FOREVER A BUCKEYE: Why Jeremiah Smith TURNED DOWN $10M to stay with Ohio State | Ty Simpson's STOCK in the NFL Draft | Michael Malone introduced at UNC

On today's Andy Naran three presented by bet MGM did Jeremiah Smith turned down more than $10 million to stay at Ohio State for his junior season. We talk about Chris Lowe's bombshell story plus Kevin Clark from this is football on ESPN joins us to talk about Ryan day suggesting college football should have a draft also Kevin's Keynes and what the NIL their era has done for Miami football. We'll talk about all that plus the introduction of Mike Malone at North Carolina on today's Andy Naran three presented by bet MGM. This show is sponsored by bet MGM and we've got our own tradition unlike any other because college basketball is done which means it is time to head to Augusta Open your bet MGM app and look for your master's odds boost token that'll work for you Tuesday April 7 Wednesday April 8 bet MGM players will receive a master's odds boost token use it. Add any master's wagers to your best slip and activate the token. 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He was in Columbus he talked to Jeremiah Smith and Jeremiah Smith said that yes, schools did come after him following the software year at Ohio State. He mentioned one Miami which was the school that finished second in his recruitment at a high school. He also said and he did not specify which school this was but he said that the largest offer he got was more than $10 million. Now we have no way to prove that number one way or the other. Do you believe it. Do you believe it. That someone would offer Jeremiah Smith more than $10 million. Like this season of college football. So here's the thing that I have a really hard time with when it comes to comments like this because I believe. Jeremiah Smith is worth paying whatever you can afford to pay to get it. I believe he could be the highest paid player in the country. Maybe he's not because he's not a quarterback but he could if he chose if he just simply went to the highest bidder probably would command the largest dollar figure of any player in the country. So but here's where I have a yes it does. Here's where I have a hard time in NIL there are so many moving parts. There are agents there are people that might be contacting the agent to see if they could gauge interest. What if we paid you 10 million would you would you do it. Now I think that there's a lot of place within that merry go round of contact and gauging interest and seeing what could be possible that numbers could be flown around without actually being. Like legitimate offers does that make sense. And I think that when you're here you're probably not as familiar with what's an ironclad offer or what are numbers being flown around to see he wasn't seriously entertaining them. So you could probably say whatever you wanted to say at that point. You say what you want to say to see if it gets the guy's head to turn but that doesn't necessarily mean that's what's being offered. The other piece of this sorry because we talk about real NIL and paying someone just because their value on the field. Jeremiah Smith has real NIL value. There are brands that want to be affiliated with Jeremiah Smith that want to get on the ground floor with him now before he is in the NFL. And the assumption is that he's going to eventually be the best receiver in the NFL. And so everybody wants to get in with him now and start that relationship now. So he's his level of value is so different than most people. Well and the other thing that might people might not know about him is that he's a very good looking kid. Very articulate very funny and like very easy to like build an add around. Did you see that he did an ad for somebody last week where they were kind of knocking off the this is Sports Center. And I feel like he could be the face of a brand in a very good way. I think he's a highly marketable person for reasons outside of his skill set in football. But you add the skill set on top and it's a perfect storm situation. But here's what he told Chris. Here's what he told Chris Lowe on Tuesday. And this is Chris has asked him about you know did did Miami make inquiries about bringing him back to South Florida where he's from. And he says no reason to go back home not when I'm at the best place in the country. I came to Ohio State for a reason to win championships develop as a player and a person and keep building on the legacy. I might have grown up in South Florida but I'm a buck guy. That's not changing. I wasn't going anywhere. And I'm sure Ohio State fans read this and are thrilled. It's it's Megaboard Wednesday. There's a thread on Letterman row about it. And they absolutely love him. Love him as they should. There are seven directions we can go in this and I'm going to take you into two. OK. First of all let's do this. Is Jeremiah Smith whether it's Ohio State or anyone else worth ten million dollars. Given the OK. The dollar figure itself is hard because what something's worth keeps changing. Yeah. Can can we agree that based on what we know from people we've talked to people Pete Naco's talks to that the highest paid quarterbacks this year are going to make about six million dollars. Right. OK. So then you can rephrase the question like this. Take Jeremiah Smith out of it. Is an alien receiver worth 35 percent more than the highest paid quarterback in any given year for any team. I don't think so. But he does change the math in ways that like in the NFL he won't be able to change the math as much as he can change it in college. Only a only a top level elite quarterback can change the math in the NFL like that. But in college a receiver like that an edge rusher like that a detackle like that who is that utterly dominant that he must be the focus of your entire opposing team. I do think those are incredibly valuable people. I think it would be insane for Ohio State to pay him ten million dollars which they aren't. By the way they aren't. I think it would be more understandable if you were a place that needed a spark to get back to relevancy that you are paying that money not only to get a supreme talent on your team but you're doing it as a spark plug to building something that makes you more relevant. I think that which by the way Miami doesn't need now either. Exactly. And they also have one of the best receivers on their team already. So like whether I actually to get back to the root of it believe that Miami would have paid him ten million dollars if he wanted to go. I don't know that I do and that's not me calling Jeremiah Smith a liar. That's me saying that that probably was a number that was floated around to see how interested they could pry him to be. Yeah. Yeah. I think you said it well. Can we get you to turn your head and at least look at us which it doesn't sound like he was looking at anybody. Now the second branch of this because anybody who's listened to the show for more than 30 seconds knows I'm obsessed with Jeremiah Smith. I even bought one of his cards that I have because I think he's going to be a Hall of Fame receiver in the NFL one day. I'm obsessed with him. I think he's amazing. I think he's amazing is is your value as a human being outside of football to remain loyal to Ohio State. Say you're a buck. I turned down four million dollars of extra income. Are you a more valuable asset for the rest of your life as a result of your affiliation with Ohio State in that statement. I think you have more to gain by staying at Ohio State taking less money now and being an Ohio State legend through and through. Then you do being a four million dollar scooper at Miami for a year. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I had a conversation with an agent about this at the senior bowl who had advised a client something similar. This is not anything associated with Ohio State. This is a different school. But they had a client and it was essentially a hundred thousand dollar difference in pay between staying at the school they're at or going to a different fairly comparable school but maybe not quite as good at football school. And the difference was the player if they played this season at their current school would have been a one Jersey guy. Whole time at that school and would have been you know mercenary if they go to the other school and the agents thing is you're going to make more than a hundred thousand dollars in the long run. Being the one Jersey guy being the guy who helped your this school do what it did and it's not something everybody's thinking about but it's something the smart folks are thinking. Yeah, like you they might there might be a Jeremiah Smith sports bar in Columbus. Right. And like we have Kevin Clark on the show later on this episode and he was talking about how his favorite athlete of all time is Cam Ward because he's a Miami guy. And I'm wondering and I see this in cards all the time you know I'm obsessed with cards but like Will Howard for instance last year is not as collectible as Jeremiah Smith is. Quinchon Junkins is not as collectible as carnail Tate will be. And I think that there is a certain connection that people still have to the players who came out of high school and stayed through them and our Buckeye through and through that's not to say that will Howard isn't a Buckeye for life. But I think rentals are remembered differently than guys who are one Jersey guys. And I think that when it comes to your legacy Cam Ward will always be a cane and will Howard will always be a Buckeye. But if you ask an Ohio State fan who do you connect with on the most personal level who do you want to collect who do you want to eat at their sports bar who do you want to take out an insurance policy with. It's the guys who came and stayed and and did those things. So I think that there is more to gain by saying I'm a Buckeye and a Chris Low story than there is to take the pay now and then listen if you're Jeremiah Smith incomes never going to be a problem for the rest of your life. Like we're talking about the type of player here who's going