Steven Godfrey on Why Lane Kiffin is right about Ole Miss... and wrong about LSU | 05.14

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Right Time with Bomani Jones

Episode: Steven Godfrey on Why Lane Kiffin is Right About Ole Miss...and Wrong About LSU

Air Date: May 14, 2026
Host: Bomani Jones
Guest: Steven Godfrey

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into Lane Kiffin’s recent comments about Ole Miss and LSU, focusing on the intersection of race, college football recruiting, Southern identity, and modern college sports economics. Stevens Godfrey, a journalist and Ole Miss alum, joins Bomani to unpack Kiffin’s motives, address the ongoing perceptions of Ole Miss, and place it all within the rapidly changing world of college football and NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) payments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Lane Kiffin’s Comments on Race and Recruiting

• Kiffin’s Vanity Fair Interview: Lane Kiffin, now at LSU, commented that he doesn’t face the same challenges “convincing grandma” about Baton Rouge as he did with Oxford, MS, implying race and diversity issues at Ole Miss.
• Reaction Cycle: The media and fans latched onto the quote, stirring major backlash across the South, especially at Ole Miss.

Quote:
"Lane Kiffin very tactically went directly at the weakest spot on Ole Miss's defense...and Ole Miss’s armor..."
—Steven Godfrey [03:14]

• Dual Reality: Godfrey emphasizes that while Kiffin’s comments are factually rooted, they’re also opportunistic, playing up to divisive narratives for self-preservation.

Quote:
"Every piece of the subject matter utilized by Lane Kiffin is obviously correct...However, Lane Kiffin, in a moment of, I think a little bit of panic, flipped the only switch he had left to try and shift public sentiment."
—Steven Godfrey [03:14–04:45]

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2. Ole Miss, Race, and Public Image

• Ole Miss’s Reputation: The school’s ongoing struggle with its image concerning race—a “gaslighting” campaign to convince recruits and outsiders that perceptions are outdated.
• Recruiting Evolution: Historically, race and county image were big obstacles in recruiting Black athletes. Now, direct compensation (NIL) has displaced much of that concern.

Quote:
"There is absolutely a disingenuous misinformation campaign that works constantly in Mississippi to tell you it’s not what you think it is."
—Steven Godfrey [04:30]

• Kiffin’s Opportunism: His comments about Oxford and segregation are, per Godfrey, less about social progress and more about deflecting criticism after leaving Ole Miss for a better offer.
• Godfrey’s Credentials: Candidly notes his 1.96 GPA and his origins in the "Aryan Nation Country Club Institute" (Ole Miss), illustrating his deep knowledge and authentic voice.

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3. LSU’s Perceptions vs. Reality

• The Myth of Progressive LSU: Kiffin portrays LSU/Baton Rouge as more diverse and inclusive, but both hosts call this largely a fiction.
  • Infrastructure & Race: Godfrey points out that Louisiana, including Baton Rouge, has its own history of institutionalized segregation, such as the highway system (see: Interstate 110).
• Irony in Politics: Republican lawmakers who courted Kiffin are now forced to defend him, even as he “plays the race card” in a way they would typically denounce.

Quote:
"If you think you're going from a conservative bastion in Oxford to some sort of progressively liberal bastion...one of my favorite...go look up Interstate 110. It runs through Baton Rouge."
—Steven Godfrey [06:57–07:14]

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4. Race Card, Southern Code, and Betrayal

• Taboo of Race Discussions: Both discuss the discomfort and outrage when “outsiders” (like Kiffin) acknowledge racism in a Southern institution.
• Community Offense: The breach isn’t just about what Kiffin said—but that he, as a Northerner and relative outsider, was the one to say it.

Quote:
"Within, especially among Southerners, the idea that the other people are racist gets people to jump up...he feels like Lane violated what is like, implicitly the code of what's going on."
—Bomani Jones [11:33]

• Comparison to Other Coaches: Previous Ole Miss coaches (e.g., Tommy Tuberville, David Cutcliffe) each handled race realities differently, yet none used it as Kiffin did for image management.

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5. The Modern College Football Landscape: Money Over Everything

• NIL’s Role: Direct payments to players have leveled the playing field, making historical stigma less relevant in player decisions.
• Changing Power Dynamics: Resources, not just tradition or in-state talent, dictate which programs thrive—and the NIL systems at places like Ole Miss are now among the most elite.
• LSU’s Traditional Advantages: Larger population, more money, lower admissions standards for football players, and an established football factory profile.

Quote:
"In application you’re probably going to a school that’s going to feel racist at points no matter where you go. Any of these schools, let alone the SEC."
—Bomani Jones [25:49]

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6. Job Value: LSU vs. Ole Miss (and Beyond)

• Historic Hierarchy: LSU has traditionally been a “better job” than Ole Miss, but NIL and demographic shifts are blurring those lines.
• The Margin Narrows: Godfrey argues differences in job quality are shrinking; managing NIL, not tradition, is the new key.

Quote:
"I think it would be ridiculously disingenuous for anybody to try and grade some of these jobs right now..."
—Steven Godfrey [26:32]

• Coaching’s Evolving Value: With NIL and open talent movement, a coach’s on-field expertise (not just recruiting prowess or “brand”) matters more.

Quote:
"College football has a disease, especially in the south...they are addicted to statues...building icons out of the white man in charge."
—Steven Godfrey [31:27]

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7. Broader Social and Economic Context

• Why Ole Miss, LSU, and Georgia Differ: Cities like Atlanta benefited from state investment, which boosted Georgia’s program; states that undermined their own Black-majority cities (e.g., Mississippi and Alabama with Jackson and Birmingham) have lagged in both football and broader success.
• Mississippi’s Missed Economic Boat: The state’s refusal to modernize or invest in growth has economic and sports consequences.

Quote:
"Mississippi stands alone as the forefront example of staring at progress...and then they pull out a gun and shoot themselves in the foot. Twice."
—Steven Godfrey [41:33]

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8. NIL Realities, Player Freedom, and Labor

• Player Agency: Both panelists note that neither economic protest (e.g., HBCU migration) nor regional movement will happen unless paying opportunities align.
• Structural Power: Control over top talent still comes from money, not institutional moral progress.

