Drafting coaches who'll be fired & the Brendan Sorsby mess w/ Shehan Jeyarajah

Summary

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The OG Kickoff: Drafting Coaches Who’ll Be Fired & the Brendan Sorsby Mess w/ Shehan Jeyarajah

Podcast: The OG Kickoff with Connor O’Gara & Will Ogburn
Host: Will Ogburn
Guests: Shehan Jeyarajah
Date: June 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, hosts Connor O’Gara and Will Ogburn are back to deliver their signature blend of insightful SEC talk, college football news, and authentic, football-first discussion. The bulk of the episode features a draft of Power 5 (Power Conference) coaches most likely to be fired in 2026—complete with strong opinions, metrics, inside sources, and a few memorable jabs.
The episode also features a deep-dive interview with Shehan Jeyarajah of CBS Sports, focusing on the scandal involving Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s two-game suspension for betting on his own team, the shocking legal fallout, and what it all means for the sport’s future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brendan Sorsby Gambling Scandal and NCAA Governance

[00:49–06:36, 76:21–95:34]

• The Issue: Brendan Sorsby, Texas Tech’s new quarterback, admitted to betting on his own team and sending money across state lines to place bets, yet received only a two-game suspension.
• The leniency—a consequence of a Texas Tech grad judge and swirling legal questions—sparked outrage across the college football landscape.
• Connor’s reaction:
  “It’s one of the most stunning, like, but also not stunning headlines … This is a slippery slope. And we are very much at a crossroads with the future of governance in college football seeing how all this played out on Monday.” [01:49]
• Will vents:
  “At the end of the day … the one thing that anyone you talk to will agree is what matters, which is the sanctity of competition … when you throw a shade on that, I mean, it’s like, what are we all doing here? Why don’t we just all go watch some telenovelas, you know?” [02:45]
• Discussion of the dangerous precedent, the abuse of mental health as a shield, and the inevitable fallout for Sorsby and Texas Tech.
• Interview with Shehan Jeyarajah:
  • This case “will be the moment that everybody resigns themselves to the fact that a new system is necessary.” – Shehan [87:46]
  • Other coaches, conferences, and even the NCAA are now powerless or unwilling to enact meaningful governance, with only collective bargaining or congressional action likely to change things.

Memorable moment:

• “Brendan Sorsby did the impossible … make college football fans agree on something and side with an NCAA ruling that obviously should have held.” -- Connor [76:21]

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2. Draft: Power Conference Coaches Most Likely to be Fired in 2026

[09:40–66:40]

Draft Rules & Philosophy

• Only performance-based firings considered – not coaches who leave voluntarily or for bigger jobs.
• Evaluates contract buyouts, program context, recent performance, and public/insider sentiment.

The Drafted Coaches

(Order as drafted – notable quotes/timestamps)

1. Mike Norvell (Florida State) [13:09]

   • “Has to be said, I think there is an obvious number one and it’s Mike Norvell… so unbelievably cooked.” — Connor
   • Massive buyout, three consecutive down years likely, and a bleak schedule.

2. Bill O’Brien (Boston College) [20:17]

   • “I think this goes to it, right? Lower buyout number… It has kind of been a cluster… it just feels like they are running out the clock on this.” — Will
   • The “What’s up, Trevor?” meltdown highlighted.
   • "I watched it again today… For those who did not see this..." — Connor [21:06]

3. Dave Aranda (Baylor) [24:45]

   • “The thing about Dave, he’s weird on the mic. He is a classic defensive guru who sounds great in the meeting room…But you get him in front of general media or boosters, it’s like, is this guy okay?” — Will [24:55]
   • Noted for plummeting defense despite reputation.

4. Luke Fickell (Wisconsin) [29:06]

   • “Gotta take Luke Fickell here. I told you that there was gonna be some crossover here with the way that we did the worst contracts…” — Connor
   • High buyout, poor Big Ten record (10–17), and loss of AD supporter.

5. Mike Locksley (Maryland) [33:41]

   • “Mike Locksley…in his 11 coaching seasons overall…eight times four or fewer wins. That’s a lot.” — Will [33:51]
   • Two straight 4–8 seasons, buyout dropping, no momentum.

6. Scott Satterfield (Cincinnati) [38:30]

   • “Vibes are low at Cincinnati…They lost Sorsby after closing on a five-game losing streak…” — Connor
   • Affordable buyout, new coordinators.

7. Shane Beamer (South Carolina) [43:54]

   • “Take our good friend Shane Beamer… it just goes with the expectations of being in the SEC at a place that doesn't exactly have the same level of resource…” — Will
   • Connor: “If I’m betting today … I’m betting on Shane Beamer not to be fired… but he has to be part of this discussion” [44:00]

8. David Braun (Northwestern) [49:15]

   • Off-the-board pick: New stadium, new AD (“quicker trigger”), and likely to lose steam if things go south.
   • Connor foresees: “I’m trying to get out ahead of this… Always take note when the AD is different than the one who hired the coach. Quicker trigger. It’s to be expected.” [49:15]

9. Jeff Lebby (Mississippi State) [54:31]

   • “What I see here, man, is again, what promised land are we selling?...I don’t know if they’re beating any of those teams pre November.” — Will [55:03]
   • Acknowledgment: "Zach Selman element… wants this to work."

10. Lincoln Riley (USC) [60:55]

    • “Let’s go. Here’s the bigger buyout… this thing would have to get real sideways…” — Connor
    • Would need a truly disastrous season (6–6 or worse), but immense pressure in Year 5.

Timestamps for Draft Segment

• Draft Announced & Rules: [09:54–11:56]
• Pick #1 (Norvell): [13:09]
• Pick #2 (O’Brien): [20:17]
• Pick #3 (Aranda): [24:45]
• Pick #4 (Fickell): [29:06]
• Pick #5 (Locksley): [33:41]
• Pick #6 (Satterfield): [38:30]
• Pick #7 (Beamer): [43:54]
• Pick #8 (Braun): [49:15]
• Pick #9 (Lebby): [54:31]
• Pick #10 (Riley): [60:55]

Rapid-Fire Honorable Mentions [66:40–73:25]

• Bill Belichick (UNC): Unlikely, huge contract, new AD may not want to own the firing. [66:40–68:33]
• Josh Heupel (Tennessee): Would “be a mistake” but not impossible if momentum tanks.
• Deion Sanders (“Prime”): Extremely unlikely unless it’s spun as a “retirement” for health.

Memorable Draft Quotes

• “I think I like your roster a little bit better. I do.” — Connor [66:40]
• “Every team is just one turbo dog bleep season away from firing their coach.” — Will [12:27]

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3. Shehan Jeyarajah Interview Highlights

[76:21–95:34]

• Gambling Precedent & Governance
  • "This will be the moment that everybody resigns themselves to the fact that a new system is necessary." – Shehan [87:46]
  • All agree: NCAA and conference powers are now essentially powerless.
• NFL Future for Sorsby
  • “If he can wait until the 27 NFL Draft and keep his nose clean… it gives him an opportunity to rebuild his personal stock.” — Shehan [81:01]
• External Blowback to Texas Tech
  • “No, we’re, like, really mad about this… Texas Tech wants to be included in whatever the future of college football is…Making those people mad is probably not the best way to go about it.” – Shehan [83:47]
• Playoff Exclusion Potential?
  • Unlikely College Football Playoff would intervene, as it would open Pandora’s box re: “morality” enforcement. [86:14]
• Is Playing Sorsby Worth It?
  • Tech doing this “to show: Once you choose us, we choose you and we want to send that message out to everybody... if you come to Lubbock, this is how we’re going to treat you.” [92:55]
• Crypto Comparison:
  • “Jumping on this is like jumping on Bitcoin early.” [89:33]

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4. Fun Segments & Lad of the Week

[96:04–108:38]

• Viral European Tourist “fredyla7” [96:22–100:45]
  • Experiencing America, from Auburn to BUC-EE’s to Waffle House (“great food, great prices, and friendly staff. 10/10 will be coming back.”)
• Cultural Reflections:
  • "How do you get us invested into soccer? Play soccer games in our football stadiums." — Connor [102:06]
• Stacey King Tribute [102:17–107:07]
  • Affectionate, heartfelt memories of the late Bulls announcer and Oklahoma legend; a moment for what makes sports—and their personalities—special.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “It’s the sanctity of competition. What are we all doing here?” — Will [02:45]
• “What’s up, Trevor?” – the infamous Bill O’Brien moment. [21:06]
• “Jumping on this is like jumping on Bitcoin early.” — Tech administrator quoted by Shehan [89:33]
• “Once you choose us, we choose you... we're going to back you like you're one of our own.” — Shehan [92:55]
• “If you’re getting fired as a first-year coach, it’s probably some off the field issues….” — Connor [71:06]
• “Shane Beamer will be working in college football, maybe in media for all I know. He’s very good at that.” — Connor [47:22]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Brendan Sorsby scandal & intro: [00:49–06:36; 76:21–95:34]
• Monaco Grand Prix story: [06:36–09:40]
• Coach firing draft: [09:40–66:40]
• Honorable mentions & off-board picks: [66:40–73:25]
• Shehan Jeyarajah interview: [76:21–95:34]
• Lad of the week / lighter segments: [96:04–108:38]

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Final Thoughts

Rich in analysis, this episode delivers classic SEC sensibility—and more—on one of the most controversial weeks in recent college football memory. By shrewdly blending humor, inside information, and a willingness to call out hypocrisy from all corners, O’Gara and Ogburn keep the conversation lively, useful, and impossible to ignore for any true fan.

For listeners:

• If you want to be ready for the wild 2026 college football season—both for who's on the field and who won't be—this is your playbook.

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Transcript

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability. Veris 18. Hey, what's going on? This is the OG kickoff. A double down and next round media production. I am Conro Guerra. Will, you got back from Monaco just in time to see that America, a place where I think we have a very different take on sports than probably what you experienced this past weekend. We also have a very different take on rules, specifically college football rules. They don't exist anymore and you can apparently just bet on your own team, get away with it and have a stiff two game suspension. So welcome, welcome back to the United States, man.

[B]

I'm, I'm really happy to be back, man. And a Monaco Grand Prix that was anything but boring. That we were screaming at the FIA for like track disasters. There was like missing asphalt on the track, sitting there like, wow, what a, what a disaster. What could be worse than open source? He's, he's playing that was on the plane actively, so. So fun times.

[A]

Yeah, we are going to dig into that with our guy Shahan Jaraja in a little bit here. We will have plenty of discussion related to that. We're going to close with lad of the week as well. But we, we got to just say at the top here, Will,

[B]

this was

[A]

one of the most stunning, like, but also not stunning headlines that could have ever made college football fans irate. That's a worthy, that's a very wordy way to describe what happened with the Texas Tech quarterback who if you have not been on the Internet at all and missed what happened, admitted to betting on his own team. There's very long list of bets that he has admitted to, including bets that he has made while at Texas Tech and sending money over across state lines for other people to bet on stuff for him. And he got a two game suspension because when the judge is a Texas Tech graduate, you can do these sorts of things. And everybody in the college football world is like, this isn't good. This is a slippery slope. And we are very much at a, a crossroads with the future of governance in college football. Seeing how all this played out on Monday.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean we already had our interview with Shahan and he is kind of a chill guy that brought me back to earth. But I was pretty mad at this Conor, I'll be honest, because at the end of the day, right, like, and it's been said now, but this is really the one thing that is still, you know, revered in sports. And, and the one thing that anyone you talk to will agree is what matters, which is the sanctity of competition. And we could say, oh, New age athletes are, you know, obsessed with nil and they're me first and they want to hit the portal, but they want to play and win the game. Fundamentally, they go places that are at the highest levels for these different reasons to get better. And when you, when you throw a shade on that, I mean, it's like, what are we all doing here? Why don't we just all go watch some telenovelas, you know?

