Season Kickoff Special + CFB’s Biggest Unknowns & Show Updates

Summary

Josh Pate’s College Football Show — Season Kickoff Special + CFB’s Biggest Unknowns & Show Updates

Date: August 3, 2026
Podcast: Josh Pate’s College Football Show (iHeartPodcasts)
Host: Josh Pate

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Episode Overview

Josh Pate kicks off the 2026 college football season with his unique blend of insider intel, candid takes, and an eye on the sport’s most unpredictable variables. Broadcasting from “a pulsating downtown Nashville,” Josh covers the wild off-season, the major questions facing the upcoming campaign, conference power dynamics, hot seat drama, program spotlights (notably Notre Dame and North Carolina), and updates about the show’s future and partnerships. The episode is laced with Josh’s signature enthusiasm, direct listener engagement, and memorable storytelling—from gas station recruiting wars to the emotional magic of a college football Saturday.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unknowns Defining 2026 (03:35–19:55)

• Size of the National Title Bubble (05:57)

• Josh discusses how many teams he’d place in a 'championship bubble' if his life depended on picking this year’s winner:
  • “If your life was on the line and you had to take all the teams you think could win the national title and put them in a bubble… you want the bubble as small as possible without having the eventual winner be outside the bubble.”
• Current major contenders: Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon, Texas, Georgia, Indiana, Miami—what Josh dubs the “Big 7.”
• Looks at fringe teams: “Is Texas Tech in there? Is Ole Miss in there? Bama, Oklahoma? Are they in there? Is LSU going to be in there?”

• Conference Playoff Bids & Surprises (07:00)

• Posing the over-under for ACC & Big 12 playoff teams at 2.5—“Would you go over or under?”
• Muses about bluebloods vs. potential dark horses ("Does anyone have Indiana potential? Is there an undefeated season out there?")

• Notre Dame’s Big Game Identity (09:30)

• “Is Notre Dame a big-time program? Is Notre Dame a big-game program—that is still unknown.”
• Skeptics point to struggles in marquee games under Marcus Freeman; defenders note their recent rise and potential for even greater heights.
• “Marcus Freeman has to push back on it. Ultimately, Notre Dame has to push back on it. So yeah, I guess that's kind of an unknown right now.”

• SEC’s “Tier One” Reality (10:50)

• National consensus: “Oh Josh, it’s Texas and Georgia.” But Josh wonders—is it that simple?
• Explores possible chaos: What if Lane Kiffin does it at LSU? What if Alabama or Texas A&M surprises? “What if the tier one table is more crowded?”

• Big Ten’s “Tier Two” Challenge (12:55)

• Notes absurd dominance: The “Big Three” (Indiana, Oregon, Ohio State) are 48-1 vs. the rest of the league over the past two seasons.
• “Is there a little more mixing at the top of the Big Ten, or is it still just this nice, neat, tidy, compartmentalized product?”

• Quarterback Depth Across the Country (15:10)

• Proclaims this year’s QB group is “utterly insane” in depth and quality—rattles off 20+ names.
• “If a critical chunk of those names live up to or slightly exceed whatever the expectation is, you're talking about an insane year.”

• Coaching Carousel & Hot Seat Volatility (18:24)

• Points out last year’s early firings of Hugh Freeze, Billy Napier, Brian Kelly, James Franklin—“the hot seat had a real quick trigger last year.”
• Asks: Could there be an early shocker in 2026? Speculates about Wisconsin, Florida State, Baylor, USC, South Carolina—“It's impossible to see coming… if there was a ‘this year’s James Franklin’ by saying that, you're insinuating, oh, there's a preseason top 10… that's going to lose its coach by Halloween.”

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2. Conference Supremacy & Scheduling Debates (23:08–36:00)

• Show Rumors & ESPN Partnership (23:08)

• Addresses whispers about the show’s future, including ESPN’s interest:
  • “There has been motivation on both sides to broaden and expand that relationship… Stay tuned. I think some stuff’s coming around the corner.”

• SEC vs. Big Ten: Who’s on Top? (24:32)

• Bluntly: “Until further notice, the Big Ten gets to say whatever it wants and the SEC needs to keep his mouth shut.”
• His metric for “best” conference: championship-caliber teams, not depth or bowl results.
  • “The Big Ten is superior to the SEC right now. Period.” (35:22)

• Scheduling Metrics: Strength of Schedule vs. Strength of Record (29:00)

• “Should we go on strength of schedule, should we go on strength of record? You know my thoughts… you can never know until the season’s played out.”
• Notes the unfairness in preseason narratives: “How do we know how strong someone's schedule is in July? Doesn't that best guess also serve to unfairly preshape the narrative?”

• Early Season Cross-Conference Showdowns (36:45)

• Week 2 (and 3) features Ohio State at Texas, Oklahoma at Michigan, Mississippi State at Minnesota—Josh sees these as “true measuring sticks,” not bowl games hampered by opt-outs and mismatches.

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3. Program Spotlights & News (38:24–54:32)

• North Carolina’s Spiral & the Belichick Experiment (41:15)

• Dismantles North Carolina’s failed hiring of Bill Belichick after Mack Brown:
  • “They could have had John Sumrall… and instead you have a complete torpedoing of your brand.”
  • “The arrogance and the hubris and stupidity, I guess is a better word to throw around—the 33rd NFL team. It got laughed at…”
• Forecast: “They will wash their hands of this entire experiment at some point this year.… North Carolina can still be a winner.”

• The Magic of College Football Saturdays (54:32–63:35)

• Enthusiastic monologue on what sets CFB apart:
  • “There’s nothing like a college football Saturday. The feeling of waking up … oh, it’s Saturday.”
  • Memorable storytelling about pinball windows (multiple ranked games ending at once) and aftermath windows (night’s emotional exhaustion).
• Against fall weddings: “If I go to a fall wedding that delivers that, I'll be happy to endorse fall weddings. None of you are capable of that. Don't try.”

• Tour Announcement & On-the-Road Plans (62:30)

• New show tour for 2026 dropping Thursday—Josh promises the “best tour name and logo ever.”
• Hints at more campus visits and fan engagement.

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4. The Truth Teller Series: Marcus Freeman & Notre Dame (64:32–74:53)

• Freeman as CFB’s Next Elite Coach (64:32)

• “I think he's a top 5 head coach currently. I could easily see us calling him the number one coach in the country … but he’ll have to win a national title, obviously.”
• Lauds Freeman for not just raising the bar, but resetting it:
  • “He took it and just said, nope, we’re going to make it greatness. That’ll be the standard around here.”

• Handling Playoff Disappointment Maturely

• Josh cues up a candid soundbite with Marcus Freeman on learning from last year’s playoff snub:
  • Quote — Marcus Freeman (73:00):
    “If you blame somebody else, you lose it. And so my job every day is remind everybody and myself that everything that happens to you in life, you have to own it so we can use it to improve from it.”
• Josh’s takeaway: “That's it. You can't do anything about last year. All you can do with it is weaponize it for this year.”

• Notre Dame’s Present and Future

• “I don’t know in my lifetime that there’s ever been a better period to be a Notre Dame fan over the next five years than where we sit right now.”

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5. Show Culture & Updates (77:08–81:20)

• Gas Station Recruiting Wars & Partnerships

• Long, comical segment on how show sponsors are properly integrated and “recruited,” climaxing with KwikTrip’s return as on-road partner for the season.
• “We had gas station recruiting wars… We allowed these massive companies to recruit us because truthfully, we had like three of them that wanted to be on the show.”

• Responsible Gambling PSA

• As college football betting surges, Josh urges: “If you have even the slightest question about whether or not you can afford to bet on a game, the answer is you can’t.”
• Recommends FanDuel’s MySpend dashboard—“a really good tool. I use it every week. It’s no different than looking at your bank account.”

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6. Listener Engagement & Wild Future Scenarios (81:20–91:13)

• Wild “If You Had a Time Machine” Predictions

• Reads three listeners’ most shocking hypothetical headlines from January 2027:
  • John Sumrall wins Coach of the Year, Florida makes the playoff.
  • Will Hammond wins the Heisman, Texas Tech wins the national title.
  • USC, Florida State, and Tennessee all change head coaches.
• Josh’s perspective: “Last year James Franklin got fired before Halloween… so yeah, there were some unbelievable things that happened… There are no crazy predictions.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the season’s unpredictability:
  “Massive season ahead for us. So many unknowns in college football this year… Strap in. It is going to be one of the more unpredictable, wildest college football seasons that we’ve seen.” (03:35)
• On the SEC/Big Ten debate:
  “The Big Ten is superior to the SEC right now. Period. Was that pretty clear?” (35:22)
• On Marcus Freeman and facing adversity:
  • Freeman: “You have to own the failures. You have to own the situations. You have to own that you sleep in the bed you make and that's how you learn from that.” (73:00)
• On the emotional urgency of CFB Saturdays:
  “You can wake up utterly terrified on a Saturday… College football is a tightrope walk in a lot of cases where there's either no safety net, or the safety net is 100 feet below you.”
• On what to do if you’re on the fence about betting:
  “If you have even the slightest question about whether or not you can afford to bet on a game, the answer is you can’t. So don’t.” (80:42)
• On the unique ‘clearing of the mechanism’ in CFB:
  “Are you thinking about a Senate bill? Are you thinking about NIL or the Portal? No, because your mechanism is cleared and you’re fully locked in. College football features that unlike any other sport in the world.” (62:00)
• On the value of sponsorship:
  “We don’t get in bed with many of them, but the ones we do partner with, we partner with. There is no separation between your brand and this show. And we had gas station recruiting wars…” (77:20)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Season’s biggest unknowns & playoff bubble: 05:57–12:55
• Big Ten/SEC conference power analysis: 23:08–36:00
• Freeman on playoff snub & growth: 72:20–74:00
• North Carolina coaching mess (Belichick): 41:15–51:30
• The magic of CFB Saturdays/pinball windows: 54:32–63:35
• Show tour tease & KwikTrip partnership: 62:30, 77:08
• Listener ‘time traveler’ predictions: 81:20–91:13

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Conclusion

This “Season Kickoff Special” is vintage Josh Pate: high energy, deeply knowledgeable, skeptical of hype, and unwaveringly centered on what makes college football great. He peels back the layers of preseason mystery—Zooming in on quarterbacks, coaching volatility, conference supremacy, and culture-defining moments—while reminding fans why the wait for Saturdays is so worth it. The show sets up not only the season but the community culture that makes college football and his show a rarefied experience. Buckle up, it’s going to be wild.

