Three two one zero, all engine running looked off. We have a look of Welcome back to the UFO Show. My name is Ty Hildebrand, joining me as always over there in wintry Chicagoland. Actually, I guess it's not more wintry than here over in Eastern Land. Yeah, with our ten inches of snow on the ground. But mister Rubinstein, how are you?
I'm fantastic. I am looking forward to this annual show that we do and reviewing. You know what, I haven't heard the term lifeblood as much as I normally do this week. Yeah, and maybe are read or heard. Maybe I'm just watching a lot less espnu I really am. Though I usually love signing Day or early signing Day, but it seemed to be kind of devoid of the usual drama, hasn't it. Because there's there's the fewer announcement ceremonies, there's fewer last second secret visits that result in flips.
It just it seemed like a workmanlike early signing day, did it not.
Fewer recruits actually being able to play their senior seasons. Yeah, all sorts of nuance to this recruiting cycle. And look, you know where I stand on recruiting, you often anonymously threaten prospects online. Well, outside of that, outside of I'm always looking for a new angle that can make it interesting. A wrinkle, sure, right, That's why we talk about announcement ceremonies and funny names and things of that. Ilk this year, there's more than enough to at least make it interesting.
I'm not saying it's favorable with respect to how you recruited some of the stars of tomorrow, far from it. But given that travel has been restricted, that seasons weren't being played, that eligibility rules up and down the sport have been drastically altered.
Ability to evaluate coaches in person, you know, recruiting writers not being able to be at games, and travel and camps and all American games and practices altered, very different experience.
There is a lot that we need to cover with our guest d Jore. His name is Brandon Hoffman. You know him well from twenty four seven Sports. We're going to have him on momentarily. Dan. The other bit of news that I wonder show there's not a whole lot of news not going to play the sound. We had an extension for your boy Mario crystaball, we had less Miles getting a vote of confidence despite a winless season,
and why not? And why not? We had a couple other schools opting out of their bowl games, which we'll talk about more as you progress through into the offseason.
But I count eight at the moment, by the way, Ucla, Kansas State, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Virginia Pitt Georgia Tech, Boston.
College, and Virginia Tech. I'll forget Virginia, I.
Said Virginia Tech in there.
Yeah, But the big news here is that play Winter Wonders are super secret Patreon only game is now live. We've got our first batch of questions live for participations that listing, Yeah to select, We've got a couple things going on. So each game, right, each game you pick the winner against the spread. I think it's a little bit harder, right, we do that just normally, But then
it gets a little bit harder. Then we start talking about, all right, well, how many total rushing yards will app State have in their bowl game against North Texas total rushing guards m h. And then we go a layer deeper, Dan just that fantasy things layer that we I think hinted at.
We start docsing athletes.
No, how many times will the announcers reference app states thrilling upset of Michigan way back.
When that's true, setting over under over under one and a half. I almost don't want to reveal all of these props because they could be altered. We could have inside jobs a lot of a number of announcers.
Yeah, we do know a lot of folks here. Okay, we're not gonna reveal that publicly, but there are more props like that. We've got the standard issue against the spread. We've got the layer deeper about specific total rushing yards or passing touchdowns, things like.
Pop culture references, b roll video footage.
Yeah, and then we get the solid verbal layer that puts a bow on all of it. Playwinterwonders dot com is where you can find all the info on how to join our special bowl pool. I also activated the Confidence pool over an ESPN dot com. I So, so you just go there and search solid verbal. Yeah, there, search socials, search for the solid verbal. If you were in the group last year, you should be able to just click rejoin. If not, just search for the soliverble.
It's one of the bigger groups out on ESPN dot com and so we're going to play this Bowl season a couple different ways. The games actually start on Monday, so we'll have to talk a little bit more about that on Sunday and certainly as we go through next a week. But that's the big thing going on in our world outside of early signing Day, outside of conference championship games, which as many of you listen on Friday, are going to be taking place later tonight and all
throughout the day tomorrow. Sure, very true.
Did you what was your recruiting cycle as a Notre Dame fan? Like for you? I mean, you know, I come in and out of checking how Organ's doing, et cetera, et cetera. Were you more attached less attached? You're spending more time at home in front of a laptop. You know, you can check on these things probably more often than you can when you're at the secret day job overseas. So what was your involvement level with Notre Dame's class this year and recruiting as a whole?
I always follow recruiting from AFAR, so I'll check in a couple times throughout the course cycle. I certainly don't know it as well as a number of folks who listened to this show and live and die by it. But I have been particularly interested, and I'm going to ask Brandon about Tyler Buckner from California, but going to Notre Dame because a friend, Pete Sampson, wrote a nice piece for The Athletic on just some of the challenges that he faced not being able to play a senior year.
I have at least paid attention on that level because this has been such a quirky season and that extends all the way through to recruiting as well. We're gonna have subjects that came up with regard to this recruiting cycle that probably won't ever happen again, and that aspect of it, at least to me, is interesting. I've enjoyed looking at what's going on and thinking about what are the longer term ramifications of all this.
I just looked up would you say his name?
Tyler Buckner.
Yeah, he's from La Mesa, California, San Diego area. If you do a Google image search for La Mesa, California, Spanish for the table doesn't look like South Bend. It's gonna be different.
I don't know.
Maybe he's from Indiana originally but this is holy moly, is it beautiful down there. Not to say South Bend doesn't have its own beauty. I've been, but it's not this. So yeah, I mean, that's all gonna be very different this year. A lot of guys not spending as much time on campus during the season, you know, official visits,
on official visits, and excited to talk to Brandon. He's always just the absolute best and an encyclopedia of both the you know, drilling down on the details and the big picture stuff.
Totally, totally, well, let's not waste any time. Don't forget to subscribe to the show if you haven't already. Don't forget to go on out and follow us on social media if you don't already. Shall we dance, Daniel, I've been waiting joining us now to help break down the recruiting scene. It was National signing Day, early early. We've got two now.
Yeah.
I believe this is also the first time we've ever had someone calling in from the Last Frontier, Dan, the Land of the Midnight Sun, the Great State of Alaska. Brandon Hoffman, how are you?
I can see Russias from my hotel room.
Whoa how are you?
Man? I'm good. How are you guys doing it?
We're good? Why are you in Alaska?
So I have a buddy who's running a camp, and he's running a football camp that go that's of course, the Avery Huffin Foundation, and he's been doing a number of camps over a few years around the West Coast and says, hey, let's do one to Alaska, and let's do it in December. And I'm like, there's no better time a year to go to Alaska than in December where it's going to be in the teams all week.
So here we are for the very first Avery Strong Alaska Showcase and there's probably about one hundred kids from Alaska all throughout the state come into this camp this weekend. So I'm going on behalf of our foundation and getting to watch these guys football. So it's gonna be And I brought my son with me, so you know, I'm going to make the most of freezing in places I didn't think I could possibly freeze.