[A]

Yeah, the, the slippery slope, of course, is also related to the TV contracts and stuff. And if you jeopardize the integrity of the game with gambling, you don't need me to preach about that and all, all the different things that are associated with it. I almost wish the suspension was just zero instead of two games. It's almost like when Johnny Manziel was suspended for that first half after the off season that he had. And you're wondering what was, what's even the point of two games? Do you think he's learned his lesson? Do you think that the judge really felt like he, he did, you know, right. By Brendan Sorsby and kids everywhere by, by showing them. This is what happens when you, when you have an admitted GAM addiction and you are found guilty of doing this, this and this, this two game suspension will really deter kids. Do you know how many FanDuel and DraftKings accounts were probably open across college football on Monday? And I don't, like, I don't really blame the people who are looking at that all of a sudden going, well, I could, I could certainly find my way out of this. You, you can talk your way out of anything and, or you can justify it in your head if it means enough to you. And that's what this is.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I have always thought the people that are like obsessed with gambling are kind of cringe. Right. I, again, I get it. If we're all going down to Vegas, we're all having a boys weekend in somewhere. Like when we went to Chicago, it was legal up there. We could, you know, throw a couple bucks here and there on a game. Like when you're Doing it as a communal activity with your boys, I think it's great. But it's very akin to, we talked about people that won't shut up about their fantasy teams or like dreams or another example. It's like, this just applies to you and you just want to talk about it all the time. And so I've always, like, I don't come from this, the perspective of like, wow, gambling is this awesome mystique thing. I'm kind of over it now that it runs the world. And then, yeah, the other part of it, man, that's very near and dear to me is like, when people use mental health as a catch all shield, it is one of the most disgusting things in the world to me, man, because there are people who really deal with this stuff every day. There are people who have anxiety disorder thrown up before games. There are people that have fears. There are people that were born in different situations that gave them these different conditions and ptsd. And I have friends like that. And to see people really grapple with mental health, health issues and then this dude just come up, be like, yeah, man, I don't know. I was just like, basically chronically bored. But you, if you dump on me, you're dumping on people with mental health issues everywhere. It's just. It's cowardly, man.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's messed up. How much do you think Brandon Sourceby put on that Houston game that Texas Tech will have in week three, his debut with the Red Raiders? 10. 10 grand.

[B]

That's. Yeah, a little tender, a little tenor, you know?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, goodness gracious. Anyway, like I said, we will have a lot more discussion on the Brendan Source B fallout with Shahanjay Raja, who knows all things Texas Tech very, very well. So that, that is coming up later. Will, we missed our draft week. We missed it because you were in Monaco just, you know, boondoggling on a yacht somewhere, just doing Monaco things. I don't know.

[B]

Can I hit you with a Monaco story or two? I think it was far away. It was chaos, man. It was awesome. It was. It was once in a lifetime. So again, this race, the scene is kind of boring because the track is so narrow.

[A]

But I didn't know that, by the way, that people hate this race as much. I was talking to my neighbor who's like very into F1. He's like, yeah, the race itself is like terrible, but people absolutely love everything leading up to it.

[B]

So it's like if you played the super bowl at like Aido High School, you know, it's like, the stands would be overrun. Like, it is just a pretty standard road that cars drive on. And for cars that are as powerful these modern cars are, they just kind of don't belong there. And so most of the time, guys drive, you know, pretty safe. So, again, amazing experience. Couldn't say enough positive things about it. Just a couple little quick tips if you guys are ever going to Europe. Ticketmaster, StubHub are completely American inventions. Do not buy your tickets on there. I thought we got scammed tickets for a minute, which was awesome because the readers went down and it basically invalidated our tickets. And what I didn't know is they scan you going in and they scan you going out. And if they don't scan you going out, it gets flagged as like a scam ticket and it just kills your ticket for the day. So we almost got locked out. And what I ended up doing was calling StubHub and being like, what happened? They had no way to verify. It was kind of scary. I. I ended up getting a. A full refund for the tickets I bought that they'd emailed me. And I got like some last minute track passes for the same amount of money that were like 75% off. So I ended up with like a free ticket upgrade because I got like some almost scammy tickets from some dude. So that was a whole side thing. But I was trying to think about the story I was going to tell. And on the way out of town, I think I got the perfect Monaco story for, for. For our experience. So we're, you know, our driver's running late. The whole thing is just so small and kind of cramped, right? So there's a wreck coming in. Our driver gets, gets like stuck in that. So we have to call an Uber, right? And the. And we're going up and down, up and down in Monaco. I'm starting to get motion sick, right? I feel like a little bubble guts. And the dude out of nowhere is like, okay, I gotta, I'm gonna stop. I gotta pull over. I go, oh, my gosh. Great. You pull it over. So I start, you know, start hurling a little bit. I'm not gonna lie on the. On the sidewalk of Monaco. Didn't have anything to drink or anything. It was just really, really bumpy.

[C]

And.

[B]

And it turns out, Connor, the reason why he stopped is he picked up another passenger. And I look up and there is a. There's a Ukrainian supermodel getting in her car. So your boy is just double over.

[A]

Wait a minute.

[B]

And I'm looking up And I'm like, oh, hello, miss. Oh, you have a million followers on Instagram.

[C]

That's awesome.

[B]

And so it's me and John. We're on the way to the airport and this girl's just telling us her life story. I'm like, did she see that? This is like the hottest. What's going on. And that's Monaco. It's all just chaos, bro.

[A]

That's good to know, man. That is really, really good to know. Kind of can't believe that you experienced that, but good on you for, let's just say, booting. Before she got in the car, it

[B]

was a. I felt like Joe Burrow when he got hit against ucf, man. It was so I came back. I never got nauseous again. My jokes were funnier. It was great, you know, and so that was Monaco, though. Everybody that you talked to had some crazy story, man. I. I just. It felt like a movie.

[A]

Dang. Sounds like. It sounds absolutely awesome. Okay, so plan for today to welcome you back to these here United States. We're going to draft power conference coaches who will be fired in 2026. That's the plan.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Power Conference coaches who will be fired in 2026. And usually we do drafts the first Thursday of every month. We're doing this on Wednesday. These come out on Thursday. But I thought this would be a good one because we have a pretty black and white way to determine a winner at season's end. We are not drafting. I need this to be on the record here. We are not drafting coaches that could leave or get bigger jobs. We're talking about Power conference coaches who will get fired in 2026. Parting of ways for performance based reasons is getting fired. Okay? So like let's. Let's remember that as well. Gus Malzahn leaving UCF to take the coordinator job at fsu. Technically, that's not him getting fired. He was pre fired. James Franklin getting fired at Penn State or Hugh Freeze getting fired at Auburn. Those are examples of getting fired. Any questions there? Because for whatever reason, people sometimes misinterpret what it actually means to be fired.

[B]

Yeah, no, I think that's. That's all good. No. What would you call it? Restructuring of the team? No, these are all firings.

[A]

These are all hard firings. A hard F that we're talking about here. And will, just. Just to add some context to this, it's going to be a little bit tougher to do this if we're talking about this year compared to last year because of all the firings that happened last year. We technically had 12 power conference coaches get fired last year. That includes Stanford, which happened in March of last year. But you get it. Odds are we won't have that many power conference coaches fired this year. Like if we end up having, you know, four or five of our guys that we draft here today get fired, like four or five apiece, that would be stunning. There will still likely be a handful because that's the way that this works. There's still too much money in the line for that not to happen. I think if you get three right, if three of your five guys that you draft today get fired, I think your odds should be pretty favorable that you're going to win this.

[C]

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[B]

Yeah, and I mean that's the thing. There are. It's kind of like Heisman, right? There's going to be some team that is just Turbo Dog BLEEP this year that we don't see coming that their coach gets fired. But it's hard to tell that right now. Just like it's hard to tell, you know that cade club think is not going to be any good last season.

[A]

Yeah, like I wouldn't have drafted Brian Kelly last year. I don't think I would have drafted James Franklin last year. No way. They're coming off some semi final berth. But yeah, that's, that's why doing this is always interesting and it'll be really fun and probably really embarrassing to look back on. So the question that I ask you every single draft, will first pick second two? What do you want?

[B]

Take second two.

[A]

I kind of wanted second two this time. All right, let me get us started here. Has to be said, I think there is an obvious number one and it's Mike Norvell for a lot of reasons that we have already talked about on this show. Mike Norvell is so unbelievably cooked. So cooked. And we talked about it with him having the worst contract in America. It is not the worst for him because it's if he has a third consecutive disappointing season, which I expect he will. He's getting $50 million to go away. Yes, offset money. There not going to be a ton of offset money. It's hard to see any world in which everything at Florida State all of a sudden gets better. And I that's a strange thing to say about someone who improved by three wins last year. Going from two to five wins I think is a pretty rough three win improvement, obviously. And probably I do that again, you

[B]

could be in the Bad Boy Motors Bowl. So watch out.

[A]

A little different than going from like 7 to 10, even 6 to 9. It's like, hey, you're in the playoff discussion. Like that's cool. Two to five, not so much. But yeah, I think Norvell getting fired before November is entirely realistic with the way that the schedule sets up. They could start off one and two because they have SMU at home in that weird Monday night game to close opening weekend, which something always noteworthy is to be taken from that that Monday or that Sunday night game. Just the way that it sets up national audience, everybody could be piling on Mike Norvell. You know how that goes. And then they get.

[B]

I went to three of those and they were all horrible. Yes you did well.

[A]

Yes you did. You get that. So then they have a buy after that and then a revenge game for Bama in Tuscaloosa and then Central Arkansas at home and then you get Virginia at home on October 3rd if they suffer loss number three at home against Virginia, which let's not forget good team last year went to an ACC champion.

[B]

Going to be better than them. Likely, you know, like that won't be an upset.

[A]

Bo Peola maybe, I don't know. Could be frisky. That crowded doak. If they lose that game, that's going to let us know that Mike Norvell could be fired that Sunday. I, I do think that's very much in play. I don't know that anyone will use Mike Norvell as this test case for fans or boosters being unrealistic because this is year seven for him and he'll have had three consecutive down years and potentially five losing seasons if that's what's in store this year because he's already had four. If anything, the narrative will be that the AD Mike Alford negotiated a bad extension and this is why you shouldn't overpay for your guy to potentially leave for another school. We've already talked about that. I just don't see the path to relevance with Ashton Daniels And a first time play caller in Tim Harris Jr. Who was the internal promotion after Gus Malzahn retired. Well, I haven't thrown this theory out here, but needs to be known in college football circles. It doesn't get talked about a lot. I have a theory that Gus Malzahn retired because he didn't want to be an interim coach.

[B]

Wow, that, that makes sense. It's like he got out of the cluster to go like take like to be a sous chef type type thing. And then you start looking around going, who's gonna lead this ship? Who's. I mean interim head coach Gus Malzon is something I'm shocked we haven't seen yet. It feels so great for that. And you sit here going, nah, I'm gonna go spend time with my family.

[A]

I kind of think being an interim coach sounds awful. I might be in the minority. I think it sounds terrible. And we have our, we have a very specific viewpoint of what it looks like to make it as an interim head coach. Obviously at Odron, most famous example of that probably of one working out. I don't really consider Ryan Day in the same, the same stratosphere because he was obviously interim coach for Urban Meyer while he was suspended and then he gets the job at season seven different than what Ed Odgeron did for a fired Les Miles. But I think it sounds terrible to be an interim coach. You go from thinking you have this job to all of a sudden getting way more work and for everybody saying, well, you're getting a prime opportunity to interview for the next job. Do you know how few interim coaches actually get that next job and actually like turn that opportunity? And then even if you do, you're not viewed as the long term guy. Like you probably agree to some lesser contract. And yeah, maybe you do get that like little bit of a Runway of a couple two or three years. But I just think it's a really bad job because you inherit a bad situation and it's a situation that you didn't sign up to do in the middle of the fall with the team that could be checked out. I just think that there are a lot of things with being an interim coach that kind of suck. And I, I would not be surprised if you gave Gus Malzahrue serum. Like, hey, did you kind of retire because you didn't want to be an interim coach? I bet he would agree to that. I bet he would say yes.

[B]

I think every situation here is different. I know that's a catch all, but there are some guys that know like this is going to be my only shot to be a head coach. And for those guys, it's cool, you know?

[A]

Different. Very different.

[B]

Yeah. Like, if you've already been one and you're kind of on the back end of your career, I think that's incredibly, like, maddening. Could be a little bit insulting, right? Where it's like h. Like, I think like Bobby Petrido's situation was pretty terrible. Looking back, like, definitely they should have won more games or whatever. But like, it's just. You've already been here, you know. But if you're a guy is like kind of just a culture guy, you have a couple of months to plan where you're going to go, which is underratedly rare in college football because usually you got to make the decision quickly. You know, you could look at schools and stuff with your family. You could go, hey, how do you feel about, I don't know, this area versus this area? Should we go down? Should we go up? So after you get through it, you realize you're kind of blame free because the administration's already said you could say, I mean, it doesn't make any sense to fire you after they've already fired the head guy. So you kind of get like a little bit. A little bit of pto. I don't know.

[C]

But.

[A]

But like stay. Meanwhile, you know, you're going to be fired at season's ed, very likely, and you have to be looking for another job as you're doing that. And you could say, well, hey, this is an opportunity for you to like, impress your next employer. Yes and no. Because it's not very likely that you're going to parlay an interim job into all of sudden, like being a head coach elsewhere. It just. It just doesn't feel like a job that I would want to sign up for at all. And I kind of get why certain coaches, I think in the past have definitely turned that down.

[B]

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I'm with you on Norvell. We've kind of talked about him. He's kind of the highest. He's about the highest buyout guy we're going to get into today. Which kind of just goes to show what he's already had. Kind of.

[C]

Actually, you know what?

