Haverballers. Do you have big plans for the new year, why not check out squarespace. They make it easy to turn your idea into a unique website where you can showcase your work, your blog, publish all your content, even sell products and services of all kinds. In just a few easy clicks, you can customize everything from the look, to the field, to the settings and the products using beautiful templates created by world class designers. Nothing to install,
patch or upgrade ever. Right now, head out to squarespace dot com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code solid sol id and save ten percent off your first purchase of a website or domain. Welcome to the solid verbal. Coll that for me, I'm a man, I'm for it. I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? To stay? Is that? Whoo? Whoo? And them and tie, Welcome back to the solid verbal
Boys and girls. My name is still Ty hilden Brandt. His name is still Dan Rubinstein. He's still over there in New York City, Sir, how are you?
I'm pretty good, Ty, I'm pretty good. We haven't done a show in two weeks because we put up our live show from Atlanta last week.
Correct that that is correct. We have not actually convened to record in our normal capacity since I contracted what I would describe as the black Death and tried to do a show on the Tuesday following the National Championship. This is true.
And I don't get to talk into a microphone that much anymore, tie, So I really do miss you and I missed doing this, So we're going to ramp up from here on out.
How does that sound? It sounds good? And you actually you have me in rare form today? Full disquote? Do I you have me in rare form today? I got at home a little bit later than usual from the mysterious day job, so I am dressed in full business casual regalia. Ooh, normally it's just something comfy, so you could go to say a cocktail party right now. No worries, no worries whatsoever. And actually I'm got perfect segue there, Thank you for that. Oh, no problem, full business casual regalia.
And I popped open the fridge when I got home. And I don't usually do this on a on a recording night, certainly not on a school night. But there was one tie one singular bottle of wire bocker. Last Chance IPA just staring back at me, looking lonely in the fridge. Are you sepping? I'm sipping down, oh little Last Chance IPA here on my lips. Yeah, all right, I am not. I am in a soundproof, very small room. Just I stand up now, by the way, I don't
know if you stand when you do the show. I've never actually gotten an office chair from my studio, so I'm still sitting on like a collapsible stool. Okay, soa ask you a question, please please? What are we doing today? What's the plan? Skip? That's a hell of a question, man, Like you said, we did our live show. We ran our live show from Atlanta, which I hope everybody enjoyed. I hope that gets everybody juiced up for our next live show wherever that may be. Details forthcoming in the
next couple months, for sure. But we've got a bunch of news items that have accrued since we last had a chance to record, and when we talked about the National Championship. We've also got our Fantasy Things recap ahead of us. Yes, so the live show that we did before this last live show in Atlanta was up in New York City at Hill Country Barbecue, where we did
a live draft of our twenty seventeen Fantasy Things. Well, thankfully, because the Internet is a wonderful place, and because we've got a subreddit, we've got fans who care about this thing as much as we do. We have an official scorecard of how we did on the Fantasy Things draft, and we're going to go through each of our items and discuss them a little bit and recap just what transpired. The other thing we're going to do towards the end of this show because it is National Compliment Day. Are
you aware of this? No, not at all. It is National Compliment Day here on the Solid Verbal and we are laid on the draw as we always are in giving out T shirts as part of that contest that we trotted out at the end of November. Certainly, so, we read through each and every story that was submitted to us, and we're going to pick out a couple winners a little bit later on in the program.
Relieved to hear it, ty because we did get a ton because people, you know, really seem to appreciate the show, appreciate.
Hundreds upon hundreds of submissions came in and I took the time. I know you did too. We read through each and every one of them. I've got a big Google document that I shared with you before the show, which we're going to go through and we're gonna talk at length about what we liked and who we think some of the winners might be. So thank you for all your submissions.
We appreciate it all right, So can we catch up real quick since we haven't really two weeks ago we talked about the National Championship Game.
Before that we were talking were.
Previewing National Championship Game and reviewing Bowl games.
So before we get into all the news that we missed, Dan, we do need to give a shout out to our friends over at squarespace who are supporting this episode of the Verbal. You know, look, maybe you're looking to start up a new business, or maybe you've got a wedding website that you want to build, or maybe you've got a portfolio that you need to get out there in the Internet oh sphere. The future is here, the future is coming. You can make it brighter with our friends
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I think it's time we catch up and do you. I don't even know if you have the soundboard I have.
I have the sound Dan. I think what you're saying is we have. Yeah, man, a lot going down here in the college football world. Where do we want to start? All right, Let's start with very very very old news.
And that is after a pretty quick search. After Arizona let go of Rich Rodriguez, their head coach and solid verbal guest, amidst investigations that cleared him, but still there's ongoing lawsuits over misconduct that is alleged by a former assistant, Arizona decided to move on, and this of course is a new ad. After Greg Burn left the Arizona job to go to Alabama, so fresh start for Arizona football.
They hire Kevin Sumlin, who of course was let go from Texas A and M after some drama involving a ken Nea Modelolo interview in Khalil Tate saying you didn't come to Arizona to run the triple option, which I think was not a great outlook on it. But whatever, Kevin Sumlin is your new Arizona Wildcat football coach. Okay, and I saw that he's got Marcel Yeates keeping defensive coordinator still at defensive coordinat offensive coordinator I think remains a little bit up in the air.
There are rumors about Cale Gundy, who has helped to run Oklahoma's offense these past couple of years with Lincoln Riley and before him, Bob Stoops, of course, and Oklahoma is making moves of their own. I believe Shane Biemer is coming over to be an offensive assistant who helped to run special teams for Georgia. So certainly, Kevin someone comes into a PAC twelve South that I think is I would say vulnerable.
Is that fair? Yeah? Well, Herm Edwards we could talk about Herm Edwards later. Yeah. A lot of turnover. Look, USC is losing their quarterback Sam Darnold and a lot of players leaving early on body players leaving early. We've got turnover at ASU, We've got turnover at UCLA. I think to bring Kevin someone in is a good move given the fact that this happened relatively late in the process. I've always liked Kevin someone. I hope he succeeds at Arizona.
I don't know if he is demonstrably better or worse than Rich Rodriguez based on what we saw given his tenure similarities certainly at Texas A and M. But he is a hot name in the coaching world who we know can put up some points. So that'll at least at a minimum be fun.
Yeah, And the connection is being drawn between Cleil Tate and Johnny Menzel, which I don't think is fully fair to either player because of different situations and you know the fact that there were different assistant coaches and different teams on their schedules. The fact is both Kevin Somlin and Rich Rodriguez have helped to develop transcendent dual threat
quarterbacks at least at times at various places. You know, case Keenum was somebody that Kevin someone had a great deal of success with a Houston throwing the ball, and Johnny Manzel and his dual way and Texas A and M eventually became a pretty substantial running team. So interesting to see what happens because Arizona schedule is pretty good not much, you know. I know they have a Houston team that's going through some changes in the non conference
part of the schedule. Well, yeah, as you mentioned, a lot of turnover in the South with ASU and UCLA and USC. Colorado certainly does not look to be necessarily on the upswing after a good year a couple of years ago. So it's a good time right now to be Arizona. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens there, I suppose, And this is all sort of tie as you know, in the much broader picture of the final signing day is I believe two weeks from.
