Transcript of CFB Week 1 Chaos With Andy Staples, Western Michigan HC Lance Taylor, Who's Back Of The Week + Max Is Back From His Honeymoon With Gifts New

On today's Pardon My Take presented by DraftKings, football is back. Week 1 of the college football season. We've got Andy Staples live from MSU, Florida State before the lights went out, uh, recapping all of week 1. We also have Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor on the show. We thought, hey, if they had won that game He probably would have done a bunch of shows. Let's give him some shine because Western Michigan fought their asses off on Saturday night. Uh, we're gonna recap everything. We got Who's Back of the Week, and Max is back. Max is back stateside. His sex vacation has finally come to an end. He's all out of sex. And, uh, he's gonna give us gifts at the end of the show because he was in Italy and France. What? So you guys got to speak up. What are you saying?

Save it. We'll save it for the show.

All right, we'll save it for the show. So end of the show, Max will give us his gifts. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Noble. This podcast is brought to you by Noble. Noble is Barstool's favorite footwear brand. And at the end of the day, just a bunch of no bullshit people working hard to get better. I'm wearing my Nobles right now. Absolutely love them. Getting to be the time of the year for a reset. Summer's winding down. Football's back. Schedules start filling up and you kind of get back into a rhythm, whether you're getting back in the gym, taking the dog on longer walks, training for something, or just trying to move more. Momentum starts by showing up, and Noble can be the first step in helping you build that momentum. No gimmicks, no flashy promises, just apparel and footwear that help you keep going once you get moving. If you've been looking for a sign to get back into a routine, this is probably it. Check out what Noble's doing, because once you get rolling, the hardest part is already behind you. Exclusively for Pardon My Take listeners, Nobull is offering 35% off your first order.

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Hey.

Football guy, Martino, AWM.

Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Tuesday, September 8th. And football is back, and so is Max. The rare Tuesday Pardon My Take, PFT. We do have a show tomorrow and Friday as well, but football is back, PFT. We had what, going into it, a week 1 that everyone's like, oh, there's no any— there's not a lot of marquee games. And then we had chaos. And the last time we recorded, we recorded on Thursday afternoon, the chaos began right away with UMass beating Rutgers. Greg Schiano might be on his last leg.

That's a sad day for the birthplace of college football. Might be the death place of college football. That was, that was just a shit pumping. Sad, sad scenes in Piscataway.

It was. Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't just a situation where it's like, oh, plucky underdogs, you know, wins with a, with a walk-off field goal or something crazy happens. No, it was UMass just like kicking the shit out of Rutgers. They— I think I saw the stat. They were 0-12 last season, did not score 21-plus on any FBS opponent. They scored 24 on the first 4 drives against Rutgers on Thursday night. They also are now the second biggest paycheck that a team has had to give to an opponent in a loss. $1.55 million Rutgers paid UMass. for UMass to come into Piscataway and win the football game, only second to Auburn paying New Mexico State in 2023 and losing 31-10.

That's crazy. Jackie Aprile is going to have a big purse to collect at the next benefit concert. Yes, that's going to be nuts.

Yes.

Yeah, that was a— that was a tough day for Rutgers. I have no doubt that as a Sheehan man, you always bounce back from that sort of thing. Chop wood, chop wood. You just got to carry water. I think you've got to chop harder. I don't think that they're chopping hard enough. But then we go from that to the bookend of the weekend. Florida State's playing right now as we're recording this show against SMU. They just kicked off. There's no clock in the stadium. The communication has to be via sign language.

Yep.

From the sidelines on that field.

You would have been perfect for this.

It was— it's— this is an incredible theater. This is— this is why we love college football, because you get— you get, you know, some premier matchups and there's massive budgets being spent on it by the biggest networks. And then sometimes it all comes down to the fact that Somebody in Tallahassee drove drunk into a transformer next to the stadium and now nobody can watch football.

Zach, you never— I never asked you this, but you did the sign language for Camp Barstool for the national anthem. How do you know sign language? I strictly know patriotic, so I only know the anthem right now.

I asked Zach to learn the sign language for the national anthem.

OK, I thought it was like, oh, my cousin was deaf and so I learned sign language at a young age. No, no, we can't do small talk.

But if they had patriotic signs on the sidelines, we could. We communicate those.

Okay.

So yeah, we— the chaos of college football, it was on full display at the Big House on Saturday night. I'd say that was the biggest story. Western Michigan, which we have Coach Lance Taylor on the show because we figured they should have gotten the shine. They basically won the game and then there was a second left and Michigan walks away 1-0. Bryce Underwood looked So bad. So, so bad. He is the quarterback for Michigan right now, according to Kyle Whittingham, which that has got to be the worst feeling ever. The right now is just the most loaded right now. It's saying everything. I saw quarterback right now.

I liked everybody mad at Dave for, for like getting Bryce Underwood on campus. Yeah, that's the good and the bad that you have to take if you're Dave and you've got Larry Ellison's money that's being spent and then people blame you or applaud you for people that you get to sign with Michigan.

Correct.

But he looked like so overmatched from the get-go, from the— there were some games last year where he looked awesome, like he was worth every penny of the investment. There were some where he looked bad. Um, this looked just as bad as any game that he played last year.

Yeah, and this is why I was not super high on Michigan. Obviously it's a long season, they could figure it out, or they could switch quarterbacks, which it feels like could happen during the Oklahoma game. Uh, this Saturday. But Michigan— I mean, Bryce Underwood, just his mechanics, everything. It just— the offense— like, Western Michigan looked like the more physical team and kind of took it to them. And that, that interception at the end of the half, the first half, was just so, so bad. But they win. And I— look, as mad as— I mean, we all were texting when it happened. It was shocking. I don't know if you guys had the same feeling, but when they put the second back on, I was like, this is only gonna end in one way. And it just felt like it was gonna happen. And it just like, you can't— look, Michigan won the game. There's like, you can't go back and change it. I think we all felt like we were robbed in the moment, but Michigan's 1-0 and you can't, you know what I mean? Like, it is what it is.

Well, I learned about it because I was on Twitter and I tweeted something out at the end of the game. I forget what it was, just some like normal observation about what a terrible loss it was for Michigan. And then the timeline just started to fill with, oh my God, oh my God. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people out there, they had moved on from that game.

Yeah.

You see 0-0 on the clock, you see the coaches going out to midfield to shake hands. And that caught me by surprise. There's nothing you can do about it now. This does feel like it robbed all of it, especially robbed Western Michigan fans and obviously the, the actual team themselves. But like being a student at that university and getting deprived of an all-time party night where it's like, this is the stuff like Appalachian State when they beat Michigan.

Yeah.

In that game. What a— that's a night that they'll remember for the rest of their lives. Like, anybody that roots for that team, it got, it got ripped away and it sucks. And watching all the different camera angles, I understand. So the, the official explanation from the Big Ten, I understand what exactly what they're saying in that, uh, there is a secret clock that we did not get to see on TV. And on that secret clock, there was actually an extra second left when you look at this one player jumping with his foot out of bounds at the back of the end zone and then probably touching the ball. That means that there's a second left. We can replay the down. The thing is, like, we didn't know about the secret clock going into it.

No.

And they tell all the referees in every league— now, this is according to Mike Pereira— they tell all the referees in the NFL and the UFL, and his understanding, college football as well, if there is a discrepancy between what is being shown on TV and what you have in your own secret clock, go with the number that millions of people are looking at. So there's no conspiracy that gets developed behind the scenes. They opted not to do that and go with the secret clock. And yeah, that's— it's a bad way of doing things.

It sucks. And it's not even like the party night. It's Western Michigan as a program. They've never been a top 20 team. The way that like being a Western Michigan in a state with Michigan, it's, you know, they take up all the oxygen. They are the The premier program both nationally and statewide. So like the pride that you would get off of a win like that, it sucks. It sucks. I feel bad for the Mac. I feel bad for Western Michigan. But again, it's, it's kind of similar to the Saints-Rams NFC Championship game. Like in the moment, you— everyone should be complaining. If it's 2 days later and you're still like, that's not right, I don't know.

I don't know what to say.

Like it's— we've moved on. They're 1-0. Yeah, it's 1-0. Yes, it was a little ridiculous putting out like the, the 1-0 like videos of them like celebrating on the field and stuff. And Bryce, Bryce Underwood doing the, the, the, the jaw out like, I just did that. Dude, you played like shit.

The storming of the field by Michigan fans. That was, uh, that was an interesting choice. I understand that Michigan fans are probably excited. They went from losing to having like an improbable win. I get that. It was just, yeah, that time and a place, I guess. It didn't feel right in the moment. But yeah, it's, it's not going to change. But I also don't— I'm not going to blame Western Michigan fans if they do carry this grudge.

Oh yeah.

For years like the Saints do.

Yeah.

Did you see the StatHole, StatHole Sports stat?

No.

He found 175 college football field storms since 2019. No team had a sadder storm field than Michigan. as 27.5-point favorites in, in the last 175 field storms.

Yeah, very sad.

I'm sad. But this is a problem because I am very much pro, pro field and court storming. But this one was— yeah, you can't— I mean, you can't do this one.

You got to have a sense of the moment.

It's just they were 27.5-point favorites. All right.

What did you guys think about the statement that the Big Ten put out, notably the font that they chose?

Yeah.

In the statement that they put out, the goosebumps.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It looked like the back of a a shitty book.

Yeah. Or like a, like a 1994 Bruckheimer joint.

Yeah, I guess a PR release from Stranger Things.

And it happened after everyone went to bed. It was like 1 in the morning. I woke up and saw it and I was like, all right, fine. You guys came up with a way to tell us this was fine.

It's— I mean, it's bullshit.

It is.

It is.

I agree. The whole, like, if it was Western Michigan, if roles were reversed, Western Michigan is not getting a second back on the clock.

That's what I'm saying. And it's, it's technically, if everything they're telling us about the secret clock is true, it's technically the right call. That said, there is no chance in hell that they would have spent that much time trying to find a second for Western Michigan to throw another pass. Oklahoma, if they had the ball, there's zero chance.

Oklahoma is, is playing for not just Oklahoma, but they're playing for Kalamazoo as well on Saturday. Because like, if Michigan somehow beats Oklahoma, then, then it's like, fuck, this is what's going to happen here. Yeah, they're just going to start. And I do think they're probably going to change quarterbacks. Bryce Underwood is bad. It's, it's a crazy world because it is. It's so different now where it's like in the years past you could bench a sophomore quarterback who sucks, but now it's like, hey, this sophomore quarterback that you paid $10 million to.

I mean, is there any amount of this that, that's karma? Like, is this the football gods rewarding Michigan for doing the right thing and moving on from a bad situation last year and saying, hey, we're Michigan men, we're better than this? You're out. You're out. The second we found out anything untoward was happening, we We moved on as Michigan men.

Yeah.

Now, you know, the small things add up and now you get smiled upon by the gods.

Yeah, true. Kyle Whittingham looked like he was like almost apologetic after the game to Lance Taylor on the, on the field.

I think part of that was like, hey, I'm— wait, I'm coaching at a place that people will go out of their way to try to help you win?

Yeah.

Like, that's crazy.

Sick.

All right. Other big stories. I mean, I don't know what— which ones you guys want to hit. There's a bunch, but I thought like the impressive games, uh, I mean, Georgia played nobody, but they were impressive. Texas played nobody. Ohio State with the pressure of senior night winning against Ball State was something special. That was, that was really, really nice.

It was touching.

Senior night. I didn't know this was happening until it, it was like occurring.

I—

this is crazy by Ohio State, is it not? Like, they're basically saying we don't want to have senior night be Michigan. Like, just why did you do it week 1? Why not do it the second, the third to last week of the season against Northwestern?

Nothing is crazy to me anymore in college football.

But that— but like, to, to— you're basically saying we're scared of like having it be the big game.

I— maybe it's that you don't want to— Makes no sense. Maybe, maybe you don't want to have your seniors— like, it's not their night when it's also the biggest night that you have, the biggest day that you have.

Yeah, well, I, I think they said something like, like after the game there's been situations where, you know, it's, you know, we had the incident a couple years ago. They're like, we don't want it to take away from the scene. It's just a crazy move. Ball State week 1 senior night.

Yeah, week 1 is crazy. I, I do understand what—

Max, I think week 1 makes more sense than like the third to last week.

Well, no, I mean, I'm saying like this, if you, if you're saying, hey, we can't do it for the Michigan game because it's just something that's just totally different and, and separate unto itself, Do it the last home game before that, which would be Northwestern. Like, but that senior night though should be— it should be cold weather.

It should—

people should be in coats. Like, you can't do senior night when it's 100 degrees out against Ball State.

I think, I think it should be the Michigan game. It should be your last game on that field.

Yes.

But I think, I do think that there's more like— there's something more sentimental about your first game of your senior season than just like— but it's still like, this is the last season I'm going to be on this field. means more than like the middle random game.

It wouldn't be middle, it'd be the last, second to last home game.

Yeah, but that, that way you're, you're literally just saying I'm scared of doing it against Michigan. Well, they are still doing it now, but I think there's something more about going onto the field for your first game in your senior season than your middle of the pack game.

The nice thing about doing it week 1 is you— everybody's healthy and you win. So like all the players, that's true, they're all like— nobody's wearing like the, uh, The letterman jacket and a walking boot going out there with their parents. Yeah, they're all in good shape, looking forward to the season.

I mean, they were trying to twist it being like it's easier, easier game for all the parents to travel to. Come on.

Why? Why would that be easier for them?

Well, like, because it's bullshit.

There's no—

it's just no— like, all the hotels are not taken up and shit, right? Allstate, I guess. But that— if you're, if you're starting to have that conversation, you've already lost in terms of the mental warfare. It's very bizarre what's going on between the 2 teams because remember Kyle Whittingham said you don't have to hate your rival.

Yeah. Are they still doing— like, does it have to be a senior that's been there for longer than one year to qualify for senior night? Or is it like a transfer can come in and they get senior night?

I assume senior night at this point is just for the guys who aren't even playing. They're just the walk-ons who have been there in the program for 4 or 5 years.

Yeah.

If you've been in the same program now in college football for 5 years, there's a reason.

Yeah. Uh, okay. Uh, Oregon looked not great against Boise. That might be more credit to Boise being tougher than we thought, but that was, that was a game that was, you know, like, oh shit. There were, you know, there was a couple games that everyone was like, oh man, what's going on here? Michigan obviously was a big one. The Oregon-Boise State game was, was a big one. Baylor-Auburn was one of the worst watches possible, except, I mean, the end was exciting and that tackle at the goal line was incredible, but That game was tough to watch.

Yeah. Also kind of like weirdly fun in a way.

No, I thought that it wasn't fun at all for like the majority of it. It was really bad. There was just Byron Brown had 3 interceptions. It was, it was like, it was exciting for the last like 3 minutes.

I like some good bad football sometimes, though.

This was really bad.

It's still football is what I tell myself. Yeah, I thought Moore looked really good for Oregon. I thought, you know, despite the fact that they struggled a little bit, I thought he played awesome. There should be a lot of people excited about him. Boise State, I, I do think it's a difference. Like Boise State is just a good team. Yeah, they're, they're one of the best. Yeah.

And there's— and Oregon's going into it like there's got to be something to be said for just coming into a season with like all the pressure in the world and everyone being like, you're the most loaded roster. You feel like you can't make mistakes.

Yep.

We had Miami do the opposite where Malachi Tony was just— had the nerds in hell, had Stanford guys tackling each other. They look so fucking good. I know it's Stanford, so we don't know, like, we— after week 1, you can't really make any definitive claims, but Malachi Tony is just so much fun to watch. So, so much fun to watch. Uh, Wisconsin got fucking buried in the second half against Notre Dame. Notre Dame looks really good. I thought they, they came out and like, I was very excited for the first half because it was the first time I've seen the Badgers look physical like that. The punt in the 4th quarter was, was, was troubling and depressing. That part, that part bummed me out. When you're down 21 and you're punting, it's like, dude, just, we just got to go for it.

But that one, like, offensive weapon punt that they had earlier in the game.

Oh, it was the best punt ever.

That's, that's classic Big Ten football.

Incredible punt.

Was that like a 65-yard punt down?

80.

80-yard punt down inside the 1-yard line.

Just took a crazy bounce. Yeah, I was— I'm excited. I would say I walked away from the game against Notre Dame being more excited for the season than I've been in years past after the first couple of weeks, but still realizing like there's just such a different level to what the top 5, 10 teams are playing at versus where my team is at right now. And that's okay. We just got to keep building. But at least we were physical and we stopped the run for a half. The other one was the LSU— LSU just absolutely took Clemson in the woodshed. And we're going to talk about it more with Andy. But Dabo is— I don't know what you do now. Like, he's— this is— this is rock bottom for Clemson.

This is a— this is a team that just a few years ago was— was beating the best teams in college football on a regular basis. Like, they were the best team in college football. Yeah. Best coached team. Some of the best recruiting. Dabo was arguably the top coach in college football. It's like him, Nick Saban for a few years there. It's like they had some battles back and forth and Clemson had their number a little bit. And now it seems like Dabo is just— I don't— I don't know. Something's, something's got to change.

