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January 10, 2025 41 mins

Jason and Mike open Hour 4 reacting to an old quote resurfacing from Brian Kelly after his former team, Notre Dame, just earned a spot in the National Championship. Did Kelly make a mistake leaving Notre Dame for LSU a few years ago?

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, Welcome inside Final Hour tonight the Jason Smith Show
with my best friend Mike Harmon, Live from the tirack
dot Com studios.

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Speaker 1 (00:49):
A couple head coaches making big headlines following Notre Dame's
twenty seven to twenty four win tonight over Penn State No.
Tre Dame in the National Championship Penn States answering questions,
James Franklin saying maybe I shouldn't have seemed so haughty
and elitist at the press conference yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
With Freeman next to me. Maybe I want to do
that again.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Do you think Argus Freeman's hair got into a victory here?
I'll hang up and listen for your response, mister Franklin.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
But there's two head coaches that are making a lot
of headlines, and one you would expect and one you
wouldn't expect. Let's deal with the guy that you would
expect making headlines first, right, And yes, Marcus Rehman, we've
talked about him with a phenomenal job.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
He's done.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Third year, he's playing for a national championship, first time
they've done so. They're playing for a title in twelve years,
and he has done a tremendous, tremendous job. James Franklin,
he goes thirteen and three, finishes second overall in the
Big Ten, and he's facing an offseason where he made
it to the semi finals of the College Football Playoff

(01:54):
the first one, and he's within a hair's breadth of
making to the national championship. And it's still gonna be
James Franklin's not a big time head coach. It's still
gonna be James Franklin's not a big time head coach.
He can't win the big games. Sometimes stuff like that
is really just insane. And and you don't you gotta
understand that, Hey, you have it pretty good, right, you can't.

(02:15):
Not everybody's gonna win. And to make it this far,
you're really being unreasonable when when when you.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Talk about a coach.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Right, The last time I saw the real unreasonable was
when I went to England this summer and we were
there during the Euro and everybody hated Southgate. I'm like,
all you're doing is winning. You're in the you're in
the fight. I was talking to all the cab drivers,
Everybody's like, what do you think the Euro? He goes, oh,
we can't, but we can't do anything. Coaches terrible, he's terrible,
manages terrible, he's dead. You see the way we play.
I'm like, you're winning and you're in the championship in

(02:44):
the Euro but it's not good enough. Right, that's a
little ridiculous. But for Penn State, I get it because
James Franklin wins games. He's supposed to win, right and
that and and that's good, right, that's good. Hey, well
you win games, you're supposed to win. It means we're
not gonna go win and get upset. We're not gonna
lose to Vanderbilt and have that come back and bite us.
But if you want to be in next level program,

(03:06):
you gotta win big games. And I'm sorry. You could
put the resume, the regular season resumes of Penn State
and Indiana right next to each other and they would
look indistinguishable because the only thing Penn State has on
their resumes. Ah boy, you know they they beat Illinois. Okay,
Illinois was ten and three. They were pretty good then.

(03:29):
But that's it, right, And part of it is, hey,
the unbalanced scheduling. You know this year Penn State didn't
play Michigan. You know, it happens that way. Sometimes you're
not gonna play all the great teams. It's the way
it goes. But you can only go by what you
see on the field, and that is Penn State still
doesn't win games where it's a toss up or they're
an underdog and they're winning beating somebody really good, and

(03:50):
you gotta win a big game. And I'm gonna continue
on and say I'm not gonna pick Penn State to
win a big game until you show me you can
win a big game. And I don't know that I
can quant by saying it's this game at this point
in time, but I'll know when it's there, you know,
late September on the road aainst number one team in
the country. That's a big game, right November in a
game you have to win, tomit, that's a big game.

(04:11):
But I just haven't seen it, and especially in this
in this level. Penn State really had an easy path
to make it to where they are, right. You know,
SMU was not great, but hey, we can't let a
team that made it to the championship of the ACCUT
out of the playoff will look really bad if we
left them out for Alabama and then you get Poise State.
Who Hey, Boise State, They're a great story, you know,

(04:34):
a great player ash and Genty is really good. But
I mean, really, Huggard of these teams, right, they had
a great draw to make it as far as they
have and no matter how you want to cut it up,
it's hey point to give me the signature win, giving
give me the big one. Penn State kind of moved
around the schedule this year to make it as far
as they did. So, yeah, I see the criticism of