Today signing Day part duh, correct, Yeah, this is a thing. Now. We did a signing day show a couple weeks ago during Signing Day Round one. Now there will be a signing Day Round two. I mentioned Herm Edwards. Herm Edwards talked a little bit about the process. There are a lot of coaches out there talking about this new sort of cycle, if you will. I saw some things being written about how now the term best available has really
bubbled up in the college football recruiting world. If you need a guy at a certain position, or if there is an area on your roster where you need to try and add some depth. Best available ie guys who didn't sign the first time around, is now something you're going to hear a little bit more of in college football.
Yeah, and with the new signing period, there are players who have locked into places where head coaches have since been let go or have since on their own volition, decided to leave their schools, and yet they are locked in early not necessarily the best situation position coaches, coordinators. Obviously, we saw all of the techs A and M offering the world to Dave Randa at LSU. He decides to say, at LSU for a ridiculous and deserved because he was
able to negotiate it and had all the leverage. I think he's he's got a two and a half million dollars a year contract for your deal for ten million.
Also the governor of Louisiana. We're still waiting to confirm that, but.
It's the governor of Louisiana that's part of it. Maybe a lieutenant governor. Sure, Mike Alco goes from Notre Dame to College Station, tex A and M and Jimbo hire him away. And so we have all these moving pieces, and some players are locked in, some are waiting to see where everything falls by early February. But to me, the most interesting thing year over year, since it's generally seems that the strongest, sort of legacy type programs tend to do
the best during recruiting cycles. This year, you know, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, you know, Miami, Penn State, you know, all doing very very well. The most interesting thing to me is new coaches that come in and have six weeks, eight, nine weeks whatever to keep a class together and add pieces to the class, be it from the place they were last at or just scrambling to sort of fill out
the class of talent. Both that and so this year, you know it's you know, Willy Taggart at Florida State and Mario christobal Is, Scott Frost, Chad Morris, Joe moorehead you know all over the country. There are sort of big stories like that, Kevin someone, as we mentioned herm Edwards. There's there are huge stories like that. I'm also super interested in the first full cycle coaches when they actually have a chance, because there are some intriguing stories from
guys that had the full opportunity. Now to go through a cycle and to see how they can actually recruit when given a year or a year and a half or whatever the case.
So those to me are the you know, PJ.
Flack, for instance, is a very good, very very good class, all things considered, a Minnesota. So those are the kinds of stories I like paying attention to. They're a little bit more exciting to me than you know, is Georgia going to close with the biggest class in the country.
Yeah, I'm interested just from the standpoint and you know, you know my stance on recruiting. Yeah, I've never been the biggest fan of recruiting. You have tonowledge it. It is the lifeblood of college football. I've never been such that I'm really jazzed up to go and follow what an eighteen year old is thinking.
It's eight by the way, twenty eighteen fantasy thing. Recruiting is the lifeblood, right of course.
Yeah, but this is different, and because it's different, that makes it more interesting to me. I concur with you. I'm interested in seeing how these first couple cycles really play themselves out. I find myself paying a little bit closer attention to what's going on on the recruiting trail.
We will, by the way, be doing another Signing Day show to kind of conclude what's going on in the recruiting world, and that's coming up in what two weeks I guessks two weeks from today I believe is Signing Day, official Signing Day or late sign Day, whatever they're calling it this year. Okay, so stay tuned for more information on that front. You did talk about guys who are
locked in. Obviously there's a lot of coaching turnover going on around college football, which now leads into new transfer rules.
So nothing is official yet. This is what's being proposed. These are the sort of the idea is to give players a little bit more freedom in the way that coaches have freedom to just up and leave to better their own situation, in which you can't. You know, we live in a capitalist society. You know, if you want to pursue a job that you consider be better for you and your family, you have that freedom. And so now we're looking at players having a little bit more
of that freedom. You know, if they go somewhere and they really don't like it and the situation changes and a coach leaves or whatever the case, you know, they have a sick family, whatever, that they can go transfer back or transfer to a better situation, could be to a lower situation. It could be very clear that they're not going to be getting a starting job anytime soon, or they get injured and they want to be close to home.
Whatever.
There are all sorts of reasons to transfer that are I think are pretty life legitimate. So the idea and the proposed rule I believe is you can transfer without sitting out. I think you can only transfer without sitting out once. We still have the grad transfer idea. Obviously, people who look at NCAA rules and the freedoms that players don't have now, I think like both of us
look at this as a positive thing more than negative. Yeah, and sure, coaches now are crazy concerned that they're going to have to recruit now twice as much because they have to recruit transfers and sort of recruit their own players to stay in a weird way, and everybody is sort of terrified of having dramatic roster turnover, perhaps in other sports like basketball where you don't have really big
rosters to play around with, more so than football. But that is sort of an ongoing story, which how do you feel generally, is.
There anybody out there who's a college football fan who is dramatically opposed to this idea of not having to sit out.
Yes, the idea is you should be more loyal. This is college sports, this is you know.
Okay. The counterpoint coaches can leave on a moment's notice.
Right, right, right right, And I think there's very few people who acknowledge having a problem when it's put into like that sort of dichotomy. But the worry, the slippery slope type people who already kind of soft and worry about everything, say, well, then it's just becomes pro sports. The idea is you're there for three or four years, and it's that we have free agency, and that takes away the allure of amateurs.
I was once told by a D one or a couple D one athletes, I should say that there are very few, if any Division I college athletes who go to play football who don't think when they sign on with the school that they're going to play in the NFL someday. Right. And that's not to say the only reason they go to school is to play football, but the larger point is that they all think they can
play in the NFL. Sure, so you know the ability to transfer to get playing time, the ability to transfer out of a situation be it a coaching situation or otherwise that a player doesn't deem palatable for them. I'm okay with that. Please email us, tweet us, let us know your thoughts on it. I'd be very interested to get some other feedback on this.
But you discover the weather in South Bend isn't what it was in May when you visit it. Listen, I'm right there with that sentiment because I did visit Eugene, Oregon when it was beautiful out, and I was it was a rude awakening come early January when I returned from winter break.
Not my favorite moment, all right. So we'll have to pay attention to transfer rules and where that ends up, settling a few other odds and ends here before we jump into fantasy things. Yes, on that topic, there have been some quarterback transfers. There have been some graduate transfers of note, correct.
Yeah, announcements more than anything, and there hasn't been you know, Brady White from Arizona States going over to Memphis, which feels like a good fit. He was behind Blake Barnett and Manny Wilkins. Keller Christ also from the Pac twelve, who started a bunch of games and was only good against Oregon by the way.
Wow, he was very bad. Funny how that works right against everybody but the vaunted Oregon d defense of these past couple of years. Now, But you know Wilton Spate who is from Virginia but obviously has been at Mischion in these past few years. He is a grad transfer and that was announced a while ago. Donovan Tate from Arizona with Khalil Tate succeeding. We'll see what happens with
Brandon Dawkins. It's presumed that Joe Burrow at Ohio State won't necessarily be winning the job in Columbus, so he could be I don't think anything's official with that.