to make a lot of money in the NFL he's going to be marketable the the extra four million dollars or even his Ohio State legacy probably is going to be the maker break for him financially regardless. But I think changing your life potentially putting yourself in an unfamiliar situation not going back to the machine that's already proven that it's going to be in the National Championship Conversation and make you a top five pick like the opportunity cost of like doing that doesn't really make financial sense in my mind anyway. Well and he also seems to just truly appreciate where he is. I think it's a matter of liking Ryan Day and the coaching staff and being comfortable with these people feeling like you are getting value from them and so Nick Saban you saw us talk about you know can you provide value for your players. And I think Jeremiah Smith certainly feels like he's getting value from his relationship with Ohio State and he also feels like he's the best player in the country which I think you and I have said plenty of times with this this quote to Chris Low is is something because I feel this is Jeremiah Smith talking. I feel like everybody in the world will take me in a heartbeat. Nobody in college football is better than me when I'm at my best. I don't think people would even think about who they would take if it was up for grabs. I think everybody knows who the best player in college football is and it's Jeremiah Smith. That might sound cocky but I'm confident myself and I know the work I put in and I put on film and the way I play the game. He's not wrong. Yeah and you can say that. You can say it when it's true. Yeah. So you know I think that there is a real conversation to be had about whether Ohio State from a finance because like more and more we just got done talking about this in in in India on Monday in terms of roster allocation financial you know the financial aspects of how to allocate. If it had cost 10 million dollars what would Ohio State have done. Would they have let him walk. Well here's the more interesting question I asked you before the show. Yeah. Is last year with Cardale Tate on your team and I saw on Twitter on Wednesday morning that people were saying that he might be the number two or three pick on the draft coming up. It's spring and this is the time of year when you start rethinking what's in your closet. I'm trying to keep fewer things but better things pieces that are well made easy to wear all the time. I can just grab it and I know I'm going to look great. That's why I keep coming back to Quince the fabrics feel elevated. The fits are thoughtful and the pricing actually makes sense. In other words people are going to look at you and think you paid a whole lot more than you did. Quince makes high quality everyday essentials using premium materials like 100% European linen and they're insanely soft flown it active wear fabric. Their men's linen pants and shirts are lightweight breathable and comfortable. Basically the perfect layer for spring. Personally I've got the 100% organic cotton mesh stitch sweater polo. That one I was wearing on the show the other day feels great fits great breathable looks amazing. It looks like I paid three times as much as I did for it and that's what you're going to get with Quince. You're going to get fits and fabrics that look like you paid a fortune but you didn't break the bank. You just look great. So refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com that's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash A-A-ON-3. So A-A-O-N number three for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now they're able in Canada too. So go to quince.com that's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash A-A-ON-3 for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's quince.com slash A-A-ON-3. Would Ohio State have stood? They have been better last year if they didn't allocate all that money to Jeremiah Smith and they spread it around to offensive line and other positions of need that made them a more lopsided team last year. Like and that's not again to diminish what Jeremiah Smith is or who he is. See I think the amount that Jeremiah Smith changes things for your offense is still greater than if you'd let him go and spend it on a couple offensive lines. Jeremiah Smith didn't beat Miami? No he didn't. He had a great game against Miami. The right tackle that could block somebody might have won. I'm just saying I think there is a conversation. But would they have even been close in the Miami game without Jeremiah Smith? He had a good game that game. That was a Jeremiah Smith game. Nobody else was doing much. Yeah. But I think that there's always the would you protect your quarterback and throw it to carnail take that much or were you better as a result of it? And like maybe the answer to the question is Ohio State was better last year with Smith. But I think that we were. That game in particular I'm going to I'm just going to read his stat line from that game. Seven catches 157 yards in a touchdown. All right. If they don't let's say they don't have them they have a couple better offensive linemen maybe they average a few more yards per carry but I don't think they win the game. Because I think they move the ball consistently enough or have enough explosive plays to win the game. That might be true. I just think that moving forward if we're going to start paying skill position players five six seven million ten million dollars a year there needs to be a conversation not just the Ohio State with anybody of yes he's a star. Yes he's very good and yes he changes the dynamic but is the bang for the buck what we're getting because what I think they're that's exactly what they're having now. Yeah. I think that's a good point to go with Jeremiah Smith because if Jeremiah Smith's in the NFL and we'll see it because Jeremiah Smith will get to his second and third contracts in the NFL. If Jeremiah Smith is everything we think he's going to be in the NFL there's no way in hell whatever team drafts him lets him get to free agency. No chance. Yeah. They will pay him whatever it takes. And I think that part of the reason why it's rarer to see people in successful situations leave I think in both levels college and pro. Like that's the other thing too it's like prying away Jeremiah Smith from Ohio State is harder because he's enjoying success they've won a title he's going to be the top non quarterback taken next year. Things are going really well for him of course he's less likely to leave the people who leave are the ones who are encountering. Cam Coleman left for very different reasons if Auburn was throwing the ball to him and he was averaging you know 120 yards a game and he was a top 10 pick he might not have left. People leave when things are not perfect and things have been pretty perfect for Jeremiah. He won a national championship title. Yeah he's got he's got a good quarterback. You know if if Julian say it hadn't been as good of a quarterback as he was last year maybe that changes the factors in Jeremiah Smith's decision process. Thousands of players who enter the portal in a year doesn't matter what the sport how many of them are are in the portal because they reached their peak as a player at the place that they were at. Very few. I mean Jordan had happened very often. It happens. It happens and maybe it will happen more when you're going from Tier B to Tier A in terms of stature. But if things are going well it's a lot easier to say hey I'm this this I'm a tiger for life. I'm a panther for life when you know that you don't really have much to gain by leaving. Now you might get more money and you might be at a higher place but like who nobody wants to mess up inertia. If things are going well in your job you don't leave. If things are going well in your life you don't leave your relationships people stay in comfortable situations that are fruitful for them. And Jeremiah's relationship with Ohio State very fruitful so far. And Ohio State still hot. He's still hot like she's hot and she's taking care of you and yeah loves you like I mean like that's the point. Well we'll talk a little more Ohio State. Very soon because we're bringing on Kevin Clark the host of This is Football with Kevin Clark on ESPN hit in a great interview with Ryan Day last week. I've got a couple questions about that. Got a couple questions about Kevin's Hurricanes because he's a Miami guy and he has watched that program change its trajectory over the last few years. Talk about that in the state of college football. Also I will ask Kevin if Ty Simpson goes in the first round where will he go. We'll be right back with Kevin Clark. It is of course a mega board Wednesday and our next guest appeared on the Letterman Road message board or Ohio State site with the thread great sunny style story because Ryan Day was on our next guest Kevin Clark's podcast discussing getting dunked on by an eighth grade sunny styles and ending ending Ryan Day's basketball career. Welcome Kevin Clark from From This is Football. I'm so happy to be here guys. I was actually just thinking this morning. I love this show. I listen to it all the time and one thing I do and it's just becoming a really traditional last two years is I don't listen to any of the coach interviews until right before the season. And so every July and August now I just played the incident play video game and listen to you guys talk to like Dan Lanning. That's all I do. I binge it. That's how I get get crammed for college football seasons. The end of my video game and this show. This is the way to do it. You know Andy I don't know how much you play the game but whenever I play the game I'm listening to college football content. So you know I think you could in a back woods kind of way try to like tell yourself I'm learning a lot about football while I'm playing this game because you're looking at the rosters. You're not telling yourself you're telling your wife. That's that's what you're telling. No I'm afraid of my wife. I only play when she's not home or she's asleep. But like I do. I do