(04:54):
James Franklin.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
You want to beat a big team at some point
and you just haven't. So yeah, until that happens, this
is gonna dogument. And that's kind of the way it
goes in college football.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
Yeah, I mean, you go back to when they won
that game against Illinois. Nobody cared about Illinois at that point.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
No, no, not at all.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
Right, I mean you went back at the end, but
still they did win.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Well, they only wins.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Yeah, they only cared when they was fighting Beamer in
the game against South Carolina and people paid attention to say, wait,
Illinois won how many games this year? Yeah, they lost
ben State twenty one seven. You're final otherwise, no wins
against rank opponents, and and look, you play who's on
the schedule, and that's the way it works, and it
rolls through. Just because you got to a title game

(05:35):
and you gave Oregon fits before losing, it's still a loss. Right,
There's no such thing as good losses. If we're gonna
play that game, Go ask Alabama about that. Go ass
goal miss about those kind of things, right, Go ask
Kirk Kurbstreet about wins and losses at all. See what
I did, I dragged him back in there. I had to.

(05:55):
But all of that to say, it's the A to
B B two C argument that we've made, and I've
been making on this network for as long as I've
been doing it. You got a guy that can get
you to this point and it's consistent, and it's when
you may like how he runs. As a program. You'll
be able to hear a lot of our guys, right,
our buddies, rich Hornberger, LeVar Arrington, Penn Staata alums, though encapsulated.

(06:18):
Maybe I'll reach out to Richie and we'll drag him
into the mix tomorrow. What do you think about that?
Smith to talk about the PostScript on this season, but
all of that to say, it doesn't lie at the
end when you're playing top notch, top ranked opponents and consistency. Yes,
you consistently lose margin to victory. We can talk about that.

(06:41):
We can argue about games going in the margins. As
Todd Verman alluded to, some of the coaching decisions Franklin
made here. You ran for one hundred and forty one
yards in the first half. Second half, you got cute
aler eleven of twenty two for the game, no completions
to wide receivers, and you went away from running the
football in chunks. Right, you got cute at the goal

(07:03):
line where you were running the ball effectively and said,
and yes it was a drop would be touchdown to
the running back out of the backfield. That ended up
making you make a decision for a field goal. That
was a let me run the ball down your throat
moment because now we fully take advantage of this, and
we take full of this possession with a touchdown that

(07:26):
might have been insturmountable at that point. Instead you kick
a field goal. Eh yeah, ten minute drive, we gave
up a field goal.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Who cares?

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Okay, move on, play on, and that's what you have.
So for James Franklin, yeah, a lot of wood. It
could have showed have moments in his fourteen years. Great
winning percentage? What's he at about seven hundred?

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yeah? Yeah, he wins the games he's supposed to.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Right, the Ryan Dakers when your penns now Ohio state's acting, when.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Your Penn State, you're supposed to win those games, right, said,
those are games you are you are supposed to win.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
You shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
You're not losing games in Northern Illinois or anything. You're
supposed to win those games. So James Franklin has kind
of been as expected. But I mean, I mean they
did Paumel Kent State before that year.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
Okay, there was yes, I mean I narrow win over
Bowling Green didn't want to leave the golden flashes out.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
You're right, yes, very nice, very nice.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Now the other guy getting a lot of attention that
you wouldn't think is gaining a lot of attention is
Brian Kelly, former Notre dame head coach and current head
coach of Louisiana State University. Why because this quote has
resurfaced in the wake of Notre Dame's win to make
it to the national championship. In April of twenty twenty two,

(08:38):
when he left Notre Dame for LSU, he said quote,
I want to be in an environment where I have
the resources to win a national championship. I'm not always
one for boy that that quote didn't age well because
you know, things change, but wow, that quote didn't age well.
I want to have the resources to win a national championship.

(08:58):
And he is just getting pummeled over this coca is
Obviously LSU has not been close. And here's Notre Dame.
In Marcus Freeman's third year playing for the national Championship.
But the real misstep that Brian Kelly had because this,
this is this is really what it is, like you
want to rip Brian Kelly. Should you say something like that? No,

(09:18):
but he wanted to say something strong about LSU and
you really, I mean really he was He's Notre Dame
for twelve years, right, he had good years at not Treme.
He played for the national championship. He was in the
top five, he had he had a great run, right.
They came off a run with Charlie Weiss where they
were five hundred and he was eight nine ten eleven wins.
He had great success.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
And when he did his final five years, ten wins,
twelve wins, eleven they were wins, eleven wins. I still
have problems with the guy himself related to that incident
in the inclement weather and the videography that was going on,
like he's always been a loser to me after that.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
But the big thing, right, the big thing that you know, say, yes,
that was an awful statement to make the same that
now you're really gonna wear it, He's gonna wear that
thing like a golden sombrero.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Right, Well, for five five strikeouts, yeah, you're you're awaring that.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
But his real misstep is he failed to understand the
unpredictability of college football, right, because what's this thing here.
I want to be in an environment where I have
the resources to win a national championship. When he left,
he saw Notre Dame as boy, are they really gonna
compete in the nil era? I mean, anybody can give

