Sherrone Moore Fired & New Coach Intel with Bruce Feldman | College Football - The Solid Verbal College Football

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the solid verbal hull. For me, I'm a man,
I'm forty.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I've heard so many players say, well, I want to
be happy. You want to be happy for a day?
Edith State is that?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Whoo whoom? And Dan and Tie, Dan Raban, Steve, welcome back.
We're going to bring on an honored guest yes ay
list on today's episode. We will get to that momentarily. Hello,
welcome back. As always, I'm Tie, he is Dan. This
is a solid verbal thank you for tuning back in.
So we're kind of in that weird period now where

(00:37):
we're getting ready for bowl season, we're getting ready for
the postseason. This is a unique opportunity for us to
check back in with friends, to talk about bigger picture,
bigger picture issues, excuse me, and to give folks a
flavor of what's been going on in and around the
world of college football. So, with all that being said,
our guest of honor today Dan is Ruce Albn of

(00:59):
course ris An, our friend Bruce Schulman.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I think mostly we have questions about the Buckle Up
LA Bowl that's also this weekend. Apparently, Washington SMU is
literally like back to back with the Army Navy game.
Did we realize that.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
I did not realize that. No, and we got to
talk about Army Navy too. I want to give picks
for that game before we get out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
It's it's bucked up LA or buckled up. I have
no idea what bucked up is. I think it's related
to Gronk.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Okay, it was the LA Bowl presented by Gronk, I
believe the last two years.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yes, well, this is the bucked up l A Bowl
hosted by.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Gronk, hosted by They're just using him like he's a gadget.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I guess. So maybe it's just l A Bowl this year.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
It's very confusing to me what's going on with this
LA Bowl? But we have I want to say, was
it Washington SMU? Okay, the bucked up l A Bowl again?
I don't know if Gronk's got a bad matchup. No,
not at all. No, sorry, it's Boise State, Washington.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
State, Washington.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, excuse me, it was rumored to b SMU. I
get all my information wrong. I'm not in bowl season yet.
Tell you'll have to excuse me. Boise State, Washington in
the Bucked Up LA Bowl hosted by Gronk. Okay, okay, great,
So any early lean tie, as I put you on
the spot before we bring Bruce on, I.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Would lean Washington.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think I'm leaning Washington.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
I'm not unless there's a weird opt out situation and
I'm kind of going off the cuff here, So Washington,
I can excuse me. But boise State on defense left
a lot to be desired, and I think Washington's a
pretty good team. They were very much under the radar
this year finish eight and four. I think the future

(02:41):
is very bright for the roster that Jed Fish is
put together, and this gives him an opportunity to kind
of build on what they started this season. So granted,
boise State coming off another mount West Conference win, they're
third in a row, right, But I think there's a
reason that Washington's at nine and a half point favored here,
and I just like their offense a lot more in
this game, so I would go I would go Husky's
barring any kind of elaborate opt out situation.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Arizona is taking on SMU, A new SMU was coming
to Southern California. That's in the Holiday Holiday Bowl, that's right,
which is another too. That's the matchup. I'm very much
looking forward to Arizona SMU. So yes, the Bucked Up
LA Bowl is already upon us. I think we all
remember growing up and thinking about the Bucked Up LA
Bowls of years gone by. So yeah, we have football

(03:28):
this weekend.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
We do have football this weekend, and we also have
some breaking news as these things go here in the
on demand audio space. We recorded our interview with Bruce
Feldman a few hours before a bombshell of a news
story broke at Michigan. There had been rumors floating around

(03:52):
on the dark web for a couple of weeks, the
dark web unsubstantiated, but this was out there that some
that might be coming. We got news a little bit
ago that Sharon Moore at Michigan has been fired with cause.
Our friends Pete Thammeil, Dan Wetzel Adam Schefter over at

(04:14):
ESPN dot com reporting that Michigan is firing Sharon Moore
for an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. That is
all we have at present. As some have pointed out,
it's very rare that you get that level of specificity
when news immediately breaks of a coach's firing. So there

(04:34):
has been obviously some sort of investigation. The university clearly
felt comfortable labeling it as such. This of course, comes
on the heels of a very active coaching carousel cycle.
We talked earlier about all of the movement across college football,
what with Lane Kiffin at Campbell, Bob Chesney. I mean,

(04:54):
they were being a bunch of names moving around. With
Sharon Moore being relieved of command. In effect, this sort
of resets the coaching carousel. It kicks off a phase
two of sorts. Because we can go through some of
the names that are being attached to this new opening,
they are all very big names. Michigan is a very

(05:15):
big play stand So, if you're a college football fan,
if you have been watching from afar as the coaching
carousel has spun round and round, my hunch is that
there is a lot more to come. What are your
thoughts here? This is a big one.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
This is very big. Obviously has come out of nowhere
in terms of whether it was today, whether it was
stuff that's been floating out there. Obviously a mixed bag
in terms of on field results, has recruited somewhat well.
I mean, the actual you know, concerning thing here is

(05:50):
the reasoning why Sharan Moore was relieved of his job.
But you know, an inappropriate relationship, we don't know exactly
what that means beyond Look, if the head coach is
having a with a staff member, obviously that goes against
the rules in place, given power dynamics and the expectation
of somebody who is a bus But he failed, he

(06:13):
failed to lead Michigan properly. And this is why we
are here. So huge job and huge opportunity. Timing is
a little bit less than ideal given that we just
saw the carousel spin and we saw various coaches either
make moves or coordinators make moves, or coaches who had
who are sort of receiving interest get bumps and extensions

(06:36):
in salaries. We are weirdly at December tenth and it
feeling like we're late in the process. And so Michigan
named Biff Poge, who you know was an assistant head
coach under both Sharan Moore last season after not working
out at Charlotte and he was in the Jim Harbaugh
time as well a couple of different times in the

(06:56):
Jim Harborugh era. He will be coaching them in the
Bowl game correct, correct, and then from there, we don't
know exactly you're going to mention some candidates that have
been tossed around, but that's kind of all we know
right now in terms of like the facts laid out
in front of us.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Quote, this conduct constitutes a clear violation of university policy
and um maintains zero tolerance for such behavior. That is
from Athletic Director Word Manual, who issued a statement on Wednesday.
I would add, just to be honest with the audience
as we are recording this, there are a number of
reports that are screaming across social media. I don't know

(07:38):
what's true and what isn't. I don't want a rumor
monger here, but my sense from what I am seeing
is that by the time many people listen to this,
this story is going to have a few more turns
to it. So keep that in mind. We're doing our
best here to react on short notice.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
From a football standpoint, clearly, the timing of this, as
you alluded, is not ideal. A bunch of coaches are
spoken for with new contract extensions, although I suppose Michigan
will do whatever it can essentially to empty the clip
to make sure they have someone good in place. The
timing of this is interesting given the fact that a

(08:17):
we just had a bunch of coach movement not too
long ago. B just a week ago was early signing Day,
which is I'm sure going to play a larger part
in this whole operation now, given there is uncertainty, and
I think on top of that the extra layer and
part of why there had been building enthusiasm for Michigan.
Granted it wasn't all in place this year, but exciting

(08:39):
quarterback and Bryce Underwood, a relatively young team. They're still
sort of building back up under the new coach after
Harball left, and so there's a lot of reason I
think to be optimistic about this program. But there is
definitely this now hanging over the Michigan Wolverine. Some of
the names that were reported right away from our friend
p Nacos over at On three, some are obvious, some

(09:03):
are not. All of them are relatively big, which is
why I think this could be one of those things.
I mean, the coaching carousel has become something of a
spectators sport among college football fans. We have it every
year around this time, and we quite literally interviewed Bruce
earlier today and we asked him, do you think it's
done spinning, and he said, I don't know, but it's

(09:24):
only December tenth, which means it's early and stuff always breaks. Well,
a few hours after the fact, we get this news
coming across the wire. Among the names that Pete Nacos reports,
Calin de Boorr, current head coach playoff bound head coach
at Alabama. Brian Kelly, now former LSU coach, former Notre

(09:46):
Dame coach.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Coached at Grand Valley State in the state Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yep, Cincinnati, was at Central Michigan, so he's familiar with
this general region. Lincoln Riley, whose name has come up
a couple times, attached to other openings around college football.
Jesse Minter another guy in the West Coast, though not
in college. He followed Jim Harbaugh out into the NFL.
He's currently the DC for the LA Chargers. Eli Drinkwitz,

(10:11):
who just signed an extension of sorts. Jedfish out at Washington,
whose name I expected to be a little bit more active,
if I'm being honest.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
But he's connected to this because of he also was
an assistant at Missions correct, so there are ties in air.
If you remember going back to like Warring Graphics from
a few years ago.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yes, involving Jedfish.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
And the last one that Pete lists here is Clark Lee,
who also just re upped with Vanderbilt. But Clark Lee
is a guy who obviously has had a lot of success,
and there is an open question about if and when
at some point he would bolt from Vandy to go
to what is perceived a bigger and better job. So
those are some heavy hitters, right. If any of those

(10:53):
names were to move, it would trigger its own domino
effect of sorts and clearly make for very interesting fodder
in the coaching world. The name that everybody brought out first,
I will say, is Deboor, right, because Kaylen de Bor
is from South Dakota, Kaalen de Bors coach generally in
this part of the country. Kaylen de Bor has obviously
been very successful in the time that he was a

(11:16):
head coach at Fresno, then most recently at Washington before
coming over to Alabama. A now two time playoff coach,
to say the least, who has a good track record
for building offenses. There have been rumors about him being
attached to some other positions that were open this cycle.
Most notably Penn State. Calen de bor I think would

