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Dan Rubenstein, happy Thursday, my good friend. How are you? I'm great, Ty. How are you doing? I'm standing. How does it feel? Is your lower back okay? Are your swollen feet okay? Everything physically is okay with you. How'd you sleep? I do have an update on the foot thing. Okay. I think I went a little too hard with the foot massager. Oh, you over-massaged? I was really into it the first day I got it. Yeah. And so the next morning you overflogged your feet. Well, yeah. So I have this thing where, like, my feet on the bottom like randomly swell up. I don't really know what it is. It's not a big deal. Talk to a million people about it. It's just, I have weird flat feet, basically, is what it amounts to. Okay. Got the massager, ran through the process once, ran through the process again, was really into it. Woke up the next morning, it's like, I'm going to do this again, I'm going to make this part of my morning ritual. Did it once. Did it again. Came down, recorded with you. Felt very light on my feet. Felt very agile, mobile, hostile. Went back upstairs, transferred everything to like my little portable drive that you told me to buy, which is phenomenal. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Went upstairs, did the editing. And I was like, Well, I'm editing, why don't I just do the foot thing again? Uh-huh. Did the foot thing three more times. So now what? My left foot swelled up like a balloon. Yeah, Ty, come on. You can't just attack your fascia that often. So Kate was at the office, Kate came home, and I was sort of beside myself because I was viewing this foot massager as a way to kind of counteract the other weirdness that I have going on down there. Again, thankfully, nothing serious or anything like that. It's just weird. Just weird. Have you tried ice, like an ice bath? Does that ever help? Please don't interrupt me ever again when I'm talking about my feet. You're Ty Hildemrandt. Of the internet, Ty Hildenbrandt. Can you post pictures of your feet? We got a bunch of messages. I'm not doing that. I am not doing that. That would be an advance, maybe $15 tier on the Patreon. Motion or still? These would just be still. Motion would be at least $50, I would say. $4K? Do the phones do 4K? I think they do 4K. Yeah, yeah. You got to light them, too. Okay, this is getting expensive. Anyway, Foot was swelling, was a little bit beside myself. Kate came home after a long day at the office, said, The hell's wrong with you? I explained the situation to her. She asked about the foot massager. I told her I did it five times and she said, Well, maybe that's why your foot swelled up. Yeah, of course. So I let it go. It went away. I just did a light massage this morning. And I'm in a much better place both in terms of my feet and in terms of my overall emotional state. Okay. Have you gotten have you ever gotten like a full body massage or like massage like an injury or anything? I wasn't into it. I did it once. They were playing like the new age music. Yeah. I felt like I was, you know, going into a different dimension or something. Was it? Yeah, you got to surrender yourself. I can't surrender. You're in your head too much. That's entirely possible. Just wasn't for me. I didn't. And people look at me like I have two heads when I tell them I don't really like the whole massage experience. Now, you know, maybe it was just the place I went or whatever. I don't know. I think I had a gift card, but. Wasn't really for me. It was just a little too like trippy, you know? Can I ask you a question that's not at all related to this, but that has been on my mind multiple times. It has come and gone. I would love to hear this question. It's a college football topic that gets interwoven with personal health. There was a lot made of when Joe Paterno sprinted off the field because he had to use the restroom. Right. That's the excuse given or whatever, or the assumption. If you're an eye in the sky coordinator, like a high-level coordinator in a high-leverage spot. take your pick. Any like Broils caliber offensive or defensive coordinator. We all have times where something's not sitting correctly. Yeah. Do you power through and mess yourself if you're in the middle of a drive? I think you have to. And do you have to give everybody a warning? No warning. No. You don't give like the GA you're sitting next to who's charting plays. You're just like, it's about to get real messy in here. He's your subordinate. He has to support you. I'm not saying he shouldn't or she shouldn't support you. I'm saying it's just like a courtesy thing. No, important life lesson. You got to be able to react on the fly. No, no, you got to do it. This makes it sound like you've been in this spot in one of those positions. Or do you take off and give responsibilities over to your second in command? Can you imagine if that got out? I'm talking about the story, not the, you know. Right. But like, can you imagine if that got out that Todd Orlando Holgerson? Sure. Right. Like it was going great. We were on a great drive, an eight-play drive, got down into the red zone. And then suddenly it felt like the whole play calling philosophy. Did a quick shift. I mean, you asked Chris Fowler something like this when we had him on last year. Well, Jenny Dell talked about it with Jenny Dell talked about it. With what's his name? Nessler. Yeah. How he doesn't eat a single calorie all day, no matter what time kickoff is, just to keep himself. Stable. We know coordinators. We can get in touch with coordinators. I wonder if there is some sort of like code, like an unspoken. Code among the coaching ranks that if you're in the booth and nature calls, what is the you know, what's the problem? Because I just always assume coaches, especially on when you're on the road, you're not always eating the cleanest. Right. They're not being fed, you know, grilled chicken and quinoa avocado bowls in the morning. Right. Although that would probably do it. That's like taking a couple shots of chia seeds right there, man. Yeah. Yeah, I'd be curious. That's one of those things where, like, I'm sure we've had stories with race car drivers, and I think they wear, do they wear a thing? Yeah, they've got a whole thing, a whole apparatus. I wonder. That's something I think about sometimes. That there's just there are going to be instances where it's do or die. And so if you're in the red zone with you know, you're down four with a minute and a half left, I wonder if and nobody would ever reveal this with like an in retrospect. Here's what was happening. So here's why I blew that call. Right. Because I was ready to blow mud. I wonder if you pulled anonymous coordinators. if they were a sprint away or mess in the pants, I wonder what would be better for their dignity in revealing that. We know there was like that podcast host, the Notre Dame podcast host, who decided to stick with it for love of the game. Oh, man. One of the greatest clips of all time. Oh, hold on. He stuck with it, but then sprinted out of frame, right? I believe so. Yeah. He likes. I think he took a chance in a matter of speaking, and it didn't work out. No. And so he popped off of his chair. That was incredible. One of the best clips ever. You know, I have a friend, a very good friend of mine, who's a commercial pilot. Yeah. I have a brother who is. You do. We've had him on the show. I've been on the show. And this friend has long attested that the Worst thing about being a human being is number two. The worst thing? The worst thing. Yeah. The worst part of everything. The human experience? The worst part of the human experience is number two. The actual going or the actual responsibility