PMS 2.0 1311 - The Madness Continues, Daniel Jeremiah, John Calipari, Michael Lombardi, & AJ Hawk

Summary

The Pat McAfee Show – Episode PMS 2.0 1311: "The Madness Continues, Daniel Jeremiah, John Calipari, Michael Lombardi, & AJ Hawk"

Release Date: March 19, 2025

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Introduction to March Madness Kickoff

Pat McAfee opens the episode on an electrifying note, diving into the excitement surrounding the NCAA tournament's commencement. He recounts the thrilling opening play-in games, highlighting standout performances and unexpected twists.

Pat McAfee [00:00]: "Madness is on the horizon, and, boy, it has already happened."

He specifically mentions the intense matchup between St. Francis and Alabama State, which culminated in a dramatic Hail Mary pass securing Alabama State's entry into the tournament.

Pat McAfee [00:20]: "A Hail Mary from Alabama State. 68, 68. St. Francis ties it. You're going to win. Hail Mary, full of grace, to take down a Catholic school. 7 seconds left. 70. 68."

North Carolina and West Virginia: Tournament Controversies

McAfee shifts focus to the controversial inclusion of the North Carolina Tar Heels in the tournament, questioning the selection process and the perceived favoritism.

Pat McAfee [00:45]: "North Carolina, the team that shouldn't have got in. Okay, you're talking Quad One wins or not, huh?"

He criticizes Bubba Cunningham, North Carolina's athletic director and head of the selection committee, suggesting potential biases in the selection decisions.

Simultaneously, he discusses West Virginia's disappointing exclusion and the subsequent poaching of their men's basketball coach by Indiana University, exacerbating the team's turmoil.

Pat McAfee [01:15]: "West Virginia gets screwed so bad, their coach actually just gets poached to Indiana University. Ooh. West Virginia's in a bad spot."

West Virginia's Coach DeVries Under Fire

The conversation delves deeper into the ramifications of Coach DeVries's departure from West Virginia, examining the backlash he faces and the uncertainty surrounding his future.

Pat McAfee [02:00]: "DeVries is now public enemy number one right now at West Virginia Public."

He speculates on the reasons behind the negative reception, attributing it to the coach's effective strategies that might have conflicted with the selection committee's preferences.

Pat McAfee [03:00]: "This guy became the head coach of West Virginia less than a year ago. I met him at Rich Rod's press conference. He was cool dude, he was a good conversation."

NFL Draft Insights with Daniel Jeremiah

Pat welcomes Daniel Jeremiah, a renowned NFL draft analyst, to discuss the intricacies of the upcoming NFL Draft and the Big 12 Pro Day happening in Dallas.

Pat McAfee [12:00]: "Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, from a completely different world is the NFL. He's known as the combine and draft guy because he watches film of every single human that plays college football. He's moved the sticks. He's currently down in Dallas for the Big 12 Pro Day."

Jeremiah shares his perspectives on the mock drafts, highlighting the consensus around certain top picks and the factors influencing these predictions.

Daniel Jeremiah: "Cam Ward going number one is something when you're talking to people around the league, that has become more of the expectation."

The Browns’ Defensive Strategy

The discussion shifts to the Cleveland Browns, where McAfee praises the potential pairing of Abdul Carter and Myles Garrett, envisioning a formidable defensive lineup.

Pat McAfee [15:00]: "Abdul Carter potentially teaming up with Myles Garrett. Good luck. AFC north offensive lineman and quarterbacks."

Jeremiah weighs in on the Browns' strategy, emphasizing the importance of balancing elite defensive talent with a young quarterback to sustain long-term success.

Daniel Jeremiah [15:41]: "Abdul Carter and Myles Garrett together is certainly a winning recipe for defense."

Draft Strategies and Offensive Line Concerns

McAfee and Jeremiah delve into the significance of offensive linemen in the draft, discussing why certain positions may be undervalued this year.

Pat McAfee [23:00]: "Offensive lineman. That's why they're potentially why so many offensive linemen paid, you know, guys we never heard of because of..."

Jeremiah explains the dynamics influencing the draft positions of offensive linemen, attributing it to the current abundance of talent in other positions.

Interview with Coach John Calipari of Arkansas

A significant portion of the episode features an insightful interview with Coach John Calipari, who reflects on Arkansas's challenging season and their unexpected tournament success.

Pat McAfee [40:56]: "Joining us now is Coach John Calipari of Arkansas. How do you feel about your team out there?"

Calipari discusses the team's resilience, emphasizing how early season adversities forged a stronger, more unified squad ready to compete on the national stage.

Coach John Calipari [41:57]: "We became that team now. They had to win that battle first and understand that you're not defined by this stuff."

He also touches on the strategic adjustments made throughout the season to enhance the team's defensive capabilities, preparing for the high-stakes environment of the tournament.

NFL Rule Changes and Their Implications

The conversation transitions back to the NFL, where McAfee and guests analyze proposed rule changes aimed at improving game dynamics and player safety.

Pat McAfee [13:09]: "Down by the way, who's coaching your basketball team, Pat?"

Discussions include potential amendments to playoff seeding, offensive player conduct during snaps, and overtime rules aligning regular season with postseason standards. Jeremiah and other guests provide their expert opinions on the feasibility and impact of these changes.

Daniel Jeremiah [75:03]: "Absolutely. Keep it the same way."

August Madness Recap and Final Thoughts

As the episode nears its conclusion, McAfee recaps the day’s highlights, reiterating the unpredictability and excitement that March Madness brings. He emphasizes the transformative power of the tournament for universities and players alike, celebrating the underdog stories and monumental upsets that define the season.

Pat McAfee [11:35]: "We kicked their butt last night. That was good."

Closing remarks focus on the communal experience of March Madness, urging listeners to enjoy the games responsibly and savor the thrilling moments that make college basketball uniquely captivating.

Pat McAfee [149:29]: "Good luck to you, though. Hey, I'm pumped for Ben... Have a great March Madness."

Notable Quotes

• Pat McAfee [00:00]: "Madness is on the horizon, and, boy, it has already happened."
• Coach John Calipari [41:57]: "They became that team now. They had to win that battle first and understand that you're not defined by this stuff."
• Daniel Jeremiah [15:41]: "Abdul Carter and Myles Garrett together is certainly a winning recipe for defense."
• Pat McAfee [23:00]: "Offensive lineman. That's why they're potentially why so many offensive linemen paid, you know, guys we never heard of because of..."

Conclusion

This episode of The Pat McAfee Show offers a comprehensive exploration of the early stages of March Madness, intertwined with expert analyses from NFL professionals and prominent college basketball coaches. The blend of game recaps, strategic discussions, and insider perspectives provides listeners with a rich and engaging overview of the current sports landscape. Whether you're a die-hard fan or a casual observer, McAfee's dynamic commentary ensures an informative and entertaining listening experience.

Transcript

[Pat McAfee]

Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome, on this March Madness Eve. Wednesday, March 19, 2025. This program starts now. Madness is on the horizon, and, boy, it has already happened. Last night, two play in games. In the first one that kicked off the entire March Madness, the entire NCAA tournament. Who's gonna punch their ticket to be able to dance with everybody else? Well, it started with St. Francis in Alabama State, and it was electrifying. Big shot after big shot, big defensive stand. There was a couple like, can't dribble a basketball moment, but that is going to happen in college hoops. And inevitably, the game ended with a Hail Mary from Alabama State. 68, 68. St. Francis ties it. You're going to win. Hail Mary, full of grace, to take down a Catholic school. 7 seconds left. 70. 68. And the entire tournament started off with a bang. It was a fun watch. Lefkoe was in his bag last night. Night. It's going to be great to watch him from the tournament headquarters. Can't wait to see him navigate through all the different storylines. And then North Carolina, the team that shouldn't have got in. Okay, you're talking Quad One wins or not, huh? Bubba Cunningham, their athletic director, isn't that convenient? He's the head of the selection committee. Ain't that interesting? You think he's got any shake? Do you think they want to make him happy? Well, I wasn't in the room whenever it happened. Okay. West Virginia gets screwed so bad, their coach actually just gets poached to Indiana University. Ooh. West Virginia's in a bad spot. Men's basketball, women's basketball. Look out. West Virginia women are about to go and win this. They're actually playing tbd. That's how good they are.

[Boston Connor]

Wow.

[Pat McAfee]

They don't even know who they're playing against. They don't even know who they're playing against. You gotta be good to not even know who you're playing against. That's the West Virginia women's basketball team. Men's basketball team screwed by the selection committee. And then a coach leaves with their kid. Okay, that's good. Now, Indiana, obviously, is a basketball haven, a place that is historically known for hoops. I mean, this state loves hoops. Basketball. Now, that's why Kurt Signetti goes down there and wins in football. And everybody that's an IU fan goes, we didn't even know this was possible. We're a basketball team, we're a basketball state, we're a basketball school. We haven't gone anywhere. Really. Of importance in basketball. In a while, this football team comes in and ignites a fan base that has been waiting to go crazy for sports. Now they bring in De Vries. And I'm going to say this. He is maybe public enemy number one right now at West Virginia Public. Cunningham kind of got jot down a bit. DeVries is now public enemy number one. That's going to happen. This guy became the head coach of West Virginia less than a year ago. I met him at Rich Rod's press conference. He was cool dude, he was a good conversation. Thought he was going to do some special things with West Virginia. And obviously him saying that it was going to take something special for him to leave Drake to go to West Virginia and his opening press conference and talk about building something special and all that type of stuff and then leaving after one year, especially with what just happened by the NCAA to the West Virginia basketball team and how West Virginia people are feeling to begin with. Not very well received in the state of West Virginia, you know, and Governor Morris, he's thinking about suing, you know, maybe Indiana for a little tampering because there was a Twitter account on March 12, 2025, IU anonymous Twitter account that says IU's already got a deal done with their next coach. Media follow up tweet. It's the Vries media follow up. He's already in transfer portal. Now, that could be all bullshit. That could be somebody just taking a shot in the dark. But there were stories and agendas being pushed last night from the West Virginia people that are making this guy an enemy. O devries guy is an enemy in West Virginia. With that being said, this guy's a really good ball coach, which is why everybody in West Virginia is so bad. The West Virginia basketball situation has been a revolving door, you know, so to even be in a position to potentially get screwed in the biggest stub in the history of the tournament, I think West Virginia people are like, we're going in the right. Hey, this is going in the right direction with the right guy. So the reason why they hate him so bad is because of how good of a coach this guy is. And, you know, the more you think about it, especially with his boy coming down here, still his year eligibility didn't play a lot this year.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hold on.

[Pat McAfee]

People talking about that, that's interesting. He's a. He's a player. He's a damn good player. And you think about the way he coaches, the way he operates, the way he talks. It's like, I think Indiana fans are really going to like this guy. With that being said, North Carolina shouldn't have got in. But everybody that was talking on the television on Selection Sunday said North Carolina should not be in this tournament. After the bracket got released, they see where they're playing, they go, they are going to beat this other team, though, that is certainly in there. And they did. I mean, they won by 27 last night. West Virginia would have won by 28, but North Carolina didn't make this thing close at any point. And I assume, and we talked about this earlier with talks to table at Ty Schmidt at Boston Conner, the San Diego State Aztecs basketball team was probably a bit frustrated. Not only this program, but a governor of a state, how everybody was kind of talking about it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, you assume the Aztecs are the team that's looking around like, hey, do we have to do this right now? You know, may maybe we wait until it's the, you know, Elite 8 or something for all the bitching and moaning for the UNC Tar Heels getting in. Because they're the ones that had to deal with it. They're the ones that had to deal with UNC not being able to miss a shot. It's not like San Diego State stinks, you know, at all. You know, Seth's big thing yesterday was, hey, look out. San Diego State can play defense. UNC put 95 on them. So can they play defense?

[Pat McAfee]

Probably.

[Ty Schmidt]

But unfortunately for San Diego State, you know, the entire country basically told UNC they still kept basketball. And UNC said, is that right? And we're going to go out and score 95 points. One of the nation's best defenses. And now, you know, personally, I'm going to have to go back. I typically write my brackets in pen. I don't. With this UNC team, they're probably going to go to the Elite Eight Final Four. Shit, they might win national championship.

[Pat McAfee]

Bigger for unc. And obviously, obviously, we're part of that. We are. We are. Sorry, that is hard on us. That is. That is 100% on us with that, you know, notion there. They're a hungry team. They shot better than I've ever. This North Carolina team might be a team that you don't want to dance with.

[AJ Hawk]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

So I wonder what the West Virginia team would have done. Because if you start talking about Quad One wins, this North Carolina team, they didn't have any quad. What if we took quad? No quads.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

They had no barn. They had no land. They had no quad. They had no wheels. They had nothing. They didn't Deserve to get in. That's all they were told. Hey, you guys stink against good teams. Hey, in big games you guys can't play. They're saying UNC shouldn't even be in the tournament all week. That was basically being said. And they showed up, got some dogs on that team. It does feel like, feel like they got some dogs. A lot of us are going to ask, yeah, a lot of people are going to ask like, hey, how come all year maybe I was like, maybe they ignited something here and became the best selves. And good luck UNC shouldn't be in there, but good luck unc. What a show. What a show. That was over very early. They were up 20, about six minutes into that thing and it was like, okay, yeah, this seems like this is directed at somebody and I don't know if it was AI or not, but I think in the locker room they were, they were okay. Letting people know like not supposed to be here. You got an angry team. We'll talk. We'll show you the conversation we had with coach Calipari of Arkansas. He tips off tomorrow night. He will be joining us on this program. We talked to him earlier. It's like, you know, it's not about what you've done, it's about who you are right now and who's hot, who's up, who's ready to go and is it UNC because of the whole world doubting everything they're about potentially good for them. One half of the hammer done. Cowboys AP tones here. I know through Boston Connor's gambling account the underdogs now 02 to start March Madness after last night's affair.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah the underdogs are 0 and 2. The unders are also 02. Obviously North Carolina almost covered the over by themselves there and then that, that just rapid stretch down the end in the same Francis and Bama game like that one was was under until like they didn't miss like the last 2 minutes and 30 seconds. They almost like there was, there was a turnover too but they didn't miss. They were hitting step back threes. So both games went over last night. Both underdogs did not win and that is the story of the tournament so far as gambling is concerned.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, cuz normally a little tight early so not as many points. Maybe that'll be when the tournament actually starts. Obviously we have two more playing games today I do believe. Can't wait to watch the boys get after it. Especially after how last night's games went. I mean this Alabama State St. Francis game was awesome. Yeah. Had no dog in the fight at all. But when you're watching, it's like, I like both these teams kind of the way they're playing, the way they were answering. And then obviously it ending with a Hail Mary is such a wonderful way to start. Is that a sign of what this tournament's going to be like? Is that a sign of what this particular March Madness is going to be? Or is the North Carolina game the sign of what this tournament's going to be? Because that was literally the two sides of the coin there we have a thrilling, electrifying Hail Mary, actual winner. And then we have a blowout from the beginning of the game. And that's March Madness, baby.

[Ty Schmidt]

This is March.

[Pat McAfee]

That. This.

[Ty Schmidt]

This is March.

[Evan Fox]

This is March.

[Ty Schmidt]

This is March.

[Evan Fox]

This is March.

[Pat McAfee]

It's not anarchy. No college.

[Evan Fox]

College basketball.

[Pat McAfee]

This is lefco last night in his bag.

[Ty Schmidt]

He was his bag, bro.

[Pat McAfee]

Point got right there. He was in there.

[Ty Schmidt]

He was dishing.

[Pat McAfee]

Jalen. Coach Wright, who's the. Right there. Oh, God.

[Evan Fox]

I watched it. I do not remember who it was.

[Pat McAfee]

Coach. I think it's an old coach. Maybe it's an old coach. I just forget his name. He's to the right. He had a lot of thoughts. Jalen on. There was fresh air. Always looks great. Jalen's always going to have fresh cut. And then Coach Wright down there, they showed the replay of the Hail Mary and Jalen's like, oh, screaming. And Jay Wright's just, like, looking down at the screen here. And then they showcased whenever his team, I guess if Villanova hit a game winner and he just was on for the national championship, he went in against UNC and he just didn't even. Just like, kind of kept it cool or whatever. And Jay Wright said, I was looking at the clock to see how much time was left. It's like always coaching. And these guys got a tough task. A lot of teams, a lot of stories, a lot of players, a lot of conspiracies. So good luck keeping it all on track, boys. And we also need to learn about all these guys, too. So if a little piece of information drops out of the mouth, too, that's obviously, obviously very welcomed. They will obviously pull up.

[AJ Hawk]

Seth Davis was the other one.

[Pat McAfee]

I know Seth Davis hoops on the Internet. That's him. Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

Correct.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Okay. I should have known that. That's on me. Great show. I appreciate it. I was watching it last night throughout it all. Kicking off a wonderful time in the sports calendar. March Madness. We'll be off tomorrow and Friday, because we'll be watching the games just like you will be. That's what we've learned in the past. We are screaming in an empty room when we are doing the show during March Madness.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

People are either watching the games and our voices in the background, or we're doing a show about something that isn't college basketball. And all we're doing is watching the games right here. So just for the good of all parties involved, there is something to watch tomorrow during the afternoon, and it'll be electrifying. And let's learn about some of these teams. Maybe, you know, like American University tonight needs you to do it. Yeah. Need American to go on a run. 20, 25. We need that to happen. They will. Xavier, Texas. It's, like, hard for me to just believe Texas is just going to let that one be an easy yacht, you know, especially in the big moment in primetime. Is Xavier ready for it? We shall see. And we're excited for March Madness. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. We'll be watching the games tomorrow at a pretty sick place. Oh, yeah. I think it should be good.

[Ty Schmidt]

Great time.

[Pat McAfee]

I think it should be good. We're going to enjoy the beginning of March Madness just like everybody else is. And remember, you don't have to work. It's March Madness.

[Evan Fox]

Well said.

[Pat McAfee]

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, from a completely different world is the NFL. He's known as the combine and draft guy because he watches film of every single human that plays college football. He's moved the sticks. He's currently down in Dallas for the Big 12 Pro Day. Ladies and gentlemen, Daniel Jeremiah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yay, D.J.

[Pat McAfee]

How are you, bud? What's up, boys?

[Boston Connor]

You want to see what we got here? Hold on.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, sure.

[Boston Connor]

So we get.

[Pat McAfee]

Ooh, Jerry world. What's going on there?

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, we got. We got Big 12 Pro Day, like you mentioned. So we're going to be on here 3 hours on NFL Network. So we'll have all of that covered for you here. So it'd be fun.

[Pat McAfee]

I believe that starts in about 18 minutes or so, or maybe even longer. We appreciate you taking time. Is this something the players that weren't invited to the combine now basically have a Big 12 combine.