Yeah, okay, Mining for talent Tye because in Alaska there was a gold rush as well.
That's what he does. He's a national recruiting editor for twenty four to seven Sports of course, early signing day in the books, and surprise, surprise, brand in Alabama again on track for the top class yet again. Of note, this year, they snagged four of the top ten wide receiver recruits in the class, one of which they flipped from LSU. Were like, we're so far beyond calling these
classes ridiculous at this point. I guess the operative question, and we ask it every year, is which of the guys that they're bringing in have the best chance to make a real impact in the twenty twenty one cycle.
Well, I mean, here's what's crazy. They still might not even be done at adding to this class because they're one of the five finalists to the number one overall planned the country by twenty four seven sports jac two moowile. So if they get him, I mean that's I think we were talking about this yesterday. That would put them potentially as the highest rated class in recruiting history, at least in the twenty four to seven era. And so
that's what their class still could potentially be. Ohio State second right now behind them, and they could get him, so that might close it a little bit. But the guys if they got signatures from you got JC Latham who is the number one offensive lineman of the country who you know, obviously Alix lether would graduating, You've got some other upper classmen there. He's a six six studenter pounder who can just move like a gazelle. And he's
a tackle prospect that probably plays early. Maybe he doesn't start right away as true freshimon, but it wouldn't surprise me. On the other side of tackle, they got the number two tackle in the country, Tommy Brockermeyer, and that was a big blow out of Texas. That was kind of one of those first recruiting kind of losses. Tom Herman took this offseason that really started to make the always
hot seat even warmer. His father played in Texas. I believe his mom went her as well, and Tommy and his twin brother, who's not as highly rated as Tommy, both signed with Alabama. Then you throw in Dallas Turner,
you know, the elite pass rusher. So even if they don't get JT who's the number one strong side defensive end, then got the number one week side defensive Then coming in in Dallas Turner, you got to Quincy mckinstrey, who's an actual Alabama kid who's coming from in state and we haven't even gotten to any of the receivers yet.
It was to the point yesterday where Ziger Worthy, who was a top one hundred player, ultimately chose to stay with Michigan rather than flip to Alabama because even though he's a top one hundred receiver, they had so much good receiver talent coming in that it's scaring others away.
So I don't think we should go any further without kind of getting into the actual context of a very different recruiting cycle because of limitations slash no ability to go on official visits and coaches to see prospects in person for the majority of the senior years of these guys, and in home visits not being available because the dead period is still ongoing. What is this just a fully upside down recruiting cycle? Is it more similar than I'm
giving it credit for. What do we need to know about the realities of this past cycle.
Well, here's what you need to know, and I think you guys have probably talked about this before. The NCAA is going to vote in January about the one time transfer rule where you can transfer without sitting out penalty, which the timing couldn't be more perfect because of how many guys had to make commitments to schools, school site unseen, town unseen, campus facilities unseen. Heck, these guys haven't even seen the coaches that they sign to play for in person.
They basically have done their you know, their their homework on an LCD phone screen or an iPad or a computer. On the flip side, a lot of college coaches kind of felt like they needed to fill out their recruiting classes. So if they needed to fill twenty twenty five spots, there's probably at least half of those guys they never seeing in person. They're having to rely on the video. They're having to rely on the pictures with no camp,
no interest and evaluation. So I have a feeling there's going to be some regrets by both parties over the next twelve thirteen months. I anticipate a very loaded transfer portal about a year from now. But what the other thing is, I think it also took away a lot of the intriguing drama from yesterday because so many guys
were worried and concerned about being left behind. There were far more earlier commitments this year than we've ever seen in the recruiting year, so more guys just secured their place at the table and then ultimately signed because they
still never had that opportunity. Some guys were making reservations committed to schools with the expectation they would be able to take visits down the road, but when the business were taken off the table, they just decided, I'm gonna firm this up and then you know, we'll see how I adjust when I get there.
Counterpoint, And maybe this is not based in reality at all, but is it possible that this could mean that prospects are making fewer decisions off of the emotions based around a huge win or a particularly charming head coach or position coach in his parents' living room or parties facilities, an amazing nightlife in whatever college town he's visiting. Could we, maybe in some cases anyway, be looking at actually more pragmatic decision making.
One percent, guys are actually making the decision based on the relationship they're developing with this coach. Is the trust I mean, the trust on both sides is probably greater than it's ever been in this recruiting dynamic. But now there's not that last second. Jordan paytoning of a recruitment where that coach comes in to be a home for the in home visit on a Saturday night the last weekend and gets the kid who's been committed to a
school for eleven months to flip you're seeing. You know, there's no intrigue with but last official visit, there were any official visits. There were hardly even unofficial visits this year taken you had, you know, the Pac twelve and the Big Ten aren't let fans in the stadium, so you had guys go to the Big twelve schools and go to SEC schools and still buy tickets to go
and see those games. But when you take out twenty four schools from having any kind of person inside the game that's not playing the game, guys weren't able to use that to let the emotions kind of sway them that way. So yeah, I think you're right. I think there's a lot more trust involved, but a lot better decision making in the process, And it's not about who's got the sexiest uniforms or the best looking photo shoots
or the best weekend party game day atmosphere. I think there's a lot more research that has been going in with kind of the free time that these guys have suddenly developed without being able to go to campuses.
Yeah, and branded on the other side of the coin, we also have weird eligibility rules in twenty twenty for the kids who are already on campus, being so it's essentially a free year of eligibility. Has that had any impact on the recruiting trail?
Absolutely? And I think what you're having is a lot of schools that basically didn't fill classes yesterday and they're not anticipating filling that class in February because there's no hard cap number that has been put down yet to know how many guys can you have on scholarship out of maximum Maybe you were planning to take twenty five this year, but you've got twenty seniors that you thought were graduating and now all of them are planning to
come back. You're on the hook for those I had one pack twelve school tell me at one point, you know, we don't know how many scholarships that the NCAA is going to allow us to max out it. But we're not Alabama or LSU. We can't necessarily afford one hundred and five one hundred and ten guys on scholarship. We're on the hook for that. And so imagine now what group of five schools are at. They have a hard enough time getting to eighty five scholarships, and now they
have twenty seniors that don't want to leave. So schools have basically said that, you know what, we'll just hit the portal hard instead of filling our numbers. Are filling our numbers now and wait and see what the attrition looks like after the season, after the screen. Because there's so much uncertainty with what the NCAA is going to limit or cap that number at. Nobody wants to put too many guys on scholarship because that will now have to pay for.
