Grit Week Continues, Lane Kiffin, Blake Bortles, Wemby’s Incredible Game 1, Knicks Kill The Cavs Plus Hot Seat/Cool Throne

14:11PFT Commenter:With Wemby standing in front of them, they all look so cute, like little munchkins. It was so fucking awesome.

14:16Big Cat:What is your definition? You said by definition that was aura farming. Yeah, he knew what he was doing. He was standing in front of the bench. He hit an awesome shot, and then he looked at his teammates and was like, yeah. No, he looked to the crowd. Then he looked at his teammates. He was like, yeah, I'm the best. And he wanted to capture that moment. That's aura farming. Why do we have to turn that into something negative? It's not negative.

14:41PFT Commenter:Are you aura farming right now? You're doing a face. I think memes might be. Oh, you're doing a face right now. Memes might be aura farming.

14:47Big Cat:No, aura farming, you're just farming aura. And that's what he did in that moment. I don't know. It seems like it's a negative connotation. I think he just hit the shot, and it was an awesome moment.

14:58PFT Commenter:I got to say, I don't care about aura farming. I don't even understand it. It was just cool. They looked so cute, going crazy for them. It was cool. I mean, Wemby, I can't stop thinking about Wemby. And SGA was not good. For his standards, he's got to be better. They were doing a good job double teaming him. Wemby also was just playing like free safety and being like, hey, let's just let Lou Dort shoot. And that's a tough when you when your shots don't fall. That's tough. Can I do real quick? Just rattle off some Wemby stats for you guys just because they're so awesome. OK. Wemby is the first player with 35 points and 20 rebounds in a conference finals game since Charles Barkley in 1993, at least 35 points and 20 rebounds.

15:43PFT Commenter:Wemby was the youngest player since Kareem with 40 points and 20 rebounds in a playoff game. Wemby had 41 points and 24 rebounds. Only players to reach those numbers in a playoff game since 1968, Charles Barkley, Hakeem, Hakeem again, Wilt, and Kareem. that's pretty insane company yeah uh wendy also had 24 rebounds the thunder starters had 23 insane also uh the thunder they're on off with wendy on and off the floor when wendy was off the floor the thunder went 10 for 16 from the field when wendy was on the floor they went 16 for 50. It's the Kirk Goldsberry stat that he had at the end of the regular season when he basically was like, if you look at the numbers, whenever Wemby is playing on the court, he basically makes the other team a lesser version of the Brooklyn Nets in terms of offensive efficiency.

16:48PFT Commenter:He's that special. And I think, I'm going to say something, I think I'm starting to feel bad for LeBron because Wemby's probably better than LeBron and he's probably going to have a better career than LeBron. And it happened right after. At this age.

17:02Big Cat:There are these moments in the playoffs that you always look at. We'll look back at that game and be like, that's when Wimby announced himself. Yeah. Like with LeBron, I would say it was probably that series against the Pistons where he just said, okay, it's going to be me against all you guys. Yeah, when he scored, yeah, whatever it was,

17:19PFT Commenter:like 20 points in a row or something.

17:20Big Cat:This was when Wimby was like, okay, I'm a superstar, and he was by far the best player on the court. He's probably the best player in the NBA. I would say here's where I'm at with Wemby. He has to win a minimum.

17:36PFT Commenter:Seven championships has to if he doesn't disappointment. Okay. Okay. I mean, I think that the problem with Wemby is he is seven five. So the injury concern, you just hope he stays healthy because he's so much fun to watch. Seven championship, Hanks. What do you think? That's ridiculous. Okay. Why? Why? Why would you say that? When you said that, Hank was like, literally made a disgusted face and threw his hands down. Why would you say that? That's ridiculous. Seven is a, seven, I mean, that's. They're doing a bit right now.

18:10Big Cat:Just play along, Hank. Oh, yeah. Agreed. No, thank you. Okay. Hey, I would love to have Hank just like react to everything that we say. That's a joke. Just like, that's ridiculous. Why would you say that?

18:23PFT Commenter:I do kind of like the Thunder in game two because it did feel like the Thunder or the Spurs, not that they're happy with, you know, it's only game one, but they emptied the tank and the Thunder do go 10 deep. So like Wemby played so many minutes. He left it all out. He was gassed. He was just like throwing his body around at the end.

18:47Big Cat:So what's crazy is in the regular season, they put him on a big time minutes restriction. They held him back, and the plan was always going to be get to the playoffs, unleash Wimby. And then when you do that, then you have the natural question of, can he deal with more minutes? How's his fitness going to be? He's in great shape, and he was hitting that shot at the very end after all those minutes when he was exhausted. I don't know what you can do to stop the guy.

19:13PFT Commenter:No.

19:14Big Cat:I don't see how it's possible to stop him.

19:16PFT Commenter:No, he's, I mean, if he gets the ball anywhere near the rim, it's in. He can dribble. He can shoot. He can do everything. And then on defense, he just, everyone has to alter their shot. Again, I mean, this stat alone, with Wemby off the floor, the Thunder were 10 for 16 from the field. With Wemby on the floor, they were 16 for 50. Now, they could probably, if they make some more open threes, they probably, you know, everything looks different. But still, that's just what he does defensively.

19:46Big Cat:And I like how he's got like a little bit of a mean streak in him. Now, it might just be because he's going up against Chet and they've got a great rivalry that's gone back years where they it looks like they actually don't like each other, which I love. I love seeing those guys go at it like that. So that gave him a little bit more motivation. But I guess the only way you can stop the guy is like get him in foul trouble. Yeah. Besides that, I don't really know what you can do.

20:10PFT Commenter:It was a crazy performance. And again, we listened to the majority. We saw the end of the game in overtime on TV, but we listened to the game in Vanny Woodhead. I kind of like listening to a game. It feels, I don't know. I just, you feel locked in.

20:26Big Cat:And it's a different experience when you listen to the game on the radio as opposed to like just listening to like the TV. Yeah. You know, like, because you can go like YouTube TV and have that play through the stereo. No, we were doing radio. We were going to the radio. PJ Carlissimo. Yep, that's right.

20:39PFT Commenter:Yeah, and his all-time horse voice. Yep. Yeah. The other game we had, it was a great night for – great two nights for playoffs. The Canadiens advance, feel terrible for Buffalo, kind of a soft goal. Yep. Sabres, like Montreal jumped out early and it felt like the Sabres were the better team for the last two periods, and that just sucks for Buffalo.

21:02Big Cat:Heartbreaking way to lose. Yeah.

21:04PFT Commenter:Yeah, and you're one step closer to having to eat two croissants a day.

21:08Big Cat:Yeah.

21:08PFT Commenter:Which – Move to become a French citizen.

21:10Big Cat:Yeah, become a French citizen. I think that the hurricanes, I'm putting some faith in them for the first time. I will be rooting for the Carolina Hurricanes. Yeah, you're good. Oh. Why do you say that, Hank? You're good? They're like the Knicks. The Hurricanes are that much better. Well, that's ridiculous.

21:32PFT Commenter:He's doing a bit, Hank. I was doing a bit. He's doing a bit back to you. I'm so jealous of memes right now. No, he just Twitter searched Knicks and has just been scrolling ever since that. What have you been finding? That's the best. It's the best feeling after a win. And you're just, what is everyone saying? He can Twitter search Brunson. Oh, yeah. It's all night. He can Twitter search Harden. You can watch Locked on Cavs. Listen to Locked on Cavs tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to get some Locked on Cavs. What do you find in memes? Do tell. The Cavs had a 99.9 % chance of winning this game.

22:08Oh, man. That's obvious.

22:10PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. That is. It's just so good.

22:14Big Cat:Zach or memes. This is a great Revell tweet. What did I say? I'm deactivating. MGM building a new hotel wing in Las Vegas off tonight. 95 % of the money bet at a sports book was on Knicks minus 7.5 tonight. They're down 20 with 7.29 to go. Oh.

22:34PFT Commenter:they did cover love that one by 11 um by 11 memes or zach you can answer this question so um

22:40Big Cat:obviously great comeback but the fact that they were down by so much are you just completely like wiping that off throwing that off to like it was a long layoff so we had to knock the rust and then we're good moving forward or is there any lingering concern with the fact that you guys we're down so big in this game. So I would say to that is in sweeping a team, you then get to rest. Too much rest may lead to hibernation, and sometimes it takes a bear a little bit to wake up. But when the bear wakes up, you better watch out.

23:12PFT Commenter:The Cavs are dead. Let's just say it. The Cavs are dead. Like, you can't lose that game. They called one timeout in the 30-8 run. James Harden got cooked. They were up 20 in the fourth quarter. The Knicks snatched their soul, snatched their heart. It's over. I'm sorry. I mean, what are we talking about? You know that means. You know in your heart of hearts, like, you can't lose a game when you're up 20 with how much time was left? Eight minutes? Yeah, 7.30. I thought they were going to take out the starters. That was the vibe that it was going towards. Like, a minute more, it would have been like, take out the starters.

23:54PFT Commenter:Jalen Brunswick was like, no, I'm going to fucking fry James Harden and we're going to be back in this game. Yeah, I think we're good. But the third quarter defense when they were double teaming at half court, I don't know what the fuck that was. So we need to actually make some coaching adjustments and not double team, leave their three-point shooter. You played like shit and you won. It was so bad. But it was a great basketball game.

24:17Big Cat:You worried about Mitchell?

24:18PFT Commenter:It wasn't Wemby. I mean there's no great basketball game has to have Wemby there's no great basketball game it's like a different sport yeah it was a great ending great ending it was a terrible basketball game

24:34Big Cat:you need Wemby it's like watching a movie with no boobs who would do that not me

24:41PFT Commenter:are you nervous about Wemby no we have Mitchell Robinson oh you have the Wemby stop

24:47Big Cat:But Mitch Robinson, why did he not play that much tonight?

24:53PFT Commenter:They were doing Hack of Mitch. Do you think anyone in the Knicks organization is like, hey, dude, just maybe a little loft on the free throws? I think so. I don't know why not try underhand at this point. It's not, hey, Mitchell, you have to change everything. Just a little arc. Maybe just put, you know what they need to do? Just have a broomstick in practice and be like, don't hit this broomstick dude yeah i think he's the only player in the nba that uh hack shack still works he's it's just line drives right at the hoop it's crazy and you see how important he is when he's out there yeah it's a beast uh okay quick other two stories jason kidd fired yep um what i think that's the only reason i bring it up is i actually think it's probably the best job because you get to coach cooper flag like that's a that's a very that's a that's a big time job now.

25:47PFT Commenter:Jason Kidd, I feel like he's just been place to place and just had good players.

25:52Big Cat:Yeah. I mean, he bought himself a couple years when he figured out that when he wears thick horn-rimmed glasses, he looks smarter. And everyone's like, maybe this guy's a genius. Yeah.

26:02PFT Commenter:Oh, by the way, Kenny Atkinson said, I like to hold my timeouts. I try to hold them. Good job, dude. Way to hold your timeouts when they're going on a 38 run and MSG's roof is about to fucking fall off. You have to know How do you say that? I like to hold my time out as you lose that lead. And the other one is we'll discuss this at a later time, but we were dead right about the Blazers owner when he didn't buy the T-shirts. Dundon, he did like a mass firing today that looked like he just went into his spreadsheet and picked like the highest paid employees. They're just like, you're out. So that guy sucks.

26:41PFT Commenter:We're on him. It will be a later date to be continued. we're on him.

26:46Big Cat:He was a payday loan king that had a bunch of lawsuits against him. Not a good guy.

26:52PFT Commenter:Also, just a quick shout out to our guy Sawyer at LSU. Incredible day. We have so much content we did today. The Lane Kiffin interview is so awesome. We basically hung out with Lane Kiffin all day so that by the time we did the interview, it was like yeah, we've just been hanging out all day and it made the interview even that much better. and we did a crawfish boil. We did everything. So the hospitality here at LSU was like top, top notch and it's a lot because of Sawyer who's an AWL. So yeah, unbelievable day.

27:26Big Cat:Second to none. Also, shout out all the Gooners out there. Oh yeah, Arsenal. Arsenal won. Joel Embiid, congrats. You got a chip.

27:35PFT Commenter:What are you doing, Meavs? You guys see Ben Simmons won a championship today?

27:39Big Cat:Yeah. Fishing. Oh, congrats to him.

27:42PFT Commenter:yeah well his teammates carried him no max what are you gonna say quick fuck you me oh

27:50PFT Commenter:we've also reached the point of great week yeah we're just we're we're did you guys see the nfl news do tell the uh the owners voted to go from 10 international games to 11 you fucking piece of shit fuck you memes max what were you gonna say before that about lsu no no you had something to say live no no we're not we're not doing that today max what are you gonna say quick nothing no you were saying something about lsu it's over i was gonna say we have a vlog coming out next week of the day okay and it was it was a great day it was seriously one of the it was also very funny because we had a moment where we had just played a bunch of sports done hot yoga like hung out with friends and uh we like did vr we did the jugs machine all this shit and hank was like man this is so much fun like just doing all the shit and i i was like yeah it is and then i stopped i was like wait we do this every day our lives are pretty awesome so that's not lost on us especially on grit week uh okay we're gonna kick it to hot seat cool throne then we have lane kiffin and blake portals before we do that draft kings the nba playoffs are here in draft king sportsbook an official sports betting partner the nba brings excitement to every game day the whole postseason when the lights get brightest the best players in the world show you exactly who they are playoff stars turn it up round by round and draft kings turns it up with them from the first round all the way to the finals bet player props bet live from the opening tip to the final possession every bucket every dime every clutch takeover matters and only draft king sportsbook keeps you in on the action all the way through new draft kings customers bet just five dollars you'll get in bonus bets instantly.

29:32PFT Commenter:Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Use code GRITWEEK so you're ready for the moment. That's code GRITWEEK. Turn$5 into$100 in bonus bets instantly in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Okay, Hot C, Cool Thrill. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MIER-RESET. New York, call 877-8HOPE-N-WIRE. Text HOPE-N-WIRE. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, wager tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. 21 and over in most states, Void in Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftkings.com slash promos.

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30:10PFT Commenter:Bonus brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. Summer's right around the corner, and Twisted Tea is coming in clutch to turn our day drinking up a notch. Their new summer party pack is a brand new Twisted Lemonade. It is elite, and I want to go on the record saying this will be the drink of the summer. It's got a refreshing taste with a little kick and no carbonation. Carbonation. Grit Week is the official kickoff preseason football that we've all been waiting for. And we know the Twisted Tea is a staple during football season. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Boys, we were... So you're going to hear the interview coming up in a minute with Blake Bortles after Lane Kiffin.

30:46PFT Commenter:We were drinking some Twisted Teas yesterday. We were doing some construction. They were delicious. So good. I'll say it right now. We were in the Jacksonville heat, working our tails off, sweating beyond belief. Then we finish. Incredible video vlog coming out Thursday. And sit down, crack open a nice cold twisted tea. And it was absolute heaven. Heaven on earth. So it is the drink of the summer. Grab a refreshing twisted tea today. Get the new party pack. Get the twisted lemonade. I'm looking at the party pack right now. The Twisted Lemonade and Rocket Pop are 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10 summer drinks.

31:26PFT Commenter:Party pack comes 12 cans, three Rocket Pops, three Twisted Originals, three Half and Halves, and three Twisted Lemonades. It's so, so good.

31:36Big Cat:That Half and Half was amazing after being out on the side.

31:39PFT Commenter:It was the most refreshing drink I've ever had. Yeah.

31:40Big Cat:Yeah. Half tea, half amazing.

31:42PFT Commenter:So grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Okay. Hot seat, Cool Throne. Hank. My hot seat is JSN. Oh, yeah.

31:52Big Cat:Jackson Smith, the Jigba. Yeah. What happened? They sent him his trophy, which, as you remember, he was disrespected by Drewski during the ceremony. Shout out, Drewski. Come on the pod. Did he put a lot of makeup on or something? For the way he announced Jackson Smith, the Jigba's name when giving him the Offensive Player of the Year award.

32:13PFT Commenter:Hank, remember when we were last in LSU and Drewski saw you puke at a blackjack table? That didn't happen, but I do remember being here with Drewski. There was literally a clip of you and Drewski on the sideline when he's like, oh, yeah, I remember you from last night. You were puking on the blackjack table. Yeah, I mean, Drewski's a comedian. That was... Oh, satire. If I was puking at the blackjack table, I would have got kicked out. I did not get kicked out.

32:35Big Cat:He looked at you, and in the video, he goes, you were fucked up. Yeah, you were fucked up, man. Was not. Was fucked up. Okay. He got his award, and on the award, it was engraved, NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

32:50PFT Commenter:But that's kind of cool. Yeah, I agree with that.

32:54Big Cat:Defensive Player of the Year. I agree with that. I agree. I mean, Larry Fitzgerald ended his career with more tackles than drops. People forget that. He probably could have won that award. But with JSN, he was offended by it. He's like, you guys still don't respect me. So he's probably going to get a new plaque. And in which case, when he does, let me just say that JSN will take the mislabeled plaque. We are in that business. And we will put it in our trophy. It'll be the only thing in our trophy case at Barstool Sports. We are. Well, until we get the civil conflict.

33:23PFT Commenter:Well, for now, for now. But we are. Our stop at Florida State yesterday was incredible because we were able to secure the banner that is Florida State number four ranking canceled season, which they actually raised. And we're going to get the Florida State head coach on in a couple of weeks. But yeah, we're fully in on the memorabilia of things that shouldn't be memorabilia.

