Florida RESURGENCE? How Jon Sumrall plans to REVIVE the Gators | Kirby Smart v Mario Cristobal Roast | Could the Army-Navy game be moved?

On today's episode of Andy and Ari on three presented by bet MGM. We are joined by new Florida coach, John Summerall. He talks about trying to retain the best parts of the Gators roster. He inherited. He talks about the quarterback competition. He talks about the similarities between himself and urban Meyer. When urban Meyer got to Florida, which had been pointed out by none other than urban Meyer himself. wide-ranging conversation with John Seminole. Very good. And then he left to go to an awards banquet that happened in Gainesville. He caught astray from Kirby Smart, but it was Kirby Smart versus Mario Cristobal in the roast to end all college football roasts. We'll hear all the jokes. We'll see who's the best stand-up comedian of the bunch. There's some good ones. But also, do we have a new rivalry that we need to see in the college football playoff, Georgia versus Miami. I think so. Also, Army coach Jeff Munkin with some interesting comments about potentially moving the Army-Navy game, which if you heard our show last week with Joey McGuire, actually might work a little bit with Joey's plan to streamline the college football calendar. We'll talk about it all today on Andy and Orion 3, presented by BetMGM. This show is presented by BetMGM, and there's no better place to be during March matchups than Las Vegas. This year, college basketball fans can win a VIP trip to the Court of Legends event featuring the Cavender Twins. Simply play sports bets, and your position on the leaderboard will determine if you win one of the 25 grand prize packages. Just sign into your BetMGM account, opt into the promotion, and start placing sports bets of at least $10 to climb the leaderboard. Make this March one to remember. Join the Court of Legends leaderboard and make it legendary. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, don't forget to use code CFB. 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Welcome to Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM. we have some big guests coming up big tomorrow john summerall the new head coach at florida joins us today jed fish washington coach coming tomorrow i went to john summerall's office on monday ari had a great chat with the new head gator and he is he's just all fired up he's excited because he got the parts of the roster he wanted you're about to hear what he had to do to make sure that Jaden Baugh, Jaden Woods stayed in Gainesville. Just an interesting conversation with a guy who I think we knew about him at Troy. We knew about him at Tulane. He was winning in both places. His personality is really going to get a boost from being in a high-profile job like Florida. He's been like this the whole time. This is the guy he was at Troy. This is the guy he was at Tulane. And now I think the greater college football world is going to get to know John Summerall. He's a very interesting dude. He does not shy away from saying what's on his mind. And we're going to hear a lot of that now that he's the head coach at Florida. Yeah, Andy, I think that, you know, now that the coaching carousel is over and we can just be, you know, frank about what people were saying behind the scenes, you know, just about everybody that we've talked to or we did talk to during that time said that John Summerall was like a don't overthink it home run hire. Right. Like, and I don't know what it's going to turn out. That doesn't guarantee that Florida is going to go win a national title now. But I think if you are viewing Florida's hire as they just did the same thing with Billy Napier, why are we doing it again? Like you have a grave misunderstanding of what's going on. And I think you'll see this interview. If you think there are any similarities after that between John Summerall and Billy Napier, it will disabuse you of that. These are two very different people. But the thing about Summerall that I find interesting is he could have had a number of the SEC job openings this year. They were down the road with Auburn when Florida jumped into the fray. Obviously, Kentucky would have wanted him when they opened. He's a Kentucky alum. I think Ole Miss probably would have been very interested when Lane left. They did promote Pete Golding, but one of the things that Keith Carter found out when he found out Lane was leaving is John Summerall's already going to Florida. And I think Florida had to move fast because they were worried the second Lane left that Ole Miss was calling. So I think that was part of Florida's push to get him. But yeah, this was a guy who probably had his pick of the jobs in the SEC this offseason. LSU would probably be the only one he didn't because Lane Kiffin got that one. And he chose the only place that people would view him as a contingency plan. Love that for him. Well, I think those people are coming around. Just the vibe and the chatter you get from the Florida people is any reservations they had, they've liked hearing what he has to say. Now, obviously, none of this matters until you start coaching games. And the only thing that will actually matter is whether you win or not. But so far, he's said all the right things. And I think that that was important given the circumstances of the hire. I mean, hell, Scott Strickland, the athletic director, told me one of the first things John Summerall said to him is, you sure you want to do this, hiring a group of five coaches from Louisiana again? Like John Summerall said that. So this is a guy who gets it. He knows what's your thing. And the other thing is, remember, this is an ex-Kentucky linebacker from Northern Alabama. He's very of the SEC, kind of grew up a fan of SEC football. Like he's, he's among his people. One of the benefits of living right down the road from one of the biggest programs in college football is you get to go into his office, Andy. I was sad. I wasn't there, but I know you crushed it. Swanky office. The new football building at Florida is really nice. Things have improved a lot since the old South end zone complex with the nice wooden stool in front of your locker in the night. He's not a bit asleep on the floor. contributions, Andy. What's that? You said it would not have been possible without your personal contributions to the program. I made no contributions, no contributions whatsoever. I did. I did fill up that they had a Gatorade fountain. I would fill up gallon jugs and take them back to my dorm room so I could have Gatorade in my dorm room. That's about all I I contributed is I took some Gatorade out of the building. Smashing peanut butter and a bunch of Gatorade before bed is a good way to gain weight, right? Didn't work for me, but I'm sure it works for some people but worked for me and it wasn't even john somerall by the way we're going to talk about this because he's uh he's still on the grind in terms of the conditioning he is uh he's apparently tearing it up in florida's weight room from what i hear it is one of the things i asked about right off the bat so here is john somerall the new florida coach all right before i ask any serious questions i a birdie told me that that you've been squatting down in the weight room with the boys yeah okay what do i squat deadlift the power clean etc i don't power much i hate clean okay i don't go to the floor so yeah so i've been following your strength coach rusty witt on instagram for like two years now so i've been watching his squat videos the squat depth in this in his program you're not asked to grass but you're awfully close does he get on you for depth Oh, yeah. Witt coach is my depth for sure. I mean, look, I'm trying to get it right. No