← The Ryen Russillo Podcast
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
NBA Finals Preview and Prediction. Plus, the State of College Football with Bruce Feldman.
01:27:20
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- [00:00]
Ryan Rosillo
This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Summer is almost here. The days are getting longer and warmer, which means it's time to update your outdoor space and make it feel more like yours. I remember the days of looking at catalogs and wondering, could my outdoor space look like that? And I'll admit there's a few times where I was like, this fire pit looks better in Malibu than it does in West Hartford. And when it showed up, I was like, yeah, but things are different now because I'm using Wayfair. I just ordered myself a pair of patio floor lights. They're actually solar, if you want to know the truth. So I looked at them on Wayfair. I was like, will my place look this good? And I'm telling you, they come in fast. Free delivery, safe package. Well, I take the packaging off, I try not to tear through it because the delicate light escape mechanism on it. And I set them up and I went, I can't believe I was living life without these. I started looking at lanterns going, is it bad to have too many lanterns out here by the fire pit and grill? Because call me a lantern guy. I don't know if I want it to be my nickname, but I'm a lantern guy from now on. And Wayfair set it up. The options are endless. I keep looking at it. It's becoming a problem. But Wayfair was that easy and had that many options for me and for you. If you want to improve your outdoor patio area, there's something for every style in every home. So no matter your space or budget, Wayfair makes it easy to tackle your summer home goals with endless inspiration for every space and budget, including the outdoors. So don't wait until summer's in full swing. Shop a huge selection of outdoor furniture online this summer. Get outside of wayfair. Head to wayfair.com right now. That's w a y f a a I.com wayfair every style, every home. New structure to the podcast. A little bit here, so the intros will be a little bit longer. We have a breakdown of the last regular season game between the Pacers and the Thunder. I went back and watched it last night and end this morning. Not twice. Little carryover boy was tired after a terrible round of golf. But let's. Let's dig into it. There's no chat, so that does change some things. But I do think there's two things. I'd say there's two specific things that I thought were really interesting on the OKC side of things. We're also going to talk with Bruce Feldman, who is on top of college football. I am less interested in college football right now because of the new playoff proposal and what that'll mean, and we're all to fight about it and yell and say mean things, but Bruce and I are going to do that because we're friends and we've got life advice. I enjoyed this one Today you're listening to the Ryan Rosilla podcast presented by FanDuel. America's number one sportsbook has made it easier than ever to get in on the action during the NBA Finals. And with live betting, the tip off is just the beginning. Look for the live SGP tab on the Fandom Sportsbook app and build your bet slip. Then sit back and enjoy the game as you track the outcome of your parlay right in the app. If you don't already have it, download the FanDuel app today to make every moment more the Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 and older and present in select states or 18 plus in present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 100 GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.
- [03:38]
Bruce Feldman
We'Re.
- [03:38]
Ryan Rosillo
Going to change the schedule around this week. Normal Tuesday, because you're listening because it's Tuesday. And then we're going to do show number two this week on Friday after Game one of the NBA Finals. It starts on Thursday night. So what I wanted to do, and I touched on this with Bill on Sunday's pod is I wanted to go back and watch the Thunder hosting the pacers back on March 29th. OKC won that game 132 to 111. Pacers had been on a roll, really closed the season strong. I think they closed 15 and 4. I don't know that anybody really was at OKC's level, but certainly you can go through all these different Pacers timelines of when they had the injuries, when they were what, 9 and 14, 10 and 15, not having Neesmith for a couple months. But the matchup in this one, Chad had been on hip management, so he did not play in this game. So for OKC there was no chat, there was no Jalen Williams 2. They actually played Brandon Carlson and Dylan Jones in the first half, so it wasn't garbage time for them. And then Hartenstein left the game with a bit of a hip thing, but he was back two days later and I was wondering. And maybe they just shut him down at the half because it was something that the Pacers were definitely attacking. Or maybe they were attacking because they didn't feel like he was responding well enough. So OKC went small in the second half. So just a few things to pick from here. I don't know how much it means, but let's go through it together, shall we? Defensive assignments for this one on SGA was Nemhard. Dort had Siakam on him, Hartenstein had Turner on him. Wallace started because of no chat. So Halliburton defended him. And then N. Smith was on Jalen Williams, number one. On the other side of things, Halliburton had Dort on him. SGA defended Nemhardt, Wallace was on niecemith, Hartenstein actually defended Siakam. That was their preferred matchup. And then Jalen Williams one defended their center and Miles Turner. Now, as we know, over the course of the game, especially coming off of turnovers or misses, a bunch of times people end up with different people. Um, but that seemed to be, as I would check it at other times, the general defensive assignment that they wanted to go through. And again, the no check thing makes some of this irrelevant. So the pacers got up 10 early in this one, some good three point shooting, and then they were down 22 two quarters later. So going into the fourth, down 22 after being up 10 in the first, a couple themes from this felt like there was more Halliburton off the ball, which I just think is smart and it's really simple. And some coaches don't do it, some guards just don't do it. It could be on the guards to figure it out, it could be on the coaches. But if you're going up again against a really good defense, especially when you're playing the same team in a row in a series like this, to just start at the top and then just attack from the top and have the attack look the same all of the time. And the other team getting used to your tendencies, it's really smart and it makes it a lot easier for the guard or your best player in this case, with Halliburton, just try to start him off the ball. It seemed like something they were working with a little bit where, you know, there was a lot of tj, there was some Nemhardt stuff. You know, Halliburton ends up with the ball a ton to begin with, but just to have him come straight at you, high pick and roll, play it to one side over and over and over again, it becomes way too predictable. And SGA actually felt like he was off the ball a little bit more. He would be in some of the other series. So we've already talked about the benefit of how you can attack off of that stuff if you're looking for this. It looked like Indiana wanted Harenstein as much as possible. Like, it was a lot like, let's get into this, let's switch into him. And I, you know, at the time I had to go back and look that he was removed from hip soreness because when they start Kenrich Williams in the second half, I was like, is there, is there something there? They felt like they didn't like that approach or is it just as simple as his hip was hurting him. But again, he did come back play a couple games later, so it wasn't really that big of a deal. So when they bench, or again, I shouldn't say bench, when Hartenstein leaves the game, doesn't come back in. They're starting the second half. OKC goes small with Kendrick Williams. Pacers immediately. First two possessions, first two touches, they want to go to Turner. It starts to look good. But I do think that OKC wants you to become that predictable. It's like, hey, we're going small. So now they're going to try to get it into their big guys and we're going to make it tough on them with the entry passes. You know, we're going to defend the passer so he doesn't get a clean passing lane. And then we're going to have somebody kind of sneak over a little bit because you think you have the size advantage and now you're running your offense through Miles Turner. We're swarming around him, so keep doing it if you want to. And once it looked like it was kind of a good matchup for the Pacers, nobody ever really does this anymore, even when they have the size mismatch in the post, because teams are just, they just don't want to do that anymore in this league. But there was a pretty interesting scenario a few plays later where Siakam threw a lob into Turner. And it was just a way too casual regular season lob where OKC is like, awesome. You know, it's like the safety running over the corner has Turner. The safety comes running over with OKC's defense. That leads you to turnover. And then there was another player where Siakam get SGA in a switch. So Siakam's like, cool, I'm going to work them. I'm going to Post them, beast him up. And it's like, all right, but you can't do it too long against this Thunder defense because you dick around in the paint. As we've talked about all season long, there's going to be another guy coming for you. And that led to a turnover there too. Without sga, the Thunder actually did some nice damage in this game in some of the non SGA minutes. So this is something that I will be looking for and I don't think has anything to do with Chet not playing. Is Jalen Williams on the attack? He did not care. He was so aggressive in this game and it was, I'd say, a little alarming for Nismith who you think body type wise and because of his defensive abilities and his intent. I mean, Neesmith just plays at 100 miles an hour every single minute he's out there. Well, Williams didn't care and it felt like he got him a bunch of possessions that I was tracking this one looking at it kind of in the second quarter stretch without having SGA in the game. He has him three point line right past him on the dribble, then gets him with a step back. Then he finishes against Siakam on the fast break and like went at Siakam at the rim as he was going the fast break. Then he shakes Niecemith with a dribble on the right side. He did miss that shot. Then it was another fast break against two defenders, one including Siakam, and he finished against them. Third quarter against Neesmith. He gets him left side, full drive and just gets side by side with him and just takes him and finishes right at the rim for the N1 and the finish. SG had 33 points in this game, but he was only 6:18 in the first three quarters. DID had 12 free throw attempts, which isn't going to excite Pacers fans. But this was a really like. Of all the things I was looking for, wondering like, are you going to get anything out of this exercise? That was something that was kind of like, all right, you know, let's, let's see. Is there something where Jalen Williams is like, hey, with my size and athleticism against Neesmith, where Neesmith can usually body up with a lot of other guys, it doesn't look like Jalen Williams cares about that at all. And he was very successful in the stuff that I was looking at there. So, you know, we can look at some of the overall stats from this game. You know, I don't, I don't know that it matters. Pacers actually took More free throws in this game. Rebounds are basically even. Pacers had a couple more turnovers. But I would say the most alarming part of this for the Pacers, and clearly I'm picking okc, as most people are in this series. But the thing that we love about the Pacers, the things we loved about them in this Knick series where it just felt like there was that extra gear the Knicks could not match with the Pacers and getting out, getting out after makes, all of those times you're joking about, like you, you think you're like you're coming back from some commercial or something, or they show a replay. It's like you can't really do the cutaway