Gabbing with Mike Golic Jr.

that we do over atverballers dot com. That's our Patreon, which is still going strong. The discord server continues to pop off, continues to give us great feedback, great ideas for ways that we can make this show better and more valuable for the general public. Sold Giveaway dot Com has a new helmet. I mentioned it a couple times now, but an AJ Brown signed ole Miss Mini helmet. We've gotten a number of entries folks who want to get in on the running to win that completely free. It's

completely free. We just need a few quick and easy steps from you before we can get your name in the hat. And last, but certainly not least, don't forget to go on out and follow us at social media, all the usual platforms and YouTube.

radio and audio team whatever that they're like. There's a lot of people out there who like being right about football your alters of dan types, but they seem to like, here is my insight about how football is, rather than Hey, wasn't that cool that that football thing happened? Or isn't it cool that this football thing is happening? What do you think will happen? Isn't it cool that all sorts of things could happen. Isn't it cool that these players

are playing? And I don't always get that as I look across social media or I look across TV radio podcasting that landscape, and I think Mike is a prime example of somebody who just is super into football, which I like. How about that? Does that make sense to you?

there's a little other coating there. Like it's really just like, for lack of a better terms, like a flavor orgy that goes down there.

potatoes and peanuts. Five guys literally has peanuts stacked by the door like they're going out of style, right. I think anything in that range is probably gonna be okay.

have a lot of movement on the transfer portal. What has it been like for you as a former player, as a media personality, someone who I would imagine is always going to be invested pretty heavily in college football. How have you been able to keep track of all of this stuff going on? And has it at all affected your love foresaid thing?

certainly smaller rosters, especially on game day, a more well known cast of characters. College football has always been difficult because you've got new cycles of players coming in every year, and now you've just upgraded the volatility and movement for all this That makes it a little harder to keep track of, but I think also just inherently a lot more fun. I'm always going to skew pro player rights just because that came from and so I just a

perfect example. I did the Inside the Gross podcast with Kyle Hamilton and the Notre Dame players this last week and just seeing what they've been able to do with that, and seeing the way that now all of the parts of recruiting that had been you know, we talk about happening under the table, and the payouts and the things like that are starting to you know, just reshape in the form of collectives that are putting money into these programs,

and the way it's all reshaped to essentially, finally say, the funding that we have seen support the marquee programs in college football is now starting to go towards the players instead of putting an expensive name on another building or an indoor facility. To me, seems like progress in the ways that I want, even if it's going to come with some complications in the.

just a first step. I think it's a no brainer in terms of we're seeing more humans from players, right, We're seeing the guys with personality, hopefully more and more shine and build up and I hate the word brand, but build up a place within the sport where if you're living in Florida, but there's a quarterback at Washington State with a big personality and doing cool things, whether it's on Instagram or whatever, you're like, oh, that's cool. I like this guy. I'm going to follow Washington State

games more than I perhaps was. That's the goal with all of this that we have a more human sport. But another part of me and I don't know if it's nil, and you know, I think it's heart of transfer portals and opt outs and coaches moving around, players moving around. Is it's difficult to be a college football fan. It's easy to be an Arkansas fan. It's easy to be an Arizona State fan. Well not lately, but it's easy to be a fan of a team. The sport

is incredibly complicated. If you're just like college football, what's the deal with that? I'm going to learn more and you're like, well, welcome to recruiting, welcome to buyouts, welcome to four hundred and thirty seven things that you have to follow that you don't if you just want to kind of get into the NFL. Is college football going down a road? And I think it is that it's becoming very gradually kind of anti fan in how difficult it is to follow.

exist with a similar model. Like I've said this a million times in anyone I've talked to recently because I just finished reading it, but I read the club talking about, you know, the format start of the Premier league, and it is I mean, the Premier League to me, is a great comp for what college football is, which is this mass of you know, somewhat related entities who all play the same sport, who vary in the way that they bring money into that sport, where really it is

mostly driven by the upper crust of about twenty to twenty five teams that do the bulk of the heavy lifting in something that's extremely complicated with transfer windows, the amount of things that go on with their transaction wise, that for American fans can be somewhat daunting. So I still think we've seen like people are willing to understand that.