shortcuts here. And how are we compared to the players? Weights, hopefully not as heavy as them. Okay. I use the safety bar. I don't use maybe – that's not true. I did last week use the normal bar. But depth is the same as the players. Weight, hopefully less. If my weight's the same as the players, we've got a problem. We have a problem. Okay. Yeah. So what has this first few months been like? I realize it's drinking out of a fire hose. You're dealing with portal. You're dealing with roster stuff. Now that you have a roster that you're set with, does it get better? Does it get easier? Yeah, I think it allows you to put your hands on the team and get to cultivate what that's going to look like. You know, the movement and the portal is natural. We all know what's coming. Anytime there's a head coaching change, there's even going to be more significant movement than normal. Yeah. But now that especially now with no second portal window to now, I would be OK. First year head coach with the second portal because it would allow me to maybe go through spring and then make some correction if needed. Don't have that luxury. This go my first year at Tulane. We added five defensive starters in the second portal. I'm not going to be able to do that. So what I do like, though, is everybody's here. what they're hearing and how we're forming this team is already full speed ahead all of our high school signees were mid-year so the team is pretty much here and and as far as those guys coming in how how much do you expect them to to contribute right away how many how many freshmen are you looking at having to play here well i think it's hard to know right now because we haven't had our first real spring practice i expect all of them to go compete to put themselves in the best position possible the more the better i mean i want to play as many guys as we can we're not going to put a guy out there prematurely i don't think it's fair to maybe put a number on how many we would like to play i'd love for all of them to play yeah you recruit them this day and age you recruit guys to play them as fast as you can um but at the same time you don't want to put a guy out there to the detriment of the team or to his confidence and development so speaking of recruiting a lot of the recruiting you had to do was this roster the guys are already there so i remember you got here you had the you were doing double duty with Tulane you talk to Jaden Baugh in the meeting you call him up you call him I imagine Jaden Woods same thing yeah Jaden Woods goes in the portal you and Bam Hardman and and Brad are headed to Missouri to talk to him I mean how hard did you have to recruit those guys to make sure they stayed we recruited all of them as hard as we could everybody is at a different place as they go through the decision making process of what they want to do next you know i i do feel like you hit on this the most important recruiting i was doing was retention um you want to keep the great players that are already in house and that this place means something to jayden ball uh did an in-home visit on christmas eve i don't know i've ever done that before i was just saying and yeah because you've just finished with tulane at that point this is like what third full day on the job yeah so we finished our cfp game with december the 20th. Yeah. Um, uh, flew back to Alabama to bury my dad. Uh, his service was on the 23rd and on the 24th, I was in Jaden Ball's house. And so it was a really, it was a whirlwind of a time. Um, there's no place my dad would rather have me been than in Jaden Ball's house. I can promise you that. So, uh, we were there to see Jaden and then, um, Jaden Woods felt like we were in a good spot and retaining him, decided to go in the portal, took a visit to another school. We flew up there to see him, felt good about that meeting, and then quickly found out that he was going to stay as well. And so getting some of those guys to stay was probably the most important recruiting pieces we had. What do you tell them? How do you convince them that this is the place they need to be when they've been here, but there's been some turmoil? Yeah. Well, you cast a vision for what it's going to look like moving forward, and they have to buy into that vision. You do it through honesty and transparency. I tell them how I'm going to coach them, what the program's going to look like, what the standards are going to be. And they have to choose to want to be a part of that. I don't mislead them at all. I don't sit there and tell them it's all purple skies and butterflies. There's going to be some hard work and some chew nails days where it's like, man, we've got to crawl through glass maybe. There's going to be some hard things over these next few months to help get this team to be where it needs to be. Those guys are wired right. Those are the guys, you know, not only are they really good players, but they like the hard work. And so when you're looking at who you want to add or retain on your roster, yeah, the great player part matters, but the great person that loves competing, that part matters too. And those are the guys what that's all about. Jaden Woods featured on Rusty Woods' Instagram the other day. I saw that probably a lot. Two beautiful reps of 495. Perfect depth. Jaden Woods is an impressive worker. You know, I had a chance to visit with his grandparents and his dad when I went up there. You can see where he comes from. He comes from great people. His granddad is the one that introduced him to the weight room. They have a weight room in the basement of their house. Wow. And I went down there and hung out and saw it. His granddad is probably the strongest granddad in America. He's put together. So that was a really cool experience to go in his house. As a new head coach, a lot of these guys in this roster, I may know who they are, but I don't know their story. I don't know their background. and as you get to spend time with them it's really cool to kind of pull back the curtain to what makes them who they are well and and based on people i've talked to about you when you see a weight room in a guy's basement you know it's your people right oh yeah that gets me excited yeah i mean that lets you know that they like the work and so yeah it definitely fired me up to see um what jayden wood's household was like because his granddad was down there lifting with him growing up as a kid so that's that's definitely a fire ship i'm a firm believer the culture your football team's built in the weight room and guys that like the weight room guys that love the weight room they're usually pretty good players so i was talking to urban meyer about you and i know that that he and you got to know each other a little bit during the recruiting process to come to florida and he said first thing you said about him or to him about what you do was weight room and he said okay i i know i know i'm dealing with somebody who who were similar temperament here yeah i really enjoyed that conversation with urban And I think there's some wiring of maybe how they did things here that I have a great deal of respect for because it's how we've done things and how I know to do things. You build through the weight room. You build through the offseason program. Our first conversation talked nothing about NIL, RevShare, Transfer Portal. We talked about how you build a football team. And that's something I'm very passionate about. I am passionate about the other components to our world. Now, the portal does matter to me. RevShare, NIL, I'm for it. I love that our players get paid, but I also think your team, how you build that team and how you help individuals grow and develop from wherever they come to you at, like whatever process in their development they're at. But that conversation was a fun one for me because I felt like I was talking to somebody that really I was able to tap into their wiring and it felt like I was talking to myself a little bit. I was going to say that having met him as he coming from Utah to Florida So that was 2004 2005 You guys had a pretty similar path in terms of the first two head coaching jobs the results of the first two head coaching jobs And it sounds like you do kind of want to build a team the same way. It's interesting because one of the teams that you'll be trying to compete for college football playoff spots with is Ohio State. A lot of those same people who helped Urban build that team here, building that team there and have been doing it well for a long time. So it still works. It still works. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Urban and what he did here. I think that the standard of how you build a program was set by him in a lot of ways. And it goes back to the weight room. It goes back to the offseason program. It goes back to making a team understand when things get hard, we get better. Yeah. And we know how to push through tough things. I heard you on with Danny Cannell and Dusty Dvorak. And you're the first person I've ever heard say it like this, but it makes sense when you said it. because they're asking you about, you know, can you coach them hard? Do you have to go softer because you're getting paid now? And you said, no, you're getting paid. I'm going to go harder. Yeah. Well, look, I think guys still want to be held accountable. They still want to be held at a really high standard. And when I meet with recruits, I don't change who I am from a recruiting visit to when they get here and we coach them. I tell them all, if you're tough, you love football, and you want to get coached, you want to get better every day, you're going to love being a Florida Gator. If you're not tough and you don't love football and you don't want to get coached, you're going to hate being a Florida Gator if you come here. And so we're going to give you everything we've got to help you become your best. If that's what you want, this is the place for you. And so I think nowadays the world we live in, it's even made it more, I think, important to push guys daily to be their best because they are getting paid. They are pros. Be a pro. Yeah. A guy who used to hold this job, Will Muschamp, when he was working with Kirby Smart at Georgia, they had a thing. he told me that they want you to see at least three practices they want you to know what you're getting yourself into and it feels like that now even more than ever you need to find that person who could handle that yeah you you want to know that the guys fully understand what they're signing up for we're not changing our standards for anyone they have to meet the standards that are going to be set here at the University of Florida and they're going to be extremely high and so yeah I think it's important for guys to fully grasp and fully appreciate. If you're coming here to do this, you know what you're signing up for. Speaking of signing up and getting guys that came in, guys that stayed quarterback situation. You hire Buster Faulkner from Georgia tech. Aaron Philo was the backup quarterback at Georgia tech. He comes here. Tramiel Jones jr. Was here. And I get the sense you may not have known a whole bunch about him, but probably heard a lot about him real quick based on how people talk about him around here. How's that going to work in the spring? Because it's a different world now. We were talking about this with Tennessee's actually going to have a quarterback competition because of a court ruling. But you've got another situation where you brought somebody in, you kept somebody. How do you handle that situation? Well, I think there's always competition every year. And there's no promises made to anybody in recruiting here. Aaron Filo didn't come here with a guarantee of anything other than an opportunity to compete for the job. Tramiel stayed with the promise of an opportunity to compete for a job. but nobody's got a leg up there. Whoever are starting quarterback, they're going to earn it. You know, I think, um, my first year at Tulane, we proved that with Darian Mensah. Yeah. Where was he on the depth start when you showed up third or fourth? Yeah. Most of the people in the building didn't know how to say Darian's last name the right way. Everybody called him men saw. I got there. His name's actually Mensah. Yeah. And so the smart people. Yeah. Yeah. So we went into a training camp of 23 and I'm sorry, of 24 and uh training camp 24 practice one darian was with the third team and about eight or nine practices in i put darian with the first team and the rest is history so to me there there's no uh front runner in any of these competitions especially being a new staff yeah like everybody's gotta go out there and compete and earn what they get i'm excited about both those guys uh i think think both of them are they're wired the right way they both are really pushing each other but supporting each other at the same time i've challenged everybody on our team but in particular that quarterback room you're competing with each other not against each other we're on the same team yeah so there is a competition with each other though for who's gonna try to win that job so let's talk about buster a little bit because that was the the hire i think a lot of people stood up and said all right this is a guy who clearly had a plan when he came in knew what he was looking for When did you start thinking Buster Faulkner is a guy I'd like to work with someday? Well, I've known Buster for several years. Coached against him maybe longer than I've actually known him. Gotten to know him the last four years or so better from an interpersonal standpoint. Have a ton of respect for his background. You know, kind of grew up more of an air raid type system guy. Yeah, played for Chris Hatcher. Right, one degree of separation from Hal Mummey. Exactly. So the Howl Mummy, Mike Leach type system is really Buster's upbringing with Hatch at Valdosta State. And so played that system that obviously had been exposed to different things over time. I think at Georgia was coaching quarterbacks when Stetson Bennett was there. A little bit more of a pro style offense, if you will. And I think when he went to Georgia Tech and he had Haynes King, had to evolve again and maybe adapt to who his quarterback was. And so I think what really attracted me to Buster being the right fit was he's tough minded. He's blue collar. He wants to run the football, has an air raid background, though, and has evolved based upon who the personnel around him is. Great coaches, great coordinators adapt to who the people they have on their team are. And yes, we're able to select who we want to some degree, but you have to fit and tailor what you're doing to who the people are. When did you decide that was your philosophy? Because there are coaches who don't believe that, who believe this is my system, this is what we do, this is what we're going to run. I think I decided that probably in 2007 when I was coach at the University of San Diego, which is one double A. The Toreros, baby. The Toreros. One double A, non-scholarship football. Everybody's a walk-on. And we had NFL players there. We had Eric Bakhtiari. We had Josh Johnson, who I think still might be playing quarterback. Yep. 18 years later. But you don't just get to go out and get the pick of the litter. you have to evolve around who who shows up almost to some degree and so that's really I left me at G8 University of Kentucky to go there I was there for five years I finished the last couple years of