[Boston Connor]

So, yeah, just like it's just traditional pro day where we used to go out to all the school and, you know, the guys that were at the combine have their choice whether they want to work out or not. And then the guys who didn't get a chance to work out get Their chance. So instead of, you know, going to Waco, to Baylor, and going to Fort Worth, to TCU and West Virginia everywhere else, they just all. They all combine here in. At the Star here in Frisco. So it's a good chance for scouts do everything all at once.

[Pat McAfee]

West Virginia doesn't have a pro day. No.

[Boston Connor]

None of these guys do. That's part of the. Part of the deal is just with the Big 12, they wanted to make it one big event. So we've got three hours of coverage of this thing for two days.

[Pat McAfee]

Down.

[Boston Connor]

By the way, who's coaching your basketball team, Pat?

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, geez.

[Pat McAfee]

Shut up, D.J. okay, I don't need to hear that right now. And you know, you know that that UNC team who won by 27 last night did not deserve to be out. Look, talk about some ball, shall we? You just put out your third mock draft, I do believe, 3.0. And it seems like you and everybody else that's mock drafting have the first four the exact same. Is that because you're all getting information, you're all seeing the board the same way? Why do you think the front or the beginning of this draft is kind of settled in? Seemingly?

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think there is, you know, broad consensus right now. I think probably more of a coincidence that we end up having them where we have them at this point in time. So I just. Cam Ward going number one is something when you're talking to people around the league, that. That just has become more of the expectation. I do feel good about that. You know, whether that's Tennessee or whether that's, you know, two or three, trying to move up to that first spot, but that's the one that I feel the most confident after that. I still think it's, you know, it's pretty up in the air with Cleveland. I just was going through the different conversations that you would have inside the draft room, and I was thinking, you know, look, I've been in those where you say, okay, would you rather have Shadour Sanders at 2 and maybe like, Nick Scorton, an edge rusher from A and M in the second round, or would you rather take Abdul Carter and then maybe, you know, one of those next tier of quarterbacks in the second round? And I thought, man, the allure of Abdel Carter, what I think of him as, you know, I think he's the best player in the draft. And then to come back with whether that's Jackson Dart, Tyler Schuck, your guy, Will Howard, whoever You, you know, you like in that second tier, that could be an option. I mean, I do think the Browns and the Giants leave the second round with a quarterback. It's just a matter of whether they take him at the top of one or whether they take around number two.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so let's talk about the Browns a little bit. I think tone Red yesterday might have been in your mock up or somebody else's. The thought of pairing Abdul Carter and Myles Garrett together on that defensive side is certainly a winning recipe for defense. You know, if you can get to the quarterback, disrupt the quarterback and take over games on defensive side, obviously you can win. Now if they're able to get a young quarterback as well, somebody that they like, that they think they can win, it's like look at the Cleveland Browns trying to balance in battle while still having to do the entire desean Watson contract. Maybe they'll be able to pull it off. Okay, so we got Abdul Carter potentially teaming up with Myles Garrett. Good luck. AFC north offensive lineman and quarterbacks. Now let's move to a couple of the other picks because we know you don't have a lot of time. Connor has a question for you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, DJ Travis Hunter at 4. Obviously as a Patriots fan, that's exactly what I'm hoping for, especially with how free agency has gone for New England when it comes to weapons. But one of the things with Travis Hunter a lot of people have been talking about is, hey, he can play corner and then maybe come in for the red zone, get a few snaps at wide receiver. I was kind of hypothesizing that, you know, maybe he's a full time wide receiver number one and then comes in on the red zone on defense, kind of locks one guy up. Is that something teams are talking about and making him wide receiver 1 and then using him on defense and you know, a couple man packages. And also do you see him to New England like, can I buy the jersey tomorrow? What do you think?

[Boston Connor]

Well, if he does get there, I don't think he gets by your guys. So that was, you know, I think if you're a Patriot fan, you're hoping these two quarterbacks go before, before you pick and then you're either going to get one of those guys, you're going to get Travis Hunter, Abdul Carter, elite, elite players. I think with, with Travis, it's, it's the unique part about him, the special part is it's different for different teams of how you'd use them. I do think it's easier to major in defense and Minor in offense, but looking where the Patriots are at corner and where they are at receiver right now, if he were to go to that specific team, I think I would say, look, you're full time offense and we'll find some spots for you, whether it's some third downs, you know, different packages, and we'll sprinkle you in on defense. But I don't know how you look at Drake May and say, you know, this guy that we got who's better than anybody else at the position on our team, we're only going to use him part time. I don't think that would make sense.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And if you're a special talent at catching the ball, which he is, and getting open, which he is, and understanding football, which he is, you know, it's a good weapon to have on the outside. But to your point about sprinkling him in on defense, this has been Connor's kind of pitch here because you got him, Gonzo and Carlton Davis that they just gave.

[Boston Connor]

That's what I'm saying.

[Pat McAfee]

And Carlton Davis. So if you got red zone or third down, you can kind of, you would hope, clamp three people. And then with the running world that we're in right now, that is a. And Vrabo understands this more than maybe anybody because of the way he was used at in New England, if at all. It's like, I like that play a.

[Ty Schmidt]

Lot, especially with Gonzo and Carlton Davis. Like, you assume because of how good Travis Hunter is at catching the ball, you kind of try and make teams throw it his way. Like, you can just leave Gonzo on his own, you can double whoever Carlton Davis is on and it's like, okay, try and throw it on Travis Hunter. And if he's as good as he.

[Pat McAfee]

Is, yeah, maybe he's not that good. Maybe that's why.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly. Or maybe he ends up with, you know, five, six picks in the red zone this year.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, let's move away from this. Ty has a question for you. D.J.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, D.J. i know you have Jackson Dart going 21 to the Steelers, but a lot of other mocks and, you know, draft analysts have had him really rising up boards and going in like the top 10, top 15. Do you think that's going to be something that we kind of see as we get closer to the draft? What are the odds that Jackson Dart actually goes at like the, the top half of the first round?

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, I, I think it's up in the air. I don't think anybody knows, but it, it is interesting this late in the free agency process that you have a couple teams out there with with glaring needs at the quarterback position. So Pittsburgh, at this point in time, if they don't get Aaron Rodgers, I think they got to do a lot of homework on these guys, whether that's, you know, Dart, Tyler Schuck, whoever. But I just can't see them going into the season with just Mason Rudolph as, as their guy. You know, to me, that's why I ended up putting Dart there. Assuming that Aaron Rodgers does end up in Pittsburgh, and even if he does, I mean, I don't know how many years that's going to buy you. If you, if you love one of these. These quarterbacks, go ahead and take him anyways. But, you know, I don't have him as a top 10 player. I think he's like, you know, in the 30s or early 40s on my top 50 list. But, you know, when you're a team out there and he's better than what you got, he's going to go.

[Pat McAfee]

He's got the moxie, too. I think, you know, that is. The more we watch of Jackson, the more highlights we watch, the more we like him. I think as an NFL QB and.

[Boston Connor]

Maybe reminds me of Hertz, man, That's, that's my, my comparison, which is kind of off the wall. It's kind of weird. But with Jalen Hurts, he got better every single year in college. He was athletic, he was smart, he was tough. And you're kind of just betting that it's all going to continue on that trend line. And it obviously hurts. It's gone that way in a big way, but that's kind of the, you know, that's the thought process. If you're a Jackson Dart team, that's what you're hoping for.

[Pat McAfee]

Good luck to all parties, including Jackson Dart. They do. All these schools still have their pro days left. Like Jackson still has a pro day. And when is pro day season starting? Today.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, Alabama's today. I heard Milro is going to run, too, so I'm curious to see because he looks fast as heck when you're. When you're watching them play. So I'm wondering if he gets under 4.

[Michael Lombardi]

4.

[Boston Connor]

That wouldn't shock me.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, Melro running 4. 3. Something would be bananas at dinner.

[Boston Connor]

By the way. The Cowboys do it right, man, the coffee. Even get the. They brand everything around here.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, the building is very nice, too. I know it's been built now a little bit long ago, but the upkeep in the professionalism, obviously that booth is the Best booth in every stadium that there exists.

[Boston Connor]

Well, this is. But this is like the star. So this isn't like their main stadium. This is just that other smaller stadium where they play high school games in here. All kinds of different events. So maybe, I'm guessing maybe 10, maybe 8 to 10,000 seat little place. You want more shot at it here?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I thought that was actually Jerry World. You're saying that's a. That's a. That's a mock Jerry World.

[Ty Schmidt]

What the heck?

[AJ Hawk]

Still Jerry.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Boston Connor]

It's a little baby. It's a little baby baby. Jerry World.

[Ty Schmidt]

Stevens World.

[Pat McAfee]

Is that. Is that where they practice?

[Boston Connor]

I don't. You know, I don't know that. I don't know if they do practice. It's. Right. It's, you know, it's in Frisco, so it's not near the stadium. It's in a total different area of town. So, yeah, it might maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

This I get. You know what?

[Boston Connor]

I bet you this is where they practice. When they did hard knocks here that year, they were in here. Yeah, I'm getting the thumbs up. Rhett Lewis gave me the thumbs up in the back that they do.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, Rhett. You tell Rhett old Indiana is getting a good ball coach, a good basket.

[Boston Connor]

He said you're getting a good basketball coach at iu.

[Pat McAfee]

I like IU people. I married into an IU family. This is an interesting situation. Hey, Rhett, you tampered. Allegedly. Okay. I don't like that at all.

[Boston Connor]

A lot of tampering charges, Rhett. A lot of tampering charges.

[Pat McAfee]

Allegedly. Allegedly. Please make sure you. Make sure you say allegedly.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, allegedly.

[Michael Lombardi]

Allegedly.

[Pat McAfee]

Alleged.

[Boston Connor]

That is very important before. I'm not trying to get you in any hot water.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we'll see. On this particular program, it seems like it happens more often than not. Tone Diggs has a question for you here, D.J. yeah, D.J.

[AJ Hawk]

We'Re looking at your mock yesterday, and we were talking about offensive lineman, and we saw Will Campbell, you know, in yours and a couple others, potentially falling 210 or out of the. The top 10. And you have Membu going seven, but just four O linemen total. I believe in the first round there was eight last year, four in the top 14 last year. Is it just a. We're. We were speculating. Is it just a down year for offensive lineman, or is it just that the other positions are. That there's more talent at other positions, too this year?

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, I would say it's a little bit of a down year, but there are some names that just missed, you know, towards the bottom of that mock draft, you know, we could easily see a couple more guys pop in there. So I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't say that it's going to be a firm number where we are there. I could see a couple more guys. But no, in terms of the high end, no, it's not. It's not where it's been in years past. And with member and. And Will Campbell, I think that's, you know, that's going to be split. You're going to have half. Teams have one guy, half have the other. But it's hard to get out of your mind what you saw with Member. Watching him run and move around at that size, how young he is and someone, you know, if you're the jets and need a right tackle, like, that's what he is. He's plug and play, you know, coming off of a regime that came over with Aaron Glenn from Detroit taking a right tackle and Penne Soul and off to the races. They went there. So that one made a lot of sense to me.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Offensive lineman. That's why they're potentially. Why so. So many offensive linemen paid, you know, guys we never heard of because of.

[Boston Connor]

Potentially they don't get to the market.

[Pat McAfee]

Bingo. And also draft class, you know, that kind of all goes hand in hand with free agency and draft class. You know, what do you need? What is available? Who and where is it available at? Jaylen Milro just ran his 40 shout out to the next round at next round live here in Alabama. He looks absolutely jocked from a couple of the videos that I watched. I eyeballed it. I don't know if we're anywhere near a four, three. Oh, okay.

[Boston Connor]

You're taking the over.

[Pat McAfee]

Anywhere near is obviously.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

You know, 4, 4, 4, 4, four, three, four, five. Yeah. 45 to a 43 is obviously impersonal texture.

[Boston Connor]

I'll text you within the next 15 minutes and get you time from somebody there.

[Pat McAfee]

He is so jacked.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, my God.

[Pat McAfee]

Here's his second 40 here from the side. Go back so we can give the credit to the people that toilet. This is from Henry Sklar. He looks like a tight end. Yes.

[Boston Connor]

That doesn't look good. He's covering ground, though. He's covering ground, Pat.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so what is your guess there? I'm watching that. Eyeballing that.

[Boston Connor]

Eyeballing it on Grainy WI Fi that I'm on. I'm gonna go with 49, 449.

[Pat McAfee]

I think that's probably a pretty Good.

[Boston Connor]

I have no idea. Literally, my WI fi, it's just like.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, us too. Yeah. It's kind of. It's a world we're in right now. I think in my head, it's like, that looks like a 4 or 5. In my head, it looks like. But there's no way Jalen is running a four or five, you know, so, like, what you said there is probably the right. Yeah. 4, 4, 8. 4, 4, 9. He's into four fours because he's Jalen Milro in my mind, and where I've seen him on the field, but it didn't look like that was a 4, 3 anything. 4, 4, 1. You know, 4, 4 flat right there.

[Ty Schmidt]

Take the.

[Pat McAfee]

And we sound like assholes. That is very fast, nonetheless. Any other storylines we need to be talking about? D.J. anything you're hot on?

[Boston Connor]

I'm anxious to see what happens with the receivers, man, and how they come off the board. I think there's a lot of discrepancy, you know, talking to people around the league, of how they have these guys stacked. I'm a. I'm a Matthew golden fan. You know, him running 429 didn't hurt from that standpoint. I think a book is going to run faster than people think it is. Pro day. McMillan had his pro day the other day, and times, you know, everybody I talk to, 4, 5, 3, 4, 5, 6 in that range. So I'm curious to see how those guys end up coming off the board when it's all said and done.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

Dj, I. Because I heard you and Bucky talking about Tech Mamillan, and what would he run? Is that 4, 5, 3. Is that like, do you think that'll hurt him? Or people watch the tape and they're like, okay, that's cool. We can take him where we thought we would.

[Boston Connor]

I think it was a little bit better than what the expectation was. So from that standpoint, it's a positive. But I always tell people that, you know, saying where these guys are going to get picked is not the same as saying what type of career they're going to have. But historically, you know, guys that run in the four fives, I think the last receiver to run over four or five and be picked in the top 15 was Mike Evans in 2014. So, you know, that. That you have no question. But it's been a while. And historically, teams don't take guys that high in the draft that don't have the supporting time. So it's getting different as the longer you do this and the More GPS is involved and everybody has all their play speed, you know, in game numbers. That. That I think will start to change, but that's the. The recent history that we have.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And obviously those comps are certainly a necessity to deciding whether or not somebody's going to have success or not. Let's go Back to Jalen Milrose, 40s. The first one SEC network was saying it was in between 45 to 45 2. And then his second run was 4, 4 4. Between 444 and 44 6. So he ran like.

[Boston Connor]

I think if you average those out, Pat's probably the time that I gave. I mean, I don't.

[Pat McAfee]

Have a great day.

[Boston Connor]

Not a hobby, Pat. It's not a hobby, buddy.

[Pat McAfee]

Have a. Have a great day down there at the Baby Star. And make sure you give these big 12 guys look. I don't love that we don't have individual pro days. Wow.

[Evan Fox]

Crazy.

[Pat McAfee]

I didn't. How long has this been happening?

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, wait, is Sher and Travis working out there?

[Boston Connor]

They're here. We're going to have them in the booth tomorrow. I think we're going to have Shador and Travis in the booth tomorrow. Coach Prime's going to be here, so we'll visit with him, so.

[Pat McAfee]

Because I just assumed Shador was going to do a pro day where it was going to be.

[Boston Connor]

Yeah, he's not. He's not. He's not going to be working out here, but tune in for the interview if you do me a favor.

[Pat McAfee]

Appreciate it. Can't wait for your questions, man. Ladies and gentlemen, move the sticks. Host of the Big 12 Pro Day on NFL Network and the Combine, Dana Jeremiah. Thank you. No offense to this particular conference, but that's some Mac. Yeah, it is for sure. Not having your own pro day.

[Ty Schmidt]

At least people will watch tomorrow. It's like 1:00. Nothing's really going on. It's perfect for a pro day.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

It is a good time to schedule it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. What is the deal?

[Ty Schmidt]

That's why people care. It's just different in the Big 12, baby.

[Pat McAfee]

I understand that, like, the ability to get everybody in front of scouts is a good play for the entire conference, you know, but it does sound Mickey Mouse that scouts won't travel to your school to come watch you do your thing at your thing. Like, how are these. You know, all these workouts we see that are choreographed out of these pro days are all happening at their school because, like, that is their place with their people and everything like that. So West Virginia said we don't need that Big 12. Say you guys don't need any comfort, any of these things. You need to go do it with everybody else. Yep. Just like at the combine, where you didn't know any of these people, you're doing it again. It's like, what is the. I don't love that. Alabama football said it was 4, 3, 7.

[AJ Hawk]

Okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

I love it.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. I like that, too. Okay, congrats. That had to be the second one. And congratulations to Jalen Milro. Running into four threes. Got some. Hell, yeah. We had anywhere from 444 to 446 to 437. And then the first one was. I think he maybe didn't hit it as clean. So 437, Alabama saying, okay. Which, once again, if you watched him play football, would make sense.

[Ty Schmidt]

No doubt.

[Pat McAfee]

It would be like, okay. Yeah. If they would have said, this is 432 before we watched either of those 40s would have been like, yep, yep. That is Jalen Milro. Because when he's on a field, he is faster than everybody. That is just how it goes. Which is why, you know, the quarterback conversation is an interesting one, because with the ball in his hands, when he's running, he is very strong, he is very elusive, and he's faster than everybody on. On the field. So it's like, how can we get the ball in this guy's hands, you know, while he tries to develop his quarterback, if that's what they're thinking? And I don't like having this convo, especially because people are saying around Lamar Jackson, not us, but people were saying that about Lamar, and what Lamar has become is top passer, one of the top passers in the entire NFL. So it's like, I would never. But there's not a lot of Lamars out there, you know, like, Lamar is a incredibly talented, one of one type athlete and player. So it's like, what does Jalen Milroe want to do? Does Jalen Milroe only want to play quarterback? Does Jaylen Milroe want to potentially explore other options, get on the field while also developing as quarterback like Taysom Hill did? You know, like, there is. There's a lot of opportunities, I think, for a guy that's this athletic, because just saying he's not gonna be an NFL guy because he's not an NFL quarterback at this moment, I think kind of undercuts the thing that this is an NFL athlete. Like, this guy is an NFL football player. Like, no questions asked. He's an NFL football player. So it's like, what ends up happening with Jalen Milro will be a funny, a fun story to kind of follow along with.