that it like interrupts your day every so often? I'm going to be honest with you. Yeah. Never really got that deep in discussion about this. Somebody tells you that, and you have zero follow-up questions? He told me it when I was like 23 years old. Okay. Apologies for not being able to do that. Well, you've obviously been thinking about it for a solid 30 years. Solid 30 years. That's right. Yeah. So, to the point where, as a commercial pilot, He did not want to leave the cockpit and go out into the facilities for any extended period of time because he just did not like the way that would look. You're basically on display before the entire plane. He didn't want to put himself in that situation. So, before he would go on longer flights, he would like pound a modium. Oh my God. So he was basically taking PEDs to avoid having to exit the cockpit, go into the facilities, stay in there for some longer than usual period of time. And arouse suspicions among the passengers. If you're heavy-dosing a modium, that's taking the other direction. If you really don't like a number two, I get it. Listen, that's worse. I'm with you. Eventually, that train's coming around the mountain. This friend of mine is a very smart guy who I would trust to fly me. Literally anywhere. I would trust him with my life. Yeah. A very good dude. Some weird takes, this included. Okay. Fair enough. I feel like I get where he is coming from. I understand the spirit of this decision. But I remember at the time we all sort of reacted like, hmm, hmm. Okay. How long of a flight would he again? You're asking questions kids would call emodium maxing. Yeah, right, right. So, was it overseas? Was he like flying to Copenhagen from Philly? I don't think at the time he was in Miami. Yeah, he was. Yeah, he wasn't even in Philly at that point in time. And this is a much younger day. I'm sure. Well, I don't know, but my hunch is he's probably changed his tune a little bit. But as we're having this conversation talking about coaches in the booth, this comes to mind Do you adhere to that same like I don't want to be on display? People will know what's going on if I use Yes. Laboratory on a plane, and I'm in there for seven minutes. Yes. They'll know that I'm a human being. Yes. So you will you will just pray to the gods that you can make it to SFO or wherever you're flying and either do that? SFO. Isn't that San Francisco? Yeah, no, it's like a six and a half hours. We're going to talk planes. We got to do whatever they're called. PHL to SFO, whatever you're into, man. But that's what I'm saying. You will fully avoid and just like. I would go the Nestler route. I would go the Nestler route. I would starve myself to avoid putting myself in a situation like that. Even when you're flying to Los Angeles for the World Cup. Seattle. I just booked the flight. I just booked the flight. What time is the flight? It's like later. It's actually after dinner. Oh, you're doing a night flight? It's not a night flight, but it's like it's like early evening Philly time. You're gaining hours flying out to South. If you're doing like an 8 p. m. flight that lands at you know, 10 p. m. or something local time. I mean, the flight cost me a kidney right now, but will you not eat all day? Will you pull a Nestler? Or will you just eat like very cleanly? Without risk? It'll probably be a lot of smaller portions throughout the day, like weight training or something with protein maxing or something of that ilk. I got to tell you, Ty, there are certain I use the word benchmark a bunch on this last episode, but there are certain benchmarks you sort of reach in life. I feel like that you're like, I was this, but now I've decided I can no longer do this, and this is who I am now. And that's just how it goes. I wear suits now, right? The whole richie. Most of it relates to. Bathrooms. Most of those benchmarks. I got to tell you, if you feel the need for speed on a plane That, like, that battle for any amount of time versus just like, sorry, friends. Yeah. Like. I just bathroom every time. This is a Joe versus a volcano situation at 30,000 feet. Like, I'm trying to impress who in 13B, right? That's the other thing, too. Like, I feel this way about servers at restaurants. I feel as if so many people order or behave like they're trying to. I think you should be very polite to servers. I think you should be great to servers. Tip like 30% if you can. Yeah. Well. I mean, I don't know. But use your own judgment there. But I think there is something about like. I don't really want to drink, but like they're pushing this like wine list or like these cocktails. Like, I'm not trying to impress Steve. Who's telling me about the small plates and they're meant to be shared? We recommend five to six for a table your size. No, we're going to do water, or I'm going to do this drink, or no, I know your meatballs are popular. We're going to pass. But I have been to dinner a lot of times where people feel like pressured to almost impress their server, which is obviously a sales job and that the salesperson is doing a good job. But That's something like after I've been with people that I feel comfortable enough to like did you did you just order that to like impress the server? Like you don't need to do that anyway. My other benchmark is So it's the you do what you got to do on a flight. Like, I'm not going to be uncomfortable for strangers. Like, I'm just, I don't care. I mean, it is sort of every man for himself with all things air travel and airports. Now, You got to go in there thinking that this is like a hurry-up offense. You're not bleeding clock. No. You got to go in there with speed being the name of the game. Right. Hurry up the huddle. Exactly right. Um. You just got to spike that thing on to the next play. The other one I feel very passionately about now: if I have anything longer than A twenty minute drive ahead of me, or if I even vaguely feel like I need to Go to the bathroom. And I never will accept my own brain's alternative of, like, oh, you can make a home. No, no, there's a bathroom here. Just use it. Like, I never try to. Tough out my bladder anymore. I've never you give me hell. About being in my early to mid-40s. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Ty, you can call me 80. I don't even care. Happy 60th birthday, Dan. Thank you. You will get there and you will get there before you realize you will. I'm just telling you right now We will all reach if we have nothing. I'm laughing as I'm saying this. I hope people realize that I'm like hunched over laughing as I am doing this. I'm not judging you. I don't care. This is good. These are. Listen. And this is true. Remember, we had that conversation a couple of weeks ago talking about like 9 p. m. is the perfect bedtime. Of course. And this is also one of those things that is very much like. Programmed into you, or you try to program into your kids when they are like seven years old. Yeah. Like, we're going somewhere, we're going to. We're gonna make a rest stop first. Yeah, I tell my boys they can sword fight. I don't care, just go pee. Yeah, so exactly. So, this is my point. A lot of like these early childhood Guiding precepts still apply. You maybe drift away from them as you get a little bit older, but then you kind of come back home later in life. I'll tell you this: Ty Hildenbrandt will never hold it walking into a stadium ever again after Pennsylvania last year. I don't remember if you took advantage of. Like a portajohn outside of the stadium before, and then well, I was in my head. I was in my head. Ah, see, I was in my head because I you say happy birthday to me, and Boy, did you wish you had taken that advice walking into Beaver