Welcome to the solid verbal home 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 a day? Edo steak? Is that woo woom?
And then and tie.
Welcome back to the solid verbol, boys and girls. My name is ty hilden Brandt. That fine gentleman over there is always the monster of the midway, Dan Rubinstein, sir, how are you? I'm not bad, Tye, I'm not bad. I went into the city yesterday for a lunch. I got out of the house, which felt good. It's not raining today, so I'm gonna try to go for a run.
I'm a very strange runner. I've talked about this on the show before, where you know the old adage it's not a marathon, or it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, right. I go out there and I do sprints. I go out there and I don't just go jogging for like a five k or a ten k or something like that.
I'll do a warm up jog and then I just sprint like eighth of a mile, quarter of a mile, because one I find it to be a better workout for me and I put a little bit less stress on my joints because I don't like running long distances, and two because I'm a demon on the tennis court. It's good for my short track speed, my burst.
Sure.
So I'm out there as people are just leisurely riding their bicycles, going for walks, going for jogs like and that's me out there, burning up the pavement and always excited to do it. And when it's warm enough, TI come on. Life is good.
Have you considered going to a local baseball field and running from home to first and first to second to work on that interval.
I haven't done baseball field and I haven't thought about it, but I have thought about finding giant empty parking lots like you would train a toddler to ride a bike or train a teenager to drive a car, and just do it at like six am. So my exposure is not there.
Wearing a garbage bag like Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. Again again, I'm the same page, setting up some cones and just doing sprints because if I'm really doing it for tennis, I need the right surface, So it's going to be a harder surface, not dirt and really doing that short track like change of direction, burst speed stuff. But that that may be a bridge too far. We'll see though, Yeah, because I mean you're pushing up now into your fifth decade of life before you know it.
I'm in my mid to late thirties, sir. Yeah, you're pushing up against that glass ceiling of sorts, and the point at which you just stop caring what others think is fast approaching.
True, it's a reality, but ty, I'm just I'm getting better. I'm improving, which is.
What the following teams should be aiming for, should be angling for. We are celebrating four and eight week. This episode will be released on for the public on April the seventh, which is a day before the.
Eighth, but it's four and eight week, and so we are celebrating a number of teams, both in Power Conferences, G five Conferences and the like, who unfortunately went four and eight and twenty twenty one. And it's not a season recap, it's not a season preview. It's just sort of a state of four and eight, How they got there, what's going on? Did coaches come in and out, did
players come in and out? You know where is this program in terms of how serious they are about pushing up much in the way that you have pushed up into your fifth decade of life. Thank you into becoming a bowl team, because that's obviously the next goal for a number of these teams. Obviously some have higher aspirations, but we celebrate all things four and eight because it is April eighth soon at the time of recording this show.
All of our shows driven by our good friends over at Geico. Don't forget the subscribe or follow if you have yet to do so. Overballers dot Com is where you can get the video version of the show. You can also get this show all of our episodes a little bit early via the early access that we offer. There's a Discord server. You can still go out and listen to the Extra Nuggets limited run that Dan and our good friend Adam Amin have dropped for all y'all.
To listen to. We welcome your feedback.
Has ever a ton of perks that are out there right now on verbawlers dot com. Last but not least Sold Giveaway dot Com is where you can go if you want to throw your name in the hat to win. As signed AJ Brown, Old Miss mini helmet, and of course don't forget to follow us across every social media channel and YouTube. Hit the subscribe button on YouTube as well. We post clips from all of our episodes out there in case you're interested in seeing what goes on here
behind the scenes. Should we do some news first before we go further, let's Bob Bowlesby. Dan, Bob Bowlesby gonna be stepping down as Big Twelve commissioner. That news came out. Bob Bolesby has presided over a rather interesting time in the Big Twelve, notably during which two of the founding members, Texas and Oklahoma.
Have decided a bolt for the SEC.
I don't know if you've got any like stinging thoughts on this, Dan, but it is notable because Bob Bolsby has been a pretty big player, a mid conference re alignment talk, a mid playoff expansion talk, amid so much of what goes down, specifically as it relates to college football in the Big Twelve.
Yeah, and I wouldn't call it a risky addition to the Big Twelve in terms of the four new teams coming in, but it is a conference going through a good amount of change, and he was at the time, unable to sort of navigate the politics and bring the Big Twelve in line with where the Big Ten and SEC were in terms of adding teams of note and of substance or just teams that exist in the case of a couple of those editions, and so fell behind as a commissioner as it relates to football expansion and
you know, TV deals, But all in all seems to be somewhat well respected in the community. And now the names that are being thrown around, largely in the athletic director and an administrative community are some of the name you know, Greg Byrne and Alabama and Rob Mullins at Oregon I saw are the names that you know have come up for these types of positions in the past. And we'll be fascinating to see because the Big Twelve, of course, is finding itself in a time of great change.
So you know, I'm sure it was a you know, when you look at some of Bolsby's quotes and comments about the Texas and Oklahoma change, that he was caught totally off guard. YEA, that it has been an entirely stressful time these past couple of years.
In the in the Big Twelve, offices. I also saw Oliver Luck. There can't be always administrative job in college football or otherwise it does involve Oliver Luck's name. He's got the best agent correct on that side of the business. So yeah, we'll see which direction they go. One interesting nuggie that I found oh about this is did you know that now with Bob Bolsby departing retiring, Greg Sankee is going to be the lone commissioner who was with
his league prior to twenty twenty. So there's been a lot of chess in the commissioner space here within major college football. It will reshape the way we view things. We saw what happened during the pandemic and more recently now with the Pac twelve and Kevin Warren in the ACC and the quote unquote alliance. Who knows what's to come for the Big twelve, but it will be a
new person at the Helm for that conference. And if you, by the way, if you remember, because we did the show with Nicole Aauerback who spent a lot of time discussing the dynamics within the Big ten and having a new commissioner when a number of athletic directors and presidents and chancellors were pulling in different directions with the COVID season last year twenty twenty, and so whoever it is, and this goes obviously for any any commissioner who has
unique challenges within his or her conference. It's going to be somebody who can come into this changing conference with a number of teams with different perspectives or programs in schools with different perspectives, different goals, and has to very quickly get them on the same page, right, that there has to be this unifying force that has to come in, especially in a conference with so much change. And that was where you know, the Big Ten really struggled with
with Kevin Warren. Communication, Yeah, communication and and and that mutual trust right when we talked to and this is part of we did a couple episodes about this. We also talked to David Jones, our friend for Penn Live, and his point was just in comparing someone like a Kevin Warren to Jim Delaney for whom he took over the conference, his point was, folks didn't always like Jim Delaney, but they knew they could trust him and he was
very good at getting people in line. He was good at communicating and for a new commissioner in the case of Kevin Warren to step in at the moment that he did, it was a particular challenge, not only trying to circle the wagons here and get everybody on the same page, but with COVID going on, it was it was sort of a nightmare. Bob bowlsby stepping away at this point in time, it's got its own set of unique challenges with the conference changing, with college football changing,
what have you. So yeah, we'll see which direction they go. Also, at the administrative level, I saw that Mark Emmert is issuing kind of an edict would be the wrong word, but he's making a request, let's say, prayer, a prayer that Congress will take up legislation and create a uniform set of guidelines and rules for nil R. The NCAA now trapped in this awkward grace base where they want to be involved but not too much correct asking, ever so politely, please take up some legislation some way to
apply these rules uniformly across.
