The B1G’s Dominance, Ladies for Mendoza, and Duke Sues Mensah

welcome back to ring your tailgate the wednesday edition of the show the last wrap-up edition of this season the 2025 season uh we got a lot of predictions reactions facts all the above happening but first and foremost let's say what's up to our guys van lathan good to see you van what's up guys You know what we got to do. Oh, yeah. We got to get in front of this. Oh, yeah. What's up? Yeah, man. Great time. What a fantastic season. I'm glad to kind of put it all in context with my guys. Yeah, we had a live show. We had live reactions. But, again, we got some more information, some more time to marinate on what actually happened. So we'll talk about that. And we'll talk about some of the bigger stories in college football as we move forward. And we got to say what's up to Joel in L.A. and the place to be. How's it going, Joel? I'm having a good time, man. I'm glad to be here. The last thing that you said before we started the show was you're not ready for this show. I'm not. I'm not. It's so funny. I've been sick the last two days. Okay. And you blame LA for this. If you were at Miami, what was it, the crab shack that you wanted to go to in Miami? Joe Stonecrab. Stonecrab. Joe Stonecrab. You've really not been there? No, I've never been there. You've never seen it? No, you've never been to Joe Stonecrab? No. I'm kind of surprised. Where are we going to Miami as a group? We'll go down there and see the Duke. Yeah. do you have enough uh do you have enough space in your house for us to come down there and stay down there um no how many bedrooms is your house three really yeah so it's one of them is one of the studio right like you had to transform one of the rooms into your studio yeah my guest bedroom that had like the pull-out couch i had to switch things for all the equipment we're staying at the fountain blue yeah oh you know what can't tell you that not that nice man you don't like it I don't like it. I stayed there. I went to the conference on states, which was a lot of fun with the people down there to watch all the different donor tables, like get money to people for different political races and stuff. I say it at Fontainebleau. Convention hotel. If you're looking for a convention hotel, cool. But I'm talking about the one hotel. I'm talking about my old standard. I'm talking about the W. I'm talking about the addition. I'm talking about places like that. What about the intercontinental? I've heard that's nice. I've never been there. I've never stayed there. That's where I think Indiana stayed for the national championship game. No? That's where Indiana stays. I do not stay at the Intercontinental. I've only... You sound like OJ. I only stayed the four seasons. That's what Drake said. He said that about the Intercontinental. He said that about the Intercontinental? I think he was talking about the Miami Intercontinental. I've only stayed... There's like a kind of a boutique hotel in Miami Beach that I stayed at. It's kind of cheaper, but it was really nice on the water. What was it called? Shit, I don't know. I have no idea. It was close, though. It was close to Lincoln Road. You know what I'm saying? You can go walk right on there near the Walgreens. Y'all know the Walgreens on Lincoln Road? I do know the Walgreens over there. That's right, man. That Walgreens is clutch. It is. That's a clutch Walgreens. It's right in the middle of everything. I like the clutch Walgreens. You can go over there, get the drinks. There's a liquor store right near there, but you can get the drinks at the Walgreens, which you'll get if you need some flip-flops or stuff like that, some clutch Walgreens. That didn't hold you down, man. There was a time in my life when I wanted to retire at Miami Beach. I still love it, but the older I get, what the fuck are we talking about? Right. It's time to talk about the fair point. The national championship was in Miami, so a little bit of a connection there. There was a game on Monday night. We talked about the game, but I do want to do one final reaction because, like I said, you're reacting in real time. We didn't even watch the post-game interviews before we started doing our live show, so we didn't get the full context of things. So I wanted to give us an opportunity, one final reaction from the championship game, and then a couple more. We'll have a question about the championship game because there's some great storylines that came on after the fact that it didn't really piece together in real time. But did you have one final reaction, Van? Not necessarily a final reaction to the game itself. I think as the days roll out here, we're seeing more of just how impressive Indiana's championship was. How meaningful it is and was to sports. How it really finalizes and sets a new power dynamic in college football. like the Big Ten is now officially not just like they have an edge on the SEC. They have a stranglehold over college football. You have three teams that have won in three different ways. And the variety not just of teams that have won, but of the way that those teams have won. That to me is like what really makes your conference the big conference. When you had LSU winning with crazy offense, Alabama winning with defense, LSU winning with defense, Auburn winning with a running attack in Cam Newton, Florida winning with when you go back to the SEC, Florida winning with the Tebow. Tebow. But like what I'm really trying to say is how creative they were, how similar they were. You had different cultures winning, but all coming from one conference where the arms race kind of made those teams what they are. That's what the Big Ten is right now. Yeah. And it's impressive. Three in a row for the Big Ten. Yeah, man. I mean, the thing is, Penn State was supposed to have been good this year, right? They were supposed to be the Big Ten team to win the title. They were supposed to be the Big Ten team that was going to break through. They got Oregon that's next year going to be back and have Dante Moore. And those receivers are going to be healthy next year. They still got a deep running back room. I mean, I don't know. Replacing the line is some of the people that are going to lose there. But I think Bear Alexander, for instance, is coming back next year. So Oregon is going to be there. So, yeah, the Big Ten, man. it's like everything that people used to say about the sec is like the thing that made it different was that the range of teams that could compete for a national championship well i mean if indiana can do it out of the big 10 then it just shows okay now you're up minnesota now you're up uh you know penn state pj fleck no pressure yeah no question do you guys think that the success of the conference at the top of the conference will trickle down to the middle of the conference Absolutely. You guys think that like the teams that you're talking about, the Iowa's, Illinois, Illinois, Illinois kind of had a season that was disappointing to some people. There's not a good year, but that's a quality program right now as well. Nebraska, all those teams. You think that you're going to see those teams, you know, in whatever current iteration that they are, be more competitive over the next couple of seasons. Even Maryland, maybe. Yeah, man. you know my boy lux you know what i'm saying they give them they give them what they need sc ucla well not maybe not ucla they got a new coach coming in but from jmu so they could use the same indiana exactly who's to say yeah i mean i mean all these schools are going to start taking swings i mean even and this is sort of crazy to think about but i mean do you think purdue is sitting there in indiana and looking at iu and being like oh we could never do that i mean purdue has been a better football program than IU for the history of Drew Brees and so yeah so I'm sure that they're looking and like well I mean we've got money we've got you know wealthy boosters we've got you know we could try some of this stuff so yeah I mean I feel bad for like Rutgers because I mean we already know hey that's the birthplace of college football that's where the thing about Rutgers I always say they're like man Rutgers is like man that's the New York that's New York's team they've got a lot I was like if Rutgers was going to be good at football it would have happened already. I mean, they played the first football game. How long are we going to wait for Rutgers to be good? I'm sorry. It's just not going to happen. They have an incredible intro, though, at the games. I went to a game that had the Sopranos intro, you know what I mean? People don't want to go there. But you said they had their chance. You think it's passed. Maybe they will be able to be competitive enough to make the next realignment or whatever. Maybe they won't get cut, but I don't. It's always interesting to me what you have opinions on. We were talking about the Big Ten, and out of nowhere, you just go, fuck Rutgers. They have their chance to be good. It's over. Everybody has a chance. Gianna the first time was great. Yeah, he had them play well. Again, the Big Ten has got a lot of depth, and I'm just saying there's a lot of schools that have a real chance, but not you, Rutgers. Damn. I went to Purdue 2018 saw their football facilities incredible they had just renovated everything huge indoor facility I mean they put in the investment and I'm sure they'll invest even more so to give you an answer to Purdue yes I think they do think that so in the past in college football the success of the top team has a lot of times dictated or changed the way that other teams play they want to emulate that style of play they want to change how they do things. If college football was going to change and adapt to the dominance of Kurt Signetti in Indiana, what would they become? How would they emulate that? What kind of coach? Because for you, think about it. You're talking about Signetti. When you wanted a McVay, well, it's easy, right? When it was McVay, you go out and you get a Ben Johnson. You go out and get a LeFleur. Zach Taylor. Zach Taylor. You go out and get one of those guys like that. You see the mold of that coach that you want, right? Like McVay doing what he did, that might have got Kingsbury a job that he probably shouldn't have got, right? So, like, if you're going out to get a coach like Signetti, who are the coaches like Signetti? Who are the process guys like Signetti? Who are the guys that you are looking at? So I'm going to give you three coaches. So I think that eventually he's going to lose his offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan. like people you know people are going to pick like i mean he's been following signetti around this whole time eventually going to want him haynes the defensive coordinator they're going to pluck him but i brought this guy up previously and if if i was lsu i might have hired him but willie fritz at the university of houston he's one ever he's the guy that built that to lane program he was the one that showed proof of concept there in his second year u of h was really really good this year man like they were compared you know you saw the