Best of the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon

UMass upsets Rutgers, Lane Kiffin has always been his worst enemy, Mike Vrabel dodged a major bullet, NFL Hall of Fame voter Jason Cole has thoughts on Michael Lombardi, Bill Belichick and the UNC situation and the Caitlin Clark conspiracy theories get weird.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern,
7 to 11 p.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
your local station for the Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon at foxsportsradio.com or stream us live every night on
the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is the Best of the Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
So tonight is a big night for, like, lots of
legal stuff. Like, we got legal stuff with North Carolina.
We got legal stuff at LSU. We have what's next
for whatever Pablo Torre is going to find out. We
got lots of legal stuff. Like, put your whatever law
hat you have on tonight that just says law on it.
Good thing I've been watching Waterston.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
And Harry Hamlin and all those guys for years.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
I'm ready to go. A little Corbin Bernson thrown in
there as well. Let's go. But this out of college
football tonight. Tonight was the official opening of week one
of college football. We had week zero last week and
now the official opening of week one, which next year
will be week one. Anyway, the marquee game of the night,

(01:18):
because we saw it come down. UMass went into tonight's
game against Rutgers, and people are on social media right
now going, why is Rutgers trending?

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
And just so everybody knows, it's Rutgers. It's not Rutgers.
It's Rutgers. That's how you say it. Well, it's the
State College of New Jersey. It's Rutgers. That's how you
say it. It's always been said, Rutgers. You have to
say R's when you have to, but you don't say
all the R's, right? Just like Tony Soprano. It's Rutgers.
It's Rutgers. That's how you say it. It's not Rutgers.
It's Rutger Hauer, the actor. But it's Rutgers. How do

(01:50):
you think Gandolfini would have handled this one?

Speaker 4 (01:52):
Rutgers.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Oh, boy. As a guy who used.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
To do a bunch of promos and other stuff for
the school.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I mean, oh, boy. Rutgers. UMass comes into this game.
off an Owen 12 season last year.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Two and 10, the year before two and eight, before
that three and nine, one at 11, one at 11, Oh,
and four, one at 11, last four wins season, all
the way back to 2018, four.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Wins in the last three years. And it's a money game, right? Hey,
Rutgers is, you know, Hey, we're, we're good. We're good.
We're over Greg. She was like, yeah, we're good, man.
We're good. We're open up against UMass. Oh, and 12
last year. Rutgers was a 29 and a half point
favorite 29 and a half points. There's a big point
to make coming out of this game because this is

(02:39):
what happened tonight. Watson taking a shot. Griffin in the
end zone. Touchdown UMass 31 yards. Kevin's through the hole.
That's going to do it. It opened wide, but touchdown

(03:00):
for Curtis Kimmins, the fourth and UMass is going to
head back to its home state with one of its
largest wins in school history. It's over Johnny. It's over
big dead network on the call. UMass beats Rutgers tonight, 37, 21.
With the points, you win that game 67-21. So you

(03:21):
walk away comfortably with a win.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
You paid them to score– you paid them $ 42, 000 a
point to run it up on you.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's pretty good. That's pretty good. $ 1. 55 million, the purse, reportedly,
for UMass on this one. Now, this is a very
big lesson, right? This is a learning time right now. Like,
there's some times on the show we break down opinions,
we entertain, make you laugh, make you think– This is
a learning exercise right now. This is a learning exercise.

(03:52):
This is why you don't bet college football week one.
This is why you do not, there's, if you want
to bet, there's other games out there for your money
that you actually know stuff about, that we've seen people play,
that we know, and okay, I can go out there.
I know what's going to happen tonight, MLB. This is

(04:15):
why you don't bet college football week one.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Well, go back to last week, right? The USC game,
38 and a half was the spread. Did you think
those guys were going to play a full game in
the 185-degree sweltering heat?

Speaker 4 (04:29):
No.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
They dominated for a half. They sat down. They win
by far less than the spread. If you bet week
one a collar, what are you doing?

Speaker 4 (04:38):
Really?

Speaker 1 (04:38):
What's going on? You're trying to find your advantage. Right,
but there's no advantage. You're saying, I'm going to bet something.
What do you know about this? Not much. Oh, okay. Like,
what do you mean not much? Like, I don't know anything.
What do you know about the teams?

Speaker 4 (04:52):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, why don't you know anything? Well, they haven't played
anybody yet. Well, you mean they haven't played anybody good? No,
they haven't played anybody. It's just been scrimmages. Okay.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
Um.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
And you're okay betting this?

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Why? Because it's football. Oh, okay. There's other, I mean, look,
there's other places you can go. It's just about being smart, right?
It's being a smart bettor. It's being a smart, you know,
investor in your gambling future. Why would you bet a sport?
College football is the only sport where you have zero bets.
evidence of a team coming into week one that you

(05:25):
can say, yes, they're good, no, they're no good. Even
the NFL, where teams aren't playing anybody, you have an idea.
The players are known quantities. When they sign in free agency,
you know how they are coming up and how they've
done in the spring, how they've done in the summer,
how they've done in the joint practice. You have a
better idea of that. In baseball, in the exhibition season,

(05:46):
you know what pitchers look good, what pitchers are strong.
You have some information going on in all the other–
even college basketball. You have more because you see teams, hey,
we're playing a couple of preseason games here. We're doing X, Y,
and Z. College football is zero. It's we're starting. We're starting.
What do you know? I know absolutely nothing because I've
not seen any of these teams play. Why are you
betting week one of college football?

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Well, I think there's going to be– better uh examples
where we we look at the the spread certainly not
four plus touchdowns right that's that's where you start getting
into uh foolishness because there's a million ways that that
can go wrong and sideways on you as the example
of usc a week ago same thing here you're putting

(06:29):
29 and a half points i don't care how bad
umass is it's rutgers Or 500 squad at best. So
you're looking at, you know, trying to be judicious. What's
the turnover? What's the coaching staff?

Speaker 1 (06:42):
All of that. I mean, there's metrics. You can do it.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
This is not a game deep down on the board
that you say, yep, that's the one.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
There's no games. There's no because week one generally is
a week of. Powers playing lesser teams. You don't know
about the weather, how much guys are going to be
able to play, how much teams are going to ease
off the break. You have no idea.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Hey, I'm 1-0 on my picks this year, okay? I
had Belichick in the rain and the beer in Ireland.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
I'm 1-0. I took my plus 8.5 and I danced.
You got lucky. What do you mean I got lucky?
You got lucky. Hey, swarmed.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
I saw the rain coming in Ireland, and I knew
that was going to happen. Well, I've been to Ireland
a couple times. I know it's going to rain at
some point. It's like Florida in the later part of
the summer.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
You did that, and that's even more dicey and risky
because it can't even say who's got home field. I
don't even know. What does that mean? I don't know
how the team's traveled. I don't know how these college
teams are packing and moving on and playing overseas. I
don't know how the weather's going to be. I don't
know what game day experience is going to be, which
team is going to be able to– handle all the

(07:53):
outside noise going into the game like it's i mean
we know absolutely zero why would you bet on something
that you know absolutely zero about i mean going all
the way through this weekend like i would think hey
syracuse back steve angeli awesome yeah great i'm not betting
syracuse this weekend i mean come on man what what
I don't get where you think, oh, I have the insight.