[A]

Maybe he's not. There could be one other.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it could be one of the likelihood versus buyout, you know what I'm saying? There are some guys, okay, they have a bad season. It would take a herculean good season to get the boosters already lined up. And it goes to show kind of the bad situation you could be put in with one of these buyouts, as you said, where it's not just, oh, we have to wait a year, it's, we take a full break from recruiting, we take a full break from donor relations, where everybody just goes to Turks and Caicos. Instead of funding a wide receiver, we got to get those guys used to that again. So, yeah, I mean, with a. With a firing like this, it's usually pretty monumental.

[A]

Yeah, he's the easy number one choice here. Who do you got for. For your first pick? Second pick overall?

[B]

Bill o'. Brien.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Okay. Had him high on my list as well.

[B]

Bill o'. Brien. I think this goes to it, right? Lower buyout number. It's been reported about $18 million. Don't totally quote me on that, because that stuff can be up and down. It's. It's less. There you go. See, this is where I get scared because I'm like, you have the actual list. But that being said, like, I think. I think that given that he's just not been successful, when you have a guy that you're fighting against success like a Norvell, you see a 131 season on there and you go, oh, maybe we can get back there with o'. Brien. From the beginning, it has kind of been a cluster. Yeah, they got ranked for a second. Yeah, they got high at the beginning. But that almost makes it worse. Where you go, this is all a trend in one direction. Coming off of an abysmal season last year, two wins. I just. I feel like they. They are just running out the clock on this. At a Boston College team that has been proud for different periods of our time, it just goes to show what happens when you fire your longtime guy.

[A]

So if there is a defining moment so far of the Bill o' Brien era at bc, it's what's up, Trevor? If you don't know what I'm talking about, it. This is such a great clip that should have gone more viral than it did, and it didn't because it's Boston College. My hot take on this is that it's a funnier sound bite than I'm a man. I'm 40. Like I think it is. So I watched it again today. For those who did not see this, late last season, BC dropped to 1 and 8 with its eighth consecutive loss. And Bill O' Brien gets asked by a reporter if he has a message to the fans. And o' Brien goes, I'm glad you're down. Nobody's down. And it's this 32nd, like, kind of typical head coach type rant in a lot of ways. He's like, the sun is up. We're fighting. And then he's still very much on edge at the end of this answer, but he turns to another reporter and goes, what's up, Trevor? I can't stop laughing every time I watch this. It is so funny. And I just love that. It's. It's Trevor like, it was, what's up, Jim? It's not as funny. Well, I don't know if Lauren and I are ever gonna have a son or if we're gonna name it what we're gonna name it.

[B]

Okay, Family.

[A]

I'm talking about my family. We're ruling out Trevor. Trevor has been taken off the table. If I am ever asked, oh, would you ever consider Trevor's a name for your son? I will say, look, this might be twisted, but the only thing I can think of with the name Trevor now is Bill O' Brien saying this quote during a 2 in 10 season. And I can't just constantly be looking at my son thinking, what's up, Trevor? I can't do it. Sorry. Trevor's listening.

[B]

Sorry to Trevor's. Pour it out for Trevor's. Everywhere. It's kind of like Tyler and Spartanburg, you know, especially when you put the dab on Tyler, it's like it changes how you view it. Yeah. Shout out to the. The Karens everywhere whose lives got changed anyway.

[A]

But no, like that.

[B]

That just goes to show, like, these guys that, you know, think they got it, think they got the sauce. They don't even have the juice. And they're like, hey, I'm gonna create my own little galvanizing moment. And you look at that, you look back at. It's like, no, this is why you're not going to work here because you're. This is what you think is cool.

[A]

He's like, we're going to fight, you know, we're going to fight like crazy against SMU. I think they lost the game by 35. It was. It was. It was bad. It was really bad. Yeah, I mean, look, you're right, though. I mean, this is. I think this is a perfectly fine pick for. For your first. I had it as number three on my board here. And always, always, always be wary when you get the vote of confidence from the ADA season's end. That's when you know things are going bad. The new. The new way to do this in college football is to say, we're going to make a bigger Financial commitment to this coach. They hired a gm like right after that, like right after they, they came out with this vote of confidence for Bill o'. Brien. And look, I, again, I don't know the, the, it's a private university, so I don't know the, the specific buyout numbers. It's definitely less than 18 million bucks. But if they're, if they have less than, you know, like 34, 000 capacity at some of these games or not 34, 000 capacity because it's a 44,000 capacity stadium, but if they have like 34, 000 fans for home games, those optics are going to be really, really bad. They're over under will. Three and a half wins and the under is minus 142.

[B]

That's how you know like when Vegas. Is that out on you or even in that conference where it's like, yeah, we're just gonna sim this season.

[A]

It's a good pick. It's a good pick. I thought I would get o'. Brien. I thought I'd get it on the, on the turn here or I get it with picks two and three. Instead you are up for pick number three. Three.

[B]

Yes. So, you know, there are things that keep a coach employed. We talked about Bill o' Brien in front of the microphone, a guy that might be the worst in America under the microphone. Dave Aranda.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

The thing about dav, he's weird on the mic. He is a classic defensive guru who like sounds great in the meeting room. Sounds great if he's like scheming something out. But you get him in front of just general media or maybe even boosters, it's like, is this guy okay?

[A]

And he's almost like been a coordinator too long type energy with how he comes across on the mic.

[B]

Yep, exactly. And I'm, I'm gonna. I don't even know if this is something I can say, but the allegory he made to the, to the scene in the Wolf of Wall street was just one of the most insane. I don't even know if I can say that the word on here where he's like making an allegory to, oh, one of us, one of us. And it's like, why are you telling the story? You probably can't say that word in 2026. Why? What does this mean? Who do you think you connect to? So those guys, you know, you have to meet with your ad, you have to meet with your president, you have to meet with donors. And if you're a guy who the guys who have been able to survive bad seasons are the ones that, like, can get guys in the bus and say, hey, we got this player coming. I'm really funny. You like my jokes. Hey, remember that time? Remember the good old days? I don't see any of that coming for Dave Aranda. He's got a bio number that feels wrong on here. I've googled it a couple of times. $6 million here.

[C]

It's.

[A]

I believe it's less than that. Goodness, no. It's not less than six. It can't be less than six.

[B]

It's a giga.

[A]

Low number. Whatever it is, it's low. It's private university, though. Yeah. And weird, Weird situation, too, because of the. The Macroads thing that happened last year. His ad who resigned. Like, we talked about this the last time Shahan was on, actually, and we kind of. We're like, yeah, they're. It's. It's strange to think that they're not even really in position where they can fire and hire a coach because of how. How strange this has all been. So their new ad, Doug McNa. Doug McNamey, I believe is how you pronounce it. He went to Baylor, was part of that administrative staff, and also for four years in between stints at Baylor, ran the Chip and Joanna Gaines brand Magnolia, and was their president for four years, which is just the most Baylor thing you could possibly do in this day and age. Like, tell me how you're ingratiated to Waco. Oh, well, Chip and Joe, you know them. I ran their business. But, like, very, very strange dynamics. And Dave Aranda's just had a strange time, you know, like, well, go back to 2021. And we did the podcast after the Sugar bowl when they beat Ole Miss. Macro got hurt the first quarter. Still, they played really well. I think I said I. That David Randa was a borderline top 10 coach in the sport. And, buddy, that take has aged like an avocado. The numbers since then are so bad. I had him fifth on my list, by the way. So he was going to get taken. He was probably going to get taken pretty high here. Since that game, zero bowl victories, one winning season. But even more alarming, and I've talked to people about this, and they can't really wrap their head around this. And I. I don't really think I have an explanation for this other than just the cliche. He's a head coach, not a coordinator. Right now, they have had zero defenses that have been in the top half of fbs in scoring and They've had two that have finished outside of the top 110, including the most recent one like Baylor with Dave Aranda on the sideline. Just had the number 125 scoring defense.

[B]

They just believe in Jackson Arnold.

[A]

Yeah, they did.

[B]

They sure did. Connor. I don't go back and listen to that because we were like, I'll tell you what, that Dave Aranda is a defensive master. That's Jackson Arnold. Hey, say what you about the three play callers. We will. We were right. And so I think it just goes to show like one of those schools is serious about football.

[C]

And I.

[B]

What I knew that ad for was he ran Field and Stream magazine. It looks like he also did. Also did do the thing that you said, which is nuts. So like, hey guys, I think we should just end the outsider era. Okay. Sometimes being an insider is good. Look at the best at your field. He's an insider. He's everyone's like, I want someone from the outside. This is how you end up still employing Dave Aranda with a buyout that feels like you could call like two dudes and get it figured out. So I don't to your point. I think it was just a tumultuous situation and this guy didn't really know how to fire someone and now he

[A]

does because you said call two dudes and figure this out. Literally just call Chip and Joe.

[B]

Literally just go Chip and Joe and just get a cool couple million. Be like, get Dave out of here. He's weird. Build him a new house.

[A]

Anyway, weird situation for DJ Lagway to walk into. Is it gonna be. Is he gonna be given a front row seat to another coach firing? I. I don't know. I hope DJ likewise stays healthy. I hope that Baylor is an 8 and 14 because they've actually had some kind of fun offenses. But man, just very strange the way that Dave Aranda's defenses have performed in. In those last four seasons. But he is a. He is a worthy selection here. I'll be surprised if Dave Rand is still Baylor's coach in 2027. Okay, my second pick. I am getting the number two coach on my board. I feel really good about this. Give me Luke Fickle. Gotta take Lou Fickle here. I told you that there was going to be some crossover here with the way that we did the worst contracts, which everybody should go back and listen to that podcast. A lot of great information. Those pods take a lot of time to put together. And thank you for everybody that has listened to that and send kind messages. I thought Fickle would be gone last year. I think Wisconsin fans thought he would be gone last year, but that is just not the Wisconsin way to get rid of a coach after three seasons. I don't even really know what the Wisconsin way is anymore. If we're being 100 honest in a post Barry Alvarez world, he's still alive. I'm talking about him as from an administrator standpoint. But the guy that doubled down on Luke Fickle last year and had the vote of confidence, yes, always beware. It's Chris McIntosh who has since stepped down and taken a role on the administrative side of the Big Ten. He's basically in a position where his boss you don't. You have no idea what he's thinking because Luke Fickle didn't even accept the hey did you have a satisfactory performance with your job one year extension thing. So we don't even know how his boss feels about him in that way. The buyout is still 19 million bucks. There is some offset money that would likely give Wisconsin a little bit of a discount on that if and when Luke Fickle would get fired and then become a power conference D.C. which I would expect him to be able to do. He's still a good defensive mind in this sport but man it's a lot of money owed to someone who is 17 and 21 overall and is 10 and 17 in Big Ten play with all those aforementioned issues with the offense and how bad they were last year and I know for a fact Will that there are coaches in the Big Ten who are expecting he will not make it to the end of the season and that once again they'll find a way to screw it up on offense. Hopefully Colton Joseph stays healthy. We don't predict injuries here but man if there's anything you can kind of predict it's that a Wisconsin quarterback is going to suffer a season ending injury and it just won't work out for them. Again, good player. I think they made a really nice move there, but you just feel like that position's been kind of snake bitten. But like we mentioned with Norvell, October 3rd is the date to watch for home against Michigan State against first year coach Pat Fitzgerald. Fully expect them to already have losses to Notre Dame and at Penn State. They have the Notre Dame game at Lambeau which optics there would not be great if Wisconsin lost at Lambeau. But yeah, I think Luke Fickle's days are numbered.

[B]

Yeah, I mean that's the a personal hell I'm sure like you're on the hot seat. You gotta Go play Pat Fitzgerald. He's like personally warming up with the linebackers. The grass is tall. It's like, oh, no, this guy is gonna, he has so much rate. It's so much more, more rage built up since the last time we saw him. But, yeah, I'm right there with you. I. Look at this, look at Brennan stories over here. Insider trading on me. See, I didn't know other coaches were out on him. I'm just kidding. No, but that, that's a, that's a good point about fickle. We talked about it. He didn't accept his obligatory one year extension at their Culver's meeting they have with all their coaches. I think that should have been a massive red flag. You're, you're right about this. It's just I. He's a guy that is almost passed. Like I don't understand how he has his job, so I assume he has some kind of blackmail. But you're right, I had him like 4 4th. It's just inexplicable to me that we've gotten to this point.

[A]

He has a job because the buyout is what it was.

[B]

Let's.

[A]

Let's call it what it is. I mean, it's, it's as simple as that. And yes, I get it. You can make the case, what if our quarterback had stayed healthy? It gets to a certain point where that you have to be able to overcome that. You're a defensive minded coach. You're supposed to be able to overcome these things and at least have a clue offensively. They have not had one yet. Could be an interesting, interesting year with firings in the Big Ten. Could be some, some interesting jobs that, that come open. And I don't mean to, to tip picks here, but there could be some others that we're discussing in season seven. Okay, your third pick. This is fifth overall. What do you got?

[B]

Now this one's really interesting to me. Maybe could have gotten him later, but I just kind of want to talk about him right now and I feel pretty good that he's going to get fired.

[A]

Mike Locksley next on my board. Next on my board.