It's, it was, it was pathetic. What they, they could not move the ball. They, they just had, I mean, the fact they were up 3-nothing, obviously from a tip interception to start the game, but Lane Kiffin had a hell of a day. He's, if you, I got to say this, and I know that we're biased because we like Lane Kiffin, we like LSU. If you can't like sit back and laugh about Lane Kiffin just being the greatest troll in college football, which is a sport that is like perfect for trolls and perfect for drama. Like starting the day doing the Tiger Walk with Theo Vaughn and Livvy Dunne. And who was the other person?

Brooks Nader.

Yeah. Throwing a marker off a kid's head. You see that? You see him signing the football, just scribbling and just tossing it back at him, then saying, imagine if we had NFL players to Holly Row at halftime, then fucking, you know, Yelling at his team at halftime being like, we're not taking our foot off the gas, and fucking screaming at them and winning 51-10. He's perfect for college football. You can't— you, you can't like not love what Lane Kiffin brings to college football. If you want some, some drama, some quotes, some realness, he is all of that. And he coached— he's a really goddamn good coach, and he beat the fuck out of Clemson.

Do you think that Lane Kiffin was actually going to get NFL players on the roster? Do you think that's something that he wanted to do?

Yes.

You do? Because the court ruled in his favor and he said, no, we're not going to do it for this game.

Well, yeah, but the SEC was threatening them, so that's why they didn't do it. I think Lane Kiffin is the type of guy who will— is maniacal and will look for any edge until he's told he can't. Which I don't know how you could blame him for that. Like, he's, he's going to push the boundaries as far as they possibly can go. Then the SEC comes in and says, if you do this, we're going to kick you out of the league. And he's like, all right, fine, I won't do it. But like, if the SEC hadn't said that, he probably would have done it.

I also think that after they said that and then the ruling came after, he was— he liked the idea that other coaches might be preparing for some of those guys, right? And of course, he wasn't like going to give that up. Um, but yeah, he's obviously a great coach.

Great.

And people forget, like, LSU— Lane Kiffin can run the football. Like, they score a shitload of points. Um, but LSU's running game this year so far looks to be like a massive improvement over how— you remember what game was it last year where Brian Kelly was like, oh, we couldn't run the football? Uh, well, then he didn't—

well, he was— Game 1.

He didn't watch the last series then. Yeah, where it was, uh, you know, basically game over and just kind of run the clock out. But yeah, LSU, they are— I think with the way that Sam Leavitt played, you have to imagine they are definitely a team that can win the national championship.

But to answer your question about Lane Kiffin, like, what if Belichick did this in the pros? Everyone would be like, that's just Belichick outsmarting him. Like, he's just a guy looking for edges. And until you tell him you can't do that, he's going to keep doing it, which I kind of respect. He's like, I'm going to push the boundary. I'm going to do it until someone says I can't. And then when they say I can't, fine, I won't, but I'll make a joke about it. And I like that. All right. What other— we had the Apple Cup, which was depressing. The fact that the Apple Cup played in the first week of the season. Washington, Washington State, you know, they, they, they were struggling, but they stayed in the game. And that, you know, having any type of rivalry game, I just hope that it stays. I'm trying to think what other games. Oh, Ole Miss. Ole Miss just continues. They basically just did an extension of their, uh, playoff run in that they were just playing the most exciting, ridiculous games. Because the first half was boring and the second half was just like, oh, we forgot we're gonna play in a shootout.

And Louisville was game for the shootout, back big play back and forth, and they won with a walk-off field goal.

Yeah, let's get our ass against the wall and then see what Trinidad can do, right? That was kind of—

and you know, it's like I'm watching a playoff game right now.

You know what, that's an Yeah.

All right. I'm trying to think what other— any other— Penn State looked good. By the way, Max, do we owe James Franklin an apology?

For?

It seems to me that James Franklin was doing a pretty good job of not bending the knee to all the Penn State alum being like, we need to be celebrating Joe Pa because The Joe Puss stuff is back. And if it doesn't, it feels like not a coincidence. It's when James Franklin left.

I don't know anything about the Joe Puss stuff.

Oh, okay.

What's your statement on Joe Puss? You've never addressed this.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Now that James Franklin's gone, you can feel free to speak your mind.

I don't even— I don't know what we're talking about.

Yeah. You know what's going on?

What's going on?

This is exactly what got Joe Paa in trouble. Yeah, I don't know what that is.

You elevated it. You told me about it. You said you didn't know.

I have nothing to do with anything.

He told Hank.

He told Hank his opinion, and then Hank did not forward that to us.

So I don't— I don't know your— what's going on?

What's going on? What is that?

There's a Joe Paa, like, interactive experience now that has, uh, been debuted. They also had, uh—

Just putting on a blindfold?

Yeah, they did a Uh, the, the new state— I think they did a renovation at Beaver Stadium, and Section 409 is a different color than all the other ones, signifying his 409 wins. Uh, it just feels like James Franklin maybe was doing a good job being like, hey guys, we, we gotta, we gotta stop with the Joe Pa stuff.

Let's look forward here.

Yeah, Matt Campbell's like, hey, you have money? Oh, you need me to just say Joe Pa was, was right? Okay, fine. You said no, I got you.

Would that be, would that be the ultimate piece of memorabilia? to acquire here at Barstool Sports.

Oh, I've said it before.

The Joe Puss statue.

I want the Joe Puss statue.

Where is the Joe Puss statue? You said that's your holy grail.

Yeah, it's my one more. Putting it in the front, the conversations you'd have to have afterwards would be so awkward. Like, imagine PCA walks in, he's like, is that Joe Paterno? We're like, that's the statue. He probably walks back out, but at least it would be a fun interaction.

We should get him and we should have him just facing the wall, so he's always looking the other way.

Yeah. Yeah.

Send it to us.

They won't. It's going back up. No, it's, it's 100% going back up. I would, I would love to. I would love to make a bet on that at some point. It is going back up. It is going back.

I think, I think within 10 years it'll go back.

I'd say 5.

I'm willing to, I'm willing to say More than 5, less than 10.

Will you be visiting it?

I mean, I'll go to hell.

Okay, so he'll visit it.

I won't be like seeking it out, but I'm sure—

But will you— will you have eyes on the Joe Paws statue at some point in your life?

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm willing to— I'm willing to say 100%.

What's crazy is that Max and Hank's We Are video was really the catalyst that got James Franklin fired, which might be the reason Why the statue comes back.

That, that video doesn't even exist.

Max brought back the Joe Potts statue.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Yes.

Oh God.

Oh man.

Penn State looked good though.

Yeah, they did.

They did. It takes me 4 weeks to know the players on— it's too hard. It's too hard.

It's tough. And it's also like, again, week 1, outside of like a couple of games, everyone should look good, right? That's what week 1 is for. Everyone should show up and look good. Colin Cowherd has USC as the number 1 team in the country now.

Does he?

After beating Fresno and San Jose State.

Yeah, the 2, 2 big foes.

2-0. He's seen enough.

I do think USC is gonna be pretty good.

Yeah. I, I also, I will say that Alabama's quarterback is electric. I watched some of that game and he is, he is— I know his ECU, so who knows if like the speed difference. But from, from, from the first, from the first looks of it, I was like, yes, I'm in. Did you see college football quarterback?

You see Tennessee and their, their new tradition that I hope they're starting. I think it might be just a one-off, but I think they're going to make it all season long.

What is it?

Dolly Parton. I think it's either halftime or before the 4th quarter. Everybody in the stadium sings I Will Always Love You.

Love that. That is cool.

It's pretty cool. I like that. Yeah.

That is cool.

That'd be funny if they're getting just smoked.

That would be funny.

Yeah, that's tough. That would be tough.

That actually— yes, that'd be great. Yeah.

I mean, listen, I like— I'm at the point now where I think the Badgers have to like stop jump around until we like start winning games because like when you jump around and you're down 20, it's not fun. That's not a fun thing to do.

It's not a fun jump.

You just need— you need to— you need to have time and place with some of these things.

Yeah.

It's like if it's a one-score game, let's fucking go. If it's a blowout, it's hard to jump around. It just is. You just got to be honest.

I was, I was at Tennessee. This is probably 2015. They lost a big game early in the year against Notre Dame and it was like double or triple overtime. And the scene on campus after, like, because, you know, when everyone sings Rocky Top, you like have to sing along if you're a Tennessee fan. And it was like at bars, people were— it was the funniest, saddest, like Good old Rocky Top. Yeah, it was, it was so, so sad. Funny.

Yeah.

The saddest, the saddest Rocky Top ever. But people couldn't, couldn't not sing it.

Yeah.

But they were, everyone was just so defeated.

Having those traditions that start before the 4th quarter. You're right. You get into some, you can find yourself in a sad spot. Like if the Steelers play a sad Renegade.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and then you, then you run the risk of kind of losing the magic of that song in the first place.

Correct.

Like all other times that you played in a close game, you're just reminded of a time that you were getting your ass kicked.

Yeah. The Swamp. Don't back down if you're getting just smoked.

Yeah.

You're backing down.

Yeah.

Big time. It's good to have college football back. Memes, you, you spent all weekend glued to the televisions. What do you have? Any other things that we missed? Because I love the memes. I know you didn't. Did you leave your house on Saturday?

On Saturday?

No. I love that.

Sunday. Sunday.

I got some air.

Fucking love that. It was the perfect weather all weekend.

Perfect.

Like legit. Like, like Sunday might have been the best weather day ever. Yeah.

And today was pretty good too.

Yeah. So what did you— any, any other big, big notes?

No other big notes. I thought it was just a loss for the Big Ten overall.

I wasn't that impressed with it.

Yeah.

I mean, Oregon struggled and Michigan like that was— those are 2 notable Big Ten didn't look great.

But based on every preview we had, I thought it was just top to bottom. They were going to smoke everybody.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

SEC went undefeated for the first time since—

I'm not sure, but SEC's back. That's a good stat. Good stat.

He's back.

Really good stat. From the first time since I don't know when.

Since probably a long time.

Probably a long time. Good stat. That's a really, really good stat. Do you see Sig's handshake, by the way? Still the same.

Yep.

Dead fish.

Yep.

Josh Hoover looked like a— I mean, that's a football guy.

He was just Leaking blood everywhere. Yeah, that was cool.

We were down in Bloomington. The fans were pumped.

That was awesome to see.

Yeah.

UCLA late game. Yeah, that was great. I love watching— how do you say his name? Zach Patelli. Yeah. From Cal. He's a fun quarterback to watch. And that was just a great game between Cal and UCLA after dark.

Yeah, you just— you can just say JKS.

Yeah, JKS. Zach Patelli. But yeah, that was— it was a great, great day of college football.

It really was.

It really— it's perfect. I'm so glad that it's back.

I hope we don't ever get to a point where— because I think this probably is going to happen with the NFL eventually going to 18 games. Is it next year? No, they didn't say it. I hope we don't get to a point, though, that NFL goes on Labor Day weekend, because I do love that we get to get back into football with just all eyes on college football for one weekend. Yeah, it was nice.

It was great.

It eases us back in and we have more football. We have all the football in front of us right now.

It did feel weird having LSU not lose that game in heartbreaking fashion, though. Yeah.

Although they won last year against Clemson.

It just seemed— that's true. Yeah, that was, that was one where last year it's like, wow, what a good game. Maybe both these teams will be great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

OK, let's do a quick ad read. We'll talk about other things going on in the sports world. DraftKings. The wait is over. Football is here and so is DraftKings. DraftKings Sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida. Every fan is in on the excitement, and this September DraftKings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day. That's right, every game day all month long, DraftKings customers can get a football profit boost. One app, every sport, all 50 states. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend just $5 to get $200 in total rewards within 21 days. Includes all markets. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. We have NFL coming Wednesday. Hank, are you ready?

So ready. You ready? So excited.

We're going to be streaming Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday's PMT, we have Peter Schrager and Cam Scadaboo on, and we are going to do our picks too as well for the NFL season. And then Friday's show will be our, our regular Week 1 preview. So we're ready, locked and loaded. And we also got some NFL news today. Tua Tagovailoa is going to be the starter for the Falcons.

Okay, great.

Michael Penix said he's close, though.

He's close. So close.

Great. I said, how close is he? Like 3 days worth of close?

He's just said he's close.

Okay. I hope he's like really— I hope he's closer than he thinks.

Get closer, closer and closer. I said at the— oh, what's that headline?

Which one?

Oh, that was why he's trending.

Okay.

Vrabel moved on, but the fallout ripples around the NFL. Who wrote that story? Oh, Is that a Don Van Natta?

No, Ben Strauss.

No, he's been—

yeah, you never want to see the Don Van Natta joint.

Nope.

You're always in trouble if Don Van Natta is reporting on you.

I—

to a starting— is that the most like— I guess Deshaun would also be a very—

Give up.

Yeah, there really isn't much that gets you pumped. I likened it to— because everyone's seeing right now, shout out to AWL who tweeted us, they did to decide their fantasy draft order. They did a cigarette race. Who can smoke a cigarette fast enough or faster. And that was cool. But we see a lot of the fantasy punishments. Having to start Tua, like announce Tua as your starter to, to begin an NFL season in 2026, that feels like a fantasy punishment.

What if you're, uh, Stefanski?

Yeah, like he lost his league and they're like, you won't. Like, all right dude, Stefanski, here are your options. You can sit in a McDonald's for 24 hours or you can start Tua.

Yeah, for every interception that he throws, it takes an hour off. Have fun. Or Waffle House, he's in Atlanta.

I don't know if Tua, if Tua maybe like throws one touchdown to Kyle Pitts, I'll probably be all the way back.

The left hand.

It's going— he just has to do one cool thing and I'm like, fuck, man, this guy. I'm a, I'm a Tua Non through and through.

That's it. It just seems like that was— he waited till the last second, just hoping against hope that there'd be a magical advancement in medical technology. Yeah, he'd be able to start Penix.

Penix. Goodell was extended. Really happy for the guy.

It's gonna run till he's like 70.

Probably getting paid $70 million a year. What is his salary now?

Uh, $65 mil annually is what he's going to be getting.

That is so much fucking money.

Yeah. Okay. So this, um, so he gets paid more than the highest paid quarterback. Yes. It's going to run through March 31st, 2031. At that point, Goodell will have 25 seasons as commissioner under his belt and he will be 72 years old.

How?

Is he a billionaire? Got to be. Probably not.

I don't think so, because how much money was he making?

Well, how long has he been— he's been commissioner for 25 years, you said?

Yeah. Well, at the end he will be.

He was making $40 million, I think.

So I think he's around 20 seasons.

All right. So—

But you forget, Big Cat, since he's involved in sports, there's taxes.

True.

All right.

So he's not a billionaire.

Not a billionaire.

$300 million.

Unless he has secret—

kind of a broke boy.

Unless he has secret equity.

That'd be crazy if Goodell stayed commissioner long enough that he became richer than all the owners and just did a fucking Uno reverse on them.

Ends as a commissioner and buys a team.

Yeah, he's like, gotcha, boys. Oh, Jerry Jones, you think you're gonna push me around? Guess what? Read what you've been paying me for the last 50 years. Maybe I'm a billionaire now.

So Jerry just said the other day there's no succession plan in place.

Okay.

Just one day he won't show up. That would be very funny if—

Wait, for Jerry or Goodell?

No, for Jerry.

Okay.

Yeah.

If, if Jerry just passes the Cowboys down to Goodell, that would be very funny.

That also— that's, that's got to suck being one of Jerry Jones's kids, being like, Dad, could you just at least say it?

Say it. And then you can say it so we don't have to fight over it. Change the will.

Yeah. Yeah. Or he just gives it to Tony Romo. Yeah, that would be cool.

That would be great.

Like my— the son I never had. Yeah.

You made it, Tony.

Thank you. Stephen, I wish you could throw the ball like Tony.

Okay.

Other, others. Oh, Jameis got a 2-year deal. Congrats to Jameis. Pumped for him. He's, he— how many games Jameis Winston going to play this year? Not rooting for injuries.

Not rooting for injuries. But realistically, realistically, I would say I'm going to put Jameis down for 3 starts.

I was going to say 3 as well.

3 starts would be good, which will be fun.

The league is a better place when Jameis is starting football games.

It truly is. And I also think that Jameis right now should be the first call that anybody makes if they have a starter, a non-to-a-starter. Yeah. That they need. Actually, think about that, Big Cat. Jameis on the Falcons.

That would be cool.

Think how fun that would be.

Stefanski knows how to use—

they got like all first-round picks anyways.

That would be fucking awesome.

Get Jameis down there.

That would be so sick.

He's from the South.

The— did you guys see the clip of Kyle Shanahan not understanding time zones?

Yeah, we should play that clip because it's very relatable.

Extremely relatable.

This is a conversation that It sounds like we've had on this exact podcast numerous times.

He's, he's in absolute hell right now trying to figure out what day it is. Also, thoughts and prayers to Raheem Morris. He lost his birthday. Yeah, that was tragic. So Raheem Morris— I don't know why Schefter tweeted this. Schefter tweeted this in the middle of the day. He said 49ers defensive coordinator Raheem Morris turned 50 years old Thursday, September 3rd. It also happened to be the day the 49ers flew to Australia, leaving Wednesday night, September 2nd. And arriving Friday morning, September 4th local time. The 49ers lost the day, but Morris lost his 50th birthday.

Dang. So he's still a 49er.

Fuck.

That's a fun fact.

Yeah, it does.

You should have thrown that in there at the end.

