September 9, 2026 • 28 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon had two big football stories involving the Australia game between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers including a debate on the teams’ different travel times.
Jason Smith: This is a rough week for science. Both the Rams and 49ers talked to whatever experts they could possibly find and were told two completely different ways to deal with travel to Australia.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight,
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Speaker 2 (00:06):
To 2 a.m.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Eastern, 7 to 11 p.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio.
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now let's get this party started.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hello, welcome inside Hour 4 of the Jason Smith Show
with my best.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Friend, Mike Harmon.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Extra cockfights.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Happy NFL Eve.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
By this time tomorrow, we're breaking down the first game
in the NFL season. Patriots and the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
First of 272. Let's go. Yeah, buddy.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
We'll give you our pick on that game coming up
later on this hour. But, you know, it's weird that, again,
this goes to the explanation of, hey, the Seahawks are
the world champions. They're opening up tomorrow night. All everybody's
talking about is the Rams and the 49ers. Rams, 49ers, Australia,
what's happening?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
What are we doing? I've got to say, though, up
until a few days ago, I know a lot of
folks that had them inverted. That they thought the Australian
game was first.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, they're going to open up overseas. No, no, no.
We're playing here. We're playing Australia on Thursday. Seattle gets that,
even though they're the undercard in.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
All of this. But, look, two big stories out of
the game with the Rams and the 49ers tonight. Number
one involves around Aaron Donald, right? He's not going to
travel to Australia for the game. He's staying home. Which, honestly,
it's the right call. I've said it many times. I
don't know what the Rams are doing, thinking he's going
(01:46):
to play, trying to play him early in the season.
I get that he had to give him $ 20 million
for whatever stupid reason. But, like, if he plays early
in the season, he will be irrelevant before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I enjoyed social media getting mad going, what a terrible teammate.
He's like, really? Yeah. What are we doing?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
He's been away from the game for two years. He
only has so much. No matter what kind of player
you are, you're away from the game. It's a long
time to be away. If he plays early, he'll be
cooked by the time you get to the point where
you're really going to need him. You want Aaron Donald,
I don't want to see him until after Halloween. You
(02:24):
want to come back sometime for the second half of
the season, early in the second half. So that way,
in a perfect world, you're playing 10, 11 games, 12 games.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Okay, great. That's perfect.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But I don't need to see you until after Halloween.
Because 35 years old, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter
how great you are. When you're away from the game
and you come back, look what happens. Michael Jordan, whoever
you want to talk about. when they're away from the
game and they want to come back, it's not the same.
And he will run out of gas, and it'll be
a case where, well, the Rams may be playing him
(02:55):
just a little bit. You know, here, maybe he's only
going to play on third down. Maybe he's only going
to play. So I agree. I'm glad they're keeping him home,
but I'd go further. I would say, yeah, keep working
out with the team, getting ready. We know the kind
of career you have. No one's going to judge him
and say, oh, this guy needs to be sweated out
with us.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Best defensive player in the NFL for a decade. You
better clap! Surefire first ballot Hall of Famer. I think
everything is fine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It would be okay if he comes back after Halloween.
for the back half of the season. That's the way
the Rams should treat it. I'm stunned that it seems
like they're going to get him in the lineup as
soon as they can, but at least they're not making
him travel to Australia for this game.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, this is where we get back into another... I
guess branch of the whole science discussion we're having tonight
in terms of being judicious with the guy's body and
ramping him up and him having to trust the team physicians,
his trainers and everything. And then like just building that
(03:53):
trust of, all right, how are you feeling? Cause he's
going to be eager to get back sooner rather than later, right?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Money.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Money is out there. He's going to make $ 20 million.
That's all fine and good. But ultimately, he's there only
to defend their SoFi Super Bowl title.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's it. It's not winning week one in Australia. It's
not winning week four. Yeah, the faster you can get
him in and give him some meaningful snaps and ramp
it up, and like you said, either situationally on third
down or whatever package you put together, great. But if
that doesn't happen until later in the season, what's lost?
You're already the prohibitive Super Bowl favorite before this. And
(04:33):
I know that means nothing, right? As soon as you
get out of the field, you throw all that out
and you still got to go strap it on. But
you're playing with a position here. You want to see
he and Garrett wreaking havoc on opposing quarterbacks.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
But.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
If that doesn't happen until late, who cares? As long
as he's healthy in January. Because if this experiment goes
to where he dominates until the beginning of November and
then he's cooked, it's a loss. Oh yeah, he helped
us get toward home field advantage. Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Now, outside of this, we've spent a lot of time
tonight talking about science. Science is going to have a
bad week because you have the 49ers and the Rams
who you know both talk to experts about when's the
best time to travel to Australia for this game. And
whatever experts they talked to, they each gave completely different answers,
180 degrees from each other.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The 49ers have been there for a week.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
The Rams are leaving now. They're going to be in
the air, flying there and flying back longer than they
are going to actually be in Australia for the game, right?
Less than 72 hours total.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
How do we know McVay is not working on a
doctorate in sleep science? And this is part of his thesis.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You're all getting blood from Luca. All the blood that
Luca couldn't use to come back for the Lakers, you're
getting Luca's blood ready for this game.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
We're all going to give it to you. Stop over
in Spain, huh?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Now, to break this down, I would have to lean
toward the Niners' way more so than.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
The Rams' way.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Just understanding what it's like for the human body when
you're traveling, you're in the air that much. Look, what
we have to go is anybody that's ever traveled overseas
or you change time zones, yeah, there's jet lag.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
The first day is difficult.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And then you spend some time getting on the clock.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
The Rams are hoping, hey, we're not even going to
get on the clock. We're going to be in the air.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
We're going to time it this way where we're landing
at this time and we're going to go play the
game and come right back.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Well, because it's like we're Superman. We're spinning the axis
of the earth back. So we really haven't left at all.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I can see where maybe you want to lean towards the...
49ers weigh a little bit, but there is the case.
They've been there a week. Like, they could be flat. Like, hey,
we've been here for a week now, been ready to
play this game for a few days. But I would
still lean 49ers more than that just because, yes, you
can have a great plan to go, this is how
we're going to do it. This is what we're going
(06:53):
to do. But there's so many variables, and that's the
big thing, is that when people make plans, you've got
to account for variables. There's so many variables with a
16-hour flight. Maybe you're in the air longer than you expect.
Maybe it takes you longer– To recover. Maybe you expect
to recover in X amount of time. Well, everybody's body
is different. Maybe it's not going to work that way.