think that that is the best way to consume it. And thank you for doing that Kevin. It means a lot to us that you like our show. I just hope this leads a movement. You see a huge spike in like May interviews of James Franklin on August 3rd when people are building their ultimate team. You know we ought to we actually this is a good business plan. We're going to roll those back out. Just roll an OE. Where do you if I if I were you just do like a five hour mega cut and just be like this is what you need to listen to when you're setting up your recruiting board in a double way. Oh yeah. This is this is beautiful. Oh yeah there we go. See yeah we got game footage. We got everything. All right Kevin I want to talk to you about this Ryan Day interview because there was a clip that blew up on the Internet and it's just it just got me thinking a lot. And so let's let's play it. You ask him if he could wave a wand. What would change in college football. Here's you and Ryan Day. All right. You mentioned the hash marks thing but I'm curious if there's what you wave a wand change anything about college football. What are you going with. Oh that's a good one. Oh well I mean the first thing is wave a wand is creating a structure that you can enforce rules and creating that. And that's not just like easy. I understand. You know it's not too far fetched for me to think that there's a way that you could actually have a draft and build it like the NFL. I know that seems a little bit out there but we're going to need a lot of help to get there. I could do that right now. That's not happening overnight. I think that there's you know once we when we started going down this road of NIL we have to kind of go one of two ways in my opinion. We almost have to go back to where we were before or we need to go all the way towards the NFL. I think right now we're sort of in purgatory and I think until we start to you know make some hard decisions and create that overall structure we're still going to be in this phase. But but that to me is the number one thing. We've got to figure out an enforcement system that can start enforcing rules. I have a lot of ideas on it probably not for this this conversation but that would be the number one thing. I think most college coaches would say the same thing. Yeah. I think the draft is something that comes up every once in a while. It'd be really hard. I guess you have to have a pool of teams or maybe you do it by geography or something like that. But you think that's that could be something that could be feasible within our lifetimes. Yeah. Somebody was explaining to me that day like they do it up in Canada for you know like the juniors. Yeah. Oh yeah. If you if you want to become you know part of it then you put your name in and you know there's a lot that comes with that. I know it's kind of out there idea but but I but I think it's sort of like that. That we're going back to the way we were with amateurism. I know I'm having a hard time figuring out you know how we work through this right now with this NIL because recruiting is always going to be part of the college process until we change it. And and because that's not going to ever change we have to create some sort of enforcement arm. Otherwise we're always going to be in this space when we're putting together roster. OK. College football draft. Guys before we get into the draft when I saw this clip Ryan or when I saw Ryan say this my head exploded because not because it's so crazy that somebody would think that a draft would be cool in college. It's because if you are the head coach at Ohio State that is the if you could the answer to the question of if you could wave a magic wand and this never happens that should be his answer like that is unbelievable to me. Why would you want like Purdue drafting third overall like your your entire existence as Ohio State's football coach is to get all the good players and stop the other teams from getting any good players ever. So like promoting an idea that would then cut your program off at the knees and like level the playing field was such a bizarre thing to hear him say like I know Ryan I've talked to him a lot. You know I've seen him grow up in this business that was the most peculiar thing I think I've ever heard him say publicly. Wow I'm glad he did it on my show. He did. Maybe that should be the new hook for my show is the most peculiar thing anyone's ever said publicly will be on my show whenever I have them on. Um, no I so I am with you I think it's it's Ohio State has built in recruiting advantages that they should hammer over and over and over again. I think the broader point about whether you go to totally free market and just let it rip or sorry whether right now it's totally free market. I think what day is saying is either we go back to the way it was before which I don't think anybody thinks is going to put the toothpaste bass in the tube, or we go fully to the NFL model. And I don't know if that is even correct Andy and Ari because right now we're looking at record ratings. We're looking at the most attention I've ever seen on college football my lifetime. And what I don't understand is and this is never on day point this more of an instable a point is why Charlie Baker looks at this and says this is bad part of it I think is because it makes coaches lives harder and coaches complain but guys guess what coaches complain about everything when I was in the ringer every August my genre would be what are coaches pissed about ask 12 of them get some great piece put it together but then the counterpoint to that piece was always who cares who and by the way you know well you know doesn't care in the NFL, the owners the owners never care with the coaches say that's why they always cut practice time. That's why they use things the coaches care about as a bargaining chip in labor negotiations because they do not care what the coaches think. And so I think that we're looking at record ratings record attendance I mean the national game was Taylor Swift level tickets ticket prices, which has never been before. And I just, I actually do think there's a happy medium I kind of kind of think we're in it guys. Yeah, that's a good point. I think you and you and Brett Bielema. The same thing to us. In one of those interviews you're going to listen to an August Brett Bielema says there's never been a better time in college football. Yeah, the question here that I always have is, because we're in a place where we never where all the things are changing in college football are never taken from a fan perspective. Everything that's ever changes about how we can get richer how can we structure the sport to get more robust television deals all these things. But from a fan perspective right now. Are we in the golden age of football, because more teams have a chance to win. Your team has a chance to go from bad to good very quickly with the right hire or the right signing. You know, back in the old days, 10 years ago was the old days. If your team sucked, you had to strap up and like wait and be blindly optimistic for like four years. Like it took a long time for 40 whole. Like, yeah, like Kevin, you've watched your team do this. You're a Keynes fan. Oh, you've watched this happen. Okay, so there's a couple things about it. All right, you've done as good a work as anybody on the planet about this. Before NIL, the stat was 80% of five stars went to the same six schools have not mistaken 20 cents 2020 something like that. And now there Calvin Russell goes to Syracuse. Okay, and you know it's funny. Tham will said this two years ago, because I think he was talking to coaches. I was talking about how this can help me say listen, with his revenue sharing thing. The thing that nobody thinks about is a team like BC or a team like Syracuse, he didn't name Syracuse, but end up happening. They can just say to a five star, we're going to build our program around you. We're going to give you so much revenue sharing, you're going to be the best recruit in our history, and you're going to be team Calvin Russell and Syracuse. So you're going to be team XYZ at BC or at Eastern Carolina where they say Mr. B should give $100 million, right? Places like that where you can just say, hey, we've got this money, we'll give it to you. And then the recruiting role gets gets flattened a little bit. But I'm with you. You didn't have a chance. If anybody wants to say, oh, well, you have to have money to compete now. Show me when that wasn't the case. Show me the golden age of parody of college football. If it's not now was when Notre Dame was winning every national championship was when Oklahoma was winning a million straight games in the 50s. Was it when Miami was the team of the 80s and we just whether winning all the games or losing one game per year and it was in the national championship without the golden age of parody. I just don't understand the argument what the nostalgia is for. And with Miami in particular, I mean, I think that it's giving teams a shortcut back to relevance, which is what you want with the NFL wants the problem with Miami was they didn't keep up in the arms race with facilities and resources and coaching salaries and they treated football like it was easy because guess what guys for 20 years it was. You just got the guys in South Florida who came and Andre Johnson wanted to play for Miami and Dan Morgan wanted to come down from Broward County and all these guys wanted to play for Miami. That didn't continue into the 2000s and all of a sudden urban is taking those kids to Gainesville and then Ohio State. All of a sudden Saban's getting in the South Florida all of a sudden Kirby's getting in South Florida. The recruiting world completely changes. So what NIL is doing is giving teams like Miami a shortcut back and obviously my crystal ball is 99.9% of that because he understands the vision of it he understands how to build that roster. He's incredible. But I just think that that's that to me is the most important thing about the NIL world is that there's more teams that get to be relevant. And I just the