Three two one zero all engine running lipstof.
We have a Liptop.
Thirty two UFO show, Dan, it is twenty twenty one. Happy New Year's to one end all and welcome back to our first UFO show of this new calendar year, the upgradeable Friday Orbit. Daniel, how are you?
I'm good. We're recording this in twenty twenty December thirty first. So if we have an unexpected Y two K twenty twenty, rollover to twenty twenty one issue and we are now being listened to in a post apocalyptic world, right, sure, Remember to be kind to your neighbors, share water, share supplies if you're going to loose, loot kindly. And if there is no apocalyptic situation at the onset because of some sort of digital tragedy, hope everybody's twenty twenty one is going well so far.
You know now that we've branched out a little bit into the whole Twitch market, and we've been playing games, and you're going to play games at some point soon, I know solid life. Kate's been watching one game in particular called Rust, which, as she described to me, I know nothing about it.
Oh, she watches this, She watches people stream a game called Rust on Twitch.
Correct. I believe Rust is like a post apocalyptic type of scenario as you described, or you kind of band together and do what you can to survive. How would you do in a game like that.
Oh, I would be terrible. I have very limited skills in terms of life I can change a tire. I guess that would help out on the open road. I have a certain degree of charm in the real world that might be able to get me places, but no in terms of fighting, In terms of survival out in nature, I would say quite too, very limited.
We're living in the digital age, Dan, that's the problem with you and me. Yeah, get us out there. We got a rough it. I don't know how that's going to go. I can cook, I can I could probably make a fire I've had. I could definitely make an make a fire if I had to.
Yeah, yeah, But hand to hand combat over a raccoon carcass for dinner, I just I don't know. I might be losing that carcass.
So look, we're not here to talk about the negativity in the world, because we've all experienced more than enough of that over the last calendar year. Twenty twenty was not what it was supposed to be, right, but we got what we got. We did get a college football season. We can talk about how that felt to live through, both on this show and at some point in the
very near future. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge. But that being said, Dan, it is New Year's Day, as many of you are listening to this, even though we're recording in twenty twenty, and given that we had a goofy year where so much of what we took for granted just wasn't meant to be or made itself very apparent, I thought maybe we could take the opportunity today to give some New Year's resolutions to our fine for baller hood. And these
are not just like I'm not talking personal resolutions. I want to work out more, right, everyone wants to work out more. I'm talking as college football fans. What are our New Year's resolutions as we move forward?
Do you have personal ones? Do you make them? I mean what we can get to them at the end of the show. Potentially.
I'm not good at resolutions. I don't I'm not good at setting goals, which, as my wife tells me, I'm not good at thinking things through in advance.
So these all sound like resolutions.
Generally, I am not. I am not good at thinking things through in advance, So maybe that's one. Maybe maybe I need to take a beat and before I jump, think a little bit.
But no, I'm not.
I'm not good at goal setting okay are you?
No, not at all, but I need to That's something I need to improve upon. I need to be more organized about my goals and checking off tasks. I'm very good actually at writing, like this is what I need to do this Thursday. And then I do three of them and I'm like, I wonder what's on sale at Amazon. That's what happens, Like, Oh, I need to pay the electric bill and then I go on to Chrome or whatever. I'm like, hmm, let's see what deals are happening in the electronics world.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So no, I need to get better at that for sure. And I need to get way more yoked. I definitely need to get more yoked.
Well, who doesn't need to get more yoked?
But that's true.
This is where we stand jacked.
Okay, let's make college football resolutions about how we want to live as college football fans and or podcasters in twenty twenty one and beyond. How about that?
I think that's an excellent idea. So with that as the backdrop, you know where the show is headed. Will you know? There were a bunch of games that took place that are continuing to take place, literally as we record this podcast. We are going to save the grand recap show for Sunday because once we get the Sunday and Monday that we'll have a bunch of games under our belt. We can talk about the playoff, We could talk about some of the other New Year's six games.
We want to try and get those all in one fell swoop. We know that Oklahoma ran it up on Florida. We know that Dan Mullen had more dumb things to say. We know about Deeric King's horrible injury. Hopefully, knock on wood, he will be back in time for fall camp. That's at least purther reports from Bruce Feldman. But just a horrible break for Deeric King. Not just in Miami losing the Bowl game, who cares about that, but him tearing his acl right after announcing that he's coming back is
a huge bummer. We could talk about Texas running it up on Colorado and the picture of Sam Ellinger wearing Texas gear at the game as a kid, which was one of our Winter Wonders selections. That we can also talk about the Yes Winter Wisconsin and whatnot, but we'll get to all of that.
I want to be very specific. Well, let's talk about Florida Oklahoma on a next show or whatever the next time we do recaps. But the Dan Mullen stuff after the game, I didn't watch the clip. I saw some quotes, so maybe I'm missing context. I'm open to that. What I saw was he said, As far as I'm concerned, I'm paraphrasing here once again. Our final game was against
Alabama last week. Was that like the crux basically what he said, basically saying it was sort of they'd treated it like a walkthrough exhibition, no big deal, not a real game against a really good Oklahoma team on a national stage in a New Year six game. That was the essence, I believe. So yeah, And they did accept the check that came.
With the I believe I believe they accepted the check. This is the same guy who argued to have more fans in the stands and then flip flopped a number of times on I guess just how intense or non intense you should be about the college football season.
So it's just right.
I like Dan Mullen as a coach, but as I think we've come to know about a lot of which is the more they talk, the less sometimes we all should listen. And Mullen has certainly found himself in that drawer throughout the course of the twenty twenty football season.
