'm watching this like I like that guy too, Like you got high energy, You're passionate, You're ready.

To get after it.

You know what, the kind of football you want to play. You talk about your lows. Yeah, yeah, and that's a huge thing too. It's because people like to run away from their mishaps. There's things that happened that didn't go their way. You're you're facing a head on. Yeah, you're the spear, butd you're this spear for the breast of corners.

Everything you said about watching busting is like you're like, you know, did I get caught up or wrapped up? And seeing people laugh at themselves. I think it's super important man, because you can't get lost, no doubt in the identity of like I'm here, man, everybody's fucking coming after me to come down. Like you know, you said, what do I do? You know, take my kids to school or go home? And Pat, I'm sure you did both. You probably took them to school, fucking that's.

Right, Yeah, Pat it on the way home almost busting with the boys. Maybe, no doubt, Yeah, dude, because we talk about all the time that there's people that either are on pedestals or put themselves on pedestals and just refuse to take a giggle at themselves, know when they fucked up.

And it's like, dude, if.

You just do that, life, the anxiety of life dwindles and you feel so much better. Now. I do have a very important this might be the most important question. This might be not the rodback, but this is definitely a massively important question. And the way you answer it's going to change the directory of our friendship. I don't know how you and Will are going to be the fourth game this season you will playing. You will be

Yeah? Also, here's what I do you know a lawyer right right now? Stream of the bust and Bowl, I'm not so.

We we did the spring tour last year where we went to UH, we went to Nebraska, we went to Michigan, we went to Tennessee. We didn't interviews, sat out with Scott coach Chintz, Uh, Trev Alberts, he's been on the bus. We went to that Michigan game the last year and UH. We were sitting down on the spring tour and Taylor's like, hey, I got an idea and talked about like, hey, I'm going to ask if we can do the bust and Bowl, Like I'm gonna Askcott Frost if he'll say yes. He

Hold on, do we have the clip? Do you have do you have the clip of Harpball? He's grabbing the Uh.

He he's grabbing the contract right now, So go ahead. Will this is your this is your story.

We go to Michigan and we asked Carball and Harpball's all about it. We have our legal team drop a document to to make this thing official. Jim Harball is the only guy who has signed it.

He was all in.

He was hitting his chest like he was getting into you felt it. He's all about competing, just like yourself. We'd love to see a ping pong game there. But he signed it along the way, it got lost a little bit of translation. I'm I like to feel like I'm connected at Nebraska and I was told that we would get this thing signed. Training camp kind of got away from all of us for a little bit. You know, you got your ten up in the air.

Where we going here? Where we're going there?

Camp?

And unfortunately Nebraska had the year that they had.

I tried making it happen, knowing that it's like this probably isn't gonna get signed because there's so many more important things going on than signing a document. To make the bust and Bowl official when Nebraska's like losing game in, game out, and so our side didn't necessarily sign it.

So Taylor and car Ball signed it before we even finished the question. Yeah, that's right, signed it before we even finished the question.

And so Taylor and I still took it upon ourselves, like we're gonna still make this thing unofficially official, but we're going to go to Michigan.

Bring the trophy mass it's forty pounds. It's sitting in it's sitting in the Michigan locker room in their trophy.

Right next to Paul Bunyan. Pull it up right now, well you can, you can?

Is there anything else you want to say? No, I want him to see that it's this is a this is a living breath November. Yeah, dude, can't sponsor the trophy. We have a full on trophy made with little you know them little things. We can write the name in etch the name and everything else. It's a legit trophy. And so we're excited about next year. As you can tell, I need the what you what you usually need. You need the head coach on board, you need their signature,

Yeap. So that's why we asked the question, are you willing to make this thing official?

Brass trophy? Love it that's sitting in like recruit see it. And when they went to the game, because I know all of Nebraska's gonna watch this. When we went to the game, even in the recruiting area they had with the lights you know the lights that you guys put in the Hawks to decorate all the ball, big bull bull lights sing busting bull. The day came playing the game, I know Nebraska could do well, Nebreska. I'm just letting

To h this is this is history. This is history brother. Oh wow, well is that.

