Miami HC Mario Cristobal, CFB With Tom Fornelli, Jerry From Meow Mix + Playoff Baseball, Jaguars Big Win And FAQ's

34:23And just ride it. Just ride it. Trust your guys. And the fact that after the game he's like, yeah, I was playing for the tie. I liked where our bullpen was in that spot. Play to win the game. Don't play scared. And also just make plays. The difference between the Dodgers, the difference between the Phillies is that Max Muncy made a perfect play to throw to third. And Trey Turner, there's a screenshot out there right now of where Trey Turner was when he fielded that ball at short and where Teoscar Hernandez, one of the slowest guys on the Dodgers, was going down the base path. And that should be an out 100 times out of 100.

34:58If you just make that throw anywhere near the left side of the plate, he is out. Just make the plays. This team is just not making plays to win the game. Rob Thompson is coaching like a loser. We have Aaron Nola. We have Aaron Nola pitching game three, must win, basically just because Aaron Nola has been there a long time. It's the only thing that can make sense. I get it. Ranger Suarez can come out of the pen. Aaron Nola can't come out of the pen because he's never done it before. But the stats are insane. Aaron Nola's postseason stats in his career, he has an above-4 ERA in 53 innings. Ranger Suarez has a 1-4 in 37 and 2-3 innings.

35:39Throw your better pitcher. His reasoning for Aaron Nola is that he's a big-time pitcher. Ranger Suarez is a big-time pitcher. Pitch your best guys. I'm sorry. No, no. Max, I got a question. I feel it, Max. Also, credit to Freddie Freeman. That was an awesome scoop at first base, right? It was a fine scoop. I think he put on the theatrics of it a little bit. It was a good play. You're a first baseman, and you expect yourself to make that play. You thought too much theatrics after the scoop. I mean, it did save the game. I know, but that's me being angry. I know. I've never heard you turn down a scoop.

36:17It must be bad. Max, have you thought about – you can call me short. It's okay. No, no. That was fair. Okay. Have you thought about what this series means for this group of guys? Done. That's it. This is the end for this group of guys. If they go down like this, it means – It's over. They're already one of the oldest cores in baseball, and a lot of people are – contract is up after this year. So you can't just go throw more money at something that isn't working. So you have to try something else. Well, it did work. It did work for a while. You never won a World Series. It never worked. Yeah, that's right.

37:00Our top three hitters since Game 6 of 2023 NLCS have a combined 143 batting average and 544 OPS. There's like 200 million a year between these three guys. That's the saddest part about, like, I feel like baseball is the biggest sport when it comes to that, is, like, the end of this group playing together, especially when they played well for so long. So, Max, you might not believe me, but I am rooting for you this series. Yeah, no, it would be a miraculous comeback. I wish we had our best pitcher pitching in a must-win game. But you got overalls. You got overalls. We're going to try the overalls, and hopefully Rob Thompson...

37:41You're leading by example. The Phillies should look at you and say – The vibes of Aaron Nola are going to be right here, even though he has an above-6 ERA in the regular season to Rangers 2-2. That's not – 2-2 is a lie, but Nola is above-6. I think Rangers 3-2, but I don't know. Let's go get a win tomorrow. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we just – Nola just finds it and you just win game three. Sanchez comes out. Game four shoves again. And then anything can happen. Back at the bank. Anything can happen. Game five. The bank is dead. The bank. See, that's why you might actually be in a better spot than the Cubs because the Cubs, I do actually think, can win game three.

38:23But then I don't know what we do when we have to go back to Boyd and back to Shota. Shota's been cooked for a while now. He just gives up home runs every fucking game. Yeah, the difference is that's why, you know, in your head it's like win game three, see what happens. because then you get your ace back on the mound. We don't have an ace. So fucking good all year. Yeah. Yeah, we got no ace. Hank, what are your thoughts? Got no ace. The Phillies game was tough. I think the Phillies still have a better chance to win than the Cubs. Yeah. But the Dodgers are so good. The Dodgers are so good. I think the Phillies are better than the Cubs, but the Dodgers are way better than the Brewers.

39:03If the Phillies can blow out the Dodgers, though, then they can get some momentum. That's the thing. Now we see Yamamoto. They just only have aces. If they shell him, they got to shell him. Yeah, no. You need the bats to come alive. I need the bats to come alive. I need our top three of the order to hit over 143. You need your starting pitcher to settle down. Our starting pitchers have been fantastic. Well, you're talking about the starting pitcher for. Oh, no. Right. Nola needs to settle down. Nola needs to settle down. He gives up a couple hits in the first. Don't panic. Settle down. And then you need the bats to wake up.

39:41No. Yes. Because Ranger Suarez is first out of the pen. If Nola gives up one run, I want him out. You won't give him a chance to settle down? Zero chance. I give him zero chance to settle down. You have to. I give him zero chance to settle down. Get him out as soon as possible. Get him out. Short leash. The quickest leash. The smallest of leashes. Isn't your dog named Nola? No. It was. That's kind of crazy, isn't it? Now you got a short leash on Nola. Yeah. I just need balls in play. That's what I'm asking for. I need balls in play. The Cubs have struck out 19 times in the first two games of the series.

40:23Balls in play. 19 is a lot. We both know what we need. Yeah. Balls in play. And what was your word? I don't know. Our stars to show up. I need our top three guys to show up. Because they haven't. Okay. Hank, it's bad. It's dire. Hank, he hates seeing you guys like this. It's all hands on deck. It's all hands on deck. You got to fucking do whatever you got to do. Just win. Just focus on winning. Yeah. Go ahead, Hank. No. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm just saying. Go ahead. He'll spark. What's the subtext behind all these little things that you've just been jabbing? I don't know. I'm just saying. All right.

41:00I'll explain it real quick. I was supposed to there was a plan for me to get my big check for winning the 50-50 on Wednesday before the Cubs game I said I do not want to get the big check I need to have all my focus on the Cubs winning this game Hank is trying to set me up for failure to go get the big check the Cubs at home this postseason are 2-0 in games that I have nothing to do with the 50-50 they are 0-1 when I've won the 50-50 I am worried that if I go and accept this big check They'll be 0-2 on games where I've gotten a check, gotten the big check, or won the 50-50. I'm not willing to risk that.

41:37I need to focus on the game. It's not about a big check. It's about the game. The Cubs have to win the game. I'm not getting a big check on a potential elimination day. I feel strong about my decision. I think there's one caveat to this. That's destiny, though. You can't choose. It's not your fault it happened to be an elimination game, but it's like, that's destiny. Well, no, that's not destiny. They figured out who won the 50-50, and then they invited me. Right. They literally were like, you can come on Thursday, too. And I was like, it's also an elimination game. So, what? I think you should accept the check.

42:12It's going to be the spark plug that turns the Cubs around. And then it's the same thing as Max in the overall. I don't want to get a fucking check on the day the Cubs season ends. Yeah, but imagine if you accept the check and they come back. I'm going to try to get them to come back by being there. Cheering my balls off. Hank walked in the room when Big Cat and I were talking about the situation. I was telling Big Cat I wouldn't do the check either because of exactly the reasons he's saying. And Hank goes, you guys are two losers. And yeah, listen, yes, that is very much operating from a losing mentality.

42:42A hundred percent. But then, Hank, you're also just encouraging Big Cat to do this to see the misery that follows after he gets a big check. No, there's misery. Photoshopped. There's misery either way. There's misery either way. That would be Hank's wet dream. People are going to be laughing at you either way. I'm going to get the big check eventually. They said that they can get me the big check no matter what. I just do not want to do it on an elimination game. I think that's a very appropriate thing to do. I have to focus on the game. Can I give you an example? Also, they wanted me to get there at 1.30, and that's two and a half hours before first pitch, and I do actually have to work a little bit on Wednesday, and I also don't want to sit in the ballpark for two and a half hours of an elimination game just with my thoughts.

43:26Remember when I wanted to shave my head at the beginning of next season and Joe Mazzula told me you can't carry on stuff from this season into next season. That's loser mentality. If you can get Craig Council to call me and tell me to go accept the check, I will accept the check. Fair. That's fair. Well, you just said it's fair. Also, if you are... What did Joe Mazzula calls you and tells you to accept the check? That's Joe. But if you're sticking with your guns... It's the exact same thing. You can't have anything to do with the 50-50, you're not allowed to buy any 50-50 tickets. True. That's not a fucking rule.

43:58It is. Max makes a good point. No, that's not a rule at all. Why? Because what if you win? I will not say that I won. If we lose and I win, I will not say that I won. You're not allowed to buy 50-50 tickets. No. That should be the compromise. Wrong. There's also a 0 % chance that Bacat wins 50-50. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And then he doesn't say that he won if they lose. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, that's like if you run a marathon and don't tell anybody. Hey, for all everyone knows, I won the 50-50 on Wednesday because if I won it and we lose, you'll never know. Yeah, I might have done that marathon.

44:32You don't know. What if they wanted you to do double big check? Zach just brought up this point. If I win on Wednesday, I'll make a deal. If I win on Wednesday and they want to do double big check on Thursday, which would also be an elimination game, I will be there for the double big check. Okay, what about this? What if they said Wednesday night or Wednesday afternoon, we want to do the big check, but we're going to make the check even bigger than we told you. Like mega check. How big does that mega check and mega ticket in your brain? How big does how big does no? You get this guy a big cardboard something.

45:03How big would the check need to be? Like as big as the American flag that they do in the entire outfield. If that was the size of the check, you'd say if they covered the if the tarp was the check. Yes. Okay. I need an entire elementary school having to carry out the check. Yeah. Would you feel bad if you won the 50-50 again in a loss? At that point, it becomes a jinx. At that point, actually, no, I will say this. If the Cubs lose tomorrow and I win the 50-50, I will 100 % retire from 50-50 for the rest of my life. That's a fact. Because then it would just be like, You literally only won on losses, on big playoff losses.

45:48So that is a fact. But what a way to go out it would be. It would. You were too good. You had to ban yourself. Two-time winner. Had to ban myself. I was bad for the league. All right. We should talk some football real quick. Monday Night Football was phenomenal. Incredible Monday Night Football game. I wish we had saved this game for when we didn't also have playoff baseball. But Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars win a game that the Jacksonville Jaguars never win. and it feels like something's shifting because that last drive, Trevor Lawrence on that last drive, he went from picking his nose, the most blatant picking of a nose on national television, to that last drive where he started it with a, what was it, like a 40-second run for three yards that when they needed time, made an incredible – Travis Hunter made an incredible play.

46:39Brian Thomas, that was a great pass. delay a game on the goal line then falls down and somehow gets up and scores a touchdown and you're like holy shit the jaguars actually did it yeah that is a game that the jaguars lose and that's a game that the chiefs win all the time it was kind of crazy to see the chiefs because like we've all we've all seen these games from the chiefs where the other team ends up being like what the fuck just happened yeah that only but what we're seeing with the chief i don't think it's like a loss of their weird black magic voodoo or whatever i think it's that the chiefs they're starting to lose games in ways that are familiar to every other team out there to every other fan base it's they they look like all of us now yeah so like when people talk about is this the end of the road for the chiefs i'm actually i'm starting to think that it might kind of be their their regression back to being just like kind of a normal good football team well we're still a good place to be like talk to a cardinals fan and be like can you believe that a team lost because uh their defensive lineman just didn't move on on a goal line stand and the guy fell down and walked in they'd be like oh yeah that's not that bad yeah like these types of losses that the chiefs are experiencing now they're they're super familiar to all we've seen our own teams do this and so for me it's more about seeing the chiefs and being like oh i can i can see some of myself in the chief now which i've never been able to do with the patrick mahomes and he read combination Yeah, the Devin Lloyd 99-yard pick return, which was electric.

48:06But, yeah, to back up your point, even with stats, a lot of the NFL, the teams are so close to each other. Obviously, the Chiefs are very, very good. They were very, very good last year. The year before, they won the Super Bowl two years in a row, whatever. It is a lot of times the margins are the bounce of the ball and, like, a little bit here, a little bit there in these close games. Last year, the Chiefs were 10-0 in games decided by seven points or less. this year they're 0-3. That's it. It's not like they're getting blown out. They're just not winning the close games that they won literally all of last year.

48:42And that was, the Chiefs now have their third loss. Last year their third loss was in the Super Bowl. Damn. Pretty crazy. I still think the Chiefs will be in the playoffs. They do have to play the Lions on Sunday night. It's not going to be easy. But I was more walking away from that and impressed with the Jaguars because it feels like not the like the the jaguars are set and going to be a super bowl but that is a game they always lose yeah it's a game they always always they should also be five and oh yeah yeah very good jake browning that travis hunter uh uh defensive pass interference call away from being five and oh and when trevor lawrence jumped over the offensive line on the goal line that was in the first half i think right and it got it got knocked out of his hand like maybe a centimeter before it crossed i think he might have scored i it was close enough where i was like i don't i I don't know.

49:29Saw a screenshot that looked like he scored. Yeah, you can get screenshots. Oh, yeah. You can have some copium screenshots and be like, look, we should have blown the Chiefs out. That to me at that moment, I was like, oh, the Jaguars are fucked. Yeah. It's going to be one of those nights for them. But then things kind of started turning the other way. And kickers absolutely love illegal procedure penalties when it's late in the fourth quarter and it's like a close game. Yep. They love kicking the ball out of bounds. And then the announcer is going, oh, that's the one thing you can't do there. Do it.

49:56You got to be better than that. Can't do it. Did Trevor Lawrence look good? For the most part, Trevor Lawrence looked really good. He ran a good amount. He looked erratic, but erratic worked. Yeah, erratic, but like— Travis Hunter. Travis Hunter, awesome. Showed out a little. Yeah, there were some moments, and I think Trevor described his game-winning touchdown run as just panic. Yeah. Like, he was on the ground, tried to get up, panicked, fell down again, tried to get up again, and then he just had to, like, scoot his ass in the end zone. But, yeah, Chris Jones on that last play, not great. No.

50:27Not a great visual for Chris Jones to be putting on tape. He just kind of, like, stood up. And to his credit, it was late. He was probably tired. Yeah. It was the fourth quarter of a game. He'd been exercising for, like, an hour and a half, so he was tired. Yeah, tired. And he just stood up and just didn't really seem like he wanted to move at all. Yeah. And it was, like, kind of Albert Hainsworth-like. Yeah, it was. It was. It was a tough look. Also, great block by the guard on that play where the tackle of the Jaguars got him held up and then just the guard finished him. And that was basically what sprung him.