my time there as a defensive coordinator and during that time at USD I learned real fast like hey there may be certain things I like to do and that's great but what's most important is what are the people I have what do they do well and make things fit them you told the story I think it was at your press conference you're on the beach in san diego with your your now wife but not at the time where'd you say she she needed to be willing to go pocatello pocatello idaho yeah i asked her would you go to idaho state she's like why why would i go to pocatello that's where idaho state is and she goes i'll go wherever if it's if it's what you want to do how much does that mean to you because i don't think and i've talked to coaches and their spouses about this over the years because i don't think people understand when you're coaching in the pioneer league at san diego you're not making a lot of money not making a lot of money that that's a that's a big dream to sell yeah to somebody yeah yeah uh yeah you know what um man i tell you all the time i feel like i'm a pretty good head coach my wife's a better head coach's wife and she knew what she was signing up for she's all in uh she does an unbelievable job um we're in this thing together i think coaching is a calling it's a lifestyle decision uh and yeah it's a profession but it's something you have to be fully into as a family. You can't dabble. You have to go all in if you're going to do it the right way. And when I was broke, making no money, my wife, she fell in love with what I did and how I did it. And she's been there every step of the way. I met my wife. I had graduated college two weeks earlier. I had no job. I had $40 in my checking account that I had spent 10 of that night at the bar. So listen, you know, when you find the right one, when they believe in you before you even believe in you. So that's right. But take me back to that. You know, you're with the Toreros, you're in the pioneer league. Did this ever seem possible? Yeah. I had a dream of, uh, coaching at the highest level in college football. Um, and it may have seemed a really long way off and it was, you know, uh, but I've, I've been really convicted about not just what I do, but how I do it. And I think that matters because we're all we're all doing maybe certain things that are similar as coaches. But I've always felt strongly about how we do what we do daily and how we impact players lives. And so I've never felt like I've gone to work a day in my life. I feel like I like my hobby is my job. And so I didn't know if I'd be the head coach of the University of Florida. I'm not gonna lie to you. I did feel like I was gonna be an SEC head coach one day yeah and so i'm not surprised to be here this isn't like and and look let's be real here you could have been a head coach at several different sec programs this off season what was this one what was the what what made you decide on this one you know um as things started to unfold going back to my wife we both sat down and we discussed what the future would look like um and to be very transparent uh if you'd asked me in early november i wouldn't have probably told of Florida. And then the more we found out and the more we got to know about this place and the people, we really looked at each other. We felt like, man, this is where we fit. This is where we belong. This is where we want to be. And there were a lot of interactions that kind of unfolded that made that clear to us and kind of came out of the blue a little bit. Wasn't necessarily the one that you thought we were going to be doing middle of the season. and then we got to the end of the season and this is the only one we wanted to do. It was the one that made the most sense for us. Well, you are here now. The challenge is all you got to do. In Florida, I've lived here a while. All you have to do is win national championships. Then they'll be happy. Good luck. Look, that's part of what attracted me here. I might be a maniac for feeling that way, but the passion, the fieriness of this fan base, the energy of this place, and the expectations and standards, that's part of what drew me here. I didn't want to go somewhere where mediocrity is great. I wanted to go somewhere where championships were the standard and expectation. They're going to eat that up. Appreciate it, Coach. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. That is John Sumrall. Ari, quite a few similarities, and I'm going to write a column about this for on three because I think it's interesting to kind of note them and point them out to Urban Meyer when Urban Meyer got there. And the person who first pointed that out to me was Urban Meyer. So I'm not just sort of making that up. Well, I'm actually fascinated by that because I remember what it was like when Urban Meyer took over at Ohio State because I was there. What was it like when Urban Meyer took over? Peel back the curtain a little bit. So I was covering the team for the Tampa Tribune at the time, and I covered the last season of Ron Zook and the firing of Ron Zook and the hire of Urban Meyer. and it's interesting because when he got to Ohio State, so I saw a lot of that too because I was already a SI at that point. When he got to Ohio State, they knew the formula worked. They already knew what to do. So he brings Mickey Marotti, the strength coach. He brings Mark Pantone, who at Florida had been kind of this kid working in the recruiting office who had all these ideas. By then, everybody was fully formed. At Florida, it was, we're going to try this stuff. and see how it works. And I think if you've watched Swamp Kings, you've heard Brandon Seiler and Brandon Spikes and the guys who played in that era talk about what the mat drills were like and all that. They are probably not doing some of the same things. And I don't think they were doing the same things at Ohio State when they got there either. But it was intense all the time. And it was intended to create an atmosphere where if you weren't tough, you tapped out. You didn't want any part of that program. And they played like it. They played like that. They were tougher in the fourth quarter than teams. That is how they played. And it's interesting because I'm the one who has said many, many times the Urban Meyer philosophy of I'll send you out of here on the first bus ticket out of town doesn't work in the NIL era. But you heard John Summerall in the interview talking about I coach them harder now because they are getting paid. His thing is be a pro. You're like, you're a pro. We're paying you like a pro. Act like it. I am just amused because so much tenor of Urban Meyer's arrival at Ohio State was about how he's a changed man. You remember that? Like, it was all like, I'm not going to burn myself out. I'm going to learn how to coach these guys more softly. I'm going to rely on my assistants more and all this stuff. And it's like, well, you know, it worked. I mean, he won titles at both places. The tenure went. It was exactly the same as the Florida tenure. It burned bright and burned out. Like that's, but here's the other part of it. The pieces that are still in place. And I mentioned this in the interview with John Sumrall. The pieces that are still in place at Ohio State from the Urban Meyer infrastructure, specifically Mickey Marotti and Mark Pantone, who were the two most important people in the organization besides Urban Meyer. They're huge reasons why Ohio State never dropped off, why they've always been good under Ryan Day. Yeah. I think that people who were unaware of John Summerall, and let's be honest, Andy, I know we have the smartest, most attractive listeners in college football podcast space, but a lot of people love the sport don't pay a ton of