(11:37):
be an enormous hire if you were able to pry
him away from Alabama. Now, it wasn't all that long ago.
He just said via press conference that he's happy. We've
never been happier here. We're thrilled to be part of
this community, to be building for it. I think they
all say the normal coach speak thing, but it seemed
as though just a week ago he had put some
of these rumors to bed, but now he's coming up

(11:59):
attached potentially to this Michigan opening.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, I don't have buyout numbers in front of me, obviously,
Caitlin de Borr, A lot of his footprint is in
the northern part of the country, but has coached everywhere
at this point, most recently when he was in the
Big Ten. I guess he was the offensive coordinator at Indiana.
Has since gone obviously, Fresno State, Washington, Bama. Hefty buyout,
as I'm sure a lot of these guys that you
have mentioned. Clark Lee just signed a new deal. Jesse

(12:24):
Minter as an assistant in the NFL, so I can't
imagine his buyout is substantial. Has experience obviously with Michigan,
and I think I want to say, it was Vanderbilt
for a year before that, so there's more Vanderbilt connection,
and there was I think Raven's connection along with Mike
McDonald who's now the Seahawks head coach. It's a huge job.
Those are huge names. It's a huge job. I also
want to say the leadership might This is not my expertise,

(12:47):
but I know Santa Oho attempted to leave the University
of Florida. The Michigan president. I think they have an
interim president at the moment, so correct me if I'm
wrong there. But I don't know where the school leadership
is at the moment. Obviously, Ward Manual still there. He
was the one who issued this release, so you know,
things a little bit influx behind the scenes. Curious to
see whether or not they do a full year with Pogy. Look,

(13:10):
the priority here now is going to be finding a
long term answer. And if you can't find a long
term answer right now, it's trying to keep this roster together.
This recruiting class that signed I don't know, seven days ago.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, they were the eleventh overall recruiting class according to
our friends over at twenty four to seven, two five stars,
twelve four stars, twelve three stars. It was a good
class by all accounts, So that is where my mind
goes first, especially when something like this pops up so
late in the coaching cycle, so late in the recruiting cycle.

(13:47):
What are the impacts going to be from this? Of
course the coach leaves, it kind of opens the floodgates
for players to make a switch if they see it necessary.
I think if you're Michigan, you obviously want to try
and get a guy in place Asa. This is a
different situation altogether than what we saw happen at say
Penn State, where the pressure was ratcheting up because they
didn't have a guy. They fired James Franklin early so

(14:10):
they could get a head start on the coaching search,
and they ended up being one of the last to
name a guy. They sort of expected when they made
a move like that mid season that the recruiting class,
that much of the current roster was going to go
up and smoke. That was an expectation. When you make
a move like that, you're naive to think otherwise. But now,
given the timing of this one for Michigan, you make

(14:31):
a move this late in the recruiting and coaching cycle.
You want to try and keep it together. You just
got some of these guys to sign. You want to
try and keep this together as best you can, especially
the guys you're excited about. So time is of the
essence to try and go out there and make a
move as soon as humanly possible.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Yeah, I think this, along with any other job Michigan
is obviously an enormous, enormous job. They can't think short term.
They can't hire somebody just because they want to keep
things together.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
That's what they do.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
A shroan more to work for a year. This year
was even on the fields, pretty up and down, though
obviously they did win a chunk of games. Lost the
Ohio State game, which obviously sits terribly with Michigan fans.
But in terms of thinking long term, find the guy
for eight years, not find the guy who can keep

(15:19):
Bryce Underwood. And Bryce Underwood's a big deal. There are
big deal young players on this roster. They are a
big deal player. I think they have like the number
one edge rusher, the number one running back you know,
signed at the moment. We'll see what happens, but this
has to be a long term decision. So for a
place like Michigan, you know they're gonna have to spend
tie there.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
They're gonna, i mean, especially this late in the game,
doubly so if you're gonna go after a guy who
just hired an extension or who just signed an extension,
if you want to hire one of those guys away,
because there's gonna be a hefty buyout attached to it.
I'm seeing Matt Zenitz from over at CBS Sports reporting
that it was mostly a normal day today at Michigan
until about twenty after four. The team was even set

(16:00):
to practice tonight, but at that point team staffers were
abruptly called in for a meeting, at which point they
were told that Sharon Moore had been fired. The team
was then told afterwards. So this certainly is going to
come at as something of a shock for a team
that presumably was getting ready for a bowl game. There
will be much much more to follow on this front
with Sharon Moore. At time of recording. Right now, we

(16:23):
just don't have a whole lot to go on other
than to say that this has happened. That some of
the rumors that had been floating around out there. Apparently
came true, and we're going to have a second wave
in the coaching carousel. This might be arguably one of the,
if not the biggest job in college sports. Michigan's a

(16:44):
huge brand, enormous. Yeah, it's the winningest program in college
football history. This is a job that is going to
be much sought after. So to have this one pop
up this late in the cycle, though it's probably not
unprecedented in the history of coach searches, it is definitely
going to be a new wrinkle on what was already
a very, very active coaching carousel.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
I'm very curious to see the direction they go in.
This is where Michigan sits right now. Obviously winning a
recent national championship and having two three excellent years to
end the Jim Harbaugh era, Michigan now sits in a
much more difficult Big Ten than even where it was
two three years ago. Right with Indiana peaking the way
that they are as the number one team in America,

(17:26):
I'm going to let that sink in for just another moment.
Everybody in the Big Ten now has to go through
Indiana in order to prove anything. Ohio State is a
killer Oregon's a killer. Penn State has the potential to
be excellent. We'll see. But it's a new coach. We'll
see how long that takes to get up and running.
I wonder if Matt Campbell's like, should I have waited

(17:46):
a week?

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Should I hear James Franklin? Should I have waited a
couple weeks?

Speaker 2 (17:50):
I don't think Michigan was hiring James Franklin. I think
James Franklin would have loved the opportunity to speak to Michigan. Perhaps,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Truly, though, this opens up an entirely new can of worms,
especially among some coaches who have just left to go elsewhere. Yeah,
we talked with Bruce Felban at length about Lane Kiffin.
What would happen if Kaylen de Bor decides to go
to Michigan with Lane kifving just having signed on with

(18:18):
LSU right, would Alabama make a move for lank kit Like?
I don't know, but I think this opens up a
bunch of just off the wall possibilities that normally would
just be relegated to message boards and dark corners of
the Internet, Internet that nobody takes seriously. However, this late
in the game time is of the essence to retain

(18:38):
what you have. We've gotten questions as we're doing this live,
We've gotten questions that have come in in our chat about, well,
what happens to Bryce Underwood, what happens to some of
the big names that make and what's sided about what's
the language? What's the language in Bryce Underwood's deal? Rightly
to get out of that deal because a lot of
money means a lot of clauses as well. So look,

(18:59):
we're just sort of of shooting from the hip here.
We got this news the way everybody got this news.
It is something that will keep very close tabs on
here over the next couple days and weeks. For sure,
it's going to be the biggest story in and around
the world of college football. Thankfully for the Playoff Committee
and for the Notre Dames of the world and for
some other entities in college football that we're very much

(19:19):
front stage center in the current news cycle that all
now gets pushed to the back burner with the Michigan
job coming open. As we find out more, we will
do our best to stay on top of it. This
is the nature of on demand audio when you don't
always get things when you want them. It doesn't always
fit neatly into a nice little box. But keep it
right here, follow hit subscribe. We'll do our part to

(19:41):
make sure that you're in the know as news becomes available.
All right, Dan, it is long overdue. We figure what
time better than now than to bring back our good friend,
our longtime friend, mister Bruce Fellman from Fox Sports, from
the Athletic, from the Audible podcast, Going to talk some
coaching news, going to talk a bunch of news here
on the show today, Bruce, welcome back. How are you.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
I'm doing great. I enjoyed the hour we just spent.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yes, so I'm loosened up.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah. Dan has some issues with this AI face swapping
app that he has been tormenting me with for the
better part of the last year. And for people who
watch our live streams and well any of the stuff
that we put out on video. Every now and again
he includes one my face on someone else's body, as
if it's some sort of Easter egg. So it's the
only thing I use AI for. I have no use

(20:32):
for it otherwise other than to put Tie's face on
Jeff Goldbloom's body from The Fly.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
I think that's ran.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
I think even Jeff Goldblom, it's like you're stuck there.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Why not just well we have gold Bloom. It's I'm
looking at Ties features right, darker features like a movie star,
good looks, and then you put it together. I know
it works well. So yes, that's what we do when
we're not talking about college football. Okay we are. It's
December tenth, coach searches, playoff news, everything's happening at the

(21:02):
same time. What to you sort of rings the loudest
between your ears right now? Is it the playoff stuff?
Is it the coaching changes? Is it portal stuff? What
to you is reverberating?

Speaker 4 (21:14):
Well, the thing that's reverberating the most, and Ties got
on what looks like a Notre Dame pullover?

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Isn't it? Promised you?

