2026-08-22 Fantasy Things 2026 (raw)

Ty Hildenbrandt 00:18 Dan Rubenstein, it is time for an annual tradition. 00:22 Welcome back to the show. 00:24 How are you, my good friend?

Dan Rubenstein 00:25 I'm terrific. 00:26 I'm very excited for this. 00:28 I spoke with my agent. 00:30 I think we're going to get 00:31 a great, great landing spot for my team. 00:33 I don't know what any of that means. 00:35 This is Fantasy Things. 00:36 This is the best. 00:37 We've done it live in front of studio audiences, and we've done it 00:41 within the comfort of our own homes, and that's what flavor this year's is. 00:46 And I'm very excited to do Fantasy Things for 2026 because 00:51 I know no matter what kind of ridiculous items that we draft, things that are either tropes, and we'll explain what Fantasy Things is. 01:01 I know, no matter what we draft, 01:04 however ridiculous the ways that we think about this sport, that the sport is going to outridiculous anything we can conjure up.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:14 That's right.

Dan Rubenstein 01:14 Like, 01:15 there was no possibility that you or I could have come up with last season, by the end of the year, a major college football coach 01:24 will have been caught messaging OnlyFans models shortly before kickoff. 01:31 And now, 01:33 that was like the least serious of the accusations, obviously. 01:37 And now I have to think to myself, well, what's the next step? 01:42 When it comes to coaches or players or staff members as it relates to messaging OnlyFans models before kickoff, that's where my brain has to go because this is the silliest and best sport of them all.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:55 It really is, as we've said time and again, it is the only sport in this country where one of the biggest teams is represented by a giant nut. 02:05 That is what we've got here today. 02:07 We, of course, are a college football show. 02:10 This is probably the least serious 02:13 version of the college football show that we do every season. 02:16 I went back deep into the archives to see when we actually started this concept. 02:21 I believe it was the year of our Lord 2015.

Dan Rubenstein 02:25 That sounds right, which, by the way, if this is the least serious college football episode we'll do, 02:31 in a way, that makes it the most college football episode that we will do.

Ty Hildenbrandt 02:35 I believe that's accurate.

Dan Rubenstein 02:36 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 02:37 I believe that's accurate. 02:38 Now, somewhere along the way, there was at least a year or two where we did not do Fantasy Things. 02:43 So, for a long time, we did this 02:46 as sort of our primary concept whenever we were doing a live show. I miss doing this as a live show.

Dan Rubenstein 02:52 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 02:52 I miss doing this as a live show. 02:54 It was great to just do it in front of people and have everybody joining in. 02:58 We will do our part here to make it worthwhile over the next hour or so. 03:03 If you are new here, please rate, review, and subscribe. 03:06 You're going to hear me pushing Verballers.com 03:08 pretty hard over the next week, week and a half or so as we try to get people in the door to play our games, vote on our polls, 03:17 take advantage of the perks that come along with that. 03:19 I will talk about that a little bit later.

Dan Rubenstein 03:22 After the groupie incident at the O2 Arena in twenty nineteen, I guess we had to scale back 03:28 and do things more responsibly. 03:30 And Ty has obviously issued both a written and audio and video apology for everything that transpired behind the scenes at that arena, and we've moved past it.

Ty Hildenbrandt 03:41 Sure. 03:42 Okay. 03:43 Fantasy Things. 03:44 We started this concept, as I said back in 2015. 03:48 We did not know that it would catch on in the way that it has. 03:52 To my knowledge, there have been at least four other attempts at a Fantasy Things-style episode by other folks over the last year or so, let's say.

Dan Rubenstein 04:04 Sincerest form of flattery, Ty. Sincerest form of flattery.

Ty Hildenbrandt 04:07 I'm just—no, absolutely. 04:09 I'm just saying I think we do it better because we're the OGs when it comes to Fantasy Things.

Dan Rubenstein 04:13 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 04:14 So we've got our draft, our draft bank in front of us.

Dan Rubenstein 04:14 No argument from me.

Ty Hildenbrandt 04:17 Why don't you explain to the fine people what exactly this is?

Dan Rubenstein 04:20 We're not drafting players. 04:22 We're not drafting teams. 04:23 We're not drafting coaches. 04:24 We are not predicting winners on this specific episode. 04:28 What we are doing is selecting 04:31 things, situations, tropes, things people say, clichés, uh, 04:39 unreal backwards moments that seem rare, but if they happen to hit, boom. 04:45 What are the stakes for this? 04:47 $10,000. 04:49 Ty, is that the number we agreed on going in?

Ty Hildenbrandt 04:51 We're going to need a sponsor if we want to give away that kind of cash, but sure.

Dan Rubenstein 04:51 No. 04:54 Well, it'll be to each other, right? 04:55 That who drafts the better team. 04:57 So we are drafting these sort of situations and things. 05:02 Our, I think, most notable moment or item that has been drafted 05:07 is somebody saying that a quarterback who is not Baker Mayfield saying, he's got a little bit of Baker Mayfield in him.

Ty Hildenbrandt 05:14 A little bit of Baker Mayfield in him.

Dan Rubenstein 05:16 A little, you gotta go up high on the little, a little bit of Baker Mayfield in him. 05:21 We've drafted things like touchscreens going wrong, where like a studio host. 05:27 We've drafted, I mean, take your pick. 05:30 There have been so many different.

Ty Hildenbrandt 05:30 Strength coach with a screw loose was a good one.

Dan Rubenstein 05:31 Oh, strength coach with a screw loose, an unbelievable one.

Ty Hildenbrandt 05:36 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 05:36 And we honor and treasure those strength coaches, to be clear. 05:39 But, 05:40 yeah, we it's it's those those silly fun little moments that separate college football from the sports pack that we so sometimes look it could be like 05:50 something happening with a punt, or something happening with a specific kind of touchdown dance, or something like that 05:55 something that is rare, but is a college football thing that we can claim to be our own.

Ty Hildenbrandt 06:01 I think that's right. 06:03 It's also worth noting, we've been doing it now for over a decade. 06:07 We still don't actually have a scoring system. 06:09 So, more than anything else, 06:12 We're just trying to give you guys something to watch out for 06:15 something else to keep in the back of your mind as you're watching 2026 college football.

Dan Rubenstein 06:20 I think the way we can score this is not scoring at all. 06:23 I think what it is is people just tell us what resonates with them. 06:27 Right. 06:27 That, like, which Sex and the City character are you? 06:30 Which Power Ranger do you identify with? 06:33 which, you know, take your pick. 06:35 Like 06:35 You know, there's movie characters that are like, yeah, I've always been like Team Darth or whatever. 06:42 Team Darth Vader. 06:43 I don't know. 06:43 So you tell us. 06:45 And by that metric, we can say, okay, this is the winning thing 06:50 that they want to be associated with, a listener wants to be associated with 06:53 That's the only thing I can think of.

Ty Hildenbrandt 06:54 If nothing more, it gives you something else to watch for. 06:57 As you said at the top, this is a truly ridiculous sport. 07:01 It gets more and more ridiculous each time we 07:03 load up the old Twittersphere. 07:05 So, why stop now? 07:06 Why don't we just steer into it? 07:08 We've been doing it for a while. 07:09 If you have thoughts on this, leave us a comment wherever it is that you can, wherever it is you consume this episode 07:15 solidverbal@gmail.com 07:16 is also a place you can go if you're interested in sharing your thoughts. 07:21 Dan, we did have the 07:24 ping-pong balls in front of us earlier, and you drew the very first pick. 07:30 So, would you like to go first?

Dan Rubenstein 07:30 Oh, did I?

Ty Hildenbrandt 07:31 You drew the first pick.

Dan Rubenstein 07:33 Oh, I have to bring up the bank in front of me then, Ty.

Ty Hildenbrandt 07:33 Yes.

Dan Rubenstein 07:36 I think we're jumping right in 07:37 okay, Fantasy Things 2026. 07:39 I have it in front of me. 07:41 I did mention that I was pitching, what did I call it, a handjob cutaway?

Ty Hildenbrandt 07:47 The hand—yeah, you did that on the bonus episode, yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 07:50 Yeah, that if something sexual was happening in the crowd or something inappropriate was happening in the crowd and a camera person happened to see it, the director quickly cut away.

Ty Hildenbrandt 07:58 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 07:58 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 07:58 So we're not going to draft that one. 08:02 But Dan Rubenstein, you're on the clock. 08:05 Let us know your first pick.

Dan Rubenstein 08:10 All right. 08:11 With the first pick in the 2026 College Football Fantasy Things draft, I'm taking a coach jokes about asking AI for coaching advice after a game goes horribly wrong. 08:24 Now, it's pretty good, right? 08:28 We in previous years, we've used like the latest technology to make college football Fantasy Things jokes. 08:35 I'm going to use 08:36 I mean, we don't hear a lot from coordinators or position coaches, but you get a coach after an embarrassing loss and he's super down on himself. 08:45 I'm going to take that coach saying, you know what, maybe next time I need to ask Gemini for how we're running our red-zone defense. 08:55 Do you think that's an overreach at first overall?

Ty Hildenbrandt 08:56 No, no. My bigger question is actually which coach do you think is most apt to do that?

Dan Rubenstein 09:03 Eli Drinkwitz. 09:04 And not just because he has glasses, just because he's candid, doesn't beat ranked teams, but gets close a lot.