51:00You guys want a crazy stat? This was the first time that the Chiefs, Bills, and Ravens all lost in the same week since?

51:112015. 2000. Josh, 2019. 2019. Week 9 of 2017. Oh, shit. Crazy. Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were still in college, and Patrick Holmes hadn't taken a single snap. It's a new era. Fuck them. Fuck them. Also, we had this idea on Wake Up Barstool this morning, but there really should be commissioners for each division in the NFL because the AFC South needs some better PR. They're really good now. Colts are 4-1. Jaguars are 4-1. Texans are kind of turning it around with their 2-3. Even the Titans won. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a commissioner for each division? Yeah. I mean. Just had like commercials and stuff.

51:52And you're like, yeah, hey, here at the AFC South, we actually play winning football now. It would be great if they all had commissioners and all the commissioners lobbied to get them into the playoff at the end of the year. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But they still use the same criteria to get into the playoffs at the end of the year. But you still have guys like out there shilling be like, this is why ours. We actually deserve four teams. Right. In the playoffs. Right. Hey, welcome on the commissioner of the AFC West this week. And like the negative ads would be very funny too if the AFC South was like, hey, everyone thinks we suck.

52:21Yeah, but how do you get an unbiased commissioner? No, you need the most biased. Yeah, no, that's the thing. But like how do you get an unbiased commissioner that's not biased towards any of the teams? No, they're just rooting for the division. Right. Yeah. Who would qualify for that? I mean, I was kind of the A1. NFC Beast commissioner for a little bit biased. I could do the AFC South right now. I got no ties to any of these teams. I just be like, hey, do you know the AFC South? Has two teams that are four and one. Did you know that Texans is your pinky team? Yeah, I know. And then I would just do some negative campaigning, too.

52:53I'd be like, hey, do you know the AFC North, the best quarterback in the AFC North starting this week, is a 41-year-old? Then I'd be like, hey, the AFC North, actually, that's a system conference. Yeah. Because they just all have Joe Flacco. Are we sure the NFC West is good? Ask yourself that. AFC South should be like, hey, did you know that Jacksonville is actually the largest market by square miles? Yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying. It's the biggest city in the country. You know, in the AFC South, people don't talk about three-fourths of the teams not having Mark Sanchez get stabbed in their city.

53:27Did you know that in the AFC South, we don't pay state income tax except for Indy? Yeah, this is the type of shit we need. Yeah. It's good. It'll be good. I want this. I just want to watch a football game and see just an attack ad on a certain division. Right. Like, yeah. Okay. The NFC South sucks. Yeah, they have the Bucs, but what else? The one city where Mark Sanchez does get stabbed, it sounds like it's really easy to have a huge party night. Yeah. In that city. It was actually his fault. It sounds like there's some great things, great party favors in Indy. Oh, is there more to the story that came out?

54:06I said sounds like. Sounds like. I said sounds like. That's alleged. Yeah. Speaking of divisions, we do have Joe Flacco now on the Cincinnati Bengals. Thank you, Bengals. a huge, I don't know how you guys took the news, but I had just a huge sigh of relief because I'm excited to watch Joe Flacco in primetime. I had a huge sigh of relief. And then I had a huge gasp of panic when I remembered the state of the offensive line for the Cincinnati Bengals. Yeah. And then I remembered that Joe Flacco is 41 years old, but guess what? And just throw it up to Jamar. He could, he could just throw it to Jamar.

54:39He could throw it to anyone. He could throw it to anyone, but especially Jamar, especially Jamar. but will he have enough time to take one step and throw a pass to Jamar? Yes. I hope he will. Yes. My biggest takeaway is that Thanksgiving is now safe. Yes. Like at least Joe Flacco saved Thanksgiving. We didn't want Jameis. Nope. We never wanted that. We wanted Joe this whole time. It's going to be great. That's exactly what we wanted. No, it's like we have Jameis at home. Yeah. And Joe's Jameis at home. Yeah. Also, why did Brett Rippin get cut? I don't know. Because they cut one. So I don't understand.

55:16Here, pardon my take. We're asking the real question. Everyone's wondering. I don't understand that part of it. It's like, how is Brett Rippon the scapegoat for Jake Browning? Well, like how many quarterbacks they have? If Jake Browning beats Brett Rippon in a competition, that's how bad Brett Rippon is. So just cut him. I don't know how much worse that could be. Yeah, but how many? Do they have another backup quarterback? is that Sean Clifford is he still there uh I don't know I mean they're probably going to just bring him back to practice squad right that's got to be what's going to happen yeah I just didn't know why he had to take the fall for that that's the real Brett Rippon didn't do anything wrong that's the real thing people aren't talking about wait was he named the starter Joe Flacco yeah so from what I read they're like Joe he's a quick learner so we hope that he can make an impact against the Packers oh so Joe just got done playing against Michael Parsons he beat the packers yeah he beat the packers uh so he maybe that maybe there's just sign him for a week be like this is our packers specialist yeah teach our defense how to be good against the packers please go beat the packers um all right let's do hot seat cool throne and then we got a great trio of interviews we got tom for nelly talking college football we got mario cristobal head coach of miami hurricanes and interview i love doing uh we got jerry from the meow mix podcast that is now defunct talking to him about what happened when a football team is so bad it makes you stop doing a podcast about that team.

56:44Hank, hot seat, cool trunk. My hot seat is the NCAA tournament. This is happening, isn't it? It seems like it's happening. Not this year, but next year. It was always going to happen. This is how I feel like back when people invented the printing press and the Luddites burned the barns that they were in, like fuck you technology. I'm going to stand here screaming about how I hate this, but there's really nothing I can do about it, and I just know that expansion is going to continue to happen. Do they not realize that a lot of the fun of the March Madness is the lead-up and the bubble watch, and now the bubble watch is basically done?

57:23Mm-hmm. Like, the bubble watch is over. They have no more bubble watch. They're taking away one of our favorite things, which is to spend exactly 24 hours being pissed off about a team that didn't get in. What do you think Joe Lenardi's thinking Or do you think he's probably sleeping Oh no this is good for Joe Lenardi More teams being in the bubble No but more teams being talked about for the bubble This is I feel like Big Joe is behind this It'll be the same amount of teams It's like basketball though where it's like all the teams that are On the bubble are gonna suck Yeah it's basically just teams above 500 Are gonna go No but there are gonna be so many more like Average teams that think maybe we'll get in and they'll click on Joe's articles to see if they're like first four in, first four out, next four out.

58:07Yeah, if you're on the bubble in a 72-point line, you don't deserve to be on the bubble. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. We're not going to be able to be as mad about teams getting left out. Right. Right. And I hate that. I like getting mad about that. And there's also just going to be so many teams that I don't want to see play more basketball. This is great news for Villanova. Great news. We suck. I have a question. Yeah. Does this mean that all conference champions will not play in the first round? I don't know. You know what I'm asking? No. Yeah, I don't. I think it's bullshit that they do play-in games for conference.

58:51Oh, the play-in games. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first four. Got it. I agree with that. Oh, like the 16th seed? Like it sucks that the 16th seed don't even get to actually make the tournament. I agree with that. So I'm hoping that this will at least eliminate that. All at-large teams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know the rule. I thought maybe. When is the extra games going to be played? Is it going to be the Tuesday, Wednesday? Probably that Monday. Listen, when they give me more basketball, I'm going to watch some more basketball, but I am not happy about it. Yeah. Okay, your cool throw? My cool throw is Amazon Prime, Prime Day.

59:25Yes. Stella Blue Coffee. Up to 30 % off Stella Blue Coffee. Go buy. Save some dogs. I also wrote this down last night when I thought the LeBron decision was going to be an ad for Amazon Prime. Turned out it was just an ad for Hennessy. Yeah, that was so lame by LeBron. I thought that it was going to be a major announcement. Yeah. I thought he was really going to do it. Yeah. I can't believe LeBron lied to us. I didn't realize this, but I was talking to Titus about it because I was like, yeah, I think LeBron's going to retire within the next year or two. he was saying that he doesn't think lebron's gonna retire till 2028 when the olympics are in la that's so much more lebron i don't i think that's so much more lebron i think one more year i think one more year then he starts his own league but olympics but the olympics makes sense like he will that will be the last basketball he plays the olympics in 2028 i thought hank was saying he starts his own league then he starts his own olympics no but he starts on league stays in shape in an olympics yeah i i do think that he's going to do the thing where he he creates a rival league to the nba and just tries to take them down yeah okay uh pft your hot seat cool draw uh my hot seat is uh fake news media that clamors onto people making obscene gestures when that's not actually what they were doing so if you consider yourself a member of that fake news media you're on the hot seat because the video of jerry jones where he he appeared to flip off fans okay memes did you see that jets fans it turns out that was a big misunderstanding jerry said that was unfortunate there was a swarm of cowboys fans out front it was right after we made our last touchdown i put up the wrong show of hand the intention was thumbs up so he accidentally flipped them off instead of giving giving a thumbs up class it's class all the time Class act.

1:01:15Very class act. It happens. I don't know why people got upset about it. The league fined him$250 ,000, which feels like a lot of money for a simple mistake. He's an old man. His hands don't work right all the time. He tried to give you a thumbs up memes. I loved it Yeah That's just a New York hello Oh, more owners should do it. Yeah. I agree with that. What would David Tepper do? He stole a man's hat. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do that. Just flip him off. David Tepper should have said, little Mr. I meant to tip my hat to the guy, not take his hat. My hands got confused. It was a perfect middle finger and then point.

1:01:52Yeah. Yeah. I liked the middle finger point. You. Yeah. Flipped you off. Yeah. That is good. I just love Jerry being like, yeah, that was my hand. My hand messed up. Yeah. It was unfortunate. it uh then my cool throne is connor mcdavid connor mcdavid's on the cool throne he just signed a contract going back to the oilers and uh it's a pretty team friendly deal i'd say it's like a very steep hometown discount 12 and a half mil for mcdavid that sounds right yeah years yeah so people are excited to have him back in edmund see if he can win the big one um to me when i saw this this one of two things i i think you're about to say the same thing that i said to yans earlier okay all right so so one of two one of two things popped in my head when i saw the hometown discount one does he have some sort of tree planting deal on the side or like i don't know what they do up in edmonton like icicle planting i didn't think that uh and then two this seems like it would be very easily tradable.

1:02:55Bingo. Very, very. To a team that is contending. Very, very easily tradable contract. Yeah. He basically, I mean, it's smart by him. Yeah. Like, hey, if I take a shitload of money and I want to go try to play for a cup. Now, obviously, you could also say he took less money so that the team could get better. You got to hope the Oilers do that. but if in a year and a half the oilers aren't competing yeah and he can go somewhere for a year and a half and it doesn't fuck up some team's cap interesting like if you were a gm maybe like a brand new gm in hockey new to the league would you just make a call today yeah and be like hey can we trade you for connor yeah that's a good deal like we'll take him we'll throw in a lot of stuff i'm happy for oilers fans though because i i hope i hope connor McDavid stays in Edmonton.

1:03:46That would suck if he leaves. I agree. I hope he wins a cup. I'm going to start rooting for him to win a cup this year. We put a future on him. I think it would be great. And I'm rooting for him in theory. It is a lot of fun to make fun of our friends that love him. Friend. Friend. We have one friend who's in love with him. I'm going to root for Conor McDavid this year. I'm going to say it right now. I'm rooting for Conor McDavid. 100%. Not as a troll. Not as a troll. I'm going to put real money on it. Until the Olympics. Yeah. Then I hope he fucking gets smushed. Yeah. Hope we kick his ass. What's the Canadian exchange rate?

1:04:22Does that make it even more of a team-friendly deal? Loonies? Yeah. How many loonies is 12 million United States dollars? I don't know. Or is he getting paid 12.5 million loonies a year? Probably throwing in some Timbits. This is great having Max look up currency exchanges. We're going to be here a while. This is going to be good. Oh, no. Max says pounds. That's actually. One dollar. One dollar was worth approximately 72 U.S. dollars. One loony. No. One loony is worth 72 cents. Okay. Of a U.S. dollar. Okay, so that's a super team-friendly deal. I was trying to talk over you calling me fat. Yeah.

1:05:00Good call. All right. That was your cool throne, right? Yeah. My other cool throne is Baton Rouge. Go to Baton Rouge on Friday. Pop Punk is playing at Fred's. It's one of my favorite bars in the entire world. Best college bar in America. At Fred's, we do the fucking, right? Yep. The good people at Fred's took care of are dear sweet boy Hank when he was on the Dixie tour, brought you in, clothed you, bathed you, took you in off the street. It's an awesome bar. We're going to have a lot of fun. Me, Roan, Caroline, Robbie Fox, Frankie, and Nick are going to be playing there in Pup Punk on Friday.

1:05:34And so come out, see us. I think it's free. So just come get drunk with us. Have a good time. And can we put the new song at the end of the show? peaked in high school yeah that's the one that we got hot don't copyright us mark hoppus i won't i won't strike you mark hoppus in the interview uh gave us a sample to use on peaked in high school so it's featuring mark hoppus technically that would be funny if you copyrighted us i might do it uh all right my hot seat is the human brain because the wall street journal had an article today that the human brain uh can hold how many meaningful relationships in their life Anyone want to take a guess?

1:06:11One, the Lord. How many meaningful relationships can the human brain hold at one time? Four. I think... How many friends can you have? Does it count like parents, family? I don't know. Maybe. I didn't read the article. Okay. What if it's zero? It's 150. Oh, shit. Which is way too many. Yeah. No, that's just not true. Who has 150 friends? It's not true. It's insane. Max says he goes to a wedding. I'm not using any of my friends. Yeah, no. 150 friends is actually pretty easy once you get into wedding. Wedding season. Wedding culture, yeah. Yeah. I was shocked by that. People are going to get cut.

1:06:50I thought the answer was going to be like 12. Yeah, I was thinking even less than that. Yeah, like this room. Now I feel like a loser. And like five other people. Yeah, I'm like, okay. This room, family, Jaden. That's about it. Yeah. That's about it. Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's it right there. And then my cool throne is Jalen Hurts because what? You're going to say some bullshit. No, I'm not. It's on the cool throne, not the hot seat. It's the cool throne, dude. I don't need to be this negative, Max. The wide angle of the Hail Mary came out, and Jalen Hurts tried to get his own rebound.