33:48Big Cat:Banners that should never exist. Trophies that should never have been printed. And troughs. And troughs. And piss troughs. And then my cool throne. I have a couple. First one, I don't know if we're going to talk about it or not. By the way, with the Washington Mystics season attendance record, I'm in contact with the highest sources.

34:07PFT Commenter:That's interesting because Rico Bosco, weirdly, when we got the Florida State banner, didn't say anything like, hey, awesome job, cool banner. He just tweeted the Washington Mystics banner and said, I've heard that this is unattainable.

34:19Big Cat:Well, most bizarre tweet of all time. I'll tell you this. Rico is not in touch with the high level sources that I'm in touch with.

34:24PFT Commenter:I think he was a little jealous that we went to a basketball facility.

34:28Big Cat:Well, you know what? I got a jumpsuit and I was going to give it to Rico. But since he mouthed off, I guess I'll just have to light it on fire. He did mouth off. I'll give him mine. My cool throne, part of my cheesesteak.

34:40PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say so. Are we telling this? Are we? Yeah. I'll tell it because it was. So the Belichick interview, everyone should go watch, listen. Incredible interview. I think we all walked away being like, that was so much fun. We want to do it again. And quick side note, touch of rich Boston sports radio is shitting on me for thanking Bill Belichick. Fuck them. Why wouldn't you? I don't know. Not a journalist move? I don't know how many times you guys say, we are not journalists. We will never be journalists. Not a single person in this room went to a journalism school. We don't pretend to know journalism.

35:19PFT Commenter:We barely can read. We're as biased as possible. We will be open about our bias. We will do softball interviews if we want to. We don't care. We're here to entertain you and make you laugh. That's our job. We went to the school.

35:33Big Cat:We went to clown school. Any sort of news or journalism that we actually end up doing is completely by accident. Yeah. Like if we ask a question and somehow get a newsworthy answer. But I don't understand why they're upset with Hank for just being like, thank you. Thank you, coach. You were glazing. You were riding on it. Yeah. Were you bouncing on it? Were you bouncing on him? Yes. Yes. Yeah. You break it off? Absolutely.

35:57PFT Commenter:And I'd do it again. So back to the story. So Belichick, incredible interview. Awesome time at Chapel Hill. I said it on Monday, but my good friend Brandon, who works for Belichick, was able to get us there, and we got it all coordinated. And it was great because they didn't say, like, hey, you can't ask this, you can't do this. We approached the interview how we wanted to approach it. We did not see Jordan at all at Chapel Hill. We were kind of upset about that because we'd like to say hello to her. On Sunday night, I get a call from Coach Belichick. This was like right before the interview is going to go live.

36:35PFT Commenter:And in my head, I'm like, fuck. Like, he's going to say that he doesn't want us to air it. Or so we did something wrong. Just thinking of the worst moments, like just being like playing in your head, like something bad is about to happen. We're not going to be able to air this interview. Why would he want to call like at the last? Yeah. What could possibly this be about? And so he calls me and everyone was in the room and he just goes, I had a great time. I just want to tell you I had a great time. Thank you guys for coming. but just one thing and I'm like in my head like my life flash before I was like fuck he's like it's all gonna come crashing down he's gonna be like don't run this interview he's like did you guys promise Jordan cheesesteaks last year and I was like oh fuck we did we promised her an NIL deal he's like yeah she said that she wants her cheesesteaks so we gotta get her signed so now

37:26Big Cat:I that's priority number one for this podcast yes and she's I think going to be the only NIL athlete that we're targeting for the upcoming year. She is our queen. She's number one. We love Jordan. We will die for Jordan. Whatever she needs, she gets. We might even have to name a sandwich after. Or a wrap. Or, I don't know, maybe some other menu. Maybe a dessert, because she's very sweet. So I don't know what we're going to do, but we're going to make it work, Jordan. Thank you for holding us accountable. I'm glad that she remembered that.

37:53PFT Commenter:You guys were all in the room. It was going through your head. You guys were all freaking out, too. I was expecting a plug to try and get pulled, which was going to be a weird back and forth because we'd already announced the interview was coming out. I instinctively was assuming the worst. Assuming the worst, and it was never even – Belichick, he was just the same. He was like, thank you, guys. That was so much fun. Really appreciate you guys coming. We need to get Jordan or cheesesteaks. And I was like, yes, we do. That's actually on us. We're fucking scumbags. It was right after we released the promo video for it.

38:28So outlets were starting to pick it up and being like, all right, oh, Bill Belichick going to be on part of my take tomorrow, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I thought it was like, oh, he isn't liking the amount of attention that this is getting before it goes down. So I was like, we're fucked. Something bad is going to happen. We're going to have to scramble. We're in a bad spot.

38:47PFT Commenter:But we are fucked in a different way because we promised Jordan cheese steaks and we didn't deliver. That's a great get. Did not deliver. And Jordan, you can still come on the podcast anytime. But yeah, I think that was, I don't know about you guys, but I got a ton of messages being like, that was an awesome interview. Yeah. It feels good to be able to like every now and then, like we've been doing it for so long that we've kind of hit like all of the white whales. There's a few still out there. Kevin Durant. But every, yes, big time Kevin Durant. But every now and then when we get one, it's just like, oh fuck.

39:18PFT Commenter:Yeah. Like this, this is, this is the secret sauce. This feels good. So I think he'll come back on. I really do.

39:23Big Cat:I have a ton more questions. I hope so. And yeah, with Jordan. So maybe we could sponsor her cheer team. I'm down. Code Black is the name of it. Okay. We could figure something out.

39:33PFT Commenter:Maybe I release this Stella Blue Coffee Black. Code Black.

39:36Big Cat:It sounds like maybe it's a mix of Code Red and coffee. Yeah. Mountain Dew presents Cold Black. Code Black.

39:43PFT Commenter:Coach doesn't like coffee. We established that.

39:45Big Cat:Yeah, good point. He gets all of his energy through football.

39:48PFT Commenter:Such a metal quote.

39:50Big Cat:We'll figure that out. And Zach had the question of the day. Yeah. The alarm clock thing. People absolutely love that, Zach. Yeah. He was sitting in almost a throne of achievement because the trophies were behind him and the rings were to the right. And it was legitimately like, I don't know, it was very overwhelming. And he was a great interview. Yeah. All right. Other cool thrones? My other one was just Jalen Brown. Yeah. He just keeps going at Stephen A. Smith, which I respect in today's day and age, guys. How's that a cool throne? He's on the cool throne.

40:24PFT Commenter:He told him to quit. But then Stephen A. said that he's got dirt. Yeah, he says that. Fucking come release it, dude. Oh, you're going to challenge that? Yeah. You want him to? Yeah, Stephen A. I just like the quote, like, fuck Stephen A, fuck Stephen B, fuck Stephen C. Who's Stephen C? Just fuck them all. Now, Hank, what if Stephen A. Stephen Coletti. Or B or C listens to this podcast right now and is like, wow, Hank's talking tough. I'm going to release it. And then it blows up the Celtics.

40:57That's not going to happen.

40:58PFT Commenter:Okay. All right. So listen, when I get laughed at, when I call out the aliens, you're like, don't do that. Don't poke the aliens. You're poking Stephen A. Oh, okay. All right. Fine. Well, someone please send this to Stephen A.

41:11Big Cat:Perk also said that he had some evidence. Perk is a fucking hater. They kicked Perk out of the facilities years ago. And he's been bitter ever since. All I'm saying is that Perk said that he has texts from people around the Celtics organization that keep texting him whenever Jalen Brown goes live. No one in the organization likes Perk. Okay. Perk alienated himself years ago because of his hate of Jalen Brown. So, again, he's dug his feet in the sand,

41:39PFT Commenter:and he's keeping those feet farther dug in the sand. What if Jalen Brown gets traded? Are you backing on Perk? No. Okay. I don't dislike Perk, but he's been on the outside looking in since whatever was 2022. So Perk and Stephen A, Hank's talking mad shit. Yeah. He said, be careful what you wish for. He's looking through the endorsements. He's going into the locker room. He's going to dig. Are you worried about what could come out of it? Jalen Brown just signed a huge deal with Oakley, which was, again, Stephen A's big thing. Sponsors don't like you, and then it's like he signed this big deal with Oakley.

42:12So not worried about what could come out? No. Okay

42:14Big Cat:Carry the hell along Yeah My hot seat is friendship Yeah People being best friends Yeah Max Yeah I had this too AJ Brown He got married In I think Laguna Beach You're gonna fall for fake news right now This is fake news That was not on my hot seat I haven't said anything This is fake news That was not on my hot seat I haven't said anything Jalex Hunt Wait, wait, wait, let him finish. Let him finish. Let him finish. Let him finish. Keep going. Go strong. Okay, why wasn't Jalen Hurts at? Jalen Hurts was not at the wedding. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Well, the first report was that no Eagles player.

42:56No, no, no. No, no, no.

42:59Big Cat:Is everything okay between A.J. Brown and Jalen Hurts? No. Because Jalen Hurts was not invited to his wedding, and the rumor on the street is that Jalen Hurts. We don't know that. Jalen Hurts. That's not confirmed. That he wasn't invited is not confirmed. It's just that he did not attend. Well, the story that I read, wait, the story that I read was that Jalen Hurts invited, he was invited to A.J. Brown's engagement party, but he decided not to go because it was the night of the Met Gala. And so A.J. was then like, fine, then you're not coming to my wedding. Last year's Met Gala? An engagement party and then a wedding?

43:32Big Cat:No, possibly last year's Met Gala. It also could not be a real story. But the real story is that A.J. Brown did not have his quarterback at his wedding. Well, A.J. Brown is no longer a member of the Eagles. That's not true. He is not going to be. Not true. Wrong. Don't do this, Max.

43:50PFT Commenter:If you do that too early, then Howie's not going to be able to negotiate.

43:53Big Cat:Yeah.

43:54PFT Commenter:What you're doing right now, you're tanking his price. There's so many shooters out there. Listen, I said the whole thing about us not going to journalism school or know what journalism is or reading books, but we are all representatives of our respective teams. So you are now saying that he's not a member of the team. like everyone's gonna be like, oh, cool. Like, here's a third rounder. He's already off the team. No, it starts with the first.

44:20Big Cat:But not anymore because you just said he's off the team.

44:22PFT Commenter:You just killed all your leverage, dude.

44:24Big Cat:They might not even need to trade anything because you said that he's gone.

44:27PFT Commenter:Yeah, they might just be able to pick him up on waivers.

44:29Big Cat:Off the street. I'm too tired for this bid right now. Well, what you did was, so he is factually on the team. There's a chance that he's not traded. Oh, my God. He just did minion voices There's a chance that he's not traded Max So I don't know Ideally I would like my wide receiver to invite my quarterback to his wedding

44:52PFT Commenter:Do you think he was invited and turned it down? Because we would like to I'd like to say right now that PFT will not be at Max's wedding So Shout out Hank

45:00Big Cat:But I'm getting him a nice present

45:03PFT Commenter:And we all were at his bachelor party So that counts which is way better way better than a wedding rude very rude why thanks Hank no problem

45:21Big Cat:I was invited I turned it down to go to the Met Gala I'm going shopping for my clothes for the Met Gala so I can't make it then my cool throne is bitter rivalries oh bitter rivalries so So Alcatraz, the tennis player, he's been injured for a while now, and he fired off maybe the wildest Instagram story that I've seen in a while in terms of like for an audience of one person. So the rivalry in tennis is Alcatraz Center, right? Look at this Instagram post that he just dropped the other day. This is from Alcatraz. He says, I watched the final from home with ice on my wrist. Every time my phone vibrates, it's your name again.

46:05Big Cat:another trophy another sunday you make history like it's a normal thing nine masters trophies already crazy sometimes i think you win too much when i'm not there tennis feels weird when i'm not looking at you across the net between points what the fuck tour is too quiet without our matches i miss this feeling walking on court knowing you were on the other side waiting for war rehab is hard because my body rests but my mind still want to chase you every match you win make me want to come back faster enjoy this moment really you deserve everything you are living now but don't forget i'm coming back soon and i think we both know the best matches still didn't happen yet i come back soon and i hope you are still waiting there vamos these guys want to fuck this is in love it's heated rivalry these guys are gonna fuck if they haven't fucked already they respect each other so much as competitors and as rivals they are going to fuck each other it's not even a question like this is a mutual respect yeah yeah not not like i don't think this is gay at all like it would be just like you know like i respect you so much we've fought so many battles on the court it's almost like fucking myself it would be improper for us not to make love yeah yeah just for for the vibes and also like it's pretty much masturbation well

47:20PFT Commenter:yeah and it's it's it's basically they're saying we're we're almost sacrificing our bodies for this rivalry both physically and sexually. Yeah. We have to do this.

47:32Big Cat:In fact, if we don't do this, I think that's a disgrace to the sport. Correct. To the game that we've put so many hours in. Correct. Do you think they would fuck on grass or on clay?

47:42PFT Commenter:Hardcourt.

47:43Big Cat:Hardcourt? That would get scrapey.

47:45PFT Commenter:That would get scrapey.

47:47Big Cat:But yeah, Carlos Alcatraz. Listen, I like the rivalry because they've given us the only tennis matches that I've cared about within the last five years. I think it just got taken up a notch with this post. Yeah. And it's awesome to know that he's at home watching him, like feeling a mix of almost anger that he's not there, but also like intense, intense eroticism. Yes. Watching him win.

48:11PFT Commenter:Big time.

48:11Big Cat:What do you think, Zach? I think it's a competition. They're so competitive that it's like, I'll take your body on the court and, you know, as two dudes do, as tennis pros, possibly in the bedroom now, because that was a poem. It felt like a romance novel, maybe a poem. You know what? They're so evenly matched. And in tennis, you know what you call a tie? Love. How about that? That's good. How about... Did PFT just low-key snap there? That was good.

48:39PFT Commenter:That's beautiful.

48:41Big Cat:That's beautiful. That's uncharted territory that you just start fucking your competitors? Yeah. What a game. But also, like, you're fucking your competitor, but he's also fucking you. Yeah, yeah. Because it's, like, so even. Maybe they're 69. Yeah, so even.

48:57PFT Commenter:okay uh is that it yeah yeah my my hot seat is um anyone who thought they had uh plans for life after death in terms of like hey are they gonna get cremated are they gonna get buried because i i stumbled upon this uh this was a i found it on twitter but it was a uh reddit post about what a guy wants his wife to do for him after he dies and this is the most metal thing ever that we all I think we all should agree to this right now so this is uh this is the wife writing she says my husband has some disturbing requests for after he's passed away this one is really bizarre and I'm sorry ahead of time my husband of 12 years has some medical problems recently the topic about end of life plans came up and I asked if he wanted to be buried he didn't want that nor did he want to be cremated my husband wants me to have his skull taken from his body and cleaned then he wants the skull put on the mantelpiece in the living room the rest of his body he wants sent to one of those places that makes the gems out of bodies and made into two blue diamonds he then wants those gems to be put in the eye socket of the skull to look like eyes then he can watch the family home and be passed down through generations what the fuck that's awesome imagine dad just sitting there skull like a mantelpiece off on a shelf yeah It's your dad.

50:22PFT Commenter:Yeah. Oh, I think you got to do this just to haunt your family. I respect it. They wouldn't fuck around. He might be a supervillain. Yeah, true. But also pretty badass. You're like, are you going to deny this man's wishes? I guess you could just be like, he's already dead.

50:39Big Cat:But what if you start to get away with stuff? Then you lose the power that your dad has over you. Yeah, true. You lose all the fear that you might have.

50:48PFT Commenter:Or something bad happens.

50:49Big Cat:like I thought you were watching over us dad yeah I think in order to really pull this off first you have to fake your own death and then do like a dummy head and then when the kid screws up then

50:59PFT Commenter:the dad like secretly yeah with a nanny cam yeah yeah like the bear with the nanny cam yeah it gets revenge on family and then non-creepy way after your fake death like in a normal way yeah in a normal way you got a fake die yeah move uh states then implant a nanny cam into your old house and watch your kids but only interject every now and then i think it would be like if you

51:23Big Cat:are going to die soon then you you're like i gotta move out of the state for a while yeah and then mess with them and then when you really die then the power still stays in your kids they're like

51:33PFT Commenter:oh that's he's still there he is in the teddy bear yep uh okay my cool throne i got two one is we talked about a little bit on monday but more details came out my cool throne is pca because people were getting upset because the video came out of him telling the uh woman the white socks fan to suck his dick and uh i have no problem with it anyone who has a problem with it doesn't respect rivalries in sports and like it's also we've gotten to a weird point where i feel like fans feel like they can just say whatever and then and then if a player says something back like oh how could you say that no fuck that if you talk shit to a player in earshot the player should be able to talk shit back to you i actually respect that i respect a player talking back shit back to a fan far more than like the LeBrons or Rories where they just get fans kicked out.

52:19Big Cat:I don't think that PCA like I don't think that the two of them, the woman or PCA left that exchange still upset at the other. I think they left that exchange being like good banter.

