Transcript of CFB Mega Preview With Tom Fornelli & Brandon Walker, Mt Rushmore Of Household Items You Can Use As A Weapon + Guys On Chicks

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On today's Part of My Take presented by DraftKings, we've got our mega college football preview with our expert Tom Fornelli and also Brandon Walker. Really fun time with the boys in studio. We break it all down. They pick their 12 teams to see who could be the college football expert for 2026. Pretty much every question you have about college football, week 1 coming up. It is answered in our preview. We're also going to do Hot Seat, Cool Throne. We have a Mount Rushmore. Hank is 1 point up on Zach. If Zach wins today, it will be a duel on Friday. And we're going to do the Mount Rushmore of household items you could use as a weapon. We're also going to do Guys on Chicks. Great show for you. It's all brought to you by our friends at Reese's. There's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's. You know it. It's the GOAT of candy. It's the 1-1 of candy. If you did a Mount Rushmore of candy, it would probably sweep the entire first round. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Reese's with Oreos, Reese's Sticks, Reese's Pieces, everything Reese's. We have the Reese's Lounge here.

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Bart and Mike Take.

Yeah, Bart and Mike Take. Yeah, Bart and Mike Take.

Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, September 2nd. Boys, the calm before the storm, because on Thursday we start football all the way back. We have our college football mega preview with Brandon and Tom Fornelli coming up. But how's everyone feeling? We're feeling good. There's not a lot going on. I mean, the biggest story going on right now in the sports world besides De'Jon Love, uh, which we got to on Monday—

Let's not minimize De'Jon Love.

No, De'Jon Love, huge story. I did love that, uh, no pun intended, that, uh, Stribling on the 49ers changed his number to De'Jon Love's number.

I love that.

So he's now number 7. So if De'Jon Love had just been able to hold out another week, he could have been like, look, I'm number 7. Yeah, the name's different. That's my You know, that's my Swiss name or something.

If I was Dejon Love, I would issue a cease and desist against Stribling. Yeah. Like they're just giving away that number now after Dejon made it famous.

Stribling should pay Dejon.

He should.

$1.3 million for that number. The biggest story, though, other than that, is a boring story that teams just keep getting sold and bought. And Stan Kroenke is now the owner of the Los Angeles Angels, which I think is good.

I think it's good for baseball. Yeah, because they were owned by a guy that just did not give a shit and pissed away the Prime of Mike Trout's career.

Yeah. You know, I'd learned a weird, stupid fact about the Angels. Hank, I'll ask you this trivia question. The Angels stadium is the blank oldest stadium in Major League Baseball.

3rd.

Ooh, okay. You went the other way. It's 4th. But yeah, I don't know.

Fenway.

Wrigley, Fenway.

Which one am I missing?

Kaminsky?

No, there's one that's missing.

It's very obvious. Oh, Dodger Stadium and then the Angels. Kind of crazy.

That is crazy.

Yeah, that is nice.

Yeah.

But that's just not because it's historic.

No, because he's cheap and everyone's built new stadiums.

Yeah. In the last 30 years has spent money on their team except for this guy.

Yeah.

I think it's good for the Angels, right? Artie Moreno's not— I mean, they had Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout in their prime and didn't do anything.

Yeah. It's disgusting what they did. Disgusting what they did with that roster. So yeah, I think it's good for baseball. But I mean, pretty soon Stan Kroenke is just going to own everything. Yeah, we're just kind of waiting for him to buy the rest of the farmland.

Don't people not like him as an owner?

Stan Kroenke? Arsenal owners do not like him, but then they just won the league.

They gave him a pass because they just won the EPL.

Yeah.

So yeah, he's, he's done a lot of winning.

He has won with the Nuggets, won with the Rams. One with Arsenal. How have the, the Blizzard done? I think he has a lacrosse team.

Yeah, the NLL team is really good.

Yeah, they are.

Yeah. The Blizzard.

Is it the Blizzard? No, I believe the Mammoths. Oh, the Blizzard Overwatch team.

So he bought stake in Blizzard, who is the developer of different games.

Got it. Yep.

All I know is that our lacrosse team would smoke them.

Yeah, that's facts. Even if we don't play in the same league, we play outdoors.

Yeah, that's, that's where lacrosse is meant to be played.

Yes.

Okay. Well, does anyone have anything else? I mean, we've, we've, we're going to get to a lot of the sports stories going on in Hot Seat, Cool Throne.

Well, yeah.

And we're going to talk a little bit about it with, with Tom and Brandon. But the big college football story today, because there's no real games to speak of outside of Week 0, is there's going to be a court ruling on Thursday that will determine whether or not LSU is allowed to have players who worked out and tried out for NFL rosters come back and play in school. The Big Ten has already banned that from happening.

Yep.

The leaders.

Yeah. The SEC condemned it and then they got together and they're talking about banning it. And then now they're saying that they will in fact kick LSU out if they attempt to do this.

Okay.

Which, I mean, this is good, I think, for LSU's brand. It's just being like Rebels.

Yeah.

In a conference that also features Ole Miss. They are the true rebels. But it's also like Lane Kiffin doesn't give a shit about anything except winning football games. And I don't think that he'll be allowed to do it. But it's not as bad. It's not as much of a sky is falling situation as everybody else is making it out to be.

Yep.

Because it's only players that got that extra year that are allowed to come back. So this is the only time that this is going to be a question, right?

Yes.

College football is a Wild West right now with very few rules. But it's not like in the future these guys are going to be able to go to the NFL and come back to college afterwards. It's kind of a 1-year thing. I don't think that they're going to be allowed to do it, but that would be— it would be kind of funny if LSU had like guys that just tried out for the NFL. Yeah. Going up against Clemson and just a bunch of guys that like Dabo won't even go into the portal. No, there's got to be like Clemson college.

They have to be recruited. He has to have met the person when they were 15.

Outstanding young men who live and bleed Tiger Orange.

Yeah.

Yes. The other, the other story going on is everyone's doing their fantasy drafts this week, next week.

Do—

where do you draft Puka and Josh Jacobs? The great moral question.

Do you issue a stay?

I do love, I do love whenever there's a fantasy guy online who like, if arrest happens, he's like, I've now downgraded him to like a 9th round value. Yeah, that's what— that's the important part. I also saw that the GM for the Packers said he's not seen the Josh Jacobs video. He also gave that press conference with his eyes closed. So I don't know if that's why he hasn't seen it.

Wait, he hasn't? Have you seen it?

I have not seen it.

Do you think that the Packers have had a chance to see it yet?

I think if they wanted to see it, they probably could.

They probably have a security person.

They probably have— they probably have a big Dom adjacent guy who could probably get his hands on it. But then again, if you don't open your eyes, you never have to see it.

Well, also the Packers, this falls on the shoulders of their 30,000 owners.

True.

Like all of them are just as guilty as anyone for not Not the same, because as a fantasy football owner, I issued a statement during my draft that I was not going to— I wasn't going to touch him.

I did too. And then he fell to the 9th round.

And if there's that kind of value, then it's almost like you're virtue signaling by not drafting him. So, right, you kind of have to take him.

Right, right.

You're being a white knight at that point.

I actually did a fantasy— no one cares, but we did a fantasy draft, Blutman and Ibo and I, and Blutman wanted to take him in the 6th round. And I was like, dude, you can't. We can't do that. And then he lasted all the way to the 9th. And I was like, and we had the wraparound, so we didn't pick him in the 8th.

That's good.

We took him with the pick after.

You took him with the 2nd pick.

Yes.

You dropped, you punished, that was punishment.

Yeah.

Is that he doesn't get that guaranteed contract that he would get in the 7th round.

Fall all the way to the 9th round.

Yeah.

I have maybe what I think might be the worst fantasy football team in history right now.

Oh no.

And it was, I panicked during the draft yesterday. Obviously I don't care that much about fantasy. It's fun to talk about. But I guess the lion's share of my brain is allocated towards just like thinking of which futures I'm going to take that will probably be wrong.

So you're double dipping in losses.

Yeah, it's kind of like that. Often what my fantasy strategy this year came down to was essentially guys that were good 4 years ago. And then if it's not a guy that was good 4 years ago, it's a player that is on the Washington Commanders that I think will have a breakout season.

Love that.

So those are the 2 buckets that I'm really Pulling from this year.

You always got to be— you got to, you got to leave yourself a spot late in the fantasy draft to draft a guy that was good a while ago. I think I got Tony Gonzalez like 5 years too late.

I thought you're gonna say you got him this year.

No, like, I listen, if he's around, I saw a picture of Jeremy Shockey.

He looks like he could still play.

Yeah, I would definitely consider it. Did Jeremy Shockey come out and say that he got a vasectomy when he got drafted? That was weird.

Yeah. I think he did.

Yeah. Just like a preemptive.

Some guys like their balls deflated, Hank.

Married to the game.

Yeah. I think he, I think he did say that. It's always funny seeing like these old athletes just. All right. Jeremy Jacque got an infasectomy.

So that was, that was essentially my strategy mixed in with one extra thing, which was a new face and new place. Locked it in. Kenny Gainwell. Yep.

Buck.

Yep.

And I cemented that in my brain by drafting him.

Yep.

Yep.

That's how you learn things.

We were getting—

we, by the way, we, we do the new, new face or same face, new place in a trust tree environment on Monday's show. Got some blowback that our ball knowledge— listen, that's the, that's the point of the exercise.

We get ready for the regular season. Yeah.

If we screwed up on the first Sunday of the NFL season, we said Kenny Gainwell's on the Bucs, then you could be like, Dude, you don't fucking know ball. Everyone has to learn their process in the offseason at their own pace. Sometimes we're slow learners.

Yeah, my brain just— it shifts. It undergoes slow but, but steady changes. And, you know, there's certain times of year that that happens. And right now is where I'm getting those old wrinkles back from the NFL.

Yeah.

All right.

Do you guys want to do a pick for week 1 of college football?

Sure do.

Did, did a terrible job week 0. As a collective. That's okay. I think we went 1-2. That's okay.

It's pretty good.

It's pretty good.

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Um, all right. Week 1 college football. Let's not fuck this up.

Hank?

Yeah.

Going grit week. Tigers.

I love that.

Minus, minus 10 against the Tigers.

The Week 1 college football slate is not great. It was, it's, it's great week 2. Week 1, there's not, I mean, listen, we're going to be excited to watch football, but it could be, it's lacking in some departments. That is though, the premier game on Saturday, Saturday night.

But that's okay. We still love it. We still, we still love it very much.

So, so much. So, so much.

We're proud of it.

I'm going to take West Virginia -21. I'm high on Rich Rod. I think he's going to get his swagger back this year. I think this is a Rich Rod renaissance year. You just close your eyes. Late October, game day's at Morgantown. Pat McAfee's going crazy. Rich Rod. Hey, it's, it's like the old days.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's interesting because I also have a favorite.

That's okay.

Okay.

Week 1 is for favorites.

Week 1 is kind of for favorites. So I'm going to— yeah, screw it. I'm going to do it.

Put in the spread for LSU, whoever's doing this.

Yeah. -10, right?

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

I kind of like the under in that game too.

All right.

I'm going to take Alabama.

Yeah.

Crimson Tide.

Yeah.

27.5.

Yeah.

Roll. They're going to roll.

All right. This is the BTA parlay.

BTA over +565.

Love it.

All right.

Anything else that's popping off right now? Liv is dead.

Oh, that's not true.

Who's tweeting meatballs from Max's account?

Max, probably.

So Max, there was a tweet from Max's account that said just meatballs. And then he quote tweeted and said, who's tweeting meatballs from my account?

It's probably Max. Yeah, we're all looking for the guy who tweeted from Max.

Was there any chance that Max left his Twitter open on his computer?

I don't believe so.

I don't think so either.

I'm gonna call Max real quick.

Just—

do you think he picks up?

Probably.

Probably.

Yeah.

Just—

he's got pasta sauce all over him right now. He's got fucking Alfredo on his— oh, hey, what's up?

What were you talking about?

We were talking about the Alfredo that you probably have dripping down your beard right now.

If you think that they have Alfredo in Italy, you're an absolute—

oh, no. Did you see the Mount Rushmore on Monday?

Yeah, it was like the fact that that was Zach. I like still think that that was edited to like that video was just supposed to be shown to me to make me think that it was Zach. I still haven't listened to the full show.

What do you mean? That he said he was your 1-1 pick for heavy things?

Insane.

I think he's still mad at me about the, the bad friends incident.

No, he's got a date with Rudy. We're going to talk about that in a minute on the show. Max, the question though, we have—

we're calling you.

We miss you.

Uh, who's tweeting meatballs from your account?

It's 100% Memes, like, because my Twitter is, is logged into the booth, the booth computer, which means that Memes has full access to my Twitter, which is— I realize is now a very bad thing.

No.

Oh, oh wait, is this— are you logged in right now, Zach, on Max's Twitter?

Is this Zach again?

Yes, hit it, hit a Hit a tweet on Max's account right now. What should we say?

Maybe something about LeBron.

Or how about, how about LeBron is as good as the Alfredo in Italy?

That's good.

Not—

doesn't, doesn't exist. Okay.

And then people are going to be like, wow, you're— he's spellchecking Alfredo. Okay, hit send. Of course he's spellchecking Alfredo. All right, we're good.

All right.

See you, Max. See you on, on Monday. Right, Max?

Congratulations on Taco Fall.

Yeah. Congratulations. Taco Fall.

Taco Fall.

Taco fall.

Taco fall. Yeah.

Also, Pete Prisco. It was Pete Prisco. You ducked Pete Prisco. He was looking for you.

I also—

PFT loves Jalen Hurts. I know that he wanted me to not hear that.

I heard it.

I saw it.

Oh my God, that's embarrassing.

Oh man, you listened?

Damn. Okay, it's okay. All the interceptions he's throwing is just because he's trying new things. He said he was trying new things.

I couldn't take my headphones off. I know you like to talk about Jalen Hurts and tell me to take my headphones off.

I—

my headphones were on.

Yeah, I can't hear him.

Okay, he can't hear you.

Took the headphones off. All right, see you, Max. Have fun with the Alfredo.

Yep.

All right, bye.

Oh, Alfredo was, was created in Rome, Italy in the early 20th century. Oh, that's a new one. Early 20th century is a new one. Oh, no, no, that's not a new one. That's 1908. Okay, so what is Max saying? Alfredo, is that true? We got Paisans in the, in the booth.

He's hammered. Yeah, I think, I think maybe Max just hasn't eaten Alfredo this week.

Yeah.

What is it? What does he mean? You don't eat Alfredo.

Alfredo doesn't work for a sex vacation. It's too heavy. You got to stay light.

What is that? They just don't have Alfredo there. Cacio e pepe.

Yeah, cacio e pepe is delicious. Can we do some trust for you real quick?

I didn't see any when I was there. A lot of carbonara and like pesto and Lasagna. Mm.

Okay.

And also just the NFL Draft.

Yeah.

People forget Shane is such a fucking ball knower and ballaholic that he went to Italy and stayed up all night watching the NFL Draft. That's how I respect the fuck out of you.

Solo sex vacation.

Yeah.

Trust Tree, go ahead.

Trustery. And Max does have to take his headphones off for this. Um, I'm, I'm feeling really, really bad about the upcoming Commanders season.

Why?

Very bad about it. Just bad vibes coming out of camp from the local media, from the, uh, the GM who's already getting up in front of the team and saying that there's a lot of stuff that they've done behind the scenes, okay, that the fan base hasn't seen to shore up this roster, okay. Um, saying it's unfair to judge a general manager, uh, based on moves that only took place 6 months ago. Mm-hmm. Just bad. Just bad vibes. So there haven't been a lot of good fun stories.

What's the success? Do you want to change it? I think you said 10 wins when we had Booger on.

Playoffs?

No, I said playoffs.

Playoffs.

Playoffs. That's still success. Listen, so that's— I'm holding firm. Playoffs, that's success. I'm just— I'm getting— I don't know if it's just this time of year, you know, your body experiences trauma that you don't even know about. And so maybe every year I'm just used to getting my teeth kicked in. Yeah, this time of year that it's just like a defense mechanism I have. It's early September, wake up the guy from Green Day. And I feel like this is where I get my heart ripped out of my chest every year.

I think this is a totally normal thing because I've had a similar week as well with the Bears defense. Okay, where I've been, Kyler Gordon might not play at all this year. We had to make a trade. We don't— we already were thin at defensive line. We had to trade Dexter, which like he wasn't good, but it's giving up on a draft pick that quickly. And it's just, I've had the same thought where I was just like, hey, what if the defense is worse than last year and we have to just score 40 points a game? So I think this is where you— this is my part of— yeah, this is the part of the season where you have to, you have to get in your, uh, feels and, and, and scaries before we kick off the, the, the season.

I gotta work through all of it right now.

Have you guys been going through any? Have you guys had any trust tree You know, like dark thoughts, Hank?

No, I'm excited.

Oh, okay, good.

Shane?

I mean, of course.

Yeah, Herbert's gonna die.

Share it. Yeah. I mean, the Chargers have a pretty brutal schedule.

Yeah.

Memes texted me a couple hours ago asking if I saw what the—

what was it, week 6 through 8? Week 8 and 9.

8 and 9.

It's the Rams and Texans back to back.

Okay.

That's pretty fucked up for Memes to text you that. Yeah, I was feeling— I was thinking playoffs, dude.

We do this every year.

Okay.

If you're going to be a winner, you got to beat good teams.

I'm not—

that's not my worry.

You can't hide from teams in the playoffs.

That's not always true, Hank. I'm trying to think of some recent examples.

My worry is Herbert dying.

And I was trying to share that information with Shane that his quarterback might die.

What about you, Memes?

I'm fired up.

I think the Jets might start 4-0. Okay. What about you, Zach?

I'm worried about the energy in the locker room.

Yeah, very worried. Yeah, fair, fair. But I think that's, that's normal. You got to You can't go into the season being like, we're the best team ever.

I think especially if you're a fan of a team that historically has not been very good, right? I can't help but think that bad things are about to happen. And it's going to take like 4 years of any sort of success to change my, my like natural inclination on September 1st about any of that.

Well, yeah. And it's also like the way that the Commanders went, you know, rookie year Jayden Daniels and this then last year, like I'm kind of staring at a similar thing where it's like last year was so fun and It will be very hard to be as fun and win the NFC North again. It's a hard, you know, mountain to climb back up.

Yeah. What if it goes away? But yeah, I think I did see a chart that made me happy yesterday and it was the, the youngest to oldest NFL teams.

You're young again.

And last year the Commanders were by far the oldest team in the NFL and you saw it on our defense with how slow we were. And now Maybe some of these guys went back to college. I don't know. But now we're only 27 years and 102 days, which puts us 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th to last, 6th to last.

That's good.

That's progress. Right next to the Seahawks. So we're in a normal, a normal age range.

Falcons, sneaky old. What the hell?

Yeah. Falcons, sneaky old. Dolphins, the baby Dolphins.

That's tough when you're the Falcons and you're old and bad.

Yeah.

You know, like the Rams are old, but they're old and good.

That's the quadrant of the graph you don't want to be in.

No.

Old and bad. The Dolphins, by far the youngest team. In the NFL. Yeah.

Okay. Let's, let's do Hot Seat, Cool Throne. We're going to talk some more sports and then we will get to our Mount Rushmore and then our college football mega preview with Brandon Walker and Tom Fornelli. Okay. Hot Seat, Cool Throne is brought to you by TickPick, the no-nonsense ticket app. Check the calendar. Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, football is officially taking over and the couch doesn't deserve you for all 18 weeks. So get out to a game and get your tickets on TickPick. Where there are no service fees ever. I'm already looking at that Monday night game, Eagles-Bears. Max and I are going to use TickPick. We're going to go to Soldier Field. We're excited to catch that game. So across the whole season, those savings could add up to a parking, food, and a jersey. You'll save money on tickets for the same seat you'd find on other ticketing sites. All in, TickPick has saved fans tens of millions in fees, and every order is backed by their buyer trust Guarantee 100% authentic tickets delivered on time. Hank, you're going to the Kanye concert.

Kanye. Yep. Friday.

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My hot seat is actually you, Big Cat. Oh, and Dave Portnoy and Ryan Whitney.

Oh, why is that?

Okay.

Today, Wednesday, as you're listening, 11:00 AM Eastern, 10:00 AM Central, we are live streaming from Streamsong in Florida, a 3-on-3 scramble. It's me, PFT, John Gruden. John Gruden versus Big Cat Dave, Ryan Whitney. 18 holes.

And me and Hank, we're in lockstep.

We are in lockstep.

So why are we on hot seat? Because Ryan Whitney is— it's going to be Ryan Whitney versus lockstep.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's— I guess the hot seat's Ryan Whitney because he's— yeah, he's gonna have to carry. It's gonna be a lot of pressure. I just feel, I feel very confident and I'm excited.

