Indiana HC Curt Cignetti, UCLA HC Bob Chesney, CFB With Joel Klatt, Mt Rushmore Of Buttons To Press + Fyre Fest

31 Jul 2026 · 2 h 35 min · 68 chapters

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In short

Pardon My Take (July 31) discusses Big Ten media week interviews (Indiana HC Curt Cignetti, UCLA HC Bob Chesney), plus national sports headlines: Baker Mayfield’s contract situation with the Buccaneers, a Bengals fight involving Ja’Marr Chase, Tony Romo’s drunk-driving arrest video, MLB trade rumors around Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal, golf betting/tournament chatter, the Browns QB battle (Deshaun Watson vs. Shador Sanders), LIV Golf’s reported $250M investment and status, LeBron James signing an ESPN deal for a documentary, and a “Mount Rushmore of buttons to press” segment.

Guests (interviewed/featured)

  1. Curt Cignetti (Indiana head coach) – described as an “all-time mental warfare” coach; hosts joke about his dead-fish handshake and his “aura.”
  2. Bob Chesney (UCLA head coach) – hosts call him an “awesome guy” and say the interview may lead to a “new white whale guest.”
  3. Joel Klatt (college football analyst) – provides a college football preview.

Key claims / notable examples

  • Cignetti’s handshake is portrayed as a deliberate tactic to throw opponents off.
  • Mayfield says he’s “disappointed” by no new contract; hosts debate whether the Bucs are trying to motivate him with “pissed-off Baker.”
  • Bengals fight: hosts note no punches seen, and Joe Burrow respects Ja’Marr’s “dog mentality.”
  • Tony Romo drunk-driving arrest video: hosts focus on his stretching and concussion references; speculate CBS could use it as a conduct lesson.
  • Skubal trade: expected “rental” cost is “a lot,” with Dodgers rumored; Brewers mentioned as a possible destination.
  • Browns QB battle: Jerry Jeudy reportedly held up four fingers, implying Watson; hosts also mention “fourth quarter” Shador Sanders.
  • LIV: reported $250M investment (undisclosed source) keeps it “alive” but uncertain.
  • LeBron ESPN documentary: hosts expect it post-season/after retirement and call it “Welcome to the Clown Show.”

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Football is Back and Show Rundown

1:01 to 1:46

Overview of the episode featuring interviews and topics related to college football.

“On today's part of my take presented by draft Kings football is back.”

Excitement for Football Season

2:42 to 3:44

Discussion about the return of football and anticipation for the season.

“Hey, pardon my take, yeah, pardon my take, yeah, pardon my take, yeah, pardon my take, yeah, pardon my take.”

Interview Insights: Coach Curt Cignetti

3:44 to 4:52

Insights from the interview with Indiana's Coach Curt Cignetti focusing on his handshake and coaching aura.

Big Ten Coaches and Media Week Experience

4:52 to 6:39

Discussion about Big Ten Media Week and the experience interviewing multiple coaches.

Transition to Big Ten's Dominance

6:39 to 8:34

Conversations about the Big Ten conference's current status compared to the SEC.

“The SEC's got some great coaches, big personalities, but if you go guy for guy against the Big Ten, the Big Ten clears.”

National Sports Whip Around

8:34 to 10:40

Rapid-fire discussion on various national sports topics, including Baker Mayfield and the Bengals.

“It would be completely logical if you did it in the first year.”

Tony Romo's Incident and Other Sports Stories

10:40 to 14:00

Discussion surrounding Tony Romo's arrest video and various other sports stories.

“Like, it doesn't feel like it'll give him a competitive edge.”

Tiger Woods and CBS Sports Training

14:00 to 16:50

Discussion about odd training techniques and comparisons to celebrities.

“It's like, hey, here's how you're expected to conduct yourself as an employee of CBS Sports.”

Tarek Skubal Trade Rumors

16:50 to 17:34

Exploring potential trades for baseball player Tarek Skubal and team strategies.

“we can chew on for a second before we do Mount Rushmore.”

Golf Tournament Bets and Players

17:34 to 21:01

Discussion about bets placed on golf tournaments and player performances.

“Yeah, I just saw it, and I was like, I know that name, and this number is so crazy.”
Show all 68 chapters

Deshaun Watson vs. Shador Sanders

21:01 to 24:48

Debating the quarterback battle in Cleveland and potential outcomes.

“We might be calling it too late with it being back.”

The Status of LIV Golf

24:48 to 26:46

Analyzing the viability and future of LIV Golf amidst new investments.

“So if you're going to say it's dead, then you...”

LeBron James' New Documentary

26:46 to 28:06

Overview of LeBron's upcoming documentary and its implications.

“We are a sports podcast, a national sports podcast, mind you.”

LeBron's Documentary and Sports Distractions

28:06 to 33:31

The hosts discuss LeBron James' upcoming documentary and how modern distractions affect sports.

“Last story I had, LeBron James is doing a full documentary.”

LeBron's Documentary and Sports Distractions

33:36 to 34:23

The hosts discuss LeBron James' upcoming documentary and how modern distractions affect sports.

“There's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's.”

Mount Rushmore of Buttons to Press

34:24 to 42:00

The hosts engage in a fun segment picking their Mount Rushmore of satisfying buttons to press.

“We had the closest Mount Rushmore poll, I believe, of the season.”

Drafting the Best Buttons to Press

42:00 to 43:50

The hosts discuss and draft their favorite buttons to press, exploring various fun and nostalgic options.

“Yeah, we're also thinking about the people.”

Exploring Button Pressing Moments

43:50 to 47:00

The conversation continues with anecdotes about various buttons and their significance in everyday life.

“And you wouldn't be able to listen to this if the podcast button wasn't pressed.”

Unique Button Experiences

47:00 to 51:30

The hosts share quirky stories about buttons, debating which ones are the most enjoyable or significant.

“It's one of the greatest inventions of all time.”

Conclusion of Button Discussions

51:30 to 52:20

As the button segment wraps up, the hosts prepare to transition to their interviews with coaches.

“I think it's better than Your Best Friends.”

Conclusion of Button Discussions

52:23 to 52:45

As the button segment wraps up, the hosts prepare to transition to their interviews with coaches.

“I can't wait to hang outside with boys Can't wait to spend some time by the lake Nothing goes better with hitting the lake and hanging with your friends than the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew.”

Interview with Coach Kurt Cignetti

53:05 to 56:01

An in-depth conversation with Coach Cignetti about his coaching journey and team achievements.

“How many times has it been said in your office since you won the national championship?”

Curating a Winning Culture at Indiana

56:01 to 1:02:20

Learn how Indiana's coaching staff fosters a strong team culture and development.

“Was that intentional, or was that just like, These are the guys that were naturally towards the front because they're the leaders.”

Winning Mentality and Game Day Focus

1:02:21 to 1:04:01

Explore the mindset and preparation required for consistent winning in football.

“You're going to win again with an answer like that.”

The Role of Pittsburgh in Football Legacy

1:04:02 to 1:06:48

Discover the historical significance of Pittsburgh in shaping football coaching.

“I was going to say, you talked about bringing a bigger gun this year.”

The Role of Pittsburgh in Football Legacy

1:06:49 to 1:07:18

Discover the historical significance of Pittsburgh in shaping football coaching.

“Ditka and those guys, Joe Walton and Schottenheimer, and then was Cowher, and then the Steel Curtain, right?”

The Role of Pittsburgh in Football Legacy

1:07:28 to 1:08:37

Discover the historical significance of Pittsburgh in shaping football coaching.

“You know, just us right now, a couple guys talking football, having a good time.”

Challenges of Transitioning to Power Five

1:09:37 to 1:10:05

Insights on the challenges and expectations of coaching in the Power Five conference.

“But you are now like you've graduated to the to the top in terms of like the Power Five conference, the Big Ten.”

Building a Team at UCLA

1:10:05 to 1:13:05

Explore the foundational elements of team building in college football.

“But at the same point, I think when you're building a team, there's those foundational elements that regardless of where you're playing have to be held true to.”

The Challenge of the Rose Bowl

1:13:05 to 1:15:51

Discuss the obstacles faced by UCLA in terms of game venue and fan engagement.

“I went back recently and it was hot and humid.”

Expectations at UCLA

1:15:51 to 1:18:33

Hear about setting goals and expectations for the UCLA football program.

“Be like, hey, guys, we got to really focus on this third down.”

Coaching Journey and Career Growth

1:18:33 to 1:22:11

Learn about the coach's journey through various levels of college football.

“Maybe say, like, we're going to have the most fun in the Big Ten.”

Player Spotlight: Sahir West

1:22:11 to 1:23:30

Get to know Sahir West, his dedication, and potential impact at UCLA.

“It's not a shortcut, but why don't I do the thing where I go be a defensive coordinator at a Power 4 school?”

The Commitment of Sahir

1:24:00 to 1:25:14

Learn about Sahir's dedication and performance as a player.

“And then that second year, the second half of the second year, too, He just really came alive.”

Coaching Transition at JMU

1:25:14 to 1:26:29

Discover the dynamics of coaching during a transition period.

“Was it weird at all coaching JMU last year knowing that you were leaving after that happened?”

Blue Collar Roots in Coaching

1:26:29 to 1:28:45

Explore the significance of blue collar backgrounds in coaching success.

“It was just a bunch of guys put together to finish that bowl game in that Armed Forces Bowl or whatever it was.”

Maintaining Grit in Coaching

1:28:45 to 1:29:22

Understand the importance of grit in coaching and team culture.

“I don't know, but I could see it going sideways on you because again, you're a good looking guy in like the, the, the light blue colors in LA.”

Core Values for Success

1:29:22 to 1:30:30

Learn about the core values that drive success in football and life.

“He actually has done a good job of keeping that grit.”

Grit and Competition in Los Angeles

1:30:30 to 1:35:20

Discuss the challenges and competitiveness of football in LA.

“Think about, I don't know, going skiing or something, right?”

Grit and Competition in Los Angeles

1:35:26 to 1:36:58

Discuss the challenges and competitiveness of football in LA.

“What do you say to the haters that say there's no grit in Los Angeles?”

Excitement for College Football

1:37:02 to 1:38:01

Joel Klatt shares his enthusiasm for the upcoming college football season.

“And now we've got the Twisted Tea Summer Party Pack.”

Anticipation for Football Season

1:38:01 to 1:38:54

Hosts express excitement for the upcoming college football season and discuss its current state.

“This is the time of year I'm like jonesing to get back out there.”

Myths and Realities of College Football

1:38:55 to 1:40:41

Discussion about the misconceptions around team spending and the importance of experience in winning.

“And Miami was actually older than they were.”

The Importance of Scheduling

1:40:42 to 1:42:34

Exploration of how scheduling impacts team success in college football.

“I think the number one factor is scheduling.”

Evaluating National Championship Contenders

1:42:35 to 1:44:08

Analysis of teams with potential to win the national championship based on rosters and schedules.

“It's just if you happen to – or even if it's like the home games or, you know, lines up that you play Ohio State at home.”

The Big Ten vs. SEC Debate

1:44:09 to 1:46:45

Debate on the competitiveness of the Big Ten compared to the SEC in college football.

“It's weird you have Notre Dame ranked sixth.”

Clemson's Future and Dabo's Position

1:46:46 to 1:50:49

Discussion on Clemson's standing in college football and Dabo Swinney's role and future.

“LSU, they're expecting Lane to do something he's never done.”

Nick Saban's Adaptability

1:50:50 to 1:52:00

Exploration of Nick Saban's ability to adapt coaching strategies over time.

“But that's, I mean, it is like he, it's not a shot at him.”

Nick Saban's Coaching Legacy

1:52:00 to 1:53:30

Discussion on Nick Saban's unparalleled success and coaching style.

“I can't hold that guy to nine in a game.”

Texas Football Expectations

1:53:30 to 1:55:40

Exploring the rising expectations for Texas football and Arch Manning's performance.

“What about the 40 Acres, University of Texas?”

Notre Dame's Season Outlook

1:55:40 to 1:57:50

Analysis of Notre Dame's schedule and the pressure to perform this season.

“Like that Ohio State game early, it feels like that will be the, Hey, measuring stick, where are you from last year where that couldn't have gone worse for them?”

Bryce Underwood's Development

1:57:50 to 2:01:00

Discussion on Bryce Underwood's potential and Michigan's football prospects.

“Again, like a 9-3 Ohio State or a 9-3 Texas is much better than a 10-2 Notre Dame this year.”

Top Five Quarterbacks Discussion

2:01:00 to 2:03:20

Debate over the top five quarterbacks in college football and their potential.

“A couple of them drafted in the first round last year.”

Sean Payton and NFL Insights

2:03:20 to 2:05:50

Insights on Sean Payton's coaching style and experiences in the NFL.

“And which one of those guys do you think would be the best NFL quarterback?”

Reggie Bush Anecdote

2:05:50 to 2:06:05

A humorous story involving Reggie Bush and personal experiences in football.

NFL Welcome Moments

2:06:05 to 2:06:46

Learn about unexpected moments of welcome in the NFL from players' experiences.

“He was probably like Joel's going to throw a slightly inaccurate ball.”

Commentary Insights

2:06:46 to 2:08:36

Discover how commentators approach game analysis and engage viewers.

“This guy looks like he's throwing absolute ducks.”

Identifying Surprise Teams

2:08:36 to 2:10:56

Explore potential surprise teams in college football that could make waves.

“You know, try to take the viewer forward, push forward and explain why.”

Panic in College Football

2:10:56 to 2:13:16

Discuss the potential crises for major teams like Alabama and Texas this season.

“Because it's Chesney, and he brought the whole Harrisonburg West with him.”

Heisman Trophy Predictions

2:13:16 to 2:15:13

Get insights on potential Heisman candidates and dark horse picks for the season.

“I was like, listen, there's games that I'm okay with losing, but if you lose when you try to run the ball on fourth and one on a shotgun against USC, it's going to kill me.”

Golf Challenges and Firefest

2:15:13 to 2:19:56

Engage in a light-hearted conversation about golf challenges and personal mishaps.

“Could you give us Joel Klatt's official Heisman Trophy winner for the season?”

Car Conversations and Truck Aspirations

2:20:00 to 2:21:41

The hosts engage in a lighthearted debate about truck ownership and their vehicle preferences.

“Yeah, I mean, it's the same Firefest that I had maybe like a month ago.”

Health Updates and Injury Complaints

2:21:41 to 2:23:30

Discussion about injuries, physical challenges, and coping mechanisms in daily life.

“He said playoffs, one through eight, somewhere one through eight, and not one through six.”

Softball Fire Fest and No-Show Frustrations

2:23:30 to 2:25:05

The hosts share their frustrations over a cancelled softball game due to the opposing team not showing up.

“I've just been chugging Pepto-Bismol every day, but it was, I think I'm in the clear, but it was eight straight days, so I had it.”

The Disappointment of a No-Show Team

2:25:05 to 2:27:29

A deeper dive into the emotional impact of a no-show at a planned game and the etiquette expected in sports.

“Like I did a whole, I had a whole, like I went out to dinner with my wife.”

Couch Shopping Woes

2:27:29 to 2:30:11

Discussion on the challenges and frustrations of finding a suitable couch online.

“You know in the back of your head when you don't see a single person 10 minutes before the game, it's a no-show.”

Couch Features and Social Dynamics

2:30:11 to 2:32:19

Exploration of couch styles and their implications for social interactions at home.

“No, I know that, but they hide them well.”

Birthday Shoutouts

2:34:00 to 2:35:06

The hosts celebrate various birthdays and share greetings.

“Alright, one more One more As long as Beams doesn't win it We're good I'm gonna take 5 Fifty-nine Fifty-nine Anybody No one What's up?”
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Transcript

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0:00PFT Commenter:Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee. It's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1 ,000 pet adoptions this year. every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home simple as that made with 100 colombian coffee each 11 ounce can delivers smooth drinkable energy with a boost of protein available in espresso cafe mocha and espresso sweet cream built for mornings long days and everything in between drink cell blue fuel your day and help save a pet's life you can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site.

0:56PFT Commenter:Grab yours now at Stella blue coffee.com Amazon and select retailers nationwide. On today's part of my take presented by draft Kings football is back. We continues. I were just dubbing it. Football is back week because we've got some more interviews from big 10 media week. We have coach Sig winner. We have Coach Bob Chesney from UCLA. Awesome guy. Awesome interview. We also might have a new white whale guest off of that Bob Chesney interview. And then we've got our good friend Joel Klatt doing a little preview of college football. Always great to talk to Joel. We're going to do the Mount Rushmore of buttons to press.

1:39PFT Commenter:We have some training camp news. Tarek Skubel is going to probably get traded. And we have Fyre Fest. It's going to be a great Friday show for you, and it's brought to you by our friends at Chevy. Summer's in full swing. That means no schedules, no plans, just more of the good stuff. Chevy Silverado makes that possible. There's a reason Chevy's called the heartbeat of America, and the Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. These trucks work hard so you can chill harder, whether that's getting out of town, heading to the lake, or just not turning around when you probably should. It's got the capability, the space, and the muscle, everything you need for proper summer coolers, gear, whatever your version of chill looks like.

2:19PFT Commenter:Because at the end of the day, Silverado helps you tackle more of what you love. And let's be honest, you've earned this summer. Now it's time to go get it. So roll the windows down, turn the music up, and just listen. That's the heartbeat of America. That's today's Chevrolet. Head over to Chevy.com to learn more today. That's Chevy.com. Okay, let's go. Hey, football guy, Patino, A.W. Hey, pardon my take, yeah, pardon my take, yeah, pardon my take, yeah, pardon my take,

3:00Big Cat:yeah, pardon my take.

3:03PFT Commenter:Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday, July 31st, and football is back again. Hank, are you getting to the point where you're sick of us saying football is back? This is the last. We're about to enter the month where football is actually truly 100 % back. It's not. I'm down for the excitement, though. I wish it was actually back, but I'm ready for it to be back.

3:30Big Cat:But there's practices everywhere. Every team is back. Yeah.

3:34PFT Commenter:And there's fights everywhere, too. That's football.

