2024 Week 12 Review: Bye Week, PJ vs. Burnsie, Wisconsin Changes, Playoff Talk

The boys are back after the Gopher bye and spend some time previewing Gophers/Penn State before Gaardsy gets Burnsie going about the latest PJ Fleck press conference. They also talk about the offensive coordinator change at Wisconsin, Gaardsy's love of Dan Lanning, the college football playoff rankings and: Tim Brewster is BACK!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Glenn Mason said a long time ago at the University
of Minnesota, you need.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
A pair and a spare.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thank you, PJ. It is time for another edition of
the Pair and a Spare podcast. I'm justin guard from
the fan. We've got Chipskoggins from Football Across Minnesota and
the Star Tribune and Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated dot
Com looking very dapper in his his flannel shirt. He's
we call that lumber sexual. I was told lumber sexual

(00:24):
is the look that Burnsy is going with right now.
Bye week is over. Guys, how do we spend the
bye weekend? We know Chips spent it watching football. Burnsy,
I assume you tried to kill animals.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I didn't spent it in a tree. Finally saw a shooter,
but unfortunately for me, I'm playing Robinhood when everybody else
is out there having a gunfight. So didn't end up
working out. Now, I got to figure out if I
can find some time here with only fifteen days until
National Signing Day, Yeah, you've got ten days left in
the season. It gets a lot more a lot more

(00:55):
crazy coming up here.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
So Burnsy, you're always bemoaning. The one is that you
don't see your game. When's the last time you've got
one with your bow?

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I mean I shot a dough last year. I mean
it's it's trying to get I mean, I gotta get
him within thirty five yards for me with my bow
for where I hunt. And that's where if you go
up to Guardsy's in laws, you can put the thirty
odd to six out there and you can hit him
from three hundred yards out in the cornfield or wherever
it is. So I ain't telling any one ways better

(01:27):
than the other. I just know from my hunting land
nobody wants to hear a shotgun blast outside their window
eighty yards from their house. So it just so the
way it has to go.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Well, maybe I'll bring you up to Pine County someday.
I'll bring you up and you can see how the
city gets treated when he goes up there. Maybe I
can bring a good country boy like you up there
and everything can be fine.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
I should mention, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Go out. I want to go out with Burnsy. I
want to go out with him one time. Let's do
a pair out with Burnsy.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
In the that'll just be the pair. I have no
interest in doing that. The Spare will be back here
in the metro. The Spare will be back here in
the four ninety four six ninety four loop.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
The pair. You guys can do whatever the hell you want.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
See Chip, I'm wearing my border View Lodge flannel here
from Lake of the Woods. Maybe we get you all
the way up to God's Country and bidet take you
out on Lake of the Wood, get some walleyes.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
I would love it fishing.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I might be interested in fishing. I might as long
as you can get it off the hook for me.
I'm not touching the fish. Is that l ow Lake
of the Woods?

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Low? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:32):
I thought so right, I thought so all right, I'm learning,
I'm learning. I do want to mention before we get going.
We're brought to you, as always by Jack's Cafe, our
awesome partner, and Bill has once again basically made pairent
of Spare listeners season ticket holders.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
This year.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
He is offering up his tickets to give away for
the Penn State game this Saturday at Huntington Banks Stadium.
So we'll figure out a way to give those away.
I'm sure we'll say something on this podcast that will
be some type of buzzword that will tweet about. But
we appreciate Bill, and I want to remind people that
it is the season. You know, Burns, you just mentioned.
You know, it's November, it's hunting, it's holiday season, and

(03:07):
Breakfast with Santa is back. The Breakfast with Santa at
Jack's Cafe is awesome. We talk about it every single year.
December seventh, fourteenth, and twenty first, So make your reservations
for that. Learn more about it, Jackscafe dot com, Jaxcafe
dot com. All right, back to football mode, to get
right to it. Got football to talk about, big game,
A lot of stuff to talk about. We've got firings

(03:29):
and coaching. We've got one of our favorite former coaches
is back in the business. We've got playoffs to discuss,
maybe some Heisman, but let's start.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
Burns E.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
I've read the transcript on go for Illustra dot Com
of everything PJ. Flex said yesterday, and I already see
the smirk because, like can I already see that you
tried to get him going. I don't even need to
hear the audio. I just read the question. I know
which ones are yours, and then I see their responses
and I can just tell that you were back at
it again, you know, just trying to antagonize the head

(03:58):
coach and not happy with the antwer that you got.
So that's where I wanted to start today. I read
the transcript and I said, well, Bernsy, clearly a bye
week is not softened. Burnsy up, he's annoyed about something
that happened on Monday. So the floor is yours.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
I don't know that I'm annoyed. It's just more so
I want to get something of substance. And that's where
I feel like. It's not even a hard question, it's
the softball of It's no secret to anybody that the
offensive and defensive lines haven't been consistent. So I said, okay,
off the bye week. He got a couple games left.
How do you get him to be more consistent? He
just talked in a circle for seventy five seconds about
a give and take, and then the irony is not

(04:32):
lost on me. Chip how I then asked him about
Tyler Warren, the Penn State tight end. The subsequent question
he proceeds to immediately answer it with consistency is the
truest measure of performance. Like you couldn't have said that
for the last question, Like that's right.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I don't know, and he throwing a Ryan.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's that's why I know Pj's annoyed. He's like, he'll
start answer and he's like, well Ryan, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
I feel like these aren't even just tough questions. I
feel like as the season's gone on, it's it. I
don't know that there has been more substance or less substance.
I just feel like he doesn't want to really talk.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, well at that point in the season, right.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Well, he doesn't want to bury his guys. You want him,
You want him to bury his guys.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
You want to know how you.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Plague them. Man, I'm sure I'm a solutions oriented man.
You know that.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Well, that is I mean, much like I said, the
Iowa game was a trenches game. Haven't watched that Penn
State defense a couple of times this year. If they
don't play better than what they did against Rutgers, they
have no chance. Sorry, I mean they're.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
The best defense they will play all year, not even close, sure,
way better than Michigan.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, and so they're that offensive line. Whatever went on
that day at Rutgers, They're gonna have to be dramatically better. Uh,
to give Brozemer in it and run backs and receives
a chance because Penn State is fast and physical. They
just are. I mean, their front is really really good.
So yeah, I mean I understand PJ is probably not

(06:11):
wanting to cut open a vein and talk negatively about
a position group or a player, but I mean they
know internally that that those two groups offense line defense
line have to really elevate their play from what we
saw at Ruckers.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Well, that's where even he was talking glowingly about how
Penn State's defensive line rotates ten or eleven guys, And
I'm sitting here thinking, you rotate five consistently, which.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
They have on scholarship, Ryan, this is one of your
favorite numbers.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, well you got twenty twenty one and you only
play essentially five of them. You rotate in and maybe
by the second half. Pad levels are really high because
in what world our defensive tackles supposed to be playing
seventy snaps in a game?

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:54):
So yeah, I mean they have a lot of depth defensively.
They have what I think is probably going to be
a top five overall halft pick in abdul Carter. Number
eleven for them really really talented, really really really really quick.
I mean, they're gonna have their hands full this weekend,
especially defense or Minnesota's offense against their defense, because I

(07:14):
think every level of the defense, I think Penn State
can match what Michigan gave Minnesota in terms of trouble
with their two first round defensive tackles, but it's in
the linebacker and in their secondary where they are really really,
really really talented.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
What do you think Harbo's strategy will be.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
That's a great question.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Let me stop you before you do there is what
do we think about who's back and who's playing in
the offensive line and it will Darius Taylor be one
hundred percent healthy?