Quote:
"If you’re a black player right now and you’re considering Ole Miss versus X other SEC school, make sure the money’s right. That’s it."
—Steven Godfrey [48:37]

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9. Cultural Nuances, Southern Identity, and the Lane Kiffin Return Game

• LSU’s “Cooler” Presentation: The school has appropriated aspects of Black culture to market itself in recruiting and fan engagement, projecting an image distinct from Ole Miss.
• Godfrey’s Personal Reflections: As an Ole Miss expat who married into an LSU family, Godfrey shares that even among Southern whites, Louisiana (“Cajun”) has its own unique cultural offset from Anglo-Southern identity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the gaslighting of Ole Miss’s racial image:
  "I'm so sick of the word gaslighting. And yet this might be the most apt description of how Ole Miss markets itself."
  —Steven Godfrey [04:21]

• On Lane Kiffin’s savvy/chess moves:
  "He's trying to play chess right now and he's trying to come from behind because he is a very, very self-consumed individual and his public image is so much more important to him than it is for any other coach..."
  —Steven Godfrey [09:25]

• On coaching icons vs. player statues:
  "There is the statue built. Statue building culture is...based on building icons out of the white man in charge."
  —Steven Godfrey [31:27]

• On Southern cities and football programs:
  "Every state in that main drag of the south has tried to choke out its major city… Atlanta is the only one where the state did not decide to kill it. There are some very interesting trades in order to make it work that way, but they did not decide to kill it and look at what the results were."
  —Bomani Jones [43:18]

• On the financial basis for real power in college football:
  "The only metric that matters, because it’s the only thing that will actually affect change, is money."
  —Steven Godfrey [47:05]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Lane Kiffin’s Vanity Fair quote and initial reaction: [00:50]
• Godfrey contextualizes Ole Miss and Kiffin’s motivations: [02:35–05:50]
• Urban planning, Southern cities & race: [06:57–08:39]
• Playing the “race card,” intra-Southern code: [11:33–13:37]
• Comparing job quality LSU vs. Ole Miss in the NIL era: [26:32–29:53]
• Statue-building and the fetishization of coaches: [31:27–33:43]
• Economic/social determinants in Southern college football: [41:33–43:18]
• NIL realities and HBCUs: [47:05–48:46]

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Conclusion

This episode masterfully weaves sports, history, culture, and economics, using Lane Kiffin’s controversial comments as a launchpad for an honest assessment of race, college football’s changing economics, and the myths Southern schools project. Both Bomani Jones and Steven Godfrey dissect the taboos and truths of college football’s biggest ongoing debates, showing how, in the end, money and market forces have become the dominant force in shaping the sport’s present and future—often more so than progress, tradition, or even coaching skill.

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Recurring Theme:
“Follow the money. That’s it—make sure your NFL path is straight.”
—Steven Godfrey [48:37]

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For more:

• Steven Godfrey: Yahoo College Football Inquirer, Phantom Island Show
• Follow Bomani Jones for four episodes per week of The Right Time.

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Next Episode Teaser:
Godfrey hints at a developing miniseries on the 2007 UAB/Jimbo Fisher story and promises a return for more deep dives into college football’s underbelly.

Transcript

[A]

Wave. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Right Time, a Wave original. My name is Bomani Jones. Thanks for listening. Wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We have got Steven Godfrey with us. And, and I. I have to say this because normally I have a way intro this on Wednesdays away, intro this on Thursdays. And we thought originally this is going to go on Thursday, but then that boy Lane Kiffin popped up, got a little too hot for tv. And that's stuff we going to talk about. Like, you know, the seemingly impending financial doom of college sports. We'll get to that. But first, Lane. All right, so. And this, this happened. I'm not making this about me, but I did the thing on Trinidad Chambliss for Vanity Fair. I had no idea that at the same time there was a Lane Kiffin article in the hopper. Not that they owed me this information or anything like that, but I had absolutely no idea. And then I found out it was happening because Lane posted pictures online from the photo shoot. And I'm like, oh, this will be interesting. And overall, I gotta tell you, I read the article. I think Chris Smith was the author. I read the article. I thought the article was interesting, though. Interesting in the way that Lane Kiffin keeps getting people to believe that he ain't that bad a guy, right? Like, not even that, because he might not be. I came away from reporting on the Chamber story without talking to Lane, being like, oh, he's not as bad a guy as I thought he was. But he always makes people think he's just around the corner from some major breakthrough, right? He has always turned over some new leaf. Even if the reason you're there is because you don't feel like. You feel like you got fooled one more time. But he always gets people on it. But what has been fascinating to me about this one is the quote that got everybody riled up. Shout out to the Vanity Fair social producers doing what social producers do. Forget the whole fucking article. We're going to have Lane make the point that, you know, when I tell people to come to Baton Rouge, they respond differently than when I say, come to Oxford, Mississippi. And long of the short, when I say Baton Rouge, I don't have to get somebody's grandmama and convince her that it's okay, like I did with Oxford, Mississippi. And then he went a little further and he said, when they come to Baton Rouge, they're like, oh, look at the diversity. It doesn't look like there's any segregation here, implying that that is not what they said about Oxford. And Stephen Godfrey, Ole Miss grad. I am very curious what you.

[B]

Where do we start?

[A]

Yeah. What you thought about this? I want you to go first because I don't want to do anything to poison these waters at all.

[B]

All right, so here's the problem. We have to introduce two concepts that are simultaneously true but in conflict here, and media does not like that. We are not built for that. All right, so let's get the obvious out of the way here because I'll throw my credentials on the table. I am a product of said Aryan Nation Country Club Institute. All right.

[A]

All right.

[B]

I got. Also, we'll get to the Sark thing later on in the segment, but there have been some aspersions cast about the quality of an Ole Miss degree, to which I can only confirm it took me six years to get a 1.96 GPA.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Yes. Every piece of the subject matter utilized by Lane Kiffin is obviously correct. It is obviously a completely real and concerning narrative, if you will. I'm going to use a lot of media buzzwords today. Lane Kiffin very tactically went directly at the weakest spot on Ole Miss's defense and Ole Miss's armor, because we're. I'm going to have to jump around a little bit and talk about this kind of prolonged divorce with Lane Kiffin and why it's unique to anything else that's ever happened in college football. So let's acknowledge the obvious about Ole Miss if we need to. Right. I think I did this a little bit last time I was on the show.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