(08:14):
I know where this is going to go. Week one
of college football is the biggest dice roll you could
possibly have. I can't listen to anybody that says, I
know week one. I know this game right here. I
know week one of college football. Do you want me
to cancel, Todd? I know.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
I know week one of college football. 32 to 34
point favorite this week against New Hampshire. You're Syracuse Orange.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
I mean, they could win. They could win 38-3. They
could win 35-21. They could win 28-14, right? They could
lose 35-20. You don't know. I mean, in life, just
think in life, okay? If you have money that, here's $ 50,
let's just say, whatever you bet. Okay, $ 50. And I
could have you bet that When these two kids or

(08:58):
these two people have a race, okay? Who are you
going to bet to win? I thought you were going
to have a fight.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
These two kids on the playground. Hey, he looks hungry.
That guy stole his shovel. No, these two, whoever, these two,
they're going to have a race. Okay, well, once I know...
This kid's on the track team for a long time.
I know what his times were the last couple of years.
I know what's going on here. I know he's won
three races already this year. He's done pretty well. I

(09:24):
know the other kids got a little bit of an injury.
You know, I don't know if he's going to be
able to make it. He's coming back from a hamstring.
I know I have enough information to bet on the
first kid because I've seen him and I know.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
All right.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's, that's, I know stuff and I can, I can bet.
Are you taking $ 50? Okay, you're getting better than these
two people having a race. What do you know about them? Well,
one kid's really tall, so he looks faster. The other
one's smaller, shorter. Well, what do you know about him?
What's he done this year? I don't know. Neither of
them have had a race. Okay. Well, what did they

(09:58):
do last year? Well, he didn't really race last year. Oh, okay.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
So what are you going to do? Well, I kind
of like that one guy, so I'm going to bet
on him. Like, you're not doing that.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
You're not lots of folks go to the racetrack and say, Hey,
I like the look of that horse or he's got
the pink. That's people who want to go out and go,
whatever the money I'm spending today, I'm losing. I'm realizing
I'm spending this money to have a good time, but
it's the same thing here.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
It's an entertainment vehicle. It's different. You go to, you're not,
you're not, if you're investing, you're not saying, all right,
let me go to Rutgers. You go to the head.
You mass as Mike. lock of the week.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
Oh, really?

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh, okay. Go on social media and take a look
at someone who had, I think Rutgers has their lock
of the year. Oh, I know. Yeah, I think I
know who that is. But just get like, if you
go to the racetrack, I've been to the track. I know, okay,
am I going to win money? No, I'm there. There's
Dollar Beer, Dollar Hot Dogs. I like the name of
this horse. I like that.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
See, I can teach you if you want to go
to the harness. We can teach you a system, and
you'll win pretty consistently.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
If that was the case, you wouldn't be here next
to me if you were winning in harness racing consistently.
I'm not saying I'm getting rich. You'd have the jaunty
hat and the big, the real stubby cigar.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
I do.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
That would be you, the stubby cigar. I don't have
the cigar. You'd have to have that, though. That's a
good look. That's a good look. Like, I know I'm
going there and I'm spending money to have fun.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Yeah. Right?

Speaker 1 (11:21):
This is where, like, you know, I'm spending money on
college football because I think I'm going to win and
I want to win. No, it's the same thing. No,
it's an entertainment vehicle and a stressor for three hours.
That is so different. How is it any different? It's
a wager. It's parimutuel wagering versus whatever your book is.
You're wagering because you want to win. Of course, in

(11:42):
both cases, you want to win. Yeah, but if you
lose when you're betting the racetracks, like, okay, well, I'm
here having fun. I'm watching them. What do I really
know about the horse races? But if you're betting Rutgers
and UMass, in theory, you've actually looked into both teams
in terms of their roster turnover in the All-22, game plans,
et cetera, versus, like, you just got the sheet handed

(12:02):
to you at the rail, and you go... uh seven
what all 22 have you seen there's no games no
but you're extrapolating off of what these guys have done
else in in their past if they've transferred in whatever
it's the same thing you have it's like betting week
one of the nfo are you gonna tell people not
to do that too it's the same thing i had
no that's where you have a lot of you have

(12:23):
an entire you have the entire preseason you have an
offseason you've seen the guys play you've You saw them
work together for a series in the preseason. How many games, practices,
how many times do you see joint practices, games, do
you see teams on the field over the course of
the preseason? A lot, right? Probably six times. You see
how players play. You see when the first team plays

(12:45):
the first team of another team. When you go for
the joint practices, they go three, four days. You at
least have some sort of working knowledge. You have games.
You have times you have seen them on the field
against another team that has a different color uniform. You
do not have that in college football. Sure, they put
the different pennies on and they get after it. All right,
white team over here, red team over here. All right,
let's go. Let's go get them. Let's go get them, guys.

(13:06):
Let's go. Let's go. Okay, that's awesome. That's awesome.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Why? Why?

Speaker 1 (13:09):
There's better places you could go or at least you
could say. There's a lot of better places. If I
want to do that, I'd go to a slot machine.
Betting college football is like going to a slot machine.
There's a difference between going to a slot machine and
going to play at a poker table, where you can
use strategy, you have some kind of knowledge to go.
Betting week one of college football is.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
You also don't know the players that are at the
table with you, if you go play poker.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
But you have a little bit of knowledge of the
game and their strategy, way to impact. Yeah, and those
other six people, if that guy's hiding behind his sunglasses,
you've got no idea. Well, that's why they call it gambling.
But at least you have some kind of knowledge. You
have zero knowledge of week one of college football. Here
you get three hours of entertainment. Yeah, but you.
How entertained are you if you bet Rutgers tonight? You'll

(13:53):
be smarter about your research tomorrow. I am never betting
Greg Sciano again. That is never happening. That might be
the lesson you learned. It's all a learning experience. That's
all it is. Every day we try to go 1-0. Exit,
how about a fresca? Exit Swollen Dome, the Jason Smith
Show with my best friend, Mike Harmon. You work in logistics,
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(14:16):
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(14:37):
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Speaker 5 (14:45):
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Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yup, that's right.