All those guys, right, I mean, it's just it's such a different year with regard to everything, especially recruiting. I think of a guy like a Tyler Buckner, who was the big quarterback recruit for Notre Dame. You know, in a normal year, we're potentially talking about him starting as
a true freshman ahead twenty twenty one. But it's not been a normal year for those kids either, Right, Like, first off, eam book could come back if you wanted, and too Tyler Buckner couldn't play his senior season because of the virus. Our friend Pete Sampson over at The
Athletic wrote about this. I know you guys over at twenty four to seven did as well, but like, how does this odd year where maybe we didn't have that extra year of development for some of these top recruits affect your expectations about how they perform as a freshman, or even how they develop as a college recruit in general, or.
How you compare them to people who do play right.
And that's the thing. So you look at a guy like Jackson Dark who signed with USC yesterday. You know they say a lot of times you're abilities availability, Well, what did Jackson Dark do this season? He played fourteen games. You know, that's more games than most states that were playing their seasons. He can played. He got a full fourteen game schedule and he went off this season. I think he had forty touchdown passes, like four interceptions, ram
for about fifteen touchdowns. He took over at the same school as Zach Wilson played his high school ball, so leads into a state championship. He had I think a Utah State offer going into the season, By the time that got down to it, he was decided between USC UCLA, going to BYU, going to Arizona State. He had plenty of options and kind of bet on himself and became one of the hottest commodities. Then you get a guy like a Tyler Buckner, who there was the question how
good is he really? He's tearing up lower level San Diego football, so he makes the transfer to Helix High School, the same school Reggie Bush and Alex Smith played that jumping from the lowest division in San Diego to the highest division in San Diego. But now he'll never have that opportunity. Another good example in their kid in Portland, Nithon Rollins Kbanji, who's the number two player in the
state of Oregon who's committed a Oklahoma. At one point in his high school career, he was committed to play basketball Washington State. His head coach at Jefferson High School at the time, Don Johnson Junior, who's now the director of high school relations at Oregon, convinced him to come play football. Said, you can go play pack what basketball is a six to six forward, or you can go play in the NFL as a six to sixth defensive end.
He comes out for football, plays ten games last year, has offers from all over the country, but then decides he's going to enroll early at Oklahoma. So now you've got a six to sixth pass rusher who is really a basketball player who's showing up at Oklahoma, which has all the worry of the world over time to say, hey, we get these defensive players that they have federally can't
tackle in the biggest games of the year. Here's the guy who's going in and he literally has ten high school football games under his belt because he doesn't play his senior season. So you have the expectations thinking he's going to develop from his junior to senior year. Now that senior year's gone, he shows up to campus in the middle of January. How did you know Oklahoma's going to have to get him ready to play? Maybe he didn't play right away, but that's what you're talking about.
You have a lot of guys that they still haven't even learned a game, and now they're on scholarship at a major university who has expectations We need you to contribute.
I want to go back to quarterbacks for a second, and I guess, if anything, recent history has told us that even though we look at this what looks to be a pretty good roster of class of twenty twenty one quarterbacks, history tells us this is not going to be their final stop playing college football. How good a job I guess as a whole? Do you see this class of quarterbacks doing in terms of finding a good fit?
Because sometimes there are years you're like this, it doesn't make sense why this guy's going to Florida State or cal or Texas or whatever and he's going to be gone. Do you see this as a good fit year? Or do you see history continuing, trends continuing?
Man, I mean, I saw a tweet you guys had this week about the twenty twenty college football quarterbacks in all the different paths, and as I'm looking at it, you can see that playing out with this class. I mean, you take the two guys that are the number one quarterbacks that they're respected positions. Caleb Bullen, who's the number one duel threat. He's going to show up at Oklahoma next year most likely. Spencer Raders holding onto that job
for at least another year, if not two years. Maybe he got Sam Hue who's coming in, who's ran air raid for four years or three years, hopefully he's playing his fourth year out Kennedy Catholic. Now he's going to Washington where his head coach is wearing hats to the press conference to say run the damn ball. So is Sam Hure going to come in and pass up Dylan Morris, who's doing a fine job, helped Washington win the pack twelve Northes, you know, in a shortened season. But does
he come in or does he wait? Maybe as an air raid quarterback, he's not the great fit for the Washington offense, or maybe the Washington offense is waiting to open things up when he gets there. But you look at those situations, and so you look at a guy like dj Undale last year, he knew he was going to back up Trevor Lawrence, had no problem going to president, whereas Bryce slips that commitment when it becomes clear too
of leading. And then Matt Jones happened. So now you may I'm not saying that bright Stone is going to transfer, but I'm saying now that worry is very real because is mac Jones a great college quarterback or see an NFL prospect. Does he use this season the springboard of the NFL next year? Does he come back to play next fall? You know, so the fits look good on paper until you start looking at depth truck and with the ability to use this season is essentially a redsher
year for everybody. There could be some death trucks that look much different than when the coach was pitching it to that that respective quarterback to you try to get him to commit.
It's true, and then there aren't a number of surprises at the top. You talked about just how crazy deep Alabama's class is, but I mean, I guess, outside of swapping in Oregon for USC within the top ten, what are the actual surprises to you in both impressive and disappointing fashion when you look across the sport.
Well, I think, you know, probably the most surprising is I mean, I don't know why we should be too surprised, because you know, we kind of expected this because he's always been a good recruiter. But despite having a horrible year on the field, Michigan's there at number twelve. I mean that kind of surprises me. When you would have thought Michigan was bleeding everybody. They did lose a kid yesterday, the defensive lineman who'd been committed to him for six
months put to UCLA on signing Day. But it's still kind of surprised that even with all the uncertainty of Jim Harbaugh, they still have a top twelve class. You know. The other surprise again, you got a school like Tennessee where they've had a disappointing season if they still have a top fifteen class and Jerry Cruit and the staff are still getting it done. But the recruiting is probably the only team that's saving him at this point because
the results need to follow. So I think it's kind of surprised that two programs that are kind of in year three or in the case of Harbor, year five or six, they're able to get past some of the on field results with still good recruiting class. On the flip side, I think all miss fans are probably excited to see them back in the top twenty in the recruiting rankings. And nobody at this point at least has accused them of doing anything to have a top twenty class.
