(upbeat music) - Hey, what's going on? This is the Saturday Night South podcast. I am Sean O'Gara. Will, we are back after a mini break, ready to talk some pigskin today. But before we do, we're gonna get into Brent Benables, that extension news came out Friday that I think raised some eyebrows. We're gonna talk about a lot of stuff with Jesse Simonson, things related to the Heisman, Ole Miss, Walter Nolan, different storylines, and then we'll end with a lot of the week. But Will, I had this realization driving back from Fort Myers, and it hit me when I got into a gas station and I was solo, which solo on a road trip for me has been such a rare occurrence in the last nine years of my life, that I don't wanna say I had a panic attack in a gas station, but I was scrambling looking for a go-to gas station snack. And I had already eaten, so there's the context, I had eaten lunch a couple hours ago, I needed something to kind of keep me awake a little bit, a little bit better than just, you know, podcast or music or something like that, and I was like, I need something a little bit sweet, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I ended up just getting a panic pick of fruit snacks, and I felt so stupid. What should I have done in that spot? - Beef jerky. - I should have, dang. You know, I told myself something sweet would be great, but then I also told myself, I'm gonna get something that I never have with Lauren, Lauren's not a big fruit snacks person or anything like that. Lauren also not a big beef jerky person, I am. If beef jerky were $6.99 a bag at the grocery store or something like that, I would get it every single time. I think it's that good. That's the easy answer, but it's the right answer, I think. - Yeah, and you can get a little bit of sweet and sour going on, you know, the thing about beef jerky is it smells terrible. So it's the best to have when you're by yourself, 'cause you have no one to shame. So I think that's a pretty open and shut case. I think, you know, for me, I'll go beef jerky, something with some caffeine. Right, if it's earlier in the day, maybe all, you know, it just depends, right? Like you never wanna really mix coffee and beef jerky, so maybe I'll do like a coffee course, hang it out, maybe hit a chip, go back to the beef jerky, you know, kind of like a pitcher selecting their rotation. But then, you know, there's nothing better than the energy drinking your choice, mix with the beef jerky, dudes being dudes, alone in the car, blaring in some creed, you know what I'm saying? And have no one to judge, you don't wanna smell you, no one to see you, just living in your own little ozone layer right there. - You know, the energy drink dilemma, the coffee dilemma, was something that probably initiated my mini panic attack because I also told myself, it's like three, three, 30. I've got two more hours left on this drive. I'm just stopping, gotta use the facilities real quick and just need something to keep me awake. And I always think that if I have caffeine after two 30, it's just gonna keep me up all night. Even now, at this stage of dad life, I still tell myself that. But man, I was in No Man's Land and it was a really, really weird place to be. I didn't have, you know, like usually Lauren's there to be like, you know, maybe she's already got an idea of something that she wants and I'm able to kind of pair off that. But somebody listening to this can relate to the exact dilemma of solo road trip that felt so unbelievably unfamiliar. But we got through it, got through it, it's next, we're fine. - Got a little trash hypo in your game, right? The scripted plays, always very good. We get off script, you know, you just never know what's gonna happen there. - Over on script where you can score gets the 85 Bears, man, we can do it, but yeah, give me off script, it's a problem. - I have a road trip question for you that I've started to ask you a couple of times. So maybe you have an insane person, but do you ever find yourself just like developing rivalries with other cars when you're on a road trip? Like maybe I'm just like that type of dude, but like somebody cuts you off, right? And like, I'm like mentally, I put a tracking dart on him and I'm like, I wanna see where this ultimately gets you now that you've cut me off. I wanna see how far ahead, like if I never see you again, good job, you made the right choice. But usually that person will cut you off and they'll get stuck in your orbit for a little bit and you kind of give him a little head nod, like glad you did that, does that happen to you too? - A little bit, my dad, when we were in the car and he would get cut off by somebody, not necessarily road trips scenario, but my dad would often say, see it the light, bro. That's his default, every single time. Sure enough, every single time we'd see him at the light and I'd be like, oh, I guess speeding in this area, going 55 and a 40 didn't really get that person where they wanted to go. Yeah, I make mental notes all the time, I do. I am the type of person where I will, I will think to myself, they're really herky jerking and I don't wanna follow them and I just wanna get away from them. I am gonna like speed past them and I look like I'm speeding past them on the right side or something. Or yeah, I will get into a bit of a rivalry and I'll be like, I'm probably just gonna, you know, see you in 10 miles anyway. Or if you're going too slow for me, then I just hope everyone passes you and everyone shames you. Not flipping off, which is shames you into what you're doing right now. - Yeah, I've found it's often the vans and the like, now at this point, 2000's kind of like crappy cars that will take these unnecessary risks on the freeway, bro, like the interstate and they'll take, they always take the risks and when it's two lanes, you know what I'm saying? They always take these crazy risks that could get in the car wreck and then my joke is always, I'll see you when it turns three lanes 'cause these people never wanna go fast. They never wanna hit 90 and actually take the risk. They just wanna win that little rip where it doesn't really matter. So it's like it'll widen out to three lanes. You'll see this car that's just caught off eight people behind you and you're like, "Bro, what little game of Tetra?" Like what was the purpose of making all those people mad? Then you get the motorcycle that's gotta do the bag and you're just like, wait, three more seconds, guy, it'll be fine. It'll be okay. Okay, that was a mini figuring out for the people. Haven't done a figuring out in a minute. That was a good one for you. All right, let's talk about this Brent Venables extension. On Friday, P-Fam will tweets, "Sources, Oklahoma has agreed to a new six-year contract "for coach Brent Venables. "The new six-year deal includes a significant raise "for Venables and there's been an uptick "in overall program commitment as OU heads "to the SEC," close quote. I had a lot of thoughts on that, but most importantly was how significant that raise was for Venables. Drink every time you hear me say the word significant on today's show. After all, I mean, let's think about it. This was a guy who I think, if you're looking at this from the outside, you can go, he has yet to get to a New Year's Six Bowl at Oklahoma. He went 10 and eight against big 12 competition so far and as our guy, Shay Hanjia Raja pointed out, he was the third Oklahoma coach to lose to Kansas and Oklahoma State in the same season since 1933. I think that was the FDR administration. - Gosh, that's gotta be like great depression area. It's gotta be FDR, I feel. - Yeah, it's been a minute. But if we don't want to judge year one coaches and point out that Venables led Oklahoma to its first losing season of the 21st century, if we don't wanna say that that's on his resume 'cause that's a year one deal, we would say a coach who led a four win improvement getting a, quote, significant raise isn't out of the realm of possibility, especially when you understand that it's a Jimmy Sexton client, huge piece of the equation with this. So when I see that tweet from Pete Thamel, and I'm seeing like also, okay, this isn't a surprise, this has been kind of going back to January, this is not necessarily something that just came out of nowhere. I am still thinking, wow, maybe Oklahoma moved Venables into that $9 million club, which now includes Kayla Naboor, Kirby Smart, Mark Stoops, Brian Kelly, Eli Drinkowitz, Lane Kiffen, Josh Hyples, Steve Sarkisian. Those are the SEC coaches who are making at least nine million bucks in this conference, okay? Mark Stoops seems like a great value now, look at that. - Um, yeah, you could say that depending on your perspective if you wanna say nine million bucks for the best coaching program history, I think if you could tell any college football fan base, hey, you have your best coach in college football history, and the going rate is nine million dollars per year, they'd say, sure, why not, even at a place like Kentucky? So I would assume, and maybe I'm incorrect in making this assumption, you know what they say about assumptions, but I would assume that a significant raise would be going from the $7.25 million club up to the $9 million club. Oklahoma, a case you haven't heard, is about to join the SEC this time next week, July 1st, and perhaps they want to make it look like Venables is every bit as valuable as those nine million dollar coaches in the SEC, more on that in a bit here, okay? But then I saw the terms of the deal from Mason Young. It's a new six year contract, which essentially means it's a two year extension, right? He was two years into his previous six year deal, they just took two years on, he's now signed on through the rest of the decade. Original deal, it went through 2027, and now it's through 2029. And the question that I was very eager to find out was how significant was that raise? In 2024, he's gonna make $7.2 million. That in 2025, it jumps up to $7.625 million, 2026, 7.725, and then stays the same in 2027. It was 7.725, and then in 2028, it maxes out at 7.825, and then, well, I shouldn't say max down 2028. Finally, you're the deal, 7.925 million. That'll be the annual pay in 2029. So at no point did this deal. Well, Venables even joined the $8 million club. Instead of maxing out at 7.5 million, like he would have on his previous contract, he would max out at $7.925 million. Any of us, okay, I am saying this, any of us would love a world in which we could get an extra $400,000 per year to do our job after just two years on that job, okay? We would all love that. That would be great, but it's only a 5.7% raise. Significant? I don't think so. I don't really think that's significant. Not in this profession. Maybe in our profession, it's significant because raises are so difficult to come by, at least in terms of the world of sports media, even if you're good, excluding like the Stephen A. Smiths of the world who want $25 million. For most of us, no matter what business we're in, we're not making national headlines for a 5.7% raise, or at least we're not allowed to call it significant. That's got Jimmy Sexton written all over it, all over it. If you could like subpoena the text back and forth between Jimmy Sexton and Pete Thamel, I bet in that exact