All fifty states.
I don't know how close we are or aren't to that actually happening. My guess is that there is political interest out there for some congressmen among us to get that job done. Whether or not it's something that will be fast track remains to be seen, but it will certainly be a talking point, at least at that NCAA level for quite some time until it actually gets done. It will get done eventually, we just don't know when. Yeah, I have no idea.
It just doesn't seem like it's going to become a huge national priority unless there are political points to be gained, just because I don't know. It seems like a lot is happening right now, not going on right now, a lot of downtime to say, is there anything we can figure out that doesn't seem to.
Be the case. But I don't know, I'm the wrong person.
Ask elsewhere.
In college football, Yeah, Notre Dame announced via a hype video. Sure, just weird that they're going to play Tennessee State to open the season in twenty twenty three. It is the first time ever that the Irish will be playing an FCS team. Not sure for the promotional stuff, I don't really get that. But it's April. It's April. We're all in search of content. What I took away from this with them playing an FCS team is maybe they're closer to joining the SEC than anybody really thought, Oh how
dare you? Maybe they're just they're close to it. I don't just getting their feet wet.
I'm okay with playing an FCS team and FCS team every year. My views have sort of come around and evolved on this, because.
Man, you need cash.
You need cash if you want multiple levels of football, if you want a lot of participation in the sport, you have to make it financially viable. And it's an opportunity to play a lot of young players and walk on if you're one of these power programs in the second half and you're blowing somebody up and you see what you have in terms of depth and guys and effort and all those things. So I don't know, I don't like the idea that I still like the idea
of a more centralized way of scheduling. But yeah, it was Notre Dame USC and UCLA, and UCLA now has I believe Alabama State on the books and USC canceled the game with the fight naggies of UC Davis I think last year. So they still haven't played an FCS team. That's some sort of like merit badge, I guess, but no, I'm okay with it. I want the still more uniform scheduling of more you know, interesting power five on power five action that schools don't just get to decide amongst themselves.
But I'm fine with it, especially because it gives us always the possibility of a major program paying big money to lose, to lose that game, and before it has not just FCS Power five G five of course, but it just it gives us that chance, and I'm always for it.
That's a perfect segue, yes, into our segment.
That's why you're a pros pro.
Any other news, by the way, anything that came across the desk of Dan Rubinstein that we should address here.
No, I mean, we have spring practice going on, and we have spring games going on, and you know, there's not a lot of teams that are gonna take chances with guys who are beat up, and there's not a lot to glean from a lot of these games. And we'll do a sort of spring game and spring practice recap and wrap once it's over. So I don't know worth paying attention to if, especially if you're rooting for a team with a new coach. I don't even I think I'm gonna be on the road when Oregon plays
it's spring game. I don't know if you are planning your I don't know April or May around Notre Dames spring game always.
I know, I gotta look when it is always always playing around that.
Yeah.
Yeah, it just seems like a situation where we're better off aggregating the bigger stuff than really diving into each individual story that comes out. As as he mentioned at the top of the show, Dan Rubinstein, it is four and eight week, Yes, four and eight week. We've got a list of teams in front of us, those being USC, Washington and Colorado, sort of like packed twelve week here on the.
Show, How dare you?
In addition to Bowling Green, Buffalo, Navy, Rice, Texas State, and Louisiana Monroe the Warhawks, those are the teams in major college football that went four to eighth this past season. What we've been doing, what we've done two previous episodes now during three and nine and two and ten week is Dan puts together a couple questions and he quizzes me which team is responsible for insert your nuggie here. I try to guess sometimes I get it right, in the case of the last episode, most of the time
I get it wrong. Now we talk a little bit about that team, as he said, not a recap, not a preview, just sort of a what the hell?
Four and eight? What the what the hell?
So, I don't know if you've got any sounds at the ready? My iPad, I'm gonna hold this up for the camera. Mypad's dead again. I have to get this fixed. I don't know what I did. All good, I'll teach you some technology stuff. Yep, dead, I can't get it to start back up. So maybe a genius bar appointment
in my future. That being said, play some sounds for us usher in this ridiculous game that we've got here on four All right, we are building programs back into bowl shape here on the solid verbal So I'm here to help.
Okay, okay, you ready for program number one? Yes, this program's offense was so bad?
How bad were they? Damn? How bad? They were? So bad?
They got shut out by a team who themselves were very displeased with Their offensive coordinator went in a new direction. And so this team that got shut out hired said offensive coordinator, who led a comfortable win over this team.
I'm gonna be honest, Yeah, I had a hard time following that. Okay, So team A lost a game thirty to zero. The team that scored thirty at the end of the season was like, Nope, we don't like this offensive coordinator. Team B, who scored zero points said, I don't know, we'll take them. Our offense is pretty bad and thirty seems like a pretty sweet deal. Okay, I don't know who what team that is. So Colorado lost to Minnesota thirty to nothing. Mike Sanford was Minnesota's offensive
coordinator last year. They were not too pleased, especially because Minnesota they themselves lost to another team on this four and eight list, not scoring many points in the process.
And so Mike Sandford is now the new offensive coordinator at Colorado who has had themselves a very strange I would argue a year and a half after being surprisingly good in the COVID short and twenty twenty season, especially with what they were to do on the ground, they were feisty at moments in twenty twenty one, but they lost a good amount of talent to the portal and weirdly and I guess impressive in its own way. Colorado lost said talent on defense to big schools, which is
typically not what we see. Typically, what we see is when players enter the portal, they like they'll go down to a you know, lesser programs for more playing time, be it smaller.
P five, G five whatever. Colorado players have ended up at you know, Brendan Rice and at least a player in the secondary ended up at USC another dB A corner Christian Gonzales at Oregon. They lost a player to TCU Iowa State. So Colorado in a weird position where
the offense was kind of a nightmare last year. They hire a coordinator who is not super well regarded as of late, and Mike Sandford and haven't been recruiting well at all, and so I you know, they bring in Tommy Brown, an offensive lineman from Alabeia who was well regarded as a recruit but didn't really make a huge impact on the Alabama offensive line these past few years. So it's hard to be crazy optimistic about Colorado short medium, long term, and I don't see it ending well for
the Buffs. It's hard to see them as a consistent six seven eight when program moving forward.