A real signature.

Yeah, there's a lot of loops.

I was just making sure that's a lot of loops, all right, now, Yes, So when we were at.

The game, there another signature ship. You're right. See, I think he's gonna dip on the boys. I don't think it's important to him like it is coach rule. But I think, no, he's not dipping on the boys.

He said a statement he's he fully plans to be a part of the Michigan Wolverines twenty twenty three.

State would have doctored statement right there by his agent.

They wrote it, didn't they Now twenty million dollars a year, he allegedly got offered by the Denver Broncos.

There's a lot of mutual interest.

Money does talk, And I wouldn't be mad at him, but i'd be real I would I would cry because it's over.

I wouldn't smile because it happened, which I know you're not supposed to do.

Now, this.

That was huge what you did there, That was that was Yeah. I might need a moment of silence real quick. Hey, can we get a moment of silence for the buzzleball Coachurill sending it. Thank you. That was big. They went hand to the heart. I didn't know what to do. I was like, oh, man, hey the iconic. That was iconic. Man, this this has been one of my favorite episodes. Thank you having you on it all the time. Oh good time, dude.

We have a great time on this bus. But sometimes guys come on, you're like kind of fishing trying to find things to talk about. But really you've been great. If you've spoken well, I think you've done yourself a service. These recruits that are probably watching this episode get to.

Know Matt rule.

Here you go. You have an hour and twenty one minutes plus happening. By this Baby's not over yet.

All of Nebraska will be tuned in. I'm sure you're probably aware.

Yeah, yeah, they do go hard man.

All right.

The coolest thing about Nebraska is I went there. I played there in twenty thirteen because you were you were lest years twenty twelve. I went there and no, that's the year we got our aspey. It was twenty twelve.

Wee me, yeah, yeah, we got our asspyt.

The stadium was rocking, extremely loud lights, The boys were playing well, Donar got hurt.

That's why we lost.

We probably could have won that game, but we ended up not winning that game, ended up just getting absolutely pile dry for sixty minutes after the game. There's fans that are kind of lined up as you're walking out, and they are the nicest.

Hey, great job. Hey, you'll get them next time. You guys.

Keep it up, have a great rest of the season. A feeling you don't really get when you play football against opposing fan bases.

It was it is very cool place.

The greatest feeling in the world as a coach. You know, the greatest thing you can ever say to someone as a coach. You welcome f you've won. You walk up and say, hey, your boys played hard today.

Yeah.

Joey Maguire, the coach Text to Tech taught me that I just whenever I can, you know, just you boys played hard today. Boys played harder, Boys played hard today.

Do we want to do a tier talk? Because I have one in my head that we could do. I know we talked about maybe possibly doing emojis, but just to keep the Nebraska theme, we could do our tier, our top tier, top three selling points at the University of Nebraska.

MM see sometimes I don't like when it's just centric on one thing because they say you do emoji, it's the head coach or universal. We can have him list his top three things selling points at Nebraska and we can all rate it by one word. It's almost like it's almost like, yeah, it's and it would probably be basic because it's going to be education.

But what he's already said, it's gonna be Nebraska U Educational University.

We have the most academic all Americans of any athletic department in the country, over one hundred more than Stanford.

Well that might just be in Nebraska just giving out good grades. I'm just saying it could be I'm over here, I'm now, I'm now on outside. I've walked outside the box. If Michigan wantitude, that they would because they're a top fifteen public school in the entire world. We'll get just start dishing out as to the boys. Now, the whole team's academical Americans.

It's all sports at just across the old department, one hundred more than Stanford.

You're doing something, you're doing something, you're doing something, You're going to do something right. Tell them what stands for Nebraska I can't do it. Knowledge, I can't do it. I knew, I knew the joke, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. That I got the joke, I feel like any other like, oh that's nice, that's nice. I can't do it, he said, I can't do it, dude, all right, we'll do emoji. So well, do you want to explain our tear talk?