Yeah.

Forever a 49er.

Forever 49er. Always. He never, never happened. I don't, I don't think I wished him happy birthday because I think I knew.

Yeah, you did know. You absolutely knew. You would have had that.

I was all over Raheem Morris's birthday.

Raheem Morris should get a—

he should go to Jed York and be like, hey, Hey, man, I love this team so much.

I'm not going to do my 50th birthday. Also, honestly, that's— what were you trying to do?

That's probably good for him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tell me what you were going to do.

What were you trying to do in East Palestine?

I'll trade you my birthday, my 50th birthday for the real deal. What kind of hole were you trying to get in there, Coach? Yeah, I think, I think Kyle is just as confused about whether or not they made the right choice to go to Australia as we are.

Yeah.

And I think my, my angle on this game stays the same. And that's, I think that the 49ers will win this game because they care about it. And I think the Rams will lose this game because they don't care about it and they'll go back and then the Rams will be much better in the next, next couple of weeks than the Niners.

Yeah. All right. Play the clip.

When I look at my clock and it says a time and then I try to see my family's time and then it says the time, but it says yesterday.

I don't even get how that's possible.

So I feel like I'm in the future. And then also when we play on our Friday, which I think is a Thursday in the US, we're such creatures of habit.

So I call today Tuesday.

No, wait, sorry, I call today Wednesday, which is the first day we put in a game plan.

But I think it's Monday. However, though, it's Sunday in the present.

So like, I'm gonna mess that up all week if you guys ask me.

But today is just our first day of the game plan, which is a Wednesday. Right.

And we'll put in some on a Thursday.

Friday's The final part of the game plan Saturday, we walk through when we play on Sunday, which is a Friday in Australia and a Thursday in the US.

So—

And you said every day.

And you're telling me people listen to this podcast like that's what we sound like? Max also had this happen to him in Italy, so he's gonna— he reminded me that he was on, uh, and who says they understand time zones is a liar.

You know what's crazy is that I, I kind of Through listening to us have this same conversation, I think I followed exactly along with what Kyle Shanahan said. Yeah. I think I actually got it.

I knew what he was saying. No good for SMU.

Hank, this is what you wanted.

No, it's not.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it is.

How?

Growing the game.

Yeah. I mean, you got to figure out time zones. Like, I don't know.

No, no, you— we have time zones here. We have 3. We have—

I still struggle with our time zone.

4 times.

4 times.

4 time zones. Hawaii.

I almost said 3.

We got Hawaii.

We don't really—

People do kind of forget about the Mountain Time. It just doesn't really—

That's only there half the year.

Well, it's Denver.

Well, no, it's just there's not that many people.

And Arizona doesn't even do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They say, fuck that.

Well, they do it.

Yeah, we're not getting into that. We're not gonna have that conversation. Remember when we had like an hour-long conversation about whether or not Arizona counted as a West Coast team? Oh, because there was some team that was like undefeated against West Coast teams. Yeah, well, the half— but yeah, Hank, congratulations. We're in Australia. I hope they love it. They're not going to care about it in a week when everybody leaves, and then those teams are going to come back to the United States and They're going to feel like they're living in Russia. So great.

Good for the Shield. Growing the game.

Yeah. Growing the game.

By the way, we just got our Dingers Only update. Zach, you still are in last.

You're in second now, though.

I know that's a problem. Good jump, though. Devers had 6 home runs. So Zach is in last. Max, you're 10 ahead of Zach. Hank has run away with it.

Run away.

Great ball—

ball knower.

Yeah. Jersey Jerry just has been in this league for 3 years, still doesn't understand the rules. He's just texted, I've, I've had 2 players out since 7/26 and 7/27 requesting to add 2 players in a DH and left fielder. You can only add 1. We all know that. Or 1 plus pedophile rule.

So, um, by the way, I was thinking, where would he be in Dingers Only?

Max?

Allowed?

What?

No, you couldn't drop him.

No, you could. You can drop him for sure.

I got a dumb question.

No, you can't.

Now you should say that we can't drop him.

But he was removed due to—

But, but now we're saying he also doesn't play baseball. Now we're saying bad room.

I have a dumb question. I can't remember if this was a conversation we had maybe a year ago or if it was on the Yak. It all— it's all one song. But I was at the zoo with my son on Sunday and the baby rhino at the Lincoln Park Zoo has gotten too big. No longer a baby. Kind of fucking gross. Are we just pedophiles for bait for animals? We are.

No, no.

I mean, puppies.

Well, you don't want to fuck them.

No, but we all think that the baby animals are cuter than the adult animals.

And people love babies.

Yeah, that's true.

But we don't think that, like, I don't know.

It's true across all species. I think you're the children of, like, any animal. They're cuter.

No, but like, to protect them. A 6-month-old. People say a baby's cute. Babies all look the same. People just say it because they have to say it. You see a fucking puppy, you see a baby rhino, a little, little pygmy hippo. Those things are cute. We don't want to fuck— No, I know. But I'm saying we, we all, we all are like, like the baby animals more than the adult animals.

I also think with animals, you know, that a baby one can't kill you.

True.

But the adult ones— I just—

just a stupid thought I had. But yeah, I don't think— I don't think it's the same as like actual babies because like, again, all babies, a 6-month-old baby looks the same across the board. People just have to say, oh, that's good. I did that this weekend. I saw there was a— I was at a barbecue. There was a 2-month-old baby. I was like, oh, it's so cute. No, it was just a baby. It was a fucking baby.

Some babies are ugly.

Yeah, but they're— but like, go off. Most babies look like aliens.

Yeah.

Kids are cute when they start saying funny things, not when they're like little blobs, 2-month-old blobs. You're not like, oh, that's so cute. You have to say it for social, you know, graces. You think there's ugly babies?

Yeah, for sure. There's ugly babies. I think there's— I think there's like standard baby and then they're like standard cute baby. And then there's—

there's—

there's replacement level baby. There's zero war baby. And then there's Kyle.

I know what you're saying of like, there's cute baby, like cute babies across the board. And then there's like, oh, Not cute baby.

I think it's—

yeah, I think it's normal baby and outlier.

Yes, yes.

And outlier baby. Like the normal baby is like the Gerber baby.

Yeah.

The logo baby. Yeah.

Little round cheeks. That's what it is.

Yeah. That's your standard baby.

Yeah. Yeah.

I just— I was heartbroken. The baby rhino.

Yeah.

He's like— he's probably like £600 now. It's just not—

it's not the same. Yeah.

Get over yourself.

Get over yourself, rhino.

Yeah. Okay. Should we Oh, dude, don't get— don't get the riders in the room going about the Red Rhino.

Yeah. What's he up to?

It's probably making $200K a year.

He's going to be at the next Surviving Barstool, right?

Yeah.

Okay. Do we have any other sports stories going on before we do Who's Back of the Week where we'll probably hit some more? Trying to think that just that hot dog bun video from Toronto was sick.

Putting the dog in the bun.

That's all I got. That was awesome.

Yeah, it was pretty good.

That was a very cool moment in dumb sports history.

It was pretty good. UNC football under a big microscope right now.

Yeah. What's going on there?

So, yeah, Hank.

There's just an internal investigation going on.

For what?

Inappropriate relationships between staffers, staff members. Potential drug use from some of the coaches. It's all being investigated. So I don't, I don't, I don't, uh, Steve Belichick has left the team.

Oh, Mike Lombardi, he's still there.

Mike Lombardi has left the team. There's investigations going on.

They're 1-0.

They're 1-0.

Yeah.

That should be the boilerplate answer.

1-0.

What kind of drugs are they saying he did? Weed?

Weed.

Oh, come on.

What are we doing?

I don't know.

It's, I don't, I don't, it's, it's, it's not, you know, the details aren't, haven't been specified. That's the rumor.

Where'd you hear that rumor?

Dave Portnoy.

Okay.

Okay. Unbiased.

Yeah.

Do you think that if it's weed—

talking weed, how did he find out?

If it's weed, I say no harm, no foul.

That's a crazy thing to be investigating for weed.

What if it's something worse than weed?

Who knows? That's why they're doing—

worse or better?

Both. Yeah.

I think it'd be better.

Cooler.

Yeah, not cooler or like more potent.

Maybe he's just really, really excited that their quarterback looks awesome, like MVP level. And so maybe that's why he happened to do the other drugs.

Could happen to anyone.

Also, somebody sent me the, the clip from when Belichick got hired and he brought Steve on as his defense coordinator. That, that episode of Part of My Take. Yeah, it's worth— it's an interesting conversation. Why? It's just interesting.

What do we say?

It's just an interesting conversation.

What do we say?

We just talked a little bit about what nepotism is, what it isn't.

Do you see the— they're trying to shame the— what round are we at in the US Open?

Does anyone know? 16.

They were trying to shame the 2 women who are billionaire daughters.

It's tennis.

It's tennis. They're like, oh, both of them are matched up. Like, they're both like fathers were billionaires. It's tennis. They still have to be really good.

You still got to win.

Like, yeah, of course they probably had. Actually, no, I actually think it's the opposite. If you, if you had like endless amounts of money and you're just like, Dad, I'm not doing tennis anymore. I'm not. Why would I do tennis anymore? I'm, I'm, I'm going to get all your money when you die.

Like, also not to be like, you know, judgmental, but like, you assume a billionaire, like, probably not the most athletic genes.

Right.

And that just means that she's got that dog in her.

Yeah.

But it's harder to get— it's like, you know, doing road work in silk pajamas. It's hard to get— hard to find that hunger when you're a billionaire's daughter. So credit to that.

Yeah.

All right. Let's do Who's Back of the Week. Then we have 2 great interviews. We talk a lot more college football with Andy Staples. And then we have Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor. And are you going to do our fantasy football for Who's Back or we do it at the end?

I can do it for Who's Back.

Okay.

All right. Yeah.

All right.

So we got our fantasy football results from Jerry O'Connell drafting. Before we do, who's back of the week? Farmer's Dog. This episode is brought to you by Farmer's Dog. The Farmer's Dog makes real food for dogs. It's never ultra-processed, just real meat, fresh veggies, all gently cooked. Stella's been a Farmer's Dog actually before Farmer's Dog was even a sponsor of this show. We found it when Stella was going through some health problems 3 or 4 years ago. We found Farmer's Dog. She absolutely loves it. It's super easy to use. You get a big delivery, you put them in your freezer, then you just defrost them overnight. She's got fresh food. It's made to human-grade safety standards. The Farmer's Dog meal plans are personalized to your dog's unique caloric needs to help keep your dog lean. It's clinically shown to support healthy aging in dogs. Stella's living proof of, of The Farmer's Dog. It's a great, great brand. Listen, we all love our dogs. Give them the best food out there. It's Farmer's Dog. Get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/pmt and see how real food can be a game changer for your dog. Plus, tune in to tomorrow for an interview with a special guest brought to you by the Farmer's Dog.

So go right now, get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/pmt and see how real food can be a game changer for your dog. Who's Back of the Week is brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. Football season is back. It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Football season is back in full swing, which means we'll be posted up with an ice cold tea until further notice. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. The Twisted Tea Party Pack has a little something for everyone with original, half and half, raspberry, and peach. Whether you're tailgating at the stadium, crushing teas in your man cave, or grilling out with your friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. We love Twisted Tea. We love the lemonade, the half and half, the original. Keep it twisted with Twisted Tea. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Henry, who's back of the week?

Who's back of the week? Speaking of dogs is Peter Herbstreit.

Oh yeah, yeah, big time back.

Big time back. You know, you— a lot of, a lot of negative press. Honestly, I feel like, you know, 2 years ago, a lot of positive press. Last year, a lot of negative press. And then this year they came out with an entire Peter Herb Street pop-up merch shop.

Why did they call it a pop-up?

Good, good question. Good idea. Yeah, I don't think they were— they're not thinking like you.

For charity?

Was it for charity?

I'm asking because you're taking a line here of—

I'm just saying he's bad. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not making a judgment one way or the other.

Was it for charity?

I'm merely just I'm just delivering news, as is my job, to say who's back of the week. College football is back. Peter Herb Street is so back that they had an entire pop-up shop for Peter Herb Street merch for all the Peter Herb Street fans in Baton Rouge.

Do you think that Kirk Herb Street only wants male dogs? Hmm.

Probably.

Yeah.

I think he makes his dogs do a handstand.

That's what I was saying. He might be shaking dogs upside down right after they're done. You know, if they're in heat.

Was it for charity?

I don't know. I'm just— the way you're asking that, I'm assuming it was.

I think it was.

Yeah.

So he's back.

So charity's back.

Yeah.

So Peter Herb Street is back and he's helping charities. Love that. Great.

Awesome.

Good news.

Also, Nathan Fielder's back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nathan Fielder documentary trailer. He was with Theranos. What's her name?

Elizabeth Holmes.

Elizabeth Holmes. for 3 months before she went to prison and then they continued it while she was in prison. The documentary trailer was like scary.

Yeah.

I thought it was fake. It was like, it was just them, you know, very close, intimately, like face to face, uh, talking about how she was like, she would never deceive him. It was, it, I can't wait to see it.

Apparently there's a, there's a twist in it that is, uh, such a major plot point to the movie that in the movie they ask people that have seen it not to reveal to anybody else what the plot twist is.

Yeah, I'm so excited.

Was it— he goes on their side?

Maybe Tony kills Christopher.

No, they said there's a, there's a cameo that they don't want people to reveal. Yeah, yeah. Surprise people so much.

But yeah, it looks awesome.

That's exciting. I didn't even see that, that, that part of the news. Yeah, that's exciting.

Very excited.

But yeah, I've never seen a documentary in theaters, but I think this is probably the first one.

All right.

I think if I've seen a documentary, I think I have. I saw Hoop Dreams.

I saw—

oh, actually, what was the Al Gore one?

Inconvenient Truth.

Inconvenient Truth. I thought that was like a movie. And I went and saw my mom. I was like, this is—

this was—

that was not what I was expecting.

From that point on, Hank hated the environment.

I remember watching March of the Penguins.

Yeah.

That it was going to be like a movie, like a nice movie about penguins. And it was not. And I was pissed.

Yeah. I saw my dad maybe see When We Were Kings, the Muhammad Ali documentary. That was a good dad move by him in the theaters.

Fahrenheit 9/11. Saw that in theaters.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Michael Moore, Bowling for Columbine as well.

OK, good.

Who's back?

Thank you.

Good. Who's back?

Thanks.

My other who's back the week, in addition to the fantasy review we're about to do, is dogs. Also dogs.

Peter Herbstreit.

Not Peter Herbstreit.

Philly.

The Philly dogs. Yeah, the Philadelphia— the fluffy water dogs.

We're back.

Fluffy Water Dogs beat Boston. The summer of Hank losing continues.

Wait, what round are we in?

Uh, that was the semifinals.

Fuck yeah.

So finals.

We're back in the finals. We're back in the finals now.

When is that?

Denver. Uh, it's on— good question. I believe it's on NFL Week 1 Sunday.

Okay.

We now have an extra TV.

We do.

Yeah. So who knows?

Oh wait, no, no. Sunday, September 20th, it looks like.

Oh, so Week 2.

The Outlaws versus the Water Dogs.

Okay.

So Fluffia, Philadelphia Water Dogs. Hank gets beaten again.

But he's—

but I win.

Yeah. You're a Dogs guy.

Yeah. Yeah. My other Who's Back of the Week is going to be Jerry O'Connell in fantasy football. So Jerry completed his fantasy football draft today. He sent me the entire lineup. He said, I am ashamed. Oh, I had a bad, bad draft.

Why?

Apparently he did the draft from a McDonald's on their Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi was going out because other people were streaming there.

What do you— what does that mean?

He's trying to keep the draft. He didn't want to tell his family where he was. I think he snuck out and he's like, I'm going to be gone for a while. I've got meetings.

This is all he has.

And then he went to do his fantasy football draft at McDonald's. So here's our—

That's crazy.

Apparently what happened now, this is explanation. Because you will see that the running back room is, is thin at best for us. He said that he messed up. He took Lamar and AJ. He thought David Montgomery or Travion would suffice. I messed up. He did not realize that Travion Henderson was injured to the point where he might not be starting. So here's a starting lineup. Quarterback Lamar Jackson.

Okay. He said he was going to go for Lamar.

Yeah.

2 running backs, Breece Hall, Travion Henderson.

Okay.

AJ Brown receiver, Terry McLaurin receiver.

Okay.

Travis Kelce tight end.

What?

CeeDee Lamb flex, Evan McPherson kicker.

I mean, CeeDee Lamb is the, is the best receiver we've got.

Yeah. I mean, I guess you could, you could bounce those around.

Yeah.

And then Jaguars defense and Evan McPherson as the kicker on our bench. This is where it gets kind of ugly. We got Tate at receiver from Tennessee.

Carnell Tate.

He's questionable right now. Thomas, Brian Thomas Jr. from Jacksonville.

There's zero running backs on this team.

Mekhi Lemon. We drafted him too. We drafted Chris Rodriguez.

We have a lot of wide receivers.

A lot of receivers.

We drafted Chris Rodriguez from the, from the Commanders and he's like 3rd or 4th string running back. Okay.

He's got it. Yeah.

We have Woody Marks from Houston and—

Another backup.

Terrone Tracy from the Giants.

Another backup.

Another backup.

But we have wide receivers to trade.