shots with this team because they're moving the ball so quickly in this game. OkC was the faster basketball team. They were pushing it more, they were pushing it after makes. They were getting three point attempts off of that push. They had a nice little Isaiah Joe run where he kind of put back to back threes together. That really kind of spaced the game out. So if you're a Pacers fan, just going, hey, we're fast, we're going to run with them, they're not going to be able, like, that's the one way, because I've heard that talked about it, just paced them to death. Meaning OKC in this game back in March, OKC was faster, they were more aggressive. And that part should be a little concerning. Now. Look, after watching playoff basketball for a month and a half, even this game with a great team in OKC and this Pace team that have been playing really, really well now for months, it was a bit of a reminder of what regular season basketball looks like. Like, oh, you know, I hadn't watched a full regular season basketball game now in a month and a half. And after everything that we've watched and how great the Pacers have been and what OKC was able to do against Minnesota, we're like, okay, this does look like a different product here. It was just kind of jarring for a bit. Just a lack of intensity. Again, a little too casual. Some of the passes, I think some of the stuff that certainly the Pacers will clean up. I don't think they're going to look like they did in some of the possessions that I saw from this game. Now, you know, this is a regular season run from the Pacers that, you know, you can get lost like, oh, it ended up being the four seed, four seeds historically in the finals. I don't even know if that means anything, but there's not a ton of success from four seeds. I don't think it matters. But you know the Pacers here In the playoffs, 12 and four, the number two offense in the playoffs. Cleveland is still actually the number one highest rated offense in the playoffs because that Miami series was so gross. Indiana has been the best shooting team, they've been the best assist team, they've been the best three point shooting team. OKC is 13th and three point shooting, which I mentioned last week. Like the craziest part of this is that they're one of the few teams that we've seen playoff wise the last few years because this defense is so special that a lot of teams is like, hey, how'd you do in the series? We hit 38% of our threes. We're moving on. They hit 30. You know, like it's sometimes it's just as simple as that. OKC doesn't need to make a ton of they can have a bad three point shooting night and still win a game. That also is a little bit scary. But here's something else. OKC has played faster in the playoffs than the Pacers have. Number two to number three. Memphis is number one overall. Turnovers. The Pacers, Halliburton, they take care of the basketball. But OKC has actually been better with the basketball and turnover rate. Indiana's been at number three. Now look, I'll say it one more time. Chet didn't play. So it changes the defensive assignments. It changes whether or not the Pacers are going to have anything going with the small ball because OKC may just say, hey, our small versions just chat. So have fun with that Hartenstein minutes. He played less against Minnesota than he did in any of the playoff series. 20 minutes a game closed the last three games at 19, 16 and 17 minutes. He's also ninth in net rating for OKC regulars. You could argue there's 11 regulars for OKC. You could also argue it's really nine. But he's last net rating. Maybe net rating means something, maybe it means nothing. But maybe they're playing him less. But if you look at Minnesota and you go, all right, it's this one big who is. Rudy's a different big certainly than Miles Turner is. But does this mean we're going to see more of the same or Chet has developed enough and shown up in some of these really big moments, including that closeout game against Minnesota where now Degnalt's just totally comfortable with him and that's why we're seeing less Hartenstein minutes or Is it going to be something where we see less Hartenstein minutes because we saw the Pacers attack him so much. When I'm referencing back to this March game, the other part of this that I think is important, the bench guys from the Pacers staying on this net rating thing. We might be confusing familiarity with success or we might be using familiarity to suggest that it's successful because we like this Pacer's depth. We like all these guys that come in on the whole throughout the playoffs, like four of them have been net negatives for this team. And I'm not including Tony Bradley, who actually has the best rating of anyone on this team. But Brian's a negative, TJ's a negative, OB's a negative. And look, Mathurin has been. I'm disappointed because I really like Matheran a lot and I know he had kind of that one wake up game against the Knicks, but on the whole now we'd expect all of the free throw attempts are always going to be there because he's so aggressive, but they've got to get a little bit more out of him offensively and I'm sure he will attack. So there is probably not much from that game where I'm like, all right, I've got it all figured out. Because there has to be an element of like what the Pacers have gone through here and the confidence they're feeling this group has probably never ever felt before. But the pace part of it, if you are banking on that, the Pacers are just going to be able to run the Thunder into the ground. The Thunder can run, the Thunder can do a lot of things and that's why I've been so impressed by them all season long. So I think the most important like factor in a lot of this is Also, you know, OKC's playing Denver in the second round, playing Minnesota in the third round and Pacers take out Cleveland. No doubt, you know, take care of New York, make it look actually kind of one sided once it's all said and done. But this is a massive step up from what the Pacers went through in the east in facing the team like okc. So all these numbers can be right and we can like a lot of these things that the Pacers have done. But there's no denying that it's a massive step up in a challenge. Thunder and five. The finals are here at last, folks. It's all come down to this. Don't miss your chance to bet on the legendary moments with FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook FanDuel is the best place to find all of your favorite player props. And now you can make the smarter play with new performance trends. Want to check a player's consistency during the playoffs? Or maybe they've been flirting with a potential triple double. Get the latest stats right inside the app and see who's heating up. I love the live betting when I'm in the states for it. After the tip off, that's when things get interesting. You can combine live prop bets into a same game parlay for a chance to win big. Okay, here's what I'm looking at here. Obviously I like the Thunder in the series -750. That is putting a lot on the line for turnaround there. So we're going to stay away from that. Now if you want to go over under five and a half games, I mean I'm pretty. You've heard this all from me before. I can really like a team. I just think human nature kicks into this so often and Boston got destroyed in the one game that they lost. And then it's like the difference between a five game series being awful and a six game series being really competitive which can always kind of odd to me but I almost never think anybody's going to sweep anybody just because I think I don't know if it's a thing that's newer now, it can feel newer in the moment where you'll just see pretty quickly like a team is like we're good and we're not going to try as hard tonight. So if you wanted to go over five and a half it's +120. Here's what I like. I'm going to try to correct correctly predict the series order. The most popular one is, well not the most popular one. The worst payout is just a sweep. So OKC wins game one, game two, game three, game four is plus 290. This one is plus eight 80 where it's game one and two OKC at home, game three OKC and then they drop game four and then close it out at home in game five. I'm going to go with this one. OKC wins the first two at home. Indiana wins game three. OKC wins game four and wins game five. So that one plays plus six hundred and eighty. That's just going to be my pick for this. It's really hard but I like the odds of that much better than you know, laying -750 which I don't know, I think is kind of pointless. Not what you're coming here for Is there any deeper meaning in any of this? There is part of me that's thinking OKC Minnesota a little bit. You know, take care of the first two at home. Pacers have a great home crowd. Carlisle, you know, at this point this is, this is two years of pretty deep playoff games for this group. So do they get that one at home because you have a Thunder team that's up 20 and they're matching kind of the pattern that we saw against Minnesota. That's not the best way that I've ever put together a bet, But I like + 680 a lot better than some of the other stuff. Unless you just want to go over five and a half or under five and a half again, that is plus 120 on the over and it's minus 148 under four and a half. So if you think the Pacers can get two but you don't want to bet them for the series, plus 120 actually makes a little bit more sense and I wouldn't argue against that one if you don't already have FanDuel it's not too late to get into the action. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. So just visit FanDuel.com Ryan Rye and to join today, make every moment more with FanDuel. The official sports betting partner of the NBA must be 21 and older and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. First online real money wager only $5. First deposit required bonus issued is non withdrawable bonus bets, which expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com problem call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com this episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. When I get into something, I go deep. Like seeing how I can improve my sleep routine or finding a TV show I can get lost in. Prime helps me find everything I need. Plus offering fast free delivery. Whatever it is, prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to Amazon.com prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes. This episode is brought to you by the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. With US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. That's right, every purchase. 2% cash back at restaurants, 2% cash back at the gym. Groceries. Yep, you'll earn 2% cash back on those, too. New tires, new outfits, new York City getaway all earn 2% cash back noticing a trend so whether you're splurging on concert tickets, fueling up for your commute, or shopping for that perfect birthday gift for the bestie, you'll be earning unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. Visit usbank.com smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issue of this card is U.S. bank National association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. Want to do something different here with the finals tonight? Want to talk some college football with my favorite guy to talk college football with? That's Bruce Feldman of the Athletic and of course Fox coverage of college football. Big noon kickoff. Okay. I love the sport. You know that it's probably why we're close every year. I'm starting to hate it more and more. And you know, Van Lathan and I were talking about it the other day on Bill's pod for a little bit and he goes, you know what, I'm just to the point where I just want to watch, you know, he's a Louisiana guy. He's like, I want to watch lsu, Mississippi State and just be entertain for three and a half hours. And I think that's the relationship that I'm going to have to start having with it. But I know that I can't because I talk about it religiously. It's part of the job. But the new proposals, the new playoff stuff every single year with this Bruce, it just feels like a grosser and grosser sport and probably will never get gross enough for me to not want to go to a game every single year and the same deal, watch it all day on Saturday. But yeah, it's a, it's a weird relationship for me right now for a sport that's easily my second favorite.
