The volume. Hi everybody, and welcome in to either a Sunday Night or a Monday morning podcast. Dave Wantstat was at Bears practice Wednesday, and I can't wait to talk about it. I want to give you a story though, So, as many of you know, last football season, I had Sean Payton joining me four out of five Mondays. He was spectacular and Sean and I got along great on the air off the air dinners discussions. I think he
trusted me. I certainly learned a lot from him, and as the football season approached the Super Bowl near the end, he had asked me, I think I can share this now, Hey, what's my market? What should I be looking at here? He was really interested in Fox. He liked Fox, he liked broadcasting, and he really enjoyed it. He liked living on the beach in Los Angeles. He just loved it. He was all over town. He was really genuinely happy, and he was really committed to it. He really cared
about it. He made calls. He was terrific and may still be someday, but he was really committed and very focused. And then one day he wasn't because the Denver Broncos offered him four and a half to five times more than Fox did. A man is as loyal as his options.
As comedian Chris Rock once said, for those belly aching about USC UCLA, Washington, Oregon leaving the PAC twelve, this is a conference that has continued to drop the ball, hired the wrong people to run the conference, been slow to see stuff about the future of college sports that appears obvious, sometimes stubborn, nose in the air, a little
too precious for their own good. And so the Big Ten is a bigger, broader conference, It's a better conference, smack dab in the middle of the country with that mid Western work ethos. Even though they produce significantly larger revenue than the Pac twelve, they don't have their arrogance. And maybe it's because the Stanford cal Ucla excellence academically, historically,
whatever it is. But the Big Ten is big boy stadiums, sold out stadiums, better TV contracts, more committed financially, more committed fan bases, more committed boosters. That's where you have to go. What in the world has cal ever done for the PAC twelve's football conference? Would you be loyal to that? Why would you be loyal to an Oregon
State Arizona game in corvallis what does it mean? This is a better conference, a better opportunity, and sometimes it's survival of the fittest and survival of the brightest and survival of the future. We're seeing the globalization of economies college football. This is like globalization. And when I hear the belly aching, my takeaway is what are we losing here?
Some regional rivalries. Washington's already said they want to play Washington State, all right, Okay, Oregon will probably continue to play Oregon State. All right, We're not losing a lot here. And I can tell you firsthand that USC has been looking and discussing moving away from the conference for the
last four years and then they finally did it. So you know, when I hear anybody in any industry clamoring for loyalty, my takeaway as ohas, have you ever been offered something that's spectacular a role, a job, a salary, a relocation, an opportunity. It's easy to bang that loyalty drum when nobody's clamoring for your talent, or your team or your business. Life is about opportunities. The four best football programs in the PAC twelve arguably three for sure, Washington, Oregon,
USC and then Utah is better than the UCLA. But sometimes market size matters. They're all going to greener pastors, greener in terms of revenue, in terms of stadium capacity, a commitment. And I hear this too, Well, what about the other sports? What about them? They lose money? College football drives a bus, So you're going to take care of football first. If you're in a family and you paid all the bills, shouldn't you have the greatest say?
You know, when you look at the NCAA March Madness Tournament, CBS foots the bill. They pay for the wedding. If I paid for the wedding, don't I get a say in the seating chart? So if CBS says we're not going to pick what teams get in, but we'd like to say in the second and third round matchups, potentially, why shouldn't they they're paying for the wedding. They just want to say in the seating chart. So I grew up with PAC twelve football, but it has been eroding
for years. It's out of touch, it's too precious, too snooty, and the Big ten's a better product now and going forward. It's not even arguable. He's the former Dolphins head coach, Chicago Bears head coach, Cowboy defensive coordinator, part of the
Super Bowl twenty seven win longtime pit coach. One of Natty is a Miami DC Rose Bowl d line coach for USC analyzing football for NBC Sports in Chicago, the Big Ten Network, six seventy to Score in Chicago and on the thirty third team, which has been really a quickly growing website full of former NFL front office guys and coaches that I really like. It's Dave wanstat. So last time we talked, you said Chicago's a seven eight
win team. You were at practice Wednesday. They've now added a rush end from the Ravens, who was on the market. You were at practice Wednesday. Do you still feel like it's a seven eight win team?
I do. I'm going to say call them.