But I think it's also on the other end. Makes it really interesting with the presentation because we hear a lot of the criticism of the College Football Playoff, the focus on the drive towards the College Football Playoff. Obviously, ESPN, my former employer, takes a lot of heat for the way that that's presented in making it seem like the

only part. But to your point, if you are trying to market this as a national product and a national game, is there not an argument to say, hey, maybe simplifying the formula and saying being one of these four teams. Good being on the outside of that bad and letting that be a part of the sport, knowing that you can have access to all these other more complicated things if you want to dive into the deep.

and their willingness to way in on these things. So I won't necessarily paint them with the same rush I'm gonna paint us with. But we just didn't think about it quite as much, right We were more, Hey, we're going to show up, give us the parameters, and we'll go out and operate in the midst of that. And so there was I think a little more willingness. You know, Millennials, we were tagged as the Why generation pretty early, where

we wanted a little more reasoning. But I think in general, it's you're a high level competitor who came there or the opportunity to win a national championship. For me, specifically, you're at Notre Dame. You didn't have anything else, you didn't have the conference stuff, so that was your only goal. And so if you're given a broader avenue to that, and if you are Notre Dame, if you're the PAC twelve, if you're the group of five, that's certainly enticing in

those ways. And I think now we're just getting more players that are maybe realizing obviously the wealth and equity in the people in the center of the arena and the people surrounding the sport that make all the cash, but also the part about their bodies, Like at some point that part of the conversation won't be had because at the end of the day, we all know that's not going to drive or effect decision making at all

in this process, which is the shame. But it's the reality that you're asking players that are still in the development portion physically and otherwise in their careers to go out and tack on even a few more games to all that, and that affects the NFL guys that are going to potentially go on where you've got that long year where it's combine training into pro days and rookie camps and you don't really have that break, and the players on the other side of that that are just

you know, being taxed more than they used to. But I think that's definitely a factor, and I think we see guys a little more aware of that now. But in general, you're high level competitors with a limited window to do this. We all probably would have been like, all right, that means we got a better chance going into the season, and that's probably a good thing.

out there about playoff expansion. I think it was the ACC commissioner who brought it up and caught some flack for it, but I think he was wise to at least try to bring it onto folks radar, Like, we could come to a point here pretty soon where you've got guys that are playing fifteen sixteen, maybe said, I don't know how many they're going to expand to, but a lot of games. It's like an NFL regular season. The difference being in the NFL you get paid to

do it full time. You get paid to condition yourself full time. When you're in college, you got some other stuff on your plate, right, You're you're sort of in the developmental stage.

It seems like that's quite a challenge that has not really been articulated well enough.

much quality depth. Nick grinds them so hard during the SEC season and then you get that time to build their bodies back up, and so I think we're going to see, you know, it's it's the teams that can recruit five star depth everywhere the way Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and others have for so long that are going to be and you know, that are well funded enough, whose sports nutrition and sports science departments are at that point where they can use all that because I mean,

now we're in the age of you know, movement tracking and all these different things that were you know, just being whispered about in you know, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen that are just accepted everyday parts of the sport. So I I think it's going to continue to be those sort of same things. I think it's who is the blue chip principal the blue tab ratio, Yeah, the blue chip ratio, but elliots, yeah, yeah, it's going to

be that same principle. I think the Bud brought up because in general, the teams that are operating within those parameters are the ones that have the structure everywhere else to kind of feed what we're talking about.

lot of conversation. And we are guilty of the same thing about the teams who are winning the most games, the teams who are putting themselves with the highest TV ratings that people care seem to care about the most. You've had this time away from a microphone, have you

looked into the sports? Have you been able to take in have you been able to enjoy have you been able to be curious about teams in the sport, coaches in the sport, players in the sports, storylines within the sport that like it's sort of a welcome change where you're like, oh man, that is interesting what I was doing, which that's a bad example because it's not, but it is interesting, like what San Diego State's defense is doing, or it is interesting what you know Oregon or Florida,

any of these teams. Is there something that like beneath everybody else that's been grant and that's been sort of getting you excited.