Speaker 3 (21:22):
I know we have.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
We have like three days in a row of Notre
Dame aad Pete Bovaqua kind of sounding off, and I
think you know, we had a live show on Sunday
during the reveal, and I got to admit, I feel
like Notre Dame got screwed here. Notre Dame got screwed
not by my Miami but by Alabama, you know, especially

(21:43):
the way Alabama is playing down the stretch. It wasn't
just it wasn't just getting destroyed in the SEC title game.
It was you know, barely beating a bad Auburn team,
losing it home to Oklahoma. You know, couple that when
they got off to the start of the year with
a losing to what turned out to be a really
bad Florida State team.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Right, So felt bad for Notre Dame.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Felt bad for Notre Dame for a you know, I
didn't really sit there and think, oh my god. The
ACC network showed the re air of Miami Notre Dame
from Week one one hundred and six times in a row.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
But I get sort of that point.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
I think what's a little different obviously, is just because
they wear the patch on the baseball uniforms doesn't mean,
you know, like you're an equal partner here, right, So
I think there's there was some of that, but that
and on. I don't have a problem with Notre Dame
or the players going, you know what, we're we're not
going in the in the uh in the Pop Tart
Bowl or the pin Strape Bowl or whatever bowl. You know,

(22:42):
like we're good without it you can make your ratings
someplace else or however.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
You know that beyond that thought process kicked in.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
But what was curious to me, just from like a
I don't know from an optics standpoint, is the ad
spoke on Sunday to Yahoo and you know, raise some
eyebrows with some of his comments, and you know, brought
up how there's a there's kind of a carve out
next year at the CP that will benefit Notre Dame
in the ways it doesn't benefit anybody else. And then

(23:15):
I was like, okay, you know, he aired out, and
now all of a sudden you started seeing people kind
of ripped Notre Dame for opting out of the bowl game.
I don't I'm not one of them. I totally get
where that positioning. And then the next day he goes
on Dan Patrick and now there's video of the comments
and those things are going viral and they're strong comments,
and like, okay, and then I was like sitting there thinking, yeah,

(23:39):
Pete Sampson are terrific. Notre Dame writer was like yeah,
and he's doing a he's doing a press conference tomorrow,
so now there's another another layer of this.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
And I just felt like you know Notre Dame post.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
You know, Brian Kelly in the you know, in the
Marcus Freman era, especially last year, he saw a lot
of stories of Notre Dame is really likable. You know,
maybe they maybe people thought they weren't because Brian Kelly
epitomized something different right back then. And I felt like
some of that kind of like all of a sudden,
Notre Dame went from being very sympathetic and likable, so

(24:16):
maybe not to I think some people are rethinking that
I'm not one of them, but I saw enough chatter
to be like, man, they have really changed the like
kind of changed the narrative, and it's it spiraled into
all these other little arguments. Right I wake up this morning,
or wake up Wednesday morning, and I see our friend
Bud Elliott is trending or whatever, and I was, what

(24:38):
the heck? And then I realized bud Elliott waded into
the Notre Dame scheduling conversation that came up sort of
half cocked maybe, and then started getting clowned by some
people probably were dialed in on that. And I was
just like this, this is kind of like what you
kind of hate hate about the Internet. When it just
kind of takes on a lifefit zone.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
I mean the whole sport essentially in this moment, and
let's be clear, including Tie and myself. Like it kind
of turns to sludge right when you're following along with
what's going on with Lane Kiffin, when you're following along
with the playoff committee, when you're following along with you know,
the late parts of even like the early signing day
stuff and who's going where, and there's drama, like there
is a lot of heightened emotion in early December, and

(25:23):
it feels especially I think toxic is too strong a word,
but especially heated right now and people know more about
the business of college football and how things are connected
to each other. And I wonder if it's actually good
for the sport or if it's just good for people
like the three of us who talk about the sport.

(25:43):
I don't know, I don't know how you feel about that,
Like is it reaching like like a fever pitch.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
It's a good point, you know, Like there's a conversation
I was somebody who works at ESPN. I don't want to,
you know, kind of put them out there without their
their say so on it. But just like we're kind
of talking about the backwards nature of the CFP process, right,
And I would assume we would all agree that. I mean,
I've been pretty strong on this for a while. The

(26:10):
Tuesday night show is garbage. It's it needs to go.
It should have gone, It should never have been a thing. Right.
But that you know, part of the old machine behind
the playoff still was like, hey, it drives debate, and
that's a good thing for the sport.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
No, I don't think it really is.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
I think it's a good thing for your TV ratings
to drive debate, but I think it undermines the credibility
of the sport. Now, they could have certainly had a
way more articulate CFP chairman than Hunter Eurochek, right, I mean,
he's probably about.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
As bad a.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
Representative as they probably could have thrown in that chair
every Tuesday night. But I don't know who you'd have
who could really explain. You know, we get we get
and I say we and this means it's not just
media's college football fans. We get lulled into this thought
process of well, the committee did this a year ago,
or they did this, you know, or the CFP did

(27:07):
this whatever and you know, I said to Stu on
our podcast a few times, I was like, hey, not
clowning you here, but like that's a different committee and
all the circumstances change and whenever, you know, it's kind
of insanity when you expect a different you know, like
they're making it up as they go along, right, and
I don't.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Know that Notre Dame Miami back to back thing. They're
just like that's what we're doing it. And like you're
just like, but who decided that and why and when
and when did these like weird tears come about, and
like they're just it's not a matter like transparency. It's
just like they speak as if like, yes, we all
understand this to be the case, Like what are you
talking about? Back to back? Nobody remembers anything about this?

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, I mean this is a screw analogy.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
But like I feel like it's all you know, there's
a little bit of a parenting aspect of this, where
you may tell your child when they're younger something that
you just kind of pull your butt and then they're like,
you know, years later they remind you and you're like, yeah,
I don't know, I just made that up or whatever.
You know kind of thing. And obviously it's important with parenting,

(28:11):
you know, like you don't want to raise, you know.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
A psychopath.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
But in the case of this, it's like we're all
expecting more and by now we know we're not getting it,
we're getting less. And I think that's the part where
it just like, yeah, it may be good for us
because we err out our grievances and vent on these
shows and different things, but it's it's frustrating and just

(28:36):
because you sit there and watch and you expect more
from the people who are running the sport, and I
think by now we all know better, you know, like,
oh yeah, that guy's kind of an idiot, and that's
you know, it's like and then you know, it's frustrating
because then all of a sudden you'll see and it
happened a lot over the last year or two where
it's like, oh, we're going to turn to Congress. Oh yeah,

(28:58):
there's another body of work that people think very highly
of right now, yeah, you know, so it just I
love the sport, I kind of it kind of makes
me cringe about all the other stuff that's connected to it.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
The Notre Dame a d and his little crusade here
over the last few days has been really interesting to follow.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
And he's phrasing ty yeah sade.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Thank you. I didn't mean it that way, but thank you.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
What keeps resonating with me, what keeps bouncing around in
my head is what's the endgame here? You know what?
What is the point of this? If the point is
not just to complain openly and to express dissatisfaction with
the process, what is it that they are really going for?
And that's where I've I think, had a little bit
of a hard time. To me, it comes across as
a brushback pitch towards the ACC, and it's probably driven

(29:49):
mostly from emotion than anything. But if their goal here
is not to outright leave the ACC and to not
outright put the ACC in some sort of business buying,
the only way that I can interpret this as some
sort of brushback that everything Pete Bavaqua is saying is
ultimately intended for an audience of one, whether that's Jim Phillips,
whether that's the broader governing structure of the ACC. That

(30:12):
to me is the only way this makes sense. There's
probably also a point to be made that he is
trying to be the squeaky wheel this time around, so
that if it comes to this a year from now,
the playoff committee, I guess depends who's on it, would
think twice about leaving Notre Dame out again. None of
those seem like great endgames to me, so I'm just

(30:33):
as curious as you are, and I would agree that
it's not the best optics. I also don't think Notre
Dame gives a rip about optics, you know. I think
Notre Dame for a long time, and this is why
a lot of people haven't liked Notre Dame in the past.
They tend to operate on the Golden rule, i e.
Whoever has the gold makes the rules, and in this case,
they've got the fan base. He cited some of those
stats when he was given as presser yesterday that only

(30:55):
twenty three percent of the time ACC stadiums sell out,
whereas when Notre Dame is playing it's ninety percent of
the time. He is very much trying to, I think,
put his finger on the scale and let people know
how big of a business partner they are. None of
it is good, and it only adds, I think to
the toxic nature of what this whole playoff thing has become.
But where it goes next, I think is what's most interesting.

(31:18):
Is this going to be the last we hear of it?
Will there be any kind of like whispers of lawsuits
or anything like. I'm not rooting for that, but I'm
just curious to see if there is a next step
to any of this or if it just is sort
of like a hissy fit in the moment. I honestly
don't know.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, I'm curious myself on that.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
You know, with the ACC piece of it, you know,
it's kind of they're in this position though they it's
the wuntch your cake and eat it too, because they're
not a football member, right they know they're an ACC
sort of member when it comes to the other sports,
I think that doesn't help their case, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
And it's like you're also you're in the ACC.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
You're not in the Big ten, right, Like the ACC
is like the poster child of conference dysfunction right now.
I mean, I remind you many das at seven and
five got you know, got into the ACC title game
with like losing some you know, non conference games that
just it was like they should never have gotten themselves

(32:19):
in that situation in the first place, the PR push
as it was. I get why they were aggrieved with that.
I mean, to be honest, I think they probably have
a stronger case to to to poke at Alabama. But
you know, I don't I don't know if they think
that does them any good.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
You know, I don't think it.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
I think what's different And you know this, I don't
know if there's a I don't want to hijack the
conversation at this point, but like you know, I think
people see this in conspiracy theories of Okay, what's going
on with the CFP. They obviously you know, it's run
by ESPN. ESPN's by far it's biggest partner, Greg Zankei
and the SEC, right like Stu and I have had

(33:03):
this disagreement on it. He was like, you know, like
you see that that Oh yeah, there's deals with the
ACC and they have the ACC network. I'm like, yeah,
but those are different.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
It ain't the SEC. And until you kind of come
to terms with.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
Maybe that, you know, people can say, oh, if you
really want ratings, you'll stick Notre Dame in there, right,
you know that could be I mean, it wasn't like.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
You know, but not at the expense of.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Your cash cow, your biggest cash cow, which is the SEC.
And I think that's the part that's hard to separate,
Like if it was another team that had the had
the exact same profile and it wasn't an SEC team,
I don't think we're talking about this right, you know,
like by you dropped and it just it's you know,

(33:56):
to me, that's that's the discussion. I get it that,
you know, Bavakua has frustrations with the ACC and how
it played out, But I feel like there's like it's
a second that's it's a different discussion. I'm not saying
it is the one they need to have, but that's
the one that's gonna I feel like the ACC piece
of this is the one that really has taken over.