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Speaker 2 (15:13):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m.
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Speaker 1 (15:23):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
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(15:46):
get off the air. So a big night in college football.
We've already seen what happens when you bet Rutgers. We
have big stuff involving North Carolina and Bill Belichick coming
up in a half hour. But this big news item
that came through, this news is about 45 minutes old.

(16:07):
A Louisiana judge has cleared the NFL players who wanted
to return to college after getting cut this summer. Daquan
Wright was at the head of this. Zavian Harris as well.
LSU and Lane Kiffin said, yes, we're recruiting these guys.
We'll come back and play. Everybody else is going to.

(16:28):
Why wouldn't we do it? Not many other people in
college football really like this. The conferences don't. SEC clearly doesn't.
They talked earlier in the day about potentially bringing lawsuits
or bringing some sort of action against LSU if they
play these players who went to the NFL, got cut,
and are coming back. These guys that still have eligibility left.

(16:50):
So now this judge has granted an injunction for these
pro players seeking their return to LSU. Now there's two
big things coming out of this. The first one, well,
actually the first one is that, are we surprised that
Lane Kiffin's at the center of this? Like the bad
boy of college football, like he's the guy. Like, of course,
he's the guy. He is the guy. He's looking under
every rock for a competitive advantage. Or is he looking for,

(17:14):
he's looking to grandstand to make headlines because he's the
only one making headlines.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Maybe.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
He's the only guy. Nobody else is taking these kids back.
Nobody else, but Oh, we'll take it back. Why?

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Why?

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Because I could do it. We're LSU, right? Uh, Lane
Kiffin's the only one, the thing he has done with
all of this grandstanding players coming back to LSU. And
then the crazy story last night that, Hey, when, uh,
When he was at Alabama, Nick Saban had to call
around to bars and say, make sure he doesn't hit
on co-eds. Yeah, that was a whole other thing.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
That'll be a TV miniseries soon enough.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
What Lane Kiffin has done is he has put a
clock on his time at LSU. With the outside-the-box involvement
in a story like this that nobody else in college
football wants, the embarrassment, the attention that LSU does not want,
they want to win. And now, obviously, the stories that
came out from the book that we found out yesterday

(18:09):
about what he did at Alabama. Now we know why
he didn't get the job at Alabama. He has put
a clock on his time at LSU. He is a
very controversial subject. He is someone who has always courted controversy.
He is always, yeah, where's Conner? I'm here. Usually people
walk around, no, don't walk down that alley. Why not?
There's controversy in that alley. Most people would walk right by.
They would take a peek down and go, is there

(18:30):
controversy down there? I'm not going. Lane Kiffin would just say,
he would run down the alley. He runs to the light.
And he would yell, where is the controversy? Controversy, come
get me.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
Where are you?

Speaker 1 (18:39):
And if there was no, he would keep running back
and forth until controversy came out. Until controversy alley came
out to get him.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
I think he's describing how influencers try to make their
money on the interwebs right now.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Whatever time he had to win at LSU, Over the
past few months, he has cut that in half because
there's not going to be a lot of patience if
he doesn't win. It's not going to be a lot
of patience for the attitude he has had towards college
football outside of this if he does not win. Why
you would do that to yourself, I don't know, but
Lane Kiffin's always been his worst enemy many times over

(19:08):
the course of his career. So I don't see how
this was something that you really want to stand on this,
but let's get these two kids coming back or whatever
kids want to come back from the NFL to come back.
You've moved on. You got your recruits. You have a team.
If you're recruiting smartly, you have players come back. I
get that.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
You have guys.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Well, these guys were good in college, really coming back.
But now if you don't win with them, suddenly the, the,
ability that LSU will have to be patient with you
is getting cut. Now it's, if you're giving them controversial
headlines and you're not winning, forget it, man. They're going
to say, we're going to buy you out. We spent
a lot of money to get you, but we can
put that money down. We spent a lot of money
to get Brian Kelly. We bought that guy out really fast.

(19:45):
We spent a lot of money to get you. Guess what?
We'll buy you out really fast. And they have that money.
LSU has that turnover money.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
You notice last week in his broadcast debut for the season,
Brian Kelly went out of his way to sideswipe Lane Kiffin.
He used some, well, let's just call it unsavory terms
in doing so. It's like, wow, you got Brian Kelly
calling you those names. That means you're that low? I mean,
come on, because Brian Kelly, there's plenty. So the SEC

(20:13):
sued LSU in the district court in Alabama on Thursday.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Ready?

Speaker 1 (20:17):
This is a great term. Alleging the university is violating
the league's First Amendment right of expressive association. by ignoring
their rules that prohibit signing and playing former NFL players. So, yeah,
you've now put the university on notice. On some levels,

(20:39):
you know, there's the part of me that's like, all right,
if this forces everybody to finally get together at a
big boy table, and come together, and it did, right?
This is the most unifying thing.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
That has happened in college athletics in a long time,
other than, hey, let's go count the pile of money
we made by expanding the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
That's the only thing that everybody's agreed on. Everything else
has been territorial and building their fiefdoms. This one, you
actually have a united force with the exception of one man.
The other part of it, with knowing that you cut
your time in half, right? But again, that's Lane Kiffin.
He does this. is that is this actually going to happen?

(21:20):
Are we actually going to see these guys coming back
to college football to play? Luckily, we're here because I
can tell you the future. You can see the future.
Nobody wants this. There is no other school.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
William Jordan wanted this. The honorable William Jordan.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Okay. Well, yes. E-N, not A-N. Well, now we know, hey,
what have we seen in the world in the last
few years, whatever it is. Hey, I don't like the
ruling I get in court. I'm going to go to
another court until a judge tells me what I want
to hear. Well, that's always been the case.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
If you have enough resources behind you, you can keep
the appeal process going forever.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
This is why college football, if you had a commissioner,
if you had somebody, things would be different. But no,
we don't have it. But that's what I mean. At
least here, we all got to this. Well, most people
got to the same table. But the thing is, is
that nobody wants this. The SEC doesn't want it. How
long until the SEC says, you keep these kids, we're
not playing you. We're not going to play you Saturday.

(22:16):
How long until the SEC says that?

Speaker 4 (22:19):
An hour?

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Is it going to be by the time we get
off the air tonight? Is it going to be 9
o'clock tomorrow morning? Is it going to be midday on Friday?
Is it going to be Friday afternoon where they find
out LSU, we're not going to allow them to play
if they let these kids back? For some reason, for
whatever reason, college football really does not want this. And
I don't know why this is something that the entire
sport wants to die on the mountain of. Of all

(22:42):
the things I could say, what do they want to
die on the mountain of? NIL? Yes, I get it. Transfer? Yes,
I get it. The handful of players that want to
come back to college football after getting cut by teams.
This is what suddenly everybody is united and against so bad?