1:07:30And I will say this. If people didn't see it, he literally threw the Hail Mary and then sprinted to the end zone to try to get it. if it bobbled and somehow landed back at him. I'll say this right now. If that ever happens, that will be the coolest play in all of sports. Yeah. I thought it was fake at first. Sports history. He was flying. That was sports history. The fact that he got as far down as he did was impressive. If there was two bobbles, he would have been there. Follow your shot. Incredible. Yeah, it would have been awesome. A.J. Brown would have been pissed. Yeah. That would have been very funny, actually.

1:08:03But, yeah, look at him go. It's incredible. He went to try to get it. I've never seen a quarterback do that before. I really like this play, Max. That was good. Really, really like this play. Thank you for no slander. Did you guys think that Patrick Mahomes kind of didn't throw it as far as I thought he would? His arm is dead. I'm not saying that it wasn't far, but it wasn't... It wasn't far at all. It looked like Jalen Hurts in the Super Bowl. Yeah, you remember that? It's not Baker's arm. It's not Josh Allen's arm. He threw it from the 40-yard line and didn't make it to the end zone. He stepped on a foot.

1:08:34And then Max said any quarterback can throw a hillary? Stepped on a foot. How far was the Mahomes' throw? We need to look at the air yards on that. I just don't think it was like Josh Allen and Baker can definitely throw a ball. It was from the 20 to the 20. So 60 yards. 60 yards. But the way that he wound up for it, I thought maybe there's a chance he gets to the goal line. I did too. I was like, holy shit, this one's actually going to go. From the 20 to the... It was like 63 yards. But still, I always assumed that he could throw it as far as he wanted to. Right. There's no limit. It says 68 yards, and Baker Mayfield threw a post route 64 yards.

1:09:11That's what this guy, Joe A. NFL says. Joe Milton would have made it to the goal line. Joe Milton. You can't say that, Max. You can't say that. You said you wouldn't talk about him like that anymore after he fucked our over. Thank you. You know that he could. He could throw it. Yeah, he definitely could. The man threw an orange. Don't even smile, Max. Max, you remember when he threw that orange? And then he said that he threw the ball out of Topgolf? You know I love Jones. Shut up. Cut that. Delete. Delete. No, no, don't. We're keeping that at Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Speech. That over loss started a – that was a domino of just losses.

1:09:50Also, in that Monday night game, Trevor Lawrence just does not know where the line of scrimmage is ever. Ever. He's never going to learn. Number one run past the line of scrimmage and throw a guy. Did you guys have the sound on? I did not. Troy Aikman kind of roasted him. He was like, yeah, you know, sometimes Trevor doesn't really know where he is on the field. And this is him making another one of those plays again. He just has no idea where the stick is. That's what I'm saying. Like, he played well. It was just erratic. It's just chaotic sometimes with Trevor Lawrence, which I like. He actually might be like our new, like, Jameis-Phil Rivers hybrid.

1:10:26I'd say more along the lines of Phil. Yeah. But a hybrid. All right, Zach, finish us off. My hot seat this week is Drake. Are you guys familiar with Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar? The McDonald's guy? Oh, no, not the McDonald's guy. Travis Scott, musician. Kendrick Lamar, awesome musician. Didn't Travis Scott have a McDonald's guy? Yeah, he's a McDonald's guy. Oh, I take it back. Definitely a McDonald's guy. Definitely had a McDonald's order. That's on me, big cat. He's the golf shoes guy, Travis Scott. Also the golf shoes guy from the coin flip. Yeah. Great coin flip there. Kardashian, lover.

1:10:57Also, Jenner. baby daddy Jenner baby daddy Kardashian adjacent baby father we know Travis Scott Travis Scott did surpass Drake's God's Plan Goosebumps featuring Kendrick Lamar 17 times platinum one time platinum is 100 or 1.5 billion or billion listens he did it 17 times holy shit so Drake's in the hot seat because the guy that he also was beefing with just passed him up is that the most listened to most I believe so. That's crazy. That's nuts. So 1.5 billion times 17. That's a lot of billion. You got to get a special calc for one of those. That's like a Texas Instruments situation. Are you saying that it's like 1.7 billion times 17, that's the amount of listens that he has?

1:11:431 billion times 17.5. So 1.5 billion streams is one times platinum and it's 17 times platinum. 17 times 1.5. Oh, so he's, yeah, it's like 20 something billion. Tons of billions. So many billions. And Drake had an issue with the guy that's featured on the song, so it's just a bad look. So he's definitely, his seat's super hot. Okay. And then my cool throne this week is Julian Brown. He's an inventor out of Atlanta. He found a way to turn plastic waste into fuel, 110-octane gasoline, 22 years old. I just think that's the coolest throne ever because he might leave something afterlife that affects the world for the rest of time.

1:12:24Now, did he actually do it, or is this like an Elizabeth Holmes situation where he's got a company that everyone's going to invest in, and then he's like, ah, just kidding, I was burning the Tupperware in the back of my house. There's tons of videos of him. He's posted step-by-step on Instagram and TikTok of him building the machine at his home that can turn the plastic waste into fuel. That's badass. And he's finally figured a way to do it. Okay, yeah, I like this. Dude, that is badass. What a G. And he calls it plastoline. Plastoline, yes, sir. That's a great name. They started up a 2023 Dodge Charger wide body.

1:13:01That's awesome. With the plastoline. That's very good. Good for him. What is plastic made of? Is that also made of oil? The composition of plastic, I'm not 100 % sure on. I'd be lying to you if I said I was. I can find out for so. Regardless, this guy's a genius if that's what he did. Yeah, 22, which is crazy. That is crazy. That's nuts. Plastoline. plastic is made of cellulose and coal salt and crude oil okay but he's converting like your milk jugs he's recycling yeah shout out to julian shout out julian that's sick um okay let's get to our interviews we got college football talk with tom fornelli then mario cristobal then jerry from meow mix and we're going to finish up with faqs okay before we talk some college ball with our good friend Tom Franelli want to talk to you about Chevy football season is here and whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for the kickoff there's one ride that's always game ready Chevy Silverado the Chevy Silverado is a longtime partner pardon my take in our favorite truck and it's all about grit from job site to tailgate Silverado lets you show up strong and tackle any task built for the hustle ready for the game Silverado is America's most dependable full-size truck for JD Power 2025 award information Visit jdpower.com slash awards.

1:14:19Head to chevy.com to learn more and build your own Chevy Silverado today. Okay, here he is, our good friend, Tom Franelli. All right, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. It is Tom Franelli talking college football. We are in week seven. It has been an awesome football season so far. A lot of teams that we thought were going to be good are not good. A lot of teams we didn't think were going to be good are good. let's start tom because i want to do a little like look back on week six but also look forward to week seven but let's start with the biggest story penn state james franklin is there any chance they buy out ben or james franklin and uh move on from him i mean i i can't say there's not any chance i don't know if i'd consider it likely but you see like this week after the ucla lost Like there are columnists from every single outlet.

1:15:14It feels like writing the, is it time for James Franklin and Penn State to go opposite directions, you know, to finally part ways. So it's the first time you've kind of seen that, which is typically a sign that it might be coming. But I don't know, because I think it's a dangerous proposition because there's no excuse for what happened last week at UCLA. Like losing in double overtime to Oregon, fine. Like we all typically thought that was going to happen. That's been Penn State's problem all along. But like these games against UCLA are just the games that Penn State has always won under James Franklin.

1:15:46So it's going to lead to this kind of discussion. But it's also a situation where, like, I don't know what your goal would be if you fire James Franklin. Like, who are you going to replace him with who can realistically do a better job than James Franklin has been doing? Yeah. Because it reminds me kind of like a situation that we saw, you know, like when Nebraska fired Bo Pelini. Like, they thought that they could do better. And we know how that's gone for them since they have not done better. And you look at Penn State as a program like it's one of the best programs in the country. It has been for a long time.

1:16:20But even with that being said, they've won two national titles in their history. Like the last one was over 40 years ago in 1986 or just under 40 years ago. If you want to count 1994, it was over 30 years ago. So it's not like this was a program that was winning national titles constantly or competing for them. like Joe Paterno's got the only ones to the program's name. And even Joe Paterno, it took him 16 years before he finally won his first national title, which is not to say, I think Penn state just needs to give James Franklin five more years and he'll break through, but I don't really put this on him as much as I put it on everybody hyping this team up a little too much because of everything that they had coming back.

1:17:00And we were just looking around. It's like, there are so many questions at all these other programs, Penn state's got all these dudes coming back. Maybe this is the year. And I mentioned it when I was on before the season started. Yeah, they did have a lot coming back, but they also did not have their best player on offense and their best player on defense. And the guys who did come back from last year didn't really win a national title. They won playoff games against SMU and Boise State, and then they lost to Notre Dame as soon as they ran into another real team in the playoffs. So I think the expectations were probably too high, which I don't think is fair to James Franklin if he's going to lose his job now.

1:17:33But I could see it happening. I just I don't think it's likely because of the available coaches. Like, who are you bringing in to replace him? Who's the guy that you say? Oh, yeah. But it's Kurt. He could leave Indiana for Penn State. Yeah. I mean, I spent years hearing that he was going to go to West Virginia. In my mind, I was like, he's only going to end up at West Virginia. That's the only school. And then he made statements kind of not necessarily saying that, but to that effect. And then he goes to Indiana. Major pay bump. I understand why he takes that job. He's winning there. If Penn State offers him just an incredible amount of money, I don't think that there's anything that's tying Kurt Tinetty to Bloomington.

1:18:13Yeah, I think Penn State is one of the jobs he would definitely leave Indiana for. I think there are a lot of jobs that have come open or are likely to come open that he's been mentioned for that I don't really see as upgrades over Indiana, which I know it's weird, but we're in a very new situation now where Indiana has money and they're spending it on their football program and might be in a better spot. But the problem is if you're Penn State and you're hiring Kurt Zegnetti, he's 64. So it's not like he's a long term answer. So it's like I feel like if you're going to replace James Franklin, you'd need to find your own Dan Lanning kind of hire.

1:18:42But Dan Lanning obviously isn't going to leave Oregon for Penn State. And it's just I don't know that that guy's available. All right. So would you get Matt Rule from Nebraska, bring him home? Is he the answer? Yeah, that doesn't that doesn't really fix it. So the last thing about Penn State, Penn State, obviously two losses, haven't beaten a Power 4 program yet. If Penn State were to somehow run the table, is Penn State going to be in the playoffs? Do they still have that in front of them? Yeah, if they run the table, they're in. Because if they run the table, they pick up wins at Ohio State and Indiana along the way.

1:19:14And you might also be in the Big Ten championship if you're 7-2 in conference play, especially if you beat Ohio State. So I would think that 10-2 with a win over Ohio State along the way would be enough to get you in as an at-large, even with the UCLA kind of anchor around your neck. But the reality of the situation is the odds of Penn State running through the rest of their schedule winning out are very low. Yeah. Because, yeah, like they have to play at Ohio State. And then the very next week they're playing Indiana. And it's like they'll probably lose the Ohio State game and maybe they beat Indiana.

1:19:44But if you're 9-3 with a win over Indiana, that's probably going to knock you out of the at-large discussion pretty quick. Yeah, I'm glad Big Cat asked that because I was going to ask you a similar thing about the SEC. What is the most surprising SEC team that you think could run the table and make the playoff? That could run the table from here on out? I would say Texas A &M. I do think that they are legitimately good. I was skeptical of them early in the year. I thought the offense was fine. They really hit on the portal at receiver with Concepcion and Craver. the defense looked like ass though for like the first three weeks of the season but they've kind of figured things out and gotten their act together the last few weeks and I think that this is suddenly a team that is exceeding expectations who has a ton of talent on offense at the skill positions is strong along the lines of scrimmage and the back end of that defense which was struggling earlier in the year is starting to look a lot better so I'm not saying that they will I'm just saying they strike me as a team that is much better than anybody truly expected which is not something you can say about most programs in the sec or the big 10 it feels like almost everybody except for like ohio state and oregon have been somewhat of a disappointment yeah all right so uh the next big question i had for you uh how happy do you think steve sarkisian is that james franklin and penn state exist because it really does feel like the majority of the discussion online has been james franklin and penn state meanwhile steve sarkisian texas is an utter disappointment Arch Manning does not look ready.

1:21:19They put, you know, this was a whole thing. Like, this is Arch's year. Listen, I bought it. I'm an idiot. I believed in it. Like, what is going on? Are they going to potentially bench Arch at some point? Like, Oklahoma's defense this weekend is legit legit. And now you've got to go play them at the Red River. It could get even worse than it's been, and it's been bad. Yeah, I don't know if they'll bench him because, honestly, I don't know that they have an option behind them that they feel is truly an upgrade. I do think you're right, though, about Sark, because a lot of the narratives that James Franklin gets hammered with, you can kind of hit Steve Sarkeesian with the same ones.

1:21:57And Texas has been very disappointing. Like that was a team that had replaced nearly its entire offensive line. It replaced a whole bunch of guys. And defensively, they're still right there. I think on the defensive side of the ball, Texas is still one of the best teams in the country. But offensively, they just haven't been there. arch has been a huge problem with it but i don't think he's the only problem i think he garners most of the attention though because of all the hype that was surrounding him heading into the season and i am surprised like i knew when arch came out of high school that he wasn't really ready to be a starter in the sec or at that level but i would have i thought like the last few years sitting on the bench developing behind quinn ewers like we were going to see a much more polished player than what we have seen to this point he just looks like a freshman even though he's now in his third year on campus.

1:22:40So I think that is very alarming. I think the fact that they can't run the ball because the offensive line can't block anybody is also very alarming and not helping the situation. And you look at them like with that schedule, everybody was talking before the season that in the context of the SEC, Texas is actually catching some breaks. The schedule is not that difficult. Well, it looks a whole hell of a lot more difficult now with the way that they've been playing. And it's really hard to imagine that they're going to get to the playoff. I really don't think they've got a shot of getting to Atlanta.

1:23:09So it's like at large or best, but the way that they're going, unless Arch like the light flips on and he's able to recognize what a defense is doing before the snap and get the protections right, which I think he's really struggling to do right now. I just don't see Texas being able to pull this off. Like they're not going to fall off a cliff, but seven and five. That's kind of within the realm of possibility. Yeah, it is. But yeah, but they'd still get to a bowl game though. You know what I mean? They're not going to finish five and seven or four and eight. But that's not like Texas has fired coaches for reaching bowl games.