52:31PFT Commenter:And again, PCA is a he's a lightning rod type of guy. And that's great for sports. I'm happy he's on the Cubs. Other teams fucking hate him, which I that's fine. That's great. that like he bothers other people and and like when he doesn't do well they love to shit on him which and then when he does great i love to praise him so it's part of sports it's part of rivalry part of talking shit i love it i think it's there's no harm no foul and i also just think that if you talk if you are gonna say whatever you want like if you're gonna fly off the handle against a player and earshot and they turn around and talk shit back to you you should just be like hey guess what all's fair that's way better than the rory kicking the guy out way better i agree rory should have turned around and been like fuck you i won the rider cup in your face what do you say max i did that this once as a 10 year old in little league you did you told a guy to suck your dick well i was i was playing no i was playing right field and there there was a family member of the other team that that was heckling me as i was trying to catch it and i turned around and just flipped flipped the bird off as a 10 year old and it was big deal.

53:37That's good sports town.

53:39Big Cat:Like heckling a 10 year old Little League. Devin Stratford versus Berwyn Paley Little League. Big rivalry. You got in trouble for it? I didn't get thrown out of the game. I did get my I just started talking to from my parents for sure, though.

53:50PFT Commenter:And now you don't swear at all anymore. So I didn't even swear. I just I just I just gave the finger. But I was 10 years old. So that that was a little alarming at the time. So, yes, I'm pro this.

54:02Big Cat:Yes. Yeah, I think we all are. Yeah, pro this. And to the people that are saying like the woman that did it is now like crying about and playing the victim. I don't think that she is at all. Like, again, it was like they stepped out of the ring like two boxers that just went, you know, they went they went 10 rounds against each other. It was a decision. And then she walks away. They'll meet each other again.

54:20PFT Commenter:This is a perfect litmus test of like, do I like you as a person? Would I want to hang out with you as a person? If you watch this interaction and your reaction is, that's classless. How dare he? I don't want to be your friend. If you watch this interaction, you're like, yeah, it's sports. That's fucking funny. They're going back and forth to each other. That gave the woman a story for the rest of her life. Yeah. There you go. So all's fair. And then my other cool throne is Vanny Woodhead, too. absolute beast so we've talked about it but vanny woodhead one was a complete which was dead and then came back to life because billy never junked it uh was a death trap was not it was was on its last legs we've retired it we actually crushed it in metal and made it an art installation in our office which is pretty sick whoever set that up i had bought i bought bought bought 6 a.m.

55:19PFT Commenter:yoga i bought i bought it i bought vanny woodhead too i think it was like last late last summer and uh from late last summer until yesterday it had driven maybe 15 miles we had not used it it was just kind of on the sideline waiting yesterday we just threw it in the fire 600 miles one day vanny woodhead too just an absolute champ and it's got some nice it's comfortable It looks exactly like Vanny Woodhead 1. The only quirks we have is when you... There's a couple. One is the dashboard just went blank in the middle of the drive for like a minute. That happens sometimes. That was fine.

55:59Big Cat:That's probably when we got the hour back.

56:01PFT Commenter:Yeah, that's when we got the hour back. The other was if I floor it, the AC turns off. Also fine because it's actually nice. You just get like a little break from the AC and then it blasts back on.

56:12Big Cat:When it comes back on, it actually feels better because it's like you get to experience the heat for a second and then the cold feels even colder. It's like a turbo AC.

56:20PFT Commenter:And then the speedometer is just not correct, but that doesn't matter. I was going fast. We were going fast, and it held up. So shout out Vinnie Woodhead, too. It was actually very comfortable, too. In fact, it was so comfortable. Great drive. Some of us fell asleep.

56:35Big Cat:That's how comfortable it is. You want to say sorry? Sorry for saying I was a bad driver after.

56:43PFT Commenter:Hank, Hank. This is fake news. Well, okay.

56:48Big Cat:Between Hank and Max calling fake news before anything's been said. Yeah. You guys got to let us speak before you judge. I apologize for making a joke and you not being able to take a joke. I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait. This sounds like a fair apology. Let's hear him out.

57:03PFT Commenter:Yeah. Let's set the stage real quick. 10 hour drive for 10 hours Hank had slept and played golf in the back I mean I would have driven you never let anyone else drive I'm not saying that I'm not saying that what else am I supposed to do not say you suck at driving that okay we were driving for 10 hours it was loopy I was loopy I was we were messing around I made what I thought was a very obvious joke I forget what you even said but I was like yeah but you suck at driving which again was I thought very obviously satire sarcastic. It was also like 580 miles into 600 miles. And then you got in your feels and were like, fuck you, okay, when you say that, I'm actually mad.

57:42Then today you're like, I'm actually mad you said that. You said I'm actually mad at you saying that.

57:46PFT Commenter:I'm actually mad that you were pretending you didn't say it. Well, then again, the camera went on and I, again, thought we were just busting balls. The camera went on. I was like, big cat, you did such a good job. Because you were actually getting really mad. And then when the camera went on, you just decide what to put out. Yeah, you can do whatever you want. I was again, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for making a joke and you not being able to take it. You're such a piece of shit. So Hank, what I liken it to is Hank is a spoiled little kid who sits in the back of the car, sleeps, plays video games, watches his iPad.

58:19PFT Commenter:And then in the last five minutes of the drive is like, are we fucking there or what? And like complaints. And like, that's what he does. So he did it for the biggest drive. It's like what? Like I wouldn't have driven. I would have driven. No. I don't think you wanted to I've driven the RV across the country multiple times

58:38Big Cat:like 11 years ago and also I think that you would have rather played golf on your video game in the back you're playing your Nintendo in the back seat

58:47PFT Commenter:we had a great time no more jokes don't do that

58:51Big Cat:Hank is the buddy that goes to bed he gets like really really drunk and he falls asleep at like 9.30 at night and then everyone else goes out has a great time and then we wake up up in the morning and everyone's super hungover at 10 you're like come on why aren't we drinking yet because you got a full night's sleep that's what that's what it felt like when we got into baton rouge last night we were on our last legs we were tired we're also at the point of grit week where we're just yelling at each other for everything we've spent we've spent too much time we're also at the point of grit week where we're getting easily duped by fake stories because that tennis thing came from a tennis central account i didn't know that tennis had central So we did that entire thing?

59:30Big Cat:Oh, no. PFT. I didn't know that there was a tennis central. What can I say? So what happened was I absent my... You are 0 for it. I bookmarked it.

59:40PFT Commenter:You're 0 for Q2.

59:41Big Cat:I bookmarked it last night. What else have I screwed up, Hank? Tell me. Pray tell. Birthdays. Oh, birthdays. Here we go with the birthdays. The list goes on. PFT Stats is now keeping a list of every birthday that you get wrong, which is very nice. Bullshit. There's six billion people whose birthdays I miss every year.

59:57PFT Commenter:Hank, I accept your apology.

59:58Big Cat:Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry.

1:00:00PFT Commenter:I'm not actually mad. I was very tired at the end of that ride. That was a long-ass day. Yeah, it was a good trip. Yeah. Also, I agree. I should have let you drive, but I was very excited to drive Vanny. I spent a lot of money on that van, and we had never used it. So I was pumped. The thing fucking drives well. Yeah. No, it is the exact same van as Vanny won. Yeah. It's nice. I didn't think we'd be passing cars at ease. But when you needed to go around, it was ready for the occasion. And I went no tweets. It was full. Just slingshot. The only two tweets were when we stopped for gas.

1:00:31Big Cat:I talked to Big Cat before we hit the road, and I was like, Big Cat, if you want to use your phone, I'm going to drive. We're not going to take Vanny on I-10 and have you scrolling the entire time. And I felt safe. I felt safe without Big Cat on Twitter. Hank didn't feel safe.

1:00:46PFT Commenter:I felt... I'm sorry. I accept your apology. I'm sorry I accept your apology. I was so safe, I fell asleep. If I didn't feel safe like Zach, Zach was sitting there clutching both armrests. Well, Zach was having to deal with the fact that you put your toes in his fucking ears because you were on troll mode. That was a lame mood. You were doing that. That was insane. Yeah, he was being a little. He got in a six-year-old mood. I get loopy. Yeah. Slash, your phone died. Yes. Let's just admit that your phone died, and then you're like, I'm going to fuck with everyone. My phone died, and I got a sugar high.

1:01:16PFT Commenter:Let's just admit your phone died in hour nine of ten on the road, and you're like, I'm going to spend the last hour just fucking with everyone. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Zach. But that was obvious. My hot seat this week is going to be guys who don't like contact because Cam's got to be saying week one return against the Cowboys. So broken fibula, ankle this way. But he's saying, look, boys, I'm back. He said the hardest hurdle was the mental game of being able to trust it again. So we're getting full contact running backs. Hell yeah. I'm excited. He's just a lot of fun to watch.

1:01:54He's a lot of fun to watch. Yeah.

1:01:56PFT Commenter:Are the Giants a team I'm going to sell myself on mentally? You did last year. I know I did. That was really stupid. Maybe Sunday night football week one just screams everyone's going to get excited for that game, and it could just be like a blowout. But Harbaugh changes it. That is true. That is true.

1:02:14Big Cat:When is neighbor's coming back? That's the question. He got another knee scope. Although we... Never mind. What?

1:02:21PFT Commenter:He got another knee scope. Chargers still stand. Same knee? I think so. What? What did you say? What did you say? I said the Chargers still stink.

1:02:28Big Cat:The Chargers do not stink. Chargers stink. That seemed like an out-of-the-blue shot. Yeah, why was it? Because we said the same thing about Harbaugh going to the Chargers. Chargers are going to be the Chargers team.

1:02:38PFT Commenter:The Chargers have turned it around. Yeah, Harbaugh got them to the playoffs. What are you talking about? They're in the playoffs. They're a playoff team like two out of three years, and they lost their entire offensive line last year and somehow got there. Do you remember what they were like before Harbaugh got there? To the playoffs.

1:02:52Big Cat:This is crazy. This is crazy Chargers. I think you're just thinking they lost. They lost. So they must not be any good. Anti-Giants right now.

1:03:01PFT Commenter:I would absolutely. If you if you ask any Chargers fan, has the Harbaugh era been a success so far? Resounding. Yes. Resounding. Yes. They were dog shit with Justin Herbert. And like they had. What are you talking about? They had a 27 point lead in the playoffs. Yeah. That was bad. That was bad. That was bad. A couple years ago. Yeah, but then Brandon Staley. They just get a pass because they're the Chargers. No, no, no. Remember Brandon Staley? Remember the game against the Raiders? The worst game ever played when they lost by 700? Remember Easton Stick? Yeah. They were a joke. Last year, they were very bad.

1:03:36PFT Commenter:Yeah. And Harbaugh came in and cleaned that shit up. And then if Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt don't get hurt, maybe it's a different story. Maybe they... No, Justin Herbert would probably still lose. He hasn't won a playoff game. No.

1:03:49Big Cat:He throws a lot of interceptions in the playoffs. tends to... Hey, we're having your back, Shane. We had your back.

1:03:56PFT Commenter:We did have your back, Shane.

1:03:57Big Cat:Until we realized he hadn't won the playoff game. What Max was saying was the only thing he remembers is that Puna Ford left the team, so he's like, oh, they must be bad now. How did the Chargers even come to this equation?

1:04:08PFT Commenter:That was kind of crazy. The Chargers got put in...

1:04:12Big Cat:Harbaugh's just like... The Harbaugh's aren't good? Is that what you're thinking? No, because it's more so coping of like, oh yeah, the Giants could be a threat now. Harbaugh's there. and then I really thought about it. I was like, I actually thought the Chargers were going to be a threat. The Chargers aren't a threat. Chargers had the fifth pick, and their defense gave up 35 points a game the year before. Horrible. Chargers could be a threat. Then we won 11 games. They still can't win a fucking playoff. They still can't win a playoff game. That's facts. He's got you there. Didn't they acquire some pieces on the offensive line?

1:04:43So maybe not so many sacks this year.

1:04:46Big Cat:That's hopefully health, and then we got Beatish, and then we drafted a fucking center who's never played a guard in his life to play guard. So who knows? That was a lot of charges. You know what? With Shane's preview, Max might be right.

1:05:01PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:05:04PFT Commenter:Shane, Panty and I, you saw us. We fucking jumped down Max's throat there. Then we kind of got some clarity and we're like, he's kind of making some good points.

1:05:13Big Cat:You talked us out of it. Shane talked us out of our rabid defense. of the Chargers organization. We were ready to go, and then we realized,

1:05:20PFT Commenter:nah, he's kind of right.

1:05:23Big Cat:You guys will probably be healthy this year, though.

1:05:25PFT Commenter:Yeah. The thing I love about Shane is this exchange actually bummed him out hard. Yeah. Yeah, I think. He's bad at facts. We've been together too long. Okay. And then my cool friend today is going to be SGA, because not only did SGA win M &P again, he also blessed the entire team back-to-back years, I got the guys some gift bags I saw some customizable golf bags I never seen a trench coat Move before That was quite the gift But they did it as a team And then also got the boys some timepiece Situations going on there Watches again but he went AP Offshore and AP Royal Oak Mostly AP Offshores A lot of Offshores Why do people shit on the Offshore What are you guys talking about?

1:06:13PFT Commenter:Watches I'm not a watch guy Max is a watch guy. He's on watch TikTok. Officially. AP Offshore? So it's like a dive watch or like you go out like deep, deep sea with it. It's got like more waterproof or more meters. How deep does it go? Things like that. Decent amount of meters. What? Decent amount of meters. How many? Top of my head, I don't have that. But I do know that. I would guess 300. All right. Well, you're dead after 120. I learned that. Oh, so the Maldives. None of those guys are going 120. Yeah, no. No one's there. It's bullshit they're selling watches that go that deep when no human goes that deep.

1:06:50No need for time at AD.

1:06:51Big Cat:The trench coat gift. If you give Chet Holmgren a trench coat, it must be impossible for him to walk around without everybody thinking that it's three kids inside there. Yes. No, did you see what the trench coat looked on, Chet? No. It was just the most normal looking jacket of all time. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, because if I see him, I'm like, there's two kids under there. You're sneaking into a movie. and there's a lot of people online also saying that uh sga might have got banged by the jeweler because they offed a bunch of those offshores instead of the royal oaks to them so they're moving inventory maybe on sga okay what do they call watch tiktok watch talk just tiktok tiktok tiktok square tiktok it took me a while to get there i got there yep no just think about it Yeah, TikTok.

1:07:40PFT Commenter:TikTok, TikTok. Yeah, that's good. That's good. All right, should we get to our interviews? We have Lane Kiffin and Blake Bortles. By the way, we should just say the Blake Bortles interview I think is so bad it's good. It was 7 ,000 degrees in Vandy. And also, if you're expecting... We'll have Blake Bortles. Blake Bortles will come on any time. If you're expecting us to have a long, nuanced conversation with Blake Bortles, this is not the interview for you.

1:08:04Big Cat:But we had just finished working construction. Yeah. I mean, I think it's funny, but it's also like...

1:08:08PFT Commenter:You're going to listen to it and be like, what just happened?

1:08:10Big Cat:I think the van was probably 130 degrees. It was so bad. Yeah. Before we get to Coach Lane Kiffin, he's brought to you by our great friends over at Chevy. It's Grit Week, and it's the part of the football calendar where nobody's watching, but everything gets built. Early mornings, pads back on, conditioning, film, reps, spring training in football is all about putting in the work when nobody's cheering yet. Check out the current offers. Build your Silverado at Chevy.com. Check it out. check out the Silverado at Chevy.com and now here is LSU head football coach Lane Kiffin

1:08:45PFT Commenter:okay we now welcome on a very very very very very special guest it is LSU head coach Lane Kiffin in his office and it's grit week presented by Chevy so coach uh we got a lot to talk about because we spent the whole day with you but the first question is always on grit week what does the word grit mean to you the ability to keep going like when it gets tough you know and you just feel like yeah i'm not sure you know just the grind of it the grit down we experienced it today yes some of your cast you know multiple times there were so many times you and i just looked at each other when they were laying down and they were quitting and i just we didn't say it but i just knew we were basically saying grit to each other yeah and we kept going well i was also constantly saying finish strong because I was hoping that I could gaslight the yoga instructor into being like, all right, that was it.

1:09:36PFT Commenter:It didn't work. Didn't work. I did have, you know, there's a mirror in the front. So some of the people afterwards, you know, later in the day, they were like, do you realize he kept yelling like, come on, finish guys, finish guys. But you were just laying there. Yeah. Oh yeah. Every time I was yelling, I was not moving. It sounded like if there wasn't a mirror that they were like, man, this guy in the back, man, he's freaking grinding. I realized. He's got grit.

1:09:56Big Cat:Yeah. So we did the hot yoga with you at 6am. My theory was every time I started to get tired, I would just hold my fours up in the fourth quarter. Even if it was like a third of the way through, a quarter of the way through, if you just put your fours up, you feel like it's the end. So you can give yourself that last push.

1:10:11PFT Commenter:Yeah, but it wasn't hot yoga. You told us we're going to go for hot yoga. It was the first thing that happens when we walk in, go grab 20-pound dumbbells. And I'm just doing hang cleans and Olympic weightlifting in a sauna 10 minutes in. I was like, I didn't sign up for this. But we did it. We gridded our way through it. I can't believe you do it every day. That's so stupid. Every day. That's so dumb. No matter what. Every single day? Non-negotiable. Non-negotiable.

1:10:37Big Cat:Can we negotiate that a little bit? No. Like, what if you had a coach that you were trying to hire, and you were like, non-negotiable, we got to do yoga every day? He's like, I can't do that. Not every day. No, just for me. I get to kids school. Just for me. Oh, for you. Okay. I make now in life, I just make non-negotiables. Like, it doesn't matter, no matter what. And then I don't ever have to talk to myself. I don't ever have to like go, am I going to, am I going to get up or am I not?