[B]

You ready? Okay. There we go. So, Connor, in the end, Mike Locksley. Let me, let me count this up really quick. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. And he's 11 coaching seasons overall. How many times do you think he has had four or fewer wins? Five, eight times?

[A]

That's a lot.

[B]

That's a lot. Will essentially has his entire coaching tenure and then he has these three consecutive Years which were not like playoff years. It was a seven, eight and eight win years with three straight bull wins. So then you can kind of subtract the win. Don't want to go through and figure out all that on. On the fly. But no, not three great years, just three solid years. But then immediately following that with four and eight. Four and eight last couple of years, it just, he feels so hopeless. It feels like they're building nothing. I didn't know how bad he, I forgot how bad he was at New Mexico with two one win seasons and he got fired mid season after going over there.

[A]

That, that was, that was pretty tough.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's just like again, what are we believing here? And I think that ultimately he already kind of had the arc of oh, we'll get it together, we'll get it together. You know, we're only, we're in a couple of wins here. We got Covid, just give me some time. And then we're clearly on the backside of that where it would take an entire other arc for him to. They'd have to remake themselves. And you're looking here going, if I'm going to take a swing on a guy, why would I take a swing on a guy who has been not even mid. Has been pretty trash over the course of his career.

[A]

It's kind of crazy to think he's already in year eight at Maryland. Isn't that kind of wild? Like he, the last time he wasn't at Maryland was, was when he was the offensive coordinator for the Tua Bama team, won the bros Award. And that's the fallout of that team and the way that they lost to Clemson in the national championship. He was kind of considered one of the people to blame with maybe a foot out the door. But yeah, he's been at Maryland a long time already. And you're right, it would have to be an entirely separate arc. If he gets fired there, which people thought he could be fired last year. It would be a reminder of the rule of three. Three consecutive disappointing seasons, you're gone. Like that's just the way that this works in power conference sports. Power conference football, more so than anything. But you just, you can't continue on that path. And I, I think there's definitely a lack of hope for a program that one in eight in Big Ten play each of the last two seasons and they chose not to pay what was would have been a 14 million dollar buyout, nearly 14 million dollars. And then they would have entered a really crowded market. I do Think that they could have a better market next year. Someone like Brian Haynes would be really interesting, but we can discuss that if and when that time comes. But he's only under contract through 2027. Well, which. That's, that's why we didn't include him with. With one of these worst contracts or anything like that. I'm pretty sure the buyout's going to dip into the seven figures, so we're talking less than 10 million bucks. So it's not going to be some big hurdle there. The good news for Maryland, if there is any sort of hope, it's this. They're number two in the country in percentage of returning production. All right. Make that what you will. If it's all bad players, that sucks.

[B]

You know that. Oh, good. We're bringing the same trash players back.

[A]

Their quarterback, Malik Washington, people like this kid. As a true freshman last year, he made some throws that you're like, wait a minute, this guy's doing this for Maryland? What? He's kind of the most enticing, promising player that nobody's talking about. And I, I think it'd be different if he had a more established group of skill players. Like, if you could just give him the Rutgers skill players who are actually really good coming into this year. Like, we'd be having different conversations about Maryland. That's not the case. But, yeah, it's tough to really sell yourself on this being some, like, seven win season for Maryland. Nice Runway. Those first five games. Very favorable start to their schedule. The problem is consecutive seasons going 1 and 8 in conference play, and you only signed seven power conference transfers. So it's not like all of a sudden you have this massive influx of talent, even though you do have the percentage of returning production in your favor. He deserves to be high on this list. It'd be a surprise if Loxley were still here in 2027.

[B]

I'm glad that you reminded me of his previous stop because boy howdy, the fruit basket. This guy must send the Tungo Violoa family every season for Christmas of like, thank you. The fact that he kind of got the job working with Tua and then his only three good seasons are with his brother. And like, without a dude named Tungo Violo, this has been one of the worst coaches I've ever seen in my life.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Got the most out of that family. You know, Something to be said for that. Okay, so that means my first will. We are this.

[B]

This.

[A]

I don't think this has ever happened in the history of us doing this draft we are on pick number six, and I am on number six on my board. My first five are gone.

[B]

So you're saying I haven't classically screwed this up yet. I appreciate that.

[A]

I'm saying we're pretty much in lockstep with this, which maybe that's not a good thing. Maybe it is. I don't know. I'm gonna stick with my board here. I'm gonna go. Scott Satterfield at Cincinnati. Did you have him high or is this. Is this a bit of a reach?

[B]

He's on there. There's. I. We're kind of out of tier one. I like that you made the break here because there's a couple of directors you can go here, but I think he's the best of the rest next year.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Fun fact. I actually thought I saw Scott Satterfield on my flight last week. I don't think it was him. I decided it wasn't him. I think he had to be taller. I did a lot of Google imaging of Scott Satterfield and determined it wasn't him. I think it was just. It could have been somebody that was related to him and not just because he was rocking the Cincinnati polo. I'm usually pretty good with identifying celebrities in the airport. It's a. I. I think I'm in the like 95th percentile of being able to do that. But anyway, did not chat up that guy. Should have. I would have said, hey, how do you feel about the fact that your possible relative person in Cincinnati Polo gutted the whole coaching staff and has horrible vibes for a coach who had consecutive multi win improvements? How do you feel about that? And then he would have been like, I just got this shirt at a garage sale. What are you talking about, man?

[B]

Who are you?

[A]

Who are you, sir? Vibes are low at Cincinnati because not only did they. They do that with new coordinators and whatnot, they lost Orsby after they closed the season on this five game losing streak with four losses by double digits. It was ugly. But he wasn't a worst contract guy because he hasn't gotten one of these ridiculous extensions. He only made 3.7 million bucks last year. I believe the buyout drops to seven figures this year. A little bit more than $8 million if my math is right. That's super affordable. Even if Cincinnati has kind of struggled to transition into the Big 12, the day to keep in mind for Satterfield is October 24th. Juicy, juicy matchup. Cincinnati hosts Brendan Sorsby in the revenge game. Revenge for who? I don't know, I think Cincinnati kind of let him get away with a lot. If that's a lopsided loss, that could be curtains for Satterfield. Maybe they are a program that's trending in a better direction that I'm giving him credit for. But, man, will, think about this. Cincinnati is 9 and 18 in conference play since it joined the Big 12, and UCF is 7 and 20 in Big 12 play. Those two teams that were considered powers in the then AAC, now the American, they have struggled mightily. That's a combined. Let me do some Math here. That's 16 and 38 for those two. Just a reminder, just because you transfer into a power conference doesn't mean that you will handle that transition and just be the exact same version of yourself.

[B]

Yeah. And you could talk about, okay, coaches left, some players left, things didn't go. You know, if Luke Fickle could just go back to Cincinnati and just go back in time, I'm sure he would, you know, because that was a guy.

[A]

Will, I'm kind of wondering, like, Scott Frost did it at ucf, like, are they gonna try and go. Go that route? Like, it wouldn't be that crazy if something like that. Something like that played out.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, it just feels like with ucf, they kind of were at the only point where it wouldn't have worked for them. But at the same time, I mean, it's so weird, right? Because so far, Gosh. What. The last four teams we've added to the SEC have immediately been competing for, like, up maybe outside of Oklahoma. Oklahoma didn't completely. Yeah, they didn't necessarily. But, like, they were right there. And so, like, A M was right there with Manziel. Mizzou is right there for year one. It has been roundly harder to go to the Big 12 for these two teams than it was for these out west teams to go to the sec. So I. I don't think anybody saw that coming.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good point. But it's something that's still very much facing them, and I think they're trying to figure out from a money standpoint, just where they stand. It's a difficult thing to have to figure out. The good news for them, at least they're not going to have some insane buyout that they're going to have to pay for Scott Satterfield. If this is indeed a disappointing season. Okay, we are each moving to our fourth pick. This is seventh overall. Who you got. Chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or

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[B]

I guess I got to do it, Connor. One of us was going to have to do it.

[A]

I know who you're picking. Go ahead.

[B]

Take our good friend Shane Beamer.

[A]

Yep. Look, he has to be part of this discussion. I, if I'm sitting here betting today, if I could say this or that, and this option is Shane Beamer is fired. And this option is Shane Beamer is not fired. I am betting on Shane Beamer not to be fired because this has always been the point in his career where he has thrived. And maybe I'm defaulting to that too much. Maybe I'm defaulting to too much of what I've seen in 2024. He was still on my board. He was, I believe I had him eighth. Yeah, I had him eighth and I moved him around a couple different spots. I don't think he deserves to be part of the worst contract discussion just because I do think that there is a very realistic possibility that you could be looking at a three or four win improvement. And all of a sudden it's like, hey, well that's, that's the guy that he was a couple of years ago and you can beat top 25 teams. We know that he's our guy. So it's going to sound very biased to not have him even higher and maybe some would. I know Brooks Austin, who now I'll save that for off air. Brooks Adam at number One on his list of hottest seats in America. I will agree to disagree with Brooks, even though I very much respect Brooks's opinions on that. But he was gonna get brought up here, so it's. I think it's perfectly fine to take him in this spot.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, and it just goes with the expectations of being in the SEC and being at a place that doesn't exactly have the same level of resource to compete as. Like, you can't just go get a blank check from donors and go reload. Right.

[A]

And they kind of have been good at that, man. Like, that's. Yeah, that, like, from a talent retention standpoint, like, they. They've really succeeded in ways that I don't think you would expect South Carolina to. And that to me suggests, like, there are actually some people behind closed doors that are still very much a believer of what Shane is doing.

[B]

Yeah, I think so. And their. Their athletic department at all right now is kind of going through it. It's going to be very interesting to see how things kind of shake up there with, you know, basketball, baseball, football all being a little bit underwhelming. You could argue that works out for Shane Beam Away because there are so many kind of fires going on that it kind of takes the. The heat off of him. But that being said, you know, do we believe last year was a fluke? I think that's what it comes down to. You know, we all saw that, you know, the offensive coordinator situation coming a mile away. Right. There have been points in time where they've struggled, and it's been so. The highs have been so high and the lows have been pretty low. You know, with. With the way that the Bama game ended, the A and M game last year. You know, so all the things that you could say, okay, we got Nick Harper.

[A]

Bandy was rough too.

[B]

Yeah. It's like you got Nick harbor, you got the North Sellers, like, well, those things were present going into this year. Can the offensive coordinator change to Briles, who is a good coach? Like, it could change everything. But I think that they've proven, you know, what is the standard was the success at South Carolina. What I think it is, is be dangerous. Right. Have a couple of games where Williams Bryce is rocking. You know, make South Carolina a scary team to play in November, maybe even in late October. Make it fun to go to the games. You know, I don't think anybody over there is expecting them to go, you know, these 11 win seasons that Steve Spurrier had. But it's, you know, now that We've seen what this team can do. We got to get there consistently. And so, you know, with the amount of stuff put on sellers, that's the, the link here for me where if, you know, heaven forbid an injury happened to him, you know, things could, could go south fast.

[A]

The contract, it was a raise and an extension from his new boss, Jeremiah Donati. That happened right after the 2024 season. And that's worth remembering because it's different than the, the, the person who hired Emory Tanner. Of course the buyout is 65% of the remaining contract. Plus you're going to have some offset money. Shane Beamer will be working in college football, maybe be working in media for all I know. He's very good at that. But it's still looking something like 22 million minus whatever that offset would potentially be. Like if they miss a bowl game, he's gone. Like he, he would be the first to tell you that. Win seven games and win a couple of those games, it gets the fan base back on. We're probably talking about a different situation. It's plus money for them to hit the over on six and a half wins, which in my opinion is why he isn't on here. So it is. If you are picking teams in college football to have a multi win improvement, South Carolina is very high on that list. So that's why I'm not like it's going to sound like I'm, I'm coming off as biased here but like that's not just, that's not me saying that, Vegas saying that. So I do think that deserves to be part of this. But I do think also the possibility of them being 5 and 7, it's South Carolina, like that's still very much in play. And if they get off to an 0 and 3 start in SEC play with a pair of losses to first year head coaches, that would be the thing that takes it over the top. That would be the thing that moves the fan base in that direction of saying nope, this thing is run its course year six, moving on to somebody else, but who knows. Obviously things have been all over the place throughout the, the Beamer era and maybe they're going to be all over the place again in 2026. All right, well let's have some fun here. I don't think this guy's on your board. I could take him with my last pick. Do I want to save this?

[B]

Go with your gut. We've already been chalky.

