CFB Week 1 Chaos With Andy Staples, Western Michigan HC Lance Taylor, Who's Back Of The Week + Max Is Back From His Honeymoon With Gifts

16:35Well, they are. You're still doing it now. But I think there's something more about going on to the field for your first game in your senior season than your middle of the pack game.

16:45Big Cat:The nice thing about doing it week one is everybody's healthy. And you win. So like all the players, they're all like, nobody's wearing like the Letterman jacket and a walking boot going out there with their parents. Yeah. They're all in good shape looking forward to the season.

16:59PFT Commenter:I mean, they were trying to twist it being like it's easier, easier game for all the parents to travel to. Come on.

17:04Big Cat:Why? Why would that be easier for them?

17:06PFT Commenter:Well, because it's Ball State. You should just do Michigan. There's no like all the hotels are not taken up and shit for Ball State. I get that. But if you're starting to have that conversation, you've already lost in terms of the mental warfare. It's very bizarre what's going on between the two teams because remember Kyle Whittingham said you don't have to hate your rival.

17:23Big Cat:Yeah. Are they still doing – does it have to be a senior that's been there for longer than one year to qualify for senior night? Or is it like a transfer can come in and they get senior night?

17:32PFT Commenter:I assume senior night at this point is just for the guys who aren't even playing. They're just the walk-ons who have been there in the program for four or five years.

17:40Big Cat:Yeah, if you've been in the same program now in college football for five years, there's a reason. Yeah.

17:45PFT Commenter:Okay, Oregon looked not great against Boise. That might be more credit to Boise being tougher than we thought. But that was a game that was like, oh, shit. There was a couple games that everyone was like, oh, man, what's going on here? Michigan obviously was a big one. The Oregon-Boise State game was a big one. Baylor-Auburn was one of the worst watches possible, except the end was exciting. and that tackle at the goal line was incredible, but that game was tough to watch.

18:13Big Cat:Yeah, also kind of weirdly fun in a way. No, no.

18:16PFT Commenter:It wasn't fun at all for the majority of it. It was really bad. Byron Brown had three interceptions. It was exciting for the last three minutes.

18:29Big Cat:I like some good bad football sometimes, though. This was really bad football. It's still football is what I tell myself. I thought Moore looked really good for Oregon. I thought, you know, despite the fact that they struggled a little bit, I thought he played awesome. There should be a lot of people excited about him. Boise State, I do think it's a difference. Like, Boise State is just a good team. Yeah. They're one of the best. Yeah, and Oregon's going into it.

18:51PFT Commenter:Like, there's got to be something to be said for just coming into a season with, like, all the pressure in the world and everyone being like, you're the most loaded roster. You feel like you can't make mistakes. Yep. We had Miami do the opposite, where Malachi Tony just had the nerds in hell, had Stanford guys tackling each other. They look so fucking good. I know it's Stanford, so we don't know. After week one, you can't really make any definitive claims, but Malachi Tony is just so much fun to watch. So, so much fun to watch. Wisconsin got fucking buried in the second half against Notre Dame.

19:24PFT Commenter:Notre Dame looks really good. I thought they came out, and I was very excited for the first half because it was the first time I've seen the Badgers look physical like that. the punt in the fourth quarter was troubling and depressing. That part bummed me out. When you're down 21 and you're punting, it's like, dude, we just got to go for it.

19:42Big Cat:That one offensive weapon punt that they had earlier in the game. Oh, it was the best punt ever. That's classic Big Ten football. Incredible punt. Was that like a 65-yard punt down? It was 80. 80-yard punt down inside the one-yard line? It just took a crazy bounce.

19:56PFT Commenter:But yeah, I'm excited. I would say I walked away from the game against Notre Dame being more excited for the season than I've been in years past after the first couple of weeks, but still realizing there's just such a different level to what the top five, ten teams are playing at versus where my team is at right now. And that's okay. We just got to keep building. But at least we were physical, and we stopped the run for a half. The other one was the LSU. LSU just absolutely took Clemson in the woodshed, and we're going to talk about it more with Andy. But Dabo is, I don't know what you do now.

20:33PFT Commenter:Like, this is rock bottom for Clemson.

20:36Big Cat:This is a team that just a few years ago was beating the best teams in college football on a regular basis. Like, they were the best team in college football. Yeah. Best coach team, some of the best recruiting. Dabo was arguably the top coach in college football. It was like him, Nick Saban, for a few years there. It's like they had some battles back and forth, and Clemson had their number a little bit. And now it seems like Dabo is just, I don't know. Something's got to change.

21:04PFT Commenter:It was pathetic. They could not move the ball. They just had, I mean, the fact they were up 3-0, obviously from a tip interception to start the game, but Lane Kiffin had a hell of a day. I got to say this, and I know that we're biased because we like Lane Kiffin, we like LSU. if you can't like sit back and laugh about lane kiffin just being the greatest troll in college football which is a sport that is like perfect for trolls and perfect for drama like starting the day doing the tiger walk with theo vaughn and uh livy dunnan who was the other person brooks nader yeah throwing a marker off a kid's head do you see that you see him signing the football just scribbling and just tossing it back at him then saying imagine if we had nfl players to holly road halftime then fucking you know yelling at his team at halftime being like we're not taking our foot off the gas and fucking screaming at them and winning 51 to 10 he's perfect for college football you can't you you can't like not love what lane kiffin brings to college football if you want some some drama some quotes some realness he is all of that and he coached

22:19Big Cat:He's a really goddamn good coach, and he beat the fuck out of Clemson. Do you think that Lane Kiffin was actually going to get NFL players on the roster? Do you think that's something that he wanted to do? Yes. You do? Because the court ruled in his favor, and he said, we're not going to do it for this game.

22:35PFT Commenter:Well, yeah, but the SEC was threatening them, so that's why they didn't do it. I think Lane Kiffin is the type of guy who is maniacal and will look for any edge until he's told he can't, which I don't know how you can blame him for that. He's going to push the boundaries as far as they possibly can go. Then the SEC comes in and says, if you do this, we're going to kick you out of the league. And he's like, all right, fine, I won't do it. But if the SEC hadn't said that, he probably would have done it.

23:04Big Cat:I also think that after they said that, and then the ruling came after, he liked the idea that other coaches might be preparing for some of those guys. And, of course, he wasn't going to give that up. But yeah, he's obviously a great coach. And people forget, LSU, Lane Kiffin can run the football. They score a shitload of points. But LSU's running game this year so far looks to be a massive improvement over how... Remember, what game was it last year where Brian Kelly was like, oh, we couldn't run the football? He was game one. He didn't watch the last series then. Yeah. Where it was basically game over and just kind of run the clock out.

23:41Big Cat:But yeah, LSU, they are, I think, with the way that Sam Levitt played, you have to imagine they are definitely a team that can win the national championship.

23:48PFT Commenter:But to answer your question about Lane Kiffin, if Belichick did this in the pros, everyone would be like, that's just Belichick outsmarting him. He's just a guy looking for edges. And until you tell him you can't do that, he's going to keep doing it, which I kind of respect. He's like, I'm going to push the ball. I'm going to do it until someone says I can't. And then when they say I can't, fine, I won't. But I'll make a joke about it. And I like that. All right. What other? We had the Apple Cup, which was depressing. The fact the Apple Cup played in the first week of the season, Washington, Washington State, you know, they were struggling, but they stayed in the game.

24:27PFT Commenter:And, you know, having any type of rivalry game, I just hope that it stays. I'm trying to think what other games. Oh, Ole Miss. Ole Miss just continues. they basically just did an extension of their playoff run in that they were just playing the most exciting, ridiculous games. Because the first half was boring, and the second half was just like, oh, we forgot, we're going to play in a shootout, and Louisville was game for the shootout, big play back and forth, and they went with a walk-off field goal.

24:57Big Cat:Let's get our ass against the wall and then see what Trinidad can do. Right. It's like I'm watching a playoff game right now. You know what? that's an awesome way to play football and i love watching it yeah all right i'm trying to think what

25:08PFT Commenter:other any other uh penn state look good uh by the way max do we owe james franklin an apology

25:18PFT Commenter:four it seems to me that james franklin was doing a pretty good job of not bending the knee to all the penn state alum being like we need to be celebrating jopa because the jopa stuff is back and it feels like not a coincidence since when James Franklin left. I don't know anything about the Joe Pa stuff.

25:41Big Cat:Oh, okay. What's your statement on Joe Pa? You've never addressed this. Oh, no. Oh, no. Now that James Franklin's gone, you can feel free to speak your mind. I don't know what we're talking about. Yeah. You don't know? What's going on? This is exactly what got Joe Pa in trouble.

26:00PFT Commenter:I don't know what that is. You told me about it? You said you didn't know? I have nothing to do with anything.

26:06Big Cat:He told Hank his opinion, and then Hank did not forward that to us. I don't know what's going on. What's going on? What is that? Sex and the Man? I don't understand.

26:15PFT Commenter:There's a Joe Pa, like, interactive experience now that has been debuted. They also had... Is this putting on a blindfold? Yeah, they did a... I think they did a renovation at Beaver Stadium, and section 409 is a different color than all the other ones, signifying his 409 wins. It just feels like James Franklin maybe was doing a good job being like, hey, guys, we got to stop with the Joe Pau stuff. Let's look forward here. Yeah, Matt Campbell's like, hey, you have money? Oh, you need me to just say Joe Pau was right? Okay, fine.

26:49Big Cat:You didn't know? I got you. Would that be the ultimate piece of memorabilia to acquire here at Barstool's? Oh, I've said it before. The Joe Pau statue?

26:57PFT Commenter:I want the Joe Pau statue. You said that's the holy grail. Putting it in the front, the conversations you'd have to have afterwards would be so awkward. Imagine PCA walks in. He's like, is that Joe Paterno? We're like, that's the statue.

27:16Big Cat:He probably walks back out, but at least it would be a fun interaction. We should get him, and we should have him just facing the wall so he's always looking the other way.

27:24PFT Commenter:Yeah.

27:25Big Cat:Yeah.

27:27PFT Commenter:Send it to us. They won't. It's going back up. No, it's 100 % going back up. I would love to make a bet on that. At some point, it'll probably go back up. It is going back up. I think within 10 years, it'll go back up. I'd say five. I'm willing to say more than five, less than 10. Will you be visiting it? I mean, I'll go to – Okay, so he'll visit it. I won't be seeking it out, but I'm sure – Will you have eyes on the Joe Pa statue at some point in your life? Oh, yeah. I'm willing to say 100%.

28:05Big Cat:What's crazy is that Max and Hank's We Are video was really the catalyst that got James Franklin fired, which might be the reason why the statue comes back. That video doesn't even exist. Max brought back the Joe Pa statue. You're welcome. Hank, you're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. Oh, God. Oh, man. Penn State looked good, though. Yeah, they did. They did. It takes me four weeks to know the players on. It's too hard. It's too hard.

28:34PFT Commenter:It's tough. And it's also like, again, week one, outside of like a couple of games, everyone should look good. Right. That's what week one is for. Everyone should show up and look good. Colin Coward has UFC as the number one team in the country now. Does he? After beating Fresno and San Jose State. Yeah, two big foes. Two and O. He's seen enough.

28:56Big Cat:I do think USC is going to be pretty good.

28:58PFT Commenter:Yeah. I also, I will say that Alabama's quarterback is electric. I watched some of that game, and he is. He is. I know his ECU, so who knows if, like, the speed difference. But from the first looks of it, I was like, yes, I'm in. He's a college football quarterback.

29:16Big Cat:You see Tennessee and their new tradition? I hope they're starting. I think it might be just a one-off, but I think they're going to make it all season long.

29:24PFT Commenter:What is it?

29:25Big Cat:Dolly Parton. I think it's either halftime or before the fourth quarter. Everybody in the stadium sings, I will always love that. That is cool. It's pretty cool. I like that. Yeah, that is cool. That'd be funny if they're getting just smoked. Yeah, that's tough. That would be tough. Actually, yes, that'd be great.

29:43PFT Commenter:Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm at the point now where I think the Badgers have to stop, jump around until we start winning games. Because when you jump around and you're down 20, it's not fun. That's not a fun thing to do. It's not a fun jump. You need to have time and place with some of these things. Yeah. If it's a one-score game, let's fucking go. If it's a blowout, it's hard to jump around. It just is. You just got to be honest. I was at Tennessee. This is probably 2015. They lost a big game early in the year against Notre Dame. And it was like double or triple overtime. and the scene on campus after like because you know when everyone sings rocky top you like have to sing along if you're a tennessee fan and it was like at bars people it was the funniest saddest like good old rocky top yeah it was it was so so sad funny yeah the saddest the saddest rocky top ever but people couldn't couldn't not sing it yeah but they were everyone was just so

30:41Big Cat:defeated having those traditions that start before the fourth quarter you're right you get into some you can find yourself in a sad spot like if the Steelers play a sad renegade yeah yeah you know and then you then you run the risk of kind of losing the magic of that song in the first correct like all other times that you played in a close game you're just reminded of a time that you were

31:02PFT Commenter:getting your ass kicked yeah the swamp don't back down if you're getting just smoked yeah you're backing down yeah big time it's good to have college football back memes you uh you spent all weekend glued to the televisions. Do you have any other things that we missed? Because I love the memes. I know you didn't. Did you leave your house on Saturday? On Saturday, no. I love that. Sunday, I got some air. Fucking love that. It was the perfect weather all weekend. Perfect. Like, legit. Like, Sunday might have been the best weather day ever. Yeah, and today was pretty good, too. Yeah. So, what did you, any other big notes?

31:41No other big notes. I thought it was just a loss for the Big Ten overall. I wasn't that impressed with it.

31:48PFT Commenter:Yeah, I mean, Oregon struggled, and Michigan, those were two notable Big Ten didn't look great. But based on every preview we had, I thought it was just top to bottom.

31:57Big Cat:They were going to smoke everybody. Yeah. That didn't happen. SEC went undefeated for the first time since, I'm not sure, but. SEC's back. That's a good stat. Good stat. SEC's back.

32:10PFT Commenter:Really good stat. From the first time since I don't know when. Since probably a long time. Probably a long time. Good stat. That's a really, really good stat. Do you see Sig's handshake, by the way? Still the same. Yep. Dead fish. Yep. Never changed. Josh Hoover looked like a, I mean, that's a football guy. He was just leaking blood everywhere. Yeah, that was cool. We were down in Bloomington. The fans were pumped.

32:31Big Cat:That was awesome to see. Yeah. UCLA, late game. Yeah. That was great. I love watching, how do you say his name, Sacopatelli?

32:40PFT Commenter:Yeah.

32:41Big Cat:From Cal. He's a fun quarterback to watch. And that was just a great game between Cal and UCLA after dark.

32:47PFT Commenter:Yeah, you can just say JKS.

32:49Big Cat:Yeah, JKS. Psycho Patel. But yeah, it was a great day of college football. It really was. It's perfect. I'm so glad that it's back.

32:58PFT Commenter:I hope we don't ever get to a point where, because I think this probably is going to happen with the NFL eventually going to 18 games. Is it next year? No, they didn't say it. I hope we don't get to a point, though, that NFL goes on Labor Day weekend, because I do love that we get to get back into football with just all eyes on college football for one weekend. Yeah, it was nice.

33:20Big Cat:It was great.

33:21PFT Commenter:It eases us back in, and we have all the football in front of us right now.