I did see to be fair. As for the terms, this is from gatorsports dot com. As for the terms of his contract, Mullen was due to receive a two hundred thousand dollars bonus for reaching a New Year six Bowl, but he and his coaching staff will forego bonuses this season due to the ongoing COVID nineteen.
That's nice. That's a nice gesture.
So I imagine the school is still in the conference is still happy to accept that cash. But it isn't. It is nice, and this is what a lot of coaches have done, so sure that that is at least nice and beneficial of the school and athletic departments and the bottom line that has been greatly affected literally everywhere. Now, with that being said, we know that there are games going on. We're going to do a recaps Mayo Bowl
and the trophy at the Mayo Bowl shattering. We're going to do all that thirstiest bull of them all.
All that stuff. We're going to recap on our Sunday recording.
Yeah.
Now, resolutions, Happy twenty twenty one. It is great to see you, twenty twenty one. You could not get here soon enough. Hopefully we put a lot of this behind us. We can move forward without a virus and play a normal college football season. There. Okay, those are the table stakes. We're all united behind that as fans, Dan, or as a fan in your case, do you have any resolutions as we move forward?
I've got like a what's a ten sided shape? A do decahedron? A decaheat do decahedron is twelve. Okay, so a ten sided shape is called on That's the shape of my resolution.
It would be a deca something.
Ten sided shape is a deca gone, A deca gone. There you go, yeah, a deca gone. Okay. This is a single resolution that I want just as a college football fan and podcaster, I want to dig deeper into the group of five for specific entertainment players and units more often. And that's not because of anything. I you know, feel big picture about the sport. It's tough to follow
one hundred and thirty teams. But every time I find myself looking at a team because there's like a big match, I'm like, oh, man, this dude is everywhere, and I'll watch like previous games like oh, this receiver is fully unstoppable. You know. I want to be able to be in on those guys earlier than I have been. I just
usually do it ahead of a big game. I want to do a better job earlier on because even though a team is like you know, oh they're three and four, Like what, you know, why are we caring about this team? There's all like they're just dudes on every team. I want to be better in my dude hunting by that phrase. Yeah great, I do well.
If Coastal Carolina taught us anything this year, it's that maybe you're onto something right. So again, consider the context of the twenty twenty season. Teams will playing all sorts of different numbers of games. Right, Ohio State's in the playoff at six and zero. Meanwhile, we've got other teams that some have played eleven or twelve, and I think because of the very structure of this season, it gave us an opportunity to pay more attention to a team
like a Coastal Carolina. And definitely they were one of, if not the best stories of the entire year. It was fun as hell to watch them, and I think in a normal year it might have gotten left on the cutting room Florida in because we've got so much other FBS football that we got to cover and Power five football that we're talking about, that we just can't pay attention to a guy like a Grayson McCall like we would or like we did in twenty twenty. So
I am with you. I would kind of build on that a little bit and say that I want to do better, be more out spoken. I don't know how to characterize it with regard to how do we make this a more equal playing field for those group of five schools. I'm tired just of calling them the group of five schools. It's like they're a second class. Yeah, the term group of five. Actually, I agree with you. It kind of just sucks.
Because it's it's sort of like a others JV terminology. Yeah, it's stupid, and you know, we have done far, far too many wrong things and referencing just like yep, this these this grouping of others group of five, and you know, maybe it's whoever came up with the group of five thing is to blame as well. But uh yeah, let's let's be much more specific.
We have to walk a fine balance on this show too, because the overwhelming majority of the people who listen are fans of Power five schools. Definitely, if we dive too deep into the I'm going to say a group of five stuff, We're going to lose folks, and that's also not going to be helpful for our business. But we need to find a way to walk that balance. And now I don't know, I don't know how we do it. We could probably start in the new year by coming up with our own name for the Group of five.
Let's rebrand it, let's take that as one of our official resolutions here.
Well, I would argue, so I'm just going to the conferences and the stories there in the Group of five have become more interesting with Power five conferences by and large becoming less competitive. How many times has Oklahoma won the Big twelve, you know, these past few years? How many times has you know Ohio State won the Big Ten? How many times is Clemson? How many times has? I guess the SEC has been weirdly more up in the air with Georgia, Alabama, LSU all winning recently. But we're
talking about the same teams over and over. And meanwhile, in the American, in the MAC in the Mountain West, we're seeing more volatility and more competition at the top in a lot of cases, you know, year over year. So in a number of ways, what the Power five is doing at the top has aided my own interest in some of these other conferences. As I say, well, all.
Right, good one, that was a good one.
Okay, what do you have?
I want to call bs on anyone in the college football universe. Uh oh claiming that something is not logistically possible. Okay, I want to be more mindful of that, because this was always the laziest argument against doing a playoff, if you recall, until suddenly it vanished. Suddenly it vanished amid public pressure, with a ton of money on the table,
probably a thousand other factors as well. Even still, that logistics argument had never fully been put to the test in the way that it was in twenty twenty, Notre Dame can't join a conference exactly. That's not logistically possible, seeing as how we played a high level college football game with sixty hours, sixty hours of lead time. I have to believe, I have to believe that almost anything
is possible moving forward. I did not say easy. I know it's not easy, but just don't tell me it is logistically impossible, because after what we just went through Sun, everything is possible. You can find a way to make it happen. They did in BYU Coastal, they did on like a thousand other different fronts during the twenty twenty season. We can do it, we can do it.
Yeah, I agree with you, though that was a very specific situation, and that BYU is an independent team that had a buy that week, so that was an advantageous situation. There is an element to college football that we all know and we all understand. That's just like, this is how we've always done things, So this is how we're
going to do things now. Obviously, when you throw that the wrench of twenty twenty into everything, then it becomes okay, well we're changing schedules and like up two weeks later, we're changing schedules. Again, I think the malleyability element to twenty twenty was pretty eye opening, and not always in a good way. That like, oh, maybe the Big Ten isn't as organized as they should be in terms of messaging and executing a schedule and a set of rules.