1:23:38Like that's not, that's not what they're looking to do. And if, if the name on the back of your Jersey says Manning and you're the quarterback at Texas, the expectations are so high that, yeah, that would be seven and five would be a big disappointment in Austin. Oh yeah, for sure. It's just, I don't think that like for me, wheels falling off is not getting to a bowl game. And I think that if you're a Texas fan, like you can look at the schedule and you can say, well, yeah, well look, we lost to five really good teams, man. You know, Ohio state and Oklahoma, and all these teams made the playoff, and you can kind of feel good about it.

1:24:07Florida. They need Florida to win some more games so that they can say, hey, Florida actually not that bad of a team that we lost to. They aren't. Billy Napier with his back against the wall might be the best coach ever. He literally just – get them almost fired, and he'll start performing. He might get off of the Penn State job. Yeah. The thing about Florida is, like, all the promise pinned on that team in the preseason – because everybody knew the schedule was just incredible. Like they had, they were going through the gauntlet every single week, but it was always like, yeah, but if DJ Lagway starts to live up to his potential, man, they're going to be so good.

1:24:40And last week was the first time DJ Lagway looked like the guy everybody thought he could be. And he was dealing with injuries all off season. He looked kind of, you know, not a hundred percent start the year. You could tell that the lack of lack of practice time in the off season had impacted him. But last week he looked like a guy who was finally starting to get comfortable. And if the DJ Lagway we saw last week is the guy they have for the rest of the year, florida's gonna beat some teams they're not gonna get to the playoff but they're gonna pick up a couple more wins that leave people kind of surprised yeah uh tom there was there was a rumor that was floating around the internet this week i i wanted to go to you because i feel like you'd be more plugged in than anybody else um are are you familiar with the sources that have mater coming back for the red river shootout we still call it the shootout are you familiar with that i am yes so the story is that somebody was standing next to him in a chipotle and then overheard him say, like, I feel good?

1:25:31Is that it? The person that posted this said that Matier told the Chipotle employee he is 100 % going to play versus Texas. And they've been, like, a little bit cagey about the injury, which you would expect them to be. And I know that, like, the local hand surgeon or whatever has turned into a celebrity, and all the Sooner fans, they're, like, gassing him up, leaving good reviews. Dr. Shin. Yeah, so what are you hearing? Do you have an update on the Chipotle story? I feel like, you know, John Mateer is probably already getting his burrito for free, so he has no reason to lie to try to get, like, double meat for free from the guy behind the counter.

1:26:09So I don't think you can't not trust him when he says he's 100 % going to play. My skepticism is the point spread hasn't moved, and these rumors have been out there, but nobody's budging on that. Texas is still favored by two and a half last I checked. And I also feel like you saw the volume of reports on Tuesday morning about John Mateer might play this week against Texas. I feel like if Oklahoma really thought he was going to play, they'd be keeping that under wraps. They wouldn't be floating out that possibility. But there was a picture of John Mateer in a Chipotle with a Chipotle employee.

1:26:44That's enough for me. And people are speculating that this is potentially the very same employee that he shared the news with. i mean this is all i don't know what's the word in court like when the evidence is circumstantial there we go this is all circumstantial evidence but the circumstances speak pretty loudly yeah sometimes that can be enough i mean i would you lie into chipotle it feels like it's wrong yeah i'd be like no i don't need to use the restroom it's like being in church yeah yeah you can't do it uh i'm gonna say something you tell me if it's crazy okay ohio state this year is better than Ohio State last year I don't think it's crazy I think it's certainly possible but this is you know when when I was on the show a couple months ago I got yelled at by you and Brandon because I was saying that Ohio State was doing like load management last year and what I did not get across correctly when I was making that statement was I didn't say they I didn't mean to say they were going half speed in games against Oregon and Michigan what Ohio State was doing last year was in those other games that weren't Ohio State or Michigan, they were going half speed.

1:27:50They were just doing whatever they had to to get by, kind of like what I thought Penn State was doing in non-conference before they started playing real teams and looked just as bad. So like Ohio State was flipping a switch in its big games, and they came up short against Oregon by a point on the road in the regular season, and then Michigan did the thing where Michigan just beats them because Ohio State can't beat Michigan anymore. But then we saw once they got to the playoffs and flipped a switch again, absolute juggernaut. Right. This year, my argument was Ohio State couldn't really afford to do that because they had too many new guys coming in and they have to work Julian saying in.

1:28:21So I think that the effort level you're seeing so far from the Buckeyes is higher than the effort level you saw from last year, which was a very veteran team that already knew who it was and just knew that it had to survive to get to the playoffs. and then things would take care of themselves from there. So I don't think Ohio State is really going – I still think last year's team was better. I think that by the end of this year, this team could be better because I do think there is an argument to be made that the defense is better than last year's defense. I think Patricia is just confusing the ever-living crap out of all the quarterbacks that he has faced so far.

1:28:57These kids do not know what they're looking at before the snap, and it's really showing up. And once they get to the red zone, they're just absolutely clamping down and not giving up anything. So I think the defense is very, very, very good. The offense to me is not quite to where last year's was. And I think that that could change as the year goes on, just simply because we're seeing week by week. They're giving Julian San a little bit more responsibility. They're lengthening the leash. They're letting him move the ball downfield more often. And I think that he's very, very talented and he's shown excellent poise and excellent accuracy.

1:29:27He's like showing you everything you want to see from a young quarterback as far as growth is concerned. So I think by the end of the year, it could 1 ,000 % be true. Right now, I don't agree with you, but I don't think it's crazy. Well, I'm happy I'm early on the take because part of the take is the defense is phenomenal. I think Julian Sain's ceiling as a passer is way higher than Will Howard's. So that's where I'm going for is like if Julian Sain keeps on this path, this offense is going to be – like you even saw it in the Washington game where they kind of were like, hey, Washington's not going to score on us.

1:29:58We're going to play defense. We'll be fine. but then there was moments where they're like you know what let's let's do the jeremiah smith thing and let's fucking let's just fuck them up for like a series and you could see it there i think it's coming i think ohio state this year better than last year the the difference to me though is like and this is no disrespect to carnell tate or cj donaldson or even the great bo jackson who has been brought back to life to play running back for ohio state it's just last year's offense also had a mecca yeah trevion henderson and quinshot judkins and i don't think they have those guys They still have Jeremiah, obviously, though.

1:30:29Yeah. I do like that take, though. That also sets Ohio State up for, like, that would be the biggest disappointment of all time if they didn't win a back-to-back national championship. Or if they don't beat Michigan. Or if they don't beat Michigan. Yeah. Are you feeling like there's any chance for Luke Altmyer in your Illini on Saturday? I always feel like there's a chance, which is a lie I tell myself. You have to. Yeah. It's tough. Like Illinois defense has been beaten up the last few weeks and going up against Ohio State when when your secondary is banged up is probably not the best spot to be in.

1:31:04But I will say offensively, I think Illinois is legit. The concern is that we saw against Indiana, not just forget the final score, which was a 53 point just complete ass whooping by the Indiana Hoosiers in Bloomington. But like offensively, they got completely stonewalled by Indiana in that game. And it was a lot of the offensive line had issues picking up blitzes and all that kind of stuff. And I think that Ohio State, as I just mentioned with Matt Patricia, has done an incredible job of confusing quarterbacks. But the one thing Illinois has going for it is Luke Altmyers is a third year starter who's also in his third year with the same offensive coordinator.

1:31:40So like they they have answers to the tests more than a lot of the other quarterbacks that Ohio State has faced to this point. Whether or not they can execute it and do it well enough to overcome a defense, that's probably going to have a really difficult time stopping the Buckeyes, that remains to be seen. Yeah. I want to talk a little Texas Tech with you. People are like, talk about our football program. Texas Tech, I think they're finally being respected. They're top ten now in the country. Should Texas Tech start to prepare themselves for a world in which they win their conference and then do not get a bye?

1:32:14We had this conversation just on the show the other day. Yeah, I think that's very possible. I think that if you look at the Big 12, the problem Texas Tech faces right now is like before the season started, it was like the Big 12 is great. Nobody's really good enough to pull away. Every game is going to be super fun. It feels like Texas Tech has pulled away. Yeah, it does. They spent a ton in the portal and they've hit on most of the guys that they got in the portal. They have a good starting quarterback. And as we saw in the Utah game, they have a very good backup quarterback in case Baron Morton goes down again.

1:32:42And on the defensive line, they're just in a completely different planet than the other teams that they're facing in the Big 12 week by week. The problem that they face is by the end of the year, there's no guarantee that they'll have a ranked win yet. And we know like the SEC campaigns to get like the SOS metrics changed in the college football playoff formula. So there's a very real chance that like Texas Tech could be 13 and 0 come the end of the season. And like Ohio State and Oregon could both get buys if they reach the Big Ten championship game. Miami could be undefeated. So they're probably going to get a buy in that case.

1:33:17and like the SEC champion at 10 and 2 will have the much higher SOS metric than Texas Tech and they will get put ahead of the Red Raiders who are forced to play in the first round. I think that, yes, it's a very real spot because just look back the last year. Arizona State won the Big 12. Obviously, they lost two games, but they were ranked behind Alabama who did not make the college football playoff and had three losses. So the committee doesn't really have a ton of respect for that league. Yeah. When it comes to Miami, what's the biggest speed bump that you could see on their schedule? because it feels like they've beaten some teams that everybody had circled at the start of the year.

1:33:49The ACC, not exactly super strong. There are some good teams, like UVA's pretty good. Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech's pretty good. But what's the biggest speed bump that you see in Miami's way between here and the playoff? I think Miami's biggest speed bump is always Miami. I think that, you know, like a lot of times you've seen in recent years. That's a very Miami thing. Yeah, taking those bumps. I mean, like last year their defense was terrible. So it's like that's why they were always stuck in these shootouts with inferior opposition because their defense couldn't get any stops. I think the biggest difference this year is their defense is legitimately good.

1:34:22It's like it's the defensive line. Reuben Bain and those guys are getting all the attention. Reuben Bain's being mentioned as a Heisman candidate. He is. But it's the back end. You're right. I'm glad you brought that up because he is being mentioned. I've heard it everywhere. Reuben Bain possible. I mean, if you look at the odds, extremely long shot. But, yes, he should be talked about, Tom. Thank you. I agree. And I think that you should definitely hold on to that ticket until he's announced as a finalist and then cash out at the earliest opportunity once that happens, because there's no way in hell he'll win.

1:34:49But I also think that when you look at the rest of that defense, like the secondary, they went to the portal. They replaced a lot of guys. They've hit on them. Their defensive philosophy has changed. I think that they are a legitimately good football team. And you look at the rest of the ACC, Florida State should have been its most difficult opposition in conference play. And it was, but they kind of made it look easy. Florida State had that comeback late to make the game look a lot closer than it was. But you look at the rest of their schedule, their only road games are at SMU, and I don't think SMU is nearly as good as it was last year.

1:35:19Then they finished the year with road trips to Virginia Tech, who will probably be dead and buried by then. They're already on an interim coach, so by the end of the season, who knows how much that team's even going to care. And then I think the trickiest spot is the final game of the season at Pitt because that's just the kind of thing Pat Narduzzi would do. but if Miami's undefeated by then and they lose that game to Pitt, they're still going to be in the ACC championship and they'll probably still win that game and they'll probably still get a bye. Yeah. All right. SEC. Who's going to win the SEC and is it Alabama?

1:35:52Because they're back. I do think it's Alabama. I love Ty Simpson, by the way. He's awesome. Ty Simpson. Yeah. Ty Simpson might be the best quarterback in the country, right? Yeah. And it's funny because I think back to like two or three years ago, whenever it was when they were playing South Florida in that monsoon and they were playing the games with like Jalen Milrow where they benched him and they went and Ty Simpson got into that game and he looked terrible and then they come back and you're like Ty Simpson's going to be the starter that dude from the South Florida game oh my god sell your Alabama stock but he's one of those few instances we're seeing these days where oh my god sitting on the bench and learning has actually helped him get better because even in the Florida State game like He was making really nice throws.

1:36:33He was just a little late on a lot of them. He had open receivers and he was missing, and it was just like, okay, this is a kid in a tough spot, not seeing it quick enough. Ever since then, he's seeing it. He can make every single throw. He can do it from the pocket. We saw last week he's able to do it while on the move, both going to his right and to his left. He's able to come back across his body and put zip on a throw back across the field. I think he's legitimately like Fernando Mendoza, Dante Moore. you're seeing them in the mock drafts as first rounders. I think Ty Simpson, by the time the season will end, will be like a top half of the first round kind of draft pick in all the mocks.

1:37:07And I look at Alabama, you know, the game against Florida State to me felt like the result, especially based on what we've seen in the week since, is Alabama defensively took the wrong approach and Florida State and Tommy Castellanos torched them. And we have seen defenses adjust and approach Florida State in different ways since then. And it worked for Virginia. It worked for Miami. It worked for Alabama last week against Vanderbilt, although Vanderbilt did shoot itself in the foot a few times there. But overall, I think Alabama is the team I trust the most in the SEC. I don't think that, like, well, I look at Texas Tech as a heavy favorite to win the Big 12.