So tiar talk is essentially are you familiar with t your talks if you've caught up on some episodes, So tier talk is essentially tier one, Tier two, tier three. You can throw it an honorable mention if you'd like to, but essentially your top three emojis. Our tier talk today for this episode is going to be emojis, since you are basically the emoji king. I'm trying, do we need to take a second. I kind of need to see exactly. I'm trying to figure out which avenue I want to go down.

Yeah, you know what I mean.

There's some fun stuff out there. There's some fun stuff out there. Might try to be unprofessional in front of coach rule.

Yourself, stay horny, my boy, exactly, all right.

I think mine's gonna be my honorable mention, tipping the cap to the moon, the moon emoji, the dark moon emoji.

In fact, when you throw that, if you add that to your bag and you saw that in there, it throws people off, like what does even mean by that? But it's funny looking. You just randomly throw it in a conversation. I'm telling you it's good. Added to your back.

Boys. My Tier three, there's gonna be the waters. Yeah, we gotta stay hydrated out there. You gotta stay hydrated out there. Keep that H two O up. My tier two, big.

Big vegetable guy, the egg plant, like the egg plant. I'm gonna go with the egg plant for my two.

My tier one.

This is this, this emoji's been with me all time since since Earth. The eyes you shoot the eyes. The eyes are killer. Yeah, keep in the draft draft but eyes Tier one, egg plant, big vegetable guy. Tier two could be corn, you know, could be corn. Could be corn, big big cob energy. That's a big thing we're all about on Saturday's Memorial Stadium.

Uh.

But my tier in my Tier three water and typically cap.

Salute to the moon. I love, I love the little moon emoji. Like that's my that's my tier that's my tiar talk. Now, what we do is everybody goes around and gives a one word response to your tiar talk.

So we'll go around. You can go last, respectable, true.

Hard, hornie, and I can't tell my mom to watch this now.

No devious, Oh you know, I'm sorry. You know you're my boy. I have to be honest. Yeah, well too, I say two words, you just say hyphenated if you say too.

Dephonated, too clever, well, too clever.

Yeah, he's a clever boy. Clever boy, clever boy.

That egg plan got real clever back in the day. Respectable, Yeah, I really, I really with that right now, my honorable mention. Uh, it's not used a lot, but when it is, it just means so much. That is the goat emoji. When you put out the goat emoji, you know we all know what that means. And that just like Will said, a tip of the cap to whatever individually you might be referring to at that time.

My Tier three got to eat your vegetables. It's very important.

This thing, since the dawning of its time, has really helped me send that Morse code out letting everybody know where I'm at. I need them vegetables, and that goes to the egg plant. My Tier two is a new one that's been introduced to me, I would say in the last six months. But I love it with a passion.

That is the salute. I think this salute is.

Move especially because it's half faced thing. It's funny and it packs upon dude. I probably overuse it. And then my tier one has to go to them eyes. You're trying to get so hey, especially you're in your group chat.

I do it, will and I do it a lot.

One of us will send a text, maybe we don't get a response for that person for a little bit. Other individual puts out the eyes like, hey, we're kind of waiting on you, bub We're kind of just waiting on you right now.

You're going to respond to this or no, it's light hearted.

It's lighthearted and that are That is my sir talking, strong, relatable, Jesus plaus approved.

Con I was hoping you can say horny again, solid, thank you diabolical?

All right, oh man, all right. So the first coach's is it partook? Are taken? Are taken? And not like partook? Better than partaking. He's the first coach that partok in our tier talk.

I don't like it, the one the sentence, though, I don't like the word by itself more than the sentence.

My honorable mention is the cloud of smoke with the poop. Yeah, the poop. It's like, you can use it in recruiting, like, hey, this dude's fast. You can like, if you've been texting the recruit and you don't text you back, you're like you vanished on me. Like there's a lot of things. Yeah, there's a lot of things usual late at night for us, though, that's my honorable mention. Gosh, I'm so scared what to say right now.

Hey, if you don't Hey, if you don't like it, we can always I love it. I love it, I love it, love love.

