This is Tie. My voice is getting better, but I'm still trying to rest it before attacking the off season. Luckily, you're in good hands with Dan and Max Olsen as they talk about coaching, hires and transfers and probably pizza at some point. Also, you probably didn't know this about me, but I consistently lose to Dan at table tennis. Enjoy the show.
Welcome to the Solid Verbal. I'll that for me.
I'm a man, I'm forty.
I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for dake Eda stake.
Is the war whom?
And now Dan and Tie. Hey everybody, and welcome back the Solid Verbal. This is once again the voice of your at least second favorite host of the show, Dan, because Tie's voice is still on the end, as you well know. But that's okay because we here at the Solid Verbal are not just committed to five star talent hosting the show, which we happened to have today, but we also have a contributor to the five star culture at the Solid Verbal. We're talking about a writer for
the Athletic. We're talking about what I believe to be from his instagram, a softball champion, a resident of Nebraska, somebody who I looked up his most popular tweet in the last year or so and it involved a frog and a spider. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Max Olson, how's life?
Hello, Hello, Thank you for having me on. I'd like to clarify that I was the worst player on a softball team, in a pre pandemic softball team, but I appreciate you mentioning my small trophy collection here. I'm good man. I'm a couple of weeks away from becoming a father and so that is very exciting. And thank you for all of the pre fatherhood advice you unloaded on me prior to this podcast.
Was I have a lot and it's mostly marry a smart lady and go with what she says. But I can confirm that she made a lot of really smart decisions that are now in retrospect. Say, great job, Jody with an eye, great job. So it sounds like you married a smart lady too, So I think you're gonna be in a good place.
Yeah. Yeah, and you know, very it's it's nice to put this crazy season behind us and you know, focus on folks, on real stuff.
That's true. That's absolutely true. And let's I guess, here's my segue, here's my soso segue into the real stuff of what's actually we're getting college football right now, which is not much, which is just it's actually a nice distraction from the very strange season that was the twenty twenty season, and we're into the silly season. We're into Tennessee firing a coach because that's something that happens every so often. We are seeing coaches get hired. We are
seeing transfers on a huge level, good or bad. We're seeing a ton of people transfer away from their school, be a grad transfer, otherwise. And you wrote a long piece on I want to assume maybe the most fascinating or the highest stake situation during this coaching change season about Tom Herman and why things didn't work out at Texas for Tom Herman and his staff in that tenure.
And now as Texas moves forward into the Steve Sarkisian era, I wonder, with the benefit of hindsight, why why couldn't Tom Herman's Texas teams consistently separate from what I mean with what we perceive to be better talent? And has sark done anything early slash. Do you believe Sark will do something differently in order to meet those great unmet Austin expectations.
Yeah, that's the you just asked the twenty four million dollar question. This is why they are going to write some big, big checks to make people go away and make new people come to Austin is to just try. And you know, I think ultimately they decided this is not the guy that's going to be able to fix
this problem. And the thing the problem with Texas among others, is, you know, during the Herman era, certainly you have the peak there, the high of you know, going to a bitual title game, playing, you know, beating Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and all that, which sort of sets up
all this hype for the next two years. But the problem that Texas couldn't couldn't really solve over these years was they played in twenty seven games decided by one score margins, and they went fourteen and thirteen in those games. I mean, they played more close games, you know, than any Power five program during that four year run. They had more losses as a ranked team to an unranked opponent, seven of them under Herman, than anybody else in the
Power five. And so it's a weird thing where Tom Herman was always very good at being an underdog as a head coach, but then once they had to like kind of start being the favorite, once they had all this talent from a couple of years of really high level recruiting, and it was kind of time to you know that you had the quarterback, you had a lot
of these pieces. They just couldn't really figure out how to turn all those ingredients into a team that could win really consistently and you know, win ten to eleven games and go play for a big toll title. They just couldn't really put it together. And that's that's the job for Sorry, Like, if.
You're looking at the complete stew right now, you're looking at all the ingredients. Was there anything more flavorful about that Texas failure to separate than something else?
Well, it's a it's a really kind of hard thing to like. I think now in hindsight, fans are going to want to put that on Herman and the coaching staff and say, if they'd just been, you know, a better coach, you get over the hump. But even this year, it was a bunch of like really weird little things. I mean the three losses, lose to TCU at the you know, fumbled the goal line there when you're driving
to win it. You you know, lose to Oklahoma and four overtimes where if you just go for it two point conversion once you could win that game, and then you lose to Iowa stayed on a you know, you miss a game or a game time kick there. So I mean, like it's it wasn't They weren't horrible this year.
They finished in the top twenty. They go seven and three, but it was kind of This is the thing that I think Chrystal, Connie and the stakeholders of Texas kind of lose hope is when you give the guy all the ingredients, and certainly they went through they remade their entire coaching staff pretty much going to twenty twenty, which made it a lot harder to be consistent and successful. But when you give this guy all the ingredients, can
he put it all together? And ultimately I think they kind of lost faith that Tom Herman could be that guy. And so you look at Sark and you say, hey, here's the pedigree. You come from Alabama. You just built this incredible offense. The guy's learned from Nick Saban and Pete Carroll. Can he be the one to take this and not tear it down, but take it and take it to the next level.
A school that I think seemed to be on the cusp of that, but have since sort of tread backwards to me, and I think it's been apparent to everybody, But I don't know how much actual stock you put
in the twenty twenty season and performances therein Michigan. Michigan had been a program with a usually sterling defense, with quarterbacks who kind of came around and generally found an identity on offense by the end of the year, and you know, either one double digit games or flirted with it and then embarrassed themselves against Ohio State, except when they didn't. Now they just seem to be a program
where nobody feels anything like it. It feels like even down programs find reasons for hope, and I know Michigan fans are hopeful that I think it's JJ McCarthy, the incoming five star quarterback, as the savior, but it just feels like the ann Arbor is buzz free right now. Do you get that impression, and is there a reason why you do or don't get that sort of stagnant, if not backsliding feel to the Wolverines.
