Why Kalen DeBoer is in it for the LONG HAUL at Alabama: CFB Insider with Crimson Tide head coach

on today's Andy Nari on three presented by bet MGM Alabama coach Kailin de Bohr explains that he knew exactly what he was getting into when he took the Alabama job talking to on threes Chris Lowe and also explains why he did not engage with Michigan at all last December plus Trinidad Shambles with some interesting words about a certain former Ole Miss coach that he didn't name and a current one he did name Pete Golding Pete Golding also got asked about Davos, we need tampering very very busy day it's a mega board wins that we have a lot to talk about so let's get right to it on Andy Nari on three presented by bet MGM this show is sponsored by bet MGM and the Cavendr twins are facing off in the court of legends game and you can enter better than Jim's pick a twin to win free-to-play game for a chance to win a share of two million dollars in bonus bets here's how to get this offer in three easy steps opt-in to the pick a twin to win free-to-play game select whether you think Haley or Hannah will win the court of legends one-on-one basketball game played at the bank at the Bellagio in Las Vegas if the twin you select wins the game you'll win a share of two million in bonus bets also you know what this time of year means for college hoops lock in for every game and make your March moment when you bet with boosted odds activate your odds boost token for any March matchups bet from April 3rd through April 6th and you receive a bigger payout if your bet wins here's how that works your March matches Ozboose token has already been dropped into your account there's no opt-in necessary add a March matchups bet up to them special the specified maximum stake to your bet slip then activate the token if you win your bet with the token activated you'll score extra winnings that's all happening this weekend at bet MGM make it legendary with bet MGM see bet MGM.com for terms 21 plus only this promotional offer is not available in DC Mississippi New York and about Ontario or Puerto Rico gambling problem called 1-800 gambler or 1-800 my reset available in the US 8778 hope and white or text hope in Y467369 in New York 1-800 3275050 in Massachusetts 1-800 bets off in Iowa 1-800 981023 in Puerto Rico first bet offer for new customers only if applicable subject to eligibility requirements rewards are non with throttle bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas crossing Casino and hotel 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna get with quince you're gonna 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 three 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 three for free shipping and 365 day returns that's quince.com slash a a on three welcome to Andy and Ari on three presented by betmgm and Ari it's a mega board Wednesday and oh man are the boards popping because Chris Lowe dropped another exclusive at on three and this time it's with Kailin DeBore the Alabama head coach discussing the current state of affairs with the Crimson Tide also how he handled interest from Michigan in December this was quite quite a story and this is something we've talked about a little bit but now we have Kailin DeBore's input on it and I am fascinated to get into it with you Ari. Yeah yeah by the way having some minor internal you know issues right now not being there with you that studio looks great you look great in it and I can't wait to see it one day but you know I think that it's interesting because Alabama's place in the world to me is fascinating and how Michigan views Kailin DeBore makes sense how Alabama's fans viewed him made no sense because on one hand they're mad at him he's not doing enough the standard of the programs dropped on the other they freaked out when Michigan was reportedly involved in you know at least having interest in him and then at the same time the sport has changed they made the playoff in advance like is he doing a great job is he doing a good job or is he doing a bad job for Alabama standards there's a lot to unpack there Andy. There is and you and I were at the Alabama Oklahoma game and this is right after all that happened and when Alabama beat Oklahoma it was at least with the Alabama administration a sigh of relief like hey there's no chance our coach is getting going anywhere because now he's still playing and he wasn't going to talk to them anyway but now he's really not going to talk to him but I don't think they would have talked to me even if they lost so here's here's what Kailin DeBore said about that situation to Chris Lowe said I never talked to anyone not one time I just don't know how you could live with yourself and look at your players eyes if you're looking at other opportunities in the midst of the season and getting ready for a playoff game and hopefully making run in a national championship so it was a pretty easy decision not to engage with him I didn't come here to follow coach Saban only to turn around two years and go somewhere else I mean this is Alabama I'm at an amazing place that's the way I was looking at it I chose to be here I love the support love our players and love the direction and everything the staff has done to put the pieces together here over the last two years a lot of heavy lifting has been done to get us to this point so this is what we were telling you as all that was happening was that Kailin DeBore the person was not likely to entertain the Michigan job because he was not a person who wanted to be viewed as someone who ran away from a hard job of person that you have to be to voluntarily sign up to replace Nick Saban does not equate with the type of person who would want to leave when things got a little hot now I'm happy to hear this and shout out to the goat Chris Lowe for just dropping nukes every day but I think it's an interesting cross-section because I personally am a very opinionated guy and I say things that sometimes get me in trouble I say things that I believe passionately and and people get mad and this specific instance like I'm supposed to have a take right like what's your take on where Kailin DeBore is with Alabama after two years is he doing a good job is he doing a bad job is he doing a medium job and I I guess my opinion would be if I even had one somewhere in the middle because I don't feel strongly about great or bad I think that there's a lot of things that are changing around him and he has to change Alabama in the midst of those changes and it's a very complicated equation and like what what does that spit out and I think that the obviously the expectation would be for Alabama to be run in a way that at least resembles the way it used to be the question is a is that even possible at Alabama in 2026 and beyond given the financial constraints that they might have in their location in the NIL world and if it's not to be as remotely close to Nick Saban as you possibly can be what is the actual legitimate realistic standard for what Alabama fan should expect and I know that rationality in Alabama fans and Georgia fans and Ohio State fans and Michigan fans don't always go hand in hand but why don't we do the heavy lifting for them Andy if an Alabama fan will always say national championship or bust or playoff advancing or bust what is the actual realistic expectation for what makes Caleb D'Abor success there not just in this season coming up but year over year make the playoff most years in advance in the playoff a lot of years I think that's a realistic expectation I think Alabama's administration has realistic expectations for Caleb D'Abor because I think they understand the difficulty of replacing Nick Saban they also understand that the world is changing and Alabama is not going to be able to do what it did from a roster standpoint in the