Burning It Down with Cole Cubelic

Arky brings on pal Cole Cubelic to have some fun and talk about the Tennessee/Ole Miss ending.

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
We're gonna go ahead and welcome everyoneinto the r QCH experience. You know
who I is and as you cantell by the episode title, it's Cole
co Opli from the SEC Network ESPNw j o X FM in Birmingham.
Let's see al dot com. Ummost of our dreams as well. Um,
Cole, you're a You're a You'rean interesting figure. You know that

(00:33):
you're You're all over the place footballseason. People people love this about you.
At what point people didn't like you? You remember that there's a lot
of people that still don't play.That's a that's a very real thing.
So yeah, well I think there'sI think there are a lot of people
that never will. So you justkind of you go with it. You

(00:54):
learn how to how to figure itout. I live. I remember,
I'm old enough to remember a timewhen I didn't think that worm would return.
So like that some people would actuallyturn to enjoy what you do and
who you are, not just ahardcore like Joe Moore, award like Twitter
followers like guys like the people genuinelyfind you to be a much a much

(01:17):
lovable character on the air, andthen when you get on the radio,
you pick some people off. Sothat's good. What what was that moment?
Take us back to that moment whenyou never thought that that was going
to change. Oh, probably thefirst time I interned for you, um
back in it at the radio station. It's like, this guy's a guy's

(01:40):
a rough character, all right.I don't know how people are gonna let
love about him. But I grewto love you pretty easily because I always
thought you were just sort of fairand football heavy and that was kind of
what I was into. So butI thought you were gonna say when I
tweeted a picture of a J McCarryin a boot before the Virginia chech game,
I'll tell you what that's. Youknow, Cole, You've had some
great social media moments. I gottabe honest with you like that. That

(02:02):
is one of the first ones whereit's like, I think the first one
I really remember social media moment fromyou is when you put out a billboard
with just your Twitter handle on itin Huntsville. That was literally that's all
the billboards that was at Colt Cublic, which is great. But the way
did you ever try to see Idon't know. I never found it.

(02:23):
No, I'm supposed to have it. I was supposed to get it after
they were done that I just neverdid. And then also, um,
I feel like that was way aheadof its time because I feel like there
just weren't very many people on Twitterwhen I did that, and there wasn't
I don't think there was an Instagram. So it's like that could have doubled

(02:43):
us both and yeah, I didn'treally, I don't know how much I've
benefited from that. I think Iwas around a thousand followers when that happened.
I don't think it I don't thinkit bumped me. I don't think
it moved the follower needle very much. But a lot of people saw it
and made fun of it, soI guess that mission accomplished. Than the
people that we were working for werereally mad that I didn't spend money,

(03:04):
my money on promoting the radio stationon the billboard that I paid for.
I got. I got in trouble. I gotta I gotta talking too for
that. How about this? Howabout you guys spend money on a billboard
promoting your radio station. Um,if you want a billboard so badly,
Um, this was my cash money. But but what it was that two
thousand and twelve. Eleven, Yeah, somewhere around there. Um probably so

(03:31):
you probably confused more people in eleven. You probably confused more people driving pastas
than you did actually have formed thatthere's a Twitter handle to follow a sign
in front of their name and whyyeah, so so weird. I wanted
to have you on to talk aboutum specifically and only that Tennessee Old Miss
game from a week and a halfago, I think almost two weeks ago

(03:51):
now, because it was such awild and kind of NFL on the stands
college football moment that I wanted toreally dived. But I have like a
five or six questions I'm really interestedin, but I want to start with,
did you ever feel like you wereany real danger? No? No,

(04:14):
no, no no, And listen, do I want to get hit
with a three quarter full aqua feea bottle from thirty rows up? Not
particularly especially in the noggin? Imean no, I probably wouldn't have been
too much fun, or a golfball or a vate pen or anything really,

(04:35):
But I mean I never felt likeI'm oh, I'm not gonna be
able to get out of here oranything like that. You know, and
there are there is a there's apocket of fans that I guess are really
got their feelings hurt that I saidthat if I were playing Kiffin, I
wouldn't have my team out there.And I will still stand about that.