33:25Big Cat:It did feel weird having LSU not lose that game in heartbreaking fashion, though. Yeah, although they won last year against Clemson. That's true. Yeah, that was one where last year it's like, wow, what a good game. Maybe both these teams will be great. Yeah, yeah.

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35:04PFT Commenter:limited time offer we have nfl coming wednesday hank are you ready so ready you're so excited we're going to be streaming wednesday and thursday uh wednesday's pmt we have peter schrager and uh cam scadaboo on and we are going to do our picks too as well for the nfl season and then friday's show will be our route uh our regular week one preview so we're ready locked and loaded uh and we also got some nfl news today tuatagliaval is going to be the starter for the Falcons. Okay, great. Michael Penick said he's close, though.

35:37Big Cat:He's close. So close. Great. How close? Is he like three days worth of close? He just said he's close. Okay, I hope he's like really, I hope he's closer than he thinks.

35:48PFT Commenter:Get closer and closer. I said at the oh, what's that headline? Which one? Oh, that was why he's trending. Okay. Rabel moved on, but the fallout ripples around the NFL. Who wrote that story? Oh, is Is that a Don Van Nata?

36:05Big Cat:No, it's Ben Strauss. No, ESPN. Got it. Got it.

36:09PFT Commenter:You never want to see the Don Van Nata joint. Nope. You're always in trouble if Don Van Nata is reporting on you. Tua starting, is that the most like, I guess Deshaun would also be a very. A pretty give up. Yeah, there really isn't much that gets you pumped. I likened it to, because everyone's seeing right now, shout out to AWLs who tweeted us, they did to decide their fantasy draft order. They did a cigarette race. Who can smoke a cigarette fast enough or faster? And that was cool. But we see a lot of the fantasy punishments. Having to start Tua, like announce Tua as your starter to begin an NFL season in 2026, that feels like a fantasy punishment.

36:49Big Cat:Wait, if you're Stefanski? Yeah. Stefanski lost his lead. And they're like, you won't.

36:54PFT Commenter:Like, all right, dude. Stefanski, here are your options. You can sit in a McDonald's for 24 hours or you can start Tua.

37:01Big Cat:Yeah, for every interception that he throws, it takes an hour off. Have fun. Waffle House. He's in Atlanta now.

37:07PFT Commenter:I don't know. If Tua maybe throws one touchdown to Kyle Pitts, I'll probably be all the way back. The left hand. He just has to do one cool thing. And I'm like, fuck, man, this guy. I'm a two-and-on through and through.

37:20Big Cat:It just seems like that was. He waited until the last second, just hoping against hope that there'd be a magical advancement in medical technology. Yeah. He'd be able to start Penix.

37:31PFT Commenter:Penix. Goodell was extended. Really happy for the guy. It's going to run until he's like 70. He's probably getting paid$70 million a year. What is his salary now?

37:41Big Cat:65 mil annually is what he's going to be getting. That is so much fucking money. Yeah. Okay. So he gets paid more than the highest paid quarterback. Yes. It's going to run through March 31st, 2031. At that point, Goodell will have 25 seasons as commissioner under his belt, and he will be 72 years old. How is he a billionaire? Gotta be. Probably not. I don't think so.

38:06PFT Commenter:Because how much money was he making? Well, how long has he been? He's been commissioned for 25 years. You said.

38:12Big Cat:Yeah. Well, at the end, he will be. He was making 40 million, I think. So I think he's around 20 seasons. All right. So. But you forget, big cat. Since he's involved in sports, there's taxes. True. All right. So he's not a billionaire. Not a billionaire. 300 million. Unless he has secret. Kind of a broke boy. Unless he has secret equity.

38:32PFT Commenter:That'd be crazy if Goodell stayed commissioner long enough that he became richer than all the owners and just did a fucking Uno reverse on him. Ends as a commissioner and buys a team. Yeah, he's like, gotcha, boys. Oh, Jerry Jones, you think you're going to push me around? Guess what? Read what you've been paying me for the last 50 years. I'm a billionaire now.

38:50Big Cat:So Jerry just said the other day there's no succession plan in place. Just one day he won't show up. That'd be very funny if... Wait, for Jerry or Goodell? No, for Jerry. Okay, yeah. If Jerry just passes the Cowboys down to Goodell.

39:05PFT Commenter:That would be very funny. That also, that's got to suck being one of Jerry Jones' kids, being like, Dad, can you just at least say it? Say it so we don't have to fight over it. Change the will. Yeah. Yeah, or he just gives it to Tony Romo.

39:19Big Cat:Yeah, that would be cool.

39:20PFT Commenter:That would be great, too. Like the son I never had. Yeah, you made it, Tony. Thank you. Steven, I wish you could throw the ball like Tony. Okay, other. Oh, Jameis got a two-year deal. Congrats, Jameis. Pump for him. How many games Jameis Winston is going to play this year? Not rooting for injuries, but how many?

39:38Big Cat:But realistically? Realistically. I would say I'm going to put Jameis down for three starts.

39:44PFT Commenter:I was going to say three as well.

39:46Big Cat:Three starts would be good. Which would be fun.

39:47PFT Commenter:The league is a better place when Jameis is starting football games.

39:50Big Cat:It truly is. And I also think that Jameis right now should be the first call that anybody makes if they have a starter. A non to a starter. Yeah. that they need. Actually, think about that, Big Cat. Jameis on the Falcons. That would be cool. Think how fun that would be. Stavansky knows how to use him. They got all first-round picks anyways. That would be fucking awesome. Get Jameis down there. That would be so sick.

40:14PFT Commenter:He's from the South. Love it. Did you guys see the clip of Kyle Shanahan not understanding time zones?

40:19Big Cat:Yeah, we should play that clip because it's extremely relatable. This is a conversation that it sounds like we've had on this exact podcast numerous times. He's in absolute hell right now trying to figure out what day it is.

40:33PFT Commenter:Also, thoughts and prayers to Raheem Morris. He lost his birthday. Yeah. That was tragic. So Raheem Morris, I don't know why Schefter tweeted this. Schefter tweeted this in the middle of the day. He said, 49ers defensive coordinator Raheem Morris turned 50 years old Thursday, September 3rd. It also happened to be the day the 49ers flew to Australia, leaving Wednesday night, September 2nd, and arriving Friday morning, September 4th local time. The 49ers lost a day, but Morris lost his 50th birthday.

41:02Big Cat:Dang, so he's still a 49er.

41:06PFT Commenter:Fuck. That does suck. That's a fun fact. Yeah, it does suck. Schefter should have thrown that in there at the end.

41:11Big Cat:Yeah. Forever a 49er. Forever a 49er, always. It never happened. I don't think I wished him happy birthday because I think I knew. Yeah, you did know. You absolutely knew because you would have had that. I was all over Raheem Morris' birthday.

41:23PFT Commenter:Raheem Moore should go to Jed York and be like, hey, man, I love this team so much, I'm not going to do my 50th birthday. Also, what were you trying to do?

41:33Big Cat:That's probably good for him. Yeah. Tell me what you were going to do.

41:36PFT Commenter:What were you trying to do in East Palestine, bro?

41:38Big Cat:I'll trade you my birthday, my 50th birthday, for the real deal. What kind of hole were you trying to get in there, coach? Yeah, I think Kyle is just as confused about whether or not they made the right choice to go to Australia as we are.

41:51PFT Commenter:Yeah.

41:52Big Cat:and uh i think my my angle on this game stays the same and that's i think that the 49ers will win this game because they care about it and i think the rams will lose this game because they don't care about it and they'll go back and then the rams will be much better in the next next couple weeks than the niners yeah all right play the clip when i look at my clock and it says the time and then i try to see my family's time and then it says the time but it says yesterday i don't and get how that's possible. So I feel like I'm in the future. And then also when we play on our Friday, which I think is a Thursday in the U.S., we're such creatures of habit.

42:27So I call today Tuesday. No, wait, sorry, I call today Wednesday, which is the first day we put in a game plan. But I think it's Monday. However, though, it's Sunday in the present. So, like, I'm going to mess that up all week if you guys ask me. But today is just our first day of the game plan, which is a Wednesday. We'll put in some on a Thursday. Friday is the final part of the game plan. Saturday we walk through when we play on Sunday, which is a Friday in Australia and a Thursday in the U.S. He just said every day.

42:54PFT Commenter:And you're telling me people listen to this podcast? Like, that's what we sound like. Max also had this happen to him in Italy, so he reminded me that he was on, and who says I understand time zones is a liar.

43:09Big Cat:You know what's crazy is that I kind of, through listening to us have the same conversation, I think I followed exactly along with what Kyle Shanahan said. I think I actually got it I knew what he was saying

43:21PFT Commenter:No good for SMU

43:23Big Cat:Hank this is what you wanted No it's not Yeah it is How? Growing the game Yeah I mean you gotta figure out time zones I don't know

43:37PFT Commenter:No We have time zones here We have I still struggle with our time zones Four times over. Four times over. We have four times over, dude. Plus Hawaii. I almost said three. We got Hawaii. We don't really need to talk about that. People do kind of forget about the mountain time. It just doesn't really. It's only there half the year. Well, it's Denver. Well, no. It's just there's not that many people.

44:00Big Cat:And Arizona doesn't even do it. Yeah. Yeah. See, fuck that. Well, they do it. Yeah. We're not getting into that. We're not going to have that conversation. Remember when we had like an hour-long conversation about whether or not Arizona counted as a West Coast team? Because there was some team that was like undefeated against West Coast teams? Yeah. Well, the half of the... But yeah, congratulations. We're in Australia. I hope they love it. They're not going to care about it in a week when everybody leaves. And then those teams are going to come back to the United States, and they're going to feel like they're living in Russia.

44:32So, great.

44:33Big Cat:Good for the Shield. Growing the game, yeah. Growing the game.

44:36PFT Commenter:By the way, we just got our Dingers Only update. Zach, you still are in last. You're in second now, though. I know. That's a problem. Good jump, though. Devers had six home runs. So Zach is in last. Max, you're 10 ahead of Zach. Hank is run away with it. Run away. Great ball. Ball knower. Yeah. Jersey Jerry just has been in this league for three years, still doesn't understand the rules. So he's just texted, I've had two players out since 726 and 727, requesting to add two players in a DH and left fielder. You can only add one. We all know that. Or one plus pedophile rule.

45:15Big Cat:so um by the way i was thinking joe pa where would he be in dingers only max allowed what no you couldn't drop him no you could you can drop him for sure i got a dumb question no you can't now you should say that we can't drop him but he was removed due due to but but now we're saying he

45:36PFT Commenter:also doesn't play baseball now we're saying that i have a dumb question i i can't remember if this This was a conversation we had maybe a year ago, or it was on the act. It's all one song. But I was at the zoo with my son on Sunday, and the baby rhino at the Lincoln Park Zoo has gotten too big. No longer a baby. Kind of fucking gross. Are we just pedophiles for animals? We are. No. No. I mean, puppies. But you don't want to fuck them. No, but we all think that the baby animals are cuter than the adult animals. And people love babies, too. Yeah, that's true. But we don't think that, like, I don't know.

46:12Big Cat:It's true across all species. I think the children of, like, any animal, they're cuter.

46:18PFT Commenter:No, but, like, a six-month-old, people say a baby's cute. Babies all look the same. People just say it because they have to say it. You see a fucking puppy. You see a baby rhino, a little pygmy hippo. Those things are cute. But you don't want to fuck them. No, I know, but I'm saying we all like the baby animals more than the adult animals.

46:42Big Cat:I also think with animals, you know that a baby one can't kill you. True. But the adult ones.

46:47PFT Commenter:Just a stupid thought I had. But yeah, I don't think it's the same as actual babies. Because again, all babies, a six-month-old baby looks the same across the board. People just have to say, oh, that's good. I did that this weekend. I was at a barbecue. There was a two-month-old baby. I was like, oh, that's so cute. It was just a baby. It was a fucking baby. Some babies are ugly. Yeah, but they're... Go off. Most babies look like aliens. Kids are cute when they start saying funny things, not when they're like little blobs, two-month-old blobs. You're not like, oh, that's so cute. You have to say it for social graces.

47:23PFT Commenter:You think there's ugly babies? Yeah, for sure there's ugly babies. I think there's standard cute baby, and then there's ugly baby. There's replacement-level babies? there's Zero War baby and then there's Kyle Tucker baby I know what you're saying of like there's cute baby like cute babies across the board and then there's like ooh not cute baby I think it's

47:43Big Cat:I think it's normal baby and outlier baby yes yes yes and outlier baby like the normal baby is like the Gerber baby yeah the logo baby yeah little round cheeks

47:53PFT Commenter:that's what it's that's your standard baby yeah yeah I just I was heartbroken the baby rhino yeah he's like he's probably like 600 pounds now it's just not it's not the same Yeah, get over yourself. Get over yourself, Rhino. Yeah. Okay, should we... Oh, dude. Don't get the riders in the room going about the red Rhino. Yeah.

48:14Big Cat:What's he up to? He's probably making 200K a year working for Barstool. He's going to be at the next Surviving Barstool, right? Yeah.

48:23PFT Commenter:Okay, do we have any other sports stories going on before we do Who's Back of the Week? We'll probably hit some more. I'm trying to think. that hot dog bun video from Toronto was sick. That's all I got. Putting the dog in the bun? That's all I got. That was awesome. Yeah, it was pretty good. That was a very cool moment in dumb sports history.

48:43Big Cat:It was pretty good. UNC football under a big microscope right now.

48:47PFT Commenter:Yeah, what's going on there, Hank? Yeah, Hank. There's just an internal investigation going on. For what? inappropriate relationships between staffers staff members potential drug use from some of the coaches it's all being investigated so I don't I don't I don't uh Steve Belichick has left the team oh Mike Lombardi he's still there Mike Lombardi has left the team oh there's investigations

49:15Big Cat:going on they're 1-0 yeah that should be the boilerplate answer 1-0 what kind of drugs are they saying he did weed weed oh come on what are we doing now i don't know it's a i don't i don't it's it's not you know that's the details aren't haven't been specified that's the rumor that's the rumor where did you hear that rumor dave portnoy okay okay unbiased yeah do you think

49:41PFT Commenter:that if it's we talking weed how did he find out if it's weed i say no harm no foul that's a crazy thing to be investigating for weed what if it's something worse than weed who knows that's why they're doing worse or better both yeah i think it'd be better cooler yeah not cooler or or like

50:01Big Cat:more potent maybe he's just really really excited that their quarterback looks awesome like mvp level and so maybe that's why he could happen to do the other drugs could happen to anyone also somebody sent me the um the clip from when belichick got hired and he brought steve on as as a defense coordinator, that episode of part of my take.

50:22PFT Commenter:Yeah.

50:23Big Cat:It's an interesting conversation. Why? It's just interesting. What do we say? It's just an interesting conversation. What do we say? We just talked a little bit about what nepotism is, what it isn't.

50:36PFT Commenter:Do you see the – they're trying to shame the – what round are we at in the U.S. Open? Does anyone know? Sweet 16. They were trying to shame the two women who are billionaire daughters. It's tennis. It's tennis. They're like, oh, both of them are matched up. They're both fathers were billionaires. It's tennis. They still have to be really good. Are you still going to win? Yeah, of course they probably had. Actually, no. I actually think it's the opposite. If you had endless amounts of money and you're just like, dad, I'm not doing tennis anymore. I'm not. Why would I do tennis anymore? I'm going to get all your money when you die.

