You are listening to the Dan Levitan Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports App, now live in all 50 states. So we have all survived the gravity leaving us for— what was it, Jeremy? It was, it was 7 seconds. 7 seconds. Yeah.
I mean, survived, not thrived. No, my face is a little banged up.
No, you look good. You look good.
That's okay.
Yeah.
Let's, let's bring aboard Jessica Smittana. Of course, you could hear her with the weekly Notre Dame podcast, The Echoes, Echoes, Echoes, with, uh, Mike Golick Jr. Jess, did you survive the loss of gravity, uh, less than an hour ago? Did you know that this was even happening today? Did it catch you by surprise?
I didn't know about this. Can you tell me more? I— yeah, are you guys okay?
Yeah, we're okay. Tony's probably got a little egg on his face. He was a big subscriber to this. That's why he's not here. He's still strapped in.
He's upside down.
Well, you got to explain it to her now, Mike.
Explain. So NASA knew about it. We were going to lose 7 seconds of gravity at 10:33, but NASA was okay with it because, you know, we don't really have a solution for climate change and the Earth is overpopulated. So we were counting on this extinction event to be a great corrector. But, you know, on to the next one.
Damn.
Okay, there you go. All right, Jess, let me ask you something here. I, I need, I need an, I need an outside female perspective.
Oh boy. Okay.
Yeah.
And, and you're, you're engaged, all right? So you're, you're in a committed relationship, so your opinion here counts. So my wife is constantly getting on me about being on my phone, and I'm not just talking about being on my phone. Like, if we're having a conversation and I even— and I, I look at my phone, I'm on my phone in any fashion. I could be, I could be checking an email or a text message. If I give my phone a second of consideration while she and I are sitting down doing anything together. It makes her crazy. And now I gotta sit there and I gotta endure this whole— this scolding from her. Is, is this, is this normal behavior from her?
I think that if you're looking at your phone while she's mid-conversation with you and talking to you, that, that's kind of on you. I'm not gonna lie to you.
She does the move where she'll stop talking. Did you get it?
Did you get a text?
That's a great move.
She stops talking and she just stares.
Jer Bear, Jer Bear, I like that. Is that something important? Who was that? What is— what's going on?
What's going on on your phone there?
Right.
No, I'll be like, uh, so it'll be— I'll, I'll wait, I'll wait till you're done. That's what she'll say.
Lehman and I both do this to each other because we both are on our phones a lot, and a lot of it is work-related stuff. Like, we both work from our phones all day, but it's hard when you work from your phones. And also, I work from home a lot, to put it aside and not look at it. And sometimes I am just doing like frivolous bullshit on it, but we do this to each other all the time. We're like, he'll be saying something to me and I'll look at my phone and he'll get mad, and then I'll be talking to him and he looks at his phone and I get mad. So we just basically do this on and off every day, probably until we die, um, till death do us part. And I feel like that's just That's life now. Now I will say there are people, certain demographics in particular— I won't name names— the over-70 crowd who are so addicted to their phones lately. I've read articles about it, and I've noticed this with my grandmother. She is constantly on her phone and has her phone playing through Bluetooth into her hearing aids, so she's watching YouTube videos, and she watches like non-stop AI slop videos about like, you know, husbands cheating on their wives and stuff like that.
She's probably watching this right now because she, she does subscribe to Leopard Tard Show YouTube channel. But she will sit there and just listen to it all day. And we're like, Grandma, you like look alive. Like what? You need to be part of the group here. What are we doing? And that, that is a step further than, than even leaning.
She just like, Greg is, Greg is on the phone right now instead of listening to you.
Look at him. Sorry.
He's texting.
I think we all need to have better phone etiquette. When I moved back to New York City, It's been around a year now since I moved back. I've noticed since even 2021, 2020, I mean, 2020, there was no one walking around because it was COVID. But I've noticed the phone etiquette of people walking on the sidewalk has gotten way worse.
Horrible.
People are walking into traffic looking at their phones every single day. And I mean, sometimes I do it too. I'm not immune to it, but it freaks me out.
It's a fine.
That was your phone, right, Greg?
It's like 3 phones.
You hear it beeping, Greg. Don't ignore it. Ignoring it only solves the show.