Ty Hildenbrandt 09:11 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 09:13 And sort of runs a little bit hot. 09:16 I was also thinking Kenny Dillingham for that reason as well, because he's always very frank, which I appreciate about him. 09:22 And so you got to lean into your coaches that seem the most likely to be apoplectic, $4 word, after giving away a game late. 09:32 And there's something about Missouri football 09:35 that the Venn diagram feels aggressively appropriate there.

Ty Hildenbrandt 09:40 I also think you need to consider coaches that are entering this season with varying levels of desperation. 09:47 You know, there's a whole spectrum there, but you could almost envision a very odd sequence involving Dabo Swinney.

Dan Rubenstein 09:51 Sure. 09:57 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 09:57 You could almost envision something of an odd circumstance involving Jon Sumrall.

Dan Rubenstein 10:06 Yeah, I mean there's a lot of coaches who run hot. 10:09 I just don't think Dabo is, like, deep in the Claude game.

Ty Hildenbrandt 10:13 I don't know if any of them are, other than Brian Kelly, of course.

Dan Rubenstein 10:16 I don't think it's going to be Dabo, no offense. 10:19 Just because as soon as he hears the word Claude, his mind will go to the oldest possible Claude famous person. I don't even know who that is.

Ty Hildenbrandt 10:27 Jean-Claude Van Damme is probably where he goes.

Dan Rubenstein 10:29 It's exactly. 10:30 It's Jean-Claude. 10:32 Claude, what I know, Jean-Claude. 10:34 Yeah. 10:35 Doing the splits and then just goes on a rant about Timecop. 10:39 That would be the closest we get to Dabo referencing AI, I think.

Ty Hildenbrandt 10:39 Right. 10:43 Yeah, I mean, we have a tendency to bring up the tech thing of the moment. 10:47 As you said, uncontrollable touchscreens.

Dan Rubenstein 10:47 Right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 10:49 We've talked about sudden broadcast outages. 10:52 We've talked about the late-night ESPN camera. 10:55 You know what I mean? 10:55 Like the 480p camera that they only give to the Rod Gilmore games.

Dan Rubenstein 10:59 Always, always, without fail.

Ty Hildenbrandt 11:01 So yeah, I mean, given the prevalence of this new technology, someone's going to be presented with it and someone is going to make 11:11 an odd joke regarding it. 11:13 And I'm not going to rule out the fact that it could be Dabo.

Dan Rubenstein 11:17 I think we'll get a reference to AI from Dabo in that he has no idea what it is. 11:24 No idea what it does, and he's asked his children or his younger relatives about it, and maybe that's the answer. 11:33 Like he will reference it without knowing. 11:36 I fully don't know what it is. 11:37 So, yeah, there it is.

Ty Hildenbrandt 11:39 My pick, you ready?

Dan Rubenstein 11:40 Take it.

Ty Hildenbrandt 11:46 My pick is a passive-aggressive James Franklin.

Dan Rubenstein 11:50 An oldie but a goodie. 11:52 Every year, James Franklin with a new adjective.

Ty Hildenbrandt 11:55 Every year, every year, every year, he is the Fantasy Things draft pick that keeps on being draftable.

Dan Rubenstein 11:56 Ty picks him high. 11:58 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 12:03 Each year, we just, as he said, we alter the modifier and we pick him all over again. 12:08 James Franklin, at least within this concept, is sort of the gift that keeps on giving. 12:13 I think we've already seen this a little bit in his time at Virginia Tech. 12:17 It is very clear, if you have listened to any of his preseason comments, that 12:24 even though he has not come out and said as much, very clear that James Franklin does not like the way things went down at Penn State.

Dan Rubenstein 12:31 It's also a good pick because the transition happened so quickly. 12:35 He became the Virginia Tech head coach during the same season in which he was the Penn State coach. 12:43 So, 12:44 he didn't have time to sit and meditate on how everything went wrong at Penn State. 12:50 So he's just, he's still in that waiting pool.

Ty Hildenbrandt 12:53 I think that's right. 12:55 And I mean, I thought of going a couple different directions with this. 12:58 The other contender was James Franklin accidentally starts talking as if he is still the coach at Penn State.

Dan Rubenstein 13:04 Oh, yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 13:05 Kind of loses track of where he is. 13:07 But I thought the passive aggressiveness 13:10 inevitably, he would be there throughout the course of the year. 13:12 Again, he's sort of made no bones about the fact he didn't like the way things went down at the end of his tenure. 13:18 I can't say I blame him in that regard, but never underestimate 13:23 the ability of a coach, of a proud coach, to show a little bit of passive aggressiveness, whether it's with regard to the old location that he was coaching 13:33 whether it's in regards to a coaching decision that people in the media or otherwise question, whether it's just something minute. 13:41 These guys, as I think has been previously documented, are sort of control freaks, and anything that veers from the norm tends to ruffle some feathers. 13:51 So I think a passive-aggressive Franklin is what we're going to get this year. 13:54 Hopefully, on the Virginia Tech side, they get like an eight and four or a nine and three season. 14:00 That would be better than any kind of passive aggressiveness. 14:03 But I think Franklin probably comes out of the gate. 14:08 Pretty good start. 14:09 Schedule seems advantageous. 14:11 If we're going to see it, 14:12 we're likely going to see it early in the middle of some sort of, I don't know, momentous start to the year, or we're going to see it later because the schedule's backloaded and that's when things might come off the swivel.

Dan Rubenstein 14:19 Mm-hmm. 14:24 I agree. 14:25 There is definitely the vibe of James Franklin at any moment, even though he's been out of the relationship for quite some time now. 14:34 It was like, oh, I went with my ex to Portugal. 14:37 Like, well, don't bring that up now.

Ty Hildenbrandt 14:38 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 14:39 We're at a dinner party. 14:42 Everything's been going so well. 14:43 Yeah, there is that energy to James Franklin that hopefully, for the sake of James Franklin and Virginia Tech fans, he is able to get past it. 14:50 So I think that's a quality pick.

Ty Hildenbrandt 14:54 You're up.

Dan Rubenstein 14:55 All right. 14:56 I'm going with one that I think this is like an upset. 14:59 This is like the Aaron Rodgers didn't get picked first overall or in the top five. 15:03 I think this is like a shame it's even fallen this far to the top three. 15:08 You're able to recite a political ad that's airing too much verbatim and hate yourself for it. 15:13 So not political commentary here, but we do have the midterms this fall, correct? 15:19 It does seem like a contentious time of year, correct for a lot of people.

Ty Hildenbrandt 15:22 Yeah, correct that is that is accurate, yes.

Dan Rubenstein 15:27 There is going to be something that, like 15:29 two weeks into the season, we're all going to agree that we would spend $100 to put a special tier of YouTube TV in place that would just filter. 15:38 The political ads out of 15:40 I'm not saying politics aren't important. 15:41 I'm not saying government's not important. 15:43 I'm saying the political ads that run over and over 15:47 and over again, especially if you're in like Pennsylvania, say, right? 15:50 that, like, it's a purple state and there's just a lot of emotion 15:56 surrounding elections that you're just going to be able to like mouth along with 16:00 Tricia Clark says sourdough is too ethnic for Pennsylvania 16:06 you know, that kind of stuff. 16:07 So we are we are slowly going to be driven insane. 16:11 And so being driven insane by political ads during college football games is my third overall pick in an election year.

Ty Hildenbrandt 16:20 So there were two other directions I thought maybe we could go with this.

Dan Rubenstein 16:24 Oh, okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 16:26 The first was a politician trying to use college football as some sort of campaign boost and then immediately screwing up one of the references.

Dan Rubenstein 16:37 Oh, sure.

Ty Hildenbrandt 16:38 And, like, I would say the Mount Rushmore of this is—was it Ted Kennedy back in the day with the Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire moment during the home run chase?

Dan Rubenstein 16:48 Oh, yeah, yeah. 16:49 We had an Iowa one recently. 16:52 Because Iowa's obviously, you know, with the presidential election, it's a hotly contested battleground primary type state.

Ty Hildenbrandt 16:52 We did. 16:55 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 17:00 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 17:00 So there's that whole side of it. 17:03 I also thought of like the political figure jinxing 17:08 a college football team, which is also something that we could see because inevitably there will be an attempt at photo ops using college football as a photo op to show that you're really with the boys of the home school.

Dan Rubenstein 17:09 Sure. 17:15 Yes. 17:19 Right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 17:20 So, 17:21 but that being said, I do think the political ads is something that's going to attack a lot of us here, just because it's the midterms, but also because of the streaming nature of television right now. 17:34 I don't know about you. 17:35 I get ads from all sorts of places that I don't live.

Dan Rubenstein 17:39 Oh, yeah, absolutely, so do I.

Ty Hildenbrandt 17:41 Like, I'm getting, I got, I think last time around. 17:44 I was getting ads for like the greater Chicago area. 17:47 And I don't know if it's because somehow Google knows that you and I work together, what it is, but

Dan Rubenstein 17:51 I assume, yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 17:52 But inevitably, you're going to get ads from other states that you have no business voting in 17:58 And that only adds insult to injury. 18:00 It's bad enough to get the ones in your local district. 18:03 It's even worse if you're getting ones from states that you 18:06 have nothing to do with.

Dan Rubenstein 18:07 Yeah, like, well, I can see that things are running hot in Montana. 18:11 There's not much I can do to weigh in with the electoral process, with the election process. 18:16 So, yeah, I uh 18:18 I can't I can't wait to change channels during political ads.