Speaker 4 (07:42):
What have we heard about any of that? Or what
do we think about that?

Speaker 1 (07:45):
And then go ahead because I think those are two
important parts that go into the strategy.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, I think Tyler Cooper's going to return from his
concussion protocol missed the last two games. I think it
was a really good sign that he traveled to Rutgers.
Because he didn't travel for the Illinois game. It sounds
like he wasn't making as much progress that week. He
was making progress going into into Rutgers. I think they're
gonna get their senior left guard back for this game.
I don't know that Darius Taylor even John Joyner are

(08:11):
going to be one hundred percent for the rest of
the season. I don't know who is one hundred percent
at that point, but I'd say Darius and Jah are
more healthy than what they were last time folks saw them,
which is going to be really important. So for Harbo,
it's trying to get out of second and third and
forevers because if Penn Steak can just pin their ears back,
it's just not going to go well. And so you

(08:32):
have to be in second and third and manageable in
this game, or even you go back five years to
win Minnesota pulled off the upset. They had explosive play
after explosive play through the air, and if they're going
to be able to accomplish that, Brozmer is going to
have to have time to be able to throw the football.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's why I wondered, how long if they're not able
to run the ball. I mean, you don't just want
to completely abandon it for even try, but if it's
if you're in second and nine all the time early on,
as he just say, you know what, We're going with
a quick hitting passing game. We're going to pass the throw.
We're not even going to really try to beat her
head against the wall with this running game if it's

(09:08):
not clicking the way they wanted to. So I'm curious
to see if they come out go tempo, because we've
seen him, you know, when they go temple at times
that that looks good. Allow Broseman to get the ball
out of his hands quick, maybe try to negate that
that pass rush, get Darius involved in the passing game
with the screens like we saw two games ago. I'm

(09:30):
just kind of curious to see how he attacks that
pressure that they're going to see well.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
And this is obvious, but they've got to they can't
get off to a slow, slow start. I was just
you know, trying, I was refreshing myself on Penn State.
I haven't seen a ton of them, and they kind
of meandered through the beginning of the season. I remember
there was almost a Bowling Green loss like week two
or three, which we were all sitting there at hunting
to Meg Stadium, the sight of an epic Bowling Green
loss going well, this could be interesting, Like they kind

(09:55):
of slept walks through that. But you look like when
the Gophers were out at ucl jumped on them big
the week after the Gophers won, but they came back
and knocked them off. Pence Illinois hung with them for
a little while before they won by two touchdowns. Ucla,
I think kind of the same thing. Wisconsin, I think
hung with them for a minute and then they pulled
away in the second half. The point is they appear

(10:16):
to be a team that gets better as the game
goes along, even when they're down, because they were down
pretty big against USC if I remember correctly, and we're
able to jump back in and win that game.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, the Wisconsin game, I know pivoted on them. Just
a really bad intersection that Wisconsin through and that was that.
You know, the game was over after that. So I
do think that defense has been pretty opportunistic in terms
of turning games on them and tightening the screws and
all of a sudden, you know, their offense can find
a player two there. So I don't know what are

(10:48):
they ranked. I mean, obviously.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
They're they're fourth in the country fourteen.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
But yeah, it's not like they're blowing teams off the
field like you know, Number four team you think you
would see, but they're still If you made mistakes and
you play a sloppy game like they did against Rutgers,
it's not gonna be kind to them. So that's I

(11:13):
don't say that the overs have to play perfect, but
they can't have these special teams mistakes. They can't have,
you know, obviously can't have turnovers in your own end.
I mean they've got to play as clean a game
as they possibly can play to have a chance.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, it's just this Penn State defense. I look at
the last six or seven big ten games for them.
They'll have ten points last week to Produe six to Washington,
twenty to Ohio State thirteen. Looking at eleven and seven,
I mean it's a hostingy. Yeah, they're very they're very talented,
which is why you know when they do make a

(11:46):
college football playoff more than likely it's because of their defense.
I think offensively for them, Andy Cotalicky Lichfield native, is
doing wonders for them, and I think Tyler Warren, who's
their very very gifted tight end, might be the Maki winner.
I mean he has been sensational for them. Drew Aller,
the quarterback, is one of the least turnover worthy big

(12:08):
ten quarterbacks out there. I think Pro Football Focus only
has him with four total plays all season that should
have resulted in a turnover.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
I mean that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
And now Minnesota's defense needs to force turnovers. So we'll
see how that goes.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'm just looking this up right here rush defense, they
are fifth in the country allowing ninety eight yards game
three point two yards per carry.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
So that is how you feeling about Minnesota being able
to establish it this weekend.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Well that's it. What's the strategy? I mean, do you
you gotta try, right? I mean you can't say, well, yeah,
we're not gonna try. I mean, you gotta see what
you can get there.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
But it's and they've been so hot and cold on
the offensive line where it's like where they have a
bad game the week before, they come out hot the
next game. So if I guess past results indicate future endeavors,
here theory, this should be one of the games where
senior day at home, he played poorly the week before,
he had a week to prepare for him. They should

(13:06):
be playing better. But to your point, this is a
very stingy Penn State defense.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
So the other thing that came up in the press conference,
and I don't think you'll smirk about this or feel
bad burns eat, but he did kind of outline what
they did this week more or less in the bye week.
I mean, the Gophers should you would think, be using
the bye week to their advantage to try to find
any little crack in this Penn State whether it's offense
or defense Penn State team. So how do they utilize

(13:34):
it this week? What did PJ say about all of that? Yeah,
they didn't really go out on the road recruiting.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
I think they sent a couple of guys out, but
they didn't have many days left in the recruiting calendar.
So that meant they got ahead on Penn State. And
they also got ahead on Wisconsin. And we'll talk about
how maybe that Wisconsin scout isn't as valuable as it
was a few days ago. But they did everything in
their power because they know they're six and four, they
know they have an opportunity for a warm destination bowl

(13:58):
game ahead of them still because of the slog that
is the big ten. But doing everything in your power
to try and give yourself the best opportunity, and I
say player wise, they just tried to rest everybody. It's
not PJ loves to say, it's not an off week.
It's a bye week in terms of you're still doing
things and they're still trying to get as healthy as possible.