old era and I think Nick Saban understood that and I think it's why Nick Saban retired when he did that's the thing that has to be said even Nick Saban wouldn't do what Nick Saban did right now and that's why he left so like if your standard is do what Nick Saban did that is completely irrational and unrealistic and I don't even mean that for Bama I mean that for anybody I think Georgia is going through a similar situation right now which is you know we were on the verge of being the next dynasty winning two titles in three years and now they've been a very good team a dangerous team a team that's won the SEC a team that has made the playoff but they have yet to advance in the playoff Alabama now I don't know if you could say they advanced further because they've had by weeks but Alabama has won a game in the playoff and Georgia has not had to play in the first round right so exactly they've they've both advanced to the same depth in the tournament but you know Georgia has yet to win a game Alabama has won a first round game but if Georgia is completely fine with Kirby smart in the output that the Bulldogs have had. Oh here's where I'm going to push back on you a little bit. They're probably not a fine with it. It's not the same thing. Alabama and Georgia are not in the same place. Yeah because Georgia is winning the SEC. Georgia kicked the crap out of Alabama and Atlanta to get that by and then also Alabama got destroyed in the second round granted by the eventual national champion but Georgia lost a nip and tuck game where if they can cover a little bit or if they can you know get to Trinidad Shambles even a little bit at the end they win that game they move on. So they're different. These are different situations and then Georgia won the SEC in 2024 Alabama didn't make the playoff in 20 so. But Alabama Alabama is probably not as I think I agree with what you said because results are results and what happened. But Alabama if behind Georgia is not that far behind. I mean they have beaten them in the same season that they've lost. Yeah. So like it's not like it's night and day. And I think that Georgia fans to a certain extent are probably going to have a come to Jesus moment too when it comes to Kirby smart. Now maybe they'll go win the national title this year and I'll look like an idiot but if Georgia keeps having seasons like the two seasons that they've had the last two years is that now we've talked about this is that a success for Georgia. I think that's a process outcome conversation. I think the process is right at Georgia. They didn't get the outcomes they want but if they continue to have the process work the way it does or the way it has where they win 10 or 11 games in the regular season and then they win the SEC the outcome that they want will come. They will get the outcome they want. So now the question is is Alabama's process going to deliver that that kind of outcome like what Alabama has done the last two years is very different. In both cases Alabama has lost games in the last two years that they had no business losing. They lost in ways you never saw them lose the way they lost in ways you never see Georgia lose. So for sure that's the difference and that's what gets confusing because on one hand how you frame Alabama season last year really does kind of take away like whether it was a great season or not. Like on one hand you could say they made it to the SEC championship game made the playoff and advanced in the playoff. That sounds like a great year. Right. On the other hand you can say they got their doors blown off by Florida state had a pretty good run in the regular season made it to the SEC championship got their doors blown off by Georgia that made the playoff and then eventually got their doors blown off by Indiana. Those two things sound very different. Right. And I think that your perspective of how where you land on it might just meet the type be the temperament that you have as a fan. But like curious your thoughts on this but if Alabama produces seasons that were similar to last year consistently is that good enough for Katelyn DeBoer to keep his job or do they have to get better than that. And then the next like that they can't end like that. You have to be competitive in the playoff to against the teams that are the best teams and that's the difference. But that's why I have a hard time Andy because they were competitive against one team that was a playoff team and they beat them and then they lost to the champion by a million. Right. And it's well. Well Homo was also the other one that we were saying if remember we played the little game of how many teams would Notre Dame be favor favored against in the playoff. Oklahoma was one of those teams. So was Alabama. I don't think Oklahoma and Alabama were in the same. Sphere as Ole Miss and Georgia and Indiana and Oregon. That's right. That's right. And I agree with that. That's the difference. And so what Katelyn DeBoer has to do is get them playing more consistently. Developer run game. These are all things that he can do by the way. None of this is impossible. But if he doesn't do it this year there is going to be real pressure on him. It's understandable. And the most ironic part about this too is that we are using last year to frame the discussion when we should be using this year to frame it. And if you look at every single reporter who has done a preseason way too early top 25 by and large you'll find Alabama outside of the top 10 and most of them which would have been absolutely unheard of. So when you do process versus result that makes sense. But shouldn't process also have Alabama roster wise in a position to be viewed as a team that should be in the top 10. Like that's the other thing that scares me about Bama. It's like well Katelyn Russell will get the start. You know Austin Mack can get the start. They could be awesome and like just be Alabama again. Like that's obviously always on the table when you have the players that they have. But at the same time what if they're eight and four next year. Like what does last year mean with the with the new information. And is that mean that Alabama is trending in the wrong direction despite the fact that they made the playoff in 2025. Like I still think that this is a pretty pivotal year for him and how he's viewed overall by not just Alabama fans but in the sport is going to be supremely altered by this season. Well if they're eight and four it means last year was a warning. If they're 11 and one and they make the SEC championship game and they don't get the crap kicked out of them and they end up either winning that game or competitive in it. Then it means last year was just a down year. And that that's the thing. You brought it up in the beginning of this discussion. Where is the standard now for Alabama. And what's the realistic standard. And I said make the playoff advance in the playoff. But there's there's a way that looks advance in the playoff and look like a team that can compete for the national title. Did Alabama at any point in December of last year look like a team that could compete for the national title. No. OK. They have to fix that. Kailin DeBore has to fix that and he knows that. And here's here's another quote from Kailin DeBore Chris Lowe this week. It's like I always tell our players this is what we signed up for. Everything that comes with being at a place like Alabama. I think that says it all. This is what we signed up for. The coaches and the players they know the players are not so young that they don't remember when Nick Saban dominated. They chose this. They know what the standard is. They know what the pressure is. They know what the fans expect. They all expect the same thing. And they all know this. So everybody's got their eyes open here. And so if they're eight