Stadium? No, listen. I was in my, I was worried. That because we had so much water, we like weren't drinking beer or anything crazy. Like, we had to do a show at midnight. So, we weren't, we weren't going crazy. Plus, we were like eating and walking all day. So, yeah. So we, I just had like a lot of water because it was hot. It was a nice day. Yeah. And I was in my head about what that was going to be like when I got in the stadium. So I kept trying. To make a few rest stops before we got into the stadium. And then we got into the stadium really early. We had good seats. We watched everybody warm up. And the seats just happened to be A couple rows in front of the railing to get to like the concourse. So I thought, well, this is my opportunity. Yeah. This is my, let's just do this now before it was like 45 minutes before the game or an hour before the game. Little did I know that Beaver Stadium had an absolute tire fire of a crowd control situation in the concourse behind us. And so, yeah, I went. It took me 45 minutes to get back to my seat. It was horrible. There were people throwing up, there were women crying. I mean, I felt like crying, frankly, because it was, it was so, so it was an absolute hazard for any human being out there. Yeah. But yeah, I tried. It wasn't for lack of trying. It just I was really in my head. I was afraid I was going to have to get up during the game. So I think the move next time, I mean, I wouldn't go to Beaver Stadium. ever again after what you went through, and because it's very difficult for me to get there from where I live. I wonder if, and they recommend this for especially those of us getting up there in age. Hey, yo. Like, you're not supposed to drink water for an hour or two before bedtime. Right. Like you're supposed to like cut yourself off at 6 p. m. , whatever, 7 p. m. if you want, depending on when you're going to bed. I wonder if that has to be instituted pre-stadium for you or for anybody moving forward. I think that's something that is worth thinking about, like having a last water call before attending a sporting event. The conversation again circles back to if you are a play caller, if you are in the booth Yeah. If you are a race car driver. Yeah. If you are stuck in your car for three hours. But they have bathrooms that are just like private bathrooms in a hallway. I understand that. They're not addressing the same difficulty. Well, on that note, thank you to one and all for downloading for listening. I've been in bathrooms, by the way, with coordinators. Not to brag, but the coordinators share, obviously, facilities with press boxes. And so you will see the coordinators sprinting out of there at halftime, and they get elevator priority as they go down to the locker room. But yeah, I've seen them run into a bathroom or two. I'm like, wait a minute, guy's wearing a Georgia polo. And he looks, he looks like he's in a rush. There you go. That's, I think those, that concludes all of my, but yeah, that's that's a current benchmark of mine. You're just like, if you feel even a little bit, you're just like. Who am I trying to impress? Why am I trying to be a hero on this drive home? So, yeah. Always stop off, Ty. Well, on that note, welcome to the bonus episode. I'm Ty Dan. Thank you for your ongoing support. If you're listening to this right now, it is because you are supporting the show here in the offseason. We greatly appreciate it. Please know as I say on every episode that is the best way to support what we do help us keep the lights on Two really good QA episodes this week. I was really happy with the way both those came out and the questions that we received. We do have a few other questions left over, which we can dive into if we want to. You know, we've, I think, taken this opportunity every Thursday to more broadly talk about what's on our mind. I told you what's on my mind with the feed. I'm curious what's on your mind, Dan Rubenstein. Not too much. Not too much is on my mind as it relates to just life in general or college football. Just whatever, man. The 24 team takes are interesting. We talked about that a little bit with the coaches getting behind that possibility, their coaches' association. Obviously, this is not a. Uh a a one uh take voting block, but um No. Otherwise, there's not too much on my mind college football wise. I'm missing a week this season once again for a wedding, and happily. Right? Yeah. Did you tell me about this one? I don't know if you told me about this one. I think you did. Yeah. Mid-October. I think it's week. Seven? Something like that. I think it's the October 10th Saturday I'm missing. Okay. Going to the wedding of a former college football tour guy cameraman. Boom. My buddy Casey from college from Oregon. Nice. Getting married in Central California. I don't know what specific part it's considered. So going out there. With the misses for a wedding. I'll be back Sunday. So our schedule will, I don't know. You have time to figure out who that co-host is if you want it or if you want to go solo again. I thought I did okay going solo. I thought you did pretty good. I thought it did all right. But all the all the feedback we got was that, good job, Ty. That seemed difficult. I thought, yeah, I thought it went okay. I wasn't sure what to expect there, but I don't know. We've got time to reassess. We'll see. Okay. I don't know what huge games, if any, are being played that weekend. It didn't strike me as a particularly heavy weekend, which I think it was a couple of years ago. Yeah. Because that was, I want to say, both Ohio State No, it was Ohio State, Oregon, and there was something else big in the Big Ten, and there was something maybe like Alabama, Georgia, or something. I don't remember. Alabama, Georgia was Penn State, Oregon last year. What's the date on it? October 10th. Okay. So I'm saying like award is UCLA or something. Yeah, that is week six. Week six. Yeah, Stanford, Notre Dame. Georgia, Alabama. Okay, that's big. Iowa, Washington will be decent. It's interesting. Yeah. Texas, Oklahoma. Oh, yeah, Red River. USC Penn State will be nice little match. At Penn State. College, yeah. At Penn State. You're right. UCLA to Oregon. Indiana at Nebraska. Yeah. Okay. There are some good ones that week. I mean, it's all good. I mean, it's college football season. So Alabama, Georgia is a biggie, and Red River is a biggie. It's shaping up. But the wedding isn't until I want to say the evening, so I'll be able to casually watch like I was last year. I'll be able to casually watch around. But it's just different this time. We'll figure something out in that world. But man. Yeah. Just booked flights and hotel for that. Woo! Yeah. Yeah, my flight out to To Seattle, man. That um I like I said earlier, I'm missing a kidney after pushing the button there. By the way, we talked about this yesterday. I'm booking Vegas for the potential of a solid Verboll. I like this. I like this move. I think it's already the hotels are already like kind of booked up because hotel rooms can be refundable. But there's obviously there's obviously Vegas and it's there's a ton of inventory because of the amount of events they host there. Not that I think Oregon Notre Dame feels like they're on a collision course, like 2005 Texas USC. This is the black cat that you're doing here by booking this, but I approve of it. I think we need to. Also, just in terms of the math, there's a decent shot of either Notre Dame playing against somebody, Oregon playing against somebody, or the two of those teams playing against themselves. If we're to believe that they're, you know, five to seven top five to top seven teams in the country right now and have the potential to be even higher