2026-05-05 May Q&A Part 1 (raw)

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Dan and Ty.

Dan Rubenstein, welcome back to the podcast, my friend. How was your weekend? Good weekend. There was a chill in the air, but we had some kids' sports pop off successfully. It's a nice day outside in the Chicago burbs. I get to talk to the internet's Ty Hildenbrandt. Everything's coming up, Rubenstein. Dan, I have some news. I bought one of those electronic foot massagers off the internet.

This is for * ***, Ty. This is, you got to bleep that out. Sorry. I apologize. You got to bleep that out, the name of our new show under development.

Yeah.

I will. I'll leave it in for Patreon, but I won't for the little kids there, you know. Okay, you have a new addition to your life.

Yeah.

A foot massager. I do. And how are your feet? This is what people have been clamoring for. We get emails upon emails. How are Ty's feet today?

No.

Well, as you've said for, gosh, like a decade plus now, you're only as comfortable as your feet. And I broke down upon the suggestion of health care providers and others in my orbit, let's say. Broke down, bought it. I'm only about 48 hours in. It's already changed my life. I'm not going to lie. So, is this a way to broadcast to, is it Sam Leavitt has the foot stuff, right? Sam Leavitt has the Lisfranc injury that he is returning from, yeah.

So maybe this is you reaching out to Mr. Leavitt and you're like, if you need a rec, LSU Athletic Department. Yeah, no. Ty has secured. What I can only assume to be Amazon's most recommended foot massager on Ty's budget. For 20% off right now. Okay, not their label. I don't know if that's true. I've never searched it before, but yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad. I'm going to make you a believer before long. Let's get into today's episode.

Let's.

For those members out at Verballers.com, that is our Patreon, that's where you can go to support what Dan and I do. You get ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, get them dropped a little bit early and get access to the Discord. Right now, I'm working on the gaming portal that we're going to unveil for people as the season gets a little bit closer.

There is a lot going on if you want to support what we do. It just so happens, though. Uh oh. Not everybody on our Patreon, Verballers.com, is a paying member. You can be a free member if you just want to dip your toe in, wet the beak a little bit, see what's going on in our world. I opened the post up today, or for today's episode, I should say, to everybody. To everybody.

So if you're a free member, if you're a paying member, we just wanted to get the vibe of what's going on in and around the Verballerhood. So we had questions coming from pretty much all corners of Verballers.com. This is part one of a two-part May Q&A episode, both of which are going to drop this week.

So I'm excited. You're excited.

We got great questions. We had a bunch come through. I put the doc together. I highlighted a couple that I want to talk about, but for sure, if there are any that you want to talk about, just jump on in and let me know.

Absolutely, of course.

So we got two questions here, one from Ethan and another from Thomas, both of which I think we can kind of group together. Both of which are obviously very important, very in the news right now, and they deal with Brendan Sorsby. Now, as you know on the episode that we did last week, we did talk a little bit about this. We talked a little bit more about it when we had the episode with Bill Connelly on two episodes last week where we did sort of go into detail or whatever detail we had at the time about the Brendan Sorsby news.

But these are more specific questions now from the Verballerhood.

Ethan says, if Brendan Sorsby is ruled ineligible for Texas Tech this season, does that open the door for other teams in the Big 12 to win the conference? If yes, which teams?

Thomas then says, as sort of like a bigger picture but related question: with the transfer portal now having only a winter window, which teams do you think will benefit from or be hurt by this change the most? It seems Texas Tech may have some buyers' remorse, but some teams must love the continuity.

So you can see how there is some connective tissue there, Dan. I think we addressed Brendan's question a little bit more directly in our episode with Bill Connelly last week. But why don't we start there? As you look at the Big 12, as you're thinking about the Big 12, which teams are you thinking a little bit more about now that Texas Tech has an obvious issue at the quarterback position? First of all, I am as guilty as anybody. Not guilty, maybe that's the wrong word, but I have echoed the points that many have echoed that like Texas Tech is the big dog in the Big 12 at this moment, both because

They were dominant for the most part last season within the conference, and because they are stocking their roster in a way that nobody else is in the conference. You saw the proof of concept last season and the new coaching hires. There were a number of reasons why Texas Tech was successful last year.

And we've mentioned this is like the first year they finished in the top 25 in quite some time. And they look primed and positioned to do so for the foreseeable future. That said, they've been good for a year in the Big 12. So we're not talking about like, oh, they've won the conference five of the last six seasons.

So, there is always going to be opportunity because the Big 12 has a new look, and the new team additions both all over the country and from those four teams in the Pac-12 that have had some success in the conference. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's wide open. I think Texas Tech, depending on where they are at quarterback, the most important position, is still in a good position to win this conference. Obviously, you look at BYU. You look at a Utah perhaps in flux, even though the promotion of Morgan Scally was, you know, it's an internal promotion.

They're bringing back a lot of dudes, including a star quarterback. The one team that we've talked about a little bit in terms of, okay, could they be a dark horse for a couple of different reasons would be Houston to me.

Yeah.

The combination of defense, which was, I believe, ahead of their offense last season, experience at quarterback, a coach who has won wherever he's been. Recruiting and Portal Savvy, good returning production, like good returning production. I think Bill had him 17th overall. National. They have not been a program these past few years that you point to as like they can control the game when they need to, especially on the ground.

That is probably a step forward they need to take. Especially in this conference, if they're going to sort of be able to dictate line of scrimmage stuff against programs like Utah, BYU, Texas Tech eventually, that would be a program that I would look to as like they've got a number of things going for them that if there is that crease, that crack, that they would be able to take advantage. Houston's a really interesting team to chart, if only because we've talked so much about Willie Fritz here.

Yeah.

And that's in addition to the obvious BYU-Utah conversation. Obviously, the Arizona schools have been very successful. But in terms of if there is an interesting crack, do we have interestingcrack.org? No? Oh, no. Is that not available? Dare I search this? Go ahead. You keep talking. I'm going to, I'm going to. Venture into this to see. Well, we have mysterioussquirtle.edu, right? We do.

I don't think we have that.

No.

Okay.

And this may have. You can buy an EDU. I think somebody has this. This may have just tried to run a phishing attack or some sort of attack on my computer when I went to interestingcrack.com does not appear to be I said org, Ty, because this is like an institution we're talking about in Houston.

Yeah.

All right. Continue. That would be my team that could have a slingshot effect in a more wide open conference. To me. After, again, the Arizona schools, BYU and Utah and the success that they've had recently because of their schedule, which I remember as being Fairly ideal, all things considered. Houston would be that new leap team. Interestingcrack.org is now on sale for just $9. 99, Dan.

That's not a no-brainer. We just forward it to the Houston whatever page, the Houston FBS schedule page, interestingcrack.org. And it is available. Dot com's available, but it's about $10 more. Oh, I don't know if we have the budget for that, Ty.

All right. I've added this to the card. If there are any other ones that arise through this conversation, please don't buy this. We continue. No, Houston's interesting. I was saying, you know, because of the whole Willie Fritz angle and because it feels like they're building the program in a really smart way.

The other thing that I would add, and this is something that popped up, I don't know if I realized this. Throughout the course of last season, but 6-0 on the road last year, so played well on the road. I'm not going to act like they were playing a bunch of killers, but Did go on the road and beat Arizona State. Did go on the road and beat Baylor. A good Baylor offense down the stretch last year. Did go up to Corvallis and knock off Oregon State in overtime. Make whatever you want of that.