text, he had the word significant. Hey, make sure you say this. Everybody always dogs shifter. We're basically just copying and pasting these text that he gets from agents. Pete Thamel's doing the same thing, all right? Yep, same exact thing. That's how Thamel gets his information and shares it to the world. Hours ahead of Oklahoma, having this Board of Regents meeting to be able to approve this contract, which they ultimately did. The Jimmy Sexton masterclass is still in the works here, even if the increasing compensation is far from the most impressive thing that Jimmy Sexton has ever done. What is the most impressive thing that Jimmy Sexton has ever done, you ask? Getting Jimbo Fisher more money than God? That's up there. Getting into Ola Kayla Naborro's Alabama's Fresh Choice. That's a pretty good Jimmy Sexton masterclass. That's pretty good. I think Jimbo was always gonna get paid 'cause money is paper, it's toilet paper day and day. I think that's been job because I brought it up at the time. Awesome. The fact that they were like, we didn't even talk to Dan Lanning and people were like, yeah, that probably happened. Yeah, okay, maybe, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. What about Will Muschamp getting a combined $19 million in buyout money from two of the SEC programs? That's Jimmy Sexton masterclass. This is pretty good. I don't wanna say that's the first thing on his resume, but it's gotta be up there. It has to be. But this is Sexton going to the negotiating table with a plan and recognizing all the moving parts that are in play. It's June. Venables isn't turning down other programs left and right. So everybody always asks like, "Oh, who's he competing against?" blah, blah, blah. No, this isn't some Lincoln Riley situation, of course, where he's being courted by USC, behind closed doors and all those things are happening. But the Riley part is worth mentioning with the Venables extension. I cannot emphasize this enough. I feel like I say it every single time I talk about Oklahoma, but it is always worth bringing up. Oklahoma is still determined to win the breakup. That is leverage in favor of Brent Fenibals. And you better believe Jimmy Sexton knows that. He absolutely knows that. OU fans are defensive of him because they want nothing more than for Venables to be competing for a national title after Riley ditched the program because he couldn't win a national title. And Venables was essentially left to pick up the pieces. It would be the ultimate flex if Oklahoma could do this because Oklahoma knows, hey, we were Oklahoma long before Lincoln Riley was here and we're gonna be Oklahoma long before Lincoln Riley, or long after Lincoln Riley leaves. They were still talent, but Riley tried to bring current players and recruits over to USC and that stuff stings. It just does, okay? Recruiting, that's the other part of this. This is something that Venables had working in his favor that Jimmy Sexton also recognized. Family's follow up tweet kind of says it all. He links to the ESPN news story on the extension and then adds that Venables has ESPN's number seven recruiting class for 2025. Athletic directors love the idea of an extension building recruiting momentum. I remember Bill Moose talking about it like 2019, I think. Maybe 2018 was Scott Frost. And Scott Frost got this inexplicable extension in 2018. Like heading into the home stretch of recruiting. And Bill Moose comes out and says, what everybody's thinking of, like, yeah, you know, we were just trying to build a little bit of recruiting momentum wasn't actually based on anything he was doing on the field, but you know what? You just don't wanna have some of these conversations. And athletic directors, it's not money that's coming out of their pocket. And they can do these sort of things to try and push these buttons. I personally would love if there's some way to give a breakdown of that stat. Because while I know for certainly that plenty of recruits care about a coach's job security, I don't know that it's something that brings in that much more talent and the way that athletic directors and agents would probably make you think. Oklahoma doesn't need any help in recruiting. But the fact that Venables has had nothing but top eight classes so far, and it looks like he's in really good shape to have another top eight class, that's something that Jimmy Sexton could bring to that negotiating table and say, let's work out this extension right now. Say what you will about the, is Oklahoma, SEC writing question, something that we talked about with Derek Peterson, what everyone can agree on is that there is a certain threshold you need to meet if you are going to emerge from the SEC and compete for national championships. A topic we discussed a lot with Kayla Nebor. Something, oh, is he gonna be able to meet this certain threshold? Is he still gonna try and tell you that you can win this way with three stars? Because that's what it looked like at Washington, and I would argue early return suggests. Guy recognizes you need to get blue chip talent into the door, TBD on how all of that process works out. Oklahoma is determined to meet that threshold. They want that stability. They recognize there is an uptick that they need to have. Go back to that original tweet from Tamil, the uptick. That's a key part of this. Oklahoma also determined to make sure that nobody places like this on places like the Paul Finebom show, Andy Staples, wherever. They do not want people going, hmm, you know, renovable's job security, man. I don't know that he's locked in for 2025. I don't know. They don't want to have those discussions in their first year in the SEC. As I look at these schedules in the preseason based on how I think teams will perform in 2024, a lot of that's heavily weighted on what they did in 2023. But as I look at this in the preseason, Florida is the only team in America with a tougher schedule than Oklahoma. Maybe that'll change. Chances are that will change. But that's just how this is being viewed right now. Again, when this extension is signed. Maybe that'll change. Maybe the gauntlet won't be quite a gauntlet and it's going to be more favorable. They'll get some breaks with quarterbacks being hurt here or there. Who knows? But this is just as we look at it from the onset. If Oklahoma's 18-4 will, I feel like I'm going to be defending Oklahoma and wondering how many conference champs across the country Oklahoma could beat. That's what I feel like is something that I probably wouldn't have said a few years ago. And we had all of this proof of Oklahoma continue to win the big 12 and then get on this stage and oh, we see their shortcomings and this is why they can't beat the SEC on this stage. I think that changes with the type of team that they could have this year and being on the wrong end of those games year after year and recognizing this is how we have to actually improve and seeing what that could look like over the course of an entire season and not just a one-game sample size. But by giving Venables this extension without a significant race, sorry, I'll disagree with Pete Emil on that, you're trying to convey a certain message. The message is our guy is progressing and we believe that he is the right person to lead us into this new era of SEC football. And again, like for win improvement, that's progressing by any stretch of the imagination. That is a significant improvement. Even if that doesn't feel like the destination for Oklahoma, you still made progress last year. And look, I understand that you were starting at a different place than you ever have in the 21st century, first losing season in the 21st century, the only way to go was up, but still it is improvement. And I feel like Director can say these things. And look, they won't even make headlines. A contract extension that makes headlines. That's acknowledgement of progression. Ahead of an important stretch for Oklahoma, both in joining the SEC and being able to face all these teams at media days, make of that what you will. All right, some of that is just PR and trying to win that war. But it's an important stretch with recruiting. Today is actually the start of a recruiting dead period that'll go into late July. I'm sure they'd like to be able to get on the right end of that as well. This makes a statement without necessarily giving Brent Vanibals a blank check, okay? As Dan will tweet it. Possibly straight from the words of Jimmy Sexton as well. There's been an uptick in overall program commitment as OU heads to the SEC. What does that mean? Uptick at Oklahoma, buddy, like from the boosters, from the administrators, like who, the players, who did we talking about here? It's all overall. How can you have more of an uptick of commitment to the program that what Oklahoma has, all right? But you can spin it in a different way when you do things like this. There is an uptick in commitment to Vanibals. There is an uptick in buyout under this new deal, which I'm assuming based on everything that we've seen so far, I haven't seen anything that officially confirms this, but I'm assuming that it didn't suddenly turn a guaranteed contract, a fully guaranteed contract into a not guaranteed contract, a partially guaranteed contract, or else that would have made significant headlines and probably defeated the purpose of the extension of the first place. Why would you do that? By the way, a fully guaranteed $43.5 million contract for a first time head coach should probably qualify as Jimmy Sexton master class. Yeah, maybe not as high as the little must-chat buyout money, but it's pretty tough to do, man. That's really tough to do. I gotta give these eighties credit 'cause they keep seeing these deals come through and how terribly they go. And every one of them is just like, sure. Like if you're not at like Alabama or Georgia, you just gotta be thinking to yourself, like how much is this if I gonna end up paying? Because nobody just gets to walk off of the sunset anymore. Yeah, I agree. Look, I'll kind of get to the part of the joke is typically on the Oklahoma athletic director and like kind of how they're hoping this works out. But I guarantee you their ideal version of this scenario is not looking at the bio numbers, okay? That the bio numbers we've said over and over again, until you give athletic directors an actual reason to stop agreeing to this, they're going to keep agreeing to them, okay? And that to me is the only part of this deal that's truly significant, right? If you look at what he would be owed, if he's fired after 2024, that number is now up to $38.8 million. If he's fired after 2025, he's owed $31.2 million. And if he's fired after 2026, he's still owed $23.475 million, which was more than Gus Melzahn got from Auburn. That was then the richest buyout ever paid to a fired head coach. So look, hand up here, hand up. I was wrong to ever suggest that Venable's job could be in jeopardy if he struggles in his first season in the SEC, okay? That wrong about that. I might have even been wrong to suggest to Chris Plank or Derek Peterson when we talked a lot of in-depth Oklahoma stuff. I might have been wrong to suggest that he'll be on every hot seat list in America going into next season if he struggles. That's the statement that a