(10:31):
money to anybody, a school like LSU, of course they're
gonna do it. Alabama is no Tre Dame gonna hold
themselves to a standard where it's gonna be impossible to
compete for a national title because they're gonna want to
do it better than everybody else and and and that's
gonna be a thing. And that's that's ostensibly why he left,
right because he was having great success.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
His best years were the last few.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
But boy, I really need to I see the way
the college landscape is, and I don't think in the
future that we're gonna be able to compete that way.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
And that's his misstep.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
I want to be in an environment where I have
the resources to win a national championship. College football changes
every five minutes, and he should have seen that. You know,
your reason you're paid big money to understand the landscape
of the game and where it's going. And when the
NIL transfer portal era began, which was right around it,
we had just seen it right after twenty twenty, after
the COVID season twenty twenty one, everybody got extra years,

(11:27):
they opened the transfer portal. All the time NIL became
a thing, right, he thought, I understand this, and I'm
gonna go because we're not going to be able to compete.
And what have you seen the last couple of years. Well,
Notre Dame is competing. Everybody's competing. The rules change every
five minutes. And to make that knee jerk decision to leave,
that was his mistake, thinking I know where college football

(11:50):
is headed, and I'm gonna make this move to LSU,
when really nobody knows where college football is headed, because again,
it changes every five minutes. The only thing I can
tell you for sure is that the old school coaches now,
who have coached a certain way for a long time,
they're gonna slowly leave.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Guys like Nick Saban, they're done because this is not
their game. This is not what they do.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
It's not constant recruiting, it's not constant nil money for people.
It's not talking to somebody's uncle who says, hey, we're
supposed to get that extra thirty grand. You know, my
nephew's not gonna play unless he gets there. People leaving
the portal having to go back and recruit. But it's
not how they were brought up. That's the only thing
I can tell you that's gonna continue on the next
few years is the old guard college football coaches will

(12:34):
leave and the new guard, the coaches with the energy
who have come up with a recruiting background. We'll get
these head coaching jobs and they'll go forward everything else.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Who knows.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
We could We could have these conferences in the next
few years. We might have two conferences in the next
couple of years. We could we could wind up having
a expanded playoff of sixteen teams. We could have the
big ten in the SEC having their own playoff, and
everybody else has a different playoff. Like, nobody knows where
college football is headed. And that was Brian Kelly's mistake.
For a guy that spent his whole life in college football,
you would think he'd understand, Boy, I really don't know

(13:04):
where things are going right now.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
And you know, what.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Things are going pretty good here at Notre Dame. We're
winning a lot of games. We're eleven twelve games. I
know that people get a little antsy we're not winning
playing for the national championship. But I'll tell you what,
twelve and one, eleven and two, ten and two, eleven
and two, Yeah, you're not replacing me after those games.
This is I got Notre Dame back to where it
needs to be, playing in big bowl games all year long,
playing in big games, competing for a national championship.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah, I get we haven't won.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
We're also in the era where Alabama was great and
other teams were great. USC was great before that. Yeah,
he had Notre Dame in a great place, and he
jumped when he had in its best place because he
thought he knew where college football was going. And that's
the big that's the big fault. He should have known.
He didn't know, because nobody knows. So now he's here
at LSU thinking he has all the answers, and now

(13:50):
he's got to watch you know, players, players that I'm
sure he recruited some of them, a lot of them,
because they're all seniors now going in He's gonna watch
these guys playing for the national championship because he misread
college football and it's and it's unpredictability, and that's what's.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
On him now the meme. But him doing that photo
booth with recruits is always going to live strong. So
that's good. That's making the round. His accent to Yeah,
that was good when he went kind of Austin Butler character,
you know, method actor kind of thing. I like that. No,
it's good. Look, the Notre Dame Collective alive and strong.