point were largely group of five. You know, we're living in the mac and the Sun Belt and getting to see a lot more of those teams up close, because, as you guys know, calling games like you're dealing with a level of intimacy with the product that you don't get doing talk radio or doing our Twitter shows, and so that was all is fun for me to kind of then meet like I took so much pride in getting to call Buffalo games, and then that later that spring,

walk into the draft and be like, I can't believe no one took a shot on Jared Patterson. He's going to wind up making some team better, only to watch

him end up making the Washington football team roster. Like those things were always super endearing, and so now like heading into the twenty twenty two season, because of where I left the end of last season and because I got to deal with them a little bit like a couple of times really watching Shane Beemer, South Carolina product, and what that's going to morph into the guy who became sort of college footballs Ted Lasso, who pulled off one of I think this like we're going to have

to in retrospect talk about a lot more because I just recently saw an article about it, the level of secrecy that went into DK Joyner playing quarterback in that hole. Yeah for South Carolina where no one, I mean they wouldn't even let him warm up in pregame for that one and get any sort of touches, and like what went into that from a strategic standpoint to go out and win. You know, the the border war in the

Duke's Mayo Bowl was incredible. But now it's become this launching point where there are more added eyes on this South Carolina program where all right, we've got them, We've got Mississippi State, We've got you know, Josh Hipels Tennessee that really took off one tended hooker got under center last year. You've got a lot of those like mid tier programs in a number of conferences that have come

up in that way. But like you're right getting to enjoy stuff like that, getting to read, you know, and try and look into more of what's going to happen with Pitt Now that you know, you've got Whipple that's gone down in Nebraska that you're you know, in the post Kenny Pickett, they just extended, you know, their coach

till twenty thirty, So all all of those things. You're right, I probably have a little more time to consume now, but those were things that were getting fed I think in large part because I was calling games more consistently.

And we have some older, grizzled guys, and whether it's recruiting who are like good coaches but like not putting the emphasis like what we've heard about Dan Mullin at Florida, like great offensive mind, disappointing results on the recruiting trail. Future didn't look bright. A change was needed, right and the locker room was lost. So there's like this culture recruiting guy versus like these grizzled old older coaches guy. Like there was the example, I think Chris Peterson was like,

who's smarter than Chris Peterson? Who's a better coach? An offensive coach than Chris Peterson is a head coach? And by the end of his tenure he was like, I don't like the portal. I don't like where recruiting is going. I'm gonna call you know, games and I'm gonna do TV for Fox. That's I want to be a receivers coach at UC Davis. That's like one of the things

he told Bruce Felman. I don't want to call it a talent drain, but do you see this heading in a dramatic coaching talent shift to those who are willing to accept realities and not willing to accept realities?

sure and they say recruit your own players. To me, it's always you've just got to keep the promises a lot more consistently than a lot of people probably have in the past, because that's always a part of this is where if you're being consistent in your message, the way it's applied, and the way that you build those relationships, I think it's pretty easy. Matt Brown was really insightful talking to him in the lead up for that Bowl game about the portal, which is, if we're doing our

job the right way, players will want to stay. And if players want to leave, then the promises we made to them and their families in their living room where we were going to do right by them, And so he goes. We have all always tried to help whoever wants to leave wind up in that next spot, but it's still extra work. And so I think it'll be interesting if it makes the general coaching pool even younger

than it had already been trending. Right we'd seen college and pro this tendency towards young, especially offensive minded coordinators getting a lot of these head jobs, and now you wonder if just because of the physical demand, you know, we'd notre name Marcus Freeman, him saying I'm going to