But Winning on the road is not an accident. It is tough to do in college football. And I think that is meaningful for a Houston team that is still building. Some other teams that I would throw out there just because I've talked about them before, but I'm not really sure what to make of Arizona this year, but I like where Arizona ended up last season, played pretty well on defense, fixed a lot, returning quarterback.

Yeah, Noah Fifita returns the fourth season, which I think is meaningful. I'm not going to put K-State in there yet, although I think there's a case to be made there. Even Oklahoma State, I've said this about five times now on the show, and it's certainly going to come back to bite me. But if we're talking about the field widening, which I think is how CBS characterized it in one of their write-ups, that it's not, it's the field has widened a little bit as a result of this news.

Yeah.

Was that the write-up where they were like Brendan Sorsby is seeking counseling for a gambling addiction? There's now a the win totals are down from 11 and a half to 10 and a half per BetMGM. It was in the next paragraph. Yeah, yeah, right there. Love it. Do we think a human wrote that? I'm going to say, Bet MGM has the odds of a human writing that at plus 320.

Yeah.

Plus 320.

Yeah.

It's more like plus 3,200. Yeah, thank you.

The other question here from Thomas was specifically with regard to the single portal window now and how this right because things keep changing things keep changing And a year ago, there wasn't really a rule against shadow transfers, which is like a whole new term that many people didn't realize. I didn't even realize it.

But now there are very stiff penalties against this, which in effect is player doesn't want to be at the program. Player is probably behind somebody else who is going to play in front of him, doesn't want to wait his turn. Maybe there are other extenuating circumstances. Screw it. We're not joining the portal. We're not doing anything. We're just going to remove ourselves, we're going to disenroll. Is that a word? Unenroll?

And we're going to re-enroll somewhere else. That's what's considered a shadow transfer. And they've got rules in place now that forbid this. They have changed as of just this most recent portal cycle what the calendar looks like. So you don't have the situation now where You can go through spring practice. You can see what your standing is, and then you can determine at that point if you want to go elsewhere. We had that last year.

That's why some schools like Nebraska decided they didn't they don't want to have the spring game. Why put our guys on display? Now they changed that. Now they got the single winter transfer portal window, which is what Thomas was speaking to. I think it rewards teams that know what they are or what they want to be. It rewards teams that are aggressive as soon as the transfer portal opens up. It probably doesn't do a whole lot for the tampering discussion.

But I think if you have a strong vision for what you want your program to be, for what you know you need, this benefits you. Obviously, if you are a Texas Tech, if you go all in on a big transfer quarterback, it doesn't work out. You don't have a ton of depth behind him. In their case, Will Hammond's still coming back from an ACL.

Some other guys who don't have nearly as much Experience. Yeah, that's these are extenuating circumstances. I don't think that's the norm, but clearly, as Thomas put it, buyer's remorse. I don't think this is buyer's remorse. I think this is really bad luck.

Right.

Or maybe not doing your due diligence. Whatever it is, that is what tech is dealing with now. But how do you stand on this question? Again, if I want to go back to it, it's Will the transfer portal now have only a winter window? Which teams do you think benefit from that? Which teams are hurt by the change?

So the teams that are benefiting are obvious, right? It's the teams that are investing in retention, investing in culture, investing in being a place Where somebody is willing to be a backup for a couple years because they like being there. They feel taken care of from a financial standpoint. They feel taken care of from like a cultural standpoint, a developmental standpoint.

And so they are not itching to leave as soon as possible because they feel like they have a place in that program. And so now that there's no spring transfer window You're not going to get those people itchy after the season to take off because they feel like they can develop and potentially play a bigger role as they return to that school, wherever that school is. It rewards teams who evaluate really well in the portal. It rewards teams who get plain old lucky. You know who's an unlucky team right now?

South Carolina. I think they're down two offensive linemen for spring and offseason workout injury type stuff. That's just plain bad luck. If there were a spring portal and you saw that, yes, there might be a starting offensive line job or two available at a major SEC place there would potentially be some interest from a smaller school offensive lineman to come in and compete for a job like that.

So that is a school that is not necessarily thrilled with there not being a spring window. Think about last season with Syracuse and going through spring with was it Rickie Collins at starting quarterback?

Right.

And then Syracuse looked at the spring footage and what happened during spring and they were like Or we could see what Steve Angeli's up to and how he's feeling about potentially moving to whatever it is, central western New York. So, those are the unlucky teams that could potentially have filled a role, a position, a spot on the roster that is not as strong as they anticipated or as thinner than they anticipated. Those are obviously going to be the big losers. Or it's the guys who are maybe sold a bill of goods and were told that they were going to be the number three running back, and then they go through spring and it's clear

that they're number five or six. And there were opportunities elsewhere, and now they are in a log jam at a certain position group. Those guys are losers that they're not able to take advantage of an opportunity elsewhere. But yeah, I think by and large the big winners of there being only one portal window are the teams that are able to afford to invest in retention and culture and development and making their place an attractive place to spend three, four, five years, whatever.

We got a question that is, I would say, tangentially related to that, which I will get to next. But I just want to go back to the Texas Tech thing for a second. Texas Tech did everything sort of by the letter of the law here. I understand that their new Their new public face as a team that spends a lot makes them an easy target for criticism.

But They did what they were supposed to do here, right? They did what they were doing.

Yeah.

They did what they were supposed to do. They did the modern thing correctly, Dan. They spent big. They got the portal quarterback. They built up expectations to an extent. I mean, maybe not directly, but I think fans were right to build up expectations. This was going to be the missing link. And in this case, they got hit with a risk that had nothing to do with how they went about it, the play calling, recruiting rankings, roster talent, anything like that.

This is just sort of a one-off. Hopefully, a one-off that we don't have to deal a whole lot more with. I think the only pushback I would give to that is, and it's not necessarily only with regard to Brendan Sorsby, is if you're going to make The whatever how many millions investment you are going to make in a quarterback.

Yeah.

Or a starting left tackle of, say, and this is just an example, like Jordan Seaton, I'm sure, is not going to be cash poor starting at left tackle for LSU this upcoming season, right? If you are going to make an investment on that level, what type of due diligence? What type of background? What type of searches for potential red flags are you responsible for? It's a weird, different world that we're doing this in college and not necessarily first-round picks or free agents or something like that. I have no idea to what extent the people at Texas Tech in their personnel departments talk to Cincinnati people, talk to people in Sorsby's life, and were just like,

hey. We're really interested? Or is it the case that, you know, is it a supply and demand situation? We're like, hey, man, there's like going to be four really good quarterbacks in the portal? And we need to take swings and take risks no matter what, because it's just, you're going to get either like Drew Mestemaker, an injured Sam Leavitt, Brendan Sorsby. Like, there's just not going to be a number of huge names that are Instantly going to be of playoff caliber, like Texas Tech seems to be.

And so they're like Did they know and say, like, we think we can figure this out? Or were they completely in the dark? That's the only thing I would push back on in terms of like. Did they do everything correctly? Did they do it properly? Yeah, there's probably going to be a cottage industry for. Vetting these players now moving forward, certainly at Texas Tech, if not other places as well, because of the risk that is associated with it. We talked on one of our recent episodes about how NIL and the portal has affected depth.

Across the board, this would be a pretty good instance of the depth maybe coming back to bite Texas Tech. By the way, we don't know what's going to happen with Brendan Sorsby. I will admit, my first reaction upon reading all this was he's toast. There's no way given precedent that he's going to come back and play any meaningful snaps.