Transcript

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It was the longest July of my life. And if you don't believe Satan's at work, let me tell you, man, our AC is out. There's no air circulation in here. Our system was busted when we came back in. This is why you can't take vacation, Jesse. This is why you just got to grind it out through July. But we're on air. We were not going to be kept out of here because it's Sunday, August 2nd, the year of our Lord 2026. And we need to talk jam packed high atop a pulsating downtown Nashville, Tennessee. And we need to talk like old friends who haven't seen each other in a month and who know that college football is either four Saturdays or five Saturdays away, depending on how you're interpreting. Week zero, whatever, it's right around the corner. Camps are opening up. We got coaches at the podium for press conferences. How about the, how about the quality of Lincoln Riley's camera situation out there in his new building? So we've got a jam packed show with we're three nights per week pretty much until they crown a national champ. From here on out, you know, there are a lot of unknowns, which is beautiful. You got to find beauty in the mystery. But there are a lot of unknowns around college football. And so as we kind of dive into August, I wanted to talk about that and I wanted to let you know where my mind's at. I've listened to a lot of you. I know where your minds are at. It got some big 10 sec stuff. I made my way down to media days for a couple of days. I knew what that scene was going to be this year. Didn't love it. But there's some hard truths that have to be accepted. There's some realities that have to be faced. I want to talk about Marcus Freeman tonight. I want to address some rumors and some things that have been said about the show, but also just about me in general about the future. There's always a fair amount of fear mongering out there, Jesse. Fair amount of people saying this and that, well, we are the source on us. It's a good quote, by the way, and so I'll address it all. We got a whole lot to get to, and we'll try and do it in a responsible amount of time. They're watching us in Biloxi, Mississippi. They're watching us in Seattle, Washington. Columbus, Ohio. Elberton, Georgia. It's just so good to be back. Oh, it's so good to be back. I just want to encourage you, subscribe to the channel and let your boys know and your girls know that the show's back. Strap in. It is going to be one of the more unpredictable, wildest college football seasons that we've seen. I'm going to talk about some of those reasons later. But, man, massive season ahead for us.

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[Josh Paton]

No other way to put it. No other adjective to use. Massive season ahead for us cannot wait. So many unknowns in college football this year. I just want to start talking. I just want to start rattling these things off. I've been sitting around in July, I went to the beach, I went all over the country, and I'm just sitting there with time on my hands, thinking about what people like us think about in July. And that is, man, how big or small is the College Football Playoff title bubble this year? Like, how big or small is that window? You remember we played a game last year, I think it was Kublik Jesse that we had on, and I told him, hey, create a bubble and put as many teams as the bubble in the bubble as you need to to make sure the national champ is in there. But if the national champ come season's end is outside your bubble, you die. It was all theoretical. Obviously, Kubelek did not agree to the actual terms. But think about that. I mean, if your life was on the line and you had to take all the teams you think could win the national title and put them in a bubble, but you want the bubble as small as possible without having the eventual winner be outside the bubble. I think a lot of us would have perished by the way of Indiana winning it all last year. So who would I have in there? Well, I'd have Ohio State. I'd have Notre Dame or Oregon, Texas, Georgia, Indiana, Miami, pretty much those Big Seven, so to speak, in some shape, form or fashion. Most people agree on that right now. Is Texas Tech in there? Is Ole Miss in there? Bama, Oklahoma? Are they in there? Is LSU going to be in there? I want to know if we get to mid November, how big that bubble looks. Because, you know, on One hand, you could have a team that just runs away with everything. But I think that's more and more unlikely by the year. In college football, there's another more likely scenario where two or three teams, four teams or so, start to separate from the pack. But it's kind of one of those modern age deals of even though it's like Ohio State last year, even though they're a clear number one, they're still reachable, and they were. And Indiana got them and Miami got them and they were done. But those kinds of teams could emerge. But friends, what if the third kind of season starts to emerge? What if where at one point in the year you think Notre Dame's best team in the country, then you think Miami's the best team in the country, then you think it may be Indiana again. And then Texas starts to surge and we get to December and you realistically look around and say, I can see nine of these teams winning it all. How big is that bubble? How many bids does a conference like the ACC get? The Big 12? If I were to put the over under at two and a half total playoff teams for the ACC and the Big 12, would you go over or under? You're thinking, maybe Miami, maybe Texas Tech. Is there another one? Does Louisville sneak in there? Does Brigham Young sneak in there? Do Miami and Texas Tech do what they're supposed to? By the way, does anyone have Indiana potential? Is there an undefeated season out there? These are the sorts of things that are on my mind this time of year. Speaking of Notre Dame, think one of the other big unknowns right now. It's a big boy question. This is an adult question here that we got to ask about Notre Dame. Is Notre Dame a big time program? Is Notre Dame a big game program that is still an unknown? Because as much as, as much respect, as much belief, as much willingness as I have in me to maybe even rank Notre Dame number one in the preseason. If you wanted to be a skeptic, you could throw out the schedule thing, but move past the schedule thing for a second. If you wanted to be a skeptic, if you wanted to be an Irish hater, or if you wanted to just sell me on the fact that there are valid doubts about this team and maybe Marcus Freeman's ability to win a national title, you could say something like, well, what did they really prove last year? They had a shot against Miami. They lost. Close game, but they lost. They had A and M at home, back against the wall early in the year, and what'd they do? They Lost again. What other big games did they really have go back to the year before and someone like me would say, what are you talking about? Just one year before they played for the national championship. You could say, yeah, but they lost that game handedly and they had this, this perfect Runway to get to the national title game where they beat Indiana. A year before Indiana was really premier Indiana. They beat Georgia without their starting quarterback. They beat Penn State which was also a non big game program under James Franklin. So one of them had to win it. Point being, you could deconstruct the concept that is Notre Dame the national title contender if you really wanted to and I would push back on it. But ultimately Marcus Freeman has to push back on it. Ultimately Notre Dame has to push back on it. So yeah, I guess that's kind of an unknown right now. The true nature of the SEC's tier one is what, how many teams? I think the working theory out there is, oh Josh, it's Texas and Georgia. That's what the odds board says right now at FanDuel. That's what the media in the south says. And I'm not necessarily here to push back on it. I just am wondering. It's called unknowns. It's not called doubts. It's not called affirmative statements here. It's just an unknown right now. Is it really that simple? Is it really Texas and Georgia, then a little bit of a separation, then this huge like hodgepodge of LSU and Oklahoma and Texas A and M, Alabama, whoever may end up being in there. Is that the way it works out? Or is there some other combination? There could be a world where Texas is just head and shoulders above the rest of the conference and come late November Texas is buzz saw in the entire league and Texas is en route to going undefeated and the next best team's nine and three and we look in November, say why did we overthink the room so much in July on all this? Or Georgia could do that and Texas could falter and underachieve and there could be all sorts of uncomfortable conversations to be had about Steve Sarkeesian. Or this is probably the more fun of the three possibilities here, not that there are only three. What if Lane Kiffin just does it in year one at lsu? What if all the ifs become green check marks at Alabama? What if Austin Mack starts, gives way to Keelan Russell, Alabama takes advantage of a soft early first month of the season and then they round into form? What if Texas A and M lost all that NFL talent and still got better? What if Oklahoma can run the ball and play good offensive line this year. What if one of those things falls into place and one of those other teams elevates? What if the Tier one table is more crowded? What if it's not crowded? What if there are still two teams like you thought there would be? It's just a different combination of those two teams that's kind of fun to talk about. And then in the Big Ten, I don't so much care about Tier one. I got no doubts about Tier one there. What does the Tier two table in the Big Ten look like if we are to assume, which I do, that some combo of Oregon, Ohio State, Indiana make up your 1, 2, 3 in the big Ten? I don't know how you look at it any other way coming into the year, but if we're to assume that, it is my belief maybe the biggest table story in college football coming into the 2026 season is the Tier 2 situation in the Big Ten. Because this right here, our first paper, popper stat of the 2026 season is an old stat, but that's the way it be sometimes. Jesse, do you understand that out of those big three, Indiana, Oregon, Ohio State, they are 48 and one against the rest of the Big Ten the last two years. So there has been such clear separation. Now, a lot of folks are going to clip that context and claim I said what I didn't say. I didn't say anything. The stat didn't say the stat is the stat. So my whole point there is Texas was one of the best teams in the SEC last year. They lost to Florida. They got taken to the limit by Kentucky and Mississippi State. That stuff doesn't happen in the Big Ten, and that's due to a couple of factors. Number one, the top of the Big Ten is better than the top of the sec. But number two, because of number one, there's a lot more separation between Tier one and Tier two. It's nice and neat and clean in the Big Ten, or at least it has been. So what does Lincoln Riley have to say about that this year? What does Kyle Whittingham or Matt Campbell have to say about that this year? Does Jed Fish have something to say about that this year? Kurt Ferencz. Kurt Ferencz, Matt Rule. Is he going to say something about that this year? Maybe even Louis Fickle. I could have made Wisconsin their own big unknown here. My point is, is there a little more mixing at the top of the Big Ten or is it still just this nice, neat, tidy, compartmentalized product which has been great for the league. Although I would argue maybe from a pure television watchability type standpoint, it hasn't been great because the TV numbers struggle just a little bit on that front. But the Big Ten is not struggling much, much at all here. I just wonder about that. But that pales in comparison to how exciting maybe the overall quarterback picture in the country could be this year. Which quarterbacks meet or exceed preseason expectations? I've been consuming this game a long time. Most of you watching this show have watched college football your entire lives. You've seen some years where the quarterback picture was really loaded. You've seen somewhere maybe a little more sparse. I would put this year's preseason quarterback picture up against almost any preseason quarterback picture that I remember in my lifetime. The depth of potential quality quarterbacks in college football this year is utterly insane. And you, you can get past the lead pack. So of course, CJ Carr at Notre Dame, Arch Manning at Texas Mensa, Miami, Trinidad Chambliss down at Ole Miss, Julian Saiyan, Dante Moore. Josh Hoover is headed to Indiana. Gunnar Stockton's at Georgia. You could get through that group. And then you've still got Mava at usc. Whoever wins the job at Bama, because they probably have two guys that could end up playing at a high level. You've got Sam Levitt having transferred to lsu. Byron Brown goes with Alex Goelish to Auburn, Rocco Becht, ditto with Matt Campbell to Penn State. Bryce Underwood is in his second year as a starting quarterback. We didn't mention Kevin Jennings at SMU in either of those groups. We didn't mention Noah Fafida. Austin Simmons, man, like this time last year, it was Lane Kiffin proudly, like, hitching his wagon to Austin Simmons as his starting quarterback. And now a year later, Eli Drinkwitz has done the same thing because Austin Simmons transferred to Missouri. That's not an exhaustive list. I didn't even get through it all, man. I'm trying to think there are some guys that we haven't even listed. Like Lenore Sellers wasn't even listed here. Jesse. I feel like I just listed 20 guys and I didn't even say Lenore Sellers. So the point there obviously is not everyone's going to deliver here. You'll have some guys get hurt because it sucks, but it happens every year. You'll have some guys just underachieve. You'll have a couple of guys come out of nowhere to make up for the guys that underachieved. But just think, if a critical chunk of those names live up to or slightly exceed whatever the expectation is, you're talking about an insane year because that leads to a lot of volatility. Because if you're getting pretty good quarterback play, a lot of teams could beat a lot of other teams. You don't have this like defunct, refined class system down the stretch like we do some years. And then the other part, which is not fun to talk about for me, although I think some of you, in a more sick kind of way, I think some of you have a lot of fun talking about this any time of year. The hot seat had a real quick trigger last year. I mean, Hugh Freeze, who else? Billy Napier, Brian Kelly. I think obviously we when you look at what happened with James Franklin at Penn State last year, those guys not only lost their jobs, they lost them early. By Halloween it was a disaster. And a lot of athletic departments had a quick trigger. So what happens at Wisconsin this year if it goes bad early, which I by the way, have some different theories on what may be in the cards for Luke Fickle in Wisconsin this year than the rest of America does. But let's say I'm wrong and for the time being, let's say you're right and let's say they lose some games early. Is there a quick trigger there? Is there a quick trigger at Florida State? What about Dave Aranda at Baylor? What if it goes bad early for Lincoln Riley at usc? Again, you could differ. You could think one or more of these guys are going to make the playoff and therefore it's a moot point. But I'm saying worst case scenario, what if it goes sideways? What if Shane Beamer were to get off to a really, really bad start? What could theoretically happen? If we have an off the rail season like we had with Clemson and Penn State and LSU last year, like some stuff that was really hard to see coming, what if that happens this year? What if it goes just really bad for like a Tennessee? I think it's irresponsible to even talk about. I don't even like talking about this because this gets into the lane where if you ask me, who would be most likely to be this year's James Franklin, I don't think there's an answer to that because the answer last year wasn't James Franklin up until the point where it actually happened. The whole crazy part about that is it's impossible to see coming. So if there was a this year's James Franklin, by saying that, you're insinuating, oh, there's a preseason top 10 or top five team that's going to lose its coach for merit based reasoning by Halloween. I don't know how you find that. So I was trying to come up with the craziest scenarios like Sark at Texas or something like that where no one would have seen it coming. I don't even know how you responsibly talk about that, and therefore we will not. Those are some big unknowns for the year.

