The Pacers Continue to Find a Way to Win. Plus, a Stanley Cup Check-In With John Buccigross and Justin Williams on the Changes to College Sports.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ryen Russillo Podcast – "The Pacers Continue to Find a Way to Win. Plus, a Stanley Cup Check-In With John Buccigross and Justin Williams on the Changes to College Sports"

Release Date: June 12, 2025
Host: Ryen Russillo, The Ringer

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1. Introduction to the Episode

The episode kicks off with Ryen Russillo setting the stage for an exciting discussion centered around the ongoing NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Final, and significant changes in college sports. Key topics include the Indiana Pacers' strategic plays against the Oklahoma City Thunder, insights from ESPN's John Buccigross on the Stanley Cup Series, and an in-depth analysis of the new Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) regulations in college athletics with Justin Williams from The Athletic.

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2. Indiana Pacers' Performance in the NBA Finals

Ryen Russillo (00:00 - 15:47):
Ryen delves into the Pacers' impressive performance in Game 3 against the Oklahoma City Thunder, highlighting their comeback from a 2-1 series deficit. He emphasizes the critical contributions of TJ McConnell and Malcolm Brogdon, as well as the defensive strategies that stifled the Thunder's offense.

• Key Highlights:

  • TJ McConnell's Impact:
    "TJ McConnell happened. This was an absolute like, this is every high school coach's dream... [00:25]"
    McConnell's explosive performance, scoring 10 points in three minutes, shifted the momentum in favor of the Pacers.

  • Destructive Defense:
    Ryen praises the Pacers' defensive pressure, noting their ability to create turnovers and limit the Thunder's scoring opportunities.
    "They were picking up full court with three defenders... [02:23]"

  • Halliburton's Evolution:
    Discussion on Malcolm Brogdon's growth as an offensive player, drawing parallels to Steph Curry's late-game decisions.
    "Halliburton felt like, look, hell, I..." [Timestamp not specified]

  • Fourth Quarter Dominance:
    The Pacers' relentless energy in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Thunder 32-18, was pivotal in securing their victory.
    "They win the quarter 32, 18... [15:47]"

• Notable Quote:
  "TJ just changed the entire game, man. 10 points, 5 assists, 5 steals coming off the bench." – Ryen Russillo [02:25]

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3. Stanley Cup Final Insights with John Buccigross

John Buccigross Discussion (15:47 - 43:00):
John Buccigross joins Ryen to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Stanley Cup Final matchup between the Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers. They explore team dynamics, player performances, and strategic adjustments impacting the series outcome.

• Key Highlights:

  • Team Preparations and Changes:

    • Florida Panthers have strengthened their lineup by adding key players like Masha Zubre in defense, enhancing their puck-moving capabilities.
    • Edmonton Oilers faced significant roster changes, losing young talents and acquiring veterans to bolster their playoff performance.

  • Florida Panthers' Aggressive Play:

    • Emphasis on the Panthers' "asshole factor" and increased physicality during the playoffs, differentiating them from regular-season play.
    • Discussion on Sam Bennett's standout performance and his role as a difference-maker for the Panthers.

  • Edmonton Oilers' Challenges:

    • Struggles with defensive possession and puck control under playoff pressure.
    • Goaltending decisions involving Stuart Skinner and Picker's performances, questioning Oilers' depth and adaptability.

• Notable Quotes:

  • "It's a unique sport, although there's some elements in other sports, like you need the asshole factor." – John Buccigross [21:00]
  • "Sam Bennett epitomizes that nastiness. He’s living in the crease and he is such a difference maker." – John Buccigross [23:25]

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4. Changes to College Sports: NIL Settlement Breakdown

Justin Williams on NIL Changes (43:00 - 66:06):
Justin Williams from The Athletic provides an expert breakdown of the recent settlement affecting Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) in college sports. The discussion centers on the implications of a $20.5 million revenue-sharing pool, the role of a new clearinghouse (NIL Go), and the potential impact on athletic departments and athletes.

• Key Highlights:

  • Settlement Overview:

    • Introduction of a $20.5 million cap on revenue sharing across all sports within an athletic department.
    • Differentiation between traditional NIL deals and those managed through the new clearinghouse to prevent "pay-for-play" scenarios.

  • Clearinghouse (NIL Go):

    • Managed by Deloitte, the clearinghouse reviews and approves all NIL deals to ensure compliance and fairness.
    • Majority of external company deals are expected to pass, while collective deals driven by boosters may face stricter scrutiny.

  • Skepticism and Challenges:

    • Concerns about how athletic departments will allocate funds across various sports, potentially prioritizing high-revenue programs like football and men's basketball.
    • Speculation on under-the-table payments and the resurgence of unofficial compensation methods.
    • The patchwork of state NIL laws complicates uniform enforcement and creates potential loopholes.

• Notable Quotes:

  • "The whole century of amateurism that defined college sports... is pretty much completely gone." – Justin Williams [45:09]
  • "There's a lot of skepticism in the industry... whether this new settlement guideline is going to hold up once it comes under more legal scrutiny." – Justin Williams [51:58]
  • "So basically trying to use the settlement as a chance to put some guidelines on something that they hadn't had before." – Justin Williams [48:49]

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5. Audience Interaction and Closing Remarks

Life Advice Segment and Listener Emails (66:06 - 98:03):
The latter part of the episode transitions into a more personal and interactive segment where Ryen addresses listener emails and discusses life advice topics. Topics range from personal relationships, career growth, and reflections on aging, juxtaposed with humorous anecdotes and light-hearted banter with co-hosts Kyle and Ceruti.

• Key Highlights:

  • Listener Email Stories:

    • An entertaining story shared by a listener about a successful "exception" strategy in personal relationships, blending humor with relatable scenarios.

  • Discussion on Personal Growth:

    • Ryen and co-hosts reflect on the transition from early to late twenties, emphasizing career satisfaction, financial stability, and self-awareness.
    • Conversations touch on hobbies, relationships, and the balance between personal life and professional responsibilities.

• Notable Quotes:

  • "If you were writing a book, it's the outline of, like, who you think you should be or what you want to be at 35 years old." – Ryen Russillo [81:30]
  • "At 28, it's probably when you start asking yourself... How do I make 28 to 33 better than 23 to 28?" – Ryen Russillo [85:28]

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6. Conclusion

Ryen wraps up the episode by reiterating the key discussions on the Pacers' strategic triumph in the NBA Finals, the high-stakes nature of the Stanley Cup Final, and the transformative changes in college sports' compensation structure. The episode blends in-depth sports analysis with personal growth conversations, providing a comprehensive listening experience for both sports enthusiasts and individuals seeking life advice.

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Key Takeaways:

• The Indiana Pacers showcased remarkable resilience and strategic prowess in the NBA Finals, primarily driven by TJ McConnell's exceptional performance and strong defensive tactics.
• The Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers presents a clash of aggressive, physical play versus tactical depth, with Sam Bennett emerging as a pivotal player for the Panthers.
• The new NIL settlement marks a significant shift in college sports, introducing a regulated revenue-sharing model aimed at fair compensation for athletes while addressing past unregulated compensation practices.
• Personal reflections and listener interactions highlight the evolving nature of personal growth, relationships, and career development in one's late twenties.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• "TJ just changed the entire game, man. 10 points, 5 assists, 5 steals coming off the bench." – Ryen Russillo [02:25]
• "Sam Bennett epitomizes that nastiness. He’s living in the crease and he is such a difference maker." – John Buccigross [23:25]
• "The whole century of amateurism that defined college sports... is pretty much completely gone." – Justin Williams [45:09]
• "At 28, it's probably when you start asking yourself... How do I make 28 to 33 better than 23 to 28?" – Ryen Russillo [85:28]

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Note: The podcast also features segments sponsored by Amazon Business, FanDuel, US Bank, State Farm, and UberEats. However, these sections have been excluded from the summary to focus on the core content as per the provided guidelines.

Transcript

[Ryan Rosillo]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Business. How can you grow your business from idea to industry leader? Bring your vision to life with smart business buying tools and technology from Amazon Business. From fast free shipping to in depth buying insights and automated purchase approvals, they deliver everything you need to achieve your goals. It's not easy to stand out from the crowd. Simplify how you stock up to get ahead. Go to amazonbusiness.com for support. We have it all for you today. We are your one stop shop or Costco for the sports world on this pod we will start with the Pacers incredible effort in game three getting up two one in the NBA Finals against OKC. What worked for the Pacers TJ McConnell game the Matheran game, A better Halliburton against a Thunder offense that looked absolutely lost to close the last six minutes of last night's defeat. We're also talking Stanley Cupfont. John Buchegras is going to join us and break down where this series is. The decision to goaltender which we tape before maybe the news comes out a little bit later today. A little Sam Bennett. Love you weren't expecting that. And of course we'll cover the headliner as well with Connor McDavid and Justin Williams from the Athletic. He is all over the new agreement in college sports where we have a salary cap. Well, I guess it's not technically a salary cap, but there's some changes coming. Although it may just be more of the same end life advice. 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 FanDuel 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 and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 100 GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.

[Justin Williams]