But I know he's retained some legal counsel. They're going to try and work this through. So We're just kind of waiting, like everybody else, to figure out where the story goes next. But, like, look at the again, look at the actual names of like, if Texas Tech is saying we need A quarterback who is of playoff caliber, right?

That we feel like we have a playoff roster. We are building our roster and competing with the expectation that we are either winning the Big 12 or are right there and are getting an at-large bid. You look at the names available, and there is a very, very quick falloff. And I'm not even counting Darian Mensah because he was not in the portal in that way.

Right.

Right? So you're talking about an injured Sam Leavitt. Brendan Sorsby, Drew Mestemaker, and then the number four, according to 247, is DJ Lagway. I don't believe that you can assume that DJ Lagway is like Yes, he has shown the efficiency and high end consistency to be considered like a Power Four conference winning quarterback.

And so after that, you know, it's Husan Longstreet and Deuce Knight and Byrum Brown and Rocco Becht. Like, none of those guys are like, oh, yeah, plug-in, play, playoff guy. I don't believe. I'm all in on Deuce Knight, but that's fine. You can be in on Deuce Knight, but Deuce Knight is a backup quarterback for a playoff team.

And they didn't know that at the time. They didn't know how Trinidad Chambliss's court stuff was going to work out. But you're talking about a very limited number of dudes. So it's a beggars can't be choosers situation as well. So is Texas Tech going to say, now that we know that he might have these red flags, we're not going to go after him?

I don't know, man. But then, are you positive Will Hammond is that guy coming off of injury? Who are you tampering with that you are positive you can get? I don't know. I don't like to be fair, for a half. I thought Will Hammond was the dude, but then he got hurt, and now he's coming back from this, and who the hell knows?

These are backups with upside, guys who weren't in power conferences, guys with clear limitations. You look at Josh Hoover, the best of Josh Hoover, sure, was a little bit sloppy with the ball last year. Like Sonny Dykes will tell you. Sonny Dykes will tell you. Sonny Dykes will tell you. But, like, look at these names: Beau Pribula, Aidan Chiles, Kenny Minchey, maybe, have not seen him as a starting quarterback.

So that's the problem. Living this way. I don't know.

Kyle asks a question that I think is sort of related to what we've been discussing. Do y'all feel like internal development of players out of high school has kind of gone by the wayside? A&M has recruited defensive end, but our starter for the last three years, including the upcoming year, has been out of the transfer portal. I'm also looking at quarterbacks at Miami as more examples of this. Thank you for the question, Kyle.

Okay, yeah. This is not necessarily a new question.

What I would say is that it's not fallen by the wayside per se, at least not in the way that I think Kyle means in this question. But it's no longer the end all be all. It just isn't. Homegrown talent used to be the only way you could build a winner. You got to be good at it. You got to recruit. You got to have your recruits recruit.

That's the way you build the thing. I think the best approach now is to be more of a hybrid when it comes to your roster construction. Develop enough of your own guys. So to your point, You have culture, you have an identity, but also give yourself enough flexibility that if you need to add pieces, you have the sway to do so.

Sure.

Not everybody can be Curt Cignetti. Not everybody should want to be Coach Prime at Colorado. We have obviously seen a great number of Differing opinions on how this whole thing should be put together. There's Clemson on one side of the spectrum. There's probably Colorado on the other.

Sure.

Like most things, the winner is probably somewhere in the middle. And there is only one Curt Cignetti, who probably skewed a little bit more towards the Colorado end of that spectrum. But I think if you're doing it right In the year of our Lord 2026, you got to be somewhere on that spectrum. In the middle, more of a hybrid than not.

Yeah.

Look, it's position-dependent. It's coach-dependent. It's scheme-dependent. Quarterback, I understand why we are kind of devaluing prep quarterbacks, just because there are so many variables on the road from being a high school senior to star college quarterback, especially at a big place, right? It's system fit, it's injury luck, it's receivers, it's offensive line, it's the same thing that affects everybody, homesickness, and if you feel like you are a fit on that campus, in that program, and just

Sometimes it's bad luck in terms of what that depth chart looks like. You come in as a well-regarded, you know, four-star, five-star guy, but the coach doesn't Fully see you as ready and recruits over you in the portal, and then you just sort of get lost and you're not getting the reps with the higher level teams.

And I don't know. There are different factors involved at different places. At different positions, though, it's different. So, like, if you take defensive end, for example, if you're looking at the portal and there's just production there, and you're not positive that the guys you've recruited and are in the middle of developing, or maybe they're still a little bit raw because you have a bunch of freshmen and sophomores and you're too deep.

And you see, who is it, Nic Scourton, for instance, at Texas A&M? And you see how productive he is at Purdue. Not that defensive end is easier to play, but it's a little bit more straightforward to watch a tape like he beats every single tackle in front of him. So we feel pretty good that he can continue doing that. Whereas when you're talking about preps or younger quarterbacks, you're like, well, he looks pretty good in practice against the scout team, but when he plays against the, you know, the twos, he's not as strong.

And so, like. I think there's so much tied to quarterback with success that you can talk yourself out of taking that chance with a true sophomore when you can go in and get A reasonably successful proven guy from either a slightly smaller school or a place that, for whatever reason, is pushing him out, like we saw with Will Howard in Kansas State.

Sure.

It's safer. And I think a lot of these coaches and coordinators are in the business of take as few risks as possible. So I get it. I don't know if I fully understand why Texas A&M can't find and develop a defensive end in this specific instance, but I understand when you're looking at the portal and you're seeing production that Rasheem Biles at Pitt. Seems more promising than what we have in the pipeline here at Texas, we're going to go after him. Or can contribute quicker. Or can contribute quicker, right?

Right.

Or can contribute quicker if we feel maybe we're an edge rusher away. And we have some developmental pieces that are a little bit buried in the depth chart that we're not confident can give us the production we need. That's when you go out And you get that guy.

Yeah.

Did you see Sark talking about offensive lineman? Made a couple of good points. I don't know if you saw that. I didn't see it, no. On a podcast interview, Sark was talking about how difficult roster construction around offensive lineman is because it's such a developmental position, right? You got to get to the size, you got to get used to the speed and the intricacies of high-level defensive line play. And you end up paying top-level offensive linemen out of high school, like teams like Texas can do, and then you have to stash them while they develop.

So you're paying these guys a huge number. You're not sure if they're going to develop into something. And then, when it comes for time for them to perform and they're not that good, you can either Keep paying them that number, or you let them loose, and you have to go after a very limited number of quality offensive linemen in the portal.

And it's sort of a difficult again, nobody's crying for Texas from a financial perspective. But that you are paying offensive linemen to be non-contributors for the most part early on in their careers, like their stars, if you're recruiting on a high level, which is sort of an interesting dynamic. Yeah, I think it depends on the place.

I think development is still very much alive if you are not at a huge place that you need to develop because you're not going to be able to afford Big recruits are big portal dudes. And so the name of the game is finding the best possible assistants and guys who fit your program. But, yeah, there are just going to be certain places that they can lose a slot receiver and say, why don't we just go get a dude from XYZ school in the American who is productive rather than taking a chance with a true freshman?

And so. Yeah, I think development is all relative at this point to where you are and what position we're talking about.

We get questions a lot about the roster construction thing now because of where we're at in college football. And I think we got another one here a little bit later on. I don't know if we'll get to it in part one or part two or maybe our bonus episode, but we always get these questions about how would you build it?