1:10:59PFT Commenter:That's smart. Am I going to eat this or not? How many are going to drink this or not? If it's just a non-negotiable, it's not even a conversation. So what are the other non-negotiable? No bread. Ever? Ever. This is crazy. Okay.

1:11:12Big Cat:You don't eat sandwiches.

1:11:13PFT Commenter:No alcohol? Nope. All right, wait, no bread. Can we go back to that? Okay. I'm going to just say it. I think that makes you less of a football coach. Okay. Because I just think that like part of being a football coach, you've got to get strength from carbs and you're just not doing that. Okay. Then you're really not going to like the next one because there's no alcohol. Okay. That's fine. I get that. That's fine. Yeah. It's not Ditka beer. No, but listen, I mean, people stop drinking all the time. Like it's good for you. Yeah. Like you need beer. Yeah. Okay. So what else? Beer, bread, pasta, you need those things.

1:11:41And then every day, no matter what, no matter where you are, you're getting up and finding a workout. So workout, you're not saying hot yoga. Well, I do the same one here. But if I'm out of town, it usually is the same thing. Okay. We just find a studio.

1:11:52Big Cat:Okay. I did notice that more than a few times, I would say probably like six or seven times during the workout, you would get up and you would talk to one of your guys that was in there. Yeah. And I was wondering to myself, like, do you get ideas while you're working out in the morning? Sometimes, but usually if it's a little slower, yeah. But usually a lot of times I'm just going over. Like, it's kind of like a team. Like, I should have talked to you guys before. First off, there's no yoga in it for the most part. Yes. We just years ago, it started as yoga. Years ago, probably five, six years ago in Oxford.

1:12:23it started in a hot yoga yoga studio and it was all yoga and then it transformed just people were like yeah we want some more you know like then it turned into this like hit class like then it was weights and it was cardio and then at the end it was just like all right fuck it like put it all together and just make the hardest shit and the hottest shit that you can you did that and that's

1:12:41Big Cat:what it became yeah you did something very mean to me which was right at the start you moved me over a little bit and you had this young lady come work out right next to me and then you're like yeah she's a four-time NCAA champion gymnast yeah enjoy and then I just sweat on this poor girl's mat the entire time I had to apologize five times to her I was like I'm sorry I don't mean to be I'm a slob I understand listen I think less of myself than you think of me so yes let me just beat myself up but she was just kicking my ass at this workout the entire time I don't know if you were doing that to test me or just because you wanted me to get my ass kicked by a girl but it was a great way to start the day I had a blast what what there's a couple reasons in there one like if you put greatness around you then it just brings you up so she's like the most decorated gymnast in the history of the school one in the history of all of colleges hayley bryant so she comes to class so like i put her there figuring like okay if i put her next to you it's gonna bring you up yeah and here's like the greatest of what she you know ever at doing it you know plus you guys were all back got in and we were like all like back tight like this and it was like kind of six dudes you know yeah it's kind of like the movie theater thing like you know where you put a space between each other though, you know?

1:13:51Yeah. So it was like, all right, let's spread out a little bit here. It was too big. Put someone between us, you know? Didn't really know you yet. Yeah.

1:13:58PFT Commenter:And who was the coach who kept on yelling for us to take off our shirts? That was weird. Yeah, because we – I literally – like he said it like three or four times to me, Zach, and Max, and I just at one point turned around and I was just like, dude, we're not taking off our shirts. They're not coming off. We'll die in here. So that was – listen, credit to you for getting up and doing that. I actually, I don't know if you saw, but I retired from hot yoga around 9 a.m. this morning. You told me I'm sorry. Thank you. I will never be back. I want to walk at my kid's graduation, so I'm not going to be doing hot yoga ever again.

1:14:29But I walk around like that because you start to become a team in it. So it's like you against her, against the instructor. I should have told you guys that before. Kind of like you got to get in like, hey, we don't like her. Yeah, yeah. We're not going to let her beat us no matter what. I did not like her. Yeah. No, I hated her. when she walked in and i'm like okay there's the instructor you're like oh boy yeah i was like this

1:14:49Big Cat:is like rocked up yeah she was she was a problem she was also very good at identifying when we were trying to like lay low and not necessarily do all the work i used to be really good at that back in the day like if it was basketball practice football practice i could tell when the coach wasn't looking yeah so i would like slack off a little bit she she had eyes everywhere in that room and she would call you out and that's one of the i in my opinion that's a that's a bummer about modern football is like guys like me we can't get away with that practice anymore because you put chips in our shoulder pads and you look at everything now yeah too many cameras too many angles yeah for football players you wait but in there she can see because the mirror too so even when she's looking that way she sees in the mirror yep to see us you know but we were bonding there yeah it was good back row it was good all right so i do realize the back row is actually cooler 10 degrees more than the front so we're actually in the easier spot well yeah there was a there was a

1:15:42PFT Commenter:door behind zach and i and there was i think someone had put like um a towel or something underneath the door and i started ripping at the towel to get a small draft going to our heads because i was we were like a prisoners trying to escape so it was tough it was i saw his face like so when someone walked out to get a water in that door open and he's like yeah incredible god

1:16:04Big Cat:he's like breathing in there i did i put my face towards it i was like give me more of that but honestly it was a good workout i was telling the guys i know that big cat retired i'm gonna to get into doing yoga i feel like that's i i retired from running i retired from a lot of stuff uh but i feel like yoga might be a good thing to add to my repertoire so you but do you miss doing the yoga now that you've switched over to doing more of the the cardio high intense stuff i do now um on sunday it'll be a lot more yoga you know kind of like recovery day and so i do like that i do like that you change up and you go back to that because that's very non-football toughness you But that really gets you breathing, gets you kind of out of all the other stuff.

1:16:45And you got to stay in really uncomfortable things, which I tell the guys. That's why I like bringing our coaches. You stay in really uncomfortable things in the heat, and that's life. That's definitely Baton Rouge, too. Yeah, it's always hot here. It's also walking outside.

1:17:02PFT Commenter:Yeah, all right. So I want to play a game with you. It's called Good, Average, Bad. So you got to grade yourself. and actually the first thing is hot yoga good average bad what are how are you at those good okay football coaching good breakups bad yeah really bad coach you're really bad at breakups yeah you're like actually the worst of all time don't go well it'll be a good run how how are you doing after your breakup because do you know do you feel how much the internet kind of uh hate you right now yeah you do yeah okay yeah i've been off for like a week it was good yeah you know i was like hey let me just see what it's like here you know to like remove myself a little bit so i've actually been off for probably a week yeah for the first time ever is do you are you obviously you guys start the season at clemson but you play almost week three is that already kind of circled in your head like okay this is going to be serious like there's a lot of animosity back and forth yeah that was already there yeah that was i felt that at the airport when we left that yeah you know yeah so um i've always known that was going to be there yeah the airport scene was quite

1:18:13Big Cat:something yeah yeah we go ahead i was gonna say before you left at the airport um like whose call was it to get marty smith to like drive a minivan onto the tarmac before and like one last thing before i leave let me get marty out here in front of the plane that was not mine marty was like it It was like Scooby-Doo, like in the minivan, like that, you know, like the shaggy van, whatever it was. Like, he's like, I'm driving by. He's like, I got to get this interview, whatever. I'm like, he called me because he was waiting at the airport, you know, like knowing we, hey, we had to leave through the airport.

1:18:43So he's going to try to get me there. And he like called me. I was like, I don't think you're going to be getting through this airport here, buddy.

1:18:50PFT Commenter:Yeah, it was some, so like, obviously it's all, the dust has settled somewhat, but it was chaotic. You were, you had essentially taken, you know, hostage of the internet in this college football world for a week there. And, you know, this has happened maybe a couple other times in your career. Would you say, would it be fair to characterize you as a messy bitch? Messy endings, that's for sure. What's really crazy about the thing is my endings in my control. Obviously, you get fired in my control. but the two times where, you know, the Tennessee and the Ole Miss leaving, I thought I was trying to do things right.

1:19:27Right. And obviously they didn't go very well.

1:19:30PFT Commenter:Yeah. It's hard. I mean, I will say that it's hard, especially if you're – especially in the middle of the season when you have a college playoff team. Like that's a very difficult thing to navigate. I don't know what the right answer is, you know. It's kind of – what would be – if you could go back and do it differently, would you do it any differently? Yeah, I think I would have just came in and said, okay, I'm leaving. I'm very appreciative of everything. I spent a lot of time right there fighting to coach the team, trying to keep everything together, totally respect their decision, the athletic director for that not to happen.

1:20:07I get it. But I was trying so hard to keep that together, like, hey, let us all coach, let this whole thing, let's see if we can go win the whole thing. and so obviously that didn't happen that way which then created a lot of it because that was a whole night and morning of that and then what's going to happen and then the team meeting moved back and all the things that went with it and then you couldn't have a normal team meeting because of that time it had you know gotten into all that and then you know naming of golding of the head coach and so i mean i don't know how much it would have saved right just going in and saying instead of trying to say hey i really want to coach hey i'm not coaching i'm taking the job and right appreciative but right i think you still would you definitely would have had the airport scene and all that and um but as tough as that is on so many parts from on them on me on walking with a 12 year old nephew that they're yelling at all that stuff that also speaks to the sec oh where else does that happen definitely that the people that for six years loved you want to build a statue chant for you at the last game to stay and then they hate you like that yeah and then you land whatever that is probably 45 minute flight and then you land here in the people here that when we would play here were yelling at me hating me yep and saying everything i did was horrible

1:21:21PFT Commenter:we love you yeah that's also the beauty of yeah no i agree i mean like old miss fans who are upset still upset like i'm like that's sports you have every right to be like that you know what i mean it's there's that's just people live and die with their teams and so when things happen they're going to get emotional and it's that's what makes sports great is fans being that invested yeah i I think you saw it, obviously. You knew it, but you saw it even more so during the whole thing. Yeah. I think there's some parts that are kind of funny when you experience you're going through. Like you said, that's SEC fans and the passion of it.

1:21:54And everything that you were doing there, they embraced at the time because you're theirs. Man, this is great, man. Our coach does yoga. He's on social media all the time. And he trolls the other fans. We love what he does. And then you leave and they're like, we hate him. He does yoga. He trolls all the time. And then the new ones here that hated it are like, we love that our coach does yoga. We love that he trolls. That's a football guy. And then I love running into people, and you run into people here, and they're like, coach, I've always been wanting you. Yeah. You've been my guy all along.

1:22:26Big Cat:I've always appreciated your Eastern philosophies. I saw you yelling at me in this tunnel the one time I left Tiger Stadium. Yeah, it's interesting because you were put – then it was a very weird situation this postseason where Ole Miss was on a little run, and then you were getting compensated by Ole Miss, but you were the coach of a rival team, and it felt like Ole Miss, their fans, didn't want you to be happy with any success that Ole Miss was having. So what was that like for you personally watching that team play? Yeah, that was really hard, and I didn't care less. I know this probably sounds right about the finance.

1:23:01I didn't even know that was in the contract, that if they won, then I was getting paid through here. you know like i actually didn't even know until i read about it i know that sounds crazy so you give that money away i'm gonna call bullshit on that no i really didn't they put all that's that's jimmy sexton okay and the stuff you should give the money away give us the money yeah we'll take it actually when i read it i called him i'm like wait i don't understand he's like well you know we put it in there because if you stayed you were going to get that right the new place took

1:23:26PFT Commenter:you they're going to pay you it right to come you should probably pay us for what we did to you on the softball diamond today that's that's valid i think that's fair compensation but yeah what I really don't understand how as we went to put together teams, and I learned about this softball game today, and that you have a real team. Yes, we do. And you guys have played a lot before. We have. You're undefeated. Yes. This was not our full team, but yes. Okay, but you are undefeated. Yes. And I don't know anything about this, and then we're going to play. So you guys take Sawyer, our best player, and I'm like, all right, Sawyer, let's go put together our team.

1:23:57He's like, yeah, put together your team. What do you mean you put together my team? He's like, I'm on the other team. Yeah.

1:24:01Big Cat:He loves us. On the field, you were telling Sawyer he was 0 for 5 today. He was. He got on base five times. We had five errors. That didn't mean – But in the books, he's 0 for 5. He didn't have a hit today. I want to hear – And you guys better hire him because they have a job tomorrow. I want to hear what it was like for you personally, like, watching those games and what that felt like. Yeah, that was really tough. You know, especially as you see their faces, you know, walk off as they're losing that game and you're like, okay, it's a one-play game. And then, you know, would it have made a difference if they would have let us coach, you know, and I'm not going to say about myself as the head coach because Pete did a great job.

1:24:38But then that means Pete Goldie would have still been in the press box calling defenses, you know, if we're together. And all our assistants would have been there and strength coach, everything would have been together. Is that the difference of one play in the Miami game? I would like to think it is. So you're watching that saying, God, man, we could be going to the national championship. So you feel for the kids in that.

1:24:56PFT Commenter:Yeah, yeah. All right, so let's talk about this year's LSU team. 60 transfers? Yeah. What is that – like, obviously you've seen so much football, coach the NFL, coach in college. Things have changed so much. Like, what does that mean as a head coach when you have to do – turn over a roster to that level where it's like instilling culture, instilling the type of football players you want? Is it difficult? Yeah, yeah. The good thing is we've had some practice. You know, like last year that team we just talked about that – what, 13 games, 11-1 regular season, that was actually a rebuilt team. That was not supposed to be our best team.

1:25:36We lost a lot of players in Jackson Dart, the quarterback to the first round, and a lot of NFL players. So that was a rebuilt team with a ton of portal players again. So we have had practice in this in today's era of college football, especially the way we built teams year in and year out there. So we've done this. It is like almost every year you're redoing your culture. This is a little harder because we weren't here, So none of the returning players, even though they're returning to LSU, they don't know our culture. So in that way, it's a little bit like an expansion team, you know. But, you know, at the same time, other people are going through the same things.

1:26:12PFT Commenter:What's the hardest thing, like, culture-wise to instill in a team? Is it, like, toughness? Is it, you know, smarts to play the way that you want to play? Like, whether it be up-tempo offense? Like what is the, what's the hardest barrier for you that you find when you're trying to get the guys on the same page? I think it's really challenging nowadays because it's really hard to get guys to put together individual, put away individual things. You know, everything is so individual based. And if I play this and I think I'm going to get this contract, I'm going to get this. And so I need my stats, you know, because I got to get in the portal and get paid.

1:26:44So getting guys to really buy into, we understand that. You know, I think that we do a good job of really understanding how they think. So we're not like, hey, you got to be a team. don't care about anything, you know, like that's not realistic. Right. You know, but understanding like the enjoyment and what they will get out of playing really well as a team, having great years like what we've done previously and the memories that they'll have from that.

1:27:06Big Cat:Right. You know, versus everything being individual. What about the idea of having to de-recruit somebody after they get to campus? Like as they already accepted, they're, you know, trying to see where they fit on the team. Some guys need to be humbled a little bit. coming to certain times of the year. Is that the same thing nowadays, or have you found that it's changed with NIL and the portal? You can't actually de-recruit somebody. It's harder to humble these guys. Yeah, I think with NIL and portal, there's a lot of problems that have been created. I think with them getting paid, I don't think that's as challenging.

1:27:42I don't think it's as challenging to get guys to do things because we're paying you. You don't want to do it. There's a fine system. you know just like the nfl and so it's i find it's actually easier they kind of in their mind you know think they're like pros now which is good that's how we talk to them they are so you got high expectations and we get paid hey we expect you to do these things we expect you to do these things in the weight room in the film room all these different things and hey if you want to be a normal student and not really do all those things that's fine go see the gm and give back half your money right you know like if you want to do half the work yeah so i think in that way it's a little bit easier that way like hey you bring him in hey this is what you need to do and if you don't you know you're getting fine there's a fine system for those things but also what's going to happen at the end of the year you need to cut yeah yeah it's true it's a good point

1:28:32Big Cat:if you're recruiting a uh a quarterback what is it what does lane kiffin quarterback look like if you were to draw it up in the lab yeah you know we first off we we adjust really to our quarterback so it's not like the quarterback's gonna look just like this you know i mean we're we're going to take really good players, and over years they look really different, and then we move our system around to fit them, you know, what they do best. So we don't look for these specific height, weight, speed, arm, you know, but really competitiveness. You know, they all need to be really competitive. I really like guys that can make the out of rhythm plays.

1:29:08You know, we have tried to move more towards athletic, move around guys, because in college especially, so much stuff's out of rhythm, and it comes down to, hey, we don't make the right calls all the time. They get paid as defensive coordinators too. In this conference you've got really good defensive players and things. And at the end of the day, when that guy comes free and we don't make the right call or the left guard gets beat, do you make a miss and make the third down play? And that's really a lot of times what advances in the playoffs. Yeah. Deep in the year, does that guy do it? We get all the credit for a coach.

1:29:37Man, that was a great job. Well, really, the corner came free and the guy made a – the corner, you know, Trinidad makes a miss and runs all over there and makes a play. That's called good recruiting.

1:29:45PFT Commenter:Yeah, was Trinidad one of those guys where it's like he obviously was an unheralded guy, and what was it about him that you're like, okay, we can work with that and we can make a system around his strengths? Yeah, well, one, you look at it, he's a winner, so highly competitive. Winner, just won the national championship as a quarterback. And you know what's interesting? We messed around, we were going to go play pickleball today, but you guys said you weren't any good at that. Yeah, it's not a real sport. Listen, when we know we're going to lose, we don't play. Okay, yeah. So I played when we first got Trinidad.