[Evan Fox]

Well, and if he goes somewhere where he doesn't have to start right away, like, Lamar has gotten better every year he's been in the NFL. So, you know, I mean, if he has the opportunity to sit behind someone and he just has a couple packages like you said, like, this is a guy who could rush for a 70 yard touchdown at any point in a game. So it's like, it's not like you're asking him to go out there and throw it 30 times to beat a team. If he gets the opportunity and he continues to get better like that.

[Pat McAfee]

A couple packages. Packages. And those packages, you know, they start having success. We just keep that package.

[Evan Fox]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

But you just keep that package in here kind of. I'm happy that Jaylen Milro ran fast there. Yeah. That first one did not look fast. The first video that we saw look like he was jogging at the end. Yeah. And at the end he was kind of cruising. It's like if that's Jaylen Milro running at his full speed, that's even more dangerous that he's just cruising.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Like. And it was just no problem. Second one, I guess, much faster. 437 is what Alabama saying, shout out to them. It's. It's all. Maybe they have the laser, though. Maybe they're the ones that are like, you guys are all wrong. Maybe that is different thumbs. But a lot of those guys that are on the 40, they've been doing that for like 50 years. The guy that was at the specialist combine, he's literally been doing hang time for kickers and punters for I think 40 years.

[Ty Schmidt]

Legend.

[Pat McAfee]

That's combine. Still got it, by the way. Oh, yeah, still got it. The thumb's important. Who's on the clock's important. Alabama saying 437. And if you watch him play football, you'd say, yeah, I agree with that.

[AJ Hawk]

You see who he had dinner with last night?

[Pat McAfee]

He's meeting with Steelers coach Tommel. You got Mason Rudolph over there.

[AJ Hawk]

Do have mace.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

Rogers ain't going like that. I know that. First Cam Hayward, now they're meeting with quarterbacks. I don't think so.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. We don't know if any of that's real. Could be. What we did hear this morning was the Minnesota Vikings will not be pursuing Aaron Rodgers. That's kind of been. I think what is being understood as the holdup in this entire convo is maybe Aaron once Again, we have heard nothing from Aaron. Yes. Okay. Is Aaron still want to play? We have no idea. We assume by now he would know if he wanted to play. You would assume. But that's a massive decision for somebody that's committed his entire. He's 40 plus years old, he's committed his whole life to football. I mean, this would be the last. Like, that's a massive decision to have to make, especially for the last team you're going to play for, if that is what he's contemplating. And then as it continued to roll out, it was like, Aaron is literally trying to see what all the options are. Like, are the Minnesota Vikings an option? And if they are an option, does that change a conversation at all? He said he's open to anything attached to nothing or open to everything attached to nothing. It seems like from what Tom Pelissero is saying is the picture's getting a little bit clearer now. Cam Hayward said, you either want be a steal or you don't, dude. And it's like, Cam, have you talked. Do we know if that's what Aaron's thinking? But the way it's been reported by the insiders who want the deets, they want the news, they want to break it, they want to do that whole thing, they want to put a notch on the scoreboard, which that's their business, literally, and do what you got to do. But Aaron hasn't said shit. Like, he has not said anything. And then Schefter said people close to him are saying that he's like, nobody close to Aaron really says any. And if they do say it, there's a chance Aaron does the complete opposite because something got it and the person that leaked that is gone forever. Like, there's not a lot of people that are in the Aaron circle that have any idea what has happened. And we only know that because we've been on this ride for the past five, six years, you know, and we have no fucking idea. So, like AJ I don't even think knows, you know, so this is, it's all very interesting with Aaron. Always is, always has been. But allegedly, seemingly. Tom Pelissero is reporting that the Vikings are at. On the pursuit of Aaron Rodgers. So maybe the picture does come into a little bit more focus for Aaron Rodgers.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, we were, we were always talking, not from knowledge, but just guessing kind of what Aaron would do. And that's always a dangerous game. But this feels like, you know, not another teen movie where, you know, the Vikings were the Bella, the ball. And that's where he wanted to go. And the Steelers are this girl just sitting back who always wanted him, who always loved and were sitting in the back of the class.

[Pat McAfee]

Didn't always.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

There was like a day or two, and then all of a sudden we ain't got time for that.

[AJ Hawk]

We just get very disrespected very quickly. Feel disrespected very quickly.

[Pat McAfee]

Amen.

[AJ Hawk]

Kind of in our blood. And Cam was born and raised in Pittsburgh. His dad was a pit star. Ironhead. Shout out Ironhead. So. And then Camps lived there for 15 years. So he's kind of got that Yinzer blood in him. I think that's where he was speaking from. But no, I still think Aaron gives the Steelers the best chance to win. I don't know if he wants to go to Steelers or the Giants or, you know, he'll just walk off into that sweet, beautiful California State sunset.

[Pat McAfee]

Honestly, the. The retirement thing has kind of starting.

[Evan Fox]

To feel more like a possible potential.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And that's just. Once again, we have not talked to him. This is us just following all the other stories with him saying nothing. It has just been nothing said from him or his team and all these other teams putting out shit. We want an answer. And there is a chance with these insiders that the teams are like, can you apply some public pressure here that we want an answer sooner than later? Because obviously that does help everybody to know what's happening with their roster. So it does feel like, what if he does love those walks on the beach at sunset? True. What if he loves that towel draped around him? What if he loves the feeling of the water coming through his toe? What if he loves the ability to just hop on his plane because he's the highest paid player in the history of the league and just go on a trip somewhere. Yeah. And disappear for two months? Never been able to do that in the fall. I heard there's whole different excursions of life in the fall. Oh, yeah. Like there's a chance of that, you know, especially with the moons and how.

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, every. He might climb ever since September. That might be the best month for it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, there's. So back to Tony's point. A lot of people have been trying to put themselves into Aaron Rodgers shoes and trying to think, for Aaron, that's just not possible.

[Evan Fox]

That's a fool's tag.

[Ty Schmidt]

Don't do that.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't think that is possible. This is a very different individual than anybody you've ever met before. And all the greats are different. Like, that is just how they're different than normal human. They are different than everybody else. That is why they become who they become. And it's like this guy. If you talk to any player that has played or coach that's coached against him and been like, certified brother, this is one of the ones, which is why this happens around the NFL every time Aaron does anything. Now, the media and the fans, they have their thoughts and narratives about him. And, you know, some half truths potentially are released that fuel those narratives for people and people feel the way they feel. And he is certainly an anomaly. And we. There's a lot of things he does that we go, holy shit. Did not know humans operate in that fashion. Like, that is a legitimate thing, but that's who he is. And I think that's part of the reason why he's so damn great. You know, he gets mocked and ridiculed a lot. I bring this up because I think it's very important. He gets mocked and ridiculed a lot about the family. The family, the family, the family, the family. It's like, I think he's pushed all that shit away so that he could just be like this guy. Old school football player. Yeah, like that is old school, dude. Hippie for sure. Brilliant, too. Like if you. I mean, he went to Cal and the celebrity Jeopardy thing he did.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Evan Fox]

He could have mopped the floor with Mr. Wonderful.

[Pat McAfee]

And Mr. Wonderful just so happened to be the one talking shit to the stupid. Yeah. Jock football player. You know, stupid jock. I think you put anybody in those. In the celebrity realm now. I think Ken and the other guy that Brad Rudder and the guy that doubled down on everything that we love.

[Evan Fox]

Oh, Jimmy Holzhauer.

[Pat McAfee]

Holzhauer. You put like the super duper trivia people in there. I think Aaron's probably in trouble because those people have treated trivia like he has treated football. But people don't want to give him credit for how intelligent he is. A. And I would assume with everything we're learning now via New York Times articles and other things, he is feeling very empowered about his brain and his decisions and his ideas and opinions versus everybody else. So, you know, he's definitely an oddity, I will say, because he's not. There's nobody and nothing like him in any sport. But there's a reason the teams want him, and it's because he's a guy certified. And if he was to just step away at this moment in my. It's like maybe, maybe even after years now of me saying there's no way this guy's gonna retire. This is his whole life, Literally his entire. He goes and takes a trip. He comes back, guess what? It's ball. He does this. It's ball, ball, ball. Competing, having a purpose, having fulfillment, having a reason, like. And everything like that. Now, granted, can he find all those things elsewhere? It's like, I'm sure Aaron probably could, but he loves spinning it. You can tell that at the end of the year, he got his ass kicked. Last year, not only was it the Achilles recovery, remember he was in London. He got anti ant.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And his knee and his ankle. And he jogs right back on the field, doesn't miss a fucking play. I don't think. Just goes right back out there at the age of 40, it's like, I don't. I'm intrigued by it now. Now I'm interested. Like, what is this guy gonna do? I have no idea.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, especially because sure did probably stink at the end of last year and just last year in general because they stunk. But he got to play with, you know, some of his closest guys. Lazard, obviously, but devonte, he got to do that entire thing again. And he wanted to play with devonte, obviously. It goes all the way back to the summer of them walking together and him being like, you know, we'll play together soon, or something like that. When someone yelled that at him. And it would now make more sense, especially with, you know, Pittsburgh's situation, that maybe he doesn't want to go there anymore. You know, California and Pittsburgh, a little different. You know, they're not exactly the same towns. And you can't imagine that maybe not, you know, dealing with anything, you know, the paparazzi and things of that nature. You wonder if he thinks, you know, if I wasn't playing football, are they just taking pictures of me outside of my beach? Definitely. When he's going around and, you know, walking his rocks. Yeah, buying his rocks. Exactly. Getting him off all those things. But who knows if he actually will play?

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so next hour, we have AJ On. Hopefully he'll give us more answers. But now let's go to. Earlier today, we had a chance to catch up with Coach Calipari of Arkansas right after he got done with Mass. We'll see you on the other side. How do you feel about the team out there? Obviously, big move out to Arkansas and the SEC this year has become the basketball conference. How do you feel about your team, and how do you feel about where you are with Arkansas right now?

[Coach John Calipari]

Well, you know, we started 05, and everybody shoved us in the coffin and I made the statement they forgot to put the nails in. And our kids figured out a way to get us back in the hunt. And by the end of the year, we were playing really good basketball. And so I think we won five of our last six, six of our last seven, whatever it was. And we became that team now. They. That we were all in a dark place now, every player I had. And they had to win that battle first and understand that you're not defined by this stuff. And what you need to do is work and you need to grind and you have to battle yourself. You have to win that battle before you worry about anybody else. And that's what we were about. I just was on that more than anything else.

[Pat McAfee]

Little adversity early is good, especially whenever you're trying to build a culture. You find out quickly who the guys are on your team. I know whenever you got there, you had no team. I think that was kind of the mo. The story. And let's go back in time. I think every chance we've got to talk to you, every time you've described a season for you, it's like, at the beginning of the year, we didn't know how to play defense. Basically, that is kind of what you say. And then by the end of the year, we know how to play defense. Is that something you think that your team has done very well this year and is that just the Calipari staple is like at the beginning of the year, maybe we don't understand how hard our defense is going to be, but that by tournament time. What was his record? 57 and 22 or something like that in the tournament? You guys are hell in the tournament. Is it because the defensive side or. Where do you see the growth usually whenever it comes to your squads?

[Coach John Calipari]

My normally I have a new team every year. Now everybody's having to do this unless they were to retain guys. We had about four teams in our league that retained all their guys. So they were way ahead. And they still are. They're really good. But the reality of it is, for me, it's always a new team. My kids go pro. I got new guys, I got freshmen. We have the youngest team in the sec. We're the youngest team. And so it takes time. New team, young guys, you know, and then you walk into Murderers Row and your first three games are Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi, and you get spanked. And now. Well, we didn't get spanked. We were in two of those games, had a chance to win. But let me read, you lose you lose. And now what you're hoping is, how do you keep building guys up? How do you keep challenging them? How do you keep making them uncomfortable so they can learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable? How do you keep up? And you know, myself, I had to get out from under the covers myself, like, oh, my God, we're oh and five. And we had to figure out what to do as a staff. My staff never wavered. They never wavered. And that's why we are here. These kids came together. They became one heartbeat because they had to. We lost our two leading scorers and we were dying. Our two leading scores were out. I know no one says it. And all that we played without them. And now this team who was left said, we're coming together. We're going to be a team. We're going to all do what we're supposed to. We've been playing seven guys for about three weeks now.

[Pat McAfee]

Jeez. Are the boys going to be all right?

[Coach John Calipari]

Don't feel bad. No one else feels bad. Hey, are the boys feeling bad?

[Pat McAfee]

And that's a lot of. That's a lot, right? I mean, I, I know they're young, okay? They're college age guys. And the season is what it is. Everybody's banged up at this time of the season, but not having a deep bench is like very. That's tough, right? For whenever it comes tournament time. And obviously I got some stats here. This is your 24th NCAA appearance. Okay. 32 NCAA tournaments held all together. Okay? So this is the father. 15 sweet 16, 12 elite eight, six final fours, obviously two NCAA runner up. It's like in the tournament. Don't you need depth? Is that something? Or are you okay with your 7? With how the season ended?

[Coach John Calipari]

Don't tell anybody, but I only need five. That's all. So what will happen is if a couple guys aren't playing well, they'll just play less. At this time of the year, you're not worried about ego or anything else. It is survive and advance. It is. You're playing in a tournament of four teams. We're here in Providence. A four team tournament. If you can win this, you go to another four team tournament. It's going to be hard. Kansas, come on. Bill Self, he won his national championship against us and me. And we won our national championship against them. And so we've won at Allen. They had won at our place. And now we're playing again.

[Pat McAfee]

Bill.

[Coach John Calipari]

Bill and I, when I left Kansas, he followed me at Kansas. So he went into the role I was in. Unbelievable. What he's done in every program, the culture he's built, all that stuff. And he and I are friends. I hate to play people that I consider friends or know. Well, I'd rather there's all these teams. Why you got to put me against him first game? Okay, so we know what we're up against.

[Pat McAfee]

Let's talk about that. Actually, Tone from Plumber has a question for you.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, Coach. So, I mean, let's just say things go great, and you go through Bill Self, and then sitting on the other side is Coach Pitino like. And you talk about your 14 bracket. As far as coaches go, are those two of the toughest you can probably go through?

[Coach John Calipari]

Sure. But don't forget about Omaha. Now, I know they had a hell of a year.

[AJ Hawk]

Hypothetical.

[Coach John Calipari]

And. And I'm being honest. I have not. I'm not worried about anything but this Kansas game. And I knew in our little corner, our tournament, you look at it and you say, wait a minute. There's a lot of tournament wins in that corner.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Coach John Calipari]

And so we all getting our teams prepared to play. Look, in this thing normally, like the game last night, who has the ball last? That's usually who wins. And they threw that thing the length of the court, and the ball went in and they won. That's what this tournament is. It's crazy.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Hell, yeah.

[Coach John Calipari]

And you look and say, wait a minute. It fumbled. He threw it up.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh.

[Coach John Calipari]

And that's. That's what it is. So I'm not worried about that. You know, the question is good. I respect Rick. I respect Bill. I mean, we've all been doing this a long time, and this should be fun. I want our kids to understand that. Enjoy this and go for it. Show who you are. Have people watching the TV and say, man, they play hard. Man, they have fun. Look at them. How do they play together? If we get that done, that's all you can ask for as a coach.

[Pat McAfee]

It could change your life in March Madness. As a Hooper, you know, you can change everything, especially with, you know, what you're cooking out there in Arkansas. This sets a culture up for, hopefully, the next 10 years or 30 families, I believe, is the amount of people that you were trying to change going into this.

[Coach John Calipari]

Yeah, 30 would be. 30 would be nice. But again, you know, here. Here's what it is. I'm coaching in college, and I have someone's child, but at the end of the day, I can only lead them to water. They got to go drink. They got to go do this. But it doesn't mean I care any less. And there's a lot of individual meetings. There's a lot of meetings about. Kid, you got. You're battling yourself. You ain't battling me. You're not worried about. You got to win that battle first and then go on. And that's what I like about this team. It doesn't guarantee success, it doesn't guarantee a win. But I'm going to tell you this. The other guarantees a loss where you haven't won that battle. Or the minute the first raindrop hits, you cave in. And we had no business the way they gave us a zero percent chance of making the NCAA tournament. So why not go for it? Why not try to do something interesting? Why not be the story? I said at the beginning of the year, I'm writing another story, and I'm on the first chapter. Well, let's see how this chapter ends. I hope it doesn't end on Thursday, but it may. But I've had fun coaching these teams. I've learned about myself as a coach. Because you have all this success and what you end up thinking is, well, because you coach, you're going to succeed. No, sometimes there's a bad match, sometimes you have injuries, sometimes other thing goes on. Can you coach now? It's Easy. We won 38 straight games. The hard thing was keeping everybody happy. We won 38 games a few different times. Totally different than what I went through this year. And I'll tell you, there are other coaches that went through the same thing this year. And I've grabbed those guys and said, you did a great job. You know why? His team was still playing. They were still playing hard. They were still playing to win, and they had every reason to give up, let go of the rope. And that coach would say after, why would he tell me, I did a good job? Like, then you don't understand this stuff yet. You will, but there you go on a run. It's a different deal.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, well, when everybody's bought in, I think that is the direct, you know, correlation to the coaching. You know, that is the direct correlation to the culture. You said hold on to the rope. Hold the rope is a big deal. There's somebody hanging off a ledge. Are you going to be the one to let go or are you going to let your calluses start bleeding? Are you going to hold for everything? When. Whenever things are going bad, are you going to pull that son of a. That's a Rich Rodriguez thing. For a long time, assuming a lot of coaches do that, obviously your team was able to get through the mental battles of the early season. Also having 0% chance, having no optimism outside the building. So mentally ready to go. Let's talk about physically in basketball. Ty has a question for you, coach.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, coach. A lot of times in years past when a league is very dominant and then they don't perform very well in like the first two weekends of the tournament, the narrative becomes like, oh, well, the league was so good that they just beat themselves down during the season and they just had nothing left come tournament time. But how, I mean, you guys played in arguably the best conference that there has ever been this year with 14 teams getting in. How does that prepare you for the rigors of what you're about to go through in March?

[Coach John Calipari]

What you said is true. Every game this year was a grind. Every game was physical, hand to hand combat. It's crazy. I mean, it was nuts every game. Will that wear us out or will that prepare us? You know what's great we're going to see having our tournament run through Sunday, which I've argued for years, makes those two teams have a physical, mental, emotional battle on Sunday. And then they're getting into this tournament in two, three days. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that happens. Who's on the upswing, who's on the downswing, what region are you in? Don't worry about anybody else but yourself because when you do that other team loses. You wasted time. But we're all going to see because I'm telling you, we deserve 14 teams to be in. We did, but now you're going to see. All right, how do we do? Everybody was all over North Carolina. Geez, they won by 40 last night. Maybe they should have been in.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, West Virginia would have won by 41. Yeah.