If you were in charge, first off, we would never be in charge. We're good at this, but I'm not sure. Disagree. Continue. I am almost fixated on the idea of spending a ton of money in the scouting department and bring people in, bring quarterback whisperers in. Who can track FCS quarterbacks from the moment they get on their FCS campus? I'm sure somebody's doing it.

Yeah.

Lord knows there's plenty of money in this now, but To the point of like getting Jaden Craig at TCU the way Sonny Dykes went out and got him. You know, I don't know if he's the guy or not. I guess we'll find out how his skills translate.

Right.

But having people on staff, give me like a team of four people, and all they do is watch FCS tape, high school tape, but then FCS tape, and find me diamonds in the rough. Because if you hit with any consistency on guys coming up from FCS to FBS, that pays for itself a thousand times over, if they're any good. You just got to make sure you get the right scouting department. I disagree.

But I appreciate that is a strategy. Find an angle. You need the angle. It's like poker, man. Find the angle. The arguably top returning college quarterback. Played at Ferris State two years ago. That's what I'm saying. That's not even FCS, that's D2. Yeah, find guys that can pick out the diamonds in the rough.

But here's the only thing. It has happened so infrequently, likely for a reason, that a guy makes a move at quarterback from FCS to a power conference or D2 to a power conference. That you're probably looking at quarterbacks. No, no, you are looking at quarterbacks in your specific example who are throwing into FCS secondaries. Who are protected by FCS offensive lines. I get it. I'm not saying the production is apples to apples. I get that. Oh, I know, but I'm saying it's It's such a crapshoot to know whether or not this big-armed dude from southeast Louisiana is actually going to pop when he gets to Arkansas when

He does not have that speed and size experience. I get it, picking apart a defense. I'm not saying it's easy. It's just a crap. Well, I'm just saying it's a crap shit. I don't think you can, I don't think you can successfully scout that. Where was Trinidad Chambliss going to go right until he got the last second offer. He was going to Temple.

So it's not like he was between Ole Miss and Georgia and Oregon. And Temple saw something, is my point.

Right.

Temple saw something. Temple saw something. A team, a program that has won three games in five years. They saw something. And if they got them, maybe they would want a bunch more. But that's my point. My point is invest in guys that know who are whisperers? It doesn't have to be quarterback. Quarterback's the most prominent.

But I think of guys like Eric Morris, who is a noted quarterback whisperer. Totally. Very good at identifying underrecruited quarterback talent. He's got one now with Drew Mestemaker, right? That's a pretty big success story. I think of guys like Mike Mickens, who is now with the Baltimore Ravens, but. Recruited Leonard Moore. Cincinnati and Notre Dame.

Yeah.

Was very, very good at identifying defensive back talent out of high school, in this case, that went underrecruited. Leonard Moore was like a three-star.

Sure.

So my point is, find the guys that can do that on the quarterback at the quarterback position on the FCS level, put them on staff. We'll make sure they don't have to pay for a meal. Because if you can go out there and get the next big thing, it's going to pay for itself a million times over. Well, yes, but if you are at a non-huge place, you're going to lose that guy after two years. Maybe. Every time. Maybe.

No.

I mean. Unless you're like Toledo's DB's coach, you're going to lose that guy. Let's move on, Dan. Shall we? Okay, please. We've been talking a lot about Texas here. Yeah, got a question here from my friend Alex.

Okay.

Alex takes a little bit of issue with you, Dan. Oh, same though. I take, you can't imagine the issues I have with myself. Continue. Um, okay. Let me try to. Oh, is this the guy who's calling me a Texas hater? Well, a little bit of a Texas hater. Okay, continue. This is how we know Texas back, by the way.

This is how we know Texas is back. And this is sort of like my measure of: is X whatever?

Okay.

You can insert your own adjectives or insert your own adverbs there. Whenever you get to a point with a team, we're saying anything remotely true But slightly derogatory or slightly critical is frowned upon, is reacted to. That is how you know that That team has accomplished this. So, in case of, in case of, in the case of Texas, right, saying anything remotely true but unflattering about Texas. Is always now met with a pretty stiff response from the Brotherhood, which is fine.

That's fine. Which is fine. Do you feel like you've been unfair to Texas? I don't remember what I did yesterday, Ty. I. It gives me so much credit. To think that I am calculated with how I feel about a team. I like making fun of Notre Dame because you're a Notre Dame person. That's about as evil as I get with how calculated about negative things I say about a team. I just I have two small children. I can't sit and plot against a college football team and giving bad thoughts.

So, no, I have nothing calculated in a negative way about Texas. I think it's fair to hold certain programs to a specific standard if they are recruiting and spending and holding themselves to that standard, right? As I think it's fair in this instance, Texas, but you know, Georgia, Ohio State, Notre Dame, take your pick. Miami, Oregon, USC, teams that are spending, teams that are trying to position themselves to be high-level playoff teams.

So, I think it has to be viewed through the lens of that. Like, we are not holding Texas and Missouri to the same standard. And I think that's reasonable. So I think you have to look at conversations through that lens. Can you look at a conversation, maybe listen to a conversation? Through that filter.

The filter.

Yeah.

Okay.

Here's the question, though, that I want to bring up. Thank you, Alex, for listening. We love you. And it's cool if you disagree. We're all friends here. We don't make more money. Speaking ill of Texas. Now, I wish it were true because then we would real listen, I've got a lot of expenses Ty. If I could sit here and very specifically doubt whether Trevor Goosby

If I could say, like, I don't believe in Will Muschamp having a more open, aggressive defense than Pete Kwiatkowski. And then all of a sudden somebody hands me $83. Now we're talking. Now we're talking here. Okay, Alex says, and the question that I did want to address.

Okay.

He says there's something missing from the gauntlet. You know, the gauntlet, the SEC Gauntlet schedule.

Sure.

He says the gauntlet is focused on conference games. Have you checked out Texas's nonconference gauntlet? Texas State, Ohio State, and UTSA. Okay, yeah. He says, I hear you, scribes. Yes, I am an older listener telling me every year about how good G.J. Kinne and Jeff Traylor are. This has to be looked on favorably by you and your ilk in November.

And early December, right? Otherwise, we need to go full tech when scheduling. So this is a broader conversation about nonconference scheduling. Which team should you schedule? Should Texas get credit for scheduling these teams? For what it's worth, I like G.J. Kinne. I do like UTSA and Jeff Traylor.

I don't know if they're going to rise to the level of some other nonconference opponents that are around college football. And as we get a little bit closer, I think we'll probably dissect which teams have the toughest nonconference slates. I look at teams like USC, they're pretty tough. And we can go into that conversation later.

But I think this is part of a broader ongoing discussion right now about how nonconference games fit into the equation at all? Because as we have joked about here and talked about countless times now, the SEC has gone to a nine-game conference slate. Many other conferences, nine-game conference slate.

The role of the nonconference game is one that I think is somewhat debated, especially now in this playoff era. Does it benefit you to play the likes of an Ohio State? If you're Texas, it's great for us in week two. I'd love to see that. I'd love to see more games like that. But does it actually have real benefit to you if you go into a game like that, even if it's early and you lose? It didn't for Notre Dame last year. Not exactly a traditional nonconference opponent, right? All their games are nonconference games, technically, if you're a Notre Dame fan.

But if it were the shoe being on the other foot, Miami loses that game, then you could probably make the case: like, hey, if they lose that game, they're not getting in the playoff at all. They're not playing for the national championship. So, right. I'm going to maybe reframe this question a bit and speak to this broader discussion of nonconference games, Dan. How do you look at it in terms of Texas? How do you look at it more broadly?