and four are nobody should be surprised if the fans want to run them out of town. If they're nine and three and they missed the playoff. I suspect the fans will run want to run them out of town. And then that point if some job is open they'll be happy if he takes it. They were conflicted this year. They were conflicted this year. I never bought the well who's who can you find who's better. And if Michigan's interested in why shouldn't we want to keep him. I think it was more. Hey we haven't really given this guy a fair chance to figure this out. He's had a nine win season at that point. He's had a 10 win season. He's going into the playoff. So at that point they're not quite sure yet. I think 31 to three against Indiana turned the tied part in the pun on that because they are not used to getting beat like that twice in a month. And then they didn't have the best portal cycle outwardly in terms of excitement. A lot of the players that they ended up getting might turn out to be great. And it's very hard to judge how a team did in the portal in April. But like if you compare what LSU did to what Alabama did granted very different situations more of a roster turnover at LSU than Bama. But some of the exciting players that they brought in. Now you know it's a little bit harder to get excited about them. And that's why you might find them outside of the top 25. Now the preseason top 25s might be more inaccurate now than they've ever been in the past because so much talent movement makes it harder to gauge who's actually going to be good. So you want to give Alabama the benefit of the doubt. But like when you look at the teams that you think are most likely to win the national championship next year you could probably name six teams before you even get to even thinking about Bama. And that in and of itself is an issue. So very curious because I know that those fans are never going to change their standard. Now they might become more rational. Oh they change their standard. That's that's BS that they wouldn't change their standard. Like coming out of the Mike Schulera their standard was not national title every year. Yeah. I mean it was higher somebody who can win some games. Like it if the everybody adjusts is if the baseline is last year's Georgia season or failure. I think that's a reasonable expectation. I don't know if it if that is harder to do with Bama than we think it is. It's harder to do last year's Georgia season. It's harder to do anywhere. Georgia win 11 and one in the regular season won the conference and then was it you know one defensive stop away from moving to the semifinals. But if you would have made that sentence in 2017 that would have been like a failure for Georgia. So we have that's good to know that. Yes. And it would have been a failure for Alabama. Last year's Georgia season is the baseline expectation is a really difficult task. So I'm excited to see it. And as you saw I don't know right right before we started recording Andy on three posted a story about how LSU was bordering on 40 million dollars of NIL budget and how much they spent when they initially anticipated spending 25. So like you're competing with that at Bama too. So like that and that makes it a little bit more Nick Saban saw this knew it was coming. This is all part of the reason he's not doing this anymore. And Alabama has to figure out how to compete in this environment as well. That's that's not just a Kaila N'Bor thing. That's an Alabama. Administration. Yep. So I'm fascinated to see how this plays out. But I love hearing from Kaila N'Bor and this makes you want to root for him to succeed. This attitude because we just watched Lane Kiffin leave Ole Miss in the midst of a playoff run. We've seen coaches leave under different circumstances. Kaila N'Bor I said this back when it was going on. I still believe it now. I believe it even more after hearing him talk to Chris Lowe. The guy wants to be successful at Alabama. He took the plunge of I will I will have the guts to replace Nick Saban. I know that that may not work but I want to do it anyway. I want to try it anyway. And he didn't run away from it because honestly going and resetting your clock at Michigan is about as good of an escape hatch as you're ever going to get. And he didn't even consider it. So that seems to me like a guy you'd want in charge of your program. And I know we do a podcast and maybe I'm just too involved in online Twitter drama that has nothing to do with football like Taylor Frankie Paul. But when he said I don't know how you look yourself in the mirror when you're still coaching a team that is going to the playoff and on the verge of competing for a national championship. Did that feel shot E to you a little bit because I thought of somebody. I don't think that was a shot. I think that was this is how I feel. And that's how most people would feel again. And we're going to talk about Lane Kiffin in a second again because it always comes back to him. But what Lane Kiffin did was highly anomalous highly different from everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. I want. Yeah. I wonder if other coaches are put in his position if someone else will do it or if that was just only Lane Kiffin. No I don't think it was only Lane Kiffin. I think there are other coaches who would do it. I mean we've seen other coaches do it just not in such a high profile fashion. Todd Graham did it like twice in a row. We've seen it happen. It's just it's different when it's a team that's in you know about to go into the playoff. But Kailin the board I think is one of those people that if you brought it up to him I would have loved to have been in a conversation with him you know the week of the Oklahoma game. Hey Kailin you want to talk to Ward manual at Michigan. And I guarantee you because I'm sure Jimmy Sexton had that conversation with him or it Davis Horton is agent at CA like I'm sure one of those guys had that conversation with him and he's probably like nope absolutely not because that's the type of person he is. So I like I said this makes me want to root for him to satisfy the people who in his fan base. The question is can he actually do it because it is going to be really hard. Yeah and I thought they did a really good job of handling it during it too because he never came out and said I'm not talking to Michigan. I've got no interest in Michigan. This is a stupid story. Leave it alone. So I'm not talking to anybody. He said I'm going to be here next year. He said all that. Yeah. Am I misremembering. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. He had a press conference on a Sunday night where he said I am not talking to anyone. I am going to be the coach here next. I think it was about Penn State. It was Penn State. Yeah. It was about the Penn State job. Then why did we go into the Michigan. I mean why don't we go into the Oklahoma game like feeling like if they lost that things would change because then the tenor of his job in his position would change. Well let's say they'd lost 31 to 3 to Oklahoma. I think the Alabama fan base would have like please leave. Please leave now. Please take that job. Yeah. I just remember going to the Oklahoma game feeling like if they lose this are we going to be up all night. Then we probably would have but you know I remember being down there going to interview the Alabama people after the game and seeing you know Greg Byrne the athletic director and the members of their administration and they just the relief on their face because they like Kailinboard. They don't want to lose them. They think they have a good coach. They think they have the right guy. So we will see what happens. This year will determine a lot but I don't know you know the majority of the Alabama fan base I think is probably on the fence about Kailinboard