attention to what's going on in the g5 right you weren't you weren't watching troy press conferences when he was there you weren't watching two lane press conferences there's only so much a human being to keep up with yeah yeah i think that watching that you get a vibe for a person and i bet you if that was your first time listening to him talk and hearing what he had to say your mind has shifted on what florida could be like and i think that's what a good coach does now like you said earlier in the show the only thing that's going to matter about Florida and you know that's outside of Gainesville and certainly inside of Gainesville is whether you win and you want to see that translate and you know this is a new era of college football where things that used to work might not and things that you try now do work when they wouldn't have before and maybe some things didn't change at all I don't know but I do know that like if you hire a person with his background and his personality and pair him with the resources that Florida offers, that's usually a pretty good combination for success. Yeah. He sounds like a guy, like if you listen to that interview, if you've ever talked to him, he sounds like a guy who can hang with the two guys we're about to talk about. And so John Sumrall, we got done, and John went over to Spurrier's Gridiron Grill, which is where they were giving out the Steve Spurrier Award to the top first-year coach, which was actually former Florida coach Dan Mullen, who is now at UNLV. but also the freshman of the year, which was for the offense, was Malachi Tony, baby Jesus from Miami, and was Ellis Robinson, the DB from Georgia. Their coaches came along. So Mario Cristobal and Kirby Smart came along, and they got to get up and talk about their players, but that turned into a roast, and maybe the greatest college football roast we've ever seen. So we'll start with Kirby Smart. And I want to thank Jeff Centel and the folks at Dog Nation and the Atlanta Journal for this video Because it is if you never gotten to really see Kirby work a room maybe you don't understand. Maybe you think Kirby Smart is just a football coach who yells all the time. You've heard the pregame speeches. Kirby Smart is funny as hell. We're talking about a former all-SEC safety who can break your balls with the best of them. So here is Kirby Smart stealing the microphone. from Chris Doering, who was emceeing the event, and basically just taking over. Well, first of all, he was an incredible family, and he was a joy to recruit. We had a great time, had a great relationship. They were fun-loving. Just being back with them tonight, I hadn't got a chance to talk to them in a while, and they were going back and forth about the 50th birthday party he got and the 50th birthday party she got, and it wasn't quite the same. Mama wins out when it comes to that, but we probably sponsored that trip with all the NIO money we spent, So I promise you that's a good, safe bet. But that's all right. They deserve it. Margo's right behind them, and if it had been up to him, he would have paid a lot more NL money. It came down to us, too, so I don't like you being real close to Margo right now. You know what I'm saying? He's still got another year left. Got to be careful around Margo. Sometimes he'll take your players, if you know what I mean. But, no, I'm just kidding. It's all right. I was talking to Mario earlier, and he came up to me, and he gave me a Lane Tiffin joke. And he and Lane are very similar in a lot of ways. They're like best friends. And he came up to me. He's like, you ought to start getting on some protein shakes. You've had too many carbs. And I said, well, you probably ought to spend some time with Steve Spurrier because he won more conference championships at Duke than you have in Miami. So Coach Berger and him, they got to visit some. I don't know why you're over here laughing too now. Coach, I'm wrong. I got to ask you a question. I'm out. Is your daughter a realtor? Did I hear that right? Is she the best realtor in Gainesville? One of the best. One of the best, okay. Well, you're the fourth coach I've played since being at Georgia, So she's getting a lot of money sold houses. She's going through it. And I have tremendous respect for this town. I had no idea how great a basketball town this really was. Kirby's smart with the room in the palm of his hand in Gainesville. Genuinely funny. In Gainesville? That is incredible. You know how some people try to be funny and just aren't? It felt like he wasn't trying to be funny and was hilarious. And you're going to see this with Mario because Mario has a rebuttal. Remember what these guys' job is. These guys have to lead 18 to 22-year-olds. They have to inspire them. They have to get them interested, keep them interested. They also have to recruit. They have to be able to speak to anybody from any walk of life and be able to connect with them almost immediately. So I think we get this notion in our heads of what they're like all the time based on what we see in press conferences. That's not really what they're like. These guys are skilled communicators a lot of the time because of what they have to do. And so they are very quick on their feet. You saw that with Kirby. Like Kirby, we need Kirby at the improv because I don't think he wrote that going in because I don't think they were told. I'll have to call Chris Doering and find out if they were told that this was a roast. I don't think that's the case. I think Kirby decided to make it a roast instantly. And that's what you got. Now, Mario, not to be outdone. And I want to thank Jack Leo for this video. so mario is up there and by the way steve spurrier being on the stage this is his restaurant uh being on the stage as this is going on is the most appropriate thing ever because he's the og who invented all of this so i am enjoyed watching steve spurrier in in this video you're going to see more of steve spurrier reacting watching steve spurrier react might be my favorite part but here is mario responding to kirby I tell you what, the first thing is, it's a great piece right there to watch what a player like Carson Beck could do with great coaching. You know what I mean? No, seriously, let's give it up for Kirby's heart. Let's give it up for Kirby's heart. If it wasn't for all his years of pre-NIL, we wouldn't have NIL right now. The Robinson family, great seeing you. We leave at 9.30 on the real event. We have more than one restaurant in Miami as opposed to Athens. Certainly appreciate being here. I know I could go on for a little bit. You know you gotta give a guy like Kirby credit, you know, I mean, when you have all that time to sit at home watching us play on TV We can all take care of business, you know, but congratulations on the SEC in the championship. That's awesome We were 5-0 against the SEC. I don't know what you were, but Man, I'm in enemy territory too I gotta feel like some of you are on Kirby's side But no, you guys are super professional. I never felt so welcome in enemy territory. Let's have last hit the swamp, 41-17. That was a man. That was a man for that guy. That's a Georgia guy. Can we all say screw Georgia? Screw Georgia. Alright, on to the real stuff. But I didn't know this was like this. You tell me to do this. But it is an honor to be among us. Awesome coaches. Thank you, Coach. All right. So that is Mario Cristobal. Lots to unpack there. My favorite minority goes to Ellis Robinson's family. The jet leaves at 930. We have more than one restaurant in Miami. It's funny. because everybody has good points too and you make these jokes and everybody can get their moment in the sun uh now obviously to you know mirror it back to the beginning of the show here