people who are complaining about the competitive landscape. I don't know what sport you just watched for the last 100 years. You know I think like I'm actually having like an epiphany in the moment. And I think I always knew this but like it's actually like Kevin you're you're you're like the conduit to this to this light bulb going off. But like I was one of the olds that would say the thing that's wrong with college football is that fans no longer get to connect with players during the recruiting process. Sign those players for their favorite teams watch them develop over the course of time and then turn out to be stars at their school as they walk through the same hallways go to the same classrooms and you at the same places that they did. And I have a romantic view of the reason why fans I believe are more passionate about their colleges. Then even their pro teams is because they feel connected to the player based on those shared common grounds because most people don't have anything in common with Tom Brady but everybody has something in common with their favorite college player. But then like I'm just now realizing what do you think that fans would rather have a connection for their players that are on a foreign team or a winning team from a player who took the most money to come play for you like I just I feel like there's so much conversation about what's wrong with college football and guys there's a lot wrong with it. It's the most dysfunctional sport in the world. But what if and I and I and I like I maybe I should we should just say what if like this is awesome and there's nothing wrong with it. Like like is anybody like actually just acknowledge that we've talked Dan Wetzel talks about that all the time Dan Wetzel said why why why you guys keep trying to fix up fix quote fix. It's it's working what's broken. Yeah. And also by the way people keep saying NIL is not sustainable. Yes it is because the money hasn't dried up and the money keeps increasing. If that I wasn't sustainable would have shown by now and I think but Elliott's made this point before there is especially at these big institutions big big state schools. There is an infinite amount of boosters who have millions of dollars who love the idea of being in the luxury box and saying you see that guy I closed on that guy. It's there and it's it's in Oklahoma and it's a Texas and it's all the three four to schools or maybe two of them. It's it's it's it's see now. I'll let you guys decide which which four to three isn't I think I think we know when you're talking about see now and the other thing is we're seeing this at a couple places USC is the same thing. It seems like in particular now maybe maybe you're seeing in Florida to although the basketball success kind of complicates this but it's it's schools almost getting embarrassed into into professionalizing the operation to saying hey we're not going to let these kids at LA anymore. This is California is back to being our same with the Mario did in Miami what three years ago when he starts getting Ruben Bay and Wesley was saying to all those guys who had gone elsewhere. Kevin that sounds like my like is the thing that I'm most nostalgic for in college football is the general recruiting strategy. Yes the big game of risk and what you're describing is is the NIL era is actually financially just turning into that in a way that it never was before but it's still a big map and a big geographical battle and like what if NIL actually gets us back in a backwards way to the place. Where you know maybe these kids are just going through recruiting two years later. Like I am so nostalgic for National Signing Day meaning something that was a huge day for me in my career and obviously a huge day for a lot of people in in the fan hood of the sport but like what if the Niko Yamali of a thing last year at this time was just the new modern way of paying attention to a recruiting battle. Like yes he was the guy that the very immense of this year would be a good one. Yeah. And there's a court case involved. You're the guy you're the program that got their player flipped at the 11th hour and if you sign the player you're the program that flipped them. It's just a different time and I guess maybe you get more connected to the player because they've already been on your favorite team. But all this is all the portal is is National Signing Day week. I'd also say the commitment isn't lessened because they're not 17 anymore. I like that to me just being being a Miami fan and watching it when Kim Ward commits the same feeling I have when Ruben Bayne commits OK because there's more of a sure thing all of the same feeling. I think that's a good element. You actually know Kim Ward's good at that point. Exactly. And there's also an element of it's a college star picking you when they have so many different Damon Damon Wilson from Missouri could have gone could have gone anywhere. You're still watching it. I also think that the emotional attachments are speeding up in a way that like again to go back to Kim Ward. Kim Ward is like my favorite athlete on Earth and he was on Miami's campus for six months. And I don't think that's necessarily the one thing we need to get used to Ari in this era is OK. Well I don't think Kim Ward is at the same Starbucks by the library that I was in. I don't think he was in the student union. I don't think he goes to the rat which is the bar. That's that's over. A lot of these guys now in all schools. I've heard this from from a bunch of staff. A lot of these guys treat themselves like professional athletes. I had Trey Zun on my show yesterday and he said you know the last two years at Texas A&M he treated himself like he was an NFL player. You're able to set that up and that's athlete only football only facilities. Now you're just not going to get the same. Hey this guy joined a frat. We see him every Friday night whatever. It just not that anymore. These guys are professionals and I'm going to take that deal. I'm going to take that deal as far as these guys going to pay me the thing that broke my heart. You'd see it in college of all the time. And some of these guys end up having good careers but you go and I would go to a giant training camp on August 3rd and I'd see some guy who was like at Florida or USC or at Ohio State the year before. And he was the third defensive end and he got a big interception. Whatever it is right. He reached the pinnacle. He'd be the first guy cut in August and he would leave the sport of football without enough money for a down payment on a house. Right. He would leave the sport of football with officially like $50,000 for showing up at NFL training camp on a low level thing and he'd be flushed out of the sport because he was two inches too short or 0.10 of an inches. And he'd be like 0.10 of a second too slow and all of a sudden he's drummed out of football. Now those types of guys can make $700,000 in the last year. And I think that's a much better setup and much healthier for the sport of college football and football in general. Well, all right. So speaking of this because you cover mostly NFL. Now what I love about you Kevin is you are clearly a true college football fan. You understand how these ecosystems merge. And that's why I love you bring me on your show every year as the draft process begins and we get to talk about the guys that are moving in. And I got to ask you some some draft stuff because I'm fascinated by how this one's laying out. The one thing for me because there's one guy that I think is the kind of the pivotal figure in this draft and it's Ty Simpson. And so my question to you is if Ty Simpson goes in the first round, what happened? Who took him? How did that come to be? Yeah. So you've heard it rumored a lot. I heard this months ago that the Rams were the team that was hot on them was hot on Ty Simpson. And then the Rams surprise trade their second first round pick which was going to be the Ty Simpson pick that was the rumor mill. And I'm not the first media member to hint at that but it was it was it was a big rumor around the Ashchamps campaign when Ty Simpson turned down all those big offers from Tennessee and from Miami. So the thing I was to go back to in Rappport were really funny story a couple years ago when it wasn't a quarterback class and there was a quote in there from an anonymous scout that was like, well, there's really nobody in the first round with the grade but the coaches are getting involved and then somebody will fall in love with somebody and they'll rise up the ranks right like Dave Getlem and famously he's a GM not a coach but fell in love with Daniel Jones at the senior bowl because he loved his moxie right it just little events like that that's all it takes and all of a sudden you're a top 10 quarterback. And then a couple years later the Colts fell in love with his moxie. Incredible. What's the value of a Duke degree to get hiring managers to fall in love with you every couple years. I just I want you to finish your thought I love Daniel Jones I think so under I think that he is people shit on him all the time and he's like a top 15 quarterback in the NFL sorry go ahead. I don't agree. But with Simpson. I don't think there's a way it maybe I'm wrong but I've seen the same moxie do him going 30 30 as pen had that to the jets. I think if he gets to the 20 somebody talks themselves into it because there's a couple things about quarterbacks. Number one it's a lottery ticket. You just feel like hey this guy could be a franchise guy. Number two it's job preservation body coaches and GM's think hey we can restart the clock with the rookie quarterback. It didn't work for Jackson Darby get to say hey we've got this quarterback. He's showing something you certainly can't fire a guy you know fire a coach going into a second year of the rookie quarterback that's not good for infrastructure right. So I think coaches to look at it like that job preservation. And I also just think that there's this element every single year we say next year's draft is the draft every single year. We're supposed to be this