Like any golf event I participate in, if I can contribute a couple shots, I've done my job, wouldn't you say? So I'm not on the hot seat. The expectations for my golf—

Is your expectations to win?

My expectations are Ryan Whitney should win with a little assist from me and Dave.

Yeah, if you show up on time, give him a couple reads, that's really all. Like, the one thing that I'll say, a couple drivers in the middle, sleep in, he's not gonna be happy.

That's true.

So are we gonna have a rules official?

I think Frankie Borelli is gonna be the rules official.

I feel bad for Frankie Borelli. Yeah, that's going to be a very tough job for Frankie Borelli. Yep. Now, would he be compromised in any way?

100%.

Is he— would he be more inclined to rule in favor of certain teams?

I think he's going to try to be impartial, but you never know with the Dave-Frankie relationship. But yeah, I don't— I don't feel any pressure in this golf outing other than, like I said, I'd say 2 drives in the middle, maybe 1 chip that gets close and hit 1 long putt. Boom. Job is done.

I can't wait to have fun with my boys out there.

It's gonna be great.

Yeah, I'm excited. I'm really excited. Just hope it doesn't rain.

Can people do a free-to-play on it?

There is a free-to-play on DraftKings. Use code GRUDGEMATCH on DraftKings. And if you— it's a bunch of questions. If you pick the most questions correct, you win a share of $10,000, $10,000 DK dollars.

Hank, I have a question.

Yes, PFT.

Can I just do this in certain states or is it available?

It's available in all 50 states.

Oh, that's crazy. Okay.

That's sick.

All right.

Yeah.

You go, Hank.

Good point, Hank. Yeah, memes. Can memes ask a question? Zach just said all the pressure's on Hank. I would like him to elaborate on that.

Yeah, no, I think it's high pressure, Hank.

Yeah, definitely.

It is high pressure. No, I have a— I have—

I am—

I am definitely the, the worst performer, although Big Cat in the Ryder Cup, not great. But I definitely—

But again, I don't golf.

You golf. You've been golfing this summer.

The Ryder Cup?

You've been—

no, I'm saying before the Ryder Cup. I'm just saying, did I go—

documented history of golfing on camera.

But I don't golf.

But you do now.

But I didn't before the Ryder Cup.

But you do now, so there's pressure.

I will, I will give 4 shots.

Okay.

I will, I will, I will contribute 4 shots. If I don't, then hand up, I did not do my job. But Hank, you're the best golfer on your team. You golf by far the most out of anyone who's playing.

I mean, PFT, PFT is probably close. He was also in the Internet Invitational, so he's, he's the golfer of the group.

Okay.

So is Gruden. I was, I'm the only one on my team not.

Wait, I'm the golfer. we were to sit in a room together and let's say Hank and I did a podcast.

Yeah.

And somebody was like, walked into the room. Who's the golf guy here? Hank.

Well, who's the UFC guy?

Zach.

Yeah.

But yeah, there's a lot of pressure on me.

Who's the flyover guy here?

Thankfully, I can—

I got the sex marathon guy, Memes.

I can go from both sides.

Oh, man.

If things are going south, I can just switch.

Snatch that crown from Memes. I'm very excited about this. I can't wait. I hear it's a very nice course that we're going to be playing.

Brand new course.

Hank and I just got done. We played Pebble over the weekend with a wonderful draft DraftKings event, and it was— it was—

oh, Hank golfed this weekend?

It was a real blast. Well, this is work. Yeah, this was a business trip.

And so we did get a pre-round in Friday. That was—

did you golf on Monday? No.

Oh, this was all— yeah, it's on, on Saturday that we played Pebble, and, um, it was, it was a lot of fun. I think with me and him, we did a shamble on the back 9. I think we're about even, weren't we?

Yeah, we played well.

We were kind of on fire on the back 9, and then at the Q&A afterwards Um, there was a very— there was a funny moment where they asked us to get up on stage with Frank Caliendo and do like a Q&A with the audience. And they said something to Hank about— Hank, tell the story. You got confused about what—

Well, all right.

First of all, first of all, Hank wasn't talking at all in the Q&A.

First of all, Frank Caliendo did a full set like at dinner, absolutely crushed it, like was so, so, so funny. Everyone was laughing. It was a great amount of time. And then they're like, hey, will you guys follow up after and do a Q&A with Frank Caliendo? And I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It was me, PFT, and Francis.

And I didn't—

I didn't necessarily have questions. I wasn't like— I wasn't— I didn't— I didn't know what to do up there. They were like, will you guys go up? I was like, sure.

You remember the Jerry O'Connell interview?

So I was kind of—

it was kind of like that.

I was kind of sitting up there. Yeah, sitting up there laughing. You know, PFT would say something and I would just sell it like it was really funny.

Thank you.

And then I said—

It wasn't really funny.

No, no, Hank's—

Like, he was trying.

Yeah, Hank's doing a great job right now.

No, I love it.

And I said, I chimed in, I was like, yeah, that was great or something. And then there was a group of guys right to my left that started like laughing and they're like, oh, thank you, Hank. Like we did a side bet on like your word count and you just hit it or whatever. And I was like, oh, I got you. And then they did a Q&A where they pass out mics to the crowd. That same group of guys was like, what was your— he said worst shot today. But because it was the guys that had just been telling me about their word count, I thought he said, what was your word count today? So I was like, oh, you know, it was— it's about 12 now. It's 13, 14, 15, 16. And they were like, no, no, no, worse shot. It was the room. It was bad.

Yeah, it was really good. I was like, that's my boy Hank. He's being so funny.

You pretend you laughed like it— like it was funny.

Yeah. No, it wasn't. It wasn't funny. It wasn't funny.

He's a genius.

Chat loves Hank right now.

We got burned by Frank Galliando. He was just so funny. Tough to follow.

Yeah, very tough act.

Okay. And your cool tone?

My cool throw on CTE.

Oh, okay.

Bad?

Tua.

Oh, oh, I think Drewski's skit. No, we could joke about CTE now.

It's finally been long enough. Yeah, since— tell the truth.

Tua posted an Instagram that he said he like just a bunch of, you know, pictures with him from preseason wearing the Falcons jersey. Standard, standard Instagram post. And he captured it for the A. And then he left a comment from his same account. We're so proud of you. You got this.

Yeah.

So he's talking to us, talking in the third person, but he gassed himself up.

People are proud of him, including Tua.

Yeah.

He is proud of himself.

He was very proud of himself.

Yeah.

What's wrong with gassing yourself up?

Self-confidence.

You are the man, Skip.

Yeah.

Yeah, man, Skip. I love the show on FS1. If you read any sports psychologist, they tell you that, that visualization and important self-talk is, is actually like the key to unlocking a next level of performance. So maybe Tua is just showing himself some love on this one.

But it's like not self-talk. It's like third person talk.

You're the man.

You're the man.

Come on, Tua.

We're so proud of you.

Yeah.

Who's the we?

Yes. Multiple people that are so proud. I don't know.

So yeah. Yeah, that's tough.

That's tough to explain.

Players fuck up.

I got, I got an idea. Why not Joe Milton on the Falcons? Joe Milton just got waived by the Cowboys. Yeah. Why not Joe Milton on the Falcons? Why not Joe Milton on the Browns?

He's not a lefty. That's a good counterpoint.

That's a great counterpoint.

Yeah. Joe Milton on the Browns would be good.

It'd be very fun.

Yeah.

I can't believe he cleared waivers. I think he cleared waivers. I didn't see anybody put in a claim for him this morning, but give Joe Milton a home, guys. Come on.

Also, I don't know if you had this one, PFT. I don't want to burn you, but Tupac.

I did not have that.

Yeah. What happened?

He— his murderer was finally convicted. Story's pretty funny.

It sounds hilarious.

Most murder stories are funny.

Can't wait to hear this rib tickler.

Well, it's just classic 2026 or this, you know, 2020s.

He—

I guess he did a police, like some type of like Queen's Agreement, they called it, where he like kind of admitted this. Like they said, like, if you talk about this, like you can't get convicted.

Queen for a day.

Queen for a day.

Where they bring somebody in and they say, no matter what you say, we're not going to use that to charge you with any crime if you tell us the truth about things that are going on.

So that happened. He admitted it. Obviously, queen for a day, however that works. He didn't get, he didn't get charged or arrested. Then a few years ago, he wrote a book essentially saying it. He kind of pinned it on someone else. And then he did a bunch of podcasts promoting the book. And so the lawyers were able to use all of the podcasts as evidence to convict him for murder.

I'd like to say, if, uh, If any lawyers or jury members are listening to this podcast, nothing we say can be held against you in a court of law.

We're all queens on this podcast.

Queen for a lifetime on this show. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Good hot seat. Cool throne, Hank. Way to deliver.

Good job.

Always. My hot seat after Frank Galliendo.

Yeah, I can't do that. I can't follow. My hot seat is chicks.

Oh.

Chicks on the hot seat. Our good friend Kirk Herbstreit went on a podcast, Busting with the Boys, and he was telling a story about him and his wife and how they conceived. And they— I guess he wanted sons every time.

Yeah.

And he read something online that said that male sperm swim faster. I don't know if that's how it works, but his wife was a gymnast. He said when we got done with the deed, she would do a handstand, she would go up on the bed and do a handstand to try to get boys. And now they're 4 for 4 on having boys. So number one, this is a weird thing to share on a podcast, I guess.

I would say very weird. And I like Kirk Herbstreit. He's a friend of our program. I, I don't really need to see— have the visual of Kirk Herbstreit like finishing and then his wife immediately Going into a handstand.

Yeah. She like puts the chalk on her hands.

Yeah.

Gets upside down and just balances for a while. I also like they, I guess, really both wanted boys. Yeah.

Girls are— I have a daughter. It's pretty fucking awesome.

Yeah. I just— I know I'm imagining Curb Street.

Like, well, he's got to try it out the other way.

What do you mean?

See if he can hit on a girl.

Like, do a squat or something.

just stand up straight.

Yeah.

Walk around afterwards. I always thought that the position that you had sex in determined the gender of the child. And yeah, doggy style, that's twins.

I also like— I know this is going to sound stupid, but Kirk Herbstreit, like, you're— you announce all these games. Like, I, I view you in a rarefied air. Like, you're in my, my, my living room multiple times a week. Like, I don't need this. You know, I don't— I don't want my announcers fucking.

You're above us.

Yeah, you are. You are above us.

You are.

You're pristine, right? You— yeah, you exist on a level like you don't—

you don't poop, right?

You don't fart. You don't— maybe sometimes you pee if it's like a long marathon game. But yeah, our announcers, I agree with you. I don't like to picture them having sex.

No, I like to picture them just walking the field with their dog.

Well, yeah. Now I'm thinking like I'm imagining Kirk, like, shaking his dog upside down so he can get out, get another Peter in a few years.

Yeah.

Anyways, that's kind of weird, Kurt. Yeah, I'm busting with the boys. And then my cool thrown is being hockey tough in baseball. Oh, this is kind of a cool story that happened. So the Nationals have a new closer that they brought up, and his name is Eric Tolman. And the story of him is pretty nuts. So he just got called up, got his first save the other night in Major League Baseball. So he was a junior at Arizona State, and he tore his ACL— or sorry, his UCL. I'm sorry. He got Tommy John surgery in 2021. 14 months later, his elbow pops again. He has Tommy John surgery in 2022. So then he rehabs a second time, gets back on the mound. He's pitching in Single-A Fredericksburg, and he's a, he's a superstitious guy.

Okay.

Like a lot of pitchers tend to be. He tries to hop over the foul line when he's jogging off the mound. and his cleat gets caught in the turf. He had a torn ACL, a torn PCL, a torn LCL. The hamstring and the calf tore off the bone, dislocated his leg. The peroneal nerve in his foot got ruptured. So his, his foot got paralyzed. And he was lucky that it happened to his— I think it happened to his right leg, not his left. And if vice versa had happened, he wouldn't be able to pitch anymore.

Yeah.

But basically, it was the most catastrophic injury that you've ever heard of in your life because he tried to jump over the foul line.

Yep.

And then after that, he had to learn how to walk again because his foot was pretty much paralyzed. He had to pitch with a brace. And then finally he got back to, to the majors on August 22nd, had a scoreless inning. And then a couple of days later, they put him in bases loaded situation in the 8th inning and then got out of the inning, no runs, and then came back in the 9th and got a save.

Nice.

Pretty cool story.

Yeah.

But like also a bizarre injury to have to battle back from.

Very bizarre.

So that's, that's pretty cool. And then my other cool thrown is just, I guess, optical illusions, because did you hear about the, the island that has been spotted?

I saw, I saw, I scrolled past it.

Okay. There is a, there's an island that might not exist, but it also might exist.

Okay.

At the same time, it's in Canada. It's in like British Columbia. It's about 100 kilometers from this place called the Bennett Dam. And on July 21st, they had a clear image of it on satellite. It was about the size of 2 NFL football fields. I like how they put it in those terms for us.

Like, yeah, wait, CFL though?

No, it's actually the headline I saw said it's about the size of 1 Canadian football field or 2 NFL football fields.

Got it.

Which is very helpful for us morons that don't understand math. without a football analogy. So they had a picture of it on July 21st on satellite image. And then on August 5th, it disappeared from satellite images. And it's got trees and shit on it.

It looks like fully grown trees.

Yes, it looks like a full-ass island, like with plants that took root in it. So they're trying to figure out what happened and how it, how it just disappeared.

What?

Yeah. Okay, so this is a real story. It's like, I know it's documented and it's crazy.

So do they have an after picture of it disappearing?

I guess the after picture would just be water, empty water.

Do they just lose it? Do they lose where it is?

They might have just forgotten.

Yeah.

Where the guy that saw it was like, so here's a satellite so you can see it out there.

Oh, shit. That's crazy.

And then it's gone. And I don't know what the explanation for this is.

The island was actually a massive floating raft of vegetation and driftwood that detached from the shoreline due to high water levels. It did not sink. sink, but likely drifted into a sheltered area along the reservoir's edge.

So this is a piece of land that broke off, that drifted and then floated. And then after floating for a while, it got broken up by waves or floated back to somewhere close to shore. Isn't this how people think that, like, humans got to America to begin with?

I thought that was Pangaea.

Like, like there were a bunch of, like, Apes on an island and then that island floated across the world.

And I thought it was Russia frozen over. We used to be connected.

There was a land bridge there too. Yeah.

I don't know.

That's kind of crazy if that's true, that an island that size could break off.

Yeah.

And then disappeared.

That is nuts. Okay. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this.

Like, did that— I would, I would drive myself insane if I saw that island and then I went back and I was like, the island's gone. Yeah.

Where the fuck did it go?

Everything kind of reminds me of the, the Commanders 2025 season. Like, I swear to God, there was a beautiful island here and now it's not too long ago.

Now it's gone. Okay, my hot seat. I got a couple. It's PFT. Oh, because Barstow signed an op.

Yeah.

Barstow signed up to PFT, a direct op.

Well, I don't—

this is PFT. I don't understand. I heard him. He was like, I was sitting in the studio and the door was open and I heard PFT crying to Memes for no reason.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I did not cry.

So, all right, so back up, back up. We have a new social guy who is one of many, one of many who got hired for the main account and his previous handle, which I guess he'll keep running because a lot of guys, when we sign social guys like Memes, for example, he had Pardon My Memes. Uh, Liam Blutman had No Context College Football. These guys who proved that they can do something, uh, on a social media— on a social media app, and then we hire them. They get to keep the one that they had, but they're now working for us. This guy happens to be, uh, the account Drake May Lover.

Yeah.

And, uh, he's perfect, by the way, because I, I had a brief conversation with him. I said— I walked up to him, I was like, are you a freak? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, did you go to college? He's like, for one class. I was like, you're Yeah, that's exactly what we want our social media guy to be. But yeah, he is a direct op to you, PFT, because yeah, you guys are gonna be at a war.

I mean, feels targeted.

How is he a direct op to you?

Well, PFT was a, was, was a Drake Mayhater propaganda machine. I was not.

I was rooting for Drake.

You actually were probably more Drake May Facts.

Yeah, Drake. I was Drake May Facts. Facts don't care about your lovers. I met the kid earlier. It seems like a very nice guy. I'm sure we'll get along fine. It does feel slightly targeted. I am glad that Barstool Sports finally gets a little bit of Boston and Patriots representation. I don't think that we've put out enough propaganda, so I think it does fill a hole. I understand why that hire was made. Kid's obviously very good at his job. He's— it's a funny account. I've seen it all over the place for the last couple of seasons, and he is a talented social media guy, no doubt about that.

This is—

It does feel like I don't— I don't expect there to be a lot of fair and balanced NFL takes coming out regarding certain teams and certain players that might be seen as rivals of Drake Maye or the New England Patriots.

Do you understand where you work?

Drake Maye Lover, though, is in-house. This is like when I found out Meek Phil runs the account PCA Hater.

It's—

it's— does he really?

I don't think so, but I think so.

If you look at the history of the Barstool Sports main account.

Yeah.

Gaz.

Yeah. Coley Mick.

Yeah.

It's a Boston company.

Drake May Lover.

Yeah, this is— yeah, it's a—

it's going hardcore.

The Patriots.

None of us pronounce Drake May Lover.

Barstool Sports wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the Patriots. We should all—

Drake May Lover.

Drake May Stan. Yeah, it's Drake May Lover.

Yeah.

Not like Drake May Goat. It's Drake May Lover.

I did reach out to the Barstool Sports head of social for comment.

This would be Gaz.

And he said, He has no one to blame but himself. Fuck around, find out.

Oh, this is about PFT.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So, so, so this was a direct shot. We're at war now.

Yeah.

This is, this was a direct shot against you for your actions in the previous season.

So we're at war. Yeah. This is, this is war.

Gaz was like, oh, PFT spouting off. I know what we'll do. Countermove.

Yeah.

Drake may love her.

Well, Gaz has, he's got 2 moves. One is hire a hot chick and then the other is hire Patriots propaganda. And so it's an A button or the B button.

It's gotten us this far. It has. No.

Listen, they're good. They're good moves. Don't get me wrong.

But he's got—

he's that meme where he's sweating with the 2 buttons.

Yeah.

I mean, if he could ever find one that would be both, then that would be— oh my God, like, forget about it. She'd end up taking over the entire company one day. But yeah, I listen, I love Gaz, but we're at war. This is declaration of war. Yeah. Open hostilities right now.

I think you're not even—

And me.

And I know, I know another guy that has an army that could go after a guy like Bald Paul.

Mm-hmm.

I know.

And maybe—

what?

Just good luck.

With what?

That army?

Yeah.

Enlisting that army.

I'm just saying, I—

Listen, I know what army you're talking about. That army is— they only serve one master. They don't really get it. They don't care about anything else.

Oh, I'm not— I'm not pretending that they would serve me. I'm just saying now we have a common enemy.

Yeah.

And so maybe, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And in times of war, You know, weird allies come together sometimes.

You get in a battle with the Riders side by side with you against Gaz. The minute you get wounded, they're like, oh, see you later, dude.

I don't—

we got other things to do.

I think I— as long as I listen, me and Rico are on great terms now. I actually never think Rico and I have been closer.

All right. My other hot seat is pitchers pitching against the Cubs because the Cubs just keep hitting home runs. the most home runs in Major League Baseball. They hit, I think it was 9. Was it 9 the other night on Monday night? It was insane. It was just a yabo fest. We also have Alex Bregman and Pete Crow-Armstrong both had— they have 17 home runs and 16 home runs since July 11th, respectively. They both had over 12 home runs in the month of August. So the Cubs just keep mashing. And then my cool throne is players Batting against the Cubs because the Cubs, while they got the most home runs in MLB, they also last night or 2 nights ago tied the A's for giving up the most home runs.

Wow.

Yeah, that's been quite a— it's kind of fun— quite an experience. So yeah, and they tied the A's. The A's play in a bandbox, which is like, I think, high altitudes, you know, humid in Sacramento. So yeah, it's If you want, if you want to know, if you want to explain exactly what the Cubs season has been and the ups and downs, they have given up the most home runs and they have hit the most home runs and they have the leader, the presumptive favorite in NL MVP, and they're still 7 games behind the Brewers. That pretty much sums it all up.

Yeah, that is crazy.

It's just up, down, up, down, up, down.

The fact that the Brewers just, just keep dominating is also pretty wild.

What'd you guys think? And obviously this could all be irrelevant because Tuesday night, we're taping this on Tuesday and they play again Tuesday night. But what did you guys think There was some discourse going on. Pat Murphy, the Brewers manager, put in a position pitcher in the 7th inning last night, on Monday night.

And how much— what was the— what was the run differential?

