April 20, 2021 • 64 mins
Clay Travis jumps right into the very latest with Deshaun Watson, where Watson and his lawyer have now officially called all 22 women liars. Clay explains why it’s hard to settle any of these cases now and how he would’ve handled things. National Champion Scott Drew of Baylor Men’s Basketball wakes up early with the show to talk about what the success has been like, the process, recruiting wins, advice to himself, and more. Outkick's MLB insider Jon Morosi is here and weighs-in on Clay's soccer analogy and brings baseball into that conversation. The fellas also discuss the Dodgers/Padres rivalry and whether it has staying power as far as national interest, and the Red Sox hot start. Plus, Petros of AM 570 LA Sports joins the show to talk soccer, Greece, Croatia, Italy, San Pedro, sings for Iowa and Tennessee, and reps USC.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of out Kick the
Coverage podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
morning from six to nine am Eastern three to six
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for OutKick the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every morning on the I Heart
Radio app by searching f s R. This is the
best of OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox
(00:22):
Sports Radio. We've got a lot to dive into, but
I want to start with the Deshaun Watson story, which
I think we now have got some interesting angles at
play here. And uh, the NFL Draft is whatever it is,
nine days away, and we probably are gonna have five
(00:45):
quarterbacks in the first round, maybe six. And one of
the challenging things going forward is always trying to project
what's going to happen with quarterbacks, whether they're going to
perform or not perform, and that's almost always on the field.
And here this Deshaun Watson story is really kind of
(01:06):
blowing my mind here over the direction that these cases
are going. Let me explain what I mean. Rusty Harden
is Deshaun Watson's lawyer. There have been twenty two women
who have now named themselves in the complaints and alleged
that Deshaun Watson sexually assaulted them. And there is also
(01:27):
a simultaneous criminal investigation in addition to these civil lawsuits
where charges could or could could not be brought against
Deshaun Watson. It remains to be seen, but Deshaun Watson
has now said publicly through Rusty Harden, his attorney, all
twenty two of these women are liars, and I don't
(01:50):
understand that legal perspective at all. That is a tough spot.
That is a tough put to sink if you are
the lawyer he year, and it also to me makes
it more difficult to settle this case because as soon
as you call all twenty two of these women liars,
(02:13):
and you are saying effectively that all of these women
have made it up that anything that went on between
the two of you was consensual, that nothing you did
was even inappropriate at all, and all of these women
are lying, it makes it hard to settle the case.
I'm not saying it's impossible to settle these cases. I'm
(02:34):
just saying, when you accuse someone of a line, there
are probably some of these women and some of these
women's family members now that are gonna say, wait a minute,
he has called you out as a liar, and then
you're going to allow him to settle this case with you.
(02:54):
There's not a good resolve the resolution to this situation
to me now, because if Deshaun Watson ends up actually
settling these cases, then everybody's gonna say, wait a minute,
you said these women were lying. Why would you give
them any money at all? And if you are these women,
(03:18):
how do you settle with Deshaun Watson when he's accused
you of lying? Because now it's difficult for Deshaun Watson
to say, oh, I said those women were lying, but
now I'm gonna give them some money and we're gonna
just pretend that I never said they were lying. Like
this situation. I find it to be a really difficult
(03:40):
situation for Deshaun Watson because I don't see how it
gets resolved quickly now. And so Deshaun Watson basically said, hey,
these women are lying. I didn't behave inappropriately through his attorney,
Rusty Harden, and then Tony Buzzby, who is the plaintiffs
attorney for these twenty two women, came out and said
as fully and this is a direct quote as fully anticipated,
(04:03):
and despite his lawyer's previous statements, Deshaun Watson's only defense
is to call these brave women liars. The weak and
vague allegations made in defendants response are demonstrably false. Watson
can't deny he sought out an unusually high number of
women for massages on Instagram. He doesn't. He doesn't deny
(04:25):
he insisted on being nude or nearly nude. He can't
deny the massage sessions occurred. He can't deny he wanted
more than a massage, and he hasn't credibly denied that
something bad happened during the session. He instead claims that
any sexual acts were consensual. Of course, his definition of
(04:46):
consent doesn't comport with that of everyone else. I have
faith that the court process will sort out the truth
as these matters progress. The problem for Deshaun Watson is
he doesn't gain anything by this process taking a long time.
(05:09):
And I gotta be honest with you. I don't understand
his legal defense at this point in time, because if
I were advising Deshaun Watson, this is me putting on
my lawyer hat I would tell him. Settle, Settle, settle.
You could have settled this for a hundred thousand dollars
when the first woman came to you, uh and said, hey,
(05:31):
I was mistreated, we would have never seen her story
go public. A hundred thousand dollars is a rounding air
to Deshaun Watson, who has a hundred and fifty six
million dollar contract extension that he just agreed to and
makes tens of millions of dollars elsewhere, probably through endorsements
(05:51):
and everything else at that point in time. So the
idea that you wouldn't have in the first place paid
a hundred thousand dollars to settle these cases. And let
me be honest with you, I understand if you feel
like you did nothing wrong, why you wouldn't want to
just give somebody a hundred thousand dollars. But the negative
(06:12):
publicity attendant with this first woman going public and saying
that you sexually assaulted her cost you more than a
hundred thousand dollars in the court of public opinion. So
I would have advised Deshaun Watson when this first woman
went public, I would have been like, hey, we need
to think about settling this case because she wanted a
hundred thousand dollars, she might have taken fifty, which is
(06:35):
nothing to Deshaun Watson. And then if this woman doesn't
go public, a lot of these other women probably wouldn't
go public either. And I would have said, if I
was Deshaun Watson's attorney, Hey, no more massages, dude. You
are putting yourself in a rough spot when you lock
a door, when you're behind a closed door with one
other woman, There's nothing good that can come out of
(06:57):
this from you. These are not therapeutic massage. Is Let's
stop pretending otherwise. You are interested in this being something
more than a therapeutic massage. You're a starting quarterback in
the NFL in a fabulous city in Houston, Texas. If
you want women, there's not hardly any man in America
who has access to more women than you do. This
(07:20):
idea that you're gonna be trying to meet them and
and engage in sexual activity through massages, then it's not
gonna work, buddy. You're just not gonna do that, all right.
So that's the advice that I would have given him
if I was a lawyer. And by the way, one
reason you pay lawyers is so they will tell you
things that might be uncomfortable. You gotta have you. Sometimes
(07:43):
hear lawyers say, hey, I gotta have a come to
Jesus meeting with my client. I'm gonna sit him down
and I'm gonna tell him what's up and the risk
that he's running. And if he doesn't take my advice,
that's fine. But I'm not in the yes man business.
Good lawyer isn't a yes man. A good lawyer challenges you.
He or she advises you the best decisions that you
(08:07):
can make. You don't need another yes man. If you
are a star athlete, there are tons of people out
there who will tell you exactly what they think you
want to hear. The more successful you become, the more
people who surround you telling you how awesome you are.
The chorus of your awesome becomes pretty extensive when there
(08:30):
are a lot of people who rely on you to
pay their bills. And so you need an a You
need a lawyer, you need an agent. You need somebody
just to to talk truth to you when a lot
of people want And so if I were Deshaun's Watson's
lawyer right now, I'm be saying this is an awful
road that you are going down. You are putting yourself
in a position where you're painting yourself into a corner.
(08:53):
You're calling all twenty two of these women liars. I
gotta be honest with you. I've never been in a
case where twenty two different women all told the same lie.
Maybe they are maybe Deshaun Watson is the victim here
and he's done absolutely nothing inappropriate, But twenty two different
women calling them liars. That's the exact opposite of what
you need to be doing. You need to be trying
(09:14):
to settle this case so you can get back to
playing football. Calling them liars is going to prolong this.
Making them put their names in the lawsuits, you are
creating abundant amounts of antagonism. And when two sides really
don't like each other in an adversarial process, sometimes people
stop making the smartest decision and start making the one
(09:37):
that's going to make the other side the angriest. This
is why in divorces you never wanted to drag into court,
because sooner or later people stopped making the rational decision
and they start making the choice that's designed to make
the other side the angriest and I think this is
going in a really awful direction for Deshaun Watson. I
(09:58):
don't understand his legal strategy. He needs to settle immediately,
even if it costs him tens of millions of dollars. Now,
he didn't need to call these women liars. He has
painted himself into an indefensible corner. This is outkicked the
coverage with Clay Travis joined now by a national champion
(10:19):
head coach, Scott Drew of Baylor University. And does that
get old to hear? And did you really ever believe
you would hear it? I know what you said. Does
it still feel a little bit like a surreal universe
that you hear that? Now? Coach, Well, it's only been
about two weeks, but I could get used to this.
(10:39):
So yeah, I love hearing that. And it's a great
it's a great honored recognition for the players and what
they were able to achieve. And as a coach, it's
kind of like a parent on Christmas Day when you
see your kids opening up a president. Everybody's excited. You're
happy and to see all Baylor Nation, Central Texas, Waco,
the state of Texas, only our second basket ball Championship,
(11:01):
the last one they did a movie on in ninet
So exciting time in Texas right now. Okay, So I
want to take you back before we go to the
national Championship game. When you took over in two thousand three,
we came on the day after you win the championship
and say, this is not just a remarkable story for basketball,
this is one of the all time accomplishments. I'm trying
(11:22):
to do it off the top of my head. I
knew all the data. You're probably know him better than me.
I think since nineteen fifty Baylor had been to the
n C Double A Tournament once. When you took over,
you were on probation. Obviously, Uh many people know about
the the awful incident, the murder that was involved in
(11:43):
Baylor basketball. Did you when you took over in two
thousand three, and I think it took you four years
to get to a winning record, did you ever have
doubts and think maybe this is not going to work.
Take me back to two thousand three, two thousand four,
two thousand five, two thousand six, before everything really starts
(12:04):
to get rolling and you started at least making the
n C Double A Tournament, yeah, great questions. So I
can equate this to anyone that's opened a new business
or restaurants, and you were so busy in the beginning
doing what you're doing, you're really not. You don't have
time to get too frustrated or upset because you're you're
you're moving on to the next issue or the next problem.
So with us, we get to campus and we only
(12:26):
have between five and seven scholarship players throughout the year
because academically, we had some guys out at different times.
So the first thing we had to do is go
all over campus and try to find at least a
half half a team full of walk ons that can
fill a roster. Now, talk about a great deal. Not
only could you walk home, but you actually could play.
So I mean that that that was pretty good. So
(12:47):
we have our opening tryout. We have a lot of
people show up and you know what, we walked out
of the gym. We're like, dang, here's some good looking athletes.
We've got some hYP We call everyone over and we asked,
all right, so what what you're your Baylor? Where do
you live? And all of a sudden, hand goes up
and says, wait a minute, you gotta go to school
if they were to be on the team. Yeah. So
hence people that drove down from Dallas, from the junior
(13:08):
colleges and all over Central Texas thinking they could be
on the team without going to school. Most of them left.
We were left with what's normal with the six foot
walk on and uh we filled out our roster that way.
That year, we actually won three conference games, did not
finish last, so it was it was a blessing. And
then the next year was really tough. It was more
of the rebuilding year because it was too late to
(13:30):
bring in the recruits because when we took over most
of them it already committed. And then the third year
was when the n t A actually took away our
non conference schedule, so that was when the penalties all
came down. So we just played a regular season. We're
the only school to ever do that. By the way,
if anyone ever then that, Yeah, I looked at your
at your coaching record, and I was like, what in
(13:52):
the world happened that year. I had to go back
and research it that you only played conference basketball. Yeah.
So so if anyone's in that situation, we're the only
ones with the experience so we can help you with that.
But I can tell you what was so hard with
that is imagine practicing all the way from August until
January basically, and then when you play, you're expecting to
(14:13):
have this success and then you're terrible because it's kind
of like a freeway, you know, in Texas Speed Women
seventy five, everybody's zooming and now you're getting on the
ramp at conference play and you're going fifties sixty trying
to catch up. So that was a tough year. And
then the next year with What's What's amazing? Five years later,
you make the n c A Tournament And that was
(14:35):
the story in itself because we were the last team called.
So we had a big celebration party. The Ferrell Centers
packed on the floor, so we got all these people
here and we get through the whole bracket and they're
down to one team to be called. And I never,
in my wildest dreams, thought we weren't gonna be called because, uh,
Joe Nardi said we were in. You know what if
he says you're in, you're in, right, Yeah, So Joey
(14:56):
Brackett says we're good, and all of a sudden you're thinking,
if they don't call us what we telling everybody, and
then we're the last name called the place erupts. We
gained the n c A tournament, then we go to
two Elite eight twelve and God's plans always perfect because
I'd have had to go to the final four then.
But you know, then you don't appreciate it as much,
and you know, and you and you don't realize what
(15:17):
a blessing it is when you do make it to
a final four. And then obviously we won the national
championship this year. What does it feel like to lose
an Elite eight game? Well, not only is it tough
to lose, but then you gotta watch that team cut down,
nets celebrate, and in both instances for Us and Duke
ended up winning the national championship and in Kentucky won
(15:39):
it in twelve. So you're sitting there thinking, man, we
could have won a national championship and that that that
that and and when you get like you make it
to the sweet sixth team, you have a full week
to enjoy it, and you get a lot of media attention.