51:18Also, not to be like, you know, judgmental, but like you assume a billionaire, like probably not the most athletic genes.

51:23PFT Commenter:Correct. Right. And that just means that she's got that dog in her. Yeah. But it's harder to get. It's like, you know, doing road work in silk pajamas. It's hard to get hard to find that hunger when you're a billionaire's daughter. So credit to that. Yeah. All right. Let's do who's back the week. Then we have two great interviews. We talked a lot more college football with Andy Staples. And then we have Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor. And are you going to do our fantasy football for who's back or would do it at the end? I can do it for who's back. Yeah. All right. So we got our fantasy football results from Jerry O 'Connell drafting before we do who's back of the week.

51:57PFT Commenter:Farmer's dog. This episode is brought to you by farmer's dog. The farmer's dog makes real food for dogs. It's never ultra processed, just real meat, fresh veggies, all gently cooked. Stella's been a farmer's dog actually before farmer's dog was even a sponsor of this show uh we found it when sel was going through some health problems uh three or four years ago we found farmer's dog she absolutely loves it it's super easy to use you get a big delivery you put them in your freezer then you just defrost them overnight she's got fresh food it's made to human grade safety standards the farmer's dog meal plans are personalized to your dog's unique caloric needs to help keep your dog lean it's clinically shown to support healthy aging in dogs still is a living proof of the farmer's dog it's a great great brand listen we all love our dogs give them the best food out there it's farmer's dog get 50 off your first box at the farmers dog.com slash pmt and see how real food can be a game changer for your dog plus tune in to tomorrow for an interview with a special guest brought to you by the farmer's dog So go right now, get 50 % off your first box at thefarmersdog.com slash PMT and see how real food can be a game changer for your dog.

53:14PFT Commenter:Who's Back of the Week is brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. Football season is back. It's a moment we've all been waiting for. Football season's back in full swing, which means we'll be posted up with an ice cold tea until further notice. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard ice tea made with real brewed tea and 5 % alcohol. The Twisted Tea Party Pack has a little something for everyone with original half and half raspberry and peach. Whether you're tailgating at the stadium, crushing teas in your man cave or grilling out with your friends. Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time.

53:45PFT Commenter:A great time. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. We love Twisted Tea. We love the lemonade, the half and half, the original. Keep it twisted with Twisted Tea. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Henry, who's back of the week? My who's back of the week, speaking of dogs, is Peter Herbstreet. Oh, yeah. Yeah, big time back. Big time back. A lot of negative press, honestly. I feel like two years ago, a lot of positive press. Last year, a lot of negative press. And then this year, they came out with an entire Peter Herbstreet pop-up merch shop.

54:19Big Cat:Why do they call it a pop-up? Good question. Good idea.

54:23PFT Commenter:Yeah. I don't think they're not thinking like you. For charity? Was it for charity? I'm asking because you're taking a line here of hating Peter Herbstreet. I'm just saying he's back. I'm not making a judgment one way or the other. Was it for charity? I'm nearly just delivering news, as is my job, to say who's back of the week. College football is back. Peter Herbstreet is so back that they had an entire pop-up shop for Peter Herbstreet merch, for all the Peter Herbstreet fans in Baton Rouge.

54:55Big Cat:Do you think that Kirk Herbstreet only wants male dogs? probably yeah i think he makes his dogs do a handstand that's what i was saying he might be shaking dogs upside down right after they're done you know if they're in heat was it for charity i don't know i'm the way you're asking that i'm assuming it was i think it was yeah so he's back so charity's back yeah so peter herb street is back and he's helping charities love that great it's awesome good news uh also nathan fielder's back yeah yeah Nathan for you. Cannot wait. Documentary trailer. He was with Theranos. What's her name? Elizabeth Holmes.

55:33Elizabeth Holmes. For three months before she went to prison. And then they continued it while she was in prison. The documentary trailer was like scary.

55:44PFT Commenter:Yeah. I thought it was fake. It was like, it was just them, you know, very close, intimately, like face to face talking about how she was like, she would never deceive him. I can't wait to see it.

55:57Big Cat:Apparently, there's a twist in it that is such a major plot point to the movie that in the movie, they ask people that have seen it not to reveal to anybody else what the plot twist is.

56:06PFT Commenter:Yeah. I'm so excited. He goes on her side?

56:11Big Cat:Maybe Tony kills Christopher?

56:13PFT Commenter:No, they said there's a cameo that they don't want people to reveal. Yeah. Yeah, surprise people so much.

56:20Big Cat:But yeah, it looks awesome. That's exciting. I didn't even see that part of the news. That's exciting. Very excited. But yeah, I've never seen a documentary in theaters, but I think this is probably going to be the first one.

56:33PFT Commenter:All right. I'm trying to think if I've seen a documentary. I think I have.

56:36Big Cat:I saw Hoop Dreams in theater. I saw - Oh, actually, what was the Al Gore one? Inconvenient Truth. Inconvenient Truth. I thought that was like a movie, and I went and saw it. My mom was like, that was not what I was expecting. From that point on, Hank hated the environment. I remember watching March of the Penguins thinking that it was going to be like a nice movie about penguins, and it was not, and I was pissed.

56:59PFT Commenter:Yeah, I saw my dad maybe see When We Were Kings, the Muhammad Ali documentary. That was a good dad move by him in the theaters.

57:09Big Cat:Fahrenheit 9-11. Saw that in theaters.

57:11PFT Commenter:Oh, yeah, yeah. Michael Moore bowling for Columbine as well.

57:15Big Cat:Okay, good Who's Back. Thank you. Good Who's Back, Hank. Thanks. My other Who's Back of the Week, in addition to the fantasy review we're about to do, is Dogs. Also Dogs, Hank. Peter Herbstreet? Not Peter Herbstreet. Philly. the philly dogs yeah the philadelphia the fluffy water dogs we're back fluffy water dogs beat boston the summer of hank losing continues wait what round are we in uh that was the semi-finals fuck yeah so finals we're back in the finals we're back in the finals now again when is that denver uh it's on good question i believe it's on nfl week one sunday okay we now have an extra tv We do, yeah.

57:54Big Cat:So, who knows? Oh, wait, no. No, Sunday, September 20th, it looks like. Oh, so week two. The Outlaws versus the Waterdogs. Okay. So, Fluffia. Philadelphia, Waterdogs. Hank gets beaten again. But I win. Yeah, you're a Dogs guy. Yeah. My other who's back of the week is going to be Jerry O 'Connell in fantasy football. So, Jerry completed his fantasy football draft today. He sent me the entire lineup. he said i am ashamed oh i had a bad bad draft why apparently he did the draft from a mcdonald's on their wi-fi and the wi-fi was going out because other people were streaming there what do you what does that mean i don't he's trying to keep the draft he didn't want to tell his family where he was i think he snuck out and he's like i'm gonna be gone for a while i've got meetings this is all he has and then he went to do his fancy football draft at mcdonald's uh so here's that's crazy apparently what happened now this is explanation um because you will see that the running back room is is uh thin at best for us he said that uh he messed up he took lamar and aj he thought david montgomery or travion would suffice i messed up he did not realize that travion henderson was injured to the point where he might not be starting so here's a starting lineup quarterback Lamar Jackson okay he said he was gonna go for Lamar yeah two running backs Brees Hall Travion Henderson okay AJ Brown receiver Terry McLaurin receiver okay Travis Kelsey tight end what CeeDee Lamb Flex Evan McPherson kicker

59:32PFT Commenter:I mean CeeDee Lamb is the is the best receiver we've got yeah I mean I guess you could bounce those around

59:38Big Cat:and then Jaguars defense and Evan McPherson as the kicker on our bench. This is where it gets kind of ugly. We got Tate at receiver from Tennessee. He's questionable right now. Thomas. Brian Thomas Jr. From Jacksonville. There's zero running backs on this team. Makai Lemon. We drafted him too. We have a lot of wide receivers. A lot of receivers. We drafted Chris Rodriguez from the commanders and he's like third or fourth string running back. He's got it. Yeah. We have Woody Marks from Houston and Tyrone Tracy from the Giants. Another backup. Another backup. But we have wide receivers to trade.

1:00:15Big Cat:We have so many wide receivers.

1:00:16PFT Commenter:Do we have any other tight end except Travis Kelsey?

1:00:20Big Cat:No. No. That's the only tight end that appears that we have. He's actively trying to trade Lamar and AJ for Scadaboo and Pickens.

1:00:27PFT Commenter:The real loser in this is everyone else in the league. Yeah, because Jerry drafted a completely lopsided roster, so he's going to have to make a lot of trades, so he's going to have to text a lot of people.

1:00:39Big Cat:There's been one other development that I did not realize until about an hour ago. I was trying to see what Jerry's bench was. So I logged on to the Fantasy app because I've had access as a co-manager in years past. Jerry has locked me out of our team. Oh, no. So Jerry has taken over our team. I'm the captain now is what he did. And I've got no access to it. I can't see our scoreboard. I can't see our trade requests. I can't see anything going on. I'm now fully reliant on Jerry. On Jerry's hands.

1:01:09PFT Commenter:That's actually fine.

1:01:11Big Cat:On Jerry to just tell us what's going on. No, it's fine. Well, he's not going to give us the straight dope. Yeah, we got to get in there. I got to get back. You got to get back in there. But we'll see the results.

1:01:21PFT Commenter:No, we won't. No, I'm saying we will eventually. You can ask anyone else in the league to show us the results. But then they'll know our team is fractured. I think they could know right now that our team is fractured.

1:01:36Big Cat:I mean, what we're dealing with right now is we have a hostile that took it over. Yeah.

1:01:40PFT Commenter:What if Jerry comes in last?

1:01:43Big Cat:I don't want to think about that. No, I don't want to think about that.

1:01:45PFT Commenter:I actually... Should there be some sort of punishment if he comes in last? I'm going to defend Jerry here. As bad as the roster might look right now, I do think he's got enough to make some... Like, there's some teams out there that have no wide receivers. We're loaded at receivers. Because we have Carnell Tate. Who else? Brian Thomas. Brian Thomas, Jr. And who else on our bench? There's some upside on the bench and receiver. Right. There is. We're going to be able to trade some. We're going to be able to flip some of these receivers. Mekhi Lemon. I mean, yeah. We got receivers for days. Someone's going to need a receiver, and we're going to be there.

1:02:21PFT Commenter:The tight end position makes me a little nervous. But everyone sucks at tight end. We have one starting running back. That's a problem. That's a big problem. That is a big problem. Hank, what do you think about Henderson? I think he's going to be I think he'll come back Okay Come back strong Alright Alright so then we're good As reported by Hake Yeah Okay we gotta Well usually it's like You have a couple running backs You don't need to worry about Your injured running back In the first week of the season Yeah

1:02:52Big Cat:I'm also just concerned In years past Jerry and I have been co-managers In this one I got an email

1:02:58PFT Commenter:This does feel like a direct shot

1:02:59Big Cat:I got an email saying That I've been removed As owner

1:03:04PFT Commenter:he's gonna blame the mcdonald's wife by the commissioner yeah i don't know what jerry

1:03:08Big Cat:maybe you can answer me what happened with that one how do we not get better wi-fi for something that we build all year for i mean his wi-fi always sucks that's true yeah no matter no matter where

1:03:20PFT Commenter:he is his wi-fi never but he's got he lives in hollywood he could go to one of his like rich guy friends that probably has like the best starlink or something he does usually go to like a creek

1:03:30Big Cat:somewhere to film his appearances. A part of my take.

1:03:34PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right. I'm excited. I think Jerry's got enough to work with. I think it's not as bad as we thought when I saw the tweets about the disaster. He's just going to have to now like sometimes when you play fantasy, you draft your team and you just forget about it. He's going to have to get to work. The work starts.

1:03:52Big Cat:And I think that Jerry loves the work.

1:03:54PFT Commenter:Yeah, right. So he might have done this on purpose. He put himself in a corner just so he can fight his way out of it, which I like. That's where I want, Jerry. Fight your way out of the corner, Jerry. All right, my Who's Back of the Week is burgers because I completed the challenge. 101 burgers this summer. I have an incredible life, dream job, incredible family, all you guys. this and everything I've accomplished in my life. This is by far the least consequential, dumbest, and regrettable thing that I've ever done. I had to explain this to someone at a barbecue yesterday. And they're like, why are you eating 100 burgers?

1:04:38I was like, well, I'm doing it as like a challenge.

1:04:41PFT Commenter:They're like, oh, what do you get? I was like, nothing. And I challenged myself because I had one weekend of Memorial Day where I was like, damn, I love cheeseburgers. I really regret this. The only thing I've gained from this is that I will get significantly less sympathy when my eventual heart attack happens. That's mean, Hank. What do you say? Also probably not true. What do you say?

1:05:02Big Cat:20 pounds.

1:05:03PFT Commenter:Oh. No, actually, I stayed pretty consistent because all I ate was burgers. And I grilled them. I didn't eat them out like with French fries. I think that burgers on the whole are not unhealthy. Yeah. It's the French fries. Yeah. Do you in. I don't know why I did this. I really regret it. What was the best burger? Best and worst. Donnie made some incredible ones. I had a couple that were just not very good at golf courses and stuff.

1:05:28Big Cat:What is the perfect amount of burgers to eat in the summertime?

1:05:31PFT Commenter:I would say probably 40-ish. Yeah, that sounds about right. I would say 40-ish. Yeah. How many hot dogs are you going to do next year? Next year, we're going to do 1 ,000 hot dogs. It was funny. Zach was like, what foods did you miss out on with all these burgers? And honestly, I was just like hot dogs. I think I had like two hot dogs all summer. I had no steak, no hot dogs. You can't. You can't waste burger time. There's so many good meals. I know. I know. So I'm never. You told me you had a cheesesteak and you were upset. I was mad. Saratoga. I had an unbelievable cheesesteak. Shout out Dr. Dan's brother who brought him for us.

1:06:11PFT Commenter:The man. It was an incredible cheesesteak. And the whole time I was like, this is such a waste. I should be fucking eating a burger. This is literally a burger just cut up. So yeah, I did it though. Listen, I'm a man of my word. The haters, mostly memes and Max. I did it. You guys all thought I couldn't do it. I don't care. Yeah, no, I don't either. I honestly don't either. I'm happy it's over. You had your 100th burger in front of us today. It was no fun. I was like, I didn't feel anything. I had no excitement. I had no sense of accomplishment. I felt nothing except for my stomach is hurt for like three weeks straight that's it Zach my who's back of the week this week we are coming off a holiday weekend a lot of people are traveling a lot of guys up in the air my who's back is altitude justice

1:07:00Big Cat:because you guys see the guy who got absolutely just face fucked with duct tape so much duct tape was he doing a little light hijacking

1:07:09PFT Commenter:I think he was getting physical and slurs crazy combo Look at how much duct tape that is.

1:07:17Big Cat:They had to duct tape the fuck out of him. Now, what is that in the middle? That looks like one of those carjack things. I don't know. The club. Not a Slim Jim, but a zip tie. What? Between his hands?

1:07:32PFT Commenter:They made him hold it? Me? I wouldn't get duct tape like that.