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Really?

Speaker 1 (22:56):
This is where you are? Seriously?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
You got as many as 40, right? It was 16
in the initial lawsuit. But where it's always gotten a
little ham-handed in all of this... go figure college sports
is the fact that once you open the door and
guys were starting to cash checks, I mean, I was
reading a big thought piece on Caleb Williams, right? His
10 plus million.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
Dollars that he made while at, while in college at USC,
that is like, well, I don't need to do this.
I want to do this.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
I want to be great talking about his time with
the bears showing up in Chicago, how he's embraced the city,
all these other things.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
And it's just that.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Reminder of, all right, We bastardized the whole college football thing.
It's not college football anymore. For a select few, for
UMass guys, for my beloved Northwestern, no. I mean, even there,
you've got that fine line between guys that are excelling
and working on the academic side versus guys that are

(23:52):
there to play football and go on down the line.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
I'm not saying that it's 100%. Clearly, it's a wide range.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Wide berth going going back many years but as soon
as you started being able uh.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Legally by rules.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
To collect massive paydays to the tune of 10 million
dollars or what we're hearing what arch manning's gonna make
that plus this year right and guys uh bouncing around
we watched it with uh carson beck going to Miami,
what was it, $ 6 million or something like that, when
he went down there to play, that you've already become pros.

(24:27):
So if there's a, hey, come on back in, the
water's fine, you've got to figure out how to bone
up on those eligibility rules because we're long past the
once-you-get-paid element to any of it.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
I mean, really, what are the odds that tomorrow— Dabo
Sweeney says, we're not playing Saturday. I mean, that's the
marquee game of the day Saturday, right?

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Well, a guy that doesn't want to do any of
the new world of college football anyway, right? Well, yeah,
he's still struggling with, you know, this NIL stuff that's
come up.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
You know, I don't really like that. I don't like that.
I don't like the transfer portal. So he's dealing with
stuff that is, like, way old, like three years old. Yeah,
I know. He's trying to catch up. Yeah, he is
a friendster in a world of Instagram.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Do you want to explain to people what Friendster might
have been? No, you get it or you don't. Friendster,
I get it. Or he's a MySpace in a world
of Instagram. Hi, Tom. Really, what are the odds? What
are the odds that you see Clemson say tomorrow, if
he's going to play these guys, we're not playing him?
If he's going to play, we're not. Or if they
agree to play, but we're not going to play. Like,

(25:31):
this is not going to just go away where the
SEC and other schools are going to throw up their
hands and go, ah, what can you do? He tried it.
He wants it. No, they have talked about banning together
and not playing teams. that sign these players. We're talking
about sanctions and everything else. Really, that's the next step,
and that could be tomorrow. Again, I'm not going to
be surprised if we wake up tomorrow morning and headline, Sweeney,

(25:54):
we won't play if NFLers play.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Do you think they'll be knocking on a judge's door
at midnight tomorrow night as we're finishing our Friday show?

Speaker 1 (26:03):
We found a judge to sign this for me. Well,
that's the thing. You know, I got to say, from
watching all the TV I've seen, you can find a
judge anytime you want to. Now, generally, judges are always
at home. In a robe. It's at night, in a robe,
in their study. And the cops come to see them,
and the judge tells his wife or she tells her husband,
it's okay, they're here. And they sit down and they go,

(26:26):
you better be right about this. We got a running clock, judge.
We got a running clock. It's always the judge's career
is at stake. Oh, absolutely. My career is at stake. No,
we got the story. We got it. If this goes bad,
I'll have your ass. So I know the judges work hard.
They generally work till about five or six o'clock. And
anytime they're at home, they're in a robe enjoying the

(26:47):
night and knocking on a judge's door is like the
worst thing you could ever want to do. Like there's
other things. I see it. I see in the, in
the movies where these cops would rather get into shootouts
with the bad guys. And I don't want to go
to a judge's home. I don't want to disturb them
at home. Like you disturb a judge at home. It's like,
why would I poke the bear?

Speaker 3 (27:05):
Or you get into all of that firefight and then
you say, well, we'll get the warrant tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
I mean, I, I don't know. No, no, no. That's
the thing, man. It's procedural. But I'm sure right now
somewhere in Louisiana there's judges who are up going, okay,
put some coffee on. We're going to have some company.
People are going to come over.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Put on our show. Let's watch the second half. of
Illinois UAB. Archie, Debo Swinney is here. It's Dabo Sweeney. Yeah,
Debo is here to see you. Wait, Kalen DeBoer is here? No,
he didn't say Kalen. He said Debo. Debo Swinney. No,
I said Dabo.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Debo Samuel, he plays in the NFL. He's not trying
to come back to college, is he?

Speaker 4 (27:45):
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
We got Debo. No, we got Debo. Oh, Wait, the
guy from Friday is here? No, no, that's a different guy. Just,
I'm going to let him in. I'm going to let
him into the side. Yeah, come around the side. Come
around the side. Come around the side. And it's always
a lush robe, too. Oh, always, yeah. It's not like some, hey, like,
robe I just bought at Bed Bath & Beyond before
they closed down. Like, it's a real, hey, this is
a really, it's a silky robe or, yeah, it's like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
If you're going to live your life wearing a robe
by the day, if you're in one at night, I mean,
that's luxury time.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
100%.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
There's not a lot to the robes in a courtroom.
Just wait. I mean, if I wake up tomorrow. I mean,
it's not quite Ric Flair.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
No.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
But it's somewhere in between. Dabo says we won't play.
I am not going to be surprised. Dabo. Dabo. Did
you just say Dabo's coming? I want to take college
football back to the 1980s. where players got paid illegally,
just like we used to do. And we liked it.
And guys couldn't transfer. They'd have to sit out four
years in between transfer. And they may never see the

(28:43):
field again. Exit outbound to Fresca. Exit Swollen Dome. Jason Smith,
Mike Harmon, live from the Fox Sports Radio Studios. Coming
up next, a big story in the NFL. We spent
the entire summer and a lot of the spring breaking down,
asking what's next. It looks like it's over. What is it?