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Bruce Feldman
It's interesting because I'm, you hear that more and more. I think there was a lot of frustration from the fan bases around the country about they're conflicted about players getting paid. But I think they have also.
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Ryan Rosillo
I don't care about any of that, by the way. Just.
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Bruce Feldman
But, but there's layers of this. Sure. Then the part of it, it's frustration with roster management and guys in the portal. And now somebody's gone to five, you know, four or five different again, it feels more like the professional sports world. And I the, to me, the biggest thing that I'm like, I'm, I'm not a, you know, I'm always going to, I think, love college football. I love the games as much now as I did 30 years ago when I started covering it. But. And I'll give you a reference and I think you'll, you'll get this one because we're about, you know, in the same ballpark, age wise. Do you remember when Boston College beats Notre Dame? The David Gordon Kickstarter?
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Ryan Rosillo
This is like, I know where I was. I know I was in my dorm room, 1993, fall, and I used to really like Notre Dame as a little kid because that was kind of a very New England thing that you did, because they were always on tv and everybody's dad and grandfathers like Notre Dame and David Gordon also played soccer at UVM and transferred. So that was the other story. So I got to tell Lou Holtz that when I saw him, because I went to UVM and I said, did you know on that kick, and you know, Holtz is eating a hot dog and he's got like a second hot dog ready to go, and we're ESPN cafeteria, it's dead on the weekend. And I went up to him, I was like, hey, coach, you know, whatever I was did, you know, and as soon as I mentioned the kick, he goes, that kick was outside. Came back in. Was outside and it came back in. I mean, he would have thought. I mean, clearly the ghost of that whole thing. So then I had mentioned to him he was actually a soccer player where I had gone to school. And then he, like dropped his hot dog because it made. It made this moment that was that much worse. So, yes, that's the long way of saying I remember that kick.
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Bruce Feldman
So I remember that game vividly, too. And what I remembered as somebody, you know, who at the time wasn't really covering the sport. It was before I got into the sports. Sports writer world. But it felt like that game was an upset and great game by bc. Felt like that kind of ruined Notre Dame season. And so what you had like, what's up?
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Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Ruined it. Yeah.
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Bruce Feldman
And so it was like the one and done vibe that you had. I always would say college football had the greatest regular season of any of them. You know, I love NFL, I love NBA, but they're much different. They're much different dynamics. College football because of all sorts of reasons, but mostly because I feel like they're chasing the money and the TV money has, has devalued its regular season. And it's going to have. It's happening more and more now. If they go to 14 or to 16 team playoff, it absolutely will happen. Right. So you look at the, the three SEC teams that had three losses last year that didn't get in. And let's say Indiana, which took the brunt of a lot of the criticism from SEC people and from also, you know, people at ESPN in different places got in because their schedule wasn't as, as daunting. Now the, the part of that, that I, that I'm getting to is you had Alabama, three loss team, loses to Vanderbilt, gets blown out by a really mediocre Oklahoma team. You have Ole Miss, which has a really good win over Georgia and then turns around, all they have to do is beat Florida, who is unranked and not having a great year, and then beat a terrible Mississippi State team and you're in the playoff and they lose to Florida. And on top of that, they had already lost at home to a really bad Kentucky team, probably the worst team in the sec and lost to an LSU team that was unfinished, unranked. So the point was, you know, you have these teams that, yeah, they're, they're talented teams, but they've stumbled along the way more than, more than once or twice. And so it's like you're saying, okay, the regular season matters, but it doesn't matter that much. That's how I think, you know, it's, there's all pieces to me, that's the piece that I think is the one that's the most disappointing, is that the regular season gets devalued. But I get it. For a lot of people it's these new rivalries. It's, it's, the board has been overturned for all sorts of financial reasons and I get why the frustration is there. But until people push away and stop watching the games, which at this point, that we haven't seen that to enough degree, I think that they're just going to be plowing ahead.
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Ryan Rosillo
So the latest proposal, they've given themselves a deadline, so we're still going to have the same format here in 25. Just because the housekeeping part of this almost needs to be updated. Especially like when you're out of season, they are going to change the absurd seating thing that we saw in, you know, that's part of this, right? Which, you know, it's, it's really weird the way that they do this where, you know, when they went from two to four, they went from two to four because they were annoyed with everybody getting mad at them. And in fairness to whatever the system is, there's going to be pages and pages and hours and hours filled of people complaining about whatever version of this that we get. But they go to four where they immediately institute a scenario where one of the Power 5 conferences is going to go, what? What? When we still had five power conferences, why would we set up a system where we're going to immediately leave one of us out? Right. So then we have the expansion to 12 and then they have the seating thing where they everybody knew how stupid it was going to be in different scenarios and yet they go with it. And then they have to have it play out, which is another very human nature thing where we only get mad about the imperfections when the imperfections play out, not when they like hypothetically can still exist. So they're changing that. And so now all of these conversations with the SEC stuff and the scheduling which I want to get into is this idea of five plus 11 and they have a deadline of what, December 1st for this year to implement a new 16 team playoff for 26. So what can you tell us about like what actually has momentum and how the different scenarios would play out here?
- [30:19]
Bruce Feldman
Well, I think what you have is, is two different kinds of strategies. You have the Big Ten, which had their meetings out here in Southern California about three weeks ago and there was really no, no public talk about anything. You didn't have the media around it. I mean, you know, Fox is a TV partner. So we were there, but it wasn't like there were press conferences or anything like that. Then a couple of weeks later, you just had the SEC meetings last week in Destin, Florida where it is covered vigorously and Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC is out there and I think so you have the behind the scenes stuff of Tony Petiti where there's other things that are going on here also in terms of to trying to get more TV games for playing games like obviously, you know, you know the NBA model of how, you know what they're doing now all of a sudden there's going to be an element of that potentially for, you know, coming out of the big what the Big Ten wants for again, more TV inventory. And then you have the SEC which by the way only plays eight, eight conference games as opposed to nine. So not the same. But also, you know, do they want their thumb on the scale where it's going to be this many automatic bids and you don't probably need the automatic bids if the SEC or the Big Ten because it's going to probably play out that way anyway. But I think all those things now you have a lot of pushback. Yeah. You know, Greg Sankey I saw was on Dan Patrick this week a few days after the conference meetings and talking about, you know, allocations and what he wants. And it's honestly, I think for a fan, it's hard to keep track of who wants what. And I do think it is a moving target right now of this. You know, if you're the SEC, you know, and it goes to, it goes to 16, you're going to get 5 in, you know, the Big Ten probably you're going to get 4 or 5 in as well. I. But given the track record they've had, I don't think you can argue that, you know, at that point. It's just who is making the determination. You know, people are always skeptical of the committee and how this stuff works. You're not going to please everybody and what, you know, I would say a few years ago and look, Florida State was falling apart health wise. Florida State was undefeated. They get snubbed in the playoff by the CFP when it's four teams, you know, so they're expanding. But you're always going to have people aggrieved and upset and feel. And the bigger you make the playoff, the more teams are going to have an argument, to be honest. And I don't know, you know, like last year, if you look at it, I think a lot of people were like, hey, more people are going to be involved. More people are going to have a vested interest in the playoff race. It's going to keep the season more alive, which I think that was true. But it's, it's like, you know, you're squeezing the toothpaste here and it's coming out in different places or it's just kind of like it's never going to be perfect. And so what they probably sacrificed for the good of the whole regular season. I think right now it's just a lot of compromise. It's not a lot of, it's a lot of agendas being pushed around. And there's also way more, you know, it's way more transparent. I don't have transparent to way more desperation for the money because now they need to find more money because of some of the issues we talked about at the beginning.
- [33:54]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I mean we, there's a bunch of different ways we can go here, but if we keep it on the importance of, of what we saw from last year, you know, I think that regular season is devalued. When I'm watching Gus and Joel do Ohio State, Michigan, and Gus is saying this is for everything. It isn't. It isn't for everything. As we just saw Ohio State could lose to Michigan and have it be their second loss.
- [34:29]
Bruce Feldman
And they safely got in, by the way.
- [34:30]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, right. And they deserve to be in. And granted, you know, we probably had the right outcome if you want to talk about talent, about a football team. But it was a weird feeling watching Ohio State just be upset in a fashion you couldn't imagine with that team. And granted that rivalry is so intense. Like we've seen this sport enough. Some weird shit happens in those last weekends of the sport. But after it was done, like I had an empty feeling as I'm sitting there in my living room going, all right, that was crazy. And how do I want to talk about it? How did it actually happen? It's like, yeah, they're still in, they're still in and they're going to have a chance to win a national championship. So you can't ever bill that game as that game, meaning everything. I used to love that. I still do, obviously, because I go to it every year. But when Bama and LSU were at the top of their game, that felt like some kind of play in to the four team playoff. However, having said that, you're right. When Bama loses to Oklahoma, that Bama Oklahoma game means nothing. In the old system. Ole Mrs. Florida game means nothing. So you're devaluing some stuff while valuing a bunch of other stuff. And you could make an argument that the math would tell you where actually there's way more games that are going to matter at the end because the field is so much more open. I guess I'm just being a bit of a traditionalist in that I don't like these games that meant everything, not meaning that much for the loser. And that Ohio State Michigan game is the perfect example of it.