But I'm afraid there's gonna be like a like there's someone on Twitter is gonna translate what I really mean when I say why I use each one you're out there.

Number three for me is the eyes. The eyes is elite.

It's you guys. You guys covered it so well, so thank you for that.

Number two is the absolute because I didn't even know what it meant when I first when jac Horn said it to me, one time, and I was like, what's that mean?

I think we'll look it up, like why is it just half his face?

Yeah, And that's the most that's the biggest part about it, is like why is he hiding?

Also, and so I'm going last as hard. You guys have taken all the good ones. My last one, and I use it a lot. Is is just the brain explosion, you know, just half the face and the brain coming out.

Like, man, you blew my mind, Like, dude, that is a dad emoji, right. I love thee I love that you said that you pulled that one up.

I don't think i've seen it that one. Oh your mind's blown.

My mind's blown.

Like oh yeah like that that that has so many different meanings.

That's my deal. That's your deal. Oh oh you mind blown? I'm blown?

Yeah, there you go. One word.

I'm not ready me either, Boss strong boomer. That solid good. He's getting initiated legend. This is this is hyphenated king ship.

Okay, Mitch al right, Mitch husked, Dad, Hey, that was you did a really good job. You did that was outstanding.

Hard to go last, I'm hard to go last.

Yeah, And I feel like we probably should let people go second after they see how it's done, like one of us goes first.

But I thought I thought that was that was a good job. I love watching the conviction of him talking to this about the mind blowing emoji. Yeah, the cloud cloud of smoke too. Yeah. He was looking at me telling you, go, uh, is your son gonna watch this? Oh yeah, yeah see a busting fan. Oh yeah, oh yeah right, that's the right answer. Out of respect that there. I told him. I told him I was going to be on here today. So he's pretty fired up. So that's awesome. Yeah, it'll come out next week. It's a

But coming on here, Yeah, why not?

Hear?

Of course it is because we're not gonna let other coaches do if we're gonna you know, Michigan, I mean we could let other coaches come on it.

Yeah, we'll probably, I mean probably any coach that once we'll publicly. Yeah, we have anything else. The boys in the back. I've got one question, jack you can always count on Jackie Boy.

In twenty twenty six, Nebraska scheduled a non conference game that will be taking place in Lincoln, and it's against the Tennessee volunteers.

I would just like to know what your game plan is so we can be ready in.

Three years repeat the Orange Bowl.

But realistically, i'm because we'll obviously big husk here.

I went to Tennessee.

I'm a big balls fan, and I'm really excited for that game, even though it's three years away, because we don't get to have the same competitive nature that Will and Taylor do with Nebraska Michigan or how me and Garrett do is Alabama and Tennessee. So I'm excited to see some big ten SEC matchups. I guess, like a realistic question is with you being new there and Josh Hypel just coming in within the last two years, you do you think you're gonna be on the same page.

But where am I going with us? We're going eleven and one into the Orange Bowl. Brothers, what you're.

Saying, yeah, how do you plan on getting your guys to buy in the way Hypel's gotten his guys to buy in the last good way?

To round it out, Jack, first of all, say this, I thing, I think Josh has done a great job he really has, you know what, I I don't try to get guys to buy in.

I just try to do what we do. And I'm sorry.

I try to do what we do and hope that they believe in it. But I do think that these the guys at Nebraska are hungry to win.

They want to win.

It's not one of those deals where it's like, who's this guy that hopefully you know, they believe what we're going to do. And I didn't come to lose.

I'll say that much. I didn't not come to lose. Twenty twenty six, before you go a bit, twenty twenty six awesome.

I don't know if we came to chew bubble gum and beat ass and we're all out of bubblegum. Brother, that's what's happening in September twelfth, the twenty six.

The tweet you sent yesterday about hypel was that from Eckler. I don't know, Oh, I might assume to receive a similar text.

Yeah, I don't know.

That's out there in the stars, you know what I mean, Yeah, that's in the cloud. I don't know if I was a vessel where I came up with that on my own.