andy it's john summerall's time to start doing something to get his own material um and that's what he can't he can't respond he like he's one of those in private i'm sure he can chop it up with these guys he can't do that publicly like kirby and mario have earned that at this point yeah and you We always just remember what happened in the last season, but there's a lot of data there. I had to go look this up. When Miami was 5-0 against the SEC, they only played three SEC teams last year. Well, his math's a little off. He lost to Texas A&M his first year, so he's 5-1. Yeah, if he's doing it since the beginning. But whatever, don't let information or facts get in the way. He's won five of the last five against the SEC. Yes, but he is... Got that thing running, too, which makes Summerall's job a little bit harder, Andy. You know, we always discuss, can all three Florida teams be good at the same time? And I think maybe now, for the first time in history, the answer to that question could be yes, because of how rosters are built. But Miami has a lot of work to do right now, but yes. Florida State has a lot of work to do, but it's still, like, has it ever been possible? Like, you would know this better than me. Have any, is there any time in history where all three were, like, top 10? Early 90s. Yeah, the early 90s, they were all good. The late 90s, Miami had the NCAA issues, probation, and dipped for a minute. But they were also, at the end of the 90s, going into the 2000s, they were all three very good. So, like, 2001, Bobby Bowden still had it rolling. Miami wins the national title. I think the 2001 Florida team is probably Steve Spurrier's best team, but it didn't end up winning anything because there was a lost Auburn in there. but yeah I absolutely know it can happen and have seen it happen when so early 90s I'm in high school yeah I mean early 90s I'm in high school and it is everybody's good and I hated all three programs I was a South Carolina fan growing up so it was annoying listening to all the the fans of the different three programs at my school just going going at each other what is your theory about that Sorry. My theory is that Nick Saban ruined their chances of all being good at the same time because he took too many good players out of Florida and then made it easier and started a trend for for players to leave Florida, which made it impossible for any of the three to get as much as they need to be elite. Or at least certainly all three of them to get enough players to be elite because all their best players were going. Who's the who's the best player currently playing college football from who's from the state of Florida right now? Where does he play? He plays at Ohio State. Yeah, that's Jeremiah Smith. Before that, there's maybe a year gap in between, but Jalen Carter at one point was the best Floridian playing in college football, and he played for Georgia. So, yeah, it's tough because it wasn't really a secret that there were better players in Florida, but people like Nick Saban, people like Kirby Smart, people like Urban Meyer slash Ryan Day got really good at getting the good players out of Florida. Yeah, but here's the other side of the coin too. Maybe not next year, but the year after, it's quite possible that the best player in college football is from Miami and plays for Miami, and that's Malachi Tony. So you need that shift to change, but there were certain Bama classes, if I'm recalling correctly, any that had like 11 players from Florida. And they always seem to get the best receiver. right isn't Jerry Judy from Amari Cooper so you know like a lot of the best receivers like you said were from there and it's like well back in 2001 the year that you referenced those players would have been at one of those three schools so and they weren't anymore but you know now that Nick Saban's not in the picture anymore maybe that'll revert back a little bit but I think it's been easier in the last 20 years for players who grew up in Florida to leave Florida. And obviously with years that go by with teams being down, the ease of that only gets simpler, right? So you need to get better. And the thing is, like, Sumrall takes over from Billy Napier. The one thing I will say that Sumrall and Napier probably have in common is they do believe in recruiting out of high school, developing those types of players, especially when you have a lot of good ones around you. We've talked to Mario. You and I have talked to Mario a lot about how they put their roster together, and they find it very important to have some homegrown talent. Malachi Tony is a good one, but we go back to CeCe Maui Noah, who was not originally from Florida, but he was playing at IMG, so he was in the state, and they bring him in. But they are going to continue to recruit, especially on the line of scrimmage, Miami. Who are the three best players on Miami's team last year? Here are my three. Malachi, Tony, Akeem Mesidor, and Ruben Bain. Where are all three from? Akeem Mesidor is from Canada. Yeah, he played Clearwater. yeah so the yeah there was an there was a program actually wrote a story about that program for the athletic um where they they brought in a ton of international guys uh but i i will do you yeah i would have said maui noah reuben bain yeah like i tony i forgot about cc and that means yeah like take a walk nobody the combine has so yeah yeah i'm sorry cc you're right you're probably number one that's the joke of it yeah uh but yeah producer river point that clearwater academy international is the name of the school i it was one of my first stories for the athletic it was a very interesting school like uh scientology members started the school uh and then i missed that story andy it was 2019 it was a long time ago i don't know i would have missed it we both were yeah there was a lot going on in that story a whole lot and that coach is actually still working down that way, but he's at a different school now. But it was fascinating because they were getting guys from Europe, they were getting guys from Canada, and Akeem was one of those guys. And Akeem went to West Virginia for his freshman year, was really good, and Miami grabbed him. So that was – the Mario Cristobal Kirby thing, though, we got to have that. We got to have them play in the playoff. Well, it makes me fantasize, too, of what if coaches talked publicly the way that fans talk to each other online? we just saw it. It's amazing. This would be awesome if it was always like that. But the thing that I do, I know it was all in good fun and they were roasting each other, but like, there is still a part of me that knows that Kirby smart was like fired up by it. And like, we'll go home now and just like, well, and Mario clearly was like, so Kirby's Kirby went first. Mario was responding. And like, you could tell Mario is like taking notes. Yeah. Kirby was talking. Yeah. So get them on the schedule, boys. Don't do the thing that you've been doing. Let's just play. No, but they can get themselves on the schedule faster by just getting paired up by the committee. Yeah. Get paired up in the bracket. And which, okay, Miami made it last year. Georgia's made it every year. Georgia-Miami in the playoff would be electric. It would be incredible. Because this is part of it. They meet on the recruiting trail. That was what... a lot of this was is Ellis Robinson, his two finalists, as Kirby pointed out, were Miami and Georgia, which as long as Kirby's at Georgia and Mario's at Miami, that's going to happen a lot. Yeah. And Miami is also going to be taking part in more games that are nationally relevant than ever before. And I believe we have a call out. If you missed it yesterday to email us your picks or tweeted us or whatever