(07:13):
There's a lot of variables. So when that happens, the
best thing to do is, okay, is there any sort
of precedent we can look at? And this brings you
the closest thing we have, which is a Jaguars-Bills game
from 2023. Now, if you remember this game, of course...
Any fantasy players? I remember this game.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Because you forgot to get up early to change your lineup.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
This was a London game where the Jaguars beat the
Bills 25-20. Now, I understand that Melbourne is further than
going to London, but still, you're traveling, and this is
two teams doing two different things. The Jaguars won this game.
They were in London for two weeks. It was the
second of back-to-back games. So they were there for a
(08:00):
long time, right? Because, you know, they're London's team. So
the Jaguars were there. They won two games in a row.
The Bills were really good in 2023. The Jaguars weren't, right?
The Bills decided to fly in late Friday night. So
they get in late Friday night, and then they've got
to turn around and play very quickly. Not quite the
next day, but their turnaround is they get in late
(08:22):
Friday night, Saturday they're playing on Sunday. The way this
game went, the Bills were getting blown out right before halftime.
They still were yet to score. And how many times
can you say that about the Bills offense?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That is true.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
This is a Josh Allen offense. James Cook, this is everybody.
And the Jaguars are up 11-0, and the Bills finally
scored right before halftime. To read to you from the
recap of the game, the official recap of the Jaguars-Bills game,
Jacksonville outlasted the jet-lagged Bills for a 25-20 win at
(08:58):
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Bills arrived in London on Friday morning,
routed their past three opponents, but looked tired at times,
rushed for only 29 yards, and had a rash of injuries.
Josh Allen wasn't happy after the game, how they had
figured out their way getting here. So if you're looking
at some precedent there, getting there quickly, right before the game,
(09:22):
didn't go the Bills' way. The Bills were a big
favorite in this game. They were the better team. Jet
lag is real.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
It happens. Everybody reacts differently to it. Yeah, it's just
the curiosity, right? Man for man and everybody that's traveled
internationally or even just going to the opposite coast. I mean,
you're sitting there and obviously they've got the best of accommodations, right?
Anything they need in terms of hydration, they'll have beds.
All of those things are great. But that many hours
(09:50):
on a plane, right? Get up and walk and do whatever.
But is your back tight? Do you, you know, you
just stretch out and everything. That's fine. But we've got
guys with a bunch of back issues and most notably
your quarterback has had issues. What if there are snakes
on the plane? You never can tell. What if there
are snakes on the plane? You are going to Australia. Yeah,
it could be snakes on the plane.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
We have seen weird reports to Australia.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Snakes on the plane. But we have seen legitimately some
really interesting things out of the airports of what's been
confiscated these last couple of years.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
You see Taylor Kitsch hooking up with a woman in
the bathroom. You know you're in trouble, man.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Bad things, man. Bad things. Snakes on that plane. But
all of it to say, right, you might have half
your team be just fine. Unfortunately, if it's the half
that actually take the field, you got problems. I mean, look,
I just know how the general human body is.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And when anybody's ever traveled that far, whether you're going
to play a football game or not, you generally don't
try to pack in a lot of stuff on that
first day because, okay, you want to get used to
the time. You want to get used to it and
save the things when you go all out for... The
third day when you're there, when you get used to
the time change. When we went to the UK a
couple of years ago, we decided, okay, we're flying late
(11:04):
in the afternoon. By the time we get there, the
time change, it's going to be 9 o'clock in the morning.
So basically, the time we're thinking about going to bed, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Starting the day. Now, did you sleep on the plane
or did you read? A little bit. I slept a
couple hours on the plane, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Um, I think I watched Top Gun Maverick like twice though.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Uh, so, but I slept a little bit on the plane,
but we, you know, we leave it like whatever it
was like three o'clock in the afternoon and we get
in at like nine o'clock in the morning. So we decide, okay,
here's what we're going to do. We're going to go
right away. We're going to do a big day sightseeing,
and then we're going to be tired, and we're going
to fall asleep early, and we're going to wake up
early the next day, and boom, we're going to be
on England time.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Get a rally. Okay. Again, like the Rams. Like, hey,
we're going to do this.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Okay, great.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
We're going to get there. We're going to be on
England time.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
We landed. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get something
to eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Okay. We got on the bus to go out to
Warner Brothers Studios where they had the big Harry Potter
display where they shot all the movies and everything else.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
We got on the bus. We were on the bus
for about 10 minutes, and I'm watching everybody. Asleep, asleep, asleep, asleep.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I got pictures of everybody before I said, how long
on the bus? Oh, another 40 minutes? Well, I'm going
to fall asleep. I'm going to rest with my eyes shut.
We were zombies the rest of the day. But I
got pictures of my wife and Pam and my cousin Sam.
And I'm putting the caption under, hey, we're going to
land and we're going to go right away. Like, okay,
we had landed and we were already exhausted.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
We were off the plane for like two hours and
we were tired. Got out of customs, got on a bus,
and you were done. Best laid plans, right, of all
of it. But, yeah, you try to run with adrenaline
as best you can. And I don't know, it's a
great premise for this game, the way these teams have
(12:51):
approached it. Now, if I'm the NFL, this is just
the anecdotal. I'm not happy the Rams are not showing
up until this point. Probably a lot of dignitaries and
big shots over there to go shake hands, kiss baby. Hey,
here's our defending MVP. Yeah, that's Roger Goodell saying, you
know what? Didn't see that. My fault. Not happening again.
(13:11):
I'm sorry you all came out to meet Matthew. He's
not here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
But here's a cardboard cutout. Take a picture with that.
Not happening again. But Kelly Stafford will do a podcast,
so you'll get to hear that.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Oh, well, okay.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
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 (13:31):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon. Now, before we get into two big stories
in college football, I got to say, got to give
credit where credit's due. One of the most impressive baseball
highlights you will see Reds lose to the Dodgers tonight, 3-2.
Big night for Tarek Skubal. He goes into the eighth inning,
(13:54):
gives up two runs. Dodgers win.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Will Smith, first homer since May 29th. Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Teoscar Hernandez gets thrown out at the plate by Eli
De La Cruz on a relay. And De La Cruz's
throw is clocked at over 105 miles an hour. And
you watch this relay, and it looks like, oh, well,
Hernandez is going to beat this, right? You see where
he's rounding third when De La Cruz gets the ball.
(14:23):
And De La Cruz just uncorks this throw that makes
you sit back and go, wow. And it is a
missile to the plate. And Hernandez isn't just out. It
looks like if you saw the screen grab, okay, right here,
what do you think happens?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Where he's rounding third and where he's getting the ball.