(29:04):
That's straight ahead. Jason and Mike Fox.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m.
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon. You selfish bastard. Stream us live wherever you
happen to be in the iHeart app. Catch us in
all of our Fox Sports Radio shows live 24-7 in
the new and improved iHeart app. Just search Fox Sports
Radio in the app. Stream us live all day, every day, and...
Be sure to select Fox Sports Radio as one of
your presets in the iHeart app so it'll always pop

(29:39):
up at the top of your screen so you can
lock it in. And rip that knob off. So, a
big day legally. I feel like, you know, if you
need to have a working knowledge of, well, law and order,
LA law, lots of stuff. Because smack dab of all
this college football stuff, the LSU ruling that came in, the.
North Carolina story we're going to get to coming up

(30:01):
in a few minutes, which is just absolutely crazy. The
final update, I would say, in the Mike Vrabel-Diana Rossini
saga dropped earlier today, where we've been waiting for a
while for The Athletic to come out with the results
of their investigation into her coverage of Mike Vrabel. Did

(30:21):
it cross the line? Their suspected affair? It's been a
big deal all summer long. And The Athletic put their
findings out today and basically said that, yeah, well, some improprieties, but, nah,
nothing crazy. Wait, what? That about sums it up pretty nicely.

(30:44):
We didn't have access to her phone. We didn't talk
to her at all. So what we found is some
stuff that made us uncomfortable in her reporting, right? They
went over her interview details. that she had done. They
went over her articles that she had written. They went
over her podcast hits, and they found that, yeah, some
stuff that makes you uncomfortable, but nothing well over the top.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Mike Semel, the editorial director for Standards and Quality, said
they reviewed 903 stories, 204 podcasts. 77 videos.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Why did you even do it? This is useless. I
could have done this. I could have said, you know what?
Hire me. Pay me a lot of money. I'll go
through all this. I'll tell you. I'll go through all
this stuff, and then I'll come out with my findings.
And they'd say, okay, great. Here's $ 25, 000. And I would
have sat on my ass for three months, said I
did all this, but really I wouldn't have to do anything,

(31:37):
and then come out at the end and say, yeah,
I found stuff that was a little uncomfortable, but yeah,
nothing crazy. I saved my money and all I did
was go to the beach. Why are you going after consultants?

Speaker 3 (31:47):
I mean, editorial research people like this.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
This was useless. Any of us could have done this.
You went through all of these different radio interviews and
TV interviews. to come out with something and have a
statement that we already knew. Yeah, stuff was uncomfortable. That's
why you're investigating. But we didn't have access to her phone. Okay,
I get it. Did interview her. Okay, well, did you ask?

(32:10):
Did she tell you no? Did you interview other people
around it? Did you interview the people that she said
was with them at the resort that was going to
corroborate her story? What kind of interview did you do?
Did you just went back and looked at the stuff
that was public knowledge?

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Really?

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Like, that passes for a great investigation? This was absolutely
useless this entire time. One of the lines in the
findings was, well, much of it was unrelated to Vrabel.
It's like, yes, she covers a league.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
So.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
I saw a couple of the lines in the write
up talking about the maybe she didn't go as harshly
at his coaching and and results as she would have otherwise.
But you can dismiss that, I think. And you you
can disagree, but you go market to market. insider to insider,

(33:05):
reporter to reporter, man, there's certainly a lot of soft
shoe work to make sure you maintain access. So how
much was it there? I mean, the voting on the
league awards, I think there's a question that needs to
be raised, right? Like that was kind of seemingly out
of line, but like anything, you make the argument and
defend your choice. But did you sway things? Did it

(33:29):
sway any of the movement and player movement based on
and how she reported things? I didn't get any sense
that there was any any deep dive into that, that
it was just more a cursory.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
We went through.

Speaker 5 (33:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
What are you going to do? Now, here is Mike
Vrabel from today being asked about his reaction to the
athletics report that, hey, we got stuff that was uncomfortable.
You know, hey, what's your reaction, Mike? No, I don't
have any reaction. We're moved on and focused on Seattle
and focused on the Patriots and focused.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
On getting better this week. Fully behind you.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Try to just say that I've.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Moved on and excited about this new opportunity here as
we start this season.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, he's walking around right now going, whew, that's the
last bullet I had to dodge was the athletics report
because everything else seems to have been taken care of.
It's we need more videos or we need the athletics
report to uncover things. And now he knows I have
dodged this bullet. I will be able to coach now.
And yes, this is going to follow me for the
rest of my career, but I can be the Patriots

(34:29):
head coach. I can move on and not have to
worry about getting fired. Of all of this to say,
and I'm just looking at something that we've seen now
many times over the course of my time covering and
dealing with football. Not the first and not nearly the
last time a story that was potentially incredibly embarrassing to

(34:51):
the NFL was Peter's out, and nothing is found. How
many times does a story get out there, wow, this
is going to be really embarrassing to the NFL, and
at the end, it just gets choked off, where there's
no more oxygen, the story doesn't go anywhere, and it
just dies. That happens virtually every single time. Sometimes it

(35:11):
takes a little bit longer than others, but most of
the time, this is really bad for the NFL. And
what happens? Oh boy, a few months later, yeah, well,
there's nowhere else to go with that. Again, the NFL
is great at this. The NFL is great at when
things like this come up, suddenly it just slowly falls
out of the public consciousness. NFL's great at it.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Rossini's quote, quote, I stand by any and all reporting
I've ever done in my career, unquote. Yeah, I mean,
on a lot of it, for me, going back to
its origin, it seemed more the personal relationships between them,
their spouses, et cetera, salacious details and such. But if

(35:51):
it influenced the voting or transactional things, then it's a
much larger deal. Either way, I guess we clap our
hands and move forward Vegas blackjack dealer style.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Exit out about a fresca. Exit swollen dough on the
Jason Smith show with my best friend, Mike Harmon. Coming
up next, we get back into what could be the
new college football scandal taking over. At least Bill Belichick
had one week to celebrate it. One week. That's next, Fox.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon. This is my upset special. Joining us now
on the hotline for all the big NFL news. He's
on the 33rd team. He is a pro football hall
of fame voter.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
Go Aztecs, dudes. All right.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
That's right. I said fame. I said fame. Fame. Fame.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
Icky, Icky Jordan loves Zowie Zee.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
And as I said a few minutes ago, we'll talk NFL. Yeah.
But I'm sure he'll have something to say about Michael
Lombardi and Bill Belichick in North Carolina. It is. Longtime
NFL insider, friend of the show. He's on Twitter at JasonCole62.
It is Jason Cole. What's happening, man?

Speaker 4 (37:13):
Yeah. I have rules I have to follow. I just
want you to know that. Wes, I do this appearance.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
There's a person in my life I am not allowed
to mention her at all in this. And if I do,
I get in a lot of trouble.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Okay. Is it your wife?

Speaker 4 (37:32):
I didn't say that.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Okay. Okay.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
I didn't say that. I didn't say that at all.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
We want to know. I just, I can't talk about
a certain person that I might live with.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
So yeah, I'm just going to say that that's a
new rule. She, she's glaring at me. Oh, I say this.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah. Sorry.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
She's almost four foot 11. So I don't know why
I'm intimidated by it, but you know, this is what happens.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Is she staring at you? Like, uh, like what's her
name from obsession going? Stay like, is that happening?