deal like this can make, even if the base pay isn't as significant as what Pete Thamel and Jimmy Sexton would like you to believe. I can assure you that Jimmy Sexton is far more focused on the if he struggles part than Oklahoma is. And that's the irony in all of this, okay? Despite what athletic directors would like to present to the world and despite what agents present to the world, they're actually a little bit more focused on kind of the opposite things, which I think this is a good example of that. Sexton can look at this and know that it is harder for him as an agent and with his client to be able to negotiate that post year three extension if there's any sort of drop off in wins, okay? Post year three is ideally not the time you're negotiating that extension, unless you've got a really long-term deal, right? Jimbo Fisher could afford to wait until after year three to negotiate that new deal because when you get a fully guaranteed 10-year, $75 million contract, you don't need to go back to the negotiating table after year two. The damn own thing, I always bring that up, those awkward conversations with Scott Strickland. How much of that was just because of the start of the pandemic where they really delayed everything. They still had those negotiations after year two and then really had to delay them until after year three. And that made for a very strange set of circumstances that I do think impacted Dan Mullen in that strange 2020 season. So ideally, if you are an agent, the way you would like to be able to negotiate is after year two, especially if you're on a six-year deal like this, like what he signed up with and I won't buy the whole, I can't coach, if I have less than four years on my deal thing, I would love to see the breakdown of that as well of how much recruits actually care about that and they're like, oh my God, this coach only has three years left on his contract, can't commit to him. Don't know that's how that actually works, but collectors are so afraid of that that they won't even entertain that thought. So look, I know that Oklahoma fans don't wanna hear this, but this could be a 10-win roster with a team that does not win 10 games, okay? If OU does indeed win 10 games with this schedule, it'll be playoff worthy. And guess what? You know who's going back to the negotiating table and trying to get what would actually be a significant raise into the $9 million club? Jimmy Sexton, that's what he's doing, guaranteed. And if that happens, Oklahoma in a weird way is probably sitting there going, "Hey, that's not the worst thing in the world, all right? That's the cost of doing business in the SEC." And if Oklahoma gets to the playoff in its first year in the SEC with a first year starting quarterback, a new look offensive line, the biggest area that's considered a question mark for this team. For Oklahoma, that says that Venables is ready for the task at hand in the SEC. If you wanna go real into the weeds here, we can point to Oklahoma wanting to make sure that chaos scenario number 10 doesn't play out and suddenly Venables is Clemson's primary target in the post-Abba Sweeney world. That's real into the weeds, but I'm not going there. And it's June, they're not working against that just yet. I don't think that that's necessarily the case. I'm not predicting that's gonna happen. That's just a chaos scenario. I do think it's worth understanding all the layers that go into these deals and not simply running with the headline or running with the Pete family tweet. And you have to look at the history of the program and go, all right, how does this make sense here? Why does this not make sense there? There is still risk in this, okay? Even the most loyal Venables supporters can acknowledge that the Oklahoma standard is among the best in the sport, okay? Whether they join the ICC or not, that was 100% the case. When you have 16 top 10 finishes in the 21st century, yeah, the standard is a bit higher. I think Oklahoma fans actually deserve some credit for not demanding that Venables has to crank out top 10 seasons from the jump or he's gone, okay? That guy actually has a much higher approval rating internally than he does externally. It's more the outside world that assumes these things about him, but this is such a pivotal year for the perception of Venables. And I can see it going in a variety of ways. I am more of the belief that Oklahoma is a 9-3 team and it looks like you would probably beat last year's squad. I think the defensive improvements are coming. I think Jackson Arnold is gonna have his moments and I think there are gonna be times where it's like, hey, you know what, this is a really difficult match up given the strengths and weaknesses of this team. But think about this. The SEC teams with coaches who aren't in the $9 million club, right? Just in case you need a reminder and you don't keep a list like this hand in your eye when notepad or something like that, like I do, okay? All of you, few would fall between them. Don't let them all listen to policies, he coaches. Don't worry, we got you. Speaking to y'all. Okay, so the non-9 million-dollar club coaches, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, and Oklahoma. If I said will, I'll give you one of those teams to make the 12th team playoff this year. Who would be your choice? Because mine is Oklahoma and I'm not even thinking twice about it. Yeah, I think it's Oklahoma and then probably Texas A&M and I think there's a pretty big like tear gap. After that, it's like, good luck. None of these guys are making it. Okay, so if Oklahoma plays its cards right, it'll have a coach who navigated a gauntlet schedule who costs them less money than it did, even at places like Mizzou and Ole Miss who now have coaches in the $9 million club, right? Kentucky is paying that and I don't think Kentucky has 12 team playoff upside. Okay, we know the history with two wins against SEC teams who finish with winning conference record under stoops. Okay, when you understand that history as well. So I think if Oklahoma had just vaulted Venables into the $9 million club, I would have pushed back on the deal. I would have argued more so that they weren't competing against anyone because look, like if he had a good 2024, he would have moved into that club anyway. So why do they jump the gun with that? But this is more of a contract that acknowledges that Oklahoma isn't planning on firing Venables after year three or even year four. They want stability. I don't think it's quite as egregious as what that significant word suggested in the Pete Damill tweet. Oklahoma is going to have a chance to get stability. Okay, it's not given. It's never a given. Nothing's given in this conference. Stability, very hard to come by. But it established some sense of stability in a way that's not without risk but can still potentially be a program friendly contract if Venables continues his progression, a very big gift. And if you're wondering, what are the most redeemable qualities for Brent Venables at Oklahoma so far? If you're just kind of wondering, Connor, you kind of buried the lead here. Like, why is he considered worth this money to begin with at Oklahoma? Why-- - He moves to the top of us as he coaches that would take in the fight. He's up there. - Yeah. - Top four. - Yeah. - Probably. - I think that's the, he's the body guard. You know, he's the enforcer. He really inspires confidence because he's-- - No more cocho. Stoops is still high on that list. You just never bet against a young sound guy. You don't do that. - I'd love to see him in Clark Lee. - Just go at it. I'd still think it's that. - Clark Lee is certainly up there. There are a lot of guys that like, I don't know that they're wired that way or at least I can't say it with certainty. I feel like I'm like Billy Napier, for example. I don't know if Billy Napier in a combat scenario. - Oh, he's got that dog in him. - I would think he would win the fight from the job. That's why I would like him there. - Okay, but like, you know, Beamer could be scrappy. - Oh yeah, Beamer for sure. - Yeah. - Hyrule can take a hit. No doubt about that. Like he can get back off the mat. There's no doubt about it. You know what I mean? Blindside hits that guy probably saw on college, especially he's like a lefty quarterback. Yeah, I mean, just saying thrown out. Okay. We've seen Sarko berserk on that security guard. - I would doubt what he's like. - Yeah, the public's check out line. I think that's where he did the most damage. Anyway, good offseason content. We're going to have to circle back to that one. But yeah, the most redeemable qualities for Brent Benables, top four coaches you wouldn't want to fight in the SEC probably. He just beat Texas's best team in 14 years. That matters. Okay, it just does. He's recruiting at an extremely high level. He's using the portal really, really well. - I do want to speak on this because I was going to clean that up later. His recruiting classes have been better than I think they look like on paper because what they used to be was like, it would be like the number one quarterback in the class, two five-star receivers, a five-star running back. And then like, and now it's like, if you read up and down these classes, I mean, in 2024, he got the number one overall five-star plus like O linemen. I think that matters. Or sorry, D linemen. And then he got, you know, interior offensive lineman, wide receiver edge, safety, D linemen, like tied it like big scary dudes. And that's so different from the like in Riley approach. They're like, yeah, Lincoln Riley may have had a better overall recruiting rating, but he was getting a lot of redundant, like kind of diva style dudes. Whereas like, it feels like this is a top to bottom or a bottom to top recruiting strategy where it's like, oh, we're going to rebuild the trenches. We're going to rebuild like these like Hogg-Molly Oklahoma style guys. And so I do think that's underrated because if you compare the recruiting tournament right, it feels like he's not doing as well. But if you saw those people get punched in the mouth that Lincoln Riley brought in, it was not as great. - Dominic Williams was not committing to Lincoln Riley's version of Oklahoma, okay? And we talked a lot about that, that commitment with the Brian Kelly thing and that kind of sparked that whole discussion about Brian Kelly and not wanting to buy players. Yeah, kids are just going to the highest bidder. That was like my biggest frustration is like, Dominic Williams is looking at what Brent Venables has done with defensive lines at Clemson. That was the constant force during his time there and what turned them into one of the best teams of the 21st century in 2018 was built on that anchor with defensive line. And they recruit so well at that position, even a, you know, a Brian Berzi and guys like that, where you're looking at it going, man, like, okay, that's why Oklahoma feels different, okay? Even if it's not been fully shown just yet on the field, those are the things that they keep coming back to. And they think, okay, this guy can be not Lincoln Riley in the best ways. And that is why I do think that Venables, while this extension will get the obvious pushback of who are you competing against? Why did you just give him extra