And where the ball is like, okay, well, he's easily
going to do this.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Ball's going to— And he throws— I mean, this is so
unbelievably impressive. And it is an absolute laser to the plate.
And Hernandez is out by 10 feet.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, no, it's not even close. 105— What, three steps?
Something like that?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I mean, 105-mile-an-hour throw. Not off the bat at 100—
105-mile-an-hour throw by De La Cruz, and it looked every second,
every bit of 105 miles an hour.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Take that, Mizorowski. Talking about him and his 1,100-mile-an-hour pitches.
Why is De La Cruz not closing for the rest?
That's it. Let's go. You don't need to do anything else.
Just throw it regular, man. That's all you got to do.
Throw it regular. Foot home runs, and I can throw
the ball 106 miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The most impressive angle is they have the angle from
the third baseline that's up a little high where you
can see where the ball is coming in and where
Hernandez is. You can see Hernandez just kind of turns
around and kind of just goes, like, wow.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
He knows the kind of throw that came in again.
As soon as he sees the catcher fielding the ball,
he's like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
That's that's that because he's still several steps away from
home plate. I was waiting for him to do one
of those just screeching halts and just nodding his head. Yeah,
just just tag my helmet kind of thing, because that's
I mean, that that throw is just absurd because we've
been watching all these ridiculous tape measure home runs.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Montez and De La Cruz had whatever else. But when
we get to see it on the defensive side, we
got to highlight those things a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I mean, really, I mean that, that throw, I mean,
I'm watching going, Oh, here's a throw and it's going to,
it'll dovetail in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It will bounce.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Nope. This is, it's almost like it, like, like, like
if you're catching your Magneto and you just know, Oh,
I can just, you know, it's metal. So I can just,
just bring it right to my hand. Like, that's what
that throw was like. I was, I mean, that throw Ellie,
they look, we talked about talented. He is for a
long time. And that, that throw is just, You're not
going to see a more impressive play in baseball than that. Defensively, yeah,
(16:44):
we get to the big catches and, you know, going
over the fence and robbing a home run. We had
a great home run rob that ended a game a
couple weeks ago. But this throw by De La Cruz,
it's like, whew, man, is that something.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It's funny. You also mentioned Magneto because I'm going back
through and while I'm working on some stuff, you know,
just running all the old X-Men. Watch Kevin Bacon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh,
he just– Hey, Darwin, eat this. Poor Darwin. He had
a good run.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Now, two late-breaking stories out of college football tonight. If
you remember a couple weeks ago when the story broke
that LSU would be welcoming NFL players back to their roster,
it was met with just a little bit of pushback
by the rest of college football.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Just a little bit? Just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And what did we tell you at the time? Look,
it's a big deal now. NFL players potentially coming back
and schools getting them and Lane Kiffin saying, hey, we're
competing against the other teams for these guys anyway, so
why not go sign them?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
We told you how this was going to end.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It was going to end with none of these guys
playing because it's too many question marks, too many things
not known. Other schools would not want to play these
teams that have these players coming back from the NFL
for whatever reason. This is where all of college football
is united. We don't want kids coming back from the
league into the sport. All the stuff that you're allowing,
this is what you're melting down about?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
We don't want these guys going to have so much
so that today.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
The SEC had a meeting set for Thursday about booting
LSU out of the SEC if they.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Played these players.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Like, this is apparently what could get you booted out
of a conference. Not a long process where removing a
team from a conference is very difficult.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
A bunch of transgressions, some terrible atrocities committed on the campus.
We could have a meeting on Thursday and boot your
ass out, right? I kind of like that. Let's do
a little bit of a flex. We're still out of
the bay. We're the second best conference. Let's see what
I did there. We're the second best conference in football.
So we told you how it was going to end.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
It was going to end with these guys not playing,
and that looks like how it's going to end because,
late story tonight, LSU is going to fill their roster,
their last couple of spots with players, not these two
players coming back from the NFL, including Daquan Wright.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
So.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
That means they're not going to have the ability to
add these players to the roster any longer this season,
so they're not going to play. Likely they saw that, oh, man,
they're serious about kicking us out. Man, Lane, do you
really need these guys? Ah, you see, we beat the
crap out of Clemson on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, I'm good. All right, great.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
All right, okay, we won't let these guys play, and
you won't have a meeting about kicking us out of
the SEC. So he told you how the story was
going to end.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And here we are. The story is now ending.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I mean, you talk about the top line, right? Of
we'll kick you out. Well, it doesn't mean that there
weren't a bunch of other subplots that might've come up
in that meeting in terms of fines and, and restructuring
and whatever else, like the point I've made with the
LSU side of it, the longest time they voted, right.
They were part of a, unanimous pact of, hey, this
(19:52):
is wrong, 16-0. Yet they didn't squash Lane Kiffin from
pursuing this and talking about it. So they served both sides.
And Lane Kiffin got to become supervillain. And then beating
the hell out of Dabo Sweeney and Clemson helped solidify
that a little bit. He also did hot yoga and
did the pregame show. So everybody's saying, ah, they're not focused. Ah,
(20:15):
wait till you see. He just kind of laughed at
everybody when it was all said and done. But from
an administrative side, you could have shut this down at
any point. Because here's the thing. You could threaten him
with being fired, much like the SEC is threatening to
fire you. But you didn't. I'm going to fire you, Ron. Right, exactly.
But it's the, hey, you didn't press it because, well,
(20:37):
in the end, you might have won off this. So
why not let him pursue it? Meanwhile, you're still, you know,
outwardly saying, hey, we agree this is just crazy, but
let the coach do his thing. No, no, no. And
you had executives and administrators saying, well, someone has to
do it. Like, okay, so which is it? Like, if
(20:58):
you're really against it, then, you know, everybody that goes
into public speaking on your behalf.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
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 2 (21:11):
With the exception of your coach, quite obviously. Should you
all at least still be aligned to say, hey, we're
going to do everything we can to squash this, and
we're talking with coach and remedying the situation. Instead, you
had to have this ultimate threat from the SEC. I
think it's great theater. I want the 30 for 30.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And really, just think about this is that Lane Kiffin,
we talked about it last night. Just think about everything
going on with college football now in 2026. He is
the face of college football. What's the one coach that
stands for everything going on in college football now?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
It's Lane Kiffin.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
All the no rules, we can do whatever we want,
everybody can change schools, NIL, players can come back from
the NFL. Lane Kiffin is the face of this era
of college football. And again, this might be... The final
thing that makes college football go, okay, guys, we all
got to come together on things. We need a commissioner.