We have so many wide receivers.

Do we have any other tight end except Travis Kelce?

No, no. That's the only tight end that appears that we have. He's actively trying to trade Lamar and AJ for Scadaboo and Pickens.

The real loser in this is everyone else in the league. Yeah, because Jerry drafted a completely lopsided roster. So he's going to have to make a lot of trades. So he's going to have to text a lot of people.

There's been one other development that I did not realize until about an hour ago. I was trying to see what Jerry's bench was. So I logged on to the fantasy app because I've had access as a co-manager in years past. Jerry has locked me out of our team.

Oh no.

So Jerry has— Jerry's taken over our team. Like, I'm the captain now is what he did. And I cannot— I've got no access to it. I can't see our scoreboard. I can't see our trade requests. I can't see anything going on. I'm now fully reliant on Jerry's hands. That's actually fine on Jerry to just tell us what's going on.

No, it's fine.

Well, he's not going to give us the straight dope.

Yeah, we got to get in there.

I got to get back.

You got to get back in there.

I'll be making—

see the results. No, we won't. No, I'm saying we— I mean, we will eventually. You can ask anyone who's like anyone else in the league to show us the results, but then they'll know our team is fractured. I think they could know right now that our team is fractured.

I mean, what we're dealing with right now is we have, we have a hostile that took it over.

Yeah.

What if Jerry comes in last?

I don't want to think about that.

No, I don't want to think about that. I actually—

should there be some sort of punishment if he—

Yeah, I'm gonna defend Jerry here.

I—

as bad as the roster might look right now, I do think he's got enough to make some deep— like, there's some teams out there that have no wide receivers.

We're loaded at receiver.

Well, because we have Carnell Tate. Who else?

Brian Thomas Jr. Yeah.

And who else on our, on our bench?

There's some upside on the, on the bench at receiver, right?

There is.

Like, we're going to be able to trade some. We're going to be able to flip some of these receivers.

Mekhi Lemon.

I mean, yeah, we got, we got receivers for days. Someone's going to need a receiver and we're going to, we're going to be there. The tight end position makes me a little nervous. I don't think—

but everyone sucks at tight end.

We have one starting running back.

That's a problem.

That's a big problem.

That is a big problem.

Hank, what do you think about Henderson?

I think he's going to be— I think, I think he'll come back.

Okay.

Come back strong.

All right. All right. So then we're good. As reported by Hank.

Yeah.

Okay. We got to—

well, usually it's like you have a couple of running backs you don't need to worry about. You're injured running back in the first week of the season.

Yeah. I'm also just concerned. In years past, Jerry and I have been co-managers and this one I got an email.

This does feel like a direct shot.

I got an email saying that I've been removed as owner.

He's going to blame the McDonald's Wi-Fi.

By the commissioner. Yeah. I don't know what, Jerry, maybe you can answer me what happened with that one.

How do we not get better Wi-Fi for something that we build all year for?

I mean, his Wi-Fi always sucks.

That's true.

No matter, no matter where he is, his Wi-Fi never works.

But he's got— he lives in Hollywood. He could go to one of his, like, rich guy friends that probably has, like, the best Starlink or something.

He does usually go to, like, a creek somewhere to film his appearances on Part of My Take.

Yeah. All right. I'm excited. I think Jerry's got enough to work with. I think it's not as bad as we thought. when I saw the tweets about the disaster. He's just going to have to now— like sometimes when you play fantasy, you draft your team and you just forget about it. He's going to have to get to work. The work starts now.

And I think that Jerry loves the work.

Yeah, right. So he might have done this on purpose. He put himself in a corner just so he can fight his way out of it.

So he can get—

which I like. That's where I want Jerry. Fight your way out of the corner, Jerry. All right. My Who's Back of the Week is burgers because I completed the challenge, 101 burgers this summer.

The—

I have a, I have an incredible life, dream job, like incredible family, all you guys. This and everything I've accomplished in my life, this is by far the least consequential, dumbest, and regrettable thing that I've ever done. I had to explain this to someone at a barbecue yesterday. And they're like, why are you eating 100 burgers? I was like, well, I'm doing it as like a challenge. They're like, oh, what do you get? I was like, nothing. And I didn't— I challenged myself because I had one weekend on Memorial Day where I was like, damn, I love cheeseburgers. I really regret this. The only thing I've gained from this is that I will get significantly less sympathy when my eventual heart attack happens.

That's mean, Hank.

What do you say?

Also probably not true.

What do you say?

£20.

Oh, no, actually, I stayed pretty consistent because all I ate was burgers.

And I did.

I grilled them. I didn't eat them out, like with French fries.

So I think that burgers on the whole are not unhealthy.

Yeah, it's the French fries.

Yeah.

Do you— and I don't know why I did this. I really—

What was the best burger? Best and worst?

Donnie made some incredible ones. I had a couple that were just not very good at like golf courses and stuff.

What is the perfect amount of burgers to eat in the summertime?

I would say probably 40-ish.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

I was— I would say 40-ish. Yeah.

It's— how many hot dogs are you going to do next year?

Next year we're going to do 1,000 hot dogs. That was— it was funny. Zach was like, what foods did you miss out on with all these burgers? And honestly, it was— I was just like, hot dogs. I think I had like 2 hot dogs all summer. I had no steak, no hot dogs. You can't— you can't waste burger time.

There's so many good meals that I know.

I know. So I'm never—

you told me you had a cheesesteak and you were upset. I was mad.

I had an unbelievable cheesesteak. Shout out Dr. Dan's brother who brought him for us. The man. It was an incredible cheesesteak. And the whole time I was like, this is such a waste. I should be fucking eating a burger. This is literally a burger just cut up. So yeah, I did it though. I listen, I'm a man of my word. The haters, mostly memes and Max.

I did it.

You guys all thought I couldn't do it.

And I don't care.

Yeah, I know. I don't either. I honestly don't either. I'm, I'm happy it's over.

You had your 100th burger in front of us today.

It was, it was no fun. I was like, I didn't feel anything. I had no excitement. I had no sense of accomplishment. I, I felt nothing except for my stomach has hurt for like 3 weeks straight. That's it. Zach. My Who's Back of the Week this week, we are coming off a holiday weekend. A lot of people are traveling, a lot of guys up in the air. Yeah, my Who's Back is Altitude Justice because you guys see the guy who got absolutely Oh yeah, just face fucked with duct tape.

Yeah, duct tape. What now?

What?

So much reason.

Was he, was he doing a little light hijacking?

I think you're saying the N-bomb. I think he was getting physical and slurs. He was crazy combo. Yeah, look at how much duct tape that is. They had to duct tape the fuck out of him.

What now? What is that in the middle? They put like a— that looks like one of those carjack things. I don't know, the club. They did say they're not a Slim Jim but a zip tie. What? Between his hands, they made him hold it.

Me, I wouldn't get duct tape like that.

Anybody else here been duct taped?

I have been duct taped. That's a lot of duct tape.

It's a lot of duct tape.

Probably lost circulation.

The photographing while you're— while you're duct taped.

Yeah, it's like, come on, man. Yeah, well, I guess he is a bad guy if he was just throwing N-bombs everywhere.

Yeah.

Do you guys think the other passengers, like on this plane, they're bonded together, right? Do they keep up with each other now?

Oh yeah.

Never see him again.

No, that would be electric if you— if you like stop somebody from taking over a plane together, even if it was just like some drunk person. And those, you know, the 3 or 4 guys that you teamed up with, I feel like you start a group chat and yeah, you're all probably accepting like keys to various cities together. Yeah. Yeah, we did that. I mean, ask, ask Donnie, Wonton Don. Yeah, he restrained somebody on a plane one time.

Yeah, that stuff is like the— that's the best of the best. I had a friend and a good friend of mine in college. He, he He— citizens arrested a guy trying to steal steaks from the grocery store. It's like so thrilling. Just grabbed him.

I disagree.

And he just— he's just like, you can't do that.

Yeah, I think you got to let nature take its course.

He was stealing like $300 worth of steaks. And it's like the poor person at the cash register was like, help, please grab them. It was like, you're staying with me.

Got it.

It worked out super well here.

Side note question.

What are you guys' thoughts on somebody traveling with this much duct tape? I think they had to have that in the plane.

Yeah.

Any good pilot knows that, you know, you can always have some duct tape on the plane in case the flaps don't retract properly, in case you got to, you know, seal the outside in the event of an explosive decompression. Duct tape makes a lot of sense.

Never mind duct tape. These guys are just like, they're not podcasting. They're just watching this game. Memes is not— he's not in this conversation whatsoever.

Well, the—

oh yeah. You're traveling.

Football's back.

We're listening.

Football's back.

Yeah, yeah. But there was— we were talking, we have a conversation, memes go, take it to the house.

That's what that—

Max was slapping my leg. All right, let's watch, let's, let's watch this, this, uh, this set of downs here. All right, so it's 14-10 SMU, 3:07 left. Do we know if that's actually the time?

It's close enough.

Well, the, the, the lights might have come back on because they had like the The thing that said the refs are keeping—

see it in the end, the refs are keeping the time.

That graphic isn't up anymore.

I also heard that there's a chance that all classes are canceled tomorrow at FSU.

Oh, that's awesome. This kid is a hero.

If they win.

If they win and if the over hits.

That would be a sad—

if the over doesn't hit, this kid is not a hero. No, they got to score a touchdown. That's what I'm saying.

Some schools should give a couple of days off. Touchdown comes out.

If we— if this is—

what are you saying? Talk us through it, Max.

They're not going to—

it's dead. It's dead if you don't score a touchdown here.

That's not true.

Do you have a backup? Who's back of the week, Zach?

Backup is going to—

I can go with Deion Sanders. You guys see Deion Sanders online giving a child a little tough love? Yeah. Parenting. Also, shout out Colorado. Won.

Yeah.

Won on Thursday night. That was good to see. Goldberg's son plays for Deion.

No way.

Yeah.

Pretty cool. The glitter guys are too much. That's one where you can't be a glitter guy if Florida State's not good.

I heard that was Danny Kanell.

It is Danny Kanell. Yeah, it's Danny Kanell.

Is it the red or the gold one?

He's, uh, I think he's the gold one.

Okay.

Okay, let's get to our interview. We have Andy Staples talking more college ball and then Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor.

Andy Staples is going to be brought to you by Netflix. Our great friends are expanding their NFL coverage in 2026. From Week 1 to the first-ever Thanksgiving Eve matchup and 2 Christmas Day, day games, plus 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. Division rivals, the Rams, the Niners. It's going to air on Netflix live from the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Heading into the holiday season, Netflix is going to add the NFL's first-ever Thanksgiving Eve game. November 25th, it's got the Green Bay Packers visiting the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium. And then on Christmas Day, Netflix will again air 2 games on December 25th. On Christmas Day at 1 PM, the Green Bay Packers visit the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field, and then the Bills face the Broncos from Empower Field at Mile High. That's at 4:30 PM Eastern, 1:30 PM Pacific. Week 18, you've got playoff stakes on the line. You can watch the final game of the regular season live on Netflix. Watch week 1 of the NFL on Netflix, the Rams versus the Niners, only on Netflix Thursday, September 10th, 8:35 PM Eastern, 5:35 PM Pacific time.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is our good friend Andy Staples. Coming off what everyone thought was going to be a nothing week 1 for college football. But college football, we know Andy on 3 Network, you should listen to him and Ari. They do recaps all throughout the weekend. They do awesome content. Everyone knows with college football, when you least expect it, you're going to have chaos. And we had it. So I have— we have a ton of stuff we want to talk about, but I think we have to start with Michigan stealing a game against Western Michigan. I read all the stuff. I understand what they're trying to argue. I still think it was robbery. I still think it was bullshit. Where do you land on this?

You're going to think that. I actually believe the Big Ten on this one, but they screwed up. And here's why. So they had already set up a deal where on Friday nights, they're going to let you see their instant replay deliberations like the ACC did last year. The Big 12 is doing it this year. The Pac-12 is doing it now. Like, if they had let us see that in real time, I think millions of more people would trust the answer they got. Like, it's, it's actually a big step forward for the Big Ten that they released that video. But when it's an hour and 53 minutes after the game ended, we live in a world where you can find a video for anything to confirm what you want to believe. So, I mean, PFT, you have an entire podcast about this. So like, I don't think— I don't think that was the right way to do it. Like, it, it, we need to see that, the deliberations, every review in every game in every league in real time, because I think that's the only way you earn the public's trust back. Because do I believe that the NBC clock was not synced right?

I do. Uh, do I feel bad that John Fanta got thrown out there to take that bullet? I mean, they were like, you're the new guy.

Yeah.

You get to read this.

Yeah.

Like, poor Fanta. Yeah.

Yeah. Andy, you've probably watched more football than just about anybody listening to this show over the course of your life. Did you know about the secret clock until this weekend?

So the secret clock's no secret. It's a clock in the stadium that they have a camera trained on. And when we were all kids, that's how the clock was shown to us in games. There was a camera on the clock and there was like a little cutout on the screen where you saw the video of the clock in the stadium. And now we've got all this fancy technology and AI and, well, guess what?

It doesn't work. Yeah, it's bullshit. And I guess, like, listen, I'm not going to— I'm not going to sit here and be like, oh, Michigan cheated. I think it— I think the way it happened was suspect. And I didn't— we all were— it was kind of like a March Madness situation where everyone was rooting for the underdog in this moment because they played so tough and all this happens. But going away from that afterwards, Bryce Underwood, like, what does Michigan do? Because he was really bad. And I made this argument before the season and I got a lot of shit for it that I was like, If Bryce Underwood doesn't take a massive step forward, this is closer to a 7-5 team than a playoff team. And that's what they looked like on Saturday night. So is it a situation like— this is a very fascinating situation because the NIL and how much money's at stake and Kyle Whittingham first year and all this stuff. Like, could they potentially go to Carr as the backup right away, like in the next couple of weeks if Bryce Underwood has another stinker?

So I want to take this moment to ask for a do-over. First, uh, another Barstool property, uh, the, the Brandon Walker College Football Show. Your, your number 2 college football expert hosts that show. Uh, I was on his show the, the second week. I was not a first-week guest, obviously. Uh, but he asked me about my prediction that Michigan would make the playoff and just straight up asked, are you on drugs? And then I dressed him down. With this very logical explanation of, well, look, their, their coach was having a major affair and everybody hated everybody and all that was going on behind the scenes and they won 9 games and the true freshman starter didn't have a dedicated quarterbacks coach and the offense stunk scheme-wise. So of course they're going to be better. And, and like you watch Brandon, you see his face and you see the color drain out. And I heard him on your show last week kind of parroting those points.

I want to, I want to change my answer.

I was on drugs.

Yeah.

Good drugs.

Yeah.

And then he got a contract.

Sorry about that.

Yeah.

But it does feel— and listen, I think Kyle Whittingham is an unbelievable coach.

Yeah.

You know, you know, like the one thing you do better than, than, than most people in the media and you talk about the culture of the sport and what it means to certain fan bases. I think he's an unbelievable coach. I think coaching at Michigan is different than coaching at Utah. Like there's just a different pressure cooker to it. And I think you kind of saw it in his eyes a little bit being like, fuck, this is not the same as, you know, playing in the Pac-12 or playing in the Big 12 and being able to win 10 games every year. Like this fan base demands good football every single week and they don't want to go back to a Brady-Hoke or Rich Rod situation.

Yeah. Now I think he's in an advantageous situation here to get back to your original question. If you heard what he said Monday, where he said Bryce is the, is QB1 right now, right now. And he kind of paused and he said right now and nothing's set in concrete. Like you asked if we would see Tommy Carr maybe the next few weeks. I think there's a chance we see Tommy Carr against Oklahoma on Saturday at some point if it's not working with Bryce, because this is a very good defense. I mean, like David Stone, Owen Heinicke, the talent is unbelievable, but Brent Venables as a defensive coordinator. And I say coordinator because he is the one who calls the plays, even though he's the head coach. It's one of the most confusing defenses in college football for an opposing quarterback. It is designed to confuse the quarterback, designed to confuse the offensive linemen. Well, based on what we saw against Western Michigan, there's a lot of confusion going around anyway.

Yeah.

So if this isn't working, I think Kyle Whittingham, because he's the new guy, because he was not there when they gave that investment to to bring in Bryce Underwood. His job's to win games. He's just gonna go with the guy who, who might be able to help him win games. And the thing about Tommy Carr, and so for those who don't know, Tommy Carr, grandson of Lloyd Carr, little brother of CJ, the current Notre Dame starting quarterback. From the moment he set foot on campus and started working out with the guys, there has been positive buzz about this guy. And I, I, during the offseason, I was like, okay, they must really like him. And then I started to conspiracy theory brain over the summer. Like, oh, are they, are they seeding the clouds in case they have to go to him? But maybe he's just good. Like, his brother's awesome. So who knows? But with Oklahoma being what they are and being so difficult to manage, especially if you're not great at reading defenses, they may have to try something different if it's not working.

Yeah. That's what struck me about Michigan is, is the opening series that they had, maybe when they looked the best. Scripted. Scripted. Even in that opening series, he still looked confused at times. I think he went the wrong way on a play and it was— it did not look like they had prepped for this game, or at least at the quarterback position, for any extended period of time. And now they're going up and like, I would say that maybe even Western Michigan was more physical on defense than Michigan was on offense. And that's a major concern for Michigan too.