Texas Bowl. The Cougs. The Cougs. And so I feel like if you're going to not be creative and foolishly think that you can recreate the dynamic of Kurt Signetti, then you look at Willie Fritz and you say, well, he's a little older, but he's proven that he's a winner. He's had his program and maybe he just needs one big shot. But I think my big reaction to lead into that is that don't chase the Indiana thing. like schools like don't you're going to you're saying it's fool's gold it's full you're not you're probably not going to get kurt signetti you know like that like this is a one-off and i think and you can look at the transfer portal and see how schools like are reasserting themselves lsu texas like they're loading up they're like oh hell no man we're not there's no excuse for us to let indiana run things in miami like all these other schools are going to load up and maybe if you think that you can just get you know a former two-star that was a 23 year old to play to saint francis pa university and you're going to build champions out of that i just don't think that that's a realistic model that you're still going to need to like have a lot of talent and but you would want a guy that is proven they can build a program and i feel like the willy fritzes and other guys are going to be able to do that okay so what are you saying here because a second ago we were talking about like purdue i'm really trying to get the second we were talking about Purdue and you were saying that a team like Purdue is going to look at Indiana and they're going to think, hey, we can go out and do that. Why can't we? LSU and Texas were going to be active in the portal whether Indiana won the national championship or not. LSU had the worst offensive line in the SEC. They're going to have to make changes to the offensive line. They had an outgoing senior quarterback. They had a quarterback that was behind that QB in the transfer portal. They brought two new guys in. Actually, they brought in a guy that's like Ringer Fam. Like Weston's cousin. Longstreet? Yeah. Hudson. Weston's cousin's coming down to the bayou. Did not know him plus Sam Levitt. Plus you see some of the other stuff there. Some of the guys that got the edge rusher from Ole Miss. All of those things are going to load up in a portal no matter what. And for them to think that they're going to be able to be elite, that's the thought that they're going to have to have in order to be elite. I guess my thing is this. Chasing Signetti means what? Because it's one thing to say that you're going to go out and get a former five-star. Every former five-star that goes in the portal, it doesn't matter how fucking bad they played the first year they were on a roster somewhere. It doesn't matter. It's like Kermani McClain, who was a Colorado. It doesn't matter. Guys like that, Denver Harris, those guys are going to get big second chances. right those guys are going to get big second chances those to me aren't the guys that signetti actually used to win his national championship so if the thought is those guys are always going to be in the portal they're always going to get signed if the thought is you're not going to be able to do what signetti does does that mean you're not going to be able to go get someone from like uh north dakota state or from jmu or from any of those places coach them up and make them dominant because the other five star four stars all of those guys like that those guys are going to go is that what you does that basically what you're saying yeah i mean i just think that like you know to back up for the whole thing i i think with teams are going to see out of signet is like if you got a guy that has a proven system and has a lot of faith in it and has shown proof of concept what i'm with i just want to check you look over y'all look like y'all had a little fun I don't want to check on Tate. I'm listening to Tate. Yeah, great. Okay. All right. I got a clip for us from Signetti coming up after you finish this. Okay. Just go to the clip there. No, finish what you're saying. All right. That's one. That's one. That's one glitch. That's for no reason. I see. We're pretty deep in the show. We're having real college football talk. I know you guys come for the comedy, but we're having real college football talk right now. Yes. It's serious. Hey, guys. Serious football. Tate? Oh, yeah. Serious football, guys. right there that's right okay so i think i got it back okay all right so i think the thing is is that you just got to find a coach you like you there's not going to be one way to do it there's going to be all sorts of ways to do it and if you're lsu in texas then you say we're going to overwhelm you with already proven five-star transfer of talent like that's the way we're going to do it if you're indiana or you're purdue or you're kentucky kentucky is a school really interesting right now will stein they got uh will stein referenced signetti when he got to kentucky he's like i'm actually looking at him as a blueprint kentucky is right next to indiana another one of those kind of basketball schools of course like there's kentucky looks up at indiana and i'm like y'all ain't shit we could be y'all and they really hate each other yeah y'all ain't shit those two states really do not like each other yeah and so i just think that there's just going to be all sorts of different ways to doing it and i think that school shouldn't in any team any program you shouldn't fall in the habit of trying to follow what somebody else does like you've got to find the guy that's a good fit has a program and does it like that way so like if purdue purdue can look at indiana and say if you're barry odom you're like i i like what signetti did i'm gonna do my own version i've got my version of it what i mean is will teams start um last thing i'll say on this before we will teams start looking for older guys will they start looking for more experienced players i mean i'm I'm not saying they don't do that now, but particularly they do it at quarterback. Will they start looking for more experienced players? Will there be less of an emphasis on the guys I was talking about that washed out after one year someplace or two years someplace? Maybe you want a guy because we talk about this in the NCAA tournament. One of the most fascinating things about the NCAA tournament is sometimes you get phenoms versus veterans. You got guys that have been running the system for three, four years at a smaller school. that know how to play the game that know what they saw last year houston versus duke that's the same thing i mean grown men versus phenoms so but and and for the way for the way that indiana won this year you guys don't think that coaches across the country will shift to trying to get guys with a little bit more experience that are a little bit deeper into uh their 30s and 40s i definitely 30s and 40s i definitely think that they're going to do that But then eventually, like, that's a pond. The COVID year is running out. So we're running out of time. And that's a pond that a lot of people are going to be fishing in. And then you're going to need to find the market inefficiency somewhere else. You know? Like, all of a sudden, we're all competing for Cam Cook out of Jacksonville State. You know? And he was the leading rusher in the country last year. The reason I beat him up is because he was at TCU. Didn't do shit. And then he goes to Jacksonville State. He's the nation's leading rusher. What he got with the winning program, with the winning mindset. And so sometimes when you're in TCU. I don't know if Jacksonville State had a better record than TCU last year. Sometimes when you're at TCU, though, and you talk, there's an echo because the trophy case is empty. And sometimes people get scared. Like you go to a place and you speak. Has LSU ever produced a football player better than LaDainian Thomas? So you go to a place and you speak and then there's no – You're like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, because the football case, it's empty. The whole thing is empty. Is he ever produced a defensive end better than Aaron Schoeper? What I know is this. What about Julius Peppers? or LTA or motherfucking Ronald Curry oh yeah you guys you guys we got guys what was the quarterback Dre Bly Dre Bly Dre Bly that's ball skills you'll see yeah man there you go okay look people got players John Hilton what's up you know what I'm saying I'm in North Carolina I love it. I'm fired up. We don't have him anymore, but I enjoyed what we did. Mack Brown, man. Mack Brown, my guy. Let's listen to Signetti here. This is my big reaction because Reese Davis sat down with him. This was in, I think, the Fountain Blue Hotel. Signetti, Friis, you have the clip here. He said this when asked about his future. How your place in the game changes because you now have this trophy. I really don't think that way. You know, we had a lot of success year one. There were a lot of opportunities. Would you do this commercial? would you speak at this retreat? And a lot of money involved and declined them all because I get paid to do a certain job and I know what my strengths are. And I like what I do and I like winning. I don't plan on changing very much. I don't have problems saying no. I'm honored to be in this class. When I envision myself being a coach at a very young age, I wanted to be like a Bear Bryant kind of guy. and this doesn't put me anywhere near there but our story certainly is a a great story and we are the national champs what's the fuck I'm talking about yeah you heard that it is exactly what you want to hear if you're an Indiana fan this is not someone that seems content even though he just won the national championship just went undefeated and went 16-0 for the first time since 1894 for me my big reaction after all the smoke and all the dust has settled is Kurt Signetti is still not content. His daughter put out a tweet for 2019 where she had texted him, like, are you happy or whatever, because they had just won against a D1 program, and he just said no, period. And then she texted him after the championship game and was like, are you finally happy? And he said yes. And then I was like, oh, maybe this is a, you know, hey, he reached the mountaintop. We've heard Saban say the hardest part is getting down from, you know, climbing Everest, not getting to the top of Everest. But it does feel like based on that clip right there, Signetti has a lot more left in the tank. Can I tell you something about life? I would love. I would love. Kurt Signetti makes me really optimistic about the future of my life. Because he's old. He may have had the best professional year of his life when he was 64 years old. 64 years old. Sometimes you get to be... I didn't realize this when I got laid off his slate. I was one of the oldest people there. I was like, damn, all of a sudden I looked up on the old motherfucker in the news. I'm thinking about, man, what am I going to do to make sure that I don't end up unemployed and like, you know, old and having to figure it out. Right. And I'm just like, man, maybe there's still a chance that like there's a you know, there's a bright future out