Ty Hildenbrandt 18:21 It is going to be insufferable.

Dan Rubenstein 18:25 Yeah, I agree.

Ty Hildenbrandt 18:26 Insufferable, and it's going to start right out of the chute. 18:31 Week one, we're going to start dealing with it.

Dan Rubenstein 18:31 By the way, Trisha Clark, the worst. 18:35 That was a name I made up. 18:36 What did I say? 18:37 Trisha Clark says sourdough's too ethnic for Pennsylvania?

Ty Hildenbrandt 18:39 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 18:40 I don't know what any of those words mean.

Ty Hildenbrandt 18:41 All right, my turn. 18:46 Dan Rubenstein, are you aware of this ongoing promotion out at Akron?

Dan Rubenstein 18:52 Oh, yeah, the offensive coordinator. 18:55 There's a raffle.

Ty Hildenbrandt 18:56 There is a raffle.

Dan Rubenstein 18:58 Right, and Joe Moorhead is involved, yes?

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:00 They are apparently giving away to one lucky person, one lucky season ticket holder 19:07 the opportunity to help design the opening drive

Dan Rubenstein 19:10 So this is call it in the moment or game plan ahead of time.

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:15 That I don't know.

Dan Rubenstein 19:16 It's unclear.

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:17 Unclear.

Dan Rubenstein 19:17 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:18 But at least among the nine finalists that have been publicly revealed, one of them is Big Cat from over at Barstool. 19:25 Pardon My Take.

Dan Rubenstein 19:25 Yeah, saw that.

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:26 The other is, as people who play the video game know, a video game influencer of sorts, Bordeaux.

Dan Rubenstein 19:34 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:35 As I understand it, there is still one that is yet to be revealed. 19:38 But whoever wins that promotion is going to get the opportunity to, as they have said, design the opening drive.

Dan Rubenstein 19:44 Correct, yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:46 This has always been like the fever dream of dorks like us.

Dan Rubenstein 19:51 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 19:51 So the fact that they're doing it, A, probably means that they're trying to drum up a little bit of support for the Akron Zips. 19:58 Okay, great.

Dan Rubenstein 19:59 Why not? 19:59 Great.

Ty Hildenbrandt 20:00 I want to draft Akron scoring on their first promotional drive of the season because it gives us something to root for.

Dan Rubenstein 20:05 I like this a lot, Ty.

Ty Hildenbrandt 20:08 You'll notice as we go through all of these. 20:11 We're not necessarily calling out things that we want to root against teams. 20:14 We're not rooting for people to get hurt or anything crazy.

Dan Rubenstein 20:17 Not that, definitely.

Ty Hildenbrandt 20:17 Sometimes the broadcast mistakes are fun to root for.

Dan Rubenstein 20:20 Yes, definitely.

Ty Hildenbrandt 20:21 But other than that, generally, we're rooting for teams, not against them. 20:25 And I just feel like Akron's been kind of down on its luck as a football program for a good long time now. 20:30 The fact that they are drumming up support like this at all. 20:34 Is probably an indicator of that 20:36 But I love this idea, and I just want to root like hell for them to score points.

Dan Rubenstein 20:40 Well, you know what the problem is, though, right? 20:42 Because I think Joe Moorhead is the offensive coordinator as well as the head coach, correct? 20:48 I believe so. 20:49 That's what I'm seeing on their website. 20:51 The problem then is, if they score on that opening drive and they score like in an efficient way, who do they have week one? 20:59 Who does Akron play week one?

Ty Hildenbrandt 21:00 Actually, this is for week two, their home opener against Robert Morris.

Dan Rubenstein 21:05 If they come out and they just slice and dice, then there's going to be an uproar of like, what are we paying you for, Mr. 21:12 Moorhead?

Ty Hildenbrandt 21:13 Yeah, then Big Cat's going to have a decision to make, right?

Dan Rubenstein 21:15 What exactly would you say you do here, Joe Mo?

Ty Hildenbrandt 21:15 Do you stick with 21:18 do you stick with PMT or do you become the new OC?

Dan Rubenstein 21:21 Right. 21:22 That's the problem. 21:24 I'm rooting for it. 21:25 That game now becomes, or at least that drive, becomes must-watch.

Ty Hildenbrandt 21:29 What play would you call? 21:31 Because my concern is that if it were me, my concern is, well, I'm only ever going to get this opportunity once. 21:39 Unless it goes really well, to your point. 21:40 But in all likelihood, this is a one-time deal. 21:43 There is definitely going to be an inclination to try and call, like 21:47 the quirkiest play possible just to say that you left your stamp on things.

Dan Rubenstein 21:49 You gotta leave your stamp, yeah, yes.

Ty Hildenbrandt 21:52 So, whereas it might make more sense to be a little conservative, run the football, kind of build into the game. 21:59 If it were me, I'd want to call like a flea flicker or a reverse or something of that nature right out of the chute just to see if we can, like, you know, jolt something loose.

Dan Rubenstein 22:09 Yeah, you gotta you gotta figure out some way to have a shot 22:13 built into the game plan in that drive, right? 22:15 You want that shot. 22:16 I would do fake orbit motion. 22:19 I always feel like I enjoy watching, like, just from an aesthetic 22:23 standpoint, the fake, like the orbit motion is real, right? 22:26 But the fake where, like, the quarterback pseudo turns his back to the defensive line 22:30 and take a shot, or at least an intermediate look, because you'll have perhaps some linebackers sucking in 22:37 That would be my signature move in my opening drive. 22:40 Orbit motion fake.

Ty Hildenbrandt 22:42 I do like some good orbit motion. 22:44 What you're basically describing is Andy Kotelnicki.

Dan Rubenstein 22:44 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 22:46 We'll probably see that to some extent at Kansas this year.

Dan Rubenstein 22:50 So basically, 22:52 if you, even knowing that they're ready for a trick play, you design something with the Akron coaching staff that's so perfect and so foolproof in a shot way. 23:03 And you score on the first play of the game, right? 23:07 That for some it just, the clouds break perfectly, and it's a perfect situation. 23:13 Score immediately 23:15 and you have called one college play and you're hitting 1,000 in terms of scoring touchdowns, it's the most legendary possible outcome.

Ty Hildenbrandt 23:26 All right, you're up.

Dan Rubenstein 23:27 All right. 23:31 With my next Fantasy Things pick, I'm going to select a rugby-style punter that says screw it and keeps running. 23:41 You talk about using orbit motion as a fake where the quarterback kind of turns his back, puts the ball, the small of his back, before chucking it downfield. 23:50 Just from a purely aesthetically pleasing moment. 23:56 I don't know if I love anything more than the punt coverage team. 24:04 Or the punt return team, excuse me, like, all right, well, he's going to kick it now. 24:07 We're turning our back to, you know, start blocking for the return. 24:11 And the punter's like, well, I guess there's free yards to be had. 24:15 I love that so much.

Ty Hildenbrandt 24:16 And it feels like this happens every Saturday.

Dan Rubenstein 24:18 Has to be rugby style, cannot be a clear fake punt on a normal formation. 24:24 It has to be a rugby style in which the punter is empowered that if you see nothing but grass. 24:30 You have the ability to keep going.

Ty Hildenbrandt 24:32 What would be the downside to getting like a former track athlete in there as your punter? 24:38 Just for situations like this?

Dan Rubenstein 24:40 I mean, it would make it very obvious that you're going to be calling fake punts all the time, right?

Ty Hildenbrandt 24:44 But I'm saying, like, there has to be some crossover. 24:47 We're talking about high-level athletes if you're talking about world-class track and field stars. 24:53 There has to be some crossover between people who can run a 4.4 and people who can also kick a ball. 25:02 You know, with relative efficiency down the field. 25:05 I'm not talking about Reggie Roby out there, but I'm talking about just somebody who can be sufficient 25:11 as a punter, maybe you've got a long punter and you've got a short punter, just depending on how far you're trying to kick the ball. 25:18 I feel like there's room to grow on that front because it's open. 25:21 I feel like it's open every week when I watch these games.

Dan Rubenstein 25:24 I think you're shortchanging the skill it takes to be an excellent punter.

Ty Hildenbrandt 25:28 I'm sure I am. 25:30 I'm sure I am. 25:30 But wouldn't you rather get the first down?

Dan Rubenstein 25:33 I would rather get the first down. 25:35 I would love to have the most inventive special teams unit in all of college football, but this is also like a little bit of 25:45 yes, he is an amazing thrower of the javelin. 25:49 But what if what if he was also a nose tackle?

Ty Hildenbrandt 25:54 Right, right.

Dan Rubenstein 25:54 Right? 25:55 That these are they're they're very specific disciplines to be able to run a 4.4 and to punt it into the coffin corner. 26:02 So I think what you're probably best your best bet is taking the punter you have. 26:08 And putting them, I mean, you don't want to risk it, right? 26:12 You're screwing up a hamstring or something, putting them in an off-season speed program.

Ty Hildenbrandt 26:17 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 26:17 You don't need a 4.4.

Ty Hildenbrandt 26:18 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 26:18 You just need to get to the sticks.

Ty Hildenbrandt 26:20 That's right.

Dan Rubenstein 26:20 So taking a punter who runs a 5.3 and getting them to a 4.9, I feel like is probably a pretty big win.

Ty Hildenbrandt 26:27 Okay, so which picks do you have so far?