money for the sake of extra money? There are some factors that I definitely understand and think are probably going to be overlooked by many who just saw that headlining pass. Yeah, I think, to your point, this is like multi-layered. I think they, so I think Oklahoma probably needs to just take us, I know that I just compared them as far as recruiting, but that's like an actual measurable change in how the roster is being constructed. I think that like, this does feel like Oklahoma is a little bit looking back. And I mean, I think at the end of the day, right? Like, Lincoln Riley is a guy who, almost 850 winning percentage is your best coach by winning percentage ever, right? And I think that what you want to do. But the stoops thing is like, there was nothing, there was nothing he could do, like even if Riley had won a national championship, stoops would have been considered still the best coach there just because of what he built, what he inherited, and what he was ultimately able to do and the fact that he did win that national championship, that was an uphill climb for Lincoln Riley. Yeah, I mean, Barry Switzer is the best coach ever. Like, that's the kind of its own thing. But like, I'm talking for just different era. Yeah, like, that's different. But I'm just talking about it in terms of like, we pretend like, as I just kind of did, that Lincoln Riley was trash at Oklahoma. In reality, he had a better winning percentage than either of those people. Now, we could talk about subjective things. I'm just talking about objective things. So there's a couple of things going on here with that, right? It's this Oklahoma standard, which feels a little bit fleeting, right? So to your point, it feels like they're trying to do two things at once. Which I think they have done successfully. Which is that we are a respectable brand in college, but well, anyone would want to coach here, da-da-da. But then also, that goes to the kind of like, Lincoln Riley leaving, da-da-da, we could get anyone. But then the other side of it is, we brought in Brett Venables, Brett Venables, who every coach, every school has been trying to lower away from Clemson forever. He came here because of his Oklahoma ties. He's one of our own. And functionally what this is is, we're gonna figure this out together, right? I mean, it is pretty functionally, we're going to the SEC. We're really still not exactly sure what Brett Venables is. You know, because we could look at the stoop stuff. We could look at the Riley stuff. All that stuff happened in the big 12, right? So even if you transported those rosters and those teams into right now, to your point, winning 10 games every year just doesn't feel attainable in the SEC. Georgia kind of did it being in the East, being able to avoid Alabama a little bit. I'd like LSU, whatever, like you could kind of get to nine, 10 wins, but like just winning 12 games a year, 11 games a year is just not something you could do in the SEC, especially with the established team in Georgia and technically still Alabama that have those roles filled, that's going to be a schedule loss for them to hit their goal, which they've shown they can do. So I think they're just in a very interesting flux right now, where they're trying to prove that they are on a level with like almost like an Ohio State or a Michigan or an Alabama or Georgia where it's like, no, we have this great brand Lincoln left us 'cause he's a loser and he didn't want to compete. But at the same time, we have this guy who we're giving him his first head coaching gig. And again, Georgia did it with Kirby Smart, very similar situation, actually incredibly similar situation. Struggled the first year, and again, same deal. Mark Rich, oh my gosh, what a loser. Really goes to Miami and he's great, you know what I'm saying? Like, so you got to demonize the old guy to make the new guy feel better, right? So, and with Kirby Smart, he obviously achieved a little bit more in your two, right? And like the way that these losses are happening are just so weird, right? If you kind of like go through the bowl games and like how they're losing the cheese bowl and like they're getting no of a feed in the alma bowl, except they kind of had every stat go their way, they just kept turning the ball over. So it's just very hard to predict like what exactly this team is on a week to week basis 'cause exactly to your point, maybe this Texas team that walked in the Bryant any and just pummeled them for four quarters, and we give them ultimate respect for that. You know, they have an a rivalry game, you know, the Dylan Gabriel thing you have to your point about the transfers, seems like they're picking that up, right? And they're getting a guy like Dominic Williams, over a guy like Bear Alexander at USC, right? That is more sizzled than steak. And I think that you can look at a lot of the things that are being built here, but it's almost like in reality, you're doing this thing over here, where you are betting on your guys upside, right? Because he's not a nostalgia head coach, that's just a fact. And on the other end, you're trying to almost sell me that. Well, this guy is a hot commodity. It's your point. No one's betting against them, right? Because he's had people betting against him, like, or sorry, bidding. Like, he's had people bidding for him, bendables as I had coached for, gosh, well, at this point, 10, 15 years. I mean, 'cause he's been this great defensive mind forever. And so he left to come to Oklahoma. You know, he didn't leave because of this great situation. He did so embrace that, right? It doesn't have to be the coach Ohio, or it's like, all we could end up with is this Cajun guy that just ended up here 'cause everybody told us no. That's not the situation, you know what I'm saying? The situation is that because of your Okoma ties, because this guy was from inside the program, you were able to lure him. Now that can be, you know, can be a Jim Harbaugh, it can be all kinds of things. But the thing that I would say is just to be a little bit careful with over messaging that he is at that level, you know? Because the thing that, like, this is what gives you leverage as a university in this situation, right? I know I'm dropping a lot of names here, but just stick with me. Like, where Scott Frost is right now with Nebraska? I promise you he probably wishes he wouldn't have taken that job. Because money is money, he would have probably gotten it anywhere, but his legacy has been kind of like tarnished. So, Brent Vinnables knows good and dang, well, he can't leave. Because if he leaves this place, he left everything for this place. This is his home, he's so happy about it. So, that gives the university ultimate leverage, but they don't want to accept that because they just got left with the Ultima Lincoln Riley. So, they want to just keep making it sound like they're out here winning these deals over and over again. It's like, dude, what you should probably be messaging. And like I said, it comes out in the salary details. That's what's so kind of interesting about it is that they're pitching it as if it's a $9 million risk. They don't have to give him that, so they're not. It's very simple. To your point, they would love it and they have the money for it from what I understand that, you know, if he were to make the play off and, you know, silence some of these doubters, they could move up to non-knowing. And then you get to do the victory tour, which they're already kind of doing. Now, that's kind of what I'm saying, is that like I would just say they need to pick a lane and kind of kind of do the, like actually be real about what they have, which is like, hey, again, like, we hadn't seen Jim Harbaugh as a college coach since Andrew Luck. Michigan was pretty sure it was going to work and ended up working out great for them. Overall, you know, win loss, win against Ohio State, championship, all that. But those things always take a little bit of time unless you are some freak like Kirby Smart. And no one should ever be compared as we learned to Kirby Smart because he just showed up and started whooping butt. So point being, I think that they are kind of setting him up as this like, it's like, you know, they're seeing their old ex like post on Instagram and they're immediately just like, look at my new girl. She's so hot and it's like, yo, she didn't make up on, like let her get ready, like this is at your spot. You know what I'm saying? - There's a little of that. - Yeah. - There's a little of that. I don't think it's the full thing. I don't think this is entirely because of what Lincoln Riley's doing at USC, which again, I think Oklahoma is feeling just fine about the way things have developed for the Riley at USC. But I do think that there is something that is so rare and that is, think about this. Since buyouts became a thing in college football, really the last 15 years, Oklahoma has never had any moment where it has said, what's our coach's buyout? We need to figure this out and get a lot. So shifting the buyout, the way that they have, while there are a lot of people on the outside that would look at it and say, well, dang. Like, what if he has two disappointing years? And then, oh, just like that, you're gonna wish that buyout was $15 million instead of $30 million, right? There is not that fear at Oklahoma because the floor has been so high. And because when you have a coach like Bob Soups as long as you did and you see the way that Lincoln Riley was able to, whether Oklahoma fans want to admit this or not, he did build on some of the things that Bob Soups was struggling with at the end of his time there. And I think Bob Soups recognized that there were areas where he was falling short. But when you don't have that fear, Auburn has experienced that fear. I mean, LSU has experienced that fear. What SEC fan base in the 2020s besides like Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia, and Kentucky? Like, what fan bases have been able to say like, oh, yeah, we just haven't had to worry about our coach's buyout. That's a number we don't even know. We don't even have to entertain. Like, yeah, this is the first offseason where I'm actually looking at Davos buyout at Clemson, going, oh boy, that feeling of confidence, it factors into stuff like this, it just does, okay? And maybe it's possible that if a season like this results in six and six, which again, I'm not betting on, I'm not betting on a regression like that because I think this team is better than maybe the average SEC fan will give it credit for. But if that happens, then those conversations change in a hurry. They just do. That's the nature of this game. But to your point though, this team could be better than last year's team and win fewer games. And that's what's so weird about this whole thing is that you can't compare this to the old way. You can compare the roster constructions. You can compare the philosophy and the flutality and all that. But you can't compare that. If somebody wins 85% of their games in the SEC, they're like waltzing into the Hall of Fame, the way that Kirby Smart Pass, where like he could retire tomorrow and go be a pastor and go be in Hall of Fame. And now, you need, no, no, it's a win percentage thing. It's not a game's for thing. So point being like, yeah, I think that's the key is that like they're setting themselves up in that way to be compared because they keep making those subconscious comparisons. And like we smart people, like not we smart people, but like we inform people in the SEC, understand that that's not a reasonable objective. You know what I'm saying? So I just feel like all the back and forth over that, it's just like who are you trying to prove this to? Because we all know that it takes a lot more to win this league. I don't know. It's just us. And I think Oklahoma is acknowledging that, by the way. They very much are, but they're gonna chance to kind of get out ahead of this before joining the SEC next week. All right, really quick. Would you say missing the playoff would be disappointing for Oklahoma this year? No, not with that schedule. Not with that schedule. I'm sorry, like there's so much room for interpretation with the teams that they will face that I would not say that. Like, I'm actually putting together my crystal ball before SEC Media Days for the first time ever. 