Speaker 4 (38:10):
A little bit of that. Um, Yeah, it's pretty much that.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Did you wake up this morning to go to work
and there was duct tape all over the door preventing
you from leaving?

Speaker 4 (38:24):
I won't say that. I can't comment.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Maybe you shouldn't go to work if you can't get out.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
No, no, no.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
I can get out. I'm good. I'll see you when
I get home. I'll see you when I get home. Okay.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
All right. I don't think that she's that fond of me,
but yeah. There you go. All right.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
So we talked about the UNC situation. There's this big
breaking news tonight. Michael Lombardi resigns as GM. Look, Lombardi
resigns as GM. There's rumors about drug usage among the staff.
Steve Belichick reportedly is involved. There's a sex scandal between
coaches and people in the recruiting office. Like, I don't

(39:02):
know that Bill Belichick makes it a whole season now
after this. Like, this is really bad, J.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Cole. Yeah, it's not good. I'll say Steve Belichick, not
the first time you might hear those rumors about him.

(39:27):
You know, there's just... there's a certain amount of boys
will be boys with Belichick that goes on when he
doesn't have proper supervision he doesn't have somebody breathing down
his neck and Kraft was kind of that guy when

(39:49):
he was in New England. Like a lot of this
stuff was kept under wraps. The other thing he had
is he had some older guys, whether it was Romeo
Cornell or whether it was Ivan Fears or whether it
was Skarnet. He had older guys who kind of ran
hurt over the rest of the staff a little bit
and kept guys in line. Lombardi never was going to

(40:13):
be that guy. Lombardi is one of these guys Wild West,
you know, shoot from the hip, do whatever you think
you have to do. Make believe that you've got some,
you know, that you're connected and you should be feared
and all this other stuff. He's the completely wrong guy

(40:35):
to have when you don't have somebody leaning on you
all the time. And this is, you know, this is
what happens. And Bill, look, Bill, For everything Bill wants
to say, he took this job out of spite. He

(40:56):
didn't take this job because he really, really wanted to
be there. He wanted to spite somebody in the NFL
because they were spiting him. And so I don't know
that he's really... I think he's fully engaged in wanting
to be good at the football part of it because
that's pride. But I don't think he understands everything. There's

(41:17):
a lot more work... that goes into running a college
football team than an NFL team, because there are so
many other layers of things you have to do when
you're dealing with 18 to 22 year olds. And again,
when you bring in Michael and Marty, controls and care

(41:43):
are not going to be central to what you're trying
to do.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
He didn't even get a full week to celebrate that
15-10 win before this all goes to hell.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
Yeah, well, they popped the court after that one, didn't they?
Sort of like Stanford beating Hawaii in a comeback in
the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
How about that? Yeah, week zero, baby. That's what it's
all about.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
And look ahead to us against the University of Miami
on Friday. I don't look not disgusted.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Okay, so let's stay with guys going back to college
and the latest Judge Jordan, the Honorable Judge Jordan, saying, hey,
go on back, and Lane Kiffin being the one guy saying,
come on in, the water's fine, you can play Saturday.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
There's your locker.

Speaker 4 (42:25):
Yeah, well, no, my favorite part about this is when
Lane comes out and says, my players are fully embracing
this and loving this. No, no, they're not. They're not.
They want to play. They don't want you to bring
in some old dude who couldn't make it in the

(42:47):
NFL who's going to take their job. That's not what
they want. So stop. Like, just stop lying. But you're
Lane Kiffin, and somehow you might be related to Michael Marty.
Just saying. So rules and truth are not really central
to your existence. Can we say that? Like, this is

(43:11):
such a mess. But I have to say that in
my love of sort of this dystopian reality for the
NCAA and how they have to deal with life after,
you know, lording over athletes for the better part of
a century, this is the one where, like, This is

(43:36):
the breaking point. So Lane Kiffin is the one who
is in a de facto way going to be the
one who fixes college football because he's done such an
egregious outlaw maneuver that everybody can agree. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You can't do this. So it takes a guy like

(44:00):
Lane to to, to basically tear college football down to
the studs, to where everybody agrees. Now we have to
fix it. Like this is that this is that moment.
And I think even the players recognize that because the
players are sitting there going, Hey, wait a second. We
can't have a bunch of old dudes come keep coming

(44:22):
back because they're getting in the way of us getting
a chance to play. And that's, that's going to hurt
us too. In the long run, it's going to hurt
the game, but I mean, that's a, that's a much
deeper philosophical discussion, but this is the moment that breaks everything.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
So they're going to build a statute. Okay. He becomes
the patron saint of college football.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
If, if, if you can say that somehow, like, Sodom
and Gomorrah were a way of fixing, you know, fixing culture.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
Lane Kiffin sort of fits in that, right? Like he's, he's,
he's over in that area of, of the world.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Does the NFL care about this? Like, does the NFL
care about, Hey, they were in camp with us and
they go back to college.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
Well, it's not direct. It's not directly their problem. So no,
it's not for, it's not something for them to get
involved in. And I don't think they really care and
just sort of reinforces sort of the minor league aspect
of college football. Right. But, and, and so I sort
of look at this one up, well, what does this

(45:34):
guy do? What does this kid at LSU do now
that if like a spot opens up on an NFL
roster and somebody gives him a call, says, do you
want to play in the NFL? Does he like, does
he toggle back and forth? Like, how does that work?

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Right.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
And so like, does, does college football really, truly become,
you know, triple a for the war for the NFL, right?
Is that, is that what really happens here? So I'm, I'm,
I'm open to whatever this is going to happen. What's
going to happen here. But the NFL is really concerned

(46:10):
is from a player development standpoint that The only guys
are going to get to play in the, in college
football on a regular basis are the older guys, because
every coach in the country on these top teams is
going to say, I would rather have a 22 year
old guy who knows how to play than even a

(46:32):
five-star 18 year old who I got to spend a
year or two to train them to be a great player.
So from a player development standpoint of like offensive line,
young offensive linemen of, you know, of good backup players
and all that stuff, this does hurt development for the NFL.

(46:53):
But that's like, that's really hard to quantify. And the
NFL will still always exist. But in a sense, it's
going to make it, so that the NFL is going
to have to start keeping older players who know how
to play, and it's going to reverse the trend of
what's happened basically for the last 16 years since they

(47:16):
signed the 2011 collective bargaining agreement. But that's really boring
stuff that fans don't really understand, nor do they care about.
They just want to see football, like whatever meat you
put in front of them, they're fine with.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
We're almost there, baby. Almost there. Jason Cole, our guest here.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Jason Smith Show with me, Mike Harmon, here at JasonCole62
is where you find him. Go wherever you buy your
rich books, you know, covered in rich mahogany.