When you make it to the final four, you have
a full week to enjoy it. And a lot of
media attention. So losing the Elite eight is really hard
(16:00):
because you know, most most most college coaches, their goal
and dream is always to be in the final For
most players, their dream is to be in the final four,
to be that close and not get there. And that's
why when we got there this year, it was that
much more of a a blessing because our staff realized
how hard it is to get there. When did you
start to realize and make recruits aware of Baylor as
(16:25):
a viable option? So I know you you mentioned early
on you're not even able to get the probation, You're
not able to play and out of conference. When was
was there a moment when you went into a home
or you talked to some recruits and you started thinking, Okay,
we're starting to get a little bit of momentum. People
know that we're a player on a relatively high level.
(16:46):
Was there a moment like we're it kind of shifted
for you because you talked about it's like starting a business,
and it's so hard initially because and and there are
a lot of people I'm sure listening to us who
know what that's like because there's so many things that
you're trying to fix simultaneously that you don't really have
the time to be like, hey, here's my five year plan,
here's my three year player. I just gotta get through today.
I gotta get through this week. When when do you
(17:09):
start being able to plan and build and think, Okay,
we're starting to get a little bit of a foundation
and recruits are becoming aware of us. Well. We we
were able to attract some good recruits early on. Aaron
Bruce from Australia was a freshman All American. Mama Dugian
was a seventh footer from from Senegal and he was
(17:29):
our first recruit. But really it was that year, that
third year when we brought in uh Curtis Geralds from
Austin who was highly touted, and then Henry do Got
from Houston that was highly tut and Kevin Rogers from
Dallas that was highly touted. So you get three recruits
across the state that are all name recognized, U worthy
and and and high level players to where wait a minute,
(17:51):
they're going to Baylor. So if they're going to Baylor,
I need to consider Baylor. And that recruiting class in
the state of Texas kind of got us going, and
then we brought in our first McDonald's All American in
Tweetie Carter, and then from there the program kind of
just grew because since two thousand and eight, only Kansas
and US in the Power of Five have won eighteen
or more games a year, and in the last five
(18:14):
years only US, Kansas, Duke, and Gonzaga have been ranked
in the top have been ranked number one three of
the last five seasons or more so, we've we've had
success as two thousand and eight, We've had elite success
UH in the last couple of years, and we're the
winning team in the Power of Five in the last
two years. A lot of success, and obviously COVID didn't
(18:35):
allow us to have a chance to go to a
Final four last year or play in the NBA Tournament,
which made everybody appreciated that much more. This year, you
won the national championship this year. Would you consider this
to be your best coaching job or do you think
one of those other years where you didn't have the
same success at the end of the season was your
best coaching job. That's another great question. What I would
(18:58):
tell you is we ask our play years to improve
every year and I'm hoping our coaching staff does the
same thing. So hopefully I'm better now than I was
several years ago, and hopefully next year I'm better than
I was this year. So I don't know if that's
true or not, but that's the goal. If you could
go back to two thousand three and talk to yourself,
(19:19):
what do you think you know it to that extent,
you're getting a little bit better, hopefully every year at
what you do. And I imagine a lot of people
out there listening to us right now try to do
that in their own profession. What do you think would
have been the most interesting and helpful bit of advice
you could have given yourself in two thousand three that
you had no clue about now, but you have come
to learn in the ensuing eighteen years. Man, You're you're
(19:44):
asking some deep questions today. I would probably, first of all,
First of all, I would have probably said, enjoy having
here because it's gonna come out real quick in the
next couple of years. That's number one, all right. Uh.
The other thing is uh uh um. As we get older,
like really speeds up, and and I would I looking back,
(20:04):
I wish I'd spend a little more time with my
kids when they were little, to be honest, and yeah,
you spend so much time working, and you spend so
much time trying to build a program. And next thing
you know, Um, I got a seventeen year old, a
thirteen year old, and a ten year old. My wife
has done an amazing job because she's been there most
of the time when I've been traveling and gone. But uh,
(20:25):
probably probably enjoyed that time a little bit more. And
I would probably scheduled a little bigger break during Christmas
time so that you could spend a little more time
with the family. Uh. That that that's something I mean,
that's that's good advice, I think for a lot of
people with young kids. In fact, I'm coaching, uh and
have been coaching a lot with kids. And it's interesting
because as you get older, the college kids seem younger. Right.
(20:48):
I'm sure when you started coaching in two thousand three
you felt a little bit more like a contemporary to him.
Now you just said you got a seventeen year old.
I'm sure you look at them very much as your
own kids, and so I'm cure is from a coaching perspective,
basque college basketball season is extremely long this year with COVID,
it was even more crazy than it ordinarily would be.
(21:09):
How do you balance out when to go hard on them,
when to go soft on them? And in particular, when
you were dealing with the COVID shutdown, you guys had
and you had to miss some games, and then you
came back and you weren't necessarily playing at your peak level.
How do you hit the right note to get them
playing at a peak level by the time the tournament
comes around? Well, so, so is it art or science
(21:32):
in your mind? I guess from a coaching perspective, Well,
some of it is your feel and some of it
is your experience on your team. Like with us, this
was a player led team. We had a lot of
experienced players that were veterans, that were that were professionals,
And what I mean by that is they came into
the gym and they wanted to get better, they wanted
to be pushed. Other times, you have a more inexperienced
(21:54):
team that are more your freshman and sophomores, and there
you tend to have less consistent to so you have
more ups and downs, and there you gotta you gotta
keep them fresher because the grind of the season will
wear them out a lot quicker than the three year
old who's used to it. Uh. So with with with
with us, I can tell you that I'm energetic, our
(22:16):
staff's energetic. We wanted to when you come into the gym,
you're excited to be in the gym, not oh gosh,
I gotta get I gotta get uh yelled at for
the next two or three hours today. We want guys
that want to come in the gym, they want to
get better. And at the same time, we try to
make it fun because we spend most of our time
with him in the gym. So uh. As far as
(22:36):
when you're hard on them when you're not, I think
it's it's a consistency they want and um with us,
I mean when they when they screw up, we're gonna
hold them accountable. But it's not a demeaning thing. It's
a corrective thing that they should want to get better.
And the accountability parts really more than anything, because with
this generation, it's not telling them what you know, it's
(22:57):
telling them why they need to know it, because is
if they understand the importance of it, they're going to
do it. And sometimes as coaches, we just think you
tell them to do this, and they got to do
this without explaining why they got to do it. So
we're constantly trying to remind ourselves to explain the why
so they can buy in with it. We're talking to
Baylor men's basketball coach Scott Drew, now a national champion coach.
(23:21):
Last year, when suddenly the rug gets pulled out from
underneath your team, you had a really good team last
year too, What did that feel like for your team
when suddenly the n c Double A Tournament is no more? Well,
I tell you, the coaches I talked to all had
the same feeling, and that is you think about it,
(23:43):
Most college kids aren't going to be in the NBA.
Most college kids spend most of their uh young life
working for an opportunity to reach the top of the platform.
And that is the pinnacle is the n c A Tournament.
And like for our seniors Freddie Speed that didn't get
a chance, DeVante Bandeux who didn't get a chance, we
(24:04):
had to walk on open that didn't get a chance
to play in it. I mean that your heart goes
out to him. Is one of the toughest things that
us coaches had to do UH saying that there is
no n c A tournament now the blessing for us.
Most of our guys came back and they all remembered
that feeling of not having an opportunity last year, so
we were all that much more excited for this year.
(24:25):
And that's why we couldn't thank the n c A
enough for having the bubble and making it a safe
environment which we could play the nt A Tournament and
I know the restrictions or not what everyone's used to,
but we were just so excited to be in the
bubble and wanted to stay in the bubble and be
a part of March Bradness because when we didn't have
the opportunity the year before, we really were blessed and
(24:47):
an appreciative of it this year. And again this is
a memory that lasts a lifetime, and especially for a
lot of a lot of people that this is the
end of their basketball career because most people don't play
professional basketball. We're talking to Baylor national champion coach Scott Drew.
So when you finish UH and beat Houston and you
have a forty eight hour window basically to turn around
(25:09):
and get ready for the National Championship Game. Did you
watch the game between Gonzaga and U c l A.
Were you scouting it? What is I'm fascinated by that window,
that quick turnaround. Had you already scouted everything else during
the course of that week, so you didn't really have
much to do. You win, you know you're in the
National Championship Game. Your life looks like what for the
(25:32):
next forty eight hours? So we first of all, most stabs,
you break down and one coach will have the team
you're playing as a scout, and then the other two
coaches will take one will take up UH U c
l A, one will take Gonzaga, and then once the
once you know who's you're playing, well that that person
has most of the scout done, maybe of it done,
(25:55):
and then they add what they saw in the last
uh game played. With me, what I say to do
is like synergy breaks everything down. You can watch him
against zone, you can watch him against man, the press
off and press defense. And to me, I'm not gonna
waste time watching the game live because there's too many
interruptions and it takes too long. So right away you're looking,
you're you're you're starting to focus on your team first,
(26:18):
so I wanted to watch our game versus Houston, see
where we could get better, how we could improve, and
then once I knew who we were playing, then start
to start to watch all those breakdowns and then watch
the last game they played, because obviously you can pass
forward all the dead periods, so now it becomes a
forty minute game instead of a two hour game. And
(26:38):
when you're when you have a small window, it's important
not to waste time. So how nervous are you and
what would you uh say of your team's overall perspective
and persona as you walk out and get ready to
play on that Monday. Well, it's different in the bubble
from the standpoint when you when you go to a
(27:01):
game and there's only ten percent, it's nothing like when
there's a hundred percent and fans are all over and
and so much louder. By that time of the year,
we had actually gotten pretty used to being in venues
that we're ten percent full or full, So it was
a lot easier to keep your players attention because normally
(27:23):
in an NTA tournament, you play two rounds, you come
back to campus. Campus is going crazy. Everybody's trying to
congratulate them, and then you're you're not able to practice
as much because you're traveling, so that affects your time
to practice. Where when you're in the bubble, I mean,
you come back and how you celebrate it. You go
to the team room with with with your team. So
(27:44):
it's real simple. You you get up the next day,
you watch the film, you get ready for practice, and
you can you can really uhuh keep their attention and
you're able to really do a lot more. So you're
you're not overwhelmed by the National Championship game as you
might yea, I guess in a normal situation with us, uh,
we we had we had we were set to play
(28:05):
Gonzaga on December five, had so much respect for coach
Fu and his team, and then that game got uh
canceled and we were disappointed at that time because it
was one verse two. But you know what, God had
a better plan and he said, we ain't gonna do
this on December fifth, We're gonna do this on April five.
And coach you and I agree. We said, if we
meet back here and make this game on April fifth,
(28:25):
we are good with that. And and that's what that's
what ended up happened, and they had an unbelievable season
and coach fuse the Hall of Fame coach does a
tremendous job. But I know, I know, we had a
bunch of guys that are competitors and they want to
play against the best, so they were excited to play
against Gonzaga. How did you, I know you celebrated with
your team you're in Indianapolis. I saw the footage of
(28:46):
everything that happened on Baylor. I guess they were out
on the football field, storming the football field and everything else,
having an incredible time watching you guys play. What was
it like to finally returned to campus having won the
national championship? As you mentioned, you guys were in the
bubble at Indianapolis, And what has it been like in
the state of Texas since you returned. So so the
(29:07):
game finishes, we're able to see our families and that
that was such a blessing because for the last three
or four weeks we hadn't been able to since we
got to Indianapolis, and actually in the Big Twelve tournament,
we're in a bubble, so not able to give hugs
and in into here a little ones but uh. Once
once the game was over, you spent time with family,
and after about three or four in the morning, you
(29:28):
go back to your hotel room, and then you got
your thousand plus text messages and right away you start
to try to answer those. And then the next thing is,
you got the morning shows, So why would you fall
asleep for thirty minutes an hour. You know, you haven't
pulled it all at either since you were thirty years
ago in college, so you might as well stay away now.
So then then you uh uh finished that in the
(29:49):
morning shows, and then you leave to come back you land,
there's a big gathering at the airport for you. You're
excited about that. You go home. You crashed that night,
and then uh and then and then ever since then
you get up and you have opportunities and talk to
great people like you and your show and everybody else
(30:09):
across America and brag about your guys. And it doesn't
get much better than that, because what they achieved this
year is remarkable and special. First championship in Baylor history,
and like you said, first Big Twelve championship since nineteen
first Final four since uh nineteen fifty. Well, Baylor men's
basketball coach National champion Scott Drew. I know how busy
(30:32):
you have been, coach. I appreciate you coming on with
us early this morning, and we look forward to talking
to you again somewhere down the line. Sounds great. Take care,
Thank you for all you do. This is Outkicked the
Coverage with Plates Raffits, Hay and gottlie The podcast is
called All Ball. We usually talk all basketball all the time,
(30:55):
but it's more about the stories about what made these
people love their sport and all the interesting interactions along
the way. We talked to coaches, we talked to players,
We tell you stories. You download it, you listen to it.