3:37Big Cat:football is back officially yeah yeah get used to it it's not going anywhere no it's here to stay

3:43PFT Commenter:for at least six or seven months that's good football's all the way back yeah we have uh some awesome interviews uh we finally got to interview coach sig from indiana and we we didn't bring this up in the interview but we we should just say it now um coach sig all-time uh uh mental warfare guy yes because his handshake was beyond a dead fish and i think he did it on purpose and he threw us all off and he's the man the first thing i said how do you describe was it dead dead well come here come here i'll show you it was like but for the podcast yeah it would be like if i handed you uh uh like some wet noodles you had to hold some wet noodles but

4:25Big Cat:uncomfortable it was like but i think it might be a tactic i think he did it on purpose there's nothing worse if you shake a guy's hand and he's clearly trying really hard to grip you strong because he's like he's been taught you have to really break a man's hand and then they'll respect you um that's that's a weird feeling because it's like i know what you're doing and he just goes he

4:43PFT Commenter:just doesn't give a fuck it's it's something because it definitely gets you off your game a little bit and i'll say this about coach sig and we have bob chesney on as well awesome interview we have actually a couple more coaches coming monday uh coach sig the the kids love to talk about aura and four store coach sig has aura but it's genuine aura where it's like oh shit this guy he's got it like it's just something about him you just you just pick it up right away just one is winner he's a winner google he wins look him up Hank but yeah we have uh I gotta be honest I'm shocked that neither of you you both felt so strong with the handshake neither of you

5:22Big Cat:said anything to him because it was like it knocked me off kilter but then I thought because we shook his hand right when he first came in then he sits down we do the interview and i was kind of like chalking that off because he he was moving around the room a little bit and he's being rushed in and out of rooms at big 10 media week and so i it was kind of like a blow by i chalked up to being like a blow by handshake sits down we have a great interview then he gets up to leave and another like a goodbye handshake but we're both locked in on it same thing happened and then i was just like yo i can't believe that that's actually six handshake it's crazy but like it

5:54PFT Commenter:threw me off i i also wanted to confirm because everyone has bad handshake days i wanted to confirm that this was maybe just a tactic he uses all the time and i did confirm it with uh maybe someone that works with us who played for indiana who that may be we don't know white boy rick yeah but uh it was it was great it was great finally meeting him and he he was a little bit pressed for time because the big 10 media was here in chicago that's why we did these interviews it's great to actually meet some of these guys and uh so we had about 15 maybe 20 minutes with him Chesney was a little longer I'll just say it we have Matt Rule and Dan Lanning coming on Monday uh but it was awesome it was a this week was like a bonus content week where I don't think we we it was maybe a week and a half ago we're like oh shit all 18 uh Big Ten coaches are going to be three miles from our office maybe we should do something and we put it together and thanks to the big 10 for giving us a uh wonderful room to do these interviews yeah it was great it was great

6:55Big Cat:we did we reached out to him like probably nine days ago and they're like yeah we do have one last room available so we were in a coat closet which is fine we we that's honestly respect because like they didn't have a room available yeah they just made they just made some coats yeah and then hank came in the first day and he was like this room is so small i definitely don't have to be here for

7:14PFT Commenter:the rest of the interviews big cat said that i did well i knew you did i mean you didn't you didn't have to be there the uh it was uh but i i kind of like it when that happens because we've been doing this for so long and you know we we have been the number one sports podcast for a long time but i i like when when we when we get the grit factor and they're like hey here's this room that is maybe maybe a walk-in closet size maybe uh it's like not even the i don't even think it's a coat closet room i think it's like the overflow coat closet room well the door's cut

7:46Big Cat:in half so you can open up just the top of it that's if you're taking tickets for the coats and pass the coats back that's it right there so it's definitely meant to be like some sort of service door which is fine um i thought i thought it was a great it ended up being a really good room for us and then just going through the list of big 10 coaches i'll say this the sec used to have the crown as being like the most entertaining coaches in college football i think that's pretty clearly in the Big Ten right now. The SEC's got some great coaches, big personalities, but if you go guy for guy against the Big Ten, the Big Ten clears.

8:16PFT Commenter:Yeah, it's quite a conference. I still can't really wrap my head around 18 teams. It still feels real. I mean, they did the media day. It was three days long. It wasn't a media day. It was a media week. Are they ever going to change the name? No, you can't. I mean, they could. At this point, you can't. We haven't been 10 in forever.

8:34Big Cat:Yeah, at this point, you can't. It would be completely logical if you did it in the first year. No. Probably in the second year would still make sense. But after you get to year three of being more than 10 teams, you've got to roll with it.

8:46PFT Commenter:But, yeah, we haven't been 10 since the 90s. I think Penn State was what changed it from 10 to 12. What if they sell it to an advertiser? What? It just becomes like a league that's a sponsor instead of the Big Ten.

8:59Big Cat:Yeah, the Dr. Pepper 10. It's not for women. The Dr. Pepper 10.

9:04PFT Commenter:Okay, so what do we got? I have a couple stories that maybe we can do a little national sports podcast whip around. Let's start with Zach. Zach, we touched on this on Wednesday. Baker Mayfield took the podium today, and he said it's very disappointing to not have a new contract. He's feeling disrespected and undervalued. Now, I agree with Baker Mayfield. He should have a new contract. is this a ploy by the Bucs to create a pissed-off Baker Mayfield, which we all know is a pissed-off Baker Mayfield, is the strongest form of Baker Mayfield. Do we think the Bucs are trying to put a battery in his back?

9:41No, because I think if they were to do that and then he has a phenomenal season, it's like, pay me more money than what I was asking for previously.

9:48PFT Commenter:Yeah. Or he could have a great season and be like, you know what, you guys disrespected me, I'm going somewhere else. Disrespected and undervalued, I'm out, which would hurt. That would hurt. Not the best video you want to see.

9:59Big Cat:What do you think about if there was a secret contract? Oh. If the agent was speaking with the GM of the Bucks, great guy, and was like, hey, here's Baker's terms, here's what he wants. And Jason Light was like, yes, we agree. However, the only caveat is you can't tell Baker that we did a contract. You have to tell him that we lowballed him. Conservatorship contract? Yeah, tell him that we lowballed him, and the money's all going to go to him, and he'll be motivated. and just at the end of the season, he'll know that we paid him. That's what I would do if I was in that space. Unorthodox, yes, but effective.

10:33Not the worst game plan? Maybe try it. Yeah, we're in a bad spot.

10:36Big Cat:It might be what you're trying. You do have to pay Baker. The vibes feel very bad. They don't feel good, no. Like, it doesn't feel like it'll give him a competitive edge. He said it won't leak into the locker room, but they're all adults here. It's their job. I feel like it could very well leak into the locker room. Is that, and Vita V wants a trade? Yeah. Like, bad vibes to start. These are not the two things that you want to hear to start. Hard and solo defense is like, I'm out too. So, yeah. Yeah. We'll see. It's so early. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then the Bengals got into a fight. Jamar Chase was throwing.

11:06Big Cat:I actually didn't see any punches thrown, which is good. It's smart. And then afterwards, Joe Burrow was like, yeah, I kind of actually respect what Jamar is. Excuse me. Not Jamar. One. One. Number one's doing out there. Number one, you know, you got to have kind of like a dog's mentality. And then he referred to zero. He's only calling guys by numbers in Cincinnati.

11:23PFT Commenter:I like that. So it feels like there's a little bit of back against the wall going on with the Bengals right now, which I like. We also had Tony Romo's arrest video hit the internet.

11:34Big Cat:Yep.

11:36PFT Commenter:Listen, don't drink and drive. We've established that. Or drink and operate. Or operate. Bad. You put everyone's life at risk. I watched that video. I was like, he seems okay. I don't know. he also when he started stretching was like was like laughing out loud so hard i could it was it's so objectively funny he's firing up the hips yeah i thought he was gonna run a 40 at one point he got into a stance i also the moment that he they asked him if he had any head injuries and you could see his like brain flashback to like all the times he was just like put into the dirt and just fucked up he's like yeah i've had a few concussions yeah the uh he should have done the

12:18Big Cat:dack prescott with the hips like gotten those ready to to walk the line but yeah i mean i walked away from it i looked at the video he said i'm going to see grandma grandpa which i don't think he's talking about his grandparents no there was some guy is like a got you like they like one obituary and they're like yeah according to the obituaries all four of tony romo's grandparents

12:37PFT Commenter:are dead he was referring grandma grandpa like his parents well he was i think he was going to pick up his kids at his parents so they were then referred to as grandma and grandpa yeah that makes sense yeah if you're picking up your if your kids are with your parents you would you you sometimes

12:52Big Cat:refer to them that way yeah he's like i'm gonna go see nana and papa yeah like wait a second tony

12:57PFT Commenter:they both passed away 30 years ago tony also would have been a nice sneaky good move by uh tony roma like ever you know in in high school or middle school you do the move where it's like you just have like 15 grandparents die so you can get a day off school yeah she's like oh yeah my

13:13Big Cat:grandparents died again that if that is your excuse i think then you are allowed to drink and drive in wisconsin i mean wisconsin it's a different place wisconsin's gonna put in like a special lane like in the middle of a high occupancy it's just like high high alcohol content lane

13:28PFT Commenter:drive at your own risk but yeah the uh the video of him stretching was was quite something it was good he looked like he was getting loose he was he was getting ready i'm not a lawyer uh i am studying for the bar exam but i do feel like he's probably going to get off on this i'd be

13:43Big Cat:I'd be shocked if the charge is stuck to Tony Romo.

13:46PFT Commenter:The question is, does CBS, and I don't know where CBS stands with Tony Romo, but do they use this, if they do in fact, if they do have buyer's remorse on his contract, do they use this as a catalyst to say, hey, we're going in a different direction? If the video was bad, I think. Yeah, yeah.

14:05Big Cat:I think they use it as training. Like the next guy that they sign. It's like, hey, here's how you're expected to conduct yourself as an employee of CBS Sports.

Read the full transcript

14:13PFT Commenter:If you're ever pulled over for drunk driving, make sure that you activate your glutes. Yes, exactly. For any type of test.

14:18Big Cat:It's like Tony Romo does this. Oh, you're so sweet. Mark Sanchez does this. Oh, hello. Human resources. Yeah.

14:25PFT Commenter:Yeah. Well, I mean, it is funny also to think about Tony Romo sitting in his car and the police officer was like, no, you cannot call your lawyer. We're taking you in. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods flips his SUV. He's just talking to the president in the woods. He's just walking around the woods being like, just talking to the president.

14:42Big Cat:I think Tiger's car probably had that, like, instead of OnStar. Yeah. If it flips, it just dials Trump's cell phone.

14:47PFT Commenter:Yeah. Okay, other stories. So, Tarek Skubal is going to get traded. The question is where? Dodgers. Dodgers. I think, actually, who released Tarek Skubal? Because I saw there was, like, five teams, and the Cubs weren't on it, which pissed me off. But, yeah, so in his last start, maybe his last start for the Tigers, he leaves the game up seven to one then they lose in like 12 innings uh blow that lead i think his catcher got dfa'd so that's a pretty good sign to yeah to say that he's gonna not be on the tigers i saw the list yeah so it was dodgers i think the brewers were on it which would be that would be an interesting move because brewers are not known for that type of stuff maybe the cc sabathia trade Like we're like going all in Braves, Cubs, Rays and Yankees.

15:41PFT Commenter:I want him on the Cubs so bad. That'd be great. So, so fucking bad.

15:45Big Cat:I just feel like any good player will become a Dodger unless we hear otherwise.

15:49PFT Commenter:Yeah. Well, it's even if he's not a Dodger, this trade deadline, he's going to be a Dodger after the year.

15:55Big Cat:Yeah.

15:55PFT Commenter:That all roads lead to Dodger.

15:58Big Cat:What are they saying that the expected price is going to be for Scoobo? A lot. Oh, in terms of contract? No, in terms of to get him, because it's just for the end of this year, right? Yeah. He's a free agent at the end of this season. Yes. So what's the price for a rental, for a scuba rental?

16:16PFT Commenter:I think it's going to be a couple prospects and probably a big league player. It's going to be a lot. Brewers, it kind of sounds like the CC Sabathia. Well, I mean, the Brewers have a loaded farm. I mean, the Brewers never lose, and they just shit out good players. That would be fun. No, I would not have fun with that. The Cubs would be fun, too. The Brewers would not be a fun thing. Brewers are already, they win every game anyway. Kind of a fun team, though. Yeah, but it is, yeah, it would be very similar to CeCe Sabathia. All right, let me do DraftKings real quick, then I have a couple other national sports podcast topics we can chew on for a second before we do Mount Rushmore.

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17:24PFT Commenter:New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE. Spend$5 to get$150 in rewards within 14 days. includes all markets. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours.

18:00and rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for 14 days one non-withdrawable reward redeemable terms at dkng.co slash offer limited time offer speaking of draft kings hank do you

18:10PFT Commenter:have the leaderboard for the golf tournament that's going on right now it was the rocket can you look up i i did something on draft kings uh a couple days ago that uh might be stupid i i placed a bet for 500 to win half a million on can you guess what it might be on Brad Dahlke correct why not why not Brad he's got a win yeah why not I saw him win the internet invitational last year yeah dude's a fucking stud yeah is he is he already teed off I'm looking at the oh no I know he hasn't teed off I was scrolling bottom of the top still alive

18:53Big Cat:is the competition are they better or worse than Francis depends depends on the day yeah slightly better Okay, yeah, on the day, that's fair. It depends on the day.

19:02PFT Commenter:Yeah, I just saw it, and I was like, I know that name, and this number is so crazy.

19:07Big Cat:What's the field like? Is it a stacked field? I mean, it's pretty stacked. There's some good players there? Yeah. Fuck. I mean, not Scotty and Rory, I don't think, but.

19:15PFT Commenter:By the way, shout out Wyndham Clark. Did you guys see Wyndham Clark's first pitch? No. It was nasty. Pull it up, Max. Where was it? Tigers game. It was really nice. Like, rarely do you see, you'll see guys throw a nice first pitch. Like, oh, okay, he did. He kind of, he had some heat, and it was painted. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Look at that thing. That's the dream. That's a great first pitch, Max. Is it not? Yeah, no, I would kill for that first pitch. Yeah.

19:44Big Cat:He hit the corner perfectly. Ducky is tied for 41st right now.

19:47PFT Commenter:All right. All right. Because he hasn't teed off. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. We're good. Listen, we got a little bit of striking distance. There's some names in this tournament. Brad Dahlke is one of them. Correct. He is one of the names in the tournament. What are some other names? We got Paige Schoenick, Frankie Pirelli. We got Schoenick, Ricky Fowler.

20:08Big Cat:Nade Shot. No. The Duke. Siwoo Kim. Oh, I can't wait to get back with the boys. Wyndham. Royan Ruffles shot her up.

20:20PFT Commenter:I mean, it would probably be one of the most shocking results in sports. Yeah. If he won, yeah. Has he played any other tournaments this year? Speed. He's played a couple of DP World Tour tournaments. How did he do? He made the cut in one of them. I mean, winning would be shocking. I think he could make a cut and do decently. What if he just won? But if he won, that would be... I'm doing it, too. Yeah, right? Get on the donkey train. We have to at least do something. Put$5.

20:50Big Cat:Every day they put the words gamble responsibly underneath our faces. $5 is$5 ,000.

20:56PFT Commenter:conscience it's a little it's a little baby unit i don't think i'm allowed to bet on it's kind of

21:01Big Cat:like the wmba rules as somebody that's going to be competing against them i don't think i'm allowed

21:04PFT Commenter:to put money on them yeah um okay other stories uh did you have any pft because i have another one that that uh i mean we're yeah we got a quarterback battle oh we gotta we gotta keep people updated on the quarterback battle okay uh so is it going to be uh our good friend deshaun watson or is it

21:22Big Cat:going to be shador sanders in cleveland because uh the way that that their coaching staff is putting it is like we don't know the players are going to have to be the ones that tell us it's i think i think i said it's not up to the coaches to make that decision it's up to the players to make that decision for us who the who the leader is going to be and then somebody asked jerry judy on the live stream who it was and then he just held up four fingers that's deshaun that's deshaun yeah it sounds like deshaun might be coming back or is it mr fourth quarter shador Sanders that's a valid point I don't know I didn't think about that one but I the funniest possible circumstance would be if it was Deshaun and he plays really really well and then the Browns give him another contract yeah that would be like oh yeah we actually committed to you long term that might be the funniest possible I hope it doesn't happen for for my Cleveland people out there you guys have suffered long enough but you have to admit like you'd be if you're gonna lose you might as well be hilarious and that would be the funniest way yeah um okay the other the other golf news that we forgot to talk about hank yeah congratulations on what live would you like to apologize no why because i don't want to you should you should apologize no i will not live is not dead it is on life support potentially potentially not dead so what happened hank uh there's not signed that's the one thing i don't you know we've we've maybe called it too early with it being dead.

22:47We might be calling it too late with it being back. There is reports that they have gotten a$250 million investment to be able to put on future events. From who? It's undisclosed.

22:59Big Cat:And how many future events? It might be Aramco. Yeah. Aramco. They make good oil. I don't know. Obviously, they would have to restructure everything. It could be less events.

23:10PFT Commenter:Oh, no. They're not good at restructuring. No. They should just go back to three rounds in shorts. Yeah. So$250 million doesn't feel like it would keep the league going for very long unless it's like the league just becomes a hole-in-one stream or something.

23:27Big Cat:That's like half of Phil's contract.

23:29PFT Commenter:Yeah. That's all of Jon Rahm. The funny thing is like... Yeah, that's the thing. The players, I don't know who would stick around. The teams, the IP of the teams, the four aces, there will be four aces. Dustin Johnson might not be one of them. Like they just might have, might be like, you know, like the Corn Fairy guys just are now live guys.

23:54Big Cat:Smash GC. Bryson was saying like that's one of those options. That Smash GC is gone. Come on. Is that Bryson? They're the Oklahoma, they're the Oklahoma golf club now. But Bryson was on Smash GC, right? No. What was he on? Brooks, Bryson's the Crushers. Oh, my bad. Crushers still gone. Brooks was Smash. The Crushers. Okay. So Bryson was saying though that when it came to the Crushers, the IP and the Crushers, that's worth at least a half billion dollars for him. So he'll be okay. I'm just thinking that if you're on the Live Tour and you've been on the Live Tour, the players get accustomed to a certain lifestyle over the years.

24:28Big Cat:They get first-class flights, great spread, nice meals, great transportation. No cuts. No cuts. Are they going to be running this on a shoestring budget? Because you might lose some of the players that way. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, there's, yeah, Saudi money and then a regular investment. and it's different companies, different worlds.

24:46PFT Commenter:Yeah. So congrats. Thank you. You're going to take the congrats. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you said it was dead. So if you're going to say it's dead, then you... I still think it's dead. I think you should apologize. I'm not going to. So we're at a standoff. But you took the... I'm not apologizing for saying it's dead, but you're taking the congrats for it being alive? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

25:09Big Cat:But it's not alive yet.

25:11PFT Commenter:it's more alive today than it was the last show we were is it more dead or alive alive i disagree it's a zombie i think it's dead zombie live i think it's far more dead it's critical condition

25:22Big Cat:okay okay so a lot does it is there a picture of it maybe it's in a coma but like it's kyle

25:28PFT Commenter:shanahan stable with his with his uh red button down did you guys see wgn yeah his older asian

25:34Big Cat:wife yeah actually accidentally used that beam yeah pretty funny so yeah i i just think hank um 250 they're gonna need maybe it's just the start maybe like they just need to see one go through one domino falls and there might be a bunch of other fortune 500 companies out there and they're like we've got we've got about a half billion in marketing money that we like to light on fire where are we gonna spend it and then they see this and they're like oh i know yeah what that sounds good let's invest and live it might just take one company to do it and then the dam breaks us us no absolutely not how much we could put on we could sponsor one hole we could sponsor

26:14PFT Commenter:john rom walking from hit from the from the clubhouse to the t-box that's what we can afford what do you think that our name got brought up in the negotiations been like it's not that relevant but this show talks about it every episode. Yeah. Yeah, they're like, as long as they keep talking about it, we got to try to save it. I don't think it's a 0 % chance that we got brought up. It is kind of crazy that we made$0 off Liv. Yeah. Like, we should have gotten fucking paid. We don't make money on any league. We're the number one Liv podcast of all time. We are a sports podcast, a national sports podcast, mind you.

26:50Yes, facts. We have not gotten paid from any league.

26:52PFT Commenter:But if there was ever a league to get paid by, it would have been Liv.

26:55Big Cat:They paid everyone. They asked me. I said, I don't want to know the number because if you tell me the number, I'm going to want to do it. So no number. What do you mean they asked you? It's also a lie that what Hank just said. What? I said pretty much. No, this is PLL, F1. Yeah. Good point. Excellent points all around. F1 didn't pass.

27:16PFT Commenter:I mean, oh, I guess it was advertisers. Yeah. Okay.

27:19Big Cat:Yeah. But I mean, they did. They didn't.

27:24PFT Commenter:Okay.