[A]

We've been really chalky. We've been really chalky. I don't think this guy will come back around to me. You know what? No, I'm gonna, I'm stay with my board. I'm gonna stay with my board here. Even if I don't think that you're gonna take this guy, I'm gonna take David Braun in Northwestern and off the board pick. Like you're not going to see him all over hot seat lists because like this, this sounds weird. And if you're just looking at this on the surface, you will totally be in a different place than, than where I'm at. For those who have not followed Northwestern closely in the post, Pat Fitzgerald's tenure, here's how this has played out. You had David Braun take over as the interim coach. Year one, he wins eight games. He's Big Ten coach of the year. He's national newcomer coach of the year. The Paul Bear Bryant coach Coach of the year had a bad year too. But then year three, they improved by three games. It's a winning season. You win a bowl game. So you're going into year four. Like what, what would suggest hot seat? What would suggest getting fired? You've now got Chip Kelly. Aiden Childs is coming on board. That could be really, really exciting. There are a lot of people that haven't necessarily sold their stock in Aiden Childs, even though it didn't really play out the way that they thought they would. Michigan State, Jonathan Smith. But what's not to like? Where's, where's the potential issue here? I'm trying to get out ahead of this. I'm not saying that he should be on hot seat on hot seat list. I'm trying to get out ahead of this one. This is a lot more predictive than my first three choices that I've had. Always take note when the AD is different than the one who hired the coach. Quicker trigger. It's to be expected. They also have their brand new stadium that is opening this fall. Looks beautiful. It looks great. As someone whose first memories in college football were going to Ryan Field and not realizing until I was like eight or nine years old that it was actually a Big Ten stadium, I can say this is a massive upgrade. And I am so excited for Northwestern that is getting a stadium like this. I think the vision is really, really smart. They didn't make like some 75,000, you know, fan like stadium. It's like really intimate. There's like not a bad seat in the house. It's kind of set up the way that soccer stadiums are. It's just, it's really really smart. If you can look this up at home, you'll be like, oh, I love that. I could see them having a lot of really good moments in a place like that. It is a big time investment to make into football and ways that Northwestern has not done that. Yes, I understand they have the lakeside facility. I think it's different when you're doing it at the actual place that you were playing football at. It's not just this all encompassing things for athletics that you can brag about, whatever. It's the type of investment that makes you feel like if you miss the postseason, which is possible for a program with minus money on a regular season, under over, under a five and a half wins. The, the under is minus money. Okay. You could be out of a job as someone who wasn't necessarily viewed as a long term guy. We talked about the interim tag before and you can shed the interim tag. Those guys usually aren't getting 10 years in this day and age. Okay. Having the ability to sell this new stadium to what could be a really favorable coaching market for an ad, I, I think for an AD that's looking to make their mark, I think that could be really appealing. They open that stadium on October 2nd, they're going to have a ton of juice. But will, if you pull up the schedule, I think Northwestern could lose five in a row to end the season and then miss a bowl game. And then the AD is worried about losing that juice. They're worried about selling season tickets for the next year. They want to get a splashy coach to come in. So I am not saying, let the record show, I am not saying that David Braun has done a bad job. Okay. And he could very well prove me wrong. This Chip Kelly thing could work out this year. As weird as it is out loud to say that that Chip Kelly's the OC at Northwestern. So happened before. Hey, Chip Kelly's moves are always weird. But I am trying to get out ahead of this and just say, look, if they go 5 and 7, which is fair, always in play at Northwestern, new coach moving on to the next era of Northwestern football.

[B]

Yeah, man, when you talk about the, the straight losses here, it's like a lot of these hard games are just deep into the season too. Like it's like exactly. This is like such a rough skin because it starts off, it's like got a very early bye week. And every time I see one of those like, this is gonna bite us at the ass later on, isn't it? And then you say, oh, we're Playing, like, so many teams in a row that are better than us, there's gonna be nowhere to hide. And, yeah, you're right. Like, optically, I. I love this pick. I'm glad you took it here, too, to, like, kind of put your name on it, because I could so easily see this going sideways with exactly what you said. New ad vibes are horrendous. And it's like, hey, now we're. We've got a little. Little workout routine, got a little surgery going on, a little bit hotter than when we hired this guy. We can do a little bit better.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. All of a sudden, you think, hey, maybe, maybe, just maybe, we can attract the right candidate and getting to kind of hit the open market and sell that to someone I think is really, really attractive. So just. Just one to keep in mind. Okay? This. Everybody else that's on this list, I don't think we'd get any pushback for. I think everybody would look at that and go, yep. Wouldn't surprise me at all. And then that could be the one where if this gets posted as a graphic on Instagram, if Northwestern fans see it, they're gonna be like, what are you talking about? Like, that's our guy. He's. Look at what he's done. And, yes, agreed on all of those fronts getting out ahead of this. Okay, Your last pick Will.

[B]

Next up. I'll. I'll jump on the grenade here, since you went a little bit early on that one, and I'll. I'll be the one who gets the hate for this, but I just don't see it working out. Our guy, Jeff Levy at Mississippi State.

[A]

Oh, okay. I had him 10th on my board, and I went back and forth a little bit. I. I wasn't sure he was going to get taken, but we've got. We're going to have all 10, because I'm going to take the guy who's ninth on my board. We're gonna have all 10, my top 10, taken off the board in a draft, which. That's never happened before. It'll never happen again.

[B]

Again.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, what I see here, man, is again, what promised land are we selling? Where are we going here? Right. I think that, you know, two wins in the SEC is just not. It's not something you can stomach at most places. Right. The fact that they go from that. Okay, again, we talked about it with Norvell. Three win improvement. Ooh, coach of the year. I get five wins. You know, I mean, with all the Things happening the way the season started off. I think those things matter right where you start off and you beat this quote unquote. You know, not quote unquote. It was a playoff team. Arizona State. You beat them on this incredible last play and we're like, wow, we were wrong about Ms. State. They're building something. The offense looks great. And then you kind of look back and it's like, that was this little bit of a Sam Lovett disaster class. Was this a little bit of a, you know, maybe. Maybe they just played poorly and beat themselves. Right. You look at the last play. It certainly seems that way. And then you look at the schedule for Mississippi State's kind of similar to what I just talked about with Northwestern.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You have a bye week. A little bit more favorably. Yes. Between Alabama and lsu. So I mean, we talked about how long it had been, you know, for them to win an SEC game. Winning a game here or there could totally change their season. Be it one of those, be it Oklahoma. But if you look at this schedule and you go, who are they beating here at South Carolina? Maybe Mizzou, Bama, lsu, Oklahoma, Texas, Vanderbilt. You look up and you go, I don't know if they're beating any of those teams pre November.

[A]

And Mississippi State fans, be real with me here, pull up that schedule and tell me how many times they're going to be favored to win a game before the month of November. Because I think it's one. And it's at home in the opener against Louisiana Monroe. Every other game you look at, you're like, oh man, that would be, that would be a perception changing win if you could, if you can pull that off. And look, it's probably hurting Jeff Levy's public perception that the best thing you could say about his late game decision making was that he schemed up a play that got Brennan Thompson single coverage without any over the top help to be able to beat Arizona State. Got the fastest player in college football, a a look that was just, just set up beautifully. But outside of that, there were so many late game issues and there are some dynamics at play here, like with Maryland, young promising quarterback Camario Taylor is a guy that we haven't talked about a ton this off season, but is somebody that could very much be worth, worth seeing on a weekly basis. An electric playmaking type guy. And maybe he is going to be a really nice fit with what Jeff Philebbi likes to do. So I'm acknowledging that we've acknowledged the Zach Garnett reunion and how getting him back to be able to run that defense. Maybe that's going to kind of get them over the hump in some of these tight games. Whatever the case may be, the AD element is more favorable than anybody we're going to bring up on this list.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The Zach Selman element of this is, is very important because of their relationship together from their time at Oklahoma. Zach Selman's first big hire, he wants this to work. When they welcome him and they get him, you know, at the private airport and they're, they get a fan following that you would have thought the Pope was in town with how crazy those fans were going for the arrival of Jeff Leppy. And part of that is because Zach Selman was selling it and he wants this thing to work out. If they don't go to a bowl game this year, I think it's not working out. And how do you count last year when they got to a bowl game as a five win team? Like I was with somebody like with Mississippi State when like the day that they found out they were going to be playing in a bowl game and it was kind of weird and like I think they had guys that had already like left for, you know, for like winter vacation and stuff like that. And it just like very interesting the dynamics at play of what led to that. And obviously the bowl game performance didn't exactly go the way that they had hoped. But yeah, Jeff Levy being three and out, I, I think is very much on the table. I would still bet no we've reached the territory where I would still bet no. I think he will get a fourth season. But yeah, it's, it's not hard to paint that picture.

[B]

And I'll say on this, the maybe best thing that Shane Beamer has going for him is that he has punched above his weight against Clemson, who is the, you know, kind of, I hate to say big bro, but they're two time recent national champion like you.

[A]

They have not won or twice won there twice. That matters.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And when you're an ad, when you're a fan base that really matters, that you could look at your, you know, friends from across town and say, ha, we beat you. It's this situation where, okay, we get out of that hella stretch, you can get some momentum and then you're at Oxford and it's like these are two programs that over the course of my life have kind of flip flopped for who's better? Oh, we got Dak Prescott, we got Mike Leach, we got. And then you look up an Ole Miss is like minutes away from the national championship game last year. And then you're looking at Lebby going, what are we doing, brother? We both got the same, we're both in Mississippi. It's like one of, you know. So I think that, that being a true measuring stick, both in conference, a bowl game that's been scrappy on or not a bowl game, a rivalry game that has been scrappy on both sides. If they're just not competitive in that game, which I won't say they were last year, and in a moment where they really could have done some great things for Mississippi State last year, it might just be time to pull the plug.

[A]

It's a good point. That is part of the optics matter discussion. What your in state rival is doing. And if they feel like they're in a different tax bracket than you are, that'd be tough. Now, if Ole Miss comes back down to earth and it's like an 8 and 4 season or something like that, that probably wouldn't factor into it as much. But if they're en route to another playoff berth or something like that, and an Egg Bull victory is what clinches it. Yeah, that's probably not going to be the best optics for one Jeff Levy. Okay, we're going to get through this list having only named two SEC coaches, which is I think what you would expect after a year in which five SEC head coaches were fired and we have six total, including obviously the internal promotion of peak holding at Ole Miss. Give me Lincoln Riley.

[B]

Shoot.

[A]

Why not? Let's, let's go.

[B]

Here's the bigger buyout. Okay, look.

[A]

Yeah, I told you we're gonna have a bigger buyout here. I gotta take Lincoln Riley. I almost took him earlier. And for what it's worth, this thing would have to get sideways. Like, I'm not talking like 8 and 4. 93. This thing would have to get real sideways where all of a sudden it's an empty stadium, it's digs at the ad, it's. I don't have this resource. I don't have that. But imagine this. Will imagine one year into the championship window opening, Lincoln Riley just getting fired. You know, I still can't believe he said that. For what it's worth. Just ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The problem and the reason why Lincoln Riley isn't higher, even though it is very clearly one of the worst contracts in college football. USC bailing on Riley five years into a nine figure investment would probably need to take a lot more bottoming out because he's recruited very, very well. Okay. And when you've done that, you're not just trying to build your future future roster. You're also trying to do the hopium thing and you're trying to sell to your ads and your boosters. Hey, look at the type talent that I can bring in if you give me this resource, whatever. I don't know that USC will be bad enough for them to truly bottom out. I do know that you can't say that your championship window is now open and then be out of the playoff hunt in early November. If they have multiple losses going into that Ohio State game, which Halloween weekend, that would create that scenario. That's what we're talking about. I think we need to do a list at some point of like the must win games. It's, it's almost like a pre Toby Keith game, you know, like the, the, the future. How do you like me now? Games for coaches in college football. Lincoln Riley against Oregon is a future potential Toby Keith game. And I've already been on record saying I think Oregon wins the national championship this year. I would pick Oregon to win that game, not usc. But you get Oregon at home this year, the team that you haven't beat, the team that you are synonymous with now joining the Big Ten with them. That has to be a statement game. I think for the perception, the public perception of Lincoln Riley, which is just taking body blow after body blow. I will never dismiss the possibility of Lincoln Riley losing all these big games. Having the defense be a liability, which now a liability with Gary Patterson would look a little bit different. But I think we'd be talking about 6 and 6 for Lincoln Riley to get fired. I don't think 8 and 4, 9 and 3 just because it's not living up to that nine figure contract would be enough to get rid of him. He is still worthy of being included on this list because of how much pressure there is on him going into year five.

[B]

Yeah, I, I was gonna push back on the recruiting element of it. And the more I look at this class, the more I'm like, I think he's, I think he's stuck there for another year just because of how big this class is. Nobody in America signed more 4 stars according to rivals on 3 super corporation TM. So that being said, like it's when you get a class that's that big in the portal area era, it's like you're gonna spend so much time and resource keeping those guys in the boat, replacing them and then plus the buyout, like I feel like most ads are just Gonna be like, all right, dude, we gotta see if these guys are any good before we go anywhere. So I think that fact can save him, but it could also set up, which would be a better case for us, which would be just a very, very messy 2027. I think that the, the real haters know he should just be okay this year, maybe be a little bit underwhelming, and then set up a bleep show in 2027 where he has a lower buyout, maybe the recruiting moment of fails, and then he's taking shots at the AD every other week.