Speaker 4 (47:45):
I wish they were mahogany. Yeah. Mahogany?

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Well, we're going to put him in a nice bookshelf. L.A.
Relentless Life, one of his. He is blunt. He gets
after it. Selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
Big friend of Michael Lombardi.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Clearly. Well, add that to your Twitter profile.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
And Lane Kiffin. Lane Kiffin and Michael Lombardi and I.
We're going to go out in New Orleans some night
and just have a really great time.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Speaking of going out in New Orleans on a night,
one of the other stories from today, The Athletic announced their,
revealed their ultimate decision of the Diana Rossini, Mike Vrabel.

Speaker 4 (48:30):
We know nothing.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
All the articles, all of the videos, everything just comes
down to nothing.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
Revolts, shows. you can kind of see that this is
kind of like, I know there's a coach of the
year vote and all this other stuff. And then people,
some people on Twitter have made a big deal about
like a lot of really small things. Like what was
her vote for coach of the year? Did she have

(48:59):
some impact on, you know, the trade for the wide receiver,
all the, all these kinds of things. And the answer
is no, you know, she, a, she was one vote
and she wouldn't have impacted whether Ravel won the coach
of the year or not, even if you know, it
doesn't matter if you reveal it or not. And the A.J.
Brown thing, she didn't, nobody's paying attention to anything that

(49:23):
she reports about the A.J. Brown trade that influences whether
that was going to happen. That was going to happen
by A.J. Brown. So there's a lot of, there's a
lot out there that's really silly about this. But this
whitewash report just will only feed those people and make

(49:44):
them demand more and demand more blood. And to those people,
I'm like, well, then you should do your own reporting.
So this is kind of a silly effort by the Athletics.
They should have just shut their mouth and said, she
no longer works for us, and that's it. Um, this
one just looks like they, they really didn't even do
any work. Cause it's like five months to come up

(50:06):
with this.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Yeah. Like I said, I could have said, listen, I'll
do it. You pay me $ 500, 000 and I'll come up
with whatever. And I would just sit on the beach
for five months, then come back and go, oh yeah,
I didn't find anything more than what we already knew.
That's great. And I had the best last five months
in the world, making half a million dollars.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
Well, I mean, he didn't make that much money. I
don't think to do this. I think he probably had
other responsibilities. But even if it was only $ 50, 000, you know, like, yeah, like, okay,
we watched 77 videos and we read 400 stories and
couldn't find anything. Yeah, that's, you know, like, we know

(50:46):
what she did. She broke journalistic ethics. It's really, really simple.
Whether she's fucked with him or not, she still broke
journalistic ethics. There's no question about it. If you want
to do a full investigation of everything else, great. But
this was a whitewash. And so don't do this. Don't
even publish it.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Twitter at JasonCole62. That's at JasonCole62.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
I got through it. I did it. And you're still married?
Everything still is okay? Well, it's There's much work to
be done.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
All right.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
This is my wife. Take it easy, buddy. My best
wishes to whoever you are talking about that you're going
to go talk to right now.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
That person who shall not be named. And go on
and mention girlfriend. Very good.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
This is my wife.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
This is my missus. This is my girlfriend.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
All right, all right, all right, all right. Stop getting
him in trouble. Bye, J. Cole. Thank you. Exit out
by the fresca. Exit Swollen Dome. The Jason Smith Show
with my best friend, Mike Harmon.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Be sure to catch live editions of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Pacific. You miss any of today's show, be sure to
catch the podcast. Just search Jason Smith and Mike Harmon
wherever you get your podcasts from. Follow the podcast, rate
it five stars, provide a review again. Just search our names,
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon, wherever you get your podcasts,
and you'll find today's full show and a best-of version
posted right after we get off the air. So before

(52:26):
we get into Colorado and their big win coming up
in a couple of minutes, but a little bit more
on the craziness involving the women's team playing FIBA tomorrow,
their first game in the FIBA World Championship in Berlin.
They play China 8-15 East Coast time for the game.

(52:47):
Some reports, opinions the last few days that maybe Caitlin Clark,
maybe Paige Beckers, won't start for Team USA. That potentially
Team USA could look at things like we're going to
start seniority, we're going to bring them off the bench,
it's more physical. And really, who's had to worry about
more physical play than Caitlin Clark, right?

Speaker 4 (53:10):
If.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
They don't start. Specifically, Kaitlyn Clark, because she is the
best player on the roster. The best player. No Asia Wilson,
no Olivia Miles. She's the best player on the roster.
If she doesn't start, you know it's not basketball first
with her. That's where any single... question or comment about

(53:32):
liking Caitlin Clark. No, we don't do it. You know
that at least from USA basketball, it is not basketball
first because you're going back two years ago when they
didn't pick her for the Olympic team, which was ridiculous.
Why wouldn't you take a player like that? Everybody did.
They've done it in the past. They've taken the big
star player from college coming into play. It's happened for everybody.
But to hear that maybe if she doesn't play a lot,

(53:55):
we would have to hear from her fans. Like, you know,
there is an anti-Caitlin Clark thing from Team USA. Cheryl Reeve,
who was the coach a couple years ago, who said,
remember after their first game, that the defending champions weren't
on and Kaitlyn Clark was on. She was upset about
that on social media, right? When they picked the All-Star
team last year and Kaitlyn Clark was supposed to play

(54:17):
on Cheryl Reeve's team, what did they decide? The captains? Hey,
we're trading, so your player can go play with you
and I'm going to play. I'm not going to play
for Cheryl Reeve. Right now, Carol Lawson is the coach,
not Cheryl Reeve. But you can see there are some
things USA basketball wise where maybe they want to run
some kind of crazy. We do. We play the players
we like. We play the players we don't like. We

(54:37):
don't play the players we don't like. Caitlin Clark's got it.
I don't know how you earn it. Like, what do
you mean you got to earn it again? She's the
best player. on this roster. She's one of the top
three players overall in the WNBA, no matter how you
want to slice it. And she's the best player on
this roster. She was 11th amongst guards. How dare you?
If she doesn't play, you know that there is an
anti-Kaitlyn Clark bias out there. and that women's basketball, women's

(55:01):
USA basketball, is not run the way it should be, right?
And the thing is to say, well, maybe she starts, yeah,
maybe she does. Maybe she does, right? And Carol Lawson,
maybe she does, and Carol Lawson's been playing it close
to the vest. But I want to say this. I
know it's in Berlin, so the media attention is not
quite as big as it would be if it was here, right?
But if this is a topic, and you know it