Yeah, I mean you sort of tell the Colorado story in the last five years of pre slash during Meltucker, that one volunted season. Yeah, and now what's happened since? And they were, as you said, surprisingly decent in the first season under Carl Durrell.
Yeah, I mean I.
Think he won awards, right, he was doing a pretty good job. And then it kind of spun out a little bit and then we have what took place in twenty twenty one. You could argue the highlight of the season was losing in Week two by.
Three to Texas A.
And that was the game, by the way, where Haynes King went down in the second possession. Yeah, I think it was in Denver. Yeah, ushered in the Calzada Armada. Now he's off to Auburn, which is a whole other thing. We can talk about that later. But otherwise, this was a team that really struggled. You know, there's not one thing you can point to. This is a team that really just frankly struggled in nearly all facets of the game.
I always go to coaches hotseat dot com. That's my fun little vice here in the offseason, just to see how they're ranking college coaches as we go into the new season, right as you might expect, Carl Durell cracking the top ten there, coming in at number ten. I'm curious to see what happens to him if, in fact they end up going a different direction. It was always kind of a strange hire to me to bring him back, but Colorado needs to get some juice here as we
go forward at the twenty twenty two. Otherwise I think there's going to be a coaching change.
Well, they brought back our guy, Derek Markle in terms of graphic design and and publicizing the program, who does a very good job, so that's helpful. I'm not across the board against retread hires as Carl Durell. You know, he has some success at UCLA, but is ultimately not a long term answer at UCLA what like fifteen twelve years ago, and goes to the NFL, comes back to Colorado.
It just seemed a little bit uninspired the way in which he has hired assistance and whatever their budgetary constraints
obviously play a role in this at Colorado. But if he comes back to a PAC twelve PAC ten job and says I'm hiring these young up and coming assistants, Like we're putting all this money into recruiting and going into Texas and California, but it just seems like, you know, you bring in Mike Sandford, like you just you make some of these assistant hires and they're not recruiting on any interesting levels. At least you look like Arizona in the way that, like Jed Fish has said, Okay, this
is what we're doing. This is how we're focusing on the portal. This is how we're going to recruit southern California. This is how we're gonna build relationships and hire assistance. It's inspired. What Colorado has done is just sort of at best, hoping to luck into a bowl game via some lucky breaks, which is not a way to live your life.
Yeah.
By the way, I do have the sp plus numbers here for Colorado. Yeah, one hundred and fourth overall, one hundred and twentieth on offense, which is not good, ninety fourth on defense equally almost equally not as good. Second order wins was three, So this is a four win team that played like a three win team, which tells you a lot of what you need to know here
about the Buffaloes. Last season, Next team, next team. All right, this team did the sort of impossible, And there's a lot of teams who you could argue did something that was sort of impossible in which the manner in which they went four and eight. It's sometimes difficult to go
four and eight, believe it or not. This team managed to have arguably the best defensive field that helped to produce an interestingly very good defense with almost no pass rush and definitely basically no offense, but still managed to put up in like, very very impressive defensive numbers in the process, especially considering how difficult it is to have an elite part of your defense and go.
Four and eight. Is this the Washington Huskies.
It is the Washington Huskies. We're staying out west.
Yeah.
Yeah, Washington Huskies led by Trent McDuffie. He's the big name and he's the big draft name coming up here. But think Kyler Gordon. They bring in Bookie Radley Hiles, the transfer from Oklahoma. Basically no pass rush, ETF doesn't come back until later on in the season, but they play that two high system and Bob Gregory took over as defensive coordinator. And whether it was a Pac twelve quarterback thing, whether it was an opposing offensive coordinator thing.
There are all sorts of factors that go into it. But the Washington pass defense was incredible without a good pass rush. Is this a half of a half team?
It's quarter team. Yeah, we've got a quarterton team or something. Yeah, eighth of a team. Here is the book on Washington. Washington came into the season with a lot of acclaim. I remember doing a preview Washington. Whenever we did it, when was that July, last July something like that, we were holding up I have it here behind me. I was holding up the Phil Steele preview magazine, and Washington was one of his surprise teams.
That's the thing that he does.
He was all in a Washington. They got a lot coming back. Jimmy Lake knows how to coach defense.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Well it didn't work out. Predictions don't always work out. I'm not going to hold that against Phil Steele, but right it was something that I frequently pointed out throughout the course of the year because Washington was bad. Washington was eighty third in the SP plus they were the epitome at least of a half team, maybe of a quarter team by your definition, but one oh one in terms of their offensive sp plus efficiency, forty fifth in terms of defense. Yeah, second order wins five point two.
So maybe the record wasn't quite indicative of this team, but it was close enough. This team had to deal with the Jimmy Lake thing. There was strife around Jimmy Lake. Jimmy Lake got fired after a week eleven loss to Arizona State. For the rest of the season, pretty much, I should say, the entire season. This is the story of the defense. I think, to your point, playing pretty
damn well, you're good enough stopping big plays. They're really good against the pass, maybe not so much against the run. That's why Michigan beat him by twenty one, But we can talk about that if we want. On offense, though, they just they didn't have any playmakers. If I said to you, no, who were Washington's playmakers, how do you answer that question? On offense?
Uh, they're offensive tackles like I don't like. I'm no, Kate Otton was good, a very good tight end, but yeah, otherwise no, but no, they went they went Torrell buying them left. Yeah, they went three.
And out A Ton ninety ninth in the nation in terms of three and out percentage. So the offense was not good when it was out there. Yeah, the passing game we talked about this a little bit before we hit record, just didn't really have much in the way of downfield threats, right.
That hurt them.
We should have known something was off when they lost in Week one to Montana, which is a callback to what we said before about losing FCS teams. They lost to the Grizz.
Grizz is a good.
FCS team, But come on, this is Washington counterpoint. Counterpoint, Why you got to bring up old stuff? Ty, We are in a new era of Washington football. So this is our first team where everything has been overhauled. Correct hire Klin de boor their new coordinators. I mean, so Washington is essentially all in on the Fresno staff, which
is I'm sure was part of his hiring. He was he had the ability to say because there were reports that Washington was sort of not getting a ton of enthusiasms from some of the bigger names in the coaching world, and so Kaylen de Bor had some leverage and he's I'm gonna bring my coordinators in Washington said, all right, so Washington's all in on Fresno ball. They tried to get Jake Hayner, but obviously that didn't work out, so
Washington is into the kaylend bor era. It is unclear but not promising in terms of what they're going to do on the recruiting trail, because they are a program that is has site set on keeping up with USC and Oregon on the trail, and of course Utah in the win column, and Utah has been recruiting better and
better for sure. So they I think are going to improve from a play to play competence quotient kind of perspective, just because I think Kaylen de Borr is a very much seasoned head coach who has an eye for assistant and playing talent. The question is can you do that only finding your guys right, Because Chris Peterson was able to recruit on a high level, Sark was able to recruit on a high level. You know, they notably bring in Michael Pennix, who kalender War has the experience with
from Indiana at quarterback. You know, bring in the new Mexico running back transfer who's promising, but they lose a healthy amount of guys to the portal, especially on defense, and so what does that roster look like, not just this season whatever, but these next three years? What is the recruiting strategy, What is the retention strategy? What does the portal guys coming in strategy look like for the Huskies? Because I don't know. I think budgetarily couldn't be a word,
but maybe it is. I don't know if Washington necessarily has the budget to go out and make big hires or load up that staff in a place where it's costly to live, you know, the recruiting staff, the analysts, all that kind of thing. So like Washington has an uphill battle in state talents decent, But man, I'm curious to see what that that big picture strategy looks like come twenty twenty five.