Okay, so after our subscriber-only Patreon show last week, when I'm talking about retired Gen. David Petraeus, you know I'm a credit where credit's due guy. Of course. Okay? I'm a credit where credit's due guy. Credit the SEC for going to nine conference games, to even the conversation with other conferences about how many. You know, quote-unquote power conference teams these teams play. Credit Texas for scheduling a home-and-home and not a neutral site game against Ohio State and going up to Columbus and losing last year, having the opportunity to win at home this season when Texas people specifically have said all arrows and signs have been pointing to 2026 as the year.

So Texas has positioned themselves in a nice way to get credit for scheduling Ohio State, having perhaps the most high-level home-and-home of these past couple seasons on their schedule and on their potential playoff resume. I think UTSA and Texas State have been good programs. I don't think anybody's going to confuse recent Texas State defenses of being incredible.

But they can score. They can usually score. They can score. They have been of quality. And UTSA, for the most part, has been of quality. So that's a quality schedule. I don't have Texas's SEC schedule memorized. But if memory serves, I don't think they have. Like six of the best seven SEC quarterbacks on their schedule.

I think it's a tough schedule, but it's fine. I think teams should be credited for strong nonconference schedules, especially as their conference schedule goes to nine games. I think schedules should be taken holistically, but I also am of the mind that who you are in early September is not who you are in late November.

And so I tend to weigh nonconference a little bit less because I want to give teams credit for evolving into their final form. Thanksgiving time. So yes, it is part of the equation. It is a slice of the pie. I just think it should be used on the margins instead of a major talking point when we're talking resumes come November 23rd or something.

Yeah, and Texas State and UTSA aren't, like, body bags. They're not chumps. They're definitely not chumps. They're not. They're not. And there are plenty of other teams out there that have taken a different approach. And I do credit Texas for this. To your point, though, here are the teams in conference that are on the schedule. You're on the road at Tennessee. Quarterback questions, yeah. Tough place to play, but quarterback questions. Definite quarterback questions. Home against both Oklahoma and Florida, as well as Ole Miss. I would go as far as saying quarterback questions, both in terms of what Florida starter looks like, but also like, is Oklahoma's starter somebody who is going to be a top half of the SEC starter? 75%, I believe, is returning in terms of offensive production for Oklahoma. By the way, I also know that that game is neutral-siter. I misspoke. Who else do we got here? Mississippi State.

Okay.

New quarterback, a question. At Mizzou? New quarterback, a question. At LSU? New quarterback, injury question more so than quality question.

Yeah.

Home against Arkansas, new everything. New everything. Close out the year on the road at Texas A&M. Tough game. Not a quarterback question, tough emotional spot. A&M has not been able to succeed in this renewed rivalry. Did you mention? Do they have Ole Miss, don't they? I forgot Ole Miss.

Yeah.

No, no.

Yeah.

I called them out very briefly. Yeah, that's Ole Miss. So they have Ole Miss, not a quarterback question. No, no, no, no.

No.

So there are a handful of games on here against teams that have. Legitimate quarterback stability in Ohio State, in Oklahoma, in Ole Miss.

Yeah.

I mean, LSU knows who their quarterback's going to be. We'll see if he's healthy, and then close out the year against Texas A&M. So there's some good ones on here, but We'll see. I don't know. I but I to our earlier conversational point, I think Texas should be held to the standard of They are a team that can afford to get Pitt's best linebacker and star running backs for ASU and NC State and a star offensive lineman from Wake Forest, right?

They are of that quality and that financial flexibility. So if they are able to build this roster, add an expensive defensive coordinator, right, and make a A vanity switch, right? It was not an emergency that they needed to get rid of Pete Kwiatkowski. They thought they could do better, Pete Kwiatkowski.

So now we're saying, okay, they are able to do this. They are able to raise the bar to this extent. And then they beat Mississippi State again by four, right? Who let's in this instance, let's say Mississippi State is not of huge quality, right? That they go through this schedule and they're not great against an average Florida team.

And they sort of exhibit the same deficiencies as they showed last year. I think it's fair to say, like, hey, Texas is investing all around to be a top-four-type playoff team and they're still struggling to distance themselves from what seems to be average competition, what's going on? On the flip side, if all these guys work out and they're beating everybody by 17, you're like, great.

They did an awesome job. They deserve to be considered to be upper crust in this sport. So, look, we had another Sark and a few other Texas-related questions, but I want to veer off course a little bit.

Okay.

And broaden the question. But I can make $71 more, Ty. I know, I know. We will get to part two.

Okay.

Okay.

On Thursday, I will bring the Sark questions for the discussion.

Bob, though, wants to know a fabulous hypothetical. Which SEC team will be the next to win a national championship? Would you bet on Georgia, LSU, Alabama or Texas to be the next national championship winner from the SEC, or would you bet the field? I'm going to tell you straight up, and I've said it on this show before, I am a sucker for a so-and-so versus the field bet.

Yeah.

You love a field? I love me a good field. And I have gotten burnt on that many times before. So who is the field in this question? The field in the Tennessee and South Carolina, Oklahoma. The field is the other twelve teams. So the four that he called out are Georgia, LSU, Alabama and Texas. Would you bet on one of those teams to win the next national championship out of the SEC? Or would you take the field?

And I'd bet one on one of those four. Here are the other ones. You've got Arkansas, Auburn, Florida. Kentucky, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Vandy.

Okay, so Texas A&M is in that.

Okay.

Ole Miss is in there. Florida's in there. Well, I don't think anybody's looking at Florida in the next year or two to be that level. I think Ole Miss, Georgia, Alabama probably have the best, and Texas, obviously. So I just, I don't know if you're giving me those four combined odds of those four. Those are the four that he gave us.

Yeah.

I'm look, Kirby's smart. Like the. The trophy still has his fingerprints on it. I know they get their each trophy this year, but you know what I'm saying.

Right.

You can still smell Kirby Smart on the fields of these games. Like. I'm happy to take one of those four.

Okay, so in terms of odds, and I don't mean to make this goofy because we had the whole conversation earlier about, you know. The Brendan Sorsby thing and the next paragraph will but this is the question.

Okay, so in terms of current odds, Texas is in that lead pack. They're at about seven to one. Georgia is 11 to 1. LSU is 13 to 1. Alabama is, I think, 25 to 1. They're a little bit further back here.

Yeah.

A&M would be the next highest, and I think they're at 18 right now. So A&M would be the one that you would bet on. But this is just this year. Bear in mind that the SEC hasn't played for or won a national championship the last three cycles. Now they're due. They're due. This is coming off a decade plus of just incredible consistency with Alabama or Georgia basically playing for a title every year. You got a couple others that peek their head in every now and again.

But we had an incredible run during the Saban era of the SEC always being. In the mix. That has not been the case the last three years. They've been in the mix. They just haven't played for it. Well, also, Kalen DeBoer has led a team to a national championship game. In recent memory, and is now Alabama's coach.

So it's not like they don't have that caliber a coach. So I have no problem putting Alabama in that top group. So if you look at this, I mean, Texas, because of the quarterback ceiling, because of how they spent, because of, I would say, in general, roster momentum, you can look at the confidence of the betting market right now and say that Texas is probably the best single answer for this year.

The best institutional answer I'd still rather have Georgia, by the way, than Texas. Is probably Georgia.