right now. I don't think there's this huge fire in contingent but I also don't think there's this huge he's going to be here for 20 years contingent. I think they want to see different results than they saw at the end of last season and they want to see don't lose to random underdog opponent that you shouldn't lose to like Florida State last year or Oklahoma the year before. They want to see something different. Yeah the the eye test and the field test is real in football. It's not just records. Yep. So now he just has to go prove it and like you said this season will tell us probably most of what we want to know. Ari I want to know how many people out there are planning to come see us on Saturday. We will be there in Indianapolis the semi finals of Saturday we will be in Luger Plaza at the Culver's Game Day Hub that's 200 East Washington Street. Come see us come say hi we're doing a show from there. We've got some really fun guests. We've got giveaways. There will be a frozen custard sampling stand and you'll probably see me and Ari there quite a bit. So come on by have some custard with us and get ready for some incredible basketball games. We will be at the Culver's Game Day Hub noon to 4 p.m. Eastern time. Come join us in downtown Indy. If you cannot come join us in downtown Indy then enter the Culver's swish swish swish deep sweepstakes for a chance to win $2,500. Ari let us peruse the mega board because it is mega board Wednesday. The message boards are popping plenty of threads being touched off by that the Kailin DeBoer interview but so I'm very interesting stuff at OM Spirit that's our Ole Miss sighted on three because yesterday Trinidad Shambless and Pete Golding gave press conferences so Trinidad Shambless Ole Misses quarterback he is going to be Ole Misses quarterback the NCAA's last gasp attempt to stop him from being Ole Misses quarterback failed in the Mississippi Supreme Court last week. Trinidad Shambless going to play quarterback for Ole Miss this year so he gave an interview and our friend Ben Garrett posted a thread on the Ole Miss message board about what Trinidad Shambless said and he was asked about the differences between new Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding who of course replaced Lane Kiffin last year during the playoff run and Lane Kiffin and here's what Trinidad Shambless said. How is this team's identity different under Golding than the previous coach? I would say I mean just you know the personalities are a little different than you know our old coach and you know coach Golding I'd say he's more of like a team guy and you know we really value you know his leadership you know whatever he says he's kind of show you faster than I could tell or he's show you faster than I could tell you he leads by his actions and you know we really appreciate that. Our old coach and coach Golding not even gonna say his name. You know the thing that I think about with with with these interviews too is that if you ask a player regardless of whether it's Trinidad or anybody else to compare and contrast the current coach to the previous coach regardless of who he is or the circumstances of his departure no matter what they say is gonna sound like a shot. Oh of course and it's like it's like it's an impossible thing to kind of navigate and it's like he feels like more of a team guy like Pete Golding's more of a team guy it's like does that mean that Lane Kiffin didn't care about the team? Like that it's just like there's nothing that you can. Well I think his I think it's clear he cared less about the team than taking another job because yeah because Lane Kiffin left them before the playoff. So this is just this was a rivalry but could this bubble into a major one? Oh yeah well I mean it already was but this is this is gonna be I think very bitter all of this is gonna be very bitter because I'm sure Lane Kiffin wasn't thrilled when Trinidad Shambless decided not to follow to LSU. I'm sure Lane Kiffin would have been the biggest fan of Trinidad Shambless's continued eligibility had he gone to LSU. I'm sure he's not a huge fan of it now when he has to play him. Yeah um he should call him the other quarterback if anybody asks him to compare and contrast qualifiers. Oh I mean well the thing is every every time he's talked about Ole Miss he's not named Ole Miss. So this is kind of par for the course like nobody's naming anybody they're not saying each other's names. Maybe the week they play they'll finally all say each other's names. It's such a strange advancement in Lane Kiffin's storyline to go from tweeting Trinidad and Tobago flags during the playoff to not even saying their name. He's still tweeting the flag every once in a while. I think he tweeted the flag when when Trinidad won the hearing. He did. It seems like celebratory almost for him. I don't think he really wants to play him though. No and that's going to be the game of of the year so I mean I cannot wait to experience that and I hope that things happen in the media in interviews and discussions and reports and stories and all the things he can come up with to make it even more bitter than it already is. Sneaky. But we can try. Sneaky great season opening game Ole Miss Louisville. That's going to be fun. Jeff Brom always reloading always dangerous Lincoln Keenholz. That's right Lincoln Keenholz from Ohio State the new Louisville quarterback. But so Pete Golding talked yesterday and this this ties into what Trinidad Chambliss was saying about the situation now at Ole Miss and how how things are versus how things were. Pete Golding said that they are as deep as they've been since he's been there and he didn't he didn't come with Lane Kiffin. He came a couple years later but he's been there for for five years now or four four years now and I mean he's been there for the last two really good teams that were very deep. Yeah yeah and he's saying he feels like they're deeper now. Now obviously anybody can say that right now but I don't think that's something you're going to blow smoke about because you you can be exposed pretty quickly once the season starts if you're not. So I would guess he feels pretty good about where they're at. You know this is the year of first time first year head coaches in the SEC and I know that like Lane Kiffin you know being the the main fixture of that is going to make things interesting just because it's Lane Kiffin but when you like zoom out and look at the first time head coaches I think that Pete Golding gets kind of lost in the shuffle because we've already seen him coach in the playoff and win a playoff game but like between John Summerall and Alex Gullish and Will Stein and all those guys like Pete Golding is also in his first full year. And Ole Miss is a very good team that got her quarterback back in very different fashion. Who's the star like what if Pete Golding is the star like I feel like we've got two more playoff wins than any of these other guys. That's true even Lane Kiffin. So you know I'm very interested too because it's like as bitter as Ole Miss is right now in regards to how they lost Lane Kiffin they do have an opportunity with somebody who seems to be beloved in the university and at the player level to have somebody who is bought in you know more of a team guy I think is appropriate as you pointed out so eloquently. Like what if he's a star like and this actually is the best thing that could have happened to them. Like I think that this is all very intriguing stuff. It's interesting because the Ole Miss fans have gotten mad at me occasionally when I've mentioned you know Lane Kiffin leaving and a lot of them now want to say that all of the portal success in the last couple years was due to Pete Golding which seems like a little bit revisionist to me but Pete Golding I'm sure had a lot to do with it. Like