Yeah, it also should be pointed out. Maybe it's the elephant in the room. John Donovan was the offensive coordinator. Correct, John Donna on to the budget thing. Yeah, so like I think on some level, just get rid of him and go in the direction whatever direction Kaylin de board decides to go, that will be better.
Than where they were under him.
Yeah, I'm sure John Donaland's a nice guy. He's just not a good coordinator, and so they're gonna get better on offense. The question is after you kind of sand off the rough edges and get things nice and tight and get them to the point where fundamentally they're they're more sound than they've been. Yeah, to what degree can you elevate the program? To what degree can you get above seven, five, eight and four after you do that, which, yeah,
you would assume Washington can get to before long. It's that kind of place. But elevating the program to the point where they're like contending, that's that's going to be I think the the interesting question for Kaitlin debor how can he do that? How can he elevate?
I think you nail the numbers exactly seven and a half eight wins without recruiting on a high level, without you know, producing top three in the PAC twelve classes.
Year and year out.
Yeah, is doable. You can do that.
It's going to be a question of acquisition and retention. And unclear to me right now that that that this is a Washington program serious about acquiring and retaining on that level. Next program, Yeah, gutted to the stud's highest ceiling.
In the in the grouping that we have got to be USC, right, it's USC. Yeah, Yeah, it's either USC or RICE, and I don't I think it's Rice. Yeah, of course, Yeah, your sister programs USC and RICE. Look, they go four and eight for a reason. The defense is a nightmare. They fire Clay Hilton a couple games into the season. He's now at Georgia Southern. We know everything.
With Lincoln Riley now coming in, A ton of players leave, I think, the most notable being Jackson Dart.
A ton of interesting players come in.
Most notably Caleb Williams, followed by Mario Williams, followed by Travis Dye from Oregon Like. There are a lot of interesting, especially offensive players that have come into this program. Offense not necessarily the biggest problem, but.
Losing who they do. Keaton Slovas makes his way to PITT. I believe.
Recruiting should be gangbusters. This is a team that if all clicks, if all works out, especially on defense, team will be contending for a playoff spot in a few years. I think it'll take some time, but I am exceedingly curious about where USC goes from here. A lot of inc has been spilled over how USC got to the point where they were four and eight and firing their
coach a couple games into the season. But if you're a USC fan right now listening to the show in April, it's all puppy dogs and rainbows, right.
Oh my god, Yeah, oh my god.
And I mean evidence enough of this, not just the I think optimism on the USC side, but also on the Oklahoma side. Whenever we post a video on YouTube, whenever anybody does anything, yeah, whenever we post a video specifically for us on YouTube that references Lincoln Riley or USC, it does better than all the other videos. And I think it's because people care, people are interested in this story.
It was really the first big domino to fall in the coaching carousel after Lincoln Riley decided to go westward. We had the news come out about Brian Kelly. I think like the next day or so. I mean, it moved pretty.
Quickly, and.
I think everybody is very curious here, curious to see how quickly he can build them up. There seems to be an assumption that he will sure, and I was hoping maybe we could unpack that a little bit, because USC finds itself in an interesting spot. I think you're right to say that recruiting is going to be very solid. Recruiting's already been very solid. No, it's going to be very very very very very good. It's going to be very good. It's already been good. He's worked the portal,
I think masterfully. People just want to play for this guy.
But the point that you've raised that.
I've seen others raise in the past is that USC, at least in twenty twenty two, is going to be better on the top line when it comes to talent, but building up depth, getting to the point where they've got the fundamentals taken care of, especially on defense, doing a lot of the little stuff that maybe doesn't make the headlines. That's going to take a while. Do you still feel that way? Yeah, yeah, I am. Look, there's not a lot standing in USC's way within the PAC twelve.
I think there is a pretty wide chasm between where USC currently is and where the best of college football is now. Maybe it's being closed because of Caleb Williams's ceiling. We know what Caleb Williams' floor looks like, and it's not super attractive, but he was a freshman. It's fully
expected that you have those down moments. Sure, No, I think USC is going to be a good program, and I'm going to need to see some things from an Alex Grinch defense that like, we're getting further and further away from that one good season at Wazoo, and I'm going to need to see what offensive and defensive line recruiting looks like nationally or how well they go into I don't know Arizona or Nevada or Texas or any of these places, because I just don't see a lot
of it on the West Coast. I have to recruit nationally on those levels, and USC I think we'll do all right on the defensive line on the West Coast.
But I don't know. I still think that if they were to play tomorrow against Utah on a neutral field, I don't know why you would feel good about USC right Like, they're not even the they're not the class of their own division now at the moment, at the moment, So I just I think it's almost unfair to Lincoln Riley and the players and the coaches on this USC, in this USC program to put any sort of expectations on them in year one. But such as the nature
of the college football beast, it will happen. I should point out the SPPLUS numbers just before we put a bow on this thing here. USC eighty second in the sp plus, almost the opposite of what we saw at Washington. So they had firepower on offense. They weren't very consistent, but forty fifth sp plus ranking on offense, one hundred and six on defense. The defensive side of that is
I think what we're going to watch most closely. Of course they're gonna be big names on offense, but the question is going to be, as he said, can Alex Grinch find a way to get this defense playing better? He has done that in spots right. He has a bit of a track record for improving defenses. But I think, as we saw at Oklahoma, it's a matter of can he sustain that.
We saw the Oklahoma defense in the COVID year once Ronie Perkins came, it was pretty exciting and interesting.
For sure, we'll see.
That's been the rub though for USC.
The rub for USC has been and I remember, I don't know if it was Bruce or if it was Andy or somebody wrote an article about one of those deals where they go around and they talk to opposing coaches, it was probably Bruce he does that a lot, yea. And what they flagged about USC was the fact that Drake Jackson was the best player out there, and outside of him.
A bunch of guys.
Oh the defense, the defense, yeah, yeah, on defense, and outside of Drake Jackson, it was a bunch of guys who played pretty soft. And what's notable about that is now, looking forward at Drake Jackson's NFL scouting profile, everybody says he's very athletic, he's good, but he's soft. So if the best player on an already soft defense, the NFL is saying is soft, I don't know. It doesn't say much about what the previous regime was doing on that side of the football.