I have a question for you, Zazz. Is this a situation where you're normally having a conversation and you are getting a text, or is this a situation— and I've, I've noticed this happen not as much with me but more with my dad— where it's like being in the middle of a conversation and now your ADD just takes over and you've just decided to look at your phone and start scrolling?
No, that doesn't—
for no reason.
No, no, that, that would be rude. If we're in the middle of a conversation— You're telling me that's never happening? If we're in the middle of a conversation and all of a sudden I decide to doomscroll, like I'm essentially telling my wife, I've had enough. You're boring me. All right. And that would be—
But she doesn't know that you're not doing that.
Correct.
That's the problem.
Well, she certainly assumes that I'm doing that.
Right.
But, but what—
Why does she assume that?
Well, the way— Yeah, she's very insecure. The way that it normally goes is—
All women are.
The way that it normally goes is I'll be on my phone, I'm doing something, whatever, and then she'll be like, hey, uh, can we, can we talk about blah blah blah, whatever, like we have a plan, something we need to talk about. I go, yeah, sure, and I'm not stopping what I'm doing, and then she pulls that move, you know, I'll wait.
Well, then don't say yes.
Oh, because that'll go well.
No, no, I'm saying, hey, can you give me, can you give me 60 seconds?
Yeah, but no, but a lot of it is, all right, I can multitask. She claims I can't multitask.
You probably can't.
So that's normally the way it goes.
But hey, Zaz, I heard some bad news last week that made me think of you. The American Airlines charter bus connection from O'Hare to South Bend, it's now going to be a plane. I saw the bus.
Why is that bad news? Great news.
I thought you loved accidentally getting on a bus.
No, I hated it. I almost had a panic attack.
On the Borman Expressway.
No, I almost had a panic attack by myself in Chicago. Chicago. Okay. I hated that.
We've all been there.
That was one of the worst experiences of travel I've ever had. I saw they are bringing back those flights from those— yeah, those flights from Chicago to South Bend, which has got to be what, like a 25-minute flight or something?
It is. It's like 20 minutes. You barely get above 10,000 feet. Yeah, you just kind of go right over the lake and then you're descending.
Uh, Jess, I want to ask you about Texas Tech. It's been quite the offseason for them, and now they're doing this whole thing that people are afraid to play us. We're I'm kind of of the school of thought that they kind of made their own bed and there are consequences for how they approach this offseason in particular. You get more with honey type of deal. What's your read on it?
Hmm.
My read on it is the, the commentary about everyone hating them because they're Texas Tech and being afraid to play them and the, you know, conference putting the hammer on them just because they're Texas Tech, like all of that stuff and all of the reaction to the Sorsby stuff being put on everyone else instead of on them. And just saying nothing at all, I think made them look worse than had they just said nothing at all and been like, we stick behind our player. If he's eligible to play, we're going to play him. That would have been better than all of the stuff that they've done and said since, which I think has left a really bad taste in people's mouth. Now, when it comes to scheduling out of conference, I don't think that should really matter too much. If I'm an AD at another school and I have a window for a team and I want to play a team like Texas Tech, I am of the opinion that in the 12 to whatever the expanded playoff ends up being, if it does expand, uh, team playoff, playing good teams is generally a good thing.
Even if you lose sometimes, you're still in good shape. And obviously there's like, it depends, right? Like I'm talking teams that don't already have a tough out-of-conference game or a really hard schedule or whatever it is. But there's a number of teams that fit that criteria that I think adding Texas Tech would probably be good for their playoff chances instead of being a detriment to them. And that's where I'm like Like, look, all of that stuff with Brendan Swordsmead was incredibly annoying. Do we all have warm and fuzzy thoughts about Texas Tech? No, I don't. But I don't know if that's like stopping me if I'm looking at a schedule in 5 years and picking a non-conference team to play.
Jess, have you seen— I saw this online. I— there was a— there's a dangerous game. Yeah, right.
You saw it while your wife was talking to you.
Okay. Everybody calm down. There is apparently this woman who has created a business where she helps— she's an interior designer. Yes, for freshmen entering their dorms. Am I explaining? I don't know if I'm explaining this well enough.