So what I come down is tradition is both the appeal and a problem of college football, right, Like, it's just it's easy to look at the sport and say, yeah, there's so many amazing things about the traditions of these teams and these conferences and these rivalries, but then you get stuck in the mud where like, yeah, the tradition
is we schedule teams nine years in advance. Why I don't know, just because we're nervous about filling things and we want to make sure everything is set Like well, okay, well what if we came up with a new way of doing things. So I think this is dead on for you. That it's not that college football needs to be brought into the twenty first century, because I think they've done a relatively good job of improving things, albeit slowly.
It's more the why don't we rethink the organization the way this sport is organized while maintaining it's sort of like, isn't there like a new Mustang electric car that still looks like a Mustang, but its kind of brand new guts. That's the way I think we need to think about college football and the structure thereof.
Yeah, and as a related point, I want to do everything in my power to remember that the playoff committee decided it needed to meet in person to pick four teams. They were insistent on meeting in person. Now, look, we talked to a broad spectrum. I mean, you were hacking foreign governments remotely via zoom. Sure, so we talked to a broad spectrum of people out there. I'm not going to tell you how to feel about this here virus.
Just stay safe and stay away from people. It just let's try it out to spread it because no one want, said, you want to get sick. But totally we could put all that to the side, and I think agree that the argue even by the playoff committee, that they just couldn't do what they had to do, which was picked four obvious teams over zoom, because you know, sitting on zoom for all these hours is just it's hard. We all know it's hard. We've all been doing it for the last year. Shut up.
Yeah, And how many of these like older gentlemen and ladies on the committee are chasing toddlers around. My guess is Bill Hancock is not chasing toddlers around.
Yeah, And my guess is they're all hopping on zoom calls with their family anyway. So don't give me and their day jobs and they just don't give me. And that's a small thing, right, That's a small thing, super small. It's a super tiny thing. But it speaks to their way of thinking, the way of thinking, and the broader point, like you said, of this is the way we've always done things. They did not all need to be in a room. Okay, I don't care about the virus, I
don't whatever. Just don't try to make that argument. Think differently. Zoom's a thing, people are comfortable with it very easily could have done that anyway. That's neither here nor there. But I am I am as just to put a bow on this, I'm going to call bs on the whole logistic impossibility thing whenever I hear it and think about it differently, because.
It's like, what are the logistics are scheduling like, what what do you feel like is schedulings.
One scheduling's won right nine years in advance? You you called that one out. I think we're probably coming to a point with the playoff where we're going to start talking about adding games. I don't know when that's going to happen, not privy to anything, but it's going there. It's going there because we've had the same two teams, three teams in this thing however many years now, So it's getting there. It's going to come there sooner than later.
And you never have name image likeness, right, Well, that was going to be my next point. Yeah, the video game, the video game name in like that, that's specific. Yeah, name, image and likeness could bring about all sorts of in college football, and the logistics of that, again will be difficult for teams to manage. How do you manage that if you're a school? I don't know, but my guess is smart people can figure it out if we sit down and think about it. Right, let's sit down and
think about it. Let's not be rooted in the past, and let's try to hack this thing together here figure out the best way to do. Like, there's a thousand things in college football that I think fall into this category of being argued about as logistically impossible, which really aren't. They're more difficult and they are challenging, but we can figure it.
Out, right, I mean, I think the postseason in general, right, I know, we got a question about this for our bruin A which we're recording in a little bit here, but somebody was asking about, like, you know, ESPN is on this broadcast asking about, like, how do we make the Bulls more important? Everybody? You know, We've got all these great bowl games, but people don't seem to like want to talk about all these games. I'm again paraphrasing
ESPN Owning everything may not be the best thing. If they're mentioning the playoff and putting up playoff graphics and playoff hypotheticals on a Wisconsin Illinois game, you know everything. I don't know if ESPN did that game specifically, but just a random game early on that doesn't necessarily have playoff implications. The discussion around Bowls and the discussion around where we are as a sport in twenty twenty one
now is kind of fascinating. You have guys opting out of these bowl games like if your day job TI said you're doing a great job, we want you to start working thirty eight saturdays a year, your response would be, I don't know, but how much more are you paying me?
Would probably be in some way a reality. And I think we are approaching a point where as we see opt outs, as we see guys declaring for the NFL Draft, and as we see guys saying, you know, I mean this year is very specific because of COVID and public health stuff, and teams opt out because of the process they had to go through to actually play games. I think we're going to reach a point where, like Bowls mattered before, because that was the postseason. You know, we
were watching games. We were watching games all New Year's Day, and this was they were showcases because college games, by and large were not nationally broadcast, and so I couldn't living in southern California watch an Iowa player every week, or a Virginia Tech player every week, or a Arkansas player every week just because everything was so regional. I
could watch, you know, Danny Farmer and UCLA. But then on New Year's Day, I could watch all these teams and there was a showcase for these players to get into the NFL or perhaps be a preseason All American the next year and raise their profile. And we sit here and wonder like, well, why why don't people care about bulls? You're paying me like you want me to play in these games for your TV show? What we
what are we making here? What percent of the ESPN payout pie are going going to me and my family to appear in this game? When I've been on national TV ten of the last twelve weeks, That to me is we can't change that, can we?
Though?
You want you want people to watch the male bawl, you want people to watch the insight bawl. Whatever, Let's get all our players on the field and have a reason to play, and it becomes more interesting.