I think you like it. Listen to All Ball with
Doug Gotlieb on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
(31:16):
or ever you get your podcast. This is Outkicked the
Coverage with Clay Travis John. You may or may not
have heard any of that as you were getting ready
to come on, but I want to start there because
I think you're a decent soccer fan and this idea
(31:38):
of the Super League, which has provoked all sorts of
consternation uh through Europe with all of the big soccer
teams coming together, and I was trying to analogize because
I know some people who listen to me pay attention
to high level soccer, and probably the fief of video
game has helped. Certainly, my kids play that game. I
know a lot of kids play. The amount of nolage
(32:00):
of euro uh is is pretty good. And so as
that gets broken down and you think about where it
is headed going forward, I just think the college football
analogy is an interesting one. You're there in ann Arbor,
and so you would understand that a little bit. I
think of of what that might look like if suddenly
(32:22):
Ohio State and UH and Michigan, who are the straw
that starts the drink in the Big ten for sure,
decided to align themselves with the major powers of the SEC,
the A C C, the Pack twelve, and the Big twelve,
and you ended up with a totally different league where
those schools will make a ton more money and it
could potentially be the twenty five or thirty who knows
(32:44):
biggest programs out there. It's the fascinating concept. Clay, I
am not a fan of the Super League. I'll say
that out out the front. To me, I love the
tradition of of the domestic leagues, and I think the
Champions League is a great competition, So to change that
and alter that as a soccer fan, I don't like it.
(33:05):
I understand why it's happening. I don't like what it
would do to the overall domestic product in in each
respective country. And from a standpoint of college football, you're right,
and I heard what you said. It was fascinating the
way that you laid it out. But to me, the
one key difference between what the clubs in Europe are
doing with soccer and and what Michigan, Ohio State theoretically
(33:28):
could do in concert with a Texas in a Florida
and Alabama is in every other sport, you are still
relying on on those local teams in your local conference
regionally speaking to your competition for every other sport, the
Olympic sports, for example. And so that's where the complexity
comes in to turn around and say, listen, we're not
(33:49):
going to play you anymore in football, but by the way,
how does this day look for our men's soccer game?
And to be fair, for the Euros, they're not saying
they wouldn't play still the English Premier League, for instance,
it would still exist. It would just create even more
of a half and a have not scenario, because all
of these big programs would have so much more money
(34:11):
to spend on talent that arguably the top to bottom
the parity to the extent there is any now would
be very difficult to have in an English Premier League
like Leicester City coming out of nowhere in the e
p L and winning at such abnormally insane odds would
become even less likely than it already was. Exactly right, Clay,
(34:32):
that's very well said. And the other part of it
would be if the Super League exists, and who knows
when or even if it will actually come to pass.
Obviously there's a lot of legalities in different countries involved
in who has a jurisdiction over what can actually happen,
a lot of different layers to this, but whatever it
comes into being, if it does, you would imagine that
(34:52):
if if an elite team like Juventus for example, is
playing a Super League game in the middle of the week,
are they going to run out there j V lineup
for the league game on a Saturday or a Sunday,
which again waters down and diminishes the product domestically, and
there's diminished interest in it from a standpoint of television broadcasts.
There are so many layers to this, but in general,
(35:14):
for me Clay, top to bottom, it hurts the overall
foundation of the product in your in your country. It's
almost as if they're trying to superimpose what would be
a hyper accelerated American type league on top of the
existing European infrastructure, which is generations old, and you're not
doing the top that you're not doing a full thorough
(35:36):
reboot of the system. You're just putting this new competition
on top. And I think, to use the analogy, it
would just create too much stress on the foundation of
the league's and and there would be a tremendous negative
trickle down effect on the quality of place throughout the
ability of those countries and developed players going forward. Yeah,
and it is just really I mean, interestingly, you cover
(35:58):
a lot of different sports, NHL and Major League Baseball
among them, but this is one of the arguments that
it's been made major League Baseball for a long time
where there's no salary cap and where theory theoretically, the
Yankees can come out and pay a level of of
salary that the Tampa Bay Rays for example, would never
be able to compete with even though they're both competing
(36:19):
in the same division, and the Yankees haven't had the
same level of success that you would expect, which kind
of goes to the point of, you know, money isn't
everything in terms of developing overall talent from top to bottom,
and it's really just fascinating. And obviously Billy Bean and
moneyball uh really brought that to bear. I think kind
(36:40):
of started what we maybe say is the analytics revolution.
Uh So, so I think it's uh, it's it's really interesting,
it is and I think to Clay one of the
more unique phenomena that have existed in baseball in recent
years has been you will have in the playoffs a
team that is a revenue share ring pay or so
(37:01):
a team with big revenues that's paying into the program
will play a recipient of revenue sharing in the postseason
and sometimes lose. So it's a team that's paying into
the system will lose to a team that is receiving
money from the system. And again, this really strikes at
the fundamental concept of what we want to see from
(37:22):
our sports leagues. Do do we believe it's healthy for
to use the example baseball in our country to have
two or three elite teams and then a bunch of
other teams that are not as competitive. Uh, is that
the optal way that to build the super team? If
you will or do you want to see hope and
excitement and as many markets as possible where you have
(37:44):
fans engaged in medium and small markets. We've seen strong
starts by Milwaukee and Cincinnati. Then they're the nine and
thirty media markets in Major League Baseball right now. If
you were to use the super league mentality on in baseball,
would those cities even have hope? And doesn't matter to
the fabric of the game that there is hope in
(38:06):
those cities? I would say yes, it does matter, And
I think that really just strikes to what you want
for the best interest of the sport and growing in
your country, for it to be long term. And now
we're seeing all these different issues. Will these players who
are in the Super League even be able to play
in the World Cup and then the European Cup? These
are huge honors for those players. And then soccer is
the one is one of the handful of sports play
(38:28):
where it's the inverse of the way that we look
at sports in this country, which is we look at
the club over the country. For the most part, we
care about the NBA team over the Olympics, let's say.
But it's not that way in soccer, where your country
is the pre eminent one, and I think that creates
a lot of really unique decisions for players going forward. Okay,
so we've broken that down in that universe. The reason
(38:49):
why I wanted to have you on this Tuesday was
because I don't remember this happening in April. And maybe
it's partly because the NBA playoffs haven't started. The NHL
playoffs haven't started either, But the amount of attention on
this Dodgers Padre series I thought was fantastic for Major
League Baseball. Certainly it captivated southern California, but it felt
like many other parts of the nation were discussing it
(39:11):
as well. What you stood out from this series? Is
there anything we can glean going forward? And would you
agree that this is a rarity, a Major League Baseball
April series that felt like, in many ways the center
part of the sports calendar very well, said Clay, Because
I agree with that. Over the weekend you'd look and
it was the trending topic on Twitter often was baseball
(39:34):
was the Padres, was the Dodgers, the David Price delivering
a mookie best delivering Nashville and Nashville by the way,
a couple of times of the Dodges over the weekend
and the Padres answering back on Sunday. Just some really
unique moments. And you had Jake cronin Worth, normally an
infielder pitching for the Padres on Friday, and then incredible
extra inning game, and so you had a lot of heroes.
(39:54):
Clayton Kershaw looking like his vintage self. Little controversy there
with Jerks and Profile and Kershaw I love did I
loved it as a fan of the game. Uh that
There was just an announcement Monday from MLB about how
many people have been streaming Broadcaster in the course of
the first few weeks of the season, basically a record
setting amount of time on on streaming services over the
first few weeks of the season. So some really encouraging
(40:16):
data points about just the engagement of fans with baseball
and this rivalry. Clay I was thinking about this over
the weekend. The reason why it's so special. You've got
the proximity geographically. You have a fun storyline that we
can all relate to of the defending champions, the iconic
Brandon Baseball, the Dodgers, and then their neighbors to the
south from the smaller city who have never won the
(40:38):
World Series before, trying to prove themselves. So you instantly
have an attachment to one or the other just based
on the contours of the story. And then we have
interesting characters. You've got Tatis coming back from injury. You've
got Machado who has been a hero and villain at
different times in his career. Blake Snell who was taken
out of the game uh in the World Series by
the Rays, traded over to San Diego. You got you Darvish,
(41:00):
who has had an incredible career in so many ways.
These are bona fide superstars for different reasons, and they're
all on the San Diego side. And then with the Dodgers,
we know that team so well from seeing them so
often in the playoffs, so it's a really unique, identifiable story.
They play nineteen times this year, Clay, and I'm I'm
excited with you the fact that we are seeing in
April baseball carrying the day, from a standpoint of conversation,
(41:24):
is really healthy. I think the Dodgers still have the
edge on San Diego, but it was as much as
any April game can be clay for a team that
that probably is gonna make the playoffs. Anyway, that was
a must win for the Padres. They got it on Sunday,
they sent a message and now we can't wait there
back at it on Thursday already in Los Angeles. So
big picture here for Major League Baseball, it has been
(41:47):
a challenge to find great storylines that are big enough
to captivate outside of regional audiences. You just ran through
a bunch of these big names, and why in your
mind that is happening. Is it some thing that can
be sustained, this rivalry, this thing people care about given
how long the regular season is in Major League Baseball.
(42:08):
Sure it can be. And we've seen it in the past,
where I go back to the Red Sox and Yankees
and in OH three and O four, and I was
finishing up university in Boston at the time, and so
I was living that every day and every time they
played it was like a playoff game. It could be April,
and it felt that way. And it's a lot. It's
asking a lot of a younger rivalry quote unquote to
(42:29):
add up to a centuries worth of history like he
had with the Red Sox and Yankees. But I also
think that we are at a time, Clay where years
ago you would have never said the Golden State Warriors
are going to be a marquee brand in the NBA.
Things can happen quickly, and I think it's happening quickly
right now with the Padres. They are there on the map,
they have identifiable stars. We need we as baseball fans
(42:51):
people around the country, we need Tatis to be healthy
and himself, and I'm not sold on that being the
case yet. Uh. Yes, he had a homewarn over the weekend,
but the overall swings don't look as comfortable as you
would expect them to be, so I'm a little concerned
about his health overall. But this is a this is
a team in the Podres that they're around to stay.
They've got a very good organization. A. J. Pather has
(43:12):
done a great job of developing the farm system, so
there's a good model there for them to be a
very quality team for a long time. The Dodgers have
a chance to chase some history, maybe be one of
the best Dodger teams ever with how good they are,
so the rivalries there, the storyline is there. We just
need the Podres, I think, to to make a stronger
(43:32):
statements as the year goes along about how competitive they
can be for to truly take root as a great
American sports rivalry. Last couple of questions here for you.
Right now, the Red Sox have the best record in
the a L and the biggest run differential. That's a surprise,
especially given where they started the season. Is that sustainable
(43:54):
in your mind for them? A great question, because I
don't think that they are a playoff team. I did
not think that during spring training. That being said, they've
got a couple of guys who are hitting incredibly well
right now. J D. Martinez, who we've seen be an
m v P caliber player in the past, and Xander
Bogart who has that potential as well. Christian Basket is
(44:15):
very good behind the plate. Christian Arroyo has come up
and it really been a surprise to them at second base.
But the question for the Red Sox is and will
always be pitching. And they've gotten Nadany Evaldi off to
a good start. He's healthy. Nick Pavetta, who they got
in the trade from the Phillies, really has I think
impressed and surprised some people. And Arter Rodriguez coming back.
Of course, he didn't pitch last year due to COVID reasons.
(44:37):
So that group of three Evaldi, Pavetta, and Rodriguez has
to be exceptional for them to have a chance and
really making this a special season. I'm still dubious about
this whole idea. But the one thing I'll say, Clay,
and why the Red Sox have a better chance than
I thought they did three weeks ago, is the Yankees
look bad. Yeah, yeah, And I think that there are
(45:01):
reasons to be nervous if you're the Yankees. They looked
at it. I was looking at the numbers over the weekend, Clay.
They're the worst hitting team in the American League East
against fastballs this year. And if you can get basketballs
in the major leagues, I'm not sure how much success
you're gonna have. And and they've got some name brand
hitters who are struggling right now, and they're older guys.
(45:22):
And so when you have hitters who are older who
are not playing well, you start to wonder is it
gonna come back all the way this year? What's happening?