- [36:05]
Bruce Feldman
Well, also, you know, as you're saying that, it dawned on me that yes, there are games that, that are relevant for the playoff, but I think if you use the context of, you know, the teams that are again, in Ohio State was not like a three seed, right? They were in the middle of the pack because they lost two games and lost to a pretty average Michigan team, you know, with a terrible offense at home, no less, right at the end of the year. But so some of those games that are meaningful because they mean a playoff spot, but I don't know, and I'm catching myself as I say this because you're sitting there going, all right, but the teams that get in the playoff, do they really have a chance to win a national title? Right. You know, I'm sitting there going all right, well, Arizona State, who was at the bottom prediction point for the Big 12 a year ago at this time, they almost beat Texas in a playoff game. Like, that was amazing. It's an amazing job for, for Kenny Dillingham and that group. But, you know, I don't know if they won that game. Did they really have a chance to win the national title? Obviously they have a mathematical chance and you know, nobody would have thought they would have gotten as far as they did. So I think you start to factor in those teams that were like, they really don't have a chance. And you start going into these things about like, you know, the roster, you know, makeup of how much talent do they really have. Those teams have a realistic shot of winning. And I think so what we're doing is we're bringing in the Iowa states and the Arizona states. A lot of, quite honestly, a lot of Big 12 schools not say they're going to get three or four in, but you're bringing them in where they probably did not have much chance to make the four team playoff. Typically you're bringing in some other teams that are not the blue bloods then. Now they're factored in and I think so. While their games now probably matter a little more, the other games that we're talking about where it's like just devastation. And I think the Ohio State, Michigan thing, because of the Ryan Day component of that, made it different. Right? Like, like where, like how, how does he go on from this, given all this stuff? There was a fight after the game. It was just a really wild day in Columbus. But typically that gut punch loss, you know, where, you know, I use the David Gordon Notre Dame 1, this is a big example for me, obviously a different time. But there's other ones where it's like, okay, that really wasn't a devastating loss to that team's playoff hopes because they still have a couple more games where they can afford to lose again. And you're like, okay, so that's the part where as a college football person, that's the one thing that is, that is a little bit I kind of cringe about. But the, the thing you have to keep in mind too is these conferences are now so bloated that, you know, like we talked about this a lot around here because it's a USC Notre Dame rivalry has gotten a lot of chatter. And the truth of it is, you know, usc, if they want, you know, if Lincoln Riley or USC does, you know, is hesitant to play. No. Now because they're in the big Ten, it's a much more daunting path. The reality is they played less ranked teams last year than they did the year before when they were in the Pac 12 or the year before that when they were in the PAC12. Right. So it wasn't like they had a murderer's road. Now they had a lot of travel that they had to do. But you're chasing a lot of money to go in the Big Ten. That's why, you know, so it's just, it's, there's, it's just a really complicated, There's a lot of stuff that's going together and I can see why a lot of fans and a lot of people around the sport are a little uncomfortable with it.
- [39:43]
Ryan Rosillo
So the nine game part of this, which Big Ten fans never gave the Pac 10 any credit for for years and now they're the nine game heroes. And I get it like, hey, if we're playing nine games and the SEC is playing eight and they want four automatic bids in a 16 team field, I understand why they're doing it. I understand all the criticism of the SEC playing the eight games. But if I'm South Carolina's AD and we go to nine games, the first thing I'm doing is canceling Clemson forever. I'm never playing that game. You know, nobody's going to sit here and act like Georgia Tech is at Georgia's level. But you never know how cyclical some of this stuff can be. I would never schedule anyone in any Power 5 because whether it was a BCS formula or a selection committee, people have a hard time with thinking the team with the extra loss is better than the team that lucked out on their in season scheduling stuff. And to the imbalance that you talk about the expansion of these conferences, it almost feels like Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC is pointing to the history of this being like in last year I did not argue Bama, I was arguing South Carolina. Then they lose their game. The anti Indiana argument that I felt really strong about because of how they lucked out with their scheduling, it becomes kind of human nature and like, ah, you know, I don't know. Those other teams have three losses, the other losses are late. I don't think Indiana was necessarily better than those teams. But in Indiana fans take this really personally because they feel like I was on it all season long. But it's just more, it has nothing to do with Bloomington, has nothing to do with the school. It has everything to do with their circumstance and then them getting in. And history tells us that that team is always going to be favored, even though no one ever really seems to want to like dig through the schedule part of it. So if you're playing nine conference games in the Big Ten versus the eight in the sec, it's just hard for the SEC to make their argument for the automatic bids. Even though I'm going to sit here and tell you nine conference games in the SEC is almost always going to be harder than nine conference games in the Big Ten. I think most sane people would agree with that. It's a really hard argument to get past to get to some sort of resolution. Unless the SEC matches what the Big Ten is doing. Like if you want the same auto bids as that other conference. Even if we sit here and think one conference is better than the other and it's probably bad timing with the Big Ten winning back to back titles of two different teams. That's just a hard thing, I think, for Sankey to be able to sell even if, if the perception of it would be the right one, I think.
- [42:22]
Bruce Feldman
Because they're out there and they're talking and he has a, you know, he has this dossier that he's handing out to the, to the media who's around.
- [42:29]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, how about that?
- [42:30]
Bruce Feldman
Make that case, right? And look, I mean, you know, in full transparency. So, you know, Fox is so tied into the Big Ten and when you do a lot of their games, and I'm not, I'm not a game broadcaster, but I'm with Big Noon, you see a lot of these teams, you're like, oh, I think they're really good because you see them in person. Or the converse side is like, I saw Nebraska look horrible against Indiana. So you think they're probably, they're either a lot, they're. You either they're probably look a lot better than they might be or they look a lot worse than they really are because you're seeing it up close and you're seeing all the flaws and all, all that. The flip side is, you know, ESPN is more tied to the SEC than it is to any other conference. And so when those conversations are had, I think people now, because social media is what it is, I think it's a lot easier to poke holes at it. And people can make these arguments and going, no, you guys are biased about the Big Ten, you guys are biased about the sec. You don't really, you know, that's not the truth. And then I think it's, you can believe whatever you want to believe. I mean, I can, I can sit There and go. Indiana was a really good team who had a terrific year. But the way the schedule broke, I mean, they played two teams that had played in the national title the year before, but neither was anywhere near as good as they were. Right. They played Ohio State. They look good for about a quarter and then Ohio State just kind of mauled them. But the, the other part of that is use. I'm glad you brought up South Carolina as you did. Right. But like use. Look at ole misses four games. I mean Wake Forest is in there. Wake Forest was awful last year. Everybody they played was. Was bad in the non conference. So basically credit to them. They beat Georgia, who's. Who is really talented. They beat South Carolina. Now South Carolina was way different in the end of the year than they were when Ole Miss played them, you know, but again, they did blow them out and I think that's on their resume. But it's a, you know, you have these, you have these bloated conferences, so the schedules aren't going to be the same. Georgia's, Georgia's schedule was, was a meat grinder, by the way. They had Clemson at the beginning of the year and they whooped them. Right. And they, you know, but they had all they could do to survive Georgia Tech. And I don't think that was a, that was not the Georgia team that was sending eight guys every year to the, to the Philadelphia Eagles. I mean, it was a good Georgia team, but offensively there was no Bowers, there was no McConkey. So I think, you know, it was, it was an interesting year. And I feel like what ends up happening is people tend to overreact to whatever happened that year. It just is just kind of the way we are because there's just way less, there's way less of a sample size.
- [45:12]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I mean the bias thing is never going to be gone as somebody that's lived it inside of it, outside of it. It is funny to see Fox guys get shit about the Big Ten and the way that we got shit about the SEC with the espn. I would argue, I think there's times where I think Fox guys are way more pro big 10 than I ever saw ESPN guys about the SEC. But then you would just throw Herb street in the Florida State Alabama argument in my face. And we have all sorts of evidence. I'll tell you one thing ESPN could do is rework the FBI because there was some conversation from Sankey and others about do we need to go back to a formula? Like I didn't think we'd be Clamoring for the biggies, or, excuse me, the BCS calculations. Not a lot of Big east football to talk about BCS calculations years after because everybody, you know, look, whatever system you have to the original point, people are going to be upset about it. But just. Do you want to guess, because FBI was factored into, I think some of that media stuff that the sec. I don't know if you saw it or not.