depending on how things break. Sure. I don't think it's the reason. This might be a lot of fun. It would be a. I don't love Vegas. I don't know how you feel about Vegas in your elder state. This is me giving a thumbs down right here. Yeah. But. In terms of the ease of travel, ease of hotels, it's obviously farther for you, but it's a much more attractive destination for travel than You know, going to the Bay Area or going to Indianapolis or going to Atlanta. Miami. Yeah. Right. And yeah, all that. So Vegas feels a little bit. A little bit easier, and the food is good, so you're going to wrote me in with something along those lines. So, I think it's worthwhile to book it. I mean, what I was going to say is: is this the singular most future proofing planning we've ever done. Probably. Like this far in advance. What is this? Like seven months in advance, eight months in advance? Just picture it now. Me, you. Geoff Schwartz, one hotel room. What could go wrong? Jeff is actually really easy. Hanging out with Jeff is very like, he doesn't drink. He doesn't want to get up to hijinks. He just wants to hang out, sleep, watch some football, and have a comfortable place to sit. It's very easy. He told me once that he likes. I don't know if he likes. I'll get clarification. I don't know if he's a paid subscriber. I forget. But. He'll go to EDM festivals with his wife, who likes EDM festivals. I was like, Are you into that at all? He was like. Not real, it's fine, but he was like, I just have one rule. Like, you just got to get me a chair. He's like, I'm not standing up. Are you out of your mind? He's like, I don't mind the music. He's like, I don't drink. I don't rave. I don't do drugs. He was like, find me a place to sit. I have fun. I have a good time. All right. Yeah. So, I don't know who else would be shacking up with us. Me, you, Geoff Schwartz, Ralph Russo. Let's party. Tim Murray lives out there. That's true. We could stay at Tim's. We could invite ourselves to Tim Murray's house, save some coin. Tim's a good guy. I don't think we would. Tim's a really good dude. I don't think we would push ourselves onto him. But yeah, I think that's what I'm very excited for your Seattle trip. Yeah, I started hearing from for ballers, by the way, who are also going to be out there, either being already in the Seattle area, maybe not going to the game, but some people who are going to the game, some people hit up the Inbox, like shared inbox. I got a couple other messages from people who have you ever been to Seattle? No. I've been to Portland. Yeah. But I've never been to Seattle. Both of those Portland people and Seattle people will be upset to hear you comparing those two cities. Well, I'm just I'm not comparing they're they're like what three hours away? Yeah is there like a is there like a blood feud that I'm unaware of I think there is a healthy rivalry between why sports like Seattle is like the is seen as like the sleek, more international place, and Portland is more like idiosyncratic, and I don't know. You had the Blazers and the Sonics for a long time. You got Oregon, Washington as rivals. I think both would love to be considered to be the jewel of the Pacific Northwest. I don't know. Maybe I'm overstating it, but I've always gotten that sense. Do you want to do some questions real quick? I'll do whatever. Yeah. Adam wants to know: while it certainly has been discussed, it seems like there is a clear funneling of talent to the top of NCAA football. Only two non-Power 4 players were drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL draft, and record numbers of early draftees from places like Ohio State. This can't be good for the long-term health of the sport, right? That's his question. I don't think people make decisions about what to and not to watch or games to attend based on draft position necessarily. But I understand the idea of losing your team's best players to a Big Ten team, an ACC team, whatever, that it being a bummer. I think, and you've spoken to this before I think a lot of what you consider to be a bummer about the sport can be made up Like that ground can be made up with story and narrative. Like Boise State, way back when, there was. A persona to Boise State football, right? You have the blue turf, you have the creative play calling, you have the, you know, the, the, the interesting dynamic of upsetting the big boys. And so people paid attention to Boise State football. And there's also like the funneling includes two schools that used to be considered smaller, but are now in the Big Twelve or the ACC or wherever. You know, UCF had a first-round pick, right? Was it Malachi Lawrence who went to the edge rusher? Was that who I think Nick Saban said? Ooh, that's a reach, right? He was like on a hot mic or something. I think that was it. So those schools are now power conference schools. I think it's more who is good and savvy enough to tell their program story in a compelling way. You got to back it up with results. But I still think when you go back to those smaller schools that were able to garner attention It's not only about having incredible players, it's also about telling that story. It's also about like, here's who we are. These are like weird traditions we have at our school. Here are the interesting personalities on the team. Here are the interesting personalities that are coaches. You also have to put yourself in a position to compete with or upset perceived bigger schools. So if you're scheduling up and you feel like you have a high quality program, a high quality team, and you're able to go toe to toe, people will take notice. So I don't feel as if, just because you're in the Mountain West, just because you're in the Sun Belt or the American, that interest is waning, but I think there's just more ground to cover in terms of like, okay, this is an attention economy. Attention economy. Right? How are we selling ourselves? to America, both on the field and off. And I still think there's room for people to pay attention to schools of various sizes. Is it bad for college football? I don't know. I kind of don't necessarily think that. we can use this, to your point, as any kind of like measuring stick. Because the flow of talent right now is Kind of like the minor leagues in baseball. And I hate to paint some programs as being minor league programs, but that's just sort of the way this is going. Right. Let's assume you go to a G5 school, G6 school, gain some notoriety, gain some market value. You realize that value by going to a better school. In some cases, you go to a better school and then a better school after that. Just right, sure. And when I say better school, I mean a better team. Yeah. Bigger team, more notoriety. So I don't know. I just think that is sort of the flow of talent right now. And talent flowing out of The G6 ranks is not good, and it definitely contributes to the rich getting richer. But I think that is a broader topic than just looking at it from the NFL draft standpoint. I feel like we've covered This exact issue a million times in different contexts. And it's all sort of the same thing. We've got this drain of talent from the quote unquote lower levels of college football bubbling up to the surface with the Power Four programs. And that's just sort of where we're at. So I don't to Adam's question here. He says this can't be good for the long-term health of the sport. I actually don't know. I have no idea. It is definitely controlling. All I will say definitively is it is definitely making the rich get richer. Sure. People have been on board from at least a television perspective so far. That's not how I like to fully gauge the health of the sport. I think the biggest thing that