[A]

The buyout is still very, very high. It's going to be high no matter what. Unless they get some sort of reduced sum. Which, man, if you're the USCAD at this point, like getting Lincoln Riley to agree to a lump sum buyout of just saying, like, hey, at any point if we fire you, how about just 25 million bucks and we'll just give you all the money immediately? No offset, anything like that. You can do whatever you want to do. You won't have to, like, in good faith get a 25 million bucks. At any point, if we fire you, if you're an AD and you can sign up to do something, essentially what LSU was trying to do with Brian Kelly at the 11th hour after they didn't fire him, you'd be a hero, right? I mean, like, you would all of a sudden have. If you could, you. You won't be able to actually negotiate that with Lincoln Riley. I'd be very surprised if you could, but that would be the, the move of the century. That would be the type of thing that I would. I would sit here and applaud and go, man, you just saved yourself so much money and heartache. And you did right by. By the people that are financing your program.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, other than Brian, again, just bonehead moved by LSU to try to do that to Brian Kelly at that point in time when they were trying to kiffin. Because honestly, Brian Kelly could have made that way messier for lsu. Looking back, I'm actually kind of shocked he didn't. Like, he really could have gotten out there and be like, you guys are broke. That's another thing. You can't even pay me. But I think LI r would be even worse if they tried to do that. So, yeah, I think they're just gonna let him fire himself, you know?

[A]

Yeah, fire with cause remember the, the Matt Hayes thing of the, the assist, like the, the analyst thing that, that he brought on NCAA punishments for? Don't Think that card's going to be played, but who knows in this day and age of college football? Okay, let's go through the list and then let's do some honorable mention here. You went with Bill o', Brien, Dave Aranda, Michael Oxley, Shane Beamer, Jeff Levy, and I went with Mike Norvell, Luke Fickle, Scott Satterfield, David Braun and Lincoln Riley. I think I like your roster a little bit better. I do.

[B]

This is like 52, 48 type.

[A]

Yeah, I know, I know. Honorable mention. I only had two here, but there's definitely more that we can discuss. And I there, there will definitely be off the board firings. There always are. That's just the way that college football works. My honorable mention were Belichick and Hypo. What are your thoughts on, on Belichick, who. I think his buyout has dropped a lot. Like, I think his buyout is actually down to like 10 million bucks after this year, if I'm not mistaken. Because it's a five year, $50 million contract. And the way that it would set up like post year two, I think it was, I, I think they had, they had something worked out where it wasn't a fully guaranteed contract. I could be wrong on that. But you're only the only buyout that you're going to see if you Google Bill Belichick buyout is, is so Dom. It's the poach fee. It's how the 10 million dollar buyout that he would have had to give to UNC is actually dropped to $1 million after that first June, basically for him to coach a football game there. But he needs to be at least discussed here just because of the clear disagreement that they had behind the scenes at UNC with hiring him in the first place. And if there are enough people go ask Brian Harson what it looks like to have a coup and to have disagreements with those important decision makers so that he's probably, if you're listening to this, you're probably surprised that we didn't draft Belichick. But it's a coach on an eight figure contract getting bailed on after year two. That, that just doesn't happen. Eight, I'm talking eight figure annual salary here. That just doesn't really happen after two years. So I couldn't get there. And if he is, you know, if, if he's really bad, maybe he'll resign or something like that, or he'll try and get his way back to the NFL. I don't know. And if he's good, maybe then he goes back to the NFL. I just don't know that Bill Belichick getting fired is the most likely result for the end of his season.

[B]

Yeah, and like when we talked about this initially, how they kind of had this like, athletic director emeritus who, like, his last thing was hiring Belichick. And you look it up for the new. You look at it the way we view it with, okay, you got a new ad. It would be so easy to put that on the old guy. But I will say them hiring Mike Malone lets me know they're not done being crazy yet. You know, that hire was such a big deal to me with how you would see views things. Because if they had just gotten the Carolina guy, they had just gotten some, you know, assistant at wherever and just moved it in and said, hey, we're going to be serious now, start to, you know, differentiate ourselves from the last administration. This is my job. When you go back into those same boosters to say, hey, we just did. We hired the crazy pro coach who no one liked and couldn't get hired. We're gonna go do it again, that makes me feel like they're all kind of not done with the crazy phase of their stuff, which sounds, sounds kind of dumb, but it's all optics with ads, and it's so much harder to distance yourself. So I think he at least has one more year, but in weird ways. Does that make sense?

[A]

Yeah, I think so. I definitely think so. And then, look, Hypo is somebody that we've said a lot of really positive things about, and I think the stability that he's provided at Tennessee from an on field standpoint needs to be celebrated. I think having an AD that's given him like four different either extensions or raises, I think that matters too, and that's why he wasn't drafted here. But if they're 6 and 6 and all of a sudden Nyland is. Is emptying out way too early in games and they're non competitive in November, like, yeah, it's. Of course it's on the table. Of course it's on the table. It'd be foolish to say that it's not. If it's the fourth consecutive disappointing ending, which I realize one of those is with a college football playoff Bertha, albeit with a disappointing ending, then I think that that would matter for his optics. But if I'm betting, I'm still betting on Josh Hyple to be Tennessee's coach in 2027.

[B]

Yeah, and, and this is one that I on principle, didn't want to draft him because I think it would be such a huge mistake to fire him. I understand fan expectations, but he put the expectations there. It was such a disaster. It was, I mean, viewed as almost an unfixable situation when he got there. And every question I've had from him, be it building the trenches, running the football, recruiting, he's done all that. He's found, you know, different good quarterbacks there out of nowhere. And so as you know, a fan of a, A, I wouldn't say rival team, but another SEC team, you know, when you fire your coach and other fan bases, it's like celebrate. It's not good. That's how I'd feel about Josh Hypo. I still see that guy came into Tiger Stadium and beat the mess out of Jaden Daniels.

[A]

Yeah. So that, that was all I had really for honorable mention. And maybe some others would have included Kayla Naboer. Even though I think that that new deal kind of changes how we would view his job security. I think Greg Byrne has been very adamant that they're, they're seeking stability and that's what they feel like they have with this contract extension. But you could probably throw out like a Pat Narduzzi. But again, as we mapped with the worst contract list them paying pit paying, you know, more than 20 million bucks for a coach that they've had for more than a decade, I don't really feel like that's quite as likely. And then everybody else feels like it would be kind of an, like they would really have to bottom out. It's something like a Jed Fish situation at Washington where all of a sudden they were just terrible. I'd be surprised. Or if a first year coach who just really does not perform well, I, I think if you're getting fired as a first year coach, it's probably some off the field issues that have that, that have led to that. And it's a little bit tougher to predict. But was there any other guy still

[B]

my board that we got to talk about? And that is. Oh, go ahead, prime time.

[A]

See, we included him with the worst contracts. Tenth, he was a fringe guy for that. But the alignment with the ad, with Rick George, I believe that's his name. I think I nailed that. Just pulling Colorado, the 80s name out of my back pocket. No big deal. The alignment there makes it a little bit tougher where if he retires for health reasons or something like that, I think that's definitely in play. I don't think anybody would be surprised to see that him getting the boot though. I don't know that I would suggest that is likely. I. I think they would. I mean, I'm talking like 2 in 10. He is publicly calling out administration. The fans aren't buying tickets anymore. They can't even get Big Noon to go to Boulder anymore. Which, buddy, if that's happening, you want to talk about bad optics, that would be it. I have a tougher time wrapping my head around that. I also really like some of their portal editions. Some of their portal editions at Receiver are going to be really promising for them anyway. I don't know. Prime Getting fired 2 and 10 is what I think it would take.

[B]

Realistically, this is a cop out, but I think it's. What does it look like? It's exactly what you just said. It's fired. Probably not. Is it a. Hey, man, don't you want to spend more time with your family? I know your health is getting a little south, you know, we'll pay you the full buyout just so we could shake hands and get out of here. It's worth mentioning because I think that you could fire someone without firing them, and that would be what it looks like. I don't think firing Deion Sanders is ever a good idea because he just has such a loud microphone. I think optically, you don't want that guy to be your enemy for ever, you know, because he's always just going to be on podcast. But I think they come to an agreement is what it would look like. Yeah.

[A]

If they fire him and they pay the full buyout. That's all you. That's. I'll let you. I'll let you take a small victory lap. Even though he wasn't drafted for this. Yeah, look, I was, I was looking up the contract just now. Five year, 54 million dollar deal that he agreed to about 14 months ago. That's what we're talking about here. So I, I think that's. That's a really tough deal to get away from because it still has another $44 million on it in four years. Like he's gonna be making 12 million bucks in 2029. You're not getting off that deal unless it's. It's a totally different vibe. A totally, totally different vibe. And if there is one of these wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you just retire, fade off into the sunset.

[B]

We'll.

[A]

We'll pay a lump sum or something like that then. That's different. But yeah, I don't know. Don't expect them to have a particularly great season. Should be better than last year. It's not saying that much. Okay, that's a list. That'll do it. I don't know that we're going to get a unanimous opinion when we throw out the poll here, but.

[B]

But it'll be the easiest one to tell at the end of the year. That's the thing. That's why we need to. We need to save this one for sure.

[A]

Absolutely, Absolutely. Like doing this. We. We did the hot seat index last year with SEC coaches. I thought this would be a better way to do it just because there's not as many interesting ones to talk about compared to when we last did that. Okay, let's get to Shahanjay Raja. Like I said, he knows the dynamics in Lubbock very, very well, having spent that time there and wrote the definitive piece on Texas Tech last year before they had their very well documented season with the Cody Campbell Fund. So he was the first person I thought to. I thought of bringing on when all this Brandon Sourceby stuff broke on Monday. So here is Shahanjay Raja. I'm now excited to be joined by a very special guest. It is Shahan Jayaraja. Shahan, let's start with this. Brennan Sorsby did the impossible. And you were just saying you've done like 11 shows in the last 24 hours talking about this, so we're gonna have a little bit of crossover here. But he did something that I didn't know that we would see in this day and age, which was make college football fans agree, agree on something and side with an NCAA ruling that obviously should have held. Does this feel like rock bottom for the governance of college football?

[C]

It does in a lot of ways. I mean, I think that put aside college football, just let's talk about sports in general, right? There is like one rule that you cannot break, and that is you cannot gamble on your own team's games.

[B]

Right.

[C]

I mean, we have some. So many examples dating back throughout history. I mean, obviously the 1918 White Sox or Pete Rose or all this sort of stuff, right? But like, we kind of hold that if you are betting on your own games and you shouldn't be allowed to play anymore. And, and look, you know, I, I think it's obviously notable as well that frankly, Brendan Sorsby's attorneys didn't try to say that the rule was illegitimate. He just said that it shouldn't apply to him. And I mean, if you are getting to the point where things that are as basic to college athletics as for one, eligibility, by the way, which we've been dealing with all off season. But two, that gambling is something that essentially should be addressed in this way. I, I just don't see how the NCAA can reasonably move forward because the reality is if you are any player who wants to try to find a way to more eligibility, you're just like, you might as well sue and see what happens.

[A]

That's really where we're at. And that's the thing that I think everybody's looked at and gone well, that's just entirely wrong. And that's not the way any of this was supposed to work. And naturally when something like this happens, everyone wants to play the blame game. Where you could blame Sourceby, you can blame the judge, you can blame Texas Tech. Nobody is blaming the NCAA for how it handled this specific, very egregious situation because they actually did have some pretty, pretty obvious rules with gambling in place. But can we at least blame the NCAA for not allowing collective bargaining and for not having the foresight to treat athletes as employees?

[C]

Well, and this is sort of the thing, right. Is that, you know, on the micro level, like you said, the NCAA really couldn't have done anything different. This is a macro level issue. And by the way, when you start to see some of these conferences and these individuals who are involved with federal legislation and trying to push Congress to act, like a large part of this is why. Right. Is that they're like, this system is not something that's going to work for us long term. Now, again, you know, I, I'm very curious about, like you said, the employee, you know, collective bargaining side of things, because I do think that there are some complications with college sports that make it a little bit more difficult than maybe it sounds. Right. But at the same time, like one way or another, this is not a system that's going to have any staying power.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, there's so many parts to it. Right. And we've been hearing about these intricacies of the circuit court of Texas, the ncaa, all that. But I guess a guy who followed the NBA and their scandals, my first question is like, this guy going to prison.