We need some sort of rules because we're running out
(22:08):
of control. I've been telling you for years, eventually someone's
got to throw that emergency brake for college football. And
then Lane Kiffin running, you know, being the villain of
college football may be what it takes the league to stop.
It takes college football to stop and go, okay, I
think we've been running for a long time here. Let's
dial it back and let's get some sort of model
in place that allows us to continue to grow, whereas
(22:31):
we're doing it without going off the rails every five minutes.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Well, but that's it. We've watched this over the last, what,
five to seven years. Really, everything becomes a stopgap. Okay,
we went too far. How do we pull this back?
It's like, what's the genies out of the bottle, man?
all bets are off. And so this actually united most.
And again, I'd wonder how many that voted for it
(22:55):
were like LSU, where you had parts of your university
still going, how does this ultimately benefit us? Yeah. If this,
if this can happen, how do we win? Right. From
a money competitive, all of those standpoints, like, cause again,
they could have squashed it and they didn't. And all
these other spots, it's been the same thing. Like there's,
And the NCAA is what it is at this point.
(23:16):
We've long just pushed them off to the side, but
trying to get everybody back from their fiefdoms to have
some ruler. We've done the Kennesaw Mountain Land jokes before.
I don't know how much it gets to that, but
you at least get to your executive committee and whatever
that comes together on this stuff. In the interim, it's
(23:38):
the what's best for me in our pocketbooks and chances
of adding another title.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
So this part is now over. And the next story
I'm going to tell you is going to be over soon.
Trust me, the Western Michigan, Michigan Hail Mary story is
going to end soon, right? The NCAA put out a
statement tonight saying that, hey, they're changing how they keep
the official track of the end of games, that now
the in-stadium scoreboard clock is the official timekeeper. to avoid
(24:09):
what happened last weekend, right? So, okay, we know that.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And that's the.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
That's, you know, one thing about is that this was
so avoidable in that if... The scoreboard clock had just
stayed at one second instead of going to zero. Yeah,
there would have been a, whoa, Michigan got a little
bit of an extra second there.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
But you know what? It's another Hail Mary play.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
It's not like, hey, the second is on there for
Michigan to kick a game-winning field goal.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Okay, it's there for another Hail Mary. Now Michigan scores.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And then there would have been a minor– storyline of, oh,
why didn't that extra second come off? Why was there
no lag time on the clock? We've seen that before.
We talked about it last night.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
We talk about with play clocks, right? They get that
snap off.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It would have been a story, but it wouldn't be
to the extent it is now. Okay, this is how
we're keeping track of it. And nobody would have cared
if the game was over. If I was officiating this
game and they called down to me and go, Jason,
we have three tenths of a second.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Guys, it's over.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
OK, they're carrying the Western Michigan's players off the field.
Michigan's walking off dejected. Nobody cares. We don't need to
stir up a hornet's nest. The game is over.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
The game is over.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Like, that's how it should. It could have and should
have ended. But the fact that we went through all
of this, of course, this is why we're at where
we are right now.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
We get more chaos. Here is part of the quote
that was released from this memo of the national coordinator
of official Ron Snodgrass. Quote, when a replay review requires
time to be restored or otherwise adjusted, the replay official's
decision will be based on the embedded game clock within
the program feed. In other words, the one that, I mean,
(25:45):
you were in the control room, right? You always call
yourself one of the greatest ever behind-the-scenes people at ESPN, right?
But what did you have? You had a clock that
had tens of seconds, right, as you're rolling up in 10.
nine okay cool uh so it says hey.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
There's a discrepancy in the on-field clock we go to
the broadcast and see what they have right yeah and
if the broadcaster is unable to provide an embedded game
clock then the replay official will use the game clock
graphic displayed as part of the broadcast feed which gets
us in a nice big circle he ultimately explains that
away but yeah it goes i just like that western
(26:23):
michigan said hey we we i'm I want my dollar back. Yeah, no, look,
I can't believe that today the Mac conference comes out
and says, hey, we think we spoke too soon. We
want this result to be overturned and give the game
back to Western Michigan. Right. Today they said, hey, we
think we spoke too soon. We want the game back
(26:44):
to it. Now, the NCAA has already said we're not
doing that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nearly 72 hours later. If I'm Western Michigan, I'm like, oh, hey,
thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Thanks for coming and playing. Thanks for absolutely nothing. You
couldn't do this right after the game. You couldn't do
it on Sunday. Look, I understand that all the schools
and everything exists in the state of Michigan to prop
up the University of Michigan, right? I said vacation there.
Take your $ 1. 3 million check and move on. There is
nothing bigger in the state of Michigan than the University
(27:11):
of Michigan. Just go visit there and go to the
sports complex, and you'll say, oh, my goodness, I understand
what you're saying, Jason. I get that Western Michigan, Central Michigan,
they all exist to make Michigan better, to make the
University of Michigan better. But if I'm Western, I'm like,
you guys could have come through for us a little
bit here, man. You're the guy that I need you
to help me move a couch, and you fake lifting
the couch. Oh, now, four days later, hey, we want
(27:34):
the results overturned. Not only are you coming to our
result four days late, you're saying something that's not going
to happen.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Like the NCAA is.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Going to go, well, they asked. We kind of have
to do it. We never thought they were going to ask.
Western Michigan, leave the MAAC.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Leave the MAAC. Go to the ACC. They need more teams.
Go to the MAAC. You're obviously very good at football now.
Go to the MAAC. They need more teams. Leave the MAAC.
That was the one thing out of Saturday. I was
sad that they weren't more indignant or angry or questioning.
I was like, ah, that's what they told us. What
are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Hey, you're going to still invite us to play, right?
Give us $ 1. 3 million a game, Michigan, because we'll say
everything is fine and nothing wrong was done as long
as you're going to continue to invite us to play
games and give us $ 1. 5 million. Remember, we exist to
push Michigan to the top of the heap. That's what
we do here in Michigan. Like a training video. Understand,
(28:29):
ask yourself, is this good for the company? The company
is the University of Michigan.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Understand. But we go to Western.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
You pay back into the feeder system. You are a
feeder program to the universe.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
You and Central Michigan and Michigan State and all the
other Michigan.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
All the other little Michigans. And you over there. Yes. Chippewas,
you're part of this. You in the Upper Peninsula, Northern Michigan. Yeah,
I know. Robert Sala went there. You exist as well.