When you were reading that introduction sounds to me like a guy couldn't hold a.
Job very long anywhere. No. The Bears, Yeah, I was up there. I'll tell you what. They have been fantastic to me. I spent a lot of.
Time I would George McCaskey when I just happened to bump into him. When I got there and I was up with Matt Eberfluss's office. We were talking defense and coverages on the board, and then stood with Ryan Poles most of the practice. So I got a real good feel for not just what they did that day, but kind of the big picture and the vision, and a couple of things jumped at me, you know, because everybody's talking about and this would go for any NFL team,
any college team. I think they everyone's talking about, Well, they got started and the defense, the offense isn't where they're supposed to be, the defense is ahead of them. Well, I've never been on a team at any level where when you start training camp where your defense better be ahead of your offense. If the offense is out there and they're tearing them apart and they're making plays from the get go and the defense is trying to catch up.
That's it doesn't work that way in my opinion.
So I kind of like where the Bears are at right now because defensively they've had some great additions and another year in Mattie Reflus's system everything that goes along with it. So I like where they're at right now from an offense, defense, special teams. The second thing that I looked at was, you know, a lot of players they run four or five in shorts OTAs and then you put the pads on and guess what they become four to eight players. They can't carry the pads. That's
not the case with the Bears. This is a fast, young football team.
And I was.
Impressed on their and not just their energy level, but how quick they were across the field. And the last thing was that I walked out and saying, Wow, you know what, Ryan Pooles, he has a plan and this guy's gone a good job.
If you look at their free.
Agents that they've signed, and you look at the draft fix that they've drafted, you know, this guy has got a plan and he.
Has stayed with it. And you mentioned he.
Just you know, they just added Yanic probably the not just maybe the best edge rusher available now.
But he's twenty nine years old, right.
And that's that's kind of been a foundation platform for the Bears. Every free ation, they didn't talk to anybody that was older than twenty eight years old.
So they're a young football team moving forward.
With a lot of team speed right now, and they get some great competition going, they really do.
You know, it is interesting. The Chase Claypool acquisition got heat. But because Mooney's a smaller athlete, Claypool is a beables like a tight end. I understood it from body. From the body perspective, you just didn't have anybody on your roster like him. So Cole Comet, Robert Tanya, and Chase Claypol those are big bodies downfield Mooney, who I think is a terrific players tiny. I do worry about Claypool
last year he kind of disappeared. Are they worried about him because they gave up a second round pick for him?
Yeah?
They they are, but they aren't. I'll tell you why I call him. He's in his fourth year, he's in a contract year. And you know that's that motivates players. Pressure, peer pressure or money, that's what motivates these professional players.
Let's get you know that that's real.
And so they got Claypool right where they're going to get the best effort that he can possibly give and we're gonna find out what that is. You mentioned Mooney. That was another bright spot. They were talking about Mooney a month ago here in Chicago, maybe being ready for the opener. Hey, I saw him and I was up there in full pass. He got knocked down and got right up off the ground and got back in the huddle.
So he's back. And the DJ Moore and and Comet.
They we know Cole Comet, but you know who might be the sleeper of their free agent signings, Robert Tunyan from Green Bay.
This guy is a player.
They flex him, they flex him out, and from an athletic standpoint, he's not going to be an every don all round player like Comet the physical illness. But you flex him out in the slot like they used to do with Gronk and Tony Gonzalez and get him one on one with the linebacker.
He's gonna win that battle. Yeah, that was a good sign for the Bears. Yeah, it was.
He's also good in the red zone. Smart player. He's a guy that gets open in tight spots. So now I think they're offensive. I think Justin Fields has to post eight or nine wins, has to show improvement. My guess is he does. You know, you coach the Dolphins for years and you know them very well, and it's a they're sort of in the in the league for me because of to his concussions. I just don't know what to make of them. But I did think of this.
So they went and got Mike White a backup, and I thought to myself, generally speaking, even in blowouts, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady Mahomes, stay in the game. I could see Mike McDaniel saying, listen, we're up plus ten points, eight minutes left. We're getting two out of there. What would you do? Because it's not in any other injury, Dave, if he has a concussion, there's going to be so much public and medical pressure and media pressure. You can't
plan for a month. He gets hurt September fourteenth, you can't plan him until October twentieth. How would you manage the Tua concussion situation?