Yeah, or what the culture of West Coast high school football is. I don't know, but it's a different place that is going to you know, I do not think it is plug and play plug in a playoff coach who has developed these quarterbacks. I think it's going to take a lot of work to get USC to be a perennial ten to eleven win program. I think it's even in a downpack twelve. I think with Utah rising, no pun intended with Washington surely getting better whatever that means.
No idea what Oregon's going to be. The UCLA just blew him out, so you have to consider UCLA at least decent. Arizona is improving, Asus falling.
Off a cliff.
All apologies to Sun Devil fans. Hopefully it gets better sooner rather than later. But I still think it's going to be tricky for US see and the good news is though USC I don't believe and I keep saying this when in reference to it, but I don't think they have anybody tricky. I mean, they'll always have Notre Dame,
but they haven't scared. There's no Ohio State, there's no you know, uh Alabama, there's no you know, one of those types of teams in the non conference for one of those headline early September games on any level.
In the next few years. The hours of content that were created around Keile Williams maybe going somewhere other than USC. Yeah something, Perhaps we can do a retrospective one three years from now, but Keyle Williams now firmly entrenched at USC. That'll be interesting to see what he does it at these spot. Okay, can I give you an over under real quick. Yeah, please, just because I know this brings out you are very kind and saying like, oh, people
care so much about it. You were so positive about that. In reference to Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma fans, if Lincoln Riley in a season at USC wins eleven games, okay, they go eleven and one and win the Pac twelve, So they go twelve and one wherever that nets them in the playoff, not in the playoff whatever, But he goes eleven and one.
I'll keep it an over under of one and a half under more seasons. I knew you, I ask said by the way, I saw some of the conversation around Lincoln Riley in the move to LA, where if he does have NFL interest, it could just be from an LA team. He doesn't have to uproot his family now that they're in the southern California regia.
What's his name?
Brandon Staley keeps going forward on fourth downs. Maybe he'll be out before long, who knows. Oh, I love Brandon Staley. I hope he's there forever cause I love Justin Herbert. I hope that's a that's a match, don't heaven? But it's you.
Know, if Sean McVeigh gets one hundred million dollars a year to go to Fox or something, who knows crazy.
I'll say, all right, So of the teams that we have left, they're all group of five teams.
Yes, all group of five teams.
So my hunch is that I'm not going to get viny of these trivia questions, right, but I think you'll be all right. We've got Bowling Green, Buffalo, Navy, Rice, Texas State, and Louisiana Monroe, the vaunted Warhawks. Go ahead. This team beat nobody of note, but they did give Coastal Carolina a scare, and for all that effort, their starting quarterback was like, no, I'm leaving.
Is this Buffalo?
It is Buffalo.
It is the Bulls who It's an unfortunate situation. And I just don't hold twenty twenty one against Mo Linguist at all because Lance Leipold leaves when he leaves in the spring to take the Kansas job, and so he's tasked with, you know, whatever he wants to do with the staff or not with the staff, or has to hold on to guys because the market isn't there to build out the staff he wants, and you have players leaving because of increased mobility, and just you got to
do a lot on the fly wh us into that position. He of course took the job, a job on the defensive staff at Michigan and then made the move to Buffalo and they just weren't that good. They managed to hold on to their starting running back. Who was promising. That's Dylan McDuffie. I know it's a mcduffy who've already used that last name once. The defense was a nightmare in year one. He's already made a change there, so
kudos to him. He hires a young guy who was like an analyst quality control assistant at Texas A and M, who was a defensive coordinator defensive coordinator in high school as recently as twenty seventeen. So hope he's a great up and comer because Buffalo needs all the help on that side.
Of the ball.
But no, it's an uphill battle. It's an uphill battle for Buffalo, who has had some success under a couple different guys as of late. And I don't know, we'll see it's the mac. It's winnable.
The turnovers thing is interesting because that's something that will just regress to the mean either way, because there's a randomness to turnovers. So I thought they played with some fight throughout the year. They just they lost a ton. Like if you go to the twenty four to seven transfer portal page and you just scroll through teams, there are a few teams where on the bottom of the page there's a handy little button that says load more, and Buffalo was one of those load more teams, which
is not the best. You don't want to be a load more team. You do not want to be a load more team. So Buffalo a lot of attrition there, and again you understand that they Mo Linguist didn't recruit these guys to Buffalo, and so it's you know it's going to happen when you have a new coach, especially given the timing of the hiring and of the change. So hopefully they can build on the solid rushing numbers in year one and get on more steady footing in
year two. Next team, Next team. This was the team to me that made the move on one side of the ball from shockingly inept to decently frisky. Shockingly inept to decently frisky.
Yeah or maybe not shockingly inept, clearly inept and an embarrassment to decently frisky in but a year.
Wow, you say Texas State Bowling Green. Okay, so Bowling Green in twenty twenty, which again like the twenty twenty whatever, however large a grain assault you want to give it. But Scott Leffler era started out atrociously, yeah, defensively in year two and you remember they beat Minnesota, they have a headline win. In year two, Bowling Green's defense was full on decent, a full on frisky defense, especially especially against the past and nice pass rush the DB's made plays.
The problem with Bowling Green was offense, and in the MAC it seems like a correctible element because there's a lot of speed to be had. Still we see a year in and year out within the MAC a lot of creative offensive minds and right now with Bowling Green, and I would not lump Scott Leffler in that category.
Got one, just one.
T made the change at offensive coordinator, promoted from within, and it seems like it could be an easier thing to correct by giving more of that that the mind power, the creativity elsewhere. If you've got the defense, if you're able to make plays, especially against the pass in the MAC. It seems promising to me. And so they lost a few players, like I think twelve out four guys come
in uh the schedule this year. I know they're at UCLA and at Mississippi State, but again, they they've on one side of the ball already, they've made that leap. Who's to say in year three if Scott Leffler's hands are not on the offense, they can't go from truly horrific merely woeful.
Yeah, one hundred and twenty fifth nationally. Yeah, on the.
Didn't score thirty points. They did not score thirty points until Halloween.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a that's a rough watch if you're a Bowling Green fan. Ninety sixth on a defense, excuse me, so, cracking the top one hundred, one hundred and eleventh overall, three point nine second order wins, So pretty much right on the money for a four and eight team. Highlight of the season you mentioned it earlier. They beat Minnesota. They beat Minnesota on the road fourteen to ten. The rest of the season was kind of a nightmare mm hm,
but they'll have that. That was one of those games with Minnesota specifically where we saw that and kind of scratched our head. Weren't talking so much about Bowling Green at that point, but Minnesota, man, what's going on here? Defense played well enough in that game. Minnesota didn't necessarily have a gangbusters offense either, but a nice win for Scott lefto.
Or on the road.