They just all say, hey, Lane Kiffin, he makes guys want to come play for him. What I love about Lane Kiffin is he was retweeting a kid that he flipp from Mississippi State. He retweeted one of his tweets that can when he committed to Mississippi State. I mean, the troll level of Blane Kiffin is not a surprise. The surprises that old myth is shown under year one that you know Kiffin's going to be able to recruit
at that level. But the one that really sticks out to me, I mean, well, there's actually two pit at twenty three in call at twenty five. We don't necessarily think Pitt and Caw. We think players from Pittsburgh. We think players from California, but we don't necessarily think Pitt and Cal has top twenty five recruiting classes and two coaches that are defensive guys at the heart, but they've done a really good job in their region local league. I think was the most impressing about Cal. You know
Dando as a PAC twelve guys. One of the biggest problems Sunny Dykes had was recruiting northern California and could not get it done. He inherited Jared Gofrom Jeff Tession, but he couldn't recruit the Bay recruiting are in the California. Justin Wilcox comes in, He's got eight guys from Sacramento, from the East Bay, and that's what COUNT needs to do to stay competitive in the PAC twelve. So I used to see in you know, Pitton count the top twenty five. Those of the two that probably are the
biggest surprise. I think the you know on the flip side, probably the one that's the most disappointing is the kind of day that Mississippi State ended up having. And I think also looking at what Stanford did, I mean, we're used to seeing Stanford with top ten, top fifteen classes. It wasn't but three years ago that they landed three of the top five players in the country. Now they had the sixty first ring class in the country. So were the grad transfers last year speaking to a bigger
issue that was going on in Stanford. This recruiting class doesn't really reflect those early David Shaw classes.
Let's go back to the state of California for a second. Your website twenty four to seven has USC on the front page. Is one of the winners of National Signing Day. That's in pretty stark contrast. Brandon two last recruiting cycle when finished like dead last in the PAC twelve. Is there a turnaround story here that we should be telling. Was last year just an outlier? What's the deal with USC?
Well? I think there was a couple of things at play. First, they replaced the entire defensive staff. So you bring in three coaches, well four coaches at that, two that have Southern California times. Vic Soso, who they hired away from Virginia as the San Diego native, and Dante Williams, who is an LA guy, had been at Arizona, had been in Nebraska, Ben at Oregon. He shows up at USC
all of a sudden they're DV recruiting improved. But the big thing was really Todd Orlando and Craig Nivarc coming in and just kind of jolting in that defensive staff where you get away from kind of the you know, the I don't know how to describe Clancy Pendergat, but they an exciting recruiting that Clancy tender Gat did over the years. And you have this entire offseason where USC he's not playing, and then you get on the field
and they're winning seeing games. They're kind of winning an exciting fashion, and they just really seemed up kind of their energy level, even in a year where they weren't able to get on the road, they weren't able to get kids to come to campus. They did have a little Genia Day about four days before the pandemic cappened, and we're able to get a few guys to come to campus before the NCAA shuttings down. But I also think they benefited a lot from more guys in California,
probably staying closer to home because of the pandemic. Naturally, the USC always becomes an attractive option, so I think there's you know, last year, there were so many questions coming off twenty eighteen season about play help. This year there were less questions, and then he kind of reshifted
that staff around so you could see the success. But I think that the tactful championship game could go a long win, really determining organ or USC recruiting and dominics over the next five to six years.
You mentioned guys staying closer to home in California, probably because of the pandemic, but still you look at the best players in California, you see LSU, Notre Dame, Ohio, State, Clemson, Georgia, like they're continuing a trend that you know, last year was highlighted by DJ Uyangalo and CJ. Stroud, guys like that, leaving the West coast footprint. It's I guess it's very easy to say, well, Pac twelve teams are down and they're not playing exciting football, they're not playing on the
national stage, and when they do, they're not performing. I think that's right. But also when you look at those staffs, I guess, like us, how USC was. But you look at UCLA, you look at you know, even though an improved cal. You look at Stanford, you look at you know, Washington State going through what they've gone through. Is it also an element of the recruiting killers that existed at some of these schools are elsewhere and that they're just not staffed with guys who are as I guess dogged.
Is that an element to this?
No? I think that that's true. I also think you look at say what happened to Colorado where mil Tucker Lee's right before signing day, So Carlin will comes in in mid February. Oh, I'm going to use March to have kids come to campus and then March twelfth, everything shuts down for the next nine months, saying with Nick Rolovich, he gets tired of me. In January has to finish putting together the final touches in the twenty twenty class.
All use February to you know, start to build relations with these guys and then in Marshall have them come to campus. Same thing happens. So you get some coaches that have more energy on the recruiting trail, have better recruiters, but they weren't ever able to turn loose or they weren't ever able to host guys on campus. But then you have other schools where you know it, they don't have the coaches that necessarily have that bull dogmentage. There's
not a Dante Williams on the recruiting chail. You know, there's not the guys that you know, you see Mario Christiball, I mean, Mario Cristiball is turning into the West Coast version of Nick Saban in terms of he is becoming the face of Oregon recruiting. And when you look at a lot of schools in the country, they have an assistant who's kind of the face of the recruiting and that's why recruiting is so successful. But when you look
at Alabama, you have Saban who's that closer. And that's what Mario Christinball is able to do is close up a lot of these guys that's out ever even getting the chance to see them. And his staff knows they've got to recruit the same energy and vigor that their head coach does. But when you have other coaches in the Pac twelve that and I think we know one in particular, Damn that You've got a long history of
following Chip Kelly. When recruiting isn't the most important thing, that trickles down to the rest of the assistance and then your class ends up where it does because you don't have that top down philosophy of get out on the road and go recruit. And I think you see that a lot in the Pac twelve right now with the schools that have been recruiting, well, they have head coaches. I mean, for all the crud that Clay Helton deals with, he still is a really good recruiter. And kids love
Clay Helton. Kids when they go on their visits, they talk about how they really connect with him, how their family connects with him. He does a great job of recruiting, and so you're seeing that maybe last year was an anomaly. But when you have guys on your staff that really recruit energetically and the head coach himself does that, that's where you have this wide gap between some of the top schools in the PAC twelve and really with the rest of the PAC twelve.
Brandon, I'm fascinated by your breakdown of what's going on in the Big Ten. So we talked about Ohio State. Ohio State obviously cream of the crop. Michigan, all things considered, did pretty well. But within the Big Ten itself, I'm looking at the twenty four to seven rankings. We've got Wisconsin at third, which is a pretty good cycle for them. We've got Maryland at fourth. Maryland did really well, keeping guys close to home, flipping a kid from Michigan to
come to Maryland. We've got Penn State at fifth. We've got Nebraska all the way down at seventh. Is there any kind of like tectonic shift to foot here where we've got programs out performing? What does this cycle tell you about where the Big Ten's going over the next couple seasons, Well.
It tells you one thing that it's going to keep going to Columbus, and that's where the players seem to come and want to play. I mean, let's just talk about Ohio State for a second, because you look at last year they signed the number one receiver in the country, the number three receiver in the country, the number five receiver in the country, and then another top ten receiver. This year they get the number one receiver in the country.
They've already got a commitment from the number and receiver in the country for the twenty twenty two class. So you've got this full receiver room and nobody's running away. It reminds me of the running back room at USC under Pete Carroll. You have all this talent and guys aren't fearing it. But then you also look at the quarterback room. You've got to justin field. You've got a CJ. Stroud who set to maybe take over for him next year.