1:37:39I look at Miami as a heavy favorite to win the ACC. I don't think Alabama is a heavy favorite to win the SEC simply because I still think that, you know, I mentioned Texas A &M earlier. They're good. I think Oklahoma is good if material is healthy. I think Mizzou might be better than most people realize and I think that Georgia still has a chance to be awesome and Ole Miss I'm not huge on Ole Miss but damn it they don't lose so it's like at some point I just have to tip my cap to them and say I don't really like the way you're going about it but damn it you keep proving me wrong every single week so yeah it's it's really tough like there's a chance I think there's a much better chance that people think that the SEC is going to get five teams into the playoff yeah the SEC is the new big 12 outside of the fact that they're going to get five teams but it's the new Big 12 and the fact that I feel like any team can beat any team any weekend because there's just not that superpower like Alabama's two and a half point favorite against Mizzou yeah I know it's crazy it's kind of surprising when you see that right but I mean that's that's just a testament to how good Mizzou is like they've they haven't played in any big games so they haven't really gotten a lot of attention but if you've watched them you're like holy shit this team's pretty damn good yeah yeah what about Tennessee I think Tennessee is good I don't think Tennessee is great and I I feel like they kind of they missed their opportunity because they outplayed Georgia in that game yep like if you from start to finish Tennessee was a better team for most of that game and they had they came up short and they lost by three points I think that Joey Aguilar is good but I don't think he has the kind of arm strength that you know like a Joe Milton can bring back to the Tennessee days but it just like he's throwing a lot of pretty deep balls but there's some rainbows to him and if you go back to that georgia gabe there were a couple touchdowns he threw that probably should have been intercepted more than they should have been touchdowns they just the ball bounced their way and they took advantage of it it's just defensively i think they've slipped a little bit and offensively i don't think that they're outstanding i think that they are a team that can compete for one of the sec's playoff bids but they strike me as a team that if they get to the college football playoff they're probably going to lose their first round game i would feel a lot better about tennessee if they had bam at home that's the thing it's like i could see them beating alabama at home i i can't really picture them going down there and doing that again based on what I've seen from so far but the nice thing about Aguilar is he's he's usually very accurate he knows where to go with the football he's played enough ball where he can like get through his progressions and I think in that offense that's that's really what you're looking you don't need a guy like Joe Milton who's like obviously super fun to watch when he throws the ball to the moon but I feel like that's the prototypical guy that you need in that offense oh yeah he's a clear upgrade over what Nico was for them last year.

1:40:12It's just I don't think that as a team, this team is as good as last year. I think they have a better quarterback, and I don't think they're as good at other spots. Are we back in on Nico? That was a great performance by Nico. It was incredible. I feel like a lot of people sold their Nico stock at rock bottom, and maybe we get a little bounce back. I said he should be a wide receiver or a tight end. Put some weight on. I like that. I've never sold all my Nico stock, but I do feel like last week might be a bit of fool's gold. I think that Penn State was just still kind of in shock over what had happened to them against Oregon.

1:40:46Yeah, but I mean, he looked good. He looked really good. And also, Neuheisel's getting all the credit for that victory. He is, and I don't know that, I mean, credit to him. I think, honestly, this is a little too in the weeds, but I think a big part of what happened last week is A, that Penn State was still in shock over the Oregon game. But B, with Neuheisel now as the new offensive coordinator, like penn state had absolutely no idea what u.s ucla's offense was going to look like they hadn't seen it nobody had so it's really hard to prepare for so like in the first half ucla is moving the ball on them penn state's like what the hell what are they doing ucla gets whatever 20 something points then the second half penn state's defense locked them down the problem penn state had was their offense was just wait like there was no excuse for their offense to perform the way that they did well and you're forgetting the biggest reason the tarmac's not big enough in happy valley so they had to drive an hour and a half to fly.

1:41:35It's crazy. It's fucking insane. Franklin's right. They basically stacked the deck against him last week. Why didn't they just take a three-hour Uber drive to a different airport? I also don't know why Penn State, if you have all this money, why not just build a bigger tarmac? I mean, that's what we're doing, right? That's what the TV money's for. Yeah, right. Also, if you're Penn State, you should be able to understand how to bounce back from really crushing losses. yeah it's kind of like that's kind of what you do i put the blame on us because we convinced them that this was their year i blame brandon that's who i okay yeah i agree that was lame brandon blame uh you have sources you have inside information how just how bad is it at unc oh it's awful i mean it's it's a dumpster fire it's like the stuff you're hearing in that's coming out now, you've kind of been hearing it for a few weeks from people, but it's, you just have to look at the team on the field to kind of understand that, yeah, it's nobody really understands.

1:42:37The players are completely, like, the players, you watch them on the field, they don't know what's coming. They look like they're completely unprepared. And now you've got, like, Mike Lombardi releasing this long-winded trust the process kind of letter to the public, like saying, hey, come on, this was the plan all along, right? We were going to suck on purpose. You just have to trust the process. Like Mike, there are no draft picks. Like you, you have to recruit these dudes. And it's a staff that thought, you know, Bill Belichick thinks he's the greatest football coach ever. And he might be like, you want a lot of super bowls, but the NFL is very different from college.

1:43:13Like at the NFL, everybody's super talented. You can gain an edge by out scheming your opponent. You also gain an edge by having a superior quarterback at the college level. the scheme only matters so much if you're not, you know, if you're not as talented as the team you're playing, like a zone pattern matching scheme on your defense and zone isn't really going to mean shit if the other team's just playing better than you and kicking your ass along the lines of scrimmage. And they went to put together a team in the portal and they really just kind of took guys. It wasn't taking top guys. They were taking guys that they could get and they weren't able to get a ton of really good guys.

1:43:47And it's showing every single week. Yeah. The tone from Lombardi in that, in the letter was like, I really respected the 76ers for how they messaged the process i i emulate being able to being able to uh i would love to be able to get you to buy into i really love the way that the 76ers were able to get you to buy their bullshit about not trying to win yes that's exactly he's like i wish i could convince people to let me do my job when i'm not winning and i'm not getting results because they did an awesome job of that but that did just let me cash my checks okay it did not inspire confidence that they're actually doing things to try to win it was just like hey just get off my back for a little bit yeah buddy uh there was that report that came out today i think it was wral the uh yeah i read that the long story about just how bad things are getting there and it seems like uh none of the parents like lombardi no or at least none of the parents that spoke to this article they called him rude and nasty uh they say that belichick is like okay in terms of how he interacts with players but there's no communication with their families going on here and now they just canceled tard Tardnox, the documentary that was going to be on Hulu.

1:44:55First, it was going to be on TV. Then they canceled it over the summer. Then they redid it again. Now they're canceling it again. We need that footage, by the way, because there is footage. It's out there. We need that footage. We will air Tardnox in its entirety on Barstool Sports. Someone drop box. It's a PMTV episode. Yeah, if you can send it over to us. It does feel like this is just – there's a lot of things happening that would point to Belichick not sticking around too much longer? Is that something that you think is on the table? Oh, I definitely think it's on the table. I don't know. I don't like the details of the buyout on North Carolina's end.

1:45:33Like, I know that Belichick could leave and he only has to pay like a million at the end of the season, right? I don't know if it's the same kind of sweet deal for North Carolina on their end. Like, they might still have to pay him a significant chunk of money to move on. And I don't know if they have the stomach for doing it. But I also feel like at a certain point, you kind of can't just think about the money. You have to think about the state of the program. And we've seen it like the stadium's empty. Fans aren't sticking around for this shit like they've seen through it. They understand that it was a joke all along now and they're just going to move on and they're not going to care.

1:46:04And I think that right now with the current state of college football and just the way things are working, Like the settlement of the lawsuit from Florida State and Clemson against the ACC basically bought the league five more years because Florida State and Clemson, once that deal is up, are leaving. They're going to go to the Big Ten or the SEC wherever they can get a home. North Carolina is going to have to follow them. And I think that the thing that they need to worry about is you can't become an afterthought in football right now because in five years you still need to be an attractive property or a program for the Big Ten or for the SEC.

1:46:37And if your program goes completely in the tank because of this and you don't move on and you don't, you know, just try to buy your way out of it, essentially, and bring in an actual football coach, you could find yourself without a life raft. You could be Washington State. You could be Oregon State. You could just be sitting in the jungle by yourself. And it's important to remind people in case they didn't know. The athletic director at North Carolina did not want to hire Bill Belichick. He wanted to go after a traditional coach like a Matt Campbell or a John Summerall, just going after somebody to bring in the job.

1:47:04It was boosters and members of the board of trustees that pushed Bill Belichick on Bubba Cunningham. So I think that if this were Bubba's decision, I think Bill would be gone already. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, the Mike Lombardi, I always I just looked it up because I remember reading this a while ago. Chuck Closerman once wrote it's it's such a mean quote, but it's probably apropos for Mike Lombardi. he called Mike Lombardi a detail freak and a polymath, or at least a person successfully attempting to impersonate one. That's so mean. That's so mean. And it feels like right now we're on the impersonation part.

1:47:40Successfully. Successfully, yeah. But now he's unsuccessful. Successfully impersonating him. He needs to get better at his impersonation of Sam Hinckley. Yeah. Oh, my God. Imagine reading that and just be like, wait a second. Fuck. Yeah. What percentage of your listeners do you think know what polymath means? I don't. Yeah, I think it's something. What is it? I would have guessed it's someone that can do addition and subtraction. Yeah, I was going to say someone who just sees numbers everywhere, like Russell Crowe. It's like a renaissance man. It's like you're really smart at a lot of things. Okay, yeah.

1:48:08So polymath is a person with expert knowledge in several diverse fields driven by a deep curiosity and lifelong love of learning. That's not what I thought it was. Someone would call that a jack of all trades, master of none. Yeah. I thought it was a guy who'd like to fuck both algebra and geography. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a polymath. I like watching Big Ten football and Mac football. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, I'm a polyvast. Sometimes I bet the under, too. Yeah. Holy shit. I go both ways. What about elsewhere in the Carolinas? Dabo. My good friend Dabo Swinney, which is a fun name to say. We've been talking about him a lot.

1:48:46He did get him and Bill Belichick combined to get the Ludacris concert moved to 930 a.m., which is that is that's just the biggest insult. That's a sad state of affairs with those programs. But we've been talking about Dabo and whether or not he would get another big-time coaching offer if it didn't work out at Clemson. So I guess I got a two-part question. One, how much longer would you see Dabo sticking around at Clemson? Like, is this where you think he's still going to remain even if things don't go his way? And then two, if he does leave, is there a big-time, like a big-time college football team that would want him as their head coach?

1:49:22I I don't think Dabo's going anywhere this year I think he will finish the season at Clemson and I also I think they're what they're two and three now they'll probably end up seven five eight and four so like as the schedule gets easier I think they're going to rack up some wins and they'll look a lot better come the end of the season I still think though that he's going to have to like have a come to Jesus moment and be like all right I really need to start using the portal if I can't keep winning my way. I'm doing it the quote unquote right way that worked for him in the past because it's clearly not working for him in the present.

1:49:55And whether he wants to say it out loud or not, like the, he, he raised the expectation level for the program. He has to, he deserves credit for it. But now that you've done that, your fan base has grown accustomed to a certain level of success that they now expect. And if you're not competing for national titles, well, they're going to turn on you at some point. And I think Dabo needs to decide for himself. Do I want to keep doing it my way and just eventually get kicked out of here and lose the job? Or do I want to keep this job and adapt and try to win the way that you have to win in the modern era?

1:50:24I don't know what decision he makes there. If he did get fired at Clemson, ask for the idea that another top program would come along. I would bet at least one would. I don't know who it would be, but we're just talking about North Carolina hiring Bill Belichick. So like for Dabo Swinney, one of the few coaches out there who actually has national titles to his name if there is a big time program that has maybe fallen on hard times florida and is just sitting there trying to do something to kind of revitalize their program i could see somebody reaching out to dabbo and trying to bring him in hoping that he could rekindle that magic for them and dabbo might be like all right well you know maybe i'll go somewhere where they appreciate what i've done because they're not tired of it now i still think that unless he changes his approach he's not going to have the same kind of success no matter where he goes yeah i mean i just don't know why a big time program like florida would bring him in if he said hey listen i'm i'm gonna do it my way i'm not gonna i'm not gonna change you're getting dabbo you're not getting like the new age dabbo the next evolution i don't see why a big time program would think that that was a good idea because florida could convince itself that we'll have better players than what he was getting at clemson and we just need him to be dabbo okay or he's a big god guy what if he what if he sets an example for his team and he cuts his son right that's that's in the bible like i'll do it i'll cut clay i'm taking away your scholarship clay in front of the team that now we got a new one up for grabs that's what he should do i mean yeah he should try that and if that doesn't work maybe go to the transfer portal and find a quarterback and a wide receiver that's also a good idea yes uh tom this has been great i got one last question for you it's a rowback question rho b-a-c-k.com promo code TAKE.

1:52:0620 % off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com promo code TAKE. Saturday's slate is loaded. It is awesome. Awesome, awesome. I feel like this is... This is why I know that people don't... I think you don't like the college football playoff expanding to 12. I do. Because I love that a lot of these games feel like they mean more. Penn State still can play. They can still get in. But give us your favorite game and bet on Saturday. It can be two different things. My favorite game is obviously Illinois-Ohio State because Illinois is going to shock the world and knock the Buckeyes off.

1:52:44But if I wasn't picking that game, I mean, I think – I love the Red River shootout or whatever we're supposed to call it. We're calling it shootout. Same. Yeah. Oklahoma-Texas. I mean, I hope Mateer plays because I would like them to be at full strength for that game. But regardless, like both of those, they could be like – there's so many times in the Big 12 in recent years where they were like seven and five teams. I didn't care. I was still watching the hell out of that game because I thought it was really fun and entertaining. So that's the one I'm most looking forward to. As far as my favorite bet right now, I think the wrong team is favored in Los Angeles.

1:53:16I think Michigan's a better football team than USC. If you want to take the points, go for it. I'm probably just going to be on the Michigan money line. Bryce Underwood's really good. He's getting better every week. And, you know, Jade Maiev is really good, too. But USC is kind of banged up. and I think Michigan's just much better than they are along the lines of scrimmage and I think if Underwood continues his progression he's just going to get better and better and better and he's got so much talent that by the end of the year like if Michigan sneaks into the playoff as an at-large and I think that's a certain possibility at this point and Underwood's kind of peaking they become a really dangerous team come playoff time that's gonna be really fun for us here at Barstool Sports it'll be great yeah it'll be great we're gonna have a lot of fun why is there somebody there who cares about Michigan a lot no I mean no basically the guy that bought price yeah well larry ellison doesn't work here yeah yet yet yes um all right tom you're the best thanks so much uh we love talking to you and uh hopefully see you soon look forward to it thanks for having me tom fernelli was brought to you by shell v-powered nitro plus premium gasoline it removes up to 100 of performance robbing deposits to rejuvenate your engine's performance you can Get more performance with every drive.

1:54:29Get more with Shell V-Power Nitro Plus Premium Gas Lead. You get more performance, more power, more protection, and more. It protects against carbon deposits, friction, and wear for better fuel efficiency in addition to engine performance. Get more performance with every drive. It's their best fuel ever, a fuel like no other. Learn more at shell.us slash more dash performance. Download the Shell app and locate your nearest station today. And now, here is Mario Cristobal. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. Very, very, very special guest. It is Miami Hurricanes head coach, Mario Cristobal, the number two ranked Miami Hurricanes.