All right, bro, you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm sorry you had to be a part of that. That was That was a I probably could have waited till after the podcast, Mitchie. What's your question, bubb.

So you're from Stay College, Pah, What was it like playing under Joe Pah?

It was awesome.

Know one thing about coach Paterno was he uh he like he was you know, he was a little bit older when I got there. He had so much energy at practice, like you could not you could not not go hard. And he held the best players the most accountable. Like a lot of a lot of coaches like they'll they'll crush the walk ons, they let the best players do what they want. Not Joe Like he was gonna

And I think that that that meant a lot to me.

I learned a lot from him. And he was a man. He was a He was a maniac in a good way.

At practice.

Man, he would run around and I mean when I was on the scout team, I was on the scout team, and I forget it was Curtisinis whoever like was injured, say the green jersey, which means don't touch him. He can practice, but don't touch him.

So I run up.

They throw on the ball, I run up, I break up. I jump out of the way, and he comes running over and he's like, what.

Are you doing?

Like, let's practice.

She gotta hit him.

And I didn't know what to do because I'm not gonna talk back to my coach. And I said, coach, he has a green jersey on. Coach lost it. He's like, what do you mean the green jersey. He's like, I don't care if you heard you gotta be a high practice. And he also he walks away like eight feet. He turns around, he goes, he goes, oh he had the green jersey on. Good job, good job.

It was me.

Oh, he I got you. So he was awesome.

I love the man and like he he like, you know, he we won, but we won. All of our guys got degrees and got educations and went on ahead good lives.

So it was pretty cool.

Gee, I don't really have a question, but from our previous experiences in Lincoln, it's always been a good time. And I think, like I can agree with what Taylor is saying, like you got a good energy, Like I'm fired up to come.

To Lincoln this Yeah, that's gonna be a fun spring football tour this year.

Like it's gonna be rocking. It already is rocking. But like, yeah, fan, for sure, we'll be there. We will absolutely be there. You'll be on, You'll be on again, except we'll be in your house. Let's do it.

Yeah, it'll be all I already told my onus. He's a Husker now he's an honorable Husker.

I love it. I love it. Oh and you got to coach a mirror too, Oh yeah, a mirror. How much of a stud is he?

A mirror? A mirror?

So we did those Thursday night dinners. So Mirror came over with the running backs and next week I had the receivers over and.

Came over again.

He's like, just pet the dog and hang out like I love when he when he left, he gave me a book and just his kind of guy. He is right, thoughtfully, just gave me a book that he thought I would like. I just I mean, he's a true pro. And when I got this job.

I called him.

I was like, hey, right before I took the job, I was like, hey, gonna head you have some questions here in a day or two. And then I took the job. And he's been unbelievable.

He's the best man. He's a snud, he's a big study. Yeah, I don't think I have anything else to you, No, I I am going to think greatly appreciate you coming on this podcast. I know you're super busy, so it was awesome to have you on. This was like legit awesome, thank you you.

Yeah. Yeah when I when you shot the text, I was fired up.

Hit the boys right away. But yeah, this has been incredible. This has been incredible. I'm trying to like, because you know your boys and your boys and some sage too, your boys in some player group chats of the Huskers. I'm trying to think if there's anything that the boys will want me to ask, I don't think so.

I'm fired up that tea night's there.

Yeah, he's probably heard me going some spiels in the locker room back in Washington about black shirts and what happened this.

Week and that week. He better not a pot ROAs you better not be talking.

To kids about losing weight now, because I remember your couple your last years in Washington talking about he wouldn't get on the scales, t about all his budgets changed.

Is the best I was his position coaches when when I first went to Temple his sophomore I was the D line coach, and that whole first week I had him. He had done something wrong in school and I showed up whole first week every morning six am.

Him and me like just that's how.

Our relationship started. So now we're sitting there like in an academic talk talking to somebody, I'm like, who are you talking to? You know, he's he's he's a wonderful person, like and and uh, you know he played at two ninety five that year I made. I had to keep him onnder three hundred and he's not he didn't play it two ninety five in the week.