Yeah.

All right. Just because the floor is always going to be high with Kirby Smart. The most volatile upside is probably LSU, because if it all hits the ceiling, it's pretty obvious, right? They've got a lot of high priced talent on that roster. And the weirdest answer, at least of the four that he gave us, is Alabama. Alabama skills. Is it that weird? Well, it's emotionally weird.

Okay.

Okay, it's emotionally weird because Alabama is still Alabama. The roster is still incredible. There are obvious questions. There are a bunch of narratives that. Center around quarterback, center around Kalen DeBoer, the running game, if you really want to go into it. It's just interesting to me that the market, and I would say the fan conversation, is no longer treating Alabama as inevitable.

Right.

And that's the biggest difference. That's why I say emotionally weird. That's true to an extent for Georgia as well. And more broadly, the SEC. The fact that the SEC is not inevitable the way they were five years ago, that's a change. In our universe. And that's part of why this I think is a really interesting discussion point, right? For the first time in forever, even if you wouldn't bet on the field, you could look at this and you could say, I could probably make a case for the field.

And that I think makes us a little bit different. Yeah, I mean, look, three of those four teams have returning quarterbacks. Georgia won the conference last year. And look, interestingly enough, what ended up being the two best teams in the conference last season started their quarterback for the first time as a full-time starter last year. In Georgia, in Gunner Stockton, and Trinidad Chambliss with Ole Miss.

They had experience playing games, obviously Trinidad Chambliss more, but. It's never been more wide open. And we saw the interview with Kirby Smart talking about how his Alabama teams, Alabama defenses, and teams he was involved with from a decade plus ago. Would fare so much better because of the depth that they had.

And you're right that it's a different world. But I think the teams that are mentioned at the top of this have done at least a pretty good job of adapting to what it means to be successful. And look, the Big Ten has gotten to be more successful. A team like Texas Tech, Miami, obviously has thrived in this era and exhibited by what they did last year in the playoff.

So It's just more difficult to dominate as a conference when there are going to be in any given season maybe a half dozen teams outside of the conference that Seem to be of that caliber, also with that good coaching or great coaching, also with great recruiting, also with great portaling, also building up their line talent in a way that can beat SEC teams.

All right.

Let's go to this question. Where do we want to go?

Let's go to this one from Lori.

Okay.

Lori sent us an email. New listener, thank you, Lori. Appreciate your support. Love it. She says, You guys and everyone who talks into a microphone about college football have alluded to things being in a weird and lawless place right now. And while I myself am having a great time, that's good.

Yeah.

It seems like most people involved, from players to coaches, athletic directors, some fans, don't really love the way things are. Is there anyone with skin in the game who thinks things should stay the way they are right now? That was a rhetorical question. The only people who really like this are the ones who are gaining the most because college football is a microcosm of everything.

Right.

It can't stay this way. It feels too unstable to me.

Here is my question: What is the most reasonable, best case scenario for college football in the years to come? What is your most optimistic but also realistic prediction for how all of this looks in 2035. Is there a super conference? Do the players and schools have a CBA? How did our current CFB problems get solved? Again, let's travel ahead in time, Dan, to twenty thirty five.

Yeah.

What's it look like? I don't think it'll ever be solved. I just think new problems will be introduced that make you forget about the severity of the older problems. Look, when the TV deals are all up and everything is renegotiated, maybe we'll see a different landscape. But honestly, I think it is reasonable to say that there are certain aspects of modern college football that are good, that are positive, that like. You know, I don't think we are in this like dramatically awful place in every regard.

There is something about. As much as I hate not having a West Coast conference in the way that we did a few years ago in the Pac-12, I know there's a new Pac-12. I guess, what, Texas State is a Pac-12 team? Allegedly.

Yeah.

There is something to the schools who have jumped up to power conference levels, like Cincinnati, UCF, BYU, whoever, that there are more players and coaches and programs that are on larger platforms, that have brighter spotlights on them. So whether that's players showcasing their skills for the draft or for the portal, or coaches for other jobs, or programs showcasing themselves as schools to better enrollment, and whatever it is.

There's all sorts of advantages to more places and more people getting shine, it seems like a positive thing. It seems like a positive thing that the potential for, hypothetically, more Indianas more often, or more Vanderbilts more often. Take your pick for schools who are able to better their place and better their reputations and better their ability to shine nationally.

That could be a great thing for the sport, just because you're going to bring in more eyeballs like Indiana fans who are Resign to another crappy three and nine season, all of a sudden getting to feel the frenzy of an Alabama or an Ohio State, even if it's just for a year or three or seven or something.

So that's a positive thing to get more people engaged with the sport because there is a better shot for their team, even to just make a bowl game, even to go from Going two and ten every year to seven and five sometimes. Like you're just engaging more people with positive vibes around college football.

So, what do I think this sport's going to look like in a few years? I have no idea. There's going to be restrictions put on transfers and five years to play five seasons or something. There are going to be those attempts. But college football is an unkillable amoeba that is just going to find new ways to exploit the rules

And I think we just need to kind of make peace with that. So you and I have had the discussion time and again on the public shows and the bonus shows about how You and I interact with people who aren't as degenerate when it comes to college football. And once people find out what we do, they want they have questions.

And a lot of them Sound the same. What do you think of this? Why do you hate Texas? Well, why do you hate Texas, of course? But what do you think of this NIL? Or what do you think of the transfer portal? What do you think of this playoff? Things like that. Really generic questions.

The popular trend also that I have noticed, and it's among people who maybe just want to start a conversation. It is definitely prevalent among the class of college football fans that I would call traditionalists is they say, oh, well, you know, you can sue for anything these days.

Yeah.

And sue for anything. That's how we got where we are in college football, you know?

Yeah.

And I'm not even excluding myself in that. You know, I've done that, we've done that here. But I think saying that, as I have heard countless times now Implies that this is the fault of the players, which it very much is not. This was not just a series of frivolous lawsuits that brought about all this change in college football.

This is very much The powers that be seeing the writing on the wall and deciding to fight it instead of adapt.

Right.

And this is a tale as old as time. This is not a new thing. It's not. Specific to college football, we see this all over the place. The old power structure does everything it can to kind of keep things in place. And then, when the world collapses, they are not in any position. To adapt. And that's why we are where we are.

That's why it feels like we're in this constant scramble drill right now to figure out the sport. It's been a lot of change all at once. And so I understand the reaction of people to feel like it is all sort of Collapsing. And for sure, there are parts of the sport, and parts of at least our older, more traditional view of the sport that have collapsed. Partially, entirely, you name it.

But I tend to agree with you. It's not all bad. It's not all bad. But it is very much up in the air. By the way, yeah, continue. And I was just going to say: so the question of what it looks like in 10 years' time, whatever, is very much an open question. I can give you, Lori. Optimistically, perhaps somewhat realistically, what I would like to see and what that could look like.

This is not a prediction, though. Did you have something you wanted to say before I go further in my diatribe, Dan? No, I just say, in terms of like the things that People point to as being like these huge problems, right? Having 24, 25 year olds. And part of that is you have the COVID year, part of that is changes to What counts as eligibility, right? We saw the junior college stuff that Diego Pavia brought up, like, but the NCAA doesn't govern junior college football.

But somehow playing junior college football counts towards your NCAA eligibility, right? There's stuff like that that hasn't always made sense. It's not necessarily that we love the idea of lawsuits or we love the idea of finding loopholes, but two things being true at the same time. Look at the number of familiar quarterback names we have because of the NIL era coming back this season.

