Transcript of Football Is Back, Wisconsin HC Luke Fickell, USC HC Lincoln Riley, Rutgers HC Greg Schiano + Mt Rushmore of Things You Hated As A Kid But Love As An Adult

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On today's Pardon My Take presented by DraftKings, we have Big Ten Media Week and we've got 3 interviews. We talked to Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickle, we talked to USC head coach Lincoln Riley, and Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano. Awesome interviews with all those guys. We also have Mount Rushmore of things you hated as a kid but love as an adult. Guys on Chicks, Hot Seat, Cool Throw. Not a lot going on, but football is back and we're going to get into it. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. Summer's here and so is the Twisted Tea Summer Party Pack. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. They also have a new Summer Party Pack that has a brand new Twisted Lemonade. It's a refreshing hard lemonade made with real lemons. It's only available in their new party pack, so grab it while you can. Whether you're hanging out at the bar, hitting the lake or beach for a weekend, or day drinking with friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time.

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Feeling good. We're getting the most meaningless updates out of every camp. We're getting the walks in. I, I liked CJ Stroud's walk-in today.

Yeah, some are calling it orales.

Yeah, I would call it like maybe, maybe 6-year-old-ish.

Yeah, I don't know. He had it. Well, takes one to know one.

Yeah. No, I said that about actually Jayden because Jayden, Jayden's outfit was straight out of my closet. Yeah, I literally had that Simpson shirt. He pulled off the hat a little bit better than I did. But yeah, there's, there's not a whole lot going on in terms of on-the-field stuff. We are able to make snap judgments on quarterbacks based on what they're wearing and how they walk, how they walk in the facility. CJ Stroud, all I'm saying, CJ Stroud, you got to know the cameras are on you. Yeah, you got to— what if that's your back-to-school outfit that you've had months to plan out? We need a little bit, a little better.

I think your quarterbacks need to look good walking into a game. I think showing up to practice, it's like you're showing up to practice. Yeah, I don't think the first day of camp is like worth— it's almost the opposite. Like, imagine if he showed up like stunting, you'd be like, this is trying too hard.

Like, you're not worried about football.

Yeah.

Yeah, true. That's a good point. Quick, while Max is in between, Jalen Carter re-signed. There, we talked about it.

Yep.

Good deal, I think, probably.

Yeah, probably a good deal.

Really good.

Yeah, I mean, it's— we are— we have no— what? What are you shaking your head, Max?

I heard you say Jalen Carter as I was leaving the room.

No, I didn't.

I'm not talking about CJ Stroud.

You heard him say Jaden Daniels.

Yeah, yeah. We have nothing. This is the part of the sports calendar where, yeah, the CJ Stroud walking in with baggies Maggie Shorts is the biggest story of the day. That, and I don't think anyone else— any other big stories happen. Oh, Jerry Jones wants to trade the future for now. He's getting desperate. I think he's finally realizing that everyone dies because he said he's, he's, he's willing to trade picks for, uh, to make the team better right now. And he had talks with the team. Actually, it's so funny that you mentioned he had a talk with the team yesterday. We don't know which team or about what, but he did talk to one.

He's ready to make a splash. He's, he's itching because it's been about a full calendar year before anyone's talked about Jerry Jones as it pertains to his job as general manager.

Yep.

So he's looking to make a splash. Michael Parsons, the guy they traded last year, I did see the other day, he's, he's now fully embracing his foot fetish. Oh, he's openly talking about— he posted about it online. He's like, he's like, God help me, I just love feet.

The only way out is through. He's got to just— he's just got to embrace it and let everyone know he's a foot guy.

Yep. You got to keep going with that. Brandon Aiyuk, I wouldn't be surprised if he actually showed up to commanders camp. Like, I'm being actually kind of honest. I think he might pull up to Ashburn at some point. Yeah, he might do the thing where it's like pads, helmet with a sign being like, my name is Brandon Aiyuk, I will work.

Yep.

Please let me in.

Yeah.

Even though he's under contract, kind of could definitely happen. I think that he's probably going to show up. To the facility at some point.

Yes.

Um, we also had, uh, Vita Vae ask for a trade, which isn't super significant because he is at the end of his contract. Normal to ask for a trade to try to renegotiate. Zach, I do have a question for you though. Mike Evans, San Francisco 49ers. Vita Vae asking for a trade. Baker Mayfield could be re— could get a long-term deal, has not yet from the Bucs. Something feels wrong, and I think it's all about Todd Bowles.

I like to retweet that, it's all about Todd Bowles.

It's not— it has to be.

They got rid of everybody but Todd, now the players want to leave.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy they brought Todd Bowles back when you— like, I was thinking about it this morning because the Vita Vae news happened, and I was doing Wake Up Barstool with our good friend Stephen Che. The, the Bucs finish to the season last year was like one of the saddest teams I've ever seen. And I don't know how you didn't fire the coach after that.

But yeah, we didn't have a sad roster to reflect that, and they got rid of everybody except the head coach. I guess the argument was like, he's won the division several times, but it's also just like, we play in a dogshit division pretty much. That's not a huge accomplishment. Uh, yeah, they, they— so we got another year of Todd Bowles, we got some of our franchise guys, you know, one jersey guys being like, all right, give me a trade. Mike's out. Vita Vea might be out.

And Mike Evans feels like he was out. Like if Todd Bowles had been traded, I feel like Mike Evans would have probably been a Bucs.

I think he maybe stays. I don't think you go— I don't think you move your family across the entire United States to pay more in taxes.

True, because it's a bad—

a lot more taxes. I forgot about taxes.

But it is, it is weird because I think Jason Light is a very good GM. I— we're all Baker guys here. I think you should re-sign him. Uh, and it just feels like the vibes are off because Todd Bowles, like, he— they finished 2-7 last year. Remember some of those games, how pathetic, like, the fight was on the team? And, and there was injuries, yeah, sure, but Todd Bowles just staring blankless into, into the camera doing nothing. And then you brought him back. I don't know, it— the Bucs might be a bummer team.

I—

they might, they might be on bummer watch.

They might be on bummer watch. I would say that if there's one quarterback that I would like to bet on when he's betting on himself. It's probably Baker Mayfield.

Yeah.

Betting on himself. He's still got a little of the Texas Tech quarterback in him, I guess.

But it has nothing to do with the players on the field. It has to do with Todd Bowles.

Yep.

And I just don't think I— it doesn't make sense to me.

Todd Bowles hasn't showed us an ounce of emotion, good, bad, or indifferent, for years now.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know how you maintain the confidence in the locker room doing so.

What was that quote that he had after the game last year? He was dropping F-bombs. He tried to, like, fire himself up.

Yeah, that's right.

Where can we look up what that quote was? Because that was— I've never seen a coach try to talk themselves into being fired.

He's like, I can do this. I can swear. I can be a big guy.

I can be a big kid. You say that F-word, Todd. You say it loud.

Max, also Jalen Carter resigned. I don't know if you heard. We talked about it already.

Yeah, I heard you talked about it.

Okay.

We moved on from that.

Yeah.

All right, cool.

Do you have anything to say about it?

Yeah.

Great. I like to make—

doesn't exist.

I like to make Max multitask here. There's no way he's going to find this, Todd Bowles. Well, you asked me a question.

Yeah.

Jalen Carter. Chew gum and walk.

Can't chew gum and walk. Can barely chew gum or walk.

Jalen can spit and walk and do both.

Well, he was kind of standing still. Yeah, but he can spit.

Dak spit first, by the way. That was the best part of the quarterback show when Baker Mayfield was talking shit to Jalen Carter. He's like, you still spit? You got a spitting problem? You like to spit?

Mm-hmm. The—

all right.

Do you have it? Do you have it? I found it. Oh, thank you, Hank. Hank, way to go. This is off the heels of—

this is actually Memes.

I was doing this before, before we started the show. Memes just yelled Hank or no, Max said Hank pretends that he can't even do anything in there.

No, he's— I said he— I said Hank acts like he can't move in there.

Now he found it faster than you.

All right, here it is.

Memes found it.

This is the guy they brought back where the shit hurts. And we don't have no sound. That's shit. Okay, here we go.

Gotta fucking mean something. Oh, it's more than a job.

Wait, wait, if you got kids in the car, hang on.

Yeah, go back, go back.

If you got kids, uh, tell them— actually, listen to this, they have to learn at some point. You gotta fucking care enough where the shit hurts. You gotta fucking care enough where the shit hurts.

It gotta fucking mean something to you.

It's more than a job, it's your fucking livelihood. How well do you know your job?

How well can you do your job?

Well, you can't sugarcoat that shit. It was in the fucking excusable and There's no fucking answer for it.

That's for no excuse for it. That's what you tell me. I look in the fucking mirror.

Oh, man.

Did he say indefucking excusable?

Yeah.

I'm right.

I don't know. Indefucking excusable is a pretty awesome word, actually.

I'm ready to run through a fucking brick wall right now. Holy shit. That pumped me up.

I like how he's kind of self-censored the first fuck. Yeah, he dropped out on that one. And then he was like, you know what? You know what, Todd? Just you get in there, you fucking go for it.

That's your coach, Zach.

I'm going to ride with Todd and the team when the season starts, but He even said that in a careless tone. Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know. Agreed.

Bad spot.

Agreed.

Some more information came out about Kyle Shanahan.

Yep.

About the accident. Chris Sims, who has a Kyle Shanahan tattoo on his leg— people forget— said he found out about a couple of weeks ago that he almost lost one of his eyes. So apparently it's pretty serious.

And Kyle talked with the media.

He spoke with the media.

Yeah. He said that he was at fault.

Yep.

He was reaching for his cell phone, hit someone, swerved in the wrong lane. Hit someone going 20 miles an hour.

Mm-hmm.

I still don't understand. Like, that feels like that's the end of it. But it's also just weird how it all just— we didn't get any details till now.

Yeah, it is kind of strange. I'm guessing maybe he wasn't buckled up because 20 miles an hour, it's not that fast. But if you're not buckled up, it will fuck you up in heads-on, head-on, head-on collision. Yeah, it'll fuck you up. But I mean, I'm glad that he's okay. Glad the eyes are right.

Buckle up, everyone.

An eyepatch on the sidelines would have rocked though.

Big time. Yeah, maybe a parrot. Yeah, it's really, really good. Go all the way with it. Kyle Shanahan would have been— yeah, it would have been cool. Max, do you have anything about LeBron being a 76er? But I think we talked, talked about it, but we didn't get all the way into it. And not living in the city of Philadelphia, he's officially going to live in New York.

We talked about this.

No, but not all the way. I also learned a new fact that Wilt Chamberlain did this.

I learned that as well. Crazy. JJ Redick did it. Didn't know that Wilt Chamberlain did it.

Yeah. Crazy.

It's not that crazy.

It's pretty— well, it's crazy to do it before, like helicopters and shit.

That's—

yeah.

Yeah. Like he drove every time.

Do you think there was traffic?

Traffic did exist back then.

Other people had cars. Mm-hmm.

But do you think it was as bad?

No, probably not.

I think probably the train. He might have taken the train.

Train.

The train.

You think LeBron will take the train? Why don't LeBron buy his own train?

I don't think LeBron—

the choo-choo would be awesome.

The choo-choo would be awesome.

That would be incredible.

Yeah, that would be cool.

LeBron Express.

If there was— and that would be cool. That would be cool.

I would do that. I mean, he has enough money. He could just buy out an entire car every single day.

Yeah, right.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I would have no problem doing that. That's— he should do that.

He should absolutely do that.

People should make sure that he does do that.

Oh, you're okay. So you want him on LeChoo Choo?

I would. Yeah, I would like the LeChoo Choo.

The good thing is New Jersey Transit, the trains always run on time, so he'll never be late if he does that. Mm-hmm.

I wonder where he's going to live in New York.

It's Amtrak. It's not New Jersey Transit.

Where do you think he's going to live in New York City?

That is what I want to know, too.

Probably like Central Park.

Yeah.

Like, or like, could live in Dumbo, East Side. I don't think we live in Brooklyn, but, but you could just take the BQE over Staten Island.

He's, he's, he's Village, Upper East Side.

You think he's going to try to do the thing where he just kind of lives in a hotel? Like if he lived at the Four Seasons?

I think he'll have like Four Seasons in Philly, like one of those like penthouses, like around Central Park.

Yeah.

What if he does?

Like Hoboken so that he can play that golf course? What's that golf course? Oh, Liberty.

Liberty.

Because he was playing that. I think he played that.

What would be the point?

That would rock it if LeBron was in Hoboken.

Why would you live in Hoboken?

Just live in Philly.

Yeah.

Or live in— yeah, live in like Cherry Hill, Jersey.

That's where like most of the Eagles players, right?

Probably should live in Philadelphia and Fluffy.

Well, well, if you live on like the East, if you live on like the Lower East Side, you could just take a ferry to that course.

Do you think maybe he'll— and maybe if he lives on the Lower East Side, he lives close to the helipad.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's probably the heli.

That's probably it.

What, the helipad?

Because he did play that course multiple times in the past couple of weeks. That— and now it makes sense.

Is he going to get into every course in the greater Philadelphia area?

Yeah.

Is that Oakmont? No, Oakmont's Pittsburgh.

Yeah, Pittsburgh area.

Marion is the Philly— is the Philly one that is often on.

How has life been with LeBron so far?

It's great. I, I, I, I—

how's your LeBron relationship?

Our guy Dom has made a playlist of different highlight YouTube highlights for me to watch, and that's been nice, just going through that.

That's the biggest cuck behavior of all time.

Like, this is Dom going through a tough breakup. Like, he's still in his mind, it's not fully over. And so he's like, I want you to— I want you to watch what I've been watching.

Yeah.

And I want you to experience how much I love him. Please take care of him like I would.

This is how you should tickle my, my girl's nipples. Yeah. Also, that's literally what he gave you, the playbook to having sex with LeBron.

He's like, I just want her to be happy.

He— I guess you can also, like, put a cover photo for, like, a YouTube playlist. And he just made the COVID photo of, like, me pointing at him when I say, I'm sorry that you have to film this, when it's the reaction of, of the Sixers signing the most cuck behavior.

Yeah, this is sad. This is sad.

This is your guy.

I'm going to have to talk to him. Yeah, I know. I'm going to talk to him. I've had to talk to him about this.

Before.

I'm gonna have to talk to him again.

Max, how many hours of highlights have you watched?

So many. It's the best. Oh, it's the best.

What are you thinking? What's your expectation now for next year? Give me a win total.

Championship. I did speak to our good friend Roan. He disagreed that with some of the things— he thinks the championship or bust. Yes.

And he said that, uh, I'm gonna have to hear that, hear that from him.

And he said that he has no problem booing if things go bad.

Yeah. So what's your answer, Max?

Uh, I would like to be a top 3 seed.

A top 3 seed.

Top 3.

Okay.

Well, he did kind of say he was like, do I think we're going to win? Like, I'm not going to guarantee it, but yeah, you got to say championship or bust.

Well, see, the way you word things, you make people answer the way that you want them to.

No, no, we're having just a regular conversation. He admitted that, like, he was like, You got to say championship or bust. This is like, what's the point?

You got the team, Max. Let me, let me give you a little hint here because you've only been on the show for what, like 5 years?

Something like that. You barely know us.

The words that you say right now don't mean anything.

Correct.

You could say whatever you want. We like watching you squirm and then we're just going to play semantics games with you. But you can literally say yes, championship or bust. And then turn the page and then nothing will be different. Everything will be fine. I promise.

You don't know that.

I don't trust us.

Trust us to say championship or bust.

Just trust us.

No, because then you're going to use that against me.

Oh, it is.

It is sad. Without it, it's very sad that you were just doing it again, right?

He doesn't trust us.

Philly's compromised itself. Once proud, mighty sports town bending the knee for LeBron.

Nothing.

It's sad.

Um, the other news, Draymond Green re-signed with the Warriors, and I feel bad for Steph. I think— I don't really know. He's just gonna run out like— Steph is still good.

Yeah, well, Draymond was like, hey, is that offer that you made, is that still good? Like, can I just go back and do that same thing I was doing earlier?

Yeah.

And they're like, yeah, I guess didn't work out.

I'll just say this right now, Steph Curry, if you're listening, I'm sure you're an AWL. If you go to the Thunder or Spurs, we will not call that ring chasing. We will call that we get to watch more competitive Steph Curry basketball, and that's awesome.

I think it's just an arms race.

Yeah, we can, but we can bend any way which way we want.

It's an arms race at this point.

Yeah.

And if you want to keep up with, you know, the presumptive NBA champions, the Philadelphia 76ers, you almost have to. I won't even call it ring chasing at this point. It's just like you have to form the Avengers to take out the super team.

You're just creating an Iron Dome.

Yep.

Against, against the 76ers.

Yeah.

We also had the Jeff Passan reported that there's some owners who think there is a 0% chance for playing baseball next year, which I think we need to start sounding an alarm and letting people know this is a major, major problem. I don't know, like I'm at the point where I like, so the Cubs are going to be buyers. We need it. We need some arms, right? I would love to have Tarik Skubal on the Cubs. I kind of want the Dodgers to get Tarik Skubal just to maybe push people to be like, hey, we actually do need change. We need to play baseball. Is that stupid?

Wait, so if Skubal goes to the Dodgers, it probably has no effect.

But in my mind, I'm like, if the Dodgers win another one and Skubal's their starting— like their number, their ace, everyone's like, dude, this is so broken. We got to figure it out.