(14:24):
They had collected some twenty plus million dollars of revenue.
They're changing into something called Rally, which is interesting because
Rally is also the name of a website and entity
whereby you know, we had Shares and the Andre the
Giant Jack jockstrap there, So I mean, you know, it's
curious that they would pick the same name. Probably not

(14:46):
going to be confused, but either way, they're they're developing
a whole other portal there. But Brady Quinn, our teammate
here at Fox Sports Radio, part of the Hall of
Fame for the Orange Bowl. He was part of the process.
Tony and I'm sure enjoyed his Notre Dame fighting Irish
with their twenty seven to twenty four victory. Sure, he'll
have some thoughts on Brian Kelly because that has to

(15:09):
come up in the wake of what's gone on here.
That is to say it's been a complete failure. Right,
they're twenty nine and eleven. They won all three bowl
games there at LSU, but some expectations and results are
you know, they're not equal? All right, twenty nine and
eleven at LSU does not track quite so well for
the alumni base there, and certainly with what Marcus Freeman

(15:33):
and his team have been able to do and in
support of the collective and now this next initiative of
rally and nil opportunities for student athletes at Notre Dame,
they're in pretty good position. Oh and by the way,
by not joining a conference, they got to keep all
twenty million dollars for advancing to the title game for themselves,

(15:55):
not splitting it with a damn soul. Pretty good business.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Exit out of Fresca, Exit Swollen Dome. The Jason Smith
Show with my best friend Mike Carmon live from the
ti iraq dot Com studios. Coming up next, we'll have
more on this game, more on notere names victory plus
a double dose of drama as we head into the
NFL playoff weekend. That's right here, Jason and Mike Fox.

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Speaker 1 (17:27):
Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with my best
friend Mike Harmon Livethetirack dot com studios. We'll have more
on Notre Dames thrilling twenty seven twenty four win over
Penn State coming up in a few minutes. But you know,
today was rife with drama for the NFL playoffs coming
up in a couple of days and no Michae and

(17:49):
I'll give you our picks for Ohio State and Texas
as well. But the first bit of drama, and this
is more a life thing than it is anything else,
is that the NFL made the decision to move Minnesota
and the Rams from Sofi Stadium on Monday night to
Arizona to the Cardinal Stadium due to the wildfires that
have been going on in La over the course of

(18:10):
the last three plus days. And look, this was the
right call initially when they talked about it on Monday,
when the wildfires first came out, it was, hey, we're.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Looking into moving things if this goes on. And I
got that.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
But you know, look, we've had wildfires out here. I
understand where it's at. It's about the air quality of it,
because you know, look, we get to the part where
the city of Los Angeles is a little too city
and a little too suburban, you know, for the for
the fires to get in to get in there close,
like right now, they kind of bracket the city and

(18:49):
now they're moving out north and east, and it's just unbelievable.
So I got the whole thing. Look, it's all about
the air quality. And today was the first day where
quite honestly, the air quality in all of the city
was really bad. We still had moderate air quality the
last couple of days, but the AQI was bad. We've
had days like this where you walk outside it feels
like you're on tattooin. But today, going out and running

(19:12):
a couple of errands real fast, I want to be
outside for too long. But when I first I'm like, oh,
here's a little bit of ash that's coming that I
can feel from the from the from the fires wherever
it's get's getting blown in from and so you could
tell the air quality was tough. There was a fire
in Woodland Hills that broke out, which is another suburb
just a little bit north of LA that it was
a couple of miles from where the Rams practice. They

(19:33):
had to endure that. So the NFL made the right
call today and in making this, and I get that
the Rams, look, you want the home game. I'm sure
they wanted it more than anything. But in the end,
sometimes peace of mind is worth more. And the fact
that now the Rams who are trying to practice all
week and make sure their families are safe because a
lot of them, you know, everybody lives all over Los
Angeles and some many people live outside of the city

(19:55):
and in places like Pasadena and Alta, Dina, and and
and in Malibu and Pacific Palisades, and you know, trying
to keep your family safe. And we still have practice here.
And what are we doing to make this call on Thursday?
There's still three days before the game. Now, everybody can relax, right,
We're gonna play the game here. We can leave now
if we want to. We can get to Arizona and

(20:17):
leave La No. I don't have the family doesn't have
to worry about me because I'm staying behind and everybody
else is left. Sometimes peace of mind is worth it.
Now is it worth giving up a home game for it? Look,
I'm sure the Rams would love to play at home,
but sometimes, knowing that you're gonna have seven days of
uncertainty leading into a game, this was the right call.
And the Rams are not going to win or lose

(20:38):
this game because of they don't have the home field,
but of course you want to have it because you
want whatever advantage the home field brings you, with the crowd,
with whatever calls you might get.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
But still this is the right call for the NFL
to do this.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah, in the end, you're looking at assumption of everything
clearing up, right, there's no magical elicks or here, it's
still burning. You've got some containments, so we're finally seeing
some progress to track that way. But all said, the
resources and emergency response facilities, all of these things are