27:24Big Cat:Anyways, there's definitely been a pitch. There's been a marketing meeting at Live where they just say, here's how much buzz we've generated across media. And they say they've been mentioned for 70 minutes per week on the number one sports podcast. They don't disclose what the content of that discussion is. They don't say what we said, but they're just like, we're generating buzz. Invest in Live. This guy is in a Four Aces hat and shirt and tie talking to the former president of the United States. Just use that screenshot from the Joe Biden clip.

27:58PFT Commenter:Yep.

27:59Big Cat:Okay.

27:59PFT Commenter:I mean, it would be funny if we are the reason why Liv is still trying to stay alive. Yeah. Chicken and her egg. Are we saving Liv? Is Liv saving us? Who knows? Who knows? All right. Last story I had, LeBron James is doing a full documentary. He signed a deal with ESPN. Welcome to the clown show. that's a great intro is that the name of it yeah the clown show it seemed like michael jordan had some cameras following him around yeah i mean that footage didn't come out for like 30 years so the cameras weren't there those cameras it also came way less way less cameras than today's cameras cameras just appeared out of thin air there's there's so much cameras and there's gonna be real-time clips way more cameras in the world today than there were back then yes you're proving my point with inflation it's the same amount of it may be fewer cameras i think it's actually

28:51Big Cat:fewer cameras you think it's gonna be a distraction i don't think that i don't think jordan did any confessional one-on-one interviews during that documentary it was more like after you know the season it wasn't while he was playing he didn't like get changed out of his uniform take a shower and then go sit down for a camera i think lebron might be this back in the day that's not true documentaries didn't exist back in the day what not like that yeah right He's right.

29:13PFT Commenter:It was a lot of cameras that were filming stuff that were not, like, it wasn't, hey, LeBron, what do you think about this game? Compare it. Do you think that there are more sports documentaries that are in season now compared to the 90s?

29:27Big Cat:That's true. Yes. But there were such things as documentaries. I'm talking about, like, day-to-day basis, Max. I'm talking about in-season documentaries. There's a documentary for everything now that follows everyone in every sport in every league. Distraction. And everyone's distracted. It happens. I think what me and Big Cat were saying is that – People are just talking about LeBron because everyone talks about LeBron. I think what we're saying is that – What about the quarterback show on Netflix? How about Jaden Daniels? Yeah, that worked out real good last year. Didn't go well. That was a great season that Jaden Daniels had last year.

29:56What about Patrick Mahomes? How about that? Didn't go well. You didn't think about that.

29:59Big Cat:Last year, Jaden didn't have a good year. He stank. He got hurt all the time. Patrick Mahomes didn't win a Super Bowl that year. It would be a real shame if that happened to LeBron.

30:05PFT Commenter:We'll see. Real shame. The Chiefs were trying to do – I think they – Weren't they doing a three-peat documentary when they were trying to win the third in a row and they didn't? Oh, no. Distractions. We'll see. Are you excited about this? I don't give a fuck. Actually, yes, I am excited about it. I want to watch it. Even if you lose. When he wins, I'm going to watch it. Even if you lose. I'm going to watch it so fucking hard. And you two are just going to cry. And I'm going to drink your fucking tears after LeBron Doc just shows him. He's finally stepping up. Hold him to Larry O 'Brien. I forgot the name of the trophy.

30:37Big Cat:He's finally stepping up. LeBron sexual. Yeah. If he decides this deal and they get knocked out in the first round, they still have to put it out. They have to put it out. Then it would be the greatest thing ever. They don't make the playoffs? He wouldn't. He wouldn't. No, he wouldn't. I guarantee you that they will put this down. If there's a signed deal with ESPN, that documentary is coming out no matter what. Now, do you think that it's going to be like weekly basis? You think it's going to be monthly? How often can we expect an update? No, it's after he's retired it's coming out. Oh, so it's nothing in season?

31:05Post mostly.

31:06Big Cat:Yeah, if they lose in heartbreaking fashion, zero. Zero percent chance it comes out.

31:15It's coming out. What do you mean? They're signing a deal. Okay.

31:23PFT Commenter:So you're pumped for this documentary? Pumped. Fired up. It's going to be sick. Yeah.

31:31Big Cat:Welcome to the clown show. Welcome to the clown show. It's actually a good name. Yeah.

31:35PFT Commenter:Yeah. Welcome to the clown show. I mean, if you're like Joel Embiid, you see LeBron go into the confessional. You're like, what is he talking about?

31:43Big Cat:Yeah, you have to wonder. Yeah. And then you're not going to find out for another year? Give me a break. Give me a break, Max. Give me a break, dude. Give me a break. Give me a break. Come on. You kidding me? You're not ready for this. No. I just nailed that. Yeah, you finally showed a little fight. That was probably the best arguing I've ever done on this show. Yeah, you showed a little fight. Well, I think that it is reasonable to say that when they did the Michael Jordan documentary, like after a game, during the season, he wasn't spending his time going into a room, talking to the camera. It's a different world now.

32:15Big Cat:Throwing his teammate on the bus. Yeah, I'm saying it's more distraction. People do it all the time now. And I don't think it's always great. If you haven't figured out by now, on this show, specifically when it comes to LeBron,

32:26PFT Commenter:we're going to be playing the results. So whatever happens, then we're going to fit our narrative around that. What are you going to do if he wins? oh we'll get we'll get there we'll get there yeah we will get there we will get there i already said it was the the four teams you can't be the goat and then someone pointed out wayne gretzky played for four teams but listen that's why we stay fluid that's why we're always fluid here that's a good point i wish i had that one in my back pocket so lebron is is anybody else on the six is going to be making money off this documentary or just lebron lebron has taken enough sacrifice for the money of this team.

33:02Big Cat:So he's going to be... Did you see that he turned down$20 million from the Clippers to go to the Sixers for$3.8 million? Yeah, I'm just saying, so he's going to be making money and he's going, hey, everybody has to be in my movie that I'm getting paid on. Yeah. Correct. But you guys don't. Because they're getting paid more than him. It sounds like Pablo Latour needs to give him a call. Correct. Sounds like he should look into this movie business. I'd agree. I'd agree.

33:24PFT Commenter:Okay, let's do... Should we do Mount Rushmore? And then we get some interviews? Yeah, Kumbaya. Yeah, kumbaya. All right. Before we get to Mount Rushmore, it is brought to you by our friends at Reese's. There's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's. I have a new favorite. No, wait. It's not new because I've been doing it a lot, but Reese's Sticks. Reese's Sticks are just so. I've been on a Reese's Sticks kick. Reese's is the best candy out there. They got everything. You can go with just the traditional 1-1 Mount Rushmore pick of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. They also have it with marshmallows or Oreos.

34:00PFT Commenter:Or you can do the Reese's sticks. Or you can do the Reese's pretzels. Or you can do the Reese's with animal crackers. It's all there. Reese's is the best. Reese's is like the Spanish national team. They're like the Carolina Hurricanes. They're like whoever won the NBA championship this past year. Reese's is the GOAT. So Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Go get Reese's wherever you shop and make sure you get in on Reese's. Okay, boys. The Mount Rushmore of buttons to press. We are now the updated standings. We had the closest Mount Rushmore poll, I believe, of the season. Yeah.

34:36What were you tweeting, PFT? What do you mean? That you tweeted some chart. What was the chart?

34:41Big Cat:Oh, yeah. It was a chart of the 2020 election where mysteriously in the end of the night, one candidate took over another. I'm just trying to muddy the waters. So I honestly think I have no regrets. I looked at the graphic. I came in third. It was a very close vote. I liked my team. I thought I had a great team out there. No regrets about that. I have lots of regrets about maybe the way I performed in some of the other Mount Rushmores, notably the two prior to this one. This one, I was back. Statement loss. Statement loss, and I'm a process guy. I don't play that. The process was good, and I think we're trending in the right direction, and now you've got to stack days.

35:19Big Cat:That's the next step. Yeah. So you lost. But you haven't. Don't you need to start to then stack? No, we're stacking days. That was a good – But you're at the – you need one to start the stack. You're a results guy. I'm a process. You're playing the result. Oh, got it. That was a good process. You're stacking – yeah. I'm stacking process. William Clark. Good process. Yeah, good process. Okay. Because that was – like, look at that team. That's a team I'll lose with.

35:43PFT Commenter:So it was – what was the final – it was 39.3 % for Meme Max and Memes and then 30.6 % for Hank and Zach and 30%. That's as close as we've had in a very long time.

35:55Big Cat:Going to sleep, coffee, watching golf on TV, and spanking. That's a team that I will lose with. You'll go to war with them all the time.

36:02PFT Commenter:I'm happy with that team, yeah. Okay, so it's 35 points for me, memes, and max. 25 points for PFT, and Hank and Zach are at 24 points. Mount Rushmore of buttons to press.

36:19PFT Commenter:Who's up first? We are. I thought, Zach. those two I just texted you pick you pick we're going to go with the order now button

36:35Big Cat:order now it's a good button I had it on the list order now that could be food, that could be shopping you're getting food delivered you're getting new clothes it's fun to buy things and hit that order now Yep. Okay. My one one is on the table. So I'm going to go with it. I'm second, right? Yeah. Okay. Snooze. The snooze button. It's a good button. I love the snooze button. That's a really good one. Just delay the waking up. Yeah. That is a good one. I didn't even. We were talking about alarm and I was like, no, it's actually the worst button to press and I didn't even. The next thought should have been.

37:13Snooze. Yeah.

37:14Big Cat:That also would have been a bad one maybe for Zach to press. Yeah. But we're. Yeah. It means I feel like we both love the snooze. You do love the snooze.

37:21PFT Commenter:Snooze button's the worst button you can hit. Okay. Boys, what do we do? We have our first two. Should we just... Wait, which ones are they again? I just texted it. Seven?

37:33Big Cat:Oh, do seven. Okay. Should we not say that first one that we initially thought was 1-1? Yeah, no. I think we might be able to get that.

37:43PFT Commenter:Okay. Right? Should we do it? Should we do... So 5-19. 5-19, you're saying? 17 12 6 2-5 2-7 Stop it 3 of us Alright go 8 You're fucking us up now This needs to happen so you can be decisive I like 5 and 18 Alright First one we're going to take Is the TV remote Press power on for the TV remote Power on TV remote. Okay. TV remote. And then the second one we're going to pick is hotel AC down. Just jamming that button. Yeah. Getting it as cold as possible. A million times. We could pick. So many times. But yeah, there's nothing better than turning your TV on when you sit down and you're just like, here we go.

38:38PFT Commenter:Turning my TV on. What do we want the exact phrasing to be for that? TV power. TV power on. Yeah. Remote. Yeah. Yeah, remote TV power. I don't know how to phrase it. TV remote power. Button. Button.

38:56And then hotel AC down. Yeah.

39:01Big Cat:There's something getting in the 50s. Yeah. It's great. But they don't actually get in the 50s. No, it doesn't. They just let you click the button because they know that it's satisfying to do. And honestly, they're right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. My second pick I'm going to take skip ad button Okay The skip ad button on a video I love that button I actually disagree I don't think anyone should skip any of our ads Yep I agree with you Do each of their own Ads are very important

39:29PFT Commenter:I disagree Ads are very important Ads support the show I would argue Skip ad Terrible pick We get paid either way We really need that Skip the ad Nope Nope Nope Nope That's not true Definitely not Do not skip the ad Skip the ad Way to go PFT Don't skip the ads. Right against ourselves. Skip the ads. Nope. Do not skip the ads. Or just pay for YouTube premium. You could pay for YouTube. You're rich.

39:56Big Cat:But there are sometimes ads on not YouTube. I'm not necessarily talking about YouTube. We don't want you to skip those ones either. Keep listening to the ads. Please do not skip those. Skip ad buttons pretty satisfying. Nope. You know it is. Your entire job. All right, Zach. I think we go with one and three or three and one. I don't know if it matters.

40:13PFT Commenter:Oh, three and one. One and three. Go two. Go four. What about seven? That was a good impression of yourself. What do you think about? Yeah. Yeah, those are both good picks. All right. We're going to go with. 13. The chair recliner button. We had it. And we're going to go with your best friends button. Okay. Pushing the buttons of your best friends.

40:39Big Cat:Yeah, I had a similar one. Okay.

40:42PFT Commenter:okay chair recliner best friends yeah

40:49Big Cat:thoughts i like it the pics yeah i had recline too we had his recline as well i'm gonna go with exiting a video call it's a good button especially if it's work related if you're in a team's meeting if you're doing some sort of remote thing with your boss exit the video call. Very satisfying. Okay. Yeah, it makes a noise too.

41:17PFT Commenter:What are we doing, boys? I mean, we could do four. Easy. Right? Max, memes, you lock in. We could do four. Look at Max's lip. I also like 14. That's got to be the best of all. Oh, no, no, no, no. Let's go 4 and 17. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. The podcast button. The PMT button. It needs to be the PMT podcast button. It's got to be pressed. It's a great button to press. Max pressing it. Very relatable. Yeah. Well, yeah, because everyone listening right now, they need that button to be pressed. That is correct. They've never pressed it. To listen to it. Anyone voting for that has never pressed the podcast button.

41:58No, they need the button to be pressed. Jacob is going to vote. Yeah.

42:00Big Cat:It's already been pressed, though. You're going to vote. You're going to vote. You pressed it. Yeah. Memes is going to vote. He's pressed it.

42:09PFT Commenter:Colton. Pug's going to vote. Yeah, we're also thinking about the people. Yeah, we're thinking about the people.

42:13Big Cat:People are going to press the button to listen to this podcast. If anyone is allowed to make that pick, it's us. We're allowed to. You're allowed to make whatever pick you want. I mean, yeah, but it wouldn't make. Welcome to America. It's true, but it's never going to press the button.

42:26PFT Commenter:I can press the button. You want me to press the button tonight? No. I'll do it. We need the podcast out. I just texted you guys what our actual last pick should be. yeah yeah okay yeah covers everything video game console turn it on yeah best yeah like you know you're about to sit down and do some gaming yeah great fucking feeling that's gonna be that's gonna be our next pick mm-hmm thought about taking it one one yeah it's zach you know it's good pick it's a good pick it's a great pick thank you you do all four of ours at the same time what was ours uh tv remote yeah video game council yeah ac down yeah and listening part

43:08Big Cat:of my take yeah sure i'm gonna go with uh voting in an online twitter poll as my last pick for button to press i think everybody that votes in this is probably going to agree that that's a pretty important button it is yeah very important that's your pick yeah i think it's a pretty good pick and it's worded like that voting great pick yeah vote Voting in an online poll. You can't change it now. You should have just said Team 2. Okay. Voting for Team 2. But yeah. Well, I don't want to exclude anybody that is thinking about maybe not voting for Team 2. It's true. And they say that, and they're like - I love Mount Rushmore.

43:46Big Cat:We always get to it eventually. It kind of nailed me. I'm about to vote in this poll and not pandering. You can vote for whoever you want. You also hate our sponsors. You do. I don't.

43:57PFT Commenter:And you wouldn't be able to listen to this if the podcast button wasn't pressed.

44:02Big Cat:That's also a good point. It's a good point. It looks like we've all just done a really good draft. That's what it sounds like. Kumbaya? Kumbaya. Yeah, kumbaya. I mean, I think. Do you want to do that one, Zach? Or do you want to just take a safe one? Do we just say fuck it? Oh, I hope. Yeah, say fuck it. I think the fuck it could be the one that we were thinking doing one more. I think say it. This last text at 1132? Yeah. All right, we're going to take any red button.

44:33PFT Commenter:Any red button? Actually, not bad. I love that. Yeah, any red button's good. Nuke, we were thinking about doing. Yeah, we were thinking about nuke, but then we're like, it's the most powerful button, but it's probably not a good button to press. You don't feel good probably pressing that button.

44:48Big Cat:I think you probably do, though. You probably feel... In the moment. No way. You feel bad after you press it. I mean, it's the adrenaline rush of a lifetime, and then you're probably dead. I also had Right Trigger, like on the gaming console. We had Spin Move.

45:04PFT Commenter:Yeah.

45:04Big Cat:Spin Move is a good game.

45:04PFT Commenter:A perfectly tight Spin Move is the best. One that is not relatable to anyone but must be the best button to press of all time is the confetti after a championship. That's got to be such a sick one. What about confetti when you're going into overtime? Good question. That was a bad one. That wouldn't have been my pick. We also fucked up. Because one of my favorite picks, we just didn't pick it. We should have. The submit bet button. Oh, fuck. So stupid. That is stupid. We were planning. We had too many on the list, honestly. We got to 19 buttons. Did you have clit, PFT? We actually had more. We had G-Spot.

45:43PFT Commenter:I did not have clit, no. But we didn't know where to find it. Sick brag, Hank. Closed door elevator. Great button to press.

45:52Big Cat:I've heard that those aren't connected.

45:53PFT Commenter:Really?

45:54Big Cat:Yeah, most of them, like, if you ever call in a repairman, and if that button's not working, they just never fix it. Yeah. Well, that's, but it's still a good button to press. Yeah, it's good, but yeah. I'm getting it. It feels like you're doing something.

46:05PFT Commenter:Sneaky button that really has no meaning, but it just, it's actually, it's fun to press. Microwave door open. The one that goes in. Yep. It's just a fun button to press.

46:17Big Cat:It's nice and mechanical, yeah. What about the hit stick?

46:22PFT Commenter:You miss so many tackles. Not a button. Yeah, it's not a button. It's a stick.

46:26Big Cat:But you have to... Don't you have to click it? Nah, no.

46:30PFT Commenter:You're doing the Inglourious Bastards 3 thing right now. Okay, well, how about the Fox 3?

46:34Big Cat:Fox 3 launching an Amram. Shit. That's a good button.

46:38PFT Commenter:This is about to be a gunfight. I love... Max hates this because Max is a pussy. I love the garbage disposal. I think it's awesome. Hitting that button. What does that mean? and he makes you uncomfortable. Have you ever lived, dude, living in New York without a garbage disposal and then getting one back? It's the best. There's just nothing better, though. It's one of the greatest inventions of all time. And you pile it up with shit, and you're just like... Or even when you do eggs or something like that, you're just like, I'm going to go for it. And it sounds like... Yeah, when it's full and you can tell it's really carving through.

47:15PFT Commenter:Yeah. Or you throw a lime in there, and you're like, this is going to take some work. I'm going to have to really run some water and listen to this. I think my biggest fear is having my hand stuck in the garbage disposal when it's on. So I think that. Oh, is that because you're just trying to get one last bite? Like what?

47:31Big Cat:If you're trying to shove something down there. Yeah, you're like, I'm throwing this away. And then like.

47:35PFT Commenter:Oh no, I want a last bite. 10 minutes later, you're like. You're like something down the garbage disposal that you have to put your hand in and take it out. I didn't press the button. I know, but like that. If it does turn on. Not really. PFT. Well, no. What do you mean you've never had to take something out of the garbage disposal?

47:50Big Cat:You got to clear it. You've never used a sink. I've never reached my hand down there, but you have to clear the top sometimes. And when you clear the top - But it's not on. I see what Max is saying. It's not on. There was one house that I looked at, and this was probably 10 years ago. I was going to move into this place. And the garbage disposal button was a little light switch that was in front of the sink at your stomach height. That's crazy. Just terrifying. It was the most terrifying switch that I've ever seen. I was like, no, this house is cursed. I'm not losing hand here. That's crazy. Yeah.

48:20PFT Commenter:All right. Other buttons. Yeah, but Max, don't eat from the garbage disposal. Okay?

48:24Big Cat:I had pressing Max's buttons. Yeah, we did too. We had that.