Yeah, it's weird because you felt like going into twenty twenty, you still felt like, look, they're they're close, and like if Ohio State just didn't exist, they'd be pretty happy, right, they'd be pretty pretty damn close. And you know that they kind of have have done enough of the right things to to kind of finally put it all together. But I mean, I thought the way you know, I was. I was fine with the way they settled things at the end of the season to say, look, we don't
we don't want to fire Jim Harbaugh. The NFL is not hiring him. We don't really totally know who the next head coach of Michigan should be. Let's strike a deal that's kind of fair on both sides here to not make a change at the top, but change some stuff and and kind of reset the dynamic here. I was fine with that. That's that's that's reason prevailing in a way that almost never happens during this silly season.
But you're right, it is kind of like a this is fine situation where I mean, do you feel that great about what they're bringing back? Do you do you feel like this is and obviously this was a weird year in their division in a lot of ways, but do you feel like you know and and I'll say this, like, I'm pretty sure Don Brown didn't forget how to coach defense. I don't think that he suddenly got very, very bad.
And I'm curious how much you know Mike McDonald, the thirty five year old new DC off of John Harbaugh's raven staff, how much that shakes things up?
But he'll lose two key assistants in Al Washington and Greg Madison.
That's right, That's right. Yeah, it's hard to be like really fired up, especially when you've seen now here's Ohio State just chilling at the top of the mountaintop here too, right that it's not like uh and with with you know, certainly with you know, Chris Olave and Jeremy Record announcing they're coming back today, like it's not like a big old backslide is coming anytime soon. In Columbus.
One of the interesting things you touched on, especially when you're talking about Texas, is going out and hiring two promising new coordinators when it was apparent that changes needed to be made. But it's also you can you can pad a coach on the back, a head coach on the back for saying, yes, these are where changes need to be made. But also he was the one who at least was a part of hiring those coordinators, which
is not a great reflection. And that can kind of be said of at Orizron at LSU, who seemed to make a couple of pretty big whiffs and is starting over with both coordinators on each side of the ball. And I'm curious as to how you see LSU and needing a great reset of their own and if that sort of says anything bigger about the state of the program.
Yeah, it's a it's a really kind of fascinating dynamic here in ed arz RAN's tenure at LSU, where Matt Canada was just based on results and how that all played out was like a very bad season, ruining higher, right, and so was Bo Polini And you kind of like ruined two seasons based on on on whiffing on those hires and then in between, uh, those those hires are
are you know this sandwich? Those these really prime years when LSU was incredible with Joe Burrow, you know, and so I I think the the changes, you know, make a ton of sense on on the LSU side. Clearly the DC higher was just a bad higher that didn't you know that you didn't really see them make any good adjustments over the course of the season and get better. Like they had one of the worst pass defenses in the country with two of the best young corners in
the country, Like, how does that? How does that happen? Man? Like so and obviously like there's a lot of excuses and and they were missing you know, X number of players and all.
That, but instingly was hospitalized before the season started. There are variables.
Yeah, certainly, certainly a lot of things did not go right and and that's the trade off for just having the most perfect season possible in twenty nineteen. But with
the Jake Pet's higher, I think is really interesting. They just announced today that Ryan Nielsen's going to be the DC or at least that's the words leaking out now that they're hiring him away from the Saints, which if I'm sure folks are not super familiar with either of their work, but Ryan Nielsen's the guy behind that incredible D line at NC State that had Bradley Chubb and all those NFL players, and Jake Pets just worked with Christian McCaffrey and the Panthers, which went pretty well when
he was healthy. So you're betting on some guys to I don't want to say like save ed or Jaran's job, because that seems hyperbolic, But at the same time, like that's when you're in that division and the expectations are where they are thanks to your national title, like you really, you really have to nail these And I also think losing Steve Ensminger's is a not insignificant thing here.
Sure, no, he bridges the gap, and I guess let's go to the other division because South Carolina, certainly, with getting rid of Will must Champ and paying him the money to leave and then bringing in Shane Beemer, seemed to make some waves in that division, at least until literally today when Tennessee got rid of Jeremy Pruitt and also Phil Fullmer stepped down and Kevin Steele steps in after being named an ambiguous defensive assistant and now they're
looking for a new head coach, but probably have to hire an ad first, So South Carolina other than losing some of its assistants to other schools, it's been a relatively quiet start. I know they lost a big quarterback recruit as well. But something that I had heard a lot of with Shane Beemer's hiring was people really missed him in Columbia. He really has a lot of friends
at South Carolina. He's really well liked. And I don't know anything either way, just because I have not looked into special teams coordinators super in a super detailed way. Why is it that people like Shane Beemer and what is his perceived upside in Columbia.
I think the very very likable guy. I think everyone has said that, and we'll keep saying that, and that will that will be the thing that sex with I think that probably when he interviews for the job, the idea is, look, I can I can take the old school of what I learned from my dad and the new school of working for Lincoln Riley and seeing, here's how you run like a very like vibrant modern program that kids want to play for and that that everybody is like really happy in their jobs and have a
good culture. Like I think he can kind of bring a little bit of both to the table for South Carolina and just be like a positive person that everyone likes and gets behind, and that the recruits in that region kind of get behind. And it reminds me, like I just wrote about prior to the Orange Bowl, kind of wrote about how mac Brown has nailed this return to coaching at North Carolina, and a lot of it is that he came in, came back to Chapel Hill
with the cheek codes. He knows exactly how you win there, who you recruit, who you had to hire, like what works you. You've saved the years and years of like missteps that that you know other folks that could have
hired would go through. And you know, maybe Shane Biemer and coming back to South Carolina, not that he's won at the level of mac Brown, but having having been at that place before, you would think, kind of, maybe he can come back and avoid some of the mistakes that others might make in that job and and kind of bring bring everybody together there in the right direction. I think that's the that's the hope there. I would think I think that.