Everybody's got motivation, right, yeah, or needs to have motivation and ty.
Please, if your day job asked you to start working thirty eight saturdays a year, promise me you will ask for more cash.
All right, let's go to our next resolution, Dan Euroup, what do you got?
I just want to watch games with humans in my house eating food.
That would be so much fun, right.
It would? And hey, I have now because I'm in a house. I have a small patio. I don't have a tie hilden Brand patio. Don't get it twisted right, little yard back there. I actually want to watch games outside. I want to get some sort of projector, but I want to be with people, and I don't want to worry about invisible particles, because Lord knows, Tie, when I get really eaten, I've got some visible particles spreading around. I just college football to me, watching a game alone
on my couch. And yes, Jody likes college football, but in a down year for Michigan, not as much. I just it's a communal experience, like I can watch a movie alone in a dark room on a giant TV and be thrilled watching college football. I mean, I'm used to watching games like these past few years with our friend Richard Richard Johnson, and I'm sure you're used to watching games every week with your buddies or mama. H If it's Notre Dame, it just it feels like food
without seasoning. It's like, yeah, I mean, something's going into my stomach, but it's not all that fun. And so I can't wait Tie to just like hand somebody up a plate of spicy cage and tots and a dipping sauce, like just go crazy. Well, one of the things I'm dying.
For that You did a little bit of a live stream last night at the beginning half of the Florida Oklahoma game, and one of the things that you and Richard Johnson talked about was how odd it's going to feel like to be able to gather again comfortably right Like you go and you watch old YouTube videos of people gathering for a concert what have you, and it's like, wait a second, were are the masks, where are the protocols?
Why are they to each other. It's a very weird experience now coming out hopefully on the on the tail end of this thing. And I'm kind of in the same boat, like just to be able to have the option to go to a sports bar to watch a game that was not something I necessarily did a whole lot of, at least not recent. To have that option to go down the street and you know, just pull up a chair at the bar, have a draft and watch a game. That was something I think we took
for granted before. And I guess, depending on where you're at, maybe it's something you still can do. I don't know. But it certainly isn't something we can do here, and I miss that. I miss that, I miss being able to gather with people to watch games. I miss having more of an option to go to a game. You know, of course I have down here as a resolution. I want to go to a game next year.
Because days, who do you want to say?
I don't know, but it's it's just been a while for me, Dan, it's been a while. I didn't go to games before, mainly because it's hard for us to do. I like talk about things that are logistically difficult but not impossible. We do a show every Sunday morning in which we recap all of Saturday's action. You go to a game on a Saturday. It's tough to do. It's tough to do that Sunday show, but I want to find a way to make it work. So I don't
know if it's during the regular season. I don't know if it's our deal where we go to the National Championship. We haven't done that in a couple of years now out, but I want to go to a game next year because it's been a while and I just miss it. Man to your point of like watching with other people. I want to go to a game next year. I want to find a way to make it work. We can build a whole weekend around it. We could do a recap show from the venue. Whatever, let's put Let's
put our heads together and come up with something. But this is a sport that is meant to be shared with others in our tribe, be it the verbaler hood or our teams or whatever. And we will be doing live shows this summer some way, somehow. They might be picnics outside or something if we're you know, we want to stay as safe as possible, hopefully, but there will be live soliverbal We'll figure out something. But we got to find a way to cook at this. Yeah, cook
out would be great. Find a way to enjoy this with others, be it at at home or at the stadium, outside the stadium. We got to figure something out.
Yeah for sure.
You got any others?
Oh, I've got I told you I've got a decade one time, give me the dec any more sides? Okay, I want to be stricter. This is the oldest thing I'm going to say today. Actually I shouldn't claim that before the show's over. But I want to be stricter with my night game curfews. Okay, I just I especially because we record pretty early on Sunday morning, and even though there's games Thursday night Friday night, we do And
this goes with another one of my resolutions. I just don't have it in me to stay up until one in the morning watching Pac twelve games anymore. But sometimes it'll be an organ game. Sometimes it'll be like a random type Mac game or game in the American on a Wednesday or Thursday night or whatever the case is. I don't know what my exact curfew is. It's probably hope you're sitting out. It's probably ten thirty. It's probably in that range because just with with having a kid
and just my schedule is different. It's and this is the other resolution, by the way, I want to be better. I want to mine better and more consistent sources for those thirty to forty five minute games and broadcasts. I just don't have any filler between the snaps. There's a
sweet spot. There are some that I used to have, so if anybody has suggestions where it's just like it's every snap of every game, but it's basically limited replays unless it's like overturning you know, a bang bang call or something like that, and touch scoring plays, but they're use I used to have a couple of different sources where just like, wow, this is every offensive snap, every defensive snap, and you know, God bless Joe Tests or
Adam Emein or whoever. I'm not at that point watching the game for their insights.
Writing this down. Yeah, one wants to watch more pirated footage. Did I get that right? Is that correct?
That's absolutely right? Okay, I mean I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here and make things up for the forballers out there listening. That's how I like, I really love to consume games because we have so many that we need to get through that I just I want boom snap snap snap snap, snap stap. That's what I want. And you also, weirdly get a better sense of momentum and trans like they keep running off tackle, they keep running.
When you have graphics popping up and you're cutting to commercials, it's easy to sort of get distracted, maybe flip to another game when you get that just I want that efficiency tie. That's what I want. So that goes with my stricter curfew. The more of those sources I can get, the more I can just wake up at five am and just scrub through everything that I can. All Right, that's very specific, though, But like people have lives too,
I would imagine it's not just dumb podcasters. Like, if you love college football and you happen to be a fan of a specific team and you missed what you've now learned was an awesome matchup, you probably rather get through it in a shorter time span than three hours.