48:28PFT Commenter:But they kind of took it with best friends. It's just a worse version of it. Max is my best friend. I had to explain in the car PFT to Max and memes the CBS boss button. Oh, the boss button. Unbelievable button. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, CBS, when March Madness, it was probably like 15-ish years ago, you would watch March Madness on your computer at work and they put in a boss button on the browser where if you clicked it it immediately went to a fake excel spreadsheet yeah the boss button great button i had uh the button that

49:01Big Cat:sends the vacuum tube at the bank oh that's good that's a good button that's good it just sucks it away we had walkie-talkie the talk yeah that's good click um the i'm over 18 the yes i'm over 18 button that allows you access to certain websites. Yeah, that's a good one.

49:20PFT Commenter:Yeah, for sure. That's a good one.

49:24Big Cat:Probably should have gone with that one.

49:25PFT Commenter:Yeah. Push to walk. I still press it. It doesn't do anything, but it's kind of fun to press it. Yeah. Push to start. Push to start we had. Push to start. Add to cart was you kind of guys took it with, but add to cart is fun. Oh, soda fountain. Great. Yeah, it's not really. No, the one where you press on the front the the new age ones i like the one and the old one i like the one where you click it into the level yeah but there's new age ones and now there's old like the old ones that used to press but the new age ones too where you have like you can make whatever so like you there's like 7 000 sodas also the ice button when in a hotel that's fun

50:05Big Cat:just filling it up like i'm getting all the ice ice button's good um like submit button when you're submitting a resume or submitting like a term paper yep yep max ac button max ac pretty good yep what about the mute button i said that max city like the unmute button but it's the same button yeah yeah it's just i'm i was thinking going back to what you said the other day when it's like oh yeah you're watching sports but then it's like could you mute that i want to listen to I want to listen to music. There's people here. We don't need to listen to the audio. And it's like, that's a tough button to press when you have to click the mute so that you can listen to the music.

50:46PFT Commenter:Garage door. I love pressing the garage door button. It's a good one, yeah. It just makes you feel like Walter White. I did a project. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like, I'm going to... It's just the whole world opens like, shit, that was cool. Or closing it. And the play button. It's actually, we're in a bad spot, Zach. Play button's a good button.

51:03Big Cat:I think we're in a good spots. I think this is going to be another tight race. I think it's going to be a really tight race. We have no way to know. We got all... I mean, video games, we probably should have taken. But we got our top... We had four out of our top five, and we could have had video games. We just didn't.

51:18PFT Commenter:What if your top five wasn't great? I think... I like our top five. What was your first one again? Order Now, Your Best Friends, Chair Recliner, Any Red Button.

51:27Big Cat:Yeah. That one... Any Red Button is good. Okay. That one, I'm... No, I like Any Red Button. I think it's better than Your Best Friends. But that's the best button to press.

51:36PFT Commenter:yeah but Matt we would have if you hadn't taken that we would have maybe taken Max's buttons that's my favorite button to press in the whole world you guys are Max didn't understand when we first started talking about it I was like Max's button he's like oh you mean like for the podcast is like no dude like for you and he's like oh yeah I do I like to press it I like pushing your guys buttons too though it's any any of your friends we never we never push your buttons no

52:03Big Cat:Hank is one giant button

52:04PFT Commenter:We play it straight up with you Hank

52:06Big Cat:He can't exist because he is a button

52:10PFT Commenter:Alright Good Mount Rushmore boys Let's get to our interviews We got Coach Sig, Coach Bob Chesney And then we have our good friend Joel Klatt Talking football with all three

52:20Big Cat:Coach Sig is going to be brought to you by Mountain Dew Summer is coming, I can't wait for Camp Barstool I can't wait to hang outside with boys Can't wait to spend some time by the lake Nothing goes better with hitting the lake and hanging with your friends than the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew was proudly born in the foothills of Tennessee. You can enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. It's an American original. Check it today. Mountain Dew, grab a dew, tasting great since 48. And now here's Coach Kurt Cignetti.

52:48PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is Indiana head football coach Kurt Cignetti, national champion. Am I allowed to say that? because I know that you've banned those words from your office. They're not banned, but we're getting ready to start a new year, that's for sure. Okay. How many times has it been said in your office since you won the national championship? Oh, I don't count. I'm more interested in converting on third down and scoring touchdowns in the red area. I like that. You did get rid of all the trophies, though. You put those away. You stashed those away so they're not staring you in the face.

53:22Yeah, the trophies, we got a new trophy case. We had to build a new trophy room in the facility because for such a long time, there wasn't much to put in it.

53:33PFT Commenter:Right. So it's almost done. It's going to be big time first class. I like that. That's great. So we got a few little items in my office. My office has always been very Spartan, secondary to me. I've never tried to create a monument, but there have been so many that we don't have enough room for them yet. So they end up at my office somehow, some way. I just put them where I can't see them. Maybe bring them out when a recruit comes in. That's got to be a nice reminder that, hey, this thing has worked pretty quickly because you had to build an entire trophy case finally to put all the trophies in.

54:10PFT Commenter:Yeah, now we've got to build a new stadium. No, I'm just kidding.

54:15Big Cat:Maybe a little bit. Maybe you're a little bit serious about that one. So this is two years almost to the day that you sat down, Big Ten Media Day. You said a lot of things at your first Big Ten Media Day. Was that a strategy? Were you like, I better burn the boats. I better say all of it. That way I feel like I have to back it up or else. Well, I was out there on a limb. Thankfully, it was a strong limb. But, you know, it all began really with my first day on the job. and it didn't take long to feel the doom, gloom, despair, and hopelessness. And so at the basketball game that night, you know, what was said was said.

54:51And I had to find out if the fan base was on life support or dead and, you know, said a few things. Obviously, the Google Me caught fire. That was just being asked the same question for the 15th time. Media Day, actually two days ago, somebody sent me something on our first media day here where I talked about being picked second to last and gave some historical facts. And I looked at it and kind of laughed like, wow, I was really out there.

55:15Big Cat:Yeah. You know? Yeah. So two years, you know, a lot of wins, 27-2, national championship. We've done a lot of good things. So chapter three, getting ready to turn the page. I'd say you backed it up pretty well. And I was a big fan of yours at James Madison when you were the coach there. I'm sorry for jinxing you on the college game day appearance. The one loss that we had against App State, that's on me. I don't know who else you can blame about that one, so I apologize for that. Because I was watching you last year, and I was like, how did this team lose to App State at home? I didn't get it because you had so many guys from JMU that followed you to Indiana.

55:52Big Cat:And I was curious because after you guys won the national championship, the one thing I noticed immediately, I believe the first five guys to touch the trophy were all guys that came with you. Was that intentional, or was that just like, These are the guys that were naturally towards the front because they're the leaders. Well, I think Mendoza was up there also. Yep. To be fair. Coogan also. But you did have Kamara, Ponds, Surratt, Tucker, I believe. You know, that was a nice nucleus. You know, we had been together a long time, recruited those guys out of high school and developed them. And then, you know, they wanted to play on the biggest stage and prove themselves because, you know, why wasn't I recruited by Virginia, Virginia Tech kind of thing?

56:34And they came here and proved that they can play at the highest level. And a lot of them are in NFL camps right now, high draft choices. Not only good players, but high character, smart guys. You get good players that are smart and have good character, you can do a lot of things.

56:48PFT Commenter:Yeah. I had a question about your path as a coach because it's an interesting one. A lot of people, if they're at Alabama with Nick Saban, that is kind of the last stepping stone to something bigger. But you realized, hey, I have to go somewhere else, be a head coach at a lower level and work my way up this way. Was there a moment where you're like, hey, maybe I'm not going to be a head coach. Like this isn't going to work out for me. A lot of them. And then, you know, I was hitting the big 5-0. And being a coach's son, you tend to like follow the other coaches through all the years from the 70s that were on staff and their career paths.

57:24And yeah, the market for a 60-year-old assistant coach at that time, it's not a great market. Right. You know, I was turning 50. And so I always wanted to be a head coach. I always thought I'd be a good head coach. It was a very unconventional move. It was a huge pay cut. But when I took that job, like, you know, if I was there 20 years, I was going to be there 20 years. Like, I didn't take that job every day waking up thinking, I got to get here, I got to get there. We just, we got good. We found a path. And the opportunities came.

57:54PFT Commenter:Yeah. You started winning and you just never stopped winning, really. Yeah, pretty much. That's kind of what has been the story of Kurt Zignetti. Yeah, we win. Yeah.

58:01Big Cat:How did you identify, like, the different jobs that you want to take? Were they the only ones that were offered? Or, like, was Indiana University of Pennsylvania? No, there were turned down jobs. And then sometimes you interview for a job and you don't get it. And, I mean, I was at IUP for six years. Yeah. And, I mean, I had two great teams coming back I thought could really contend and maybe win the national championship. And then, you know, this opportunity at Elon came. And, you know, I was at NC State before. I knew Elon. There wasn't much down there. I wasn't even going to go talk to him.

58:29My agent convinced me. I was on a plane. What am I doing? I get down there, man. They had built, the school had doubled in size. It looked like a country club. They built all kinds of new facilities. Back then, that was the top 1AA conference in the country, then Missouri Valley. And we went in there, and everybody thought it was hopeless, much like Indiana. It was probably in worse shape than Indiana. And shoot, you know, we lost to Toledo in the opener. They won the MAAC. And then we ripped off eight in a row, man. And we were beating teams that beat them the year before, 56-6. People couldn't believe it.

59:00And, you know, a year later, turned down a couple jobs, ended up at JMU. And, you know, I liked it there. I wasn't looking to leave JMU. Now, Jeff Bourne was retiring. I loved him. And he told me, oh, people are going to come after you. People are going. I said, no, no, no, I like it here. You know, a little miffed that, you know, we had transitioned to Sunbelt, won the East two years in a row and couldn't play in the championship game. Yeah, yeah. Wasn't very pleased about that. But this one here had been here a couple times. The Big Ten TV contract really caught my eye. I knew they'd had some years with Mallory.

59:37I really didn't realize how it had bottomed out in terms of fan support and the long-term record because it was such a three-day process. I get here, we've got 10 offensive starters in a transfer portal. The whole defense is gone. I mean, we have a lot of work to do. And it just sort of all came together.

59:54PFT Commenter:Yeah, I mean, it really is one of the best stories that's happened in sports. Like, you can't really look at many teams, franchises, schools that have had this type of turnaround this quickly that if you told someone five years ago Indiana's going to win a national title in football, they'd be like, well, you've died and you've gone. I think most people in the know would agree it's one of a kind. Yeah. Yeah. Story. Yeah. And it doesn't happen without great support from the top, Pam Witton and Scott Dolson. And I don't take this job without a great feeling about them who I got to know in a 72-hour period.

1:00:29And, you know, as you guys know, nothing great gets done without a commitment from the top.

1:00:34PFT Commenter:Yeah. So in terms of turning the page, and like you said, Chapter 3, I would assume you're a type of guy who has no problem turning the page. No, no problem. Yeah, but in terms of your staff, in terms of some of the guys that are coming back who have had all these – Staff don't have a problem either. They wouldn't be on staff. Yeah, true. Okay, so – but the players – like these are 20, 21-year-old kids that are rock stars now. No question. And they've gotten all the success. How do you get them to be like, hey, we're back to zero and zero. No one's proved anything. I think our people that went to dinner last night would disagree with who the rock star is right now as the pretty young girls were passing up to 20-year-olds.

1:01:11But no. So I think we have enough core guys in that locker room that we've been together that know how we operate. And they've done a great job of bringing the new guys in and helping them assimilate the culture. And, you know, that's what coaches get paid for is, you know, we don't talk enough about development, which is what it's all about. You know, and I think that's where we really excel is in development and getting everybody to think alike and creating the intangibles on your football team. And I think this is going to be a huge fall camp for us. because playing a 16-game season and some of the portal guys we brought in had injuries at their previous places, those guys didn't get a chance to work together a lot.

1:01:52So this is a huge August camp for us. Yeah. And then getting them to do things our way. You know, the marathon is not a sprint. It's a marathon. The season is a marathon, not a sprint. And once you kind of develop and maintain consistency and performance in terms of your standards, in terms of the way you do things day to day and prepare, and then anything's possible.

1:02:13Big Cat:How are you going to handle being the hunted now that you're at the top? It's like now you've got a big target on your back. I bought a bigger gun. That's a great answer. I like that. All right. Congratulations. We kind of passed over it. You just won the championship. You're going to win again with an answer like that. Yeah.

1:02:29PFT Commenter:We passed over it, but when we were talking about you winning and you kind of mumbled under your breath, like, we win. We win. That's what we did. We win. Like that's just, you're just, it's just coursing through your veins winning. I mean, I believe in our blueprint plan process and the way we go about doing things and our ability to get everybody to think alike and perform to a standard. It's worked in the past and I don't see any reason it shouldn't work again. All right. So now here's a tough football question. Do you go shirtless under your Q-zip? I do. That's weird. Is it? Yes. Get the zipper caught in the chest area, get the zipper sometimes.

1:03:04PFT Commenter:Like what do you do? Does the fabric not feel weird? I don't like things that are tight, like this button up here, you know, and this tie. I noticed it. It's nice and loose, and I feel comfortable. It's kind of like a psycho killer move where it's like, I don't trust that guy, but he's got something to him, like, going to stay away. You got a little killer in this business. I think I first remembered it when the Rose Bowl. I was heavy on, like, hey, I think Indiana's going to kick the shit out of Bama. And you came out with that Q-zip with nothing underneath. And I was like, this guy got a screw loose, and they're about to lay the hammer on him.

1:03:40PFT Commenter:Wow, you're really looking. Yeah. No, it's attention to detail. We can help you out with that. You need that attention to detail.

1:03:47Big Cat:We notice all the dumbest stuff that happens during a football game. Somebody has to, right? And when you're sweating directly on that fabric, there's got to be some chafage. There's got to be the chest hair getting caught in the zipper. But that's a man that's only focused on ball. You don't care about that. Yeah, I've never noticed. Go ahead. I was going to say, you talked about bringing a bigger gun this year. Where's that gun manufactured? Is that Cuban? Is that a Cuban gun that you're bringing this year? You know, Indiana has the largest alumni base in America. I think Penn State's number two.

1:04:20And as you guys saw, we took over the college football playoff. I mean, we probably had 75 % of the people at the Rose Bowl, 95 % at the Peach Bowl, and 60 % in Miami on Miami's home field. So a lot of wealthy Hoosiers out there. Mark played a role last year, and hopefully we can keep him in the program. But there's a lot of wealthy Hoosiers out there.

1:04:44Big Cat:So when you were hired, I don't know if we said it at the time. I was confident that you would do a good job because I got into seeing you coach. I knew what you were all about. I don't think anybody predicted this. But after you won the championship last year, I think we said on part of my take, You might be the best hire for any job. I'm not talking about football. I'm talking about just any occupation, anyone that's ever been hired in American history, you might be the best. Would you agree with that statement? Do I get a trophy for that? This is your trophy.

1:05:12PFT Commenter:One that you're going to put in your closet and not have to stay in your face. I really can't think that way. That's counterproductive to what I've got to do and the way I operate. I bounce back from wins real quick. We stalk complacency. If you're not striving and getting better, somebody else is, so you're getting worse. What are you doing now? What's important now? And I always like to be productive in my work in the moment, organized, structured, work smart. I grew up in this business, you know, and if you want to be the best, take some different kind of qualities and traits. And you can't always have a good time.

1:05:51You can't always be a good guy. You're the leader. My job is to get the most out of every single person in that building, coaches and players. I read something Mendoza said last week about he squeezes all the juice out of that orange you can. That's the key to the drill. And then you've got to get them all to think alike.

1:06:10Big Cat:Yeah. How long did you give yourself to celebrate? You had to have like a couple days where it was like, this is pretty cool. I think it's just so chaotic and hectic. You know, you don't go to bed until 3 in the morning. You know, maybe you go up to the president's suite, right, and then you're on with ESPN at 8 in the morning the next day and then you're traveling back and then you get in the office and you're way behind on everything. And really I feel like I'm just getting caught up here as we get ready to go to camp.

1:06:36PFT Commenter:Yeah, yeah. All right, I know you've got to leave in a second. By the way, what makes Pittsburgh such a football city where it feels like a lot of coaches come from that area? It's like it's something about it. Well, probably back in the day, the steel mills. Yeah. I mean, way back. Ditka and those guys, Joe Walton and Schottenheimer, and then was Cowher, and then the Steel Curtain, right? Yeah. People got fanatic about the Steelers after they got done all those 1 in 13 seasons. Yeah. Joe Green and Elsie Greenwood and those guys. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough blue-collar area. Yeah. And, you know, so tough people are not given.

1:07:17PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right. Last question. Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. We got Zach here. Zach is going to ask you a question. Come on, Zach. Did I have a quick question for you? You know, just us right now, a couple guys talking football, having a good time. I was wondering if you can give us a peek at the secret formula on pretty much how you got it done last season. He asked for your secret sauce. Wow. He wants your secret sauce. He did it in a very nice way, though, so you should probably give to him.

1:07:47Blueprint, people, plan, process, standards, consistency, and performance. In that order? Say that again.

1:07:53PFT Commenter:What's that acronym? Wait, say that again. Blueprint. Blueprint. Standard. People. Oh, shit. Okay. Process, plan, standards, consistency, and performance. Preparation. Accountability. You're just throwing extra ones in there. You just threw a little extra salt, a little extra pepper. Yeah, it didn't. You definitely have a thesaurus.

1:08:15Big Cat:Huh? You've got a lot of synonyms. A lot of those kind of mean the same thing. All those words mean something.

1:08:21PFT Commenter:Yeah, I'm going to break that. We're going to have to break that down later. Certainly. Yeah. Okay. You work on that. Well, Coach, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Maybe next time we'll come down and visit you. We'd love to do an extended one, but appreciate any time you gave us. All right, guys. Thank you. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

1:08:37Big Cat:Coach Sig was brought to you by Cuervo and Cuervo Devil's Reserve. Pineapple jalapeno infused tequila. It's like a spicy marg in a bottle. It's smooth. It's delicious. Devil's Reserve is the perfect drink for when mischief is on the menu. It's available in multiple sizes, including 50-milliliter shooters, perfect to bring to your party or your tailgate. It's time to listen to that little devil on your shoulder. Pour a round of shots. Get ready to raise a little bit of hell. Check out Cuervo today. Go to your local liquor store or go to Cuervo.com. Get your own bottle of Devil's Reserve Raise a Little Hell.

1:09:08Big Cat:Please drink responsibly. And now, here's UCLA coach Bob Chesney.

1:09:15PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is UCLA head coach, Bob Chesney. Coach, thank you for joining us. How is your first big time media day? Because this is, you're in the big boy league now. This is the start. We're the start? Yeah, this start. So I'll let you know in five minutes or so when we're done here. OK. Is it still like, you know, obviously not a I don't want to say whirlwind because this is something you've expected your whole life, I would assume. But you are now like you've graduated to the to the top in terms of like the Power Five conference, the Big Ten. Has it kind of set in like, hey, stakes are different.

1:09:53PFT Commenter:Like this is this is big, big shit. Yeah, I think I respect the fact that the margins are a lot thinner up here and that the competition and the coaches and the players and the stadiums will play. And I recognize all those things are going to be different. But at the same point, I think when you're building a team, there's those foundational elements that regardless of where you're playing have to be held true to. And they have to fit you. They have to fit the players you got schematically, culturally. What environment am I in? Who are the connections I got to make in a new area? Because for me, this is very different on the West Coast.

1:10:25So there's a whole lot in there that you got to do, but you could pull on previous experience. And to me, my confidence doesn't just come from my previous experience, but it also comes from the fact that I'm willing to learn and grow as much as humanly possible on a day-to-day basis.