1:07:35Big Cat:Anybody else here been duct tape? I have been duct taped. That's a lot of duct tape. It's a lot of duct tape. You probably lost circulation. the photographing while you're while you're duct tape yeah it's like come on man yeah well i guess

1:07:46PFT Commenter:he is a bad guy if he was just throwing n-bombs everywhere yeah do you guys think the other passengers like on this plane they're bonded together right do they keep up with each other

1:07:53Big Cat:now oh yeah never see him again no that would be electric if you if you like stop somebody from taking over a plane together even if it was just like some drunk person and those you know the three or four guys that you teamed up with i feel like you start a group chat and yeah you're all probably accepting like keys to various cities together. Yeah. Yeah, we did that. I mean, ask Donnie, Wanton Don. Yeah. He restrained somebody on a plane one time.

1:08:16PFT Commenter:Yeah, that stuff is like the, that's the best of the best. I had a friend, a good friend of mine in college, he citizens arrested a guy trying to steal steaks from the grocery store. It was like so thrilling. He just grabbed them. I disagree. And he just, he's just like, you can't do that.

1:08:34Big Cat:Yeah, I think you've got to let nature take its course.

1:08:35PFT Commenter:He was stealing like$300 worth of steaks. And it's like the poor person at the cash register was like, help, please grab them. It was like, you're staying with me.

1:08:45Big Cat:Got it. It worked out super well here. Side note question. What are your guys' thoughts on somebody traveling with this much duct tape? I think they had to have that in the plane, right?

1:08:54PFT Commenter:Okay, fair.

1:08:54Big Cat:Any good pilot knows that you can always have some duct tape on the plane in case the flaps don't retract properly, in case you got to seal the outside in the event of an explosive decompression.

1:09:05PFT Commenter:duct tape makes a lot of sense never mind duct tape these guys are just like they're not podcasting they're just watching this game memes is not he's not in this conversation whatsoever well the oh yeah you're traveling football's back we're listening football's back yeah yeah but there was we were talking we have a conversation memes go take it to the house max is slapping my leg All right, let's watch this set of downs here. All right, so it's 1410 SMU. 307 left. Do we know if that's actually the time? No. Close enough. The lights might have come back on because they had the thing that said the refs are keeping.

1:09:48Big Cat:You can see it in the end. The refs are keeping the time. That graphic isn't up anymore. I also heard that there's a chance that all classes are canceled tomorrow at FSU. That's awesome. So now this kid is a hero. If they win.

1:10:00PFT Commenter:If they win. And if the over hits.

1:10:02Big Cat:That would be a sad. If the over doesn't hit. This kid is not a hero. No. They've got to score a touchdown. That's what I'm saying. Some school should give students a couple days off when a GTA comes out. If this is.

1:10:15PFT Commenter:What are you saying? Talk us through it, Max. They're not going to. It's dead if you don't score a touchdown here. That's not true. Do you have a backup who's back of the week, Zach? Backup is going to. I can go with Deion Sanders. You guys see Deion Sanders online giving Charlotte a little tough love, a little parenting. Also, shout out Colorado one. Yeah. One on Thursday night.

1:10:35Big Cat:That was good to see.

1:10:36PFT Commenter:Goldberg's son plays for Deion. No way. Yeah. Pretty cool. The glitter guys are too much. That's one where you can't be a glitter guy if Florida State's not good. I heard that was Danny Cannell. It is Danny Cannell. Yeah. It's Danny Cannell.

1:10:50Big Cat:Is he the red or the gold one?

1:10:53PFT Commenter:He's, I think he's the gold one.

1:10:55Big Cat:Okay.

1:10:56PFT Commenter:Okay, let's get to our interview. We have Andy Staples talking more college ball and then Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor.

1:11:02Big Cat:Andy Staples is going to be brought to you by Netflix. Our great friends are expanding their NFL coverage in 2026 from week one to the first ever Thanksgiving Eve matchup and two Christmas Day games, plus a playoff game in January. Week one of the upcoming NFL season will feature the league's first ever regular season game in Australia on September 10th. division rivals the rams the niners it's going to air on netflix live from the melbourne cricket ground heading into the holiday season netflix is going to add the nfl's first ever thanksgiving eve game november 25th it's got the green bay packers visiting the los angeles rams at sofi stadium and then on christmas day netflix will again air two games on december 25th on christmas day at 1 p.m the green bay packers visit the chicago bears at soldier field and then the The Bills face the Broncos from Empower Field at Mile High.

1:11:55Big Cat:That's at 4.30 p.m. Eastern, 1.30 p.m. Pacific. Week 18, you've got playoff stakes on the line. You can watch the final game of the regular season live on Netflix. Watch week one of the NFL on Netflix, the Rams versus the Niners, only on Netflix Thursday, September 10th, 8.35 p.m. Eastern, 5.35 p.m. Pacific time. And check it out. It's all going to be on Netflix. and Andy Staples is also brought to you by Kraken. This episode of part of my take is brought to you by Kraken. It's the official crypto and trading platform, Barstool Sports. Kraken launched the crack card in the US. You can get up to 2 % cash back on everyday spending and you choose whether you want it in cash or Bitcoin.

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1:13:09Big Cat:Spend money, potentially get rewarded. Don't spend it. Your eligible balance can potentially earn. Simple enough for us to understand that means that we're in business. The crack card is live in the United States now. Check it out. Now here's Andy Staples.

1:13:23PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is our good friend Andy Staples coming off what everyone thought was going to be a nothing week one for college football. But college football, we know Andy on 3 Network. You should listen to him and Ari. They do recaps all throughout the weekend. They do awesome content. everyone knows with college football when you least expect it you're going to have chaos and we had it so i have we have a ton of stuff we want to talk about but i think we have to start with uh michigan stealing a game against western michigan i i read all the stuff i understand what they're trying to argue i still think it was robbery i think still think it was bullshit where do you land on this you're you're going to think that i i actually believe the big 10 on this one but they screwed up and here's why so they had already set up a deal where on friday nights they're going to let you see their instant replay deliberations like the acc did last year the big 12 is doing it this year the pac-12 is doing it now like if they had let us see that in real time i think millions of more people would trust the answer they got like it's it's actually a big step forward for the big 10 that they released that video but when it's an hour and 53 minutes after the game ended we live in a world where you can find a video for anything to confirm what you want to believe so i mean pft you have an entire podcast about this so like i don't think i don't think that was the right way to do it like it we need to see that the deliberations every review in every game in every league in real time because i think that's the only way you earn the public's trust back because do i believe that the nbc clock was not synced right i do uh do i feel bad that John Fanta got thrown out to take that bullet.

1:15:09I mean, they were like, you're the new guy. You get to read this. Poor Fanta.

1:15:13Big Cat:Yeah. And you've probably watched more football than just about anybody listening to this show over the course of your life. Did you know about the secret clock until this weekend? So the secret clock's no secret. It's a clock in the stadium that they have a camera trained on. And when we were all kids, that's how the clock was shown to us in games. There was a camera on the clock and there was like a little cutout on the screen where you saw the video of the clock in the stadium. And now we've got all this fancy technology and AI. And well, guess what? It doesn't work.

1:15:44PFT Commenter:Yeah. It's bullshit. And I guess, like, listen, I'm not going to sit here and be like, oh, Michigan cheated. I think the way it happened was suspect. And I didn't. It was kind of like a March Madness situation where everyone was rooting for the underdog in this moment because they played so tough. And all this happens. But going away from that afterwards, Bryce Underwood, like what does Michigan do? Because he was really bad. And I made this argument before the season and I got a lot of shit for it that I was like, if Bryce Underwood doesn't take a massive step forward, this is closer to a 7-5 team than a playoff team.

1:16:20PFT Commenter:And that's what they look like on Saturday night. So is it a situation like this is a very fascinating situation because the NIL and how much money is at stake and Kyle Whittingham first year and all this stuff. like could they potentially go to to car as as the backup right away like in the next couple weeks if Bryce Underwood has another stinker so I want to take a this moment to ask for a do-over first uh another barstool property uh the the Brandon Walker College Football Show your your number two college football expert hosts that show uh I was on his show the second week I was a first week guest obviously uh but he asked me about my prediction that michigan would make the playoff and just straight up asked are you on drugs and then i dressed him down with this very logical explanation of well look their their coach was having a major affair and and everybody hated everybody and all that was going on behind the scenes and they won nine games and the true freshman starter didn't have a dedicated quarterbacks coach and the offense stunk scheme wise so of course they're going to be better and and like you watch brandon you see his face and you see the color drain out and i heard him on your show last week kind of parroting those points i want to i want to change my answer i was on drugs yeah good jokes yeah and then he got a contact sorry about that yeah but it does feel and listen i think kyle whittingham is an unbelievable coach yeah you know you know like the one thing you do better than than than most people in the media and you talk about the culture of the sport and what it means to certain fan bases.

1:17:55PFT Commenter:I think he's an unbelievable coach. I think coaching at Michigan is different than coaching at Utah. Like there's just a different pressure cooker to it. And I think you kind of saw it in his eyes a little bit being like, fuck, this is not the same as, you know, playing in the Pac-12 or playing in the Big 12 and being able to win 10 games every year. Like this fan base demands good football every single week and they don't want to go back to a Brady Hoke or Rich Rod situation yeah now I think he's in an advantageous situation here to get back to your original question if you heard what he said Monday where he said Bryce is the is QB1 right now right now and he kind of paused and he said right now and nothing set in concrete like you asked if we would see Tommy Carr maybe the next few weeks I think there's a chance we see Tommy Carr against Oklahoma on Saturday at some point if it's not working with Bryce because this is a very good defense I mean like David Stone Owen Heineke the talent is unbelievable but Brent Venables as a defensive coordinator and I say coordinator because he is the one who calls the plays even though he's the head coach it's one of the most confusing defenses in college football for an opposing quarterback it is designed to confuse the quarterback designed to confuse the offensive lineman well based on what we saw against Western Michigan there's a lot of confusion going around anyway So if this isn't working, I think Kyle Whittingham, because he's the new guy, because he was not there when they gave that investment to bring in Bryce Underwood, his job is to win games.

1:19:25He's just going to go with the guy who might be able to help him win games. And the thing about Tommy Carr, and so for those who don't know, Tommy Carr, grandson of Lloyd Carr, little brother of CJ, the current Notre Dame starting quarterback. From the moment he set foot on campus and started working out with the guys, there has been positive buzz about this guy. And during the offseason, I was like, OK, they must really like him. And then I started a conspiracy theory brain over the summer like, oh, are they are they seeding the clouds in case they have to go to him? But maybe he's just good.

1:19:54Like his brother's awesome. So who knows? But with Oklahoma being what they are and being so difficult to manage, especially if you're not great at reading defenses, they may have to try something different if it's not working.

1:20:08Big Cat:Yeah, that's what struck me about Michigan is the opening series that they had, maybe when they looked the best. Scripted. Scripted. Even in that opening series, he still looked confused at times. I think he went the wrong way on a play. And it did not look like they had prepped for this game, or at least at the quarterback position, for any extended period of time. And now they're going up. I would say that maybe even Western Michigan was more physical on defense than Michigan was on offense. And that's a major concern for Michigan, too. Yes. And then adding in the confusion that Venables can bring, like things could get very ugly for Michigan.

1:20:42It could, or it's a weird sport. They're 20-year-olds, and all of a sudden they show up and look completely. I don't think that's going to happen, though. We talked about this on our show, and Ari kept saying this is not something you can fix in three or four days. And I think that's probably true. I don't think this was a case of just an unusual performance. I thought he was going to take a bigger step forward from year to year, and watching some of the throws, watching the way he handled it, it doesn't look any different. And this is a guy, he's got immense physical talent. And I think he strikes me as the kind of guy who his physical talent got him out of every jam in high school.

1:21:20And he's trying to do that at the college level too. And it just doesn't work at the college level. You have to follow your scheme. You have to use your fundamentals. You have to keep your mechanics sound. All of that stuff matters at this level, especially with the kind of defense they're going to see. And remember, guys, Oklahoma is a really good defense. They also have to play the Iowa defense. They're going to play Indiana. They're going to play Oregon. They're going to play Ohio State. They're going to play some incredible defenses this season. So this is just sort of the acid test. If you can't do this, you're going to be in trouble with the rest of the schedule.

1:21:55Big Cat:So, Andy, just one more thing about the clock in the Michigan game. I'm with you that I read all the explanations. I understand. I know what they're saying. This was the official clock. It was not synced up, but it is the clock the replay officials saw and instructed the refs on the field, we're going to follow this one one second left. Do you think that if the roles were reversed in this and Western Michigan threw a Hail Mary, the clock expired on the field, do you think that the Big Ten replay officials would move hell and high water and dig through that replay to go and find them one extra second to try to throw another Hail Mary?

1:22:34Would they have made an exceptional effort? I don't know, PFT, but I will tell you from having met a lot of the people who officiate games or who coordinate officials now for the different leagues, these guys are just trying to get right. They know they're going to get yelled at no matter what. Most of the time they're doing a conference game. We're going to piss off one of the conference members either way. So I think they're trying to get it right. I know it's so easy to believe the conspiracy theories. And look, I fell into that rabbit hole on Saturday night. but I do think they were just trying to get right.

1:23:06But yeah, would they make the extra effort? That's what I'm saying. I believe you. What could be done?

1:23:12Big Cat:They were trying to get it right. They absolutely were. And the guys on the field, the refs that were actually calling that game, they don't have any fault in this. That was not their call. Well, they missed that face mask that would have extended a Western Michigan drive and would have never happened that way had Western Michigan been able to keep the ball for a couple more minutes. And also the clock was synced with the field goal.

1:23:33PFT Commenter:I saw it with my own two. I, whatever we should, we can't stick on it. The nine, the nine to eight video was the one that got me. And then I'm like, but anybody could have doctored that too. Yeah. Yeah. And listen, I, I actually agree with you that like this sport is so weird. I w I was thinking about it. Like the, the thing that pissed me off the most watching Western mission, like lose that game was not only did Michigan survive, but then also the line is going to be inflated against Oklahoma and Michigan's probably going to win that game. I was getting ready to bet Oklahoma minus three, and then it's like, no, it's going to be six, it's going to be seven, because everyone saw Michigan suck.

1:24:10I was watching it roll on Saturday night.

1:24:14PFT Commenter:And now Michigan's going to win, because it is that sport. And Kyle Whittingham is a great, great coach. And I don't think that you can – what you see week one is not what you see the rest of the season. Speaking of, what do we make of Oregon? Because Oregon was another team. A lot of hype going into the season. Boise gave them everything they had. That was an interesting thing to see because this is the year for Oregon. Everyone's picking them. They have all these guys coming back. Dante Moore is coming back. And then Boise is just taking it right to them right out of the gate. So I have to do a projected playoff every week, including week one.

1:24:54And I put it out, and I left Oregon out. but I put Boise State in because if Boise State can do that in Eugene, they can probably beat Memphis this week. They can probably beat Western Michigan. They can probably win the Pac-12. So naturally, Oregon fans are furious at me right now, and I'm sorry about that. I'm just going with the results we have, and I'm not using preseason expectations or anything. It's just what we saw. Now, I think Oregon's going to be fine. I actually think they're going to go kill Oklahoma State this weekend and probably pop them right back into the projected playoff. But Boise State, I think it's more Boise State's probably pretty good than it is Oregon having any issues.