Well, I think you know you're you're right, and it's almost to the point where you know they he went and did the would he do the karate or jiu jitsu or everything?
And then he put on weight.
I like the idea to put on a little bit of weight, okay, because he's a good enough athlete he can carry.
That should give him strength.
But I'll tell you the number one thing that I would tell him, we are not going to try to extend place. I think that's when he you know, it's going to have to be a situation where I dropped back. I see my first read. If I don't like it, maybe get rid of the football. That's what I would be spending time with on tour. You cannot hold the football because everybody talks about, oh, well, they're teaching them how to fall.
When you get hit.
You know what they say, the guy that hits quarterbacks and causes turnovers, it's the guy a quarterback doesn't see, you know.
So I don't buy this stuff at all. Here they come now, I'm going to cradle right, I'm gonna.
Put my head and that doesn't happen that way.
That's unrealistic. So because the guy's hitting them, he never see him coming.
So I would just say, let's prevent holding the ball that I think that's the best answer, and don't over talk about it.
It'll become a mental thing with the kid.
Well, the good news is Shanahan and Mike McDaniel run the same offense, and both those coaches like the ball out of your hands quickly. I mean, Garoppolo had some limitations. Dave, he got that thing. He got rid of that thing fast and accurately, and so you know, Miami's got the vic Fangio. I was told by somebody in the league that they thought Fangio was the best defensive mind in football today after Belichick in kind of Layman's terms, what
makes Fangio tick? Like, what are guys like you? What do you hear about Fangio? He didn't have you know, he didn't get a head coaching break until he was like late sixties. So he's probably not a big personality guy. But people that I talked to in the league just go on and on about his schemes.
Yeah. I've known Vick for thirty years. In fact, when he was up at the Bears as.
A defensive coordinator with Ron, I was up and we spent time together and just reminiscent and so forth, and so I studied him close. I've coached against him, and one thing that he is he is not. You know, he's not a big blitz guy. Okay, so he's he's a guy that's going to put the defense. He's a little bit of the Belichick mentality, what are you doing best? We're gonna take that away, and they do not make mistakes.
When you play against the Vic Fangio defense, you're not gonna see guys running wide open down the field, and you're not gonna see open gaps at the line of scrimmage. I mean, these guys are gonna play hard, and they're gonna play sound, and they're gonna make you out execute them. And I think in today's NFL world where everybody's at all, these offensive guys are geniuses.
They get bored.
Colin, You've heard me say this for years. Don't get bored. Most offensive coordinators get bored. Okay, they got bored. And we talked about the head coach down on McDaniels. He got hired because he was the run coordinator at San Francisco. And they're playing the Buffalo Bills and they got a third team quarterback in there last year, the kid from Kansas State. I'm trying to think of his name, Thomson Skyler Thompson. And they throw the ball twice as much as they run it. If they run the ball in
the fourth quarter, they win that game. I mean, it makes it made no sense to me. So how do you help Tua and how can you help that defense, you know, and I know it's tempting. When you got Tarik Hill, when you got you got ud Waddle, you got a lot of skill talent there.
The tempt is to throw it, throw it through it. But I'll tell you what.
They have to be balanced if they're going to be a serious contender. The Miami Dolphins have to be balanced, in my opinion, and that's going to help the defense, and that's going to really help.
Toa What did you make is somebody with thirty plus years in football of Sean Payton publicly ripping Nathaniel Hackett? Did it catch you off guarden?
Yes, it totally caught me off guard. And I'll tell you what when I was when I was at.
USC, we had Bill Walsh coman once to we we had a pack it was I got it. I guess it was pack eight or pack ten.
I think it was pack eight.
Back then before Arizona schools.
It was I'm dating myself, but he came. We used to have an assistant coach's golf tournament. We always had it at Stanford because they had a nice golf course up there on campus and we would all go up there and we would bring it, and Bill Walsh came in and talk to us and he said, let me tell you, young coach or something. And we were just in our thirties. Just he says, all you guys are
probably going to get fired. He says, Well, it happens to all of us, he says, and when you get fired a couple of rules in coaching, get out of the city as quick as you can.
Don't sit there because everything that.
The fans and media are going to talk about it every day is going to be better all of a sudden. This team is going to be tougher, and this team is going to be smarter. Think about it, he says, it's gonna happen.