for most intriguing Miami. Sorry, most intriguing non-conference games. And I think that Miami is definitely. Oh, no, no, no. Most intriguing games. It doesn't have to be non-conference. It can be conference games too. Most intriguing games from a storyline perspective, not non-conference. In 2026. Yes, it's not dream matchups. These are, I want matchups that are on the schedule now. You had a great email sent to you with a bunch of Big Ten ones. This is going to be fun. We're going to do this on Monday's show where we just the juiciest made it we have to rank them like we're gonna rank them yeah we will yeah yeah Miami uh just to tease you on some of the juicy ones like Miami Notre Dame is probably gonna be up there pretty high based on Duke's pretty high too yeah so Miami may make the list a couple times let's yeah which is the point I fumbled through to try to make but yes uh I think that Miami is is going to be inherently interesting moving forward and you know roasts certainly stoked the fire a little bit but yeah we need we really need to have one of these every few months come on our roast you Zignetti in a roast You know because like Cristobal was pretty spicy on our show a few times last year when the playoff deliberations were happening He said some things, you know, in passing, but were put there on purpose that were pretty strong opinions. So Mario, it's interesting when you get pushed into that situation, how willing you are to say some incendiary things publicly. and that he, I mean, they felt like their backs were against the wall at that point. With a respectful tone. Unloading. I love, I like the most, the burns that burn the most are always said in a respectful tone. Yeah, yeah. I said respectfully. All right. More coaching fun with another guy who's great on the mic. Jed Fish, the Washington coach, joins us on tomorrow's show. He's outstanding. We're going to talk to him about the DeMond Williams situation, getting him back in the fold at Washington, and just how much Washington brings back after a nine-win season in 2025. So get excited for that one. That's going to be fun. Another connection to a coach we had on our show. So Ari, on Friday, we had Joey McGuire from Texas Tech on the show, and he had an idea about how you could change the college football schedule that might help a lot of the other issues that the sport is dealing with. And what he basically said is just shift the calendar a week earlier and start playing at the end of August instead of Labor Day weekend and finish the season a little bit earlier. And I wrote a column about it right afterward. And one of the things I pointed out is one of the constituencies that's going to have to come around to this idea is the U.S. Military Academy and the Naval Academy. Army and Navy are going to have to come around on that idea because they play when they play. It's very important to them. They have a window all to their own. It's exclusive. It's on CBS. And the idea of them moving the game has seemed pretty unlikely. But our friend Seth Emerson from The Athletic got a really interesting quote from Jeff Munkin, the Army coach, in a story that came out on Monday. And that is, they might be open to moving the game to Thanksgiving weekend, which I don't know if that necessarily goes hand in hand with what Joey was saying, but I think it might allow for, yeah, a little flexibility. So, you know, in college football, there are a lot of traditions that people hold on to, right? And the Army-Navy game is certainly one of the institutions of the sport. Yes. And when it's played, I think, has been important to the people who consume it for a long, long time. But we are getting to a place in college football where institutions and traditions and certain ways of doing things have to change for things to be functional. And my opinion of this has always been that if you want to honor the game, what's more important than when it's played is if it matters. and I think the one thing that has always taken away from it, in my opinion, is that it's after the season is basically already finished and the playoff stuff is in the barn and you're just kind of playing a game and maybe just the heart of competition and playing your rivalry is enough for most people. But I think back to two years ago when both of these teams were undefeated and got off to a really hot start and they both were in playoff projections and their games in the American mattered. How much better that game would have been had it been played between two undefeated teams with playoff aspirations. The exclusive viewing window is nice, but you know who doesn't really need an exclusive viewing window? It's the Iron Bowl. You know who doesn't have an exclusive window? Ohio State, Michigan. You know who watches all these games? It doesn't matter what else is on TV. That's the thing. and I don't know if Army Navy, if played on a regular weekend with a bunch of other games on there, would get the attention that it does. I don't think it would, and I don't think that's even in the discussion. I think you've got to find a place for it where it's still special. Now, the question is, it's a conference game now, so can you even do that? Could you play it on a Wednesday night in the middle of the week? You're not going to make it like Maction. You're not going to make it like Maction. Now, the Thanksgiving thing, well, first let's hear what Joey said, and then we can talk about where it fits. All the stuff that people were talking about the portal, the reason that it's an issue is because it's opening and we still have, like this year, the national championships can be played on January 25th. Y'all think about it. You just took this year and you said that it was on the 25th. You had the Shrine Bowl being played before the national championship. You had the Senior Bowl in Mobile practicing the same time is the national championship. You know, you would have, you know, like next year, I'll have my team currently, hopefully playing in the playoffs and all my new guys. So everybody's solution is, well, we need to move the portal. No, we need to fix that football is supposed to be played in the first semester. And every other division, like FCS, They played their national championship on January 5th. Like, it's amazing that we can't do that, that we haven't figured that out yet. And so my, what I would do is I would move zero week. So this last year, everybody would have played August 23rd. And we would have played it out like that. The conference championship game would have been on Thanksgiving. That would have been a great Thanksgiving weekend. And then you start playing the playoffs the next week. If you have a bye, you have a true bye, just like it is in the regular season. It's a bye. And then you're playing every six to seven days. And if you did it that way this year, you actually would have had the national championship on January 1st. And then the portal or the issues that you're talking about with the portal, they don't come into effect because now the portal is opening outside of the football season. So the other thing I pointed out in that column about Joey's idea is one, you have to figure out where you're going to put the Army-Navy game. Two, you need more inventory on Thanksgiving weekend if you move rivalry weekend to the preceding weekend. So if you're taking Ohio State-Michigan off of the Saturday after Thanksgiving, you're taking the Iron Bowl off the Saturday after Thanksgiving, you're moving all those to the previous week, which I don't think would hurt the ratings at all. I know there's ESPN and Fox executives who might disagree with me. I don't think it matters when you play those games. they will get big ratings, especially if