No, you're— I think you're explaining this well. And Zaz, I have been thinking about this every day since I saw this video. This woman decorated this dorm room. I think this is at Alabama. And look, is it adorable? Yes. Do I love the colors yellow and pink? Of course. Is this way too much money and effort and, uh, just everything to put into a dorm room? Also yes. My dorm room was disgusting when I was a freshman in college. I, I have pictures of it I was sending to my roommate, and we were laughing at how many— this is my room freshman year.
This is actually yours?
This is my— yeah, this was my dorm, and this is the cleanest picture I could find. This was move-in day.
Which one are you, left or right? Left, upper, uh, boy, you got the, you got the wet towel hanging on the bed on the right one.
Yeah, disgust. My roommates were disgusting, by the way. I had a picture that I found in my camera roll where there were 16 old takeout cups out in our common area from like weeks.
Just filthy.
I don't know how we didn't have roaches and mice. Anyways, it's just, it makes me crazy because college is supposed to be for being gross.
Yeah.
And this is too much. And it's also— it's just— I hope this stuff's being reused the next year because we are— we always see these videos of people moving out of their dorms at like NYU and there's like piles of furniture on the sidewalk in New York. And that bothers me.
So, Greg, you see that like that, like this woman apparently is hired to, to interior decorate these freshmen, I assume freshman girls' dorm rooms. I don't know that her expertise is doing it for the boys. But you see, it's like she's like she's making a girl's— like, I wonder, Jess, does— do these girls send a picture of what their current high school bedroom looks like? Hey, I want it to look like as similar to this as possible.
I—
yeah, I don't really know. All I know is that this looks like it costs a lot of money.
And I saw that she charges between $15,000 and $20,000.
Ridiculous.
Really?
Yeah, it's crazy.
Oh my God. Yeah, I didn't even think it was that.
And apparently she has— apparently she has around 20 clients a year.
That's crazy.
That's— I'm going to call it a wrap on sports media. I think I got into the wrong business. I could— $20,000, 5 clients a year.
More than 5 clients, like 15 to 20 clients a year.
Under our services on her website, she has a blurb where she explains where she's from, where it's based, and then quotes a character from Steel Magnolias. Then she describes the interiors and then has a different quote from a different character in Steel Magnolias.
I don't want to rip this lady too much. I just think—
no, she's— if she's providing a service that people are offering, like, good for her.
I just think that everyone needs to be a little bit more disgusting.
Jess, you should apply for the internship.
Okay, maybe I will.
It's so strange.
Maybe I will do that.
A dorm room should have a bed, a Spartan desk, and a hot plate. That's all.
And a wet towel.
And a wet towel. That's right.
Do you remember your, your dorm living?
And a jizz sock.
I do. Oh no, I didn't say— oh boy, no.
Dan Levitar.
I heard that as a woman faking, uh, pain. I, I didn't think that sounded real. I really didn't.
You know, it was not fake. It was in no way fake.
Yeah, you can spot a woman faking it.
Great, Cody.
Yes, I can, Jess. I've been married 40 years.
This is the Dan Levitar Show. I want to hear about— I want to hear what this dorm situation looked like.
It was the opposite of that. It was just— it It was literally a bunk, what seemed like a bunk bed.
And a couple of socks.
A couple of socks, right. You know, and just nothing. I mean, I do remember a hot plate. I wasn't kidding about that. I'm not sure if microwave ovens had been invented yet.
Clutch socks.
We had black mold in our bathroom.
And you thought nothing of it.
Oh, it made me sick. I thought about it all the time. I thought it was going to grow legs and come and strangle me in my sleep. It taught me a lot of lessons.
Same with the sock.
Being disgusting in college taught me a lot of lessons. And I wasn't even the most disgusting one. I had to put duct tape across my half of the dorm, and I was like, none of your guys' shit can cross my half.
Wow.
Because you guys are disgusting.
It was that bad?
Nice.
It was so, so bad.
But this was at Clemson, right?
Yeah, yeah. They had like a suite.
Yeah. Did you, did you have dorms in, uh, in South Bend?
I lived with my sister in an apartment in South Bend.
Yeah. Wait, you didn't spend your entire college career in South Bend?
She's a Clemson Tiger too.
No, I went to Clemson my freshman year.