[Coach John Calipari]

How about the governor suing? How about the governor suing? Only in West Virginia where they. Hey, if I was in West Virginia, I'd go hug the governor right now.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, well, it's be a big one. The, the. He. He needs to stay alive. You know, we need him to stay alive. We need to take care of himself a little, little bit. But I'll tell you what state of West Virginia feels like. They were left out. And North Carolina heard all the chatter. Yeah, and that bucket looked bigger for them last night. I mean, they're pulling up from the logo. That looked like the best UNC team we'd seen all year. What if they go on a run? That's the madness of March. And to get into the tournament, it's obviously a huge blessing to like your school and your team. But once you get in, we've seen numerous times, obviously you've said it. Anything can happen. Like literally anything can happen. Especially with the. Whoa, pig. Sweet. Connor has a question for you. Coach.

[Ty Schmidt]

Coach, how does the day to day change during the tournament? Obviously you know, one game at a time Thursday after that you're not even thinking about anything. But is the recovery different? Is the strategy kind of different when you are just playing for your life every single game?

[Coach John Calipari]

It's. It's. What a great question. Look, everybody has different ways of doing this. I even say how people play now. They say you should should shoot 50 threes. Well, what if you can't make threes? No, you got to play different. So what I've done over my career, I want everything to be the same. The board prior to the game is the same. The shoot around is the same. The meeting the night before is the same. There is no change. Let's just go be who we are. If that's not good enough, we had a hell of a year. But that's your best chance in my opinion. I don't know, but there's all kind of ways to doing this. We had a practice yesterday that was normal for this time of year. We'll have a practice today. Shortened, no contact because I can't afford.

[Pat McAfee]

Any more.

[Coach John Calipari]

No contact. But from that point on, the shoot around tomorrow, the meetings, the staff meetings with the players, all the same.

[Pat McAfee]

How was Mass this morning?

[Coach John Calipari]

Was really. It was really good. I got out and the guy cut us off and. Hey you.

[Pat McAfee]

What are you doing?

[Coach John Calipari]

This is after walking out of Mass, so I don't know if it helped me, but I'm coaching other people's children and I kind of need help. I need help anyway. I need more than just spiritual help.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you're doing a great job. We can't wait to watch your team. Thank you so much for joining us. Good luck out there. Tomorrow, 7:10pm Eastern Arkansas, first Kansas, first round of the NCAA tournament. We can't wait to watch your team this year, coach.

[Coach John Calipari]

Thanks, man. I appreciate you guys.

[Pat McAfee]

Hey, grazie. Prego for the time. Ladies and gentlemen, Coach John Calipari. What a legend. Everything needs to be the exact same, okay? If it's not good enough in the regular season, it's not going to be good enough now. And if we can win five out of the last six games and continue on this little bit of a ride, we can obviously be enough. I'm excited to watch Coach Calipari. Thank you for the time. You know he's from Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and we said that. The same hometown as AQ Shipley and Joe Nordo. Shout out John Calpower.

[Ty Schmidt]

Couple of the goats.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And it's nice to know that AQ is no longer a hater of Joe DiNardo.

[Ty Schmidt]

I hope he says it, but I.

[Evan Fox]

Was gonna say has that been verified?

[Pat McAfee]

Moon Township. The airport. Okay. That's where you find Drive in movie theater.

[Ty Schmidt]

Love it.

[Pat McAfee]

Still happening.

[Evan Fox]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

Joe DiNardo, AQ Shipley, John Calbar. Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

Boom.

[Pat McAfee]

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[AJ Hawk]

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[Pat McAfee]

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[AJ Hawk]

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[Michael Lombardi]

Madness.

[Pat McAfee]

It's happening all around us all the time. But this specific madness that we are about to experience together as a country, as a world is a madness that delivers every single year. It's a sport that not everybody knows about. Okay. Not everybody knows all the ins and outs of. Not everybody knows every single player, every single coach, not everybody knows every single storyline. All we See is a number which is a ranking and we can guess how the season went. A university. And then we get a chance to experience and feel their fans and alum throughout a run of a tournament that everybody hopes that they're able to get to the top of because it could change everything for everybody. The university changes forever whenever they go crazy in March Madness. The schools obviously benefit, but so do the players. There's been players that have taken themselves from maybe second round draft picks into lottery picks because of a run through March Madness. There's been players that have transformed their annual net worth from being just a few bucks into hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. With the modern nil. There's storylines that are about to develop that are going to make us cry from all the hard work that took place, and then there's going to be storylines that are going to make us say, hell yeah to that particular person. Congrats to you. They counted you out. They thought you were crap. And there's also a chance there's a storyline of the favorite, the team that I think most people throughout their entire lives have thought to themselves, we don't like them. There's a chance, just like one of these villain teams that isn't beloved because they've been around for so long, go on a run and demolish everybody. Last couple years, UConn has been that school. And if you do recall, Dan Hurley was the story because this dude was electrifying while he was coaching his team. They would be up 20 points and he'd be pissed about a turnover or a lax in judgment or an error was made by a player on his team. There is so many things that could happen over the next couple weeks that kick off tomorrow. Now, obviously, there's playing games happening today. There was playing games last night. The first one was magical. It ended with a Hail Mary. Alabama State beats St. Francis, a Catholic school with a Hail Mary full of grace. What a catch bucket.7 seconds left. Alabama State. You're dancing. This is just the beginning of the madness we're about to experience, and I can't wait for it. Now, I have made a promise to myself that I'll be gambling a lot less money on all these games.

[Ty Schmidt]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

I think we should all think about doing this as a whole. We. We get caught up in the moment and we start betting on 18, 19 year olds that we've never heard of before until maybe literally yesterday. But what we saw them do yesterday, okay, makes us think, well, they're definitely going to be able to do that again. That is not true. Remember that. That is not how March Madness works at all. What you saw two days ago might be completely opposite for the next game. And then there's a chance that one team's going to get hot. Got to find those. Those are the teams we're looking for. Let's be selective, let's be smart. Let's not ever do it. But whenever we feel good about something, let's enjoy the shit out of it. Because college hoops has its time right now, both the men's and the women's. But the men's one, obviously, is going to be seen by a lot more people. And with that being said, they got the best talent they've ever had in the tournament. Allegedly.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

So we're maybe looking at the greatest tournament of all time.

[Ty Schmidt]

Boom.

[Pat McAfee]

And why not? The toxic table is here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt, one After the Hammer Done Cowboys. AP Town is here. And joining us live from an attic in Ohio is a college football national champion, a Super bowl champion, a Ryder cup winner, Ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hawk Hawker. I'm getting so excited. Last night, Alabama State throws that Hail Mary, and I was, boom, right back in it. This is what college basketball has. This is what March Madness has. Because sometimes there'll be a slow start to the tournament. Low scoring, a lot of mistakes, teams are tight. Okay, game not really kind of over, and then something happens and boom, you're right back in it. You're all the way in it. Last night, I think they started the entire thing with one of those moments. And I'm pulling for Alabama State to go on a run. I'm pulling for the basketball gods to continue to bless this Alabama State team like they did with the Hail Mary at the very end. And that's all possible here, A.J. and you're talking about changing the course of everything, and that's why it's so damn exciting. Age. I legitimately think it's different than any other feeling that I have for sports.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Yeah, it's definitely a special time. And first off, great venue. Playing at Dayton Arena. They always do this. I grew up going to games at UD Arena. It's an awesome, like, old school.

[Pat McAfee]

No air conditioning, right?

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Yeah, they didn't back then. I don't know what it's like now, but it's a great place to watch a game. No question. They don't make arenas like. Like this anymore, but can they? You couldn't have had a better kickoff game than this. Like, this was awesome. Like, the whole time I Feel like it was action packed. And then how it ended was beautiful. And I know we're not talking about it, but we know North Carolina looked pretty damn good now.

[Pat McAfee]

We talked about it. We had. We were forced.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

I know Cal party even brought.

[Pat McAfee]

I was forced to talk about. I talked to him this morning. 9:30am I was forced to talk about ocal. Barry.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

How about that Governor he says suing the entire thing. Feels like North Carolina heard that. Connor's big takeaway is like while we me doing my thing and the governor doing his thing and basically the entire world was saying the same thing outside of unc, San Diego State was like, excuse me, can we turn it down just a little bit?

[Ty Schmidt]

We stop.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

They had no chance. They had no chance.

[Pat McAfee]

I think. Yeah. And I picked San Diego State yesterday strictly because I'm like basketball God's going to punch it. But we all knew. We all. We all. We all knew. Even mentioned it as the biggest takeaway for me from watching the Selection Sunday stuff is everybody was on TV saying North Carolina doesn't deserve to be in there. And then they were asked to pick the game and everybody was like, do you think North Carolina probably has. Probably has this. This one? And it's like, what a conundrum. What a situation. And that's why any selection committee to anything is always going to have conspiracy fodder. This one just so happened to have the ad is to select this team being the last one in and then the other team not only gets kicked out of the tournament, but also probably lose their coach because of it. So. And their best player who's decided he's going over there too. So, you know, that is. That could be why I got a lot. A.J. don't be. Oh no, I know that.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Congrats. Hey, congrats. I'm a glass half full guy. Congrats to Indiana.

[Pat McAfee]

Legit.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yep.

[Pat McAfee]

They got a great one.

[Ty Schmidt]

They got a guy big for the state.

[Pat McAfee]

This.

[AJ Hawk]

This guy.

[Pat McAfee]

They got a guy. People are not happy.

[Ty Schmidt]

He's gonna be.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

What's he supposed to do though? Why would he stay?

[Pat McAfee]

What, build the program?

[AJ Hawk]

I don't know, AJ West Virginia was his, you know, his, his dream school or whatever.

[Evan Fox]

Definitely not.

[AJ Hawk]

Born and raised in Iowa. That was his dream school. Seems like this family spells loyalty. C A S S H. What?

[Pat McAfee]

What's that? Cash.

[AJ Hawk]

Huh?

[Daniel Jeremiah]

I mean, can you imagine if he gets Indiana back?

[Evan Fox]

Pretty dumb.

[Pat McAfee]

Stupendous delivery. Legitimately good for you, dude. Good for you. But in this business, I think a lot of people do, you know, I Think that is kind of the business in the college football coaching ranks. But, yeah, it's interesting for me because, you know, I feel like I'm a pretty big supporter of West Virginia athletics. Want West Virginia athletics to do very well, you know, very. Very of what's going. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, very proud of, you know, that West Virginia Mountaineers. And, you know, it took me a while to be able to be public about it, strictly because anytime I talked about it, I would just get reminded of everything that happened in one particular game against Pitt. You know, it got really loud, and for me, it was tough. Cause I was like, worst night of my life in this entire thing. So finally got to a point where it's like, nah, we did a lot of good shit there. And like, yeah, I'm proud of the fact that I was a part of a great team there. And the people that I got a chance to meet and hang out with there, like, I'm proud of it. So it's been a nice little, you know, kind of full circle with this entire thing, especially with Coach Rod going back now. At least I know the people pretty well, and they know me pretty well, you know, like, through this entire thing. So I'm very proud of it. So West Virginia not getting in is like a. It sucks because I thought West Virginia, we were having a. You know, because all our other sports. Rifle just won another one. Men's and women's soccer, absolutely crushing it. The women's basketball team doing well. Baseball is crushing in the Big 12. It's like, sports are all West Virginia logo, brand right now. Okay. You know, and then we get powed. And then the guy just gets up and leaves. And then people are talking about West Virginia like it's a Mac school. And it's like, whoa, what the hell is going on here? You know, it's. But I think Ren Baker will get it right. I think, obviously, Devries leaving to Indiana. If you've ever been around Indiana or understand the history of the Indiana hoops program, even though they haven't had success in a long time, which is why I think Indiana, potentially, I don't want to say desperate, but even more so, like, I don't know what the contract is. None of us really know what the contract potentially is. We looked it up. Salaries range from, like 5 to 8 million, I think per year buyout, 6 million. But I think the IU hoops team and the athletic department down there, after getting a chance to chat with them, they are very much like, hey, we're going to Win in sports.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

They got money. They're going to bring in players.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah, yeah. AD I think president came from Georgia. I think she came from Georgia and she said we very much understood when our teams were good.

[Evan Fox]

Enrollment, everything else.

[Pat McAfee]

So she was like all in on, like, hey, sports, we're going to be good. AD Same AD saying, hey, we're winning. You know, we are going to win sports. So it's like, I think for IU fans, they're very excited about that. And I think, I think Indiana basketball being good is good for college hoops. I think that is something that is good. It just sucks that at the moment of the biggest snub in the history of the tournament, what other people are calling it. I'm reading that from other people saying that we also lose a guy who's a great, like a, a great basketball coach. It is a tough time right now in Mountaineer, even though all of our other sports. Great. Tough time right now.

[Coach John Calipari]

Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

You can understand why people would be pissed because obviously if you're a West Virginia fan, like, if I was, I'd be pissed too. But Indiana is one of those jobs in college basketball. Like, it's like Notre Dame or Michigan. It's one of those, like true blue blood jobs that if you get that opportunity, you just can't pass it up. It doesn't really matter where you're at. Because if he, if he, like, like you mentioned, Indiana hasn't been what they used to be in a while. If he were to turn them around, like, you're, you're a legend forever. Not just in the state of Indiana. You're like a college basketball legend forever. And I assume there's statues around. Exactly. That's pretty alluring. And then, not to mention, like, he's from the Midwest, like, he already has a footprint here, so that has something to do with it as well. But obviously if you're a West Virginia fan, like, none of that, you don't care about any of that. You're still pissed off.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Who's, who's going to be coaching west virginia now? Sid McCallum bring back Huggy Bear. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

If Richard got brought back, he's time.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

To bring back the good old days.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I, I, I think he's still around program. Still around program.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Still running program. Is he? Whenever he, whenever he got let go and then signed a con and then didn't. I mean, there, there, that was a whole thing. And then Josh, I believe, becomes coach. Josh becomes the head coach. But he was like, titled the interim Coach, but he did a season. Yeah. As the interim coach. That stuff to recruit on for sure. Yeah. You know, that is that stuff to do well. And then obviously we sign old buddy here and it's like, we got some. Now we're. Now we're building back again to being in the Neck. Now we're officially in the next chapter of what WV hoops is going to be, which has had more success, I think, recently than IU has. I think if you were to look like who's made a deeper run more recently, IU or West Virginia in the hoops world, I think Western hoops people would be like, we know the last, Whatever many years has been bad, but I don't think Indiana's done anything since, like, early 2000s. Like, I think it's been a long.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

When's the last time they went on a deep run in the tournament?

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. I knew that number because, remember, I mentioned it during the football. I was like, hey, this is a basketball school. But they haven't made it deep run since, like, 2000.

[AJ Hawk]

Their last sweet 16 was 2016.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Okay.

[Evan Fox]

They had Tom Crane, I think, but.

[Pat McAfee]

But like the Elite Eight or Final Four or whatever it was.

[Evan Fox]

That was like Tom Coverdale, like, in.

[Pat McAfee]

The long time ago. Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

In the early 2000s.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because I think West Virginia made obviously elite eight multiple times. I think. I don't. Did we make a Final Four? I think. I think West Virginia made a final four. Hugs DeShawn Butler. Maybe. I don't remember because I think it was in Indy. He got hurt. Did we host the Elite Eight?

[AJ Hawk]

Indiana's last final four was 2002. Last elite eight was also 2002. I will now look up the West Virginia.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Because I. I once again only pay attention during March. So, you know, easy come, easy go. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

A lot of magic, you know, they mesh together.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. A lot. A lot of. A lot of moments that can happen.

[Evan Fox]

But even that Indiana team that you were talking about in, like, 2015, I'm pretty sure that year they were. They were a one seed. They were either the number one overall seed or, like, they were picked to go to the Final Four, maybe win the whole thing. And they got beaten to sweet 16.

[Pat McAfee]

Go ahead.

[AJ Hawk]

W. Went to the final four in 2010.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Desean Butler and then.

[Coach John Calipari]

Right.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Had to be. Yeah. That was when he got hurt. Huggins went down onto the court. It was like. That was one of the moments of the tournament, right? Yeah. It was Sean Butler and it was here in India. I Think so. It was like. Well, I think we only hosted the.

[AJ Hawk]

Final Four's ACL again against Duke, and he was eventually announced.

[Pat McAfee]

Deshaun was a dog. Duke. Deshaun was a cool dude too. Deshaun was. He was a star. Worked his ass off. There's a lot of those stars, though. There was like, we had a lot of kind of through the years there. So I think like West Virginia people are like, hey, the logo went to school here, brother. Like, this is. I know football, obviously we are a blue collar, you know, mining state. So football is, you know, the sport of choice here. But basketball, we got some history here as well. So I think that is what West Virginia people are saying. And hopefully that's what Ren is selling. And I don't know if we're, you know, I don't know if we're going to be able to keep up with IU when it comes to the nil and the contracts and everything when it comes to basketball, but I assume we're able to give good deals. You know, we got the freeze over some other schools last year. Hopefully Ren's able to figure that out. But Ren Baker, what? Every offseason has some massive decision. Yeah, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hire new guys every single year.

[Pat McAfee]

We got a new president, I think, because. What's his name? Bow tie?

[Evan Fox]

Gordon.

[AJ Hawk]

Gordon Gee.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Oh, yeah. Gordon Gee. Yeah. He was at Ohio State for a minute.

[Pat McAfee]

So he's gone. Did he get booed at Rich Rod's introductory press conference when he got intro?

[Ty Schmidt]

Sounded like it.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't remember what.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

What'd he do there?

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know. I don't know.

[AJ Hawk]

I don't remember that.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't remember if it was him or somebody else. I do wonder if it was his time, though. I do wonder if it was like, okay, let's go separate ways, you know, new president. I don't know. He had a sweet bow tie. He was nice to me. He sent me a couple very nice messages throughout the time. I did not go to school whenever he was under leadership, and I don't know if it was his idea just to knock down an entire part of town. That's really good time.

[Evan Fox]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

Just the Sunnyside.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

That's every. Every college campus. Right. Turns commercial because you know that real estate's pretty, pretty valuable.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Every apartment is going to be rented. Until when? Forever? Yes. As long as the school is here. This. This is a never ending cash printing machine. You see, we just build a one complex in each university. If we're able to do that, we're Rich forever. That's a good little market. That's a good little deal. And they certainly did that. Yeah, they just knocked down all these old houses that were certainly falling apart to knock it over. I think all they had to do.

[Ty Schmidt]

Was shove it a little bit, kind.