Yes.

And then adding in the confusion that Venables can bring, like things could get very ugly for Michigan. It could.

Or It's a weird sport. Yeah, they're 20-year-olds. Yeah, and all of a sudden they show up and look completely— I don't think that's gonna happen though. We, we talked about this with on our show and Ari kept saying this is not something you can fix in 3 or 4 days, and I think that's probably true. I, I don't think this was a case of just an unusual performance. I just, I thought he was going to take a bigger step forward from year to year, and watching some of the throws, watching the way he handled it It doesn't look any different. And this is a guy, he's got immense physical talent. And I think he strikes me as the kind of guy who his physical talent got him out of every jam in high school. And he's trying to do that at the college level too. And it just doesn't work at the college level. You have to, you have to follow your scheme. You have to use your technique, your, you know, your fundamentals. You have to keep your mechanics sound. All of that stuff matters at this level, especially with the kind of defense they're going to see.

And remember guys, Like Oklahoma is a really good defense. They also have to play the Iowa defense. They're going to play Indiana. They're going to play Oregon. They're going to play— they're going to play Ohio State. Like they're going to play some incredible defenses this season. So this is just sort of the acid test. Like if you can't do this, you're going to be in trouble with the rest of the schedule.

So Andy, just one more thing about the clock in the Michigan game. I'm with you that I read all the explanations. I understand. I know what they're saying. This was the official clock. It was not synced up, but it is the clock the, the replay officials saw and instructed the refs on the field, we're going to follow this one. 1 second left. Do you think—

Yeah.

That if, uh, the roles were reversed in this and Western Michigan threw a Hail Mary, the clock expired on the field, do you think that the Big Ten replay officials would move hell and high water and dig through that replay to go and find them one extra second to try to throw another Hail Mary.

Would they have made an exceptional effort? I don't know, PFT, but I will tell you from having met a lot of the people who, who officiate games or who coordinate officials now for the different leagues, these guys are just trying to get it right. They know they're going to get yelled at no matter what. Most of the time they're doing a conference game where you're going to piss off one of the conference members either way.

Right.

So I think they're trying to get it right. I I know it's so easy to believe the conspiracy theories and look, I fell into that rabbit hole on Saturday night, but I do think they were just trying to get it right. But it, but yeah, it, would they make the extra effort?

That's what I'm saying.

Right.

I believe what could be done.

They were trying to get it right. They absolutely were. And the guys on the field, the refs that were actually calling that game, there's, they don't have any fault in this. That was not their call.

Well, they missed that face mask that would've extended a Western Michigan drive and, and it would've never happened. that way had Western Michigan been able to keep the ball for a couple more minutes.

So, and also, that is true. Yeah, the clock was synced when they went with the field goal. I saw it with my own two eyes. Whatever, we should— we can't stick on it.

Listen, the 9 to 8 video was the one that got me, and then I'm like, but anybody could have doctored that too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And listen, I, I agree. I actually agree with you that like this sport is so weird. I was thinking about it, like the, the thing that pissed me off the most watching Western Michigan like lose that game was not only did Michigan survive, but then also, uh, the line is gonna be inflated against Oklahoma and Michigan's probably gonna win that game somehow. Like, I was, I was getting ready to bet Oklahoma -3 and then it's like, no, it's gonna be 6, it's gonna be 7, because everyone saw Michigan's—

Yeah, I was watching it roll. Yeah, yeah, right, on, on Saturday night.

And now Michigan's gonna win because it is that sport. And Kyle Whittingham is a great, great coach, and I don't think that you can And what, what you see week 1 is not what you see the rest of the season. Speaking of, what do we make of Oregon? Because Oregon was another team, a lot of hype going into the season. Boise gave them, you know, everything they had. Uh, that was an interesting— like, it was an interesting thing to see because you, you're like, this is the year for Oregon. Everyone's picking them. They have all these guys coming back. Dante Moore's coming back. And then Boise's just taking it right to them. Right out of the gate.

So I have to do a projected playoff every week, including week 1.

Okay.

And I put it out and I left Oregon out. Oh, but I put Boise State in because if Boise State can do that in Eugene, they can probably beat Memphis this week. They can probably beat Western Michigan. They can probably win the Pac-12. So naturally Oregon fans are furious at me right now. And I'm sorry about that. I'm just going with the results we have and I'm not using preseason expectations or anything.

I just—

what we saw. Now I think Oregon's going to be fine. I actually think they're going to go kill Oklahoma State this weekend and probably pop them right back into the projected playoff. But Boise State, I think it's more Boise State's probably pretty good.

Yeah.

Than it is Oregon having any issues. And I will point out, 2 years ago, Oregon had a rough opener against Idaho. Your guy Jason Eck, who's now in New Mexico, they had a rough opener against Idaho and then barely survived that Ashton Gentry Boise State team. They then went on to go 13-0 and win the Big Ten.

Yeah.

So it may be that this is just Oregon ran into a pretty good opponent that was maybe a little better than they thought it was gonna be and they survived. So I'm, I'm really not that worried about them now. If they, if they go to this Oklahoma State team that just got housed by Tulsa and it's, and they struggle, then I'm gonna worry about, about 'em a little bit. But I'm not worried about 'em right now.

You're, you're right in that like week to week, it's hard to get up for every single game. It's just always week 1, the eyes are on you. You have all season to prep for it. So you expect the best effort and you saw it. You know, I mean, different styles of competition, but like Ohio State take care of business. Texas take care of business. Georgia, they were playing basically no one. LSU, is that, by the way, is LSU one of the biggest winners of this week? Because they looked awesome.

100% because you had everybody going, oh, Lane's just been creating this distraction with trying to take these dudes who were in the NFL. And I kept telling people his roster's really good. If you look at Lane's history, especially at Ole Miss, the offense clicked almost immediately, pretty much the whole time he was there, even though there was a lot of churn in their roster. So I expected them to come outta the gate smoking. I did not expect them to dominate the way they did, especially in the run game. We were just bullying Clemson.

Mm-hmm.

And I mean, LSU looked like one of the best teams in the country. I, I'd let that projected playoff again, 'cause I'm taking the preseason stuff out of it. I put them as the 1 seed. Now, are they gonna stay there? Probably not, but why not? Let's, let's ride, let's ride the expectations. But yeah, Lane, and I think Lane was trying to prove a point in this game because we'd spent the past month just crushing him for the, the NFL player stuff. And look, the little aside to Holly Rowe, that was, that was classic. That was pure Lane right there.

Yes. Now, do you think, 'cause I, I agree with you that LSU looked Fantastic. They looked incredible last night, um, offensively and defensively. I do think that, uh, it kind of will go the way that, that Sam Leavitt goes because the way the style that he plays, it's so fun to watch. But we saw it with, you know, one of Lane's old quarterbacks, Jackson Dart, in the NFL. It's hard to do that week in, week out, especially with the schedule LSU has. Do you think that, uh, they would be able to win without Sam Leavitt, or is it strictly dependent on how healthy he is?

No, I think they, they could probably win. So they have a transfer from Elon who he came in in second. They've also got Yeah. Huson Lonstreet who came from, from USC. And I think they feel good about their entire quarterback room. It's, it's a very strange situation where I think Lane understood basically what happened last year when he went out and got Trinidad Chambliss at Ole Miss as an insurance policy. So Landon Clark is the Elon transfer. That's an FCS school. It's a Cignetti school. It's, it's, it's one of the stops on the Cignetti track. But I think they feel like if Landon Clark had to come in, they'd be just fine, which is, is interesting because Sam Levitt did go out in the middle of that season for Arizona State last year where Arizona State probably could have won the Big 12. I mean, they beat Texas Tech with Sam Levitt playing, but I love the idea of Sam Levitt in this Lane Kiffin offense because he is a run around and make stuff happen kind of guy who throws a great deep ball. Who does that sound like? Yeah, we watched him play last night.

Trinidad Shamless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw someone tweeted, they said that Sam Levitt plays football like a squirrel with an amphetamine problem. And I was like, that's pretty much it. Like that, they nailed it. Now, on the other side, by the way, I did a bad job introducing this whole interview. Andy's actually in the press box for FSU-SMU. So if you hear a couple of people in the background, that's why. He's also a professional. He's got a mic. He's got a perfect setup. So we appreciate it, Andy. Is this rock bottom for Dabo though? Because it feels like there's been a couple of them. You know, the Georgia game a couple of years ago where it was similar spot, week 1, everyone was hyped. Atlanta, they got, they got absolutely smoked. But this feels like true rock bottom in that they are nowhere near the top teams. And it was like they had no, like no rushing game, nothing. It was just, it was a totally Totally different caliber of teams on the field at Tiger Stadium.

Yeah.

And the scheme was bad. The offense looked discombobulated. And that was another great Lane quote to David Hale from ESPN. He said, he said, I thought this was going to be like 31 to 3. I had no idea their offense would be that dysfunctional. And so they, they brought Chad Morris back who had, you know, he was their offensive coordinator when they turned everything around with Taj Boyd back in the day and became One of those teams that was competing for the ACC title every year and competing for national titles. So, but it seemed like kind of a retread situation because Chad Morris had been head coach at SMU. He'd been fired from Arkansas. So I, it was a weird, weird situation all offseason. They kept Christopher Vezina instead of going to get a quarterback in the portal. They have a freshman named Tate Reynolds that they like who you saw on Saturday, but obviously he wasn't ready either. And I think it's now dawning on everybody. And I, the Clemson fans were way ahead of everybody else on this. And usually the fan base on the ground does understand this a little bit better.

But with us, it was like, okay, is Dabo losing his touch? Does he not understand how to win? Can he not get the kind of players he had? Well, last year he had 9 draft picks on that team. They still went 7-6. So that's a coaching issue. So that should tell you. This year, he kind of closes ranks, and he kind of closed off practices to people who are normally allowed there. I'm talking about VIP type stuff, not media type stuff. Closed ranks. And I asked somebody who knows the program really well. I said, "Do you think he did that because he's mad at everybody and wants to prove them wrong, and wants to is just you know kind of lashing out, or because he knows they're not going to be good?" And this person said, "It's probably because he's mad at everybody and thinks he's about to prove everybody wrong." Well, he was proven very. Very wrong on Saturday night. And look, here's the problem, guys. Like, Miami's gonna do the same thing to them.

Yeah.

There really aren't a lot of other teams on the schedule that have that. They're gonna have that kind of talent discrepancy. But that's where you're gonna see where the coaching comes in. 'Cause Clemson is probably more talented than most of the teams left on their schedule, but I don't know if they're gonna be better than 7-5 or 6-6.

Right.

If they, if they look like that, if, if that's their offense, if that's what they're gonna roll out there, They're going to lose more games. It's not just going to be when they're, when they're out-talented.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought that, that Dabo before the game making the little jokes and puns about Lane Kiffin, like you could tell that he was, he was feeling a little confident because I don't think old Dabo does that unless he's got, you know, supreme confidence in his team going out there, not laying an egg. And that was, that was like a ponder your future level of beatdown there for Clemson. Like, I don't know.

I don't know.

Does Dabo want to be there?

He wants to be there and he's the type of person I would think that like, I just, it's, we've talked about this over the years. I'd say probably since the '22 season, the '23 season, we've talked about how does this work? How does the end happen for Dabo at Clemson? Because he does not strike me as the kind of guy who would just say, you know what, I don't have it anymore. I'm going to step down rather than let this thing go down. I feel like he would be the kind of person who says, look, you're going to pay me every dime you owe me. And I made this place and we've heard him recite his resume a lot this offseason.

Yeah.

So that's where it gets tricky. And so it's interesting that I'm sitting here in Tallahassee right now. I, there was a post on the Tiger Illustrated message board this weekend that just really struck me. And the guy said, I've always said that Dabo is going to be our Bobby Bowden for good and for bad. This is a Clemson fan saying this.

Yep.

If you think about Bobby Bowden was one of the greatest coaches of all time. When I was in high school and college and even before that, the Seminoles were the baddest of the bad. They were amazing. And then they had what they call the lost decade, which is the early 2000s. And he just, it just slipped year after year. And like, I remember they got beat 30 to nothing by Wake Forest here in 2006. And he had to, he had to fire his son as the offensive coordinator, Jeff Bowden. He still coached for 3 more years after that. Like it, it was a long, slow decline before they finally decided they'd had enough. And I don't think Clemson's going to do that. Clemson's got a new president, Graham Neff. They have a young kind of energetic AD. He's now, he's been there a while too. So he's worked with Dabo a lot, but this is a place that got the taste from Dabo of what it's like to be a national power. I don't think they want to let it go.

No.

And I don't think they've fallen so far that they can't get it back. But it may require some, some kind of very awkward conversation and possibly a very large check.

Yeah, that was— it was the type of beatdown though that makes you think like this whole thing, like we've never seen Clemson look that outmatched physically and also schematically, like at the same time against a quality opponent. It was like, it was shocking. So I was thinking maybe, you know, I don't know, does he want to be there? Do they want him there? Something's going to change. That's my prediction in the next year. Something, I don't know what it is, but something will change.

I don't think the fans want him there anymore. I think most of the fan base has turned on him at this point. It's just a matter of how do you handle that administratively? Because he would be owed a fortune unless he was willing to play ball with you. And I mean, this is a guy that they're going to build a statue. I mean, it, and I can't, I said this all offseason when he would recite his resume, like he gets up at ACC media days and recites his resume. If he stopped coaching right now, he's still one of the greatest coaches who ever lived.

Mm-hmm.

But as long as he has the job, then what he did before doesn't matter. If you're getting that giant paycheck every 2 weeks, you have to produce results and he's not producing them.

Yeah.

I mean, it's true though. Maybe PFT, like, like I just look at the LSU. It was 309 rush yards to 40. That's like, that's like zero before the last drive.

Yeah.

That's Georgia. That's Georgia playing Tennessee State.

I saw a stat today.

That's the difference of like where Clemson is at right now against a big dog.

I saw a stat that Clemson didn't run a play in LSU's half of the field until the 4th quarter.

Well, they had one because of the pick to start the game.

I wouldn't be surprised. I was already watching Cal-UCLA at that point.

They got a lucky one because of the pick to start the game and they got the field goal. But yeah, it was crazy. It was nuts.

It is nuts.

All right. What about— let's talk another fun story. UMass. UMass beating Rutgers on Thursday night feels like 10 years ago, but we got to give them credit.

Pop Watson, baby. I mean, Pop Watson is awesome.

So, so that was stunning. I mean, I, I, I, I don't want to talk too much time about it, but Rutgers, like, that is one of the most embarrassing things. UMass hadn't beaten an FBS team in, I think, 2 years or 3 years.

It was 2 years. They hadn't— no, no, they hadn't won a game.

Yeah.

And the last game they won was in October 2024 against Bryant, which is an FCS school. Like this is, or maybe it's Wagner. I mean, I feel like, I feel like I'm covering the first round of the NCAA tournament here.

Right.

Like they won their conference tournament and then, but no, it's, it's crazy. And Pop Watson was just awesome. My son and I were just watching that game and we just kept screaming, Pop, Pop. I mean, every time he did something and the fireworks afterward are maybe the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to— there has to be somebody there with common sense that says, hey, I know, I know football's back. Maybe not the right time. Maybe we'll hang on to these until next week.

Yeah. So I'm, I'm a Floridian who was born in South Carolina. So fireworks are very special to me. I guarantee you there was somebody in there who's like, oh no, we bought all these.

Yeah, we got to shoot these.

We got to do it.

We got to do it.

Also, like, what better way to make you feel better too? It's like, hey, I know we just lost a very embarrassing game. But you might— this might put a smile on your face.

Yeah.

How about some explosions?

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you think about how this is all shaking up for this week's big matchup, Ohio State-Texas? Like, everything kind of seems chalk going into this matchup. But, but are you just thinking about these 2 teams the same way you thought about them 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, or has anything changed?

No, this feels perfect. This is exactly what I want in an early season game. It is 2 superpowers from different conferences. The 2 conferences that hate each other the most could be the best team in each conference. We don't know yet, but there's a good chance it's the best team in each conference. It's certainly 2 of the best rosters in America. And like, the thing I can't wait to see is who becomes a star out of this game. Like, we know Jeremiah Smith, we know Julian Sayan, we know Arch Manning, but like, is this going to be the Hollywood Smothers game or is this going to be the Legend Bay game. Like, somebody's gonna become a star in this game and it's gonna be awesome. I cannot wait because it's a, it's a close spread. I picked Ohio State, but not with any degree of confidence. Like, I just wanna sit down and watch these 2 go at it.

Yeah.

I'm very, very excited. All right. What about, what other team or fan base is, is feeling good coming off of week 1 that you were maybe impressed with? You're like, all right, this team Like we had some questions going into it. I was going to say like the Auburn-Baylor game was a mess, just an absolute mess.

Yeah.

And I don't even know, like Auburn won the game, but I don't know if they feel good about it coming off it because I, it felt like we were watching like USF was a nice story last year. Alex Golis is a really good coach, but like that offense didn't look great. And I don't know who, like Baylor, I don't know. What did you make of that game?

So Golish after the game sounded like a guy who'd lost, right? He, there was a lot of the look on his face said, that's not how this is supposed to work. That's not how this is supposed to look. And I was, I was a little bit surprised that, so Byron Brown, we've saw, we've seen him play against SEC schools while he was at USF.