But then could CJ. Stroud become Ohio State Kelly Bryant In that quinn Ewers maybe the highest rated quarterback over the last four years since Trevor Lawrence. He's committed in the twenty twenty two classes. CJ. Strouds start in twenty twenty one because I got assumed Justin Fields is gone. But then quinn Ewers comes in twenty twenty two. So Ohio State is just recruiting at a whole different level than the rest of the Big ten. So now it's
a matter of what are we recruiting for second? And you still it's not a surprise to see Michigan there at number two. But Wisconsin, I mean, they do such a good job of evaluating guys early on. And case in point Santa Barbara High School quarterback Deacon Hill committed to Wisconsin a year and a half ago when he had only started two games as the sophomore took over when this quarterback got injured and became the starter. Paul
Chris offers him in the summer. He commitsed just by having three sisters that played Water Public UCLA and his brother in law who played football at UCLA. That was his dream school. UCLA doesn't offer him. He commits Wisconsin a year later. Tchip Kelly tries to flip them. He said, where were you guys a year ago? He's stick switched and now he's grown into one of the top ten
Pro style quarterbacks in the country. So you look at where Graham Mert they'd bring him in, and they they don't bring in a quarterback in the next plat then they go get a Deacon Hill. I mean, when Paul Chris hits on a quarterback, it usually works. But it's because they do such a good job of developing but evaluating those guys. Early Maryland were not surprised Mike Watson
can recruit. But I think the surprise is not just Nebraska down there at seven, but we've been used to kind of seeing Minnesota recruiting picked up a lot over the last couple of years under Pga Flack, and they're kind of at a you know, number eight spot where
we're not expecting them to be that low. You would have thought with the season they had in twenty nineteen, they would see the bump in the twenty twenty one class, and it was kind of to the contrary, it wasn't nearly as strong of the class as maybe we expected it to be. So there's a couple of schools that finally had some momentum and yet this class kind of stagnated. Then of course you go look and you see an Illinois at the bottom. Well, they've had coaching turnover, you
see Northwestern. I mean Patris Dreil is probably excited that he's not in the top ten for the Big Ten because he uses that to motivate his team every single year. Indiana, and again we talk about this every year. The bump in recruiting usually comes in the class after your season. So I don't think Indiana's class right now at number
twelve is anything to worry about. I think you'll see Tom Allen's class really improved in twenty twenty two, where they've had this whole season season to really kind of burn Indiana into the mind of a lot of these recruits.
And I guess, on a similar note, if we could shift over to the ACC for a second, the ACC in a similar position. Right, we've got one team at the top, Clemson, far and away better than the competition. We do have some other teams that are trying to close that gap.
And we're not counting Notre Dame in this question, right, We're not counting Notre Dame question not a full longtime ACC standout, not a.
Full paying member of the ACEC. But we've got some other schools now in the form of Miami, North Carolina perhaps trying to chase down the Clemson Tigers. That's part one of the question, how are they doing? Part two of the question is how about a school like a Florida State Because Mike Norvell's had a ton of challenges to deal with and his very young tenure in Tallahassee, and we know that they're getting Mackenzie Milton via the transfer portal, but he is trying to rebuild something there.
And we have a lot of Florida State fans to listen to this show. So A, is the gap closing on Clemson at all? And B, how's Florida State looking well?
Florida State pass Again, when we talk about schools that you're not used to seeing, maybe in a particular spot in Florida State at number six wouldn't be a surprise if that was nationally, That's not where you expected to
see them in the ACC. Like last year we saw USC at tenth in the PAC twelve tenth in the country would still be low by USC standards, but Florida State it's clearly, you know, kind of getting I wouldn't say lap, but you have more stability at Miami with many das you have more stability be at Florida with Van Mullyan. So now you've got your third coach in
four years of forda state. I think Norvelle Novel is going to be able to get things going there at some point, But right now, maybe the class doesn't appear as sexy as some of these other classes, where you know, Florida and Miami are both showing size life. Obviously, Miami is having a great year and not having to hit the transfer portal as hard. I mean, so many of their star players on their team are transfers to Jalen Phillis and d r Keing. But I know Manny Diaz
would really rather build his program with high schoolers. And so you look at this class and it is a top ten class. It's the number two class in the ACC. That's where you expect Miami to be. North Carolina at number three with the most remarkable thing about North Carolina classes, there's actually two things. It's one how many of their players, their top players are kids from North Carolina, a state that used to kind of bleed to the rest of the SEC and the ACC. Now mac Brown's keeping those
guys just like he used to do with Texas. But I think the other most remarkable thing is that they finished with a class that was number three in the ACC and then if you look at it nationally, there's number fourteen after they lost their number one recruit who reclassified to the twenty twenty class and twenty grave and played this year for North Carolina. I mean, that's when you know you're living right and you're recruiting well when you can afford a loser recruit because he wanted to
get to campus a year earlier to go play. And then you look at this class and it's North Carolina, North Carolina, North Carolina, a bunch of in state kids that got a five star defensive linemany Keisha on Silver. They got Drake Mays, who's the younger brother of former Carolina hooper Loop May. So they've got guys that have ties to the Tar Hills. And Matt Brown knows how to recruit better than most coaches in college football and certainly knows how to recruit his backyard better than most
coaches do. And North Carolina is seeing that. So you know, North Carolina is showing with Mack Brown the complete just rejuvenation of that program, but also the rejuvenation of North Carolina favor with the in state recruits.
When you look at the Big twelve, normally it's a question of like who comes after Oklahoma and Texas because Oklahoma and Texas have cleaned up, I'd say kind of a down year from Texas, I'm sure surrounding some of the uncertainty around Tom Herman's future. Oklahoma seems to keep, you know, having a national presence, obviously bringing in top receivers, bringing in, you know, the top quarterback in the country
from you know, thousands of miles away. Are you worried about Texas long term even given the advantage that advantages that they have, and also who is who is that team chasing those two teams? Just in terms of talent acquisition.
I'm worried about Texas because not only are they losing in state kids that you would have thought they got, they're losing him to Ohio State. So now, Texas, we thought when Texas, A and M went to the SEC that the se cecils were going to thrive in the state of Texas. Ohio State's the one that's thriving in the state of Texas. And it all kind of started
with Garrett Wilson a couple of years ago. I mean, he can even go back to recruse before that, but Garrett Wilson was the one that really shifted the paradigm I think in the state of Texas towards Ohio State and with the Horns because jim Ywers was a Texas commit and then he flipped to Ohio State. Then Caleb Burton, who was an in state kid, is going to Ohio State.