Don't You don't want to be reading in here that stuff.
Well, with that being said, that was what disappointed me the most. Is here showing another coach and just respect, and everybody talks about COVID. I don't know what the code and all that I would just say is one man to another in the same profession. Sean, you know what goes into winning a game and winning having a successful season. Your GM is involved, right your quarterback, Russell. I could go right across the board. There's a lot of people involved that the head coach does not necessarily
have control over the circumstances. And it really was disappointing to me because Sean knows better and he came up like all of us did in this profession, and you just don't see that happening, and just because of respect for another guy, and it just disappointed me.
Listen, even the great coaches in this sport get out coached. I mean, go back to you and Jimmy. Did you ever have a game when you and Jimmy and you are the top defensive coordinator in the league and Jimmy was considered the bright young coach. Did you guys ever have a Sunday and you turned to Jimmy and he turned to you and you said, ship, we just got out coachy. I mean, it's I've I've I've talked to coaches about this, like sometimes you come in, Dave and
your game plan doesn't work. Did you ever did you and Jimmy, even when you were building the Cowboys ever have a bad Sunday?
We had, We had a lot of them. That first year. We won one game. I'll tell you a story. We were zero and five or six and we were playing the Kansas City Chiefs, and I'm and Joe Montanders with the Chiefs at the time, and I'm watching the tape and I felt good. I said, boy, we're we felt good. We went out there. I talked Jimmy and I said, hey, I feel so good about this. We're gonna play great defense and shut these guys down. Let's and back then if you gave them the ball, if you deferred, you
lost it. So they got it twice. So you know, the rules were different than now. If you defer now, then you automatically get it the second half.
No, no, no, no. If you get it, you want it. If you give it up, it's over.
We actually went in there and deferred the kickoffs against Marty Schartner and the Kansas City Chiefs, and Joe wantana.
This is how crazy we were. But here's comes the story.
So they take the opening kickoff and get out of the score, don't we don't you know, we get slaughtered.
And they were running a three four defense. And I'm sitting there the next day and I am.
Sick, and I'm watching their film on defense on the other side of the ball, just to see. And I remember calling Jimmy and I said, Jimmy, you know this stuff we did at Miami and Oklahoma State, and I
don't know if this stuff's gonna work. I mean, you know, and I says, you know, maybe we should think about because the Giant said we're in the Super Bowl and they were like a three four team with Belichick, and I says, you know, God, I mean this, I'm root and he says, Dave, I know, here's what he said.
We know our defense.
Better than anybody in the league, and we led college football with this defense. And you've done it, you know it better than anybody. I'm gonna go get players to fit into our defense and just keep coaching them and we're gonna be fine.
And so yeah, it had and sure enough, you know, we get some players.
And when we win the Super Bowl, we were number one in every category and they called our defense the college four three.
But you know what, and that made me think of another point.
You know, we were one in nine and back then most of the head coaches in the NFL.
I mean, you know you could go through them. I mean it was the Marv Levies in the world.
I mentioned Marty Schottenheimer's Oh I can pull out the picture you know it was Bill bar Barcells.
I mean, it was the Joe Gibbs. This was the guys. Okay.
My point is we were terrible, terrible, and I don't ever remember anybody coming out and these guys stink, you know what I mean, they don't have any idea what they're doing. It was the worst coaching job in America. So you know, you know, I mean we were one. We won one game, won one game and didn't and want to buy a field goal because we beat Washington and they run their third team quarterback, so that's the only reason we won.
So might I don't know it that whole thing. Hopefully it's it's over and everybody learned something from it and we move on.
So only twenty five percent of the teams in the NFL that start owing to one make the playoffs. If you start zering two, it's only twelve percent of the teams that make the playoffs. So game one matters in the NFL a lot. Green Bay Chicago is a big game, Dallas, New York Giants. Would you rather go in to game one a little bit of an underdog where you maybe don't have the team, or would you rather go in as a favorite, but you got to target on you
because you're probably a favorite. You have better players because every year in Week one, bad teams don't know they're bad. It's a total danger spot. Jacksonville's going to go into Indianapolis. Coach. They've never seen Anthony Richardson play. Shane Steichen's a brilliant offensive coordinator. Everybody's going to be telling you. Jacksonville's going to roll in the why you couldn't pay me to be Jacksonville. By the way, Philadelphia goes to play Pilichick.