Yeah.

At least I'm, I think he ran for over 100 yards against Alabama one game. He went to the Swamp and beat Florida last year. Like, he, he's a very fast guy for £240. And it was shocking to me how many times you saw Baylor edge rushers run him down on the edge instead of him getting loose and running for 20 yards. Now, I will say on the last drive for Auburn, that rushing ability seemed to return because that, that he did score when they needed him to. But that was the part that surprised me because I thought that was going to be the X factor and what was going to make this offense feel different. is his escapability scares you so much that you're going to have to put an extra guy in the box. You're going to have to spy him. And all of a sudden you're going to have some one-on-one matchups on the outside. They didn't have a lot of open receivers. And so I just didn't think that worked out. Like, it was interesting because if you've watched Alabama-East Carolina, Keelan Russell, the quarterback for Alabama, first-time starter, like when he gets loose, he runs for 30 yards.

Like, that's terrifying.

Yeah, he looks awesome.

That's what I thought Byron Brown was going to be. That was not the case against Baylor, which has good athletes on defense, but not necessarily as good as what Auburn's going to see down the road. Now, as far as teams that are probably feeling pretty good, especially with new coaches, I would think Penn State folks are feeling great about Matt Campbell right now. And I know Florida folks are feeling really good about John Sumrall. Those debuts probably could not have gone any better. Both of those teams look like they've been playing together for a long time. looked very smooth. You know, Matt Campbell, he was the only one of the guys who brought a lot of his old players who succeeded because Eric Morris and Oklahoma State, they lost to Tulsa. And then Auburn maybe should have lost to Baylor. Penn State looked amazing.

Yeah.

I'd say UCLA too. Yeah.

UCLA looked good.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's Chesney didn't— Chesney brought a good amount too. But yeah, they, that was a great game because that was a 24-24 game. in the 4th quarter. And then UCLA just put the hammer down. Their defense looked fantastic. Their pass rush was getting after JKS. And then the run game for UCLA, they were really opening holes. So I'm excited to see what they can do. And I know, I know you have adopted everywhere former JMU coaches have gone, PFT. I think you're going to enjoy adopting the Bruins. Yeah.

Yeah. They looked fun. Also, they have what's his name? Frankie Volcano. Frankie Volcano. That's right.

The most impactful guy.

Yeah, he seems like a legend, but you got to have one of those guys. Yeah, they know. They did look good and it just— they should be allowed to keep the Pac-12 After Dark IP. They should be able to slap that logo on the screen if it's a crazy high-scoring game and it's, you know, past midnight. I just want to— I just want to go back in time when I'm watching those teams play.

And that's what it felt like that as I'm watching the game, I know I never once thought one of these teams is in the Big Ten and one of them is in the ACC. Just, I'm watching Pac-12 After Dark and I enjoyed being transported back there for a couple hours.

Big time. Big time. The other, I mean, we should mention Miami too. Miami looked incredible. Yeah.

That was Malachi Tony continues to amaze me. I mean, listen, if you're a high schooler in South Florida and your nickname is Baby Jesus and everybody's cool with that, you must be awesome.

You must be really good.

He was great as a freshman. But he's even better now. Like, they've unlocked more. And I think they, I think they upgraded at quarterback with Darian Mensah. So with Darian Mensah throwing to Malachi Tony, I don't know. There's a lot of folks on Miami's schedule that can stop that. Obviously Notre Dame is going to be the big game for them, but that's pretty much it. They should handle everybody else they play, which, look, the history of Miami going back several coaching staffs is they get bored. They lose games they're not supposed to. Mario Cristobal has to prove that that's not going to happen this year because they might not have the strength of schedule to make it up if they drop one or two that they're not supposed to. Notre Dame's the one everybody's been looking at.

Yeah, Notre Dame looked good too. I mean, they throttled us in the second half and I, I mean, Big Cat, listen, listen, I'm, I am encouraged.

I was not.

So I was encouraged with the— there was a lot more physicality than we've had in the last 3 years. And I like Colton Joseph. And, you know, that game was even in the first half. Like, the, the, you—

the call was wrong stopping Notre Dame's run game. How many, how many teams are going to be better at running the ball, right, than Notre Dame that are on Wisconsin's schedule, right?

And there was a lot of good things to look at. And obviously, like, the call was wrong with the, with the recovered, uh, fumble. But you also can't fumble that, like, especially when you're playing Notre Dame, right?

Yeah, the kickoff was bullshit. What happened with that?

They just I— everyone in the world saw that he didn't have the ball except the, the refs. But again, that's one of those things. You can't win a game when you are very much outmatched by a superior, superior opponent and have those type of mistakes. I was more upset with towards the end of the game, that punt. Like, what are we doing? We're down 21. Why are you punting there? There's that— that feels to me more of a, I want to save my job than I want to go fucking capture this thing and try to—

You can take the boy away from Trestle, but you can't take Trestle out of the boy.

Yeah, that one bothered me because it's just like, you, like, I, I, I'm all in on Fickell trying to, trying to turn this thing around. And I, I do think it looked a lot better than it has in the last 3 years, just based off the first 3 quarters, first half. But when you're punting down 21 in the 4th quarter, that is a, that is a sign to me that's like, hey, I want to make this respectable. I'm not here to try to win this game. And it's like, Even though we weren't going to win that game, you got to, you got to have a different mentality there.

Yeah. And I think they're going to be fine. I really think they're going to win 7 or 8 games this year because they go from having the hardest schedule in the Big Ten to having one of the easier draws in the Big Ten. But that attitude probably has to go because there are going to be games where you're going to need to take some chances.

And he's got to win 8. So he's got to win 8. I think he would tell you he's got to win 8.

Got to be 8.

Okay.

Because if you will, if you look at it, it's like if you win 7, that means you probably lost to Penn State, Iowa, USC, and UCLA or Minnesota. And it's like, some of those are not okay, you know what I mean? Like, you— if he wins 8, then it's like, hey, you beat everyone you're supposed to beat, and then you're maybe going in the right direction. Because that's what it's been the last 3 years.

It's not been— Let's be real.

It's not been losing the big games, right? Yeah, it's, it's Iowa, but it's not been losing the big games. Like, Notre Dame was always going to beat Wisconsin. It's actually the exact same score as like 4 years ago at Soldier Field. We lose to Ohio like once a decade. We could maybe beat Ohio State. It's how do you look against Iowa? It's how do you look against Minnesota? It's how do you look against USC? Like where you're in, if you're going to be back to the middle of the Big Ten, are you competitive against those teams? That's the test.

Yeah.

And the Iowa thing is amazing to me because the way Iowa just destroyed them last year.

Right, right.

That was, that was like when, when Beilema beat Paul Christ. And it's, and it's like, okay, something's gotta change. But yeah, it, and Iowa looked like it had a functional offense against Northern. So I, I'm very intrigued now to see the Hawkeyes going forward. They got, they had Iowa State this week, but they were moving the ball better than we're used to seeing.

Yeah. And, and you mentioned Iowa State next week. Like that, that's, that's my favorite part about Iowa.

That's the same thing.

They always, well, they always open the season and you're like, Iowa's offense might be good. Then they're gonna play Iowa State. and one team is gonna win like, uh, 12 to 10. It's always the weirdest score.

Oh yeah, 6 to 3.

Yeah, except for that one year where it was like 44 to 41, and that was awesome.

Yes, I love the Cyhawk.

This, this early in the season, it's hard to say. We did have, I think, maybe an all-time record for most players that did the Heisman pose after doing something incredible in a game.

Yes.

We actually— we might see NFL Week 1, there might be a player that does the Heisman pose and then tries to transfer back. Go back to school.

It's impossible. I mean, there's a, there's a lot of time for court hearings between now and then, but yeah. So you started with Malachi Tony, then you had Jeremiah Smith.

Yep.

Florida running back Jayden Baugh gets into it. Like when Jayden Baugh did it, I was like, okay, all right, let's, let's not go crazy here. I, I kind of want to see, and that's what my co-host Ari Wasserman said, let's have the Heisman pose-off between Malachi Tony and Jeremiah Smith because they're friends from back home in South Florida. Like they know each other really well. They probably talked about it. Like, I want to see a Heisman pose-off from them, like one per game.

I like that.

Whoever, if you, if whatever you think is the sickest thing you're going to do that day, pose. Yeah.

Do they know that the Heisman pose is like you have to keep 2 feet on the ground?

So that was the one thing, the Jaden Ball one was, I think, more realistic, but everybody does the Desmond Howard one.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's what Desmond Desmond did it, and I'm going to say he did it wrong because what he did became iconic. But against Ohio State, he runs back the kick and he does the pose. That's the pose everybody does. Yeah, right. Nobody does what Ed Smith from New York University did. By the way, usually people have the ball in the wrong hand.

Yeah, yeah.

2 feet on the ground, wide base, young man. None of this flashy one foot up.

It's actually hard to get into.

It is. It's definitely less swaggy than if you pick the one foot up. But this early in the season, who would you have if you wanted to— if you want to sprinkle a few coins down on a Heisman Trophy winner?

Oh, that's right. Y'all haven't picked somebody yet.

Yeah, we have a couple weeks.

I did throw out— I screwed up because I threw out Darian Mensah as like a name I liked when we did the preseason. I'm such a fucking moron. I didn't bet it, so I'm sure it went down well.

But the problem is, Tony, Tony and Mensah, Slayton and Smith. I feel like that's a problem.

Yeah.

I feel like that you, you may have an issue with them stealing votes from one another. Although I will say, remember when DeVonta Smith won it, Mac Jones was also a finalist. So it's possible to have the QB and the receiver both get enough shine. Like if Jeremiah Smith goes and catches 3 touchdown passes and they beat Texas this weekend, he's gonna be the guy for Ohio State that has a chance to win the Heisman.

Yeah.

I think Tony could be one that could win it as a receiver because, I mean, you have to go back and look at how good of a season DeVonta Smith had in 2020. The numbers were off the charts. Tony could put up numbers like that. The problem is DeVonta Smith was playing against a ridiculous schedule. That was the, the all-conference schedule because it was COVID year. I don't— Tony might get knocked for who they're playing. I think CJ Carr might have a shot, guys.

Yeah, he's 11 to 1 right now.

Carr is good.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a really good shot because they're going to be good. He's going to be— I think he's better than he was last year and he was really good last year. So, and you saw they may not run the ball as well as they did last year. They lost 2 first-round running backs. So he may have to help carry them a little more.

And, and you know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to probably bet this because the one thing that I noticed and this was Marcus Freeman all offseason to leave no doubt, the message from last year. where they left out and they, you know, got left out. Leave no doubt. What happened on Sunday night? Luke Fickell does a cowardly punt and Marcus Freeman and Luke Fickell know each other for very— Luke Fickell coached him at Ohio State. Then they were with each other. You'd think there'd be mutual respect. Marcus Freeman threw the ball. They were throwing the ball up 21 to extend the lead to 28. That's where you can get some Heisman stats. Like those, those things matter if you leave, if you're going to leave no doubt.

They're going to have the same.

Yeah.

Yeah. They're going to have the same quality of competition issues that Miami's going to have and Tony and Minshew are going to have. So the guy, you know, the Archmannings, the Sam, I mean, Sam Levitt.

Yeah.

Sam Levitt could be that guy.

Yeah.

I don't hate that.

He could put up, because remember Lane didn't unlock Trinidad until, well, Austin Simmons was the starter, then he got hurt and then Trinidad came in and they didn't quite, I don't think, understood what they had. And then once they figured it out, He was off to the races, but like Sam Levitt could be that guy doing that all season.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, next, this weekend is going to be so awesome. I can't wait for this weekend of college football, Andy.

It's going to be great.

It's going to be so good.

First, and it's not just, it's not just Michigan, Oklahoma. It is not just Texas, Ohio. It's like Alabama, Kentucky is fascinating. Arizona, BYU is really interesting. You got Tennessee, Georgia Tech. Like, we're gonna see some fun stuff this weekend.

Yeah.

Is there one team that's still a major question mark in your eyes, one that you just have no idea what to make of them yet because they haven't been tested?

USC has looked great so far. I don't, I don't know that their first-team defense has given up a point yet. And the, the young guys that they brought in who are very, very highly touted recruits look fantastic. Uh, Trent Mosley, uh, Mark Bowman, the tight end, Luke Wayfull, the defensive end. have looked awesome, but I need to see this against better competition. So they, they've got a game against the Ragin' Cajuns and then week 4 they play Oregon. That's gonna tell us everything.

Yeah.

About USC. Yeah. It's been the, the litmus test game for them. It was last year. I wanna see if this is for real because Lincoln Riley, his rhetoric was very different this offseason. Previous offseasons, it was a lot of excuses. It was a lot of, here's what, here's the crap I inherited. Uh, this is why we can't win. None of that this year. None of it. It was, we have what we need. The window is open. And the, the Gary Patterson defensive coordinator hire. I mean, did you see Gary Patterson celebrating that shutout against Fresno State? Like they, they wanted that bad.

Yeah.

And I get it. It's Fresno State. But the thing is, shutouts are hard.

They are.

So if it's USC, which we've bagged on their defense, For as long as Lincoln Riley's been there, who knows? Yeah, if they, if they've got a good defense now, they're, they're a potential playoff team.

All right, Andy, the game's about to start. Zach, you're up. Roback question. RHOback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. Andy is a big fan of you, Zach, because we finally got—

before, before Zach asks his question, Speaking of Florida representation, so in, in the Mount Rushmore on Friday, when Zach said waiting in line for gas before a hurricane, my, my Floridian heart almost exploded because that is the worst, worst line waiting. So you guys are talking about Chipotle and I know that was one of Zach's too, but that is the worst thing ever.

Yeah.

Justice for Zach.

Justice for Zach.

It was actually a great pick.

Yeah, it was too niche, Andy, but I appreciate you having my back there. It means more than you know.

Uh, I did have a quick question.

I know you're in Tallahassee tonight and you are a Florida man, but a Gator through and through. What is your unbiased ceiling for Florida State this season?

So for Florida, for Florida or Florida State? Because I can give you both.

Give us both.

I'll take both.

I'll take both.

Yeah, Florida State, the ceiling feels fairly low, but Florida, boy, the offense looked good on, on Saturday night. They hadn't looked that good since, since Dan Mullen was there offensively. And everything John Sumrall has done since he got in there has been— he's made the right step, he said the right things. But the question was, what's it going to look like on the field? And the fact that the offense looks so smooth, that Buster Faulkner, the new offensive coordinator, he brought an offense that didn't look exactly like what he was running with Haynes King at Georgia Tech. It looked like he had built something bespoke around Aaron Filo, who's the quarterback he brought from Georgia Tech. And Jayden Baw and Brunell Brown III and Dallas Wilson. Like, they, they got a lot of talent. So I'm very intrigued to see what they can do. I don't necessarily think they're a playoff team. I think that they defensively, I'm not sure how good they're going to be up front. Not sure how good they're going to be in the back end. But this is a team that should be better than the Billy Napier teams. Could be an 8-9 win type team.

The schedule's brutal, but I think this could be an 8-9 win type team. I appreciate that.

Thank you, sir.

There we go.

Good question, Zach.

Andy, you're the best, man. We'll talk to you later on in the season. Uh, everyone listen to Andy and Ari on On3 Network, and, uh, he will— I think they're gonna do— they'll have a live report from Florida State-SMU. I don't know if we're— yeah, we're gonna, uh, we're probably gonna record before the end of the game, so just listen to them if you're a Florida State or SMU fan.

That's right. We will, uh, we will be breaking it down now. Look, if it gets out of hand, we may start at the beginning of the 4th quarter, but I don't know. This is a crowd that expects better than that. I don't think that they'd be real happy here. But yeah, Osceola and Renegade are about to come out. So I'm going to go watch the flaming spear hit the turf and best sport in the world. Thank you guys.

Yes.

Love that. Thank you, Andy. You're the best. Love you.

All right.

Andy Staples is brought to you by our great friends over at Nutrafol. If your hair is not performing like it used to this summer, the move isn't a hat.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor. And Coach, thank you for joining us. It dawned on me on Sunday because we had Labor Day weekend, so we all watched the game on Saturday night. We'll get into it. Tragic way to lose a game. But it dawned on me that if you— if Western Michigan, you guys win that game, you're probably doing every podcast, all the media, getting all the shine for the upset. And I was like, you know what? That's not fair.

No.

You should still get the shine. You should still come on the show because you guys fought your absolute ass off on Saturday night in the Big House. And so it's like, hey, the result— we still need to have you on. So thank you for joining us, and, uh, we— I appreciate how hard you guys fought on Saturday night.

Well, Big Cat, I appreciate, uh, you guys having me on. It's, it's an honor. Um, I enjoy watching you guys. You guys are hilarious. And, uh, you know, I hoped I'd been— I would be on this, uh, podcast Under different circumstances as well. So, you know, we'll, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll pretend here.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So yeah, go ahead.

I was going to ask because I, I saw at the end of the game, um, like a lot of different people that were watching that game, I, I ended up changing the channel after the clock hit zero and it looked like you got to celebrate that game a little bit. You celebrated a big win. I'm just curious, how long did you live in a reality, in a world where Western Michigan had just beaten Michigan? In the big house.