1:30:18I went and played pickleball with him. He never played. And the way he picked up and the competitiveness that he had and his hand-eye coordination, you could tell, like, this guy was really elite special just playing pickleball.

1:30:29PFT Commenter:So what you're saying is that not playing pickleball with you today, we missed a potential tryout to be your starting quarterback. Yeah. Is that fair to say? That is, yeah. Damn. That sucks. And you could just be like, what's going on, like, in NCAA and, like, things like you can be old. Yeah, that's true. We've done everything and then we'll just be like – You guys just get a basketball player and we'll just get an injunction. We played on the Jazz and the Celtics last year. Yeah, yeah. We could play. Yeah, we'll just get a judge down here in the county and then just say, Big Cat's good. Ready to go.

1:30:57PFT Commenter:All right, so and then what about Sam Levitt, your quarterback, who's awesome, played at Arizona State, took their team to the playoffs. What do you see in him that you're like, this is a guy? And maybe what's the system – like is the system shifting here with what you're going to try to do that may be different than last year? Yeah, I think what we see in him is some similarities. You know, winner, highly competitive. You know, he took the team to the playoffs, you know, two years ago. Made a lot of plays, you know, where things broke down. He had to make plays with his feet. And he's really, really competitive and smart.

1:31:28Really student of the game. Loves watching it. He actually has been very limited because of surgery and what he could do. But the way that he's approached the game and how serious he is about being great is awesome to be around.

1:31:38PFT Commenter:Yeah, we saw him actually in the locker room. We did. He was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to throw from 10 to 12 tomorrow. He was talking to a player. He's like, all right.

1:31:46Big Cat:He's offseason. One anonymous player that we spoke with wanted me to ask if you're a big Dash Pro fan. I don't know what that means. I don't either. Dash Pro. I feel like I'm supposed to know what that is. I think he wants you to run Dash Pro. Are you keeping a secret play from us?

1:32:00PFT Commenter:Tell us you're keeping a secret play from us. No, I thought that was like one of those things that kids say nowadays. I'm supposed to know. Dash Pro. How many secret plays do you have? there are a lot of gas secret plays they're called gas okay what is that gas means like you go really fast and just give it one word and you got to memorize everything around it okay okay but is there like so i feel like we're gonna name gas plays after this we name after people too oh okay nice yeah like we'll have like gas big cat yeah that one's slow down that one's slow down and lay down and say finish strong yeah or we put like iconic people at the school yeah we have uh gas Libby Dunn.

1:32:35Big Cat:Yeah. And then it means a certain play and it's, you know, names they can remember. Can we give you one that maybe you can use this year? Gas Zach. That's our guy. Gas Cornelius. I know. Yeah, you know Zach. I know Zach. We know you're with his game. Gas Zach would be a slow down play. Maybe that's taking me. It would be a definite like slow down play. Hey guys, here's the play. We're going to take all of the clock up because the guy can't wake up with his damn alarm. Yeah. I like that.

1:32:59PFT Commenter:Yup. Yeah. Maybe that could be like in the game play. Yes. Gas Zach.

1:33:03Big Cat:Burn clock. Yes. Burn clock. Yeah. I like that a lot. You should, yeah. That's really good. Hey, that's it for now. You know how they have like milk the clock? We say milk the clock. Zach the clock. Zach the clock. That sounds good. Take it down all the way. I don't care what happens. You do not wake up. You do not snap that ball. What's beautiful about this moment right here is like there's an outside chance that 60 years from now and football coaches are just going to call it zacking the clock. Zacking the clock. And it's from this moment right now. Yeah. The clock. Maybe Belichick will use it.

1:33:34Big Cat:Yeah. You know, since I saw the thing where he did the clock. Yes. Yes. I don't think he'll be around in 60 years. Yeah. Maybe. Science is crazy.

1:33:42PFT Commenter:You never know. Science is nuts. His girlfriend will be around. Yes, she will. Our queen. Our queen. Keeps him young. Yeah. Pardon my chief. Maybe that's what he's thinking. Yes. That is exactly right. Yes. Exactly. Science will still be around. All right. I have a question from an LSU fan. Our friend Van Lathan. I texted him because he's from here and he's a big LSU fan. And I was like, hey, what do LSU fans want to know from Lane Kiffin? And he said, what will he do to make them play like the animals we've seen in IU? Yeah. Because that is something about LSU football where it's like even the ups and downs, there's a physicality that LSU football kind of always brings, especially on the defensive line where you're like, oh, man, dude's just absolutely destroying people.

1:34:27PFT Commenter:So what are you going to do to make that culture continue? Yeah. That was one of the first things was like, I said, it was like, we need to return LSU physical style the way that it was, especially defense when you were scared to play LSU. And I was at Alabama, I was at these other places. And it was always like, shit, when you got to play LSU defense? And if you got to play them in Tiger Stadium. Yeah. Yeah. So to get that back, one, players, get those type of players, you know. But then also that mindset, like, hey, man, they got to come play you. And you got to train that way. You got to think that way.

1:35:06Like, you're at LSU. And we do that when you say de-recruit them. It's not as hard because we sit here on this couch with them. And in recruiting or in the portal, this is what it's going to be. It's going to be really, really hard here. We're going to work you really hard. You're going to put a lot of time in it. It's going to be really physical and intense. So that's how we're going to train. So if you don't want that, that's okay. but don't come here right and that's that's how you got to do it here and get those type of guys that have that mindset that match the fans that match the stadium so that they're they're working together it is because you really do work together here i've been on the other side when it's working together in a stadium and the players are are in that tough phase and the fans come yeah feel like

1:35:52PFT Commenter:that weight on the other sideline like whoo yeah no we've we've said we've come to a couple games here and it is the best uh like whenever someone asks me like hey where should i go see a game and i'm like you got to go to lsu on a saturday night and i mean i'm a wisconsin fan i i'm not trying to blow smoke it's just the sound here is just different it sounds like lightning and thunder when you come out it's different standing on the on the field when you said that you had a

1:36:16Big Cat:question from a lsu fan i thought you were going to say uh ben mentz oh yeah he's got a question for you which is uh do you do you hate me no you should you should it's okay to hit him i've been on social media for a week so maybe he's done something i don't know oh probably yeah no that's the beauty of being off of it i've realized because now people hate you you don't even know it yes yes it's like it's not really happening it's true yeah it's not if you don't look at what would tyler the creator say like you're getting cyber bully just turn your phone off

1:36:45PFT Commenter:yeah it's because it's not happening yeah then it's gone but yeah you know you can hate him it's okay he's he's he's a hateable person really yeah well i mean he's just he's a nice guy but he's very hateable yeah um i like him i feel like he means well he just gets jammed up he does i will say he means well he definitely means well please you know both sides yeah yeah a little too much like he facetiming before like the playoff game and the cardings like being all nice and everything but then then old miss fans are mad at him for being nice and so and then he tries to like go back and be nice to them he is very good at finding a way to get like the maximum amount of people mad at him.

1:37:20Big Cat:It's a good skill. I got it.

1:37:24PFT Commenter:I'm good at it. You might be the Ben Mintz of college football. Oh no. Actually, no. I read the Vanity Fair interview. You're the opposite of

1:37:34Big Cat:Ben Mintz and some of his mistakes. Yes, that's true. Would you say that you're more of a part of my take podcast guest and maybe less of a Vanity Fair profile guy in the future? Yeah. Did you do that because you wanted nice pictures? That's our SID's idea. Right there. There he is. Because I've told you before. You know, Michael. I was like, what are we doing? He's like, you know, this is a different. This is not sports. These are new people, you know, that will get to hear about LSU and everything. You know, they'll do a really good job. They'll come in here. You know, there are not many questions and stuff.

1:38:09And they're here for like four hours. And then it became what it became.

1:38:12PFT Commenter:You should have taken them to hot yoga. because that's you there was a strategy today where you were just like we're gonna tire them out so to the point where they can't even think when they interview me yeah so it's a good strategy i just called you the ben mince of college football that was not a real thought just came out of my hydration gets so bad that your brain i'm a bad teammate right now if i pissed on one of those strips it'd be like you gotta you gotta drink 16 ounces asap you see those in the bathroom it's like if you're like orange yeah he's got strips you piss on What were you? I didn't get one of the strips.

1:38:46PFT Commenter:I just saw the sign.

1:38:47Big Cat:Yeah, I was a solid orange all day yesterday. All day. So I can't imagine what I'm like after school. Although you got hydration today at Fire Nutrition. You got your hydration in your juice place. That was a good time. Speaking of juice, this will be the only hard-hitting journalism question I ask today. Yeah. One of the big things that came out of the breakup at Ole Miss was, did you actually own that dog, Juice? Yeah. So I want to give you some space to clarify. And think carefully. because this is going to be a gotcha moment people will look into it what was your relationship like with juice and what is it like to this day i feel like it's one of those like number of awesome things like what we said you're there is everybody loves you and then you leave and then it's like everything changes to like and that was one of the really good ones like you know that he didn't even know juice it's fake you know it was just a it was just a stunt you know pr stunt that i had this dog you know like we got joc landry actually picked the dog out went out to wild rose kennel she wanted a dog because she had just moved from california and so she picked out juice and um that's really it we didn't even have a plan for him to be this mascot or any of the things that happened and she just kind of ran into that so was it your dog yes in your house in my house now oh now tom our dog trainer guy okay wild rose okay okay tom would keep him at times because of my schedule for how long you know once landry went to i first had him every day okay like a you know kid and then like the parent you know like sharing yeah and then when landry went to college okay now nobody was at the house right you're busy so tom would keep him a lot you know like during the week then you know like i'll get him back on thursday you know and he'd be with us for the weekend and then go back okay that's that's why it was kind of like joint custody yeah yeah divorced dog dad is what i'm hearing which is better than going like the christy gnome route with things with a dog yeah but so then after you left where's so where's juice now okay so juice has gone back and forth because i don't have a house yet okay okay so juice has gone back and forth and i got to get a house okay to get juice yes because at first i did bring him here okay and then like there's this little dog you know bed over there confirmed we doesn't look like a dog's ever been in that bed there's hair there's hair okay we'll do a dna test okay okay okay swipe okay but then we have a problem what's the dog gonna do all day because i don't have a house so then he was up here and he's here all day like and it was kind of like okay yeah and so i'm like okay hey, Tom, people are going back and forth.

1:41:22So then they drove him back up, and then Tom would keep him for a little bit, and he'd come down and visit a little bit. Okay.

1:41:27PFT Commenter:So Tom has a dog right now. Tom physically has a dog right now. He physically has. So if we FaceTimed Tom, he could show us proof of life of juice. Yes. This is true. All right, go ahead.

1:41:38Big Cat:We can do it. Sorry to FaceTime Tom. How committed are we to getting juice on campus? Like first time you have a night game, I'm sure Kirk Herbstreit's going to bring one of his several dogs here. Yeah. Can we get – will Juice be on camera once the season starts? Yeah, he'll be here by then. We'll have a house by then. Okay. I just was so focused on spring ball. Yeah. And then, like, I was close to a house and it fell through. And so, like, I don't have the house yet. You know, but, like – Need the house to get the house. Gotta have the house then, Doug. When we came down, we needed two houses.

1:42:09So, too much information. But, you know, Knox, the son, and then Layla, the ex-wife. Like, we moved down. Well, but we lived separate. It's an ex-wife. Yeah. So, we got to get two houses both places. We had two in Oxford. Well, she has two dogs there, so then you've got to get two here. We got her to one, found hers, didn't find mine yet, and she's got the two dogs. They don't get along with juice, so that was part of it.

1:42:29Big Cat:Okay. This is exactly what I wanted to find out. We're getting to the bottom of this. Yeah. Blended families, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:42:36PFT Commenter:Brandon Walker does not think the juice is real. That's my guy. Yeah, he is your guy. He is my guy. He actually has your back. He's actually the embodiment of the SEC where it's like he hated you, hated you. Exactly. Then you left, he's like, love Lane Kiffin. Great. He's doing it for us.

1:42:54Big Cat:So you haven't been online, but for the last week or so, Brandon has been like the number one defender of you. I feel like he's been for a while. Yeah. He's really glad that you left. Oh, absolutely. Actually, I feel like why he was there, he would actually say, Lane Kiffin is the best coach in college football. Because he wanted to get me out. Yeah. He actually thought like ADs would listen to him. Like, hey, if I say he's great, maybe the LSU and Florida AD will listen to Brandon Walker. Oh, they do.

1:43:21PFT Commenter:He's the number one college football analyst. Maybe they do. Yeah, yeah. Former. Maybe they bring him to SEC meetings. Talk to all the ADs about it. He could rank the potential coaches. Yeah. He loves doing lists. He loves doing lists.

1:43:32Big Cat:Would it be safe to say, though, that you're talking about messy divorces. Your divorce from FAU is maybe the cleanest?

1:43:39PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:43:40Big Cat:So in the future, if people accuse you of being messy with these things, be like, hey go talk to FAU I did it good once yeah they'll they'll say nice things about me one time I did it and actually the more when people say like oh teams are distracted they can't play well you know that was the whole thing kind of at the end like they're not going to be able to play well they're too distracted distracted Ole Miss team like that started when we were playing at Oklahoma you know and they're not going to play well in the Egg Bowl they certainly can't play well because they're distracted because everybody's saying their coaches leaving well We played really well.

1:44:09At FAU, actually, I take the Ole Miss job that morning of the conference championship. We don't play until later in the day. The players are actually seeing it. We're telling them. They're seeing it on SportsCenter that we're leaving, and then we go win by like 40 in the conference championship game. Yeah, yeah.

1:44:25Big Cat:As long as you're open with them. Yeah. Just like at Ole Miss, I told them all along, like, I don't know what I'm doing. You'll never find a recruit or a parent. Normally when you leave, they say, well, man, he told us he was going to be here, you know, when we signed or be here forever. I never once said, they'd always ask me, they'd sit right on the couch and say, Hey, are you going to be here forever? If we come to Ole Miss, I said, I don't know that. I said, I know I love it here, but I can't tell you I'm going to be here forever. Yeah. That's always up front with them. Yeah. Um, we, we are on a group chat together and, uh, we go back, we bounce a lot of ideas off each other.

1:44:55Big Cat:Um, how, how would you say, um, your understanding of me and big cats, Tom, okay. Okay. We're FaceTime. How would, how would you rank me and big cats contributions to that group chat in terms of, plays that we can think about running next year well yeah we fell into a problem because first off our group chat was us yeah sawyer that now works for us here that came with us he was on the first brigade what he called first platoon yeah that's what they named it like the people that got on the first plane well there were two planes yeah thank you for your service yeah because some people were like okay you know like hey okay we're coming and then all of a sudden that shit got like a little crazy and people are like oh we're not sure we're getting on the plane yeah no everyone's

1:45:35PFT Commenter:hey where's glasscock we got to find them yeah yeah where's glasscock and joe cox yeah right we got to find these guys yeah supposedly they're coming and then like they were all saying they're coming and then all of a sudden golding starts talking to them and then they're like hey be careful if you go to that if you go out there man there's a lot of people at that airport you know it's really ugly and then like they start facetiming to hey are you on the plane yeah like are you on the plane yeah so anyway um yeah the first brigade so he gets on well we leave we leave fisher yeah you know which is okay great guy he got married you know and then like you know his wife's there and so it was it was complicated so they stayed there all right well he was still in our group chat at that point so we're talking plays scheme and like a lot of stuff you guys give us we actually implement high intel fake punt punt yeah yeah now it's an operational security issue laterals on normal down distance yeah yeah so we had to get him out of it out of it so it's a big time i mean there's two i got a lot of group chats of really kind of like high level people really high level thoughts you know you got elite sec coaches in one you got some other people in that i won't talk about yeah and then there's ours you should throw p carol in ours just toss him in yeah that's true he does like that he likes outside the box yeah okay he's never heard a fake punt punt i showed you it worked i sent you that clip yeah it worked i can't remember who it was like division three team but it worked they did not see that coming is there a

1:47:02Big Cat:is there actually like an sec head coaches group chat yeah there's two there's the one with everybody uh-huh you know that they have so that like the assistant commissioner can have it in it you know like so that all the coaches so if they want to like tell us something they're thinking about role change you know and then there's like one kind of created on our own you know that's just like some select ones not that we're better than anybody just right you know that we're close and so we kind of bitch about things together or throw ideas out in there together and stuff you know like can i guess talk bad about the other coaches you know can i guess who's in it we i don't know if i'm allowed to say it because kirby's made a rule that that's everybody knows kirby's in it so i didn't just okay so there's one yeah yeah sark we know is in it for sure

1:47:44PFT Commenter:friends with sark so we got two right so far that was really okay but here here's here's the deal i've gotten in trouble for this before because i've talked about this with people i think i think it was theo von's podcasting like and and kirby's like dude it's fight club man you can't talk about yeah this group you can't talk about what happens in here and you keep breaking the rule and you're the one that started the group you know like so do you think maybe they started

1:48:07Big Cat:a new group chat without you because they can't trust you in yours i don't want to put that thought in your head that's a mean thing for me to do um well it's last time you talked it is crazy because the group has six people okay all right now again but then there's so many separate ones So there's basically like a group – there's every group that doesn't have each one of them in it one time. Right. So like, hey, man, you know, like that guy really just got smoked Saturday. And like you want to say something funny Saturday night, you know, or like send something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of funny or some video.

1:48:38Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. A gif, yeah.