Dan Rubenstein 26:30 So far, I have I think political ads. 26:33 I have AI coaching advice jokingly after getting embarrassed. 26:39 And then a rugby-style punter says, screw it and keeps running.

Ty Hildenbrandt 26:42 And I've got a passive-aggressive James Franklin and Akron scoring on their first drive promotion.

Dan Rubenstein 26:45 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 26:47 I'm up for my third pick.

Dan Rubenstein 26:49 Please take it.

Ty Hildenbrandt 26:52 While we're speaking of things in the MAC, there is potentially a very uncomfortable situation that's going to occur on College GameDay a little bit later on this year.

Dan Rubenstein 27:05 GameDay. 27:05 Walk me through what you're seeing.

Ty Hildenbrandt 27:07 As you know, there is a new situation in the MAC this year. 27:11 You got new teams, right? 27:12 NIU left. 27:14 They went to the Mountain West. 27:16 Sacramento State 27:18 a traditional MAC team now joining the conference officially. 27:21 We've talked a lot about this in the run-up to the season, especially after this latest batch of minor conference realignment became a thing. 27:30 It's going to be a little old game between Ball State and Sacramento State. 27:35 I've got here: the GameDay set falls silent after Pat McAfee extols the virtues of the Ball-Sac game.

Dan Rubenstein 27:43 Oh, first of all, you know it won't fall silent. 27:46 You know Desmond Howard is going to absolutely lose his mind. 27:49 Desmond Howard. 27:51 Love him, don't care for him. 27:53 I happen to like him a lot. 27:55 He will sell your joke. 27:57 He will 100% sell a goof. 28:00 If he has the spidey sense that a goof has been put out into the universe on the GameDay set, like a good teammate that he is, he will sell your goof.

Ty Hildenbrandt 28:10 There is nobody else on this set that is willing to touch 28:14 the specific phrasing of the Ball-Sac game. 28:16 And you can love Pat McAfee, you can hate Pat McAfee, you can believe Pat McAfee is wildly overexposed.

Dan Rubenstein 28:24 Sure.

Ty Hildenbrandt 28:24 You can be like his ESPN comrades and maybe think otherwise.

Dan Rubenstein 28:27 I disagree. 28:27 I want more McAfee.

Ty Hildenbrandt 28:29 Sure, you do.

Dan Rubenstein 28:29 I want him hosting Wheel of Fortune.

Ty Hildenbrandt 28:33 I mean, you might be doing the Super Bowl halftime show at this rate, but

Dan Rubenstein 28:36 I want him singing national anthems multiple times a week, baseball games. 28:42 NBA, WNBA, various college sports that don't usually have a singer brought in for the national anthem, McAfee it up.

Ty Hildenbrandt 28:51 Whatever your opinion of Pat McAfee, there is no one else on that set who is going to sell the Ball-Sac game quite like Pat McAfee, and there is virtually no stopping him from doing so. 29:02 Especially given the fact that ESPN is putting him on all the time. 29:06 He is the mascot for ESPN at present. 29:10 So it's going to get a little weird when he brings this up. 29:14 And not only brings it up but celebrates it before the live audience, the live crowd that's going to be loving it because they're all 18 to 22-year-olds. 29:22 Nothing like that 29:23 And then a bunch of older gentlemen on set not knowing how to react.

Dan Rubenstein 29:28 All right, I have some some good news and bad news, Ty. 29:33 The good news is, there is a testicular cancer awareness month.

Ty Hildenbrandt 29:38 Okay.

Dan Rubenstein 29:38 The bad news is it's April, and we got to figure out how to get the testy people in on this matchup.

Ty Hildenbrandt 29:46 Are there testy people that we're aware of?

Dan Rubenstein 29:49 I mean, whoever's yeah, of course, there's researchers, there's organizations raising money, I'm sure, fighting the good fight.

Ty Hildenbrandt 29:54 Is there an American Foundation of Urologists or something?

Dan Rubenstein 29:58 I am positive there is, Ty. 30:00 We have to steer into this for good, for good reasons.

Ty Hildenbrandt 30:03 Yeah, right.

Dan Rubenstein 30:05 Okay. 30:06 That's all I'm suggesting here. 30:08 April. 30:08 I wonder how they landed on that 30:09 okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 30:11 You know this is going to happen. 30:13 This isn't at all a stretch. 30:16 This is 1,000% going to happen. 30:18 And so I just want to put people 30:20 get it on your radar so that when October the 24th comes around, you know, you're prepared.

Dan Rubenstein 30:26 Do you think, do you think that it would cost us an exorbitant amount of money to sponsor a Ball-Sac trophy? 30:39 I don't even know if these trophies have sponsors. 30:42 Could we produce a trophy? 30:44 Could you—do we have the budget?

Ty Hildenbrandt 30:45 No, we definitely do not have the budget.

Dan Rubenstein 30:46 I can already tell you the answer is absolutely not. 30:49 Could we cajole a trophy company to get a little bit of free buzz on The Solid Verbal in exchange for making a Ball-Sac trophy for this matchup?

Ty Hildenbrandt 30:56 Right, right 31:04 solidverbal@gmail.com 31:05 hit us up if you're a trophy company.

Dan Rubenstein 31:06 That's exactly right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:08 If you're on Etsy, I don't know. 31:11 It needs a trophy. 31:13 It does need a trophy.

Dan Rubenstein 31:13 Would it be a trophy? 31:15 I'm open to all different possibilities here.

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:18 I'm assuming it looks like truck nuts. 31:20 That's sort of my vision for what the trophy looks like, but

Dan Rubenstein 31:22 I agree, but we're not really highlighting the balls in this situation, right?

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:28 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 31:28 I feel like we're highlighting the sack. 31:33 So, is there like a bag?

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:34 Uh

Dan Rubenstein 31:34 Is there a bronzed bag?

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:39 I'm sort of at a loss for words. 31:41 I'm not going to lie to you. 31:42 I don't know where to go with this next.

Dan Rubenstein 31:43 Ty, I can give you some explanations physiologically about what we're talking about.

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:45 No, I'm sure. 31:47 I'm sure you can.

Dan Rubenstein 31:48 Um, all right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:51 Why don't you just make your pick here? 31:53 What do you got?

Dan Rubenstein 31:53 Come on, Ty.

Ty Hildenbrandt 31:54 You pick one. 31:56 Just be ready for that because he's going to, you know, he's going to do something with that.

Dan Rubenstein 31:59 All right, I have in here as my next pick 32:03 wire cam incident. 32:05 Now, I feel like I've drafted this before. 32:08 My brain goes to a certain place all the time. 32:11 I also have in here, like, you could, you should be able to tell me because you're a historian of 32:16 of the Fantasy Things. 32:18 I have in here wire cam incident, and I also have in here announcer stomach disruption.

Ty Hildenbrandt 32:24 Oh, well.

Dan Rubenstein 32:26 I feel like I've drafted these before, but I can't remember. 32:29 I'm old and washed.

Ty Hildenbrandt 32:31 I don't think you've

Dan Rubenstein 32:31 Which do you think I'm less likely to have drafted in years past?

Ty Hildenbrandt 32:34 I don't think you've done the announcer's stomach disruption.

Dan Rubenstein 32:37 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 32:38 I think we've—and I don't believe we've had wire cam incident either.

Dan Rubenstein 32:38 It's entirely possible I have, though. 32:40 You know how my mind works. 32:44 Because we've had wire cam incidents in the sport, notably the Insight Bowl.

Ty Hildenbrandt 32:46 We have. 32:47 We have. 32:49 I don't think it's ever actually been something we've drafted, though.

Dan Rubenstein 32:53 Okay. 32:54 I do love it though. 32:55 I love a wire cam incident as long as nobody's getting hurt. 32:57 I do love an announcer stomach disruption, not because I appreciate the disruption, but I think it humanizes. 33:04 You know, the big voice from on high. 33:07 And so, like, we all deal with stomach disruptions, Ty? 33:10 Is there a stomach disruption awareness month?

Ty Hildenbrandt 33:10 Sure.

Dan Rubenstein 33:12 Unclear.

Ty Hildenbrandt 33:13 I feel like it's been going on the last two months now.

Dan Rubenstein 33:16 That's true. 33:17 But we've we've seen it in years past. 33:18 We saw it with uh, well, I thought we saw it with Mack Brown when we first became friends with Adam Amin, but it turned out he just had to fly back to New York in order to do the studio show the next day. 33:29 But I think we've seen it with, we saw it with the Kentucky Derby this year, right? 33:36 We saw it with a horse racing situation. 33:38 And I want to say we saw it with the Fox booth in the last couple years.

Ty Hildenbrandt 33:43 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 33:43 That like Brady Quinn had to step in, or somebody stepped in 33:47 who stepped in?

Ty Hildenbrandt 33:48 I think it was Brady Quinn, yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 33:50 Brady Quinn stepped in 33:52 I like it because it's just like, whoa, what's going on back there?

Ty Hildenbrandt 33:56 Also, because it's not you.

Dan Rubenstein 33:58 And it's not me. 33:59 But isn't that the whole thing? 34:01 Like we talked to Jenny Dell and she talked about Brad Nessler not eating the day of games simply to avoid stomach disruption.

Ty Hildenbrandt 34:04 Yeah, gotta be careful, yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 34:09 I like the wild card that it throws into a broadcast.

Ty Hildenbrandt 34:11 All right, my turn.

Dan Rubenstein 34:12 Please.

Ty Hildenbrandt 34:17 I have alternate uniforms make a game virtually unwatchable.