Yeah, I mean, you know, there, there are pictures that have kind of gone viral with me throwing up the— yeah, the dubs. Um, you know, which, you know, I got to be honest with you, that hurts even more. Um, you know, just having lived in that moment, actually celebrating the, the first— you know, you think the game's over, you look up, the clocks are at zero. You know, honestly, our sideline rushed the field, our fans were starting to, to go crazy behind our bench. And, uh, and then the refs kind of stopped us about halfway out and just said, uh, this is under review, Coach. You got to get your, get your players back on the sideline. So at that point, I immediately tried to reset because, you know, I, I still had my headset on and I told our coaches, I said, hey, we may have another play here. Let's get our guys back on the sideline and try to reset and refocus. So it was short-lived, but it was, it was lived long enough to, uh, you really rip your heart out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So have you had— have you gotten— you guys have been gracious in defeat and, and not, you know, uh, complained about the ruling, but what was the best explanation that you've gotten from anyone who, who's like, this is exactly what happened?

Yeah, um, well, I'll say this. I think, you know, one, I appreciate, you know, our president, you know, President Cavallone. You've probably seen him in the interviews. Like, he bleeds brown and gold, you know. He's a former prosecutor. He is sharp. He's smart. He's, you know, He's behind us the whole way, and he's wanted to pursue this to the nth degree. And, uh, you know, I think one, you know, I want people to know, you know, like, we, we wanted— and we wanted answers as well. Like, we weren't just gonna let this go.

Yeah.

Um, you know, whether there was anything that we could do about it or not, we wanted to make sure that, you know, our kids have been treated— you know, our, our young men, our team had been treated fairly and, and given a fair shake. And I don't know that there's been an answer that has been, you know, that we've loved. What I will say is, is the Big Ten officials on Saturday night after the game, I'm actually on the bus ride home and we'd gone back and forth with our commissioner in the MAC and then the Big Ten officials. And they, you know, said, hey, you know, we will produce the official review and the, you know, send you that video evidence. We have video of the actual clock. And audio from, from the video booth. And so what they did, I was on the bus, on the bus ride home, and, um, they, they sent us a video. It was from the official review booth, uh, where you could hear audio of the official, the review officials talking in real time as they're watching the play and the, you know, countdown clock going off.

Um, and they, you know, put it in super slow-mo and, you know, paused each frame. And okay, the ball touched his hand. Here's where, where the, where the second was. You know, it was, it was tenths of a second. You know, I'll say that.

Right.

And, um, you know, at that point, you know, we felt like they, they've cooperated with us. Do we love the fact that it doesn't match or marry the video board, you know, uh, clock, or it doesn't sync with the clock on the TV on NBC? No, we didn't love that. That's not an ideal situation or scenario for anybody. And to me, that's not fair to fans. Or to my team, as you're trying to explain, hey guys, you know, I know it said the clock said zero, right? There was a different clock that we were actually looking at sinking, you know. Yeah, that's hard to explain to, you know, young men and the fans. And I think, you know, I think college football deserves better.

Yeah, I would agree.

I agree.

The secret clock thing doesn't— that doesn't fly too high. Like, that's that. We saw that with the World Cup this summer. It's like the secret clock is good for nobody except for somebody that, that might have an agenda, that might want things to go, uh, in their direction, whatever that might, might be. But now you've got a job to do as a coach where you've got a team that went out there and fought their ass off, um, was a very physical team, um, so a lot of people would say outplayed Michigan in that game, uh, if we're looking at the totality of it. And, uh, now you have to find a way to, to not let this throw the entire season sideways. So, uh, what's the vibe been inside the locker room, just in the, in the brief amount of time you've got to spend with the guys? And where do you see this going from this point on?

Well, I've been really proud of our team, just how they've handled this, because I mean, it's an emotional roller coaster now. I mean, it's like, it's, it's the craziest thing I've ever been on. And yeah, as in 20 years of coaching, and then, you know, having been a player as well, this is the wildest ending that I've ever had. And especially, you know, we just talked about it, thinking you won the game, going out, actually celebrating, and then having another play that there becomes a different outcome. I think it was very tough for our players. Everybody saw on NBC kind of after the game, you know, our players on the field, there were tears in the locker room. And that's hard as a head coach, as you come in the locker room, because what do you, what do you say?

Right.

I mean, they laid it all on the line. They played their hearts out. And to me, that was really the message. I wanted to be real and authentic with our team, like, hey, Guys, I love you. I'm proud of you. This stinks. There's nothing I can say or do that's going to take that away. But at the end of the day, it really is about how we respond. Because whether you, you know, whether we won that game or not— and, and that would have been a huge win. We'd never beaten Michigan. It would have been an unbelievable win in the, you know, and really, um, our season and, and then our, um, in the history of Western Michigan football.

Yeah.

But our goals are still on the table.

table.

Like, they're not in our conference, you know. We still play a great G6 opponent in Boise State. We can go still win the MAC. All of our goals are still on the table. And so that's what you really just try to impress upon the guys is like, listen, you, you hurt and you should hurt right now because you laid it all on the line. And there's a lot of people proud of you because of how you played. And you proved on national television that you can't— you came in a big house and played with a nationally ranked football team and went toe to toe. And a team who is traditionally known as a physical football team, you were more physical than them.

Yeah.

Yeah. Their head coach told me that at the end of the game. We saw it on the field. Everybody who watched this game, regardless of what the scoreboard said, can take that away. I mean, can't take that, can't take that away. They can put another second back on the clock, but they can't take that away.

All right. I love that message. Let me add another one. I think you got to tell the guys, hey, look, let's put the, let's put the committee in a bind. Let's, let's, let's win the rest of our games and put the committee in a bind. Because I bet you, if you guys run the table, like you said, you play Boise, that could be an elimination game. If you're, if you're able to, to win the MAC and run the table in the MAC, that committee, if you only have one loss next to your name come, come after Thanksgiving, and the one loss is a game that's like, hey, they got screwed, that's, that's, that's the message. Like, you control everything right now. And you've been, you've been a great coach. I mean, the turnaround you've done at Western Michigan, winning the MAC last year. Uh, do you feel like— because I know it happened Saturday night— were you around the guys today on Monday? Could you feel the vibe shift back where it's like, all right, now we've turned the page and we're ready to go?

I, I did, yeah. I mean, and that's a great point, uh, Big Cat, because that was, that was honestly what we talked about today. It was like, you got the attention of the, you know, CFP Committee, you got the attention of the college football world. Now what are we going to do with it, right? And I think that's what's been pretty cool. I mean, you know, So it's kind of been an emotional roller coaster. I feel like I've been, you know, pulled a bunch of different directions, um, trying to be there for my team and our staff and coaches. And they've done an excellent job. Like, they've probably handled it better at time, you know, at times than I have. You know, I'm selfish. I wanted to win that game.

Yeah.

And, uh, you know, they've done a great job of, hey, you know, like, let's reset and refocus, um, and, and get back to work. They were awesome today when I saw them. And that's, you know, we've got great leadership. Like, one of the things I'm proud of is, is we, we won the MAC championship last year. We won 10 games, we won 10 out of our last 11 games, and we didn't lose a single offensive or defensive starter in the transfer portal. And that just doesn't happen in the G5 anymore. I mean, almost all of those guys, you know, were offered more money to go to bigger schools with more bells and whistles, and they decided to come back to Western Michigan. And I think that that shows, you know, that there, there's a belief and buy-in in what we're doing, and that they want to play with each other, that there's something special here at WMU, and they feel like we have a really special team. And I think that that showed on Saturday night for everybody. It's what I've seen for a long time, that we can have a special team.

Yeah, I know you want to move forward, and as a good coach, that's probably where your mindset should be. But as a fan of the sport, I'm still dwelling on the ending of that game and how it does feel like it was, it was an all-time moment that was ripped from you and ripped from the, the players on your team that worked so hard to make it happen. And watching it back, even with the explanation that they gave Which I, I would, uh, I would highly doubt that they would have spent that much time trying to find another second if the shoe was on the other foot and you all were attempting those Hail Marys at the last second. Um, but has anybody given you an explanation to the fact that on the Big Ten video you can't actually see the ball when it touches your player's hand? On the, on the new angle with the clock overlay that we didn't see earlier, you still can't can't ever see that. You can guess and say, you know, with a, a, a, some degree of certainty that you think that's when it hit him, but you don't actually see the ball touch.

No, I mean, listen, most of it doesn't make sense, and it really does, you know, the stories don't, uh, necessarily match the video evidence. And, and listen, when you go into video review, it's just like any other, you know, what we've been told is there has to be inconclusive evidence that the call on the field— like, there's something different than what the call on the field was.

Yeah.

Well, they blew the game up. Like, the game was over, right? And they bring us back to, to look at the, um, video, and then they put 1 second back on the clock. So yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know that I'm— you know, we're satisfied with, you know, um, the explanation or even the evidence that, that they've shown. Um, I think at the end of the day, you know, for us it's, it's about moving on. And, and for me as a head coach, like, listen, you know, I was there in the press conference after, after the game, and my 2 young— you know, my wife and 2 kids are sitting there. You know, my son is 12, my daughter's 8. You know, uh, they're 6th and 4th grade. And, you know, I'm trying— you know, I'm trying to show them how to handle adversity in a way that, you know, I probably want to get up there and pitch a fit, honestly. Mm-hmm. You know, there's a side of me that's selfish, and I want to go out and go on a rant. And really say what I want to say and say how I really feel.

But I don't think that does anybody any good. You know, it certainly doesn't do our players any good. Yeah. And you know, doesn't set the right example, even though that's probably what you know humanly, you know from a human standpoint and selfishly you want you want to do. And so you know, but I did know I did know even at that point like our president and you know we were going to. you know, make sure that we pursued that to get some sort of answer whether, whether it was accurate or not. But we were basically told after the game, like, listen, it doesn't matter what, what's determined. Like, the outcome of the game is not changing. That's, that's basically what we were told. Yeah, what's the clock? And once the clock is officially zero and they submit the score, it's not changing.

So yeah, once the clock hits negative 1 second, we can't do anything to change the score.

But like I said, you have— like, I, I do think Your team, the profile that you're going to gain from this is going to be with what you— it depends on what you guys are able to do with it, but everyone's going to be rooting for Western Michigan going forward. And I will say, we're big grit guys on this podcast. We've been doing a Grit Week for 10 years. You have grit on your helmet.

Yeah.

We usually save this for Grit Week, but what does the word grit mean to you? And what is— how are you applying grit in this situation?

Yeah, that was something that, um, our players, our leadership council, 2 years ago said that, you know, that they wanted to embody and, you know, really wanted the identity, um, and mentality of our football team to be. Um, and, and really, it's, you know, um, we're gonna do whatever it takes, um, to win. And it's gonna, you know, we're gonna train from in a gritty, uh, in a gritty way in everything that we do, from how we train, how we lift, to how we condition to how we practice. Um, and, and ultimately, grit is not something that we, that we, uh, put on a t-shirt, but it's, but it's how we live. And so our guys have kind of embodied that. If you've watched us the past 2 years, I think that we, we have a gritty style of play. Our quarterback is gritty. Um, we say it's not always pretty, but it's going to be gritty. And I think that's a tough, physical brand of football that, you know, we're going to find a way to win the game. And Honestly, you know, that was the way I felt on Saturday night. I had complete confidence and belief in our team because over the last 2 years we have found ways to win almost every single close game.

Even when we were down under 2 minutes to Toledo, we had to score a touchdown and get a 2-point conversion. You know, we were down late in, you know, in our rivalry game against Central Michigan. We have to score on 4th and 6 from the goal line to beat Central Michigan. And all of those things, you know, culminated. We've just been a gritty football team. Whatever, however it takes to find a way to win a football game, our kids have found a way to do that. I love that.

Yeah, that's awesome.

What was your message to your team?

We'll send you some Western Michigan, some grit hats.

I love that. Yeah, I'll wear them.

We'll put the helmet up.

Absolutely. For sure. What was the final message to your team before the game? Because it did look like you guys weren't scared. That's one thing anybody could see from the get-go. It's like Western Michigan, they, they believe they could win it. So what did you tell them in that, in that final speech before kickoff?

I just said we belong. We prepared for the moment. You guys are, are ready. We've had a great week of preparation, and you've prepared starting in the winter, summer, how we've trained. And, um, you know, have the confidence and belief in each other that we do belong, and, uh, believe in each other and fight for 60 minutes. And, uh, I think think they, they did show that. They went out there and did it. And there was, you know, there was an eerie, you know, calm and confidence a lot of times in those, you know, P4 games, especially like in the Big House in game 1. You know, there's a controlled chaos where the, the, the, the noise, the fans, the, the, the moment almost seems, you know, too big sometimes for, for, you know, in those, in those moments. I think our guys just handled the poise and, you know, poison the noise. It was pretty cool to see. They were confident that we were going to win there in the end.

Yeah.

All right, Coach, I got one last question for you. It's a Roback question. rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. roback.com, promo code TAKE. I'm sure you saw in the MAC— I'm a big MAC fan— Akron trying to— they did that whole promotion where someone's going to get to be a offensive coordinator for the first drive. I was a finalist. I was close. I was 1 of 8.

I saw.

Yeah. Do you have Shark Wheel in your playbook?

Okay, so you gotta, you gotta, uh, diagram Shark Wheel for me. I don't know. Let's see.

It's literally just the running back coming out of the flat and running like down the sideline. I used to have the, the quarterback roll out to the same side, put the linebacker in hell, Hit him for a touchdown and then spam that play like 25 times. The computer never catches up.

We actually called that in the Michigan game.

Oh, okay.

They, they covered the running back. We hit the tight end on the leak coming back.

So I love that. Okay.

So yeah, it was, it was, it was a good completion for us in the Michigan game. You'll have to go back and watch it.

All right. So yeah, more Shark Wheel. That would be my only advice to you.

Yeah.

Just spam that play. It's hard to, it's hard to defend.

Well, you know, you didn't win the opportunity to call a play for Akron. Maybe we can make it happen where you, you have a play for Western Michigan here, you know?

I mean, that would be fun.

Sounds, sounds like a pretty cool idea.

Yeah, we should. We'll, we'll bring all the boys out, out to Kalamazoo. We have a great time.

You gotta be careful offering that because we've got a whole file of dumbass ideas we might, we might really weigh down your program with.

Those are always the best plays though.

Yeah.

The ones that you're like, that's not gonna work. There's no chance.

Yeah.

Yeah. Get ready for, get ready to learn fake punt punt.

Or maybe like a triple fake flea flicker. You toss it, you toss it. You toss it back, then you fake the toss again, then you run it.

We got him.

Yeah, we'll make you so much worse. Just give us a second.

Yeah, we're ready to go. Well, Coach, thank you so much. Uh, really, really respect the hell out of you guys and your program. Uh, you guys fought your asses off on Saturday night. Like I said at the start, you would have probably been doing all the shows, and it's bullshit that that doesn't happen. So we wanted to have you on, and, uh, we'll definitely rep some Western Michigan stuff. And if we can ever make it to Kalamazoo for a game, we'd love to come.

Really appreciate you guys having me on. You guys are the best. Appreciate it.

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We thank Bluechew for sponsoring the pod and the bedroom.

Okay, Max is back. Max, you want to sit, sit, uh, with the mic? Max, first of all, we missed you, dude. Did you miss us? At what point in the 2-week sex vacation were you like, all right, this is too much sex?

I wouldn't— I wouldn't say it was too much sex.

I will say, dude, you got what Vince Carter— you got one more in me.

No such thing. Am I right?

I was having like the perfectly average amount of sex.

Like, that's what I said. I'm not—

I'm not—

I'm not a marathoner.

That's exactly verbatim what I say about my height. Yeah.

I'm not a marathon guy. You know, it's, it's— I run the football when it comes, when it comes to the bedroom. How was that?

How was the honeymoon?

It was, it was very nice. I will say, like day 10, I was like, I miss the boys. Yeah, I wanted to come back to the boys. Yeah, 2 weeks is a long time. I had a really good time.

Where did you go?

I went everywhere. It was We would go for one place for like 2 days and then we would go somewhere else.

So tell us where you went.

Nice, Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Tropez. Where—

what country are these places?

Those are all in France. Okay, so one week in France. That was the one week in France.

Were you— did you go like, like banana hammock at the beach?

No.

Okay, you were wearing like—

I was wearing—

you should have worn the Max Speedo. Yeah.

No, I don't even own one of those. I did see that Oldie was ripping it at camp though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He looked good ripping it.

And then I did Piedmont, Lake Como, Milan, Italy.

Wow.

That— I don't think that was an Italian noise that you just made.

Yes, you're a little late on the French.

But it was awesome. It was definitely like a once in a lifetime trip.

What's the best meal you had?

Alfredo.

People were getting on you for the Alfredo tweet.

No, Alfredo is— Alfredo is just not like a real— the Alfredo that people think in America, you'll never find that, right?

That's what I'm saying. So you tweeting that was crazy.

Oh, right. I thought you were— people were getting on me. Got it.

Got it. You tweeted out how much Alfredo, right?

Right.

Alfredo.

I forgot.

I forgot that was a tweet. that came from my account. There were a couple— there were a couple tweets that came from my account that were not me. But that's fine.

That is what it is. It is what it is.

Favorite city?

Meal?

Favorite meal?