be involved in every one of these recruiting pitches. I'm going to be in every kid's phone book and living room and just watching that world tour he went on the jet after he got signed, you know, leading up to the Fiesta Bal. I don't know if that's something that, like physically, people can really hold on to for all that long. And so you wonder if all of that does skew younger because I wouldn't blame a lot of

these guys who have been around. Hell, even Dabo Sweeney when we talked to him during the season, he was one that was criticized for not necessarily being as involved in the portal. They had a bunch of guys leave, not a lot of guys come in. And he really hugs tight that mantra of we believe we build guys here through our culture. That still, even though we recruit at a high level now, our foundation is player development. All of these things you've seen Dabbo resistant to some

of the change in college football for a while. But you a wonder if there are others like him who are certainly less successful, who just say, yeah, you know what, I've made enough money. I can go do something else and leave this to people who might be more willing to on the upward trajectory of their career absorb all this new workflow.

when he was in college in the seventies. I didn't have to face, you know, as a non player obviously that you didn't have to face being recruited. And you know, whatever, two thousand and nine does. Does anything unique strike you about this current generation of players in terms of savviness, in terms of personality, in terms like is there anything unique to where we are right now in terms of this generation of players?

for NFL dollars, and like all that stuff's they are all like the normal silly stuff that comes along with being eighteen to twenty two is there. But I think the one part that's been striking to me in a number of ways is how quick these guys have had to grow up through recruiting. Yep, Like we knew going back to when Lane offered you know whoever it was back in seventh grade. Like life kind of changed then

with how quickly the eyeballs were on you. And I just remember when I was getting recruited, we were at the beginning of like those Nike Spark training things where they'd go through and rank guys on the other side of and it was starting to become that recruiting circuit was vital to your opportunity to go and receive a scholarship. Before I committed to Notre Dame. I was scheduled to go to like five different junior days that next month. You're going to hit the camp circuit that summer heading

into senior year. Now, if you're not doing that as a freshman sophomore, if you're not involved in you know, elead eleven for quarterbacks, the seven on seven tournaments that have proliferated the sport. How those and the coaches involved in those have become a part of this recruiting process has already changed the way that players have to approach

this decision, being more professional about it early on. Now you throw nil in on top of that, where the worry for always me, always for me, and I've seen born out in some of the reporting around this is you're going to get sixteen seventeen year olds that are approached with contracts that in some cases are bad, that are predatory, that are taking advantage of their rights at a time where they're seeing dollar amounts they could never have dreamed of, and they don't yet have at their

disposal legal counsel people that can read over these contracts and help them, and so in a lot of ways, they've already had to grow up fast, and now we're about to watch that even hit hyper drive for the upper crust of the sport. You know, we're sitting around all debating the nil money that's coming arch Manning's way. Thank God, he has got an entire family lineage of people that are going to be able to take care

of him. That's not going to be the same for everybody, and that's not just football, and so I think for that you don't get to figure it out slowly or make mistakes early on anymore. The stakes have been raised too high for a lot of these players.

different universe now, you know. And we see it on our end running a podcast, sort of these dual universes between people who are out there huge college football fans and want to give players a little bit more of their own power versus just the pure fan in all of us that, as Dan said earlier, might be a little bit bummed out that the sport is changing so rapidly.

Where do you kind of fall in that spectrum? I know you said earlier you're pro player, but how do you just sort of digest all of this change and the speed at which the sport is changing?

And this is you know, probably grounded in dealing with some of the lowest common denominator that you have this conversation with, whether it's colors into sports talk show or some of the worst you see on Twitter, or even what you've heard on the sidelines of games like I have a distinct memory when I was in an NFL preseason game of being on the sideline with our offensive line and hearing a fan yelling something and a couple of the guys in the O line, you know, Marky's

pouncy Ramon Foster, and you hear this fan just start to go back to the tried and true line of well, I pay your salary, so shut the bleep up and go do that thing. There was always a part of me that felt like there was too large a section of college football fans that loved the sport because they knew they had more in one regard than the people