Right, well, I think so.
Anyway, Again, I'm old, though, I am very old, and I admit this readily. Okay, do you want more of my well resolutions?
Here's one? Okay, here's one. I want to celebrate the little internet nuances of college football more. Okay, in twenty twenty one, A large chunk of what we do here is already that celebrating these these these little tidbits of spiciness in college football, the things that make it unique, like the surrender cobras and the college kickers and the fat guy touchdowns. And I used to roll my eyes at a lot of that stuff. And maybe it's because I'm like the krusty old media guy. Now I don't know.
But in a weird.
Season, I've seen what krusty old media guys look like.
You are not one of them. Krusty in mind, the mustard stains don't exist, the open flies, the disheveled hair.
I know exactly who you're talking about.
The conversation. No, I'm describing like eleven different people. I've seen im press boxes, the awkward conversations with women, especially much younger ones. You're not that person.
Sorry, but it's easy to get hackneyed, right when you do this all the time. And in a weird season where it was hard to get up and feel good about a lot of what was going on out there, there were these moments still in the season that we had that made it easier to feel good about what we were watching, right, These unique moments of college football goodness that you could cling to and feel good about.
We had moments like that scattered throughout the season. We say moments all the time, but these are the things that make the sport unique. I want to remember that next time. We're doing a recap show in week ten of the twenty twenty one season and the season's getting a little long in the tooth, and you know how it is. You and I are grinding right, grinding, We're feeling we're feeling tired. We just watched a Pac twelve
game to one am. I want to remember these moments because that is what keeps people coming back, It's what keeps people entertained, It's what makes us all feel good about college football. And I don't want to take it for granted. So surrender Cobra as a college kickers. In fact, guy, touchdowns twenty twenty one is your year, at least in my book.
Yeah. The only thing with that is those are more things in the moment. So I think you just need to be more active on social media. I think that's the solution.
That is not a solution. That is not the solution.
No, but those are social media things. It's hard to describe visuals, and we're doing more video. I think you're right. I think those are the things. And I think that comes with you know, attending games and tailgates and everything like that. You appreciate those little things even more. But I don't know, those are things that are popping like your dilly bar dance.
This is the natural essence of college football, and sure, well, college football, Internet, college trible Internet, but that's sort of our base here and I want to make sure that I pay those sweet homage.
Okay, it's fine, you can do it here on the show. Things that resonate with you on Saturday will resonate Sunday morning. I am on that. The social media tip. I am going to continue because this was one of my resolutions heading into the season. I just I try to stay off of Twitter as much as I can. I do it for collegeoble Saturday because you get, oh, watch the
North Carolina State ending blah blah blah. But I want to hold back on angry Oregon tweets because I'm I'm pretty sure there and I don't have a ton of Twitter followers comparatively, but I have some, and my Oregon tweets are basically just for me, the angry ones, especially like how could they you know? Third Impelham the stuff like that from way back when regarding the old defensive
coordinator and linebackers coach. So I think I've done a better job of in the way that I'm trying to mine the feeds the forty five minute game feeds my Oregon fan friends and just badgering them with text messages until and luckily I have a couple that badger me as well, just because I don't know, there's really no
reason for me to be upset about Oregon football. They're pretty good every year at least and except for that one year, and it just I'm trying to be better about animous about college kids online, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I think that's probably a good resolution.
Yeah. I mean you've spiked controllers, You've got into our spiked cell phones, got into deep depressions. This was your twenties though, though. Yeah, so I think you've done a much better. You've done a better job than I have. I can definitely get better.
This was the first year where I've had someone tweet at me asking for a proof of life.
I've had that before, but I'm far more publicly emotional.
Are you? Are you dead? Are you okay?
Yeah?
And this is not just in relation to Notre Dame game. This is because of not tweeting for like a month. And you know, when you're sometimes you just have bigger fish to fry to that when you're busy and you have a limited amount of hours and time in minutes, if the item that gets cut off as social media then so be it. But you know, it's it's not a bad suggestion, just be nicer out there, it's be nicer.
Yeah, and honestly, yeah, I mean this is I mean we are I'm not even gonna say guilty. I'm saying we are massively guilty of snark online. Oh my god, yet because it's fun in the moment, but then when you just feel like an idiot and you're pushing forty and you're like, eh, what am I doing here? And plus I mean you're learning nuclear fission in Cantonese, like you're just a busy dude. So I think that's a good one.
I want to try harder to not judge a college quarterback by his NFL draft prospects. I am so guilty of this. Are you still an NF I know you know more about the NFL, but and this is the irony of it.
Yeah.
I don't watch the NFL on Sundays.
I watch a lot of Daniel Jones.
I watch a lot of football on Saturdays. And I am still interested, very interested in the NFL. I'm actually still alive going into Week seventeen in a survivor pool first time effort, and of course there are like eight other guys who did it too, which is ridiculous, but whatever, it's an accomplishment. I follow it, but I don't watch it because I'm in football. Overload comes Sunday, we do our thing and we try to go and live a
normal life the rest of the day. But I am still very much influenced by what the NFL thinks of a guy moving forward. Okay, and I want to try and get away from that because our game's college and too many guys have come and gone awesome at the college level, mediocre, non existent at the next level, to be fair, but looked as a result by me when it comes to them being a quote unquote legit threat on Saturdays because of a pop gun arm or being
a little too short, or yeah, being Jared Garantino. I don't know whoa whoa.
What happened to being nice to college kids?
That's your resolution, not mine. Okay, too many of these guys have come and gone. I've overlooked them because they were missing something that the NFL would require, and that's just not fair. Ian Book is not going to be a good pro quarterback newsflash.