There's nothing he said that's factually inaccurate. Except. Here we go. You ready? He's also completely talking out of his ass. And I know almost for certain that he did not run into any concerns from a racial dynamic while recruiting for Ole Miss especially, and almost certainly in the last three seasons. That's because of the paradigm shift going from what we called recruiting with my fingers decidedly making quotes to actual player compensation. And we can get into that as well. So, yes, the state of Ole misses perception is a very real and sensitive issue that the people who are actually in charge of that brand know exactly what dog whistle they are blowing. Okay. There is absolutely a disingenuous misinformation campaign that works constantly in Mississippi to tell you it's not what you think it is. It's not the obvious. I'm so sick of the word gaslighting. And yet this might be the most apt description of how Ole Miss markets itself. Okay. Full stop. If you need any other evidence, just go and look at the kind of undergraduates they attract who are not athletes who come from, let's say, maybe like a north Atlanta suburb, a Highland park in Dallas. Right. Young whites with a certain amount of money who didn't necessarily have the academics to get into a University of Georgia, a University of Texas, if you will. All right. So Ole Miss is what Ole Miss is, and we don't really need to pick that apart. However, Lane Kiffin, in a moment of, I think a little bit of panic, flipped the only switch he had left to try and shift public sentiment. So let's move on a little bit for a second, Bo and I want to talk about why all this came to be. Lane Kiffin, in his entire career, never expected to receive this amount of public backlash for making a obvious job move to many. Right up until maybe two years ago, if anybody were to leave Ole Miss for LSU in terms of the football job, nobody would really think much of it. Right. You start adding in the context of walking away from a playoff team that ended up going to the Final Four. All right? So that alone kind of carries some baggage with it. Then you start talking about, well, you know, with the NIL apparatus, we're seeing an evening out of top institutions in a way that we've never seen before. So you could take a Texas, you could take a Notre Dame, then you could also take one of these upstart programs like an Indiana or an Ole Miss. And you have a tough time following your compass as to what is a value program, what is a top 10 job, what is. What is a place where you can or cannot win a national title. All this kind of bears down on Lane Kiffin this offseason cycle, on top of the fact that he is, in fact, Lane Kiffin, who welcomes and actively encourages attention to be placed upon him at all times. All right. By the way, some of my favorite parts of this, and we have to jump around a little bit, are the.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

This is going to shock anybody, but if you think you're going from a conservative bastion in Oxford to some sort of progressively liberal bastion. I've already said this twice today, but like, one of my favorite, go look up Interstate 110. It runs through Baton Rouge.

[A]

Okay. Yes.

[B]

Go look up why Interstate 110 is shaped the way it is and the direction it follows. If you ever want a Great story about race in America, especially the South. I learned this from Luther Campbell, of all people. It was actually because I was spending some time with him for a profile, but he wrote about this in his autobiography. Look at all the interstate construction in post World War II America.

[A]

Oh, yeah, it's all through our shit

[B]

and the way it is constructed. Right. So the city I'm sitting in right now in Nashville, the structure of Interstate 440, it's the same thing that bisects the city, has a particular kind of wonk to it, for lack of a better term. That's because it split Jefferson street dead down the middle. Which if you're from like a place like Atlanta, that would be like if you dropped the interstate directly on Sweet Auburn. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, kind of, kind of, kind of, sort of.

[B]

So Baton Rouge is. Is shockingly enough, maybe not the progressive liberal enclave that Lane would have you believe. But my favorite part of this is the. Remember, it was a aggressively maga, aggressively Republican governor that started the courtship of Lane Kiffin in the first place. So all of these GOP strategists, conservatives and operatives and state reps now are defending a guy who is essentially using the one cudgel they hate the most, which is to talk about race relations as a reason for coming to Louisiana. So it's great because they're. They've got their hands wrapped around this double edged sword and they can't let go.

[A]

So, yeah, it was the, the fun part of Baton Rouge, though, for me, as it relates is. And I hadn't really thought about this till I scanned the whole map and tried to think of schools that can do this. It's really two. It's Florida State and LSU that have always had the ability to say in recruiting, but if you just go on the other side of town, yeah, there's this, there's this other school that you could really party at now. They like staying at lsu, don't get me wrong. Right. But where Lane says. When I say Baton Rouge, it doesn't sound like Oxford, because I know personally, when I hear Baton Rouge, I think of a. I think about the other side of town, right? I think of. Yeah, I think about something completely different than LSU and that. So if Lane had just said that, he'd have been okay. But Lane had his. Lane got. It sounded like LSU looks like, honestly, like a school that doesn't exist.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like it's in Baton Rouge, Vermont or something. I mean, this is the kind of like this level of disingenuousness. I kind of respect it. But again, what I, what I encourage people to do is not take any of this stuff at its, at its face value or its merits. This guy is trying to play chess right now and he's trying to come from behind because he is a very, very self consumed individual and his public image is so much more important to him than it is for any other coach I've ever encountered in 20, 25 years of, of sports media. This guy's weakness is also his strength, which is that he can at all times seem magnanimous and, and when there are actual moments of football stress, he can sort of absorb that attention away from his players. He is a savant as an offensive play caller. He is an incredible developer of quarterback talent, but he's also his own worst enemy. I hate to operate in cliche. So until he gets actual tackle football to be consumed with for a little while, I would expect this cycle to persist. But I don't know if you saw this Bo. He has issued an apology of sorts this afternoon to On3Sports for specifically the, I guess commenting on the obvious in Oxford or sort of stating the thing. The problem is he kind of got a little. Well, there's no kind of. He got beat up yesterday because he. There's so many places I can go with this. Lane Kiffin is, does not have the cleanest closet. Right. Lane Kiffin. Lane Kiffin has realized in real time that the same people who helped enable and cover up his path, his journey, if you will, and I'll leave it at that, are the same people that he has just enraged. And in the one area, the one

[A]

in the sore spot, the sore spot

[B]

they had weakest spot that these people in Mississippi have. And so I think he's trying to backtrack a little bit lest we start to see some tabloid fodder spring up between now and September from some aggrieved parties in Mississippi, which at this point, on this day, as we record this on May 12, I would be shocked if we don't have some sort of revelation surface up from one of Kiffin's previous transgressions because he's pissed off all of his body movers. He's pissed off all the people who dug the shallow graves.