The reaction on the other side of the sec back to the West with with Brian Harson arriving to the planes has been okay. He has this pedigree where he actually coaches at Texas and Arkansas State and goes back to Boise and has coached under or with a lot of really strong coaches, including I believe was Mac Brown who hired him at Texas with Brent Peace. If I'm remembering my co offensive coordinators from way back when.
That was that was when Mac wenton, did Harson and Nanny Diaz as the program?
Right?
You know, Reviver that that.
Was his own reset. Maybe we'll do a whole podcast about resets. I love a good love a good reset, absolutely. But Brian Harson goes to Auburn, has head coaching experience, which seems very nice when you go to a major program like Auburn, makes a couple of interesting hires, including
Derek Mason to coach his defense. I imagine there's optimism just because that's the general feeling when you hire a younger I think he's in his early forties, a younger head coach who has head coaching experience and has one What is known about Brian Harson, what is expected and what is expected of him? That will be different if they're trying to get away from the Gus Malson era. What is noticeably different about Brian Harson than what Auburn fans were used to with with Gus Malson.
I want to start by asking this, when that, yeah, when that hits your timeline that afternoon that Brian Harson's the new head coach of Auburn, what was your reaction that he was their third choice? That he has won? But I haven't like every year I care about Boise State football a little bit less, and they just seemed
to be treading water as a good program. But they're not a killer anymore, and there's not the unique quality to Boise that they were under Chris Peterson, and he seemed to hire good coordinators that got hired away Andy Avlos, who's now their head coach, to Oregon, and I think it was Zach Hill went to ASU. So that's a
good sign for him. But I never I had seen stories leading up that Brian Harson was unhappy that Boise wasn't taking as taking football as seriously as he wanted them to, So that didn't come as a surprise that he leapt at the opportunity for a big job, but also like it was out of the region.
It seemed fine. It didn't. It didn't strike me as like, ooh, good for Boise. That makes a ton of sense. I never had that sense about it. Right to me, it was like kind of a jaw dropper. And that's not to disrespect Brian harsonn't. It doesn't mean I think he
can't be successful. And it's funny because like we always kind of think about this stuff as like I think, especially fan bases, when you're going through coaching change, you always kind of fantasize about like can you hire the person that everybody else in the conference goes like, oh shit,
like oh we're trouble exactly right. And I don't know that Brian Harrison does that for Nick Saban or anybody else in that division, but maybe they kind of sneakily just like hired a very good coach who just sort
of like chucks a bunch of boxes. And I mean, I was, you know, when they moved on from Gus, Like I joke to my old colleague justin ferguson that night of like it seems like Auburn is moving on from like a pretty pretty good marriage thinking that like, oh, I want to hit the dating pool, see what's out there for me, just so they can kind of like be disappointed in all sorts of new ways by lesser, lesser men, you know what I mean. Like it's it's it was a big old risk when they did it.
And you should mention if we're going to talk about Tennessee here at some point, Kevin Steele, you know, chaos is a ladder, you know, yeah, what an offseason. But in terms of the Harson.
Move, I the the the coordinator hires of of Mike Bobo and Derek Mason, I think are are pretty interesting kind of kind of pairings there. Usually, you see, when a guy's had as much success as he's had at Boise, you're kind of bringing the whole game with you, right, So to go go out and bring guys that that have this sec experience, it kind of goes to show you first that you know, maybe they felt like they needed to have really strong coordinator hires to feel feel
better about this this choice. But I mean, I think I'm I'm with you on on kind of the the trend and perception of where Boise was at. I think Boise State fans probably were like both pretty grateful for Brian Harson and and also maybe a little bit little bit underwhelmed in some ways too. And it's hard to follow Chris Peterson, so that's that's just hard for anybody.
But I think they'll be good. I'm fascinated to see how recruits respond to this and can you build the kind of staff that you know, you know, Auburn is a job that you can recruit at a top ten level if you if you play your cards right. Can they build the kind of staff that can do that or is it going to be building an Auburn program around kind of more of the you know, OKG thinking of like here, here's what we need and we're not
chasing the big studs. I'm really curious. It's a really interesting experiment, and usually guys like him do not get jobs like this coact from the G five level.
The thing I'm I'm always curious about is when you go in a coordinator direction with two recent head coaches and guys who probably want to be head coaches again, because that's typically where they where they fall under this circumstance. And Derek Mason was there with you know, I interviewed for other jobs even while he was at vander Built. Mike Bobo of course had some highs at Colorado State
and then moved over to South Carolina. I'm always curious about head coaches who go older rather than go up and coming, and whether or not that's a recipe for success, Like it's something like what we've seen out of Nick saban Is. You know, he hasn't necessarily gone older, but you know he's he's plucking guys that probably have more value, guys like Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian and Mike Loxley,
and he's sort of identifying value. And whereas the Brian Harrison thing, there are up and coming coordinators around the South, all over, you know, all over the country, and even
you mentioned Mac Brown. He goes and gets you know, Phil Longo, who had had so much success I think at Sam Houston State like an up and coming offensive mind and went to Ole Miss. I think, and I always like when head coaches have that feel for up and coming guys, you know, James Franklin with Joe Morehead, and I just wonder if the energy to build something at Auburn, the energy required is within Derek Mason and Mike Bobo.