Okay, maybe maybe not. Yeah, I'd be wondering, and Josh Allen would be Apparently he's good.
He's very good. I saw someone compared him to John Elway earlier this morning, which is crazy. But maybe I'm wrong. I'd be I'd be delighted to be wrong. But I have been under this assumption for years now that book's got no future beyond what we see right now him doing for Notre Dame, which is, you know, one of the most successful quarterbacks, if not the most successful quarterbacks
in the history of the program. And I've just sort of dismissed it as, oh, well, he's got a limited skill set, but you know what, so what So.
This is better appreciating players for what they are, not what they aren't, correct. I have that for teams, for teams for what they are rather than what they aren't. We spend a lot of time talking about teams potential, like USC and Texas or Miami, you know, these traditional powers Nebraska, and I think we view a lot of these teams through the lenses of fans expectations, which is fine because that's a very real part of why coaches are hired and fired and teams, you know, feel pressure.
And I want to start doing a better job of viewing teams for what they are and not what they aren't right like, and that that's my problem with how the playoff is looked at. That's my problem with how the Playoff is covered by places like ESPN or Fox or whoever. It's okay to look at a team for what they are, Like, they're not a playoff team, so they're not worth talking about. They're not an NFL prospect,
so he's not, you know, worth taking seriously. On the flip side, I'm interested in how we can better view college players without the context of their recruiting profiles. Right, we expect certain things because they're a four star, five star, and I understand, mathematically, you're far more likely to get
drafted in high rounds. You're far more likely to win New Year six games, or become an All American or win the national Championship if you have that blue chip ratio of you know, at least fifty percent of your team being your recruiting classes being comprised of four or
five stars. But we get to a point where we place expectations on players that are clearly undeserved based on on field play, and then we set ourselves up for disappointment as fans and people covering the sport because they were five stars, because they were four stars, they're considered to be a disappointment if they're not stars in college. When a lot of that is guesswork. You know, we're guessing at the potential because of their physical attributes, because
of their tape. But there are so many variables that go into whether or not a player succeeds, be it you know, how they grow, their injuries, their emotions, their mental makeup, you know, whether or not they selected the right school, the right type of system for their talents that we place and we are guilty of this. We place these expectations two, three, four years down the line based on what they were projected to be as juniors in high school. That's not fair at all now, right, it's.
A heavy cross to bear for some of these kids totally branded as a five star, four star, Yeah, saviors in a lot of these cases, being told through their entire youth football career that they're the next big thing, the next hype mm hmm. Then you go to a big school and you know, it's a transition for a non athlete to go away to college. Immerse themselves in that new culture.
Doesn't this, doesn't this also fall under And this is part of my decagon, the Dan Decagon of self improvement. It's tough because a lot of them, a lot of the players, when they speak to the media, they're very specifically coached about, you know, not necessarily what to reveal, but how to come across because you know that you're always being judged on social media. You're always being judged by you know, fans of the team or boosters or
coaches or whoever, people in the athletic department. So players are taught to just be sort of take things pretty down the line. It's difficult to get player perspective as fans, and a lot of that's not revealed, and you find out after the fact you talk to people in the know. You know, somebody heard from somebody on a message board that you know, they got dumped the night before the game by their girlfriend and that's why they look sluggish
and not into the game. You're like, oh, that makes sense. It's hard to get that player perspective, but I think it would be easier for us to say or to look at these like, well, their kids and you know they're there to play football, you know, suck it up, you know, get focused on the field. There's a certain
degree of truth to that, I suppose. But if we can get more player perspective, and maybe this goes with the name, image and likeness thing that you know, players are going to be building brands on social media and stuff like that, and we get a better sense for them and you know, what goes into their daily lives. But I'd like to do a better job of trying to get like what what is a day to day
life for these guys? You know, what goes into their preparation in the off season and their injury rehabilitation, Like where are they emotionally, mentally, physically, whatever? And yeah, I think that's important.
I've got a point here about authenticity. Yeah, finding a way to surface that authenticity that we know exists but is really hard to cover during the season when we've got a million games, it unfortunately gets overlooked, overshadowed. I want to find a way to surface that better in twenty twenty one, to provide that context and give the fans what they want. You know, we started this patreon at verballers dot com. This is not an ad for
the Patreon. But I think it's been an interesting use case for you and I just to meet people where they're at, see what they're into. Sure, and it's been revealing, frankly for both of us to see what our fan base is looking for with regard to the podcast, just as being college football fans where are they at? It has really helped me try to figure this out as
we now start thinking about twenty twenty one. So I want to try and surface as much of that real, pure goodness of college football, or if nothing else, just the real, even if it's not good of college football, to give people a better perspective of what's going on.
Sure. Else, I want to roast more roast and grill more vegetables.
Okay, this is this is less college football but more for like college football watching.
Okay, I am a not nervous but like I like snacking all the time and over the course of like noon to midnight or whatever I'm setting my curfew at. I guess it's eleven am now that I'm in Central time. I do love roasted and grilled vegetables and I want to have more giant piles of them around for me to snack on. I want interesting seasoning combinations, sauces, you know, vegetables. I didn't think about roasting even fruit. I haven't thought
about roasting or grilling that. That's that's a goal, tie, I just one hundred percent of goal. If I could just have like a giant what's what's a good?
Man?
If I just a giant mount of caramelized onions is pretty good to me. But any sort of just giant situation with roast vegetables, I love it. Some spicy ones, some interesting sauces, that's what I want. That's a resolution, Ty, that counts all right?
All right if you say so. If you say so, you don't. You don't you can't appreciate that. Oh I can appreciate it.