1:55:13Coach, great to see you. First of all, congrats on winning the state title. I saw that. You finished it off this weekend with the Florida State win. I want to talk big picture, though, to start, though. You are known for being really great at inheriting programs that maybe are in hard times and turning them into what you got right now with Miami. You did it at Oregon. You did it at FIU. What's the secret sauce to be able to do that? Because it's such a difficult thing to do, and you've proven it time and time again that you're able to change a culture and turn a program around. First of all, thanks for having me on the show.

1:55:52It's an honor to be here. Secondly, it's really, it's not me. It's everybody that's tied into our organization. It's almost like real estate, right? When you see a place that's got a ton of potential but just hasn't been taken care of or done the right way, you go all in and it starts with just changing the DNA of the place with the right people and just littering the place from top to bottom with hardworking, driven self-starters that are all about just team and getting better. And that's hard to find nowadays. So it's a relentless process. We've been very fortunate to bring in the right kind of people that are high achievers and hard-working sons of guns and that happen to be really, really talented too.

1:56:36Yeah, you're known as a relentless recruiter. How is that working for you if your expectation is so high to recruit? Would you say that you're a driven guy? Like, do you push your guys as hard as possible? Yeah, I mean, the only thing our parents, or probably the most important thing our parents taught us, I mean, again, two parents that couldn't even speak the language and got here from another country and really didn't have a chance to raise us. They were working two jobs and one in night school. Our high school coach was responsible for that. But it was all about the work. And then I played for some coaches, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, they were all about the work and coaching for Butch Davis and Nick Saban.

1:57:14Work, work, work. So I learned a really hard lesson as a graduate assistant. When I came here in 97, 98, and Miami was awful. I mean, after being part of those championship teams as a player, Miami was awful. And we went on a tear in recruiting. I believe we had nine scholarships to give because Miami was on probation. And of those nine, seven ended up being first rounders. The eighth was a second rounder. The ninth was still a good player. And that turned into that 2001 team. And so I learned the value of recruiting very quickly and how the magic is in the players. Yeah. I read a story about your past when you were at Miami back in the late 90s that you were getting ready.

1:57:56You were prepping for a bowl game and you got a message on your pager saying that you had a job offer for the United States Secret Service. And that's a job that you had wanted. And you decided to say, no, I'm not going to be a Secret Service agent. I'm going to turn that down and stick with coaching football. I guess my first question would be like, how serious were you about becoming a Secret Service agent? I mean, I was gone. That was what I wanted to do. I became a GA by accident. I was working at some public relations firm right down the street, just losing my mind on a daily basis. And I remember back then there were no cell phones.

1:58:35I would fax the run game protections to my friend Rob Chudzinski, who was the tight ends coach here at the time. And I'm like, brother, you can't block things like that. You got to do this and that. And finally, he picked up the phone and said, just stop faxing me stuff. Come over and be a GA. I'm like, I'll be a GA. Those guys, like you do laundry, you do all the crappy tasks or whatnot. But I came over, talked to Butch Davis, and he gave me a shot. And I told him, I'm leaving. And whenever I get hired, it's probably going to take 18 months, two years. And when they called, I accepted the job.

1:59:11was on, I think it was the Gator Bowl, if I'm not mistaken. It was awesome, man. I'm fishing on one of those bowl excursions that they put you on with guys like Reggie Wayne and Santana Moss. They were puppies. They were babies. And I was gone. And then I woke up in the middle of the night and I said, hell no, I want to coach football. And that was it. Yeah. Has there ever been a what-if moment where you're like, what if I did join the Secret Service? How good would I be at that job? Yeah. I mean, I had a chance to visit the White House when I was at Alabama. And you look around like, okay, what if?

1:59:48But I'm good with the decision. And certainly I was honored to have that opportunity and honored to have the opportunity I have now. Yeah. Yeah, you mentioned Alabama. Nick Saban always has so much praise for you. And it feels like he's been a mentor for me. What have you learned from him? because it does feel like every time he talks about you, he's like, you know, you're one of his guys, so to speak. Yeah, I thought, you know, besides the way he managed all those resources, I thought the best thing he did, besides the regimentation, I mean, the offseason, the fourth quarter program, the surrender condition department, and he has his hand on everything.

2:00:26He was unbelievable. But I thought what he did best was the most underrated and the least talked about thing was his daily fight with complacency how he refused to allow any type of complacency to seep into the program and so he was just on it and and I loved it because that's how my high school coach was that's how my dad was may he rest in peace that's how that's what I was always used to and that's why I was I was so drawn to that opportunity and working there so I learned a ton and um it was awesome man he was he's been a great mentor so what are you doing with this team because this team obviously incredible start to the season.

2:01:03You guys are number two team in the country. You have everything in front of you. What are you doing to actively make sure that your players aren't getting their, I think it's to quote you, their ass cracks kissed. That's what you say. They always have, you know, we don't want to get their ass cracks kissed too much. So what do you do actively? Because it's obviously it happens, right? It's every football team goes through it. Yeah, it starts with the work, right? And we work at a level, at an intensity level. That's pretty insane, in a good way, in a smart way. But we're very honest and open about everything we do.

2:01:42we go direct, man. I mean, if you watch our film to us, we acknowledge very simply that we have a long ways to go. We've gotten better. We've, we've come so far in the trenches, the perimeter players for us on defense are now playing at a much higher level. Our skill guys are making plays, our young guys and our transfers have blended well together, but brother, we got a long way to go. We have massive improvement to be made to accomplish what we want to. I mean, it just, what we want to do requires us to get a hell of a lot better. There's only one way to do it, man. That's work our butts off.

2:02:14And they've accepted and allowed myself and our staff to push these guys as hard as they can be pushed. Yeah. What was it about Carson Beck that you saw and you said, okay, this guy is, I'm going to target this guy. He can make a difference in our program. He is exactly what we need. And there's a big price tag that goes along with him. But there's something about this guy that I feel like could take us to the next level. Yeah. I mean, watching his film in 23, he was off the charts. And if you go backwards in time, at the beginning of 24, he was the projected number one quarterback, right, to be taken.

2:02:47And Cam Ward was a projected fifth, sixth, seventh rounder at that time. So a year later, honestly, you know, obviously what Cam does, what he does, and he goes on and moves on. But watching Carson's film, there's a lot of really good film there. I just thought that schematically they were very different. The supporting cast was a little bit different. And I thought our offensive line, we thought our offensive line and our supporting cast suited him really, really well. I thought he was a strong arm, accurate arm, extremely intelligent, understood protections really well, put them in the right kind of runs.

2:03:21He understands numbers, leverage, angles in the run game, the screen game. And he's a grinder. Like, he understands football and he takes in new concepts really, really quickly. He's a really quick study with a super high football IQ. so we thought he was the perfect fit. Yeah, he's been great this season, and Big Cat was talking about the complacency stuff. How do you guard against your own? Do you notice small moments in the day where you're like, hey, Mario, you're being complacent right now. Snap out of it. How do you recognize that when it comes to yourself? To myself, man, I'm out the door way, way early, and don't get back until very late.

2:03:58And knowing that, look, I mean, I'm a nobody from right down the street. and I had an opportunity given to me by some awesome people, starting with Jimmy Johnson and going all the way to Butch Davis and whatnot. So I value opportunity and chances like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anyone else that values as much as I do. So that's my daily. I refuse to allow any of that, like, what do they call it? The relax mode, right? Leaf syndrome to get and creep into myself. And so it's my job and our assistant coaches' jobs because this starts with them. People are always saying, well, players nowadays are bullshit, right?

2:04:39It's the adults. The adults set the tone, right? And the players will follow. And we have the right kind of players with the right kind of mentality. It's full throttle every day, man. And you're honest. We don't sugarcoat anything. We don't try to be anybody's friend. We try to be their best mentor, their best truth teller. and everyone must recognize we only have them here from at the least one year maybe six months with the portal or up to four years some five that's not a long period of time so bust your ass this is a vocation this is not a part-time job it's not a check the box job so we just flat out go but we go all out for our players that's number one always players first as if it's your very own son what's it what time do you wake up in the morning you said that you get in really early Yeah, you know, I don't I don't like put the times out there because I think when people do that, it's like patting themselves on the back.

2:05:29I'm a hard worker. I'm a tough guy. I don't. It's it's pretty insane. But it's it's what needs to be done. It is not. I'm not doing anything extraordinary. I'm doing what has to be done, whatever is required of me. You know, I can't tell our players and our staff to bust their butts and go above and beyond and me not go above and beyond that. And that's what's supposed to happen. That's not something extraordinary or something super cool. That's your old secret service coming out right there. You just made sure that no one could know your schedule. That was smart. Competitive advantage. Stay ahead of it.

2:06:05I got a question about your phenom freshman, Malachi Tony. His nickname in high school was Baby Jesus. Did you watch his tape or were you just like when someone told you the nickname, you're like, all right, we want him? because that's hard to do to get baby Jesus as a nickname. Yeah, I'm Catholic, but I'm still going to watch tape. But my son, who's now in high school, was like, Papa, can I skip school? I'm like, what do you want to skip school for? He goes, I want to go watch baby Jesus play. What are you talking about, man? And we watched him in high school. Have you seen his high school tape?

2:06:43I haven't, but I would imagine, I mean, Florida speed is just different. I, I, and like, he's almost got different speed where like in that Florida state game, even there's moments where you're watching and it doesn't look like he's running that hard, but he's running so much faster than everyone else on the field. It's crazy to watch. Well, in high school, their quarterback got hurt and they were, I think they were four and two. They were kind of questionably making the playoffs and making a run. They put them at quarterback. They win the state title and the state title game. I think he was 15 of 15 for, I don't know.

2:07:17yeah he's um he's a this is the best part about the guy the guy's the ultimate professional he is in here as early as anybody or earlier he stays late his work ethic is just it's insane he does the things of a of a six-year NFL pro and uh he never like strays from that he is on it every single day he impacts other people he doesn't um he loves ball man you know his dad was in that legendary street race, you know, against Devin Hester back in the days that actually won that race. So the bloodlines are real down here in South Florida from a football standpoint. Yeah. How hands-on do you get to be as a head coach when it comes to, like, working on technique with the guys?

2:07:59Do you ever find yourself wanting to get in there? And then maybe, like – Every head coach does. Yeah, there's no question. I mean, obviously my, you know, my background is the trenches. I mean, so wherever the offensive line and D-line is and the tight ends and special teams, that's where I'll be for almost all of practice. You know, if I feel the skilled guys are getting a little bit sensitive, I'll go and watch them, you know, for a minute and a half, and then I'll get back to the trenches. We were talking to Coach O a few weeks ago. He came through our office. Great guy. We love Coach O. And he said that he stopped by Miami practice over the summer and that the trenches are going to be a strong suit for you guys.

2:08:33Did he, like, share anything with the players, or was he just there as an impartial observer just watching ball? Coach O is awesome. Both his sons, Parker and Cody, they work for us. They're both analysts on the offense and defense side of the ball, respectively. And Coach O, I always bend his ear for stuff now. Coach O has seen a lot of ball. Coach O was a graduate assistant and then the D-line coach when I was a player here. So he was on my ass all the time. I've known him forever. He's the one that if you miss English class because you decide to go fish in the lake on campus, he's the one that's going to run you at 5 a.m.

2:09:08So we all became really acquainted with Coach O. and his background in trench play is awesome and he's got a really good eye for the simplicity of technique and fundamentals as well as practice regimentation, overall just conceptual teaching, and he's been a really good guy to lean on. Yeah. All right, I got a question about your career that's fascinating to me. So you're a GA, like you said, at Miami, and you're maybe looking for a good first break. And tell me if this is right, but you are tasked with going to pick up a potential defensive coordinator from the airport. His name is Greg Sciano.

2:09:46You talk with him on the drive back from the airport. He ends up hiring you at Rutgers. Greg Sciano, Coach Sciano does not strike me as like a super amicable guy. How did you do that in like one car ride where you're just – you guys hit it off? Well, we hired him here at Miami. Okay. So he was a new defensive coordinator. He was, at that time, the Nichols coach for the Chicago Bears. Comes to Miami. Remember, back then, you didn't have all these analysts, man. Like, this is crazy now. We got like 400 people in the building. Back then, there was one GA on offense and one on defense. And your butt was working all day, all night.

2:10:22But Shiano, he's my nature, a grinder. So deep into the night, midnight, and beyond one, two, like, he was always around, always working. So I'd go in there, and he'd just throw stuff up on the board. And we'd talk pressures, right? He had those unique third down pressures back in the day, really exotic looks. And I'd learn a bunch about protections versus those pressures. And we just developed a relationship, worked together for that year and the next year. And then when he got the call at Rutgers, he asked me to go up there with him. Yeah, yeah. And I love to look back at the 2000 Miami Hurricanes roster.

2:10:57It's like that span. I know that you were there for the very start of it. But how good was that team? Like even just watching them practice, the 2000 roster had just, it feels like every awesome college football player that then became a great NFL football player was on that team. I feel like that had to be so much fun to watch them practice. It was awesome. But you know what? When I got here as a GA, I remember they asked me, how do you feel about the quality or the caliber of talent on the team? And it was like, man, this is bad. Miami was 5-7, 5-6 at the time. I think there were 11 games back then.

2:11:30And then those two, three recruiting classes stacked up. Man, that was a different look in a roster. I remember, you know, when you're a GA, you manage the scout team. So you're running the looks for, you know, I was managing the scout team for our offense. So my scout team players are Vince Wolfolk and Henry John Doma. And we're kicking the dog out of the offense. So Butch Davis is MFing me, the coordinator. All the coaches are just dropping all kinds of F-bombs on me. I'm like, dude, these guys are creatures. These guys are going to absolutely be super studs here in a very short amount of time.

2:12:06So it was awesome to see that transformation and Miami, you know, get to that level again pretty quickly. I mean, that's incredible. Vince Wilfrick on the scout team had to be a problem. That's insane. Jerome McDougal. I mean, these are like first rounder after first rounder. It was, you know, the battles out there on Green Tree. When I was a kid, when I was growing up, I used to come out here and watch Michael Irvin, Benny Blaze, Jerome Brown, Dan Cilio, I mean, Paul O 'Connor, Greg Ricosi, all those first-rounders. And I wanted to be a Miami Hurricane, but I was terrified to even think about competing with those guys.