[A]

So, yes, so I have an observation. Right. I love when I get to ask my white friends about these things. The phrase the race card is very interesting. White people do not like it when they feel like black people play, quote unquote, the race card. And the reason is they know that bitch don't never get declined. Right. Like, like what? Like white people are far more aware of the prevalence of racism than black people are. We're just over here guessing, right? Sometimes we get it wrong in ways that, like, we assume the racism isn't there or is there when it isn't. But there's also a lot of times where it's around and we have absolutely no idea. But within, especially amongst Southerners, the idea that the other people are racist gets people to jump up. Right. Like the Mississippi people are making the argument, honestly, hey, we know how you guys get down. Also, like, as you, the point that you made, you're not going to argue to anybody of the progressive nature of Baton Rouge, of lsu, of Jeff Landry or anything else. You're not going to be able to do it. So those people really, really, really don't like it when you pop up and say that. I saw Tim Brando basically labeling that hate speech. And Tim Brando's living in Shreveport, Louisiana, where, by the way, my daddy has always said the meanest white people in the world exist. But what I'm saying is this white man in Louisiana put on his cape to protect the virtue and honor of all. Ms. Because we just don't talk like that. Right. Like he was. He's operating under the premise that, hey, man, if we just crew up and decide that we not going to do this to each other, we won't, we, we won't have no issues. Right. But he feels like Lane violated what is like, implicitly the code of what's going on. On the other hand, what Lane does have on his side with lsu, and I looked this up, they have a much higher black enrollment number than the majority of schools in the SEC. Now, Ole Miss number, I think, is somewhere around 11%, which is double the number of many schools in the SEC. The issue, of course, is that ole Mrs. Black population is somewhere between 35 and 40, which is to say that the 11 feels very, very, very paltry under those circumstances.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But where Elaine bothered me with this is that you marched in 2020 with Mike Leach, rest in Peace, where you guys bit your lips and marched to the State House to try to get that, get the state flag changed, to take the stars and bars off of it because it was ultimately bad for business. Right? Right. Anything that Lane is talking about right now about the racial state of affairs at Ole Miss, Lane could have done something about it because let me tell you, a progressive man who did speak on some of his problems with the way race pres. In it in Oxford, Tommy Tuberville. Okay. So it doesn't take the most courageous man in the world to actually do something about this in real time. Yeah. Lane did not do that. Lane waited until he got to LSU to decide that he was going to say something about this and everything he said about them holding on to Confederate imagery and Colonel Rib and all of this. And to be fair to Lane, Lane tried to hide it. Lane get that. It's the sip when Lane talks about it. It's Old Miss when the white folks talk about it. When you're selling it to the players is one thing. When I went down there, I found it very interesting that to get to the football facility at Ole Miss, and I don't think this is necessarily done like this on purpose, but it works out nicely. If you come from Memphis, you come straight down that road and you make a right and go to the facility, and you ain't got to see nothing else. They get you right there in the offices. They know they got that problem. Right. Right. But they also can't do but so much to change it, because the other people like the other stuff, too.

[B]

Yeah. It's about who's in charge. So it really. It really comes down to when you're talking about Ole Miss, it's about who's in charge. Do you want to. If you want to give total fealty to a guy like Kiffin, and had he stayed, I'll play out a hypothetical with you real fast. Let's say he stays. Let's say they just go to the same scenario. They go to the Final Four, they lose to. To Mario Cristobal in Miami. But everything that's happened in this offseason, Chambless comes back, Kewan Lacey comes back. But you know, you got Lane Kiffin coming back as well. Lane Kiffin has now rebuked lsu. He turned down Auburn, by the way. So if it was a racist hotbed, I guess he could have gone to Auburn, to the warm, progressive hands of Southeast Alabama. He could have gone to Auburn three years ago now. But let's say he stays. It is possible in time, he would actually be the first person in the history of that university to build enough equity to make more changes. I'm not going to say all the changes. I'm not going to say one particular change, because you can kind of pick from a variety of things. I think he could have pushed an agenda along that would have found an audience amongst those who would actually maybe push the right button or maybe take their hand off of it. If you Will. So I think it's possible he could have been the one. He never had any interest in that whatsoever. Like, I want to be clear about this, he has co opted the concept of modern race relations specifically to help his own PR campaign in the off season because people looked at Ole Miss in a way that Lane did not from a football standpoint. Again, I got to be careful here on how I talk about the institution and what happened on that football team the last two years. They overachieved or. And we don't really know this yet, they're setting a new standard and a new blueprint because they have been very intuitive and very intelligent in how they structure their nil. One of the things that I cannot criticize about my alma mater is the way they have gone about building roster payments, the way they have gone about managing the payroll, the way they have evaluated and paid talent. I really think it's second only to the very, very top tier of the sport. And it is the reason why they are now considered to be. I mean, they're. They're at least playoff contenders going back into the season without their head coach. Even with Pete. Even with, you know, Pete Golding kind of just a glorified, you know, Saban defensive assistant at the helm, they don't have their savant play caller anymore. So let's back up a little bit. You talk about playing the race card. I find it interesting that Lane Kiffin, outsider, non Southerner, established name before he gets to the sec. Right. Like, everyone in America knew who. Like, he was coach of the Raiders, which feels like 30 years ago.

[A]

Right.

[B]

If he was following the kind of normal script of the outsider who comes to the south, this would have been front of mind his first year in Knoxville.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. I would say maybe the first year he gets to Knoxville to at least acknowledge what's going on in terms of race relationships. Certainly, Bo, from recruiting the south, it's not about the cities that. It's not about Knoxville or Oxford or Baton Rouge or these cities. It's about where you go.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Because at a certain point in all those places, you know where you got to go, you got to go to Memphis.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

You got to go to Atlanta, you got to go to the cities where you got to go to Birmingham, where these things actually happened in history. So I find it interesting that Lane Kiffin has any kind of epiphany in terms of race relations or anything like that so late in his existence. All right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That, you know, the race card part of this is it's it's fascinating. One thing I have to like, since, since we're, we're in the coaches film room of white folks right now. Okay. So welcome in especially Southern whites. It starts with an unwillingness to self examine because I am of, of a believer that if you are white and Southern and you are over the age of 15 to 20, no one's hands are totally clean by today's standards. And I think that's actually a sign of progress as we go. So in other words, if I were to Repeat that statement 20 years from now amongst Southern whites, I would want that to still be true because what it means is we're advancing the standard. Right. What it means is that your existence at 15 or 18 years old would not be suitable. Some of the things you may have heard, not done anything about, some of the things that you thought were socially acceptable, et cetera, et cetera. So it starts from a place of unease because nobody really wants to self examine. Then you get into that outsider thing with Kiffin not being of Mississippi or being of the South. Then you get into he abandoned us after talking so wonderfully about the healing powers of Mississippi, specifically about Oxford, specifically about these, this culture that took care of him when his father died and all the things they saw him through and the hot yoga and all this kind of nonsense. So it's a betrayal on multiple levels. But then at the end of the day, you're also left with a bunch of people who are Southern and white who have been called this by an outsider. And that is where it becomes the bridge too far. This is not one of your own.