Oh, I didn't know that. I'm— I'm— I went to two schools as well. Did you know that?
You went to Santa Fe?
Okay. I don't know why you keep saying that. I told you I have no idea where Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville.
Oh, yeah.
Nope.
I know that place.
He knows it.
That's cool that you know it because I don't.
He can get you in.
I actually don't. I don't know where Zaz went because I feel like there's so many inside jokes that I don't— I'm not privy to.
You want to say Santa Fe?
No, I never went to a community college. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I went to UCF.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
With like, Jer Bear.
Yeah. But I then transferred to Gainesville.
Santa Fe.
To University of Florida. Nope. Santa Fe.
Oh, okay.
Nope.
So you did go to Florida.
If my life depended on it, if you had a gun to my head and said, Zaslow, take me to Santa Fe Community College right now or I kill you. I would be dead. I don't know where it is.
Were you there one year or two?
University of Florida?
No, Santa Fe.
Okay, moving on. Jess, we were talking a little bit about movies earlier, and one movie that— like, movie coming out this weekend is The End of Oak Street with Anne Hathaway, which we think is strange that there have not been any reviews out yet. Uh, that's usually not a very good sign as far from how the movie is going to be, right? Yeah, but What we have not brought up yet is this new movie coming out with Robert Pattinson where he stars as Chris Hansen called Prime Time. Have you seen the trailer? It's A24, which I love. The A24 studio do great movies. Have you seen the trailer?
Trailers first.
Prime Time with Robert Pattinson.
I have, and I also saw that it's partially based off of an article in Esquire about one of the most famous, um, encounters that happened as part of the show that ultimately led to this show's demise.
Yeah, didn't somebody kill themselves?
Yes. Instead of— so the— this is my main takeaway. What the hell? Reality TV in the '90s and 2000s, what the actual hell was going on? Like, this is all insane. But what they would do would like they would get these decoy houses and they would lure the quote-unquote predators to the decoy houses and have it all bugged and, you know, film it and film the interaction and the reveal when Chris Hansen comes out, which is— you could see in that trailer. Um, and I think most people are familiar with the show. This was a network television show, but I guess if you're a younger person, maybe, maybe you missed it. But anyways, in this one case, they couldn't get the guy to come to the house, so they went to his house and they had a SWAT team show up at his house, and he did end up shooting himself when they arrived. And, um, I think— I, I guess that has— that led to the premature demise of the show because, you know, there's a lot of ethical questions that get raised when something like that happens. Um, but I was curious about— was like, Chris Hansen's still alive.
Like, what is— so Robert Pattinson's playing him in a movie. Like, what is— he's just— is he gonna go to the movie? Is he gonna watch it? Is he gonna have any sort of retrospective thoughts on any of this? And apparently he was not involved in, in any of this. He only found out about it sort of recently, and he still has a streaming show where he does like sting operations. I found out on YouTube and on some streaming networks. So anyways, this is— Robert Pattinson's on a crazy roll right now, and this movie looks dope.
Yeah, Chris Hansen, we were kind of into this show because it was— its heyday was while our show was rip-roaring, and yeah, we would have Chris Hansen on a lot. Yeah, we also had really, uh, Joey Greco on, the host of Cheaters, who got stabbed.
Yep.
You get—
which is surprising to no one that that happened.
He got stabbed on the show? Yeah, and he kept hosting. And like, that wasn't a network reality show, that was syndicated.
Yeah.
What?
Like, you're not surprised that that happened on— like, the whole premise, of course, on Cheaters, that Joe Greco would bring, you know, the, the person who's being cheated on, and they would catch the couple in the act. And of course, at some point But he was going to get stabbed.
Yeah, of course. God, he did get stabbed. But we would have him on the show too. He was a riot.
Steve Wilkos as well.
That show was crazy.
Why did you do it?
Why'd you do it?
Why'd you do it?
Have a seat. Big night planned.
Jess is right. Reality TV, like, it was crazy. Pretty crazy.
Every show. And even like the— I used to watch America's Next Top Model, which was like a reality model competition show. And there was a documentary, like, exposé about that that came out a year ago. And I was like, man, every negative thing that I learned about my body came from the show. What were we doing? What— I feel like Kevin Durant. What are we doing to our beautiful queens? It was just a crazy time on television.