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[Podcast Host]

Wait, I came in for two things. How is this $47?

[Bobby Bones]

All right, we're going to need a plan here.

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[Josh Paton]

So another unknown which will be known in the not too distant future, I hope, is some of the rumors. Jesse, you've seen this. You've got Internet, I assume. I don't know what you did on vacation, but you look tanned, well rested, different hair. But a lot of people were talking while we were on break. This is what happens when we can't address our people every 48 or 72 hours. So Nathan in Stamford, Connecticut hit us up and he said, great appearance on the bus. Thank you. Busing with the boys. Hit him up last Monday. Will Compton was strep positive and couldn't be there but he got the vaccine. So he is fully vaccinated against strep now. And he's back. He's back on his feet and happy to report that he's back amongst us. But in the absence of Will Compton, I went and filled in on Busin with the boys and I think we went like two and a half hours. It was pretty crazy. It was like a time warp. So Nathan said, great appearance on the bus. Thank you, Nathan. He continues. Can you comment? This is where it gets a little murky. Can you comment on the whispers and rumors about you guys and espn? Or is it just a fun rumor you guys are starting? Look, as I always say, when I can talk about such things, I'll talk about such things. All I'll say right now is the same thing that I said back in January and February. We kind of talked about this a couple of times. I liked what we did with ESPN last year. We had a really good relationship with espn. There has been motivation on both sides to broaden and expand that relationship. Now here has always been my stance. I am not someone who ever calls an agent or something and says, go get me this, because that'd be stupid, because that's asking someone to force feed the audience something that the audience is not asking for. So on the other lane, if you feel like the audience is asking for something, or if you feel like there's an absence in the marketplace for something and you've got a good idea, or someone else has a good idea and you think it'd work, well, that's a different thing. So yeah, we've had some conversations like that and I'm sure in the not too distant future we'll be able to talk more on it. But broad strokes purposes Nathan, I threw the paper down already. I think it's going to be a really good year for college football content this year. And my general 30,000 foot view on this has been for a long time. If this is the number two sport in the country, my number one, it needs to be covered and discussed accordingly. And I have felt for a long time on the national landscape that college football has not been covered appropriately. They've done a great job broadcasting the games. But college football itself, just as an entity, as a Sunday through Friday concept, has not been treated nearly the way it should. So that could change one of two ways. It could be covered by the wrong kinds of people, or hopefully it could be covered by the right kinds of people. I, in some small way, hope I'm the right kind of person that can help broaden and expand the horizons of college football conversation for the better in this great country of ours. So I say all that to say, stay tuned. I think some stuff's coming around the corner. Nathan. We move on. Oh boy. Again, July, interesting month. Some stuff happened, Jesse. Some media days happened. Some press conferences happen. So our buddy Jackson in Chicago, he was just asking me about the shots back and forth over the past month or so between the SEC and the Big Ten and did I have any thoughts on it? And I got to tell you guys, yeah, I've got thoughts. None of the thoughts are particularly new. I'm tired of talking about it. But since I haven't spoken to you in the better part of a month about these sorts of things, yeah, I guess I got some thoughts about it. My thoughts are, until further notice, the Big Ten gets to say whatever it wants and the SEC needs to keep his mouth shut. Those are about the long and short of my thoughts on this whole situation. I don't really care what your hypothetical scenarios are. Hypotheticals only matter. In the absence of reality. But we've got reality. We got results on the field. I watched the Rose bowl last year and I don't care so much about non playoff bowl results, by the way. And I've always held that stance, including when the SEC used to dominate. Like to me, the SEC could prove they were the premier conference in college football for a long time without using bowl results as a bad faith weapon in their argument. The Big Ten's the same. The Big Ten does not need to tell me that they beat Vanderbilt with Eli Stowers opting out to prove they're the best conference in college football right now. You prove you're the best conference in college football very simply because you've got the most championship caliber teams in college football right now. Well, Josh, now I guess that boils down to how you define best, doesn't it? Yes, I guess it does. So I guess I owe it to you to define how I define best. And mine's very simple. My system is not too complex. My system for defining the best conference in college football is simply which one of you has the most teams that can win the national title. And if you choose to view it a different way, you can choose to view it a different way, that's fine. That's why it's kind of subjective here. I would just say if all of a sudden you live in Jonesboro, Arkansas, or you live in Montgomery, Alabama, and you're deciding to judge conferences based on overall depth rather than championship caliber teams, were you singing that tune in 2016 or 17? And if you were, more power to you. It doesn't really matter, does it? But since you asked me, Jackson, I will tell you that I look at Ohio State, I look at Michigan, I look at Indiana and them running off, boom, boom, boom. And Oregon being very much in the middle mix to maybe make it a fourth unique team in four years in the Big Ten. I look at that caliber team, actually teams, plural, and I say the SEC doesn't have that right now. And by the way, there's no guarantee that changes this year. I was down at SEC media days for a couple of days in Tampa. I think Saban got some headlines for talking about schedule. And there's this whole debate right now about strength of schedule. Oh, by the way, is that the same thing as strength of record? No, it's not. Spoiler alert. What should we go on? Should we go on strength of schedule? Should we go on strength of record? You know my thoughts on that. Or if you're new around here, I will say I have thoughts on that that are nuanced and you can never know what they're going to be until the season's played out. Rhett Lashley. I was having some fun with him the other day. I was talking to him because he spoke up and he said, why are we talking about preseason FPI and strength of stuff schedule when no games have been played? This is just poisoning the well. And I text him, Jesse, and I said, I don't care what you think right now. I'm counting on your full endorsement when the JP poll drops, which will happen in the next couple of weeks. He did agree to still endorse the JP Poll, but his point was taken. And his point was how do we know how strong someone's schedule is in July? Maybe we have a best guess. But doesn't that best guess also serve to unfairly preshape what the narrative will end up being once the games have actually started to happen? And the answer is yes. And the answer is maybe you're going to get preseason credit in the SEC for some teams that have historically been really hard to play, being on your schedule. But then at the end of the year, you look back and you say, wow, that team kind of sucked this year. Remember when we thought it would be a big deal that so and so was playing them, but then it turned out it was. That's there on one side of the coin. On the other side of the coin, I 1000% believe the average league schedule that you'll play in the SEC is unequivocally tougher than the average league schedule you'll play in the Big Ten. But here's where that's irrelevant. Here's where that's totally irrelevant. If Alabama plays a tougher league schedule by a moderate amount in the SEC and Indiana plays whatever schedule they play in the Big Ten, which is still going to be pretty tough, and they play and Indiana rips Alabama's spying out. It doesn't matter. Indiana was the better team. That's just like if I took the Seahawks and I had them descend to college football and play in the Sun Belt this year, they'd still be the Seattle Seahawks. They'd probably go undefeated. Their strength of schedule wouldn't be all that great. What kind of quality team would they be? There is also, and this is again in the nuance, the devil in the details here, I think there's a little bit of validity to not talking so much about how strength of schedule, strength of record impacts whether or not you can win a national title. But rather the fringe of the playoff bubble. To me that's where the rubber meets the road. More on this because to me, really what it boils down to is is there a 93 team from the the SEC or maybe even the Big Ten that we think played a really hard schedule and they're being compared to an 111 team that played an infinitely softer schedule and we're trying to figure out who's going to be the 9 seed or something like that. Like we're. We always I say we. I've noticed a lot of people automatically attach the whole strength of schedule debate and if you play in the sec, does the body blow through theory catch up to you and they immediately attach that to the national title. That to me is not where the rubber meets the road on this and I don't know that it meets the road period. But if it does meet the road, it's Texas last year. I happen to disagree with their argument. But the Texas argument last year was we went 9 3. We voluntarily went and played Ohio State hard fought game early in the season. We lost and then we played a league schedule that was difficult. Eight games but still difficult. And we lost a couple more games and had we just scheduled a cream puff instead of Ohio State, we would have been in. That's our gripe. I disagreed that they should have been in, but that was their argument. If you want to make that argument that at the end of the year you got a 9 and 3 Texas and then you got like an 11 and 1 one team like last year, I think JMU, we were talking about how their strength of schedule at the end of the year they had lost against Louisville. Right Prez? They lost against Louisville and we didn't have them in our own internal metrics having played another team in the top 50. And yet you had the whole win loss vultures out there that were like, well you are what your record says you are. If you want to talk about it in that context, okay. But I don't really attach it to whether or not you're capable of winning a national title. It'll happen with Notre Dame this year. I guarantee you. If Notre Dame plays the schedule that they're set to play this year and they play Miami and South Bend and they were to lose by seven. You'll have some folks argue Notre Dame shouldn't be in and or that proved that they're not capable of winning a national title and they don't deserve to get in because their schedule doesn't did not meet the minimum baseline resistance that you should have to face to go to the playoff. There's conversation to be had. You got to watch the season play out though. The worst part about all this and why I hate talking about it is because it doesn't matter what you say. There is a pretty sizable vocal group out there who just doesn't listen. I had this happen to me twice last week because I listen to a lot of college football content in July because it's the only time of year that I really have to check out what other people are doing. And there are a couple of different shows in the past week that were discussing me. I don't know how I came up. I've had my mouth closed for a month. But point blank said, man, he's running around talking about how the SEC is superior to the Big Ten and Jesse, have we not sat here? I'll do it one more time in just a second. Have I not sat here and said the exact opposite month after month after month? I'll do it again. Here's what it sounds like. The Big Ten is superior to the SEC right now.

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[Josh Paton]