playing it. Meaning you look out at millionaires you can't relate to in the NFL and feel like, all right, these highly paid guys I can say X y or there was a power dynamic in college that made me uncomfortable for a while because it felt like too many people enjoyed that. This notion that, oh, the game's more pure here because the players aren't played felt like a cop out for some feelings. They're a little more complicated to digest, and so I like that. We're getting away

from some of that. New is going to be It's like an iPhone update, Right, We'll get used to it eventually, and it won't always be this extreme. The pendulum swings pretty hard, the portal's going to level out at some point. Right, all of this we're gonna get just through sheer volume

of reps. Better at talking about it. Players are going to get better at being more judicious about this because, and I think it might have been Bud Elliott that I saw talk about this to give him credit again, was you're gonna see enough cautionary tales you're going to see if you're a player, like word of mouth still always the biggest part of all this, right for a player when you're getting recruited, nothing sells a team more

than when you go on to visit. What the dudes in the locker room tell you there when you're really hanging out with them away from the facility. Thing is going to tell you more about that as a player potentially wanting to transfer, and nothing is going to show you more how you need to move in all these new spaces now that you have more agency than having a dude from your high school who jumped into the transfer portal and ended up down at the SCS level.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but seeing consequences for people you know, or people you can talk to, or enough people to where it's in the back of your mind as you make these decisions that I think is going to take care of a lot of this. In addition to us just getting used to you know the quote unquote new normal that we always talk about, which has its growing pains, and that's kind of where we're at right now.

But I was always like man, I got to call a couple of radio games early on, like my second third year there, you know, I started doing you know, I was what was referred to as the X crew, where I was just sort of a floater. If you had a game, I was with a different producer almost every time, a different play by play almost every time. But getting to do that more consistently in the last two years especially, you know, preparation wise, it is the most similar to getting ready to play a game as

a player. You get to watch a ton of tape, you get to talk to players and coaches, you have access and insight, and you get to zero in and sort of be an expert on one thing for a week. Because as a generalist, like I was on radio so much and you know, for a lot of the digital work I did, you kind of miss that feeling of knowing one thing with a depth that other people don't have, And so calling a game's a cool part of that is getting to feel like you know something intimately enough

to offer an insight that's actually helpful. Right Like my job as an analyst was to teach, was to watch the game through my eyes with an audience and hopefully give people something that they didn't know going into it, make them laugh, whatever it is, but just how living and breathing that was being around stadiums, getting as close to the people, the players and the coach is still

involved in that. I lived that existence. I know what goes into it, and we all get removed enough to at times treat the people involved like they're just characters on a board. Getting that close as always my reminder, these are people. They're dealing with a lot more than most of us realize on the outside. And so can I tell the story of those teams involved, the players and coaches with a sort of empathy to that that maybe just you know, makes us all pull back for

a second ago, Oh, that's right. That's a nineteen year old kid who may have just lost a loved one at home, who's trying to get through finals, who had an off week last week, while dealing with all the things that come with a normal college football season.

What percentage of coaches, coordinators, whoever that you'll talk to before a game are interestingly candid and honest and helpful, And I know it's in their interest to be that way because you can now give further context like, oh, this guy's been beat up, so that's why the secondary

is struggling. Whatever. And have you ever walked out of one of those interview rooms where a coach was like, you know, if we take care of business doing X, Y and Z, I think we've got a good shot, And you yourself have thought the eugh is that guy talking about they're about to get destroyed? What are you talking about? Does that kind of thing happen?