He could be a name. kJ Cart of Samuels, who has been Jake Browning's backup, is going to UCLA as a grad transfer, so that at least gives Chip Kelly some depth after Josh Rosen has left for the NFL all over the place. It seems like I'm trying to think of other situations, but there seems Jacob Park at Iowa State. Obviously, he lost the job after some off field stuff made sort of everything pretty easy for Kyle Kemp to come in and succeed. Quinton Dormandy at Tennessee
decided to transfer. Jeff George June year at Illinois. I'm really, I'm really going down here with this. But my final one is Montgomery Van gorder.
Ty, Yeah, going to Youngstown State going to Youngstoe.
I did see that, yes, So I assume more of these situations will start happening after springball, when depth charts become a little bit more clear. But yeah, it's there. Seems to be a lot in the way of transfers. And on a similar but also drastically different note, Clemson's entire defensive line decided to stay.
Yeah, and I was I was going to go there next with it. So I've got in front of me the list on nfl dot Com underclassmen who have declared for the NFL Draft, now the official final list. I think, in the interest of time, we might be best suited to read off the notable players who intend to return to school, as opposed to going through all the players who have declared, because it is a long list of
stars that have declared to go to the NFL. But as you mentioned, Christian Wilkins staying, Austin Bryant staying Cleveland, Ferrell staying. Also on the offensive side of the football for Clemson, Mitch Hyatt, they're big tackle he is staying. That is very significant for the coming twenty eighteen ACC season.
Yeah, I mean there is there's an argument to be made. I mean, Damien Harris I believe is returning to Alabama, So that's a huge piece for that offense with we presume to attack of Bloa under center. But I would not be surprised if both quarterbacks once again saw time. Josh Adams declared early correct, Josh Adams is gone. Yes, a number of the front on Ohio State's defense gone, and deservedly so. They you know, there's not much left to prove for a lot of those buck guys, Taekwon Lewis,
Sam Hubbard, a lot of those guys very good. Deon Kane did leave Clemson, so offensively, there is some turnover for Clemson. He was what appeared to be their best receiver. Tremaine Edmonds, I think looks like be a top I forget which Edmonds, either Terrell or true. I think it's is supposed to be like a top ten type pick in the upcoming draft, so that seemed like a no brainer.
Darius Guice, if you want to read any of these any of this list that's in front of you, and this is just a very specific request because the Eagles are in the Super Bowl. Anybody could read a list. Do you want to do it in like a Philly accent?
For me, I can't do a great Philly accent other than what I would just do normally. So if there are any Marios on this list, let me know. I'd be happy to read their names.
I can't believe I have to start suffering through marios every week and talking about Oregon football.
Yeah, that's there, you go, the karma or the karma involved. Well. So, Bryce love another name, Yeah, has decided to stick around at Stanford, which calls some people off guard. I was one of them. Yeah you too, absolutely, especially at the running back position where you can see your career flash before your eyes very quickly, and coming off an injury filled season. Yeah, Bryce loves sticking around at Stanford, so
good for him. I hope it works out. David Sills is going to stick around at West Virginia as is Will Greer. Mm hmmm. His quarter was just clear to start throwing, so good for him. Miles Gaskin sticking around at Washington, Ryan Finley, who else, Drew Locke, Clayton Thorson, Jared Stidham, Cam Smith at USC the middle linebacker sticking around.
So some big names that are sticking around. Far greater number of big names have declared early for the draft, and again we won't go through all of them, but we will talk more about that. I'm sure as we get closer to the NFL Draft we can break down some of these guys that are going pro.
Yeah, no, there there's I mean a lot of the names are your household names that have decided to turn pro. Not a ton of surprises. I did appreciate. I think Eddie Pinero the kicker, Yes, Florida their best offensive player has declared.
I always enjoy that. So yeah, a lot of I mean, Tanner Lee lighting up? Where is he lighting it up?
So there's that hope he wins a thousand games and makes a pajillion dollars in the NFL.
All right, give me a quick thirty second recap of what's going on. In the assistant coaching world beyond twenty four year old Charlie Weis junior being Lane Kiffin's new offensive coordinator at FAU. Oh, that's my favorite thing, though. We are going to get a lot of mileage out of that one.
Yeah, let's see. So, I mean we talked about the I mean the Charlie Weis. Did you read the thing? I think it was Matt Hayes wrote something from bleacher Report today and I enjoyed.
I thought it was a good piece. He said.
He interviewed Gil Brandt, the old personnel guy who worked all over the NFL. He's like, I've I've come across too. This is my harried and grizzled NFL personnel voice. I've come across two people. I was positive we're going to be huge successes as coaches. Bill Belichick and Charlie weisst junior. Wow, Okay, yeah, and listen, what do we love more than like a wounderkin? Like, we love talking to Chris Brown smart football. We like guys is that you know, are super smart and love
nerding out about football. And we hope he is a huge success. He will be two years older than some of his players here.
Here's what we're gonna do. Yeah, we are going to send an interview request for Charlie Weis, junior to Fau. Okay, I'm going to do that about this show. I'm going to figure out how who I can email about that after this show, and we're going to see if we can bring him on because we've got a bit of a track record of interviewing some of these wonderkin coaches.
Okay, so across college football, a lot of schools have made moves. LSU kept, Dave Randa lost Matt Canada, who I guess they sort of mutually agreed to part ways. Matt Canada after a year is now going to Maryland to be dj Diurkins offensive coach. They promote Steve Ensminger. Is that how you pronounced?
Sure it is? Now? That sounds right to me.
He was at Orgeron's interim offensive coordinator a couple of years ago. I think LSU fans were sort of deflated by that promotion. They had hoped for something a little bit more creative and splashy.
But you know, we'll see what happens.
The LSU offense certainly got better when he took control A couple of years ago. Herb Hand moves from being the Auburn offensive line coach our pal Herband the offensive line yes and co offensive coordinator I believe with Tim Beck, so maybe a little bit more creative. Who knows. With Herb's background and spread offenses. Ucla completed their staff. Jerry Asinaro should be a very good defensive coordinator for them. Peter Sermon moves on from Louisville. He's going to cal
to be an associate head coach with that staff. And Justin Wilcox I think they played together at Oregon. Ryan Day decided to stay at Ohio State and we'll be calling plays even with Kevin Wilson there. Who what other huge moves am I forgetting ty Joe Morehead together his staff? John Chavis to Arkansas I think is still a pretty
good move, but we'll see what happens. Jeremy Pruitt hired Tyson Helton away from USC who was in charge of I think the passing game for the Trojan Alex Grinch, who was very good and creative for a secretly decent Washington State. Secretly very good. He's a mean one, very creative, I think defensive football mind. He moves from Washington State to Ohio State, joining that staff Florida State. Willie Taggart hired Marked Antonio's co defensive coordinator who's been around in
East Lansing for a long long time. I think that's a pretty good move. Kind of weird. Derek Dooley to Miszoo.
Derek Zoo, very very strange. You know.
The report too, was well, a lot of guys that Missoo interviewed didn't want to sign the contract that was offered because of a number of stipulations that were in the deal. Great Derek Dooley sign that contract. That was the report.
Well, we'll we'll keep tabs on what else is getting on and we'll talk about it on future shows. The only other thing that we'd be remiss if we did not mention some horrible news coming out of Washington State with the news that Tyler Helenski committed suicide. We saw that Luke fall. We'll be wearing Helensky's number three sure at the Senior Bowl. Obviously a tragic thing, an emotional thing for everyone up there at Washington State. We hope
they're able to heal from this. But a bit of a shock in the world of college football, and certainly thoughts and prayers go out to the Helenski family. Just a tragedy, horrible thing.