Was that pretty clear? But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you actually say, which is why I kind of hate talking about it on the show. But I will say this Week two is coming this year. So I go back to my point that I made a little while ago. There's no guarantee that this is going to rectify itself for the sec. It's probably more likely than not the Big Ten ends up being better than the SEC at the top again this year. It may be more likely than not that the sec, let's say, has one national title caliber team. Maybe we'll just see. And the Big Ten has like three or four or something like that now. Of course it could go your way, but I'm not looking towards the end of the year. I'm interested in week two because week two, it's not a press conference. Week two is not media days. Week two is not a war on Twitter. Week two is when Ohio State goes to Texas. Week two is when Oklahoma goes to Michigan. And you know what else happens in Week two? Very interesting game. No one's talking about Mississippi State goes to Minnesota. I don't care about bowl games as it relates to measuring conference against conference. I love watching bowl games. I don't learn a thing about conference superiority in bowl season. Not now, not back when the SEC dominated it. Like to me you can tell which conference is better before bowl season. But if you need the cross conference Analysis. If you need those cross conference data points, they need to be regular season games because the dynamics in regular season games are obviously way different than bowl games. There's a game outside of those Big two, which are obvious, there's another game that happens in week three or week two, it's Mississippi State at Minnesota. These kinds of games fascinate me because we don't get a whole lot of them. I'm a big believer in sec. Big Ten challenge week should happen every year. But I'm not the commissioner yet. But think about this. The reason I don't care about bowl season is there's unequal motivation, there's opt outs, and it's not equally seeded. So if the Big Ten's number four four team beats the SEC's number eight team by three, I didn't really learn anything there. Similarly, if the SEC's number three beats the Big Ten's number seven by three, I didn't learn anything. But if you could ever get me roughly equally seeded matchups with equal motivation, no opt outs, that'd be wonderful. We kind of sort of have a little version of that here. Now, Mississippi State was will be ranked lower in the SEC than Minnesota, but still they're lower half teams in their conferences and it's on the road, it's in a Big Ten venue. That kind of game's just interesting to keep an eye on is all I'm saying. But Ohio State, Texas and Oklahoma, Michigan, of course, bottom line, win some games on the field, man, then you can talk in the sec. Until then, I don't really care about the rest of the excuses. Okay, I don't know what you guys did in July. I had a fun July. The way my July works is I put everything off until that month. So starting in January, basically when everyone requests a meeting or an appearance or hey, can we record this? I always tell them, hit me up in July. And then July gets here and I realize, oh, like a million different obligations. I pass most of them off to Jesse and then I do a few of them myself. And I did one of them last week. People saw that I was flying to Chicago. They thought, oh, going to Big Ten media days, Psych. But I did go to Chicago on business and I can't pretend that I haven't seen this. So those of you who were perusing social media a couple of days ago, I let you know, because I want to be be honest and transparent with you guys. I let you know there's something coming. I wanted you to hear it from me first. I don't regret it, but I may one day. And that is my stance now. And the thing has since become public. I went to Chicago the other day. I marched right into Barstool headquarters and I sat down for the better part of two hours with what some are calling Burger King, Brandon. He's Brandon Walker to me. And we recorded. We just hit go, took a bathroom break in the middle, but we recorded. It's the first time we've ever sat down together, period, much less to record anything. I've never appeared with him before. He has never appeared with me before. Been kind of a cold war, so to speak. I think a lot of people see the optics of this and they think, man, we got played the whole time. Someone even said, kayfabe is dead. Jesse, I'm going to let you guys be the judge. This will air tomorrow night. Brandon Walker's college football show brought to you by Josh Paton. Brandon Walker will debut tomorrow night, Monday night. So if you're listening Sunday, it's tomorrow night. I'll let you judge for yourself. You let me know if Kayfabe's dead after this. He's pretty spirited. I'll just say he screamed multiple times, stomped his feet multiple, multiple times. I don't think I did either of those things, you know, because I'm a full grown adult with a, you know, fully functional life and stuff like that. But it was. It was fun. I think it's very productive. And it was the first half of a home and home. And that's all I'll say on that matter, other than we really need to work. We need to really work on our furniture situation here before the back half of that home. And home is fulfilled. From one, you know, from one situation that's a little regrettable to another situation that's a little regrettable. I was going to say some other things, but I'm going to be nice. I'm not going to start the season throwing shots at everyone, Jesse. I'm going to be nice. What's happening at North Carolina? Had an inbox full of this last week. And I said, look, if you think I'm breaking into our vacation month to talk about Michael Lombardi being placed on administrative leave, you are high. So North Carolina football is in a state of disrepair right now. Most predictable thing in the world. There's a new athletic director in charge, Steve Newmark, who inherited this. It won't be his mess for long, but it is a mess right now. He does have to clean it up, I got to tell you. And I forgot to tell this story. I think. I don't remember telling the story on air a few months ago. I was talking to someone pretty important in the media world who has a kid who had toured some of the schools and he had toured North Carolina and he had also toured some of the other big time schools. And he was just talking about how dysfunctional the visit was in North Carolina, how unorganized the visit was compared to these other places. And the way he summarized it so perfectly fits what pretty much everyone has heard who knows anyone in North Carolina. And it is. They almost acted like it was doing you a favor to have you there, even though they're supposed to be the one trying to recruit you and convince you to play for them. So there was a fundamental disconnect from the word go from not only Bill Belichick but also the people in his camp about what it was ever going to take to win in college football. They didn't win last year. They're not going to do any better this year. In fact, their shot was last year, if you understand schedule making. But just want to remind everyone as we get into this how badly they screwed themselves and the opportunity they had. We talked about this at the time. So this is not. This is not sour grapes. This is not revisionist history. I'm going to play some sound for you in just a second. But I want you to remember when Mack Brown got fired, they could have had John Sumrall. And John Sumrall had a quarterback down there named Darian Mensah who was about to transfer to Duke. But in this world where North Carolina is able to get out of its own way and let a coaching search be run properly, John Sumrall is hired. Darian Mensah. And best number I've gotten is well over a dozen two lane players are coming with Sumrall to North Carolina. Now that's option A. Option B is a pile of crap you have in your lap right now. So understand what we could be talking about right now. We could be talking about entering the 2026 season, Summerall entering year two with Darian Mensah as his starting quarterback at North Carolina. You could have had that. Or you have what you have right now, which is a complete torpedoing of your brand, which is resilient and will still survive, but also this sort of like freak show experiment. I don't know how else to describe this. It's like a star doing everything it can to implode in on itself in the twilight of its career and doing it on your dimension. It's like North Carolina, or enough powers that be at North Carolina decided we want to take our brand, our ip, our platform, and we want to pay you a bunch of money to do this on our dime. Crazy. So remember, this is really important. Remember, I'm not telling you this now. I told you this during the search the day Belichick got hired. As a matter of fact, we came on the air and I had been as transparent as I could during the search. But once the search wrapped up, I was trying to be really transparent in explaining why I didn't think it was going to work. Let's take you back to that day. This was a massive power struggle in Chapel Hill. Massive. I think you saw some headlines out there. I think some. Some of the national guys reported that at various points, those that were involved on the coaching side in the search didn't really know who was running the search. They're right about that because there were multiple searches being run. You had the administration, Bubba Cunningham, the AD there, and the administration running a search. And then you had board of trustee members and big money folks. Not a bunch of them, but a few of them running searches. And the latter got their way and the former did not. So it was an embarrassment from day one. And now there's no reason to really hide anything anymore. Bubba Cunningham's not the athletic director there. It was just so stupid to see Bubba Cunningham on set stage with Bill Belichick at that introductory press conference knowing full well Bubba Cunningham got like, hip checked out of the way because rogue board of trustee members and administrative types at North Carolina were running a congruent like ghost search under the cloak of night to try and hire Bill Belichick, who had no other options out there, by the way. Jesse, you know the NFL market better than I do. I don't think there was anything there. And so you could have had John Sumrall, but instead we choose Bill Belichick. We're going to be the 33rd NFL team. Well, I'm going to say again, North Carolina's mess notwithstanding, like, it should have never been allowed to happen, but it was allowed to happen. But even on the other side of that, once it's allowed to happen, what's blown my mind the most is not that North Carolina screwed up their search and there were too many questions cooks in the kitchen, because that's kind of the way college athletics and college football and basketball searches happen Sometimes. What's blown my mind is, let's give credit where it's due. Bill Belichick has one of the great Wikipedia pages in history, one of the great legacies in the history of coaching. This sport may never be matched. And so if I were to get this grease board. There's one right over here in the studio. If I were to get this grease board and I would have Bill Belichick go to work explaining defensive football to us, explaining organizational structure to us, explaining psychology of the game to us, it would make your head spin. And a guy that smart so badly miscalculated the situation of what it would take to win in college football. It blows my mind because I saw it. And I think to myself, if it's football related and I could see it and most everyone else could see it, how is Bill Belichick blind? And I'm not saying, oh, Bill Belichick shouldn't have taken the job. If someone's going to offer you the job of North Carolina, if they're stupid enough to do it, yeah, take it. My point is, I can't believe they were dumb enough to think winning in college football was going to be easier than winning in the NFL. But I think that's the arrogance. And a lot of guys who coach in the NFL for a long time have, when they look at college football, they think, well, this is professional football. That's college. That's like a light version of what we do. Those are the minor leagues down there. I'll tell you this. If you go to Georgia, you go to Ohio State, you go to Notre Dame, you go to Texas. Yeah, yeah. You could certainly make the argument it's easier to win there because relative to whatever the baseline is, you're above and beyond from a resource standpoint. So you're coming from a world in the NFL where everything is built to cram you into the middle and all the resources are equal and no one really is working at a disadvantage from or an advantage from the jump to a world in college where there is huge disparity between haves and have nots. Even in the Portal and Nil era, there's huge disparity. So, yeah, if Belichick were to have come to Texas, he would have been right to see think it's going to be easier to win in college than the NFL. But he didn't come to Texas. He came to North Carolina, where relative to the haves, he was going to be working at a disadvantage. So everything about his logic was actually working against him. And then they thought to themselves, once they got here, they thought, man, we're going to have to beat kids off with a stick. Think about our reputation and think about how enviable it'll be to play at North Carolina. And that's just not the world. It was never going to be the world. I can't believe they thought it was going to be the world. And the arrogance and the hubris and stupidity, I guess is a better word to throw around the 33rd NFL team. It got laughed at, guys. It got laughed at from pretty much everyone whose opinion I even remotely trust in college football from day one. I remember just getting immediate feedback in some cases from guys who were going to have to face him or get to face him. And in other cases, just people who have been around the game a long time. And every one of them, to a man, was, he doesn't have the slightest clue what he's getting into. And that was pretty prophetic, not hard to see coming. And it's an experiment that's happened on North Carolina's dime. And they ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting it happen. But I will say this. It hasn't Wreck the brand. I got asked yesterday. Last night I was at an event down in Fairhope, Alabama, and someone said, does this just wreck North Carolina for the future? No. Nope, it doesn't. I think they will wash their hands of this entire experiment at some point this year. I think that'll happen. And I think the North Carolina job will be open. I don't know how else to tell you this. I know some people who would want the job right now, who would probably be on the short list. It's still a desirable position. In fact, it's probably going to be looked at as a position that is really desirable for the first time in a long time. Because you flushed some of a lot of what needed to be flushed out of the athletic department out. I don't mean Bubba Cunningham. I mean the entire mess that prevented him from doing his job effectively. And I think also this was the medicine that was needed. A lot of people needed to have their eyelids stapled to the top of their forehead and forced to watch this play out. This is your freak show. Okay? We did it your way and this is what we got. Now we're going to do it the right way and watch what happens. North Carolina can still be a winner. North Carolina is one of. I've said it for a long time and I know it gets old. I've said it about A and M for a long time and I still believe it. You can win a national championship at this place. It just takes alignment. It's as easy and as complicated as that.

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[Podcast Host]

Wait, I came in for two things. How is this $47.

[Bobby Bones]

Alright, we're going to need a plan here.

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[Josh Paton]

They're watching us in Austin, Texas. Waterloo, Iowa. Jackson, Tennessee. Thank you guys so much. I gotta remind everyone you may be joining throughout the stream.

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We're back.