I think that's a great thing for the sport. Now, some of them have changed schools, obviously, but One of the problems that college football has had traditionally is, again, a quarterback specifically, only starts for a year or two and then is off to the NFL.

Right.

That he comes in, he starts for UCLA or Minnesota or something for a year or two years and is not there. It's like it's easier to have household names at quarterback because sometimes It's more attractive to these guys to come back for a fourth or fifth season rather than take fourth round of the NFL money.

So when you look at having Dante Moore and Julian Sane and Jaden Mayava and Brendan Sorsby, hopefully, Drew Mestemaker and take your pick, Bryce Underwood, all these guys that like Across major places, across semi-major places, whatever, that like, oh yeah, we know thirty-five, forty quarterbacks well because they've been producing and have succeeded.

And that is in no small part due to the fact that there is money in the sport to stay in the sport. I think that's a great thing on a certain level in terms of getting people interested in a random College football game on September 24th or something. Yeah, and also in terms of being invested in the names.

Yeah.

It wasn't all that long ago that we had games between two Powerhouse programs that were basically shells of themselves because of opt-outs. Yes. And now, because there's been this combination of added stakes for more teams with the playoff,

Sure.

And NIL, money that can be funneled back into the program to keep guys around and maybe not necessarily put them on the NFL radar in a way they would have been, again, five years ago. I think that has made on some level, it's not across the board, but on some level, it's made for better postseason.

Right.

Here is what I think Is maybe realistic, probably more optimistic.

Okay.

Number one, Lori, I want some sort of Top-tier football structure with somebody actually in charge in 10 years. Somebody actually in charge is important. Right now, we got a bunch of satellites with influence and their own little bubbles. Mostly the SEC and the Big Ten are the ones running this thing.

But I want some sort of structure to all of this with somebody in charge. If it's a little bit more professionalized, so be it. It can still use university brands. It's not exactly the NFL light. It's some version of a professionalized college setup that I think needs to happen if this is going to have any kind of real sustainable future.

That's number one.

Yeah.

Secondly, we need some form of collective bargaining or quasi collective bargaining. I don't know what that looks like, right? But the current system right now is trying to regulate labor without fully admitting that it's kind of labor. You got to get past that. Whatever side of the fence you're right, you got to get past that.

That's a problem.

Three, revenue sharing is now a baseline With NIL and or no, excuse me, let me give you a phrase. I want to get to a point where revenue sharing is the baseline. And NIL sort of returns closer to what I think it was originally intended as, which is like actual endorsement and marketing value.

Okay.

Because right now it's like the two things are kind of the same, and NIL probably has a little bit more sway. But NIL, the way that NIL came about, was as a means of endorsement, being able to take endorsement dollars.

Right.

Good luck. Yeah, yeah, I don't know how you do.

Yeah.

But if we can get to a point where the revenue sharing, a little bit more of a baseline across the board, and NIL is maybe this is Partially because some NIL investments go astray or go amiss and aren't worth the investment, and it sort of resets the market. I don't know. But optimistically. And the other thing that I would say is I would just like to get to a point where we had a little bit more balance in terms of what schools were spending on football. Because right now you've got and I don't know how you do this, okay?

Yeah.

This is probably kind of a salary cap discussion. As I read the news this offseason, I see all sorts of crazy numbers being thrown out. You know, $50 million roster, $60 million roster. Someone's going to have a $100 million roster at some point.

Yeah.

That is not necessarily encouraging to me. Being able to spend the most to get the best players to win is not Not my version of this that I look at optimistically. So I don't know how realistic that is. That's why I mentioned it last. But I would like to see optimistically, I would like to see something like that that could bring up it doesn't have to be perfectly imbalanced, doesn't need to be the NFL, but going to be the NFL. Which is something that could keep it a little bit more in check, I think, would be beneficial.

Well, okay, I agree, but we're also watching a sport where just spending the most doesn't guarantee you anything lost, right? Dan, that's been the case in Major League Baseball. Remember when the Yankees were spending all that money and they didn't win a damn thing?

Right.

So it's not exactly like the money equals the wins.

Right.

But it's also not just about the wins all the time because schools that can afford to pump just insane amounts of money into the infrastructure behind the football program almost guarantees a level of success that some of their peers will never have because they don't have that as a starting point.

Right.

So I still think, just a little bit more in check. I still think the baked in advantages, either geography or cultural whatever, as well as the ability to hire and empower the right guy and the right group of coaches I still think it's going to go further than simply trying to spend your way to success. I understand why there should be guardrails. I understand the concerns involved as we see these inflating numbers.

But everybody seemed to be reasonably okay with coaching salaries getting inflated like Crazy amounts. And then, as soon as it happens, with like, oh, this roster is $50 million, $60 million, people are like, oh, well, something must be done to curtail this. And we're just like. Man, Texas Tech spent whatever they spent last year and didn't score a point in the playoff.

The year before that, Ohio State reportedly spent a ton. And won the national championship. What's the difference? Ohio State had been recruiting on a championship level for years upon years upon years going into that season and was able to retain players. They weren't simply buying players, they were retaining players.

That they developed inside the program. Did they add Jeremiah Smith and probably pay him a ton of money out of high school?

Sure.

They needed him to choose Ohio State over other places willing to spend that much money. Did they get Caleb Downs out of the portal? Absolutely, they did. He didn't win that championship alone. So there is still something to look. What did Oregon spend last year? Were they three seconds away from losing to Iowa, who probably paid a fraction for their roster that Oregon spent for yeah, they were. Oregon was they were not crazy competitive the year before that against Boise State and Idaho.

So there's still room for excellent coaching. Indiana spent far less, I'm positive, than Miami and Ole Miss and Ohio State and all the other teams, Oregon, that they were able to beat or get further than. So I don't mind hearing those numbers because it kind of just means players are getting paid their market value.

I don't know.

We got one more question here, Dan, that we're going to let the fine people go.

Please.

We're going to make this a non-football question, though. There can be football answers.

Okay.

So if you just wanted football, this is the time to go and do the wash.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This might be one of my favorite off topic questions we've ever gotten. Oh, yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah, I know where you're going. So it comes to us from Don. If you are hanging around for this portion of the episode, I want you to think about this, and I want emails about this actually. This is what I want people to email about.

Yeah.

Or the Texas paranoia, if you want to, Alex, that's cool too. We love you. But please, this one here. You have a job planning new housing developments. For the newest development, you also get the task of naming the streets. What will be the theme of your streets? Birds, flowers?

Don, who asked this marvelous question, says he's going with former baseball grades.

Okay.

Which is a great answer. I know you well. My hunch is that you spent more time thinking about this question than pretty much any of the other ones that we asked. Where are you at in terms of street naming philosophies, themes, and just overall approaches?

Okay, so essentially my number one rule for street naming is it has to be somewhat recognizable as a word or a name. I'd much rather be told that the sandwich shop is on Acorn Lane or something like that because, okay, I know what you're saying. I know how to spell Acorn and I've seen that word written out. It's when you get into the street names that audibly you're like, I don't know what you're saying right now, right?

I don't know it's too many letters or there's silent pronunciation in there, whatever. Like I want instantly recognizable. Thematically, I would love to go with something that is important locally. So if you're in the desert I don't hate there being like Sidewinder Lane, right? Something like something that honors cacti or local Animals or something that's something that's meaningful to the area, right?