(21:12):
part of the consideration. Right for an event that large,
you have to have people public service. When we're talking police,
emergency response and ambulances and all of those around a
giant stadium that you just can't tax. The system that
much more for a football game, right, You've got to
be diligent and responsible in all of that, say nothing

(21:35):
of hotels and other facilities that need to be on
call and have been utilized for so much of the devastation. Right,
the displaced families, we're seeing all the good works of
restaurant tours and hotel owners and all of these things
that those facilities are in use. So to move the

(21:56):
game to Arizona a couple of days ahead of time,
I fully anticipated we'd have another twenty four hours of
maybe maybe not. But you and I have talked about
the videos we've seen of complete and utter trails of
what emptiness for lack of a better term, Right, all
of those buildings, all of those facilities that have been

(22:19):
wiped out through these last seventy two hours, that you
know what, move the game for the Rams, for the Vikings,
for their fans, you know, give them the extra day
to plan about getting out there and be able to
play it where there's no uncertain dya and no more
decisions that need to be made for the NFL applaud

(22:41):
them making it early. Just be done with it, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Mean the latest it does over ten thousand structures have
been damage are destroyed. Anybody who has seen any of
the video the last few days understands, Okay, this is
they can't play a game here, Like the rose bowl
is being used to hold animals right because you know
they have animals escape because they're stables and and all
kinds of different uh, animals they had to move, whether

(23:08):
it's a horses or or anything else. And now the
rose bul is holding them right like like this is
this is as bad as as as you've ever seen.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
You know that this city in this area looks as
the second biggest market in the country. And I know
that the word apocalyptic has been thrown out a lot.
And I can see where because you see the fires
and the destroyed buildings. But you know, in in In
the Apocalypse and all the movies that we've seen, there
are still structures that are standing, right, Like that's something
you compare it to and that's something that is you

(23:38):
know that that's a you know, this is all in
Hollywood imagination when you talk about stuff that's post apocalyptic, right,
what what.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
I see is it?

Speaker 5 (23:46):
To me?

Speaker 1 (23:46):
It's it's like you understand when you when you see
a tornado going through someplace, because that's what all the
property looks like.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Entire blocks and neighborhoods are gone.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Like in the Palisades, nothing is standing like everything is
there's nothing more than two feet high off the ground.
Everything is gone. There's no empty husks of hey, here's
a burned out building here here.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
No, everything is gone. It's all burned to the ground,
and and and and looking.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
At it's it's That's what strikes me is that it
feels like it's like a like a giant tornado just
went through everywhere, and and and this is the devastation
that we have in such a.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Short period of time. And you know, it's good that,
you know, finally.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Maybe it's turning a little bit in a couple of
the fires seem like we're getting a little bit of containment.
And you just need a little bit of containment to
really start making sure that to really start, you know,
cutting into the fire and making sure that we.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Can put it out.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
It's it's really been an unbelievable last few days. And
my mind, I'm sure is still processing it. And I
really I don't know how Greater Los Angeles comes back
from this. Like there's no Pacific Palisades for years. I
mean that the entire town has gone. Malibu is going
through the same thing. Pasadena all to Dina, like all

(25:00):
all these towns that are just outside of LA and
and even though it's not technically in the city, it's
you know, it's a it's something that's five minutes away
on a freeway, it's here.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
It's all of these towns. I don't know how LA
is going to recover.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
And I'm not even talking about, Hey, we got to
recover for the World Cup in the Olympics in twenty twenty,
and I'm going how do we recover as a city
and and still be the you know, the Los Angeles
that we were. I don't know that that happens. I
don't know how we get back to that. I think
there's the damage is just so big and so huge.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
It's it's going to be.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
This really bad new normal that nobody ever wanted to
go through. But like I said, towns are gone and
neighborhoods are gone, and so many people displaced. I really
I don't know how we come back.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
Now, you got the resiliency of people, right, I mean, look,
everybody fights and people that are here, it's because they
chose to be here, and they fought through whatever industry
they work in, uh and around. You know, a lot
of the homes that were last were not celebrities, right,
That's the big misnomer in all this. People that have
did their ass for years and bought in smartly, you know,

(26:06):
getting a little bit of luck and good grace. Talk
about a guy who's the next door neighbor who had
worked at the airport, just happened to buy down in
the Beach Cities forty years ago and there he is.
Same thing with the Palisades for a lot of those
people in Malibu. And yes, the headlines are this Hollywood
star lost their home and you feel terrible for them.