you have to maintain on some level is the concept of a tapestry. That there has to be a breadth of teams. And if we get closer to the gilded few separating themselves more and more, that's when I feel like is a good time to start growing concerned. But I don't know. This is always look, we all grew up, not we all, all of us of a certain age in the in the 35 to 49 demographic Ty. We grew up not having the ability to watch a lot of teams. You would wake up and you're like, I can watch a Notre Dame game and I can watch Auburn, Alabama. I can watch Michigan, Ohio State. But it's not like you were, it's not like your base of following this sport was rooted in, oh, I can watch Boise State, Nevada. I can like that didn't come until later on when you were a teenager or something. Is that your experience? Yeah. Where you can watch on basic network television, maybe ESPN had a game, maybe you didn't have ESPN. Maybe, you know, it's not like it is now. So. I don't know. I think I don't know is the right answer. I think people will generally read into the moment maybe a little bit more than they should. But no, there are are all sorts of reasons not to be pleased with where the sport is right now. I don't I think there's always opportunities to remake your team via portal. And it's very difficult to do it successfully every year. But we're also talking about a sport in which coaching talent has always moved up. Always always moved up. Always moved up. That Chris Petersen was able to stay at Boise or wanted to stay at Boise as long as he was able to. And I know there were family elements to it with one of his kids, but. I don't know. It's just constant flux, this sport, and people sort of get used to it. We got a lot of questions about the SEC. About urinating before leaving places. I'm glad we covered that early. We covered that early, yeah. We didn't have to read those questions. I got a lot of questions about the SEC. I'm going to. Do one more here if you want to pull up your SEC standing so you have all the teams in front of you. And then I'll get through a couple of the non-college football questions, which I think are a lot of fun to wrap this up. Connor says we've heard a bunch about the SEC's meaty middle this year. Which teams are squarely in it? What needs to go right or wrong for them to separate? From the herd in a good or bad direction. So I will preface this discussion by saying that we have not done the full preview on any of these teams yet. Of course. A lot of this is schedule dependent, a lot of this is quarterback dependent. So I'm only going to speak to it, Connor, from a very high level. But that being said, as I have mentioned countless times now over the last few episodes. I have done a fair amount of work thus far trying to understand where these teams are at, what the pecking order looks like from an SEC standpoint, and trying to get some idea. Of what these teams look like. Okay. So I think I spoke to this on one of our bonus episodes or one of our regular episodes not too long ago. But the four teams that I have right now definitively At the top of the SEC in my mind, Georgia, Texas AM, Alabama, and Texas. Those are my four. I believe those were the same four that were mentioned in another question that we discussed this week. Does the answer to this question have to I feel as if the answer to this question has to be a team or teams with returning coaches? Like, I don't think you and good conscience be like, I have LSU in my meaty middle. Like, why? Like, I don't think you can tier any team with a new coach here. That's fair. Okay. I didn't include LSU at the very top. I mean, I think they have talent to be at the top, and I don't think anybody would dispute that. But I didn't I have uncertainties about what that's going to look like. It's a lot coming together all at once. It's a high pressure situation. Sam level with the foot thing. Like I, you know, there's a lot that could go wrong there. So we're doing this what? May 7th? May 7th, those are my four that are at the top. Those are the ones that I am most interested in. The next rung down would be old miss. It would be LSU. It would be Oklahoma. Okay. All right. So those three teams. Did I include Texas? What did I say? Georgia, Texas, A&M, Alabama and Texas are my ones at the top. Okay. And then my ones that are one rung down would be O Miss, LSU, Oklahoma. I would include probably in that next tier down Tennessee. Okay. Probably Missouri. Okay. And maybe South Carolina and Florida. So when I say meaty middle, I'm not going to act like those seven teams are all on the equal. Sure. All on the level. I don't honestly believe that. But in terms of the teams that I am genuinely unsure of, What to expect. Those are the seven right now that jump out to me the most. Okay. What needs to happen? I mean, I can give you Connor a real quick bullet point or two on each team, old miss. There's a lot different at Old Miss this coming year. They have a lot coming back, notably Trinidad Chambliss, Kawan Lacey. But defensively, I got some questions. Offensively, I got some questions. Okay. LSU, we've already talked about LSU. I don't even need to go into LSU. There's just so much new. Oklahoma, are they going to be a little bit better on offense? Are they going to be able to run the ball this year? Is John Matir going to take a step forward as a passer? Or are they going to continue playing YOLO ball where he just runs around, draws it up in the dirt and figures something out? Tennessee, I mentioned Quarterback, right? Quarterback's going to be interesting. Does the defense come together? I've been reading a little bit about Chaz Coleman. Sort of not really catching on yet at Tennessee. Right. You know, like personal issue type stuff that he hasn't been a super active participant here in spring, but new defensive coordinator and Jim Knowles. A lot to like there if it clicks, but will it click? You know, I don't know. Mizzou new quarterback, right? Mizzou new quarterback. And I would say this constant feeling of there's meat on the bone, but they have yet to realize it. South Carolina, Lenora Sellers is back. Dylan Stewart is back. Who else is back that can help this team? And are they going to be a little bit more complete? May upgrade, may have upgraded at offensive coordinator with Kendall Bryles. I think it is an upgrade. Yep. That doesn't mean that it's going to translate on the field because South Carolina always has a very difficult schedule. It just works out that way. And then Florida's kind of like my sleeper, man. Like, I like the talent on the team. I think they're flying under the radar weirdly. Flying under the radar right now. I get that a lot's different. I get that it's a new coach, but Florida is a team that I keep coming back to whenever I go through the SEC and the preview stuff that I have down. To me, they're kind of like a sleeper. Not to like win the whole thing, but if you told me six months from now that Florida finished nine and three, I'd be like, okay, I could. I could sort of understand how that happened. Right. So I don't know if that's the answer or the depth of answer that Connor was hoping for, but that's the best I can do right now. Obviously, as we get a little bit closer to the season into July and August, we can do more detailed previews, but the broader point is that's seven teams right there. Seven teams that I think have genuine questions. Man, if Florida's going nine and three, that means they're likely beating either they're beating essentially two of three against Auburn, Ole Miss, and Oklahoma. Yep. I have I think I have four teams in my meaty middle. I'm just not going to evaluate teams with new coaches. I think there's too much