I think it was like— I think it was 9 at the time, which the wind was blowing out and it's like you never know what could happen. Well, I'm going to look up exact score, but it, it did feel a little early. I, I think they should— I actually was thinking too, because people were complaining about it and I get it. You're in a 4-game series against your rival. You got to, you got to try to save bullpen arms. At the time that he came in, it was 9-3. So actually not— I mean, that's, that's 6 runs.

Yeah. You know, it's not the most competitive thing to do, but I understand it. I get it.

It's a power move.

And I think it's kind of a smart move. A 4-game series. And this is, you know, the next team up in the division. You just need to— you need to hold on until the end of September. Yeah. So I get it. It's not— yeah.

Andrew Vaughn came in, he gave up 9 hits, 2 runs pitched, or 2 innings pitched, 9 hits, 7 earned runs.

It's enough red meat to like all the old school like baseball guys that would be like, this is some bullshit. We never would have done this when I played. But at the end of the day, I do think it's probably the smart move. Yeah.

Dumb rule.

I think that a team, the minute you throw in a position player, I think a team should use a position like why, why couldn't the Cubs in that situation, you auction it off preseason to a random fan who gets to then play the outfield? Like when it's 17, when it's 17 to 3 in the top of the 9th.

Emergency goalie in hockey.

But think about how much like a rich guy would pay to be like, hey, you're going to get to come in.

Yeah.

During— you're going to play an inning at Wrigley Field with a full crowd in a win. You get to celebrate after, go in the clubhouse. Someone would pay millions of dollars. Then you use that for next year's salary.

That's not a bad idea. Or if you are a manager and you're— if you want to put a position player in in the 7th inning or earlier, you can do it. They just have to wear a little clown nose while they pitch.

I like that.

Like if they have a clown nose, maybe, maybe pitch on a tricycle. Yeah, some big shoes. Well, instead of the bullpen cart, they have to go out on a tricycle.

Make it Savannah ball.

Yeah.

Make— they just have to admit that this is— you've turned it into a clown show, so embrace it. If you're comfortable being, being a laughingstock for that game, that's fine. But yeah, ultimately, I think it's probably the smart move, but it does suck.

Yeah, I know. I can't get like super upset about it. There are some people who are like, this is an absolute joke. It's like, I mean, I don't know. Every team, every team does it in the course of a season. It's a long fucking season. 7th inning, though, is early.

It's very early.

That's a lot.

I mean, obviously it was the, the Cubs were at home, so it was only 2 innings, but 7th inning feels very early.

All right.

My other cool throw-in is Zach, because my boy, I think he's going on a date with Rudy from Bad Friends.

Yeah, she seemed into it.

She seemed into it.

You know what she said? She said he's got great eyes.

Yeah. So for people who missed it, our good friend Andrew Santino, he was flying back with us from the Internet Invitational and Zach was sitting across from him. Zach is a big Bad Friends fan. Zach got out of the car. and was coming back with Max. And Zach told Max, I was the whole time, I was wanting to ask if Rudy, one of the person— female on the Bad Friends podcast, is single. Zach didn't ask. Unfortunately, Max then told me and I made it. I brought it up on the show because I was like, hey, let's, let's get this couple together. We talked about it on our show. Bad Friends then talked about on their show. I think, Zach, you're in.

That is true. We did talk here. They talked there. Some things were said. I think it's Yeah, I think there's opportunity for a date there.

She's into you.

Yeah, you never know.

She said she was in maybe, maybe to do a date. One thing you guys have in common, she said she's not much of a cold weather city person.

I'm also kind of out on the cold.

Yeah.

So you and her just, you know, you know how to stay warm in the wintertime.

We just migrate, right? Yeah.

Well, play the end of the clip where she's agreeing to a date. I think she kind of agreed.

Yeah. Yeah. There's no way to know. It's, it's up in the air right now. You never know.

She, she was kind of put on this. It was actually perfect because she was put on the spot almost identical to when Zach was put on the spot. Mm-hmm.

Nobody deserves that kind of heat. I felt terrible for him.

But hey, this is like Bob Knight, common enemy. You can go on a date with Rudy and you could be like, hey, Big Cat, PFT, Bobby, Andrew, aren't those guys such assholes for making us do this? I love you, I love you, I love you.

It's like common ground.

Yeah, right. You have something. The first conversation will be so easy being like, those guys are real dickheads.

Mm-hmm. I can't believe we're doing this.

What an icebreaker.

Yeah.

All right, play the end of it. She's—

she's a really nice kid.

I met him.

So Uncrustables, you like them?

I don't even know that.

There's not an Uncrustable in the house.

She ate them on the Bert Pod when those guys came on the show.

That's right.

That's right. She ate like 6 on camera.

Okay.

There he is. So here's Zach right there.

Um, would you go on a date with Zach perhaps, Rudy?

That could be. Um, he's— I like his eyes.

Yeah, his eyes.

That's a good start.

Caribbean blue is what I call it. Are you interested in maybe going on a date with this man if we set this up? The guy on the left, he's got a big, big crush on you. He was too shy to say it to me when I met him.

But now we know the truth. Maybe.

What does he do?

He's a producer for that show, for Pardon My Take.

He's a, he's a producer and he's very good at his job, unlike the producers that we have on this show.

I like the ham and cheese idea.

You like the ham and cheese Uncrustable idea?

Yeah.

So this is something we can move forward on, perhaps if we can get a merging of maybe— Where does he live, this guy?

Chicago.

It's not gonna work. I think it is. She doesn't like winter.

We'll travel for love is what Zach said.

Okay.

So that's him on the right. Cool guy.

Cool guy.

Dresses well, good style, smart, sweet, funny.

Yeah.

Very funny.

Funny guy.

So what do we think?

Rudy, can we maybe do a date?

Yeah, maybe.

We love Zach very much.

He's the man.

And maybe we'll set up a little date for you guys because you might like him.

His style is cool.

So is that a yes?

Yeah.

Oh, that's a yes.

We spoke with our friends.

All right, so we're good.

We're good.

That was—

yeah, maybe a yes. Uh, I, I do want to say, uh, kind words from Andrew there. Great gas from Andrew.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zach, um, you— so you used to have an Uncrustables Puncher, right?

Yeah, he called you a great producer.

Great producer.

We'll take that gas. What, what kind of guy?

Yeah. Um, so you used to have an Uncrustable puncher thing, right?

It's kind of like spring-loaded. So think of like a stamp almost, like, you know, the stamps that flip. You just kind of cha-ching and then it punches it out. Sometimes you gotta give it a second punch, but works pretty good.

I do think that would be a good, like, a fun first date somewhere.

Just make Uncrustables.

Yeah, let's go to the kitchen. Maybe, maybe go to the kitchen here and you can, you know, if you want to, you can record some of them, but do like Make your own new types of Uncrustables contest.

Kind of wild with the Uncrustables.

So what do you like?

I don't hate that.

Hear me out. What about like a McGriddle Uncrustable?

Oh, like a hot sandwich?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's the next step here? So we will be in LA for the Super Bowl, but I feel like that's too far from now. Do you want us to fly you out to LA? Do you want me to see if Santino has any plans to come to Chicago?

I think Zach wants to crawl out of his skin and die.

Oh, okay.

No, I didn't say—

well, after you do that, after you, after you metamorph— morph—

metamorphosis. Yes.

Yeah.

As a snake, what would you like to do?

Uh, yeah, I think Super Bowl comes up pretty quick, or maybe like maybe before Super Bowl if she's open to that. Uh, yeah, it's a moving target right now, you know? Yeah, I got to pin that down.

Okay, it's on me.

Let's try to pin it down.

I'm not the best at calendars, I'll shoot you guys straight.

But wait, I just asked you to print up a calendar for me like an hour ago.

I can make 2 calendars.

Not a big calendar guy.

I'm not good. I can definitely produce 2 calendars for EPFT.

Okay.

Can you produce— if you kids want it, you know, Wizards tickets courtside might be a great first date. Oh, send you guys to the nation's capital.

Incredible.

Feet on the wood right behind Trae Young and Anthony Davis.

Everybody does love the Capitol.

I think it's either that or maybe, maybe a Sunday in the gambling cave. She seems like she would love that.

Maybe we go— maybe we go somewhere else before the Gambling Cave.

Okay.

Yeah, but that was maybe a date. Maybe a date.

I think it's a date. I think we just got to figure out when— if there's a potential for the Bad Friends show to be here in Chicago at any point. And if not, we'll just get you a plane ticket to L.A.

Okay.

We'll see how it goes. Okay. If— if there is a date, I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah.

Great.

All right.

Your hot seat, cool throw-in, Zach.

My hot seat. My hot— sorry. My hot seat this week is maybe Terry Scubal. Yeah, he did go back to Detroit. But what do you guys think about taking the espresso machine? Yeah. Yeah. What do we think?

I have— I've got a couple of thoughts.

He took an espresso machine.

So Scubal bought an espresso machine for the clubhouse, got traded, took the espresso machine.

That's tough.

Yeah, it is. It is. If I don't want to say bad guy move, My thought was maybe it was a gift. That's the only way I could see this being okay. If somebody's so rich, if somebody gets you it as a gift and you bring it in and then you're leaving and you're like, I don't want to leave that behind because it was a gift from somebody, that maybe might be a good— but otherwise, I mean, you got—

He did say he bought it.

He said his wife made him take it back. You got it. He said, He said, I'll wear it. I'll wear the fact that this was a bad, bad guy move.

They got—

so he's, he's standing up to it.

They got coffee in Los Angeles. You can buy a coffee maker there.

Yeah, he could afford another one.

But also the Tigers can too.

Did he like— did he send somebody in to like repossess it? Or did he go— because the only way it would be okay is if he went in there, grabbed it off the shelf, and then walked out the front door with his coffee machine.

Yeah, I think there's plausible deniability if someone else just grabbed it when scooping up his stuff. He—

Scooble said, I wanted to leave it and get a new one, but she wanted— she wouldn't let me. My wife wanted me to take it. Good fall guy move by Scooble's wife. That's a really good fall guy move. Yeah, I think you got to buy— I think you can take it and then just buy maybe not the same espresso machine, but an espresso machine. You know what I mean?

Or maybe the same one.

Yeah.

Or maybe the same one.

They probably made 2 of them.

Yeah. You never know.

That's— yeah, it's, it's a weird move.

It's also kind of a funny move to be like, see you guys. He must be walking out with his espresso machine under his arm.

He must have really liked that coffee that it made.

Yeah.

Okay. And then your cool throne.

My cool throne this week is going to be most nations, because who a lot of guys believe is maybe the best soccer player of all time has decided to retire from international play.

Lionel Messi has retired from international play. You, you specifically, Zach, are on the cool throne now because you don't have to watch him just dominate in your face when Ronaldo scores a goal against Uzbekistan and says he's back.

I would be included in most nations.

Yes.

Yes. Americans are.

I would say you're the, you're the most nation of this.

Hey, look, Ronaldo might have one more in him.

I hope he does.

Club coaches coming.

I would want to see it fall apart, though. I just want to see him. He would never try to World Cup's hosted in Portugal. I want to see him try to make it all about himself and fail spectacularly.

He would never fall apart.

He'll have 4 years to grow from this.

Yeah, he will grow.

I don't know if he's going to grow anymore.

He's—

I think emotionally he's done growing. But yeah, thank you. Thank you, Lionel. What a great— what a great career it was.

Yeah. 2 Copa Americas, 1 World Cup. Beautiful thing for the country.

Yeah.

He wrote— he went handwritten on the note on Instagram.

Did he?

Yeah, he said he, uh, he made this—

Did he also retire one, one time before from Argentina?

I believe so.

Was that for Copa America?

Yeah.

So he might come back like Jordan did it.

I think he said this time it was more permanent. Uh, he wrote the letters 2 days after the World Cup final, and then I guess earlier in August his dad did unfortunately pass away, and he's like, that kind of cemented it for him. Like, hey, I'm— my time here is done.

So I'm just saying, Jordan came back twice.

It would be cool. He probably would be so sick.

Unfortunately, he'd be so good still.

Yeah, of course he would be. Yeah, he's so good in this world.

This is all part of my master plan. When we hired Poach, he's Argentinian. Convince Messi to retire from Argentina. He already works in the United States. Just give him citizenship.

Yeah.

And then have him play for the US in 2030.

Yeah, but he could never return home if that was the case. There's no way. There would be riots in the streets.

No, no, he could return home. Argentina is pretty good at hiding people.

Yeah.

If you throw on the red, white, and blue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd go off to a village somewhere and change his name. Age 95, swimming in a beautiful lake of a heart attack.

Yeah.

Your mate.

Yeah.

OK, good. Good hot seat. Cool throw. Do you have it? Do you have anything else? That's good.

Also, just the Cubs pitcher Clay Holmes is throwing cartoon pitches.

Those were cool, dude.

That's a lot of movement on those pitches.

It's crazy. The Cubs are in a spot where I think our starting rotation if we get to the playoffs is going to be all guys we just traded for. So that speaks to the stat of giving up the most home runs. Clay Holmes has been awesome.

I wonder if that's ever happened.

I, right now, I mean, I would go Javier Assad 3, but you could very well make the case that it should be Clay Holmes 1, Gausman 2, Peterson 3, because no one else can be trusted. The trust tree has gotten as small as possible when it comes to the Cubs pitching. Okay, let's do our Mount Rushmore. It is brought to you by our friends at Reese's. There's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's. We love Reese's. They're the 1-1 pick of candy. I actually had some Reese's Sticks last night. They're so good. We have the Reese's Lounge upstairs. I brought my kids in on Sunday to hang out in the office. They were like, can we go to the Reese's Lounge? Like, absolutely we can. They had a great time. They're the best candy of all time. The Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. That is the GOAT candy. That is the 1-1. That is the New York Knicks of candy. That is the Carolina Hurricanes of candy. They are the undisputed heavyweight champion of candy. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports.

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go get Reese's wherever you shop, and you can never go wrong with the Reese's. Okay, boys, it is Mount Rushmore time. Zach is now 1 point behind Hank. If Zach can win this Mount Rushmore today, We will have a duel on Friday, a finale duel where we will do 3 Mount Rushmores spur of the moment off the top, off the dome. Boy, would that be awesome for the AWLs, right, PFT?

It would be incredible. I think I'm always thinking of the listeners first and foremost.

Right.

But the only way that can happen is if Zach wins this Mount Rushmore.

That's true. Yes. That's the only way that we can get there. And duels are amazing. I had a great time dueling against Hank. It's been— it's always fun. I think the listeners really like him.

Yeah. Wouldn't you agree, Hank?

I would.

Yeah. So how do you— were you surprised with the voting? Because you kind of called— you kind of put up your finger and walked off on Sunday night. You're like, I got this.

I thought I had it. Yeah. I think Death— I underestimated Death.

Death and Max.

Who's that?

Max.

Homer?

No. Max Stellente, our former producer.

You underestimate how fat he was. Or how— excuse me, how heavy he was.

You guys all agree, like, the, the gifts that Max brings back have to blow us away for a 2-week vacation. He's not bringing back gifts. He is bringing back gifts. And they— he actually needs to bring me an espresso machine because you can't go away for 2 weeks and come back with, like, you know, Shane's little bobbleheads and shit and like, oh, here, here's a, here's a fucking— here's a shot glass. No offense, Shane. Sorry, I forgot you're sitting right there. I love my bobbleheads, by the way.

Yeah, bolt up.

They're right— oh shit, where are they?

I think you smashed them.

Oh no.

I think you took them.

Oh no, no, there's one of them.

There's a—

Did you throw them off the roof the other day?

No. Where's my golf cart?

Oh, this— did you get me this, Shane?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

This is cool.

Where's the Pope?

I don't—

where's the golf cart? Oh, the golf cart's up there.

Where?

Where's the Pope?

There's Big Dom. Where's the Pope?

Oh my God.

The Pope's head fell off.

Yeah, the Pope— it didn't fall off.

Yes, it did.

He was assassinated.

No, no, no.

I, I, I didn't like intentionally break it. I bumped into the back.

He's a White Sox fan. A lot of people are talking about Cubs-White Sox World Series.

Wrong. Last Pope.

It was the last Pope. Oh, the last Pope.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was the last Pope.

Okay, Mount Rushmore of household items you could use as a weapon. Henry, you are up first.

Steak knife.

Okay, that's a really good fucking pick. I didn't even think about that.

Super sharp.

I didn't even think about that.

I double up here, correct?

Yep.

I would like to take a baseball bat, and I would also like to take a nail gun.

Mm, okay.

Okay.

Baseball bat is—

that's a good one.

Do you guys own nail guns?

Uh, I do.

I own—

I do own a nail gun.

Yeah, Big Cat owns a fucking—

I will buy a nail gun by the time this podcast comes out so that I can—

You got a nail gun? Does anyone in the booth have a nail gun?

Uh, yeah, Memes does. Memes, remember when— I'm trying to think. I used your nail gun?

Bat?

I don't think I—

No, you're—

wait, you're not sure if you have a nail gun or not, Memes? No.

You don't?

Yeah, then you don't.

Snoop.

Snoop.

Yeah, Snoop from The Wire.

Yeah, you have a nail gun? I got a staple gun. It is good. It is a good weapon though, if you have one. It is. Also, baseball bat is just— that's a brutal one.

Do you have a baseball bat in your house, Zach?

Yeah, sock over it.

Why?

Because you catch it, you know, swing.

What?

They catch it, you get another swing.

Oh, that's so genius.

You double up.

Holy fuck.

That's actually brilliant.

That's so brilliant. So you just have a long sock over your baseball bat at all times? Yeah, because they grab it and then you just—

whoop.

What about double sock?

Well, that's when they say they break.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, that's true.

So the cum comes out. Damn, Zach, that is so— so, okay, nail gun and baseball bat. Those are pretty good weapons in your house.

My next one, thinking like Tom and Jerry, we'll go frying pan.

Okay.

Yeah, good one. Good pick.

Like cast iron.

Yep.

Pretty heavy.

Yep.

That's a really good pick.

Brain somebody with that.

Yeah. And this one's more like, like fighting, like fighting with your brother, like fighting with your sibling. It's just a TV remote.

Oh, okay. Just chucking it at someone's face.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's actually— yeah.

Yeah. It's like annoying. Like, you've—

I've gotten hit by a TV remote. I've thrown a TV remote. Like, it's a— it's a— or even if, like, accidentally, like, you like, hey, throw me the remote and it hits you in the face. Like, that hurts.

Agree.

Hank, what would you say to the people out there that would say that the TV remote in this draft would be like taking a single Hornet?

I would disagree.

Like kind of annoying, but actually won't get the job done.

I mean, it's at least a household item is what I would say.

Yeah, it is.

Similar to a nail gun.

I could have used, yeah, like a jackhammer.

I use a nail gun and a TV remote about the same amount of times.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

I'm going to take clothesline.

Okay.

All right.

Yep.

Like the, uh, The thing in the backyard. Yeah, that's a great pick.

That's a great pick, Zach. I didn't think about it.

So we don't go outside, we just go inside, hang them to dry. But also, if you need to, a little quick coup, you know?

Yeah.

Or just run them pat, like, hey, oh, you're going to chase me? I'm going to run and duck under the clothesline. That's how Bryson DeChambeau almost lost his career.

We've all seen Home Alone. Take him out.

Yeah. Hey, quick, run that way.

Yeah.

And then next thing you know, that could— if it's tight enough, take your head right off.

Yeah, or— Bet you didn't think of that, Hank.

You don't want the kids to wake up. You know, this is not my life.

Oh yeah, the stealth. Yeah, yeah, good point.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith action.

Wow, Hank, you're blowing this.

I think—

Great pick.

Listen, if you looked up— Zach, stop shaking your head. If you looked up, uh, how many deaths per year were caused by a clothesline as opposed to a remote, I think clothesline—

Shane, why are you laughing in Zach's face? Yeah, why is he laughing, Zach?

Shane looked at his phone and started laughing.

Zach, do you think that PFT and I hyping you up to this point might be having the unintended effect of people might be able to pick up on our sarcasm on Clothesline was a good pick?

Yes.

Okay.

All right. So we'll dial it down a little. Decent pick.

I think you probably could have gotten it in the 4th.

I got to be more decisive on the list.

Maybe a little bit of a reach.

You got another one.

All right.

All right, I'm gonna take—

I'm good.

All right, fine. I'm gonna take bleach. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, poison.

Yeah, no, that's good. Throw it at someone.

You ever catch a bleach cup to the face?

No, I don't.

I—

that actually is a good pick. That clothesline was dogshit. If you close on that pick, if you threw bleach in someone's eyes, you would fuck them up pretty bad.

I just looked this up online. On average, 11 people die per year on clotheslines. How many—

now look up TV remote.

Okay.