1:10:38Big Cat:Yeah. Are you ready for an entire offseason of people anointing UCLA as the next Indiana? I know. That's not me. That's for sure. That's not me. But I get the parallels and I guess what I get what they're saying. And that's just to me a very easy little, you know, I don't want to say cheap, but an easy connection to make. But realistically, time will tell. Do you have do you have any relationship with Coach Sig? A little bit. Not not much. So, you know, a couple of our guys on staff were there when he was there. and then getting a chance to see him at the Bear Bryant Awards. Last year, I had a chance to hang out with him for three to four minutes.

1:11:11You're not going to get a whole lot much more than that, I don't think, from him anyway. But I had a chance to hang out with him a little bit.

1:11:16Big Cat:You're a smart guy because I think along the way, you've kind of built up your career. You've had protection from the media to a certain extent because at Holy Cross, you've got Bill Simmons running interference for you. At JMU, I'm going to go to bat for you. And now you finally upgrade to the final level, and now you've got Liam Blutman Yeah, that's the pinnacle. Ready to die on his sword for you at UCLA. You're at the pinnacle right now. Are you just looking at bloggers and you're like, yeah, I think I'll go to their school next? Yeah, and I'm following the hierarchy of them. And clearly, Liam's significantly higher than you in this hierarchy.

1:11:44Big Cat:Top of the food chain. We've got to figure out where the Nelk boys went. Yeah. No, but it seems like an awesome opportunity. And I'm curious, like, you don't, like, be honest. At JMU, it was a great thing that you had going. Awesome season last year. Great second half against Oregon, by the way. Excellent last drive. Was there any part of you that thought about not taking that next step and going back to Harrisonburg? I think that Harrisonburg is a tough place to leave, as you know. Like that's a pretty special place. Yeah, because you get drunk all the time. You don't graduate in four years. That's why you're stuck there for seven years, doctor.

1:12:18But I think for me, it was just the right opportunity. And there's other opportunities. But I think when I look at this one, you know, it has everything, every positive from every job I've had or every place I've been a coach all exist in this one place at UCLA. It's, you know, to me, the perfect match for, you know, what I was looking for. And then when you start talking about alignment, you start meeting the people and the search committee and the just sort of the, you know, the leaders in the sports world that you can glean, you know, information from and be supportive of you is really special.

1:12:52And that was the thing for me that I just saw it as all of it combined into one from my previous past, along with the energy of the people with the alignment from the top down that made it feel like this is the right thing.

1:13:04Big Cat:LA is great, but you're going to miss it when it's rainy outside in Harrisonburg and the whole town smells like dog food. Right. I will miss that. You're going to miss that. I went back recently and it was hot and humid. It smelled like dog food. Which might take the rain, I think.

1:13:17PFT Commenter:Can we address a potential negative for UCLA? And listen, we'll do truth talk here. It's tough when you don't have a football stadium on campus. And the Rose Bowl, I love the Rose Bowl. I think it's one of the best venues that we have as a country. But it is a challenge when you're playing against some of the other Big Ten teams that have massive, massive on-campus stadiums. So what's the plan there? How are you going to change that culture? Yeah, so I think for me, as I look back through the history of it, when you're winning, they will come. And I think that's just the truth of it. If you put competitive teams on the field, people will support it.

1:13:55If you're involved in their lives, they'll support it. I probably, I would imagine more than any coach in the country spent more time with our alums, with different sports teams, traveling around, doing whatever I can to make sure that they understand that I'm connected to them and that we need their help. As far as the Rose Bowl is concerned, Bill Plaschke was just at our place the other day and he thinks extremely highly of it, that it is the Augusta of college football. It is. It's beautiful. It's church. And it really is. When you go there and you feel it in the setting of it, all of it is perfect.

1:14:26You got to get there. You got to get people there. And I think without incentives, without a good football team on the field, it's probably challenging. But that's things we got to change.

1:14:35PFT Commenter:Because it also doubles as, you know, all the other Big Ten schools, a lot of, you know, Midwest footprint. You know, it gets, you know, cold in October, November. Hey, we want to go to the Rose Bowl. Like that was. Yes. So it makes it a little daunting. Yeah, that is a battle just because of the fact if you're looking at the schedule and you have a chance to go to the Rose Bowl and play, you're probably doing that. Right. So we got to shift those numbers and get them more in our favor. But, you know, I understand the challenge. OK. Maybe more like free hot dogs or T-shirt cannons. Yes. Like do something like that.

1:15:03Nice. Yeah. Or a flyover before every game. Yeah. Promise a flyover. I mean, we have shuttles. We have buses for everybody to be able to, you know, come over. We have every fraternity has their own setup over there. We have DJs. We have buses that take them to the game and back. So I think we're doing everything we can. We just got to make sure that we put a better product on the field.

1:15:21PFT Commenter:Too fast past the T-shirt cannons. Yeah. Like a head coach doing a T-shirt cannon would be awesome. Oh, myself doing it. Yes. Yeah. In the middle. Yes. After the first quarter. I think it's like any commercial break. Any commercial break. Don't go to the team. Yeah. Don't go to the team. Don't take it off. Yeah.

1:15:38Big Cat:You wear the T-shirt can like the backpack, and then maybe, yeah, you shoot off a commercial break. I hit a timeout or say, and then turn around, just fire one.

1:15:47PFT Commenter:You can keep talking to the team. Like, you can be in the huddle, just like have your, you know, just be firing away. Be like, hey, guys, we got to really focus on this third down. You know, watch for the run pass option. I didn't think about that. Yeah, I thought being like totally present, but you don't have to do that. I'm just thinking. You bring up a good point. Also, I love when they do the little pair. I know it's not in like an NBA arena, but the parachutes. So maybe we get like mini parachutes like when they drop like burritos and stuff. Oh, the drones. Yeah.

1:16:13Big Cat:Drone strike people with burritos. That would be cool. A nice touch, I think. Yeah. You got the right people back here to run this all by. I see them taking notes. They're taking notes and that's the whole support thing. We got more ideas. You're known, or at least last year, was you were probably the best second half team in America. Yeah, certainly like defensively. It was incredible what Jamie was able to do in the second half. I forget how many months you went without allowing a single point. At what point were you like, I would like some of this second half magic to be there at the start of the game?

1:16:42Big Cat:At what point did that almost become frustrating where you couldn't start out like that? Every point. I'll tell you what, though. When you start off a little slow, but you know you're getting to halftime and have some adjustments to make. I don't understand necessarily why that worked. We didn't change like a ton of things. We just had the opportunity to settle down and do what we needed to do. But, yeah, you would like to start faster. But when you at least know you've got a good second half coming, you could deal with the first half. If you had a slow first half, then a slow second half, that's just tough living.

1:17:12But I thought our guys, by the end of the season, started to turn it up a little bit. The ODU game is really the one that I thought we just started to exchange score for score. Both quarterbacks were playing elite, and then we got to the second half and just held them to 10 yards of offense in the whole second half. I thought that was a big deal.

1:17:27PFT Commenter:Yeah. You went to a UCLA basketball game this year and said you're going to win the Big Ten. Yeah. OK. You said you're going to win the Big Ten. Was that this year? Well, it's it's open ended, you know, and so realistically at some point. Yeah, it's a goal, right? It's a goal. It should be our goal. Yeah. We should not be sitting in a spot to me, you know, lowering expectations and hiding behind the idea that we're rebuilding and we're not. We're building a program, period. And I think that's it to me is that that has to be the goal. That has to be where we're setting our sights. It has to be how we recruit.

1:17:58It has to be how we develop. It has to be, you know, how we play. It has to be every little thing in it. We have to understand what everybody else in this league is doing and find a way to close the gap.

1:18:06PFT Commenter:It is kind of funny when you, when you like answer that, it is funny that whenever a head coach gets hired and they say something like that, everyone's like, oh, look how cocky he is. Yeah. Whereas what would be the alternative? If you got in front and said like, hey guys, we're going to suck. Yeah. Like that would probably not go well either. No, that won't. That won't. No. Or let's get to 500 if we can. Like, here we go. Yeah, let's try to go six and six. Did anyone talk you out of, like, saying the Big Ten thing, though? Or were you just like, no? I don't think I knew what I was going to say, honestly, until I got up there.

1:18:35Okay. That's just what came out of my mouth. Okay.

1:18:37Big Cat:Maybe say, like, we're going to have the most fun in the Big Ten. And that's what's really important. We're going to do the most T-shirt kit in the Big Ten. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Fun is at the top of the list. It's about the journey, not the destination. That's right. That's what I always say. Yeah, so your coordinators that you bring with you. Yes. How have they adjusted to the Big Ten so far? And like the different caliber of players that you're playing with, specifically your quarterback, who I actually have a lot of faith in this year. Some people may have taken a future on him to win the Heisman Trophy in this room.

1:19:09Big Cat:But how have they enjoyed the kind of the leveling up? Do you think that they're ready for it? And what have you seen from them? Yeah, and I think for me, the idea of always doing more with less is what we had to accomplish. And now we have a chance to do more with more. And I think in the transfer portal, we ended up as the top 11 team in the portal rankings, which was really strong given that school had started the day the portal opened. And we had two weeks to do it, probably did it in a week and a half, and were able to secure a pretty good class. So I think that to me when I watch our coaches and I see them and their excitement of the caliber of player that we're dealing with, and not that it was bad anywhere else, it's just different here.

1:19:47Right. The stakes are raised a little bit. And I think there it just opens their eyes a little more to the possibilities of no things you can do or can't do before. It was more about what you couldn't do that you wanted to do on offense. And I think it just opens up a little bit more possibilities.

1:20:00PFT Commenter:Yeah. So in terms of your career as a coach, because you did it, you know, I would say probably the hard way where it's like, you know, you start small, small schools and go, you know, a lot of guys, they do it. And they're starting at the big school as a G.A. and then maybe get a position coach and defensive coordinator. But you did head coach small schools. Was there ever a moment in that path where you're like, no one's giving me a look. Like I keep winning games. And I'm winning at a crazy clip, but I'm not getting the interviews. And maybe this is just what I am now. Yeah, for sure. And I think every step of the way, even at the D3 school I was that nobody ever heard of in Newport, Rhode Island, we became a top 20 team in the country.

1:20:40And you were trying to take that next step. Right. All right, now we need a new locker room. We need to do something about this field. We need to get admissions. And eventually, it just, they're not ready to climb that quickly with you. So that was really the, you know, the reason the move had to happen next. But there was an opportunity. And now you're at a D2 world, right? And the D2 world now, first time dealing with scholarships. Then you go to the FCS world, first time you got to recruit nationally because of the academic rigor of that school. And you're dealing with no grad students and no walk-on or no fifth years or no red shirts.

1:21:12So you got to really develop now. And then you got, because you got to go stand toe to toe with South Dakota State and these types of teams that have sixth and seventh year guys, you know, grad school and JUCOs and transfers. You don't have that. And I thought we did a nice job of that. And then you get to JMU and you learn about the portal now. You know, and the portal piece is, holy, you know, we have very few guys left. 67 new guys come into the portal, win the first ever bowl game and then go to the playoffs. And then you get to UCLA. All of that then comes into, you know, in this one cauldron kind of, right?

1:21:41So I think every step of the way for me, I never felt like I was stuck anywhere. I felt like if this is where I end up, it's where I end up. Like I think it was my mother was like, just grow where you're planted and the rest of it, we'll figure it out. Because as a younger coach, you're looking all the time. Right. Right. And then as you become a head coach, you know, the ties are a lot deeper, right, to the players, to the community, to everything. You can't jump after a year somewhere. Right. And I think for me, those were the things that just changed a little bit for me. But every step of the way really helped prepare me for the next.

1:22:10PFT Commenter:Yeah. Did you ever think in that process, like, why don't I do maybe the shortcut? It's not a shortcut, but why don't I do the thing where I go be a defensive coordinator at a Power 4 school? Yeah, I did. And then, you know, honestly, for me, I visited a lot of them. And I went around and saw a lot of them. And I just felt like, oh, man, I don't know if I want to work for that guy. You know, it's ultimately where I felt like I was at. And it came down to the idea of I know the environment that I create as the head coach. And I know, you know, the culture that's there. And I know, you know, that we all enjoy going to work every day.

1:22:44We don't have to. We're not beating people down and forcing them into our way of thinking. This is a place where they, you know, get to go and enjoy it and not have to do it, but get to do it on a day-to-day basis. And I think that's the difference. And everywhere I went, it didn't feel like that. You know, so as I thought about it, I'm like, all right, it'd be cool to work for that guy. But then go and visit that wouldn't be that cool in my mind, for me. And I think not fun, but quality of life, you know, comes into play a little bit. And when you're the head coach, you get to control that a little bit more than, you know, who's above you and, you know, how challenging is that relationship going to be?

1:23:18Because the energy you bring into that room, the positivity changes the entire culture of the entire community. Yeah. Realistically.

1:23:24Big Cat:Fuck, I think I'm buying stock in UCLA. Yeah, you should. You should. You're hired. I think I think Saheer West is a name that people are going to start to figure out pretty quickly this year. Can you just talk about what he is like as a player, the impact he makes on defense? Obviously, he was probably your number one guy that you wanted to bring with you to UCLA. And how good do you think he could be in this league? Yeah, well, Sahir West was coming with us to Holy Cross at the beginning. And then we ended up going to JMU. So he came with us to JMU. We redshirt him that first year, knowing full well how good he was going to be, but needed to redshirt him because he needed another year mentally.

1:24:00And then that second year, the second half of the second year, too, He just really came alive. And he is just a – he's a different kid as far as the work he puts in. As far – he's around the facility all the time, constantly there. You know, he's in the weight room all the time. He's out on the field working on his stuff all the time. He's just a guy that's fully committed not only to this program but also to his own personal development. Miles Garrett was there the other day and he was working out with Sahir and helping Sahir a little bit. And those were things to me that any opportunity he has to, you know, find a way to get better, he's going to do that.

1:24:32Big Cat:Yeah, he's an awesome player. Violent. Violent dude when he hits the quarterback. People at UCLA are going to love him. I don't know if you know the story, but at JMU when he was redshirting, he obviously didn't play us. I think we played him in a game or two maybe, but we were trying to save his redshirt. But before he ever played a game, I think it was a punter that ran. Something happened on the sideline and a fight, like sort of a fight happened, and everybody else is breaking up and see here, punches the kid in the face and takes a 15-yard penalty. And I remember being like, you don't even play.

1:25:00You're not even on this field and you're already collecting a 15-yard penalty. But that's the type of player he is. And I think for us to be able to rein him back in a little bit and use that violence and that aggressiveness for good.

1:25:12Big Cat:Learn when to unleash it. That's right. Exactly. Was it weird at all coaching JMU last year knowing that you were leaving after that happened? I know that there was like an agreement like I'm going to do this. But you were able to – and then Billy Napier obviously kind of in the mix too. What's that like watching another man coach your team? Well, it wasn't that way. So Billy Napier was there and just there as an observer. All of his assistants stayed up in the press box and they were just kind of collecting numbers on what kids what. He and I spoke. We're very transparent about who I think would come with us.

1:25:41But I told him we're not having a single conversation right now with these guys about that. And I refuse to let our coaches have that conversation. So we're going to play the season out when the season's over. Then we'll have those conversations with them. But then it gets a little tricky because they're not in the portal yet. Right. But you're now coaching at a different place. So it's technically tampering. So we didn't talk to these guys until the portal opened. And when the portal opened, we called. They're like, guys, where were you? Everybody's been calling us. I'm like, well, we didn't want to get caught up in this tampering thing.

1:26:12But I guess everybody else was except for us. Yeah, yeah. But it ended up working out that 10 of them were able to come with us. But it wasn't weird. It was something that I felt strongly about. Because I think when you have a new coach coming in to a program that's had success, that's a challenge in and of itself. I get it. When I came for the bowl game, the issue was none. The staff was left. It was just a bunch of guys put together to finish that bowl game in that Armed Forces Bowl or whatever it was. But if I had the ability to say, why are you winning? Let me watch how practice works. Let me watch a lift.

1:26:46Let me sit on a meeting. Let me be present. I'll be a fly on the wall, but I do want to see what this culture is like because I don't want to dissolve it all the minute that you walk out the door. And I really think that's a brilliant move. And I was really proud of Billy for putting the ego aside and saying, all right, let me learn how they do it because there's a great culture here. How do I just keep this culture advancing it and accelerating as opposed to get these guys out of here and let me become the new head coach? That makes sense.

1:27:10PFT Commenter:Can I give you a tip? Yeah, please. OK. So you're a good looking guy. I feel like I can say that. Guys can compliment guys. We should normalize that more. Good looking guy, UCLA, LA, big city. People have thoughts about California. The colors are cool. I think you've got to do something to remind people that you're from a coal mining town in Pennsylvania. Do you know what I mean? Because that's where coaches come from. I don't know what it is. Maybe you can tell me. But if you're from Youngstown, Ohio or somewhere in Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia, I'm like, that's a coach. Yeah, well, I think it's – first of all, it's the entire community.

1:27:45You go to a Friday game, there's not one restaurant open anymore. There's not one store. There's nothing. The whole entire – that's the time to go rob any house. you want to rob in those towns because everybody's at the game. So it's one of those things to me that I think, first of all, that's it, right? The culture and the community is part of it. So it's not like you kind of like football, you're living football every single day. And so is your grandmother and so is your grandfather. And so is your cousins. Everybody is living for this team. I think that's one. So the passion's different in those towns.

1:28:13The other thing I think is this is not an easy job regarding the work ethic. And in these blue collar tough towns, like everybody works. I mean, I picked up a shovel for my entire life. You know, even when I was still coaching in college for the first two years, I was going back and working job like labor jobs. I started at 14 and was doing, it was just what people did. You didn't complain about it. So the hard work, the passion for the sport, right. And the toughness, I think all those three things, you know, come into play. And I think that has a lot to do with why you see guys from those types of areas, you know, succeed.

1:28:44PFT Commenter:Yeah. So you need to figure out, I don't know what it is. I like maybe a shovel in your office. I don't know, but I could see it going sideways on you because again, you're a good looking guy in like the, the, the light blue colors in LA. Yeah. I just remind people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe let's think about that.

1:29:00Big Cat:You and Mick Cronin could like team up and beat up Ryan Gosling out there. Like just go get into a bar fight together. I feel like he's got the same thing where like, he's a hot guy.

1:29:09PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:29:10Big Cat:And so he's got to like, Mick Cronin. Yeah. Just remind people like, Hey, super behind the, behind the pretty face and the nice tan. And these knuckles still work. That's right. They don't run. I'll talk to him about it. I'll talk to him about it. It is a good idea. It is a good idea. He is a blue guy. He actually has done a good job of keeping that grit. He instilled grit in the UCLA basketball program. And everyone thought it was a weird fit, him coming from the Midwest out there. And so he's obviously a great coach. I would love to see you two teaming up like the new Bash Bros. Oh, I like that.

1:29:37Big Cat:You guys have good ideas. This early in the morning, too. It's unbelievable.

1:29:40PFT Commenter:What's your – do you have an acronym that you go to for your team? Like a saying? Mm-mm. Okay. I mean, are you talking about like what our core values? Yeah, what are your core values? So what we talk about is, and this doesn't have to do with football. I'm going to present it in football. We talk about attention to detail, positive attitude, urgency, and relentlessness, right? So here's my, that's a problem. Yeah, that doesn't really work. That doesn't work. But that's the feeling for me. That's the feeling for me. It's like when I think about everybody successful in my life, they all paid attention to all the little things, right?