Well, and I think we saw this year that like one one of the more brilliant moves of the last last cycle was Sam Pittman recognizing, Okay, this is this is a big new thing for me. I'm going to hire Bury Otam and he's going to help kind of show show the way, right, similar to Derek Mason, though similar to Mason except Brian Harson's been a winning head coach. Right. I think that kind of shows you that that this is like just what a bear this this conference, in
this division. Is that like you probably need to surround yourself with people who are going to tell you, hey, here's here's how they actually succeed here, because it's just such a dramatic change from total boise and and what
you're going up against. Uh, you know, you know, shout out to San Jose State obviously, and like there have been some teams that have risen up in the Mountain West obviously, but it's just a complete change and in the uh, you know, the difficulty on the Madden level there, right, So you're just you need to surround yourself, I guess with people that show you here's what to do. But and I know he goes back with Bobo from going
against him that color out of state. But I'm really curious to see if that's if those moves are a fit and kind of help speed this up, or is this just going to be a whole learning process here for the next year.
It seems like I can appreciate a big swing, you know, I can say I lean going younger up in comer to sort of reinvigorate a program that I honestly didn't need all that much. I mean, they've they've beaten Alabama relatively recently, so it wasn't a program that needed to be scrapped to the studs. But at the same time, it's big swing. Those are big personalities, and they have
connections in the South. They have good reputations in the South, I assume with with high school coaches, and are known quantities, so that seems important. But at a place like Tennessee that does need to be scrapped down to the studs. It seems are we all overreacting when we view And
these are my words. I'm not putting anybody's words in your mouth or anything, but like ten See has appeared to be a more and more unwinnable place, that there are so many voices, and that the athletic department is in such chaos. You know, phil former comes in, makes a bad hire and then retires like it seems that so much needs to be rebooted, and yet here we are with yet another situation that I mean, I think the whole recruiting department was fired over what is expected
to be major violations. Is is Tennessee years away from being a stable place, and whoever they end up hiring is really more of a like a table setter to just turn the aircraft carrier around or or somebody can somebody be legitimately set up for success in Knoxville in the year twenty twenty one.
It's, uh, you nailed it. I mean, this is the really like the whole thing's just insane to me. It really is like they fired him because he went three and seven, but they're turning themselves in for recruiting violations so they don't have to pay the full twelve plus million. But of course we all know Dan how this sport works. That they need to keep him quiet, right, so surely they need to negotiate a reduced payment because you're gonna want an NDA and so it's just a just a
damn mess. The billable hours on this are going to be spectacular, they really are. I think they've you know, now they need to hire an ad who will then hire a head coach and then the two of them will have to figure out how far this whole thing's been set back. And you know, of course, like there's no you know, they haven't won the SEC since O seven.
And as much as it's I can't get past the recruiting piece of this, I really can't like what you sign these really high level recruiting classes when pruit gets there. I mean, how do you think you pulled that off? Right? Like? What? Like there was a lot of talk about integrity during this press conference today and about how they're going to move forward with integrity and that that you know, they can't stand for this kind of stuff, but it's it strikes me as just insane that this Like I'm sorry,
how how are you? How did you think he was doing this? Like a dos anybody? I'm just exasperated. I don't want to go down the whole road of bagman in the SEC and all that. There's there's really no need for that but right Tennessee clearly is like gonna need to figure out how to how to be successful and and they're going to like act like what what just happened over these last couple of years is is
not the model. It was a bad higher. But I mean the next guy is going to try and do all the same stuff right in terms of trying to just rebuild it through the talent, through through through through high level recruiting that you know, it's going to have to be pretty squeaky clean here. And I guess we'll see what penalties come down the road from all this.
But what a what an incredible mess. And I mean, you know, I guess we can go through all the usual names, right, Like I mean, if you were the head of the search committee, who who would you want to talk to for this job?
Right? I mean it's Billy Napier. Any job in the South, his name is going to pop up. He's also from the state and has won, has hired well. I think his defensive coordinator this year is pretty well regarded. It was Ron Roberts before who Baylor hired away with Dave Randa, and now it's Patrick Tony, Like he seems like a name, but it's now a matter of he can choose his name is coming up with all sorts of jobs. He's
clearly been extremely patient, Yes, has been extremely patient. And Tennessee for all of you know, the insults and everything, you know, the shade people want to throw at Knoxville whatever. It's a huge place that has a huge stadium and a huge commitment. The reason they're firing coaches is because they want to pay for a team to win. You know, enter your whatever recruiting jokes now. But like they're committed
to figuring it out, well they do it correctly. I don't know they have a track record of not doing it. But at least you're getting that from the school that you're going to have the resources that the right guy can come in and say, this is what I want my recruiting department to look like. This is what I want the training table to look like. This is what I how I want practice to be in the facilities to be like. And Tennessee won't bok at any of that.
So if they hire a professional athletic director, I know I saw like Wit Babcock, the Virginia Tech guy who's pretty well regarded his name come up. If they hire somebody who is a pro I think it goes a long way into attracting a pro coach, like a pro in that you know, somebody who is professional about his business. And it will attract Jeff when you say pro coach right exactly, it will. It will attract not maybe the biggest names, but the right names. And I think that's huge.
So that that would that would to me be the silver lining with the Tennessee opening, that they can get it right with the athletic director first and foremost to sort of set up like you like to to note, a five star culture.