Yeah, always incredibly devastating anytime this happens, especially to a younger person, especially anytime you know that there are people in that person's life who hopefully can help and step in. So just a friendly reminder. I know Spencer Hall wrote about this, but you know, it's an incredibly relatable thing to be feeling just incredibly down and not have control.
Hopefully you can reach out to people and hopefully if you sense that in somebody you're close to, you can be in their lives physically, you know, be present as much as you possibly can. So Ill said, we really yeah, we really hope you know everybody is able to heal.
And and I don't know, just yeah, it was a shock. I saw it. I couldn't believe it, couldn't believe it. It's incredibly awful. All right, Uh, let's make the awkward segue away from news, and certainly away from that tragic news onto something a little bit more lighthearted, and that is our final Fantasy Things scorecards. So for those of you new listeners out there who might have found the show and wondering what is a what's a fantasy thing? Well again, we came up with this concept about what
two three years ago? Yeah, that sounds right. Two three years ago. We decided that instead of picking a fantasy football team, which everyone hopefully is familiar with, you pick a team of football players, an imaginary team of guys, and you get points based on how they perform in real life. We decided that we would put our own little spin on it in a college football since and draft fantasy things, which really amounts to storylines in the
world of college football. We do it before the season starts. Essentially, we're predicting what storylines and things will be hot over the course of the coming college football season. We pick a roster. I'm looking We each had what eight entries here on our teams, and then, for the first time ever, I think we actually had an accurate account of WHU won who lost. In the past. Last year, you and I tried to duke it out and argue about who won. I got accused of so many bullying. Well, you were
a bully item. We were a straight up bully in that show man. I was accused of being a weak beta male. Yeah, it was ugly. Thankfully the reddit the subreddit a gentleman in particular who goes by striker Obi Mike Yes on the social media he so graciously put together a scorecard of how we were doing each and every week on this It was simply a binary scoring system.
If in the span of a given week, one of our storylines was mentioned or or hit or talked about in some way, shape or form, it was one point. Otherwise it was a zero. And over the course of nineteen or twenty weeks he added them all up and Dan Rubinstein, congratulations, you won by a score of seventy nine to seventy one. Oh it feels so good.
Congratulations out TI, thank you, And more than anything more than thanking you, I have to thank a school commercial featuring a lab and dance slash music that those two things had to be in the commercial. I have to thank Sam Darnold's draft stock and or athleticism, and of course a video of fans taking a loss poorly.
Those were my heavy hitters.
Now, a lot of the analysis on the subreddit is that I just sort of rode those heavy hitters to the title.
While I'm looking at the scorecard here and that that would that would bear itself out in the final results.
Yes to them, I would say, you're correct, you are correct. Those were my that was my what's my comparison here? How about a a Larry Walker, Dante Bischett, Andre Scalarraga, three, four or five in my lineup?
Just you can get by with that? You can get by.
And so I had I won with both the highest scoring item and the lowest scoring ie.
You did. So let me go through your team here again. Yeah, you want my squad in draft order at our live show. Correct, let me read these off in the order that you drafted your team. Okay, and you'll find a couple interesting things about this. And I don't want to throw too much cold water on it, but I'm gonna make I'm gonna make a really relevant point here later on. Let's
let's dialogue TI. So your first picks in this order were jos hot takes, the coach argument penalty, which was a new thing this college football season, yep, Lane Kiffen controversies, and monsoon games. Now in total, again, you had seventy nine total points. In total, your first four draft picks only got you twenty four points. It's true. So what I'm seeing here when I look at this is a really strong weight towards the back end of your draft.
You're a young Belichick, You're a young Scott Paoli. Just really focus Art Buford on the later picks, building depth with those selections, but also getting a lot of production, which is the hallmark, of course of any great dynasty. Got a lot of man who Genobli's back there, that's rightymon Green second round pick straints. Now what I'll say about those first picks. The Josh Rosens hot takes thing was fun before the season, didn't really bear itself out
much as the year were on. Josh Rosen got hurt again. Josh Rosens now declared for the NFL. Josh Rosen's hot takes could actually be quite interesting as he moves into the NFL and gets comfortable with whatever team picks him. Well, it's all we're also entering into the interview phase. The interview phase. Sure, that didn't really amount to much for you, only three points in totals correct. The coach argument penalty didn't get a whole lot of traction, but was very
sporadic seven points in total. It was a utility pick. Absolutely. Your other two were lane kiff and controversies, which were fun. I don't know if there was any giant lane kiffing controversy. But seven points in total, consistent seven points over the course of a year not bad, I'll take that.
Yeah, it was a lot of drumming up, a lot of trolling. A lot of it was Twitter related, like when he tweeted out the Kim Jong Un thing. Yeah, at the Tennessee coaching job. And yeah, the rat poison with Alabama rat poison. We talked about live show lane kiff and Wright. He's always a lightning rod for attention.
Definitely had the freedom to be more vocal publicly. The monsoon games, I thought, actually had a really strong gear because we had some weird weather situations. We had two hurricanes that threatened the Gulf Coast in Florida. We had weird lightning delays late in the year, weird downpour situations that in our world qualifies as a monsoon game. Definitely came on real strong throughout the course of the year, probably stronger than we could.
Have anticipated rightfully, so we had cancelations which would have resulted in monsoon games. Have they been played, But since huge storms caused teams schools to rethink plans of putting fans and players and coaches and Harm's way, it did deal me personally the least important part of all this
blow points wise. But yeah, I figured ty changing climate. Yeah, I really figured there was going to be just you know, a random monsoon in La one week, a random downpour you know that had sent water crushing through the ceiling, through the roof at the Carrier Dome. I really thought something like that would happen, but didn't bear a ton of fruit.
From early on, those were your first four picks. Your next four picks are really where you made your hay. That's true. This one in particular, I think among all of the picks before us, was the one that got the most reaction from Harver bawlers. And you came up with this, I did full disclosure. You were able to draft this in the first four rounds. You came up with this, what thirty minutes before we did that show. It was pretty it was the day of it was
not right before. But yeah, the school commercials featuring a lab and.
Dance music, not well dance slash music, so like a science lab. So somebody looking into a microphone or something into a patriotish and a situation in which somebody's on stage playing the cello or involved with ballet or whatever. That there was that a science and performing arts element of the same college commercial.
Eighteen total points. It wasn't your high scorer, but it was close, and it was definitely the most fun. Yeah, of all the things, you just sort of came up with that. And every school has some kind of promotional commercial.
Yeah, I mean they don't have to use both of those things. There are lots of commercials that don't. But the fact is, if you're watching college football all day, there are enough colleges that want to stress. If you're into the sciences, if you're into performing arts, we got you.
We got you covered.
And there were some commercials where there was like a ballet dancer in the lab yep to.