Did not keep him. Yeah, under three hundred pounds. Washington was waging in Washington.

Oh, I don't know, but we had to get him. I think we called a gap gas. But we had to gap him to the side of the tilt, like you know, the the YU pair. Yeah, we'd have to gap him to get going because you know you're you're anticipating stretch just to get him going so he wouldn't get cut off.

Those are the best players to play games. Yeah, but he was a stud. I mean he made a lot of money, especially in Denver. He won a Super Bowl. Like he was a STUS All State receiver. No ship, he was a receiver in high school.

Grew into a tight end.

Legit. But I was like, I was gonna bring that up.

I was just bring that up for you.

Oh it's so funny. But no ship. For real. He was a receiver turned tight end and when I got there, he was a d lineman and then he became pot roast. So yeah, man, he did become pot roast.

He's in I think it was like Bridgestone tire commercially is that you said they'll break it?

He has it on his phone. Other thinks about, oh you're talking about this, I haven't have it right here, go ahead.

I was gonna ask where were you at in two thousand and eight?

Two thousand eight, I would have been at Western Carolina University and no, no, no, no no, I was at Temple University as an assistant coach.

Did you get offered by Temple m h. No, neither did die any recruit y'all.

You know, I remember the Panthers offered to fly him in last year, year nine?

Do you remember that? Yes? If if only I would have been there a little longer this year, we could have made something happen.

Yeah.

Yeah, did you think to bring Will confident again?

You know what I I was.

I was running for my life at that point. It was I was two guys ended up bringing in Ravens linebacker. He played at Ravens for a while.

Josh Bines.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys ended up bringing him in. Uh because Perryman got traded?

Yeah?

Yeah, man, I I do have a question. Chat was blowing up a little bit when they saw the wide receiver coach higher. How do you get a wide receiver coach being PC to sell the next guy who wants to be the next Julio Jones in a living room? Him be the coach, Him be the wide receiver coach in that room, correla room mainly of athletes being PC, staying PC. You're a wide receiver coach Higher, I'm assuming we're talking this coach is pale. He's yeah, he's he's

Some people like he's twenty three, twenty fourths. Some people say like why would you know?

Young?

Yes, young too, and like I I think, I think he's probably one of the best football minds I've ever been around. I think I'll be I'll struggle to keep him for three or four years. Like I he could have stayed in the NFL. It's just his loyalty to me that he would even leave the NFL. He he could have stayed for multiple piece. I think he's I think he's gonna be I think he's gonna be brilliant.

I actually go play for this.

At the end of the day, the coach can help you be better, he can, you know what I'm saying, Like if if, like when I went to be the assistant online coach of the Giants.

I'd never I'm not an old lineman.

How could I help?

Well?

I could.

I could break down every move that Geno Atkins had done.

I could go to these guys who are all pros and be like, hey, look I broke down two hundred snaps.

Here's what I got.

I found the way to create value for myself. So to me, the best coaches are the ones who can help you be a good player. And so when you've when you've coached in the NFL and now you come back to college, I just think he's I think he and some of the other guys that hired a young guys, I think they're brilliant. I just I got tired of hiring coaches with big names who didn't really want to

Why are you worried about what I'm doing?

Just let me do it, like like wait three years and then but sometimes you know there's so much interest you're gonna kind of be into it a lot, Like like I believe we're gonna win, and I believe we're gonna win doing it this way. You know, as I go, I'll adapt and learn. And I don't know Nebraska yet. But the smartest thing, hopefully that I can do is is put the right people in the building. And Garrett, I think is telling you I think he's gonna be

What Gary will do. Mhmm. Coach, I appreciate you coming on.

Yeah, you's been fucking awesome for retanding.

I don't think we have anything else say. Subscribe. We hope you love this.

Nebraska dropped the B dropped the GBR. Also the big cop energy in the chat, all that stuff. Coach Rule, You've been phenomenal, phenomenal. Thank you, Big hugs, tiny kisses,