[Josh Paton]

We're back. So happy. This is all we do around here. We don't cover any other sport, we don't cover any other topics. It's just college football year round, except for July. And we're back. So we were sitting around earlier today trying to make sure all the equipment worked. And then after we were trying to make sure all the equipment worked, we said, hey, we've got room for one more thing. Probably in the show, even though this is not the end of the show, but we had room for one more thing. I'm just sitting around here and here's a good endpoint for you, Prez. I'm just sitting around thinking like, you know how awesome Saturdays are and I feel so bad for people who don't love college football and they don't really know what we're talking about. And maybe that's you. And maybe this is the year you dive in and I'll sell you. I will recruit you for college football by explaining to you the magic of Saturdays. There's nothing like a college football Saturday. The entire concept of what it is that doesn't exist in American sports anywhere else, pro college, whatever. The feeling of waking up on a Saturday, you know this feeling now. You know, going to bed Friday night and then waking up, first thing, first five seconds are, what day is it? The next five seconds are, oh, it's Saturday. And then that 10 to 15 second period after you're aware that you just woke up of realizing, oh my goodness, it's Saturday. It's week four. We got four top 25 matchups today. We got that game that I've circled as an upset alert all week week. How am I structuring my morning? Maybe you're going to a game, maybe you've got errands to run, but the morning buzz, just the energy you have about yourself on a Saturday morning. When I was not going to games back in my youth, I would go work out. I would say I got to get myself to 10 o' clock and this is Eastern time at that point. And then from 10 to 11:30, I'll be good. If I can get myself to 10, it's basically kickoff because working out feels like kickoff. And then 11:30, it takes me 15 minutes to drive home. I'm going to get food on the way, and then I don't blink for 12 hours or more. If Hawaii is playing a home game that night. I can't put that in context. Vivid enough for you to feel until you feel it yourself. But I want to tell you, if you can ever get to that point, especially on that first Saturday post. September cold front. Happens every year. Happens every single year. The first couple of weeks is still hot, but eventually there's going to be a real broad sweeping cold front through like the eastern 2/3 of the United States. And it sometimes happens late in the week, fingers crossed. And you wake up, it could be a Friday morning, but maybe it's a Saturday morning. And you step outside and you can feel it. You can feel college football in the air. The dew point has plummeted. Are those leaves changing colors?

[Amazon Health AI Advertiser]

Wow.

[Josh Paton]

I've actually got to put a coat on to walk out here. It's an unbelievable feeling. I wish everyone could experience it. There's some people who are really sad in life right now and they think, man, if I could just get a better job. Man, if I just had more friends. No, forget that. Your job's fine. A friend in need is a pest. No, what you need is college football. That's all you need. That's all you really need. Urgency is a word that we use a lot in college football and those Saturdays. The urgency that I feel that most people who love this sport, the urgency that you feel on Saturdays, again, is unmatched anywhere else in the American sporting landscape. And I'm talking mainly to people who can't relate yet to what I'm talking about. Kind of trying to invite you to, to experience this. You talk to someone who has lived college football their whole life. Most of them watch other sports. I do. I watch the NFL, believe it or not. I even dabble in some NBA. Told the Knicks had a great year this year. Jesse Major League Baseball grew up. It was my favorite sport next to college football growing up. So I know the flavor of all the other sports. I know that there's nothing like a college football Saturday. Specifically, the urgency. You can wake up utterly Terrified on a Saturday. You remember when Oregon came to Penn State last year? Yes, you do, Jesse. You remember the feeling you had that morning. You remember. You remember, hey, man, it comes down to one or two games for us this year. We think we got everything we need. And it's like you're holding the little balancing rod and you're looking at the tightrope in front of you. You know, you got to walk that thing today. And the thing about it is a tightrope walk with a giant safety net under you, whatever the college football is a tightrope walk in a lot of cases where there's either no safety net or there is a safety net, but it's like 100ft below you. So you're going to get hurt no matter if that thing catches you or not. And the way that makes you feel, it's so exciting, it's so terrifying. It's like riding a roller coaster for the first time. It's like, I don't know how else to describe it again, because there's no other comparison. You have to live college football to understand what I'm talking about. That's also why some of us get really, really aggressive when you talk about expanding the playoff, because you're talking about doing it at the expense of taking that word and devaluing it. Urgency, I think the campus scene, obviously, if you can get to a campus or camp, I, which is the plural of campus, get to several of them on a Saturday. That's amazing. And I don't really think if you've ever experienced that I need to sell you on that that much. But it's also, there's specific things that happen above the sights and the sounds and the smells and the community and the relationships, all of those things. The coming together of people with radically different political views, religious views, but yet they're all wearing the same colors on Saturday. And so it's cool, we just put all that stuff on the shelf for a day. Despite all that, which is magical, believe me. But despite all that, if you've ever been on a big time campus on a big time Saturday, you're at LSU. Texas is in town. It's a 7:30 Eastern, 6:30 kickoff. Think about what it's like 2:15 in the afternoon, tailgate scenes, already packed. But you know, any given Saturday, you're gonna have some big stuff that happens that you didn't expect. It's always funny if you're on that campus to watch how the word of an upset alert kind of reverberates around campus. It's like word of mouth. Like, you guys seen what's happening in this Ole Miss game. You guys seen this score in this USC game, and watch how that just kind of makes its way around a huge, packed 50,000 deep tailgate scene. I always love that. I always also love the clearing of the mechanism. This may be my favorite aspect, actually. This is what I always sell people on. Clearing of the Mechanism happens on fall Saturdays in games on fall Saturdays. I'll tell you what I mean by comes from For Love of the Game, which is a baseball movie. Kevin Costner's 19th baseball movie. All of them are good. He's pitching. Billy Chappell pitching for the Detroit Tigers. He's in the latter stages in the twilight of his career, and he is narrating his own game. And there's a point where he's pitching in Yankee Stadium and he's trying to lock in and he's telling himself, clear the mechanism, clear the mechanism. And he can't. He's hearing crowd noise. There's like an individual guy just roasting him on the second row above the first base dugout. And he clear the mechanism. And finally all the ambient noise stops. It's totally silent. And that's you hearing what it's like in his mind as a big league pitcher. Once the mechanism's cleared, once the mechanism's cleared, all the outside noise is cut out and all that matters is him and the batter 60ft, 6 inches away from him. On college football Saturdays, there are moments. There will be a moment in week one of this year where Ole Miss is playing Louisville or LSU is playing Clemson or Auburn is playing Baylor. And it'll be a tight game. This is how you know whether college football is still college football or not. You just answer this question for me. It's LSU, Clemson. It's the middle of the fourth quarter. It's 26 to 23. LSU's up. Clemson's got the ball. It is fourth and four on the LSU 31 yard line. New offensive coordinator Chad Morris and Daboswini have opted to go for it. Games on the line. Here comes Chris Fazina to the line of scrimmage. Changing the play. Tiger stadiums at full throat. It's a primetime game Saturday night in Death Valley. Welcome back to college football Play. Clocks at 8, 7, 6, 5, 4. Are they going to get the playoff? 