So then you think the players will be like, yeah, maybe like, well, probably not. We'll take a salary cap as long as the Dodgers don't win again.

Probably not.

Maybe not.

But I'm just— I'm grasping at straws because summer with no baseball, what the fuck are we going to do? We got to rerun. We got to rerun the World Cup.

Yeah.

What do we have?

Women's World Cup.

Women's World Cup.

Women's World Cup.

OK, OK. What else?

We're going to be all over the Women's World Cup.

We should win that one.

Do we just become WPMT or WNBA?

Mm-hmm.

I actually have already inquired.

Yeah.

Banana ball.

Oh, man, I need more banana ball.

Maybe we get into cricket in the United States.

No, no, thank you. It takes forever.

I think there's a new— there's a different kind. It's not like the multiple day one. I forget what it's called.

What are we going to do?

It's like red zone for cricket.

As a country, we need to figure this out. We can't do this.

Paddle?

No.

Fair.

Goddamn it.

Beach volleyball.

They may— they might need to do like— what about two Masters?

The College World Series we get will— will not— I know, because that's still during the NBA.

I know. I think we need to do like double—

they should make college baseball back because that would be kind of— yeah, to get into college baseball for—

for—

for once.

Oh man, Little League World Series.

Little League World Series.

Yeah, just like allow them to wear the professional teams' hats and uniforms.

Yeah, I don't know. We're in trouble. We got to— we got—

what it might— silver lining, Christian Yelich probably won't win the Home Run Derby.

True, true. But we just— I think, I think we're all— I don't know what we can do, but everyone's got to put their heads together and we got to figure something out because we can't do this. We can't do summer, no baseball. And listen, if baseball wants to start late, that's fine. If baseball wants to play like 130 games and they start after the NBA playoffs, great. That's, that's fine. But you can't do just— if we're sitting here one year from now exactly at this point and we're like, we have not watched a meaningful, like, major sporting event in like 2 months. Yeah, be brutal.

So yeah, the lockout is probably going to happen. Nothing's going to change. I think it's almost 100%. That there will be a lockout for at least a period of time.

Someone fix it. Jeff Passan, fix it, please.

Well, maybe they just fix it. Jeff complained in April and it's back by July. Then it will feel even better.

Right, right. That's what I'm saying. I can, I can handle that. I can handle that. Maybe they just go dingers-only schedule. What would we do? That would be weird if we did dingers-only to start the season.

We would draft so many guys that would suck.

Yeah.

How about this? How about Okay, the players have their idea for what they want the next CBA to look like. The owners have their idea for what they want the next CBA to look like. Why don't we flip a coin?

I love that.

Just flip a coin and we can sell tickets and livestream the coin flip.

I love that.

And then take all that money and then put that towards the next round of contracts. So you get a little bonus on top and then heads owners win, tails players win.

What about this?

The coin. And you have to abide by the coin.

Yeah. What about— and this might end up being illegal. I don't really understand how it would work, but what if the MLBPA— I assume there's like dues that they have to pay. What if they do like, you know, when you live in a condo building and they, and they have an assessment and it's like, hey, we got a new roof, like everyone's got to pay $10 grand. What if the MLBPA does an assessment? Every MLB player has to pay $10 grand. They take that money and they bet on the Dodgers to win the World Series, and then they redistribute that and be like, boys, let's just play.

I like that.

Right.

I like that a lot.

Yeah. Or again, I don't know if that's— it might, might be a little funny business there, but a little, little golden parachute.

Or you take all that money and you give it to Shohei and then parlay and then have Shohei put something on a Czechoslovakian ping pong match.

Mm-hmm.

And then like probably double, if not triple.

Yep.

What you invested. Crisis averted.

I like that. We got a lot of ideas. Let us know. Let us know, MLB. Rob, fix this out, man.

Fraud.

Please, please, please save us, Jeff Passan.

So yeah, I have no idea how this— the, the whole trade deadline this year, nobody really knows what's going to happen with that because of the lockout that's coming. And if you have a pending free agent or a guy that you're trying to work out a deal with, I guess you would rather do it now. And because no matter what happens with the next CBA, it's going to be more expensive for the owners to pay the players. Like, that price is always going to go up a little bit. So if you're a smart owner, you would want to extend your guys right now as opposed to waiting till after the CBA. Yeah, just something to think about.

Something to think about. Okay, let's, let's do Hot Seat, Cool Throne, and then we'll do our Mount Rushmore. And then we got 3 awesome interviews talking football before we get to that. DraftKings this summer, whatever you're watching— baseball, golf, soccer, racing— DraftKings has you covered for every single moment of it. The DraftKings Sports app is now available in all 50 states, bringing the game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. From Florida to Texas to California, you're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Follow every buzzer beater, every walk-off, every photo finish. Sweat the moments that matter in real time with a seamless experience built for the biggest season of the year. No matter where you're watching, you're always connected in the game with one app. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend $5 to get $150 in rewards within 14 days. Includes all markets. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Bet with DK Sportsbook. Gambling problem?

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Zach going to Lollapalooza.

Zach, you're going to Lollapalooza with TicPic?

Jake, when I go to Lollapalooza, uh, courtesy of TicPic. TicPic, greatest app in the world.

Who are you looking forward to seeing?

What jersey are you wearing?

Uh, not sure what jersey yet. That's probably a game time decision.

You got to wear a basketball jersey.

Probably black shirt.

Oh, what?

Back order right now, unfortunately. A tough spot to be in.

Oh, so the 90 you have are not good enough?

I moved, so I had to I had to cut down.

You threw some out.

I washed it.

That's a great move for moving.

I assume you threw all of them out.

You threw out all your black shirts.

I had to move.

Oh, but that's a good point.

I was already at the point.

Did you actually throw them all out?

That was kind of sexy.

Yeah. Yeah. Every, every single one.

I probably have like 4 or 5.

I hear he was moving. Okay. You got everything.

My box count was like at the threshold of the movers and I was like, I got to eliminate some stuff here.

This is probably a good time to just Did you think about wearing all the shirts at once? We could walk down the street.

I have to roll.

And then how many do you think you can put on at one time?

They'd have to be different sizes if we're going to stack them.

You paid by the box?

I paid roughly by the box. Yeah.

What do you mean your boxes were out? Like, that sounds like you didn't ask for another box.

No way you paid by the box.

There's no way.

They made me estimate furniture and boxes over the phone, and then I gave them $25, and then I was at that.

That sounds like an estimate, though.

But they bring other box. You can ask for more boxes. First time mover, you know.

Yeah.

Also, I will say you guys are right. Movers might be the greatest thing on this planet.

Yeah.

Yeah. No shit. What do you got, Memes?

Why?

You threw out all your shirts?

It's crazy.

I moved, you know.

What's the matter?

I always said the perfect time you redo the box.

No, but you—

they're all the same shirt.

But you—

but I know what Hank's saying.

I don't know what Zach's saying.

No, I don't know what Hank's saying.

He couldn't bring— he was moving clothes.

He can't— he doesn't have room for his clothes.

But he threw out shirts to buy the same shirt and he has a new apartment fresh because he was moving.

Fresh boxes, the socks and the shirts.

But you don't have shirts.

I got shirts, but like, you're not wearing a black shirt right now. I— yeah, I got backorder. That's where we start. That's how it started.

So you're screwed.

I got an email or a DM back today, like, subscribe to our email list, we'll let you know.

Can you go back to your old apartment and go through the—

maybe like another— maybe another, like, company sells black shirts.

No other black shirts.

There's tons of companies, but there's only one that feels right, you know?

Right.

And you moved.

And did move.

What else you throw out?

Your toothbrush?

Uh, well, yeah, that's a lot of dramas.

A lot of like—

wait, Max, what?

If you're, if you're moving, you can get a new toothbrush immediately.

What is going on right now? I got moving, throwing everything out.

I don't think you guys are understanding what kind of is— what moving is. It's you, you take your stuff that you have and then you move it.

You move to a different— you move it. You don't throw it out. You move it.

Toothbrush comes with me.

You just go. There's CVS right by your— right by your spot. You can just get it.

You got Max and Max and Zach treat moving like they robbed a bank and they're starting a new life in a different town.

Might as well throw it out.

Yeah.

Witness protection because you move down the block.

A toothbrush, electric, that comes with.

Yeah. Not for Max. He throws out his toothbrush.

I'm a manual guy.

Now, I will say that when you do move, it's a good opportunity to throw out clothes that you don't wear.

Well, yeah. Yeah. Like junk. Yeah, but you wear those shirts now. You don't have any memes. Go ahead. How did you throw out the '95 shirts? Oh, good question.

I just put them in a big pile and put them in trash bags.

So you could have just picked up that trash bag and brought it to your house.

They were going to ding me. The movers were going to be like this.

No, they wouldn't have.

You guys also live walking distance away.

You could have walked the trash bags yourself.

It was about the boxes, though. It would have been another box.

Yes, these are all valid points.

You have pictures of the trash bags with all the shirts.

I mean, I guess I probably have one of all the shirts.

Why did you take a picture of them?

Because I was like, should I— could I carry these?

And then, yes, he wanted to look at it.

I usually run stuff like that by my brother. Like, what do you think?

And what do you say?

He's like, no, just, just ditch them.

Did you—

I did.

Can you email that picture to Max and then Max pull it up? I'd like to see.

There's so many t-shirts.

I feel like your brother might just fucking just covering his entire kitchen floor. Put the email— send it to Max.

DM it to me.

DM it to him.

It was a great time to do it. Fresh start, you know?

I do, I do.

Obviously not because they're backordered.

Stop saying fresh start.

He still has some.

He's gonna buy the same shirt, but he can't.

Yeah, but fresh shirts are different than shirts you've had forever.

But I never saw that coming. I've never seen a backorder a day in my life.

You should have probably checked.

I didn't think that could happen.

I—

okay, I'm starting to think maybe, maybe we can explore a different black shirt.

No. Sometimes you like what you like.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've run through many ones.

It's just a thought. It's just a thought.

No, PFT, that's actually— that's actually the craziest thing.

It's a thought because earlier I was like, no, that's crazy. But now I'm thinking, you understand, because it might be backordered for months.

No, that can't be true. Zach's black shirts are— they're like— they're like very black.

They're super popular shirt. There's no way they stand backorder too long.

They are very black. There's none more black.

What happens if they are, though?

Well, the weird thing is they'll still give you the 3v3 split pack. Like, you can get 3 white ones and 3 black ones. And I'm like, wait, can I just go?

Are you going to start wasting money by buying?

No, no. That's why I drew the line.

Okay.

That's wasteful. Yeah. That'd be like buying Neapolitan ice cream when you just want chocolate, right?

That'd be like buying a t-shirt once and then throwing it out.

That'd be like buying— that'd be like buying—

you like Allen Iverson? He used to do that too.

How many did you have?

And he's doing fine.

Lost a lot of money.

He's doing great.

Okay, wait, so send the picture.

Who are you looking forward to seeing at Lollapalooza?

I'm looking for, uh, Julian Wolf, great artist. Uh, Louis Vuitton, probably great artist. Thank you to TickPick. Yeah, thanks, TickPick.

All right. So in the jersey, you got to get a jersey.

I got a couple of options.

I got a Jordan if you want to wear it.

It'll fit.

We might be different.

Yeah, I was thinking that's a big jersey.

You're in better shape than me. Might not fit.

Not, not necessarily true, but it's a big jersey.

You're so close.

I think it's more that his shape is different than yours.

We have— yeah, we have way different builds.

Yeah.

You're like more traditional build. I got a wonky one.

I'm trying. I'm trying.

I think you got traditional builds.

No, Zach, you, you're, you're, you and I have actually similar builds, like a little bit of the refrigerator on toothpicks kind of deal.

Yeah, the skinny legs and then everything goes to the stomach.

And we're two SpongeBob guys built like Rex Ryan, right? Exactly. Yeah, we're built like SpongeBob.

Okay.

Hey, oh, he's about to send the picture.

Well, he, I and with him multitasking is hard. So you were talking to him, so he wasn't able to send it to me. And now you're not talking to him. And I was still kind of— oh, here it is. Here it is.

Still struggling.

Nope. He's about to click send.

Why is Tiger Woods trending, Max?

Probably some good, some really good.

I don't know.

Why don't you have the picture up?

You're at—

you're asking me something else.

Okay, here it is. And that's a lot of— that's a lot of t-shirts.

That's a fuck ton of—

you could have taken like 5 of them.

Yeah, I took 5 or 6.

Okay.

Yeah. Felt like a great time to restart.

Do you have a washer and dryer in your new apartment?

Yes. Oh, we're good.

Oh, then you're fine.

Yeah, we're in a good spot.

How do you like the new place?

Everything's going well.

Have you figured out— are you doing bedroom, bedroom?

I was going to do it. And then multiple women in my life are like, hey, if you ever want to just have any kind of future of interpersonal relationships, you can't do it.

So, you know, so you're doing bedroom, bedrooms.

Yeah. So I'm doing bedroom, bedroom, not, not living room, bedroom. I will say my only, the only question I asked on the tour was, do the outlets in the floor work? Because I'm a big desk guy. She's like, of course they work. Only thing doesn't work is the outlets in the floor. I may commit arson.

You got, you got bamboozled.

It was the only question.

Yeah.

2-minute tour.

All you needed.

It looks like Tiger is trending because Rory and Scottie are about to catch him for all-time earnings.

Ah.

Yeah, before the end of the year. That's kind of crazy.

That is crazy. All right, hot seat, cool to rock.

Uh, my hot seat are the Jets.

Why? What happened?

Plaxico Burress, uh, was on the Joint Venture Show and he had a quote about playing for the Jets and prison. He said they're both kind of similar because when I walked into prison on my first day, I was like, damn, man, you a fucking loser. And I had the same damn feeling every day I walked through the door with the Jets.

Oh my God, that is brutal.

That is pretty tough. It's also a very funny quote. Memes. It's mean.

I wouldn't say it's the funniest quote. It's very funny.

It's a pretty funny quote.

Objectively speaking, it's like, damn, you're a loser. I mean, he is a loser. He shot himself in the leg, went to prison and played for the Jets.

Jets were coming off two AFC Championship appearances. So they weren't that big of a loser. Yeah. So why did you say that?

He's probably feeling like a loser.

How bad could it have been? He also played in, you know, he was in New York. It was same stadium.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Good point.

He should be thankful.

He's not.

No, it sounds like he's actually— he hates the Jets.

100% not thankful at all.

Did you like him before that?

Is rooting for the Jets like being in prison? Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

What kind of question is that?

Yeah.

Well, you knew, you know what kind of question is the question that you're going to give the answer Hank's going to love. And he had a smile.

Well, as I'm saying, you can relate to him.

Yeah.

You played into his hands there, Memes. You gave him what he wanted. It's like Brad Stevens with the Sixers.

Yeah.

Oh, got him, Memes.

Brad Stevens being my jam is like— it's like heaven on earth waking up every day.

Right now you think every day. Yeah, every day. Paul George, you thank God for Paul George.

Yep.

Thank God.

Wow.

He's saying God for Hugo.

Trust the process.

I'll tell you that much.

Also the Bills, AFC East, to continue with the AFC East, they put out their new alternate jerseys, whatever. They're, they're horrible.

Yeah.

They don't even look like NFL. They don't, they don't look like an NFL team's jerseys.

Yeah.

I don't know what they're looking at here. I hate the helmets. You can get away with everything with the gray jerseys. And there've been a couple of teams like the Lions, even though it's a shitty gray jersey. I don't like the bone white. That the Rams have like kind of a grayish one that they wear too.

I mean, no one—

if you saw that helmet, if you saw that from the side, no one is thinking that's the Bills.

No, it looks like Mac Lyons.

It's a Mac jersey.

Yeah.

The—

they did our guy Dion Dawkins dirty too.

Dirty.

Oh, man. That one picture where it looks like he just dropped heat and like, I was saying on Wigga Bar, so it looks like he's standing outside the bathroom just saying to people, hey, you're going to want to give that a minute. It to everyone.

Let me see this picture of him.

It's bad.

He's—

it's like the industrial picture. He's— yeah, there it is.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Oh, you're not going to want to go in there. That's what he's saying.

But, but almost in a way that he's proud of it.

Yeah, right.

Yeah. No, this is the John Travolta where real man just went in there where he's shrugging his shoulders. That is a man that's proud of the work that he's left behind.

I like that they release these because they're so bad. It maybe scares some teams away to be like, hey, You shouldn't— like, all alternate jerseys aren't great. We've gotten to a point in all sports where it's like, if it's an alternate jersey, people are going to love it. Something different. No, no, no. Bills have great jerseys. I think Titus said it perfectly. The Bills somehow fucked up red, white, and blue. Those are their colors. And they messed that up.

What they should have done is they should have gone Zubaz. They should have gone Zubaz pants, dude. And the Buffalo Bill, instead of being red, Zubaz Buffalo Bill.

Zubaz pants and then like a Bills t-shirt jersey with a little bit of puke on it.

Yeah, that'd be good too.

That would be sick.

That'd be sick. And my cool throw is love. Justin Herbert, Madison Beer.

Yeah.

Engaged.

Mm-hmm.

So, hey, do you hear this one? Do you hear about this one? That's the only ring that Justin Herbert's going to get.

Mm.

Oh, that's pretty good.

Yeah, it's pretty good, right?

That's really, really good.

Embrace the bait. Should Justin Herbert take her last name?

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, no, that's not.

No, not a hot.