1:30:11They stay positive once shit gets tough. and at the same point in time, right, they attack it relentlessly and urgently over and over again. I think if you go through life passive, negative, and don't pay attention to anything, you're destined for failure. And if you do these other things, these are not lessons for football. They're going to be presented that way. But ultimately, it's anything in life that you want to be good at. You better pay attention. Think about, I don't know, going skiing or something, right? You got to pay attention to little things. You got to stay positive when you fall down.

1:30:36You got to attack it. And then once that happens, you got to get up and do it again and again and again until you get it right. So I think those are the things for me that I want to make sure that our team understands is it's not just football lessons. They have to be life lessons. And I want to lead the nation in development on and off the field. That's important to me.

1:30:53PFT Commenter:Blutman, do you have a question? Yeah, yeah, I do.

1:30:56Big Cat:Come on up. Come on up. This is the guy that's going to be holding your feet to the fire.

1:31:01PFT Commenter:Yep. And he will. He also used – I'm going to toot my guy's horn here for a second. He's got an eye for talent. So you should maybe have someone talk to him when Transfer Pro comes around because he has like receipts of guys that he's called out from lower level because he watches basically every college football game, lower level guys that end up being like studs. Done. Direct line to our GM. I was watching Dobbs at Holy Cross. Yeah. Of course. That's why we took him. Okay. Question time. All right. Question time. Your dad, what a character he is involved in practice. No, not Kenny. Okay. His dad's an incredible figure that shows up at practice, has a blast with the players and everything.

1:31:43PFT Commenter:How's he been doing? How's he enjoying LA? So just so you know, my father is in Amarillo, Texas right now driving across the country with my mother. Okay. Because he learned that it was going to cost$3 ,000 to ship his car. But he could do it for$2 ,200 so he could save$800 and drive across the country. Okay. He's in the process of doing that right now. So he's moving out to LA? Yeah, for the season. That's awesome. Yep. Okay. I love that. How about Mikey V? Mikey V will be back as well for camp. All right, that's good. Yeah, so those two are important. I'm not joking either. They're really, really important to me.

1:32:18Like, they're just guys that see it. Who's Mikey V? You want to share some of those inside jokes you're doing in front of us?

1:32:23PFT Commenter:Mikey V, when we went the other month, Kadic and I are just watching practice, and Mikey V goes up to us, and he's like, all right, here's what's going to happen. They're going to do this, this, this. They did none of that. We end up learning Mikey V's not on staff. He's there. He thinks he's a coach. He's your friend? He is a coach. He thinks he's a coach and he owns a subway. How do you know him? So he was our football op. He was in charge of our football ops when I first got there. He coached our running backs at the D2 world. Okay. But it's like one of our players, there's a windstorm, a tree falls on their porch and hits that.

1:32:54So at 5 a.m. he shows up, gets a call, shows up with a chainsaw, removes the tree, cuts it all up. So he's your big dom. I mean, he has anything. He takes care of everything. Whatever you could think of, he takes care of it. What's his name? What's his last name? The golf carts. Volcano. Oh, he's in Paesan.

1:33:08Big Cat:I love that. Wait, wait. His name is Mike Volcano? Yes. All right. We're Mikey V guys. We're Mikey V. Oh, you're huge Mikey V guys. And you put Senior and Mikey V in the same room. Forget about it. Okay. That's awesome.

1:33:21PFT Commenter:He's still got the subway. Yes. All right. I like this. That was a good question. He owns the subway. Is it in Walmart? It's in a Walmart. Okay. Yeah, I like everything about this guy. All right, Blubbin, your question came around because for a minute there, you were just literally having a private conversation. We were talking in code. That's my bad. Final question from me.

1:33:37Big Cat:You've been on the job for a few months now. What do you hate about USC? What have you learned to hate about USC? I don't worry. Honestly, to me, we have enough things we've got to work on. And that game is so much later in the season that who knows where we're both at when we get to that point in time. So for me, it's not about that. It's about how do we handle this on a day-to-day basis. And I understand and I respect the rivalry and the bad blood between them both. And that's great for the town. It's great for the community. We just got to do a better job of holding up our end of the bargain in that game.

1:34:07And that's what, you know, we're focused on.

1:34:09PFT Commenter:We had Coach Riley on the show. And I'll tell you right now, stinking Riley does bother him. So just hold that in your back pocket. Yeah, we brought it up. And it was, you know, you could see he was a little like, ah, fuck.

1:34:21Big Cat:The guys brought up the stinking thing. Yeah. That's actually a great way to answer that question. It's like, I don't really think about them. Yeah. They hate that. They hate the fact that you didn't come in here like, I can't wait to get there. No, I think we have enough stuff of our own to keep working. You already promised a Big Ten championship. That's right. I've got to work on that. Are you intimidated? There's a lot of great coaches in the Big Ten. Are you intimidated by Ryan Day's nipple ring? I didn't know he had a nipple ring. Well, he could have one.

1:34:47PFT Commenter:It might be a Photoshop. I don't think it is. Okay. It might be a Photoshop. I got his back on this. I'm pretty sure it's just a Photoshop. Well, what if he wanted one? Then you have to have his back on people living their truth, right? Yeah, I guess so. Okay, all right. Would you get one if you won a national championship? A nipple ring? Yeah. No, I would not. Okay. Would Mikey V? Maybe. No, I think you've got to just say it right now. Mikey V's getting a nipple ring if you want a title. Put that out there. I like it. All right. We got one last question. Zach, come on up. Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com.

1:35:20PFT Commenter:Promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com. Promo code TAKE. All right, Zach. Let's go. Great job, Zach. Good hustle. Good hustle. Yes, sir. How are you doing today, sir? I did have a quick question for you. What do you say to the haters that say there's no grit in Los Angeles? I say that, first, I did not hear that myself. I think when I look at our team, I see a lot of guys full of grit at this moment. And I think that's what we have to just continue to develop. I think Liam could talk about it. Katie could talk a little bit about it. But the competition and the way that we go about our day-to-day basis, there's nothing that's easy about it.

1:35:53It's tough. It's physical. It is demanding. And it's competitive as hell. and that's what they have to be thrown into that furnace every single day. That's just to play football. I don't care where you're at. If you're in Harrisonburg, Virginia, you're in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. It doesn't matter. The game gets played a certain way, period. And I think that's important for me to make sure that our guys understand that and make sure that they don't understand it, but they also live it every single day and they've done a great job accepting that challenge up to this point.

1:36:16PFT Commenter:Good job, Zach. Do you have a follow-up? I got no more respect for that answer. Thank you for your time, Coach. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Well, Coach, thank you so much. I'm a believer, especially this Mikey V thing. That was like late-breaking news. I'll bring him back. Listen, that was late-breaking news. That's the type of guy we like. We're going to have to meet Mikey V. Super Bowl week, we're going to have to come and meet Mikey V. We'll be out in L.A. Oh, easy. Okay. He might have to drive us around. He will. He actually will. He actually will. That would be. Oh, it's a Subway and Walmart. That will be perfect.

1:36:47PFT Commenter:He thinks he's a coach. I like this guy. Oh, he's a coach. He is a coach. He's one of our better coaches. All right. Well, thank you so much, Coach. Best of luck this year. Yeah, thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

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1:37:45PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It's our good friend, Joel Klatt. We're here at Big Ten Media Week, I think it is. Yeah, I would guess like three days. Yeah, they have to split it up. But it's great to see you, Joel. It feels like football is right around the corner. Cannot wait. Cannot wait for football season. This is the time of year I'm like jonesing to get back out there. And it should be a great year. I keep saying this. I feel like I'm the guy that's like, hey, everyone talks about the problems in college football. College football is amazing right now. The product has never been better.

1:38:18Interest has never been higher. And we got a bunch of teams that could go win a national championship, which I love. Like the parody. Maybe not Wisconsin. Sorry. Listen, we're still trying to build something back.

1:38:28PFT Commenter:I like it. I like it. You're right. I think that we do way too much of focusing on the negative where like two years ago, the playoff wasn't very competitive. Right. And everyone talked about how it was broke. Why don't we talk about the fact that last year's playoff was awesome? It was incredible. We had some incredible games. We had a Miami team that came out of not nowhere, but like no one thought they'd be to the national championship. Indiana is an unbelievable story. College football is awesome. No doubt. And I think that there's a giant myth and it gets perpetuated by other other platforms that like Indiana bought a championship.

1:39:03That that was not an expensive roster. All things considered. And Miami was actually older than they were. You know, this idea that they were all 24 and 25. like that team i don't know if there's ever been a better story in college football to be the losingest program in the history of the sport and and to get all these guys from jmu and this cast off from cal and you go win a national championship in this this era and this day and age um i i thought it was remarkable and it and it really to me signifies what this era can be about yeah which which is development. Like there are – so I think that the most important factor in now the sport is experience.

1:39:44Big Cat:Yeah, yeah. If you're not experienced, I don't think you can win. So last year the speculation was that Mark Cuban and the boys didn't spend that much money on the roster, that they spent a little bit. But what have you heard? Because I feel like Cuban, after seeing what happened last year, now the checkbook might really be opened up for him. Yeah, I mean I don't think it's nearly what like an LSU is spending or what a Miami is spending. But it's absolutely on par with some of the other teams that can go and win a national championship. I don't think Indiana is spending the most money in the Big Ten.

1:40:17And I don't know these numbers to be – I don't have access to the actual numbers. And candidly, I don't really want them.

1:40:23PFT Commenter:Yeah. I don't want to have that type of pressure on my shoulders. But, yeah, I mean, they're spending – I don't think that you can realistically compete for a national championship unless you're spending at a minimum$28 million. Yeah, it's kind of the nature of the beast now. I want to push back on one thing, though. You said experience is like the biggest factor. I actually disagree. I think the number one factor is scheduling. Because with all these super conferences now, and I know you've broken it down, there are years where teams will just have an easier schedule. Yeah, it's like a lottery.

1:40:57You win the lottery in your conference. Right.

1:41:00PFT Commenter:You have a gauntlet year, Then you have a year where it's like, hey, we don't play any of the other big dogs. We can have our team healthy. We can be at the finish line because that was part of it. I mean, he 100 % deserved a national title the way they did it. But they also had a few nice things happen in their schedule where they were able to be healthy at the end. Is there one team that you've looked at? Maybe even you can go like conference by conference, Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, where it's like, hey, this team has a spot where it's like this is their season. This is their chance to make some noise because of the schedule.

1:41:32I think it's a combination, though. You're not wrong. You're not wrong at all. I think the combination is that you have to have the right roster with the right experience and maybe hit that lottery that you're talking about. In particular, I think what you're referencing more is the in-conference schedule lottery with the big conferences. Two that jump out to me wildly is Georgia and Penn State out of the SEC and the Big Ten. I think Georgia got a really preferable schedule. I think they're all hard in the SEC. I think they're all hard in the Big Ten. But when you're avoiding two or three of the other real playoff contenders, that's like, okay, this is very favorable.

1:42:12I think Georgia has that out of the SEC. And then Penn State's schedule, guys, if you look at it, that's a 10-win schedule. Easy. And maybe more. So even though I don't know if they're the best team in the Big Ten, I think that they're going to have a real chance to compete for a spot in that Big Ten championship game.

1:42:32PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. It's not that you have an easy schedule. It's just if you happen to – or even if it's like the home games or, you know, lines up that you play Ohio State at home. That's right. Like Georgia plays – I don't know. Does Georgia play Alabama this year? They do. Okay. And I believe it's in Tuscaloosa. But that's really their hardest. You're never going to avoid – you're going to have one, maybe two really tough games. Let me give you a great example. So Penn State, they've got to go to Michigan. That's a tough game. And they have to have USC come to them. Well, I think USC is going to be really good, like really good.

1:43:07This is going to be Lincoln's best team, I think. But it just so happens that USC, you know, they've got to face Oregon. They've got to face Indiana and Ohio State and go to Penn State. Right. Right. You know, like that's a really difficult schedule for a USC team, whereas Penn State doesn't have to deal with that. They don't play Ohio State, they don't play Oregon, they don't play Indiana. That's right.

1:43:31Big Cat:If we went gun to your head, would you say Big Ten, another championship or the field? I would take the Big Ten over the field right now. I think that the field. So let's break it down. Like how many teams right now do I think have like legitimate before seeing them? Because I think LSU could jump into this, but I think there are seven teams that I'm like, yeah, they could absolutely win the national championship. So you've got, and maybe not in order. I'm going to come out with that in a little bit, but not in order. You've got Georgia, Texas. You've got Indiana, Oregon, Ohio State. You've got Notre Dame.

1:44:04You've got Miami. I think those are the seven. Again, no particular order. Those are the seven that I'm like, okay, those teams can absolutely win a national championship.

1:44:15PFT Commenter:It's weird you have Notre Dame ranked sixth. I don't. No particular order. I would take the Big Ten only, and I'm tipping myself a little bit here. Oregon's the only team with no questions. Number one. Yeah. Well, can they win the big one? That's a big question. It's not a roster question. Right. Right, where everybody else, like if you go down the rest of those seven teams, Notre Dame, how are you placing the running backs? and the running game. Now, maybe it's CJ Carr in the passing game with Jaden Greathouse, and yeah, that could be good. Ohio State, how are you replacing the defense? Who's catching the ball at Georgia?

1:44:58Can you run the football at Texas and protect Arch? How are you replacing the line of scrimmage at Miami? Who do you, you know, is Hoover as good as Mendoza? Can you replace the running game? You're having to replace D 'Angelo Pons at Indiana. Then you look at Oregon and you're like, oh, football-wise, on the field, there's no questions. They're going to have maybe the best defensive line in all of college football. They've got a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback. They've got backs. They've got receivers. They've got an excellent defense. So I would take the Big Ten over the field, and it might be the fourth different Big Ten team to win it.

1:45:32Big Cat:Yeah, and no LSU. You want to see LSU. They're one of those – they're that team that, like, shows up to the party, and the party's already going, and they're kind of at the door, and they're like, this looks awesome. Yeah. You know, like, I think it's going to be really good.

1:45:49I think that we might turn on the TV when they're playing Clemson and we're going to be like, oh, this is legit. I think their roster could be that good. Now, here's one thing, and I always get labeled as like an SEC hater. I'm really not. You are. No, that's fine.

1:46:07Big Cat:No, you said before we started taping, it's like really glad this isn't SEC media.

1:46:11PFT Commenter:Yeah, I think you were like, yeah, team me up so I can just bash the SEC. We're like, we got you, dude. So LSU, that's great. LSU.

1:46:24Big Cat:No, why do you hate the South? Yeah, that's right. Well, let's get into this philosophically.

1:46:28PFT Commenter:Hold on. There's been forever. It's been there's people who have carried water for the SEC. It's fine. It's nice that we're fighting back. You know, guys like us being like, fuck the SEC. Well, even when they were the best, I called them the best. Yeah. You know, and they were the best. There's no doubt. it's not the case anymore no matter what anybody says and no matter what his credentials are it's not the best conference down there right now yeah it's just not you can it's and by the way it's not just that the big tens winning national championships you can go down the metrics okay college football playoff record big ten owns them in the last three years uh first round draft picks last year big ten most first round draft picks overall uh bull record big ten over the sd like You can go down the list over and over again, and right now the best conference is the Big Ten.

1:47:20LSU, they're expecting Lane to do something he's never done. So think about that.

1:47:25Big Cat:Stick around for five years? Well, no. Stick around. And he's never won a Power Four conference. Yeah. But do you want to?

1:47:33PFT Commenter:That's the thing, too, with the new setup. Is winning the conference even? Probably not. Going to the conference, the championship game is not. The SEC championship game, which is a bummer talking about the landscape of college football, that it doesn't feel like it means as much, but it might be an advantage not to play in that game. Possibly, and that's why most coaches will tell you they want to get rid of championship games and that they want to expand the playoff and have those games played at home on campus. But they're also asking Lane to, you know, he was a 10-win guy at Ole Miss and built something really special.

1:48:10There's no doubt. This is a program that, in the playoff era since 2014, has been to the college football playoff one time. Yeah, it's crazy. Now, it was a great run. Yeah. But they had a historically great offense, historically great, with Burrow, one of the Heisman, and Chase, and Jefferson on the outside. Like, that was an incredible – well, think about that offense. It was wild. And now Lane comes in, and they should be really good. You know they also had the number one transfer class last year? How'd that work? Yeah. So I'm not throwing shade at LSU. I think LSU could be really good, and they would be that eighth team for me that has the chance to jump in that category of potentially winning the championship.

1:48:54PFT Commenter:You mentioned week one and LSU playing Clemson. Is Dabo on the hot seat? Like what's going on here? If Clemson and the ACC is not, the SEC and the Big Ten have separated themselves from the ACC and the Big 12 a little bit. And if he can't win the ACC or at least get to the ACC championship game, what's happening with Clemson in the future? I hesitate so much to even talk about Clemson. I had them winning it all last year. Yeah, a lot of people did. I did like a preseason. Brandon Walker did, yeah. And they just totally flopped. I have no idea what to think about Clemson. None whatsoever. It wouldn't surprise me if they won the ACC, and it wouldn't surprise me if they won seven games.

1:49:44And is he on the hot seat? Probably not. Like, a guy like that is not on the hot seat. He won two national championships. You know, I just don't see them walking in and being like, hey, man, like, thanks. You know, we're going to go in a different direction. But you never know. This is a crazy era in college football.

1:50:03Big Cat:I think it's more likely that Clemson is on the hot seat. From Dabo. He puts them on the hot seat. You don't put me on the hot seat. How does he do that? At the end of the year, it feels like it might not be a great fit anymore. I mean, if we're being honest, Dabo's probably not happy, right? He hasn't been happy the way things have gone the last few years. I don't think he's happy with the structure of college football. Overall, with the sport. I would say that's very fair to say. There's a better chance of Dabo saying, you know what, I'm good, and retiring early like a Bob Stoops or even Urban stepped away at a fairly young age.

1:50:36You know, all things considered, Nick kind of stepped away suddenly. There's a better chance that Dabo steps away than Clemson fires him.

1:50:44Big Cat:Yeah. The whole sport's on the hot seat. He might lead. Yeah, that's right. He's putting the whole sport. He's like, guys.

1:50:50PFT Commenter:But that's, I mean, it is like he, it's not a shot at him. It's the facts. Like he hasn't adapted as well as some of the other coaches. Nor has he wanted to. He's fought it. He's actively fought against it. Right. Which is always like – it's so weird to me because, you know, like the one thing about Saban – and you could say anything because he's the best college football coach of all time. But I don't think people ever give him enough credit for the way he adapted to everything. Oh, this is such a good take. It's like the way he won with defense and pounding the rock. Then he went spread. And like he was able to win in so many different ways in different schools.

1:51:24PFT Commenter:And you think of a guy like that. It's like, oh, he's got one way. It's Saban. It's his old school way. It's like, no, he adapted. He was brilliant at adapting. As soon as he saw, you know, he got into games when they're winning with defense, right? Like they're just grinding people out in the early 2010s. Remember that Notre Dame national championship wasn't even a contest. It was just like, we're tougher than you. We win it at the line of scrimmage. It's the Mark Ingram years. It's beating the Texas team in the Rose Bowl for a national championship. And then he started seeing it in like Johnny Manziel.

1:51:56and he's like, what am I supposed to do with that? I can't hold that guy to three. I can't hold that guy to nine in a game. Then he sees Deshaun, and he's getting in these games with offenses that are not built to go score 35, and he has to go score 35 in order to win, and he changed. And he changed his defense, too. And he brought in Lane Kiffin, remember, who was like a pariah at the time. brought in lane kiffin didn't emphasize defense quite as much although they still played quality defense he just did in a different hybrid type of way more modern way so you're exactly right he he's done and he's also i've gone back and i can't like i cannot think of another head coach who has won national championships over multiple cycles of recruits at the same place yeah if you look back through the history of college football normally what you see is what Dabo was able to do or what Kirby was able to do.