Yeah, I I don't think it's about job. I don't And I think as long as as long and I don't know, maybe in civilized sanctions help establish a sense that, hey, we got to be patient. This is not going to happen in two years. This is going to be a build up with this next hire, and you know, especially nowadays,
like we've already seen it quite a bit already. But I mean, if they just have like a ton of players going the portal too, I think that will also make it pretty clear that this is not a program that's going to win big in twenty one or twenty two that it's going to be. You have to just try and get the right guy, support them and hiring the right staff and then just let them let them
do their jobs. Here for a few years, and it just seemed like folks were after a pretty like week winning streak there in was it year two or year two right with pro I mean, just a winning streak off a bunch of like not great teams. But suddenly it was like, oh crap, we're going to be incredible in year three, and it's like, no, that's not the case at all, especially with where Florida and Georgia are at. So you have to now people expect more than three
and seven. And that's fair, but it you know, these jobs can just turn into such pressure cookers when you have the wrong expectations and when you think, oh, they've got all this talent, so they should be instantly good next year, right, No, that's just not going to be the case, especially in the kind of competitive environment they're in. And I guess you know what doomed there is like you know, you just can't keep getting blown out like
the way they did this yere too. It's just go to they got to build a lot more competitive program that doesn't lose these G five games and doesn't have these embarrassments.
Yeah, and I'm as guilty as anybody to look at results against subpar teams and a lot of these cases as meaningful growth, right when really, if you lose to Alabama thirty one to twenty four, that's a lot more meaningful than beating a South Carolina team by two touchdowns. That the level of competition matters. And of a walk before you can run thing, you got to be able to hang with the top of the top. And that's you know, that's what Texts A and M did last
year against Georgia. They were right there. A couple of bad calls went against them, but I think it was a nineteen thirteen final. Those seem to be the telltale signs of heading in the right direction. And I think it's very easy when you know Tennessee has been down in the way that they've been down these past I guess a couple decades, really to just take what you
can get. But you really have to be careful. I really have to be careful to look at any program and say, you know, beating up on other flawed teams is fine, but not necessarily as much as we think it might be.
I mean, the really hard thing is getting to where A and M got to where the floor is like eight and four. You know, that's a really hard thing to do in that conference year after year. In Tennessee, after one year of winning eight games, it's like, you know, you feel like you've made this progress and that you're ready to contend in that division again. And I'm not saying anybody you know in Knoxville thought they're going to win the SEC this year. But still you have to
understand that it's going to be a long process. That didn't happen for Saban or anybody else in just a couple of years. They really didn't. And so I'm fast fascinating to see where they go and are you know, I think the way they framed things today, it's really hard to hire Hugh Freeze. It just really is. And so I'm sure it will be an attractive job to a lot of folks, But I'm sure the Boogeyman of the n cbl A kind of hanging over all this is going to make some people a little bit wary.
Not to mention just all the drama that comes with Tennessee.
Now, also important to note if Tennessee does want to hire Hugh Freeze, they're just gonna that's I mean nothing like college football teams do what they want to do, And I don't think optics are as important as we all may think. Like these programs are just going to do what they want to do and hope for the best.
Yeah. The only hang up there is just like is you know, is is there? Just does Greg sink? He just not let the schools in his league fins right now? You know? And that's I guess that's possible. But are you gonna be It's gonna be? And and by the way, like should we throw Gus in there as a just candidate for this job? Like wouldn't that be a totally acceptable outcome?
Seems like a professional head coach was available for head coaching jobs. Are you a Brett Bielam a believer in Champagne? I'm I'm, I'm into it. I'm I'm I'm I'm pretty intrigued.
I think, Uh, I've kind of I wouldn't say I've missed a ball, but I'm good with seeing it again that the Illinois football program has been a very interesting experiment in trying to like it was wild to watch Lovey just like try to build a team through the transfer portal and uh, you know, with with some some results, but you know, we're going back to the old roots here of here's how you try to try to win
in that division of the Big Ten. Yeah, I feel I feel as if he can find decent enough lignemen in the Midwest. It's a big school. You'll play on national TV. I mean, you'll play on the Big Ten network, And it's a matter of to me, it's just going
all in. I guess Lovey's identity was transfer Portal one, but just saying okay, and we're going to run the hell out of the ball and we're going to be this power team like he was at Wisconsin in the beginning of Arkansas and then they threw the hell out of the ball near the end of his time at Arkansas. I think that's just especially for whatever reason, in the Big Ten, there is something about we're an RPO team, We're a power running team, we are a ball control
and defense team. I think that's gonna be key for Bilama. Just just recruit to a specific identity and roll with it.
Yeah. Yeah, and it's he shows up an interesting time because you've got obviously Northwestern rolling right now, you know, with their bounce back year. You have you know, you have you have Minnesota. It's still really competitive. Yeah, Iowa, who had had a great year. You've got Wisconsin, and you got uh, you got Nebraska, who's who's still struggling.
So it's and and I'm leaving some people out. I don't mean to, but it's, uh, he shows up at a very competitive time and it's going to be I look forward to the uh, you know, six foot eight men that he finds in the Midwest to to build this thing on.
You know, you mentioned Nebraska that is your local team. I had mentioned with your coworker Andy Staples that Notre Dame was on sort of a treadmill of very good but not great. Nebraska would happily take that treadmill, right, Yes, yes, that's right. They could not throw the football too wide receivers last year and have not been able to since maybe that Adrian Martinez game against Ohio State. My question is, yeah,
our wide receivers are good. They could definitely use some wide receivers they especially now after losing their best wide receiver to Kentucky and Wandelle Robinson. Nebraska has now reached a point where Scott Frost bringing what worked at UCF to Lincoln is not a reality. Maybe something else is,
maybe some other way of succeeding. But in terms of the coaching changes, in terms of the players leaving and coming in, is there any single reason for hope that Scott Frost has turned a corner, has cracked some sort of code to get this Nebraska team not to a really impressive place. But yeah, they're definitely better than Illinois.
Northwestern can hang with Iowa, and I know the games have been close with Iowa recently, but that for four quarters, Nebraska players and coaches are going to bring everything they possibly have in a sensical, impressive way.
Yeah, that's going to be a no for me. It's a big set of there.
No.