that defense they brought in ahead of the 2024 season I know Pete Golding had a lot to do with that. So it's not like he wasn't doing any of this or part of any of this. He was helping create this roster beforehand and so I think he probably had a really good idea of what they needed and it's interesting because they brought back a ton on offense. It was the defense that needed to be rebuilt this year and who better to rebuild it than your new head coach who's your former defensive coordinator. Right you know and I think that they are universally viewed in a pretty high regard. So you know the one thing that is going to carry the day when LSU returns to or LSU travels to Ole Miss in September is going to be the bad blood story between coaches who left and all that stuff but like this also might be a pivotal game in the CFP picture as well. So like that that's the other piece of it. I'm expecting some pretty big things out of Ole Miss and you know I think from an experience standpoint there's no better way to learn on the job than being in the playoff and winning two out of your three games that you played. Exactly exactly. So Pete Golding by the way also involved in his own drama. He was asked about what Dabo Sweeney said, the accusations that Pete Golding had tampered with Luke Farelli, the linebacker who was going to transfer from Cal to Clemson and was enrolled at Clemson and then decided just before the portal closed to go to Ole Miss and this is what Pete Golding said about that. Obviously Dabo Sweeney was pretty vocal about his version of events, how Luke Farelli got here, just wanted to give you a chance to I mean ask did it all go down like he said and what was your kind of reaction to being called out? Yeah I mean obviously I think there's two sides to every story right and so I'm not going to sit up here and use the podium as a grandstand and all that right and I mean that's why there is enforcement that's why we have a compliance office right they do all that so you know the bottom line of the recruitment of Luke he came on an official visit right prior to the fiesta bowl and I told him hey I want you to be our green dot mic but right now we got a green dot mic right and that's why it's not going to be available until we don't have you know until we have one available and so I want you he wants to be here I said but right now they're in a spot available so that spot becomes available as yours right so it's a kid that wanted to be here that we wanted to be here that at the end of it came open and he's here and we're happy to have him. Two sides to every story but I'm not going to tell mine here. Um if you close your eyes and listen to him speak do you hear rip from Yellowstone or is it just me not bad by the way rip from Yellowstone's son offensive line recruit in the class of 2027 really recently visited some ACC schools yeah he plays down in in uh in south Florida so you you seem amazed. My browser just closed sorry randomly by itself it must have crashed okay yeah so yeah Rylan Hauser son of Cole Hauser is a is an offensive line recruit in in this class so he's he's looked at multiple different schools he's gone to TCU I believe he was at North Carolina and NC State recently so I didn't even know that he was that big of a guy Cole Hauser his son's that big of a guy yeah so but Pete Golding not going to tell his whole side of the story presumably he will to the NCAA I still think Pete go nothing happens to Pete Golding here because if something happens to Pete Golding something also probably has to happen to several other SEC coaches who tried to pick the Ole Miss roster apart after Lane Kiffin left including Lane Kiffin so that's the the piece of this that this is and and Lane Kiffin also gets involved in this part of the story too because Luke Ferelli is the new Green Dot linebacker at Ole Miss as Pete Golding pointed out the reason they needed a new Green Dot linebacker is TJ Daughtery left to go join Lane Kiffin at LSU now if you read the the insiders on our Ole Miss site there's a question of whether TJ Daughtery even wanted to be the Green Dot this year at Ole Miss and either way that was fine they were fighting to keep him because he was the Green Dot the last two seasons and that's what they wanted him to be if he didn't want to be that they probably would have been fine just let him go Ferelli wanted to go to Ole Miss and this I was told all this at the time too by by folks at at both schools so like this all tracks Ferelli wanted to be the Green Dot guy that wasn't available at Ole Miss they wanted you know but as soon as Daughtery left they wanted a new Green Dot guy so that's that's what happened Ferelli had been on an Ole Miss visit before he visited Clemson so we'll see what happens with this I still don't think anything comes of it for Golding because again you're gonna you're gonna suspend everybody you're gonna punish everybody because they're all doing it targeting sorry not targeting it's another rule that makes no sense uh tampering uh will be enforced on a moving forward basis you it will not be a retroactive punishment because it's too messy and too impossible to do it yeah I just don't think if you do this you're gonna have to do it to a lot of different people and I don't know that that's gonna happen so yeah speaking of Lane Kiffin though as as we put a bow on this discussion you brought this up already in the show but our Wilson Alexander brand new hired on three wrote a great story on Wednesday about the Lane Kiffin situation and the budget that they're spending that they plan to spend 25 to 30 million dollars on the roster at LSU it ended up being 40 and as one donor told Wilson Alexander why not win in year one you don't build stuff over three four years anymore I was going to uh I was going to write a column yesterday uh about the patients thing and now I kind of have to right of course you do you should have written it last week I know but yeah but now it's fresh again but the thing is listen I bet all of this is spending maybe they're not 40 million but they're probably they're probably spending more on the roster than than what Wilson is reporting LSU originally planned to spend yeah I mean I remember I remember two years ago when everybody flipped out when Ohio State estimated that they spent 20 million on their roster and now we're already into 40 million and don't you think that like the baseline that you would have to invest to compete at a certain level is probably in the 25 to 30 million range it's it's what Steve Sarkesian told Chris Lowe yeah the the price of admission and he's he estimated 25 or so teams are paying the price of admission which I would buy I would buy that that there's 25 teams that are paying the roster and the thing is what that means is there's a floor where if you evaluate really well and you evaluate better than everybody else they could outspend you but you're going to beat them and I think we saw that with Indiana last year Indiana wasn't outspending Oregon Indiana probably didn't outspend Miami Indiana probably spent a respectable amount on its roster but they evaluated better too you know what this is when's the last time you played a slot machine it's been a while buddy okay well let me explain it to you if you play a quarter machine you can bet one credit you can bet two credits you can bet three and depending on the type of machine you can bet up to like 18 credits yeah and in the slot machine world in order to hit the major jackpot the one that is on the top a lot of times you have to pay max credits so on the baseline machines before they got kind of elaborate in the last few years you had to play three credits or nine credits to qualify for the main jackpot so you're not guaranteed to win obviously if you bet more but in order to compete for the