[C]

Well, and this is kind of an interesting question, right. Is because like you said, there was obviously multiple cases in the NBA, but the biggest one involving of all people, Terry Rozier, which, you know, sure. But you know, it's interesting because I think that if you really wanted to get like technical and legal about it, I mean, he sent money across state lines for somebody to fraudulently gamble on his behalf. Right. Like that kind of is wire fraud. If you again, if you really want to get technical about it now, at the same time, one, I don't think that anybody would be helped by that being prosecuted by, you know, by the feds. And, and two, I mean, like, this is the thing too, right? Is that like it takes somebody bringing a case against you for that to be prosecuted. And again, I just don't think that there's for good reason, in my opinion going to be appetite to do that. But like, yeah, I think that like, that is the seriousness that we should be thinking of this case with, right? Is that it's not just necessarily that somebody, you know, did something dumb on their own time. It's like, no, this is actually pretty serious in a way that again, is, is something that, that really will have long standing ramifications. Now, again, look, I mean, I, I live in the state of Texas. Obviously you, you know, gambling is not legal. Sports gambling is not legal in the state of Texas. I mean, you kind of do open a Pandora's box. I think if you start saying like anybody who sort of flows money out of state to gamble, like that's something that happens right now. We can sort of say maybe it shouldn't, maybe there should be a crackdown, maybe there should be, you know, something or the other. But like, again, I do think that it probably opens a Pandora's box to try to, to prosecute a case like this.

[B]

And kind of speaking of, you know, your 24 hour whirlwind, we're kind of speaking of off air, all different parts of this. What does this NFL future look like? I know he was a guy who probably could have helped his draft stock a lot. It wasn't seeing that he was like a number one prospect or anything. But what are guys at the next level saying about him?

[C]

Yeah, it's a complicated situation, right. Because I think that for Soresby, like, there's a piece of this where I think that he felt like, if I can wait until the 27 NFL draft and keep my nose clean across the 26 season, like more than even the play, I think that it just gives him an opportunity to rebuild his personal stock, per se. Right. Because there are people excited about Brendan Sorsby at the next level. You know, I'd be really curious frankly, if he entered the supplemental draft where he'd go, especially in a draft here in 26 that frankly was not good at the quarterback position. Like, I mean, again, you just never know what the supplemental draft because of, of obviously the, the sort of randomness of it. But like, could he have fetched a third round pick or maybe. Right. Which would be pretty good compensation for a supplemental draft pick. Right. So I do think that there's again, a couple pieces to this one is, you know, I think that one of the reasons why you see Brendan Sorsby and text that kind of so aggressively go, we're gonna treat this right. We're gonna put him in a, in a facility. We're gonna have him there for several weeks. We're gonna really try to get to the bottom of this. Is, is yes, because they're trying to make his case for NCAA eligibility, but I think that they're also trying to get ahead of making his case to NFL decision makers and saying, I understand the seriousness of what happened. I've gotten very serious treatment for it and that this will not be something that you have to worry about. But again, you know, the, the thing that's really kind of unfortunate about it is that actually I think that him being ruled eligible this year put way more of a spotlight on these issues than was there before. And this probably, whether it's the supplemental draft or the draft next year in 2027, like this is going to be something that falls and maybe in a different way, which is not something I expect to did.

[A]

I agree with that. I kind of think that if he had just been able to, to, you know, have the ruling upheld and he goes into the supplemental draft, it's kind of like, all right, well, it's the antels issue now and they could decide if he's good and he's starter worthy, then they'll, they'll treat him as such. And if he's not, then he's not going to play anyways. But now this is just going to become a storyline that follows him, you know, throughout the entire season during the NFL draft process. We've seen all the, the fallout with this from, you know, what everybody has come out and said, like conferences like the Big Ten are threatening to stop playing Texas Tech. And then you realize that the only future matchup that a Big Ten opponent has against them on the football side is Oregon 2033. Who really cares about that? Like they can still pay a bunch of these group of five teams seven figures to fill out their non cons. I don't really think that's that big of an issue. It's kind of more so what does it mean for the other sports? And then maybe what does it mean for the postseason, but the postseason as well. What did you make of the external response to Texas Tech where seemingly Everybody has their pitchforks out. And even Big 12 ads are like, this is all pretty messed up. And we all see this is messed up.

[C]

And people are going on the record in the Big 12 about it, which is pretty crazy. That's definitely not something that I anticipated. You know, I. I think the big thing is, right, like, look, if they were to keep Brendan Sorsby, I think that, like, people would probably eventually get over it, right? Like, again, I think there's zero chance that Big 12 teams are canceling games or refusing to play against Texas Tech. Frankly, that's not even a Big 12 school issue. That's a do you want to breach your contract with ESPN issue. And obviously the answer will be no. But I do think that people are more than anything else expressing like, no, we're, like, really mad about this, right? Like, this is really a big deal to us and we are willing to do whatever it takes to express to you that, no, this is a big deal. This is not something we take lightly. And there's, you know, I think that there's a couple things to keep in mind, right? One is Texas Tech wants to be included in whatever the future of college football is, whether that's a super league, whether that's joining a new conference, whatever it is, right? Making those people mad is probably not the best way to go about it. And that's something that I think that they have to be aware of. And by the way, that's something that I think the Big 12 also has to be aware of, is that if you gain a reputation as a conference that's not serious about enforcing rules, what does that mean for being included in the next round of whatever or negotiating your next television contract? I think that this is stuff that does become a legitimate consideration for each of these parties. So I, again, I don't know that any of these individual things are actually going to happen. Now. Again, you know, we've heard that Nebraska and Georgia are not planning to schedule them long term, but, like, I think that the bigger implication is going to be, what does this mean for Texas Tech's reputation? Whenever those next conversations come about, there

[A]

is another piece to this, another wrinkle that I don't expect to happen, but it's worth at least bringing up because they do have some power in this. And Matt Hayes wrote about this. If you're not going to get government regulation or even Big 12 involvement for all the reasons that you've already outlined, and nobody's going to be able to hold Texas Tech responsible, like including the ncaa, the College Football Playoff could be the entity to step in and actually drop the hammer and say, hey, we'll play judge in this role. That's true. But don't you think that if they were going to do something like that, if they were ever going to take on that type of role of governance in college football, that 2023 Michigan would have been their test case for it?

[C]

No, and I was just thinking the exact same thing. And you know, look, here's the reality. I don't think that the College Football Playoff wants to embroil themselves in a league legal situation. Right. Like, I, I don't know that that is for a number of reasons, a precedent that they want to set. For one, of course, they would probably get sued by Tex Tech and Brendan Sorsby and they'd probably lose that case, by the way, because everybody loses cases these days. But I think the other thing too is like, once you become a moral arbiter as the College Football Playoff, like that is, again, that's a pretty big deal, right? Like, I'm, I'm a Baylor graduate, right? Like, should, should Baylor have been allowed to be ranked in 2019 after what happened? Like, again, do you really want to open that door? Right. Penn State obviously, being another example. There's so many Georgia with the, with the drives. Like, again, there's just once you open that door, it's impossible to close that door. And you know, I, I kind of hate frankly, the, the what about ism that we've seen from both Tech people and also other people about how to handle this situation. But like, I think that if you are the College Football Playoff, you sort of have to say, look, if this team is allowed to play college football, then we just have to consider them as a college football playoff team. Because otherwise, again, we, we just are opening ourselves up to a total loss, I think, of integrity in the process.

[B]

So if we fast forward 10 years in the future, Right. You're speaking at a university or something and you're saying Brendan Sorsby is the moment that X change in college football.

[C]

Yeah, that's, that's a good question. And I, it's one that I've thought a lot about in these past 24 or 48 hours. I think that this will be the moment that everybody resigns himself to the fact that a new system is necessary. Right. Because, and again, maybe it'll be congressional legislation. I mean, we heard yesterday that Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell had calls with every single member of the Big Ten and SEC who have, frankly, been the biggest holdouts during this process. And again, there was more receptiveness to their message yesterday than there was last week. Again, like Connor kind of alluded to, maybe it's the moment that we do get a level of collective bargaining. I don't know exactly what that would look like, but maybe that's the solution. But I think that, again, the Brendan Sorsby case more than any others, because, again, I mean, there were some egregious stuff about the way that the Trinidad Chambers case was handled. There was some egregious stuff about the way that the Diego Pavia case was handled last year. But, like, this is as black and white as it gets, that, like, the NCAA has explicit rules and they're not even allowed to enforce them. So something has to come after that.

[A]

John, what's funny in all of this is that Texas Tech went from being this upstart new money program to being what is clearly, I think, the number one villain in college football. And they're gonna get it from every fan base, and anytime they lose, it's going to be really well documented. All that happened in roughly a year's time. And it almost feels like some crypto company or something like that. And not to say that they've fallen out or anything like that, but it just usually takes longer for these things to take shape in college football. Have you thought about how quickly this arc has formed since you were in Lubbock last year and you wrote that piece last off season?

[C]

It's so funny that you say that, because in the story, I believe one of their administrators, actually their gm, James Blanchard, was quoted as saying, like, jumping on this is like jumping on bitcoin early. So it's funny that you make the crypto comparison, but. No, I mean, it's one. It's a testament to how fast this worked, right? Like, how well they did that people do, I mean, care about them like this, right? And that even last year, obviously before, I mean, I think that. I think certainly the gambling situation and all this is a little bit separate from this, but it's like they really did elevate themselves in, I don't want to say an unprecedented way, but like a. A very unusual way, I think that you could say. And I think that, you know, for them, like, they wanted relevance. I mean, this was a team before last year that was, I believe, one of three teams that had not been ranked since 2019. And the other two teams, if I remember right, were West Virginia, who also fired Neil Brown because they were irrelevant, and Rutgers like, those were the two teams that hadn't been ranked. Texas Tech should not be a part of that conversation with how much people love and care about football out there. So, no, I mean, I think that it's, it's sort of the monkey paw thing, right? Where it's like, you know, we want to be relevant, we want people to care about us. Well, you know, here, here's the blessings and here's the curses.

[B]

Sean, the joke of the week has been always bet on yourself. And now that insider trading is legal, what activity would you bet on yourself to be able to do?

[C]

Man, it's funny whenever I see like those, those tweets that are like, would you shoot, you know, a left handed layup for a hundred thousand dollars if you die? I'm like, no, no, I would not, I would not. I'm, I'm good. How things are right now. I do not trust myself to follow through in any one of these things, man.

[B]

O.

[C]

What would I bet on myself for? I mean, yeah, like I said, I, I don't trust myself enough to, to much of anything at this point. I like my life the way it is right now.

[B]

Situational awareness. That's why you got this far. There you go.

[A]

Recite old Bulls players from, from the 90s. I'm just saying we've got one horse grant right here.

[C]

You know, I, I think I'm, I'm more of a 2000s. I'm, I'm more getting into the, the tabo cephalocias, the Ben Gordons, the Larry. You know, that's more my era, I'd say.

[A]

Not so much Bill Wennington.

[C]

No, that's a little, I mean, I, I know all of them, of course, but it's a little before my time.

[A]

Yeah, that's, that's fair. Last one for you. What makes this worth it for Texas Tech? That's kind of the question that's lost in the shuffle of all of this is like, they're not doing this. If this is just a quarterback that they're given 500 grand to, it's 10 times that. Obviously. Like, I think they need to get back to the playoff. If Texas Tech misses the playoff this year with stores be playing all but two regular season games, people will say, wow, that really was not worth it for them. But even though it is, in my opinion, BYU's year in the Big 12 TBD on that. Does Texas Tech need to win a playoff game to make what's been a disastrous off season for, you know, public opinion? You talk about like what it could mean for them trying to get into a potential super league. If that's, you know, if that's the case, there's being a fixture in this new era of college football, like, what makes all of this hassle worth the money and PR hit that they've taken.

[C]

So from my perspective, I don't know if it's going to be worth the return on investment. Right. Like, I don't know if there's almost anything. Look, they win the national championship, obviously, that's, that's, that's where. Yeah, but, you know, here's the other piece of it too, is that they have another quarterback and Will Hammond on campus who I think is really good and who I think that frankly they could win the Big 12 with and at least have a chance, depending on where he's at on December 18, to win a playoff game. Right. So I, I think that there's a couple things here. Right. One is, I think that Texas Tech is fighting for this for reasons of also wanting to, like, support their guys. You know, Lubbock's an interesting place because when you choose them, they really do fight for you. Right. I mean, we've obviously seen it with Joey McGuire and the way that he's, you know, supported out there. I mean, this was the number two quarterback in the transfer portal rankings. This was a player that everybody wanted. He essentially explicitly chose them over lsu. Right. Like, that's a pretty big deal for Brendan Sorsby. And so I think that there's a piece of this that legitimately just is. Like, once you choose us, we choose you and we want to send that message out to everybody, not just Brendan Thoresby, but like, if you're whatever player and you come to Lubbock, this is how we're going to treat you. We're going to back you like you're one of our own. So I, I do legitimately think that is a part of it, even independent of his football ability now. Yeah, look, if he's the backup long snapper, obviously, I understand. Right. Like, it's, it's not necessarily the same, but I do think that that is a message that they want out there, that, that you are ours and we are yours. You know, in terms of the return on investment, I mean, look, yes. If you win the Big 12, if you go to the playoffs, if you win a playoff game, if you have a chance to compete for a national championship, like, eventually people will get over it. Right. Like, I mean, this happened, for example, 2023 Michigan. Nobody in that fan base is all that bothered by the fact that there's all these black marks on 2023 Michigan. They remember the trophy at the end of the year. But, you know, I mean, I'll also say as well, it's like, it is a complicated thing as a fan to love your team, root for your team, support your team for all these years, through a lot of bad times, frankly, get to reach a level of relevance and excitement, and then for it to kind of be held against you, you know, that just as a fan, really does kind of suck. So even if, you know, Brendan Swordsby's awesome and they win a bunch of games and they win the Big 12 and all this sort of stuff, like, I don't know if there's ever going to be a point that any of this will be considered truly worth it in the end.