(14:20):
But that's where the hope would be. This is the
healthiest they'll be until the bowl game for a lot
of these guys, So the Darius Taylor's and the Jod
Joiners and the other guys that are nicked and banged up,
trying to get them as healthy as possible, trying to
see if you can, to your point, find a chink
in the armor for Penn State because they have been
rolling and there's a reason that they're likely going to

(14:40):
be a college football playoff team.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
We last thing for me on this unless you guys
have something I saw. James Franklin had his press conference
yesterday as well, commenting on Koy Perrich chips guy Koy Perrich.
He's flying around making big plays for them as a
true freshman. He's been impressive. It's Coach Franklin, Coy Parrish's
name out of your mouth, all right. I like you,

(15:04):
James Franklin. I respect you, James Franklin. You've done a
great job at penn State. James Franklin, I don't want
you to say Coy Parrish's name ever again. And Anthony
Smith for that matter, either, the Pennsylvania native, I don't
want you to be talking about him either. Just keep
him out of your mouth, that's all. That's all.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
This will be a yearly thing. Whenever a Gopher player
has a pop up season or whatever. I'm sure there's
gonna be intermediaries that float a dollar number, dollar figure
to the Parish family. It's just how this college sports,
you know. Yeah, I mean this would be an opportunity
to say the million dollar match Burnsey, right, did they

(15:43):
Dicky Town athletes? One? Just what a great idea and
to get the corporate community involved in that. But two,
I mean that's going to be so instrumental in being
able to retain players.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Well, that's where I think NIL efforts have been as
good as they've ever been here to your point, with
the million dollar match campaign, they matched it. So that's
two million dollars the Minnesota's now got to go in
addition to what they have year over year. It's massive.
I think they're going to be able to make Koy
Perrich say Darius Taylor, very very competitive offers. They're never
going to be the highest in the room, but I

(16:16):
would say their competitive offer is going to be the
highest that they've had the capability to do at any
point in the NIL era. Now, if those guys want
to leave to go chase a national championship or they
get what i'll call stupid money, it is what it is.
But I think that competitive offer that Minnesota has made
or will make to them here very very shortly, I

(16:38):
think it'll surprise some people in terms of how competitive
it is. But I get it, Guardsy, We've seen it before.
I still got the bad taste into my mouth from
the Bucky Irving debacle. And now he's out here scoring
touchdowns for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. How nice would he
have looked in a Gopher uniform for an additional couple
of years. So we're almost getting to that point of

(16:59):
the schedule.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, the season's almost done, the portal's almost open, the
whole bit. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that ship
because that we mentioned it, it was a big deal
at the time. They just closed out the match thing,
I think on the tenth and good job everybody for
jumping up, whether you were a new member, whether you
upgraded your current membership, whether you just made a one
time donation, whatever it is, that's awesome and thanks to
neps's too.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
All right.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
We want to move on to other things in the
Big Ten. A lot of stuff flying around, including you
mentioned at Burnsey. The University of Wisconsin. I don't know
how I feel about this one. I really don't. They
they had Oregon on the ropes. Oregon had to really
play well in the second half. They were trailing at halftime.
I got to see a fair amount of this game.
I was in Tempe with women's basketball, and why not
just stay inside and watch college football all night when

(17:41):
you're you know, in Tempe, Arizona, And so that's that's
what I was doing. It wasn't as warm as you
would have thought, but that's okay, and so had some
work to do watching Oregon. They kind of took over
in the second half. And part of the reason why
they did was because Wisconsin's offense was not very good.
One running back kind of got going for a minute,
but their quarterback could do anything. He almost had a
mythic touchdown, but it was overturned by an illegal man downfield,

(18:05):
and so that might have changed everything. But Phil Longo,
the offensive coordinator, was let go. He was relieved. I
don't it's the air raid offense. We've had fun with it,
We've made fun of it. It didn't seem like it
was a great fit. We certainly know Wisconsin people hated it.
Barry Alvarez a week ago basically said, I'm not sure
what our identity is on ESPN Madison station, which again

(18:27):
not helpful, not helpful to the current guy. But you know,
they're on their backup quarterback. They're, you know, still trying
to figure out whatever Fickle fires him. And then when
asked who's going to call the place he asked, He's like, well,
why is that important? That doesn't seem important. You just
want to blame somebody for that. It's like, well, you
just blame somebody. You must think it's somewhat important if

(18:49):
you just fired the guy that was doing it before.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
I don't think he was a good look for the
head coach yesterday in his press conference, trying to deflect
the fact that you fired an offense coordinator that you picked.
I still go back to last year during the bye week,
my family were over for that just horrendous Iowa game.
Wisconsin set football back. But we sat high up and

(19:13):
this guy behind us, who had been at the bars,
I assume, kept you oing air raid my ass every
three and an hour, air raid my ass. It was
just a bad fit to bring in an air rate
because they're you know, Wisconsin people are much like Iowa people,
much like when you've had success, you know, for a

(19:37):
long time. But in a different era of the college
football that we're seeing now, there's there's a nostalgia why
do we have to do that? We run the ball,
We're Wisconsin. Let's be different, right. Maybe this was too different,
and the instant gratification world that we live in felt
like it was too different. I don't know if if
he would have been there for ten years when it worked,
I don't know. But their offense is abysmal and doesn't

(20:04):
help when you're on a backup quarterback and they've cycled
through quarterbacks. I guess, you know, Fickle just has to determine,
like what does he want to be offensively right this offseason?
What do you what do you want to be? Do
you want to be air raid? Do you want to
be go back to Barry Avaz Do you want to
be something in between? Do you want to be? This
is where Fickle has to determine, like what identity he
wants his program to have.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
I think my favorite moment was everyone calling it the
Dairy Raid. For the record, that was my favorite moment
of yeah, we'll always have that. Well, well, I almost
think it just points to that Luke Fickle is feeling
a lot of heat. Where last year they go seven
and six and now they're sitting here five and five. Yeah,
they've scored thirteen, ten and thirteen points, but look at
who the heck they played in those three games where

(20:47):
it's Penn State stingy defense, Iowa's defense, and the number
one team in the country, Oregon's defense. Like, there has
to be context within it. Now we both are all
three of us. Remember September when they had to eke
out wins against Western Michigan and South Dakota, which the
offense was the problem. I would say more times than
not in those games. But I just think Fickle's really

(21:10):
feeling it. I mean, you already mentioned his quote from
yesterday when somebody asked who's going to be calling the plays?
And I'll repeat it here verbatim quote why does it matter?
I don't think it's really important. I guess it gives
you the ability to point the finger at someone end
quote which you already said it, and I'll reiterate it.
If you don't think it's important, then why did you
fire Phil Longo? And what like? That is not a

(21:33):
hard question to answer. It's one that you're gonna get
at any press conference the moment you fire somebody. If
if Greg Harbow would get let go first question, we're
gonna ask, Okay, who's gonna call the plays? And if
you want to give a you know, a smirky answer back,
we're going to hit you with another smirky question because
it's an easy one to answer.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
It was a flippant response, and being flippant on a
time when R is angry and you just fired a coach,
a coordinator highly compensated that you brought in. That's not
the moment to be flipping, you know, which tells me
that he You're right, he's feeling the heat. This is
a guy who probably you know, as Gargy says, doesn't

(22:19):
help when the legendarre is saying what's their identity? You know,
he probably feels like he's getting.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Like, oh, I believe that's how you knew the pressure
was on.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Well, I just I can't believe this is how I mean.
It's amazing to me. I get it.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Wisconsin's a proud program. And we'll hear from Badger fans
in the comments and the mentions in the youtubees that well, yeah,
when you've been to six Rose Bowls and you guys
don't understand standards and.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
Blah blah blah blah blah. I hear it all the time.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's like, yeah, but also like you just fired the
guy who was mister Wisconsin two years ago and then
didn't give you know, the Jim Leonard who many people
thought was going to get the job, didn't give him
the job. Like you just tried to you try to
make this big splash because you thought you were on
the wrong path with Wisconsin people, and you try I
had to modernize and change it up, and then you've