Most of the clothesline deaths you're keeping quiet.

Uh-huh.

Yeah. Because it's the silent killer.

TV remote's got to be lower than that.

Bleach is a good one. Yeah. A spray bottle.

Yeah. What?

Spray bleach?

Yeah.

To—

yeah.

You fuck someone up?

To fuck someone up?

You're like, not to clean?

No. And to clean.

Oh, okay.

You spray it in their eye.

Yeah.

All right.

Okay. Really, the only way that people die from remotes is if you eat the batteries out of them.

So you would have to have someone come into your house.

So batteries might be—

and you have to convince them that the TV remote batteries are delicious, and then you could hope to survive.

But like, think about it, Big Cat. Someone breaks in your house, you're obviously lying on the couch. You might only have the TV remote, the most accessible thing.

So I'm lying on the couch, someone breaks into my house. Boom. First thing happens, they hit the clothesline. Bang. Next thing that happens, nail gun in the face.

You actually tie it up, tie the clothesline up to a nail gun trigger.

Yeah.

So it's like a booby trap.

Oh, you tried to— oh, you got up after the nail gun and the clothesline. You ran at me. Oh, look, you just slipped on bleach. Zach literally is just Kevin McCallister in this.

Dude, he held down the house, held it down, held it down.

All right, last pick.

I'll give Zach a chance. Zach's done, right?

Yeah, he's done with his picks.

I could just take fork. That would obviously do the trick. You could kill someone with a fork. But I will take can of soup.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Heavy.

Not a bad one. I was surprised.

All right.

So good Mount Rushmore. I was surprised. Hammer. Hammer feels like that would be a good pick.

I was going to say also pot of hot coffee.

Yep.

Might be a good one.

Yep. What about a chair? Throw a chair at someone. Feels good. What, Zach, you got some honorable mentions?

What do you think about car keys?

Car keys.

Okay. That would be annoying.

Maybe just— maybe just your car.

Actually, car keys might be a genius one because, like, brass knuckles move. No, I was saying, like, you just throw your car keys and they're like, all right, I can just steal your car now. Oh, just take it. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. I came for the car and you just handed it to me.

What do you think about frozen food?

What kind of frozen food?

Anything solid out the freezer.

Like, you know, with the— yeah, I would say, yeah, like maybe a tomahawk steak.

If we got like a pound of ground beef down there, it's been there probably 6 months. Hard as a rock.

Yeah.

Legos. Yeah, strewn about. Yeah, that will fuck any, any person up pretty bad. What about fireplace poker?

That's what I was about to say right now. Yeah, I just— I saw the staircase recently.

I didn't have one, so I didn't take it, but that, that is probably the best one.

It's a classic one. I would also say lamp.

Crowbar. Lamp's a good one.

Lamp, you just— yeah, hit somebody in the head with it. Yeah, candle holder.

It's not really a plate. Spoon, plate, spoon, spoon.

Oh yeah.

What's the thing? Put in someone's eye. The big wooden things.

I got to remember, me and Memes, we're also allies now. We've got an online war we need to fight together.

Memes, the rolling pin.

Yeah, we should get someone biased against the Patriots to run our socials.

That's what we need. Good point. Okay. My account says unbiased. It does. It clearly doesn't say—

it doesn't say Jets lover.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Geno Smith lover.

That would be very concerning.

Yes.

This is more of not a household item, but like an on-person item. But I feel like I could win most fights if you just let me get my belt off. Like whipping someone would hurt so bad.

It'd also be very emasculating.

Yeah. Yes, that too.

Right. If like if you got into a fight and this dude started just hitting you with his belt, if he just whipped you, literal belt to ass.

Yeah.

You become— you become— he's your daddy at that point.

I also was thinking of like the George Bush clip, just like a shoe or a boot.

Yeah, I think that's most likely what you'd end up throwing is something like that in panic.

Or you could take your remote out, hot soup, and try to hit pause and see if they stopped.

Yeah.

Zach, you didn't want to pick like your gun?

Well, I had gun and nightstand.

Yeah, I didn't take it. Yeah, that is a household item.

Yeah.

What else do you have on your list, Zach?

Yeah, the fireplace stoker. We talked that.

That was better than clothesline.

We talked car keys, we talked the gun. That was pretty much it. Fireplace, I cut out, deleted, just because they didn't—

would you delete them?

Would you leave?

What do we think about pretty much anything you could drown somebody in? Like filling up the bathtub?

Yes, slowly filling up the bathtub, then drowning them.

Or like if you keep it filled at all times, just for it—

that's your drowning tub.

Yeah.

Or it's like the water goes out, you've got gallons of of clean water right here.

Yeah, PFT and I, we always talk about if someone came into our house, what we would do is we would, uh, we just hit the sauna and just lock them in there brutally and go out.

Or they get like stronger beyond belief because of the rejuvenating powers of the sauna.

I also say a lot of these items, I don't know if I could actually use them as household weapons. Anything you're doing the stabbing on, I think I don't think I have a chance. Like with the knives and the forks and stuff, I don't think I— yeah, tough. That's scary stuff.

Scissors.

Yeah, think about the close combat on scissors.

Stapler.

I mean, screwdriver.

Screwdriver would be good.

Yeah, screwdriver might have been a mess.

Nail gun.

Nail gun's great.

Yeah, nail gun's a great pick. Great pick.

When I used to be left alone when I was a kid at home, my dad would leave me with a bag of baseballs and he'd be like, if anybody breaks in, just throw all these baseballs at them.

I used to just build like with like little, little, like not Lego blocks, but like the buildable blocks.

I just used to build a little fort And be like, I'm good. I'm safe in here.

I'm fucking fine. Okay, good. Mount Rushmore, boys. Let's get to our interview. We got the college football mega preview with Brandon Walker and Tom Fornelli.

Before we get to college football's Beavis and Butt-Head, Tom Fornelli and Brandon Walker, brought to you by our great friends at Chevy. There's a reason that Chevy's called the heartbeat of America. The Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. These trucks work hard so you can chill harder. Whether that's getting out of town, heading to the lake, or just not turning around when you probably should. It's got the capability, the space, and the muscle. Everything you need for a proper summer. Coolers, gear, whatever your version of chill looks like. Because at the end of the day, Silverado helps you tackle more of what you love. And let's be honest, you've earned this summer. Now it's time to go get it. So roll the windows down, turn the music up, and just listen. That's the heartbeat of America. That's today's Chevrolet. Head over to chevy.com. Learn more. And Tom Fornelli and Brandon Walker are also brought to you by our great friends over at Venmo. Football's back. That means tailgating's back. That means you're about to spend money on the essentials— hot dogs, wings, chips, maybe a jersey that you absolutely did not need. And the great thing is you can buy all of it with the money already sitting in your Venmo balance.

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And now here's Tom and Brent.

ID verification required to use a balance. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. Okay, we now welcome on 2 very special guests. It is Brandon Walker and the reigning Pardon My Take official college football expert. Tom Fornelli, both in flesh. Tom, you have won. You are the expert for Pardon My Take college football. Now, Brandon, you won the—

Real quick, let me just jump in. Brandon, you were just looking off into the distance. You weren't paying to a single word that Big Cat just said.

No, I paid attention to every single word he said. I just didn't like any of it.

No, you were just looking away daydreaming the entire time.

I wasn't daydreaming. I just didn't like what he was saying.

Lock in.

For people who might be new, we every year we have We have both of you guys on.

We've done this.

This is the 3rd year, I believe.

This will be the 3rd year.

3rd year. You guys both pick, what is it, 12 teams each?

12 teams to win the national title.

And we do a point system in the playoffs. You get a point for being in the playoffs, point for winning, and then, you know, it increases as you go. Brandon, you got absolutely dog walked last year by Tom.

I destroyed him in the first year.

He is the college football expert. And I apologize, Tom, because we We were at Camp Barstool, then these guys were in California. I was in Saratoga. We, we weren't able to plan much for you, uh, for winning. We have a couple things.

Zach, do you want to— Timeout, timeout, timeout, timeout. Not that this is my show. You didn't do anything for me last year. In fact, when I got here as the reigning champ, you said, well, that was for last year. You said that doesn't carry over into this episode.

Okay.

All right. So that's what you said. Yeah.

But hang on for a second because you made some good points.

Right.

Sure. And you are a skilled debater. So it was in part of a larger college football discussion where you said that maybe you should think about honoring the college football expert.

Sure.

You won that debate.

Right.

You made great, excellent points. And so we're trying to evolve and we're trying to take that into consideration.

Right our wrongs.

Celebrate it a little bit.

Yeah. So we just have all— listen, all we got was a little, a little tiny ribbon that we're going to have Tom cut to signify that he won. And just a ribbon. Start the ceremony.

This is cutting the ribbon on the 2026 college football season.

Yeah.

Even though it kind of already started.

All the AWLs. All the AWLs. He's dedicating to all the AWLs. Okay, great. That was incredible.

All right.

We can start the college football season. We can start Tom Fornelli as an expert.

I also—

well, we got you a ring too. So here's a ring if you want. This is the ring ceremony. That's it.

No. No, there's a card that comes along with it.

Oh, okay.

If you want to just say what the card is.

Yeah, sit down in the mic and then yeah, you might be good. I'm going to sound my card out loud there.

It's just a card and a ring.

Yeah. It's a squirrel. It says, oh my God, you did it.

It's a fat squirrel. Yeah.

It's a fat squirrel.

Very fat squirrel.

Congrats. Oh, wow. Look at this. I got a lot of Chick-fil-A gift cards here. Oh, Jesus Christ.

This is sick.

You know what?

Prize is $300 in Chick-fil-A.

Listen, I'm touched. I'm humbled. I am absolutely thrilled to be the number one college football expert here on Pardon My Take. But I'm also humble. And Brandon did get one team out of his 12 into the college football playoffs.

Let's not act like you got a bunch yourself there, buddy boy.

I'm going to give you one of my Chick-fil-A gift cards.

Oh, that's very nice.

Oh, nice guy.

Here you go. Oh, don't act like you're going to take it.

Oh shit, what?

Come on, take it. I don't know what this is.

Of course I'm going to take it.

We did get you a trophy.

Wait a second.

We got you a trophy. So Tom, if you want to stand and actually look at the camera, uh, we'll take a picture real quick.

It's gonna last here with the trophy.

Uh, so just look right into the camera.

Okay.

All right. There's your confetti.

Wow.

Wow.

That's an incredible picture.

I didn't think it was gonna be that much.

Um, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's all we— well, no, actually, are you hungry, Tom? Because we did— we also got you a cake. We got you a full cake. It says congratulations, PMT college football expert Tom Fornelli.

Wow.

Um, and that— and Brandon, that's—

Brandon was right.

Yeah. Oh, actually, oh shoot, I have one last thing here. You want to open that in front of Brandon as well? That's it. That's literally it.

No more.

It was just the— it was the ribbon, the cake, the ring, the trophy, the Chick-fil-A, and then just this card. Uh, so—

Oh man, let's see what this is. Okay, here. Oh, this looks official. For immediate release. Pardon My Take hereby announces the appointment of Tom Fornelli— that's me, by the way—

Yep.

As the official college football expert of the Pardon My Take podcast. Mr. Fornelli, college football writer for CBS Sports and co-host of the COVID 3 podcast, earned this designation by defeating Brandon Walker of ESPN in the official Pardon My Take college football expert competition. In this capacity, Mr. Fornelli will serve as the podcast's principal college football authority, providing analysis, predictions, and commentary throughout the season. Pardon My Take congratulates Tom Fornelli on this appointment. Signed, Big Cat and PFT Commenter, the hosts of Pardon My Take, Barstool Sports, August 31st, 2026. And there appears to be a cash prize.

Yeah, there's $1,000 of cash that you won for winning College Football Expert, Pardon My Take's College Football Expert.

He did get one right.

Yeah, he did get one right.

So yeah.

Wow.

You got it, Brandon. You got a little confetti in your hair.

Thank you. Let it sit out. I want this feeling.

Tom, you're a great winner.

I am definitely keeping this money.

Yes, absolutely. But it's your money.

of the best, most gracious winners on part of my take. I think you're number one.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Oh, for being the best winner.

Yeah. Thanks again, Brandon. You said that we didn't do it well last time.

So listen, this—

you fixed it.

I just, I just feel— and listen, I don't want to step on the toes of the winner here. I just feel if I had won, you wouldn't be going to this level of pomp and circumstance.

You don't know that.

Just one correction. Did you win?

No, no, no.

I said I didn't. I did not win. You are the— you beat me. by picking teams like Clemson and Michigan and Northwestern in your playoff.

I picked— I did not pick Northwestern.

Well, you had Missouri, Baylor.

Oh, look at the college football expert here. Doesn't even know the logos.

Can I say something? You can say a lot. Your giant trophy's in my way. I just saw purple.

Yeah.

Giant trophy. Let me move my giant trophy. No, that is a Wildcat. Yeah. I thought that was a giant trophy.

Put this right here. So Brandon, I feel like there's something between us. Yeah, it's this giant trophy.

That's a hell of a trophy.

This is fucking awesome.

That's a big-ass trophy. Congratulations, Tom.

Is it worth that big of a grin, Zach?

He won so good. He's so good at winning.

Did you want to look at the ring too?

I'm all right.

You want to kiss it? Kiss the ring.

Who did I have?

So let's see, Brandon, you had Penn State.

Notre Dame should have made it.

Notre Dame did not make it.

Should have made it.

LSU, Texas. Oregon, Boise.

Yeah.

Listen, you did your best. That's what matters, I think.

Yeah.

That's Arizona State.

Sure.

Illinois, Washington, and St. Louis Cardinals.

You really thought you were doing something by picking Illinois before. Yeah.

That's the best part.

You were mad when I did it.

Yeah, I was mad.

Well, you two idiots should have just taken JMU like I was telling you to, and that would have been another one for you.

Or Indiana.

Listen, we both have room for improvement. We didn't draft Indiana.

Indiana is not on there.

Yeah.

There's room for improvement on both of us.

24 teams. We didn't pick Indiana.

Yeah, I will say, I think that you should use this as motivation.

You're really wearing the ring?

Yeah, of course.

Tell me you've never won a ring without telling me you've never won a ring.

Oh, that's— listen, Brandon, if Tom—

Oh my God, I got you a real ring.

If Tom was wearing this ring walking down the street tomorrow, I'd be like, Tom, come on, man. But this is ring ceremony night.

Fine.

All right.

Like, we just, we just debuted the rings.

I'm gonna be buried in this ring.

Yeah.

Are you kidding me?

Brandon's just not used to seeing a ring that doesn't monitor cholesterol. So he's confused when he looks at it.

That's what this one does.

All right, let's get, let's get into, let's get into this year.

I led you to 2 rings, sir.

Who got the MVP last year?

All right, let's go.

2025 is in the past. Tom, congratulations.

Thank you.

Hopefully we did you, you know, justice. I feel like you actually won something.

I am truly honored and again humbled. I can't believe you guys did all this for me, but I appreciate it.

It was the least we could do.

Yeah, really.

It was the least we could do. We do have a car for you. A new Lambo.

It's an El Camino.

How many fucking owners have that thing?

6 people turn it down and it's yours.

A timeshare on an El Camino. Yes.

All right. Let's, let's, let's start with 2026 though. We are, we are on the precipice of week 1. Week 0 happened, whatever. Where would you guys like to start? Do you want to start in the SEC, Brandon?

Yeah, we can, although I will defer to the reigning champion.

Okay. That's fair. All right.

Oh yeah. Let's start in the SEC.

All right. So I'll let you guys kind of take it away. But my big thought in the SEC is I think people are being— they're not giving Georgia enough respect. I think Georgia is going to be an old school like Alabama bully ball type team. And I think Georgia and Texas are clear, clearly the top. And then it's kind of like the Big Ten. It's like, who is going to be the 3, 4? Who else is going to crash the party?

Go ahead.

Real quick, I want to give these guys a little bit of direction here. So we will start with the SEC, but it could go it, you know, you guys could take it haywire. Sure. Just as a thought starter, is the SEC dead?

Yes. No.

Did the Big Ten kill the SEC?

The Big Ten is the best conference in college football right now, and I think they will probably win their 4th national title with a 4th different team this year. But the SEC is not dead.

Spoiler alert.

Ooh.

Yeah, that's what I think. Okay.

All right. But, but, but the Georgia and Texas will start there.

May I push back on a little bit?

Yeah, of course.

So I do think you're exactly right about Georgia. I think that defense is going to be back to Georgia standards this year, and the quarterback is, is consistently excellent and doesn't get get enough credit. The playoff game they lost, he was incredible, made a lot of great plays. Uh, so I think he's an underappreciated guy in college football. I think I'd push back on Texas being the clear number 2. The more I thought about it, that schedule is so nasty.

Do you agree with me on Georgia?

I do agree with you on Georgia.

And this could be like the— because Georgia is a team that has fallen short the last couple years, but it's like they also were there. They, you know, they got injured against Notre Dame.

That's right.

They hit an unbelievable quarterback in Trinidad Chambliss who's on an all-time hot streak. Yeah, like Georgia's fallen off, But let's be honest, it's hard to win every year.

They're still in the mix. They're still very much in the mix. And the reason I'd push back on Texas is I just don't like the whispers around the program right now. It feels like Sark never really has that thing where he's like, you know, I know Signetti at Indiana is a firm leader and that thing is tight. Georgia, Kirby Smart, same thing, even though they have the, you know, the off-the-field stuff with the driving and stuff. But I don't feel that at Texas. I feel like it's always a tenuous grip on being the leader of that team. And you don't hear great things about Arch right now. And the schedule is so nasty. If they were to lose to Ohio State early again, that schedule is so brutal late that they could fall apart.

Right.

And they could have a— they could have a couple losses going into Red River if they have a really bad loss.

They have a top 3 roster in the country probably, but that hasn't really mattered.

So wait, what are the whispers? What are the whispers on the 48? Because you can't just say whisper, you're like threw a grenade and then you—

Well, you got parents, you know, taking to Twitter right now saying it's all politics out here and they're not Like, and which is, is just fine. You can take that with a grain of salt if a team is buttoned up about their stuff. And Texas really kind of usually isn't.

I, I'm with you on Georgia as far as what they were, how close they've been and how they've been kind of dismissed. And that if you look at the NFL draft last year, there weren't a lot of Bulldogs taken in it. But to me, that's because everybody that was the best player on their team last year was typically a sophomore. So it's like you got all that coming back. Gunner is like perpetually unappreciated at quarterback. But I also think that part of what he's unappreciated for is the lack of an explosive passing game has also played a part in holding Georgia back. Because yeah, they lost on a last-second field goal to Ole Miss in the playoff last year, but maybe if they had more of a passing threat, they wouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. So I do think it counterbalances a bit. As for Texas, I don't care what parents are tweeting. Parents are parents. They're pissed off about things all the time. Sometimes, you know, they like tell the school that they're going to file a cease and desist against them for using a number, you know, just because they gave it to somebody else.

By the way, Brent, take that shirt off. You got a lot of— you got some—

show some respect to Jayden Daniels.

Some nerve wearing that number in this.

This is, uh, this is, uh, Arkansas great Darren McFadden.

I'm not— I don't care what jersey it is.

I think that was against LSU.

Should be a one-time Heisman winner at least. Zach, can you go get some tape?

We're going to put some tape on that number 5.

We're not taping.

We're taping. We're taping right now.

Legend Darren McFadden.

Darren McFadden is one of the greatest college football players of all time.

Yeah.

Well, you can't get credit for it. I'm wearing the shirt.

Darren McFadden.

Congratulations on having a shirt.

He's still one of the— You have a shirt too.

Yeah, mine's just black.

Yeah.

But no, I— to Texas, they are, they're extremely talented. They have like, they were in the, you know, college football playoff twice in the last 3 years. They got to the 4-team. They came 2 years ago. They nearly lost to Arizona State, but they were also a few plays away from beating Ohio State and getting the title game themselves. Last year they missed out mostly because of, you know, they lost that Ohio State game early in the year and they lost to Florida for some fucking reason. But just, I don't think that They're not the 2nd best team in the league. I wouldn't be surprised if they finished in 3rd because of the schedule that they have to play. But I also think if you look at the talent, as you said, they're extremely talented. My concern has been like the one thing with Sark, the last few years, every year with Texas, I feel like I'm saying the same shit where they're able to move the ball, but they get to the red zone and then they don't really finish drives. And at some point Sark has to figure out how to call an offense that finishes drives and gets to the end zone or else they're never going to achieve their ceiling.

They could do that though. And if they figure that out, and if Arch Manning kind of develops into what everybody's expected him to be, if the kid we saw at the end of last season is the kid that comes in this year and starts playing to that level right away, that's a very scary, very good football team. And that they bring in Cam Coleman at receiver from Auburn, that is, you know, Jeremiah Smith gets all the oxygen and deservedly so, but Cam Coleman is very good himself.