I mean, it's still—
I'm sure reality TV now we're not going to look back on fondly in 20 years too, but all of this was nuts. What were we thinking?
Jess, The Real World had so many, so many moments. You're I'm going to call—
Lucy got smacked by Steven of Real World Seattle.
Was it Irene?
Irene.
Irene. Real World Seattle. You slapped— like she got in the car, she was leaving. He opens the door, slaps her in the face, door closes. And we all have to answer a lot of questions as young Americans.
Yep. Straight up smacked her in front of everybody. That was crazy on television. Dude smacking a girl.
And we had to reconcile with Puck.
Oh, yeah. Sticking his dirty index finger in the peanut butter. Yeah, it's kind of rough. Ah, who's Puck? Who's Puck?
You're talking about Puck from Glee, right? No, that was a bad ending.
Oh, Real World San Francisco. Come on now.
Or, or how's ever a Real World person?
You're too young. You're too young. You, you missed Real World New Orleans and the absolute jam. Come on, be my baby tonight.
Come on, be my baby tonight.
I did watch some of the, uh, VH1 shows that were kind of— they had like real world contestants in them.
So the challenge— this will blow your mind. The Challenge. You know MTV's The Challenge? It was like Billy Simpson.
I found out about The Challenge during COVID because of my brother-in-law-to-be.
So The Challenge, it was just renamed The Challenge. It used to be The Real World Road Rules Challenge. And what was Road Rules, you may ask?
I was a real Road Rules guy.
Road Rules was basically The Real World but in a traveling Winnebago. And that's where we discovered Theo Vaughn.
Yep.
What?
Yeah. And Kid Hoover. From Cold Pizza.
Cold Pizza, of course. Yep. And also, what was his name? Uh, who's on TV right now? Kyle Brandt. He was Real World.
He was Real World. Kyle Brandt? Yeah. And I believe Sean Duffy.
I don't know who that is.
Oh, you are so not political.
Yeah, Kyle Brandt was real, and of course The Miz was Real World.
This is blowing my mind right now. Yeah, Johnny Bananas is the only one who I am familiar with.
Chris Cody's friend?
Yeah, that's What? Now he has a whole baseball team named after him.
There was a time Robert Pattinson, who of course came to fame, his first roles were the Twilight movies, you know. I never seen any of those.
Harry Potter.
Oh, they're so good.
I've been told that he got his start in Harry Potter, which led to Twilight.
Cedric Diggory.
What?
He was Cedric Diggory.
My boy!
All right. I don't know what any of that is.
We're not like these nerds.
But Robert Pattinson, you know, very came to fame with the Twilight movies, which were obviously a very huge deal. But it felt like—
I was Team Edward.
But it felt like he can only be Team Edward. He's gonna be kind of pigeonholed where it's like, oh, he's, he's that kind of actor where he's in those kind of movies. And now he's like as big a male actor there is in the world, like totally shed that label. I feel like there aren't very many examples of dudes who have pulled off what he's been able to pull off.
He's chosen some really interesting projects. I, I agree with you, Zazz. Like, the, the Twilight Saga films were So, so bad. There are some of— other than the baseball scene, other than the baseball scene in the first—
baseball scene, I'm talking about that baseball scene.
I've never seen any of the Twilight movies and even I know that we will discuss on Pitch Clock tomorrow, by the way.
Twilight Baseball Movie. Yeah, find out.
Great Twitter handle, right? Twilight Baseball Scene.
A baseball movie. It is— Twilight is so, so bad in, in every single way. And I say this as someone who read all of the books in 7th grade and was like, this is great, I can't wait to have a boyfriend someday, I hope they're nice to me. And then Edward leaves her in the second book and you're like, well, she should probably eat, I don't know why she's not eating. Anyways, it was a crazy time to be alive. And so then the movies came out and the movies were so bad, and they also made him look bad because he had to be pale and look like a vampire. And the acting— the character itself was, was just not— it was not a good character. But then afterwards, yeah, he did a lot of like kind of interesting, weird movies, and now he's in some huge blockbusters playing, yeah, like serious dramatic roles. I agree, I didn't really see it, I didn't really see it coming. But I think you could say the same for Kristen Stewart. Like, when, when Twilight came out, I was like, I don't really know if this is a great actress.