'Cause I realized if you're trying to do a 12 team playoff, which that's something that we're gonna discuss. That's the plan for later in the week is to unveil my 12 team playoff. You can't really do that unless you actually sit there and break down all of these games 'cause there are so many connected pieces and stuff. So like when I sat there and broke it down, I was like, I have them between eight and four and nine and three with a little bit of variance. Right? And okay, what if you beat Bama over your one? Well, what if you lose that game to an Auburn team? Like on the road and it's like, oh, this humbling. This is what it feels like every single week in the SEC. This is why going on the road, even when it's a team that's not predicted to come anywhere near the SEC championship. Like this is why this is so tough. That can play out as well. There are certain schedules where like, Ole Miss does not have that room for interpretation with the schedule. It just doesn't. But Oklahoma in my opinion absolutely does. The more difficult the schedule, the more room there is for interpretation. So no, I will not say that it's a disappointment 'cause again, if there are nine and three and miss the playoff and have some of these big-time quality wins, I'm gonna be like, yeah, Oklahoma is really good and would probably beat up on a lot of these other conference champs. Yeah, so I think there's the answer to the question right there, right? At Ohio State, Georgia, still Alabama, the expectation is the postseason or the playoffs or the playoff. And I think that there's where you are, right? Which is that neither of us would be disappointed in him in year three as a first-time head coach if he missed the playoffs. So let's be real about that because that's the thing is that, you know, when you do all this messaging and then you miss the playoff, it feels like you failed in both of our minds. It's like, hey, you know, you could not just drag them for no reason, but you could be reformed as that right now. You know, look at those two seasons and say, oh, what are we gonna do? I mean, these are two guys that, you know, started around the same time, had similar vibes to them right as far as where they came from and everybody's trying to go room. And so, point being, I think they should just be happy with the, if they got, understand there's gonna be a process. Don't compare yourself to Texas. I know it's hard. Don't compare yourself to USC. They're doing bleep all out there and just say, okay, we're gonna, this is gonna be a long, like this is gonna be an on-schedule long build, which now is a three or four year build. There's a long build, right? Kelly's still long building his defensive line, you know? - Yeah, very much playing the long game that appears to be the plan in Norman, especially with this extension for Brent Fenibels. All right, let's kick it to Jesse Simonson. Great stuff from him talking to all things. Heisman talks about Walter Nolan, things that'll miss. And then kind of the age-old debate as to whether or not ESPN's FBI is actually a thing we're discussing. So, here's Jesse. Now, I'm excited to be joined by a very special guest. It is on threes, Jesse Simonson. Jesse, you know that you have something that people are interested in. If you go on the big three, which is fine, mom, Andy Staples and myself, of course, now it's good. What you should do is you should just give all of us different takes and just hedge as much as possible. Like deviate from what you actually wrote about and what the graphics said and be like, "Ah, you know what? I could actually see it playing out this way." That's probably the best way to go about it this time of year. - Yeah, I think the Heisman, I think the whole conversation's gonna kind of take a different tenor, you know, with this 12 team playoff. I think we're just gonna have to all, we're all having to kind of change our brains, I think, for everything with the direction of the sport. And I think the Heisman is just gonna kind of be the next thing. Now it's still gonna be quarterback dominant. It's still gonna be, you know, the Davie O'Brien Award 2.0 until, you know, Heisman voters decide that they wanna give a defensive player or more than one wide receiver like an actual chance. But I do think the candidate, the pool of candidates is going to be deeper because historically you basically had to be on a title team or you had to be what Jane Daniels was last year, which was basically have one of the greatest seasons we've ever seen. And so you can lose a couple of times and it's okay. I think now we're gonna see a lot of Heisman winners on nine and three teams. - It does feel like you can have Heisman moments later in the season as well of like even a guy who's on a 10-2 team can have a Heisman moment where yeah, maybe the stats aren't necessarily that gaudy, but look at what that player did to be able to get his team into the 12-2 playoff. I agree with you from that standpoint, even though, yeah, as you mentioned, we did just have two guys that weren't in the playoff that were able to still win the award, albeit on the heels of pretty prolific, at least from a historical perspective of those seasons. So the 10 that you have laid out here, all quarterbacks, you have starting at 10, America's quarterback. - Got pushed back on that immediately. (laughing) - No, no, no, no, not pushing back at all. 'Cause like, you know, you kind of think about it. You're like, all right, well, what feels significant because the only pushback last year on Jay Daniels, oh, he's not a winner. And that game, like those games down the stretch would have been competing for playoff spots. So I think you're actually right when you bring that up. - Yeah, and you know, a lot of fans were really mad that Shador Sanders wasn't one of those 10 quarterbacks. And at Travis Hunter, I had him in kind of the honorable mention or kind of wild card type candidate within that column. Frankly, Connor, I think Hunter probably is the, in the preseason that this can change six weeks into the year if something crazy happens. I think as we sit here today in the late June, I think Travis Hunter is the only non-quarterback that has a realistic preseason chance to win the Heisman Trophy. What say you? - I agree with you 100%. And I got some evidence to kind of back you up here. And yeah, I did definitely want to hit on the Shador piece of this 'cause you didn't have him in your top 10. Your top 10 was no Fofida. Will Howard at nine, Niko, Yamala Alba at eight, Riley Leonard, seven, Kim Ward, six, Jax and Dart five, Jalen Milro, four, Dylan Gabriel, three, when you were two and Carson Beckett, one, the Colorado fans who pushed back at you, they probably don't know the stat about how every quarterback that's won the Heisman Trophy in the last 50 years has had at least nine wins. And I don't know about you. I ain't looking at that Colorado win projection and thinking, am I gonna have for eight or nine wins this year? So I think if you play that card, that should take the cake. But I don't imagine Colorado fans were too rational about that. - No, they were not. And this is the same group that, which is great that their fandom has exploded, but this is the same group that are smashing national championship futures when, as you're saying, they're over on the win total, I think it's like five and a half. So if they make it to a bowl game, that should be considered a success for year two for Dion. And yet there are such outsized expectations that it doesn't really mesh up with reality. And yet I think if they go seven and five, which is not some awesome season, if they go seven and five, but Travis Hunter has 1,200 yards receiving and six interceptions or five interceptions. Now these are super gaudy numbers from both sides. But if he does something like that, then I think that he would merit legitimate candidacy. Because again, I just think the pool of Kent, we don't have an obvious front runner. There's no returning winner. The way these Heisman voters go, could they get bored by a guy like Carson Beck? 'Cause they're like, well, he's on the best team and he's surrounded by so much talent or a Dylan Gabriel where they're like, ah, he's put up Monster Numbers at UCF in Oklahoma. So if he puts up Monster Numbers again at Oregon, what does that mean? I think then, excuse me, you could see somebody maybe slip in. - Yeah, if Hunter and Downs, if they do the two way thing, that's intriguing because that feels unique. - You don't believe in the down stuff though, right? - No, I mean, not to the point where it's gonna be even Charles Woodson like, you know? But at the same time, like, it just depends on how much we're talking. I don't actually think Ryan Day plans to do that when they have all of that talent on the offensive side of the ball. Why are you doing it if for no other reason than to try and win him the Heisman Trophy when we know his job is on the line and it's a team that in theory, you're just gonna talk about trying to get into the playoff. It doesn't even, like, yeah, you wanna be Michigan and stuff, but Ohio State's one of those teams where just be as healthy as you can possibly be down the stretch. And if that would include any scenario in which Downs is getting hurt on the playing the offensive side of the ball at a high contact position, you would have to think that that would enter into the mind of Ryan Day, but I don't know, crazy what things have happened. - That's why I raised the red flag because safety is like the one spot aside from offensive line at Ohio State that they have question marks at. That's why you brought in Caleb Downs 'cause depth and upside there was a concern. I thought it was maybe just a reaction because Michigan folks were talking about maybe playing Will Johnson Summit, you know, doing the Charles Woodson 2.0 thing. And then a week later, we hear about Caleb Downs. - So the Heisman, the Heisman's a fun, it's a fun, it's a silly debate because it's the most prestigious award. And yet we've basically just watered it down to being a quarterback only. Running back hasn't won it since Derrick Henry in 2015. I got a lot of pushback from Oklahoma State fans. Why didn't Ollie Gordon on