(23:01):
given this guy no chance to do it. Like at
the site, at the sight of any trouble former players
recent and past, the old legendary coach who's got his
name on the field, you know, isn't trying to support
the guy publicly, which to me doesn't make any sense, Like,
none of it makes any sense to me. Now, I
will say, if you are Luke fickle, like, you don't

(23:22):
have to come in and be this dramatic right away,
Like you have players on the roster. I know it's
a portal season, Like if you want to run air
raid because that's where it's going, that's fine, but make
sure you have dudes that can do it, like the
best coaches. That's what Harbo's doing this year right with
Max Brosmertz. They completely change their offense to say, yeah,
we can't do what we've done before. We have to
do something different because of who we have on the
roster instead of just being fit to the system.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Well, I remember that, you know, we'll talk about tam
Bruser when he came here. He brought in the spread,
Mike Dunbar and all that, and you had linemen and
different guys who you just weren't that's not what they
were recruited for. And so the one year that we
pivoted back to something else, I mean, it's it's your
I mean it's coaching one on one, but your personnelity

(24:05):
recruiting have to line up with what you're trying to
do schematically, you know, if it doesn't, it's you have
competing interest there. So I that's where it's like you're
recruiting and your philosophy have to match up. And I'm
curious to see what once he sits down and gets
away from the season, Like what what what do they
want to be?

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, like they brought in Vandyke, and Vandyke was okay
before he went down, and I think that probably plays
part of it. Now Brandon Lock has not been good.
But I think one of the things even everybody's favorite
Gopher offensive coordinator says is players overplays and you got
to be able to fit the scheme to the players
and not just kind of try to put the square

(24:44):
peg in the round hole with the players to the scheme,
Like you got to adapt to what their strengths and
weaknesses are. And I think Fickle would probably tell you
if you put some truth ceremonum, it would be that
that just didn't they didn't see a direction going forward.
Now that's gonna we talk about games this weekend. We've
talked about Minnesota Penn State. I mean, I think you've
got the blood bath. That is what was formerly a

(25:06):
five and one Nebraska Cornhusker team. Right, this is what
was formerly a five and two Wisconsin team. Now both
are five and five, both are in a free fall.
Both have fired their offensive coordinators, which we'll talk about
Dana Holgerson here in a second. You want to talk
about two teams fighting for their lives because I believe
Nebraska has I won Black Friday and then Minnesota comes

(25:30):
to town in Madison. I mean, there's no guarantee either
one of those teams, like they know that the winner
gets to go to a bowl game here and the
other one goodness gracious, I mean this one is going
to be an absolute game of fisticuffs this weekend.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
It is staggering that when you think about how you
can set up your non conference it ain't that hard
to get to a bowl eligible anymore in college football.
It's just not. And the fact that Nebraska has a
stream going where it's just well.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Isn't the whole thing I think I saw on social
media and I would love to give the guy credit.
I just can't remember who it is is. Nebraska has
not won a November home game with fans in the
stands since two thy and eighteen.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Now it's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
And like it's just them in November. I feel for
Nebraska fans where it's like, Okay, we're five and one,
we're gonna get to a bowl game, because I think
it's also been hasn't it been since twenty eighteen since
they've been to a ball They're the last power for
school to do.

Speaker 4 (26:31):
So, yes, right, they have a ridiculous streak.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, so like when Scott Frost was there, I thought
it was coaching. I thought, you know, all the close
lot I means, didn't they have like thirteen straight losses
in one score games or whatever that yeah was. I
don't think it's a coaching problem right now. I think
the guy is a good coach. I do. I may
be proven wrong, but I think he's good. That might

(26:54):
be not a great fit at Nebraska. I don't know,
but you know, it's that's that's another place that's living
in the nineteen eighties. Two.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
I think though, you know, so what do we think
of Nebraska hiring Dana Holgerson as an analyst and then
one week later saying, Okay, here's the keys to the
entire offense. So if you would have been sadderfield. The
moment they hired him, would you have just been like
going into Matt rules office and being like, what the
we call that inspiration?

Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's called it's called throwing a hail Mary.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Well it's like, uh, the Milwaukee Bucks hiring Doc Rivers
as a consultant for their organization, and then by January
he was the head coach, you know, the guy who'd
been winning a bunch of games in his first year.
They'd already fired him. They must Doc rivers consulting advice
must have been just hire me. Yeah, I've looked around.
I think you just need to hire me.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
It's well, I think we talked about it last week.
I just think if you're not feeling great about yourselves,
the Big Ten is a hard place to be right now.
I'm just looking at all these teams, you know, from
Iowa at six and four all the way down to
Maryland at four and six, and I know they're one
in six in the Big Ten, so that they're another
team you know that typically starts fast in craters if

(28:08):
you're not feeling good, if you're not if you don't
have everything locked in, like in this league right now,
like everybody's kind of the same, so it's hard to
win it just even at Nebraska in Wisconsin, two of
the proudest programs in the country.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
It's hard to figure it out. It's hard to figure
it out.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
There might be one team who's the fifth best team
in the Big Ten right now.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
I'd say probably Iowa, but they have quarterback issues now
right issues, gave everything they got to go back to
macnamara now.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Because Branday depends on that's a revolving that's there's there's
probably only one get right game in the Big Ten
right now, right purdueue.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
That is the nineteenth best team in an eighteen team
conference is the Purdue boiler Makers, which I still don't
understand how Ryan Walters is still I understand it's the
second year, and I understand that again, that's another team
that I believe has fired their offensive coordinator. But any
given week, I mean, you can make an argument for
the fifth best team being Iowa yep, Illinois yep. I

(29:07):
mean you could say Rutgers are now playing with a
lot of confidence, and those two teams play this weekend.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
You can go for sure in that mix.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
I'm not gonna like it all depends upon this second
tier of the Big Ten outside of the College Football
Playoff teams five through sixteen. Whoever plays the best that
week is probably gonna be your team in the Big Ten.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
As you project long term and you're thinking about this year,
is this a snap snapshot of what is going to
be every year?

Speaker 4 (29:36):
Probably?

Speaker 2 (29:37):
I think you'll see like four teams three or four
teams and then fourteen others that are on any given
sty or do you think there's gonna be any How
do you how do you elevate? How do you climb when.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Well, you get a schedule like that's it. It's gonna
be recruiting, it's gonna be money, and it's gonna be schedule.
And we'll talk about the playoff in a minute, but
Indiana is feasting on one of the worst Big Ten
schedules that you can possibly have, right and they have
their big test this season. We're gonna talk about Kirby
Smart's comments about the SEC and all and all of
this stuff, But you got.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
To be We've talked about it forever.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
To elevate, you got to be ready to go when
you have the schedule, and then you got to make
it happen.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
And that's what Indiana's doing.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
That's the thing. When you get their schedule, you can't have.
But you're also Indiana. It's not like there's games on
there where it's like, okay, these are coin flip games
for Indiana ordinarily, right, or they've won every coin flip
game that you know, you would think on paper at
least now they're clearly better than what we thought. But
even if you know, let's say the Gophers get a

(30:36):
favorable schedule, what we think is a favorable schedule. Hell,
they lost the Rutgers this year, you know, I mean
they've lost.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, you just can't miss. You just can't miss when
you have the schedule to elevate to get to the top.
But again, you got to get to the top four
of the Big Ten basically to be a legitimate college
football playoff person four or five probably depending on how
much they expand it.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, but I think with your question about is this
going to be what it's going to be like four
teams and then just a slog five through seventeen or
whatever it is, I think you'll see more many tiers
probably going forward. But I think the point that you're
making is because of the transfer portal, and because of NIL,
the floor of these bottom historically bottom feeder teams in

(31:17):
the Big ten has never been higher because the top
teams can't hoard all the talent anymore. Because that talent
wants to play well. That talent wants to get paid.
And if you can go get paid, or you can
go play somewhere, that's what you're gonna do. Or even
just like the FCS to FBS with guys like Max Bros,
Murray Ethan Robinson among others. I mean, I think that's
the thing. Is there used to be a lot more

(31:40):
separation of tiers even a few years ago, chip, but
now that the portal and NIL is here, it's made
it a lot closer than what it used to be.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Remind me to this made me think us some when
you said the blueblas hoarding the talent. Is it still
with the new changes coming in with being able to
compensate players? Is this the scholarship limits? So is that
still going away?