1:25:31And I will point out two years ago, Oregon had a rough opener against Idaho. Your guy Jason Eck, who's now in New Mexico, had a rough opener against Idaho and then barely survived that Ashton-Gente Boise State team. They then went on to go 13-0 and win the Big Ten. So it may be that this is just Oregon ran into a pretty good opponent that was maybe a little better than they thought it was going to be. And they survived. So I'm really not that worried about them. Now, if they go to this Oklahoma State team that just got housed by Tulsa and they struggle, then I'm going to worry about them a little bit.

1:26:04But I'm not worried about them right now.

1:26:05PFT Commenter:You're right in that week to week, it's hard to get up for every single game. It's just always week one. The eyes are on you. You have all season to prep for it. So you expect the best effort. And you saw it. I mean, different styles of competition. But like Ohio State, take care of business. Texas, take care of business. Georgia. they were playing basically no one LSU is that by the way is LSU one of the biggest winners of this week because they looked awesome 100 % because you had everybody going oh Lane's just been creating this distraction with trying to take these dudes who were in the NFL and I kept telling people his roster is really good if you look at Lane's history especially at Ole Miss the offense clicked almost immediately pretty much the whole time he was there even though there was a lot of churn in their roster so I expected them to come out of the gate smoking I did not expect them to dominate the way they did especially in the run game we're just bullying Clemson and I and LSU look like one of the best teams in the country I let that projected playoff again because I'm taking the preseason stuff out of it I put them as the one seed now are they going to stay there probably not but why not let's let's ride let's ride the expectations but yeah Lane and I think Lane was trying to prove a point in this game because we'd spent the past month just crushing him for the NFL player stuff.

1:27:24And, look, the little aside to Holly Rowe, that was classic. That was pure Lane right there.

1:27:29Big Cat:Yes. Now, do you think – because I agree with you that LSU looked fantastic. They looked incredible last night, offensively and defensively. I do think that it kind of will go the way that Sam Levitt goes because the way – the style that he plays, it's so fun to watch. but we saw it with one of Lane's old quarterbacks, Jackson Dart, in the NFL. It's hard to do that week in, week out, especially with the schedule LSU has. Do you think that they would be able to win without Sam Levitt, or is it strictly dependent on how healthy he is? No, I think they could probably win. So they have a transfer from Elon, who he came in in second.

1:28:09They've also got Hussan Launstri, who came from USC, and I think they feel good about their entire quarterback room. It's a very strange situation where I think Lane understood basically what happened last year when he went out and got Trinidad Chambliss at Ole Miss as an insurance policy. So Landon Clark is the Elon transfer. That's an FCS school. It's a Cignetti school. It's one of the stops on the Cignetti track. But I think they feel like if Landon Clark had to come in, they'd be just fine, which is interesting because Sam Levitt did go out in the middle of that season for Arizona State last year, where Arizona State probably could have won the Big 12.

1:28:45I mean, they beat Texas Tech with Sam Levitt playing. But I love the idea of Sam Levitt in this Lane Kiffin offense because he is a run around and make stuff happen kind of guy who throws a great deep ball. Who does that sound like? We watched him play last night, Trinidad Shamless.

1:29:00PFT Commenter:Yeah, I saw someone tweeted that Sam Levitt plays football like a squirrel with an amphetamine problem. And I was like, that's pretty much it. They nailed it. Now, on the other side, by the way, I did a bad job introducing this whole interview. Andy's actually in the press box for FSU SMU. So if you hear a couple people in the background, that's why. He's also a professional. He's got a mic. He's got a perfect setup. So we appreciate it, Andy. Is this rock bottom for Dabo, though? Because it feels like there's been a couple of them. You know, the Georgia game a couple years ago where it was a similar spot.

1:29:31PFT Commenter:Week one, everyone was hyped. Atlanta, they got absolutely smoked. But this feels like true rock bottom in that they are nowhere near the top teams. And it was like they had no Russian game, nothing. It was just – it was a totally, totally different caliber of teams on the field at Tiger Stadium. Yeah, and the scheme was bad. The offense looked discombobulated. That was another great Lane quote to David Hale from ESPN. He said, I thought this was going to be like 31-3. I had no idea their offense would be that dysfunctional. And so they brought Chad Morris back. He was their offensive coordinator when they turned everything around with Taj Boyd back in the day and became one of those teams that was competing for the ACC title every year and competing for national titles.

1:30:19But it seemed like kind of a retread situation because Chad Morris had been head coach at SMU. He'd been fired from Arkansas. So it was a weird, weird situation all offseason. They kept Christopher Vizina instead of going to get a quarterback in the portal. They have a freshman at Tate Reynolds that they like who you saw on Saturday, but obviously he wasn't ready either and I think it's now dawning on everybody and I the Clemson fans were way ahead of everybody else on this and usually the fan base on the ground does understand this a little bit better but with us it was like okay is Dabo losing his touch does he not understand how to win can he not get the kind of players he had well last year he had nine draft picks on that team they still went seven and six so that's a coaching issue so that should tell you This year, he kind of closes ranks and he kind of closed off practices to people who are normally allowed there.

1:31:13I'm talking about VIP type stuff, not media type stuff. Closed ranks. And I asked somebody who knows the program really well. I said, do you think he did that because he's mad at everybody and wants to prove them wrong and wants to is just kind of lashing out or because he knows they're not going to be good? and this person said it's probably because he's mad at everybody and thinks he's about to prove everybody wrong well he was proven very wrong on saturday night and look here's the problem guys like miami's going to do the same thing to them yeah there really aren't a lot of other teams on the schedule that have that they're going to have that kind of talent discrepancy but that's where you're going to see where the coaching comes in because clemson is probably more talented than most of the teams left on their schedule but i don't know if they're going to be better than seven and five or six and six right if they if they look like that if if that's their offense if that's what they're going to roll out there they're going to lose more games it's not just

1:32:05Big Cat:going to be when they're when they're out talented yeah yeah I thought that that Dabo before the game making the little jokes and puns about Lane Kiffin like you could tell that he was he was feeling a little confident because I don't think old Dabo does that unless he's got you know supreme confidence in his team going out there not laying an egg and that was that was like uh ponder your future level beat down there for Clemson. I don't know. It was. Does Dabo want to be there? He wants to be there, and he's the type of person I would think. We've talked about this over the years. I'd say probably since the 22 season, the 23 season.

1:32:40We've talked about how does this work? How does the end happen for Dabo at Clemson? Because he does not strike me as the kind of guy who would just say, you know what, I don't have it anymore. I'm going to step down rather than let this thing go down. I feel like he would be the kind of person who says, look, you're going to pay me every dime you owe me. And I made this place and we've heard him recite his resume a lot this offseason. Yeah. So that's where it gets tricky. And so it's interesting that I'm sitting here in Tallahassee right now. There was a post on the Tiger Illustrated message board this weekend that just really struck me.

1:33:16And the guy said, I've always said that Dabo is going to be our Bobby Bowden for good and for bad. This is a Clemson fan saying this. And if you think about Bobby Bowden was one of the greatest coaches of all time. When I was in high school and college and even before that, the Seminoles were the baddest of the bad. They were amazing. And then they had what they call the lost decade, which is the early 2000s. And it just slipped year after year. And like I remember they got beat 30 to nothing by Wake Forest here in 2006. And he had he had to fire his son as the offensive coordinator, Jeff Bowden.

1:33:53He still coached for three more years after that. It was a long, slow decline before they finally decided they'd had enough. And I don't think Clemson's going to do that. Clemson's got a new president, Graham Neff. They have a young, kind of energetic AD. He's been there a while, too, so he's worked with Dabo a lot. But this is a place that got the taste from Dabo of what it's like to be a national power. I don't think they want to let it go. No. And I don't think they've fallen so far that they can't get it back. But it may require some kind of very awkward conversation and possibly a very large check.

1:34:29Big Cat:Yeah. It was the type of beatdown, though, that makes you think this whole thing. We've never seen Clemson look that outmatched physically and also schematically at the same time against a quality opponent. It was shocking. So I was thinking maybe, I don't know, does he want to be there? Do they want him there? Something's going to change. That's my prediction. in the next year. Something, I don't know what it is, but something will change. I don't think the fans want him there anymore. I think most of the fan base has turned on him at this point. It's just a matter of how do you handle that administratively because he would be owed a fortune unless he was willing to play ball with you.

1:35:02And I mean, this is a guy that they're going to build a statue. I mean, and I said this all off season when he would recite his resume, like gets up at ACC Media Days and recites the resume. If he stopped coaching right now, he's still one of the greatest coaches who ever lived. but as long as he has the job then what he did before doesn't matter if you're getting that giant paycheck every two weeks you have to produce results and he's not producing them

1:35:27PFT Commenter:yeah i mean it's true though maybe pft like like i i just look at the the lsu it was 309 rush yards to to 40 that's like that's like zero before the last drive yeah that's georgia that's georgia playing tennessee state i saw you know i mean like that's the that's the difference of of like where Clemson is at right now against a big dog.

1:35:47Big Cat:I saw a stat that Clemson didn't run a play in LSU's half of the field until the fourth quarter.

1:35:54PFT Commenter:Well, they had one because of the pick to start the game. I wouldn't be surprised. I was already watching Cal UCLA at that point. They got a lucky one because of the pick to start the game and they got the field goal. But, yeah, it was crazy. It was nuts. It is nuts. All right. What about – let's talk another fun story. UMass. UMass beating Rutgers on Thursday night. It feels like 10 years ago, but we got to give them credit. Pop Watson, baby. Yes, Pop Watson is awesome. So that was stunning. I mean, I don't want to talk too much time about it, but Rutgers, like, that is one of the most embarrassing things.

1:36:27PFT Commenter:The UMass hadn't beaten an FBS team in, I think, two years or three years. It was two years. They hadn't won a game. Yeah. And the last game they won was in October 2024 against Bryant, which is an FCS school. Like, this is – or maybe it's Wagner. I feel like I'm covering the first round of the NCAA tournament. They won their conference tournament. But no, it's crazy. And Pop Watson was just awesome. My son and I were just watching that game, and we just kept screaming, Pop, Pop! I mean, every time he did something. And the fireworks afterward are maybe the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.

1:37:05Yeah.

1:37:06Big Cat:There has to be somebody there with common sense that says, Hey, I know football's back. Maybe not the right time. Maybe we'll hang on to these until next week. Yeah. So I'm a Floridian who was born in South Carolina. So fireworks are very special to me. I guarantee you there was somebody in there who's like, oh, no, we bought all these. Yeah, we got to do it. We got to do it. Also, like, what better way to make you feel better, too? It's like, hey, I know we just lost a very embarrassing game. But you might this might put a smile on your face. Yeah. How about some explosions? There you go. Yeah.

1:37:39Big Cat:What do you think about how this is all shaken up for this week's big matchup, Ohio State-Texas? Like, everything kind of seems chalk going into this matchup. But are you just thinking about these two teams the same way you thought about them two weeks ago, three weeks ago? Or has anything changed? No, this feels perfect. This is exactly what I want in an early season game. It is two superpowers from different conferences. The two conferences that hate each other the most could be the best team in each conference. We don't know yet. but there's a good chance it's the best team in each conference.

1:38:11It's certainly two of the best rosters in America. And the thing I can't wait to see is who becomes a star out of this game. We know Jeremiah Smith. We know Julian Sane. We know Arch Manning. But is this going to be the Hollywood Smothers game? Or is this going to be the Legend Bay game? Somebody's going to become a star in this game, and it's going to be awesome. I cannot wait because it's a close spread. I picked Ohio State, but not with any degree of confidence. Like, I just want to sit down and watch these two go at it.

1:38:41PFT Commenter:Yeah, I'm very, very excited. All right, what about what other team or fan base is feeling good coming off a week one that you were maybe impressed with? You're like, all right, this team, like, we had some questions going into it. I was going to say, like, the Auburn-Baylor game was a mess, just an absolute mess. And I don't even know, like, Auburn won the game, but I don't know if they feel good about it coming off it because I, it felt like we were watching like USF was a nice story last year. Alex coach goals is really good coach, but like that offense didn't look great. And I don't know who like Baylor.

1:39:18PFT Commenter:I don't know. What'd you make of that game? So goalish after the game sounded like a guy who'd lost, right? He, there was a lot of the look on his face said, that's not how this is supposed to work. That's not how this is supposed to look. And I was a little bit surprised that, so Byron Brown, we've seen him play against SEC schools while he was at USF. I think he ran for over 100 yards against Alabama one game. He went to the Swamp and beat Florida last year. He's a very fast guy for 240 pounds. And it was shocking to me how many times you saw Baylor edge rushers run him down on the edge instead of him getting loose and running for 20 yards.

1:39:57Now, I will say on the last drive for Auburn, that rushing ability seemed to return because that he did score when they needed him to. But that was the part that surprised me because I thought that was going to be the X factor. And what was going to make this offense feel different is his escapability scares you so much that you're going to have to put an extra guy in the box. You have to spy him. And all of a sudden you're going to have some one on one matchups on the outside. They didn't have a lot of open receivers. Yeah. And so I just didn't think that worked out. Like it was interesting because you've watched Alabama East Carolina Keelan Russell the quarterback for Alabama first time starter like when he gets loose he runs for 30 yards like that's terrifying yeah that's what I thought Byron Brown was gonna be and that was not the case against Baylor which has good athletes on defense but not necessarily as good as what Auburn's gonna see down the road now as far as uh teams that are probably feeling pretty good especially with new coaches I would think Penn State folks are feeling great about Matt Campbell right now.

1:40:56And I know Florida folks are feeling really good about John Summerall. Those debuts probably could not have gone any better. Both of those teams look like they've been playing together for a long time. It looked very smooth. You know, Matt Campbell, he was the only one of the guys who brought a lot of his old players who succeeded because Eric Morris and Oklahoma State, they lost to Tulsa. And then Auburn maybe should have lost to Baylor. Penn State looked amazing.

1:41:20PFT Commenter:Yeah. I'd say UCLA too. Yeah. UCLA looked good. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and Chesney brought a good amount too. But yeah, that was a great game because that was a 24-24 game in the fourth quarter. And then UCLA just put the hammer down. Their defense looked fantastic. Their pass rush was getting after JKS. And then the run game for UCLA, they were really open and whole. So I'm excited to see what they can do. And I know you have adopted everywhere former JMU coaches have gone, PFT. I think you're going to enjoy adopting the Bruins.

1:41:53Big Cat:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they looked fun. Also, they have, what's his name, Frankie Volcano? Frankie Volcano. That's right. I got to meet this guy. Yeah. He seems like a legend, but you got to have one of those guys. Yeah, no, they did look good, and it just – they should be allowed to keep the Pac-12 after dark IP. They should be allowed to slap that logo on the screen if it's a crazy high-scoring game and it's past midnight. I just want to go back in time when I'm watching those teams play. And that's what it felt like. As I'm watching the game, I never once thought one of these teams is in the Big Ten and one of them is in the ACC.

1:42:28I'm watching Pac-12 after dark. And I enjoyed being transported back there for a couple hours.

1:42:33PFT Commenter:Big time. Big time. The other – I mean, we should mention Miami, too. Miami looked incredible. Yeah. That was – Malachi Tony continues to amaze me. Listen, if you're a high schooler in South Florida and your nickname is Baby Jesus and everybody's cool with that, you must be awesome. He was great as a freshman, but he's even better now. They've unlocked more. And I think they upgraded a quarterback with Darian Mensah. So with Darian Mensah throwing to Malachi Tony, I don't know there's a lot of folks on Miami's schedule that can stop that. Obviously, Notre Dame is going to be the big game for them, but that's pretty much it.