I just can't eat garbage all day, Ty, I'm getting older. Yeah, how about digging deeper into season improvement stories?
Season improvement stories?
So, yeah, teams who start out slow and slowly, but surely, you know, get their footing, whether or not it's because, oh, you know, and it's a context thing too, like oh, these guys got healthier, or you know, this coach returned from you know, some sort of personal tragedy and everything culturally was way better in that locker room or oh their schedule was you know, we you know, pay attention. They had started out with three road games, and that's
why they started all three against good teams. It's hard to remember when you have so many teams playing the sport, but I do like paying attention to digging into when teams really get their acts together, and you know, late October throughout the final stretch of the year.
I've got something similar to that as well, because twenty twenty, at least for solid wife Kate and I, was a year of home improvements. True, right, a lot of folks stuck at home looking at the four walls, thinking what can we do? It's not going to expose us to the deadly virus. We could do stuff around the house. We can paint, we can do home projects, and we
did all of them. We're still doing them every weekend. Yeah, of course, so why not expose those On the college football side, right, We did a Marie Condo episode not so long ago in the off season where we took a look at what we could get rid of, well, we could tidy up in the world of college football. Yeah, I think if we pay attention to those storylines, and try to highlight the good. Highlight some of those good stories. People would gravitate to it for sure.
Can I focus on something you said early on in that how would you improve your home for college football watching?
For college football watching?
Yeah, aside from just like buying a bigger TV. Are you happy with your sound? Are you happy with your seating setup? Because you might be accommodating more people in a healthier world. Are you happy with your food preparation? Would you be ordering more takeouts? You're doing less work and less cleaning on a college football day. How are you satisfied with your grill? Do you want to add a smoker? Do you want to add a pizza oven? Do you want to start making better drinks? What is?
What could you improve personally? If you're self scouting your home as it relates to football watching?
Yeah, I got to figure out a solution for outdoor watching. I don't have a great setup out there. You talk about a projector I need to come up with a solution to take one of my TVs outside or I haven't really thought that through.
Could you do that seasonally? Could you just like I don't know if you have a wall to mount a TV? On out there. I don't have a wall TV off when it gets cold or something.
No, I don't. I don't have a setup like that. So I think, whatever I'm doing, I'm taking a TV outside. So it might involve getting one of those cheaper tcls that I can drag in and out still get a.
Decent How long could you watch night games outside in PA? Could you watch a long through October? I think could you go out because you have a fire pit situation? I yeah, through October might be a little aggressive.
You could. You could get a good chunk of the way through the month of October watching games outside. The problem would be the mosquitoes need a solution on the mosquito front. But if you can solve that, then yeah, you could watch games for a good chunk of the fall.
How long do mosquitos last in Eastern PA?
Well, they last pretty long as long as it's forming. The candles don't work. That stuff doesn't work.
Send your your mosquito solutions Eastern pad my way. But at me verbal at gmail dot com.
I need a setup for outside. I think that's the most the most pressing thing, and then inside. Look, I'm not I'm not huge on like the four screen setup. I think you could do two, though you could do two, and I do do two.
I have room. So what is your two TV setup?
I don't have a two TV setup. That's where I'm going like this. Okay, my two TV setup is the big screen, the sixty five, and then closer to me another game streaming on the laptop. And that's fine for me. But if I'm having company over to watch the game in my living room again, in some post apocalyptic setup where the virus has already you know, done its thing and we're on the straight and narrow again, I need
to have a better viewing experience for that person. It's fine for me, but not for the guest.
Is your sixty five inch TV on a stand or mounted on the wall. It's a top a TV stand? Okay, so hypothetically, maybe just for in season, maybe just for Saturdays, if you got some sort of I guess having an empty mount doesn't look good, and the two TV setup could look weird. I don't know how Kate feels about it. I guess she's the other fifty percent.
My guess is very poorly, very poorly about this.
So what color is the wall on which your TV is up again, sitting on the stand.
Like a very neutral gray beige color.
Neutral grayish beige. I don't do color, you know that, right? Could you project above for like bigger game nights. It's tough during the day, but the projector's pocket projectors are pretty cheap.
It's not a bad idea. It is not a bad idea. I've also got a side wall that I could potentially use.
Yeah, but you want you want to you you don't want to be switching back. You don't want to be swiveling your head all the time, right, true. I think you look into projector options because you could either pull down a screen so that's unobtrusive potentially because it's you know, mounted up higher on the wall around the ceiling, or if you have a bright enough projector. I think they're pretty bright. I don't know my lumens tie, but I think you can get a pretty bright projector on. It
doesn't have to be a white wall. It definitely looks better on a white wall. I think you might be able to do, you know, get a little cart behind the couch or something something small, not not not popping. You put the big game on the projector and you put the medium sized game on the sixty fiver.
We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. I don't know yet, but.
I think there's potentially, I think there's I think there's some upside there.
So why don't we say final resolution here? As we close in on an hour of talking college football in twenty twenty one?
Handles for mosquitoes?
Yeah, yeah, give me your final resolution, Dan, Have.
I not given you all of them? Okay? I gave you vegetables, player perspective, game broadcasts, angry organ tweets, curfews, improvement stories, specific entertaining players and units.
I am not giving you angry Notre Dame tweets. By the way, Seph Wye, you're way better than I am, ty, I am not giving up my angry Notre Dame commentary continue. I'm sorry.
Do you have a do you have a secret like Notre Dame burner account that I don't know about? I do not?
Actually, no, no, no, it's all that's what we need. It's all coming from me. Yeah, no Burner accounts for this guy.
I think. Oh. And I also put like, appreciate teams for what they are instead of they are. And I mentioned that one as well. I think that's my decagone. Cool.