3, 2. Hit pause right now. Are you thinking about a Senate bill? Are you thinking about Nil or the Portal? Are you paying attention to how much any of the players on the field are making. Are you concerned with rule changes, conference realignment, all the stuff you get so sick of in the spring and summer? Are you thinking about any of it? The answer is no, because your mechanism is cleared and you're fully locked in. College football features that unlike any other sport in the world to me, which is why I love it. There are pinball windows about Saturdays. It happens multiple times per year. I won't say it happens every Saturday because that'd be taking it a little bit too far. But they're gonna be like 6, 7, 8 Saturdays out of the year where I call them pinball windows. And that's like a 30 minute chunk of time on a Saturday. Normally it's when a bunch of games are ending at the same time. And the pinball window is the window where like five things happen in the span of 25 minutes that just put your jaw on the ground and you can't even keep up with it all. And your phone's going crazy. If you're doing, you know, the thing where you scroll social media constantly, it's going crazy. Some of the worst places to be when this is happening are in stadiums. Because you don't know. Because I think for all the advancements in technology, most of these places still are terrible at keeping you updated at what's happening in the outside world, which is an easy fix, by the way. It's kind of inexcusable. But those pinball windows, see, this happens in the NFL. It happens a lot because the NFL is built to do this. Every Sunday, the NCAA tournament, the first two days of March Madness. They provide pinball windows, a college football pinball window. Especially in a year like this where there may be no defined preseason favorite, there may be a bunch of high level quarterbacks. I think our pinball windows are going to be at a premium this year. Actually not at a premium. I think they're going to be plentiful this year. And then, well, after the pinball windows comes the aftermath window. The pinball window's cousin, the aftermath window is the feeling that you have. It's probably 1:00am Eastern Standard Time after the last games, after the late window games have come to a close and the dust is settled and you have had sensory overload for 14 hours. You have not moved. There's. There's food all over the place. Your living room is a disaster. And sometimes you're sitting by yourself because your loved ones have gone to bed. Good for them. You need to be left alone anyway. And you're just kind of like you're just kind of in a. In a coma a little bit and you're just lean back, terrible posture, sitting on the couch, and you're just trying to process what just happened. This is an every week thing is so beautiful. The pinball windows are beautiful. The aftermath window is beautiful. The campus scene is beautiful. Urgency is beautiful. The clearing of the mechanism, Jesse, is so beautiful. And it all starts with waking up on a fall Saturday. Guys, we only get 12 of them per team, guaranteed. And if you want to know why we take such a strong stand against fall weddings on this show, it's because I have never been to a fall wedding that delivers those things. Prez is just sitting over here. That's why I randomly looked over there. If I go to a fall wedding that delivers that, I'll be happy to endorse fall weddings. None of you are capable of that. Don't try. Don't try. Get married in the spring or get married on Friday. Don't try and put people through that. Don't put your friends in a position where they got to choose your wedding, not your marriage, your wedding, or this. Because this is going to win every time. And if they tell you otherwise, they're lying to you. They're under secret protest. Better them than me. You know, we're going to be on the road every Saturday this fall. Some say we're going to be on the road before Saturday this fall, but who knows? At the very least, we're going to be on the road on Saturdays this fall. Jesse, ever since 2021, we didn't go on the road during 2020. I don't know, something happened, they tell me. But 2021, 2, 3, 4, and 5, we've gone on tours. We've named those tours. There was the Every Given Saturday tour. We had the Fall Don't Lie tour last year, the Once Upon a Saturday tour. I was big into fairy tales for a couple of years there. People were asking me as recently as today, are we going to have a tour this year? Oh, friends, yes. Oh, we're going to have a tour this year. And I am going to say, jesse, what about Thursday this week? Let's announce it on Thursday this week. Tentatively, we got a tour name. It's my favorite tour name of any tour name we've had. It's my favorite logo of any tour logo we've had. I'm going to tell you. Alex is working feverishly to get the tees uploaded in the store. Pacestatematerial.com My suggestion is just go ahead and set some money aside because I know our audience and I think very few of you are going to look at this concept and say, nah, I can do without that one. This one's going to be pretty universally praised. So we got a tour name. We'll debut it later this week, probably Thursday. I would say the Truth Teller series continues. It's something we like to do on the show, you know, tell the truth. But what we like to do is we specifically like to point out someone, something. Well, let's tell the truth about this someone or something tonight. It's Marcus Freeman. I think the truth about Marcus Freeman is pretty clear. I think he's a top five head coach currently. I could easily see us calling him the number one coach in the country in the not too distant future. Going to have to win a national title, I think, obviously. But everything that needs to be done to win a national title, all the ingredients that we know it takes to win a national title, they're all there. And so they're certainly headed in the right direction. I think two things stand out to me about what Marcus has done at Notre Dame. Firstly, it's just that he's the right guy they needed at the right time. And that sounds so common sense, but really, if you think about it, they were really good under Brian Kelly. They were in a good position. They were rattling off good, solid seasons. I don't know what they were winning on average. It felt like nine and a half or ten games per year on average for a stretch there. Now, the trade off was. We understood they were beneath that of a national championship caliber winning program. But they were, they were good. They were really good. And then Brian Kelly left and the messaging from him on why he left, even though he disputes this today, but I think everyone understood at the time was, I think I've done all I can do here. That wasn't him saying he can't do anymore. Read between the lines. It was kind of him saying, I can't do any more with Notre Dame, so I need to go to lsu. LSU will afford me the opportunity to do more than I could have ever done at Notre Dame. And good can be the enemy of great sometimes. And it would have been. It would have been. It's a huge fork in the road moment for Notre Dame. You knew it at the time. You don't need the benefit of hindsight. But I think the fork in the road moment at Notre Dame, it could have gone so radically a different way. But instead they did not let good be the enemy of great. They had greatness. They had it in their own building. And then they elevated him. And Marcus lost some inexplicable games early, too. Stuck with him. No one even talks about this stuff anymore, by the way. And now he's unequivocally elevated the program. He's elevated the standard. And it's easy to elevate the standard when the standard's crap. But that wasn't where the bar was there. The bar was at really good. And he took it and just said, nope, we're going to make it. Greatness. That'll be the standard around here. And then I think after that. So we're a couple of years later now after that. Coming out of last year was really important because they had a year last year. I don't really. I don't want to relitigate what you thought about whether or not Notre Dame should have made the playoffs. Everyone has spoken their piece on that. Some people thought they should have been in, some people didn't think they should have been in. Whatever. What's important to me is what they did with it. They thought they deserved to be in the playoffs. They thought the committee shafted them. They had every reason to think that because of the way the committee handled the entire process. But that's neither here nor there. Now, what I want to remind you about is what the reaction's been there. And I think it's been very mature, and I think it's been very beneficial. And we were up there a couple of months ago. I talked to him about this. Here's what he had to say. I try and envision you walking around this building at the end of last year. You're mad because you didn't make it to the playoff. Externally, internally. I picture you walking, walking around saying, that's what you get when you leave it in the committee's hands. You can't leave it in their hands. You got to leave.