(34:19):
And I think if I was Alabama, I'd be like, hey,
thanks for doing that.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Let's transition from one potentially petty hissy fit to another.
Because Lane Kiffin is the new coach of LSU. That's
a pro transition.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
That was good.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
You can write that one down petty hissy fit just
because of the statement he released. And you know, this
story has been covered from what seems every conceivable angle. Right,
you have people at the airport, you have you know,
people talking about what happened in meetings and saying that like, no,
we didn't want him to stay from a player perspective,
So we've got it from all sorts of different angles.
I'm wondering because you've covered him for a long time,

(34:54):
you've known him for a long time. I know that
you've talked about how like he's just maybe a bad
breaker upper, he's just bad at delivering bad news to people.
And that's probably true, that seems true. Is there something
we don't know about Lane Kiffen? I guess more broadly speaking,
that better informs why he made this move when he

(35:15):
made this move. I know there's you know, talk of
calendar stuff, and you know, you don't really have a
choice in terms of when you can make a move
like this. But is there something that people don't fully
understand about Lane Kiffen.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
No.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
I think the people who've been paying attention the longest
know who Lane Kiffin is, right. I think it's the
ones who kind of got sucked into, oh, he's doing
hot yoga now.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Which, by the way, the yoga people don't like him.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
Yeah, I mean so it's like I think that's the
piece of it. Yes, I mean, you know, like if
he's good with Fine Bomb, you know Fine Like I
feel like the best two areas for Lane Kiffen our
Twitter where he's not really talking, he's typing, and he's
the foil across Fine Bomb. Beyond that, I think, you know,

(36:03):
the people I talked to are a lot of people
who've known him and work with him for a long time,
and they're like, if anybody thinks Lane's changed, Lane's skinnier, now,
that's about it, right, But he's.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Still the same guy.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
And you could kind of see it if you didn't
learn from it, Like look at the player's comments, and
these weren't just like random dudes, these are like the
best players on the.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Team were like, yeah, that's not how that went Lane.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
The fact that you went to Twitter and posted that
and all the players and the players called.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Bs kind of tells you a lot. Then.

Speaker 4 (36:36):
Also, it's like you could juxtapose you like Penn State
more than Notre Dame.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Right, no other way other way.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Most of the time it depends on Honestly.

Speaker 4 (36:46):
I was gonna have a sloppy transition, but like Ty's
new head coach in state college. His exit is he
spends a bunch of you know, of his money to
put a thank you note in like the Des Moines
Register or whatever to ioris state fans. Lane's Lane's parting
shot is my instagram is now full with all these
old dms he sent to college students, you.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
Know, or whatever. And it's just like, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
I mean, I think there's a piece of Lane that
feels like he just cannot help himself. And it's always
going to be about Lane, right, and you saw that
right till the end.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Right.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
I don't know if he's ever going to win a
national title at LSU's I think he's probably a better
positioned to win one at LSU than is at Old Miss,
just because, except for Brian Kelly, all the coaches who've
been there in the last twenty five years have actually
won one.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
And at at.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
Ole Miss you can have good teams. I don't know
if you can sustain greatness there. With LSU, you can.
Now the question is going to be can Lane control himself?
And there's going to be a juggling act right now
or a balancing act to do that, And I don't
know how it's going to be because there's a lot

(38:03):
of strong forces around that program that are way different
than what he's had because remember, you know, here's him
as a head coach. Goes to the Raiders, obviously didn't
go well. You know, went to Tennessee, had a lot
of people on that staff, including his dad, who knew
him very well. It was as turbulent as could be.

(38:23):
You know, there was some good and some bad, a
lot of embarrassing things.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
And he left.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
And then he went to USC where the sanctions hit.
But again he had people around there who knew him well.
You know, MANI was there, Ojeron was there, and I
think that I don't.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Want to say they were guardrails.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
But it didn't go great there either, obviously because he
got fired, fired on the tarmac. Then he's at Alabama,
where he's kind of been humbled to some extent. You know,
Saban ends up firing him right before the National title game,
you know, because he's got the you know, kind of
trying to juggle the FAU piece of it. So at FAU,
I think it's just on a different stage. At Old

(39:05):
Miss again, I think there was some people around him,
but it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Quite like this. Now you're going into.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
The deep end of the pool at LSU and there's
a lot of people pulling in different directions and it's
really political.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
And is that revenge thing for him?

Speaker 2 (39:23):
By the way, is like, is this a revenge thing
for Lane that like things have gone so poorly at
places like USC and the Raiders in Tennessee? Does is
he the kind of guy who is taking this job
to say I got all the way back, I told
you you were the wrong one. I am the right one.
Do you think that's something that fuels no?

Speaker 4 (39:41):
Because if that was the case, he would have tried
to win the national title at Old Miss, a place
nobody's ever done it.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, I mean it's not about that.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
There's no glory in the way that there would be
like an LSU and it's doing it at a huge place.

Speaker 4 (39:52):
Yeah, But if you do it at LSU, you just
did what less Miles I'd always Ron and Nick Saban.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Did you do it at Old Miss? Nobody's done at
All Miss.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
And on top of it, which ended up doing, is
you quit on the team when they were in the
playoff and going to host a playoff game, like there's
no honor in that in that right, But I don't
think there's.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
I mean LSU hasn't hired a coach like that since
Brian Kelly right prepared to quit on a potential playoff
team continue.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
How about that?

Speaker 4 (40:21):
Yeah, I mean that was you know, not to give
Brian Kelly a ton of ton of c. But that
wasn't the same as things now, Like they had a
chance to make the playoff. This team was going to
host a playoff game, you know, whether he's there or not.
I think that I just don't think how Lane is wired.
It's not about revenge. I just think everything, every like

(40:42):
everything is about Lane. I mean he's the only guy,
you know, you know of some stature who tweets as
much as he does, and tweets like the most random
things about that are like circularly related to him. I
mean it's it's like I have a coach I talked

(41:03):
to who worked with him a long while ago, and
he was like, I don't understand why he's on Twitter
so much. What head coach has time to be doing
all this stuff? Right, Like, It's just it's just like
Lane cannot help himself. Lane is always all about Lane, period.
He can go on a show and bring a running

(41:24):
back on and say all this great stuff or whatever,
but it's all ultimately about framing about Lane and everything.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Else like that, Bruce. From the outside, this was like
a soap opera in college football. Will he go to LSU?
Will he stay at Oldbis Mighty? Go to Florida? Are
there other suitors out there? You hear a lot about
mystery teams. I've been reading about mystery teams. I feel
like for the last two months or so in your mind,
being so, you're much closer to this than Dan and I.

(41:52):
At what point to you, was it a certainty that, oh, yeah,
he's going to go to LSU, Like, never mind the noise,
this is where this guy is going. Everybody, whether they
know it, are sure or not, it's about to be
very real that this is the only place he's going
to end up.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
It was maybe almost a week earlier before and somebody
I talked to who is really close to Lane and
knows him well, basically was like, this is what's going
to happen. You know now, like there's a chance Lane
could back out of it, but it made it sound
like this is like, this is what what's going to happen.

(42:26):
And I believe that because a lot of the other
things that that this person a few other people have
told me have gone exactly this way.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
So I don't know. Like we went on our big noon.

Speaker 4 (42:40):
Show, it was, you know, it's the same day as
Ohio State Michigan, and I would have been stunned from
based on what I heard that morning on the LSU side,
if Lane Kiffen was not going to be the next
head coach at LSU like that.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Was it was.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
I mean, you know, I think we reported that they
ELSHU was very confident. I mean it was like they
couldn't have like, I think they would have been shocked
if Lane Kiffen decided to stay in Oxford at that
point based on everything they'd heard.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
We told some people in our community that you were
coming on. I put out a call for some questions,
and it actually fits perfectly with what you're saying. Were
there any other any other stunners in your book, either
coaches that ended up at a place that you didn't expect,
Guys that you expected to be on the market who
ended up staying put. Was there anything in this coaching

(43:33):
carousel cycle that surprised you? Maybe above some of the
other stuff that we already know about.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
Yeah, if I if you had asked me, you know,
I don't know, Thanksgiving ish, maybe a week four Thanksgiving
where Sean Sumrall going to go, I would have said
to Auburn, not UF. That surprised me, and I think
it worked out really good for UF, to be honest,
I think there was a few other things. I was like, huh,

(44:01):
that's kind of I would not have guessed Bob Chesney
to UCLA just because he's an East Coast guy who's
been at small schools and has never been on.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
The West Coast. But you're ula, that's the thing. I mean.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
If I was UCLA, I would have gone after the
guy who kicked our butts early in the year, Jason Ck.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
I think Jason X is a fantastic coach. I think that.