Support Michigan.
Thanks for listening to the Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight,
10 p.m.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
To 2 a.m.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
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 (00:21):
Now let's get this party started.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hello, welcome inside Hour 4 of the Jason Smith Show
with my best.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Friend, Mike Harmon.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Extra cockfights.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Happy NFL Eve.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
By this time tomorrow, we're breaking down the first game
in the NFL season. Patriots and the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
First of 272. Let's go. Yeah, buddy.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
We'll give you our pick on that game coming up
later on this hour. But, you know, it's weird that, again,
this goes to the explanation of, hey, the Seahawks are
the world champions. They're opening up tomorrow night. All everybody's
talking about is the Rams and the 49ers. Rams, 49ers, Australia,
what's happening?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
What are we doing? I've got to say, though, up
until a few days ago, I know a lot of
folks that had them inverted. That they thought the Australian
game was first.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, they're going to open up overseas. No, no, no.
We're playing here. We're playing Australia on Thursday. Seattle gets that,
even though they're the undercard in.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
All of this. But, look, two big stories out of
the game with the Rams and the 49ers tonight. Number
one involves around Aaron Donald, right? He's not going to
travel to Australia for the game. He's staying home. Which, honestly,
it's the right call. I've said it many times. I
don't know what the Rams are doing, thinking he's going
(01:46):
to play, trying to play him early in the season.
I get that he had to give him $ 20 million
for whatever stupid reason. But, like, if he plays early
in the season, he will be irrelevant before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I enjoyed social media getting mad going, what a terrible teammate.
He's like, really? Yeah. What are we doing?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
He's been away from the game for two years. He
only has so much. No matter what kind of player
you are, you're away from the game. It's a long
time to be away. If he plays early, he'll be
cooked by the time you get to the point where
you're really going to need him. You want Aaron Donald,
I don't want to see him until after Halloween. You
(02:24):
want to come back sometime for the second half of
the season, early in the second half. So that way,
in a perfect world, you're playing 10, 11 games, 12 games.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Okay, great. That's perfect.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
But I don't need to see you until after Halloween.
Because 35 years old, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter
how great you are. When you're away from the game
and you come back, look what happens. Michael Jordan, whoever
you want to talk about. when they're away from the
game and they want to come back, it's not the same.
And he will run out of gas, and it'll be
a case where, well, the Rams may be playing him
(02:55):
just a little bit. You know, here, maybe he's only
going to play on third down. Maybe he's only going
to play. So I agree. I'm glad they're keeping him home,
but I'd go further. I would say, yeah, keep working
out with the team, getting ready. We know the kind
of career you have. No one's going to judge him
and say, oh, this guy needs to be sweated out
with us.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Best defensive player in the NFL for a decade. You
better clap! Surefire first ballot Hall of Famer. I think
everything is fine.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
It would be okay if he comes back after Halloween.
for the back half of the season. That's the way
the Rams should treat it. I'm stunned that it seems
like they're going to get him in the lineup as
soon as they can, but at least they're not making
him travel to Australia for this game.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, this is where we get back into another... I
guess branch of the whole science discussion we're having tonight
in terms of being judicious with the guy's body and
ramping him up and him having to trust the team physicians,
his trainers and everything. And then like just building that
(03:53):
trust of, all right, how are you feeling? Cause he's
going to be eager to get back sooner rather than later, right?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Money.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Money is out there. He's going to make $ 20 million.
That's all fine and good. But ultimately, he's there only
to defend their SoFi Super Bowl title.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's it. It's not winning week one in Australia. It's
not winning week four. Yeah, the faster you can get
him in and give him some meaningful snaps and ramp
it up, and like you said, either situationally on third
down or whatever package you put together, great. But if
that doesn't happen until later in the season, what's lost?
You're already the prohibitive Super Bowl favorite before this. And
(04:33):
I know that means nothing, right? As soon as you
get out of the field, you throw all that out
and you still got to go strap it on. But
you're playing with a position here. You want to see
he and Garrett wreaking havoc on opposing quarterbacks.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
But.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
If that doesn't happen until late, who cares? As long
as he's healthy in January. Because if this experiment goes
to where he dominates until the beginning of November and
then he's cooked, it's a loss. Oh yeah, he helped
us get toward home field advantage. Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Now, outside of this, we've spent a lot of time
tonight talking about science. Science is going to have a
bad week because you have the 49ers and the Rams
who you know both talk to experts about when's the
best time to travel to Australia for this game. And
whatever experts they talked to, they each gave completely different answers,
180 degrees from each other.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The 49ers have been there for a week.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
The Rams are leaving now. They're going to be in
the air, flying there and flying back longer than they
are going to actually be in Australia for the game, right?
Less than 72 hours total.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
How do we know McVay is not working on a
doctorate in sleep science? And this is part of his thesis.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You're all getting blood from Luca. All the blood that
Luca couldn't use to come back for the Lakers, you're
getting Luca's blood ready for this game.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
We're all going to give it to you. Stop over
in Spain, huh?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Now, to break this down, I would have to lean
toward the Niners' way more so than.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
The Rams' way.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Just understanding what it's like for the human body when
you're traveling, you're in the air that much. Look, what
we have to go is anybody that's ever traveled overseas
or you change time zones, yeah, there's jet lag.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
The first day is difficult.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And then you spend some time getting on the clock.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
The Rams are hoping, hey, we're not even going to
get on the clock. We're going to be in the air.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
We're going to time it this way where we're landing
at this time and we're going to go play the
game and come right back.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Well, because it's like we're Superman. We're spinning the axis
of the earth back. So we really haven't left at all.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
I can see where maybe you want to lean towards the...
49ers weigh a little bit, but there is the case.
They've been there a week. Like, they could be flat. Like, hey,
we've been here for a week now, been ready to
play this game for a few days. But I would
still lean 49ers more than that just because, yes, you
can have a great plan to go, this is how
we're going to do it. This is what we're going
(06:53):
to do. But there's so many variables, and that's the
big thing, is that when people make plans, you've got
to account for variables. There's so many variables with a
16-hour flight. Maybe you're in the air longer than you expect.
Maybe it takes you longer– To recover. Maybe you expect
to recover in X amount of time. Well, everybody's body
is different. Maybe it's not going to work that way.
(07:13):
There's a lot of variables. So when that happens, the
best thing to do is, okay, is there any sort
of precedent we can look at? And this brings you
the closest thing we have, which is a Jaguars-Bills game
from 2023. Now, if you remember this game, of course...