No, that's not funny. That's, that's number one jersey seller.

Justin Beer would be a great name.

Unbelievable. 100%.

Well, I don't think about it. There's only one quarterback that loves Madison Beer more than Justin Herbert. And that's Tony.

What if you went hyphenated?

Yes.

Yeah.

Herbert Beer.

I think Beerbert.

Her Beer.

Her Beer. But that's, we were talking, joking about on the air. Her Beer is just. This is like a martini.

So I'm happy for him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Attractive couple.

Yeah.

And Jokic won another horse race.

Yeah.

Okay.

That celebration's going. He acted like, I don't know what, what the level of horse race was, but it might as well have been, you know, the Triple Crown. Yeah. He just gets so excited. It's so funny.

I fucking love Jokic. He's the absolute man. He's like one of the only guys out there who's like, when he's, when he would, if he says like, I don't listen to the outside noise, 99.9% of the people are just bullshit bullshitting you. He is someone I believe.

He's locked in on the Ponies. That's all he cares about.

Okay, your hot seat, cool throne, PFT.

My, well, Hank took like 3 of my hot seats. Yeah, he just kept going.

I'm more.

He just gobbled them up.

2 of each. I'm going to say my hot seat is the Arizona Cardinals. Oh, I mean, we talked about— we just gassed them up for re-signing the quarterback of the future, Jacoby Brissett. And then I just saw the stat that came out. They have the lowest expected win total since 1995 in the expansion.

Oh, well, I thought you were going to say it for a different reason because I was shocked when I saw Nathaniel Hackett is there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was like, when I saw him at the podium, I was like, holy shit.

Yeah, Nathaniel Hackett's there for sure.

Man, they had 14 games that we didn't bash them because we had him on the show.

Yep. He was funny. Basically, it was like he liked Blake Bortles. And so we were like, okay, fair enough. We won't say anything bad about your coaching.

We should send that to future guests like who don't know about Pardon My Take. It's like, hey, you come on. Like, we didn't say shit about Nathaniel Hackett for well into like him being an absolute moron head coach.

Yeah.

They—

their win total is 3.5. This year. Yeah, they had the hardest schedule, it looks like, by far.

Playing in the NFC West would do that.

Did not realize that it was, it was the hardest schedule in the entire league. And yeah, 3.5 win total.

Um, that's why Jacoby Brissett was right to, yeah, to hold out. He's like, I know what you guys want me to do.

And he's like, this year's gonna suck.

You want me to move the ball every now and then to a point where you can say you weren't tanking on purpose.

Yeah.

And he is the perfect guy for that. They actually should probably be paying him like $50 $100 million.

It's basically hush money.

He's perfect for the job. If you're looking to win a Super Bowl, signed, you know, Patrick Mahomes. If you were looking to get the number one pick but pretend like you were trying, Jacoby Brissett is the number one guy for that.

Who would that be in basketball? I think it's Jordan Poole.

No, because he's pretty— it's pretty much you're trying to— James Harden.

James Harden. Well, no, but you'll be too good if you have James Harden.

No, but you'll never Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Like, if you're tanking. Yeah. Yeah.

If you're tanking, you're totally tanking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It might be Jordan Poole.

Then my cool throw is going to be making money. My cool throw is going to be the almighty dollar because college football teams are now selling jersey patches.

Yeah.

We've got a couple that came out. First one, Notre Dame is putting SoFi on their jerseys and Ohio State has Chase Bank patches on their jerseys.

Okay.

It's just going to keep happening. Happening. This is— I mean, honestly, I'm shocked that it took American sports so long to sell the jersey patches. Yeah, that's something that has been going on overseas. Now granted, they don't have advertisements like all over the stadiums over in Europe like they do in America, but the one thing that they did beat us to the market like 30 years was the jersey patches and sponsorship rights on those. So I'm looking forward— I'm hoping that Georgia can get GEICO. That would be very funny. And outside of that, Miami Coke would be good too.

Yeah.

If Coke stepped up for that. Yeah. But yeah, so it's, it's SoFi for Notre Dame. It's Chase for Ohio State. And I think that we're just going to keep hearing— there's going to be like a slow trickle that comes out as they start to make money off these. But it will be like every single college football team within the span of the next couple of years.

Yeah.

Okay. My hot seat is, uh, LIV. Hank, why didn't you mention that?

What happened? I don't know.

They canceled Detroit, the last tournament of the year.

Saw that.

The one that you said that we were going to play.

I said it wasn't canceled yet and it is officially now.

Well, okay, so now we're at—

yeah, is it canceled or postponed?

I think it's canceled. I think, I think, I think LIV might be done.

What?

Why?

I, I, I, I mean, I think they were trying hard to find some new sponsors that looks like it's going a little harder than they expected. Maybe it's just— maybe they just need a little more time to get a little more time in the room. You know, it takes a little while to sign a deal, get everyone on board.

Do you think they were maybe just— they were too ahead of their time? Like, you hear about businesses that just came around too soon. It's like if you had just waited a little bit longer, then that was the perfect time for it.

Yeah, that's, that's a possibility. But I don't.

It's over. It's over.

It's over.

So what do we do now? Because I don't want to stop talking about it.

I don't know how much more we're going to have left. I mean, I think they canceled this event and it's looking like the league cancellation will probably happen at some point before next season. We can talk about it then.

And then we can't lose Major League Baseball and LIV.

I know.

Oh, oh, LIV had just the perfect timing. Like they would have been— they would have been huge.

Hank.

What are we doing? I got it.

I don't know.

I don't know what's going on in these meetings. I'm not—

it's not— you got to get in those meetings.

You got to go.

You got to go.

If you want to go right now, if you want to fix LIV, call Hank Lockwood.

Get out of it. Get out here. Go find out.

Maybe they need jersey patches. Part of my take, jersey patches.

Not part of my take, jersey patches. We need someone to do analytics on like the length of the show once LIV is done. Part of my take is on average, like 5 minutes less.

It takes a dip for sure. Yeah. We've lost—

lost a huge piece of this show. What?

It's like when Coach O stepped away for a couple of years.

Can I ask something for you, Hank, to please do?

I—

a little project. What if— if Liv is done, fully done, could you maybe start a social media account that's like today and live history and we just can relive it. Maybe it's called reliving it.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, oh, today's— today Bryson shot a -4 for the Smashers.

I can do that.

Or like transaction. You buy the Yard Goats. Yeah.

Made range goats. Come on.

The range goats made a trade. Yeah.

I would like to have something to just keep living by.

It is sad. It is sad. Is there a Hall of Fame for LIV?

We should.

We should make one. Let's make the LIV Hall.

Let's make it right here. We'll absolutely host the LIV. All they got to do is send us pretty much all their memorabilia.

Yeah.

Who do you think is first ballot? Looking back over the story, it's got to be DJ of history, right?

DJ, I feel like was the first to go.

Maybe we'll put Ian Poulter's pants in.

Mm-hmm.

Phil.

Yeah.

He never won on live though. He was never— he never— he didn't— he didn't get it done.

Yeah.

He's old and horny. What are you going to— what do you want? That's a terrible combination to try to—

I think the person in the Hall of Fame, there's been some stats I've seen where like there's guys that because of their team winning, like they finished terribly in every event.

Mm-hmm.

But their team won and they got to split the team purse and like they made, you know, $20 million in 3 years without ever doing anything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the American— that's the Saudi dream.

So I think that— I think— I think that would be where the Hall of Fame starts is like who, who made the most from LIV, who's the greatest team in the history of LIV. It's got to be the Four Aces.

Yeah. How many titles?

I think they won the first year. They definitely won some team events. Yeah, it's 4 Aces. I mean, they're the cornerstone of LIV. When you think of LIV, you think 4 Aces.

Definitely.

Okay.

Yeah, sure. That's what I think of.

Okay. My cool throne is going to be love because Justin Herbert. Hot couple. Very hot couple. Zach?

My hot seat this week is going to be Patriots fans because I'm seeing some stuff on Twitter that AJ Brown might just not have it.

What?

Is that being a bad sport?

I have a question.

PFT.

Oh yeah, PFT comments are part of my take. The memes put you up for this.

What's up?

Did memes put you up for this? Did memes send you your hot seat?

Shout out to memes.

What, what are we talking about here?

I was hearing reports AJ Brown maybe wasn't making separation off the line. Could be a bad report.

Is that true, memes?

We're just seeing videos at training camp.

There's, there's a lot of hot seat cool throws that were taken before.

Yeah, I did see AJ. I saw one clip of AJ Brown not getting the ball.

Is it a concern?

It's pretty crazy.

No, his job is to get the ball.

That's a good point by Zach.

He's a, he's a new player on a new team, new system. This is literally what training camp is for.

I think the system is still for him, catch the ball, get open. Yeah.

He's also going up against Christian Gonzalez. It's, it's, it's good. That's like, that's good.

That's a good spin zone. Iron sharpens iron.

Good thing there's no videos of DeVonta Smith going up against Christian Gonzalez. In the past week.

Oh, is there?

Is there?

I don't— there— why would there be? It's not like they had a joint practice.

Wait, they already had a joint practice?

Oh wait, so yeah.

Oh geez, he broke him down.

Oh no, thank God we didn't draft that guy. Oh no, so happy we got Emmanuel Forbes.

I mean, yeah, if you have to cover for that long, that happens to everyone.

Mhm.

That wasn't that long. Wait, so AJ Brown is practicing with the Eagles right now? That's good.

That's correct. There hasn't been really much that came out of it, but—

Or have there been like—

July 23rd. What's today's date?

July 28th.

Oh, they started last week?

Have there been like handshakes? Have we seen AJ going up to Jalen Hurts?

That's got to be from last year.

Yeah, we— I feel like teams just reported themselves. There's no way that they do They do practice against each other. Maybe I'm wrong.

People are talking about this clip.

Oh, you saw a clip get resurfaced.

I know. I don't know.

Oh, no. I'm pretty— I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that most teams, when they start practice, they, they just practice. You do joint after a couple of weeks.

Yeah, you're probably right.

But I could be wrong.

It could be.

It could be a clip. He is definitely right.

Yeah, 100%. I don't know, Max.

Okay, Zach, that clip still exists.

The clip does exist.

Clip does stand. Absolutely leaves him off the line. My cool thing this week is gonna be guys are into insects because gentlemen, we got a new Spider-Man coming out. Oh, Peter Parker's back.

Let's go.

Who's playing him?

What is his— Tom Holland, right? The handsome guy with the Oh, never mind.

The handsome guy. The what?

I was going to say, uh, significant other, but that felt rude.

Why?

Who's this? Zendaya, you know, Zendaya.

Zendaya.

Oh, you, you about to get like J.J. Watt's wife?

I was about to get horny and it was an accident. Yeah, that was going to be— that was be rude of me. I shouldn't have said that.

Okay.

I like disavow anything I just said in the last 30 seconds. She's famous in her own accord, in her own right, you know what I mean? Yeah, she's not just Tom Holland's girlfriend, she's Zendaya. That's on me.

Are you Tom Holland guy?

No, but I'll be honest with you. Not huge on Tom Holland. Big on Spider-Man, though.

Yeah. Who is your favorite Spider-Man?

Spider-Man would probably have to be— favorite Spider-Man of all time is Spider-Man 2. So the guy who plays Spider-Man in Spider-Man 2, Tobey.

Tobey.

Tobey. I think he might do it for me. That scene where Tobey's holding back the train. You can't beat that.

Eagles and Patriots will have joint practice on August 19th and August 20th.

Oh, you're just early.

When is that?

I can't wait to see the matchup between DeVonta Smith and Christian Gonzalez. Yeah, I'm going to be locked in on how that goes.

100%.

August 19th, August 20th.

Okay. Because you know that we would have gotten some quotes from AJ by now.

Yeah. No, that was—

that was happening.

Yeah.

Did Vrabel have another puppy today?

Didn't see one.

He's going to have a baby in his arms next. He's going to go up there with like a Salvation Army or like a Red Cross bucket the next time, just collecting donations.

Okay, good hot seat, cool thrones, everyone. Um, let's get to our Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore is brought to you by our friends at Reese's. There's something for every— everyone when it comes to Reese's. And guess what? The Mount Rushmore of candies is Reese's. The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, the absolute GOAT in all candies. If we did a candy, uh, draft right now, Reese's would go 1-1. And then guess what? Reese's Sticks would go 1-2. And then Reese's Animal Crackers would go 1-3. It would just be down the line Reese's because it's that good. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with marshmallow, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup with Oreo, all of it. Reese's does the best in the business. They're like the Carolina Hurricanes. They're like the Spanish national team. They're like the New York Knicks. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Go get Reese's wherever you shop. Reese's, we love you. So go get a Reese's. OK, Mount Rushmore of things you hated as a kid but love as an adult. We have an updated leaderboard after PFT. That, that, that sequence of events was quite something on Monday's show when you, when you, when you mocked, you mocked.

Yeah, I did.

Hank and Zach. And then I think you got 8%.

Yeah, it was an all-time low, I think. Really bad performance. But you know what? It's always darkest before the dawn.

Bounce back.

And one thing I know from this show, you take, you take your L's on the show. And once you take a heavy L, that's when you know you're about to take a massive W. Yeah, you're about to come back. You're about to come back. Although I have, I've noticed a lot of people being like, because that one, and admittedly, historically bad performance.

Serial was just derailed.

It was bad. It was bad. What can I say? Really bad job on my part. I've noticed a lot of people that because of that performance, they assume I must be in last place. I'm not.

You're not.

I'm in second place.

Yeah.

Rushmore season.

You're not. You're actually 2 points up from last place. So nowhere near last place.

Nowhere near. Not even close.

Not even close to close to last place. 7.6. That's actually impressive.

It's pretty bad seeing mashed potatoes and gelato and applesauce. Now, I will say, like, gelato is a great— I have no regrets about eating gelato ever.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, you're going to shoot down cereal now.

Analytic cereal wasn't popping for you.

Analytically, I won.

Analytically, you did win.

Yes. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay. Mount Rushmore of things you hated as a kid but love as an adult. Who's going first?

So PFT, then us, then Hank and Zach.

I thought we were third.

Yeah, I fucked that up.

Way to go, memes. Way to go.

There's a clear 1-1 in this draft. And I'm going to take it. It is going to sleep.

Mm-hmm.

Going to sleep. Hated it as a kid. Bedtime was the absolute worst. Now as an adult, I love being able to take a nap. I love being able to just relax.

And wait, is that all going to sleep?

Yeah, going to bed.

Going to bed.

Yeah, going to sleep.

Going to bed.

Going to sleep is my pick.

Okay.

Because when you're a kid, you're, you're worried about what you're going to miss. And as you're going as an adult, it's like, I can't wait to go to sleep.

So going to bed is your pick?

Going to sleep. Going to sleep. Going to sleep.

Is that all? Going to sleep. Going to sleep is the pick at nighttime. If you're going to take naps, I mean, I think naps are totally different than going to bed.

We haven't said whether what we're going to do, but I'm just asking.

My pick is going to sleep.

OK, yeah.

At nighttime, you take that as you wish.

OK.

It's all sleeps.

What should we take?

I don't know.

I would take naps.

Now we can't take naps.

Yeah, we can. We can definitely take that.

That's going to sleep. I mean, what do you do? Take a nap?

Well, you said you don't want to take a— you want to go to sleep so you're not missing stuff. But that's— yeah, right.

Yeah, that's right. You can miss stuff by taking a nap.

Naps and going to bed are totally different.

What happens when you go to sleep and nap?

Yeah, sleeping and nap are not the same thing.

What do you do when you take a nap?

Nap?

Yeah, you nap, you close your eyes first, and then what happens? You close your eyes.

There's two— there's, there's two— they're very different things.

Yeah, I don't know why this is a contract going to sleep. It's not a contract.

You know, but it's— but they are different things. Naps and sleeping are different things.

Sometimes you can nap, you don't even fall asleep.

Yeah.

All right.

If you guys want to do naps, I have going to sleep as my My pick.

Okay. But that— naps are different than going to bed. We all agree, right?

Yeah.

I said that's why I said going to sleep.

Right. But not going—

not my pick is not going to bed. My pick is going to sleep. Yeah. Okay.

What do you guys want to take?

Kind of want to take 3.

Now we get it later. We can get it later. We get it later. We should take it later. Yeah. Do we want to phrase it that way or? Yeah. Yeah. We hated it. 8 looks good. What, Hank? What? What? What? Hey, say something. I like usually it's like that you have a—

I know you're early in the early. I know.

But he had your pick. PFT is like playing semantics of like naps and sleep.

I'm not even—

you can take naps. I said My pick is going to sleep.

All right, you want to do that? Memes, say it. I like that.

Taste of alcohol.

Taste of alcohol.

Okay.

Not good. I mean, very bad as a kid.

I mean, when you're 15, like teenage years. No.

What?

The first time you have alcohol, it's bad. I would say, I would say maybe the second or third time you start to—

we're talking about like kids.

I can see how it's pointy.

I don't, I don't I don't promote underage drinking.

I'm not talking about teenagers. I'm talking about kids.

We don't promote underage drinking. No, we don't.

I'm not promoting.

I'm just saying.

No.

All right.

We're promoting.

We're going to go with hanging out with your parents.

Okay. Yeah.

When you were a kid, it felt like you were in trouble. And then obviously, you know, you turn into an adult, you're probably not living near them. We actually get to spend time with them.

Look forward to it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's a sweet pick.

What do you think about 3?

What about—

you think we do 2?