One thing that I found interesting I mentioned this to you as well. Scott Leftwer became the first college football coach to be ejected in a game for having two unsportsmanlike penalties called against him. Yeah, got the boot, Yeah, that'll happen. For what it's worth, danalytics wise, this comes up not from me, but they went from one hundred and twenty seventh to eighty fourth in points per drive allowed on defense and per sp plus. These are some
of the nineteenth in passing success rate defense nationally. They gave up way too many big plays, which is why they're still you know, there's a lot of room for improvement on defense. Number three on passing downs success rate, and so against the pass they were able to make plays. They did get burned sometimes or a lot of times, but the pressure rate was decent enough. Sixty eighth nationally. The sack rate was twenty first nationally, especially on passing downs.
They were very good at getting to the quarterback. So just building blocks you like to see as there are Falcon fans who are looking to go from four and eight to six and six. Yeah, and to I guess underscore your optimism before we move on Bowling Green is number one, number one, okay, across all of major college football when it comes to returning production for twenty twenty two. Okay, number one on offense pretty much the whole offense back
and number four on defense returning production. So take that for whatever it's worth.
Yeah, I mean that that. The question is always like, is it good that the returning production?
Is that? Absolutely?
Absolutely, but you'd still rather have guys back in a lot of cases not all right, And that's I think a pretty good about to be. So we'll see what Scott Lefler can do. If he can rectify that offense.
This team had their athletic director fire the offensive coordinator after a particularly bad game, only to have the head coach rehire set offensive coordinator in a demoted role. Also, this team used to be awesome and now they're not.
I should know this, shouldn't I yeah, is this Navy. This is Navy.
Yeah, this is Navy.
Navy.
Navy was awesome. They dominated the rivalry with Army for a long time.
They were one of.
The hardest outs in college football because of the relatively unorthodox style of their offense. But they seemed to have the advantage of having a set system to recruit, to to have a head coach who wanted to be there, and you know, was a familiar face in winning college
football circles. And then something happened, and obviously it went off the rails a little bit with Ivan Jasper, the offensive coordinator, after the offense these past couple of years has just fallen off a cliff and a lot of frustrated people in Annapolis within the program and one of those programs, along with I think one of the last couple we're gonna mention, that's just in an unfortunate place in the nil and transfer portal era where it's just
going to be more difficult to plug holes and losing guys like it's just Navy's going to be a difficult place to succeed, and the service academies in general, one could argue it is, but also Army and Air Force a thriving right now. So what's happening with Navy is some combination of not building the program from a talent
perspective properly. I don't know if it's a ken Neo Modololo who's flirted with other jobs, most notably Arizona a few years ago, and didn't get that job because of the stigma of the option that is Kenia Modelolo want to be in Annapolis because I don't know if something turned, but Navy is in especially on offense. Did I mean you have the numbers in front of you. Was there a worst offense in America than the midship men?
There?
There were, okay, but but only like fifteen of them? Okakay, what I would say on the Navy side. That definitely caused me to raise my eyebrows. What have we said about Navy for years? It's always been about the offense, right. The offense has been kind of the cornerstone of that
program under Kennia Montalolo. Whenever you've got a situation when I'm looking at these numbers after the fact, when the offense was worse than the defense, something's wrong because that was always the exact opposite for Navy, it's at least been even in their good years where they were contending, where they're taking teams like Notre Dame to the wire. You never had a defense better than the offense neither side of the ball, to be frank, was all that good.
They were four and eight team. But to be one hundred and fifteenth nationally on offense and seventy fifth on defense, I don't know.
That feels a little.
Bit off kilter to me. Three and a half second order wins pretty much right on the number. Again for a four and eight team.
What's notable to me?
You mentioned all that stuff about head coach Ken neamandlolo first time in his tenure at Navy that he's had back to back losing seasons. Yes, and you say whatever you want, it's just Navy whatever, But this is a guy who's been pretty successful for a good chunk of time. What is it fourteen seasons now at Navy, whatever, it's been to have back to back losing seasons, to look as hapless as they did at times, they weren't even in the conversation, Dan, they weren't even in the conversation
in a lot of these games. You know, We preview games all year and typically we'll look at that Navy game. We've talked about the body blow, like all these things that have been woven into the fabric of our show. Yeah, they weren't even a consideration this past season. They were kind of a doormat and that sucks. I don't know what's going on there.
I wonder if part of it. And to be fair, Navy beat Army this year. They did upset their arrival, but it's weird that it's now considered an upset and no disrespect to Jeff Mounkin and how great of a job he's done at Army. So they beat Army. They beat Tulsa and UCF, which are both decently impressive wins
all things considered. So the Tulsa team that almost beat Cincinnati and a UCF team it was early on and dealing with their own injury issues, and you're one of the Gus Miles on era, so like, those are impressive wins. But seven points against Marshall, three points against air Force. They don't crack twenty against Memphis in a loss. They don't crack ten against Notre Dame, a team that they've
typically given fits. If not you know, they don't beat Notre Dame all that often, but like they give Notre Dame issues, which speaks to the job Kenny Motelone had
done there. The problem is, and this is what I wonder, do you remember the old I'm almost positive with Steve Spurrier, it was like college football coaches aren't meant to be places for more than a decade, Like it's just too difficult to be somewhere more than a decade for like ninety nine percent of coaches and feel inspired, feel like the juice of winning at that place. Sometimes you just need to do something new. And I wonder if that ten year mark for ken neamade lolo and it really
was jump started. I know there were obviously off field stuff with COVID when they just got demolished by BYU to start out the twenty twenty year when they ran all over them. That's, you know, Zach Wilson, you know,
starting to really shine for the Cougars. But I don't know if there's just something about that place, is it's such a different place than most of the you know, they're in a major conference now or a pseudo major conference in the American that man it's just sometimes you just need a reboot tie, just like all of our routers. And I wonder if that's true for Navy and kenyam.
Up, pull out the power cord weight ten seconds, plug it back in. Yeah, all right, we've got three teams left. We've got Rice, We've got Texas State, We've got the Louisiana Monroe vaunted Warhawks. I don't know why this next team exists as an FBS team. I have no clue.
This is Rice.
Yeah, it is Rice, who one winning coach in the past like one hundred years over the course of his career, and zero if you take away Todd Graham, who was only there for a year in two thousand and six. Yeah, everybody loses at Rice. It is like the ninth most popular team in their own region. Like by region, I mean like the very the Houston area, the vaguely Houston area. I know College Station is not necessarily the Houston area, but it's you know, an hour and a half, two hours,
whatever it is. I'm almost positive I got that geography wrong. But why does Rice exist? Rice is an incredible academic institution in a very much football happy part of the universe, and they never win. There is no desire. Like for some of these schools, you're like, wow, we were good in the eighties and you've got all the money saying let's get good again.