there. So if I'm looking at the teams in the SEC that I don't feel like are definitively really good, or definitively really bad, or look to be extremely disappointing in this moment, I would just have Missouri, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and South Carolina. I think Vanderbilt takes a step back, but is of quality. I think South Carolina has too good a quarterback to have consecutive bad seasons on offense, even if they're Offensive line seems to have injury issues at the moment. Mizzou, I'm going to s need to see more of a spark against good teams, but I their defense and running game was as good a combination as we saw consistently in the country last year. I just didn't think they had popped through the air and didn't have consistency in closing out games. And Tennessee has played enough good defense and enough good offense lately that even if they're not beating top teams or closing games out at the end consistently, I think they are of Respectable quality at the very least. So, those are the four teams I would have in the meaty middle, just because I'm not specifically pessimistic or overly optimistic about any of those four. The other thing that I would add here, just as another thing to put on the radar, the SEC has had this reputation for being a really tough physical defensive conference forever. We got new coordinators at Tennessee and Florida. DC's coordinators. Yeah. Yeah. Defensive coordinators. At Ole Miss, Kentucky. Arkansas. We've got. I assume at Ole Miss, they're still going to run Pete Golding. I would assume. But okay, listen. Just lay the cards out on the table. Sure. Texas in the secondary lost some players of the draft. Even Georgia's like Georgia's pass rush last year was kind of not that good. Yeah. Um There are a bunch of like if you if you look if you zoom in at a lot of these defenses I don't think it's as ironclad as I'm used to seeing. New old D. C. with Mississippi State. Mississippi State. Back our net. Yeah. Back our nets back. So, anyway, that's just. High level. Thank you, Connor, for the question. Next. Dan Rubici, let's go to some non-college professions here. Heather wants to know, Dan, do you prefer the pizza oven that rotates the pizza itself, or do you prefer to rotate the pie manually? Well, both of us have been using an auto-rotating oven. Which I think I do like a lot. There are pluses and minuses to it. I don't mind having to turn my pizza manually, but no, I don't have a specific preference. If I were to Build a dream oven. I think I'd prefer the non-rotating. Yeah. But I agree with that. This is this, the, the oven that you and I both have, the Halo Versa. I think value wise and stylistically, because we like that crispier bottom New York style, it has the underneath heating element. the radiant heating element that a lot of ovens don't have, that you can only heat it from the top or the side, but nothing's coming out from under to keep it heated. So I'm happy with it, but I think, you know, if you gave me $8,000 to spend, I would not spend it on an oven that rotates. Dan, does a breakfast burrito need to have egg in it? Or is any burrito eaten between 6 and 10 a. m. considered a breakfast burrito? Look, the big breakfast industry will have you believe a lot of stuff. I don't believe breakfast burritos need to have egg. I think it helps to clarify and define if you need that for yourself. But I've been to places that don't have egg in the breakfast burrito. They'll have like meat and vegetables and potatoes, something like that, crispy potato, and you go from there. I just I don't think you need it to define a meal. So I would say no. But I understand why people do it because it's familiar as a breakfast food. I think generally, this is another old man take Ty. I think breakfast burritos might be too big. I find myself, whenever I order like a big breakfast burrito, I'm like, I am uncomfortably full after eating that entire burrito. I think we could. be in like a sixty seven percent to seventy five percent the size of the large burritos, I think we'd be better off. I'm trying to think like a comparable like what's a comparable item? Like if you were to take the the the standard size plastic water bottle, your pull and spring, your arrowhead or something like that, I think that would be an ideal size breakfast burrito. Does that make sense? We got another one here. People are in seek of Dan advice right now. I'm ready. Gary says, I'm going to Chicago this summer with a seven and a three-year-old for five days. Tips, must-sees, things to do. Food Rex. Give me a quick one, like 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Come on, you can do this. I don't have much. I don't you live there. Cubs games are fun. You know, regularly is a fun time if your kids can sit still. Like baseball is a very specific sport that's not necessarily the most kid friendly with its pacing. Um I don't have much. I'm sorry. Whoa. What about food? You got you got any good like food? For the family. Yeah. Okay. There's a place called, it's either called the Stop In or the Drop In Chicago. It's like pizza and burgers and they have arcade, but it's like it's very like 90s. I think it's oh God, Pizza Burgers, Chicago. I'm Googling this. I've been there. This is great. Yeah. I want to say it's in stop along. There you go. It's called the stop along. That would be a great kid-friendly place in a walkable neighborhood. That would be my recommendation. What is the last thing you've done in your life that had you take a step back and say, damn, I'm so good, sometimes I even surprise myself? Somebody asked us that? Chaka. Our boy, Chaka. The last thing I did in my life that made me take a step back and say, damn, I can't believe I did that by myself. Yeah, that's right. Damn, I'm so good sometimes I even surprise myself. I recently replaced a cracked mirror, side mirror on a car. Oh, baby. Home improvement stuff is definitely high on this list. Yes. I've been putting off cleaning out it's called a headliner, I believe, the cloth inside your car, like on the ceiling of your car. Okay. That's been stained for a while with errant smoothie. I recently cleaned that for it was like a months-long stain. Did that all by myself. The bar is very low. What's something that I've done? You know, when I play good tennis, but that's not like a huge You know what? I'll tell you what it was. It was the end of the basketball season coaching. When I whipped those dudes into shape. I was ready to quit after the first practice. These goons had me cornered. I remember you talking to me about this, yeah. But then I got a ton of compliments from the parents. I got, you know, it's always sweet to get like thank you cards, you know, at the end of the season from kids. That was very nice that they did that. And I got a couple gift cards. But It was what we look like, and how the kids were locked in, and paying attention, and listening, and having fun. That was the thing. We played a tough team to finish out the year, a couple tough teams. We went 1-0-1. We finished the season on a Ty against a top team. That was very cool. That was very cool that over the course of the winter I got this team a little bit more locked in and playing hard, rooting for their teammates, playing as a team. That would be my answer. What about you? Probably building the machine. The machine? Yeah. Does the machine still work? Yeah. Oh, okay. I know you're having issues. Yeah. Is there anything yes, it still works? I am just rewiring a few things right now, which is why it's not Fully functional the way it was a week ago. But anything in the physical world that you can point to. Yeah. I mean, over, overly massaging your feet. Overly