Speaker 4 (44:22):
I'm not saying Chesney's not, but like you saw it
with him, he's been on the West Coast. He's a
big personality. I think he would engage people. You know, again,
I'm not saying Chesney won't can't do well at UCLA,
but I was like, man, Jason Ck would be a
hell of a hire.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
If they can find every underrated Lineman, you know, West
of Colorado.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
Yeah, and he's I mean, you see the players that
he's evaluated. I mean he almost I don't see almost
beat Dan's beloved Ducks a couple of years ago.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
But like he was, he put a scare into them,
Yeah he did.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
And that was at Idaho with again and he had
lost almost all his best players had gone in the
portal that you know, it was a new quarterback because
the old you know, all these guys were gone, right,
and he gave them so many problems that you know,
like that's one I would have thought they would have
gone again.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Could be waiting on Wisconsin. I guess that does job.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Yeah, that's his alma mater, you know, like I but
I don't think it was that.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
I don't think it was, you know.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Again, there's a few other ones that were kind of surprising.
I think Penn State landed in a good place with
Matt Campbell. Like it got to the point where not
long after they fired James Franklin. I think we had
a Friday night game. We're in studio at Fox and
it's it's Minnesota and Nebraska, and I remember, like I

(45:42):
had to do a couple of Fox hits, and one
of them was about like, well, you just fired Jane
Franklin because you couldn't be top ten teams. And here's
Pat Krafts, one of his best friends, who's like, oh
to thirty against top twenty five teams, and then we
have them and Minnesota just beats the breaks awesome, like
you know, and I feel like on a Friday night game,

(46:03):
more people are paying attention than they are if it
happened on Saturday, because there's other games to distract. It
was like oof, you know. So then the search got
a little got a little crazy.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Can I ask you a question about that? Can you
stress test my theory that I've been running with for
a while because I had people who listen know that
I've been saying this for years on end, but it
had been relayed to me five six years ago that
if and when the Penn stage job came open, it
was going to be Matt Rules to lose. And I
think there's a reason everybody had Matt Rule atop their

(46:36):
list or in their grouping of initial candidates for it,
and so my theory was, well, they were going to
go after Rule. Obviously, the case for Matt Rule bottomed
out almost instantly. The fans didn't want it. His team
didn't play well, quarterback got hurt. He ends up signing
an extension. So that was kind of dead before it
even got started. But then my theory was, all right,
it's rule. Then they're going to go out after the

(46:58):
biggest possible names, the names that are going to move
message boards, the names that are going to get people excited.
They didn't get any of those guys, and then after
that it was a big shrug.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
All right.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
They ended up apparently going after Kalanisataki. That didn't work.
They end up with Matt Campbell, who basically fell off
the back of a truck to them, which I think
in hindsight's a very very good fit and a great hire.
But is in your opinion, is that an accurate depiction
of what their plan looked like to try and hire
a new guy.

Speaker 4 (47:24):
Yeah, I think you summed it up in you know,
ninety seconds or whatever that was. Yes, I would, I would,
I would. I would back that.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
When you look around at some of the other hires,
it's sort of all over the place, right there's you know,
g five guys on the move, and you know, Ryan
Selvilfield you mentioned at Florida with John Sumral will Stein
and Tosh Lupoy are both now off of the Oregon staff,
but going to stay on for the playoff. Brian Hartline
is at USF. What's staying on for the playoff? What

(47:56):
was your reaction to some of those hires to big
places obviously in Kentucky, Cal and us F among the
bigger G five places where any of those shockers, how
do you how do you evaluate those processes.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
I let me go with like some of the assistants
in the playoffs, I think Tosh at Cal will be interesting.
Tosh is if you said to me, which head coach
fit is the most kind of crystal ball ish. It's
you know, like Tosh feels in that spirit. He's going
to be a recruiting demon. He loves the place.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
You know.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
It wasn't just like he played there and coach there.
His dad was a GA there. That's an interesting hire. Like,
you know, he's learned under some really good people. I'm
curious to see how he does there. You know, it's
kind of a I don't say it was an obvious hire,
but it was pretty much one you know, we do
our search stories. It was like, oh yeah, I could
definitely see that's the leader you know for that heartline

(48:54):
will be interesting because he's got a lot of ties
in South Florida, obviously recruited bunch of good receivers, most
notably Jeremiah Smith played for the Dolphins. I'm interested to
see how he does as a head coach. You know,
I think for a minute, I was like when West
Virginia was open when rich Rot ended up getting it,
and I was like, that's a spot I could see,

(49:15):
Or Kentucky was a spot I could see for him.
USF's a good job and Goldish you know, made it
better than it was when he found it. So that
one's interesting. Arkansas is a tough one. I like Ryan Soliverfield,
but like, and maybe I'm a little you know, biased
by this. I just spent a month seeing his boss

(49:35):
just kind of you know, vombit on TV.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
You know, every Tuesday night, it.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
All comes back to Hunter, You're a check.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's like it's a tough job,
you know, Like you're at Arkansas. They're the only team
I think since You're a check's been the AD and
the SEC that has not had at least one winning
record in SEC play one year.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
I mean he's been there eight years. You know, it's tough.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Chad Morris went from doing a good job at SMU
to couldn't.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Win a game in Fayetteville.

Speaker 4 (50:04):
You know, Sam Pittman wasn't a disaster. He did some
good things, had a couple of good years. But I
don't know, that was a tough one.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Again.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
I think what's what's going to be interesting with Silverfield
is he's you know, he did well at Memphis and
I think he's a smart guy. But you know, you
have somebody with no SEC experience going in there, right,
and that is a snake pit, right, So we'll see
on that one. There was a few other hires that

(50:32):
were like, I think Memphis made a really good hire
replacing him.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
With Charles Huff. Charlestof's really good.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Charles Huff wouldn't have been surprised if he was the
Virginia Tech head coach. You know, I get it why
they hire James Franklin. And but there's you know, like
he's I think a really good coach.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
There's a few of them in there.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
I'm mentioned to see how Eric Morris does at Oklahoma State.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
He's an old Leech guy.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
I've known him since he was a since he was
a player for Leech, and I think Eric's smart. I
think Eric's an elite evaluator. I mean I've seen, you know,
been in the room where he's stood on the table
for guys. He's stood on the table for Baker Mayfield
in Coleman when they didn't offer him. You know, they

(51:16):
got to always blank on these kids. It's like Tyler Brugman,
I think was the one. He was a four star
quarterback from from from Arizona who they ended up offering first.
And it was like he wanted Baker and you know
he had cam Ward at Incarnate Word and he obviously
he was the first one to go from a tier outside,
you know, at FBS level, So I think he could

(51:39):
do well at Oklahoma State where they have resources.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
There was one other higher.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
I was just oh, the one higher, That's the one
that to me is a I don't know that.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
I don't feel like it'd sit great.

Speaker 4 (51:52):
Was Washington State has been those players in that fan
base has been.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
Through a lot over the last like six or seven years.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
You go back to you know, one of the you know,
tragedy with a quarterback who you know back. You know,
it's a really sad story. You had a couple other
tragedies with the players. You have Rollovich going in there
and then what happened with him and he gets fired
and it's controversial, and then I thought.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Jake Dickert did a really good job.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
And then Dickert leaves right before the Holiday Bowl last
year and they're really fragmented or whatever.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
And then they and.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
They play their ass off, they give Syracuse a game,
and then Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Rodgers gets the job and
you think there's going to be some stability there. He's
coming from from the FCS, from a really good school,
and he's not even there a year and he leaves
and you know, here are they're in a bowl game again,

(52:54):
and that that just kind of sucks for Like, I
feel like those players. I get it, people are just
kind of feel loyalties really cliche and everything, but like
they didn't even have an ad.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Right they eighty left for Washington and they lost their
conference in that process as well.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
Yeah, oh yeah, Like Clay MacGuire is old leach guy
who was the O line coach the year basically the
conference situation fell apart for them, right right, and so,
and they were a pretty good team, like they they
were not an awful team when dickerd had it there,
like they were, they were a little dangerous, they gave people,

(53:31):
you know, they won some games, and I just remember
him telling me some story about you know, they got
off to a pretty fast start and then they had
a bye week, and the bye week it felt like
that was the week. Oh my god, we're like refugees
right now. We have no no home. We're not a
Pac ten school anymore. We're not a Pac twelve school anymore.
And it was like after that, like every week it

(53:53):
was a different position group that kind of fell apart.
And I remember, like that really resonated with me of
just like what the lack of identity can do to
a program. And I have no idea if there's any
kids who were there from the start of like all
of this between the player tragedies and you know, and
the conference bailing out. But just like, man, that the

(54:16):
fans I know are the fans because I know they're loyal,
because I you know, we did a bunch of swingers
stored up stuff up there, and I really feel for
the fans on that because they've they've been through it.
I know there's some of them probably didn't like Jimmy
Rodgers the way he handled the quarterback situation. You know,
in the first month, maybe picked the wrong guy, and

(54:37):
then you know, they found a way to get I mean, look,
they could have beat this is a crazy thing with them.
They could have beat Ole miss they had them on
the ropes, could have beat James Madison as well as Virginia.
They probably should have won two of those three games.
So I was kind of like when I saw that,
especially as quickly as he was leaving, it was like, oh,

(54:58):
Matt Campbell's going to do his play meeting, and now
right after that, Jimmy Rodgers doing his player meeting. He's
getting back out and he's he's going to Ames.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
So they announced Jimmy Rodgers at Iowa State before Penn
State announced Matt Campbell. Yeah, they wasted no time.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Is there a new calculus in the way, like coaches
are weighing opportunities in twenty twenty five, twenty six with
you know, you lose a coach and you're gonna lose
a bunch of players for the portal. So then a
coach immediately has to either bring guys in the portal
or convinced guys to come out of the portal. You
have to hire a bigger staff than you've ever had
to hire as a head coach if you're going to
one of these major places. And we've seen like reported

(55:33):
interest in like huge coaching names across the sport who've
just all kind of for the most part, ignored that
interest or politely declined that interest. In the most recent
one was like Kalani Sataki a Byu. We've seen like
Kaylin Debor and Dan Landing and Josh Hipel, all these guys.
What's the calculus in making decisions today versus you know,
ten years ago.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
I think they know that if I don't get it
going here quick, I'm going to be on the high
they'll pay a big buyout, they'll get rid of me.
And I also think, because you know, players are movable, right,
we saw this like this Signetti Indiana thing has been
an amazing story, but it's also put everybody on the

(56:17):
clock because you're like that guy wanted a program that
was three and nine.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
He took a bunch of his players.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
It was different than what you could do in two
thousand and six or something.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
You can't pluck off your old roster.