Yeah, I think 3.

I think 2.

Whatever you want. I think—

I mean, you're early in the draft, you should already have your one. You should already have your pick.

Go 3.

We're going to go with Alone Time.

Okay, okay, we had it.

Yeah, we had it as well.

Yeah, we had it.

Yeah. I like 8 a lot now. No, no. Okay, well then what do you— what do you want to do?

10.

We just went with 1, though. But that's the same thing.

It's complete. What do you mean?

It's all right. All right. All right.

What do you think, Memes?

Memes, chime in here.

Memes, 8 is— you got to explain 8.

Oh, no, I don't think you have to explain 8.

I don't think you have to explain 8 at all.

Okay, I think go for it.

And way later. Yeah, we have so many picks. We're gonna talk this through. Let's talk this through. Go 8, go 8. It's not— it's no longer early in the draft, so we don't need— but we can also go 6.

6 is good.

6 is good.

I think 4.

Yep, 4.

14 is what is another one I was thinking.

Stop saying numbers.

I know, I used to be so mad at you guys for doing this.

We have too many. We might have too many picks.

Let's go 6. Let's go 6.

Okay. And do we say that word or we say the word that got you in trouble?

I'm not saying you.

You're saying, okay, girls.

Okay.

When you're a kid, when you're a kid, we're not— we're not talking about teenagers. When you're a kid.

Yeah.

Girls are like, ew.

And now as an adult, you love them. You love girls.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, exactly.

Max actually picked that.

Now that you're grown up, you love girls. Mm-hmm.

Chicks.

Uh-huh. Is it girls or is it chicks?

It could be chicks or women.

Is it girls?

Women.

So when you were a kid, you hated women?

Yeah.

You know, you know exactly what we're saying. Girls.

What do you want on the graphic?

Yeah.

Max, can you help us, please?

You're on an island on this one.

Don't say island for girls.

The opposite sex. I need help, Max. You're the one who—

I needed help last year.

We weren't on the same team.

Yeah, I am not participating in this conversation.

Get in the fight, dude. Chicks, chicks, chicks.

So the answer is chicks.

Chicks, chicks.

Okay, Max. Max looks like he doesn't want that.

No, that is what we wrote down.

You guys scarred Max with the G word. What's the G word?

Girls.

Oh, that was the P word. Like, Big Cat said girls and he cringed.

Yeah.

All right. So chicks, we'll go with chicks.

Chicks.

Okay. So I got two back to back. I'm going to go coffee. As a kid, way too bitter. You don't understand why adults drink it. And then you become an adult and you're like, I get it.

It's good. Good, good one.

I get it. For most people, I think you, you get the— you enjoy the effects of it first. And then you learn to like the taste to go along with the effects. And then sooner or later you're addicted to it. My next pick.

Fuck it. Yeah, fuck it.

Fuck it.

Getting spanked.

OK, that's a very specific one.

Spankings as a kid.

Hate them.

As an adult, you pay good money for it. OK, you can pay really good money. Okay. Get spanked for a while.

See what you love. Getting spanked.

Well, I— yeah. Well, you know, you love getting spanked. Not me necessarily.

You love getting— you love getting spanked. You're saying you love getting spanked. We're picking our Mount Rushmore things.

Yeah. Spankies. Yeah.

Spankies.

Love getting spanked. I think it's going to— I think that's— I think that's going to be a good pick.

It's on our list.

Okay. Oh, man. All right. What do you— Max, you're— you're down. You're doom and gloom right now.

Let's—

let's pick this up.

Yeah.

So, so pick it up.

I am. I'm going. I'm going to pick it up right here. Go with 8. Go with it.

Okay.

I think it's a good pick. Being a kid. When you're a kid, you hate when people treat you like a kid. When you're an adult, you're like, fuck, I wish I was a kid again. You lose your youth. Youth is wasted on the youth. Is that what it is?

Yeah.

I think that's the saying. Being a kid, yeah, you look back, you're like, man, that was awesome. You had no worries, you had nothing. But when you're a kid, you're just like, I want to grow up, I want to grow up, I want to be a big boy, I want to grow up.

Sucks, right?

We are gonna go with cutting the grass.

Mm, yeah, good pick.

I had that.

It was a chore when you were a kid. As an adult, it's a very peaceful experience. Experience. Understand completely why, you know. Dads love it. They get obsessed with it. Something to do and feel good after. And it smells good.

It's almost like healthy competition. You go out, you go against the neighbor. Yeah, I'll cut it earlier next day. Yeah.

Yep, yep.

Then, uh, 4th pick, we're gonna take naps.

Nice, good pick, good pick, good pick. We were gonna take it. Naps. I mean, it's, it's a great pick. Nap time sucked as a kid. It's awesome as an adult.

Okay, guys, I like 14.

14 is good. What about 4? 4 or 14?

I like 4.

So similar. So similar. Okay.

All right. All right.

All right.

Showers. I hated showers as a kid.

Hated it.

Taking a hot shower is the best as an adult.

Mm-hmm.

Alone time, showers.

I—

my kids fucking hate shower time.

I never disliked showers.

I guarantee you, if you ask your parents as a kid— oh, yeah, real kid. Well, that's what we're doing.

Baths.

Yeah. I mean, that— it's— I mean, you wanted to say bath time. I mean, Max, the only one who still takes baths.

Baths are great.

He does.

Yeah.

Baths are the best.

Did you hate bathing as bathing?

We'll say bathing. So covers everything. Bathing, bathing, bathing. But I hated that as a kid. You definitely hated it as a kid.

I don't know. I feel like even baths.

I— you ask your parents, I guarantee you ask your—

like, ask your brother. Your brother has kids, doesn't he? Like, yeah, yeah.

No, I see that. No, I see that.

It's a war, but it's a— yeah, you get all the action figures in there.

No, it's a war.

Get your imagination going.

Still, what about the imagination?

It's probably like bubble bath. 90% of my week is like the negotiations and then active bathing with like trying to get the kids to do it. Okay. Last pick, PFT.

Mm-hmm. I'm going with watching golf on TV. It was the most boring sport to watch as a kid.

I don't even remember doing it as a kid.

Yeah, I never wanted to watch it. If it was on, not interested. And as an adult, really enjoy it.

Golf.

Golf was my 1-1 just playing. I hated playing golf when I was young.

Yeah, I thought it was so boring. Yeah.

And now it's like my favorite thing to do.

Yeah.

Okay, good. Mount Rushmore, a little contentious. Like it. Like, get rid of the Hanks Kumbaya mandate. What else we have?

Asparagus.

You love asparagus?

Vegetables in general.

I like it.

I like asparagus.

Yeah, it's all right.

You grill it. A little balsamic.

We did the two that we— we threw out vegetables in Reading, but we're like, we can't get behind that. Yeah, exactly. We just couldn't get behind it. I like— we're only going to do the things we love.

You can make asparagus good. It's become one of my favorite vegetables.

What do you think about a well-balanced meal?

Yeah. Yeah.

Because like when you're a kid, you just want to eat, you know, fast food and burgers or whatever.

Pizza. Well, I had— we had one of the picks in this. I don't know what you guys were— pizza crust. Pizza crust. Pizza crust. As a kid, it's like you did like crust on air, crust on peanut butter and jelly and stuff. Love crust.

I was stealing the pizza crust off the pies as a kid.

Really?

Yeah.

But how many leftover pizza crusts were there?

No, I'm going to the pie and just perimeter checking the whole thing. Like the next guy's going to a slice. No crust on the pie.

Oh, but like before it goes.

So you were eating.

Oh, you savage.

I was robbing it out the box.

Just.

Yeah.

But you know, that's the thing that kids don't eat. They eat the pizza, don't eat the crust.

Yeah.

Yes.

But Zach, you were very important for the ecosystem. Yeah, it was. I was like, yeah, a lot of people don't know.

I like the cross too.

That's all you have.

Similar to the parents one. Siblings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you get older and you're like, oh shit, that was— we did a lot of fighting.

Yeah, a lot of fighting. What about documentaries?

That's a good one.

Hated, hated watching them. They're boring as a kid.

Yeah. No, I like— well, we said scary movies.

Yeah, I don't remember.

Also not true.

National Geographic.

I also don't remember documentaries being around as prevalent when we were kids. Just don't feel like it happened a lot.

No, there were, there were lots of documentaries.

There's a lot more now, guy.

Yeah, there's just more movies now in general. Non-doc.

Some of the other things, thinking about my kid, brushing your teeth. I like to brush my teeth at the end of the night. My kids don't. Leaving early from shit. That's great as an adult.

That's a good one.

Sucks as a kid. Car rides. Love driving in the car. Hated it as a kid.

Hate one.

Spicy food.

Can't get behind it.

Yeah. You still hate it.

What about not being hungover? I guess. Never mind.

When you were a kid, you hated not being hungover.

Which means you were—

Yeah, you were like, no, it wasn't fun. You weren't having fun. I was thinking like teenager, but yeah.

Waking up in the morning without a hangover.

I'm not going to endorse underage drinking.

Yeah, there you go.

Go ahead.

Zach had tequila.

Tequila.

Mm-hmm.

Going to the bathroom. Like, I always have to tell my kids, like, go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom now. It's like, I like— I love taking a nice fat piss, sitting on the toilet for a while. Going bathroom is awesome.

I like— Hank kind of touched on it with mowing the lawn, but chores, just chores in general.

If you get—

yeah, I don't love it. I love chores.

But if you get a good household project that you're working on, that can be fun as an adult. Make a trip to the hardware store. That's fun. Actually, that could be its own thing. Is like hardware, going to the hardware store. Hated that as a kid. As an adult, it's kind of the best.

We also had wearing a coat. As a kid, you just never want to wear a coat. Never, ever wanted to wear a coat.

Getting a haircut.

Yeah, that's a good—

yeah, that's a good one.

Yeah. Although my kids like getting haircuts. You get the lollipop. So that's— they've really Pavlov dogged that.

Thing.

Anchovies.

I still don't like them.

Big Ed said your siblings.

Yeah, I said that.

Yeah.

I would already say that.

Yeah.

Honorable mention.

Yeah. I think that's everything. Oh, I had— this one would have been hard to explain, but the dark. When you were a kid, you were so scared of the dark. Now it's like, give me a room with blackout shades, like no light, and I fucking love it. You know, like a real, real dark bedroom is the best.

Zach had one which kind of counteracts our previous discussion to the show. You want to say it?

Say it.

I'm not sure which one we're talking about.

Folding clothes.

Oh yeah, folding clothes.

Mm.

Yeah, I didn't see a single folded black t-shirt.

Those were going to the trash.

Yeah, but you famously say that those were— don't fold your clothes, you just get new ones.

Those were folded before I fold it when you get through them to the center of the room to throw them away.

Yeah.

Yeah. But you often throw away your shirts just like sometimes you got to get rid of them.

Yeah.

Babysitters too. As adults, I love babysitters.

Night out.

When you were a kid, you're just like, oh, fuck. I said you had like a mean babysitter. What I said, people who think you're dumb. Yeah. Which we tried to talk that through. But why do you love that people think you're dumb now?

Less expectations.

True.

No, true.

Like, we're not going to have dumb guy do it. True. Not being able to spell Zach.

I love it.

What?

No, that's— you still just get destroyed for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's fair. Okay. Good Mount Rushmore. Let's, let's get to our interviews. We have Coach Luke Fickle, then Lincoln Riley, then Greg Schiano.

Before we get to Luke Fickle, is brought to you by our great friends over at EA Sports. From campus legend to NFL superstar, make your rise across the MVP Bundle. It includes the Deluxe Edition of both games, plus you get bundle-exclusive rewards. Dominate in Madden NFL 27, you get 4,600 Madden Points and one Ultimate Team EVO player item. Turn every touch into a highlight in EA Sports College Football 27, plus 4,600 college football points one upgradable Ultimate Team player item. Run the league one decision at a time. Get EA Sports Madden 27 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC, powered by the all-new Persona Engine. And EA Sports College Football 27 for PlayStation, Xbox Series, and PC. Step into the modern era of college football. Engineer your team. You got Dynasty Blueprint. Take on new positions with deeper customizations in Road to Glory and play as your favorite mascots in Mascot Matchup— Mashup. Make your rise with the MVP bundle. It's available now. Check it out. EA Sports. It's in the game. And now here's Luke Fickle.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is head coach of the University of Wisconsin, Luke Fickle. Coach, good to see you. Uh, Big Ten Media Week here in Chicago. Let's start with, uh, I saw the article. So there was an article yesterday that I actually think was, was great because it talked about the first 3 years, uh, coaching the Badgers and it not going great, but you doubling down and being like, hey, I'm not leaving this place. So I had a question right off the bat from that. There was a moment—

I did not expect that.

Yeah, well, listen, I, I know you have a relationship with you. I, I care a lot about the Badgers, but there was a moment in, in the article where it was basically like, hey, things are going bad and you were you were given a choice, like, hey, either you can, you can find a way out of this, like, you know, go get another job, or you can double down and, and, and turn this thing around. And you spent a night thinking about it, and I want to ask you about that night and like what went through your head of, hey, what are we going to do in the future? What's this going to look like?

Well, I think it was obviously really well done in a way that like, look, don't just ask you that. Like, if you ask me that question right now, it'd be really easy just to say, oh yeah, hell yeah, I'm not balanced. But when done things the right way, like give you some time, like go think about— don't give me your knee-jerk reaction. Let me know what it is that you're really thinking. And so that's what I did. I said, hey, I'm going home. I'm really going to think about this. Like, obviously in the moment, like, there's no way you're walking. I don't give a crap what the situation is. But when you really get to sit down and think about it, like, okay, where are we going? How are we going to do this? And so all those thoughts went through your head to say, okay, now look, I got a family. Like, let's let's be honest with ourselves about where this thing is headed. And, and more than anything, it was just like sitting there just right over and over inside your head. It's like, how— you know what this is gonna take, you know what this has to look like, and you know the enormous amount of, you know, stress and time and things.

And are you willing to really say you want to do that? And so that's basically what I did that whole night, is just to make sure deep down inside in my head and my heart that knowing there's a lot of people that are counting on you, but like you've got to be all in to say, look, whatever it takes, I got to be willing to do. My family's got to be willing to sacrifice as well. We all got to be in this together.

Yeah, because it's, it's, it's, I think it's a little rare where it's like you, you basically said to yourself, hey, I know that I'm going into a hot seat.

Yeah.

Like, I'm, I'm walking into a fourth year that the temperature's hot, the fan base is, is anxious to get back on track, and I'm up for the fight. And that, I, I mean, I give you credit for that. Like, a lot of guys probably, I've I personally would have gotten the fuck out of there.

Well, I might say it later today at some point in time. I don't know about it that way, but I'd like to at times. Um, I do think that today's world, today's day and age, like when, when, you know, when met with some of these situations and where college football is, not just players but even coaches, when there's other opportunities and other avenues, some would tell you, like if you had this guy in your ear that you'd call an agent, be like, hey, we would really have a better opportunity if we would just kind of take this little avenue of something else that we could start. And like, you don't know what's best for me. You don't know what's best for my family. You don't know what's best for this program. And, and to me, that's where sometimes you got to quit listening to everybody outside and just kind of dive into yourself to say, hey, what am I willing to do and what are we willing to do?

Yeah.

Are you a list guy? Just down to pros and cons?

How'd that go in my head? I don't know that I literally wrote down like I knew damn well what it was going to take. I knew damn well what you had to be committed to. To and to say, hey, I need to write down a pro and a con. Like, that's what probably some agent or maybe my parents or somebody would say, hey, I heard that you could kind of think about this and take a, you know, an escape route. Like, no, there's one way to do something and it's all in.

Yeah, I heard that you did something very, very smart to start things off here. I think you have fullbacks now, right?

Yeah, we do.

Fullback, guys. Wisconsin.

We took a job. I was personally— I'm just a fan of the fullbacks. Back position. Uh, we give out the Lowman Trophy every year to the nation's top fullback. I was disappointed that Wisconsin was not going to have a fullback. And so I know you've got a couple fullbacks on the roster now. Yes, for the first time, right? You've never had a fullback.

Yeah, I think when we first came in, there were some guys like you're trying to figure out how to list them, um, but legitimately listed as a fullback in there. Yeah, it's not just us, as you probably are too. It takes a rare breed that wants to be listed as a fullback. I don't know if you've gone around college ball, how many guys out there actually want to be listed as a fullback? But we actually have some that want to be listed as fullbacks.

And those are the kind of guys that you want playing fullback. Oh yeah. It's interesting. Like, you can have, you can have H-backs, you can have, you know, hybrid tight end fullbacks. But at the end of the day, they want to catch passes and they want to get, you know, eventually paid like a wide receiver.

Oh yeah.

If they ever make it to the NFL.

Score touchdowns.

Exactly. But, but you have a fullback that wants to be listed as a fullback. I think that's a great start for Wisconsin football. And that's something that, like, I don't know if you've weighed the pros and cons of that as you've been kind of like evolving as a head coach of what the tradition of Wisconsin football has always been versus the system that you like to run. Yeah. And what you're known for as a coach and what your strengths are. But what, what are some of the ways that you've kind of seen the differences between those two things and how you've tried to merge them?