Dan Rubenstein 34:21 Well, this is like a weird time for you too, because the Alabama, Tennessee announcement, right?

Ty Hildenbrandt 34:25 Yeah, they're doing the color game.

Dan Rubenstein 34:26 How are your eyes going to deal with that?

Ty Hildenbrandt 34:27 Color game. 34:28 So this might just be me and my weird eyes, but I have a real hard time 34:34 distinguishing shades, and in particular, see, I'm sure we have eye doctors out there who can explain exactly what's going on with the rods and cones here. 34:42 I also have trouble anytime there's like a deep red uniform with a green background. 34:48 And so it used to be really funny when I'd be playing, like, video games with the boys back in the day when I was younger and full of life and had fewer gray.

Dan Rubenstein 34:56 Right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 34:58 Whenever it was a situation like that, where there was a red uniform, green field on the screen, those guys looked invisible to me.

Dan Rubenstein 35:06 Would those people those people would they intentionally choose to play? 35:12 Oh, I guess I'm going to be Rutgers

Ty Hildenbrandt 35:13 Once they figured it out, yeah. 35:15 Once they figured it out.

Dan Rubenstein 35:15 Yeah. 35:16 I guess there's a lot of red teams, but who would have the most red-on-red uniform? 35:21 You know, Arkansas, yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 35:21 So we've had that 35:23 We've also had versions of like when Oregon has the green on the green, and it sometimes makes it difficult, Boise with the blue and the blue.

Dan Rubenstein 35:28 Hmm, Baylor, yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 35:33 We see situations like this, but alt uniforms are very much still the rage. 35:39 My hunch is that there will be a situation like this, because there is a situation like this virtually every year, where some team comes out there with alt uniforms. 35:47 And for me, in my weird eyes, I can't watch it, it gives me a headache. 35:51 But I would say for more normal people out there, the uniforms are just so damn ugly. 35:56 And they don't really pop on TV the way you would expect, that you just decide you don't want to watch that 36:00 You have seven other games going on at the same time. 36:03 Why waste your energy on the one where you don't like what you see? 36:07 So the alt uniform thing, there's two sides to it. 36:11 I like the fact that they're getting creative. 36:13 I like the fact that they give us something different to look at 36:16 also, there's a very thin line to walk there. 36:19 So you got to be careful. 36:21 And I think the alt uniform making a game unwatchable is going to be sort of my ace in the rotation this year.

Dan Rubenstein 36:28 I gotta be honest with you. 36:30 There have been so many misses with alt uniforms. 36:33 That I don't look forward to the debut of a new look all that much. 36:38 And I know I'm an Oregon human here, but Oregon just does the combos thing. 36:42 And they do do some alt stuff occasionally. 36:44 And they do like a breast cancer awareness. 36:46 They'll do pink stuff. 36:48 But a lot of the like a lot of the the the the goofy alts sort of fall under my like too-cute-o'clock. 36:57 Like, dial it back a little bit. 36:58 Like, I like the space thing with you. 37:00 Dial it back a little bit. 37:01 Like, there are like, I never really loved the Illinois leather helmet thing that they did for Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost.

Ty Hildenbrandt 37:08 Oh, yeah. 37:09 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 37:09 I was like, ah. 37:11 It never really did it for me. 37:12 And now everybody's freaking out and so happy about the Alabama, Tennessee thing where they're going to wear red and orange. 37:19 They're not going to nobody's going to wear white in that game. 37:21 And I understand the history of it because it's going back to black-and-white TV is an easier way to differentiate teams. 37:26 A team is wearing white, a team is wearing a darker color. 37:30 I like watching games with a team wearing a color and a team wearing white. 37:34 It's still easy for me to differentiate. 37:37 Red and orange, like 37:38 UCLA and USC, I kind of get when they've done that in years past, because it's blue and cardinal. 37:44 Like they're different enough. 37:45 Orange and red are not different enough. 37:48 That same phylum, that same genus. 37:51 And I don't have the rods and cones issue that you have, but when I see those two teams wearing red and orange playing against each other, I think it looks mushy. 37:59 I don't like it. 38:02 Anyway, I'm a thousand years old. 38:03 That's the end of my high horse moment.

Ty Hildenbrandt 38:06 We could even add in alt-uniform decisions in the case of this case of the color game.

Dan Rubenstein 38:10 Sure.

Ty Hildenbrandt 38:12 Yeah. 38:14 You're up.

Dan Rubenstein 38:15 All right. 38:19 So this is another very exciting one for me, Ty. 38:23 And it's not just because of where I live, although maybe that has a factor in me selecting this. 38:28 We've long talked about monsoon games and snow games. 38:32 I think the great underrated game in this sport, 38:37 parenthetically, unless your team is playing in it, is an excessively windy game.

Ty Hildenbrandt 38:41 Oh, like in the playoff last year. 38:43 Like in the Texas A&M-Miami.

Dan Rubenstein 38:43 The playoff last year 38:46 If I were an A&M fan, if I were a Miami fan, that was the worst. 38:49 If I were an Ohio State fan when they were playing, it was Northwestern. 38:53 It was here, right? 38:54 When there were crazy swirling winds and C.J. Stroud threw for, like, 41 yards in a game, I would hate it. 39:00 But from a pure entertainment standpoint, I don't know why I'm so hung up on special teams today, Ty. 39:07 A punter punting it into a wall of wind and it going one and a half yards net? 39:14 I kind of love those moments. 39:15 I kind of love when there are factors at play. 39:18 And I know people will complain that, like, well, that's not, you know, the intention of football. 39:22 And we had 39:23 you know, people talking about the snow stuff and the weather stuff with what was that Broncos playoff game this past year that, like, oh, these big games should be played in domes, which I... 39:33 I understand that 39:34 And I talked about that 39:35 That I understood that 39:37 That you know, take some of those elements out of it. 39:39 But there is something about wind and a windy punt. 39:43 That I just can't get past, that I love so much. 39:47 So I'm going to say an excessively windy game, comma, unless it involves your team.

Ty Hildenbrandt 39:52 Unless it involves your team. 39:53 Yeah, we don't want that.

Dan Rubenstein 39:54 Do you appreciate wind or do you hate winds?

Ty Hildenbrandt 39:55 Oh, I hate wind. 39:57 It's the worst. 39:57 I'd rather play in rain. 39:59 I'd rather play in snow.

Dan Rubenstein 40:00 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 40:01 But the wind, the wind is just such an X factor. 40:03 You know, at least if it's raining, you can kind of deal with that 40:06 And everyone's got to deal with the same. 40:08 Type of rain throughout the course of the game. 40:10 Same deal with snow, right? 40:11 But wind, it shifts, it changes. 40:13 Sometimes the intensity varies

Dan Rubenstein 40:14 Yes.

Ty Hildenbrandt 40:15 It absolutely kills the kicking game. 40:18 It can kill the passing game. 40:19 It just feels like there are bigger ramifications with a crazy wind game 40:24 than there would be otherwise. 40:25 And I think back to the playoff game from a year ago, and I know just like speaking for myself here, when we were trying to put 40:32 that A&M game, A&M against Miami, the 10-3 game in the playoffs, when we were trying to put that game in context, and then I would say, furthermore, figure out what does it mean or what does it 40:46 indicate for this coming season, I was almost inclined to throw that one out the window. 40:50 You know, like I know Marcel Reed didn't have a great game. 40:53 Also, that win was nuts. 40:55 So we need to be careful about how much we

Dan Rubenstein 40:55 Yes.

Ty Hildenbrandt 40:58 How much weight we put on a game like that, even though it was a very big deal in the moment. 41:02 I just don't know if it's any great indicator of skill.

Dan Rubenstein 41:05 I totally agree with you. 41:07 Here's my counter, Ty. 41:09 Let's take out take any game from the like, is Virginia playing Pitt this year? 41:13 I have no idea. 41:14 Is Virginia playing Pitt? 41:15 You want to fact check for this?

Ty Hildenbrandt 41:16 I'll fact check.

Dan Rubenstein 41:17 Okay, take an ACC game, take whatever, a Big 12 game, take an SEC, any game where you don't have a rooting or financial interest or something.

Ty Hildenbrandt 41:24 Virginia does not play pit this year.

Dan Rubenstein 41:26 Okay, give me a random like who does Virginia play in late October?

Ty Hildenbrandt 41:29 In late October, Virginia plays. 41:32 Let's see here.

Dan Rubenstein 41:34 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 41:34 They've got a game against Duke.

Dan Rubenstein 41:36 I don't know why we're picking on Virginia, but okay, Virginia-Duke, a rematch of the ACC Championship game. 41:44 Let's say Beau Pribula is under center or he's whatever. 41:49 It's a pitch play, and he pitches it. 41:52 And the exact moment he pitches it, a gust of wind. 41:57 Takes it. 41:57 And that doesn't just take it. 41:59 It's Beau Pribula in the red zone for Virginia.

Ty Hildenbrandt 42:02 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 42:03 It doesn't just take it. 42:04 It takes it all the way to the other end of the field.

Ty Hildenbrandt 42:07 Okay, this is like yeah, this is yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 42:07 Like it's just rolling comically. 42:09 Okay, this is one in a billion. 42:11 Okay? 42:12 This is, you could not dial it up better. 42:15 But the ball is rolling, the wind is pushing it right down the middle of Broadway, right down the middle of the field. 42:21 And all of a sudden, you have 20 42:25 Virginia and Duke players racing 80 yards to scoop up either a touchdown or just maintain possession, it would be the single most captivating moment of the season.