Well.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't want to say now we have a series, okay, because we had a series. Pacers won Game one in okc, but they run away from OKC in the fourth quarter of game three last night, lead the series two one. So I think we could say those of us, most of us who thought OKC would win this series and win it easily, OKC looked rattled last night. I feel rattled this morning. I'm a little rattled, I'll admit. Let's run through some of the game and we'll get to some of the closing thoughts on what was just an incredible victory for the Pacers. Early aggressive Siakam after probably not being as aggressive as we'd all want from him. So that was a really nice start from him. Great start for Chet. 13 points and six plus minutes into this game. Closed the first quarter with 14 and four. Pacers had seven turnovers. So that looked familiar. Again, it's 3,224. OKC is up eight to start the second quarter. And then TJ McConnell happened. This was an absolute like, this is every high school coach's dream. And I know his dad coached him and watching him cheer him on. You don't even have to have a kid and that can hit you in the warm spots. But TJ is that guy that you just know. It's like max effort all the time because he has to play that way because of the lack of size. And you're like, okay, but you know, you're probably going to be a gym teacher, right? Or maybe you'll be a lifeguard or you know, maybe you'll be that guy in the town that people make fun of when he's in his 40s and instead he completely changes an NBA finals game. So in the first three minutes of the second quarter, TJ's like, you want pace? I'll give you pace. Responsible for 10 points in those three minutes. Eight points off assists, two off the free throws. During this time, SGA comes back in and it goes from 32, 24 eight point lead for the Thunder to down 37, 36. So 13 and four stretch there for Indiana without SGA in the game. Finally winning the non SGA minutes. He's got two steals in two minutes. He's got a third steal. Another minute later, OKC ended up with 19 turnovers, 21 points off of turnovers of the Pacers. A massive turnover game for a Thunder team that does not turn the basketball over. So okc, so sloppy. It's a bit like when you watch teams play the Thunder in the playoffs. You're going, what are you doing with these regular season entry passes? Like this shit is not going to work. And yet, okc, throughout the night, looked like the team that wasn't adjusting to the effort of their opponent, which is something that OKC thrives on. And they were doing the thing that they actually never do. TJ just changed the entire game, man. 10 points, 5 assists, 5 steals coming off the bench. No player has done that coming off the bench in an NBA Finals game since they started tracking steals and blocks in 73, 74. So that doesn't happen often. Halliburton, 14 points in game one was not great. Hits the game winner. His overall game is forgotten because he hits the game winner. Game two, he had 17 points, but 12 points were in the fourth quarter and they were down 20. He was bad in game two. I think after last night, it's clearly an example of a really skilled offensive player deciding you just have to find a way, you know, And I'm a little guilty of it, just being so in love with the Thunders defense. It's like, well, there's nowhere for him to go. I mean, that was definitely felt like the case with Ann at times. So I'm not totally wrong about it, but if you're supposed to be the guy, right? And that's what Halliburton is flirting with here. Whether it's a standing in the league or being the face, the number one option of a team that could win an NBA championship. I mean, this is like, lofty, incredible stuff. You need to figure out a way kind of like to raise your risk. It reminds me a bit of Steph before Jimmy Butler got to Golden State. You'd watch him those fourth quarters, and you hear people be like, oh, Steph's numbers are down a little bit. The efficiency's down a little bit. Are you watching what he is trying to unravel in the fourth quarter? Some of these close games. But he also realizes, like, I still am probably the better option in taking some of these shots. So I have to be more forceful with my decisions. And Halliburton felt like, look, hell, I even thought in the first quarter of last night's game, Halliburton had a couple drives that he was passing out of. I was like, is he not like, get it? And then for whatever reason, whether it was tj, whether it was the crowd, whether, you know, granted, it could be as simple as him being home. Maybe it's Halliburton just being comfortable with what okay was OKC was throwing at him throughout the two plus games that he finally got to a comfort level where it's like, okay, I can come back to the ball here. There was some good two man stuff. I thought with Miles in the second half that was really good and it was really simple. Hey, Miles sets the screen. It's a pick and pop. It's a switch and a drive. There was far more comfort in Halliburton's game last night. Cause I didn't think he scored or was as good as he was last night because he just decided to take tougher shots. It really wasn't that. Even though I've talked about that Steph comp there a little bit. It was just him shooting. And even in the start I'm like, oh this, this isn't looking great with him. But he clearly answered everything that you needed from him in this game. And also you could say, hey, OKC's defense just is not the level that you expect it to be. But you're not going to see the max effort OKC defense for seven straight games say if it goes that far in the NBA Finals. So looking at this, there was an energy moment where I thought the first half was played at such a high effort and just some of the stuff that I look for which everybody watching the game and they come out in the second half, even though you're coming off of that break, I was like, okay, this game is now different. So game's a little different. So this could be a game that's decided on where the energy is, who's closing with better energy, who's closing with more effort and okc. Normally with your depth you're thinking the Thunder have the advantage in this at all. But they could not match the Pacers energy. The Pacers are picking up full court with three defenders. So if you have the inbounder and you have the first option and the second option to inbound at two, the Pacers would bring three defenders up to face all of that stuff. There were so many inbound passes after make where the Pacers were just ready to go. So you know, I don't know if you would describe it as just straight up full court pressure, but it wasn't just meeting every single option, even the inbounder with three guys back. It was if there was any kind of moment where the ball handler would get free and then he's trying to bring it to half court. There would be a Pacers defender meeting that ball handler right at half court and making everything a challenge to get into what they wanted to get into. And that seemed to just screw the Thunder up all night long. Matheran, finally, now, I shouldn't say finally as they have hadn't done anything but 27 points last night in 9 of 12 shooting seven eight on free throws. He's had seven single digit scoring games in these playoffs. Really it's six. He only had a minute in one of the games. He had the two big games against the Knicks. So it's not like he hasn't done anything. But I like this guy so much that I think if Siakam isn't going, if Halliburton's struggling like he's good enough as a third scoring option on a really good basketball team and Turner didn't have it going offensively last night because he was dealing with a cold. I guess we're going to get into his defense here in a little bit. But to see Matheran be that efficient, that aggressive and that's the thing with Matheran is that even if he's not making a shot, you expect him to consistently attack because that's all he's done since I watched him in college and since he's entered this league and I know he's not perfect and he's not a max player and he's probably not going to score. Maybe scored 25 a game on a shitty team that would give him the ball every single time down. He'd probably do that. A lot of guys could probably do that. But his badass mentality to go with his offense and never missing a shot on top of him not really being considered the defensive option. Between the Carlisle decision once everybody was back and healthy and I'd be looking at it going, I wonder if he's going to want Matheran's offense more than he's going to want Nismith's defense. And there were times I thought that was happening and then I was like no, I don't know that there's really a decision. I think Carlisle just kind of feels it out the depending on the night and in this case last night, even though Neesmith has that monster three, he only had seven points. They both played 22 minutes and it was a nice mix. Fourth quarter, remember OKC's up five entering the fourth quarter. 89, 84 SGA's out to start. The fourth quarter obviously comes back in at 9:56, so coming back a little bit earlier than normal. I think that's the case of like looking at OKC's offense here for Degnal and him probably feeling like I just got to get this guy back in there because I thought the fourth quarter offensive possessions for the Thunder were awful and it's Directly related to the Pacers defense on top everything else. So I don't want to make it out to be like I'm not giving the Pacers credit on the defensive side of things. But there's just so much from that fourth quarter from the Thunder, which I'll get to because I watched it again this morning that I despised. So it's 93, 91. SGA comes in, they get a bucket after a timeout. I think that was the Chet layup. Great plays out of timeouts, by the way, for OKC. It feels like. So it's 95, 91. So it wasn't like the Thunder fell apart in the non SGA minutes the way they did at the start of the second quarter. But then there's this massive, massive takeover by the Pacers. They win the quarter 32, 18. Now going over that fourth quarter again this morning. You know coaches, after a loss, I don't always like the default. We liked our looks, we just didn't make them. Sometimes it feels a little. I don't think it's nasty. It's become like a default line of like, oh, they out toughed us and they out coach us and all that kind of stuff. But you could dig a little bit deeper on that and be more offended if you wanted to be and say, don't you realize when you're saying, hey, we like their looks, it's like, yeah, my guy, not me. We, we run really good stuff. Our players just missed everything. These and I didn't catch every postgame comment from last night. These were not good looks. This was not a fourth quarter. It was shooting variance. It wasn't about three point shooting that we saw in game one where the Pacers shot the lights out and the Thunder didn't make one. I think they were 05 in that fourth quarter from three. These looks were terrible. I went through it from the start of the fourth quarter to the last minute of the fourth. So give me the 11 minutes there. The game's 112, 104. Then it's a bunch of free throws. Looking at the shot attempts over that time, 13 shot attempts, I think nine were just brutal looks. You could argue the Wallace layup early is just a really great player. Well, great. A little excessive now for Wallace, but a great athlete getting in the. But that's still a really tough drive and finish with the way he has to get there. So maybe four of them were good. There's a Jalen Williams layup. Chet layup. The pull up from SGA now another thing. SGA had a possession where he got free throws with 0.9 seconds left on the shot clock. That possession, I think, spoke to everything that was happening with okc. It's like, SGA is our hero. He's our mvp. Save us. Because Chet wasn't comfortable, I tell you. He looked scared. After a great start in the first quarter, he looked scared in those big moments. Didn't look like he really wanted to shoot. Didn't really look like he wanted the ball. He. He gets blocked by Turner on the three, he gets blocked by Turner on a drive. Jalen Williams had a few really loose possessions with the basketball where he didn't look comfortable. So it's like, all right, well, you know, Dort missed a three after he made all the earlier ones. So now we're not really quite sure what to do here. So SGA just like, do the stuff you normally do, and hopefully it'll work. And obviously it all worked in game two. But I thought that possession where he got free throws which were questionable, it was like, dude, there's like four or three seconds left on the shot clock and like, you're setting up for a turnaround baseline jumper from like 12, 15ft out, and this is the best you're going to be able to come up with. The Thunder made a bucket with 557 left to go was Jalen Williams drive, who, by the way, still loves attacking Neesmith, which we talked about after that regular season matchup in March. But at that 557 point on, the Thunder had one more field goal make the rest of the game, and that was that. SGA pull up. So OKC 61 and 2 when leading going into the fourth quarter this regular season, they are 1 and 2 leading going into the fourth quarter against the Pacers, which is the most Pacer stat of this postseason. So what's on the line here as we finish the discussion? The talking points. OkC going from one of the best seasons ever to would they beat the warriors to Is SGA now in possession of the NBA belt? Five years. Who's going to be better than these guys? Is this the start of a dynasty? I mean, all the mandatory that I make fun of all the time. It was all on the table to now down 2. 1. Is this team actually too young? Right. Regular season team? Yeah, A lot. A lot of stuff with SGA there. But, you know, is he really the guy not ready would be the nicest thing to say about them. And on the other side of it, with the Pacers up to one we start to go from nice little run.

[Kyle]

Here.

[Ryan Rosillo]

But Halliburton isn't the guy to the blueprint for NBA teams in the future. Building for success. And if the Pacers will pull this off, I still would resist the blueprint idea, considering it would be, I think, the most surprising NBA championship accomplishment of any team in my lifetime. But let's just remind ourselves of this. If OKC were young or too young, wouldn't being down 2:1 to Denver be a bigger deal? Would they blow out Denver in a Game 7 if they were too young? Do they win Game 4 at Minnesota and then just smash them? Granted, there's no pressure on them in Game 5, but Game 4 against Minnesota felt like that turning point where I'm like, I don't know if you can keep saying that they're too young. And by the way, you're saying they're too young in comparison to who? It's not the 86 Celtics over here. It's a young Pacers team. This is all kind of new for them at this level. I mean, if you're going to give the Pacers the seasoning edge just because they made it to the Eastern Conference Finals one for the round than this Thunder group than last year, like I guess you got me on that technicality. But I think these are all things that are worth remembering, as absurd as the conversations get as a series swings. So I'd say this in closing, this Pacers team, clearly super confident. You can see it with the personalities. If they pull this off, they'll tell you they always knew and they love the Dow because that's also part of the rules. But you'd have to think, at least after last night, whatever they honestly felt about themselves as a team, whatever they felt like their real chances were in the NBA Finals, last night has to be such a boost to who they think they are and who they think OKC is. Because I would say at least for me sitting here, I certainly believe in Indiana a little bit more to pull this one off. But you know, you've also listened to me long enough. It's not like I'm coming in here saying up under our debt. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. If there's one thing I love about my Apple Card right now, it's how good it is for my wallet. No joke. I can earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase in any category when I use my Apple card with Apple Pay, Food, Sports, Travel, the list goes on. And this card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions. When's the last time your credit card did that for you? Take control of your finances. Apply for the Apple card in the wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval. Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch terms and more at applecard.com Getting ready for game four, the Stanley Cup Final. John Butcher Grass of ESPN. You can see him on the Point Five Thirty Eastern every day of the game. So on game days, ESPN2 again, 5:30 Eastern. The point. All right, man, just start with something simple here. Your thoughts on this matchup last year versus your expectation going into the rematch.