Well, it still comes down to players. And so to me, there's, you know, putting things into buckets and what gives you the best opportunity to be successful. Like, you know, we heard for you know, first year or so, like, hey, when it's short yards, how can you not go under center? Well, if you don't go under center, it's hard to go under center. So I think that's a part of the evolution of saying, look, in particular in this league, just like you see in the next level in the NFL, like, if you can't do it all, meaning from a quarterback position, if you can't get under center, if you can't get in the gun, if you can't line up in an I formation, if you can't do that, then you, you aren't as hard to prepare for as well.

Yeah.

And so we all know, like, okay, so we have a fullback listed. How many reps or how many plays will we have in a game with a fullback in there. I can't tell you that for sure. As we get into camp and seeing how those guys perform and what, what are the strengths and weaknesses of, of what that position brings, um, we'll figure that out. But nonetheless, people are going to have to prepare for whether it's 2 to 10 to 12 plays a game of someone that's going to be lined up in some version of an I-backs and it's going to have some type of a lead block. I don't know if they even call it— I don't even know if in football you're allowed to call it an iso anymore. I think that might outlawed based on, you know, health and safety nowadays.

What are their names? What are your fullbacks' names?

Tyler Janzie is one here from—

that's a good outside name.

Yeah, converted linebacker, moved over.

Tyler Janzie.

Tyler Janzie.

Yeah, and a linebacker into a fullback. By the way, you, you say the 4th and 1 not under center, people were upset about that. I'm— yeah, those people, like, the, the— there are certain losses that I can stomach. Like, you know, there's, you know, and, and this is not saying that we can't get to this level, but like like Ohio State has put a lot of money into it. They're a really good team. When you lose to Ohio State, it's like, hey, that happens. When we get stuffed on 4th and 1 against USC going shotgun, that's what I'm like, I can't do this. So that's what we got to fix. We got to just pound the ball.

Hey, believe me, there's all different ways. And I think that was a part of the evolution of saying, look, if you want to be successful in this league in particular, you have to be able to do it all. And that's not to say that you can't— you have to be able to play in the gun, you have to be able to play under center your whole time, The hard part is if you don't have that versatility, which we didn't, that when in those critical moments, it's not that— look, I can honestly tell you right now as a former nose guard, like, there's nothing I like more than short yardage and to pound the ball and to hand the ball off. But if you're not comfortable with taking a snap on the most critical times of the game underneath center, which we almost gave up a game, you know, X amount of years ago at Cincinnati when the game was over and we were on our own goal line, we just We just, you know, got on 4th down, flipped the ball with 30 seconds to go. We took a snap from under center and fumbled the snap because we weren't used to taking snaps under the center.

Right. So it wasn't just that we didn't do it on short yards. It was that, you know what, we were behind a little bit, that we didn't have it in the system to make sure no matter what, our quarterbacks can do it all. And we have to make people prepare for everything. So we have evolved in that way. And it's not just short yardage, but I think there's a lot of things that, you know, we had to evolve through.

Yeah. So last year obviously didn't go great. But you— I talk about that moment where you sit down and you're like, hey, I'm not running from this, I'm going to fix this. After that, we do have two huge wins against Washington, Illinois. Was that part of it where it's like the guys could feel, hey, I'm not, I'm not running from this, let's fix this together? And especially the defense. The defense felt like it finally became a Luke Fickle defense.

So there's some things that happen in that, in those moments. And I'll even talk about a little bit in, you know, today and a lot of these situations, like people from outside the the program, I don't know that they really see some of the changes that happened. And to be honest with you, it had to do with leadership more than anything at all. And, you know, there was a part of us that was always holding on to this, hey, the quarterback's going to be back, the quarterback's going to be back.

Yeah.

When there was a point in time at that, you know, moment where, hey, look, we're all in on this and this is the route we've got to be able to go. Then we finally said, like, look, we're not waiting on that anymore. We need to move forward with the things that we need to be able to do to be successful. And what started to happen was we had a youth movement, to be honest with you. We had some younger dudes that got opportunities to play, went in there and created a different energy and a different leadership that really started to kind of grow within our entire system. And like I said, you could talk about those two games. People outside of the program don't really know what kind of growth happened in the last 9 months. And it started at probably about that time where we said, look, we're out and we're moving forward on the things that we got to be able to do. And a lot of that had to do with some of these younger guys that, look, had an opportunity to get in there, led from the way that they do things and have created some, some real roots and stability, I think, within our entire program.

And it starts with the leadership.

And I think the Washington game specifically, I think you kind of earned a little of your Badger pinstripes, so to speak, because did we, did we complete one pass? Was it— I think our punter, the punter had the most passing yards.

He had the lead.

He was—

yeah, he was leading.

Yeah.

It was like, damn, that's, that's how you win a football game. You just throw it back 100 years and you pound the rock and play defense.

Yeah, we did. And that's And that's where some of that stuff started to grow. But it was—

it was—

people would say just the game. We see the results of what grew, but what really grew was the youth and the leadership. And those moments when people started to see the Mason Postes and the Cooper Catalanos and even the Matt Young, who was with us, these guys started to grow and take over from, you know, what some would have said were the leaders of your team, from the quarterback to maybe some older offensive line guys in And there was a takeover that really grew from within the program.

Yeah.

Are you going to have Coach Gruden back again this year?

If we can get him back over here. He's a little bit busier than he was a couple of years ago.

That's true.

But I know when ball starts to roll, like there's nothing he loves more than to get off probably that golf course that I see him on so often and get back into some fall camps. Now that we're on campus the whole year.

He is—

when we came over.

Bringing him up to Madison, I mean, he loves the campus. He loved being there. I think you noticed it. I've told this story on the show, so I want to hear your perspective. But it was funny because we went out to practice. And you guys gave us a play sheet and all of a sudden I'm looking, we're on the sideline and I look up and I'm like, where's Coach Gruden? He's basically in the huddle. He was like standing, listening to like he had gone all— he had drifted all the way onto the field. He just loves football.

Yeah. And I don't know, I didn't know him personally. Obviously, I had a little bit of a connection being where he's from and going to the University of Dayton. And then he actually coached my brother-in-law in the NFL. And so there was this little connection of some sorts that, uh, he was his quarterback and things like that. So I had followed him from afar, had communicated with him a little bit, and, uh, I don't know that I expected him to be in the huddle. I think he was one step away from making the calls.

Yes.

Maybe changing the protections, which he probably really wanted to do. Um, but I wish you guys would— I wish we had a little more time to maybe pick his brain even afterwards, because I know his mind and the way that which it works, and I would have loved you know, got some insight from him as well.

Yeah. How does, uh, how does Colton Joseph look? So the— and, and this is not making excuses because I, I'm a realistic Badger fan. It hasn't gone great, uh, the last couple years. We want to get back to winning, but there is context in the fact that we've had some pretty bad injury luck when it comes to quarterbacks and losing them pretty early in the season every single year.

Yeah, yeah, it's been, uh, it's been tough obviously to, to get through, but the unique thing is, is What we haven't had is a room, the quarterback room that you would say, look, it's happened before to the Badgers, right? Whatever year they, you know, guy gets hurt, a quarterback in particular, and the next guy goes in and, and for good fortune for them, they handed it off to Ron Dane or, you know, Melvin Gordon or Monty Ball. And the quarterback maybe didn't have as big a role in some of those situations, just didn't have the depth in that room. So when we have those injuries, I don't know that we could say the next guy was going to be in there and ready to roll. And yeah, Colton has done a great job, but the uniqueness to the, the quarterback room is where we feel really good about where we are. Because look, we're not looking for injuries, it's happened, but that room is a completely different room now. We've got Colton, who obviously is the leader. We've got Deuce Adams, who is right behind him. We've got Ryan Hopkins, who's a, who's a true freshman kid that's nipping at their heels, along with, you know, some guys that have started 4, 5, 6 games already in the Big Ten.

There's a room that that, you know, has created great competition, which has continued to make everybody better. That if by chance, you know, you have a guy that twists an ankle or breaks a shoestring, we've got some guys that they don't quite know what Wally Pip is, but you got to be careful because there's some guys who can go in there and take off really, really well.

Yeah, we talked to, uh, Coach Link Kiffin. We were down at LSU a couple months ago. He was telling us about the SEC—

that before or after the hot yoga?

Uh, that was—

it was right after.

It was after.

So you couldn't speak very well.

We burnt out.

You didn't look great.

What do you mean? We didn't look great? What do you mean by that?

Well, I didn't mean your body at all. I just meant like you look a little flushed.

Sunglasses. Correct.

I was worried about you.

He's right on both accounts. Yeah, we didn't look quite great physically, or like what we—

our bodies looked bad and we felt bad, and mentally bad, spiritually bad, across the board. Just bad. Just, just pain everywhere.— but we were talking about the SEC coaches group chat that they have. Apparently they've got two group chats, one from the commissioner where they, you know, give out official instructions to all the coaches, and then the other, which is more the horseplay group chat that I feel like Lane Kiffin starts. And, you know, he's probably the main poster in that. I'm curious, do you have a Big Ten coaches group chat?

I think we do in general, just for information. I don't know that there's a whole hell of a lot of group chatting going on. I actually just apologized to Brett Bielamoff, or, you know, he's kind of the lead of it because he's on the AFCA and he does all the rules committees, and he always sends out the updates, and everybody gives him a little something back, like, oh, I appreciate all your work. I'm like, hey, I don't ever respond in the damn group chat. Oh, you got it. Just in case you're wondering, yeah, start sending memes.

You got to get, you got to get active. You got to let people know you're there.

Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don't know. I guess when you're looking for new friends, maybe that's a way to go about it.

We got some, we got some, uh, some files on on Bilima and Shiano, some old pictures of them that you might want to just like repost in there. Just, you know, you don't have to add any commentary. It's just like, hey, here's, here's—

I don't know if I can get a ghost number in there or something.

Yeah, we're just wearing that shirt.

There you go.

That would add some color and some life to our group chat because I, I was looking through the list of coaches when we were coming over here from Media Day and, uh, there's not a lot of nonsense in the Big Ten. I would say it's like the most no-nonsense, uh, group of coaches, uh, but really, really good coaches. Yeah. So like which ones, if you're looking out across the landscape of the league, which ones do you look at and you, you know, you admire, you have respect for? Like you've been in this game a long time. Is there, is there a guy in the league that you look at and you say, that's how I want to run a program?

Well, unfortunately, they beat us the last 3 years and Coach Ferentz at Iowa. But I've, from the time when I first got into coaching, had always studied a lot of their defensive stuff, but just have always admired the way in which they've gone about the things that they've done, the consistency that he has had and they've had. There's no doubt. Look, I grew up as an Iowa fan. Now, I grew up as an Iowa wrestling fan, you know. So there was a piece of me that, like, when I was a little kid that ran that stadium, you know, when I was out at the national wrestling tournament, like the 6th grade, watching the NCAA wrestling tournament there, that there was a piece that I always kind of admired about, you know, what it is that they had done from the wrestling side. So I'd always followed him and what they had done from the football side as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you, do you have any relationship with Ryan Day?

Not much. I mean, there, you know, obviously there's a connection just with some of the things. I mean, yeah, from, from people that are on their staff to, you know, family that live around there. But you know what, it maybe it's just me, but it's really tough in our landscape of college football. I don't know how the SEC guys do it with a joke. Maybe they all work together at one point in time, but to have much of a connection with each other because with a lack of rules, It makes it difficult.

The SEC is different because it's, it's like everyone, uh, was saved by Nick Saban at some point, you know what I mean? They all, they all basically went to Alabama when they, when they were on the outs. So I guess my follow-up question to Ryan Day doesn't make sense, where it's like, did you, did you see the picture of him with the nipple ring that wasn't real? But we like, wait a second, was that from you guys? No, I don't know.

I don't know where it came. Somebody did a Photoshop. I, if I'm being honest, I thought it was real.

I thought it was real too.

I thought it was real.

He kind of seems like a nipple a nipple ring guy. That's not like a— listen, everyone should have their own. Yeah, right, live and let live. But yeah, nipple ring guy for sure.

I don't know that I would have envisioned that, and I'm probably best off that I don't see that picture.

Yeah, it's like Dan Lanning.

I'll show it to you. Yeah, you should take a look at it. I thought it was real nice.

If you would have said like that was from Fable or something, then I would have been 100%. Yes, I, I could see that.

There's nipple ring guys out there. So he's—

here you go. Yeah, what do you think about this?

Very clearly photoshopped. We want that on the record. Yes, for popped there, the world was like, oh geez, that's a nipple ring. That's a big time nipple ring.

Yeah.

Um, you have undershirts nowadays.

Yeah.

I mean, that's true. Oh, speaking of, of what we're wearing, what are we doing with the vest? Because the vest, when you covered up the vest, we started winning a couple games.

I don't know.

You know what?

I'm gonna leave that to my daughter. She, as I get back from, from this stuff that she's back home now for a little bit and she kind of maybe will gimme some suggestions.

Cause this is a real conversation in like the Badger fan base of like the vest.

Well, maybe I need to think. I had not thought about it. A whole lot about it.

Here's the thing, I think, I think when, when it's not going well, the vest looks fucking ridiculous. Okay. But when it's going well, it can work. But so I think it's like maybe something you just keep on the sideline until we start stacking some wins and then you can maybe bring it back out.

But, you know, being— trying to be as consistent as you can possibly be, to say that I would switch up— not saying I don't do the vest, but to say, hey, Well, we start winning, then I'll throw something back on. Like, whatever we go with, we're gonna go.

You know, that was gonna motivate the guys, be like, hey guys, if you win 2 games in a row, I'm gonna wear the vest. I, I think that—

just go with the nipple ring.

Yeah, that also was me being nice. I really just want you to get rid of the vest. Okay, okay, just get rid of the vest. You know, let's just get rid of the vest and play.

I don't see you as a guy that beats around the bush. I don't know why you just didn't freaking come out, just say, get rid of the freaking vest.

Yeah, just get rid of the vest and then we win games. Uh, when was the last time you wrestled wrestled someone?

Oh God, that's a good question.

Thank you.

Actually, I, I don't, I don't want to get into— I, I was doing it in the— I was wrestling in the pool with my kids the other day.

Okay.

And, and they're getting to the age now where they're 19, and, um, I finally realized, like, holy shit, they have some strength. Yeah, can't do this anymore. I always thought, yeah, look, if you got wrestling powers, it over— it supersedes damn near anything else. And there's a point in time when I'm not sure that that supersedes it. So I had some realization about 4 or 5 days ago that holy shit, 50 is coming fast. It's upon me. And the youth is a hell of a lot further along.

That's when you got to start cheating. Why? No, no, no.

Let me just tell you now, we're not talking about cheating. Like, 5-on-2 at least 4 or 5 times was the only saving grace I had. If you've never been a wrestler, I'm not sure you know what 5-on-2 is. No, no.

Yeah, yeah.

No, that's complete grip of the balls.

Okay, there we go.

That makes sense.

And that was about the only way that I was—

I was like, how many people in your family were wrestling in the pool for 5 on 2? All right, now that makes sense. Okay, so all right, but you could, you could still, you could still take, take another man down?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's something that you don't lose?

No, you don't. But like the strength of things, you start to recognize, like after about 15 minutes of this pool basketball wrestling, like there was— I didn't look quite as bad as you guys did after that hot yoga. So I don't know how long that was.

How many times did you watch this hot yoga video?

Was there a video? Because I would not have watched it.

There was a video. The video was tough. The video was very tough.

It longevity over time.

I feel bad for all the people in the room because it was like we just showed up to their routine hot yoga and we were just absolute nothings on the back line.

Is Wisconsin a big hot yoga state? Would you say that there's a lot of people that do yoga there?

I don't know that I would say that. There is, there's everywhere. But no, I, I don't know. I would say that.

Yeah.

Have you thought about how important the opening game is, not just for, for Wisconsin, but for America?

I don't know if I've thought about it for America. That's a lot.

Yeah.

For America. 'Cause I feel like if you don't beat Notre Dame, they're probably gonna go undefeated. Like they'll probably end up being the one seed and Big Cat's got a lot on the line too. Made a bet with Larry Fitzgerald.

Yep.

Okay.

Uh, in, in regards to that game, but playing at Lambeau Field.

Yeah.

Should be pretty fun. I don't— what do you expect? The, uh, the— it's going to be a home environment, I would think, but probably a lot of Notre Dame fans.

It's a home game for them, but I don't know.

Is it really?

Yeah, you guys would probably have a better idea when they did this. So just 7 years ago, Soldier Field was the first game. Was it pretty neutral?

It was, it was about 50-50. I was at that game, and then it was delayed like a couple times because I think COVID and everything. So yeah, this one, I mean, Notre Dame travels.

That's—

and it's not far travel for them, right? So It will be—

it will be a— probably I'll be curious to see what the environment— I would imagine it would be pretty balanced, 50-50. But you know how it goes, right? I mean, the— whoever the success makes it a hell of a lot louder. Like, we've been there at that stadium before with maybe a, you know, a quarter of the people and heard them really, really well.

Yeah.

What's the— what's the rhythm in terms of getting ready and game planning for that game since you have so long to prepare for it?

Do you—

I've always wondered about like week 0, week 1. Do coaches spend the offseason trying to get ready for that game? We do.

We do.

And I think it's a unique situation. Obviously, a lot of times, you know, what we have done in the past is you open up probably not with a game like this. So your first game or two is, you know, we don't get preseasons, but sometimes it's opening up with, you know, somebody outside of a major conference. When you open up like this, I think that it does take a different toll as you go into fall camp. So we will have to be a little bit different. Not that you can't start too soon. And it's not that there isn't this idea of, hey, we're training for— but if you start, you start working like in a bowl game of some sorts, you know, 2.5 weeks beforehand on the same team, you can get bored. And the last thing we want to be able to do is to get bored. So we've got a lot of growth that we have to do through fall camp, but it'll definitely be a little bit different as we get to that 2 weeks out that we'll, you know, we know we got to be able to play really, really well to start the season.