there? And I broke down the candidates by conference before I did kind of the top 10. And Ollie was firmly in that mix with a big 12, but it's kind of a two-fold thing. I think that you're gonna have to, I think at minimum, in my opinion, for running back now to contend, you're gonna have to rush from north to 2,000 yards and you're probably going to have to star for a team that wins their conference. Now, Oklahoma State could do that and Ollie Gordon could conceivably do that. But they also, then you look at the reality and say, hey, they brought in several running backs to literally ease the burden off him from the transfer portal. They brought in a couple of guys that I think pretty intriguing. Is he gonna get the touches? I don't know. So if any running back could do it, he's probably the most likely, but I'm skeptical that that's the way it plays out. - I could not agree more. I was gonna bring up that number of 2,000 rushing yards. It isn't even just that Derrick Henry, Christian McCaffrey, like 2015 happened and we haven't seen him running back when the awards since then. We've only had one running back, Bryce Love. He was the only running back that's even been invited to New York since then. We have had more defensive linemen invited to New York than running backs in that eight year stretch. So when you lay it out like that and you're realizing, man, it's not like we've just had this lack of talent at the running back position with Jonathan Taylor, you know, Travis Etienne, Sequan, Bee John, like all these guys, Najee Harris, like we've had studs at the position and we've kind of all, and look, I'll include myself in this category now as a Heisman voter. We've all kind of just looked at them and gone, eh, what have they really done that's been that game changing? Too many other people maybe impact their success. So look, you lay it out like that and I'm not in my head the entire time. If Oklahoma State fans want to push back, they're probably not paying attention to history. - Here's the problem. You know what the problem is with running backs these days, I think, Connor, is that with the offensive evolution and the way the sport has exploded in terms of some of these gaudy statistics, a running back, you brought up Jonathan Taylor, that's a great example, but even someone maybe not even as good as Jonathan Taylor, you have a guy that rushes for 1,600 yards, really good, 28 touchdowns, awesome. You know, like Blake Corum, what Blake Corum basically did and yet when you compare that to then, oh, well, Jaden Daniels, not only threw for what he threw for and did all that, he also rushed for 1,000 yards and another, you know, 16 or whatever plus touchdowns. So they can just quarter, but these dual threat quarterbacks now can just put up such raw stats. It's just hard for the running backs to kind of equate to that almost that level of value. And I just think that that's how a lot of voters have kind of looked at it, which is why I think a guy like, you know, the favorites are obviously in the big 10 in the SEC, but if you were gonna go, not a super dark horse 'cause I like a Jackson dart or some of those guys, but I think a safe bet or a solid bet is a guy like Cam Ward, because he's gonna be able to put up numbers both ways. You know, he's gonna get some rushing stats, some rushing touchdowns. If he hits in the Miami's offense, and I think, you know, narrative obviously plays a role in all this. And if he's the guy that can kind of lead Mario to the, you know, crown there, and kind of finally get Miami over the hump, you know, first time to win the ACC Championship or something like that, that would be a pretty big, you know, shit in his candidacy. - Yeah, it is something that, look, even if I'm not particularly high in Miami, I can still-- - I'm not either. I'm not either. I'm not either, but I, yeah, just staring out a path. - That's the biggest thing. You just need that path to be there, and you kind of look at some of these guys, and you're like, all right, what are you competing against yourself, even though Dylan Gabriel is somebody that could end up being the FBS career leader in passing touchdowns by the end of this season, and he could have that mark. Still, you kind of look at it and you're like, all right, well, you're competing against what Bo Nix did last year, and then if you don't win your conference, whereas you look at the Cam Ward path and you're thinking, okay, the ACC, it doesn't necessarily have a bunch of these heavy hitters at the top. Yeah, it's got some depth, but if Miami's path is there, and if they do somehow have this type of season, we know that everyone is gonna just crown Miami, even if they're only 10 and two, and we're not necessarily convinced that they can even win a playoff game, you're right, narrative does play a part in it, and you're just trying to find that path for some of these guys, which, you know, I think some of these guys that get that billing in the preseason might not have it in the way that we kind of think that they do. Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel the same way about a Riley Leonard. You know, if you find skeptical, if they can win a playoff game or, you know, have the depth to truly contend for a national championship, the fact that he would be there playing for a blue blood and maybe put, you know, Notre Dame into the fifth seed or something like that, that would be kind of his narrative. I will, so you tease that I was on Staples, you know, Sean, on Staples show a lot. He's on three colleague. I didn't mention this to Finevom, but I did mention this to Andy, and I'd like to just pick your brain about it, because I think it's an interesting, almost side adjacent story to the Heisman Trophy, 'cause I haven't really heard anybody talk about this, and frankly, I didn't write about it, but it's just something that I've kind of thought about. The 12 team playoff, I think the pool of candidates is gonna be deeper, but with the playoff, have we now killed the Heisman Trophy ceremony as we know it? Because last year, BowNix gets invited. If they're playing in a playoff game a week later, does BowNix go to that? Does Dan Lanny go to that? Do we suddenly have, are they gonna really miss a day of, this year, the Heisman Trophy's on the 14th, the first playoff game is not even a week later, it's six days later. Oh my gosh, gosh, that's a really good point. And so like, are we gonna start having Heisman zooms? I don't know, it's just a hilarious thing. Like, people have long said, "Let's move to Heisman Trophy to after the season anyways, "and make the bowls or something part of it." I don't think they're going to do that, but if folks just say, hey, thanks for the invite, but I can't go, I got a playoff game tomorrow. Oh yeah, Jalen Milro's gonna go play Jackson Dart, you know, in a playoff game, and they're both Heisman finalists. They may both just say, put us in a zoom, like, we got games to play. - Okay, all that's fair, they're gonna have to probably pay her down the Heisman ceremony in some fashion, or alternatively, you do what you suggested in the beginning of move it back. And you could still maybe have the voting when you have it and release it, and then just save all the pageantry and stuff for after the playoff ends, and have it on a Saturday night or something like that, you're not competing with the NFL that late into the season with that, if it's like late January or something, it's gonna have to change, man, that's-- - Yeah, it's just, it's something I hadn't really heard anybody talk about or had really been discussed, and I was kind of just tinging, I was like, man, you know, we might have expanded the pool of candidates, but then nobody might show up. - Yeah, just, you gotta get rid of some of the pageantry, maybe if you still wanna do it on that timeline, or you're just hoping, you're kind of assuming that guys that are playing in a playoff game the next week won't go, and the only guys that are gonna go are the guys that have a buy. That could be it, too. - Buy, right, yeah, yeah. - Man, okay, that's interesting. I'm gonna have to dig more into that. Well, yeah, we'll definitely have to circle back to that. One of those guys that you were talking about, Jackson Dart, it's interesting seeing Jackson Dart and Ole Miss involved in all these national preseason conversations, which makes sense because it should be the team's highest preseason rankings since the Tricky Dick Richard Nixon administration, but everyone wants to know, can Ole Miss take that next step? If I have a nickel for every time I've been asked that question this off season, I'm sure you have been asked that exact question so many times, and to me, that's all about those improvements in the trenches. A huge piece of that, Walter Nolan. When you think, how can Ole Miss bridge the gap between itself and a Georgia, it's going on and getting pieces like a Walter Nolan, you put 'em on your all-transfer team and had 'em as the SEC's most impactful, non-corderback transfer. What's a fair expectation for him in this defense? - I mean, Lane Kiffin, this all circles back to what happened to him against Georgia last year. He said it explicitly after that game, they just got just railroaded. Quinn Sean scored a touchdown or two early, and then after that, they just got bludgeoned where they could not stop anything. They couldn't stop the run, they couldn't stop Carson Beck throwing it over their heads. And so they went out and got, in my opinion, probably non-corderback related, non-Caleb Downs related, the number one player in the portal. I think Nolan has that type of impact. He's a premier interior pass rusher. We know that what gives quarterbacks the worst fits, it's that pressure right in your face. And so when you pair him with them, what they've kind of supplemented around him, you bring back some of the other pieces. You bring back a JJ, Puglia inside. Yeah, you bring princely over from Florida, so that gives you that edge presence on one side. I think Walter Nolan has top five to maybe even number one, NFL draft potential. So if he hits there and then Ole Miss hits with what they did on the other side of the ball, which I think honestly has probably been a little overlooked was we like the Juice Wells and we like some of these other guys. But Kiffin was like, let's just go out and get as many offensive linemen as we can. And let's just see how, let's just whoever wins the spot, wins the spot. And so you get a couple of guys from Washington, you plucked a couple of guys here, what they've done in the trenches that they have gone, everyone has said it, they've gone all in. You know, there's these years where it's just like, you have a chance to really kind of, you know, this is your one shot, chips to the table. That's what Ole Miss is doing. And to me, for Ole Miss as a team, not necessarily just for Walter Nolan, but for Ole Miss as a team, it's all about can lane start to win some games that he's not supposed to. 'Cause today that's been kind of his bugaboo. He can go and beat up on everybody that Ole Miss is expected to beat. But what he does is like, you know, get your popcorn ready. They fall flat last year against Georgia fall flat, kind of missed opportunity against Alabama. They got to win one of those games, whether it's at LSU or versus Georgia this year to get into the playoff. 