I can understand as an outsider how it looks insane, but like when your boots on the ground doing the work every day, and especially when you enjoy any level of success or see the results from that, you're gonna wear that as a player. And so I understand as a player as a coach dealing intimately with that, how your jobs to go and win these games and you're part of that is I mean, we see plenty of coaches do those Miagi tactics. Even Nick Saban gets the

chip on his shoulder for his guys. Your jobs to make everyone believe that that's possible, and sometimes that starts with making yourself believe it, even if it might not come naturally. So yeah, that's definitely happened plenty of times. But as far as how many are actually helpful, I think it's interesting. So there's a ton of factors that have gone into that, most notably in the last couple of years, a lot of the meetings pivoting to Zoom

because of the pandemic has made that sure. I think coaches are inherently distrustful of technology, and when you get them in that setting, it feels more formal than when we go in the past be there in person and you're sitting in a room. There's not a microphone and

phone on, no one's got a camera out. Some of these guys, especially when you're a former player, kind of know and at this point, now I've been doing this long enough to work like I kind of have you know coaches that were you know, listening to me when I was on morning drive for a little bit or just you know, there's some familiarity, so they'll loosen up a little bit and they'll give you stuff, especially once you proved them and you had them a couple of

times and you've proved you won't burn them on the other side, right, Like I had a coach once an offensive coordinator for a team, and this is a lot more common, I'd say for teams in the Group of five, smaller Power five teams, ones that are not yet established, like George Alabama, Clemson, they don't have to give us stuff like everyone knows them. They don't need your help

as much in selling the program. Some of these smaller schools, and I had one group of five school the offensive coordinator legit brought us into the meeting room and played us their Friday practice tape that they were going to show the players, including the plays that they were stealing from another like not stealing, but like the plays that they were implementing that another team had run against that common opponent. Showing us there like the same Friday practice

cutups I would have watched as a player. He took us into the meeting room, took us through all all that, walked us through their thought process. I mean there's some coaches. I mean they'll give you, hey, this yard marker is this hash? We've got extrick play dialed up if you guys want to be ready for that. And they understand because they're trying to make sure the story of their

program is told in that way. So yeah, you get plenty of that, you know, especially you get closer to game time stuff like you know what guys are injured, you know what they're seeing in pre game, you know

trends they've seen leading up to it. Like that's the fun part too, is kind of taking the temperature in talking to a coach, you know, storyline wife what they've dealt with for the last few weeks, and getting a very real sentiment I have a very distinct memory of, and I know I'm not betraying a trust here, but I called Jamie Chadwell and Coastal Carolina's first upset of Kansas.

I was on the road. It was like an ESPN plus Big twelve now game, and it was Coastal coming off of being displaced by the hurricane, right where they have been practicing in a number of different places leading up to it, and they beat Kansas, and that was sort of where Coastal started its rise to where we've seen them in recent years. But just getting to talk to them candidly about like, hey, these guys have been

living out of hotels for the last few weeks. Tulane leading up to the Old Miss game this year, where they had been in a similar situation, was really informative of just getting like the intimate details of what life's been like for almost an entire athletic department, in Tulane's case, living out of a hotel. All that stuff really can inform again to try and humanize when things happen in

a game. It's all right man like Tulane had heavy legs going against one of the best offenses in college football and Lane Kiffen's old miss They're also at the tail end of dealing with something that most people will never have to fathom in their lifetime, and so all of a sudden that stuff helps them becomes more understandable. So yeah, I'd say assistance. The smaller the school, and

now the further along. You know, That's why being on site and getting these relationships are important, because then you get a few reps with each of these guys in the comfort level starts to grow.

Do we petition? What do we do here? Because I want to see some field, I want to see some safeties. I want to see everything, well.

four hour games whatever. But like we've been asked this question, like if we were in charge of CBS, BSPN or something like, how would you fix the broadcast experience of a college football game? Yeah, I mean you're on the spot, I understand, but yeah, no, Well.