[Pat McAfee]

Of let it fall. I lived in one of those houses, that thing living upstairs. It's an interesting spot. It's like, am I upstairs tomorrow morning when I wake up, or am I, am I potentially in the living room much? Good. Let's go to the NFL. There's rule change. Season we are currently, currently in. People are pitching different rules. I believe there has been six that have been made public. Here's one. To amend the current playoff seeding format and allow wild card teams to be seated higher than division champs if the wild card team has a better regular season record. So this is obviously from the Lions, because if you do recall week 18, game 17 for the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings were between two teams that if they won the game, they'd be the number one seed in the entire nfc and if they lost, they'd be the fifth overall seed. So now all of a sudden there's a lot different path to the super bowl just because somebody in your division is also having a number one overall team, league seed. I don't know if they're going to be able to pass this one just because the success of the playoffs. I think the numbers and TV ratings that the playoffs get just right now are absurd. So I think it's going to be tough to get it passed, but I do understand where they're coming from. AJ Hawk.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Yeah, like you said, I, I, it does seem like this one would get tough for be tough to actually go through, but yeah, I get it. I understand why they, why you would propose this, but yeah, I don't, I think more of the, the rule type change are the things that you have a better chance to make some change in.

[Pat McAfee]

Teams from crappie divisions are like, we're not. What are you talking about? Yeah, we got a home playoff game. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. I don't. We understand. Okay. Must be nice. Dietrich, you remember when you were us. You remember when you were us? That will be said in the meeting room. But I do understand where they're coming from from their perspective. Let's go to the next one here. To prohibit an offensive player from pushing a teammate who is lined up directly behind the snapper and receives a snap immediately after the snap. This is from the Green Bay Packers. We're done with the Tush Push. We are done with the tush. Push. There is precedent now for this rule in this play to potentially be amended a bit. During special teams, it used to be that linebackers would get their hands, both of them, one on the left butt cheek of a D tackle and one on the right butt cheek of a D tackle. And said D tackle would weigh 360 pounds, and linebacker would be pushing D tackle through shoulders or chest of long snapper after he snaps the ball, and then linebackers trying to jump up and block the ball. Then people evolved, and it would be two D tackles, cockeyed, like your pizza slicing your skis. Okay. Both facing this way. And then the linebacker would have right hand on left ass cheek and then left hand on right ass cheek of other D tackle and would be pushing £700, sometimes £600 onto either guard or long snapper for field goal blocks. Boom. And then trying to jump up. And obviously the guard would actually die slowly, which is the name of the technique. Like, you're gonna die, just die slowly. As these two gigantic humans are being aided by a linebacker who's pushing it. So they did get rid of that. There is no pushing anymore. There's no hands on cheeks, I believe is the way it's kind of rode out. So there is a chance that they can say precedent on the defensive side has been set about pushing and what's player safety and what's not player safety and how much pressure and force and weight can be dropped on somebody. But I think too many football people in the room will say it's quarterback sneak, so you just got to stop it or shut up in the entirety. How do you think it goes? A.J.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Hawk, I. I don't think you. You stop this, and I don't. I don't see why you even try to stop this. Like, if, if you can do it, like, your offense can do this as well. I know they, you know, the Eagles seem to find a way to run it better than everybody else. But you're. Are you just saying, hey, this is unfair. You can't say, this is not. This is a player safety thing. Like, I understand you can argue player safety for pushing the. The guards and killing the center and the. The guards on the field goal, but here, like, what kind of player safety can you claim?

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, Chris Jones. Chris Jones got hurt kind of during the super bowl where he screwed up his neck. And you could say, well, that's on him, because he.

[Pat McAfee]

He's got £1,000.

[Evan Fox]

The lineman at the bottom of the pile, whatever the.

[Pat McAfee]

Any football person is not going to publicly say, we want to get rid of the quarterback sneak. You know, I don't think they'll go on the record. That's what I. Personally, I don't know if you have to, but I don't think anybody will go on the record and say, I'm not anybody. I don't think a majority of football people will go on the record and say that they want to ban this particular quarterback sneak. In my eyes, I just think it's going to be tough to hear people say, go ahead.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, like that particular one. That's what I was going to say. Like, you. You could still make the argument for the Eagles. Well, we still have an advantage at quarterback sneak because of the fact that Jalen hurts, you know, squats 500 or 500 pounds, rather. But not having that, you know, push from behind, then they'd obviously have to do it for defense, too, because the defense is towards, you know, the end of the season or I guess the entire season to, you know, counter the tush push. They're pushing D lineman. They're just not getting the push that, you know, Eagles are good.

[Pat McAfee]

What an interesting thing. What a. What an interesting predicament here. And the Green Bay packers are leading up. They're not doing it by themselves. They've obviously heard from other people to think about doing it as well.

[Evan Fox]

But I also don't understand because they don't do this a whole bunch, but towards the end of the season, like, they were using Tucker Craft. They'd move him in motion and he'd take a snap and they would do the tush push with him, you know, like. And they were very successful with it. So it's not like they haven't been doing it at all. I just. I more so was thinking, like. Well, you know, they got burned so many times on fourth downs, like, at the end by the Lions and by, like, these playoff teams that they can't stop it. So maybe they're thinking that. But. Yeah, I don't understand how you can use a player safety thing when so many teams do this. And very rarely do we see guys get hurt because of this.

[Pat McAfee]

Eagles just got it. Yeah. Yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

You just have to learn it. You gotta. You gotta find a way to run it with your offense. Whether it's put a tight end, do put someone else motion them in. I don't know.

[Pat McAfee]

So what is it, first and nine, then? Okay.

[Evan Fox]

Basically.

[Pat McAfee]

Is that what we're doing? That's what somebody's saying? Yeah. Yep. Okay, so you got three plays to get nine yards. Are we Canadian football now? Is that what we're doing? We're doing CFL rules, three downs. Okay, so we're saying if it's. We're just giving first downs away now. That's what we're doing. Yeah, well, not everybody. It seems like the Eagles have a little better percentage than your teams. Oh, shut up, Bills. I'm pretty pumped to see the selling and what actually gets passed. This one doesn't feel like it's getting past this year, you know, but maybe a lot of these rules, you know, they kind of.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Can you say, though? What can you say? Hey, this is not fair. Like, this isn't like. What's your argument? I don't get it.

[Pat McAfee]

It's a boring play. It's not football. This is rugby. Like, what are we playing? That's what somebody will say, you know, just like the main argument for the extra point was it's boring. This. This, this place sucks. Yeah. Yeah. So too successful. Need to figure it out or we're going to get rid of it. And then they were like asking around the league, come up with ideas. And I heard one ownership group wanted to propose a 60 yard extra point. A 60 yard extra point. Just go out there, just you and a little stick. 60 yards.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

You get five points if you make it.

[Pat McAfee]

Nope, just one. It's one point. It's an extra point.

[Ty Schmidt]

Play music.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, well, that's when. Once I heard that was it.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Once I heard that was an idea. That's when I really.

[Ty Schmidt]

The same stage.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so we are. Okay, so we're exploring the space here. We're coming up with some ideas. Yeah. Stage smoke.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Music.

[AJ Hawk]

For one point.

[Pat McAfee]

Can Adam Venetarian hit this kick from a spinning stage?

[Ty Schmidt]

Spinning stage. Oh.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, missed it.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

I'd watch.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Everything.

[Pat McAfee]

Trying to make it exciting. I mean, when I heard 60 yarder for one point was being pitched, I'm like, oh, so we're trying to make this like a show. Okay. Okay, I can do this. Yeah. I like, I like what we're thinking. And I'll be. I'll be honest. Adam was not happy with my suggestions. Sure. He said. He asked me why I make a mockery of it. Why don't I respect the game? And while I appreciate the game, I'm saying I'm trying to keep a foot in football, brother. Okay. I'm trying to keep all three phases. I don't want them to get rid of it. And if this is what they're going with, my idea, much more fun. And he goes, you. You want to see me on a stage? Yeah. Okay.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Who does it?

[Pat McAfee]

Is he wearing full pads still? You know, is he.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

I want to see him run and set up. Like, can you imagine the. How tough it'd be? Like, you'd be so much. You'd be so anxiety written. If you're one of the people, though, that has to run the little spinning stage out there and make sure it works in the moment because you have.

[Pat McAfee]

Like, it's on the side of the field. It's on the side of the field. So, you know, just like in rugby, if you score on the left side, you have to kick from the left one. Right side got to kick from the right going. Yeah. That thing's always.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

I didn't know that.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

It's even better.

[Ty Schmidt]

Whole game whole.

[Pat McAfee]

I think spinning. They'll actually have a counter on how many times. Yeah, this thing has spun 985 times.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Does it go faster every quarter? It starts spinning a little bit faster. So if you're kicking an extra point in overtime, like that thing, you can barely see the dude now.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's like icing the kicker. Instead of. Instead of timeout. Yeah, you can speed, turn it up, but you can only do it once a game. You can't do it multiple times, so you kind of have to pick and choose.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

So you fake like, with your hand. The head coach has his hand on, like the controller and he's faking like he's gonna make you spin faster. Nope, not this time.

[AJ Hawk]

Depends on how many timeouts you have, too. Like, if you have three timeouts, you could do more multiple things. You could have it spin faster, you could have it vibrate and maybe. And maybe rock back and forth a little bit.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so they said that we were making a mocker out of it.

[Michael Lombardi]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

And they ended up with a 33 yard extra point. And idiots. I think that has made, you know, a little bit more electrifying. It looked weird for a while because they had. The way they sold things on the field was still as if it was extra point. Now, like, the field, the business, I think the camera, us as viewers have all kind of adapted to it, and we keep it moving. I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get used to this new kickoff setup, you know, like.

[Ty Schmidt]

That'S going to be tough.

[Pat McAfee]

It's a weird setup. It is. It is a very interesting setup, just because in every other play, there's a line of scrimmage, you know, and in this one, there's Two of them. So it's, it's just interesting. But they're trying to keep the foot in football. So I respect. Let's go to the next rule that is being pitched here to align the postseason. In the regular season, overtime rules are granting both teams an opportunity to possess the ball regardless of the outcome of the first possession, subject to a 15 minute overtime period in the regular season. Okay, so touchdown wins game on first drive. Field goal extends game. So if you hit a field goal on the first drive of overtime, the other team can answer if you hit, if you score a touchdown. That's both balls in the cup, brother. That is game over. Unanswerable. So I think that's the right move. Just keep it the same as playoffs. I think a lot of people probably assume it is the same as the playoffs if they had to guess. Especially because the Buffalo Bills Kansas City chief situation a few years back, I think this one should pass. A.J. your thoughts?

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Absolutely. Keep it the same way.

[Pat McAfee]

There's.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

We know that there's players that didn't know the overtime rules between the regular season and the playoffs.

[Pat McAfee]

You're right. That mic'd up situations where they're like, what? It's over. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's game.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Sorry about it. You now move to week 14. Good luck. Got a must win. Go ahead.

[Ty Schmidt]

Super bowl with the Niners. Like they didn't realize the, the entire situation with, you know, the Chiefs where there's that clip of, you know, Mahomes when they're doing the super bowl overtime and they had no idea that the rules were the Chiefs get the ball no matter what. And that was right after it.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh yes. Because it is different in the, the playoffs. The, the. Yeah. Both teams have to get the ball. Have to that. There's no the. I don't even know what the counter is. I don't even know what.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

It shouldn't be different. Regular season should not be different from playoffs. When it comes to that, to any rule really.

[Pat McAfee]

Who's voting no to that? Like, what would be the reasoning?

[Daniel Jeremiah]

You can claim player safety. So the game, the regular. You don't want a regular season game going five hours. Is that what they claim?

[Ty Schmidt]

No, because it ends in a tie.

[AJ Hawk]

That's what they'll say.

[Evan Fox]

But it's the same deal. Then you could just be like, well then why are we playing on Thursdays?

[Pat McAfee]

Well, and then why are we playing for 15 total minutes then.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

There's a lot of questions. Why do you extend it with a field goal but not a Touchdown. Like there's. There's really no this one passes, I think so. Congrats to football. Getting better. Congrats, congrats, congrats. What team pitched that? Eagles. Congrats to the Eagles. Feels like that one's gonna pass. Let's go to the next one. Could be wrong. Once again, we are not voters. This is what we're projecting to happen. The Detroit Lions say they want to eliminate an automatic first down as a penalty imposed for defensive holding in illegal contact. They like, get their hands on you.

[AJ Hawk]

This one's not.

[Pat McAfee]

I love this. I'm about sick of us little ticky tack bullshit. And the. They get to extend their drive all of a sudden. Why? Because we play football. Okay. And now we're letting the refs decide whether or not a call that can be called a lot and kind of just sneak through the. The rule book, let them decide and have it be another first down. That's what the Lions are saying. Yeah. I think they were the most penalized secondary in the NFL last year. So they said, we're not going to change the way we play defense. Let's change the rules. That's not. Hey, to be clear, everybody tells us they would play the way we play if they could. Let's let it. Let's let everybody grab everybody. AJ, how do you feel about this?

[Daniel Jeremiah]

I think this one might be tough to get through, especially since the Lions are with the most penalized secondary. You know, they were guilty of doing this a lot.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

That. Does that play a factor when they think about voting these rules through? Like, who is proposing this?

[Pat McAfee]

Definitely, yes. Just like Cards against humanity. We've said it once, we'll say it a thousand times. When you're playing that particular game, I don't even know if people play it anymore. But you got to play the person, you know, you got to always know the person that is making decisions, the person that is speaking, the person that is giving an opinion. You have to know why that person feels the way they feel. Like Bubba Cunningham, North Carolina. All right. Anyways. Yes. They will hold that against the line. Somebody will roll out stats. Probably. Is this your defense right here? This is our defense. Stop holding our guys. I just paid Jamar and T. Exactly. We would like a first down. Yeah. So not going to pass through us. Let's go to another rule change that's being proposed. This one's from the Pittsburgh Steelers, allowing teams to have direct contact with free agents and set up travel during the negotiating window. That's Monday at noon as opposed to Having to wait till Wednesday at 4. There's this tampering period that has been legalized by the NFL where all these deals are done and the teams are not allowed to physically meet the player during this time. They're allowed to talk to the agent. They're allowed to meet with the agent, not allowed to meet with the player. Because once again, that would be too much tampering, too much recruiting, as opposed to just throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at them. You can't meet them in person. I feel like this one gets passed for some reason. I feel like this is a pretty easy one in my eyes. But then they'll have to limit. How much travel does each guy have to take and where are the meetings and how the meetings that all that comes into Play. Play next, A.J. yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

So are they saying though, the. The Steelers are saying we can just set up their travel and we can speak directly to the player during the tampering period. Not and then. But they still can't come in and physically come to your facility until the free agent it opens up.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, they probably just want to, you know, let's get some eyes, hands conversation. Because you hear stories probably about people. You try to background check. I think they could talk. I think maybe not to the agent.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

They can talk to the agent. Right now it says right.

[AJ Hawk]

There's also no as many direct flights Pittsburgh. So it's like, hey, this, we're scheduling this travel stuff.

[Michael Lombardi]

Okay.

[AJ Hawk]

We got to get a couple days advance on a lot of people. You know, these, Chicago, Atlanta's, Dallas, these big airports, you know, direct flights, boom. Soon as free agency starts, things schedule. Okay. Let's make it a level playing field.

[Pat McAfee]

Pittsburgh was supposed to have so many.

[AJ Hawk]

Flights, they got a brand new airport coming. So hopefully.

[Pat McAfee]

Really?

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, they're building a brand new airport.

[Pat McAfee]

The last time we got a brand new airport, it came with a deal with what, US Airways. I think it was USA Nice. They were going to make Pittsburgh a hub. And then it was for a little bit. Right. I don't know how many years later.

[AJ Hawk]

They just, yeah, U.S. air, they left.

[Pat McAfee]

So you show up at that airport and it happened whenever I was gone because I would fly back and it's just like literally full, empty terminal, just no planes outside. It's like, that's just sad. That's weird. This is sad. Yeah. But you bank on that deal, the contract, and somehow it ended up not happening. And once that takes place, then you start losing. You know, you don't. Because for them, business wise, how many flights are we gonna like Indianapolis. Super clean airport. Nice, very nice airport. Easy to get in and out. Now is there flights to a lot of places? Yeah, we'll get you to hub, we'll get you to a hub.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

That's thing about the small ones.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, but they're beautiful. You know, it's a really nice airport, but it's cool.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Like you can get it on and off a plane. Like you can get on, you can get in and out pretty easily. But yeah, you just got to take a 40 minute flight to, to a hub.

[Pat McAfee]

Pittsburgh's airport, you know, got Franco Harris right next to George Washington drop ball, found a country safe city, you know, that's. Welcome to Pittsburgh. Let's go to the next rule, shall we? The Pro football talk report of seven teams proposing K balls to be prepared before the game is one that I heard about back at the combine. Okay, so there was some special teams coordinators from numerous teams. He said seven in this report. I assume that's how many people actually put their names on it or whatever. I think this is a very much a unanimous. Hey, this is what we're thinking. So the K ball preparation is a, a lot more of a conversation than people could have ever imagined. So back in the day you used to be able to bring your own ball to kick, own ball to throw. Everybody just brings their own balls. You play with your own ball as you go home. So the kickers started really experimenting, they started really, really experimenting on how you get the ball the most beat up, you know, because the more beat up ball, the further it's going to fly. Brand new ball, more plasticky. It's hard to kind of dent the outer shell and inevitably thrust it as far as you possibly can. So a beat up ball is the best ball you can get. We're talking like 10 yards difference, 15 yards difference, maybe that much really between a brand new ball ball and a very, very, very beat up ball. Like now granted, wind and everything plays in but like 7 to 15 yards. Very much like game changer. There are big deal. It's a big deal on these broken in balls. So at some point there's this folklore story that one of the kickers balls or punters balls was in for a punt and then the other team decided to go for it. So the K ball ended up in an actual play and it was some notable, maybe, yeah maybe Brett Favre. And the ball was so beat up that it was like so like oversized and just like no grip. A pick was thrown and then immediately there was full chaos about how we got to get these K balls back right away, we got to have more of a thing, because it can't be determining outcomes of games because the quarterback can't. So, like, literally, that is like the folk tale. I don't know what it. This is back in, like, 2000, maybe. Maybe 1999. So this is way back in this thing. So then they instituted a rule. Brand new balls, literally box opened, handed to refs onto the field. I forget. It was. I think it was like three, four years or something like that. And it was. I could thank God I did not play during that time. Like, that is. I assume if you go back and look at the numbers, terrible. Like, I assume not good numbers. So then all the special teams coordinators came around, and then there was an agreement with the NFL where it was like, okay, we'll have cables. And the equipment managers, while being watched by an NFL official, will have 30 minutes with the seven balls. And they will be allowed a brush. There's this one spray thing and then a towel. That's all they're allowed to have. So these equipment managers, one from our team, one from another team, will go into a bathroom in the stadium before the game. Like, 90 minutes before the game. They would have an official watching them. They would start a clock, and they would have 30 minutes to beat up a ball. Okay? 30 minutes to rub the shit out of it. You know, sweat in there. Like, the whole thing. Our guy would come out drenched. We're talking about drenching sweat. And I would. Me and Vinnie would be like, my man. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Us and other kickers and punters on other teams, we would talk about who the. The ball rubber is. Who's the ball? Like, hey, who's your. Who's your guy? Who's your guy? And they say, we got a guy. He's good. He's new. And we would say, we got a guy. So our guy would get ball one. Because ball one's going to be in the field the most. Their guy would get ball two. So then our guy would get three. So, like, then there would be, like, a plan beforehand. Like, hey, is your guy good? And they'd be like, yeah, good guy. It's like, okay. Then no conversation. Needed our guy. Great. So, like, let's let our guy kind of do his thing. And there were seven balls. Usually only the first three balls would make it into a game. The others would be sold for game use, but they were never. They never saw the field. So now they're trying to get To a point where it's like, just like the quarterbacks are allowed to prepare their own balls and bring their own balls, and then they get tested at game time. Just let the teams bring their own balls, and you can test it at game time. And if it's too despicable or not game ball enough, kick it out. Kickers want the ball hard, not soft, so it's like the air pressure will be there. If it's beat up, you can tell if it's too beat up. Like, there were some games back in the day, Laces were popping off the ball, and it's like, that would be awesome to have an actual helium balloon. Not that helium would help. That was been Mythbuster. But for that big of a thing, like a rugby ball, like an Aussie ball, I mean, the sweet spot gets bigger the bigger the ball gets. So it's like that. I think they can do both. I think that's what the special teams people are pitching like, hey, just let us bring our own ball. You can test them, and then we just keep it moving. We'll use our balls. They use their balls, and we just keep it moving. So what I'm saying is something as minute in a lot of people's eyes as the K balls. This has been a conversation for, like, decades, and I think this is the right answer. I think, you know, we're kind of getting back to where it used to be before. They were putting it in the washer and dryer, putting in a sauna. Guys were putting a ball in the sauna. Obviously, we're beating it up in the sauna. So the thing would grow, and then obviously, you pump it up as much as you possibly can. It was like they were. They were. You know, abuse leads to restriction.