If you live in the mountains, you're dealing with different tree names, but like Nothing crazy complicated to say or spell. Somebody that's instantly recognizable driving from, you know, 300 yards away. They're like, oh, this is where I am. I would love to use, I think, almost first names rather than last names of local civic heroes. Who have passed background checks so that we're not necessarily naming something Lori Lane after this incredible nurse Who was honored by the local maternity ward for working there for 50 years?

But also involved in a Ponzi scheme, right? You don't got to name the street right. But first of all, if you've ever been to a hospital for an extended amount of time, I would just name every single street after nurses. Like amazing nurses, the best people among us. Teachers, nurses, that whole thing.

So, I would take a lot of their first Stephanie Avenue, sure, great. Marcus Drive, great. I would just do that with recognizable first names or last names, whatever is easier to spell and say of civic heroes and local flora fauna. Again, I don't want to get, I would make it all local, like where I come from in the San Fernando Valley.

They just came up with, like, combined certain things that aren't words, but people slowly got used to it. Like, there's a major street called Van Owen. It combines Van Nuys and Owensmouth. Okay, you get used to it if you live there, but it's a little complicated. I would go as simple as humanly possible with local civic heroes. I wouldn't theme it for, like

Theme it for like birds. I know you're a bird-human, Ty, but that can get a little bit complicated once you get out of like the cardinal and blue, blue bird kind of stuff. So local civic heroes and local flora fauna. I'm actually taking this a much different direction. Okay? What Don is referring to, I believe, is the name of a street. Yes.

So by the way, the most popular name of any street is Second. Like Second Avenue? Second Avenue. So like second, first, third, fourth. I believe Oak is the most popular tree street. Main Street is obviously one of the top 10 as well. I am thinking of it from a different perspective, though.

Okay.

I'm thinking of it in terms of like don't call it a street or an avenue. Don't call it a court or a lane. A place.

Yeah.

But let's talk some places. Let's talk parkways. Okay? Let's talk row or loop or crescent or alley. I'm thinking I would want all of my streets to have sort of a different type of street name to them. I don't care what you call them. But I like pikes. I like rows. I like trails. And I like alleys.

Okay.

So you would think you would like it would be something like Douglas Fir Alley. That's right. Something like that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Make the street feel a little bit different. You can name a street whatever you want. See, that sounds a little pretentious to me. Does it? A crescent? A crescent? I don't know. What street do you live on? Oh, yeah, yeah. Mail that to Promenade? I don't know, man. It all sounds like malls. Well, it's so what? It's a development. Kind of is a mall. I'll give you here, I'll give you my the actually the first place I went to with this.

But continue. I know you want to change what the summit streets are called. Can we call it a cove? A walk? There you go. Let's call it Rubenstein Walk, but it's a street. A plaza? Come on. Get creative with me here. These these all sound like names for Outdoor malls that you go to once, and you're just like, I don't, I don't need to go there. Don Ridge? A bend? First of all, Don Ridge was an extraordinary seventh-inning reliever for the Pirates in the 80s.

Okay.

So I'm with him there.

Yeah.

You got options there, is what I'm saying. Just think of it a little bit different. Think of it, think of the backside. I would, okay, so In different parts of Los Angeles, there are different naming conventions. In Santa Monica, for instance, there are Ivy League schools. Like there's a row of like Princeton, Harvard, Yale, et cetera. I would do something that forces drivers, commuters, whatever, to all of a sudden sense a pattern without it being immediately obvious.

And just because I grew up, and I don't know, maybe other people grew up in this way too, loved a good educational placemat at the dinner table. Yeah, yeah. A little area with state capitals. Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So you're just driving through, and some of them say Jefferson City or something like that. That's confusing. If you're in a different place other than Jefferson City. But we feel like, I don't know, it doesn't make it the easiest to pronounce or recognize, like, if you're Montpelier Montpelier, whatever.

But I don't know. If you're just driving and you're going past a a Salem and then an Olympia. And then a Sacramento, and you're like, wait a minute, I see what's going on here. I would just give a little wink to those that had Educational placements growing up as kids, or just are into state capitals. You want to do world capitals? Great.

Yeah.

But that's something that I would like, not obvious on the surface. But there you are, Springfield, Springfield Lane, Springfield Drive, whatever. And that's followed by, isn't Springfield, Illinois capital. Yeah, okay. Just making sure. And then you're like, if you've hit Pierre, you've gone too far. Right? Speaking of geography, Dan, 9:32 for me today in MapTap.

Yeah, you're over any day over 900 is a good day. I'm a frequent visitor to the 900 Club.

Yeah.

I am generally above 850. And the problem with MapTap specifically, it's not that you're weak in any specific continent or something. You don't know where Algeria is or you don't know where Ecuador is. It's when they say, Yeah, where is this tiny atoll in the middle of the Pacific? And if you're wrong, you're very wrong. I whiffed hard on the Marshall Islands yesterday.

That was a wrong. Australia is also secretly very difficult. Because if you're wrong in Australia, you're also extremely wrong. You just got to know which cities are on which coasts. Because they're all on the coast. There's nothing in the middle. But you just need to you need to know which ones are where.

And that's sort of the name of the game. But I've been studying up on Africa. Good. I've been trying to my new thing is that Nothing with a Z in it is above the equator. It's all sort of south of that. That was a Ty special there. That's a good tip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean I know where Tanzania is, but It's at least a guide.

Okay.

I'm having trouble with Africa. I've been having a lot of trouble with like. I would say Eastern Europe in that section when there's no borders on the maps and they ask you to like tap on Azerbaijan. That's hard. Is that a north-south thing? You don't know how far north or how far south they go? I've been struggling with that.

And I'm going to be honest with you, I have also struggled with the Midwest. Not that I don't know where things are, but I find that I am constantly just like a little bit more off than I expected. Put a pin in Cincinnati. I know where Cincinnati is. I live one state over, but I'm just a little bit too far off that if I could just get a couple more points that might help me here against Let me throw this. Cincinnati's on the Kentucky border.

No, I know. I'm just saying, but without the borders, I'm not as close as I would want to be. Are you affected? Because the globe has terrain indicators. So because you have issues with greens. No, no, that helps. That helps. The greens pop against the browns. Well, they pop and also like the mountains.

The mountains are helpful. Like when they ask where's Switzerland, I know that there are mountains to the north of Italy, and that is where Switzerland is. So the mountains are a bit of a tell. That's good. Well, I'm just saying the greens specifically. The green Africa, obviously, you have the Sahara and so sub-Saharan Saharan.

So I didn't know if that was an issue for you because watching football games With weird green on green action affects you. It does. It does affect me.

Okay.

I don't know how we ended up here. I guess I took it here, but thank you to one and all for MapTap.gg. Is that what it is? MapTap.gg, yeah, not a sponsor.

Okay.

Yeah.

Found out about it from Spencer Hall's newsletter. You and I play it every day. Yeah, it's the best.

Thank you to everybody for their ongoing support. We appreciate the questions. We're going to do more questions on our next episode. Of course, if you have any thoughts on what we discussed here today, you can reach out to solidverbal@gmail.com or across any of our social media feeds, or you can join up with our Patreon at Verballers.com.

If you sign up as a free member, you actually could probably go out there and comment on some of these questions or submit more in time for our episode that drops on Thursday. I encourage it. I do as well.

All right, why don't we leave it there, Dan? Pleasure as always to be here with you. We'll do it again in one day's time. In the meantime, you know the drill, folks. As per usual, stay soft. Peace and good luck with your feet.