I think this is an off season of of real soul searching. I think for for Scott Frost and Nebraska, after you know, getting getting dunked on on Twitter, all all fall along by everybody. I think it's certainly right now. I think it around here, it certainly feels like the first off season where people are kind of like willing to kind of go there and kind of questioned Scott Frost and kind of question like, wait, you know, is there is there a blueprint where this is about to turn?
Because I think that clearly the you know, the magic of UCF has been really, really difficult to recreate in Lincoln, Nebraska,
and there's a ton of reasons for that. But I think that you know, like frequently in the twenty nineteen season, he's like, you know, Scott Frost would tell, you know, publicly say like this thing's about to turn, and when it's going to turn, it's it's happened really fast, and it's going to be huge, and it just look twenty twenty was tough in a ton of ways, and uh, you know, anyone can can choose to make excuses about
that if they want to. It makes sense. But the fact that you know, Wandelle Robinson is leaving is a pretty disconcerting signal about where Nebraska's at right now. And just like the morale and you know, they don't they don't have the playmakers now they're two best ones for him and and JD. Spielman, who transferred to TCU within the last year. You know, I like it's unclear if he's going to be making a bunch of staff changes.
It's you know, uh, the recruiting is is solid right now, but you know, is this team, you know, and they've got everybody like pretty much everybody coming back on defense next year, which I think makes that side of the ball like slightly uh, you know, encouraging. But it's just bizarre to say that after after a few years and at Nebraska, Scott Frost like hasn't figured out the offense.
I didn't really and you've watched his offenses at Oregon planning, and like, I never really thought that would be like the question mark after a few years of.
This something I think Oregon fans know very very well that Nebraska fans may not or have come around to Scott Frost hasn't been the best quarterback evaluator. When he passed on Tua, he had a kid in Arizona like that. His record for identifying quarterbacks of the future, like this is my guy. I have watched him throw, This is who we need to build our program around is not super great. Is not all that impressive, especially when you watch.
This sea he took like Burmaster over toa he.
Didn't take Burmeistrover to a Burmestro I believe was a late Willie Taggart.
It was okay.
He he had recruited Ryan Kelly out of Arizona. That was his guy who eventually decommitted and went to Arizona State. He slow played Justin Herbert, if that is an indicator, the greatest ricky quarterback of all dead, who was in his backyard, who was like he had to be convinced a legend that Justin Herbert was of Oregon quality. And so I think there is some sentiment within the uh the Oregon community that Scott Frost is more of a chip.
Kelly struggled with, you know, quarterback of the future identification as well a lot of like four star kids who did not pan out. And then you watch Nebraska football this year and it was pretty clear that Luke McCaffrey was not a big ten quarterback. Make he can run the ball well, right, but it seemed like, oh this, this doesn't seem like the answer for somebody who can throw the ball thirty times against Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin.
Yeah, And it was it was confusing this season where you know, Adrian Martinez was able to come back and at times kind of regained some of his confidence. And you know, they they went with McCaffrey at one point, and then they bench McCaffrey for Martinez, but they said, just to be clear, McCaffrey's the future of the program.
But then men Martinez kind of finished it out. And now you go through this offseason where inevitably, just like with any of these, you know, any of these programs around the country, like you kind of have to pick one because the other guy's probably gonna kind of want to leave, you know, And so we'll see kind of who they bet on here and if or if you can try and find a way to you know, placid them and keep them both. But you've got to you've
got to make that really critical decision. And you know, just early on in the tenure here, I mean in terms of what they inherited and where they started, just they've had a couple of years of in in you know, sixteen seventeen eighteen, a couple years of just really really poor recruiting, just classes that did not pan out at all, and that's where you see the weaknesses this year, and where you try and you know, they're gonna have to add transfers to try and cover that up a little bit.
But you go back and look under the hood there a little bit. There's just a lot of classes that did not pan out, and that makes for a lot of guys in the starting lineup who you're wondering, is this is this really like a first team Big ten
kind of guy? Right So it's going to be, like I said, I think Scott Frost is, I'm sure going to do a lot of thinking this this offseason about what is our identity, what do we hang our hat on, what can we where do we need to get better to be you know, more competitive in this in this conference, because it's all like it's all worthy of like being questioned right now.
When you look at the transfer market right now as it stands, a lot of big name quarterbacks, a lot of you know, you mentioned won Dale Robinson, he goes back home to Kentucky. Were there names that surprised you when you look at like, Okay, this guy is going to this school now, or this guy is on the market. This has has parked my interest, has piqued my interest as somebody like okay, this is somebody who is going to affect how we perceive the twenty twenty one season.
Who have been your eye openers on the transfer market.
Yeah, there's been a bunch. I mean, I think probably for most people and certainly for you know, for your co host, probably Jack Cone to Notre Dame is probably the headliner in terms of affecting the national picture. Really curious to see kind of how that how that works, and certainly, you know, there's enough pieces around him that you would think he'd be set up to succeed. I thought I thought Jared Guarantana going to Washington State was like, to me, kind of like Wilton Spate going to play
for Chip Kelly. It was kind of like that, that that kind of a fit. I'm like, yeah, interesting, Okay, we'll see. Like he's never he's never really been. I mean, he's a four year starter, but he's never been like better than like a sixty two percent passer. So does that make sense in Rollo's offense. I'd probably rather invest in Jane Delora, So we'll see about that. You know,
Janye Morris from Tennessee just committed to Oklahoma today. Yeah, and it's not you know, it's not super often that a sec starting left tackle and former freshman All American with three more years to play, just sort of pops up on the market. So Oklahoma, you know, getting better and better on the offensive line. That's that's the rich getting richer for sure. Have you noticed what Utah has been doing this offseason?
I noticed that what Jake Bentley's gone, he went to South Alabama. I don't who is Utah added? So Utah added Charlie Brewer from Baylor. Yes, that's right. All they added Chris Curry, the big Lis, Chris.