they are still the last regular season game. But they will want more inventory on Thanksgiving weekend than championship weekend currently allows for. So for Army-Navy, could you do 330 exclusive Black Friday window? That takes care of one window. Because you've got to fill two. Because remember, Black Friday is a big day too. In this viewing window, Andy, would the game still be a regular season game? Yes. Okay. It would count. It would be what it is now. It would be the Army-Navy game. But the Army-Navy game didn't count. No. I want it to count. That's the problem. I know, but they want something different. You can want it to count in the American standings all you want. Yeah. That's not what they care about here. they want it to be special and alone and guess what they have the juice to do that well your timing sounds great now the complicating factors what if they're in the american race because the american championship game would be played the same weekend i think it would be awesome if they played that game but it doesn't matter what i want but it It would be great if they played that. Could you imagine the American Conference Championship game was just the Army-Navy game? They'd have to qualify for it. I'm going to get us right into the situation. If this happens, then it'll just be the... What if one is in it and one's not? Which has happened already. Then play it on the moon. I don't know. Yeah, that's the issue. But the fact that they're willing to talk about this suggests that I think the people in charge of the sport maybe i don't know if it's joey's idea that they like so much but they're warming to it because i think when people saw the calendar which everybody knew when the national title game for next year was anyway it was it had been announced years ago that it was going to be on january 25th but as soon as people saw the calendar it's like oh god yeah this is too long if they're able to if If they're able to at least open up their mind to moving it, does when they move it matter as much? I think that, like, what if they had, if they moved everything up like Joey did and then they did a true week zero game, even on top of that in mid-August, that was Army-Navy by itself to start the season. That's an idea at a time when people are desperate for football. Yeah, and it could count in the American standings and everybody would. It would get massive ratings. If some CBS exec wants to tell me why that wouldn't work, please call. You know how to find me. Maybe there's a certain time of year being cold. I like the snow. The snow, all that stuff is kind of part of it. So I know that that would probably be out of the picture unless global warming has some weird things going on. But your whole offseason could be built around – because we talk about the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry. the Auburn-Alabama rivalry, the Utah-BYU rivalry, the Egg Bowl. All these rivalries where the two sides really hate each other. This is one that there's mutual respect, obviously, because once they're done, they all got to work together. This is maybe the most intense rivalry in all of college football. Well, the Army-Navy game, too, kind of like is the signal that college football is over or is ending. What if Army-Navy was a celebration of its commencement? it's not a bad idea. And you're right. Then it would count in the American standings. And you wouldn't have to, it wouldn't have to exist outside the American schedule. Like it wouldn't have to exist with the teams already playing in the championship or not having played the championship. Yeah. I think that would be, I think that's doable. It's just a thought exercise. Yeah. But if they're willing to move it somewhere, that means they're willing to move it. Well, I think they understand they're going to lose that, exclusive window on that weekend, which is the same weekend they gave out the Heisman Trophy. The playoffs take in that one. Sooner or later. I think this is an acknowledgement that that's coming. They've got to figure out what they want to do. I do think the Army-Navy game should be a standalone game that everybody gets to watch. Everybody watches it with a full heart knowing that this is the beginning of the most glorious time of year. I could live with that. I could also do it Thanksgiving weekend, but your way is a little cleaner. Thanksgiving weekend, maybe you get snow still. And that gives us football two or three weeks earlier than we usually get it. I'm not opposed. I'm not opposed. I like it. We're generating ideas. And thanks to Joey McGuire, by the way, because we got some feedback on that, and Joey's got some allies out there. Yeah, I think that for the most part, there's not much. You want to talk about simple and easy and clean. Move the schedule up two weeks. Yeah, unfortunately, in the bureaucracy that is higher education and college everything, where they create committees to decide if we're going to create a task force to create another committee. That's just too simple. I got to make it more complex than that. It can't be that easy. Yeah, but maybe it is. We'll see. One more thing before we go. We did have a discussion of Darren Peterson in Kansas yesterday. And what did I say? Watch them keep winning. Watch them run Bill Self's big Monday home record to 41. And they did. They kicked Houston's butt in the second half. Great defense. Peterson didn't have the best game in the world, but he was playing at the end. He did. Peterson was 5 of 14 from the floor. He started off 2 of 9 and finished with 14 points. That's not a bad game for somebody who had been taking some flack, played the whole game. and yeah, 69-56 win over Houston. Yeah, it was a good game. White and Council had great games. White with 23 points, 6 of 9 from the field, and the Kansas defense just shut Houston down in the second half. So one of the things that I think future societies are going to have to study is Bill Self's record on big Monday home games because it's always a good opponent, and he still wins. No matter what's going on in the world, no matter what happened the game before the game after. Yeah. Then they got down like 11 to two, right? To start the game. Yeah, he was controlling it for about the first 15 minutes. And then Kansas started to really smother him defensively. So that was just the bills. And I will say. Bill self has handled this situation about as well as any coach could. The because it's not comfortable. It's not easy. He's getting hard questions. And I'm sure he's dealing with it from the other side, from the Peterson camp. And I think he's handled it well. Now, listen, it's Kansas. They've still got to be good, go deep in the tournament. If they go out in the round of 32, the fan base isn't going to be happy. But it's a bad situation or tough situation that could get turned into something good if they put it together down the stretch. But I just want to point that out because we talked about it so long yesterday. but Bill Self is unreal in those moments. And I just want to know how he does it every single freaking big Monday that they're in Lawrence. Yeah, well, keep charging on. And that's the type of team, too, that could get hot in the tournament and make a run. Exactly. There was no drama, and it was just good basketball, and I enjoyed watching it last night. It was fun. So probably not great for first take this morning. but yeah. Oh, well, what are you going to do? All right. Jed fish, Washington coach on the show tomorrow. And it's a mega board Wednesday. We will find the most fun slash unhinged slash thought provoking message board threads from across the on three network, man. It's been a fun week already. Cannot wait for you to hear Jed fish tomorrow. Bye.