Ty Hildenbrandt 42:38 It probably would be.

Dan Rubenstein 42:38 Wouldn't it?

Ty Hildenbrandt 42:39 I think so.

Dan Rubenstein 42:40 Like a literal race to get a ball eighty yards away.

Ty Hildenbrandt 42:43 Yeah, yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 42:44 It would be the single most captivating moment of the season.

Ty Hildenbrandt 42:47 A wind game, excessively windy game.

Dan Rubenstein 42:49 Yeah. 42:50 High ceiling, low floor.

Ty Hildenbrandt 42:56 I'm going to take crowd shots of Anthony Becht. 43:00 This is a very specific one.

Dan Rubenstein 43:00 Oh, it is.

Ty Hildenbrandt 43:03 It feels to me like there are some parents that, for whatever reason, get shown a little bit more than others. 43:10 And I know just from watching a collection of Iowa State games 43:15 that it seems as though they like showing Rocco Becht's dad, former NFL offensive lineman Anthony Becht. 43:21 They like showing him a lot 43:23 up in the stands. 43:25 And now, as he moves to a new team and seemingly is going to be the leader of that offense, they will inevitably show Anthony Becht one more time.

Dan Rubenstein 43:36 At least, yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 43:36 If not a thousand more times this coming season. 43:41 And I just found it funny singling out 43:45 one single parent that I believe they're going to show more than the rest. 43:48 And I think Anthony Becht probably has a claim to that throne this year. 43:52 Now, there are obviously other options, right?

Dan Rubenstein 43:54 I was going to say that was Cooper Manning and how about Cooper Manning headwear?

Ty Hildenbrandt 43:56 Like Cooper Manning would probably like a word. 44:02 Cooper Manning had

Dan Rubenstein 44:02 Not afraid to adorn.

Ty Hildenbrandt 44:04 No. 44:05 So Cooper Manning, probably in this camp, we could go through, we could probably list off a dozen other quarterbacks that probably also fall into this category.

Dan Rubenstein 44:07 Yeah. 44:12 Mhm.

Ty Hildenbrandt 44:17 But I kind of hope that someone out there keeps track of these crowd shots and proves me right by the end of the season. 44:25 I have no idea how you'd ever do it. 44:29 But crowd shots of Anthony Becht, I think, is going to be something worth getting in on now because especially if he has a good campaign, now that he's back and healthy and excited to be at Penn State. 44:39 Taking one online class, I believe, focusing on his football, which is exactly the way we want it. 44:46 Should be a good year, provided he stays healthy and they're going to show a lot of Anthony Becht.

Dan Rubenstein 44:50 I'll stick with you there just in terms of crowd shots. 44:54 And we talked about Cooper Manning for my next pick. 45:02 How about a new understated Arch Manning commercial with gravitas? 45:05 No matter the brand.

Ty Hildenbrandt 45:07 What does this mean? 45:08 What does this mean?

Dan Rubenstein 45:09 Well, there's just something about Arch Manning, and he's not going crazy. 45:14 He's, you know, he keeps his profile relatively low. 45:17 But, like, he's here to tell you about Vuori.

Ty Hildenbrandt 45:19 So what do we—well, last year we had Warby Parker and we had Vuori.

Dan Rubenstein 45:23 And I think he was also like doing commercials for the NCAA or EA College Football, too, right?

Ty Hildenbrandt 45:30 I believe so, yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 45:31 Yeah, he like kind of held out that he wasn't going to have his name, image, and likeness in it, and it was all kind of a ploy, it seemed, because eventually he was like, Not only am I in it, I'm the face of it.

Ty Hildenbrandt 45:32 I believe so. 45:35 Right. 45:41 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 45:42 I don't know why it just sounded like uh what's-his-name from The Andy Griffith Show?

Ty Hildenbrandt 45:46 There will inevitably be another Arch Manning commercial.

Dan Rubenstein 45:49 He'll do it for, if the check clears, but, like, I want him to do it for something that he's really going to have to be chill like is he gonna do he won't do gambling, right? 46:02 I don't think that's under like, I don't think there's any wagering. 46:04 I don't know if you can do alcohol as part of NIL stuff. 46:09 Could Arch Manning be very chill? 46:13 Could he be very straightforward, very matter-of-fact when talking about BlueChew? 46:23 What if they paid him premium? 46:27 You know, on the field, I've got a lot of concerns.

Ty Hildenbrandt 46:27 I mean right.

Dan Rubenstein 46:31 But when I'm off the field, I don't want to be concerned about anything, especially in my own private time. 46:36 Yeah, I'm Arch Manning, and I'm here to talk to you about BlueChew. 46:40 No? 46:41 That's probably—he probably is saying thank you, but no thank you to the fine folks at BlueChew.

Ty Hildenbrandt 46:44 I'm assuming he's got some reps that 46:46 I mean, he's been very understated. 46:48 He barely did interviews his first couple of years on campus. 46:52 I think they very closely guarded access to Arch Manning and the way that Arch was portrayed. 46:59 And I think actually it was probably the right concept because he came in there 47:04 as one of the highest-profile college football players, not just in Texas, but throughout the sport. 47:10 And they were trying to give him a chance to ease into it. 47:12 And we saw last year, right? 47:13 First year as a full-time starter.

Dan Rubenstein 47:13 Totally.

Ty Hildenbrandt 47:14 It took a minute 47:15 for him to actually ease into it and then get better in the latter half of the year. 47:18 So I don't fault anyone for doing that, but I'm assuming that there is a whole mechanism around Arch Manning that kind of keeps him insulated to the extent that he's been.

Dan Rubenstein 47:28 Don't forget, though, everybody's got a price. 47:30 Continue. 47:31 Okay, next pick.

Ty Hildenbrandt 47:31 Next pick, where's it at? 47:36 I've got an SEC wonk 47:39 citing draft picks in a College Football Playoff argument.

Dan Rubenstein 47:43 Oh, I like this. 47:45 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 47:45 So, this is up there with the SEC gauntlet, okay.

Dan Rubenstein 47:48 I mean, SEC gauntlet is like a no-brainer. 47:51 I could have taken that first overall and won this whole draft.

Ty Hildenbrandt 47:53 SEC gauntlet is like the free space in the middle of the bingo card.

Dan Rubenstein 47:57 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 47:58 I purposely left it off mine. 48:00 I think you left it off yours as well. 48:02 But 48:04 this is something, this is like a new category of argument, pro-SEC argument that has bubbled up over these last couple of years. 48:14 What it involves is not teams' records 48:17 not strength of schedule. 48:20 This is an argument that revolves around how many draft picks the SEC places in the NFL. 48:25 And the argument goes something like, well, 48:28 it's a tough league. 48:30 We know that 48:31 well, we know what the record is. 48:34 But did you know that the SEC had 15 first-round draft picks in the draft class of 2026? 48:44 And that's the argument for putting that's the argument for putting the other SEC team in the playoff.

Dan Rubenstein 48:45 That's the whole thing. 48:49 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 48:50 The SEC is a great conference. 48:53 One of, if not the best. 48:55 There's not much debate on that. 48:58 But I feel like I have seen this argument pop up more and more in recent years. 49:03 You really got to twist your brain in a pretzel to understand how it applies.

Dan Rubenstein 49:07 The draft pick thing is great. 49:11 I don't want to get this wrong, but my brain tells me it was Jim Nagy, formerly of the Senior Bowl, and he's now at Oklahoma...

Ty Hildenbrandt 49:15 Yes.

Dan Rubenstein 49:17 When he was talking about how NFL scouts should have a hand in selecting the College Football Playoff teams based on the number of NFL prospects on the roster. Like,

Ty Hildenbrandt 49:27 Right, right.

Dan Rubenstein 49:28 I love that take so much. 49:32 And then I think we've had Nick Saban talking about, like, Vegas should have a role in selecting the playoff teams because 49:40 they set odds to figure out they set lines to figure out how we can get the same number of people and the same amount of money on both sides of a wager.

Ty Hildenbrandt 49:50 That's sort of like the old— 49:52 I think it was Colin Cowherd who made an argument like this back in the day because he's always been plugged in on the Vegas side.

Dan Rubenstein 49:54 Sure. 49:55 Vegas should be in charge. 49:56 Great.

Ty Hildenbrandt 49:58 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 49:58 Looks like Vegas is in charge now, once again.

Ty Hildenbrandt 50:01 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 50:01 So yeah, the draft pick things is the funniest thing in the world. 50:05 So, yeah, I mean, look, you can do SEC gauntlet, you can do draft picks, you know, whatever it is. 50:11 I'm old-fashioned in the, like, winning games thing seems to be a good way to determine 50:16 which conference is in a better place? 50:17 But yeah, the SEC going to nine games this year is going to be all over the place.

Ty Hildenbrandt 50:22 One or two more each.

Dan Rubenstein 50:23 Let's do it.

Ty Hildenbrandt 50:27 What do you got for me?

Dan Rubenstein 50:29 Folk-hero backup quarterback once again. 50:31 Last year we had Trinidad Chambliss, right? 50:34 Just absolute stud, all-time Ole Miss legend.

Ty Hildenbrandt 50:36 Now, are you treading a little too close to your old-school 'the backup is better than the starter' draft pick?