1:43:10They should handle everybody else they play, which, look, the history of Miami, going back to several coaching staffs, is they get bored. They lose games they're not supposed to. Mario Cristobal has to prove that that's not going to happen this year because they may not have the strength of schedule to make it up if they drop one or two that they're not supposed to. Notre Dame's the one everybody's going to be looking at.

1:43:30PFT Commenter:Yeah, Notre Dame looked good too. I mean, they throttled us in the second half. Oh, Big Cat, listen, listen, I am encouraged by Wisconsin's performance. So I was encouraged with – there was a lot more physicality than we've had in the last three years, and I like Colton Joseph. and that game was even in the first half. The call was wrong. They were stopping Notre Dame's run game. How many teams are going to be better at running the ball than Notre Dame that are on Wisconsin's schedule? Right, and there was a lot of good things to look at and obviously the call was wrong with the recovered fumble, but you also can't fumble that, especially when you're playing Notre Dame.

1:44:08PFT Commenter:The kickoff? Yeah, the kickoff. Yeah, the kickoff was bullshit.

1:44:11Big Cat:What happened with that?

1:44:12PFT Commenter:Everyone in the world saw that he didn't have the ball except the refs. But again, that's one of those things. You can't win a game when you are very much outmatched by a superior opponent and have those type of mistakes. I was more upset with towards the end of the game, that punt, like, what are we doing? We're down 21. Why are you punting there? That feels to me more of a I want to save my job than I want to go fucking capture this thing and try to change everything. That made me – You can take the boy away from Trestle, but you can't take Trestle out of the way. Yeah, that one bothered me because it's just like I'm all in on Fickle trying to turn this thing around.

1:44:51PFT Commenter:And I do think it looked a lot better than it has in the last three years just based off the first three quarters, first half. But when you're punting down 21 in the fourth quarter, that is a sign to me that's like, hey, I want to make this respectable. I'm not here to try to win this game. And it's like even though we weren't going to win that game, you got to have a different mentality there. yeah and and i think they're gonna be fine like i i really think they're gonna win seven or eight games this year because they go from having the hardest schedule in the big 10 to having one of the easier draws in the big 10 but that attitude probably has to go because you there are gonna be games where you're gonna need to take some chances and he's gotta win it so he's gotta win i think he would tell you he's gotta win eight he's gotta be eight okay because if you well if you look at it it's like if you win seven that means you probably lost to penn state iowa usc and UCLA or Minnesota.

1:45:47PFT Commenter:And it's like some of those are not okay. You know what I mean? Like if he wins eight, then it's like, hey, you beat everyone you're supposed to beat and then you're maybe going in the right direction because that's what it's been the last three years. Let's be real. It's not been losing the big games. It's Iowa, right? Yeah. It's Iowa, but it's not been losing the big games. Like Notre Dame was always going to beat Wisconsin. It was actually the exact same score as like four years ago at Soldier Field. We lose so like once a decade we can maybe beat Ohio State. It's how do you look against Iowa.

1:46:15PFT Commenter:It's how do you look against Minnesota. It's how do you look against USC. Like, if you're going to be back to the middle of the Big Ten, are you competitive against those teams? That's the test. Yeah, and the Iowa thing is amazing to me because the way Iowa just destroyed them last year. Right, right. That was like when Bielema beat Paul Crist. Right. And it's like, okay, something's got to change. But, yeah, and Iowa looked like it had a functional offense against Northern. So I'm very intrigued now to see the Hawkeyes going forward. They got Iowa State this week, but they were moving the ball better than we're used to seeing.

1:46:51PFT Commenter:Yeah, and you mentioned Iowa State next week. Like, that's my favorite part about Iowa. Not the same thing. Well, they always open the season. You're like, Iowa's offense might be good. Then they're going to play Iowa State, and one team is going to win like 12 to 10. It's always the weirdest score. Oh, yeah, 6 to 3. Yeah, except for that one year where it was like 44 to 41, and that was awesome. Yes. I love the Seahawks.

1:47:14Big Cat:This early in the season, it's hard to say. We did have, I think, maybe an all-time record for most players that did the Heisman pose after doing something incredible in the game. Yes. Actually, we might see NFL week one, there might be a player that does the Heisman pose and then tries to transfer back, go back to school. It's impossible. I'm feeling myself now. There's a lot of time for court hearings between now and then. So you started with Malachi Tony. Then you had Jeremiah Smith. Yep. Florida running about Jaden Baugh gets into it. When Jaden Baugh did it, I was like, okay, let's not go crazy here.

1:47:46I kind of want to see, and that's what my co-host Ari Wasserman said, let's have the Heisman pose off between Malachi, Tony, and Jeremiah Smith because they're friends from back home in South Florida. They know each other really well. They probably talked about it. I want to see a Heisman pose off from them, like one per game. I like that. Whatever you think is the sickest thing you're going to do that day, pose.

1:48:10Big Cat:Do they know that the Heisman pose is like you have to keep two feet on the ground? So that was the one thing that Jaden Ball won was, I think, more realistic. But everybody does the Desmond Howard one. Yeah. That's what Desmond did it. And I'm going to say he did it wrong because what he did became iconic. But against Ohio State, he runs back the kick and he does the pose. That's the pose everybody does. Nobody does what Ed Smith from New York University did. By the way, usually people have the ball in the wrong hand. Yeah. Yeah. Two feet on the ground, wide base young man. None of those flashy one foot up.

1:48:45It's actually hard to get into. It is.

1:48:47Big Cat:It's definitely less swaggy than if you pick the one foot up. But this early in the season, who would you have if you want to sprinkle a few coins down on a Heisman Trophy winner? Oh, that's right. Y 'all haven't picked somebody yet. No. We have a couple weeks.

1:49:03PFT Commenter:I did throw out. I screwed up because I threw out Darian Mensah as a name I liked when we did the preseason. I'm such a fucking moron. I didn't bet it, so I'm sure it went down. Well, but the problem is Tony and Mensah, Sayan, and Smith, I feel like that's a problem. I feel like you may have an issue with stealing votes from one another. Although, I will say, remember, when Devontae Smith won it, Mack Jones was also a finalist. So it's possible to have the QB and the receiver both get enough shine. Like, if Jeremiah Smith goes and catches three touchdown passes and they beat Texas this weekend, he's going to be the guy for Ohio State that has a chance to win the Heisman.

1:49:43I think Tony could be one that could win it as a receiver because you have to go back and look at how good of a season Devontae Smith had in 2020. The numbers were off the charts. Tony could put up numbers like that. The problem is Devontae Smith was playing against a ridiculous schedule. That was the all-conference schedule because it was COVID year. Tony might get knocked for who they're playing. I think CJ Carr might have a shot guys yeah he's 11 to 1 right now good yeah yeah I think there's a really good shot because they're going to be good he's going to be I think he's better than he was last year and he was really good last year so and you saw they may not run the ball as well as they did last year they lost two first round running backs so he may have to to help carry them a

1:50:26PFT Commenter:little more and and you know what I'm gonna do it I'm gonna probably bet this uh because the one One thing that I noticed, and this was Marcus Freeman all offseason, the Leave No Doubt, the message from last year where they left out and they got left out, Leave No Doubt, what happened on Sunday night? Luke Fickle does a cowardly punt, and Marcus Freeman and Luke Fickle know each other for a very – Luke Fickle coached him at Ohio State and they were with each other. You'd think there'd be mutual respect. Marcus Freeman threw the ball. They were throwing the ball up 21 to extend the lead to 28. that's where you can get some Heisman stats.

1:51:02PFT Commenter:Those things matter. If you're going to leave, no doubt, every week. And they're going to have the same. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to have the same quality of competition issues that Miami's going to have and Tony and Mensah are going to have. So the Arch Mannings, the Sam Levitt. Yeah. Sam Levitt could be that guy. Yeah. I don't hate that. Because remember, Lane didn't unlock Trinidad until, well, Austin Simmons was the starter. Then he got hurt. And then Trinidad came in and they didn't quite, I don't think understood what they had. And then once they figured it out, he was off to the races, but like Sam Levitt could be that guy doing that all season.

1:51:41Big Cat:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, next this weekend is going to be so awesome. I can't wait for this weekend of college football, Andy. It's going to be great. It's going to be so good. Listen, and it's not just, it's not just Michigan, Oklahoma. It is not just Texas. Ohio. It's like Alabama, Kentucky is fascinating. Arizona, to BYU is really interesting. You got Tennessee, Georgia Tech. We're going to see some fun stuff this weekend. Is there one team that's still a major question mark in your eyes? One that you just have no idea what to make of them yet because they haven't been tested? USC has looked great so far.

1:52:14I don't know that their first team defense has given up a point yet. The young guys that they brought in who are very, very highly-towed recruits look fantastic. Trent Mosley, Mark Bowman, the tight end, Luke Waifel, the defensive end. have looked awesome, but I need to see this against better competition. So they've got a game against the Ragin' Cajuns, and then week four they play Oregon. That's going to tell us everything about USC. It's been the litmus test game for them. It was last year. I want to see if this is for real because Lincoln Riley, his rhetoric was very different this offseason.

1:52:51Previous offseasons, it was a lot of excuses. It was a lot of, here's the crap I inherited. This is why we can't win. None of that this year. None of it. It was, we have what we need. The window is open. And the Gary Patterson defensive coordinator hire, I mean, did you see Gary Patterson celebrating that shutout against Fresno State? Like, they wanted that bad. And I get it. It's Fresno State. But the thing is, shutouts are hard. They are. So, if it's USC, which we've bagged on their defense for as long as Lincoln Rylan's been there, who knows yeah if they if they've got a good defense now they're they're a potential playoff

1:53:30PFT Commenter:team uh all right andy the game's about to start zach you're up rowback question r-h-o-b-c-k.com promo code take 20 off your first purchase q-zips polos hoodies joggers shorts rowback.com promo code take andy is a big fan of you zach because we finally got before before zach asked his his question uh speaking of florida representation so in in the mount rushmore on friday when zach said waiting in line for gas before a hurricane my Floridian heart almost exploded because that is the worst worst line waiting you guys are talking about Chipotle and I know that was one of Zach's too but that is the worst thing ever

1:54:11Big Cat:yeah justice for Zach it was actually a great pick it was too niche Andy but I appreciate you having my back there it means more than you know I do have a quick question I know you're in Tallahassee tonight and you're a Florida man but Gator through and through what is your unbiased ceiling for Florida State this season? For Florida or Florida State? Because I can give you both. Give us both. I'll take both. I'll take both. Yeah. Florida State's ceiling feels fairly low. But Florida, boy, the offense looked good on Saturday night. They hadn't looked that good since Dan Mullen was there offensively.

1:54:46And everything John Summerall has done since he's gotten there has been he's made the right step. He's said the right things. but the question was what's it going to look like on the field and the fact that the offense looks so smooth that Buster Faulkner the new office coordinator he brought an offense that didn't look exactly like what he was running with Haynes King at Georgia Tech it looked like he had built something bespoke around Aaron Filo who's the quarterback he brought from Georgia Tech and Jaden Baugh and Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson like they they got a lot of talent so I'm very intrigued to see what they can do I don't necessarily think they're a playoff team I think defensively, I'm not sure how good they're going to be up front, not sure how good they're going to be in the back end.

1:55:25But this is a team that should be better than the Billy Napier teams. Could be an 8-9 win type team. The schedule is brutal. But I think this could be an 8-9 win type team. I appreciate that. Thank you, sir.

1:55:37PFT Commenter:There we go. Good question, Zach. Andy, you're the best, man. We'll talk to you later on in the season. Everyone listen to Andy and Ari on 3 Network, and I think they'll have a live report from Florida State SMU. I don't know if we're going to record before the end of the game, so just listen to them if you're a Florida State or SMU fan. that's right we will uh we will be breaking it down now look if it gets out of hand we may start at the beginning of the fourth quarter but i don't know this is a crowd that that expects better than that i don't think that they'd be real happy here but yeah uh osceola and renegade are about to come out so i'm gonna go watch that the flaming spear hit the hit the turf and uh best sport in the

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1:57:31Big Cat:And before we get to WMU head coach Lance Taylor, he's brought to you by our great friends over at Chevy, just like Western Michigan. Chevy knows grit. Football season's here. Whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, there's one ride that's always game ready, the Chevy Silverado. There's a reason why it's the heartbeat of America. Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. So if you're towing, hauling, tailgating, Silverado lets you show up strong and tackle any task. It's got best in class standard torque, the most functional bed, and the advanced tech that's football guy approved.

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1:58:14PFT Commenter:coach lance taylor okay we now welcome on a very very special guest it is western michigan head coach lance taylor and coach uh thank you for joining us it dawned on me on sunday because we had labor day weekend so we all watched the game on saturday night we'll get into it uh tragic way to lose a game, but it dawned on me that if Western Michigan, you guys win that game, you're probably doing every podcast, all the media, getting all the shine for the upset. And I was like, you know what? That's not fair. You should still get the shine. You should still come on the show because you guys fought your absolute ass off on Saturday night in the big house.

1:58:55PFT Commenter:And so it's like, hey, the result, we still need to have you on. So thank you for joining us. And I appreciate how hard you guys fought on Saturday night. Well, Big Cat, I appreciate you guys having me on. It's an honor. I enjoy watching you guys. You guys are hilarious. And, you know, I hoped I would be on this podcast under different circumstances as well. So, you know, we'll pretend here.

1:59:19Big Cat:Yeah, okay. All right. So, yeah, go ahead. I was going to ask because I saw at the end of the game, like a lot of different people that were watching that game, I ended up changing the channel after the clock hit zero. And it looked like you got to celebrate that game a little bit. You celebrated a big win. I'm just curious, how long did you live in a reality, in a world where Western Michigan had just beaten Michigan in the big house? Yeah, I mean, you know, there are pictures that have kind of gone viral with me throwing up the doves, you know, which, you know, I've got to be honest with you, that hurts even more, you know, just having lived in that moment, actually celebrating the first, you know, you think the game's over, you look up, the clocks are at zero, You know, honestly, our sideline rushed the field.

2:00:05Our fans were starting to go crazy behind our bench. And then the refs kind of stopped us about halfway out and just said, this is under review, coach. You got to get your players back on the sideline. So at that point, I immediately tried to reset because, you know, I still had my headset on. And I told our coaches, I said, hey, we may have another play here. Let's get our guys back on the sideline and try to reset and refocus. So it was short lived, but it was it was lived long enough to really rip your heart out. Yeah. Yeah.

2:00:35PFT Commenter:So have you have you gotten you guys have been gracious in defeat and not, you know, complained about the ruling. But what was the best explanation that you've gotten from anyone who's like, this is exactly what happened? Yeah. Well, I'll say this. I think, you know, one, I appreciate, you know, our president, you know, President Cavallona. You've probably seen him in the interviews. Like, he bleeds brown and gold. You know, he's a former prosecutor. He is sharp. He's smart. He's, you know, he's behind us the whole way. And he's wanted to pursue this to the nth degree. And, you know, I think, one, you know, I want people to know, you know, like, we wanted answers as well.