Speaker 4 (56:29):
I think that changes things, and so it also honestly
changed the calculus and some of the hiring process, where,
you know, I talked to several different people who are
involved in coaching searches like can he bring players right?
Like that was never a thing before. Now it's a
real thing, and so I think all that stuff factors

(56:50):
into it. You hear a lot about the calendar and everything,
but like that also, you know, honestly made you know,
could go back to Elaine Kiffin situation for a second,
but also made that more complicated. It's like, oh, yeah,
do you really like I have a good friend who
covers NFL. He was like, oh, I think they should
have just let him coach, And I was like, yeah,
you know, he would have recruited every player he wanted
a player you w off that And the guy was like,

(57:10):
you don't think he did that already, and I'm like, no,
he probably did. But I think it's a little more
different when you know you're have the job and it's
more transparent, and it's just like any pretense is out
the window.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
What is the reaction in the coaching community obviously, because
you are in this world all year long. You mentioned
Kurt Signetti. Kurt Signetti is a unicorn in this sport.
In that, as you mentioned, as we all know now
as the number one team in the College Football Playoff,
he went to a place that is the losingest place
in the Big Ten and turned them into the most

(57:43):
dangerous team in the conference in less than two years.
Right that he wins the Big Ten title over a
recruiting and winning juggernaut in Ohio State. Is the reaction
in the coaching community like who the hell is this guy?

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Like?

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Is there confusion? Is they were like, yeah, we knew
this guy was a killer the whole time, and somebody
just figured it out. Like what what was his reputation
going in? Are coaches? You know, ads ga? Whoever? Are
people shocked at this or were they, like everybody else,
just finally caught up.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
I think they're impressed by it.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
It depends on the guys who know him, you know,
like Norm Chow, who I still keep in touch with
because we lived not that far apart. He was He
was Norm Chow's tight ends coach at NC State when
Chow was the offensive coordinator and they had Philip Rivers.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
Right, so you know, like that was back in the day.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
And he was like, yeah, he was always really you
talk to people, he was always really smart. That's what
they would always say. I think, what what you know again,
son of a coach. There's a person that I talked
to who made a great comparison with him once and
he was like, because I said, do you think it's
a little contrived? You know, the Google me stuff and

(58:57):
different things he will say. And this person was like,
he reminds me a lot of Jim Harbaugh in that
he will say some crazy stuff, but it's authentic and
players will players will go to battle for that because,
oh man, he's got our back. And I think that
was when I heard that. I was like, yeah, that
there's something there to that. And then the thing that

(59:19):
doesn't get said enough is he has to be a
you know, and he was a recruiting coordinator for a
long time, but he has to be a brilliant evaluator,
not just of players.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
And you look Bryant Haynes, the defensive coordinator.

Speaker 4 (59:36):
I mean, I don't know if I've had more than like,
you know, two sentence of conversation with him. It's not
like I know him particularly well, but the job that
guy's done, like he.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Should win the Broyles Award this year.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
I mean there's other guys who've done really good job too,
but like, I mean, Dan, your team had only given
up one sack, and then they went in there and
Dante Moros on his back a half dozen times.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Julian's saying, they played.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Thirteen off points against Indiana. Oregon did thirteen offensive. Yeah,
a wild performance was great at their place.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
At their point, and then Julian's saying, humming along or whatever,
they sack him five times, you know, just like the
offense coordinator Mike Shanahan, you know, old Wansta guy, not
even old. I mean, these guys are young guys. But
he has put together a really really good staff. I
think he evaluated really well on both player and coach.

(01:00:29):
And so it's an amazing story, you know, Like it's
already like Stu once brought up the you know, because
he's a Northwestern guy, brought up the Gary Barnett year
or whatever, and I was like, yeah, this is not that.
I mean, you know, like because you were not you know,
you were a top ten team that year, they were
a top ten team, but they didn't just beat You know,

(01:00:50):
they have the two most impressive wins of anybody this year.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
They suffocated two top five teams.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
And either one was in Bloomington by the way, yeah
way from Bianna. But yeah, so man, hats off to
him because they were really good last year, but they
weren't this good. And now they're they're different, they're more mature,
they're better in the trenches. I mean, it's just it's
an amazing story. And I mean, we'll see. I mean,

(01:01:17):
I wouldn't be shocked if they won the national title.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Like, but.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
You know, whoever gets to write his leadership book is
going to be very happy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Right, Bruce.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
I have a two part question just about the coaching
carousel as a whole. This cycle had been billed as
one of the craziest that any of us would ever see,
and certainly there was a lot of movement. There were
a bunch of openings, right, How did it compare two
previous cycles in your estimation? Was it as crazy as

(01:01:51):
it had been billed as I guess in the run
up to it, or did it just end up going
sort of the way that others have gone, and it
kind of comes in very quickly and then it's over
before you know it, Like, how does it compare relative
to expectations?

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
It's a good way you frame that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
I think it's crazy, but it was mostly crazy because
of the Lane piece of it, you know, and because
Lane does everything so public and on social media. You know,
A couple of years ago, wasn't that long ago, it's
probably four years ago. I remember this kind of sequence,
you know, over the weekend. I remember getting a tip

(01:02:31):
that Lincoln Riley was not as might be in play
at USC right, and then all of a sudden it
was like he's telling, you know, telling people at Oklahoma
this is what's going on, and everything he goes. So
like the next day, I think there there's a there's
an introduction at the coliseum, and I remember going over
there with Linert and it's me Lioner Liner's wife and

(01:02:53):
Lionert's son, Cole, who's like now going to go play
quarterback at SEMU.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
It's not like he's like a ten year old.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
And so we're in the car and I'm in the
back and I remember I'm on the phone with Pete Samson,
our Notre Dame writer, and I told him, you know,
somebody I trust said, hey, they're offering.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
The job, and they being LSU to Brian Kelly.

Speaker 4 (01:03:18):
And so we are like in the ride over to
the coliseum, we are posting a story about that Brian
Kelly's getting offered the LSU job, and that's the next day.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
That's like the day of and then so in a
spend of like three days.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
Because I remembered this, like Lincoln Riley's agent at the
time was Brian Kelly's agent, who at the time also
was was Sunny Dyke's agent. So you had those three
things happen in a row. It was like and I remember,
like I know l SHO was after USC, maybe TCU
was before it, somewhere in that. But you had I

(01:03:54):
think the two like whoe jolts of Lincoln going to
USC and Brian Kelly going where you know, like that
to me was much more of a shock than Lane's
Lanes leading. You know, I don't think in the end,
if I asked you guys and put down like a scorecard,

(01:04:16):
going okay, these are the jobs that are coming open,
I don't think either one of you would have been
that shocked that Matt Campbell ended up at Penn State.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
No, No, And.

Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
I don't think either one of you would have been
shocked that Lane Kiffin ended up at LSU.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Yeah, Florida or LSU or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Aburn and LSU is bigger. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):
So so in the end, I don't think those were
like they weren't as shocking as what happened whatever it
was four years ago, right, And I'm sure there was
some other pieces in that, Like I think that was
the same year that like, you know, I want to
say Fickle went to Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
I mean that wasn't Landing to Oregon? Was that year too? Right?
Didn't Landing and Lincoln start the same year?

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
Yeah, I think that would be right. So, and that
was a weird one just in that there was some
weird stuff with with with how.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
That unfolded with Georgia.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
And I mean, I don't remember the specifics one just
kind of like remember some of the wrong stuff with Lantic,
But yeah, that was another one that that that you know,
folded into that. So you know, we've definitely had some
nutty coaching cycles. And to be honest, like this isn't
even this isn't even the top the craziest Lane coaching story,

(01:05:33):
I mean fair, you know, like Lane to USC is
crazier than Lane to l s U.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Yes, right after a year you bring up Lincoln, I'll
ask you about it because he was sort of the
topic du jour for a while. There was smoke around
him being a mystery candidate here or there or really everywhere.
Was any of that believable to you?

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
It was not. I mean, it was doubtful to me.
Just here's what I think. I know. Again, I say
I think I know.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
I think Lincoln's family loves it out here in southern California.
I don't in I think Lincoln's a little different than
some like I. You know, I'm not trying to portray
other coaches as bad parents and Lincoln as something so
different from But like, I think he has awareness of
like my family loves it out.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Here, I got it pretty good.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
I don't know if Lincoln wants to be in a
fish bowl of a small college town where everybody's all
over your business. He was kind of had that to
some degree in Norman. It's worse in a lot of
other places, I believe, and I don't think he wants
that existence, you know, And he's also making a fortune

(01:06:48):
he has, then they ended up signing the number one
ranked recruiting class. I don't know if he can win
a national title here. I don't know if you could
win a national title. You know, you pick the place.
But like I think, all things being equal, I think
he's It would have surprised me if he would have
gone just to Penn State or if he would have
gone to Gainesville. I just I just think, after you

(01:07:12):
know their experience here, I don't think that that was
something that he or they probably would have really wanted. Again,
I no one's told me that, But like that's my
gut on this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Do you believe that the coaching carousel is done spinning
or there are other things hanging out there with the
NFL with god knows what? It feels like every offseason
we have some new wrinkle that nobody saw coming. We're
recording this December the tenth. Are we done?

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
You know? Right before you said that, I look down
at my little calendar as like it's only December.

Speaker 3 (01:07:44):
Tenth, you know about at that point exactly?