And they may be a team that's gotten older more
quickly than we expected them too. And if they're gonna
be a mediocre team, the Jay's have been okay, they're
missing George Springer as well. But if the Yankees are
(45:43):
okay too bad, and if the Rays are just okay,
then there's enough wins there in the Al East for
the Red Sox to have a much more competitive season
than we thought. Whereas the Yankees. I still think lay
not that we want to overreact to the Yankees, because
that sometimes happens earlier in the season, but this team
looks a little old to me, and if I'm the Yankees,
I'm worried about that. Good stuff is always, John Morossy,
(46:03):
we will talk to you hopefully next week. Appreciate the
time and look forward to it. Sounds Frink Clay. Maybe
if Michigan plays the Wild State in the Super League,
they can actually win. Everything about that. My wife would
be happy if that finally happened. I know you would
be too, Michigan, as good stuff is always my man,
be sure to catch live editions about Kicked. The coverage
with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three
(46:26):
am Pacific is none other than Petro's Papadas at the
old P five seventy a m l A Sports. He
is with us now. He's part of the successful, wildly successful,
even Petros and Money show, Petro's How's he shaking? How
you doing? Everything's going all right? I love to hear
about my wild success. It's freaking wild. Uh, but yeah,
(46:49):
thanks for having me. Um, we got a bunch to
dive into. Well, you've been talking about during the course
of today's show. So do you know anything at all
about Europeans soccer? Yeah, a little bit, like in what
way like you watch it? I mean I can name
the teams that are really big time, the Champions League
(47:10):
type of teams, the ones that win it. And I
can kind of locate some Greek teams for you if
you need me to. So, were you intrigued by the
story that I know the difference between Conka calf and
the euro Cup. Yes, so we're good. I mean I
(47:33):
think that's fairly I mean that's better than the average
person I think listening to us right now when it
comes that actually probably makes you a soccer expert relative
and I have read with I stood with thousands of
Croatians on Ninth Street in San Pedro at the Croatian
Hall during one of the World Cup Games when they
started to really advance and enjoyed. That is a big
(47:56):
Croatian community down in San Pedro community. Yeah. Yeah, there's
also like the biggest party with Italy one maybe eight
years before that or something, the biggest party Italian party
in America was in Sampedro. Uh So we have a
lot of ethnic types, you know. I've heard that Croatia
(48:19):
is one of the most fun countries to visit. It's beautiful.
Have you haven't been to Croatia? Have you? No? But
it's very close to Greece, but it's always kind of
hard to get up there from Greece, and I've always
kind of wanted an effort up there. Of course, a
lot of people now go to what is it to
Bronick the Game of Thrones, But all those islands like
(48:45):
split and I mean, I don't know if that's an island,
but those different coastal places around Croatia I heard are
not only inexpensive, but I'd also like to visit Mount
love Chin, which is the Black Mountain in Montenegro overlooking
the Adriatic. See. Uh, that's another interesting European I'd like
(49:07):
to travel over those places. I like to travel. I
haven't been any of those places, but I've heard it's
pretty awesome. So we have been talking about this super
league that they are talking about in the euro UH circuit,
you know, in Italy and France and Spain and England
and in UH Germany, the idea of taking the best
(49:28):
of those teams, putting them all together into sort of
the super League of soccer. And we've been going through
and we were like, hey, what if you had to
make a because college football is probably the most similar
to euro soccer, right, and I think you'll kind of
appreciate it in that it's one of our last route nots. Yeah,
and also it's one of our last really regional sports,
(49:50):
right where you have five major conferences and people really
fight over how good the sports are in their conference,
and you know, like nobody really argues over the NFL
or NBA or Major League Baseball or certainly the NHL
very much. Maybe a little bit of Canadian talk in
the NHL, but by and large. It's like, oh, this
is one big pro sports league and the teams that
(50:11):
are good can vary, but it's not like it's a
regional related battle. Does that make sense? Yes, very much so, um,
whereas in college football it is very much still a
regional battle. So well, you worry about the health of
college football in Middle America, the health of college football
in the West, the health in the South. Uh, it's
(50:31):
almost without Penn State and Boston College, Rutgers, you know,
with SIANO, like the Eastern Seaboard, do you worry about
the sport? I understand exactly what you're saying. And in
a lot like the European soccer kind of vibe, you
have the like, well, just let's look at the Big
(50:51):
ten YEP as a model. I mean, you have three
entities on the very top up Ohio State and Michigan,
and then secondarily Penn State, and then below that Wisconsin
and then Nebraska somewhere in there with all their lore
(51:12):
of yesteryear, and like, those are the teams that would
be going into That's right. So that's what we did.
I was going to read you the list. So I
came up with the idea like, hey, if we were
going to have a twenty team super league in college football.
Let's pretend it's possible. Again, people who are waking up,
I'm not in favor of this. I do not believe
(51:35):
it would be good for college football. I don't also
think it's going to happen necessarily. But these would be
the twenty that I would draft. And I'm curious what
you think about it. Um, Okay, I'll start in the
area that you know the best. I'll let you start.
How many teams do you think in the pact twelve
would be worthy if we're taking the twenty biggest college
(51:55):
football program. Listen, now, we also need to make it
regionally balanced so you can get your viewership. It's not
all just the best twenty Clay, Come on now. College
football Championship was USC to Auburn. Well, USC Texas, but
that was But you know what I mean, No, I agree?
(52:19):
So so which so which teams would you pick in
the pack twelve and say these guys need to be
in there? Well, you need l a need and then
you need Oregon because the Nike. If you need Washington
and Gallen Stanford. I mean, there's a lot of lore there.
(52:40):
Old timey college football lore. Pop Warner coached at Cal.
Jim Plunkett won a Heisman at Stanford. Let alone alway
plan there. I think you need the utes. You need
the utes in the top twenty. So here's my list.
(53:01):
Do you think about it, and you tell me who
you think I'm leaving out? All right, I'll start pack twelve.
I've got sc Oregon, Washington. I don't think you need
s U C. L A. But that's you can make.
There's two NFL teams in l A. You idiot, you
can make that argument. All right, I'll let you make
the argument at the end. You you keep in mind
who you're work before. What is this a courtroom? You've got?
(53:23):
This super league has griven you mad with power? Uh
Notre Dame. Notre Dame is the only independent school. Uh
A c C. I have got UM, Clemson, Florida State,
and Miami In the Big Ten. I've got Michigan, Ohio State,
Penn State. I put Wisconsin in. But you hit on
(53:47):
the battle I think in the Big Ten between Wisconsin
and Nebraska. Right, do you pick current? You got teams
in the Big Ten? Put Nebraska all right? If Nebraska
goes in, you got to put Kentucky. No, no, I'm not. No,
I'm not in the Big twelve. The only two schools
I have are Texas and Oklahoma, UM and which is
(54:11):
totally turning our back on Iowa and Iowa state. That's correct,
not you, not you, You are fighting for the Iowa.
What is Iowa? What is there? Like Moniker the Hawky No,
I know that Iowa is the cyclones Is Iowa state?
I'm saying like states like Georgia is the Peach State. Uh,
(54:31):
you know, Nebraska is the corn Husker State. Like what
is Iowa known as? Is it like fat the fat
white guy state? Dubed? Look up what the slogan? Like
Tennessee is the volunteer state. The state is called the
Hawky State. I don't know they have the cy Hawk Trophy.
But I'm just saying, like what is you know, like
the area like like what I'm just I'm just trying
(54:54):
to be trying to be fair here, Like Texas is
the lone Star state, Florida is the Sunshine State. Where
of the peak state here in California, you guys are
the Golden state. They are the Hawkeye state? Is the
Hawkeye State? You're right, but they're just disrespecting. No wonder
Iowa state people feel so disrespected. I'm about to wake
up my family and play the Iowa. This is the anthem,
(55:16):
the song of Iowa. Do you hear it? I'm listening.
This is it. This is what they play at the
sy Hawk game. Iowa, Oh, Iowa. All right? You know
the only time I've been to I know you've been
to Iowa bunch, because you've covered a bunch of those
(55:37):
games over the years. Few times and names and a
couple and one in Iowa City and it was thrilling,
both of them. I've heard. It's pretty cool. I And
the only time I've been to Iowa is when I
flew into Omaha for the College World Series. From the
Omaha Airport, you drive to Iowa before you get back
to Omaha. The only time I've ever been, uh and
(55:59):
I've I've done that too, because I've been to Omaha
as well. I don't know how the geography is such
that you go from Nebraska to Iowa back to Nebraska
in order to drive from the Omaha Airport to the
College World Series, but that on that part of the country,
you know, wrestling, there's a big deal there and well
you're the one who said Nebraska didn't belong. I didn't
(56:21):
say they didn't. You did you said you? Oh wait,
you did say? Okay that SEC. I have Alabama, Auburn,
Texas A and m L s U Florida Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn. Yeah,
Texas A and m L s U uh Florida, Georgia Tennessee.
(56:43):
Take Tennessee out. I think it'd be hard to take
Tennessee out. They just won a national championship twenty years ago.
Second winning is program all time in the SEC, behind Alabama.
C L A had a twenty game win streak twenty
years ago. Yeah, but they're not on the same level
as Tennessee. They're not. No, Tennessee ain't been that good.
We haven't been that good in a long time. There's
(57:04):
no doubt about that. I mean, you put Tennessee in
because you're I mean, who cares about Knoxville. You don't
need that market, No, you need the best program. Look,
look here is that here in the revenue numbers, Tennessee's
Athletic department in terms of interest in size A hundred
and forty three million dollars hundred and forty four million
(57:25):
dollars in revenue. You know, why don't you throw Why
don't you throw? Vandy Um there too? You U c
l A hundred and eight million Tennessee's Athletic Department dwarfs
U c l a's man, do you Rocky Top down
in the Tennessee. It's a great song. It's one of
the great fight songs of all times. Uh, you're okay,
(57:47):
you're tossing Tennessee out. That's Tennessee's out. I'm tossing Tennessee
out and putting in some undeserving West Coast team. Here
we go. Yeah, it's great. It's great song. I'm gonna
be up there this weekend. This is the greatest. I
(58:07):
think it's the best fight song in all the area.
What is a better fight song than Rocky Top? It
could be played good question, that could be played in
like a bar setting, and everybody would immediately feel better, right.
I mean, look, you know that I'm not like a
big you know, USC probably wouldn't be very sad if
(58:31):
I fell off, yes, I don't know, onto a train
and rust run over by a train like the guy
in Warriors. You know, but I will say this, you know,
if you get to have Tennessee and your fake top twenty,
then not the usc fight song, but the tribute to Troy.
The fanfare. Part of the usc UH kind of band
(58:54):
deal is what play it? To play it for me
right now? Yeah, I'm gonna play it. And uh, and
this is what they line up from the go ahead.
This is great. Now. I was going to say, I
think Hell to the Victors would have to be in
therean song is pretty incredible. Every high school plays it,
for God's sake, but uh, this one, I mean, just
(59:16):
play at usc which is unique, I guess. But they
line up from the fifty yard line all the way
to the back of the end zone, the band with
the drums in front, and while you're warming up, they
play this. Ready wait, it's not planning. Okay, hold on,
I got it. Are you ready? Yes? All right? Hear
(59:41):
the crowd. Yes, that's the guy. The p A guy,
c A guy is still going. And then the drums.
(01:00:27):
It's the best part here. Yeah, that is good. I mean,
this is clay. That is great. You gotta give it
up there, I am. It is good. It's no Rocky Top.
(01:00:48):
I'm not gonna come on whatever. You know this whole
Tennessee who relates with Tennessee you Emmy Lou Harris. That's it.
Here is Sports Illustrated rank of the ten greatest fight songs.
All right, this is this is alright. I'm just I'm
just pulling up the die anymore. You can't do it.
(01:01:11):
It's a great song, Dixie alright. Number one, according to
Sports Illustrated, Michigan's Hail to the Victor's actually the victors.
We agree there and hate my wife went to Michigan.
I don't have anything against Michigan at all. Now a
better timeline Number two according to Sports Illustrated. Boomer Sooner, Uh,
(01:01:33):
that's pretty good. Let's see. I'll play this for people
who don't know. I'm trying to play it anyway. I
can do it here, it is. There's noe. We're driving
people insane right now by just playing songs off of
our phones. That's a great song, all right, Boomer Sooner,
(01:01:57):
good song. Number three, Rocky Top Uh, number four, Notre
Dame Victory are here. Let's play that for people out
there who might not have heard it recently. Yeah, that's
(01:02:18):
pretty good. I mean, by the way, we have everybody
ready for college football season. Just by playing this on
Wisconsin number five one, Eat that on Wisconsin. On Wisconsin,
eat that cheese right now? All right, there's on Wisconsin.
(01:02:42):
That's the number five best themes. The USC fight song
that you just played, all right, fight on number six now, see, yeah,
that's not the one. That's the one I played for
you was tribute to Troy. Fight on kind of sucks,
but so you're just that it's a top ten Clemson's
Tiger Rag anchors away, Now, that's pretty great for Navy
(01:03:06):
anchors away. It was awesome. I mean that is pretty phenomenal.
Like that's look, that was probably underrated. The dude, that's
the you know that's now that I think about it,
I mean, that's number one. The c remembers its own.
(01:03:28):
And I remember watching like back when Navy was having
a really hard time beating Army or the other way around.
Navy was kicking Army's ass every every year, and Nia
Mazalolo had him going. And I remember watching that game
and the stands were full and the whole thing was
going on, and it's just such a great freaking five.
(01:03:51):
CBS does a great job with it too, And the
second Navy drove and the kids scored a touchdown on
the first drive and the second that freaking his foot
touched the end zone. The song starts like, you know,
because it's a military Yeah, it was so freaking awesome.