2:01:16Like, we weren't just going to let this go, you know, whether there was anything that we could do about it or not. We wanted to make sure that, you know, our kids have been, you know, our young men, our team had been treated fairly and given a fair shake. And I don't know that there's been an answer that has been, you know, that we've loved. What I will say is, is the Big Ten officials on Saturday night after the game, I'm actually on the bus ride home. And we've gone back and forth with our commissioner and the Mac and then the Big Ten officials. And they said, hey, we will produce the official review and send you that video evidence.

2:01:56We have video of the actual clock and audio from the video booth. And so what they did, I was on the bus ride home and they sent us a video. It was from the official review booth where you could hear audio of the review officials talking in real time as they're watching the play and the countdown clock going off. And they put it in super slow-mo and paused each frame. And, okay, the ball touched his hand. Here's where the second was. It was tenths of a second, I'll say that. And, you know, at that point, you know, we felt like they've cooperated with us. Do we love the fact that it doesn't match or marry the video board, you know, clock or it doesn't sync with the clock on the TV on NBC?

2:02:47No, we didn't love that. That's not an ideal situation or scenario for anybody. And to me, that's not fair to fans or to my team as you're trying to explain. hey guys you know i know it said the clock said zero right there was a different clock that we were actually looking at sinking you know yeah that's hard to explain to to you know young men and the fans and i think you know i think college football deserves better yeah i would agree the

2:03:11Big Cat:secret clock thing doesn't that doesn't fly too high like that's that we saw that with the world cup this summer it's like the secret clock is good for nobody except for somebody that that might have an agenda that might want things to go uh in their direction whatever that might might be but now you've got a job to do as a coach where you've got a team that went out there and fought their ass off um was a very physical team um so a lot of people would say outplayed michigan in that game uh if we're looking at the totality of it and uh now you have to find a way to to not let this throw the entire season sideways so uh what's the vibe been inside the locker room just in the in the brief amount of time you've got to spend with the guys and where do you see this going from this point on?

2:03:53Well, I've been really proud of our team, just how they've handled this, because, I mean, it's an emotional roller coaster now. I mean, it's like, it's the craziest thing I've ever been on. And as 20 years of coaching, and then, you know, having been a player as well, this is the wildest ending that I've ever had. And especially, you know, we just talked about thinking you won the game, going out, actually celebrating, and then having another play that there becomes a different outcome. I think it was very tough for our players. Everybody saw on NBC kind of after the game, you know, our players on the field, there were tears in the locker room.

2:04:30And that's hard as a head coach, as you come in the locker room, because what do you say? I mean, they laid it all on the line. They played their hearts out. And to me, that was really the message. I wanted to be real and authentic with our team. Like, hey, guys, I love you. I'm proud of you. This stinks. There's nothing I can say or do that's going to take that away. But at the end of the day, it really is about how we respond because whether you, you know, whether we won that game or not, and that would have been a huge win. We'd never beaten Michigan. It would have been an unbelievable win in the, you know, and really our season and in our, in the history of Western Michigan football.

2:05:06But our goals are still on the table. Like they're not in our conference. You know, we still play a great G6 opponent in Boise State. We can go still win the MAAC. All of our goals are still on the table. And so that's what you really just try to impress upon the guys is like, listen, you hurt and you should hurt right now because you laid it all on one. And there's a lot of people proud of you because of how you played. And you proved on national television that you came in a big house and played with a nationally ranked football team and went toe to toe. And a team who is traditionally known as a physical football team, you were more physical than them.

2:05:43Yeah. Their head coach told me that at the end of the game. We saw it on the field. Everybody who watches this game, regardless of what the scoreboard said, can take that away. I mean, can't take that away. They can put another second back on the clock, but they can't take that away.

2:05:56PFT Commenter:All right, I love that message. Let me add another one. I think you've got to tell the guys, hey, look, let's put the committee in a bind. Let's win the rest of our games and put the committee in a bind because I bet you if you guys run the table, like you said, you play Boise, that could be an elimination game if you're able to win the MAAC and run the table in the MAAC. that committee if you only have one loss next to your name come come after thanksgiving and the one loss is a game that's like hey they got screwed that's that's that's the message is like you you control everything right now and you've been you've been a great coach i mean the the turnaround you've done at western michigan winning the mac last year uh do you feel like because i know it happened saturday night were you around the guys today on monday could you feel the vibe shift back where it's like all right now we've turned the page and we're ready to go I did.

2:06:44Yeah. I mean, and that's a great point, because that was that was honestly what we talked about today. It was like you got the attention of the committee. You got the attention of the college football world. Now, what are we going to do with it? Right. And I think that's what's been pretty cool. I mean, you know, it's kind of been an emotional roller coaster. I feel like I've been pulled a bunch of different directions trying to be there for my team and our staff and coaches. and they've done an excellent job. They've probably handled it better at times than I have. I'm selfish. I wanted to win that game.

2:07:16They've done a great job of, hey, let's reset and refocus and get back to work. They were awesome today when I saw them. We've got great leadership. One of the things I'm proud of is we won the MAAC championship last year. We won 10 games. We won 10 out of our last 11 games. and we didn't lose a single offensive or defensive starter in the transfer portal. And that just doesn't happen in the G5 anymore. I mean, almost all of those guys, you know, were offered more money to go to bigger schools with more bells and whistles, and they decided to come back to Western Michigan. And I think that that shows, you know, that there's a belief in buy-in and what we're doing and that they want to play with each other, that there's something special here at WMU, and they feel like we can have a really special team.

2:08:02and I think that that showed on Saturday night for everybody. It's what I've seen for a long time, that we can have a special team.

2:08:09Big Cat:I know you want to move forward, and as a good coach, that's probably where your mindset should be, but as a fan of the sport, I'm still dwelling on the ending of that game and how it does feel like it was an all-time moment that was ripped from you and ripped from the players on your team that worked so hard to make it happen. And watching it back, even with the explanation that they gave, which I would highly doubt that they would have spent that much time trying to find another second if the shoe was on the other foot and you all were attempting those Hail Marys at the last second. But has anybody given you an explanation to the fact that on the Big Ten video you can't actually see the ball when it touches your player's hand?

2:08:49Big Cat:On the new angle with the clock overlaid that we didn't see earlier, you still can't ever see that. You can guess and say, you know, with some degree of certainty that you think that's when it hit him, but you don't actually see the ball touch. No, I mean, listen, most of it doesn't make sense. And it really does. You know, the stories don't necessarily match the video evidence. And listen, when you go to video review, it's just like any other, you know, what we've been told is there has to be inconclusive evidence that the call on the field, like there's something different than what the call on the field was.

2:09:24Well, they blew the game up like the game was over. Right. And they bring us back to look at the video. And then they put one second back on the clock. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know that I'm you know, we're satisfied with, you know, the explanation or even the evidence that they've shown. I think at the end of the day, you know, for us, it's about moving on. And and for me as a head coach, like, listen, you know, I was there in the press conference after after the game. And my two young kids, you know, my wife and two kids are sitting there. You know, my son is 12. My daughter's eight.

2:09:58You know, they're sixth and fourth grade. And, you know, I'm trying, you know, I'm trying to show them how to handle adversity in a way that, you know, I probably want to get up there and pitch a fit. You know, there's a side of me that's selfish and I want to go on a rant and really say what I want to say and say how I really feel. But I don't think that does anybody any good. You know, certainly doesn't do our players any good. and doesn't set the right example, even though that's probably humanly, from a human standpoint, and selfishly you want to do. And so, but I did know even at that point, like our president, and we were going to make sure that we pursued that to get some sort of answer, whether it was accurate or not.

2:10:44But we were basically told after the game, like, listen, it doesn't matter what's determined. the outcome of the game is not changing. That's basically what we were told. Once the clock is officially zero and they submit the score, it's not changing.

2:10:58Big Cat:Once the clock hits negative one second, we can't do anything to change the score.

2:11:03PFT Commenter:But like I said, I do think your team, the profile that you're going to gain from this is going to be with what you – it depends on what you guys are able to do with it, but everyone's going to be rooting for Western Michigan going forward. and I will say we're big grit guys on this podcast. We've been doing a grit week for 10 years. You have grit on your helmet. Yeah. We usually save this for grit week, but what does the word grit mean to you and how are you applying grit in this situation? Yeah, that was something that our players, our leadership council, two years ago said that they wanted to embody and really wanted the identity and mentality of our football team to be.

2:11:46And really it's – we're going to do whatever it takes to win, and it's going to – we're going to train in a gritty way in everything that we do, from how we train, how we live, to how we condition, to how we practice. And ultimately, grit is not something that we put on a T-shirt, but it's how we live. And so our guys have kind of embodied that. If you watched us the past two years, I think that we have a gritty style of play. Our quarterback is gritty. We say it's not always pretty, but it's going to be gritty. And I think that's a tough physical brand of football that, you know, we're going to find a way to win the game.

2:12:25And honestly, you know, that was the way I felt on Saturday night. I had complete confidence and belief in our team because over the last two years, we have found ways to win almost every single close game. Even when we were down under two minutes to Toledo, we had to score a touchdown and get a two-point conversion. You know, we were down late in our rivalry game against Central Michigan. We had to score on fourth and sixth from the goal line to beat Central Michigan. And all those things, you know, culminated. We've just been a gritty football team. Whatever or however it takes to find a way to win a football game, our kids have found a way to do that.

2:13:02I love that. Yeah, that's awesome. What was your message to your team? We'll send you some Western Michigan grit hats. I love that. And a helmet.

2:13:11Big Cat:Yeah, wear them. We'll put the helmet up, absolutely. For sure. What was the final message to your team before the game? Because it did look like you guys weren't scared. That's one thing anybody could see from the get-go. It's like Western Michigan, they believe they could win it. So what did you tell them in that final speech before kickoff? I just said we belong. We prepared for the moment. You guys are ready. We've had a great week of preparation. and you've prepared starting in the winter, summer, how we've trained and, you know, have the confidence and belief in each other that we do belong and believe in each other and fight for 60 minutes.

2:13:46And I think they did show that. They went out there and did it. And there was, you know, there was an eerie, you know, calm and confidence. A lot of times in those, you know, P4 games, especially like in the big house in game one, you know, there's a control chaos where the noise, the fans, the moment almost seems too big sometimes in those moments. I think our guys just handled the poison. They had poison in the noise. It was pretty cool to see. They were confident that we were going to win there in the end.

2:14:20PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right, Coach, I got one last question for you. It's a rowback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20 % off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code TAKE. I'm sure you saw in the MAC, I'm a big MAC fan, Akron trying to – they did that whole promotion where someone's going to get to be an offensive coordinator for the first drive. I was a finalist. I was close. I was one of eight. I saw. Yeah. Do you have Shark Wheel in your playbook? Okay. So you got to diagram shark will for me. I don't know. Let's see if we got this here. It's literally just the running back coming out of the flat and running like down the sideline.

2:15:03PFT Commenter:I used to have the quarterback roll out to the same side, put the linebacker in hell, hit him for a touchdown, and then spam that play like 25 times. The computer never catches up. We actually called that in the Michigan game. Oh, okay. They covered the running back. We hit the tight end on the league coming back. Love that. Okay. So, yeah, it was a good completion for us in the Michigan game. You'll have to go back and watch it. All right, so, yeah, more Shark Wheel. That would be my only advice to you. Yeah, just spam that play. It's hard to defend. Well, you know, you didn't win the opportunity to call a play for Akron.

2:15:37Maybe we can make it happen where you have a play for Western Michigan here, you know. That would be fun. That sounds like a pretty cool idea.

2:15:44PFT Commenter:Yeah, we should. We'll bring all the boys out to Kalamazoo. We have a great time.

2:15:48Big Cat:You've got to be careful offering that because we've got a whole file of dumbass ideas. We might really weigh down your program Those are always the best plays though The ones that you're like that's not going to work There's no chance Get ready to learn fake punt punt Or maybe a triple Fake flea flicker You toss it back Then you fake the toss again then you run it We got him We'll make you so much worse Just give us a second

2:16:15PFT Commenter:We're ready to go Well coach thank you so much Really really respect the hell out of you guys and your program, you guys fought your asses off on Saturday night. Like I said at the start, you would have probably been doing all the shows, and it's bullshit that that doesn't happen, so we wanted to have you on. We'll definitely rep some Western Michigan stuff, and if we can ever make it to Kalamazoo for a game, we'd love to come. Really appreciate you guys having me on. You guys are the best. Appreciate it.

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2:17:46PFT Commenter:Okay. Max is back. Max you want to sit With the mic Max first of all we missed you dude Did you miss us at what point In the two week Sex vacation were you like alright this is too much Sex I wouldn't say it was Too much Sex I will say Damn dude you got what Vince Carter You got one more in me no such thing am I right I was having like the perfectly average amount of Sex

2:18:16Big Cat:like that's what i said i'm not i'm not a marathon guy that's exactly verbatim what i say about my height yeah i'm not a marathon guy you know it's it's i run the football when it come when it comes to the bedroom um how was that was the honeymoon it was it was very nice i will say at like day 10 i was like i i'm i miss the boys yeah i wanted to come back to the boys yeah two weeks was a long time i had a really good time where did you go i went everywhere it was we would go for one place for like two days and then we would go somewhere else so tell us where you went nice

2:18:53PFT Commenter:as san tropez where what country are these places those are all in france okay so one week in for that was the one week in france were you did you go like like uh banana hammock at the beach No. Okay. You were wearing like - I was wearing - You should have worn the Max Speedo. Yeah. No, I don't even own one of those. I did see that Oldie was ripping it at camp, though. Yeah. Yeah. He looked good. Ripping it is correct. And then I did Piedmont, Lake Como, Milan, Italy. Wow. I don't think that was an Italian noise that you just made.

2:19:30Big Cat:Yeah, so you were a little late on the French. But it was awesome. It was definitely like a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

2:19:37PFT Commenter:What was the best meal you had? Alfredo? People were getting on you for the Alfredo tweet. No. Alfredo is just not. The Alfredo that people think in America, you'll never find that. Right. That's what I'm saying. So you tweeting that was crazy. Oh, right. I thought people were getting on me. Got it.

2:20:00Big Cat:No, you tweeted out how much Alfredo. Right, right. I tweeted that. Alfredo is LeBron James. I forgot that was a tweet that came from my account. There were a couple of tweets that came from my account that were not me. But that's fine. That is what it is. It is what it is. Favorite city? Favorite meal. My favorite trip was actually Piedmont. I went there for two nights, one day. Huh-huh. California? Just like wine country in Italy, like very, very small town. Went to a couple different wineries. You were just manhandling those wine glasses. Oh, yeah. 100%. And we went to...

2:20:32PFT Commenter:You gotta be the most American guy. Oh, yeah. Well, it was the slow season for that town. So we went to two different wine tastings where there were supposed to be five people there. And me and my wife were the only people at both of the wine tastings. So it was just us and the guide who barely spoke English at both of the ones that we went to. And they just kept pouring us more wine because they ran out of things to say. that they were like, oh, we're only supposed to give you this much, but we'll give you more. We'll give you more. Hell yeah. So that was cool. Nice. All right, best meal? Best meal was also in Piedmont.