[John Butcher Grass]

I think both most people thought both teams were a little bit better than last year, just a touch deeper. They both added some components. Obviously the Marshan was the big one from Florida to give them an unbelievable third line. Now with Lundell loose to ride and came into the finals outscoring whoever they played against 10 to 2, 5 on 5. So suddenly, you know, Marshan's fountain of youth that he has found. The guys had about surgeries now double hip surgery a couple summers ago and Manny looks good at age 37, just turned 37 in May. So that was the big change for Florida and you know, for Edmonton. Obviously they had a little snafu over the summer, losing two young players, Broberg and Holloway. They weren't prepared for them to get matched and you know these restricted free agents in hockey they can get offer sheets and then so teams realized they weren't prepared for that and so they plucked these two young players. But I didn't think that would hurt them short term. It'll hurt them long term because they have nothing in the cupboard. But they were able to go out and get a Klingberg and a Wallman and suddenly they have a couple puck moving defensemen. Kane misses the whole year so they can add guys late like Frederick from Boston and so they can shelve Kane and really they're an over the cap playoff team which we've seen recently in the NHL with going back to Mark Stone in Vegas and we've seen with other teams. So you know, coming in we thought maybe Edmonton was better prepared. Home ice advantage. They know they don't have to win a road game because they've been brutal in Florida the last two Stanley cup final appearances. And so we thought maybe that was enough to close, you know, to make it closer. Edmonton wins game one. Almost win game two as it goes to overtime and then they would have been in great shape. But now down to one Tonight's game seems absolutely like a game, a monumental game Edmonton has to win.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Let's talk about Florida. And, you know, I got to see him live last year during the run, and you were like, okay, one, they're deep as can be, they're loaded, and they just seem to have a bunch of motherfuckers. So is there. This happens, obviously, in different sports, but what is the difference between a regular season team and a playoff team? The regular season player and the guy that understands just all the dirty work that has to be done to win these kinds of games.

[John Butcher Grass]

Yeah, it's a unique sport, although there's some elements in other sports, like you need the asshole factor. Absolutely. In this sport because, you know, in the postseason, it does get amped up. There's more violence. More violence is allowed, more chopping is allowed, and some guys just don't want to deal with that. And, yeah, it's just kind of a vibe that you get in the postseason. You go by, you brush the goalie, an extra face wash, you support your teammate no matter what. A bump here, guys who wouldn't throw a bump here and a bump there would do it, whether it's a bark off or someone like that. And yeah, they just get the sense of it. And you would think it would be an easily learned tactic. Anybody can do it. Like, no one's really dropping gloves and fighting that much. It's rare. So you don't have to fight, but you can get in there and you can be a jerk. And there's some teams that just don't get that and some guys who just can't go there. Toronto comes to mind.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right.

[John Butcher Grass]

As the one obvious scene that those guys just can't get to that level of jerkdom. You can just really be a pain in the ass, and that's the difference. And you can't do it in the regular season. It's too long. You have to kind of play 80% like guys try to. You try to play 80, 85% in the. In the regular season to make it through. And then the playoffs, it's 100 every night. And. And that entails everything. 100 means the asshole factor. It means the violence factor. It means bumping the goalie factor. All those little things that get a guy off his game.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So let's talk Sam Bennett, because this is one of the more, I don't know, outlier kind of careers that you can have in sports. He's drafted fourth overall by Calgary. I know. I was going back through it last night, and it's like, you know, there was an expansion thing coming up, there was a contract thing coming up. But at that point, like considering where he was drafted, I think most felt like he was a disappointment. And now he's leading the postseason in goals. I think he epitomizes that nastiness. Part of it maybe it's if it's not like a chuck necessarily, like at that level where you're always looking for something, but he's living in the crease and he is such a difference maker that it feels like every team. Although I guess you could probably have some other, some other teams being like, hey, Ben, it is right up there with everybody else. It's just an incredible like second chapter for somebody to be this important to a team that's had this kind of run.

[John Butcher Grass]

I'd love a documentary on this guy. I really would. It'd be a hardcore hockey audience. I get it. But I would love a doc on Sam Bennett. Yeah, Ryan. He's obviously, when you go that high in the draft, you have physical skills. And he couldn't do a pull up at the combine in the NHL. This guy is the best, maybe the best pound profound fighter in the NHL. I mean, he is ferocious. Remember he took on Brady Tkachuk, who is a much bigger man than him. He's kind of like a middleweight body. When you say, I like seeing these guys like in their shorts, T shirts, warming up before the game because you really get a sense of their physical stature. Like McDavid's just a scrawny guy with these bow legs and this long back. It's just an interesting. It must translate perfectly to skate like he does. You know, Bennett is obviously solid. He's almost like a, like a miniature fullback you would see, but smaller. Like, you know, 185 and. But he's built like that. Like if he kept going and roided up and everything, he would be a fullback in the NFL at 235. But a powerful skater. I just, he is such a good skater. I love watching the speed of his game. We met, you know, Memory Punch Marsham with that secret punch that knocked him out. That's what he does. So he's gotten that factor as he's gone along. But it's just amazing that he's this strong and quick and fast, twitchy and powerful and thick skinned where just a blank face when he causes all that mayhem. That shift the other night. Two body checks in. The goal will go down for him in history. And Florida Panther history is one of their best moments. It's like, it's that good. And so, yeah, he just gives. And now he's a free agent like you said. And I get, you know, I, I threw like the first contracts out there like on, on Twitter and X. I enjoy playing the contract game. And I was like, if I'm him, I don't take anything less than 8 times 8. And if I'm him, I'm like, how can Elias Lindholm make more money than me? Like, that is not gonna happen. I'm sorry. And some of these other guys who won't pay the price like he does physically hitting, fighting, and the way he plays. So like, I know it's hard for people to wrap their head around a 58 point guy, a 60 point guy, but he's still a 25 to 30 goal guy who plays this way. And you, as, as we have now found out, you have to have these guys to win. Their value should be. I know regular season salaries are for the regular season, but there's gotta be some playoff factor involved.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm glad you brought up the Martian punch because, you know, there's not like any story there other than like, hey, how do these guys, when Martian gets traded there, it's like, well, you play hockey. Like, we don't worry about it.

[John Butcher Grass]

There's no grudges.

[Ryan Rosillo]

It just felt like to add Marcian to this group, it's a bit like when a defensive line has like two great edge guys and they're like, let's just bring in a third guy. It feels, it feels like even if you didn't need him, of course he gets the game winner in game two, which changes the way we all feel about the series. But it's not just like a perfect cultural fit. It's just somebody that you can trust. And it just seems to add to what already is excessive depth with this kind of player, right?

[John Butcher Grass]

Tkachuk, Bennett, Marshan, they have this nastiness in layers. And now Ekblad has kind of evolved into that kind of player. Now he's just a menace out there. Number one overall pick, he's probably early on his career. He feels pressure to score. He's the first pick of the draft. Now I'm just going to play like, like a number four defenseman. I can just go, forearm shiver, everybody. I've already made tons of money. I'm going to make tons of more because that kind of defenseman makes 7 million now a year. So he's fine. He's up this summer. He'll sign his last big contract. Of his career 100 million plus NHL player with a great life afterwards. And yeah it's. And then. And then yeah. The Marshan thing was just. I just can't believe some of these GMs who don't pay the price. They know what wins in the postseason and they just don't step up. Anyone else could have given them a number one pick and a prospect. They would have gotten Marsh hand. It was a conditional pick from that the Bruins got. Now it's a first rounder because they advanced like they advanced but originally it was a second round pick for. And I get it. He's 37. He's had a lot of surgeries UFA a lot there. But that's what you win with. And now someone's gonna vastly overpay him this summer and will likely not play to his contract. But still might have a year or two in Mark Rechy played though. He was like 42, 43. Won a cup with Boston. I can see Martian like a Mark Rechy kind of guy have value the rest of the way but not $8 million a year. Like they're talking now for Brad Marchand at age 38, 39. But yeah, it's that layer, that culture that they have with the Kachuk chain transformed this franchise in a nothing else could have. Bennett Bennett comes, Kachuk comes, Barkov gets bigger. All these guys get bigger and tougher because they have these guys Marshan now another layer playing with this Finn Anton Lundell who's kind of emerging star. So it's Bill Zito, their GM is absolutely on a heater like, like not seen before in the NHL front offices. He's. Everything is working.

[Ryan Rosillo]

What's wrong in your opinion for the Edmonton side here?

[John Butcher Grass]

Just, you know, they can't handle the pressure. You know, this is. The Panthers play a full court press, you know, Nolan Richardson, young Rick Patino, where they're just in your face the whole game. We know some basketball teams can handle that and some hockey teams can't handle it right now trying to get the puck out of there and you know, zone exits like we call it, get out of your end and zone entries get in. It's pitiful. It's down to 20% now. You know, it's 45% their first two series the mid-40s, you know, get the puck out most of the time cleanly without it getting stolen and turned over. We know hockey is a game of turnover overs but they right now they're getting smothered, especially in Florida. You know, they've scored 25 on five goals in Florida going back to last year. Remember, there were four games last year, one so far this year. So five games, two five on five goals. And so we'll see what happens tonight. But that has to be rectified. So somehow and they have, they're better equipped to do it this year than last year. I mentioned Walman and Klingberg, but Klingberg's not going to like that violent in your face game. Walman's a little more equipped for it. He does have a jerk factor to him, which Edmonton needs. So look for that. That's what we're looking for. Can you handle a full court press? Again, we see it in basketball when teams can't and it's just they have no chance. And that's what could happen in this series now that Florida's won their one road game they needed to win. Now they can win the cup without having to win again on the road.

[Ryan Rosillo]

The other part of this story, at least going into game four, is I don't know that we have a decision as far as who's going to be a net for Edmonton. Like Skinner, he gets yanked after the start to that King series or even at that point with Edmonton, you're like, okay, it just doesn't feel like they're going to be able to put on this run. And then Picker comes in and has a great stretch six zero.

[John Butcher Grass]

And he got benched.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, he gets benched. And so it felt again, this is just a guy, you know, drive by and in this, this world. But I didn't feel like Skinner was giving up a bunch of easy ones in game three at all. But my guess would be that Edmonton's making the change here because they wanted to get pickered maybe some minutes and that we already should understand that's the decision that they're going to go with. And again, I, I don't, you know, correct me if I'm wrong here. I thought it was the guys in front of Skinner more than it was him letting in easy goals.

[John Butcher Grass]

Oh, absolutely.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[John Butcher Grass]

That was like you said, I, I actually that's a. Would they bring him in? Did he do that? Just because it's been a while for him. He start him in game four sometime during game three and I'm sure that happens with coaches but haven't been in that position. But you start thinking ahead. I'm sure Chris Knobloch is doing that because you know what, I'm going to start him at game four. So do I want to put him in this Mess, because it's just a gong show right now. Start him fresh because he could probably handle that. Or do I, like you said, do I give him some pucks now? Because I'm going to start him. Game four. He's six and, oh, he hasn't lost. We need something here. Even though he's not the problem, sometimes when you make a goalie change, it helps fix the other problem because everyone else gets obviously laser focused. But yeah, it's funny. Stuart Skinner, this happened to him in junior hockey. His team won a Memorial Cup. That's almost like a national championship for, like a basketball national championship. It's a championship of Canada for junior players under 20, which most college basketball players are now. And he got pulled during, like, the championship round, and they got three straight shutouts. Then was the mvp. Like, this guy. It's so like, he's done this before and it doesn't bother him.

[Ryan Rosillo]

He's.