[Amazon Health AI Advertiser]

No doubt.

[Marcus Freeman]

I think at first my default was the same as many other people's. You blame somebody else. That's what default is, is you're just going to blame. It's not my fault.

[Tony Ayo]

It's.

[Marcus Freeman]

It's the committee's fault. It's somebody else's fault. We should have been in the playoffs. And, and. But if you. You continue to have that mindset, you can't use that negative experience in order to learn from those inside lessons and improve and be better. You have to own it. You have to own the failures. You have to own the situations. You have to own that you sleep in the bed you make and that's how you learn from that. If you blame somebody else, you lose it. And so my job is every day is remind everybody and myself that everything that happens to you in life, you have to own it so we can and use it to improve from it. I always often say, like the, the pain of, of a loss is, is, is. It's tough, it's hard, but it's there to help you grow. It's no different than the pain from a physical wound. Right. Scab. It's. You have pain, you want to make the pain go away. Well, the inside pain from a loss or a failure, it's there so you can grow from it. You want to make it go away. The only way to make it go away is continue to learn from and grow from it and use it. And so I don't want to lose some of those negative spirits. Yes, not making the playoffs is one, but there's plenty of them in our past. There's ones we all have as individuals and some of these that we have as a team in a program. But I want to use them to make us better.

[Josh Paton]

That's it. You can't do anything about last year. All you can do with it is weaponize it for this year. I could easily see him winning a national title this year. But the thing about it is he's in no rush to leave, which is refreshing. He had an opportunity last year. He's been very transparent about that, which I appreciate. He's going to have opportunities. That's not going away. I think Notre Dame one of the most under appreciated aspects of what's happening there is he's given Notre Dame everything he's got. And Notre Dame's given him everything they're willing to give too. And full credit to Notre Dame. They have bent over as backwards as Notre Dame's going to on things like academic calendar admissions. Again, it's not going to be a diploma mill, but like Notre Dame has been pretty rigid about this sort of thing in the past and maybe, just maybe they've shaved the corners and the edges of the rigidity off a little bit. That's good. It needs to be mutual. And that's absolutely, I think the situation, that's one of the reasons why it's like a whole new frontier up there. Certain things out of Notre Dame's control have changed to their benefit and then the things within Notre Dame's control, they're also changing to their benefit. But he gets it. They get it. I don't know in my Lifetime that there's ever been a better period to be a Notre Dame fan over the next five years than where we sit right now. So that's the truth about Marcus Freeman. Few years ago. There's so much good news in the stack of papers tonight. A few years ago, we were starting to get some attention from brands that wanted to advertise on the show. And I just said no to most of them because what they wanted to do is they wanted to purchase some time and they wanted to put a piece of paper in my hand and read this 45 second ad read. And I thought to myself, myself, when that stuff happens on shows I listen to, I just fast forward. And so I'd rather just not have that kind of partnership. But I did say if you guys want to be unique and you guys want to integrate yourself fully into the show, where there's no separating us and you, we'll talk then. Gas station recruiting wars happened. And if you're new around here, I think it's time to refresh your memory. It's just I wanted to set the tone for what partnering with our show was going to be. We really embed brands. We don't get embed with many of them, but the ones we do partner with, we partner with. And there is no separation between your brand and this show. And we had gas station recruiting wars because I thought we had three of them that were really picking up what we were putting down. And so we did. Did exactly what it sounds like we did. We sort of had a reverse recruitment where we allowed these massive companies to recruit us because truthfully, we had like three of them that wanted to be on the show. And I went through an entire recruitment, met with each team, and then it came time decision day. And we. I don't know how else to explain it. I'm going to show it to you. Here's what it ended up looking like when I committed to conclude gas station recruiting wars. Okay. Josh, can you hear me? Hey, hey. Quiet down.

[Amazon Health AI Advertiser]

Shut up.