Yeah.

So between the two of you, um, I, I think I'm going to lean Brandon on, on his takes on Tennessee. Texas because you got to see him up close and personal last year.

I did. I did. I saw him very close.

Really close.

Super close. Super personal.

It felt like as close as you can possibly get.

As personal as it could be.

I smelled the receiver as he caught the winning touchdown. He went right by me and I had nothing but class. I was like, great, great effort, great catch. And I knew he caught it. And here's what it is. I don't think— I certainly think there's a world they are the 2nd best team in the conference. But I don't think the separation between them and everybody else exists till we really see them put it together. Like you mentioned, they got beat by Florida. Kentucky took them to overtime. We took them to overtime. Like, they, they really were hanging on by a thread all season. They were waiting for Arch to develop and waiting for him to develop. He finally got going at the end. But what if he has— what if he's just a slow starter?

But who's your second-best team in the SEC if it's not Texas?

That's a great question. You know, there's, there's a lot of teams that can be. It can be Ole Miss. It can be Alabama. It can be Oklahoma. I would probably slot Texas in there right now, but I just feel like the, the potential for things to go wrong early against Ohio State starts, starts the cheese sliding off the cracker, and Sark might not be the guy to save it.

See, I, I think if there's a team that I'm looking at that could be the, the team that supplants them at number 2, sure, I'm looking at LSU. Yeah, I, I, with that roster, with Lane coming in, with everything that they have done— obviously last year was a very disappointing season for them, which is why all the changes were made and why Lane has come in. But I also feel as though, like, Ole Miss, Trinidad is fantastic. Trinidad might be the best quarterback in the country. But I don't know if the rest of the team is there. And I don't know if losing Lane Kiffin to LSU and that staff going in and then having a first-time head coach in Pete Golding, who, listen, he won 2 playoff games. One of them was against Tulane. Right. He won one playoff game. You can dismiss that if you want to, but he did beat Georgia in a playoff game. He did beat Kirby Smart. But it's different when you are going through the regular season and you're doing it week in and week out and teams have scouted you and they know who you are and they know what your tendencies are.

So can he do that on a weekly basis? I don't know. But I look at LSU. and the coaching upgrade that they have and how talented that team is, I wonder if they're not the 2nd best team in the league.

They certainly can be. They're in the mix. Do I believe in that quarterback enough to propel them there right now?

I don't think I do.

Stay healthy. Sam Levitt, 2 years ago when he had an NFL running back and an elite, elite, elite receiver, they made it to the playoff and he was solid. Last year he only had the receiver and he had some health issues, but they were— he wasn't good when he was healthy last year. He wasn't good pretty much at all last year. I watched him against Mississippi State in Starville lose a game that he threw for 78 yards. Like, I just, I just don't know if Levitt is the guy. When they went quarterback shopping this year, they didn't go to the store and say, we want to come home with Sam Levitt. They settled for Sam Levitt. So if Lane's a great quarterback guy, maybe he gets the utmost out of him. But right now, I don't know if I can believe in that quarterback in a league full of pretty good quarterbacks. I don't know if I can crown him yet.

Very fair. But what were you saying this time last year about Trinidad Chambliss? You had no idea who he was.

Yeah.

Lane turned him into the best QB in the country.

I got a, I got a question about quarterbacks in the SEC.

Sure.

Does Kalen DeBoer finally have his quarterback? Yes. I don't. Because that's like Alabama is one of those teams that, like I said, quarterback's the issue though.

No, I don't think quarterback's right.

Yeah. Ty Simpson was good. I mean, he got hurt and kind of, it didn't look good at the end.

That's a first round NFL pick. That's a first round guy right there. Like that's a damn good quarterback. It wasn't quarterback. It was a lack of toughness and—

Well, they couldn't run the ball.

They, in fact, they've sucked all the toughness out of that program. in 2 years.

So do you think Alabama is going to— because there is going to be 3 or 4 teams in the SEC that get to the playoff. Who is going to be those 3rd and 4th teams?

Which means there's going to be like 4 teams that think they're going to the playoff right now that are going to be like 6-6 or 7-5. Um, I would say Georgia. Who would you say?

The 3 or 4, I'd go Georgia. I would go—

I like LSU.

I like LSU. And I think that 4th one is where it gets complicated.

I like Oklahoma a lot.

Oklahoma, I think, has a very good shot to do it just because, you know, the defense is going to be incredible and it's going to be, you know, can John Moteer stay healthy? Obviously, can they develop more of a passing attack that teams have to fear? You don't necessarily have to like rely on it, but you need it to be realistic because that would help with their run game. And also, will John Moteer kind of hand off sometimes?

So I liken them to last year's Miami where I think Oklahoma can get to 10-2 this year. Remember how Miami went 10-2 and then they show up to the playoff with that defensive line, that defense, and they just started wrecking people, started destroying people. If Oklahoma were to go 10-2 in the regular season and sneak into the playoff, they could be that team where their defense takes over the playoffs. And they have a—

they can go 9-3 and get to the playoffs with that stat. Michigan in week 2. Like, if they win that Michigan game and then even if they lose a few games in the SEC, they are going to be one of those teams that will have a legitimate claim to an at-large spot at 9-3.

Yeah, they just need a couple of wins out of that group.

One school that I haven't heard from you guys yet is A&M.

I don't believe in them at all. A&M fans think I'm just a hater, but I—

Well, you are.

Both things can be true.

That's fine. But last year—

You also hate Oklahoma.

Their first 7— I hate everybody. Their first 7 games in the SEC were against teams ranked 10th through 16th in the SEC. They needed a miracle to beat South Carolina. Then they finally get to Texas. They finally get to Miami. They can't score. They can't move the ball. And I think the quarterback is just okay. And I think they had to revamp the offensive and defensive lines. They're not getting that schedule again. I think A&M right now is a fake top 10 team.

Yeah. A newfound reality of college football that I think fan bases need to come to grips with is now that you've got the super conferences where you've got 18 or 16 teams in your league and you're only playing 9 conference games, schedule luck is going to play a role.

Oh, big time.

That's why everybody's high on Penn State because look at their schedule. And like, look at NC State over last weekend. People were talking about NC State because look at their schedule. So you could get a little lost in just relying on a team schedule to think that they're going to be good. But Texas A&M took advantage of it last year. They had it set up for them. And to their credit, they went out there and they won every single game like they were supposed to. Marcel Reed took a step forward. And then when they ran into Texas at the end of the regular season, they lost. They get to the playoff and they play Miami and they lose a home game in which the offense couldn't do anything. So now Now, Colin Klein has left. Your offensive coordinator's gone to take over at Kansas State. Your defensive coordinator left. I don't know if they're that upset about that, but I do— they do have 2 new coordinators. Can Marcel Reed continue to grow? If he doesn't and the schedule is more difficult than what you faced last year, it's going to be really hard to do what they did again.

Who's the SEC team that we're not talking about that could somehow crash the party?

South Carolina.

Oh, okay.

Brandon hates South Carolina.

At the start of the year last year, I was like, I was all in on South Carolina.

Well, the problem with South Carolina last year is they brought in an offensive offensive coordinator that tried to turn Lenore Sellers into a pocket quarterback, and Lenore Sellers is not a pocket quarterback.

You knew that South Carolina was my team I was going to say. That's why you said it so fast.

You knew it.

You knew it because I've said it. That's why you said it so damn fast. Listen, you knew damn well I've been— listen, I've been—

it's not a bad strategy to copy off the expert.

We're both— we're both experts.

I've been sounding the horn on South Carolina for months.

You're number 7 or number 2 on this show. Yeah, like, listen, we both are smart. We both know things. I'm just a little smarter, a little better looking, and a little quicker than you on the draw. So I'm going with South Carolina because with Kendall Bryles coming in, they're going to let Lenore Stellers get back to what he's best at. Drop back. If the first read is there, throw it. If it's not, you're like 6'2 and £240. Go run over some defensive back and pick up a first down. And Kendall Bryles, if we go back to week 0, he was the offensive coordinator at TCU last year.

Yeah.

He left. Look at TCU's offense without Kendall Bryles last weekend. Now he's coming in. to South Carolina. They are going to be better than they were last year. I'm not saying that they are going to be a playoff team, but if you're asking me which team I think is not being discussed that could sneak in there, it is South Carolina. The one caveat, Dylan Stewart needs to be healthy. He's already got some back issues that are kind of scaring me a little bit, but hopefully he's ready to play.

Good answer.

I'll throw another team in there. South Carolina, I agree wholeheartedly. I think not every quarterback that we were high on last year is going to bounce back. I think Lenore Sellers is. He's too talented not to, and the offensive coaching is going to help him bounce back in the schedule. I think they beat A&M at home, for example. But since he said South Carolina, let me say Florida. Um, I think Florida brings back a decent defense. You know, Jayden Ball's good. They got great receiver room. If they can get any sort of quarterback play, that schedule early— they catch Ole Miss coming off the LSU week, uh, in early September. This is a team that could start 6-0. Uh, and if they're 6-0 going to that gauntlet in the back half, there's somebody that can really mess with the powers that be in the SEC.

Yeah, and another team that's made a big upgrade at So when you look at their roster from Florida, how many of the guys on the team are guys that are brought in like brand new to the program?

There's not as many as you'd think though.

Yeah, not as many as typically happen with a coaching change.

Napier's guys.

Yeah, Napier. Listen, Napier recruiting wasn't really the problem. It was, you know, being a coach on Saturday that was a problem for them.

Okay. Any Heisman? What's your favorite Heisman bet from the SEC?

So I have one and now it's kind of gone up in smoke. Okay.

Oh no.

But I don't know before week 1. We don't know when Ahmad Hardy is going to play.

Okay.

But coming in like a month ago, he was plus $10,000. He is the best running back in the country. He is. Now he got shot in the offseason and that's never good. And he's working his way back. They've been very spotty with information. They've been very close to the chest. Now we do kind of hear that he's probably not playing in week 1 or at the start of the season. But if he were to come back by week 2 or 3, Put up 1,500 yards. The Heisman sometimes is a story award.

Can they win 9 games though?

If he's great, they would. I mean, they would have to. Can they?

Yes.

Would they? I don't know.

But that's the limit now. It used to be, you know, obviously you have to be like in the playoff. You had to be in a playoff. But now like Jaylen Daniels won it with 9 games, not going to the playoff. I think 9 and Travis Hunter didn't go to the playoff. I think 8 or 9 has to be the limit.

Super long shot. Ahmad Hardy was my guy this year. But now just, I do like Sellers to put it back and become a top 5 quarterback in the league. in the entire country.

Yeah. If another quarterback you could look at, somebody you asked earlier, Keelan Russell, the quarterback at Alabama, like if they do get to the playoff, it's probably going to be because he has a fantastic season. And part of their problems the last years is they have not been able to run the ball. Some of that's the offensive line and some of it was just the guys that they had at running back. I think Keelan Russell being back there, if the offensive line is not where they need it to be, Keelan is the kind of guy who can make up for that with his legs and kind of give, like John Moteer did last year for Oklahoma. He could end up being the running game in a lot of ways. So he's going to have the story too. Like he's an incoming, you know, first-time starter. If Alabama gets back to the playoff, they're back in the run. He's going to be in the running. But I think Sellers is a good call too.

Now keep in mind, Will Stein is a listener of the show. He's probably listening as we talk right now. What can we expect from Kentucky?

I like them. I like them a lot. If you look at the rebuild offensive line, they went and got dudes from, from some big-time places. And the quarterback, I just assume, is going to be good under this new offense with Will Stein. I think he'll know what he's doing at quarterback.

He went to Notre Dame. right?

Kenny Minshew.

Kenny Minshew.

Yeah. I like them to possibly— they play Alabama in week 2. And my God, what a way to start your new program if they were to somehow do that. And then they play LSU later in the season. And I think they might get one of those teams at home. So I like Kentucky a lot.

I love what Will said at SEC Media Days about being the reason, you know, that Kentucky can win. I do think it's going to take 2 years though. I don't know if he's going to be able to come in there and have that immediate kind of success. I think the schedule is pretty I think that you're overhauling the roster. I do agree with you, like Kenny Minshew is not a known commodity at this point, but if you talk to Notre Dame people last year, that was not just, you know, we're saying this to keep a guy happy and keep him on the roster when they were talking about how close the race was between CJ Carr and Kenny Minshew. Minshew was really pushing Carr for that gig. So that gives me optimism about him going forward. And plus we've seen Will Stein just as a quarterback developer, what he's been able to do for guys. It's, it's realistic to think the kid's going to be good. I just don't know if Kentucky is at the place right now as an entire roster where it needs to be to win a bunch of games in the SEC.

Okay. They go to a bowl though?

They could, but I mean, their win total is what, 4.5?

I know.

Yeah. They can get there if Minshew really, really hits, but I don't know. I think they're probably going to be in that 5-7.

I think they're going to a bowl. All right.

Let's talk about the major leagues, the Big Ten.

Enough of the SEC.

Not really, not really a big difference as far as, you know.

I mean, I said it's the best conference.

3 in a row. 3 in a row.

the 4th in a row. Are you doing that as a jinx knowing that you always get your predictions wrong?

No, I don't always get my predictions wrong. I had Georgia to win the national title before they ever won a national title. I had, uh, who won the national title 2 years ago? I had Ohio State 2 years ago, even after they lost to Michigan. I said, you better bet them now, right? 3 minutes after they lost to Michigan, I said, they're about to go on a run. That's what I said.

You kept betting Georgia when they had Mark Rick?

No, that's not what I said.

Georgia was the key, and then—

Not what I said. Is the trophy getting in your way?

No, but I got some spaghetti stuck on my shoes.

All right.

Big Ten.

Sure.

Oregon, Indiana, Ohio State.

Those are 3 Big Ten teams, correct?

They are. Can we say that those—

what's going to—

let me, let me do the reverse. What's going to stop one of those teams from getting to the playoff? Because it feels like they are head and shoulders above everyone else.

For Ohio State, it's the schedule.

Yeah. Ohio State finally has a tough schedule.

It's really nasty. It's very like— I fully expect Ohio State is going to get to the college football playoffs. But I do think that a lot of people are overlooking how difficult their schedule is. There are a lot of games on there. Like, you could talk about how they've never lost, you know, fewer than 2 games in a regular season. Then you look at their schedule like, yeah, well, if there's going to be a time for them to do it, this is going to be the time where it's going to happen.

At Texas, at Indiana, at USC.

Yeah. And then don't they—

Oregon at home, at Iowa.

Exactly. So it's like, this is going to be— if they get through the season at 10-2 and don't win the conference, they're still going to be one of the best teams in the country.

That might be the best spot for them.

Yeah.

Not even go to the Big Ten Championship game.

They are very talented. They have a very, very good team. Julian Sayan, we need to see him. Like, he struggled in their bigger games at the end of the year. He struggled in that game against Texas, but that was his first career start. So you need to see him take a step forward. And they did lose a lot of guys on the defensive side of the ball. So the biggest obstacle they face will be Julian Sayan not progressing and that schedule. But I think even if things don't go well, they're just too talented not to be in the playoff at the end of the year.

Yeah.

Can I say the same thing is true about Oregon though? Like, I'm going to pick Oregon. Yeah. But like Julian Sayne and Dante Moore have the same problem. They both look so super normal when the other defense got elite. And Dante Moore was really bad when the other defense got elite. And then Julian Sayne was, was kind of bad. But I still think Oregon's so loaded, it might not matter.

There's a narrative of like, oh, Dan Lanning can't win the big one. Like Dan Lanning has put his team in a spot where they've lost to the national champion. I think their last 5 losses are the national champion.

It—

Dante Moore is the one that, like, can he step up? We were talking about, I think it was Booger, like, the Indiana game was bad. The Iowa game, I know he had the drive at the end, but it was bad. There was another one in there where it's like—

The Penn State game wasn't great.

Penn State game.

Yeah.

Like, they, they probably should have won that in regulation. Like, there's, there's just moments where you're like, I need, I need to see him step it up and win a game for the Ducks.

Ironically though, like that's all true. And like those road games he had a difficult time with. But like, if you think about the teams that we think of as national title contenders this year, you could say that about pretty much every single one of their quarterbacks. Like they all struggled in big games. It's like Julian Sands struggled against Indiana. Dante Moore struggled against Indiana. Guess who won the national title? Indiana.

Yeah.

So I mean, there's some of that to it. And you do expect that, you know, you're not going to be great when you're playing great defenses. That is why they are great defenses. The question typically is, can you make enough plays? And they just didn't make enough plays in those games. But I do believe that with what Oregon has coming back at the receiver position, like they are, if, if they fail this year or Dante Moore fails this year, to me, that's more on Dante Moore than anything because there's really no excuse with what they have at the receiver spot. They are fucking loaded.

Yeah.

Everywhere spot.

Everywhere spot. Defensive line.

Well, I do want like the offensive line could be, that's the one thing I'm going to be watching early with them. I don't know if we'll learn a whole lot against Boise when they open the season.

Yeah.

But that's one area where I'm going to be kind of keeping a close eye on because they are replacing both their tackles. It's, it's, it's an interesting thing.

I do think that Indiana is getting weirdly disrespected even though they are a top 10 team. And, but they're like, why would anyone doubt Kurt Cignetti at this point?

Well, they shouldn't. He's the best coach in the country. My thing, are they getting disrespected or is there just not enough respect to go around? Because with Oregon, oh, I like that. It just seems like Oregon's got a peak roster this year, right? Yeah.

Oregon and Oregon is the, is the belle of the ball in the Right.

Like Oregon and Texas both have rosters. Like, how can you get much better than these rosters? So they're naturally getting attention. Ohio State's always there. So Indiana isn't getting the standard Alabama, Georgia level of defending national champ attention. But this is— this could be a one-off. We don't know. So they aren't getting disrespected in that way. But I just think it's Oregon, Texas attracting the attention rather than Indiana not getting it.

Okay.

I think Indiana's fucking thrilled with that, by the way. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because what you just did was wildly disrespectful to Indiana.

How?

You just said they might be a one-and-done. This might be a flash in the pan for Indiana.

Yeah, they might be.

Who knows?

It's really hard to win consecutive national titles.

It doesn't happen a lot. It is.

They had, they had a, a great schedule in Sig's first year, but still, he, he outperformed expectations.

Sure.

To a crazy degree, even though, you know, by the end, I think you, you know, you're looking back and you're thinking, I was right saying that they were going to be frauds when it came down to it.

Yeah.

Um, but still a great year, year Year 2, one of the best stories, one of the best teams we've seen in a very long time. Sure. In college football. So to say like the expectation from them should be anything less than repeating is kind of disrespectful.

I have 7 teams I think can win the national title. They're 100% in there. If that's not respect, I don't know what is, because they're replacing a Heisman Trophy-winning, number 1 draft pick guy. They're replacing him at quarterback. And we're just assuming they're going to go right on because they're keeping the coordinators. They're keeping the— The coach is great. Like, I'm just assuming they're going to be at an elite level even though they lost one of the best players in the country. I think that's respect.

Yeah.

I think they also, you know, the money that they spent on the roster a lot more this year.

Sure.

Would Sig say like, I bought a bigger gun?

Yeah.

That's, you know, I will still respect Indiana. I'm not saying you're disrespect. I think the college football landscape overall, there's a little disrespect.

Like Ohio State and Oregon on their defensive lines get a ton of credit, you know, a lot of because of recruiting rankings and they have talented players. I believe there's a chance that Indiana has the best defensive line in the Big Ten. I think that is a real possibility with what they have, both as guys they've developed and because with the new rules, some people they've been able to bring back who weren't in NFL camps.

Yeah, they've got 45-year-olds.

Exactly. They've got like fathers of 3 on their defensive line. And I think that's, that's a huge advantage to have. So I wonder if like you lose Fernando Mendoza and I have said plenty of times this offseason, like you typically don't lose the number 1 pick in the draft and get better. Like even when you bring in a new quarterback that you believe in, it's hard to imagine that Josh Hoover, no matter how good he is, can be what Fernando Mendoza was. But what if he is?

Right.

Like, and you still compare that with their defense where they lost some key guys, but they still have plenty of guys coming back. Their offensive line is still probably going to be pretty damn good. They brought in a kid, Nick Marsh, at receiver, who was really the only good thing about Michigan State last year.

Cold place.

Bringing him in. Like this is a team that will be very much in the running all year. And I agree with you. There are 7 teams, which by the way is a wonderful number. thing. Yeah, that they can win the national title.

It's great.

All right. So in the Big Ten, similar conversation that we had in the SEC. If you, if you say those 3 teams, there's going to probably be a 4th team and you guys take it whichever direction you want of this group. What? I'll take Michigan, Iowa, Penn State, USC, Washington.