[A]

Yeah, if it's Baron Morton all over again in the postseason, and if he's the weak link, which I. I don't think he will be, for what it's worth, like, that's. That's the off season billing that you. You'll look back on this as a. As a Tech fan and be like, man, this. This was. This was brutal. Like, this wasn't as fun. It wasn't as satisfying. Like, you've already done the thing where you've run through the Big 12. And so, yeah, it's going to be a fascinating year in Lubbock, there's no doubt about it. Shahan, you're the best, man. Everyone read his work. CBSSports.com we'll do it again real soon, man.

[C]

Sounds good. Thanks so much for having me.

[A]

All right, well, let's close with some lad of the week. What do you got, man?

[B]

So it was so weird to go to Europe, go partake at a car event that was super capitalist and sponsored by American Express, then come back and see Europeans invading America and like, partaking in super American stuff.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

In Atlanta at the exact same time. It was such a wild time warp. And my line of the week is Twitter user Freddy LA 7. Have you seen this gentleman?

[A]

I followed him last night when he was at Auburn watching the Friendly. Watching Messi. Unbelievable. Like, everybody living vicariously through this guy who's just experiencing American culture for the first time. Was he.

[C]

It.

[A]

Was he at College Station, too, For. For Messi, for that. I don't want to assume anything. I just started following him last night. But seeing, like, the Marcel Reed Messy jersey. Well, not so much a jersey exchange, but like, Marcel Reed giving Messy one of his jerseys, I Don't know that. I don't know that Messi's busting that one out yet. Marcel.

[B]

The best part is he probably thinks Marcel Reed is Johnny Mantel.

[C]

Like, he probably is.

[B]

Like, this is the greatest college football quarterback of all time.

[A]

Maybe we're seeing these friendlies at SEC stadiums and, like, seeing how that unfolded on. On Tuesday night, absolutely incredible. I loved it.

[B]

Yeah. So he. Okay, so I would say here's the breakdown that I started seeing. It was kind of not the way that I thought it would go for Europeans coming to America. Obviously, the World cup is, like, kind of the Americas. It's all across the Western Hemisphere, and all these Europeans are showing up. And I've seen a lot of British people who I thought would be our greatest allies here, dumping over America. Oh, this isn't Southamptonville, of course. Right?

[A]

Like, it's too hot. What is this?

[B]

That's the thing. They've gone from, oh, it's not that hot in America to it's too hot. Like, the Brits are just complaining, and it's like, dude, look, say what you will about America, but our ravenous ability to follow sports is not something you can dump on us for. There are people here just as crazy, if not crazier. And then there are the people in the middle. The, you know, Swiss, the Germans, whatever. And. And the. These people are, like, going on holiday. Like, they're going to Lawrence, Kansas. They're going to these random places. Auburn, Alabama, and they're just in awe at American culture. And this Twitter user, Freddy LA7 first went viral when he went to a Waffle House, and he was, like, talking about, like, American culture. That, of course, like, went viral. And the exact tweet was just had our first waffles experience at 1am Great food, great prices, and friendly staff. 1010 will be coming back, and that has 100k likes on Twitter right now. And since then, yeah, he's. He's gone through, like, the rural south to see. He was going kayaking on Chattahoochee. He's going to Wendy's here. Went to Jordan Hayer, to your point. And it's just cool to watch people, like, discover how massive America is to. To kind of tour it like a tourist destination, not just hit the New York clas, but part of that, too, is after he's been taking suggestions. And breaking news is 12 hours ago, he went to a BUC EE's and his mind is just completely blown.

[A]

To be fair, even the American mind cannot fully comprehend the BUC EE's I, I cannot. First time I walked in there, even after all, all of I. What I had heard, I still looked around low and like, this is a real place that exists on American soil. How about that? But, yeah, it. It does. It does serve as a reminder of how extreme we take certain things, how extreme our facilities are. Like, I saw my guy Kyle Pagan talking about this and how, like, the, the practice facilities where all these European teams are going to come for the World cup. Even, like, they have high schools that are, that are hosting some of these teams because their facilities are so unbelievable and they're so good. And the idea of playing a. Just a, you know, having a friendly and an SEC soccer stadium in an SEC football stadium and seeing that type of reaction is a reminder of, like, despite what you might hear about everything related to American culture, there are some redeemable parts to it, I promise you. Like, there are some things that can stop and make anybody go, oh, my God, it's like our guy George Somerville, shout out college chaps. Like, experiencing that as someone that is not necessarily subjected to the everyday culture of, like, American sports and whatnot, and then getting to see the reaction real time, not just to American sports culture, but to things like Bucky's and Waffle House is just so great. And I, I've loved seeing this.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's been a great Twitter follow. And I, I hope to be able to pick on. Pick up on a few of these things that kind of make the rounds as, as the World cup is unfolding. And yeah, it's. It is kind of crazy seeing these atmospheres. And even in a country that doesn't prioritize soccer in the way that others do. Yeah, we, we could still get up for, for something like that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And like, I'll say, too, you just hit on something that I think there's a really important thing. It's one of the greatest cases of cognitive dissonance ever, because I think the world views American soccer as like, oh, you guys, like, basically are trash. And in America, we're going, dude, we just don't care. Like, the joke has always been, what if we put LeBron James in a soccer uniform? And I think they're seeing in real time, like, no, actually, like, hey, you know, I just went to Monaco. The track had issues. Like, Talladega had a nicer track when they raced out there because there wasn't a pothole in it. And you go to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, it's kind of blowing the European mind to go, no, like, they, they have nicer facilities. They're like, Arsenal does not have what they have in Tuscaloosa, Alabama because.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. What's up Auburn, to be, to be clear.

[B]

No, I know. I'm just, I'm just making a point about Tuscaloosa or Auburn's an even better one where it's just I don't want Auburn fans.

[C]

You're right.

[B]

I was just picking a random college town where it's like, no, like it's how spread out we are because cities are smaller here than people would. Would understand, but it's how spread out everything is. You're. You're right. Like they went to Auburn, but I was more so thinking like this is a town in the middle of nowhere, which Auburn makes the case better. Actually. Yeah, you go to Auburn, Alabama and they have like better. I just know that Tuscaloos has the best facilities in America. I'm not sure if Auburns are technically better than Arsenals, but like we're get point being in college football for 18 year olds, we're getting better training and nutrition and all that than Premier league, you know, $500 million soccer players.

[A]

How do you get us invested into soccer? Play soccer games in our football stadiums.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Now we're noticing you.

[C]

All right.

[A]

My light of the week is much sadder. Unfortunately. Stacy King, Oklahoma Legends, many, I'm sure saw this. This happened over the weekend. The Bulls announcer who died very suddenly and sent shockwaves throughout, not just, I think the NBA world, but the sports world in general. Just because anybody that has ever listened to a Bulls game over the course of the last 20 plus years that he's been the color commentator has heard how infectious Stacy King is. And he is someone that like I, I was, you know, I always love to come up with like a comp or something like that. I can't even come up with a realistic comp because he's not like Dicky V or anything like that, but like he could bring it on a, you know, a sleepy night in the middle of January and make you entertained by watching the Bulls. And for a team that has been so mid for so long and so like unbelievably unentertaining, Stacy King would bring the juice in every possible way. And for Bulls fans, it is such a massive loss and it's heartbreaking to see. And like my, my thoughts go out to his family and it's kind of crazy to think about like what a mainstay he has become in the NBA because I actually, when I was 11 years old. I played on a travel basketball team. It was the Long Grove Coyotes, and it was like this like startup travel basketball team. And initially the plan was for Stacy King to be an assistant coach on this team because he lived in the area. His kids were a couple years younger than mine. We used to see them at like, at like our neighborhood baseball games and stuff like that all the time. Like, Stacy King was, is a massive human being. Like would six, nine would. Was probably pushing like over 300 pounds. Like just a big dude that you notice. Like, I remember seeing him at like BGRA baseball games as a kid and he'd be wearing like a Dodger hat and stuff like that. And so he was actually set to, to be an assistant, like on our team. It was really cool. It was like, oh, yeah, like, Stacy King is going to be like an assistant. I, I, you know, I'm wearing a in honor of him today and one of his former teammates, Horse Grant. But like, he was part of these, these teams that defined my childhood. Like, how cool that's going to be to see him like, up close and personal for something that I am a part of. And then he ended up not being an assistant on this team and ended up doing being a coach in an assistant in the cba. And at that time, that was like a really big entry level thing for him to pursue a coaching career. He decides to pivot and ultimately go into the broadcasting world. And my God, I'm glad he did because he brought so much joy to Bulls fans. Like, his calls of Derrick Rose. When I think of Derrick Rose, I think of Stacy King. You know, I do. Like, the dunk that he had against the Suns is be like part of what made that was like, I want to go higher. I can't even do a Stacy King voice. I won't. That's, that's a really bad example of that. But, like, he was just so entrenched with the best Bulls moments of the post Jordan era. And I'm glad that he brought so much joy to a fan base that's really frustrated. Like, is very much kind of at a loss for management the way that they've approached things. And Stacy King is just a legend and I, that news kind of hit me hard. I think we're all kind of numb to a certain extent of like, celebrity deaths. I'm not pretending like I knew Stacy King or anything like that. It was just one of those things, like, dang, man, like, I want to see him get old and loopy because he would have been so fun to see get old and loopy. He was just a great, great personality and by all accounts a great individual. He's going to be so missed and

[B]

yeah, only 59 years old and actually just had a birthday on June 7th, so it's. Or sorry, another birthday. Yeah, I think that's, that's just rough man. I think that you know those are the guys that really are the reason why we fall in love with sports. Right. Because not everybody has like. Yeah, you got to see Jordan. Of course Daisy King was a three time champion with the Bulls like earlier in that time he was the hype man.

[A]

He's actually kind of a bust like if we're being honest like he's like a rare bust from that like Jordan era Bulls that like he wasn't a Horace Grant, he wasn't a Scottie Pippen or like this diamond in the rough draft pick and he actually was kind of disappointing as like a 6 overall pick out of Oklahoma but like was if you watch like one of these videos from, from back then Stacy Kings just on the sidelines and he's the hype man. He's like, you could tell he's just like the ultimate vibes guy to have in that locker room room.

[B]

Yeah. And it's like those are really the guys that make you fall on a sports or team because you could talk to a casual person. It's like, oh, I love D rolls. But like when you said that call I was like that's. I know exactly you're talking about because it lives for the rest of your life. You're going to show that to Claire one day. You know, like that's, that's really like I could connect with those guys that I met, you know, with the Magic and with the, the former Hornets now Pelicans in my childhood. So yeah, that, that's. Thanks man. But at least you know he brought joy to a lot of people and changed a lot of lives along the way and that's all we can hope for in this life.

[A]

Yeah. And so like the day that he died, June 7th is actually his two year anniversary of my cousin dying really suddenly and was really, really tough on our family. And I was, I texted my aunt the other day and I said like I actually found some peace and thinking about how like my cousin Pat, who was a die hard Bulls fan like lived even when he lived in Florida like would watch every Bulls game and was. Was so dialed into that stuff like I, I had like a moment of peace thinking about how Pat probably You know, hopefully, you know, when they're both in heaven and they're sitting down, like, Pat, like, had like an introductory line to Stacy King to be like, oh, hey, like both that on the same day, let's talk bulls. And like, I hope that that conversation in a, in a different universe, like, existed and happened and I found a little bit of peace in that. But yeah, man, just absolutely tragic news. And hopefully, hopefully his family is able to get all this support. It feels like the outpouring of support was, was tremendous on Sunday and hopefully they continue to get that. Okay, that's pod. That'll do it. Email us. Please email us the OG kickoff gmail.com lead with your caffeine intake. I experimented with a little caffeine over the weekend. A little mushroom coffee. Neighbor gave it to me. It's like, just try this out, try this out.

[C]

It was great.

[A]

Little afternoon caffeine buzz. Nothing wrong with that. It was enjoyable. Not like mushroom coffee, the traditional sense. I don't know the science behind it. I just drank it.

[C]

Whatever.

[A]

That's how open I am. Please leave us a five star review. Subscribe to the next round as well as the OG Kickoff on YouTube. Follow us on Twitter @CJ Go so hard at the OG Kickoff as well on Twitter. Follow us there.

[B]

Thanks, guys. Talk soon.