Philadelphia has lost linebackers, new coordinators, nobody. Philadelphia is gonna get praised for three weeks. Take me to some of your game ones where I just think it's because bad teams don't know they're bad yet.
I got a good to him my first game at the Dolphins. Okay, my first game, I mean they everybody's excited. We got an Dan Marino is gone. Okay, picture the fans now.
Everybody.
Everybody's nervous now because it's been Dan for one hundred years, and I take over. I bring in a new staff on offense, a new staff on defense, and Jay Fiedler is our new starting quarterback, and we are going to open up with Mike holgerm and the Seattle seahawksay in Miami and Mike home Grim, you know, and everybody's pulling out. You know, when Mike was at Green Bay and I was at Chicago and they had won Super Bowls. So this is all the buzzs Oh, this is We're zero
and one and we're on our way. So I'm watching this Green Bay tape and we're all studying.
And we're on it. Okay, end of the day. This is a great finish.
We intercept their quarterback about five times, we beat them twenty three nothing, we shut them off.
I'm walking over to.
Shake and Mike and I are buddies, and Mike shakes hands and says, you know what, those plays didn't look the same with our Bret Fahre there, did they. So I mean he Mike's the best, you know, I mean he all Famer, but uh no, I uh yeah, we've had someone.
And then then.
Two or three years later, we got upset by a new franchise team, Houston, when we missed two or three field goals, but we still didn't play good and we were big time favorites.
So I'd rather be the underdog. I really would. And uh, I don't know, I I like you know who I like?
I kind of like uh, I like Houston going to Atlanta and going want to know, I just think.
That I don't know.
I just got a good, good feel about that one.
So Zach Thomas, it was a Hall of Fame weekend and you were around for Zach Thomas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you were around. So he was a fifth round pick. I think something like that. Kind of a short guy is one of the few great linebackers on six feet tall, Dave? How many practices did you know? How long did it take for you a guy that had Hall of famers? I mean you, you and Jimmy are known as excellent
personnel guys. You found Aaron Donald, Shady McCoy, I mean, all these pit panthers that ended up being great pros, that were three star guys. How long was it with Zach Thomas before you identified this is different?
Well?
You know everything that and I think it was talked about this week. Jimmy and may have mentioned that, you know, when they drafted him, and the reason that they drafted him was because they knew that he would make a lot of plays.
You know. It wasn't his high height, it wasn't his speed, and so it didn't take long. I mean, you know, all you had to do was put the film on and the guy, I.
Don't know how he did it. He was a three don linebacker. I mean he would cover you know, slot guys on the slot and running backs and tight ends. But he was such a student of the game. There were several nights, several nights that the coaches would be up there and meet and it'd be ninth thirty ten o'clocked up players under the building. It would be dark, and all of a sudden there'd be a knock at the coach door and it'd be Zach.
He'd say, coach, you got him inute, I'd say.
He says, you know, boy, I'm watching that tape of the Jets, and when they get in that formation that's going to that could really box us something about our scheme on defense. And we would talk about it. I mean, so the guy was probably the best student of the game. And when you watch them play, his big thing was everybody talked about how quick he got on the move and whether it was run or past the guy. We all say, hey, linebackers make mistakes. The great ones don't
make two. Zach very seldom made one mistake. He had that offensive line and formations and motions.
He had it all memorized. He was a true quarterback on the field.
Yeah, Jimmy's talked about he had one of the highest IQs of any player he's ever had. You know, it's interesting when you take a look at all the great players you've had, it is remarkable how many were overlooked. How many were three star players. You had to see something with Aaron Donald, a Zach Thomas, you have to see something.
You know who?
I did?
You know who? I didn't have to see much. And I had Darrel reebas At Pitt and.
Well he was a big recruit.
Yeah, but he scored four different ways in his high school championship game at Aliquippa. And think of he intercepted a pass, he caught a pass, he ran a pump back, he ran scored four different ways in the championship game.
I mean, so he's the other extreme.
Right when you recruited him a new instantly he was just fantastic.