year. I'm supposed to be this year. I'm supposed to be our team was supposed to be John. I keep getting into this because he he did this the other day and I was like but we said that last year. A great example is going to be insane guys. I was a DJ like was going to wait. By the way he might be in the draft still. In the draft he might be an entrant into the draft. He factually that might be true. But remember when all those Ohio State guys were going and we were like well wait till Marvin Harrison Jr. gets in the league. Okay these guys are warm up backs Marvin Harrison Jr. Meanwhile we've got Jackson Smith and Jake moves the best receiver in football. We've got Garrett Wilson and Crystal Ave who are you know buckets every time they go out there and we're just waiting on on the youngest guy. And so I think there's an element of there's going to be somebody at 24 who's like we're not waiting a year we might be fired in a year or we might want to accelerate the clock. And that's how I how I view Ty Simpson easy. He's a he's a even though he might not even be that great of a prospect. He's a by the way I don't completely disagree with with Daniel Oskar. The gap is between Mendoza and Simpson isn't that significant. I think Simpson got hurt later in the year. I think the first half of the season not counting the Forest State game of the forest a game was awful. But not counting that game. He had a nice little run of games there that that was impressive. I think he can play at the NFL level. I don't think I don't think he's he's elite. I don't think if Mendoza were in the draft two years ago or even last year he would have been the first quarterback picked. But I think Simpson gives you enough to where someone's going to fall in love with them in that 25 to 30 range. It's just we've just seen too many instances of teams just saying screw it. We're trading up. It's not that important to have a third round pick or whatever and just going for it. Well and the reason I asked you this Kevin is because I'm just going over the dollars. Like I when when Ty Simpson was deciding what he wanted to do I pulled up the rookie salary scale and said he must know something. Otherwise he's not doing this based on the money we know he's been offered to stay in college versus what he can get in the NFL. We said that about Queenie Orr's last year by the way. We did didn't we. Queenie Orr's knows something. Oh he's a sixth round pick. But I think he was I think he was being pushed out. He knew something very he knew he wasn't necessarily welcome back in Texas. I don't think that was the case with Ty Simpson in Alabama. I don't think that was a OK tie. I think the jail in Monroe situation might have been a little bit like that but the Ty Simpson one doesn't feel that way. I think he was could have gone to Texas Tech I think was the was it was a big offer I heard. This is all message board stuff. My brain like he was poisoned by message boards. I forget what was actually vetted and what what what was just random posts. You were at Texas Tech this year would have been fascinating. Would they beat an organ. They might as well work on organ. Yeah. Oh that would have been tremendous. That would have been incredible. And I actually think that I buy what Quinn Ewer said about wanting to retire a long horn and down. I do too. I also think that there's one other thing about yours that always gets lost in the fold here which is that the man had been injured every single year of his career and probably didn't want any more mileage on his body and was probably just ready to go to the NFL and get paid if he wasn't going to be welcome back at Texas. Good point. So Kevin this is football is is on ESPN. It is an Omaha production. So I got to ask this does Peyton Manning call and offer you the job. How does that work. No but I heard from him almost instantly when I accepted it and then you get handwritten notes from him which is amazing. And then you get I wouldn't say feedback but like when he's on the show when he's on my show which we do every January we do a playoff quarterback preview. He's always for weeks after checking and say hey you know what to that point. Hey this is the play I was talking about with the Vikings playbook whatever. And so it's it's so cool and everybody just loves him. Myself included. I think that I've said this a million times but if his arm fell off when he was 16 he would have been a top of Fortune 500 CEO like he's just so good at everything he's just a people person in a way that I don't know how many athletes that reach that level are. And so I know it wasn't like a I'm sending sending my counteroffer to Peyton Manning that doesn't happen. But but he's certainly involved and certainly made me feel welcome. He's a big voice note guy right. Big voice note guy. You know who else I learned is during the coaching search process. Imagine those two guys. They probably exchanged views. I don't know where you guys stand on this but whenever I get a voice note. I always get a transcription. Yeah I always go go out this guy. This guy must be so important and busy like and but with Peyton Manning that's actually true. But what I'm saying is unless it's Peyton Manning I'm not listening to. I don't I'm not even trying to want to hear whatever Peyton Manning has to say. I'm not opening one from Lane Kiffin. I just don't know whatever he's doing his own thing. You know how my wife keeps up with her friends that she grew up with that don't live in our state. They don't have phone calls. They have five minute voice notes where they do it and then she'll play the five minute voice note while she's doing her hair at night and then the next day we'll send a five minute voice note back and it's like a conversation that's a phone call but it's prolonged through text voice notes and I find that to be kind of interesting. We can't be doing that. What happened to group chats. Yeah I don't know. I don't know if this is more. It's so easy. More. I think group chats are better for guys. Yeah because because we don't we don't have deep conversations with. Yeah with our male friends. Twitter links and then yeah yeah. No comment. You send memes to your friends and you guys laugh at them like she's talking about like very personal how feelings and stuff in ways that make you feel like you're not. Men don't communicate. So like I guess I understand it to a certain extent but I guess to her she's listening to the six minute voice note while she's curling her hair and that's the equivalent of me like listening to part of my take while I'm doing like my brushing my teeth or whatever. I want one from Peyton Manning though I've listened to that. Absolutely. Kevin also you you've talked about this on a lot of shows you've been on. I did want to ask you about this. So your dad Jim was a UCF professor. He passed away last year. You've established a scholarship in his name at UCF. How can people help out with that. Yeah so it's a James C. Clark Memorial Fund. You can find that it's via UCF's day of giving UCF put it together the last couple of weeks. It's on my socials or you got pretty sure you can just Google it. The response so far has been enormous. My dad taught there for like 30 years and I actually did a UCF football podcast a couple weeks ago when I was promoting this. And they that the host was started around the same time. And my dad was like you can count on two hands a number of buildings on the campus. Okay. And the other day that they've gone from you know Division two division one double A to not only division one not only F FBS but Big 12 to where they're hosting Texas in the first game of the stadium. They're playing in BCS bowls at the time what they're called. They're having first round picks regularly. It's incredible. And my dad kind of was a gator. He was never that into it. And I certainly wasn't that into it. And the UCF thing even though he didn't go there he taught there was such a huge part of his life when he I'll just tell you this when when when he passed away was suddenly I went into his house afterwards and literally the one he was getting ready to leave and on his staircase. And he was getting ready to leave before he passed was a gold and black tie because he just loved UCF and was God I don't even know where he was going but he was going to wear a UCF tie somewhere he always wore a very plain UCF sweater was really cool to says UCF on the front. He just loved the school and it wasn't necessarily a football thing wasn't necessarily basketball thing he just love the institution. And so what I was surprised by even though maybe I shouldn't have been was finding out what a force he was on campus because in the days after he passed and I put it on social media and we just got to go. And so what I was surprised by was the fact that he was on social media and we did a couple. I did a thing with Jim Nance it was kind of an accident where we talked about our dads and went kind of viral. The things I heard about was not just his students it was the people at the bookstore who they were he was his third favorite customer. It was the people at the restaurants on campus he was a favorite customer he was such a force on campus and so you see at almost instantaneously wanted to do something to memorialize that and so, you know one thing I to be quite on we've gotten a bunch of donations and Andy you know this. Andy comes in handy for you at some point public school in Florida for colleges is really cheap. And so the it is not like the University of Miami and I got two high schoolers in the state of Florida right now and we are we are hoping that's the option they choose. Andy made a comment that sending his kids to Florida would be cheaper than sending my four year old to daycare for a year. It's true as part of this I got the breakdown to like what a semester would be what a year would be what a four year would be and I was like this sounds great I'll put what we can put a lot of kids through college with with the money we've already done. And so it truly any bit helps it's not like we have to raise $400,000 because we're sending