(04:57):
I would still say it, andI think I think the way that they
I mean, you've you've learned thisdoing radio for a while, that you
know, people hear what they wantto hear as opposed to what exactly was
said. So I said I wouldn'thave my team out there. We would
have gone into the locker room.And because I was watching the faces of
some of the people that were doingit, and I'm seeing some of the

(05:18):
players react to things coming down,and my thought was, if one of
these players gets hit by something andthey actually saw who did it, then
what are we going to be dealingwith? And that's probably a place that
none of us really want to go. We've seen that once before, we
know how that ended. It's nota good place, and especially in college

(05:41):
football, in this league that weall love so much, none of us
want to go there. None ofus even want to be threatened to go
there. So when you're talking abouthaving you know, seventy five guys on
your travel roster, whatever it wasfor all miss that day. Do you
have enough coaches to to sort ofnavigate all of that to know specifically,
this person got hit, this person'supset, this person's going to the crowd

(06:04):
like, no, I know youdon't. I know they don't have the
manpower for that. So that waswhy I said what I said. So
you know, those folks that areon radio in Knoxville, can they can
continue to be pissed off about thatand they can continue to come at me
all they want, whatever doesn't botherme. But the reason I said that

(06:24):
was because I sort of had thisforeshadowing of the kind of reaction that we
could potentially get, and I knowI didn't want it, and I know
the league wouldn't have wanted it,and either fan base wouldn't have wanted it
because it would probably change a lotabout the process of how we watch football
games moving forward. You've talked aboutplaying in knots foot before and when it's

(06:46):
like rabid like, I think theTV crew did a great job by showing
because those fans and neilan are sneakilyclose to the players, like I don't
think people think about how close thefans are actually to the benches in Neeland
Stadium, UM to show sort ofthe proximity, and then like you're like
you're mentioning like it only takes acouple of steps and you're at the stands.

(07:11):
If some dude sees another dude throwlike a half child filled bottle of
something at him and it hits him, it hits him in the helmet or
not, and then you just yousee rhetts. So you want to sort
of be able to prevent that.Did you ever think during that entire process
that was at well over twenty minutes, almost thirty minutes, that like this
game might not finish? Um?At first I did. At first,

(07:34):
I wondered, Okay, are theyit's gonna A're just gonna shut this thing
down. And then we had aconversation from our truck with the director officiating.
And then when I talked to Laneon the sideline, he told me,
he said, listen, we wantto play. We want to finish

(07:55):
the game. We're gonna do whateverwe can to play. I'm ready to
play, Like we're not. We'renot trying to shut this thing down.
So at that point I kind offigured all right. Well, I don't
know when they're gonna do it orhow they're gonna do it, but they're
they're gonna finish this game. Andthat's the point of the whole thing that
is just completely bonkers, is that. I mean, Tennessee had three time
outs, an offense that goes superfast against defense that gives up yards to

(08:18):
literally everyone they play there, Theywere way in that game, and then
they get the stops and then theyget the ball back, and then they
move the ball and then they havetheir shots at the end zone. So
just kind of wild the way thatthat thing played out late. But no,
and then once we talked to oncewe talked to some of the officials
from the truck, then we foundout that both ads and the commissioner would

(08:43):
have to be involved to actually forfeita game or stop a game, and
not finish a game. We knewthat they were going to play. It
was just gonna be a matter oftime. I listened to Tom sort of
describing that conversation, and it's alittle more thrilled than I expected, Like
you couldn't just have the officials sortof call the game for sort of any
reason, like the ADS had tocome meet at some point and say,

(09:05):
listen, this is just too much. And again, like you said,
there's a minute to go, theyget that big punt return after getting to
stop. And then if if Hookerhadn't a got hurt for Tennessee, who
knows what would have happened. AndTennessee may have won that game. If
Tennessee wins that game, call afterall of that, what in the world
does Lane Kiffin lose his mind?I don't know, And I mean like