1:52:57And I know they're still trying to go on and win. What Urban did at two different schools, you know, all these. They build up their program. They have this window. It's open. They win multiple championships with a very similar recruiting cycle, even Tom Osborne in the 90s. And then it goes away and they can never replace it. He won a championship with every cycle of recruiting. If you committed to Nick Saban, you won a national championship, which is bonkers. So, like, my praise and admiration for what he was able to do. He's the greatest of all time.

1:53:32Big Cat:What about the 40 Acres, University of Texas? I feel like going into last season, the expectations were pretty high. Yeah. This season. I mean, sky high. They're higher. Arch had to win the Heisman. They had to go undefeated and win the national championship. Right. That was it. Right. And Arch, you know, he struggled a little bit at times last year. Early. But he looked good. He ended up looking good. This year, do you think that the expectations should be higher on Texas? Yes. And then the excitement level, I feel like – I put myself in the shoes of a Texas fan. I'm thinking about Arch coming in this year with a little bit more – my expectations are more in reality than they were last year.

1:54:09Big Cat:Because I think most fans saw him stepping in and thinking like, what if he just dominates the entire sport? Yeah. And now it's like, what if he's just really good? I think that they were unrealistic last year, and I think that they are unrealistic this year on the opposite side. I don't think people realize how well he played late in the season. Everyone just blankets. Oh, Arch struggled last year. Not in the second half of the year. He was one of the three best quarterbacks in the country with an offensive line that was not very effective, no running game whatsoever, and a stable of receivers that was subpar for Texas standards.

1:54:50and he still was outstanding late in the year. In fact, his last three games, he averaged, I think, 350 yards, close to that, don't quote me on the exact number, but right around there, like 12 touchdowns, no interceptions. He didn't turn the ball over. Last half of the year, he had like 20 total touchdowns, only two turnovers. He was fantastic without a great, I would say, cast around him. And now they've fixed that. They've brought in some transfers. They've fixed some part of the offense. Their offensive line should be better. They have to run the football more efficiently, and they should be better on the outside with a guy that I think could just take the sport by storm this year, Cam Coleman.

1:55:31So my expectations for Arch elevated from a year ago. My expectations for Texas elevated from a year ago. If they're not better, something went horribly wrong.

1:55:41PFT Commenter:Yeah. Like that Ohio State game early, it feels like that will be the, Hey, measuring stick, where are you from last year where that couldn't have gone worse for them? I know it was a close game in the final, but we all watched it. They weren't competitive. Yeah, it wasn't that close. Right. And it didn't force – Ohio State didn't have to do anything with Julian Zane. And admittedly so, talking with Ryan after the game. That's a monster game, both of those teams, because they each have tough conference schedules after that. And so a loss in that game puts you really behind the eight ball in terms of like, are you going to make a playoff run or not?

1:56:25You know, that game at home, if Ohio State, I just keep saying, thinking to myself, if Ohio State were to go down there and lose, what's the impact on Ohio State? Right. I don't know. Probably not much. They'll go on and, you know, again, tough schedule. We'll see. Right. I know that's a very passionate fan base, but it ain't like losing to Michigan. Right. Right. if Ohio State goes down there and beats Texas, what's the impact of that result? And I think that's a much more dramatic result and impact on that program, meaning Texas, if that result were to happen with this team, with the money that they've spent, with what's happened over the last couple of years, the beginning of last season, I think people would be really frustrated down in Texas if Ohio State were to go down there and win.

1:57:12Big Cat:I would agree with that. And with Notre Dame this year, if the over-under – What is it, 11 and a half? Yeah, over-under half a loss for Notre Dame before we get to the playoffs. Talk about the schedule lottery. Yeah, no, I mean they make it. You make your own schedule.

1:57:27PFT Commenter:They make the lottery and then win it. That is – which is nice, right? That's a good team, guys. No, it's a really good team. Really good team. But it's the same thing as last year where it's like easy schedule, great, But when you're an independent like Notre Dame, if you lose two games, they won't go at 10-2. You don't get the makeup games later in the season. That's what killed them last year. They have to be 11-1 this year in order to go because the schedule just won't allow it. There's too many. Again, like a 9-3 Ohio State or a 9-3 Texas is much better than a 10-2 Notre Dame this year. No question.

1:58:02Go look at the schedules and the games that they would have had to win to be 9-3, much less 10-2 or so on. So I do think that it puts some pressure on them to win those games. But the Miami game is really – but they only have really two games that they could potentially lose, all due respect. You're not counting the Badgers. I'm sorry. No, it's fine. Hey, listen.

1:58:22PFT Commenter:Everyone's going to sleep on us, and we'll probably go 7-5. So you're saying Miami and then – He says it nonchalantly. 7-5 would be incredible. Yeah, it would be great. We got the schedule lottery this year. Yeah, that's true. Last year was terrible. Last year was the worst schedule in the league. Terrible.

1:58:38Big Cat:So yeah, Miami, maybe BYU. BYU and Provo, that's a sneaky, really tough place to play. Yeah. And then Miami. What about UNC? Things seem to be in the right direction down there. They do? Yeah. Okay. I mean, we just spent some time there a couple months ago. Unless something's changed in the last couple months, I'm buying all the stock in UNC. Are you? Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll see what their internal, you know, I don't know. I'll decline to comment until after whatever. It seems messy. It seems very messy. No, I don't think UNC is – I don't think that's going to work.

1:59:12PFT Commenter:Yeah. Are you buying Bryce Underwood stock? I can't figure it out because last year there were flashes, but then there were games where it's like what's going on? And I don't know if that's coaching where it felt like they were holding him back a little bit or if it's, hey, they were holding him back for a reason. He wasn't able to do the things that you want him to be able to do. I think that there was elements of both. I think he needs to develop true quarterback skills. And I also think that they were trying to be patient, calm, whatever you want to say, hold him back a little bit. Now, this match, I think, fits him perfectly with Jason Beck.

1:59:56If you look at what Beck did with Devin Dampier over the last couple of years, it was dynamic. Dynamic. Dampier led all of FBS quarterbacks two years ago in New Mexico in terms of running the football and his production as a rusher. Then he came to Utah. Between him and Bird Ficklin, who came in at times when Dampier was injured, they led all of college football in terms of quarterback production on the ground. Now, I'm not saying Bryce Underwood is going to lead the nation in quarterback production. But if it just increases, then Michigan has something. And there is going to be a sweet spot. If Bryce Underwood can run for between 500 and 800 yards this year, and what that would mean to their run game with Jordan Marshall and Savion Heider, who's apparently incredible, and I can't wait to watch him play.

2:00:46They've got really good players on the outside, and I think defensively they're going to be sneaky very, very good. John Henry Daly, this transfer from Utah. See, you were out there in Utah. Yeah, incredible. It's an incredible place, and their players always get slept on. A couple of them drafted in the first round last year. I think Michigan has a sneaky chance to be pretty good. Their schedule is horrendous and very, very difficult.

2:01:11PFT Commenter:No, I think Kyle Whittingham is like he's been probably the most underrated head coach for a decade now. It's like he, you know, every single year. And then it faded a little towards the end here. But it was always so consistent. Right. Okay, maybe he didn't win a championship or a national championship, but so consistent. I used to say all the time on my show, it's like death taxes in Utah football. Yeah, Utah at night especially. Yeah. Yeah. And if he can bring that level of toughness and line of scrimmage play to Michigan, I think that they have a chance to be pretty good.

2:01:42Big Cat:Yeah. Can you give us your preseason top five quarterbacks? Yes. Do you want them in order? Yes.

2:01:49PFT Commenter:No, actually, no. I want them in order, but Big Cat doesn't. Give us Jumbled, and then we'll guess the order. Okay, great. Okay, Jumbled. CJ Carr. One. Julian Sayan. Two. Dante Moore.

2:02:02Big Cat:No, he's one because you had Oregon wrecked one. Okay. Dante Moore. I'm forgetting one. Trinidad Chambliss. Okay. And I'm blanking on one. So this is definitely not high. Jaden Maiava. All right, so he's five.

2:02:17PFT Commenter:All right, so Jaden's five. I think it's – I think CJ Carr's one. And Arch. I need to put Arch on that. All right, you really can choose this here. So Arch is not top five. All right, I think it's – fuck. I think it's got to be Moore because he had Oregon ranked number one. All right, Moore 1, Carr 2, Sayin' 3. I have a five and then who is four? Trinidad. Trinidad. All right, now tell us your top five. That was very good. Okay. I'm still debating right now between Carr and Arch. Wait, you don't even know your own top five? Uh-huh. You don't know your top five? No, I haven't done it yet. Oh my God.

2:02:51I'm recording it this Thursday. You set us up for failure for this exercise that we created 10 seconds ago.

2:02:57Big Cat:We could have guessed anything and you could have just switched your pick in your head. That's right. That's right. That's right. Like true digital media guys. You know what I mean? You know, like, what are we talking about? This is a real who's on first segment we're doing right now. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so Arch tied with who? Carr. Carr, number one? Okay. I think Carr could be outstanding. I do too. Dante Moore, three. Julian Sain, four. And Trinidad Chambliss at five. Okay. And which one of those guys do you think would be the best NFL quarterback? Oh, that's a great one. CJ Carr. Yeah. Okay.

2:03:28Is he too jacked? He looks real now.

2:03:31PFT Commenter:Is there too much muscle you can put on as a quarterback? I don't know. We'll have to ask Brady Quinn. Yeah. Those EA sports or the EA drinks. Yeah. Like, no, I'm done. Yeah. Maybe he was too jacked. Yeah. Hey, do you get to watch the NFL? A little bit. I watch as a fan. What is a little bit? Like, what are we talking? Well, so I get home Saturday night usually and then wake up. We always go to church as a family and then we come home and, like, football is on. But unless it's the Broncos, it's just kind of, like, on as we're hanging out. Okay. But if it's the Broncos, I'm all the way in.

2:04:06Big Cat:What did you think about Sean Payton saying that he was going to hire Bill Belichick to come in, break the record, and then afterwards Belichick could leave and Sean would resume coaching the team? That sounds like Sean. It does. I actually played for Sean in New Orleans for like a couple of months. But in OTAs, he gave me a contract as an undrafted free agent his first year before he had coached a game. Quick story, that's the Reggie Bush draft. and Marcus Colston draft. And so I go down, I'm on the flight to go to rookie minicamp, don't have a contract, undrafted, unsigned. And I go down and I'm in like 35E in the plane, you know, and I walk past and it's a flight from Denver and they had flown Reggie commercial and he connected in Denver.

2:04:51And Reggie was up in first class and I was like, remember in 2006, I was like, that's Reggie Bush, right? And even I was super impressed. We get down to the baggage claim, and I just kind of had like a regular, like, you know, sweats on or whatever, getting ready to go to camp. And Reggie thought that I was one of the GAs or like the quality control coaches from the Saints. So he rolls me his bag off of the carousel. And I was like, do I tell him right now or do I just take the bag? And I was like, definitely just taking the bag. So I just carried his bag to the bus. Oh, that's brutal. I get on the bus and I'm sitting behind him and he was kind of like, oh, hey, man, I'm sorry.

2:05:35And I'm like, no worries. And then I was handing him the football off. He's like, first carries in the NFL. I'm the one handing him off. Oh, gosh.

2:05:42PFT Commenter:I guess Colorado was in the Big 12 then, right? Yeah. Yeah. So he wouldn't. That would have been really tough if it was Colorado was in the Pac-12. Oh, yeah.

2:05:54Ultimate disrespect. Wasn't happening. If he had played against you. Oh, my gosh. Just give me a tip.

2:05:59Big Cat:What's that? folded up 20 like thank you no he didn't that's he hadn't had his bonus yet i guess signing bonus oh my gosh another real quick story you guys i mean you can cut it out but we were we were throwing one-on-ones and and i thought sean was really impressed with me because he came over and he kept being like all right hey throw him on the back shoulder here okay now that guy over there lead him down the down the field okay make him jump and i'm like this guy thinks i'm so good i can just put it all over the place he was so impressed with marcus colston out on the outside So he was having me throw him footballs like in different spots so that he could go get it.

2:06:34Marcus Colson was a beast. He was so good. So he was, yeah. And he was like a seventh round pick. Yeah, right.

2:06:40Big Cat:He was probably like Joel's going to throw a slightly inaccurate ball. So Mark's going to have to dive for it. This guy looks like he's throwing absolute ducks. Yeah, we'll cut that story. Terrible story. It's funny. I mean, the fact that Reggie was like, hey, can you grab this bag for me? He didn't even ask. He just rolled it to me. Oh, just silently? Yeah, just like, you know, and I was just like.

2:07:01PFT Commenter:Yeah, but now you have an answer if anyone ever asks, what was your welcome to the NFL moment? There you go. Yeah. Well, it didn't happen on the field, but. But, that's right.

2:07:10Big Cat:And I'll pay you a compliment. Like, I do feel like listening to you, whether you're commentating on a game or listening to the podcast, I do feel smarter about the game, about college football. Oh, yeah. You're able to explain it succinctly in a very clear way that I think is pretty valuable for a lot of people out there. Do sometimes when you're thinking of it, because you put a lot of thoughts into your take, I can tell. Do you think, like, just, no, this take's too dumb? Yeah. And then you have to go back and re-work? Because we think that all the time, but we just go with it. I mean, yeah, as you guys know, like, if you talk enough, you're going to say something, and you're like, nah.

2:07:43Big Cat:You hate March Madness. Oh, yeah. That's right. Remember that one? Remember that one? And the SEC. Yeah. That was a really bad one. um and what i get frustrated more i'm too listen i'm too proud to actually have the take be wrong as much as i'm like i didn't say it right you know it's cop out yeah you gotta just be like

2:08:04PFT Commenter:hand up i'm an idiot yeah that's right yeah that's what we do yeah yeah so we're always wrong but then in the in the game my the thing i love more than anything is if i can unlock the game like a Rubik's Cube and like bring the viewers into the game. What's happening? What's going on? What are the coordinators thinking about right now? And so I always just think about don't commentate the game through the rearview mirror. Like everybody knows what just happened. You know, stop talking about the replay. Look through the windshield. You know, try to take the viewer forward, push forward and explain why.

2:08:41Why is this going on? Why is this coach thinking this? Why is this quarterback being successful? Why is the defense being successful? So that's what I'm constantly churning in my head.

2:08:52PFT Commenter:You've also reached – I think I've given you this compliment, but I'll do it again because you've reached the big game voice status too. Oh, nice. Where it's like it's an innate feeling of you turn on the TV and you hear certain guys, you're like, big game. I love it. So you've gotten there. I'll take it. I'll take it. You can feel it, especially like the Northwestern Oregon game. Boom. Yeah, that was big game. On the lacrosse field. Place to play. I said it the whole pregame. We did Big Noon. I was like, you played Northwestern at 11 a.m. in Evanston. That's a sleepy spot. Yeah, what are you going to do?

2:09:23There's tents everywhere.

2:09:24PFT Commenter:I don't think they did. Yeah, they won easily. I remember Dan was all pissed after the game. We didn't stop the run. It's like, you didn't stop it against Indiana either. Tough place to play. I've got a really dumb question for you.

2:09:36Big Cat:I love it. And you're probably going to be asked this a few times. I feel like it's going to be a popular topic over the next month or so. Who is this year's Indiana? Yeah. Which is such a stupid question. Yeah, it is. But that's OK. A team that we don't think of as anything right now that could. Are you saying Indiana to win a national championship or Indiana to just do what they did in six first year? I think those are two different. Right. I think I think the question when it's typically asked will not get any clearer than that. But I think what I'm really asking is what's a major conference team that might look to make some noise, be included in some of the projections for the playoffs, maybe even sneak in the playoff at the end of the season that you don't think about?

2:10:20Big Cat:Okay. Turning around pretty quick. Yep. I mean, it's the exact same blueprint. You get a guy. He brings everybody with him, including players. you know i think that's that's a really fascinating one for me especially in that conference because they're all so they're all so similar there's no one that's running out out away from them maybe texas tech is i don't want to take anything away from texas tech and then the other one this might not be a playoff team but like sneaky ucla yeah well that's the right answer yeah sneaky ucla yeah okay that's the right answer for the indiana question because Because it's Chesney, and he brought the whole Harrisonburg West with him.

2:11:01Big Cat:Yeah. But they also have a great quarterback. Yeah. I agree with you. He got a bad rap with everything that went down with Tennessee, but Nico Iomaleava is a really good player. You're really good at saying his name. Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah. I had to practice. I got a little long shot on him to win the Heisman. Ooh. Very long shot. I love that. Probably won't happen, but he still has that skill set. He could be good, and he did take major steps forward last year. Yep. And so he looked like you saw flashes where it's like, I get it. I understand why maybe there was a lot of hype around this guy, even if he hasn't fulfilled that yet.

2:11:32Big Cat:But I do think that they could – I think the win total might be five and a half this year. I'm over on that one. I would take the over on it, yeah. Yes, for sure.

2:11:41PFT Commenter:Who's this year's Penn State? Lose a close game, then everything falls apart. People get fired. Everyone freaks out. Mass hysteria. Building's on fire. holy fuck

2:11:57that's a that's a great one that's a great one um you have to you guys will i think you'll appreciate this i really hesitate to to answer that question right because you don't want to put that out into the atmosphere but alabama is the one yeah i mean you have to say it feels like

2:12:15PFT Commenter:this is the year like if if if things go sideways you go really sideways yeah that's right and um I don't see that happening. The other one is Texas. Yeah. Like if you all of a sudden lose Ohio State, you lose at Tennessee, and you lose Red River, and you've got three losses at Texas by the time we're in the middle of October, then that's panic building on fire. But then the Alabama thing, man, is I think Kalen is an excellent coach, but he doesn't run the football well enough and there are times and you know this better than anybody at wisconsin there are times when a fan base expects a certain brand of football and if you're not giving them that brand whether it could be successful or not they don't like it yep it's just like it's like a it's like a taste at a restaurant could be a really good restaurant but you don't like it yeah and i think that that fan base and kalen like it could be headed towards that type of deal.

2:13:18PFT Commenter:I told Fickle this. I was like, listen, there's games that I'm okay with losing, but if you lose when you try to run the ball on fourth and one on a shotgun against USC, it's going to kill me. Like, you know, that's going to drive me insane, and I won't be able to handle it. When you hire a guy to go air raid offense and change the defensive structure that we ran for years. Right. And it's like everything I've known about football, Wisconsin should be able to get one single yard against USC. Of course they should. Maybe can't get 10 yards, but they can get one. That's right. Hey, third and eight, maybe we're in a sticky spot here.

2:13:51But I can get one. This is what we're built for. Yes.

2:13:54Big Cat:Zach, go ahead. Yeah, who's this year's Michigan? And you can take that whatever way you want. So, like, scandal? I just want to put you on the spot. I want to think of the worst possible school to ask you that question for. I think it's probably Michigan. Or we could just do like, who's this year's, let's see. Who's this year's, I'm trying to think of a team, Georgia.

2:14:25PFT Commenter:They did okay.

2:14:29PFT Commenter:Which team do you think will rack up the most speeding arrests? Yeah. They did okay. They had a pretty good year. They didn't really do that great, but they went to the playoffs.