[A]

Yeah. And, but I will say this in fairness to Lane on that, because I know the perception is outsider. David Cutcliffe is from Birmingham and he made his bones at Tennessee and he now it's a different, I would argue it's a different Oxford, Mississippi that he went to in 2000 or 2001 than the one that and Kiffin went to. But he got there also and was like, whoo, buddy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So Cut.

[B]

Cut got hired my freshman year. So I, I, I did not know I was going to Ole Miss. And I don't think Cutcliffe knew he was going to Ole Miss until about the same time he went from Colin Place for a national title team, calling the offensive plays for Peyton Manning to bam. You, you wanted a head coaching job. Well, you got one. Right, right. I, I kind of. Honestly, that's how I felt when I hit the campus as well. Yes, it's different. But also you have to let's Go back to your buddy Tommy for a second. We're actually hitting the 30 year anniversary of what is sort of known in the state as the stick ban.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So that is that, that was Tommy Tuberville's prescient, I guess, move to not ban the waving of the Confederate flag. Not to impede on anyone's First Amendment rights, Beau, but to simply take away the device from which a flag can be effectively displayed. And if you think about it, that is some 4D chess.

[A]

It really was. That was brilliant.

[B]

You ever try and wave. I don't have anything on my desk. You ever try and wave anything that's, that's limp without something that's firm like, I mean it's, it's kind of genius. So, you know, it's, it's ironic to say the least to see Tommy Tuberville's political career progress, but even then, and I think this is, again, this is why people are so upset today is because Ole Miss has never been higher. Their Q rating has never been higher in terms of their football value. And then you go back to this thing that's, it's, it's, it's the target they refuse to remove from their back, but it's also their weakest point. So you go back to something that's been essentially hounding them throughout the modern era of football at their highest point, and this is why they're so upset. And also, I got a lot of texts, I got a lot of phone calls yesterday. This was not the issue for Lane Kiffin. The issue was money. We could actually compare these two jobs if you want to. I mean, I think, I think the perception here is, is more interesting than what he's actually alleging. I think he's grasping at straws because he's trying to make himself kind of move into a savior complex role. But, you know, the real issue here is the actual money and those, the kids that, the kids that ended up at Ole Miss the last two or three years were from a larger national footprint than they ever have been and I would say better compensated than a lot of teams in the sec. Some that might surprise you.

[A]

Yeah, I will, I will make this point. And when I did the story on Chambliss, I asked every single member of the Chambers family if they had any concern about sending their son to play at the University of Mississippi, specifically with the Mississippi part.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It was a no all the way across the board. Right. I don't know if I want to extrapolate fully from that, but I think that for A lot of the people surrounding Ole Miss, they thought they'd finally beat the rap, right? That we are, we are so far removed from the images of the flags on sticks and everything else that if you're a certain age, you don't necessarily know why Ole Miss as a name lands with me the way, like why would I think of the University of Mississippi differently than I think of Mississippi State necessarily without the flags waving. Everything else, I think they thought that they had beat the rap. And then Lane, I think they need to listen to Lane on this and be like, oh, wait a minute. So this was still coming up except nobody trusts Lane when he talks. And that, that I think is the part that sets them up. But I do want to break here and then come back because I do want to talk to you about comparing the jobs because when Lane left, I had some questions about how much better the job was that he was going to. We'll talk about that coming up next. You can predict the playoff action all the way to the finals with FanDuel predicts. All you have to do is sign up to get your $25 bonus. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes and misses. Every move is a potential plot twist. Predict the spread, the total points and even the game winning moments that make the playoffs where one run, one rebound, one shot changes everything from opening tip to the final buzzer. Stay locked in with every pass, every play and every moment that moves us closer to crowning a champion. Sign up now for your $25 bonus on FanDuel Predicts offered by FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC, a registered Futures Commission merchant. 18 plus bonus is non withdrawable and expires 7 days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. Restrictions apply. See [e-mail] predicts bonus offer terms. All right, we are back here with Stephen Godfrey and Laid making it is really funny listening to LSU versus Ole Miss on who the real racist is, right? It's the Spider man meme, right? Everybody, everybody's sitting here pointing at each other in this way. And by the way, the argument that LSU has on its side in recruiting is actually board of Racism which is the big school full of black people on the other side of 110, right? Like it's all weirdo southern back and forth stuff as it goes. But Ole Miss, I think they got to look at it this way too, that in the pay for play era this helps them overcome the past more than anything ever Did. Because now we're just talking about cold hard cash. That's.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because in application you're probably going to a school that's going to feel racist at points no matter where you go. Any of these schools, let alone the SEC. Right. But just about any of them. But LSU's advantage had always been a school with a whole bunch of football players who all go to LSU when the time has come. Right. If, if they don't go to lsu, it's typically because LSU did not want them. But University of Mississippi have been better than them clearly for the last couple of years. And it raised the question, how much better in this day and age is the LSU job really? I don't have the answer. I still think the LSU job is better. But how much better? I think you've got more insight in if it's better at all. To you.

[B]

Yeah. And I'm going to start my response by agreement. Say I don't know. Exactly. And I, and I think, I think it would be ridiculously disingenuous for anybody to try and grade some of these jobs right now.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The reality is that we are taking 80 years of history of one sport and then we're cramming three years of context to a new landscape and trying to make these things work together. They're not going to. Usually if you have a larger state population, you have a larger state university with more enrollment, admission standards are fair. And what I mean, I mean that from a football player sense. I'm not like going to dress that up. It's easier to get in LSU than it is to get into Texas or Virginia or North Carolina. Right. So if you have those headwinds, you have a state full of football fans and a traditional football foot like footprint, then if the numbers are higher in column A than they are in column B, then you go with column A. But what is upended the sport is the success of Indiana, the ascension of a program like Ole Miss. The concept even two years ago. Look at a program, look, look at, look at Illinois, look at South Carolina. Right. We're seeing this. We're, we're.