these kids to NYU that is not the case well and so yeah good. You understand because because you also grew up in Orlando. The job they've done at UCF and this is not even a sports thing this I think the sports actually might be a. The secondary characteristic of this rather than the sports being the leading edge of this. They have turned it into a a legitimate campus where people want to go and go to school there. Whereas when I was in high school in the 90s it was viewed as more commuter school. Now it is a place that people from other towns are like I want to go to UCF. I love the campus there like when I go you know in high school you would see a bunch of Florida and Florida state shirts on campus now it's just UCF shirts like and it sounds like your dad was a big part of that like people like him turning that place. Into a special college experience people caring like that that was the first step is people caring he really cared he wasn't trying to go to Gainesville it wasn't trying to go to Miami doesn't try to go until assie. He was being where his feet were trying to grow UCF and that was a huge huge part of it and you're right. Even with the football thing. When I was in high school. It was considered an anomaly if a good player went to UCF and now I mean they UCF was beating Billy Napier for recruits for four stars. And has beaten. Tallahassee for man has beaten Miami in the in the past not in a Mario but in the past if they've lost out you see us at the same by the way at some parts of theirs and that would have been considered absolutely unheard of in 2004 2005 2006. I remember one of our family friends that was a kid. It was a tight end who would maybe 2007 chose UCF over BC. And I'm thinking no way man like BC, you know big East the whole thing like you got to go to BC. And now it's like that's not even a question you go to UCF of a BC. And and it's just grown so much and I think it's one of the biggest success stories in college just in colleges over the past. Let's say 15 years is just the idea that the school is not only one of the biggest in the country by enrollment. But people really care you go downtown. I was doing a Jaguars podcast yesterday Andy. There's a lot of Jaguars fans because of Blake Bortles in Orlando like that's a built in thing where people loved Blake Bortles so much that they became Jaguars fans that wasn't happening. 20 years ago. And so it's a real phenomenon. I actually do think it probably hurts the Gators a little bit because of how much the Gators owned Orlando as just just need to win. Just need to win. But it's incredible. And if anybody can give any money to the GMC Cork Memorial Fund, which is for a student who loves history majoring in history, we're welcome to. Your dad sound like an amazing man. I'm so sorry for your loss, but I'm happy that his legacy moving forward will be having a positive impact on future students there. Yeah, no, I do want to say I was doing this the other day because somebody was saying to me would your dad have loved the what would he have said about the college football season because he passed away and I said my dad at heart was a troll. And so the only thing I can think of is I was at the national championship game knows the 40 yard line actually right in front of a Carson Beck released the interception. And the only time I was leaving that the stadium, I was dejected and I have never watched the replay. And all I could think about was if my dad were still alive, what that troll making fun of me text would have been like it would have been it would have hit so hard 30 seconds after the interception. He would have been like should have gone to UCF it would have been something like that. That to me is the funniest part is is my dad, his not only would his legacy going to live on with the scholarship, his legacy will live on and me thinking about how he would needle me about this time my wife went northwestern. He would have sent the text to me and my wife just saying something like hey Northwestern was undefeated today like it would have been something like that. That's also his legacy. So, while we're talking legacies and hit and things you've learned. We always ask our first time guests. Yeah, same last question. What is your your rule for life or your set of rules for life if you were just if you're talking to a college class if you're talking to your know your your kid is very young but when when your kid is older, if you can impart one piece of advice what's it going to be. Do something. So, for me, I'm not joking. I think that NAPS are important to me so I just every time I sign a contract extension and get to stay in this industry I get to say I get to take take take my afternoon NAPS that's all I'm after in this industry is afternoon NAPS okay that's number one, but that's not actually what I'm talking about the advice. What I'll say is and I swear to you and you do play a role in this. Don't worry about the ultimate destination worry about doing what you love, and everything else will take care of it. Take care of itself. And Andy, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but you took a job. I was in high school and he was a sports illustrator and I think your job was to write basically like profiles and longer form stuff about recruiting. Is that right? That's right. I can tell you exactly how every conversation went. You got hired a sports illustrator that's amazing. What are you covering? And I'd say recruiting and they go, oh, That was it was not if you were in downtown Orlando you would have not gotten that reaction. Yeah, and I was telling somebody this maybe five years ago. I thought that when I got out of college, I was going to go cover college football at the Miami Herald or the Sun Sentinel which is where I was working when I was in college and I was going to be there until I was 30. And then I was going to try to get your job, which was I wanted to just write stuff like that traveling around the state of Florida traveling around the south telling college football stories, but I was going to be like 30 and I wanted to live in San Augustine Florida. This is my roadmap. Okay, 30 to 30 to 40. I was just going to do that. And then when and then like I'll figure the rest out later. But that's all I wanted to do. It was never like, Hey, I have to be on TV. And even now, if you set these specific goals, whether it's in sports media, whether it's in sports or anything, you're not, you're not going to hit them and then you're going to get down on yourself. It's more about like, do the things that are going to make you happy, do the things you're going to love, and then everything else will take care of it from there. I just wanted to write about college football and then write about recruiting. And then I thought that was going to take me till age 40. Everything else that's happened to me since then has been a byproduct of me throwing myself into the things that I've been tasked with because because I loved it so much. And I have an aversion. And this is, I don't think anybody should I'm not I don't I don't recommend having this. I do not do anything I don't want to do like I don't I don't do paperwork well, I have a bunch of paperwork on my desk I'm just not going to respond to. I'm old, I'm a year later my expenses constantly. Like, all I care about is the four or five things I'm really, really, really passionate about one of them is the sport of football. The other is journalism so I got to combine those two things. But if you just throw yourself into that every single day, and you aren't cynical and you work your ass off good things will happen. I think that's true of any industry. If you love it, I remember I was doing a story in the Niners once, and one of their minority owners was a guy who was one of the Yahoo founders. And he said that the number one question they asked when they were hiring people at Yahoo 40 years ago 30 years ago was, do you love the internet. And they were like, no, no one loves the internet. It's like, well, yeah, the people we hire will love the internet. You have to wake up every single day and love it. Everything you're doing everything you're doing because it's going to suck sometimes. But if you love it, you're going to figure it out. And and yeah, that's that's it. Well, I got it right. And now you want it. You want the backstory on that job I took at a slice. I still want it. I still want it. Can I go can I go get it right now? I wish I wish it still existed. I still have it if it still existed. But the my wife says to me, I am the Florida beat writer for the Tampa Tribune newspaper. My wife goes, you can send an email across the world in 10 seconds. You're in an industry that relies on printing the news once a day on dead trees. Do you think that's sustainable? Do you think that's going to last forever? What do you really want to do? I was like, well, I'd love to, you know, cover college football nationally. But real people don't get those jobs. Like you have to be somebody special to get those jobs. She's like, do you know people who have those jobs? I'm like, yeah, I've met them. She's like, why don't you apply for them? Yeah, I was like, I didn't even know how and she's like to figure it out. And so I did. I sent all my crap to every national website and said, Hey, I do this. If you ever have something, please let me know. And sure enough, that's how it all came to be. Not to turn this into a everybody love everybody bonfire here. Yeah, I think that part of the reason why Kevin, what you just said was so true and it touched me because I feel like that's kind of how I've, you know, yeah, right, approached my life. But I was the Ohio State beat writer at the athletic and I knew that I didn't want to live in Columbus and just do that for the rest of my life. And I wanted to do national stuff too. And I found that the only way to do that would be to try to get the athletic to allow me to do Andy's job for them. And I didn't realize Andy's career path at the time. But when I was talking to Andy at one of the summits about leaving the Ohio State beat to go do