I'm going to say it now. Big Ten doesn't get a 4th team in.

Oh, okay.

I think they're only going to get—

they're just going to eat each other alive.

I think the rest of them are going to— It's once you play the— listen. I'm going to speak about Big Ten stuff you don't understand where you come from.

Oh, so I was like, I should have thought of that question.

When you get into the gauntlet of a Big Ten schedule, okay, when you have to play 9 games against Big Ten teams, and you have to play them week in and week out, you just eat each other alive. And I think that there is a very realistic possibility that like the Michigans, the USCs, all these teams, they're probably going to end up with 3 losses. And I don't know if they're going to have the overall strength of schedule to get that at-large bid. So at least they probably won't campaign and beg for it as loudly as other conference schools.

Penn State could trip into only 2 losses.

See, that's, yeah, their schedule is like, as we discussed earlier, like scheduling plays a huge factor into how things work. Penn State could take advantage of it. We will see. I still don't know if they have the depth of talent to really be a playoff team and to not screw up or trip up in one of those games because that's, they have to be perfect.

They also do have 3 tough games. It's not like they have one tough game. No, they do. But if they can go 2-1 in those games.

Yeah, if they go 2-1 or maybe even 1-2.

This isn't an Indiana schedule from 2 years ago. This is, this is a schedule that's got a couple of places they could trip up. For sure.

All right.

So then, so you're saying no, no 4th team.

I don't think they get a 4th in, but of those teams, I would—

Who are you the highest on?

God, USC schedule is so tough. It's really hard to say.

Well, clarifying question I want to ask for this. was, you're, let's say one of those 3 teams doesn't make it. Who replaces them? Because we're assuming all 3 of those are just awesome in the world.

Well, if one of those 3 teams doesn't make it, I bet it's USC getting in because USC has knocked them off somewhere along the way and knocked them out. Because that's the one thing that holds me back on the Trojans is their schedule. It's very difficult. It's going to be hard to imagine them getting through with only 2 losses and getting there. Although they do, they could be one of those teams that has an argument at 9-3 depending on who the 9 are and how the 3 losses So I would look at the Trojans. They have a great quarterback coming back. They are very talented defensively. You saw some flashes on Saturday. Yeah, it was San Jose State, but they have very young talented kids. They had a great recruiting class and a lot of them are seeing the field early. But that is one of another thing that concerns me in this modern era of college football where you tend to want to be older. You don't really want to be super young. So that could be a problem for them. Michigan.

I'm not super high on Michigan. I was getting some blowback. I think Kyle Whittingham is an awesome, awesome coach. The coaching upgrade from Sherrone Moore to Kyle Whittingham is enormous. Enormous.

Yeah.

I don't know. And maybe I'll look stupid and I'll have to put my hand up after week 2, but I just don't know if Bryce Underwood, like he's got to take a step forward for them to be a playoff team in my mind.

So yes, he does. But why have we grown to a place where we act like that's not possible? He was a 5-star quarterback.

Of course it's possible.

Of course. I'm not just saying you. I'm saying everybody.

If he beats Oklahoma, I will absolutely be like, you know what, I was wrong. This is a legitimate national title contender.

He was a 5-star quarterback that got thrown into the mix with zero coaching last year, zero leadership. I don't even know what that game plan was they tried to roll him out with. It was, it was coaching malpractice. Even before all the crap happened at the end of the year, he was fireable based on the way he used Bryce Underwood.

So, and by the way, I know it was against lesser competition, but Biff Pogey did a better job with Bryce Underwood than Sharone Now we go—

now he has a full offseason with an actual coaching staff. I do believe defensively they're going to be very good. Like, I hate it. I don't like it. I'm coming around to be higher on Michigan now than I was like 2 weeks ago as I realized, like, I think we've thrown Bryce Underwood out and that's not fair.

You're sucking up to Dave.

I'm not sucking up to Dave.

The concern I have, like, it's his second offense that he had to learn in 2 years. So it's basically another freshman season.

But at least he has a teacher this time. No, for sure.

For sure. Maybe fourth offense. offense that he's had to learn? Because it did feel like for most of the season it was week to week what they were going to have him run. And then Pogey comes in, so that's 3, and now he got 4.

Yeah, I, I, it's— we could see a slow start. So them having those games early, that Oklahoma game early in the year, could be a problem. I do believe if you look at the talent, there's obviously— if he does hit and reach his potential, he's a very good player. I wonder if they're going to use him more as a rushing threat this year than they were last year. You look at Jason Beck, the offensive coordinator that's come in with Kyle Whittington, That is definitely something that's been a part of what he's done with his offenses. So I expect we will see it. My other primary concern about Michigan, like when you think of the Harbaugh teams that were winning the conference, that were beating Ohio State, that were winning a national title.

Cheating.

Besides cheating.

Oh, I thought that's what you were saying.

No, no. I was saying that the NFL draft would come around and there would be a ton of dudes from that Michigan defense that were getting picked early in the draft. I don't know if this current defense has those dudes. And it's hard to be a great team in a playoff caliber team without more dudes on defense. So I'll happily be proven wrong, but I just don't know based on what I've seen now that they have them.

And they have a tough schedule. Oklahoma, Iowa, Penn State, and they got to go in Indiana all at home. They got to go to Oregon. They got to go to Ohio State. Like that's—

there are no easy schedules.

If you go 3-3 there, it's going to be very tough.

You want to bring Penn State up again?

Oh, there's one easy school. Texas A&M had an easy schedule. Okay. So there's one easy schedule in each league every year.

Yeah. Is Illinois's new scoreboard too big?

You know what the most fascinating part of that scoreboard for me is what it is going to do to the kicking game because wind has come in through that stadium and made it very difficult. It's very Soldier Field-ish where it's hard to kick field goals in that stadium if you're not familiar with the wind patterns. Now they've put this giant scoreboard up that's on top of the south end zone that is going to affect that. I want to know how that's going to impact the team, if that's going to hurt them, because, you know, Illinois won a lot of games late with field goals. It could be a big deal.

Yes, Brandon.

Is this what the trophy gets you? We're just spending time talking about the Illinois kicking game.

Oh yes.

We're talking about the damn Illinois kicking game. Oh, we're talking about the damn Illinois kicking game.

All right, give us— all right, let me ask you.

We're talking about the Illinois kicking game, guys.

I gave you a Chick-fil-A gift card and $100, and that's how you're going to treat my trophy?

Almost lost.

I should take it back. I should, but I'm too big.

Probably had Mark Tice's name on it like an hour ago. It scratched it off.

I was just curious.

A D1 athlete, Mark Tice.

Scoreboards are getting too big. That was, that was my overall point, that there's— you reach a limit with how big it can be as, as an addition.

So was your Buffalo Bills the whole time?

Yeah, it was a little bit.

And yes.

Now, if you want to talk about what they should do in the kicking game with scoreboard, if it's super high definition, they should put like fake uprights with the wind and the flags blowing in directions. that it's not blowing in and just fuck with the kicker's head because kickers are dumb.

Now, if you're going to ask me if I'd rather that money went to the roster.

Yeah.

I'm going to say yes.

I would never ask you that.

No, but yeah.

That'd be much more relevant to this conversation.

Who's the Big Ten team that could crash the party?

Illinois.

Yeah.

Okay. All right.

Okay. Yeah. No, interesting.

Go off. I think that you look at what they did at the quarterback situation. Luke Altmyer is very, very difficult to replace. Luke Altmyer was very good for that team. He won a lot of games, a lot of 4th quarter drives.

Starkville, Mississippi native.

who went to Ole Miss instead of Mississippi State and then went to Illinois. Didn't have an offer. Yeah, real smart coaching staff you had there.

Oh yeah, you're besmirching the great Mike Leach.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what you're doing? A dead man.

His coach died.

You know what? Maybe he'd still be alive if he'd gotten Luke Altmyer.

I don't think so.

Although his dad is back.

I'm 1 now.

Yeah, Tom's back on top.

Good point, Tom.

Luke Altmyer killed Mike Leach is what you just said?

Listen, I'm not going to get into that. We don't want to start any conspiracies, but I'm not not saying it.

Illinois also doesn't have to play Wisconsin.

Don't have to play Wisconsin, who did beat them. just overwhelmed them, their offensive line late last year in the cold, cold weather. But Keaton Hauser comes in East Carolina. I believe he's a very similar player to Luke Altmyer. I also believe he is more of a downfield threat with his arm that could open up a part of that Illini offense that we haven't seen yet. And it's been a very impactful and effective Illinois offense the last few years. Defensively are where the questions are. They are changing their scheme, or at least they're not changing the scheme as much as they're changing their approach with the scheme, but they're going to probably be far more aggressive, which could lead to some problems. But if things click, this is a team that has won a lot of games in the Big Ten in recent years, who I feel like is just being completely ignored for that. And they're kind of just being pushed to the side because everybody's looking at them and saying, well, they've got a new quarterback, a new defense, whatever. They're going to go back to being Illinois. I don't think they're ever going back to being what Illinois used to be.

That doesn't mean they're going to win 9, 10 games every year. But I still believe that if you look at what they've done on that roster, the talent upgrade, the coaching upgrade that they've had, and just the investment that they've put into it, It's not the Indiana investment that they've had and the immediate changes we've seen. It's been a slower progress, but I think it's a program that is building. So if things click, they've got a schedule that compared to other Big Ten teams, not as difficult. There is a path for them to get to 10-2. And if they get to 10-2 and you're a Big Ten team, you're in the playoff conversation.

What about a little school known as Iowa? You think they could crash the party?

Yes. I'm not as confident. They got a good quarterback.

Who's their quarterback is my question.

Yeah.

I have one that can crash the top and one that can crash the middle. The one that can crash the top is Washington. Washington's got a lot of people coming out there, man. They got a lot of teams that have to go through Washington. That's not a fun trip for— that wasn't a fun trip for Pac-12 schools to go up there. Now Michigan, you got— or Big Ten, you got to go all the way out there with the quarterback. If they can show there's harmony, because he, he didn't want to be there, or at least he wanted to go discover the rest of the world.

There were a couple days he didn't want to be there.

go test out that LSU money and see how deep it was. Uh, but they talked him back into the building, they got him back, they held him hostage, and now he's there. If they're happy and good, he's as dynamic a quarterback as there is in the conference, and they're going to be tough to beat out there. Now I got one that crashed the middle coming up from the bottom. Um, Maryland.

Oh yeah, you want to talk about dynamic quarterbacks, talk about Malik Washington.

Like, I think everybody assumes like the Rutgers, Maryland, they're going to be at the bottom. I think you can look up and Maryland's won 6, 7, 8 games, and they're like, oh wow, they're here, they're kind of here, and they could affect So those are my 2 in the Big Ten that maybe nobody sees coming.

Very much on board.

I thought you were going to say Wisconsin. That would have been fun.

Well, I just figured you were going to say it.

No, I mean, I don't know. It's an easy schedule. Defense is going to be really good.

We'll see.

Colton Joseph, can he stay healthy? Because we've lost every quarterback the last 3 years.

Can you at least get 3 games out of your quarterback this year before he falls apart?

Yeah.

Crash the middle. I like that.

Yeah. I think Wisconsin could crash the middle.

Yeah, I think Wisconsin's going to get to a bowl.

Yeah, I do too. I don't know if I consider them 7. Yeah, I expect 8 wins would be like, all right, now we're going back in the right direction. 7, you'd have to show me who we lost.

But I don't consider Wisconsin to be at the bottom. I know the last couple of years, I know they've been dabbling, but they're just visitors. They're not, they're not like permanent residents.

It's Wisconsin season. I know you don't want to put it on one game, but like it actually is like, because I always, I always said this, like I'm realistic. Like we're, we're going to beat Ohio State once every 15 years. You can't lose like 44-nothing to Iowa. That's who you have to mark yourself against. And so that will be a big moment of like, beat Illinois. Yeah.

Beat Illinois.

One other team crashed the middle, UCLA.

Maybe that's, by the way, now that I'm thinking about it, the start of the downslide was actually the loss to Illinois with Paul Christ. And then maybe beating Illinois last year was the start of the beginning.

It completes the circle. We're back to where we were.

Yeah.

So are you just beholden to guys that stop through Harrisonburg for the rest of your life.

Exactly.

No. So for the rest of your life, if they stop at JMU, you're going to say they're going to crash.

Like, you know what you need to do? You need to go stop at JMU. Just visit.

I've been to Harrisonburg. They have a great Chick-fil-A across the road.

And he'll be like, yeah, Brandon Walker's next up.

Take your gift card.

I've been there many— I did a walk the line. I did a walk the line from there in 2019.

You walked the line from Harrisonburg, Virginia?

I did a walk the line from Stadium Park.

You're a preaching restaurant.

Yeah. Chick-fil-A right across from the stadium. And then you drive past on I-81, you look over, you see this big, beautiful stadium like, oh my God, who plays there? You keep driving, you see the other half like, oh, okay, that's nothing.

Oh, you don't like the—

The half state. It's a half stadium. It's a half stadium.

It's a half city. It's split by highway. No, I do think that there's something I should— I think it's a smart thing to want our coaches to have immediate success after they leave Georgia.

How does it help you?

Well, we got Bob Jeffries.

Yeah, but now look who you got.

Sunbelt Billy.

Okay.

You just said he built this Florida roster to a point where they can compete in the Sunbelt. So, uh, yeah, no, I, it is, I think it's a good thing to root for a guy as soon as he leaves. Sure. The reality of the situation is there's no, there's never going to be a coach that goes to JMU and says, okay, this is where I want to be for life. And if there is, that's probably a coach that you would not want to hire to be the JMU coach.

So I hate a guy when they leave.

Yeah, well, that's because you—

So do you hate Mike Leach?

He didn't leave.

He didn't leave.

He ain't around.

He don't leave.

Theoretically, Brandon, you should be above being a stepping stone. You're a— you're a—

That's why I hate him. Yeah. I hate him.

Yeah. So I'm not, I'm a stepping stone. So I want to be the best stepping stone.

Okay. Fair enough.

That's my theory.

Fair enough.

But I, maybe it's just the Mikey Volcano talk that we had.

Yeah.

Has Liam gotten in your ear about that?

Special.

No.

What?

They've got a guy. They got a, they got a version of Big Dom.

They got a guy and he's, he's so kept under wraps. I had no idea about the guy. guy when he was at JMU.

Volcano.

Volcano.

Oh, so he's a paisan.

Yeah. Oh yeah. I call him Mikey Volcano. Big Dom. And his job is ambiguous, to say the best. He just— he's a guy that they have hanging out.

That's actually— Italians like really specialize in being ambiguous about what we do.

Just being guys.

Yeah.

So if I were doing a live show and I'm Italian today, I'd have to look out for Mikey Volcano.

Well, no, he would probably be the one to set Okay. No.

Yeah.

I'm not saying he'd be a threat to you. No, no. And quite the opposite. I think he'd be like your best friend. He'd take good care of you. And it'd be a real shame if anything happened to you.

UCLA's got a chance to be good.

Wow. Right back into it.

I don't, I don't know if they're going to be a playoff contender. I do believe that there is a little too much just, well, Sig did it, get the next James Madison coach and it's going to just completely vault. But like, Nico Iamele-Ava is, He's a good quarterback who's been in really bad situations. And last year, that was a horrible situation for him to be in, like talking about Bryce Underwood and thinking like, you know, eventually a 5-star might figure it out. So if he's able to figure it out in an offense that could be suited to his strengths compared to what they were doing last year, and defensively, they've brought in some good guys from James Madison. Seheer West is a kid I don't think a ton of people know of who's a pretty good player who I think has a chance to be one of the better defensive end pass rusher types in the Big Ten. Like there is room for UCLA to grow. I just don't think that's more than an 8-win team, even if things go completely—

Yeah, I mean, they'll be crashing in the middle.

Yeah, perfectly.

Big Ten Heismans. Obviously Jeremiah.

Dontay Moore.

Dontay Moore. Do you think though, do you think a receiver will win? I mean, I know DeVonta won a few years ago.

It can come around every now and then. I don't know, especially because Ohio State's going to be in so many big games.

Okay.

Jeremiah Smith goes down to Texas and has 12 catches and 3 touchdowns. He's the early leader. Like if he just keeps showing up in these big games, I think Jeremiah Smith 100% can win the Heisman. Okay.

Oh, if we want to go narratives, we're discussing it. What if Bryce Underwood figures it out?

Yeah.

That's a good one. If you're looking for like a value play right now.

You have to go narratives when talking the Heisman.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All right. ACC including Notre Dame.

Sure. Why?

So they have 2 good teams.

Yeah.

Yeah. ACC's got 2 good teams. They did that whole like Notre Dame.

Sure.

Remember when they played in the ACC national or championship?

They won undefeated.

Aren't the 2 best teams in the ACC do play this year? Yeah. I mean, I think Miami is just— of the 7 national title teams, I've got Miami in that group. I think they're, they're that good. Although I do think Louisville has a chance to be a very— to be a playoff team with that schedule they have. By September 19th, you're going to know if they were to pick off Ole Miss and then beat SMU in week 3. They're almost a lock at that point.

I don't know if I would call them a lock, but yeah. I see it almost a lock. I wouldn't— I don't know if I'd say almost a lock.

You can say almost a lock. Almost a lock?

SMU might finish 7-5 and like the end of November beating SMU might not mean shit.

You're trying to protect your house with almost a lock.

It doesn't work.

Yeah.

You're also not allowed to say the L word.

I said almost a lock.

You said the L word again.

You can't say almost the L word?

Almost doesn't start with the letter L. It starts with the letter A.

Yeah.

You should know that.

Okay. So Miami's just better than everyone. Sure. And Notre Dame, Notre Dame is really, really good.

Smoking good.

Is there anyone in the ACC that we should pay attention to? I mean, UNC is 1-0.

You should pay attention to SMU. You should pay attention to Louisville. You should pay attention to Virginia Tech.

What about Virginia?

Virginia, yeah. Virginia, yes. They're already 1-0. And then Bro Pribula looked— or I'm sorry, Max Brown, if you're listening, Bro Pribula, Pribule, Pribuya. Like you said his name 55 different ways during the game on Saturday. That's a great way. But yes, he's— we talked about it on your show when like Pribuya Pribule was one of the more underrated kind of guys who was very good at Missouri last year before he got hurt. And then he was very ineffective the rest of the season. That Virginia defensively, we saw what they were able to do. That, that's a very good team, but it's just, there isn't a great team or even a very good team, I don't believe, in the ACC after Miami.

No.

So there are a lot of teams who could cycle up and have a great season and finish in that 9-10 win range. I'm just trying to figure out which one it's going to be. The only thing I'm really confident in is it's like, it's not going to be Boston College. It could be any number of others.

The ceiling for those teams is SMU a couple of years ago. You get to the playoff, you take your loss like a man and get out there like that. That's the ceiling for Louisville and SMU and Virginia and all those teams. But that ceiling does exist.

Virginia Tech is the one truly interesting team to me though.

Wouldn't that be crazy if James Franklin finally broke through?

It would be.

Well, for him, it's a year that you don't—

I just can't get there with Grunkenmeyer. I don't.

Well, we disagree.

For James Franklin, one of us is the number one college football expert. The big one has become just beating UVA.

Yeah.

That is the new Ohio State. And that's like, and he can manage that.

Look at their schedule. How many top 5 teams do you see on it right now?

They have Ohio State.

No, I think they play Miami and that's it. So like, they're like, James Franklin's problem has always been beating top 5 teams. I don't think there are any on the schedule anymore.

Yeah. No. And I think there's also something to getting a hungry James Franklin, a Franklin that got pissed off. Yes.

Pissed off.

You know, 2 years ago, they were a bad pick by their quarterback from playing for a national championship. It was 24-24 with a minute left. They had the ball and then they, the quarterback blows it for them. And then less than 5 games later, James Franklin is out. That's got to put a fire in his belly that maybe hasn't been there. The fire's probably always been there, but now he's got a chance to reinvigorate a program in his own way. own, you know, in his own manner after being pissed off.

Is that like, is it James Franklin's fault or is it your fault? Because like last year you're sitting on this couch talking about how Penn State is—

I liked them, man.

Yeah. You're picking them as like a national title contender. I tried to warn you. I tried to say, but Brandon, they lost their best player on offense and they lost their best player on defense. You didn't care. You just rambled right through and you put all these high expectations on James Franklin. Bam. Now he's the coach of Virginia Tech. So you killed Mike Leach and now you killed James Franklin.

Who was the best player on offense?

Tyler Warren. He's a tight end. Maybe you've heard of him. He plays for Clemson.

But coming into last year, coming into last year, let's just be honest. I mean, those running backs were very appealing. Singleton and the other guy.