Premiere Lacrosse League did a lot more of those in game interviews, used the unbridled access that they have, And like, if you're a ESPN, you basically own the entirety of the sport. You are such an intimate partner in college football in so many ways that I feel like we

could get even closer in a way that still. I mean, hell, we see it in the spring games every year, where you've essentially got Nick Saban and Davos twenty calling the games with the crew selling their programs, like the good teams will recognize these are all opportunities to market yourself

even better. And I think now as we broach an area in a day and age where players have more agency and are more willing to talk and more able to because a lot of it's dictated by nil money and then being paid to, like, we need to know them even better and all that. So I'd say that, and then just in general, like you know, we also have to remember to not take it so seriously. I understand I'm the male guy, so I might be on.

his head coaching tenure. But like as I you know, talked to you know, Chris Canty, who I did a radio show with, and Chris Long I've gotten to know, like, you know, Chris who played for AL at the beginning of his time at Virginia, Like this a really good coordinator and a guy who's got a lot of college football under his belt, but also has that head coaching experience that I think is going to be vital for Marcus to be able to draw on at the beginning

because we saw some of the learning curve in the Fiesta Bowl. Brian Pollian, who I thought would have been a good candidate for that after his head coaching time at Nevada, obviously went with coach Kelly down to LSU.

So I think having that on the staff because you know, Tommy on the other side, is brilliant and it has been so much fun to watch the way that he is not necessarily grown, because I think a lot of this is stuff that like, you know, the people like me that were fortunate enough to know him personally in the other discipline of my career as a player, where I was with Tommy, like you knew, we always knew Tommy was going to be that guy, Like as a player,

that's who he was. But now he's getting the national recognition for it, which is cool. But he's still, you know, twenty nine to thirty years old, doesn't have head coaching experience, so I think that's gonna matter a lot. But yeah, can and undersell Harry coming back to coach the offensive line like that was the bedrock of what Brian had done for the last decade. Harry was a part of building that. I mean, he was, he was the reason that happened. He was the coach that came on my

fifth year at Notre Dame in twenty twelve. He's the one that produced all those first rounders, and he is a proven commodity, like I remember when he got hired. He was coming from Tennessee when I was there and we all looked at his track records, said, he's put pros into the NFL at every one of these spots, so we know if it doesn't work, it's not on him,

it's on us as players. So I think that's going to be go a long way and studying this as they, you know, try and replace Jack Cone, Kyle Hamilton, try and replace the structure that Brian Kelly had there for a long time, and it's probably going to, like Notre Dame fans, we're not gonna, I doubt be as good this year. Like I think there's gonna be legitimate growing pains that have to be a part of this process.

I hope I'm wrong. I'm always the skeptic every year because I know how difficult that is every year to

go through, especially at that program. But I would just kind of like in the festival, let's take a beat on the massive expectations right out of the gate and allow this to develop so that we can get what this should be, which is a long term play for a young rising star that we managed to retain in Marcus Freeman that gets to stay and hopefully be the head coach there for a long time as we see him, you know, continue to push recruiting and all these things

that could be the difference from Notre Dame being a CFP, you know, someone who becomes eligible, who makes it every once in a while, to someone that's actually competitive on that stage. And that's been the most encouraging part is seeing the inroads that him and the staff that he's put together, to go back to the original question, have made in the way they've approached recruiting and the results they've met it in that so far.

always left it halftime. Yeah. Yeah, I am exhausted and.

we'll talk about off air. But is that something that in this new chapter you're interested in walking around with the sandwich board in Tuscaloosa and saying I will eat your ribs. That sounds a weird phrasing, but is that something that appeals to you?

more gas station food. I want to walk through the growth, would be able to stop and tailgate. I want to go back down to LSU because I did get to go down there once and live the tailgate experience there. Right, Foxville was awesome before there, before the game, I called out there, it's just yes, that would I joking, not jokingly offered up to ESPN while I was still employed there. I was like, got something for you here, And by say offered, I mean I tweeted it at them, and

of course course crowdsourcing method of this. I wanted to go off of Peyton and Elized places and go Mike's places. And obviously it's not going to be as good, well

done or buttoned up as Peyton and Elized places. But essentially I wanted to go to a college football uh you know town, find one of their prominent usually football lums, and then probably a prominent like very online fan al lum, and I just want to get kind of drunk with them and walk around to the places that matter to them because every time someone goes to Notre Dame, they're like, all right, where are the places I need to go

that you go? And there's always a difference there. And so I wanted just kind of go and get a little bit drunk and eat a lot of food at different college football towns and call it Mike's places and have someone go hard and put that on some sort of internet platform. So, yes, massively appealing.