1:48:39Big Cat:Who added Summerall to it? Was that you or did somebody else do that? And he's not in ours. Oh, okay. But good job. Okay. So we can just wrap that up.

1:48:46PFT Commenter:When was the last time you talked to Brent Venables? um i'm good with him but i i guess another one that's not yeah okay all right now we're getting

1:48:58Big Cat:somewhere uh so what does steve elko think about the price of crude oil these days like i know that's right tied in with like all the boosters steve yeah mike elko sorry that's all right steve elko elko you know elko oh we got it we got juice this is gonna be huge

1:49:20PFT Commenter:you don't talk you don't talk no no hold on Tom yeah how you doing can we see Juice please uh please produce Juice okay he's trying to figure out how to flip the camera

1:49:33Big Cat:which okay I can tell he's actively working there's Juice

1:49:37PFT Commenter:nope that's just nope that looks like a drawing of a dog

1:49:40Big Cat:can we see the tag

1:49:41PFT Commenter:yeah we can see it we can see Juice

1:49:43Big Cat:can we zoom in on the tag please

1:49:45PFT Commenter:uh yeah alright we're gonna need uh Oh, yeah. There's juice. Yeah, so Brandon. Yeah, Brandon really says that juice doesn't... Tom, we're going to need a couple mouth swabs just to confirm that juice is real, so just send that to us. He trusts me. That's what I do for a living. He's real. Wait, do me a favor. Call his name. Walk to the other side of the room and call his name. I bet you Juice's head will turn if I whistle. He knows my whistle. Hold on. This is big. Here, juice. Sit. Okay. Okay. This is good enough for me. You kind of said Juice after here. I needed you to say Juice first.

1:50:20Big Cat:Can you just hold the camera really close to his tag? Yeah. Can you zoom in on his tag, please?

1:50:24PFT Commenter:All right, wait. On his what?

1:50:26Big Cat:On his tag. His name tag. He's naked. No name tag? He's naked.

1:50:29PFT Commenter:Yeah, we'll blur this.

1:50:30Big Cat:He's naked. Coach, he's a hunting dog. They don't put a tag on him with the phone number.

1:50:34PFT Commenter:Tom, go in the other room and call Juice's name. What do you think? They have like the dog bone with the address on there? Here he goes. It's like a real hunting dog. Here he goes. Just start with Juice.

1:50:48juice

1:50:49PFT Commenter:that's juice that's juice all right confirm confirm thank you tom we appreciate it no problem all right see ya all right all right you know what you got us yeah

1:51:02he's actually like a world-class hunting dog so he's like it's like the manning of dogs like when you go out there to like their facility people fly planes in to get these dogs and everything and like juice's grandfather's like on the wall you know in front of magazines like So he's like world-class hunting dog. So he's a Nepo baby. It's like a Manning of dogs, of like hunting. And so we have this dog. I don't know anything about hunting or whatever. But yeah, so he doesn't have a name tag. You talk about coaches are supposed to drink beer. Tough hunting dogs, they don't have a name tag. Yeah, no.

1:51:31Like their address.

1:51:32PFT Commenter:He was naked, yeah. But that was juice. I can confirm that dog was confirmed.

1:51:36Big Cat:Your dog. Tom's probably like, what the fuck was that? No, this is big. This is actually like the most. Like Pablo Torre, better watch out because we might get a Pulitzer. We just found out.

1:51:44PFT Commenter:Your dog is real. Anything to prove Brandon wrong? Oh, man. That's great. That's great. Hey, so do you think of new offensive plays just randomly? Like when you're back to like our group chat, because we're obviously giving you some great stuff to think about. But are you like walking down the street or at hot yoga, and it's just like your brain just starts thinking, oh, what if I did this with the receiver? What if I did this out of the backfield? Yeah. So voice memos. I've learned to use voice memos a lot, like Charlie Weiss. So, like, I'm laying there getting ready for bed or something like that.

1:52:21You know, like, you're laying there and something just pops in. You know, it's, like, dark, so you can't really text and all that. You don't want to, like, wake up and see the screen. So I just voice memo him. Hey, what if we put the receiver down in this? Hey, what if we thought about this tomorrow? Remind me of this in the morning. Voice memos.

1:52:36PFT Commenter:Okay. So that's, I mean, that's cool to just be thinking. Like, you could do that, like, on Friday nights to me in our group chat. Like, when you're just kind of laying there. Yeah. You know, like, or you're at the bar or whatever. I don't really go to the bar, yeah. Okay, but you think of something? Yeah. Just voice me with me. Hey, coach, tomorrow, man, I think you should run this the first play. Shark wheel. Shark wheel. Yeah. Just hit it over and over. Just spam it. Against Ole Miss week three, shark wheel. Shark wheel. Shark wheel. That's good. You get Sam Levitt out in space. Yeah. You put the linebackers in complete conflict.

1:53:07PFT Commenter:You're ready to go. That's shark wheel. Was it hard to – I love how your group just nods at you. Yeah, well, they know because I won a couple national titles playing the video game. And I think I ran Shark Wheel 90 % of the time. What's the most you've ever run the same play? Now I recall the video game thing. I won a title here at LSU. 1-1 at Tennessee, 1-1 at LSU. Is this when they first put like the coach, you can be the coach and like draw yourself and stuff? I know I should remember this, but I do. It was during COVID when we had no sports. I bought the old game from 2014 and just started streaming myself playing it.

1:53:43PFT Commenter:And I would just, like, I went through multiple seasons losing in, like, horrific ways. And it kept building and building. And we had no sports. So, like, by the end, 100 ,000 people were watching me try to win an actual title. Yeah, I remember this. Yeah, Shark Wheel. Yeah. I'll know it when I see it, too. I feel like I know something about this, too. Like, I think I tweeted something at you about this or something. Like, you were playing, like, hey, we could beat you. Because I did beat Ole Miss a couple times because I was in the SEC, both with Tennessee. But wait, weren't you, like, a small team or something?

1:54:10I started at Toledo. And then I went. Oh, you've got new head jobs.

1:54:14PFT Commenter:Yeah, I would go around. I was FSU offensive coordinator, Texas Tech, USC. Hopped around. Yeah. Won some natties. I do remember this. Something you don't have.

1:54:23Big Cat:Well, actually, like what Big Cat went through with those fan bases, pretty similar. You went on a video game. No. He had people that were mad at him for leaving their schools. Yeah.

1:54:30PFT Commenter:Like he knew exactly what you'd go through. Yeah. Learn things. I had people at the airport when I would leave. They're just yelling shit at me. Like, sorry, I gotta go. That would be awesome, actually, if they made the game. and then when you do like you know you get better jobs yeah like you move on and like in what you're saying you know she's over you move on and then they like show the people like at the airport yeah they're burning things on campus yeah great he would spam the same play like have you ever

1:54:54Big Cat:done that to an opponent like run the same play 10 times in a row yeah uh we can actually say this now um mulligan it was so if you said mulligan that's all you had to say all the players knew to run the exact same play. And then, like, sometimes it would hit, and you'd be like, Mulligan. Yeah, keep going. Mulligan. One more. Yeah, we actually did it at Ole Miss Alabama in the COVID time in this really high-scoring game. Yeah. And that year, I don't know, it was like 50-something to 48 or something. We lost to Alabama. But we kept running the same play like four times in a row, Mulligan. What was it?

1:55:30It was like a zone play with the tight end sliding back. And it hit, like, on third and forever, and then we just kept running it.

1:55:36PFT Commenter:Yeah. That's got to be a cool feel. That's got to feel incredible. Have you talked to Coach O at all? You obviously have history with him, and we love Coach O. We'd love to see him back. We'd love to see him back. He needs to be back. You know he needs to be back. We've got to get him back. This is home. Yeah. You might not be on that second. Did Joel Crawfish with him today? No, not yet. Oh. We might see him later on. Okay. When you were with him at Tennessee, what was the projector story? From your point of view, can you set the scene for what Coach O did with the projector before? I think it was Tennessee, Alabama.

1:56:18I got so many. Give us your Coach O stories. No, or you just. I don't even remember. Like where he broke the projector.

1:56:26PFT Commenter:He smashed it against the wall as your opening act. That's a tough act to follow. That's like nothing. And he used to actually like smash the projector and like everything in like the meeting room in the hotel, like the morning of the game. Get everyone fired up. Like they come in like, hey, it's a wartime. Yeah. You know, and like he'd be all fired up and we like come down, like me and Sark. This was like we're all assistants there, you know, and he was like, Coach Carroll would be like, all right, get him going. Coach, I got him now. We're going to get him going. Sark and I are like, it's like eight hours before kickoff.

1:57:02Like, what are we doing here? Because we're more like, hey, let's just, like, show them plays. You know, like, give some tips and reminders. Let them go back upstairs, you know, like, lay around. And Coach, I'm going to get them going. Like, okay, it's 7 a.m. We don't play for eight more hours. It works, though. No. Yeah. And they just break shit.

1:57:17PFT Commenter:Yeah. And then they just start breaking shit. And then, like, our director of football ops, like, on Monday would be like, here's our bill, like, because we broke a chandelier and everything, like, in the whole, like, hotel room. You know, like, we're into the game to, like, get them going. That's how he gets them going. He says, war time. We got to take it outside. Yeah. I love that. I love that.

1:57:37Big Cat:Does Heupel emphasize things or thumbs up them, or does he write back on the group chat? That's smart. No. He's not on there. He's on the big one. He's on the big one. Okay, he's on the big one. He's on the big one. Confirmed on the big one. He's on the big one. Here's the sad thing, and this happens in the side one. So I'll give you this. I mean, at the end of the year, things change. Yeah. so the big group chat changes and then everybody would be like in our little one like Kirby World Deck's like I'm breaking the rules right now but whatever I mean it's okay I've not been a big rule follower in interviews anyway and he'll be like okay who's gonna take him out of the conversation the guy just got fired he's gotta remove him yeah that's a sad moment where it's like Billy Napier has left the conversation Yeah, just be like, hey.

1:58:31Yeah, well, it's worse when they don't leave on their own. Right. So one of us has to take them out. Yeah. Yeah.

1:58:36Big Cat:That is tough. But then also that's kind of funny for everybody else. Like in a sad way, it's funny for everybody to like look at that and it's like they're before the greatest of God. What about like somebody who removes you and it's like Big Cat Rude. Right.

1:58:46PFT Commenter:So you had to remove Mark Stoops? Um, no. Oh, I know what we did. No, no, no. I know what we did. Now I remember. Here's what we did. We just started a new one. So nobody ever saw the guy. Yeah. You have like the, but then I screw up because sometimes I just like, all right, name the new one. I go to Senate and they'll, they, they say all the time. Like I send more things times 10 than everybody. Right. You're that guy. I'm that guy. Yeah. Like basically sometimes I feel like I'm like talking to yourself. Yeah. yeah like one other person and i'll be like sark i guess we could just like have our own conversation so then like then you start the new ones but here's the problem they're not named right so then like hey i want to like go and i'm like okay i'm gonna send this picture to our group whatever it is or something like this and so like i write kirby and then it pulls up like so many so i'm like oh here's one with everybody you know and it says this and then they'll like said you just text the old one.

1:59:47PFT Commenter:Right. So it's definitely a coach. Yeah, you just confirmed that one. I told you. Yeah, he's actually like, that's a bad move. Him and I have been the longest standing members. Yeah. But that's a tough move when that happens. You know, what you got to do is you got to name it and you also got to change the picture. Yeah, do you have actually, what's the picture? is what catches your eye and you're like, okay, this is the new one. Yeah. That's the move. There's just a lot that says SEC head coaches. Just put us in there and we'll police it. It's awesome.

2:00:16Big Cat:Can we be a silent partner in that group chat? We won't respond.

2:00:18PFT Commenter:I promise you I won't abuse the privilege. There's so much great stuff in there. I bet.

2:00:24Big Cat:We could respond if you want. We'll just thumbs up shit. I don't care. What is the picture at the top? Is it just the SEC logo? That rocks. That's classy. That's cool. That's an all-class move.

2:00:35PFT Commenter:Yeah. Is the SEC dead, though? Because the Big Ten kind of whoops the SEC now. It's fair. Yeah. It is. It's a fair statement. It is.

2:00:44Big Cat:Why do you think it's been so long since the SEC won a Natty? It's like – there's like four-year-olds that have never seen an SEC win a Natty. My four-year-old son Chris has actually – he just thinks that the Big Ten is just the Big Ten. He doesn't even know about the SEC. There's a lot into that. I think that – I think it's set up in a good way for the top heavy teams that are right now. I think now – and it's going to get better. We're going to nine games, and our bottom is harder than theirs. And our bottom stadiums are harder than theirs. So we're going to beat each other up more, and they're going to sit up there and have two, three hard games a year.

2:01:24And so their top teams and our top teams, when they go to the playoffs, they're in better shape. That stuff matters. It's why I've always been a proponent to stay at eight games and let us make our own whoever we want to play in nine cards. Don't tell us who we have to play. Right. and we would do like the model of the last place I was just at. We went 20-0 in non-conference regular season games at Ole Miss, 20-0. We didn't play any of them big openers. This place went in a four-year span, lost three or four openers.

2:01:54PFT Commenter:Yeah, they had played hard games at the openers. So you play – yeah, that's so great. Well, you don't get rewarded for it because it's not worth it enough. But also that schedule where half your games you don't have to get up for, it's just a mental toll that you've got to play when you're getting up for. Plus also, your good players are out by the fourth quarter. So your play count at the end of the year is less. One of the really good teams there rested a couple of their good players in conference games at the end of the year so they could be in better shape for the playoff run, which is now longer.

2:02:25And I think as you look at our model Ole Miss, like that schedule, we played eight home games last year. Okay. Look, that team was in really good shape physically and mentally to go into the playoffs.

2:02:37PFT Commenter:Yeah. you almost lost to washington state yeah and that was the that was the rat poison game where we we gave you guys rat poison we tweeted things i look like a genius i was like this is the biggest trap game ever take washington state and then you you put it in front of your team and i almost was right i almost you guys almost fucked that up so watch this this is why scheduling matters okay so was that the hardest non-conference team out there no no we're not playing ohio state or something so we'll include this in our group chat what we have figured out is basically every year you're gonna have a blackout game good and bad yep it's just what's gonna happen the ball is gonna go that way man someone's gonna get hurt like everything's gonna go good in one game you have a blackout game man like and it might be a side of the ball right but in every year you're gonna have a blackout bad game can you survive the bad blackout well if that day of your bad blackout you're playing somebody that's not great maybe you can survive it we played horrible that day no energy 11 a.m kicker just what happened yeah and we survived it right we survived our blackout game right because that that is always interesting to me is like as a college coach how do you after a big win like they are kids at the end of the day like they're obviously there's some you know guys are playing in their mid-20s but there's a lot of 18 19 20 year old kids who have a huge moment and then they got to go play the next week how do you how do you get off the mat how do you get them to turn the page because just human nature when you do something very like incredible successful that you're gonna you're gonna bask in it for a little bit relief syndrome that's what happens that happens to adults right nfl play you have that game the let down game so it certainly happens in college it happens to all it's really hard to battle against relief and like we're good i got this man we just won that game and now it's harder than ever because what do they do all day long read about how great they are this is how great they are this game they know spreads they know like how hey we're not supposed to lose this game more than they didn't even like see that stuff right they're reading a paper back in the day so now they see all that so it's even more that that's why you got to try to get them to understand like every game man is independent of every other game yeah yeah yeah it really it really is it's hard to do and every game is independent in every uh every game previous game and it doesn't matter man if you beat him before and you guys we got to go play you it doesn't matter that i beat him but you didn't let you lost him all that shit doesn't matter yeah no that's every game's independent

2:05:11Big Cat:that that that narrow victory that you had against old miss helped me because i went to james madison so we also narrowly beat uh washington state and then i got to be like well old miss they're a tough team Ole Miss struggled with them too so basically you would beat Ole Miss yeah so basically we beat Ole Miss actually by the I think we might have beaten you yeah by the property last year yeah we kicked your ass yeah yeah overrated um then how's that belt taste with so so our former coach Signetti went to Indiana has obviously been on an incredible run how much do you adjust things like you get you get somebody like him that comes in wins at a place that nobody thinks you'd be able to win at how do you adjust what you're doing or do you change anything at all based on how he has uh chosen to like attack the portal build a team like do you do you change anything about the way you operate yeah we don't because there's a lot of similarities there about building through portal and you know how to invest in which players and top players and stuff so um i think there's a lot of similarities in the models of how the teams were built you know portal heavy not traditional national high school you know five-star players so um there's a lot of

2:06:20PFT Commenter:similarities in the models of how we do it yeah uh was it hard to keep with weeks here

2:06:29um yeah i mean he was thinking about going yeah and

2:06:35PFT Commenter:well i just feel like it really wasn't a professional question but i'm gonna i was asking i'm gonna answer it professional that was a professional question okay what was it like re-recruiting we wit weeks i almost leaned into it i almost gave a very unprofessional answer and then i was like okay i actually care the s id before i started he's like hey don't get too loose with them now you know you do this with people and then all of a sudden you say those things and then we got to like go backtrack

2:07:02Big Cat:yeah yeah so i'm trying to be on middle behavior how about how about you don't say the thing that you were you were going to backtrack on but you could just do the backtrack track as if you had said yeah yeah backtrack right now so backtrack what you almost said yeah just be like i'm sorry it was taken out of context i actually do this all the time i'll be like to people all the time i'll be like god like i shouldn't say this at all and then i just yeah yeah of course like hey no you know i really you know like it would be rude to say this but this is what i was thinking and then they're like but you said it anyway yeah we do it all the time on the show we're like i'm

2:07:38PFT Commenter:not gonna say it and they're like all right well you gotta say it yeah well now it's not as funny yeah initially i was gonna be like yeah well you know i just called his girlfriend yeah yeah so now you're at now it's backtrack now backtrack now tell us the apology oh then i'm gonna apologize for yeah just saying yeah call the girlfriend thing i called a girlfriend who's the daughter of me you know like and then she told him to stay and all yeah so it was taken out of context i don't accept the apology okay yeah we just want to let everyone know we're here to coach football yeah but here's the thing you gotta wait a few days you gotta make wait wait a few days to apologize so then the story comes back again it was just dying down yeah right okay man we're finally moving on make sure you get hey i really apologize yeah that's the message you gotta keep everyone talking about you and then it's like they're like man he apologized oh no did he actually just bring it back up again what did he apologize for yeah yeah um all right i got one last question It's been so much fun.