Maybe. No, I mean, I'm not going to dog Singleton and Ke'Tron Allen, but I don't think they were superstars.

We thought going in they were superstars. You thought going in they were superstars. No, no, no, no. That's a pretty common thing.

You also thought Clemson was going to be good too, right?

You picked them.

I did. Yeah. What round did I pick them in?

Personally, because you talked them up so much, man.

Yeah, no, everybody, everybody, everybody took a lot of losses last year with teams like Clemson, with teams like LSU, with teams like Penn State. Last year, last year was brutal. I didn't see the collapse coming from Penn State. I thought Franklin was a solid program guy that wasn't going to bottom out like that. He bottomed out.

Drew Allar, 6'5, 245. Yeah, you mentioned Clemson. Haven't talked about Clemson yet. No, nor should we.

Where—

I'm fine not talking about them.

Are they, are they that overlookable?

They're not, they're not overlookable.

Just the ceiling's not there anymore.

But yeah, like too much. One of the things we need to learn how to do is to reevaluate what history means in this sport. Like it used to be, you could just look and say, this school's done this, this school's going to keep doing this because that's who they are. But the NIL and the transfer portal have changed a whole hell of a lot about what history actually means going forward. And Clemson in the NIL portal era has been a mediocre ACC team. I I think they've— they're like 17-12 or 14 in ACC play the last 3 years. They are an average football team. They're not a bad football team, but the era of them competing for national titles, unless Dabo changes and starts really embracing the things that have happened in this sport, I think it's done. And they might go 8-4 this year. Hell, they might go 9-3 because again, the ACC, once you get past Miami, is a whole hell of a lot of shrugging and I don't really know what's going to happen. So I can't rule out that they're going to have a good season. But Clemson is not the team that won national titles anymore.

They're just not.

No. Yeah.

It's really ever since Swinney did that TikTok.

Yeah.

That was like the mark.

Hickory dickory dock.

Yeah.

The mouse went up the clock. Coach Swinney's got drip and now he's on TikTok.

We haven't watched that one in a while.

Ever since that. Yeah. That's, that's really the point where it all went downhill for Clemson.

Question. I am high just like everyone else on Notre Dame.

game.

Is there any reason not to be?

I don't think so.

They're fucking loaded. I think Marcus Freeman's a stud of a coach. I love CJ Carr. I think they're gonna unfortunately kick the shit out of Wisconsin in a few days. What's, what's not to like? Because now they also— like, you could have made the argument, oh well, their schedule is easy, but if they lose 2 games again and one of them's to BYU— but now they have the new rule.

Yeah, but I don't know if they would finish in the top 12 with that schedule.

But yeah, the BYU game will be the biggest game because that be the potential if that was a second loss, that could be the potential, hey, BYU's right in the same neighborhood as you.

If I'm a Notre Dame fan, the only thing I am concerned about is that college football is funny and it would be very funny if Notre Dame lost a couple of games it wasn't supposed to and they missed out. But you look at the roster, they're one of the best teams in the country. If they don't make the playoff this year, it is genuinely one of the biggest surprises of the season.

I don't know.

It's, there's just, there's not, their schedule is, they should be winning most of those games by 20-some-odd points. And that BYU game, like no offense to BYU, we'll get to the Big 12 here a little bit, I'm sure, but—

Oh no, we're not doing that.

Okay. Well, we fly over country. We don't need to talk about that league. But like when BYU got to play Texas Tech, they didn't really look nearly as good as they did in all their other games. And Notre Dame's quite a bit better than Texas Tech.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. No. And plus the, what's the one concern? They're replacing their running backs. It's the most replaceable position on the field. And I know they were great, but they're, they're, they're, they're, I think the weapons they have out wide and then the quarterback and then the defense, you know, they got the best player in the country on defense.

There's not going to be much point to watching Notre Dame games during the regular season. Like Notre Dame is going to have like a 2-game regular season and then you're just going to turn them off until the playoffs.

Yeah. They had a 2-game regular season last year. Yeah. And they were the first to lose a game.

And then how many of them did you watch from that point on?

The USC game. That's probably about it.

All right. So they also have a shitload of former NFL players' sons on that roster. They've got Jerome Bettis.

Bloodlines.

Yeah. Larry Fitzgerald's son. Yes. Yes.

Brandon. Earl Ackerson.

He said bloodline. I had to Right.

What?

Urlacher's son transferred.

Kennedy is at USC.

Wait, wait, Brandon, you raised your hand for what reason?

He keeps raising his fucking hand. He thinks we're in class.

Guys, guys, guys, it's a bloodline. You say bloodline, you gotta do this.

Why?

Because it's the fucking bloodline. It's Roman Reigns. Shit. You say bloodline, you gotta do this.

Oh, you should start a wrestling podcast.

I'll kick you right in the chin.

Okay.

I thought that was a Mississippi thing where if you're talking about bloodlines, it's always gotta be singular.

Yeah, just one.

That wasn't even funny. It was pretty funny. It was pretty fucking funny.

Make that—

You're saying you guys are inbred.

Yeah, it's very funny. Elijah Burress, Plaxico Burress's son. They've got just like a lot of former players on that roster, their children. So I don't know. There have been those moments though with Notre Dame. It's like they, they blow it in games that they very easily should win.

Oh, I should use this hand with this ring. You bring up a good point. Something just dawned on me. If they've got the sons of a bunch of NFL players, How hungry are they? A lot of kids raised by privilege. Do they want it enough? That could be the one that if, if Notre Dame misses the playoff, it's because those players weren't hard enough on their sons.

Yeah, that's true.

That's the best point I've ever heard. All right.

So wait, CJ Carr and Darian Mensah, those are my Heisman. I actually like Darian Mensah.

I like Darian Mensah a lot.

Yeah.

He's 11 to 1, I think right now.

And CJ Carr to me is if we do—

Notre Dame. Yeah.

But if we do get in a situation where we're very dismissive of their schedule, schedule and they're blowing teams out, is he gonna have the moment?

I think the quarterback— I mean, listen, uh, Love almost got, you know, I mean, he was what, he finished 3rd?

3rd, I think. Yeah.

Like, and that was a 2-loss team and he didn't really—

it wasn't even good the first 2 games.

So I think Notre Dame always, when you talk about narratives—

Fair enough.

They want to vote for a Notre Dame player.

Fair enough.

Yeah. Um, there's been some breaking news just while we've been doing this pod, or maybe just right before we started taping it. I want to hear your guys' reaction to this. Uh, the ongoing battle between between LSU and the rest of the SEC when it comes to whether or not they should be allowed to bring back players that went to the NFL for training camp and then came back to campus. This is Ross Dellinger that's reporting this right now. SEC school executives are exploring extreme measures to address LSU's plans, including boycotting competition, sanctioning the school with probation or expulsion, and firing or filing a federal legal challenge Good Lord. The conversations within the conference are considered not league-driven but membership-led. The 15 SEC university leaders are gathering over potential options to address the situation. One source said the conversations are serious.

So these schools are tired of this bullshit, huh?

I wonder which membership school do you think was the first to bring this up?

Gee, I don't know.

Any idea? Any guesses out there?

Listen, it's such a weird thing because Because as a purist, I don't want guys who have gone off to the NFL and have been in training camps coming back to play on college football rosters. At the same time, I do feel that they kind of got screwed by the new ruling where the 5-for-5, you get 5 years of eligibility, that doesn't get passed until after these guys had to make their decisions. So I understand where they're coming from. I also don't think it is an existential threat to the sport if they do come back. because next year's class, it's not— they don't get the same benefit of the doubt.

Right.

They knew the rules ahead of time, so they're done. So it would be a one-time thing. So I am appreciative of the fact that at least, like, with the Big Ten doing it, and then the SEC and the ACC and Big 12 following up, that the conferences are trying to take the power back and rule themselves instead of begging everybody else to figure it out for them and begging Congress to come up with some kind of thing to fix things. So if this is what they're trying to do to get LSU to, like, play along wrong, cool. If it works, cool. I think it probably will, but I don't know.

So shout out to Big Ten for being a leader in this.

Well, yeah, but the SEC did put out that statement about how they weren't—

right, Tom, they condemned it.

They did. The presidents in the—

yeah, the president passed the first rule. The SEC then followed, uh, then passed the rule. But it's the SEC with the team who's actually doing it. The Big Ten isn't being challenged right now. No, uh, if the Big Ten is being challenged in the court of law like the SEC is scared to death in the courts of law right now. All right.

So this is another quote. I swear to God, this is a real quote. An SEC school official to Yahoo Sports just said there are plenty of other schools who will take their place. Yeah, that's just, that's just Keith Carter at Ole Miss threatening to kick LSU out of the SEC.

I would be very, very surprised if LSU gets kicked out of the SEC over any of this. But, you know, you got to, you got to, you got to bark a little bit.

But people think that the Cajun Navy doesn't have ammunition. They do. And this would be— this would be a civil war, I think, if you kicked LSU out of the SEC.

First of all, the Southeast has never seceded from anything, so I don't know why you would put that on them. But it's— I don't think it would be to the SEC's benefit to get rid of LSU. There's no chance in hell that in a sport that is that dominated by television revenue, the SEC is gonna be like, let's get rid of LSU.

They're just trying to scare them out of the fight. Nor would it be— nor would it be beneficial to LSU to fight this hard for these guys. No, it's not.

Yeah.

Like that's the thing.

If these were guys coming back that were like fucking huge game changer like types, or you're like, if we bring like start, if Jayden Daniels is like, I'm coming back as long as you promise to retire my number 5 when he's done. Okay. Let's break some rules because that's going to really change. But this is like our second linebacker. You know, it's, it's not that big of a deal. Yeah.

All right.

Big 12. Texas Tech is clearly Sure. Who could crash the party? I'll give you 3 teams.

BYU.

Yeah.

Houston.

Yep. Kansas State.

Oh, West Virginia was going to be my other one, but I like Kansas State.

Oklahoma State.

Oh, okay. Let's go. Discuss.

I can't rule it out.

Discuss, boys.

So Oklahoma State finally got serious about the money. Finally got serious about roster building. Finally got serious about this new era of college football. Can they do it in one offseason? Well, the quarterback's going to throw a lot throw of passes. it all over the yard. The running back's going to run for a ton of yards.

I love, I love Messermaker.

It's a conference where you can make some pretty quick moves and pretty, pretty, uh, pretty quick ascent up the ladder. How far will be left to be determined, but I think Oklahoma State is back to play big-time ball in the Big 12.

My concern there is defensively. I, I don't know that they're going to be very good.

Sure.

Um, I, I like Kansas State. They did suffer an injury on the offensive line a couple of weeks ago that kind of caused me to slow down a little bit, but we discussed earlier, Collin Klein has left Texas A&M. He's come to Kansas State. He's come home. We know what he was able to do for Marcel Reed last year. If he's able to do that same thing for Avery Johnson, who's been a talented quarterback, who is a 5-star himself, that's a huge move. And also, we talked about what was one of the things Texas A&M took advantage of last year?

Schedule.

If you look at Kansas State's schedule, you know what you don't see on there? You don't see Texas Tech. You don't see BYU. You don't even see Utah. Yeah, they have a very friendly schedule. That's something that they could take advantage of that can get them to the Big 12. to, you know, Dallas for the Big 12 championship. They could be the team that's playing Texas Tech there simply by default. And another team I would mention, they get dismissed too easily. He's been too good there. He's won too many games.

Colorado.

Oh.

Arizona State.

Okay. Yeah.

I think Kenny Dillingham is a very good coach. Mississippi State loss aside, he's been, he's done a very, very good job with that program. I wouldn't be shocked if they have an upset. upscale season.

I like Houston too. Yeah, I like Houston. When you, when you talk about a conference that's as, um, you know, volatile as it is throughout the Big 12, when you have a good solid coach and a good program builder though, and they're having to rely on the transfer portal a lot again this year, but he was— he nailed it last year. I think I like Houston a lot.

Also, Houston kind of gets to play it out in terms of the fact that they do get to play Texas Tech. Obviously they have to go to Texas Tech, but they get to play Oklahoma State, they get to play West Virginia, so they'll get to play it out in terms of the teams are right, right in that like cluster.

I love Willie Fritz.

I'm just not a Connor Wegman guy.

I like him.

He was fine last year.

Willie Fritz is a really good coach.

Willie Fritz is a great coach.

Yeah. I keep forgetting that UCF is in the Big 12 now too.

They're a little sneaky.

I think UCF forgets that sometimes too.

They were a little sneaky. They were better than people think last year, I think. And they were, I like that. And they got a winner at quarterback.

They do have a winner at quarterback.

That's a fact.

Crash the middle.

They're very good at home.

On the road, they were an absolute But Grinch's defense wasn't nearly as bad as Grinch's defense usually are.

Which is funny.

Yeah, but I just think there, it's a conference where it's so volatile past Texas Tech. Anything can happen.

Yeah, it's like the ACC. You really don't know.

Any Heismans in the Big 12?

Tougher. Messermaker. I mean, if Messermaker throws for 5,000 yards and they win 9 or 10 games, games, I think he's in the conversation.

I don't think they're in enough big games though to get that kind of attention nationally.

Maybe not, but they play, they play Oregon early. What if they, if they give Oregon a run?

I'm saying, like, if you look at the history, if you look at the history of the Big 12, like all the Heisman winners were typically from Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska. They're not there anymore.

That's a fact. I'm looking at Oklahoma State's schedule right now. They have that Oregon game.

I'm just, this is, it was Barry Sanders, the last Heisman winner from that league that wasn't one of the main school I'll say this, Brandon.

I mean, no, RG3.

There you go. Good call.

November, November 14th, they host Texas Tech. That, that could be a Heisman game.

Yeah. Like, especially about they're going to be throwing it all over the yard. If they were able to get Texas Tech in a shootout with Texas Tech's quarterback issues, you know, either an injured Will Ammon or Castellanos, like Texas Tech is going all the way this year.

Is Castellanos going to be on Texas Tech's roster?

They are bringing him in to be the backup Which quarterback.

is actually a big deal because Texas Tech is loaded. And the question was, now that you lost Sorsby, you don't have a backup.

Yeah. And Castellanos, like for all the problems Florida State had last year, I thought Castellanos was as advertised. He was exactly who he was supposed to be. It was the rest of the team that didn't really carry their weight. So I, it's an interesting pickup in that they have something now that I think Oregon's the only other team in the country can say they have. They have actual depth at quarterback where if Will Hammond isn't able to play, they have a backup. they've got a guy they can rely on. Now, is Thomas Castellanos the kind of guy I'm trying to win playoff games with?

Patrick Mahomes like Oregon has? How's that going to work, by the way?

Dante Miller is going to play and Dylan Raiola is going to watch.

No, I'm saying like he's not wearing a red jersey anymore.

Oh.

Practice.

Yeah.

You had to, you had, when Texas Tech had their quarterback issues in the spring, you had to think Dylan Raiola was just thinking, damn it. It was just perfect for him. It was right there.

Damn it.

Yeah.

My take that Dylan Raiola, and it's probably not really that controversial, but the fact that he's been been to, what was it, 6 schools in the last, uh, 6 years?

Yeah, it's not good.

Um, just AJ Storer of college football.

At some point he should have boys at, at a school and he's like, I'm sick of moving, I want to hang out with my friends, like this locker room means a lot to me, I would just rather not leave them, right? If you're a leader, if you're a good quarterback that is able to, uh, to develop deep relationships or at least, uh, very good working relationships with your, with your other players, I feel like at some point, you want that guy to stick around just for, you know, the, the personal feelings that he has for the place.

But as the quarterback with the biggest NIL, he can just take his boys with him, couldn't he? Just take a couple of boys, just transfer with me.

That's human trafficking.

You buy his boys.

You can't do that.

I don't think it's human trafficking.

It's boy trafficking.

Yeah.

It's totally different.

Yeah.

But if it's 20-year-old dudes, Brandon's just talking about— You can traffic 20-year-old college dudes. I used to do it. What?

All right. You guys ready to pick? We'll get to the G5 because we'll, we'll hear your, your best G5 picks.

Sure.

Oh, also, I asked Tom and Brandon to give me their best picks to see who could win the World Cup before the World Cup started.

This isn't—

I would just like to— I did, Brandon, you texted it to me.

Okay.

All right. So you guys both took Spain, Germany, and Argentina. Spain and Argentina, obviously they were pretty good there. Germany got bounced pretty early on. Now, outside those picks, Tom, you had France. Great World Cup from France.

I don't pick France for anything.

You had England. Great World Cup from England. 2 awesome picks there.

Yeah, but—

and then Brazil, disappointing, but 2 really good picks. Brandon, outside those common ones that you guys shared, you had the Netherlands.

Sure.

And they, I believe, got bounced in the first round. And then you had the United States of America.

America. You ever heard of it, Tom?

So Netherlands and then a soccer competition.

I sure as shit ain't picking it.

Well, I am.

Oh, you also had Portugal and they lost.

Yeah. Okay.

They were not good too. So Tom—

Ronaldo did score a goal though.

He did. I think Tom Fornelli is, we can say, our football department. I take football.

Give him $1,001.

Goddamn it. There we go. Congrats, Tom.

Thank you.

I'm betting you got to my mouth.

Let's put together the list.

I want to see. Yeah, let's go. All right. Who's drafting first?

All right. Well, obviously, what, how do we figure that out?

I feel like I should go first.

Well, you can choose because remember it's snake.

Yeah.

So you can choose.

I'm going to— I'll go first.

Okay. And by the way, we have Zach running the Excel spreadsheet right now. I'm not going to spell these.

These—

I would— Hank, get off your fucking phone. Sorry. I thought it was Jerry. I'll go with Notre Dame.

Good pick.

How are we going to spell this one? Okay.

And we got it.

Nailed it.

Got it.

You're not a capitalized I'll take—

I got you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

The Oregon Ducks.

Okay. And the Georgia Bulldogs.

He's capitalizing.

So you're going to give me Ohio State?

No, I'm taking Oregon and Georgia.

I'll take Ohio State.

Okay.

I've already won.

I don't know that you have. Over.

It's over.

Bless you.

I'm calling it now. I have won.

I can't wait to see what you win next year, Tom.

Let me see. Let me take—

we should give him a number.

Oh, he has— you have a list? You have a master list? I don't even know the list.

Give me Miami.

That's a good pick, Tom.

Hold on.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

You still have 2 of the teams you think can win the national title?

Yes, I do. I just got to figure out who they are. Probably give me Texas and Indiana.

Okay. Oh, wow. So you took Indiana 7th. That's disrespect.

So yeah, now it gets a little funky.

Now is where we start getting a little complicated, but I'm going to take LSU. Okay. And then let's see here.

They might get a really easy schedule this year if they get kicked out of the SEC.

They might. This is like, now we got to go to like the 4th team in the Big Ten.

What about the Big 12?

The fuck off.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Oh, Brandon's going to take Texas Tech.

Yeah. Brandon, they were on my list. I'm just trying to figure out.

I understand that, but he wasn't, you weren't near them.

I'll take Texas Tech.

Oh, good pick.

Good pick.

Good pick.

Respect. You know what?

This is why you don't fucking win trophies.

You don't have any respect.

You were thinking national title and you're trying to get to a team that won a national title. So we're going to— but playoff helps too.

Playoffs do matter.

It's bullshit.

I can't remember what our rules were.

That's bullshit. Zach, you're in charge of the rules.

No, byes get extra points.

Yeah.

Put an asterisk next to Texas Tech. We'll revisit.

Why?

What do we got to revisit? That's bullshit.

Asterisk doesn't mean anything.

Go parentheses and just put Texas It's Tech. got to be like Brandon says that it's bullshit.

Yeah, Tom, so you got to understand something about Brandon. You just have to, you have to just—

Oh, he's like a kid throwing a tantrum.

Give up something so that he'll stop complaining and then we'll come back.

Got it.

Give me— that's bullshit what just happened.

Put the asterisks on the bottom. Brandon's a baby. We wanted him to stop crying.

That's not how you spell Brandon.

Good God.

Zach is very proficient. This is an Excel masterclass.

All right.

Okay.

Hold on.

I took a course.

Yeah.

All right. Hold on now.

Give me Oklahoma.

Oh, good pick.

That's a good pick, Brandon.

Washington?

No.

Alabama for mama?

USC.

Oh, no. Other, other.

That is good. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out if I want to go down to my value picks here, if I want to just keep going down my board.

Well, you have, you've picked so far 3, 5. So you still have 7. So you're going to get value picks later.

Yeah. I, I, I've been toying with the idea because I know he doesn't want to pick Alabama.

Yeah.

So I've been toying with the idea of seeing how long I could let him go. I feel like this is probably as far as he's going to go. So I will take Alabama.

Okay.

And then Michigan. Michigan.

That's what you sound like.