Yeah. What—

when you bring in so many transfers, I think what do we have, 33 transfers this year, something like that? Somewhere right around there. What is like, is there a specific plan of like, how do we get these guys to buy into a certain way? You have a bunch of guys who haven't been because it's so different than it was 10 years ago.

And I would tell you this, that like every year I would say in every other team, like when you bring guys in because everybody's going to bring guys in the transfer portal, I shouldn't say everybody, some, whether it's 5 guys or it's 30 guys like us, I think the uniqueness is, is what are you bringing them in for? Well, we know you're bringing them in to play, but there's a difference, right? I mean, in the years past, In the past, we had maybe brought in 1 or 2 guys, 3 guys at the most that you would say, hey, these guys we're envisioning as starters. So you want somebody that was just kind of coming in to be a part of what it is you're doing. Maybe they're coming from a smaller division. Maybe they've, you know, I don't know. Not that everybody doesn't expect to start. The unique thing this year is we're bringing in, you know, as we went out there, we were bringing in guys like, look, we need like 8 to 10 possible starters, which is a unique situation. But the thing that gave us an opportunity to be able to do this outside of the investment was this, these roots that really started growing as we talked about about 9 months ago in that midway through the season where this youth, you know, really took over.

And so for me and for us, not worrying about bringing in a guy that's been a 2-year starter from Missouri is how is he really going to fit? Is he going to buy in and believe in the things that we're doing when he hasn't been able to see the success on the field? We didn't have to worry about that because of the leadership that we hadn't had in the first 3 years. There's a hell of a lot different, right?

Yeah. And I also saw in that article, you know, it talked about how maybe a recommitment to in-state recruiting? Because, you know, the— I'm paraphrasing, I don't think I'm getting the quote exactly right, but Barry Alvarez, when he took over the program, basically said there's a lot of fat people in Wisconsin, let's keep them here and let's let them block a running back. But like, is that something that you said, hey, I tried to do it a little bit different when I got here. Now I got to realize, hey, there is a— there is a history to this program that has worked through the years and use that to my advantage instead of trying to do something different?

So the easy thing to say is yes. The, the tougher thing to say is there's been slight changes over the landscape of even just 3 years of what the philosophy continues to grow to be in recruiting. Just the landscape has changed. I can honestly tell you from the time we walked in the door, it was we have to do our best job in the state. Now what you have to determine is how many of these guys within the state do you believe have the potential to win in a league that's gone to 18 teams, to win in a league that's won the last 3 national titles. And so some of that, like I said, we had to grow as well as recognizing what can and will be successful as we grow. And again, we have wanted to recruit the state. We haven't done as good a job in the first 3 years with losing a few guys that went other places. So it wasn't like, hey, we're going to wholesale change what we're doing, but we have to do a hell of a lot better job. And so there's a part of those things getting on guys earlier.

And I think the other part, it's a really good year in the state in particular with some big guys too, that like you said, Coach Alvarez, that, you know, that there are big guys or would you say fat guys?

Fat guys. A lot of fat people in Wisconsin.

Well, the cheese curds, but there's some big guys in the state that, that we know through time and development can, can be what we need to win this league.

Yeah.

And so there's been a little bit of both. It's, it's not just a wholesale change. It's a great year. There's some investment in things that really help you in the recruiting side of things, but also the idea that these guys within the state have seen some of this growth that I don't know that everybody else has seen.

Yeah. Do you take any pride in the conference winning the past 3 national championships? Because a lot of fans sometimes will be like, yeah, Big Ten, best conference in the league, especially if they have a down year for their team that they root for. You know, they like to talk about how good the other schools are. Do you take any— is there anything like that that crosses your mind?

There's no doubt. I mean, like, look, I grew up I grew in up as a Big Ten guy. I grew up in Big Ten country. And so I take incredible pride in that. Now, you can hide behind that because a lot of people use that against you. Like, oh yeah, you got to ride the coattails of all these other son of a bitches that have won.

Yeah.

But the truth of the matter is, look, this is who we are. This is what we compete with. Okay. And if we're going to win, we might as well win as a conference. Now, it doesn't mean I'm happy that somebody else has won.

Okay.

Because that's just not the way I'm built. But there's a part of this. Damn right. We want this conference to continue to dominate like it has. And we also know that a lot of us got to hold up our ends and parts of this, too, because the one thing that we don't have— and I'm just going to point it out— is we haven't— we don't think we have the balance that maybe they've had, that they're claiming they have more in the SEC. And I think that that's where you're going to see some of this growth even from us and from this league become even better.

Yeah.

All right, Coach, this has been awesome. I got one last question. It's going to be Zach's question. Rowback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Rowback.com. Promocode TAKE. All right, Zach, move in a little closer. Here we go, Zach. Back, back.

A lot of teachers, a lot of coaches in here.

Did have a quick question, sir. I appreciate your time today. I did see from time to time you do get into a little bit of bow fishing, and I was wondering if it's ever crossed your mind, like, maybe take some of the guys out for like a team building or team chemistry exercise?

Yeah, we actually— we, we tried to do that. Um, we were going to take the big guys out there bow fishing. So, you know, if you've ever done it, there's obviously some unique— like, you have to time it up pretty well.. So this past year when we went, it was about 32 degrees that night. And we didn't have a bunch of guys that were wanting to go out there and bowfish. We actually had somebody fall in the water that night as well. But we have— we've brought it up and we've tried to get some of our big guys to go out there and do that.

Zach, do you bowfish?

I do not. I do have one more bowfishing question, if that's OK. When it comes to your logo—

Have you ever done bowfishing? No. Well, if you like to— I'm not a big fan. I would bowfish. Fish a hell of a lot, all the time, more than I would ever fish. You can see it, I stink, but it's a hell of a lot more.

How does that work? Because when you're aiming at the fish, yeah, it's different, right? It's not— the fish isn't where you see it.

Yeah, it's a refract— I mean, like, you gotta hit and hope, you know? I mean, it's kind of like my golf game.

Yeah.

But you would think that the fish aren't moving, like you're just gonna pull up on them and they're just like— no, no, they're ass— they're moving now. I mean, yeah, it's—

yeah, it's the most dangerous game.

All right, go ahead.

That speaks to you having a good eye, I would I was curious about your loadout. Are you going recurve bow or compound?

Now you're really getting— I have no idea what the hell that means.

Does to people. So he doesn't do the things, but he just like—

yeah, I have—

he learns all about it.

Yeah, I have no idea what the hell that means because I'm not a hunter.

Like, he doesn't golf, but he could tell you what shaft you need on your driver.

I did see you were going, uh, compound in your most recent, uh, trip. Something to check out is the recurve. I was just gonna throw it out there for you.

What was the difference?

Uh, it did— like distribution of like, uh, like load management. So the way you pull back—

I can't even shoot that thing, let alone know the distribution.

It's never been bow fishing.

It looks like I'm left-handed. Does that matter? Because I don't know that they had a left-handed, uh, bow. Does that matter?

Great question. Not sure.

Oh, you don't know?

I stuck to— which one did, uh, uh, the guy from The Odyssey have?

I haven't seen The Odyssey, but I can double-check for you.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When you catch carp, Nami.

Yeah.

Talking 35, 40, £45. Yeah, it's, it's fun.

And then you— I saw you were also, uh, you were picking battles up. You were waterskiing. Was that same trip?

Uh, that was, uh, wake surfing.

Wake surfing?

Yeah. If you guys would come and do a little, uh—

Yeah, we could wake surf.

We tried a bar class in Madison. We could take you out and do some wake surfing. Yeah, yeah, we could do that.

We tried that one time.

Did you really?

Tahoe?

Yeah, we didn't get out.

No one, no one got us— got out.

Yeah, we're not—

so you saw the high yoga?

I'm not a get it up guy.

Yeah, can There's medication for that.

Well, Coach, thank you so much, uh, for stopping by. I'm excited for this season. I think we're gonna turn some things around, so appreciate it.

Right?

Yeah.

All right, no vest.

Nope.

All right, got that.

One vote.

Luke Fickle is brought to you by Mountain Dew. Summer's coming. I can't wait to get back to Camp Barstool. Nothing goes better with the summertime and hanging with your friends than the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. Dew is proudly born in the foothills of Tennessee. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. It is an American original. Mountain Dew, it's the best. And now here is USC head coach Lincoln Riley.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is head coach of USC, Lincoln Riley. Coach, great to see you. Uh, let's start with this. Year 5, are you, are you normalized with the Big Ten yet? Big boy football.

We, we are. We are. It's, it's been a fun transition, I think, for us, you know, especially in the middle of a million other things changing in college football. Right. You know, like the Big Ten on its own in any era, you know, any time you change conferences, it's a big deal. But obviously a lot going on. But it's, it's a fun, it's a fun league, man. Yeah, it really is. I mean, it's, you know, I know traditionalists, you know, some people, you know, have different thoughts about, you know, how these leagues have come together. And we'll see how long, right, all this happens. I mean, hell, this may all blow up next week, right? We never know. Um, but, but I think one of the cool things that's come about it is, I mean, it's truly a national league, right? Coast to coast. And then some of the new, like, rivalries and matchups that have come out of this. Absolutely. Like, I mean, I like that to me is like my favorite part about the league. I mean, you think about like all the old, great Rose Bowl matchups from years past and now like you're getting those like every week.

Yeah, right.

And like, I mean, how awesome is that? So I think it's a hell of a league. Obviously, the success of the league is well documented here over the last few years. And I just— the way it's going right now, I don't see that slowing down.

So are you intimidated at all still, like by like a Brett Bielema, bigger guys, you know, like, you know, meat and potatoes? Like, have you thought about getting fat, huh? Have you thought about getting fat?

You know what, is it a prerequisite?

I don't know. I mean, it might help.

Whatever. What do they say? It takes what it takes, right? Yeah, there we go.

That would be great if your offseason program was like, I'm gonna get fat. Like, that's just what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna become the big dad to get fat at USC though.

I, I feel like the food there is too healthy.

That's right, that's right. I have to go back to my roots. I have to go back to Texas to get that done.

That's right. Can we talk about the brisket? How's the brisket looking? Fantastic. Did you know that when you posted you're going to be like, that's a dry-ass brisket.

I didn't. It's actually one of my favorite stories. So I'm not a great cook, but I'm a decent cook. And I know I'll probably get roasted for saying this right here, and that's fine. I don't give a shit. All right. But I think we had a bunch of guys over, our strength coach at the time, this and that. So my buddy had been telling me about doing this brisket, and my buddy's a phenomenal cook. Phenomenal. And he'd been talking to me about doing this brisket and doing it in a Worcestershire bath.

Okay.

Right? And I love Worcestershire on anything.

All right?

So I do this, have this brisket. Brisket's phenomenal, but it rips all the pink out of it because it soaks in this bath, right? So when I take the picture, I'm not thinking anything of it because the brisket was really, really good. And people say, no, it wasn't. They weren't there. Yes, it was. But I'm not a brisket-like aficionado, so I don't have the pink right there on it because the smoke ring's gone because the Worcestershire bath, obviously the dark liquid, it's a goner. And that's how the whole thing came about.

That's a great story. Honestly, like you move up a notch in my book because you could have thrown that guy under the bus immediately.

You know what we need to do in the off-season? Here's what we need to do. You boys need to come out to LA. You can come sit on the back patio with me. Me. I'll cook it up for you and I'll let you be the judge for the world.

What do you think?

Did you— yeah, we're absolutely in. But did you learn a lesson? Never post your meat on the internet. Like, that's— it's always gonna end up bad.

It doesn't matter, you can try to get the right angles.

When you put it that way, it hits a little different.

That's the thing though, even if it was a perfect looking brisket, people— somebody would have had a problem with it.

Yeah, in my world, that's the nature the beef.

It was a very great brisket. So when you went back and you looked at the picture, it was— I can see what they say, like, you guys had a point.

Like, yeah, yeah, I can see your camera. Bad move, my bad.

Yeah.

Um, do you consider yourself a QB whisperer or a QB guru?

I, I don't consider myself either one.

Well, you are definitely one. I mean, I don't know what you want to say, but obviously it speaks for itself. Your resume is insane. Like, the, the, the guys that are starting in the NFL How does that work when you, when you have a guy like Jordan who's now, who's now going into his second year starting? It's like, hey, if you follow me, like, you can see it, you know, Caleb, Kyler, Baker, like all these guys, I've been there for them and we've, we've gotten to the point that they've made a lot of money and been very successful.

Yeah. I mean, I think the, the, the, the path and the track record and them being able to, to see how that could evolve and kind of envisioning themselves, that's helped us in ways, right? It's helped us. Recruit guys, obviously it's helped the confidence when somebody comes in that, hey, we can, we can, we know what this looks like a little bit and that we have a plan for you. So, yeah, I mean, is it, is it a factor there? Of course it is. And yeah, I'm, I'm proud as hell to see all those guys doing what they're doing in the NFL. And Caleb right here in Chicago, obviously, you know, doing his thing. And that's been great. And Jayden, I think, will be one of the next great ones. But, you know, football's still football, man. Like, it's, it's people want to say, oh, it's a quarterback or, you know, you've coached these guys, man, like, like there was every single one of those guys— I was, I was a part of a big staff, right? Every single one of those guys, it took the rest of the team being successful. The team's not successful, nobody's talking about a quarterback.

And so, um, yeah, there's been a lot to it. We've been fortunate to have some really good ones, and we got a system of how we recruit, evaluate, and develop that we believe in. And, and so far it's, it's paid dividends for us.

Yeah, that's a great answer. Unfortunately, you didn't ask Big Cat's first question, and I actually wrote down the exact same question bar for bar. Are you a quarterback whisperer or a quarterback guru?

Yeah, what's the difference?

Well, that I would figure you would know.

Well, you asked the question.

Are you a whisperer? Are you—

I don't really whisper.

I think you're a guru. A whisperer to me is like a guy who like gets a quarterback who maybe is not great, and then you whisper in their ear and you're like, you can be great, and then they're great.

You, you, you guru them, like a quarterback that's got— that is already really good, right? And then you come in and you, you show— you guide them on the path to stardom.

That's fair.

So guru, I think you'd rather be a guru. A whisperer sounds like maybe, maybe like a career offensive coordinator.

Yes, that's—

yes, you bring him in to fix something. And you mentioned Baker. I'm curious because we've gotten the opportunity to meet Baker a few times over the years.

Yeah.

Um, and he's a great dude.

That wasn't any fun.

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, how long did it take for you to figure out what makes this guy tick? Because he operates like he always has a chip on his shoulder, like he's always a little bit pissed off about something. Something?

Not long, man. We hit it off quick. Um, I didn't know him when I came into OU, but we had, we had a lot of similarities. Obviously both from the state of Texas. Um, there were some things in our background that, that I think we, we were able to relate with each other pretty quick. Um, his football mind is really, really good. And then he's obviously, you know, he's got a pretty sharp tongue, man. I mean, that his wit in the, in the room, on the field, I mean, everybody sees it. He's kind of unapologetic, unapologetically himself all the time. And And I'm that way in the meeting room as well. And so, yeah, we hit it off quick, man. I tell you one thing about Bake. I know people with the Netflix show out and all that right now, I've seen, you know, everybody sees him talking trash and this and that. But I was telling somebody the other day, like, I think some people think it's for show. Like, it's not. Most guys, you try to get them in the right mindset or mental kind of mental frame of playing their best, right?

Most guys, it's like, hey, don't focus on anything else. Just play. Don't worry about the outside noise, this and that. Baker's one of the few guys I've coached complete opposite. He is way better when there is something on the other side that he's competing against that he hates. Yeah, like he just is. And it just— it's, it's interesting. It like fires him up. It also like focuses him in even more, which is typically not the case. Typically people get fired up and then mentally they're all over the place. This guy has a unique ability to get himself like to the highest point of just juiced out, but then able to process and function at a high level. And he's smart enough to realize like, hey, this is what gets me going. So even if that narrative's not there, like, I'm going to find a way to hate something on the other side. Like, he's— it's, it's, it's, it's like, it's pretty masterful how he does it.

Yeah, he's a dude. He's a dude. Um, all right, so we're— we pride ourselves being football guys' guys. You're a football guy. One of our favorite football guys of all time was Mike Leach. RIP. We were lucky enough to have him on the show. Um, just an all-time football guy. His fingerprints are all over college football. What did you learn from Coach Leach? And was there a moment where you're like, this guy's a little crazy, but I like him?

Uh, yeah, like every day.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, it was like a culture shock for me when I first went in there, man. I was new to college football. Um, and then, you know, you kind of have in your mind what you think college football is going to be like, or what a college football head coach is going to be like. Then you get around Mike and you're like, what the hell is going on here? Like, this is crazy. But there was a method to the madness, man. And there was kind of a, you know, it just, it worked. And sometimes I even look back now, I'm like, how the hell did any of this even work? But man, it did. And yeah, I mean, I learned a lot from him. I think a couple of the things that I've taken is number one, I thought he was elite at hiring people, which is obviously pretty central to what we do. And the best quality he had in hiring people is he didn't give a damn what anybody thought. A lot about who he hired. And it's amazing how many people just want to win a press conference, right? Just want to hire a big name to justify this one.