(09:30):
I don't I don't know what wouldhave been better for everyone involved, Tennessee
losing or Tennessee winning. Like whatbecause we already saw a portion of that
crowd lose their minds. Yeah,like did they go, do they take
the next step if they win?Or do they We saw that they lost

(09:50):
and nothing really happened, So Ithink it's a fair question. I think
I think it's an interesting thought.Um, it would have been massive for
Josh hypool. I think he's alreadyahead of schedule and he's already doing things
that we didn't really think we're gonnabe possible this year. But I mean,
you get that one and all ofa sudden, you know, Kentucky
looks much more winnable. You're probablygonna get Vandy, You're gonna get South

(10:11):
Alabama. Like I mean, it'sI think that changes things. You know.
I told people a couple of weeksago that of all the games Georgia
had left, the sneaky dangerous gamewas gonna be Tennessee, and it was
just because they could go fast,they were gonna take shots down the field.
We've seen a couple of teams hita few plays downfield against Georgia,

(10:33):
and you know, it was justit would be sort of a different deal.
They had some guys in the perimeter, they found a quarterback that was
able to pull the trigger, andyou know now that they're kind of beat
up. I don't really know ifthat can be as dangerous as maybe I
thought at one point, But whoknows what kind of season you're looking at
if they find a way to pullthat one out. Yeah, I'm just
also imagining Tennessee comes back and forsome reason, you know, you know,

(10:58):
there isn't a quarterback running out ofbounds on the last play of the
game to sort of is it forthe other team, which had to be
really in diaclimatic. But if somehowthat touchdown scores and Tennessee end up winning
the game. Did you have abunch of Olmos players on that same side
of the field and students are probablystorming the field after game? The ones
that are left like it could havebeen a scene. It could like much

(11:20):
more of a scene than it alreadywas. I mean imagine, I mean,
I I don't know what it wouldhave been like. Um, you
know, I would have liked tohave seen him win the game, just
to see how everybody would have reacted. Um, I would have liked to
see it happened, just so augustlyyou try to get to Josh hype that

(11:41):
that would have been difficult, especiallyconsidering I was on the opposite sideline.
Uh yeah, we would. Wewould have been able to make that happen.
But still it's uh, it wouldhave been a It was an incredible
Here's here's another thing that gets lostin all of this. It was an
incredible scene anyway. I mean,we got it. We had to get
there early because the road closes thatwe come in on, so we had

(12:05):
we had to go a little bitearly, and we're inside the stadium before
the teams get there. We heardvolwalk the entire time, and it's how
loud it was. And then whenthe fans start coming in, you hear
him booing Lane when he comes in, he's waving at him. That's you
know, kind of gets it going. And then the whole thing that they've
redone with the players running through thetea where you know the ribbon around the
upper deck is arms. They gotthe spotlight down on the players like it

(12:26):
was really cool, the fireworks,all of it. Like I'll stand by
what I told you years ago.When every stadium is rolling, like when
they're at their best, I stillthink kneeling is the loudest, and it's
that place was as close to kneelingas I've seen it in nineteen ninety nine
when I was there the year afterthey won a national championship and we threw

(12:48):
a pick six on the first playof the game. That moment is the
loudest stadium I've ever heard. Sothey were close to being back to that.
That's what it was supposed to be, and they gave it to you
for three and a half quarters.The proximity of the players, You're right
with that. The only other onethat's closer I think is Florida, because
if you go look at Georgia,Alabama, and Auburn, they're all kind

(13:11):
of that same. It's almost likethe footprint out around the field is almost
football shape, and so you haveall that extra space from the bench back
to where the crowd begins. Youknow, A and M's gotten a little
bit closer. It's probably about thesame as Tennessee UM Vaderbilt. Doesn't really
matter, although it is really closeon that visiting side. But usually it's

(13:33):
all visiting fans anyway, at leastthe games I've been too. So yeah,
I mean it's they're they're on topof you for the most part.
So all of that helps in makingit an amazing place to watch a football
game and to play in a footballgame. I think that just two more
questions. Now, let you runout of here. I think it's fascinating