there that I can't even imagine. I can still make the money of my dreams, have the career of my dreams. You get it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So Kurt Signetti kind of is inspiring to me in a lot of ways because I'm just like, oh, yeah, no, it didn't have to be over for me as I get older in my career. I don't have to start thinking about the end. maybe I need to start thinking bigger like maybe there's a lot more or you can do maybe the best is yet to come like yeah in in if you're an athlete you there's this finite end to like what it is that you can do and then all of that stuff but when you're in coach it's a situation like this you can get to the point you can build something this can be your zenith yeah and he's there by the way for all the time that he's coached it's kind of just starting you might do two three of things like we have no clue i mean him bringing up bear bryant and then i mean he immediately was like i not comparing myself to bear bryant but for that to be and obviously his dad was a hall of fame coach yeah and he has such a great you know obviously reverence for his own dad but for him to already be thinking in that capacity kind of tells you where he views this thing i'll tell you something there's going to be a sense of urgency for him to do the things that he wants to do because he doesn't have maybe 30 years in the profession or something like that every single season is an incredibly meaningful, important season to him because he's in his team at this time in his life. Belichick, come on. He'd already done this. Yeah, he did his shit, man. He'd been to the mountaintop. Not in college. No time for fun, man. He's having a lot of fun. He's having a lot of fun. Yeah, he's having a lot of fun. Hey, what do you guys think the blue chip ratio for Indiana is? you got so the blue chip ratio in case you guys out there don't know is it's the percentage of your team that is uh four and five stars i it's probably got to be less than five percent yeah eight percent yeah it's eight percent normally to sniff the playoffs you need to have a blue ratio over 50%. It's 8%. 8% of them. That is really remarkable, man. Evaluation development. But you know, man, see this is the thing. Indiana just lost their strength and conditioning coach to Tennessee. Tennessee made it the most the highest paid strength and conditioning coach in the country. I feel like that might be chasing fool's gold too. I think a lot of people are going to try to poach that staff thing and they're taking away these guys from signetti but i think it like it's a top-down operation you're like he will find people to put in those positions you know what i mean i think so but i mean again like obviously the one thing about the signetti thing is that there's a lot of stability those guys have worked together for years yeah and when you start taking away pieces of it i mean maybe signetti will be able to rebuild it but it still is just like you know i've got used to that guy being by my side and i gotta find somebody else and then trust them trust them in that same way do you guys feel like there's a difference in developing players that are older as it relates to developing players that are a little younger. Let me tell you what I mean. So like in this era of transfers, we've talked about it before, the transfer portal, that this probably has some effect on the development of players, right? Because the guys that you're competing for are older. Some of them are more established. You're not getting the continuity that you used to get. If you don't like the way things are going at one place you leave that place right yeah taking somebody that's skilled but raw or just need reps and developing them into a really great player is one thing is there a different skill set in taking someone that's played a lot of football and then getting the best out of them in a short amount of time absolutely i mean i think that and that's i think that's why josh uber is going to indiana to be honest well once again he's going there because where he came from empty trophy case he's running and he's here because the fucking trophy case is better not playing under sunny dykes i agree with you there you go okay that is the contention but uh i mean look he's the thing about josh hoover by the way people don't remember he committed to indiana out of high school and then flipped the tcs yeah so this is him going back to where you know where it all started where it all started yeah but yeah man So, no, I think that that is absolutely a real talent, a guy that has been through the college football, you know, college football two, three years. I mean, reps developed. But then somebody being like in that third or fourth year being like, no, if you try it this way or I can develop you in this way and make something out of a player that you think has already reached their ceiling. There's definitely a value in that. And clearly that's some of what Signetti and his staff have been doing. So, yeah, that's I mean, if you can get somebody that can do that, then I mean, obviously you found something pretty special. Yeah. Indiana fifth team in the AP poll era to go five and over better against top ten opponents in a single season. Miami was four and oh going into that game. Indiana was four and oh as well. So something had to give. Miami ends the season four and one. Indiana now five and oh. The other teams that have done that 1943 Notre Dame, 1987 Miami, 2015 Alabama and 2019 LSU, who went seven and oh in such. SEC inflation. 7-0. Everyone else 5-0. Put something in the trophy case. Not an empty case. I put that back in just for Van. What the fuck I'm talking about? Yeah. He didn't like that. Whatever. It's okay. I looked up 2014 TCU. What do they have? How do we go against them? What do they do? 3-1. There you go. That's good. That's pretty good. That's real good. That's real bad. I told you. That's amazing. Pretty good. For TCU. We beat motherfuckers. that's amazing let's not talk like y'all the SEC is Minnesota three national championships okay again are you happy do you want to go I'm happy with the history of my school I never thought this show would be 2019 LSU vs 2014 TCU but I'm glad a lot of people have made that comparison so we're not the first show people do it all the time He ain't Trayvon Boykin, man. He would have fucked y'all up. Nah, he was a good... Nah, I'm not. Look, hold on for a second. There were some good players. Yeah. That motherfucker. That was a bad motherfucker. I'm not hating on him. I mean, obviously, Joe Burrow is one of the greatest athletes in his single season everywhere. Boykin just can't fuck with that. But, like, he was a bad motherfucker. Boykin was a bad motherfucker. He was. Yeah, he was. I'm giving you your... Bro, I like LaDainian Tomlinson. I never had a problem with him, right? But, you know, there's levels to this. For the good of the show, We need a little bit of beef here. One big question. This is something that I feel like every time I kind of go through and go through the storylines that are coming out of this, I'm excited to hear Joel's answer. Again, not prepared for this. What's the best under-discussed storyline? And I'll give you my under-discussed storyline, and that will get us into the conversation. So Jamari Sharp, who had the interception in this game, you're talking about developing guys who have been there before. He's a guy who committed to Tom Allen, was there for a 3-9 season, a 2-win season, right? And then now he's in a situation they're playing cover two. He's like our defensive back coach, who is a signet guy who brought over from JMU. He says, for those routes, on those vertical routes, we kind of just trail them. We hold on to the route as long as we can. He does that. He sits on the route. Carson Beck falls into the trap. He throws the interception, ends the game. He wins the national championship. He takes his helmet off. He said he blacked out. He's like, I don't even remember what all happened. Funny enough, his uncle is Glenn Sharp, who played at Miami. And also Glenn Sharp RIP, right? I think he's, I think he actually is in, um, incarcerated, but we don't have to get into that. Oh man. Hold on. Let's go ahead and look it up now. I think he got a murder. I think he got a murder charge. Something bad happened to Glenn Sharp. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Man. Can we like, yeah, yeah. Maybe he's okay. I think he is. Okay. No, actually not. All right. Well, what happened after this? on February 22nd, 2012, he was arrested and accused of murder. Yeah, that's what I said. He did it. He did the murdering. Yeah, no, he was not murdering. Anyways, Glenn Sharp, Jamari Sharp. Jamari Sharp wanted to play at the University of Miami. His uncle was the guy who got the pass interference against Ohio State that led to overtime and kept Miami from going to back-to-back championships. So, I mean, that's a very under-discussed storyline. The sharp connection there between the family and the fact that now Jamari Sharp is winning a national championship for Indiana against a school that he wanted to go to. Everybody's talking about Mendoza of it all. I just thought Jamari Sharp, that was a great story. Did y'all see that hit? So they also talked about this from when Mendoza was at Cal last year. Yeah. And Wesley Besant hit him and knocked him out of the game. Right. Late in the fourth quarter. And Miami ended up winning that game 39-38. Miami winning that game. And then it was Besant that he went over. And the last guy that had a shot on him when he dove into the end zone. That was the guy he bounced off of. That's right. I want to talk about two things that happened post-game. Okay. Oh, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. The Fletcher punch. Yeah, man. That was something that happened while we were live streaming. Right, that we missed. We missed because we didn't have the game up. We were talking about the game. We didn't see it. Now, there's just been all kinds of discussion about why something like that would happen on the field. Are we believing that Fletcher, who played fantastically the entire playoffs and was a bellwether, a bell cow, should I say? He could have been like the second MVP in the playoffs. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Right? Are we believing that he lost his head and punched this guy? Or the story is coming out that this guy referenced his deceased father. Do y'all think that that actually happened? Well, we saw the video of him go up to Mendoza before the punch, and he had a really heartfelt moment, right? So the fact that he would go – that's why I don't think he was unhinged at that point because he obviously had this nice moment with Mendoza, showed a lot of sportsmanship, right, to go do that. So for him to go from 0 to 100, I feel like obviously something was said. Something had to be said. Something had to happen. I mean, the thing is – And a punch at D-Lyman as a running back. I mean, man, but Mark Fletcher, bro. Amazing. Man, running backs like can fight. You remember when Leonard Fournette was at LSU? This was on TMZ. Were you responsible for that? Tell me what happened. Okay, so they had a little video of Leonard Fournette fighting a defensive lineman at LSU in the parking lot. I do remember this. Yeah, and people were like, man, Leonard Fournette fighting. I was like, dog. He big as hell. Yeah, man, those motherfuckers are big. No, no, no. Like Leonard Fournette, that's different. That's six foot three, like 245 pounds. Like he going to go. he can go anywhere that's not a weight class thing when i think of weight classes too like garrett blunt look at when i think of weight classes i think when josh norman got pissed off at cam newton no not well cam was one but what is the guy i think he's on busting with the boys now the big lineman he was taylor lawan yeah he was pointing at josh norman he's doing the first down yeah and josh norman came over there and he punched him in his shit and then taylor like walked away from it but like i think that that was like like weight class all that's true Williams on Richard Sherman too, man. Oh, yeah. That was the other way. So what you going to do? Like, what you doing by it, boy? I'm pushing your shit. And Sherman just didn't. Bro. Sherman couldn't believe he did it. Bro. I mean, what is he going to do about it? First of all, like, all of that, when I watch that, every time I watch that, because I watch that every now and again, what an athlete Trent is. He got fast fucking hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Them hands got up and down real quick, man, for a big man to move like that. That's why he's a whole famer. he's incredible I mean I will give Sherham credit for taking that punch too though hands up that's one of my yeah you can push me you can push me yeah he's doing that shit it's like nah dog you got you got your head boy that was my that was my NFL the toxic NFL yeah a sorry receiver like traptree a sorry try to touch me with a sorry receiver like traptree I like the Richard Sherman's man. I like the Josh Normans, man. I like the Bart Scots. I like all of these guys. Who's a C-GJ? Courtney Gardner? Johnson. Yeah, Courtney Flanagan. Cortland Finnegan. Tennessee Titan. That one was a bad one, man. Andre Johnson. That was a bad one. I like it when these teams don't like each other. Even the whole Mike Evans, Lattimore, Saints. I like that type of shit football I will say this though D'Angelo Hall had plenty of those I will say this though in this particular situation I am interested to see what the story actually was. Has anyone talked to Fletcher about this? I haven't seen any quotes from Fletcher I'm sure he doesn't have media obligations anymore. He's probably got some time off but just knowing how he's been as a person and a personality it seems very out of character for him to do something like that without someone crossing the line i think that's why people are giving him a little bit of grace and if you heard the live call scott van pel was like we don't know what was said when i was like oh we've come a long way from the laguerre blunt thing right there's like okay sometimes in the heat of battle or after the heat of battle and the emotions are still high shit like that can happen i'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often to be honest right if people don't i mean it's a testament to like football was created to simulate a battle yeah i mean that was literally that's why the sport was created so i mean you're basically going to war and then you're supposed to get done and be like, hey, man, good stuff out there. Well, okay, we don't want to make it seem like we're encouraging people to shoot the fair when they have to fucking game. Well, I know, sometimes. I said, what you into? Ah, 227. 227. 227. I mean, don't come up to me if we've had a game and you were talking shit. Don't come up to me and act like we're friendly now. Right. It depends on what type of shit you were saying. Another under-discussed storyline. Carson Beck did not shake Mendoza's hand and goes back to the locker room. I thought that was weird. Because that's a professional. Usually head coaches do it, and the NFL quarterbacks do it after a game. I think that really hurts you for NFL stuff. No, man. You'd think so? Nobody should look at that. No. I'm telling you, it does. What? It's little things. I know you got a source. I know, yeah. It's little things. I know you got a source, but let's just consider the record with that. Wait. I got more than one source, man. I'm just saying it sometimes sometimes those little things he'll get drafted for sure Joel had his big board and was like Carson Beck he should not be QB too I'm saying that's going to be used against him but that's going to be used against him you know what I mean that one thing right there not just one thing look everyone's trying to figure out who you are And things can sort of trend to show you who someone is. I believe that that affects people and their decision-making process. I also think that's stupid. I agree that it's stupid. I'm just saying. I think it's stupid not to go shake somebody's hand also, though. I feel like Conor St. Beck probably was at the lowest point in his college career. It ended on an interception. He had a chance to win, and he was going to get blamed for it. And he had PTSD. Steve from he's had a lot of those moments. Yeah, I'm sure he just probably I just want to get out of here. You know, I got to tell you something. So I'm looking for something specific here. OK, I'm looking for something specific here. I'm looking for something. I'm looking for the this. There's a Miami player who has like a super hot girlfriend. Did y'all see her? No. Like her last name is Straub or something. You don't think she is? Well, you know what? What player is this? I can't remember. So I just put in. So listen, this is what happened. I just put in hot Miami girlfriend. Oh, right. Hot Miami girlfriend thinking that it will pop up because everybody. I put in hot Miami girlfriend. Bruh, there's a lot. It's 50 people. They got Kanye Elise Henry that popped up. You know, that's Tyler Hero's girl. Yeah. She was one of the greatest of all time. I'm not saying she's not now. I'm saying that like, you know, respect Tyler Hero. Tate Martell had a little something when he was down there. Tate Martell, that's a name I haven't heard from a long time. He hasn't committed arm robbery yet. Like Nicolette Delano, the Cavender twins. Like there are so many names that pop up when you just put in hot Miami girlfriend. Cavender came up here. Cavender came up. There's so many different names. But y'all know what I'm talking about. Her name is Hannah Straub is her name. You didn't see her? Look at her. She kind of bends over in front of these What? What, Billy? Billy keeps talking to me. What happened? They can't hear you. You're not talking to the microphone. Is the microphone right? This is not in the microphone? It's rubbing up against your cable. Oh, it's Keelan Marion's girlfriend. Keelan Marion's girlfriend. It's an incredible semifinal game. He had a great semifinal game. I looked her up on Instagram. Shirley has about 48,000 followers. That's clutch. That means that she's not chasing it. yeah he even got one he got a good one yeah he milking out but that's cool like like he he he he her her with the with the with the with the 48 000 that's clutch that's like if you look in there and she got like 600 000 you like okay now i gotta go i look meek mill followers that's probably not great but like it's like you gotta i gotta but for him that's clutch for him right there that's right in the wheelhouse of she is when do you hit super hot but she's not chasing fame when what is the number when she is chasing fame well first of all i was just let me just put you like this chase fame i have no problem i'm not making any value but if you are somebody like him and you know you don't want to have to compete with a drake or somebody like that yeah you start getting to like two two fifty three now you're out there you got the brand deals fashion nova hashtag ad situation right but 48 he probably he probably he probably doing his thing is she one of them um what's the what's the that the the fashion so that's your that's your favorite under discussed storyline hannah strab yeah yeah yeah sorry yeah what's the name of that no you know the the the apparel company that a lot of the ig girls be wearing what is it so you just said fashion nova fashion nova she's your fashion over girl i don't know if she is or if she's not i'm Click on the picture right there But that's with Keelan Can't go against this she says Can't go against that She had the comments off That's interesting comments off Comments off I like it A little love What do we think Does Mendoza have a girlfriend No did you see the clip that Ricky Williams had What did Ricky Williams say Ricky Williams is on a show that we're not going to talk about Because it might be uncomfortable in here Really yeah what's the show dan levitard oh shit okay damn damn so it was the last we're good billy do you want to do people are you ready to do people now that's shit bro like that's crazy i'm sorry about that you know billy don't know what to say should i not talk about it yeah we can't talk we can't talk about that okay you know what let's we can't talk about no shows we can't talk about no globe trotters we can't talk about nobody damn because that's the name oh yeah because the name comes from lemon it's the same name is it because think about you know the guy he's from the goal he's a globetrotter okay you guys know who i'm talking about yeah say the name no who you're talking about metal lark lemon yeah oh he's from north carolina yeah okay metal like so that's why they did that triggers billy but anyway go ahead i didn't want y'all okay i want to make it uncomfortable so listen yeah it's just it was just ricky williams talking on a live stream during the game and he says that when they with the heisman ceremony and that fernando was around talking to people and whatever and i can't he didn't i can't remember which player he said he was talking to he's like you know apparently i'm gonna have to get into girls at some point do you guys have any advice for girls fernando mendoza said that yeah we're gonna help him right now i want to do this so fernando mendoza is Disneyland all-time story. It kind of reminds me of the Lopez twins. Like, Brooke Lopez. Fernando Mendoza and Brooke Lopez have a similar personality. Very interesting. Let's think of ladies out there. Because Josh Allen got Haley Steinfeld. Your man here, what's his name again? Keelan Marion has Hannah Straub. There was the Cavenders for Carson Beck. Marcel Reed has... Oh, Sunisa Lee. Sunisa Lee. She's out now. It's over? It's over. Damn. That's what... Some guy... I forgot to say that on the show. Some guy DM'd me and said it was over. Let me ask you this. Hold on. How does he know? He was... I mean, it said A&M. He was like, that was a one-time thing. I don't know. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't know. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, Marcel. Hold on for a second, bro. You gotta be careful That was a one time thing That sounds like Roadhouse Remember that time in Roadhouse You're gonna be my regular Saturday night thing Remember that scene You've never seen Roadhouse before You've seen Roadhouse Roadhouse what Patrick Swayze Roadhouse Kelly Lynch Roadhouse You've seen Ghost Patrick Swayze plays a fucking bouncer It looks boring Roadhouse is boring? It looked like it. You fuck with me. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. When you go to Blackbuster Video in the 80s, sometimes you'd have to pick the movie you were going to go see. I swear I don't want to do it. I don't look like I'd be into that. Joe, how is it that you've never just been flipping through channels and seen Roadhouse? I turn off things immediately if I don't think I'm interested. That's why I've never seen a full episode of MASH. Okay. Oh, I mean, that's different than Roadhouse. Roadhouse there fucking explosions There peak white women There dancing in bars There all kinds of If somebody had told me this then maybe I would have won All the stuff you like peak white women and bars So look I got a girl from Mendoza Okay so we should just say that we're not saying anything about Suni Lee and Marcel Reed. That's somebody that DMT. We don't know nothing about that. He said that was a one time. I don't know. That was a one time. He was more correcting the fact because we were talking about them as like in a relationship. You know what I mean? Like he was like, it was a picture one night. You know what I mean? Like she was just in town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You may or may not have known her. I wasn't saying like it was, yeah. Like Saturday night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. Give me a dollar, you down and get around. Right, right, right. Okay. Oh, all right. So. So we got to find Mendoza a girlfriend. We got to find Mendoza. Mendoza says he wants a girl. We got to find Mendoza a girl. I got a girl for him. Okay, who we got? Rachel Zegler. Fuck no. Snow White? She's hated. That's legitimately one of the worst ideas I've ever heard before in my life. To save her career. No, forget about that. You said you wanted Disney. First of all, I fuck with her. That's the first thing. It's terrible for him, though. He's not going to get drawn. He's going to get drawn into politics. Oh, she's in politics? I don't know. You got to get into this shit. There was like a little war that happened on Snow White because Gal Gadot and then her and then other things that have happened geopolitically. Then she was also, people didn't, I don't have any problem with her, but I'm saying that's like completely the wrong person for me. Alright, well if it's not her, it's Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina Carpenter. That's not bad. Yeah. Now she, now I do feel like She seems like she wants a nice guy. I do feel like that's going to completely change him. Yeah. He's going to be freaked out, missing practices and all kinds of stuff like that. He's going to be in Vegas. I don't know a lot about her, but that's a terrible idea. What? He's a dog. We're thinking Disney. You said you're going to Disney. I'm giving you Disney. There's no way he's going to be able to hold on to a woman like that. He might be a virgin, dog. We don't even know. But that's sweet. But you need a woman that will accept that. Maybe she will. Maybe she will. Maybe she's sick of being around here. Once you've got some... She got a new single. Once you've got a taste of fucking... You don't want to go back and have to reteach somebody, man. so here okay so here's the duke duke you want to say something that you not agree is that is that false do you not agree that's i mean dog like sabrina carpenter's not gonna wait around for fernando to get better at fucking right all right here's the thing here's you're saying he's gonna t-box first of all i would just say something else we don't know how good fernando mendoza is at fucking yes right we have no clue we don't know like a lot of these things are just being said drop the f word he said lfg let's fucking go there's two things running through my mind here you want to think about you want to think about another athlete yeah do you want me to go to that first well good no just go for it well the first thing is just like fernando reminds me of a lot of kids that i went to school with and actually a really good friend i used to have who was kind of similar and so i'm thinking about the way that life unfolded and that's why i'm saying for fernando i was like i got somebody for you that's a little bit better than they have expectations of you that you may not be able to meet early on i don't have a specific girl in mind but go get you a girl that's a volleyball all-american a basketball all-american something like that like go you know even like hurry up at iu right now just find you you know somebody that is an athlete you know not famous but attractive pretty you know like you remember matt leinard when she ended up kind of wilding out but remember matt leinard kind of i know you're not thinking about what i think you think about yeah uh but what what are you talking about like like yeah i know that that's not no no not but by the way not once again not judging not not judging but like that's a tmz legend right there oh yeah she was everywhere yeah she was not he was i'm saying but i'm saying like yeah but the profile that i'm thinking of is uh of just a pretty former college athlete, a college athlete and somebody that is just going to be by his side and not care. Like Cameron Brink, even though she got engaged. Yeah, right. Exactly. Like somebody that's going to be with you. You can't get no Tate McRae or no shit like that. Tate McRae is probably the one, bro. That'd be a great one. What y'all understand is now he got to be the star quarterback first pick in the draft. And what we're talking about, Remember all of these guys with all of these different theories about what goes on in the draft and you got to have a dynamic dynamite girl. Pull up with a Tate McRae. Pull up with a Sabrina Carpenter. You got a crowd. Hey, man, fuck the heads up. Pull up with Chloe Bailey. Oh, that's it. Billy said Angel Reese. Angel Reese. Pull up with Angel Reese. Pull up, man. Fernando Mendoza. Angel Reese shutting down the streets right now. That would be wild. Pull up with Angel Reese. I mean, it would be a great story, but he ain't going to be able to hold on to Angel. He doesn't have to hold on. That's what we're saying. Look at Klay Thompson. Klay Thompson knows he's not holding on. Fernando Mendoza needs to be good at football, bro. He don't want to be a celebrity. That's not what he's built as. He's going to get drafted to a team. But if you're the number one pick, you are a celebrity. But you know what the problem is? He's going to go to Vegas, though. That's what I'm saying. You're a celebrity. What you're missing is you're missing the Russell. I'm telling you, you're missing the Russell Wilson Sierra dynamic. you're missing the dynamic of somebody that what he really needs though because that because him going in there and like he's the type of nigga right now to bring a teddy bear to the draft right like that like like that right there that's not gonna work you gotta you gotta get out of your disney phase now let me tell you i'm gonna give you all some tmz knowledge why do you want him to just listen all right i'm gonna give i'm gonna give you all he's got he likes a little uzi i'm gonna give you all some tmz knowledge right here when these people uh are getting out of their Disney phases when they're Disney stars. Yeah. Right? There's two things that they do. Three. Either they take all their clothes off. Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus. Or they start acting like they're black. Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus. And Justin Bieber. All right. Or deep drug and alcohol. Miley Cyrus. Type of situation, right? She's a three for three. So that's the way they, because in order to come, in order to like be like, I'm a grown up now you gotta do some grown-up shit be a little dangerous right sometimes it's out of somewhere the news league you're like what the fuck is going on like why would they have that they sent them bitches out like for for fernando mendoza he's got to un disney himself and he was in the club he needs somebody to to judge him up a little bit man he's he's a he's a he is a and you know about this billy because you one of them yourself and i'm not even separating myself from this you are all boys catholic school nerd dog i went to school i went to school with people like that bro go find you a girl that does not want you that is on your level bro like don't try to chase because you're not going to be able to hold on to it you know what i love about joel i love how joel is over here acting like he fucking rick james let me tell you about how these nerds like yeah well i mean i'm saying no listen no no i know i said i'm a nerd i'm a nerd i'm a fundamentally a nerd i was just i was i was a soft-hearted soul i couldn't date no fucking yeah take my claim myself i mean i know i wouldn't have been able to hold on to it actually no that's not true by the way we we know some of the we'll get on to the okay well i want to talk about like different feats that you've accomplished oh yeah right stop it stop it dog no here look i'm not saying that i'm better than fernando mendoza at all what i'm saying none of us are we're saying we're trying to help him not only are we not better than him we are significantly less accomplished And he's like 23 years old We're trying to help him out I did have podcasts a year once though I won an Academy Award I was fastest 10 year old in the country Okay Talk your shit Yeah I've done a lot of things I was a spelling bee champ Alright I did a lot of things I was valedictorian That's right you were You were the valedictorian of the school He didn't know that man He didn't say that I did not know that Tell me the demographics of your high school tape We do not do demos Oh man This is about to go bad This is about to go bad Tate about to start acting like he was Tarzan or something like that. All right, let's change it. Tate was acting like right now he was in his school. Like, yeah, okay, so 2 plus 7 equals 9. And everybody was like, no. Tate was like, y'all dead ass? But no, but remember, though. Tate was a valedictorian. He had a 2.9 GPA. And remember, he couldn't take his lunchbox, though. oh because they was fucking up their lunchbox i got my shoes stolen in ninth grade this is another this is a disney movie right here right it's called the valedictorian yeah you know what i mean they only brought you to that school to bring up the the aggregate test school no i came i came back you know okay there you go well i've seen i tell you the things i'm gonna give you a sorry tate what do you think he would get a tate mccray i feel like riley's a good woman man and you need to keep what the hell is happening that's his actual fiance i know she's like i don't think by the way no i don't want him out in the street to be honest with you beautiful yes like legitimately beautiful i mean but dog chase got swag bro i mean he does like he's a good athlete yeah you know he's like he denounced his uh frat his racist college he's good he's good at sports man i wish you could tell the story about the motherfucker that can't hoop dog who who dribbles like a like a we can't do that you can't do it can we have a hit he can't play at all is he black or white white he's white okay so okay this is this is a guy that can't play it's a lot of those it's all right it's a lot of them it was all right i mean the thing it's really hard for me to believe you should be able to cover basketball if you can't This is somebody who covers basketball who can't hoop. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, all the sports. I mean, yeah, all the sports. I'm not going to say it. Yeah, he is. Let's move on. I'm not trying to date Tate McRae. I think that Fernando Mendoza could. Tate and Tate. This man just got engaged. I think Riley's great, man. Me too. Me too. I'm happy for you. I want you to do that. Don't chase Fernando. Yeah, like all I'm saying. I have a great wife. Billy, you have a question. Yeah, so if you dated Tame McCready and married, there'd be two Tate Fraziers. Yeah, that's right. That would actually be wild. That would actually be wild. Yeah, dump Riley. That'd be great for the... I think Mendoza, to change the image up, I think Mendoza, you go with somebody that's a good person, but somebody that has that little... Because that's the thing about Ciara. is a really good person and a really good woman but she also has that little sexy you know what I'm saying that brings Russell shit up and that's what he needs to me and she already had like her you know like bad boy era you know with future I love future I love him too yeah who doesn't love future let's take a quick break when we come back we're going to do our overreaction of the week big van on campus and we'll do some news and notes around college football we'll be right back after the break Rigger Tailgate is brought to you by FanDuel. Four teams are left, two games, and with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line, FanDuel's turning on playoff mode. And right now, all customers can get a profit boost pack during the conference championship round. That means you'll find a pack loaded with multiple profit boosts waiting for you in the app. More boosts means more ways to level up your playoff bets. So visit FanDuel.com slash tailgate and grab your profit boost pack for the NFC and AFC championships. must be 21 or older and present in select states are 18 and older and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Welcome back to Ringer Tailgate. We talked the national championship game. We didn't miss anything. Hopefully Fernando Mendoza finds the love of his life at some point. We're on his side. We're pulling for him. Let's do this. Overreaction of the week. This is fascinating stuff. Miami needs a quarterback. Carson Beck is obviously done. There's a lot of rumors that they're going after Duke quarterback and ACC champion Darian Mensah, former Tulane quarterback. Now there's a situation where Duke is actually suing their star quarterback. That is not a misprint. That is not a falsehood. That is the reality that we live in. So Duke, the Blue Devils have claimed he's signed an NIL deal and must remain with the program. The Duke Athletic Department came out and said Mr. Mensa, is how they called him, has an existing contract with Duke, which the university intends to honor. And we expect he will do the same. Reached out to some lawyer friends about the situation. My brother, lawyer. He said that Duke cannot force Mensa to stay at Duke. There's no way that is possible. He's a college student. college students can transfer schools whenever they may please however the economic cost of leaving so high he just he may decide to stay and duke could offer to pay him more to stay duke is like we paid for you boy you better not go nowhere so what the fuck is this that's not fair hold on i agree i agree i'm about to put on my fox news hat race bait that's actually not fair but They are not talking about... That was a good point. Y'all really do? You don't even see it. That's the UPN watcher after school right here. So, no, I don't think this has anything to do with any of that type of shit. What this has to do with is you can't have business and fucking youth sports the same way. You can't have... Let me say that again. if it's business is business if it's school is school all right if it's business is not it's always been a business but if it's i'm paying you so you play football for me then that's what the fuck it is and that means if you want to transfer for any reason if they end up getting mechanical engineering somewhere and you want to fucking change your major or go somewhere like that fuck no you are now getting paid you have gotten paid you have signed your name on the dotted line You have commitments to honor just like anyone else who's getting paid for their services. That, my friend, is a part of the free market that now dominates college football. I'm not saying that this to me, like I would have a problem if he was able to transfer. But I'm saying there is no fairness breach anywhere here. He signed with them, made a commitment, then changed his mind after a better. That don't work like that. That does not work like that. So to me, they need to duke it out. And then we'll see whether or not he gets to Miami. You're a Republican ass. I'm just saying, what the fuck is going on? It's the same situation with DeMond Williams with Washington, right? I think his name is Harris. Don't. So the thing. We call him DeMond Harris. Is it because you know my wife's name? I always thought you made that mistake because that's my wife's name. Joel. no okay i do like dear bruza yeah she's good she's a writer yeah she is thank you yeah she's great shout out harvard law grad she's she did that boy she fucking over you dog i'm not gonna lie you was talking about harvard that harvard law shit is different you gotta see you talking about your that's what the real accomplishment the real accomplishment you talking about being i can't believe this your wife went to harvard law you snagged her two kids beautiful talented all of that and you still talking about the spelling bee from like 1989 yeah what and the fastest 10 year old in the country you see that all led to this day yeah okay there you go anyway but that's how you want her over yeah well i mean dog if i mean if you the thing is if you like me you're gonna like me yeah you got games okay there you go okay now address the what were we talking about oh my god all right dairy minsa okay no okay so he's got a TRO. So if you don't know what a TRO is, temporary restraining order. Here's the thing. So I agree that this is business. This is just the cost of doing things and that Darian Mensah should expect Duke to not want to lose him. Did they... You guys tell me if I'm wrong about this. Maybe look it up. Did they sue Mike Elko? No. Oh, okay. Oh, my bad. They just let Mike Elko go. He had a contract with Duke, right? He had a buyout. And he had a buyout. He bought him out. Right. And then he wanted to go someplace else. They did the buyout, operate the buyout, and it was all good, right? Square up. There is a buyout with Darren Minza, correct? And my understanding is that Miami is willing to pay that, or reportedly that's in there? Apparently they're willing to get lawyers to help Minza fight this TRO. Okay. I don't – Which is – I mean, now you've got schools within a conference having legal battles. And I also understand – well, the thing is that Duke also has – man, you can't – Miami, you can't punk us like that, dog. like that's some you know y'all doing some ho shit that basically they're saying in miami like i mean we sit here and lichow poach our quarterback like that then like they've got to they've got to make they're trying to stop the precedent right they're going to show you that we're going to fight you if you try to do this so they're in washington may not get in a place so i get where duke is coming from on this but it's uh do you have the same criticism interesting interesting take do you have the same criticism of like professional sports like for example a coach can quit get fired whatever uh a player in professional football cannot just walk away from a team or or any professional sport while they are still under contract for their performance can't just walk away from a team and after they've signed a contract and then go sign with another team the coach is a fundamentally different type of employee than what the player is so like if and the team owns your rights and the team owns your rights you you can't just do that now if we're talking about college through a different lens you know it's one thing we can talk about how it should be whatever it is but like in this situation the competitive balance of duke football is hanging on based upon who they paid to be a part of their program and then after you get that to be like no i got more i'll go somewhere else and get that that's not how that work i'm always on the side of labor okay and so i you know it's always going to be harder for me to feel sympathetic towards the organization of the institution and i understand duke has every right to contest this i don't i don't have a problem with that but i also don't have a problem with darry and minsa being like but they're gonna offer me like two three two three million mo i I don't have no problem with that either. I don't have a problem with you. I mean, he's already getting $8 million. Yeah, I have no problem with him. At four this year, four next year. I have no problem with him doing whatever he has to do to make the best deal for himself. But what I am telling to these players, these younger players, is that when in this current era of college football, when you make a commitment to a team you must be ready you must be ready for them to go to the mattresses to hold you to your commitment like you must be ready for it you know what it used to be i'll tell you how this has changed let's say this was 10 years ago and we were talking about uh a college athlete whatever position the defensive line or quarterback whatever and they were transferring. If you wanted to transfer within the conference, you normally had to get a release from your school to be able to do that, right? So you have to sit down, but you have to get the release. Well, there were some... And if you didn't, it was two years. If you didn't, it was two years. There were some coaches that would not grant you that release. When those coaches wouldn't grant you the release, most of the time, the college football public, the sports public would criticize the coach. they would say hey for whatever reason this player this student this person it's not working out for them here they want to go somewhere else grant them their release and let them go most of the time that the coach did not do this the player their parents their whole people they brought it up he wouldn't give me a release she wouldn't give me a release i couldn't go play and everybody basically fell in line with this on the side of the player