highest prize which is winning the jackpot you have to play the max credits so it's kind of like a slot machine if you're following what I'm saying here which is if you want to gamble or if you want to play at the highest level you have to press that button a few times you have to press the button to max bet and if you don't max bet you're not going to win the title but if you do max bet you might go bust but you give you a chance at least to win it so like you have to invest a baseline number of dollars in order to even be in the game and then what where this falls it it's more like if the slot machine let's say you could you could you choose one through 10 credits if you could get the highest payout by using seven through 10 credits a person who who has seven who invests seven credits could also win the highest payout just like I think that that's how it works on some of them so it makes sense what you're saying and I you know I know there probably are certain slot machines where if you bet one credit you only get the certain pay line you can get but you get the analogy and I think that what you're saying makes sense and you know in football in general it's always been this way it's an NIL discussion now but the teams that we're investing for the most credits back in the day we're we're investing in recruiting budget and infrastructure and different things where the money it was allocated differently not everybody has ever like I think there's this notion because NIL is going directly to the players that all the programs for the first time in the history of football are investing different amount of money like that's not true like this has always been the case it's being allocated differently exactly and the other thing is and this is what we don't know I think Steve Circussians write about 25 teams paying the price of admission does that mean 25 different teams can win the national title I certainly hope that's the case because that wasn't the case for a long time no I think that there's probably five teams who are paying the price of admission who are doing it poorly and can't right and then you have 20 teams that are really good um but I'll take that I will take that over the previous era where three teams could win the national title that was that is 100 true in the previous era I think you know if you went like technically speaking based on how many blue chip players you had on your roster you would say in between 12 and 18 could conceivably win it but the actual reality of that was maybe four or five in the in the most parody driven years yeah now I think that that number is closer to 10 to 12 considering the fact that Miami just went all the way to the national title game given their seed total um and I hope that it grows and like I don't know if it will I don't know how far this will go or how many teams or programs will actually how awesome would it be if you go into the season and Illinois is a legitimate national title like a realistic national title contender like that would be so much fun and it and maybe it wouldn't be every year for schools like that but if you could every like three or four years cycle up to because of a combination of investment and evaluation cycle up to you are now a contender like it would be a blast I think that we're headed there now maybe Indiana is the biggest now anomaly of all time right but like in the off season following Indiana winning the national championship you have to open your eyes to all the possibilities yeah you have to believe it's possible yeah and oh like I'm just trying to make sure like we won't know for a few years whether Indiana was an anomaly because signetty's just an all-timer yeah what'll be interesting is is if in 2033 Wake Forest wins the title like you know we don't know who's next um but I do think that it's an unequivocal truth that more teams have a seat at the big table than ever before and that's exciting and I don't know how far it'll go I don't know how far how many teams do you think will actually play max credits do you think we'll ever get to a point in time where 50 teams are playing playing max credits on their on their nil budget if there's a super league and they have a cba then then they absolutely well because they they'll have a salary cap and you'll know what the number is and they'll all hit it and the worst thing about the max credits thing is that I don't know what Indiana paid last year but I would probably guess or venture to guess that they weren't in the top 10 of biggest spenders last year right does that sound right to you but I bet they were in the top 25 just like sarke said right which means you conceivably have 18 teams that would be my number 18 teams that if you told me they won the national championship in 2026 that I would not fall out of my chair right now yeah Ari speaking of sarkeesian let's go to inside texas.com our texas site there's a story there now that they're they're discussing on the boards from evan veith why Steve sarkeesian hit the reset button on the longhorn's running back room and what comes next and we've mentioned this obliquely when we've talked about texas but mostly we've when we've talked about texas we've talked about going out and getting cam comb and the bolster the receiving core we talked about the financial decisions they had to make uh why parker livingston left for oklahoma at the receiver position the running back position is probably the more interesting one though if you really break it down in spring practice last season as evan veith points out there were six scholarship running backs at texas only one of them is still there the rest of them have left and been replaced by people out of the portal or one coming from another position but but that they feel are much more dynamic because texas's running game was not dynamic last year was not dynamic at all and that's why tre weisner is at florida state and cj baxter is at kentucky and you know like the thing is the running backs who left are not in the nfl they're in other places that there are other schools that are not considered as good jerry gibson's at perdu like so now you bring in hollywood smothers from nc state relief brown from arizona state uh you've moved ryan niblet to running back because you feel like he can help you better there uh you bring in derek cooper who's the number one rated running back in the state of florida in high school what if texas is another is is a yard to carry better on the ground this year i mean that's that's the difference between making the playoff and not making the playoff last year probably well the running backs also had no home run ability last year none yeah so i think that that's texas's number one ailment from last year and i think you can maybe boil it down to offensive line play to a certain extent but but the whole run ability is not the offensive line's fault right and that i think was true for the receiver room too so like that like if there are receivers or the types of receivers a year ago that could have taken a five yard out made someone miss and ran 80 yards for a touchdown then the offensive line issues could have been masked better in the passing game but i think they couldn't they couldn't move the ball who is texas is secondly to rusher last year i don't know arch manning i should have known that that's another thing you you arch is good athlete you want his legs when you want them you do not want to have to rely on them though because you don't want to get him hurt so archman had more home run plays on the ground the running backs last year yeah yeah and he also had seven more touchdowns than the highest running back total for rushing touchdowns archman had 10 rushing touchdowns treweiser had three he's a touchdown vulture well yes but large quarterbacks tend to be that so i but but