It was very very weird that they would do. I think it was USC I might be wrong, Yeah, we definitely. And this was true of picks for both of our
both of our teams, both of our squads. There were definitely items that were already mainstays rather than unique to the twenty seventeen season, and I don't know if we want to keep that or because you know, in previous years it was specific references to players and predictions and stuff like that, whereas this year, you know, we each have picks that are like, well, this has already existed and will keep existing. Like I know, last year, so twenty or one of the items was who's going to
be this year's Iowa? Right, I don't even think any either one of us drafted it. Right, Yeah, it's correct, but that would have been super specific to twenty seventeen. Of all right, let's take something from twenty sixteen and move it forward, but we went in a slightly different direction. I'm fine with it. Next year a top pick, and I don't know if it'll be the top pick, but to your point, the backup being better than the starter will be a pick next year. Oh god, I can't
wait to hopefully draft that pick. All right. Your other your sixth rounder was Brett Beilahman Fatherhood, which was kind of a dud. That was your lowest scoring You had one point on that, not a whole lot talked about with Brett Bilahma and Fatherhood really screwed me by being very bad at football. Yes, very much. So, yeah, really did your last two picks, though, mm hmm, were the
reason that you won the Fantasy Things contest. Your seventh round pick was Sam Darnold's Draft stock and or Athleticism. And then your last pick, which I believe was announced by our friend Jess Smettana from Espianation, was a video of a fan taking a loss poorly. Now with my final pick, which also did well, and we'll talk about here momentarily, I allowed everballer to come up and actually make that pick for me. Oh yeah, I just let
somebody read it for me. Yeah. What I don't remember is if you picked the video of a fan taking a loss poorly on your own volition, or if you allow Jess to just go up there pick something that she liked, because if you want because of that, I'm gonna have to file a protest. I picked the pick, you did.
I made the pick, and just like you know, Warren Moon doesn't make the pick for the Seahawks when he goes up on stage in the sixth round, Okay, Seahawks still make the pick. So that's the way I went, and your your choice is perfectly valid and it worked out for you.
A video of a fan taking a loss poorly is one of those things that continues in perpetuity, doesn't matter what season it is, certainly not specific to twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen or twenty twenty seven for that matter. You're always gonna have a video of a fan taking a loss poorly. So that did very well for you.
And it should be no surprise that Sam Darnald's draft stock was something that sort of ebbed and flowed throughout the course of the year, just as draft stocks go, but was constantly talked about because Sam Donald was clearly the most interesting player on the USC Trojans football team this year.
Yeah, that's that's fair to say. And by the way, did you see the video of the Georgia fan throwing his TV Yeah for his balcony.
Yeah, no, not a good financial decision.
There. There are some moments where I think to myself, should we be covering this sport? Is it healthy that we're helping the sport stay popular? That was one of those moments. But my god, what are you doing with your life? Let's move over to my team.
Yeah, now I'm biased because I picked them. Yeah, I think my team is more fun than yours.
Yeah, are you going to be like the Matt Lionerd after losing the national championship?
Well, we had the better team. I think I had the better team. Congratulations on that. I think I had the better team. Okay. My number one pick was chip Kelly coaching rumors, which only got six points. It didn't even do as well as Monsoon games or PJ Fleck rowing the boat at Minnesota. What I'm finding here just looking through this, is that our first two rounds quite literally sucked. What I have a problem with So I
can only see week sixteen, seventeen, eighteen nineteen. You didn't receive any points for chip Kelly coaching rumors any of those weeks. I know when, in fact, it seemed like chip Kelly had coaching rumors around that time Florida UCLA, UCLA, Florida, Tennessee not interested. I don't know.
I mean, even if you had all four of those weeks covered though, with chip Kelly, you're not winning. It just seems like that's more of a ten than a six.
That's me. Well, I love'm trying to give you points. We had someone who was gracious enough to keep score. I don't want to throw him under the bus. But true, I do have questions about the methodology, and I do have questions about whether or not I was jipped here of a couple points. Do you think that I had votes bust In from other states? There's a chance you could have. I don't know. You need to file a demo on this. I don't know you're gonna form a
fantasy things draft commission, voting commission, fraud. Okay, good, A softer Brian Kelly. Only seven points.
That's fine for me because that was more much more of a storyline early on in the season, and once as soon as they started winning, it was, oh, Notre Dame's good.
If I told you before the start of the year, whatever you pick any of like we had like thirty five cards that we could pick. Mm hmm. If I told you this card right here is going to get you seven points, you take that, right? I think so? I think so? Yeah? Seven points? A softer Brian Kelly, he was softer. I don't know. I can't talk about Notre Dame yet. I need a few weeks. Okay, we can watch Quentin Nelson clips together, can't We We can do that. Absolutely. Pick number three for me was Mike
Gundy's bullet. Mike Gundy's mullet got me sixteen points. Mike Gundy's bullet sort of has taken on a life of its own. Surprisingly ever since I picked Mike Gundy's hair wine in the very first year of our Fantasy Things draft, My god, the Mike Gundy hair thing, just broadly speaking, has really taken off on its own.
You looked into the Fantasy Things Crystal Ball and thought to yourself, Mike Gundy's follicles. That's where I'm attaching myself. And I would argue, ty, because you know.
One of those things, one of the things that I guess I don't know if it was draft eligible this year, Like coaches dancing, right, we have you know, Dabo Swingey in the locker room. We had Dino Baber's with his like impassioned speech. So we always have like the coach in the locker room video, and this wasn't locker room.
But when Mike Gundy ripped his shirt off, yeah, at the I think it was a wrestling tournament or is a pep rally of some kind with Mason Rudolph there when he ripped his shirt off with that mullet I was like, man, this dude is the mayor of Stillwater. Yeah, he is full of mayoral just like I'm gonna do what I want. And it was great. What a moment. My fourth pick was Tom Rinaldi Tier Jerkers, which you gave me crap for in the moment. Still do you didn't?
You didn't approve of this selection, but it is a part of the college football landscape. True, I'm disappointed it only got six points. Okay, here's what I like about this pick in retrospect. I'm still not a huge fan of it because he's been doing this for like decades, is what it feels like. I like that you didn't word it, and this was I assume pure accident. You didn't word it game Day tier Jerkers, No, you did strictly. Tom Rinaldi's right, and I think it's gene wo Jahowski
is the other one who sort of does those feature tight. Oh, I see what you're saying.
So the fact that you tied yourself to Rinaldi, who obviously we love and treasure, I think hurt you a little bit. I think this could have been like a ten to eleven ish in there. But you're a man of integrity, So you stuck by Ronaldi and didn't in on it, meaning game day even though you didn't say it.
Damn, that's a good point. Okay, Yeah, uh, PJ. Fleck rowing the boat at Minnesota somehow got eight points. I did not see any instances of this throughout the course of the year, So our scorekeeper who put this together, thank you for the eight points. Without them, it would have been a sixteen point gap between Dan and I here,
assuming all your votes are you know, accurate. But this is not something that I expected to do as well as it apparently did, and which is strange because if this were to even get more votes, you would be the first one to know as somebody who meticulously combs through Minnesota Golden Gopher football games.
How can anybody dispute? I mean, you alone are goldiefan number one. But yeah, I think it was all just allusions to like, well, he's brought you know, he had that mantro Western Michigan he's bringing over to Minnesota. But there really wasn't in the same way that Western Michigan received the tension for it. There wasn't that weekly acknowledgment of their mantra. So you know, I thought it was a pretty good pick. I figured it would have gotten you another point or two.
My sixth round selection was Gus Johnson Freakouts thirteen points. As much as staple, I think as your weird school commercials.