Well, I actually didn't recruit him, but I coached him until he graduated until he went to approach.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
You know a lot about the Pittsburgh Steelers you coached collegiately there, you know, Mike Tomlin, Well, they are old school. They pay a lot of money for their defense, not nearly as much on offense. And you told me one time that they've always been a bit reluctant to draft pit kids because if they had to cut them, you know, they just didn't want that stigma in the city. Well, they draft Kenny Pickett. I thought by the end of the year, I thought he's a little bit of a gamer.
You know.
It's like he's athletic, not a hyper athletic, but athletic enough to get out of trouble. I think he's got good, solid arm strength, not big Ben, but he can he can sling it. What do they think in the building, because I don't think he's a game manager, right, I do think he's a little bit of a cowboy. He's willing to sling it. You can tell he's comfortable off script. What do you think they what Mike Tomlin and that coaching staff thinks of Kenny Pickett heading into year two.
Well, I can tell you in fact, I talked to a guy this morning. They opened up the stadium. This is up at Saint Vincience into Latrobe where they go for training. Him had four over fourteen thousand people last night for a practice and they had to shut it down. Fourteen thousand in that stadium. Okay, So there is an excitement for this team that's that they haven't had in years, in my opinion, And I think it all starts with Kenny Pickett. We got to go back to last year.
You and I talked about this a year ago. He was thirteen. I mean, it was Mitch Trubisky with the starters. Rudolph was number two, and then Pickett was number three. So he really would and you know how many reps you did?
Not many.
And he's had the whole off season and him and Pickens was there, the young receiver from Tennessee and Friarmuth was there, the young tight end from Penn State. So he's kind of got his guys around him now. And I'll tell you what I expect the guy. He's just such a winner and such a competitor that the guy, maybe his arm strength isn't Ben Roethlisberger, but I think the guy is probably more athletic, you know, and he's played in more big games at this point than Ben did.
You know coming out of college, Ben, you know, did not play at the level that Kenny Pickett did for four years, you know, against Division one scos and beat some really good opponents. So I think all that stuff is part of him. And he's very confident. And I'll tell you that's a lot of excitement. Like I said, I talked to a guy this morning and they're they're expecting championship. This is not Pickett's good enough to get to the playoffs as role as we play good defensive
running the ball. No, they see Kenny Pickett as a super Bowl type quarterback for the Wow.
Yeah, well, you know when I watched him late in the game, I always think one of the things I always watch is I think the different with quarterbacks in this league is can you play trailing? Can you play from behind because the other team knows you're throwing. And you know, I always said this about Baker Mayfield. Baker was a different quarterback leading and trailing. When he was trailing, you could see all his limitations. He rushed uff, he
couldn't handle the pressure. He's smaller, I watched Kenny Pickett in the end of this year trailing a couple times. I thought he looked really good. I thought he looked completely poised. You know, let's be honest. Playing for the Steelers, I would be nervous. That's not the Jaguars. You know that that's a big responsibility in that town. And I thought the last couple of games of the year, there were a couple of moments I thought, he's not intimidated
by this at all. He looks the part. And I think, Dave, I think all those college starts, you know, brought purty. He started for four years that Iowa State. That's a lot of big games, you know. Parcels used to say, if he didn't have, wasn't it like twenty five starts, he wouldn't take you right.
Yeah, no, there's no question. And Pickett.
I remember I was doing the colleague stuff for Fox and they had the last game of the season against Miami.
I was up at.
Michigan and ivor at Michigan versus Hot of State, and I was following the pit game on my phone and they said Kenny Pickett, a freshman's coming in and playing and he played good. So I mean, I bring that up just to make the point that this guy's got a lot of extent. He got the extra year because of COVID and he took it. He had his degree. He could have gone to the NFL, and he chose to stay one more year a pit just to try to better himself, and it worked in his favor.
Finally, I'm loyal to my family, my friends, and my wife, but I don't believe in sports loyalty. And the Big Ten is a revenue monster. Bigger stadiums, always full, great coaching, great publicity. I understand Washington, Oregon, USC, UCLA. Listen. I told a friend this weekend. He's a PAC twelve. Guy said, all you need to do is watch USC play Wisconsin and Camp Randall and watch Michigan go to Motlake and play the Huskies on a Saturday. You won't care about loyalty.
You know, like, this looks like a big conference. I love it. Now you're in Big ten country out west. People are freaking out in the Midwest. What are they saying about including four Western teams to their conference.