that that i think may be the most important distinction between last year's texas roster and this year's texas roster and that i'm really excited to see that because you know incy state play a lot of those standalone thursday night friday night games over the last couple years i've seen a lot of hollywood smothers the dude is electrifying yeah he's very good yeah texas don't i i've got the heart i emoji going for them you know and every time we talk about them i get excited but um they should be one of the best most talented most well-rounded teams uh in college football this year and i think that their running back room can elevate that offense in a way that they they just didn't have last year and and so this is two two times we've talked about the we didn't talk about this enough last season we talked about how they miscalculated on the offensive line how they thought what they had coming back on the offensive line last year was good enough they didn't need to go in the portal and get anything better we didn't talk nearly enough about how they miscalculated on the running back position how they did not have the home run threats and and look now beijan had been gone for a year at that point already but when you have beijan robinson at some point in your tenure like steve sarkeesian did like you don't have anybody like that you're probably like oh well nobody's gonna be like that but you do need to have somebody who's dynamic and they just weren't that dynamic well the other thing too is that cj backster was a five star prospect who was a really really good player he got injured the previous year and it was harder to probably evaluate him in the offseason given his his restrictions so i can i can forgive him for that um also i'm gonna still need to some time to adjust to the new way of pronouncing beijan because like i've been calling him beijan his whole life well especially we we i had to drink the whole bottle of beijan mustardson yeah beijan mustardson now it makes more sense because beijan rhymes with deijan better than beijan no say it out loud just like you said it beijan deijan yeah it's deijan mustard deijan beijan beijan robinson deijan mustard that is why they roll the product deijan i mean if we're if we're actually using a french pronunciation deijan is that how you say it i have no idea i'm not french i just thought it was great coupon i don't i don't wear a beret i don't ride around and rolls roices asking people to roll down their window and hand me foul tasting mustard and i say that as a mustard fan give me the brown deli mustard all day if you if you say that stuff uh at at chapiro's on friday you're gonna get meat thrown at you no no no they they agree with me they like the brown deli mustard at your good delis you're gonna have to walk me through this because i'm mustard one's made with like white wine i need to do a mustard taste test because in my head they're the same they're not even close to the same thing let's let's talk about this later in the week coupon is much creamier your your deli mustard is much grainier oh i like the deli mustard i thought yeah that's the good stuff not the good not the french stuff they get passed to you from the the window of another rolls roice another so many people who've never seen that commercial who have no idea what i'm talking about right now just i think that everybody like that's the isn't that what everybody first thinks of when they think about think about gray coupon i don't think a 20 year old has any clue about that yeah yeah that's true but go to youtube youtube the gray coupon commercial you will understand i promise all right all right one more megaboard thread before we go it's basketball i'm fascinated by this situation just because we've it feels like something we see in football every year every time a big big football job opens and we're getting it now in basketball especially with people who are still playing and playing at the highest highest highest highest level so the north carolina jobs open but this is from our michigan site the wolverine and their message board the fort and so chris ballas our publisher at the wolverine wrote a story intel ward manual that's michigan's ad quote not worried about who's sniffing around dusty may the basketball coach so north carolina's open dusty may is michigan's basketball coach who they hired away remember from florida atlantic after he took florida atlantic to the final four uh michigan is a wagon they are playing arizona both those teams are great i think any of the four teams that are left in the final four can win the national championship so it's entirely possible which michigan can win the national championship and ari we made a lot of people mad the other day with the clip about comparing the lsu situation lane kiff and leaving el ol miss for lsu to tomie loyde and dusty may being candidates for the the unc job because they're like arizona basketball and michigan basketball are not like ol miss football like um well right now they are they're in exactly the same place the national semifinal and i get that arizona basketball has always been a great program that michigan basketball has had national titles in the past that they've been very good recently under john bae line b line so i get that but the new era has only existed since 2021 so we don't really have a sample size and my point stands if you're at a place that is doing the things that can win you a national title right now even if the other place has this story tradition in history why in the world would you consider leaving and i thought lane kiffin should stay at all miss because he was about to win a national title there maybe so yeah i'm with more manual on this i ain't worried about dusty may at all is michigan and arizona is probably on level playing fields when it comes to basketball programs i don't know i mean like michigan has a pretty storied history of basketball too i mean dating all the way back to the fab five so well before the fab five they won a national title they won in the late 80s they won a national title when i'm saying like it's not like they're like a freer yeah like they're like a weird outsider that's crashing the party right now michigan's been pretty good at basketball for a long time the national title game in 2018 are they've been 2018 like they've been good at basketball recently been more successful more successful at a grand on a grand scale and arizona has the last 20 years so um you know i just think that if logos still have power that unc should be a scary logo i just don't know how much power those logos have exactly like we know that michigan like dusty may knows that michigan will give him exactly what he needs to procure a national title roster every year and it's up to him to do it tomi lewitt knows that arizona will give him exactly what he needs to procure a national title roster every year and it's up to him to do it and i would argue that both of them have done masterful jobs assembling rosters this year like they have so many different ways to beat you uh yeah that you know arizona that they just pound you in the post michigan yaksa lindenborg is the most fun player to walk he can do so many different things and i just i don't if i were either of these two guys i would not even consider moving and i get that unc is a great job and i get that unc is one a bunch of national titles but you're already where you have what you need why risk going somewhere where you might not cool i mean it also could be a complete new point by monday evening so like you know we'll see uh you know ward manual might not be worried about it uh and maybe you shouldn't be but you know i think that the bigger thing here is going out and winning something i think michigan needs this too they've been through a lot in football the