2:08:31PFT Commenter:We've had an incredible day. You guys have been like the best in terms of hosts. We've done everything. Hot yoga, softball. We did the crazy. Beat you in softball. We beat you in softball. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, by the way, that relief syndrome thing, like we could play softball a hundred times. We beat you guys a hundred times. Every game is independent of the other. No, not us. No, actually no. If you're playing turn base every time, we're going to win every time. Here's what I disagree. One, okay, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of factors that go into this. now we had no our team had no idea about like the new ball that y 'all use we don't know that even though we had some softball people they're not used to that softball coaches from the softball team yes correct okay yeah but it's kind of like a different sport then like now you guys knew how to strategically like place your outfield people and stuff like now we realize the ball can't really travel that far like well all right so then let me ask you a question if you if we played that game again right now would you put yourself at third base that's the other thing i didn't know my team now i know i don't even know the people that were on my team would you put yourself no base okay but also this i would be better now maybe i would because here's the thing you're back to a loss you're back to a loss no because i know the ball now the damn ball first off you got to have a different game plan in the first inning and in later inning yes because the ball gets softer i told you guys that yeah you get hit the ball yeah but i didn't really realize that would you try to You try to hit hard grounders in the first inning.

2:09:57It's hard to feel. Because you're kind of scared of that ball at first because you're like, wait, I don't have a glove. Then you realize, all right, this ball got soft, man. You can toss it around.

2:10:04Big Cat:Would you consider yourself to be a good loser? No. You kind of walked off by yourself. I'm a terrible loser. The last out that you made when you ran the first baseline. Don't do well with no. You did the A-Rod. You reached out. You tried to slap the ball out of Shane's hands at first base, and then you just kept running afterwards. And I was like, I get it. I mean, show me a good loser. I'll show you a loser. So I get it. You don't like to lose. It makes sense. Good one. Thank you. Yeah.

2:10:27PFT Commenter:I keep up with that. And usually they're good news. They've gotten used to it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like if we had played pickleball. All right. Rollback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K dot com. Promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Rollback dot com. Promo code TAKE. Zach. That was a really good job. Thank you. I thought you were reading it over there. No, no, no. Yeah. I got it in my head. Wow. It's like three lines. So, yeah. I could play for you. Mulligan. We don't even need that. Gas.

2:10:55Big Cat:Mulligan, Gas, Zach. Gas, Zach. It's three lines. Max could play for you, too. My guy. What's going on, Coach? I appreciate you for your time today. I was curious. I did see you recently. I don't know if this is a developing friendship, but I saw you did go on stage with LeBusey a couple of weeks ago, and I was curious if for the city of Baton Rouge, if there was any talks of maybe having him run down the tunnel with the team one game this season. Yeah, I don't think the tunnel thing, you know, that's kind of sacred in that you know we've discussed different people and we did this at the previous place you know doing like the tiger walk with us you know so they kind of walk in the stadium kind of like the the morgan walling thing you know like yeah you know like so we've discussed

2:11:34PFT Commenter:that even talked to boosie about that okay awesome nice any follow-up and i was also curious i like boosie yeah i agree yeah yeah we're gonna be catfish i just went and caught like real fish and i was sending them videos and he's like damn that's scary out there you know like we go way out like 100 miles out and stuff and he just like just stays in shore and catches catfish yeah we

2:11:54Big Cat:had some of his chips yesterday in the van they were good way over yeah the wrap snacks are really good yeah wrap snacks wrap snacks boozy badass chips yeah they were actually dot com yeah yeah check it out yeah all right go ahead zach i was also curious uh whether it be uh uh tennessee you know florida old miss now here at lsu what is it about coaching in uh in the south like is there something that sets aside coaching the south compared to other regions of the united states that like just has you keep coming back or good question he just cracks me up it's a good question because i i really i told you self-admitted like i don't see the show all the time yeah yeah okay so sawyer like just kind of like gives me the funny clips yeah and so sawyer this morning like comes in and shows his clip with bilichick and alarms and all that stuff and i was like i was like he's acting no no so that's what i said today like he walked i was like he's acting the exact same again yep it's the same yeah sec it's just just what we talked about the reaction there you know when you change jobs look at the two previous sec jobs and you move and you change then everybody's like well there if you think about their action was because i came to lsu well that reaction at tennessee was another that wasn't a rival school because it was like well if you would have left for a rival school miss would have been fine yeah tennessee wasn't because that's that's the passion of that's the same reason why the stadiums are the way the intensity is the way it is um it means more you know we talked about well the big 10 and winning you know those championships and stuff but the sec what we talked about you got to get up every week man you got to play in that every week and the the fans have that the city the towns have that and it's really cool i mean it really i know it gets overplayed like it it means more but it does man it ruins people's like whole year when they lose a rivalry game down here is there a is there any kind of like feeling you could acquaint it to like having the city and at an SEC school behind you just like it's almost bigger than the game like the entire city just around it like waiting to see this team win is there any is there any feeling that's close to that or is it unlike anything else it really is you know we guard against it you know we talk a lot against it because you know coaches the kids experience you know to become like these little gods in these towns and stuff you know like well that's great when it's going good but then when it goes bad it's the other way Like, this is what, when I first got here, what I realized, whether you win or lose, whichever it is, that kid, he's not escaping it all week because everywhere you go.

2:14:17Now you go, like, let's say when I was at USC, like the kid goes to, goes to class, you know, like half the kids in class have no idea what happened in the game. You know what I mean? Like, or, you know, the gas station, they don't know. Here, Tennessee, you know, places like that, Alabama, they're like, everybody knows everything. So it's like, man, when it's good, it's good. But you also got to guard from that. the guys get too high because everywhere they go to hear man you're great man you especially when you talk about letdown games yeah i mean you got this game they're hearing that everywhere they go because everybody knows right they go down to eat they get lunch everybody down there knows the janitor knows everybody knows what happened last week and knows exactly how they played yeah

2:14:54PFT Commenter:did you have a laugh with kaylin deborah about that woman who said if she won the lottery she'd buy out his contract did you have a little laugh on the group chat but see you think you're figuring out the small group chat there's still the big one that all these yeah i know but that one's business. I'm talking about the small ones. I kind of break that a little bit. You got Linda Bore not in the small group chat. No. And in fairness, he's not SEC. In fairness, you wouldn't get in that fast.

2:15:20Big Cat:Right. So you're strong coaches. These are usually like relationships that have been developed. Like drink wits, yeah. Yeah.

2:15:28PFT Commenter:You should actually make it like... Yeah, no. I got you. You should make it like if you beat... If a new coach beats you or Kirby, they get in. That'd be fun. That's good, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they've got to keep you guys honest.

2:15:42Big Cat:Do you ever just drop memes in the official one, like back to Greg Sankey? Like you just mess around in the official group chat? You meme him? He's not in the – oh. Oh, he's not in the official SEC? No, he's not. Okay.

2:15:53PFT Commenter:Got it.

2:15:53Big Cat:He delegates that.

2:15:54PFT Commenter:Got it. Yeah, throw us in that one. Yeah, that would be a good one. We'll just be the moderator. But I send things to Greg Sankey. He would tell you if he's interviewed it, nobody else sends to him. So that's just me.

2:16:03Big Cat:Yeah. Have you gotten to meet and know Mike the Tiger yet? Not really besides just going by there once. Yeah, we said hello to him. You haven't like – I mean I did walk up there once and try to like have a moment, you know, like hey, I'm the coach. Yeah, yeah. You're the Tiger. I actually do feel like that's important for the coach here. That's really why we need Coach O. Like that's – you just need – just for things like that. Yeah. Because actually what we're discussing right there and halfway joking. He knows. he has a relationship with Mike the Tiger 100 % it's based on mutual respect and even if the Tiger doesn't know he would tell you that he believes the Tiger oh yeah definitely like coach me and the Tiger we've been knowing each other for a long time coach I knew his daddy yeah

2:16:49PFT Commenter:this is Petey Mike well coach thank you for an unbelievable day we appreciate it Grit Week this has been awesome and best of luck this season alright guys thanks for having everybody

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2:17:33Big Cat:And then I've got the strawberry PB &J as well. I'm going to have a Reese's marshmallow. It's delicious. Check it out. Hersheyland.com slash Reese's.

2:17:42PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest. It is our guy, Blake Portals, in the back of Vanny Woodhead 2. First time we've had anyone back here. What's up, dude? What's going on? Thanks for having me. And we're also, we should say, we just built an entire play set with a great company called Rock Solid. Go check them out. For a young kid, two-year-old who's battling cancer. Feels good, boys. We just put in a hard day's work. Yeah. Great event. Awesome thing to do for a kid and his family. And, I mean, we got to live out a dream of working construction. Yeah.

2:18:24Big Cat:We're up some things in a second. and we figured that probably wouldn't be the best thing to do. I was offered a sing early, and I was like,

2:18:29PFT Commenter:I don't think that's what we should do in the backyard of this kid's house. Maybe not. Maybe a little bit later.

2:18:35Big Cat:But he was so happy to see when Blake handed him a Jacksonville Jaguars football. So that was cool to see, Blake. He still got the touch. Yeah. I didn't get a golden hammer, but. Yeah, no big deal. It's fucking hot back here, by the way. Me and Max were awarded the golden hammer, and Zach, so we feel pretty good about that. Blake, I saw you just a couple months ago, and Hank and I were down here for TPC at Sawgrass, and we went golfing. Afterwards, we had a few beers over at our place, and you told a story that I was hoping that you would share with our audience because I was complimenting you on how fast you were.

2:19:08Big Cat:Like you had, I think among all qualified quarterbacks, you had the highest yards per carry of any AFC quarterback of all time. Yeah. So you were fast. You're a fast guy. And then you were telling me a story about when you first got drafted by the Jaguars, how fast you were that you tried to talk to your coach about maybe letting you play a different position yeah i thought early on uh the tight end could have been a potential better just long-term situation for my skill set um and they kind of pushed back on that so i ended up playing quarterback why did they push back because it was the fact they drafted you three i think that had something to do with it yeah and your coach said well like blake blake we just we just drafted you third overall, please don't ever say that to anybody again.

2:19:52Yeah, no, so I kept that one to myself, but I would hop in drills. I would hop in drills every now and then. Quarterback ended up being alright.

2:19:58Big Cat:Yeah, quarterback was great, and you are, I'm just, I said that. The skill set was fitting for a tight end, I always thought. But I did say that to remind people that, like, you're an athlete. Absolutely. Athlete. I had more offers to play tight end at a college than quarterback. Wow. Wait, where else were you offered? I had never played tight end before. Okay. Colorado State. Okay. Western Kentucky told me I was too slow so they wanted me to play tight end i was too slow to play quarterback okay tight end okay and then purdue oh yeah that would have been an interesting place for you the guy doesn't really fit your personality and watched me throw in high school for like an hour and a half and made me do all these extra drills and at the end was like yeah we're gonna offer you a scholarship as a tight

2:20:38do you do you miss it at all do you miss football i do i miss it a lot uh i still talk to people i'm getting old now i know more coaches than players yeah um but enjoy watching miss hanging out the locker room all the typical stuff being around the guys do you do you watch like all the games i didn't at first i was a little sour originally yeah i'm done and then that lasted like half a season and then i started watching it's just fun to watch and root for guys that you know and coaches and jesus i'm sweating it's so hot back here it is so hot when you saw when you saw

2:21:06Big Cat:philip rivers play this year were you like were you like i thought it wouldn't be i thought i could play no yeah for me that would be the straw that would be like the last one where it's like i'm better than philip rivers no i think philip at it the mental edge probably the physical as well um i think i told you this last time i saw you it happened again i played catch we got two boys that live next to us neighbors like 10 and 12 great kids good athletes but i played catch with them on saturday and my arm's still sore oh yeah so yeah how are they how are they catching they're

2:21:37PFT Commenter:great yeah good little athletes wait yeah so are your we were we were having when we were doing the construction i think that's why we didn't get the golden hammers we were catching up we're talking about our kids so you you said in florida they have they have t-ball they have travel t-ball travel t-ball florida is just you know it's competitive and it's competitive like right away like as soon as you there's no rec league and like let's just have fun as soon as you sign up it's like we're here to win championships and turn professional do is there like part of you that's like hey i actually was a professional athlete this is ridiculous like i didn't need travel t-ball at five years old and i went to the nfl i think that's part of it there's actually i was coaching my daughter and it's an all girls flag football league there's like over 500 of them called girl power it's awesome but there was like four ex-nfl guys that were out there coaching and the four ex-nfl guys were by far the most relaxed chilled coaches and right you know everybody else it's the afc championship game every sunday right because i feel like like guys you know who actually played professionally they're like hey most of these kids are not going to do anything they're going to have fun but yeah like stop pretending that a five-year-old is going to be in the mlb no doubt keep them signing up keep them having fun teach them the game and instill some quality traits and then it's all kind of irrelevant until you hit puberty anyway it will be sick though if one of your kids goes pro it would because we'll hopefully still be doing this podcast and that would be awesome vanny woodhead yeah full circle moment yeah that

2:23:03Big Cat:would be so awesome global warming it'll be 160 in the back of this van dude it's so fucking what What temperature do you think it is right now?

2:23:09PFT Commenter:Wait, hold on. Max, give me a look. I want to know what temperature it is. Okay. It's got to be 120.

2:23:13Big Cat:I think it's...

2:23:14PFT Commenter:What do we need to do, Max? What? Say it. Just say it. It's so hot. Just fucking say it. Oh, yeah. Hey, what does grit mean to you, dude? It's 700 degrees back here. This is grit, Max. Blake, what does grit mean to you? I'm going to be presented by DraftKings. Shout out DraftKings. DraftKings Sportsbook.

2:23:36Big Cat:Okay, all right. Promo code TAKE.

2:23:37PFT Commenter:Okay, okay. From a co-take. Can we keep this part in, though? Can we keep all this in? And then you put the question I'm about to do, you put it at the beginning. Yeah, sure. Yeah, all right. All right, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. It is Blake Bortles. We're in the back of Vanny Woodhead, too. Blake, I start every single interview with this question presented by DraftKings. What does grit mean to you, dude? I just battling through in the back of Vanny Woodhead, but it's 125. And just dripping sweat after building the swing set with a great company for a great cause. Let's go back to the middle of the interview.

2:24:16PFT Commenter:We're back now.

2:24:17Big Cat:Probably closer to the end because it's so fucking hot in here. Blake, what's grittier? You look like you're in a sauna.

2:24:24PFT Commenter:I feel like I'm in a sauna. It is a sauna.

2:24:26Big Cat:Blake, what's the grittier, doing this podcast in the back of this van or when you had to write a chapter of our book? Oh, yeah.

2:24:32PFT Commenter:Oh, God. I had a little intel that Blake Yeah we talked about the book It's close the book might He said that he was Our ghost writer Emailed him a couple times being like is this good with you And Blake just said yes and just never Read anything that he wrote Or Yeah you had full faith Yeah he had it Blake what do you have What do you do every day Well You know I got three kids so I do a lot of that. That's a lot. Big on I pack lunches and drop off. Me and my wife rotate, drop off. We got a one year old so there's always a baby at the house. One of us is always with him. That's about it. Here and there, random things.

2:25:16Like a normal day.

2:25:19PFT Commenter:You drop off the kids and you go home and then you're just like chill. This is me from a place of envy. Yeah. There's random activities and things that happen here and there but for the most part like i'll work out and uh yeah just kind of hang out it's

2:25:36Big Cat:interesting it's like you you had you had a great career you made a lot of money and now you're retired in your mid-30s yeah and i feel like most people aren't retired in their mid-30s so the selection of people that you get to hang out with that are also retired are probably a little bit older than you yeah so are you making friends with like older dudes yes um like my goal was when When I first got done, I was like, I'm just going to play golf every single day. And I realized a lot of the guys up there doing that were older and been divorced multiple times and maybe absentee fathers. So I limited the golf and went back home.

2:26:10But, yeah, it's a lot of older, hanging out, playing golf, because there's not many mid-30-year-olds that can play golf on a Tuesday at 2 or at 9.30 in the morning. So, yeah, it's diverse. How's your game? Up and down. Some good, some good. What's your handicap? I guess seven. Oh, that's pretty good.

2:26:26Big Cat:The thing about Blake is, I've never heard anybody else do this, but you're a right-handed guy, and you play golf left-handed. Yeah, Hank and I both play golf left-handed. We actually had, he borrowed some of my clubs when we played with you guys last time. And he told me earlier it was kind of like the catalyst to him fully going lefty. So I like to believe I had a bit of influence on that. He needed to see that presentation.