'Cause I think actually if Ole Miss only goes nine and three against his schedule counter, I'm not sure they get in. - I agree. And I actually was doing the projection of what it could look like if they're 10 and two. And if they lose to LSU and lose to Georgia, I'm like, they'd be 10 and two, they'd be outside of the conference championship looking in and their other marquee win is gonna depend on the strength of Oklahoma. Like if it plays out that way, there will be people that are saying, well, I don't really know how good Ole Miss is and do we just give them all this love in the preseason in part because of the path? But, you know, I just think that if no one stays healthy, I think that is such a game changer for what they're trying to do. And when you bring up J.J. Piggies, and I love Jared Ivey last year coming over from Georgia Tech and princely Umani Allen comes in, you know, as this guy that was Florida's best defensive player the last three years and he's already, you know, talking about how different it is, like that defensive line could be the best in the SEC. And if that happens like that, Ole Miss just simply has to make the playoff and Lane cannot waste an opportunity like this. - Yeah, I will say this. Here's what's ironic about the statement that you just said, because you mentioned Ivey. Ivey I think is an underrated, you know, he's a lot of people with Trey Harris and Jackson Dart and these guys that they brought back. Ivey is one of the underrated guys that they also convinced, you know, to come back to school and I think him playing opposite of princely is gonna be very important for them. I don't know if they're gonna be the best defensive line in the SEC and that's partly because I actually think the team that Walter Nolan left, which is hilarious to say, might actually be the best defensive line in the SEC. You bring in Nick Scorton, you know, who led the Big Ten and Sacks a year ago. I think this is gonna be a breakout year for Shamar Stewart. You still have Shamar Turner inside. So, you know, A&M, Ole Miss, they're certainly gonna be right up there in terms of the best. You know, they can battle that out, but it is kind of funny when you think about, we're talking about how awesome Walter Nolan is and the team he left still might actually be pretty dang good. - Yeah, the Scorton for Nolan trade isn't equal because they don't exactly play the same position, but like two guys that could just pop in the exact, you know, like in their new homes. And I guess it's not a trade 'cause Scorton's coming from Purdue, but you kind of get what I'm saying, that little swap there and the way that it could impact both of those defenses I grew with you. The ESPN FPI rankings, for me, it lost all credibility about three years ago. Just at least is like a predictive thing when they had Mississippi State as number eight when they came out with them in April. And then they're like, oh God, that's a problem. They were four and seven last year and they don't really recruit at a high level with NBA SEC, probably shouldn't have that number eight. And then they changed the formula and then their number 24 without having played any game. So I kind of look at it this year and go, where do they mess up? And I look at Ole Miss and Ole Miss is sitting there at like, what are they at like 16 or 18? - I think it was 17 or 18 because I did, I wrote a column on a couple of weeks back and I acknowledged the controversy around it and kind of highlighted some of the similar stuff that you're noting. And to me, it's just another, you know, interesting off-season baseline to kind of, you know, well, what does their analysis say and what could be gleaned and what could be not gleaned? But it was notable that Ole Miss, that they had it at like, they were 16 or 17 and it was, oh, they were 18, excuse me, because the metric was last year in the 14 playoff, only eight teams had at least a 20% chance in the preseason to make the playoff. This year it's 18, but it was pretty eye-popping that Ole Miss was the number 18 team. You know, you would think, oh, maybe that's a Kansas state or somebody like that. But no, it was, you know, a team that a lot of folks have, you know, firmly in the top eight in their preseason polls. - Okay, so if I did take ESPN's FBI seriously, and if I were actually someone that, you know, I was sitting down and putting together a 12 team playoff projection and doing that because that's what we do this time of year, what's something that I should actually look at and go, huh, that's noteworthy. They might actually be onto something and not have to come up with some sort of stat correction. - Uh, I would say the biggest one is probably, because it, you know what, here's what's funny. My biggest criticism with ESPN's FBI is that they got a guy and Bill Conley down the hall who runs better metrics. - Yeah. - So just use the SEC, now they'll double dip, so they use the S&P plus. I will say, at least for them, what correlated the most was that Georgia was a pretty dominant FBI number one, and in Bill Conley's SP plus rankings, they're a very dominant number one. And I think that's interesting because a lot of folks are putting it in a tier of Georgia Ohio State, Texas, next group, Oregon, Alabama, next group, whatever, and at least what these preseason rankings are saying, or what these preseason projections, excuse me, rating systems are saying, it's a pretty clear one. Then it's two, three, then it's four, five. We'll see how, if that's how it plays out, you know, Georgia has a much tougher schedule this year, but in a 12 team playoff, they can afford a loss or two, and they can still roll through the dance, because when you got to play 17 games, it's gonna be about how much, you know, high upside talent and depth that you have, and clearly Kirby Smart spilled a roster second to none there. I'll give FPI credit for at least trying to predict instead of doing the thing that I hate so much in the preseason polls. I don't know if you agree with me on this, but when I see a preseason poll that tells me Team X deserves to be ranked this high because the schedule is easy. I think to myself, we've lost all control. So then after week one, do we change it? Are we giving them rankings based on their future schedule and how we think that's gonna play out? And we'll probably be wrong about that. That gets under my skin so, so much. And I might be in the minority that I'm willing to accept that. - No, I think that to everybody kind of looks and kind of assembles these, whether it's coach rankings or power rankings, preseason rankings, you know, via their own lens, but I think that that's a very fair way to assess it and be frustrated by like, oh, well, Missouri doesn't play any body. So we're gonna bump them up where if they had a gauntlet like Oklahoma, we're gonna drop them down. - Does it make sense? And like, I can think, okay, I'm not gonna probably put Florida in my preseason top 25 just because three consecutive losing seasons. But if my decision making is because I think Florida has got this gauntlet in the schedule, then to me, I'm doing this all wrong. And if Florida was coming off of nine and three or something like that, and then I was making that decision, just like, what are we doing here? That just wouldn't make any sense. Last question for you. Any preseason predictions that you are workshopping right now, as your colleague, J.D. Pecal, the same question, preseason take that you are workshopping it. You're like, all right, I've got three weeks until SCC media days. I've got to get this thing right. I've got to get it ready to go. So that next time I go on with, you know, two of the other members of the Big Three, it's gonna pop and it's gonna be really good for the graphic. Naturally, naturally. Well, that's a, that's a great question. I'll have to marinate on that. You'll have to, I'll say this. I raised some eyebrows on Fine Bomb and I didn't, I wasn't even, it was totally benign 'cause he was asking me about LSU. I don't think Brian Kelly's in any danger, just like I don't think Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame is in any danger. But I think they both are entering extremely pivotal year threes where depending on what happens this fall, we could be looking at a bit of an existential crisis with those fan bases being like, did we do, what happened here? Did we get it right by plucking Kelly from Notre Dame and did Notre Dame do it right by immediately promoting Marcus Freeman? Because we ever, you know, it's been Ballyhoo throughout this offseason about the Notre Dame, you know, year three, either make it to a national championship game or you're probably not long in South Bend. And everyone knows that, you know, the last several coaches at LSU have won a national title. And I'm someone that has Brian Kelly, you know, like three on my, of overall, you know, head coaches in the country list. So I believe in what he can do. I think he's a much better coach than Orgeron or Les Miles, but I do think they whiffed in the portal, specifically a defensive line. And whether they wanted to pay or not wanted to pay, that could be the difference between one in 10 and 11 games and going nine and three again and some folks being like, hey, we thought we were signing up for more. - Okay, so I like that. And I agree, I do think that as much as we talk about the inclusion of the 12 team playoff, not being in it is going to hurt that much more, especially if you're at a proud program and you know, it's year three and you're kind of looking at it very black or white of like, all right, where have we done X, Y, and Z to get to this? - Exactly. - The take I think is then like, hey, I think by this time next year, the most angsty fan base in all of college football will be LSU because maybe if they missed the playoff this year and the way that it could set up for Brian Kelly. So that's a nice way of saying like, I don't think Brian Kelly's job is in jeopardy, but by this time next year, this will be the storyline. - There you go, there you go. You could really get hot with some stuff about Auburn and Florida too. Those are two fan bases that I think are kind of, one I think is ready to get on a rocket ship, the other's ready to ride their guy out of town, but depending on what happens this fall, those narratives could flip too. - Yeah, and Florida fans right now are at the place where if national people say it, they hate it, but they know what they're saying in those meetings behind closed doors among, amongst friends about feeling like beer. - Exactly. - And their text changer are telling no lies. - Exactly, exactly. Jesse, this has been great. Looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks in Dallas, man. - Yeah, man. - Will latter of the week, I'll start us off here. I've got a lot of choices. And by the way, we're recording this before, the deciding game of the college world series. Otherwise, I probably would have just defaulted to that, but we were doing this beforehand. So I will instead go with someone who has already been crowned champion, Celtics coach Joe Missoula. In a year, he went from being the reason that the Celtics choked against the heat to being an NBA