Dan Rubenstein 50:44 No, because I'm not just saying the backup is better than the starter. 50:48 I'm saying a starter gets hurt. 50:50 I'm saying there's some unfortunate situation in which the starter can't go, or the starter is just benched, whatever it is. 50:55 But it's not only is the backup coming in and is better than the starter, but like becomes an absolute legend for that program. 51:03 Like, takes them to new heights 51:05 or out of nowhere. 51:06 Nobody figured Byrd Ficklin at Utah or Tavien St. 51:10 Clair at Ohio State or any of these guys. 51:13 could come in and make an immediate difference. 51:15 And then suddenly, oh, this guy's a legend. 51:17 And we have good candidates, right? 51:18 Because there's so many quarterbacks back. 51:20 And, you know, it's financially reasonable to come back to college, even if you have NFL interest. 51:26 So, like, 51:27 I guess it would be Dylan Raiola at Oregon. 51:30 Keisean Henderson at Houston. 51:32 I think he's the highest-ranked recruit in the history. 51:34 I know what Ed Oliver was, but he's definitely the highest-ranked quarterback, I believe, in the history of the program to join the Cougars. 51:41 So, 51:42 Conner Weigman's been injury-prone at times, I would say, is a fair statement to make. 51:48 Somebody coming in and essentially leading their team, at least to the verge of the College Football Playoff, as a backup quarterback.

Ty Hildenbrandt 51:56 I like this one.

Dan Rubenstein 51:57 I want it. 51:58 I love a good folk hero out of nowhere.

Ty Hildenbrandt 51:59 Okay. 52:01 Okay, what do I got here? 52:03 I've got 52:06 I've got one here that I just called Nick Saban's High Horse.

Dan Rubenstein 52:09 Oh, this is great too, all season long.

Ty Hildenbrandt 52:14 Nick Saban brings a fair amount of gravitas to that GameDay set as someone who is widely regarded as the best coach in the history of college football. 52:25 He is a proponent for the game. 52:28 He has obviously taken part in high-level discussions, not just with other college football coaches, but with the government 52:36 regarding where this thing goes next. 52:39 So, Nick Saban is much revered. 52:41 And when you're that revered, you can kind of say whatever you want. 52:45 And obviously, when you're that successful, you've got opinions on most things. 52:49 This will inevitably happen a handful of times this year on the GameDay set, some other kind of live hit with Nick Saban, or Saban's got something he's got to get off his chest, and whether you like it or not, you're going to hear it. 53:01 Nick Saban's high horse. 53:03 I want it on my team.

Dan Rubenstein 53:04 I mean, that's what he's there for.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:06 That's exactly what he is there for specifically.

Dan Rubenstein 53:07 He is filling the equestrian side of things on the GameDay set.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:13 You're up.

Dan Rubenstein 53:15 I have so much. 53:16 I think we just need to go through what we haven't selected.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:18 All right, go ahead.

Dan Rubenstein 53:19 There's so much here. 53:21 So I mentioned the handjob cutaway. 53:23 I have the phrase. 53:25 By the way, Handjob Cutaway is playing the Troubadour in two weeks. 53:29 Very experimental, but if you're into them, you will be very into them.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:33 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 53:34 Looks like the honeymoon is over for a coach in his first year.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:36 Oh, could be another James Franklin situation.

Dan Rubenstein 53:38 Things going wrong. 53:40 Could be another James Franklin situation.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:42 Okay.

Dan Rubenstein 53:42 I have a new Lane Kiffin ends up doing old Lane Kiffin stuff, likely in direct messages to and from like an Alpha Phi pledge.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:52 You should have drafted this one first overall.

Dan Rubenstein 53:54 I know. 53:54 There's just so many here. 53:55 I have Notre Dame elects to accept a postseason invite.

Ty Hildenbrandt 53:58 Okay.

Dan Rubenstein 53:59 A TV network uses AI poorly for graphics. 54:02 We've seen that all off-season long already. 54:05 A playoff team is outside of the AP Top 25. 54:08 That's not going to happen every week, but that could pay off at the end. 54:12 A carriage dispute, like, well, you're not going to have Fox unless you call up your local blah buddy blah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 54:17 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 54:17 And you're going to miss out on the Big Ten. 54:19 I don't know if those deals are up or not. 54:21 I have a special teams trick play goes horribly wrong, so we can see the— 54:26 It was like the old it was a I think a Miami game where you had the guy faking the fainting on the on 54:34 on punt coverage or I always enjoy like a like a really bad fake field goal.

Ty Hildenbrandt 54:35 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 54:39 Anything along those lines I'm good with 54:41 the debut of a new hairstyle.

Ty Hildenbrandt 54:43 Oh man, this is you know, I thought about going with a coach shaving their head.

Dan Rubenstein 54:47 So it's either coach or player. 54:50 And like we saw it with like Quinn Ewers, right?

Ty Hildenbrandt 54:52 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 54:52 When he cut off the mullet. 54:54 Obviously, the big one, the will-he-won't-he thing, is the Avery Johnson hair, right? 54:59 They're like, I just needed a change. 55:00 I need a reset. 55:01 I don't know if he's done that 55:04 And then I have a bunch of long shots.

Ty Hildenbrandt 55:05 Well, before you get to the long shots here, let me read off some of mine, because your long shots are funny as hell.

Dan Rubenstein 55:06 I have penny stocks. 55:07 Sorry. 55:08 Please, you've got great ones.

Ty Hildenbrandt 55:12 I've got the chain gang gets obliterated, a badly misaligned first-and-10 line, Brian Kelly attempting to be likable.

Dan Rubenstein 55:15 Love that hate that, but love it. 55:24 I mean, that's going to be a a reality.

Ty Hildenbrandt 55:26 Coach having a public beef with his AD, which, by the way, is kind of going on at BYU right now.

Dan Rubenstein 55:31 That's right. 55:32 That we're doing more with less.

Ty Hildenbrandt 55:34 I have an overly performative eye black situation.

Dan Rubenstein 55:38 Oh, what's the next step? 55:39 What's the next level of innovation with eye black?

Ty Hildenbrandt 55:42 Analyst refers to a game as a chess match. 55:45 What else do I got here? 55:46 Oh, here, this one actually I think could be really funny. 55:49 A returning player says that college practice is actually tougher than the NFL.

Dan Rubenstein 55:55 Oh, interesting. 55:56 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 55:57 Another Fran Brown idiosyncrasy, a curious training regimen

Dan Rubenstein 56:03 Like the right tackle says he eats exclusively liver.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:06 That's right.

Dan Rubenstein 56:07 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:07 That's right. 56:09 I've got Joey McGuire playing the victim card. 56:12 I've got Dabo extolling the virtues of the transfer portal.

Dan Rubenstein 56:12 That's good. 56:14 Dabo it's still Dabo.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:16 Of course, yeah. I still doubt. 56:18 A coordinator fired in September. 56:20 That's probably going to happen. 56:22 And then a two-quarterback formation.

Dan Rubenstein 56:22 Yeah. 56:24 Now we're talking.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:25 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 56:26 You also have down here dramatic voiceover from a random celebrity.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:30 Oh, yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 56:30 I can tell you right now, it's not going to be random. 56:32 It's going to be Bryan Cranston. 56:36 Because Bryan Cranston will say yes to your voiceover request, and he has a steep fee.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:39 Well, you know what I mean, though. 56:41 You know what I mean, right? 56:42 You know what I mean.

Dan Rubenstein 56:42 Yes.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:42 Like, it's in advance of a big game, and you hear this voice. 56:46 It's like, I recognize that voice. 56:47 I don't know.

Dan Rubenstein 56:48 Yes.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:48 And then Chris Fowler comes back on the screen. 56:51 He's like, special shout out to Paul Rudd for giving us that voiceover.

Dan Rubenstein 56:54 Yes.

Ty Hildenbrandt 56:54 Like, what's Paul Rudd have to do with South Carolina?

Dan Rubenstein 56:55 Yeah. 56:55 Talking about the border war. 56:57 Yeah. 56:58 Well, the border war at least makes sense. 57:00 I think he's from Kansas City.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:02 Sure.

Dan Rubenstein 57:04 Yeah, I think that's a great one.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:06 Give me your long shots.

Dan Rubenstein 57:06 But yeah, it always just is going to be Bryan Cranston. 57:08 Okay, so these are my penny stocks, right? 57:10 These are not going to happen. 57:12 But if you feel especially moved to throw a few dollars into this stock because it's just singing to you, I applaud you.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:21 Right. 57:22 Okay, go ahead.

Dan Rubenstein 57:22 Okay. 57:23 LaNorris Sellers has time in the pocket.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:25 Won't happen.

Dan Rubenstein 57:26 It's not going to happen, but you could buy pretty low.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:27 Won't happen. 57:30 Okay.

Dan Rubenstein 57:30 Alabama is able to run the ball. 57:32 Missouri beats a team in the final AP poll. 57:35 You stop me when you want to throw 10 to 20 bucks, okay, at one of these.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:38 I think Alabama is going to be able to run the ball this year.

Dan Rubenstein 57:40 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:41 I do. 57:41 I do.

Dan Rubenstein 57:41 Good for you.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:42 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 57:42 Auburn has a boring, reasonably successful season that universally encourages Auburn fans for the future. 57:48 Nothing's ever boring at Auburn.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:49 No.

Dan Rubenstein 57:50 Jon Sumrall carries himself in a mostly subtle, reserved manner.

Ty Hildenbrandt 57:53 Nope, keep going, keep going.