And now she's gotten, like, she's, she's a star too, and she does a lot of films and has taken way more seriously than I think anyone expected.
But I feel like he is so much bigger than she—
well, he's, he's like the biggest actor in the world, but she's had an opportunity to like produce movies direct movies. She's done a lot more behind the scenes than he has. But I mean, look, he's Batman, he's in Dune, he's in all these different things, and he's done all these strange projects as well. Yeah, he's having the best summer of anybody.
I don't believe that second Batman's ever coming out. Well, we'll see.
Dan Levitar, if I may say for a second, Miami, they were simulating the snap count the entire game and they were clapping at the line of scrimmage. And the only thing I want to see clapping are them cheeks on Mrs. Mack in my face. Mack sure.
All right.
So that's one thing. Jessica Esmeralda, they're a bunch of cheaters, Dan.
And you know who should be cheating?
Mrs. Met on Mr. Met, and he can watch if he wants.
This is the Dan Levatar Show. Jess, I, I need you to, uh, to explain what the hell the Indiana Fever are gonna do, because every— it feels like every single game there is complaining about their head coach, Stephanie White. And finally yesterday, we'll play the video here. This is pregame. This is her pregame availability where Stephanie White has been under fire. She's been under fire for a lot of things, most, most specifically for anything involving Caitlin Clark. And recently there's been criticism levied at Stephanie White, apparently because she didn't back up Sophie Cunningham to the enough to the pleasure of the masses. For the incident that took place with her being fouled by Dijonae Carrington. And Stephanie White decided to release a statement before the game yesterday. Here it is.
Every day these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high. Love will win. Grace will win. Humility will win. And kindness We'll win. I stand by them. I will always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell.
I'd have preferred for her not to keep looking at the, you know, the paper there. But like, does she like her job?
I mean, when she was hired, it was like, oh man, Steph White's going back to the Fever to win a championship with Caitlin Clark. This is going to be incredible. And then, you know, Caitlin Clark was hurt most of last season and Steph White was still able to coach this team to a deep playoff run without their star player. And Look, I think there's a lot of fair criticism that can be made about coaching decisions, rotations, like all of these things that go into her job. But the criticism that she wasn't mean enough to an opponent for a flagrant 2 foul in a game, an opponent that she used to coach, um, that to me is just like, what are we doing? Like, we want her to get up on the podium and be like, yeah, that's a dirty player and she sucks and I hate her. Like, that's not how any coaches really behave in these situations. And I think expecting someone to do that, especially if that's not even how they feel about a player, is pretty— like, that would be pretty unprofessional and egregious, I would say. So when this pre-game press conference happened yesterday, to be honest with you, Zazz, I, I didn't even realize at first what the specific thing she was referring to was.
Um, and then, you know, I, I saw that it was because of this DeJanae Carrington thing, and I was like, that there's so many other things that I thought she could have been addressing, like the, you know, grifter former NBA players who are trying to declare for the WNBA draft, like that sort of thing. Um, but no, apparently it was about this foul call which happened like 2 days ago. Apparently she got booed, um, at the— before the Fever game started against the Liberty yesterday. Caitlin Clark said after the game that that like really like hurt her to hear that and that she stands by her coach. And, um, it's just one of those like weird things where it's like you're getting attacked from all angles, right? There's like all these people that don't think women should play sports. There's all these people that don't take your league seriously. There's all these people that are like just going out of their way to discredit everything you're doing. And then you're getting it from your fans too, who think that you're a bad person because you didn't like motherf an opposing player. Like, to me, it's just, it's just weird.
And it all stems from, um, I think displeasure in general with the way that the season kind of started out. But the Fever have been playing really, really well lately. They beat the Liberty last night, had a great offensive game. You'd think that that would kind of silence some of the noise from their own fan base. But I also will add, they're not the only fan base that internal division that is mad at the coach. And this isn't even the first time this has happened with a Fever coach. Like, Christy Sides was not loved by the Fever fan base in Caitlin Clark's rookie season. So anyways, yeah, there's just a lot of negativity, and I'm happy that she stood up for herself. And I definitely feel badly for the position that she's in because there's a lot of eyeballs on her, and it feels like, you know, no matter what she does, she is pissing someone off, I guess.