(26:26):
But a lot of folks rank and file through all
sorts of industry, and you know what, they'll break their
back to do it again because they love the communities.
And we've seen so many people that have risen up.
Now the federal and state governments have to do their parts.
I know they got a great commitment from up top

(26:47):
earlier today, so that'll help in the restoration. But yeah,
it's going to be a long, arduous process. A lot
of hard work a lot of growing pains, but you
know this is where the human spirit the West Coast
and the love of that area really comes back to play.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Right.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
There's still is great value to being here in one
of the world's biggest economies. So yes, don't lose heart, Smith.
It's gonna take some time, but you'll be back at
those restaurants and hanging out on the Malibu coast here
in short order, as will all the tourists as we
welcome you back with open arms.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
I hope, so, I hope you're right. I really do.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
Just take some time, buddy, You and I, I mean,
I'll be a little grayer, You'll still be bald. We
both will both look good be based on what we're
doing with our program here in conjunction with Fox Sports Radio,
and we'll have all our friends and family be out
here with us. But yeah, the prayers, the good will all.
Like watching all the stuff around the Rose Bowl. You

(27:50):
know Chef Jose Andres who always shows up when there's
there's bad cataclysmic weather events. He's out there. They're feeding
people into the middle of the day. I'm sure Dave
Grohl will have his barbecue thing going up in short order,
feeding the first responders. This is where we get the
best of humanity, and this is where we still that

(28:12):
dangerous word, as we recite from shawsh inc where hope
comes in. So I believe in the best of people,
as skeptical as I am about the world around me.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Let's find out what's trending right now in the wide
world of sports. Were someone we have no skepticism about because.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
We love her here at the Legend Radio.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
Did you say allegedly I said a legend?

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Oh I thought you said a legend. No, we all know.
How dare you on?

Speaker 1 (28:36):
It's Manci Belagno, She's got what's trending?

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Manzy?

Speaker 6 (28:42):
Hello, Hello, Hello, there we go, guys.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, I hope you're right that.

Speaker 6 (28:47):
You know this sucks and it's awful, but that we
will survive and it might take some time, but it'll eventually,
I think, hopefully, we will be back to what we
think is normal film news. You guys were just talking
about Monday's Wildcard game being moved because of these fires,
But Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnolo's scheduled to do his

(29:07):
virtual ahead coach interviews with the Jets, Raiders and Jaguars
tomorrow Friday. Former Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll met with
the Chicago Bears on Thursday. He's gonna meet with the
Raiders next week, and the Ravens have rolled out wide
receiver Za Flowers for Saturday's wildcard game against the Steelers.
But the big story of the night, Notre Dame headed
to the National Championship for the first time since twenty

(29:29):
thirteen after defeating Penn State twenty seven to twenty four
thanks to a forty one yard field goal from Mitch Jeter.
Notre Dame leeds the nation in takeaways with thirty two.
They had a big one in the final minute of
the game. Penn State did not have a single catch
from a wide receiver into night's game. They also had
one hundred and forty one rushing yards in the first
half and ended with just two hundred and four. In

(29:50):
the NBA, the Cavaliers of one twelve in a row
after beating the Raptors one thirty two to one twenty
six behind Darius Garland, who had forty points. Despite a
bad shooting night from Steph Curry, Warriors beat the Pistons
one o seven to one oh four, while the Timberwoods
Cruise passed the Magic one O four to eighty nine.
The Rockets defeated the Grizzlies won nineteen oh one fifteen,
and the Suns top the Hawks won twenty three to

(30:11):
one fifteen. No upsets in college shops today, Number fifteen
ore agaon number sixteen Michigan State, and number twenty per Due.
They all won their matchups and on the ice, the
Islanders shut out the Golden Knights for zero.

Speaker 5 (30:23):
The Avalanche outscored the wild six to one. The Hurricanes
beat the Maple Leaves six to three, and the Stars
have won six in a row after defeating the Flyers
four to one. It's been fun, guys, have a good night.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Thanks see you soon do great things you too.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Be safe about that, Yes, be safe everybody.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Now, you just heard Monty say, Look, the first big
injury of playoff weekend hit. The Ravens are going to
be without Zay Flowers for this game against the Steelers.
And yes, it's a blow, right. Zay Flowers is a
terrific receiver. Second year in the NFL, pro bowler this year,
It's not going to matter. Baltimore is going to smash Pitchburg.
Pittsburgh is sputtering their offense. You can see how limited