Dan Rubenstein 57:54 No? 57:54 Billy Napier successfully delegates offensive coordinator responsibilities, this time at JMU. 57:59 He says he is.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:00 Keep well, successfully is carrying the load there.

Dan Rubenstein 58:01 We'll see.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:04 Keep going. 58:04 What else do we got?

Dan Rubenstein 58:04 A conference will exist that includes the states of Illinois, North Dakota and Hawaii. 58:08 Obviously, this exists. 58:10 Shout out to the Mountain West.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:11 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 58:12 Notre Dame's schedule turns out to be pretty tricky, actually.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:16 I mean 58:19 I hope not, but keep going, won't happen, won't happen.

Dan Rubenstein 58:20 Related, Marcus Freeman wears sensible, somewhat loose-fitting pants. 58:26 No major program has issues with players driving too fast.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:29 Never.

Dan Rubenstein 58:31 Bill Belichick is newly single and goes on a tear destroying the ACC. 58:37 Like his relationship status was holding him back.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:40 Goes on a tear as a coach or as a single man. 58:43 What is your implication here?

Dan Rubenstein 58:45 You know, your mileage may vary. 58:46 Take your pick, Ty. 58:48 Take your pick. 58:50 Newly single Bill Belichick on a college campus.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:54 Okay.

Dan Rubenstein 58:54 Sure.

Ty Hildenbrandt 58:54 Okay.

Dan Rubenstein 58:55 USC is led by its defense. 58:57 A Pat Fitzgerald offense is described earnestly as electric. 59:01 Arthur Smith and Matt Patricia decide to move in together. 59:06 I don't know. 59:07 Maybe their families are living elsewhere and they're just like, let's be roommates.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:11 Sure.

Dan Rubenstein 59:12 Jedd Fisch denies interest in an open job, and you kind of believe him?

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:16 Hmm.

Dan Rubenstein 59:16 Yes?

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:17 I don't—no, I never believe Jedd Fisch.

Dan Rubenstein 59:17 No? 59:18 DJ Lagway is the stabilizing force Baylor has been aching for.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:22 I could throw in a few bucks on that.

Dan Rubenstein 59:24 You would throw in a few bucks.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:25 I didn't say I would. 59:26 I said I could. 59:27 I'd need to think more about it.

Dan Rubenstein 59:27 You could.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:28 And it depends how much.

Dan Rubenstein 59:29 Cody Campbell keeps a low profile.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:32 Next topic.

Dan Rubenstein 59:34 Oregon seems especially strong in January.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:37 Oh, man.

Dan Rubenstein 59:37 Look, I have to give equal time.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:38 You gotta yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 59:39 I got to be fair here. 59:40 That one's I'll believe it when I see it. 59:43 Northwestern scores 30-plus points twice or more in Big Ten play.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:47 I mean, I'll throw ten bucks on that.

Dan Rubenstein 59:49 It doesn't happen a lot, Ty.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:50 I'll throw ten bucks on that.

Dan Rubenstein 59:51 I looked at recent history. 59:53 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 59:53 Thirty points in Big Ten play.

Dan Rubenstein 59:56 I think they did it twice in 22 or 23, somewhere in there.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:01 There is nowhere I can bet on that, but I would throw ten bucks on that in a millisecond.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:04 Tim Brando fully prepares for a game broadcast.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:07 No, keep going.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:08 You want to throw any money behind that?

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:09 No, keep going.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:09 That's tough. 01:00:10 That's a tough one.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:10 Yep.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:11 A new fast-casual food baron booster steps in to keep a coach from leaving. 01:00:16 Last year, we had Crumbl.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:17 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:18 This year, it could be, I don't know, somebody who's a franchisee of 44 Hardee's.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:23 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:23 Who's to say?

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:24 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:25 NC State does not win between seven and nine games.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:29 Does not win.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:30 Yes, so they have to come up with a win total that could be five, it could be six, could be ten, could be eleven. 01:00:36 It cannot be seven, eight, or nine.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:38 I would never put any money on that 01:00:39 And I like NC State this year, but we can't do that 01:00:43 I can't do that to myself.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:44 I have 01:00:45 I have in here an unfounded rumor circulates about a booster's spouse. 01:00:51 You know what? 01:00:51 That's probably too easy. 01:00:53 That's probably a regular fantasy thing.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:00:53 I mean, that's probably going on right now.

Dan Rubenstein 01:00:55 Yes. 01:00:57 And then my last one is Curt Cignetti gets milkshake-ducked. 01:01:01 Do you understand that reference?

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:02 I don't understand what that means, but it's funny.

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:04 Okay, so milkshake-ducked is when somebody becomes famous for a very innocent reason online. 01:01:12 And you're like, you remember like the guy who was wearing the red sweater at the there were like debates or town halls or something like that?

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:20 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:20 And then I was like, oh, turns out his internet history on Reddit's real weird.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:24 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:25 Right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:25 Wasn't it?

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:25 So,

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:26 His name was like Jim Bone or something, Mike Bone?

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:29 It sounds right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:30 Yeah.

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:31 The term milkshake duck is, it comes from like a joke on probably Twitter, who knows, where it was like, look at this duck. 01:01:39 He loves drinking milkshakes. 01:01:41 And then it's like six hours later. 01:01:43 Well, turns out the duck is a Nazi, right? 01:01:46 That, like, you can't have anything good and fun and innocent without the other shoe dropping for some reason.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:50 Right.

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:53 And so Curt Cignetti getting milkshake-ducked would be like, oh, look at this most incredible story in college football history.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:01:54 Um

Dan Rubenstein 01:01:59 Curt Cignetti has led the Indiana Hoosiers to a national championship out of nowhere. 01:02:05 And then something comes out about Curt Cignetti. 01:02:07 We're like, ooh, yeah, well, that's not as fun anymore.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:11 I jotted down Cignetti flaming the new AD from Purdue. 01:02:16 Because I don't know if you saw when they hired the new AD, he had some comment about Indiana.

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:16 Well, that's great. 01:02:21 Right.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:22 Like, and it was like almost implying that Indiana doesn't win in anything. 01:02:25 Well, they just won the national championship, obviously. 01:02:27 And people online were like, uh, hey, man, like, what?

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:29 What are you talking about, dude?

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:30 Yeah, where you go with this, bro?

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:30 Yeah. 01:02:32 Yeah.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:32 Could definitely see Cignetti remembering something like that and just bringing it up at an inopportune time.

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:38 Yeah, I think those are all my penny stocks. 01:02:40 So you like the Northwestern one.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:41 I do like the Northwestern one, actually.

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:43 30-plus points twice against like the most impossible schedule in America.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:43 I would go in on that. 01:02:47 Of the ones that you read off, I would probably go Alabama able to run the ball.

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:52 Yep.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:52 And Northwestern scoring 30 or more points twice in Big Ten play.

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:56 Okay.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:02:56 Yeah. 01:02:57 Yeah, I'd probably do that one.

Dan Rubenstein 01:02:59 I'm excited. 01:02:59 Like even NC State going six and six or ten and two is so laughably weird that you're like, I can't get behind any of those, either of those.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:03:06 No. 01:03:07 No.

Dan Rubenstein 01:03:08 Okay, fair enough.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:03:09 solidverbal@gmail.com 01:03:11 is the email address. 01:03:12 If you've got any thoughts on these, if you'd like to send us your own Fantasy Things selections. 01:03:17 It does feel a little bit weird not doing this in front of people.

Dan Rubenstein 01:03:20 Yeah, true.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:03:22 It does feel a little bit weird. 01:03:23 We do our best with it. 01:03:25 We would encourage you to email. 01:03:27 Again, let us know what things you're into this coming college football season, what you're going to be watching for 01:03:33 going out to Verballers.com, V-E-R-B-A-L-L-E-R-S.com. 01:03:38 I'm going to talk a lot about this over the next two weeks. 01:03:41 If you head on out there, that is our Patreon. 01:03:43 The Patreon is the best way to support this show. 01:03:47 It is very important for us in order to keep this show afloat in the manner that it is. 01:03:52 So, if you want to do that, 01:03:54 If you also want to be part of the community, not only playing in our games, voting in our polls, but also getting ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, being part 01:04:04 of our Q&As that we often do on there where we kind of throw it out to the Verballerhood to post questions. 01:04:10 You can also get in on our Discord server. 01:04:12 There's a bunch of stuff. 01:04:14 We would encourage you to go and check it out. 01:04:15 If it's not for you, that's cool. 01:04:17 But V-E-R-B-A-L-L-E-R-S.com 01:04:20 is where you can go if you want to learn a little bit more about that.

Dan Rubenstein 01:04:24 Agreed. No-brainer.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:04:25 And if nothing more, rate, review, and subscribe. 01:04:27 That's all we ask here. 01:04:28 We're an independent shop. 01:04:30 We're getting ready for the season. 01:04:31 We'd love to have you with us here 01:04:33 as we round the bend into the first weekend of September. 01:04:37 Labor Day weekend will be here before you know it.

Dan Rubenstein 01:04:39 We're real close.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:04:40 About two weeks away, Dan.

Dan Rubenstein 01:04:42 Cannot wait. 01:04:43 Finally.

Ty Hildenbrandt 01:04:46 For that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubenstein, for myself over here, Ty Hildenbrandt, thank you for partaking in this madness with us. 01:04:53 We'll catch you all in a few short days. 01:04:54 In the meantime, stay solid.

Dan Rubenstein 01:04:56 Peace.