of hot dogs, which I'm a big fan of. Ye, So I want to get back to Norman. That was a cool place I played in. I didn't get to live that tailgate experience. Lincoln, Nebraska would be another one definitely very excited about. And I think for me just majoring the oh, I'll tell you the other one I want to do. And this is part food, part drink because I always got to see it when we were driving up on the bus, but I never got to

live it. I think I want to go do the breakfast club at Purdue, sure, which i'd imagine is still a thing that they're doing. But just seeing a bunch of drunk college kids in costumes absolutely just on their ass by kickoff and we're playing them at like three point thirty seemed like a great time. And listen, West Lafayette, it seems like a perfectly nice college town. But they seem to do things right there, those sweet leveable engineers.

to do with college football at all. This is just in life. If you were to hit your apex as a human on a boat, where would it be? What kind of boat would it be? With whom would you be boating?

Brady off one of those gots there. Like, I'd like to live something like that if I'm going to set a boat goal.

attractive to me. And I couldn't sell tie on having boat goals. Why is that tie? No, I'm not averse to boat goals. I just didn't know the question was coming and he caught me off guard. But see this for a week now. I still don't have a good answer. But I'm not averse to the boat. I love boats, right, I love boats.

every race. Like, if you're taking in enough of this, I've got the source material to draw to give you an adequate Yeah.

leave us a review. We will read it on an episode upcoming where we will probably as we did before coming on here, discuss discuss what happened with Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Academy Awards as if it happened yesterday.

We'll tie it back to college football in the way that a lot of like athletic directors and coaches like, if I were to get this opportunity, here's who I would hire. Here's how my own program would go. If I had the opportunity to be on a luxurious boat situation, this is how I wanted to all go down where I wanted to go down. I wanted to be with you know, my my buddy Dave, my buddy Scott, my buddy Ty Hills, and brand, my buddy Kevin. Like that's who I want. Listen to the house of run By

the way, that's that in my brain. I'm like, Okay, I want a chef on there, grilling right there outside. I want all these things. I want to be jumping off and doing cannonballs. I want I just I have it all. Matt, So I like that you've taken the helipad step is what I'm saying.

of our ridiculous boat Coal conversations. Please please please with college football mixed in, I think appropriately, So, we have a fast food bracket that's been ongoing on our discord, only available on Verballer subscribers on verballers dot com a discord server. I'm only gonna go through two of the matchups that are in the sweet sixteen, but the Alpha Coal on the discord put this together, I believe. Are you ready for two matchups? Yeah? No fast food dishes.

As we are in the middle of the NCAA tournament, of which I know basically nothing about other than Saint Peter's is now no longer. Pea Cocks are out man therek Doox are out shout out Jersey City though, right, that's right. McDonald's fries is a one seed versus Chipotle Burrito bowls as a five seed.

the Culver's Butterburger here. It's merely okay, but I'm just so I'm hurt by what Wendy's has done to their spicy chicken sandwich that I just can't.

my minuses. I don't know if we can get Bill Oakley, but I'm down for a fast food show because I do have lots of thoughts. And you get into like the regional thing, you get into national hyper local because I could build you my my my dream fast food meal, but it would involve Tommy's, which is only local to I think California. So I'm happy to talk about it.

talk about something that we know is of interest. All right, I agree, all right, again, big thanks to our guest of for all his time, always generous with it, Michael Junior. We wish him well with whatever comes next. Don't forget to listen to that podcast. As I said during the interview, we'll make sure we put the notes, put the link to his show in the notes. Don't forget to subscribe.

Don't forget to go on out to solid giveaway dot com if you're interested in winning that mini helmet we discussed earlier, and last but not least for ballers dot com if you want to get in on the Patreon, the discord, and of course the eventual discussion about fast food rapids. A great for that guy Oup there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself Tie Hilding a brand. We will catch you all on Thursday. In the meantime, stay soft, peace,