That was so fun. They've never been good. This has never been a good program. Right, nobody cares about Rice football at all. This is Mike Bloomgren comes in from Stanford New Marcus Tuyasa Sopo's the offensive coordinator. Like there's decent enough coaching talent there. There's not a program that has any designs of becoming a serious program about getting to bowl games. Like it should not exist, Like this is an example of somebody collecting a check for not
contributing all due respect to whoever is listening. That's a Rice fan, all point four of you. But I don't know man, Like it was just another disappointing year. They beat you a right, Like they had that random, really nice performance where they just think they strung together drives, they ran the ball decently enough. They actually passed it
really well in that game. But other than that, it's an unseerious program about Like, I know they've they spent a little bit of money hiring these guys, but they finished the year, losing four or five. They do. They go on a go out on a high note, beating Louisiana Tech, but I don't know. They're scoring twenty plus, but they lose forty five nothing to UTSA has you know, their own like, you know, beautiful season, but Man lose to an FCS team in Texas Southern.
I don't know.
I've wondered this for quite some time, and perhaps somebody can come on this show, somebody brighter than you and I, you can explain the economics of it, of which there are many, of which there are most to be frank, Yeah, there must be some sort of financial reason to keep your standing among FBS.
There must sense. There has to be. I don't know.
Maybe it's playing some of these non conference games. The payout helps fund other aspects of the athletic program. Rice is a good baseball team. Rice has other good programs that sure great, are nationally recognized, but yeah, the football team is not one of them at this point in time.
Yeah.
If I were a student at Rice, if I were anybody a faculty member at Rice and all this money was going to football, I would kind of be like, why, what is the point of this?
Yeah, all right.
Two other teams, Texas State and Louisiana Monroe, the vaunted Warhawks. Man, I don't know one of these teams lost to an FCS team and made no coaching changes after going four and eight with a bad defense that couldn't get off the field.
This is Texas State.
It is Texas State. Whose defensive coordinator is the coaches brother.
That's right.
So I don't know.
Jake spabottall has that, you know, offensive reputation, quarterback reputation. He's a hole go guy.
Their quarterback just decided to transfer, Brady McBride. It's just the Bobcats are in a position now where, like I guess their ceiling is, hey, we can score forty a game and sometimes we keep teams to thirty nine or fewer. But otherwise Texas State's.
Been you know, they went from what three to nine to four and eight, So technically they are, yes, heading in the right direction. There's some promise on the offensive line, but I don't know if you're looking long term at Texas State. As like the path to a bowl. They get by a bad Butch Davis Arkansas State team, they beat Monroe. Who's the final team on this list. You know, sneak by South Alabama beat a bad FIU team, like they beat some of the bad teams they were supposed
to beat. Yeah, but like they give up sixty to Eastern Michigan, Like they's just I don't know, they're just it's almost like to start the game, just assume they're going to give up thirty five points. And I don't know if this is headed in a meaningfully good direction.
You know what a bobcat is? Have you ever seen an actual bobcat? Probably probably in a zoo somewhere. Bobcats are prevalent. They're bobcats around here. Okay, bobcats are a very underrated mascot slash nickname for my money, because you've got the added benefit of not just the cool animal, which is looks like a mini cheetah, mini tiger with the extra tuffs coming out the ear, a little bit bigger than a house cat. Yep, You've also got the added benefit, the added layer of the really cool machine
bobcats that you might have in a bat layard. You're you're getting some renovations done. You got a digger, they got all sorts of bobcats. Bobcat not a sponsor. Could be sure Bobcat a very underrated mascot for my money. Okay, I'd known next to nothing about bobcats. Maybe it'll come up on extra nuggets. Oh my gosh, bobcats. I'm going to send you the Wikipedia.
Go through this.
I'm on it right now.
Are you looking at this? Look at these guys. Look at these guys.
What disrespect to Texas State where we're just talking about tufts and there are red lynx. Right, that's what a bobcat is. Uh yeah, sure, it's not going to it's not going to eat you won't eat me. But it does eat all sorts of different things, like different sizes kind of. It's adapted itself to the point where it can live pretty much anywhere.
It's a cool, cool cat. Literally.
Birds up to the size of an adult trumpeter swan are also taken in ambushes while nesting along with their fledglings and eggs.
Bobcats don't care.
They don't care.
Man like honey batch trumpeter swan. It's a big, not a small animal. It's a big freaking swan. I've seen them.
You're huge.
Okay, cat information, there you go, all right, Final team here, we don't need to do the question. The final team is Luisiana Monroe, correct, the Warhawks.
The Warhawks, Yeah.
They are, I guess trying to improve after year one under Terry Terry Bowden took me over that program.
Last year.
It was not a good team. They just they weren't good. They were two point six on the second order win scale, which means they were a four win team that probably got a little bit lucky to get to four wins. One hundred and twenty fourth nationally in terms of the sp plus one twenty seven on offense, which is just impossibly bad.
Impossibly especially given who their offensive coordinator was very briefly, Yeah, impossibly bad.
One hundred and twenty seventh and then on defense one hundred and thirteenth isn't really going to do the offense any favors. So a lot of room for improvement here under Terry Bowden. Will see if he can do it. Terry Bowden, you know, Terry Bowden is at Auburn for period of time he's been around, you would assume that he can at least get that program up from where it's been. Not saying they're gonna win nine games a year. But I would expect some degree.
Of improvement in the next year or so.
So rehire They rehire an offensive coordinator mc kubick Kubic from Southern miss who had a good degree of success for the Warhawks. Rich Rod goes over to Jacksonville State now as the head coach there. Yeah, if they did anything decently well last year, it was run the ball. It was at best decent. Yeah, defense was a nightmare.
I what's interesting is Terry Bowden is Terry Bowden's the best modern coach or best Akron coach ever.
Right, Yeah, they got rid of him right until we love for.
Whatever reason, we love him as he Monroe has been interesting in the last whatever it is, decade, decade and a half. It's in an area of country where you can find talent, where you can scoop up transfer talents from bigger conferences.
I don't know, man, Well, look I don't know. Let me put it to you this way and then we'll move on. Yeah. I guess this is our last team. We can end the shelf if we want. Yeah, Monroe's got a lot coming back on offense. Okay, a lot coming back on offense. So at a minimum, the impossibly bad offense one hundred and twenty seventh nationally. Should improve, it should improve, has to improve defensively could be another story.
It was a lot on defense.
So best case scenario, we're talking about a half team of sorts. I don't think they're going to improve much on the defensive side of the football, but as a four and eight team, there's always room to go up. So we'll see what he can do. See what he can do.
Louisiana. Monroe finishes with the worst recruiting class per average recruit ranking, and I think in general the worst recruiting class in the Sun Belts, and just above them is Texas State. Great so three three star recruits from Monroe, two for Texas State. Texas State's average recruit rank a little bit higher, but a ways to go for uh for Monroe, it's not looking super positive in the short term, but you never know. All you need is six, All you need is six.
All right? That does it.
For four and eight teams, yes, make sure you join us next month as we push into the first week of May. For five and seven teams, yes, a lot more five and seven teams that we can talk about. Do you have the list in front of you. I'm in the process. I'm stalling.