- [46:11]
Bruce Feldman
Yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't think a formula or metrics is the way to go for college football. I know why it's probably more relevant other sports because there's way more of a sample size to it. But I think so much factors into what happened in that game, and teams are different in week five than they might be in week, you know, 12 in week 10. I think that it's just way different. You know, you have a. You could have a. I mean, I know this when. When Ole Miss crushed South Carolina. And this is not a knock on Ole Miss as you play whoever out, but Lenora Sellers, who by the end of the year was one of the best players in college football. But at that point, you know, he had heard you had a high ankle sprain coming out of the LSU game. He wasn't the same guy. Right. And so that's still a quality win. But I think at the time, you know, you have. South Carolina is like a three and three team. Right. So I just think that however you factor into formulas, it can't tell you a lot of the context that's around those things that. That I think matters. And I'm not sure that there's going to be no perfect way to do this. That's the. That's the, you know, the problem with all of it.
- [47:30]
Ryan Rosillo
Do you want to guess where Bama was at the end of the year in ESPN's FBI?
- [47:36]
Bruce Feldman
I will guess. I will guess. Nine.
- [47:41]
Ryan Rosillo
Four. Four.
- [47:42]
Bruce Feldman
Wow. Wow. I guess they really love that Oklahoma team. That was dreadful. 4. Look, there's no bigger Diego Cavia fan than me, but four. Wow.
- [47:57]
Ryan Rosillo
Four. Four felt high. You made a really good point, though. Like, hey, you can sit there and argue if you're the Big Ten in the SEC for the four auto bids and maybe this, you know, maybe we are in two years of a cycle of. Of the Big Ten heading towards not just winning titles, but the deepest conference. I still think that would be surprising to me.
- [48:17]
Bruce Feldman
It would be surprising to me also, too. I feel like you get, like, look, I could see maybe Penn State, this is the year that they Win it. I'm not predicting it, but I, you know, it's like they have a lot of talent back, but then where is the, you know, does that mean USC is going to get going? Washington's like, you know, those programs have been good, Wisconsin has been good. You know, I could see Nebraska getting better. But like you have such, I feel like you have depth in the top at the SEC that you don't usually have in the Big Ten. You really haven't had it in a long time. You may have had like one or two high level programs, but after that it's like when Wisconsin was good, Michigan wasn't that good or you know, like there was just, it just didn't align. And I feel like it's hard for them to build that because I don't know if they're recruiting from similar pools. So it's like if this kid's over there, then they don't have.
- [49:11]
Kyle
Yeah.
- [49:12]
Ryan Rosillo
And like I've tried to have an open mind about this because, you know, I know all the stuff that I've said over the years and arguing about the SEC and then you go, okay, well you know, this is, now they're starting to win. You know, you have the two different teams win titles, then you can certainly make arguments for more teams than I could in the past. I think Michigan State at least deserves a mention because of the stuff that he had done years ago. But you're right, you add Oregon, you know, let's see what Washington looks like. Whether that was kind of like just a blip or not. If SC can ever get this thing figured out, I don't have a lot of hope for ucla, but now there's certainly more teams you can pick from. I guess maybe when I have Matt Rule in Nebraska arguing it's clearly the best conference. Like that's the thing that'll always be like, dude, what are you doing? Anyway, here's the part where if I would side with the Big Ten, part of it is like if we're playing the nine, whatever you think of the nine and you're playing the eight, why do you get four auto bids if we're getting four auto bids? I do like your point though of like, hey look, you're probably going to get your four and another one with the four plus four, two plus two with the big 12 in the ACC, the one to the conference champ outside of those power groups and then the three at large, you're probably still going to get your four and five. So why would you get in the way of all this stuff. Yeah, that, that actually, like, there's a lot of common sense, but I can also understand them saying, like, we want this thing in writing. And the thing that's crazy, as I was reading this morning, is that there's a bit of an understanding already that the Big Ten in the SEC were going to be able to dictate some of this stuff. Some. Some memo of understanding. Right.
- [50:46]
Bruce Feldman
Yeah. They're driving the money. I think that's absolutely on. On point. The part that, you know, you sit there and take a breath on, it's like, all right, let's say we get to 16. It's not 16 out of like 135 or whatever the number is of FBS programs. It's more like 16 out of like 50 or so.
- [51:06]
Ryan Rosillo
You know, you could probably make it smaller than that too, right? Yeah.
- [51:09]
Bruce Feldman
Yeah. Now we're, we're weeding out some of the bottom of the, of the acc, but out of that, those four power leagues, you basically, you know, you don't even have to have that good of a year to make it out of the sec. You know, if it once. If and when it does go to 16, I think that's the part where like. And we need to be conditioned probably to like, you know what, you're a playoff team. But that, you know, that didn't mean that much. You know, now if you win a couple of games in the playoff, different story. It certainly means a lot to Indiana because of what their history's been like to make the playoff. But I think for other teams, like, I would argue last year, like, so Notre Dame had been in the playoff, you know, Brian Kelly had some excellent teams last year. They won games, right. They beat Georgia. They were, you know, like huge. For Marcus Freeman, not only they beat Georgia, I think he out coached Kirby Smart on that stage where they went 17 to 6. Like, I think for Notre Dame, it wasn't just getting, you know, we'd seen them in a title game. They got embarrassed right, by Alabama, you know, in Miami, whatever was 12 years ago. But last year we saw them have really impressive wins along the way. Not just beating Indiana, but, you know, beyond that, I think to get to where they got to said something, but just to get in the playoff. Now for a lot of these teams, if it does get to that point, I feel like you're going to get kind of a shoulder shrug from it. I don't think last year for anybody from Georgia was like, oh, that was a really good year for them. And once you get to 16, it's going to be even less likely for them unless the team that makes the playoff from the SEC is Vanderbilt. Other than that, like, if you're any of those other teams, you know, so what we want, you know, we won national titles or we want, you know, whatever. Like, I don't even know for Ole Miss, if they get that at 16, unless they're like a top four seed and they go on to win the playoff, I don't think it's going to be like a year where they'll be like, you know, over the moon about.
- [53:12]
Ryan Rosillo
I guess I just want to avoid any scenario. Like, I'm looking at a couple ACC schedules here, and this is stupid to do in the beginning of June. But, like, if you looked at Pitt and they played the cane, Central Michigan, they've got West Virginia. What if they were to lose at Florida State, Lose Notre Dame? They're ten and two and it's like, okay, well, they're ten and two and they're still from a power conference. And. And, you know, they. They have to get in. And like, this has nothing to do with Pitt. So I'm not making personal about Pitt. I'm just trying to run through a.
- [53:44]
Bruce Feldman
Conference where you go, isn't it.
- [53:47]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [53:50]
Bruce Feldman
Or something.
- [53:50]
Ryan Rosillo
Or whatever.
- [53:51]
Bruce Feldman
So I, I get it. Like, you would sit there.
- [53:53]
Ryan Rosillo
That's the part of 16 where then you start hearing arguments from like a group. I'm like, I haven't. I haven't seen you do anything against, like, say, maybe they're close wins or close, close wins by. You do understand what I'm saying? Florida State, it's a field goal. Notre Dame, they're writing it into the fourth quarter. I mean, this is stupid that I'm even doing this out loud, but that's the scenario that I despise. Is that then that team and then, you know, all that kind of stuff. Like B. Lima's on this heater right now about the Illini, and it's like, yeah, it's a bit like the Lane Kiffin playbook here. Just keep doing stuff and you're getting that attention everything. And their bowl game win was incredible.
- [54:37]
Bruce Feldman
Against a good team. Yeah, they beat. They. It was a fun game to watch. It was a lot of venom in it, you know, and they beat a good South. The team that South Carolina just beaten Clemson and was rolling down the stretch, I think that's a good win. And I think he is mindful of, hey, we are coming off of. You know, Illinois doesn't normally do this. I got most of my guys back. I got my quarterback back. And I think he is putting.
- [55:02]
Ryan Rosillo
You.
- [55:03]
Bruce Feldman
Know, putting them right out in front for people so people can say, hey, let's keep an eye on Illinois. And they're going to be on the radar so they don't get, you know, if they go 9 and 3 or 10 and 2, they're 10 and 2. I think it's a hard argument for, for a Big Ten team not to make it in, but because it's not like Miami, right, where last year they had just bad losses. You're up by whatever, 21 to Syracuse. You lose, you know, you cost it and then you just kind of have yourself to blame on it. But I think if you're Illinois and you're sitting there at, at 10 and 2, you're. You're in good shape. If you're 9 and 3, I don't know if that's, if that's what you're planting the seed for.
- [55:44]
Ryan Rosillo
Okay, so is there anything. It sounds like it's just inevitable anyway, so it doesn't really matter because I saw some of the conversation of like, if can you sign off on this if you're running the Big 12 or the ACC and it's like, it sounds like they kind of choice do you have, though.
- [55:57]
Bruce Feldman
I think. I don't know what you. What choice they're going to have in the end when the money is such and those. What I don't see the threat of is, oh, the Big Ten in the SEC are just going to, at some point just say, hey, we're done. We're going over here. You guys can, you know, play whatever we want to call it one. You know, it's not one double A football anymore, but it's like it ain't going to be the national title if the Big Ten and the SEC aren't involved. You can do it. UCF did when Scott Frost was there, but no one outside your base is going to take it seriously. Right? So I think what we're looking at this and going, man, does the Big 12 and ACC really have much leverage here? I. I'm interested to see how that will play out.