Speaker 3 (32:07):
There's it's roster limits. The roster limits, so you're gonna
go from a I think it was an unlimited amount
of roster spots. Technically if you include walk on, so
like a place like Nebraska would have one hundred and
thirty guys on roster. Well, now everybody has to cut
down to one oh five by the starting offer camp
next year.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
But you can offer one hundred five scholarships.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
You ken, But I don't know that any programs will
adding it, So that'd be adding in an additional twenty scholarships,
which means you probably have to take away scholarships from
other programs within your athletic department.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
Uh, there's your answer.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
I don't think Minnesota is going to offer one hundred
and five football scholarships.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
No, you know, darn well. Some SEC teams are gonna
do it, you know darn well.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
But even the introduction of the rev share and nil,
you can find ways to kind of to get around
it in terms of not being be able to offer
one hundred and five full scholarships plus all that. But
I mean that's gonna be where Minnesota and a lot
of these other teams once the portal opens here in
a few weeks. I think Minnesota's got one hundred and
seventeen ish players on their roster right now, that that's

(33:13):
where all these walk ons are just gonna I mean,
that's where if you're an FCS school or in a
Northern Sun school, and you're gonna be able to have
the ability to get some pretty good walk on players
into your program because Minnesota and all these other teams
have to cut down the roster and you're one oh five.
That'll be a very efficient one oh five starting in August.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
But I do wonder if that's going to be the
next game of chase, because that's what college sports is, right,
game of chase. This team has this, we got to
happen in this school has this? That the first couple
of schools that started offering one hundred, one hundred and
five scholarships, well, now the pressure's on. Hey there are rivals.
Look at what they're doing. They're getting ten extra scholarship
guys or whatever.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
I just think with rev share and nil, it's going
to be it's almost a moot point to me, because, yeah,
you can get what is that forty thousand dollars in
terms of you know, what is full scholarship cover with
books in the Yeah, I mean, but you can find
it just kind of just speaks to where college football
athletics are right now. You can find forty thousand dollars
somewhere else to kind of cover that between revshare and

(34:15):
and Anil. At this point.

Speaker 4 (34:17):
Before we break, can I do a quick Dan Lanning
appreciation rant?

Speaker 3 (34:22):
Yeah, like I know with your fake field goal.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Well, two things, I'm gonna go two things. I know
some people were annoyed with how he managed games against
Washington a year ago. It felt like he kind of
which he probably did. He probably out coached himself a
little bit. And they probably should have been in Washington's
position a year ago. They weren't. They're down thirteen to six.
It's not going well at Camp Randall and all week.

(34:48):
First of all, I just loved Oregon being in Madison,
like knowing that locker room and knowing that stadium, and
like I'm guessing all the Pac twelve locker rooms weren't
exactly you know, the taj Mahal. But just the fact
that Oregon on a Saturday night is in Madison for
a massive, big ten game to.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
Me was wild. I just thought that was cool.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
And yeah, like with everything that's old, like everybody in
the stands looking for Ron Dayne and then here comes Oregon,
you know, with all their guys, Like it's great and
they've played in Rose Bowls before, so there's obviously history
between the programs, but all week he said, when we
do jump around, like regardless, my team is doing it right.
So I love the fact that they're down thirteen to
six and they like it's not good. They have the

(35:29):
ball and they kind of cut away and you can
see the Oregon guys are doing it and Landing's just
loving it. I mean, this is like national championship is
on the line and Landing still he's stuck to it.
And it wasn't like, no, we're not doing it, like
we got to lock in. You guys didn't earn it,
you know, being hardcore old school coach. So coming out
of jump around, they have a fourth and nine and

(35:49):
they get it, they convert it, they go for it
and they get it and then they tie the game
at thirteen. That whole stretch was awesome. The fake field
goal was incredible. You know, the guy almost got it
and then he's rewarded for being so ballsy because he
gets an interception two plays later or whatever it was.
Dan Lanning is a stud dude. I love what he did.
You know, when the Alabama job opened up and he's

(36:10):
sitting there smoking a cigar, saying I'm not leaving. I'm
here forever. He talks about I have everything I need
in Oregon. We love Oregon. It sounds like he still
got his crew from back in the day that that
roll with them everywhere. Like good family guy. Like I
love this dude. Man, Well, I love having Dan Landing
in the Big ten.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
You speak of the We were talking about Luke Fickle
on how he handled firing a coach. I think it
was the last year when when Landing called the you know,
had the game where a couple of things backfired. He
basically said, yeah, called it. Don't regret it. If you
want to christimize me, that's fine, go ahead and criticize me.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
Yet good point.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
I'm a big boy. I can handle it. I thought
it was the thing to do, and I don't regret it.
Like I appreciated that response. Like a coach who like
I tried it didn't work out, criticized me. You know,
that's a guy who is comfortable in his own skin.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
He's secure.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
He is secure with what he's doing and how he
runs his program.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
You play to win the game, guardie, and that's what
mister Dan Lanning does.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
He does and it's cost him big time a couple
of times. But I just I just like the vibe, man,
I mean the jump around right into the fourth and nine,
like critical play, and they get it. It's just that's awesome.
It's just awesome. All right, Let's pause here. When we
come back, Tim Brewster back, get your chili hot, everybody,

(37:28):
get your chili hot.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Pause here.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Talking about our friends at Jack's Cafe, great partners on
the Parentis Spare podcast for many many years now Jaxcafe
dot com. Make your reservations for the holiday season. As
I mentioned off the top, Breakfast with Santa season, believe
it or not, is officially upon us. And actually I've
got some Christmas presents right over to my left that
we're hiding in this closet. Don't tell my kids. I
don't think they're podcasting today. I don't think they're on

(37:51):
our YouTube channel. But it is a holiday season. It
is Christmas season, and Breakfast was Santa December seventh, fourteenth,
and twenty first. You can learn more. Make your reservations
Jackson Cafe dot com. I think typically for Breakfast with Santa,
you got a call, but the phone numbers right there
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Speaker 4 (38:04):
At jackscafea dot com.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
Whether it's the night before Thanksgiving, whether it's a brunch
on a weekend, it's just a great time of year
to get friends and family together.