[A]

I mean even Miami's return, Miami should

[B]

not have ever returned by the standards of the Saban era of college football. Right. They had not, they had nothing to offer that the champions of those eras could. And what you're seeing at Alabama right now is I think just a. I'm not joking, Bo. Like they're bordering on existential crisis because none of the parameters that built the Saban standard are even applicable. To the modern game. I said this this morning on my Yahoo show and, and like my Andy Staples, my co host, he was like, oh, God, you know, I don't know if Saban's, I don't know if Saban's like a 10 game winner if he's coaching right now, because none of what they did in the way they built their depth and the style of football they played by hoarding talent. It's closer to the 1960s than it is to 2023. Okay, so to answer your question for the history of the sport since the SEC was fully desegregated, the answer should be lsu. And I think right now, gun to my head, May of 2026, the answer is still LSU. But I do think the margin has, has decreased and it's decreased noticeably at some of these schools.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That, that I think is the answer. Now how this plays out and what the ROI is on Lane is going to be hard to measure because they're paying him a king's ransom and salary. But it's not, it's really just going to come down to how well can they fund and manage that nil apparatus. And I want to be clear. One more thing. It's not just about the money y' all throw in. It's not about, hey, we got 80 million and this, and this team's got 40 million. Because I keep saying this and people don't believe me, Indiana was not the, that's not the biggest payroll in college football. Wasn't close. Okay? They, they are paying their kids well and they are doing a good job of it. But I am telling you for a fact, you can't. Look, if you could throw money at a problem and win in college football, we'd be talking about Texas A and M's 15th national title and they ain't got none.

[A]

All right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like the, to me, in the old paradigm, LSU should have been the best job in America.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Top five. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I used to say Texas was the best job, but the part that I misunderstood about Texas for all those years was Texas is only close to Texas. Like, it's really difficult to go get somebody even from, call it Baton Rouge, whatever, to go to Austin. That's a really long drive. Right. Like the nature of it. And there are all these other schools in the area or whatever you got to fight with. Oh, you in the north of all of these things. LSU has a great. And I think Georgia was also on this list. Right. Like Georgia and lsu, I think are right next to each other because they have proximity to talent, not just in their own state, but also regionally. And then a big enough name that when you really needed to, could go out nationally and you could get somebody in. And for LSU and Georgia, for the longest time, you could just say, anybody from our state, we want. Ohio State was in a very similar situation. If they're. They're around here, we can go ahead and we can get them. But now that money is involved, and like you said, the big thing is it's the second level of the depth chart that doesn't look like it used to. For the powers.

[B]

It's not possible. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

You can't. You can't. You can't do that sort of stuff anymore. So now that you can't do that and it then becomes about the money. What also becomes really important to me is how good a coach your. Your coach actually is. So like in basketball, where you could just roll the ball out there and make it happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Running counter to. What I'm saying is that Mario Cristobal got to a national championship game. So maybe you can roll the ball out here and make it happen. But the value of the coach to me should actually get a little bit higher, though less as the acquirer of talent than the person who actually maximize

[B]

the problem compounding all of this is that we are trying to logically pick apart a value set. We're trying to do is ascribe value to the different categories. Coaching, coaching, university capacity, nil, roster construction and players. College football has a disease, especially in the south, and that is that they are addicted to statues. They. They want to take coaches and they want to burnish their myth into something that's bigger than life. How this is born out should go without explanation. But just in case you're new here, there is the statue built. Statue building culture is. It's based on building icons out of the white man in charge. It always has been. You could say it's less or more about race, depending on how you want to frame it. That's fine. But look, there's no statues of players in Tuscaloosa. None. Think about all the players off the top of your head that you can that are in the NFL. Right. Just right now, just for 10 years.

[A]

And it's funny because by comparison, they got a statue of all three Selman brothers at Oklahoma. Afflicted.

[B]

As an Atlanta fan, I am Quintores Lopez Jones is to me the greatest physical wide receiver I've ever seen in my life. No statue in Tuscaloosa None. Yeah, but his coach has a statue. Yeah, and the coach before him has a statue. So I'm not just. I'm not picking here. I'm trying to explain that there's going to be a serious and brutal detox amongst those who write checks that make things happen. To understand that dumping money at the feet of one man who never tackles, who never throws the ball to fix the problem and become the standard is no longer applicable. It will not yield you successful. I need everyone listening or watching to understand there is a reason Nick Saban stepped down as quickly and as vehemently as he did. He knew immediately that the jig was up immediately. Okay, the first second after they lost to Michigan in the Rose bowl and some of his players matriculated in and so wanted to start talking about their deals. Okay, Scooby Doo villain, time. That mask came off. I gotta go, right?

[A]

I'm out.

[B]

Because I can't bully, I can't stockpile. All right? And I can't suck out the resources from the surrounding areas. You know what made Alabama a behemoth under Nick Saban was the city of Atlanta and the state of Florida. But you can't do that anymore because you can't have bo. I'm not kidding. Alabama, towards the end, didn't cheat. I'm kind of like the expert at this, like, throughout my career on Bagman. They really didn't cheat that much towards the end of the Saban era.

[A]

You know why they have to.

[B]

They would do this. They would walk in with a piece of paper and they would lay it down on the table. What position do you play? Right guard. Okay, what position do you play? Outside linebacker. What are you, a nickel? Great. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 guys who have played that position are, are in the league right now. Of those six guys, maybe three are on their second contract. There was no other. There was nothing else that could supersede that. I don't care if Ole Miss or Auburn or somebody else had a bag of cash in a parking lot. That was the clearest path to becoming a millionaire. To becoming a person who could actually receive and distribute life changing wealth to their family. And now you can receive life changing wealth for your family. Your junior year, Dante Moore stayed at Oregon instead of going to the jets, full stop.

[A]

Right. Trinidad Chambers went back to Ole Miss.

[B]

Yeah. Because it's a much better financial move. So now we go back to talking about Ole Miss. We talk about lsu. I don't care where the school is. If you organize the money well. Hey, man, There ain't no D tackles in Oregon, right, bro? There ain't nobody fucking. I'm sorry. This is like the high school football in Eugene. Are you kidding me?

[A]

That year they played against Auburn in the national championship game. One of their starting defensive tackles was 255 pounds.

[B]

Yeah. And now they're cherry picking the same guys that George is. They're cherry. Dan Lanning is not doing anything that Kirby Smart is not. So now it's about an arms race and who can best utilize the infrastructure. But when I say these things, the default setting for college football fans, especially in the south and Midwest, who are predominantly still white, middle or upper class, is to default to the idea of, we got. We need the right coach. We need the right coach. But what if you don't? I mean, I'm serious. What if you don't? I am not. I'm not NBA versed. I never covered the NBA in my career. But I know this when you're building a championship, dude. So I'm a Hawks fan. How much am I putting on Quinn Snyder to make this run right now? Right? How much am I putting on Quinn Snyder? How much am I putting on Jalen on the floor?