(31:04):
it is. You can see how limited Russell Wilson is.
Mike Tomlin is finally going to pay the piper for Hey,
we're going to try to win this way all the
way till we get it's not nineteen eighty four. You
can't win like this by running the ball the entire game,
hoping your quarterback makes a player two and playing great
defense doesn't work that way.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
That's not the NFL now, but it's how Mike Tomlin
wants to win.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
That will get you through the regular season, it will
get you killed in the playoffs. Russell Wilson's showing you
he's at the end. He had a really good start
first four weeks. Hey, that's really good, but not the same.
They're going to have to score a lot to keep
pace with the Ravens because Lamar Jackson is on a
Michael Jordan iPad I took that personally revenge tour.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Pittsburgh is not going to be able to keep up
with that.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
And get ready for the futures of Russell Wilson and
Mike Tomlin to be discussed right after because it's time
for that to happen. I'm going Baltimore thirty one to thirteen,
and I think I'm being kind with the final score
of the.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Steal look at.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
You'd be curious to see whether we get some of
Justin Fields in this one Arthur Smith and some of
his public canvassing and media opportunities this week before he's
taking head coaching interviews. That one's still a head scratcher
for me, But that's fine, is that it seems like

(32:19):
he wants to get that element back in that Justin
Fields gave you to where you could do a little
of the read option, you could do some of the
design runs that you're not for Russell Wilson. We watched
it painful, painfully obvious at the end of their last
game when he tried to run and was indecisive about
whether to throw the ball at a bounds and it
ended up being a run that cost them precious seconds

(32:41):
on the clock. So we'll see whether you get a
little bit of a mix and match there that maybe
tries to give some juice to the offense and maybe
they can convince George Pickens that he needs to give
them sixty minutes of football as well. All of that
is wishing, wanting and hoping Baltimore even with with nose

(33:02):
flowers in this one. You've gotten great second half results
from Mark Andrews. Rashod Bateman will be available. He's had
a pretty nice season overall. Oh in that run game
with Derrick Henry. Oh, and that Lamar Jackson gut can
still run the football too. Yeah, they're gonna run rough
shot all over Pittsburgh in this one. That thirty four
to seventeen second game that they played is probably kind

(33:26):
of what this looks like as opposed to the eighteen
to sixteen loss earlier in the season. Offenses home and
Lamar Jackson ready for bear here and loaded for bear
here in this playoff season.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Exit out bout a Fresca exit swollen Dome. Jason Smith
Mike Harmon live from the Tirek dot Com Studios.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Coming up next.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Three big takeaways from Notre Dame's win over Penn State,
and we'll tell you how OSU and Texas is gonna
go tomorrow night.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
Keep it right here. We're ending with a flourish Jason
and Mike Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Be sure to catch live edition of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific, Fox Sports.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Radio The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon.
We'll give you r pick between Ohio State and Texas
coming up in a couple of minutes. But three big
takeaways from note tre Dame's twenty seven to twenty four
win over Penn State and an absolute thriller. And tonight

(34:28):
was really about three plays. Well, there's Jeter, there's Jina.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Jedd.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
It wasn't good in the regular season, doesn't matter at
Jeeta's great in the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
He's a legend.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
He's alleged Gina baby jeus Burg is partying tonight at
Mitch jeters Berg. It's happening, MITCHI meet Derek, Derek Me
mitchief Pielgeal.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
Leave your phone in the bucket.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
But let's deal with Penn State first.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Because Drew Aller I give him a lot of credit
because he answered a lot of tough questions tonight following
the game, and he had had an absolutely horrendous game.
A guy who was initially projected to be a first
round pick in the NFL draft was absolutely off tonight.
To put it kindly, he should have had an extra interception,

(35:13):
but got bailed out by the officials on.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
A pass interference call.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
But he threw a horrendous pass with thirty seconds left
to go across his body that Notre Dame picked off
allowed them to kick the game winning field goal.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
You have to make a better decision than that. I know,
he said.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
He tried to throw it in the ground, But dude,
why are you throwing it across your body? And a
play like that's just no one. It never works out
for anybody throwing her. Two guys in the history of
the NFL could do that, right. Throwing across your body
like that is never a good idea.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
It doesn't work, and.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Still he tried to do it. I don't know how
you go to the NFL off of this. It's why
I think it made the right decision coming back to
Penn State for another year. But what I told you
last night, the back seven of Notre Dame was going
to be the difference makers. How many passes at all
or complete to wide receiver tonight zero, all the tight
ends and running backs, Notre names defense is able to

(36:03):
keep him down. He needs another year to get better
before he really makes that check.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
Even with the injuries and players missing on both sides
of the ball, Notre Dame down another lineman. Is that
game unfolded. Leonard had to miss a minute, which we'll
get to all of that. The defensive effort was fantastic
pressure when they needed it, and the back seven did
their job. Even against the all everything tight end, he

(36:29):
was more or less a non factor. He got into
total eighty plus total yards, but when they needed big plays, yeah,
he made one or two big catches, but they kept
him quiet when it was necessary and made you know,
that extra clock speed up in Aler's head all night long.
And kudos to the defensive coordinator into those players rallying

(36:55):
knowing they needed that one big play down the stretch.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Jeremiah Love of note, I know he didn't have a
great night, right he was one of the bad nights.
The guy averaged seven yards of carry this year. He's
going to be a superstar.