Any fantasy players? I remember this game.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Because you forgot to get up early to change your lineup.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
This was a London game where the Jaguars beat the
Bills 25-20. Now, I understand that Melbourne is further than
going to London, but still, you're traveling, and this is
two teams doing two different things. The Jaguars won this game.
They were in London for two weeks. It was the
second of back-to-back games. So they were there for a
(08:00):
long time, right? Because, you know, they're London's team. So
the Jaguars were there. They won two games in a row.
The Bills were really good in 2023. The Jaguars weren't, right?
The Bills decided to fly in late Friday night. So
they get in late Friday night, and then they've got
to turn around and play very quickly. Not quite the
next day, but their turnaround is they get in late
(08:22):
Friday night, Saturday they're playing on Sunday. The way this
game went, the Bills were getting blown out right before halftime.
They still were yet to score. And how many times
can you say that about the Bills offense?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That is true.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
This is a Josh Allen offense. James Cook, this is everybody.
And the Jaguars are up 11-0, and the Bills finally
scored right before halftime. To read to you from the
recap of the game, the official recap of the Jaguars-Bills game,
Jacksonville outlasted the jet-lagged Bills for a 25-20 win at
(08:58):
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Bills arrived in London on Friday morning,
routed their past three opponents, but looked tired at times,
rushed for only 29 yards, and had a rash of injuries.
Josh Allen wasn't happy after the game, how they had
figured out their way getting here. So if you're looking
at some precedent there, getting there quickly, right before the game,
(09:22):
didn't go the Bills' way. The Bills were a big
favorite in this game. They were the better team. Jet
lag is real.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
It happens. Everybody reacts differently to it. Yeah, it's just
the curiosity, right? Man for man and everybody that's traveled
internationally or even just going to the opposite coast. I mean,
you're sitting there and obviously they've got the best of accommodations, right?
Anything they need in terms of hydration, they'll have beds.
All of those things are great. But that many hours
(09:50):
on a plane, right? Get up and walk and do whatever.
But is your back tight? Do you, you know, you
just stretch out and everything. That's fine. But we've got
guys with a bunch of back issues and most notably
your quarterback has had issues. What if there are snakes
on the plane? You never can tell. What if there
are snakes on the plane? You are going to Australia. Yeah,
it could be snakes on the plane.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
We have seen weird reports to Australia.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Snakes on the plane. But we have seen legitimately some
really interesting things out of the airports of what's been
confiscated these last couple of years.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
You see Taylor Kitsch hooking up with a woman in
the bathroom. You know you're in trouble, man.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Bad things, man. Bad things. Snakes on that plane. But
all of it to say, right, you might have half
your team be just fine. Unfortunately, if it's the half
that actually take the field, you got problems. I mean, look,
I just know how the general human body is.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And when anybody's ever traveled that far, whether you're going
to play a football game or not, you generally don't
try to pack in a lot of stuff on that
first day because, okay, you want to get used to
the time. You want to get used to it and
save the things when you go all out for... The
third day when you're there, when you get used to
the time change. When we went to the UK a
couple of years ago, we decided, okay, we're flying late
(11:04):
in the afternoon. By the time we get there, the
time change, it's going to be 9 o'clock in the morning.
So basically, the time we're thinking about going to bed, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Starting the day. Now, did you sleep on the plane
or did you read? A little bit. I slept a
couple hours on the plane, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Um, I think I watched Top Gun Maverick like twice though.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Uh, so, but I slept a little bit on the plane,
but we, you know, we leave it like whatever it
was like three o'clock in the afternoon and we get
in at like nine o'clock in the morning. So we decide, okay,
here's what we're going to do. We're going to go
right away. We're going to do a big day sightseeing,
and then we're going to be tired, and we're going
to fall asleep early, and we're going to wake up
early the next day, and boom, we're going to be
on England time.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Get a rally. Okay. Again, like the Rams. Like, hey,
we're going to do this.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Okay, great.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
We're going to get there. We're going to be on
England time.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
We landed. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get something
to eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Okay. We got on the bus to go out to
Warner Brothers Studios where they had the big Harry Potter
display where they shot all the movies and everything else.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
We got on the bus. We were on the bus
for about 10 minutes, and I'm watching everybody. Asleep, asleep, asleep, asleep.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I got pictures of everybody before I said, how long
on the bus? Oh, another 40 minutes? Well, I'm going
to fall asleep. I'm going to rest with my eyes shut.
We were zombies the rest of the day. But I
got pictures of my wife and Pam and my cousin Sam.
And I'm putting the caption under, hey, we're going to
land and we're going to go right away. Like, okay,
we had landed and we were already exhausted.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
We were off the plane for like two hours and
we were tired. Got out of customs, got on a bus,
and you were done. Best laid plans, right, of all
of it. But, yeah, you try to run with adrenaline
as best you can. And I don't know, it's a
great premise for this game, the way these teams have
(12:51):
approached it. Now, if I'm the NFL, this is just
the anecdotal. I'm not happy the Rams are not showing
up until this point. Probably a lot of dignitaries and
big shots over there to go shake hands, kiss baby. Hey,
here's our defending MVP. Yeah, that's Roger Goodell saying, you
know what? Didn't see that. My fault. Not happening again.
(13:11):
I'm sorry you all came out to meet Matthew. He's
not here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
But here's a cardboard cutout. Take a picture with that.
Not happening again. But Kelly Stafford will do a podcast,
so you'll get to hear that.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Oh, well, okay.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
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 (13:31):
Fox Sports Radio, the Jason Smith Show with my best friend,
Mike Harmon. Now, before we get into two big stories
in college football, I got to say, got to give
credit where credit's due. One of the most impressive baseball
highlights you will see Reds lose to the Dodgers tonight, 3-2.
Big night for Tarek Skubal. He goes into the eighth inning,
(13:54):
gives up two runs. Dodgers win.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Will Smith, first homer since May 29th. Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Teoscar Hernandez gets thrown out at the plate by Eli
De La Cruz on a relay. And De La Cruz's
throw is clocked at over 105 miles an hour. And
you watch this relay, and it looks like, oh, well,
Hernandez is going to beat this, right? You see where
he's rounding third when De La Cruz gets the ball.
(14:23):
And De La Cruz just uncorks this throw that makes
you sit back and go, wow. And it is a
missile to the plate. And Hernandez isn't just out. It
looks like if you saw the screen grab, okay, right here,
what do you think happens?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Where he's rounding third and where he's getting the ball.