[John Butcher Grass]

He could handle it. So at least you don't have to worry about that part. Like, the coach knows he won't lose a guy. So I imagine some coaches like, I can't do this because if I do this, I can't go back to that guy because he'll be gone. But they know this guy. He actually can handle it. So let's do a line change here with the goalie. We can actually do it with this guy's personality. It happened to him before as a junior player. Multiple playoff rounds, and his team went on to win the championship. And he got better as the series went on, which has happened this postseason. Maybe it'll happen again. One game of Pickard and then maybe games, you know, six and seven. Skinner is back shutting out the Panthers and winning the cup for Edmondson.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That was. I don't know. I mean, it was part of the thought because I was like, all right, this is. And as you said, it was a gong show. Is there anything to be gained from that game getting as ugly as it did for the last 10 plus minutes in game three?

[John Butcher Grass]

It sometimes can. Like you saw in the Dallas series when Liam Bishol, this gigantic defenseman on Dallas, kind of turtled as Corey Perry wanted to fight just before the buzzer, just at the buzzer. And that's your. That's your chance. It's like, you know, that's when you want to fight. That's the best time to fight. You're not going to hurt your team. The game is over. And, you know, Perry did that turtle move. Did that turtle move. Then he went after Mikola for The Panthers and maybe. And again, he did that move again because Mikola wasn't going to fight. He doesn't have to fight him. Doesn't want to fight him. I would think you'd want to fight him. It seems like fun. This guy's 40. He's not going to hurt you. And. But he didn't want to fight, so that's fine. He's been. He's a little injured. He's tired. He's like, I'm exhausted. I don't want to fight right now. And so maybe you can gain psychological effect where you think, but there's no way Florida falls in that category. So that's. So if you're Edmonton, you're not going to gain anything there except getting out your frustration. And then all of a sudden, AJ Greer comes over and starts pummeling Matias Echolm. And all that does is make Florida seem tougher. And like, Evan's like, oh, geez, we can't handle this. So if anything, I give that advantage. Florida for what happened. As you kind of scan the ice and see all these different scrums and one guy going after another guy who's. Who wants no part of it. Who wants a part of it, that's when you find out who likes that stuff and who doesn't. And so overall, no, you get a couple days off, it's gone. Once those first five minutes tonight happen, we'll get an idea of how sharp and desperate Edmonton is. I expect it'll be game seven desperate because they know it is.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm not going blame pie on you here, although a great exercise, but, you know, coming in whenever you're looking at Edmonton, I mean, you go, okay, we know who the top guys are and how special they are, but questions about goaltending, fine. We've addressed that. The lack of depth in their defensive pairings is clearly. You can see that talent gap with them and other teams. But I got to be honest with you, like, it just feels like the forwards, outside of what you expect from McDavid's playmaking and dry Seidel's efficiency and, you know, his scoring's been terrific. He's healthier this postseason than he was certainly last year. It just feels like a lot of those guys become invisible to me. Like, there's not. I mean, I didn't expect to be talking about captain with some of my buddies, but I was like, I loved his energy. Yeah. Earlier in the series, but it just feels like, okay, you know, that guy's out there for another shift. And it just feels like there's nothing really being accomplished, which I know sounds a little unfair because there's plenty of scoring through the first two games there. But. But what do you think has been the bigger issue? Is it just defensively not being able to gain possession of the puck, get it out, clear it or is it just the drop off from scoring chances from the guys outside of McDavid and dry side?

[John Butcher Grass]

Yeah, well that is definitely a problem. Guys like Kaplan is the reason why he's been waived a couple of times because he's going to just come in and out, come in and out, come in and out. You know, in terms of performing Stanley cup playoffs is a two month season. He's been doing this for two months now. So you're going to get. Guys like him will have dry spells where they disappear and that's what happens. Yeah, they know where no, you know, they have nowhere near the scoring depth that Florida has. Especially the Hyman injury. I mean that was such a big one going in 50 plus goals last year. Then he kind of transformed himself into this hitting machine this postseason. You know, he wasn't on the top line as much anymore. They're looking for that balance we talked about. So that's a, that was a big one. You know, that's. That's kind of like, you know, Florida losing a Verhegee, you know, losing a guy that at that level now again they have and they probably could overcome. Florida can overcome an injury. Probably one of those guys in that Reinhardt for a couple of days and he still might have a sprained mcl. He has not been his normal self although had a real nice goal last game. But I think it really comes down Brian is again playing in Florida. They just have. They've had no shot there five games now, two five on five goals again, whether it's the line change advantage at getting Barkhop out there when they want that is big and he's the best defensive player in the world right now. He's a giant man who leans on McDavid. McDavid is a skinny, scrawny guy and with contact you can kind to take him out. Dry settle hasn't scored a goal in Florida going back to last year's final. So that's the issue. Getting the puck out like we talked about with that pressure and then finding somebody to score because Barkov's out there against, you know, McDavid all the time. And they can also now match up Bennett, you know, against the second line. So. And dry Sidel so If you can't put dry saddle McDavid together, then you're definitely getting Barkov. And now you got Barkov against McDavid. You got Bennett against Dry Saddle. Then you mentioned bottom six. Huge advantage with the Marshan Lund riding line. So it really comes down to that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Interesting tactic between Game 3 and Game 4, Edmonton. Let's practice. Let's get back out on the ice. We don't want to be back out on the ice for the first time in game four. Coming off of game three, Florida day off. Does that mean anything?

[John Butcher Grass]

Yeah, I mean, you know, two days off in between these games. This thing has taken a while. Even though the game's in Florida, two full days off. So, yeah, there's no Florida at this, as we know, the best at this point. Just like over training in the gym, sometimes a day of rest is better. You know, you grow when you sleep and eat, you don't grow in the gym. So I think they're just trying to grow with sleep and rest and, you know, get all those injuries, all those. Whether it's Reinhardt and really more so the freshness of mind not having to go to the rink and put on your skates again, the gear again, take it on again, take it off again. It's one sport where it's not golf, where you put a pair of shoes on, or basketball, you put a pair of shoes on, it's a lot more. That's a pain in the ass to put all that equipment on.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Paul Maurice had said, you know, this is. He was talking about game four. I thought this was really interesting where it was like quicker shifts, he expected to go to overtime. I mean, maybe he's just trying to keep his guy sharp. But can you tell? I mean, I guess it could just be as long as, however the shifts time out. But do you see that balance? And like, hey, he's. He's changing this up, expecting to be playing an extra 20 minutes where he doesn't want to burn his guys out. Now, granted, Florida has the luxury of all the depth that we've been talking about here, but how often is that something you'll, you'll see, you're talking to the guys, you know, getting ready for the broadcast in between periods. You're just thinking, okay, he's, he's playing this, expecting that he has to try to keep these guys a little bit fresher. Even if it would make more sense if, hey, try to win the game in regulation.

[John Butcher Grass]

Right? Yeah, you do kind of have to do that where now that's gonna Be fun to watch tonight is, look at that first period ice time, you know, is Edmonton's fourth line. Did they play three minutes, you know, or did they play five? You know, did they play 236 or did they play five? And you know, that that's, that's when you can see that Edmonton might be, you know what, we just got to go for it with these guys. Or will Chris Knobloch be patient, play the long game and be ready for a strong third period. Whether you're up 2 to 1 or down 2 to 1, you know, do we have to come back with. Then you definitely obviously shorten the bench. But then if you're up, can we continue to put the pressure on them defensively? Because it's tough when you're having a hard time scoring goals in Florida, which as we mentioned, when they have, it's hard to tell your guys we got to play defense first. Like we have to be a great defensive team. But David was soft and lazy on that Sam Reinhardt goal. He just kind of floated. Kind of like in the four nations when Auston Matthews kind of drifted away from Connor McDavid wide open in overtime in the crease and he sniped it home and won the, won the gold medal for, for Canada. You just, you have to mentally be in it 100% of the time. When you're on your 42nd shift, it's only 40 to 50 seconds long. These shifts. You can be on all out defensive minded and go and, you know, and be in goal prevention mode and that's what you have. It's tiring, it's mentally tiring. But Edmonton has to accept that, especially McDavid.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, let's close on McDavid, 28, been in the league since 15, 16. You know, I, I kind of hate the one. A guy who's awesome wins. It's like now we're all allowed to say he's great, we know how great he is. But this is, you know, it just, it just feels like, you know, how many chances are you're going to get at this. I mean, he's going to have other chances, I would imagine, right, because of how special he is. But I just think it's going to be a really frustrating conversation if they find a way to lose this back to back years against Florida.

[John Butcher Grass]

I agree because you know, cap wise, they're up against it. Dry settles. $5 million raise is coming up starting next year. Bouchard needs a new contract. He's going to be a $10 million defenseman. So the check's already been written. There's guys coming up the pipeline, you know, those guys who can make 900 grand and be good, they'll be signing 900 grand. Guys who are captain, you know that that's what they're looking at. And so it's going to be. And then McDavid's contract is the year after next, you know, this is his extension summer. If he's going to sign an eight times for him, probably 17 million, you know, he'll break another record then they're really going to have a hard time building a good team. And so what does he do then? And in NHL history, Ryan like the legends get their cups, you know, top 20 scorers all time. Only three guys didn't win a cup. Marcel Dion, certainly a good, very, very good player. Joe Thornton, one mvp, one scoring title. And Adam Oates again, all three really good hall of Fame players, but not quite that legendary set. So all the legends have their cups. He's like, he's the greatest player in the history of the league who doesn't have a Stanley cup. And he's 28. Like that's a fact. So, and like I said, look at Edmonton's situation. They're an old team getting older. Cap wise, they're done. It's going to get a little frustrating. So I just wondered this summer, what do I do? Do I say maybe go somewhere else in a better situation with a lot of younger core? As I approach 30 and I'm an older 30, the way I've carried this team, these guys are older than they are and how he's built, like I said, a little bit smaller. It's going to be interesting, it's going to be fascinating. But yes, hockey is a team Sport. It takes 20 guys. It's not, certainly not golf and Phil Mickelson trying to win U.S. open. Basketball is different. Seven, eight guys play. Maybe there might be an argument there if a guy doesn't win one, but still, it's a sport with lots of guys. Ted Williams never won a championship. He's still considered the best ever. So yeah, I don't really subscribe to that either in a sport that takes so many people to win. But it's still interesting because like I said, he's, he's generational and almost all generational guys get a cup now. Some have taken longer to go Vetchin longer and really only only had one shot. He got it and it's taken, you know, Steve Iserman longer. It can take time. So he's certainly at a window here in the next five years. You got to think somewhere he gets it done. But it'll be harder in Edmonton. As I mentioned what their roster looks like.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Thanks for letting us disrupt what is, I'm sure a very busy day as we get ready for game four with Edmonton, Florida again. John Butcher Grass 5:30 Eastern, the Point, ESPN2. Thanks my man.

[John Butcher Grass]

You see it tonight, Ryan.

[Ryan Rosillo]

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[Justin Williams]

Yeah. So the house sentiment, the biggest thing moving forward and for fans is this, you know, 20 and a half million dollar pool of revenue sharing basically that colleges for the first Time can start paying athletes directly. So the whole century of amateurism that defined college sports, sports, that's pretty much completely gone. It was kind of fractured with the NIL era, but now the schools are going to be directly paying athletes out of a revenue share. And that's part of this settlement that now has back pay to former athletes and a bunch of stuff that doesn't necessarily impact things moving forward, but kind of completely resets the landscape of all college sports.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, so this means that each college athletic department can give up to $20.5 million to all of its players, but they're supposedly capped at 20.5, including nil deals internally.