last you know they did win a national title in football three years they did did you forget that i think they've been through a lot since if you're talking about who needs it more i say arizona probably needs it more and i and that's somebody who who went to school there i i'd say illinois of the final 14 is arizona in illinois who needs it the most oh yeah maybe michigan needs it the least amount of no no second least because i was fine yeah you don't need it at all uh yeah unless you unless we're we're combining both sports and the trauma that they're feeling in both sports well you can't might be kind of losing your coach to colorado state after a very good season in football yeah they finally had a pulse in football and they lost their coach that sucks but if i'm more manual i'm not worried about this and i think it's interesting because word manual is a uh is a hot button name like we bring his name up michigan fans sort of we will see what happens because i i still want to see the results of all the investigations into what who knew what and when with regard to shiron more i think that will be very interesting but you know i also think there's a there's a segment of the michigan fan base that thinks shiron or that word manual basically i don't know not chased off jim harbaugh but allowed jim harbaugh to get away which i think is unfair to word manual because jim harbaugh was always going back to the nfl nothing word manual could have done would have changed that now this is a different situation like word manual needs to try to keep dusty may like don't lose dusty may it's just the one who hired dusty may it was a pretty good hire yeah and winning does kind of soothe some tension so you know it'll be interesting dusty may is like the uh rising star in the sport and like it can be a star on monday night he's already a star he took florida atlantic to the final four are he's a star atlantic was awesome too they were awesome yeah yeah yeah this this guy is going to be and that's the thing you have a guy who's young who's dynamic who's already got you where you want to be damn right you hold on to him because you could have him for a long long time and be successful for a long long time so very excited to see what happens in that arizona michigan game just because i i think it's one of the most fun semi-final matchups we've seen in a long long time but also curious to see what happens with loyde and with may relative to the u n c job because it's certainly seems like that's what we're waiting on and i don't i wouldn't leave if i were either one of them i would say right where i am but maybe i'm too risk averse i don't know loser loser of the final four games coach goes to north carolina which is wild to think about no i mean that's kind of how i don't know if that's actually true but i think that that's how well it allows you to engage them because you yeah the portal opens the seventh those two days actually probably matter quite a bit yeah so but you know god i can't wait to this is gonna be a great game it's gonna be awesome one more thing ari today is of course april fools day you pitched an april fools joke to me before the show and i i declined it you wanted me to come on and say that that we were canceling the show as of july that i was gonna go join the circus and i said no we we're not doing that to the people we're not playing with their emotions yeah we're still building to you don't want to kick the the legs out of the building exactly you know we're still ascending because yeah okay well you may not be that dedicated of a viewer slash listener yet we want to we want to make you that i i know there are a few people who just be you know beside themselves lori steven san Antonio matt we've got we've got a core group of five listeners that i think would be sad i hope it's more than that right now but no i as we build the audience though i i definitely don't want to confuse them with anything that they might think is real so we're just coming at you shooting you straight your favorite college football program is not they are all about the april fools jokes so texas a&m on wednesday time for an upgrade project fourth deck at kyle field i don't think this is possible arie because i think if they put a fourth deck on kyle field when they do the aggy war hymn and they might shake it off yeah i don't know structurally we've done some pretty crazy things could you imagine i i just don't think that's the one stadium where you can't go any taller because it's pretty tall yeah it's already pretty tall and it literally sways which feels a little weird and kind of scary so no i can't go any higher uh kentucky with the blue field big blue nation go big blue could they copy boyz state and add the smurf you know i actually think it wouldn't look bad i think it would look pretty good the thing that's awful about the graphic that you're saying here is that the end zones are still green right right yeah you have to make you have to go all the way or you could make white end zones with blue writing to make them pop that'd be sick right i i can go i don't think you i don't think you can go green there though best alternate field though utah state look they're in agricultural school jersey cow print i'd watch games on this field all day this this blows away the smurf turf and the surf turf and and blood field at eastern washington this has been it has been quite a long time since we've had any field innovation in college football and there needs to be a school that needs to i would say the last the last one i think was the eastern washington going red because i think that's happened after it went teal yeah yeah but like we don't have any patterns like you saw have you seen some of the basketball courts oh the organ organ basketball court yeah with the tree yeah let's go stuff going come on utah state you make a video football field oh eastern michigan's gray field that was okay yeah i i'd love to have been in the marketing me you know i i got it gray that'll pop yeah no we need a pattern florida atlantic with the best one beach game and they've put the the field on the beach in bokeh that'd be sick i would go i would cover this game yeah i mean like remember what basketball used to do like i don't even know if they do these aircraft hero games they still do that uh it's been a couple years i thought they stopped doing it because the precipitation from the water was like making the court unreliable or something yeah there were lots of complaints so uh but i would do that now obviously think about how do you have to change the way you recruit obviously strategy changes everybody's playing barefoot on the beach probably right i walked on the beach three days ago uh it's exhausting your calves aren't built for that i mean i've got great calves that's the best part of my body but like i think maybe they're more visually good than they are effective in terms of walking in the sand it was awful visually amazing functionally uh yeah functionally lacking which is what i would like to be one day visually amazing and functionally lacking yeah that's all i care about i don't care about being strong gives a shit about being strong i want to be one if you've already hit one of two you're halfway home oh well listen next year we will have an April Fool's for you that's that's my promise to you we'll come up with a good one i don't know what's gonna be we can't wing that it's gonna be a good one though arie we have a very big guest scheduled for tomorrow very big guest i'm just gonna leave that right here you're gonna want to tune in to tomorrow's show very big guest alert who is it you'll see just make sure you're subscribed to the on three youtube channel make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts big guest big guest i'll talk to you tomorrow