Yeah no it is. So can you come back with
us because I still have to tell we still have
(01:04:12):
to continue our conversation here because I got distracted on
all the different Number one I went in reversal order.
Number one was the uh I already told Number one
I already forgot which one it was. Number go home. Yeah,
hell to the Victor's the number one
Thanks for listening to the best of out Kick the
Coverage podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
morning from six to nine am Eastern three to six
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for OutKick the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every morning on the I Heart
Radio app by searching f s R. This is the
best of OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox
(00:22):
Sports Radio. We've got a lot to dive into, but
I want to start with the Deshaun Watson story, which
I think we now have got some interesting angles at
play here. And uh, the NFL Draft is whatever it is,
nine days away, and we probably are gonna have five
(00:45):
quarterbacks in the first round, maybe six. And one of
the challenging things going forward is always trying to project
what's going to happen with quarterbacks, whether they're going to
perform or not perform, and that's almost always on the field.
And here this Deshaun Watson story is really kind of
(01:06):
blowing my mind here over the direction that these cases
are going. Let me explain what I mean. Rusty Harden
is Deshaun Watson's lawyer. There have been twenty two women
who have now named themselves in the complaints and alleged
that Deshaun Watson sexually assaulted them. And there is also
(01:27):
a simultaneous criminal investigation in addition to these civil lawsuits
where charges could or could could not be brought against
Deshaun Watson. It remains to be seen, but Deshaun Watson
has now said publicly through Rusty Harden, his attorney, all
twenty two of these women are liars, and I don't
(01:50):
understand that legal perspective at all. That is a tough spot.
That is a tough put to sink if you are
the lawyer he year, and it also to me makes
it more difficult to settle this case because as soon
as you call all twenty two of these women liars,
(02:13):
and you are saying effectively that all of these women
have made it up that anything that went on between
the two of you was consensual, that nothing you did
was even inappropriate at all, and all of these women
are lying, it makes it hard to settle the case.
I'm not saying it's impossible to settle these cases. I'm
(02:34):
just saying, when you accuse someone of a line, there
are probably some of these women and some of these
women's family members now that are gonna say, wait a minute,
he has called you out as a liar, and then
you're going to allow him to settle this case with you.
(02:54):
There's not a good resolve the resolution to this situation
to me now, because if Deshaun Watson ends up actually
settling these cases, then everybody's gonna say, wait a minute,
you said these women were lying. Why would you give
them any money at all? And if you are these women,
(03:18):
how do you settle with Deshaun Watson when he's accused
you of lying? Because now it's difficult for Deshaun Watson
to say, oh, I said those women were lying, but
now I'm gonna give them some money and we're gonna
just pretend that I never said they were lying. Like
this situation. I find it to be a really difficult
(03:40):
situation for Deshaun Watson because I don't see how it
gets resolved quickly now. And so Deshaun Watson basically said, hey,
these women are lying. I didn't behave inappropriately through his attorney,
Rusty Harden, and then Tony Buzzby, who is the plaintiffs
attorney for these twenty two women, came out and said
as fully and this is a direct quote as fully anticipated,
(04:03):
and despite his lawyer's previous statements, Deshaun Watson's only defense
is to call these brave women liars. The weak and
vague allegations made in defendants response are demonstrably false. Watson
can't deny he sought out an unusually high number of
women for massages on Instagram. He doesn't. He doesn't deny
(04:25):
he insisted on being nude or nearly nude. He can't
deny the massage sessions occurred. He can't deny he wanted
more than a massage, and he hasn't credibly denied that
something bad happened during the session. He instead claims that
any sexual acts were consensual. Of course, his definition of
(04:46):
consent doesn't comport with that of everyone else. I have
faith that the court process will sort out the truth
as these matters progress. The problem for Deshaun Watson is
he doesn't gain anything by this process taking a long time.
(05:09):
And I gotta be honest with you. I don't understand
his legal defense at this point in time, because if
I were advising Deshaun Watson, this is me putting on
my lawyer hat I would tell him. Settle, Settle, settle.
You could have settled this for a hundred thousand dollars
when the first woman came to you, uh and said, hey,
(05:31):
I was mistreated, we would have never seen her story
go public. A hundred thousand dollars is a rounding air
to Deshaun Watson, who has a hundred and fifty six
million dollar contract extension that he just agreed to and
makes tens of millions of dollars elsewhere, probably through endorsements
(05:51):
and everything else at that point in time. So the
idea that you wouldn't have in the first place paid
a hundred thousand dollars to settle these cases. And let
me be honest with you, I understand if you feel
like you did nothing wrong, why you wouldn't want to
just give somebody a hundred thousand dollars. But the negative
(06:12):
publicity attendant with this first woman going public and saying
that you sexually assaulted her cost you more than a
hundred thousand dollars in the court of public opinion. So
I would have advised Deshaun Watson when this first woman
went public, I would have been like, hey, we need
to think about settling this case because she wanted a
hundred thousand dollars, she might have taken fifty, which is
(06:35):
nothing to Deshaun Watson. And then if this woman doesn't
go public, a lot of these other women probably wouldn't
go public either. And I would have said, if I
was Deshaun Watson's attorney, Hey, no more massages, dude. You
are putting yourself in a rough spot when you lock
a door, when you're behind a closed door with one
other woman, There's nothing good that can come out of
(06:57):
this from you. These are not therapeutic massage. Is Let's
stop pretending otherwise. You are interested in this being something
more than a therapeutic massage. You're a starting quarterback in
the NFL in a fabulous city in Houston, Texas. If
you want women, there's not hardly any man in America
who has access to more women than you do. This
(07:20):
idea that you're gonna be trying to meet them and
and engage in sexual activity through massages, then it's not
gonna work, buddy. You're just not gonna do that, all right.
So that's the advice that I would have given him
if I was a lawyer. And by the way, one
reason you pay lawyers is so they will tell you
things that might be uncomfortable. You gotta have you. Sometimes
(07:43):
hear lawyers say, hey, I gotta have a come to
Jesus meeting with my client. I'm gonna sit him down
and I'm gonna tell him what's up and the risk
that he's running. And if he doesn't take my advice,
that's fine. But I'm not in the yes man business.
Good lawyer isn't a yes man. A good lawyer challenges you.
He or she advises you the best decisions that you
(08:07):
can make. You don't need another yes man. If you
are a star athlete, there are tons of people out
there who will tell you exactly what they think you
want to hear. The more successful you become, the more
people who surround you telling you how awesome you are.
The chorus of your awesome becomes pretty extensive when there
(08:30):
are a lot of people who rely on you to
pay their bills. And so you need an a You
need a lawyer, you need an agent. You need somebody
just to to talk truth to you when a lot
of people want And so if I were Deshaun's Watson's
lawyer right now, I'm be saying this is an awful
road that you are going down. You are putting yourself
in a position where you're painting yourself into a corner.
(08:53):
You're calling all twenty two of these women liars. I
gotta be honest with you. I've never been in a
case where twenty two different women all told the same lie.
Maybe they are maybe Deshaun Watson is the victim here
and he's done absolutely nothing inappropriate, But twenty two different
women calling them liars. That's the exact opposite of what
you need to be doing. You need to be trying
(09:14):
to settle this case so you can get back to
playing football. Calling them liars is going to prolong this.
Making them put their names in the lawsuits, you are
creating abundant amounts of antagonism. And when two sides really
don't like each other in an adversarial process, sometimes people
stop making the smartest decision and start making the one
(09:37):
that's going to make the other side the angriest. This
is why in divorces you never wanted to drag into court,
because sooner or later people stopped making the rational decision
and they start making the choice that's designed to make
the other side the angriest and I think this is
going in a really awful direction for Deshaun Watson. I
(09:58):
don't understand his legal strategy. He needs to settle immediately,
even if it costs him tens of millions of dollars. Now,
he didn't need to call these women liars. He has
painted himself into an indefensible corner. This is outkicked the
coverage with Clay Travis joined now by a national champion
(10:19):
head coach, Scott Drew of Baylor University. And does that
get old to hear? And did you really ever believe
you would hear it? I know what you said. Does
it still feel a little bit like a surreal universe
that you hear that? Now? Coach, Well, it's only been
about two weeks, but I could get used to this.
(10:39):
So yeah, I love hearing that. And it's a great
it's a great honored recognition for the players and what
they were able to achieve. And as a coach, it's
kind of like a parent on Christmas Day when you
see your kids opening up a president. Everybody's excited. You're
happy and to see all Baylor Nation, Central Texas, Waco,
the state of Texas, only our second basket ball Championship,
(11:01):
the last one they did a movie on in ninet
So exciting time in Texas right now. Okay, So I
want to take you back before we go to the
national Championship game. When you took over in two thousand three,
we came on the day after you win the championship
and say, this is not just a remarkable story for basketball,
this is one of the all time accomplishments. I'm trying
(11:22):
to do it off the top of my head. I
knew all the data. You're probably know him better than me.
I think since nineteen fifty Baylor had been to the
n C Double A Tournament once. When you took over,
you were on probation. Obviously, Uh many people know about
the the awful incident, the murder that was involved in
(11:43):
Baylor basketball. Did you when you took over in two
thousand three, and I think it took you four years
to get to a winning record, did you ever have
doubts and think maybe this is not going to work.
Take me back to two thousand three, two thousand four,
two thousand five, two thousand six, before everything really starts
(12:04):
to get rolling and you started at least making the
n C Double A Tournament, yeah, great questions. So I
can equate this to anyone that's opened a new business
or restaurants, and you were so busy in the beginning
doing what you're doing, you're really not. You don't have
time to get too frustrated or upset because you're you're
you're moving on to the next issue or the next problem.
So with us, we get to campus and we only
(12:26):
have between five and seven scholarship players throughout the year
because academically, we had some guys out at different times.
So the first thing we had to do is go
all over campus and try to find at least a
half half a team full of walk ons that can
fill a roster. Now, talk about a great deal. Not
only could you walk home, but you actually could play.
So I mean that that that was pretty good. So
(12:47):
we have our opening tryout. We have a lot of
people show up and you know what, we walked out
of the gym. We're like, dang, here's some good looking athletes.
We've got some hYP We call everyone over and we asked,
all right, so what what you're your Baylor? Where do
you live? And all of a sudden, hand goes up
and says, wait a minute, you gotta go to school
if they were to be on the team. Yeah. So
hence people that drove down from Dallas, from the junior
(13:08):
colleges and all over Central Texas thinking they could be
on the team without going to school. Most of them left.
We were left with what's normal with the six foot
walk on and uh we filled out our roster that way.
That year, we actually won three conference games, did not
finish last, so it was it was a blessing. And
then the next year was really tough. It was more
of the rebuilding year because it was too late to
(13:30):
bring in the recruits because when we took over most
of them it already committed. And then the third year
was when the n t A actually took away our
non conference schedule, so that was when the penalties all
came down. So we just played a regular season. We're
the only school to ever do that. By the way,
if anyone ever then that, Yeah, I looked at your
at your coaching record, and I was like, what in
(13:52):
the world happened that year. I had to go back
and research it that you only played conference basketball. Yeah.
So so if anyone's in that situation, we're the only
ones with the experience so we can help you with that.
But I can tell you what was so hard with
that is imagine practicing all the way from August until
January basically, and then when you play, you're expecting to
(14:13):
have this success and then you're terrible because it's kind
of like a freeway, you know, in Texas Speed Women
seventy five, everybody's zooming and now you're getting on the
ramp at conference play and you're going fifties sixty trying
to catch up. So that was a tough year. And
then the next year with What's What's amazing? Five years later,
you make the n c A Tournament And that was
(14:35):
the story in itself because we were the last team called.
So we had a big celebration party. The Ferrell Centers
packed on the floor, so we got all these people
here and we get through the whole bracket and they're
down to one team to be called. And I never,
in my wildest dreams, thought we weren't gonna be called because, uh,
Joe Nardi said we were in. You know what if
he says you're in, you're in, right, Yeah, So Joey
(14:56):
Brackett says we're good, and all of a sudden you're thinking,
if they don't call us what we telling everybody, and
then we're the last name called the place erupts. We
gained the n c A tournament, then we go to
two Elite eight twelve and God's plans always perfect because
I'd have had to go to the final four then.
But you know, then you don't appreciate it as much,
and you know, and you and you don't realize what
(15:17):
a blessing it is when you do make it to
a final four. And then obviously we won the national
championship this year. What does it feel like to lose
an Elite eight game? Well, not only is it tough
to lose, but then you gotta watch that team cut down,
nets celebrate, and in both instances for Us and Duke
ended up winning the national championship and in Kentucky won
(15:39):
it in twelve. So you're sitting there thinking, man, we
could have won a national championship and that that that
that and and when you get like you make it
to the sweet sixth team, you have a full week
to enjoy it, and you get a lot of media attention.