[Josh Paton]

Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you. Okay. This has been one of the wildest recruitments that I personally can remember in the modern era. Knowing you like I think I do, this cannot have been easy for you. It hasn't been easy, Josh. It has not been easy. In fact, this is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I haven't lived a very hard life. You know, I gotta thank God. I gotta thank my family. I gotta thank Racetrack and Quick Trip and pilot Flying J and Luvs for Even making this possible, you know, we wouldn't be here today without them. It's amazing to be recruited. You know, it's just amazing to be able to be in a position to give everyone gas this fall. If we can give everyone gas this fall, then our mission has been accomplished. You know, I couldn't have said it better myself. You've always had a way with words. I appreciate that about you. Okay, moment of truth. Someone's life's about to change. Who's it going to be? It's a big moment. We've waited a long time for it. I got four really great companies here in front of me. It's quick trip. We're going with quick trip. It's quick trip. Well, Misty, I. I get emotional thinking about it. Jesse, Quick Trip is back. That's the whole reason I teed that up and I showed it to you. Kwiktrip is back for another season. Like they ever left. Like there was ever a doubt here. We just needed to update the graphic, basically. So we're going to be on the road a whole lot this fall. Kwiktrip is there. They've been with us every step of the way. I am still talking to kwiktrip, Joe, about what we can do about fully functioning cold brew machines, mainly because I want one in the studio. There's some codes and regulations that we're trying to get around, and who knows how much red tape there is on that. But Quick Trip is back. We are happy that they're back because they get it. They get it, and we appreciate it. Jameson in Knoxville, Tennessee. Can you tell me what's happening with the Senate bill? First, everyone's saying it won't happen. Now maybe it will. I need you to weigh in. Yeah. So here's what I'm going to say about this. My calculus on this is when something major changes, I'll be willing to do a segment on it on the show. Now, I know over the past week, a lot feels like it changed, but it really didn't for me because I expected the SEC and the big ten to come around on this, and I expected this thing to get on the floor of the Senate, and I expected it to pass the Senate. I told you this months ago. Nothing's changed in my mind. So I think it is going to pass the Senate. The challenge, I will say, since they've pushed this thing to the 11th hour, is make sure it gets on the floor. But I don't think they fought this hard not to get it on the floor. And I think it'll pass. And I think it'll pass comfortably, like 75 plus votes comfortably. It needs 60. I've always thought that and I still think that. And if it does that, I think there'll be immense pressure on the House. And so my best guess is still that it passes. Apparently I'm still in the minority on that, but I think it'll pass. If something changes, that's when I'll do a segment on it. But frankly, this is not May anymore.

[Bobby Bones]

Okay?

[Josh Paton]

We're not eating up precious time on this show talking about a Senate bill that frankly should have already been wrapped up one way or the other. I want to talk about college football. So it's here. I mean, we're looking at, I'm looking at the board right now, actually. Now I'm looking at the board over here on FanDuel. The futures market is incredible. We've got games of the year over on FanDuel right now. You've got whether or not teams make the playoff. You've got, you've got Heisman, you've got all this stuff. I want to put a timeout on all that now in order to remind you guys, as a lot of you start to refresh your accounts, start to replenish your accounts this year, you put deposits in there. We have a partnership with FanDuel where I entered into it with them and I said, you're going to have to give me some rope to do some responsible gaming stuff every now and then. So tonight's one of those nights. There's been some stuff just in the past six months in college football where we've had really uncomfortable conversations and really uncomfortable headlines related to, in this case, illegal sports betting. But even if you're doing it legally, if you're not doing it responsible, you are setting yourself up for failure and maybe even worse. And I'm just begging you guys, don't do that. Please don't do it. Please be responsible with this stuff. And here's how you can know if you're being responsible with it. If you have even the slightest question about whether or not you can afford to bet on a game, the answer is you can't. So don't. And I would also strongly encourage you guys, if you're on FanDuel, make sure you look at the MySpend dashboard. It's a really good tool. I use it every week. It's a really good tool. It's no different than looking at your bank account. If you're halfway responsible for financially, you're looking at that every time. And if you see more cash coming out than going in, something's got to change. Something's got to change now in my bank account. That means something's got to change or I'm in trouble in this world. It means you can just take a break. It means you can hit the brake pedal. So I don't want you guys getting in that situation. So please make sure you understand the difference between entertainment and desperation, the difference between the entertain, the entertaining nature of this and the addictive nature of this. And don't skirt the line that's like rule number one about any kind of matters along these lines that we talk about on this show. We have fun with it and you can have fun with it. Please have fun with it. Please be responsible with it. Sign up for [e-mail] CFBpromotion must be 21 and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in Washington, D.C. first online real money wager only $10. First deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bet that expires seven days after receipt. Do you have a gambling problem? If so, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanduel.com RG call 1-887-897-777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-550 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text hop Eny in New York. I wanted to wrap up tonight with this thing. I asked you guys a little while ago, I kind of said if you had a time machine and you went to January and you kind of saw what was going to happen this year and you came back to tell us, what do you think the craziest, most unbelievable thing is that you have seen in January in the future that you could come tell us? And three of you submitted things and look again. Last year James Franklin got fired before Halloween, Indiana went 16. 0 and killed everybody. And so yeah, there were some unbelievable things that happened last year that if you told people that if you told people Brian Kelly was going to be out of a job before Halloween, like, it would have been pretty unbelievable. He was a preseason top 10 team. We got some here set. Who do we think is set? Cet from Florida. One of his that he came back from January and told us about was John Sumrall won coach of the year and Florida was in the playoff. And that is notable, very notable. If, I guess if they get good line of scrimmage play, anything's possible there because there's pretty good skill. I think obviously if this happens, that means the QBOC combo. That means bringing Buster Faulkner in and having Aaron Filo, who I assume started at quarterback in this scenario, having them there, it just immediately, immediately was a rocket ship. And then you got to ask yourself, well, if Florida made the playoff and Sumrall was coach of the year, who did they do it at the expense of? I mean they played Georgia in Atlanta inexplicably this year. You know that Jacksonville game's on hold for two years. So they had the opportunity to play a home and home naturally, like we do with every opportunity scheduling wise in college football, we screw that up and we're not going to play it in Athens Gainesville, but rather Atlanta and Tampa. Awesome. So did, did John Sumrall beat Kirby in year one here? Did he beat Pete Golding in Ole Miss? What did Florida do? Who is Florida victimized? I think John Sumrall's got a coach of the year in his future at some point. Is it year one? Don't know. How about this one? Out of the three? I think this would be the most shocking. Will Hammond won the Heisman and Texas Tech won the national title. So I was talking to someone about the Texas Tech situation the other day and I said, you know, everyone's assumption is, well, once Brendan Sorsby's out of there, Texas Tech is beneath that of a title caliber team if they ever were one. But I remember last year, if I were to have told you Austin Simmons hanging be the guy for Ole Miss, you would have thought Ole Miss was cooked. You wouldn't have even known who their backup quarterback was. It's not your fault. Half the teams on their schedule didn't know who Trinidad Chambliss was. But then Trinidad Chambliss happened and it was the best thing to ever happen for Ole Miss. And my point is you could have never predicted that. So just cause it sounds crazy that Will Hammond takes Texas Tech further than for instance Baron Morton took them last year. Maybe he's capable of taking them further than Brendan Sorsby was going to take him this year. Just because that sounds crazy doesn't mean it's impossible. That's the entire nature of unpredictability. But Texas Tech winning the whole thing. Look, I'm not going to shoot it down. There are no crazy predictions. But that would be back to back years of the most unbelievable college football stories that I've seen in my lifetime. We had Indiana last year win it all, which you could sell me on, being the best story ever. And then you have Texas Tech lose the one key piece that we all thought they needed to get. They got to upgrade at quarterback. We all watched the Oregon playoff game. They got to upgrade at quarterback or they got no shot. Then they upgraded quarterback, but then he's gone. And now Will Hammond, if he is healthy enough, is going to be a guy that probably is not good enough. And they'll probably be good enough to win the Big 12, but nothing more, and whoops, wrong miscalculation. They just go win the whole thing. What a story that would be. I don't know if you think it would be good or bad for college football. Indifferent. But if Texas Tech, Jesse puts on the heel mask in spring, and then they go win the whole thing. I don't like character arcs. I don't like talking like that in sporting terms. But, buddy, that would be one of the great heel runs in recent memory. And then lastly, Dustin said he just came back from January. And Lincoln, Riley, Florida State. So usc, Florida State and Tennessee all have coaching changes. I assume he means they all got fired, but technically we have to leave room for something else to happen here. Tennessee would be crazy to me. I could see usc. I certainly see Florida State. What had to happen at Tennessee for Josh? Did Josh hypo leave? Did he just quit? Was there some extenuating circumstance? Was there scandal? Or did they just fire him? Now, again, we're talking about crazy headlines here. And I will admit to you, certainly this time last year, if you said, hey, I've seen the future, you know James Franklin? Yeah, yeah, what about him? Is he going to win a national title? No, no, no. He's going to get fired early in the year. By the way, no scandal, no anything. It's just not good enough. I would have said, you're crazy. I would have said, there's a 0.1% chance of that. And then if you said, oh, that's not all, Kelly's gone too. Brian, Kelly's out, too. I would have said like 0.01%. Yet it happened. So I guess technically it could happen. I just don't know how I feel so good about Tennessee in 2027. Don't do it, guys. Now, USC, Florida State, Florida State would just be Mike NORVELL Getting fired. USC, peculiar, of course, there's a world where they go 8 and 4, 7 and 5 and they're done with Lincoln could easily see that. Is there any world where he leaves? I don't know, because Dustin didn't tell us all that. Guys, it feels so good to be back. I'm so happy. I ask you, I implore you, do this one thing for us. Subscribe to the channel because it's free and it doesn't sign you up for anything. And tell every one of your friends who complain about lack of college football coverage and there's no good shows to watch. Well, we do this one Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. Every single Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. From now until well into January, we're here. This is all we do. We're so happy to be back. We appreciate it. For producer Jesse, I mean, Prez had to be in studio today. Mitch has a huge task on his hands. Bradley, a shockingly easy job today for technically related reasons which will hopefully we'll have rectified Tuesday, but it doesn't matter to you. We're back. We appreciate it. Take care. We'll see you Tuesday night. Until then, God bless.

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