And where the ball is like, okay, well, he's easily
going to do this.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Ball's going to— And he throws— I mean, this is so
unbelievably impressive. And it is an absolute laser to the plate.
And Hernandez is out by 10 feet.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, no, it's not even close. 105— What, three steps?
Something like that?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I mean, 105-mile-an-hour throw. Not off the bat at 100—
105-mile-an-hour throw by De La Cruz, and it looked every second,
every bit of 105 miles an hour.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Take that, Mizorowski. Talking about him and his 1,100-mile-an-hour pitches.
Why is De La Cruz not closing for the rest?
That's it. Let's go. You don't need to do anything else.
Just throw it regular, man. That's all you got to do.
Throw it regular. Foot home runs, and I can throw
the ball 106 miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
The most impressive angle is they have the angle from
the third baseline that's up a little high where you
can see where the ball is coming in and where
Hernandez is. You can see Hernandez just kind of turns
around and kind of just goes, like, wow.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
He knows the kind of throw that came in again.
As soon as he sees the catcher fielding the ball,
he's like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
That's that's that because he's still several steps away from
home plate. I was waiting for him to do one
of those just screeching halts and just nodding his head. Yeah,
just just tag my helmet kind of thing, because that's
I mean, that that throw is just absurd because we've
been watching all these ridiculous tape measure home runs.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Montez and De La Cruz had whatever else. But when
we get to see it on the defensive side, we
got to highlight those things a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I mean, really, I mean that, that throw, I mean,
I'm watching going, Oh, here's a throw and it's going to,
it'll dovetail in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
It will bounce.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Nope. This is, it's almost like it, like, like, like
if you're catching your Magneto and you just know, Oh,
I can just, you know, it's metal. So I can just,
just bring it right to my hand. Like, that's what
that throw was like. I was, I mean, that throw Ellie,
they look, we talked about talented. He is for a
long time. And that, that throw is just, You're not
going to see a more impressive play in baseball than that. Defensively, yeah,
(16:44):
we get to the big catches and, you know, going
over the fence and robbing a home run. We had
a great home run rob that ended a game a
couple weeks ago. But this throw by De La Cruz,
it's like, whew, man, is that something.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It's funny. You also mentioned Magneto because I'm going back
through and while I'm working on some stuff, you know,
just running all the old X-Men. Watch Kevin Bacon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh,
he just– Hey, Darwin, eat this. Poor Darwin. He had
a good run.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Now, two late-breaking stories out of college football tonight. If
you remember a couple weeks ago when the story broke
that LSU would be welcoming NFL players back to their roster,
it was met with just a little bit of pushback
by the rest of college football.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Just a little bit? Just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And what did we tell you at the time? Look,
it's a big deal now. NFL players potentially coming back
and schools getting them and Lane Kiffin saying, hey, we're
competing against the other teams for these guys anyway, so
why not go sign them?
Speaker 2 (17:47):
We told you how this was going to end.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
It was going to end with none of these guys
playing because it's too many question marks, too many things
not known. Other schools would not want to play these
teams that have these players coming back from the NFL
for whatever reason. This is where all of college football
is united. We don't want kids coming back from the
league into the sport. All the stuff that you're allowing,
this is what you're melting down about?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
We don't want these guys going to have so much
so that today.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
The SEC had a meeting set for Thursday about booting
LSU out of the SEC if they.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Played these players.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Like, this is apparently what could get you booted out
of a conference. Not a long process where removing a
team from a conference is very difficult.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
A bunch of transgressions, some terrible atrocities committed on the campus.
We could have a meeting on Thursday and boot your
ass out, right? I kind of like that. Let's do
a little bit of a flex. We're still out of
the bay. We're the second best conference. Let's see what
I did there. We're the second best conference in football.
So we told you how it was going to end.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
It was going to end with these guys not playing,
and that looks like how it's going to end because,
late story tonight, LSU is going to fill their roster,
their last couple of spots with players, not these two
players coming back from the NFL, including Daquan Wright.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
So.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
That means they're not going to have the ability to
add these players to the roster any longer this season,
so they're not going to play. Likely they saw that, oh, man,
they're serious about kicking us out. Man, Lane, do you
really need these guys? Ah, you see, we beat the
crap out of Clemson on Saturday.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, I'm good. All right, great.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
All right, okay, we won't let these guys play, and
you won't have a meeting about kicking us out of
the SEC. So he told you how the story was
going to end.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
And here we are. The story is now ending.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I mean, you talk about the top line, right? Of
we'll kick you out. Well, it doesn't mean that there
weren't a bunch of other subplots that might've come up
in that meeting in terms of fines and, and restructuring
and whatever else, like the point I've made with the
LSU side of it, the longest time they voted, right.
They were part of a, unanimous pact of, hey, this
(19:52):
is wrong, 16-0. Yet they didn't squash Lane Kiffin from
pursuing this and talking about it. So they served both sides.
And Lane Kiffin got to become supervillain. And then beating
the hell out of Dabo Sweeney and Clemson helped solidify
that a little bit. He also did hot yoga and
did the pregame show. So everybody's saying, ah, they're not focused. Ah,
(20:15):
wait till you see. He just kind of laughed at
everybody when it was all said and done. But from
an administrative side, you could have shut this down at
any point. Because here's the thing. You could threaten him
with being fired, much like the SEC is threatening to
fire you. But you didn't. I'm going to fire you, Ron. Right, exactly.
But it's the, hey, you didn't press it because, well,
(20:37):
in the end, you might have won off this. So
why not let him pursue it? Meanwhile, you're still, you know,
outwardly saying, hey, we agree this is just crazy, but
let the coach do his thing. No, no, no. And
you had executives and administrators saying, well, someone has to
do it. Like, okay, so which is it? Like, if
(20:58):
you're really against it, then, you know, everybody that goes
into public speaking on your behalf.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
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 2 (21:11):
With the exception of your coach, quite obviously. Should you
all at least still be aligned to say, hey, we're
going to do everything we can to squash this, and
we're talking with coach and remedying the situation. Instead, you
had to have this ultimate threat from the SEC. I
think it's great theater. I want the 30 for 30.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
And really, just think about this is that Lane Kiffin,
we talked about it last night. Just think about everything
going on with college football now in 2026. He is
the face of college football. What's the one coach that
stands for everything going on in college football now?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
It's Lane Kiffin.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
All the no rules, we can do whatever we want,
everybody can change schools, NIL, players can come back from
the NFL. Lane Kiffin is the face of this era
of college football. And again, this might be... The final
thing that makes college football go, okay, guys, we all
got to come together on things. We need a commissioner.