this is different once somebody's paid you four million dollars when somebody is paying you a shit ton of money people are going to say now okay they're invested into you in a different way it's not about your development it's not about your betterment it's not about your trajectory it's about it's about money and money comes along with commitment and expectation yeah okay and i mean i'm sure that to lane probably said the same shit when he went to duke uh the last year but i was saying you know there like oh man to lane got a nice quarterback let go ahead and buy that boy you know so that how they do it You know what I saying North Carolina No that not essence Essence This could be considered as the essence. It's the state. It's the state. It's really, it's the same putrid infection. Now I'm on your side now. Because I forgot about it. See? I didn't realize. These are people from the Northeast that came down. They tried to copy what they did at Yale in New Haven, try to build their own version of Yale in the South. That's what Duke is. That's what Duke is. But it's a better school than North Carolina though. Not really. Academically. I don't know, man. North Carolina is one of the top public institutions in the country. That is true. First public institution. Oh, I feel like Cal Michigan. No, that's actually not true. We're first. I feel like Cal, Michigan, and Texas want to fight you on. UCLA. We're first. Oh, UCLA? UCLA is the number one. Oh, no, no. I'm talking about first public school like first i'm not saying like we're number one you know what i mean i'm saying we're the first one ever we created this yeah you know when drake was in toronto he's like we did this we built like that was that's what you guys did awesome i did not know that yeah it's very nice very nice very nice very special very nice very special duke duke well i mean yeah i don't know i don't know how this ends but i will say this for damon williams slash harris and darian minsa very awkward season next year when you've been forced to play for a team. I feel like it creates a very tough situation. It's going to be tough for Darian Minster, but I think he's going to be playing for Miami no matter what. I think he'll end up in Miami. Me too. It's going to all work out. He's going to get his $8 million living on Country Club, and he's going to have him his Tate McRae next year. Who should Darian Minster date? He'll be in Miami. The list is fucking long of people. Don't date nobody. That's honestly the power move. You know what I'm saying? It's like, yo, man, I'm the quarterback of Miami. What's up? Darian Minza. It's a key season for Miami next year. Yeah. Cam Ward did it first. Shout out to Cam Ward. I mean, Miami is so cool because Miami is like, we're going to always have us a quarterback. No matter what it is, we're going to be desperate enough, and we're just going to get us a good quarterback, and we'll handle the rest of the roster. But the quarterback is always going to be the same there, which is a really – And Carson Beck was the same thing. I mean, that was a lot of, you know, he was going to the NFL, then he wasn't, then they got him late. So, I mean, there could be guys that are in the draft that we think are gone that aren't going to be gone. So we'll see what happens. Fascinating stuff. All right, time for Big Van on campus. To lead into this, Lane Kiffin this week, he just wanted to be in the headlines. He's a headline hunter. He said Nick Saban gave him some advice that sealed his decision to leave Ole Miss for LSU. Here's the quote. When I called Coach Saban and talked it through with him, he said, quote, You know, Lane, you'll always regret if you don't go to LSU. It's the best job in America. And also, 2019 LSU is a lot better than 2014 TCU. I think that was the final quote. Wow. Okay. Okay. Say, I was trying to. I'm just messing with you, Joel. That was too easy. Okay. Where's my camera? Do I have a camera? This is me right here. I want to talk directly to Lane Kiffin. All right. Just to let Lane Kiffin know, I am speaking for myself as an LSU fan here. This is directly to Lane Kiffin. I'm not talking to the Duke. I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking to you. This is directly to Lane Kiffin. I speak for myself as an LSU fan, but I want to tell you something. The cute shit is officially over. The cute shit is over. There's no more time for the cute shit. The antics that work for you at other places that you coached, the ways to distract from some of the things that happened on or maybe even off the field, they're not going to work in Baton Rouge. Three things move this fan base. Passion, power, and achievement. We want to see the team play in a certain way. We want to see them be powerful, and we want to see them win. If any of the other things that Lane Kiffin has done in the past, if any of the other ways that he has acted, if he feels that those things are going to distract people in Baton Rouge, from a very dire and desperate state of football, Lane Kiffin is wrong. Like Lane Kiffin playing media games, Lane Kiffin playing funny jokes, like all of the Twitter stuff. That's a part of it. I get it, and I understand it. But Lane Kiffin needs to be laser-focused in building a winner at LSU. If he does not, if he cannot, if he fails, it will ruin his career. Lane Kiffin's career will be either made or broken in Baton Rouge because the pressure that that fan base can exude, the way that we can make something cool in South Louisiana is the same way that you can come down there amongst those people and get exposed. If you do not believe me, I want you to think about the way people regard Brian Kelly right now. Brian Kelly came to LSU as a golden mind in college football. Yeah, he had his naysayers and people who did not fuck with him. Yes, he had people that thought he could not win the big one. But still, he was the winningest coach in Notre Dame history and came to Baton Rouge with an incredible reputation. And now he's a coaching pariah. He's a coaching pariah because when you go down there with all of that strength around you and you look weak, it looks doubly bad. And for Lane Kiffin, I understand. When I saw this, you're coming out. We don't need to know that. What we need to know is what's happening in the portal. what we need to know is how the office is going to look how you're going to build and bring joy back to baton rouge because failure to me will be professional death i mean this is why i roll my eyes at the best job in america shit because i was like dog that's he ain't done nothing yet he's not even spent a full month at lsu and the booster class at lsu is like this could absolutely fuck up your career just like the last guy who came down here with a good reputation i mean brian kelly got no interviews bro like think about that that's why this is not a good job and why lane kiffin should have stayed his ass at old miss and appreciated what he had because then people would have taken anything this you made a mistake dog this he joe might be right let me tell you guys about there's two types of people in the world i mean joe might be right there are two types of people in the world there are people that climb mountains and then signetti there are people that climb mountains and take on challenges because when you get to the top of the mountain you can see and be in ways that other people can't. And then there are people who just like to live in the tent by the lake. Either way TCU is a tent by the lake program. Okay? LSU, can I finish that? Interrupt you? TCU is a tent by the lake program. LSU is not. Could it be a cabin by the lake? To Joe's point, even if it was before even if it was before it's not now and there are a whole bunch of fucking tip by the lake programs out there that you can go out there and coach for a long fucking time and have statues built by you by winning your division every now and again or that is every now and again y'all Every now and again, we win a national championship. Hold on for a second. Are you happy? Are you happy? I'm incredibly happy being an LSU fan. Hold on. I want you guys to understand. I'm not saying every now and again. For the LSU of my recent memory, I'm not saying that every now and again, we field a good team. every now and again we filled a historically dominant team that can put all kinds of guys into the nfl that has to be the standard at lsu for if you are at tcu that's it you can feel one team like that the other two champions were okay they were good champions they're nobody they were got great all-time dominant champions they had great fantastic amazing players on the other one team that's what twice that's what i'm talking about right that's what i'm talking about this is what i'm saying to anyone joe's opinion of uh sc's of lsu and of actually being a winning school not withstanding for last thing i'll say all you coaches out there consider what joel was saying think about it think about a place that you can go and live in uh extended mediocrity and then make the decision about what kind of competitor you are like seriously think about places and This is for everyone in life. Everyone in life. Think about where you can go and stay there and be a C plus, B minus employee or whatever you're doing for a long time. And that's cool. Who does that look like? We are three national championships since 2000. We are six SEC championships, bro. We are two Heisman trophies in the last six years. is what we are. Lane, you want the challenge. Go down there and meet the challenge. All of you TCU fans like continue to do the shit that Joe was talking about. Bro, these people... 