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's. If that mentality were to bleed over into this sport, I think the culture of college football would change tremendously in a way that a lot of people don't want to for, you know, reasons.

[A]

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because Signetti just got a gazillion dollars that seems to be very well earned because the idea of Indiana's national champion and it's a bunch of his guys. Right. And, you know, it was. And like you said, they weren't. I'm sure that Michigan was spending more money on players than Indiana was, yet Indiana had what was clearly the best team in the Big Ten. Yeah. So I'm still, at this point, inclined to believe that it matters somewhat. The guy obviously needs to be shaking in his boots is Ryan Day. Because now it is officially like, dude, we can get. We literally can get anybody to do this now. Anybody in the world.

[B]

I would say him. I would say crystal ball. And then. And then contextually, I would say, because of what's going on in Austin, I would say Sark is. Sark is in a very interesting situation.

[A]

Yes. Oh, he better. This is the year, buddy.

[B]

If it ain't, your ass is out. In fact, I'll go one further, and I guess this would be newsmaking of some degree. Having covered the sport for a long time, Will Muschamp coming Over is very interesting to me. Will Muschamp had a cat bird ideal retirement gig. Right. So he's got one son playing for Vanderbilt. He's with his buddy Kirby. He works whenever he wants to. He's in an ideal situation at his alma mater. There's no pressure on him whatsoever. Georgia. He is going over to Texas this year, I think, because there's enough palace intrigue to where this is kind of a thing that 8 smart ads do. If they know if they can smell even the slightest bit of blood going into a season with expectations, they need to know where that interim is going to be. There is a ton of pressure on Steve Sarkeesian right now. Massive amount. At least Ryan Day has the hardware.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That might buy him. If you're comparing the two, that might buy him a little bit more time.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Because the Ohio State is interesting because the fans firmly believe that is the machine that does this, but not the coach, which is a fair point. I will just simply note that every coach that has ever done it at Ohio State is in the hall of Fame. And the guys that have not done it are not Earl Bruce, not in the hall of Fame. John Cooper, not going to anybody's hall of Fame. All the other guys, if you. To make it work. It does seem to be a Hall of Fame job that we all think that we could make the hall of Fame if we manage to get it.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Texas is an interesting job because it's. I mean, one guy has maxed it out ever. And Mack did not max it out. Matt got to the mountaintop that one time, but Mac did not max this job out. In Royal, I would argue. I think they won those championships in, like 61 and 63. But the big thing was, and it's impossible to explain this to people, they broke out the wishbone for the first time in the middle of a season, and they won 30 games in a row. It was. It was like the first iPhone. Nobody had ever seen it before.

[B]

It's like, yeah. If the air raid had been dropped in, like, between. Between playsets. Like, yeah. Yes. Like.

[A]

And given to a legitimate power.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

When they did it. Yeah. But nobody has maxed it out since. And everybody has been like, you know, there's really no excuse for this thing not being maxed out now. The excuse that they have for much of the time, very similar to the Ole Miss excuse. You said a tweet about this once Ole Miss looks at Alabama is like, how come we're not as good as you? The same way Texas looks at Oklahoma and says, how come we're not as good as you? And the ANSW is your own racism. It's done you in for a very, very, very long time. In fact, in 2020, when the world was trying to change everything, Texas is like, them boys gonna put their toes on the line and sing that. Sing our racism, Carol. That's what they're gonna do. Yes, they are.

[B]

So let's back up for a second. Let's talk about LSU and Ole Miss for a second. Why is ls why. Why do we have all of those numbers in column A that says LSU is a better job? It's because of state population. It's because of the state economy. It's because the amount of disposable income available for a particular nil donor. Like, all of these numbers add up for a reason. So now let's talk about the state of Alabama and the state of Georgia and the state of Mississippi. They all sit next to each other, right? Okay. One of those states had a capital city that. That aggressively, and I'm not saying perfectly, but I'm saying aggressively, endeavored to better their racial dynamic, to welcome not only. And this wasn't, by the way, none of this is altruism. I want to be really clear here. I'm not sitting here talking as like a. As a cookie cutter white liberal. This was about making money. But this is ultimately what we're talking about as well. When it comes to football, it's about money. So the state of Georgia and the city of Atlanta 30, 40, 50 years ago said, you know what? You know what's more profitable than. Than holding on to the old ways and fighting the good fight against the minorities, making some money, right? So the city and state government for a time, with Atlanta and Georgia locked arms and said, hey, every European business, you know what we are. Air travel's the future. We're going to be the way station for the world. We're going to bring in all these German and Dutch and English businesses. We already have every interstate in America and every train yard that comes through here. Guess what? That trickles down to Bo in 2026. The University of Georgia is damn near a professional football team for that reason. Because they have the city of Atlanta, that population, and specifically that urban population, as we say in white circles, in case we're worried about someone maybe overhearing it, it's an urban population that creates football players. Okay, so why does Mississippi not have any of that? Because they didn't do any of that 40, 50, 60 years ago. So if you just look at Ole Miss and LSU is. Louisiana is not a racially harmonious instant institution by any stretch. Right. New Orleans has its problems. Baton Rouge has its problems. But Mississippi stands alone as the forefront example of staring at progress. Staring at progress with all its potential financially. I'm not talking about anything other than financial for a second. Okay. I'm not doing that Pollyanna shit and saying, guess what? And then they pull out a gun and shoot themselves in the foot. Twice. Yeah, twice over. So to go all the way back around, Kiffin ultimately made a financial decision. LSU's paying him more. They're promising more in Nil. The reason they're doing that is because there are fewer people and fewer millionaires in Mississippi. And then when we ask ourselves why, we gotta start talking about things that we don't like to talk about.

[A]

Yeah. And Mississippi used to have the most millionaires per capita in America, but that was back when the industry was, you know, was configured a little differently. You make a great point about Atlanta, because it's something that I hadn't really thought about until this moment, as you said it. But just about every city in that main drag of the south has tried to. Every state in that main drag of the south has tried to choke out its major city. Louisiana has historically tried to choke out New Orleans. Tennessee has done it with Memphis. Alabama has done that with Birmingham. It is criminal what Mississippi does with Jackson. Atlanta is the only one where the state did not decide to kill it. There are some very interesting trades in order to make it work that way, but they did not decide to kill it and look at what the results were.