Speaker 4 (38:12):
Chip and Jackson is the place to do it.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
You read the menu for Breakfast with Sana to me,
is there an age limit on that? Or can I go?

Speaker 3 (38:20):
We're all children there?

Speaker 2 (38:22):
It sounded outstanding like that would be my ideal breakfast.
Like I'll sit with Santa. I'll ask for a present
to get that breakfast.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
Yeah, maybe that's what we'll do.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Get a picture.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
And what would you like for Christmas? Chip, I'd like
a portable phone charger. Santa, I'd like a portable phone charger.
Another one.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
If I got that, that would be like I'd pray
be in tears. That would be my favorite Christmas present ever.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Collie or even if it's not breakfast with Santa, we
had ted head over there during the bye week celebrate
his twenty third anniversary with his lovely wife. It's getting
the anniversary season, it's getting to be holidays. And if
you're thinking, I should probably take the misses out or
my parents or whoever it is, out to a nice
dinner Jaxcafe dot com.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
All right, he's back, boys, he's back. Well, in some ways,
he never really left. The problem is nobody knows where
he is because he's blocked. Everybody that has a six
one two seven, six, three, five oh seven or nine
to five to two area code two eight as well.
I think I got all of them. Tim Brewster is
back at Charlotte the forty nine Ers. He had been
the tight ends coach. Uh Burnsy's guy, Biff Hogy got left.

(39:32):
No Biff Pogy ye got let go. May as well
be Hogy got let go and the interim coach for
the final couple of games. Everybody's favorite basement brew blocked
by brew Get your chili hot. Tim Brewster's back. And
here's the best part, guys. There's two funny things here.
Number One, I did already check. Charlotte forty nine Ers
dot com does post all of their press conferences. So

(39:55):
we're gonna have seven tonight, easily tonight. For the next
three weeks, we're gonna get more sound bites to play.
And the other best part for me at least is
now that his head coach has been fired unless he
really wows him and somehow gets the Charlotte head coaching
job Tim Brewster next season, because you know he's not
done coaching. We'll be coaching in like his forty ninth

(40:18):
place since he was let go as head coach of
the University of Minnesota. How many times was this sent
to you, Burnsey, Because I know when the news broke
during Bumper to Bumper yesterday, it was sent to me
probably twenty five times in about ten minutes. So I'm
glad people think about us when they think of old
brew But you.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Were kidding in terms of how many places he's been
since his time here at Minnesota.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
I mean seven.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Who has ever kill like he's been.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
He went to Mississippi State, Florida State, Texas A and
m North Carolina, Florida, Jackson State, Colorado, and now most
recently he's was the assistant head coach there with your
guy Biff Pogey at Charlotte.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Okay, hold on, go through that list and pause after
every school. Read that list again, Burnsey, because I'll tell
you what he called it on Mississippi State. Come to
the SIP Florida State tally. That's where I got That's
where I got back. I did a burner account. Timmy
from Tally on Twitter had the seminal seminal you know picture.

(41:23):
That's how I started the burner account, just to read
Brewster tweets because yeah, everybody was fired up in Tallly.
So that was Tally for Bruce, So sip into Tallly.
Every place he's been, by the way, has been the
greatest place in America. Can't be more proud to be
at this place. So that was Tally, Texas A and
m oh Man. What did he call that one? I

(41:45):
don't remember. I don't know, but he was just he
couldn't be more proud to be with Jimbo Fisher. I
remember that.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
How about North Carolina?

Speaker 1 (41:53):
I'm here for one reason. Mac Brown. Mac Brown has
done it here and we'll do it again in Chapel.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Hill, Gainesville, Florida.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
I think g Ville, I'm pretty sure, or you might
have called it the Ville. I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
All right. His time with Dion at Jackson State and Colorado, he.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Said something, well, first of all, he was all in
on Coach Prime. Yep, he loved Prime. But he kept
saying like it was something at Jackson State about good
players everywhere. He's like, you know, you can go to
the NFL from like he had a hook there I remember,
and then Colorado. I don't remember what he said for Boulder,
but it was you know, he was in on the buffs.

(42:34):
And I don't know about Charlotte.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
But anyway, before we get into Brewster now being an
interim head coach, I would say this. I'm looking at
a tweet from this morning from Charlotte's first practice. How
much do you think Tim Brewster appreciates Biff Pogey is
pulling up to practice. He's on the field at Charlotte
the day after being fired, trying to fire up his
guys to go out and compete. How do we feel

(42:57):
about all that if.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
You're all coach brew he kind of let him have
a minute. There was another coach that just got fired
that came to the team's like victory walk walking into
the state. Yeah, so I think that's fine. I do
think it's obviously now you don't want him just like
lingering in the parking lot every day. But a lot
of times when you get fired, you don't get to

(43:18):
say bye to your guys, right, You just get fired
and that's it. You just your office is cleaned out
and it's over. So I don't mind it. I think
I think Bru could put the chili on simmer for
a minute before he gets it hot.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
That's just me.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
I'm just realizing I did not follow him on Twitter
until just now. I thought, I did you think how
long before I get blocked?

Speaker 4 (43:37):
You think end of the day. End of the day.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
If I don't tweet anything.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
He'll see that you're now following him, and he'll block you. Yeah,
he'll block you. I mean, that's just what he does.
A lot of people. We do this about once a year.
People discover that they're blocked by Tim Brewster and no
one knows why. And it's not media people, it's just
if you ever said anything critical about him. It was
just which was often for a lot of us. It
was an immediate block and you couldn't see anything. So

(44:04):
and people were asking him about his chili, and people
were asking him about all this stuff, and you know
you can't. If you're going bear hunting, you better go
bring something to get the bear. You're not going to
kill the bear with a pellet gun.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
To write a book about my my first year on
the beating the brew.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Well, well, I think you should tell a couple of
stories in our final couple of minutes.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
No, I have I have some doozies.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
No, you got to tell the ones you can tell.
I know the ones you can't. You don't want to tell.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
You gotta buy me a beer and I'll tell you.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Well, what are the I p A non friendly ones?
Come on, give us at least one chipper.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Okay, how about this? What did you think after his
opening press conference? I think it was at the Macnamara Center,
the Alumni Center, and that was.

Speaker 4 (44:50):
Where he's.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
That's where the gonation came up.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah, he ruined. People might not know this. He ruined
what every school does, every team. Yeah, Bronco Nation, Badger Nation,
Hawk Eye Nation, Wolverine Nation. Tim Brewster ruined go it.
PJ used to say Bronco Nation at Western Michigan. Really
he did, and he learned very quickly. Here don't say that. Yeah,

(45:17):
not fair by the way to PJ. But go for
Nation was ruined by Tim Brewster.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Well, it's interesting because I'd covered four years of MACE
and then you had this tornado come in uh at
that opening press conference. I mean it could not have
been any more opposite of covering MACE for four years.
And just their approach in terms of not the x's
and o's. Didn't know anything about him at that point.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
But just.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
You know, the the way he was selling his program
or what so. I didn't walk away there thinking one
way or the other other than it was just different
than what I've covered for four years. However, it didn't
take long into the regime where I had I had
my skepticism. I still go back to the It was

(46:07):
the very first game. We have the picture. We were
showing it around the other day. Where on the ground
do you remember that picture?