2:12:41And so it was kind of neat to see that thing come full circle again as a GA. I loved watching Michael Irvin on the sidelines. That guy was fired up. Felt like he wanted to get in the game. He was itching to come off the sidelines. Is he going to be back on the sidelines for more games? He's around all the time, man. He's one of the most grateful guys to the University of Miami that you'll ever see. And we talk about it all the time. It's really important, in our opinion, that players come back and show that type of gratitude. I mean, we were all knuckleheads, man. Back in the day, we had great coaches, great mentors.

2:13:15We learned a ton. We got our diplomas, had got opportunities. And now we have a chance to impact the next generation. Mike and a lot of those guys come around all the time. Andre Johnson, Devin Hester. I could go on and on. John Vilma talked to the team. He was incredible. I mean, John Vilma, I mean, I could go on and on about the number of guys that come. Randall Hill, you know, remember his deal back in the tunnel in the Cotton Bowl. I mean, these guys are, they're incredible teammates, friends, and certainly mentors. I feel like Mike Irvin might need a get back coach at some point. You might have to like delegate one of the GAs to just be like, okay.

2:13:48He got whacked this last game. I think him and Holly Rowe got trampled. Rolled up on? Yeah. Yeah. I know you obviously probably avoid the media, but people love to talk about the you being back. Is that only when you lift a trophy and win a national championship? Is that the standard? Do you give yourself every now and then a moment, I know you don't like complacency, but to look back and be like, hey, this is my dream school. went here history here was you know came to practice and i've got things going in the right direction i can you know this is pretty damn cool what we're doing right now we never uh i've thrown that miami's back thing i've thrown that out from uh everything the term itself we don't we don't talk like that around and i'll tell you why it's like look my time here as a player i mean incomparable it's uh a time and a place that i don't think will ever be duplicated and the principles and values of that time absolutely we're carrying that and bringing it forward but everything we're doing is is going that way going straight ahead and i'm i'm not so like i don't spend a single second thinking about myself and my i came back to miami and left a really good situation because i've been watching it from afar for 20 years and i was i was really I got, I was pissed.

2:15:11I was angry that for 20 years watching my alma mater just decline and everyone taking shots at it, the whole world. And that happens, right? When you're, you do good things. And then all of a sudden you, you slide and everybody just wants to keep kicking a dog when it's down. And, um, I was just pissed and, um, and I knew it was going to be, you know, butt kicking when we got here early, cause a lot had to be done, but that's what finally did it. And I was just tired of Miami being that. And I was tired of our own people kicking Miami while it was down. I was just sick of it. And it's instead of being sick about it and talking about or making noise, go do something about it.

2:15:48So that's, that's why we're here. And we have a long ways to go. We've made a lot of progress, but brother, we have a long, long way to go. And we're at it. We had a great practice today. And we need to have an even better one tomorrow. Yeah. Do you worry at all about style points when you're in the middle of a game? Like when we say that it's like, okay, the voters out there, which ultimately like they don't play football they don't really know everything that goes on but they are the ones that are making the decisions of where you end up being ranked at the end of the week like do you worry during games like hey we need to put our foot on the gas here because we need to make sure that everybody knows how good we can be well we always want to keep our foot on the gas you know obviously we didn't play a really good fourth quarter the other night and uh and that's got to change and that will change but i think that your style points come in your style of play as well and if your style of play is out of substance where it's about legitimate blocking, tackling great pad level, physicality, and violence.

2:16:42That'll show, but we lean a little bit more. I would say a lot more on roster development as opposed to style points. And by that, I mean, if you can get your twos and threes, another 30, 35 snaps of live football, and I don't know, score once or twice, and maybe they score once, as opposed to another 35 points with your ones, we'll take roster development all day. because you're going to need those guys. At some point in time, they're going to have to play, and there's nothing like game experience. So we'll take development of the roster throughout what could be a very long season as opposed to style points.

2:17:17Yeah. Have you noticed your evolution as a coach maybe being a little more aggressive at times? Like the Florida State game, you had a fourth and two where you could maybe kick a field goal and you go for it, you score a touchdown on that play, and it goes from, you know, a game that was not close, but you guys were up 14-3, whatever it was, and then you kind of blow it up open with a 21-3 lead off that touchdown. Have you noticed that you've, as a coach, gotten a little more aggressive, a little more, hey, we've got to step on their throats when we get it, the more go for it on the fourth down that you see a lot of teams doing?

2:17:53Yeah, I mean, we always try to be aggressive. I mean, that's part of our deal. We throw caution to the wind and go play ball as best we can. And, you know, we do look at analytics and I'd say 99 % of the time is in line with what we're thinking and what our gut feel for the game and the situation, circumstances. But we do. We'd like to be aggressive as best we can because we do have a lot of trust and confidence in our players. Like, you know, we had a fourth and eight the other day that was that's like right on the line analytically. Yeah, you do. You go for it. If it's more than that, you're probably better off kicking it.

2:18:24And even before that, like we felt really good about the play call. we felt really good about the matchup we didn't execute it so um but it doesn't take away from the fact that we would still stay aggressive in that situation so uh we want to we want to stay along the lines of that yeah coach in your unbiased opinion who do you think uh the Heisman Trophy front runner should be right now I have no opinion on that whatsoever and I can honestly say our guys really don't care they really don't like it's not um it's never part of a topic I've never You know, obviously our guy Cam Gorby is the best of the best, and, man, he publicizes our guys like there's no tomorrow.

2:19:05But I watch a lot of football. Like I'm a manic about it. So I see a lot of crossover tables. There's a lot of great college football players out there. The only thing I would wish for the Heisman Trophy, that it was awarded when all the games were done. Agreed, yeah. Yeah. That whole award before these, you know, postseason games are played is is absolutely bizarre to me like i don't i can't comprehend it never will but um the most important thing for us brother i just got to make sure our guys are taking care of business and getting ready for a great practice tomorrow i'd like to play for you i'm just gonna say i feel like well you wouldn't want me to put you you would that would be in pads you'd be bitching and moaning oh yeah you wouldn't want me to play for you but i feel right now you're not you're like not putting the recruiting pitch on but i feel like i would want to play for you and then I'd be like I've made a terrible decision I can't hang with this guy and so you would de-recruit me pretty quickly yeah well I mean like like just be honest like a little bit of complacency because I would like to do a little bit of complacency every now and then yeah we it's it's you wouldn't like it just a tiny just like a little pinch of complacency every now and then just chill out this would be hell for you um all right I got one last question This has been awesome, Coach.

2:20:22Roback 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. Are you ready for the dumbest question you've probably ever gotten? Well, as long as it doesn't ask me to predict something or get involved in a hypothetical, I could probably handle it. I'm probably going to give a really boring answer. I will for sure qualify as your top three, top five most boring interviews, but I'll do my best to try to answer it. Okay. All right. Here it is. The year's 1985. You are 15 years old. A video game comes out called Super Mario.

2:21:02What's going through your head? I didn't play it much. Damn. Yeah, I know. Are you a fan of Mario and Luigi? I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler diehard fan. Okay. Always was. And learned to play football that year. in 85 my first time ever it was when i got to high school and uh after that like all i know is you know that's it i told you it was gonna be a boring answer yeah it's a football guy answer do you remember when he calm was around so you know yeah yeah sorry man that's okay do you remember when you fell in love with football when you said to yourself this is what i'm going to be doing

2:21:48um yeah it was when we got finally got the chance to put on pads i never put on pads we were baseball players we're i mean we're cuban kids you know we you know we learn to speak the language i don't know what age and had a strong action like scarface you know i'm sure you saw that movie yeah and our high school coach was an absolute badass i swear to god he's the best mentor best human being that guy i love that guy more than anything he changed the lives of my brother and myself um and that changed everything and then but that came opportunity so we're just uh you know we're just hard-working dudes man you know we're full of gratitude and just ready to get on to the next thing yeah no listen i i'm i'm bought in right now on your program absolutely i feel like this is uh this is a good sign of things to come for the youth so i'm happy that you're there and and thank you for taking the time to talk to us appreciate you guys having me man have a good one bro yeah thanks so much coach best of luck for the rest of the year thanks guys appreciate you coach Mario Cristobal was brought to you by Hey Dude the best shoes the most comfortable shoes great for wearing around the house great for wearing on a walk great for wearing to the office even this week's episode is brought to you by Hey Dude and what better way to kick off football season than with the official shoe of tailgating Hey Dude is the only option when you're planning your game day fit it's easy to slip on It's got laid back style, all day comfort.

2:23:10They hooked us up with a bunch of new pairs. We're wearing them all weekend long. They're super comfortable, very easy to put on, very easy to take off. We wore them when we were going fishing that one time. You can't even wear them fishing. Hey Dude is offering a special offer to get you ready for the season. For a limited time, go to heydude.com slash barstool. Use code PMT20. Get 20 % off the Hey Dude Barstool Collection. That's code PMT20. 20 % off all their favorite styles. Order yours today. experience comfort all season long whether you're in the parking lot before the game or locked in the red zone from the couch make sure you're ready for football season with hey dude check out hey dude today coach crystal ball was also brought to you by experience some listeners may be looking for travel credit cards so you can maximize rewards on your trip to london for the super bowl upcoming eventually hank others might be looking for a cash back card to help pay doctor bills because their ankle is never going to heal no matter what type of card you're looking for Experian can show you personalized credit card offers based on your credit profile.

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2:24:46It is Jerry from the now defunct Meow Mix podcast, a Carolina Panthers podcast. Jerry, we want to have you on real quick because we're fascinated with the story. You don't see often that a team podcast retires midseason. Talk us through. Let's start there with the retirement. Did you bring it up to your co-host or did he bring it up to you? What was the breaking point? What was the moment you're like, I can't do this anymore because my football team is just driving me insane? Well, first of all, we didn't retire. A, that signifies we actually got paid. But B is we kind of went on hiatus and we're going to reassess the way we are sitting up because we're doing two shows a week, almost three, and we're just burnt out.

2:25:37And then basically a couple of times last year, we didn't record after the game because we are just so heartbroken. And then they started doing well towards the end of last season. We're like, OK, OK, here we go. And then this year happened. And I thought the New England Patriots were going to be the same sphere as the Carolina Panthers, you know, an eight win, six to eight win type of team. And they just manhandled us on last Sunday. And it was just so heartbreaking that I texted him and was like, I can't record tonight. I just, you know, midway through the third quarter, I turned the game off first time in 10 years or so that I actually stopped mid game.

2:26:27And I was like, I can't do this. And then the next day he's like, you know what, do you want to do it? I was like, not really. And he was like, yeah, me neither. It's becoming more of a chore than a fun hobby that it started out to be. so then we kind of talked back and forth and you know we decided to put the show on hiatus until we kind of could figure out what we wanted to do yeah called a cat nap yeah so you might be bad a cat nap i like that idea yeah what about so we we talked about this on the show because we we appreciate the ecosystem of sports podcasters i think it's it's uh very important i think to the sports community that we do have podcasters that are are laser focused on their specific teams because we can't cover everything when it comes to the Carolina Panthers like we'll say we'll talk about or anything or anything at all yeah so have you thought about maybe I think we suggested that you bring the podcast back over only after wins when you feel good see I feel like that's almost a disservice because you're also not getting the lows too as a fan you want the highs and lows now I have seen quite a few people come out and say why don't you do it less like once a month or once a week and you know we've brought that up to each other we're kind of still working on this again we decided this one week ago we posted on twitter just to let our fans know hey we're not completely gone but we need some time to think about what we're doing then somehow it blew up you know just our small little podcast got picked up by national media we're like how did this happen yeah yeah i mean it's it's it's cool we we just love anyone who's dedicated to the game anyone who's grinding out there and we were kind of heartbroken to see it and i looked it up you guys since you started you're 30 and 74 that's that's a lot of losses that's a hard thing to do um when you decided to step away and then the panthers have an incredible comeback win against dolphins did you did you text steven and you're like hey should we should we do it should we should we do it again should we get back on the mics i first of all we're in a group chat with a bunch of our friends so we we were talking throughout the game and i was tweeting throughout the game just because no matter what i'm still gonna watch right yeah that's what a lot of people didn't understand about that tweet was you know we're still watching we're still fans so we're tweeting back and forth and he wasn't in the mode to record i kind of wasn't in the mode still i didn't want to just oh we're going on hiatus oh we won so i'm coming back right now but yeah so we didn't but our friend said you should really just put up a video of cats you know the sweet caroline song that plays after every game and i was like you know what that's gonna be hilarious and i had to do it yeah i saw that you got me i was like oh man the boys are back and then i watched the video i was like oh they're not talking about anything it's just a picture with sweet caroline playing yeah and that's a panthers uh any home victory or anything they play sweet caroline so that was kind of why that happened did you find that the uh the negativity around the the panthers after losses that was that affecting your personal life and did that have something to do with it my personal life not personally like i like it wouldn't like it didn't hurt my marriage didn't hurt me with my kids but just put me in a bad mood like like i know everybody every fan loses in his defunct but it's like god we just got our ass whooped by like 30 40 points and now i've got to go talk about this for two hours and then next then in a couple days do research on the team to say what could we do better there's only so many times i could say hey dave canales you got a big o-line run the ball with 2 000 yard backs last year and they don't do it it's like what can i tell them more you know yeah yeah was it you or steven who said that uh His kids don't even like the Panthers because it makes daddy like sad.

2:30:25Yeah, that's Steven. And I feel for him because he said that. And I knew his son was into the Philadelphia Eagles. I didn't realize that that was the case. And it's heartbreaking to hear. Yeah. He's experimenting with the Eagles at such a young age. Yeah. You got to. Yeah. This is something you got to change up. Yeah. Hopefully you find like it. Yeah. You find a like a Kelly green ball cap under his pillow. Son, what's this? Yeah. Thank you. What are you doing here? Luckily, my daughter, she knows. We cheer for the blue team. Yes. I love that. I love that. Okay. So, all right. So, in the future, like, let's say, so we're out for right now.