(13:54):
sort of, you know, andI followed your career from from the beginning,
specifically only you. I have anauto raft Gatorade bottle that allegedly you
used while you were at Auburn.That's how much of a cold Cubla guy
am. I found that on eBayor you may have given it to me
one or the other um. Ithink watching some of the progress you've made

(14:15):
in some of these moments that havehappened in your career, it's really kind
of well to see how you're atthe center of a lot of crazy moments
in college football. How does thisone compare? Like if you were to
rank them as far as just outof body wild experiences as a sideline reporter
slash commentator, is this is thisthe top? I probably still have Tom

(14:41):
Herman's top um. But that waspretty game because you were asking Tom Herman
about, you know, whether ornot he was going to go to get
a tech. Yeah, I meanif you don't mean, if you want
to count it that way, no, I'm fine. Actually in game,
yeah, I would say, yeahthat then obviously we'd have a different list.
Probably still say to deal with theofficial was still number one? Who

(15:05):
him checking in the official at anArkansas game is phenomenal. I still hope
you did that on purpose. Well, there was a lot of I didn't
and there are a lot of thingsthat happened behind the scenes with that that
made it, you know, alittle bit out of control too. So
yeah, that that would have beenup there. But tennith this is This

(15:26):
is probably top three for sure.I mean we had, like you said,
we had thirty minute delay in agame in which the people who were
delaying its team still had a realchance to maybe win the game. So
what I mean. Yeah, Andthen, honestly, the part that's the
craziest about it is probably the reactionfrom a certain small portion of the fan

(15:50):
base since, and that is feelingcompletely vilified and justified that all that took
place and all of it happened,and attacking people who were covering it for
sharing what they were seeing and tellingyou how it was happening, and then
thinking that you were somehow saying,hey, I think these are bad people,

(16:12):
or hey I'm gonna exaggerate the dangerthat I'm involved in because I don't
know, I don't like this team, or I want to make people mad
or whatever it was. It's justit's ridiculous. Pretty sure you set out
to make them look bad when youguys are bringing up the golf ball and
the mustard bottle like that's clearly youguys were baiting Tennessee fans. That's all

(16:32):
that was. It's not like thathappened. It was a goal. Yeah,
the goal is just to make peoplemad, just to fire up Twitter.
We can do that every game andthen we'll be okay. So okay,
last question, the kind of heatthat was on the field at that
moment, and again reiterate Tennessee's comingback like two Tennessee form not necessarily in

(16:52):
that game, but they're trying.There's that close play for the officials on
the market on that fourth down thatreally got everyone obviously fired up for this.
It's a ranked Old miss team comingin with the Heisman hopeful. Um,
it's a big time environment. Asyou mentioned ball walking. It's crazy
there the kind of heat that washappening in that moment, Is there anything

(17:15):
comparable? Like is that as hotas you felt the crowd since that Tennessee
the Tennessee Auburn game that that thatyou were in, because that was like
what they call and wrestling heat.That that's a lot of like that.
They were not happy, those officialsare not having a great day. No,
and so let's just let's just burnthe whole thing down. H The

(17:37):
two plays that okay, first off, like sidebars sort of here. It's
like Tom Hart had a great quoteafter the game we were talking. He
said one unfortunate part of this isthat all the injury stuff sort of gets
lumped into the officiating category, andI never really thought of it that way.

(18:00):
That's super accurate because there are alot of players that most likely and
again I'm not accusing anyone of anythingmost likely faith injuries in that game,
okay, because I you know,none of us when we're having a live
broadcast still really know where to livewhen those things happen, because it's only

(18:22):
gonna take one of us that says, you know, this is ridiculous,
these kids going down and the nextday is coach City's out for the year
with an ACL and no one's gonnaever let you, even like no fan
base is gonna let you be onthe call of the game again. So
you just you still have to sortof approach that with kid gloves. But
I think that did play a rolein the frustration, There's no doubt.