When you make it to the final four, you have
a full week to enjoy it. And a lot of
media attention. So losing the Elite eight is really hard
(16:00):
because you know, most most most college coaches, their goal
and dream is always to be in the final For
most players, their dream is to be in the final four,
to be that close and not get there. And that's
why when we got there this year, it was that
much more of a a blessing because our staff realized
how hard it is to get there. When did you
start to realize and make recruits aware of Baylor as
(16:25):
a viable option? So I know you you mentioned early
on you're not even able to get the probation, You're
not able to play and out of conference. When was
was there a moment when you went into a home
or you talked to some recruits and you started thinking, Okay,
we're starting to get a little bit of momentum. People
know that we're a player on a relatively high level.
(16:46):
Was there a moment like we're it kind of shifted
for you because you talked about it's like starting a business,
and it's so hard initially because and and there are
a lot of people I'm sure listening to us who
know what that's like because there's so many things that
you're trying to fix simultaneously that you don't really have
the time to be like, hey, here's my five year plan,
here's my three year player. I just gotta get through today.
I gotta get through this week. When when do you
(17:09):
start being able to plan and build and think, Okay,
we're starting to get a little bit of a foundation
and recruits are becoming aware of us. Well. We we
were able to attract some good recruits early on. Aaron
Bruce from Australia was a freshman All American. Mama Dugian
was a seventh footer from from Senegal and he was
(17:29):
our first recruit. But really it was that year, that
third year when we brought in uh Curtis Geralds from
Austin who was highly touted, and then Henry do Got
from Houston that was highly tut and Kevin Rogers from
Dallas that was highly touted. So you get three recruits
across the state that are all name recognized, U worthy
and and and high level players to where wait a minute,
(17:51):
they're going to Baylor. So if they're going to Baylor,
I need to consider Baylor. And that recruiting class in
the state of Texas kind of got us going, and
then we brought in our first McDonald's All American in
Tweetie Carter, and then from there the program kind of
just grew because since two thousand and eight, only Kansas
and US in the Power of Five have won eighteen
or more games a year, and in the last five
(18:14):
years only US, Kansas, Duke, and Gonzaga have been ranked
in the top have been ranked number one three of
the last five seasons or more so, we've we've had
success as two thousand and eight, We've had elite success
UH in the last couple of years, and we're the
winning team in the Power of Five in the last
two years. A lot of success, and obviously COVID didn't
(18:35):
allow us to have a chance to go to a
Final four last year or play in the NBA Tournament,
which made everybody appreciated that much more. This year, you
won the national championship this year. Would you consider this
to be your best coaching job or do you think
one of those other years where you didn't have the
same success at the end of the season was your
best coaching job. That's another great question. What I would
(18:58):
tell you is we ask our play years to improve
every year and I'm hoping our coaching staff does the
same thing. So hopefully I'm better now than I was
several years ago, and hopefully next year I'm better than
I was this year. So I don't know if that's
true or not, but that's the goal. If you could
go back to two thousand three and talk to yourself,
(19:19):
what do you think you know it to that extent,
you're getting a little bit better, hopefully every year at
what you do. And I imagine a lot of people
out there listening to us right now try to do
that in their own profession. What do you think would
have been the most interesting and helpful bit of advice
you could have given yourself in two thousand three that
you had no clue about now, but you have come
to learn in the ensuing eighteen years. Man, You're you're
(19:44):
asking some deep questions today. I would probably, first of all,
First of all, I would have probably said, enjoy having
here because it's gonna come out real quick in the
next couple of years. That's number one, all right. Uh.
The other thing is uh uh um. As we get older,
like really speeds up, and and I would I looking back,
(20:04):
I wish I'd spend a little more time with my
kids when they were little, to be honest, and yeah,
you spend so much time working, and you spend so
much time trying to build a program. And next thing
you know, Um, I got a seventeen year old, a
thirteen year old, and a ten year old. My wife
has done an amazing job because she's been there most
of the time when I've been traveling and gone. But uh,
(20:25):
probably probably enjoyed that time a little bit more. And
I would probably scheduled a little bigger break during Christmas
time so that you could spend a little more time
with the family. Uh. That that that's something I mean,
that's that's good advice, I think for a lot of
people with young kids. In fact, I'm coaching, uh and
have been coaching a lot with kids. And it's interesting
because as you get older, the college kids seem younger. Right.
(20:48):
I'm sure when you started coaching in two thousand three
you felt a little bit more like a contemporary to him.
Now you just said you got a seventeen year old.
I'm sure you look at them very much as your
own kids, and so I'm cure is from a coaching perspective,
basque college basketball season is extremely long this year with COVID,
it was even more crazy than it ordinarily would be.
(21:09):
How do you balance out when to go hard on them,
when to go soft on them? And in particular, when
you were dealing with the COVID shutdown, you guys had
and you had to miss some games, and then you
came back and you weren't necessarily playing at your peak level.
How do you hit the right note to get them
playing at a peak level by the time the tournament
comes around? Well, so, so is it art or science
(21:32):
in your mind? I guess from a coaching perspective, Well,
some of it is your feel and some of it
is your experience on your team. Like with us, this
was a player led team. We had a lot of
experienced players that were veterans, that were that were professionals,
And what I mean by that is they came into
the gym and they wanted to get better, they wanted
to be pushed. Other times, you have a more inexperienced
(21:54):
team that are more your freshman and sophomores, and there
you tend to have less consistent to so you have
more ups and downs, and there you gotta you gotta
keep them fresher because the grind of the season will
wear them out a lot quicker than the three year
old who's used to it. Uh. So with with with
with us, I can tell you that I'm energetic, our
(22:16):
staff's energetic. We wanted to when you come into the gym,
you're excited to be in the gym, not oh gosh,
I gotta get I gotta get uh yelled at for
the next two or three hours today. We want guys
that want to come in the gym, they want to
get better. And at the same time, we try to
make it fun because we spend most of our time
with him in the gym. So uh. As far as
(22:36):
when you're hard on them when you're not, I think
it's it's a consistency they want and um with us,
I mean when they when they screw up, we're gonna
hold them accountable. But it's not a demeaning thing. It's
a corrective thing that they should want to get better.
And the accountability parts really more than anything, because with
this generation, it's not telling them what you know, it's
(22:57):
telling them why they need to know it, because is
if they understand the importance of it, they're going to
do it. And sometimes as coaches, we just think you
tell them to do this, and they got to do
this without explaining why they got to do it. So
we're constantly trying to remind ourselves to explain the why
so they can buy in with it. We're talking to
Baylor men's basketball coach Scott Drew, now a national champion coach.
(23:21):
Last year, when suddenly the rug gets pulled out from
underneath your team, you had a really good team last
year too, What did that feel like for your team
when suddenly the n c Double A Tournament is no more? Well,
I tell you, the coaches I talked to all had
the same feeling, and that is you think about it,
(23:43):
Most college kids aren't going to be in the NBA.
Most college kids spend most of their uh young life
working for an opportunity to reach the top of the platform.
And that is the pinnacle is the n c A Tournament.
And like for our seniors Freddie Speed that didn't get
a chance, DeVante Bandeux who didn't get a chance, we
(24:04):
had to walk on open that didn't get a chance
to play in it. I mean that your heart goes
out to him. Is one of the toughest things that
us coaches had to do UH saying that there is
no n c A tournament now the blessing for us.
Most of our guys came back and they all remembered
that feeling of not having an opportunity last year, so
we were all that much more excited for this year.
(24:25):
And that's why we couldn't thank the n c A
enough for having the bubble and making it a safe
environment which we could play the nt A Tournament and
I know the restrictions or not what everyone's used to,
but we were just so excited to be in the
bubble and wanted to stay in the bubble and be
a part of March Bradness because when we didn't have
the opportunity the year before, we really were blessed and
(24:47):
an appreciative of it this year. And again this is
a memory that lasts a lifetime, and especially for a
lot of a lot of people that this is the
end of their basketball career because most people don't play
professional basketball. We're talking to Baylor national champion coach Scott Drew.
So when you finish UH and beat Houston and you
have a forty eight hour window basically to turn around
(25:09):
and get ready for the National Championship Game. Did you
watch the game between Gonzaga and U c l A.
Were you scouting it? What is I'm fascinated by that window,
that quick turnaround. Had you already scouted everything else during
the course of that week, so you didn't really have
much to do. You win, you know you're in the
National Championship Game. Your life looks like what for the
(25:32):
next forty eight hours? So we first of all, most stabs,
you break down and one coach will have the team
you're playing as a scout, and then the other two
coaches will take one will take up UH U c
l A, one will take Gonzaga, and then once the
once you know who's you're playing, well that that person
has most of the scout done, maybe of it done,
(25:55):
and then they add what they saw in the last
uh game played. With me, what I say to do
is like synergy breaks everything down. You can watch him
against zone, you can watch him against man, the press
off and press defense. And to me, I'm not gonna
waste time watching the game live because there's too many
interruptions and it takes too long. So right away you're looking,
you're you're you're starting to focus on your team first,
(26:18):
so I wanted to watch our game versus Houston, see
where we could get better, how we could improve, and
then once I knew who we were playing, then start
to start to watch all those breakdowns and then watch
the last game they played, because obviously you can pass
forward all the dead periods, so now it becomes a
forty minute game instead of a two hour game. And
(26:38):
when you're when you have a small window, it's important
not to waste time. So how nervous are you and
what would you uh say of your team's overall perspective
and persona as you walk out and get ready to
play on that Monday. Well, it's different in the bubble
from the standpoint when you when you go to a
(27:01):
game and there's only ten percent, it's nothing like when
there's a hundred percent and fans are all over and
and so much louder. By that time of the year,
we had actually gotten pretty used to being in venues
that we're ten percent full or full, So it was
a lot easier to keep your players attention because normally
(27:23):
in an NTA tournament, you play two rounds, you come
back to campus. Campus is going crazy. Everybody's trying to
congratulate them, and then you're you're not able to practice
as much because you're traveling, so that affects your time
to practice. Where when you're in the bubble, I mean,
you come back and how you celebrate it. You go
to the team room with with with your team. So
(27:44):
it's real simple. You you get up the next day,
you watch the film, you get ready for practice, and
you can you can really uhuh keep their attention and
you're able to really do a lot more. So you're
you're not overwhelmed by the National Championship game as you
might yea, I guess in a normal situation with us, uh,
we we had we had we were set to play
(28:05):
Gonzaga on December five, had so much respect for coach
Fu and his team, and then that game got uh
canceled and we were disappointed at that time because it
was one verse two. But you know what, God had
a better plan and he said, we ain't gonna do
this on December fifth, We're gonna do this on April five.
And coach you and I agree. We said, if we
meet back here and make this game on April fifth,
(28:25):
we are good with that. And and that's what that's
what ended up happened, and they had an unbelievable season
and coach fuse the Hall of Fame coach does a
tremendous job. But I know, I know, we had a
bunch of guys that are competitors and they want to
play against the best, so they were excited to play
against Gonzaga. How did you, I know you celebrated with
your team you're in Indianapolis. I saw the footage of
(28:46):
everything that happened on Baylor. I guess they were out
on the football field, storming the football field and everything else,
having an incredible time watching you guys play. What was
it like to finally returned to campus having won the
national championship? As you mentioned, you guys were in the
bubble at Indianapolis, And what has it been like in
the state of Texas since you returned. So so the
(29:07):
game finishes, we're able to see our families and that
that was such a blessing because for the last three
or four weeks we hadn't been able to since we
got to Indianapolis, and actually in the Big Twelve tournament,
we're in a bubble, so not able to give hugs
and in into here a little ones but uh. Once
once the game was over, you spent time with family,
and after about three or four in the morning, you
(29:28):
go back to your hotel room, and then you got
your thousand plus text messages and right away you start
to try to answer those. And then the next thing is,
you got the morning shows, So why would you fall
asleep for thirty minutes an hour. You know, you haven't
pulled it all at either since you were thirty years
ago in college, so you might as well stay away now.
So then then you uh uh finished that in the
(29:49):
morning shows, and then you leave to come back you land,
there's a big gathering at the airport for you. You're
excited about that. You go home. You crashed that night,
and then uh and then and then ever since then
you get up and you have opportunities and talk to
great people like you and your show and everybody else
(30:09):
across America and brag about your guys. And it doesn't
get much better than that, because what they achieved this
year is remarkable and special. First championship in Baylor history,
and like you said, first Big Twelve championship since nineteen
first Final four since uh nineteen fifty. Well, Baylor men's
basketball coach National champion Scott Drew. I know how busy
(30:32):
you have been, coach. I appreciate you coming on with
us early this morning, and we look forward to talking
to you again somewhere down the line. Sounds great. Take care,
Thank you for all you do. This is Outkicked the
Coverage with Plates Raffits, Hay and gottlie The podcast is
called All Ball. We usually talk all basketball all the time,
(30:55):
but it's more about the stories about what made these
people love their sport and all the interesting interactions along
the way. We talked to coaches, we talked to players,
We tell you stories. You download it, you listen to it.