My favorite trip was actually Piedmont. I went there for 2 nights, 1 day. Uh-huh. California wine country in Italy. Like very, very small town. Went to a couple—

You were just manhandling those wine glasses.

Oh, yeah. 100%. And we went to—

like, you got to be the most American guy.

Oh, yeah, it was. Well, it was the slow season for that, like, town. So we went to 2 different wine tastings where there were supposed to be like 5 people there. And, and me and my wife were the only people at both of the wine tastings. So it was just us and like the guide who barely spoke English at both of the ones that we went to. And then he just kept pouring us more wine because they, like, ran out of things to say that they were like, oh, we're only supposed to give you this much, but we'll give you more. We'll give you more.

Hell yeah.

So that was cool.

Nice.

Best meal.

Best meal was also— was also in Piedmont. See, here's the thing. We did like a fancy Michelin dinner one night, and then we also did just like the normal hotel dinner.

Same Michelin?

No, 2 different nights.

The mystery was banged in Italy.

We did no mukbanging. I've always— Zach should be— Zach should be getting in the mukbang game.

But that's a different story.

What's the mukbang exactly?

You just put food everywhere, you eat and you talk about what you're eating.

Yeah, Zach, you should.

But like, if you eat a lot of food, like those guys go crazy.

You should be like—

those accounts go absolutely nuts.

Yeah.

Or like where like there's like a loveseat, they open it up, it's just ravioli.

There's a guy on TikTok right now who's doing Chinese buffet reviews. And he—

I saw that until he gets sick.

Yeah.

No, until he gets food poisoning.

Yeah.

He is awesome. He's my favorite guy online. Mullet Reviews.

Shout out to that guy. I saw that the other day.

That's aside from the point of this vacation. It was a very fun vacation. Piedmont was the best food.

Did you meet any—

Piemonte.

Any Philly fans over there?

No, there was— Lake Como is American. That's the other thing I found. Yeah, everyone in Lake Como is American. And it is very much— it's a great place, absolutely beautiful. But like, there's no Italian people there.

No. So no, no Birds fans there?

No, there were that— like, I— no one came up to me for like the first 10 days of the trip when I was in France and in Piedmont. And then when I got to Lake Como, it was like just like I was in— it was just all different American people visiting.

So there was some Eagles chants going?

I wouldn't say Eagles chants, but it was—

Did you do any Eagles chants?

No, no.

Like, did you say go Birds?

No, I did not.

It's been, it's been over 2 weeks since you've said go Birds.

No, I was saying go Birds.

Oh, okay.

Because yeah, well, in Lake Como, that'd be funny if like the first 10 days when Max had no one coming up to him, his wife was like, yeah, you just keep saying go Birds in your sleep.

I could have been doing that.

Get out of your system.

She wears, she wears Earplugs.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

My wife, like, gets strapped up. She looks like she's an astronaut. Oh, the fucking face mask, the earplugs, the fan.

I did listen to the one day where you were like, these, these gifts better be good. They better not be shot glasses.

And yeah, I mean, I think it's like heads. It's kind of similar. It's like, you know, if you get fired from a job, you get severance. You get severance for how long you've been there. You were gone for 14, 15 days. You missed some pretty big stuff. You missed the Camp Barstool, you missed the Grudge Match.

Mm-hmm.

Some big, big stuff. So the gifts should be appropriate to how long you were gone.

Okay. So I did— I had already gotten the, the other gifts before.

So do we have 2 rounds of gifts?

We have 2 rounds of gifts.

Oh, so give us the shitty gifts first. I love this. This is actually great.

So the first—

so we're gonna start with this.

So this is the round of gifts. Before you heard us saying you better bring back good gifts.

Correct. A lot of— some of these are for the booth boys too. And the guys outside.

You just got us pasta.

No, those are foods. No, no, I got you. I got— I did get you food. You, Big Cat, this is— this is authentic Italian pistachio cream. Actually fantastic.

Is that for your face?

No, you eat it.

You eat this?

Yes. So good.

Okay. And I'm not a big pistachio guy, but that's fine. You read that one wrong.

You want to— I have hazelnut as well.

No, I don't like hazelnut either.

You don't?

Okay, that's—

I'll take the pistachio. Just really, it's almost like you went back and got different.

You know anything about you?

Pistachio cream. So you put this— you put this on your face?

No, you put on like toast.

It's good for wrinkles.

I think you put on your eyes.

No, you definitely don't put on your eyes.

You jack off with PFT?

This is from a farmer's market in Antibes, actually. They had a bunch of different jams, and this was the best one. They had a bunch of tastings.

Wait, wait, wait, what flavor jam?

Melon. I've never had it before. I know that. I see you eat Uncrustables every day, so I thought maybe you would try this.

And I love melons.

Yeah.

By the way, I would like to just say that I am open to trades on the pistachio cream.

Hank, you think you got the—

what do I rub this on my hands?

It's hazelnut Italian. It's like Nutella.

Like coffee for coffee?

No, it's all— it's like Nutella. What do you mean? I just said it's like Nutella and you ask if it's like— if it's for coffee.

It's hazelnut.

Yes, it's— Nutella is made out of hazelnut and chocolate.

Really melony.

Do you want some pistachio cream?

Oh, smells good.

Uh, yeah, I love pistachio. Do you like melons? Yeah, yeah, let's trade.

Okay.

All right, good.

Pistachio is my favorite nut.

I'd like to trade the melon for any pasta that you might have.

All right, fine. Hey, how's that hazelnut?

Oh, it's good.

It tastes like Nutella.

All right, great gift. Pasta. Uh, this is a good gift.

I also have an Elton John bobblehead.

Oh, I'd like—

for someone. Yeah, I just got this.

Yeah.

All right.

We'll just put this—

um, um, already broken. Oh no, Max, this, uh—

no, no, he's good.

It honestly did break in transit, but, uh, my wife had super glue that, that we, that we were able to use.

Pistachio cream is incredible.

I also have this bobblehead for somebody else.

What's that? Messi?

I know, I know a guy that would love that.

I know a perfect guy for that one.

So this will be for—

that'll be for you. All right. Would you like me to get to my other gifts?

Yeah. Wait. So wait, what did the— what did Meebs get? Oh, pasta. You just— you just spammed pasta.

Meebs got dick and balls for shot glasses.

Okay.

I love that.

Or no, tits. Tits.

Tits and a dick. All these gifts. Hell yeah. And you heard us being like, you better not bring us back shot glasses.

I had all of those gifts before before you said all of this.

Okay, so these are good pre-gifts.

This is actually—

so then, then I was in Milan. And I was like, all right, like my last trip was Milan before or after you— I heard all of that. And I was like, what is Milan known for? Milan is known for designer items. So I went to a designer outlet store. All right, and tried to find designer items that I could bring back. Turns out even a designer outlet store, the, the brands that you think—

There's a big, big windup.

They're, they're still extremely expensive.

Okay. So, so you don't love us? Is that what you're trying to say?

I was like, bear that in mind.

You don't love us.

So I went to the counterfeit guy down the street.

So my first gift Is a pair of Prada socks for Big Cat.

Oh, wow.

I, I will never wear those socks.

They're Prada.

They're Prada.

These are Prada socks.

Why would I ever wear those socks?

You, you wear a suit for, for advisors once a week and I—

and you can wear Prada socks. Sweatpants underneath. All right, give them to me.

These are Prada socks.

Prada socks are officially open to trades.

Here's the other thing. Nothing in Italy is a—

is—

You almost doxxed me, dude. You almost doxxed me. That was fucked up. You almost doxxed my fucking size.

My next thing.

And then I like how you had to stop yourself being like a 2X.

Well, you're—

well, how much?

Italy 2X. And like, I didn't think that you were an Italy 1X.

Yeah.

How much did those socks cost?

Uh, a lot. 250 dinero.

Whoa.

I don't know what that is. Lira?

No, they were marked, they were marked. That's the—

Euro.

The €250. I think it was €130 that was marked down from 200. All of this is from— I went to an outlet store, but it was all— I spent like €1,000 at this place on this—

That's too much.

On shitty stuff. Well, you told me I didn't—

I need to go back with bangers. I know, but what do you think an Italian Italian flag or like a sombrero.

What does that fucking mean?

You know what I'm saying?

I just wanted maybe— so yeah, like a velour.

Yeah. So then my next thing, a tiny flute. Once I— also, that was the only name brand of anything in the store that, that I could have got was those Prada socks.

Okay, so then beautiful Prada socks. Hank, would you like Prada socks?

No.

Okay, they're Prada.

Prada socks. Like some Prada socks.

But you got to be able to show them off or else it's like you're— I'm wearing designer, but like those are socks you'd wear underneath pants. No one would ever see.

They have the Prada, like, metal logo on the sock.

They're, they're legit. Um, and then I— once I realized that, I was like, I need to just find—

For your bat at home.

All right, deal.

Yeah, that's actually—

that's the lead.

Put the Prada socks on that.

Um, okay, so then once I realized that we weren't going to be able to get the name brand of name brands, I just started look for funny stuff inside of this store. Um, and that started with—

You went to like the Italian Spencer's Gifts?

You, you, you, you blew your whole budget on a pair of socks. So all right, here we go. Now we're getting somewhere.

So this is from— my wife was also looking with me. I was like, I need to come back with good gifts. Unironically, she was like, I think Hank would look really good.

Oh, that is nice.

So this, so this is for What is—

what does that say on it?

PFT actually has 2 here.

Okay.

What?

No strap.

I don't know what it says, but she was like, I could, I could see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that.

I wear that.

PFT, you actually have 2 and you have the option to gift one of these to a friend.

Okay.

Or join forces with a friend.

Or what about trade them for Prada socks?

Trade them for Prada socks.

All right.

The first is I feel like you need louder sweatpants.

Yes, I do. Yeah. has been—

you— those are girls. Those chicks—

no, these are men's sweatpants. These are not juicy sweatpants.

There's nothing on the butt.

What? There's nothing on the butt?

Nothing on the butt. That's how you can tell.

These are, these are perfectly man— men's.

We sure about that?

Okay, so now I'm understanding.

Yes, there's an—

yes.

What size is that?

This is, this is a large.

Okay, so now I'm understanding why I can only get—

this is a large, but it, but it, it— I felt like it could work for PFT.

Okay. Yeah, I like that JMU color.

Yeah, this is why.

Part 2 of the— of this gift. I got you a Jerry O'Connell shirt.

Oh, nice.

Then you can either gift to Jerry O'Connell, or if you want to— if you want to play the card of Jerry O'Connell.

Well, I mean, Jerry, he did take over fantasy full ownership for me, so I think I have to at least try it on. Yeah, we have to see if it fits. Thank you, Max.

Great gift.

These are some good sweatpants.

I think the next one I'll give to Memes. I think he actually will really like fanny pack for Memes, or I think this is a fanny pack. It's a bag. It's a bag for Memes.

Oh, that's sick. Let me see it.

Well, Zach also got one too. Whoa.

Zach says, oh sweet. I kind of want this. Memes, you want some socks?

I do like socks.

The socks are— Zach will take the— I know Zach would appreciate the Prada socks.

All gifts are appreciated.

Huh? I can't—

All gifts are appreciated. Yeah, cool. This is a cool little bag.

Good bag.

Nice.

It's like a purse.

And then there's another bag. This one is around the waist.

All right.

This one could be, could be dicey. It's a little— but we'll, you know, we'll figure that out.

I'm getting lost in the fish tank.

Okay. That's good gifts.

And yeah, Yeah, I have some others.

Show us what the other ones are.

I got this for Shane.

Oh, that's perfect.

This felt like— this felt like a Shane shirt to me.

Shane, get in here.

Yeah. You know what?

I want to see you put that on.

That's actually a great date shirt for Shane.

And then I have some bucket hats. I tried to look for the biggest shirts for Colton. Like I said, they don't do— they don't do—

they don't see the bucket hats.

What do you think?

That looks good.

Should I give this to Jerry or should I keep it?

I should keep it.

Like the guy from 50 First Dates.

Yeah, I got good.

I kind of feel hot in this.

I'll be honest, I feel like it looks good.

I feel good for kicking field goals tomorrow.

I feel beautiful.

Yeah.

Oh, what?

Let me see.

Bucket hats. Well, you got lightheaded.

Yeah. Blue one. Blue one for Jacob.

Let me see.

That's good.

He's Gators.

Gators.

Oh, I can't really catch with my socks on.

And then this black one here is coming for Colton.

Matching buckies for the boys.

I like those. I also have olive oil for—

Shane, put that shirt on.

I got olive oil for Colton because Pug loves olive oil and Colton is just Pug.

And, and give me another shirt.

Where's the shirt? What happened to it?

Oh, it's right here.

Oh yeah, that is a Shane shirt.

I thought you would— I thought you would really like it. And it was— and it was an XL.

Shane, with those sweatpants and that shirt, you look ready to go to a strip club.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that looks good. I mean, that shirt, that's a good looking shirt.

That's a good shirt. You like my socks, Shane?

Prada.

They're pretty cool.

They're Prada.

Prada.

No big deal.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right. Good job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a good job. We're happy you're back. We missed the fuck out of you.

You look great.

This is sick.

What'd you think about Pete Prisco's appearance on the show?

I think you guys did a really good job of defending Jalen Hurts.

I did not.

I think you guys did a really, really good job of defending somebody.

Would you take Trevor Lawrence or Jalen Hurts?

I would take Jalen Hurts.

Would you? You sure?

Yeah.

What if they switch rosters?

I would—

would you rather have Jalen Hurts on the Jaguars or Trevor Lawrence on the Eagles?

I would like to see Trevor Lawrence with Kevin Vitullo as his offensive coordinator.

That's what I mean.

What about Trevor Lawrence with Kellen Moore as his offensive coordinator?

He would probably be pretty good.

Yeah.

Better than Jalen Hurts.

I don't know if he— what, he's going to win 2 Super Bowls, maybe.

Yeah, you don't know.

Well, I don't—

Jalen Hurts could have won multiple Super Bowls, right?

I know, right? If Trevor Lawrence didn't fumble that ball.

He's—

Jalen Hurts is batting 1,000 for Super Bowls with—

no, Kellen Moore.

Yes, with Kellen Moore.

Oh, with Kellen Moore, right?

He was there for once.

I guess we'll never know.

Yeah, well, he can't do better.

No, he could. MVP and Super Bowl. Well, he won Super No, I know, but MVP of the league and, and Super Bowl MVP would be better.

Okay, maybe.

So it sounds like there's still room.

I can't wait for Sunday, Max.

Yeah.

The fact you guys are playing in the afternoon too is crazy.

I hate that part of it.

You have to like demolish them.

No, no, I know. I, I'm not— I wish there was a buffer game, like a warm-up game. Like, let me like— right into the fact that we got to go right into it.

And then also we're, we're maxing out.

Chicago week is coming. Yeah.

But the, there's a very good chance, a high chance that the, the Bears and Eagles play Monday Night Football and then the Phillies and Cubs play the NL Wild Card the next day. 3-game series.

All in Chicago.

Possibly.

Possibly all in Chicago.

Cubs have this. Cubs just, I don't, the pitching is PCA is just doing historic things every game.

Then they're like, oh, and then the Phillies and the Cubs are also just the complete opposite teams. Yeah. Like the Phillies offense gets so fucking cold, but their starting pitching is insane.

So it'll be fun.

So yeah, it'll be really fun.

That will actually be an incredible week for this podcast.

Like we would, we would just every night we would go to a different game. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Yeah, I don't know if I can get— I don't know if I can go to all of them. I would pick the, the playoff games over the Monday Night Football game. But yeah, we would probably— yeah, if it's in Philadelphia, we'll go to Monday Night Football and then stream the others. I'm excited for playoff baseball.

And then we got Jets-Bears on that Sunday.

I think the Jets are gonna be good.

Yeah, Sunday. I can't wait for Sunday.

Sunday, Sunday.

Cannot wait for Sunday.

Yeah, I have the I have— I'm back.

I'm back to being overconfident. Wait, my mood swing last, last week has been 180 degrees flipped around.

Who do the Bucs have week 1? Week 1, we play—

You got to know this.

You got it, Zach. This is bad preparation. You got to know week 1.

You got to know in week 1.

Cincinnati Bengals.

You got to know.

Are we asking where we play? Yeah, I have the perfect week. The Panthers is the perfect week 1 game. You gotta win it, but it's like no pressure.

You don't know, no pressure.

Like the Vikings are playing the Packers. All right, numbers: 3, 5, 1, 15, uh, 10, 55, 89, 69.

Anyone get it while I was gone?

No, me and Then wait, so it's Eagles-Commanders week 1? Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the afternoon too.

America's Game of the Week.

Is it?

Probably.

I just said it, it sounded, sounded right.

21.

21.

Anyone?

Anyone? Let's do one more. 3.

Let's see. Jeff? 3.

10.

What do we got?

13.

Happy birthday to Mark Andrews. Happy birthday to Matthew Dellavedova, the GOAT. Happy birthday, Kevin Love. Happy birthday to the Gillette Stadium Lighthouse.

Fuck yeah.

Asterisk.

Fuck yeah.

Real lighthouses don't have birthdays.

That's a great birthday.

Happy birthday to Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Ohio State University super donor and all-around Giant fan and supporter of the Buckeyes, Les Wexner.

Whoa.

Love you guys.