It's dependent on game action. That's the thing though. Those commercials with the lab coats and the ballerinas or the cello players, they're gonna air no matter what. Gus Johnson needs a huge moment late or overtime, or some sort of game breaking or backbreaking or clinching moment to really freak out. So I think that is an almost better fantasy thing pick because Gus Johnson could just have a dry spell in twenty eighteen, we don't know.
You don't know. He could do a bunch of blowouts and that did pretty well for you, all right, New Strength coach really paying dividends was round seven pick did not materialize. I hated this pick for you two points throughout the course of the year. They all came in the early stage of the year. I will be adjusting my strategy next year, yeah, hopefully not making picks that are really weighted towards action at the beginning part of the year. Josh Rosen in the Hot Takes is probably
a good example too. That was hot at the start of the year, but as the year goes on, is that something that will remain noteworthy? And in the case of Josh Rosen, at least you had a little bit more of a chance. But the New Strength coach paying dividends is usually something to talk about in the first month of the year, and in hindsight, not so much. Week sixteen that's.
Almost much more of a fall camp with one week two thing, even more so than just the first full month. I was sort of banking on the Josh Rosen thing. We live in a fiery political societal climate right now.
This is true.
Yes, I figured things would bubble up to certain points, and mind you, they most certainly have that Josh rozen would be commenting on them more, which he ultimately did not, so proved me wrong, certainly. But yeah, the New Strength coach is if this were a fall camp fantasy things, ty, yeah, you would be Scrooge McDuck right now, that's what you would be.
But yeah, that one's tough. I already saw that. I think it's Jeremy Prewitt. We'll be running a more aggressive defense with an attacking mentality. I saw an article about that Krsy will be, they all will. There's never anybody who wants to run a passive defense that doesn't just one just one guy, just Bob YAKA, that's it, which I wasn't prove it wrong.
And you know everybody said, no, he's much more of a sit back, read and react. And I know Alabama sort of runs that kind of thing too, But Jeremy Pruitt, coming from Alabama most certainly now for whatever reason, wants to do things differently attacking aggressive mentality, and that'll be. That'll be a good pick if we do fall camp. But man, that's tough.
And then my final pick, and I say my pick with the full acknowledgment that I did not make this pick. I am a man of the people, as you know, Dan, Yeah, I'm the people's host here of this podcast. That's true. I called the gentleman up on stage who poured over the dozens upon dozens of draft cards that we had before us and selected that Michigan State's twenty sixteen was an anomaly. So Michigan State, you might remember twenty sixteen season,
they went three to nine, horrible year. And the talk in twenty sixteen was that, well, yeah, this is just an anomaly. Twenty sixteen, this is an anomaly. Mark D'Antonio, good coach, kind of a rebuilding season for him, even though it wasn't fully rebuilding season, but lost a lot. This is just an anomaly. So my selection in the final round here ended up being that Misschigan State's twenty sixteen was in an omaly. I hated this pick when it was made on my behalf won't behold Michigan State
wins ten games. They do win ten games. Brian Lawurkie ends up being really good. Down to work.
You can make an argument of player of returning quarterbacks that we've already seen place, not incoming freshman or red shirt freshman that haven't played whatever. Brian Leworky is probably in terms of expectations of growth and continued success, top seven quarterback in the country. How easily, it's an incredible
story for that Michigan State offense. And certainly lose they lose some on defense, coaching and player wise, but Michigan's twenty sixteen, and by the way, as soon as you put this out into the universe, as soon as you know the energy came out of Hill Country Barbecue and into the stratosphere. The Michigan Penn State game over. Yeah, that's it, you got a little you put too much goodwill to spar and wow, great bounce back here.
That pick worked out nicely. That got me thirteen points. My top three were Mike Gundy's mullet gush, Johnson freak outs in Michigan State's twenty sixteen being anomaly and You're top three where the video of a fan taking a loss poorly, Sam Darnold's draft stock and then the school commercial featuring someone in a lab coat and some sort of dancing sequence, you know, in the club with music something like that.
Again, just on a stage playing the cello ballet, not talking dance music. How would you adjust your drafting? How would you adjust eligible picks in the future.
I like our picks. I don't have any issue with anything in front of me here.
And well, should we have a commissioner? I think we should Ooh, that feels right for a draft. And I want to say, we have some friends in this city that we're we could do anyway doing the show within.
So I'd like envelopes. I'd like a commissioner.
I'd like for you and I to be in suits, Okay, I'd like, Yeah, I really want to go for it with not prop comedy tie, but I want to make.
It official on a stage. Okay. If we're going to charge people money to come see this tom foolery, we need helmets with uh, you know, phones in them. And what the hell is mel Kiper doing in August? Let's get mel Yeah, okay, I would try to lean into much more custom twenty eighteen things all right, that we're not expect. We're always going to expect tear Jerker, We're always going to expect the college commercial with you know,
performing arts and sciences. Whatever we're going to expect, you know, probably myke gundyes mullet. Could you imagine if he shaves the mullet, like, oh my god, season and it's draftable again. But there are certain expectations where like this has been true of the past two years, the past nine years, the past fifteen years. I kind of want to get away from that. So basically early a wis Vunderkind could be a good pick for twenty.
That's exactly right, yeaheah. Talking about his age and making comparisons to players on the team or to like celebrities who are actually older than Fau's offensive coordinator, having like an ongoing narrative of like, can a group of five team actually ever make the playoff if it stays at four games? That feels very twenty eighteen after you see f twenty seventeen, So I want to I want to lean into that a little bit more.
All right, Well, again, this was fun. We did a live show around the Fantasy Things draft. It lends itself very well to a live event. We will be doing another live event at some point, probably in mid August, in a city to be named, and we will do it up. That will be the plan now moving forward as we get into Fantasy Things again around mid August.
So keep it tuned in here, follow us on social media, follow us on Facebook, and if you haven't already, sign up for the email list where we'll keep everybody up to date with all of our announcements going down here in solid Verboville.
And if anybody knows any good venues in Nakadoches, Texas, yes, please let us know.
All right, on that note, we got one final of business. Let's get to it. One final order of business. As I said at the top of the show, Dan, we had a bunch of folks on our orders, by the way, send in how they listen, where they listen, weird stories about how they found the Solid Verbal podcast. As you know, we did a shirt saale towards the early part of last season, like before the season started, and it wore on a little longer than we wanted. We've got a
bunch of extra shirts here we do. I'm looking at them right now. They're right next to me in my studio. And what we wanted to do was give a couple of those shirts out to people who wrote in with just interesting stories about how they found us and the.
Like, Yeah, how they listen, how they found us, their experience as listeners.
We received hundreds upon hundreds of stories. It was really cool. We read through all of them. Incredibly cool. Did you have a chance to go through and pick out a couple that you that you think are winners? Because I did. There were a lot more farming and livestock listening situations and listen. I had no preconceived notions about how and where people listen. I just assumed people listened. I guess I do have a preconceived notion how I listen to podcasts.