There's a little bit of who's going to have to play, you know, at eleven and twelve o'clock at night and travel. But you know what, I think there's more conversation about the other sports other than football.
And I'm doing Big Ten shows, as you know what you mentioned. I do one a week. So I talked to those people and Tony Pettiti.
You know Kevin Warren who was the commissioner left and is now the president of the Bears. Everybody knows that. Well, they just hired Tony Pettiti. Tony PETTITTI was the guy that was the MLB network when they started. He was the guy that was involved when March Madness started with CBS or whoever it was NBC. So he's got a great background. The thing that surprises me, called, I don't know about you, how fast this happened.
I know, you know what I mean.
No one can usually make a decision about anything, and for five years and this went boom. And then when you look at it and talking to people the Big Ten, they're interested in yes, in football, let's be in basketball. But the total program, what did they bring? And I was looking it up yesterday. You know, when you look at the top academic schools, obviously in the Pac twelve, you know you got Stanford in cal I mean, they're off the charts. They're like Ivy League schools. But then
you got UCLA USC and Washington. I mean, Washington is a great academic school.
You know. And Oregon.
There's ten teams that won seventy percent of their basketball and football games combined, okay over the last I think with five or ten years.
Oregon is one of those teams.
And then you get Oregon to come in, and you're bringing Phil Knight in and you're bringing the Nike.
Brand to the Big Ten. That is huge.
And you know, I don't know how it's all gonna shake out, you know, how they're gonna divide this thing up, but.
It will make it exciting. I'll tell you what they have to do, though, call it.
I think everybody better start playing the same amount of Division one games, you know, and this is this is going You cannot have one conference playing nine and one playing eight and the other ones plays ten.
I mean that's just not right.
I mean, unfortunately, for the smaller schools, this thing is going to one or two major conferences.
Just like the NFL is.
They're gonna they should divide that. They want to make it easy. Just divide your country just go west right, just like the NFL. You know, you know, take it west, take it central, take it, take you eat. How are you want to cut it up into fours? And I think that's what we're going to down the road, I really really do.
Yeah.
I think it's going to be more like college basketball, where a twelve team playoff eventually becomes a sixteen team playoff in the next five years. There's going to be so much money in it, and all those Oregon states or the NC states that feel left behind, they'll be able to get into the tournament in those final four
slots in the end, Dave. The way I sort of look at all this stuff is the SEC is going to add Clemson and Florida State in ten minutes if you can sit on your hands if you're the Big Ten. But Washington and USC and Oregon are elite Top fifteen programs and SEC's not slowing down.
So I ULA's won more championships in the entire Big Ten Conference together total sport. No, if you look at all the Olympic sports and everything with ULA they have I was I read.
I don't think I'm wrong that they have.
More championships in all sports than the whole conference.
So I mean that.
And they're great academic school. So that's a real plus for the Big Ten Conference, no question.
Yeah, it's just I can't wait for some of the games. I think it's going to be fantastic. And frankly, the SEC by adding Texas Oklahoma increases their Texas recruiting. This is going to increase Big Ten recruiting out West Purdue Iowa, they don't bring out, they don't get Western kids. Now you're going to take trips out there. You're going to take that coaching staff out there on a Wednesday Thursday,
visit a high school practice or two. Watch all these schools in the Big Ten start adding California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada kids.
You know what, that's a great point because I talked to the coaches at Indiana a lot and and Purdue, and you know it's tough for them, excuse me to go east into Ohio and try to get players, you know, with Ohio State and Penn State there. So this will truly give them a chance to work the other direction and get some talent because some of these states just don't have enough players in it.
You know. And so there's no question that.
And as I said in the very beginning, the only vibe that I get here in the Midwest in Chicago is is the other sports.
But there's the trade off.
So if you're a coach at a minor sport, but all of a sudden, your budget's gonna get increased, you know, Okay, we got to travel.
It's part of the deal.
You're gonna get nicer uniforms, and you're gonna get more food, and you're gonna get better facility.
So that's that's the trade off at the end of the day.
Dave Wantstat Big ten Network, former Bear Dolphin coach, Natty All a defensive coordinator, Super Bowl coach at Pitt Great talking to you.
OLA's coach. Okay, Calin talk to everybody. Be safe bybe
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