Jess, a couple of weeks ago you reminded me that I need to purchase my Phil Steele College Football magazine.
Which one of them?
I totally forgot. And then I went and I ordered it and it has come in the mail. Like, I have my Phil Steele College Football magazine, but I haven't, like, looked at it. It's, you know, it came in the mail. My wife put it on, you know, the dresser and it's just there. I haven't started going through it yet. Jess, do I have to be worried that I have the actual Phil Steele College Football magazine?
Apparently. I'm worried that I can't find mine right now. I thought it was on my desk, but I saw Phil Steele post yesterday on Twitter that someone is selling AI slop Phil Steele college football previews on Amazon and pretending that they're the real deal. And the details in them— this is The Athletic wrote a story about this— are kind of funny. Like the numbers are wrong on players' jerseys. There's like a 12-team playoff bracket that has 16 lines on it. So it's just like all incorrect and wrong. And I don't know, man, Amazon, you're a billion-dollar company, billion-plus-dollar company. Can you, can you get the AI slop off your website? And also, I will add, I saw a whole Wirecutter investigation into fake beauty products and skincare products on Amazon where there's like third-party sellers selling dupes in fake packaging. And if you don't buy— so like, if I'm buying sunscreen from the CeraVe store, if, if I'm accidentally clicking on a link for it from like a third-party seller, I might be getting a different product. It might not even be the real thing. And there's like all these fake people now selling— well, real people selling fake products pretending that they're real products, including for Phil Steel.
It's ridiculous.
I'm a little bit worried now.
It's Phil Steel, but it's spelled S-T-E-A-L. No, no, it's not.
No, it was a good joke.
You fooled me, Jeremy. You fooled me.
I just feel like every day I'm living my life, trying not to get scammed, and I'm getting close. Like, it's— I mean, it's going to happen. I'm going to put, like, sunscreen made out of, I don't know, bird poop on my face on accident one of these days.
Jess, did you see that Ohio State fans are all mad at Mike Ryan? We were talking about it yesterday.
No, I did not see that.
We were talking about it yesterday. You know, the preseason— the coaches preseason poll came out. The AP is not out yet, but the, the coaches preseason poll is out. And Mike decided to give a couple of teams because this happens every year. Like last year was Clemson and LSU, where you have a couple of teams who are ranked in the top 10 preseason that end up finishing the year. They're not even ranked, like they end up stinking. All right. And so Mike chose—
just as a sports radio exercise, if I have to pick one of these top 10 teams, you know, it's been hard to do a show today. Thank God for that gravity thing. So like, just as a thought exercise, let's talk this out. Let's try to guess because these all look like good teams. It's hard to imagine any of these teams being unranked. But who do you think in the top 10 right now preseason is the most likely to finish the season unranked? And I had a controversial choice. I was torn between Georgia—
Georgia, Georgia, Georgia—
and Ohio State. And now I feel pretty strongly that it's Ohio State.
I don't think it'll be Ohio State. I think the, like, advanced analytics all like Ohio State and have them like preseason number 1. I don't think that's just like, coaches pull bluster. Um, their schedule is a little bit harder this year than last year, so I'll give you that. But I don't think they'll be unranked. I think— because like, unranked would be—
unranked—
sorry, Penn State, like, collapse.
Can I go— instead of unranked, can I just go everybody wants to fire the coach and maybe the coach doesn't come back next year? Rather than— because you can do that the year they won the national championship. They can finish 14 and that might be the case.
Yeah, uh, that's fair. I think Alabama I would put in that category, although they just gave Kalen DeBoer an extension. Um, I think you could put a lot of teams in that category. The team that I think I would not put in that category is Indiana, because I think Kurt Signetti will just have that job for the rest of his life.
And Miami, you could say about Miami, like Cristobal's not going anywhere ever.
Yeah, definitely. I, I totally agree with that. Um, but I think, I think it's hard to take any of these teams and say they will be unranked. Last year I would have not even said that about Penn State, even though I was like skeptical that they were as good as people said that they were going to be going into that season, because I was not a Drew Allar believer, like unlike many. But, um, I think that's kind of where you have to take it, Mike, is like, who are the quarterbacks that you think are getting too much preseason buzz and attention? Is it like the CJ Kahrs or the Sam Levits? And if they don't perform to the standard, is the team still good. And then like, where would you find enough losses? I did them to be unranked.