[Evan Fox]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

And that is potentially what happened there. But they felt as if it was gamesmanship. And that's where we're back at the beginning for the cables. Okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

Great guy, huh?

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Why wouldn't they let the kickers and punters have that 30 minutes to do it?

[Pat McAfee]

Great question. I don't know. I, I, I. To be clear, I never asked. I, I was always like, frog my guy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, yeah. You had a guy, dude.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

That's a valuable spot. Very valuable spot.

[Pat McAfee]

We would go to teams, and they would say, we got a bad guy. And I'm like, sorry, man. Because, like, you feel it. Like, whenever we played in London, Walt the ref, you know, he had ball seven on the. He was putting ball seven on the field on purpose. And I'm like, these people actually like us over here, like in England, these people actually are like. They'll cheer a big time punt. And I get the ball for, like, the kickoff, and it's like, what is this? This is. This is. And I look, it's ball seven. I'm like, why are you doing that to us? Why? Why? Brand new ball use. Somebody snaps one. Let's say, Lil. Gamesmanship has been done in the past. Like a game winner away game ball boy throws in ball four as opposed to like, ball three. Ball two. You know, like one of those situations has happened. And as soon as you catch a snap, it's like, oh, this is bad. You could literally, as soon as you catch it, you can feel it. And it's a game changer. How many of these rules are passed? That's six being pitched. What did we think?

[AJ Hawk]

Two.

[Pat McAfee]

Two of them cable passes.

[AJ Hawk]

Steelers probably passes.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, Cable and playoff rule.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, the three.

[Pat McAfee]

So maybe three of them tampering visitations. Oh, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

In the overtime.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, Overtime and cable. I think, yeah, those three will pass. Joining us now is a man who, you know, had been in the NFL for his entire life. Now he is the general manager for the North Carolina Tar Heel football team. Where was he on selection Sunday? Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Lombardi.

[Michael Lombardi]

Oh, Pat, I was right there. Look. Look at what we did last night. I mean, maybe the conversation should have been, why was San Diego State in the thing? Damn, we took all the heat. We played.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, San Diego State's athletic director wasn't the chairman of the selection committee. Okay, Lombo. And you know Bubba much better than I do. Bubba's a good man. Bubba's good man. I just need to know that Bubba's a good man.

[Michael Lombardi]

Good man. You know, everybody's good people down here at North Carolina, and certainly with the great tradition we have. Look, I don't know how it all goes in there, but, you know, look, we proved it last night on the court. And, you know, the other thing is, too, our women's basketball team there, we're hosting here, too. Third, you know, a three seed. A lot of things going on here in Chapel Hill.

[Pat McAfee]

I saw you and Coach Belichick deliver. Delivering some pizzas, you know.

[Michael Lombardi]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

There you go. Hey, you guys love him. Speaking to the team. He said we and us a lot. Like. And you just said we, we and us. Talking about North Carolina, feels like you guys are fully in, huh? You guys are all the way in.

[Michael Lombardi]

And it's the greatest. I'll tell you, Pat, you got to come down here and you gotta There's Coach Baghart, Courtney, she's great. I mean, you gotta come down here and go into Carmichael and experience the place that Jordan took the roof off of. It's magical. It really is. I mean, you walk in there now, I know you've been to Butler where they filmed the movie Hoosiers and all that. And that's like. That sent me chills when I went in there. But every time I go in a Carmichael here on the campus of University of North Carolina, it's amazing because all I can think about is how many shots Jordan practiced in that arena. You know, how many did he make and how many did he miss? Like his whole life was in there. You could just feel it when you go in there. It's incredible.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, some greatness. And, you know, great colors too. I mean, you guys uniforms are the best. I love how much you have just taken ownership of being at unc. Where are you guys at right now? Because we got what, the next transfer portal coming up in April. Spring is not happening. You guys are on break. What's happening right now?

[Michael Lombardi]

We're got spring practice today, which is great.

[Pat McAfee]

It'll be our.

[Michael Lombardi]

It'll be our fifth practice of our spring. So we've got that at 5:00, o'clock tonight. And, you know, a lot of recruiting going on. You know, the portal doesn't open up until April 15, which will get an opportunity to evaluate our team, where we are, and then to go look at the portal to see what's available for us to sign to help our team for the 25 season. And then really our focus has been on the 26 season, really doing a good job, trying to recruit players for that. And you know, that's ongoing. What's been the difference between college and pro is when you work like everybody's working on one draft board now in pro football. You know, they're working on getting their boards set up. And in college, you got the 25 board, the 26 board, the 27 and the 28. I mean, we have young kids that come watch us practice from 27 that are, you know, they're just 15 years old and they look like they could play pro football today.

[Pat McAfee]

How many of those guys are going to end up wearing Carolina blue? How many?

[Michael Lombardi]

As many as we can, Pat. Look, the one thing is, there's no one thing about this is you're not limited to draft picks and we're not waiting for the compensatory picks to come around. We got a lot of first round picks. We can Use.

[Pat McAfee]

How's Bill. How's Bill at practice compared to when he was with the Patriots? What is his. Is it the same? Is it different? How is he coaching versus maybe when he coached in the NFL?

[Michael Lombardi]

Well, I think the hardest challenge for him and our coaching staff is how to teach the players how to practice properly. Nobody needs to be on the ground. We need to have physical contact. We need to be a physical football team. But that doesn't mean we need to be everybody in the training room all beat up. So I think that's the process. Bill Walsh said He took him two years to teach the 49ers back in 1979 until really they got to about 1981 when they learned how to practice without pads on. You guys know from playing in the league that sometimes the practice tends to slow down when you don't have pads on. And that doesn't make it a good practice. But you have to find a way to be physical without pads on and beating everybody up. And that takes a process. We have to teach players how to do that, and I think that's what coach is working on now.

[Pat McAfee]

How many stay off the ground? How many? That's a lot of that. There's a lot of.

[Michael Lombardi]

You heard it. Yeah, there's a lot of stay off the ground. You know, there's. There's a few stay off the effing ground. There's a few just stay off the ground. We got a little bit of both.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Depending upon how severe the punishment is. Depending upon how severe the. The crime is. Now, the. Connor just reminded me, you guys doing no numbers down there right now.

[Michael Lombardi]

No numbers.

[Pat McAfee]

See?

[Michael Lombardi]

But everybody miscommunicate. Everybody thinks this is some kind of form of punishment and all that. There's a method to everything coach does. And one of the things we have to work on here at North Carolina is our communication. Right?

[Pat McAfee]

You.

[Michael Lombardi]

We got to know everybody on the team. We've got to be able to. To not just call out, Hey, 79. You've got the A gap. You got to slide down. You need to know the player's name. You know, you need to be able to communicate, and it highlights communication. Everybody. When we did it in New England, everybody felt like, oh, it's just. We didn't want the media to know who the players were. Well, that wasn't true at all. We wanted to work on communication, and that's what we're doing here. That's one of the great things about it, is we can practice community. You know, one of the things you see. Look let's take the game. The Rams are sitting here not winning the super bowl or playing the super bowl because they had a failed communication on two of their last protections when Matthew Stafford got sacked. When they're going in the red zone, that's a communication issue. It wasn't a talent issue. So practicing communication is really important.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And learning everybody's name when you're watching film, that has to be a nightmare. Yeah, yeah, that has to be.

[Michael Lombardi]

That's a night. Look, I would like the numbers on them. I mean, is that. Wait a minute. Who is that? Now, he's got no.

[Pat McAfee]

Wait a minute.

[Michael Lombardi]

He has no pads on. Wait a minute. He does that way. He's got a tail between his legs. He's wearing a pad. Like, you got to go. You go out there and you have to mark the players on your sheet so that you know who you're watching.

[Pat McAfee]

Sleeve. Left sleeve visor. That is fantastic. Go ahead. A.J.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Lambo, what's the. The plan for a possible spring game? I know a lot of teams are going away from it. They're not doing it in Colorado. I know Dion wants to possibly bring another team in. What are you guys planning on doing down there?

[Michael Lombardi]

Well, we're going to have a spring event. We're not going to have a spring game. I mean, that whole breaking the team up into two sides. I mean, look, one thing we've learned through a lot of years, when Bill first came to Cleveland in 1991, the New York Football Giants practiced in full pads on Friday.

[Pat McAfee]

Right.

[Michael Lombardi]

And when Bill. We started practicing on half shells, the players almost had a hard time. So. So, you know, we've learned over the years how to practice better. Right. And how to get more out of less practice. So I think the game really isn't as much about the portal, as much about making sure you get more out of your practice than just trying to beat up on one another. And I think obviously there'll be times where we have to go live in our practices, but I think, like anything, you got to build yourself up to it. You just can't start hard. I mean, we're not Bear, Brian, you know, down at Texas A and M before, when he got down there, and next thing you know, he only had, like, 20 players left. That's not what you need to do.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, I think not only that, and I respect that. That's the angle, you know, in it all. And you said splitting up the team into two teams, I love that. That's not even a thought. Like, we're not going to be. We're all Tar Heels here. We're not splitting each other up into two teams. We'll be offense, defensive, special teams. But, you know, we're not going to do that. Also, the more I think about it, there is zero upside to a spring game. Okay, let's start rattling off all the bad things. So if you have a spring game, you have a starter and you have a backup, then somewhere, okay, so then you just told the backup that they're the backup. Okay, do they want to hit that transfer portal after your spring game? Because they're going to be a backup. What about a third stringer who might end up being the starter after training camp, depending upon how he plays? He's not on the ones or the twos. Is like, well, give me the hell out of here. And it's like, well, you have no idea what training camp could look like in the fall. It might be vastly different. They're gone. You put on film now, so other teams are going to see who you got then you're potentially getting people poached. It's like, there's just so many ramifications now in the modern college football. They're like, I don't know how a spring game does. I don't know how they save the spring game. It's going to have to be a spring, like, festival more than, like, you're saying a spring event. I think that's the only answer legitimately.

[Michael Lombardi]

Like, Dion wants to practice against another team, but I don't think the NCAA will allow that in based on the rules, which I think something needs to. Obviously, we need to change that because I think it would help the. It would help the quality of play once the regular season starts. It would help your team and help you evaluate your team. Especially now that we're dealing in a portal and now that we have revenue streams coming in.

[Pat McAfee]

Would you televise it? Would you televise that or no? I don't think so.

[Michael Lombardi]

I mean, look, why wouldn't you. He's going to, you know, somebody would watch it. Look, we don't get enough football as it is.

[Pat McAfee]

We want to.

[Michael Lombardi]

You know, the spring league draws people. I'm sure people would watch a good spring game. Look, you know, one thing we know about spring games, people have watched them. They're all over the networks.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, dude, I. That's what I'm. I don't just. I'm thinking about from a West Virginia perspective and a lot of these schools perspective, it's like, if you have a spring game on tv and you have somebody that goes bananas. Okay, freshman, sophomore, goes crazy in the spring game. All of a sudden there is. And you got a transfer. You got a transfer window.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Coming up literally in a week or like two weeks. Coming up, there's some, no offense, Ohio State. You know, they're not the only one in Ohio State obviously loaded at the wide receiver position or they wouldn't need. Whoever would be of, you know, need of that position. It's like a lot of these schools got a massive bank account that could just be like, hey, you want to come to Penn State? We, we didn't know. We didn't recruit you. We just saw what you did. And then all of a sudden, I don't know. That's tough, man. I think the spring festival is the way to go to celebrate the sport. But also if we have combined practices, that'd be electrifying. Let's not slow that down either. Okay? A couple of the boys have some more questions about you from an NFL perspective. I know you saw this. I know you saw the play. Let's go to Cincinnati. Connor has a question for you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, Lombo? How do you feel about the Ja'Marr Chase&T. Higgins deals? Obviously, I believe it's, you know, damn near $70 million combined per year for their top two guys. Keeping them both. Sounds like it's going to be real tough to keep Trey Hendrickson, but we'll see what happens. What do you think about this and do you think the Cincinnati Bengals are set up for long term success with these two guys locked down?

[Michael Lombardi]

Well, I think both of them are great players. There's no question both of them deserve to get paid. I think this is more of a question and you already know the answer to this, Connor. You're asking me, you know how I feel about this. This was a setup. I mean, this is an alley oop, right? I mean, you expect me to dunk this? I know how this is going to go, but look, I don't know how you do it if you can't block. I mean, maybe since he's made a deal with Pittsburgh and Baltimore and you know, and all the other teams that they're going to count to five Mississippi when they rush and so they can throw the ball. And guys, you know, I don't know, maybe they've worked it out. I don't understand it. But to me, when I watch the Bengals, I see there are Joe Burrow gets hit way too much, you know, and they're going to have to fix that now. Can they do it in the draft. Look, Duke Tobin will do a good job trying to find players. I don't doubt that. But for me, it's not the perfect scenario. And again, I'm going to say this a thousand times. Coach Walsh told me this when he told me to go do a project on three. Three receivers in 1984. Al Toon, Jerry Rice and Eddie Brown. He. He said to me, after he told me to do a research project on those three players, he said, we're finally now in position to draft a great receiver. Because his belief was. Which he really gave to me, and this is why I'm.

[Pat McAfee]

Is.

[Michael Lombardi]

You can't be. You can't have great if you can't block. And these guys are great. There's no question. We're not arguing their talent or their value. I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing team building. Can we find young offensive linemen that we can play with and protect Joe Burrow? Because Joe Burrow is the franchise.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And Joe Burrow allegedly had some sway in T. Higgins and Jamar Chase getting signed. And if they are able to find an offensive line that can protect Joe Burrow, they'll be able to score with absolutely anybody. I think we all agree with that. Now, defense last year was not good. They actually fired D coordinator. It's like, can they figure that out and also figure out Trey Hendrickson that's currently the sack king? That's a lot. Hey, good luck to you, though. Hey, I'm pumped for Ben. Look, it.

[Michael Lombardi]

It may be to work, but I think when they went to the super bowl, it almost beat the Rams. Their defense played a lot better than they did. And I think to me, to play great defense in the NFL, you got to practice. You got to have to have physicality within your defense. I don't think it's a game. Football is not a game where you just. Just turn it on. Look, the Eagles went from being horrible on defense to being really good. Now, Vic takes a lot of credit and deservingly so, for making that defense better. But it was also the way they changed their strength and conditioning and how they condition the players. And I think if you ask Howie Roseman, he would say the changes he made in terms of the physical development of the players were as much to do as the scheme change.

[Pat McAfee]

I wonder how the food was over there in Philly. You know, that's being talked about. Cincinnati has been for a long time. Food in the facility. Lots. Not. Not to grace.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, they make it in slop buckets.

[Evan Fox]

Right now, old Gatorade bucket.

[Pat McAfee]

It does get an F a lot, but I don't think they're doing that. And remember, they're developing, they're changing. They're paying a lot of money to a lot of people. They're doing business. Hopefully the Bengals are able to figure it out. What I was going to say is, for Bengals fans, they're incredibly pumped. I think they're just spending money, like, oh, this is the first time Bengals and Mr. Brown and their family have really gone after anybody. Is it a style that can win in 20, 25? We shall see. We're running up here on a hard out about 50 seconds from now, so I would like to ask you, did you read the 80,000 pages? Have you. Have you got through these?

[Michael Lombardi]

I'm working through it, Pat. I'm still working through it, but I think it's, you know, it's going to take me a little bit of time. I spent a little morning. I got up a little earlier this morning to read some of it. You know, I'm fascinated by it. I'm down the rabbit hole, as you know. It's just too. It's just too good. But I'm counting on Matt Crumpton, who runs a great podcast called Solving jfk, to read most of it, and then he'll educate me when I listen to it.

[Pat McAfee]

80,000 pages. How many pages is the Bible? Do we know how many pages the Bible?

[Evan Fox]

Not anywhere near 80,000.

[Pat McAfee]

So just think 80. 80,000 somebody's gonna get.

[Michael Lombardi]

Have you ever been to the LBJ library? I mean, he's got five floors of books just of his memorandum.

[Pat McAfee]

See you Monday. Nailed it. We got it. We're good. We got it. Right on time. 8. 80,000.

[AJ Hawk]

It says the Bible is somewhere between 1200 and 1600.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

So, you know, so. And the Bible.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Quite a bit more thick.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, thick. The issue here is who's reading through and picking and choosing what we, you know.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Now that's the game.

[Michael Lombardi]

Oh, we got plenty of people doing that, Pat. Now we got some really good people in there that kind of. Kind of go through it. And a lot of them. I'm on the side that Lee wasn't on the sixth floor, so that's the side.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

What happened, lambo? What happened?

[Pat McAfee]

80,000 pages. AJ fucking read it. Why don't you do it?