[B]

Yeah. And when you have some billionaire business come from out of town, they have to have a city for the infrastructure. This is like. I feel like we're now in a sociology class. But all of this factor, the reason I work in football, the reason why I work in college football specifically, is I can tell you any story in the world with college football. You may not want to hear it, and I may have to dress it up a lot more football for you to get the medicine down. But we can sit here and talk about the economic destruction of the south, the advancement of a place like Atlanta. It all factors into football. That's why the SEC championship's in one city and it's not in another. Birmingham's a great example. If anything, Alabama's football success stands in contrast to the economic, social and racial development of the state of Alabama. It almost is impossible at times to rectify.

[A]

I'll ask you this before we get out of here. Do you have any plans to be in Oxford? I believe it is the third weekend in September when Lane is going to make his return because I'm kind of tempted. I kind of always want to see what it's going to be. All bags. They are hot down. They are salty down there. Even Trinidad Chaplain, who is not salty. I asked him in the game was he knew the date and he sucked his lip when he said it. He was ready to rock for that one.

[B]

No, I got a 4K television. Look, I am. I am an Ole Miss expat. I have logged my time and I want nothing to do with that. I'm married into an LSU family. I'm more than aware of the circumstances and all that. I'm sure I'll be writing and podcasting off of it. But as a, as of this moment, no. No one has put an amount of money in front of me that's going to make me go deal with that nonsense.

[A]

I'll tell you this about lsu. You mentioned this in marrying into the family, and I do think they do a good job of this in their public presentation. They have married in, like, just enough elements of kind of HBCU football culture, all the way down to playing, talking outside of your neck and everything else. And you get the white lady at the White House dancing to get to get and all of that stuff. And that combined with the South Louisiana accent, they do project the image of being cooler whites than the others, like, you know, very particular way.

[B]

It's not. It's not white. I mean, I'm going to be very careful how I say this, because I married a white. I married a white woman from Louisiana who has Cajun heritage. It's not Southern white. It's not. It's not wasp. I'm just telling you. So, like I was born a wasp, a white Anglo Saxon Protestant from the South. It is not. And amongst whites, they will talk about this like it is. It is something else slightly off. Now, when it comes time, of course, in a moment of reckoning, you know how that, you know how that does fall. I'm not trying to push that, but it is not the planter class of Mississippi or, you know, the, the cracker, the sort of cracker genetics of where I'm from in Georgia, it is not the same kind of white person. Just like I may, I would maybe advance that further. On the other side of the spectrum, if you go to East Tennessee, you go to Kentucky. That also is a completely different culture, by the way, and by the way, as far as I'm concerned, if I'm on the committee, still, scariest white folks in the world.

[A]

Oh, buddy, I made. I've made that eastern Tennessee Drive that i64 across.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is southern Indiana and eastern Kentucky are the only two places where I was like, I need to hurry up and get back in the car.

[B]

Yeah. And if, by the way, if anybody thinks all this is some sort of racial reckoning for the sec, Indiana just won the national title. I don't know how much time people spent in Indiana, but, like, let's not kid ourselves, okay? No, no.

[A]

That's where. This is a long discussion for another day. But I understand the arguments that people make about, well, what if these boys from the south stop going to SEC schools in protest of the. The redistricting things that we've seen. And it's like. You mean. And go to these other places that would do the exact same thing if they had these. If they had those dynamics? I mean, I get your point. I'm just telling you, you're going to another. The only reason Colorado is not Mississippi is Colorado is not 37% black. If it was, Colorado would be Mississippi. That's just letting you guys know.

[B]

And that's the weird dynamic that happens in white circles where you get talked down to by white liberals from, like, Connecticut, you know, suburbs. And. And you kind of have to walk a line if you're on my side of the fence as a white, where you're like, hey, look, I appreciate what you're saying. You also have absolutely no context for what it's like to grow up in a multiracial environment because everything was brought to you as a documentary or a textbook. The actual dynamic is very, very different. Very different. It reminds me of. I think it was you that I had this conversation with when Jamel Hill was advocating for the boycott of these programs and that for all these NFL players or future NFL talent to go to the HBCUs again. The only template I can use here, the only. The only thing I can reduce this to, the only metric that matters, because it's. The only thing that will actually affect change, is money. And I'm not saying that because I don't have a soul. I'm saying that because I know I am incredibly critical of the ruling class, and I know what's going to happen. I don't understand that boycott. And somebody on social media keeps hitting me up about. I know what you're talking about is the same as her proposition that everyone should go like, all of a sudden these five star wide receivers should start playing for Grambling or Valley. Why are we making this labor class take the hit? Yes. Like, like financially. Why is a five star receiver denying himself the ability to, you know, iron sharpens, et cetera, play in the big two conferences and then get it, you know, go to the NFL? Why should he assume that financial burden? And so it's the same thing right now to take it all the way home for Ole Miss. If you're a black player right now and you're considering Ole Miss versus X other SEC school, make sure the money's right. That's it. And then make sure your NFL path is straight.

[A]

Yeah. The point I made about the HBCU thing was my favorite college football example to tell you everything you need to know about how shit works. When the State of Alabama or University of Alabama system would not allow Jimbo Fisher to take that job at UAB in 2007, some think it's because they wanted him to be Saban's offensive coordinator. Some think it's because that search at the time was going so poorly that they were afraid that UAB would have a better coach than Alabama and they could not. That was before Saban was a Hail Mary hire. People don't remember that. It wasn't supposed to go that way. Rich Rodriguez was supposed to be the guy to take that job. But anyway, I say all that to say if the state stepped up to stop UAB from getting Jimbo Fisher, I don't know what you think they were going to do to stop Alabama State.

[B]

Bo, I can. I bet your producer's laughing right now because right before we started I told him that is the perfect segue for me to come back on the show in about two months because I may or may not have a miniseries cooking on that exact story. So that was.

[A]

That was perfect.

[B]

I appreciate the serendipity there. But yes, I'll be back very soon to talk a lot about uav.

[A]

Hey, that is Stephen Godfrey. I didn't rattle off all the places you could find him at the start. You can find him at Yahoo. Which podcast are you doing now? Because I know you got like three of them.

[B]

Yes, Yahoo. College Football Inquirer is where I appear weekly. Phantom island. Myself and Ryan Nanny Phantom island show. And I got a bunch of miniseries coming out this summer. I will be back to bug you guys to go listen to him, but I appreciate the time. Box.

[A]

Hey, man. Appreciate you. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the Right Time we do this four days a week. Ryan Brumley handed everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Bomanijoneslive.com Check us out. Live show May 15th in Atlanta. Hit the voicemail line. 323-596-7767. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. And we'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.