[Justin Williams]

Yes. So you can also do the other kind of part of this, and really, this is where all the questions and skepticism has come in, is so there's the revenue sharing pool for the school, and that's the 20 and a half. And you're right, that goes over the entire athletic department. So you're talking every sport. And so schools are kind of figuring out, how much do we give to football, how much do we give to men's basketball, women's basketball, et cetera, all down the line. And then the traditional nil, which would have come from outside parties. Whether you're talking about a company or a local company, or mostly it's come from these collectives, which are, you know, boosters and fans. Hey, we want to pay to get the players that we want to come to our team or stay on our team. Those are still allowed as over the cap deals, but they now have to be approved by a clearinghouse. And people might have heard it's called NIL Go. It's managed by Deloitte, the accounting firm. So before, if a collective wanted to pay A star quarterback $2 million to come pay for the, you know, come play for the school that they support, and they're an alma mater. Okay, great. No one's going to stop that. Now. According to the rules, the athlete would have to submit this deal to a clearinghouse, and the clearinghouse would look at it and decide whether it's allowed under the deals. And if it's, you know, a national company that wants to give a, you know, reasonable nil deal to an athlete, sure, it's going to get approved. If it's a collective run by a booster who wants to give $2 million and all you have to do is send a tweet out or, you know, go to an autograph signing, according to the settlement, the clearinghouse is going to nix that deal and it won't be allowed. But this is what everyone's wondering. Is it actually going to work?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Right. And Yahoo. Had reported that you also referenced that they kind of ran through. I don't know if they went through all of the previous NIL deals. I mean, that seems impossible. So let's not hold them to that standard. But the feeling was that 70% of previous nil deals over these last few years would have been approved by this clearinghouse anyway.

[Justin Williams]

Of the outside, like, company deals, I think it was 70% of those would have been approved, but maybe 90%. I forget the exact number of the deals that come from these collectives would have been denied. So basically the part of the reason the NCAA and the power conferences wanted to do this is they felt like kind of the. You mentioned the wild, wild west, the unregulated NIL was really run by these collectives that are associated with schools. They have boosters, they have fans. They weren't directly related, but they were just funneling money to athletes for no kind of valid business purpose, quote unquote. And the NCAA basically wanted to kind of rein that in and figure out a way to put some. Some guardrails and regulations on something that they had completely lost control of.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Man. All right, there's so many different things that I want to touch on here. A lot of people were asking for this. Coaches were asking their conference commissioners, like, we need some sort of regulatory process. We need to understand this better. But at the same time, the NCAA allowed this free for all to happen. It was like, okay, you can do NIL deals, which I think spoke directly to the NCAA going like, look, as long as we don't have to give up any money, money, like just let everybody else pay for it and then we still get to keep all of it. And we can say we did the right thing, but we're keeping all of it still. Which I think any business, if they had the opportunity, how can we keep all of our money and then get credit for being more pro athlete? They would have gone ahead and done that. But to allow this to happen for this many seasons and then pretend that they're going to control it. It. What was the reaction to, like, how could you have something this significant play out the way it did the last few years and then think you're now going to change the course of this or become more restrictive in how you're viewing player compensation?

[Justin Williams]

So this has been the NCAA's problem. I mean, to. To really understand all of this. It goes back to the NCAA historically, has lost battles in Court, like, you can go all the way back to the Obannon case or the Alston case a few years ago. That's what really started nil. The Alston case wasn about nil, but that is what led to, people might remember Brett Kavanaugh kind of wrote an opinion in that case, which lost 9, 0 at the Supreme Court, which can't agree on anything unanimously except going against the ncaa, apparently wrote this opinion that kind of opened up the floodgates for nil because he's saying, like, hey, you're putting a lot of restrictions and caps on what athletes can earn. And that just hasn't really flown in America historically. And so the ncaa, because they kept losing in court, they allowed nil to happen. And that's really what this whole House settlement, it was another lawsuit that if it would have gone to trial and if the NCAA and power conferences would have lost, they were staring down bankruptcy. We're talking $20 billion in damages if they lose in court. And so the NCAA says, and the power conferences, they're a big part of this too. They're basically like, we don't want to lose another case in court, so we're going to settle it. But as part of that settlement, we're going to put, try and put in some of these regulations and some of these caps and stuff looking forward. So basically trying to use the settlement as a chance to put some guidelines on things that they hadn't had before. But you're right, I mean, anytime, whether it's eligibility and transfers or nil, any pretty much major case that the NCAA has fought in court the past few years, they've lost. And so now, even though they're putting all these new regulations in place with the settlement, there's a lot of skepticism in the industry and outside the industry of people wondering if this new settlement guideline is going to hold up once it comes under more legal scrutiny. And that's why, big picture thing, you hear all these leaders saying, hey, we're going to Congress and we're trying to get antitrust exemptions and federal legislation because they need something to kind of set the settlement in stone.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And there's also a concern too, that because states have their own individual nil laws, that even with the passing of this, I mean, it just sounds like people are going to find a way to make money off of more cases, I'd imagine. Imagine. Because this will be challenged, it sounds.

[Justin Williams]

Like already, yeah, even the most, like, ardent supporters of the settlement, the people that have been involved of it, they're Honest. That they need federal legislation, they need Congress to get involved. Because of what you said, there's state laws for NIL that are different for different states. They call it a patchwork of. We have to fix this patchwork of nil state laws. There's questions about Title 9. There's questions about can you legally say no, you can't give a star player $2 million for any reason. So they're really fighting kind of a battle on multiple fronts. The sense internally, for those that have been involved in this is for a long time, when they were going to Congress to ask for help, Congress was kind of like, we're not going to fix your problems, essentially. So they felt like, all right, let's put this settlement in place. Let's put a foundation. And now they can go to Congress and say, we've done something. We're not being reactive anymore, or we're not trying to. To push off the future. We've been progressive, we've been proactive in this. And so now here, can you help us? Because we put this foundation in front, and really it's going to come down to can they get some type of congressional intervention? Because the longer this goes on without something to set the settlement in stone at a national, federal level, it just leaves them open to more litigation, more legal battles, and historically, that has not gone well for them.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So Ohio State, by all accounts, their football team. People call it a $20 million team. I don't know what to believe. Whenever I hear about the NIL stuff, like I've heard the Cooper flag number first one year at Duke, I don't even think it's possible that it's even close to $28 million. I. I just don't. A lot of times, I just don't believe what the overall headline number is. But let's just say that the 20 million for Ohio State is close to being accurate. Does that mean that. That with this cap, that then you're telling men's and women's basketball like, you're not. You're not getting any money because you decided to use it all in football? Like, I don't. I still. I guess I just don't quite understand that if it's this supposed cap number that you can't go over, but you're still kind of allowed to go over, like, how is that going to work with an athletic department?

[Justin Williams]

Yeah. I mean, even the Ohio State athletic director of last year said, 20 million as the budget for the football team, and then they go win the national championship. I think the question you're referring to is, all right, if they have a 20 million revenue share pool, they're not going to give all that to football. Just, you know, it doesn't, it won't make sense, right?

[Ryan Rosillo]

I mean, maybe it makes all the sense. A lot of programs, it actually makes sense that they get every single dollar. I don't know how you would do that to all of these coaches that you hired where they're just coming in your office and you're like, you're actually just going to get zero, right?

[Justin Williams]

And so if they can't give all of it to football and they're not going to, then are we supposed to believe that, that Ohio State football moving forward is going to, like, their budget's going to decrease their, you know, their nil roster? No one really believes that. And so that's why you're starting to, you know, I wrote about this this week. Other people have mentioned this. Are you going to have the return of the bagman of the under the table payments? Because maybe people don't want to risk going through that clearinghouse and, you know, have an oversight ding them. And so, okay, we put what we can through revenue sharing, and then maybe you have the old school way of, of the boosters giving money to athletes under the table to make them whole or to encourage them to come play. It opens up all these possibilities that are going to be interesting to see. How does this new establishment of the settlement, does it actually work? Because it's supposed to have more oversight, it's supposed to have more punitive power than what the NCAA has had previously in terms of laying down punishments and things like that. But how is it going to police if we go back to paying players under the table in the bagman, all that kind of stuff? This is what all that skepticism that you're probably hearing from people inside and outside the industry, that's where it's coming from.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Okay, I want to get to some of the reaction from some of the skeptics that you heard from, but I'm, I'm still just trying to hammer down the math of this. So I'm sorry if it sounds like I don't understand, but if it's 20.5 million and it's being framed as revenue sharing, well, what revenue? Nil revenue. Like, so that's not really revenue sharing. If it's, if the nil deals are part of that number, then it's not money coming from TV deals or attendance or merch. I mean, or maybe is it. I'm just Trying to figure out how they're. It almost sounds like they came up with a salary cap number that they don't have to pay again.

[Justin Williams]

Right. And so what it's claimed is that the revenue pool is supposed to come from TV money, ticket sales and sponsorships. And so that's why it's called revenue sharing and not like a salary cap. Because they can't call it a salary cap because then you're talking about employees. And that's a whole other issue of this.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And they're not employees. Right.

[Justin Williams]

And, and those in charge of college sports don't want the athletes to be employees. And honestly there's probably a lot of athletes that if you ask them, they don't want to be considered employees either because then you get into contracts and tax stuff and all that. But yeah, in order to avoid them being employees, it's considered revenue sharing. And it's. Even though they're trying to say like, no, you're not doing pay for play, let's be honest, if these schools are paying athletes out of a revenue share pool to participate at their university, that's basically what it is. But we all kind of have to maintain the charade of it's revenue share, it's not salary cap. And yeah, they've kind of calculated that this 20 and a half million comes from this pool of those things.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I'm just thinking as I was reading that and talking with you, I'm like, I would love to know and I don't know, maybe it's a public university, we'll have to share some of this paperwork. But what was of say the 20.5 million, like how much of it actually came from what I would describe as revenue sharing versus, you know, it's just putting a new name on nil support. Here's another question. Was there any projection as far as how much this number can increase over the next however many years with TV deals?

[Justin Williams]

Yeah, so this, it gets really into the weeds. But there's already like, it's supposed to increase by 4% every year that, that you know, annual pool number. And then I think after year three and year seven of this 10 year settlement, they can basically go back in and reassess based on if there's a new TV contract or like a new college football playoff contract. So it's going to keep going up and they have all these mechanisms in place for how that's going to change. But that's getting like super into the, you know, the court dockets when you're going in and all that who's arguing.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Then on the player side.