Curry, the future Marshawn lynch Is as Coacho once called him. And also TJ Pledger from Oklahoma running back and also a very good young quarterback in Jaquinn and Jackson from Texas to compete with Charlie Brewer and Cam Rising there. So Utah just like totally remaking their offense in the
portal so far, I think is pretty cool. We're still waiting on a decision from Eric Gilbert, which is going to be a huge deal because that might be like a Georgia versus Florida battle now, and you know, pretty
pretty consequential. Florida States added a bunch of interesting players in the course of this, including of course Mackenzie Milton and how awesome would it be if he can he can get back the best and then Miami, you know, trying to win another portal title this year, as they tended to do under many dias with Charleston Rambo from Oklahoma and Tyreek Stevenson from Georgia, DeAndre Johnson from Tennessee, and then the under the radar one I'm loving. Are you familiar with ba Bailey Zappi?
Dan, No, I guess I put all my Bailey eggs into the Bailey Hawkman basket? Who I think is going to Middle Tennessee? Who's Who's Bailey zapp.
Bailey Zappi quarterback from Houston Baptist, Okay at the at the FCS level this year, Houston Baptist decided that they wanted to play a mini season instead of sitting out in the fall, and so they scheduled a bunch of games against FBS teams.
Uh. They almost upset Texas Tech in Lubbock. Yes, they put six hundred plus yards on Tech. Yeah, yes, correct.
And their quarterback Bailey Zappi really really talented dude. His OC there is Zach Kittley, a guy who came up under of Kingsbury at Texas Tech and Western Kentucky hired Zach Hitley, and Zach Hitley brought with him Bailey Zappy and their two best receivers from HBU to go to Western Kentucky. And so pretty pretty interesting to see what that looks like. Because he was Zapi was the nation's leading passer in terms of the four game season he
played among FBS quarterbacks even though he was an FCS. Dude.
Wow, Okay, I can't think of a better way to end all of this than talking about.
Bailey's appy awareness. It's what Bailey Zappy aware.
I'm on the transfer the twenty four to seven transfer portal page, and Bailey Zappi's recruiting profile in the class of twenty seventeen was nobody knows who he is. That's right. He is just na across the board. There seemed to be interest from Houston lamar Rice and SMU, but only an offer from Houston Baptist. So I hold it work out. He's a kid that I wrote about in this fall.
He's a kid that went around to Texas Tech and Baylor and A and M and Texas and all these places for camps and just couldn't get anybody's attention because they were all kind of, you know, set on the guys they were going to take. And so he got his shot and he's he's a pretty. It's it's a pretty, you know, it's it's always good when you can hire people that know Cliff Kingsbury or Sean McVay or anything like that. And so shout out to Western Kentucky for
taking that plunge. But I think Zach Hilly's a stud and I think that's a that was a sneaky, great hire they made. And so when you can just import an offense over from from a school like that, it's gonna be pretty cool to watch, all right. Final question is not having to do with football at all. I looked onto your Twitter feed and I searched the word pizza.
And oh, I'd love to talk about pizza.
I have all sorts of interesting tweets about you and pizza. December fourth, two thousand and nine. No longer eating Toby Keith for dinner. We're at some dirty pizza place. Now, Oh, how you underwhelm me? Oklahoma City. Zero retweets, zero likes.
Wow, digging up my college tweets.
Thanks Man twenty ten, Awesome evening in Kansas City, H and M, California, Pizza kitchen toy story three in three D next. Unfortunately I'm missing Entourage, but I'll live. What see you painted?
Is there an app that you can just delete all tweets prior to like twenty twelve or something? You know, Can I just delete it? Tell you that tweets in one fell sweet?
There is?
Oh my goodness, there absolutely is some deep cuts. I was going to ask you. You know, I've been I've been closely watching all of your pizza tweets lately and and googling you know, these uh these pizza stones, and wondering. You know, I love I love the outcomes that you're getting there. I don't love working with Doe, Okay, I feel like you. I say, hey, that's actually really easy. You get the hang of it quickly and all that stuff.
But I'm very intrigued by this lifestyle that you're embracing, of being pizza man, and i'd i'd love to give it a try. If it's not too expensive to get into the pizza pizza steel, it's.
Not at all, so I have. I think the thing I have it it's a baking steel. It's made by a company. There is a company called Baking Steel, but I think the one I got it from is called nerd Chef. And it's a basic square, maybe sixteen by sixteen inch piece of steel. You just stick in your oven and you preheat it for an hour and it conducts seed very well. And when I turn the.
Broiler on it at the end, it gets to really, what do you what do you set the oven to?
My oven goes to five point fifty, But then I turned the broiler on the last few minutes and it gets five to eighty somewhere in there. Okay, Wow, working with dough is great. I have become a big fan of because I work from home. My wife works from home. You know, I'm building toys all the time. I'm playing with my kid all the time. I like activities where I can zone out and just listen to a podcast. So you know, I'm building dressers for you know, my
kids room and like that. So I like those activities. And so when it got cold here and I was going outside less and I still try to go outside for a run, but I wanted an indoor activity that I could just zone out doing. And I'm a big, big believer and even like micro accomplishments. Just find something that you wanted to get a little bit better at, or find something that you've never been able to do well, or you just are curious about, and just dive in.
Just become healthily obsessed with something new because it's you know, the world is burning and it's good to find something small.
Man.
That's funny, you say, my former colleague Jake Trotter was always very good at this. That he would pick a new thing every off season and just become like an expert of that. And when he told me that, and he told me the things you do, I was like, I've never considered that I could just like pick things and become good at them. You know, that's a that's a strange thing to think about doing each year, but it makes it it's so obvious.