champ, pretty impressive turnaround. In five years, he went from being a D2 coach to being the head coach of the NBA champs. Guy's 35, two years older than me, basically. First millennial coach to win an NBA title. - Do you remember him as a player? - A lot, yeah, that's the part that really stops me. It's like, it's a little bit different because I grew up on Steve Kerr with the Bulls and stuff like that. So I have a lot of great memories there. So that's a little bit different. Steve Kerr's 58, though. - Yeah, this guy's truly from a different generation where I was in college while he was in college. You know, like, I was in my college apartment watching him when it was that West Virginia Kentucky game in the early day where he went off and he was kind of like the first true thing I think of when I think of press Virginia with Bob Huggins there. So to think about that, and I remember thinking that when he first got the job and took over for the, you know, the E-May-Doker situation that was just as messy as it couldn't possibly be. And I remember thinking, well, this guy's way too young. There's no way he should be doing this. And yeah, look, he is, I think made himself a hero in Boston, even though that team was obviously incredibly talented. But yeah, I went back and looked at Red Alerbach when he was 40, when he won his first title and compared it to him being five years older than Joe Missoula, a little different. People age differently back then than they do today. That's, I've always thought that. Just like even in the 20th century, like, for whatever reason, people just aged differently. And yeah, he looks like he can still throw up you back pretty well on that duck boat. So yeah, Joe Missoula had himself a week. - Yeah, the championship feels like it's been kind of a long time coming, right? You knew like with all the pieces they would get in the poker offshade that it was just kind of a matter of time. Like to me, I feel like they won the most post-season games kind of since they got together. They had the organizational support. They kind of moved in and out from different veterans. It's really cool to see a guy like Al Horford get a championship and, you know. - Oh, that would have been a better choice for this. Dang, I should have gone. I love Al Horford, man. I absolutely love Al Hor-- That was really cool to see him. Somebody tests that guy for everything. I want to know what he's doing. Everything he does over the course of the day, because there's no way that he should still be getting after it the way that he is in his late 30s. - Al Horford, the faking being scared of rebounds is funny, but the funniest thing he's ever done is when he just became a sleep agent in Philly and was horrible for a year to everybody come to his wash and then he came back to the Celtics. It was good again. It was like shutting down Giannis. Yeah, so the point being, it's just a pretty fun team. You know, I'm not a big Mav's guy, obviously. So it's cool to see that. So I think it's a great choice. - Yeah, the pace that he's on right now, Joe Missoula, I had a red R-box. - There you go. So, snowing it out there, man. They don't want to talk about that. They don't want to talk about it being better than him. Anyway, so yeah, my ladder, in this case, the last of the week is Angel Reese. I feel like, you know, we always talk about, so it was a perseverance. I think that, you know, Joe Missoula is an example of that. It's not about, you know, how hard you hit, but about how hard you can hit and get back up. And I think Angel Reese lately, you know, coming off of four straight losses to win the way they did against Dallas, where she had 16 and 18. 18 rebounds to a professional basketball game. And then to come, you know, bring it after their last loss to Caitlin Clark and the, the Indiana fever, this food 25 and 16 was just cooking inside. And it was so cool to watch her. It's very funny kind of seeing these two athletes because the questions were always about Caitlin Clark and if her style could translate to the W. And it's kind of funny because nobody really asked that question about Angel Reese. It was like, she's so old school and so like physical and like watching her just like, what all the smoke, talk crap from the beginning to the end of a basketball game while she was just cooking like that was so cool to watching this win over the fever. And I mean, yeah, after Caitlin Clark did what she did in the State Farm Arena against the Atlanta Dream, I was actually at that game as our network. But to see kind of like, you know, all the media was, okay, the fever have, you know, this winning streak, they're really playing together. It's all good vibes and they just beat the sky. So kind of just like here, it feels like a little bit of a, I mean, and even Caitlin Clark's quote about like, that's not really a rivalry. It's like, okay, man, that's like, one thing is very funny about her is I don't think that she fully understands like her place in this whole thing 'cause she'll say something like, well, you know, you guys are the ones making that thing into rivalry. It's like, come on, y'all. Like we have the photo of like A.G.A. Reese look at it. I actually like this. It's cool to have rivals. It's cool, like we talk about the driver. It's cool to have, you know, someone that you measure yourself against. So I think this is just like an absolutely great budding rivalry. Even though these two girls play different positions, even though from different backgrounds, different places, it's just been cool to watch how they're both not only becoming great professionals and kind of like young, I guess professional women, but at the same time how they've both taken a leadership role on these younger teams and how they're, you know, turning their squads around for the playoff, but specifically, you know, talking about Reese and kind of the way that she's been unapologetic, you know, she's been retweeting stuff about just like the W and kind of the shady and this and everything. And I think it's super cool to watch an athlete that kind of approaches this stuff. And as a younger person, doesn't have a filter, isn't worried about kind of the marketing aspect. And knowing if she keeps playing like this, that's gonna be her most marketable factor. So it's just been really cool to watch that, Aaron Cardoso up there getting coached by Teaspoon for repellicans legend in Chicago. So it's just a lot of really compelling television going on in the W right now. - It's pretty remarkable to think of the timing of the way that the college season ends and then to play that style, that, and Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark obviously do very, very different things on the court, but like to have the attention that followed them from the college season and then to just go right into it. And they're now like really like hitting their stride is pretty remarkable. I mean, like for all the talk about, you know, the drama of this rivalry and what people are saying about them and stuff like that, two people to be playing this good basketball like on this stage is unbelievable. Like yeah, Angel Reese is just like a walking double double every single night. I compared her, I've always thought she was a lot like Jo Kim Noah. That's kind of the- - See that? - Like where she just, she's gonna piss a lot of people off. Maybe people like within her own fan base, some of it's just her style, the way that she kind of talks and stuff like that. And like she's just, she's just not gonna be for everybody. It's, you know, not necessarily gonna be this like modern style or anything and so much of like what she does is just like this, this hustle, heart type of deal. But I mean, Jo Kim Noah had long, long successful career in the NBA, speaking about Horford. Did just fine for himself. Yeah, seeing those two battle the way that they are, man. A lot of people, just, you know, maybe certain people that work for networks that might have WNBA rights are, you know, reaping the benefits of it. Some are saying, look, it's not me for those people. I could only imagine. Yeah, but yeah, point of view, gosh. We're now realizing that I was just so close to becoming a Florida fan in that era, right? Because like, you know, I'll Horford talk about Jo Kim Noah, Corey Brewer, just a really cool squad back then. But yeah, I'm right there with you and it's cool that within the W, you can kind of still have, I mean, it's kind of like Edie from Purdue, right? Like he just is not going to have a star trajectory because of how the game is played in the NBA. It's just not going to work. I just don't think, you know, he's going to continue to be that level of player. But it's cool to see that that old school game still works in the W and that you can, you know, get down low and really just like dominate the paint the way they have it. You really see a lot of different stylistic, like the NBA has become so homogenized by watching the W is fascinating because teams are just so different. Like you'll see one team play horribly because of their matchups and then the next night, which, you know, whatever. So yeah, I think it's just super cool. Yeah, the schedule right now for summer is a little bit Herky Jerky because of the family reasons that I outlined on our last show. So we will have a normal pod later in the week that will drop on Friday and then this time next week, I will be back in Chicago for the other parts of those services and that funeral. So we will not have a pod for the first part of next week but we will be normal scheduled this week. And then, gosh, pretty soon we're going to be at media days. Well, you're going to be there with me this week. Yeah, I'm really excited. We've been joking about the MLB draft is there. So it's going to be like me and Tommy tanks in the same city. I'm really just excited to get out there and see like, you know, what the vibes are like, you know, I haven't been to media days since I was in Hoover which I know wasn't that long ago. But it was like I said, you know, I went as a fan. I get to see our guy with the ring on his head. Like it's just something I always grew up around 'cause it was so close to my house. So it's cool. I guess this is my second every time technically being there as a media member because I went once back and back in the day with SDS. But yeah, super duper cool to do that as an adult and just see the conference and how far it's come. Do you think we can get Tommy tanks out to karaoke? Well, listen, we got to hit up T-Bob, man. That's the way. That's the only way, the only way, man. All right, if you have not, leave us a five-star review, subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch every single episode of the "Start It On South" podcast. Follow us on Twitter @theSDSPod, @SethOnSouth, @Cjogara, @cosohard. Thanks guys. Talk soon. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
The guys are back after a mini break. We got news on Friday that Brent Venables got a "significant" raise and an extension. The guys discuss that in depth (5:00). Plus, On3's Jesse Simonton joined the show to talk Heisman, Walter Nolen's impact at Ole Miss, ESPN's FPI (46:00). The guys close with Lad of the Week (1:16:00).
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