So Texas is having a hard enough time teching Oklahoma, but now Ohio State's stealing guys that you would have thought would have been a lot with little Horns at one point. So I think they're you know, it's not just the questions about Tom Herman, it's why is Texas losing so many of these players the state to out of state, out of conference schools. And that's an issue that California is very familiar with and Texas is now
starting to experience. And at the same time, I think that hurts the rest of the Big twelve when the Big ten, the SEC see the acc are even planting in the state of Texas and grabbing guys. But the one that I think is probably the biggest surprise here in terms of where they're rated is West Virginia. They're at number four. They actually had a really good class year with three four star players. But I really like
what Neil Brand did with this class. And then I think I see earlier this week that his name's being linked to the Auburn job. I mean, it's one of those where you finally start getting some a mend and he's starting to get his own blood in there, and yet now schools want him. So can West Virginia sustain it where they can be a top four, top five class in the Big Twelve given their geographical disadvantage. If they can, they're going to be competing for Big Twelve
championships or at least for a shot there. I like what Baylor has done. I mean, considering when dave A. Randa got started there and how late it was in the process and really losing again like Carl Durell and Nick Rolovich, losing the opportunity to get those kids to come to campus and meet with them as a new coach. I still kind of like what Baylor did in this class, and I think given a full year and more kind of a return to normalcy Baylor's going to have a
really good recruiting class. What probably the biggest surprise though, is we've seen TCU have some great classes. We've seen TCU signed some really great players, but this year was not that year. And I think there's some concern about the TCU. For only two four stars total and only thirteen commits, they have the smallest class in the Big twelve.
We know that Garykatshon can coach those guys up, but you know what's happening this year again, it's another case of those kids that TCU in years past may have gotten. Now they're going to other Big ten schools, or they're going to other ACC or SEC schools. That state has opened the floodgates to other programs outside of Texas.
I hate to group G five teams together because it's a wide swath of teams that very different schools all across the country, But I'm doing it anyway because it's my show and I'm allowed to. Largely, the American of the G five conferences is the conference that dominated recruiting by teams you'd expect to dominate just on a national scale, Cincinnati, SMU, Memphis. It's just UCF has looks like they have at least
a pretty good class. Which of those or any school across the country not playing in a Power five conference, or I guess Notre Dame has jumped out to you as doing impressive things on the recruiting trail all things considered.
Well, I like what Cincinnati did. They may not have any four stars in this class, but they all have really high level three stars. And that's really where your recruiting class is. May I mean, yes, you want the five stars, you want the four stars, although some coaches may say they don't. You still want those top tier guys, but so much of your class has made on that second tier guys. And that's what Cincinnati's class ends up being the best in the AAC despite not having a
four star. It's like all twenty five guys are just solid players that really kind of that Luke Ficklin and stat to see as guys that can keep that momentum that Cincinnati has built over the last couple of years. And I think what's being the most impressive is I mean, this is a guy whose name has been mentioned for a number of jobs over the last two years. We saw this with Boise and State when Chris Peterson was there. Every year, Chris Peterson's name was mentioned for some big
job every year. Boise States still brought in a good class because you could see the commitment that Cincinnati has to replace the Tommy Tyvergill. Notwithstanding, Cincinnati over the last fifteen years has done a good job with their head coaching hires, and so even if Sickle does leave, he's built or he's continued to build on that great program, and so it makes it easy to sell that program SMU.
I think we've talked about it a little bit earlier on the show about Sunny Dykes's lack of success in the state of California, and he was at cal because he's a Texas guy. His Willhouse is in Texas, His Willlhouse is inside the Texas High school football being a Dikes there in the state of Texas, all the connections
and now you see at SMU. Remember there was a little bit of a time there when June Jones was the head coach at STU where they were recruiting nationally and he was from Hawaii, he was from the West Coast, was coaching in Hawaii, but they were hitting the West Coast. They were hitting the East Coast hard. Now you're seeing SNU really build on this class locally, but it's becoming appealing. At the same time as TCU may be trending down. From a recruiting standpoint, SNU seems to be trending up.
So Sundy Dykes has found his sweet spot. That's where he needs to be. That's what he's recruiting. A Texas kids a lot easier to get every go to s and U than it is to Berkeley. So those are the two. And then of course you go to the Mountain West. I mean they have seven schools, the top six schools in the Mountain West. Five had new coaches, so they had a lot of excitement, a lot of
things to sell. Heck, UNLV's got the number two class in the Mountain West because they were selling Marcus Arroyo and his rose ball and they were selling the new stadium with the Raiders and then they went off horrific what owen whatever this year. But they do have the number two class. Yet what hasn't changed. Poise State still has the number one class. This doesn't have a lot of commitment. It's got the second smallest class in the Mountain West. Or third smallest class in the Mountain West.
And yet there they are again with the best class, highest average rating of recruit highest point total of the conference. I mean Brian Harson. His name is now being mentioned again like Chris Peterson, not what the same fervor that Peterson was, but Harson's name, Mike Sickle is mentioned with a lot of jobs a get Boise State coaches keep chucking along and bringing in good classes.
You haven't physically seen as many players and how they look today, how do they physically look in a camp or during games, or you haven't seen as many as you normally do by this time of year, especially with the All American Games and the practices beforehand. But if you had to group a few guys across the country that purely reflect how you react to reacted to seeing like a Sean Robinson or Trevor Lawrence, guys that you can't believe are still in high school, that are so
clearly physically ready and technique ready for college football. Who are those guys that are like, oh, this this gentleman looks like a twenty five year old. Who are those physically beyond ready guys in this class?
I remember seeing James Williams, who is the number one safety in the country. He's committed to Miami. He's been committed to Miami for I think three years. Saw at the end of his sophomore year at a seven on seven tournament in Las Vegas, and he was playing with his team Death Coon. And at the time I didn't know where Deathcon was from, so but you can you could hear this kid. He was loud, he was energetic, he was found like, this has got to be a
team from Florida. Sure enough it was, and here he is. He was sixty five, two hundred and fifteen pounds as a sophomore. He'd be playing corner one play, he played linebacker the next play, he played safety in the next play. And we had him as a top fifty guy already in this class. But you could have convinced me in whatever that was February of twenty nineteen that he could go play at Miami right away, but he wasn't going
to get there for two more years. So he was the one guy that I'm like, two years ago he could go. The other one that I probably thought. You know, obviously I've been a big fan of JP two Mololow since he first started. But I remember seeing Corey Forman as a sophomore, and then he goes to the Opening Finals as an underclass I think he was the only underclass defensive lineman that was at the last Opening Finals in Texas in twenty nineteen, and he won the MVP dominated.
I mean, Brian Rizzi was there that day and Corey Former was the one who left with the MVP. And he still had two more years of high school football that he had. And then I remember seeing a mecha Guka for the first time when he was a ninth grader, and then I got to see him again in that winner when he was in a seven on seven tournament, and you can just see that this kid had the
makings of a special receiver. Even as a sophomore. He goes around was a four to four to two laser forty at the Army Combine in January of his sophomore year. Over the course of the next forty eight hours, he and his father are in his stepdad were on my flight home. I think he landed about fifteen offers from Friday afternoon until Sunday night. We landed back in Seattle, and you could have told me then he could go play two years and he could go to college right now.