You're just mad because you can't suck up to Dave.

Um, I don't want to say it and I won't say it, but like a pick that you had last year.

Yeah.

There's good picks out there.

If we're playing the get into the playoffs, it's your second favorite team.

You always say Mississippi versus everybody.

I'd rather die.

You do say that. Mississippi versus everybody.

No.

All right. Everybody just hold on for a second.

There's a pick that—

Who could have seen your pick coming up?

It might not be crazy.

Who could have seen that it was going to come back to you?

First, Texas Tech threw the whole rhythm off.

Oh boy.

So Tom, here's the thing. I could go with a team here or I could go with another team.

That's true. You could go with different teams.

Yep.

Boy, it really, it really—

Do you need me to name teams for you?

You've forgotten all of them? You don't know? No, I got A&M in my head. I got Ole Miss in my head. I got Louisville in my head. I got BYU in my head.

Do you have Washington?

Do you feel like I'm— or do you feel like we're both missing one? Do you feel like we're missing one?

Penn State.

You have Penn State in your head?

Let's see.

Tennessee.

I don't know. I don't think I'm missing anybody.

Do you have Penn State?

Yeah.

You had to get reminded of Texas Tech, Tom.

The schedule that Penn State has.

I wasn't reminded of Texas Tech.

Yes, you were.

You had literally no—

I was looking in your head. There was nothing.

Are you forgetting BYU?

I just said BYU in my face.

So you're forgetting him.

I know who you're forgetting.

Give me Ole Miss.

Oh, no.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Mississippi versus everybody.

Ole Miss comes off the board before Mississippi State. That's just— And Louisville.

All right.

Who is he forgetting?

I don't know. I was just trying to fuck with him. Goddamn.

I don't really—

This is where it gets tough.

All right. I think I'm going to break the G6 seal here. Give me Boise State, pussy.

Okay.

Blue turf.

Did you see the blue turf, Tom?

I did.

Well, it's right here.

No, I know. We're on it. It's covered in confetti. Thoughts and prayers to whoever has to clean all this shit up.

That might be, that might be the future though. Boise State covered in confetti. confetti for Tom Fornelli.

7 birds die every day here inside this office by trying to land on that piece of carpet.

Fuck it. Give me Texas A&M. I'm not super— I mean, you know, here's what I want to avoid. I'm not a huge Texas A&M believer, but this is what cost us Indiana last year.

Sure.

Sure.

Sure.

You kind of got to. You're right.

You're right.

True.

Brandon.

So I've got 2 more picks.

Maybe BYU and Memphis.

Yeah, I like that.

Okay.

So I'm done. The whole board is yours, sir. No, wait. Right? We do 12. Oh, wait. Oh, I'm sorry. The first, I was just looking at the number beside the XL.

Yeah.

You have 3 more picks.

I didn't, I shouldn't have done that then.

Yeah.

You have 3 more picks, Tom.

I thought we were done because I was looking at the number 12 on the XL.

Brandon, you got to count your picks.

Well, I didn't know he was starting at 3. Who starts at 3?

Well, you're not proficient in Excel.

Why do you start at 3?

These are my last 2.

No, you have one more after that.

Oh, okay. Well, shit.

Because you went first.

Fuck.

Huh?

So you have 3 more. Brandon has 2 more.

I'm going to go—

Oh, Brandon, what did you do?

Yeah, he got outsmarted by numbers.

I did. No, he started at 3.

I will take advantage of the schedule and take Penn State.

Yeah.

Good pick.

Good pick.

And then that would be something if Brandon's Penn State.

Yeah.

If it's Nittany Lions.

He said Penn State was breaking through about 7 years in a row.

Yeah.

Oh, they're— oh, they're not. Give me SMU.

I mean, there's a chance that a lot of stuff with Penn State is— yeah, it's coming back.

Zach spelled SMU perfectly right. So that's good.

Gotcha, Tom.

All right, Brandon, last 2 picks.

You're my favorite.

Tennessee, Washington, Houston. Just take Louisville again.

I could take Louisville again.

You could take Louisville again. If you take Louisville again and they make it, I will give you 2 points.

Oh, not Washington and the Florida Gators.

Damn it. Fuck. I was going to take Florida. That was great.

Great pick.

Great pick.

Wow. Okay.

So, so from the G6, we have Boise and Memphis right now.

Yeah. Is there a couple of good teams sitting out there?

Who else in the G6 you think could, could get in?

Can I ask you a mini question? Do you think UNLV is out of it or you think they can fight?

I do. I don't think they could afford to lose that game.

I think they're out of it.

I think Memphis is a sneaky quarterback. Awesome pick because of that.

He wasn't the problem.

He, the offensive line was bad, but he also, he can't, he gets sacked every single time. It's always been that.

Give me—

Ever heard that sacks are half a quarterback stat?

Never. Yeah.

Give me Tennessee.

All right.

What other G6s were, would you—

Navy is what I really wanted.

I was about to say Navy. Oh God. Tennessee. The spelling.

Hey, can I get Navy? Can I, can I spoil it? For the troops, I'll take one on the side. I'll take Navy.

And I'll take New Mexico, even though they don't have a quarterback.

Yeah, that sucks.

Can I ignore the Tennessee?

No, it's fine. He was close enough.

That's good.

Yeah.

Now listen, Tennessee could use an A.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Okay. Great job, boys.

Thanks.

Roback question, rhoback.com, promo code TAKE. Roback.com, promo code TAKE.

Zach, Roback question.

First question for Brandon. Brandon, how do you think today went and does— what do you say to people who say Tom has you in a forever blender?

Well, he doesn't have me in a forever blender. That is absolutely wrong. First of all, he was the second guest on the Brandon Walker College Football Show. I appreciate that. I beat him and walked into this room last year as the reigning expert and y'all acted like it didn't count because it was a new season. So that's not a forever blender. You guys are doing the blending. I was the expert one year. You're there. We're tied at one, Tom.

This is the If we combine scores though, it's not really that close.

I beat the shit out of you a couple of years ago.

Listen, you know what? You want to live in the past, you continue to live in the past.

If you want to do scores, I destroyed you. I had like the whole playoff run.

When you're talking to Brandon, you show your ring.

Have you seen this ring, by the way? You see that glitter? That's real. Yeah, that trophy's so pretty.

And we have cake, by the way, at the end.

Shines real nice.

By the way, you know what? As nice as I am, I'm going to share that cake with everybody here in the office.

Oh, I love that. That's pretty awesome.

Go buy yourself a—

At least get out of the blender.

All right, so you're in a forever blender.

I'm not in a forever blender. I was the winner last year.

People are saying you're in a forever blender.

That's one of the worst places, I'd say.

The fact that you're even talking about the forever blender means you're probably in the forever blender.

Zach asked about it, right?

It's a topic of conversation.

Sure.

They're calling you KitchenAid.

Was that the only question he had?

Magic Bullet.

It was the robot question. R-H-O-B-E-T.

Do you have another one?

The same brand in the Ninja.

I do a follow-up question for Tom. Tom is someone who's currently ring on body, trophy to the side. If there's anyone in close proximity that isn't currently a winner, how would you advise him to become a winner?

Do y'all want him to take his pants down so you suck his dick? Do you want— do you want to take his pants down so you can just suck his dick right here on the desk?

Damn, why'd you have to go there, man?

Jesus Christ, why do we have to get sexual?

Forever Blender. An hour just sitting here watching y'all do a reach-around for Tom.

You know, Zach, it's a great question.

No, it's not.

Great question. Like, if we're giving a reach-around, then that That means that we're, we're bit— we're fucking him. That's not what we're doing.

I think the thing that you need more than anything to be great is you have to believe in yourself first and foremost, because if you don't believe in you, who will? And I think that is the key. And then after that, it's just, you know, you gotta, you gotta take it one day at a time. You just gotta wake up every day trying to be 1% better. And if you can do that, eventually you're gonna be 100% better.

I love that.

I love that.

You hear that?

You gotta love yourself first.

Also stay humble.

Stay humble.

Stay hungry. How many—

Well, you stay hungry all the time.

Do you love yourself?

I'm starving.

I'm starving.

Use that gift card.

I think Brandon— I don't think loving himself is the problem with Brandon.

No, I'm very in love with myself.

He loves himself several times a day.

There's a different kind of— there's a difference between loving yourself and being confident, I think.

Sticking your chest out there.

Yeah.

Brandon's co-host used to do that.

Yeah.

He fired her.

I didn't fire her. No, she's on Fox News right now. She's good. All right, boys.

This has always been the best. We love having you guys on together and college football's back.

May I, may I ask a question?

Yeah.

May I get a promise?

Yeah.

If I win this year, I get the same level of pomp and circumstance next year.

I cannot promise that because like Kyle Shanahan said, we could all die tomorrow.

Right. If everybody's still around, especially if you're on the road.

Never mind.

Never mind. I will give you the exact same level of pomp and circumstance. Pomp and circumstance, both.

All right. I appreciate that. Fair enough.

I am not agreeing.

I got half of it.

I'm good.

Yeah.

So we're going to give you half of it.

Yeah. I get 50% of the pomp and circumstance that Tom got today. I'm guaranteed of that.

So like half a cake, $500.

But you're not saying you won't do it. You're just saying you're not—

3 Chick-fil-A gift cards.

You're not guaranteeing it.

Well, I'm not saying— I'm not guaranteeing anything. I could take away Why don't you take away half of the pomp and circumstance? Then you'd be at zero.

How would you—

you can't take away half and I take away half.

If I brought in, let's say I bring in $500 cash and $150 worth of Chick-fil-A gift cards and 2 confetti poppers.

And a cupcake.

And a cupcake. And then I leave it out and Big Cat takes it all. Then that's just kind of what we're working with.

Then we just don't have pomp and circumstance.

We might have some pomp, but the circumstance is out the window.

When you sent someone to the store to get these supplies, how many confetti poppers did you tell them to get?

Actually, Dom, I did not say any confetti poppers. He did that on his own, which was a beautiful touch.

That's just Italian.

Yes, it was a beautiful touch. He asked for the cake, asked for the trophy, asked for the card, asked for the ring, the ribbon, the big scissors, all that stuff. But the confetti, he did an audible. That's right, audible.

Confetti's got to be Italian, right? With a name like that.

Yeah, it ends in an I. Confetti.

Absolutely. All right, boys, thank you.

Tom and Brandon were brought to you by Netflix, where Netflix is expanding its NFL coverage in 2026 from Week 1 to their first-ever Thanksgiving Eve matchup and 2 Christmas Day games and a playoff game in January. Week 1 of the upcoming NFL season will feature the league's first-ever regular season game in Australia on September 10th between divisional rivals, the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers. That will air on Netflix live from the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Heading into holiday season, Netflix will add the NFL's first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game on November 25th to its plate. Features the Green Bay Packers visiting the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. Continuing the Christmas Day tradition, Netflix will again air 2 games on December 25th at 1 PM Eastern, 10 AM Pacific. The Packers visit the Bears at Soldier Field. You guys know how that goes. It's going to be on Netflix, and it's followed by the Bills against the Broncos from Empower Field at Mile High at 4:30 PM Eastern. 1:30 PM Pacific. That's going to be incredible. That is an awesome slate of Christmas Day games brought to you by Netflix. Week 18 also, they've got playoff stakes on the line.

Catch the final game of the regular season live on Netflix. So Week 1 of the NFL, the Rams-49ers live only on Netflix Thursday, September 10th, 8:35 PM Eastern, 5:35 PM Pacific. PM Pacific. Brandon and Tom, we're also brought to you by our great friends over at Twisted Tea. Nothing like having ice cold Twisted Tea outside. We got Labor Day weekend coming up this weekend. I don't know about you guys. I'm planning on stocking a cooler with lots of Twisted Tea. I'm going to be drinking it all weekend. It's perfect for day drinking. Beautiful weather, crack open ice cold Twisted Tea. If it's hot outside, get something ice cold. That's Twisted Tea. It's perfect for lake days, beach days, grilling, and all the good stuff that summer has. It's never too early to stock up for tailgate season. Countdown until electric game days and coolers stocked to the brim with ice-cold Twisted Tea. Full of flavor, very refreshing, goes down smooth. No carbonation, so it's easy to drink all day long. If you're hitting the course for a round, pre-gaming a ball game, or inviting the guys over for some backyard grilling, Twisted Tea is always there.

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Okay, let's wrap it up. What do we got, Hank?

My husband and I have been debating this for years. Who wins in a street fight, not a cage-sanctioned fight, no weapons? A member of SEAL Teams. Okay, no weapons, no clotheslines, no clothesline. A member of SEAL Team 6 or a UFC fighter? Not just a Navy SEAL, a member of SEAL Team 6.

And what kind of a fight is it? Street fight?

Street fight, not a cage-sanctioned fight.

Ah, I think it's the UFC fighter.

Yeah, they're there. I think that if there was any sort of weapon involved at all, the Navy SEAL or special ops guy would do it. Is this at night? If it's at night, then I would go back to the Special Forces guy.

Yeah. And it's— I think the Special Forces guy would have better stamina long term, deal with pain long term. But in terms of like technical ability, just get you on the ground.

Yeah.

There's nothing you can do for like a guy who is an incredible wrestler and grappler, I don't care how tough you are, you're just technically kind of fucked.

I think that like a UFC fighter probably spends 100% of his time training in hand-to-hand close-quarters combat. A Navy SEAL probably spends, I don't know, I would say 30% of his time doing that. But you, the second you introduce any sort of weapon, then I think the UFC fighter's dead.

It's like, well, like when people think that they can get into boxing and you're like, you don't understand how fast a boxer's hands are. And the fact that they could, they could basically punch you 5 times before you even get to them. Like that type of— it's just a different level. So Navy SEALs, absolute badasses. Thank you for your service, Navy SEALs. I think, I think even Navy SEALs would probably admit that going against like a really, really good UFC fighter. Now, if you did like a guy who's, oh, I'm doing jiu-jitsu and I'm, I'm training in UFC fighting, not an actual like sanctioned UFC fighter. Yeah, the Navy SEAL would fuck him up. But like a guy who's actually an accomplished UFC fighter, been on pay-per-views, that's different.

In this scenario, I was envisioning like current reigning champ, Paddy the Baddy, reigning champion in the UFC. Also, the thing I didn't think about, the second that this fight starts to happen, you're going to have like 12 other Navy SEALs that crash the fight and just murder murder you.

True.

And put your body somewhere that'll never be found. Much like what we would do at Barstool Sports if an Uber Eats driver came in and started his shit. Backyard.

Fucking backyard.

Never say a word about it.

Hidden forever.

Dearest New York Times bestselling writers, I just started dating someone new, also fellow WAWL. I'm not completely sold on him quite yet. He's super nice, funny, lots in common, a real take-home-to-your-mom kind of guy. However, I'm pretty sure I could take him in a fight.

Kind of giving me the Anthony Smith voice.

Oh, Cali Endo's Stephen A was all time. All time. I'm also convinced the sex may end up being a little bit vanilla because of this. How do I gently let him know that I'm looking for someone to pick me up and manhandle me in a loving, respectful way?

Of course, I'd have to know size breakdown here because I think times, like, women don't understand the difference in strength. Like, obviously they should never fight, but her saying, oh, I could take him in a fight, I don't know if that's true.

You know what I mean?

Like, if they're the same size, I think the man—

It's more just because he's nice.

Yeah. Oh, okay.

Like he's a pussy.

So you need him to be a badass.

She wants him to be a badass. How does she tell him she wants him to be badass?

Well, it sounds like she wants him to be a badass badass when they're fucking, if they fuck.

Yeah.

I think you just say like, here's what I like.

Yeah. But also badass in general. Maybe like stage like a mugging and see his reaction. And you know, like if he shrieks, be like, all right, we're broken up.

That could be disappointing.

Yeah.

Yeah, you could stage something or I don't know, I feel like communication is the right move. Just tell Hey, this is— I want you to—

once you throw me around a little bit, I want you to be a badass.

Be a badass. Well, actually, you know what? Here's what we can do so it's not targeted at this one guy.

Just send him some crazy porn.

Yeah.

Or, or buy him a gun.

Yeah. But so what I'm saying is, if we just blanket statement to all AWLs, maybe just be like 15% more badass.

What were—

what was that?

All you guys, what was the first 2 lines of this? Because this is now So people listening right now, there's definitely going to be a few guys that are like, oh shit, just started dating someone new.

I'm not completely sold on him. He's super nice, funny, lots in common, a real take-home-to-your-mom kind of guy.

But, and then what was the other part? He's an AWL.

Yeah.

And she is as well. Uh-oh. So yeah, there's going to be some hard— some AWLs are going to have some hard conversations in the mirror on Wednesday morning.

Yeah.

Just when they hear this part, just like crank up, maybe, you know, button, take, take a couple buttons down on your neck. next date.

Also write back in if, if he does say like, hey, I was listening and I think it's, it's me. That'd be funny if a couple, a couple guys outed themselves. It's like, shit, I got to be more badass.

Get a leather jacket. Start smoking.

Mm-hmm.

Get a motorcycle.

All right, we'll end on this one. Hey, PMT guys, I've recently seen some videos online explaining why men should sit down to pee when they're at home. It's cleaner, no splashback, better for your pelvic floor and empties the bladder fully. That's a lie. I have been unsuccessful in convincing my husband he should pick up on this habit. Can you please persuade him? Thanks.

Wait, wait, what did you say?

Like when I take a shit and I pee, I feel like when I stand up, I still have to pee more.

So it's— you can't—

I disagree.

Your bladder— I just sitting down.

Yeah, I disagree with that.

Here's—

I've never really thought about that.

Yeah.

You never take a shit and then stand up, turn around and pee?

I forget to pee sometimes.

Yeah.

So when you, when you pee, when you poop, it's not a full pee. I agree with that. Yeah, you're there. That's a business trip. And then you're not necessarily thinking about number one.

Zach's Googling. This is a problem. I would say counterpoint, lady, go outside, turn on your hose, hold it in between your legs. Tell me how much fun you have. Okay. So that's what it is. That's what you're dealing with.

Wait till it snows and try and dispel your Name.

Yeah.

And tell me how fun that is.

Why don't you try standing up to pee every time?

Yeah.

How about that?

Go to a—

go put some ice in your toilet and see how much you can melt.

Yeah.

How much fun you have.

Go to a concert and when you go to the bathroom, cut the amount of stalls in half and say you can only use these— this half, then wait in line until that's ready. Okay. Or you You could just crouch over the drain and be done.

Now, that said, in the middle of the night, sometimes if I don't feel like standing up, if I'm very, very tired, I'll just go and I'll sit down and then I'll like— then I'll stumble my way out of the bathroom. Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah. I actually don't—

never done that.

Never sat down to pee ever in your life?

I've sat down.

I'm like, if I'm like, yeah, like if I'm like hurt, painfully hungover.

Yeah, that situation. But at night, I'll just, I'll just let it fly, deal with the whatever happens after. Because also I'm trying at night, I'm, I'm essentially trying to get in and out of the bathroom without waking up. So I do it as fast as I can, usually piss all over the floor, don't care, deal with it in the morning. And then like never open my eyes. If I sit down, I feel like I'd open my eyes.

No, that's, that's the thing. It's like the sit down is actually better for keeping your eyes closed.

You wake up on the toilet.

Yeah, that has happened. That has happened before. That's, that's— you get yourself in that type of situation.

Mm-hmm. Okay, good show, boys. Good show. Numbers: 3, 5.

Shane said 20 Ps.

What?

That's what we just found out back here.

Sometimes I said if it's early enough in the morning.

That's right.

Shane's definitely like, if I'm tired, if I'm tired in the morning, I'm good.

And if like middle, middle of the night, that's when I'll do it.

Or if you're a man waking up in the morning, it can be You know, are you—

you're a huge dick?

Yeah, Shane must have—

Well, not huge, just more—

it's just more of, you know, your dick, how big your dick is.

Wow, Shane.

99.

15.

7.

Your ass on the rope.

69.

53.

Zach, you should have taken Shane's hog into Mount Rushmore.

What weapon?

Try peeing with mine, bro.

Something's giving me— something's giving me— 46.

46.

Anybody?

One more.

Anybody?

One more.

37.

37.

Anybody?

Nobody, nobody, nobody. Happy birthday to Will Anderson. Happy birthday, Terry Bradshaw. Birthday, Keanu Reeves. Happy birthday to Rae Gunn. You remember Rachel Gunn, the breakdancer from Australia?

Oh, yeah. Happy birthday, legend.

That—

you know what?

I bet you, I bet you some NFL player is going to do a Rae Gunn celebration with this touchdown.

But she actually was in the Olympics.

Yeah. Kittle, I'm looking at you. You would do an incredible Rae Gunn. And then happy birthday to Max Crosby.

Love you guys.