It's completely obvious. And it can be food, it can be learning a language, it can be increasing your five K time, it can be I don't know, whatever, you like, getting good at photography. I mean there's some hobbies that are more expensive than others. I listen to all that. Yeah, I listen. If you've always wanted to learn how to how to sew, you just learn how to sew, like it's you can do it. If you wanted to grow
an herb garden, grow an herb garden. I listened to an NBA show and one of the hosts is Ben Golliver, writer for the Now Washington Post, and he does this and his project in twenty twenty one, He's like, I'm just gonna hammer my core. I'm just going hard literal hard COREA. I admire the hell out of that, and I'm going to the opposite direction with my hobby. But making dough is not difficult, and there are obsessive message boards on the Internet and there's a million recipes and
you can get as nerdy as you want. And pizza making is essentially delicious science because pizza people like to say pizzas alive, because technically your dough is alive. It's formed by you know, microbes, living organisms in yeast, and so it's you throw together some flour and some water and some salt and you mix it with your hands and you just throw it in the fridge and then a couple days later you pull it out and you form it into bowl to balls, and you let those
hang out for a couple hours. Then you smear it into a bigger piece and you throw sauce and cheese on. You throw it in the oven like it's it's make it sound so simple, it really do. I can't recommend it enough. It's extremely fun. I just I want to make pizzas as often as possible, not because I want to eat them, which I do, and I just give them away to friends and it's a in a weird social time. It's been pretty fun.
I do have a novice question for you. Here can you explain to the people if you haven't already, I'm sure you have already. Why is it important that the public sees the bottom of the pizza?
Oh? Yes, So you wanted a dough that turns intwo So a dough is only when it's uncooked, but you want a crust that's completely cooked through. And it depends on how hot you can get your oven. And so if you look at the bottom of like a Dominoes pie, Dominoes is fine. This is not a slighte against dormenoes. But they're cooking them so quickly and they're putting them on these like mesh discs, that you don't want it
to be too soft, like people like crispy food. And so there's something that's very nice about a fully cooked through pizza because a fully cooked through pizza means that, like the inside, you want the inside to be airy. You don't want it to be dense. And so when the bottom is crispy and the middle of it is is cooked through an airy and there's you know, you see space between the gluten strands or whatever, there is something balanced about the soft inside and the crispy bottom.
And so what's called this is the this is the fun term. The leopard spotting on the bottom and along the crust, the edge crust is an indicator that you have a good The goal is always the crisp outside with the soft inside.
Uh huh, that's the goal. See, so you post them to show the leopards. I just assume you're posting them to show like, look, guys, it didn't burn the hell out of the bottom of it or something. I mean, no, there's actually it's it is a baking thing of like, look at the we achieve something on the bottom of this as well.
So the next step if I were truly to become a pizza artisan. You can get a pizza, you can build a pizza oven, or you can now buy consumer grade pizza ovens. You just have to pay a lot closer attention during the bake because it's really easy to burn pizza because you know, a real pie or a real Neapolitan style pie, you're talking eight nine hundred degrees
in the oven. So that's when you you really have to It's basically like driving stick, like you really have to be riding the clutch, the pizza clutch, if you're going to do it right. So no, I'm not worried about burning because I don't think.
You have you messed with these oonies?
You do? You know that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, so I have not. I'm curious though. You can get an Oonie twelve or Annie sixteen, depending on the size of the pie you want. Are you curious? I've seen them. They look pretty I mean especially, yeah, they do. They look pretty badass as just like a thing to have around, especially if you're embracing that lifestyle. I should add that I would probably be almost more interested in not to suck up.
Do you hear anything? I would almost be more interested in taking taking a run at your Detroit style recipe. Results there look incredible.
I would what I would do. So the recipe I used, you can google it. It's J Kenji Lopez Alt is the name of the author.
Well yeah, okay, yeah, so if you've heard of I'm a subscriber to All Things.
So it's J. Kenji Lopez is Alt Lopez Alt's recipe. It's it's a one day recipe. You can literally throw everything into a food processor. The sauce is quite easy. You can do it with Mozzarelli. I mean, the real Detroit cheese is called brick cheese. But it's one of the easiest recipes you can do. It's basically mix it in a food process or throw it on the bottom of a pan. Let it hang out, spread it, let
it hang out, spread it some more. Top it with cheese and whatever toppings you want, top it with sauce, throw it in the oven like it's it's basically making lasagna. Okay, it's quite easy. That's very encouraging. There was a place down in Austin we love via three to one three that ace this and have been missing that for sure. Oh yeah, no, I would I would do I via three one three is on my list. I haven't been spent a lot of time in Austin, but I've heard
great things about it. You can make and I wouldn't recommend doing it often because it's just a heavy pie. But if you're in the mood, you could go to the store tonight, get the ingredients necessary, and make it tomorrow with zero pizza experience and it would be delicious.
Wow. Maybe this is you know, as we start twenty one here, it's time to think about, you know, self actualization. You know, be the.
Best Max Olson that you can possibly be, and be the best solid verbal listener you can possibly be. I'm gonna recommend it again. Micro accomplishments. That's that's the name of the game to me. That's it.
That's that's fantastic. I've learned a lot here, Thank you, sir.
Oh I'm doing my best, all right. Max Olson read all of his work at the Athletic. I don't know if he has a promo code to get you some sort of you know, dollars off the Athletic subscription, but I can tell you this. I purchased an Athletic subscription for myself when the company launched, and especially when the college football team was built out. I use it every day. They're not a sponsor, they're not paying me to say this.
It is a very worthwhile investment. And you get to read Max Olsen during the season, during the off season alongside all sorts of great people like your friends, Bruce Feldman, Andy Staples, Stewart Mandel, Nicole Auerback, you name it, they're there, all sorts of team people. Max Olsen, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you man anytime.