But he is two more year of high school football. There was a reason that he was the National Junior of the Year last year. Just a grown man playing a grown man's sport, but against high schoo kids. And that's why I think he's going to have an opportunity to play, even though it's a loaded receiver room at Ohouse State. I think he'll play as a true freshman next year because he is more than.
College ready, something I've always been curious about, and it changes every year. But a lot of the dirty work in recruiting, and I don't say that to imply anything more. The tiring, day to day minutia of college football recruiting is done by support staff at these various programs, with the biggest schools investing in the biggest staffs in that department. What does that dirty work involve? What is that daily grind that people way way down on that athletic athletic
staff directory on the web page. What are they doing and how much is what they're doing versus how much of what coaches are doing is sealing these deals?
I would say that coaches do a good job in recruiting when they do the recruiting, because the majority of the recruiting is being done by the twenty three year old staffer who's got access to the head coach's phone, who's got access to the offensive coordinators Twitter, who's got access to the defensive coordinators Instagram, and sends those messages as that coach. But it's not that coach is sending it,
and he's the one that's building the relationship. And then when they go on and in home visible doing them miscycle. But when a coach is getting ready to go on an in home visit, that twenty three year old staffer is on the phone basically saying, Okay, coach, these are the main bullet points that you don't know because you've never recruited this kid. Go close the deal on it by telling this that that complimenting mom, complimenting grandma. Those guys work their tails off. I was text with a
few yesterday. They're in the office at three am yesterday. And assistant coaches, you know, they get their two or three cop And that's not all assistant coaches, but there are some that they're clearly there for their exes and ose ability and not for their recruiting chops. They get
their two commits in June and they're done. And yet it's the twenty five year old staffer who's maintaining that relationship for seven months after the kid commits in May to ensure that the kids still signs with that school and that he's not being ghosted by the coach who recruited him. So those guys work their tails off and don't get any of the credit. They don't get any of the glory. When there's a National Recruiter of the Year nand or a Conference Recruit of the Year, it's
usually an assistant coach. Usually that assistant coach does do his own recruiting, but so much of the groundwork is laid by the staffers and by the ADA and staff. And that's why we saw last year USC really kind of talk about, well, the part of the reason our class is down is because we don't have the admin ers of support staff like the SEC schools do. So what does USC do. They hire three or four new administrators in the football Recruiting office to ramp up their efforts.
They hire new media guys from LSU to get all hands on deck. Because so much of the work is done by those guys rather than the assistant coaches who they're trying to coach during the season.
Brandon I got two questions before we let you go again. He is the national recruiting editor for twenty four to seven Sports. One topic that we haven't covered here, I'm sure we will cover more in the future is this whole name, image and likeness legislation that seemingly is closer now than ever before to becoming any kind of reality. Is that something that recruits or even recruiters are broaching at all, either amongst themselves or with people such as yourself.
No question. And I think Oklahoma kind of showed a stink preview of that a year ago when if you remember at siny Ad last year, they had each recruit that signed had his own logo, his own branding done, and had his own logo designed as part of his announcement when he when Lincoln Riley got the letter of intent in, they would tweet this kid's own personal logo. And so there's schools that realize this is going to
be a hot button issue. You're going to have some of your old school schools that are going to still try to fight it. But then you have the schools that realize we can benefit from this if we just get out in front and say, hey, we're going to help you with your branding, We're going to help you with your name, with your marketing, and this is what
we can do for you. We saw USC about a month and a half of two months ago do a campaign ultimately got taken down by their own Twitter, but at one point it was up there with the with the boulevard that they were pushing and you know why. I mean, I'm sorry Hawaii, Hollywood. And one of the key recruits in this class who didn't sign yesterday was Cier Wright, who is one of the top one hundred players in the country. He's a corner at Loyola High School Lost Angelis. He's going to star in Space Jam
Shoot Too next year as Lebron James sunt Well. USC has been pushing hard for him, and it's hard to think that a kid who's going to start and what's probably going to be a billion dollar movie if we were allowed to go to the movies in twenty twenty one, he's going to leave Hollywood where his name, image and likeness as a football player is only going to enhance
his brand. But you're going to see more and more schools in corporate and we've seen that over the last two signing days where more and more schools have incorporated the branding. When in Ohio State would announce the recruit yesterday, they would announ that's where the kid was from, his position is, height and weight, and then they would also put his Twitter and his Instagram to build up his
brand and build up his social media presence. And more and more schools are going to do that, and I think as soon the sooner they adapt to that and understand that this is going to be what helps them in recruiting. Gone in the days where a photo shoots the most important thing, it's now how can you improve my brand?
Final question, perhaps the most important question. There was a player in this class who goes by the name of Sam Jackson Brandon. We've been doing the name game here on the show for a long time. Never have we had a Sam Jackson before. I'm wondering if there are any other names that rise to that level in this year's class.
I was prepared for this one this year because usually every year I get thrown off and I always have the name and then I forget them, fund it. I mean, Dabo's got a quarterback coming in named Bubba. If there is not a more perfin just cage between a head coach and a quarterback, Dabbo and Bubba pretty much checks every box. I like what us he's getting out of a kid. I wrote about him this week because he
got invited the All American Ball Prophet Brown. Yeah, he is as a corner you know, his ability to anticipate and get a good break on that pass from the quarter of the future is going to allow He's going to see the future. He's going to know how to jump routes. So that's probably I love profit, but I mean, come on, Bubba and Dabbo, are we really going to
try to find something better than that? But I do have two more because I've been on the uh you know, pounding the trains for the last couple of weeks that in my opinion that the best quarterback, I'm sorry about the best quarterback the best receiver in college football is Devonte Smith. Well, guess what, Alabama's got another Davonte Smith
coming in. He's playing cornerback this time, so you know it's we say Alabama every year they reload, I mean they literally reload where they get the same name players coming in every single year. And then I got to throw a now to you, Dan, because we can't have a class with a guy named Kingsley and not talk about a Boston's lineman named Kingsley. The last name is not always the easiest to pronounce. When you have a name like Kingsley, we don't talk about your last name.
I am pretty does Oregon not have future bookends of Kingsley and Bram Is that?
Is that true?
Graham Walden and a center named Jackson Light who is not light at all? Oh?
I like that.
Here's here's the actual tradition that we have other than the great names. Is uh, let's just be very vain and self serving. Go deep on Notre Dames class and go deep on Organs class. Not a question of command, Notre Dame class.