- [56:44]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, well, look, it's all happening and there's no point in getting like, I'm still going to watch on Saturdays, but between the expansion and then changing this over and over again, I wouldn't say it's going in a direction. I don't enjoy these annual updates and changes to this and I really don't like where it's going. And I think eventually, when we lose even more and more rivalries that have been around for what feels like a century, you know, I don't. I'm wondering if there's just a series of smaller time frame decisions being made where maybe you're sacrificing the long term vision, but the television deals would tell you nobody's worried about that right now. Freaks list. We look forward to it every year. Where you go through the freaks of college football, what they're accomplishing athletically, what coaching staffs tell you about some of their guys. What is going on with that piece as we all await it?
- [57:42]
Bruce Feldman
So it used to be in the middle of the summer, and I've had to. In the portal era, I've had to rethink it and bump it back into early August. August. And why that is is I had a conversation with one group of five head coach who was like, I got a guy, you know, and like when I tell you the numbers, you're not gonna believe it, but when is this thing running? And I said, well, you know, I told him and he goes, he goes, here's what I worry about is if I. If you put this stuff out there, you know, he worried that somebody was going to poach his player. And so, you know, kind of slid it further back. And now that's the date is in that point where no one's getting poached at that point, by the way. The crazy thing is that player ended up doing exactly the same numbers that, you know, at the combine that he had told me, which I was like, there's no way a 6, 4 cornerback is running that, jumping that. So. But he does. And now he plays for the Seahawks, right? And so those, you know, those kinds of guys, like a little off the, off the grid, a little off the radar have been. What's been the coolest part about freaks List. And because of that, I think and because so many guys end up in the portal and get poached that it just makes sense to run it into August.
- [59:02]
Ryan Rosillo
Wait, who are you talking about? Okay. All right.
- [59:06]
Bruce Feldman
The freak was like at utsa. And you know, I'd heard a little about him from the previous staff, but just when Jeff Traylor had told me about him was just kind of. Are you serious? And obviously people at the combine saw. Yeah, they were serious.
- [59:24]
Ryan Rosillo
So you're telling me now there's a guy that you were talking about. And then the coach was like, no. So we have to. The freaks list is delayed because of the transfer portal.
- [59:32]
Bruce Feldman
It's been delayed for the last couple years, I've moved it back because of. Of that. So it just made more sense to run it then.
- [59:42]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, you're right. You're right. I. I know. I lose track of all this stuff. What do you have coming up?
- [59:49]
Bruce Feldman
I have a cool story on the 25th anniversary of when Washington beat the Miami team that ended up becoming, you know, the greatest team of. It was supposed to be all time in college football and kind of that rivalry. And it's a fun story. I was not planning on doing the story. I started out by calling Rick Neuheisel to ask him about Terrell Suggs, the, you know, great Ravens and Arizona State pass rusher. And so we got to talking about him as for like a top 25 players of all time. And I was like, all right, I gotta find some people talk about Suggs who can, you know, give me some insight. And somehow we got to talking about when Washington beat that Miami team and New Heisel had some great stories. And then all of a sudden I was like, you know What? It's the 25th anniversary of this thing. I ought to write about this. So that's a story that's coming out later this week. And I have a story on a few other things I'm excited about. One I don't want to tip my hand too much on, but it's a really cool story on a guy that I didn't know much about. He's going to blow up this summer. Already has to some degree, but just has a really cool backstory. And so I'm excited about that.
- [60:58]
Ryan Rosillo
All right, looks good. Check those out on the athletic. Bruce Feldman, always good. See you soon. Thanks. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. When I get into something, I go deep, like seeing how I can improve my sleep routine or finding a TV show that I can get lost in. Prime helps me find everything I need. Plus, offering fast free delivery. Whatever it is, prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to Amazon.com prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes. You want details? Fine.
- [61:32]
Kyle
I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet.
- [61:36]
Ryan Rosillo
What's up?
- [61:38]
Worgon
I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.
- [61:40]
Ryan Rosillo
I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid.
- [61:46]
Kyle
So now you know what's possible.
- [61:48]
Ryan Rosillo
Let me tell you what's required. Lifeadvicermail.com We've got Wargon, we've got Kyle. It's good to see you.
- [61:57]
Kyle
Likewise.
- [61:58]
Ryan Rosillo
All right. Okay, great. A Little cleanup here. Let's just start here. I actually called. Kyle doesn't have a lot and I don't know what it was. I think it was Saturday night. Just kind of grinding tape, you know, on that grind. I was doing draft prep and I was going through emails because I was like, you know, I have little downtime, so maybe I'll go through some emails here, really sort through all of these. And worgon, when we were talking about just accepted like accomplishments in fitness and we were talking about a mile time.
- [62:28]
Worgon
Sure.
- [62:29]
Ryan Rosillo
Did you think we were talking about mile split times for long distance running or just.
- [62:34]
Worgon
I thought we were. I thought we were talking about one mile.
- [62:37]
Kyle
We were.
- [62:37]
Ryan Rosillo
That's what we were. Yeah, because we were.
- [62:39]
Worgon
But I think you are comparing it. 20 push ups.
- [62:44]
Ryan Rosillo
I was. Well, I still think 20 push ups was thrown out.
- [62:49]
Kyle
Well, he was just saying what is something that you would consider, like, kind of impressive, I guess, right?
- [62:53]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, sort of.
- [62:53]
Worgon
Like, I just, I don't run that. I don't know anyone who just does one mile. I feel like it's like a specific thing that, like, if you're gonna do it, you're gonna train for it.
- [63:01]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, yeah, Right. So just to be clear, because sometimes this will happen where we'll talk about it and then I know that I can have a habit of just kind of like just steamrolling it in a way where maybe I'm not hearing everything that you're saying. I'm trying to be a better listener. And this reminds me a bit of. Because we had a lot of feedback to this being like 6 minute mile. Are you out of your mind? Like all these different things. And I'm thinking, no, like if you just decided that you were going to be a guy that works out or whatever and then just decided to see how fast you could run one mile, no one would ever go, hey, guys, broke eight minutes. Okay. I also ran the mile in high school, so I think I have a little understanding, even though that was a very long time ago, of what you were kind of aiming for and what would be considered. I mean, that's a whole different level when you're actually just competing and running in mile races. But if you were just say a guy who's in good shape, 40 years old, hey, I want to run. I want to see how fast I can run a mile. No one would ever be like at work on Monday going, hey, check out your boy 7:52. Now Miles splits, that's entirely different. But I think a lot of times what we notice with the show. And this happens for anybody doing any kind of content is like some people just kind of hear something and then it's not really what they. It reminds me a lot of standing up in the aisle in the airplane thing. Right? Because one's like, oh. Because if you have the aisle, guess what, folks? Eventually you have to stand up. And if you're on. I know I took a Southwest flight because it's the best way to go to Chicago from la. So you end up in Midway and not o' Hare. And it was my first Southwest experience in a long time. And I'll say this, maybe I shouldn't. But some of you are taking advantage of the assistance in boarding. Some of you. Oh, you know who you are you.
- [65:00]
Worgon
Picking your seats on Southwest yet? Where are we at on that?
- [65:03]
Kyle
No, no, no. But you just, you get a. You know, myself. Oh, really? I put myself a 1 to 15. I pay the 20 bucks.
- [65:10]
Ryan Rosillo
I pay it. Right. And then I think that's going away. Well, it's chaos. And I noticed when I bore, I was like, we're going like 25 deep with people that need help. And some people definitely need the help. And. And some people don't. And then when I saw people getting help off and then you would see him like later over a baggage claim, he's like, you're a fraud. Don't need help now, do you?
- [65:37]
Kyle
I would say you're one thing, sometimes you got to stand in the aisle just to stop the guy who's going to create the chaos by trying to jump, you know, five rows. And it's like, it's better if I just save my place right here.
- [65:47]
Ryan Rosillo
Right. And a long distance. If you're going five hours on a flight, like getting to stand up, not cutting ahead of the other aisle, but standing up at some point. So that turned into like every time. Yeah, yeah. Anybody that's. Now anytime anything happens on a plane, people just send it to me non stop. So we got this email. Two dudes whose cardio consists of walking around a golf course saying a six minute mile is what regular guys run is crazy. Especially when you're trying to connect to an actual runner or when you're trying to correct an actual runner. That would be Wargon, who's.
- [66:20]
Worgon
I'm also not an actual runner. I don't want that. That title on me.
- [66:23]
Ryan Rosillo
You are though. You Disney World for a marathon. That's a runner in my book. Half right, last sentence. I enjoy the show, but that estimate of a regular guy was egregious. That one just. It hit me wrong. I was enjoy the show.
- [66:41]
Worgon
Training for this. Or if it's like getting off the couch doing it and it's like, good.
- [66:49]
Ryan Rosillo
I think he's thinking of us correcting you on splits is what I'm saying. Like, no one should ever. I don't think I'm wrong here. No one should ever be, like, saying, let me see how fast I can run a mile, and then being excited about eight minutes in a split, of course. But that's not.