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, in overtime he's laying on the ground on the
version right, Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Don't think coach Brew appreciated that from the starts reviewing
that photo.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Guards What does your favorite Taylor Swift always say about
stuff like that? Play stupid games?

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, win stupid prizes, Play stupid games, win stupid.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
You can picture the head coach on the ground looking.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
Up, and you don't think somebody's going to take a
picture of that. I mean, come on now, now, I
will say.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
You know, recruiting was obviously his big thing, right because
he could he if you get the right guy like
he can be inspiring, right if you don't know him.
If this guy just comes in and he's all fired
up and his chili's hot and he's ready to go,
and he's talking about I want to do this and
we're going to go do that. Like you can motive
some people. And he got some pretty good recruits. I mean,
you think about Marquise Gray, that was a big time recruit,

(47:05):
you know, pretty early on in the tenure that turned
you know, guy played in the NFL for a while,
Like that was a He did have the ability to
bring in some classes. Problem is, they weren't the most
disciplined group. There was a lot of penalties. There was
a lot of self inflicted wounds as they call them.
They didn't ever know which offense they were gonna run,
right because he changed coordinators all over. You know what

(47:27):
was Adam Weber's number. He had like fifteen three quarterbacks
and coordinators, five.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Different coordinators in five years, which Adam Weber might be
listening to this. You got you got done dirty, my boy?

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Yeah. Just Adam was a good soldier through all of it.
I mean he tried to make everyone in word just
a classy, classy.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
He ended up working for the last guy for Jet
Fish he ended up working for Jetfish at UCLA, who's
now the head coach at Washington. So obviously it wasn't
all bad, but it was something.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, it was my year with brew. That's what.

Speaker 4 (48:02):
That's gonna be.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
A it's gonna be a football across Minnesota story at
some point here.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
How many how many? So it was what he got
fired in his fourth year, third year? How many years
was he?

Speaker 1 (48:12):
I think four? Mace was six, seven, eight, nine, twenty ten.
He got fired after.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
He lost the tenth Yeah, yeah, October seventeenth.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yep, they lost a Purdue had a couple of you know,
great starts to the season. They beat Illinois coming off
the Rose Bowl, went to a couple of bowl games
in Phoenix, and that was about it.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
And I go back to that coaching search, and you know,
I've talked to Joe Mature about this a number of times.
I mean, you know, obviously Lane Kiffen was in a
different stage of his life. He was I think thirty
one at the time. Does that sound about right? Or
is he younger than that?

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Even look?

Speaker 2 (48:47):
But yeah, I think I'm pretty sure Lane was thirty one.
But uh, Lane, Charlie Strong.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
I think he was thirty five at the time. Lane, Yeah,
he's born in seventy five and that was twenty ten.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, it would have been. Yeah. I think I think
they actually interviewed like maybe double digit guys in person.
Coaches yep, the coach who had just gotten fired at
Iowa State. That was respected, but they.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Were McCartney day. McCartney guys wanted it. Guys wanted the gig.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah, because I think I think they knew that Mason
had put it in a good spot.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
They were about to get to the new stadium.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Yeah, the new stadium was coming on board, so it
was well.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Then you fast forward to after they fired Brew. I
remember we always talked about this, the uh they couldn't
give it away the next time. Yeah, I mean that's
Jerry Kill and by the way, good hire, good coach.
Obviously guy knows what he's doing. But that was that
became the story that of that search was who turned
it down, the people that it down, Whereas if you

(50:01):
rewound it four years earlier, there were a lot of
legitimate guys that were interested in the gig, and it
just shows you how quickly things can change. One of
my favorite pictures you mentioned laying on the ground, and
I mentioned the stadium brew on the pile of rubble
with a hard hat after they'd broken after they've broken
ground on TCF, he's got the shovel, he's got the hat,

(50:22):
he's got you know, the big two thousands khakis with
the white coaching polo. You're just like, what a what
a great that's you. Gotta have that poster somewhere in
the Beerman building. That was magical.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
God, so many memories with that man.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
So he's back.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
The point is he's back, and I can't wait to
hear how proud he is and how excited, and we're
gonna you know, well, it could be, it could be.
I mean, I don't know what to make of American
Association Football. They fired like five coaches this week. Everything's
just floundering down there, and so who knows. We'll see.

(50:59):
But I'm just glad you're now for now following on Twitter.
Finally you can let us know what he's up to you.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
I will let you know how it goes. I you know,
I can promise you I'm not going to tweet at
him because I.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Know, hey, coach, we're gonna see by the time we
record our next podcast. If Chip is blocked or not, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
He will be because somebody the audience will ruin it.
The audience will say, hey, jif Stinley following to Brewster,
and coach brew will say not.

Speaker 4 (51:22):
Today, not not anymore, and he'll immediately block it all right.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
In our final couple of minutes, guys, anything we want
to touch on playoff related or anything you want to
talk about. Obviously a big game this weekend Indiana and
Ohio State. I kind of feel like the public narrative
is shifting on Indiana where if they don't win this game,
and that's what Kirby Smart was doing right after guard
because their schedule, they really have to put a good
effort in.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
I think it has to be if they don't, you know,
they don't have to win, but it can't be a
blowout loss. Right it's a blowout loss, I think they're
in trouble. If it's a close loss, I think they're
still okay. But their schedule means the same thing we
talked about. You look at it, the strength to schedule
called up for them. I mean, where are they at?

Speaker 4 (52:02):
Well?

Speaker 1 (52:03):
I know they've played seven of the worst eight teams
in the Big Ten.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Yeah, and if you're trying to get the this is
where they you know, going to twelve is gonna solve
our with the arguments. No it's not, No, it's not
at all. There's still gonna be arguments over who gets
hit and gets out.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
Well, that's where it's even you know, as much as
it is about Indiana, I would take if we're gonna
do that for a Big ten team, I'd flip it
around and say Texas. Who is Texas's best win right now? Vanderbilt,
Like because Michigan is not a good football team, Oklahoma's
not a good football team. And say Texas loses their
final game of the season to A and M. They'd

(52:42):
be ten and two, and who have they played compared
to say Indiana. If Indiana goes eleven and one, you know,
I I again that this is what it's kind of becoming.
Is like we wanted it to go to twelve because
we wanted to avoid the hypotheticals, like last year it
was Florida State versus Georgia uh in Alabama. But it's like,

(53:03):
even if Indiana gets loses by three scores, I mean,
how do you leave that team out compared to say
Texas which is another one they'd be competing against if
Texas loses the an M at the end of the season.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah, and I think eye test has to matter, right,
And yeah, head to head strength to schedule a lot,
but but you got to see, I think eye test matter.
And you wonder if this committee is like really watching
all the teams or they study you know, I don't know,

(53:38):
it's somebody's gonna be angry, somebody's gonna be upset. Hey,
we had a tougher schedule, we had a you know,
you know, the circumstance and injury or whatever that we
lost this game because you know, but that we're healthy, whatever,
It's always going to be some factor that you're gonna
have to that they're gonna have to weigh when they're bouncing.

(53:59):
Whether it's four teams or twelve, it's never going to
be enough. You know. Hell, we do college basketball and
we had who got who got left out? Yeah, well,
who cares about the seventy fourteen you know, But.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Their argument would be North Carolina State was a playing
team and then at VCU is a playing team and
made the Final four. North Carolina State was a misfree
throw away from not making the tournament and then they
made the final four that but I agree with you,
those are glaring outliers.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
So yeah, Indians, I think there's a lot of attention
on them right now, and I'm curious, you know. I mean,
I want to see how they how they handle Ohio State.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Or even guardsis Team Army undefeated taking on Notre Dame
this weekend a Yankee Stadium.