(18:47):
But it absolutely happened on both sides. I saw multiple instances where two Tennessee
players went down and one located thatthe other was down and decided to get
up and not be injured anymore.So Old Miss may have one with the
amount of maybe fake injuries but let'snot act like they were the only team

(19:07):
doing it. The two big calls, first off, the spot, I
just think. I mean, I'vegone back and watched the views that I
have via film, I've watched theTV copy, and I think they got
it right. Based on the viewsthat you have and where the ball was,
I think they got it right.The other call was the Matt Correal

(19:30):
fumble, which I agree with Tennesseefans that they should be frustrated about that.
However, if the way that itwas ruled, I believe it was
correctly called, and the way thatit was ruled was that he had given
himself up. Now I believe thatMatt's I believe he thought he heard a
whistle so he stopped. So ifyou're judging right there, you ruled that

(19:56):
the quarterbacks given himself up. He'sdown via contact. So when he's touched,
he's down, the play is dead. It's over. So when the
defender takes him and sort of youknow, side supplexes him or DDTSI and
the ball comes flying out, theplay is already dead, so it doesn't
matter. However, the officials didthe right thing by letting the play continue

(20:18):
and then be able to go backand look at it via replay. I
think the officials could have done abetter job explaining that. That's the one
thing that I took away from theofficiating in that game for me, was
it on that specific play. Ifeel like the officials could have done a
better job explaining the how and whythey got to where they did, because
when you just watch it from thestands and saw it on replay a couple

(20:41):
of times, probably like what thehell, Like the ball came out,
We saw the ball come out,we saw him pick it up, we
saw him scoop and score, Likewhat are you debating? But I didn't
feel like the explanation was as clearas maybe it needed to be. So
I actually think the two calls thatgot everybody into this firestorm, I think
the officials actually got him both right. Yeah, but I think you could
also tell you're you're right that itwas a build up of the entire ninth

(21:04):
the call that was perceived to bemissing, not explained correctly, the seventy
seven to seventy nine injuries that happenedmore than I think we've seen in any
recent war, and the fact thatthat spot at the very end was so
close that it didn't go their way, and still they had a chance to
win the game in the throwing puddleson the field. It's um, it

(21:26):
was a wild game. And callyou were You were near the epicenter of
that too, and that's why Iwanted to talk to you about it,
because it had heat, just likeyou have heat, cole um. So,
um, what are you predicting thisweekend? What kind of bizarre instance
do you have happening we are?Are we seeing like a zero zero game

(21:47):
to the fourth and then we haveto see paper rocks scissors after the thirteenth?
Over time? What do we gotgoing on here? Yeah? I
mean I'll be in Starkville. Youknow, Kentucky at Mississippi State. I
think that game is still like theweirdest team in college football. You just
don't know what you're gonna get.It might be really good, it might
be bad. It's gonna be weird, it's gonna be different. And then

(22:11):
I think because of the Kentucky Georgiagame and then then having a week off,
that we've kind of gotten away fromthe potential of what Kentucky has in
front of them this year. Andyou know, they're on the this is
the last stretch of that sort ofcelebrity deathmatch October that at the beginning of
the season we all looked at andsaid, oh, no, no,

(22:33):
no, no, no, no, no, there's no way they can
survive that. Like are they goingto even be alive when we get to
the end of that, Like arethey even gonna be able to breathe and
like pretend to go play football.But when we first saw the schedule come
out, you looked at it andyou said, all right, you've got
South Carolina on the road, FloridaLSU at Georgia at Mississippi State. So

(22:56):
this is kind of the last one, and then things taper off a little
bit. Now. I'll say theTennessee game following that at home looks very
different now, But that's a realinteresting matchup. I think a lot of
that would depend on how healthy Tennesseeis. But I probably still lean Kentucky
in that game. But then Vanderbiltin New Mexico State in Louisville. Louisville
had a nice week, had anice win last week. You know,

(23:18):
they looked like they had fallen offthe earth. But then they go get
BC and look pretty good in thatgame. So I think if Kentucky finds
a way to get past this game, you're gonna be staring down the barrel
of a historically good season from MarkSteups. And we've kind of sort of
moved away from that a little bit. Not really sure why, because they're
only blemish. Came to the bestteam in college football, and you know,

(23:42):
they did some good things against thatteam. So we'll see. But
I think it's got a chance tobe an interesting game just because it's a
total, total contrast and style game. Brad White does not getting enough credit
for how good a defensive coordinator heis. I think Will Rogers playing great
football. It's just that they can'tseem to score in the red zone sometimes.
And then weird things happened to them, like part return for touchdowns that

(24:07):
shouldn't count and things like that.So it's been a weird season. I
won money things to that, bythe way, I won money thing,
and I will never not be appreciativeof the SEC officials for that one week.
I hope there's a non Candy nine. What was the show that you
asked Mike Leach about a couple ofweeks ago. Yeah, that was.