- [67:08]
Worgon
I don't know, I think about. I don't know, I feel like if I run that because I haven't run it. Like, do you guys know what you would run a mile tomorrow?
- [67:18]
Ryan Rosillo
Oh, God.
- [67:19]
Kyle
One, I could probably do like, you know, 10 if I'm being right.
- [67:24]
Worgon
So you'd be pretty excited if you did under eight.
- [67:25]
Kyle
But I wouldn't tell anyone.
- [67:26]
Ryan Rosillo
No, I wouldn't.
- [67:27]
Kyle
I wish I didn't even say this right now. You know what I'm saying?
- [67:30]
Ryan Rosillo
But here's the thing. Like, if you're. If you're kind of like a decent sized guy, but you've never ever done a bench press, right. And then you sat down and repped out 135, and your body would be like, what the hell is this? Right. Right. Without any training, you wouldn't be going, well, banged out 135 guys, you know, post, nobody would care. Now that guy, if he. If he wanted to say, like, all right, I want to get into this and see if I can actually do this. And I think they did get the cardio stuff. Maybe we can do more Muay Thai updates for this guy.
- [68:04]
Kyle
Yeah, he might have nailed me.
- [68:06]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Yeah. But who knows? That training is right around the corner. Corner. So that's what I felt like happened there. And there was so much response to it, as if we were on a 7:30 marathon split. It's just not really what we're doing. But you're right. Like, I don't know how many people are even out there that run. Just go. Like, I just see how fast I can go on a mile. I actually used to do it on the treadmill all the time to see how long I could keep it at 10 for as long as I possibly could. I stopped doing that. All right, bald spot shaming. What's up, fellas? 44, 510, 225. Do crossfit four to five times a week. I'm in the 1200 Club. Deadlift, squat, shoulder press. Huh. Interesting. No bench in that, but that's, that's impressive. Player comp. I'm like Prime Westbrook if he was a middle aged white guy with arthritic knees. My problem is this. I like to get my haircut at a national chain place. It lets you check in on their app and keeps your haircut specs on file. I'm sure you can guess which one. I actually cannot. This makes things very convenient and fairly inexpensive. Inexpensive. Now here's the issue. In my mid-30s, my hair really started to thin out, especially on the crown monk's cap. There you go. I think one time on a radio show they called it a fleshy yarmulke.
- [69:22]
Kyle
Oh yeah, that was the other one I had in the chamber. I didn't, didn't want to say that one.
- [69:27]
Ryan Rosillo
I'll tell you what, that stunning. When I was 27, 28, that didn't feel great. Sorry, man. No one cares about your feelings when you're in shape. It also got really patchy, so I made my peace with it one day and shaved the whole dome. Unfortunately, I do not have a good shaved head, a bunch of scars and weird folds. So in a last ditch before hair plugs, I did the Rogaine Propecia combo and it worked pretty well. All right. I heard the Propecia thing does actually get it done. I would tell you, as many of you already know, my relationship with Rogaine foam was not successful. From the front, it looks great, but I still have the crop circle bald patch on the crown. I do love when Rogaine foam pivoted from your hair comes back to, hey, everyone should use this. Like if you're 22 and you don't want to, you don't want to be depressed, just use it.
- [70:24]
Kyle
It's like indulgences for the Catholic church back in the day.
- [70:30]
Ryan Rosillo
Like, hey, the science says this isn't really working. Hey, let's use it. Let's market it as preventative so everybody buys it. The thing is, when I'm getting my hair cut there about half the time I end up getting the same woman. Every time I end up with her, she tries to push their in store hair regrowth products. When I tell her I'm ready, I'm already using some, but thanks. She says these are better even though they're the same products with different names. Let's just say there's a language culture barrier that I think she knows gives her cloud cover to bust my balls about my bald spot. Even so, as far as laughing at the fact that I did not care to look at the back of my head when they do the show, the back of the neck thing at the end, I know it's there, but when I get a direct look at it, it will seriously fuck my whole morning. Hey, man, I hear you, right? This is me just Robin Williamsing you as Matt Damon, holding your arms, telling you it's not your fault. Fault. When you go in, you don't really get a chance, a choice on who cuts your hair. And she works every Saturday, the only day I have time, so it's not that big of a deal. I'd rather. I'd rather that than go to another part of town to avoid it when I get her again. Should I offer a tip up front to try not to sell me anything, Be nice to me, hint, hint. Or should I just grin and bear it? Patchy sign. Patchy. Yeah, I. Look, I think everything should be on the table because for whatever reason, like, if you called somebody overweight, you'd be fat. Shaming. As somebody that was, like, incredibly skinny, we had no movement. No one, no parents pulled anyone aside and said, don't call the skinny kids skinny. And I do think, as somebody that was, you know, had a pretty egregious bald spot and was on television for a long time, there was no movement. There was. There was no, like, hey, early bald patch rights for guys that are on tv. You know, I don't remember that there was any coalition for you guys. Yeah, yeah. So I would. I. I'm just telling you, as somebody who's. Who's part of your constituency here, I think you just go for it. Like, just tell her her mustache looks good. Like, hey, that's really coming in.
- [72:43]
Worgon
Maybe she's using the stuff that goes on your head.
- [72:45]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Who knows? Like, hey, did you get Rogame foam on your lip? Like, what's going on there? And look, it's going to be just a relationship ender. But I think the guys out there that have taken shit for this for such a long time, I think you just got to come right over the top of the nukes. And, yeah, you may have to go somewhere else. Maybe she'll never pick you again, but I think there need to be consequences for people being a little too comfortable with something now. It's fine. Like, maybe we could just all make fun of each other for everything that might be a solution to all of this stuff, but I think there's an imbalance out there in the world on what people are allowed to say to you when you're losing your hair and you're supposed to just sit there and take it. And I'll tell you, if you're a certain age to our emailer's point here, it can really set you back for a few hours.
- [73:38]
Worgon
That felt personal.
- [73:40]
Ryan Rosillo
It was. I had a mirror in the shitty apartment in Boston that was one of those, you know, folding mirrors to the sides. I mean, the amount of time I studied back there with turning one in against the other and just Indiana Jones in it, like, going, what the. You know, so. Damn it. Yeah, so you two shaggy headed fuckers just be happy. Next time you're having a bad afternoon, it could be worse. So, yeah, I mean, I know that sounds really mean and maybe she doesn't have a mustache, but I just. I don't like people's comfort level because trust me, those of us that have gone through it, we're aware. We know that. We don't need you fucking reminding us all the time.
- [74:30]
Kyle
Good night, everybody. I feel like. I feel like you should just get a guy. Just get like a bar. I mean, maybe it sounds like he likes.
- [74:38]
Ryan Rosillo
Guys can be mean too.
- [74:39]
Kyle
No, I just mean, get a. Like, get.
- [74:41]
Ryan Rosillo
Women are meaner about this, though.
- [74:42]
Kyle
Women are like, get your barber. Which might make it a little more inconvenient when he's like, I like being able to just walk in, but this thing is truing up your day, man. Maybe you have. Maybe you just find a barber. I mean, I'd rather go to like a mom and pop shop anyway than like a Supercuts, where it's just like luck of the draw. I mean, I don't know, I. I would maybe just find an actual barber. Support a small business man. They'll take care of you a little better. Anyway.
- [75:09]
Worgon
Yeah, to Kyle's point, I got a guy. I probably pay a little bit more than I would at like a Supercuts or a place like that, but I go in, he says, how you doing? I say, good. And he cuts my hair. We don't say another word. You know exactly how I want it. Don't talk at all. It's exactly what I want.
- [75:23]
Kyle
Yeah, do yourself a favor. Find a guy, do a little search. Get. Get out of the. Get out of the big hair game.
- [75:31]
Ryan Rosillo
Exactly. I love that you guys are pro small business.
- [75:36]
Kyle
You got a guy or you just.
- [75:39]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, you're looking at him nice. And he's harder on me than anybody. Kyle's losing it right now. All right. We also had. We had a lot of feedback to $35 guy.
- [76:01]
Kyle
Oh, I'm interested.
- [76:03]
Ryan Rosillo
Everyone hates you man. There wasn't one email or. Yeah. That took the guy's side that was owed the $35. So maybe, maybe chill out a little bit. Wow.
- [76:16]
Kyle
There's not even like some hardcore, you know, principles of fantasy sports guys out there.
- [76:20]
Ryan Rosillo
No slurs.
- [76:22]
Worgon
He took it too far.
- [76:24]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, yeah.
- [76:26]
Kyle
Holy crap. I was still on the fence a little bit. I was still on the fence. I can't even read them as a listener.
- [76:33]
Ryan Rosillo
But yeah, no, we like to be nice to the listeners but we like to be honest to him. So. All right, another one here. If I had your hype man. 23 years old. 66210 bench. 245 squat. 325 pickup comp. Mason Plumlee. Big that can fill some minutes and show some flashes of razzle dazzle. I feel like razzle dazzles. On the way back somebody said in a movie. I think it was good worked. Dear Ryan and guys. I've been out of college for a little over a year. But back during one of my summers home I work construction. Earned some extra cash to buy an ring for my then girlfriend.