2:21:10See, here's the thing. We did like a fancy Michelin dinner one night, and then we also did just like the normal hotel dinner. Same night? Michelin? No. Two different nights. You muck banged in Italy? We did no muck banging. I've always Zach should be getting in the mukbang game But that's a different story

2:21:32PFT Commenter:What's the mukbang exactly? You just put food everywhere? You eat and you talk about what you're eating But if you eat a lot of food Those guys go crazy Those accounts go absolutely nuts Yeah or like There's like a love seat They open it up and it's just raviolis There's a guy on TikTok right now Who's doing Chinese buffet reviews I saw that until he gets sick No, until he gets food poisoning. He is awesome. He's my favorite guy online. Mullet Reviews. Shout out to that guy. I saw that the other day. That's a side of the point of this vacation. It was a very fun vacation. Piedmont was the best food.

2:22:10Did you meet any Philly fans over there? No. Lake Como is America. That's the other thing I found. Everyone in Lake Como is American. And it is very much. It's a great place. Absolutely beautiful.

2:22:26Big Cat:but like there's no Italian people there no so no no birds fans there no there were that like I no one came up to me for like the first 10 days of the trip when I was in France and in Piedmont and then when I got to Lake Como it was like just like I was in it was just all

2:22:42PFT Commenter:different American people visiting so there was some Eagles chance going I wouldn't say Eagles chance but it was did you do any Eagles chance no no like did you say go birds at all yeah no I I did not.

2:22:53Big Cat:It's been over two weeks since you've said go birds. No, I was saying go birds. Oh, okay.

2:22:58PFT Commenter:Because, yeah. Well, in Lake Como. That'd be funny if like the first 10 days when Max had no one coming up to him, his wife was like, yeah, you just keep saying go birds in your sleep. I could have been doing that. Get out of your system. She wears earplugs. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My wife like gets strapped up. She looks like she's an astronaut. She gets the fucking face mask, the earplugs, the fan. I did listen to the one day where you were like These gifts better be good They better not be shot glasses Yeah I mean I think it's like It's kind of similar It's like you know if you get fired from a jail You get severance You get severance for how long you've been there You were gone for 14-15 days You missed some pretty big stuff You missed the camp barstool You missed the grudge match Some big big stuff So the gifts should be appropriate To how long you were gone Okay.

2:23:53So I had already gotten the other gifts. So do we have two rounds of gifts? We have two rounds of gifts.

2:23:59PFT Commenter:Oh, so give us the shitty gifts first. I love this. This is actually great. So the first round was done. So this is a round of gifts before you heard us saying you better bring back good gifts. Correct. Some of these are for the booth boys, too. And the guys outside. You just got us pasta? You just got us whole foods? No, no, no. I did get you food. Big Cat, this is authentic Italian pistachio cream. Actually, fantastic.

2:24:31Big Cat:Is that for your face? No, you eat it. You eat this? Yes, it's so good.

2:24:35PFT Commenter:Okay, and I'm not a big pistachio guy, but that's fine. Read that one wrong. I have hazelnut as well. No, I don't like hazelnut either. You don't? Okay. I'll take the pistachio.

2:24:49Big Cat:just really it's almost like he went back and got different gifts he doesn't know anything about you

2:24:56PFT Commenter:pistachio cream so you put this you put this on your eyes yeah on your face no you put it on like toast

2:25:00Big Cat:it's good for wrinkles I think you put it on your eyes no you definitely don't put it on your eyes you jack off with it PFT this is from a farmer's market in Antibes actually they had a bunch of different uh jams and this was the best one they had a bunch of like tastings. Those are terrible. Wait, wait, wait. What flavor jam? It's melon. I've never had it before. I know that you... I see you eat on crustables every day, so I thought maybe you would try this. That's true, and I love melons.

2:25:30PFT Commenter:By the way, I would like to just say that I am open to trades on the pistachio cream. Hank, you got the... Do I rub this on my hands? It's hazelnut Italian. It's like Nutella. For like coffee? For coffee? No, it's like Nutella. What do you mean? I just said it's like Nutella, and you asked if it's for coffee. It's hazelnut. Yes.

2:25:53Big Cat:Nutella is made out of hazelnut and chocolate. It's really melony.

2:25:56PFT Commenter:Do you want some pistachio cream? Oh, it smells good.

2:26:00Big Cat:Yeah, I love pistachio. Do you like melons? Yeah, yeah. Let's trade. All right, good.

2:26:04PFT Commenter:Pistachio is my favorite nut. I'd like to trade the melon for any pasta that you might have. All right, fine. Hank, how's that hazelnut? Oh, I love it. It tastes like Nutella. Great gift. Pasta. this is a good gift I also have an Elton John bobblehead for some fun I just got this

2:26:23Big Cat:yeah alright we'll just put this on Max already broken oh no Max this no he's good it honestly did break in transit but my wife had super glue that we were able to use pistachio cream is incredible I also have this bobblehead for somebody else what's that Messi

2:26:47PFT Commenter:I know a guy that would love that I know a perfect guy for that one that'll be for you alright would you like me to get to my other gifts yeah wait so wait what did memes get pasta you just spammed pasta memes got dick and balls for shot glasses okay or no so you had all these gifts and you heard us being like you better not bring us back shot glasses i had all of those gifts before before you said all this okay so these are good pre-gifts this is actually then really then i was in milan and i was like all right like my last trip was milan before or after you i i heard all of that and i was like what is milan known for milan is known for designer items so i went to a designer outlet store all right and tried to find designer items that I could bring back.

2:27:46Turns out, even a designer outlet store, the brands that you think... That's a big wind-up. They're still extremely expensive.

2:27:56PFT Commenter:Okay. So, you don't love us? Is that what you're trying to say?

2:28:02Big Cat:Bear that in mind. You don't love us. So I went to the counterfeit guy down the street. So my first gift is a pair of Prada socks for Big Cat.

2:28:12PFT Commenter:I will never wear those socks They're Prada These are Prada socks When would I ever wear those socks You wear a suit for Advisors Once a week And you can wear Prada socks These are Prada socks Prada socks are officially open to trades Here's the other thing Nothing in Italy Is You almost doxed me dude You almost doxed me. That was fucked up. You almost doxed my fucking size. My next thing. I like how you had to stop yourself in like a 2X.

2:28:53Big Cat:Well, there's Italy 2X. I didn't think that you were an Italy 1X. How much did those socks cost? A lot.

2:29:02PFT Commenter:250 dinero. Whoa. I don't know what that is. Lira? No, they were marked. That's the euro. 250 euro I think it was 130 euro that was marked down from 200 all of this is from I went to an outlet store but it was all I spent like a thousand euro at this place on shitty stuff well you told me I didn't I know we wanted like an Italian flag or like a sombrero what does that fucking mean you know what I'm saying like a velour so then my next thing a tiny flute Also, that was the only name brand of anything in the store that I could have got was those Prada socks. Okay. These are beautiful Prada socks.

2:29:44PFT Commenter:Hank, would you like Prada socks? No. Okay. They're Prada. Prada socks. Anyone likes some Prada socks? Yeah, but you've got to be able to show them off or else it's like I'm wearing designer, but those are socks you wear underneath pants that no one would ever see. They have the Prada metal logo on the sock. They're legit. and then I once I realized that I was like I need to just find for your bat at home all right deal yeah that's actually that's elite that's elite socks on that um okay so then once I realized that we weren't going to be able to get the name brand of name brands I just started to look for funny stuff inside of this store um and that started with you went to like the Italian and spitzer's gifts you you you you blew your whole budget on a pair of socks so all right here we go now we're getting yeah so this is from my wife was also looking with me i was like i need to come back with good gifts unironically she was like i think hank would look really good oh that is nice so this is rank what is that say on it pfd actually has two here okay what no strep I don't know what it says, but she was like, I could see Hank.

2:30:53Yeah, I like that Hank. PFT, you actually have two, and you have the option to gift one of these to a friend.

2:31:00PFT Commenter:Okay. Or join forces with a friend. Or what about trade them for Prada socks? Or trade them for Prada socks. All right. The first is I feel like you need louder sweatpants. Yes. I do, yeah.

2:31:10Big Cat:My sweatpants game has been a tozer girl. Are those chicks? No, these are men's sweatpants for sure. Those are juicy sweatpants. These are not juicy sweatpants. There's nothing on the butt. What? There's nothing on the butt, no. That's how you can tell. These are perfectly men's.

2:31:25PFT Commenter:Are you sure about that? Okay, so now I'm understanding. Yes, there's an... What size is that? This is a large... Okay, so now I'm understanding why I can only get size. This is a large, but I felt like it could work for PFT.

2:31:38Big Cat:Okay, yeah, I like that JMU color. Yeah, this is why I... So part two of this gift... Mm-hmm. I got you a Jerry O 'Connell shirt.

2:31:47PFT Commenter:Oh, no. That you can either gift to Jerry O 'Connell or if you want to play the card of Jerry O 'Connell.

2:31:53Big Cat:Well, I mean, Jerry, he did take over fantasy full ownership for me. So I think I have to at least try it on. Yeah. We have to see if it fits. Thank you, Max.

2:32:03PFT Commenter:Great gift.

2:32:04Big Cat:These are some good sweatpants. I think the next one I'll give to memes. I think he actually will really like. Fanny pack for memes. Or I think this is a fanny pack. It's a bag. It's a bag for memes.

2:32:17PFT Commenter:Oh, that's sick. Let me see it. Well, Zach also got one, too. Whoa. Zach says... Oh, sweet. I kind of want this. Memes, you want some socks? I do like socks. The socks are... Zach will take the... I know Zach would appreciate the Prada socks. All gifts are appreciated. Huh? I can't... All gifts are appreciated. This is a cool little bag. Good bag. Nice. It's like a purse. And then there's another bag. This one is around the waist. All right. this one could be dicey it's a little but we'll figure that out

2:32:50Big Cat:I'm getting lost in the fish pack that's good gifts and yeah I have some others show us what the other ones are I got this for Shane

2:33:04PFT Commenter:oh that's perfect this felt like a Shane shirt to me Shane get in here

2:33:10Big Cat:that's actually a great date shirt for Shane and then I have some bucket hats I tried to look for the biggest shirts For Colton Like I said They don't do those What do you think Should I give this to Jerry or should I keep it I should keep it I kind of feel hot in this I feel like it looks good I feel good for a kick and field goals tomorrow I feel beautiful

2:33:40PFT Commenter:Let me see the bucket hats You got lightheaded Blue one Blue one for Jacob Gators I can't really catch with my socks on And then this black one here For Colton

2:33:57Big Cat:Matching bunkeys for the boys I like those I also have Olive oil Shane put that shirt on I got olive oil for Colton Because Pug loves olive oil And Colton is just Pug and give Shane the shirt where's the shirt what happened to it

2:34:21PFT Commenter:oh yeah that is a Shane shirt I thought you would really like it and it was and it was an XL Shane with those sweatpants and that shirt you look ready to go to a strip club yeah yeah that looks good I mean, that's a good looking shirt. That's a good shirt. You like my socks, Shane? Prada. Pretty cool. They're Prada. Prada. No big deal. Thank you. All right. Good job, Max. No, you did a good job. We're happy you're back. We missed the fuck out of you. This is sick. You look great.

2:34:55Big Cat:This is sick. What did you think about Pete Prisco's appearance on the show? I think you guys did a really good job of defending Jalen Hurts. I did not. I think you guys did a really, really good job of defending somebody else.

2:35:05PFT Commenter:Would you take Trevor Lawrence or Jalen Hurts? I would take Jalen Hurts. Would you? You sure?

2:35:11Big Cat:Yeah. What if they switch rosters? Would you rather have Jalen Hurts on the Jaguars or Trevor Lawrence on the Eagles? I would like to see Trevor Lawrence with Kevin Petulo as his offensive coordinator.

2:35:23PFT Commenter:What about Trevor Lawrence with Kevin Moore as his offensive coordinator? He would probably be pretty good. Yeah. Maybe better than Jalen Hurts. I don't know. What? He's going to win two Super Bowls? Maybe. Yeah. You don't know. Well, Jalen Hurts could have won multiple Super Bowls. Right, I know.

2:35:42Big Cat:What if Trevor Lawrence didn't fumble that ball? Jalen Hurts is batting 1 ,000 for Super Bowls with Kellen Moore. Yes, with Kellen Moore. Oh, with Kellen Moore. Correct. He was there for one season. So I guess we'll never know. Yeah. Well, he can't do better.

2:35:56PFT Commenter:No, he could. MVP and Super Bowl. Well, he won Super Bowl MVP. No, I know, but MVP of the league and Super Bowl MVP would be better. Okay, maybe. So it sounds like there's still room.

2:36:10Big Cat:I can't wait for Sunday, Max.

2:36:12PFT Commenter:Yeah. The fact you guys are playing in the afternoon, too, is crazy. I hate that part of it. Max, you have to, like, demolish them. No, I know. I wish there was a buffer game, like a warm-up game. The fact that we got to go right into it. Also, we're Chicago week is coming. Yeah, but there's a very good chance, a high chance that the Bears and Eagles play Monday night football and then the Phillies and Cubs play the NL wild card the next day, three game series. All in Chicago. Possibly. Possibly all in Chicago. Cubs have this. The Cubs just. I don't. The pitching is just. PCA is just doing historic things every game.

2:36:57PFT Commenter:Then they're like, oh, and then. The Phillies and the Cubs are also just the complete opposite teams. Yeah. Like, the Phillies' offense gets so fucking cold, but their starting pitching is insane. So it'll be fun. Yeah. It'll be really fun. That will actually be an incredible week for this podcast. Like, we would just, every night, we would go to a different game. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Yeah, I don't know if I can get, I don't know if I can go to all, but I would pick the playoff games over the Monday Night Football game. But, yeah. We would probably, yeah. If it's in Philadelphia, we'll go to Monday Night Football and then stream the others.

2:37:34PFT Commenter:I'm excited for playoff baseball.

2:37:35Big Cat:And then we got Jets-Bears on that Sunday. I think the Jets are going to be good. Yeah, Sunday. I can't wait for Sunday. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. I can't wait for Sunday.

2:37:45PFT Commenter:Yeah, I have the...

2:37:47Big Cat:I'm back to being overconfident. My mood swing last week has been 180 degrees flipped around. Who do the Bucs have week one? Week one, we play... You gotta know this Zach, this is bad preparation You gotta know week one Cincinnati Bengals Are we asking where we play? Yeah,

2:38:15PFT Commenter:I have the perfect week The Panthers is the perfect week one game You gotta win it But it's like No pressure Like the Vikings are playing the Packers Alright, numbers 3, 5, 1 15 10 55 89 69 Anyone get it while I was gone? No, it means that

2:38:43Wait, so it's EOS Commander?

2:38:45Big Cat:Yeah, in the afternoon too America's Game of the Week Is it? Probably, I just said it It sounded right 21 21 Anyone Let's do one more. Let's do one more. Let's see. 10.

2:39:28What do we got?

2:39:30PFT Commenter:13.

2:39:33Big Cat:Happy birthday to Mark Andrews. Happy birthday to Matthew Della Vadova, the goat. Happy birthday, Kevin Love. Happy birthday to the Gillette Stadium Lighthouse. Fuck yeah. Asterix. Fuck yeah. Real lighthouses don't have birthdays. That's a great birthday. Happy birthday to Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Ohio State University super donor and all around giant fan and supporter of the Buckeyes, Les Wexner. Love you guys.

2:40:37We'll be right back.

2:40:57Thank you.

2:41:26Thank you.

2:41:56Thank you.