We did it. He's hiring people. And at that point, he didn't have the credibility built up at Tech, so he's hiring people that— and all the Texas Tech people like, what are you doing? Like, you can't hire, you know, Dana Holgerson from Iowa Wesleyan, or all these like people, right? He's hired— he hired me when I was like 23 years old. Like, everybody's like, what the are you doing? But like, he didn't care. Like, he just like, I know these people can get the job done, that's what I'm doing. And you look at his tree now, right? Like, and all— like, you talked about his influence. A lot of people, like, I think the outside world thinks about, well, it's that way because of the offense. Honestly, that— I think obviously the offense is a factor. I think it's way more that because he was unbelievable at hiring people and seeing talent. The other, other great thing, and you guys probably saw this because he would talk to anybody. And, and so the people he met, the questions he would ask, he would find like diamonds in the rough all the time because he would just take the time to talk to somebody where somebody else might shake their hand and just walk on.

I got a better way to spend my time. Yeah, it was, it was kind of a unique combination, but I think it made him more like one of the best hires of people probably in college football history.

Yeah. What was your experience like a walk-on there?

You know, it was awesome, honestly. He was great. It was fun being in the quarterback room with him. I've told one of my favorite Leach stories is my very first meeting, spring ball. So, man, I walk in, I'm like, we're getting ready to practice in like an hour and a half, right? I got my notepad. I'm like, man, I made it. I'm here at college football. Like, first meeting, you know what that feels like. It's just a big moment. So I walk in the meeting room, we sit down. He has a can of Coke. Copenhagen. And so he pops the can, takes a dip. And I've told people I'm from Muleshoe, Texas. I've seen a lot of dip. I've seen a lot of people can dip. I've seen a lot of people take big dips. This dip was so big that there was Copenhagen all in his face and he had trouble getting out big words. There was so much dip in his mouth. So he starts talking about, do you guys know how dip's made?

You know how it's made?

We're like, no. He goes on about a 10-minute tangent about how it's made. Well, do you know that it has like little fiberglass in there and it like cuts your lip? Now it's getting to your bloodstream. And you know, you drink green tea and lemon when your, when your lip gets like really raw. So, I mean, he goes, he goes an hour and a half on dip. So we, somebody comes and knocks on the door like, Coach, we're starting practice in 10 minutes. He's like, all right, y'all better get out there. I'm like, we have not learned a damn thing.

Like not one thing.

And I'm like, I'm looking at the other coaches. Quarterbacks that were in the room who had been there. I'm like, what the hell do I do? Like, just come on out here, we'll show you.

It sounds like you did learn a couple things though about— like, you just taught us about—

I was an expert on diff when I walked out there. I didn't know damn— I didn't know anything about playing quarterback, but I was, uh, I was an expert on diff.

So how, how did that go when it was time for you to, to start, you know, thinking about being a coach? Like, did— was that something that you saw being your future when you walked on there?

Yeah, I wanted to— I knew I wanted to coach at that point. Um, I, I was I was, you know, kind of gearing myself up, preparing to be a high school coach. And then, um, yeah, he kind of unexpectedly came to me one summer and was like, hey, you know, you could compete to be the third quarterback this year, or I really— I have this kind of opening. I've been a head coach here for a while, and I, you know, I really would like to have kind of a, an understudy essentially that could help with the young QBs and do all this and that. And you've picked it up fast. I think you'd be good at it. So just let me know what you want to do. And it kind of kind of— I wasn't expecting that at all, but it was kind of like that moment where, like, I want to coach. I'll, I'll probably never get an opportunity like this again. So I did it, and, uh, the rest was history.

Yeah, I remember when we had him on, he, he told us something that, that has stuck with me since, where it's like, listen, arm strength is fine and you want arm strength, but accuracy is something you can't teach. You either have it or you don't. Do you, do you scout guys? You, do you, when you're looking at high school guys or guys that are coming up, you're like, hey, this is what we need we need accuracy first and everything else can come after.

100%. Now, I think there were some metrics on how we recruited QBs that allowed us to hit on some of the guys we did. You know, now, especially the last two places I've been at, I mean, you're recruiting a different level of QB, but honestly, it's still a lot of the same things that we look for. And again, it's almost like the hiring process, right? People fall in love with the big name. They want to hire them. What do people a lot of times do with quarterbacks? They fall in love with the big arm, with the gaudy stats, right? With the freak athlete. Versus the guy that just wins and gets completions and moves the football. And I— Mike had like a real clear picture of being like being able to filter out the stuff that didn't matter and stay focused on that. And I think that's why the run of quarterbacks there, even though we couldn't recruit the cream of the crop, you know, they were all like really, really productive guys.

Yeah. All right. I got a tough question for you. I guarantee it's probably not going to be asked in the traditional media. And listen, I understand coaches Uh, you gotta block out the noise. That's a big thing. Stinking Riley is a nickname. That's gotta hurt a little bit. Like, that's gotta hurt a little bit. I'm not saying that you're like— you obviously, you know, you can, you can push it to the side, but like, when that first dropped, you're like, goddamn it, that's a pretty good one. Like, it's a good one.

It is good.

Yeah.

Like, it hurts. Yeah. You have to tip your cap every now and then. You're like, you got me. Like, I can't do anything.

100%. Plus, I've been called way, way works. So that's like kind of right there in the middle. So no, no, I, I always, even on the road, if there's like a, like an elite fan that just like, like talks shit really well, you know what I mean? I'm like, hey, yeah, that's— you got to appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

You got to tip your cap.

In fairness, that's a pretty wholesome nickname too. Like, it could be a lot worse than Stinkin'. The internet does way worse stuff to, to coaches on a daily basis. Actually, I don't know if you saw last year the Photoshop somebody made of Ryan Day. Did that cross your desk?

I don't think it did.

Can I just get your reaction?

You got to Photoshop a nipple ring.

Yeah, does, does he have a nipple ring? Yeah, we, as far as you know, he doesn't.

You know, we don't share a locker room, but I'm gonna guess no.

I mean, but it looked real.

We thought it was real.

It looks real, right? And he might be a guy who would have a nipple ring.

It's fake, but it looks real.

Zach, get up here for the last question. This has been so much fun, Coach.

We appreciate it.

We're going to take you up on your offer to come, come on We're actually good friends with, with Coach Musselman. So we came out for a practice a couple years ago, had a great time with him.

Come on out.

All right.

Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com. Zach, take it away.

How we doing today, Coach?

Doing well.

That's great to hear. I did have a quick question. When it comes to the recruiting process and like the modern— this new era of college football, what's one character trait you look for in a player that other coaches may pass over? Where you see it and you're just kind of like, oh, this guy could be a good fit for the program. We need him at USC.

Mm.

I mean, it's a good question. I think, I think, I think when you're talking about the modern era, I think what's kind of interesting is like, I think the outside world is still coming to terms with like, we pay players now, right? Like, I think there's parts of like, oh, it's okay. And part of like, oh God, we didn't pay them before. Like, why is it like this? One of the things I've actually liked about that as it's gone on, it's like another way to evaluate guys, right? Like, it's like another, like, metric, if you will, right? Because you're always looking for, you know, what's their family life like, you know, what type of student are they, right? They're— the athletic traits, you know, injury history. Like, you're like, you're trying to find like every metric on these guys that you can to figure out who they are because you're not— you're really not around them that much, right? Um, like, this whole thing is like added a whole nother level to like— I think I've allows you to evaluate people, right? Like, what do they really value?

Right?

Like, what are they really after here? You know, how do they handle, you know, something business-related like this? So I think that's actually helped us, you know, I would say, and then to answer it maybe more directly, I think, I think at SC it's different, right? Like it's not just recruiting players. It's like recruiting players that are going to work at your place, you know, depending on what your place is like. Our place is very unique. And I think finding guys that fit like academically there, fit socially there within the campus, that fit in, you know, a program where there's a lot of lights and everybody's going to be watching and have an opinion on every single thing that happens there. Like, you got to find the right type of guys. And so, yeah, we've dug into it. I think as we've been at SC longer, we've been able to figure out, I think, more and more what fits there. And I think that's a big reason why we've recruited so well the last 2 years.

Good job.

That's a good question.

All right, well, Coach, Coach, thank you so much for stopping by. Think about getting fat. Yeah, just a thought, just a thought.

Fun.

Maybe we'll start with the brisket.

Yeah, right, like a quick £150 in the offseason would be so funny. I think it'd make the visor look good too.

Yeah, I don't think my wife would be real happy though.

You get the, the top folding out over top of the visor.

Yeah, yeah, straight big town.

Yeah, yeah.

But Coach, thank you so much for stopping by and best of luck this year.

Enjoyed it, man. That was fun.

Lincoln Riley was brought to you by Cuervo. Cuervo Devil's Reserve is pineapple jalapeño infused tequila. It's like a spicy margarita bottle, smooth and delicious. Devil's Reserve is the perfect drink for when mischief is on the menu. Available in multiple sizes including 50ml shooters, perfect to bring to your party or your tailgate. It's time to listen to the little devil on your shoulder. Pour a round of shots, get ready to raise a little hell. Go to your local liquor store or go to cuervo.com, purchase your own bottle of Devil's Reserve, and raise a little hell. Please drink responsibly with Cuervo. And now here is Greg Schiano.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is head coach Greg Schiano from Rutgers. Coach, how we feeling? We're, we're at Big Ten Media Day. I, I assume you, uh, don't love doing these, you know, Big Ten Media Day stuff. You probably want to be coaching football, but how are we feeling?

Feeling great because it means we're getting close.

Yes.

Yeah.

Another week and away we go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you got— you got training camp starts in a week. When you start training camp, can you feel like the energy off the field and the guys like where it's like you can close your eyes and, you know, hear the pads cracking and football's back? Can you feel it right away where you're like, we're ready to go?

Yeah, you do. And it's the only time of year really where you get them all to yourself. No classes, no girlfriends, no families, just us in the building, just grinding away. And that's where your team really, you know, summer's important, no doubt, because it's the player-led stuff. But training camp's where it all comes together.

Yeah. I've been a fan of yours for years. I've been interested in the lexicon behind the Sheehano Man. So can you explain to us what is a Shiano Man?

All right, Shiano Man, stand-up guy, gonna be a great father, great husband, do some important things. But I, I got a bone to pick with you guys. Okay, I've been waiting for the residuals on the Shiano Man. I haven't seen a cent.

What's up with that, man? Like, you like it, but I gotta get paid now.

It's a song, you're the Shiano Man, sing us a song tonight. It's, it's honestly, it's a banger. You're, you're correct about that part. Um, but when I, when I first heard, like, you're always looking for a Shiano man, I was like, I need to find out exactly. It might just be like, you know it when you see it. It might be like, do you think that there's a difference between a Shiano man and then somebody else who's might be a really good football player but wouldn't fit into like what you need?

Yeah, yeah, because I don't like jerks. Yeah, you know, I kind of like guys that love football and want to, want to do it. And yeah, I don't have any problem with guys that get all the catchings of football as long as they love football. If they love the catchings more than the football itself, those aren't my guys.

You gotta have a football player that loves to play football.

You got that right.

A guy that'll keep chopping, right?

That's it.

Can you explain to us the origin of the chop? Because I think it's a fascinating story because we almost lost the chop before it even got started, right?

Yeah, the chop was on the verge of extinction, no doubt about it. We— I heard it in '99 at Miami. Dr. Kevin Elko told our staff. We never used it. Went away dormant for 6 years. We go out to Illinois, open up in 2005. We're winning 28-7. We had a great summer, got a good young team. Illinois comes back and beats us 31-28. It's year 5, haven't been to a bowl game yet. So, uh-oh. And I'm flying home on the plane and watching the tape, but I'm not really seeing a thing, right? I'm just thinking, how am I going to get this team back? You know, I told them, you work hard, we're going to go out there. And it came to my mind that meeting 6 years ago. And it was Kevin Elko told the story. There's a guy in the woods. Trees are thick. It's freezing cold. And he's got a choice. He's gonna lay down and die or pick up the ax and pick a tree and just start hitting it. One falls, move on to the next, and just keep going down the line. And I called the GA up to the front of the plane.

Hey, look, when we land, you gotta go get an ax.

Take—

go down to the hardware store, get an ax, bring it to the machine shop on campus, get 'em to paint it red. I need it by 2 o'clock for our team meeting. So what do you think when the team's sitting there after losing, you know, a 3-touchdown lead and in walks this crazy Italian with a red ax freshly painted? They were scared. Scared.

Yeah.

And I talked to him about it, and sure enough, we play Villanova the next week, the Division I AA team back in the day, and they had a good football team. And first play of the game, our left guard jumps offsides, and I said, oh no. And then I see Pedro Sosa, who was our left tackle, who played in the NFL for a few years. He walks up in the guy's face and goes— and the rest is history. We went on, beat him like, I don't know, 45 to 6 or something like that. And that became our deal, man. Chopping.

I like it. And I can tell that you practice this, the chop. Yeah, you have a really good chop, just hand on hand, right on the spot.

Have you ever hurt yourself? Never. Okay, maybe a little too hard. Yeah, I was gonna say bruised. There's definitely a time where you've been like, oh, that was a little too much chop. There could be—

you can't show—

you could overchop.

Yeah, definitely overchop.

Rather overchop than underchop.

Yeah, that is well said, right?

Yeah. And then you just keep that stiff upper lip. You can have a broken hand and never let them see you sweat, right?

You can't, you can't allow it.

Have you ever buried a football or burned, uh, film No, but I've seen that done.

I hear it's a great story.

I feel like that's something you would do.

Yeah, I just, I just, uh, I haven't done that.

Okay.

Yeah, just, just, just threaten your team with an ax.

I love when I hear good stuff like that, but no, I haven't done it.

Yeah. What are— what's the message going into this year? Do you have— because I, I always love at start of training camp you get to see like coaches spent the whole summer, maybe they've got a new acronym that they're unveiling or a new motto for the team. Uh, what is that going to be for Rutgers this year?

Yeah, together, man. That's what it's got to be. We got to play for each other and we're going to be much better, but we got to do it for each other. That's, that's what's going to fuel that fire.

Yeah. So you, you rebuilt Rutgers once. You're trying to do it again. Is there ever a point where you're like, I'm only one man? Like, this is crazy that I'm trying to do this again because it's, it's you, you are trying to do it again. And it's like Rutgers is, you guys are maybe at a little disadvantage sometimes in the Big Ten with some of the Ohio State Michigan, but you're there chopping, trying to do it again.

Are you—

do you feel it like turning like it did the first time?

I do. And I feel like I took a, you know, I— this is my second time here at Rutgers, but I feel like I took the third time a new job because when, when our board hired President William Tate and then he hired Kelly Zinn, and all of a sudden I didn't have to be the fundraiser anymore. I didn't have to be the lead guy on NIL. It was just a philosophical thing before. But now we actually have resources that are going to match expectations. And I'm really excited about— we're getting better. We're going to be better this year, but we're going to be much better and then much better because the resources now— there's a commitment, there's vertical alignment at Rutgers for the first time, really, in my 25 years of being associated. I can't wait.

Have you had success this time around? Like, keep it— because New Jersey produces a ton of really, really good football players and keeping them in-state, I would imagine, is like priority number one. For the future of Rutgers. How's that gone?

Yeah, it's gone great, but it's got to be the right guys. And it's not just New Jersey, it's New York, New Jersey, Delaware. That whole, that whole area is ours, and we call it the State of Rutgers. And we have to win there, but we got to win on the right guys. You know, it's a very highly recruited area. If you ever look at it, you fly into Newark Airport and you take your protractor out and you just draw a 1-hour circle around around it, you can get into over 300 high schools. So people fly in from all over the country to recruit New Jersey. Uh, we got to make sure that we get the right players from that area, from the state of Rutgers.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you have, um, do you have a dog again?

Sorry, we, we—

it's a, it's a touchy subject. We had a dog for 13 years. Yeah, Fumble.

I was going to ask about Fumble.

Fumble got—

you're choked up about—

we had to put Fumble down.

I was thinking, I was thinking about Fumble, and obviously I'm getting a little emotional, but I, I did realize that you had— you did have a dog at one point named Fumble.

Yes.

So when you get another dog, are you going to name that dog, or is somebody else taking over naming responsibilities?

All right, so here's the sad thing, right? My house has become a cat house now. Oh yes, yes. Now we have my daughter—

some big-time football guy no-no. Tell me about it, right?

My wife My wife has a cat, my daughter has a cat. Yeah. And you want to know the worst part? I'm allergic to cats. How about that?

Are you— do you pet the cat? Do you pet the cats?

No petting.

Are you sure? Do you, do you, do you feed the cats?

I do nothing with you.

Like, you don't even look at them?

I do look at them, but that's it.

But like, are you like, oh, that cat looks cute?

Look, some nice looking cats.

Okay, that's not my deal. You feel you have feelings for these cats?

No, no, that's not the case.

Okay.

All right. When they bought the cats, were you like, hey, you guys, I can't have a cat in the house. I'm— it's gonna make me sick.

I'm a football coach.

The thing you better understand about football coaches, they're real tough. Like, they act like there's one person who runs the family, and that's the wife.

She's a coach at home.

Well, no, actually, now it sounds like the cats run your house. Yeah, well, a little bit, because your house probably smells. They're shitting in your house. I mean, they're—

it's crazy, really.

Cats— I don't want to even sound like I'm favorable, but cats are a clean animal.

Oh no, he's a cat guy.