We're just sort of walking around doing stuff around the house or commuting whatever. But I want to say there was a was it a sheep inspector? There was a turkey and a sheep person. Yeah, we're gonna get to that. That I think stood out to me. Kate works on a turkey farm and listens without headphones in the turkey house while she's tending to her fifty two thousand turkeys. So not only is she listening, but the turkeys are listening too. Yeah. I also like the Virginia tack tie
into that absolutely. And then there is a gentleman by the name of Cameron who is the meat inspector in Georgia and listens while doing post mortem inspections on cows, sheeps, and goats.
We had did we have flyers of some kind too, And by that I mean fl y, not fl I.
We have another gentleman by the name of Cameron who shoots lasers at the ground while flying around the helicopter because he works for a mapping company, a cartographer sort of. So okay, Yeah, I went through and there were a lot of people the general consensus here is that people wrote in with where they listen. And by the way, if you did that, that's the one thing that Dan and I have talked about an awful lot when we're
not recording. When you talk to people about a podcast, one of the things that they tell you about, I would say, almost unanimously, is where people listen. It's how they identify to your show. So I want to send a shout out to a bunch of folks here who wrote in and tell us where they listen, the weird places that they listen to, the weird countries that they listen in, the weird continents. I think we're only Antarctica short of being listened to on like pretty much every
place on Earth. So if you've listened in Antarctica, please do right in. But okay, shout out to Chase and Stephen, who are in the military. Yes, Stephan said that he listened while in Afghanistan along with his troops, so thank you, thank you for listening. Joe in the UK listened while on a train between Hungary and Romania. Dan, I love that Big in the Eastern Bloc, John listens to the verbal on the regular. He admitted to having a dream about us while he was on a cruise with his
wife and family. I'm fine with that in the Caribbean, fully comfortable with this. I hope it was a good dream. We had one gentleman who listened while in Santorini, Greece. Did you go there? I went there on my honeymoon.
I was also listening to podcasts in Santorini, Greece, and I will say, TI, sitting and looking at the beautiful just sparkling, I forget what to see. It is the Tarrannian, the Agan whatever see is there and listening to I was listening to basketball podcast because I was listening it was during the NBA Finals. I had a wonderful and relaxing time doing so, so I confirm the glory of this.
We also had another gentleman named Matt on his honeymoon who listened. He was in Italy and he listened while his wife was sick. Uh. Sorry, it's a lousy way to spend a honeymoon. We hope your wife got better
and thank you for listening. I agree. We have Alex, who's a Peace Corps volunteer who listens from rural Paraguay or why however you pronounce it not Why another guy named Alex who listens on the autobon the freaking autobond, Dan, I don't know if I trust myself to listen to a podcast while going whatever however many kilometers No, not at all, the autubond, not at all. I would listen to the Baby Driver soundtrack'sh absolutely yeah. Uh. We are a show about honesty. We had a gentleman admit to
listening while in the bathroom. Thank you, sir for your honesty. Okay, will you?
Will you if you are listening so you commute in a different way. I have earbuds in when I commute because I take the subway home and I'll keep listening as I walk, and when I enter my apartment, I'll keep listening, and sometimes I will have to pee when I arrive home. Yeah, would in that situation? Would you stop if the wire is long enough to stay attached to the phone in the pocket? Would you stop listening to a podcast out of worry of hygiene or sound drowning out.
What you're listening to? Or would you just keep on listening? I feel like you really need to be engrossed in it. If you continue through so you would pause for people, I would probably pause. Yeah, okay, interesting.
I tend to keep listening, though, I will say sometimes I'll take out the headphones and I'll just turn the volume up on the phone speakers and keep listening.
Okay, that works too, Yeah, that works too cool to listen while in the bathroom or wherever. Thank you, sir. Sure okay. Quickly, Clint sent along a picture listening next to a giant sand dune in the Sahara Desert. Thank you, Clint. Damn. We have Neil who pretty much beg borrowed and bribed people in Argentina to get a Wi Fi password so he could download the show. Thank you Neil for your
shout out to Quarantina. Yeah, Derek, Hello Derek. Derek helps run a corn seed company and he listens while he's in the field, Thank you, sir. Great Dean Dean listened while in bed with his wife and he says that they were listening to music. And then we don't know how. I don't know how exactly, but the story goes that the phone fell out of the bed somehow, and skip to our podcast do you listen in bed to podcasts?
With solid wife? Kate there. No, I don't. Do you listen to anything when you go to sleep, like any sort of white noise or you know, we talked about Pizziz on the show. Not not usually? No? Does she not? Usually? No?
So you go to sleep, get silence in the room outside of your humidifier.
Yeah. See.
I will put on a podcast because I do not want to be alone with my thoughts.
Okay, that's probably for the best.
Yeah, So I will put on a podcast, and sometimes I'll you know what I don't. I won't recommend a specific one because it's sort of mean. Baseball podcasts, Oh my god, tie like this sleeping no question, but solid wife, not solid wife Jody with and I. She falls asleep
no matter what, so the podcast don't bother her. But sometimes I'll put on a baseball podcast or whatever sport podcast or whatever topic podcast, and I assume she's going to go to sleep, But then she'll turn to me and be like, what did he say about Anthony Rizzo? I was like, what, I don't know. I'm not paying attention. That's the point. So I'm for podcasts in bed.
Okay, fair enough, Thank you for listening Ross listening to the Bahamas, he encountered a native Bohemian who was a Georgia Finn and told him about our show. Thank you for listening. Ross. Shout out to Eric and his sons Cooper and Leyden they listened in the car ride to and from school. Shout out to Matt from Allentown. Shout out to Todd who doesn't say anything other than that he's just a Kansas fan. Oh, poor guy. And then shout out lastly to Colin, who wrote a limerick to
try and win. Sure. I like that, all right. Those are people who wrote in talking about the weird places that they listen and how they found the show. I am going to go through as quickly as I can. Some of these other ones that I think a cut above and potential winners. Okay, potential winners. So let's pick of these. Let's pick like five out Okay, because I got extra shirts there next to me. Ready, I need to get rid of these, all right, I'm stretching, all right.
The first two that I think are of particular interest to me are Drew, who says, quote, I live and work in Ethiopia. It's one of the deadliest places in the world to drive a simple trip to the store requires every ounce of patients, sanity, and utmost attention to every single one of the kajillion pedestrians. Excuse me darting out in front of me, beat up old Soviet era taxis and disposable Chinese dump trucks which I don't even know what that is, Dan, but he says they may
or may not have working breaks. How you can concentrate in that environment while listening to us. Yeah, we're just like two boobs talking about football. Yeah. If we help you and that environment drew, then we are here for you. Dog. Yeah.
Also shout out to Ethiopia distance running great. I appreciate you.
So that's a potential winner.
Also, Ty, just while we're on it, Ethiopian food is awesome, very good.
I've never had. Oh my god, Tey, you gotta try it. Kyle, What up? Kyle? Kyle had the best lead in of anyone that wrote, of the hundreds of people that emailed in. Kyle started with quote, I associate the podcast with the smell of burning flesh and bone. Worrisome lead, worrisome lead. It's very worrisome.
Yeah, so let's assume Kyle's not the Zodiac Killer.
Not the Zodiac killer. Thank you Kyle for writing in Kate, the aforementioned Kate the name of my wife, not my wife, but Kate works on a turkey farm. She was the one who said that she listens in the Turkey house. She doesn't get cell receptions, so she'll download and then when she gets in the Turkey house, she'll listen, but not with headphones, which means that she is listening along with fifty two thousand turkeys. That's so strong to me, it's a strong contender.