2:26:45PFT Commenter:You're the person we should blame for this whole fucking thing. I mean, his swing aesthetically is significantly better left-handed than right-handed. What the results show, I think, is, you know, we haven't seen that yet. It's coming.

2:26:55Big Cat:He found out I think he's actually left-handed. You're actually right-handed. Yeah, do everything right-handed, swing left-handed. Swing left-handed. Does this count as our hot yoga? Yeah. It's got to.

2:27:03PFT Commenter:I think we're good. It's 7 ,000 degrees back here. I'm about to pass out. That was awesome that we did that. That was cool building the play set. That was not what we... Our original idea was to sit on a construction site and do absolutely nothing, which you've talked about how sick it would be. I had a buddy that has a big site, and he was like, you guys can just come down here and kind of mess around on some heavy machinery. You didn't tell us that. Well, you told me this, and it's like, we can't bail. Now, this is for a good cause. When this came through, it's like, we have to do this. Absolutely.

2:27:36PFT Commenter:This is heavy machinery sounds so good. Yeah, it does. It would have been fun. It does.

2:27:40Big Cat:But shout out to Rock Solid Foundation. Yes. It's a really cool organization.

2:27:44PFT Commenter:Yeah.

2:27:44Big Cat:And I'm glad that we got to experience this together. It turns out we're a lot better with tools than we thought that we'd be. We're pretty good at it.

2:27:51PFT Commenter:It's not the tools part. It's the direction. Yeah. There was a couple times where Blake and I missed the step because we were just talking and caught up in conversation. So the directions is the hard part. It's nice when you have like an adult supervisor there. Yeah. I was just kept on saying that. Help.

2:28:09Big Cat:All the adult supervisors were younger than us though. Yeah. So we'd be like, we need an adult and then a 30 year old would come over. Help. Nice. Here we go. Ice cold twisted tea in the back of Vanny Woodhead. That's grit.

2:28:21PFT Commenter:Can I get a water? Zach do you have a last question It's so hot We're gonna have you back on when it's not so hot

2:28:31Big Cat:This is great What do you think about the Jaguars season Last season Actually you know what

2:28:38PFT Commenter:Any Jaguars season you pick a season Any year the Jaguars history Just be like that was pretty cool 17 was fun What about 95 What about 08 08 Yeah I don't I don't That's got to be like David Garrard Yeah probably Before him

2:28:58Big Cat:What about like 97 When you guys beat The Denver Broncos Brunel In the playoffs Jimmy Smith Keenan McCardell Great team What about two years ago Two years ago Not great They missed the playoffs Yeah What about Three years ago The Urban Meyer season What was that like I don't know a ton about it But I You know I think some changes were made Okay

2:29:19PFT Commenter:What about last year and then going forward this year and the year after? Last year was awesome. Liam's great. I got to spend some time with him in L.A. Oh, yeah. Trevor's awesome. Got to know him a little bit, and I think they're set up to be good for a long time. So it's cool to watch, and the city's, you know, fired up and pumped around them. Do you – are you, like, a Jaguar fan? I root for them, yeah, because there's still some people, like, in the support staff. Like, none of the players were there. but I root for them of course to do well know some of the guys and the city's just happier when they win so everybody's in a better mood I went to my first one last year my daughter did the halftime cheerleading show so we went and supported great game I mean the new stadium will be sweet too coming up they get to play in Orlando for a year next season

2:30:09Big Cat:is there a team besides the Jaguars that you look at like your second favorite team that you played for probably the Rams McVay

2:30:18PFT Commenter:stafford's cool to watch yeah i'm just it's crazy how much sweat i mean uh yeah root for guys i know like watching guys i know do you still have a tesla no way i went to trade it in and uh i didn't know how taxes worked on trade-ins like if you trade it in take the cash you have to pay taxes but if you just trade it in they rose rolls over fully into a trade-in so i traded in and got a truck. Got it. It's nice. Nice. So my wife was like, I come back, expecting me to Uber back home with a check, and I drove back. No, you just got the truck. It's a good deal. Zach, last question, rowback question, because it's 7 ,000 degrees back here.

2:30:56PFT Commenter:Come on, Zach. I'll get you guys out of here so quick. Rowback question, RHO B-A-C-K dot com, promo code TAKE, 20 % off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Also, everyone do go to Rock Solid Foundation. It will be a link in the vlog that we put out with Blake. Thank you, Blake, for doing all this. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Great to see you. All right, Zach, go ahead. Blake, I was curious, your thoughts on pickleball and if it's a competitive sport? Okay. I mean, I think it's competitive for sure. Anything can be competitive. I've played it some.

2:31:29I think it's fun. I think it's more fun as a casual grab beers after than getting serious and trying to play in tournaments, but to each their own. Do you love pickleball? I do think it's a fun game. Do you think there's a world where the competitive aspect of it expands and we see more like major tournaments on TV or anything. It's more of just like a leisurely fun thing. Yeah. Personally I think it's more leisurely and fun. I don't know because at the youth level I guess you would have to start sniping off some of the kids playing tennis to go play pickleball. I don't know.

2:31:55PFT Commenter:Who made you ask that question? You've never talked about pickleball in your life. I was just curious. I heard you guys talk about AU child sports earlier and I was going to ask maybe if you saw a future in AU pickleball for the kids as well. I think our security

2:32:05Big Cat:guard Mike put you up to this. Do you want to ask them a Florida

2:32:07PFT Commenter:question? Two Florida boys? I can do that as well. Do you prefer for the Gulf or do you prefer the East Coast? Where do you, like if you're a vacationer and you were the family going out kind of more relaxed, like in Maria, or are you going like Coco? I mean, Coco in Daytona is phenomenal. Grew up going there. But I think, I mean, the Gulf water, I live here, but the Gulf water, like when you can walk in like waist height and still see your feet's nice first, you know, over here, it's a little darker. And a guy asked, it's okay, since you are incredibly athletic, how do you do on a skimboard? uh haven't skimboarded in a while uh used to be good at it i caught a toe a couple times you know you like bang the sand off the back of it yeah bang your toe um it's been a couple decades but we could try again awesome thank you for your time blake thank you all right good question great job zach great question zach okay dude sorry for the this is so hot it's so hot this has been great i've enjoyed it's been an awesome day we appreciate you coming here uh and doing this with us and we like checked the box we not only built a playground for a kid fighting cancer but got to hang out on construction site that's right boys pretty cool yes yeah let's go outside of the sauna yes outside the sauna all right blake portals okay let's wrap up the show we've got guys on grit hank put this in your vlog can you film this zach uh what's up father of three bft honk batgirl connor and zach back girl there's a throwback question for guys on grit what's the most inconvenient minor injury that a man that a guy would have to play through the pain slash demonstrate great at an office job like an

2:33:53Big Cat:injury where you have to go to work yeah um paper cut let's see i blister on your foot i broke my foot big cat got bit by a dog kidney stones minor thing that you play through no for an office job that I got to play through confused on the right so the question is like at what what is too weak of an injury to call in sick for work for got it so like if you got a sprained ankle but it's really bad yeah you can't do that you got to go to work I think I broke My foot came into work that day. Yeah, I think, honestly, you can take work off for nothing. Like, you can lie about an injury, which is actually more masculine.

2:34:41Big Cat:Migraine. Than actually having, like, a small injury that you do call in six feet.

2:34:45PFT Commenter:I think it also depends on how it happened. If you, like, say, break your leg because you got hit by a car, that's totally fair to be like, hey, I need a couple days. If you break your leg because you were, like, you know, skiing out of a helicopter. or playing like a shitload of pickup basketball, it's like, fuck, I'm a grown adult. I probably shouldn't have been doing this stuff to put myself in harm's way. I got to go to work.

2:35:09Big Cat:Back when I lived in Austin, I dislocated my shoulder really bad, had to go to the hospital. They couldn't get it back in for about an hour and a half, two hours. And I told my boss that I was going to miss work the next day because I dislocated it playing rugby. But in reality, I dislocated it playing kickball. Adult league kickball.

2:35:27PFT Commenter:You can't do that.

2:35:27Big Cat:But it's like when I could say that Yeah

2:35:29PFT Commenter:When I broke my finger Playing goal ball On the yak Where you just lay down on the ground Blindfolded And roll a ball back and forth That was a tough one to be like Hey Or when I When I had a tear of my hamstring Running from egg toss Those are ones that's just like You don't want to tell anyone

2:35:50Big Cat:Yeah it's way cooler If you like tear your hamstring Barefoot running on a field Because Because the grass feels good Yeah

2:35:57PFT Commenter:Yeah. Because Max called me a pussy, and then we went down the line of calling each other pussies. I don't think anyone called me a pussy.

2:36:03Big Cat:I think I was calling myself a pussy.

2:36:05PFT Commenter:No, it was going to be just Max running until he called me out, and then it was just everyone has to run. He knew what he was doing. It was so easy. I actually looked at the guys from UNC, and I was like, watch this. He's going to do it in a minute. And I fully admit how easy. I could do the same to you. Oh, yeah. It's just we have a problem as guys. And then PFT has a problem where we just yell at him for doing athletic things. And he's like, no, I can do it.

2:36:33Big Cat:I can do it. Yeah, I'm retired from running. I'm a yoga guy now.

2:36:36PFT Commenter:Until we have like one thing pop up being like, hey, run. Yesterday we were at Florida State and we were doing like an explosive squat to see our explosive numbers, which couldn't be worse thing for PFT to do. And I physically had to go over and pull you off of the machine.

2:36:53Big Cat:You did. Yeah. Listen, I see dudes competing. I want to compete. Sorry. I started a new job three weeks ago. My new boss took me golfing. I'm a bogey golfer. I was probably plus 50 through nine. The lights were too bright. Got too nervous. Just absolutely no grit.

2:37:12PFT Commenter:Wait, plus 50 through nine? How do I get gritty? That's not even being able to hit the ball like five feet. Yeah. How do I get grittier on the golf course? Absolutely not switching to lefty.

2:37:24Big Cat:You don't have to get gritty on the golf course.

2:37:27PFT Commenter:Could you imagine? Like, this is a real thing that I think a lot of dudes probably have to struggle with is like golf is part of their job in some capacity. And being that bad, Hank, I wasn't talking about you. And being that bad has got to be absolutely miserable.

2:37:45Big Cat:I think it matters. It matters big time what kind of job you have. Like, if you're in a sales job and you're hitting plus 50 through nine, you're not closing any deals. Fired. You should be fired If it's like an outside sales role And you're going to be out with clients I'm sorry it's not going to work out Now if it's like customer service And you're doing a good job making fun of yourself As you mess up That could be a good thing So I need to know what kind of job this guy If it's like manual labor And your boss was just like let's go out and play some golf That might also be a good thing As long as you're like this sport's gay And they'll be like yeah okay respect

2:38:20PFT Commenter:You got to just get really really good in secret and then show up and be awesome and be like, yeah, I watched one YouTube video boss. That's what that would be my advice. Love the show. Great interview with Coach Belichick. It's such a great listen. Each time you have a big time coach on the show. Question about grit from a guy also named Zach. Why is it harder to stay gritty about small daily habits than about big dramatic goals? I don't know. We're all lazy. By the way, I would disagree with that. Well, aside from that, it just popped in my head. We learned a fun fact in the van. Zach, what's your middle name?

2:39:03PFT Commenter:Anthony. So what are your initials? Z-A-C, so it's Zach.

2:39:08Big Cat:Yeah, Zach. It's fucking rocks. It's pretty cool. Yeah. So anytime you get something monogrammed, it just says Zach on it. It just says Zach. Shout out to my mom. I don't really. I disagree.

2:39:19PFT Commenter:I don't agree with what they said. I do You're just like day to day Like overall you can be gritty But day to day you can be lazy Like I'll do the dishes tomorrow That's what he's saying

2:39:33Big Cat:Oh I thought he was saying the opposite Where it's easier to be gritty about day to day Can you read it again? Read it again He wasn't listening Hank I was listening Why is it harder to stay gritty about small daily habits Than about big dramatic goals So I agree with this guy Good point Excellent point guy I don't know because If you really care about your long term goal Goal on something Then you're going to stick to it

2:39:58PFT Commenter:What words did you just say? Goal

2:40:00Big Cat:If you really care about your long term goal Then you're going to stick to it Because you actually care about it And that's why you do everything In your day to day life But you don't really care about mowing the lawn And you can always just do it tomorrow But tomorrow is never promised

2:40:15PFT Commenter:Yeah I mean this is Every person in the world where it's like trying to get daily habits, routines, and it's hard to do. But if you're like, hey, I have a goal, a five-year plan, you can visualize it. That's how I end up in most of my situations. All right, last one. Most of your situations. Like dunking. Yeah. I forget everything. Six-pack. Six-pack. Six-pack, I got, yeah. Why the buddy pregnant? I got a few of those today. Lefty golfing. Lefty golfing. It's been going well, though. I posted a picture of me last night that I've never looked fatter than. Yeah, that was crazy. That was a horrendous picture.

2:40:57Big Cat:Wait, was it the one where you're standing in front of Vanny Woodhead? In my defense, I said you saw me taking a picture.

2:41:03PFT Commenter:Wait, Vanny Woodhead was in that picture. I couldn't see it. Max blocked the whole thing. It was the worst picture of me ever taken. You saw me taking the picture. Whatever. You did. I said, turn off the light. I'm taking a picture. Yeah, but you didn't tell him you're doing a panorama where it spreads him out like 50%.

2:41:24Big Cat:Did your phone, it ate up all the memory on your phone?

2:41:31Yeah, you got it? Last one. I've been a golf caddy in the past 10 summers. Or I'm moving to Chicago in a few weeks. I've been a golf caddy the past 10 summers. Frankly, I'm not making as much money as I like. I'm thinking about caddying on weekends once I start my job to help get some money saved up. I'm broke as shit right now. Is this gritty and strategic or corny and a bad way to start post-grad life in a new city?

2:41:53PFT Commenter:No, that's gritty. I like that move. This guy's got grit. Yeah, gritty as hell. Gritty as hell. It's good hustle. I'm looking at the picture. I didn't mean for it to... It's bad lighting. I don't think you look that bad.

2:42:12Big Cat:No, he looks pretty bad. That's the worst picture of Max I've ever seen. And it's actually very unfair because, Max, you look good. You look slim. You do look slim. Powerful. Nobody looks their best post 10 hours in a car through different states fueled entirely on gas station snacks.

2:42:30PFT Commenter:There was a lot going on because I was trying to take a picture to post it, but it was also overtime of the Spurs game. I was watching on my phone. I was trying to get the battery off. There's a lot going on. My bad, Max. Sorry about that. It's okay I have enough bad angles out there It doesn't really affect me too much anymore That's my bad Alright, good show boys Numbers 101 Nice guess Hank He's on his troll shit That was a good bit

2:43:01Big Cat:That was another one of Hank's little situations He's on his troll shit

2:43:08PFT Commenter:It's gonna be a long couple days I'm gonna go 61 I'm so tired. Yeah, when you get tired, then you get loopy. All right, 77. Anyone else?

2:43:25PFT Commenter:It is 65. Good. No one wants me to win that one anyway. When that happens, I hope that my number isn't.

2:43:34Big Cat:I know. I won one of those. I won one, too. It's the worst. It's the worst. Don't tell me. I don't even want to know that I won. May 20th, shout out. Happy birthday to Hard Factor Will. Also, shout out to Jason Worth, Nat for Life, World Series champion. Shout out to Patrick Ewing. He had to tape his dick to the side of his leg. It was so big. Happy birthday to David Wells. And then on Thursday, it's Josh Allen's birthday. Happy birthday, Josh Allen. Happy birthday to Bobby Cox, RIP. Happy birthday to Chris Benoit.

2:44:05PFT Commenter:I can't believe. That's crazy. That's crazy. Whoa.

2:44:10Big Cat:I'm covering all the bases I don't know There might be somebody online Be like I can't believe PFT Forgot Crispin Wad's birthday And Hank will be like Oh PFT's so bad at this

2:44:18PFT Commenter:I also

2:44:19Big Cat:The crossface crippler How can you forget

2:44:21PFT Commenter:I can't believe we did a fucking 10 minute segment about Alcaraz and Sinner Sucking each other off When it was just a totally fake

2:44:29Big Cat:Yeah I'm sorry That was crazy I bookmarked it In the middle of the game last night And I was like I'm gonna go back and revisit this And then I forgot to go back and revisit it and it was in my bookmarks because I was going to use it for today's show and then it turns out there's a fucking Tennis Central account

2:44:47PFT Commenter:alright see you

2:44:48Big Cat:love you guys

2:45:09Thank you.

2:45:39Thank you.

2:46:09PFT Commenter:Okay, guys, it's grit week. This is the part of the football calendar where nobody's watching, but everything gets built. Early mornings, pads back on, conditioning, film, reps. Spring training in football is all about putting in the work when nobody's cheering yet. And honestly, that's the same mindset behind the Chevy Silverado. This is a truck that is the definition of grit. Long days, dirty work, and showing up day after day, no matter the conditions. Strong, dependable, and built for the grind. Because grit isn't about being flashy. It's about being ready when it's time to go. Check out the current offers and build your Silverado at Chevy.com.

2:46:52PFT Commenter:That's Silverado, all grit, no quit. And you can build your Silverado at Chevy.com today.

2:47:08Thank you.

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