massage my feet for sure. Yeah. Um I I did I tell you I played pickleball? Yeah. Did you did you accomplish something noteworthy? Um, well, just getting out there was was noteworthy. Who did you play with? Your uncle? No, I played with my wife. Oh. Oh, how what was that dynamic like? It was great. We had fun. It was super windy, which is not conducive to pickleball, but it was outdoors. She is somewhat athletic from what I know. How is the dynamic? Because I've spoken to couples who do this, and they're like, it's not the most fun thing because if one person is competitive and the other isn't, then you're just like, what are you doing over there? I am fiercely competitive. She is not. But you're self-aware, though. You know, you're not an expert player. Yeah. No. And look, we were just trying to keep a volley, and it was fun. Yeah. It was fun. So that was. That doesn't really rise to the level that Chaka is talking about here. But in terms of things like, damn, I'm so good, I even impress myself. Hmm. Anytime I bake a loaf of sourdough, Ty. Love my sourdough. My cookies are a hit. I sent cookies through the mail. To Cole Kublik, the only time I've ever technically paid somebody to appear on the show. And it's really not actual payment, but how did you wrap them? I would. Great question. In plastic and then in plastic bags and then inside of two paper bowls. Okay, if you can imagine, like create like sort of a doming situation, wrap that in plastic bags, and then inside of a shoebox, also stuff with plastic bags. This is a whole process. It was, oh, I want to keep it. The problem is, I didn't send it like two days. Yeah. So I don't know when it's actually going to be how stale they are or are not. Thanks for coming to our podcast, Cole. Here are some stale cookies. Yeah. So I did everything I could to keep the situation humid. But we'll see. I um well, how tell me about the pickleball? It was fun. It was fun. We were just trying to keep a volley. We weren't It was just the two of us. A volley is when you hit it out of the air. A rally is when you go back and forth. A rally. Okay. Okay. So you're rallying with, you're playing doubles against another couple. No, we were just we were the only two out there because it was super windy. You were playing against each other. So you haven't been, you haven't shared a side. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, and that's a different dynamic, Ty. It's a bit generous to say we were playing against each other. We weren't. No, no, no. But like you're just you're hitting. Yeah, we were just hitting back and forth. We were keeping a rally. Going, as I'm told. So, but if like pickleball Melissa and her husband Brad were like, we should go play. Yeah, I would play. No, I know. My question is: do you think Your composure would be kept with Kate and vice versa when all of a sudden your teammates and physical. Okay, I hope so. I could mask it. Because it would be fun. You know, I don't want to. I don't want it to be a one-time thing. It'd be fun to be able to do that more. I, man, I hope you do because I think we would get some good stories. Oh, yeah. We would definitely get some good stories. Because I've heard, you know, when. You know, sometimes you're out to dinner with another couple and maybe the gals are talking, and then you can get like a more honest accounting of a story. You're like, Brian, what? So, how was it really? And he was like, fucking nightmare. Like. That's when I find out some truths. I think you would be okay. The problem would be if you got super into it and like, Kate, you know you're not supposed to hit it in the kitchen. Yeah. Chose to dink! That's when I think you wouldn't be able to hold back if you were to get super into pickleball. The other thing that I'd mentioned here to Chaka's question, and then we're going to do like one or two more and then we're done. That's fine. I saved a bird this morning. Oh. Okay. State of the bird. It was tenuous, to be honest with you. We've got kind of like a little, I don't know what you want to call it, a little bar area out back. With some shelves underneath it where you can put stuff. And a robin somehow got underneath the bar area and was just hanging out on that shelf and looked like it was in some distress. Now, it Birds, even if they look in distress, aren't always in distress. Sometimes they get stunned, sometimes it's just a thing. So I had to invent some sort of way to coax this bird out. Without like touching it or spooking it or whatever. And so it was a process. It was like a 20-minute process to get this guy out of there and sort of like shepherd him to safety. Yeah. But, um, I felt like a good citizen of the world, Dan, upon getting this bird out of harm's way. By harm's way, I mean my dogs, who stream out of the house every time the sliding door opens because uh they want to go play in the art. So I just had visions of them seeing this bird and terrorizing the poor thing. And if it wasn't any distress, putting it in more distress, which I didn't want. Yeah. I saved the bird today. I felt pretty good about that. What are your dogs meant to do? Like, what is that breed of dog, the Sammy? Like, what is their role in wherever in Russia? Yeah, Siberia. So they're working dogs. They like a job. They love having a job. Or if we are doing a job, they like being around to watch. It actually tires them out. If we're like cleaning the house, they trail us around. They like to watch. Okay. But they if you give them a job, like if you take them on a walk and give them like a little backpack or something, where it feels like they're doing something, some people have weighted backpacks for them. They love it. So jobs they love. Could you give your dogs actual work, though? I mean, define work. Not really. I mean, I'm saying, like, if you put stuff on sleds in your backyard or in your driveway or something. And you're like, let's see if they'll take it in the house. Would they tow it? If you train them, they would love it. Yeah. They would absolutely love it. So I'm just, I'm wondering if you could like affix like a sled. You know, those like I don't know what they're actually called. The sort of seed, the seeding, you know what I'm talking about? Like the seeding wagons for your lawn. Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't know what they're called, but I know what you mean. Yeah, the wheelbarrow-y type. Right. I just wonder if they could seed your lawn for you. TBD. I don't think grass seed is good for dogs, so that would be a problem. Oh, okay, fair. But, but. Beyond that, they are sled dogs as well. Right. So they like to pull. They love to pull. And other than that, they just like to be around people and other dogs. They're very friendly. If it were snowy on your block. Could the two of them power you? You mean tow you? Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. One of them could tow me. I'll bet. I mean, I've already seen in the Discord a lot of people are saying that you couldn't create a custom sled for your people. I couldn't create a custom sled. I could buy a flexible flyer, but that's about as good as you can. Could you imagine if your neighbors. Saw you on your block being towed by your dogs and just yelling, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not the thing is, they're not acting a whip, but like they're not like huge dogs. Okay. They're not huge. They're like 50-ish pounds, both. But they got some torque. Oh my gosh. They have incredible leg drive. Yeah. And so, yeah, for sure. I mean, we take them on walks, they pull. We try to train them not to pull. One of them's good at it, the younger one isn't. But With sleds, if you actually gave them something to pull, yeah, man, they'd be totally into it. They'd be tired as hell. But the whole gig? That would be the whole gig, yeah. They like the work, yeah, and you're trying to tire them out. Okay. Let's do here. I'll give you one more question, Dan. This one from Kelvin. By the way, I saw something that is, it harkens back to an old Full circle, solid verbal moment this week. You did. It was Charlize Theron. Oh, no. Talking about her experience on dating apps. Yeah, I saw that. And how she just doesn't like the phonies out there. No, she just wants somebody real. And she just wants somebody who's just like, this is who I am. This is what I'm into. I'm not trying to sell you on like this startup that I'm a fake CEO of. Did you message her? I didn't get to know you as a person. No, but this goes back to like 2015 when I was asking you like what your move would be if Charlize Theron moved to the Lehigh Valley and you realized maybe you had people in common or you ran into her in Wegmans or something and you were single. Okay. Question from Kelvin. I hate that. Question from Kelvin: If you could book a concert at a college football stadium, what artist or band at which stadium would that be? Keep in mind the college's traditions, regional culture, demographic population. For example, country singer George Strait recently sold out two nights at Texas Tex Jones ATT Stadium and Clemson's Memorial Stadium. Another example, last year, he rightfully brings up Metallica selling out Virginia Texeline Stadium. Yeah. I took a clip From it wasn't even from Metallica's actual concert at Lane Stadium. I took a clip about a week before they were set to play. And I posted it out on Instagram from our account. I don't know if people got it misconstrued and thought That it was the actual Metallica concert. I don't know if people just thought it was cool. It was really just the Virginia Tech team running out to enter Sandman. That's all it was. Yeah. That clip did like two million views across all the platforms. People are still reacting to it. I look at my phone every so often. There's another person who likes likes and comments on it. So, yeah, there is real tradition at some of these stadiums. I think the guy who did Sandstorm did a live performance at South Carolina. The guy? Yeah, the guy did it. Darude? Darude? Yeah. I think he did something at Williams Bryce. I don't know if it was a full concert or maybe just like, you know, a set in the beginning. But what's your answer? Well, the West Coast places, like, there was a very famous and this is the Oregon did like a uniform to sort of honor The anniversary, I want to say, like the Grateful Dead played Otson Stadium. That was a big deal given the connection to the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest that the Grateful Dead has had for a long time. You remember the Super Bowl halftime show that had both the West and East Coast hip-hop and RB? Yeah. If you did the West Coast version of that at the Coliseum, especially with like Snoop Dogg's connections to the USC program. I think that would be huge. Now, you're also not accounting for that that's not necessarily the taste of College-age students. Although there's like the Kendrick Lamar thing, obviously, he is a more recent act. I think that would be huge. I think any sort of jam bandy, like up at Cal. Like even like a more recent like Goose, I think is a huge, at least jam-adjacent type band. Not Geese, but Goose. Two different bands, both popular. I think that could be very popular at Strawberry Canyon at Cal Memorial Stadium. I'm trying to think of specific acts that are especially connected to a specific region. There's a ton. Like Chicago doesn't have like Chicago has bands, but they don't have a college football. You know, Fallout Boy at the new Ryan Field, something like that, but I don't know. I'm trying to think of acts that are specific to a place that could actually fill a college football stadium with their specifics. So it's not specific to. Beaver Stadium, but they play the white stripes all the time. Yeah, well, a lot of people do that. A lot of people do that. But I'm trying to remember. Where they performed recently and it's escaping me. But the white stripes were randomly on some like award show And they just like performed a set, or wasn't an award show, it was some sort of event. Well, I saw Jack White play Seven Nation Army at Coachella, I saw a video of that. No, this was a sporting event, okay? Now that I'm thinking about it. But and it was just sort of like a rando thing, like, what's this? Yeah, it was friggin' awesome. Yeah, it was so good. Well, I saw Was it 21 Pilots? Is that two guys? Is 21 Pilots? Yeah, they're good too. They're really good. They did a cover of Seven Nation Army, I think, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame thing that was. It was like interesting. They like reimagined it. But yeah, he's so Detroit, though. So it would almost have to be. I don't know if he went to a college, if Jack White went to a school. But yeah, he is. He's like Mr. Detroit Tigers. I remember he was in the booth with our guy Jason Bonetti for an inning or two or something like that. So I don't think you could take him out of the Detroit Metroplex. But yeah, that would be cool for a Michigan game, especially since they do the Seven Nation Army thing. Oh, hell yeah. Do that before a game. Who else is there that would be like associated with a college stadium? Like Taylor Swift brother went to Notre Dame, but she would sell out any of these stadiums. She is. Yeah. I feel like T. Swift's above all this. Right. I mean, you could do Foo Fighters are Seattle-ish, right? Because Nirvana was Seattle, even though they're not a Seattle band anymore. Because of Nebraska. I don't think I have a good answer for this. Sorry, Kelvin. I mean, there are obviously huge acts from Texas that could play, but I don't know if the Axe God, it would have been cool to see Tom Petty at The Swart before he was. That would have been cool. All right. Why don't we leave it there, folks? Thank you, one and all, for your questions. Thank you for dealing with the first part of this episode, which definitely strayed into topics of the weird. Yeah. Um. We've got some planning to do. Dan and I have to figure out what we're doing next week. But as I said on some of the episodes earlier this week, we do have some concepts that we still have to, that we know about that we're going to. roll out there. Obviously, if there is any news in college football with regard to the playoff, the Brendan Saresby stuff, which is still churning. Anything else that seems to pop up this time of year, just when you think it's quiet, we always have a thing or two that's like, all right, boy, we got to talk about this now. We will do our best, do our best and our best to keep you up to speed on On all things. What do you got going the rest of today? Good question. I don't know. Soccer practice, prep for next week, working on some stuff behind the scenes for the show. I'm going to prep for a recording we're doing tomorrow if we're still doing it. Let's do it. I'm in, man. I'm in. I got tennis tonight. Otherwise, not too much. Got some groceries. I mean, got some laundry to do today. That's what I actually have to do. Boring stuff like that. Yeah, I do that too. I'm going to do my shoulder workout and then I'm coming back to laundry and some stuff like that. Gonna slice open a sourdough loaf that I baked this morning? Oh, baby. Well, good. You got to get back on that train. I know. I know. I will. Thank you one and all again for your ongoing support. Enjoy your weekend, wherever it is you may be. We will catch you all on the flip side. Stay solid. Peace.