That's yeah, well, look right in, Sliverbal at gmail dot com. Let us know yours.
This may only be an octagon of improvement after all of that, and I think it's just an octagon of improvement.
An octagon, a decagon. I think I only had five A pen to gone. Doesn't matter. What matters is that we're thinking about making things better in twenty twenty one. We live through it in twenty twenty. Let's make this coming year better, Like I said, soliverbal at gmail dot com. That's the email address. Write in, let us know your thoughts on what you're going to do as a college football fan, hopefully to make it a better experience for yourself and this new year. We're also out there on
social media. You can tweet us, you can send us a message on Instagram or on Facebook. You can watch the YouTube clips or posting those. We're streaming games at twitch dot tv, slash Solid Verbal here and there, so all sorts of goodness that is still going to be with you throughout the month of January and beyond this long cold off season. We're going to do our part to enhance the experience for all of college football fans out there.
But by the way, I've broken my college football resolution almost every year since I made it in like two thousand and eight or nine of being less emotionally attacked to Oregon recruiting around.
Day, forget it, forget it every year.
I've only recently found out about this outside linebacker who is considering Oregon. Last second, what he committed to Michigan?
He committed to Oklahoma? What what? Yeah, I've broken that resolution a lot do so aside from it I mentioned we were going to give personal resolutions at the end, aside from being better about goals, is there anything you would like to do specifically better because goals is looser like, is there something specifically that you either want to improve you want to do that that's just fully new for you, an experiment? Is there something? Is there something interpersonally with
somebody in your life? What is it that you want to do wholly better or new in twenty twenty one?
Yeah, I think well, outside of the goal thing and that, yeah, I do want to take a page out of your playbook and learn to get good at cooking one particular thing. Oh, I think that's great now, you know where I stand on omelets.
Mm hmm.
I'm already like the omelet king of Eastern elite level omelet chef here. But that only gets you so far. I need I need another arrow in the quiver that I can focus on over the course of the next twelve months and get better at So. I have not identified what that thing is yet, but it would be good to have that single minded focus on one particular dish that I can cook that will both eat, that other people will enjoy, and we'll give me.
Give me your general diet. You eat a lot of fish, you don't eat a lot of bread. I don't know what you do for desserts, So maybe it's a I have a suggestion for you. What about she a pino? I have? What is Kat eat seafood?
Kate doesn't eat seafood?
No, oh, she doesn't eat seafood. So's she's largely a vegetarian mostly, yeah, mostly a vegetarian. That's tougher. So the olind thing works really well. What about like you can master chili's because a veggie chili is still delicious. But I think you can master that in like a week and a half.
Right now, it needs to be something that's going to take time. One thing that I've been thinking about because it's in chickens, well, because of the first roast chicken. That's not going to help me on the vegetarian front, that's true. One thing I was thinking about, because it's versatile, is working with Mama h to master the good old spaghetti sauce Grandma's.
That's good, but I think you can get that pretty quickly.
I think I think I can, but I've never done it before, and so I want to give myself a chance to not only get the recipe down but also figure out ways to improve it.
Homebrewing is that e of it.
I'm not doing that.
That's not homebrewing.
Okay, I'll just buy it pasta. I mean, I've already made homemade pasta. I know how to do that.
It's impressive. I've never done that.
I've done that a thousand times, so that like you're sitting there kneading a ball of an egg and flour, and I haven't done it recently, but I've my entire childhood growing up Italian family.
That's true.
I've done that more time than I could ever count. So okay, but no, the sauce thing to me is interesting sauce, maybe just from my own enjoyment, ording to make Grandma's meatballs would be would be something even if Kate would need it.
I think a saucy twenty one sauces of all kinds because I don't think they're going to take you long, because you can largely just follow recipes and then the next time you make it, you just make whatever adjustments that you felt it needed. But I think a saucy twenty twenty one because if Kate's eating largely vegetarian meals,
you're enhancing her meals. If you are making, you know, an amazing burger sauce put on a veggie burger, if you're making an amazing salsaver day, anything you want, like you just I think you take it by the month and you say, Okay, it's it's salsa month this month. Right, next month it's s sandwich sauces salsa September, and then it's it's a marinera March, and just be a very alliterative with it, just.
For be the sauce king of Pennsylvania.
I think it's a saucy twenty twenty one.
How about you? You got anything before we close it out.
Here, mostly sauce based. Yeah, No, it's more I want to I want to be I need to find better ways to exercise in the cold because I'm always much happier. I'm in a better place mentally if I'm able to get exercise in the morning.
Uh.
So that's something that's big for me. The cooking, I don't have a next dish. I think pizzas can still going to take up a lot of my energy my focus from a cooking perspective. Sure, I need to be neater. I for sure need to just uh you know, keep my areas clean, keep the house cleaner than I do like. I just tidiness is huge and will continue to be huge for me because I like a good tidy area. I just need to be better about staying consistent with it. I'm very big on going to sleep with a clean
house and not leaving stuff for the morning. But that just means I have to stay up lighter and clean everything I didn't during the day exactly. So that's a big goal for me. You know, leave the kitchen tidy and pristine for when I wake up. All right, Yeah, well look different show for us, But Mount to Second TV mount the Second Yeah, Soliverble at gmail dot com, for Ballers dot com, for the Patreon, you know where to find us.
Soliverble at gmail dot com. I don't know if I said that, soliverbal dot com. If you want to subscribe, Thank you so very much for downloading the show. We wish you all a happy and healthy twenty twenty one. We will talk to you all soon in the meantime. For that guy over there, Dan Rubinstein, for myself, Tie hilde Brand, they saw X