2014, one loss team, best team we ever fucking had. This team is incorrigible. This fan base is incorrigible. No, we're not. You are never going to make them happy. We're committed. They're already inclined to not like you. No, that's not true. They're already. When he said, when Lane Kiffin said, no, listen, this is what, this is what, By the way, in the clip that we're breaking out, cut all this shit out. Nobody's trying to listen to this nigga. I want y'all to be champions. Within. Within said all this shit. Can I say something real quick? Last thing I'll say, this is a guy that's still talking about being the fastest 10-year-old in the country. That shit was 30 years ago. So you're telling. If you had been the fastest 10-year-old in the country, you would have just talked about it, too. But it never happened to you. You would never know it would be great like that. And if I, if my team had ever won. It's just as good to be great when you were 10 as when you were 20. It's just as great to win a national championship in 2019 than to have never won one. I'll tell you what I did win. I won the sack race at University of Taylor's Elementary School in 1988. I was the fastest in the motherfucking sack. Intramural pool champ, Louisiana Tech University, 2000. Nigga, we didn't one shit. Four-time LA Fitness League champion. Okay. It's like three in a row. That's my guy, Garrett. I got Garrett. Garrett was in it. What did Garrett say about me on the court? He said, you got game. I can go. Don't ask me about that. He was like, is Van really, can he really hoop? You're not going to ask nobody out here. They're not going to lie to you. I got a homeboy that want to hoop against you, dog. He's like so excited to play against you. I mean, now he might be able to do his thing. I'll take two steps now and fucking three donuts fall out of my head. But all I'm saying is, look, I get it. Some people want to be great. Some people want to be regular. Joel, regular. I know. Georgia City is talking about, I want to be cursing 9065, but I can't ask Lane Kiffin. Look, Lane, concentrate on football. The thing is, these people are ridiculous, and you can make old men. These people, black. Say hello to these people. When I think of LSU, race talk about black people. Race talk. When I think of LSU, I don't think about black people. It's a black state. He's from Texas. Yellow people? You think about yellow people? No, the yellow Confederate flag. Race talk. That was race talk. That was unsolicited race. If I got to be a Tiger, then I'm a Tiger. That's funny. That was a notable player who said that, too. He's like, shit, nigga. I guess I'm a motherfucking Tiger, dude. Lane's got a lot of pressure. LSU is the best job if you're Nick Saban. Because Nick Saban, he's a great shooter. Do you think Saban set him up by telling him to go? That was my last thing. You think Saban set him up? Because Saban has been, I mean, obviously he's like, I mean, we're going to do our awards next week. I mean, he might be my hater of the year. Like, he obviously is going after Signetti, picks Miami to win, you know, and basically picked against Signetti the entire run there. And then he has the Lane Kibben thing where he's like, he's, you know, I talked to him, but I wouldn't call him my mentee or whatever. And then Lane Kibben's like, he's one of the two people I called before I make this decision. He was his dad. Yeah, he was like, I wish my dad would not go. Yeah, now I got Saban. And then Saban was like, I don't know about that. And then he tells him to go to LSU, which, like you said, is a lot of pressure. Fun back and forth. Question, though, seriously. What do you feel like Nick Saban feels like his role is? Like, what is Nick Saban doing? He thinks he's the, like. Is Nick Saban seriously angling to be the, like, college football commissioner? Does he want to be the. he wants to be the master of ceremonies does he want to be like the godfather of college football I'm not saying he's not I'm just saying it seems like something that he wants to be when Nick ended his coaching career I really expected a ride off into the sunset I don't know why I did but I really expected a ride off into the sunset I expected him to be a little bit lower key than he is right now that is not happening at all I thought he'd be more like how coach k is you know what i mean like how wooden was roy williams they kind of disappear yeah but they show up you know you see him around but like they're not really like let me get into the minutiae of like the storylines of everybody else you know he's like in the mix i mean that espn job is fun man i'm sure you know you get to go to it still you still get the i mean one thing you forget about is that he was a part of a team for a long time and then all of a sudden and he had to He still gets to be the hard ass all the time. Yeah. Now he gets to have a little fun. He still gets to be part of a team and be close to the game. He still wants to set the standard in college football. He got really used to that. Excellence in winning was one thing, but he got used to setting the standard in college football and having people chase him. His coaching tree is still winning championships. That makes him still feel hyper-relevant. Really, he's still kind of the dominant figure in college football if you look at everything that's downstream from what he was able to accomplish. I think he likes that. I don't think he's getting out of the way and letting people kind of do their own thing for a while, man. Yeah. No, man, absolutely. I mean, I just think that, you know, he – I mean, this is a guy who people on the staff call him daddy. Yeah. That's your word, Ty Simpson. That's your word. That's your word. You know what I'm saying? Real quick. Real quick. That's your word. Real quick. No. I mean, look, I was just pulling up his – here's Saban's coaching tree. Signetti, obviously, smart. Jimbo Fisher, who is apparently trying to get back into coaching. Mario Cristobal, Dan Lanning, Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkeesian. Brinkey, Pete Golding, all those guys. I mean, Michael Oxley, who's at Maryland. Oh, yeah, he's at Maryland. He's at Alabama. So I'm saying, you mentioned the tentacles are everywhere. If you just happen to work for Nick Saban, you get to be part of his team. That's true. Yeah. Some of these guys are – see, I would think Kiffin is a Carroll guy. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's how he got into his first hit-cold guy. That's how he got into his first hit-cold guy. Yeah. I guess that's the thing. Is he such a dominant figure that anybody that ever stopped through there for a little while is a part of his coaching tree? Yeah, is Bill O'Brien part of his coaching tree? Bill O'Brien was... But he's really a Belichick guy. Yeah, right. It's crazy. Yeah, it all connects. Party shots, last things for this week. The last thing for me is I appreciate the audience. I appreciate Rays on the Roof. I appreciate my guys. I appreciate the fucking Duke. I appreciate Freeze. The season is over, but Ringer Tailgate isn't. Joel, good news, right? You were, you know, a few weeks ago, you were already saying that, you know, we're dead and gone. I'm unaware of a plan to continuation plan. I know that we're going to record a podcast after this. Then what's the plan after that? Next week. I will tell you when it's necessary. Just show up and pop. No, wait, you know what the thing is, though? By the way, we're going to record this after this one. Record what? Okay, don't worry about it. We're going to do our award show next week. Oh, we have an award show next week. Yes. We're going to do an award show. here's the plan, Joe. We're going to do an award show next week. It's a big deal. Then the following week, we're going to do a welcome to the off season. We're going to set it, set the terms for the off season. Oh, we got senior bowl coming up, right? We're going to talk about that. Yeah. And then we got, then we got draft coming up. We got draft coming up. And we got a little teaser. We're going to do some tailgate classics, right? Tailgate classics. By the time March starts coming along, the spring games at the end of March start. We got a storyline. We're going to send you to spring break. Really? Yeah. They don't do spring break no more. Panama City Beach. Yeah, you're going. I've been to Panama City before. Panama City Beach. We're sending you down to Ringer Tailgate Spring Break. And we're going to start doing a new thing. Top fives with Joel. We got top five presidents already. And then we just start giving you topics. You know what I mean? Top five. What did we do today? We did top five white women or black women. He did top five black women. That was all fair. That was all fair. Number one was Megan Good, though. shout out oh john johnson major cousin skeeter i don't know if you guys ever saw cousin skeeter on nickelodeon that was her first uh yeah that's where she was that's when she first caught your eye yeah i was a young kid i was like who was that oh wow there you go yeah king magazine yeah drumline right drum shit it's getting weird but i like that any parting shots other than you want to close the show yeah man no i i mean i just said this has been great man uh i'm really you know i'm not gonna get corny on it yet because I actually brought something for the crew, but since we're recording next week, I'll wait till then to bring it. This guy is something else. I'll wait till next week to bring it. But I really am just so appreciative. Yeah, Alicia, Donnie, Jack, you know, Bill, man, he's the one, I mean, that came to us five days before the season started and was like, we should go ahead and do that podcast. Yeah, man, this has been a lot of fun. I've had a long career and this is like probably the most fun thing i've ever done which is why my wife thinks it's not work i mean she knows that this is work right but it just seems so fun that it seemed like it could be work yeah we're laughing a lot you know like on saturdays when you when we got done with the show we're like cracking up the entire time it feels like we're just hanging out which is the whole point of the show so and we still don't really know each other yet why you bullshit we still got a lot to learn about each other yeah right yeah every single week i learn something new yeah like today i learned about the valedictorian thing right you learned about it a long time ago i just don't remember what was the gpa i mean i never made a b always damn tate yeah the fuck i'm talking about this is what i was talking about it's a fuck out of my life that's why you don't need you a tate mccray dog you're too good for i mean nothing wrong with her at all but you know you need to you need a wait wait wait wait wait wait wait oh nothing wrong with tate mccray yeah nothing wrong nothing wrong with riley i thought we were going way over the deep oh yeah no no no no i was like you I mean, you like the kind of person in the in like 1970s and some shit. You'd be like a senior vice president at the local bank. I wish they make a lot of money. Yeah. Don't you? Could you just see Tate with his little family there? And it's like, yeah, I go on the weekends with my guys. You should have that kind of a job. I agree. I'm trying to get it. Oddly accurate take. Right. Let's go find it. Yeah. Hey, you say like if you sit down right here, our senior vice president, Tate Frazier will come over here. Hi, how are you doing? How's it going guys? Are these your documents right here? Come here and talk to me right now. We'll talk about that small business. I don't know if you see some of the things that we got going. Now, I'm looking at this application and it seems to me, oh, you're a Duke fan. Interesting. Yeah, you're not getting that loan. I love it. Great show. Great times. We got next week. We got the award show. I appreciate everybody tuning in. Next week. Next week for sure. Appreciate everybody tuning in to Rigger Tailgate. It's been a lot of fun. And thanks to everybody for all the kind words. We appreciate it. We see them. Shout out even the Reddit folks, man. Right. That's the only time they like me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, bro. It changes quickly. People on YouTube. Joe, just enjoy it. Save it for the moment. It will change. It moves quickly. I'm not going to do nothing wrong. Things are very fluid. But we appreciate everybody tuning in. Rigger Tailgate. We will see you next week. Definitely next week. We'll see you then. Must be 21 or older in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and older in President D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-N-Y or text HOPE-N-Y in New York.