2:14:37Big Cat:Is it fair to say like it might be an indictment on Kirby Smart as a head coach that he hasn't embedded himself and made enough friends in the Athens Police Department? I feel like back in the day, like, this doesn't get – we don't hear about this. Yeah. You know, cell phones are a hell of a thing. You know, back in the day when no one had cell phones. I don't know what's going on. You don't have to answer any of these. This is the portion where we just try to make you uncomfortable. Achieved.

2:15:05PFT Commenter:Rollback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Promo code TAKE. 20 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, arobac.com, promo code TAKE. Joel has been awesome. We love having you on. I love being on. I appreciate you guys. We had a golf video planned. It was a bummer that didn't happen. We're going to do it. Zach, finish us off. I do, sir. I did have a quick question. Could you give us Joel Klatt's official Heisman Trophy winner for the season? Oh, the official. Yeah. And it better be right. It has to be. It has to be right. My only claim to fame is that I called the Florida State quarterback.

2:15:39Now I'm blanking. Jameis? Jameis. I called Jameis that year. How do you forget Jameis? I know, right?

2:15:44PFT Commenter:That's crazy. The crab legs and everything. How did I forget Jameis? If I have to be right, have to be right. Sir? I've got to take Jeremiah Smith. Ooh. You don't think there's going to be a split vote situation? Yeah, certainly that's going to be a part of it. and Julian went last year. But this could be a year where a player's body of work is respected enough where they're like, no, he's been... He should be. He should be up there. Now, does that always happen? No. I think Peyton would have gotten a body of work. Andrew Luck would have gotten a body of work. Heisman. But if you said, you have to be right, you have to bet your own money, I have to take Jeremiah Smith.

2:16:30he's the best player in the sport. To pivot, is there anyone, a lot of people are maybe talking highly of right now that you just know doesn't have a chance. If you were going to put that same own money on it.

2:16:40Big Cat:Is there a 20-year-old you hate? How about reverse that? Reverse that. Go Dark Horse. Can we go back to March Madness?

2:16:48PFT Commenter:Yeah, do Dark Horse so you can talk positively about it. We're going to pivot, flip it, and reverse it. Dark Horse for the trophy. Okay, Dark Horse for the trophy. I think Jaden Maiava at USC, Lincoln has a knack for getting his quarterbacks to the finish line. He's got a schedule. If they all of a sudden mid-year beat Oregon in the Coliseum, Maiava's going to be right up there. And then way dark horse, watch out for a guy like Turbo Richard, the new running back at Indiana. I'm in.

2:17:17Big Cat:I'm in. Tell me more. I mean, that's a Heisman name. Right? That's crazy. Turbo Richard? Turbo Richard. Are you kidding? Where's he from? He played at Boston College last year. and here's the one a couple of things that we have to know from indiana's recent run kurt signetti incredible evaluator they're going to run the absolute heck out of the football look what they did to alabama in the rose bowl 50 runs in that game which was astonishing and they have to run in order to throw the rpos they're going to have one of the best offensive lines in the country with carter smith all-american back at left tackle and he's not going to have to split carries as much as last year they did between uh himby and uh kilon black so i watch out for turbo richard in the like 1300 1500 yard range yeah that's just kind of a um yeah i mean i would throw personally malachi tony in there i love maybe jesus he's i love malachi tony so i think i think he's the second most dynamic player in college football to smith i think you're gonna have to give Smith yeah no I agree right it's a good point but Tony is is unreal yeah love that kid

2:18:29PFT Commenter:um all right well Joel thank you as always you're the best and uh we will get this golf set up although we didn't realize you were a plus two and a half so that's that is that gonna like yeah we thought you were you guys want to just scramble we could play like so Shane Bacon you got everyone knows Shane he's an excellent excellent player he and I could just like best ball against your scramble or something like that? We were saying, do you think that six of us can beat you, two of you, in a scramble? If we're scrambling, I don't think you can. Yeah, I don't think so either. If we're best balling and you're scrambling, I think that could be a good match.

2:19:04Big Cat:I actually think that that's probably the way to go because we're not... What would you scramble like the six of you? Would you shoot like four or five under? Sure. Yeah, probably. Why not? We played in Jim Harbaugh's golf tournament 10 years ago about? Yeah, it was a long time ago. Nine years ago. And we did a scramble as myself, Big Cat Hank, and Tony Scheffler. And this was before we played golf at all. Yeah. And I think we ended up shooting like three over.

2:19:31PFT Commenter:Yeah. Oh, yeah, but now you're 10 years better. Harbaugh was so mad at us. Was he really? Oh, yeah. He was like, what do you guys? It was at the turn. And he was like, what do you guys shoot? And we're like, plus one. He's like, you know, it's a scramble. And he just drove away. Yeah, he was so upset. He's just like, these guys don't want to compete. Yeah. They don't want it. They don't want it.

2:19:51PFT Commenter:Okay, Firefest of the Week, wrapping it up. Henry, oh, you don't have one. Not really. I see that face. Yeah, I mean, it's the same Firefest that I had maybe like a month ago. So I don't even want to repeat the conversation. No, we got crazy rain. My car roof is still fucked. Oh, ever since you said I didn't have a sick car, your car has been terrible. I'm honestly, I'm thinking about just, I actually, you were doing the ad read earlier and I was listening because I love listening to our ads. Thank you. I actually might get a truck. I'm a Chevy Silverado guy.

2:20:29Big Cat:Wow. Pivot from the sick to just like the grit. Yeah. I mean, trucks can be sick too.

2:20:35PFT Commenter:You're not that guy, pal. Why not? What are you going to use it for? You're not that guy, pal. You're not a truck guy. First car I ever had was truck. I'm not that guy. I want to be. I will get a Chevy Silverado if you get one. You want to go Matches? Yeah. Same color? Not a big truck. I'm not going to be like the...

2:20:56Big Cat:It's almost like you want a car that's like part car and part truck. It's useful. I mean, there's cars that have like...

2:21:04PFT Commenter:Every time we get to drive it, it's so sick. So yeah.

2:21:09Big Cat:If that only existed. My car... Look, there's a Silverado that's towing the El Camino. Oh, look. That would never happen. That's Hank right after the Wizards. Yeah, that could be me. That would never happen. Yeah, because I'm going to have a sick car in like eight months anyway.

2:21:23PFT Commenter:Yeah, sick like hospital sick. We saw NBA Johnny today, and he was like, PFT was like, what do you think about the Wizards?

2:21:31Big Cat:No, I was like, if you're going to be NBA Johnny, you got to talk about the Wizards.

2:21:34PFT Commenter:Yeah, and he said, I think it's going to be like the Hornets last year. I'm like, that's not good. You need a little better than that.

2:21:41Big Cat:I know. Then he clarified. He said playoffs, one through eight, somewhere one through eight, and not one through six. Just to clarify, he never said that. What do you mean? He never said playoffs. Yeah, he said one through eight. No, you were cutting him off when he was saying that. He was like, yeah, it might be. He said one through eight, and then he said it's going to be tough to be in the top six. He said, we'll see. You're gaslighting. This is some gaslighting shit. Don't gaslight. Watch PMTV. Don't gaslight. Okay.

2:22:14PFT Commenter:Good. So you got a wet car?

2:22:15Big Cat:Yeah. How wet is it? pretty wet and then it like smells now so it's it's it is what it is i gotta get it fixed yeah i had a pretty good week what i had a really good week huh i had a pretty good week this week

2:22:33PFT Commenter:you can't walk you've literally been in traction like i know pregnantly you walked in you walked in the studio i don't know if that was yesterday or two days ago and i felt bad yeah you were screaming out of nowhere for like i could see the pain there was i had a spasm a couple spasms

2:22:48Big Cat:but i took steroids this morning so i'm feeling better i'm feeling strong um but if anybody has anything better than steroids i'm all ears to hear what it is so not a great not a great and in fact a pretty a rough physical week but even a four million dollar tournament coming up like in a week every day you wake up above ground is a good day you're the most injured podcaster ever i know i know but i know that's why i don't want to talk because like no one wants to hear me complain about like an injury but it does say having a fucked up back is bad it sucks it's the worst fire fest yeah yeah well he has had an injury like every week yeah it's been like one thing this last year has been really really bad physically which is tough and i don't i it's hard to get out of it when you have a bad back um but yeah like tuesday wednesday this morning it took me about like 30 minutes to get out of bed to like find a position where i can like finally sounds like a pretty good week um but then once i get here i can't complain got the best job in the world hang out with the boys living the dream it's just my days get off to a slower start than they used to and hopefully this the steroids just work like because i'm sick of doing the like take really strong aspirin stuff yeah so the steroids they're that's that's my bitch right now okay so we're gonna see what happens with that i should be good by the end of the weekend okay i

2:23:58PFT Commenter:got uh two fire fests uh real quick one is um i definitely had the uh diarrhea disease i did white knuckle it. I've just been chugging Pepto-Bismol every day, but it was, I think I'm in the clear, but it was eight straight days, so I had it. I don't know how I got it because I didn't eat salad. I had it last week. Lettuce. Yeah, I don't eat lettuce, so I don't know how I got it. How many burgers have you had this summer? I'm at like 58. Zero with lettuce? No, there's been some lettuce. There you go. Okay. I need to, by the way, I'm in some trouble with the burgers. I've slowed down significantly.

2:24:34PFT Commenter:I'm going to have to have a week where I eat like 20. It's going to be a problem. I'm actually about to eat two. Donnie's about to make me two. What am I at? 59. And you need to get to 100? 100.

2:24:50By Labor Day?

2:24:51PFT Commenter:Yeah. I've slowed down. You got a big weekend, didn't you? I got to stack some days. I got to stack some days. So it's going to be camp week. Well, camp week's going to be the final to push i gotta do it yeah i can't believe it's gonna be big and then my real fire fest though is uh last night the pugs 10 p.m first pitch showed up the other team no showed no email no text 10 p.m quackin balls fuck you guys it is such a kick in the dick to have this happen and i know like 10 p.m sucks but it's like all right you're gonna have to do this like probably once a season right Everyone has to do it. And you got to just suck it up.

2:25:37PFT Commenter:Like I did a whole, I had a whole, like I went out to dinner with my wife. I came home. I watched the last four innings of the Cubs game. That sucked because the Cardinals walked off the Cubs. And then I was like, all right, time for softball. Like get out, get out of bed. I was laying in bed, get out of bed, go play softball. Once you get there, all you want to do is play. Guys completely no showed nothing. The only thing they did was one guy DMed Max 30 minutes before the start of the game being like, hey, we're not going to show. That is not enough. We were at the field already. Just fucking email.

2:26:09PFT Commenter:You knew you weren't going to play. That is, you should be in jail. You should be in jail if you do that. If you no show a 10 p.m. softball game, you're just a piece of shit human being.

2:26:21Big Cat:I think that's fair to say, right? I think half the games that are played at 10 p.m. must be no show, no calls, right? No.

2:26:27PFT Commenter:no no the guy no yeah you take it seriously yeah like that i would never do that like in our team the pugs we have we have we have had to forfeit a couple games because of our travel schedule and stuff we are we know we're forfeiting like two days in advance we email them because it's like that's just the right thing to do you don't want to make people just show up to a softball field at 10 p.m anyone who's ever played any type of adult intramural sport knows exactly what we're talking about. It is a true kick in the dick, and you are a true scumbag if you do this. So Quackin' Balls, we're coming for you.

2:27:04PFT Commenter:I don't know what else we're going to do. I actually had to call off the dogs last night because memes was like, I found the guys linked in. I was like, dude, chill out. Memes is one of those guys you got to every now and then pull on the leash.

2:27:13Big Cat:You need somebody that goes too far, though.

2:27:14PFT Commenter:Yeah, but you got to pull on the leash every now and then. This kid got cooked. He got cooked. He got ratioed to hell. You feel like such a loser when you're at the field, too. 1.3 million. Yeah, no, we were just warming up. And you know, that's the worst feeling is showing up to the field, warming up. Was the umpire there? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I guess he was there for the game. Yeah, warming up and being. He was probably pumped. You know in the back of your head when you don't see a single person 10 minutes before the game, it's a no-show. But in the back of your head, you're also like. Maybe we're on the wrong field.

2:27:50PFT Commenter:Yeah, someone's like, oh, maybe they're down there at that field. It's like, no, that's another game. so you're doing the the coping mechanisms where you're in denial and then it just it was it sucked it sucked max memes it sucked yeah well the 10 p.m aspect because it's like we i we both did something earlier in the night i went home and i was like fuck i i gotta like kill time before i go to this this softball game you go to the game super early because it's like i got nothing else to do. I may as well just show up. We're waiting around, watching other people play, and then it's finally our turn to play.

2:28:27You just gotta go home. All you want to do is play. Like, I could have just stayed home. I would have had a great night just staying home and not having to go to the 10 p.m. game.

2:28:34PFT Commenter:I would rather lose a 10 p.m. game than win with a forfeit and a no-show. Oh, 100%. You still get to play? Still get to play. And we just wasted our night. I just got blue-balled with softball. I wanted to play so bad. We just wasted our night. Yeah, because it is. It's like a mental thing that you have to get yourself pumped up for a 10 p.m. game. And once you go through that process to have it ripped from you, fuck quacket balls. You may as well. It would have been so... That would have actually been a great cancellation if we got a call from the league being like, hey, the other team... Yes.

2:29:04That would have been an awesome night. I was already in bed. Yeah, I can stay home. Yeah. The fact that we got up, went to the field, waited around for 30 minutes just to get back in the car and go home. Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. And some people got parking tickets because of it. Jack McCarthy.

2:29:20PFT Commenter:But he also drives a Benz, which is so sick. Yeah. C-Class. Did you guys see that? Jack McCarthy's tweet? He was like, pay for my parking ticket. Yeah, I'm okay with that. But it was also... Yeah. He made sure to get 100 % of the Mercedes-Benz logo in it. Yeah. Really let everyone know. It's a C-Class. I fucking drive a Benz. That's what he's telling everyone. All right, Zach, finish us off. My favorite fest this week is just, I guess, semi-related to the fact that I have recently unlocked the square footage for a couch so i've been in the market for a couch and it just seems like everybody who sells things online just lie because every couch is the best couch you've ever clicked on and i just don't know who to believe and i kind of just have furniture trust issues so all week i've been trying to do like due diligence and like being adult and like research these things and there's just no way around it every guy with a couch is this is the best your best option that's just pretty much what i'm going through have you tried it on like facebook marketplaces i'm on like tiktok instagram so you're are you learning all about the couches

2:30:19Big Cat:are you reached a point where there's like too much information about the couches no there's this weird thing there's like a pop in the couch market with boneless couches now where there's no frames on the inside oh the ones that come fake you china that you just like they come like

2:30:31PFT Commenter:vacuum sealed then you just let them yes like amoeba couches and they hide those in the listings of the couches that are structurally sound for guys who fluctuate yeah so you just never know what you're going to get. You can't get a boneless couch. No, I know that, but they hide them well. Because some of these photos look as if -

2:30:48Big Cat:I have a suggestion, Zach. It might be time to go to a furniture store.

2:30:52PFT Commenter:Yes, I'm saying.

2:30:53Big Cat:Lay on a couch. Because if you buy a couch online, there's a non-zero chance it might be boneless. You're not taking it for a spin. You've got to take it for a spin. There's quite a bit of couch clickbait going on in the market. This needs to be a pen and paper, flesh-to-flesh transaction. Ass on cushion. Ass on cushion. I would not buy a couch online. No.

2:31:13PFT Commenter:Okay. Also, no free ads, but someone in Chicagoland, hook our boy up. Let's get him a couch. Someone out there listening right now has some couches, furniture store. Let's get Zach in there. Off the truck, on the truck. Yeah. Get you in there. Feel a couch. Lay in a couch. Now, Zach, the question is, do you have enough room for a full couch, or is it a two-seater? I've got like 103 inches to work with. if we're just going to go. What's 103 inches? What is that, like 8 1⁄2 feet? I think maybe 2 1⁄2 seats, maybe 3 seats. 9 feet? Max, what did you... Just search. 8 feet. This is a 103-inch couch right here.

2:31:52That's 8 feet. Yeah, I felt like that was a good visual representation.

2:31:57PFT Commenter:Oh, no, I was just looking for 8 1⁄2 feet. I was looking for that. But now you can see what a 103-inch couch it looks like. Zach, you might be getting a couch that you can go fully sleep on. You can kind of eliminate the bedroom. Nothing better. Yeah.

2:32:10Big Cat:Maybe get the L? Yeah, get an L. Yeah, but if you get the L, then you have to do more socializing. Because if I have this many seats, you have to hang up. No, you don't have to. You don't have to invite anyone over. You just get the one - Oh, just go full L solo? Yeah, dude. What do you mean? All right. Of course you get it. That's a good idea. The L is the best place to sit. That's where you're going to eat your meals. I'm confused. Why does that mean you have to socialize if you have the L? The L just makes it more comfortable for you. For a second, I just thought looking at that many seats, it might be like, Like, oh, I got to fill these seat voids.

2:32:39But never mind. You guys are correct.

2:32:42PFT Commenter:You're going to sell seats to your living room? No, I wasn't talking about charging coverage. Preface was socialized. Never mind. No, no. You get yourself an L, dude. And someone please hook Zach up. Let's get that hooked up.

2:32:56Big Cat:We're also going to need Zach to learn how to donate those big... Everyone was commenting. He's got to donate those 90 shirts instead. Definitely got to donate. Those shirts just fall apart. You wash them once. They don't have the longevity.

2:33:13PFT Commenter:Those are the shirts you're waiting on back order for? The shirts that you can only wear once? Yeah, but the low price point, you get the wears. They tend to fall apart, that's all. I'm going to get you in some black shirts. I'm going to get you some new shirts. Okay. Good show, boys. Numbers. 23. 5. 89. 96. 86 69 6 94 What'd you guess, Beams? 23

2:33:54PFT Commenter:98 Oh, no It was too off What'd you guess? 89 I guess 96

2:33:59Big Cat:Dang Alright, one more One more

2:34:02PFT Commenter:As long as Beams doesn't win it We're good I'm gonna take 5

2:34:18Big Cat:Fifty-nine Fifty-nine Anybody No one What's up? You get it? What'd you pick, Colton? Happy birthday to Brian Arakpo and Mark Cuban Happy birthday, Tim Couch Happy birthday to Bobby Althoff And Kipakee, the rare spotless giraffe And happy birthday to Scotty Barnes and happy birthday to Francis Scott Key. Bars. Bangers. Love you guys.

2:35:06Thank you.

2:35:37Thank you.

2:36:06Thank you.

2:36:47What happens when you lock 18 co-workers in an office for one week to compete for a quarter million dollars of cash?

2:36:53PFT Commenter:This is Surviving Barstool Season 5, presented by Rumble Premium. Each episode released three hours early, so get it ad-free before anyone else, only when you join Rumble Premium. Surviving Barstool premieres Sunday, August 9th at 5 p.m. on Rumble Premium and everywhere else at 8 p.m.

From the publisher

National sports podcast whip around as we talk training camp, LIV, Tarik Skubal and LeBron’s documentary (00:00:00-00:32:46). Mt Rushmore of buttons to press (00:32:46-00:51:08). Indiana Head Coach Curt Cignetti joins the show to talk about winning the Natty, playing with a target on his back, his swagger and more (00:51:08-01:06:56). UCLA HC Bob Chesney joins the show to talk about his rise in college football, what his plans are for UCLA, Pennsylvania breeding coaches and a new character we need to meet (01:06:56-01:35:15). Joel Klatt joins the show to talk CFB, preview the upcoming season, top 5 QB’s, is Clemson in trouble and more (01:35:15-02:18:05). We then finish with Fyre Fest of the week


You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Netflix. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/pardon-my-take

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