2:31:05Is there any chance we can get the boys back together? Because I know you didn't. The thing I like about this, how everything unfolded, a lot of people are skeptical and cynical online these days. they'd be like oh they're doing this to get drum up and support i watched the whole episode you guys were doing that completely as honest and like this is where we're at but it probably has gotten you good enough attention where you're like maybe we should do it again so is there any chance that you guys get back on and get the band back together i want to see steven and jerry talking some talking some panthers football right now i'm not sure i wouldn't i i think that something could happen i'm not sure like it depends on the team and where steven's at uh i i said that i really like doing the draft profiles for the team as it was a fun way for me to learn like the draft prospects and stuff so i don't know um right now i would say maybe okay just because i i don't know where his headspace is at with coming back i know right now he's really on a no side but yeah okay I remain hopeful.

2:32:09I am too. And especially if the team starts doing a little bit better, or even if we do, like I said, the once a month or once a week or every other week, I think that would be fun. Because when we're doing it, he has fun. I have fun. It's just there's only so much of being demoralized you can take in a three-year span that the Panthers have given me. Yeah, I hear you. I would like to see you guys make some sort of return. If it's not three times a week, I understand that. If it's not twice a week, I understand that. But I feel like the world is a slightly brighter place when we've got guys like you doing the stuff that you love to do.

2:32:51Yeah. Even after our fans sent us, because we had a segment called Gambling for the Children, where we bet on the Panthers game. we put in a hundred dollars and we bet on the panthers game throughout the season at the end of the year whatever's in the pot if it's above hundred dollars go straight tost jude's oh no if you know if it was under we put it back to hundred dollars and make it tost jude's so we got questions about what's going on with that money and we're like well we're still going to be doing that yeah so but i love that that's not a lot of money that what was the lowest amount of money that got like what what year was it is it money line are you betting spread what we're by bet at finding the best bet that we can because we used to do beer bets to each other but then we just quit care and we're like we're just gonna get drunk anyways because this team sucks so bad so so like let's actually try to get so like last year we made a lot of money on chuba hubbard oh breaking the yardage every week and stuff like that so we did win last week with the miami we took the money line i thought we were actually gonna beat the dolphins and we did so we took the money line yeah because i when you first explained that i thought you were just taking panthers money line every week and it's like that would be a that would getting to depressing territory of like you know a 1 in 15 season being like oh shit this is not going well no that's why we went to gambling for the children so we wanted to win instead of just yeah losing bets to each other for beers we were like yeah i love it i love it if you want to send us your your best bet on the panthers every week i'll put in a bet on it yeah we'll shout it out and then i'll i'll give everything that i earned from that bet to the kids for the children yeah yeah we're in we'll get awesome that's great yeah um oh last last question for you uh uh did uh squeaky cheeks reach out at all?

2:34:46Cause I saw you guys give a shout. That was my favorite part of the video. When you're like, you know, blood nugget and squeaky cheeks. Some of the people that are, did, did you get, did squeaky cheeks reach out? Oh, squeaky cheeks messages us on our YouTube channel all the time. Say with blood nugget, you know, RJ, Andrew, we had some great fans. We really have some great fans and you know, we got one from Switzerland today. That was what kept us going mostly was just a simple fact. But it was a small community because, again, we're a little podcast. But our community was good, you know, always talking, always, you know, going back and forth about what to improve this game.

2:35:25Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Well, appreciate you hopping on, Jerry. And you let us know if you're ever, you know, when you do feel the itch and you maybe bring it back, let us know because we want to boost it and get everyone to subscribe. Okay. Will do. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Thanks so much, Jerry. All right. Thank you. Meow Mix Jerry was brought to you by Twisted Tea. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea made with real brewed iced tea and 5 % alcohol. Twisted Tea is the perfect alcohol beverage to keep the good times going all season long. Whether you're hanging out at a friend's house, catching a game at the stadium or at the bar, or just seeing where the day takes you, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time.

2:36:06We were out on the course on Monday playing some golf and Twisted Tea was with us. And I don't think that there's a better outdoor drink in the world than Twisted Tea. It's perfect for a nice sunny day. Perfect when you're hanging outside. Keep it twisted. Grab a tea. It's game time. Stock up on ice cold Twisted Tea today. Okay, let's wrap up the show. We got FAQs from our one and only Henry Lockwood. Hank. I like that. That was like an old school morning DJ voice. Yeah. Let's kick it over to Henry Lockwood on a wacky Wednesday. Bird bite. Hank. and he's not ready after that intro not even ready i know nothing uh nothing what as ast louis cardinals fan i've never experienced a full rebuild in my entire life how do you handle it how do you approach the season knowing you're not a contender where's the small ones you can feel this is such a like listen it's i can i can speak from experience like it's it's one of those things where it's going to be dark you're going to have you know Games where you know you're not going to win It's going to be ugly But the sunshine will rise again It will be good again You just got to trust the process And understand that it's not forever Actually Hank did handle The rebuild correctly He just ignored his team for Like four years and now they're back And he's like oh Well that's the thing is like if you come from a winning background You can then have an easier time ignoring the rebuild But if you come from a losing background Then the rebuild is all you have And you put your hopes and dreams in the rebuild and you check up on the rebuild every day.

2:37:39You might hypothetically look to see how your minor league teams are doing and then refresh the batting averages and look at the prospects and be like, oh, this rebuild is not going well right now. But what I like to do is I like to just I bet on the season win total over at the start of the year. And then I just kind of forget that I bet on that around like mid-July. And then I check again in late September. And I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe. Nope, it's not going to hit. That's how I handle it. I got to say it. Rebuilds are fun. Failed rebuilds are not fun. But, like, the idea, if your team actually says, like, hey, we're going to try to rebuild because the worst part, the worst place to be in any sport at any point is to have a team that you know cannot win a championship.

2:38:23But the owners being like, no, it's fine. We're going to keep doing the same thing and it will work. when you actually hit the rebuild button and if you have the right people in charge to be like hey guys rebuild they can be kind of fun yeah i would like hey this is a process we know it's a process but at least we have a direction now what i've never been able to do is to become like a a fan of the rebuild there are fans of your team that will become fans of the rebuild and fans of the process and you need to use them as a resource to check in on and be like hey how's the rebuild going but you know the kind of guys i'm talking about that are like okay well we got this draft pick we got this asset and then they they plan out how to use the rebuild yeah so they become fans of the process and they don't care at all about the results they're just like the process is good right now baseball rebuilds are also the the most fun team or sport you can rebuild in because unlike all the other sports you can actually watch your players still play like you Joe, getting excited about a guy in AAA mashing is kind of fun.

2:39:26It is fun. And the call-up is so exciting. You're like, oh, my God, this is a big day. I remember Chris Bryant Day at Wrigley was one of the most excited I've ever been. I was there for that day. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it was a cold day that they brought him up. Yeah, he struck out, I think, four times. Yeah, everybody in the stadium was like, okay, this is it. We got our guys. It's Bryant Day. But, yeah, it's a lot of fun latching on to tiny stats of your high-tattered prospect. You're like, oh, his chase rate is incredible. x-e-r-a they've never seen a guy this guy has the best eyes in the history of baseball he never never strikes out looking he takes a lot of walks i love this dude but yeah i mean it's another pitch once he adds a third pitch third pitch is he's gonna be fucking electric he's working on a slurve yeah so that's going i'm looking at the spin rate on that it's way higher than it was last year yeah rebuilds yeah but also in baseball ourselves into rebuilds it kind of stuck too in baseball because the draft is so weird in baseball yeah it's like it's such a complete crap shoot and sometimes you even draft guys that are not even slotted in that position based on talent but they're slotted in that position based on money and what you have left to spend it's a it's a challenge to get through but um i'm sure that the cardinals will find some way to be good in like one year and it'll piss everybody off so congratulations hey it's jake from toronto So hey, Jake, my question is, what is your favorite PMT road trip moment?

2:40:46Love the show. Oh, favorite road trip moment. I like the I think on the first grit week. Remember, we had a fan drive up and throw a beer to us in the bus on the road while we were driving. That was electric. That was electric. I mean, also just being nostalgic. The first grit week when we were in the Buffalo Bills Stadium parking lot, just trying to like scrounge up interviews. if we basically like the guy that hangs out outside training camp being like can i get a tryout for the team yeah uh and we had richie incognito on the bus and then we were like or on the van and uh then we're just waiting and rob ryan walked out and he walked onto the rv and was like oh boys i could live on this thing yeah we paid rob ryan with a case of beer and he he had a had a great time on the rv just like the nostalgic moments hit sometimes i i think my favorite moments are always when we're like at the tail end of a long week of work and we have like a night where we can go out to dinner or get drunk or something and it's just like like actually all right i got one yeah i don't know if you guys have this one in your head as well grit week colorado climbing everest doing mushrooms going to one of my favorite dive bars i've ever been into at boulder the sunset room we were high on mushrooms and we played maybe the worst game of darts that has ever been played in the history of darts no one could hit anything because we were fucked up but that was like i just remember looking around being like man this is fucking sick yeah the jukebox those type of moments yeah it was a good vibes that night we were so bad at darts very bad so high on mushrooms you want you you were actually good was i i just i just remember being like i i don't really know like i'm not in a mind space to play darts right now but we're going to play darts yeah the uh the there's actually like a lot of dive bars that i remember now the dive bar in atlanta yeah north side tavern where we went got pretty drunk watched some blues band play with like chris long that was great that was a great night i heard that place might have closed down no i hope it didn't i hope that's fake news no wing nuts first wing nuts yeah walking into the knights of columbus that was pretty awesome meeting ed and alicia Yeah, I wasn't at this one, but the one that I always wanted to be at was the storm chasing.

2:43:01Oh, yeah, with Budapet. I mean, that was electric. I would go storm chasing again. I would love to go storm chasing. Absolutely. We should do that. We should. Or we have two Vannys. We could hit them from both sides. Yeah, meet in the middle of the storm. It's like Twister. Hey, guys, long-time listener, first-time texter. How do you come up with your material for fastest two minutes? Are you doing it as you're watching the games, or do you have jokes saved? No, we do it after the games. Occasionally, I'll jot down something during a game. Yeah. But what I've found that this year, every single time I've done that, it's been about the Giants.

2:43:36And then the Giants are the Jameis Winston. Yeah. We don't get to use it. I did that the other week, remember, when we split it? Because sometimes, depending on the schedule, if the Commanders or Bears play the afternoon game, we'll split it up and do it separately. But when we can do it together, it's more fun. Um, so yeah, it's, it's kind of just around six o 'clock every Sunday, just being like, oh shit, we got to do this. Yeah. And then I'll not like in a bad way, but just like, oh yeah, I forgot. We got to do this. So right now I have a completely empty Google doc, except it still says from like week two scataboo, busy, busy, scataboo.

2:44:11And I'll just be looking at that every day. Yeah. Yeah. That was like a Yogi Bear. I don't know where that came from. Just have a couple in the, in the hopper. All right. Last one. What does the booth smell like? Bad. that's a great question because i feel like it varies bad how is it right now although we don't really know because it's like you're in it yeah individually they're not bad smelling guys yeah yeah i know the three of you do not smell bad individually i think when you put them together and then max max i mean his he the other night he cleared the the booth he just he just stood up he goes i gotta open the door because i just farted it's so bad that's got to stick in there well Yeah, there's no circulation here, and it's a small room.

2:44:53So, like, if we fart, I mean, our Sunday, we've talked about it, weight loss challenge going bad. Sometimes we eat a lot of gross food, and we fart. Yeah, that's what guys do. Gross food equals farts. What would you say, Zach? I would have to piggyback on the we're in it, so we wouldn't, I don't have a great read on how it smells. It would have to be someone third party coming in, like, Like, wow, this is a little funky, probably, is what they say. Yeah. All you know is what you know. Sometimes the guys who come in for the lottery ball, they'll say it's a little sad. They'll say it smells bad.

2:45:27That's a good point. Sometimes they're quick to be like, whoa. Should we get you guys an air filter? Yeah, or something. Air freshener. Hang a big, like, make an oversized Christmas tree one that they have in the cars. Just hang it in the middle of the booth. They come out smelling like pine. Sunday is definitely the worst smelling day right oh yeah in that booth gotta be gotta be Sunday is just good it's too much football season low key kind of kills all of us yeah we joke about like the whole it's harder to do what we do than playing in the NFL but I don't think it is week to week but I think when all is said and done if you know we do this show for another 10-15 years if you add up all the years it's gonna be like We put some stress on the body.

2:46:16Oh, yeah. Late nights that turn into early morning, especially for the guys in the booth, and Pug, Jack behind the seat, like those guys, that is tough. It's a quick turnaround. But guess what? We're young. Yeah, we're young. We're still young. We're very young. We're vibrant. Yeah. All right. Speaking of the guys in the booth, do you want to get them in here for the numbers? Three. Oh. Memes? My mic wasn't on. That was weird. Oh. Yo, numbers. 22. Memes, do you want three? I mean, they all got it. They don't have to be in here. We'll go 29. Do you want three memes? No, it's okay. I'll go 6-7. I have a bad update about that, by the way.

2:46:55My son knows what that is. He said the kids say it at school. So that means that I am dangerously close to getting, learning things from him before I learn them myself. 6-7 is one of those mass hysteria things. Like when everybody in a town catches the giggles at the same time. that's insane. It's become like that on a national... It's a virus. But I learned about 6, 7, like maybe two months ago, so it's very close that I got that in. All right. Anyone pick 33? Nope. Five. Five. 99. 22. Eight. What was yours, memes? Yeah, 29. 29. Hank, where were you? 22.

2:47:4784 84 notice i didn't ask memes if you've gotten it before no like i ignore that part okay well i didn't if you go back and listen i didn't ask good for you i know the answer to it you have not and you never will we're gonna walk in here this this machine's gonna be smashed one day on fire. Love you guys. I played football, played soccer. It made me so popular. I'd shove geeks inside lockers. They were freaks. I was cool. But now I'm a blogger. Act like a punk rocker. I still live with my mother cause I peaked in high school. Yeah, I'm roommates with My brother, my mom's basement, my room I peaked in high school, I ran the world I peaked in high school, if you didn't you're a fucking nerd I peaked in high school, I was the man But now I'm not cool, so I started this fucking band I've got this leather jacket, those geeks wish that they had it I still like Lenny Kravitz and I work at Barstool I kicked all the asses, I skipped all the classes I made fun of kids with glasses and my dick's minuscule I peaked in high school, I ran the world I peaked in high school If you did it, you're a fucking nerd I peaked in high school I was the man But now I'm not cool So I started this fucking band

2:50:11I peaked in high school I ran the world I peaked in high school If you did it you're a fucking nerd I peaked in high school I was the man But now I'm not cool So I started this fucking band