[Michael Lombardi]

Well, you know, that's a long story, Connor. We don't have enough time to cover it, but. But obviously it wasn't a proud moment in our American history. Let me just say that.

[Pat McAfee]

What A wild thing for it to be released now. And from what I mean, that just dropped into my timeline yesterday. Hey, here's the link. 80,000 pages.

[Evan Fox]

Get the word.

[Pat McAfee]

It's up to you.

[Ty Schmidt]

Just tell them, Lambo.

[Pat McAfee]

And I'm like, I don't, I don't want to get to 80,000 pages. But then I was intrigued. Then I started seeing screenshots from the 80,000 pages. I'm like, well, what was happening on the page before that page and what was happening on the page after that page?

[Michael Lombardi]

There was a guy, There's a guy. There's two people that really have been the forefront of this. John Armstrong, who's all his papers are at Ballard University, which are incredible. He is the guy that basically uncovered the fact that there were a lot of Lee Harvey Oswald impersonators. Tremendous researcher, wrote a great book called Harvey and Lee. And then Jim Garrison, who was taken through the coals for his investigation in the trial of Clay Shaw. But his documentation and his research and his really his studying of it is remarkable.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you got me down.

[Michael Lombardi]

You don't want to go down here. We got. Let's talk football.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we are. We'll get back to ball. But I do appreciate the fact that every once in a while I'll see a Lambo tweet that's just like, oh, bullshit. Basically to somebody that's saying something, I'm like, oh, this guy's really passionate. This guy really passionate. Hopefully you'll get all the answers you need in that 80,000 pages. And who's picking and choosing what we see that's now a part of the whole game. I did see one redacted part. A couple different. Those that seems. It's all love that. It's a wild time to be alive right now. It is a wild time to be alive right now. Let's move along back to the NFL. AP Tone has a question for you.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, Lambo. The big story in the NFL right now is what Aaron Rodgers is going to do. There was news on that today that the Vikings potentially do not or are not expecting Aaron Rodgers to be their quarterback because they're going with J.J. mcCarthy. Now, if you are the GM of the Giants, Joe Shane or the Steelers, Omar Khan, are you okay with just sitting back and seeing what Aaron wants to do or is there like a drop dead date like, hey, by the draft, we need to know. Or if you're one of the GM of those teams. What are you saying to Aaron?

[Michael Lombardi]

Well, I, I think you. Everything about when you put a timeline on it is. Do you have leverage? Right? Because you really don't have a timeline when you don't have any leverage, right? And so, like, where's Pittsburgh going to get their next quarterback? I mean, I don't know. I mean, you know, they. They certainly can't think where they pick in the draft. They're going to find a guy who's going to come in and start for him, right? And so I know they signed Mason Rudolph back, and certainly they don't think that he's, you know, they had him once. Maybe they think they can be the backup, but they lost two quarterbacks. They don't seem to have any inclination to want to sign Russell Wilson back. So that, that, that to me is you can only have a timeline when you have another option, when you have an answer and you say, look, I need an answer here, I'm going to sign player Y. Or I need an answer here, I'm going in this direction. I mean, it's the same thing that happens in, in college football in the portal and in high school recruiting. Look, here's our offer. If you don't take this offer, I'm taking somebody else down the street because there is somebody else. But when there's nobody else down the street, you just got to sit back and wait.

[Pat McAfee]

Mason Rudolph, please, is back in Pittsburgh, dog. Okay? Please understand that. And you like Aaron with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

[Michael Lombardi]

I think Aaron. I think if Aaron went with Mike Tomlin. Now, look, I know Atlanta paid Kirk Cousins, too, so I think he probably is in this conversation, because I can't believe, even though they paid him the 10 million to be on the roster, that they wouldn't do something with them to move the contract. So I think that certainly is. I know there's a lot of fanfare around Joe Milton and how he's going to be traded, but nobody really knows if Milton can play. I think if you're Pittsburgh and you've added this, this receiving corps, DK Metcalf and to go along with George Pickens and Friarmouth, and to have some really talented offensive players, I think you're gonna have to find somebody come in and play right away. I would think they want to. I think they want an answer on Aaron, and I think they're going to have to wait as long as Aaron wants to decide.

[Pat McAfee]

AJ how long is he waiting?

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Got me, man.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

That's why I was curious to see if there was a deadline, but it seems like there's not really.

[Michael Lombardi]

I don't know how there can be because if I'm the agent, let's just type it. Let's play this through. If you call me up and I tell Aaron, you know, I need a deadline, Aaron's going to say, well, who are you going to go with? Like, who's my competition? Like, who are you going with? You know, if you wanted to sign Russell Wilson back, you already would have done that. If you wanted to trade it for Kirk Cousins, I'm sure you probably could have done that by now. So I think that's what you have to look at. Look, everything is a negotiation and everything's about leverage. Where is the leverage point?

[Pat McAfee]

It's on a beach in California right now, seems like. And there's a chance. There's a chance he doesn't play too.

[Ty Schmidt]

Exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

Right, aj, that's still a thing or.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

No, that's definitely still. I don't think that's a possibility, but it is. Yeah, I'm sure it is.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay, so you are still steadfast that he's playing ball. You.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. I want to let you know me over like last 24 hours. For some reason I'm like, what if this guy just retires? Like that is just because of kind of how it's all played out publicly. And once again, Aaron has said nothing. Aaron has said absolutely nothing. There's been, I think Shefter put something out from those close there and it's like that's not real. That's not like we love Shefty. And maybe there is somebody of notable that is giving this information, but that could be completely false to like that is. You know, just from. And aj, I need you to like kind of co sign this. But for like the last five years we've been a part of this, you know, in the off season and it's like there's. How many people that know probably what's going on? Two.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Very few.

[Michael Lombardi]

Maybe.

[Pat McAfee]

Maybe that's Lambo. Yeah. Longbow's not even in there. Longboarders say AJ's like maybe in the group of the people that knows and it's like a tight little group. So it's like, what if he does.

[Michael Lombardi]

When it comes to Aaron, I tend to not listen to. I think part of the job of being an NFL executive is to understand what to listen to and what not. And all the people that do this for a living that do scoop. You know, there is a stat sheet, you know, there is a stat sheet you have to keep and you've got to pay attention. You know, if somebody says X about Y Whether it's the place you believe it, but if they say it about something else, we're in the lying season now in the NFL. I mean, we're in draft season. Everybody lie. Allies. I mean, everybody. How many times have we gone through. This guy's hot. He's going to move up the draft boards, and then he's sitting there in the green room forever. So I think you have to really pay attention and grade the guys that are giving out information because you got to know whether you could trust it or not.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we got. We got to pay attention to those doing the scoop.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pat McAfee]

We do got to pay attention. Go ahead, Ty.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, Lambo. And you were with us last in Indie. All the reports came out that said, hey, listen, the North Carolina Tar Heels, they're going to be doing, you know, Hard Knocks offseason type deal. And you basically said right away, like, yeah, I'm not so sure about that. We haven't signed off on that. That probably, you know, isn't going to happen. Will and behold, it's not happening. Was that something that you guys decided? Was that a university decision? Like, how did that come to be? Because ultimately, like, I think all of us were thinking like that have been pretty awesome to watch, you know, you guys.

[Michael Lombardi]

Yeah, it would have been. It would have been great. The problem was that, you know, we. We control the story we need to tell here, and the story we want to tell isn't. Doesn't end after we play tcu. The story that we want to tell is a story about how we're rebuilding this program, how we're going to honor the great players who have come before us, how we're going to restore Tar Heel football and make this stadium come alive on Saturday afternoons like a lot of other schools in the acc. That's the story we want to tell. And when it stops on the. After the first game, like Hard Knocks does, and it doesn't really do us any good to tell that story. And that really was the concern that we all had here in the building, was we're storytellers. When you let them in your building, we're going to tell a story. And the story we want to tell was about how we're working to build this program, and we're going to work hard to recruit and do all that. And that extends into September, October and November. It can't stop at Labor Day. And I think that was more of the issue now. We obviously, there was a lot of misinformation, mostly from somebody who runs a website as we all know and who's never gotten it right. But that's okay. He keeps writing it and we'll continue to not listen to what he says, cuz he has no sources and life goes on. But I think that's what I was trying to allude to on that day. Pat, you're shaking your head. You enjoy that, right?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I knew. Yeah, we knew. Yeah, yeah, I knew we were going to this place too. I mean, it was as you were rolling because the day we asked you the question about it, it was just assumed like, yeah, this is happening. Especially with Bill Belichick's relationship with NFL Films. He was living there. Like, it felt like. So it was just like a matter of fact almost. And we all love the off season, Hard Knocks. So I think people got excited about this being a thing and then boom, boom, boom. And then you come on our show and it's like, I don't know about that yet. And nobody even listened to you. Nobody even listened to you. Then.

[Michael Lombardi]

Oh, and then, and then it got extended.

[Coach John Calipari]

Then it.

[Michael Lombardi]

All of a sudden it became the NFL was mad at Bill because he was doing Hard Knocks. That. Remember that story that came out? Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

All this, it's like a half truth. All these things are like half truths. And then they get sent out and they become. This is the actual, actual tale. You were like, we are definitely talking to the NFL Films people. We're talking to a lot of people though, because we have something special here. We understand that, but nothing's been agreed to. But that's like the world that we're in. And then the reporting of you guys not doing it was like in a turn. It's like, this was never a turn. This was, this was never a decision that was made. It was just falsely being reported as such. That happens to. That happens to a lot of people and a lot of things on the Internet these days.

[Michael Lombardi]

New, right? Yeah, I think Hard Knocks is great and we love everybody in NFL Films. Ken Rogers, I mean, they're tremendous. They've been great to us and the Bill. But I think to me it's really about what story do we want to tell. Right? And we wanted to tell a full story of our year and we still are in talks about telling that story and eventually we'll, we'll sign a contract that has that story involved. But that's what we need to tell because remember, we're recruiting every day. You know, Al Davis used to tell me this all the time, Pat. He said, you know, when you talk and of course he said you shouldn't talk very much. But when you do talk, you have three people you're talking to. You're talking to the owner, you're talking to the team, and you're talking to the fans. And when we talk here at North Carolina, we're recruiting. We're recruiting to our fan base. We're recruiting young prospective players, and we're recruiting to our alumni. And so those are the three things we have to center on every single day. And that's what. That's our audience. Our audience isn't doing something that's out of the. And I don't want to. You know, Hard Knocks is always the sad story about the guy getting cut that had a chance, and it's very teardropping and, you know, all that. But that's not. That's not our story.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And it might take a year. You know, it might take a lot longer than just an off season to flip a culture or to build a team. And also, whenever we inevitably see that DOCU series over the next couple years, people are going to watch because you guys are absolute goats down there. Tell Bubba Cunningham, okay, that we know what he did. Yeah, he knows, and he knows what he did. And that's not fair.

[Michael Lombardi]

That's not fair. We.

[Pat McAfee]

We.

[Michael Lombardi]

Let's talk about San Diego State there. We kicked their butt last night. That was good.

[Pat McAfee]

I know. I know. You guys killed him. It wasn't even close to a game. No, it wasn't.

[Evan Fox]

13 minutes minutes left.

[Pat McAfee]

Lambo, literally, if you listen to everybody talking about it, too, you know, it was like, shouldn't be in the tournament. But will they beat San Diego State, everybody? Yep. Yeah, they definitely will.

[Michael Lombardi]

I mean, like, we got no respect for. I mean, look, the Duke game. The last Duke game was the poor kid jumped in the lane. We had a chance to win that game, you know. Now, I know they didn't have their best player, but we had a chance to win that game. I mean, you play Duke even like that, you get. Throw a little respect on them, please.

[Pat McAfee]

Well, you know, the Quad One Wings. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Don't have enough.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, we're gonna talk about the boys. We're talking about.

[Michael Lombardi]

Oh, God, here we go.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, now, with that being said, it would be awesome if North Carolina went on a run. It would be.

[Michael Lombardi]

And we get to sweet 16. I'll be back.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, I'm sure. And I watch you guys deliver pizza to the women's basketball team. Feels like you guys are supporting everybody down there.

[Michael Lombardi]

And I'm going Saturday night. I'M hopeful. Hopefully we can beat Oregon State then. I'm going to go Monday. I'm telling you, you got to bring the crew to come down here and see Carmichael. There's nothing better.

[Pat McAfee]

I don't know if a lot of people at UNC want us down there right now. You know, we're gonna let the streets cool off a little bit. Sure, streets will go off a little bit, but inevitably we will come and see that beautiful campus. And we can't thank you enough for joining us, Lambo. Thanks, guys.

[Michael Lombardi]

Always good. Thank you much.

[Pat McAfee]

Have a great practice. Ladies and gentlemen, general manager of the UNC Tar Heels, multiple time super bowl champion, Michael Lombardi.

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[Pat McAfee]

They killed San Diego State. Yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Yep.

[Ty Schmidt]

It was really a game for like.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Five their first half shooting like. Did they miss in the first half?

[Evan Fox]

No.

[Pat McAfee]

And they're pulling up from the left logo too. It was like everything was.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

But yeah, of course they did. Like when you. Like you said, when you think about everything going on like they had to. They had no choice.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. If you're a competitor at all, you were just literally called out by every person outside of your state. It's like, how do you respond? Well, it turns out they just. They get 27 point win. That's. That's what they decide to do now.

[Ty Schmidt]

They're scorching heart and scorching hot in March too. Like, talk about, like getting those nerves out. First game they go. The nerves are out now. Now all the pressure's on. Ole Miss.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Literally everybody hates us. Oh, is that right? Okay. We're not supposed to be here. Okay. What a rally for like a team like UNC who obviously has all the big recruits. You know, just need something maybe to get them. Yep. Kind of aligned. We're part of it. We're part of the problem. That's on us. Yeah. We might have woke him up. Yeah. We do apologize for that. We'd like to let you know that today's show was presented by Ram trucks and powered by the new 2025 Ram 15 hunch. All the power you need, the luxury you want, and the capability you deserve.

[Evan Fox]

Hell yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Shout out to Ram trucks. Now, I will say purchasing a truck, you know, has been something to get to our guy Weston. Arthur. Sure.

[Ty Schmidt]

No doubt.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Process.

[Pat McAfee]

I guess the truck that has been outside here is just. It's just been kind of floating. No ownership.

[Evan Fox]

Oh, really?

[Pat McAfee]

We haven't drove it. We have not drove. Has been. But who. Who can we buy it? Well, we don't know who's. Okay. So this has been a little bit of a thing, but I will say Ram trucks and Ram people have like, literally bent over backwards from everything. The legality, you see, of buying a car, you know, when you buy a car, there's like a thousand things you got to sign. Yeah. Because there's so much that goes into it. And if a car is just floating somewhere, it's like. Well, we don't. You actually gotta. I actually don't know how this register here. How about we're just giving it away? Can we just put it in it? No, no, no. Gotta. Gotta do.

[Evan Fox]

The hole doesn't work like that.

[Pat McAfee]

No. That being said. Every time. Yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Where's the title?

[Pat McAfee]

That's the doesn't exist. That's question. Potentially left in truck that was delivered. You know, so then where's. I mean, there's a lot.

[Evan Fox]

There's a lot that has happened legitimately. Just floating out there.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

So we've learned that all in a. In a period of time here. And I'll say this, the way that truck looks is oh, the coolest.

[Ty Schmidt]

So nice.

[Pat McAfee]

The strongest, the meanest, the cleanest, the most like comfortable looking ride, but also rugged. You know, it has like a good build to it. The front end has like, like a pie to it that you want, but it's not too much. You know, some of those front ends a little bit too much. Has a place the ride which we. I guess we are lucky that we, you know, only close. Commuted there. Yeah. Didn't do much with that thing. Now it turns out it's perfect.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, you're up there.

[Pat McAfee]

The amenities, beautiful. We're talking everything. And Ram trucks are a beautiful truck. Wasn't into the Ram trucks. Didn't know about the Ram trucks until we get introduced through this particular partnership with them. And then inside it's like, damn, Ram got this truck.

[Ty Schmidt]

Great truck.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

I mean, if we are allowed to drive it. I am thinking about going over to Dayton to watch the Johnny's on Saturday. I looked on Sea Keek and the tickets were so cheap. It was like, okay, maybe we do go over Sport rig patino, quick drive.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's really only like an hour and a half.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes.

[Ty Schmidt]

Might be worth just going over and catching some of those games.

[Pat McAfee]

I think if I do recall because we went to a play in game at the Daytona or Dayton arena. I think, I think it was when Vanderbilt was playing because a kid from Plum was on Vandy. So they were in a playing game, I think at Dayton. Was that in Dayton it's always a Dayton. So it was at Dayton or whatever. Yes. So hot in that gym. It was like a hot, hotter day, I guess. And we were sitting in a. All I remember is just sweating like profusely. But it was an electrifying game. Like it was an electrifying environment. Everybody's kind of in there. If at an old school. Feel like you were mentioning and feels like it's a great tradition. You have not experienced it yet, right?

[Ty Schmidt]

No, I have not. And as I said that I now know that the Johnnies are playing in Providence, Rhode Island, I was going to say.

[Evan Fox]

So a little bit farther.

[Ty Schmidt]

A little farther.

[Pat McAfee]

Don't think you should be driving this one, but okay. All right. All right.

[Ty Schmidt]

Good to know. Good to know.

[Pat McAfee]

That many stay lines. Yeah. That truck's going to Western anyway. Yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Gwen Powell's a big Ram truck guy.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, he's in the commercial.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Commercial. Yeah, commercial.

[AJ Hawk]

A lot started with Twisters.

[Pat McAfee]

Yes. Yeah. If you can feel it, you chase it. Damn right. Damn right. What's going. Powell doing everything big? Yep.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah. He's got a couple big time movies coming out, a couple remakes, so.

[Pat McAfee]

And they're all going to do well.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah. One of them is, you know, just timeless classic that Arnold is the main char character of and he's, he's reprising the role in that.

[Ty Schmidt]

Terminator.

[Evan Fox]

No, the Running Man. It's going to be awesome. Awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

He's so charming. Yeah, he is so handsome. So cool. So jacked. He's a guy.

[Evan Fox]

Oh yeah. That Chad Powers series is coming out at some point soon here I would imagine.

[Pat McAfee]

Congrats to all of them.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hell yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, let's get out of here. Let's enjoy. Here's upcoming, here's upcoming projects for Glenn Powell. The Running Man, Huntington, Chad Powers, the Natural Order, Untitled JJ At Abrams project. What's that?

[Evan Fox]

JJ Abrams is a big time, big time director producer in Hollywood. That'll be like, you know, some action sci fi type deal.

[Pat McAfee]

Monsanto.