That's I mean over like gobbling and don't we have what is our turkey sound effect? We have it on some lead the Brett Bilama one, the Brett Bilima. Yes, that's right.
Yeah, that's a strong it's a pig call, but it sounds like a turkey. Yeah. I mentioned Cameron in the laser category because he said, oh, we have a couple of flyers. Well we do. Cameron flies around in the helicopter. He shoots laser at the lasers at the ground. But we also have Frank, who says that he loves listening to the show, listens to it every week at work while building he builds high powered lasers. So we've got both ends. Of the spectrum. Here cam And is shooting
the lasers and Frank is building them. Damn, I love me some lasers. These are two strong contenders. The meat Inspector we talked about Cameron, the meat inspector before does the post mortem on the cows, sheep and goats. We've also got Jimmy and MIT. Holy cow, Mit, yeah, I've heard of it. Wow, Jimmy makes nanoparticles.
I'm almost gonna take away points because he has his email said that he is listening at MIT while making nanoparticles, which can treat genetic diseases, along with a technical article that he authored. If you for one second and you wrote this, type, I wrote.
This, I wrote this down on our paper that if for one second, yeah, go ahead read it.
If for one second, this is me quoting Tye that I didn't read every word of it. You clearly don't know how nerdy I am.
That's right. I read every word of the technical article that Jimmy sent.
See, he's getting minus points for any because you should not be listening to something as stupid as the solid verbal while creating nanoparticles to treat genetic disorders.
Come on, what are you doing? All right? Kelsey is a nurse in the delivery room and she listens to us on the night shift.
I like this because this is also importance. But we're molding young minds. Yes, I'm okay with it. Yeah, okay. And now my two winners.
Dan, how many winners are we awarding total? We'll pick three more from some of the ones that I just mentioned. Okay, mm hmm, but here are two in particular. Let's go and give a shout out and a T shirt to our boy Jimmy, who says that instead of paying attention to his teacher in physics class, he uses his third period to listen on Mondays to the weekend wrap up show and on Thursdays to the Picks and Previews. He has figured out the logistics of doing this, and here's
what he says. I wear a hoodie so my teacher can't see my headphones, and so he doesn't get suspicious. I stare at him directly in the eyes through the entire class, so he thinks I'm paying attention. Because of this, I have a C in the class. Yeah it's fine, but that's just what they get for making me go to school. While I'm fired up about college football and watching the Todd Orlando led Texas defense dominate weekend and week out, except for when we played Kansas and they
seem to oddly have our numbers. So Jimmy, he listens in third period, I think we can give him minghim props there, listen, this is all you need to know at equals a MA, you're good, you're straight. And then my ultimate winner, the Grand Poobah of God, all the stories that we got, this one wins. Okay, this one wins. Shout out to our boy Bill in the Navy. And I'm gonna read a little blurb here, he says. I started listening to the verbal in the spring of twenty fifteen.
In the fall of twenty fifteen, very early in the college football season, like week two, my submarine went to see scheduled to be out of communication for the entire season, he says. In case you're wondering, I was the executive officer think Denzel Washington from Crimson Tide, which I love. Thank you, oh yeah for the analogy. I saved up many of your episodes of the Solid Verbal so that I could listen while running on a treadmill hundreds of
feet under the ocean in a submarine. Dan, Oh my god, Wow, God, that's amazing. I distinctly remember your interview with Kirk Farence Bronco Mendenhall on the subar. Communication was limited to incoming information only, just text with scores from games. When we returned to Port after the season, I downloaded each episode of the verbal that I missed. I listened back to them in chronological order, previews recaps every week. I relived Navy's excellent efforts to climb to gret heights in the
polls through the podcast, and he says, the story gets better. Okay, I'm waiting. This is incredible. As I sit here writing this, realizing that your very popular podcast may have others who listen while on US submarines, I wanted to note that I am now on exchange. He's a grand transfer essentially uh huh huh with the Royal Australian Navy based near Perth,
Western Australia. I've heard great things about Perth. By the way, as a department head at the Royal Australian Navy Submarine Force Headquarters, I routinely go to see on Australian submarines. And you guessed it. I listened to the solid verbal Underwater on Australian submarines as well. So if listening to the show Underwater on a US submarine while running on a treadmill isn't enough, I have now upped the ante
while listening with Australians as well. Wow do you think do you think that when we do our breaking news sound and at the end I go boo boo boo? Do you think he thinks the radar is going crazy? Maybe maybe there's a change. I really hope so. And as with your position within the Navy, I can only assume that you have the power to broadcast our show Underwater to other listening ships using like some of that sonar. Yeah, helps spread the word. Get those five star sonar reviews.
That's great. Build it. Bill in the Navy, one is getting a shirt, send us your size, Yeah, jim I will reach out to Bill and Jimmy. But we got three more that we got to give out. All right, I'm going Turkey, all right, so Kate in the Turkey House.
In the Turkey House, I'm one hundred percent. My one of my brothers is a pilot, so I'm going with it. Was Cameron Cameron shooting lasers at the ground, helping with maps.
I love maps.
I love lasers, and I love the idea of listening to the show on while operating unorthodox transportation. And then for my final shirt giveaway or do you want to give this away?
Do you want me to you can give it away? Go ahead. I picked the first two. Let's pick we'll pick two more, all right.
I'm gonna go with the guy listening between Hungary and Romania on the train. Oh, okay, you're gonna go early one. Okay, I'm gonna go with an early one like that Joe in the UK.
Congratulations, And let me pick one more out there, please, I'll pick the final one out let's go to Let's go to the meat inspector in Georgia. Nice, good call. All right, so we could carcass download. Yeah, we picked out a handful. Thank you to everybody, honestly who took the time to write in. We had some really truly lengthy submissions, and we don't frown upon that. It is one of the things that we get that that humbles
us in doing this show. To see how people will listen, to see how we're part of your lives is truly one of the things that we never could have expected when we decided to go into podcasting. So thank you to everyone out there welsome supports this show, who listens anywhere on the globe in weird circumstances. We very much appreciate your listenership. Even if we didn't award you a T shirt because we only have a handful left here next to me, we so much appreciate your support and
fandom of what we do. So thank you.
And if you missed the window to get a shirt, don't worry. There will be more and probably different but varied shirts in the not so distant future, and I hope you will choose to. We will not put out a substandard products because everybody I've talked to, both listeners who I've never met and people that you know. We send some shirts to our friends. The shirt makes its way into rotations near the top, if not at the top, of people's T shirt rotations, so it's a quality product if nothing else.
Absolutely all right, Dan, I think that's it. Yeah, that's all I got. Thank you again to everybody out there for hanging with us. Please feel free to hang with us all throughout the off season. I promise we've got good things in front of us, a lot of cool stuff yet to come. Throughout the off season. We'll do our best to keep you entertained. Please do sign up for the email list if you haven't already. We will post all of our breaking news there. Also, you can
always follow us on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram. All of those channels are great for keeping up with Dan and I. We will use those channels as well to keep you posted with what's going on. Indeed, on that note, for that gentleman over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself Tai Hildebrand, thank you again for listening. We'll catch you all in a week. Stay solid, peace,