No, yes, that's how it starts. I'm just dealing with facts.

I'm dealing with facts.

You gotta have a line in the sand. No cats in this house. And then, because the second they bring one in, all of a sudden now you're like, yeah, you know, I could see the allure of having a cat.

Two rooms, my bedroom and my office at the house.

Can I give you—

no cat zone.

Can I give you a little PR?

Yes.

Okay, I think you need to just start telling everyone, because this story is going to get out, there's cats living in your house. I think you need to maybe say that there was like a rat problem, so you got the cats to kill the rats.

Ozzy. Maybe let's not make the neighborhood, but you know what I mean?

Be like, hey, we had a rat infestation. I wasn't going to hire an exterminator. I want to do it the old-fashioned way. I want to have these cats keep chopping.

Run with it.

Yeah, that's, that's what we're going to say.

But also, if you can get— if you can teach the cats, if you can end up becoming almost like a cat whisperer, then I would think like that's actually a great coach. If you can get a cat to believe in you.

No, there's, there's none of that.

They'll teach you the, the ways that they, uh, you know, kind of move you know, cats don't chop.

No, they don't.

Dogs chop.

Dogs chop.

And dogs, no matter what the score was, the dog's waiting for you at the door.

Yeah, that's true.

Cats, not so much.

Have you thought about compromising and saying, hey, you guys are filling my house with cats, can I come home with the dog one day?

Haven't gone there. No, you think so?

Show up with the dog. All right, um, how's— so you, you hired— did you hire a whole new staff or a couple new staff members this this year.

Defensive coordinator. Yeah.

So how'd that go? Because I know there was like— you said you were going to hire someone in a couple days and it took you a little bit of time. Was that intentional or was it like, hey, we just couldn't find the right guy?

I was going to hire a guy after 8 days and then it fell through.

Okay.

So the rest is not intentional, right? But we got the right guy. That's the— Travis Johansen came to us from University of South Dakota, doing a great job. We're going to be much better on defense and excited to see that.

Yeah.

Now, the birthplace of college football.

Yeah.

What does that mean to you?

It's where it started, man. 6-4. You know, you know what the 6 and the 4 were?

No.

They're not. It was 6 scores versus 4 scores. More like soccer or rugby than as we know football.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

How often do you, like, close your eyes and think about the Thursday night game with James Gandolfini on the sideline? Because that is like, that's college football. That was a hell of a night. I know we don't like to look at the past. You're looking forward, but That was one of my favorite, like, seared in my brains college football nights with Rutgers kind of arriving his back.

No, you're right on that. And he was such a great friend to our program. I mean, I know you guys love The Sopranos, but I mean, he was great, right? And that night, special night. We got to create a lot more of those going forward. And we're going to. That's what New Jersey, that's what Rutgers deserves. And we're in the best league in the country now. So time to do it.

Yeah. What's your favorite episode of Sopranos? Us?

Oh, too many, too many great ones. Yeah, yeah. Uh, Cleaver, you know, when they're trying to put Cleaver into, into action, that was—

yeah, yeah, that's good.

Yeah, when they're sitting in the living room there, the English language gets totally abused at that point, you know.

It does, it's great.

Yeah, I, I, I'll tell you, we have a guy who's probably the biggest Rutgers fan of all time, TJ Hitchings, that works for us. He could be the new James Gandolfini, that if you guys are about to be back, bring him on the sideline. He's a star. That's the guy.

Make him the guy.

He's been— listen, every year he's like, this is the year, this is the year. It hasn't— in basketball and football, he's a believer like through and through.

Diehard.

Yeah. So you need someone like that. All right, he's ready to keep chopping.

Let's get him going, man.

Um, all right, I know that you, you have to go in a minute because you— thank you for giving us any time. Uh, we'll have to do maybe an extended interview and then I have several more questions I need to talk to you about.

Yeah, we, we kind of got off topic. The catch. You're right.

I actually feel like this is more confessional for you, where you just showed up and you're like, I gotta tell someone about these cats, it's been bothering me. It's like, I'll tell these guys, we'll talk through it. The Rats is the way to go. But Zach here has a question. He's, he's our, uh, he's our closer here.

All right, fire away, Zach.

How are you doing today, sir? I did have a quick question. Uh, during your time with Tampa Bay, I believe your first season with the team was also a breakout rookie season for Doug Martin at the time, and I was wondering if maybe you had any, uh, like, fond moments or stories you could tell us today? Maybe a quick moment just about him as a player on the team.

Muscle Hamster, rest his soul, right? He was a great pick. Remember, we're playing out at Oakland, right? So the old Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, right? And Doug is kind of having a little bit of a rough start. And Jimmy Ray, who was a longtime NFL coach, he just had told me earlier in the week, "Hey, you gotta tell Doug very simply." It's simple. Keep your eyes up. So I just pulled him over and said, hey, Dougie, look, your eyes are going down. Just keep your eyes up. And man alive, he rushed for like 240 that game as a rookie, ended up rushing for like 1,400-something yards. And man alive, what an exciting player he is. And it's a shame what happened, but, you know, I've got good memories of him.

Yeah.

You got a follow-up real quick?

A quick follow-up question. I was curious, when it comes to Rutgers, when it comes to university, How do you— how are you gonna set that intensity factor this season on the field? A lot of teams say they got the guys, they got the right coaches in position to make these guys kind of put that battery in their back and have them perform. What separates you from one head coach to another? Like, how do you know that you're gonna take this program to victory lane, or do you not know that yet?

No, I know it. Yeah, if I don't know it, you better find a new coach, right? Yeah, I know it. But it's gonna be about playing for each other and the way we do things. You got to do it for each other. What fuels your chop?

Yeah, and what separates you from some other coaches in the Big Ten? Like, you don't have a nipple ring like Ryan Day, so yeah. Wow. Well, he alleged he doesn't actually, but we saw pictures, Photoshop. So unless maybe— do you want to tell us?

Dangerous thing.

Do you want to tell us that you have a nipple ring?

No, I can't.

Okay.

All right.

What do you think about that?

Yeah, come on.

It is Photoshop.

Gone to another level. Uh, Coach, uh, best of luck this year. Yeah, it was great having you on. We will get you those residuals. I think we probably have like 25 cents that we can give you. Maybe 50. Yeah, yeah, we'll put in the NIL budget, double it.

Yeah, yeah, sing us a song. You're the channel, man.

It's so old school. Yeah, 10 years, uh, probably what, 9 years ago we did that song. But thanks so much and best of luck.

Appreciate you guys.

Thanks, Coach.

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Okay, let's finish up. We got guys on chicks.

I have a friend who is a great time, and when we go out, I have a great— who is a great time when we go out, but is also known in our area for sleeping around slash being a hoe. When we go out, do men assume that I am the same way due to my friendship with her? I'm a bit conscious about that because I'm not like that, and I wonder if I'm perceived that way.

No, I think a lot of girls got it like a good cop bad cop thing going on.

Yeah. Also, how would we know? I don't know how you get perceived that way.

I guess by association.

Yeah, if your friends like like flirting with everyone, maybe.

I think as long as every friend group's like that, there's, you know, there's extremes on all levels.

As long as you're not as openly hoe-y as she is, then you'll naturally be looked at as being like the good girl. Yeah, it's like, you know, if you're getting into a race and there's a bear chasing you and your friend, you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your friend. So as long as you're just not the skankiest one in the room, people will be like, oh, that's the girl.

Also, if she's like a sloppy drunk, you like— people will be attracted to the opposite of that, you know what I mean? She's a mess at the bar, messica, and you're, and you're just a regular person.

If she has that, if she has that like stigma, that's for a reason.

Yeah.

If you're not like that, they're—

but we don't kink shame. No, we're sex positive.

Yeah, live your hoe, your hoe years. That's fine.

How do you know if your boyfriend isn't saying— isn't just saying what he thinks you want to hear and actually means it? It every time you're overthinking, does your boyfriend want to break up with you?

Wait, say it again.

How do you know if your boyfriend isn't just saying what he thinks you want to hear and he actually means it?

Uh, he's always doing a little bit of both.

I mean, the real actual answer here is like backing up what he's saying with actual actions, but yeah, he's definitely trying to just get out of a fight by saying what you want to hear, which is fine. That's a— that's, that's a survive— that's It's a Darwin survival tactic that we've gained through years and years where it's like the guys who can't figure out that you got to say the right answer, they die off.

If he just learns how to say like, you're right, you always just say the right. Yeah.

Yeah.

He might not actually think that you are, but he'll say you're right. And that's really the same thing.

Let's be honest. Every guy every now and then feels like they might be in the right. Right, and they take a shot and it usually just fucking like gets dunked on. But I've done that. I do that probably once a quarter where I'm like, you know what, this time I am right. And then it's just immediately like shredded like a, like a, like, like basically like a first-year law student going into like Johnny Cochran courtroom. Like I just get fucking eviscerated. I'm like, you know what, I'm not going to do that for another 3 months. You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, there's the— yeah, I did me of a—

we all—

story in the wedding planning where we got like fans, you know, like handheld fans for the ceremony because it was going to be hot. And my wife was like, there were these really shitty ones. And then there were these other ones that I got. And I half heard her and she showed me the other ones. And I was like, oh yeah, those are pretty shitty. And she was like, no, these are the good ones.

Yeah.

And I was like, think, actually, I think those are good. I thought you wanted me to tell you that those were shitty.

Yeah, this is— and then you get caught.

This is really messed up with what this lady's asking, because it sounds like her husband's doing the right thing, or her boyfriend's doing the right thing, which is like, you're right. And now she is like, I'm not willing to let him off. I need to know.

Well, he does have—

I need to know that he actually means it.

He's, he's, he's, he's saying what I want him to say, is he— does he want to break up with me, is what she's basically saying.

Okay, is he saying that to placate me so that he can because he's done with me? No, I think he's just saying that because even when he doesn't mean it, he's saying it because he's just trying to move on. And he's— you have to make a list of what's worth going to the mat for. You have to pick your fights.

Yeah, mine's different, Max, where it's like I'll every now and then be like, I did so much today. And she'll be like, oh, really?

Yeah. Like, yeah, no, no, that's not—

what about all these things I did? I'm like, fuck, I forgot about everything.

Quite literally.

Well, that's—

the house is standing because of you.

I cleaned like one thing up and I'm like, yeah, you didn't say thank you, right? And she was like, how about this?

Yeah, yeah.

And the silence, like, oh shit, I did forget that. Like, there's a reason why my kids have lunch every day and are dropped in, like, picked up, and they're in, in camp and all this stuff, and the house is standing and like everything looks nice.

Fuck.

But yeah, I did, I did unload the dishwasher without anyone asking.

Asking me and didn't get one thank you.

Oh man, I've been accused of unloading the dishwasher extra loud to try to make attention to me doing it. Yeah, definitely. What am I going to do? That's the only— unload the dishwasher and hope that someone finds out? No, I gotta let everyone know I'm banging shit everywhere.

It's the only point of unloading the dishwasher.

Correct.

You ever do this when you're done with a chore?

You just kind of clap your hands together, give a nice sigh, sit on the couch.

Cool. It feels good to take a load off, man.

What a day.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

It's never good enough.

No.

Oh, because my big problem is I put the shit in the wrong spot and then, and then I'm like, I didn't know the little spoons are supposed to go in a little spoon drawer.

I'm like, what does it matter? You didn't put it away. And it's just like, I put it away all the time.

Have you guys ever experienced holding a utensil or a plate and then your significant other looks at you and just watches? And then says, you don't know where that goes.

Uh-huh.

All the time.

That's, that's a tough moment right there.

I always, I always put it somewhere.

You got to take a shot.

Yeah.

Oh no, I always put it somewhere.

It's Russian roulette.

Yep.

And you're just—

I got a graveyard.

You're hoping that that's the right drawer of stuff that you're opening up, and then it is the place where— and then you, you look over for— I— okay, she bought it.

Listen, I have a graveyard. I have a graveyard drawer. Drawer that like it's, it's the drawer that doesn't get open for a lot of stuff. And I'll just put shit in there and hope that like it finds its way back to where it should be. And then like, it's like, that's a problem for another day. Never say I don't know where the fuck the like food processor goes. It's going in the graveyard.

She's looking for it. You're like, well, I always put it there. You say you always put it somewhere different.

That's weird.

I was going to ask where. Okay, so I always ask where things are and then I get yelled at and she's like, why do you you just look for a second or just know where these things are? Why do you need to ask me for where everything is?

I also have a problem closing cabinets.

Oh yeah.

Oh, never. They're all open. If I, if I could make my dream house, there would be no cabinets. It would just be shelves everywhere.

No, that's, that's worse. I've lived in a shelf, a no-cabinet house.

Oh no.

Because you, if it's just, it looks messy as fuck.

But that's fine. At least I could just see everything.

I'm more so— I was with you at first, and then I heard PFT.

Oh no, it looked like shit. Yeah, no, no, it looked like shit, but I just never closed the cabinet.

It looks bad.

All right, last one. Uh, I'm so excited for your book. Can't wait to see all PFT's one-liners put together. Anyway, my fiancée and I are getting married August 29th, which as you know is week 1 of college football. We are having a backyard wedding, and he wants to set a TV up.

Yes.

Is that insane?

Has to.

Or is he just a normal football guy? I might just let him because we do bond over our love for football, but my family may judge. What's your thoughts?

It's your wedding.

TV, no sound. Nice compromise. So if anyone says anything, you should be like, no, but there's no sound.

We also got to figure out where, where this person's writing from. Is this SEC family?

But no sound.

Probably not. If, yeah, they're even asking.

TV's barely on if there's no sound on. And then when the game gets close, you put on the sound.

It's pretty much a nice piece of art that you're having at your wedding.

Yeah.

Television.

Yeah.

Just say the line. We bond over football.

Right.

It's our wedding.

Cutting, right? It's like it's barely in. And if, if there's a TV in a backyard with no sound, it's barely on. That's a barely on TV.

I'm looking at the schedule for that day.

Is that Ohio State, Texas? Um, what's the day again?

August 29th.

Oh no, that's week zero.

Yeah, that's you. Oh, you got UNC, TCU.

Oh no, TV, don't do it. And, and give yourself a real pat on the back for not doing it.

There's really not a lot.

No, that's week zero. Yeah, because Labor Day is, is later this year. So that is Week 0. Week 0, Week 0 is a— you can, you can check the scores on the, on your phone.

Yeah. At the end of the day, I guess if you're— maybe if you're an ACC person, NC State-Virginia, that's, that's probably the only one that you could— or UNC.

No, but that's probably not even an ACC game. I think that's not—

oh, that's the one that's not— yeah, yeah, that doesn't officially—

that doesn't even count.

That's out of conference, out of conference play. Yeah.

Memphis-UNLV, circle call it over.

Good game.

Yeah, over.

If you're— I mean, sure, maybe you're a big Michael Lombardi fan and you're like, I wonder what happens with UNC-TCU.

Now they don't have a GM.

Oh wow, crazy.

Yeah. I also like USC in that game.

Stanford-Hawaii is fun.

Stanford-Hawaii is fun. USC minus, what is it, 35.5?

Yeah, probably Stanford-Hawaii would be a lot more fun if it was in Hawaii.

No, last year they played in Hawaii and it was like the windiest day ever. It sucked. So I was scarred a little bit by that.

Okay.

What was the first Stanford rushing touchdown in like 8 years?

All right, man, I miss football.

Yeah, I'm so excited.

Okay, good show, boys.

Numbers.

3.

55.

17.

7.

23.

4. Boys coming? Nah, they'll be running.

They'll be running in a second.

Oh, are they on a delay? Slight delay. Hurry up! Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!

69.

69 for Colton.

10.

84.

84 for Jacob.

44 for Jacob.

Shane.

Well, Shane. Shane's was 10. 77. Anyone? Oh, that was your number for a while there, Memes. Well, I've never gotten it.

I don't think so.

Yeah, you took 77. 7?

Yeah, when you— no, when you dress as Dallas Mavericks Luka. You do that from time to time. Oh yeah, you do dress as Dallas Mavericks Luka from time to time. That's a fact.

It's a good fit.

Oh, would it— someone have something in the 80s?

Jacob said 84.

82.

82. 82. 82.

Pretty close.

You do one more? Nah, we don't want that. Yeah, let's do one more.

Let's do one more. That is—

that doesn't count.

We did 3 interviews, might as well do 3 balls. One more that doesn't count.

This is desperate memes.

This doesn't count. Out. This one does not count.

This one does not count.

This one does not count.

What's your number, man? Be a man. 3.

Yeah, it doesn't count. I did 3 interviews, might as well do 3 balls.

77.

75.

75.

See, didn't even count.

Doesn't count.

Happy birthday to Vijay Edgecombe.

Yeah, yeah, weird. I had him pulled up right here.

Oh, and it was 77, the number that came No, that's weird.

I'm going to— I'm going to have to start doing birthday balls.

Whoa, that's weird.

Any other— any other Lockwood— any other Lockwood birthdays?

No other Lockwood birthdays. Happy birthday to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Happy birthday to Christopher Nolan. Happy birthday, Hope Solo. Happy birthday, Bob Escalona. Happy birthday, Dak Prescott. And happy birthday to Benito Mussolini. I don't know who that is.

And Tess Lockwood.

Happy birthday, Tess Lockwood.

Oh, happy birthday to my mom.

Happy birthday to Max's mom.

That's today.

Max's mom.

Happy birthday, John Summit. Love you guys.