We need some sort of rules because we're running out
(22:08):
of control. I've been telling you for years, eventually someone's
got to throw that emergency brake for college football. And
then Lane Kiffin running, you know, being the villain of
college football may be what it takes the league to stop.
It takes college football to stop and go, okay, I
think we've been running for a long time here. Let's
dial it back and let's get some sort of model
in place that allows us to continue to grow, whereas
(22:31):
we're doing it without going off the rails every five minutes.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Well, but that's it. We've watched this over the last, what,
five to seven years. Really, everything becomes a stopgap. Okay,
we went too far. How do we pull this back?
It's like, what's the genies out of the bottle, man?
all bets are off. And so this actually united most.
And again, I'd wonder how many that voted for it
(22:55):
were like LSU, where you had parts of your university
still going, how does this ultimately benefit us? Yeah. If this,
if this can happen, how do we win? Right. From
a money competitive, all of those standpoints, like, cause again,
they could have squashed it and they didn't. And all
these other spots, it's been the same thing. Like there's,
And the NCAA is what it is at this point.
(23:16):
We've long just pushed them off to the side, but
trying to get everybody back from their fiefdoms to have
some ruler. We've done the Kennesaw Mountain Land jokes before.
I don't know how much it gets to that, but
you at least get to your executive committee and whatever
that comes together on this stuff. In the interim, it's
(23:38):
the what's best for me in our pocketbooks and chances
of adding another title.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
So this part is now over. And the next story
I'm going to tell you is going to be over soon.
Trust me, the Western Michigan, Michigan Hail Mary story is
going to end soon, right? The NCAA put out a
statement tonight saying that, hey, they're changing how they keep
the official track of the end of games, that now
the in-stadium scoreboard clock is the official timekeeper. to avoid
(24:09):
what happened last weekend, right? So, okay, we know that.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And that's the.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
That's, you know, one thing about is that this was
so avoidable in that if... The scoreboard clock had just
stayed at one second instead of going to zero. Yeah,
there would have been a, whoa, Michigan got a little
bit of an extra second there.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
But you know what? It's another Hail Mary play.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
It's not like, hey, the second is on there for
Michigan to kick a game-winning field goal.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Okay, it's there for another Hail Mary. Now Michigan scores.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And then there would have been a minor– storyline of, oh,
why didn't that extra second come off? Why was there
no lag time on the clock? We've seen that before.
We talked about it last night.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
We talk about with play clocks, right? They get that
snap off.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It would have been a story, but it wouldn't be
to the extent it is now. Okay, this is how
we're keeping track of it. And nobody would have cared
if the game was over. If I was officiating this
game and they called down to me and go, Jason,
we have three tenths of a second.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Guys, it's over.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
OK, they're carrying the Western Michigan's players off the field.
Michigan's walking off dejected. Nobody cares. We don't need to
stir up a hornet's nest. The game is over.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
The game is over.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Like, that's how it should. It could have and should
have ended. But the fact that we went through all
of this, of course, this is why we're at where
we are right now.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
We get more chaos. Here is part of the quote
that was released from this memo of the national coordinator
of official Ron Snodgrass. Quote, when a replay review requires
time to be restored or otherwise adjusted, the replay official's
decision will be based on the embedded game clock within
the program feed. In other words, the one that, I mean,
(25:45):
you were in the control room, right? You always call
yourself one of the greatest ever behind-the-scenes people at ESPN, right?
But what did you have? You had a clock that
had tens of seconds, right, as you're rolling up in 10.
nine okay cool uh so it says hey.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
There's a discrepancy in the on-field clock we go to
the broadcast and see what they have right yeah and
if the broadcaster is unable to provide an embedded game
clock then the replay official will use the game clock
graphic displayed as part of the broadcast feed which gets
us in a nice big circle he ultimately explains that
away but yeah it goes i just like that western
(26:23):
michigan said hey we we i'm I want my dollar back. Yeah, no, look,
I can't believe that today the Mac conference comes out
and says, hey, we think we spoke too soon. We
want this result to be overturned and give the game
back to Western Michigan. Right. Today they said, hey, we
think we spoke too soon. We want the game back
(26:44):
to it. Now, the NCAA has already said we're not
doing that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Nearly 72 hours later. If I'm Western Michigan, I'm like, oh, hey,
thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Thanks for coming and playing. Thanks for absolutely nothing. You
couldn't do this right after the game. You couldn't do
it on Sunday. Look, I understand that all the schools
and everything exists in the state of Michigan to prop
up the University of Michigan, right? I said vacation there.
Take your $ 1. 3 million check and move on. There is
nothing bigger in the state of Michigan than the University
(27:11):
of Michigan. Just go visit there and go to the
sports complex, and you'll say, oh, my goodness, I understand
what you're saying, Jason. I get that Western Michigan, Central Michigan,
they all exist to make Michigan better, to make the
University of Michigan better. But if I'm Western, I'm like,
you guys could have come through for us a little
bit here, man. You're the guy that I need you
to help me move a couch, and you fake lifting
the couch. Oh, now, four days later, hey, we want
(27:34):
the results overturned. Not only are you coming to our
result four days late, you're saying something that's not going
to happen.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Like the NCAA is.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Going to go, well, they asked. We kind of have
to do it. We never thought they were going to ask.
Western Michigan, leave the MAAC.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Leave the MAAC. Go to the ACC. They need more teams.
Go to the MAAC. You're obviously very good at football now.
Go to the MAAC. They need more teams. Leave the MAAC.
That was the one thing out of Saturday. I was
sad that they weren't more indignant or angry or questioning.
I was like, ah, that's what they told us. What
are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Hey, you're going to still invite us to play, right?
Give us $ 1. 3 million a game, Michigan, because we'll say
everything is fine and nothing wrong was done as long
as you're going to continue to invite us to play
games and give us $ 1. 5 million. Remember, we exist to
push Michigan to the top of the heap. That's what
we do here in Michigan. Like a training video. Understand,
(28:29):
ask yourself, is this good for the company? The company
is the University of Michigan.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Understand. But we go to Western.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I get it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
You pay back into the feeder system. You are a
feeder program to the universe.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
You and Central Michigan and Michigan State and all the
other Michigan.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
All the other little Michigans. And you over there. Yes. Chippewas,
you're part of this. You in the Upper Peninsula, Northern Michigan. Yeah,
I know. Robert Sala went there. You exist as well.
Support Michigan.
Hosts And Creators
Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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