[Justin Williams]

So right now there's kind of been this cottage industry that's popped up the past couple of years of lawyers and agents, you know, who are working in the nil space. Some of them are legit. You hear a lot of stories about some of these agents who are not at all legit. There's no requ approval process for agents like you would have in, you know, the NBA or the, the NFL or anything like that. So yeah, you might have for the top line college players like a legit agent. But then you also might have these guys who are playing in group of six or something or mid major basketball and it's their cousin or their buddy who's a business major who's who's negotiating these contracts. But from the outside, you know, a lot of these lawsuits that have been filed, it's from people working in the nil space who are, you know, basically arguing like you can't put a cap on free market earning for these athletes. And under the settlement kind of one of the interesting things is the athletes can't sue. So if a deal gets denied through this clearinghouse, the athletes are bound by the settlement. They can't say, hey I'm going to sue the power conferences or the NCAA for denying this. And the schools can't really either because they've all kind of signed on to this settlement. So the question now becomes the first time some big deal gets denied, who's going to be arguing against that? Is it a collective, you know, because a lawyer can't just bring a suit on their own. They have to be representing someone. So I think there is some question of if this gets challenged in court, who is challenging it and why.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Now I was reading some of the other stuff where there may be strategy in maximizing this number where I don't want to call it tank thinking, but I know it's been brought up a few times, what would be the approach there if a football team knew, okay we, we have a terrible quarterback situation and so US spending 17 million on the rest of the roster when we don't even think we're going to make like a good bowl game. Is there, is there carryover or is it that's when you're appeasing the other programs like are you taking away from football in a year where you expect to have a down year year and promising that to other people? I mean this becoming look an athletic director is an awesome job and all that kind of stuff, but this is such a new I guess you could argue, hey, it's not really that different telling everybody else you're not as important in football for all the years previous to this new version of how this is structured. But it seems like there's. It feels like there's theories on how they would manage that money in a year where maybe they think it's not worth going all in on. Football.

[Justin Williams]

Football, yeah, absolutely. I think one of the interesting things about this is how do these schools use their annual rev share pool? How do they decide how much they're going to give to men's basketball? How much do they decide they're going to give to football or some of the other sports? But even within that, like you said, you know, you could play out a scenario where school has some injuries, they miss on a quarterback, miss on a couple recruits, they don't feel like they're going to compete that season. So they say, instead of, you know, know, trying to plug these holes that aren't going to work, let's hold onto our rev share money until the transfer portal opens and then maybe we'll have a little bit more, you know, stockpiled than some of our competitors and we can go out and overpay for some or just offer more money than some of these other schools could to try and get people for next year, which is not really something that's happened in college sports before. It's obviously, we've seen examples of that at the professional level. You could even go deeper. They're starting to hire these GMs, like Andrew Luckett, Stanford's a good example, Jim Nagy at Oklahoma, who are either on the same level as the head coach or even above the head coach in some situations. So maybe if the head coach loses his job, the GM who's in charge of the roster now at some of these schools might not lose their job. So what if a coach is on the hot seat and they decide like, hey, instead of going all in this season, there's a chance our coach doesn't survive this. What if we save some of our money? The coach gets fired. Now we look even more attractive to not only players in the transfer portal, but the next coach we're trying to hire because we have this war chest stockpile of rev sharing. This is stuff that I don't really like. You know, this isn't fun. This isn't what you want to think about or write about when you're covering college sports. It's not what fans want to hear. But I think it'd be naive to think like something like this might not happen under this kind of new era.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Why do some people think this will change the direction of the overwhelming transfer portal numbers?

[Justin Williams]

I don't know that it really will have that big of an impact. You know, there's been some talk of, now that you're. The schools are paying directly, can you structure a contract or an agreement with an athlete in a way that convinces them to stay for a few years? Honestly, I'll be surprised. And it'll probably take a couple years of data to figure this out. I think the transfer portal stuff's going to look, look pretty much the same as it always has, except now instead of, you know, schools having to go through their collectives and agents as kind of a middleman, now the schools are dealing with these players and their agents directly. So it just kind of changes the makeup of it. But I don't think it's going to look that difference in terms of players running, moving around and getting money.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Let's talk about some of the skepticism that you've received from coaches. You know, I don't know, it's all staff people, because I, I read the quotes and it seems like you had an abundance of people doubting this and perhaps looking at this as we're just going back to what it was before.

[Justin Williams]

Yeah, I think there's two camps. There's the people that were involved with the settlement, you know, at an administration level, commissioners, ads, and they're really bought into it. They want it to work. They have to kind of be out there saying, we think it's going to work because, you know, it's, it's been unregulated. They kind of feel like they haven't had their arms around it the past few years. And then on the other side, you have, whether it's coaches or, you know, assistants, recruiting staffers, whoever, who. The history of college sports especially, you're talking like college football is finding those loopholes, finding competitive advantages. Maybe it's against the rules or maybe it's just, you know, kind of breaking quote, unquote, unwritten rules. But it's always been, you know, do you, do you pay a guy under the table or how do you work around these practice hours and things like that, that. And so I think you have those people in both worlds where, hey, if we put the settlement together, we really want it to work and we feel like these people are undermining it from the jump. But if you're a coach or you're a recruiting staffer, what are you saying? I don't get to keep my job or I don't get a raise because I followed the rules. I get to keep my job or get a raise because I win games. And so that's what they're going to be thinking about. And so I just think you have these kind of two different groups pulling in different directions. And the question will be, see, does the settlement work? Does it punish bad actors, does it keep everyone in line? Or do, you know, historically, those people who have found a way to cut the corners and find the loopholes, does that stuff continue moving forward?

[Ryan Rosillo]

I appreciate it, man. It was really educational because I was trying to figure out when I saw the headline and the settlement and everything, I'm like, what does this mean? So I think we all understand it a little bit better. Better even if we're preparing ourselves for the unintended consequences of all this thing, which might be really, really easy to predict. Again, Justin Williams, the Athletic thanks, man.

[Justin Williams]

Can I ask you a question real quick?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Do it. Yeah. Nobody ever does that.

[Justin Williams]

You're a fan of the sport. I think part of the thing that's come up when all this is happening, what do you want college football and college sports to look like? Because I think that's what they're trying to figure out, and I don't know that anyone has a good answer for that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm always on the player side with the compensation thing, so. So I think it's very outdated. There's just a lot of things. I mean, people got mad about transfers, people defended transfer restrictions. I think even there was a time I probably thought like, well, you shouldn't be able to transfer within the same conference. There's just a lot of shit that people have said over the years that immediately they probably felt like was incredibly outdated. So I'm very pro player with all this kind of stuff because I still thought the nil thing was. It was just such a misdirection. I remember reading a lot of, like, the arguments in court going back 10 years ago and the NCAA's positions. Their arguments were so terrible. They'd be like, using tweets from different college football media members. I think there was like a Stu Mandel tweet that they used as like evidence. Remember the argument against how younger kids would waste money? As if older people never waste money. I mean, it's just awful. So I would never ever root for that size. So I'm always all for the compensation that the players can get. My biggest thing. Look, the audience already knows this is the conference realignment stuff. The Expansion. I hate it with a passion. I've done this rant probably far too often. I just wish there was somebody that could be in charge in a David Stern type role that would go. I know it's about survival. I know it's about every last TV dollar seller. But there needs to be a partnership. There needs to be a bigger partnership. So the nil stuff never really bothers me. Sure. It's going to be a free for all now. The coaching job is a lot harder and the AD job is a little bit harder. Those guys have increased their salaries so much in such a short amount of time that I don't have a ton of sympathy for them in that part of the argument. But I'm really not into this two super conference thing that we're heading towards. So the nil and compensation isn't even on my radar. Are as a concern. Even if there's sometimes or a story that you hear that you don't necessarily like. Like, to me that's not nearly as damaging to the sport as it is where you have Wake playing Cal in an ACC game and we're supposed to like think that's normal. So I don't know how to fix that. I don't know how to turn that around. I think it, it has to get to a point where it's like. I don't know if they would ever. You know, you have these presidents and these, these, these guys that are super powerful in the conferences. They're never going to like listen to a David Stern type. So whatever I'm thinking or what I want it to be is a fucking dream because it's never going to happen anymore. I don't, I don't know. No.

[Justin Williams]

I mean we didn't even talk about the College Sports Commission, which is what the, the power conferences put together as kind of this new oversight under the settlement. And they hired this guy from Major League Baseball who's the CEO now he answers to the power conference commissioners. But the hope is that he can kind of direct this thing moving forward. But you're right that all of this, the settlement that we're talk, it's all about player compensation. And it really doesn't get to what I think. I agree with you. Has been a bigger issue for fans is the conference realignment and whatever's going on with the playoff and whatever's going on with the Big Ten in the sec. And so it's definitely going to change things and maybe in a general sense it's moving things in the right direction. But there's still a lot of other issues with college sports that need to get figured out.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I mean, David Stern worked for the owners, but he could also tell one of the owners he was fucking up. And there's no one who can tell anyone. Whether it's a conference commissioner or the school presidents, no one can tell any of them they're fucking up. And the PAC 12 falling apart and leading to everybody kind of going through this arms race thing, and it becomes survival, and then you're like, all right, well, I've got to do something here. I just. I don't know. I mean, everybody's heard it before from me, but I don't know why that would ever be good. I don't know why two super conferences would be good. I don't. I don't know why just having the biggest TV deal for a conference like is. Is there an element to where every dollar you're making now is a dollar you're going to lose, like 20 years in the future when it feels like it's this really just like, non regional product which I think at its core is what made college football so special.

[John Butcher Grass]

Special.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah.

[Justin Williams]

No, I agree. The. The. The history and the rivalries and stuff like that, that's what made college football different than everything else. And a lot of that's been. Been lost or is. Feels like it's going to be lost.

[Ryan Rosillo]

All right, man. Good stuff. Thank you.

[Justin Williams]

I appreciate you having me.

[Ryan Rosillo]

This episode is brought to you by UberEats. Summer is here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with UberEats. What do I mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Delivered. A day in the sun?

[John Butcher Grass]

No.

[Ryan Rosillo]

A bottle of rum. Yes. UberEats can definitely get you that. Get almost. Almost anything delivered with UberEats. Order now for alcohol. You must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

[Justin Williams]

You want details?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up?

[Justin Williams]

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Lifeadvicermail.com it has been a challenge today, folks, but we are going to give you an episode.

[Kyle]

We're down 3:1 in the finals.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We got it. Yeah. We are trying.

[Kyle]

It's been done.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We are trying to get There for you. All right, so follow up on the travel first date guy. He was quick on. So this guy is very efficient. Immediately got back to us. Thanks for the advice, guys. I feel extraordinarily validated by Ryan's reaction to the kite surf pick. Kyle, that might answer your question on how desperate I currently am. H. Why hasn't an attractive prospect in London or Paris found someone yet? Why hasn't a witty jack boat owner with a legit audience found someone in LA yet? Is he talking about me?

[Kyle]

I think, yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I do wonder, like, do you guys honestly think it'd be like that? Hooked up again last weekend before we get to some emails like, you should.

[Kyle]

Be letting us know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

You think? Yeah, right. I'll be on like kid number two. Like, yeah, her third photo. I still don't see what's concerning about it, but I do agree that the photos 1 and 2 are better. Did you remember to layer a charming British accent onto it? Angles? I don't know my angles. I use swipe analytics to workshop my photos and apparently it's working. Yeah, they're great, but photos? Have you FaceTimed? No. Video chat is my best medium and I'd prefer to be disappointed than be the one who disappoints. Is that actually more selfish?

[Kyle]

So no one's decided? No one's even brought it up? Like, before I go to a, you know, cross the pond to. To see you or across the channel, I guess.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, no one's.

[Kyle]

No one's been like, hey, you busy right now? Like, we're just all assuming.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Huh.

[Kyle]

I don't love that part.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Can I afford it? Well, I bought kite surfing equipment. That was. Yeah.