Speaker 4 (37:07):
There was a question of whether he was going to
play Jason and how much they were going to be
able to get out of him tonight.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
I want to draft him solely because of the touchdown run.
He had that two yard touchdown run. That's the best
run I've seen in college and you can yeah, sure,
why not?

Speaker 5 (37:22):
Right?

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Or love?

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Well, I could wear one that says geta and I
could have one that wears love. He gets his legs
taken out from under him, he still stays up. He
gets stood up at the two yard line, he still
stays up. Another tackler comes in, he still stands. A
third tackler comes in, and instead of going down, he
finds a way to scoot forward for the touchdown.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
That's everything you want in a running back.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
It's speed, it's vision, it's power, it's execution, it's desire,
it's everything.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Off of that play.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
I've seen it twenty times now, and it's more amazing
every time I see it. There is nothing better than
seeing that play. That kid, I know he's still got
another year. Ago I would say, sit out, wait and
we'll draft you in the second round next year. He said,
don't worry about I promise you you're there in the
second round. We are drafting you, but do not play
another another second of college football.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
We don't need you to.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
Yeah, that sweep, the leg able to keep his feet
just unbelievable as you look at that and gutting it
out didn't have big explosive plays over the course of
the night. The seven point three yards per carry that
he had in the regular season, coming in with the
knee spraying, all the video pregames, stretching it out, just

(38:34):
hoping you were gonna be able to get a couple
of meaningful runs. And that goal line, I mean, that's textbook.
That's heart, determination, broken tackles, keeping your feet and not
saying all right, there's another doubt. No, this was I'm
getting to the pylon no matter what, and just a
huge run. I'm watching the secondary market on his trading cards.

(38:59):
Holy he's in one. And well, there was a big
set that got released just the other day and people
you know, post and I just pulled one of these
out of five.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
It's like, what do you want? What the market will bear?

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Just absolutely insane.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
And now the third big thing is that what's the
biggest moment of this game? And you can point to
the big touchdown pass to tie the game up for
Notre Dame. You can point to a lot of different things,
but I'll tell you what. Notre Dame was dead and
buried in this game. They were absolutely cooked. They had
nothing going on in the first half, Riley Leonard gets
dinged up and he goes to the medical tend to

(39:35):
be evaluated for a concussion, and you think, okay, well,
Notre Dame.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Just wants to get to halftime. This is as bad
as it could be. What do you really expecting to do?

Speaker 1 (39:45):
And then Steve and Jelly comes in the game and
they throw the football down the field. He has the
big fourteen yard completion that really breathed life back into
Notre Dame, like they were flatlining and like all the
air went back in the balloon. After that drive, they
get a field goal at the end of the first half,
and suddenly everything in the second half feels a little
bit more attainable where it would have been untenable if

(40:08):
you're going into the if you're going into halftime down
ten nothing, where nothing has worked offensively. They don't win
that game if he doesn't come in and give them
that spark, because, like I said, the air was out
of the balloon and it went right back in when
he came back in the game.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
That was the biggest moment of the game.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
Yeah, you had the sack fumble, but they get the recovery,
You have a timeout and I just want to know
what was that halftime speech. Right it's ten to three,
you're getting run over. You managed to balance the time
of possession a little more, I mean because he had
that huge drive from Penn State. But all of that
ten to three, you only give up sixty rushing yards

(40:46):
after halftime. I want to know what Fraeman had to say.
Are you guys gonna let him punk me like he
did at that press conference where he tried to sun
me and he talked about my hair and my age,
and he made fun of us not having a conference,
made all of that just to speech.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
No one comes into our house and pushes us around,
but coach in the Orange Bowl, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Go out there and play.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
How many times did you see Rudy on TV over
the course of the night. He was in your bottom
left corner all night long.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Tomorrow, who you got Ohio State or Texas? Buck guys
roll them, Yeah, I'd love to be able to pick Texas.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
One of my best friends is from Texas. I can't
pick that Ohio State wins. My buddy Ben Maller is next.
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