Speaker 4 (01:07:46):
So No, No, there's going to be something that's going
to happen that'll be seismic. I think I don't know
what it is, Okay, you know, like people have like
rumored about Sark and there's been pushback on that. I
don't you know, like there'll be other things that will happen,
but I don't think you're talking about like the Coastal
Carolina job is not going to create this big no
distrest domino effect to the but yeah, no disrespect to

(01:08:10):
them or Missouri State or whatever else is going to fall.
But like, you know, there'll be, you know, something something right, Like,
I mean, all this there's a lot of stuff that's happened.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
We don't even like mention like Pat Fitzgerald is you know,
coaching right, I was going to ask you, Yeah, So it's.

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
Just there's just a lot of I don't know, it's
still kind of early, and I don't know who's movable
for the NFL, you know, like, but there may be somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
So not to give away your game because this is
an annual column, but based on what happened this season
with head coaches with assistant coaches, who are the names
that have started bubbling up for the future. You know,
we've seen some of these names repeatedly, and you're Glenn
Schumann's name comes up a bunch, right that. When you
have a defense as good as he's had at Georgia,
you're just going to get attention. Are there any new

(01:08:59):
names that you feel like are bubbling up in the
coaching community.

Speaker 4 (01:09:04):
I mean there's some guys that started to get a
little bit of traction around, but I don't know, you
know that I feel like that pool has been tapped out,
you know, pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
You know, Like you mentioned will.

Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
Stein, he was he was I think going to be
kind of choosy, you know, Tosh made sense that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
I think more more coordinators.

Speaker 4 (01:09:25):
Got hired, you know, in the last couple of weeks,
and I think we expected them to Tosh to Cal
once that job came open.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
I was like, Okay, I totally see that, you.

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
Know, Heartline, it had to be a pretty good situation.
I think that was a good situation. And then you
start looking around, like a lot of the coordinators that
you would think would be you know, like, look at
who's up for the Broyles list. Except for Brian Haynes.
It's a lot of you know, it seems like it's
a lot of old It's Mike Bobo, it's more established
older guys and I think sometimes those are guys who

(01:09:57):
usually aren't getting the first time head coaching job. So
you know, again, I think that we'll see what comes
out of like the playoff run of of who ends
up being guys people look at. But I also think
what's added to this is again a little of the
signetty piece of this and put this on him is
you have some smaller school guys who are now people

(01:10:19):
are like, oh, I see what's going on with Willie Fritz.
New Years at Houston was pretty good and that guy
wins wherever he goes. So here so Mike Jacobs, like
we got asked to do. I don't want to say
this is a dumb thing, because it actually was smart.
I just didn't think it was like who would be
like kind of like one of the guys to watch.

Speaker 3 (01:10:35):
And I remember we got Jason Kirk.

Speaker 4 (01:10:37):
I think you guys know who that is, right, So
he he had he had had me and Vinie Chris Nini.
I forget who else you know submit names? And the
guy I submitted was like the coach at Mercert, the
coach of Mercer anymore. He's just got the Toledo job.
As you know, he coached at a Notre Dame, but
not the Notre Dame that we were talking about in
Notre Dame that doesn't even exist anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
He was an assist than that.

Speaker 4 (01:11:00):
I think you're seeing more of that path, whether it's
Bob Chesney, you know, like there's there's more of those
guys now getting getting interest because people are like, oh, yeah,
that guy's a good coach and he's learned when nobody
was really paying attention at places and maybe made mistakes
when nobody's paid attention as opposed to like the guys

(01:11:21):
who were you know, who were on the move and
then either had a bad year or you know, it
took a step back, like because that can definitely happen
when you're a coordinator. I mean, Tim banks Is it
just got fired at Tennessee a year ago. He had
the number five defense in the country, right and they
lose to NFL d linemen and a and their best

(01:11:43):
corner to injury, and you know, they're probably in the
sixties and he gets fired. You know, like it's just
kind of like that's the that's that world. When they're
paying you, you know, one point five two point five
million dollars to be a coordinator.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Final question, what is something that people should be keeping
in mind when they were paying attention to this season,
this coaching season, or any coaching season, right, Like people
like why would he go to here? Why would he stay?

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
What?

Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Is it all just like how happy your family is?
Is it all just how well of a like relationship
you have with your boss? Like people are very quick
to sort of like do the binary. Is this job
better than this job? In my opinion? What what gets
ignored or what? What is something that people are just
gonna have no idea about that? What goes into these decisions?

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
I really think it's a one size fits all. It's
like it's not one size fits all. I think everybody
has their own different rationale for what they what they want,
you know, what they think works for them. I think
that people have seen oh, like, you know, this may
not have worked there, but it can, you know, it can.

(01:12:47):
It's interesting you look at like Jim Mora is back,
you know, to Colorado State. He did an amazing job
at Yukon, right, And I think that people are out
there going, Okay, what's going to work here? And if
it doesn't, we're gonna have to pay the money to
get rid of this guy or whatever. But I don't
think it's like, oh, you know, is my family happiest?

(01:13:11):
You know, like if you go back to Kiffen for
a second, it just seem like the Kiffin group, you know, him,
his brother's family, his ex wife is there, his kids.
Seemed like everything was pretty good. Doesn't mean it can't
get better in Baton rouge, but you are, you know,
like changing the equation on that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
And I just think that at the end of the day, you.

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
Know, most of these guys got in to be football coaches,
and I think the hardest thing is if you're the
you know, the coach's family, coach's wife, you're you know,
you just don't know what you're getting into, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
Chris Peterson's done, by the way.

Speaker 3 (01:13:49):
Yes, I can't tell you how many times I.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Get asked, but I mean sitting next to him so
you would.

Speaker 4 (01:13:54):
Know, Oh, it's so funny because like he's just like
he'll like roll his eyes and be like what now, Yeah,
my Stanford buddies think you're interested in that. And I
don't want to do his facial expressions on some of these,
I like I've.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
Got a few of them now.

Speaker 4 (01:14:12):
But he's He's an interesting guy to work with because, like,
on one hand, he's definitely the smartest football guy I've
ever talked to. Like he just like he has pretty
much the answers almost everything you could ever wonder about
or get into a conversation about. Right, But also I
think he's self aware enough to go, yeah, I'm not
going back to being in that world because it's not healthy.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
For me, not even like a different way. I mean,
I think it was your story where you talked about
he would be more likely to take like the receiver's
job at UC Davis than a major head coaching job
something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
Yeah, I don't think at the stage of you know,
his his life, you know, that's him.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
I think he should just he should show up after
springball at who, like, is it Pete Davis the defensive
line sort of consultants? You should just is that his name?
I apologize if I got it wrong, the LSU defensive line.

Speaker 3 (01:14:59):
Oh no, no, no, not Davis.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
He's been he's like eighty eight years old.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
Right, all right, I remember, And he would just come
in and be like, this is what's wrong?

Speaker 3 (01:15:07):
Well, he's an only saving guy.

Speaker 4 (01:15:09):
Yeah, I don't know people by the flip side of that,
I don't know if a lot of the coaches love that.
Where we stopped doing that stuff like eighteen years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Okay, this is why.

Speaker 3 (01:15:18):
But I think where he's really good is he's.

Speaker 4 (01:15:22):
A good resource to a lot of coaches and it's
not just like I think, it's less less about the
X and o's and more like the managing and the balance. Yeah, okay, yeah,
so he's Yeah. I hope he doesn't leave Fox just
because I'm feel like we're very spoiled to have him.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:15:39):
Great, Yeah, so somebody decides to pry him away, they
better have like a donuts donuts deal for him, because
he is too Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
I remember you, Intel, I remember you coming on this
show a couple of years ago, and I forget why
we brought up Chris Peterson, but you were like, well,
people don't know about Chris Peterson. A. He's probably not
going to take another be he's really freaking funny. People
don't realize how funny of the guy this guy is.

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
Yeah, A lot of the stuff I got to keep
in there. The one the thing I will say though,
is the sweet tooth thing. This year has been interesting
to see.

Speaker 3 (01:16:13):
It's just like, I think he's the only person like
he has one thing in common with Andy Staples, and
it's this.

Speaker 4 (01:16:19):
I've each asked a question of if it was for charity,
how much of that do you think you could eat?

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
And what was his answer? How many glazed donuts could
he pass?

Speaker 4 (01:16:29):
It wasn't the glazed donuts. There's you know, the sidecard
donut plays sure, of course. So every Saturday they have
like this, like it's almost a coffin sized box of
different and I was like, man, you just can't stop.
And it's like it's like half them are half eat crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
He's sampling.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
So oh man, that's good intel. Though, if a coach
wants to really like sell him, have a donut wall
in his office constantly being refilled, and it's probably gonna
be terrible for your team, but it's a good, good
bit of about you.

Speaker 4 (01:16:59):
Just have usually have worse vices than that. And the
daddy and say bowls. So although he although he I
think he refers to him as he doesn't know that
how to pronounce it. So it sounds like a former
Ucile a tight end new transferred from from Michigan.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
Wonderful His name is Bruce Felman. He could find his
fine work over at Fox Sports, as well as over
at The Athletic, where he also does a podcast called
The Audible. Bruce, keep up the good work. It is
a pleasure as always to catch up with you. You
make us smarter and we'll have to do it again
sometime soon.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
I appreciate it, guys. Always a pleasure. Ty.

Speaker 4 (01:17:37):
Just know that you have been a great resource to
the audible with your with your market awareness.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
And that's true, you know, And.

Speaker 4 (01:17:46):
Dan, I tell everybody that that it ever comes up,
you know, like I had the best meal I've ever had, WHOA,
the best pizza I've ever had by far, the best
salad and crew toons I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
So anytime, anytime you're in town Northwestern, Look, they're a
bold team. I think I think they're a bold team. Yeah,
they are. The things are brother, There's a new stadium
this year to come check out. It's I'm not far
from there. Anytime you are vaguely in Chicago Land, come through.