[Evan Fox]

Monsanto. Isn't that that was like some big company? Yeah, yeah. There was like a big lawsuit or something. Maybe that could be, I don't know, maybe like a courtroom drama or something.

[Pat McAfee]

Young attorney Brett Wisner takes on a case against Monsanto on behalf of groundskeeper Dwayne Lee Johnson Dewey, who used the company's weed killer Roundup and developed cancer despite Monsanto's toxicologist testifying to Roundup Safety. This is Iowa.

[Evan Fox]

Monsanto. Is it in Iowa? It might be. I'm not sure.

[Pat McAfee]

I think I watched like a documentary on these seeds and I don't know if it was cancer seeds or if the seeds were blown in on other people's property.

[Evan Fox]

That's the one you talked about with Christopher Walken and it was in like Canada I think. Right?

[Pat McAfee]

Crazy. Yeah. I, I, the seed game is wild cuz these people had a patent on the seed basically and the seed was obviously something that wasn't FR natural. You get it blows into somebody else's farm. They were looking to take that because it's their seat and it became a big all.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, yeah. Cuz they, oh, they owned everything in like the surrounding areas then since it was their seeds that were just getting scattered everywhere.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, the farming world's wild one. Crazy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Well, we're on this stuff with shows too. The Terminalist next series is coming out I believe very soon here too.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Jack Cars. Yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

And did he write a book? Where's Bill? I think it was a new book too. Jack Car.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, new book coming after. I believe he Finished it or.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, I saw a post recently.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I saw a post too. I just know the Terminalist series is based off. I believe this is the prequel one of Chris Pratt's brother in Taylor Kish who's in the first season as well.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. The explosive next thriller from Jack Carr. Cry Havoc. You can order now. Does that mean it's available now or is this pre order probably pre order.

[AJ Hawk]

I would assume these newer ones that they just keep getting scarier though.

[Pat McAfee]

I mean he gets better and better. Well, he's getting more accurate. Yeah.

[AJ Hawk]

I mean it's more of like that what's happening right now.

[Ty Schmidt]

Realer and realer.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. He did an AI one, didn't he?

[Ty Schmidt]

China.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. CCP says most recent.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's I believe Red Scott morning was the AI.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Evan Fox]

The most recent was China was developing a counter intelligence to counter our intelligence.

[Pat McAfee]

And then they started talking without humans. Right. And then you talk about. If I remember it's like well, who tells the missiles to react to a missile? Yeah. And is there any. I think that was.

[Evan Fox]

There's a big part of it where our AI is is kind of integrated with our like our missile control and our Navy. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Spoilers.

[Pat McAfee]

And what's this one here?

[Evan Fox]

This one is about his. His father that was also a Navy SEAL in the original Navy SEALs. Well, Beirut is one.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. I'm talking about though.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah. The Cry Havoc is about his dad and like leading the Vietnam SEAL missions.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

The Beirut is the non fiction true story that he was talking about that he was writing. So that that's Luke and all these.

[Pat McAfee]

Other ones are fiction which I think of as fake. All right, non fiction, non fake fiction fake. But all his. That's how it works. All his fake fiction ones seemingly all have, you know, because of who he is, what he's done. It's hard not to be like oh this guy is potentially mixing a little reality like all I assume storytellers are.

[Evan Fox]

And it seems like they're filming a bunch of the series for Amazon on back to back here like the ones coming out in summer about the prequel about Ben, his buddy that was in the seals from the original Terminal series. And then they're going doing the second season of Terminal list after the prequel.

[Pat McAfee]

Bill is one of Jack Carr's biggest fans.

[Evan Fox]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Bill cited a. Cited a BB gun for Jack car. Perfectly right on the money.

[Evan Fox]

Real scope and fake gun.

[Ty Schmidt]

Doesn't really two for too.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you really did. It worked. You handed it over to him. I think it's turns out you Give that guy a state fair gun. One that has the barrel like this.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, yeah. Headshot.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, there is. Yeah. There's a level. There's levels to this thing. That had to feel so good for him. Just get back in there and snipe the hell out of Arthur Fischl. I mean, AI was a. Yeah. Psycho. He was going to blow up the world. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Thank God for Jack, man.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank God.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Freaking nuclear bomb that he slammed at the table.

[Pat McAfee]

He did. I. I saw that when I was watching.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

There's no way that's real. He wouldn't slam that down. No way. Yeah, that was just a good scene.

[Pat McAfee]

The scene. What do you mean? That.

[Ty Schmidt]

That was what?

[Pat McAfee]

My bad. What are you talking about? That was reality, brother.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Who was. Who was Kim Jong Un? Someone was Kim Jong Un. That's crazy.

[Ty Schmidt]

It was Kim.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, yeah? What was it? Kim.

[Ty Schmidt]

That was Kim Jong Un.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. But I don't remember if that was Kim Jong Un. I don't know. That might have just been. Might just been somebody. Oh, no.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Oh, no.

[Pat McAfee]

Really? Oh, no.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

It was pretty realistic.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank God Jack Carr still got it, though.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ass in the building.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, he was just there. Yeah. He sensed it. Knew it was coming. If people knew how impressive that actually was. Yeah, I don't. I don't think it gets talked about enough in the shooting community. I don't know. No, I don't know. I know everybody talks about West Virginia winning the rifle every single year. Everybody.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Everybody does.

[Pat McAfee]

Everybody.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Can't go anywhere.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Hey, man, if you're good. Hey, you got a good shot. You didn't come away.

[Ty Schmidt]

West Virginia, that's my near right there.

[Pat McAfee]

We need you. We got you. And the Americans need better representation in the sniper talk. Remember we watched those trained killers at the Olympics?

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, that's right.

[Pat McAfee]

With the one eye and the side.

[AJ Hawk]

It's because all of ours are actually out there.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Well, whenever you retire, you need to go on a gold medal hunt. These. Jack Carr needs to go out there.

[Evan Fox]

He does.

[Pat McAfee]

And represent United States. American Olympics. Yeah. Or somebody from West Virginia, obviously. But him, him shooting this, I mean, moving target. The gun did not have enough power to actually be able to aim anything. So he had to have adjusted. He had to be shooting above head and then just never did the shot. Nothing like that from up there. There's the gun right there. Obviously save the world, which is pretty cool. But from that perch all the way down to the ground, I mean, it.

[Evan Fox]

Was like, probably like quarter mile. You can't really tell.

[AJ Hawk]

Soup can at two miles.

[Pat McAfee]

Dude, he just. It was unbelievable. Straight right off the head. What a shot. Thank God it happened.

[Ty Schmidt]

Thank you, Jack. Thank God, buddy. George was there.

[Pat McAfee]

All right. Let's put up some shots for a giveaway. And that's Jack Core. There it is. Here. Run the whole thing. Let's just watch the whole thing. Let's just watch it. You haven't seen this in a long time. I love it.

[Boston Connor]

This is great.

[Pat McAfee]

Official. The world's AI Authority has summoned the earth's most influential doofuses for an emergency meeting about the terrifying powers of artificial intelligence. Antonio Margariti. I forgot about myself. From Italy. Not too loud, me. That looks like Vlad Speed. What a. Jim. Okay. It was. We catch up with them mid dinner as Arty Fish tries his damnedest to get the influencer's attention. Jim. Okay.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yes, that'll work.

[Pat McAfee]

Great service. Thank.

[Ty Schmidt]

Scram. Let's get down to brass tacks, boys. The real reason we're here, AI is it's a problem. It's gonna kill us all.

[Pat McAfee]

It's hard to take you serious with.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

The way your face looks right now.

[Evan Fox]

I mean you look like a fucking asshole.

[Ty Schmidt]

What are you talking about?

[Michael Lombardi]

Oh.

[AJ Hawk]

The only thing artificial is those fucking.

[Pat McAfee]

Balls you call balls. You look absolutely obsessed.

[Ty Schmidt]

You guys don't understand. You're not listening to me, okay? I'm wearing this cuz AI can hear your thoughts. It can get into your brain. Guys.

[Pat McAfee]

You ain't got no brain. Murder. Once again. Struggling to take anything you say serious. My team told me I should come to this. You look like a. You looks like a joke.

[Ty Schmidt]

Like an absolute jerk On.

[Pat McAfee]

Does this look like a joke? Huh? That's a nuclear bomb. No, that's fake. Just.

[Evan Fox]

Batman puts marbles in plastic.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

You need.

[AJ Hawk]

You need a boom.

[Pat McAfee]

I think you guys aren't listening.

[Ty Schmidt]

This right here.

[Pat McAfee]

A nuclear freaking bomb.

[Ty Schmidt]

Told me the only way to save this screwed up world is to blow it up.

[Pat McAfee]

This guy.

[Ty Schmidt]

Awake.

[Pat McAfee]

Idiot.

[AJ Hawk]

Wake up. Ass one.

[Pat McAfee]

You wouldn't hit somebody with a. No. Yeah. Don't you worry.

[Ty Schmidt]

This one is foolproof.

[Pat McAfee]

I doubt it.

[Ty Schmidt]

I brought it here, boys. Not just for show.

[Pat McAfee]

What? Because I'm gonna blow up the world right now. Holy. That's that car. Turns out that was an actual nuclear bomb. Arthur Isaac Fischl was gonna blow the entire world up. And Jack Carr saved us all. It was his actual first shot. And already Fish is actually dead forever. Thank the Lord that Jack Carr sense trouble. His new book, which is the sixth installment terminal series only the Death is currently available at all bookstores. You should Buy it. As you just watched, he saved the world. Hell yeah. Jack Carr. Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Hell, yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

That's awesome.

[Pat McAfee]

It was an actual nuclear bomb, brother. Yep. I know.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

It. Said it right on it.

[Pat McAfee]

I know.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

That's what they all do.

[AJ Hawk]

And the narrator confirmed it.

[Pat McAfee]

Yep. Yeah. Who also looks. Was a waiter.

[Evan Fox]

Yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Good waiter. He knew what he was doing.

[Pat McAfee]

He was there so he could tell the story. He was the only one nobody would believe because he was the only one there. Man. I haven't watched that in a long time.

[Ty Schmidt]

A long time.

[Pat McAfee]

All right, on that note, let's go to Marsh Madness.

[Ty Schmidt]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

Thank Jack R. Love you, Jack R. Yeah. An opportunity to say thanks to Jack R. You go ahead and do it because as it said, like AJ noted, and I forgot that detail. That. That was just right on the side.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Pat McAfee]

How do we get the point across here? Right there. Just write it. Arthur Fischl is probably just misunderstood.

[Ty Schmidt]

Like, he was just nervous.

[AJ Hawk]

Didn't come back as a drone and try to take showdown.

[Pat McAfee]

No, that was.

[Evan Fox]

I don't know if that would.

[Pat McAfee]

We still don't know who that is. Jack. Or saved the world there then, too. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Still not sure.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. We don't know what happened there. I thought.

[AJ Hawk]

Yeah, there.

[Pat McAfee]

I thought. There's no. All right, have a great March Madness. We hope you guys win all your bets. Right, let's go.

[Ty Schmidt]

Underdogs. Not all of them.

[Pat McAfee]

Just. You're betting all the underdogs. Better.

[Ty Schmidt]

All the underdogs again. Yes. Own two so far.

[Pat McAfee]

Moneyline.

[Ty Schmidt]

Moneyline. Just. That's all you can really do. It's more fun that way, to be honest with you. And then you really, you know, you have a dog in every fight, and it is the dog. And let me just tell you, when that dog hunts, it is the greatest feeling in the world.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. Last year you were up right after the first.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah. The first four days, Thursday to Sunday. This first weekend is where it's like, hey, do strictly own the underdogs after the first weekend. Do whatever you want because typically it does kind of fall off a cliff.

[Pat McAfee]

A little, but it can get.

[Ty Schmidt]

We're up like 16 units last. Last year.

[Pat McAfee]

But you're going to have bad times.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, you. You will have bad times. But remember, like, there's a chance that only one underdog wins tomorrow on Thursday, but that Underdog might be plus 800. So you're up 200 bucks for the day. If you're betting 100 bucks on every game.

[Pat McAfee]

The madness that we speak of is normally when underdogs upset somebody. And when that happens, you're not only celebrating the moment, but you're also cashing in. That has been your go here. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Last March Madness was the most fun March Madness I've ever had in my entire life. So this is probably going to be my go to move going forward with March Madness.

[Pat McAfee]

And there's a chance you lose your ass this year.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, definitely.

[Pat McAfee]

There's a chance you lose in gambling. There's a chance you lose your ass.

[Ty Schmidt]

Always a chance. But like I said, I would very strongly suggest doing it for the first weekend at least. And then, you know, if you're going.

[Pat McAfee]

To do it and only bet the amount that you're willing to lose, yes, of course we lose. I lost so much money gambling on March Madness the last few years.

[Ty Schmidt]

Not this year.

[Pat McAfee]

Not gonna lose this.

[Ty Schmidt]

Not this year.

[AJ Hawk]

Not this year.

[Pat McAfee]

Selective AJ we're not picking every. We don't need to pick every. You don't need to have every game. You know, Connor's doing every game. The underdog. That's his. He's just doing the underdog. You have to.

[Ty Schmidt]

To end up on top. Because if you don't.

[Pat McAfee]

If you miss one.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, if you miss one, then you're just the biggest.

[Pat McAfee]

See, I did it with con man and I took the 16 seeds off, cuz those are pretty much a guarantee they're going to lose. And that was very, very helpful pretty much.

[Ty Schmidt]

Until. Until what?

[Pat McAfee]

Well, it's like whenever you bet the thing on blackjack that the three card showing will be a straight flush or whatever.

[Ty Schmidt]

Bingo. What happened?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, you hit it.

[Ty Schmidt]

I hit it in new. In New Orleans, so.

[Pat McAfee]

And you were on it?

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, I was on it.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, what a moment.

[Ty Schmidt]

So you tell me. It was 750 bucks. Welcome to the jungle.

[Pat McAfee]

Somebody else could have won that. They didn't bet it.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, this is what we do here.

[Pat McAfee]

No, other people do better every single time. Never get it. You know, that was. A lot of people died in that casino. Yeah, yeah. That casino was blasting shins. Without a doubt, that casino knew what was happening. Super Bowl. A lot of people here. Let's have our best. Yeah, they did. The cards are like, this is our weekend. We do this, we do that. You. You come to our city. We are. It's a home game for the cards at. And also the dice. I saw the dice. Yeah, they linked up with the cards as well. They were like, hey, listen, we're gonna have a good weekend here. We're gonna beat them. We're gonna beat them. Dealers going, oh, yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. Arm's getting tired, actually.

[Ty Schmidt]

Takes that.

[Pat McAfee]

Lot of. Of tricep work here. A lot of pushing this way. That was life down there for me, at least. Yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

I mean, that's a week. That's a gigantic week for that casino. Think about it. They have to win.

[Evan Fox]

They did.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. And. Yeah, I guess that's how they viewed it, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. There's some casinos that we thought were givers. That was one of them. Take them off the board. Yeah.

[Ty Schmidt]

Now we know.

[Pat McAfee]

What's the Jacks Casino?

[Ty Schmidt]

Cleveland, Cleveland, Cleveland, Cleveland.

[Pat McAfee]

That's a. Smile's coming out of that casino. That's what you need to judge. Smile's coming out. When you're walking in, go ahead and give a little look, see at everybody leaving. What's their mood? They just all fucking lost. Okay. We're donating to the city today. That's what your thoughts are going in now. You got your expectations, people smiling, coming out. Jovial group. Okay. Maybe the casino's given today and that's just kind of how it goes, aj.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Good to know. That's. I did not look at people coming out of the New Orleans casino when we were going in, actually.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. People are looking at me, though, I think. When on my way out there, because.

[AJ Hawk]

We were the first ones in.

[Pat McAfee]

That was the problem in the afternoon. We were the ones that set the tone on what the day is going to be like for other people. They saw us, potentially. Yeah, we were. Are we eating or what?

[Evan Fox]

Yeah, you know, 4:30 dinner.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. So we have any reservations here? I thought this was going to go a lot better. They were all walking out phones. Yeah. Classic casino stuff. All right. If this goes in, we're all in it. Oh, no.

[Ty Schmidt]

Ah, it's close, this one.

[Boston Connor]

Oh, no, it's.

[Ty Schmidt]

That's international game.

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah. The thing about the international balls, it slips off the pinky. It's a slick ball.

[AJ Hawk]

That's because Europeans don't have pinkies.

[Ty Schmidt]

Yeah, you got one on the. You got under the.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, this is what I was supposed to. The whole time. Yeah. Oh, no. Bang. Didn't make it to the hoop one time.

[Ty Schmidt]

It's all right. Hey, I got one here. I got one here.

[Pat McAfee]

Bonus. Yeah, yeah. Good eye. Good eye. This is for the good of all of us here. You want.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Do you want to step into it?

[Pat McAfee]

Yeah, just go ahead and fe.

[AJ Hawk]

Oh, yeah.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Nice.

[Pat McAfee]

Bang.

[Daniel Jeremiah]

Bam.

[Pat McAfee]

Oh, my God. Still didn't make it. All right, I'm not betting this weekend.

[Evan Fox]

Okay.

[Pat McAfee]

Next week. See you guys on Monday. Okay. I'll have the next week. What I just did has nothing to do with any of you. Don't you worry about that. Obviously.

[AJ Hawk]

Sure.

[Pat McAfee]

Okay. Have a great March Madness, boys, in the back. Great work this week.

[Ty Schmidt]

Good work, boys.

[Pat McAfee]

Graphic boys, good work this week.

[Ty Schmidt]

Good work, boys.

[Pat McAfee]

To all our guests, thank you so much for your time. We did a lot of college basketball. Obviously. I feel like we know more than we've ever known in the past. Going into the tournament, a lot of football talk, a lot of narratives, a lot of rumors, a lot of stories. And we'll continue to talk about very topical things happening in the world. Every single day. Something trends for 24 hours. It's probably going to get chatted about.

[Evan Fox]

Got to do it.

[Pat McAfee]

And that's what it's like doing daily sports, Daily Show. And tomorrow we're off. Friday we're off and we're going to go watch these games just like everybody else. Enjoy it. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. We're in this thing together. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three.

[Ty Schmidt]

Team.

[Pat McAfee]

Goodbye. In case you didn't know, these young men are driven. They are prodigies, the savants, the ones we've been waiting for. Like Damian Lillard, for instance. He doesn't seek guidance or mentorship. He's a leader. He isn't waiting for the baton to be passed to him. He's taking it for himself. He's relentless in a pursuit of greatness, always pushing to one up himself. He is accomplished, but far from satisfied. He embodies what it means to have an unstoppable drive and are shaking up the status quo in their community and beyond. And Damian Lillard drives a Toyota. A new generation of Toyota drivers are here and they want you to know one thing. You can't stop my drive.