I think you like it. Listen to All Ball with
Doug Gotlieb on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
(31:16):
or ever you get your podcast. This is Outkicked the
Coverage with Clay Travis John. You may or may not
have heard any of that as you were getting ready
to come on, but I want to start there because
I think you're a decent soccer fan and this idea
(31:38):
of the Super League, which has provoked all sorts of
consternation uh through Europe with all of the big soccer
teams coming together, and I was trying to analogize because
I know some people who listen to me pay attention
to high level soccer, and probably the fief of video
game has helped. Certainly, my kids play that game. I
know a lot of kids play. The amount of nolage
(32:00):
of euro uh is is pretty good. And so as
that gets broken down and you think about where it
is headed going forward, I just think the college football
analogy is an interesting one. You're there in ann Arbor,
and so you would understand that a little bit. I
think of of what that might look like if suddenly
(32:22):
Ohio State and UH and Michigan, who are the straw
that starts the drink in the Big ten for sure,
decided to align themselves with the major powers of the SEC,
the A C C, the Pack twelve, and the Big twelve,
and you ended up with a totally different league where
those schools will make a ton more money and it
could potentially be the twenty five or thirty who knows
(32:44):
biggest programs out there. It's the fascinating concept. Clay, I
am not a fan of the Super League. I'll say
that out out the front. To me, I love the
tradition of of the domestic leagues, and I think the
Champions League is a great competition, So to change that
and alter that as a soccer fan, I don't like it.
(33:05):
I understand why it's happening. I don't like what it
would do to the overall domestic product in in each
respective country. And from a standpoint of college football, you're right,
and I heard what you said. It was fascinating the
way that you laid it out. But to me, the
one key difference between what the clubs in Europe are
doing with soccer and and what Michigan, Ohio State theoretically
(33:28):
could do in concert with a Texas in a Florida
and Alabama is in every other sport, you are still
relying on on those local teams in your local conference
regionally speaking to your competition for every other sport, the
Olympic sports, for example. And so that's where the complexity
comes in to turn around and say, listen, we're not
(33:49):
going to play you anymore in football, but by the way,
how does this day look for our men's soccer game?
And to be fair, for the Euros, they're not saying
they wouldn't play still the English Premier League, for instance,
it would still exist. It would just create even more
of a half and a have not scenario, because all
of these big programs would have so much more money
(34:11):
to spend on talent that arguably the top to bottom
the parity to the extent there is any now would
be very difficult to have in an English Premier League
like Leicester City coming out of nowhere in the e
p L and winning at such abnormally insane odds would
become even less likely than it already was. Exactly right, Clay,
(34:32):
that's very well said. And the other part of it
would be if the Super League exists, and who knows
when or even if it will actually come to pass.
Obviously there's a lot of legalities in different countries involved
in who has a jurisdiction over what can actually happen,
a lot of different layers to this, but whatever it
comes into being, if it does, you would imagine that
(34:52):
if if an elite team like Juventus for example, is
playing a Super League game in the middle of the week,
are they going to run out there j V lineup
for the league game on a Saturday or a Sunday,
which again waters down and diminishes the product domestically, and
there's diminished interest in it from a standpoint of television broadcasts.
There are so many layers to this, but in general,
(35:14):
for me Clay, top to bottom, it hurts the overall
foundation of the product in your in your country. It's
almost as if they're trying to superimpose what would be
a hyper accelerated American type league on top of the
existing European infrastructure, which is generations old, and you're not
doing the top that you're not doing a full thorough
(35:36):
reboot of the system. You're just putting this new competition
on top. And I think, to use the analogy, it
would just create too much stress on the foundation of
the league's and and there would be a tremendous negative
trickle down effect on the quality of place throughout the
ability of those countries and developed players going forward. Yeah,
and it is just really I mean, interestingly, you cover
(35:58):
a lot of different sports, NHL and Major League Baseball
among them, but this is one of the arguments that
it's been made major League Baseball for a long time
where there's no salary cap and where theory theoretically, the
Yankees can come out and pay a level of of
salary that the Tampa Bay Rays for example, would never
be able to compete with even though they're both competing
(36:19):
in the same division, and the Yankees haven't had the
same level of success that you would expect, which kind
of goes to the point of, you know, money isn't
everything in terms of developing overall talent from top to bottom,
and it's really just fascinating. And obviously Billy Bean and
moneyball uh really brought that to bear. I think kind
(36:40):
of started what we maybe say is the analytics revolution.
Uh So, so I think it's uh, it's it's really interesting,
it is and I think to Clay one of the
more unique phenomena that have existed in baseball in recent
years has been you will have in the playoffs a
team that is a revenue share ring pay or so
(37:01):
a team with big revenues that's paying into the program
will play a recipient of revenue sharing in the postseason
and sometimes lose. So it's a team that's paying into
the system will lose to a team that is receiving
money from the system. And again, this really strikes at
the fundamental concept of what we want to see from
(37:22):
our sports leagues. Do do we believe it's healthy for
to use the example baseball in our country to have
two or three elite teams and then a bunch of
other teams that are not as competitive. Uh, is that
the optal way that to build the super team? If
you will or do you want to see hope and
excitement and as many markets as possible where you have
(37:44):
fans engaged in medium and small markets. We've seen strong
starts by Milwaukee and Cincinnati. Then they're the nine and
thirty media markets in Major League Baseball right now. If
you were to use the super league mentality on in baseball,
would those cities even have hope? And doesn't matter to
the fabric of the game that there is hope in
(38:06):
those cities? I would say yes, it does matter, And
I think that really just strikes to what you want
for the best interest of the sport and growing in
your country, for it to be long term. And now
we're seeing all these different issues. Will these players who
are in the Super League even be able to play
in the World Cup and then the European Cup? These
are huge honors for those players. And then soccer is
the one is one of the handful of sports play
(38:28):
where it's the inverse of the way that we look
at sports in this country, which is we look at
the club over the country. For the most part, we
care about the NBA team over the Olympics, let's say.
But it's not that way in soccer, where your country
is the pre eminent one, and I think that creates
a lot of really unique decisions for players going forward. Okay,
so we've broken that down in that universe. The reason
(38:49):
why I wanted to have you on this Tuesday was
because I don't remember this happening in April. And maybe
it's partly because the NBA playoffs haven't started. The NHL
playoffs haven't started either, But the amount of attention on
this Dodgers Padre series I thought was fantastic for Major
League Baseball. Certainly it captivated southern California, but it felt
like many other parts of the nation were discussing it
(39:11):
as well. What you stood out from this series? Is
there anything we can glean going forward? And would you
agree that this is a rarity, a Major League Baseball
April series that felt like, in many ways the center
part of the sports calendar very well, said Clay, Because
I agree with that. Over the weekend you'd look and
it was the trending topic on Twitter often was baseball
(39:34):
was the Padres, was the Dodgers, the David Price delivering
a mookie best delivering Nashville and Nashville by the way,
a couple of times of the Dodges over the weekend
and the Padres answering back on Sunday. Just some really
unique moments. And you had Jake cronin Worth, normally an
infielder pitching for the Padres on Friday, and then incredible
extra inning game, and so you had a lot of heroes.
(39:54):
Clayton Kershaw looking like his vintage self. Little controversy there
with Jerks and Profile and Kershaw I love did I
loved it as a fan of the game. Uh that
There was just an announcement Monday from MLB about how
many people have been streaming Broadcaster in the course of
the first few weeks of the season, basically a record
setting amount of time on on streaming services over the
first few weeks of the season. So some really encouraging
(40:16):
data points about just the engagement of fans with baseball
and this rivalry. Clay I was thinking about this over
the weekend. The reason why it's so special. You've got
the proximity geographically. You have a fun storyline that we
can all relate to of the defending champions, the iconic
Brandon Baseball, the Dodgers, and then their neighbors to the
south from the smaller city who have never won the
(40:38):
World Series before, trying to prove themselves. So you instantly
have an attachment to one or the other just based
on the contours of the story. And then we have
interesting characters. You've got Tatis coming back from injury. You've
got Machado who has been a hero and villain at
different times in his career. Blake Snell who was taken
out of the game uh in the World Series by
the Rays, traded over to San Diego. You got you Darvish,
(41:00):
who has had an incredible career in so many ways.
These are bona fide superstars for different reasons, and they're
all on the San Diego side. And then with the Dodgers,
we know that team so well from seeing them so
often in the playoffs, so it's a really unique, identifiable story.
They play nineteen times this year, Clay, and I'm I'm
excited with you the fact that we are seeing in
April baseball carrying the day, from a standpoint of conversation,
(41:24):
is really healthy. I think the Dodgers still have the
edge on San Diego, but it was as much as
any April game can be clay for a team that
that probably is gonna make the playoffs. Anyway, that was
a must win for the Padres. They got it on Sunday,
they sent a message and now we can't wait there
back at it on Thursday already in Los Angeles. So
big picture here for Major League Baseball, it has been
(41:47):
a challenge to find great storylines that are big enough
to captivate outside of regional audiences. You just ran through
a bunch of these big names, and why in your
mind that is happening. Is it some thing that can
be sustained, this rivalry, this thing people care about given
how long the regular season is in Major League Baseball.
(42:08):
Sure it can be. And we've seen it in the past,
where I go back to the Red Sox and Yankees
and in OH three and O four, and I was
finishing up university in Boston at the time, and so
I was living that every day and every time they
played it was like a playoff game. It could be April,
and it felt that way. And it's a lot. It's
asking a lot of a younger rivalry quote unquote to
(42:29):
add up to a centuries worth of history like he
had with the Red Sox and Yankees. But I also
think that we are at a time, Clay where years
ago you would have never said the Golden State Warriors
are going to be a marquee brand in the NBA.
Things can happen quickly, and I think it's happening quickly
right now with the Padres. They are there on the map,
they have identifiable stars. We need we as baseball fans
(42:51):
people around the country, we need Tatis to be healthy
and himself, and I'm not sold on that being the
case yet. Uh. Yes, he had a homewarn over the weekend,
but the overall swings don't look as comfortable as you
would expect them to be, so I'm a little concerned
about his health overall. But this is a this is
a team in the Podres that they're around to stay.
They've got a very good organization. A. J. Pather has
(43:12):
done a great job of developing the farm system, so
there's a good model there for them to be a
very quality team for a long time. The Dodgers have
a chance to chase some history, maybe be one of
the best Dodger teams ever with how good they are,
so the rivalries there, the storyline is there. We just
need the Podres, I think, to to make a stronger
(43:32):
statements as the year goes along about how competitive they
can be for to truly take root as a great
American sports rivalry. Last couple of questions here for you.
Right now, the Red Sox have the best record in
the a L and the biggest run differential. That's a surprise,
especially given where they started the season. Is that sustainable
(43:54):
in your mind for them? A great question, because I
don't think that they are a playoff team. I did
not think that during spring training. That being said, they've
got a couple of guys who are hitting incredibly well
right now. J D. Martinez, who we've seen be an
m v P caliber player in the past, and Xander
Bogart who has that potential as well. Christian Basket is
(44:15):
very good behind the plate. Christian Arroyo has come up
and it really been a surprise to them at second base.
But the question for the Red Sox is and will
always be pitching. And they've gotten Nadany Evaldi off to
a good start. He's healthy. Nick Pavetta, who they got
in the trade from the Phillies, really has I think
impressed and surprised some people. And Arter Rodriguez coming back.
Of course, he didn't pitch last year due to COVID reasons.
(44:37):
So that group of three Evaldi, Pavetta, and Rodriguez has
to be exceptional for them to have a chance and
really making this a special season. I'm still dubious about
this whole idea. But the one thing I'll say, Clay,
and why the Red Sox have a better chance than
I thought they did three weeks ago, is the Yankees
look bad. Yeah, yeah, And I think that there are
(45:01):
reasons to be nervous if you're the Yankees. They looked
at it. I was looking at the numbers over the weekend, Clay.
They're the worst hitting team in the American League East
against fastballs this year. And if you can get basketballs
in the major leagues, I'm not sure how much success
you're gonna have. And and they've got some name brand
hitters who are struggling right now, and they're older guys.
(45:22):
And so when you have hitters who are older who
are not playing well, you start to wonder is it
gonna come back all the way this year? What's happening?