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):
I will definitely take you up on that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
All right, there we go again, Bruce Veltman. Check him
out over at Fox Sports The Athletic. Check out the
audible podcast, which he does with our friends Stuart Mandel
and Ralph Ruce, so they are always good to have
Bruce back on. I think we've told the story more
times than I could count at this point, but back
when we were first starting out in the Year of
Our Lord two thousand and eight, which I don't like

(01:18:38):
to say that much because it makes me feel old,
but Bruce is one of the very first bona fide
reporters that we email at the time. He was I
think still with the ESPN and got back to us
right away, was more than generous with his time, and
you know, he truly he's one of our oldest friends. Now.

(01:18:58):
Over the course of however many seasons it's been eighteen
seasons we've been doing this show, Bruce has been with
us in some way, shape or form the entirety of
the run of the show, and we're immensely grateful for that.
So it's great to catch up with him.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
And I've repaid all of his generosity and time with
elite Caesar salad, which is what the gentlemanly thing to
do is as we've all known our entire lives, Caesar
salad is what is the proper way to say thank you.
So I'm doing my part. Yeah, Bruce is the best.
Great to have him on Great to get his insight
into what all the Notre Dame weirdness and Lane Kiffin

(01:19:33):
and the coaching carousel and all sorts of different topics.
And I guess Chris Peterson's donut habit breaking news allegedly,
like Chris Peterson is going to sue you and Bruce
for disparaging his diet. I would say moderate with your
donut intake because I have found if you get a

(01:19:54):
taste for donuts tie in my own personal experience, that's
the quickest way to pack it on. Donuts are the
most donuts and maybe milkshakes. If you're really looking to
like make weight for something, I don't know what you
personally would need to do to make weight, I would
say just stop by and grab some crawlers or something.

Speaker 1 (01:20:12):
If you're going to make weight to make weight, stop
eating the crawlers. But if you're well, yeah add on weight,
then yea, yeah, you're gonna bulk up for whatever reason.
I think donuts are arguably the most efficient way to
gain weight. Nothing like a few hollow calories among friends, right, Well, I.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
Guess Chris Peterson was always about efficiency right as an
offensive play caller and offensive mind, balanced offense. So again
I respect it. I had a donut wall at my wedding.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
You did. You're very adamant about that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
I was adamant. I am not a cake person. I'm
glad we didn't do cake. We had, you know, we
had a cookie brownie type table as well, but we
had the donut wall, and I think it was a
big success.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
All right, before we get to find people out of here,
three pm this Saturday on CBS, it is Army at
six and five, It is Navy at nine and two. Navy,
of course, had a nice run through the American almost
got into that American Championship game. They finished sevent to one.

(01:21:09):
Army finished four and four in conference. Again, just to
remind people, and this was new as of last year
that both Army and Navy were in the same conference,
and at least for a moment in time a year ago,
we thought maybe they could be playing on back to
back weeks, one in the conference championship, another in this game,
the storied game that they play in week sixteen of

(01:21:30):
every college football season. I know you and I have
mused about when they played this game, or if they
should play this game now, given the oddities that could
occur with them both being in the same conference and
conference championship, and blah blah blah. That's neither here nor there.
You've got a game on our hands this weekend between
Army and Navy. Navy is favored by six points the
over unders thirty eight and a half. In true Army

(01:21:51):
and Navy fashion. Do you have a leen, Dan Rubinstein?

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
Okay, I'm going Army because my leen was Navy. And
every time I think one of these two teams is
the clear better team, like I do with Navy at
their best, the other team wins. So Army season hasn't
been extraordinary, but they really haven't been competitive, and only
one of their games all they've lost a bunch of
one score games. When they've lost it lost by one
to Tulsa, lost by a touchdown to Tulane playoff team

(01:22:17):
Tulane ECU was not great, but you know it was
on the road. Whatever. They lost by a touchdown to
North Texas, and even the Tarleton State loss to open
the season. Tarleton State's a good team.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
They are They're playing this week in the FCS playoffs.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
Now, should Army lose to Tarleton State, Probably not, I
grant you that. But they turn around and beat Kansas State,
so they bounce back pretty quickly. They won three out
of four to finish out the year. They don't do
anything extraordinarily well, but they play very disciplined, they don't
commit penalties, and their turnover margin is extraordinary. So I'm
going Army in the upset here. What about you?

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
I was going back through I was looking at this
matchup over the course of time, and most of the
recent I say most of in air quotes, most of
the recent results. When there's a blowout, it's a blowout
on the Army side, right, And we saw last year

(01:23:12):
they won by like eighteen points on a different team,
different players this year, of course, and that was one
of the talking points in the run up of the season.
But I'm always very hesitant to take the favorite in
this game. Yeah, I always like to take the points,
not just because of our whole thing about throwing out
the records at rivalry or anything like that, but this
is a game that just had There's a lot more

(01:23:32):
attached to it than just your standard run of the
mill college football rivalry. So my inclination, Yeah, I'm with
you on that front. I'm inclined to say Army never
in the history of this game is Navy looking past it.
But I do wonder if there is just very mildly
any kind of letdown effect given the fact that they
were kind of in the American running up until the

(01:23:54):
final week, didn't wop out. I'm you know, I'm not
gonna stake any claim on that, but I'm going to
go with Army plus the six as well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):
This is just always, for.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Whatever reason to me, I feel like I have gotten
myself into trouble every time I have taken the favorite.
So I'm going to go underdog plus the points in
historic rivalry. Let's go Cadets.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
This is in Would you say Baltimore this year?

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
I believe so, yes, Okay, we'll watch all righty big
thanks Aginner Bruce Feldman, our guest of honor today for
stopping on by giving us some of his wisdom on
the coaching search and beyond. As I mentioned on our
last episode, I'm going to talk through some of the
finer details of the Penn State coaching search with our

(01:24:40):
friend Matt for Tuna and on our next episode. I'm
excited about that one because I've got a bunch of
questions for him. Matt is also a PA guy who
went to penn State. We have a lot in comments.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
So Neror you, did he grow up near you in Pennsylvania?

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
I think he grew up in the northeastern part of
this so not far from me.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
So what's in the northeastern part of Penny, Scranton.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
Welks Bury, those types of places I'll have to ask
about exactly where he's from, he told me, and I'm
I'm it's escaping me exactly where he grew up. But
he and I have a lot in common, which is why.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
It's the lake from the office, the Scranton area, Lake
Lake Wallan paw Pack. Have you spent time on Wallawa?

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):
Not only have I spent time there, I played the
baseball team you lost your okay a couple times. A
couple of times we played the I guess it was
Lake wall and Paul Pack baseball team. So yeah, I've
been up that way many many times.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):
Would people remember you up there from your baseball career?
Would they remember from if you strolled into a sandwich shop?
Now up in that area would be like, oh I
remember you, my lasting impression, my lasting impression. When we
played lake Wall and pauw Pack, I believe it was
just lake wallan pauw Pack was the name of the team.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
Okay, I was a middle infielder. I was turning a
double play and we had an instance where somebody came
in cleats up on me. And this is like a
preseason game and nobody really appreciated it, myself included. And
a little bit later on in the game, the same
player was running the second base. I again was covering

(01:26:16):
second base, hoping to turn a double play, and I
threw it right in his chest, nice on purpose.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
I love that, and I'm not proud of it, but
I'm willing enough to That's all about those unwritten rules.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Yeah, there's there's more fire in here, I think than
people realize.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
Yeah, okay, I appreciate that time. I think that informs
got him right here a good amount about you. Okay,
got him good, got.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
Him right there. So anyway, we lost the game. So
the last laugh was was on the lake wollmpop Pack side.
But outside of yes, that experience of playing the game
and Dwight shret getting the fake wheel at the company party.
Not a whole lot else to report.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
Okay, good to know. I appreciate your on the ground experience.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
The only other bit of housekeeping that I will offer
here before we let the find people go, Do stay
tuned to your newsletter, Do stay tuned to our social feeds.
Do stay tuned to our upcoming episodes. We're going to
run bol Bingo again. Bull Bingo last year was open.
All the way bull Bingo works is we give you
a whole long list of prop bets for the upcoming

(01:27:22):
week of college football games. It's not going to start
until December the nineteenth with the first playoff game Alabama Oklahoma.
So we're rolling this out. You will, I'm sure see
plenty of notifications about it. If you follow the show.
You will have a week to get your picks in
at which point are a lock and we're going to
open up another game. So it's a week to week game.
We're going to list out a bunch of prop bets.

(01:27:44):
All you need to do is pick six that you
think are going to hit.

Speaker 3 (01:27:48):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
So it's not the Bowl confidence thing. You're not picking winners.
You're not going through every bowl game balls are a
thing of the past in some regard. Okay, so we
have taken a little bit of a different spin on
the and we got great response to it. A year
o to'll be open to all. All you need to
do is sign up as a free member of our

(01:28:09):
Patreon ever bowlers dot com or patreon dot com slash
soliverbal free member, just so that we have a way
to contact you, and then after you're in, you're in
free to join. We'll have great prizes. More to come
on that front over the next week.

Speaker 2 (01:28:22):
Sounds super easy to me, especially for those people who
are not afraid to compete. That's it, man, Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
Gotta have that fire in the belly.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
You know, Tie is not afraid to compete. You know that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
Now, I wasn't. I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:28:36):
Not afraid to break a sternum. Now shadow of rib.

Speaker 1 (01:28:39):
CONTI that was an ill advised decision. But yeah, I
think you sor right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:43):
He got up all right.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
Okay, on that note, for that guy, Dan, for myself, Tie,
for our guest of honor, Bruce Felman, we appreciate, as
always your ongoing support. We will be with you again
three times per week. See this season through catch you
all on Sunday. The meantime, stay sour peace,

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Sherrone Moore Fired & New Coach Intel with Bruce Feldman | College Football

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sherrone Moore Fired & New Coach Intel with Bruce Feldman | College Football