[Kyle]

I didn't know if you were renting it or not, dude.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So, Leith Kitesurfing? Well, kitesurfing is obviously booked, but he said everything is booked. I'm doing the trip. We'll let you guys know how it goes. All right, good. Thank you. All right, sounds good. Sounds good. Another quick follow up here. 33 years old. Six six. 260. South Shore Mass. Basketball comp a stretch. Big, like early 2000s. Rafe LaFrence coupled with a low post footwork more reminiscent of wizards legend Kwame Brown. I thought I was by myself on this island. It was refreshing. He doesn't even say pun. But I'm going to say pun. It was refreshing to hear Kyle's stance. That Seagram says the best ginger ale in the game. Extremely crisp and tastes great as is or is a method mixer. Not sure how one could even argue that one of the less inferior brands have a better product. Won't mention names to jeopardize potential future ads that may have. Speaking of, I've got to get Kyle and Morgan on the TV train here from our guy Kyle. I'm with you, brother. Hashtag Team Seagrams. This pod keeps me sane during Boston traffic. Enjoy the summer.

[Kyle]

I got a couple tweets about Vernors. I think that's maybe a. Maybe that's a regional thing. Never heard of it. Sorry, guys.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, Is Ryan ever going to release the France travel pod? He referenced it in a pod, but I don't think it was ever released. I'm going to that area this summer. Appreciate to hear Priscilla's France hot takes prior to my trip. Never released, never will be. It just. I took too long. I wrote all the notes. I even taped a few of the parts of it. And then I got back and then life happened. And then I remember, like, digging in. I was going to release it, like on a fall Wednesday day. And then I was like, you don't. You don't have it in you. And it's one of my great regrets. So quick. I'd stay in Nice as little as possible. You got to fly in. It's not that bad getting in and out. Just don't be there during July and August when there's 3 million people walking around. So you can do it in a day or two. It's worth it. But don't stay there. Cans, which again, I've heard three different pronunciations while I was there, so I don't get upset with anybody that thinks they know it. I do get upset with people that try to correct everybody else because, you know, kahn sounds better, but I. That's the one I'm going with. You can do that in half a day, but it's so small. It's worth seeing, but it's not like a tough do. And Sant is arguably one of the coolest spots I've ever been anywhere in my entire life. So find the beaches outside of town. They're pretty easy. Everybody was actually really nice. Even though it's bougie as there's going to be some dinner places you're going to walk by that you're not going to be allowed into. I wasn't allowed into, you know, I mean, I wasn't also dressed up in.

[Kyle]

A suit of mesh shorts. Again, you didn't learn.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, well, you know, these people are like 12 deep, straight from Dubai, just going bananas. And it's like, hey, you guys, sit at the bar, do some apps. So it's, you know, like that's. If you have a group, you have the means. You can pull it off. Late night, it's not lawn bocce, it's something else. I think that stuff starts up at like 11 o' clock at night. Grab yourself a, grab yourself a bottle of suds and watch a bunch of guys that may be Italian or Spanish or French, you know, who knows the Mediterranean? Some melting pot. A lot of invasions which we've covered. It was unbelievable. That was really cool. So I would spend a lot of time there. Exxon Provence. Do not go to. I went there, it was just all downhill. And then that Du Verdone thing and then I ended up back in Nice and then Monaco is probably worth to say you went, you need an afternoon. Everybody told me it sucked. And honestly they're not wrong. It's not that big of a deal unless you like going to south beach and taking pictures in front of fancy car cars that aren't yours.

[Kyle]

Did you do parrots?

[Ryan Rosillo]

No. South. South of France, dude. No. On, no, I didn't. Very good.

[Ceruti]

Nice forts there.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, look, I mean that's the, that's the danger. That's. That's the danger. Okay, here's a good one. I like this. All right, gym stat. 6 foot 190 bench 200, squat 300. Personal record 5K 26 minutes, Oregon.

[Ceruti]

It's quick. Quicker than me.

[Ryan Rosillo]

All right. Pretty good, right? Not bad.

[Ceruti]

What's your mile time though?

[Kyle]

Yeah, real quick.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Done. We're done with that. We're done with never. Never doing that topic again. Not much of a pickup basketball guy, but if I had to comp myself, I'd say Ray Allen. If he couldn't shoot the three great fundamentals. Nothing to write home about, dude. Ray Allen lost his handle when he got to Boston. Just so I don't know about the fundamental part of that after, but maybe that's not who you're talking about. Right onto the question, what's so great about being 28? I was on a boys trip last weekend with five of my college buddies. We're all 27, 28 now all three of us are in long term relationships and married. We did the usual stuff. Golf, bars, grilling. Had an amazing time, exclamation point. Midway through Saturday night at a bar, we met a group of girls who would just graduate, who just graduated or a year out of school. Naturally, my single friends led the way. They were fun, easy to talk to, not much else else to report. We all Hung out at the bar for a while and eventually went our separate ways. Cool girls. In another life, we probably would have been friends. P.S. yes, they were hot. Now here's the point of the email. A few of them asked me what's so great about being in your late 20s? Wow. Some deep thinkers and hot following answers. You've got more money to travel and spend reasonably or responsibly. I guess you could use either one. You probably have a job you don't completely hate, you might have met your future wife, and most importantly, you're way more comfortable in your own skin than you were at 23. They were good questions and honestly, it made me feel nostalgic. Almost like a little jealous of the 23 year old version of me. The last five years have been awesome, but after sleeping on it, I realized I'm less excited about the next five before I likely head into full on dad mode. So here's my what real question. Any advice on how to make 28 to 33 better than 23 to 28? P.S. will it ever stop being fun talking to hot girls? Like, you know, everybody likes attention. So I mean, you know, you do the math on that one. Okay? I mean, anything you guys, let's. You want to do an age recap here? We're going. How old are you?

[Ceruti]

I'm 30. I'll be 32 in like two weeks.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Magic Johnson, Kyle.

[Kyle]

31 and a half in a little. In a couple of days.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Very cool, very cool. 49. So let's look. He's. What would you say was the greatest age range you ever had, Kyle? You can't say 13?

[Kyle]

No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I mean it was, yeah, it was probably last two of college. First two of, you know, messing around la.

[Ryan Rosillo]

We'Re gone.

[Ceruti]

Last two of college is a good one. And then I think like recently has been really good.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Good.

[Ceruti]

I like my 30s. I feel like it's just like you know who you are, you have money to do. Like when I was in my late, my early to late 20s, like after college, like I was working like three jobs. I wasn't seeing my friends. I was having zero fun. So this, this has been way better.

[Kyle]

Sounds like my damn.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, that those couple years right after college are kind of really fun, but they're also really stupid because at least when you're going from high school to college, college you're like, okay, well this is a whole new experience. But then you leave college and you think you, you're like your valuation of yourself is probably more off at that point of your life than any other point of your life. Yeah. And you're basically just kind of extending this, except you have, like, supposed real responsibilities. I do think if you're lucky enough by 27, 28 to be in a field that you feel like is more of a career than just a job.

[Kyle]

Right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

That's really rewarding. Rewarding. So that might be, like, the number one answer there, not just the money thing. And kind of sifting through those confusing years of being like, am I really now an adult? Like, what the hell's going on here? You know, I think for me, it was. It was definitely after college, and I had that stretch, and I was having a lot of fun, but I was also really not great also. You know, I was. I missed that stretch, but I don't really miss how I felt about myself, which we've already covered at times. Because then once you take on a career in a way that it's like, okay, this is really, like, I'm all in on this. Then I definitely miss the fun. I miss, you know, a lot of the times when I was younger, too. It's like, you know, you're not that old, and it's like Friday. And it's just. There's no chance, like, you have no. There's nothing. You can't do anything. I don't know if I'll regret that later on. Maybe not. I don't know, whatever. But that 28 things is. Is probably when it should be kicking in to where you feel really good. About 35, and you're not thinking about 35 at 22, 23, 24, and 28 is probably when you start asking yourself. And then everybody can be a little different here. And maybe people figure it out earlier. Good for you. And people that figure out later. At least you figure it out. But 28 probably starts, like, planting the seeds. It's. It's. If you were writing a book, it's the outline of, like, who you think you should be or what you want to be at 35 years old. So there's some real, real. I think it's the clarity for a lot of people, the clarity of feeling like you would hope on the right path of things or know that you're on the wrong path and you're going to start avoiding them. Right. And that was also something for me at 26, 27 was like, this is not. This isn't going to work, and we're gonna have to change it up. And it's just a conversation. You Cannot even fathom having with yourself at like 22 years old. I would think for most people. Anything else, man strength for some.

[Kyle]

Right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Start to notice that, yeah, you can work out a ton. 22, 23. I don't know that it really kicks in until you're north 20s and it's like, oh. Or you're just like, I guess I'm going to be weak the rest of my life. You're still developing, you're still developing your skills, your footwork. Then I think at 30, you're fully developed.

[Kyle]

Yeah, I mean, I think by time.

[Ceruti]

You'Re 29, you should have post moves. I think we can all agree on that.

[John Butcher Grass]

Sure.

[Justin Williams]

Yeah.

[Kyle]

I would just say there's, you know, there's a different kind of 28 as well. He said he's like, he went on a boys trip with a bunch of people that most of them had, you know, are married or getting married or whatever. And there's some dudes that are just haven't even thought about it. It's, you know, five o' clock and you're like, what the fuck am I doing for the rest of the night? And that's a different kind of 28 too. So, you know, there's different kind of perspectives to being 28. I think it sounds like you and your girlfriend are like, what are we watching? What are we eating for dinner? And that guy's like, like, pick up some chicken wings and see what's going on. You know what I mean? Like, so there's a different kind of 28 there to be had as well.

[Ceruti]

I think you're in good shape. The next five are definitely going to be better. When I was 26, me and my friends would be like, well, we got some vodka in the freezer, vodka waters all night. And it's like, yeah, it was fun, but, like, looking back, it fucking sucked.

[Kyle]

Fire up the. Fire up the game.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Getting more Zharkov light in there. Like, oh, there's a hole in it. Leaked out all over the freezer. So now my chicken breasts are covered in budget vodka. Cook them up. He also was asking, like, what else could he do at 28? Sometimes when I think about, I don't want to call them normies, but my schedule's obviously a very weird. And I would say it's not like a hard job. It's just a lot of time, right? It's a lot of time watching stuff and I'll think, like, what's it, what would it be like if I didn't do this and I didn't have to watch games. Like, would I just be that into tv? Because that would seem fucking pointless. You know, would I go out and do. So would I go for, like, more walks?

[Kyle]

Kite surfing maybe? Have you thought about that?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Surfing? I did think about.

[Ceruti]

You can afford it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah. Douglas Brothers Shout Out Martha's Vineyard. Some of the best in the world. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if you. If you're picking the right partner, though, that's going to solve a ton of the problems that's going to be, you know, and you're young enough at 27, 28, where you don't feel like you have to settle. And the unfair part of this is certainly for guys, it's a little bit easier to kind of take your time or whatever, but I think we've sort of covered it. Slash, not covered it. Okay, 2020 R pod so far, huh? I hope you're doing well. 24. 57155. First time writing in, but I just want to let you all know, thank you guys for getting me through a tough stretch I was going through back at the beginning of 23 when I first started listening. I haven't seen. Oh, I haven't been seeing Friday Feedback on the podcast feed recently. Yeah, we're supposed to do it this week. We didn't. That's my fault. So I saw. I send this in here. I've recently been listening to some random old R pods, which could still be applicable today. I have a few observations. I went back to March. Which one? In 2020. Okay. March 26, 2020. Rosillo interviews Van for the first time. It was cool seeing the beginning of Ryan and Van's friendship blossom, where you guys are now as friends. Van's been hilarious since the beginning. April 9, 2020. This is the first episode I saw with the title mentioning life advice. Kyle's voice in his sounds higher in pitch for some reason, almost like he's going through publishing. Were you going through puberty in 2020, Kyle?