- [77:12]
Kyle
Well, it sounds of the earth right there, dude. Way to.
- [77:15]
Ryan Rosillo
Way to do that. That's an awesome. Spend all summer to prove that you like somebody. Rise smiles. No audio. The guys I work with were great most of the time. But there was one oddball that I was often paired up with for random tasks. We'll call him Brandon. He was in his mid to late 30s and always had some strange things to say. One of them being, quote, if he had my height, he would have for sure made the NBA. This wouldn't have bothered me much as I hear variations of the comment often given my height. But his insistence upon the fact irritating to say the least. This fact irritating to say the least is someone being implicitly accused of wasting their physical gifts.
- [78:00]
Worgon
Should we guess how tall this guy is before you? Before you give away the height?
- [78:04]
Ryan Rosillo
He's six. Six.
- [78:05]
Kyle
No, no, he's talking about.
- [78:06]
Worgon
I was gonna say. Should we guess it before the Uncle Rico guy?
- [78:11]
Kyle
How much you want? I don't know that we have football over the mountains.
- [78:14]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I don't know. We don't. I don't know that we have that info. I'm scanning ahead here. Oh, we do. We do have very good wargon. Okay. Do you want to guess that his height.
- [78:26]
Kyle
Five eleven and three quarters.
- [78:28]
Ryan Rosillo
Okay. Oregon.
- [78:30]
Worgon
No, I think he's closer to my height. Like five eight.
- [78:33]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, but you're a sturdy five eight.
- [78:36]
Worgon
In a good way. Like good sturdy.
- [78:37]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. When I saw you come to my house, I was like, this guy's sturdy kid. It's like Jalen Brunson. All right, I do have his height here, so I'll give it to you a second, but I've kind of mangled this sentence here. I hear variations of this comment often. Give my height. But his assist, his insistence upon this fact, irritating to say the least, is someone being implicitly accused of wasting their physical gifts, which wouldn't be entirely inaccurate. But that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it. An added layer to this is that Brandon was about 6 4.
- [79:12]
Kyle
Oh my God.
- [79:16]
Ryan Rosillo
So not too far off from me. And his reasoning was that he was able to dunk already and that his coach just hated him so he couldn't get playing time.
- [79:24]
Kyle
Hey, I know coach hated me.
- [79:26]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, I might take Brandon's side, Coach. Fuck me. Some more elements of Brandon and his hobbies include songwriting, rapping. He would often insist, do you want this guy's contact, Kyle?
- [79:39]
Kyle
No, I'm good.
- [79:41]
Ryan Rosillo
He would often insist on showing me some of his work by serenading me in the truck on the way to sites. I've included one such occurrence in a video attached to this email. Oh man, I didn't even see that. Playing in an 11 on 11 tackle football men's league on the weekends. Dude, this guy's kind of awesome. Any raps and trying to pick up college girls at local bars layout. Looking back now, I realize I should have messed with him a little bit more given all the time we had driving in the box truck together. My question is, how would you have all played off a coworker like this? And what would have been the best way to get into his head? Thanks. Love the pod. He's six four. I mean, that would have been a good place to start.
- [80:22]
Worgon
Six four is pretty tall. It's pretty big.
- [80:26]
Kyle
Yeah. This is just construction site. This is just fire away. Any joke that pops into your head. I mean this is like Monday morning quarterback for life. It's like, it's insane. It's insane. And the fact that it's a 2 inch difference is like, I don't know, probably some jokes that you can't say on a respectable pod like this. But I mean it would be like construction site jokes. It would. That's ridiculous. I feel like everyone would need to know he said that to me.
- [80:54]
Ryan Rosillo
Look, as somebody who spent plenty of time on sites and in these trucks on the way to another site, there are a lot of conversations that you will hear and I don't Mean this to be offensive, but I don't know. With all the conversations that I've experienced, there's a lot of lessons. A lot of lessons that I keep with me today. But, like, peak conversation. I mean, honestly, sometimes, like, the realness of it and the truth and just kind of cutting through everything. Although when one guy reenacted a sexual act that he had received from a woman that he had cheated on his wife with the weekend before and then happened to do it right as the homeowner was in the other side of the property because we were putting on an addition, that was a low point. That wasn't great. Kind of. Luckily, I was lowest on the totem pole, so it didn't. Didn't really matter. It wasn't gonna be my problem. But there was tension in the air, I would say, the rest of that day on the site.
- [81:57]
Kyle
I feel like anytime this guy screws anything up, be like, man, if you just had that extra two inches, who knows? Who knows, man? Anything that goes wrong, it's. Man, if. If Mike was just 2 inches taller, we'd be done already.
- [82:10]
Ryan Rosillo
That would be good.
- [82:11]
Kyle
That's good.
- [82:12]
Ryan Rosillo
That would be really good. Like, you need a ladder for that. Oh, that's right. You're six four. Just everything possible. Like, hey, can you get to the end of the end of that? All right, hold on, hold on. We gotta wait. He's only 6 4. Yeah. I mean, you could have just said some, like, real basketball stuff and be like, if you. Okay, fine, like, have it out with him. Like, entertain it in a serious fashion. Because clearly, my guess is the emailer was smarter than the 64 guy, so he didn't want to entertain this stuff as much. But if he just had it out and was like, okay, let's break it down. All right, so coach fucks you, but if you're 6 6, you're in the NBA. You're 6 4, and you're here with me right now. So, like, let's figure out where that gap, right? Like, why aren't you in the G League?
- [82:55]
Kyle
You're in Serbia.
- [82:57]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah. Or start, like, just sending them different teams. Like. Like Turkish, lowest division.
- [83:03]
Bruce Feldman
Yeah.
- [83:03]
Ryan Rosillo
You're just like, there's a tryout. There's a tryout. You got stuck somewhere.
- [83:09]
Kyle
I see you in the Greek league.
- [83:11]
Ryan Rosillo
Another truth about the experience on sites is even though a lot of times you're outside and there's something to be said of the accomplishment of building something and working with your hands and the physical strain, those are things that I miss until I realize you don't miss it it that much.
- [83:30]
Kyle
Yeah, you're waking up at 5. You're like, my back. Holy.
- [83:33]
Ryan Rosillo
Yeah, like you're up on a ladder. Five minutes, the winner. Just the wind whipping and you're like, is this thing even stable right now? You know? And you're kind of like, is this where it's all going to go down?
- [83:44]
Kyle
Greg's not locked in.
- [83:45]
Ryan Rosillo
What the fuck? You hold on onto a two by 12, you're trying to get a nail tacked into it and you're just like, this is. This actually might suck. So I definitely romanticize those days. Or maybe I just like the gear. But no one really wants to be there. So there is a lot of hypotheticals. I just always remember like everybody was a year away or a few months away. There's just big dreamers, man. Barstools and dreamers. There's a lot of dreamers on a site. And so I think if you remember that with the people that you're interacting with and you can engage. Some people have an incredible skill to engage stuff that they're not interested in. I was not one of those people. I probably am even worse at it now. But that's really what this guy is all about. I know this guy without ever meeting him. He just thinks like something very soon is going to break for him and in some weird way it makes him feel better. And the fact that you're just annoyed and not seriously offended is a credit to you because once you understand his whole thing, I mean, this guy's out there tackling other men on the weekends. He's writing rhymes, he's singing to you, hoping you're like, dude, you're really good. You should go for it.
- [85:09]
Kyle
Just needs a little bit of praise, that's all.
- [85:12]
Ryan Rosillo
He's a long way, right, dude?
- [85:14]
Kyle
The coach hated me. As the most classic one ever. I love it's. It's like a. It's like a ginger ale on an airplane. It's just classic. It's perfect.
- [85:25]
Ryan Rosillo
Anything to add to this is a ginger ale, the perfect drink on an airplane.
- [85:32]
Kyle
Especially because Delta uses Seagrams, which I think is the best ginger ale. Can't even find that and have to grocery stores around here. I got to go to Total Wine and More to get my Seagrams. Canada Dry and Schweppes.
- [85:43]
Ryan Rosillo
You're a special order ginger ale guy.
- [85:45]
Kyle
Oh, yes. Love it. It's not as sweet as the other two, which is perfect.
- [85:49]
Ryan Rosillo
More medicinal.
- [85:51]
Kyle
Yeah, Honestly, it feels that way. Chicken Soup for the Soul you know.
- [85:56]
Ryan Rosillo
The ting of Canada. All right, that'll do it for the show today. Thanks to Wargon, thanks to Kyle, thanks to John Jonathan Frius. You can check us out as a video podcast now on the app. I think we'll do a Friday feedback next week. So Friday feedback, rrgmail.com. you know, you got to be hardness. You got to be hardness. So we'll, we'll share it all. That'll do it for the pot today. Thank you for listening. Ryan Rosillo. Bring our Spotify.
- [86:25]
Worgon
They were gonna name me Michael Jordan. My dad was like, I don't think he can live up to it. So they named me Michael.
- [86:30]
Ryan Rosillo
Jared must be 21 and older and present in select states. For Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + in present in D.C. kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincenectic or visit mdgamblinghelp.org In Maryland, hope is there. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050. For 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.