Hey, I like what Notre Dame did? They got a couple of kids. First of all, anytime you go into the eight oh five where we all know the best football in the world, actually, Dan, they you do know that, So you know you'll be excited when I hear that. You know, Devin op who is one of the top players in Ventura County in this class. He was a long time committed to UCLA and they flipped him a
week ago. What I like here is that we're seeing with Notre Dame's classes, we're continuing to see the man Tito with that we sought last year when they got Jordan Botello. This year they were able to get Kahanu Kia from Prunojo. And this is a kid who was originally talking about taking his mission and going and serving his LDS mission right away and Nebraska Utah his dad played at Utah Utah thought that they were going to get him and he was going to go service mission,
come back in twenty twenty two. And then Brian Pollyan did what he does. He goes into Hawaii and he gets a linebacker. So you look at Notre Dames class and obviously they've got Tyler Bustner, he's the star. Blake Fisher, a kid from Indiana, one of the top linemen in the country. Rocko Spindler another great name out of Michigan who they battled Michigan for. But they did a really good job out West this year, and you know, maybe that's because of an Ian book. Maybe it's because of
an Isaiah Foski. Some of the guys on their team that are from the West Phis and Notre Day's always had a presence, but this year it seemed to be interestingly enough, in a year where they couldn't really get on the road, they had a few more guys from the West coast, And maybe we've seen in the last couple of years. The other name of the guy that I'm a big fan of in this class is quarterback
by the name of Ron Paulas. I just think that, you know, there's going to be a guarantee of a couple of Highsend Trophy winners for the young man he gets to Notre.
Dame had to go Ron Palace to close this out, didn't you.
I was just sitting there waiting for and I just was like, Oh, do I drop it earlier? Do I wait till the end?
Friends? Here? Why not? All right? What about?
Yeah? I love this organ class. I think what I really like about Orgon is when they recruit in state. It's usually for an elite guy. They don't always recruit in state, but one of the earliest commits in this class was a commit from Keith Brong, who committed after the Civil War in twenty nineteen, only to see Noah Sewell and Justin Flow commit at that same position and sign a year ahead of him. And yet it didn't matter. Keith Brown became their most vocal recruiter in the day
and age. In an era where social media recruiting is becoming such a part of the recruiting process, Keith Brown was one of the few guys in the state of Oregon who actually had the opportunity to play for the Ducks and just continue to recruit. He had guys come and stay with him and then they would go down and be able to walk around campus. They would get com meet with the coaches. But he kind of hosted a few of these guys that would come into town
to see Oregon. And I think that that's a big deal for Oregon because as much as they recruit nationally, when you do have an elite player in your backyard, you go get them. Speaking of backyards, they have madd a permanent residence in Arizona, getting the number one quarterback in Arizona, Ty Thompson. They got the top lineman in Arizona and Bram Walden. They got three players from Arizona that were right in the backyard of either U of A or ASCU. Jonah Miller another four star lineman, and
they also got two really good tight ends. Well leak him out about They got Terence Ferguson out of Colorado. What I think is probably the most remarkable thing that Oregon continues to do is to go into the Pac twelve footprint and to go into four or five other states where there's Pack twelve schools and take their top prospect.
That's what USC used to do under Pete Carroll. That's what USC is expected to do, and right now Mara Crystball is the one that's going into the backyard of other packtall programs and taking their top guys.
All right, one final time, his name is Brandon Hoffman, National recruiting editor for twenty four seven Sports, calling in from the great state of Alaska. First time that's ever happened on this podcast and all the years we've been doing at Brandon, thank you as always for your insight. Please stay warm up there and hopefully we can talk to again sometime soon.
Absolutely, I'm going to stay as thought out as possible.
All right, Take care alrighty, there you go. Brandon Hoffman calling in from the Great State of Alaska. You've been up there?
Nope, pevw oh yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Went on a cruise in high school. It's the only cruise I think, like extended cruise I've ever been on.
You were you cruise guy? You like cruise?
No, not at all. But I had a good time. Like I'm not a not a cruise guy because I had a bad time on that cruise. You go up there, I think it was we went up to Seattle and then maybe we went up to Vancouver and took it from there like an Alaskan cruise, and you see glaciers. It's it's pretty dramatic and crazy beautiful. We went, you know, into towns and went bike riding, and you know, I don't know what it's not. I'm saying Alaska isn't a
summer destination, but that's not true. It was beautiful and there's a lot of outdoors things to do, but just the idea of sitting on a giant boat and eating until you're sick. And I was too young to gamble. Maybe I wasn't. I don't know what the rules are on the open seas. But I don't know, it just wasn't my scene. I like to explore a little more than a cruise allows.
What was Richard Rubinstein like on that trip?
Gosh, this was a long time ago, This was probably twenty ish years ago. He I think he enjoyed as much as he could the sights and sounds of being I think to catch a can and maybe Juno. I forget the town, the specific towns we went to in Alaska, but I think he had as good a time as one can with a let's call it fifteen, thirteen and ten year old boy just being idiots. So it's not like you can truly take in the wonders and the vistas of the Upper Pacific Northwest. But I think he
had a good time. He's he's obviously, as you know, traveled a ton and hiked a ton, so he had he was in his element.
Well look, fun show as always always great to help are show on this show. You know how I am about funding. We love fun, You love fun shows, and Brandon always delivers. Dude knows everything everything about recruiting, always good to get hit. He makes me.
He also makes me feel at home because he's got that, he's got a southern California affect that the Pacific Northwest just can't be out of him.
It just can't.
He's from Ventura County, always likes making reference to it, So you know ox narda Ventura and Channel Islands, that whole area. It's fantastic. You should spend time there. Tie, So don't tell too many people, but it's great.
You neat well.
Oceans, everything oceans. So I treasure these shows. So uncommitted Friday Orbit because we are still uncommitted, and I am hopeful that Oregon's class comes together and maybe some other packed twelve classes come together. We get a higher level pack twelve and some underrated big twelve classes come together for you know, guys, taking off our guys. Excuse me, guys, what's what's the word I'm looking for? Just taking the wind out of Oklahoma sails a little bit, Clemson sales
a little bit. I know you're keenly interested in the ACC and if notre name sticks around and classes like their's, Miami's, North Carolina's, I think it was a fun class. I don't the Ohio States and Alabama's and LSUS and I just expect this from those classes. I'm curious around the edges where teams are slowly building up into dangerous forces.
Dangerous forces. All right, Well, with that being said, thank you so very much for downloading, for listening, for making us part of your week. We got a big weekend in front of us with an incredible slate of conference championship games. We will talk through all of that and much much more on our Sunday reaction show. Again, you can get access to it on Sunday if you join the Patreon Otherwise, for all the just plain old fashioned regular forballers, you get it on Monday morning, six am
Eastern time. That's when we start talking about what happened. Play your reverbs, which again you can dial into at four eight verbal one four waight verbal one is your line of catharsis Dan call in, let us know what's on your mind, if anything's bugging you, got anything to get off your chest, that's where you can do it. For a way, For one, I agree for that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself, Tie Hildebrand,
will catch y all in a few days. In the meantime, stay solid, peace,