[Kyle]

Don't think so.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't think so either.

[Kyle]

Maybe I'm just a little more comfortable in my own skin.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Back to the next question. Yeah, it's funny because the way Kyle talks in this episode almost makes it seem like he's in awe of Ryan. Not sure if this is true. Maybe I'm tripping Kyle.

[Kyle]

Yeah, it might have been.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well, thanks, dude. Thanks for being in awe.

[Kyle]

Okay.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Sorry it wore off. Like, I don't know. He checks the fucking subs and box score. Not that hard. All right, April 12th. Told that bartender story seven times.

[Kyle]

Can't figure out these fucking headphones to save his life. I mean, I don't know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, I know it's a nightmare today.

[Kyle]

With the little peek behind the curtain.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Serutti comes on pre ringer Ceruti Ryan made me laugh a lot in this episode because he no joke did 70 seconds on the popularity difference between the 2K tournament between NBA players versus the horse tournament between NBA players. Made me laugh so hard at work I remembered the crazy times of COVID and made me weirdly nostalgic. I don't remember doing that. I'm still going through other pods, but I'll leave you with this. Listening to old solopods is like reading a good book. You don't remember the ending or of watching a good movie you haven't seen in a while. And then he said P.S. i was out on Wargon, Oregon in the beginning when he started coming on a life advice because I thought he sounded like a dorky teenager. Year that is no more shout out to Oregon. You've grown on me significantly and I want to hear him on more episodes. So look at that. Look at that. Look how much better this guy do you get in your dipping your toes into just a little bit more public awareness of you? Has it been a good run or maybe a nasty day in there that you don't exactly appreciate?

[Ceruti]

Pretty good. My friends love when someone comments something nasty about me on Reddit or something. They love sending me that those.

[Kyle]

Yep.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Well. Yep. That doesn't seem very cool. Yeah, I just don't understand how anybody could ever be mad at you. I mean, look, I don't understand how people get mad at Ceruti, but Serie pisses off a lot of people. And then Kyle. Kyle's approval rating is higher than mine.

[Kyle]

I don't know. My dad knows what to find on Reddit. I'm always like, dad, I. I got this out of my life like three, four years ago now.

[Ryan Rosillo]

And he's just like, what?

[Kyle]

Sounds like you're really bad at your job, dude.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I'm like, okay, all right, all right, all right. I think this one might be 100% fake, but I guess maybe it has to be true. So remember we were talking about exceptions? Husbands and wives. That's your past. That's your hall pass. That's your exception.

[Kyle]

Oh yes, right.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So do you want to read it? Even though it seems I almost feel like I need to copy and paste this, put it into something. I don't even know how to do any of that stuff running through A simulator. Some guy's claiming he pulled it off. H.

[Kyle]

Well, if it. If no one ever pulled it off, why would it even be a thing?

[Ryan Rosillo]

I guess I just never felt like anybody's ever pulled it off. All right, all right. We're reading this. I don't know if it's an episode of Friends. Friends. I have no idea. So that's the part where we get jammed up. It's like, I can't believe you didn't know that was Full House season three. You're like, yeah, you're right. Sorry to disappoint. All right, you guys have asked for an exception that actually worked. I understand this is too long to read, but needed full context on my crazy day. 15 years ago. 42 years old, 6 foot, 190 player, confident. Be poor man's white. RIP Hamilton, not that good. Pissed the other team off in high school. I've mellowed out. I'm a few weeks behind the pod as I was traveling internationally for work. So sorry for just getting this to you now. I don't know. The spacing, the paragraphs alone makes me question this. My wife and I got married in 2009. This is before social media and its explosions. So you didn't know where celebrities were by typing them into your phone? Right after my wife and I got married, the commercial started for the 2010 Winter Olympics that year, and just so happens my wife looked like, and still looks to this day, exactly like a very famous winter athlete. So much so that being young married in Chicago, at times, we'd often go out to dinner or bars, and people would come up to my wife and ask if she was that person. We joked around about our exception, and I naturally just said the athlete's name, hoping I would score some points with my wife. With the angle of, the only exception I would want is someone who looks exactly like you. And that actually worked for reference. Hers was George Clooney, and she never got to capitalize on that, unfortunately. Months and months go by. I get an email from my wife that said, are you going to use your exception with a news link saying that the athlete was going to be in our city for an appearance, meet and greet thing? I'm leaving out the city just in case. Later that night, I asked my wife, so about this whole exception thing. We're obviously joking. She replies, listen, if you think you can meet her at this appearance and you actually think you have a shot, go for it. So I went to it, waited in line, met her, got a picture with her that I Still have buried with my stuff. By the way, she signed an action photo of her doing this. Spoiler. Then I started telling her in a joking way, it's funny, my wife actually looks exactly like you. She said, really? That's funny. Then I show her a picture of my wife and the athlete goes, whoa, that's actually kind of freaky. Then I went for it. Quote, yeah, funny enough, you're actually my exception. Ha ha.

[Ceruti]

That line always works.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, in the most joking way ever. I mean obviously if this guy is really, really good looking, he has different rules than the rest of the guy.

[Kyle]

Yeah, that just rolls off the tongue a little differently than a guy. It's like actually we planned for this moment.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, my wife said I could bang you. Security. Really? Tell me more. Can you hold the line for a second? In the most joking way ever. She stops, looks at me again, takes another one of her action photos, writes her phone number down in words and the words text me. I obviously still have that photo too. So I texted her. I forget what exactly it was, but it's probably some horrible exception based joke. She responds with hotel, no name and a room number. 5pm at the time, my apartment was two blocks from the hotel. I checked the time. 4:30. I'm panicking. I call my wife, knowing she was in spinning class at the time, likely just so I had the receipt if this actually was going to happen. I called her first.

[Kyle]

I couldn't imagine doing that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

4:50, I walk out of my apartment, head of the hotel, thinking this likely some elaborate prank my friends and wife are doing to me and I'll get there and they'll all start laughing at me, thinking I actually had a shot at this. I'm not the guy this kind of stuff usually happens to. 4:50, I walk out of my apartment ahead of the hotel thinking that most likely this is some elaborate prank my friends and wife are doing to me and I'll get there and they'll all start laughing at me thinking I already read that line.

[Kyle]

Yeah, you did.

[Ceruti]

Yeah.

[Ryan Rosillo]

The spacing of this email is killing me. I get to the room, Noxi answers the door. While she's on her phone, she points to the couch in her suite. I had no idea what to expect. She gets off the phone, comes over the couch, sits next to me and says I take the exception role seriously. And then it happened. To be honest, I'm guessing it was not my best performance ever since I was shocked that any of this was happening. Afterwards, we say some nice pleasantry, small talk for a few Minutes and finally she says, it was great meeting you. I got ready for an appointment. Whoa. I said, sure, no problem. Nice meeting you too. She went to the bathroom room, turned on the shower, essentially telling me now was the time to leave. I walk home and wait for my wife to get back. We were supposed to go out for dinner and drinks that night. For a second there, I was debating just not telling her anything, but that's a shady type of thing to do and eat me alive. So when she got home, I told her the whole story. She took one or two minutes to digest the whole thing. Then she asked a few follow up questions that any partner would. I won't go into details. I think we understand. She pauses for a few minutes and extends her fist out to me and says, nice. As we knock the rock.

[Ceruti]

None of this happened.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Knock the rock. I asked her if she's sure she wasn't mad and she said, I gave you permission. So no, I said, okay. We went out to dinner and drinks and I think we had a few too many that night. And we don't speak of it the whole night just to prove how cool my wife is in. Walking from the last bar back to my apartment, she whispers to me, you know you have to hit the same day double today, right? Yeah.

[Kyle]

You're losing me now. Now you're losing me.

[Ceruti]

You were in before that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I don't know. So we go back and that happens again, thinking nothing will ever be remotely close to how incredible this day has been. Wake up the next morning, she says something like, I'm still totally cool with it, but I never want to talk about it ever again. I said, okay. Fifteen years later, three kids, house. We've never discussed it ever again. The only time any of this is even remotely brought up is if the app athlete shows up on TV or whatever. Whenever she pops up out of nowhere on our TV screen, my wife looks at me and gives me a little wink. So there you go. An exception story that worked.

[Kyle]

The reason I think it could be true. And this could be all.

[Ryan Rosillo]

This could be one, right?

[Kyle]

Well, this is all anecdotes, right? But isn't it true? Or is it maybe just a misconception? But don't these. When they make those Olympic villages, aren't they worried about just all these athletes banging each other? Isn't that a thing that has been said before?

[Ceruti]

So, man, our guy wasn't in the Olympic village?

[Kyle]

No, he wasn't. He wasn't. I'm just saying, you know, maybe it's a higher libido or maybe it's just like a bunch of in shaped people and it's like, what are we doing here? I don't know. I'm just saying maybe, maybe that part tracks a little bit.

[Ryan Rosillo]

The knock, the rock things just kind of stuck in my craw. I think there's also another conversation here where it's. It's almost like when you're with somebody for a while and then, then you know whether. I don't know, maybe I can only speak from a man's perspective because I'm a man with somebody and they're like, oh, I used to be a freak. Like, oh, I used to do the weirdest stuff. And you're like, okay, like, what am I?

[Kyle]

Were you hoping that would spark something with me? I don't know.

[Ryan Rosillo]

Yeah, yeah. Like, are you saying you continue to desire to be weird or should I.

[Kyle]

Twist your arm a little bit? Is that what you're trying to say?

[Ryan Rosillo]

Are you saying you're acting out of this phase but just wanted to tell me for whatever reason, I don't, I don't really know, like, what am I supposed to do now? Because I don't know that I want to ask follow ups. I mean, if you don't care about the person at all, just, hey, two people hanging out, having a conversation like a couple adults. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's true. I don't know. I don't know. But I. I guarantee like whenever something like that happens with the show, I always feel like it turns into to three days later. It's like just a flood of emails being like, I can't believe you didn't know that that was the plot from whatever this was we did learn. Remember the Cure lyrics guy?

[Justin Williams]

Oh, wow.

[Kyle]

I didn't know we could even talk about that.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I was like, oh, that's right. I didn't remember these cure lyrics from 1984.

[Kyle]

We did learn though, that paragraph structure is really important to you. I mean, you know, it's amazing that thing even got read. So just let that be a lesson to everyone else there. You know, just give it one proof before you send it over our way.

[Ryan Rosillo]

I figured I'd share it with the audience just because it's at least a talking point. Right?

[Kyle]

Sure.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So there you go. Enjoy your weekend, everybody. Ryan was a podcast sometimes also on YouTube. You can check out our pod video style now on the Spotify app. Thanks to Jonathan, Frius Worgon and Kyle. Ryan was a podcast for in your Spotify.

[Ceruti]

They were gonna name me Michael Jordan. Jordan my dad was like, I don't think he can live up to it.

[Ryan Rosillo]

So they made me.

[Justin Williams]

Michael Jared.

[Ryan Rosillo]

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