Actually, are you really I have the list?
You're ready?
What's the list?
Florida State, Syracuse, Texas, TCU, Illinois, FAU, Charlotte, San Jose State, You're California, Golden Bears, Troy Trojans, and South Alabama. I'll go five and seven. Some interesting teams in there, Dan, it's not bad. Hit the subscribe button, hit the follow button if you have not already. We will, of course continue broadcasting twice per week here through the off season. Once we get into July, that's when the rubber starts to meet the road. That's when we start talking previews.
You and I start doing a ton more research. We put together a hockey Little concept to take you through every conference in America get you ready for the college football season. But until then, at least to a week. If you are a Patreon subscriber out at verbowlers dot com, we also do bonus episodes of brewin a every Friday. We've still got to talk through what we're doing for our off topic show in the month of April, but we can get there. Talk to me about your summer plans.
I need this kind of positive, warm thinking in the still gray Midwest, because you're talking about July and the excitement and the rubber meeting the road, Like, yeah, do you have a vacation plan? Are you thinking you're going to go to the beach more or to a lake more, or revise some boat goals, or revise wardrobe or like you told me earlier, like you're rethinking your lawn care strategy. Like talk to me about summer thoughts. It's never too early.
Yeah, Well, I mean, first off, you know I want to get on the pickleball train. Yes, I do. You know I want to try this. I'm a little spoop by the fact that I've got some friends of mine whose parents live in a retirement village, and they said that once you get into pickleball, you sort of can't get out. It's sort of a it's a lifestyle of sorts. And I'm not I'm not looking to modify my current lifestyle.
Like I got it, I got it pretty good. But pickle ball, I think is something I'd like to attempt. I definitely would like to play more golf because as we were planning out for the summer, like quite literally this time last year, I didn't know I was leaving my job, right, And I worked all the way up until the point where you and I were killing it on the research front, and I didn't really have much
time to get out and play golf. Right. So now this year, with the benefit of a little bit more off season time, at least the first half of summer, I'm hoping to get out there and hit the links more so. That's the top billing for me, to say the least. Yeah, the lawn care thing. Rethinking the strategy a little bit. Also trying to figure out if there are any other odds and ends I want to add in the backyard. Still early days for that level. You began your fire pit season. We did start the fire
pit season. Yeah, I sent you picked its huge.
We started that. We had a nice day on Saturday. Was able to do that.
It's now rained the last five days or however many days it's Saturday. Yep, it's rained pretty much NonStop since. But at least we had that one day. I don't know. Are you happy with your summer wardrobe?
No? No, I'm not right.
What are we more breatheable fabrics, shorter shorts, new sandals. What's on the agenda.
Yeah, I think I think I need to take a trip over to to some of the stores in the area and figure out what the plan is going to be. Now, I'm so excited for this branding the summer wardrobe.
No, not a rebrand.
This is not I'm ready for. It is a refresh some pineapple print. Pineapple print is my thing. You have an en sam adjustment here. No, you can go from like nine to sevens now, I think mostly the same size. But just I need to figure out how to upgrade or how to refresh some of what I've had for years now. I don't like clothes shopping. I don't know how you feel about it.
I hate it.
I do most of it online, if not all of it online, So it's not that bad. I don't mind doing it online. I'm just saying, I just, yeah, I don't like spending the money. Okay, I hate it. What do you think of adding to your backyard?
Maybe shed?
We've talked about the shed before, right, Okay?
Just storage storage?
Yeah, storage storage would be good. Probably due for refresh on some of the patio furniture as well. We've had that for a while. Okay, so we'll see. I don't any new grilling goals or I mean summer star tails. Maybe to start to grill up more than twice a summer would be a goal. You only grill twice in a summer.
I've only grilled twice in the last two summers.
Oh my god, No, get some burgers, gets piece of fish, Come on, there's so much there. I know, I know, veggies. We've talked about this.
I don't feel good about it.
I don't feel good about it.
But are you h you know what I've seen in a couple of backyards here, because it's kind of needed for some people. I suppose have you ever seen backyards saunas? Back to those giants, the giant barrels that people can build. You can build it like a free standing So that's why when you said, Shad, I was wondering where you're going with it. It's like a giant looking barrel contraption that's like a much more personal individual or maybe two
person size sauna. Obviously you don't need that every summer.
If you're talking about like.
The little standing pedestals with the they look like big, big toadstools that have the fire coming out the top. No, I'm talking about a sauna that you go in like to steam yourself.
Yeah, no, that's different. I know I've never seen those.
Yeah, no, I've seen those. I'm just thinking what you could add unique to your backyard. Final question, final question. First of all, I think pickleball is a no brainer for you. And we've already talked about your and my plans at the same time to add more strength training. Yeah, if you demonstrably improve one part of your golf game this summer, what will make you happiest.
Definitely my second shots, okay, yeah.
Your more approaches, your your mid irons. Okay. The best part of my game, and this is I think topical now with the Masters taking place this weekend. Yeah, maybe I'll be playing next year and we'll see how it goes. But the best part of my game is a driver. I crush the driver and I'm accurate with the driver, which is weird because I never used to be. But something happened maybe after my shoulder thing, and I crush it. Nice little baby draw right down the middle. Mm hm.
After that.
Short games, very good, really good. I've got an imagination around the greenstand.
Okay, very strong there.
Putting is so so nobody's a good putter.
Nobody.
I don't know anybody who knows a good putter, And chances are if they're a good putter, they stink at everything else. They're a nightmare elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah, so nobody's good at putting. That just kind of is assumed. Where I really struggle, though, is when I'm crushing the driver, I split the fairway. I've got, you know, one hundred and thirty yards in nothing in my way. I get the yips. I overthink it. Mm hmmm hmm. And I'm not missing by much, but I'm missing enough that I'm
not putting myself in a position to score. Which iron is your white whale? I just don't have a handle on. I mean the wish you could, you could improve your seven or you're six or you're eight. No, I you know, the long irons are tougher for most people. Yeah, there is more that can go wrong. It's a longer club, right, Yeah. So you know, if I could get a little bit more consistent with say a four iron, okay, I think
that would help. But basically it's it's just that situation as opposed to a specific club.
In the bag.
I just overthink it a heck, you know me, you've met You've known me for a long time. It's true. I'm a head case and I overthink things, and I overthink that all the time. So inevitably what happens to me is I get thirteen holes in and then I explode. I'll have a good roundwork and for thirteen holes and then it's just the bottom falls out. How how is the breathe ability of your golfing summer apparel? I've got a lot of dry fit Okay, good, I had a lot of drive fix. I do like to hear that. Yeah,
all right, that's all. I have productive discussion as ever here on the show talking four and eight teams.
Dan. Next episode we'll talk about your summer plans. Okay, I promise I would love to. Oh my god, I will jot that down as we said earlier.
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