(55:24):
is all week, and Caitlin Clark and her status, especially
Paige Beckers as well, If you were going to start them,
wouldn't you just say that? Wouldn't you say to get
rid of everything? Yeah, here's my starting five. I mean,
are you really worried about strategy with China? Like, oh,
they're going to prepare for that. This is not where, hey,
I don't know. I'm not going to name my starting
quarterback for Sunday. So you got to prepare for both

(55:45):
guys like like wouldn't you? Isn't it more worth it
if you are Team USA to put that clarity out there?
So mentally, you guys are all in the right place
because that's the only way we lose is if mentally
we're not in the right place. That's the only way
we don't win the FIBA World Championships. There's no other way.
So I would think, you know, what do I know
is that you would want that clarity and you would

(56:07):
want to walk away from that storyline because I can't
imagine that you would really want to try to play offensively.
a world championship where you don't start her the first game.
And now that becomes a story the rest of the competition.
Because then what if then she starts the next game?
Then suddenly the story is, oh, the pressure to start her.
She didn't want to do it. They made her start it,

(56:27):
made her change her mind. Like, I can't get over
how far this can run out of control very quickly.
Because if you remember back when we won the gold medal,
why did I tell you we were going to win?
Because we had the bigs, right? We had Asia Wilson,
Brianna Stewart, who a couple of years ago, They were unstoppable.
We're not going to win because of our guards because
our guard play wasn't strong enough. Whether it was UNSQ, great,

(56:47):
none of them were strong enough. Kaitlyn Clark needed to
be on that team, and she wasn't. But we won
because of our bigs because nobody could deal with them,
and that's the way it should be. But Stewart is
here now, great, still a great player, but 32. Asia
Wilson not there. So it's going to be much more
guard heavy. You're going to need more offense. You don't
have anybody else that's going to fill it up, right?
Asia Wilson walking away at 28 points a game. Someone's

(57:09):
got to score, right? Chelsea Gray's not coming in to score.
These players that you're going to play are not coming
in to score. Your biggest threats are Kaitlyn Clark and
Paige Beckers. I can't imagine there being a world where
they don't start. But wow, if they don't. Oh, can
you imagine? Like all of a sudden this week in
a college football?

Speaker 4 (57:26):
Yeah, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
Caitlin Clark is not starting for Team USA. Hang on.
Hang on. More people will tweet about Caitlin Clark. They'll
tweet about anything college football. Well, unless Clemson says we're
not going to play LSU because of the players coming
back from the NFL.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
But that's a different story. Well, I think if it
did take over, it would be the hot takery side
of it. But in terms of the actual competition, because
they'll be reading about it in post because they don't
get up and watching it. They're going to watch whatever.
I would say the vast majority are going to be
watching the worst of the college football games. Because it's
not a great slate this week either. I mean, not

(58:01):
that we didn't have a couple of thrillers tonight, which
we'll get to in a minute. But, you know, one
of the things we've had kind of lurking in the
background with a lot of the WNBA decisions or indecision
and quiet is sometimes allowing the controversy to win is
an overall win. even if the players themselves have to

(58:24):
wear it and answer to it, that by having Beckers
and Clark on the bench, assuming that that's what happens
tomorrow morning, more people talk about it than if they
just go out and roll China.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
With them in the starting lineup. I'm not saying it's
a great strategy long-term, and you certainly have to listen
within the people that cover the WNBA and women's basketball.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Probably a bit more asking why, why, why. But the
other side is you're going to get more coverage if
you don't.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Yeah, but here's the thing, though. You're playing with USA
on the front of your jersey. It's different if you're
playing Fever, if you're playing Liberty. It's a different thing.
You don't want any smoke of not winning a gold
medal in international play in basketball. Nobody wants any smoke
from that. So yeah, I guess we would say, okay,

(59:19):
people are going to talk about it, but I I
don't think that's worth the risk of saying, well, if
I don't start, Caitlin, people are going to know. Well,
my presumption is if it starts poorly, guess what?

Speaker 3 (59:30):
We're going to the well very fast. Here's a line
change hockey style. And we try to course correct pretty fast.
But again, when the best player, if the best player
on the team does not start. What does that tell you?
What does that tell you about how a team is run?

Speaker 1 (59:46):
It's not like this is, hey, it's the final game
and the seniors are all going to start and play
the first two minutes. Well, that's kind of the way
they're looking at this. And I take the seniors out
because two of them, you know, aren't even in the rotation,
but they've come to every practice for four years. And
then we play a game, right? That's not what this is.
But that's kind of like if we're going to the

(01:00:07):
seniority route, again, you know my feelings on that. It's like,
where's best for the job? That is not what this is, man.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
But if that's what you're looking at here, hey, we've
got our veteran guards. And look, all the couching of
it because of the physicality. You had Lawson who'd done
one of the— WNBA games between the Fever and Wings
earlier this year talking about how they're both about winning
and really kind of putting it out there. They're about
team and winning and to your point, yeah, you need

(01:00:37):
Clark to fill it up. You also don't have a playmaker.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
As good as her.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
What's the expected layups that should be made per game stat?

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
I mean, we make up stats for everything else. When
are we going to start making that?

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
Well, there were at least seven opportunities that were created
by Caitlin Clark in this game that did not come
to fruition.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
We haven't done that one yet, but I get your point. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
In terms of messaging and the chaos there. I'm also
wondering if the, the, Hey, you know what? They're going
to pay attention to the stoppage because it is another
stoppage in play, which is just not good for business.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
But here we are. Exit out about a fresca. Exit
Swollen Dome. Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, live from the Fox
Sports Radio Studios. So that's the answer to a question.
We'll find out. uh less than 12 hours from 5
15 pacific coast come on baby ready come on we'll
do it over eggs let's watch no again i'm okay
i'm okay recording it i'm okay recording it and and

(01:01:32):
waking up kegs and eggs i'm okay with that no
i like you don't like the u.s again you did
this for the olympics final two 5 a.m come on
usa no usa i got up two hours later i
watched just fine it's against china come on Oh, I know.
Is Yao Ming playing? I mean, come on. We're okay.
Might be there.

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Oh, yeah. He might go and wave his hand. Oh,
can you imagine he waved to Yao Ming in the
stands and he's there hanging out? Look at Yao. Oh,
that would be awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
Legend.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
I want a Yao Ming autograph now. You think Marbury
would be there, too? He played in China for a
long time. Selling shoes. Wearing Knicks stuff on the baseline
like he was, all excited.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
Champ.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Yeah. How great was it to see him on the baseline, though?
Come on now. Jason and Mike.