I took that into account with Sayan. I, I don't think Sayan is that, is that good. And I know he was a Heisman finalist, and but I know what I saw in Dallas, Texas. I, I, I— there were things when he goes up against— he is playing very talented teams this year, teams that can get after the quarterback. And I think I saw him really struggle with that. I think this year they lost a million guys to the NFL on that defensive side of the ball. I think they are more susceptible to lose to the likes of Illinois and Iowa than they've probably been in the last few years. And I can see this spiraling. And if Michigan rolls around and you already have a 3-loss Ohio State team or 2-loss even, and people are already starting to doubt it, and that game comes and goes and he loses that game— disaster. I mean, it's— look, we're doing something that's hard. You're going to piss off what is right now a team, a fan base of what is expected to be a good team. But you got to go for a team that's playing a tough schedule.
Ohio State is in a conference where any given Saturday a team can get you. And they just lost a lot of guys from the previous year. And they've shown, they've shown that maybe the arrow isn't ascending the way that it had been previously.
I think I would be more likely to take a team like maybe Texas A&M or Oklahoma, like a team that had an obvious deficiency last year that has a a harder schedule, like Texas A&M's final. Yeah, Oklahoma, like their offense was, was really banged up, but, uh, and like John McTeer had to get surgery midway through the season, so obviously give them some, some grace for that. But like their offense was not very efficient, and, um, that's a team where you're like, okay, their defense is going to be great, we know that, but maybe if they can't score down the stretch, it gets dicey. Same with like Texas A&M, like if Marcel Reid is awesome um, then they are probably going to beat the Alabamas and South Carolinas and Tennessees and Oklahomas and Texases. But if he's got a few bad turnovers in some games like last year and they pile up, that October-November schedule is really, really tough. So, yeah, I'd probably go that route.
I like talking this out with you because you're applying the logic of using previous examples, quarterbacks that didn't end up being all that good, that people had questions about out in this top 10. The quarterbacks that people have questions about was how Marcel Reid's season ended, um, and Mattier, certainly after the hand injury, he was different.
See, Mike, what I like about what you're doing is that if you are somehow right, and there's probably like a, you know, a 1% chance that you are, you're gonna look like the smartest guy ever. And if you're wrong, I don't know if anyone's gonna remember. You're just gonna be like a voice of a doubter in the crowd.
Ohio State That's a great spot to be. Ohio State fans are good for the banter and they're licking their chops to get an advantage now that the Fiesta Bowl is not something that they can go to. The Cotton Bowl happened since then. But I look, they— I, I'm a big believer in Texas and Arch Manning. I think they are super talented. I have questions about the head coach, but early on there's a pretty big measuring stick. And if they lose that game to Texas, I feel like I'm already right.
That's fair. I saw, um, from Brian Fromeau, he was posting some like efficiency data the other day. He said that Sark has never cracked the OFEI top 15 or the OF+ top 10 at Texas, which is kind of interesting. They have loaded up at the skill positions, and I mean, we've all seen the clips of their, uh, of like Cam Coleman catching that pass in camp.
Um, they're ridiculously talented.
Curious how the offensive line is like that. Their run game was so bad last year and they're like, well, we're going to get 2 running backs in the portal and fix it. So I don't know, maybe, maybe that would be a spicy take. But I— it's so hard at the beginning of the season because you just talk yourself into everyone being really good and you don't— I don't know, like it's— you don't start seeing the cracks to like week 4 or 5.
The weekly Notre Dame podcast, The Echoes, with Jessica Smetana and Mike Golub Jr. Great job, Jess. We're so—
Mike, why not just go with Ole Miss?
I like Trinidad.
Ah, me too. He's great. All right, thanks guys.
"College is supposed to be for being gross and grungy."
Zaslow asks Jessica for some advice, and Jess comes in with some strong takes on a new college interior designer, the new Primetime trailer, Stephanie White's time with the Indiana Fever, fake products on Amazon, and the team most likely to struggle from the Top 10 in College Football.
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