And they may be a team that's gotten older more
quickly than we expected them too. And if they're gonna
be a mediocre team, the Jay's have been okay, they're
missing George Springer as well. But if the Yankees are
(45:43):
okay too bad, and if the Rays are just okay,
then there's enough wins there in the Al East for
the Red Sox to have a much more competitive season
than we thought. Whereas the Yankees. I still think lay
not that we want to overreact to the Yankees, because
that sometimes happens earlier in the season, but this team
looks a little old to me, and if I'm the Yankees,
I'm worried about that. Good stuff is always, John Morossy,
(46:03):
we will talk to you hopefully next week. Appreciate the
time and look forward to it. Sounds Frink Clay. Maybe
if Michigan plays the Wild State in the Super League,
they can actually win. Everything about that. My wife would
be happy if that finally happened. I know you would
be too, Michigan, as good stuff is always my man,
be sure to catch live editions about Kicked. The coverage
with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three
(46:26):
am Pacific is none other than Petro's Papadas at the
old P five seventy a m l A Sports. He
is with us now. He's part of the successful, wildly successful,
even Petros and Money show, Petro's How's he shaking? How
you doing? Everything's going all right? I love to hear
about my wild success. It's freaking wild. Uh, but yeah,
(46:49):
thanks for having me. Um, we got a bunch to
dive into. Well, you've been talking about during the course
of today's show. So do you know anything at all
about Europeans soccer? Yeah, a little bit, like in what
way like you watch it? I mean I can name
the teams that are really big time, the Champions League
(47:10):
type of teams, the ones that win it. And I
can kind of locate some Greek teams for you if
you need me to. So, were you intrigued by the
story that I know the difference between Conka calf and
the euro Cup. Yes, so we're good. I mean I
(47:33):
think that's fairly I mean that's better than the average
person I think listening to us right now when it
comes that actually probably makes you a soccer expert relative
and I have read with I stood with thousands of
Croatians on Ninth Street in San Pedro at the Croatian
Hall during one of the World Cup Games when they
started to really advance and enjoyed. That is a big
(47:56):
Croatian community down in San Pedro community. Yeah. Yeah, there's
also like the biggest party with Italy one maybe eight
years before that or something, the biggest party Italian party
in America was in Sampedro. Uh So we have a
lot of ethnic types, you know. I've heard that Croatia
(48:19):
is one of the most fun countries to visit. It's beautiful.
Have you haven't been to Croatia? Have you? No? But
it's very close to Greece, but it's always kind of
hard to get up there from Greece, and I've always
kind of wanted an effort up there. Of course, a
lot of people now go to what is it to
Bronick the Game of Thrones, But all those islands like
(48:45):
split and I mean, I don't know if that's an island,
but those different coastal places around Croatia I heard are
not only inexpensive, but I'd also like to visit Mount
love Chin, which is the Black Mountain in Montenegro overlooking
the Adriatic. See. Uh, that's another interesting European I'd like
(49:07):
to travel over those places. I like to travel. I
haven't been any of those places, but I've heard it's
pretty awesome. So we have been talking about this super
league that they are talking about in the euro UH circuit,
you know, in Italy and France and Spain and England
and in UH Germany, the idea of taking the best
(49:28):
of those teams, putting them all together into sort of
the super League of soccer. And we've been going through
and we were like, hey, what if you had to
make a because college football is probably the most similar
to euro soccer, right, and I think you'll kind of
appreciate it in that it's one of our last route nots. Yeah,
and also it's one of our last really regional sports,
(49:50):
right where you have five major conferences and people really
fight over how good the sports are in their conference,
and you know, like nobody really argues over the NFL
or NBA or Major League Baseball or certainly the NHL
very much. Maybe a little bit of Canadian talk in
the NHL, but by and large. It's like, oh, this
is one big pro sports league and the teams that
(50:11):
are good can vary, but it's not like it's a
regional related battle. Does that make sense? Yes, very much so, um,
whereas in college football it is very much still a
regional battle. So well, you worry about the health of
college football in Middle America, the health of college football
in the West, the health in the South. Uh, it's
(50:31):
almost without Penn State and Boston College, Rutgers, you know,
with SIANO, like the Eastern Seaboard, do you worry about
the sport? I understand exactly what you're saying. And in
a lot like the European soccer kind of vibe, you
have the like, well, just let's look at the Big
(50:51):
ten YEP as a model. I mean, you have three
entities on the very top up Ohio State and Michigan,
and then secondarily Penn State, and then below that Wisconsin
and then Nebraska somewhere in there with all their lore
(51:12):
of yesteryear, and like, those are the teams that would
be going into That's right. So that's what we did.
I was going to read you the list. So I
came up with the idea like, hey, if we were
going to have a twenty team super league in college football.
Let's pretend it's possible. Again, people who are waking up,
I'm not in favor of this. I do not believe
(51:35):
it would be good for college football. I don't also
think it's going to happen necessarily. But these would be
the twenty that I would draft. And I'm curious what
you think about it. Um, Okay, I'll start in the
area that you know the best. I'll let you start.
How many teams do you think in the pact twelve
would be worthy if we're taking the twenty biggest college
(51:55):
football program. Listen, now, we also need to make it
regionally balanced so you can get your viewership. It's not
all just the best twenty Clay, Come on now. College
football Championship was USC to Auburn. Well, USC Texas, but
that was But you know what I mean, No, I agree?
(52:19):
So so which so which teams would you pick in
the pack twelve and say these guys need to be
in there? Well, you need l a need and then
you need Oregon because the Nike. If you need Washington
and Gallen Stanford. I mean, there's a lot of lore there.
(52:40):
Old timey college football lore. Pop Warner coached at Cal.
Jim Plunkett won a Heisman at Stanford. Let alone alway
plan there. I think you need the utes. You need
the utes in the top twenty. So here's my list.
(53:01):
Do you think about it, and you tell me who
you think I'm leaving out? All right, I'll start pack twelve.
I've got sc Oregon, Washington. I don't think you need
s U C. L A. But that's you can make.
There's two NFL teams in l A. You idiot, you
can make that argument. All right, I'll let you make
the argument at the end. You you keep in mind
who you're work before. What is this a courtroom? You've got?
(53:23):
This super league has griven you mad with power? Uh
Notre Dame. Notre Dame is the only independent school. Uh
A c C. I have got UM, Clemson, Florida State,
and Miami In the Big Ten. I've got Michigan, Ohio State,
Penn State. I put Wisconsin in. But you hit on
(53:47):
the battle I think in the Big Ten between Wisconsin
and Nebraska. Right, do you pick current? You got teams
in the Big Ten? Put Nebraska all right? If Nebraska
goes in, you got to put Kentucky. No, no, I'm not. No,
I'm not in the Big twelve. The only two schools
I have are Texas and Oklahoma, UM and which is
(54:11):
totally turning our back on Iowa and Iowa state. That's correct,
not you, not you, You are fighting for the Iowa.
What is Iowa? What is there? Like Moniker the Hawky No,
I know that Iowa is the cyclones Is Iowa state?
I'm saying like states like Georgia is the Peach State. Uh,
(54:31):
you know, Nebraska is the corn Husker State. Like what
is Iowa known as? Is it like fat the fat
white guy state? Dubed? Look up what the slogan? Like
Tennessee is the volunteer state. The state is called the
Hawky State. I don't know they have the cy Hawk Trophy.
But I'm just saying, like what is you know, like
the area like like what I'm just I'm just trying
(54:54):
to be trying to be fair here, Like Texas is
the lone Star state, Florida is the Sunshine State. Where
of the peak state here in California, you guys are
the Golden state. They are the Hawkeye state? Is the
Hawkeye State? You're right, but they're just disrespecting. No wonder
Iowa state people feel so disrespected. I'm about to wake
up my family and play the Iowa. This is the anthem,
(55:16):
the song of Iowa. Do you hear it? I'm listening.
This is it. This is what they play at the
sy Hawk game. Iowa, Oh, Iowa. All right? You know
the only time I've been to I know you've been
to Iowa bunch, because you've covered a bunch of those
(55:37):
games over the years. Few times and names and a
couple and one in Iowa City and it was thrilling,
both of them. I've heard. It's pretty cool. I And
the only time I've been to Iowa is when I
flew into Omaha for the College World Series. From the
Omaha Airport, you drive to Iowa before you get back
to Omaha. The only time I've ever been, uh and
(55:59):
I've I've done that too, because I've been to Omaha
as well. I don't know how the geography is such
that you go from Nebraska to Iowa back to Nebraska
in order to drive from the Omaha Airport to the
College World Series, but that on that part of the country,
you know, wrestling, there's a big deal there and well
you're the one who said Nebraska didn't belong. I didn't
(56:21):
say they didn't. You did you said you? Oh wait,
you did say? Okay that SEC. I have Alabama, Auburn,
Texas A and m L s U Florida Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn. Yeah,
Texas A and m L s U uh Florida, Georgia Tennessee.
(56:43):
Take Tennessee out. I think it'd be hard to take
Tennessee out. They just won a national championship twenty years ago.
Second winning is program all time in the SEC, behind Alabama.
C L A had a twenty game win streak twenty
years ago. Yeah, but they're not on the same level
as Tennessee. They're not. No, Tennessee ain't been that good.
We haven't been that good in a long time. There's
(57:04):
no doubt about that. I mean, you put Tennessee in
because you're I mean, who cares about Knoxville. You don't
need that market, No, you need the best program. Look,
look here is that here in the revenue numbers, Tennessee's
Athletic department in terms of interest in size A hundred
and forty three million dollars hundred and forty four million
(57:25):
dollars in revenue. You know, why don't you throw Why
don't you throw? Vandy Um there too? You U c
l A hundred and eight million Tennessee's Athletic Department dwarfs
U c l a's man, do you Rocky Top down
in the Tennessee. It's a great song. It's one of
the great fight songs of all times. Uh, you're okay,
(57:47):
you're tossing Tennessee out. That's Tennessee's out. I'm tossing Tennessee
out and putting in some undeserving West Coast team. Here
we go. Yeah, it's great. It's great song. I'm gonna
be up there this weekend. This is the greatest. I
(58:07):
think it's the best fight song in all the area.
What is a better fight song than Rocky Top? It
could be played good question, that could be played in
like a bar setting, and everybody would immediately feel better, right.
I mean, look, you know that I'm not like a
big you know, USC probably wouldn't be very sad if
(58:31):
I fell off, yes, I don't know, onto a train
and rust run over by a train like the guy
in Warriors. You know, but I will say this, you know,
if you get to have Tennessee and your fake top twenty,
then not the usc fight song, but the tribute to Troy.
The fanfare. Part of the usc UH kind of band
(58:54):
deal is what play it? To play it for me
right now? Yeah, I'm gonna play it. And uh, and
this is what they line up from the go ahead.
This is great. Now. I was going to say, I
think Hell to the Victors would have to be in
therean song is pretty incredible. Every high school plays it,
for God's sake, but uh, this one, I mean, just
(59:16):
play at usc which is unique, I guess. But they
line up from the fifty yard line all the way
to the back of the end zone, the band with
the drums in front, and while you're warming up, they
play this. Ready wait, it's not planning. Okay, hold on,
I got it. Are you ready? Yes? All right? Hear
(59:41):
the crowd. Yes, that's the guy. The p A guy,
c A guy is still going. And then the drums.
(01:00:27):
It's the best part here. Yeah, that is good. I mean,
this is clay. That is great. You gotta give it
up there, I am. It is good. It's no Rocky Top.
(01:00:48):
I'm not gonna come on whatever. You know this whole
Tennessee who relates with Tennessee you Emmy Lou Harris. That's it.
Here is Sports Illustrated rank of the ten greatest fight songs.
All right, this is this is alright. I'm just I'm
just pulling up the die anymore. You can't do it.
(01:01:11):
It's a great song, Dixie alright. Number one, according to
Sports Illustrated, Michigan's Hail to the Victor's actually the victors.
We agree there and hate my wife went to Michigan.
I don't have anything against Michigan at all. Now a
better timeline Number two according to Sports Illustrated. Boomer Sooner, Uh,
(01:01:33):
that's pretty good. Let's see. I'll play this for people
who don't know. I'm trying to play it anyway. I
can do it here, it is. There's noe. We're driving
people insane right now by just playing songs off of
our phones. That's a great song, all right, Boomer Sooner,
(01:01:57):
good song. Number three, Rocky Top Uh, number four, Notre
Dame Victory are here. Let's play that for people out
there who might not have heard it recently. Yeah, that's
(01:02:18):
pretty good. I mean, by the way, we have everybody
ready for college football season. Just by playing this on
Wisconsin number five one, Eat that on Wisconsin. On Wisconsin,
eat that cheese right now? All right, there's on Wisconsin.
(01:02:42):
That's the number five best themes. The USC fight song
that you just played, all right, fight on number six now, see, yeah,
that's not the one. That's the one I played for
you was tribute to Troy. Fight on kind of sucks,
but so you're just that it's a top ten Clemson's
Tiger Rag anchors away, Now, that's pretty great for Navy
(01:03:06):
anchors away. It was awesome. I mean that is pretty phenomenal.
Like that's look, that was probably underrated. The dude, that's
the you know that's now that I think about it,
I mean, that's number one. The c remembers its own.
(01:03:28):
And I remember watching like back when Navy was having
a really hard time beating Army or the other way around.
Navy was kicking Army's ass every every year, and Nia
Mazalolo had him going. And I remember watching that game
and the stands were full and the whole thing was
going on, and it's just such a great freaking five.
(01:03:51):
CBS does a great job with it too, And the
second Navy drove and the kids scored a touchdown on
the first drive and the second that freaking his foot
touched the end zone. The song starts like, you know,
because it's a military Yeah, it was so freaking awesome.
Yeah no it is. So can you come back with
us because I still have to tell we still have
(01:04:12):
to continue our conversation here because I got distracted on
all the different Number one I went in reversal order.
Number one was the uh I already told Number one
I already forgot which one it was. Number go home. Yeah,
hell to the Victor's the number one
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