(24:30):
You know. Listen, here's thething about Mike Leach. When you meet
with him, you have your youhave your TV meetings with him. You
can ask him a hundred football questionsand you're you're never really gonna get great
answers. But if you veer offand away from football, he can give
you really good answers. Oh.I agree. So I'm just saying,
if we avoid those two things tofind something also different about it, I'd

(24:52):
like to hear about that too.So like there's another like niche we can
find in the Mike Leach wagon,I'd love to hear about it. Oh,
let me And I'm open to suggestions. Um, so you know you
you throw one out for me thereif you if you think there's a direction
we should go. Um, Ihave your number. I have your number.

(25:17):
I mean text you take text yoursuggestion. Okay, okay, all
right, Well I'll we've done we'vedone Netflix shows. Yeah, we know
that he watched Outer Banks seasons oneinch. That's the name of the show
that's western to think of. Yeah, okay, we also know that he
watched it because of the trees inthe water. That's right. How many

(25:38):
would give you that answer? Andnow you know, we got the Halloween
candy um question last week. Idon't know, Maybe we go costumes,
like what was his favorite costumes?Okay, you dressed up again? What
would it be? Now we're now, now we're talking because like the candy
thing has already gone all through starfovolleyball team is giving him candy and stuff

(26:00):
like that, the ones you like, we should maybe and if he says
pirate, you're gonna melt the internet, you know that? Right? Yeah?
And I thought about, um,so one that I thought about now
just kind of I'll throw this inhere for you. Um, okay,
sorry, we got things. I'mget I got notes here, like I'm

(26:22):
having things going on at the house. Oh yeah, that's our normal,
that's our normal way of communication.There's just writing each other notes. Yeah.
Um so my son is actually dressingup as a pirate for Halloween.
There you go. Okay, yougot an inch And so I thought,
I thought, do I take aphotograph and show it to Leech and say,

(26:47):
you know, how would you grademy son's pirate costume? Now I'm
in? And that got that kindof gets the ball rolling on that a
little bit. Now I'm in nowI'm one hundred percent in that that that's
what or or do I. Andthis is assuming that they win the game
game, which could easily not happen. Do I take like two eye patches
to the game and if they win? For our postgame interview, we both

(27:11):
wear an eyepatch. Oh okay,Uh, so one definitely has to happen
and it can't happen. The otheris contingent up on a win. Would
you do it at halftime though,like if they're leading? No, no,
no, no, no, no, yeah, okay, all right,
No, he's not gonna I don'tthink you would do to half time.
That's like, that's not gonna happen. So all right, hey,

(27:33):
uh that was the Cole's wife andCole's Cole's got a two hundred few members
of his family that he keeps birthin them. Mount it just you got
a gorgeous family, told and Imiss seeing you guys. Um, you
guys are awesome and we're a bigpart of my life and uh maybe one
day we'll get to see each otheragain soon. But he's been Cole public
of all those networks and beyond,Cole, thank you so much for time,

(27:56):
safe travels and we'll be in touch, brother, Thank you. Recent
an arc. He always good beingwith you. Argue, argue, Can
the little one give us an argue? He did say much? Can you
say hello? Hi? Can yousay her? I's got a smile.
I got a smile out of that. That's okay, highs hi, Hi.
I got a twelve month old.I got a little baby on my

(28:18):
own, Jaden. Yeah, he'dsmile at you, okay, all right,
his nap time, so he's tired. Same here, Cole. Appreciate
your brother. Yeah, man,anytime. We'll see if