this recruiting job, he's like, you know, I had that job, right? And I felt like that helped us connect. And then a few years later now here we are hosting a national college football show together and I could never have fathomed in a million years that I would have gone from that to this. And it was just based on loving college football. So yeah. And the other thing I'd say is, is if you have the specific goals on three did not exist when we were plotting out our career plans. Yeah, and I've told the story before and it was different people different iterations and I'll feel that bad about it. When I went to the ringer, I had an offer actually had like one and a half offers from Sports Illustrated. And they were my four offers that year because I was trying to figure stuff out. And I was my first one out. And my dad called me and said, could you have imagined even five years ago, even a year ago, the idea that the ringer which was a startup would be would be your first choice. And by the way, didn't have any employees and hadn't even launched yet that the ringer would be your first choice and Sports Illustrated would be your last choice. And that changed so quickly. But again, if you love what you do, it the job title doesn't matter. The outlet doesn't matter. I mean, it's just that's, that's what it is is you just follow your passion and good things happen. Exactly right. Exactly. Best advice ever. Other good advice. If you are not already watching and or listening, however you choose to this is football with Kevin Clark. Just add it now. Just go. Great show. Take us later. Kevin, thank you so much. And thank you for coming here and making our show better today. It was really, really a pleasure to have you here. And, you know, I could talk to you about Miami and all sorts of different things for another three. You're gonna be nasty. I'll get you back. Yeah. I've got a lot of a few close friends who were Miami or are diehard Miami fans, one of which was sitting in the fifth row in the side of the stadium that they were driving into on the final drive. So, right behind your friend. Yeah, could you imagine being a lifelong Miami fan? Obviously, you know, but like they're driving to win the game in the end zone you're sitting at. And like the separation between what that ending would have been and what actually happened and how like you would never that would have been the peak of fan hood. That's where the guy who shaves the U.S. chest air sits at the home games. Yeah. Exactly. Just like I can't like that's what makes sports so beautiful though. Like you're 35 or 40 yards away from, you know, maybe getting the greatest single memory that a human being could ever have in sports. But then I think the way that they lost fuels your fan hood to chase the dragon. I almost told him and that makes you feel better, Kevin. And I might be full of crap. You tell me. But I feel like I always think about the Billy Donovan story that Andy tells, which is after he won his first title, he felt empty inside because I feel like it's almost better and stick with me with this that that happened because if they would have won and you would have had that moment where they score a touchdown 20 feet from where you're sitting. Yeah. Doesn't the entire point of reading the message boards and reading all the things and engaging and buying tickets and doing things to chase that moment kind of become diminished. I was like, at the very least, you got a taste of relevancy. You got to enjoy a playoff run. You went to all the games. And listen, now you have an entire off season where you can still chase that feeling again in a way that might have been diminished had they all of a spin zone here. Hell of a spin zone. I'm miserable. No, I have something I have a quick quick take on on that. And I have two things to say about it. Number one is the reason I'm less depressed than I was a year ago. So I was actually in Syracuse when they lost that bit. What amounts to a play in game for the for the playoff last November. So the last regular season game for Cam Ward, I was actually at basically on the goal line. I've basically been right. I've been the forest gump of every single bad Miami thing because I was sitting on the goal line for that that Miami Syracuse game where they couldn't get in the end zone right at the end and kick the field goal didn't get the ball back. I was at the 40 yard line when Carson back through the interception. But when I left Syracuse, I thought Cam Ward was so generational that this was the mountain top. It was like the Dan Campbell thing. This might be our only shot right. And then we were Miami was nasty again the next year. And it exercise the demons of Syracuse where I didn't feel once they beat Notre Dame I didn't feel so bad about Syracuse because like okay we're still building something. And so if I can take any solace, it's in the fact that they're probably going to be good every single year and they play in the ACC to where they should only drop a maximum of one conference game this year and then we'll see about Notre Dame on November 7. So that softens the blow. This is not a this is not a total aberration where it's like oh man that's a once in a lifetime team because they thought the same thing about Cam Ward. And then you can say the same thing when it came as a door in Rubin Bain but first of all look at Bain and Mazzador the year before Bain got hurt in Gainesville. Mazzador is playing defensive tackle Tyler Baron was the top pressure getter. It's just a machine a little bit in Coral Gables and this year you look at the defensive line it's going to have Damon Wilson and Marquis life foot and Hayden low and all those guys they're going to be really good and so I'm not as depressed because I think at the NFL in particular you have these once in a lifetime teams like the line like the Lions window might be shut forever like it might be over right. How. Offensive line isn't like is not. Frank Ragnar retiring. Yeah. And then oops there it is. The Niners. The Niners. What if the Niners and the Cowshanahan run without a championship. There's no recourse for them to just reload like Ohio State like Miami like Alabama and then the last thing I want to say is the point I forgot to make in the NIL part of it. Which is right before the game. I was I thought that Miami covering which they did was the lock of the century. That was going to be really close game. And one of the reasons that Miami was going to win and I picked them to win was the blue chip ratio, which was the most predictive thing in the history of sports basically. As far as winning Astro championship you have over 50% you can win that championship obviously but Elliot's gone over this million times under 50% you can Indiana's blue chip ratio is 4%. Miami was like 68 or something like that. And I really thought that the Miami's athletes were going to win the game which by the way without a blocked punt. Who knows what happens almost it worst the worst punt protection history the world from Alex Bowman. But I was telling somebody an executive in another sport who was at our tailgate. And I was telling him this. And he said, yeah, but what if tonight we find out that the blue chip ratio is the second most predictive thing in history. The most predictive thing is age player age. What if tonight's tonight it flips. And I'm a thing about that ever since that maybe like in college basketball has figured it out, maybe just bunch of fifth year guys bunch of fourth year guys bunch of guys in some cases. That's all you need and the sport is changing and I think that that to me is the most fascinating thing about the NIL era, Ari, is that it's not about okay you have Bane, and you have Marquis life foot and you have Francisco Mano and you've got all these guys, who are five stars high four stars. There's a bunch of different ways to build this thing now and that to me is is more appealing brand of a yeah. I know that you probably have to go so I'm just I do. Okay, go. No, no, no, you have two minutes. Okay, I have two minutes. I think that being a fan is like drugs. And I've never gone for before. Like if like the one thing that I always tell Andy, I think I've said this to you in the car, I said this to everybody if I could figure out how it feels to do heroin for the first time that's probably something that would probably feel better than anything that we could ever imagine. But I'm assuming that after you do it the first time, the negative impacts of that and the high that you feel when you do it is never as vivid. And I feel like you really substantial research on the subject. Yes, that there's a certain level of fan hood where you are kind of chasing that ultimate feeling and not feeling it until you finally do I think makes it more gratifying so like I think that giving being in a position where you know that you're capable of that, but not ultimately tasting it is probably the peak place to be in fan hood. And maybe that just maybe there's an Alabama fan out there like this guy's an idiot it feels great every time. But like I do think that like my dad is a Cleveland person he has a been a Browns fan his whole life. And like that is the worst part of it which is you never taste it and you're never going to. I feel like Miami being back in the situation despite the heartbreak where they are competitive for it is the perfect sweet spot of fan hood which is we could do it, and we haven't done it in a long time and I want to feel that. I just want to say I have to go but is a famous story in Hollywood that John Travolta because of his religious reasons obviously could not do hard drugs he was supposed to in Pulp Fiction be a heroin addict and so they said what does that feel like and so Tarantino got a friend of his who does heroin and the answer was it feels like a hot bath and drinking tequila at the same time. Okay. All right I'm gonna go get the bath going. I feel about I got to run. Thank you. Thank you guys so much. Hi Kevin thanks for being here. That was awesome. All right. Bye bye. That was a lot of fun with Kevin Clark Ari but it is Meg board Wednesday and we do need to talk about one more thing that has dominated the message boards really over the last three weeks and that is the North Carolina basketball hire Mike Malone introduced as the head coach in Chapel Hill on Tuesday we talked on Tuesday show about you know what's he gonna say how how's he gonna come across well judging by the inside Carolina message boards. I think people are very happy with how he came across we talked about how the response when the news broke initially on Monday was was overwhelmingly negative. I would say it's overwhelmingly positive after North Carolina fans have had a chance to hear Mike Malone and one of these message board threads that I thought was very interesting from cat about Mike maybe he is cut from the family legacy because the big thing was he's not part of the North Carolina family he's you know it's not somebody who's hired from within or as a former player for Dean Smith or a former Roy Williams player this is somebody who came from the outside his daughter was playing volleyball there but he was coaching in the NBA. Ari you want to hear him talk about playing against Duke. Yes, please. You will see why they're so happy. I just want to get your thoughts on those and just kind of how different that will be for you as a coach to get ready for for that type of format. I love rivalries. Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to get into that. You know watching that game at home this year when Seth Trimble hit that corner three. My wife and I were jumping around and I run back back in Colorado. I mean that sincerely. Our daughter was at the game. She FaceTime me as they were leaving the arena and just to be a part of that moment. The life is about moments and that's the moment that all the Carolina fans will always remember but I'm excited to be a part of that rivalry. I want to add to that. I want to you know I want to win. You know and I know that Duke is a program down the road and they've had success but you know as I said earlier I didn't come here to be second best. I didn't come here to losing the first round of the ACC tournament. I came here to win and went out of big level. Went out of high level. And if you're a competitor and that's what you want. You don't shy away from that. You don't run from that. You run towards that. And that's how I'm wired. That's my DNA. And you know and our teams don't take on that character as well. I didn't come here to losing the first round of the ACC tournament. That I guarantee you that got their blood warm. That made them happy. Didn't come here to losing the first round of the NCAA tournament. Well, that was the first round of the ACC tournament. It's even worse. Yeah. But that's that's just like the I didn't I didn't come here to trip on the crack of the sidewalk. I mean they're not that's not what we're thinking. We're thinking I didn't come here to not make the sweet 16 and beyond. I'm criticizing for no reason. But yeah, you know you you say the thing that you need to say in that news conference and I thought that he came across pretty well there. So I wonder from a roster building standpoint, those are the things that will. Yeah, that's what we got to see is what will he what will his roster look like. And we talked about it yesterday with the Belichick thing. Belichick was at the press conference and we knew by the end of spring practice or well by the end of spring transfer portal when we knew what North Carolina's roster was that the Belichick year one was going to go pretty rough. We'll probably know by the end of the transfer portal cycle here whether they're going to be competitive in year one. Do they make some big splashes? Do they get some guys that you know maybe Hubert Davis would not have gone after in the transfer portal? Do they get some guys that can compete with what Duke will put on the floor next year? That's the key. And it's interesting the rivalry thing. You know, when you're in the NBA, you actually develop some pretty intense rivalries or there is a kind of a mountaintop type team that you've got to figure out how to overcome. And I would say probably for Mike Malone's the majority of his time with the nuggets was the Warriors were that team in the Western Conference. It became the Thunder by the end and he actually gets fired right before the playoffs began the year after he wins the title. But you know, he they had to get past Ant-Man and the T-Wolves the year he won the title. Like, you do develop rivalries there too. And they're actually kind of parallels because the Warriors were really good at that point and then the Thunder became very good too. So like that kind of like if you wanted to tell me that the Duke team that he's going to have to overcome is resembling of like the Warriors at peak level, I could buy that. Well, and that's the thing as good as Duke's been. It's not that good. Yeah. I just mean like not that they can. Yeah, I know. But it's harder in college to create something that's sustainable as, you know, Steve Kerr plus the Warriors big three, you know, as long as they had Seth and Clay and Dreymon. Together like that was pretty tough to deal with. So if you've dealt with that, if you've had to overcome that and worked to overcome that, then you also understand what you're working to overcome here. And again, I think you put it really well yesterday. If North Carolina didn't hire Bill Belichick, I don't even think there would have been an initial negative reaction to this. I think it was what happened with Belichick, which I think you need to look at is completely isolated, completely separate from what Mike Malone's going to be. Now, if he does the same things, which is hires personnel, people who get the Maroster that isn't going to be competitive, then by all means pile on. But if they are going after the top names in the portal and they are getting some of them, I think I think you should be pretty confident. Yeah. He looks good too in the colors. You know, if you ever does it, those are beautiful colors. I mean, it's iconic for sure. But, you know, War the Jordan one lows with the UNC colorway, war the baby blue tie. You know, the initial reactions used to mean so much to me. Like how does your fan base perceive this higher? You know, I don't know. I don't remember. Like how did Tennessee initially react to Hypal? Very subdued. Right. We're not happy. And like now, if you remember a few months ago and the idea that Hypal could be a candidate for another job came up. I mean, it felt like you were cheating on them. You know, I just like, I just think. And within two years, they were really happy with him because it's not about winning the press conference. And I said this forever. You win games. You don't win press conferences. You can be the worst in the press conference as long as you put a really good team on the floor. I mean, Bill Belichick is terrible in news conferences and no one cared in New England how funny that Irving how awful it was. Yeah. Yeah. So this part we will take with a grain of salt. But again, I look at the Greg Barnes story that came out on Tuesday that he was going after one of John Calipari's top recruiters. Like that tells me something different than say Belichick who's bringing in his guy who worked with him in the NFL who's not worked in college football before. Who has not had to evaluate in college football has not had to. There's in college football. Like that's the difference. So I'm fascinated to see how this works because this is this is a Tiffany job. But for the reasons that we talked about while it was open. You don't really get any of the benefits of it being a Tiffany job like you have to just go do the work like you got hired anywhere else. Yeah. We can revisit this in 10 days too. I mean like this is. I think probably about two weeks where we have a good sense of who they got will be a good time to do it. But I'm fascinated by this because we see this in football where guys have to flip the roster when they come in. But in basketball it's even more dramatic because in football some guys like guys will stay in football. If you had to be certain good players who will stick around just because they like where they live that they're they're going to be paid fairly. In basketball it seems like when you have regime change it is. It's a clean slate baby. You also have a chance to completely read rebuild your roster in a very short amount of time to. I mean yeah. Yeah. He can make them competitive very quickly. We just got done watching Dusty May win the national title at Michigan in his second year in the job. So this is this is one of those that like you'll know quickly. I mean a football program doing it you're rebuilding a home in basketball. I feel like you're rebuilding a car engine. Yeah. It is a smaller thing. Oh I think rebuilding a car engine takes some time to. No I know but I think if you're a good mechanic it shouldn't take you as long as building a home. Yeah. Let's see what they do in the portal but he said all the right things. He definitely seems to have the right attitude going in and now we will find out does he have the right ideas. Does he have the right evaluation tools. Does he have the money to get the players that he needs because again that's not all Mike Malone stuff. Some of that is UNC stuff like they have to make sure that he has the support he needs. But I will say they did give Bill Belichick the support. So there's no reason they wouldn't do the same thing with Mike Malone in the sport that they are historically the best at. So we'll see but he definitely came off very well in that first press conference. Ari big guest tomorrow to our friend Chris Lowe will join us. He can talk about that Jeremiah Smith story. He's also been to Texas A&M very recently wrote a great story about Mike Elko and the Aggies. He's been to Texas. He's been to Alabama. We need to we get the full download from Chris Lowe on all his travels because he's been to some places that are very, very interesting. He's been to this college football season. I cannot wait to hear what he found. .