Speaker 4 (54:47):
That's a big one. That's an eliminator.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
It is an eliminator. But there's some big games coming
up here where I think it'll all just starts to
figure itself out. But I don't want to be sitting
there because the other thing that's being taught about this
week is what do you guys think about these college
football coaches saying, well, we're trying to kind of avoid
the conference playoff or the conference championship game, say the
Big ten of the SEC, because that's an extra game

(55:11):
on our bodies, And what does it actually matter if
we're going to be in the playoff and that's what matters?

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Well, I would say, do you want the eighty million
dollars you're going to get from TV? Yeah, that's what
I would say. Sorry, I mean, I get it. I understand,
but that's just how it's broken down here at the moment,
you know. I mean, that's that's what's driving everything right now.
The reason why those coaches are making ten million dollars
is because TV is paying them a lot of money,

(55:36):
right and they want those games. So that's just if
you don't want the ten million dollars, you can go
coach in the Pioneer League and you know, play twelve
games and be done.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:47):
Was that was I clear enough in my response on that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (55:50):
I think so. I got some more to add On
the college football playoff, I would say I'd be curious.
I mean, we're almost in late November here, and while
we can't reveal our picks and we haven't talked really
any Heisman so far this year. Now there's only a
couple of weeks left. But I feel like the thing
that everybody's been screaming for is this isn't just a
quarterback award, And that would argue the top two guys

(56:14):
right now one is a group of five running back
and the other one is is Travis Hunter, who's doing
things that we haven't seen in college football for a
long time. So do you like that it's finally not
a quarterback that you may be voting for.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Well, you know, we haven't voted yet. I mean quarterbacks
obviously because they have the stats. And also I tend
to lean at we traditionally just because it's such a
hard position to play, right, I mean, it's the hardest thing.
So you're sympathetic to that, like these guys are, you know.
But I mean when you look at what Travis Hunter
is doing.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
And their team's good too, by the way they talking
about it, A're gonna be a college football playoff.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Team, which is probably it's exact opposite last year, probably
talked about him too much, you know, but they're they're
a good team, and he's just a generational talent. I mean,
he really is. So I'm glad that, uh we're seeing,

(57:13):
you know, not have four quarterbacks and then another guy
there that you know it's going to be i I
you know, we'll see how it shakes out. But Travis
Hunters has a lot of support behind him.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
I think right now we've been askting Genti out there
Boise State, which Boise States another projected potential college football
playoff team being the group of ive representative if they
can come out of the Mountain West. Again, the most
gifted running back in college football isn't even at a
Big ten or an SEC institution. Potentially he's out of poise,
which he could have left in the offseason gotten millions

(57:47):
of dollars from the portal, but he stayed. I just
like that we're seeing something different. Agree with with a
somebody like Travis Hunter, who I think is a unicorn
certainly in today's day and age of how difficult it
is to play seventy snaps a game on both sides
of the ball, and then you've got a group of
five running back who is doing things that he is

(58:07):
the number one person on the game plan every single
week out there in the Mountain West, and he's still
putting up numbers because of how gifted he is.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah, I hope that's a new trend. We talked about
new trends of parody and depth and balance, like because
at some point it gets a little annoying to just
keep voting for the Alabama quarterback, running back, or wide
receiver or defensive player right right, like, you know, oh,
which random Alabama guy that's going to go in the league.
You know they had such a or you know, Lincoln
Riley quarterback. You know that's putting up video game numbers

(58:35):
like I do. Like the fact that it looks like
there's some It gives you reason to watch the other
stuff too. I mean that's the like Colorado's making you
watch Colorado. We were forced to watch them for like
a year and a half. Now you want to watch
them because you want to see what he's doing. Like that,
to me is what the Heisman guy is. Is a
box office type person that and they're winning. So yeah,

(58:56):
he's he's factoring into a really good team winning. He
is a lot of why they're winning on both sides
of the ball. It's it's pretty cool. I have an
idea to give away the Jack's Cafe Penn State tickets
and we're gonna bring We're gonna connect it with a
couple of things, Penn State and Tim Brewster.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
Chip.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
I think you know this story. The night before the
Gophers were playing Penn State, I'm pretty sure Paternal would
have been coaching, still would have been alive. The Gophers
did a walk through at Beaver Stadium, and I wasn't
on the sidelines for this, so I'm not I'm not
giving any information that hasn't already been out in the
public sphere. And Tim Brewster brought his team out to

(59:38):
midfield in Happy Valley and basically had them stomping around
and chanting our house in Happy Valley at State College
on the beautiful grass field of Beaver of Nitney Lion Stadium,
Beaver Stadium or whatever they call it. And let's just
say it didn't go over well. And I don't think
it was their house. The next day, I think Penn
State handled him pretty well. But now when you go

(59:59):
for a while through there's like partitions around the field,
you can't go on the grass until Saturday. So I
don't know if that was directly related to our guy Brewster,
but I'm gonna connect the two. I'm gonna connect the
two as the Gophers welcome the Nitney Lions in the
hunting To Bank Stadium. So just tweet our house at
the parent of spear Pod retweet quote, tweet follow parent

(01:00:22):
of spear Pod, our house basement, brew any form there
if you'd like two Jack's Cafes tickets to that game?

Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
Is that fair? Burnsy?

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
Yeah, you've got until I'll say Thursday night when Thursday
Night Football kicks off and then I'll pick the winner
thirty six hours ahead of time.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
There, that's a good.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Let's give it up for Bill given Penn State tickets
come on.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Parent of spare basically season ticket holders now this year. Yeah,
we don't get we don't get to use the seats,
but you guys do the audience, so yeah, seats right
in the open end zone there. Yeah, it's it's tremendous
and we've had a lot of good memories and a
lot of good pictures taken. So yeah, if you win,
please fire the picture at us as well, because it's
always fun to see the memories that you guys get

(01:01:04):
to make. Thanks to Bill and thanks to Jack's Cafe.
Speaking of memories, one more reminder. Breakfast was Santa the seventh,
fourteenth to twenty first of December. Jackscafe dot com for information.
There have a great week, boys, we'll see it last
home game. It's unbelievable. I feels like just yesterday we
were boots on the ground at Fall Camp practice. Chip
was following Koy parrots around everywhere that he went. That

(01:01:27):
was back in August and now here we are in
late November. It's unbelievable. How quickly it happens. But we've
had a good ride.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
Yeah, I mean I think this even this home slate
has been so good for fans. You've got how many
how many night home games? Three? Yeah, North Carolina, Iowa, USC. Yeah,
I mean you were able to get a couple of
two thirty kicks, including this one. Like there were very
few eleven AM games. I think only one at home
if any, Yeah, just one being the Rhode Island game.

(01:01:54):
So the fans have been great all year, and a
fleck talked about it yesterday. But if they're going to
have a chance to beat the number four team in
the country, the students and all these fans got to
bring it on Senior Day.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Let's do it, all right, guys, have a good week later.
We'll talk to you next week on the pair and
a spare